Fitna

[Neosutra]

Do not disassociate those points from your main argument. The fact that you keep calling it murder only denotes your lack of differenting between the perception of deviant killings and justified killings. The point in the murder/killing section was that humans only require emotion and or necessity to kill others, religion need not exist for this to happen, and reasons will be made up along the way to justify them. Same as killing is killing, you just call one murder and the other by a different name, i'm not saying it's inherently bad, but the difference is what's legal and what isn't.

As a society we have determined that some things are worth living and dying for, as the concequences for not fighting for them are a greater loss of life/happiness in the end. Equating the loss of life on the battlefeild as "murder justified by another name" is utter bullshit.

Empathy you brought up because i said there is no natural desire to be good or bad, because both of these terms are social constructions, they hold no real weight, and i brought up that humans have no natural inclination towards good or evil, because you were implying that you don't need religion to be good, because you argue it is natural, but you say it is not natural for humans to be evil, because it is religion that creates this. Which once again, barring the fact that those terms are merely used for polarizing issues, is untrue because the things you consider evil, such as killing, which you classify as murder as if there was some essential difference, happen because of the need of preservation and emotional outbursts, people don't really know what killing is until you teach them or they learn it themselves, evidently, same as they learn empathy through experience with others, it does not develop by itself if there are no people to have constant exchanges with. Ergo, the empathy you associate with good, and the murder you associate with bad, are not natural, and because neither is natural, religion is irrelevant in the case of people committing the acts you denote as good or bad.

All species have an empathetic nature toward their own species and to most living things, it is an extention to their own perception of life and desire to live. You are simply wrong here, its blatently incorrect and I assume you walk around with closed eyes to even make such assumptions.

I do not know whether humans are naturally curious or not, some seem to be, some don't, however it may be that some are simply raised to be more curious than others, or at least allowed to be. So yes, i will agree that religion can stieffle curiosity, but that need not always be the case, as there are many exceptions.

Yes, there are always exceptions. But as I stated several times, and god its getting old, the core principles of theism demand that you accept concepts that violate rational thought and hamper the human desire to discover the unknown. "How did the universe get here?" .... Well um,... God did it... ya, thats it.. Ok, puzzle solved, lets move on.

Also, when you speak of religion, you speak in such an all encompassing way that i'm not quite sure if you're aware of all of the religions that exist and that some of them may not be used for violence as others are, or that they do not oppose scientific ideals. You assume that to be true for all religions, or all future religions.

Actually ive been around the world several times. In fact I was a missionary in India before I ever was an atheist, and if you had any reading comprehension you would have understood by now it is the very concept of god itself I find appaling and offensive in its blatant slap in the face of all science. The religions that happen to add a bit more violence to the table just make it easier to point out the flaws.

Murder happens with or without religion, empathy happens with or without religion, fear and ignorance happens with or without religion. Yet they can all be acceptable under certain circumstances without religion ever playing a role in any of them.

Murder is never acceptable.

And yes, all of the above can happen w/ or w/o religion, but we are targeting the ill effects of religion as a justification for outright dismissal of it. If religion "can" be the cause for such travisties in the world, and at a very minimum hampers scientific and social growth, and all you get out of it is mild self dellusions, than why keep it? Or shall we go into more logical circles with you equating killing on the battlefield to murder, attempting to grey the lines and side step the topic over and over.

[Kuya]

As a society we have determined that some things are worth living and dying for, as the concequences for not fighting for them are a greater loss of life/happiness in the end. Equating the loss of life on the battlefeild as "murder justified by another name" is utter bullshit.

I think i'm starting to see the error of letting you use the word murder liberally. We're not in a political race, you can stop trying to act like you're using rhetoric to fool some people, because you're last statement is filled with this rhetoric. The better phrase would be, the killings that go on in war ARE KILLINGS, the only difference between them and murder, is that they are legal. Murder is just a perjoragive label for illegal killing, so soldiers killing in a war is not muder, but it is still killing, and we kill without religion ever needing to be involved. We have plenty of examples, such as the World Wars, the Balkan Wars, etc.

All species have an empathetic nature toward their own species and to most living things, it is an extention to their own perception of life and desire to live. You are simply wrong here, its blatently incorrect and I assume you walk around with closed eyes to even make such assumptions.

Why did you say i made an assumption, when you're the one who said that all species have empathy? Do you even know where empathy comes from to be able to toss your arguments so shamelessly? There are animals who are loners, and some who cannabalize their own, some animals don't even have a need for empathy because they're asexual. Empathy is a tool that helps in the socialization process, i don't even know what you think it is. But once again, you have no basis to state that empathy is natural for humans, you haven't even tried to explain how that is true. And frankly, i don't know how you're going to explain something that has not been proven or well understood, at least in the natural science field. But just to keep the main argument in perspective, you say empathy is natural, hence you do not need religion for it, i argue one is not born with empathy without being socialized first, ergo your argument that people are "good" by nature is not true. Especially considering that empathy has nothing to do with being good, well, beyond your association.

Murder is never acceptable.

And yes, all of the above can happen w/ or w/o religion, but we are targeting the ill effects of religion as a justification for outright dismissal of it. If religion "can" be the cause for such travisties in the world, and at a very minimum hampers scientific and social growth, and all you get out of it is mild self dellusions, than why keep it? Or shall we go into more logical circles with you equating killing on the battlefield to murder, attempting to grey the lines and side step the topic over and over.

