MonDie

I didn't see that you responded to the original version of my post. I decided to think about it more before proposing a challenge. I wonder which version of my post got the green mark.

I see no logical reason as to what is going to stop someone from killing them. Religion teaches us that its wrong to kill even when someone is not observing you because there is always the one who is witnessing everyone's acts i.e God but this is not logically defensible. I am not saying that morals cannot exist or originate without religion or the God but evolutionary psychology fails miserably in explaining the origin of real altruistic behaviors in humans. Some suggest that by being truly altuistic it releases neurotransmitters in the brain which induces 'feel good character' in humans and such things might account for true altruism but it still doesn't undermine or overthrow religion or God as the cause of these true altruistic behaviors in humans.

 

Really what is going to stop someone from revealing his hidden animal instincts when society is not watching him or her?

The real problem arises from what I explained earlier and will explain again. Both belief in god and belief in moral codes lack evidence, but moral codes seem to be exempt from the requirement of evidence. However, if there are some beliefs in gods that are exempt from the requirement of evidence, how can we say that such believers are any less broken than those who believe in moral codes?

I am hoping Prometheus can support my argument by explaining the reasoning behind this statement:

There is a difference in these two 'beliefs'. Belief in god, by the usual definitions of god, can have no supporting evidence (personal experience not being evidence of anything but personal experience)

I might, for there are far better reasons to be moral when existing in a social culture such as ours than merely faith alone.

I think the emotional effect of guilt is the only good replacement for logically indefensible moral codes. I'll try to find some scientific information on emotion and guilt, although I doubt there's much.

There is a difference in these two 'beliefs'. Belief in god, by the usual definitions of god, can have no supporting evidence (personal experience not being evidence of anything but personal experience), while the big bang theory can theoretically be demonstrated to be untrue. The former then, is only amenable to faith, the latter is also open to empirical verification.

 

This might change depending on more subtle definitions of god, but i think most of us a using the Abrahamic model of god.

I bolded the statement I am directly responding to. This makes things interesting.

If faith in god's existence falls into the category of "Evidence Does Not Apply," then faith in god is in the same category as faith in moral codes. I don't think anybody here is going to argue that faith in moral codes makes a person broken.

Unless the artificial meat is made or grown from living cells. Then of course we have death again.

Give it up. Nobody empathizes with tissue cells.

Also, if we only get to eat artificial meat I guarantee I'll be complaining!

Even if it's physically the same as real meat?

What if scientists invent it and start saying it's revolutionary because it's produced much more efficiently than live cows? Then would you eat the green eggs and ham?

The likelihood that you will commit astocities, however, is largely dependent on what you've been taught in your local tribe, and what specific values your local pack/community worships or adheres to... Dependent upon what local examples are set and what local demands are made by the local spiritual or religious leader.

There might be other factors too, such as biologically-linked predispositions towards certain beliefs, although such explanations might suggest that these irrational beliefs are actually psychological defenses for biologically determined preferences. Such alternative explanations for beliefs justify my emphasis on the requirement of scientific evidence for a psychological intertwine-ment of faith in god and faith in kindness. Said "emphasis" was edited into my post in bold text, like this.

EDIT: Yes! Yes! That's it! A theist would like for us to think that theism promotes kindness, but it isn't that simple!

I recall Iggy comparing religious people to insane people that have the potential to turn evil at the drop of a hat. My only modifications to that idea would be that it probably depends on the current power of one's faith in a religious leader, and it might depend on one's tendency toward thinking critically since a critical thinker is less likely to establish faith.

I thought of another modification: a religious person's faith in the rightness of kindness?

Religions usually do teach that kindness is right, although I doubt many teach that kindness is always right, especially when it comes to members of out-groups, a.k.a. "sinners," "heathens," "paganists," etc.

Anyway, I think that is still faith because one cannot logically prove that kindness is right. Typically, the rightness of kindness is enforced by social interaction, but it might also be enforced by faith to a certain degree.

