Why the religious mindset can be so dangerous

[watsup]

All I'm saying is simply that human beings have an intuitive nature of right and wrong. Almost all societies have universally organized around this intuitive nature which is why you see, almost universally, laws against sexual immorality, an intuitive understanding of the feminine and masculine, laws against stealing/murder/etc. Dismantling or supplanting these universals and calling them arbitrary, in my opinion, is a recipe for disaster... especially if you can't even articulate an argument for why that would be a good thing.

Similarly, I would say that all human civilizations have a set of positive laws which are seemingly universal in accordance with our own intuitively understood nature (or natural law). For what reason would we ignore these laws if we know they work and are in our nature? It would be folly to just arbitrarily ignore them unless you had some overwhelming proof that an alternative would be superior.

Ah yes, another talking point for Neo to obsessively post over and over: "human beings have an intuitive nature of right and wrong" and " with our own intuitively understood nature".
So let's examine this a bit. If morality was indeed part of our "intuitive nature", then we should study humanity at its very basic foundation in order to see if this is true. In other words, we need to look at the most unspoiled humans, namely babies and very young children. When they are born and in their first few years, do they seem to have an" intuitive understanding of right and wrong". Of course not.
When a child its born, it has only one intuition, and that is to survive. No right or wrong involved. Only selfishness, actual, which is needed to survive. Every newborn is basically an egomaniac, his world being only himself and a few caregivers who he expects to see to his every need. If he wants to eat, he wants it NOW, and he will wail endlessly until he gets his way. If he wants to sleep, he wants go do so NOW, and he does not care how many sleep patterns of others that interrupts. If he wants to poop, he wants to NOW no matter if he soils himself. Others will come along to clean him up for the next time he wants to.
And so we see at the very basic level of humanity, there is not an iota of moral awareness of any kind. That only forms as he is ACCULTURATED by other humans, normally his parents or caregivers. One of the first words that he or her begin to recognize is NO! No, you can't pull your brother's hair. No, you can't hit the dog. No, you can't (or at least shouldn't) throw food on the floor.
Does the young child have an intuitive understanding that he should not lie or steal? Of course not. The basic human selfishness continues. If he sees a toy, he considers it HIS, period. If he wants it, he will take it away from another child if need be. He only learns the "morality" of the situation if his parents tell him NO, you shouldn't do that.
Same with lying. He will stand right next to a mess of milk that he has made on the floor and claim without guile that he didn't do it. Again, the adult mentor has to let him know that lying is not considered as ethically proper.
So we can easily see that in their most basic form, humans do NOT have an "intuitive" understanding of right and wrong, but that it must be TAUGHT to them through the culture of the particular society in which they live. If they have religious parents, they may get sent to Sunday school. If they have atheist parents, they will be taught humanist ethics. Either way, if the mentors are positive role models, the children turn out to be fine honest adults of integrity. No religion needed. No intuitive right and wrong needed. No "absolute morality" from an if-God needed. Just either religious or humanist-based instruction or, more important, role modeling.
So this whole "intuitive understanding of right and wrong" becomes just another Neo fantasy.

Addendum: And sometimes we get humans who never mature beyond the selfish egomaniac stature of the baby/young child and they end up being our "leader" and we all suffer as a result. God help us. Really.

 

[Valery]

not to eternal torment, but eternal destruction, of anyone/anything thrown into it...

Eternal destruction does not make me think of something being destroyed at once and it's over. It makes me think precisely of being destroyed forever.

There’s only one problem. There is no biblical support for this, neither is there any literary sources or archaeological data from the intertestamental or rabbinic periods to suggest this. Put simply, there is no evidence that the valley was, in fact, a perpetually burning garbage dump. In fact, near as anyone can tell, the earliest mention we have of this theory comes a Rabbi named David Kimhi who wrote a commentary on Psalm 27 in the 13th Century.

https://pulpitandpen.org/2014/06/05/the-burning-garbage-dump-of-gehenna-myths-thatll-preach/

 

[Neoliberal Fanfiction]

