Which is more irrational? :)

[logroller]

[QUOTE=revelarts;619679] Well the answer didn't align with your 1st assertions. That reason could get you to motives for good and good itself. But finally you said it doesn't matter where it came from , or how we get to it, but it -morality- is real you believe, and we should -for no real reason- live it.
Social Darwinism. Doing good results in greater success. Not in every instance; but in sum, it does. That's the reason to live it, and its real. I meant that it doesn't matter if you believe in God to reach that same conclusion; not that it doesn't matter at all.

Short answer, because it's what your made for. We're all created for love and for good.
We're not just naturalistic accidents boucning through the cosmic void until we die.

Really? Then why is there so much bad in the world?
We have free will; which allows for far more than loving and doing good. We're like the swiss army of designs I guess. Makes us more capable...of survival, IMO. Which is why social darwinism seems far more adept at explaining our current design than God does.
And what if we are just naturalistic accidents, bouncing through the cosmos until we die? I'm not going to start raping and pillaging because of I lack belief in divine rectitude. Some do mind you; but so too do some who believe in God. I don't see the correlation between God creating man and man's goodness. I do see a correlation in man's use of God to influence behavior and those behaviors gaining traction; just not good/bad.

[Missileman]

a reason please

A reason for what? That children are capable of learning that if they strike someone, chances are they'll get hit back? You really think a god is required to arrive at that conclusion?

[Voted4Reagan]

such as "If you work hard, you'll be happy".

Last time I heard something Similar it was

"ARBEIT MACHT FREI"

[revelarts]

A reason for what? That children are capable of learning that if they strike someone, chances are they'll get hit back? You really think a god is required to arrive at that conclusion?

Some learn they have to duck or hit with a club or a knife instead. or maybe get a gang.

[Missileman]

Some learn they have to duck or hit with a club or a knife instead. or maybe get a gang.

Also attributable to a belief in God?

[logroller]

Oh, we are back to climate change. I apologize if you believe I ruffed your feathers. I did not intend to. Didn't I report to you that Dr. Richard Lindzen whom I have e mailed to and got mail back said the best way to understand this is to read his many papers on Climate Change?

I bluntly asked him if he blames man. He was very kind to even mail me back. I read some of his papers. I find nothing in them to put the blame on humans. I thought I also mentioned how easy it was to e mail Dr. Lindzen.

He is the expert with the answers.

Did he totally acquit man? I can't say he did. But if you really want an actual expert, seek his counsel. Maybe I can post one of his papers.

http://www.examiner.com/article/carb...-mit-scientist


(snip)

I didn't ask you what lidzen thought of climate change, I asked what specific climate change abatement policies you had issues with. And you dodge it again. The reason I ask is that, like believing in a higher power, climate change serves a real world purpose that has nothing to do with the core tenet of belief. As for ipcc, its a political juggernaut. It has as much to do with climate change as the AMA has to do with medicine. Its just a tool of influence, like religion.

There is a universal purpose to things; in an accept that climate change is farcical and still find positive outcomes from people believing in it. Just as I can accept there is no god, and find positive outcomes from people believing. That, to me, is a universal truth.

[mundame]

quite a conversation.
seems religious people are called terrible, weak, scary, manipulative, irrational, chidish AND pushy.
Anyone wonder why some religious folks might be a bit defensive?

I hope you are defensive: religious people who are terrible,scary, maipulative, and pushy should stop doing all that. That's wrong behavior. If you are religious, do that on your own time and leave other people alone about it.

Hard-sell tactics are wrong when salesmen stalk customers through the aisles at BJs and it's even wronger when hard-sell religious people knock on peoples' doors at their own homes. Talk about intrusive and pushy!! Darn.

I do think the society is turning away from tolerating this sort of thing, however, and it's getting less as time goes on.

WHY? why should he knock it off Log? to get more synergy? Authority is not a reason you accept, good examples is not a reason you accept. And finally it doesn't matter.
If it doesn't matter why, then your saying there's no real good reason correct?
But somehow YOU KNOW. you have some inner knowledge. You have some undefined, unreasoned certainty that it's better, good and morally right.

The question is whether any morality is possible without religious belief? ANY religious belief, or does it have to be Christian? Buddhism has a very well-developed system of ethics that began several centuries before Christianity: would theirs count?

How about secular humanism? That is obviously what is replacing Christianity in the West. A sort of vague belief that we ought to do good, if we could figure out what it is: maybe not eating meat? Maybe believing in global warming? Okay, it's incoherent at present. What is to replace Christianity is not well developed; Islam is trying to exploit that. I don't think it will succeed: whatever gentle system we want, we certainly don't want violent, abusive Islam!