This throws a curve ball to the idea that stronger religiosity always causes greater potential for irrational evil. If somebody has very strong faith in kindness being right, they might not turn evil at the say so of a religious leader who they have comparably less faith in. Their faith in the rightness of kindness might even be psychologically intertwined with their faith in the existence of their god, although I wouldn't accept this without scientific evidence.

Am I just not thinking as critically today? This sounds like an argument a theist would make!

Whoops, double post.

Can you be specific about which part the OP did not suggest? What exactly am I arguing against?

 

iNow, either in the OP or later in the thread has suggested that there is no evidence for belief in God.

iNow has suggested that people who believe in God are broken.

iNow did not list in the OP what level of evidence is required to be considered not broken.

iNow did not respond to the level of evidence required to be considered not broken when I questioned him in post 23: "You are drawing a line that says your level of required proof is sufficient for belief but their level is not. That seems exceedingly unfair to me. Why do you get to draw the line? Why not criticize everyone who believes in anything without absolute proof?"

 

It is true that there is incomplete evidence for the existence of God.

It is true that there is incomplete evidence for the Big Bang.

It is true that there is incomplete evidence for String theory.

 

Starting at around post 230 we talked a lot about evidence. In post 253 I gave examples of evidence of God based on another posters requirement for type of things that constitute evidence:

 

 

From your link, types of evidence include:

 

Anecdotal evidence

Intuition

Personal experience

Scientific evidence

Testimonial

 

Examples of evidence of God for all but scientific:

 

Anecdotal - A person who prays for a cure and their disease goes into remission

Intuition - There must be something that created the universe based on my understanding of cause and effect, conservation of energy, etc.

Personal Experience - I had a near death experience.

Testimonial - Declarations from the Pope when speaking ex cathedra.

 

In a similar way, example of evidence of extraterrestrials include:

 

Anecdotal - Crop circles

Intuition - The Drake equation. As big as the universe is and with the number of planets in the goldilocks zone, there must be other life out there.

Personal Experience - I saw a blue and green light hover over me, then fly off into the distance.

Testimonial - The Disclosure Project

 

These are all evidence of God and aliens. You may find that they are not sufficient to justify the claim of the existence, or you may feel they in no way support the proposition, but they are evidence nonetheless. Evidence is often wrong, misleading, insufficient, questionable, etc. That does not stop it from being evidence.

Even if we couldn't think of counterarguments or better explanations, those examples of evidence wouldn't say much. Religious gods are usually complex. Even the idea of a god itself is complex because it has multiple characteristics, and it becomes more complicated when you add in more characteristics. Such complex ideas would hardly be supported even if someone could prove something like prayer healing or the logical necessity of an ultimate creation event, EDIT: and it's even debatable whether that could be considered supporting evidence at all. I would continue promoting the search for natural explanations/knowledge because that is the progressive route. To make matters worse, religious hypotheses aren't supported by the evidence when they're examined scientifically.

I want to join this discussion by proposing the hypothesis that there is no ethical argument for eating a animal at all.

 

I like to see it this way: An alien species occupies the world and slaves mankind. They let us work and kill us to eat us. We scream and try to resist and fight back, but there are so overpowered that we don't have any chances. So we ask them completely outraged "How can you do that to us? Don't you see that we are sentient beings? Why are you slaving us and killing our children?" And then the aliens relay that it is just logical for them to do that because there are so much smarter, and better, and valuable. They claim that they are not killing the children because they are evil but young humans just taste so well!

 

Of curse, from this perspective we can say, that the extraterrestrials don't behave ethically. But that is just the same perspective like a chicken could have about our behavior.

zapatos would probably argue, that our perspective it the one which counts, because we can make it count:

I'm still reading the thread, but the argument I was reading didn't seem to be going toward what I am about to say.

Of course, if humans made this argument after they were enslaved, it would be clear that they were only arguing for their own benefit. However, we could argue that humans should change their view even before they're enslaved because of their ability to feel empathy.

Humans have the intelligence to think about things that aren't happening, but might happen, which is displacement (linguistics). Mafio's hypothetical story is meant to invoke empathic feelings for enslaved animals through our ability to grasp displacement.

