Lord of the Rings has more truth when it comes to matters of friendship, loyalty, and duty, than the Bible.

I'd never use the bible for moral guidance, as there are so many more relevant books available. Even though there might be some good advice in the Bible I could never condone any book that supports genocide and the stoning of adulteresses.

Evolution doesn't care.
It allows an infinite possible number of traits. Evolution is the result of a process in which useful traits are promoted by successful reproduction, but more exactly the elimination of traits that are actively injurious to successful reproduction.
Evolution is not a process which creates or selects traits at all. Evolution is the end result of living things having viable progeny. Between the two extremes of positively useful and negative traits there exists a whole host of traits that, not impeding the result of viable progeny confer not particular advantage or disadvantage of viable progeny.
Natural selection, does not select FOR traits in any sense. It is the result of the selection of living things that have useful traits and neutral traits.

In the matter of conscious sexual selection by humans of their mates it can be argued that those that believe in free-will are likely to select a mate who also has such a belief. In this way free will is adaptive in that it is attractive.
This argument can also be offered for a range of myths, beliefs and other cultural artefacts. That they persist in culture passed to children through knowledge.

I seems to me that the power of suggestion, and the power of the mind to invent memory is equal or stronger than the ability of the human mind to completely suppress memory.
This being the case we ought to traduce the charlatans and quacks of the regression technique and show them for the fakers they are.

Some of us remain content to point out its many failings, contradictions, and immoral suggestions in the hope that others now enslaved by the myths it promulgates might be emancipated from its mental slavery..
We live in hope.

Determinists automatically assume the presence of something transcendental or external to any given custom or state of affairs, even when it makes no sense whatsoever to speak of something transcendental, such as when discussing the history of everything that is by definition said to exist. — sime

I do not think this is true in any sense. Whilst is it almost impossible to describe determinism, or simply to talk about cause and effect without using transcendental ideas, that is not the same as saying that determinists rely on something transcendental for necessity of cause and effect to be to the case. Determinism is true whether of not there are determinists, or compatibilists trying to describe the universe. Clearly determinism relies on inductive knowledge. but the claim of determinism can only be described by transcending the brute reality of cause and effect to conceptualise and vocalise the findings of indiuction.

For example, when we were taught the 'law' of addition in mathematics, each of us was presented with only a small number of examples of addition. — sime

This example is not relevant. The numbering system we use is analytically true, and established a priori on matters of fact devised by human cognition. Numbers are not phenomena that relate to causality, but have their own idealistic meanings.

But the Bible says that God's ways are mysterious so there is no reliable way to determine his intent.
— Abdul

You answered your own question, we cannot know why god does things. — Sir2u

And yet... The Bible is a book almost exclusively designed to elucidate God's intent and to exhort his followers to act accordingly.

I know what he is saying. What I believe is not relevant; never relevant.

I know I do feel like I'm the same person, — A disturbed person

You cannot step into the same river twice. In fact you can't step into the same rive once.
What you feel when you feel 'the same person' is continuity of an ever changing reality.
You are not the same person as you were when you were five years old. You are not the same person you were yesterday. You were not even the same person you were when you stated to read this post.

Could Neil Tyson be onto something? Does science stop being valid if we don't believe in science? — ThoughtCurvature

He's not saying that at all. And you know it.

Belief as commonly used. Means accepting things as true you know to be lies; at one extreme. and matters of irrefutable fact on the other.
In a philosophical discussion I think we can do better than that.

↪charleton Ah, I see what you mean. Actually though, I think one can believe without being able to justify it. In fact, I think there are basic beliefs that cannot be justified. Rather, they are implied in the way we go about things. — jamalrob

Yes. But it is those that I think we need to do without.
If we know things and have a rigorous method whereby that knowledge remains contingent upon the evidence and reasons that inform it then this would be a more practical way to live your life.

If I think that Jews are money grabbing, and do not challenge that idea, then I am simply going to see all acts of money grabbing as potentially jewish and find evidence of jews grabbing money to justify my belief. People like Wolfowitz, Greenspan, Bernancke, Soros, Rothschild, are going to re-inforce that prejudice. That will persist with the idea that it is okay to believe what you want.
And whilst you can know that these individuals control much of the financial systems, knowledge demands that you would have to compare this with Jews not involved in finance and non-jews involved that are also involved in finance. Or jews such as Bernie Saunders, and Stiglitz who constantly point of the failings of the current financial system.
A person that allows belief to persist over knowledge leads the jews to the gas chamber.

