[mikeh]

 Codo, on 2013-October-21, 12:21, said:

And we can compare the reality of theists and atheists civilizations and see which look better.

I don't know of many 'atheist' societies. It is arguable that China is close to atheistic these days and clearly much of its recent history contained atrocities and it to this day deals with human rights issues in a way that we in the West see as improper. However, it is probably best to see China's problems as stemming from being an authoritarian state rather than an atheistic state. In the early days, post revolution, it was governed by a group of rulers in love with another 'ism': a political philosophy that claimed that human nature was malleable and that by the imposition of certain rules and modes of behaviour, a proletarian paradise would evolve.

If there ever was evidence to support this philosophy, it has long-since been revealed as erroneous.

Soviet Russia was another secular state in which the rulers professed a form of atheism, but the atrocities it committed were not in the name of atheism but, as in China, in the name of a now-discredited political philosophy.

This is no surprise, because atheism, being simply the lack of acceptance of a particular kind of delusion, carries with it no goal or purpose. Atheists don't need 'leaders'. That there are 'leaders' within the atheist world is simply a happenstance arising from cultural forces, such as access to media, willingness to write books, etc. There are no seminaries for atheists, no 'church' in the hierarchy of which one can rise and so on.

Bill accused me earlier of a false dichotomy: this attempt by believers to portray totalitarian states, be they Germany in the 1933-45 era, or the Soviets and so on, may convince the believers but reveals far more about their ignorance than it says about the effect of atheism on public morality or government practices.

Quote

What you call the golden rule is quite interessting. From a sole selfish point of view, it is sure NOT the best way of living. For you personally, for your tribe, your nation, whatever, it is much better to have your own set of rules and have the others killed, as slaved, as dependents. There are millions of examples in history that can proofe this fact.
So, why do you and I agree that this is the golden rule and that it would be nice to live according to it? Obviously there must be different ways in reaching this knowledge- or this ethics.I cannot see any logic leading to this behaviour. In a strict darwinistic way, we better kill our neighbors and take their food, money and females.... I am quite happy that we left this stadium in evolution behind...

It appears to me that you have done very little, if any, reading on this issue.

You are simply wrong to state that 'in a strict Darwinian way.....'. All you reveal by making that statement is that you have no clue about this subject.

A moment's thought should point out the errors of your ways.

Imagine 3 groups, identical in all aspects other than their approach to cooperation. One is a winner take all group while the other two espouse cooperation.

In the case of military conflict, the two cooperative groups rate to win, by force of numbers.

In the case of technological progress, so long as the groups are open to innovation, the cooperative ones will soon surpass the go it alone one, because they will share ideas.

Your notion that selfishness is the best evolutionary strategy is correct only if one assumes that there are never more than 2 players, or that the selfish player is at least a strong as all the cooperative ones put together.

That is not the way the world works. Yes, strength and selfishness can gain a temporary upper hand, but consider this: when it comes to the success of, say, nation states, while history shows that empires were founded and in some cases lasted for many years, cooperation within those states was essential. There has never been an empire founded by anarchists, or people who refused to cooperate.

I suspect that this mistaken 'understanding' of the implications of evolutionary theory is part of the reason for the nige's of the world, supported by the Codo's of the world, feeling that the natural state of humans is psychopathy or the urge to rape, kill and steal, and that we need some external force to stop it. A belief in a god being a big one, with a reluctant concession that maybe we atheists have some other source of moral sense.

We do. We have exactly the same moral sense as you do.

You dress it up as divinely inspired, but there is compelling evidence that most believers make their god espouse what they, the believers, want to be true, rather than vice versa. We make our gods in our image, and we tend to obey them only when they tell us things we already want to believe.

However, you and all but the damaged people we call sociopaths or psychopaths share an innate sense of morality that is remarkably uniform across cultures and religions or the lack of religion. Dawkins, in The God Delusion, referenced some fascinating studies to that effect.