Not as much as you may think. The line can get quite blurred frequently. For example, up to about the 1960s, it was believed that physical, corporal punishment of children was crucial to raising well-disciplined and respectful children. "You have to break their will", was sometimes what was said. It was based on the Biblical understanding of "spare the rod, spoil the child". I remember meeting one lady who recounted her childhood when she and her siblings would be playing peacefully in their rooms together, and their mom would sometimes just show up and beat the tar out of them, leaving them all crying. When they were older, they asked her why she did that. She told them she did it because she was worried that if she didn't do it, they would grow up undisciplined and spoiled. But there were a series of landmark studies in the 1960s which showed that while corporal punishment DID get the bad behavior to stop immediately, it didn't teach the kid WHY it was wrong. They would just learn to do it when no one was looking. It didn't seem to teach much respect for the parent- actually quite the opposite: resentment and even outright hatred as they grew up. It also taught them the important lesson that might makes right, and it was noted that it was correlated with bullying behavior in school and, later in life, dysfunctional relationships at work and domestic abuse of their spouse (what better lesson in "might makes right" than some big grown-up beating you up as a little kid into submission, right?). There was also higher incidences of anger management issues, anxiety, and depression. They also showed that there were far better methods of discipline without such adverse side effects. These studies really started to seep into the popular culture, and the incidence of child abuse declined markedly over the next few decades.

But I was talking to a child psychologist recently who told me that the incidence of corporal punishment and child abuse is still remarkably high. Interestingly, she said, when she educates most parents about the problems with this kind of child-rearing, and teaches them more effective and less dangerous techniques of teaching children, they are open to the idea and learn. The ones she really has trouble with, however, were the religious ones who don't believe that the Bible could be wrong, and continue to quote "spare the rod, spoil the child" type quotes as they keep beating their children.

That's all interesting, but I'm not sure how it negates what I said. If natural law is true and morality is objective, then morality is the foundation for stuff like sociology and psychology.

Even if it were not objective, I still think it's a building block. Morality would be a horizontal x-axis and sociology, for instance, would be the vertical y-axis. Our standard for what is moral should never change. If it does, morality does not exist because there would be no standard by which to compare whether an act was moral or not. This is why, in my opinion, you cannot even have morality without god. Sure, you can still do "moral" things - but only in reference to God or something greater than yourself. Sociology exists whether morality is objective or subjective. Sociology isn't even necessarily bound by morality. It will constantly ebb and flow regardless of whether or not morality has a subjective or objective nature.

As for the spanking questions - I'm generally opposed to it. I don't think it's effective. It should also be noted that "spare the rod spoil the child" is not even the proper biblical interpretation nor does the proper biblical interpretation imply you should beat your child. Here is the ACTUAL verse pulled straight from the text:

"He that spareth his rod hateth his son: But he who loves him chasteneth him betimes.” While the New Living Translation reads “Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them.”

The meaning of the verse, in it's proper context, is actually in reference to how a shepherd might lead his sheep with a cane. He doesn't beat them, he just shepherds them into the right direction.

 

[Neoliberal Fanfiction]

Again, what is considered nuance and what is obviously natural law can get very grey. There is no obvious dividing line. For example, as Valery here is arguing, the same God which created the laws of the universe COMMANDS that women cover their face for modesty. For Valery, it's a natural law. If we don't do that as a society, men will always be tempted by women they shouldn't be getting tempted by, and all society will go to pot, right? But you and I just see it as a contingent cultural practice and nuance from which his religion arose.

My understanding is that he is a Muslim, which I obviously don't agree with. As I said with the offset, I can't argue from an objective standpoint why Christianity is more or less right than any other religion. What I can say, though, is that this expression is just a more radical expression of "modesty in women", which has been expressed in basically every culture since the beginning of time regardless of religious affiliation.

Similarly, this strong backlash against homosexuality seems to me to be a cultural norm. As you know, there were many cultures historically and even today for whom such a practice is not such a big deal, and they did fine.

So I would ask: why not leave it free and see what happens, like you would in a science experiment? If it is as dangerous as you say and society blow up, well then we will know never to do THAT again (much like a chemist learns never to mix strong acids and bases together too quickly again once it blows up once or twice)? But if nothing happens, then... hey, what's the problem? Would you, like Valery, say we just have to blindly follow the holy scripture and not play around too much or explore because it's so dangerous?

