Does secularism make people more ethical?

[Skybird]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,777281,00.html


...
Secularists make up some 15 percent of the global population, or about 1 billion people. As a group, this puts them third in size behind Christians (2.3 billion) and Muslims (1.6 billion).
...
This heightened public profile may be contributing to the shrinking numbers of religious believers. Churches in the US are losing up to 1 million members every year. In Europe, secularization has advanced even further. The number of non-religious people, those who do not believe in God or any higher power, has reached approximately 40 percent in France and about 27 percent in Germany.
...
So what do these increasing numbers of non-believers believe in, if not God? Sociologist Phil Zuckerman, who hopes to start a secular studies major at California's Pitzer College, says that secularists tend to be more ethical than religious people. On average, they are more commonly opposed to the death penalty, war and discrimination. And they also have fewer objections to foreigners, homosexuals, oral sex and hashish.
The most surprising insight revealed by the new wave of secular research so far is that atheists know more about the God they don't believe in than the believers themselves. This is the conclusion suggested by a 2010 Pew Research Center survey of US citizens. Even when the higher education levels of the unreligious were factored out, they proved to be better informed in matters of faith, followed by Jewish and Mormon believers.
But their knowledge doesn't seem to do them much good, since secularists rank among the least-liked groups of people in the US, falling behind even Muslims and homosexuals. In the states of South Carolina and Arkansas, those who deny the existence of a supreme being are not even permitted to hold public office.
...
Germany serves as a sort of historical case study for sociologists, thanks to the distinct differences in religious tendencies between the formerly divided east and west. In the former East Germany, or German Democratic Republic (GDR), where atheism long ago shed its association with the educated classes and became a common value, it has evolved over three generations.
Nearly 67 percent of eastern Germans have no religious affiliation, compared to just 18 percent in the West. This trend isn't likely to change in the foreseeable future, since children who grew up with non-religious parents are almost certain to remain secular. The mother's beliefs have an especially significant impact on the children's belief systems.
...
Boston University's Catherine Caldwell-Harris is researching the differences between the secular and religious minds. "Humans have two cognitive styles," the psychologist says. "One type finds deeper meaning in everything; even bad weather can be framed as fate. The other type is neurologically predisposed to be skeptical, and they don't put much weight in beliefs and agency detection."

[MH]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,777281,00.html



Does secularism make people more ethical?
Im really not sure about that generally speaking....

[Herr-Berbunch]

My wife and I are secularist, and quite ethical (usually). IMO religion is the worst thing to happen to the human race - how many have died in it's many names? From a thread about a year ago it seemed that subsim, or at least the GT-frequenting portion was quite secular :D

In answer to your title - yes, I do. There is no other preoccupation, so that a more ethical judgement can be made.

[Anthony W.]

Religion, when practiced responsibly and civilly, is the best way to keep a population at peace.

[CaptainMattJ.]

Herr berbunch and i share the same views then :)

Religion *can* teach some ethics and morals, but then turns around and spews bull****. People may "believe" in god, but more and more are realizing what a load of bull religion has become, and dont follow what they teach, such as the seven deadly sins.

I have no problem with the belief in god. Even if it is just false hope, it helps people find hope from themselves indirectly in times of need.

I have a problem with religion. they say "love everyone" and blah blah, and they turn around and say "Down with Homos! down with Atheists! they deserve to burn in hell!". Hypocrites much? I also love how they have a convenient answer for everything.

Along with their "no Homo" crap, comes the uncovering of the priests not only having sex with males, but underaged alter boys no less. Its so infuriating.

Religion IS one of the worst things thats happened to mankind. hundreds of millions slaughtered in the name of religion, oppression and hate in the name of religion. Where does it end?

[NeonSamurai]

Religion, when practiced responsibly and civilly, is the best way to keep a population at peace.

Unless you have 2 religions, then there will be no peace.

[Osmium Steele]

Not even with one of these....

http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/files/d_2634.jpg

[Herr-Berbunch]

Unless you have 2 religions, then there will be no peace.

Yeah, Buddhists v's Sikhs - that'd be one to watch :zzz:

[razark]

Religion *can* teach some ethics and morals...
Religion says "Do what's right, or you'll get smacked."

Secularism says "Do what's right because it's right."

[MH]

Unless you have 2 religions, then there will be no peace.


Its funny....
if you talked to many RELIGIUS Jews and Arabs you would find that on basic level there is a lot respect between the two religions.
Politicalization of religion is more an issue.
Political religion is just an ideology like any ideology than millions died for....

[Herr-Berbunch]

My wife teaches religion to 11-16 year olds, and being secular make her job so much easier - when I was at school we did christianity, judaism and a touch of islam, now they don't learn stuff out of a text book (at least not in my wife's class), instead they talk about their points of view, and listen to others - eventually they empathise and can see others' pov without even being asked. The subject of their views changes - religion, abortion, marriage, families, death, rape, neighbours, communities, nationalities - and within that is a more ethical view.

They don't need to know that some bloke built a big boat and took on umpteen animals when it rained, etc.!

Matt- didn't even think of the catholic priest scandels. Catholics covering things up, never *cough - helping Nazis escape to South America*

[vienna]

I once had a book of quotations edited, in part, by the late Steve Allen. The book was similar to "Bartlett's Quotations" in that it was devided, alphabetically, by topic (e.g, 'Love', 'Resonsibility', 'Thrift", etc.) One of the topics was "The Golen Rule". The quotes were taken from religious writings (Bible, Koran, etc.) and secular philosophical sources. They all boiled down to one "basic idea": "Do unto others as you would have done unto you". One can be religious or secular; the "basic idea" should be the governing concept...

[ZeeWolf]

Interesting question,
I do not think man will conform until he is convinced that it is a unselfish
act that has both long and shot term personal benefits. All so it seams
that every one, when asked if they are ethical (or moral) will answer yes.
Jesus was absolutely despised for confronting those who thought they were
the model of ethical and moral purity. Hated because he [Jesus] called them evil.
Perhaps a good follow-up question may be "When all things become subjective
will man ever discover the bottom to his depravity?"

ZeeWolf

[Platapus]

Religion, when practiced responsibly and civilly..,


When that ever happens, let us know, please.

[Rilder]

When that ever happens, let us know, please.

It happens all the time, they just keep it to themselves like their supposed to.

Unfortunately the world is filled with nutjobs who wave their religions around like a penis and shove it down everyone else's throat.

[Armistead]

Religion, when practiced responsibly and civilly, is the best way to keep a population at peace.


But it's never had that result. Historically religion was mixed with politics. Take the Roman Church, they were on the down end, the christian movement was big, not only did they join it, they reformed it to a political system in which they could control. They created many doctrines of fear, such as eternal torment, others that caused guilt. They used these tools to control people. If they couldn't, they stirred fervor and just killed. This has been the history of the world, religion has never caused peace, but caused more war and torment than we can grasp.

I think religious people seek God to make a better world or they accept the world is going to hell and only God can fix it, secular people want to fix and solve the problems of humanity in hopes of a better world.

[August]

Well one thing is sure, secular people see themselves as ethically superior. Sounds pretty arrogant to me.

[Sailor Steve]

Not all of us. To me ethics and morality exist, period. Whether you attribute it to a higher power or to innate is your choice. All this talk about who is superior has it backwards, I think. Anyone who says "I'm more ethical than you" has already missed the point.

[Madox58]

Anyone or any group that says "I'm more Ethical than you"
is sitting in judgement of others.

That postion would not allow backing down so problems are going to happen.

[NeonSamurai]

Its funny....
if you talked to many RELIGIUS Jews and Arabs you would find that on basic level there is a lot respect between the two religions.
Politicalization of religion is more an issue.
Political religion is just an ideology like any ideology than millions died for....

The fundamental problem, is that almost all religions tend to express the view that only they have got it right, and logically therefor everyone else must convert to the one and only true faith. After that comes the politics and power structures, followed by exploitation and often subjugation.

There are some exceptions, but they tend to be either not really a religion (or at least not theistic), or are not organized.

[Castout]

Herr berbunch and i share the same views then :)

Religion *can* teach some ethics and morals, but then turns around and spews bull****. People may "believe" in god, but more and more are realizing what a load of bull religion has become, and dont follow what they teach, such as the seven deadly sins.

I have no problem with the belief in god. Even if it is just false hope, it helps people find hope from themselves indirectly in times of need.

I have a problem with religion. they say "love everyone" and blah blah, and they turn around and say "Down with Homos! down with Atheists! they deserve to burn in hell!". Hypocrites much? I also love how they have a convenient answer for everything.

Along with their "no Homo" crap, comes the uncovering of the priests not only having sex with males, but underaged alter boys no less. Its so infuriating.

Religion IS one of the worst things thats happened to mankind. hundreds of millions slaughtered in the name of religion, oppression and hate in the name of religion. Where does it end?

That is because religion can be detached from God and from spirituality when the practitioners know neither God nor spirituality. Frankly speaking, God doesn't exactly shout loud when a person is bad or abusing religious teaching. Free will. Even God respect it. If the fools allow themselves to be fooled by distorted truth and distorted teaching then it is their responsibility and their society for having received the teaching.

Religion is like state to a society. It can go anywhere and get abused.

[Sammi79]

No, education and understanding do that. But it helps :O:

[Castout]

No, education and understanding do that. But it helps :O:

Education often results in mere trained people instead of educated ones.

Understanding requires experience, common sense and insight from the particular experience.

So there may be uneducated educated person and there may be believer without understanding.

But there's also educated people and those who have understanding and reasons on what he believe in.

Most people judging from my experience have neither common sense to gain useful insight from their experience or even no experience to be gained from.

Most people who graduated came out a trained man but still not an enlightened one yet. They go back into their own society and start mimicking whatever vices in it. Instead being an agent of change, they become subjected to change from less learned people or society.

Whether one is willing to use his common sense or otherwise is free will. Most are too busy and too prejudiced to use theirs. So busy that they lose touch with their humanity and fall into pragmatism. Mankind has created an illusion so that most people have lost touch with the things that are really meaningful and replace them with petty pursuits. Mankind has created a micro world of their own within this world which is a micro itself within this created space. They lose themselves in it and in their dealings in it. The unsophisticated who think they are sophisticated is what we are. The fools who think themselves smart are us. The many local tiny consciousness who worship their own portrayed self image that we call ego.

But we will be smitten by our errors. It's only natural.

The maker of 2012 movie could not be more wrong. In a doomsday scenario money would be the least thing that matter or would survive as well as traditional hierarchy. Yet we are so attached with the accumulation of trinkets that's mostly even not real and with our attachment to technology that an expert came out with the idea of self reliance to it as the coming awakening of mankind. I'd call a total reliance on tech as enslavement not awakening/empowerment. It is us who should control our own inventions not the other way around.

I'm not saying money is not important but they are only meaningful by the way how you use them not by how fast you acquire them. The dead have no use of money nor whatever trinket.

[Skybird]

Boston University's Catherine Caldwell-Harris is researching the differences between the secular and religious minds. "Humans have two cognitive styles," the psychologist says. "One type finds deeper meaning in everything; even bad weather can be framed as fate. The other type is neurologically predisposed to be skeptical, and they don't put much weight in beliefs and agency detection."



Caldwell-Harris is currently testing her hypothesis through simple experiments. Test subjects watch a film in which triangles move about. One group experiences the film as a humanized drama, in which the larger triangles are attacking the smaller ones. The other group describes the scene mechanically, simply stating the manner in which the geometric shapes are moving. Those who do not anthropomorphize the triangles, she suspects, are unlikely to ascribe much importance to beliefs. "There have always been two cognitive comfort zones," she says, "but skeptics used to keep quiet in order to stay out of trouble."


Compare to this study:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure signal changes in the brains of thirty subjects fifteen committed Christians and fifteen nonbelievers as they evaluated the truth and falsity of religious and nonreligious propositions. For both groups, and in both categories of stimuli, belief (judgments of ;true; vs judgments of false was associated with greater signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area important for self-representation [3] (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#pone.000 7272-Northoff1), [4] (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#pone.000 7272-DArgembeau1), [5] (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#pone.000 7272-Moran1), [6] (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#pone.000 7272-Schneider1), emotional associations [7] (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#pone.000 7272-Bechara1), reward [8] (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#pone.000 7272-Hornak1), [9] (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#pone.000 7272-Rolls1), [10] (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#pone.000 7272-ODoherty1), and goal-driven behavior [11] (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#pone.000 7272-Matsumoto1). This region showed greater signal whether subjects believed statements about God, the Virgin Birth, etc. or statements about ordinary facts. 1 (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272#)A comparison of both stimulus categories suggests that religious thinking is more associated with brain regions that govern emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict, while thinking about ordinary facts is more reliant upon memory retrieval networks.
Conclusions/Significance

While religious and nonreligious thinking differentially engage broad regions of the frontal, parietal, and medial temporal lobes, the difference between belief and disbelief appears to be content-independent. Our study compares religious thinking with ordinary cognition and, as such, constitutes a step toward developing a neuropsychology of religion. However, these findings may also further our understanding of how the brain accepts statements of all kinds to be valid descriptions of the world.

