So I think the only thing the powerless ordinary good persons, anywhere on earth, can do is to wish each other be safe (as you did already). — KerimF

I think the unpleasant problem of which you speak is what democracy is about. We all have a voice. Granted no one is going to pay much attention to me so I have nothing like the power of Trump, but enough ants can eat an elephant. I am planting seeds of thought and I will not be remembered but some of those seeds of thought may sprout and grow and reproduce. That is democracy, rule by reason, not rule by authority over the people.

It is the purpose of humans to think and they will manifest what they think about. It is our duty to the universe to think and speak and move humanity to a greater concsiousness, if we are recognized as a person of authority and power or not. We are part of something much bigger than ourselves.

Chardin said God is asleep in rocks and minerals, waking in plants and animals, to know self in man. This is not a miracle working God with supernatural powers tending to human affairs, blessing some and punishing others. It is universal law and our growing consciousness of it, which in turn manisfest it on earth. We are all a part of this and as we have seen, a powerless child or a powerless Black man can become an international voice for what is good when the time is right.

For someone that believes in God (a believer), there is an eternal structure to existence (sometimes referred to as essences) — Merkwurdichliebe

Does it matter which notion of God a person finds believable? How about logos and science, does that work? I think logos comes with abolute truth, but there is no holy book for it.

There is another type of believer who believes that God relates to each individual on a personal level, and in that capacity stands as judge for each individual. — Merkwurdichliebe

What if a person is not a believer in a humanized God such as Zeus or the God of Abraham? Might this person also have principles and be virtuous?

If the believer desires to think and act rightly, he will base his decisions on principle — Merkwurdichliebe

Does democracy, reasoning, and science work as the base for decisions on principle?

Any morality can be rationalized and justified, hence the nonbeliever only has access to relative morality. — Merkwurdichliebe

I hold a moral is a matter of cause and effect, so it is not exactly up to the individual alone. Our judgment must include the effect of what we say or do and the more expanded our consciousness is the better our judgment will be. Our consideration of right and wrong, need include everyone's understanding of it, not just our own.

thinking or acting only become morally relevant under inspection — Merkwurdichliebe

That is a lovely thought. Therefore, blindly following Hitler would not be moral because blindly obeying authority does involve thinking about it. People, who obey without thought, are being reactionary and may do horribly immoral things, even if they believe it is the will of God, right?

Whatever the nonbeliever can get away with is fair game. — Merkwurdichliebe

Not true at all, because if the action is not right the effect will be harmful. That is how we determine if something is right or wrong by the effect, and sacrificing animals, offering the gods human hearts, rituals and prayers will not change the effect of what we have done.

This is to say: no two individuals ever receive fair or equitable judgment...completely rendering "justice" into a relativistic notion. — Merkwurdichliebe

I have a problem with that notion! The consequences of our actions will be the same no matter who takes the action. Hum, are we judging the action or the person taking the action?

Reading what you said, I thought of primates and social animals in general. The group decides the rules and one's position in the group depends on the rules.

When it comes to choosing a belief system, I will put my faith in science and have absolutely no desire to go back in time before there was sceince. It is mind blowing to me how anyone could know history and put religion above science. Not all science is exactly materialistic. Quantum physics is more about energy and uncertainity. For sure it is better to have doubt than to be too sure of what one believes and science is always open to be proven wrong, whereas religion has to be God's truth. Like human beings are capable of knowing God's trurth? How? By reading a book written by people long before science? That truth did nothing to extend our lives and bring us to a reality where it is very unusual for a child to die before the parent dies. We invest a lot in our children believing they will out live us but that was not always so. Too much necessary information got left out of the Bible.

↪Athena
But how do you know for sure what the word of God is? — frank

Personally I do not believe a God has spoken with people and if he did they would not understand him any more than back in the day people could have understood Einstein and the theory of relativity. I think anyone knowing the word of God is no more than wishful thinking. My opinion is based in part on reading of many primitive ideas of a god and being chosen people. What is for sure is if a person succeeds with a god story and convinces people he is god's special messenger, most people will believe whatever this person says, is the word of god. The point is people pay attention when they believe something comes from a god, but if it is just a human talking, why would anyone pay attention?

What humans say is capricious. It may sound good today but not tomorrow. It is much harder to lead people into a war if only a human says this is necessary. However, if they are convinced going to war is the will of God, they will do their very best to do the will of God.

Science is working on resurrecting the dead. This google page might be of interest?

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Annex-E-FY-2019-Contributions-to-IOs-All-Sources-Totals-003810-508.pdf

However, in the case of Jesus, if he was actually crucified, his apparent death could have been staged. I have read drugs that make people appear dead were known and that he was given such a drug. The timing of the crusification would have been crucial to saving his life because the bodies had to be taken down before the Sabbath.

Why would basing morality on principle be quite irrational without God? — frank

How is a principle determined? If it is the word of God then that is a for sure the right thing. If it is just what an individual thinks, how can we be sure it is the right thought?

In a word, the need is meaning and people best find this for themselves. The necessary cultural shift would be towards the pursuit of meaning rather than materialistic goals and tribal solidarity. — praxis

So how does a person go about finding meaning? We just meditate or what?

To be moral, you don't have to be anything, except moral, — Harry Hindu

I disagree. To be moral a person must be well informed. A moral is a matter of cause and effect and a person who does not understand cause and effect can not make a moral choice. We used to read folk tales that are moral stories to children and then ask them what is the moral of the story. The answer is a matter of cause and effect.