For someone who's an atheist, you sure argue like a theist. It has already been stated that, though religion can be a medium for these events, it can also be a medium for positive events, you have consistently ignored the positives and ignorantly generalized them as "self dellusions", and focused solely on the negative because that is your bias. Religion provides a motivation for people to do humanitarian work, you may not need religion to do humanitarian work, but we've reached a consencus that you do not need religion to commit genocide either. Religion provides a crutch for those suffering from emotional anguish, who would otherwise harm themselves or others(an assumption), religion can temporarely answer questions that can otherwise be unberable to leave be, not everyone is capable of formulating their own ideas on these things to make their lives stable.

But, really, bravo, you attack theism so fervently yet you're the one who not even comprehends the social construction of the words good/bad/murder and their relativism. You also blindly believe in the "goodness" of humanity when such a thing is merely a belief in on itself that has no real solid explination. You adhere to a phylosophy, nothing more, it is your outlook on life loosely based on real word phenomena, and you've apperently used this to replace religion. By the way, it's circular logic, not logical circles.

[Neosutra]

Why good morning Kuya lol. Im working on my house a bit today so Ill get to the rest of your post in a bit (moving into new house that will be finished being built in 1 week!). As for now ill respond to :

For someone who's an atheist, you sure argue like a theist. It has already been stated that, though religion can be a medium for these events, it can also be a medium for positive events, you have consistently ignored the positives and ignorantly generalized them as "self dellusions", and focused solely on the negative because that is your bias. Religion provides a motivation for people to do humanitarian work, you may not need religion to do humanitarian work, but we've reached a consencus that you do not need religion to commit genocide either. Religion provides a crutch for those suffering from emotional anguish, who would otherwise harm themselves or others(an assumption), religion can temp

I question anyone who needs a big brother to tell them do help another human being. And while religion can be used to motivate good and bad concequences, it motivates via elements of faith/ignorance that are "beyond" the test of rational man. The problem comes when a human follows a set of doctrines that they are not supposed to question, or lack the ability to find an answer. Human beings can find an plethora of motivations to do good and to do bad, but it becomes dangerous when these motivations start taking on super-natural essenses and thereby lose there ability to be questioned.

Psychology, education, and social development can help people overcome bias and prejudice of many forms. However, if someone believes his/her motives for prejudice/violence are of a higher power, then the words of man carry little weight. Their own hatred takes on this higher calling and thus is above reproach. Its not that religion adds both good and bad motivations (as we have discussed already we disagree with the good being "good" since I believe that self delussion is counterproductive from a psychological point of view), its the fact that these motivations are based on a system of unquestionable faith, where the "do's and donts" come from the current religious leaders of the time.

[Kaelan]

Why did you say i made an assumption, when you're the one who said that all species have empathy? Do you even know where empathy comes from to be able to toss your arguments so shamelessly? There are animals who are loners, and some who cannabalize their own, some animals don't even have a need for empathy because they're asexual. Empathy is a tool that helps in the socialization process, i don't even know what you think it is. But once again, you have no basis to state that empathy is natural for humans, you haven't even tried to explain how that is true.

We wouldn't have gotten where we are if it wasn't there. It would be very, very difficult to create proper groups if people were always acting exclusively out of self-interest. There are theories on evolutionary reasons for why this sort of thing happened, which generally include it being a basic requirement for primitive societies to form, especially because of the extreme conditions around in those times. If you didn't cooperate, you got killed by things with sharper teeth than you had. People who cooperate purely out of self-interest when lives are on the line tend to not last very long. People who were more willing to work together had a significantly better chance of survival. Neuroscientists are finding actual specific areas of the brain responsible for these kinds of feelings and relationships between people who don't feel empathy and have "malfunctions" in those same areas of the brain (i.e. implying we don't just learn them, we're already born with them).

As far as the animal thing, while there are animals that are loners, a very significant portion of animals live in groups and small societies and are generally compassionate towards one another. There are even species of animals that, if they have never had contact with humans before, will neither attack nor fear them and will generally act friendly. Some animals (dogs, for example) can even tell when humans are in pain or suffering and deliberately show compassion.

http://home.uchicago.edu/~decety/public ... R_2004.pdf
http://shagya-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11 ... brain.html
http://www.empathogens.com/empathy/

By the way, if you're arguing against someone and they provide nothing to back up their point, that doesn't make you any more right if you don't provide anything either.

you say empathy is natural, hence you do not need religion for it, i argue one is not born with empathy without being socialized first,

To be fair, religion doesn't give empathy to anyone that doesn't have it. It just makes people do good things for bad reasons. Empathy is doing something good for someone or something out of genuinely caring for that someone or some thing's well-being. Doing charity because you think God wants you (/because you're going to Hell/because the bible says its the right thing to do/insert other religious motivation here) to isn't exactly the same thing.

Religion provides a motivation for people to do humanitarian work

Yes and I hear from relatively credible sources that Hamas provides social welfare, builds and finances hospitals and gets kids on the street off drugs. As far as I know, that is actually true. That doesn't make me feel any better about the other things they do, nor does it make their beliefs about certain parts of the Earth being more holy than others any more true. What it does do is make me suspicious of their reasons for doing the aforementioned things.

religion can temporarily answer questions

That would be precisely the problem, I'd say. Preferring an extremely bad explanation to no explanation at all is one of our worst traits (one that, unfortunately, we probably will never get rid of).