And this, about man as a homo religio, and the need to learn more about the neural substrates of religious experience:
http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/9/3/498

As I see it, man is not so much finding the ultimate reality "out there" when he sets to search for it and to examine it, but it is man himself adding all meaning to the things he perceives, according to his history of interpretation and sorting before. Thus, we do not so much find but invent "reality" as what what we perceive it.

It cannot be denied that nevertheless many people feel a deep-rooting need to believe in claims typically made by religious dogmas. And my strong impression also is that this need is not the result of an intellectual insight or a decision made by reason, but is as if something really triggers some people to believe, as if it were an inbuilt natural drive. Since two or three years, you can occasionally fetch up reports in the press that neuroscientists make progress in tracking down a relation between the desire to believe in religious stuff, and neural constellations and activation patterns in the brain. There seem to be indices for that the relation is causal and can be marked to be neural factors deciding the religious belief (the act itself, not the special nature of the ideology in question) - not the other way around.

This raises the question why nature maybe has designed man's genes to make him feel religious yearnings and make him occupying himself with questions religion claims to be focussing on. And what these questions differentiates from the existential questions arelgious and secularist and atheist people also deal with: the Why, the Where-from and Where-to, and the How-long. Only some secularists claim to not caring for these questions at all - most atheists I know are not evading them at all, but admit that while they adress such questions sometimes, for example by reading a book on philosophy, they just do not accept the answers religions claim to be able to give, especially those answers basing on theistic tales.

So, if the desire of religious believing or non-believing is "hardwired" in our brains, this has some consequences.

First, the nature of the debate needs to be reconsidered, with putting emphasis on that an argument, a fight over these issues is meaningless from beginning on, because people indeed do not have any choice to believe or not - they are somewhat geneticall programmed, at least are genetically equipped with a certain span of mental freedom that defines on what options they can decide "freely", and what not. This is the classical explanation model of degrees of freedom. How many do we have? On our religious believing or scepticism, we maybe are more limited in our free choices, than we imagine.

Second, the claims for validity of both camps - religions as well as areligious/secularists/atheists, needs to be relativised. In the end we need to see that any claims for valdity of content and for communal power, are as valid as the claim to be superior because of one's skin power.

Good, and responsible science will never claim to have given the ultimate, the final answer on something - the assumption that science could do that simply is totally contradictory to the elemental basics of scientific methodology. But this does not mean that what science finds out, is all relative by nature and can be ignored whenever it seems to be opportune, because it contradicsts long-held convictions and emotional sympathies. To change a scientific argument or theory or paradigm, just picking some idea out of the blue is not enough - you need to show up with better observations, better theories, where "better" is qualified by scientific methodologic measures and means that the new idea explains easier or more completely (or both) the phenomenon observed, and allows to make better predictions.

Believing people, however, fall into two groups, those confessing to a socially institutionalised dogma with a communal organisational framework (for example the church), and those who believe "freely", unbound by any community's dogma, and keeping it to themselves whatever they believe in. But the first group is extremely prone to wanting to put it'S beliefs onto all others, because they claim what they often - wrongly - accuse science of - that they have the final and ultimate and really really really true answers. And different to science, they see no need to ever try to proove it, test it, re-test it.

As private person as well as former psychologist I have seen that we humans want to see meaning in life. We maybe even need to see it, as a way to give order and structure, predictability and the illusion of control to a world and a cosmos that in reality probably aree chaotic, unporedictablel, danegerous - and not interested at all into our racial, civilisational and individual fates. To be marginalised to such a degree is a pill that human psyche seems to have big and painful troubles to swallow. We want our place in thew whole cosmic show, don't we? Our meaning? Our important role to play? the more religious we are, in that we follow one of the big dogmas, the more we really mean by that: the whole cosmos has to revolve around me, my soul, my afterlife. And all too often we expect the laws of logic and nature to bend in our belief's favour.

That is a transition from
an unavoidable vulnerability for despair that we necessarily are equipped with, since we are reflecting, self-aware creatures that know about their own mortality,
to
a demand of not only being part of the greater scheme of reason and explanation, but to be in control of it, and defining the conditions and rules by which such a scheme has to be formed up, and forms up the cosmos around us.

In the end, it is all just inside our brain, and maybe even the brain is just the image of an idea that in final and last and ultimate reality - if there is something like that! - just rests inside itself. We may want to consider in our sometimes bitter fights about religions that when we do these religious fights in all the world out there, we maybe just function the way we genetically are designed. The problem is that by this design some of us may be more and others may be less well-equipped to understand just that.

It seems to be an existential dilemma then that mankind cannot escape as long as evolution has not changed parts of our genetic heritage.

The mind is free to travel inside the space it can form by its imagination. And maybe our imagination is the only limit to what ultimately is possible, for better or worse.

Space travel.

[Sammi79]

Erm.. no. Training produces 'trained' people. Education produces 'educated' people. You know, logic, reason, critical thinking. Reading books. Music. Examining arguments and cause-effect systems. Social interaction with a broad and diverse peer group. Self knowledge and discipline. These in my opinion all contribute to an increased ethical sensitivity.

A musician is one trained in music. A music lover is one educated in music.

I am not saying that any state education system provides all of these things, as it certainly is not the case here in Britain. But education is a broader thing than simply state education. Perhaps a better question would be 'does secularism make people less ethical?' To which my answer would also be no. Anything that is divisive however, does I think make people less ethical. (fascism, racism, nationalism, ...insert *ism of your choice here) Organised religions can certainly be considered divisive, and money also, but secularism is not mutually excusive with spirituality. I happpen to believe that the universe is a profoundly mystical and enchanting place full of beauty, incredible ellegance, serenity, unerring chaos and unfathomable power.

[MH]

The fundamental problem, is that almost all religions tend to express the view that only they have got it right, and logically therefor everyone else must convert to the one and only true faith. After that comes the politics and power structures, followed by exploitation and often subjugation.

There are some exceptions, but they tend to be either not really a religion (or at least not theistic), or are not organized.

Yes it is as there are no secular people who thing that they got it right.
Exploitation is as old as humans and has nothing to do with religion but religion or any other system is used for it.
Secular think that have the recipe for well being of whole human race.
Where fighting religion by all means is part of solution.
I have religious friends with whom i disagree on many issues...but on basic fundamental level they are as ethical as any one else.
In many cases they are much less self centered and selfish than secular people.

Religion taken to extreme mixed with politics is a problem.
Secular extremism is intolerant as well.
Just in Judaism you have extreme rabbis liberal rabbis ....so so rabbis.
Just on this forum you can find nazi christians,christians and secular nazis...go figure.
Again maybe living in Jerusalem made me relatively tolerant....to multiculturalism with all it problems....but i prefer that to some uniform zombie society.

[Sammi79]

Skybird, the reason people want to believe in a purpose for themselves and/or humanity in general is because it was taught to us by religion directly. Particularly the monotheistic religions all echo the same 'Humans are special, humans are the best, humans are gods chosen rulers of earth' It just doesn't sit well with many peoples conceit that in reality it is likely that there is no grand purpose beyond continuing to reproduce, which we share with every other living thing. This is not to say human lives can not have meaning - its what you make it. Many lives are certainly less than grand, and have little more meaning than my cats. Occasionally exceptional individuals have lives full of meaning, creation and change that effect many others lives continuing through the ages long after their life has ended. Most of us are somewhere in between.



Second, the claims for validity of both camps - religions as well as areligious/secularists/atheists, needs to be relativised. In the end we need to see that any claims for valdity of content and for communal power, are as valid as the claim to be superior because of one's skin power.


Well I'm afraid I have to point out that claims that are closer to the truth are more valid than claims that are further from it. The only fully honest and scientific viewpoint is agnosticism, but this does not give equal weight to both sides. Just because I can't prove fairies don't exist, doesn't mean there is a 50/50 chance that they do. Using our scientific method we can state with confidence 'I am 99.9% sure that god in any religious sense does not exist, though I must admit there is a 0.1% chance that this is not the case'

[Skybird]

Due to the lack of any heterogenous belief concept in atheism and secular thinking (atheism is no belief in itself, but the lack of believing in theistic concepts), one could argue that a secular society seems to be an inevitable precondtion for functioning multi-cultural societies, at least is better suited to maybe deliver on that promise than any society embracing institutionalised or dogmatic religious conceptions.

[Skybird]

Skybird, the reason people want to believe in a purpose for themselves and/or humanity in general is because it was taught to us by religion directly. Particularly the monotheistic religions all echo the same 'Humans are special, humans are the best, humans are gods chosen rulers of earth' It just doesn't sit well with many peoples conceit that in reality it is likely that there is no grand purpose beyond continuing to reproduce, which we share with every other living thing. This is not to say human lives can not have meaning - its what you make it. Many lives are certainly less than grand, and have little more meaning than my cats. Occasionally exceptional individuals have lives full of meaning, creation and change that effect many others lives continuing through the ages long after their life has ended. Most of us are somewhere in between.

Sammi, the argument risen by science is that there is a neurological basis for the desire of people to believe in relgious claims, namely theistic concepts. I just tried to combine that with the psychological insight that man seems to depend on living in the belief that he is safe and lives in a secure, ordered world where the future is not uncertain. Lack of that belief can lead to very seriopus psychological breakdowns, it really can effect psychological health and sanity. There is a reason why some therapy schools even talk of spiritual crisis and spiritual syndroms.

The argument also is that there are strong indices that whether or not we more easily sympathise with believing or becoming "secular", has a genetical basis and a condensate in brain hardwiring. The degrees of freedom we have to chose for the one or the other, may be decided by our genes. Consider it to be an equivalent to "genetic vulnerability theories" that are popular in biology, medicine and psychology.




Well I'm afraid I have to point out that claims that are closer to the truth are more valid than claims that are further from it. The only fully honest and scientific viewpoint is agnosticism, but this does not give equal weight to both sides. Just because I can't prove fairies don't exist, doesn't mean there is a 50/50 chance that they do. Using our scientific method we can state with confidence 'I am 99.9% sure that god in any religious sense does not exist, though I must admit there is a 0.1% chance that this is not the case'
"Truth"?

Science thinks in hypothesis that have to be tested, theories, and paradigms. Hypothesis are being shown right or wrong. Theories stay for some time, until a better emerges from theoretical work, observation, experiment, trial-and-error. Paradigms change the slowest - but they do, every couple of decades or centuries. In the end, our idea of "working with and on reality" is feeding-back into itself to such a degree that we cannot claim to be fully objective and independent in our perceptions and conclusions on what we call the reality out there. The eye never can look at itself - even when looking into a mirror, it just is a reflexion.

My point was, if you read again, that science tries to refine its theories constantly, and should do so - while religions claim there is no need at all to test themselves because they surely own the ultimate "truth" anyway.

[Penguin]

:hmmm:

I seem to be the only person who uses the word secularism in a different way. To me it describes the concept of separation of church and state - sometimes also called Laïcité. I think the article got translated in a bad way. The original talks about unbelievers, which the Germans also use in the sense of non-believers.

A better word would be non-deitism. It's not only semantics, as these are two different concepts which may overlap. A secularist can or can not be religious, a non-believer is not.

So, in this context: secularism is more ethical, non-belief not necessarily.

[Sammi79]

Ah, Ok I think I understand your point now. You are saying that science (specifically genetics) may provide insights into why people want/need belief structures, and that it may be dangerous to the psyche to not provide it with these :06:

hmmm. It is an interesting question, but one I feel has not been thoroughly researched yet, and certainly no conclusions have been drawn. I would also add that even if there is a genetic predisposition to desire a (quite obviously false) belief structure that it does not mean that this is healthy. And yes I use the word "Truth" for decribing reality as we can never quite define it. Philip. K. Dick. said 'Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away' - lol in that case religions are certainly reality.

Anyway this is getting off-topic although I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, Skybird. :up:
back to the OP - I think anything divisive is harmful and discourages ethical behaviour, and as a flip side, anything inclusive helps and encourages ethical behaviour.

[MH]

..........one could argue that a secular society seems to be an inevitable precondtion for functioning multi-cultural societies, at least is better suited to maybe deliver on that promise than any society embracing institutionalised or dogmatic religious conceptions.

That i agree with.
Which means separation of religion from government and basic rights protected by constitution more or less like USA.

[NeonSamurai]

Yes it is as there are no secular people who thing that they got it right.
Exploitation is as old as humans and has nothing to do with religion but religion or any other system is used for it.
Secular think that have the recipe for well being of whole human race.
Where fighting religion by all means is part of solution.
I have religious friends with whom i disagree on many issues...but on basic fundamental level they are as ethical as any one else.
In many cases they are much less self centered and selfish than secular people.

Religion taken to extreme mixed with politics is a problem.
Secular extremism is intolerant as well.
Just in Judaism you have extreme rabbis liberal rabbis ....so so rabbis.
Just on this forum you can find nazi christians,christians and secular nazis...go figure.
Again maybe living in Jerusalem made me relatively tolerant....to multiculturalism with all it problems....but i prefer that to some uniform zombie society.

I never said that secular groups necessarily have it better, any group can form dogmatic views, and do the exact same stuff.

Personally I believe in skepticism, as it is something that keeps one humble. As a skeptic you do not have any answers, and do not believe to firmly in anything. You can also be religious or spiritual, and also a skeptic too.