It's not belief that's the problem, but certain kinds of belief, for example, belief contrary to evidence.

ProgrammingGodJordan was unable to see this. I hope you're not. — jamalrob

You are making the confusion, by using a definition of belief which is basically meaningless, as it encompasses 1+1=2 as a belief, and I believe in fairies.
I just think it makes more sense to use the word knowledge against belief.

ProgrammingGodJordan I think is making a similar point. You are privileging the status of the word above the meanings the thread is teasing out.

When you know, you believe.

And when you take it to be the case that "the idea that people are free to believe what they want ... is a dangerous and damaging idea", then that is what you believe. — jamalrob

No. I know that. It is not a belief at all. I can demonstrate and argue the case.
What I am seeking here is a distinction between belief as a choice and belief as knowledge.
They are simply NOT the same thing at all.

When you know; you can back it up. When you can't back it up , you have to choose to believe - that is where the danger lies.

But even Tacitus recognised that Rome prevailed. I'd put Tacitus in the camp of bigging-up your opponents to make yourself look good for conquering them.
He also seemed to be genuinely interesting in the way the Germans ran their political system, and historians and anthropologists use him as a source, especially in the interests of proto-democracy.

Tea.

Here's my Centenary Kirk Douglas.

https://twitter.com/MarkCarterMC/status/857204514658680832/photo/1

Sculpting has not always been my main motivation. But it is what gets me out of bed these days.
I it up after looking around for something new to do a year or so after cancer.

i think the trick here is to not take the query of the thread too literally.
How about what makes you life interesting, worth while. What gets you out of bed in the morning.

No I am saying exactly what I meant to be saying. You are confusing matters of fact with matter of opinion. Own it; deal with it.
— charleton

Own what?

I'm not the one asserting that murder can be demonstrated as a fact. That's why I made this thread, to see if anyone can demonstrate it because a lot of people talk as if it is a fact. What are you even talking about??? — SonJnana

Let's recap on what you were saying.
You were comparing two things.
1) The roundness or flatness of the earth.
2) The rightness or wrongness of killing.

1) This is a matter of fact. It does not matter what you feel, what you believe, what your culture is.. The earth is flat or round.

2) If killing is wrong, or if killing is right is a matter of opinion. It does matter what you feel, what you believe, what your culture is. It matters if you were brought up by the Yanomami tribe which believes that if you have not made your first kill then you are not a man. Alternatively you might be brought up a Jain. They believe that treading on an ant or a worm is bad.

How about a reason not to die?

Yes. JJ Rousseau used the idea effectively in a political platform used to critique so-called 'civilised' society. With most caricatures there is much to recommend it factually.

I try to live by these axioms, and by and large it seems to work, though attracts criticism.
I don't think you can ban or outlaw belief, because you can't outlaw stupidity.
For my part I consider Faith to be the death of reason and enquiry.
Knowledge is the better part of belief, though the two terms can be interchangeable. I think the type of belief that Tyson was talking about is the idea that it is acceptable to allow the idea that people are free to believe what they want. That is a dangerous and damaging idea, that has been the ruin of human society for thousands of years.
Belief of that sort is a response to hopelessness and intellectual laziness.
But we can only discourage it.
I believe nothing. I seek to know.

Maintaining the equality of all members within a tribe of 20-50 people seems quite a bit different than acknowledging the equality of all people within all tribes.

I'm also a little suspicious of the idea that hunter-gatherer tribes maintained a deep respect for the individual autonomy of those tribal members. — Erik

I think your problem is based on a lack of basic knowledge. People who study h/g Society would not accept your caricature. In the world c 15kbp the entire world was covered with 1000s of disparate groups of humans. Understanding them has to come from extant h/g societies. What we can learn from these studies is that there is NO possible caricature that fits and the diversity of the strategies covers every conceivable extreme in human culture. If we were to chose the Yanomami tribe of the Amazon, we find possibly the most bellicose, vicious and aggressive way of life, misogynistic and hateful. Contrast that with the Hadza, and the San of Southern Africa and we get the most kind, thoughtful egalitarian and sharing strategies that put any so-called Christian to shame. In particular the !Kung San have no word for thanks you, since sharing, giving and co-operating are the norm. They scorn ostentatious gestures of generosity, have no concept of property except for one or two personal items.
Looking wider you can find gender equal tribes, where women hunt and men look after the children. And the complete opposite where women are nothing more than chattel, like biblical society.

