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Member (Idle past 2544 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Why do right? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
I did not ask for explanations, I have no questions.
I waved nothing away, I pointed out that other explanations were unsatisafactory and incomplete. You know my explanation, Ringo. The good 'ol Compass Pointing to God theory.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Ringo writes: What is the "magnetic field"? Do you seriously not know this stuff? It is our having been made in the Image of God, remember? Then there was that little episode in the garden where the devil spoke, we became confused, and had the Compass Installation by eating of the Tree of Good and Evil. This is all myth and sybolic language. We have become so used to hearing these stories that they become insane rhetoric. Yet, they are quite sensible and can fit nicely into an evolutionary picture. If we have evolved from lesser animals, we have one way or another reached a point when our abilities and knowledge became so great that we were capable of breaking the barriers of instinct. We were forced to develope a morality that would preserve us from self-annihilation, yet, clearly, survival of the body is not the main function of this morality. Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
nator writes: It was the serpent. Yeah, I know. My snake speaks to me too.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
So, we are back again to being animals without choices. Humph. This is getting so repetitive.
Doddy writes: Our brain is still hard-wired for the Pleistocene, and can fail us in this day and age. For example, while it would be ok to consume as much of the natural resources as you want back then with only scattered tribes, with the population and demands we have today, it can cause untold environmental damage. As another example, it would have been ok to eat as much as possible because food wasn't that common and it may be a day or two before your next meal, but with the plenty we have today, it can cause morbid obesity. I have kept African Cichlids. They are hard-wired to consume as much as possible even to their own death, because in nature they eat but seldom. In one paragraph you have said that food was not that common, and that we had plenty of natural resources because we lived in small tribes. I guess eating was not a big deal for us tribes, eh? Now, are you saying that obese people have a brain mal-function and can't control their eating habits, when we know that this is false and metabolism is the key factor? Are you saying that eating junk is natural when we know to eat more healthy meals? Are you saying we are animals that have no choice?
Sometimes in history, for an animal or even a tribe to survive, it has to kill others. These days, things are not quite so dangerous, and we can usually find peaceful solutions, but we still maintain armies and police to protect us, often through killing of enemies and criminals, because the killing instinct still exists in us. I sure hope you don't contribute to those threads which keep knocking the Israelites for their war crimes and slavery Or better yet, to those which bash the Crusades? Obviously those poor crusaders were only trying to protect their tribes! It was a brain mal-function, and the reverted back to hard-wired behaviors. Feeling Hitlerish? Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Doddy writes: My signature addresses my feelings on this issue. We can choose what we want, but we have no control over what we want to choose. I guess some of us are hard-wired to want good things, and some aren't. I guess Mother Teresa is nothing special, since she had no choice but to desire a life of slaving away in the streets of Calcutta, caring for lepers and staying by them until they died. I guess Hitler had no choice but to desire the death of millions. Works for me.
The fatty and very sugary foods we tend to view as more appetising 'junk' are in fact good foods to eat if you aren't likely to get food for a while. Useful too, for such hunter-gatherers, is the tendency to store all available energy as body fat. Yeah, I understand. But if we have no control over our desire to eat junk, the diet commercials are pretty much useless.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Ringo writes: Nothing "clear" about it. Smoke and mirrors. The question is "Why do right?" and you have offered no answer at all. You haven't done much in the way of answers yourself, there. Easy to be the question guy. Ok, fine. I do good because it helps me or my species to survive. I do evil because it USED to help me or my species survive. Happy?
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Ringo writes: You try it. Good questions are a lot harder than bad answers. I do, I have learned from you. I think I also ask the most questions when I feel a person is spoutin' nonsense, something else I learned from you. Oh, and the smilies. Why oh why, do you judge us poor folk who keep religion because it helps us survive? Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
NightTrain writes: And how more praise-worthy would you find a person who practises altruism for no reward other than the reasoning that it is in the best interests of the human race. Not very praise-worthy, I am thinking, at all. See, 'good' is in the eye of the beholder apparently. It is not absolute or real. Those who oppose abortion and homosexual marriage believe they are acting in the interests of the human race just as well as those who support such.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Ringo writes: I would like you to ask yourself how it helps you to survive, and what else might have the same effect. Religion keeps me so a'tremblin' at the gates of Hell that survival is all I can think of, and all I can wish for my fellows.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
I was being sarcastic, Iceage. I am implying that I need God to tell me to feel empathy...which I do, but he has already naturally given me that ability as part of my moral compass. I am just so unusual as to attribute this to Him rather than a natural survival instinct. I believe morality has more to do with the spirit than the survival of the body.
Ringo has a good Sarcasm Detector; sorry for the confusion. Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Interesting, but you can't prove that mice, chimps. and oher animals which we inhumanely use for these studies, have ever felt guilt when they did not do these things, and have ever had a choice to do otherwise.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Doddy writes: We also can't prove that our fellow human beings consciously choose the moral options either. I have seen the entirety of the similar thread. Please tell me what you mean by 'moral options'. Oh, wait, you are referring to your little 'Der Mensch kann was er will' ? Ok, fine, here we go again. Hitler had no choice, Mother Teresa had no choice, both did what their Personal Moral Chooser Function told them to do.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Iceage writes: Keep in mind, you have to integrate into your theory that numerous "lower" animals have what we would call a moral compass in lesser and varying degrees. In another thread, Doddy Curumehtar has said just this. He has shown examples of chimps and mice exhibiting what we consider moral behavior. I myself have seen the way my birds react to the death of their mates. I have no proof or evidence that they had a choice in this behavior, or that they felt any guilt when they did not respend to the death of their mates. In fact, a non-response on the part of a bird would be evidence to us that they had no empathy, and not that they had a choice and chose not to empathize.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Doddy writes: Neither do you have such proof for humans, such as criminals. It may be that they chose not to feel for their victims through pure callousness (which raises the argument of why they do that), or it may be that they can't feel empathy due to the structure of their brains. We really can't infer what emotions a human or animal is feeling unless we know for sure their brain works like ours You don't have proof that you feel guilt? Are you not ever a criminal yoursef? Please do not be so high and mighty. You know nothing of criminals to judge that their brain works any differently. If you are reffering to serial killers, well, that is obvious. If they don't know right from wrong, they can't be judged, yes? They are considered insane. Those who are found to be sane are considered to have had a choice.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5983 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Nyeusigrube writes: We are the prisoners of our own fantasies Do you mean kind of like brainwashing throughout the generations...? I wonder what the world would be like if we were taught to have no guilt, no response upon our actions... Lets say that a religion must kill children or Sacrafice another human being, to do the right thing for their God, we see it wrong and as murder... Good question I confused myself! In four and a half sentences you have confused yourself? Why not hit 'Reset Fields', start again, use quote brackets, and if you are still confused, delete? Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.
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