It seems likely that this innate moral sense is therefore a product of the way our brains are formed and this means that some form of evolutionary effect has given rise to this. I don't personally find the notion of group selection to be very convincing, but I have only a semi-educated layperson's understanding and am hardly qualified to assert that one expert is right and the other wrong. The level at which evolution works is not especially relevant: the notion that it works at some level or levels is enough. Interestingly, it is possible that in moral terms, the evolutionary process is not genetic at all. We may be dealing with memes, rather than genes. A meme is a self-replicating idea. However, the fact that morality appears to be relatively standard across the entire species suggests, to me, a genetic component.

[billw55]

 mikeh, on 2013-October-21, 14:53, said:

However, you and all but the damaged people we call sociopaths or psychopaths share an innate sense of morality that is remarkably uniform across cultures and religions or the lack of religion. Dawkins, in The God Delusion, referenced some fascinating studies to that effect.

It seems likely that this innate moral sense is therefore a product of the way our brains are formed and this means that some form of evolutionary effect has given rise to this.

It sort of reminds me of Matthew 5:5.

[Vampyr]

 mikeh, on 2013-October-21, 14:53, said:

Imagine 3 groups, identical in all aspects other than their approach to cooperation. One is a winner take all group while the other two espouse cooperation.

In the case of military conflict, the two cooperative groups rate to win, by force of numbers.

In the case of technological progress, so long as the groups are open to innovation, the cooperative ones will soon surpass the go it alone one, because they will share ideas.

.......

I don't personally find the notion of group selection to be very convincing,

Perhaps not, but as your thought experiment, similar to my comments above, shows, it is a fairly logical and simple mechanism. For me that is enough to suggest that it is probably, at least partially, correct. I realise that this is not a very popular point of view.

[mikeh]

 billw55, on 2013-October-21, 15:05, said:

It sort of reminds me of Matthew 5:5.

Matthew 5.5 has long been part of the inculcation of obedience in the flock, which ties in well with the secular sociological view of organized religion as primarily a means of gaining and holding power over people.

However, meekness is a completely different attitude than is cooperation.

I suspect it to be quite clear that I don't personally consider that being 'meek' is a desirable trait, but I am a very strong believer in the advisability of cooperation in most spheres of human activity.

[blackshoe]

Some years ago, I read James Q. Wilson's The Moral Sense, the premise of which is that all humans have the same innate moral sense, that it is part of our makeup as humans. I'm going to have to re-read it, as I don't recall much more than that.

[billw55]

 mikeh, on 2013-October-21, 15:50, said:

Matthew 5.5 has long been part of the inculcation of obedience in the flock, which ties in well with the secular sociological view of organized religion as primarily a means of gaining and holding power over people.

However, meekness is a completely different attitude than is cooperation.

I suspect it to be quite clear that I don't personally consider that being 'meek' is a desirable trait, but I am a very strong believer in the advisability of cooperation in most spheres of human activity.

Some translations use "gentle" instead of "meek," which is not the same thing. There must be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cases like this is the Bible, where the original meaning may have been altered during translation.

Anyway, I wasn't thinking of it in regard to cooperation, but rather in contrast to violence and choas. It has been suggested here that a moral/ethical system (regardless of its source) which discourages such behavior may be an evolutionary advantage - in which case I find the verse quite fitting.

Not that this implies anything about the provenance of the verse, one way or the other. Just an observation.

[Fluffy]

 mikeh, on 2013-October-19, 16:19, said:

FWIW, I have never heard of anyone losing their faith and then going on a killing spree. I wonder why not?

I can think of a couple of reasons, but I supose you wouldn´t buy them.

In my country once or twice a year I see on the news that someone has killed his entire family before commiting suicide, I am very sure those guys are not sharing my religious views at that moment. Obviously they aren´t following your ethics/morale either, but that´s not what we are talking about. If he stopped believing just before starting the carnage we cannot know.

Its hard to generalize but I would say that most people who kill their wife and all his sons with no exceptions, before killing themselves, are doing it for ´the benefit´of them. I mean, they truly believe it is better to be dead than alive. If vengance or hate was the source of the insanity they would probably leave someone alive who is not hated that much.

oh ***** htis is going straght to were we had that strong argument last year...

[mikeh]

 Fluffy, on 2013-October-21, 16:26, said:

I can think of a couple of reasons, but I supose you wouldn´t buy them.