But make no mistake the "Original Affluent Society" , characterised by Marshal Sahlins, that is egalitarian is a fact of human society and still today more than just history.

Sculpture mainly.

So then are you saying that when a person murders, it is because he is going against the opinions of the majority of people? — SonJnana

No I am saying exactly what I meant to be saying. You are confusing matters of fact with matter of opinion. Own it; deal with it.

I do not recognise the concept of sin.

You ask why should I want to fix some mistake I made??
I do not think this warrants an answer.

I think the problem with God being omniscient is that he has to have known since the beginning of time what he was going to create when he created you; and what you were going to turn out like. He has to have known that he was creating a saint or a sinner.
Where's redemption and salvation? It's meaningless!
God has made me thus I cannot accept his existence. So he has made me just to burn in hell.

I don't know what that feeling is.
If I have done something wrong, it is not because I knew it was wrong at the time. Had I know it would cause me negative feelings then I would not have done it.
Thus things that I accept that I have done wrong were not done intentionally. Guilt is not a valid response. Fixing the problem, such as explaining what has happened, or re-doing something and putting it right is how you deal with it. I cannot see how regrets or guilt would help.

I was talking about cross-racial marriage in 1969.
Not same sex marriage in 2014-5

True in the same sense that it would be objectively true that the earth is not flat even if every person thought it was. Similarly, just because everyone thinks it is objectively morally wrong to kill doesn't mean it actually is. — SonJnana

You are confusing two completely different things; Matters of fact, and matter of opinion.
It can never be factual that killing is right or wrong. Morals do not render facts.

Did you not consider I might be agreeing with you? In the states were it was still illegal I wonder what a poll would have discovered. Probably more in support than we would be comfortable with.

**However! If we as people grew up in a world where killing other people was deemed ok via international moral agreement then what would we know to suggest otherwise? — Kellen

Let's not forget that the US has a death penalty, which is morally repugnant in most civilised countries.

Does it follow that Hitler and the Nazis were not objectively morally bad during the Holocaust, and that they were simply the minority in terms of opinion on the treatment of the Jews? — Samuel Lacrampe

Exactly!!
The German people brought Hitler to power, and his establishment determined that Jews were evil and the society would be better of by proscribing homosexuality; and promoting eugenics by removing racial diversity and disability.
Hitler and his staff thought they were at the start of a new world and were acting morally correctly. It is evident that the majority of the German people supported him and were willing to die for that cause.

The law criminalizing marriage between black and white people in Virginia was overturned in 1969 — T Clark

That is quite a sobering thought.
Utilitarianism might suggest that the harm to the bigoted 99.5% who thought miscegenation was bad, overruled a handful of those wishing to marry another race.

Well, as far as I am aware, utilitarianism is normative primarily. So, what's best for the general population is entailed to include what is best for the individual. — Posty McPostface

That is blatantly not the case ever.
Not unless you live in a socialist utopia.
Even if you could make that judgement, which I doubt.
There are very few cases where such utility for the individual and the community is clear cut. and even more difficult when judging the community's good against some real harm for the individual.

Kant wants to formulate universal moral imperatives. In other words he wants to reduce morality to a set of rules, all of which may be rationally justified by just one maxim:

Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law. — Janus

Given these two statements is seems to me that you have it completely backwards.

As if you act towards your universal wishes you are imposing your moral code towards the objective from the subject, not the other way round.

Consider the statement that all Mongols are universally supreme and the all Indians are universally inferior. That it ought to be a universal maxim that all Mongols should crush their enemies and hear the lamentation of their women.
This is great if you are Ghengis Khan, not so good if you are Ghandi.

I think this shows a misunderstanding of human nature. — T Clark

We are mostly human culture.
I don't think it is possible to distill what is human nature as it is so far subsumed by cultural logic, endemic assumptions, and normative imperatives.

If you are utilitarian, please let us know why and what would you say in regards to the above. — Posty McPostface

One man's opinion about the utility and happiness of the many, is another man's hell on earth.
How to judge?