If an argument would conclude that empathy for other genera is natural for humans or was adaptive for humans, it would be a good argument from the psychological or evolutionary perspective. Such an argument would probably rely on the functionality of the social nature of humans. If an argue would conclude that a popular belief about empathy can be logically extrapolated to this issue, that would also be a good argument. Such an argument would probably rely on the more common belief that pets should not be abused.

No kidding? My theists are mostly Catholic, what are yours? And do they claim to literally hear instructions, or is it more of a figurative instruction, as in 'being a teacher is God's calling for me'?

According to this video, hallucinations are "common," "normal" and "natural."

a theist who also hears god talking to him is probably just as broken.

I'm guessing he meant theists but it could have been the others. And yes, I believe that neither group could be considered menatlly ill in the way [David Berkowitz] is.

I will add more information. Hallucination can be induced in hypnosis, and most people can be hypnotized. Hypnotic susceptibility depends on a person's willingness, and I think a religious follower would be very willing to go into a trance at a religious ceremony, at which point, they might hallucinate voices.

This is a combination of ethics and social science.

Why do people discriminate on the basis of religious beliefs? Why does relative religious affiliation have an affect on social evaluation?

Do you think it's ever okay to discriminate on this basis? If you would discriminate in some instances, then you obviously think it's okay to discriminate in some instances.

The following is my summary of part of a Social Psychology textbook. It describes some evidence for Terror Management Theory and relates it to self-esteem.

The authors explain that, to cope with threats to self-esteem, "we may compare ourselves with others less fortunate, derogate those who give us negative feedback, and so forth (e.g., Dunning, Leuenberger, & Sherman, 1995; Kernis et al., 1993; Wood, Giordano-Beech, & Ducharme, 1999)." Explained later, research has shown that thoughts about death can be a cause of the self serving bias, and this is consistent with the hypothesis that death presents a threat to the self-image. Some researchers "further propose that, because it's frightening to own up to the fact that we are mortal and will eventually die, we adopt spiritual and cultural views that provide additional meaning to our lives (and sometimes even suggest the possibility of a heavenly immortality)." The authors cite a study in which Christian students were separated into experimental and control groups. Participants were given almost identical questionnaires, but the members of the experimental group "were asked to write about what will happen to them as they die and how they feel about thinking about their own death. [...] Later, all [participants] provided their impressions of a previously unknown person presented as either Christian or Jewish. Consistent with the hypothesis, this person was evaluated more favorably when Christian than when Jewish [...] but only by those subjects made aware of their own mortality (Greenberg et al., 1990)." (Kenrick et al. 91-2)

Kenrick, Douglas T., Steven L. Neuberg, and Robert B. Cialdini. Social Psychology: Goals in Interaction. 5th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 2010. Print.

I at least have prejudice against religious people and in favor of agnostic atheists. Too uncritically, I assume that agnostic atheists are generally more realistic and reasonable (because they are in agreement with my own "realistic and reasonable" beliefs. That's potential confirmation bias!)

However, I don't think my bias is strong because I'm not immune to the seducing charm of the people who have come to our door intending to convert me.

Why wouldn't it be applicable?

Scientists are encouraged to think critically, and religious followers are encouraged to have blind-faith.

EDIT: I made a mistakenly inaccurate double negative! I will never forgive myself!

EDIT: Never!

I have another small quibble about the post I quoted. The distinction between a fundamentalist and a scientist is not that only one believes IN scientific theories, but that only one believes scientific theories. Hence, I edited my post further.

People who have a belief in God that is probably wrong and who are willing to let go of their beliefs in the face of convincing argument, or people who believe in scientific theories that are probably wrong and who deny that they could be wrong.

I think this isn't generally applicable, although you could argue otherwise.

Who are you equating with the mentally ill?

He was equating them with David Berkowitz. However, if you want to argue that David Berkowitz was mentally ill in a way that religious people aren't, that would be on topic.

I recall Iggy comparing religious people to insane people that have the potential to turn evil at the drop of a hat. My only modifications to that idea would be that it probably depends on the current power of one's faith in a religious leader, and it might depend on one's tendency toward thinking critically since a critical thinker is less likely to establish faith.

