The Egyptians had a trinity of the soul not a trinity of god. One part of our soul dies with our body and another is judged and may or may not go on to the good life and the third always returns to the source. I am afraid I didn't say that well but metaphysically what is the nature of spirit? Is it internal to us or external to us as the trinity of God is external to us?

I think Christianity is very paradoxical as it struggles with materialism (believing everything has matter) and spirituality (not a material manifestation).

I have a Christian friend and she used to drive me and her family crazy. She seems to realize now that her behavior of trying to save us was a relationship problem with people she really cares about. However, we live in Oregon and not the Bible Belt. Also, she got, while she was praying for people, I take action to help them and I think she realized taking action works better than praying? Like really on what grounds would a god condemn me and her family to hell? For Christianity to work, a person has to believe those who are not Christians are bad people undeserving of heaven. But what if they are good people? How do they explain being a good person but not a saved person, if being good depends on being saved?

The belief system does not work for democracy, because the kind of person we are depends on how we were raised, the people who influence us and education. People who don't understand that are okay with education for technology that prepares the young to serve industry, instead of preparing them for freedom. Liberal education is for free people, and education for technology is not. Satan didn't come to earth, we changed education, and what we have now is the social, economic and political ramification of that change.

Science tells us, people with bad hearts who feel loved live longer than people with bad hearts who don't feel valued and I don't think that consideration is an overreaction. It is science. There is a real connection between our emotions and our health. And about those divorces, today it is women who are the most likely to file for divorces and they are divorcing men who think nothing is wrong with the marriage.

I think it is important to respect another person's point of view, don't you? However, I also know the urge to correct people who we think are wrong. :nerd:

If a moral is a matter of cause and effect, we can know the effect of not appreciating what we are given or at least assuring the gift giver that we appreciate his/her effort, will have a bad result, unless the other person is equally as careless. :lol: You may get a book you don't want because the someone gave it to the gift giver and s/he didn't want it either so it was passed on to you. You may want to know something about how much the gift giver cares and perhaps even what that person cares about?

If the gift giver cares a lot about you, being careless about how the giver feels, will surely have a bad result. You may not be aware of the negative effect but there will be a negative effect. Sometimes the result is a divorce after many years of being careless about someone else's feelings, or it can lead to heart attack and death of an elderly person. Our sense of feeling loved and valued is that important.

On the other hand, appreciating what we are given and the giver can have many benefits. That person will thrive and do well and want to reciprocate.

It is not just about things. It is about feelings and relationships and even our health.

Okay for the sake of argument I will take the opposing side and say using the gift should be a high priority. Sure it can be a pain in the neck to do something just to please someone else, but it is good for the relationship and it may be good for you too.

I have zero desire to buy a 7 year old great grandson a gift. Last year I spent a lot of money on his gift that I gave him because he is artistically talented and his mother said he would like the gift. He rejected it and I went through a lot of trouble and more money to return that gift and get him another one, and they got rid of that one too. This year I am giving the mothers money and they can do with it what they want, but I am not buying gifts for those who do not appreciate them, I am not catering to a child's bad judgment by buying some stupid toy just because it is popular this year.

It really hurts when our gifts and all the thought and heartfelt feelings that goes into selecting a gift, are not appreciated, so my home is cluttered with children's art work and gifts given to me, not because this is what I want, but it makes others feel good when we value what they do. And maybe the gift is more valuable than you realize. Calling the heartfelt intention a trap is a negative way of thinking about someone's'e concern for you. I didn't give the child something to help him develop his art talent because that thing had value. The value of that thing, was what he could make of it, and what he could make of his life if he developed that talent. I don't blame the child for not knowing this, but it is really sad his mother doesn't know that either. It hurts a lot because I am afraid the child will not have the good life he could have. It isn't just about things you know?

I think the advice that it is okay not to behave as though we appreciate what we are given is poor advice. How do you feel when you make a special effort to please someone by doing what you think will please or will benefit them, and your effort is not appreciated? However, we can say ahead of time, don't give me any socks, books, etc. this year because I have all I can handle. We can tell people what we really want. The year I said I wanted socks, I got enough socks to last a long time. :lol: But I didn't get things I don't want. :grin:

That is good judgment of what?