In general, the church doesn't do anything to hinder scientific progress anymore.

I'll disregard the part about religion being restricted only to the church (because as we all know it unfortunately isn't), but let me point you to Intelligent Design, stem cell research and education of people in Africa about the evils of contraceptives. As far as people who haven't been taught evolution, last time I heard any reliable poll, a disproportionately large amount of the American population was in favor of the "equal time" buisness. And science this isn't even the only place this sort of thing happens - put politics and homosexuals into the equasion and watch the situation go downhill. I only wish I could honestly say religions were really "not getting in the way of any body's lives" today.

[chillin]

has anyone mentioned to woozie about stem cell research yet i only read page 1

[chillin]

holy shit rofl i just missed it

[Kuya]

http://shagya-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11 ... brain.html

Politically I consider myself an anarchist although the terms left libertarian or libertarian socialist would be more descriptive.

Yet one more item from the online version of New Scientist magazine talks about visible suggestions that moral consciousness may be a function of neurophysiology. Anarchists have held the view that human "nature" is in line with libertarian beliefs.

At least he put nature in between marks.

Mirror neurons are brain cells that are activated both when a person performs an intentional action and when he or she sees someone else performing that same action. First discovered in macaque monkeys 11 years ago, this new class of cells generated a booming field of research.

It uses the name mirror neurons as if these neurons who are found active during empathetic activities were different to other neurons in the brain, which is false, as even one of your links alleges. This is simply misleading. This was a bad source, more specificaly because any neurobiologist knows that individual neurons aren't important rather the networking they form, and that there is no such thing as an area in the brain that modules empathy or mimicry, and that the areas in the brain that are active during this event vary form person to person.

http://www.empathogens.com/empathy/

The research is part of a larger effort to find the neurological basis of social interaction, particularly empathy, a basic part of human nature that allows most, but not all, people to care about others.

I do wish people would stop using the word nature so liberally, as it it mostly used to try to imply that something is objectively true and right. In this case, the argument as to whether empathy is natural to humans could easily lend itself to a semantics debate, which you'll soon see why.

"This work is important because imitation is a natural procedure. We don’t learn to imitate. It is part of our biological nature and we are born to imitate," said Decety.

No argument there, but i so do hope it doesn't try to imply that empathy is the same thing as mimicking another's actions.

"Imitation also is nature’s way of conveying culture," said Meltzoff. "It naturally occurs in a variety of settings, such as learning to play music and sports, or when a mother teaches her daughter how to tie her shoelaces. The mother ties a shoelace and the child follows, trying to imitate the action. We would expect the same kind of lateralized brain activity in learning to tie shoelaces as there was in our experimental task."

Huh, did this just put nature and culture in a equitative manner? Culture has very little to do with nature, but i guess this link is better off with trying to indirectly say that empathy is natural by saying that imitating another's actions and that culture is natural, nice try though.
http://home.uchicago.edu/~decety/public ... R_2004.pdf
This one was the better one, however i'm wondering if you even read this one, seeing as how you did not post part of this link's information that backed your argument and instead expected me to read all of it, not to mention some of the things it says actually somewhat support your stance, and mine.

Empathy denotes, at a phenomenological level of
description, a sense of similarity between the feelings
one experiences and those expressed by others. This
sharing of the feelings of another person does not necessarily
imply that one will act or even feel impelled to act
in a supportive or sympathetic way.

It has a survival value and contributes to inclusive
fitness because it assists individuals in gathering and
hunting for food, detecting predators, courtship, and
ensuring reproductive success (Plutchik, 1987).

True.

In humans and other
mammals, an impulse to care for offspring is almost certainly
genetically hardwired.

Not completely true, not all humans possess this impulse to care for offspring, and this ignores whether caring for ones offspring, at least in humans, is related to empathy more so in the fact that it requires socialization to develope and ergo exist. Which the article agrees with me on later.

It is far less clear that an
impulse to care for siblings, more remote kin, and similar
nonkin is genetically hardwired (Batson, in press).

There are, however, evolved biological predispositions
(e.g., the capacity to distinguish agents from other
objects and to engage in reciprocal interactions with the
former but not the latter) that are necessary for the full
maturation of empathy. But without social interaction
and emotional bonds with others, it is unlikely that empathy
develops

Basicaly, there is no specific center in the brain or module that creates or possess empathy, rather other psychological mechanism in the brain, CAN develope it, assumign that the socialization process takes place, as i've sead here:

Human babies have no empathy, they are purely egotistical beings until they learn cause and effect and other mental constructions. Human babies are not bad because they are selfish, they simply are to survive.

A human child must learn empathy by being able to associate itself with the subject at hand, not to mention they must pass by the stage where they can comprehend the permanent existence of others, their individuality in the face of what surrounds them, and the late necessity of avoiding punitive responses. A feral child is not capable of empathy without proper socialization (read, contact with other human beings for a sufficient amount of time). Ergo, your argument that empathy is natural, is actually wrong.