P.S. as for the Nazi's, they were working on their own organized religious system within the SS to replace Christianity, based on the older Germanic traditions. They were not secular by any means. Many Neo-Nazi groups are following in those footsteps (or have converted Naziism into a religion itself).


As for ethics, frankly I think it depends on the individual themselves, and not the religion or lack their of that they were raised under. The only argument I see is that perhaps secularism attracts more of that type of person. Assuming the initial study was valid of course (I haven't bothered reading it as honestly I could care less).

[Skybird]

Ah, Ok I think I understand your point now. You are saying that science (specifically genetics) may provide insights into why people want/need belief structures, and that it may be dangerous to the psyche to not provide it with these :06:

I said that there are neurological indices for an inbuilt desire to believe or secular, and the trinagle experiment: an obvious difference in people to antromporphise or not do so when observing a culture-free, value-neutral-neutral stimulus.

Diffent, but complementary to that I pointed out that psycholgical health in many people suffers if they are stripped of the conviction that their life is not safely embedded in any theoretical conception that gives them the illusion to control the security of their living conditions. This can be their idea of the meaning of life, andf the role theis existence plays in the chaoptiuc chaos around them - which you can see as either a blessed divine garden of manifestations in which each and everything has its place and legitimiation and meaning that just is too high for our ouzr minds to be understood - or as a brooding chaos that simply pays no inettrest at all at our individual existence and survival or death at all.

I described that before in other threads that we know from the Nazi'S death camps that people still being able to put their suffering their into the context of a higher meaning they believed in, showed greater survival chances due to greater psychologicaly health and robustness, not giving themselves up. As Victor Frankl, a camp survivor himself, put it: "He who has a Why to live for, can bear almost every How."


hmmm. It is an interesting question, but one I feel has not been thoroughly researched yet, and certainly no conclusions have been drawn. I would also add that even if there is a genetic predisposition to desire a (quite obviously false) belief structure that it does not mean that this is healthy. And yes I use the word "Truth" for decribing reality as we can never quite define it. Philip. K. Dick. said 'Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away' - lol in that case religions are certainly reality.
Feel...? Feeling has nothing to do with it, according research prohjects are goping on since years, as I pointed out, and have been published in their results since several years. And the genetic desire for belief does not, like you imply, decide on the belief'S content, but describes a vulnerability, or a need in the individual to believe in a meaning of existence in general. Thnjat the studies deiffer between members of a relgious community and secularisdts, is for methdologioc reasoins only, you need to foirm the two experimentation groups by any kind of solid criterion. But the results do not show a genetic marker for theism or church-dogma-attractiuon, but show a correlation between brain activity patterns and more or less belief-oriented worldview orientation (in this case: theistic beloievers and secularists/atheists), and show different strengths of trends in people to antropomorphise the objects of their percpetions.
[/quote]

- I think anything divisive is harmful and discourages ethical behaviour, and as a flip side, anything inclusive helps and encourages ethical behaviour.
That is too generalistic. Being divisive regarding the difference of humanism and Nazism hardly discourages ethical behavior when you defenbd the psoition of humanism, and beinbg inclusive regarding totalitarian ideoloigies when it comes to your willingness to be tolerant will not do you any good, but will destroy first your ideal of tolerance and next yourself.

What you mean, is probably this, which I find best expressed in the Kalamas Sutra from the Buddhist canon:

Do not put faith in traditions, even though they have been accepted for long generations and in many countries. Do not believe a thing because many repeat it. Do not accept a thing on the authority of one or another of the sages of old, nor on the ground of statements as found in the books. Never believe anything because probability is in its favour. Do not believe in that which you yourselves have imagined, thinking that a god has inspired it. Believe nothing merely on the authority of the teachers or the priests. After examination, believe that which you have tested for yourself and found reasonable, which is in conformity with your well being and that of others.

[Skybird]

That i agree with.
Which means separation of religion from government and basic rights protected by constitution more or less like USA.
Not really, because in reality there are plenty of laws and rules on federal state levbel that discmrinate non-bveolievers, there is a strong evangelical trend in the armed forces, and in local places communities are extremely hostile and supressive againmst non-theists/atheists/secularists.

There seems to be a big difference between the intentions expressed in the nation's founding papers, and the practical reality in place. In some states for example you are even banned from candidacy for pulbic offices if you do not believe in theistic deities, and campaigns by orthodox religious groups have led to the change of the formerly "neutral" writings on coins and notes ("in God wer trust" is relatively new a formula), and the chnage in formulation of the pledge of allegiance (one nation "under God" also is new").

However. Just to put the US example on secularism a bit back into relation. In Europe, most people and media associate it stronger with religious dogmatic rule than any other Wetsern nation, even before Poland, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. The European mean value of secularists in the population also is far ahead of that in the US (article linked in first post in this thread).

[Growler]

I can't speak for others, because I know only myself, but I would say that, as my indoctrination into the Catholic faith waned, my own introspection and even open-mindedness increased greatly.

As I became more aware that what I was observing wasn't reconcilable with what I had been taught, my curiosity increased, and with it, my ability to actually learn from others who believe differently than I do. I don't need a deity to believe in to recognize that this world, for all the hype given its troubles, is still a beautiful and amazing place to live right now, and that I'm remarkably lucky not only to be of sufficeint health and welfare to see that, but also to be able to share that wth others.

I'm also increasngly aware that, of all the species on the planet, we humans seem to be the only ones plagued with an interminable existential debate that influences and in some cases, prescribes our actions in how we treat not only each other, but other species on the planet as well.

[Sammi79]

I said that there are neurological indices for an inbuilt desire to believe or secular, and the triangle experiment: an obvious difference in people to anthropomorphise or not do so when observing a culture-free, value-neutral-neutral stimulus.

Right, hold on. I must confess I have not got a shred of a whisker of a clue as to exactly what you are on about here. what is a value-neutral-neutral stimulus? it reads sort of : there are levels of brain (activity?) to either think 0 or 1 , the triangle experiment - (you mean an experiment to see if a few random numbers add up to either an acute or obtuse triangle or not? or do you mean the technological triangle experiment, which is a collaboration and staff exchange of scientific establishments in europe? or maybe even http://thechurch.co.nz/inspiration/2010/12/triangle-experiment-1/? (http://thechurch.co.nz/inspiration/2010/12/triangle-experiment-1/)) an obvious difference in people to project human thoughts and actions or not when looking at culture-free... ? I'm sorry but that just sounds like gibberish. :doh: maybe is a language thing?

"He who has a Why to live for, can bear almost every How." I can understand him feeling that. typically people who go through intense mental/physical pressure or trauma are more open to these ideas, especially at their weakest point. You could also say "He who has a why to die for, can bear almost any life"

enough off topic.

That is too generalistic. Being divise regarding the difference of humanism and Nazism hardly discourages ethical behavior when you defenbd the psoition of humanism, and beinbg inclusive regarding totalitarian ideoloigies when it comes to your willingness to be tolerant will not do you any good, but will destroy first your ideal of tolerance and next yourself.

I mean being inclusive on a human level. To not exclude people. Ethics must be at least in part learned via human interaction within a social group, and the broader the group the greater the sensitivity to broader ethical concerns.

What you mean, is probably this, which I find best expressed in the Kalamas Sutra from the Buddhist canon:

Do not put faith in traditions, even though they have been accepted for long generations and in many countries. Do not believe a thing because many repeat it. Do not accept a thing on the authority of one or another of the sages of old, nor on the ground of statements as found in the books. Never believe anything because probability is in its favour. Do not believe in that which you yourselves have imagined, thinking that a god has inspired it. Believe nothing merely on the authority of the teachers or the priests. After examination, believe that which you have tested for yourself and found reasonable, which is in conformity with your well being and that of others.


Yeah thats a lovely quote. I would still say, about the probability thing that if the odds are so staggeringly loaded in one direction, you can pretty much rely on it. I'm willing to take the risk anyway.

[MH]

Not really, because in reality there are plenty of laws and rules on federal state levbel that discmrinate non-bveolievers, there is a strong evangelical trend in the armed forces, and in local places communities are extremely hostile and supressive againmst non-theists/atheists/secularists.

There seems to be a big difference between the intentions expressed in the nation's founding papers, and the practical reality in place. In some states for example you are even banned from candidacy for pulbic offices if you do not believe in theistic deities, and campaigns by orthodox religious groups have led to the change of the formerly "neutral" writings on coins and notes ("in God wer trust" is relatively new a formula), and the chnage in formulation of the pledge of allegiance (one nation "under God" also is new").

However. Just to put the US example on secularism a bit back into relation. In Europe, most people and media associate it stronger with religious dogmatic rule than any other Wetsern nation, even before Poland, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. The European mean value of secularists in the population also is far ahead of that in the US (article linked in first post in this thread).
Well...that's true but that's because of overall flavor of USA is of faith oriented values while the constitution defends basic rights for all.
If President of USA has to put on show that he is man of faith to get elected ,its a power of democracy...probably majority think its the right thing at the moment.
Its something unavoidable.
You want Germany your way Americans want it their way...Israelis aren't sure yet lol.
Still as country which is build mostly on emigration and many different views and religions it RELATIVLY successfully copes with its issues and diversity.
Its not perfect but best i can see.

[Skybird]

Right, hold on. I must confess I have not got a shred of a whisker of a clue as to exactly what you are on about here. what is a value-neutral-neutral stimulus?
My fast-typing.:doh: Value-neutral stimulus, culture-free stimulus, by which I meant not based on pre-education, not resulting a ciulture-depending reaction


it reads sort of : there are levels of brain (activity?) to either think 0 or 1 , the triangle experiment - (you mean an experiment to see if a few random numbers add up to either an acute or obtuse triangle or not? or do you mean the technological triangle experiment, which is a collaboration and staff exchange of scientific establishments in europe? or maybe even http://thechurch.co.nz/inspiration/2010/12/triangle-experiment-1/? (http://thechurch.co.nz/inspiration/2010/12/triangle-experiment-1/)) an obvious difference in people to project human thoughts and actions or not when looking at culture-free... ? I'm sorry but that just sounds like gibberish. :doh: maybe is a language thing?

I meant the triangle experiment that was described in the article I linked in the very first post that started this thread.:
quote: Test subjects watch a film in which triangles move about. One group experiences the film as a humanized drama, in which the larger triangles are attacking the smaller ones. The other group describes the scene mechanically, simply stating the manner in which the geometric shapes are moving. /quote


them as a group o ftriangles being "attacked"

"He who has a Why to live for, can bear almost every How." I can understand him feeling that. typically people who go through intense mental/physical pressure or trauma are more open to these ideas, especially at their weakest point. You could also say "He who has a why to die for, can bear almost any life"
No, it would be: "he who has a why to die for, is easier willing not to cling to life, if according situation arises." Frankl is founder of the socalled Logotherapy, a therapy firm that tries healment of psychological suffering by helping people finding a mneaning in what makes them suffer, a meaning in the loss they suffer(ed), or whatever. In pure form it is almost irrelevant today - but basic conceptions and considerations of it have found entrance and use in practically all major therapy forms that dominate the market and enjoy wide acceptance and support by socialcare. Maybe with the exception of behavoioruistzic shcools - and even these have oepned their doors for some of the socalled humansiotic therapy concepts. Puristic therapists are rare today. Maybe only psychoanalytics work in that puristic way anymore. And even pychoanalysis has diversified.

Anyhow, the point is the individual pecpetion of own suffering, whether it be due to being locked in a camp, or suzffering a loss of meaning and self-assrunace in and over once' own existence. The mildest form of that, is boredom. The heaviest form is exiostential despair, a symptomatology of majhor depression, suicide. Having a mesaning to live mfor, strengthens your psychologic immune system, so to speak, against aversive, threatening, doubting stimuli.

It also can help to keep the doubt away. That is comfrotable, and thus very tempting. But the price is that it makes you stop asking questions and reflecting your ways.


I mean being inclusive on a human level. To not exclude people. Ethics must be at least in part learned via human interaction within a social group, and the broader the group the greater the sensitivity to broader ethical concerns.
I reserve the right to decide that on an individual levbeöl as well as a level of where I also include the goals, desaires and ideological convictions somebody clings to. Thus I reserve the right to include some - and exclude others. I also reserve the right to say that not all and everything is of equal value, is just vartiations of just one and the same unerlaying quality, or must be accepted just becasue "it is".

As a consequence of thios, I am tolerant on some things, and intolerant on others. Tolerance needs limits.


Yeah thats a lovely quote. I would still say, about the probability thing that if the odds are so staggeringly loaded in one direction, you can pretty much rely on it. I'm willing to take the risk anyway.
That's what we do all the time, every day. But our problems, mentally as well as materially, arise when we think that just because we have never seen a black swan, there indeed are no black swans. Link. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Swan:_The_Impact_of_the_Highly_Improbabl e) Probabilities are just this: probabilities. And as every student of classic test theory knows, there is one mahjor probloem with test theory and theories on the relevance of probabilities for realty: probabilities win in relevance by total number of events being taken into account for calculating them. Total relevance and trustworthiness they only gain in case of an infinite ammount of such events - and that practically is impossible to imagine. That throwing a six with a dice has a probability of 1/6, does not exlcude the possibility that for the rest of all your life you will only throw sixers whenever you use a dice. That that is "unlikely", does not really hold any factual information. Becasue when it happens nevertheless, the imporbbale suddenly reaches a likelihood of 100.000% and the highly improbable plummtes down to 0.000%.