At age 72 I am amazed by how much my judgment has changed and it is being generous to not set the voting age at 50 years of age. The development of our minds does not stop at age 25. :lol: I am now thinking of Plato and the notion that only a handful of people have good enough judgment to trust them with governing decisions.

Ten-year-olds have better judgment than 14-year-olds and this changes around age 25, and by 70 there is a much greater change. And it is not as simple as either having good judgment or not having good judgment. Getting the best buy on a cell phone is different from deciding who should be our president or what social benefits we should allow children and older Americans.

The teenager is more likely to violate the rules than a ten-year-old. And it becomes much easier to enjoy the company of a man when his hormones are not raging. And speaking of hormones! A woman can use PMS as a defense argument. I have heard professors make complete fools of themselves, such as the middle-aged psychology professor who dumped his old wife for a young hot one, and told the class women who go out night want to be raped. This poor dude had sex on the brain because of the difference his young wife made, and although his subject was psychology, he was clueless about why his young wife was more stimulating to him than his old one. So much of our judgment is influenced by hormones and when we are unaware of this, our judgment can be really bad. Talking about one's private in front of a class is not a good choice, but as Gibran said, we speak when we are not at peace with our thoughts.

That is not the only reason for bad judgment. Where a person lives makes a big difference. People in cosmopolitan cities tend to have a different understanding of life than people in rural areas. The kind of people we hang out with and their ages, effects our judgment.

And this man is the expert on why we have bad judgment...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0

For a long time in Christianity, it was assumed only a handful of people were the chosen people who would experience heaven. Like the Egyptians may have thought only the pharaoh and those directly associated with him would experience a good afterlife. But as Eygpt gained wealth, more and more expected to enjoy a good afterlife. Same with Christians. The fuller their bellies got and the more secure they became, the wider the gates to heaven got until heaven could include all deserving souls.

Isis was the bread and water long before Jesus was the bread and wine. The Egyptian test for getting into the good afterlife was measuring a person's heart and if the heart was heavier than a feather, indicating a person lived a bad life, this person was not allowed into the good afterlife.

Well, I think I agree with what you said, up to- us having a notion of what a leader can do, and arguing that point would make this a political thread far from a metaphysical one. But in keeping with the subject of hell, I can say, in a short 200 years the US has swung for believing we are creating heaven on earth to believing we are in the last days. Obviously, something has gone very wrong and I think the problem began with education for a technological society with unknown values. Now we no longer understand what is necessary to have heaven on earth and we have hell on earth. That hell is going to get much worse if we do not take immediate and drastic steps to change that. Believing the problem is Satan and not ourselves is a serious problem! Believing our reality is caused by a God or a Satan, instead of our own decisions is a huge mistake but we allowed the wrong people to take control of education when the 1958 National Defense Education Act was passed, and we stopped transmitting our culture and left moral training to the church.

Perhaps I should check, why are we talking about hell? Is this supposed to be a metaphysical discussion or about reality that is materially manifested?

I have a good and mature Christian friend who thinks Trump is a good father to our country. The Evangelist Christians have a very different opinion of Trump than you do. Why is their judgment so different from yours?

We do understand developing good judgment is a matter of education and maturity, right? We also understand people with education and maturity can have very bad judgment, right? Why?

When I speak of education I want to stress education for technology does not lead to good judgment as a liberal education is about having good moral judgment. Having a good understanding of democracy is not as simple as breathing the air in the US. A lot of people like Trump. Why?

How do you support the opinion that Trump is not our Hitler? I am saying because of the change in education he is our Hitler. It is all about how we learn to think and what we believe.

? :chin: What part of your post is in agreement with science?

"I dont think a brain needs to be fully developed in order for a person to have good judgement. Under 25 isnt the same for everyone, so doesnt it make sense to judge on an individual basis through some sort of Basic test?"