In my country once or twice a year I see on the news that someone has killed his entire family before commiting suicide, I am very sure those guys are not sharing my religious views at that moment. Obviously they aren´t following your ethics/morale either, but that´s not what we are talking about. If he stopped believing just before starting the carnage we cannot know.

Its hard to generalize but I would say that most people who kill their wife and all his sons with no exceptions, before killing themselves, are doing it for ´the benefit´of them. I mean, they truly believe it is better to be dead than alive. If vengance or hate was the source of the insanity they would probably leave someone alive who is not hated that much.

oh ***** htis is going straght to were we had that strong argument last year...

No it's not not from my p.o.v. anyway and I didn't see your comment that way either.

As it happens, I know a little bit about situations in which men kill their family and then, usually, themselves. Several years ago a man had been barred by a Court Order from being near his wife and child, but broke into the house in the early morning hours and stabbed his parents-in-law, his wife and his young son to death before stabbing himself in the heart, fatally. I'd never even heard that one could kill oneself that way...but he did.

I was involved in the Inquest and heard a lot of evidence about this kind of violence, which happens quite often.

The man invests so heavily in the relationship with his wife that having her reject him is unacceptable. She needs to die, else she might end up with somebody else. His life is at an end without her, so he needs to die as well. Once both he and the wife are dead, the children are going to be left traumatized, helpless and dependent on strangers, so they are better off dead.

In this case, the parents in law were not really discussed, in terms of trying to understand motive. It may have been merely that they were in the way (one of them was up and about, perhaps in response to the break-in and was actually on the telephone with the police operator when she was stabbed...the recording was horrific to hear) or that he blamed them for his wife's alienation from him.

Anyway, it seemed to be generally accepted, amongst those expert in these matters, that the motivations came from within the killer's personality, and his psychological inability to deal with rejection by his wife. I heard nothing that said it had anything to do with cultural or religious or ethnic, etc, factors. So I do remain of the view that this type of killing would not normally be seen as arising from loss of faith. I have heard of it being triggered by the loss of a job or business: the man apparently fearing that he has become worthless in the eyes of his family.

Women almost never perpetrate these killings, so it is possible that a cultural attitude that men have to be the protectors and providers, and also maybe the 'masters', of women and children plays a role, but I am simply speculating now and I don't recall any of the experts at the inquest saying anything about that other than the fact that some of these killings seem to be triggered by these sorts of economic problems.

[Vampyr]

 Fluffy, on 2013-October-21, 16:26, said:

In my country once or twice a year I see on the news that someone has killed his entire family before commiting suicide, I am very sure those guys are not sharing my religious views at that moment. Obviously they aren´t following your ethics/morale either, but that´s not what we are talking about. If he stopped believing just before starting the carnage we cannot know.

Deranged people can be any religion, or none. Sometimes people kill because they think their god or religion demands it, and we have seen an awful lot of that in recent years, but I don't think that gynecologist-killers or suicide bombers are representative members of their religions or of believers in general. So I think that the connection between belief or lack of it and murder can result only in a pretty fruitless discussion.

[Codo]

 gwnn, on 2013-October-21, 14:06, said:

I went to church in Romania, Hungary, the UK, Denmark, Iceland, ... They always explained very clearly that Christ died for your sins. They also serve some hot chocolate in my town (NL) in exchange for my listening to them telling me the same thing. Sorry but in my experience the same is being preached in most of Europe as well, although perhaps not so simply and clearly as in the US. Why else is John 3:16 is the most quoted Bible verse?

Thanks to you, Stefany and Winston, obviously I made my statement false, as we simply agree:

According to christian beliefs, he died for our sins, not for our lifes.
I understood Winstons posting different.

[Vampyr]

 Codo, on 2013-October-22, 00:29, said:

According to christian beliefs, he died for our sins, not for our lifes.
I understood Winstons posting different.

Well, there is the fact that all Christians are born tainted by Original Sin, so that even if you live a blameless life you still need to be forgiven. Even though you never sinned.

[Scarabin]

 Trinidad, on 2013-October-21, 08:09, said:

It lies in the implication in the following line:



It suggests that "unprovable beliefs" stop us all from becoming psychopaths. (Okay, "psychopath" is a theatrical exageration, but change "becoming psychopaths" to "doing bad things" and the theatrics are gone.)

