Fear of punishment and guilt is a key experience for children: it's the essential route to developing a strong moral sense. However, once the moral sense has developed (in childhood, before adulthood) the individual is likely to be consistently law abiding the rest of his life — BC

Yeah but why does the individual mostly becomes a law abiding person because the fear gets ingrained in him. You are literally saying the thing i said at first. I don't know why it took you so long to understand this and at start you weren't even considering fear as reason for law abiding. I guess people on this forum debate to prove others wrong than getting to the truth

Yeah true true. At this point i kinda got trapped in the box when talking to the guy about fear of punishment and mistakenly i dont know how and why assumed law's as the standard. I messed up there i guess :cry:

Why do you think majority of the population won't be like this. and they dont like have to do bad things routinely. like today i have to finish my 10 kills and 5 rapes. Absolutely not its kinda like they will do it when they want in some cases maybe 5 "bad things" in a day like 5 horrible crime or maybe 1 bad thing in 2 month. When you have this kind of facility then it will be kind of casual than a routine.

I don't want a fear based system but our system to such extend is fear based. Why do you think a homeless beggar who has nothing to loose does not steal but begs for money. Not in all cases but in most BECAUSE OF THE FEAR OF PUNISHMENT. When your stomach is empty, you haven't eaten from 2 days you don't give a damn about morals or right or wrong(of course they are some exceptions) So yeah the only thing keeping them back is fear of punishment, fear of getting caught and getting punished. This was one of the instances, there are many more if you want.

Yeah i am telling this guy the same. but he isn't understanding :cry: :cry:

people who have not put themselves at risk of punishment have no need to fear punishment. — BC

Then basically they avoid evil acts and stuff because of fear of "fear of punishment"

Yeah not all are bad deep down. Some still got that maybe little but of goodness in them. Btw your answers were short yet so meaningful. I appreciate it And yeah if we follow through the final thought that we agreed on it kind of makes the things back to what we think these days. basically turns things back to normal

I agree

Interesting perspective but I dont think making a thread on this thought makes a person good. maybe it makes the person "Self Aware bad person"

most people don't commit crimes, so do not experience punishment.

It would appear that something else affects behavior beside punishment / no punishment. — BC

Such a illogical thing to say. you are justifying your claim by saying most people haven't done crimes, so they haven't experienced punishment thus they are not restraining them because of fear of punishment.
Fear is not something that you will have only after experiencing the real thing. you can have it even by seeing other guy face the consequence. It is like saying i wont get scared watching a horror movies cuz i am not in the movie. And yeah take religious people as and example they haven't experienced hell but they do fear it. (Either your argument is dumb or i misunderstood it, the second being more likely)

Most people, most of the time are polite, considerate, and kind to each other without any coercion, and without any fear,

Most people are polite, considerate and kind to each other because they don't have better option than that. As you said in one of you previous texts that humans beings are dependent on each other(in most cases, when they dont have a lot of power). So for their own benefit they are pleasant and kind. I strongly disagree with you saying that they are pleasant kind without any fear. They are definitely kind and pleasant in general because of fear(form of fear varies from person to person) surely there are some cases where they are kind without fear but i disagree with you using "Most people". — unenlightened

but just because it is a more pleasant way to be together. — unenlightened

yeah surely it is more pleasant way if you DON'T HAVE POWER. People tend to live together like this to be strong as whole and they act kind because they are dependent on each other. When they are not dependent then the situation changes a lot

Don't you think in my given scenario. most people will perform big evils and a lot of them. Like if a person could do anything he wants without getting caught and nobody knowing then he would definitely do a lot of bad things. for example if somebody collided with him and he is in a bad mood he might kill him or maybe something less serious and these things will get more and more. Obviously most will become egoistical and then wont even tolerate simple mistakes by others thus increasing the quantity and quality of bad things

I get where you are coming from and what you are trying to convey. But don't you think the scenario I presented, In this world there are instances when some people are in condition like that. Where they have for example a lot of power and can make the possibility of getting caught during evil acts very little and doesn't this work there(Yeah i agree that reality wont be fully like my hypothetical situation but it can be similar to some extend as the given example). So it is in fact kind of deep and important. Because it kind of rises questions over various things happening in society like centralization of power. Disproportional wealth and stuff.

