It's not fear; it's greed. I like sunshine and trees, music and beer, being able to walk and see and taste and hear; I like affection, pleasant sensations, learning things and doing stuff and interacting with the living world. I want as much of it as I can get. When I don't enjoy it anymore, I will be ready and willing - nay, eager - to die.

I think that with small groups it can be easier to understand the "lay of the land", but that they are as diverse as large groups and will also fight over perceived territory within the group and against other groups: that is, property relations are still a source of conflict, even in small groups. — Moliere

There is usually a mechanism for dealing with disputes, so that it doesn't come to a fight that would physically damage valuable members of the group. But land is not an issue where l;and is not individually owned. Hunting territory, OTOH, is disputed with other bands, not among one's own. Wolves and lions contend for leadership, but usually allow the loser to leave - just as exile was an option in ancient Greece. Other animals do fight over mating rights - though rarely to the death. And yes, those are established and acknowledged rights, with no property involved, just the privilege of passing on the best available genes, for the long-term good of the whole colony.

The non-hierarchical societies could not organize militarily as efficiently, and so were wiped out -- so this just so anthropological story goes, at least. — Moliere

That's perfectly true, and the cause of our imminent extinction.

So rather than point to some kind of pure state of freedom to which we are born in, I'd say that there are material conditions of freedom. — Moliere

Now, entirely artificial ones, and even for the most privileged, that freedom is both conditional and limited.

But that's the intellectual tradition I'd prefer to break from, because as far as I can tell its social products just aren't working too well -- we can at least agree on that! — Moliere

Yes, FWIW

But it's the only thing we can really expect, so why not spend ones entire life preparing for what is certain? — MojaveMan

Because it's a huge waste of time. If you want to win at a sport, or succeed in business or master a craft or become expert in a field of study, you have to learn and practice the particulars and perform them well. If you want to fall off a log, you just climb on a log and lean over - no practice required. So, you spend 80 years practicing for something that a PhD in chemistry who is also an accomplished dancer, chess player and stamp collector, who has enjoyed a full life of work, leisure activities, family and friends can do effortlessly, with a simple stroke. You might more usefully have been a cement parking block.

For why?

So I did predict that answers were going to focus on the idea that animals too have some sort of deliberation, and that may be true, but can you think of how this is different than human deliberation? — schopenhauer1

I don't think it is different in kind, though we do a lot more of it, for a lot more diverse goals.

I am specifically thinking of reasons as motivations, not just intention in general. — schopenhauer1

Only in the diversity. We need things, want things, desire things, want to avoid and evade and escape from things, just like other animals. Only our things are more complex, and much of the complexity is self-generated, while much more is social, or group-generated.

An animal might desire food, and they might even plan to some extent. — schopenhauer1

It might be worth your while to watch real live animals. Video footage will do, if there isn't a cat or dog in your world.

There is a break in the evolutionary balance between instinct, environment, and learning. his creates a situation whereby the human is in a sort of error loop of reasons and motivation rather than instinct. — schopenhauer1

Very interesting - and I think, true. But incomplete, because no intelligent animals lives entirely by instinct: they also think and learn and decide. Having undertaken a course of action, they sometimes either to fail to carry it through or abandon it for various reasons. Instinct, emotion, reason; need, reaction, strategy.

I don't have a developed thesis; I just got here. Definitely an interesting subject for thought.

So part of my thinking, here, is to attempt to move outside the framework of "rights", conceptually. And property is a good topic for working through that. — Moliere

I don't think the concept of 'rights' in some form can be removed from a society - of any kind: all social animals have this idea embedded in their organization. But it doesn't need a legalistic form. It's can be taken for granted in all societies that small children are not held accountable for their actions in the same way that adults are, and also that they don't enjoy the same prerogatives that adults do. It can be taken for granted that if one member falls ill, everyone else pitches in to provide for her family; that if a man in injured, his share of the hunt is unaffected. It can be taken for granted that if a grandmother is cold, a chief gives her his blanket - that need supersedes prerogative.

Sum up that notion as something like commensurate ability/responsibility/liability? Small groups of people can manage these concepts quite well among themselves, based on common sense and the common weal.
Native Americans never seem to have had any trouble figuring out who owns their bow and arrows, their beaded cloak, their teepee or their horse. Nobody owns the land, the water, the wildlife, the trees - because those things are not considered ownable: they belong to themselves.