Given the science, doesn't it make more sense to accept the brain is not fully developed and develop a legal system that takes that into consideration? Denial of scientific evidence leads to serious problems, and I sure as blazes would not be giving young people credit cards simply because they are college students,

Do you think science has value? What are the grounds for your disagreement with the science? This is a really hard debate to have because I remember how sure of myself I was when I was young, so I am aware of the young person's point of view and how real that seems. Then around 26 I realized how much my thinking had changed. At that time, age 18 gave me adult status, so when I realized how much my thinking had changed, my friend and I shared our thoughts about realizing at age 18 we were not fully mature. Full maturity and good judgment just does not happen at age 18 and I am wondering how you could be much older and not realize that?

People who marry young can get into big trouble when the wife passes age 25, because then she needs to claim herself and her right to make decisions, and she is no longer the passive, adoring wife he married. If they do not have good problem resolving skills they end up separating.

Recently we have learned a lot about thinking and we seriously need to be aware of why our judgment can be absolutely terrible at any age. Only when we are aware can we avoid the pitfalls. Our brains are far more limited and much easy to trick than we want to believe. Our great intelligence is dependent on working together.

I am very sure Trump is the result of the 1958 National Defense Education Act that is also responsible for our reactionary politics in general and Congress being so stuck in power plays it is in as much trouble as the governing powers of Germany were before Hitler took charge. This is the result of replacing liberal education with the German model of education for technology, and that is the result of the Military Industrial Complex having the power to direct what happens and take over control of education with the goal of having the strongest, highest tech military on earth and we come to this from the second war world against Germany who was better prepared for a high tech war than anyone else.

Perhaps it was the will of God that got Einstien out of Germany and into the US and several of his colleges who helped us be the first to have the atom bomb and land on the moon. This was a wake-up call and it changed education in the US. But now we have the problems Germany had, including the thugs who think Trump is their leader. We always had thugs, but they didn't normally think our president was their leader and approving of their behavior.

Military service would necessitate a person be voting age. The voting age was lowered because of the protest of the Vietnam war. It was argued it is wrong to send our youth into war before they are old enough to vote, so the voting was lowered. That goes against the science that our brains are not fully matured until age 25 and the judgment of youth is really awful. Something our criminal justice system should take into consideration and once did. The age for military service takes advantage of the youthful mind, before a person has developed good judgment. This does not matter in the military where the youth is under the control of authority 24/7 and during this historical time of poor judgment, we are attempting to recreate authority of us, where you can peirce and tatoo your body and dye your blue, but best obey and rely on the legitimate authority that is external and above us.

Oh you are old enough to be amazed by what happens to our thinking in our later years. Isn't it awesome! I am sure the age of Enlightenment was in part the result of an increasing number of people living into old age when there is a profound change in our thinking. There must be many people who have reached this age to stimulate each others thinking. Nothing of much good is going to happen when we are left alone without adequate stimunlation of our thinking. Thinkers need each other and this is a whole lot different from arguing with a young person who knows it all but does not understand bigger meanings and not the possibility of enlightened thinking. That moment when it is like a light goes off in our head and we are surprised we never realized that truth before.

In the 1970's we announced a national youth crisis and I am quite sure that was the result of the transition from liberal education to education for technology. Liberal education cares about completely different truths than education for technology and this transmission had to destroy past values. In school children not to respect their elders but to know their parents were old fashioned and outdated. And people today are sure education for technology is far better than liberal education.

So now we have youth who think they should have the same freedom of decision making as an adult, and think they are smarter than the adults, and they don't check the science before making their argument. This is really paradoxical, so far, education for technology has not prepared the young for life, nor for scientific thinking! Maybe education is improving but we have gone through several decades of destroying our culture and attempting to manifest a technological society with unknown values.

I appreciate your approval of investigating religious truth. I have loved the investigation since I was 8 years old, that age when our brains mature enough to demand we make such judgments. I asked a Sunday school teacher why Protestants and Catholics were different and her answer was not satisfactory. I decided none had God's truth, because if they did they would have an agreement. That set me a quest for God's truth and for me, that meant investigating all beliefs. My family encouraged this and because it is such a pleasure to learn I am very thankful I had a family that encouraged it.