Homosexuality was actually an extremely rare expression throughout history. Even where it was expressed, it was typically very illegal. The Vikings for instance didn't even have a concept of homosexuality. Often, it's quoted that the Greeks and late Romans were extremely open in their relationships. The problem is that both the Greeks and the late Romans also routinely wrote (in a negative context) about how the Gauls, Celts, and Goths had sex with animals and other men... which was implied to be less civilized and barbaric. It's ambiguous whether or not this was true of the Gauls and Celts or if it was just another stereotype of their barbaric nature.

Ultimately, I think sexual openness and promiscuity is probably one of most corrosive aspects of modern culture on the axel of tradition. This very bourgeoise concept of sexual liberation and workplace liberation for women and men hasn't really given us very much. Divorce rates are way up, depression and deaths from despair are way up, medication and anti-depressant usage is way up, single motherhood is way up, drug abuse is way up, etc.

 

[Neoliberal Fanfiction]

There are no laws that lead to anything. There are physical things that take place due to the circumstances at the time. Thus, lightning does not come from a clear sky. But when it does come in a storm, it is very hard to predict when and where it might strike.

Complexity does not preclude random activity. That physical things can be organized does not mean they did not stem from random actions. One does not preclude the other. Saying things are random does not mean everything is purely random all the time. Genetic mutations are random even though the results appear not to be. But at the smallest level, like viruses, they are random all the time. That is why we still get the flu every year. It depends on whether or not you are looking at the micro or macro level of physical things. Randomness and organization can and do exist simultaneously all the time.

Okay. We've already went over this. Frankly, I'm tired of just rehashing the same subject in this thread over and over with multiple different people.

Like I said earlier, I think we're just at an impasse. I could reply and we could get into the nuance of how even "ordered" or "organized" things, from a purely materialistic point of view, are at their base actually still totally random but frankly I'm not interested. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on the issue, lol.

 

[Neoliberal Fanfiction]

Ah yes, another talking point for Neo to obsessively post over and over: "human beings have an intuitive nature of right and wrong" and " with our own intuitively understood nature".
So let's examine this a bit. If morality was indeed part of our "intuitive nature", then we should study humanity at its very basic foundation in order to see if this is true. In other words, we need to look at the most unspoiled humans, namely babies and very young children. When they are born and in their first few years, do they seem to have an" intuitive understanding of right and wrong". Of course not.
When a child its born, it has only one intuition, and that is to survive. No right or wrong involved. Only selfishness, actual, which is needed to survive. Every newborn is basically an egomaniac, his world being only himself and a few caregivers who he expects to see to his every need. If he wants to eat, he wants it NOW, and he will wail endlessly until he gets his way. If he wants to sleep, he wants go do so NOW, and he does not care how many sleep patterns of others that interrupts. If he wants to poop, he wants to NOW no matter if he soils himself. Others will come along to clean him up for the next time he wants to.
And so we see at the very basic level of humanity, there is not an iota of moral awareness of any kind. That only forms as he is ACCULTURATED by other humans, normally his parents or caregivers. One of the first words that he or her begin to recognize is NO! No, you can't pull your brother's hair. No, you can't hit the dog. ...

Addendum: And sometimes we get humans who never mature beyond the selfish egomaniac stature of the baby/young child and they end up being our "leader" and we all suffer as a result. God help us. Really.

Okay. This is just an awful wall of text... I'm not even going to read it.

Of course it's your brand. You are the one assuming that your if-God is DEFINED as the prime source of all morality without the slightest iota of evidence and proof other than some fancy double-talk. Natural law assumed nothing because there is no such thing. There is no indication that we are a product of intelligent design. This is all just statements of YOUR BELIEFS and nothing more.

See - how are we supposed to even get anywhere when you don't understand this very basic point. If a creator exists... be it my Christian God or some other... morality would be objective because we would have a built-in nature. How is this so complicated to understand?

Your nice little syllogism of "if there is a God" (and you are just using the "if" as a trap door to use in case you want to claim that you are "just philosophizing" when you actually totally believe everything that you post) and then DEFINE your God as the source of morality and said morality is thus "objective" has not the least bit of merit because you have not provided the bit of evidence for any of it, and so there is not the slightest bit of need to "believe" any of it. I showed where it is humanism in the of people getting together and moving forward to form a stable long-term society is the manner in which ethics is determined.

