Burden of Proof

http://bitchspot.jadedragononline.com/2018/12/19/atheism-and-the-burden-of-proof/
got me thinking, trying to resolve cognitive dissonance of Kant, Plato, and reality. I think I have, and religion still loses. There is no physical god, just the eidos of a god in the mind of the believers. Eidos is a Greek word, the root of idea, but meaning more like an concept. It is like Plato's form, and Kants division of a priori, not physical but realish in our minds, but some of them have real counterparts, some do not. Gods are one that the eidos has no real counterpart.

We can divide our thinking into two main groups of objects, those who represent real objects, and those who have no real counterpart. Those with no real counterpart may have evidence of existence as processes, amplifiers, or have no evidence, as fiction or something else. No evidence suggests it is false. Like gods. It is all that simple.

There is no point arguing with people who have a wrong concept locked in. It is belief that is emotionally tied to their thinking, and must be chipped off, one tentacle at a time. The belief is interlocked with their concept of self. Nothing is going to change their mind until they start to question the belief.

Kant was a philosopher that separated morality and his beliefs, he defined good will as the greatest good, followed by happiness. He realized he was contented with Pietism splinter of Lutharanism, and never explored options; good will and happiness as it was, was sufficient. He did not depend on religion for moral direction, education, medicine, but was content with religion for his social needs. Please note that good will and goodwill are different. Will is about what drives us, while goodwill is a friendly attitude, compassion, charity. We need to have a drive to the good, not just posses virtue but also to act. We can be virtuous and be a hermit, do very little. Or we can be active doing... but all the while maintaining virtue. These are different reproaches.

Kant was famous for splitting knowledge, experience based and a priori. A priori can further be split into real and fiction, with the fiction dropping as trivial, to be "flung on the fire forthwith." That is where the god concept belongs.      

Temporal vs. Sensible

Temporal vs. Sensible

After reading a bit of Plato and Kant, it is clear that there are two worlds, a temporal world and a sensible world. This is an important distinction going forward.

 By temporal I do not mean anything to do with time, but between the temples, and that is the in the brain, not religious structures. For clarity, the temporal world must exist, but represents the sensible world, but has no physical existence, but as we can examine it, share it through communication of ideas, concepts, and the Greek word, eidos to reduce confusion. Eidos is the root of ideas, yet has a more temporal denotation... the original concept of what I am on about here.

The sensible world here is the physical world that we can measure, and sense through the senses. So now that we have two separated "worlds", we can look at each separately. Anything, even god can exist in the temporal world, for the word exists, yet it has no powers beyond those we assign it, and no partner in the sensible world. Pythagoras Theorem exists in the temporal world (tworld), and has a partner in the sensible world (sworld), as many thing do. Not so for gods, fairies, elves, gremlins, satin, etc. That which is not partnered in the sworld, is, well, fake.

Philosophy is work in the tworld, and we must always be sure that it has a partner in the sworld, else, it to, is fake.

This may be the Kant's green glasses.

But not so fast here!! What about the Nominal world of Kant, it that is what he caobjects lled the actual world that is the world that we sense? So now we have three worlds, actual, what we sense, and what we think we sense that resides only in our mind. In the Buddhist tradition there is the Mangala of the Nine objects of a finger pointing at the moon.Is this the same damn thing?

Negative People

Perhaps I am just a negative person? Or perhaps realistic.

Sir David Attenborough addresses the UN climate change summit in Poland with a stark warning:

If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon. … The world’s people have spoken. Time is running out. They want you, the decision-makers, to act now. Leaders of the world, you must lead. The continuation of civilisations and the natural world upon which we depend is in your hands.

Overpopulation is how I define this problem. A world wide one child policy, and UN declaration of "do not teach hatred or violence to your children" would be a good start.

Skeptics are just negative people who are proud of being negative. Well maybe, at least they claim to be looking carefully at what is being offered, but through their own biases. That is the real problem, have they ever examined their own biases, and they are all to happy to interrupt any discussion, to displace any argument. They are not listening learning, but shut down and carry on type thinking. Oh well, reject that group as something to label myself as.

Ethic limit become the defined limit of behavior that is acceptable to the people. We may not agree, but it is an attempt to define. Consider the UN Delectation of Human Rights; it has one item about freedom of religion which will contribute to everlasting trouble. The right for people to teach their children hatred, and wrong information, in the form of religion. If we want peace, all religion should be considered a partly correct historical belief system. By doing mash ups, we can see what is correct and what is not. Reject the incorrect, accept the correct.

We need to exhibit characteristics like compassion but not to devote our life to them. It is what we get from those characteristics that drives us forward, all the while knowing that there are people who depend on those characteristics to make a living. These people we can ignore... for they are users. This eliminates helping of the habitual and those who live off the habitual like charities. Collecting for the orphans in Africa is for others to support. We need to educate and support local first. I do that through my taxes, as much is wasted through welfare.

Some see my attitude as negative, and that is there choice. I do not give to paid collectors. Any organization that does not provide an audited statement on line or in print of their paid out to collections ratio are businesses, not charities. And they call me negative.

Which Group do I fit with

There are the skeptics. These are a negative bunch, always taking every statement apart, and demanding references, then taring up those references as being not good enough or false, unless it agrees with their opinions. And some of their favorite concepts are just wrong.

People are not uniform. Any actual characteristic or physical value we study has a standard distribution, more or less. Social need is one such, and I fall well below one standard deviation below the norm, Oh well, but I do need some interaction. As Eide found in his dyslexia study, all dyslexics have long column spacing and fewer neuron connections, but not all long and few's are dyslexics. Likewise all autistic are short and many's but not all short and many's are autistic. So what does it mean, our genes, and development combine to give us variation, some get more, some get less. Oh well. 

Then there are the humanists that cannot make a decision, nor organize meetings or gatherings without a consistence... so nothing ever happens, unless someone make a free choice, and free choice is Riverside Lounge, if it is open and if not, Garneau Lounge, but parking is too expensive, and there is never a preset topic, so we go off the rails.

There is the Society of Edmonton Atheists, who like to hold meetings in the north and west ends of the city... the next city, along way from home, and frequently in ale houses. If I lived closer... oh well. These are a bunch of activists, that happen to be all atheists, but most are activists in other areas...mostly. I just do not care about gays, abortions, some Alberta political parties, nor peoples. They just do not matter. I struggle with understanding the people and their motives.

There is the no authority (no god) ethics group, who love to talk and hear themselves explore... but after I took the time to read two textbooks on ethics and several other books, perhaps ten, I realize that much is just beating of gums, not real but just noise. Existential philosophy as MacQuarrie preaches is ok for those who made a conscious decision to "keep on living", but we are responsible without that decision. His revelation was just that; a point in time that the revelation occurred; we were always responsible, even if we never realized we were, even if we never got so low as to contemplate suicide. But ethics has value, and need to be studied. We as a people can draw an arbitrary line in the sand on any subject. 

So I shoot archery at a club, and coach a few on Saturdays, well actually I do the "introduction to  archery," traditional archery that is, for try out first timers. If they come back a couple of time, they become potential members.  But that is two days a week, and I still need more. This has nothing to do with philosophy, eating/not eating, and is just a bit of exercise. 

US gases Children

https://i0.wp.com/freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2018/11/gassedfamilies.jpg?ssl=1

This picture is the west end of the existing border wall. All that is seen is US property, south of the wall. In fact, the people are already within the US. The south bank of the drainage ditch is about the US-Mexico border here. 

So here we have a physical barrier at a different location than the actual political border. This becomes a no man's land, or is it part of the US? 

That warm fuzzy feeling

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2018/11/25/christian-astrophysicist-has-5-unconvincing-reasons-shes-no-longer-an-atheist/

 - Christianity gives me meaning and hope.

So there is nothing wrong with the warm fuzzy feeling, but when you need to suspend reality to induce that feeling....

There are two parts to the placebo effect; feeling better and being better. That is the deceptive part, we get a breath of fresh air and we feel better, but our body, reality has not changed. We have the same problem.

So what is the point of helping people to see reality of religion as a fraud, promising something they cannot deliver? And at the same time a religion that prospers from those frauds. It does not matter, we all just die in the end.

Canada allows the import of guns that have no purpose but to kill people. We allow the sale of said weapons to civilians. And we get upset when someone uses them? Get a hold of something and give your head a shake. The US has it worse since they manufacture said guns. It you want to correct the problem, start at the source.

Asymmetrical Thinking

Asymmetrical Thinking

Symmetrical thinking, we humans should be equal, our input and output should equal. Christians and Muslims should be open to honest and deep negotiations to find the truth with Atheists.Logic should rule the world. But this is not the case; we are buried in asymmetrical thinking.