We believe that self-other awareness and self-regulation
of emotions are vital components of human empathy
(see sections titled Self-Other Awareness and Mental
Flexibility and Self-Regulation). These components may
well steer us toward a clear distinction between humans
and other mammals when referring to empathy

Batson (1991a) has put forward an attractive empathyaltruism
hypothesis. This hypothesis claims that the prosocial
motivation evoked by empathy is directed toward
the ultimate goal of increasing the welfare of the person
in need. This hypothesis seems necessary to explain why
some people hold helping intentions that are not
explained by egoistic motivations, such as relief of personal
distress, the relief of sadness, and the desire to
make oneself happy (Batson, 1991b). An egoistic explanation
of the empathy-altruism hypothesis was proposed
by Smith, Keating, and Stotland (1989). They suggested
that empathically aroused individuals help to gain the
good feeling of sharing vicariously in the needy person’s
joy at improvement (or, in other words, the empathically
concerned witness to the distress of others helps to be
happy). However, other authors have suggested that
rather than empathy, it is the sense of self-other overlap
between the helper and the person in need that motivates
helping (e.g., Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, &
Neuberg, 1997). Helping others with whom one feels
some level of commonality would not be selfless because
it leads to a more favorable mental state. Thus, asdemonstrated
by recent research from Kruger (2003), psychologically
altruistic and egoistic pathways seem to operate
simultaneously in empathic concern.

Though there is no absolute concensus, empathy is not completely detached from self-interest, this i will link to my argument agaisnt the absolutely subjective, and relative way you and Neosutra choose to label something as a "bad" reason to do "good" things, your labels are subjective, there is no arguing that. The thing that some of these authors contest is that most empathetic relationships do come about from self-interest, a desire to gain joy and a release from distress by assisting others. It is your prerogative to use this argument in some crusade agaisnt religion, a pretty irrelevant argument at that. Seeing as how you adhere to silly ideas of good and evil, and arbitrarily decide what a "good" or "bad" reason is. How can people who attack metaphysical and subjective ideas such as the ones religions harbor, choose themselves, to adhere to subjective and relative labels?

Even though empathy provides obvious benefits at
both the individual and societal level by allowing people
to coordinate their behavior and care for the other, it
also has its cost in terms of maintaining an expanded
self—that is, a self that is linked to others (Hodges &
Klein, 2001). One example of such cost is the tendency
to assume that others will feel the same way the self does,
which is referred to as the false consensus effects (Marks
& Miller, 1987). Another example is the anxiety that can
result from watching an unpleasant situation happening
to another person. It has also been argued that some
aspects of psychopathology may be in part regarded as
the evolutionary cost of humankind for the development
of our advanced capacity to empathize (Brüne,
2001).

Once again, your assumptions that empathy is the "natural goodness" of humanity are nothing but mere subjectivity, empathy has it's downsides, but it has more to do with helping assure the survival of a species, rather than, once again, some arbitrary concept of "good".

In addition, without self-awareness and
emotion-regulation processing, there is no true empathy.

Once again, we do not assume
that there is a unitary empathy system (or module) in the
brain. Rather, we consider multiple dissociable systems
to be involved in the experience of empathy.

This makes empathy a flexible human
capacity as well as a method of gaining knowledge of
understanding another, and it is susceptible to socialcognitive
intervention, such as through training or enhancement
programs for targeting various goals (e.g.,
reeducation of antisocial personalities, training of psychotherapists
or physicians, and training early at-riskchildren).

It is not inherent, it is created through the networking of mutiple cognoscitive systems and it requires the existence of a social envinronment to develope.

We wouldn't have gotten where we are if it wasn't there. It would be very, very difficult to create proper groups if people were always acting exclusively out of self-interest.

You, strangely assume empathy is necesary for primal groups to band together in order to survive without an explination as to how empathy, exactly, forces them to remain together, when it very article you posted, denies any strong relation to the evolutionary theory and that empathy does not propell a person to feel things for another without a reason, that is, the person expressing an emotion or having a bond exist.

The emergence of altruism, of empathizing with and caring
for those who are not kin, is thus not easily explained
within the framework of neo-Darwinian theories of natural
selection (Eisler & Levine, 2002).

There are theories on evolutionary reasons for why this sort of thing happened, which generally include it being a basic requirement for primitive societies to form, especially because of the extreme conditions around in those times.

Look above.

If you didn't cooperate, you got killed by things with sharper teeth than you had. People who cooperate purely out of self-interest when lives are on the line tend to not last very long. People who were more willing to work together had a significantly better chance of survival.

Why do you assume empathy is what forced these groups together, rather than an agknowledgement that, with grouping together, they would more likely to survive? It's not like we have concrete evidence of the developed mental construction of earlier social humans.

Neuroscientists are finding actual specific areas of the brain responsible for these kinds of feelings and relationships between people who don't feel empathy and have "malfunctions" in those same areas of the brain (i.e. implying we don't just learn them, we're already born with them).

Finding a relation between an action and parts of the brain demonstrating large amounts of activty does not say that said action is pre-existant to socialization proper, especially considering these tests are done on adults who have already developed these functions. Furthermore, the brain can change in relation to the psycholgical stimuli it receives, so the existence of certain neural networks in the brain that react to empathy, could just as easily be the result of brain plasticity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity
Also, those who suffer mental "malfunctions", incidently, also suffer from learning, and socilization difficulties, which in the end, make it difficult to discern whether it was empathy itself that was impaired, or the means by which one creates empathy that were damaged. Like in Autism.

