It was indeed aimed at you and thanks for your thumbs up.
I think that you may not be seeing the forest for the trees though in thinking that most of us do not act in an ethical way.
These two links may give you a different view, given that stats show just how ethical we all are, to a point where evolutionary scientists are hard pressed to explain why we are so nice.
The first is short. The second longer, but the stats I spoke of are given in the last few minutes.
From my frame of mind, we discuss these things in different ways. And for different reasons.
Any number of folks on one or another religious, spiritual or enlightened path [and their secular equivalents] could note much the same thing. Speaking of “better ways” of doing things and “raising the bar of excellence” in pursuit of them.
But what things? In what set of circumstances. The part where these idealistic “general descriptions” come into conflict out in the world.
Okay, but for all practical purposes what does it mean to keep an open mind when push comes to shove and, in any particular human community, it is necessary to reward or punish particular behaviors given particular contexts.
Here religious folks will either take their God or they won’t. Same with the non-religious folks who are still able to make that distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, moral and immoral behavior.
And I’m only here because I am no longer able to do this myself. So, I explain why and note the reactions.
Greatest, I was regressing, and again thats for the prod.
Dawkins makes valid points of course. It is evolutionarily pretty logical that we aren’t complete brutes, as brutes tend to draw ill will to them.
We are a mix of herd and predator animals.
More specifically though, more deeply, we are, as all nature is, nothing more or less than a process of value-giving. Meaning, we are always in the process of designing ourselves as value systems, and ethics is the layer of consciousness in which we recognize this being.
The non-religious seem quite good at devising, better than theistic laws, as most of the moral tenets they follow are showing to be making more peaceful and law abiding people in countries where there is less religion.
Don’t go by reactions in this kind of place as too many are a holes with nothing better to do than bully.
Three of the most violent countries have been the most decisively atheistic ones; nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and China.
Only Spain has been more violent, in its destruction of the South American peoples.
I would argue that we can not conclude much about a country’s or persons ethics by whether they are religious or not. I think that what guarantees violence is a starkly top-down system, religious, or not.
We see the same in smaller human societies such as families; pyramids of abuse. The top dog abuses the one below him or her, s/he abuses the one below, and so forth. There often is a deliberate architecture in this, driven by compulsions of instinct but designed with shrewd cunning.
Germany was mostly a Christian nation and Hitler used the Vatican bank to do some of his dirty deeds and also used priests, Jesuits if I recall, to help rid the Eastern countries of Jews in some of the concentration camps. The S.S. and soldiers also wore belts with, In God We Trust on them.
China. I can’t remember when Moe cracked down on Confucianism but it has never died. Right now they are allowing some Christianity, but are, intelligently, cracking down on Islam.
The U.S is touting itself as the most Christian country yet has the world record for jailing it’s people and abortion.
I will continue to try to kill Christianity and Islam. They are both garbage religions.
One would expect nothing less given that they have a genocidal god that they call good.
Regarding religions, you really have to just throw out the fluff and see them for what they are. Psycho-social programs with specific purposes.
Confucianism is a program for social stability. Inward facing. Christianity and Islam are battle programs meant to coercively unify the in-group, demonize the out-group, reduce fear of death, and to justify and legitimize pre-emptive strikes. Outward-facing. They co-evolve with already violence-prone animal-herder societies living under conditions of general hardship and perpetual conflict.
Comparisons between the two are largely aesthetic in my eyes at least, like saying pink hammers are better than blue hammers, when the real questions are a) how well do they drive nails, and b) do we really need a hammer at all right now…?
And it’s not that gods and religions are genocidal per-se, but that logically, wars between ethnicities are always genocidal when taken to their natural end-points.
The religions had some value in the past, but these days, with secularism being the direction we are going in, their usefulness as tribes is no longer required and the intelligent will see that they are in fact slowing down our social moral progress.
Homophobia ands misogyny being the worst offences.
I think there is an order of rank when it comes to religions. Man will permit man to get on his knees as he pleases. But those who force others to get on their knees - well… I better not speak my thoughts.
At the peak of the pyramid of human consciousness, humans are free to their own soul.
Most humans have no knowledge of their soul. And so they have no choice but to obey to a particular Chesedic sphere. It makes zero difference if there is a God-notion involved.
I think the process of value giving may be exclusive to humans because value is a concept and only we can think in such abstract terms at a profound level
I think it is not us always designing ourselves as value systems but finding the one that works for us and then morally improving from it as much as possible
To value something is to consider it worthy but that does not include anything which is essential
For value is only given to that which pleases one but which is not actually necessary for survival
For example philosophy may be valuable to you but you can live without it whereas without water you will die
Therefore what is essential is for the body and what is valuable is for the mind and these two do not coincide
And nature destroys everything it creates as all life eventually dies so it does not really value
The notion of value is one imposed upon it by humans from their own subjective perspective
Nature is not just life but death as well and everything else in between those two points on the spectrum of existence
It is neither moral or immoral / good or bad as those are human concepts / classifications that it has no need for at all
Nature just exists and nothing else - it is simply that what is - no more no less
Also contrary to what you say in the video everything does actually interact with everything else
There are no gaps in reality because all is one - only from human interpretation can it be divided
Your first brings two words to mind.
Inquisitions and Jihads, promoted by the mainstream religions who scream blue murder if anyone gets near their freedom of religion.
They now use lower and less lethal inquisitions and jihads against women and gays and their freedom of thought.
Animal experiments show that chimps, for instance, will cooperate nicely when they are both rewarded the same way but will stop when one is better rewarded than the other.
There are other experiments that show human children as great mimics, just like chimps, but that the chimp will take unnecessary steps in an experiment while the child does not.
In a sense, chimps are better innovators than humans.