The US sells guns that are good for nothing besides killing each other, and becomes upset when some one uses them. They sell the Saudi's bombs and guns, and become upset when they use them on their own citizens and neighbors. We already know what a bunch of savages the Muslims and Christians are.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2018/11/u-s-missionary-killed-by-remote-andaman-islands-tribe-he-wanted-to-convert-to-christianity/   
 https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nosacredcows/2018/11/christian-group-wants-native-tribe-brought-to-justice-for-death-of-missionary/
So the Christians want to apply their laws to an area that their laws do not apply? What a bunch of wank-a-doodles.

It is not the situation that causes the problem but our thinking about the situation. Asymmetrical is one of those thinking problems that we must identify and overcome.

Societal Inertia

Society inertia, that is the direction that our society is heading, and the drag pressure of that society takes us into dangerous and just wrong thinking as well. What are we individual citizens to do when the society we live in is dragging into problems? Abandon the society? Ignore the society? Anchor deep and resist? Go with the flow? Try to change society? Create a new and separate society?

The obesity problem is really an overeating problem as a result of the society we live in. Could the real problem be our environment and the effectiveness of advertising; causing the increased pressure/temptation to eat?

Religions functions as coping systems

Now that so many philosophical and psychologist concepts have come into the public lexicon, it is obvious that religions function as coping systems, aiding individuals to deal with the vicissitudes of life by applying the thinking of the ancients. These methods were written down and prescribed, and worked well enough to get us to the present. But in the last hundred years, well, we humans figured out a few better ways and our population took off, like it was oil propelled, well energy propelled anyway. We have learned new coping methods, and reality requires acceptance, not coping.

But the coping system remained. Some have modernized, or in the process... Western Buddhism, The Stoics, but others not so much. Some have tried to regress too their unfounded roots like the radical Islams, orthodox jews, and have become problem religions. But all these remain coping systems, some that are trying to be more than they really are, but function as just coping systems, by insisting on supernatural concepts like gods. Religions are just coping systems, and this was/is a powerful realization.

I do not wish to disturb others coping systems, we all may need consolation, compassion, and all the positive benefits of a coping system until we learn to deal with reality. Reality is/can be brutal. We understand the appeal of escaping, numbing out, ignoring reality, but reality is not so bad when we recognize that much is beyond our direct control, and we are not responsible for that beyond our direct control, even when other try to force us to be responsible for that which is beyond our direct control.

The medical industry say "use only as directed" in response to addiction and addictive substances and diet failures. Failure to be able to stop us, once addiction has taken hold, is seen as a personal failure, when in fact the physical body has taken over from the rational mind. Addiction, for those of us who have beat any form is a tough struggle, and the body is right their waiting for an opportunity to grab the substance, action, or behavior back. The medical industry does not accept this as a fact, as that would make them responsible... and they understand that some things are beyond their control, so put it onto the patient. Be aware of this, it make dealing with the medical industry easier, knowing that they are two faced... and some thing are just beyond their capacities. We all just die in the end.

There is some good money to be made, in the mean time by trying to treat the problem, without any real ability to do much for real to reduce the problem. Treatment without success is just a failure to treat the real problem. Oh well, the dollars turn, and sometimes that is enough.

Yes religion is often aimed at removing the final sting... by lying to us. There is no afterlife, no heaven nor hell. When we die, it is final. That willingness to lye is not just a christian skill, but a common skill among the religious. Consider Christmas, and the lying to children, not ethical, I think. Christmas comments, my reply: I do not believe in lying to children. It kill conversation. The answer to "it is not lying", what else could it be?

Aha Moments/ Religions are coping systems.

I first must define/describe an Aha moment. It is the moment that we here or understand something that we know instinctively that is correct. It is that moment when we have a awaking to some fact, some concept, that we realize is correct, we suddenly assent to an idea. All debate ends for us at that point. We know that we have reached our fundamental truth. Could this concept still be wrong? Possibly, but the likely hood is reduced from neutral. Religion is a coping system. That explains why there are so many, and why they are different. Anything that is not common to most of them is likely wrong, anything that is common to many is likely an old good concept, and must be tested.

So we have now defined the purpose of religions as aids to the human brain, to helps us get through all the vicissitudes of  life. Understanding religions as coping systems categorizes religion, not as total falsehoods, but a functioning psychological structures, that although we know them to be coping systems, we also realize that they allow civilization to work. We know that psychopaths have a very different moral and mental coping system, placing no feelings in the structure of the coping system. Only physical pain is allowed to govern. Mental pain does not exist, or so it seems. Such a coping system would not allow society to survive.

It is the realization that we need other people to create society, and that we need society for our own survival. In order for society to grow, we need to provide others with the same conditions as we need; peace, prosperity, understanding, aid, but not long term support beyond their youth, and similar concepts. Education and health care are essential, as is truth. Understanding that religions are coping systems goes a long way in the future.  

Religions as coping system make so much sense that it is an Aha moment for me. There is no god, no after life, no reincarnation, no heaven or hell, no saint, but just people, some of which are good, some less so. Religions must therefore be treated as peoples coping systems, not to wantonly destroyed, but not to be taken seriously by others either.

So how does something like this look to those of us who have realized that religions are coping systems?  https://atheist.ie/2018/11/austrian-muhammad-case
A world body giving religion a serious standing... Ignorance of understanding, not worth respect... Or am I on the cutting edge of this realization?

Does pushing a coping system onto others make it more acceptable? It makes more people share the same delusion. It is a shared coping system then. One of the survival functions of any religion is to pass it onto the next generation, and we might as well include a moral foundation in that as well, as a moral foundation is likely a good thing anyway... well it is still a coping system with a moral foundation, and the moral foundations are sometimes good, and some are lacking... and all could use a bit of modernization, and/or improvement.

Do not lie must be extended... to not lying to children, Christmas for example...

Coping Systems

Religions are perhaps the original coping mechanism for dealing with the vicissitudes of life. I hold this statement to be self evident once we make this realization, just like many religions claim. Looking back provides a different perspective from going through the problem.

We see this in the Buddhist four noble truths; life (is) contains suffering, the cause is internal delusions, desires, aversions, expectations, there is a solution in changing our thinking to the right thinking and following the eight step path plan for a good life.

We see this also in the Stoic system, but not as obviously in the impermanence of life and conditions, in the external causes are always external, and we are effected by only our reaction to the external; it is not the event, but our thinking about the event; some things are up to us and some are not (lists), and similar statements. The "view from far above" concept, once we learn it and use it, makes this clear.

When we get old and start to reflect on life, it is obvious that life is about getting through life, coping, as best we can, and anyway we can in the tight parts. Just getting through is all we can do sometimes. It is about coping with the issues, internally or externally, often the unknown with no practical choice and/or no clear choice. Those of us who get off the path that religion provided need to find a new path, a new coping system, to help us through, to guide us through.

For some of us it was the escape of alcohol, or other drug... until that was doing damage, and then we looked for others. AA, NA, and along came SMART. Understanding the problem provides a better way, a more obvious way. Addressing the vicissitude, or our reaction to the vicissitude provides a real solution in order to not need the coping mechanism. That is what appears to be the real solution.

I think that it is imperative anyone studying the problem should understand that we can trade coping mechanism, or deal with the real problem that caused us to need the coping system in the first place. And if we trade coping systems, we may need to upgrade far above AA, SMART, to understanding the real causes, and finally to deal with reality.

What is your evidence?

What is your evidence? Can you direct me to your evidence? If you are unable, then your story is just story.

So MMP does not cause Autism? Where is your evidence?

Actually there is a higher frequency of autism on early vaccinated children than among the later vaccinated... no wait.... between early vaccinated British verse vaccinated East European... the co-factors were not corrected for. To really disprove one would need to look at infrequence of occurrence between early vaccinated and late vaccinated children, but that is not about to happen... because it would be unethically to risk children getting measles, but not exposing them to a higher risk of autism is OK because the authorities having jurisdiction say that MMP does not cause autism.

When we look at frequency of autism, we see and year over year increase, and it is often not identified/diagnosed until teen years. And it is high in industrial cultures, and non-existent/diagnosed in undeveloped.  And then the disordered kids are all called autistic/UDHD/ADD/dyslexic or something. Autism is difficult to diagnose until school age, perhaps 10 or so, unless you are looking to hang a label on a child.

So both sides are in a battle of words, there is no evidence either way; the study's that cast doubt are all discredited by the other side, the drug companies. Oh well, it is not my issue.

Wakefield was poor at dealing with children with gut pain: even trying to understand the problem got him into ethics problem/mine field, and it blew up in his face. What he found is that people with gut problem frequently have other issues.... autism and crones/IBS are common. Why? Who knows? These both seem it be development issues. But the evidence of all this in summarized in various autism/dyslexia studies.  We need to recall that the opinion of an expert is the lowest form of evidence by the Frye Standard.

But the question, what is you evidence separates the critical thinkers from the marketing types. Oh well. As one old fellow told me about business plans, "as long as it looks good, no one will ever read it." I it is all just marketing story.  