Religion unfortunately has not prepared anyone to know God (Logos, universal law) nor to make choice choices. It came about before science and the mythology is not compatable with science, resulting in obeying religious books, but not making morally correct decisions. For example Jesus told us not to worry about washing hands, and boy was that misinformation!

We have a choice. We can follow 3 simple rules and reduce the spread of the virus and go about our lives almost as normal, or we can ignore the rules and increase the spread of the virus and then deal with lockdowns because there is not enough room in our jails to isolate those who do not follow the rules from those of us who do. I have a strong preference for everyone following the rules that will make this period of time a lot less painful and give me my liberty to be with family and other people important to me. We were so close to a return to normal and the college kids returned to town and ruined everything.

In my book, people who are not considerate of others are not good people.

Good moral judgment is essential. How do people gain good moral judgment?

I'll break up this little shindig and say that I've come to think the solution lies in an analysis of the past, giving objectivity a cogent historical dimension. I think this is what can disrupt the toxic inclination of instrumentalist culture to neglect its influence upon human nature. The deconstructionists were probably pioneers in this regard, but the analyticity of it all got diluted by wishywashy extreme relativism arising from unphilosophical science, as in history from my distinct personal perspective as a b.s. elective, unintegrated with an accounting of technical causality. Some great books about the history of science have come out recently that describe its social context, and that I think is the best approach, factually showing the motivational dynamics associated with modern knowledge's development and how actualizing responsible humanism and paradigmal consciousness-raising can be, a kind of positivistic cultural narrative. — Enrique

You made an excellent point. I am really blown away by how differently history is being presented today compared to 60 years ago. Now, this has to lead to a new age precisely for the reason you say. This is such a dramatic change in consciousness, if nothing else changed, the new way of presenting history would lead to a New Age.

A public boarding channel keeps telling us knowledge of African American history is knowledge of America's history. What?! To say our history is about those who were slaves or those who came from Irland and those who were pioneers or those who labored in the mines and put their lives on the line to get better wages and working conditions is shocking to those of us who grew up HIS-STORY.

This change in consciousness is a long time coming. I remember my father explaining to me, the top person is the one who is given the credit for what is done, and my little child mind struggling with that concept and a strong sense of injustice. I was thinking when it takes 50 people to achieve something all of them should be acknowledged for what was achieved. Until recently I thought I was the only one thinking like that. I am very excited about that is now how we are telling history as the effort of everyone. That thinking goes with Social Security, food stamps, everyone getting $1200 to support the economy. Today's reality is a new age but I think some have not lived long enough to be aware of dramatic changes.

And those who appear to be arguing against the notion of a New Age seem to me too young to remember when life was different. And that is another huge change! Never in the history of man have so many people lived so long and with the technology of the internet been able to do so much as today's living fossils of history. We change so much as we age and that there are so many of us old fossils still living and voting and communicating is a strong changing force.

European anti-racist movement, which has existed for a long time, is not the same as the North American one. For example, to a semi-slaved worker in the fields of Almeria, the problem of police violence seems secondary and she does not see that her struggle can be the same. She doesn't care much about the fact that statues of slave traders are being knocked down.
The Black Lives Matter movement has been a mere media product in Europe that has brought about a flash on other forms of racism and will not have much impact on the real battle being waged by European anti-racist organizations. Incidentally, I am sorry to be pessimistic, but these organizations are not at their best at present. Neither with BLM nor without BLM. We should examine why this is the case.

If I mention it, it is because you mentioned it as an indicator of progress towards the enlightenment. For the reasons I just explained, it is not. — David Mo

Why of course that racism is natural and nothing has changed in a thousand years, except today when a police office kneels a man's neck, the whole world can watch it happening as it happens and if people are bombed in another country we know about it. This is nothing new compared to the beginning of the 21 century right? Technology hasn't changed our lives that much, right? I mean we can compare today with 1900 and see we are not at all in a new age.

The term "Age of Enlightenment" is usually applied by historians to an era in 17th & 18th centuries, that was sparked by the re-discovery of Greek Rationalism, and spread by the new technology of the printing press. Its early stages were marked by a formalization of the empirical scientific method, and later by the emergence of Individualism & Humanism, as a philosophical reaction to the intellectual suffocation imposed by the Collectivism and Spiritualism of the dominant Christian Church of the Dark Ages.

But a "New Age of Enlightenment" emerged in the 19th & 20th centuries as a reaction to the dominance of Modern Scientism and Secularism. The New Age movement was a return to Collectivism (communes) and Spiritualism (Buddhism, Hinduism, Theosophy). It also expressed a distaste for Rationalism & Empiricism & Objectivism & Modernism. Unfortunately, like the return of Christ, the prophesied Age of Aquarius (peace & love) never occurred, and many old hippies became pot-smoking suburbanites.

These different interpretations of "Enlightenment" seem to be recurring examples of Hegel's historical Dialectic, in which a once dominant worldview is challenged, and sometimes replaced, by a new opposing paradigm. Yet eventually, some of the key ideas of the previous "enlightenment" are retained in the subsequent "synthetic" worldview. Many people now claim to be "spiritual but not religious", and even "back to nature" types have made accommodations for the technological fruits of Modern Science. So, you could say that the world of human culture is progressing by erratic (zig-zag) stages of enlightenment toward a more flourishing and moral future.