People who have a belief in God that may turn out to be wrong, or people who have a belief in scientific theories that may turn out to be wrong?

People who have a belief in God that may turn out to be is probably wrong and who deny that they could be wrong about particular things (e.g. the existence of God), or people who have a belief believe in scientific theories that may turn out to be probably aren't wrong and who are always willing to let go of their beliefs if emerging evidence overwhelmingly contradicts them?

fify

Even if humans have violent proclivities, they might develop the technology to engineer a less violent species.

Here is a potentially positive consequence of the existence of the human race:

There was an event known as the Cretaceous extinction that occurred approx 65 million years ago. It supposedly wiped out 85% of all species on the planet. One theory was that it was caused by the impact of a large meteorite. If another such large meteorite were headed towards earth, I'm certain that scientists and engineers would divert it from striking, thereby preventing a re-occurance of a similar mass extinction of life. So the human race may yet be of positive value, in terms of its relationship to the rest of the animal species on the planet, by preventing their extinction from a natural catastrophic event similar to the one that caused the Cretacious extinction.

While your daydream is being saved from a meteorite collision, the real world is undergoing pollution and large scale species extinction.

I think a key question is whether a human dominated biosphere can be altered more significantly than one that's not dominated by humans. Forgive my lack of knowledge, but don't the samples of the arctic ice support the idea that earth is changing faster than it ever has in the past? What is the evidence indicating that species extinction has occurred more rapidly during the reign of humanity? I barely know about this.

I never took a philosophy class on logic, but, on Wikipedia, I read that logic is a formal science.

EDIT: However, doesn't logic only partially comprise empirical science, and isn't the sum greater than its parts? Logic makes hypotheses, but science makes hypotheses and demonstrates their validity through manipulation of cause-and-effect. This is not to say that philosophical claims are always less certain than scientific claims, but it does imply that that's generally the case.

The crowd goes into a silent reminiscence.

I thought the second song was a fitting response.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_impeach_George_W._Bush#Conduct_of_the_Iraq_war

#Treatment_of_detainees

#Attempt_to_overthrow_the_government_of_Iran

Although it isn't intelligence related, I spent last night watching Oliver The Chimp parts 1-6 on youtube.

Contrary to the monologue of the OP's documentary, I learned that Bonobos are chimps.

Pan paniscus (Bonobo Chimp)

Pan troglodytes (Common Chimp)

Considering the title of the video, I don't know why they didn't show how chimps beat humans at short term memory. They only mentioned that both humans and chimps can do this task.

Concerning ape culture, ape self-medicating behaviors can be culturally transmitted. Ape self-medicating behaviors include eating or chewing on things that are antimicrobial, absorbent, or affecting digestion rates. I couldn't find a good youtube on this. The video "Chimpanzee Culture and Medicine Usage" barely touched the "Medicine" subject.

Okay, I figured out how to embed them.

I might need a walk outside as well!

How is it possible that you edited that post two minutes before posting it!?

But not in the bath - well not very often

Only if you've taken your caffeine already.

I don't know what the OP is talking about. Some of my joy comes from accomplishment, but the greatest bliss I've felt was in acknowledgment that existence probably lacks any designed purpose. As soon as I began reorienting my thoughts around pride-based goals, the bliss began to fade. I think the bliss was the freedom of knowing that there was nothing I absolutely had to do.

EDIT: That said, I think using intentional ignorance to induce bliss, as Zapatos suggested, is usually counterproductive. If everybody disassociates from their responsibilities, no matter how large, nothing will get done. The ego isn't all bad.

"Intervention" might have been a strong word. I can't edit the title anymore.

I'd like to know about studies or experiments concerned with maintenance of the brain into old age. I'll pass them on to the person when I have conversations with them. That won't seem like I'm forcing anything on them.

I read about the SMILE I study where aerobic activity in the elderly both reduced depression and improved cognitive functioning, and I read about the rat study that showed running generated more Hippocampus cells and improved memory.