Granted, that is academic fun only. But in classicv test theory, which is repsonsible fpor major tools of data analysis and scientific test design, this has fundamental consequences and raises problems that so far nobody could solve. And so - they get simply ignored.

It is good habit imo to operate by probabilities, yes - but also to be in the knowedfge of certain unsolved problems and implications. Like flying a modern aircraft with glass cockpit - but being able to operate old analogue backups for navigation nevertheless. Just in case. Some people just pick a GPS, and nothing else. I am the type who also picks up a compass and a map, and in case of doubt - skip the GPS, but not the latter two.

P.S.
Imagine to live in a uniform, supressive society, under a totalitarian regime. Youhave been grown there, you do not know it any different. What then with probabilites to decide which decisions to make? These probabilities would be defioned and formed - by said totalitarianism around you. So basing on socially constructed and induced probabilities would lead you on what right now you would probbaly agree to call a wrong way. It would make sure you stay "inside", and don't break "out".

In an anarchic regime, your probabilities wopuld lead you totally different, away from conformism, and towards individualism and jungle law.

Obviously, probability alone does not do the trick.

[sidslotm]

So what do these increasing numbers of non-believers believe in,


Belief is the key word, what is belief, what do you believe in if anything. Love, Faith, the human Spirit to overcome all things (I think of Lance Armstrong here). My theory is, even athiests believe, it's just we have lost the understanding of what belief really is.

The British pastor, Smith Wigglesworth said, " if you have to pray about something more than once, that is unbelief " . So what is the point, the point is this, even life long Church going folk struggle with belief the same as everyone else in the secular. Jesus said, "if you believe in me, greater things will you do"

I don't know if anyone will follow this link and watch, but I will say this before you click on it. This man did this a documented 29 times and his life long ministry was "only believe" :up:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luh30BiCUlI

[Sailor Steve]

This man did this a documented 29 times and his life long ministry was "only believe" :up:
Documented? By whom? Can you show this documentation?

[sidslotm]

I notice you have an Amazon.com link Steve, thats where I buy my books from the USA. The documented testimonies can be found there, plus first hand accounts on youtube. :yeah:

[Tribesman]

The documented testimonies can be found there, plus first hand accounts on youtube.
You mean strange medical claims that are not verified

[Armistead]

Belief is the key word, what is belief, what do you believe in if anything. Love, Faith, the human Spirit to overcome all things (I think of Lance Armstrong here). My theory is, even athiests believe, it's just we have lost the understanding of what belief really is.

The British pastor, Smith Wigglesworth said, " if you have to pray about something more than once, that is unbelief " . So what is the point, the point is this, even life long Church going folk struggle with belief the same as everyone else in the secular. Jesus said, "if you believe in me, greater things will you do"

I don't know if anyone will follow this link and watch, but I will say this before you click on it. This man did this a documented 29 times and his life long ministry was "only believe" :up:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luh30BiCUlI

Garbage...no proof, just stories to still emotions to get people to open their wallets, thinking they can buy God. Just like Hinn who claims he can medically prove his healings, tells news people he will show them and not once has. Sure, they can get people stirred emotionally with lights, music and preaching and convince them to overcome pain for a few minutes, all it is.

Faith and doubt go hand in hand.

[Sailor Steve]

I notice you have an Amazon.com link Steve, thats where I buy my books from the USA. The documented testimonies can be found there, plus first hand accounts on youtube. :yeah:
Documentation is something recorded, facts that can be shown. All the books in the world don't show facts, just talk. If someone was actually raised from the dead it would be world news, not hidden in books.

Documented testimonies are not documentation of the fact itself. A thousand people can claim God talked to them directly in their meeting. If there is no film of God doing the talking, then it's not documentation. Or, to loosely paraphrase Thomas Paine, "If God talks to me, it's revelation. If I tell you about it, it's hearsay."

As for YouTube, put up the links. But I will say this: Someone saying it, even on film, does not make it true, and is not documentation. I could say I've actually contacted the saucer people. This doesn't make it so.

All your :yeah: is, is hearsay.

[Skybird]

Let'S analyse that TV-pastor's claims by scientific methodolog. If it survives that, then there is something worth to take note of. Else it is just this: claims and babbling.

TV-evangelicals and money-fixiated sectarians - c'mon sidslotm! Is your reasonability so cheap for sale? It should be more valuable to you. Much more.

[sidslotm]

Thomas Paine, "If God talks to me, it's revelation. If I tell you about it, it's hearsay


Interesting quote by tom paine, I would say there is belief in what he is saying. I would also say many of the things paine spoke of where truths that he believed in, he motivated people with his belief, and they believed as well. He brought people together under a flag of belief.

I'm not trying to preach, I don't attend Church, but I do believe.
I believe men find truth in revelation that paine spoke of and do great things with that truth. But I also understand that bernays believed. But his belief structure was based on a darker understanding of how to get people motivated to do things.

A total secular society is not far away in the western world, with it we will loose the ability to decern truth, without the ability to believe in truth we are all lost. Paine inspired men to believe, but so did Bernays, European Facists believed in Bernays in the 30s, as do many politians in America and Europe today, the problem we all have is "belief"


The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Edward Bernayes, USA.

[sidslotm]

TV-evangelicals and money-fixiated sectarians


Could't agree more, I was simply using Wigglesworth as an example of larger than life believer. I have read many books about this man, I find him to have been an exraordinary man. What I find alarming is people dismiss belief so readly, when belief is the backbone of any Nation.

If you read about Wigglesworth he was a plumber from Bradford in the north of England. He had a speech impediment and never learned to read and write untill later in life. But what he did have was belief. :rock:

[Skybird]

Empirically justified trust (=Vertrauen), and empirically justified expectation of the future - that is the only belief I accept to see some value in. As long as said belief is not followed blindly and uncritically. Anything else is just this: wild and unfounded speculation about fairy tale content.

But that is what relgions want: to believe them blindly and uncritically, not testing their claims for validity and truth. Becasue they cannot deliver under such rules. In order to hide that, blind belief gets declared a moral, noble quality, and asking questions, critically analysing just claims, gets demonised.

I ask you for just one simple quality: evidence that can be repeated and redone by everybody, and is in conformity with the rules of logic and scientific methodology.

It were the ancient Greeks who explicitly made it a criterion that any explanation for observed phenomenons shall not base on references to assumed magical qualities or devine entities or gods or the ideas about the Greek pantheon. Did them well, I would say. And us. Without it, we would not enjoy the little injection at the dentist, no medical surgery, no space program, no boost in our knoweldge about the world and the universe. No subsim games and no diverse blossoming of cultural life and arts. We just would sit in our dark cold cabin and try to arrange deals with our imagined deity: "I give you three prayers a day and a sacrifice once every three months, and you give me a good harvest this year, a healthy delivery for my wife, and the little demon living in my tooth going away."

And the real problem starts when we die: because the deity that we thought out, died along with us. Not good.

[August]

What started out as a thread about the ethical superiority of secular people (stunningly arrogant in itself) has devolved yet again into religious bashing.

Well I believe it is not ethical to take every opportunity possible to belittle the religious beliefs of billions of people just because one does not share them.

It's easy to see why secular people are so disliked.

[Skybird]

What started out as a thread about the ethical superiority of secular people (stunningly arrogant in itself)
Obviously you have not read the opening article then.


Well I believe it is not ethical to take every opportunity possible to belittle the religious beliefs of billions of people just because one does not share them.
It is not polite to push own religious beliefs down others throat and demanding them to just sit still and let it happen. It is also not polite to express with greatest naturalness that religious belief and empiry/scientific methodology/logic&reason reside side by side, on same eye level. Claiming reasonability for hearsay and religion's claims for respectability and blind believing - that is arrogant and belittling for the potential of human mind!

[August]

Obviously you have not read the opening article then.


It is not polite to push own religious beliefs down others throat and demanding them to just sit still and let it happen. It is also not polite to express with greatest naturalness that religious belief and empiry/scientific methodology/logic&reason reside side by side, on same eye level. Claiming reasonability for hearsay and religion's claims for respectability and blind believing - that is arrogant and belittling for the potential of human mind!

Except your definition of pushing "ones religious beliefs down others throat and demanding them to just sit still" means to just mention them in public. If it were up to you all religious people would be locked away in some dungeon somewhere so you wouldn't sully your eyes by having to see them.

That is not ethical to my thinking.

[Tribesman]

What I find alarming is people dismiss belief so readly, when belief is the backbone of any Nation
What people dismissed was your claim of it being well documented that he raised 29 people from the dead.
BTW I thought the Pennines was the backbone of your nation not belief.

[Skybird]

Except your definition of pushing "ones religious beliefs down others throat and demanding them to just sit still" means to just mention them in public. If it were up to you all religious people would be locked away in some dungeon somewhere so you wouldn't sully your eyes by having to see them.

That is not ethical to my thinking.
Good to know. I am always open to learn more about myself, and to be pointed at new, original ways of dealing with the religious pest all around me.

[sidslotm]

What people dismissed was your claim of it being well documented that he raised 29 people from the dead


Amazon.com, check it out.

The point about ethics is, you don't have to attend Church to believe in what is right, but you do have to believe. Knowing what is "right" can be taught in schools, but to carry them into real life and defend them takes believe. The problem with a totally secular society is that we loose decernment, we open ourselves to the likes of Edward Bernayes who's belief was that we are all here to be used by the few who control and govern.

Tony Blair lied to the electorate about weapons of mass destruction, and got us involved in a un-wanted war. Blair took the Bernayes principal to deceive and control to the limit, because England is now seen, and maybe now a leading heathen nation second only to Japan, it's hardly surprising that the people are fooled.

You have the right not to believe what I'm saying, fine. Maybe I chose the wrong youtube clip to make my point about belif. But my point is, we all for the most believe, it's just we no longer understand what belief is, it's disapearing like our freedom and being replaced by controlling middle class government who offer up cold reason to pacify us, reason = to make an excuse.

[Sailor Steve]

Interesting quote by tom paine, I would say there is belief in what he is saying. I would also say many of the things paine spoke of where truths that he believed in, he motivated people with his belief, and they believed as well. He brought people together under a flag of belief.
While the thread is about ethics, you made a claim that this man actually raised people from the dead. I challenged that, and you haven't responded. As I said "Amazon.com - check it out" is not evidence. That you believe is fine, and I have no argument. I don't know if what you believe is the truth or not. But you made a claim about a supernatural but obviously physical phenomenon, and it is your job to provide direct evidence, not tell everyone else to look it up. If you can't provide that evidence then you need to say so, and admit that it might not be so obvious, or so true.

Where are these people? What do they say? Faith healing is cute, but as the old saying goes, "The road to Lourdes is littered with crutches, but not one artificial limb."

[Tribesman]

Amazon.com, check it out.

Have they got books on the loch ness monster?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_9?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=loch+ness+monster&sprefix=loch+ness
wow 1400 documented pieces so it must be true, do you believe it?
After all this proof of amazon apparently carries weight and 1400 publications on amazon about nessie certainly outweighs 300 on wiggle of the dead.

[Dowly]

If you can't provide that evidence then you need to say so, and admit that it might not be so obvious, or so true.

:up:

[August]

If you can't provide that evidence then you need to say so, and admit that it might not be so obvious, or so true.


That'd be the ethical thing to do... :DL

[Madox58]

he raised 29 people from the dead.

:o
So this is some VooDoo Priest or what?
Or has the Zombie Apocolypse started?
:hmmm:

[MH]

I'm not sure its ethical to rise people from the dead......:hmmm:

[Madox58]

I'm not sure its ethical to rise people from the dead......:hmmm:

Good point!!

:hmmm:
Is it even Ethical to 'think or discuss' the raiseing of the dead?

[Skybird]

In psychology and psychophysiology as well as neurobiology, the issue of whether there is a free will or not has received growing attention since the 80s.

The idea that there is a free will obviously plays a role in criminology, and the way societies tend to think of punishment as a more revenge- or more resocialisation measure gets massively influenced by it, obviously.

Now, ever couple of months or years, some researchers, mostly from the neuro-branch of science, report some findings that still do not give a complete oicture, but they claim they indicate that maybe there is something like a genetic vulnerability for showing certain types of antispocial or crminal behaviors, reactions, and cognitions that lead to the first to.

Our legal systems base on the theporetic concept that peiople are responsible for their decisions and actions, sicne theyx are free to decide for this and against that. But what if it would be found that genetic predispositions play a decisive role...? When the idea of a free will being exiostent during the casue of a criminal deed, our current system of laws and our understanding of punishment as an educational measure, would chnage dramatically, and necessarily so. The aspect of just protecting the victims of the future would win in importance over resocialisation concepts (let's ignore here the question whether or not these resocialsiation ideas actually do work or not). Crime prevention would gain importance over resocialsiation and revenge aspects, too. And if genetic markers decide over the degree of criminal tendencies in a chcracter, then the idea depicted in the film "Minority Report" would be diuscussed, too: to sentence people for crimes that they still have nbot committed, but would in the future.

