The claim is “there is no reason to say that altruism is superior to selfishness in any biological sense” and I gave a reason why it fits our biological strategy for gene propagation. As far as I know, freeloading is common to a wide range of species, if not most or all.

Most, though not all, moral codes advise me to cultivate altruism. But since the human race has evolved to be capable of a wide range of both selfish and altruistic behavior, there is no reason to say that altruism is superior to selfishness in any biological sense. — Richard Polt, Anything but Human

The reason is simply that we are biologically a social species and therefore cooperation is vital to our survival, or rather the strategy our species has developed for gene propagation.

What’s striking about this graphic is how utterly egocentric it is, with man (even women are merely supporting characters) being the center of heaven, earth, and selfhood. How can these stories of sin and ignorance fit other lifeforms when most don’t even possess a central nervous system?

We’re all chained by ideologies and while some are better than others none are *great*.

So, assuming moral truths are relative to society, the times, the culture, one's idiosyncratic upbringing and experiences, tell me why the rapist ought be judged wrong despite his view it is right? — Hanover

If for no other reason, because the society judges it to be wrong.

Sometimes prayer is effective though. It focuses the will. — frank

The will to effectively dismantle democracy?

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. — Witty

Fixed.

Similar to how the serpent tricked Eve into biting from the apple of knowledge, it also tricked her into telling the first joke.

One day, after the fall but before eviction from paradise, Adam went to see Eve. The snake, seeing a humorous opportunity, slithered up Adam's leg and hid in his crotch as Adam approached Eve.

Seeing a bulge, Eve asked, "Is that a snake under your fig leaf or are you just happy to see me?"

But even without the collective power, even if you've got just one person working for you, you've still got to pay them enough so that they will work for you. So they've got authority over you in that sense. — HardWorker

It depends on the circumstances. Generally speaking, an employer wants the most amount of work for the least amount of money, and the employee wants the most amount of money for the least amount of work. There are many factors that influence how this struggle is worked out.

If the work for an employer doesn't require much skill or particular ability, and there are many candidates without skill or ability available, an employee has no bargaining power because they are easily replaced. If the prevailing society didn't allow you to force them to do the work, as in slavery, the employer could pay just enough whereby an employee would reliably show up to do the work required for the business to run according to plan. In this case, it is possible for employees without skills or ability to gain bargaining power if they can coordinate, as in worker unions. They can also appeal to the state and its institutions, assuming they exist, to support them in their struggle. Unfortunately, government understandably tends to favor capitalists because they have wealth and the power that wealth offers.

Much of religion has been exclusionary even when it strives to be universal. A morality that may work for an insular group can come into conflict with that other groups that either hold different or no religious beliefs. — Fooloso4

If our tradition is good and ultimately true then other ways must be false and bad, and this discrepancy is commonly capitalized on in order to reify tribal identity, and rationalize abuse of the other.

religion can be an impediment to ethics. — Fooloso4

If the role of religion is really to bind people in a tribal group then dependency on the group is essential. Personal development of virtue leads to independence and is therefore at odds with the purpose of religion.

It was a small demonstration of causality, my friend, nothing more. I provoke, you reply.

A snippet from Josiah Royce:

The religious person perceives our present life, or our natural life, as radically deficient, deficient from the root (radix) up, as fundamentally unsatisfactory; he feels it to be, not a mere condition, but a predicament; it strikes him as vain or empty if taken as an end in itself; he sees himself as homo viator, as a wayfarer or pilgrim treading a via dolorosa through a vale that cannot possibly be a final and fitting resting place; he senses or glimpses from time to time the possibility of a Higher Life; he feels himself in danger of missing out on this Higher Life of true happiness. If this doesn't strike a chord in you, then I suggest you do not have a religious disposition. Some people don't, and it cannot be helped. One cannot discuss religion with them, for it cannot be real to them. — Wayfarer

It strikes me as a rather sad and shallow outlook to see the inclination towards religion as a random predisposition rather than a fundamental need for meaning and connection.

In prayer, "We firmly believe that Donald J Trump is the current and true president of the United States."

My last point was merely that you would comprehend it via written form or by voice, things of a different kind (disparate).

We could have avoided this silliness if you would have whatched the Cats and Dominos video. Cats and dominos are DISPARATE. :lol:

Humans are creatures of habit. Memory is applied to to the mundane making it sacred. Be this a football stadium, church, house or a simple rock.