I think morality is instinctive, because without SOME sort of system of beliefs about what to do and what not to do, people simply all kill each other till there is no one left: Hobbes' point about people all having to live separately: lives that are nasty, brutish, and short. Religions grow up so people don't have to each invent a new system: and these religions control people, as far as they can, usually rather poorly, and also perpetuate themselves by including support for the religious heirarchy in their belief system.

There have been thousands of religions that promote ethical standards, many of them quite violent, like the human sacrifices of Aztecs and the kill-'em-all warrior beliefs of Vikings and Mongols. The point is simply whether it allows the culture that has the beliefs to succeed and persevere, working together and reproducing and spreading out.

[Abbey Marie]

What about fortune cookies?
to me, it all centers on how much credence you afford such things. It one is inspired or instructed to strap bombs to oneself, it matters not to me whether it was in a horoscope or a Hadith.

It should; tomorrow's Horoscope might say "A good day to be kind to your neighbor", whereas the Hadith is written in stone, so to speak.

[Robert A Whit]

I didn't ask you what lidzen thought of climate change, I asked what specific climate change abatement policies you had issues with. And you dodge it again. The reason I ask is that, like believing in a higher power, climate change serves a real world purpose that has nothing to do with the core tenet of belief. As for ipcc, its a political juggernaut. It has as much to do with climate change as the AMA has to do with medicine. Its just a tool of influence, like religion.

There is a universal purpose to things; in an accept that climate change is farcical and still find positive outcomes from people believing in it. Just as I can accept there is no god, and find positive outcomes from people believing. That, to me, is a universal truth.

Well, given Climate change as blamed on humans is a myth, without naming each thing I don't agree with as policy, bluntly any policy that reduces our right to choose, such as autos, or fuels, offends me and I object to said policies. It is based on lies.

If you mean policies to save resources, they don't base their claims on that. I believe in technology and believe that what humans use for transport in another 100 years or 200 years will be very different than today. That is fine with me. But let the inventors and free market decide and end this crap of making it political.

The Report by Lindzen says it is cooling. But as you know, they are not doing anything over that issue.

Have you read Professor Muller's excellent book called Physics for future presidents?

In his book, he gives outstanding discussions over the various fuel sources. I happen to have had at one time a very good personal library on all things automobile, such as not only history of design, but books for those intending to design them.

In 1957, believing in electric cars, I felt then that we by this time would be driving cars powered by fuel cells. Turns out they have many problems that even by this time, make it so they are not your normal power plant for transportation. I guessed wrong in 1957.

To be clear, policy changes ought to be based on true and rational science and what can be actually designed and created to fit the market.

Take the Tesla. All electric. Who wants to blow $57,000 and up to carry a driver and passenger? Tessla won't market based on the car's weaknesses, they only tell you it's advantages.

The typical citizen knows much less about auto design than I know and I am no expert.

As professor Muller points out and I had already known, gasoline per gallon or pound of fuel packs a huge punch. And it is easy to find and still in ample supply.

Solar for the single home seems reasonable to me despite some problems. I understand that due to some city regulations or to protect the utilities, government puts up barriers such as forcing one to also be on the grid despite them having solar. This would entail more investigation than i intend to put forth though. I suspect Government intends to protect the public powers that be. How can government tax your own solar? They earn taxes on your regular utility bills. The way government works, they fight it when revenue sources are threatened.

Windmills are fine but work better where a more steady wind blows.

Tell you what, I hope this helps. If not, well that will do for me.

If you have specific on point questions, I may reply. Depends on what types of questions.

If you are going off onto philosophy, my take is maximize human freedom and minimize the control government has over your life. You know what is best for you. Better than those clods in DC and elsewhere.

Mundame, seems to me you don't want anybody to control your life.

May I presume that other than religion, you also mean government?

I don't know why you despise we Mormons since our young lads that approach strangers to tell them of our church mean you no harm. I bet if you simply tell them you are not one bit interested, they will take notes and not bug you.

I assure you my church is no cult. The theme of the Church is it cares about you and your family. They are awesome at making efforts to keep members from hard times. I have seen the church feed families, pay their home loans or rent so the members can not fall into poverty. Though the church does collect tithes, it has enormous resources that I am told is second only to the Catholics who have many more members than we have. Every time I have gone to church. I find the people not only very good and kind, but not one bit aggressive. We don't put the rush on people to try to convert them. You may have such a short fuse, that any of them on your door step offends you. But from their side, they do not intend to offend you.

My past wife was Jehovah witness and to be frank, for my money they are more like a cult than what you claim ours is. It is in how they deal with members. It bothers me a lot. I could not get involved with my then wife's church and did not accept their teachings. She tried to drag me to her church. I never did that to her as far as my church. I am trying to recall if she ever was in my church but I did go to hers a few times to see what it was about. I felt they were intensely controlling over members. I still think for the most part they are decent people. But I don't like such mind control.