However, at this moment in time, there is a new burgeoning movement called the "Enlightenment Project", which is a counter-attack on the anti-Science and anti-Reason worldviews, not so much of old hippies, but of old Republicans. And so it goes, on & on. Enlightenment is not a specific age or sudden inspiration, but the evolving learning process of humanity. :smile: — Gnomon

Nicely said. However, don't you think the mentality of abundance has made a big difference! I mean a really big difference! In Oregon, no one will starve to death because any low income person can get food stamps and we now talk about people feeling entitled. I really think that is different from how people thought before the economic achievements following the second world war. No one would have ever thought to give every adult $1200 to spend and support the economy 80 years ago. In our past, people starved to death, and not until Roosevelt did the federal government begin to take responsibility for something like that. We are experiencing a very different reality and I will stand on the idea that is a New Age and we are just beginning to adjust to the ability to feed everyone, educate everyone, provide medical care for everyone. Whoops the US is behind on the medical care, but we are getting closer to a new reality. A really, really new reality.

Education for technology is not education for wisdom. A liberal education serves wisdom much better. Since we replaced liberal education with education for technology, our reality is as Zeus feared it would be when man as given the technology of fire. We are now technological smart but lack the wisdom to use it well.

Exactly how does wisdom develop in a society focused on technology but not wisdom?

We can wait ten years to see, if you like. In the meantime, I think "the whole world" is a bold statement.There have been bigger movements against racism in the past ("I have a dream", you know) that ended up in superficial changes of a situation that remains basically the same. Racism is a system of discrimination and violence against a race. Social discrimination continues. And violence against black men (and other discriminated races) has been passed on to the police from the branches of trees. And pandemics strikes according to skin color.

As you know, progress is one of the key ideas of the Enlightenment. Progress in the material and in the moral. But it's a difficult concept to measure. Steven Pinker published an acclaimed book on the subject that is the most subtly biased I've read in recent times. His indicators were geared to score in only one direction.
I believe that the evolution of morality, for example, cannot be measured because traditional state violence has disappeared from the map... while it has been replaced by new forms of violence against people. For example, current states are less violent in the display of violence in justice, but more violent in the spread of everyday micro-violence. In a sense, it can be said that the practice is directed towards externalizing violence.That is to say, to make violence be exercised among the subjects of sovereignty, while the latter is limited to controlling the rules of the game. Is that progress? For Pinker it is. It seems to me to be a myopic point of view. — David Mo

My understanding of the rest of the world's interest in what happens in the US is based on news from other countries that I did not have in the 60's. So maybe the rest of the world was reacting as strongly to Martin Luther King and the whole civil rights movement, as it is reacting to our racism today, but we were just less informed than we are today? However, I doubt that. I think what is happening today is different. Except the US was pressed to end segregation because of the communist reaction to it. The USSR could use our racism to convince other countries that our democracy was not that good and what the USSR had to offer was better. But people in Britain were not tearing down statues of men who profited from slavery and Africa was not questioning the good of western civilization as it is now. Or if Africa was questioning the good or evil of western imperialism, it didn't matter because the whole of Africa was too weak to have any political significance.

But all those considerations may have nothing to do with this thread because the enlightenment is like Christianity or any other religion. It must be taught or it does not become a part of our consciousness. The democracy of the US transmitted a culture through liberal education. That culture was based on literacy in Greek and Roman classics and a focus on preparing everyone for independent thinking, and that ended with the passing of the 1958 National Defense Education Act. Since then German philosophers replaced the Greek and Roman philosophers, and training for independent thinking has been replaced with "group think".

The US has experienced dramatic culture change since it began educating for a technological society with unknown values. The new culture is no longer based on the Greek and Roman classics that gave us the enlightenment.

One thing everyone ought to keep in mind is that...

...at some point 1200 to 1400 years ago, a scholar said to a student a version of, "Now that we have access to so much science and philosophy, we should consider ourselves to be enlightened."

They weren't...or at least, they were MUCH less enlightened than they supposed.

More than likely, that's where we are, too.

If all the knowledge that could possibly be were a yardstick...we might be at a point one atom onto the stick.

Could be! — Frank Apisa

I agree with the fact that expectations of what technology can not do us were unrealistic. On the other hand, I also know before the second world war few labors owned their own homes, and few people thought they would ever earn enough to have to pay taxes, and since then the middle class has grown a lot and most people pay taxes. However, the economic crashes we experienced since then have ruined the progress we have made. Before Roosevelt and today, it is the top 1% who own and control most of the land and wealth. On the other hand, there is an amazing awareness of what has happened and the injustice of it. Especially the injustice laws and policies that prevented people of color from gaining the benefits of owning property is something many of us were unaware of.

For the first time in human history we are working with the mentality of abundance, and believe it is possible we can do even better. While more and more people are losing everything because of the pandemic. Awareness of social and economic injustice is spreading like a summer fire. At the very least I expect this pandemic to lead to universal medicine. People fight much harder to keep what the had, they do to get something they never had and didn't expect to have, no matter how hard they worked nor how many hours they worked. The reality people accepted before Roosevelt is no longer an acceptable reality.

I do not know what wonderful country you are talking about that in 1958 had no problems with religion and was liberal in its education system. Where I know the influence of religious intransigence and authoritarian education were two serious problems for a real Enlightenment as much or more than now. What country are you talking about?

I also don't see any foreseeable developments in human behavior due to the pandemic. Neither intellectually nor morally. Quite the opposite: individualism that is indifferent to death o the others is still on the rise and the destruction of the Earth is advancing by leaps and bounds. Social inequalities have also become more evident without anyone lifting a finger to resolve them in the future. What reasons do we have to hope for a rational, communitarian and democratic New Age? I see none. — David Mo

I don't what planet you are talking about but I do know you over-exaggerated what I said, to make your argument. That distorts what I said.