Overeating is a coping method

We humans are a puny bunch, physically and mentally. We cannot handle what the world has to throw at us without coping methods. That is just a downside of our big brains, especially when life does not go as it might. Fate or Fortune always is there; we get pushed off our even keel so easily by nature. We developed coping strategies, delusions, or would they be illusions some of the time. We use our inability to see that we are wrong when we are focused on a single wrong idea. Religion. Religion is a coping method for handling situations we do not like. Suffering exists and is part of life. It is caused by our delusions, aversions, attachments and similar concepts. Oh well, there is a solution and that solution is to follow a reasonable plan for life including a view of ethics, reality and the world around us. Sound familiar?

So my claim now is that "religions are the original coping methods" of not being able to deal with nature and the goings on that our ancestors found. Later a few turned to alcohol, and then in 1935 AA came along, as a replacement/return to religious thinking. Overeating is often a coping method, but for many OA is not successful, as we now realize that religions are just coping methods, and there are no gods. All is just a coping method for a life which we are learning to live all our lives.     

How much damage is our attitude that "freedom of religion is an indigenous right" actually doing?

We allow freedom of religion, and this is essentially allowing people to believe what ever nonsense they choose. Is it freedom or neglect? What damage is being done to young minds, and of the adult mind believing in fiction, being controlled/oppressed by organizations and old books?

Consider Islam. The damage is real. Consider Catholics. The damage is real, but less than Islam.

Christians are good at building community. That is their primary good. They hold back other development, try to stop science, and foster the spread of disease and overpopulation through resistance to birth control and condoms. Is that beneficial to society?

But all religions are just coping methods, as are alcohol and mind altering drugs. So ethics, with its issues of relativism, adaption, uncertainty, delusions, principals, concepts, and the like is a partial solution, perhaps.

We live on a planet, and if the Co2 level is an indication, it can support about 3.5b and our current carbon demand level. We are 7.7b now. This is the ethical life boat problem. It is doubtful if we can engineer our way out of this. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.

This is thanksgiving weekend in Canada. Lets all just give thanks, eat and not think or speak of this real problem... that is coming to a head in the next 50 years or so.  

Nuts and Ethics

Today the world is full of nuts. We are at a population of twice what the earth can support with our present life style, based on Co2 level rise. Only a few are even aware of this. Oh well. And at the same time religions are keeping the population in ignorance of reality. Oh well. So what is the solution? There is not one, the sixth extinction will make the correction.

Ethics come from two sources, those handed down and those we develop through logic plus some obvious statement, obvious after considerable study. If we want to live well, we need to provide the conditions that others can live well, and together we all can live well. It is all about cooperation. Little more. In an overpopulated world, gaining cooperation becomes more difficult as we each do not have the space that we each need to be comfortable in our life, so we try to get the upper hand rather than fair and equal cooperation. This bully nature is human nature, I think. We see this in the US attitude today. We see this in Ontario today with Ford over-reach, and many other places. All this has a common factor, and that is crowding, aka overpopulation. Overpopulation makes the bullies seam like leaders. They get their way, not because their way is right, but by force.

Humans seem to have an inborn ability to cooperate, yet we are easily able to psychologically or intentionally override this ability. Or is all this a psychological ability, is cooperation a learned characteristic? Beavers build dams, spiders build webs, and all that is genetic programing. I expect that human cooperation is genetic also, as it is so important to our survival. We cooperate as long as the action is in our individual interests; beyond that not so much. We really see this in volunteer run facilities and organizations. We seem to have a genetic predisposition to look after our own interests first; and then maybe we do a bit more, but we need to enjoy it or get something else out of it first. Oh well.

What is right is not a clear ethic, but yet it is the foundation of prudence, which is a foundational virtue, upon which all ethics are based. But right itself is a subjective concept, well partly at least. It may be better to look at right as not wrong, as the wrongs are easier to define. Imposing our opinions on others is a wrong, expression our opinion and letting other chose is not. Minding our own business, and doing the right for the right reasons, not failing to do right because we dislike the person suggesting the right course of action, is prudent. To do this we need to take the time necessary to learn all the facts. That is the problem, the shortage of facts, and the available of information, and sorting; fact/fiction.

Sorting of fact/fiction has a parallel in criteria of the decision. It is as archery, which is the most important skill, speed, accuracy, range, weight of arrow, speed of arrow, range of arrow, but if it misses... well what is that all about. Or is it all about having fun, enjoyment, pleasure, and doing it again tomorrow?  

Ethics are about what is right, not about who is right. Ancestors and their beliefs need to take a back seat to our current needs, and current logic, current reality.

Aristotle

Aristotle called it something that translates into incontinence. This incontinence like thing, to Aristotle, was described as the nonrational desires are stronger than the rational desires. This sounds like the overeating problem.

So lately, I have been on an stomach acid reducing medication, proton pump inhibitor. It kill hunger. Has the problem been too much stomach acid all these years?

So if the nonrational desire is removed, aka the hunger is removed, and it is possible to not eat, should one still eat?  

What People Could Be

Communism fails for the reason, it is based on what people could be, not what they are. We are headed for the sixth extinction for the same reason. Humans are unwilling to place the community good over personal economic greed. Trump is the prime example.

For communism to work, altruism would need to be a common or near universal characteristic of the human species. It is not. Even many of those who claim to be altruistic do altruistic things for how it make them feel, not because they are altruistic by nature. The same characteristic would be necessary to stop carbon dioxide rise, climate warming and the impending climate change disaster that is looming on the horizon, along with the sixth extinction. It is less clear it extinction is the correct term; great population reduction, bottle neck, or similar may be a more correct term. Crop failure will cause starvation and populations conserving the remaining foods will cause even more starvation. Distrust, and evaluation of needs may cause much economic issues for the high living peoples. Those who produce foods will have to feed themselves first, and others will just come second or last. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.

Our purpose, if we have one, is to produce the next generation, and teach them how to live for the next year, until the next crop, be it animal or plant or plants to feed the animals. Cloth and shelter come next, but as these are more durable, are less urgent. But what do I know?

The point is that we must honestly, brutally know what people really are, even if we are trying to be more Liberal, Progressive, forward thinking and altruistic humans. We can never lose sight of what people really are, else we will parish first.      

And thinking makes it so

https://aaagnostica.org/2018/08/26/most-americans-believe-in-a-higher-power-but-not-always-in-the-god-of-the-bible/    got me thinking. What is "spiritual but not religious" really mean?  In conclusion it is a not owning the beliefs as the atheist is forced to do, but rather placing the ownership of our beliefs outside of us, but not in a defined god. The spiritual do not claim ownership of their own beliefs. If they do not own them, then they are not responsible. There is nothing else.

God allow a simple thinking to occur. Someone else is responsible for telling us how we should live, why to live, our morals from society, dictates our should do behavior. All these things are truly subjective, while religion makes the decisions to make these items seem objective.

Existential philosophy says that since we exist, we should make the most of it as a society. To do this we need to follow something like the golden rule, but some of us do not like to be patronized, therefore the silver rule, "do not do to others those things which we would not tolerate being done to us. We need to treat others as political equals, but not provide for them beyond survival. Since the earth is now overpopulated, survival is not necessary. Only the best should reproduce, and then only one child until we get to a reasonable population, as defined by a stable carbon dioxide level. That will take a century or more. 

Virtue Ethics, that is picking a bunch of virtues, and saying that virtue is the only good, and vice the only evil, is fine and good some of the time, but some define greed for money as a virtue, and that is not completely right. More money is good, but abusing the people to get it is not. Yet modren society thinks that being rich is a desirable. That is a limitation of Virtue ethnic and that philosophy.

The Philosophy of Caring, must also chose carefully. Family may be important, but some families have bad people within them. Should I care about those? Not so much, for society would be better off with out them.

It is not the event that bothers us, but our thinking about the event. This suggest that our thinking makes it so. So who owns the basic beliefs that we originally learned from others? Are these beliefs right and true? It is my opinion that those who claim to be spiritual but not religions have broken away from god thinking but have not yet taken ownership of their beliefs, but what do I know. And thinking makes it so.

Prayer

https://aaagnostica.org/2018/08/12/the-talking-cure-in-recovery/

Does this explain the benefit of prayer?

Ethics, morals and values have no intrinsic values. Those are always subjective and adaptive.  We do not have mind independence, as much of what we know was learned from others. Our mind is a reflection of the culture we grew up in, well, at least until we start to clean up out beliefs, and even then, it is a reflection of what we read and who we relate to. 

Universal Evaluation of Self.

1. You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
2. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
3. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
4. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
5. Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.
6. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
7. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
8. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
9. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.
10. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
11. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
12. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
13. Security is one of your major goals in life."