So, I think legalism, with all its pitfalls and injustices, arises from a particular kind of relationship with the world, and with other people. Civilization erects artificial social structures: barriers, strata, hierarchies, functions and distinctions; it allocates goods and resources according to an entirely artificial system of divisions. (And it's madly, fatally dysfunctional)

Is purely fictional entertainment, is good story telling, enough to appease our innate desire for drama, battle, conflict, struggle, etc. Or does bringing it into the real world dimension - through politics, acts of war, crime, fights, court cases etc add that extra wow factor for the audience and/or the players, is it moral to cross that boundary intentionally, or to be entertained by real life conflict? — Benj96

That is a really good question! I'm inclined to think that there is a chain that can be cut at any point, by intervening reality. What we can imagine, we can visualize; what we desire, we can covet; when we covet something specific, we can plan; what we can plan, we can do. (Maybe not well, but a botched assassination is more dramatic than a successful one.) The prime motivation, though, is not the drama, but the object of desire; the dramatic narrative follows.

Finally, can good story telling ever be removed from what happens in real life, — Benj96

I don't think so. I think the stories are a result of events - and sometimes deliberately aimed at making a lesson out of events.

for example if we reached a state of long term intergenerational peacetimes, would our fictional stories/media dramas suffer as a consequence — Benj96

Change, yes. Suffer, I don't think so. There is always conflict of some kind, not necessarily in the brute form of bloody physical clashes: perhaps our story-telling would gain subtlety and spiritual depth.

I tend to think that our property relations cause conflict: in a cold and bizarre way, it's our accounting practices which lead us to war. — Moliere

I'm not sure that applies to war - excerpt class war, of course. But I think this is a useful way to look at the situation, and I generally agree.
I would, however, want to define 'property' more exactly, because whenever the topic arises, we always get the quibblers who consider a cobbler's last 'capital assets' and demand to move a dozen idle squatters into some poor fisherman's hut. So we need to distinguish real estate and land and water rights (the property which is theft) from the clothes on ones back and the tools of one's trade.

An even bigger ethical problem is presented by money. It's the substance of corruption and the easiest means of injustice. When law is based on property rights - held above human rights, if only because property rights are easy to spell out precisely in law and human rights are hard to define, hard to agree about, hard to set down in black and white and to administer - we have an ethical dislocation. When property is expressed in terms of $ value, which itself is arbitrary and mutable, we have another level of ethical dislocation. If degree of criminality is evaluated in absolute monetary terms - $XX.XX, rather than property taken as % of property owned - we have no ethical standard left on which to base judgment. The legal issue is wholly separate from the moral one.

Religions have continuously refined their moralities regarding whatever moral norms become offensive. — Mark S

Yes, from the top down, as I said. If the pope or synod or whoever the authority is, hands down a ruling that pork is all right to eat after all, witches don't have to be burned anymore and it's okay to see women's hair, some of the faithful will welcome it ('bout time, Prelate!) and some will accept it readily (Yeah, okay, makes sense.) some will accept it after much soul-searching (But on the other hand... well, if his holiness says I shouldn't beat them up anymore... I guess...) and some will reject the decision. Maybe even form a splinter group that claims to be the true faith, clinging to the old ways. If the accepting faction is in the majority - which it usually is, once the church is out of step with secular society - the new rules gradually become the mainstream rules --- until they need updating again, when a whole new hornet's nest is stirred up.
What I have never heard a true believer say was : "Well, God was wrong about a lot of things, but I like going to church, so I'll just ignore the bits that don't make sense." They do it - they just don't say it.

[

Defining morality is only one function of religion. — Mark S

Just the main one, without which the community would tear itself to bits, arguing over what's right and wrong, and nobody could be comforted.

Such a religious person could understand that morality exists independently of religion. — Mark S

I very much doubt that. If it didn't set out moral precepts, what good would a religion be?
I believe that many religious people can discuss a wide range of subjects rationally, learn the facts and weigh the other person's arguments - except in regard to the tenets of their faith, which is simply not open to question. When/if the central authority of that church issues a ruling on some hitherto forbidden topic, some will change their position - and some will reject the renegade pontiff.

As Judged by whom? — Andrew4Handel

Exactly my point!