Now that I read your response I am realizing various thinks and possibilities that i hadn't thought of. I appreciate you for taking some time to respond to my question. by the way you have good sense of humour

How, with a beating? :grin: — Outlander

This was very funny I laughed a lot on this

I didn't quite get it. My apologies. Are you trying to say these hypothetical scenarios have nothing to do with reality or Did i misunderstood. could you please clarify

Yeah then all of us will be average in that scenario according to standard of that time but aren't we all still bad according to todays standards

Like if I said I'd give $1,000,000 to the poor if I had $10,000,000. Does that make me a good person even if I don't have $10,000,000 so the poor get nothing from me? So, is a guy bad if he would rape if he could rape without consequence? It's pretty hard to do that in our society, much like it's pretty hard to have $10,000,000. — Hanover

But don't you think we that we usually don't consider a person who says if he had 1 million he would give it to poor a good person because we don't know if it is his real intent or he is just trying to do so. So comparing these 2 things is invalid. Let me give a new comparison. If a person gets 1 million right now hypothetically and he decides to give it to the poor doesn't that make him a good person? similarly a guy who would do rape if there are no consequences he would be a bad guy in that case.

Question by me: i dont understand why people here are kind of saying that the person wouldn't be bad. Like how isn't he a bad guy

But, sure, I'd like to know that it's not the prisons that keep people honest, but it's the people's honesty that keeps them honest. — Hanover

I don't think that will is true or will be true in the future. I think it is the punishment that keeps people honest and act good. Some people might fear worldly punishments and religious ones fear the punishment that god will give them in afterlife so thats why they are all acting goodly. Even if we reach a point where people's honesty will keep them honest and not a fear I think that era wont last long because It will take one guy to abuse power and mess up everything

I'd also argue that even if you did commit a bad act now and then, you're not a bad person necessarily. You can do bad and still be overall good — Hanover

So basically you are saying that even if a person decides to do bad act when there is 0 chances of him getting caught he still overall is a good person. I kind of get where you are coming from but I think you are taking acts that are not too evil. What if he commits rape. Would you still say he is overall a good person (i used rape as one example of serious crime you might argue all people wouldn't rape people even if given the chance but they can do other serious evil acts. And i think most people eventually do a serious evil act if given a chance. Especially in this era when people are reading and watching fiction which romanticizes rape and stuff)

i did read it. but the story in itself asks a question at end which plato then answers in the rest of the book. But i dont have time to read the whole book :cry: :cry:

But doesn't god show his perspective in holy books. For eg if you are a muslim then gods perspective can be seen in quran or if you are a Christian then in Bible

Good and evil are fundamental features of reality and they are both necessary — MoK

Yeah both are necessary in this world but isnt god said to be All powerful. If yes then he can change the fundamental features of reality according to his own will thus good and evil are his own choice and he put it himself thus not being merciful

You said "what is right for me might not be right for other person" this could be said for various things and I agree on that but dont you think that this type of relativity is harmful and can justify various things that are not permitted these days

If i understood you correctly then you are basically saying that god gave us free will and we do cruel acts and it wouldn't be fair to call intervening in our free willed actions mercy. Okay for instance i agree with your thought but lets be real if he was merciful why in the first place would he make us play such game where cruelty is a good option in various cases. If he was merciful shouldn't he have created something where we could be tested without suffering and cruelty. By the way you said "God might be still immoral" but brother realistically god cannot be immoral because if there is a god then morality comes from him so he realistically cant be immoral thus if we see somewhere that god is being immoral than can only mean two things.
1. Our understanding is not clear and he has some purpose behind it.
2. Our understanding is clear thus good is immoral but god cant be immoral so therefore god doesn't exist

You don’t have to believe in Brahman to be well-versed in Advaita Vedanta. But fair enough — Tom Storm

Brother if you hve knowledge regarding this interpretation of God then i would love to question because i literally wanted to question but stopped because I thought you might not have enough knowledge on it or maybe you used this interpretation to only answer my question. I would really love to question about it

Well you gave the answer by referencing to a different interpretation lf God and there are various questions about this interpretation but i won't ask them because you are a atheist too so you pretty much don't believe in this too so their is no meaning in that.

