The problem with this person is that you have described them with a false assumption.
The only way she managed to survive was by believing in god.
Are you saying the person would have died if they didn't believe in magic? How so? Where there atheists in similar difficult situations who died because they didn't believe?
Well, if you're talking about the raising of the twelve children without a father, the best way to judge that would be on how the children turned out I guess.
While her religion is a negative trait, I guess she would likely have many positive ones also, though I cannot say any of this without knowing her.
If we're judging her specifically on the "surviving only because of her religion", then I'd agree with Scott's above post.
I think she would have given up because she had no hope. The religion gave her that. If she were a "stronger" person I guess she would have survived without "magic".
I think she would have given up because she had no hope. The religion gave her that. If she were a "stronger" person I guess she would have survived without "magic".
I live in England and I'd say the majority of people are atheists without really knowing it. They might say they believe in god, but other than saying "Yeah, there might be a god" they don't really care. I don't know a single person who goes to church and I have only ever met ONE (in the sense I interacted with them) person who believed in creationism. I've met a few people who seem to think they "know" a god exists, mainly because they don't believe everything could happen by chance (or don't want to think so). Most people seem to believe in some sort of heaven though, which is an odd variable, but it's probably because heaven is a comfortable concept, less terrifying than 'nothingness'.
I'm pretty much on level with Rym and Scott when it comes to understanding our world. People like James Randi, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Penn and Teller have the right idea about the way the world works and the universe. It's so mind bogglingly obvious that none of the religions that exist today are in any way real and are completely fictitious from the myths of Jesus to specific things like the Great Flood or Adam and Eve.
Also, if you don't know who Sam Harris is... look him up on youtube, he makes some awesome points. He doesn't even call himself an atheist anymore, because he thinks that a word that describes someone with a lack of something is wrong, such as we don't have a word for someone who isn't an astrologist.
There are two types of people in the world... people who wants comfortable "answers" and don't really care if they are supported by fact and people who are willing to give it some work, have some patience and know that we'll eventually figure it out.
A question for athiests... Why are people moral? Regardless if they believe in a religion or not?
What's ingrained in us that tells us killing, raping, etc is wrong. Why do we all have a conscience? Sure there are laws and punishments, but if you really wanted to kill someone, you could do it. What stops you? The existence of God/higher power,etc or social conditioning? Our conscience must come from somewhere...
I think she would have given up because she had no hope. The religion gave her that. If she were a "stronger" person I guess she would have survived without "magic".
But hope is possible without irrational beliefs. How could someone have the ability to hope with a magical belief, but somehow lose the ability to hope without the magical belief? I would say that the problem is that she planted her hopes in the weak foundation of magical thinking from the beginning. If she had planted her hopes firmly in the ground, nothing could have toppled them. By having religion in the first place, it allowed for the possibility of losing hope while hope still existed. A rational skeptical atheist type person would not lose hope until there truly was none.
A question for athiests... Why are people moral? Regardless if they believe in a religion or not?
What's ingrained in us that tells us killing, raping, etc is wrong. Why do we all have a conscience? Sure there are laws and punishments, but if you really wanted to kill someone, you could do it. What stops you? The existence of God/higher power,etc or social conditioning? Our conscience must come from somewhere...
There are some religions that like those things just fine. Take a look at John Stuart Mill and maybe some B.F. Skinner, just off the top of my head. The argument that morality comes from religion is absurd. Society must have rules to exist. Those rules evolve (just like us).
but if you really wanted to kill someone, you could do it. What stops you?
If you really wanted to kill someone, you would've already killed that person.
Anyways, to answer your question. We humans are animals, yet we relatively kill more humans than chimpanzees, for example, kill other chimpanzees. Or elephants killing other elephants, or rabbits killing other rabbits. Besides, one can imagine that it is not nice being killed, or raped, or stolen from, so why would you bother making someone else feel like that? You wouldn't want it to happen to you, now do you?
Do you really think that we would be killing and raping and stealing more if there were no religious texts? Like before the stone tablets? Richard Dawkins addresses this in the video that was posted some time ago here on the forums and used as a TotD.