Rather than the legal definition of property/theft, which I'm pushing against, I'm saying theft is from some other's needs, rather than some other's property. — Moliere

Yes. My first criterion for ethical behaviour is motive. Not what did he take, or how much, but why did he take it? A homeless person taking an apple from a supermarket is not the same as a lawyer taking an apple from a boyscout. And I would apply the same reasoning to that first apple in God's big orchard.

Corruption would be someone in a position to render decisions that affect other people, accepting inducement to render unfair decisions. A judge taking bribes to convict innocent people is unethical on two counts; the person bribing him is unethical on two counts. If the wrongfully convicted man's wife bribes a prison guard to help him escape, he and she are not ethically culpable; and the guard - well it depends on why he accepted the bribe.

A society that's corrupt at the top (where the sums tend to be grand) forces some degree of (petty) corruption on all the people below, as a survival strategy.

As long as the moral code is restricted to a very narrow range of behaviours, I can see all rational people agreeing. Don't murder, steal, have sex with children or lie under oath. Once you get into particulars, however, even rational people can be influenced by their cultural norms and customs. Don't eat dead people, or have sex with your sister.
But then, I wonder.... How rational are religious people? It's all very well to say "no spooky oughts", but that is not how the religious regard the edicts and contradicts of their deities. Where's the consensus on 'spooky'?
So, if you try ....
when we try ....
to rally a community around a rational moral decision about abortion, assisted suicide, gender reassignment or even equal marriage, we always have to deal with people who present as rational - except in their moral belief.

If there's one thing I can't abide, it's lizards who make bad choices. — Tom Storm

In that case, we can all be relieved you're not in charge. Karma doesn't harbour prejudices, play favourites or take sides. So I've heard.....

The "karmic" solution is that this person has to live their next life being persecuted. — jasonm

No, that's the simplistic retributive 'solution' - though it's unclear here, what problem needs solving.
A human has made very bad choices in one lifetime; choices that besmirch his soul, spirit, essence, eternal being or whatever, so that he cannot progress toward Nirvana. What need to happen, then, is that he takes a couple of steps back, is reborn in a simpler form - say a lizard - that has fewer and simpler choices, so that he can learn to make them correctly, before he gets another shot at the difficult ones.
The people being persecuted in this life don't become evil in the next as a consequence; they simply move on to a better incarnation.
(This is only a point of view - not dogma.)

Have you ever feel that the universe conspires against you? — niki wonoto

No. I think the universe is unaware of my existence, but if anything - fate, fortune, the spirit world - does know about me, it has been benevolent. Discounting a few rough patches, which I survived with help from other humans, my life has been good on the whole. I lucked into a period of history after one really big international mess, when people were inclined to build instead of tearing things down, and before the next major conflagration - and all the time, I lucked into a geographical region that was not on fire. And being very much aware of my good fortune in big things helps me to cope with little things going wrong.

Why some people have all the 'good lucks/fortune' basically living their dreams, success, & happiness, but somehow, the universe just doesn't allow me to experience the same thing? — niki wonoto

You don't know much about the inner lives of people who appear outwardly successful and happy. Some are miserable and desperately concealing it; some have ups and down, but because they take the thought and trouble to correct their mistakes and move on, their lives look effortless from a distance. And many have picked themselves up out of great depths of misfortune, physical and mental challenges an reclaimed their lives against the odds. It's true that some people are born lucky and stay lucky, but by far, far, the vast majority have to struggle, as you do, or more so.

Am I really cursed, or a jinx, or something like that? I don't know anymore — niki wonoto

It's possible, I suppose, that you have worse than average luck. But the difference between hope and despair is not in the circumstances; it's in the attitude.

As Cassius said: Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Might you become master of your fate through choice—no matter what the stars say?

If you think of yourself as cursed, you will miss opportunities to improve your situation. If you think nothing will work out, it won't.

Ethically, how would the costs then be distributed? — jasonm

Ethics is not about cost; it's about intent.

In the first case, is each person just to be charged 0.50 (because that's the amount of damage they caused) or some larger number (because they irreparably bankrupted the business)? — jasonm

Was it a conspiracy? Did each thief know that the ultimate aim was to bankrupt the company?
The legal indictment can only be for the crime any particular individual committed. If each case was isolated, the charge would be petty theft. If it was orchestrated, it would be conspiracy to commit grand theft, (and if they were all found guilty, the cost of incarcerating all those people would far, far exceed the cost of the crime.)