I will agree, however, that from a different perspective, empathy could be considered innate, even though there will be no empathy if there is no social environment. But then the phrase would have to be modified to say that, the potential for empathy, is natural to humans, rather than empathy is natural to humans, where the former would be the most accurate statement. But, of course, it seems to be that you're the one who would probably agree to that statement, rather than Neosutra who believes that empathy itself is natural, somehow.

There are even species of animals that, if they have never had contact with humans before, will neither attack nor fear them and will generally act friendly.

Animals have no need to attack something they've never seen before, especially of the aformentioned human bares no sign of aggresion or if the animal is not hungry, i have no idea how you can equate this situation to a presence of empathy, no doubt animals have some form of it, but this is not an examplery situation of it. And it is interesting how you assume the act of friendlyness is empathy rather than curiosity, you are severely confusing empathy here. Empathy is the ability to associate one's thoughts and feelings with another of the same species, or to a rarer extent, a completely different species. In actuality, the one who's using empathy in this case, is you by assuming these animals are demostrating "friendly" behaviour that denotes empathy. Which humarously enough, was mention by the article you posted as one of the follies of empathy.

Some animals (dogs, for example) can even tell when humans are in pain or suffering and deliberately show compassion.

Dogs are domesticated.

To be fair, religion doesn't give empathy to anyone that doesn't have it. It just makes people do good things for bad reasons. Empathy is doing something good for someone or something out of genuinely caring for that someone or some thing's well-being. Doing charity because you think God wants you (/because you're going to Hell/because the bible says its the right thing to do/insert other religious motivation here) to isn't exactly the same thing.

And once again, religion doesn't give someone the ability to behave violently. Though, conversely, religion as a social institution does help develope empathy through social interaction, as well as creates distance between those who are not part of group, depending on the specific church/congragation/group of course. And it is the same thing in so far as you do what you do out of personal interest, it makes you feel good to help others, it ceases your emotional distress to help someone in need. You and Neosutra are making irrelevant arguments by brining in peoples' motivations, when in reality most human relationships are composed of mutual benefit. You can complain about some businessman donating money to kids in Africa and question his intentions as being solely for the purpose of bettering the image of his company, but regardless of his intentions, the deed is, i presume, considered positive. You are going to have alot to complain about if that's one of your peeves agaisnt religion. Motivations are subjective and private, and anyone who critizes them to try to devalue the act itself are merely looking for validation, even in a logical argument trying to attack the motivation of another is considered a fallacy.

Yes and I hear from relatively credible sources that Hamas provides social welfare, builds and finances hospitals and gets kids on the street off drugs.

What is this? A different variable of the Godwin?

As far as I know, that is actually true. That doesn't make me feel any better about the other things they do, nor does it make their beliefs about certain parts of the Earth being more holy than others any more true. What it does do is make me suspicious of their reasons for doing the aforementioned things.

Which is, once again, irrelevant. You quoated that part of my post outside of its context, it does indeed provide the motivation to do "good" things, but it is not necesary, it is merely a motivation, same as it can cause "bad" things, but it is also not necessary, and it is merely a motivator. You not liking it, does not make it wrong by some objective standard. It negatively affecting you, such as a suicide bombing, is well within your faculties to attack and question seeing as how it does indeed have a large effect on you, however critizicing them in turn for doing positive things is pointless. It's no different than how if one person says a dumb thing in this forum, people seem to assume the person must be dumb at everything, where as he could be quite intelligent and profound on a different topic.

That would be precisely the problem, I'd say. Preferring an extremely bad explanation to no explanation at all is one of our worst traits (one that, unfortunately, we probably will never get rid of).

I do not remember science being in the business of defining and creating morals and ethics. It is the business of science when religion intrudes into its territory, however, the rules it establishes for social "realities" are not within science's domain to criticize, or at least, have the audacity to try and regulate. It's why they're called Natural Sciences and not Social Sciences. It's why Neosutra, who is a physicist, is wrong in so far as he seems to believe the fact that he studies physics gives him some sort of better understanding of politics, psychology, and sociology. It's not that he can't involve himself in these arguments, but rather he's coming from the wrong angle in this situation, which explains his audacity in beleving he has the factual authority to define what is right or wrong or what a good or bad motivation is, at least in so far as this debate.

[Neosutra]

Ya didnt even respond to my post in all that garbage Q.Q

[Kuya]

I decided to go for the more intelligent one first, i might decide to attack yours if i find it has anything i haven't already mentioned. Though feel free to express your opinions which no doubt will continue to reinforce the image you carry of an overzelous atheist. Even Richard Dawkings would avoid associating with you.

[Neosutra]

I decided to go for the more intelligent one first, i might decide to attack yours if i find it has anything i haven't already mentioned. Though feel free to express your opinions which no doubt will continue to reinforce the image you carry of an overzelous atheist. Even Richard Dawkings would avoid associating with you.

No, you decided to refute ill based links, which is why I didnt post 4 pages of links. You disregard them either way and only look for material that supports your cause.

The entire post goes back to motivation for these actions, and motivation that is of supernatural origins and thus above questioning is dangerous and devastating to humanity.

You ignored it because your argument is filled with logical circles, and you hoped that simply requoting his links and making a retardedly long post full of wind and bullshit, that your arm waving would distract people from that point. Who do you think your kidding?

