I guess I'm wondering if morality is local or relative, like a lot of you claim. And if it is, how local does it have to be? If morals are dictated by a closed group, what if that group meets another group with different morals? What dictates the morals of the composed group then if they combine to be a society or if they fight? Just whatever they do is right since morality is relative to the group or person? I have my own morality, you have yours, then what or who dictates who's morality is right if they conflict or if my morality physically imposes on yours? Do they just go at it and whom so ever has the might has the right? Just as a state is governed by the union, the world is somewhat governed by a combination of countries, eg, UN, and our body is governed by ourselves which is in turn governed by all of the above and our own cells work like a government to do their duty to maintain or govern the function of our own selves, but I'm wondering is their a Governor of all. It would fit the algorithm. And how local/small/relative does a moral decision have to be to make it right?
Suppose someone sees it fit to kill another in the govern of their own morality. Is it right because morality is relative? Or is their a bigger body which should step in to say if it is wrong or right? You see, I think there is a bigger governing body in the universe and it keeps things in balance for the whole. I just call it God. When we pollute the Earth, God doesn't punish us, we punish ourselves. It's a natural balance. You push it, it pushes back, like karma or sort of the buddhist philosophy. I'm just saying, it seems to me there's got to be a higher power but we don't quite percieve it as intelligent because we are like neurons in a huge brain. The neuron itself can be seen as just as intelligent by the other neurons but it hasn't the ability to see beyond it that all the neurons are making up a larger body, a network, which in turn is part of something more intelligent. Just as one computer tied to others has more computational power than the one. A network which makes us one whole thinking machine, a society.
I know, I may have so many thoughts running through my head all the time it may sometimes sound like quackery but life just seems too simple. The atheist philosophy of typically 'make it up as you go along' just seems so deceptively simple. It seems there's got to be more to life than just doing your own thing and not seeing the whole of it all or one relative moral set of rules. Am I right until someone says I'm wrong and am I still right until I what? Either defeat them or make an argument that doesn't defeat itself in being hypocritical? That model of morality just doesn't seem right. I think there has got to be a moral universal standard. To me, when I look at the whole, I just see one big soup of individuals arguing with hypocritical debates. For me to know that everything is all tied into the universe, it is all linked, that there is no relative. That one node in the networks affects it all, and the more in the node, the less the effect the single node has but it is still an effect like when averaging numbers. No matter how many you have, one oddball can affect one million.
I'm not trying to debunk the Abrahamic religions themselves since the history of it all is arguable and really irrelevent but the main timeless message of morals. I think morals aren't relative but static for the same specific situation. For every situation there is a choice and it is always either right or wrong for it given the time, situation, and all the other variables associated with it. I think a lot of religions are really dumbed down because the right answer for every situation, time, place, etc, would take a book perhaps universal in size. I guess another reason why I come here is to find people to debate or help me debunk my own views and keep my own in check. I think the only dangerous religion is one which isn't kept in check and really studied and tested if it is right. Being a perfectionist at heart, I'm not really happy with just good enough but the best I can. I don't want to just live ok. If I can study my whole life on the right way to live it and when I die, I think I will be satisfied because at least I can't say I didn't try to live right or not do my best.
if the universe has existed forever, randomness is the only process needed, as any and all states must be exausted.
I think it's all percieved as just randomness to us. Like a node in a network can't see all the nodes in it and understand exactly everything going on in every node. It can't possibly understand it all but the thing with the human brain is it's amazing ability for data compression. It makes it not that good for recalling or calculating specifically but in a seemingly infinite universe, being able to take seemingly the same data and calculate it against other quantities of seemingly same data makes the brain a great tool for understanding the goings on around it.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but, bullshit. There are plenty of us who know how to make steady progress in understanding the universe. But if you insist on there being some purpose to it all, you will waste your life focusing on the search for it and ignoring the vast wonder of the cosmos around you.
To say we and the universe are purposeless is to say that, well, we're useless. Why don't we all go on a tyrade and do as we feel? So what if we die in the process, it's all meaningless anyway. So what if you kill your own loved ones, they're purposeless. That train of thought I just can't fathom understanding. No offense, but it's too hypocritical.
So where do you draw the line. You want you and your own to survive, then humans before the other animals, then the animals before the environment, but can't you see it's all inter-related? Can't you see it is all needed for the universe to be in peace? So how many people can we kill off before we cross that line between having enough 'superior' humans and not over-doing it? Do we as humans rather want a race of humans that can seem to overcome in one area such as science, or sports, etc. and have dogged determination to be successful at no matter what cost? Would we not want humans that actually care about each other instead? Isn't that what got us to where we are today? Our ability to adapt by using our cognitive skills and our teamwork? We could reproduce more and more brains combined, we overcame more. This is like word soup trying to make sense of all the word soup going on elsewhere. But to me both the atheists and theists seem to speak it a lot with a lot of contradictions.