Nothing I say will give you the ability to see something you do not want to see, but we can wait 10 years and then determine if things have radically changed or not. I do believe the whole world getting behind Black Lives Matter and intolerance of the confederate flag and statues of men who profited from slavery in Britain and the US is a change that many of us had not expected.

I thought other social animals were mentioned but my memory isn't that good and drops details.

"a lion's "morality" doesn't have a cognitive basis and is probably hard-wired in its genes" I like the way you worded that. We can think about what we think and I don't think other animals can do that. There are some cross-species relations that would be totally unexpected but it is not the norm. I also don't think that is really important, but knowing what causes global warming and knowing the growing water problem, and continuing what we are doing, as though our planet had infinite resources and God will protect us from harm, is insanely immoral.

I think intelligent people in high places have extremely poor judgment because they are not using the information they need to know before making the decision. Shaming low-income people and repeatedly saying they don't want to work and inferring they could get a job if they really wanted to, no matter how bad the economy is, is cruel and not based on necessary information. Some people in high places hold very negative beliefs because they do not understand the reality of low-income people. Over and over again, people believe they are more deserving than "those people". That is way too wordy- I should fall back on Socrates and his concern that we must expand conscience before we can have good judgment.

I think those living during the Roosevelt years and long before most of us gained the mentality of abundance, had better reasoning. In the past, far more was done to assure people could own their own homes. Owning a home was seen as essential to good citizenship and a belief in capitalism. I think socialism has become more popular because of the high divorce rate when it takes two incomes to support a family, and repeated economic collapses and the cost of housing spiraling out of control. And we do not fully grasp democracy is awesome because it is a collective consciousness, not the elite controlling with policies made for "those people".

I'm curious what you guys think of this idea: almost everyone in the Western world is essentially enlightened or capable of grasping the core facets of an enlightened mindset due to pervasive infusion of basic science and history into the educational system along with the centrality of technological thinking in broader culture. Nearly everyone has access to resources which train citizens for reasoning analytically at a high enough level that ideological discernments are a cinch and intellectual self-control strong if so desired, with the majority of the population easily seeing through any form of rhetorical b.s. via reflection. But a way has not been found to make this personal capacity for insight workable in traditional institutions, leading to disillusionment in the context of practical decision making, corrupting the modern world's optimism and leading towards exploitative nihilism or reversion to mob mentality in public life. Is this generally accurate? — Enrique

I would say Christianity and education for technology cancel out any benefit of the enlightenment because there is not much consciousness of the reasoning of the enlightenment. Before 1958 education supported what you said and Christianity was not the problem it is today. Christianity is a problem because the mythology has serious problems and too many people believe that mythology instead of science. On the other hand....

Education for technology has lead to the research we need for better judgment. If we returned to liberal education and an understanding of what morals have to do with democracy and reason, we could realize a New Age that is better than our past.

Also, I think the economic collapse caused by this pandemic will force rethinking economics and creating a new system of exchange that more justly meets human needs. A breakthrough in energy would also be an incredible advancement for humanity.

I believe the potential reality of the New Age, a time of peace and high tech, and the end of tyranny. A future so different from our past, those in the New Age will not be able to relate to the past. It is that change in consciousness that truly makes it a New Age.

I'm not saying humans are good or that they're bad but I am saying we're the only ones who knows the difference between the two. If all life can be thought of as a group of people lost in the wild, the one person who knows the way is the human who possesses knowledge of morality and hence has everybody's welfare on his agenda. We are this planet's only hope of building an Edenic paradise if that's possible. Issues with overall competence and the possibility of lapsing into behavior misaligned with Edenic goals aside don't you find the peculiar position humans are in to be something we must take seriously? — TheMadFool

I agree and disagree with you. Let us check to be sure we are using the same sources of information.

My information comes from books and documentaries about animal behavior. Are you working with what is learned by studying animal behavior?

I don't think it is possible for animals to discuss concepts of good and bad as humans do, but some of them teach the young how to behave and in groups of social animals such as chimpanzees, bad behavior that is not corrected leads to being driven off. Even horses are said to teach the young proper behavior. Squirrels steal each other's nuts and know they better not get caught, so we might wonder exactly what is our sense of conscience? However, an animal is not going to reason through polluting water and people getting sick and dying, therefore, it is wrong to pollute the water.

↪3017amen
Asked and answered many months ago. Stop trolling. :yawn: — 180 Proof

I rarely pay attention to a thread that is more than 6 pages and I am not going to look for old threads before I begin one, but I can go to another forum. This one is not very friendly.

Teilhard de Chardin’s writings are forgotten in name only. . . . Don't read him; he's naughty. The Pope says so. — Banno

Oh, but the naughty parts are the best parts. :wink:

Anyway, some 21st century scientists are finding (non-biblical) evidence for Teleology (directed evolution, downward causation) in the emerging complexity of the universe. For them, Evolution is viewed, not as a random flux of atoms, but as a self-directing "cybernetic system", otherwise known as a "complex adaptive system" or a "living organism". :nerd:


Downward Causation : cybernetic evolution by "information selection and control".
From Matter To Life : Living Through Downward Causation by Farnsworth, Ellis, & Jaeger of Santa Fe Institute. A think tank for cutting edge science.
https://www.amazon.com/Matter-Life-Information-Causality/dp/1107150531/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=from+matter+to+life&link_code=qs&qid=1595179211&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-2&tag=mozilla-20

Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight : The Evolving Idea of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute
https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Hidden-Plain-Sight-Complexity/dp/1947864149/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= — Gnomon

I like your post.

Chardin- evolution is asleep in rocks and minerals, waking in plants and animals, to know self in man.