[Kuya]

I know it's hard to argue with someone whom you can't have your way with, but don't worry, we'll get through this together.

I question anyone who needs a big brother to tell them do help another human being. And while religion can be used to motivate good and bad concequences, it motivates via elements of faith/ignorance that are "beyond" the test of rational man. The problem comes when a human follows a set of doctrines that they are not supposed to question, or lack the ability to find an answer. Human beings can find an plethora of motivations to do good and to do bad, but it becomes dangerous when these motivations start taking on super-natural essenses and thereby lose there ability to be questioned.

It's not really your place to say whether their motivations are valid or not, which in the end is irrelevant as to whether religion should exist anymore or not. It is true that it becomes dangerous when people choose to adhere to unquestionable beliefs instead of listening to mounting evidence and logic agaisnt it. However, most of their views, except God, can be torn apart and questioned, the problem is when they will not accept the answer, and that's pretty much the gist of it. I can continue to argue with you why your ideals of what is good or bad are irrelevant and subjective, but you probably wont listen and or care. But, yea i do agree that religion lends itself to formulate dogmas which do not make it a habit to question them or change them should the need arise (even though they have, verbally, changed their positions on some things), but that is a particular problem, not really a general one or an intricately religious problem, but i think you've already mentioned that you aren't agaisnt all religious ideals.

Psychology, education, and social development can help people overcome bias and prejudice of many forms. However, if someone believes his/her motives for prejudice/violence are of a higher power, then the words of man carry little weight. Their own hatred takes on this higher calling and thus is above reproach. Its not that religion adds both good and bad motivations (as we have discussed already we disagree with the good being "good" since I believe that self delussion is counterproductive from a psychological point of view), its the fact that these motivations are based on a system of unquestionable faith, where the "do's and donts" come from the current religious leaders of the time.

Self delussion is not counterproductive, in fact, it's practically a necessity, but that's not really a relevant argument. I can't disagree with alot of the things you're saying, but i guess i just understand that they apply to alot of things beside religion and hence i deal with it in a different way. You should probably speak more on your views on religion, or even specify, seeing as how i'm not quite sure whether you think they should all completely dissapear, or if you contend to just eliminate certain aspects of them.

You ignored it because your argument is filled with logical circles, and you hoped that simply requoting his links and making a retardedly long post full of wind and bullshit, that your arm waving would distract people from that point. Who do you think your kidding?

God damn it, it's circular logic, not logical circles, and would you please point out where i'm using this? Your constant confusing of the terms seems to have blinded me to my own ignorance.

[Neosutra]

Ill respond to each of your comments in order:

1. Im not arguing wether the ideals of any one religion is good or bad, im arguing that the motivation for these ideals extend themselves beyond rational judgement when they take on the form of a super natural diety. Whatever good/bad comes from those ideals is irrelevant, I am wholeheartedly against any foundation built on superstition where the main premis is "dont question, just do what I say". And yes, I am against -all- religious ideals, as even the good ones are fostered through bad motivations and deceit

2. Self delussion is not a practicallity. You assume mankind is too weak to deal with reality w/o being fed horseshit to get them through their day. We would have less psychological breakdowns and instability if we had our species build real world reliable supports, instead of praying to invisible men.

3. Circular Logic = Logical Circles = Circular Logic = Logical Circles.. you get my point..

Neosutra stats that religion is all bad -> Kuya states that religion does good -> Neosutra states that good can be done without religion -> Kuya states that bad can be done w/o religion -> Neosutra states that people can be rationalized out of doing bad if it is not connected to a higher power, and thus reveals the flaw in religion -> Kuya states that religion has good sides too... that self dellusion is good... -> Neosutra says self dellusion (and thus religion) is all bad.... -> Kuya states that religion does good..

[Kaelan]

Wallofquotes incoming

This one was the better one, however I'm wondering if you even read this one, seeing as how you did not post part of this link's information that backed your argument and instead expected me to read all of it, not to mention some of the things it says actually somewhat support your stance, and mine.

It's not a definitive solution on it. I never said it was, I did mention neuroscientists are in the middle of finding the way these things work at the level of the brain (as in, we have evidence suggesting it, even though it's not conclusive). I'm posting them because: 1. They show that its entirely possible that the idea of empathy being innate is true and 2. I haven't seen anything anywhere that suggests (even marginally, let alone conclusively) that the opposite is true. From what I've heard so far on what you said to Neosutra about this, your answer didn't sound like "we don't know that yet", but more like, "that's false, we've already proved that wrong, obviously", which I know isn't true.

[quote:2c8py91r]In humans and other
mammals, an impulse to care for offspring is almost certainly
genetically hardwired.

Not completely true, not all humans possess this impulse to care for offspring,[/quote:2c8py91r]
Completely irrelevant, most humans do. There is no such thing as an absolute in science. There is such a thing as a vast majority.

Ergo, your argument that empathy is natural, is actually wrong.

I don't see any evidence that it is actually completely attached to socialization. What I see is the suggestion that socialization makes it far easier to develop and that in humans, empathy can be voluntarily stimulated through various means, which makes sense. I don't see how that automatically implies it was never there in the first place.

How can people who attack metaphysical and subjective ideas such as the ones religions harbor, choose themselves, to adhere to subjective and relative labels?