(from "The Evolution of Religion: How Religions Originate, Change, and Die" by Alex Shelby)

I will add:
We have difficulty handling the unknown, after we realize that we do not know:

In the beginning, it was cold, dark, and there was nothing. 
A small area warmed to slightly above absolute zero due to slight variation.
The Higgs field started to exist.
The reaction is spontaneity and exothermic, and does not stop once started.
The forces split, the lower quarks and quirks came into existence.
Many met with there counterpart and annihilated, producing heat.
It became very hot, forming plasma, and expansion started.
Later electrons, protons, neutrons, formed and grouped into atoms of hydrogen, helium and a little bit of lithium as cooling around the edge started.
Radiation started to leave at the speed of light.
It is unclear if this makes more space or expands into space, nothingness.

Speaking to the Religious

Once we realize that there are no gods, no supernatural, and there is no admissible evidence of a god, then all religions are just pitching woo. There are no objective or traditional ethics or morals, they are just handed down, as from mystics. But morals, ethics, and values are therefore subjective and have no foundation other than logic. Whats more, they are adaptive; that is they change with the situation, whether we realize the reasons or not. When we start looking at the reasoning, we realize that now. more than ever, religions are pitching woo.

Religions prime motivation is to grow the religion. Big families are/were the surest way; but now that we humans have overpopulated the globe, human life on the fringes has much less value. That makes abortion just fine, and birth control required. Morals are adaptive.

Fraud must be considered to be a serious crime. It was not in biblical/Sumerian time, hence all the old codes do not outlaw it, so like computer crimes, it is a relative newcomer to the crimes of the world. The government needs to catch up and prosecute these as much as theft.

Once we realize there are no gods, then religion becomes fraud; selling something they cannot deliver. There is no life after death, no miracles, no help to come through prayer, well only self deception, perhaps some value in self talk. Community is a separate item, some churches build community, and some split community. Oh well, there is little community in the fast changing urban environment, especially for the low social people. 

So to go from a well developed nihilist like myself, to a religious is not rational. To define a nihilist: a person who believes that life is meaningless and rejects all religious and moral principles, but rather adopts humanist, or existential ethics, morals, values while painting on a purpose or meaning to life, while recognizing there is no universal purpose or meaning... Even talking to the religious is difficult since they do not have a clue about what an atheist really thinks... and yet they want to gloss over the fact that there is no evidence for a god.   

give us a handout

I had to call it something.

• "He who interferes in what does not concern him finds what does not please him" from the Muslim culture, but there needs to be limits. If we are aiming at world government, then there must be uniformity... yet culture, ethic, morals, values are adaptive and subjective. There is nothing physically wrong with eating horse and dogs, or humans for that mater. Killing, on the other hand is wrong for it is violence against others and will be reciprocated.   
• Mind your own business. This must be one of the collateral of ethics. It is necessary in a diverse population, and yet it is not right either. We need to allow the idiots to be idiots, but if the idiots are doing harm to others, we should not permit it either. But what is harm? Teaching children to follow a wrong belief system; Creationism, for example, or believing in witch craft or herbal medicine, holistic treatments for serious diseases. How about human driven climate change deniers. An idiot is an idiot, and should we make efforts to correct them or just leave them to do as they please. 
• Mind the greater good. This must also be a collateral issue, especially in earth over population control, but the religions are pushing population growth. The greater good is to reduce population to some manageable level, and we may already go over the turning point in climate warming, a nuclear winter may fix the problem, or a major volcanic eruption, or an asteroid. Slow heat and crop failures may be the way we go, or the next extinction event goes. Complete of partial, it does not matter much. 
• A statement of belief will be necessary. There are no gods, no afterlife, no supernatural. Physics dictates the reality. On a conceptual level, all must be consistent with the physical facts that exist. If it is not consistent with the physical facts, it is likely not true. Reality rules. But people and the relationship between people is beyond my understanding.

and more again

give us a handout to revive us again. beats an ear worm.

from

So ethics are subjective; or opinion sort of. (and thinking makes it so)  After the first few bit of logic, I want to live in peace, prosper, reproduce... well I need to foster suitable conditions for that in myself and in others, demand reciprocity, and we arrive at some subjective plus logic premises. After that, well not so much is either logic or objective.

It is reasonable that every child should not be handicapped at birth by inbreeding, therefore it is logical to have a probation mating with relatives. If a child is to grow up in a home where both parents are present, than monogamous relationship is required in our culture. We are not evolved enough of culture for much else main stream: learned behavior of most of us requires to pass on our genes, and not provide for others gene lines.

Culture is survival adaptive often. Marriage, commitment to one's partner and offspring, does not allow for jealousy, which, to some extent is a trained in cultural characteristic. The Inuit get around this by one women marrying a family of boys often. One women, several related brothers. No one is sure who is the father. It took many males to provide for a family. The unwanted young and handicapped old were exposed to die or left in permanent camps, where such existed, to live as long as they were able, and when the next visitation to the permanent camp occurred...

Multiple wives were common in warring tribes, were many young men went away to fight and die. We, in Europe and North America are in an overpopulation situation. Is that the drive that is causing homosexuals to increase? I do not know.

So our ethics, morals, values are likely subjective and adaptive to our cultural and genetic survival, but we can also refine these by common adoption of a new standard, thereby create a new cultural norms.    

and more

• Each person should have the freedom to believe whatever they want or do believe, even if it is wrong. Traditional beliefs may be wrong.  They should not have the right to impose wrong information on the young, next generation. They have no right to impose that information onto anyone else, or even to aggressively prosthesis. Anything belief without evidence should be treated as suspect, and not given much weight in reality.
•  

Atheist Code of Ethics

Atheist Code of Ethics... a work in progress

Is there a universal code of ethics?  Well, not yet. Someone might try to hold us to them. And there are issues.

All ethic codes are subjective, there are no objective codes. There can also be legal codes, best practices, and collective codes. Anything that is agreed upon can become a ethical code. 

Right and wrong, for many things could be looked at as a nine point scale, where right and wrong are the extreme poles of such a scale. Can ethics be looked at in the same manner?

Well, before we get there, we need to consider subjective ethics and objective ethics. But wait. There are no objective ethics, only subjective; there may be a few near objective premises, so perhaps subjective - objective should be the poles of a nine point scale. But if we could all agree on some points, we could have a universal code aggregated together, those points we all agree on being declared to be universal, just as a legal system defines what is not acceptable in a society.  The most we can do is to lay out a few precepts.

• Always tell the truth. Truth is the absolute foundation of any code of ethics. Correct understanding of the words must also be included. Truth does not include the unknown, only those things that we know to be true, not those things we believe are true. If we consider false (1) to be low end of a nine point scale, and true to the 9, neutral to be 5, then only an 9 is true. Or should that be 8 and nine. Lets say 8 and 9 for now.  
• Equality of life, not in starting position, nor gifts. Equality of rights is the concept, yet even this has problems. It is not the same as the human rights for that goes too far. It allows freedom of religions, and religions are often the problem. Most religions have components that violate truth and equality clauses.
• Right to life. Life should not be threatened by any state, yet how else does one prevent invasion or annihilation by the competition?
• Right to own property, and the right to defend that property. Why work if a thief is allowed to take that property? Canada has taken away this right to some extent, and that is going to be more of a problem in the future as our already over-populated world gains more people.
• Right to produce the next generation up to the limit of our Quota. The world is overpopulated, as evidenced by the rise in Co2 levels. A limit in reproduction is required, perhaps a one child limit. 
• Right to die, to do what is necessary to look after one's own life, first. Equality does not attach until birth and survival.  
•  
•  

This is a first draft of the concept only.

Will this stimulate discussion?   

Life or Boredom

https://www.atheistrev.com/2018/07/breaking-up-monotony-of-atheist-blogging.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AtheistRevolution+%28Atheist+Revolution%29

Sometime we just need to make changes and move on. Being an atheist can be as simple as there is no god, no afterlife, no miracles, no supernatural. All religion is just quackery, more or less.

It is not the event, but what we think about the event; our mind tells us what is real to us, if we let it. Or we can chose what we know to be real. Life is all that is of absolute value, all else is just relative value. We can adopt an ethic, and live that ethic without fear of anything beyond the law and the potential of a crazy doing something crazy that effects us. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.

We can study ethics until we realize that there are few absolutes, beyond survival and equality is required for survival, life and satisfaction, a bit of simple pleasure, a means of livelihood, or the Buddhist Eight, Stoic thinking, the virtues or virtue ethics, or life by the Analects. Beyond the traditions and rituals, what would be the differences? Not much. Some value truth above tradition, others value tradition over truth and reality. I have become truth seeking... and that has placed me at odds with the religious... because of the truth that there is no admissible evidence of a god, but if you believe there is great comfort, consolation and pleasure to be had for no cost, other that accepting tradition over truth. That is as simple as it gets. Do you place a higher value of truth or tradition?