There are some religions that like those things just fine. Take a look at John Stuart Mill and maybe some B.F. Skinner, just off the top of my head. The argument that morality comes from religion is absurd. Society must have rules to exist. Those rules evolve (just like us).
I'm asking where does our conscience come from... or why do we have it. Taking religion totally out of the picture, if there was no God/higher power... why would we have morals? Sure society has rules and they evolve, but what really stops people from being immoral? There are plenty of ways to break the law, but people generally don't do it. Let's say there are no laws, *poof* all gone. Would we all start raping and murdering? The answer is no.
Humans are a species made to survive in communities, we work together to get what we need and to survive. A Human on his own is pretty much useless unless other people are around to help him survive, thus the survival and well-being of the community is just as important as the survival and well-being of the individual. Even if you go as far back as cave-man times, hunting in packs was essential for getting meat, we're not as fast or as strong as a heck of a lot of the animals we eat, but in a group we can easily over take and kill something so we can eat it, since meat was an important part in the development of our higher brain functions, having a better brain was essential for better survival and working in groups and developing language to coordinate attacks.
But, why are we moral? Well, if something isn't beneficial to the community we are apart of... we eject it. If you make the group small enough, the ability to eject bad components of a community are extremely easy. If someone eats all the good and doesn't help hunt for it, he's just wasting space and we see them as a glutton and lazy and probably a few thousand years ago we would not have thought twice about ejecting that person. Once you understand that, someone who would kill another member of the community or rape or do anything that would physically or mentally damage someone in the group is unacceptable because it will hurt the community, the thing we as individuals REQUIRE to survive at all.
Moral actions are often seen as selfless, but that is because we have it hard coded into our genes to do these selfless things because we are, in fact, very selfish for our own survival, and it just-so-happens that doing something we consider "Moral" aids the survival of the community and also ourselves.
Moral actions are often seen as selfless, but that is because we have it hard coded into our genes to do these selfless things because we are, in fact, very selfish for our own survival, and it just-so-happens that doing something we consider "Moral" aids the survival of the community and also ourselves.
That's why I'm asking... why is it hard coded into our genes? I see your point that acting moral aids in the survival of a community and ourselves, but doesn't answer why it's hard coded in our genes. For example, let's say a speeder cuts me off and really pisses me. Then that speeder crashes at an edge of a cliff. The speeder's car is dangling over the edge. If I didn't have morals, I would probably just pass by and say to myself, " serves you right, jerk!" Or, worse, I ram my car into the speeders car and force him over the edge just because he really really pissed me off.
Normally, a person would try to help - call 911, etc. There's no advantage of that person trying to help that speeder. One less "jerk" driver on the road. It's our conscience kicking in for whatever reason.
Anyways, to say there's absolutely no higher power at all is kind of like saying there's no such thing as String Theory or White Holes. They may or may not be out there, but they haven't been proven not to exist either.
Moral actions are often seen as selfless, but that is because we have it hard coded into our genes to do these selfless things because we are, in fact, very selfish for our own survival, and it just-so-happens that doing something we consider "Moral" aids the survival of the community and also ourselves.
That's why I'm asking... why is it hard coded into our genes? I see your point that acting moral aids in the survival of a community and ourselves, but doesn't answer why it's hard coded in our genes
Actually, if you understand the Theory of Evolution, it does. Also, genes are no longer the sole method of propagation for such things. Our ability to communicate means we can transmit information to newer generations.
Only the successful genes survive, if morality increases our chances of survival then over time... a lot of time... the ones who have little "morality" would be fazed out, because they would be ejected from the group and their genes that created their mind that decided mutated in such a way that their sense of morality was broken or didn't function well and thus their genes wouldn't survive.