I don't see anything subjective in the difference of worth between helping someone due to caring about them versus helping someone because you were ordered to do so, completely excluding empathy from the equation. This sounds like obscurantism to me.

Once again, your assumptions that empathy is the "natural goodness" of humanity are nothing but mere subjectivity, empathy has it's downsides, but it has more to do with helping assure the survival of a species, rather than, once again, some arbitrary concept of "good".

I think you're missing my point here. First of all, whether or not empathy has downsides is completely irrelevant to the idea of "Are we born with it or do we learn it?". Second, the fact that it most likely came as a result of natural selection (which I believe was actually part of my argument, so I don't see why you see it as being contrary to what I said) doesn't for one second support the opposite side of the argument. Third, I don't know where you keep getting this "arbitrary idea of good" from, I had just mentioned that it was a combination of things that help you as a species and things that help you as an individual.

[quote:2c8py91r]In addition, without self-awareness and
emotion-regulation processing, there is no true empathy.

It is not inherent, it is created through the networking of mutiple cognoscitive systems and it requires the existence of a social envinronment to develope.[/quote:2c8py91r]
That passage has nothing to do with whether it's inherent or not. What they're saying is that in order for empathy to exist, the mechanisms that make you put yourself in other people's shoes are not enough by themselves, only when combined with the emotional self-evaluation and comparison of yourself with others they create empathy. Unless you're willing to argue and provide some sort of evidence that the one of the latter two are not innate, I don't see how this would support the idea that it must be learned.

You, strangely assume empathy is necesary for primal groups to band together in order to survive without an explination as to how empathy, exactly, forces them to remain together, when it very article you posted, denies any strong relation to the evolutionary theory

I'm not saying it forces anything. I'm not saying it's sufficient, I'm just saying it's required to have a proper functioning society for any length of time. In the same way that education is required but not sufficient to be a smart thinking person.

and that empathy does not propell a person to feel things for another without a reason,

I don't think I have to address this one again

Finding a relation between an action and parts of the brain demonstrating large amounts of activty does not say that said action is pre-existant to socialization proper, especially considering these tests are done on adults who have already developed these functions.

I was referring to the experiments done with children actually

Furthermore, the brain can change in relation to the psycholgical stimuli it receives, so the existence of certain neural networks in the brain that react to empathy, could just as easily be the result of brain plasticity:

It could be. Again, I realize this hasn't been conclusively solved. I'm just pointing towards the fact that what Neosutra mentioned isn't a possibility you can completely dismiss just that easily like you were doing.

Some animals (dogs, for example) can even tell when humans are in pain or suffering and deliberately show compassion.

Dogs are domesticated.

Ok, how about mice or monkeys? Frans de Waal ( one of the world's leading primatologists) states that that the Bonobo (a type of primate) does things that can very plausibly be attributed to altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience and sensitivity. I can point you towards some articles that write about the same subject, like this or this, but his actual books are a bit better on it (Look up "Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape").

You and Neosutra are making irrelevant arguments by brining in peoples' motivations,

The reason I'm concerned with motivations is because they, just like beliefs, don't exist in isolation and sometimes trying to do a good thing for a bad reason can have some bad consequences. Mother Teresa is a great example of this.

What is this? A different variable of the Godwin?
Which is, once again, irrelevant. You quoated that part of my post outside of its context, it does indeed provide the motivation to do "good" things, but it is not necesary, it is merely a motivation, same as it can cause "bad" things, but it is also not necessary, and it is merely a motivator. You not liking it, does not make it wrong by some objective standard. It negatively affecting you, such as a suicide bombing, is well within your faculties to attack and question seeing as how it does indeed have a large effect on you, however critizicing them in turn for doing positive things is pointless. It's no different than how if one person says a dumb thing in this forum, people seem to assume the person must be dumb at everything, where as he could be quite intelligent and profound on a different topic.

My point is to show how useless it is to argue, "oh forget the bad it causes, look at the good they do", as if that somehow "cancels out" the bad parts which are very much still a problem. If there were no bad parts or the bad sides were insignificant compared to the good, then sure, we could have religion functioning as a placebo. But then we'd still have to acknowledge that it's not actually true (most moderates do in a monty python-esque sort of way, but I think it would require a bit more than that). I'm all for treating the Bible, the Talmud and the Koran in the same way we treat Shakespeare, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Somehow I think religious people can't bring themselves to do that while still calling themselves religious though.

That would be precisely the problem, I'd say. Preferring an extremely bad explanation to no explanation at all is one of our worst traits (one that, unfortunately, we probably will never get rid of).

I do not remember science being in the business of defining and creating morals and ethics.

I don't know in what way explaining how things we don't understand work has anything to do with ethics.

[Kuya]

1. Im not arguing wether the ideals of any one religion is good or bad, im arguing that the motivation for these ideals extend themselves beyond rational judgement when they take on the form of a super natural diety. Whatever good/bad comes from those ideals is irrelevant, I am wholeheartedly against any foundation built on superstition where the main premis is "dont question, just do what I say". And yes, I am against -all- religious ideals, as even the good ones are fostered through bad motivations and deceit

Then there is nothing to argue. You state that it is irrelevant to you whether the religion produce positive effects, or even possess doctrines that do not interfere with science or cause violence and such, and that your sole reason for being agaisnt them is that they adhere to a deity that cannot be questioned or disproven. Your ideals are simply a form of elitism where you simply don't want something to exist because it's not the way you like it regardless of what positive effects it may produce. Yet with all of this you still believe in some greater "good" or that humanity itself has a predisposition to this subjective thing you call "good", and you seem to ignore that humans are not capable of objectiveness and will colour the world in whatever form they see fit. I see no reason for your crusade, in that sense, beyond posterity.