Hi all!
A while ago I made a post in which i made clear that i'm an extreme noob when it comes to philosophy.
While having bought a history of philosophy book, I still have a few questions that I don't see will be answered by myself anytime soon. So to the question; What is the problem with the arguments that attempt to prove God? The kalam, The five ways, fine tuning, moral argument, ...

The reason why I ask is because I cannot differentiate bad philosophy from good philosophy. Neither do I know all of the intricacies of the structure arguments should have. (modus ponens, valid and sound) While there are a whole lot of people pushing these arguments. And there are also a whole lot of people pushing against them. I can't help but feel that the majority of the discussions that happen about these arguments aren't well grounded. And I'm assuming that people here know a fair deal and are able to give me a clear idea of what's wrong.

I would like to suppose that the arguments all try to deal with a deistic or theistic god.

Let me also add a subquestion to that and ask to the atheist. If these arguments are all a failure. Is that part of the reason why you are atheist?

Thank you! — DoppyTheElv

Philosophy means a love of knowledge. It has been specialized and given its own special terms that I do not understand. I am not a philosopher as many people here are philosophers. I am a pagan who loves knowledge, and when it comes to a belief in a deity, I think we should study all beliefs in deities. When we look at all the different beliefs we can see Christianity is is a combination of beliefs including Egyptian and Persian religions and Hellenism.

I think there is a huge benefit to nature-based gods and have a preference for the Greek gods and goddesses. Back in the day, everyone had a patron god or goddess, including the Hebrews who plagiarized Sumerian stories when they were in UR a former Sumerian city.

There is a theory the people of the God of Abraham came out of Eygpt when Akhenaten and his wife died. Akhenaten attempted to force on everyone, a religion with only one god. Akhenaten did this because his grandfather had ordered a search of the archives for the true God which came up as Ra the sun god. Akhenaten put religion above military concerns and this weakened Egypt and angered people, especially the military. He also put the traditional priest out of business and this frightened people and really angered the priest so when he and his wife died his holy city was razed to the ground and buried forcing his followers to flee. The idea is they entered the land that was once Sumer and researched its archives and blended Akhenaten's notions of one god with Sumerian stories, which we can read in the Torah and Christian Bible.

There is another line to god, threw the Greeks and that is the concept of " logos, reason, the control force of the universe made manifest in speech". This pops up as Jesus being the logos with god from the beginning. This line of to god is knowing god through science and it is the line to god I favor. Our democracy comes from this line but as Christians have done from the beginning they Christianized the good ideas and made them theirs. This politicization of God and tying it to patriotism is seriously problematic! Our democracy has been perverted by this and we need to correct this problem.


.

t is alas the Christian tradition to rush to judgement, notwithstanding the man saying quite clearly 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' (Matthew 7.1)

It comes of worshipping the Great IAM, and though we are nominally a secular society, the finger wagging Christian remains in the unconscious of the supposedly rational atheist. But let us comfort ourselves with the understanding that the individual is almost entirely helpless for good or ill, and everything one might achieve is with the assistance of the mass of society and the generations of the ancestors. Those traditions that venerate the ancestors have the more realistic view, for the ancestors have de-stoned by hand every arable field that grows our crops, and laboured endlessly to glean the little knowledge we have accumulated.

Literally nothing can be done without cooperation, we cannot even feed ourselves. — unenlightened

I think you are being very nice to Christians by not mentioning the superstition.

Zoroastrianism was a Perian religion before Christianity and it imagined two forces, one of good and one of evil. This a belief in supernatural powers that got added to Judaism. It is my understanding Judaism is not polarized good and evil but a continuum of good and bad. Judaism and Christianity would then be very different religions and what happens if we remove superstition from the religion?

Romans did not have the words to convey Greek concepts and they had to invent new words before the Greek created religion could be accepted by the Romans.

I want to mention the pagan good man is not the same as a Christian good man.

Hum, I would say the op is a little heavy-hearted. The animal kingdom is full of tricksters who deceive each other and steal from each other and may even do worse things such as kill and eat a neighbor's babies. We don't have to be too morbid about our human failure to be saints, but with a light heart just accept that is the way it is and then take steps to protect ourselves and enjoy the game of life. Like in the game of Monopoly the object is to win, so consider life as a game we play to win and how much fun would it be if there were NO challenges?

PS I do not believe anyone is purely evil or purely good. Good people do bad things and bad people can do good things. It is way too simplistic to label people good or bad. I like Pantagruel answer.

Notice the difference?

I don’t reject gut feelings in their relation to thinking. I reject gut thinking in its relation to anything.

As for the rest...informative and interesting opinions, so thanks for that. — Mww

I googled to see if anyone made a connection between our subconscious and our gut feeling and I found the following link. It is in agreement with "Emotional Intelligence" and also Daniel Kahneman's explanation of Fast and Slow thinking. Our gut feeling can save our lives and if we had to think through everything, slow thinking mode, we would not survive because we could not respond fast enough.

Tragically a father a shot and killed his daughter who returned from college a day early and was hiding in her closet when he came home, thinking it would be funny to jump out and scare him. She did not anticipate he would get his gun before investigating the unexpected presence of another person. Our defense system that saves our lives can lead to terrible mistakes too. I think understanding this is important to our moral judgment. Especially if we are a juror during a trial.

Intuition happens as a result of fast processing in the brain. Valerie van Mulukom, Author provided

Imagine the director of a big company announcing an important decision and justifying it with it being based on a gut feeling. This would be met with disbelief – surely important decisions have to be thought over carefully, deliberately and rationally?