It is a mystery to me why and how an unprovable belief stops us all from doing bad things. I would rather say that unprovable beliefs have caused us all to do some pretty bad things, of which some can certainly be characterized as psychopathic.

Proven rules (e.g. the Golden rule), that have little to do with religion or believe, have helped us in being better people. Some religions, or perhaps even many, have adopted the obvious and incorporated it into their doctrine, but that doesn't make the Golden rule a religious, unprovable belief.

Just because Jesus said that we should love each other, doesnot mean that loving each other is an exclusively Christian thing. If I say "The leaves turn colors in fall." then the coloring of the leaves is suddenly a Trinidadian religious thing? Or is it still just stating the obvious?

Rik

FWIW I see the use of "if" as precluding your reading of Nige1's statement.

[the hog]

 Codo, on 2013-October-21, 12:30, said:

Maybe Christianity in your world is quite different from Christinaity in mine. At least here, I do not need a blood sacrifice for being born. Do you mind to backup your statement with something like a fact, maybe n URL or something like that?
At least here, we are taught, that our SINS will be forgiven, if we really regret them.

Roland, he is referring to the crucifixion and the idea that Christ died so that we could repent for our sins. Unless you belong to a previously unknown to me sect of Christianity, then your Christian world also acknowledges a blood sacrifice.

[Scarabin]

 mikeh, on 2013-October-21, 08:39, said:

I agree with the notion that people whose opinions are prone to change in the face of new knowledge are generally wiser than those whose opinions won't, but where you and I differ is how this correlates with the moderation of one's beliefs.

Moderation is no virtue in and of itself. In say 1900 USA, a moderate might hold that women were entitled to some education and maybe some minor role in politics, while the extremists held that women either ought to remain as chattels or, on the other extreme, have equal rights with men. Being moderate might well be 'better', viewed from today's perspective, than one of these views, but still meant being a chauvinist. Similarly with racial issues.

While one can categorize people in all kinds of ways, one way is to consider that people see the world either in terms of revealed knowledge, or justified belief, or in terms of provisional knowledge, subject to error-checking and modification in light of experience, including the experience of others.

The former is religious thinking. Religion ALWAYS requires that the believer accept as 'given' and as 'fixed', at least pending a new revelation from god, the basic tenets of the faith. The believer cannot discover new things for himself or herself, at least not that contradict the revealed truths, and may not accept as true any such discoveries by others until they have been endorsed as revelations.

The latter lives free of such intellectual chains.

Both can seem extreme in their passion for their views of the world. However, the believer is indeed intellectually constrained while the other is not, and can more readily adapt to new information.

It is a profound error to consider the two categories as equivalent and to assert that there is some middle position, that can be described as moderate.
I suspect you equate moderation with occupying the middle ground, but on many important issues about the universe, there is no habitable middle ground. Religion says one thing and evidence based knowledge says something different. Claiming both are right is often nonsensical.

FWIW I do believe that moderation is a virtue in and of itself. And I do equate moderation with occupying the middle ground, although we would probably define this differently since I do not think moderation requires me to accept two diametrically opposed views.

I do think moderation requires me to be able to understand other peoples views/beliefs/convictions. Let me offer a very simplistic example: I believe that one's convictions are based on training/education, culture, experience and that believing in something which conflicts with experience is wrong to impossible. Thus superstition is clearly ridiculous.

Just as historians say a man should be judged in the context of his time so I hold a man's convictions should fit his circumstances/milieu.

But 2 caveats: I can understand how someone with a charmed life could ascribe this to answered prayer, and if I were a world-class footballer being paid $150,000 a week and I believed I played better when I put on my left boot first, then I would surely do so.

[Codo]

 mikeh, on 2013-October-21, 14:53, said:

I don't know of many 'atheist' societies. It is arguable that China is close to atheistic these days and clearly much of its recent history contained atrocities and it to this day deals with human rights issues in a way that we in the West see as improper. However, it is probably best to see China's problems as stemming from being an authoritarian state rather than an atheistic state. In the early days, post revolution, it was governed by a group of rulers in love with another 'ism': a political philosophy that claimed that human nature was malleable and that by the imposition of certain rules and modes of behaviour, a proletarian paradise would evolve.