Similarly, in the second case, is the person charged with $500,000 or some lesser amount? — jasonm

Legally, the amount matters in the degree of grand larceny. This would fall into the second degree category, with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison.

But that's the legal situation. The ethical one has to be judged quite differently. How did that situation come about? If so, why? What had that company done to make so many people want to destroy it?

Lack of a clear differentiation between Man and animals or organisms, in general, was also a big mistake with bad consequences. — Alkis Piskas

Only, there is no difference. I see no justification for capitalizing the name of one species, as it were somehow to be lifted out of nature. Man has, indeed, turned on nature, opposed, subjugated and largely destroyed it - but that does not negate his origin.

You can find yourself dozens of references on the subject. — Alkis Piskas

Of course I can find many examples of abuses, and a few of balanced judgment.
Darwin himself didn't mix in with any of of the extreme views. He did meticulous, painstaking research, observation, sampling and recording, which, as I understand it, he was reluctant to publish, because it remained forever incomplete. He did good science. If his moral and political views were not expressed with sufficient clarity, it may be because he didn't have an agenda, or any idea where his observations might lead other thinkers.
Attribution matters.

If we want to describe politics in Darwin’s language, artificial rather than natural selection would be the concept that performs better for explaining the courses of politics in real society.https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-the-life-sciences/article/abs/darwins-politics-of-selection/D261B9D9684DA736266F790A6E7728A7

Because Darwin is still relevant today. Because his evolution theory and his works in general had a huge impact on the scientific world and our lives. I believe more than we can ever think of. — Alkis Piskas

To science! Not to the political world - either then or now. People have abused his work, dragged his name through all kinds of muck and tattered his reputation for a century and a half... That doesn't meanwe have to!

But I believe it's a question for today, and not only for biology ... — Alkis Piskas

Okay. So why drag Darwin into it?

"The problem with the theory of evolution by natural selection, according to [Thomas] Nagel, is that it does not provide an understanding of consciousness as a likely product of evolution. Therefore, we face a double mystery: We are unable to explain the relationship between the mental and the physical, and we cannot explain why and how consciousness evolved. — Alkis Piskas

I don't think that's a question for 19th century biology.

3) What consequences or implications can this this phrase have for our lives if we embrace it as a principle and let it define our actions? More specifically, what are the implications of this principle for life --not only human, but every life-- from an ethical viewpoint? — Alkis Piskas

It's a slogan. For king and country! "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité". Workers of the World, Unite. Allahu Akbar. MAGA. Because I'm Worth It.
This one phrase has neither implications nor consequences; it can be part of a successful or unsuccessful propaganda campaign in service of a bad or a terrible political agenda. (Good ones don't need slogans; they have reason and purpose.)

It can only be applied deliberately to human life; all other life continues only as long and far as humans allow it to. For other species, only one aspect of fitness still is effect: their ability to adapt to humans.

However, we are not talking here just about words and semantics. We are talking about concepts and principles. In fact, about a whole theory of evolution. — Alkis Piskas

What about the theory? I think it works pretty well, even today. It was certainly a solid foundation for the new branch of scientific study that Darwin's generation pioneered.

How it relates to humans: true and correct, insofar as speciation is concerned. Generally applicable to H sapiens 750,000-7000 BCE, although some strains are difficult to follow, and become quite ambiguous in the latter millennia of that period. Since the institution of city states, organized religion and imperialism, it becomes quite murky. From about 1000 BCE, it's moot.
In applying it to the social sciences, extreme caution is advised in all eras on all continents.

In essence creation and destruction are just positively/negatively connotated synonyms for "change/transformation". — Benj96

Right. So: balance in the universe means: everything that changes changes and everything that happens happens. 'kay...

I used to think it meant something like "the best fit" meaning, most closely adapted to its environment. But with humans, even that doesn't work, since humans adapt the environment to their needs. So, it would have to mean "the cleverest" or "most innovative".... but that isn't true, because brawn can easily wipe out brain, and stupidity always replicates itself more than does intelligence.

And then there is the question of survival. Which counts for more, proliferation or longevity? Over what span of generations.

Darwin was articulate, but he couldn't have foreseen what the future speakers of English, and particularly those with an agenda of their own, would make of his words.