[revelarts]

Well the answer didn't align with your 1st assertions. That reason could get you to motives for good and good itself. But finally you said it doesn't matter where it came from , or how we get to it, but it -morality- is real you believe, and we should -for no real reason- live it.

Social Darwinism. Doing good results in greater success. Not in every instance; but in sum, it does. That's the reason to live it, and its real. I meant that it doesn't matter if you believe in God to reach that same conclusion; not that it doesn't matter at all.


Really? Then why is there so much bad in the world?
We have free will; which allows for far more than loving and doing good. We're like the swiss army of designs I guess. Makes us more capable...of survival, IMO. Which is why social darwinism seems far more adept at explaining our current design than God does.
And what if we are just naturalistic accidents, bouncing through the cosmos until we die? I'm not going to start raping and pillaging because of I lack belief in divine rectitude. Some do mind you; but so too do some who believe in God. I don't see the correlation between God creating man and man's goodness. I do see a correlation in man's use of God to influence behavior and those behaviors gaining traction; just not good/bad.

this answer took me back a bit Log,
I didn't have a quick response to it , becuase #1 you never mentioned social Darwinism before,
2. your definition of it didn't line up with my understanding of it. but i know a some folks use it in a different ways.
3. most of the ways i understand it is in a VERY negative context. where it's used as an excuse for eugenics and the like.
and lastly your assertion that social Darwinism is "REAL". therefore it is a better ground for morality. Frankly it is not real, or a better ground.

so it took me a back a bit. that'd you'd use it as a reason why people should "do unto others" and "be good". you don't often get the golden rule from Social Darwinism or the idea of individual rights and definitely not any ideas about human equality.

frankly after thinking about it a looking around the internet to make sure i wasn't misrepresenting what social Darwinism tends to assert.
I'm still very surprised you would use that.
I even found a quote from the Atheist Dawkins that says he DOES NOT want to live in a society where Darwinism is the base, it would be fascist.
For him he recognizes that humans SHOULD live above what he considers our evolutionary roots/base. I don't know if he explains where how or why we are some how able to socailly leap above our dog eat dog roots , except with a wave of the hand and, 'IT's here therefore we -thank the natural forces- evolved to have morals somehow.' ipso facto chango tada science.

...They understand that even if the two were actually linked, human society allows us to move beyond some biological imperatives. Just because we are part of the animal kingdom does not mean that we have to act in the same manner as other members of that kingdom; we can exercise choice to create a social network not observed in other species.
Perhaps the world's best known popularizer of evolution, Richard Dawkins, made this point exceedingly well in a 2005 interview published in Die Presse. He said, "No self-respecting person would want to live in a society that operates according to Darwinian laws. I am a passionate Darwinist, when it involves explaining the development of life. However, I am a passionate anti-Darwinist when it involves the kind of society in which we want to live. A Darwinian state would be a Fascist state."

from wiki

Social Darwinism is an ideology of society that seeks to apply biological concepts of Darwinism or of evolutionary theory to sociology and politics, often with the assumption that conflict between groups in society leads to social progress as superior groups outcompete inferior ones.
The name social Darwinism is a modern name given to the various theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, which, it is alleged, sought to apply biological concepts to sociology and politics.^[1][2] The term social Darwinism gained widespread currency when used in 1944 to oppose these earlier concepts. Today, because of the negative connotations of the theory of social Darwinism, especially after the atrocities of the Second World War (including the Holocaust), few people would describe themselves as Social Darwinists and the term is generally seen as pejorative.^[3]
Social Darwinism is generally understood to use the concepts of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism; but the ideology has also motivated ideas of eugenics, scientific racism, imperialism,^[4] fascism, Nazism and struggle between national or racial groups.^[5][6]
Opponents of evolution theory have often maintained that social Darwinism is a logical entailment of a belief in evolutionary theory, while biologists and historians maintain that it is rather a perversion of Charles Darwin's ideas.^[7] While most scholars recognize historical links between Darwin's theory and forms of social Darwinism, they also maintain that social Darwinism is not a necessary consequence of the principles of biological evolution^[8] and that using biological evolution as a justification for policies of inequality amounts to committing the naturalistic fallacy....

[avatar4321]

Found this:

"Who's more irrational? Somebody who believes in a God they don't see, or a person who is a offended by a God they don't even believe in?"

Clearly the latter. There are other senses. Hearing. Touch. You can experience God through the other senses. But to be offended by something you don't believe in? It's foolish to be offended when none is intended and even more foolish whenoffense is intended. I know I wouldn't be offended if the tooth fairy said something bad about me cause I dont believe there is one.