Consolation over the loss of family should not be underestimated in value. This has been observed to drive many people to their religion, and yet from the outside we can see that it is wrong. I would not deny anyone their consolation, however they seek it, yet from the outside I know that it is wrong. So how does one handle the grieving?

There is the next topic, death, consolation, and no god. Seneca may be the place to start that study. And yet it remains, it is not the event, but our thinking about the event. Reality vs what we think reality is. To the individual, it is our mind that controls our reaction. We become smaller or fade until we disappear mentally. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.

Carbon content of the atmosphere tells the story of the health of our economy, and of the health of the planet. We are burning ourselves to death. We are too many, for out life style. People do not give up a high carbon dioxide production lifestyle easily, it will need to be pried from our cold dead hands. That is what the earth will do, over our dead bodies. The end is coming, yet it will not be a complete extinction, but rather a life becoming more difficult until the correct for the earth population size is realized, at some time in the future...  Oh well....

Understanding Society

We are a random collection of individuals who have many characteristics and beliefs, many of our beliefs are likely wrong. We are occupied by our primary concerns, working, making money, providing for ourselves, and family, and a bit of entertainment, pleasure, and the like. We do not have a whole lot of concern for others, well most do not, but there are busy bodies, do gooders. Oh well. There are also a criminal element who want to take the property of others, and those who sell drugs, those who buy drugs, and those who use drugs.

Drugs. Morals come from society, logic, thoughts, as well as being handed down, and of course, the mystics. Life is the only thing of real value we have, so any existential thinker should think that anything that devalues or risks life should not be done lightly. But for some, life it's self is not that great. If life is not great, than risking life for a bit of chemical induce pleasure sensation is, well, not a big decision. But if you do not care about your life, why should I?

Pleasure vs pleasure sensation is a distinction that helps recovery from overeating. Once we separate the sensation from pleasure, well, shit happens or not for for some. That is an ambiguous statement, and as intended. Who knows what the effect is or is not to the individual. It can help if that was an issue, but have no effect it that was not a issue. Who knows?

So we have all these individuals, each acting partly freely, partly out of need, part out of desires, so it appears in bulk as random, yet each move is directed, in a loose way by the internal issues of each individual. No god, just beliefs, needs, desires, and some random interaction is inevitably. Oh well. There may be strong belief in gods by some, that is their problem, and if they do not care about the truth, why should I care? All I must do in the end is expire, but until then, I should not do anything to foolishly risk my life. Drugs, chemicals, stupid behaviors and the like should be avoided. That is morality with reason, no mystics involved.   

Real or Imaginary

Real or Imaginary

The separation of beliefs and facts is not something I ever really thought about. In this age of trump, the individual, it has become necessary to really have a good look at this. Truth, that elusive concept, has become critical to identify and explore a bit more. Are our beliefs just imaginary? Like money, perhaps.

Beliefs and opinions on one side, and facts, knowledge, perhaps history on the other; two separate heaps of concepts, those mental objects. 

So what we do to occupy our time is not to important in the overall scheme of things. Less than 50% of the population are actively involved in the production of real things, the remainder of us, well we play around in a non real world, which some has value, and some has less value. Some has no value to anyone beside ourselves. It is just time burned. We may gain understanding of things, or we may gain wrong understanding of things. We just do not know. It does not matter, when we are dead, all our thoughts are also gone. The only way to avoid the thoughts not be totally gone is to publish, and then perhaps they will survive, if they are worth surviving. 

So the impermanence of it all comes home to roost. Yet each thought that I consider worth saving was not original, but can be traced back to something I read, did, a situation, a decision, an understanding of something. It is not about what is, but, what I think about what is. Some things just do not fit, as the immigrant who wants to hold onto traditions or behaviors of their homeland. Hell, hold onto thoughts, concepts, behaviors of "before computer times". Impermanence must be at the forefront in the mind, at least up there. It does not matter, as the value of the thought cannot be lost, as Buddha said, someone will thing of it again if it is lost and was of value. 

Decisions, Decisions

We can look at the atheist process as a series of dipole switches:
Is there a god?  Do I believe there is a god or not?

These two dipoles create four distinct considerations. The atheist, there is no god, and I believe there is no god; the confused, there is no god and I believe there is a god; what the religious think of atheist, there is a god, and I think there is no god; and the religious, there is a god and we believe.

As there is no evidence of a god, the only logical to assume there is no god, and once we see this, it is obvious that all the benefits of religions flow from the simple belief that there is a god. A simple belief, no reality. In fact, all religions are founded on this simple and wrong likely belief. Duh.

So what is there to base our ethics on? Our existence? The beliefs that give the remainder of humans the best chance of pleasant, fair and equatable or equitable lives? What is something worth? Fair pricing must be named.

Does the government have the right to impose ethical constraints on the people? Do any group of others have the right to impose there values onto others, when the behavior does not impact the group, and it is just against the opinions of the group? I am of the opinion that group must mind there own business, and as such stay out of places where there nose does not belong. We Canadians have abortion right, it must be between the female and her doctor. Other people are not involved.

The fetus has no rights until it is born. Consider our noble savages's culture of old. If the child did not survive birth on it's own, it did not survive. Life required independence from the first breath. Children and old who could not keep up were simple left behind when camp moved. To bad. So sad. Do what we need to to survive. Now we are harnessed with the burden of many lives who cannot support themselves.  

What do I know?

Free Will, revised

For the last while I have been reading/studying free will. I do not agree with Sam Harris or Danial Dennett, nor any of the religious. Epictetus comes close, but misses a few points. How would one test what I now believe? I am not sure if there is a way.

I believe we have some free will, but not much. Sam's test is not limited to the areas that we have free will over, in fact, the bit of free will we have is so over run with none free will in Sam's tests, so I believe his findings are correct. On that scale, we have no free will, yet we do have some free will.

Our free will can be modeled with one three way switch. Neutral, positive or negative reaction to any single proposition. That is not much free will.

First there is a problem with the mental switch, we have three choices, not just two. We can assent and reject, but there is a neutral no decision, delay, not make a decision, study it more, defer, postpone, refuse to consider, position. Nothing is a clear diapole switch. Epictetus gets around this by calling out only those things that we mostly control, yet he goes too far by including desires, opinions, motivations and aversions, which we may not have complete control over if the desire, opinion, motivation or aversion is persistent or strong. His filter need to be finer, but also there may be considerable variation between people. So my free will may be greater or less than yours, but I do not think it could be much less than I describe.

Many other things actually fit along a continuum from one end to the other, the useful nine or seven point scale, in addition to the dipolar or tripolar switch of logic. 

Having said all that, I think that the free will we do have is entirely in our thoughts, and that mainly is we can assent to or reject a statement proposition, or defer judgement. Even that some people who have not overwritten the teaching of there youth may not truly have such liberty. Anything out of our thoughts is beyond our free will, but some do not accept this.  Communication of that level is not free since it also depends on the body which is the third level. The second level is the generation or recall of thoughts, where appetites, desires, aversions, motivations, opinions, emotions and similar live.  These may come from below conscious, be rational, or just arise from chemical or situational conditions.  These come and and sometimes thrust themselves upon us. We do not therefore have true will over them, but some people have learned to control these for periods of time, to some extent, often by repeatedly rejecting these propositions.  This ability seems to vary widely among people, as does the force and frequency that these arise. We can defer until the strength reduces, return to some other defined deflection of the thoughts, emotion, or deflection. Even this second level is beyond our natural free will, and therefore can be modified in intense by the body chemistry, and therefore training.

Anything that requires the third level of activation becomes much simpler to measure but will not show free will. The use of body within the tests boundaries eliminates anything that does not include the body. As free will is totally within the mind, and only within part of the mind, anything that exceeds this small space, philosophically, will exceed free will. This model of free will requires one three way output switch, no output, positive or negative to be modeled. That is not much free will. Anything more requires additional input, which may or may not have been there by free will. Opinions could be within free will, but even those may require external input to arrive in the mind as they are, and as such may not be free will.

We are indoctrinated from birth, and some of that is false; we have just accepted it, likely because, well we depend on our parents, and we believe them, at least until we become teenagers, by which time parents have exposed there fallible nature, and so it goes.

Traditions are filled with wrong information. Religions also, if not more so. When we go back to first principals, as we did in so much derivation of structural formulas in engineering, we realize that there is no god, only logic, in everything. Life takes away choices, which reduces our ability to utilize free will. Is it free will if there is no logical choice? Is it free will if our body is demanding? Is it free will if the right choice is much more difficult or impractical given the constraints and pressures? It it free choice if the right choice goes against what the body is demanding? Appetites must be satisfied according to the body. So even if we have free will, what choices do we really have? Just in our mind, that is all we can really have.   


 

Faith

From the evolutionary prospective, what benefits does faith provide?