I wonder what the more and more often claimed genetical influence on cognitions deciding whether we tend to feel more attracted by believing or by being analytical-sceptical-secular will mean for the debate on the issues, and if there even is a chance then that the analytical mindset and the beloieving mindset ever could come to terms with each other? Wouldn't it mean the end of argument at all? Not becasue the one has convinced the other, but becasue the one simply lacks the needed preconditions to understand the way the other ticks? Of course, as I explained yesterday, at least I hope to have illustrated that, we do not so much talk of definite features in a person's cognitive pattern that are completely formed and set up by genes, but we talk about a window of opportunity so to speak, a range within said features could develope and unfold in interaqction with all the many sociological and cultural factors that also infoluence us. Genetic vulnerabiliuty models do not say egnes decide the ultimate form - just the limits and borders inside which interaction of genetic predispositions and enviuro9nmental factors could interact and mix for carving out a final "foprm". And if that necessarily must always stay like it once has come out, also is another question, although we know that man with growing age becomes more and more inflexible in his habits and mental attitudes.

I again remind of the triangle excperiment described in the orihginal article at the very start, and thgat I have again quoted for Sammi meanwhile. It does not soun d,like much, but the tendency to antropomorphise in the one group while the oither group stayed analytical, is really pointing at something that may have significance for "religious convictions versus analytical mindset."

Putting it in an exaggerated form, maybe relgious people geneticall have no other choiuce than to believe, and secular people, as they are being called in the starting article, have no other choice than to be analytical.

That would lead any often tried discussion about whether religious or atheists are morally superior, ad absurdum in much the same way like any genetic predisposition for criminal behavior would lead ad absurdum our humanistic concept of free will, and the basis of our legal systems.

I personally thin k the truth is somewhere in between. I do not share the typically Western annoucned opinion o fa totally free will. Reading just a book on evolutionary bi9logy, sexcual psychology and bio-medicine easily convince me of the underlaying funda,ment of biochemical interactions that regulate our behaviour. However, I also do not believe in strict genetic determinism. I think that by becoming enlightened on the facts themselves and how they influence the way we are designed to function, in interaction with out big miracle-in-the-head, our mind and awareness that is, can open us the opportunity to claim more or less free will's dominance over our biologic heritage. However, as already Sigmund Freud said, I also think that the paiunt of civilisation that covers the skin of the animals that we are, is very thin and can be easily scratched off.

Heaven or hell, to me both are indications of our individual mind's evolution, and it is in our hands to create paradise around us, or hell. Samsara and nirvana, heaven and hell, both are there everywhere, all the time, permeating and ionforming each other, and in the end being not two, but just one. It depends on the state of mind in which we meet the world that we experience in our life.

Now, what role play ethics in this model then?

[Skybird]

I'm not sure its ethical to rise people from the dead......:hmmm:
:DL Good one!

[CaptainHaplo]

Religion assists in creating a moral and ethical compass. Without it, the sense of "right" or "wrong" is much more subjective.

This is not to say a secular person cannot be ethical. However, a secular person either creates their own standard of ethics or uses a societal standard.

Individual ethics are dangerous - since a serial murderer may judge their actions to be ethical based upon their own views. Obviously, this is a flawed concept.

Societal ethics are too much "in flux". After all, slavery was ethical to society just a few hundred years ago. Heck, in some places of the world, its acceptable NOW. There are a multitude of instances where society has, over time, changed its viewpoint on what is and is not ethical.

Religious standards create a clear and unchanging line of what are acceptable ethical standards. Each religion should be judged based upon where its individual theology states its ethics reside. However, because religious ethics are not "evolving" as individual or societal ethics do, it is a more useful TOOL in creating a moral and ethical compass.

The issue really should not be whether a religious or secular person is "more ethical", because it will depend on what religious or secular ethic you want to judge it by. Rather the question should be "which has the more likelyhood of creating an ethical person?". That will depend on the person - and not the ethic itself.

[Armistead]

Religion assists in creating a moral and ethical compass. Without it, the sense of "right" or "wrong" is much more subjective.

This is not to say a secular person cannot be ethical. However, a secular person either creates their own standard of ethics or uses a societal standard.

Individual ethics are dangerous - since a serial murderer may judge their actions to be ethical based upon their own views. Obviously, this is a flawed concept.

Societal ethics are too much "in flux". After all, slavery was ethical to society just a few hundred years ago. Heck, in some places of the world, its acceptable NOW. There are a multitude of instances where society has, over time, changed its viewpoint on what is and is not ethical.

Religious standards create a clear and unchanging line of what are acceptable ethical standards. Each religion should be judged based upon where its individual theology states its ethics reside. However, because religious ethics are not "evolving" as individual or societal ethics do, it is a more useful TOOL in creating a moral and ethical compass.

The issue really should not be whether a religious or secular person is "more ethical", because it will depend on what religious or secular ethic you want to judge it by. Rather the question should be "which has the more likelyhood of creating an ethical person?". That will depend on the person - and not the ethic itself.

Sorry, one need just look at past religion that caused more wars, hate, torture all through history. Tribes through the world had their lands stolen and cultures decimated in the name of God. Slavery, womens rights, etc..all denied, stem from a religious base. If it weren't for secular law that seperates religion from government, it would be much the same today.

That's not saying they're sincere people of faith, history shows us that. We must seperate religion from faith, but my fear is so much of religion has woven into the doctrine of even sincere believers. We see many of these radical politicians today.

People can be moral and ethical without religion. Most religions in history used fear and guilt as tools to keep people in line. Many don't serve God out of wanting or love, they simply don't want to be tortured eternally. Why it's easy to think such a place exist biblically, if one studies the greek, the culture, there is no eternal hell of torture in the bible. It wasn't a belief of the early church for 400 years after Christ died. It was a common pagan belief that existed for over 1000 years before Christ. Rome created hell, redefined the greek and embraced a pagan doctrine into the church. One only study the history and politics can see they did so as tools to control the masses. The church had never been an agent of torture before this, but once the church embraced God will torture, they became agents of torture themselves.

[Betonov]

Secularism doesn't make people more ethical. But secularism does make nations more ethical. Religion must be banned from politics and a wall built between them with no gates.

[Tribesman]

After all, slavery was ethical to society just a few hundred years ago.
Religious standards create a clear and unchanging line of what are acceptable ethical standards.
Wow, it really takes a "preacher" to best demonstrate problems with some "religious" people.

But anyway enough lessons on religious ethics and scripture from pastor Haplo.:rotfl2:
Time for a fun experiment.
Religious and nonreligious people as both can be ethical, but as a meaningless measure lets take a person who does not steal because a powerful force which sees all may punish him and a person who doesn't steal simply because he thinks it isn't nice.
Which is more ethical?

[CaptainHaplo]

Armistead:

Ahh what lovely bashing of anything religious....

At no point did I say that religion didn't cause wars, or cause what is by today's standards, unethical behavior.

However, your blaming religion for the actions of people, when you should be blaming the actions of people themselves. Let us take Judeao-Xtianity. Nothing in its theology suggests that gays should still be stoned, or that a thief should lose his hand. In fact, the theology teaches forgiveness of your fellow man. Love for your neighbor (yet love not his action). It teaches that one should not steal, or lie, or murder. Rather ethical, don't you think?

One need merely to look at the Crusades and its easy to find barbarity in the name of religion. Yet the rapes, murders, pillaging and such that occured were done under the auspices of the church - so it must be that religion is bad, right? But religion itself is not the problem - it is how those in power choose to hide behind it.

Is the theology of Catholicism to blame for the pedophillia of a priest? Or is it the fault of the human being who cared out the heinous acts? Slavery is not the FAULT of religion - it is the fault of the slaveowner. There is a distinct difference between religion being the cause of a social ill and religion being something that a person hides behind to "justify" their actions.

Women's equality? Ok granted Islam and a few other middle eastern religions regard women as property. Others, such as catholicism and modern protestanism see women holding an equal (yet distinct and seperate) role. They are equal in stature as humans, they are not property or "less human". They are accorded equal rights and in certain life areas, are to be considered in authority. Women's equality in modern history actually has its roots in theology. The Biblical creation of women, they were made from a rib - not the head to be above man, nor the feet to be below him demonstrate the equality of women.

Now if you want to have a discussion on the subject of a woman's submission to her husband, we can do that - but be aware that the Bible also makes it clear to the man that we are to submit ourselves for the good of our wives - even unto death - as Christ did for the church. So many people want to complain about one part, and ignore the rest....

The problem with your position is that you equate the church or religion (made up of and asserted by PEOPLE) to its theology - which simply is a structure for "righteous" living. If people followed the "rules" of most religions, instead of trying to hide behind it, embraced the ideals instead of trying to use them to justify their behavior, this would not even be a question.

MOST theologies accepted in the world do not cause war. Sure, some tenants of Islam do, but your talking about a religion that never grew up on that one. The rest have all matured - while mankinds NATURE has not. It is the nature of man to be selfish. Religion has simply been used as the excuse to allow man to do so.

All in the "name" of God you said, and yes its true that mankind often invokes the name of God when they do something that otherwise would be wrong. Yet did it never occur to you that man cannot fathom nor judge God, and that to claim His purpose to justify your own violates what most theologies hold as tenets?

Don't blame God or religion for the actions of man. Why should man just be able to blame his actions on God and you be ok with letting man off the hook and blame God without question? Seems kind of silly to me, since even a child will lie and blame others for their actions. Such reasoning defies logic. Unless of course you simply are predisposed to blame God and religion.

Pretend you took God out of the equation for a minute. Do you really think that history would be much different? Do you really think that the Crusades would not have happened? Sure they would have - because Israel occupies a strategic location in the Med. It did and does to this day. The leaders of the time would have simply found some other way to whip up the people and have a go. Same thing for the Jihads of the era.
They still would have occured, just not with a religious theme. Because it is the nature of mankind to be selfish, to want what the other person has and to try and take it from them.

Or do you think that the cavemen that raided the neighbors cave and made off with the cavewomen to have little cavekids did so because God told em to?

Man has used God as an excuse throughout history - that doesn't mean God is to blame. You need to see past the excuse.

[Tribesman]

Oh dear, even on the "sabbath" (terms and conditions apply) he goes out of his way to demonstrate that he doesn't know his scripture.

Slavery is not the FAULT of religion - it is the fault of the slaveowner. There is a distinct difference between religion being the cause of a social ill and religion being something that a person hides behind to "justify" their actions.

Damn that bible eh , pesky little book.

[Hottentot]

Man has used God as an excuse throughout history - that doesn't mean God is to blame. You need to see past the excuse.

That is true for many other ideologies in the world too. I'm curious: does it apply to all the others as well?

[Tribesman]

I'm curious: does it apply to all the others as well?
Of course it does.
If it is written in the 6th part of the pentabarf that you should not kill slaves then a dicordiant who kills his slave is breaking the "religions" rules on keeping slaves and is hiding his excuse behind god when he shouldn't as his "god" actually said you shouldn't do that as killing slaves isn't nice as they are valuable property.
Not of course suggesting that the Principa Discordia would suggest that slavery is officialy sanctioned and regulated under the laws of the supreme.

[Sammi79]

Hi folks, I got called away so haven't been able to discuss here until now. I know its a bit late but I wanted to debate Skybirds last reply to me, and some of the more recent posts here. :) first of all, Sky, may I just say without going into the detail that the argument that believer or analytic are genetically pre-disposed toward one or the other is in your own words, far too generalistic. Its a bit like saying that there are 2 types of people, short and tall, because half are over 5'9" and half are under. in the case of mental faculties, these qualities are not mutually exclusive. One could be a believer but on a smaller focused level be very analytical.


I reserve the right to decide that on an individual levbeöl as well as a level of where I also include the goals, desaires and ideological convictions somebody clings to. Thus I reserve the right to include some - and exclude others. I also reserve the right to say that not all and everything is of equal value, is just vartiations of just one and the same unerlaying quality, or must be accepted just becasue "it is".
As a consequence of thios, I am tolerant on some things, and intolerant on others. Tolerance needs limits.

Peoples thoughts (desires/ideologies/convictions) have no effect on me. I am intolerant of people who commit crime but my intolerance is based on a negative harmful action. Like the police, who would like to lock people up before they commit crime, but they have no just cause until a crime is committed. intolerance due to preconception (usually mistaken) is simply thinly veiled fascism and at the very least unethical.

Probabilities are just this: probabilities. And as every student of classic test theory knows, there is one mahjor probloem with test theory and theories on the relevance of probabilities for realty: probabilities win in relevance by total number of events being taken into account for calculating them. Total relevance and trustworthiness they only gain in case of an infinite ammount of such events - and that practically is impossible to imagine. It is good habit imo to operate by probabilities, yes - but also to be in the knowedfge of certain unsolved problems and implications. Like flying a modern aircraft with glass cockpit - but being able to operate old analogue backups for navigation nevertheless. Just in case. Some people just pick a GPS, and nothing else. I am the type who also picks up a compass and a map, and in case of doubt - skip the GPS, but not the latter two.