Thanks for the advice man! I appreciate it

Now that you told me to read this properly and discerningly now i understand what you are saying. Your words show that you kind of believe that religions were made to justify the sufferings of the weak and poor and were just there to give them kind of hope.

By something that differentiates me i assume that you are referring to something like "soul" or stuff like that. So my answer for your question will be "I dont know, maybe there is something inside me different form maybe animals and stuff but maybe there isn't"

Sorry for that. But yeah first of all we were discussing about gods mercy and the other thing is that you said the formula of jesus was his own values but honestly speaking if we look at history and historians will say the same things that jesus preached the message of god(atleast jesus showed that he was preaching message of god and was sent by god) so i dont think creating own values will come into his formula

How do you know jesus was right. You guys believe that god is all loving and merciful but yet we still suffer, you say he loves us the most but still tell me to fear is wrath and anger. How am i supposed to believe you when this earth and my existence itself is contradicting the characteristics of god described by you

I'm quite impressed by you because when I wrote about this topic I was 100 percent sure that what I'm saying is correct and there is no error except that being neutral is also kind of having a belief but after talking to you I got to know how little sighted I was because you pointed out the flaw easily while I was thinking I cant be wrong.

I am especially interested in something covering the history of Islam in more historical/anthropological terms too. — I like sushi

If you want to learn about islamic history then the first step is probably gonna be to read the time of prophet Muhammad pbuh because that's where it al kind of started. The book which perfectly analysis that time send talks about that period in detail is "Sealed Nectar". This book is great if you want to start your journey of reading islamic history. But if you want to go into more detail and want to study from the 1st prophet of islam prophet Adam to last prophet then I will recommend you a book "Al bidaya wan nihaya"(From beginning to the end) by ibn kathir.

Now that you talk about it like that I think you are right and no decision can be neutral and every decision is influenced by personal beliefs

It will really help if you can give us an example of a decision that you or anyone has made without input from personal values and beliefs. — T Clark

A simple example of this is a judge in a courtroom given a decision. There he is not influenced by his personal beliefs and values but rather gets beliefs from external sources.

I get what you are saying
You are trying to say that even if I try not be influenced by personal beliefs that itself is a belief and you are getting influenced by that. Is that what you are trying to say?

I also agree with you on the thing that if we make a decision without beliefs than that is just a random decision but I'm not saying that we have to make a decision without beliefs but I'm saying that we have to make a decision while trying not to get influenced by personal beliefs(though making a decision without getting influenced by personal beliefs is impossible you will get influenced even if it's very minute)

How is "being neutral" not a belief? Is it not a belief of yours that it is better to be neutral in making decisions? — Moliere

You are completely right I I have also talked about this in one comment. We can say that being neutral is a paradox and it contradicts itself but the thing is that if we are being neutral then we have the lowest number of beliefs we can possibly have and thus this is the best option we have.

Again, I can't think of an example of a decision that can be made without values — T Clark

I think there might be a misunderstanding between us because you are saying that a decision cant be made without value and in my last reply I told you that I also believe that decision can't be made without beliefs and values but I also believe that decision can be made without personal beliefs and values(though not 100%)

I don't understand. Can you give me an example of a decision that can be made without values and beliefs? We have discussions here on the forum ad nauseum about what constitutes knowledge. What is knowledge other than beliefs about the state of affairs in the world - something you believe to be true? — T Clark

I am not saying that a decision can be made without beliefs and values but I'm saying that it can be made without personal beliefs and values (though I have mentioned in comments on this discussion that it is impossible to make a decision without influence of personal beliefs but we can make the influence very low).