At the moment I am listening to college lectures about western civilization and do you know a distinct divide between Egypt and Mesopotamia was the difference in the environment? In Egypt, the Nile floods regularly, with very little difference from year to year and the Egyptians who were obsessed with order, thought that the Pharoah was a god with the power to keep things in order.

In Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers, flooding was much more unpredictable and difficult to control. Here the head person was a human who had the favor of the gods. If bad things happened, it was assumed this person no longer had the favor of the gods and they got rid of him.

Now ponder the fight over if Jesus is God or a human? The gods did have children with humans and their children were mortals with unusual powers. Jesus is not the only one with an unusual birth following the visits of angels. So was he born human? If so when did he become a god? For some, it was unthinkable that a god could be born from a woman. Some Jews were revolted by this idea. What people believed really depended on where they lived and their previous mythology and Christians killed each other over this issue.

Surely we have a father in heaven because Romans were adamant about the importance of fathers and his responsibility for his family. It would not be much of a shift from being ruled by a king with the favor of the gods, to worshiping a Father in heaven. What do you think?

If you want science, try this site

"The rational part of a teen's brain isn't fully developed and won't be until age 25 or so. In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain's rational part.
Understanding the Teen Brain - Health Encyclopedia - University of ...
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1...3051 "

When the constitution of the US was written, age 30 was considered still youth. Here are decisions made with that idea...

"In the United States, a person must be aged 35 or over to be President or Vice President, 30 or over to be a Senator, and 25 or over to be a Representative, as specified in the U.S. Constitution. Most states in the U.S. also have age requirements for the offices of Governor, State Senator, and State Representative.
Age of candidacy - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_candidacy "

At age 72 I am surprised by experiencing the difference between knowing facts and knowing the meaning of those facts. A young person who does not consult with older persons may not have the best judgment, and in some areas of decisions making, an older person should surely consult with a young one. But soon computers will take over our thinking tasks so we don't really need to bother with a concern about human reasoning. :wink:

I very much agree with you and like the quotes you used. Christianity had a terrible time when it as translated from Greek to Roman thought. Latin words had to be invented to because there were no Latin words for some Greek concepts. The problem with Romans not having Greek concepts lead to Christians killing Christians because of seeing God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost as three gods or one god. Romans didn't explore concepts as the Greeks did and didn't have the necessary vocabulary. Image making something believable by inventing a word.

It was the Greeks who wrote the first Christian bible and Greeks held a concept of Hades. Psychologically, Hades is a place we must all go for meaning. Never going to Hades results in a person being frivolous and immature. However, we should never go to Hades without the help of the gods because it is so easy to be lost in Hades. The gods are concepts that help us deal with life. Being lost in Hades is being depressed or even psychotic and unable to find our way out of Hades.

When we go to Hades we can talk to the dead by digging a hole and then cutting the throat of a lamb and letting its blood fill the hole so the dead can drink it and speak with us. You know, as Jesus is the lamb who had to be sacrificed, and the blood of the lamb painted on our door can protect us.

I think to understand the bible we need to know how people thought back in the day.

"in fact Plato argued extensively that democracy is the second worst regime claiming that democratic societies are doomed to sink in anarchy and corruption."

Socrates, Plato's teacher, fought against the Spartans and Athens lost that war. No one should read Plato without also reading Pericles funeral speech explaining why those who fought for Athens did not die in vain. Socrates died for freedom of speech and for democracy. He obeyed the law, giving up his life for democracy. His actions go with an understanding of social/political responsibility and liberty.

Socrates saw fault in the ignorance of the masses and devoted himself to changing that. Plato was his student and Plato was Aristotle's teacher. Now can anyone name a Spartan who equals Socrates, Plato or Aristotle? There is a cultural reason why these men rose in Athens not Sparta and we seriously need to understand the cultural difference that made that life-changing difference that brought us to democracy.

