The concept of bona fide, which is sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest in interactions, still exist in society and human interactions? — Shawn

Of course. They take place in every supermarket, at every pedestrian crossing, in every bank, school, hospital and home every hour of the day. Were it not so, society would unravel and cease to function.

So then, what's all this about? Seems like entirely different subject matter.

Mind is not reality.

Mind is, at best, reality, once removed.

Art is "lower" in the "hierarchy of truth".

Art is Mind, once removed; reality, twice removed.

And yet, like Mind, art triggers reality to feel/act. — ENOAH

Is art objectively identifiable? — ENOAH

Of course it is. But nobody seems satisfied with an objective definition

the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

No, a reality show doesn't fit the definition of art. It has none of the artistic components: acting, writing, directing, cinematography. In this one and dance contests, the contestants' performances may be considered art, good or bad art, but not the format itself.

Sorry, I didn't get much beyond the OP question. It didn't seem relevant.

Well, then, it's all hunky-dory innit? Everybody getting what they need and want.

If Gaza became a state Hamas would be able to import whatever it liked. — BitconnectCarlos

What, like food, medicine, building material? Assuming they could afford it and somebody were willing to sell it to them.
And that's a pretty good reason for Bibi to keep Hamas in place, isn't it?

The Israelis currently see a two state solution as infeasible because of the current palestinian gazan government/populace which are committed to the destruction of Israel. Give Israel a viable negotiating partner that isn't committed to its destruction and Israel will talk. — BitconnectCarlos

Viable = too weak to get even the minimum of their requirements? Palestine cannot be any kind of threat to Israel with its vast arsenal and foreign backing. At its most outraged, it can only ever be a nuisance and an excuse for Israeli governments to keep their country in a state of perpetual war, in a state of existential crisis. At least until all the Palestinians are dead and there's no more challenge to their occupation of whatever lands they want. It worked in the OT.... until a big empire came and gobbled them all up.

Still, I'd argue much of our core "driving factors" remain the same. Fears, desires, motivations, and whatnot. More refined, tailored to the specific going-ons and happenings of the modern world, existential anxieties and concerns of not seeing a tomorrow all but corralled to the back of one's subconscious, of course. But in essence, much of the same. — Outlander

Agreed. In fact, I outlined all those things in the first couple of pages of this thread. Hominids are pattern-seeking and classifying thinkers. All I'm saying is that we moderns process the input through very different filters from our ancestors. One main difference is the enormous weight of historical and cultural baggage we carry, compared to their fresh, uncluttered world-view.

Certainly agree with earlier society, those fortunate enough to have such, being more connected with one another out of necessity of proximity to life-sustaining goods and services and other "tight-knit" circumstance contributing to the resiliency and defense of said society's existence, in contrast to the modern world and it's "just text me" or "add me on Facebook" norms of interaction. — Outlander

They cemented their bonds with ritual, just as we do. For us, however, the various rituals are isolated - one for family, a different one for the workplace, for the male or female friends, for sporting events and mass entertainments, and that special, set-aside, encapsulated one for worship. For them, drumming and dancing around the fire included all those social and spiritual aspects of their community.
I do think modern people cling to religion, not so much for their spiritual aspirations or solace, but as an antidote the fragmentation of their daily life.

Put yourself in the shoes of primeval man, or even modern man, a distinction I find to be quite fleeting to say the least. — Outlander

The distinction is profound and lasting. Primeval man had no shoes and very little assurance of a tomorrow. His barefoot world was unrecognizably different from the plate-glass and styrofoam world of modern man. His anxieties and aspirations were different. His world-view and dreams were different. His Purpose was to survive and, at a stretch, to keep most of his loved ones alive, but he was not at odds with or alienated from his environment and community. He was never alone or adrift.

All ACA (affordable care act) plans require prenatal coverage even when coverage is sought while pregnant — Hanover

That's 40 million people, of whom how many are women of reproductive age? I don't know the particulars of employee health coverage, but it's probably worth closing any potential loopholes.

You're fighting a battle that was won in 2014. — Hanover

The 'conservative' states are still fighting battles that were won in the 1960's. African Americans are still fighting battles that were supposedly won in the 1860's. Can't take our eyes off the ball for a minute!

Garbage bags that refuse to open.