Think of doing bad things to the community as standing on the edge of a cliff, we know that standing on the cliff is dangerous, even a child who has never even seen or heard of a cliff will know falling is dangerous, because it's been hard coded into our genes that heights are bad and we should stay away from them, not because we intelligently figure out that if we fall from a height we will die, but because those who didn't already know it from birth would fall of a cliff and die and their genes that never had the "don't jump of a cliff" built-in knowledge would never get to pass that on to another generation.
I can't explain to you EXACTLY how it works, because I have no idea. But all I can imagine is that if you let someone die without helping, even a little bit, regardless of how you felt about them, the community would then think "He wouldn't care if we died, this isn't beneficial to our survival since we need as many people to survive as possible" and thus you create an opportunity for you to be expelled from your community. Not helping someone survive can often be seen as just as damaging as killing someone, so rather than you feeling a sense of obligation for that person, you feel the obligation for yourself to ensure you don't let anyone die from your community, but by now the spread of humans and the world we live in now has far out-run our genetic preset mental variables and a lot of our instincts don't make sense in a modern world, you have to put yourself back a little while before we became a species who never had to worry about our own survival on a regular basis.
You see, I think there was no ground to plant her hope on.
If there was no grounds for hope then, then that means there was no way for her life to proceed in a good way, and there should still be no hope for her now.
EDIT: I think Scott's post below says this in a better way.
@Apreche:You see, I think there was no ground to plant her hope on.
Well, she did make it. No? The fact that she made it proves that there was a chance of making it. With a realistic world view, she could have seen that chance of making it and strove for it with all her might. With a magical world view, you just hope god will fix it, and leave it to chance.
ctually, if you understand the Theory of Evolution, it does. Also, genes are no longer the sole method of propagation for such things. Our ability to communicate means we can transmit information to newer generations.
Our conscience isn't in our genes (maybe, who knows), but where ever it comes from.. in most cases it's not really needed for survival. People in most cases are moral, and it's not totally for selfish reasons. If you remove man-made religion, law, and society rule, people will still have conscience. What's the reason why? One can say our conscience or "free will" is from a higher authority. People can exist without a conscience... my question from the start is why do we have one? Having free will could be a starting point to prove that God/higher power exists. If you ever looked at the concept of String Theory, it's not out of the realm of possibility that things can exist without us seeing them.
On the morality issue, while evolution was the basis for our morality initially, there is no need for it to be that way anymore. We can, and do, choose to transmit morality by teaching it to our children, instead of just letting the genes do the work.
However, as to why we should transmit morality to our children, and what exactly it should consist of, this is a very interesting question again.
Morality is just the actions one does to ensure the survival of the community, which in turn increases ones survival chances. Yes, we can communicate moral values by using communication, but that is often for refining what we already know in our instincts. There is also an inherent moral value embedded in our genes and the same traits can be found in non humans.
Our conscience isn't in our genes (maybe, who knows), but where ever it comes from.. in most cases it's not really needed for survival.
It used to be (and still is in a way- I dare you to kill 100 people in your neighborhood and survive for 10 years after that :-) ), for reasons that were described above. People tend to forget that society as we know it formed 2-300 generations ago, which is quite a negligible amount of time from evolutionary point of view, so if something no longer seems like a good idea that doesn't mean it isn't justified.
Our conscience isn't in our genes (maybe, who knows), but where ever it comes from.. in most cases it's not really needed for survival.
It used to be (and still is in a way- I dare you to kill 100 people in your neighborhood and survive for 10 years after that :-) ), for reasons that were described above. People tend to forget that society as we know it formed 2-300 generations ago, which is quite a negligible amount of time from evolutionary point of view, so if something no longer seems like a good idea that doesn't mean it isn't justified.
You work in the genetic field? So scientist isolated the moral gene? LOL. Anyways, if we lived in lawless society, I could kill 100 people.. but the point I was making, people generally wouldn't do that because they have built-in morals or conscience. You can kill 100 people for the hell of it, or for personal gain... which brings my question back to the beginning... Why not kill? There's a reason why everyone has a conscience/morals... why?
Actually If I remember my English idioms correctly the saying goes "gods help those who help themselves", so not really.