Indeed, relying on your intuition generally has a bad reputation, especially in the Western part of the world where analytic thinking has been steadily promoted over the past decades. Gradually, many have come to think that humans have progressed from relying on primitive, magical and religious thinking to analytic and scientific thinking. As a result, they view emotions and intuition as fallible, even whimsical, tools.

However, this attitude is based on a myth of cognitive progress. Emotions are actually not dumb responses that always need to be ignored or even corrected by rational faculties. They are appraisals of what you have just experienced or thought of – in this sense, they are also a form of information processing.
https://theconversation.com/is-it-rational-to-trust-your-gut-feelings-a-neuroscientist-explains-95086

PS if you feel a strong attraction to someone of the opposite sex, it could be because of how that person smells. Considering this can lead to marriage and/or children, this subconscious response to an odor can have serious consequences. You feel you are in love but you are not aware of why and act on your feelings.

On second thought, my question is not a good match for this thread so I deleted it and will put it another thread.

I don’t have any feelings about it; my feelings weren’t affected. My thinking was affected, and from that, I can say I agree with a lot of what you say, disagree with some.

Agree:
.....Enlightenment is no longer predominant; our education is bad; stress how to think not what to think; sense of right or wrong is visceral...

Disagree:
Sense of true or false is visceral; (formal) education develops us as capable moral creatures; we normally vote from feelings.
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Does your gut tell you this is ridiculous or maybe something that should concern us? — Athena


Only this.....

While the brain plays a part in our thinking, it does not play the most important part. Our bodies play the most important part. — Athena


....which I fail to understand at all. I suppose you mean our gut is part of our body, which I reject as it relates to thinking. From here, if it were true, it would follow that feeling controls thinking, which in turn permits thinking to be rash, irresponsible and dangerous, exactly as much as it permits thinking to be beneficial. But the former is the exception to the rule, the latter being the rule.

Anyway, I have the utmost respect for educators, especially these days, when kids are generally just punk-ass renditions of their parents. And THAT....is what my emotional intelligence looks like. — Mww

Yes, we can rash, irresponsible, and dangerous. I think that someone most of us know, who is sitting a high place, is a perfect example of that. Men of action. Don't think about it too much. It is also fast thinking, which means not contemplating what we think but reacting to say, campaign ads like one of Pavlov's dogs. I think this is important to understand for a couple of reasons.

I want to begin by establishing "gut thinking" is not my idea.

Noun. gut feeling (plural gut feelings) (idiomatic) An instinct or intuition; an immediate or basic feeling or reaction without a logical rationale. Don't think too hard about the answers to a personality test; just go with your gut feeling.

gut feeling - Wiktionary — wikipedia

Also, I want to establish awareness of thinking with our gut is a cultural matter. In the West we are under the influence of Stoicism but in Japan going on one's gut feeling is encouraged.

How Different Cultures See Intuition and Innovation - Business ...
www.business2community.com › strategy › how-differ...
Jul 30, 2019 - ... be acquired without reason or observation: a gut feeling or a sixth sense. ... This is different from Japan, where they cultivate their inner intuitive ... I think we in the West look down on intuition because it is difficult to quantify. — business2commnunity

One reason this matters, is self-awareness. Being unaware of our feelings plays into ideas of subconsciousness. One day I was hungry and didn't notice that was why I absolutely had to have a cooking magazine that was in front of my face in the store. When we are hungry it can be hard to think of anything else. On the other hand, when we are in creative mode, we don't notice hunger or the passing of time. I think our culture pushes all of us to be in our heads instead of in our bodies.

All of this goes with other cultural choices and notions of good and evil. It also goes with our judgment of philosophy, human behavior, education. One of our earliest education experts, James Williams, stressed the importance of teaching children to control their attention and bodies. The more we can habituate certain behaviors, the more free space there is in our minds for important thinking. Today it is obvious people think self-discipline is a violation of their liberty and being forced to sit still in a classroom was about industry controlling education and preparing future employees.

I say too much- I am trying to get to this point... When we realized most of us are not good at being stoic and pondering the good life, but we are impulsive and emotional, we turned away from Enlightenment goals and using education for well-rounded lives and independent thinking. We are now specializing, more reliant on memorization than logic, and lack self-control, moving us in the direction of a police state because humans are emotional and must have authority over them. Candidates and the media and producers of products put a lot of money into researching how to control our decisions and they are appealing to our lower selves and we are defenseless because we are unaware and poorly informed.

I think there are actually strong reasons for holding that, in many ways, we are more moral than before; essentially it reduces to the hypocrisy argument of the OP. I also think there are strong reasons for believing that this trend should occur: we are physically biased toward social behaviour, and intolerant of hypocritical behaviour (viz. slave-trading or -ownership, wars for resources, etc.). I find reassurance in that. — Kenosha Kid

Given our greater knowledge of cause and effect, I am confident our moral judgment has improved and will continue to improve. I think Cicero was correct about our failure to do the right thing is because of ignorance and once we know the right thing we are compelled to do the right thing.

I think this would be highly unlikely. We can't even agree on what constitutes a 'game', or where exactly the boundaries of 'here' are. The idea that our word 'good' picks out exactly one unified and inviolable concept identical in every mind which conceives it seems ludicrous. — Isaac

Really, it is a ludicrous idea? I think we have a few agreements about what is good. Most of humanity until recently agreed family order and responsibility were good. There is in general an agreement in a civilized society that we don't kill our neighbors and eat them. Do unto others as you would have them do to you, is an agreed good in all religions that I can think of. It took the US awhile but we finally agreed our food supply should be safe and making it safe and saving lives was thought to be a good thing by most people. However, right now we are having a moral crisis in the food industry and hopefully, this will change with growing awareness. So what I am missing that would make the notion that it is a ludicrous idea that we can agree about good and bad? I think not to have some of these agreements is deviant and not the norm.