Pregnant women are not sick, but they still need care. I think it makes sense that that care is provided through the medical care system. — T Clark

What makes sense to a normal person may not make cents to an insurance company.

It's as if they're trying to turn the israeli public against their cause and push them more to the right. i do believe this is hamas's strategy. — BitconnectCarlos

It sure works for "Bibi". "We're at war!" has kept more than one corrupt politician in power and out of jail.

It's about getting around the legal/religious obstacles to coverage for women who don't want to be pregnant, and to make sure that private insurance cannot be denied those who do.
For example, doctors would be able to prescribe birth control pills or morning after pills "for the prevention of disease", the same as they prescribe medication for [other] STD's.

If you were LGBTQ and you had to live in a random Muslim dominated country or random Western country, which would it be? — RogueAI

Bad regimes a-plenty. Russia and Uganda, both predominantly Christian - and that's just in the present. We don't exactly know yet how the conservative backlash, so tough on women lately, will play out in the western countries.
And, of course, that has nothing whatever to do with war crimes.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike theocracies and official state religions.
But war crimes are also committed by secular nations.

You disagree that oil, strategic location and the routes to gold, ivory and spices existed before 600AD?
Or that they were important then as they are still?

I think Islam has been a huge drag on the development of the Arab states — RogueAI

Not in its first thousand years, while Christianity was being a huge drag on Europe.

and a huge factor in the development of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. — RogueAI

Obviously. Whatever threat a military or militant organization is created to counter, religion has a great deal of influence on recruitment and popular support. That worked for Israel.

If the absence of Islam, I think we'd be seeing something more akin to Ireland's troubles. — RogueAI

Except that the factions in Ireland didn't include big international players like Russia and the US. Britain may have given the lands of Catholic peasants to imported Protestants, but a foreign world power was not constantly pumping enormous quantities of arms and money into Ulster.

There are no black hats and white hats; no 'peaceful' religions; no ethical choices.

You think we'd be dealing with the same issues if Muhammad had never been born? — RogueAI

Of course. The oil was there long before Muhammad; so were the strategic harbours and trade routes. Religion is a cover story - one that's been very effective for millennia.

Is aging a disease?

But this does suggest a somewhat interesting question:
How are medical conditions classified?
How are 'illness', 'disease', 'malady', 'affliction' and 'disorder' different? How are the words used in medical science? Generally, anything that presents with symptoms of pain, abnormal expulsion of biomass, elevated temperature, etc. is an illness or sickness. The word disease usually denotes an illness, usually contagious, caused by pathogens. Malady and affliction are usually applied to chronic, non-life-threatening conditions, such as allergy or migraine. A disorder may be a genetic or developed condition that presents as non-lethal malfunction or disability.

Obviously, pregnancy is a naturally occurring condition which can be healthy and normal or abnormal and unhealthy. In the first case, it requires no medical intervention to run its course and have a successful result. We humans intervene anyway, because our evolutionary path has complicated the human reproductive functions with this bipedal innovation; pregnancy and birth are more difficult than they were for our ancestors. In that sense dis ease could apply.

Maybe so, but that didn't sound like satire. The situation in Palestine and the Middle East in general is not the doing of one nation or one religion. Everyone who lives there (with the possible exception of a few truly evil leaders) is the victim of international events that started a very long time before they themselves were born. The major world powers have been playing silly buggers in the region for over two thousand years and won't stop any time soon.
And then, of course, one has to wonder whether one can take at face value anything Mr. Netanyahu says in public.

As long as one is wondering... Why does every discussion go from thought experiment to WWII to Israel?

And when a Palestinian man beats his wife it is surely the Jews' fault as well. It's because of the occupation. — BitconnectCarlos

Actually, it might be a contributing factor. What about the Israeli woman who beats her husband?
Domestic situations are on a different scale from international situations, but both are far more complex than the you have represented.
Jews and Arabs have a history - a whole lot more of it than either of them have has had with Europe, and I'm including the Greek and Roman conquests. That land has been fought over more than any other in the world, with the possible exception of a few corners of Africa and Asia.

That's the typical way people describe Civil Wars: that people simply became insane. — ssu

There is nothing simple about that process. Even more complicated is the fact that most of those people are not insane individually, in their daily life, even while holding insane ideas to be worth defending with their lives.
The situation builds up slowly, at first almost imperceptibly; it grows and spreads and breeds crazy ideas, crazy narratives, twisted versions of reality. Then it begins to cast to the surface leaders appropriate to that dysfunction. Once those leaders take firm hold of a faction, there is rarely a peaceful way back from the brink to which they lead the people.