All civilizations accept certain basic tenets of ethics because they have proven to be vital to the stability of society. No "divine guidance" is needed at all. And even supposing that "everything if relative" does not mean that a society based on humanist ethics is going do anything outlandish as you seem to think. Given that no God is needed in the first place to establish an ethical society, it does not then make any difference if there is a God or not to "guide" it.

I have already explained a couple of times how the Constitution was established as a humanist, not a religious-based document. There is no mention of a God, and the only mention of religion is to make sure it does have the capability directly engage itself in the government.

It's not a syllogism, lol. That would just be the case if God were real. Read what I said above.

I didn't say that humans wouldn't organize in some way without God. I said that without God, morality cannot be objective and therefore we cannot objectively say something like genocide is "bad" or "evil". Even the atheist intellectuals like Harris and Hitchens admit this. Well, Harris tried proving morality was objective through science but he failed horribly... his book was laughable.

 

[Neoliberal Fanfiction]

Whoa! Just saw this.

What does everyone think about this as it pertains to “natural law”?

Pope endorses civil union laws for same-sex couples | CNN

Pope Francis has declared support for civil unions for same-sex couples for the first time, according to the Catholic News Agency.

www.cnn.com

Has nothing to do with natural law.

There is a lot that Francis has done which either borders on heresy or is completely heretical. It'd be interesting to hear what comes of all of this, but most of the backlash I've seen from many of the more devout Catholics has been pretty significant. I'm not Catholic myself, but this is gross. Dark times man.

 

[countryboy]

How do you‘s people wonder why there is often antagonism to their mindset. What’s the harm, they ask, of having faith and hope.

Well, because the mindset leaves them open to all sorts of crazy ideas and wily politicians who can manipulate that gullibility to exploit them, and by extension, the rest of us.

One of the manifestations of this pathology is now the QAnon cult, which is finding fertile ground in the evangelical community.

How QAnon uses religion to lure unsuspecting Christians | CNN

Some Christian conservatives are falling for QAnon, which uses emotionally fraught topics such as suffering children to draw converts to their unhinged conspiracies.

www.cnn.com

After all, as Thomas Jefferson said,

“Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.”
-Thomas Jefferson

Just because libs are weak minded, and easily led around, doesn't mean everybody is.

 

[ataraxia]

That's all interesting, but I'm not sure how it negates what I said. If natural law is true and morality is objective, then morality is the foundation for stuff like sociology and psychology.

Maybe. But here you seem to be defining "natural law" as your latest opinions. Scientific openness and inquiry necessarily require that you suspend all final proclamations until you have the evidence. You can have opinions about what MIGHT happen, but that just means you have a hypothesis. As you may know, many times scientists are confounded by results that they were almost sure were going to finally prove their hypothesis, but didn't. But that just means that after more looking and thinking, they realize that the truth was something entirely different. That's how science leads to growth, and religious certitude leads to stagnation.

You seem to be under the impression that it is the job of sociology and psychology to prove what you already know as "Ultimate Truth".

 

[ataraxia]

Just because libs are weak minded, and easily led around, doesn't mean everybody is.

Yes! We all need to be brave and independent thinkers and learn from our Conservative friends, so we can do things like keep looking for Obama's secret birth certificate for six years straight because our cult prophet told us we won't believe what his top people were finding on it.

 

[Daisy]

Eternal destruction does not make me think of something being destroyed at once and it's over. It makes me think precisely of being destroyed forever.

How are the 2 different? They sound the same to me, with the same results...nevermore to exist...

 

[Valery]

How are the 2 different? They sound the same to me, with the same results...nevermore to exist...

I don't know that they're different, but to me they sound different. Destruction is what happens when something is destroyed. If the Destruction is eternal, I get the idea the "destroying" happens eternally. If it happens at once, I would not myself write "eternal destruction".

 

[Daisy]

I don't know that they're different, but to me they sound different. Destruction is what happens when something is destroyed. If the Destruction is eternal, I get the idea the "destroying" happens eternally. If it happens at once, I would not myself write "eternal destruction".