Germany was the Sparta of the modern world and the US was the Athens of the modern world. Now the US is the Sparta of the modern world. Sparta won the war with Athens and ruled over it and Aristotle favored the authoritarianism of Sparta and he was picked up by the church during the age of Scholasticism and this supported the authority of the church until the backlash against Aristotle and then Protestantism. However, it was the US that won the war with Germany, and it immediately sucked up all the of German's experts, and the US adopted German bureaucracy and education for technology. And we are what we fought against in two world wars. Some of the post here give us a good look at that education/cultural problem.

"Democracy does however defend the rights of the weak, encourage individualism and learning, and let the common man decide their own destiny. Freedom is the most basic desire of man, and democracy safeguards it."

What would happen to Christianity if it stopped teaching its mythology and began preparing the young to be products for industry, in a high tech society with unknown values?

Education is like a genii in a bottle. The defined purpose is the wish and the students are the genii. Until 1958 the US had education for citizenship and good moral judgment. In 1958 that wish was changed and education is no longer controlled by those who understand what it has to do with democracy. Education is now controlled by the military and high tech business interest. Our democracy is no longer protected in the classroom, so why would this be different from Christianity no longer preparing the young to be Christians?

Just any education does not serve democracy and education for technology always was for slaves. Liberal education was for free people.

We are having a housing crisis and it is property rights that are protected not human rights. We are experiencing an end to land and resources free for the taking, and the beginning of overpopulation where people are no longer needed and are pushed to the margins of society where they are likely to have a short lifespan. We are totally unprepared to meet this crisis with a focus on human rights. We are no longer protecting human dignity as we did when Social Security was implemented but made it illegal for people to sleep in undesignated areas and deny them access to water and restrooms. People die because of the conditions of homelessness and we are ignoring this reality. And medically we have put profit above human lives. What we have done to education and students loans is a horror making the bankers rich at the expense of the young or caring parents who go into debt for their children's educations. When the bottom line is money and the thinking of what that means is very narrow, democracy collapses.

Did I say something wrong? I listed the changes brought in by the 1958 National Defense Education Act that replaced liberal education and there is no reply. I am disappointed and somewhat confused.

"I think the one of the main aspects of this discussion is also how moral values happen to be what they are, how they are created and by whom."

You are right. :cheer:

:grin: I hope I am not too much of a pain in the ass to all of you. I agree there are extremists everywhere and that secular education has radically changed our reasoning. Personally, I believe there are problems with religious reasoning. However, the title of this thread is

"The Rules Of Morality Are Not The Conclusions Of Our Reason"

My point is- our awareness of the rules is about our reasoning. We may have a good base for reasoning or a bad base for reasoning, We may have good higher order thinking skills or we may not. But how we come to moral decisions is a matter of reasoning. :lol: it might be as poor reasoning "because the Bible says so" but I think we do rationalize our understanding of morality. However, up to age 8 we learn without making judgments or having much discretion in what we accept as truths, and we tend to go through life proving ourselves right, and avoiding questioning if what know is right or wrong and that would make Hume's statement correct.

I am not so sure we want to get too far from nature when making moral judgments? As I understand, a moral it is a matter of cause and effect.

I would like to see our morals based on what a child needs to have a good life as an adult. Violating our human nature may not be a good choice, and our industrial society has violated human nature with obviously negative results. In the past, we may not have had better choices but technology has changed our choices and our future may be far different and could be better for our human nature than our past. That makes a better understanding of our human nature even more important to our moral decisions.

Are you speaking of a society where women can be stoned to death as it is explained in the Christian Bible, and was commonly practiced throughout the ancient world, where Jesus steps in and says only those without sin should throw the stone? That would be a very radical idea for people who fear the punishment of God because this God destroyed entire cities when He was displeased with people. In fact, He almost destroyed all life on the land of the earth with a flood because humans had displeased him.

