----- Original Message -----
From: "bestonnet_00" <no_reply@yahoogroups.com>
To: <deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 11:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Death To Religion] New guy


> My understanding of supernatural is that which is not part of the
> natural world.

Yes, just what I said, separate from nature or the natural physical world.

>
> There's nothing Christian about it.

No.  It's all about Christianity, or Christianity is all about that.
Without it no Christianity.  I say that as "Christianity as usual," or
orthodox or conservative.  I am a liberal Christian, very liberal.  There
are lots of us.

> Your view on religion is very different to what the average person
> thinks of religion.

Exactly.  Let the masses go their own way, as the herds following the leader
with the carrot on the stick.  The average or the masses is what served
Marx's purpose.

>
> Maybe there are scholars who think the way you do (there are ones who
> think there is no real world so not that unlikely) but they study made
> up fantasies of how religion is, not what actually happens in the real
> world.

When you say "they" you should say some, or most, or many.  This is perhaps
your main problem committing the fallacy of composition.  How do you know
what actually happens?  How do you know you confront "the real world."  All
you  have is what your brain process, or is Kant another of those writers
you reject and refuse to read?

>> Not Buddhism.  Maybe you can place Taoism in your neat category of
>> "metaforce."  Your mind is trapped it appears.
>
> Reincarnation not supernatural?

No.  Reincarnation (samsara) is Hindu.

>> So you deny the clear and voluminous real good evidence for religion
>> active in "a force for good" of humanity.
>
> I acknowledge that much of the good claimed to have been done by
> religion was not in fact good (e.g. the crap that Mother Teresa along
> with countless other missionaries pulled) along with the fact that the
> genuine good that came from religion would probably have happened
> without it.

No.  Not just claimed by religion, but claimed by all people, even
non-believers and atheists.  Again your are short on reading, or even
watching TV.  And then you place Mother T into your neat little category,
again committing the composition fallacy by applying the negatives about her
(and I agree to them) to all of her.  "Probably" would have happened without
religious motivation of love??????   You sure do reveal yourself, how you
really are.

>
> Whilst the violence would probably not have occurred without religion.

Again you reveal yourself, your extreme bias to your dogma.

> Bohr, et. al. did also reject the notion that it was anything more
> than a methphor (in much the same way atheist Stephen Hawkins speaks
> of the "mind of god").

Your not reading the right stuff in which they did not mean metaphor.
Granted metaphor for Hawkins and Einstein.  Why don't you just say
"probably" in your speculation?

>
> Those who were serious about it (and didn't just think of it as an
> interesting metaphor) are all kooks though.

You mean "probably" right?

>
> Look deeply into QM, something I suspect you haven't done.

Not my provenance.  I just study in an open minded way all the prominent
reputable scholars I can.

> Why should anyone given the problems it's caused?

So you lump all religion into your neat category of the bad activities.  A
sure sign of extreme bias.

> If you play with the language enough you can even get Christianity to
> appear to have some relation with the real world.

I don't do that.  So you mean "probably" I would do that?

>
> Doesn't mean I'm going to start telling people the world is 6000 years
> old though.

I don't believe that hogwash.  I am a thoroughly embued Darwinian
evolutionist, study it a lot.  In my view all theology is hogwash for the
masses.

>
> I'm still trying to figure out the relation between the commutator of
> position and momentum being zero and where in Eastern religion that
> came from though.

How sweet.  Why don't you google it?

Richard
>

--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Godwin" <meta@...> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "bestonnet_00" <no_reply@yahoogroups.com>
> To: <deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 11:50 PM
> Subject: Re: [Death To Religion] New guy
>
>
> > My understanding of supernatural is that which is not part of the
> > natural world.
>
> Yes, just what I said, separate from nature or the natural physical
> world.

Yes, though I should note that this is a recent understanding that
only really came about due to the scientific revolution recognising a
natural, before modern science they were considered the same thing
(and some people still try to claim that they are).

> > Your view on religion is very different to what the average person
> > thinks of religion.
>
> Exactly.  Let the masses go their own way, as the herds following
> the leader with the carrot on the stick.  The average or the masses
> is what served Marx's purpose.

OTOH I doubt whether what you think is religion actually is.

Play with the definition enough and you can make anything religion at
which point the word loses its meaning.

> > Maybe there are scholars who think the way you do (there are ones
> > who think there is no real world so not that unlikely) but they
> > study made up fantasies of how religion is, not what actually
> > happens in the real world.
>
> When you say "they" you should say some, or most, or many.  This is
> perhaps your main problem committing the fallacy of composition.

Essentially all religious people think differently to you.

> How do you know what actually happens?

And how do you?

> > Reincarnation not supernatural?
>
> No.  Reincarnation (samsara) is Hindu.

Despite it being part of Buddhism.

> > I acknowledge that much of the good claimed to have been done by
> > religion was not in fact good (e.g. the crap that Mother Teresa
> > along with countless other missionaries pulled) along with the
> > fact that the genuine good that came from religion would probably
> > have happened without it.
>
> No.  Not just claimed by religion, but claimed by all people, even
> non-believers and atheists.

There are a lot of people who give undue credit to religion (most of
the population in the average western country probably thought that
Mother Teresa was helping people).

> Again your are short on reading, or even watching TV.

I don't tend to watch much TV given that it seems to be mostly crap on.

> And then you place Mother T into your neat little category,
> again committing the composition fallacy by applying the negatives
> about her (and I agree to them) to all of her.

The vast majority of missionaries are bad (and many of them are far
worse than her).

> "Probably" would have happened without religious motivation of
> love??????   You sure do reveal yourself, how you really are.

The people that weren't doing it to buy converts would probably have
helped without a religion because they were just good people.

Even so, not having religion suppress science would have helped more
than all the charity in the world multiplied ten times over (the
smallpox vaccine did a lot more good than prayer).

> > Whilst the violence would probably not have occurred without
> > religion.
>
> Again you reveal yourself, your extreme bias to your dogma.

Or maybe I just reveal that I know what I'm talking about and that you
can't actually refute it (since if you could you would have instead of
merely saying "extreme bias to your dogma" despite me being the moderate).

> > Bohr, et. al. did also reject the notion that it was anything more
> > than a methphor (in much the same way atheist Stephen Hawkins
> > speaks of the "mind of god").
>
> Your not reading the right stuff in which they did not mean
> metaphor.

Or you're just delusional.

> Granted metaphor for Hawkins and Einstein.  Why don't you just say
> "probably" in your speculation?

Because it isn't probably.

> > Those who were serious about it (and didn't just think of it as an
> > interesting metaphor) are all kooks though.
>
> You mean "probably" right?

No, I don't mean probably, I mean that the people who do think there
is a real relation between QM and Eastern mythology are kooks.

> > Look deeply into QM, something I suspect you haven't done.
>
> Not my provenance.  I just study in an open minded way all the
> prominent reputable scholars I can.

No surprise, you might even agree with the guy in the white shirt
http://cectic.com/074.html

Most of the scholars outside of physics (and maths) departments who
write on QM don't have a damn clue what it is that Quantum Mechanics
actually is so I wouldn't be surprised if you're reading crap about it.

> > Why should anyone given the problems it's caused?
>
> So you lump all religion into your neat category of the bad
> activities.  A sure sign of extreme bias.

Or of investigating what the effects of religious belief have been and
coming to the only reasonable conclusion.

> > If you play with the language enough you can even get Christianity
> > to appear to have some relation with the real world.
>
> I don't do that.  So you mean "probably" I would do that?

Well there are people who think the bible is actually true despite it
being so clearly false.

It involves twisting both the bible and modern science but so does
telling people that eastern mythology had something to do with quantum
mechanics.

> > Doesn't mean I'm going to start telling people the world is 6000
> > years old though.
>
> I don't believe that hogwash.  I am a thoroughly embued Darwinian
> evolutionist, study it a lot.  In my view all theology is hogwash
> for the masses.

At least you agree with reality in one area of your life (though how
closely is another matter).

> > I'm still trying to figure out the relation between the commutator
> > of position and momentum being zero and where in Eastern religion
> > that came from though.
>
> How sweet.  Why don't you google it?

So you can't answer it or tell me why that statement is nonsense?

By the way, Richard...

   Judaism, in its true spirituality, is very close to Bhuddism. Some people just
get so caught up in the surface appearance that they aren't aware of this. There
are quite a few people who actively practice both in conjunction, without
conflict.

   Hannah



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Sorry Richard, that reply was meant for bestonnet_00.

   Trying to grab the first name on the digest post sometimes causes error.

   Hannah




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Richard--

   Religion is a structure to scaffold moral behavior to allow humans to live
together effectively. That it gets corrupted by non-moral people into a tool for
prejudice, self-gain, etc. does not mean that the original tools are not good
for individual personal development.

   Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

   What structure does your athiestic perpsective provide to answer the question
"why should I play nice with others?" As well as what one's basic social
behaviors should have for a goal?

   Hannah



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I think you are right. I would say religion tends to support and reinforce
moral principles, necessary in societies for survival and proper maintenance
for their member citizens.  In my view, and that of scholars, morality or
ethics came first chronologically and comes first in principle with needs of
society, and then reinforced by attribution to divinity, rendering the
people more likely to follow the laws created.  This is plain in the first
mostly complete extant laws, the Codes of Hammurabi, then later in the
Hebrew Bible.  I affirm the need and value of religion.  The problem is that
religion shows two sides in that exclusivity, conflict and violence occupy
the side bad for humanity, obviously.

I am not an atheist, and do consider myself a Christian liberal, albeit very
liberal.  Why people should get along with each other is an inbred need for
survival, since survival depends on organizations of people, which is
society: to answer your question.  The sense of mutual cooperation is a
propensity which is genetically inherited at birth and developed in the
child brain upon confrontation with other people, parents, playmates, etc.
as they learn to cooperate to get what they want.  The basic social
behaviors are developed through learning, based on propensities, that have
the goal of survival and flourishing individually through necessary society.
Altruistic religion is supportive, while exclusivity is damaging.  The main
problem with most Christianity is its exclusivity.  Parents teaching their
children moral principles, with laws of behavior and caring for others, is
very beneficial I think, so long as total respect for others accompanies
that.  Any sense of exclusiveness is very bad.

Thank you for your comments and questions,

Richard.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hannah Miriam" <baruch_emmet@...>
To: <deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2008 2:36 PM
Subject: [Death To Religion] Re: New guy


> Richard--
>
>  Religion is a structure to scaffold moral behavior to allow humans to
> live together effectively. That it gets corrupted by non-moral people into
> a tool for prejudice, self-gain, etc. does not mean that the original
> tools are not good for individual personal development.
>
>  Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
>
>  What structure does your athiestic perpsective provide to answer the
> question "why should I play nice with others?" As well as what one's basic
> social behaviors should have for a goal?
>
>  Hannah
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Looking for last minute shopping deals?  Find them fast with Yahoo!
> Search.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Christianity in the form of the real Jesus is very close to Buddhism.  Jesus
and Buddha essentially had the same ideas.  Books have been written on that.
There are common insights in Buddhism that are based on human nature and
truly address the human condition, especially that of suffering.  Some
Christians try to reconcile suffering with God's "nature", they call the
problem of evil, but stumbling around with it in their confused ways, they
just get tangled up in contradictions with a schizophrenic God.

Richard.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Hannah Miriam" <baruch_emmet@...>
To: <deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2008 2:41 PM
Subject: [Death To Religion] Re: New guy


> By the way, Richard...
>
>  Judaism, in its true spirituality, is very close to Bhuddism. Some people
> just get so caught up in the surface appearance that they aren't aware of
> this. There are quite a few people who actively practice both in
> conjunction, without conflict.
>
>  Hannah
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Looking for last minute shopping deals?  Find them fast with Yahoo!
> Search.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, Hannah Miriam
<baruch_emmet@...> wrote:
>
> Richard--

I don't think you actually intended that for him.

> Religion is a structure to scaffold moral behavior to allow humans
> to live together effectively.

No it isn't because it doesn't actually do that (moral philosophy is
much better done without reference to non-existent entities).

Religion was just our first (very bad) attempt at coming up with an
explanation for how the world works and needs to be treated as such.

> That it gets corrupted by non-moral people into a tool for
> prejudice, self-gain, etc. does not mean that the original tools are
> not good for individual personal development.

It isn't corrupted by people, it corrupts otherwise good people.

>   Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We don't need any pithy platitudes here.

>   What structure does your athiestic perpsective provide to answer
> the question "why should I play nice with others?" As well as what
> one's basic social behaviors should have for a goal?

It is more likely to be true than theism, that is enough to make it
more moral since morality requires one to have accurate information
(if you look at history you'll notice that most atrocities (including
the very famous instances from last century) were done by well
intentioned people who were misinformed about the world.

bestonnet_00 --

   Not having a community religious structure creates more problems...

   How would you recommend instruction of moral code to future generations?

   Keep childhood developmental levels in mind when explaining this...  as well
as a majority of people not moving past requiring some sort of outside
source/guide in order to make decisions.

   What moral rules do you feel are best?

   What reasoning would you use to convince others of that code being correct?

   What reasoning would you use to convince others that you should have any say
in their decision-making?

   What consequences would you ascribe to failed adherence to that code?

   How would you reconcile other's codes (more lax, diametrically opposed to, or
even more interesting for you, more stringent than your own)?

   Hannah



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Richard --

   Beautifully stated!

   Sorry if I mistargeted my comments... some of those layered replies people
make to each other, are a bit difficult to peel apart, especially when tired.

   I think that Mohandas Ghandi had a wonderful idea, but it would take
everyone's buy-in, at an altruistic level I doubt most can achieve. In his
educational paradigm for India, he insisted that all children read and study
daily, from their own faith, without forcing any faith on anyone.

   Of course, his tolerance resulted in the Pakistan split, but once again, it
would take full altruistic buy-in by all participants...

   Hannah



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--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, Hannah Miriam
<baruch_emmet@...> wrote:
>
> bestonnet_00 --
>
>   Not having a community religious structure creates more
> problems...

Such as?

People not killing each other over minor disagreements would seem not
to be a problem.

Unless you have a very strange definition of religious structure.

>   How would you recommend instruction of moral code to future
> generations?

How about we stop deluding ourselves and teach what we actually have
evidence for.

Atheists manage to be quite moral without any problems (and they don't
need any religious instruction to do so) so there is no reason to
assume we need religion to instruct the moral code to people.

>   Keep childhood developmental levels in mind when explaining
> this...  as well as a majority of people not moving past requiring
> some sort of outside source/guide in order to make decisions.

There is no evidence that people actually need an outside guide to
make decisions.  Children who are raised without religious beliefs are
no less moral then those who are brainwashed with religion and people
can abandon religious belief even if they are raised to be religious
should they decide that those beliefs are wrong.

Even the people who think that if they were to become atheists that
they'd start murdering and raping people are probably wrong.

Most children are also quite smart enough to understand tit-for-tat
morality and why it works better than anything else.

>   What moral rules do you feel are best?

There are game theoretic reasons to favour tit-for-tat morality.

I also realise that truth is important to making moral decisions so a
strong focus on the truth must be a part of any morality (this is part
of why I can rule out religious morality as being any good).

> What reasoning would you use to convince others of that code being
> correct?

Teach some game theory (most children should be able to understand the
prisoners dilemma).

Humans also being social animals have evolved an innate morality which
includes much of what any decent morality would have to contain.

>   What reasoning would you use to convince others that you should
> have any say in their decision-making?

Why should I have any say in their decision making?

What they do with their lives is their choice and not mine nor should
it be any of my business unless their choice is affecting me.

>   What consequences would you ascribe to failed adherence to that
> code?

Look at what happens when people base their decisions on incorrect
information and the kinds of disasters that happen when they don't.

>   How would you reconcile other's codes (more lax, diametrically
> opposed to, or even more interesting for you, more stringent than
> your own)?

Morality is an individual choice although society can enforce a
collective opinion of morality through laws.

Those who do actions which harm others would find that the law is
against them regardless of their personal morality (so if someone has
a morality that allows them to kill unbelievers they will become a
criminal if they try it).

We do however need to recognise that people should have the freedom to
do what they want if they aren't harming others.

Morality ultimately is a set of rules for individuals that allow a
society to work and that is the main purpose of morals.

Thank you.  On the Christian Apologist list, I noticed one of the
self-assured young Christians commented that too bad for Ghandi that he goes
to hell because he didn't believe in Jesus Christ.  We continue to fully
understand why so many intelligent people are atheist after all the orthodox
Christian absurities since Jesus died and was interpreted by the early
Christians into their agendas.  I don't agree with the rebound against all
religion because of the absurdities of some, actually, most of its
expressions in the West.

Your questions to the died in the wool completely closed-minded atheist here
on morality and moral laws will be met with resounding rejection in toto of
all your suggestions.  But actually moral laws are fully substantiated by
the survival, maintenance, and flourishment of societies with many
commonalities appling to virtually all societies over history, easily seen
with and since Hammurabi with his Codes.  Religion is not the origin and
does not justify moral laws, it reinforces them through the sense of divine
authority people believe.

Richard.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Hannah Miriam" <baruch_emmet@...>
To: <deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 4:12 PM
Subject: [Death To Religion] Re: New guy


> Richard --
>
>  Beautifully stated!
>
>  Sorry if I mistargeted my comments... some of those layered replies
> people make to each other, are a bit difficult to peel apart, especially
> when tired.
>
>  I think that Mohandas Ghandi had a wonderful idea, but it would take
> everyone's buy-in, at an altruistic level I doubt most can achieve. In his
> educational paradigm for India, he insisted that all children read and
> study daily, from their own faith, without forcing any faith on anyone.
>
>  Of course, his tolerance resulted in the Pakistan split, but once again,
> it would take full altruistic buy-in by all participants...
>
>  Hannah
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it
> now.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Godwin" <meta@...> wrote:
>
> Thank you.  On the Christian Apologist list, I noticed one of the
> self-assured young Christians commented that too bad for Ghandi that
> he goes to hell because he didn't believe in Jesus Christ.

I think we've all seen things like that.

> We continue to fully understand why so many intelligent people are
> atheist after all the orthodox Christian absurities since Jesus died
> and was interpreted by the early Christians into their agendas.

If you think it is that which makes people atheists then you are wrong
(the absurdities of orthodox Christianity play a role to be sure but
there is more to it).

> But actually moral laws are fully substantiated by the survival,
> maintenance, and flourishment of societies with many commonalities
> appling to virtually all societies over history, easily seen with
> and since Hammurabi with his Codes.  Religion is not the origin and
> does not justify moral laws, it reinforces them through the sense of
> divine authority people believe.

That's where a problem arises.

The sense of divine authority makes religious morality very hard to
change if it turns out that the moral code is defective, especially if
the morality is written down in a book (this is probably why civil
rights movements have tended to be started by atheists).

----- Original Message -----
From: "bestonnet_00" <no_reply@yahoogroups.com>
To: <deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 7:32 PM
Subject: [Death To Religion] Re: New guy


> The sense of divine authority makes religious morality very hard to
> change if it turns out that the moral code is defective, especially if
> the morality is written down in a book (this is probably why civil
> rights movements have tended to be started by atheists).

Not really.  Pragmatics wins out, and religion adjusts in such cases.
Morality overall works to benefits, while restrictive paradigms such as
supported by religions are relegated to the periphery.  Globalization with
its various major religions tend to expand the commonalities of moral
principles working with human rights to overcome religious restrictions.
Indeed the Taliban failed, became completely isolated, and is only a blip on
the scene.  Defects in the moral codes work out through pragmatics and
religion follows since it must or become more isolated.  The books get
reinterpreted.  There remain of course, various differences in moral
principles that have some but not so much pragmatic effect.  Stem cell
research is an example of the avenue to reason for human benefits slowly
overcoming religious restrictions about the sacredness of human life.  It
takes a lot of time, as we see time.  As the processes continue, religion is
the follower, no longer the leader.

Richard.

>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Godwin" <meta@...> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "bestonnet_00" <no_reply@yahoogroups.com>
> To: <deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 7:32 PM
> Subject: [Death To Religion] Re: New guy
>
>
> > The sense of divine authority makes religious morality very hard
> > to change if it turns out that the moral code is defective,
> > especially if the morality is written down in a book (this is
> > probably why civil rights movements have tended to be started by
> > atheists).
>
> Not really.  Pragmatics wins out, and religion adjusts in such
> cases.

True, very few Christians now would want to take the vote away from
women but even so, it took far too long for the change to happen and
it was the religious that were the last to change their minds (or in
some cases die off and let their less bigoted descendants take over).

> Morality overall works to benefits, while restrictive paradigms such
> as  supported by religions are relegated to the periphery.

Eventually they are but that doesn't excuse religion from the delays
it causes (without religion would there be anyone picketing the
funerals of gays?).

> Globalization with its various major religions tend to expand the
> commonalities of moral principles working with human rights to
> overcome religious restrictions.

Secularisation helps a lot more (and human rights are mostly in
opposition to religion).

If all you've got are competing religions then all too often
disagreements over morality end up as a holy war.

> Indeed the Taliban failed, became completely isolated, and is only a
> blip on the scene.

They shouldn't have even existed in the first place (another US
foreign policy screw up, they should have just listened when the CIA
said the Soviet Union would collapse on its own and not bothered
getting into proxy wars with them or at least pick better people to help).

> Defects in the moral codes work out through pragmatics and religion
> follows since it must or become more isolated.

Yes, that is true (how many Catholics use condoms?), but religions
often wait until they look absurd for not changing their minds (and
many still discriminate where the rest of society has stopped).

> The books get reinterpreted.

Yes, but they don't get changed despite being wrong so fundamentalist
sects still appear that take them literally (or try to anyway).

> There remain of course, various differences in moral principles that
> have some but not so much pragmatic effect.

Some things are very harmful, not so harmful.

> Stem cell research is an example of the avenue to reason for human
> benefits slowly overcoming religious restrictions about the
> sacredness of human life.

It has nothing to do with the sacredness of human life since embryonic
stem cells are not human beings.

> It takes a lot of time, as we see time.  As the processes continue,
> religion is the follower, no longer the leader.

Religion has never been a moral leader, always the follower (and the
follower of atheists).

Though of course different groups change at different times, the most
liberal of the religious (e.g. Quakers) usually get convinced pretty
quickly by the atheists that start the civil rights groups and join
early while the most conservative of the religious take a long time to
change (even the point at which some churches today won't allow women
to be priests and fundamentalists in the US tend to be more bigoted
towards blacks than those of lower religiosity and then there is the
infamous Westboro Baptist Church).

bestonnet_00 wrote: People not killing each other over minor disagreements would
seem not to be a problem.

   -------

   Do not confuse vehicle and purpose. Someone intent on killing someone else, if
lacking a gun, will use a knife; if lacking a knife, will use a club; etc.

   If people below the mature level of the Formal Operational phase of
development (ref. Piaget), or have attained a point where they are working on
self-development at the pinnacle of Mazlow's heirarchy, do not have religion to
argue about and kill each other over, they will find some other disagreement
through which to exercise their hostility.

   ______

   bestonnet_00 wrote: Atheists manage to be quite moral without any problems
(and they don't need any religious instruction to do so) so there is no reason
to assume we need religion to instruct the moral code to people.

   ______

   There are individuals of all faiths (or lack of) that adhere to positive
social behaviors.

   Claiming that athiests in general manage to be moral without religious
codification of those morals, is like any other group claiming that their
adherents in general are morally upright.

   The question I asked wasn't whether you or other adult athiests you know are
currently following a social moral code, but how you would recommend
transmitting that code to children, especially those from family backgrounds
with a high level of external locus of control (e.g. poverty culture, etc.).

   If you feel that morality is much more simply conveyed through an athiestic
altruism perspective, then I hope you are either in an inner city public school
as a teacher, or in corrections... because in both places such ability to
provide instruction in moral behavior without including any sort of faith
structure would be very welcome.

   Or hadn't you noticed that people going into prison are often athiestic or at
least agnostic, and those that come out truly focused on "going straight" are
often rather, um, religious?  "I can't control me, which is why I ended up in
there.  Thank you (take your pick... Jesus or Mohammed) for taking over my life
and controlling me, so now I can avoid hurting others..."

   You don't see many, if any, Jewish converts in that situation, because Judaism
insists on personal ownership of one's own behavior. Same thing with Bhuddist
and Hindu. Same thing with athiesm.

   ______

   bestonnet_00 wrote: Most children are also quite smart enough to understand
tit-for-tat
morality and why it works better than anything else.

   _______

   Tit-for-tat only works if everyone perceives the situation in the same way. 
Multicultural backgrounds result in all sorts of misunderstandings... not just
multi-faith.

   I am very familiar with "athiestic" moral instruction... I have to do it daily
because in the public schools, we are not to bring a particular faith into the
equation.  Of course, it is possible to direct a child in the coding without a
religious structure to support that coding.

   Our culture is increasingly demanding that schools rather than parents are
responsible for all aspects of a child's development, from regular attendance to
positive social behaviors to academics and trade skills. We are gradually moving
toward an athiestic creche, rather than a parent-school partnership in which the
school takes care of academics and work ethics, and the parents maintain
responsibility for social and faith ethics.


   So ... now your turn...

   Person A (child or adult) is stronger and has more personal resources and
potential for more gain, than Person B. Explain to Person A why Person B should
be given any consideration, have a chance at a resource, etc.

   ______

   bestonnet_00 wrote: I also realise that truth is important to making moral
decisions so a
strong focus on the truth must be a part of any morality (this is part of why I
can rule out religious morality as being any good).

   ______

   Whose truth? Whose morals? I don't mean religious truth and morals here...
purely any truth that drives moral decision making.

   Such conflicts occur on the secular truth/moral level too.

   Taking G-d out of it only makes answering the "why be nice to each other"
harder, unless you are seeking to return to a time where the average lifespan
was late-20's/early-30's because only those with extended family and who were
perceived as a great social resource for others were given the supports that
extend that lifespan.  It would be the height of conceit for you to assume that
you would fall in that latter category.

   ________

   bestonnet_00 wrote: Humans also being social animals have evolved an innate
morality which includes much of what any decent morality would have to contain.

   ________


   Most people operate on "innate morality" based on whether the other person
belongs to their own social grouping(s) or not, and whether or not that person
continues to be a resource for reciprocal supports (the "positive response" side
of tit-for-tat) in the future.

   Is truly decent morality only that which is applied to one's immediate family
and social group members who remain of reciprocal value?

   Religion helps individuals who take the effort to build themselves toward
self-actualization, have a tool to do so to a point where altruism can extend
beyond that instictual group behavior, by expanding one's sense of what one's
"group" really is.

   Right now, I am witnessing a close-up of this very issue. A friend from work
became extremely ill (Stage 4 cancer). She just moved here from a few thousand
miles away, all her family is back where she came from, and she does not have
connection to a local faith-based group, as nobody else around here follows her
faith. Her ethnicity is also different.

   Her only membership in any local social group was her belonging to our school
as staff.

   She will no longer be able to work; she will no longer be a reciprocal
resource for that group or anyone in it, nor will the gratitude of those who are
members of her other groupings, living so far away, be a resource for that group
or anyone in it.

   Although people perceived her as a "wonderful lady," a "good teacher," and a
"friend," the only supports now available to her are because one person pushed
staff with connections to community and faith group supports to give a hand, and
even then the cogs turn slowly because of the "not one of us" barrier that has
to be hurdled.

   What caused that one person to step outside the "one of us" limits of caring?
Faith.

   Tit-for-tat logic limits the ability of others to care for others and reduce
suffering as well.

   _____

bestonnet_00 wrote: What they do with their lives is their choice and not mine
nor should
it be any of my business unless their choice is affecting me.

   _____

   All choices one makes, affects others.

   _____

   bestonnet_00 wrote: Look at what happens when people base their decisions on
incorrect
information and the kinds of disasters that happen when they don't.

   _____

   Disaster for whom?  There are many instances where a person's behaviors are
benign, or even beneficial, for that person, yet a disaster for others who are
affected by it.

   Taking religion out of the equation does not relieve perceptual differences
regarding moral decisions.

   ______

   bestonnet_00 wrote: Morality is an individual choice although society can
enforce a
collective opinion of morality through laws.

   ______

   Once again, whose morality?  The morality you speak of as being innate and
logical from your perception, is a morality based on Judeo-Christian
definitions.

   There's a reason why the rules were codified... each rule indicates
experiences by the group with those who engaged in the restricted behavior and
found such personal benefit for it that any concern for those negatively
affected was minimal or nonexistent.

   Our Western laws are greatly different from those in among other groups.

   The difference? Concern for the weaker person at the receiving end of the
consequences for a behavior.

   You assume that all secular law concepts have European/Western sensibility of
retribution for the victim, or that without Judeo-Christian influence, our laws
would have such concern for the victims. Most cultures are indifferent, or
hostile, to victims. The victim, as a weak member or a stranger, is not a
reciprocal resource for the group.

   There are many even in Western cultures, who still do not hold concern for or
even blame the victim ... until they are the weaker one. Even with exposure to
our current law system and Judeo-Christian ethics. Remove the faith-based
foundation of our current code system... and we revert to killing weak members
of the group directly, abandoning those who were at one time resources for
others, but now are not.  Enjoy your old age, there...

   So, here's a kicker...

   If the natural tendency and physical-world logical choice is to only provide
reciprocal supports, how did Judeo-Christian (Western) and Bhuddist (Eastern)
philosophy develop? Where did the inspiration for these altruistic codes come
from?

   Hannah





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bestonnet wrote: The sense of divine authority makes religious morality very
hard to
change if it turns out that the moral code is defective, especially if
the morality is written down in a book (this is probably why civil
rights movements have tended to be started by atheists).


   ------

   Well, now that's a can of worms.

   Name the civil rights leaders you consider athiests.

   Changing the code is very, very easy.  That's why there are so many
denominations and faiths out there... different people with different
sensibilities change the codes, and go off and do their own thing.

   Hannah




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----- Original Message -----
From: "bestonnet_00" <no_reply@yahoogroups.com>
To: <deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 9:34 PM
Subject: [Death To Religion] Re: New guy


>>> Morality overall works to benefits, while restrictive paradigms such
>> as  supported by religions are relegated to the periphery.
>
> Eventually they are but that doesn't excuse religion from the delays
> it causes (without religion would there be anyone picketing the
> funerals of gays?).

Well, let's not get that extreme.  As to gay marriage, this is a difficult
point and not really a morality issue.  And it does take time to work out
these matters.  Everyone who counts accepts gay rights, even most
Christians.  Marriage seems to be more a tradition and political issue.

>> Globalization with its various major religions tend to expand the
>> commonalities of moral principles working with human rights to
>> overcome religious restrictions.
>
> Secularisation helps a lot more (and human rights are mostly in
> opposition to religion).

These days the secular groups and most Christian and other religious groups
work together basically, such as in altruistic activities, and of course
human rights, a basic Christian virtue.

> It has nothing to do with the sacredness of human life since embryonic
> stem cells are not human beings.

That of course is a matter of opinion based on definition.

> Religion has never been a moral leader, always the follower (and the
> follower of atheists).

But history shows you are wrong.  Atheism didn't even basically begin until
after the Enlightenment.

Richard.

--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, Hannah Miriam
<baruch_emmet@...> wrote:
>
> bestonnet_00 wrote: People not killing each other over minor
> disagreements would seem not to be a problem.
>
>   -------
>
>   Do not confuse vehicle and purpose. Someone intent on killing
> someone else, if lacking a gun, will use a knife; if lacking a
> knife, will use a club; etc.

Not true at all, a lot of people who couldn't get a gun would not use
a knife or club even if they would have used a gun (a gun is simply a
better weapon).

Besides, the certainty that religion tends to bring is almost a
guarantee that someone is going to kill for it whereas if people were
told that all knowledge is provisional (as in science) then they'd be
a lot less willing to kill over disagreements about how the world works.

> If people below the mature level of the Formal Operational phase of
> development (ref. Piaget), or have attained a point where they are
> working on self-development at the pinnacle of Mazlow's heirarchy,
> do not have religion to argue about and kill each other over, they
> will find some other disagreement through which to exercise their
> hostility.

Those who follow a religious 'morality' can't even reach past the
pre-conventional stages of moral development (the traditional view
that we need punishment from a god to be good that even some adults
hold is Stage One).

It is only by throwing away religious 'morality' (which tends to be
more focused on obeying god then doing good) that one can proceed to
the post-conventional.

As for what people will kill each other over, without religion there
just doesn't seem to be much worth killing for, at least on a large
scale (and the one exception, namely communism, had a lot in common
with religions in terms of how it was structured and how its adherents
thought).

Fights will of course still break out but without religion they'll be
a lot easier to resolve peacefully (in Israel and Palestine it is the
secularists on both sides that tend to want peace with the most
religious tending to be in favour of continuing the fight).

>   bestonnet_00 wrote: Atheists manage to be quite moral without any
> problems (and they don't need any religious instruction to do so) so
> there is no reason to assume we need religion to instruct the moral
> code to people.
>
>   ______
>
>   There are individuals of all faiths (or lack of) that adhere to
> positive social behaviors.

Yes, if there weren't we be in for quite a bit of trouble (and most
religious people just adopt a form of religious humanism as their
moral code which overrides the moral code of their religion in the
event of conflict).

>   Claiming that athiests in general manage to be moral without
> religious codification of those morals, is like any other group
> claiming that their adherents in general are morally upright.

Yes, it refutes the idea that religion has any monopoly on morality.

>   The question I asked wasn't whether you or other adult athiests
> you know are currently following a social moral code, but how you
> would recommend transmitting that code to children, especially those
> from family backgrounds with a high level of external locus of
> control (e.g. poverty culture, etc.).

The innate morality that is programmed into us by evolution to allow
us to live together would be a big help here since it means that there
is already a biological preference for fairness.

In the beginning we might just have to use a crime and punishment
model although it probably won't work for very young children (with 2
year olds it doesn't matter how you punish them, they'll still
misbehave again anyway) and some forms of punishment cause problems
later on in life (e.g. smacking has been found to correlate with an
increased incidence of psychological problems later in life along with
making a child more likely to become a bully later on).

I should note that even young children understand fairness and as well
as getting upset when something unfair is done to them can also
recognise when something unfair is done to someone else.

>   If you feel that morality is much more simply conveyed through an
> athiestic altruism perspective, then I hope you are either in an
> inner city public school as a teacher, or in corrections... because
> in both places such ability to provide instruction in moral behavior
> without including any sort of faith structure would be very welcome.

I'm not in either (and I wouldn't want to be) but either way, you
can't instruct someone in morality with a faith structure anyway so
everyone has been doing without it (most people do have a religious
morality but a form of religious humanism).

>   Or hadn't you noticed that people going into prison are often
> athiestic or at least agnostic,

No I haven't, maybe because it's not the case.

> and those that come out truly focused on "going straight" are often
> rather, um, religious?

Ha Ha Ha.

Parole boards like to hear religious crap, therefore the prisoners
convert to a religion (not to mention that a lot of faith groups are
pretty much given free reign inside prisons to convert those who are
vulnerable).

> "I can't control me, which is why I ended up in there.  Thank you
> (take your pick... Jesus or Mohammed) for taking over my life and
> controlling me, so now I can avoid hurting others..."

Which parole boards, especially in the south of the US really love to
hear.

> You don't see many, if any, Jewish converts in that situation,
> because Judaism insists on personal ownership of one's own behavior.

Actually it insists on following god strictly, even to the point of
being willing to sacrifice your kid if god orders it (yes I know
almost no Jew, not even the most orthodox is that bad, but that's only
because none of them follows the 'morality' of their religion but
instead a form of religious humanism).

>   bestonnet_00 wrote: Most children are also quite smart enough to
> understand tit-for-tat morality and why it works better than
> anything else.
>
>   _______
>
>   Tit-for-tat only works if everyone perceives the situation in the
> same way.  Multicultural backgrounds result in all sorts of
> misunderstandings... not just multi-faith.

Not really.  Tit-for-tat is the best strategy for the iterated
prisoners dilemma which is what social interaction basically is (the
only thing that could beat it was a set of multiple algorithms some of
which sacrificed themselves for one of them).

Tit-for-tat when used in the real world would also involve some extra
forgiveness to prevent a death spiral in which both sides continuously
defect.

Probably the biggest problem with multiculturalism as it is currently
practised is that it puts groups above individuals to the point at
which people who are clearly being abused are told to accept it
because it is their culture.

>   I am very familiar with "athiestic" moral instruction... I have to
> do it daily because in the public schools, we are not to bring a
> particular faith into the equation.

Good.

> Of course, it is possible to direct a child in the coding without a
> religious structure to support that coding.

But if the coding come from the religion then you'd have to wonder
whether it's any good, most religious 'morality' is more focused on
worshipping god then on actually doing good.

> Our culture is increasingly demanding that schools rather than
> parents are responsible for all aspects of a child's development,
> from regular attendance to positive social behaviors to academics
> and trade skills.

Schools do have professionals who we expect to be trained to be able
to handle those things although it might be a good idea for parents to
get some training on how to raise kids (rather than just using the
methods their parents used which were probably severely sub-optimal).

> We are gradually moving toward an athiestic creche, rather than a
> parent-school partnership in which the school takes care of
> academics and work ethics, and the parents maintain responsibility
> for social and faith ethics.

Schools are pretty much already there (with a lot of parents being
glad when their kids go off to school because they get to save money
on day care).

Ethics really should be taught in school though although if parents
want their kids to be taught a specific religion they can do that out
of school (though I have no problem with comparative religion being
taught in schools (actually it would probably tend to increase the
chances of a given student becoming an atheist)).

Secular humanism is pretty much the basis for the collective morality
of any decent country so I see no problem with teaching it (although
removing some of the anti-religious references might be demanded by
some people) and pretty much follows what religious liberals believe
anyway (with a few exception).

>   So ... now your turn...
>
>   Person A (child or adult) is stronger and has more personal
> resources and potential for more gain, than Person B. Explain to
> Person A why Person B should be given any consideration, have a
> chance at a resource, etc.

What stage is the person at?

At stage one you'd only really be able to say that if they don't
consider Person B they'd get locked in their room or have their toy
privileges taken away (or go to hell).

Someone who has reached the conventional stage can be told that it is
bad not to and will obey while someone the post-conventional stage
will have already figured it out and won't need to be convinced.

>   bestonnet_00 wrote: I also realise that truth is important to
> making moral decisions so a strong focus on the truth must be a part
> of any morality (this is part of why I can rule out religious
> morality as being any good).
>
>   ______
>
>   Whose truth?

The truth is not relative ('post-modernists' are just deluded idiots).

One thing which to be sane we have to assume is that there is a real
world and that there is an absolute truth, we may not be able to
determine with complete confidence what that truth is (in fact we
can't) but we can still get a good approximation through the use of
the scientific method.

> Whose morals?

Well I'd hope everyone takes account of known facts when they come up
with their moral system.

> I don't mean religious truth and morals here... purely any truth
> that drives moral decision making.

Religious truth is a bit of an oxymoron anyway.

>   Such conflicts occur on the secular truth/moral level too.

Yes, but they don't tend to result in atrocities (except for the
example of communism which had very many religion like attributes, to
the point it which it was basically a secular-religion (absurd as
those words may sound)).

Because the secular for the most part doesn't have any infallible gods
or infallible books people can very easily agree to disagree (and
often have the ability to defer to the evidence as to how reality is,
just look at how much agreement there is among scientists and compare
to how much (or little) agreement there is among theologians (BTW: I
agree with Richard Dawkins that theology isn't a subject)).

>   Taking G-d out of it only makes answering the "why be nice to each
> other" harder,

Maybe it does, but in the end you get a better answer.

Although I suspect that children don't really see any difference
between "God said don't kill", "Santa said don't kill" or "Daddy said
don't kill".

> unless you are seeking to return to a time where the average
> lifespan was late-20's/early-30's because only those with extended
> family and who were perceived as a great social resource for others
> were given the supports that extend that lifespan.

No, I happen to like modern medicine.

> It would be the height of conceit for you to assume that you would
> fall in that latter category.

Do you really think I'd actually want something like that?

Even the people who propose things that would result in us going back
to a time like that wouldn't want it (they just delude themselves into
believing that things wouldn't be like that).

>   bestonnet_00 wrote: Humans also being social animals have evolved
> an innate morality which includes much of what any decent morality
> would have to contain.
>
>   ________
>
>   Most people operate on "innate morality" based on whether the
> other person belongs to their own social grouping(s) or not, and
> whether or not that person continues to be a resource for reciprocal
> supports (the "positive response" side of tit-for-tat) in the
> future.

The main task if you want to make people moral would seem to be
expanding the in-group that they apply their sense of fairness to.

Religion can expand the in-group to cover a religion or denomination
but it still leaves a pretty sizable out-group.

>   Is truly decent morality only that which is applied to one's
> immediate family and social group members who remain of reciprocal
> value?

People seem capable of expanding their in-group to cover the entire
species which would be a minimum for truly decent morality (I'd also
require that if other intelligent life were found that they'd include
them in their in-group).

> Religion helps individuals who take the effort to build themselves
> toward self-actualization, have a tool to do so to a point where
> altruism can extend beyond that instictual group behavior, by
> expanding one's sense of what one's "group" really is.

Religion also limits one's sense of what group one belongs to.

Admittedly a lot of religious people overcome that but that's more
likely to be because they are using a secular morality.

> Right now, I am witnessing a close-up of this very issue. A friend
> from work became extremely ill (Stage 4 cancer).

Nasty.

> She just moved here from a few thousand miles away, all her family
> is back where she came from, and she does not have connection to a
> local faith-based group, as nobody else around here follows her
> faith. Her ethnicity is also different.
>
> Her only membership in any local social group was her belonging to
> our school as staff.
>
>   She will no longer be able to work; she will no longer be a
> reciprocal resource for that group or anyone in it, nor will the
> gratitude of those who are members of her other groupings, living so
> far away, be a resource for that group or anyone in it.
>
>   Although people perceived her as a "wonderful lady," a "good
> teacher," and a "friend," the only supports now available to her are
> because one person pushed staff with connections to community and
> faith group supports to give a hand, and even then the cogs turn
> slowly because of the "not one of us" barrier that has to be
> hurdled.

The "not one of us" barrier is partly caused by religion.

> What caused that one person to step outside the "one of us" limits
> of caring? Faith.

Probably not.

> Tit-for-tat logic limits the ability of others to care for others
> and reduce suffering as well.

Tit-for-tat simply states that you treat others well until you have
reason not to, it's not at all incompatible with a requirement to care
for others.

> bestonnet_00 wrote: What they do with their lives is their choice
> and not mine nor should it be any of my business unless their choice
> is affecting me.
>
>   _____
>
>   All choices one makes, affects others.

Strictly speaking yes but from a moral point of view does it really
matter whether I prefer to drink a soft drink or tap water?

>   bestonnet_00 wrote: Look at what happens when people base their
> decisions on incorrect information and the kinds of disasters that
> happen when they don't.
>
>   _____
>
>   Disaster for whom?  There are many instances where a person's
> behaviors are benign, or even beneficial, for that person, yet a
> disaster for others who are affected by it.

Yes, that might actually be the case for some of them but when people
base their morals on nonsense they do have a tendency of causing
themselves and others problems.

> Taking religion out of the equation does not relieve perceptual
> differences regarding moral decisions.

When one considers that being religious pretty much requires denying
the truth (especially in the fundamentalist sects) it's pretty hard to
say it wouldn't relieve that.

The Holocaust, the Communist atrocities (in various countries), George
W. Bush's war in Iraq (and his various other screw-ups), etc happened
because someone believed something that was wrong and acted upon it.

>   bestonnet_00 wrote: Morality is an individual choice although
> society can enforce a collective opinion of morality through laws.
>
>   ______
>
>   Once again, whose morality?  The morality you speak of as being
> innate and logical from your perception, is a morality based on
> Judeo-Christian definitions.

No it isn't.

Judeo-Christian morality is about worshipping god and my morality does
not include that (nor does the collective morality of any decent
country, notice how blasphemy laws are either non-existent or never
enforced in essentially all places that you'd actually want to live in?).

>   There's a reason why the rules were codified... each rule
> indicates experiences by the group with those who engaged in the
> restricted behavior and found such personal benefit for it that any
> concern for those negatively affected was minimal or nonexistent.

Yes, the in-group was more restricted back then.

>   Our Western laws are greatly different from those in among other
> groups.

Yes, notice how the west was also where the anti-theistic
enlightenment started.

>   The difference? Concern for the weaker person at the receiving end
> of the consequences for a behavior.

Our legal systems don't seem to have much concern for the victim, more
concern for the accused (though I don't want that changed, we should
avoid sending innocent people to jail).

> You assume that all secular law concepts have European/Western
> sensibility of retribution for the victim, or that without
> Judeo-Christian influence, our laws would have such concern for the
> victims.

Well ancient Jewish morality required an unmarried rape victim to
marry her attacker so I'm not sure you can say that it is
Judeo-Christian influence that causes such sensibilities (one of the
biggest advances in morality actually came about by not letting the
victim take retribution on their own).

>   There are many even in Western cultures, who still do not hold
> concern for or even blame the victim ... until they are the weaker
> one.

Victim blaming is more common among right-wing authoritarians who tend
to be some of the most religious people in society.

> Even with exposure to our current law system and Judeo-Christian
> ethics.

It is the most religious who are most prone to victim blaming so there
goes your argument.

> Remove the faith-based foundation of our current code system... and
> we revert to killing weak members of the group directly, abandoning
> those who were at one time resources for others, but now are not.
> Enjoy your old age, there...

An innate sense of fairness and the belief that there is probably no
god watching over us which has as an inevitable result that bad things
can happen to good people helps build sympathy for victims.

OTOH those who believe there is a god watching over us tend to believe
that bad things only happen to bad people and thus are more inclined
to believe that a victim deserved it.

>   So, here's a kicker...
>
>   If the natural tendency and physical-world logical choice is to
> only provide reciprocal supports, how did Judeo-Christian (Western)
> and Bhuddist (Eastern) philosophy develop? Where did the inspiration
> for these altruistic codes come from?

Both of those 'moralities' have led to some pretty brutal theocracies
(and it is those theocracies that indicate the morality of the
religions best, not what modern day secularised adherents claim).

--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Godwin" <meta@...> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "bestonnet_00" <no_reply@yahoogroups.com>
> To: <deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 9:34 PM
> Subject: [Death To Religion] Re: New guy
>
>
> > Eventually they are but that doesn't excuse religion from the
> > delays it causes (without religion would there be anyone picketing
> > the funerals of gays?).
>
> Well, let's not get that extreme.

Why not?  It may be only a few idiots right now but that doesn't mean
they are somehow not representing the religion, nor does it mean that
they weren't more powerful in the past (which they were).

> As to gay marriage, this is a difficult point and not really a
> morality issue.

It is, if a loving gay couple wants to receive the benefits given to
heterosexuals who marry in most places they can not get them.

> And it does take time to work out these matters.

Yes, but it should not have taken so long.

There has been progress and gays in most places can come out without
any fear (though some parts of the US south are exceptions) but there
hasn't been enough (and this whole separate but equal crap about civil
unions...).

> Everyone who counts accepts gay rights, even most Christians.

I wish that were so, it is with women's rights and rights for racial
minorities but there are still people in governments (including the US
government) that don't accept gay rights.

> Marriage seems to be more a tradition and political issue.

I suspect there is already majority support for gay marriage, even if
it is only under the name of civil union (which will eventually be
changed).

> > Secularisation helps a lot more (and human rights are mostly in
> > opposition to religion).
>
> These days the secular groups and most Christian and other religious
> groups work together basically, such as in altruistic activities,
> and of course human rights, a basic Christian virtue.

I wouldn't be calling human rights a basic Christian virtue when
humans rights have historically tended to go against Christianity
(Christians basing their beliefs on the bible have always been on the
wrong side of all civil rights battles), even if modern churches have
re-interpreted the religion to be compatible with human rights.

It is true that many the Christian groups work alongside secular
groups to further human rights, but much of that is because they have
secularised to focus more on this world than the next.

> > It has nothing to do with the sacredness of human life since
> > embryonic stem cells are not human beings.
>
> That of course is a matter of opinion based on definition.

To define an embryonic stem cell as a human would mean that every
women would have an abortion a month when she isn't pregnant which is
just nonsensical.

> > Religion has never been a moral leader, always the follower (and
> > the follower of atheists).
>
> But history shows you are wrong.  Atheism didn't even basically
> begin until after the Enlightenment.

There were atheists in the ancient world although very few (and even
fewer who would admit it) because even the most tolerant societies
back then often discriminated against atheists (or people accused of
atheism, e.g. Socrates) but even so there were arguments against
theism created back in those times (Plato demolished divine command
theory (although he very likely wasn't an atheist he did prove that
morality can't come from a god) and Epicurus came up with the argument
from evil).

Most moral progress though has come since the enlightenment (a lot of
the early stuff was done by deists who by not believing in a god that
does anything of importance to our day to day life are basically just
atheists who believe in a god).

bestonnet wrote: Besides, the certainty that religion tends to bring is almost a
guarantee that someone is going to kill for it whereas if people were
told that all knowledge is provisional (as in science) then they'd be
a lot less willing to kill over disagreements about how the world works.

   ------

   You assume that religion is the only source of absolutes, and that people do
and think what they are told. Both are extremely fallacious assumptions.

   ------

   bestonnet wrote: Those who follow a religious 'morality' can't even reach past
the
pre-conventional stages of moral development (the traditional view
that we need punishment from a god to be good that even some adults
hold is Stage One).

   -------

   Wow, I'm, like, so immature!

   You are over-focused on the "punishment" sense of Christianity and Islam.

   If you look closely at Hebrew scripture, Bhuddist writings, etc., you can find
a thread of realism regarding long-term natural rewards and consequences.  Guide
books, not threats.

   To take it to a concrete level, gravity works both to our benefit (without it,
we'd not stick to the planet and have a dickens of a time trying to get
anywhere), and to our detriment (falling can kill you depending on the
circumstance).

   There are similar things regarding personal and social behaviors.  Watch out
for the cliff, sort of thing.

   ------

   bestonnet wrote: It is only by throwing away religious 'morality' (which tends
to be
more focused on obeying god then doing good) that one can proceed to
the post-conventional.

   ------

   Obeying G-d isn't doing good?

   Let's see, my particular religion says that to obey G-d, I must ensure the
health and learning of my children, seek peaceful and positive means of
cooperation with others, give without demanding reciprocation and hopefully
without regret, choose healthy food and take care of myself, study,
self-reflect, and enjoy the physical world in moderation.

   Failure to do those things means long-term consequences for my kids, my own
eventual mental discomfiture and loneliness, physical dicomfort from
health-related issues, danger from violent enemies, etc.

   ------

   bestonnet wrote: Fights will of course still break out but without religion
they'll be
a lot easier to resolve peacefully (in Israel and Palestine it is the
secularists on both sides that tend to want peace with the most
religious tending to be in favour of continuing the fight).

   ------

   If that region was not steeped in religion, it would be some other
group-ideology or physical resource that would be the source of conflict.

   No matter where a conflict happens, it all comes down to the perception (true
or not) by one or both groups, of less resources than can support the population
of two groups.

   Getting rid of religion won't get rid of that fundamental source of conflict.

   ------

   bestonnet wrote:Yes, it refutes the idea that religion has any monopoly on
morality.

   -------

   Therefore, stating that athiesm has superior morality makes you no better than
anyone of faith claiming their particular faith has superior morality.

   -------

   bestonnet wrote: In the beginning we might just have to use a crime and
punishment
model although it probably won't work for very young children (with 2
year olds it doesn't matter how you punish them, they'll still
misbehave again anyway) and some forms of punishment cause problems
later on in life (e.g. smacking has been found to correlate with an
increased incidence of psychological problems later in life along with
making a child more likely to become a bully later on).

   -------

   If you can't control a 2-year-old, I feel very sorry for you.  Walk into any
good and well-run preschool, and without a single infliction of physical pain,
you will see herds of 2 and 3 year olds engaged in on-task and positive
behaviors.

   As a teacher, I can tell you that crime and punishment (which does not
necessarily mean physical pain) works very well, if done the CORRECT way. There
is volumes written on time span between event and consequence, nature of
consequence, and use of reward to support positive behaviors.

   -------

   bestonnet wrote: I should note that even young children understand fairness
and as well
as getting upset when something unfair is done to them can also
recognise when something unfair is done to someone else.

   -------

   This is due to "mirror neurons" and fairness is environmentally learned in the
first year of life, through interaction with parents, and is programmed at that
time at the subconscious level.

   Review attachment disorder (environmental isolation from this interaction),
and autism (physiological isolation from this interaction).  Although both WILL
have a sense of fairness from their own experiential awareness, both do have
difficulty participating effectively in social group normed expectations for
fairness.  Instead, their own sense of what is fair is often seen as selfish, or
unreasonable, or too "black and white."

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: Actually it insists on following god strictly, even to the
point of
being willing to sacrifice your kid if god orders it (yes I know
almost no Jew, not even the most orthodox is that bad, but that's only
because none of them follows the 'morality' of their religion but
instead a form of religious humanism).

   -----

   Ask any Holocaust survivor about the sacrifice of children to G-d's will.

   You confuse intentional sacrifice to try to get G-d to do your will, with
acceptance of loss due to events outside your control.

   Jewish code is clear that one does NOT intentionally sacrifice your child or
any other human being... one accepts when G-d decrees a loss.

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: Tit-for-tat when used in the real world would also involve
some extra
forgiveness to prevent a death spiral in which both sides continuously
defect.

   -----

   Which is what religion does... define the point of forgiveness. How would you
define that point, and bring about universal agreement on where it is?

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: Probably the biggest problem with multiculturalism as it is
currently
practised is that it puts groups above individuals to the point at
which people who are clearly being abused are told to accept it
because it is their culture.

   ------

   Examples of culturally-defined acceptable abuse that is clear to everyone
including the victim, to a point where the rest of the world says "yeah, they're
hurting you, but too bad, tough luck?"

   ------

   bestonnet wrote: Ethics really should be taught in school though although if
parents
want their kids to be taught a specific religion they can do that out
of school (though I have no problem with comparative religion being
taught in schools (actually it would probably tend to increase the
chances of a given student becoming an atheist)).

   -------

   Become a teacher, and work in a school. Discover the lack of influence you
have comparative to home life, even though you spend more time during the school
day with that child than the parent(s) do. Parents are rarely dealing with
large-group supervision, and have much more individualized time with their kids.
They are also the first teacher of their child, the one the child (hopefully)
was bonded to through proper interaction in infancy.

   Our behavior disorder programs are primarily filled with kids who have
received poor parenting.  A child with ADHD, autism spectrum, anxiety,
depression, and other physiological emotional disorders, with good parenting
(with a few rare exceptions), doesn't need such isolation from others and
intensive behavioral supports.

   Parents are the ones who make the difference.

   Work with 30 (elementary) or 150 (secondary) kids every day. Put your money
where your mouth is.

   Are you a parent?  If so, do you really want to surrender your child like
that? Once again, look up attachment disorder.

   The only creche system that has ever had any, if partial, success is one based
on faith... Jewish Kibbutzim. I challenge you to name a single full-creche
system based on secular ideals, that has produced effective and mentally healthy
citizens (central Europe being a prime example of creche gone horribly wrong).

   ------

   bestonnet wrote: At stage one you'd only really be able to say that if they
don't
consider Person B they'd get locked in their room or have their toy
privileges taken away (or go to hell). Someone who has reached the conventional
stage can be told that it is bad not to and will obey while someone the
post-conventional stage
will have already figured it out and won't need to be convinced.

   -----

   Really. So, what's up with the need for the judicial system. Only small
children should be at stage one... and those who are stuck there as adults, when
looked at as a population, tend to be there due to poverty and/or lack of, or
abusive, parenting.

   You are sounding like someone who is communist -- everyone should have similar
resources distributed fairly, raised by the government, and expected to view
others altruistically based on intrinsic goodness. Yet earlier you criticized
communism as almost (gasp) religious.

   Also, from what you just said, the whole reason we have the problems we do is
evidently somebody just forgot to tell the people breaking laws that it isn't
right to break laws.

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: The truth is not relative.

   -----

   So, I have lots of truth relative to my life experience that conflicts with
your truth.  How is truth not relative?

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: Well I'd hope everyone takes account of known facts when they
come up
with their moral system.

   ----

   Morality is based on social structures, not "known facts."

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Because the secular for the most part doesn't have any
infallible gods
or infallible books people can very easily agree to disagree (and
often have the ability to defer to the evidence as to how reality is,
just look at how much agreement there is among scientists and compare
to how much (or little) agreement there is among theologians.

   ----

   Agreement among scientists? Oh, please, there is tons of debate in the
scientific community.  Consensus for well-proven theories, perhaps; until new
information arises and the consensus theory is challenged.

   And there is agreement among theologians... otherwise there would be no
organized faiths. Each group has people who have a consensus regarding how to
understand spirituality.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: No, I happen to like modern medicine.

   ----

   Morality defines who gains access to it.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Religion can expand the in-group to cover a religion or
denomination
but it still leaves a pretty sizable out-group.

   ----

   It can demand caring for that out-group in a way no secular organization can.

   There are lots of religious directives regarding caring for the "stranger."

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: > What caused that one person to step outside the "one of us"
limits
> of caring? Faith.

Probably not.

   ----

   Um, I know this for a fact. The person is acting due to their faith.

   Accept it.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Tit-for-tat simply states that you treat others well until
you have
reason not to, it's not at all incompatible with a requirement to care for
others.

   ----

   Really?  Show me that particular shared consensus? definition.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Strictly speaking yes but from a moral point of view does it
really
matter whether I prefer to drink a soft drink or tap water?

   ----

   Yes, it does. If you chose one or the other, you are 1) creating a decision in
your health, which will affect others because you may eventually need medical
care or not; 2) sending money into the economy in one direction or the other; 3)
affecting the environment.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Yes, that might actually be the case for some of them but
when people
base their morals on nonsense they do have a tendency of causing
themselves and others problems.

   -----

   Reconcile that with your earlier statements regarding consensus morality.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: The Holocaust, the Communist atrocities (in various
countries), George
W. Bush's war in Iraq (and his various other screw-ups), etc happened
because someone believed something that was wrong and acted upon it.

   ----

   I just noted consequences of creche systems. Yet you felt that taking ethics
training away from parents was right.  You believed something that is wrong, as
applied in data from real practice.

   Criticizing religion for the moral failure of those who ascribe to them,
rather than the ideals those religions seek to guide people toward, is
fallacious reasoning.

   Your reasoning would require us to say that our secular laws are wrong because
people fail to adhere to them.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Judeo-Christian morality is about worshipping god and my
morality does
not include that (nor does the collective morality of any decent
country, notice how blasphemy laws are either non-existent or never
enforced in essentially all places that you'd actually want to live in?).

----

   Once again, by your reasoning, the entire legal code of the United States
should be done away with because some of the rules are ones you don't agree
with.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Our legal systems don't seem to have much concern for the
victim, more
concern for the accused (though I don't want that changed, we should
avoid sending innocent people to jail).

   ----

   Once arrested, the accused's rights at this point are a bit extreme and do
result in many offenders avoiding consequences... however, arrests are made for
things here that are not arrestable elsewhere.

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: Well ancient Jewish morality required an unmarried rape
victim to
marry her attacker so I'm not sure you can say that it is
Judeo-Christian influence that causes such sensibilities (one of the
biggest advances in morality actually came about by not letting the
victim take retribution on their own).

-----

   If you look closely at that code, it was a marriage to provide her with
economic supports. His consequence, not hers. He had to ensure a roof over her
head, food, clothes, and supports for any resulting child. It put him under the
control of her family. It had to do with her rights.  She also had the right of
divorce if he failed in those duties.

   The rule must be taken in the context of the time in which it was written. It
was highly moral, in a secular perspective, given the culture of the time, which
was not Jewish, but global.

   Today, Jewish sense of application involves lifelong garnishment of a rapist's
wages, especially if a child results.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: It is the most religious who are most prone to victim blaming
so there
goes your argument.

   ---

   So religiosity is not about belief in a Divine being, but blind adherence
without question to any set of codified rules (referring back to your
identification of Communism as a pseudo-faith).

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: OTOH those who believe there is a god watching over us tend
to believe
that bad things only happen to bad people and thus are more inclined
to believe that a victim deserved it.

   -----

   I know for certain that Judaism at least recognized that good people suffer;
there is a whole debate about it carried out in a morality tale written a while
back, called Job.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Both of those 'moralities' have led to some pretty brutal
theocracies
(and it is those theocracies that indicate the morality of the
religions best, not what modern day secularised adherents claim).

   -----

   Once again, suggesting that those who only give lip-service to a group's
ideals while seeking personal power, are the goal of the group.

   Based on that, I should judge all groups based on their members worst
offenses, rather than their members greatest gifts to the world.

   Shall we start looking at criminals who espoused athiesm and secularism?
Hmmm....

   Hannah



---------------------------------
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, Hannah Miriam
<baruch_emmet@...> wrote:
>
> bestonnet wrote: The sense of divine authority makes religious
> morality very hard to change if it turns out that the moral code is
> defective, especially if the morality is written down in a book
> (this is probably why civil rights movements have tended to be
> started by atheists).
>
>   ------
>
>   Well, now that's a can of worms.

Very much so.

>   Name the civil rights leaders you consider athiests.

There is
http://nogodzone.blogspot.com/2007/02/slavery-and-christian-mythology.html
about how it was not Christians that began the ending of slavery
(though eventually Christians took up the position that it was wrong
and used their undeserved political power to end it).

Many of the early figures in the womens' movement were also atheists
(Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Sanger come to
mind) as were a lot of the early figures in the blacks movement in the US.

Though in many cases the atheists kept their beliefs about religion
quite (atheists back then were not as well accepted as now, even the
US has made significant progress).

It's also been quite a common statement in books by atheists that were
in the various rights movements right from the start.

> Changing the code is very, very easy.  That's why there are so many
> denominations and faiths out there... different people with
> different sensibilities change the codes, and go off and do their
> own thing.

For an individual or small group of people yes, but over the whole of
society?

It does happen and it can happen within a few generations but it
should not take so long and were it not for religion would not take so
long (since without a god demanding that slaves be kept | women not
vote | gays be killed, etc we'd have people changing their minds,
instead of having to wait for them to die off).

There would of course still be problems and still be bigotry but
without religion people would be more willing to listen to reason and
to change their minds as well as less likely to pass their bigotry on
to their children.

It has always been the religious that opposed civil rights.

--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, Hannah Miriam
<baruch_emmet@...> wrote:
>
> bestonnet wrote: Besides, the certainty that religion tends to bring
> is almost a guarantee that someone is going to kill for it whereas
> if people were told that all knowledge is provisional (as in
> science) then they'd be a lot less willing to kill over
> disagreements about how the world works.
>
>   ------
>
>   You assume that religion is the only source of absolutes, and that
> people do and think what they are told. Both are extremely
> fallacious assumptions.

Religion is the main source of absolutes.

Some secular philosophies can lead to the kind of dogmatism you see in
religion, communism being a good historical example as would the
ultra-lunatic fringes of the environmental and animal rights movements
(though they are probably not helping their cause) and those I'd be
quite happy to lump in with religions.

As for whether people do and think what they're told, to a degree they
do although I would prefer it if we presented the evidence as it is
along with the best theory (or competing theories) that explains it
and some history of what else was tried and let people decide for
themselves.

>   bestonnet wrote: Those who follow a religious 'morality' can't
> even reach past the pre-conventional stages of moral development
> (the traditional view that we need punishment from a god to be good
> that even some adults hold is Stage One).
>
>   -------
>
>   Wow, I'm, like, so immature!

I don't think you actually follow a religious 'morality' (a religious
humanism would probably be the best description, just like the vast
majority of religious people on the planet).

>   You are over-focused on the "punishment" sense of Christianity and
> Islam.

The offshoots do have a lot more emphasis on punishment but.

>   If you look closely at Hebrew scripture, Bhuddist writings, etc.,
> you can find a thread of realism regarding long-term natural rewards
> and consequences.  Guide books, not threats.

There were cases of God directly punishing people (or even all the
Jews) in the Old Testament.

>   To take it to a concrete level, gravity works both to our benefit
> (without it, we'd not stick to the planet and have a dickens of a
> time trying to get anywhere),

I'd also be worried about Earth not holding an atmosphere although
there would be some advantages to a lack of gravity in terms of
transportation (although I should note that human waste disposal is in
free-fall still does not have a good solution).

>   bestonnet wrote: It is only by throwing away religious 'morality'
> (which tends to be more focused on obeying god then doing good) that
> one can proceed to the post-conventional.
>
>   ------
>
>   Obeying G-d isn't doing good?

If obeying god means converting heathens then I'd say not (the only
'successful' methods of actually getting mass conversions are morally
wrong).

>   Let's see, my particular religion says that to obey G-d, I must
> ensure the health and learning of my children, seek peaceful and
> positive means of cooperation with others, give without demanding
> reciprocation and hopefully without regret, choose healthy food and
> take care of myself, study, self-reflect, and enjoy the physical
> world in moderation.

Does it also require you to kill people who work on the Sabbath?

Why are those things good?  Are they intrinsically good or are they
just good because God said so?

If the former then god is redundant and you can justify it all without
him and if the later then you just end up with moral relativism.

>   Failure to do those things means long-term consequences for my
> kids, my own eventual mental discomfiture and loneliness, physical
> dicomfort from health-related issues, danger from violent enemies,
> etc.

Which are good self-interest reasons that do not require the existence
of a god to justify.

>   bestonnet wrote: Fights will of course still break out but without
> religion they'll be a lot easier to resolve peacefully (in Israel
> and Palestine it is the secularists on both sides that tend to want
> peace with the most religious tending to be in favour of continuing
> the fight).
>
>   ------
>
> If that region was not steeped in religion, it would be some other
> group-ideology or physical resource that would be the source of
> conflict.

Jews (ethnic) versus Arabs instead of Jews (religious) versus Muslims.

The Zionist movement was mostly secular and Israel is a pretty secular
nation as were the PLO but the proportional representation in Israel
gave the Orthodox Jews who keep settling in the disputed territories
power out of proportion to their population size and the Arab states
and even Israel itself were stupidly radicalising the Palestinians
(Israel did once support Hamas) when they should have been supporting
the liberals that actually wanted peace and co-operating with Israel.

>   No matter where a conflict happens, it all comes down to the
> perception (true or not) by one or both groups, of less resources
> than can support the population of two groups.

The conflict in the Middle East isn't really about resources, there's
enough to go around for everyone, it's about extremist Muslims wanted
Jews dead and Israel destroyed while Orthodox Jews think that the
middle east is theirs'.

But either way, it has been shown that it is the least religious on
both sides who want peace and it is the less religious who get tired
of endless pointless war the fastest.

>   Getting rid of religion won't get rid of that fundamental source
> of conflict.

No, but it will get rid of regarding people as being in an out-group
because they have a different religion which is a very big source of
conflict.

Ultimately the way to get rid of war is to have a world with only
democracies (OTOH we shouldn't go invading countries that aren't
democracies, that doesn't seem to work very well).

>   bestonnet wrote:Yes, it refutes the idea that religion has any
> monopoly on morality.
>
>   -------
>
>   Therefore, stating that athiesm has superior morality makes you no
> better than anyone of faith claiming their particular faith has
> superior morality.

Atheism itself doesn't really have a morality since it is just a
result (does theism have a morality) but it does allow for a superior
moral system to be used (and accepting reality is a requirement for a
person to be truly moral).

>   bestonnet wrote: In the beginning we might just have to use a
> crime and punishment model although it probably won't work for very
> young children (with 2 year olds it doesn't matter how you punish
> them, they'll still misbehave again anyway) and some forms of
> punishment cause problems later on in life (e.g. smacking has been
> found to correlate with an increased incidence of psychological
> problems later in life along with making a child more likely to
> become a bully later on).
>
>   -------
>
>   If you can't control a 2-year-old, I feel very sorry for you.
>  Walk into any good and well-run preschool, and without a single
> infliction of physical pain, you will see herds of 2 and 3 year olds
> engaged in on-task and positive behaviors.

If the behaviour is fun for the child that shouldn't be a problem (and
it is only a tendency, repeating the punishment over time can lead to
a change in behaviour).

>   As a teacher, I can tell you that crime and punishment (which does
> not necessarily mean physical pain) works very well, if done the
> CORRECT way. There is volumes written on time span between event and
> consequence, nature of consequence, and use of reward to support
> positive behaviors.

That must be why time-outs are well liked.

>   bestonnet wrote: I should note that even young children understand
> fairness and as well as getting upset when something unfair is done
> to them can also recognise when something unfair is done to someone
> else.
>
>   -------
>
>   This is due to "mirror neurons" and fairness is environmentally
> learned in the first year of life, through interaction with parents,
> and is programmed at that time at the subconscious level.
>
>   Review attachment disorder (environmental isolation from this
> interaction), and autism (physiological isolation from this
> interaction).  Although both WILL have a sense of fairness from
> their own experiential awareness, both do have difficulty
> participating effectively in social group normed expectations for
> fairness.  Instead, their own sense of what is fair is often seen as
> selfish, or unreasonable, or too "black and white."

Both are in a minority and from my understanding do tend to manage
pretty well if given the necessary help.

>   bestonnet wrote: Actually it insists on following god strictly,
> even to the point of being willing to sacrifice your kid if god
> orders it (yes I know almost no Jew, not even the most orthodox is
> that bad, but that's only because none of them follows the
> 'morality' of their religion but instead a form of religious
> humanism).
>
>   -----
>
>   Ask any Holocaust survivor about the sacrifice of children to
> G-d's will.

I don't know any personally although I know there is a lot of
difference in opinion about that (and I can not in any way worship a
god (who is omnipotent) that would just sit around while an event like
that was going on).

>   You confuse intentional sacrifice to try to get G-d to do your
> will, with acceptance of loss due to events outside your control.

People of all religions and no religion manage to accept loss to
events outside of their control.

My point was not about accepting loss (though I do think an atheistic
viewpoint that there is no god and that the universe is amoral is
better ultimately at that) but about Abraham being willing to
sacrifice his son (yes I know God told him not to go through with it).

The Bible is very clear on the matter, if God says you are to kill
your child you must do it.

The point of it was that religious people don't actually follow their
religious morality, instead they make up a morality that takes what
they see as the good bits from their holy books and a few other things
without including the bad (so you get don't murder and don't steal but
no kill Sabbath breakers).

>   Jewish code is clear that one does NOT intentionally sacrifice
> your child or any other human being... one accepts when G-d decrees
> a loss.

It is true that God told Abraham not to go through with it but the
fact that his willingness to do it is considered good in the bible
means I can not accept that statement as true.

Jews themselves don't consider it right to sacrifice their child but
that just means that they are better than their religion.

>   bestonnet wrote: Tit-for-tat when used in the real world would
also involve some extra forgiveness to prevent a death spiral in which
> both sides continuously defect.
>
>   -----
>
>   Which is what religion does... define the point of forgiveness.
> How would you define that point, and bring about universal agreement
> on where it is?

You can't define a point of forgiveness, you've just got to leave it
up to individuals to decide based on the situation they are in.

We could probably come up with a list of rules to use to help make
that decision but we couldn't hope to cover every possible situation
so the best we could do is come up with some guidelines that work well
enough.

>   bestonnet wrote: Probably the biggest problem with
> multiculturalism as it is currently practised is that it puts groups
> above individuals to the point at which people who are clearly being
> abused are told to accept it because it is their culture.
>
>   ------
>
>   Examples of culturally-defined acceptable abuse that is clear to
> everyone including the victim, to a point where the rest of the
> world says "yeah, they're hurting you, but too bad, tough luck?"

It seems depressingly common for members of minority groups who are
being abused to be told by the agencies that should be protecting them
that it is their culture and that they shouldn't be going against it.

Not sure how common it actually is but it does happen.

>   bestonnet wrote: Ethics really should be taught in school though
> although if parents want their kids to be taught a specific religion
> they can do that out of school (though I have no problem with
> comparative religion being taught in schools (actually it would
> probably tend to increase the chances of a given student becoming an
> atheist)).
>
>   -------
>
>   Become a teacher, and work in a school. Discover the lack of
> influence you have comparative to home life, even though you spend
> more time during the school day with that child than the parent(s)
> do. Parents are rarely dealing with large-group supervision, and
> have much more individualized time with their kids.  They are also
> the first teacher of their child, the one the child (hopefully) was
> bonded to through proper interaction in infancy.

What I have heard is that a lot depends on the parents although
teachers are the professionals who are better qualified to teach the
theory of such things.

>   Our behavior disorder programs are primarily filled with kids who
> have received poor parenting.  A child with ADHD, autism spectrum,
> anxiety, depression, and other physiological emotional disorders,
> with good parenting (with a few rare exceptions), doesn't need such
> isolation from others and intensive behavioral supports.

That's not something that surprises me very much.

>   Parents are the ones who make the difference.
>
>   Work with 30 (elementary) or 150 (secondary) kids every day. Put
> your money where your mouth is.

I remember secondary school well enough not to want to be a secondary
teacher (my teaching experience is lab demonstrating at university
level, thus all adults who somewhat want to be there and have managed
to get through school).

>   Are you a parent?

No, haven't gotten around to impregnating anyone yet.

> If so, do you really want to surrender your child like that? Once
> again, look up attachment disorder.

Isn't surrendering children what parents already do when they drop
their kids off at the free day care centre that is school?

Increasing the length of the school day is probably not a good idea
given the attention span of the kids although it should be possible to
fit in some ethics (I'd tend to want those classes to be biased
towards discussions).

For most parents teaching ethics in school would be more a case of the
school helping them with the few that oppose it probably not being
very good parents.

Comparative religion is really the only acceptable way to teach about
religion in a school anyway (at least if you want church-state
separation).

>   The only creche system that has ever had any, if partial, success
> is one based on faith... Jewish Kibbutzim.

Most of whom ended up leaving the Kibbutz despite that not being the
aim, hardly what I'd call a success (though it did give us some useful
scientific data on why brothers and sisters don't tend to marry).

> I challenge you to name a single full-creche system based on secular
> ideals, that has produced effective and mentally healthy citizens
> (central Europe being a prime example of creche gone horribly
> wrong).

Western Europe seems to be doing all right as do the non-insane
British colonies.

A combination of day care and schools along with some good parents
seems to be pretty much what we want.

>   bestonnet wrote: At stage one you'd only really be able to say
> that if they don't consider Person B they'd get locked in their room
> or have their toy privileges taken away (or go to hell). Someone who
> has reached the conventional stage can be told that it is bad not to
> and will obey while someone the post-conventional stage will have
> already figured it out and won't need to be convinced.
>
>   -----
>
>   Really. So, what's up with the need for the judicial system. Only
> small children should be at stage one... and those who are stuck
> there as adults, when looked at as a population, tend to be there
> due to poverty and/or lack of, or abusive, parenting.

Well there are a lot of adults who decide that something which society
as a whole thinks wrong is acceptable and so if a person does not
agree with the collective morality then there'd be a need for a
judicial system.

>   You are sounding like someone who is communist -- everyone should
> have similar resources distributed fairly,

Aiming for full equality is worthy but we need to be very careful that
we don't overemphasise equality since it is easier to get equality by
lowering the standards than by raising them.

In reality countries where resources are distributed 'fairly' (where
fair is taken to be even) tend to be poor while those that allow some
inequality tend to be much better places to live.

I'd rather live in a country where the rich are very rich and the poor
very poor than just have everyone very poor.

> raised by the government,

No, though I do think that every child has the right to a decent
education as well as non-abusive parents and happen to think that
democratic government should take action as much as possible to ensure
that is the case.

It just so happens that there are some things I think everyone has the
right to know (and thus should be taught as part of their schooling)
that aren't always taught (I also think that those things should be
taught to homeschooled kids, even though I know most of the
homeschooling parents in the US would not agree).

> and expected to view others altruistically based on intrinsic
> goodness.

Humans do seem to be naturally good to an extent and assuming that a
person is good until proven otherwise is really about the only thing
that'd be workable (just as the legal system assumes people innocent
until proven guilty).

> Yet earlier you criticized communism as almost (gasp) religious.

Yes, communism though it had some things in it I agree with (almost
every complex philosophy and that includes religions would have
something I could agree with in it) is also known to be wrong (the
fact that every country that has tried to be communist has ended up a
hell-hole should be enough although there are theoretical reasons why
it can't work) but communism at least as it has been practised in the
real world is just as dogmatic as religion and the idea of the
dictatorship of the proletariat does endorse violence and human rights
violations against those who are deemed to be enemies.

>   Also, from what you just said, the whole reason we have the
> problems we do is evidently somebody just forgot to tell the people
> breaking laws that it isn't right to break laws.

Not necessarily, there are a lot of people who will do something that
is illegal (or even something they think morally wrong) if they think
they can get away with it (many of them are stuck in the
pre-conventional stage).

In terms of breaking the laws it actually can be right to break them
(and that is something that I think needs to be taught to children,
especially knowing the results of Milgram's experiments).

>   bestonnet wrote: The truth is not relative.
>
>   -----
>
>   So, I have lots of truth relative to my life experience that
> conflicts with your truth.  How is truth not relative?

There is a real world (or at least everyone who isn't insane assumes
there is one).

If you jump out of an aircraft without a parachute you will most
likely die, that is not something that is relative.

>   bestonnet wrote: Well I'd hope everyone takes account of known
> facts when they come up with their moral system.
>
>   ----
>
>   Morality is based on social structures, not "known facts."

Why is it bad to drink and drive?

Because the known fact is that those who drink and drive have more
accidents which results in humans dying.

Morality requires considerable human judgement and but it must be done
in reference to reality and what the known facts are.

If you base your morality on the idea that alcohol improves driving
safety then you stand a very good chance of accidentally killing
someone (hopefully only yourself if you were to do something like that).

The atrocities that were carried out last century came from people who
denied reality (both fascist and communist).

>   bestonnet wrote: Because the secular for the most part doesn't
> have any infallible gods or infallible books people can very easily
> agree to disagree (and often have the ability to defer to the
> evidence as to how reality is, just look at how much agreement there
> is among scientists and compare to how much (or little) agreement
> there is among theologians.
>
>   ----
>
>   Agreement among scientists? Oh, please, there is tons of debate in
> the scientific community.

Yes, but how many people doubt evolution or gravity (in the actual
scientific community, not crack-pots).

Essentially everyone in the physics community agrees that Quantum
Mechanics is correct in its domain of applicability and that General
Relativity is correct in its domain of applicability.

> Consensus for well-proven theories, perhaps; until new information
> arises and the consensus theory is challenged.

We don't tend to throw out the old even when the new comes in because
even though Newtonian mechanics is wrong it still works well enough in
our solar system to be worth using (and it is easier to use than
General Relativity, the also wrong theory which replaced it and which
we hope to eventually replace).

Though one thing that needs to be realised when discussing science is
that theories that manage to get accepted do so because they can
explain the evidence better than any alternative and so when a theory
is challenged the replacement had better to be to explain what the old
theory could explain as well as a bit more (and you won't tend to find
much disagreement about where the old theory worked and didn't).

It is only on the fringes of science, the really cutting edge stuff,
that there is any significant disagreement because most of science
just has so much evidence behind it that there's really no way it
would ever be disproved (though of course nothing is ever 100% certain
in the real world, I'm not expecting anyone to disprove evolution).

>   And there is agreement among theologians... otherwise there would
> be no organized faiths. Each group has people who have a consensus
> regarding how to understand spirituality.

There are things they agree on but it is nowhere near the kind of
agreement that the scientific community has.

>   bestonnet wrote: No, I happen to like modern medicine.
>
>   ----
>
>   Morality defines who gains access to it.

I'd prefer it if everyone who needed it had access to it although a
world in which some people have access to it and some don't is better
than a world where no one benefits from it (although for vaccination
(possibly the most effective public health tool ever developed and
certainly a very cost effective way to increase life span) to work
properly you've got to jab most of the population).

>   bestonnet wrote: Religion can expand the in-group to cover a
> religion or denomination but it still leaves a pretty sizable
> out-group.
>
>   ----
>
>   It can demand caring for that out-group in a way no secular
> organization can.

OTOH the secular organisation can make the out-group the in-group
which is better than leaving them an out-group (although to be fair a
lot of religious people already do).

>   There are lots of religious directives regarding caring for the
> "stranger."

Yes, probably almost as many as the ones regarding killing the stranger.

>   Um, I know this for a fact. The person is acting due to their
> faith.
>
>   Accept it.

Are they?

I'm sure they are saying it and probably justifying what they are
doing based on faith but could it actually be a more secular empathy?

>   bestonnet wrote: Strictly speaking yes but from a moral point of
> view does it really matter whether I prefer to drink a soft drink or
> tap water?
>
>   ----
>
>   Yes, it does. If you chose one or the other, you are 1) creating a
> decision in your health, which will affect others because you may
> eventually need medical care or not; 2) sending money into the
> economy in one direction or the other; 3) affecting the environment.

1. Are we going to demand that no one do anything fun because it might
be risky?  If so then there goes all exploration and we'll stay on
this planet until the next asteroid comes along (I have no problem
with requiring people not to cause undue risk to others but I am not
at all convinced we should have no risk as a requirement for everyone).
2. No one has the right to have their business succeed (though I do
think there needs to be a welfare system) and that's really none of
your business anyway where I send my money if I'm not causing you
problems.
3. The cost of cleaning up the environmental effects should be
included in the cost of the product although I do think we need to
recognise that environmentalism is a rich persons activity.

>   bestonnet wrote: Yes, that might actually be the case for some of
> them but when people base their morals on nonsense they do have a
> tendency of causing themselves and others problems.
>
>   -----
>
>   Reconcile that with your earlier statements regarding consensus
> morality.

I see no need to do that (since I can't see any contradiction).

The consensus morality that defines our laws should be based on
reality and not nonsense, if the earlier example of thinking that
drunk driving is safer were to gain hold in society and a law were
passed requiring people to be drunk when operating a car, what do you
think would happen (in fact morality based on nonsense is most scary
when it becomes consensus morality)?

>   bestonnet wrote: The Holocaust, the Communist atrocities (in
> various countries), George W. Bush's war in Iraq (and his various
> other screw-ups), etc happened because someone believed something
> that was wrong and acted upon it.
>
>   ----
>
>   I just noted consequences of creche systems. Yet you felt that
> taking ethics training away from parents was right.  You believed
> something that is wrong, as applied in data from real practice.

The central European systems (under communist) governments would have
taught a nonsensical code of ethics.

For a school to be able to get a good ethics training course would
probably require that it be something the parents would want their
children to learn (or at least the majority of them) so in reality it
probably wouldn't even be taking it away from them.

>   Criticizing religion for the moral failure of those who ascribe to
> them, rather than the ideals those religions seek to guide people
> toward, is fallacious reasoning.

When I look at the religions the ideals I see are that everyone should
live in a repressive theocracy where those who disagree are killed or
enslaved.

I know it isn't how most believers see religion but that is what I see
as the underlying ideals of the most successful religions.

>   Your reasoning would require us to say that our secular laws are
> wrong because people fail to adhere to them.

In some cases that actually can be a valid argument (especially when
it is the majority of people who are breaking them).

>   bestonnet wrote: Judeo-Christian morality is about worshipping god
> and my morality does not include that (nor does the collective
> morality of any decent country, notice how blasphemy laws are either
> non-existent or never enforced in essentially all places that you'd
> actually want to live in?).
>
> ----
>
>   Once again, by your reasoning, the entire legal code of the United
> States should be done away with because some of the rules are ones
> you don't agree with.

No, I never said that.

What I meant was that the collective morality (i.e. laws) of all
decent countries (i.e. the countries that I and probably would
actually be willing to live in) is not based on worshipping god.

>   bestonnet wrote: Our legal systems don't seem to have much concern
> for the victim, more concern for the accused (though I don't want
> that changed, we should avoid sending innocent people to jail).
>
>   ----
>
>   Once arrested, the accused's rights at this point are a bit
> extreme and do result in many offenders avoiding consequences...
> however, arrests are made for things here that are not arrestable
> elsewhere.

The problem with not having those rights is that whilst I have no
problems killing a murderer or rapist nor do I really care if the
police a beating up armed robbers but sometimes an innocent person
gets arrested and killing or beating an innocent person are not at all
acceptable and must not happen.

That is why we have rights for those accused of a crime, if we had an
infallible legal system and the police never arrested someone who
wasn't guilty then we could just have them shoot the criminal on the spot.

>   bestonnet wrote: Well ancient Jewish morality required an
> unmarried rape victim to marry her attacker so I'm not sure you can
> say that it is Judeo-Christian influence that causes such
> sensibilities (one of the biggest advances in morality actually came
> about by not letting the victim take retribution on their own).
>
> -----
>
>   If you look closely at that code, it was a marriage to provide her
> with economic supports.

It was a case of the woman being treated as the property of her father
who because of the rape would have becoming unmarriageable (which is
itself a moral outrage).

> His consequence, not hers.

Except that she had to have sex with him, repeatedly and without
regard for whether she liked it or him.

> He had to ensure a roof over her head, food, clothes, and supports
> for any resulting child.

Without giving her a choice as to whether she would actually have a
child with him.

> It put him under the control of her family.

But not her.

> It had to do with her rights.

Or the dowry her father received.

> She also had the right of divorce if he failed in those duties.

But with no prospect of being remarried.

>   The rule must be taken in the context of the time in which it was
> written. It was highly moral, in a secular perspective, given the
> culture of the time, which was not Jewish, but global.

Our morals are better now than they were then (we no longer treat
women as property as their father or husband).  Instead of the woman
being made to marry her rapist the rapist should have be punished and
there should have been no stigma attached to her.

>   Today, Jewish sense of application involves lifelong garnishment
> of a rapist's wages, especially if a child results.

I'd rather prison for rapists, keep them away from society (and I have
no problem if a women aborts a child a rapist impregnates her with
although I would not be surprised if there are natural defences to
prevent a rapist from actually getting a woman pregnant).

>   bestonnet wrote: It is the most religious who are most prone to
victim blaming so there goes your argument.
>
>   ---
>
>   So religiosity is not about belief in a Divine being, but blind
> adherence without question to any set of codified rules (referring
> back to your identification of Communism as a pseudo-faith).

Well the people who are the most religious tend to blindly adhere
without question.

>   bestonnet wrote: OTOH those who believe there is a god watching
> over us tend to believe that bad things only happen to bad people
> and thus are more inclined to believe that a victim deserved it.
>
>   -----
>
>   I know for certain that Judaism at least recognized that good
> people suffer; there is a whole debate about it carried out in a
> morality tale written a while back, called Job.

Yes there is that (and it is a rather disgusting god who would do such
a thing).

But even so, a lot of people in faith 'healing' churches that aren't
getting better end up blaming themselves for not having enough faith.

>   bestonnet wrote: Both of those 'moralities' have led to some
> pretty brutal theocracies (and it is those theocracies that indicate
> the morality of the religions best, not what modern day secularised
> adherents claim).
>
>   -----
>
>   Once again, suggesting that those who only give lip-service to a
> group's ideals while seeking personal power, are the goal of the
> group.

The problem there though is that it is hard to tell who is paying
lip-service and who actually has those group's ideals (and people
merely paying lip-service can often be detected though some groups are
better at figuring it out than others).

Those who actually believe in what the group is doing usually have the
best success actually convincing the members that they are sincere
(since they aren't acting).

I suspect that most of the truly evil people in the world were sincere
with the people paying lip-service to get power tending to not be as bad.

>   Based on that, I should judge all groups based on their members
> worst offenses, rather than their members greatest gifts to the
> world.
>
>   Shall we start looking at criminals who espoused athiesm and
> secularism? Hmmm....

There weren't really many of them, at least not any who did such
things in the name of atheism and secularism, the closest I could see
would be the French revolution (or at least one of them).

bestonnet wrote: Many of the early figures in the womens' movement were also
atheists
(Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Sanger come to
mind) as were a lot of the early figures in the blacks movement in the US.

   -----

   You are confusing people who separated from organized religion, with people
having a lack of faith in the Divine.

   Margaret Sanger was indeed an athiest. Oh, look, one athiest. Nice. Out of how
many?

   Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a strong advocate of a UNIFIED CHRISTIAN FAITH...
and the conversion of all people to that faith... and I quote her... "Belief is
not voluntary, and change is the natural result of growth and development. We
would fain have all church members sons and daughters of temperance; but if the
Church, in her wisdom, has made her platform so broad that wine-bibbers and
rum-sellers may repose in ease thereon, we who are always preaching liberality
ought to be the last to complain. "
       ---Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Address, First Annual Meeting of the Woman's
State Temperance Society, Rochester, New York, June 1, 1853

   She often criticized the Bible itself as man-written and easily misinterpreted
as male-dominant, and therefore a distortion of Divine will, and the Church as a
corrupted organization. She, however, also has many quotes referring to Divine
will as something she did believe in.

   From "The Women's Bible" -- "The equal position declared in the first account
must prove more satisfactory to both sexes; created alike in the image of God
-The Heavenly Mother and Father.Thus, the Old Testament, "in the beginning,"
proclaims the simultaneous creation of man and woman, the eternity and equality
of sex; and the New Testament echoes back through the centuries the individual
sovereignty of woman growing out of this natural fact. Paul, in speaking of
equality as the very soul and essence of Christianity, said, "There is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female;
for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." With this recognition of the feminine
element in the Godhead in the Old Testament, and this declaration of the
equality of the sexes in the New, we may well wonder at the contemptible status
woman occupies in the Christian Church of to-day."


   Susan B. Anthony was "an agnostic, ... her work is her faith" (quote from
Elizabeth Stanton in regards to Anthony) avoiding organized religion, but not
athiest. To continue the quote, "... has been sustained by an unfaltering faith
in the final perfection of all things... In ancient Greece she would have been a
Stoic; in the era of the Reformation, a Calvinist; in King Charles' time, a
Puritan..."

   http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/stanton/years/years-X.html
   -------

   bestonnet wrote: "(Changing the code is easy) For an individual or small group
of people yes, but over the whole of society?

   -----

   It only takes a few years for a nation to change its form of government.
Revolution is very quick.

   Our society follows much different rules than it did even a couple of decades
ago, in many areas. Consider how confused someone popped into our time from the
70's would be, in regards to our priorities, views on crime, individual rights,
race, sexuality, politics and freedom. They are all minor shifts, but taken as a
whole it is an entirely different society. That is within one generation (less
than 40 years). And this is within people of faith, not just athiestic types.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Religion is the main source of absolutes.

   -----

   Athiesm states "There is no G-d."

   An absolute.

   Athiesm states "Only that which we can directly observe is real; all else is
unreal until and unless we can observe it through our five basic physical
senses."

   An absolute.

   The non-religious codes and statutes of our country state that if a police
officer makes the slightest error in evidence gathering, the criminal goes free,
even with the preponderance of the remainder of the evidence against him/her.

   An absolute. Our secular legal code is just up to its armpits in absolutes
often applied illogically.

   None of these are faith-based concepts.

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: Some secular philosophies can lead to the kind of dogmatism
you see in
religion, communism being a good historical example as would the
ultra-lunatic fringes of the environmental and animal rights movements
(though they are probably not helping their cause) and those I'd be
quite happy to lump in with religions.

   -----

   You state that all dogmatic concepts are equivalent to religion. If all
beliefs regarding ANYTHING are "religious," then your absolute belief in the
lack of Divinity is religious... and therefore you berate yourself. You
dogmatically refuse to accept anything outside your current mindset. You are
therefore quite religious, by your own definition. Yet you condemn it. Perhaps
you need some self-esteem counseling... happiness is only a sea of non-absolutes
away... including a shift to agnostic "maybe/maybe not" lack of certainty, and a
focus on one's own behavior rather than angst over the beliefs of others.

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: I don't think you actually follow a religious 'morality' (a
religious
humanism would probably be the best description, just like the vast majority of
religious people on the planet).

   -----

   Um, I'm not sure what you think "morality" is.... the dictionary definition is

   1. The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.
   2. A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct.
   3. Virtuous conduct.
   4. A rule or lesson in moral conduct.

   or morality - motivation based on ideas of right and wrong

   http://www.thefreedictionary.com/morality

   Are you saying you don't think I make decisions based on a set standard of
concensus ideas of right and wrong?

   Virtuous conduct involves acting "rightly," which within my faith (Judaism) is
to follow a strict code of generosity (tzedakah), study, behavior
(commandments), and prayer.... all of which is wrapped up in the term "mitzvot."

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: There were cases of God directly punishing people (or even
all the Jews) in the Old Testament.

   -----

   Always through natural consequences. If you turn away from sense of community
(observance of the faith) and focus on selfish ends without concerns for others,
the community starts to fall apart, your children have it worse, and you are
open for invasion. Excess, or neglect, leads to physical illness.... pure
science there.

   For example, Saul was overly concerned with his own power and dynasty; it
caused massive stress, headaches, stomach problems, and eventually losing his
charisma and ability to rule. David acted selfishly, and it resulted in a lack
of direction and faith for all but one of his children, and threatened his
dynasty. If you look closely at every consequence, there is a logical
progression as a part of the natural cycle and/or human behavior.

   Science is showing the "how" of many of the Hebrew scriptural miracles. For a
Jew, this merely reinforces the concept of G-d acting through His own Creation
structure to fulfil His will and purpose. It's all in the timing and location...

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Does it also require you to kill people who work on the
Sabbath?

   ----

   Of course not; the death penalty for breaking Sabbath had to do with the lack
of caring for the community that those so punished evidenced... and usually if
you look at the people so punished, they had a bit of a rap sheet for
anti-social behavior. Breaking Sabbath was just part of that rap sheet.

   The Torah calls for the death penalty for the unrepentant and repeat offender
who creates serious harm to the community.

   It is also clear that one works if survival is at stake... if someone must
have that income to ensure the roof over the head, food on the table, etc. The
Sabbath is a gift, not a burden. Jews also eat on fast days if survival is at
stake, etc.  The biggest mistake made by Israel's enemies in the Yom Kippur
attack was the idea that people would just sit around helpless because one does
not work on that day.

   There is a story of a man who worked on the Sabbath, as a tailor mending
Gentile workman's clothes, in an industrial area of a big city, for years,
because Saturday was when these workmen had the time to bring in their mending.
Without that income, his family would lose their home, and be unable to buy
enough food for all the family members. His son grew to work next to him in the
business, until he could do all the tasks of running the business. One Saturday
shortly thereafter, the man handed his son the keys, and told him the greatest
blessing his son could give him was to continue the work of supporting the
family, and in time he too could be "Shomer Shabbos" when his own son could take
on that duty. The man then went, for the first time in years, to observe
Shabbat, to pray, to study, and to rejoice in the gifts of a day of true rest. 
The Jewish faith sees this return as repentance... which does not have to be a
time of grief and guilt, but instead a finding of
  delight in following the rules.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote:  (in regards to natural consequences for actions) Which are
good self-interest reasons that do not require the existence of a god to
justify.

   ----

   Never said a Divine origin was needed to justify them. You were the one who
stated over the course of your posts, that codification of morality (see
dictionary definition) was sourced from religion and faith.. and that you feel
that religion and faith are in totality wrong. You then stated that any mopern
legal code should be outside of all faith, using a consensus view based through
logic. That's what legislatures are supposed to be doing...

   My point is that the codification my faith follows IS based on logic and
natural cause-and-efffect; debate of consensus is encouraged by Judaism, and the
resulting codes are based on observable logical outcomes.

   Therefore your generalized statements throwing out all faiths as
Christian-style all-or-nothing leaders-are-infallible views is wrong.

   Your rejection of all faiths is an absolute; your idea that all people of
faith, and all religions are focused on absolutes, is not based on facts ... you
are thinking in the very pattern of absolutism of which you accuse those you
disagree with.

   Israel appears secular because being "observant" to the lifestyle laws is
often the only outward sign non-Jews see when looking for Jewish faith identity.
Zionism and Israel are actually very faith-based. Our history, ethnic identity,
and so on are our faith.

   Same thing for the Arabs. We both spring from the same stock, and just took a
divergent turn shortly after Abraham's love for both his sons muddied the
waters.

   ------

   bestonnet wrote: But either way, it has been shown that it is the least
religious on
both sides who want peace and it is the less religious who get tired
of endless pointless war the fastest.

   ------

   I beg to differ. I know many Jewish people of deep faith who are anti-war, and
who want peace.

   How do you make peace with people who destroy what you give them and then use
the lack of resources to vilify you?


   ------

   bestonnet wrote: Ultimately the way to get rid of war is to have a world with
only
democracies.

   -----

   Separate groups... different democracies. Even without religion, the different
democracies will have disagreements.

   If you think that the entire world can be united under one democracy, good
luck! People will always find something to argue over.

   ------

   bestonnet wrote: Atheism itself doesn't really have a morality since it is
just a
result (does theism have a morality) but it does allow for a superior
moral system to be used (and accepting reality is a requirement for a
person to be truly moral).

   -----

   What "superior morality" is that?

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: (in regards to attachment disorder and autism) Both are in a
minority and from my understanding do tend to manage pretty well if given the
necessary help.

   -----

   My point was that both groups have to learn intellectually and later on in
life when formal reasoning sets in, because fairness is not something you are
born with... it is learned.

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: The point of it was that religious people don't actually
follow their
religious morality, instead they make up a morality that takes what
they see as the good bits from their holy books and a few other things
without including the bad (so you get don't murder and don't steal but
no kill Sabbath breakers).

   ------

   Religious Jews do follow the code exactly. The code is conditional on degree
of offence, and one must look at all circumstances. The sacrifice of Abraham was
one of ownership... and G-d stopped it before completion because He does NOT
want us to sacrifice human life to serve our own ends, including in the quest
for absolution. The whole story is about the refutation of human sacrifice. It
does not mean that our faith demands human sacrifice... quite the opposite. You
are confusing Christianity, which is actually a European/Mediterranean dying-god
mythos tacked on to a misinterpretation and distortion of Jewish scripture, with
Judaism.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: For most parents teaching ethics in school would be more a
case of the
school helping them with the few that oppose it probably not being very good
parents.

   ----

   Don't confuse the reasoning skills of college level lab students with what is
seen at the childhood level... the kids are absolutely little mirrors of their
parents in regards to their morality and ethics. Read some Piaget.

   And I didn't claim Kibbutzim were successful, just that they had more of what
could be considered success than the secular creches that resulted in stunted
and non-functional graduates (the worst being central Europe). The departure of
the Kibbutz children show just how poorly creche systems work, even at the best
levels.
   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Western Europe seems to be doing all right as do the
non-insane
British colonies.

   ----

   They've got the same problems we do. Just because US news is so uninvolved in
coverage doesn't mean it's not happening.

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: Well there are a lot of adults who decide that something
which society
as a whole thinks wrong is acceptable and so if a person does not
agree with the collective morality then there'd be a need for a
judicial system.

   ------

   You claim not to agree with the collective morality because it is based on
faith. Does that make you a criminal?

   ------


   To quickly address the rest of your post (dinnertime!) ... you waffle between
adherence to consensus rule, individual choice, breaking laws being ok, people
having the judgement to make effective moral choices, and people being stuck at
selfish developmental stages that means that some higher authority would need to
make determinations of behavior (judicial system).

   So, who do you define as mature enough to make choices for everyone else, and
how would you convince the others of the rights of those individuals to make the
choices for everyone else?

   Hannah



---------------------------------
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

bestonnet wrote: Are they?

I'm sure they are saying it and probably justifying what they are
doing based on faith but could it actually be a more secular empathy?


   ------

   Imposing your own sense of source for ethical behavior, and refusing to accept
the idea that someone of faith can act morally and altrusitically based on that
faith, makes you no less rigid than those ultra-conservative religious types you
accuse of operating from closed-minded absolutism.

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: 1. Are we going to demand that no one do anything fun because
it might
be risky? If so then there goes all exploration and we'll stay on
this planet until the next asteroid comes along (I have no problem
with requiring people not to cause undue risk to others but I am not
at all convinced we should have no risk as a requirement for everyone).
2. No one has the right to have their business succeed (though I do
think there needs to be a welfare system) and that's really none of
your business anyway where I send my money if I'm not causing you
problems.
3. The cost of cleaning up the environmental effects should be
included in the cost of the product although I do think we need to
recognise that environmentalism is a rich persons activity.

   ------

   Where'd you get all this from my stating that all choices have imacts on
others, no matter how small those choices are. I didn't state that people should
stop making choices, or that all choices would be bad.

   ------

   bestonnet wrote: The consensus morality that defines our laws should be based
on
reality and not nonsense, if the earlier example of thinking that
drunk driving is safer were to gain hold in society and a law were
passed requiring people to be drunk when operating a car, what do you
think would happen (in fact morality based on nonsense is most scary
when it becomes consensus morality)?

   -----

   Once again, tied to your earlier statements regarding religion, faith-based
morality can indeed be based on reality... you are generalizing Christianity and
similar "don't think...follow" faiths to all religions, when there are several
that focus on logic, reason, and self-responsibility.

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: In some cases that actually can be a valid argument
(especially when
it is the majority of people who are breaking them).

   -----
   Really... such as what laws?

   -------

   bestonnet wrote: That is why we have rights for those accused of a crime, if
we had an
infallible legal system and the police never arrested someone who
wasn't guilty then we could just have them shoot the criminal on the spot.

   -----

   I didn't say that all our laws were wrong, only that there are extremes of
absolutisms that don't follow logic... in the secular system.

   And just shooting them on the spot... so, deep down, you do believe that
killing offenders is the way to go?

   ------

   bestonnet wrote: Except that she had to have sex with him, repeatedly and
without
regard for whether she liked it or him.

   -----

   Go read the rules again ... she had the right of refusal, and of divorce.

   -----

   bestonnet wrote: But with no prospect of being remarried.

   -----


   Her dowry was her property, not her father's.


   As to the rest of your points, they are cultural issues, not faith. At the
time, ALL cultures viewed women as property. You are holding up an ancient code
to modern lenses of judgment. The Talmud, and modern Jewish observance and
writing, are all about interpreting the spirit of the laws in the Torah in the
light of current culture.  Once again, consensus through logical debate.

   Modern Jewish women given a Get do have a right to being remarried, and it is
determined without corruption of Torah rules.

   ----

   bestonnet wrote: Well the people who are the most religious tend to blindly
adhere
without question.

   -----

   Blind adherence is not a measure of real faith. Most people clinging to a code
at that level have minimal connection to Divinity.

   -----

   Hannah



---------------------------------
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, Hannah Miriam
<baruch_emmet@...> wrote:
>
>   bestonnet wrote: "(Changing the code is easy) For an individual or
> small group of people yes, but over the whole of society?
>
>   -----
>
>   It only takes a few years for a nation to change its form of
> government. Revolution is very quick.

Yes, but whether the whole society changes is another matter.

>   Our society follows much different rules than it did even a couple
> of decades ago, in many areas. Consider how confused someone popped
> into our time from the 70's would be, in regards to our priorities,
> views on crime, individual rights, race, sexuality, politics and
> freedom. They are all minor shifts, but taken as a whole it is an
> entirely different society. That is within one generation (less than
> 40 years).

Yes, but the changes should have happened faster.

> And this is within people of faith, not just athiestic types.

Though most people of faith follow the same morality as atheists anyway.

>   bestonnet wrote: Religion is the main source of absolutes.
>
>   -----
>
>   Athiesm states "There is no G-d."
>
>   An absolute.

That's not how most atheists would define it.

>   Athiesm states "Only that which we can directly observe is real;
> all else is unreal until and unless we can observe it through our
> five basic physical senses."

I probably wouldn't put it that way but it is how you are meant to
make decisions.

>   An absolute.

Only if the religious can't provide some evidence for the existence of
god.

If you've got some good evidence that there's a god you could get
pretty much every atheist on the planet to change their minds, it's
just that we've never seen any good reason to think that there is a
god out there (of any form).

>   bestonnet wrote: Some secular philosophies can lead to the kind of
> dogmatism you see in religion, communism being a good historical
> example as would the ultra-lunatic fringes of the environmental and
> animal rights movements (though they are probably not helping their
> cause) and those I'd be quite happy to lump in with religions.
>
>   -----
>
>   You state that all dogmatic concepts are equivalent to religion.

Close enough.

> If all beliefs regarding ANYTHING are "religious," then your
> absolute belief in the lack of Divinity is religious... and
> therefore you berate yourself.

No, to be quasireligious they have to be dogmatic which communism and
the various lunatic fringes are and that means not open to change.

http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/theistguide.html is a pretty good
guide as to what it would take to get most atheists (or at least those
who use the term) to become theists, you'll see it's quite possible if
evidence can be provided.

> You dogmatically refuse to accept anything outside your current
> mindset. You are therefore quite religious, by your own definition.
> Yet you condemn it.

I need evidence to believe in something and so far no one has come up
with any good reason to believe there is a god despite a lot of very
smart people trying for thousands of years.

> including a shift to agnostic "maybe/maybe not" lack of certainty,
> and a focus on one's own behavior rather than angst over the beliefs
> of others.

I am an agnostic as I don't know if a god exists but to be rational
one has to assume atheism if one is an agnostic.

>   bestonnet wrote: I don't think you actually follow a religious
> 'morality' (a religious humanism would probably be the best
> description, just like the vast majority of religious people on the
> planet).
>
>   -----
>   Are you saying you don't think I make decisions based on a set
> standard of concensus ideas of right and wrong?

No, I think you are a moral person, I just don't think that your
morals come from your religion.

>   Virtuous conduct involves acting "rightly," which within my faith
> (Judaism) is to follow a strict code of generosity (tzedakah),
> study, behavior (commandments), and prayer.... all of which is
> wrapped up in the term "mitzvot."

Yet you interpret away the bits that you don't like so that you don't
have to follow them.

Have a read of http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/root.html

>   bestonnet wrote: There were cases of God directly punishing people
> (or even all the Jews) in the Old Testament.
>
>   -----
>
>   Always through natural consequences. If you turn away from sense
> of community (observance of the faith) and focus on selfish ends
> without concerns for others, the community starts to fall apart,
> your children have it worse, and you are open for invasion. Excess,
> or neglect, leads to physical illness.... pure science there.

Which can be explained without a god.

>   Science is showing the "how" of many of the Hebrew scriptural
> miracles. For a Jew, this merely reinforces the concept of G-d
> acting through His own Creation structure to fulfil His will and
> purpose. It's all in the timing and location...

It's also showing that much of the old testament is fiction.

>   bestonnet wrote: Does it also require you to kill people who work
> on the Sabbath?
>
>   ----
>
>   Of course not; the death penalty for breaking Sabbath had to do
> with the lack of caring for the community that those so punished
> evidenced... and usually if you look at the people so punished, they
> had a bit of a rap sheet for anti-social behavior. Breaking Sabbath
> was just part of that rap sheet.
>
>   The Torah calls for the death penalty for the unrepentant and
> repeat offender who creates serious harm to the community.

So you put morality before your holy book?

>   It is also clear that one works if survival is at stake... if
> someone must have that income to ensure the roof over the head, food
> on the table, etc.

Yes, most people will quite happily ignore their religion if it
interferes with something else.

> The Sabbath is a gift, not a burden. Jews also eat on fast days if
> survival is at stake, etc.  The biggest mistake made by Israel's
> enemies in the Yom Kippur attack was the idea that people would just
> sit around helpless because one does not work on that day.

I thought the biggest mistake they made was attacking Israel directly
(even if they were counting on Soviet intervention).

>   bestonnet wrote:  (in regards to natural consequences for actions)
> Which are good self-interest reasons that do not require the
> existence of a god to justify.
>
>   ----
>
>   Never said a Divine origin was needed to justify them.

A Divine origin can't justify them so that's not a problem.

The problem is that a lot of people do say that a divine origin is needed.

> You were the one who stated over the course of your posts, that
> codification of morality (see dictionary definition) was sourced
> from religion and faith..

I don't think any morality actually comes from religion, just that a
lot of people claim it does.

> and that you feel that religion and faith are in totality wrong.

I haven't seen any evidence that they aren't wrong.

> You then stated that any mopern legal code should be outside of all
> faith, using a consensus view based through logic. That's what
> legislatures are supposed to be doing...

Well if you have to justify something on faith then it probably isn't
a good idea.

Modern legislatures are doing a pretty good job compared with what we
used to have (and if we as a society don't like them we can vote new
idiots in next election).

>   My point is that the codification my faith follows IS based on
> logic and natural cause-and-efffect; debate of consensus is
> encouraged by Judaism, and the resulting codes are based on
> observable logical outcomes.

Much of it is based on what works otherwise natural selection would
have done it in but there are still things in it that don't make any
sense (and which most believers just interpret away).

>   Your rejection of all faiths is an absolute; your idea that all
> people of faith, and all religions are focused on absolutes, is not
> based on facts ... you are thinking in the very pattern of
> absolutism of which you accuse those you disagree with.

Religions are absolutes, even if they allow debate they still take
such things as the existence of a god for granted.

>   Israel appears secular because being "observant" to the lifestyle
> laws is often the only outward sign non-Jews see when looking for
> Jewish faith identity. Zionism and Israel are actually very
> faith-based. Our history, ethnic identity, and so on are our faith.

The atheist Jews I've known might disagree.

Very few people who claim adherence to most religion, especially in
well off countries seem to actually follow the religion (church
attendance and theological knowledge tends to be very low).

>   bestonnet wrote: But either way, it has been shown that it is the
> least religious on both sides who want peace and it is the less
> religious who get tired of endless pointless war the fastest.
>
>   ------
>
>   I beg to differ. I know many Jewish people of deep faith who are
> anti-war, and who want peace.

This is a statistical thing so there will be exceptions.

Admittedly the study I've heard about was testing for Right-Wing
Authoritarianism which typically does correlate with religion (and did
in the Israeli study).

>   How do you make peace with people who destroy what you give them
> and then use the lack of resources to vilify you?

Some of them are like that, others just want to not destroy what they
are given.

>   bestonnet wrote: Ultimately the way to get rid of war is to have a
> world with only democracies.
>
>   -----
>
>   Separate groups... different democracies. Even without religion,
> the different democracies will have disagreements.

Democracies tend to be able to resolve their disagreements peacefully.

Read up on the Democratic peace theorem,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory which seems to be
pretty well established.

>   If you think that the entire world can be united under one
> democracy, good luck! People will always find something to argue
> over.

It might end up happening (Europe is moving that way already) but even
if it doesn't a world with only democracies would still be a pretty
peaceful (although I'd prefer to have independent countries in space
before world federalism happens, I don't want a stagnant society).

>   bestonnet wrote: Atheism itself doesn't really have a morality
> since it is just a result (does theism have a morality) but it does
> allow for a superior moral system to be used (and accepting reality
> is a requirement for a person to be truly moral).
>
>   -----
>
>   What "superior morality" is that?

I'm thinking secular humanism would do.

>   bestonnet wrote: The point of it was that religious people don't
> actually follow their religious morality, instead they make up a
> morality that takes what they see as the good bits from their holy
> books and a few other things without including the bad (so you get
> don't murder and don't steal but no kill Sabbath breakers).
>
>   ------
>
>   Religious Jews do follow the code exactly. The code is conditional
> on degree of offence, and one must look at all circumstances.

Which makes it sound like you can make things up as you go along to
ensure it doesn't contradict a secular morality.

> The sacrifice of Abraham was one of ownership... and G-d stopped it
> before completion because He does NOT want us to sacrifice human
> life to serve our own ends, including in the quest for absolution.

Maybe so but the fact that Abraham was not chided for being willing to
go through with it does not send a good message.

> The whole story is about the refutation of human sacrifice. It does
> not mean that our faith demands human sacrifice... quite the
> opposite.

It does mean that a person should be willing to perform human sacrifice.

> You are confusing Christianity, which is actually a
> European/Mediterranean dying-god mythos tacked on to a
> misinterpretation and distortion of Jewish scripture, with Judaism.

I won't argue with you about what Christianity is (I suspect it's
pretty much the truth) but I don't see as much difference between the
two).

>   bestonnet wrote: Western Europe seems to be doing all right as do
> the non-insane British colonies.
>
>   ----
>
>   They've got the same problems we do. Just because US news is so
> uninvolved in coverage doesn't mean it's not happening.

Yes, but the problems are not as bad as they are in the states.

>   bestonnet wrote: Well there are a lot of adults who decide that
> something which society as a whole thinks wrong is acceptable and so
> if a person does not agree with the collective morality then there'd
> be a need for a judicial system.
>
>   ------
>
>   You claim not to agree with the collective morality because it is
> based on faith. Does that make you a criminal?

Actually I don't think the collective morality is based on faith, even
if people claim it is.

>   To quickly address the rest of your post (dinnertime!) ... you
> waffle between adherence to consensus rule, individual choice,
> breaking laws being ok, people having the judgement to make
> effective moral choices, and people being stuck at selfish
> developmental stages that means that some higher authority would
> need to make determinations of behavior (judicial system).

Yes, morality is a very complicated topic (which we seem to be somehow
muddle through and still manage to get right enough).

>   So, who do you define as mature enough to make choices for
> everyone else, and how would you convince the others of the rights
> of those individuals to make the choices for everyone else?

I would let the everyone else decide who is mature enough to make
choices for them.

--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, Hannah Miriam
<baruch_emmet@...> wrote:
>
>   bestonnet wrote: 1. Are we going to demand that no one do anything
> fun because it might be risky? If so then there goes all exploration
> and we'll stay on this planet until the next asteroid comes along (I
> have no problem with requiring people not to cause undue risk to
> others but I am not at all convinced we should have no risk as a
> requirement for everyone).
> 2. No one has the right to have their business succeed (though I do
> think there needs to be a welfare system) and that's really none of
> your business anyway where I send my money if I'm not causing you
> problems.
> 3. The cost of cleaning up the environmental effects should be
> included in the cost of the product although I do think we need to
> recognise that environmentalism is a rich persons activity.
>
>   ------
>
>   Where'd you get all this from my stating that all choices have
> imacts on others, no matter how small those choices are. I didn't
> state that people should stop making choices, or that all choices
> would be bad.

It does eventually follow from it (although it'd be a slippery slope
argument).

>   bestonnet wrote: The consensus morality that defines our laws
> should be based on reality and not nonsense, if the earlier example
> of thinking that drunk driving is safer were to gain hold in society
> and a law were passed requiring people to be drunk when operating a
> car, what do you think would happen (in fact morality based on
> nonsense is most scary when it becomes consensus morality)?
>
>   -----
>
>   Once again, tied to your earlier statements regarding religion,
> faith-based morality can indeed be based on reality...

But then it is no longer faith based.

>   bestonnet wrote: In some cases that actually can be a valid
> argument (especially when it is the majority of people who are
> breaking them).
>
>   -----
>   Really... such as what laws?

Usually local ordinances passed by councils that don't know what
they're doing.

>   bestonnet wrote: That is why we have rights for those accused of a
> crime, if we had an infallible legal system and the police never
> arrested someone who wasn't guilty then we could just have them
> shoot the criminal on the spot.
>
>   -----
>
>   I didn't say that all our laws were wrong, only that there are
> extremes of absolutisms that don't follow logic... in the secular
> system.
>
>   And just shooting them on the spot... so, deep down, you do
> believe that killing offenders is the way to go?

Killing an offender who you have certainty did the crime and you know
will repeat it if they get out would be very effective (and if a
person commits a serious crime they really do give up any right to
live they may have had).

The reasons that I oppose the death penalty are not the stupid ones
most people who oppose it use.

>   bestonnet wrote: But with no prospect of being remarried.
>
>   -----
>
>   Her dowry was her property, not her father's.

But she was her father's.

>   As to the rest of your points, they are cultural issues, not
> faith. At the time, ALL cultures viewed women as property. You are
> holding up an ancient code to modern lenses of judgment.

Then why keep it around if it doesn't hold up any more?

> The Talmud, and modern Jewish observance and writing, are all about
> interpreting the spirit of the laws in the Torah in the light of
> current culture.  Once again, consensus through logical debate.

You do manage to reinterpret everything to have some semblance of
modernity but why not just get rid of the obsolete stuff?

Or at least rewrite the book.

>   bestonnet wrote: Well the people who are the most religious tend
> to blindly adhere without question.
>
>   -----
>
>   Blind adherence is not a measure of real faith.

What is real faith?  Are we even using the same definition of faith?

> Most people clinging to a code at that level have minimal connection
> to Divinity.

You probably won't be surprised to find that I don't think anyone has
any connection, minimal or otherwise to divinity.

bestonnet --

   All the divergent tangents of our conversation regarding morality, Torah law,
etc. could now be summarized into a few basic statements. What I see you saying
is that:

   1. You are agnostic, leaning toward athiesm because you have yet to directly
and personally perceive any Divine presence, and are judging all current
guidebooks toward that perception (religions) based on the great visibility of
those who fail to achieve what those guidebooks ask of them, compared to the
"behind the scenes" actions of those so secure in their faith and in their
choices that they do not need recognition for their faith-based non-selfish
moral actions.

   You seek visible and loud role models, when people acting truly from their
faith in the very things you demand to see, do not need your attention, nor see
putting on a big show for your benefit as serving the quiet purpose of "behind
the scenes" ethics.

   Hence, your doubt regarding the person I cited as acting without expectation
of return from those that person is helping, or for recognition, and acting in
this way because of that person's faith.

   2. Your judgement of religions is based on your Christian background, which
creates a paradigm for you in which all writings you read are from a Christian
perspective; you are disillusioned with Christianity, and therefore see all
faiths as failures.

   3. You feel that morality is innate to human nature, and negative and selfish
behaviors are learned. (Wow, you need to be around kids more.)

   To respond:

   First of all, do know...
   The majority of Jewish people go through an athiestic "phase" in their
spiritual development: it is indeed difficult to reconcile the suffering in the
world with the presence of a Divine creator. It takes a shift in awareness of
self from being a physical form to being a spiritual form with the physical as a
vehicle for experience and growth, as well as directly recognizing
spiritural/maturity/wisdom growth of value, from times of the difficulty and
physical-world suffering that initially brought about the questioning to begin
with, before a return takes place. In the Jewish faith, repentance is actually
called "returning" (Teshuvah), in which one is restored to a sense of direct
connection, and moral purpose. It is not about guilt or shame... but about
release from that stress experienced by a sense of having done wrong.  It is a
change in one's perception of the purpose for life.

   Yes, I too went through an agnostic/athiestic period, in my early 20's (when
it usually happens for Jews). Personal experience, and finally maturing enough
to see the patterns spoken of in the lessons I learned as a child, brought me to
Teshuvah.  My husband, an ex-Catholic and for quite a while, agnostic, converted
to Judaism several years ago, and is growing in his sense of connectivity.

   Those Jews who turn entirely away and never return tend to have had poor
instruction as children, living in families focusing entirely on ritual and
surface law observance, without the philosophy or spirituality component, and
often from homes in which this was reflected in poor parenting and emotional
neglect. Surprise. Jews are human too, and imperfect. There is a constant
warning about this in Jewish writing, starting within scripture refering to
surface adherence for social posturing being seen as a sin, through the present.

   The Torah laws are explicated for context, intent, and circumstance, in the
Talmud, 60 books of commentary, moral tales, and debate. The foundational coding
in the Talmud is considered the Oral Law, and was only written at the time of
the Babylonian exile when there was deep concern that the pathway of oral
transmission would be too deeply disrupted. That foundational core of Oral Law
is as old as the Torah itself. You speak as if only familiar with the books
Christians refer to as "the old testament."

   I do not suggest that you become Jewish, or study Talmud. I only suggest that
you cease trying to interpret Judaism, or any other faith for that matter, from
a Christian absolutist perspective, or make judgment calls regarding ANY faith
other than the one in which you are truly familiar. Partial or slight knowledge,
taken from an outside context, is worse and more damaging than no knowledge at
all.

   Torah is Law, is History, is morality-tale stories, and is as paradoxical as
life itself. It is not for everyone; however, there are many paths to Divine
connection. This is why, in "real life," Jews content in their faith just smile
and shrug when confronted by non-Jewish people about their faith.

   I'm messing around online here to build my ability in guiding my children in
the arguments and challenges from non-Jews they face in a community in which we
are the only Jewish family. They already practice silence with non-Jews in these
matters, but there are many evangelicals in our area who enthusiastically want
to save poor little us, as well as other children who echo what their parents
have taught them, including things like asking us where our horns and tails are,
or directly telling us we're going to Hell. Having decent responses, as well as
a very certain sense of faith, can stop the prostlystizing... silence with some
Christian types tends to cause increased pestering. Otherwise, my response, too,
would be a shrug and smile to those like you, and like the extremely Christian
people on this site, who demand the paradox be resolved by someone other than
themselves, in order to convince them. Such external locus of control for such
proofs is rather useless, as this
  is an internal locus matter.

   I speak of these things not to try to turn you to Judaism, but to respond to
the questions asked by you from the beginning of this thread of discussion.
Therefore, I speak from the perspective of my faith.

   If I were more "up" on Bhuddist, or other non-Christian faiths' paths that
tend to bring about such centered and comfortable connection to the Divine, I'd
be quoting their writings and concepts in the same way.

   Proof of Divine presence is an internal, not an external, experience.

   My whole "bone of contention" involves the tendency for those who are not
well-educated about Jewish spirituality, or other non-Christian faiths'
spirituality, equating Judaism (or some other faith) with Christianity, and/or
Islam. Islam is actually closer to Christianity than any of the others.

   Hannah


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--- In deathtoreligion@yahoogroups.com, Hannah Miriam
<baruch_emmet@...> wrote:
>
> bestonnet --
>
>   All the divergent tangents of our conversation regarding morality,
> Torah law, etc. could now be summarized into a few basic statements.
> What I see you saying is that:
>
>   1. You are agnostic, leaning toward athiesm because you have yet
> to directly and personally perceive any Divine presence,

I'm an atheist who happens to also be agnostic.

As for direct experience of divine presence, what could I conclude
from it?  How would I know I'm not just hallucinating?  Why should a
warm fuzzy feeling count as proof?

Most importantly, why is there so much diversity among religions?

> and are judging all current guidebooks toward that perception
> (religions) based on the great visibility of those who fail to
> achieve what those guidebooks ask of them,

I'm glad that the vast majority of religious people don't do what
their guidebooks ask of them.

>   You seek visible and loud role models, when people acting truly
> from their faith in the very things you demand to see, do not need
> your attention, nor see putting on a big show for your benefit as
> serving the quiet purpose of "behind the scenes" ethics.

Because it doesn't look to me like it is faith that motivates them but
human compassion.

>   2. Your judgement of religions is based on your Christian
> background, which creates a paradigm for you in which all writings
> you read are from a Christian perspective; you are disillusioned
> with Christianity, and therefore see all faiths as failures.

I wasn't really raised in a Christian background (there was some
Christian RE in school and this is a majority Christian country
according to the official statistics but most of the Christians here
are probably nominal Christians without any real faith or theological
knowledge who never attend church) and almost never went into a church
in my childhood (nor did my parents try to force any religion on me,
at least that I remember).

>   3. You feel that morality is innate to human nature, and negative
> and selfish behaviors are learned. (Wow, you need to be around kids
> more.)

Not completely.  There is a biological basis for our morality but
nurture still has a role to play for both good and bad.

>   To respond:
>
>   First of all, do know...
>   The majority of Jewish people go through an athiestic "phase" in
> their spiritual development: it is indeed difficult to reconcile the
> suffering in the world with the presence of a Divine creator.

Not really, just assume the divinity is evil or incompetent, it's only
when you want a good, competent god that you have trouble with that.

> It takes a shift in awareness of self from being a physical form to
> being a spiritual form with the physical as a vehicle for experience
> and growth, as well as directly recognizing
> spiritural/maturity/wisdom growth of value, from times of the
> difficulty and physical-world suffering that initially brought about
> the questioning to begin with, before a return takes place.

What evidence is there for a spiritual form?  Sounds to me more like
an excuse for continuing to believe in god.

>   Those Jews who turn entirely away and never return tend to have
> had poor instruction as children, living in families focusing
> entirely on ritual and surface law observance, without the
> philosophy or spirituality component, and often from homes in which
> this was reflected in poor parenting and emotional neglect.

By whose standards?

>   Torah is Law, is History, is morality-tale stories, and is as
> paradoxical as life itself. It is not for everyone; however, there
> are many paths to Divine connection. This is why, in "real life,"
> Jews content in their faith just smile and shrug when confronted by
> non-Jewish people about their faith.

More likely it's because Jews have been consistently persecuted to the
point at which survival, not evangelism became the overriding value.

>   I'm messing around online here to build my ability in guiding my
> children in the arguments and challenges from non-Jews they face in
> a community in which we are the only Jewish family. They already
> practice silence with non-Jews in these matters, but there are many
> evangelicals in our area who enthusiastically want to save poor
> little us, as well as other children who echo what their parents
> have taught them, including things like asking us where our horns
> and tails are, or directly telling us we're going to Hell.

My understanding is that Jews have good reasons for believing that
Jesus wasn't the Jewish messiah.

>   If I were more "up" on Bhuddist, or other non-Christian faiths'
> paths that tend to bring about such centered and comfortable
> connection to the Divine, I'd be quoting their writings and concepts
> in the same way.

But they all contradict each other.

>   Proof of Divine presence is an internal, not an external,
> experience.

How can you tell it isn't just a hallucination?

Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc all have the same evidence
yet all of them contradict each other to the point at which only one
(or possibly none) could be right.

>   My whole "bone of contention" involves the tendency for those who
> are not well-educated about Jewish spirituality, or other
> non-Christian faiths' spirituality, equating Judaism (or some other
> faith) with Christianity, and/or Islam. Islam is actually closer to
> Christianity than any of the others.

Christianity and Islam are descended from Judaism.

bestonnet:

   Christianity and Islam both are demonstrations of what happens when people
take half-heard stories only slightly understood, and tack them on to
pre-existing religious structures... they are both far from Judaism in regards
to locus of control, and in viewing the Divine as completely outside of the
physical.

   You say that all three faiths use the same evidence for the existence of the
Divine... yet you consider that sharing of basic evidence (communication from
those especially sensitive to the Presence of the Divine, the complexity of
existence, the shared ability of most people with effort and determination to
open themselves to a sense of some sort of Divine Presence) to be false.

   You note the idea of such a sense being "a warm fuzzy feeling." Although in my
experience it is so much more, if that is what you've felt in faith-inducing
environments and activities, then that's what we've got to work with. A warm,
fuzzy feeling. An emotional internal experience, just as all emotional
experiences are. So, you must therefore feel that all internal emotional
experiences must be false hallucinations. Warm fuzzies when reaching out to a
Divine Presence, warm fuzzies when reaching out to a family member, warm fuzzies
when petting a puppy... none can then be accepted as real.

   How about your own thoughts? You can share your thoughts through words after
the fact, but you cannot induce telepathic syncopatic experience in someone
else. We're supposed to take your word that your thoughts are what your words
communicate... if indeed we truly share approximately similar comprehension of
what the words mean. Another hallucination.

   You must not take the word of anyone for their emotional state, that anyone
even has an emotional state or a thought process, or that your own conscious
state or sensory experience of your environment is anything other than an
illusion.

   Interesting that you limit what hallucinations you've experienced, that you
are willing to accept as part of your reality.

   Because you are so focused on the physical realm, and see energy as a tool to
serve matter, rather than the reverse, you will not be able to reconcile the
duality of all things, including joy/pain, day/night, etc.

   "An innocent person cannot be righteous, and a righteous person cannot be
innocent."
   --"King of Flesh and Blood," Moshe Shamir

   Innocence -- the lack of life experience (especially the difficult things), is
a state of stagnation. Only through challenges can we grow into mature
individuals. Challenges that tend to not be fun while we are going through them.

   As far as your idea that people are born even a little bit caring, once again,
you show your lack of experience in dealing with infants and children. People
are born selfish, and must be guided to learn caring... a process started from
earliest infancy. Removing religion from the equation will increase the number
of people acting selfishly throughout their lives, not decrease it.

   Hannah




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