Well, I think they're the same because the result is the same...what would be different is if that person is alive somewhere, in some other realm, being tormented forever...they are not dead...they are not out of existence...that is not destruction in any sense of the word...

 

[Valery]

Well, I think they're the same because the result is the same...what would be different is if that person is alive somewhere, in some other realm, being tormented forever...they are not dead...they are not out of existence...that is not destruction in any sense of the word...

Yes, it is. Destruction is what happens when something is destroyed. If I destroy a house today, I will not be destroying it tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be destroyed. Done away with — it's gone. If I destroy a house eternally, I would be destroying it for an eternity.

 

[Daisy]

Yes, it is. Destruction is what happens when something is destroyed. If I destroy a house today, I will not be destroying it tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be destroyed. Done away with — it's gone. If I destroy a house eternally, I would be destroying it for an eternity.

But it will be destroyed/gone forever...that is the point...physical things cannot burn forever...all physical things turn to ash when burned...the eternal fire Jesus warned of is not literal but symbolic, just as the sheep and the goats mentioned in Matthew chapter 25 are not literal, they are word pictures that represent two types of people....literal fire cannot burn spirit creatures...

 

[watsup]

Okay. This is just an awful wall of text... I'm not even going to read it.


See - how are we supposed to even get anywhere when you don't understand this very basic point. If a creator exists... be it my Christian God or some other... morality would be objective because we would have a built-in nature. How is this so complicated to understand?


It's not a syllogism, lol. That would just be the case if God were real. Read what I said above.

I didn't say that humans wouldn't organize in some way without God. I said that without God, morality cannot be objective and therefore we cannot objectively say something like genocide is "bad" or "evil". Even the atheist intellectuals like Harris and Hitchens admit this. Well, Harris tried proving morality was objective through science but he failed horribly... his book was laughable.

Of course you’re not going to read it since it is a reasoned refutation of your claim of an “intuitive morality” for humans and you have no effective rebuttal, so you just close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and go LALALALALALA. Just realize that every time you make the claim of intuitive morality, I will offer the same rebuttal since it is quite rational.

Everyone here understands your “basic point” completely. It’s not that difficult. The problem is that you first claim an if-God, but then you go on with your discussions as if the if-God was a reality. You want it both wqys so that when the going gets tough, you can drop through your trap door of the claim that it’s all just philosophical meandering. So consider my responses to also be “ifs”, even if I don’t specifically say so every time. IF there is intuitive morality as a result of the absolute morality of your if-God, then my if-rebuttal stands.
Please make clear to us all whether this is indeed nothing but an ethereal exercise in philosophy, or if you consider your inputs to be actual reality so that we can respond in kind.

Last point: If this is all just an exercise in philosophy as you claim, and if no part of it actually exists in reality, then you have basically nuked your own argumentation and the only way to gain ethics in the REAL world in which we live is indeed through humanism, i.e., by humans getting together and deciding how to proceed in order to build a stable society in the long term. If your God is an “if” rather than a reality, then this is the only possible path unless you can offer some sort of alternative.

 

[watsup]

Has nothing to do with natural law.

There is a lot that Francis has done which either borders on heresy or is completely heretical. It'd be interesting to hear what comes of all of this, but most of the backlash I've seen from many of the more devout Catholics has been pretty significant. I'm not Catholic myself, but this is gross. Dark times man.

Actually, not dark times it rather enlightened times in which we finally have a Pope who has some understanding of the real world out there and promoted social justice issues rather than focusing so narrowly on finding fault with gay peoples and women who have to make they difficult decision concerning abortion.

 

[watsup]

Okay. This is just an awful wall of text... I'm not even going to read it.


See - how are we supposed to even get anywhere when you don't understand this very basic point. If a creator exists... be it my Christian God or some other... morality would be objective because we would have a built-in nature. How is this so complicated to understand?


It's not a syllogism, lol. That would just be the case if God were real. Read what I said above.

I didn't say that humans wouldn't organize in some way without God. I said that without God, morality cannot be objective and therefore we cannot objectively say something like genocide is "bad" or "evil". Even the atheist intellectuals like Harris and Hitchens admit this. Well, Harris tried proving morality was objective through science but he failed horribly... his book was laughable.