2. Self delussion is not a practicallity. You assume mankind is too weak to deal with reality w/o being fed horseshit to get them through their day. We would have less psychological breakdowns and instability if we had our species build real world reliable supports, instead of praying to invisible men.

The only way to avoid psychological breakdowns and instability is to have people live in whichever way would make them the happiest, this is clearly not possible. And i'm not even going to ask what you call reality.

And that's not circular logic, circular logic would be me doing this:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... stion.html

Begging the Question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true. This sort of "reasoning" typically has the following form.


Premises in which the truth of the conclusion is claimed or the truth of the conclusion is assumed (either directly or indirectly).
Claim C (the conclusion) is true.

Examples of Begging the Question

Bill: "God must exist."
Jill: "How do you know."
Bill: "Because the Bible says so."
Jill: "Why should I believe the Bible?"
Bill: "Because the Bible was written by God."

What you humorously allege that i did, would be a simple ignoring your arguments and repeating the same thing over and over, but it is not circular logic.

[Neosutra]

Then there is nothing to argue. You state that it is irrelevant to you whether the religion produce positive effects, or even possess doctrines that do not interfere with science or cause violence and such, and that your sole reason for being agaisnt them is that they adhere to a deity that cannot be questioned or disproven. Your ideals are simply a form of elitism where you simply don't want something to exist because it's not the way you like it regardless of what positive effects it may produce. Yet with all of this you still believe in some greater "good" or that humanity itself has a predisposition to this subjective thing you call "good", and you seem to ignore that humans are not capable of objectiveness and will colour the world in whatever form they see fit. I see no reason for your crusade, in that sense, beyond posterity.

So we are going back to the positive effects of religion (even when ive said the positive effects are actually negative as well) as a foundation for you argument? My sole reason for being against them is not the simple belief in a diety, it is the extention of this belief as a negation of rational thought and subjegation of humanity to ideals that are justified through ignorance and superstition. Also, I never once attempted to justify the "greater good" of humanity, only showed the basic natural empathy between social species.

Just because your circular logic extends beyond 4 lines, doesnt remove that fact that you say the same things over and over, until they are refuted, then restate the previous one, hoping everyone has forgotten.

[Beckwin]

It's a mistake to try and defend or champion religion by using logic/reason.

[Demosthenes11]

It's a mistake to try and defend or champion religion by using logic/reason.

bingo, there's a reason it's called FAITH
You either BELIEVE things are evidence of what you BELIEVE, or you don't - simple as that

Kuya - =D>
You are a lot more educated than I originally gave you credit for. It's pretty clear you have taken a lot of psych/soc courses and maybe even a few philosophy courses as well. My gf (psych minor) was reading a lot of what you said while i was and she was pointing out where in different books that information is located. She says you def. know your shit :D
Plus you left your genetic material all over this thread in a very epic and thorough dismemberment of almost every single argument with a nice mixture of facts and logical thinking. Honestly one of the best series of arguments I've seen on these boards ever.
Neo - Saying "No you're wrong" and denying FACTS is not a way of arguing, it only proves your own bias. I still don't understand how you respect your religious friends when you post shit on here saying how stupid all religion is as well as their believers - if you don't respect your friends and their views how can they be your friends? Open your mind a little bit and quit thinking that religion is always bad. I'm not sure if god performed surgery on you without or knowledge or something, but your hatred of anything and everything religious is ridiculous and unfounded

[Neosutra]

What lolFACTS did I deny? You calling someone biased is a bit lolable as well. I also stated why he was wrong for the only case I outright called him on (social development of empathy). As for the other topics, I stated many times the reasoning for placing faith in the "negative influence" corner. You seem to only read what you want to read, and grab the parts you desire to best articulate your insult.

[Kaelan]

It's a mistake to try and defend or champion religion by using logic/reason.

But if nobody tried to defend religion, who would we argue with?

[Neosutra]

It's a mistake to try and defend or champion religion by using logic/reason.

But if nobody tried to defend religion, who would we argue with?

They can defend it, they just cant use logic/facts/evidence to do so.

Which makes every religious argument exasperatingly pointless. But I think in this topic we have been focusing on the ups/downs of each dogma. Where as someone like myself is of the stance that even the minimal benefits are of detrimental effects, and someone like Kuya is of the belief that the minimal benefits are necessary to human social structures and outweight the down sides which would exist w/o religion.

To be fair, I realize that we would still have prejudice, war, and violence as a species if we did away with religion, but to me dealing with those ideals w/o the supernatural attatchment makes it easier to humanity to begin to overcome them. I would feel alot better as a soldier if I knew the guy coming toward me didnt think he was going to get rewards in heaven for killing me. I would feel better as a husband if my wife and I didnt get verbally assaulted by prochoicers every time we go to the womans clinic for more birth control. I would feel better as a scientist if I didnt see congressmen and teachers attempting to put intelligent design into our schools as a legitamate academic program.

Religion isnt the source of all mankinds problems, but it is a katalyst.