Never happen. — RogueAI

Maybe some other catastrophe will intervene. More likely a major climate event than Mars attacking.

The federal government is too large and has its fingers in too many pies. — RogueAI

Even the biggest trees fall if their pith is chewed by enough termites. Government agencies are vulnerable to funding and political appointments, as well as loss of public confidence. It's easy enough to promise the people a better health insurance and more social security. Don't have to deliver...
Once a crazy idea is planted, the next step is fantasy, then desire, then intention, then action. From idea to desire is a very small step. From there to intention, most people require a push. That incentive is usually supplied by a big mouth, who may very well hide in his mansion while the action is taking place.

I sympathize. Hungary is under a pretty shitty government, too. I'm very lucky to have left a long time ago. But I don't feel safe here anymore, either. The insanity is everywhere, and I don't think it will go away until a lot more international and civil wars have killed a lot more people. I can see the US heading for CWII in the very near future.

Are such "scorched Earth" tactics a war crime? — BitconnectCarlos

It depends on whose land you're scorching.

Is there a non-empirical dimension? — Ludwig V

I don't think so. Therefore, the god of the gaps is immaterial in every sense.

hope is more of a religious thing. — Fire Ologist

Wrong way around. Hope is a human thing and therefore religion. Some religions tried to take out a patent on it, but we still have some.

Ah! So maybe I'll see it, after all. At least part of the process.

If God had no relation to the empirical world, God would have no use for us, and we would have no use for God and no reason to seek God or evidence or any content to refer to in any discussions using the term “god”. — Fire Ologist

That's about it.

One of the perennial questions I pose to nobody in particular is:
What difference does it make whether something you might choose to call God exists in a non-empirical dimension?

Thou shalt not murder. — BitconnectCarlos

That, of course is completely different.... depending on how you define murder. Here's a list of things you not only may but must kill your own tribe members https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Leviticus-Chapter-20/

The OT is full of wars of aggression not merely sanctioned by Jehovah but instigated by him. How did Joshua come into possession of Jericho? Sappers. How did all the other wars come about? Israel was not attacked by all its neighbours.
He was only kidding about that shalt not kill thingie.

Deuteronomy 20:17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them ; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:

All the mattering qua nattering about ethics was unnecessary. I referred to the distribution of suffering simply to point out that, while we all die, we do not all suffer.

No, I mean by repugnance just the intellectual rejection. — Astrophel

The two words are no more similar than the two attitudes. Why say one when you mean the other? I came by the intellectual rejection of Christianity first and later all organized religions and religious doctrines, through honest inquiry, not from an aesthetic response.

I can't wait to see what that's like. Literally: I have 20 years left on Earth, at maximum stretch. — Vera Mont

That was by way of a sardonic guess at how long it will take for religion to be eradicated from the world. Not the delving into what's been lurking under it.

This is the beginning. — Astrophel

For you. I wish you safe journey. I'm already here.

Here, the term is applied with complete acceptance of the arbitrary nature of our circumstances. Born to suffer and die means born INTO suffering and dying. — Astrophel

Everybody has to die, but the distribution of suffering is quite uneven. But there was still that "why?" attached to the "just this", which renders your acceptance incomplete.

Look, if you want understand atheism (the OP) you need to understand theism, and to understand this, you have to move decisively away from things "theological" that carry significance already assumed and accepted. — Astrophel

Done.

I do appreciate your repugnance for religious thinking — Astrophel

Where have I expressed any such repugnance? All thinking interests me. I reserve repugnance for exploitation and cruelty.

but all I am trying to get across is that when God is, well, put to rest altogether, not a peep, then IN our existence in the world there remains a very important residuum, — Astrophel

I can't wait to see what that's like. Literally: I have 20 years left on Earth, at maximum stretch.

ou can embrace suffering, as Nietzsche did, OR, you can observe suffering for what it is, which is qualitatively very interesting. — Astrophel

The third way: avoid it where possible, inflict as little of it as possible, relieve as much of it as possible.
(It's bloody well not 'interesting'. It's pretty much all the same: ugly, degrading and tiresome.)