Probabiities are concerned with events that may or may not happen in the future. When an event has happened it can no longer be considered in a probablistic sense because it is in the past. Probabilities about abstract anthropmorhological fantasies can never truly be considered as likely, even though by their own nature cannot EVER be disproved. Just because something can never be disproved does not mean that therefore it can be proved. I can say I 99.9% believe that fairies do not exist, I can never completely prove that they don't. But they don't! I'm 100% sure! The GPS/map&compass argument is nice but the probabilities are my map&compass - because they are much closer to the reality of the matter and therefore ultimately a more reliable guide.

What started out as a thread about the ethical superiority of secular people (stunningly arrogant in itself) has devolved yet again into religious bashing.

Well I believe it is not ethical to take every opportunity possible to belittle the religious beliefs of billions of people just because one does not share them.

It's easy to see why secular people are so disliked.

Well the title question does involve religion. Secularism is itself a separation of religion from behaviour, government and education. Which I might add in the USA you have secular education built into your constitution, though as I understand it most folks tend to (from an outsiders point of view) ignore this and go the 'faith' school route anyway. If I say I find religion and religious practices offensive then you would say I'm being intolerant and narrow minded. The truth that many atheists in your country are afraid to admit their views for real fear of physical harm, describes exactly the intolerant nature of religion I am talking about. If you read my previous posts carefully you will see at least twice I mention the fact that the discussion is going off-topic regarding religion, but have been drawn back to counter argue (about religion) each time.

Religion assists in creating a moral and ethical compass. Without it, the sense of "right" or "wrong" is much more subjective.

:stare: No this is totally wrong. Religion with all of its contradictions and falsehoods should be considered harmful in regard to a 'moral compass' - do unto thy neighbour - good - gays shall be eternally punished - erm - infidels must die - :doh: There are simply too many confused hypocrisies to be considered helpful to a developing mind.

This is not to say a secular person cannot be ethical. However, a secular person either creates their own standard of ethics or uses a societal standard.

Individual ethics are dangerous - since a serial murderer may judge their actions to be ethical based upon their own views. Obviously, this is a flawed concept.

Societal ethics are too much "in flux". After all, slavery was ethical to society just a few hundred years ago. Heck, in some places of the world, its acceptable NOW. There are a multitude of instances where society has, over time, changed its viewpoint on what is and is not ethical.

Religious standards create a clear and unchanging line of what are acceptable ethical standards. Each religion should be judged based upon where its individual theology states its ethics reside. However, because religious ethics are not "evolving" as individual or societal ethics do, it is a more useful TOOL in creating a moral and ethical compass.

The issue really should not be whether a religious or secular person is "more ethical", because it will depend on what religious or secular ethic you want to judge it by. Rather the question should be "which has the more likelyhood of creating an ethical person?". That will depend on the person - and not the ethic itself.

Morality is not the exclusive domain of religion. I have had this argument many times, that without religion, people will turn into savage animals etc. Atheism promotes a responsibility of the self - you ultimately are responsible for your actions, good or bad. This is morally superior to the theologic ideas that we follow a pre-determined path and that our actions are 'guided' by either god or the devil. If you're not so concerned with your reward/punishment (afterlife/next life/whatever...) then you are more compelled to think about reward/punishment in your current life, and to live a good and meaningful one, because its all you've got. I do not intend to attack religious folks on here, I have many religious friends and it seems to serve them well. I still think it wouldn't hurt them to let it go once in a while mind. Sorry for the wall of text, just too many points need discussing.

[Betonov]

Since I became an atheist, my wiew on life changed for the better. There's no afterlife for me, neither for anyone else. Meaning life is more precius since everyone only gets one chance. It's even more wrong to kill, even more right to save someone. There's no reward for suffering on the other side, so it's even more important to prevent suffering while you're alive, to yourself and others.

But it goes down to the individual, like anything else. Evil atheists are out there, good religius people also (insert liberal rhetoric).

[Skybird]

Religion assists in creating a moral and ethical compass. Without it, the sense of "right" or "wrong" is much more subjective.

This is not to say a secular person cannot be ethical. However, a secular person either creates their own standard of ethics or uses a societal standard.

Individual ethics are dangerous - since a serial murderer may judge their actions to be ethical based upon their own views. Obviously, this is a flawed concept.

Societal ethics are too much "in flux". After all, slavery was ethical to society just a few hundred years ago. Heck, in some places of the world, its acceptable NOW. There are a multitude of instances where society has, over time, changed its viewpoint on what is and is not ethical.

Religious standards create a clear and unchanging line of what are acceptable ethical standards. Each religion should be judged based upon where its individual theology states its ethics reside. However, because religious ethics are not "evolving" as individual or societal ethics do, it is a more useful TOOL in creating a moral and ethical compass.

The issue really should not be whether a religious or secular person is "more ethical", because it will depend on what religious or secular ethic you want to judge it by. Rather the question should be "which has the more likelyhood of creating an ethical person?". That will depend on the person - and not the ethic itself.

You ignore that religion's ethics are man's work and thus are as prone to the criticism you direct against individual and communal ethics. Even worse, religions get often driven (church) or founded (Muhammad) by people forming the ruling hierarchy and then having their own political agenda to stay in power. Which makes these individuals even less "morally qualified" to define a set of ethics rules that would be "superior" to that of individuals.

Conformist thinking also is a problem in religion, conformist thinking almost always is uncritical thinking. Nice for those in power, bad for the individual.

The worst crimes and cruelties have been conducted in the name of relgion's and their ethical claims and statements.

Last but not least, religions may have different ethics from each other. So which one is true, better, more correct?

Children are often said to be "innocent". They can rip the wings off a fly, not knowing what they are doing. Later, when they grow, they can start to biotterly weep and cry because the have slapped to death a wasp, and Mum comes and helps them to bury it in the garden. From some age on, young humans simply feel and know about certain ethical rules that in the world of humans pretty much can be seen as omni-valid. For example "Do not kill". It neither needed a Buddha nor a Christ to tell mankind that - young humans know that all by themselves. When they ignore that and engage in gang wars or later, in real wars, or murder, or whatever, this both needs years of feeling deadening due to according environmental stimuli, or it needs systematic training to lower the psychological barrier to intentionally kill other humans. When we are young childsren, we also have a more direct and immediate relation to the way we approach other beings, we can be very harsh and crude in protecting that small handfull of candies that are ours, and we can be very uncomplicated and impulsive in offering some of them to another child, for example when we see it being sad, or crying.

Biologists and behavioral scientists since years report observations amongst chimps for not only cooperative behaviour (which you have in many other species, too, not only in mammals but also in birds), but also for altruistic behaviour. It is asked whether chimps are altruistic because in the long run, such behaviour pays off better for every individual in the community , or because they feel the need to be "kind" this way, a need that satisfies itself without any bio-sociological function beyond that. But the same question you must ask about humans, too. That man jumping into the lake to save that othert guy drowning in the water - is he really acting unselfishly, or does he knopw the victim is a billiopnaire, or does the saving man think he can make an investement into his heavenly banking ac**** that pays off positively when the day of the final judgement has come?

All in all, seen pragmatically, a mixture of Kants Golden Rule and the Kalamas Sutra that I quoted somewhere above seems to be most promising approach to ethical behjavior and what it should look like. And I see no need for any religious dogmas coming first in order to create "better ethics".

However, all this has little to do with the questzion whether or not we have genetic predispositions influencing us in our probability to become relgious believer or analytical secular, not to mention the possibility that the genes maybe leave us no other choice then to become either e believing or an analytical person!? And what consequences this would have for our religion, it'S clashes with atheism, and ethics and morals in general!?

[Skybird]

Hi folks, I got called away so haven't been able to discuss here until now. I know its a bit late but I wanted to debate Skybirds last reply to me, and some of the more recent posts here. :) first of all, Sky, may I just say without going into the detail that the argument that believer or analytic are genetically pre-disposed toward one or the other is in your own words, far too generalistic. Its a bit like saying that there are 2 types of people, short and tall, because half are over 5'9" and half are under. in the case of mental faculties, these qualities are not mutually exclusive. One could be a believer but on a smaller focused level be very analytical.
Haven't I repeatedly referred to the so-called genetic vulnerability model, wherein genes decide not the ultimate outcome, but a range of options, how wide or narrow the degrees of freedom are for a given trait to form and unfold in interaction with the environment the subject happens toi live in?

I have. Repeatedly. ;)


Peoples thoughts (desires/ideologies/convictions) have no effect on me. I am intolerant of people who commit crime but my intolerance is based on a negative harmful action.

You happen to live in a world where crimes are defined as what we understand them, you have been risen with these defintions, you cannot escape them. If you were born as a Mongolian warrior, you would not see bad in conquering, looting, raping and stealing in the city you just have taken. If you were born as a Mayan warrior, as a juvenile and adult you would see nothing wrong in slitting open the chest of prisoners and ripping their hearts out alive. But you have been born as a civilised contemporary Westerner, and so you see violations against the rules we have as "criminal", amongst them those acts I described above.

Like the police, who would like to lock people up before they commit crime, but they have no just cause until a crime is committed. intolerance due to preconception (usually mistaken) is simply thinly veiled fascism and at the very least unethical.
I made some remarks on that problem in an earlier postz, where I also referred to the implications of genetic fundaments for criminal (or better: antisocial or amoral) behaviour, and referred to the theme of the movie "Minority Report".

Probabilities are concerned with events that may or may not happen in the future. When an event has happened it can no longer be considered in a probablistic sense because it is in the past. Probabilities about abstract anthropmorhological fantasies can never truly be considered as likely, even though by their own nature cannot EVER be disproved. Just because something can never be disproved does not mean that therefore it can be proved. I can say I 99.9% believe that fairies do not exist, I can never completely prove that they don't. But they don't! I'm 100% sure! The GPS/map&compass argument is nice but the probabilities are my map&compass - because they are much closer to the reality of the matter and therefore ultimately a more reliable guide.
Somehow I feel not adressed by that passage, for my explanation on probabilities imo aimed at a very different direction when referring to what you said on probabilities just before.

However, have a nice ethically correct Sunday everybody. :DL

[Sammi79]

Haven't I repeatedly referred to the so-called genetic vulnerability model, wherein genes decide not the ultimate outcome, but a range of options, how wide or narrow the degrees of freedom are for a given trait to form and unfold in interaction with the environment the subject happens toi live in?

I have. Repeatedly. ;)

No, you have repeatedly mentioned 2 qualities as being diametrically opposed - religious believers/secular analysts.

You happen to live in a world where crimes are defined as what we understand them, you have been risen with these defintions, you cannot escape them. If you were born as a Mongolian warrior, you would not see bad in conquering, looting, raping and stealing in the city you just have taken. If you were born as a Mayan warrior, as a juvenile and adult you would see nothing wrong in slitting open the chest of prisoners and ripping their hearts out alive. But you have been born as a civilised contemporary Westerner, and so you see violations against the rules we have as "criminal", amongst them those acts I described above.

So if society says its OK we all think its OK? No. How do you think society evolved to view these things as crimes in the first place? because people within the societies realised that certain actions cause people harm and suffering and over time managed to inform a majority of the population regarding it, so the ideas about rules were developed, and eventually became laws - regarding crimes like slavery/murder/stealing/rape etc...

I made some remarks on that problem in an earlier postz, where I also referred to the implications of genetic fundaments for criminal (or better: antisocial or amoral) behaviour, and referred to the theme of the movie "Minority Report".

Somehow I feel not adressed by that passage, for my explanation on probabilities imo aimed at a very different direction when referring to what you said on probabilities just before.

However, have a nice ethically correct Sunday everybody.

Hmm well, The film you mention is a trashy predictable Tom Cruise promoting vehicle I fail to see the relevance to this discussion, it is loosely based on the ancient oracle idea of divining the future but being powerless to change it, and the idea of thought police etc.. but it is not a serious story.

You do not feel addressed by my passage? OK I shall explain. You were saying that 'faith' is like your map and compass while 'analysis' is like GPS. That and you'd never be without your map and compass but you could do without GPS. What I was saying is, 'analytics' are a better map and compass than 'faith' which is to me like having a childs painting for a map and a compass that points where you will it.

[Skybird]

Sammi, I collect some key notes of my postings here again, since you seem to struggle to kepe them together.

On probabilites I said in direct reply to a statement of yours:


That's what we do all the time, every day. But our problems, mentally as well as materially, arise when we think that just because we have never seen a black swan, there indeed are no black swans. Link. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Swan:_The_Impact_of_the_Highly_Improbabl e) Probabilities are just this: probabilities. And as every student of classic test theory knows, there is one mahjor probloem with test theory and theories on the relevance of probabilities for realty: probabilities win in relevance by total number of events being taken into account for calculating them. Total relevance and trustworthiness they only gain in case of an infinite ammount of such events - and that practically is impossible to imagine. That throwing a six with a dice has a probability of 1/6, does not exlcude the possibility that for the rest of all your life you will only throw sixers whenever you use a dice. That that is "unlikely", does not really hold any factual information. Becasue when it happens nevertheless, the imporbbale suddenly reaches a likelihood of 100.000% and the highly improbable plummtes down to 0.000%.

Granted, that is academic fun only. But in classicv test theory, which is repsonsible fpor major tools of data analysis and scientific test design, this has fundamental consequences and raises problems that so far nobody could solve. And so - they get simply ignored.