What part did your body play, with respect to the judgements regarding what to cognize before exemplifying it in the writing of your comment? Your brain played the greatest part, no doubt, but I’m gonna go ahead and bet $100 you had no clue what your brain was actually doing.
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This presupposes the Enlightenment failed. Your intimation appears to be, that if the Enlightenment had more information about our animal nature, the tenet sapere aude which grounds at least Enlightenment philosophy, would be powerless. Hence, the Enlightenment would have been powerless. But it wasn’t.
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Perhaps, but only if one thinks an understanding of nature is a.) possible, and b.) relevant. I am of the mind that the only part of nature we’re entitled to understand, is the incredibly minor part our species-specific cognitive system permits, and, moral judgements are directly related to exactly that.

Neither (...) is going to make us different from how nature has made us. — Athena


...from which it follows that the cognitive system we have, is exactly how nature made us. Better, methinks, to figure out some understanding of that, and what to do with it, then further muck things up by abandoning it.[/quote]

If you want to know more about how much our bodies influence our thinking, you might read "Emotional Intelligence". Or just ask your gut if there might be some truth in what I am saying.

When doing research on middle-age women I came across a paper that explained our visceral reaction to going against what we believe is right, such as a mother leaving her child so she can take a job outside of the home. Today mothers don't seem to have as much trouble doing this as in the past when we were conditions to stay at home and put the family first. I have a granddaughter who has very weak mother instincts, so I am not saying nature made us mothers, because a large part of that is our conditioning. The point is, our sense of true or false, and right of wrong is visceral.

Who we vote for is more apt to be based on our feelings than our reason. Campaign ads and media in general appeals to us on an emotional leave. The more something causes fear or anger the more apt we are to remember it. Trump is very manipulative in this way and I would be surprised if a Trump supporter were in this forum because his supporters tend to do very little slow thinking. Trump himself sure is not a slow thinker and that means being impulsive not thinking things threw. While the brain plays a part in our thinking, it does not play the most important part. Our bodies play the most important part.

While the Enlightenment is still with us, it is not dominating us today. Utilitarianism is dominating us, and that isn't so bad, but our education is so bad! When we used the Conceptual Method, children learned to think. Math is about learning how to use our brains, but that is not new math. It is word problems dealing with everyday math needs. It has practical use and is not as abstract as new math. I have a problem with new math for young children before they have learned how to think. I want to stress "how" to think, not "what" to think.

Now the Behaviorist Method of education is about what to think. It relies on memorization and does not involve deep thinking. It is also used for training dogs. Education for technology relies on the Behaviorist method. Now we have people barking like dogs at anything that moves, and ready to tear someone's leg off because there is little tolerance for deviation from what is right, and no doubt that right is right. This is not the Enlightenment. Back to our bodies and thinking- how do you feel about what I said? Does your gut tell you this is ridiculous or maybe something that should concern us?

Would this be natural of existential morality?

I hate to make this post any longer, but if we knew what we know today, the ongoing battle between education to make us better, thinking human beings, or education focused on practical vocational training, might have maintained the lean favoring our human developed as creatures capable of good moral judgment and human excellence. Grade school being for our souls and specialization waiting until college.

Correct, but only by me. Well......sorta correct. I appreciate the brain for its fascinating complexity, and I only care about information on how it works as it characterizes the importance other people give it.

Don’t need to understand Nature in general to discuss natural morality as a very small part of it. How does one understand Nature, anyway? — Mww

Information on how the brain works includes knowledge of our bodies and hormones and the part our bodies play in our judgment. A failure of the Enlightenment was a lack of information about our animal nature. Neither, classical information, as civilizing as it is, nor being saved by Jesus, is going to make us different from how nature has made us.

How do we understand nature? At the start of the Enlightenment, people relied either on the Bible or on the Greek and Roman classics to understand nature. Aristotle was the authority on most things and he was not always right. After many years of Scholasticism based on the teaching of Aristotle, there was a huge backlash and there was a growing argument that truth means studying nature itself, not what an authority says about it.

The Protestant Reformation was a rebellion against all authority and we were liberated to determine truth for ourselves. That kind of got messed up with education for technology and specialization. Education for technology is not exactly education for science and liberal education included education for science. I think specialization was necessary to get to where we are today, but specialization is also very limiting so now we have to pull all the different studies together. All the different ways to study nature are exhausting! We can study animals in nature and compare them to humans and we can dissect them and learn about brain structure and hormones. At the time of the Enlightenment, we did have enough information for a good understanding of nature, but our growing information has improved our ability to understand nature. And this information is very important to good moral judgment.

We desperately need to evolve into a New Age, because up until now we have functioned on very poor information. A moral is a matter of cause and effect, and that makes knowing the truth essential to good moral judgment. We are in a revolution of consciousness that will separate the New Age from the past.