The story we apply to lived experiences creates a narrative that can be passed on and repeated. Needless to say such a ‘habit’ is kind of useful in terms of evolution as it helps us adapt to the environment and approach it from different angles rather than as a mere set of lifeless variables.

Without value there is nothing there for us to pay attention to. Without a means of applying or removing value we are not anything as stagnation of value is just as dead as having no value at all. — I like sushi

Your meaning is not clear but I will point out that we are all saturated in values, narratives, and meaning. There's no shortage.

A belief is a relation between an individual and a proposition.
— Banno

Searle has me re-thinking this. Rather then a relation, B(a,p), it's better to think in terms of "p" as the content of the belief. That brings out the intentionality of the belief. That is, B(a,p) hides the problems of substitution salva veritate. — Banno

It seems there are two basic kinds of intentions or propositional attitudes in belief, one that is meant to reflect the world (our coherent inner model of it anyway) and one that is meant to influence the world, or rather influence others, in some way. The latter can be outright deception or to express group solidarity, neither of which are good.

You might think you've got all the authority since you're the boss but they've got authority too. They've got the authority to get money from you, however much you've agreed to pay them. — HardWorker

Employees or labor has collective power if they can coordinate. That's why socialism is such a dirty word.

I’ve tried to explain to you that the information or pattern is independent of the medium. For instance, I’m conveying this message through written language but I could also convey it by voice. Two “disparate” mediums, same information or pattern that your brain recognizes. Comprende, senor?

My point is that neurons cause particular neural activity. The body performs the actions, therefor it causes them. — NOS4A2

You're simply limiting a causal sequence, so what? It would make sense to do that if the events in question were too far removed from each other to find a reasonable causal connection, but that is not the case.

A belief is a propositional attitude.
That is, it can be placed in a general form as a relation between someone and a proposition. So "John believes that the sky is blue" can be rendered as

Believes (John, "The sky is blue")

B(a,p)

There's ill will in some circles towards this sort of analysis. Think of this as setting up a basic structure or grammar for belief. A belief is a relation between an individual and a proposition. That there is much more to be said about belief is not in contention; this is just a place to start. This is set as a falsifiable proposition. If there are any examples of beliefs that cannot be stated as relations between individuals and propositions, this proposal would have to be revisited.

It has been suggested that animal and other non-linguistic beliefs are a falsification of this suggestion. The argument is that non-linguistic creatures can have beliefs and yet cannot express these beliefs as propositions, and that hence beliefs cannot be propositional attitudes. But that is a misreading of what is going on here. Any belief, including that of creatures that cannot speak, can be placed in the form of a propositional attitude by those who can speak. A cat, for example, can believe that its bowl is empty, but cannot put that belief in the form B(a,p). — Banno

I think what we call belief is really a relation between different propositions, whether or not they agree, and actual beliefs are our internal models of the world. Our models of the world are not entirely conscious, and that being the case, it can't be said that we always know what we believe.

Agrees (proposition a, proposition p)

If I offer a cat an empty bowl it will not mistakenly try to eat from it. I can't lie to the cat and tell it there is food when there is not, but I can trick the cat nevertheless. I can offer a cat an empty bowl, listen to its MEOWS of protest, and wait for the timer to go off in the electronic cat bowl that opens a compartment in the bottom which reveals a delicious feline feast. The cat's internal model of the world, perhaps just that specific bowl, is revised in some way. With enough experience with the electric bowl, the cat could reliably predict mealtime or 'believe' the bowl has food even though it's not immediately apparent.

Critters compete, cooperate, and freeload just like people do, they just don't do it with conceptual propositions as we do.

We should probably use agree instead of believe because it is more honest.

What has happened in Western religious discourse, according to Karen Armstrong, is that the emphasis on belief and believing have distorted this meaning, by making religion a propositional matter, not a way-of-being. 'Buddhists, Hindus, Confucians, Jews and Muslims would say religion is something you do, and that you cannot understand the truths of faith unless you are committed to a transformative way of life that takes you beyond the prism of selfishness. All good religious teaching – including such Christian doctrines as the Trinity or the Incarnation – is basically a summons to action. Yet instead of being taught to act creatively upon them, many modern Christians feel it is more important to "believe" them.' And you see that reflected a lot in the debates about religion on this forum. — Wayfarer

This belies the common trait in religions that a practitioners can fail miserably, commit a wide range of transgressions, and still be held firmly in the fold, but should they merely question doctrine or those higher in the hierarchy they’ll promptly be stamped a heretic and considered an outsider. This has always been the case.

I can only hope this is all a joke on your part.