How about defending the family's honor by killing daughters who might seek the company of men? Such acts are strong in maintaining social order and we can call this maintaining moral order and hold the notion that is about pleasing a god, not about men ruling. Pleasing the god is essential because this is a jealous, revengeful, punishing and fearsome god. Terrible things will happen if this god is displeased and that is a matter of reasoning for those who believe their holy book is the word, God, right?

It is said, we punish people so others will fear the punishment and avoid the wrong. By the way, I think the present judgment is terrible, but for the sake of argument, other points of view need to be brought up so I will be that contrary voice in a discussion that is important to me. I was once headed for being a probation officer, but after researching this choice, I realized I am opposed to what we call criminal justice in the US the correction institutions that have been created.

Bitter Crank....

"More damaging to the classic liberal arts than retrenchment, in my opinion, has been the perverse corruption of postmodernism, and its peculiar and deconstructing obsessions. If nothing else had happened, this alone could destroy the liberal arts."

Can you explain "deconstructing" to me? I sus[ect this has a German connection?

I am aware of the delayed manifestation of the full degree of the NDEA and as I understand this the delay, it was the result of the time it took to educated teachers for this different way of thinking and doing things. I also think the transition was aided by hiring vets who had military training, to be teachers or school principles. The change would happen gradually as the former education professionals were replaced by those with the changed programming. Greater change was not possible until the fundamental change had taken place but once it took hold, there was no stopping it, and we now have the centralized control of education we strongly opposed.

This forum is the first time in many years I have connected with people willing to discuss these matters intelligently. I have had my threads taken for spots in a forum everyone takes seriously and put the conspiracy part of a forum that is for nut cases. My experience on the internet has been hell as no one can relate to what I am saying. I even had a teacher get on my case for what I say about education and that is how you all got me. Teachers educated for education for technology, think I am attacking them. They have zero understanding of liberal education and what that has to do with the culture and what culture has to do with avoided social, economic and political problems. I don't know why you all are thinking outside of the box, but I do know, my grandmother's generation had to die before the resistance to the change was dead. Once those who remember are dead, the change has no resistance, but when my grandmother was alive and teaching, there was resistance.

The technology of that site is beyond me. I attempted to download the book on education, but that didn't seem to be working for me. I attempted to copy and paste the title "ABC: Alphabetization of the popular mind" and I could not do that. But I do want to comment on that thought. I am often distressed by spell checks opinion of correct wording. Spell check thinks everything is a noun rather a concept and insist I put "a", "an", or "the" in front of every concept.

"Industry has shaped our lives in a way that is not good for humans". That is an example of what I mean. Spell check wants me to write "The" in front of "Industry" but I am not speaking of "the industry" but rather the whole concept of how we spend our lives separated from family, working for someone else whom we probably don't know, so we can meet our daily needs, and how this shape who we are by the job we do. My concern is spell check prevents consciousness of larger concepts. Not for me because I am old and set in my ways, but the young who know no better and are shaped by the present experiences. We can damage our ability to develop abstract thinking and when we are programming our young to be products for industry, not to be thinking and feeling human beings, we probably do a lot of damage.

"What we have in the United States is a deceptive slow-motion fascism. What happened in Europe was a high-speed fascism that developed over the course of a decade, though it was built on much older cultural characteristics. Our authoritarian government, militarism, racist regime, degraded education system, and so on developed over more than a century, and was in service to capitalism, rather than some vague master race theory. The techniques of manipulation and control which are used in the United States became part of normal everyday life, rather than the sharp disjuncture of the very rapid rise of German National Socialism or Italian Fascism. End of flip."

Your knowledge and ability to articulate yourself brings tears to my eyes. And then add to this the author of which Valentinus speaks and the importance of validating personal authority and I am overwhelmed with thanksgiving that after many years on the internet I have come across people who can carry on the important discussion.

I love you speaking of fascism as fast and slow fascism. That opens the door to investigate this in more detail. I will argue fascism depends on the bureaucratic order and the education.