Faith allows for quick teaching/learning. There is no justification required. Here it is, know this. Not great for understanding the reasons, but the primal lesson is quick to be had. When life is brutish, hard and short, those lessons may be needed before adulthood, and the parents cannot count on being around when his children need him. It was law in Greek times that the father was obligated to teach his sons. Many wrote books to there sons, life was uncertain. Faith, that what father knew was right was just required. That is the first and big value of faith. Just take what I am saying as truth, aka faith. Test if for yourself when you get time came later, but that is also an essential step.

I, an old retired person, am still learning things which are probably obvious to most people, but not to me. I grew up poor and in a isolated area, essentially physically provided for... well at a survival level. Faith that there was a better life to be had away from there was all that kept me going. I did not need to go that far, 80 miles, and there was opportunity. I grew up knowing I would be leaving. That is just how it was. Faith, not knowledge was all we had. 

Now, when we get time, we each need to test what we were told, and sort out the bullshit, no longer true, and the like.

Altruism, as prescribed in the religious texts, exists only in tight communities, such as the Mennonite, Hutterite, Amish, and other religious groups. It is a within group characteristic. We likely have a  bit built in biologically, but much more is learned, religion, cultural, societal. Within the modern mass societies, very little exists, but within groups, it does exist. Faith in mass society does not work, there are too many that want to separate us and our money. That is the ultimate problem.

The real problem is there are too many people. The earth can absorb the Co2 of a modren society of about 3.5 billion, we are twice that now, and pain is about to be felt in a big way. Check out the data. and when you do look at the data, not just the argument, you will see. Faith is not required except in the science, mathematics, and the data.  

Hormone Driven

Hormone  Driven, sexually dangerous, young males

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/06/06/bill-donohue-slams-young-male-agnostic-dems-who-say-porn-is-morally-acceptable/

What does sexually drive have to do with morally correct behavior? The young single male has three choice, maybe more. Resist, self, or do. With so many of the females setting their sights on the rich, good looking, or on career, and the excess of males, what is one to do?

Once we become directed at a attractive career, or those who have the gift of gab, we a are off to better things, and the call of women may be reduced, or we became the incels. Oh well, we get older, and perhaps we find a mate, but could anyone satisfy her? She is a body of want, want money, want time, want property, and there is only so much money available, and soon she will be gone to what she sees as greener pastures, unless she has the nesting urge, and then...

We humans have always had difficulties, even when the female was trained to be subservient, and to nest. Now, with what they call freedom, more are questioning what their role should be,
and society is going to change, and change, and change until... happens.

We humans are likely coming up to an atmosphere driven partial extinction event, or a population reduction event, or a time of extreme human suffering event. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.

In Responce

https://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2018/06/random-thoughts-on-blogging-about-desire.html 

Perhaps I am not understanding things here.

"can’t have a moral theory that says that desires are the primary object of moral evaluation without a theory of desires."

Just because your argument can be expressed does not mean that the concept has merit by any or my philosophical system, no matter how much is written about it or how well it is written.

Once we have settled on a ethical system that seems right and feels right, all new systems are tested against that system, and any found lacking are rejected. That is the process of ratcheting to the best system of the day. From that we can define a set of virtues to live by and we do not need to employ our time consuming reasoning but employ or rapid automatic portion of thinking. Away we go. Desire does not even come close to primary object of moral evaluation in my understanding of life. Life is the primary object of my moral evaluation, and from what I can see, is for most of the philosophers of life sorts.

Well, all this does not matter, for this is the internet. It is a place for expression, not facts. The truth is elusive, and we must test each statement against our previous accepted knowledge. It it does not match, just reject it, without more evidence. Cognitive dissonance is also not good. We have three choice, reject, assent, or hold in abeyance. Abeyance just takes too much memory.

There is a related issue also. Most professionals will not listen to non-professionals... people of lesser standing... well perhaps not, that point out something that may make the professional wrong. CDC will not look at data that suggests one of there proclamations are wrong, food guys with their food pyramid, the same "we are always right" attitude, big ego attitude, Monsanto and GMO, chemicals, Autism Speaking, and their funding controlled message, Autism Spectrum lumping all the autism's together into one, yet there are at least four desperate issues, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders version 5 (DSM-5), and the same issues with eating disorders.

Some of the time the data is right and the organization is wrong. There is one principal that keeps those organization in ignorance, "contempt prior to investigation."  

But what do I know?

The Downside of Cross Pollination

The Downside of Cross Pollination 

http://freethinker.co.uk/2018/06/03/god-told-soccer-star-to-ditch-the-sport-because-of-gay-pride/

Volunteer organizations always have difficulties in member retention and member participation. One of the strong reasons are attempts to impose a second message onto the group. Atheist hate prayers. Those who are clearly straight may be opposed to carrying a gay message, and just prefer to ignore the gays. Neutral is likely to be the predominant group. So groups should stick to their primary subject, and not muddy the waters.

The atheist group may not want to be strongly mixed with the gays, nor politics, anti GMO, anti vaccination, nor humanists, nor women rights, nor incels or volcels, nor book club, nor service to the community, nor food bank; because having two interests may will cause splintering in the root cause. Do they wish to be social group, or a topic discussions group? There is nothing that will cause resentment faster than imposing something that is not supported onto membership, nor not doing what should be part of it. It is either exposure or too much exposure.

But what do I know? 



    

Compromise.

Compromise. Compromise. Once two people have to agree on something, it will typically not what either want, but what they can both tolerate. Struggle to get something we can live with and leave it there.

It is you a gardener or a farmer? A bit of bad grammar just for emphasis. What is the difference? As near as I can figure the answer lies in the equipment, and or is most of the work hand or machine. It does not matter, with the climate changes we are seeing, it will be difficult.  

When we get beyond a tribe, then tremendous compromise must will be necessary to build a nation. A nation needs a project to get behind, what that project is does not matter. War, a railroad, a pipeline, a highway, a light rail passenger system, anything. then we can forget or put on abeyance other issues and get on with something we can get agreement on. That is the problem of tribalism in politics, once you get electing by appealing to all these diverse groups, there is not enough support to get anything done, unless the individual has the power to make the changes.

Political mandate should be based on what is good for the country long term, not just as a reaction to the short term, what can get me elected.   

Religion is not a "human right"

The right to religion is not a human right, because it operates at the society/cultural level, not at the individual human level. We humans can believe whatever lunacy we wish, but I prefers to believe that there is evidence for, and no evidence against, that can possible be true, not some supernatural stuff.

The right to believe "what ever" may be some kind of right, but it is not a human right that is inalienable, as it is choice of the believer. It is indoctrinated, not a birth animal characteristic. It cannot be controlled by others and you can believe "what ever", but that is a society/culture issue.

A society can demand that anyone believe something, and any government can specify if its citizens should believe something or not, but believe is impossible to police or enforce. This is a problem with the Muslims as their penalty for apostasy is death by stoning. Enforcing a belief system does not work in transient population, however we can see that any freak system, where everyone believes the same, could be harmonious. An example would be communism, but the population needs to come to believe it is the best way. There is no human reason for altruism at a society level, and that alone is likely the reason Communism fails naturally.

Compassion for other human is likely a virtue, but not once the giver fails to support there immediate family to the same level as the recipients. We saw this with the christian churches in the west. The farm families were living in primitive conditions supporting ministers living in modern conditions. That created resentments toward religions. That is the basic problem with modern governments, they pay too well, and corruption  is too common. Oh well, there is no better way of government.

Without truth what do we have? Well, we have corruption and deceit. We have instituted sponsored corruption, the worst kind, where corruption is considered a virtue, as money is considered a virtue. It is not a good thing.

Truth, information, knowledge with evidence should be a human right, or a societal right. 

What is the alternative? Truth all the time, but silence is also permitted. 


     

Niggers and Crackers

https://the-orbit.net/progpub/2018/05/24/reclaiming-slurs/

So the UDHR needs an update.

Article 1.2  All humans should be entitled to the truth, facts, evidence, knowledge, which over time and examination becomes wisdom.

Expressing just an article without the implication being expressed is sort of lost on the public. The above item is in conflict with Article 2 and 26.3. Article 2 protects religion, which does not allow truth to prevail. Religion survival is dependent on keeping the youth in the dark, which condemns your children to everlasting ignorance. Article 26.3 allows the parents to teach whatever and to withhold truth from the young. We all know how difficult to unlearn wrong information from the mind. If there is any doubt, consider the difficulty of change of life style actions.

Truth is the essential of human rights. Without truth all else is not as useful. Equality infers that we must allow others to respect their opinions, but what about those opinions which are not founded on truth. Does it come down to the loudest voice, or the truth. Truth requires evidence for, no evidence against, and a strong probability of truth. Evidence must be admissible in court, so the religious books are out.

