[quote=“Toe_Save, post:19, topic:157925”]
Utopian extreme TG? Absolutely. If humanism is a faith like all the others, then it must have its heaven, paradise, nirvana, olympus, sunshine and pizzas, hockey pucks and endo: A place where we figure it all out and work for, and take responsibility for, each other’s erm…happiness? [/quote]
I don’t see it as a faith, and I guess most people don’t. It’s one way (there may be others) of working towards a better world.
When we think in terms of relative bad and good, and try to quantify bad (evil), where does this massive manipulation of mankind (ok, I know…humankind, but I went for the alliteration) fall on the scale? I’d put it below genocide, but not far below and it is a very ambitious prick that Global Corpocracy. It looks like it’s ready to pull out its big fascist sticks again.
Really? Think about what genocide is. Even on the scale of your average government today that isn’t killing loads of people, this isn’t that bad.
A religion? No way. Nothing to worship, no rituals, no beliefs except a desire to do good. What, is anything with a should a religion now? It’s an ideal. Your objection to the “should” strikes me as formulaic and not suited to the context. This isn’t some kind of quest for definite knowledge of ultimate truths here.
Oh, I don’t think so. Many people are, and more and more, though many people have been repressed in the past from admitting it, and continue to be so today.
That is my point I guess. That I didn’t really think of humanism as a faith-based belief system, but rather a truth. Now I think I was wrong. It is a faith and it has failed like all others.
Maybe Maybe not. Typically faith implies a strong and persistent belief in something based on conviction rather than proof. What did you have faith in?
[quote=“tempogain, post:21, topic:157925, full:true”]
A religion? No way. Nothing to worship, no rituals, no beliefs except a desire to do good.[/quote]
You just described Buddhism, or at least several schools of Buddhism, as practiced by the ordinary man in the street who declares himself to be a Buddhist.
If you don’t like the word religion, or faith, then call it a belief system. That is, a set of axioms which are unfalsifiable, but which the believer takes to be true regardless. No logical argument can be mounted against those axioms. In your case, you believe that we should strive to be good … whatever good means - you’ve got another set of axioms defining ‘good’.
I would agree with you that there is some basis for your views on ‘goodness’ in the way the world works. For example, it’s an iron law of nature that if a group of people are endlessly squabbling with, killing, or stealing from each other, they will live a bestial and hopeless existence. There is no other possible outcome. However, there are societies which view such behavior as normal, correct, and even rational. They are unable to accept that different forms of behaviour are objectively ‘good’ and that theirs is ‘bad’. In other words, there appears to be nothing embedded in the biology of our brains that pushes us towards goodness and away from badness.
[quote=“finley, post:24, topic:157925”]
You just described Buddhism, or at least several schools of Buddhism, as practiced by the ordinary man in the street who declares himself to be a Buddhist.[/quote]
I’m sure we could find something to differ about
If you don’t like the word religion, or faith, then call it a belief system. That is, a set of axioms which are unfalsifiable, but which the believer takes to be true regardless. No logical argument can be mounted against those axioms.
I wouldn’t take it so far. It’s a simple desire to do good and to work with like-minded people.
In your case, you believe that we should strive to be good … whatever good means - you’ve got another set of axioms defining ‘good’.
You know as well as I do people will disagree about that. I wouldn’t seek to complicate matters as much as that. An honest desire to do good is enough for my purposes here.
In other words, there appears to be nothing embedded in the biology of our brains that pushes us towards goodness and away from badness.
I wouldn’t say nothing. A sense of empathy–not to say it is any overriding impulse–seems to be deeply embedded for example. But I agree that most of this characteristic is learned, taught, reasoned, and developed over time as part of culture.
many species act in the favor of other members of their own species and from an evolutionary perspective it can be explained by saying that they increase the chances of passing on shared genes by helping others that share their genes. So I guess there is something wired in there in the Biology. Same logic can be used to explain some of the bad. rape and pillage and all that.
interestingly have you ever heard about flatworms? They are all both male and female and they fight to see who gets to impregnate who. If they can’t find a mate they impregnate themselves by stabbing themselves with their own mickey. check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn3xluIRh1Y
next video after that is a giant centipede that eats itself.
So you’re saying that people have no ability to distinguish between good and bad, and shouldn’t bother trying? Maybe just wander around aimlessly? Can we at least try not to run each other over with a truck or something? I’m not quite getting the resistance here to the idea that people should try to do good things
Certainly the human moral sense is very unreliable.
As for what people should do, it accomplishes nothing to debate what they should do, because why should they listen to you? People will do what people will do. That’s just how the world goes.
Maybe someday my soul will come before God and I’ll find out whether I got it right. Barring that, there’s no knowing for sure.
I’ll say this much: the more certain people are of their own righteousness, the more a danger they are to others. This includes nihilists, who are certain they’re not unrighteous.
I don’t hand out moral prescriptions. I just try to protect myself from the people who think they are the good people.
I’m just talking about what I and like-minded people should do, as an ideal. No obligations involved! No one has to listen to me–as should go without saying, they can do as they like, within reason
No certainty or moral prescriptions needed or wanted in this equation.
The trouble with live-and-let-live is it only works so long as everyone does it.
Nihilism makes me think of those Germans in The Big Lebowski. But if a nihilist minds his own business then he’s not my problem. And whatever happens to him is also not my problem.
Politics is all about not living and let live, because too many things are zero sum. It’s a substitute for genocidal war. The libertarians are the least political political movement ever. That’s why they never get any traction.
In the end, all that matters is who comes out on top. But some moral strategies work better than others, and are more likely to come out on top. That’s the answer to nihilism: cultural Darwinism. Whoever wins the culture wars gets to define words such as ‘morality’ and ‘civilization’ in self-serving ways. And rightly so, unless you can show that their winning was an accident. But only until another culture displaces them. That’s cultural evolution, and it’s how societal progress actually works.
But humanism is just a feel good attitude. It has no power to save humanity from itself.
John Rawl’s “justice as fairness” is pretty powerful for deciding between right and wrong. In any social situation you have people, and without knowing who you are in the situation, would you accept that situation? Basically people will only buy in to the realtionship if its fair. Check it out: Original position - Wikipedia
But include animals in that for a laugh. Would you accept the situation if there was even a 1% chance that you would get the first glimpse of the sun on the way to the slaughterhouse… nobody would.
Maybe not. Typically faith implies a strong and persistent belief in something based on conviction rather than proof. What did you have faith in?