Perhaps I seem determined to find an answer or try to debate other ideas that I might see as wrong, I guess that's why a lot of us come here. But we all see the danger in believing wrong and a lot of us come here to try to get rid of it and the ignorance associated with a lot of it. So you can see where I'm coming from. I don't want to believe without knowing or being almost certain. Maybe I should've posted this in the philosophy forum.
So, in your opinion, quantity rules over quality? There is the flaw in your argument.
It most certainly does in universal terms. It's mathematically correct. That less is greater than more is seeming nonsense. A bigger rock crushes a bigger rock. More neurons can overcome more neurons. A mass of animals (people) can overcome a smaller mass (animals) with a smaller amount of neurons. It's the way of the universe. It's the balance. Of course circumstances sometimes differ due to natural events which can change the odds but it's universally true when one side is given the same circumstances or variables.
lol, no, I'm just a self-described scatterbrain.
That's called 'indoctrination' and you'll find it quite difficult to shake off. But, keep trying, nonetheless.
Actually, I could easily count the number of times I went to church and my parents never made me go. I found the bible myself through my own curiosity and that's where my interest in religion, or the idea that there's something more to life, started.
No, you won't. We weren't "put here." And you'll do nothing more than make yourself even more nuts.
Ok, we were evolved through a series of circumstances advantageous to creating an intelligent being. Whatever you want to call it. To me it's all a play on words. But put here or evolved is just shorter to type.
Living. What's so difficult to understand about that?
And what is living? The process of going about life and making decisions on how to live it and how to treat others, or the best way to interact with that which is around us. I'm living it.
That's a core issue right there. Your genetic makeup and your learned behavior have resulted in a cognitive geometry that evaluates assertions as being 'true' based on how they make you feel. In the context of the word 'believe' that's being used it literally expands to 'accept the assertion as truth without considering evidence'.
Would you rather have me use "know" then? Anyhow, I'm smart enough to know not to use "know" when I'm not positively certain. It's foolish to use know so much and it's offensive to others who may disagree. btw, I know, perhaps I shouldn't have used, "can't deny God" but it was sort of my own call for others to help me debunk my own thoughts.
That's 'belief' creeping in again. That's not an obvious conclusion at all and in fact it doesn't even make any sense.
Should I go over it again? What happens in the brain? It's a series of true/false reactions which also happens throughout the universe and everything around us. Any action in the universe can be turned into mathematical figures, as any programmer/mathematician would know. Of course not much of it due to the limited power of computers. But down to the root of every thought there is a go/no go reaction at the smallest levels which make up the decisions that consist of a much larger collective of go/no go reactions by the cells, molecules, etc.
Why even use the word 'God'? Also don't confuse nautral process with intention. If you intend to create a marble and then do then you are its creator. Intention requires sentience and there is no evidence of sentience for the process of the Earth spawning life forms.
I can't see how the universe got to where it is now and the happenings in it, us included, without being intended. If I shoot a billiard ball in to a pocket, it's obvious it was intended to go in. If on accident, then it's obvious that the variables involved including the ones that made me shoot where I shot, intended to make it go there. I guess it's arguable. Maybe it's not intention but just the way things are but the forces that be all combined made it go and the forces in me intended it to go where ever the forces that be make it go. If that makes any sense. Let's move on.
'God' is claimed to be a sentient life form that created the universe. Since the existence of such claims there has been no evidence supporting them and continually mounting scientific evidence contradicting them.
God to me is all that is basically, and the powers that be.
Additionally, humans are genetically pre-disposed (some more than others) to 'believe'. There are alot of evolutionary reasons for this that deal with group behaviors bound by an ideal of purpose, human psychological needs, and resource sharing.