So atheism is just a response to theism, and theism is constructed out of irresponsible thinking. Responsible thinking categorically removes these terms to see what is really there, in the world, that is behind it all. This is suffering. Now, one can move further along analytically, but this simple assumption has to be acknowledged. — Astrophel

I see that all my striving at the keyboard has been in vain.
One is free to move right along.

It is not enough, it seems to me, to dismiss the whole business as superstition. — Ludwig V

Not believing it doesn't mean I dismiss it as unimportant. I can both interested in and sympathetic to a belief without subscribing to it myself. What I reject out of hand is that lukewarm admission that there may be some kind of supernatural something behind or underneath of the universe, and that something could be called God - because we can't prove it ain't so. Why should we bother with such a fruitless conjecture? Just not to be called atheist?

Lots of things that are important to people have no basis in material fact, but originate in human groups: nationalism and partisanship come to mind; adherence to leaders who deserve no such loyalty, reliance on luck or fate, etc.

It would be reasonable to suppose, wouldn't it, that religion addresses issues that are still important to us? — Ludwig V

It is and does. Psychological support is one main function of faith, especially when a person is undergoing some difficult ordeal. Social cohesion is another important function of organized religion - a common core around which the community can overcome its personal disparities. Religious tenets encourage good behaviour toward members of one's congregation. It also matters greatly to people who have that all-too-common human craving for a 'higher' purpose, a meaning to their insignificant individual life, a sense of being 'part of something bigger than themselves'.
These functions are not exclusive to religion, but religion is a well established and universally accepted structure on which people rely.

Nor do I dismiss the magical component. The illusion of control - however tenuous and conditional - over that immense threatening universe of natural phenomena. The hope of immortality; the chimera of miracles. These are very, very strong human desires. Of course it's important.
Moreover, I have met sincere believers who did good works just like Christians are supposed to, as well as hypocrites who exploit true believers. I've known a few dozen people who identify as Christian, Jewish or Muslim and found them selective believers: they accept some teachings and ignore others. I assume this is true of the majority of theists. They take from religion what they need and disregard the rest.

There are many themes built in to religion. It addresses human concerns, but also, as Nietzsche so emphatically pointed out, is involved in the power struggles in the new, complex human societies in the new cities. — Ludwig V

How could it be otherwise? The impulse to look for pattern in existence is also the root of philosophy. The fundamental childish questions: What am I? Where did I come from? How do I fit into the big picture? are answered by earliest known origin stories, the established religious texts and the latest philosophical treatises.
I actually don't see the power struggles built into religion itself: the Abrahamic religions are founded in a simple hierarchy of males and the basic structure of the institutions has not changed very much, except for the incursion of women into the lately reformed branches. The churches were always used to prop up the prevailing form of government and vice versa - one leg of the tripod holding a vertical social structure. But that's the institution, not the belief itself. (Of course Nietzsche saw the will to power lurking under every bed and coffee table, so we can take that with a grain of salt.)

Personification of the inanimate in that way is built in to our language. — Ludwig V

I think it might be built into our psyche, and got into the language automatically, through our tendency to make a narrative of our experience. Literature, religion and philosophy all grow increasingly complex as man's knowledge of the world grows.

But consider: you don't think there is a basic problem with our existence that stands outside of, and prior to, the language and cultural institutions that rose up out of a response to this? — Astrophel

Nope.

Why are we born to suffer and die? — Astrophel

We're not born to suffer and die. We're not born for any reason at all. Life begets life, willy-nilly. The universe expands.
Humans would like to find a reason, a purpose, a great big invisible thingie that explains it all and makes us the one special jewel in the crown of creation. I don't subscribe to any of that. I don't believe in magic and don't need it. Being just is. We make the best and worst of it.

Well, it was you who brought up "my internal experiences" — Astrophel

I didn't bring them up. I responded to:

If you say there is no spirit, loosely construed, in the real world, I would ask, what is it that you refer to when the matter of thoughts and feelings and intuitions arises? — Astrophel

Where you take that, I don't quite follow. Is it that you want me to agree that there is some kind of otherness in sentience? Something beyond or behind the processes of the brain? I can't do that, because I do not believe that.