If there ever was evidence to support this philosophy, it has long-since been revealed as erroneous.

Soviet Russia was another secular state in which the rulers professed a form of atheism, but the atrocities it committed were not in the name of atheism but, as in China, in the name of a now-discredited political philosophy.

This is no surprise, because atheism, being simply the lack of acceptance of a particular kind of delusion, carries with it no goal or purpose. Atheists don't need 'leaders'. That there are 'leaders' within the atheist world is simply a happenstance arising from cultural forces, such as access to media, willingness to write books, etc. There are no seminaries for atheists, no 'church' in the hierarchy of which one can rise and so on.

Yes, this is easy: If there is horror in theists states, it is obvious that religion is guilty. If there is horror in atheists states, there are other reasons. This is a point of view any other fundementalist will gladly share. That the communist countries developed another "ism" maybe just shows that people "needs" a kind of "ism"?

Quote

It appears to me that you have done very little, if any, reading on this issue.

You are simply wrong to state that 'in a strict Darwinian way.....'. All you reveal by making that statement is that you have no clue about this subject.

A moment's thought should point out the errors of your ways.

Imagine 3 groups, identical in all aspects other than their approach to cooperation. One is a winner take all group while the other two espouse cooperation.

In the case of military conflict, the two cooperative groups rate to win, by force of numbers.

In the case of technological progress, so long as the groups are open to innovation, the cooperative ones will soon surpass the go it alone one, because they will share ideas.
Your notion that selfishness is the best evolutionary strategy is correct only if one assumes that there are never more than 2 players, or that the selfish player is at least a strong as all the cooperative ones put together.

.

As usual you have the urgent need to insult people who do not share your beliefs. And as always, this shows more about you then about me.

Of course your example would work if the smaller groups cooperate. But just because you made your example in a way that this will happen.
Unluckily reality does not care too much about your example. There had been times where the strongest had been too strong compared to the rest of the world, there had been times where nr, 4 and 5. supported the number 1 or where the smaller countries did not cooperate.
Actually, I doubt that f.e. microsoft will live according to the golden rule. Same is true for hedge fonds. And still, they not just survive, they set the pace.

And btw: I did not claim that selfishness is the best way to develop. I just claimed that I can see no simple logic to support the idea of the golden rule. I think that from a pure logical point of view it would be better to be selfish if you are in a position to be it. Cooperation is usually better for the trailing companies, not for the leaders. (But of course life is not as simple as that, it surely depends on the single case and how big your lead is.)

Quote

That is not the way the world works. Yes, strength and selfishness can gain a temporary upper hand, but consider this: when it comes to the success of, say, nation states, while history shows that empires were founded and in some cases lasted for many years, cooperation within those states was essential. There has never been an empire founded by anarchists, or people who refused to cooperate.

I suspect that this mistaken 'understanding' of the implications of evolutionary theory is part of the reason for the nige's of the world, supported by the Codo's of the world, feeling that the natural state of humans is psychopathy or the urge to rape, kill and steal, and that we need some external force to stop it. A belief in a god being a big one, with a reluctant concession that maybe we atheists have some other source of moral sense.

We do. We have exactly the same moral sense as you do.

No, we don't, but that is another point and has nothing to do with being a theist or atheist.
And yes, I do believe that all people need some guides to stop them from stealing, selfishness, cruelity etc. This could be laws, a good education, a good role models or whatever.
I personally belief that the fear of punishment in purgatory is no good teacher for good ethics, I prefer positive ways of learning, but maybe there are many people who needs this fear.

And btw: We talked about the golden rule, not about cooperation. And I really doubt that many emperors in the last 50 centuries did to their countrymen what they require them to do.

Quote

You dress it up as divinely inspired, but there is compelling evidence that most believers make their god espouse what they, the believers, want to be true, rather than vice versa. We make our gods in our image, and we tend to obey them only when they tell us things we already want to believe.