Of course, we're predispositioned to know our role in society and where we fit in in the universe/world/society, etc. It's only common and it's common to want to find out so as to know we are doing as we believe we should and to give our life meaning. I get meaning knowing that I'm doing my job of helping the universal objective or at least trying to find out what it is. Maybe all there is to life is just getting up, going to work, and being "good" to people, maybe that's all we need to do. But I can't help but think there's something more and that I can do more in the world to help make a more positive outcome. Could I try to feed starving kids? Should I? Or should I just ignore them and let them starve. Spend my money on extavagants I don't need and let Darwin's law take care of them. I'm just not satisfied with that. I believe there's an answer somewhere and perhaps it was already told to us by the prophets but the complex circumstances of today make contradictions of those past arguments on how we should live. I used to find peace in being agnostic but I'm more pro-active than I used to be and if I'm not doing my all. Like a father working for his children. You give up your own comfort for a while to bring them peace with dry clothes and a full stomach. You sacrifice yourself and go out of your own comfort zone so as to bring comfort to others and there's just too much pain around so I feel I should do my part and at least try to tackle all these complex issues and try to pave the way for others. Maybe it's a road to nowhere but at least I can say I tried.
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE ON EARTH?
As I said before, it's obviously information exchange to get to the root of it. Yes, I know reproduction but why? So to train our offspring and educate them with information to survive and hope that information is carried on and for the brain to hold information it needs to survive. I'm thinking beyond all this. Forces exchanged which at its root is variable information. How hot, cold, hard, soft, speed, of a force. I'm looking at the deep aspect, the mathematical data of the happenings of the universe. Perhaps it all sounds like quackery it does sort of make me feel lonely in life that I don't think many people can or like to see life and the happenings in the universe as mere numbers or variables at the root, what goes on under the covers of it all. That there is perhaps one big variable and all under it make up divisible variables. I don't care how ugly or seemingly chaotic it is under it all, I'm just looking to find the core answers as most of us are. I don't care what it is but if someone can show me how to treat our fellow people that's not contradictory, then I'll seriously consider it. But most arguments of religion and morals seem shallow and arguable. I don't know if anyone else sees it but now I just see arguing morality as contradiction soup. For now as usual I just do what I believe is good but faced with a moral dilemma lately of someone threatening to fight me, I'm still thinking instead of fighting, I should do just the opposite and help this guy out with his own life for the good. He is my ex's boyfriend. Some of you may choose fighting and especially with what was said from him if you were me but does might actually make right? If he doesn't live by my rules to let me live in peace and leave me alone, why should I abide by his rules of no weapons when fighting and just blast him? Should I do away with someone because they don't observe my morals? If I did, would you say I actually have morals? You see, those that argue here and argue with malice in the name or morals or religion, should they even be arguing the topic?
I know, this is a huge post and not even sure it belongs here but if anything, I'm just trying to get people to think about what they're doing. Too many people fighting and arguing, sometimes maliciously, about what they think is right. If you think you have the answers, surely if it's to degrade someone and call them purposeless by way of killing and saying their job here is done, then they must sure be God then or think they are. Then where do you draw the line? You can't kill but other nasty things you're allowed to do? Myself, I believe so far in a mix of most popular religions, Christianity mostly and atheism although I do believe in a God-like deity. But as time goes by, I find myself belieiving more and more in nothing. Just an observer in a world where if we do bad, bad things happen to us and we learn from it and change it into good and teach others that it's bad. We do good and we're rewarded. But who's to say death is bad? If we die, maybe it's Darwinism, cleansing society from the people who make more mistakes and adapting the population to the current circumstances. But just letting Darwinism happen, is that not bad for the world as a whole for us to think so cheaply of life and self-destructive for society? It creates less trust and less teamwork since everyone else would know the person is only doing what they're doing for themselves and you can never be sure when they're going to get rid of you for their own good. And man being advanced as it is, it would be destructive to man-kind in general in the atomic age. So there we have it, more contradiction on that side. Should we just get rid of all thought and say everyone's contradictory? Maybe unless someone can come up with a legitimite moral code. Perhaps I'm waiting on a saviour. Someone who knows the answer. Society seems dangerous when you have people running around not knowing wrong from right or up from down. Or if fighting is only a bad thing when it is used to promote bad, any contradiction? Or if name calling is not bad but good when someone has a different idea than yours and you can make them mad by saying that. Even here on the religion board I just see too many contradictions and I guess I'm just looking for answers no matter what side it's from. But is just having general rules as an atheist the right way? How many rules do I have to set forth on paper for it to be a religion and contradict myself if I talked bad of religion? Is it good to have only a few rules for all situations or is it not dangerous? Is there no one to step forth and claim they have a good moral code and post it? If not, is that not like saying Chevy's are better than Fords when you have no car or no experience with one just based on heresay? I'm just saying how can anyone post here with any sense unless it's based on deep roots of how the universe and the societal structure works instead of often shallow arguments? Anyhow, let me end my droning on here or else I could go on and on with this topic.