Most people around the world are prejudiced in favor of their own people. Many aboriginal people believed they live at the center of the earth where creation happened and their stories tell them they are special people. This is relatively harmless until they have the organization that clearly defines who is one of them and who is not, and they have the organization that enables them to overpower others. My point of argument is that the difference between being fascist or not is organizational.

The US picked up the important organization for fascism, that is a bureaucratic organization that crushes personal liberty and power and education that leads to dependency on authority and believing authority must be obeyed. I come to this conclusion because of information from several books. I would like to discuss this more if there is interest.

The bureaucratic adaptation happened during the Roosevelt administration and this was both praised and came with warnings of the dangers. What slowed the progression of fascism was liberal education and that was ended in 1958, Now the consciousness of the US is better suited for fascism than the democracy we had.

Why read you instead of Illich? Because I am drowning in books that I haven't read yet, but now I really want to know what Illich has to say. You seriously made me interested. The value of validating personal authority is not well explained in any of my books. The notion is there but it is not well defined and the reason why that is important to society is not spelled out. It simply comes up as a vague principle of democracy and the need to respect people and protect their dignity. The last thing I want to do is buy another book, but I do need to know what he said. Please, can you tell me more?

:lol: I really want that book, but this is a bad time for me to buy another book. Like buying a book I want instead of getting the kids gifts is just wrong. Please, tell me more.

"Morality and the concept of good and evil only seem to emerge as a social response. Moral considerations to one's family are the most simple."

:gasp: That is what I thought until enduring a bad marriage for 21 years. In the recent past it was pretty easy for a man to have a wife for life, because females didn't have many options other than to be supported by a man. Especially not if they had children. That seems to have lead to a lot of miserable marriages and we are still struggling with an adjustment to our changed reality. It is really nice to see fathers in the park with their children today. Now was not common 40 years ago.

Killing is not wrong when it is done to maintain a moral order. I like the Aztec game plan. You screw up, you become a slave. You screw up again, you are sold to someone else. You screw up a third time you become a sacrifice to the gods.

However, we know the Aztecs failed. Using your neighbors to sacrifice to the gods leads to enemies and that makes their survival need the destruction of your civilization. But is it possible they may have done better if they had assimilated their neighbors, and limited their sacrifices to the few who violated the moral code?

"It's frustrating when you're the lone loon who disagrees with something, though."

Tell me about it. I am always regretting my inability to keep my mouth shut and go along with the crowd! I have been a loner my whole life, but right now my life is pretty full of friends so I must be doing something right. But on the internet, I am not doing so well. I read books no one has read and that means having a different perspective, and plenty of times I wish never saw those books and had the same understanding as everyone else.

"The fantasy, the imagination, rides on top of this. Even love, romance, etc. are all secondary to the needs of the real, which I stated earlier seem to be indifferent or harmful."

I see a lot of truth in what you said. And I think you missed a few needs, such as a need to be appreciated and to have our feelings validated. When our emotional needs are not met, that can have bad health consequences and trying to compensate for what is lacking with fantasies of love can be harmeful to ones and psyche and health.

The moral is, be real.

I think you speak of liberty. We defend our liberty by obeying the laws even when do not like them, but it is also our responsibility to argue for a change in the law if we believe the law is wrong. Liberty is not the freedom to do anything we please, but the right to decide for ourselves what is right, as long we do not violate the rights of others.

"But even then things even seem to work out for the group:" Yes, if it isn't working for the group it is not working for individuals either. But that seems like a lot to get our heads wrapped around. The three year old child is not thinking of the group! I am not sure when a child does begin thinking of others. However, in observing children it is evident the child who does not learn to think of others does not have friends. In a troop of chimps the uncooperative chimp will be pushed out to the outer circle where it is most apt to be eaten by a predator. Social animals must balance looking out for their own self-interest with what is best for getting along with others.