See the post I made earlier/elsewhere with the video of the guy who moves trains without touching them.
I'm not arguing (in that post) that he does. just that god (or luck) isn't supposed to help those who just pray (wear rabbit feet), but those who pray and do stuff.
also, I actually had something to say about the whole god sent the goatman issue.
suppose you have this ace heli-pilot. And he is very good with his piloting. and when an Air-trafic operator sends him somewhere he always gets the jobs done. Would it be an insult to his skills if after being rescued, you went up to the operator (who happens to be your friend) and shook his hand for sending the helicopter your way, even though there were other people in need of rescue (that is not to say that he made Ace do the whole trip just for you, just that he went your way first and not 90 degrees to the right)? Would being sent by his superior somehow belittle his piloting prowess?
Well, in the instance of killing a 100 people by yourself because there is no law prohibiting you from killing them, I'm sure the prospect of being killed yourself by someone who is a better shot and doesn't want to die is a pretty good deterrent for doing such a thing. One could argue that is why people in power aren't afraid of killing, indirectly at least, because there is a very low chance of direct retribution.
You work in the genetic field? So scientist isolated the moral gene? LOL. Anyways, if we lived in lawless society, I could kill 100 people.. but the point I was making, people generally wouldn't do that because they have built-in morals or conscience. You can kill 100 people for the hell of it, or for personal gain... which brings my question back to the beginning... Why not kill? There's a reason why everyone has a conscience/morals... why?
If you lived in a lawless society you would not kill 100 people. why? because the other people, seeing you as a sociopath that you are (in the example) would kill you off. why does killing a 100 people make you bad for society? making humans has pretty high cost (say 12-14 months worth of food, and the decrease of mobility if you are nomadic, and that is just the minimum- if your victims were infants.), so unless you can somehow make up for that loss (you posses the magical ability of photosynthesis and food come out your ass in large quantities) you are not worth it. If you steal, people who you stole from will gang up on you and kill you (or cast you out taking all your possessions). If you rape, the partners of you victims will and so on.
As for social gene, there probably isn't one. I'm pretty sure it's all socail conditioning, and if you were raised in a hypothetical society where murder was virtue or the main way of getting ahead in society (through some sort of duel ritual most probably), it would be a very good bet you'd kill at least once in your life, and won't feel bad about it.
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While her religion is a negative trait, I guess she would likely have many positive ones also, though I cannot say any of this without knowing her.
If we're judging her specifically on the "surviving only because of her religion", then I'd agree with Scott's above post.
I'm pretty much on level with Rym and Scott when it comes to understanding our world. People like James Randi, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Penn and Teller have the right idea about the way the world works and the universe. It's so mind bogglingly obvious that none of the religions that exist today are in any way real and are completely fictitious from the myths of Jesus to specific things like the Great Flood or Adam and Eve.
Also, if you don't know who Sam Harris is... look him up on youtube, he makes some awesome points. He doesn't even call himself an atheist anymore, because he thinks that a word that describes someone with a lack of something is wrong, such as we don't have a word for someone who isn't an astrologist.
There are two types of people in the world... people who wants comfortable "answers" and don't really care if they are supported by fact and people who are willing to give it some work, have some patience and know that we'll eventually figure it out.
Also, woot for my post being 'thing of the day'.
What's ingrained in us that tells us killing, raping, etc is wrong. Why do we all have a conscience? Sure there are laws and punishments, but if you really wanted to kill someone, you could do it. What stops you? The existence of God/higher power,etc or social conditioning? Our conscience must come from somewhere...
Anyways, to answer your question. We humans are animals, yet we relatively kill more humans than chimpanzees, for example, kill other chimpanzees. Or elephants killing other elephants, or rabbits killing other rabbits. Besides, one can imagine that it is not nice being killed, or raped, or stolen from, so why would you bother making someone else feel like that? You wouldn't want it to happen to you, now do you?
Do you really think that we would be killing and raping and stealing more if there were no religious texts? Like before the stone tablets? Richard Dawkins addresses this in the video that was posted some time ago here on the forums and used as a TotD.