What are external experiences things about vis a vis internal things? — Astrophel

I have no idea: it's your distinction. You have not explained the difference between internal and external experience. Are you just getting all this mileage out my using the word 'internal'? It wasn't essential. It has nothing at all to do with spooks.

Brains are external things, no?

No! Brains are inside the skulls, which are part of the bodies and inside the skin, of sentient organisms. Everything in sensory and conceptual experience is neurological. Everything we know about the inanimate world comes through neurological process. You can't think, intuit, feel, remember or discern any external things without your brain!

Opinion about what? — Astrophel

about

a basic problematic built into existence that gave rise to the worshipping and the rest. — Astrophel

I do not agree with that opinion. I do not see a problem in existence.

This is a question about your reference to "spirit". So when you examine your internal experience, what you find is a kind of content that really doesn't conform to the standards of existence that are generally in mind when one dismisses this concept. — Astrophel

I don't understand. What is the standard that comes to the general mind when [some?]one dismisses the concept of spirit? Is there some reason I should meet that putative standard?

Put it this way: when you say you don't think there is such a thing as spirit, you implicitly draw on some standard of what the world really is that rejects the positing of spirit, and so I am assuming this standard refers to what is not your internal experience, but in your external experience. — Astrophel

Is there a boundary between internal and external experience? How does one discern that boundary? And these very different kinds of experience transmit different kinds of information? Can you give a neurological explanation as how that works?

The point really was to simply say that a human "world" when observed closely, as a scientist would observe, is found to be not a world of objects. An inquiry intent on discovery of the nature of what is "there" in one's "internal experience" will notw above all that this is nothing at all like the external counterpart of this world: the world of shoes, rocks, telephone polls, morning dew, etc. — Astrophel

Sorry. I can make no sense of that paragraph. My best guess is something like: delving into the human psyche reveals that it differs from inanimate objects. That much, I have already stipulated as self-evident. If that difference between life and non-life is supposed to be a "spirit", I accept that as a metaphor, not as a physical entity.

Before there was worshipping, Gods, and all the trappings of these churchy fetishes (I like to call them), there was a basic problematic built into existence that gave rise to the worshipping and the rest. — Astrophel

That's a widely held opinion.

Philosophers — BitconnectCarlos

Didn't they use to be human, before?

But now we're playing the "human behavior game" and not the "philosophy game." In the "philosophy game" one strives for rationality at all times. — BitconnectCarlos

How nice for one! And the subject of this thread is rational?
But then again, who invented the philosophy game - and why?

The idea that because people are necessarily limited, you're allowed to rationally reject, wholesale, the concept of god (not God) is bizarre to me. — AmadeusD

Fair enough. We can be bizarre to each other.

I would ask, what is it that you refer to when the matter of thoughts and feelings and intuitions arises? — Astrophel

My internal experience.

If one is curious or envious, say, this surely is outside of the category of being a couch or a shoe. — Astrophel

Without intelligent makers, there would be no couches or shoes.
Of course some matter is alive, while most matter is inanimate. But what's that to do gods? Zebras and lemurs don't worship anything, and they do all right in what's left of their environments. Human are story-tellers. It's not likely other animals make up stories.... though I sometimes wonder whether cats, dogs and apes star in their own imaginary movies that same way humans do.

So we can act in any number of ways. Maybe we're mad at our child that day and choose to save the other. — BitconnectCarlos

Even if that were the case, the impasse is broken and the rescuer can take action. Morally, it makes no difference whether the tie-breaker is love, anger, fear or chance.

Reasonable action is action in accordance with what we are believing to be true/reflects the nature of reality. — BitconnectCarlos

Maybe so, but I also doubt reason plays much of a part in this example. More likely, the man makes no decision at all; is incapable of a coherent thought, let alone and ethical consideration: he just jumps in and saves his genetic legacy. Once he can think again, he may very well intend to go in after the other kid - in fact, almost certainly will do so, even if reason tells him it's too late.

However, I believe that a father has greater moral duties to his child than a stranger. — BitconnectCarlos

OK. I'm not invested in the moral dimension of a situation that involves a split-second response from an party with a deep vested interest.

If we believe we all have the same exact duties towards all children then why not flip a coin? — BitconnectCarlos

There isn't time. If both drowning children are your own, or both are strangers, the primal impulse is to save both, or failing that, the nearest one. In that situation, you don't weigh odds, and you don't know the result: you simply act.