Any statement can be true, false, somewhere in between, or just irrelevant... a concept with no real meaning. We can also assent, reject, or hold in abeyance any proposition or concept. In the process of developing documents such as UDHR, it is common to just leave out any contentious issues, and be happy with what we can get agreement on. I say it is time to include truth, facts, evidence, knowledge into to the UDHR.  

Universal Declaration of Human Rights v2.0

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been around for seventy years more of less: is it time for a revision?

It is what it is. It has shortcomings. First the free loaders and abusers. Each right produces obligations which are severely being ignored. Then there are items which were assumed, but it is apparent that these need to be stated, and the logic laid out.

A current world view needs to be understood. First, there is no duty toward others, only a weak should help iff (if and mean temperature if) there is no risk to one's self, and the cost is reasonable. We live in a world that has more people and activity that the atmosphere recovery system can support. Evidence the Co2 level, ocean acidification, inability to fix calcium at those lower ph levels, man produced carbon dioxide off gassing, combined with mean temperature rise. We need a human compatible environment to flourish in.   

The truth, and access to true knowledge, and the right of the young to be liberated from stone age religions, myths, lies, combined with parental dominated education, or more correctly the lack or education, religious indoctrination being considered as education, condemns the children to everlasting ignorance. Truth, evidence based knowledge, definition of human duties and obligations are all needed, but they cannot overstate the biological imperatives. We need not be concerned about humans beyond our circle of concern.

Canada cannot save everybody. We, too, are overpopulated, and we require heat if we are to survive winters in Canada. Those who cannot produce should seek alternate safe space elsewhere. If none is available, the world is overpopulated. Oh well.

Colonization must be stopped, as must cultural and social domination. The career choices, often cultural/social limited, are entitled to the economics and the life quality those choices generate. Those who chose to live stone age or hunter gather or religious are entitled to do so, but science truths must be available to lift those out of the despair they so often find themselves in. There is no duty to help those who do not want to make the necessary changes to succeed in modern times.  

Our human environment is becoming more hostile to human life.  We need to reduce population, and hence limit to family size is warranted world wide. We have no duty to accept invaders, nor individuals "emigrating". We are in over population situation, and it is up to each group to control their population. One issue per person is enough. 

More study and flushing/fleshing out of these ideas will be required.

Respect

What does it mean to respect another person? Well that is a big question which the internet is not providing an answer. Respect of others is what we think of others, or what we show to others of what we think of them.

So how does one respect a nut bar? Well, it is a nut bar, and we need to realize that it is a nut bar, even if it thinks it is chocolate. We need to allow that nut bar to think it is the best, correct, true and wonderful. We need to allow the nut bar to tell others how wonderful and chocolatey it is, even when that is false and dangerous to those who are allergic to nuts, even if they do not know they are. What does respect mean to those who preach concepts that are wrong? Allowing them to go on unchallenged in ignorance?

So the internet is a great place to learn how to behave respectfully to those who we do not necessarily or even remotely agree with. That is not an authentic person, but rather a people pleasing, hollow person, who is more concerned with appearances than reality. Making a person think that you "respect" him, while thinking he is an idiot bigot or other low life, is not being an authentic person.

Respecting and valuing truth, knowledge, information, correctness is difficult, now mix in an person who's world view depends on the mystics or religion, and ask me to respect him/her and what am I supposed to do? It is even worse if that person is trying to spread their wrong worldview. So what is this respect that the public speaks of? More political correctness bullshit.

So it does not matter what we say, there will always be opposition. Regardless, we need to be free to say it, to preserve free speech. We need to ignore the opposition, and take the risk from speaking the truth.     

Ethical Culture

Albert Einstein was a supporter of Ethical Culture. On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New York Society for Ethical Culture he noted that the idea of Ethical Culture embodied his personal conception of what is most valuable and enduring in religious idealism. Humanity requires such a belief to survive, Einstein argued. He observed, "Without 'ethical culture' there is no salvation for humanity."

Note how the quote has been hijacked, ethical culture became Ethical Culture. 

There is a whole group of ethical movements, with different foundations, just a religions. Figuring out what the foundations of each movement is time consuming, and many never bother to clearly state their metaphysics, epistemology, foundation principals. They talk about the issues but not back to the foundations they are using, so the argument starts in the middle with them. Rand objectivity and Robert MacQuarrie existentialism are "complete philosophies" but one really needs to hunt to piece together their metaphysics and epistemology, those are the basics beliefs and the whys of belief. Oh well. Rand's politics and economics are not usable today, but worked in a one on one lifestyle.

Ethics is one area where religion tried but with the failure of religions to address reality in an educated culture, the ethics rules are being lost. The logic of ethics must be relearned/ learned, and promoted to each new generation. The foundations, the underlying principals, are just not listed anywhere. Without the foundations, some of the statements become shaky, and if there is a marginal case, where does one turn? That is a big problem, for in this life of rapid change, much is marginal.

Education of the next generation is the most important function we old people should promote, that is education in everything but religion and faith based bullshit. Learning religion and faith based stuff keeps people in the dark of reality, and must be unlearned before real progress can be made. That is not to say that there are not some benefits of religion; sense of community, comfort in time of adversity, and perhaps compassion but some religions promote ignorance and control of others, slavery, subjugation, which is not right. When there are two rules that are transgressed, which has higher priority?

It is my contention that the rights of the individual supersede the desires of the culture in logical ethics. We are individuals, and as such, cannot allow the desires of the group to impose restrictions on the private lives of the individual. Consider the abortion case. The state has no right to force there laws on the individual then. Abortion should be between the female and her doctor, and the doctor must be free to treat her however they see fit. I do not need to think abortion is right, but individual are free to do as they please.

Enough.   


      

Directions

So where is this blog going?

Well, I am not sure but forward, without a clear destination. Just like life, we know that we will die, but not what all we might do on the way, the things we will see, sounds like a Dr. Seuss. Life is our greatest asset, so we should not do anything that detracts from it, and do everything to add to it. Likewise I must paint on a new purpose and do something for mankind, and myself, as motivation is always based on my desires. Production, or at least action is a virtue in a proactive life style. So says the philosophy anyway.

I have been looking at the question of where I fit on the determinism verse free will debate or question, well continuum more like. I believe along the Stoic line, we have complete control over our ability to assent to a concept or not, and little more. We can then build up a belief system, a matrix of previous made decisions, for quick judgements, all based on evidence. This is our automatic preformed way of acting, which is much quicker that sorting out and using reason to make decisions. Filling out that matrix is just pre-making the decisions, preparing ourselves for the future through visualization perhaps. It can also be cleaning of our belief system... using evidence to sort through and get rid of crap.

When we are born, the world we are born into is deterministic, we have no influence. As we grow we develop a bit of free will, and gain control over our ability to assent or refuse, or hold in abeyance any concept. We then have some influence but no control of much more. We essentially live in a deterministic world, where most stuff is not determined bu us. Our free will is limited to agreeing, abeyance, or disagree with any single concept, and what can be built from those single concepts. Oh well. The body will demand some things, and there is little we can do about that but to do, if the ingredients are available.  

Some of us have bodies who's cells that will not fat, so we get hungry while we have fats available. Oh well, if we could just get the insulin down low enough, we would not need to eat, but we fail, not because of less will power but due to high insulin and ever present hunger. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.

   

Life, Our Fundamental Value

Life is our fundamental value. There is nothing higher. When life ends, our neural circuitry shuts down, we are no more. We, the human exist as a concept driven identity within a living animal.  When the animal dies, well we die also. There is nothing to carry on; no afterlife, no god, nothing. The light goes out, not elsewhere. That make life it's self the most important thing in our life. End of story.

We should not do anything that detracts, reduces, endangers, degrades, confuses life, we should do all that improves it. Religions do not address reality; they are waste of time. Ethics has value, as it sorts out some of the marginal things that could damage life quickly or slowly.

Ethics, in reality do not need any attachment to religions, although they traditionally have been. It is easier to use tradition and mystic pronouncement rather than logic. That is not to say these are wrong, but logic is the ultimate test of rightness. It it is not logical, then, it is not right. But that depends on the basis of ethics. Life, political equality, individual rights, property rights, self control, freedom. Those are the foundations. All else can be derived from those foundations. Well maybe, there may be more as well.   

The positives of religion

There is no doubt that religion can provide great community, comfort, and consolation to the believer, but living in a dream world is not what I desire at this time. We can chose that which is or that which might be. It is a choice, for the here and now, Canada, 2018.

 Having being reading ethics, it is a choice, and how can I say that for seniors, how is living in a dream state is wrong? How can I say it is wrong for anyone? Well I may allow yous to starve, you lazy bastards, but other than that, is it wrong? I am an individual, and becoming an individualist. Productivity must be one of the first virtues, and I mean that as producing enough for my, our needs. How far into the wants we go is another issue. But I am not obligated, nor required, to support this society, if I chose not to.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessmom/2018/04/ask-mommy-what-would-you-do-if-your-kids-turned-out-religious/

It is conceivable to me that an atheist could turn to religion for community, comfort, and consolation, as the atheist community does not offer these. We offer cold hard reality, and if the individual cannot deal with reality, then religion is a better solution than self termination, perhaps. Perhaps we do a poor job of teaching methods of dealing with cold hard reality, but we did not get much aid in learning to deal with reality.