Humans are a species made to survive in communities, we work together to get what we need and to survive. A Human on his own is pretty much useless unless other people are around to help him survive, thus the survival and well-being of the community is just as important as the survival and well-being of the individual. Even if you go as far back as cave-man times, hunting in packs was essential for getting meat, we're not as fast or as strong as a heck of a lot of the animals we eat, but in a group we can easily over take and kill something so we can eat it, since meat was an important part in the development of our higher brain functions, having a better brain was essential for better survival and working in groups and developing language to coordinate attacks.
But, why are we moral? Well, if something isn't beneficial to the community we are apart of... we eject it. If you make the group small enough, the ability to eject bad components of a community are extremely easy. If someone eats all the good and doesn't help hunt for it, he's just wasting space and we see them as a glutton and lazy and probably a few thousand years ago we would not have thought twice about ejecting that person. Once you understand that, someone who would kill another member of the community or rape or do anything that would physically or mentally damage someone in the group is unacceptable because it will hurt the community, the thing we as individuals REQUIRE to survive at all.
Moral actions are often seen as selfless, but that is because we have it hard coded into our genes to do these selfless things because we are, in fact, very selfish for our own survival, and it just-so-happens that doing something we consider "Moral" aids the survival of the community and also ourselves.
Normally, a person would try to help - call 911, etc. There's no advantage of that person trying to help that speeder. One less "jerk" driver on the road. It's our conscience kicking in for whatever reason.
Anyways, to say there's absolutely no higher power at all is kind of like saying there's no such thing as String Theory or White Holes. They may or may not be out there, but they haven't been proven not to exist either.
Also, genes are no longer the sole method of propagation for such things. Our ability to communicate means we can transmit information to newer generations.
You see, I think there was no ground to plant her hope on.
Think of doing bad things to the community as standing on the edge of a cliff, we know that standing on the cliff is dangerous, even a child who has never even seen or heard of a cliff will know falling is dangerous, because it's been hard coded into our genes that heights are bad and we should stay away from them, not because we intelligently figure out that if we fall from a height we will die, but because those who didn't already know it from birth would fall of a cliff and die and their genes that never had the "don't jump of a cliff" built-in knowledge would never get to pass that on to another generation.
I can't explain to you EXACTLY how it works, because I have no idea. But all I can imagine is that if you let someone die without helping, even a little bit, regardless of how you felt about them, the community would then think "He wouldn't care if we died, this isn't beneficial to our survival since we need as many people to survive as possible" and thus you create an opportunity for you to be expelled from your community. Not helping someone survive can often be seen as just as damaging as killing someone, so rather than you feeling a sense of obligation for that person, you feel the obligation for yourself to ensure you don't let anyone die from your community, but by now the spread of humans and the world we live in now has far out-run our genetic preset mental variables and a lot of our instincts don't make sense in a modern world, you have to put yourself back a little while before we became a species who never had to worry about our own survival on a regular basis.
EDIT: I think Scott's post below says this in a better way.
We can, and do, choose to transmit morality by teaching it to our children, instead of just letting the genes do the work.
However, as to why we should transmit morality to our children, and what exactly it should consist of, this is a very interesting question again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
also, I actually had something to say about the whole god sent the goatman issue.
suppose you have this ace heli-pilot. And he is very good with his piloting. and when an Air-trafic operator sends him somewhere he always gets the jobs done. Would it be an insult to his skills if after being rescued, you went up to the operator (who happens to be your friend) and shook his hand for sending the helicopter your way, even though there were other people in need of rescue (that is not to say that he made Ace do the whole trip just for you, just that he went your way first and not 90 degrees to the right)? Would being sent by his superior somehow belittle his piloting prowess?
As for social gene, there probably isn't one. I'm pretty sure it's all socail conditioning, and if you were raised in a hypothetical society where murder was virtue or the main way of getting ahead in society (through some sort of duel ritual most probably), it would be a very good bet you'd kill at least once in your life, and won't feel bad about it.