Okay, one more item. Can you be honest and frank with us and tell us what portion of your thesis about God and absolute morality and natural law and intuitive morality actually exists in what you consider to be reality. We need to know this so that we know how to engage in the debate. Is it all in the ethereal world of philosophy, or is part of your thesis to be considered as what actually “is”. “If” or “is”, that’s all we are asking. Thank you,

 

[zyzygy]

Yes, it is. Destruction is what happens when something is destroyed. If I destroy a house today, I will not be destroying it tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be destroyed. Done away with — it's gone. If I destroy a house eternally, I would be destroying it for an eternity.

Wow, how deep!

 

[watsup]

That's all interesting, but I'm not sure how it negates what I said. If natural law is true and morality is objective, then morality is the foundation for stuff like sociology and psychology.

So we're still talking ifs, right? We have not yet established that natural law is true and morality is objective?
I agree! I cannot find a single bit of evidence that either is true!

 

[devildavid]

Okay. This is just an awful wall of text... I'm not even going to read it.


See - how are we supposed to even get anywhere when you don't understand this very basic point. If a creator exists... be it my Christian God or some other... morality would be objective because we would have a built-in nature. How is this so complicated to understand?


It's not a syllogism, lol. That would just be the case if God were real. Read what I said above.

I didn't say that humans wouldn't organize in some way without God. I said that without God, morality cannot be objective and therefore we cannot objectively say something like genocide is "bad" or "evil". Even the atheist intellectuals like Harris and Hitchens admit this. Well, Harris tried proving morality was objective through science but he failed horribly... his book was laughable.

If a god exists, it does not make morality objective. It depends on the god. And even if it was a god that dictated morality, it makes it the subjective morality of that particular god. The real reason morality can't be objective has nothing to do with the existence or non existence of gods. It has to do with what morality is. Should or shouldn't is never objective.

 

[ataraxia]

If a god exists, it does not make morality objective. It depends on the god. And even if it was a god that dictated morality, it makes it the subjective morality of that particular god. The real reason morality can't be objective has nothing to do with the existence or non existence of gods. It has to do with what morality is. Should or shouldn't is never objective.

Yes. It often has to do with how well you know or are familiar with the person you are trying to decide what to do with. If it’s someone familiar, one of your own, “one of us”, a different set of standards apply than if they are “not one of us”.

This can apply to everything from your countrymen (or even the region of the country you grew up in), to your co-religionists, towhat you perceive as your race, etc... any thing that you identify with.

It seems if we want to make people more moral, religious scripture is not the way to do it. I would focus instead on getting people to become more familiar with other peoples and cultures and religions- through things like cultural exchanges, friendships, travel, books, novels, magazines, documentaries, etc....That’s the only way people can begin to see other people as fellow human beings, and therefore worthy of being treated as such, rather than just the “other”- who is so strange and unfamiliar that they must not feel pain quite like “us”, or humiliation, or alienation, etc....

 

[watsup]

See - how are we supposed to even get anywhere when you don't understand this very basic point. If a creator exists... be it my Christian God or some other... morality would be objective because we would have a built-in nature. How is this so complicated to understand?

I didn't say that humans wouldn't organize in some way without God. I said that without God, morality cannot be objective

I just want point out that you continue to simply DEFINE God as the source of an absolute objective morality. If that is the case and God is "all good", then from whence comes evil. You just called God the "creator" which would mean that everything beyond "him" was CREATED by him, and that would include EVIL. So if God created everything, how is it that he gets to avoid the responsibility for the evil in the world, in addition to the war, the poverty, the natural disasters, etc etc etc. Why do you get to define God as "all good" and let him avoid responsibility for all the bad in the world.

 

[countryboy]

M


Yeah sure, like misogyny and witch burning. Oh the horror!

Yes! We all need to be brave and independent thinkers and learn from our Conservative friends, so we can do things like keep looking for Obama's secret birth certificate for six years straight because our cult prophet told us we won't believe what his top people were finding on it.

As if the left is innocent of pushing stupid shit. Just a heads up, Obama isn't president anymore.

 

[RAMOSS]

As if the left is innocent of pushing stupid shit. Just a heads up, Obama isn't president anymore.

What does that have to do with anything what so ever?