Fitness is a very poor choice of word to apply to humans, let alone human social organization. It has too many meanings and potential applications. A scientific terms needs to be far more precise.
In nature, the genetic strains that replicate most successfully have the highest survival rate.
In human societies, both reproduction and survival capability are unnatural.
So, no, it can't be applied.

Are you sure? If a god is universal and all aspects of existence are parts of itself, why would it not have a duty to itself? — Benj96

By divine choice. Again, you are trying to stuff an enormous concept into a little wee bag. Also, you have a fractal standing in for the entire picture.
A 'universal' god may mean, as you suggested in the opening post, simply a god accepted by all humans. Which would be a very tiny, almost certainly negligible, portion of the intelligent life in the universe. If it's a concept accepted by all of the intelligent life forms in the all the galaxies of all the universe, we humans wouldn't begin to be able to form the tiniest iota of a clue as to what that god-concept was like, what characteristics and attributes it would have. It certainly would not be constrained by our very limited moral vocabulary. Well, in fact I'll go out on a limb to say, impossible to imagine.
But why even try? We have enough trouble trying to focus on an image of just one of the gods we ourselves have brought into conceptual existence.

Not sure its as obvious and transactional as that. I don't think actively causing oneself pain/suffering neccesarily diminishes the pain of another. — Benj96

"That's what Jesus said, sir," But his dad wasn't persuaded.

If you destroy the environment. The now toxic environment destroys you. — Benj96

More accurately, by destrying the environment, you also destroy yourself, as virus may kill its own host. Well, it's true that a cycle is completed. But I don't see it either balancing or unbalancing the universe: I don't see that mutual destruction causing an equal quantity of creation.

Well, we must acknowledge that suffering here is human suffering. — Benj96

Not when you're talking about a god that is supposed to have created all the galaxies and everything therein. The one who made up all the rules. If you're going to posit a universal god, you can's sequester the suffering of one species and pretend it's all in/on our heads.

For example, the climate changing may lead to detriment for humanity, decreased productivity, more human suffering, but those same dynamics may be protective for other aspects of nature by making it ever harder for us to contribute to toxic or harmful environmental activities. — Benj96

Because by then, there won't be any nature left to harm.

If a universal god has a duty to all things' "suffering", as in if the prime directive is to establish equilibrium, and humans persistently push equilibrium into disequilibrium, then of course we are going to see more human suffering as counter measures arise to oppose us. — Benj96

Gods don't have duties; gods have prerogatives. No, the suffering humans cause to one another and all the other life forms on this planet, added to the natural suffering that already befell living things before a great ape reinvented itself, won't ever establish any kind of balance. OTOH, the demise of one little planet, with all its nutrients and pathogens, will disturb the balance of the universe less than the collision of galaxies does.

In this way, suffering leads to karma (the ré establishment of balance). — Benj96

Hit your thumb with a hammer. There, now, aren't you happy that sometime next century, a baby turtle won't be eaten by a seagull?
I believe specific, individual, personal pain when I experience or witness it. I don't believe in karma.

There are other discussions that you might find more edifying. — Jamal

Absolutely true. I didn't open it for Hegel; I thought the Triads in the title might be interesting. But I was struck by that impenetrable paragraph and curious whether the quoter could translate it. That done, I shall trouble you no more.

Some people (not me particularly I'm just spit balling different viewpoints here), would say that a benevolent god, or the benevolent side of an ambivalent one, works through those existants that propagate that - the scientists, organisations and corporations that make it possible to treat diseases etc. — Benj96

That's a "nice" if not very convincing argument for a god who created suffering in the first place. Well, in fact, all organized religious arguments are circular, since they want it both ways: a big enough god to have created everything, but only takes credit for the good half, while shoving blame for the bad half onto its creatures.

Some would pray for a treatment, receive it and then take that to conclude that their positive health outcome is the work of good people, good conditions/circumstances etc - a subset of the manifestation of the good in the universe. — Benj96

That, plus the suffering of all the experimental animals, and the collateral damage of the toxic waste I'm responsible for. Selfish enough to accept the good; not quite hypocritical enough to ignore the bad. (At least I didn't hedge my bets by paying anyone to pray for me.)