However, you and all but the damaged people we call sociopaths or psychopaths share an innate sense of morality that is remarkably uniform across cultures and religions or the lack of religion. Dawkins, in The God Delusion, referenced some fascinating studies to that effect.

It seems likely that this innate moral sense is therefore a product of the way our brains are formed and this means that some form of evolutionary effect has given rise to this. I don't personally find the notion of group selection to be very convincing, but I have only a semi-educated layperson's understanding and am hardly qualified to assert that one expert is right and the other wrong. The level at which evolution works is not especially relevant: the notion that it works at some level or levels is enough. Interestingly, it is possible that in moral terms, the evolutionary process is not genetic at all. We may be dealing with memes, rather than genes. A meme is a self-replicating idea. However, the fact that morality appears to be relatively standard across the entire species suggests, to me, a genetic component

I would not talk about Dawkins ideas as if they are science. As far as I know, memes and "selfish genes" etc. are still just ideas, no facts or theories.
AS much as I agree that moraily has developed in quite similar ways in very different societies, this could be used as an argument for both sides:
Maybe this is an evolutary thing- or maybe it is just godgiven and He spread these ideas worldwide....

[Codo]

 Vampyr, on 2013-October-22, 00:32, said:

Well, there is the fact that all Christians are born tainted by Original Sin, so that even if you live a blameless life you still need to be forgiven. Even though you never sinned.

And there is another fact that it is impossible to live a blameless life. So even without the original sin, you need to be forgiven- at least if you believe that there is someone who awaits you....

[gwnn]

So what are you disagreeing with? Can you or can you not be forgiven without accepting Christ's sacrifice? If indeed you can regret things earnestly and you will be forgiven, it seems that the sacrifice of Christ was in vain. Or if Christ's sacrifice works for all of us, why do you need to regret things at all? If your buddy paid for your parking ticket, you don't need to still apologise to the policeman (OK it gets a bit more complicated as the policeman and your buddy are the same person, or at least have the same fabric).

[mike777]

Yes this is a famous question in theology.

Are all saved or only a few chosen?

Certainly in Catholic theology non catholics, even those who don't accept Jesus as their savior can be saved but yes this is an ongoing deep debate. But yes the central theme is that Jesus died a horrible horrible painful death to save us. That God is too put it simply is the God of forgiveness and the God of justice.


In general, Christians believe God has the power to save whoever he saves but this is an open debate what this means. Of course this all presupposes an all powerful God.

To be fair many atheists believe in an afterlife, just one without a god of forgiveness or one who demands justice.

[Trinidad]

 Scarabin, on 2013-October-22, 00:54, said:

FWIW I see the use of "if" as precluding your reading of Nige1's statement.

"If" is a strange word: It does not merely say what happens when the condition following "if" is true. It also gives credibility to the condition: It could be true. At the same time, it puts the condition on the agenda. It's up for discussion.

Suppose that I would write: "If Scarabin has committed fraud then he should go to jail." then there is more to this than the simple logical "if then" statement. It also opens up the possibility (or emphasizes) that the condition might be true: Scarabin may well have committed fraud. This potential fraud is on the agenda. Soon, we will be discussing whether Scarabin should go to jail... (if he committed fraud).

When the "if"s are not countered rightaway, they will start to lead their own life. After a while they will be perceived to be true. After all, if they wouldn't be true someone would have stood up and said: "Where did you get this nonsense?" (or "If my uncle had tits he would be my aunt."). To prevent the perception of truth, Mike and I stood up.

When you say "it was only a hypothetical condition in an if statement", you are underestimating the power of the word "if".

Rik

Disclaimer: I have no indication whether Scarabin has or has not committed fraud in the past. (Yet another way to put it on the agenda.)

[Fluffy]

 mikeh, on 2013-October-21, 16:56, said:

Women almost never perpetrate these killings, so it is possible that a cultural attitude that men have to be the protectors and providers

I think this is genetic rather than cultural, most species have different roles for genders and we are no exception. I see everyday how women react to my baby´s presence and it is really different from men.

Back to topic, religion gives religious people something to lose by doing a masacre. It sadly also gives them something to win on some cases. So my point still is that removing religion is worse than just removing the latter cases.