metalslime
I felt like there was some frustration and maybe even defensiveness in your post. I am sorry if I have caused offence, I was merely stating an opinion. I can't help feeling like you are telling me I shouldn't believe what I believe because you believe something else which you hold to be self evident and superior.
This is explicitly a discussion thread. Stating your opinion in such a place is tantamount to asking for it to be disputed by someone else.
If faith is such an illegitimate concept, how do you justify your own faith that your subjective perception of the world is the only correct one?
I do not have faith that my subjective perception of the world is the only correct one. This is why I seek out the subjective experiences of other humans to determine if I am delusional or not. More importantly, I pay attention to what objective quantifiers of reality do exist and attempt to create as much congruence between my subjective perception and objective reality as possible, so that I can avoid falsehood and give my viewpoint as much legitimacy as possible.
Death is a big one for example...
It isn't about making anyone feel better, it's about what is true. And not everyone wants to feel peace and serenity when they die, quit imposing your feelings on everyone else.
So what is true? I hadn't realised that someone out there knew what it was like to die, forgive my naive assumptions. I am very excited to hear the truth, please supply it as soon as is convenient. Making people feel better about uncertainty is in my opinion an acceptable way to deal with not knowing the truth in the interim while you investigate it. Luckily I won't need an interim solution once you reply with the truth.
The sarcasm isn't necessary, and you misunderstood me anyway. When I say "what is true" I refer to the actual reality of dying and ceasing to exist as a conscious entity, not what that actually feels like in a sensory manner. There are, however, people who do know what that is like. Lots of people have clinically died and then been revived.
I am not sure what the difference is between moral framework and societal conscience. They seem to be roughly synonymous. Saying morality has nothing to do with spirituality is just denial of a huge body of evidence. In theory it does seem possible to design a system of morality that is not based on any form of spirituality but this is not the norm.
Legitimate morality has nothing to do with spirituality. Arbitrary moral guidelines generally imposed by religion are a constraint on society, not a benefit to it. There are a great many moral systems that are not based upon religion. Utlitarianism, secular humanism,
everything on this page, etc.
Catholic cultures generally dissaprove of abortion, many islamic cultures disaprove of women showing their heads or driving cars. I could list examples of morality influenced by religion for many many pages, and I find very few examples of moral rules that have not occurred in and been implemented as a result of religious texts.
Moral rules that have nothing to do with religion are the only ones that really matter. The ones that do are arbitrary and holding us back.
I will admit the rape example was a bad one. You didn't however address the main point of the quote, which was that Science does not describe any specific values or morals without first having specific goals.
Your counter argument seems to be mostly semantic. "D. Problem never existed in the first place." Actually it did, for thousands of years. Now we have overpopulation, perhaps legalising murder is a better example. It would be expedient to reduce population numbers.
I already addressed why we can't legalize murder. Do you want to be murdered? You've said you're afraid of dying, so I can safely assume the answer is no. Very few people want to be murdered, in fact. Therefore, it follows that by the norm of reciprocity we should not allow murder.
Murder is definitely not a solution to overpopulation. Decreasing the population is not a solution to overpopulation. The real target to decrease overpopulation is the rate of population growth, which naturally slows and reaches equilibrium in fully industrialized societies with easy access to effective method of birth control. More importantly, that doesn't involve murdering anyone, thereby making it a superior solution to global mass murder.
The growth of the human population was not a problem for thousands of years, either. We wouldn't be a very successful organism if we had to take special and drastic action to maintain our own population. The human population will not naturally collapse without some horrific catastrophe killing lots of us at one time.
This is fascinating, please tell me in detail about your moral framework and the scientific/rational reasons behind each part of it. You can use pm if you feel that it is outside the scope of this thread but I think it could be argued that it is relevant.
You would have to give me an example to react to.
Again a semantic argument. I thought it was clear what I meant but I am often guilty of ambiguity in text so I apologies for it.Let me try again:
Purpose. This is the big one, people feel the need for a purpose.
Some people feel the need for purpose. I do not. We have no true purpose, and that is alright.
No, one is self delusion the other is pretending. I play computer games, are you implying that when I play eve online I am deluding myself that I am actually flying space ships? Sure synthesising faith is a little stronger than your every day pretending, but it is only different in magnitude. It is called the willing suspension of disbelief sometimes. Also with regard to searching for actual answers: A) I was talking about things that are unknowable and unverifiable, I consider it a waste of time to search for actual answers to these. B) Even if I were proposing inventing beliefs about things that may one day be definitively answered (I guess I was, it is theoretically possible that one day we may understand neurology well enough to answer some of these issues), there is no part of believing something that necessarily precludes me from learning more about it. I read about the neurochemistry of death for example, the breakdown of bodily functions, I am fascinated by medicine. If a new study came out that quantified in perfect detail the entire subjective experience of dying I would avidly read it and incorporate it into my beliefs. Maybe you are unable to accept new information once you have formed a belief, and are projecting. My beliefs change on an hourly basis. They have to I get bored with them after a while.
If you're just pretending, then you don't really believe any of it, now do you?
This is a hard one to tackle. I maintain that everyone is in fact afraid of death. Well the vast majority. Coming to terms with the scientific explanation of death does no change that for most people.
That most people are determined to remain in denial until they actually die does not change that some of us do not.
You can test if you are afraid of death, just put yourself in a dangerous situation and see if you feel fear. Bungee jumping is one way to do this without any actual risk. If you feel fear, that is usually the fear of death.
In bungee jumping you are leaping off of a structure. Adrenal rush would override any legitimate emotional state.
The fact that people are afraid of death is some evidence though, as there is no scientific or rational reason for this fear. Death is inevitable and therefore to fear it, especially if it is really only a nullification of consciousness, is not rational. I think it is widely accepted that people are afraid of death. If you can cite evidence to the contrary I would love to see it.
The reason is that they become obsessed with living and fear what will happen when that state comes to an end. It is not healthy, but healthy mental attitudes are a minority amongst people.