[dogma-stagnation] That's quite an interesting view. I'd like if you could elaborate more on it (if you have the time or interest of course). How does the story evolve, or perhaps more importantly how ought it evolve in your opinion? — Benj96

I was thinking more of science and learned disciplines. But the story? I have imagined how it should go after the collapse. ATM, I can only see the imminent collapse. Really, though, history doesn't have any more of a moral sense than gods do. What we make of our story is entirely up to humans -- among whom, I am not influential.

in a concept of God I'm not referring to some bug bearded fellow floating in the clouds — Benj96

That is the most beautifully Kafkaesque typo I've seen all year. (Year's young yet, of course....)

I'll take a stab at the paragraph about "love disporting with itself". — Toby Determined

Thanks for trying. I already knew Aristotle had some silly ideas about a reality that's so much realer than mere reality. Divine navel-gazing is just a more polite term for my first guess.. But what's it to do with love, or even Love?

sinking to the level of "mere edification" — Toby Determined

So, edifying (assuming philosophy can do that, if people are allowed to understand the words) is a lower, a despised function of philosophy, whereas delicately-balanced indecisiveness is a higher calling, which would then make it a science that nobody can understand.

Thanks for your response Vera. I'm interested in what your interpretation of the passage would be. — Toby Determined

I think it's a deepity. Way too many words to convey nothing intelligible. But they sound good. Not only I can't imagine what it means; I can't even imagine wanting to try. If he had something real to say, he should have said it plainly.

I do wonder, does the existence of multiple sentient beings with their own agency, take the burden off a universal God? Would such a phenomenon be an act of sharing the culpability/blame and merit alike? — Benj96

What burden? Who invented it? Whose concepts are blame and merit? Gods, if they existed, would not be answerable; would not even deign to contemplate such a question. "I Am That I Am. I Do As I Do." In this, gods are as innocent and sacrosanct as black holes and earthworms.
The right and wrong of things, perfection and ultimate unity, are imagined and defined by humans, for humans. They may try to impose it on their gods, ideologies and other devices, but it doesn't stick.

The revealing of its [the universe] nature, how it works, its rules, its laws, how all things relate to eachother. Something that physics, chemistry and biology are very good at elucidating. — Benj96

They were good enough at it to cure me of cancer, which prayers notoriously fail to do.

The questions: who are we, why are we here, when did we arrive, when will we leave, how are we made and from what are we made, where are we from, where are we now, where will we be in the future? — Benj96

Pre-civilized mythologies answer these questions much more satisfactorily

The Piaroa, who live on the south bank of the Orinoco and speak a language of the Sáliva-Piaroan family, believe that everything was created by the powers of imagination. In the beginning, they say, there was nothing at all. The first thing to appear was the sky, and then the air and the wind. With the wind, words of song were born. The words of song are the creative powers that produce thoughts and visions. Out of nothing they imagined and created Buoko, the first being, who developed in the words of song.

than post-civilized ones, which are more about power, obedience and hierarchy, and that is why civilizations wiped out all the indigenous cultures they could reach.

Inca myth of the creation of the world
The Andean god Viracocha decided to give rise to a world in darkness where giants lived.
The giants disobeyed Viracocha who decided to disappear his creation causing a torrential rain.
Then Viracocha created man in his likeness. In addition, he created the moon, the sun and the stars so that men could appreciate his creation through light.
Viracocha sent the world to Viracochan, his son who taught men to live in harmony, to cultivate the land, to harvest and to govern themselves with wisdom.
Some men disobeyed Viracochan and that’s why they turned them into stone. Then he went to a fertile valley he called Cusco. There I create a person called Alcaviza.
“After Alcaviza, the Incas orejones will arrive. My wish is that they be respected, “said Viraconchan at the time of creating Cusco.

But everything we do has a dogma (a principle or guide to follow). Science has its own dogma. It is rigid and inflexible about exactly how a proof must come about. — Benj96

Tenets, rules and principles are necessary. But once a science (or any discipline) becomes dogmatic, it stops evolving and soon gets left behind, like leeches (though actually they've made a comeback) and alchemy. Even more so, the story of humanity needs to keep flowing or it stagnates, ceases to serve its original purpose, becomes absurd as all orthodoxies do.

Could we really indeed be made in the image of the universe?

star-stuff.... it's exactly as meaningful as you make it. Star stuff is just atoms. We glorious humans are made of it and so is our excrement once it leaves our glorious god-image bodies. WTF is an image of the universe and is that made of something more special?