Here is my evidence that if we believe we are good thinkers and conscious of our thoughts, we are screwed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0

I think Daniel Kahneman's research will revolutionize what we think of ourselves and what is required for us to have good judgment. But it does not begin and stop with him. We have always known unhappy people will perceive the world and other humans as awful, while happy people will see everything differently. Our perspective colors our view of life, and our perspective is built on childhood experiences and from there we spend our lifetimes proving ourselves right, even when this means being a totally miserable person, and social failure. Our egos cannot tolerate thinking what we think is wrong, and we would rather die than admit to ourselves we are the cause of our suffering, not that bad experience, not our mother, not our spouse and not because other people are awful. Please check out Daniel Kahnemann. Our thinking is more complex than we think.

I am sorry you don't trust science. I know we can share a false belief, but the method of science is the surest way to not hold wrong beliefs. Science is very important to our liberty and social justice. Maybe we can talk more about this at another time.

Van Illich was a Croatian-Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and critic of the institutions of modern Western culture. That might be an interesting point of view. How does it apply to education, democracy, and liberty?

The major changes in public education in the US happened in 1917 and 1958 and both are the direct result of war and changed technology needs. It makes no sense to disagree with these facts. Either something like this happens or it does not.

Why this really matters is until 1958 our national defense depended on patriotic citizens so until 1958 public education transmitted a culture to assure patriotic citizens and prevent social problems by training everyone for good moral judgment based on reason. But technology changed all this. Not only did military technology change, but so did the need for patriotic citizens. It no longer takes a year to mobilize for war, and the masses no longer have to make the sacrifices or cooperate with military goals.

Technology, airplanes, and drones have made us less dependent on humans to engage in war. The social, economic and political ramifications of the 1958 National Defense Education Act are huge and only part of this about technology. The other part is humans are not needed. Education for technology has always been the education of slaves needed to do the work. A liberal education is for free people, not education for technology. Please rethink the importance of the change, and explain why Van Illich is important to our understanding.

"when we focus on what we see with the eyes emotions are seen as not fundamental, but we would get a very different picture by focusing on emotions first."

Interesting comment. I once went through an art gallery with my eyes closed and touching things. No, I was not supposed to touch things, but the urge to do was too strong to resist. Touch is feeling and our feelings (emotions) are feelings. Those might not be the best words to use for my experience but to know the world through touch is so much more intimate than to know the world through sight. When we know the world through sight it is far away from us relative to knowing things through touch.

" Unless you're saying that's supposed to have something to do with the notion of unconscious mental content".

I do not totally understand how forums work? Are we to limit our comments to individuals, and do we address the subject?

Should all our arguments only oppose what someone says or should we sometimes support what someone is saying with our own argument?

However, we should do things, I must say, the way people conduct themselves in this forum is superior to any forum I have been in! You all are giving me the best forum experience I have ever had.

And for sure our group behavior is filled with unconscious thoughts. That is why many of us need counseling. :lol: So we become aware of the thought beneath our conscious thought that is causing us a problem. Of course, you are just picking on me because you know I am the at the bottom of the pecking order and everyone picks on me. :roll: I am kidding. You are doing a marvelous job of communicating and if I can do something better to improve my communication please let me know.

I checked back post and I think I was attempting to focus on science by taking a different direction than the consciousness issue, rather than react badly to what appeared a rejection of science. Our group behavior being more on topic but still about science. Like the book "Science of Good and Evil".

Okay if I understand Terrapin Station correctly he wants me to address the issue of self-interest versus group interest with you. Do we have agreement that social animals live in herds or troops for their mutual survival and that members of these groups will act to defend each other, protect and feed the young? :smile: Females often have much more to do with protecting and feeding the young than males and among some species they must protect the young from the males. :lol: Possibly some of our disagreements are the result of being male and female and by nature having different hormones and therefore different truths?

I do workshops on living with diabetes and getting people to make good decisions is very complicated! They must feel good about themselves and their future before they will take the steps they must take. Some cases of diabetes are worse than others. Some people can do all the right things, but not get the desired results and this can destroy willpower. The better people's relationships are, the better they tend to do. However, there are some single people who excel on sheer willpower and self-interest. Obviously, these people do not depend on others for their happiness or anything else.

Oh my, we are all so different, it might be a little insane to argue truth as though there is only one truth and not many.