WTF? Funny how those willing to reduce the population never want to start with themselves. — stoicHoneyBadger

Lol, are you suggesting that I fall on a knife? I haven’t had children, by choice, if that pleases your sense of consistency.

Seriously though, social engineering is an extremely complex topic and, as history shows us, those who reduce it to oversimplified concepts always do way more harm than good. — stoicHoneyBadger

The point was really to express unconventional ideas to see how you would respond to them. It seems you dislike the maverick and prefer the herd.

Whether those are his concepts or he is enslaved by someone's else concepts. Meaning whether he is just a pawn in someone else's game or is he at least trying to be his genuine self and develop a world view that help him live a more fulfilled life. — stoicHoneyBadger

A pawn can be fulfilled. I don't think you mean fulfilled. You seem to be talking about control or power. Nothing is more base than that.

understanding that you still need oil — stoicHoneyBadger

Do we need oil? Renewable energy is still more expensive than fossil fuel so if we tried to transition on a large scale now it would shrink the economy. However, we could devise a plan to scale back consumption and learn how to be content with less material wealth, perhaps by focusing on more meaningful pursuits, and also distribute resources so that those most negatively impacted by degrowth would have their basic needs met. We could also agree on population reduction.

All of the above is possible and could lead to a happier and sustainable society. The problem is that people are not rational and DO NOT critically evaluate their beliefs, actions, and their consequences.

You are claiming that people cannot care about the environment or social inequality and that they can only care about being perceived as a good person?

Yes, I’ve also noticed that white often swings first. I can remember games where white played unusual or bold openings moves with their pawns and my being a bit stupefied and eventually losing the game.

In the arts, however, women are giving men a run for their money. They stand toe-to-toe with the best of men writers/poets/painters, sometimes outshining them in these domains. — Agent Smith

Without trying to check with an internet search, I doubt that is true in terms of recognition.

This is false, for the simple fact that authorities rely on those without authority. Short of physical force, no one actually has power over others. A president is only a president because enough people agree that they are a president. It is an illusion, or rather a social construct. Societies are constructed on a series of ideas and agreements, nothing more.

Wow, if I’m ever in that neighborhood I definitely will.

I’ve visited that one. Now I wish we visited Sainte-Chapelle, the one pictured in my post above.

Give me an example. — frank

This one’s magnificent.

Worldviews just sort of arise. Maybe there's some natural selection involved, I don't know. But it's never just a top-down sort of thing. — frank

There are all sorts of worldviews. I’m claiming that religions always make metaphysical claims (ultimate truths) that require uncommon access. Those with uncommon access have authority, assuming there’s no higher authority, so it is always a top-down sort of thing.

Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd.' — Wayfarer

'Buddhists, Hindus, Confucians, Jews and Muslims would say religion is something you do, and that you cannot understand the truths of faith unless you are committed… — Wayfarer

The claim seems to be that if you practice righty you’ll eventually get it and that only poor practitioners lose faith or never get it. If you hold that these Truths cannot be false there is no other way to look at it, and they necessarily hold that they cannot be false.

People sometimes like to quote the Kalama Sutta where the Buddha says something to the effect of ‘try it out and if it works for ya, well, welcome aboard, mate :heart: ’. Nowhere does he grant the possibility of falsehood.

Without specifics I’ll simply say that practice or a “way-of-being” doesn’t require religion.

Was it about faith? — frank

Faith in religious authority, yes. You are paying attention. :razz:

Because the rest made no sense. — frank

I don’t know how to make a piña colada either, if I’m honest.

Hence the merit of religion is not found in conceptualisation. — Banno

On the contrary, its only merit is found in conceptualization because it is religious ideas (fictions) that serve to bind groups with common values, a meta-narrative, norms, goals, and so on. Ritual is part of that, but then ritual is also part of secular life. Ritual can also be part of non-religious spiritual life.

I meant the patterns in the electrical signals that you mentioned. Specific patterns that correspond to a sequence of sounds, such as spoken words. Neurons in the cerebral cortex recognize these patterns due to their conditioning or as you say “ learning, trial and error, practice, and so on.” Spoken words cause particular neural activity, in other words.

Isn't physicalism a metaphysical claim? — Tom Storm

I believe it is, yes.

It looks to me like you ditched my question. Excellent.

Allow me to rephrase the question, if you will. Do you believe that religious folk make metaphysical claims or simply describe the true nature of reality? The latter case would require no faith. It would be like someone describing something unremarkable and ordinary, like how to mix a piña colada.