So what ought be the dogma of an" acceptable God?" One that everyone could get behind. — Benj96

There can't be one. Gods worked as long as they were imaginable: just big enough to create land, water, moon, sun, animals and people, but still small enough to manifest, to die and get reborn, have sex and kids; to interact with people in some human-scaled ways. Once you push the god out beyond your own solar system, and then past your galaxy; once you give him omni-powers, he's just too remote to relate to. He becomes ineffable, unreachable, unthinkable -- and useless.

Or perhaps, there is already a dogma for such a God, — Benj96

Dogma is a very poor way to present a deity. He needs to be personal, plausible, adaptable and available.

and it is human flaw that continually prevents it from being fully and unanimously realised. — Benj96

Of course - original sin: It's all your fault. You brought evil into the world by learning that it exists. You prevented the cure for your cancer by failing to believe strongly enough.
Which is more blameworthy, the one who made it all, or the one who peeked behind the curtain?

No, there is no point in looking for a universal deity. Gods are supposed to be tribal, local, intimately connected to their people and the land. Any god bigger than that will juts make a colossal ass of itself.

"The life of God and divine intelligence, then, can, if we like, be spoken of as love disporting with itself; but this idea falls into edification, and even sinks into insipidity, if it lacks the seriousness, the suffering, the patience, and the labour of the negative." — Toby Determined

Can you clarify any of the terms used in that passage?
How does love disport with anything, let alone itself. It sounds like disembodied onanism, which is really hard to picture.
And idea may be explained or taught, but how does it "fall" into edification?
They can certainly be insipid, but how does an idea start in one state and then "sink" into another?
Who/what is the "negative", and what causes it to suffer, what is it patient about, and what it it working so hard at?
What does that sentence mean?

Then that would apply to both. — fdrake

Yes, I agree on the negative side. Consent should never be presumed, unless there is nation-wide consensus.
On the other side, however, I make a sharp distinction. If someone consents to organ donation, that doesn't make it automatically ethical to use them for any other purpose. It's different categories of ethical consideration.

But I think the argument in the paper makes a good case that the moral intuitions which make opt out organ donation ethical should also apply to WBGD. — fdrake

Only if the potential donor gets to specify what they are opting in or out of. Making yet another privileged a baby is not a matter of life and death. I can imagine some people - a lot of people, actually - opting out rather than be used as a vegetative incubator, even though they have no objection to the one-time donation of organs. If it's all in or all out, you would lose potential life-saving donations.

Also, if it were to be ethical, this whole subject - including the procedures involved - should be taught in school and the clear statement of options for body-parts donation being a routine part of the acquisition of an identity or social insurance card.

My bottom line: It's unethical to presume informed consent, on the basis that the consent was not expressly refused.

The allegation is that surrogacy, while consensual, is exploitative. I don't fully subscribe to that logic because, like organ donation, it can significantly improve people's lives, including those who do the giving. — Xanatos

Organ donation can significantly prolong and improve the life of the recipient with something they need. Surrogacy can provide some people a child they desire, but we have no way of knowing what effect the child will have on their lives - not to mention the kid's life.

But the risk of exploitation can still be there if women are poor. — Xanatos

Obviously. But it's - necessarily, for the health of the foetus - a better quality of life than the assembly line in a chicken packer or prostitution.

So, they could withdraw their consent to this while they were still alive. — Xanatos

IOW, unless they expressly refused, they're fair game. Therein lies my objection. The women best suited to this are young - their judgment isn't fully developed; they don't think very far ahead; they maybe don't enjoy thinking at all. Exploitation potential is fairly high in that demographic, as well.

But anyway, a brain-dead person, due to not being sentient any longer, no longer has any interests. Meanwhile, a sentient surrogate still does have interests, including the interest not to be exploited. So, the "injury" to the brain-dead person is less severe, so to speak. — Xanatos

Sure, -- unless you consider their friends, lovers, parents, siblings, impressionable children.... and the fact that they have not, in fact and full awareness, consented. While the exploited poor at least get to choose the means and venue of their exploitation.

If you had a 100% consensus from the voters to declare the bodies of all clinically dead citizens property of the state, unless they've made legal exception, to be redistributed for the public good, like tax moneys, this would be ethical. It's also logical; in Kazohinia, they recycle bodies as a matter of course and universal consent. Not yet here, though.
Here and now, it's merely expedient. I think it's very dangerous to conflate those two concepts.