Imagine to live in a uniform, supressive society, under a totalitarian regime. Youhave been grown there, you do not know it any different. What then with probabilites to decide which decisions to make? These probabilities would be defioned and formed - by said totalitarianism around you. So basing on socially constructed and induced probabilities would lead you on what right now you would probbaly agree to call a wrong way. It would make sure you stay "inside", and don't break "out".

In an anarchic regime, your probabilities wopuld lead you totally different, away from conformism, and towards individualism and jungle law.

Obviously, probability alone does not do the trick.


Pay attention to that link to that book, it is important and illustrates the often underated importance and far-reaching conseqauences of low-porobability events. The soi-called Black Swan-problem has found entrance into scientifical, economical and philosphical discourse under right this title.

On genetic vulnerability and the possible role of genes for man'S tendency to antropomorphise, to religiously believe, and to stay analytical, I wqrote this:


I said that there are neurological indices for an inbuilt desire to believe or secular, and the trinagle experiment: an obvious difference in people to antromporphise or not do so when observing a culture-free, value-neutral-neutral stimulus.



I again remind of the triangle excperiment described in the orihginal article at the very start, and thgat I have again quoted for Sammi meanwhile. It does not soun d,like much, but the tendency to antropomorphise in the one group while the oither group stayed analytical, is really pointing at something that may have significance for "religious convictions versus analytical mindset."



Of course, as I explained yesterday, at least I hope to have illustrated that, we do not so much talk of definite features in a person's cognitive pattern that are completely formed and set up by genes, but we talk about a window of opportunity so to speak, a range within said features could develope and unfold in interaqction with all the many sociological and cultural factors that also infoluence us. Genetic vulnerabiliuty models do not say egnes decide the ultimate form - just the limits and borders inside which interaction of genetic predispositions and enviuro9nmental factors could interact and mix for carving out a final "foprm". And if that necessarily must always stay like it once has come out, also is another question, although we know that man with growing age becomes more and more inflexible in his habits and mental attitudes.



I personally thin k the truth is somewhere in between. I do not share the typically Western annoucned opinion o fa totally free will. Reading just a book on evolutionary bi9logy, sexcual psychology and bio-medicine easily convince me of the underlaying funda,ment of biochemical interactions that regulate our behaviour. However, I also do not believe in strict genetic determinism. I think that by becoming enlightened on the facts themselves and how they influence the way we are designed to function, in interaction with out big miracle-in-the-head, our mind and awareness that is, can open us the opportunity to claim more or less free will's dominance over our biologic heritage. However, as already Sigmund Freud said, I also think that the paiunt of civilisation that covers the skin of the animals that we are, is very thin and can be easily scratched off.


And finally, my whole posting #63. You see, I was about a little bit more than just Tom Cruise' acting qualities (or lack of), when mentioning "Minority Report".

Maybe not even complete a list of relevant quotes.

And yiour remark on societies having become more civilised, and why. The Mongoles became irrelevant when central control by one Khan got lost becasue he had no more treasures to conquer that he distriubute to buy the loyalty of his following clan leaders. The Mayans dissappeared due to civilisational total collapse when they overstretched the borders of their culture and could not supply themselves with food anymore. In sight into values of a different kind in both cases had nothing to do with their fall. And how different and superior we morally are today: well, just 70 years ago, just two generations, we had a situation in Germany were unimaginable cruelty was not only possible to take place inside a "civilised" Wetsern nation basing on the Wetsern canon of values, but were said cruelty even was turned into a moral and mandatory obligation for the state's organs, and the citizens. We also see the failiung of moral rules in Britain these days. In the plundering taking place in the riots over racism in America in the 90s, in LA. We see it happening in our embracing of Islamic totalitarianism and its intentional discrimination and aggressiveness on the reasons of gender, confession and "being different from Islam".

Again, Freud already reminded us of how thin the paint of civilisation is that just hides our animal heritage. The more conformistic we are, the more group-oriented - the more stupid people are being turned into, the more prone they become to throwing off the coat of civilisation, and become anarchic barbars again. Intelligence you see in the isolated, the individual person - not in the group. I therefore have a deep-rooting antipathy against collectivism, and against institutions and social structures basing on it. And as a German I have an additional historic justification to be sceptical of collectivism. It easily turns intelligent, moral individuals into a group of hungry unscrupellous beasts. This kind of collective stupidity, is not an individual psychological problem, and has little to do with education, but is a sociological symptom of groups inside which "group" wins dominance over individuals' thinking. This process turns the victim into - a parrot, you see. You often see that in political parties, unions, and religious feverish communities.

And it can happen again, everyhwhere in the Western, "civilised" world. The Balkan war is not too long ago, with immense atrocities systematically being carried out then. We see acts of big barbarism inside families with foreign cultural background, and attached communities refusing to assist in fighting against this at full power, instead paying lip confessions only. We see a more and more parts of the youth in europe getting barbarised in so far limited rampages, but I mind oyu the generatiuon 18-25 years more and more faces discouraging perspectives in growing parts of Europe, even rightout: hopelessness - this will not help to maintain the moral integrity of European societies.

However.

[CaptainHaplo]

Skybird,

Religion's ethics are "mans work", eh? Well, that is an understandable statement from an atheist. However, what if - as many believe - religious ethics are NOT man's work, but handed down from above? If religion is correct and there is a Higher Power that has defined what is right and wrong then it is not "mans work".

However, I will play devil's advocate for a moment. If your going to say that religious ethics are merely the work of men in power (whether men of a church or political organization), then you have to admit that the men claiming religous ethics are - by definition - actually secular - because they are INVENTING something and claiming it came from on High when they know such is not the case. Thus - they cannot have a legitimate belief in God (else they would not risk His wrath) and so become - by definition - secularists who merely (as I said before) hide behind the veil of religion to justify their actions.

If religious ethics are the result of man's work, then they are - regardless of how they are couched - still ultimately secular ethics. Religion is nothing without its Diety, and if you remove Diety, you get a construct made by man called religion but being a simple, secular framework or shell to control the masses.

Now one could argue that the modern church is exactly that - and history shows that in many ways it has been a construct to influence and direct society. I do not deny that - but as soon as that happens - it no longer has Diety - and thus - like many actions it has called religiously ethical, they are still based on secular (apart from Diety) causes and foundations.

Just because one says something is ok because it has some "religious" justification - does not make it so.

[Armistead]

Armistead:

Ahh what lovely bashing of anything religious....

At no point did I say that religion didn't cause wars, or cause what is by today's standards, unethical behavior.

However, your blaming religion for the actions of people, when you should be blaming the actions of people themselves. Let us take Judeao-Xtianity. Nothing in its theology suggests that gays should still be stoned, or that a thief should lose his hand. In fact, the theology teaches forgiveness of your fellow man. Love for your neighbor (yet love not his action). It teaches that one should not steal, or lie, or murder. Rather ethical, don't you think?

One need merely to look at the Crusades and its easy to find barbarity in the name of religion. Yet the rapes, murders, pillaging and such that occured were done under the auspices of the church - so it must be that religion is bad, right? But religion itself is not the problem - it is how those in power choose to hide behind it.

Is the theology of Catholicism to blame for the pedophillia of a priest? Or is it the fault of the human being who cared out the heinous acts? Slavery is not the FAULT of religion - it is the fault of the slaveowner. There is a distinct difference between religion being the cause of a social ill and religion being something that a person hides behind to "justify" their actions.

Women's equality? Ok granted Islam and a few other middle eastern religions regard women as property. Others, such as catholicism and modern protestanism see women holding an equal (yet distinct and seperate) role. They are equal in stature as humans, they are not property or "less human". They are accorded equal rights and in certain life areas, are to be considered in authority. Women's equality in modern history actually has its roots in theology. The Biblical creation of women, they were made from a rib - not the head to be above man, nor the feet to be below him demonstrate the equality of women.

Now if you want to have a discussion on the subject of a woman's submission to her husband, we can do that - but be aware that the Bible also makes it clear to the man that we are to submit ourselves for the good of our wives - even unto death - as Christ did for the church. So many people want to complain about one part, and ignore the rest....

The problem with your position is that you equate the church or religion (made up of and asserted by PEOPLE) to its theology - which simply is a structure for "righteous" living. If people followed the "rules" of most religions, instead of trying to hide behind it, embraced the ideals instead of trying to use them to justify their behavior, this would not even be a question.

MOST theologies accepted in the world do not cause war. Sure, some tenants of Islam do, but your talking about a religion that never grew up on that one. The rest have all matured - while mankinds NATURE has not. It is the nature of man to be selfish. Religion has simply been used as the excuse to allow man to do so.

All in the "name" of God you said, and yes its true that mankind often invokes the name of God when they do something that otherwise would be wrong. Yet did it never occur to you that man cannot fathom nor judge God, and that to claim His purpose to justify your own violates what most theologies hold as tenets?

Don't blame God or religion for the actions of man. Why should man just be able to blame his actions on God and you be ok with letting man off the hook and blame God without question? Seems kind of silly to me, since even a child will lie and blame others for their actions. Such reasoning defies logic. Unless of course you simply are predisposed to blame God and religion.

Pretend you took God out of the equation for a minute. Do you really think that history would be much different? Do you really think that the Crusades would not have happened? Sure they would have - because Israel occupies a strategic location in the Med. It did and does to this day. The leaders of the time would have simply found some other way to whip up the people and have a go. Same thing for the Jihads of the era.
They still would have occured, just not with a religious theme. Because it is the nature of mankind to be selfish, to want what the other person has and to try and take it from them.

Or do you think that the cavemen that raided the neighbors cave and made off with the cavewomen to have little cavekids did so because God told em to?

Man has used God as an excuse throughout history - that doesn't mean God is to blame. You need to see past the excuse.

The actions of people stems from their religious beliefs, that's what they're acting upon, those teachings. Most use the bible. The bible can be confusing. In the OT jewish law and scripture states "God given" set the tone. Women had no rights in the OT, they were owned property, the laws were cruel regarding them in many ways.

I agree, most christians will pronouce something using God as if they can fathom what's in his mind, such as Bachman, Palin, Perry...it still exist today. Their ethics are based on their beliefs. I have no problem when they feel the Lord tells them what to do, it's when the Lord tells them they need to tell me what to do I have issue with.

"Don't blame God or religion for the actions of man."

How can we know God except through religion. In any of your beliefs, most are defined by the doctrine of your denomination. Most believe God will send the masses of humanity to eternal torture. I don't know, but most state God is love, but before he created he would've known his plan would resort that in the end most of humanity would end up in his torture pit, but he created anyway....seems failed to me, most suffer enough on earth anyway. The actions of men stem from religion, each claiming their views come from God.

"Is the theology of Catholicism to blame for the pedophillia of a priest?"

When the Popes and higher ups protect pedophiles, know what they do and keep them serving, yes, I blame them. If these are the leaders that make and uphold doctrine of ethics, how could anyone take them seriously, but they do...Their theology gives a status of holiness and authority to human, often corrupt men. Anytime that happens the system will seek to protect itself instead of humanity, even children.

"Let us take Judeao-Xtianity. Nothing in its theology suggests that gays should still be stoned, or that a thief should lose his hand. In fact, the theology teaches forgiveness of your fellow man."

Actually the bible does teach this. I agree the NT gave a different theme, but religion acted differently, so why should I trust religion with ethics.

"Or do you think that the cavemen that raided the neighbors cave and made off with the cavewomen to have little cavekids did so because God told em to?"

Relgions have done this throughout history, all of them.

"Man has used God as an excuse throughout history - that doesn't mean God is to blame. You need to see past the excuse."

I agree, but those that do this are in organized religion in which most people follow. I find secular people much more in tune with humanity and ethics than those claiming religion.

[Tribesman]

I would say "How can a pastor be so tihick?"but I won't
It is more fun to let christian scripture rip the preacher apart

[Dowly]

I would say "How can a pastor be so tihick?"but I won't

Ooops, too late! :O:

[Skybird]

Skybird,

Religion's ethics are "mans work", eh? Well, that is an understandable statement from an atheist. However, what if - as many believe - religious ethics are NOT man's work, but handed down from above? If religion is correct and there is a Higher Power that has defined what is right and wrong then it is not "mans work".

However, I will play devil's advocate for a moment. If your going to say that religious ethics are merely the work of men in power (whether men of a church or political organization), then you have to admit that the men claiming religous ethics are - by definition - actually secular - because they are INVENTING something and claiming it came from on High when they know such is not the case. Thus - they cannot have a legitimate belief in God (else they would not risk His wrath) and so become - by definition - secularists who merely (as I said before) hide behind the veil of religion to justify their actions.

If religious ethics are the result of man's work, then they are - regardless of how they are couched - still ultimately secular ethics. Religion is nothing without its Diety, and if you remove Diety, you get a construct made by man called religion but being a simple, secular framework or shell to control the masses.

Now one could argue that the modern church is exactly that - and history shows that in many ways it has been a construct to influence and direct society. I do not deny that - but as soon as that happens - it no longer has Diety - and thus - like many actions it has called religiously ethical, they are still based on secular (apart from Diety) causes and foundations.

Indeed. Why did you think you had to explain this to me? ;) :DL Since all theistic dogmas of any theistic religions necessarily must base on man-made conceptions of dieties and assumed rules of said dieties, religious ethics are not more immune than atheist ethics to being abused by man, or worse: being abusive of man, or worst: absuing man and being abused by man, which for dominant timespans seems to have been the rule of major religions' history.