Yes, religion in itself has terrible effects. I do think it is immoral to produce people who cannot discern between fantasy and reality. I consider that "harm". I merely meant that some of those things you see as effects of religion are more like effects with religion having common causes. There is an impressive correlation between religion, conservativism, prejudice, nationalism, anti-intellectualism and capitalism, but that doesn't necessarily mean one in particular causes the other. Historically, nationalism seems to stand out as the unifying force, although each will influence one another. But yes for an even more stark lesson in how religion can destroy societies, look east. — Kenosha Kid

Very nicely said. The OP classifies us as animals and goes on to explain oxytocin. At the moment I don't think a lot of oxytocin is being produced. I think Scandanavia may be experiencing more of it than the US? I don't think Trump is an oxytocin guy but more of a testosterone guy. When men watch football their testosterone level increases and our colleges spend more on football than public speaking skills and democracy depends more on public speaking skills so if we were promoting democracy we might want to spend more on public speaking? Perhaps culture has a role to play in the flavor of nationalism? AND we might want to pay a lot more attention to what stress is doing to the world? I am afraid some nations are like bombs about to go off because of the pandemic and follow economic problems.

Religion can play a huge in this depending on the flavor of religion. Oh my, you say religions can destroy societies. They are also strongly associated with war. People can turn to religion for comforting and increase the hormonal impulse to care for each other, or religion can flip people into an intense state of war. Our willingness to kill the other person is highest when we believe God favors us and will assist us in war, and even wants us to fight the war.

And Kenosha Kid, never before did I think of the relationship of our hormones, and things that cause economic collapse, and war, but now I do! This is where the OP and your post has lead my mind. And back to the notion that religion is only part of the mix. If it prevents us from understanding ourselves as animals and prevents us from working with our hormonal reality, the explosion of protest and tearing down of statues and burning buildings may continue to spin out of control. A president who is divisive and yells those in power must dominate might succeed as well as Hitler did because the state of the nation is tense, fearful, and angry- bad hormones! And this is a really good thread!

But this might be our path into the New Age, like giving birth to a child involves the pain of giving birth? I am not overly sure of anything, but think the thinking in this threat is progress.

If I understand you correctly information about how our brains work is not appreciated here. Is that correct?

You all are going to discuss Natural and Existential Morality without an understanding of nature? Perhaps I am in the wrong room?

hedonic sensations, — Isaac

What is that? A hedonic sensation? Looks like an added on judgment call that maybe should not be there? Our sensations are the same as other animals.

I looked up hedonic and I am shooked by this Puritanical understanding of being human and the lack of historical correctness.

hedonistic. A hedonistic person is committed to seeking sensual pleasure — the type of guy you might find in a massage parlor or at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

True hedonism is about avoiding pain and feeling good, but it is also directly associated with making good moral decisions because if we make a bad moral decision, that will lead to pain. It would not be a bad moral decision if the consequence was not bad. A moral is a matter of cause and effect, and as Cicero said, no prayers, rituals, burning of candles, or animal sacrifices will change the consequences of doing the wrong thing.

Read, but not studied. — Mww

That is the difference between slow thinking and fast thinking.

What I reject are beliefs about where these things come from, where they exist, what values they can have, what values they must have, what qualities they have, that proceed from no data but one person's sensations and a lot of imagination. The artefacts of moral metaphysics (and I don't just mean Kant's Metaphysics of Morals, but any metaphysical origin story for my moral values) are not present like an apple is present. My feelings are. — Kenosha Kid

My notions of our morality are based on science and the study of both animals and humans. If our morality has a metaphysical origin than that is true of animals as well. Our morals are present like an apple is present when we use science to understand them.

Yes, Anglicanism is not what Christianity once was. (Worth remembering that Christianity was the moral revolution of altruism and empathy, until it itself acquired might.) Do you believe Christianity to be the chief cause rather than just another symptom? I'm unsure. Your country was the first major secularist country in the world. You had founding fathers who were quite incredulous about the notion of God in general and of Christianity in particular. Your country was religiously diverse while remain that secular too. It seems to me that nationalism was the American illness, and Christianity one of the government's rallying points for nationalistic sentiment. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, I believe the God of Abraham religions are the chief cause of some of our most serious problems because Judaism, Christianity, and Islam mean living with false beliefs and not science. To be fair, our potential to do better is rather new to us. Not that long ago we did not have the science to do better. Unfortunately, now that we have the science to do better, we are not making the progress we could make because so many people's heads are full of false beliefs and they would rather kill than change their beliefs.

I wish our understanding of democracy was tied to the ancient Greeks and Romans, instead of talking about it as though it started with America. Then we would have a better understanding of what science has to do with our liberty and morality and the wild idea that democracy is good for humanity. Wild idea that democracy is better than religion and dependency on a king who is the human being closest to God. Our democracy in the control of Christians, and the Christian mythology about democracy coming from Christianity, prevents us from correcting our wrongs and has created us as an immoral and hated nation.

The relationship we have with Christianity now is a terrible perversion of both Christianity and democracy and this follows replacing liberal education with education for technology. You are correct about the problem. So many evils have followed the change in education. The Christianity we have now is not the same as Christianity with education in the Greek and Roman classics. When it was tied to the Greek and Roman classics it could support democracy instead of pervert it. Bottom line, it is not Christians who gave us democracy!

I am afraid I did not make myself clear about why we can not trust what we believe is true. I was talking about how our brains work, not what people believe. I think it might be important to begin with how our brains work before we argue what we believe. I think in general, humans have an unrealistic belief about the power of our brains.

Perhaps there is a conspiracy to divide the people, yet make the issues so stupid, so unimportant to the greater audience that it actually doesn't rock the boat. As you said, the true focus should be in income distribution and how we make our society better, not the nonsense of a perpetual culture war. — ssu

That would be nice. And yes there is a conspiracy to keep us ignorant, pitted against each other, and easy to manipulate with anger and fear. Education for a technological society is not education for thinking people. It is education for dependency on authority and a police state under the control of the elite.