Perhaps it is time to misquote Airstotle's opening paragraph. "Every art, and every science reduced to a teachable form, and in like manner every action and moral choice, aims, it is thought, at some good:... " and say that every art and every science, even moral behavior and ethics, happiness, and flourishing, can be reduced into a teachable form; there then is no cause for tears over parts of life, as the whole of it calls for sorrow. (to misquote Seneca).  The point is that dealing with life is a learn-able skill. It all starts at the truth, that is learning what is real and what is just story. Once we learn, it is not easy to go from reality to not looking at reality, but may be possible.

Moral Foundations 2

After spending a couple of week looking for a moral foundation, I have found none and many. There is no universal foundation, but after digging around, there are a bunch of concepts, each that can serve as a foundation until something better comes along.

Propagation of the human species was the foundation of old, and then it became propagation of "our" line. But now there are too many humans on this earth, we are producing too much carbon dioxide, and will start to self exterminate soon; note that we are already using CPAP or oxygen enrichment machines for breathing. The old will die off sooner, and with them, goes much information. Oh well, I am old now. The society will turn mean in its later stages, as they realize there is no real future. There are already many nasty people in this world. The end is coming soon through disintegration of society, here in North America and Western Europe, aka the second and first world.

Economics, energy, use of resources, people: these things cannot grow in a finite world. We are beyond the carrying capacity of the earth. We are living in the overpopulation before the great die off, the evolutionary selection process is already underway. It cannot be stopped. What should we do now? I choose to live well, as I am doing. That is the categorical imperative now.

We can try to find solutions, but there is no political / economic will yet to do this, for it will cost the rich; they are the ones with money but greed driven, else we humans are likely to die out. Or we can make the choice to live well and ignore the problems, damn the populations, they will just need to take care of themselves. Those who do not share what they have for food will just become the victims of roving bands of youth... and other savages. As the police fail to do their jobs, the citizens will take and take care of business... and the older...by taking their property, resources, and extermination of the old. We old need to have some defense;  well I have archery and a backhoe. The police now are all about revenue generation, not cleaning out the vandals and criminals. Shoot, shovel, shut-up as King Ralph suggested.

So what is the foundation of morals; survival, at the lowest end, until we don't. But above else, some form of a pleasant satisfying peaceful life. There we have a choice of numerous man made philosophies and numerous fanatic based religions, all of which can provide a nice life... well as long as no one breaks the fanatic bubble. Reality is a cruel mistress, but one can be true be into reality, and there is no risk of the bubble breaking... we become the foundation of our own morals... we become the wheel that roles, and needs no foundations beyond our self contained self support. We become the Cato like human... we have our valuable with us, and then we die, know we are one with ourselves. That is the foundation, confidence we are right, and satisfied with that.  

Moral Foundations

A thought in progress...
What is the rational foundation for morals?

What right do you have to impose your ideas on me? What right do I have to impose my ideas on you? Individual vs group morals issue. Majority/minority issues are not the same as right vs wrong question.

It is my opinion we humans have a series of dipole switches that we rationally need to know which we are. Rational or Faith based? If you are faith based, stick with religion, this will be of no help.

So we develop a conscious hierarchy of values, concepts:

Logic/Faith Self/Others Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation

Virtue lies between two extremes.

Self vs others
Empathy ...trichotomy or continuum...   altruistic ... normal ... psychopath
Justice / fairness vs self first
Virtue, purity vs disorder, adopting what is right to adopt logically
Loyalty vs dispersed, individual or to group, or philosophy  
Authority vs group, self
logic, tradition vs development...  Note that as a youth, learning from an authority is quick, but if the authority is wrong, or does not lay out the reasons, it becomes a dictatorship, which does not last.

But the foundation for the atheist must be life, those things that support or improve life, and cooperation, political equality of people, neither becoming nor allowing slaves or masters.
This bunches empathy, justice, purity, keeps compassion and in group rational loyalty while abandoning altruism, authority. Can a sound life ethics and philosophy be built on these virtues, adopting the methods of other philosophies?

Reality Concepts

Within the sea of possible concepts, there is an island of knowledge, of reality. Vein diagram that. That which is, is surrounded by that which might be. We can make the choice to live within the reality, or without all or some in a mental state of belief without foundation. That too, can be comfortable, but somehow, it is not real. Those who choose to live in non-reality, religion, are well, just off reality. It is difficult for those of us who are living in reality to take, so we may choose to avoid the unreal.  

Knowledge requires for something to be true, to be believable, for there to be evidence for it and no evidence against it.  Living totally within the circle of knowledge is possible, necessary and sufficient to lead the good life. Religion should be abandoned, but ethics, logic, reason maintained and understood.

The good life is comfortable, generally pleasant, and we can acheive that generally under most circumstances of existence. In extremes, added effort may be required.

There are many who will try to push us off the good life from both sides, by their demands, and some by force, it is up to us to learn to deal with them and not disturb our life. They are out for control, and we need not give it to them. We cannot allow ourselves to become or make slaves of anyone. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway. The psychopaths, and extreme altruistic, the altruistic with others money, the bad stewards in government, the egos of government and religions, and all those radicals will just need to look elsewhere.  Cooperation is the foundation of society, and society also has its' fringes and out-layers.

We are into an era of human development when the population has exceeded the carrying capacity of the earth, as is evidenced by the carbon dioxide level in our atmosphere. Our most valuable individual property, life itself, is not as valuable to others anymore, as reduction of population is one of the solutions to this problem. We have gone through a period that keeping everyone alive was seen as a good; this may not last. The unproductive may need to be terminated so that the rest might live. The trolley problem for reals. Oh well, life is fleeting. 

The consolation of religion

 
In the past few days, I have been thrust into two situations of dealing with the religious. In one case the old girl, a few years younger than I, uses religion or god for comfort, and consolation for loss in her life. Living in non-reality can be comforting and provide a great deal of consolation, which I do not wish to take from anyone.

The second was a Facebook encounter. It is time to abandon facebook. It is a time suck, and a make believe world, where any comments that are refuted are just deleted. The US second amendment was created by James Madison before 1800 because he feared that a President would use the army against it's own people, and in less that a lifetime it did, the civil war happened. Oh well, shit happens.

The religious have difficulty dealing with facts, logic, and hence reality.  Pushing faith, prayer, and the like, rather than logic as a method of making potentially large decisions is just bullshit ignorance. Life can be simple logical steps. If there is no logic, there can be no step. If you wish to pay the full price, you can waste your money. Oh well.

Trudeau is an overly altruistic person who has never struggled to pay the bills. He is too willing to give away money to the natives, a conquered race that does not want to do what is necessary to live well in our modern society. Oh well. He also thinks honor killing is barbaric, which makes him somewhat right. It is illegal for savages to kill our citizens, even if it is the parents doing the killing.  That is the big problem with politicians. They are all right some of the time, but not on all issues, and there are no simple solution for dealing with other religions and cultures. It is a series of independent of each other choices.  

Many religious people have a hard time with the truth, and cannot deal with facts. They lash out, and we need to recoil. Many religious have the concept that it is OK to push their religion, but get offended when we truth seeking push back. Oh well, I lived many years with no connection to family.

In God We Trust.

Vox populi vox Dei. From the Latin, the voice of the people is the voice of god. or as Ambrose Bierce put it, " the voice of the people is god. " So with a twisted mind, god becomes the voice of the people, and with such concept of god, even Thomas Paine went along with in god we trust, for it was a republic they sought to create. With a bit of manipulation and substitution we have... "In the voice of the people we trust." What did I miss? It is a different god that is being refereed to, not the Christian god, but that of the original Roman Republic, vox populi.

Have you ever considered the difference between a democracy and a republic? One nominates delegates, the other representatives. One we pick to represent us, to vote and act as a good steward of us, the other to carry out our wishes in the government. And in the US, those party names, carry on the long resolved issues.

Ambrose and Ayn Rand have similar ideas on some subjects, just as a stopped clock has the right time twice each day. Individualism. Life is our most valuable asset, all flows from there. But one holds a christian figure as a great leader, the other not so much. Oh well, life goes on for now, but in the end we all just die anyway.

Religion can bring such comfort and consolation late in life. Too bad it is based on an concept with no evidence. For a concept to be knowledge, it must have evidence and no evidence against it, and the evidence needs to be "admissible in court".

So the Sweet Jesus offends the christians. So bloody what!!  There attitude offends me, as does the moors. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.