When people believe there is a separate creator, in the end that is ntheir personal speculation only, and I see no hint, no clue, no need and certainly no evidence why one should believe that, but okay - as long as people keep their convictions to themnselves, nobody needs to worry about anybody else. That is a two-lane road. But the speculative nature of any conception of "deiety" necessarily makes any idea about divine ethics and moral rules beign sent from said diety a speculation, too.

And speculation is just this: speculation. So why the fuss about it? Systematically taking something speculative as real truth, maybe even in an organised effort, does not make it any less speculative. It just turns it into organised speculation.

So I agree with you wholeheartly. "Religious ethics" are man-made ethics.

The real differenc between you and me is that I do not share your personal opinion (in the meaning of speculation) that theistic religions base on a not-man-made divine revelation about a creator. And I think we both know that we will not bridge that abyss between your and my position.

In the end man must admit that there are things he just does not know. Why not saying so, instead of speculating in fantasies? I think I indicated a possible answer earlier: because for our inner balance and psychological hbealth we depend on seeing a minimum of meaning in the circumstance of our small, little existence, which gives us the idea that actually we have a place in the show, and can control the codntions of our exiostence, and thus: we feel existentially safe. That's why I think we indeed need to add our meaning to the objects of our perception of the universe. and when refering to so-called radical constructivism, I could even poij nt out that it seems that our cognitions are designed not to just perceive soemthing, but to indeed construct what we perceive, according to the patterns we have build in sorting perceptions before.

Or in other woirds: WE are the meaning of things, we are the link that connects subject and object, we are meant to transcend the separation between the witness perceiving, and the object of his perception.

Maybe what we call cosmic evolution is just this: mind trying to become aware of just itself. Just this.

But that also is just speculation - this time my speculation. :)

[CaptainHaplo]

I picked up a copy of Mere Christianity just recently, and this actually made me go back and review this first chapter - since it starts with the whole "right vs wrong" discussion.

Skybird - yes - we will agree to disagree about what is man made and what is not. That's ok. We do so with respect.

However - since we agree that religion (not theology) is itself a construct - and a secular one - how can the question as it is originally stated - stand? If one considers religion itself to be a secular thing - is it not in its own way - secularism?

In other words - Does secularism make people more ethical than what? What are you comparing it to? If you want to compare it to someone who moves past "religion" and into a personal relationship with their Creator - I'd say no. If your comparing it to someone who simply claims a religion - then its not really a comparison at all.

The Divine simply is too big for us to comprehend. We as humans could not - despite our best efforts - scratch the surface of what the Divine is. So mankind developed rules - formalized them in various ways, and has societally used them for guidance since as to what is "good" or "right'.
That is our nature, and its ingrained in us. The whole arguement of "that is not FAIR" (which any child will use) demonstrates an ingrained sense of "fair" - of right vs wrong. That exists without societal training, religious training, or secular ethics training. The "rules" society has placed on itself, whether through religion, legislation or juris prudence, is simply a way to force conformity to the inate sense of right and wrong we (almost) all have.

[Skybird]

I picked up a copy of Mere Christianity just recently, and this actually made me go back and review this first chapter - since it starts with the whole "right vs wrong" discussion.

Skybird - yes - we will agree to disagree about what is man made and what is not. That's ok. We do so with respect.

However - since we agree that religion (not theology) is itself a construct - and a secular one - how can the question as it is originally stated - stand? If one considers religion itself to be a secular thing - is it not in its own way - secularism?

In other words - Does secularism make people more ethical than what? What are you comparing it to? If you want to compare it to someone who moves past "religion" and into a personal relationship with their Creator - I'd say no. If your comparing it to someone who simply claims a religion - then its not really a comparison at all.

Please note that repeatedly I have tried to lead this thread to that part of the original article I linked to in post 1 that indicates what I have repeated several times now: that there seem to be different genetic predispositions in people for antropomorhising neutral stimuli input, or not doing so. What this may mean for any discussion between religious and areligious people, is of much more interest for me than that comparsion between atheists's and religious ethics. "Es gibt nichts Gutes außer man tut es", we say in German (there is nothing good except that deed that actually gets done). In the end I judge ethics on the basis of what claimed moral makes the individual to do, to crave for, to stand up against, and what said individual demands or not demands in return for it'S engagement. If that ethics are motivated by religious belief or by logical conclusion or by choice and taste, in the end is relatively unimportant. It is the deed the counts, and how one influences the world for the better or worse. In that way, I am pragmatic. Just when somebody starts missionising, or makes his help depending on that the one being helped accepts to embrace his faith - this is when I stop smiling.

As I say, keep thy religion to thyself. It is a private relation between a person and what this person has choosen to believe, and nobody has a right to deman d that other are needed to take note of it, unwanted. It should stay private. Not only because one should not annoy others with one'S missionising (or radio noise, as I called it in other threads). It is also a question of piety and respect for what one claims to see as the object of Holiness. Not for nothing the Jews say that their God's name is unpronouncable, and not for nothing the TaoTeKing says the essence that can be put in words is not the essence of the uncomprehensible and final reality, the idea that can be thought is not the image of the eternal. To me, "religious people" who start to explode in many words of missionising and prayers when it comes to their god, treat with profanization what they claim to be holy to them. And that certainly will never raise my respect for them, or convince me of their belief's object. Personally, I differ between spirituality and religion. While I am opposing religion, I see myself as spirtual nevertheless, in the meaning of that I cannot avoid to be aware of my mortality, and to reflect about life and cosmos and my role - or lack of - in it. Seen that way, no being with a certain ammount of intelligence and ability for self-awareness can avoid to be spiritual. I am a spirtual anti-theist/atheist. Religions are the organised, political condensate of spirituality, they can be focussing on theistic content, but they must not. Beside theism, there are religions not accepting a single creator (Buddhism for example) - or accepting a whole pantheon of different dieties.

But it all is man's imaginations, conceptions, fantasies. The only religion worth to be practiced maybe is to witness the cosmos in silence and without making words, to help others, to avoid doing harm, and to marvel at all what we can see and learn and experience.

[CaptainHaplo]

Well Skybird, since you keep referencing the original post... lets look at it.

Sociologist Phil Zuckerman, who hopes to start a secular studies major at California's Pitzer College, says that secularists tend to be more ethical than religious people. On average, they are more commonly opposed to the death penalty, war and discrimination. And they also have fewer objections to foreigners, homosexuals, oral sex and hashish.


One sociologist says secularists tend to be more ethical, then states that its because they are against A,B and C while they accept D, E, F and G. Yet in doing so he is making a judgement based upon his personal ethics, which are not an objective measure. Thus, his premise is flawed.

Discrimination is not bad in and of itself. Go buy a car - but make sure you get one that is a color you detest, because otherwise your discriminating against that color. Next time you go out to eat make sure you order a dish that makes you want to hurl, because otherwise your discriminating. Discrimination itself is nothing more than choosing one thing over another. Nothing wrong with that. Now the issue of WHY some choices are made is a different matter. Things like racial discrimination can be bad, but not ALL discrimination is. Mr. Sociologist wants to put blanket statements out there and that doesn't work.

Same thing applies to war. Is all war bad? No, wars are ugly, but are sometimes a necessity, and often great things are borne from them. Wars of aggression are bad, wars of defense are not (generally speaking) - yet every war has both an aggressor and a defender - but its one war. Depends on your perspective (or "side") as to whether or not its a "good" war. An ethical dilemna at best.....

Death penalty? Not even an "ethical" question. Ethics is about "fair" - and an eye for an eye is "equal" and "fair". It is however a MORAL question, but that isn't the issue here.

More accepting of foreigners? On what grounds? Legal? Illegal? Criminal? Another blanket statement with no context.

Homosexuals? Again - in what context? The ones that mind their own business or the ones that flaunt their sexuality in the streets and under everyone elses noses purposely?

Oral Sex? Ok - who exactly has a problem with this? At the risk of being crude, I don't know any guy who doesn't like getting a good BJ, and I don't know any women that complain when boyfriend or hubby decides to go for a dive at the Y....

I am calling pure Bull Chips on that one.

Hashish - a more powerful pot derivative. Long term use side effects include loss of judgement, memory and perception. Yea, using rational thought would indicate that isn't exactly an ETHICAL thing to be promoting. After all - something that would lessen the ability of another person does not make them equal to everyone else... unless your goal is to sink humanity to be stuck at its lowest common denominator.....

The reality is that ethical behavior is based on an individual moral standard. However, ethics goes beyond morals in that it has an inate sense of "fairness" that is not required by individual morals.

So the real question is, between secular and religious people, who are the more "moral". This cannot be answered because there is no common morality between the two. There are places where morals overlap, but they are not entirely shared.

Thus we have to fall back to "which is more ethical"? Better stated, which is more "fair" in their daily dealings. There is no way to quantify that.

[Skybird]

I think we both know as well as everybody reading your post can know that you have been intentionally misleading and distorting in your wanted tunnel-eyed view on things, right?

Of course you know that in english there is no verbal distinction made (as far as I know) between discrimination in the meaning of seeing differences between things, and discriminating in the meaning of social devaluing and disadvantaging of social groups on basis of these groups' inherent characteristics or traits. In contemporay German, we make that difference, calling the first "Unterscheiden, Differenzierewn", and the latter "Diskriminieren", usually only specific academic terminology uses "Diskriminieren" in the meaning of "seeing differences". And you know that that sociologist, that you exclusively quoted while ignoring the whole rest - for example the parts I have referred to before - did not talk about no longer seeing differences, but social discrimination.

You also are capable enough to imatgine that some people support going to war easier thasn others, and some wars are being triggered mindlessly and carelessly, en passant. Some wars are needed, but also: many wars are just wanted. For some, war is legitimate tool of ordinary poltiics, and for the US it is that more than for any other Wetsern nation. That that sociologist was aiming at the carelessness and easymindedness by which some people become enthusiastic over wars - of course you know that.

That an eye for an eye is not the basis of Wetsern law system, that even your own legal system is not depending on the principle of simple revenge - you surely have heared that before. Revenege is revenge. Equality and fairness have nothing to do tith it. And I am sure you know that and can imagine that.

Your lament on the following things I do not understand, since that evil sociologist said that that evil wicked group he is speaking in favour does have lesser objections to these than relgious people. So he claims, and probabaly he is right. So what was your point again here?

Your personal and arbitrary definition of ethics and morals and how they relate to each other, are simply false in the way you set them up against each other in the third last paragraph, because we use quzite well defined understandings of both terms, and these influence our legal system, science, cultural life, self_defintion, and pohilosophy. You cannot randomloy mix terms in a new way just becaseu that new meanign would serve your iontention. Ethics is the tradition of examining the motivational reasons of individual behavior, and morals themselves are patterns of deciding and acting of individuals AND groups AND cultures. Ethics is just a working mode in which to examine morals. that inate sense of fairness you claim more ethics, plays no role in it. Nor is morals just an individual'S issue or standard.

You opened the last post by giving the impression you were abvout to give an fullilling and exhaustive analysis of that whole article. Instead you just give a highly manipulative rant about one guy's single quoted summarising sentence, and then distort it intentionally to make it fit your intention.

That is the end of my participation in this small talk, because I see that it now is no more about the topic'S issue, but about your own quarrel with something.

[CaptainHaplo]

Skybird, Skybird, Skybird....

So you can't argue the logic of my points, so your taking your toys and going home? Come on, we can disagree without that kind of sillyness.

Lets back up a second. You said my last response is - in essence - a "pick and choose" what to disagree with. Tell me, where in the entire article (or the portion you quoted) does it provide anything substantative that makes its case comparing the two on issues? The market researcher adds no data that proves anything. The sociologist simply makes a claim but provides absolutely no verifiable source for such a statement - making it opinion. The only source he ever quotes is a Pew survey that "suggests" secularists know more about religion that religious people. That doesn't have any bearing on his asserion regarding which group is more ethical, unless you want to accept the premise that religious knowledge (whether followed or not) speaks to the inate human nature that defines right or wrong. If that is the case - the more you know about religion, the more ethical you would be - whether religious or secular in your beliefs.....

And lets not forget the third person in the article, Caldwell-Harris. The article states she is testing her hypothesis regarding her "2 cognitive styles". Of course - you neglected to quote that part of the article. A hypothesis is not fact, its an idea, a pre-theory. But because that part of the article didn't fit the view you liked, you avoided it entirely.

So a market researcher who talks about secularists not buying religious products, a sociologist with an opinion and no facts to back it up, and a psychologist testing a theory on cognitive styles are what your going to go on? 2 people are not even adding anything to the actual question - so your left with just the sociologist with an opinion.

I get that you agree with him. That's fine - but if your going to debate the question, you need data to back up the statements - and there are none. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors, look over there at these other people argument - but they add nothing to the actual discussion. Even the article fails to tie the other two people to any type of position on the ethical question.

I had thought that for those predisposed to avoid religious foundations for debate, a discussion using rational thought and logic would be desired. Apparently, that is only the case if you agree with the position they hold. If one were to use that as an example, secularists would obviously be no better than anyone else.....

[sidslotm]

You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland