From your comments it appears you continue to believe that our 'built-in' primitive kin-based and reciprocity-based altruism which is likely genetic is somehow an ideal. This runs counter to the vast majority of scientific thought as noted in the quote above. If you want to make this case you need to present a stronger argument then "There is plenty (of unspecified) reasons to think that it is functional" or the entirely unsupported "only religions people need moral guidance".
I thinks it's pretty clear that I don't think it's an ideal, just that it works better generally than for some of those who need religion for moral guidance. And I have countered that the moral system provided by religion is decisively superior to the ‘built-in' primitive kin-based and reciprocity-based system. Furthermore I have supported my claim with data specifically: 1) The data that those who reject religion appear to suffer from reduced health, happiness and fertility as outlined in the opening post. And 2) The research supporting the claim that religion is a critical and perhaps primary mechanism for overcoming our species-specific upper limit to group size which is set by purely cognitive constraints. You have countered that you do not find the data convincing based on your personal research and observations. Every day I experience interactions with people with whom I do not share an in-group relationship, and yet I don't judge them as unreliable and those people don't judge me unreliable.
You have also countered with the theory that religion may override our 'built-in' moral system at the local social group level resulting in inferior outcomes as the 'built-in' system is presumably optimized for such situations. Both of your claims are logical but unpersuasive. You have provided no empiric data to support your theory that religion leads to inferior outcomes at the local level. The the data I provided on health and happiness appears to refute this claim. Furthermore I have no way to measure or evaluate your unpublished personal research. Have we drilled down to the core of our differences? |
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Ugh! In order to behave well, theists need to believe they will be punished? This again relates to our initial point of discussion, that some people primed for religion are those that need guidance -- and the threat of violence -- in order to act altruistically.
The study authors comments on the matter. Even though the trend found in the new study was significant, Shariff cautioned, the results are preliminary. Specifically, the research focused on academic cheating, which is only one type of moral behavior. It is unclear whether the pattern of results will generalize to encouraging positive behaviors, such as generosity. Researchers should examine other impacts of how views of God may influence other types of both negative and positive moral behaviors. In a way the findings make a certain amount of sense. If a a moral code is the functional equivalent of (Do not do bad things but if you do... "come here for your big group hug"...its is all good no worries) it may lack some function as an adequate deterrent against immoral and unhealthy behavior. The SCIENCE paper above is a good one and presents both the strengths and the limitations in the data. You cited one example of these limitations above but there are others also you will find later on. The totality of the review, however, supports my thesis. From large village settlements at the dawn of agriculture to modern metropolises today, human beings are capable of living in extraordinarily large cooperative groups. However, extrapolating from cross-species comparisons of neocortex size, it has been estimated that human group sizes cannot exceed 150 individuals before groups divide or collapse (37). Although this specific number has been disputed (38), and whereas some Pleistocene foragers possibly lived in large villages, it is apparent that the size of human settlements since the end of the Pleistocene far exceed the limitations that kin-based and reciprocity-based altruism place on group size.
Cultural evolution, driven by between-group competition for resources and habitats, has favored large groups. However, large groups, which until recently lacked institutionalized social monitoring mechanisms, are vulnerable to collapse because of high rates of freeloading (13). If unwavering and pervasive belief in moralizing gods buffered against such freeloading, then belief in such gods should be more likely in larger human groups where the threat of freeloading is most acute. From your comments it appears you continue to believe that our 'built-in' primitive kin-based and reciprocity-based altruism which is likely genetic is somehow an ideal. This runs counter to the vast majority of scientific thought as noted in the quote above. If you want to make this case you need to present a stronger argument then "There is plenty (of unspecified) reasons to think that it is functional" or the entirely unsupported "only religions people need moral guidance". |
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Our native built-in moral code may be helpful for daily decisions within local social groups but there is little reason to think it functional when dealing with those outside our local social groups.
Your error is your continued insistence to lay the limitations of humanity on the doorstep of religion when in actual fact religion is a critical and perhaps primary mechanism for overcoming these limitations.
There is plenty of reason to think that it is functional outside of small groups. Every day I experience interactions with people with whom I do not share an in-group relationship, and yet I don't judge them as unreliable and those people don't judge me unreliable. Religion does not help overcome these problems when they involve out groups. Religions are, by their nature, inward facing. This is a deep topic and requires us to compare the prosociality of the religious versus that the non-religious. There was a nice review article in SCIENCE on this by Ara Norezayna and Azim Shariff titled The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality. I have linked to the PDF below. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52d7f47fe4b0c692d7426966/t/531e37c0e4b089910ebb95f3/1394489280903/the-origin-and-evolution-of-religious-prosociality.pdf Experimentally induced religious thoughts reduce rates of cheating and increase altruistic behavior among anonymous strangers. Experiments demonstrate an association between apparent profession of religious devotion and greater trust. Cross-cultural evidence suggests an association between the cultural presence of morally concerned deities and large group size in humans |
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Atheism as opposed to agnosticism is a statement of certainty. True belief in an unproven assertion is an act of faith. I will leave it to the reader to decide if this specific act of faith constitutes a religion.
... You can be an Agnostic Atheist or a Gnostic Atheist ... How about you define your religion, and let Atheist define our non-religion in a way that makes sense to those of us who aren't delusional? Thanks Moloch you are of course correct that my quoted statement above on certainty would only apply to Gnostic Atheist or "Strong Atheism" Perhaps we should define some terms. Let's look at wikipedia and the atheism wiki. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheismAgnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity and agnostic because they claim that the existence of a deity is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact. http://atheism.wikia.com/wiki/Atheist_vs_AgnosticSome atheists actively believe that no god exists while others hold that neither claim is sufficiently supported to justify acceptance. These positions are often labeled strong atheism and weak atheism, respectively. Additionally, some individuals confuse the weak atheism position with agnosticism. There isn't much difference between weak atheists and agnostics. Agnostics are more likely to feel positive about the possibility that God or a higher power might exist. Weak atheists are more likely to believe that God is improbable and weak atheists focus on living life as if there certainly were no God. Weak atheists are likely to argue that if god/gods exist we can't know what they want from us so we might as well live our lives taking only this world into account. It's is not my intent to belittle or insult atheists. Indeed for the last 18+ years from my youth when I rejected theism until very recently (about a month ago) I myself would have fallen into the category of agnostic atheists or weak atheism. I recognized the need for a replacement moral code and had adopted Utilitarianism which sounds great in theory but I can tell you from experience its not very functional. My own view is that atheist are by and large highly articulate, responsible and intelligent people who have followed logic into a blind alley. I believe I have demonstrated that logic can also take a different path. Theism does not require the abandonment of logic and reason. Intellect does not demand you wall yourself off from faith. The choice of belief is not of intellect but of character. |
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The coming Knowledge Age will likely also be an age of righteousness. I think you wrote before in the Economic Devastation thread about how society is a balance between preventing people from doing actions that opt-out and harm the collective well-being balanced against the society becoming too totalitarian and imploding.
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What high IQ people miss is apparently that God doesn't have to be a factual truth in order for religion to be an optimum strategy for society. Thus they aren't as high IQ as they think they are, haha.
In Justification for New World Order: Part 1, 2, 3, 4 I argued the following. In human interactions we often face a choice between cooperation (reaching a mutually beneficial exchange) and defection (advancement of ourselves to the detriment of our fellow man).
Collectivism exists because it limits defection especially those forms of defection linked to physical violence. Collectivism is expensive and inefficient. However, the inefficiencies associated with collectivism are less (at least historically) than the inefficiencies that come from the violence and defections that occur in an environment of unrestrained individualism.
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There is no such thing as complete freedom except for the state of nature as described by Hobbs. In every other scenario the best we can achieve is a partial freedom. We agree to some limitations of our freedoms to maximize our ability to prosper and cooperate while minimizing individual freedom to coerce, and defect.
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The evolution of the social contract appears to be a progressive climb to higher potential energy systems with increased degrees of freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. I suspect that in the future republics will be consumed by world government, world government will evolve into decentralized government, and decentralized government will finally mature into a shared consensus among individuals with limited or no government.
Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increases the number of individuals able to engage in cooperative activity while lowering the number of individuals able to defect. To borrow from the links in the opening post each iteration increases the amount of entropy the system can sustainably support.
Charlton argues that religion is the proximate method of Group Selection in humans specifically he argues that religion enhances social cohesion enabling larger and more complex forms of social functioning. Religion appears to be a primary driver of evolution facilitating our progressive climb to more complex social systems via the stimulation and enforcement of motivation, altruism, and long-termism. If Individual humans are adapted to live in a context of religion. It is logical absent religion human behavior becomes maladaptive. Could a shared consensus among individuals ever replace centralized government? Such a society would require a powerful and healthy moral code upheld and enforced by all with both belief and reverence. Perhaps the very religious have more to teach us then we realize. ...
Suggesting that intellectual mindsets are necessary to create behaviours relies on our intellect being our ruling aspect. This does not seem true.
The intellect is never a truly objective entity and will always interact with subjective reality.
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On reflection, it seems some arguments are based on the assumption that the intellect is the base cause for behaviour or morals.
This seems a weak point and has no necessary validity.
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Let's examine base human behavior and morals when you strip away all "intellectual mindsets" In a base state each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. There is no centralized authority and no external recourse against violence, coercion, or defection. Thomas Hobbes envisioned this as, a "war of all against all" In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Now it is likely that we do have a 'built in' primitive moral code that allows us without any preconceptions to escape Hobbs baseline. This code is one of tribalism. http://www.uvm.edu/~pdodds/files/papers/others/1993/dunbar1993a.pdfPrimates are, above all, social animals. This has inevitably led to the suggestion that such intense sociality is functionally related to the exceptional cognitive abilities of these animals, as reflected in their unusually large brains (Jolly 1969, Humphrey 1976, Kummer 1982, Byrne & Whiten 1988). This claim is supported by the finding that mean group size is directly related to relative neocortical volume in nonhuman primates (Sawaguchi & Kudo 1990, Dunbar 1992a). These analyses suggest that although the size of the group in which animals live in a given habitat is a function of habitat-specific ecologically-determined costs and benefits (see for example Dunbar 1988, 1992b), there is a species-specific upper limit to group size which is set by purely cognitive constraints: animals cannot maintain the cohesion and integrity of groups larger than a size set by the information- processing capacity of their neocortex. (Red colorization mine.) (Blue colorization mine.) It is in maintaining social cohesion in groups larger then the information- processing capacity of our neocortex where "intellectual mindsets" are required. The role of these is to maximize individual freedom to build wealth, prosperity and happiness via cooperation while minimizing individual freedom to prosper from coercion, violence and defection.
I think most people understand moral codes...
People who rely on their native or built-in moral code are more likely to have a positive affect on their local social group than people who rely on dogmatic moral strictures.
Our native built-in moral code may be helpful for daily decisions within local social groups but there is little reason to think it functional when dealing with those outside our local social groups. Your error is your continued insistence to lay the limitations of humanity on the doorstep of religion when in actual fact religion is a critical and perhaps primary mechanism for overcoming these limitations. |
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Atheism is a religion. No matter what nonsense atheists claim.
Atheism is the acceptance of the following assumption: Theism cannot be definitively and empirically proven and is therefore untrue.This assumption leads to the rejection of religion when individual atheist decide that they are unconvinced by the available data. Acceptance of this assumption is an error for the following reasons: 1) Metaphysically because the choice (in isolation) voids the existing moral structure rendering the decision itself morally incoherent. 2) Biologically because a sound moral structure is necessary for a healthy life and rejecting traditional structures appears to reduce health, happiness, and fertility. 3) Anthropologically because religion is a critical and perhaps primary mechanism for overcoming our species-specific upper limit to group size which is set by purely cognitive constraints. In addition we must consider that the assumption itself may simply be false. Specifically: Theism may be correct and true even if it cannot be definitively and empirically proven.Atheism as opposed to agnosticism is a statement of certainty. True belief in an unproven assertion is an act of faith. I will leave it to the reader to decide if this specific act of faith constitutes a religion. |
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Suggesting that intellectual mindsets are necessary to create behaviours relies on our intellect being our ruling aspect. This does not seem true.
The intellect is never a truly objective entity and will always interact with subjective reality.
...
On reflection, it seems some arguments are based on the assumption that the intellect is the base cause for behaviour or morals.
This seems a weak point and has no necessary validity.
...
Let's examine base human behavior and morals when you strip away all "intellectual mindsets" In a base state each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. There is no centralized authority and no external recourse against violence, coercion, or defection. Thomas Hobbes envisioned this as, a "war of all against all" In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Now it is likely that we do have a 'built in' primitive moral code that allows us without any preconceptions to escape Hobbs baseline. This code is one of tribalism. http://www.uvm.edu/~pdodds/files/papers/others/1993/dunbar1993a.pdfPrimates are, above all, social animals. This has inevitably led to the suggestion that such intense sociality is functionally related to the exceptional cognitive abilities of these animals, as reflected in their unusually large brains (Jolly 1969, Humphrey 1976, Kummer 1982, Byrne & Whiten 1988). This claim is supported by the finding that mean group size is directly related to relative neocortical volume in nonhuman primates (Sawaguchi & Kudo 1990, Dunbar 1992a). These analyses suggest that although the size of the group in which animals live in a given habitat is a function of habitat-specific ecologically-determined costs and benefits (see for example Dunbar 1988, 1992b), there is a species-specific upper limit to group size which is set by purely cognitive constraints: animals cannot maintain the cohesion and integrity of groups larger than a size set by the information- processing capacity of their neocortex. (Red colorization mine.) (Blue colorization mine.) It is in maintaining social cohesion in groups larger then the information- processing capacity of our neocortex where "intellectual mindsets" are required. The role of these is to maximize individual freedom to build wealth, prosperity and happiness via cooperation while minimizing individual freedom to prosper from coercion, violence and defection.
I think most people understand moral codes...
People who rely on their native or built-in moral code are more likely to have a positive affect on their local social group than people who rely on dogmatic moral strictures.
Our native built-in moral code may be helpful for daily decisions within local social groups but there is little reason to think it functional when dealing with those outside our local social groups. Your error is your continued insistence to lay the limitations of humanity on the doorstep of religion when in actual fact religion is a critical and perhaps primary mechanism for overcoming these limitations. |
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But artificial manipulation of fertility through contraception or other practices would make it only useful if you managed to discount those practices.
Just because an intelligent couple choose to have no children has no necessary meaning to their true "biological fitness"?
Biological Fitness is an empiric not a moral measurement. There are two accepted empiric measures of biological fitness these are Absolute Fitness and Relative Fitness. Both of these are directly proportional to fertility unless there is a large differences in infant mortality between the groups. As all of the data comes from one country USA there should be no large differences in infant mortality. Now the case can certainly be made that Biological Fitness is an irrelevant metric. However, it is likely that some readers will feel this metric to be important and that makes the data relevant. |
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I am muslim.
I believe in Allah.
I feel respect to other religions so, nobody has to believe same like me.
But, i don't think that there's any atheist on world, because there should be a creator of universe and all of things can't become by a coincidence. I think atheism is a choice. Not belief. A choice of ignorance
You are right. There isn't any real atheist. They all believe in some form of god, evn if it is simply the god of themselves. If you respect other religions, you are a very weak Muslim. You might respect the people of other religions, but if you don't kill them after you give them a long chance to convert to Islam, then you aren't following the Qiran and the Hadiths.  While there are certainly passages of violence in the Koran it is important to note that there are devout Muslims who are fully aware of these passages and have incorporated them (perhaps with some spiritual struggle) into a peaceful and non violent world view. http://islamicsupremecouncil.org/understanding-islam/legal-rulings/5-jihad-a-misunderstood-concept-from-islam.html?start=9WHAT JIHAD IS NOT
Jihad is not a violent concept.
Jihad is not a declaration of war against other religions. It is worth noting that the Koran specifically refers to Jews and Christians as "people of the book" who should be protected and respected.
All three faiths worship the same God. Allah is just the Arabic word for God, and is used by Christian Arabs as well as Muslims.
Military action in the name of Islam has not been common in the history of Islam. Scholars says most calls for violent jihad are not sanctioned by Islam.
Personally I feel that a Muslim who advocates respects and tolerance for other religions is the farthest thing possible from a "very weak Muslim". The only talk of "death to the unbelievers" that I have seen in this thread has not come from a Muslim. |
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<snip>
It is reasonable to be suspicious of the values and morals of someone operating with no moral code. It is also reasonable to be suspicious of someone who knows and can anticipate your moral code but refuses to disclose his own. I fail to see the cognative bias.
is not useful information, since the religious person will be more suspicious of any out-group, regardless of the god (or lack of god) they follow. Be careful of attribution error. We have identified two reasons why the religious might distrust atheist. 1) In-Group Favoritism: The tendency of any group to favor members of their own group. 2) Moral Unpredictability: The difficulty one faces predicting and evaluating the behavior someone who keeps their value system 'closed source' aka undisclosed. The next logical question to ask is how much does each factor contribute to the society wide distrust of atheist that was discussed upthread. To determine this we should compare opinions on atheist to opinions on competing 'open source' groups like Buddhism or Islam. The discussed study describing distrust of atheist is not public and behind a paywall in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. However, the news article about the study stated that study participants believed atheist more likely to commit an immoral act (by failing to leave behind valid insurance information after hitting a parked car) than a Muslim. Even those with no religious affiliation felt this way. The study appears to have been done in the west where Islam is non dominant and not particularly popular right now. Together these findings suggest that In-Group Favoritism is unlikely to be the primary driver of distrust towards atheist and that other explanations like Moral Unpredictability should be considered. So let's return to your stated original argument. I don't think any of these points come close to dismissing my original point, which is <snip>
It's more likely that religious people need religion in order to be moral actors, just as BADecker wrote.
The statement is correct it needs to be broadened and generalized. It is likely that humans in general need a coherent internal code in order to live healthy and moral lives. For the religious this is provided by their faith. |
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And what does fertility rate have to do with anything?
It's well known that people from area's with high infant mortality have more children than people with higher survival rate.
And that poor people have higher average number of children.
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All of the data from the opening post is from populations living in the United States. Fertility is a major component of Biological Fitness. If you judge your biological fitness to be unimportant then the fertility data can be ignored as tangential. Others may feel differently so I included it. |
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Getting back to the "cognitive bias" part, I think we have established that religious groups can:
a) Rejects another group because it doesn't understand that group, even though the other group has never committed an offence against them
b) Do not reject their own members, even though they commit the offences that they attribute to the out-group.
This is a cognitive bias - seeing the world in a way that does not reflect reality.
While this can certainly be true of religious groups it can also be true of any other grouping of humans that has existed or will exist. They have even shown a similar phenomena in completely random groups separated only by t-shirt color. What you have identified is referred to by psychologist as in-group favoritism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritismThe two main theories regarding the cause of this are referred to as Realistic Conflict Theory and Social Identity Theory. In-group favoritism is essentially one of humanities built in flaws. Religious organizations are made up of humans and thus not immune to humanities inherent flaws. |
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Do religious people repeatedly reject temptation in general? If not, would this not make religious people less trustworthy, since one cannot predict their future behaviour, and would make expecting moral behaviour from such people also another such bias.
Is striving towards a challenging ideal superior to ignoring that ideal or paying it lip service? If you think it through the answer to your question coupled with the answer to mine provides a framework for understanding the outcome data presented upthread (the differing level of wellbeing reported by the very religious, the 'moderately' religious and the unaffiliated). |
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I fail to see the cognative bias.
Bias 1: It's not reasonable to be generally suspicious of groups of people. Why would you assume they have no moral code? Just because they don't follow the exact rules you do doesn't mean they have no morals. Bias 2: People are generally moral beings (for trustworthiness and "do unto others" values of morality). (snip) I agree that religious groups are far from immune to the unjustified out of group discrimination that seems to characterize all human groups. Most atheist have some form of code. Ethical hedonism seems a common choice but their are many options. There is every reason to believe that publicly following and promoting a moral code in the past is predictive of continuing to do so in the future. In the refusal to adopt a public moral code the atheist make it much harder for others to accurately determine their trustworthiness or predict their behavior. If a religious person repeatedly rejects temptation and expediency when it conflicts with their publicly disclosed code one can have some confidence they will continue to do so in the future. This allows one to predict future behaviors and facilitates cooperation and trust. Similarly a nominally religious person seen not following their code helpfully flags themselves as untrustworthy. To achieve similar confidence regarding an atheist one must observe them over a much longer period examining their behavior across the entire relevant moral spectrum. |
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<snip> This is probably a major reasons why religious people distrust atheist religion can be looked at as a moral consensus. It is a system of rules which it's adherents (sometimes nominally) agree to live by. By declaring themselves atheists individuals choose to publicly reject that consensus which leads to suspicion. The bitcoin equivalent would be a miner publicly supporting a closed source hardfork. That Scientific American article describes that as un unsupported cognitive bias. Just because people distrust atheists doesn't mean there's a reason for it. And just because many religious people feel they need religious rules in order to act morally it doesn't mean that people who don't follow religious rules can't act morally. It's more likely that religious people need religion in order to be moral actors, just as BADecker wrote. The statement I am an atheist as opposed to the statement I am an atheist and (insert moral code here) means the following to a religious person. 1) I reject your moral and spiritual code and have replaced it with nothing or 2) I reject your moral and spiritual code and have replaced it with something I do not wish to share It is reasonable to be suspicious of the values and morals of someone operating with no moral code. It is also reasonable to be suspicious of someone who knows and can anticipate your moral code but refuses to disclose his own. I fail to see the cognative bias. |
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In the 21st century, we have other concepts that essentially function as religions. Secular governments, science, data.
Bitcoin is an example. Two strangers trust bitcoin value because they trust Math behind it. They are willing to co-operate (in this case exchange value) despite the fact that they don't know each other, might be actually enemies otherwise. But they will co-operate the same way two Christian Kingdoms co-operated to kill and plunder pagan tribes.
You don't need to suspend your reason to believe some bronze age nonsense, today, you have other options.
af_newbie I am not suggesting you suspend your reason. I am advising you fully engage it. Upthread Moloch brought Pascals Renewed Wager to our attention. In this paper we see that belief in God coupled with observance of belief is correlated with numerous health outcomes including: 1) Happiness 2) Physical health 3) Mental health 4) Longevity 5) Stable marital relations The data in the OP allows us to add fertility to that list. The only possible counter is to argue that it's all just illusion with some other ultimate cause. That is exactly what the atheist counter paper cited by Moloch tries to do. The 15 page paper is full to the brim with attempt after attempt to to explain away the data. If you are looking for tips on how to strongly argue a weak position its a great source. The reality is I have yet to see a single study where atheist (of any stripe) outperform the very religious on health metrics. Furthermore there is not a single current or historic non-religious group that has maintained reproductive replacement levels on the communal level. If someone came to your door marketing lab grown soylent green and meat-x plus you would probably ask a several pointed questions before abandoning fruits vegetables and fish. Specifically: A) Are those eating soylent green maintaining physical health? B) Do they live as long as those eating traditional diets? C) Could the artificial stuff contain poisons that do bad things like reduce your fertility? If you would ask these hard questions about soylent green why wouldn't you ask them of atheism? Wishful thinking aside there is no evidence to suggest that modern contrivances like socialism, humanism, or nationalism function as viable and sustainable replacements for religion. Bitcoin is a great example. Two strangers can transact in bitcoin because they have confidence in the consensus it represents. The math behind bitcoin is simply a tool that helps keep that consensus strong. This is why the hard fork controversy is so bitter. It is an attack on consensus in one of the few areas where math is not protective. This is probably a major reasons why religious people distrust atheist. Religion can be looked at as a moral consensus. It is a system of rules which it's adherents (sometimes nominally) agree to live by. By declaring themselves atheists individuals choose to publicly reject that consensus which leads to suspicion. The bitcoin equivalent would be a miner publicly supporting a closed source hardfork. |
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I think you wrote before in the Economic Devastation thread about how society is a balance between preventing people from doing actions that opt-out and harm the collective well-being balanced against the society becoming too totalitarian and imploding.
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What high IQ people miss is apparently that God doesn't have to be a factual truth in order for religion to be an optimum strategy for society. Thus they aren't as high IQ as they think they are, haha.
In Justification for New World Order: Part 1, 2, 3, 4 I argued the following. In human interactions we often face a choice between cooperation (reaching a mutually beneficial exchange) and defection (advancement of ourselves to the detriment of our fellow man).
Collectivism exists because it limits defection especially those forms of defection linked to physical violence. Collectivism is expensive and inefficient. However, the inefficiencies associated with collectivism are less (at least historically) than the inefficiencies that come from the violence and defections that occur in an environment of unrestrained individualism.
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There is no such thing as complete freedom except for the state of nature as described by Hobbs. In every other scenario the best we can achieve is a partial freedom. We agree to some limitations of our freedoms to maximize our ability to prosper and cooperate while minimizing individual freedom to coerce, and defect.
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The evolution of the social contract appears to be a progressive climb to higher potential energy systems with increased degrees of freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. I suspect that in the future republics will be consumed by world government, world government will evolve into decentralized government, and decentralized government will finally mature into a shared consensus among individuals with limited or no government.
Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increases the number of individuals able to engage in cooperative activity while lowering the number of individuals able to defect. To borrow from the links in the opening post each iteration increases the amount of entropy the system can sustainably support.
Charlton argues that religion is the proximate method of Group Selection in humans specifically he argues that religion enhances social cohesion enabling larger and more complex forms of social functioning. Religion appears to be a primary driver of evolution facilitating our progressive climb to more complex social systems via the stimulation and enforcement of motivation, altruism, and long-termism. If Individual humans are adapted to live in a context of religion. It is logical absent religion human behavior becomes maladaptive. Could a shared consensus among individuals ever replace centralized government? Such a society would require a powerful and healthy moral code upheld and enforced by all with both belief and reverence. Perhaps the very religious have more to teach us then we realize. |
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http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-west-cannot-be-saved-because-it.html?m=1The West has no essence, is merely contingent - just a time-slice through an always-changing, self-subverting, and continually-inverted aggregation of attitudes, beliefs and practices.
So culturally, the West is purposefully, strategically destroying itself - always, as a continuous process.
And biologically The West is destroying itself: by choice the Western population have long since ceased to replace themselves; by strategy it is replacing its own population - and from existential terror (and deliberate wicked intent) this whole subject is taboo, denied, lied-about.
*
The West is not even trying to save itself; indeed The West has self-destruction built-in, woven-in, pervasive.
How can you save something which so much wants to kill itself?
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The secular modern is afraid to probe too deeply, because he is sure there is nothing underneath - all is surface. He is afraid to look ahead, because he has decided that will be nothing there. To him, all human lives are failures because they end in decline, suffering, and death - biography is tragedy (either unfulfilled promise or the disappointment of all desire).
His strongest principles are without foundations - and therefore will almost certainly be discarded when they become inexpedient, or even if they are not discarded then this will be an arbitrary gesture. His most profound yearnings can only be fulfilled in imagination - which is to say they will not be fulfilled, and are delusions.
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Our resources are finite, our effort and enthusiasm requires realistic grounds for optimism.
Therefore, let's stop monitoring and trying to turn-back the civilisational tsunami of secular nihilism - but ourselves drowning in pessimism.
And instead adopt the positive, optimistic, realistic goal of saving a few people.
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Ah, well then it seems I'd be better off taking medication than being superstitious, eh?
Perhaps but the best outcome might result from successfully reconsidering your assumptions. It is hard, usually impossible, to induce a re-examination of fundamental assumptions. What you currently regard as 'evidence' is in large part choice and dictated by assumptions, which are not compelled. Looked at this way, to choose modern nihilism rather than the natural, spontaneous, 'biological' tendency to religious explanations is not just foolish, but incoherent - since the choice of nihilistic assumptions makes that choice itself meaningless. |
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