Infanticide

[Advocate]

[quote=Nick_A post_id=564912 time=1647783970 user_id=7881]
[quote=Advocate post_id=564908 time=1647782954 user_id=15238]
[quote=Age post_id=564734 time=1647698544 user_id=16237]
ALL religions are 'complimentary' WITH 'science'.
[/quote]

That's called absurdism. Science is entirely dependent on knowledge - justified belief, while religions are all dependent on faith - unjustified belief. They are not complementary, they are not compatible, they are in direct opposition.
[/quote]

Intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence are complimentary. Humanity lacks this quality of intelligence which is why it doesn't know what respect for life means. Einstein describes this relationship:

[quote]1940
Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

-- Einstein, Science and Religion, 1940.
[/quote]
[/quote]

Quoting Einstein on religion is like quoting a poet on math.

[Nick_A]

That's called absurdism. Science is entirely dependent on knowledge - justified belief, while religions are all dependent on faith - unjustified belief. They are not complementary, they are not compatible, they are in direct opposition.

Intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence are complimentary. Humanity lacks this quality of intelligence which is why it doesn't know what respect for life means. Einstein describes this relationship:

1940
Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

-- Einstein, Science and Religion, 1940.

Writing Einstein on religion is like quoting a poet on math.

Einstein is writing about the relative unity of objective facts with objective values. When they unite and a person's intellectual knowledge is roughly equal to their objective emotional perspective, then such a person is able to understand the quality of truth their being calls them to experience.

Anyone looking out into the world sees that as intellectual knowledge grows, objective emotional perspective diminishes. The result is the struggle for power over understanding and all the horrors it must bring.

[popeye1945]

Nick,

Whatever the means of judging whether it is based upon religion or based upon reason alone, the agent is still the same humanity, for religion is a biological extension of the human being. All structures all systems all meanings come from one source, biological consciousness. Life should be considered sacred, but a life enjoying no quality and submerged in suffering whether man or any other animal that life deserves our human compassion. We as human beings have not escaped the harsh reality of nature where life lives upon life, we have simply worked our way up to being the top predator. Religion in the face of the grandeur of the cosmic ocean as Caryle Sagan might say, is to small a perspective to small a wonder, it is unfit to carry us forward.

I am not familiar with all the aspects of the abortion datbate but for me the formula remains the same, do these actions create or lessen the suffering in the world. One might say, what difference does it make in view of the vast ocean of suffering, it matters to a civilized consciousness not to make life in the world harsher than it neccessarily is. If we are to save this world this environment it becomes the necessity of survival, the world and the life within it sacred. Perhaps a new mythology is needed, but not one base on the ignorance of the past.

Nick , just noticed you misquoted me on the previous page, I believe it is your statement and not mind. No sweat it happens.

[Immanuel Can]

Christianity fosters and promotes war and racism.

Myth. And a rather bigotted one, too, I must say.

As for atheism being a, "creed,"

"Atheism" is a creed, alright.

It's a stupid one, I'll admit. It's incapable of evidence. It has only one precept, has no possibility of sponsoring any direction for humanity, and completely voids morality, among its other bad features. But yes, it is.

It's one axiom is, "There are no gods." If one does not believe that, one is not an Atheist. That's a creed.

After that, one is thrown into one of the other bad creeds that are necessary to fill up Atheism's deficiencies, such as Consumerism, Communism, Solipsism, Nationalism, Humanism, Egoism, and so forth, because men cannot live in a vacuum...and a vacuum is all that Atheism offers. Communism's the popular choice.

If "man shall not live by bread alone," it is even more true that "No man can live by Atheism alone."

And it's these adjunct creeds, made necessary by Atheism, that do all the killing. Atheism just makes them necessary.

[Advocate]

[quote="Immanuel Can" post_id=564978 time=1647821066 user_id=9431]
[quote=RCSaunders post_id=564914 time=1647787154 user_id=16196]
Christianity fosters and promotes war and racism.[/quote]
Myth. And a rather bigotted one, too, I must say.

[quote]As for atheism being a, "creed,"[/quote]
"Atheism" is a creed, alright.

It's a stupid one, I'll admit. It's incapable of evidence. It has only one precept, has no possibility of sponsoring any direction for humanity, and completely voids morality, among its other bad features. But yes, it is.

It's one axiom is, "There are no gods." If one does not believe that, one is not an Atheist. That's a creed.

After that, one is thrown into one of the other bad creeds that are necessary to fill up Atheism's deficiencies, such as Consumerism, Communism, Solipsism, Nationalism, Humanism, Egoism, and so forth, because men cannot live in a vacuum...and a vacuum is all that Atheism offers. Communism's the popular choice.

If "man shall not live by bread alone," it is even more true that "No man can live by Atheism alone."

And it's these adjunct creeds, made necessary by Atheism, that do all the killing. Atheism just makes them necessary.
[/quote]

Nothing you just said is reasonable or accurate.

[henry quirk]

Nothing you just said is reasonable or accurate.

Hyperbolic, mebbe; unreasonable or inaccurate, no.

[Advocate]

[quote="henry quirk" post_id=565043 time=1647866838 user_id=472]
[quote=Advocate post_id=565042 time=1647865907 user_id=15238]Nothing you just said is reasonable or accurate.[/quote]

Hyperbolic, mebbe; unreasonable or inaccurate, no.
[/quote]

Just off the top, atheism is a negative, not a positive, and the idea of an atheist creed is a positive, not a negative.

[Nick_A]

Nick,

Whatever the means of judging whether it is based upon religion or based upon reason alone, the agent is still the same humanity, for religion is a biological extension of the human being. All structures all systems all meanings come from one source, biological consciousness. Life should be considered sacred, but a life enjoying no quality and submerged in suffering whether man or any other animal that life deserves our human compassion. We as human beings have not escaped the harsh reality of nature where life lives upon life, we have simply worked our way up to being the top predator. Religion in the face of the grandeur of the cosmic ocean as Caryle Sagan might say, is to small a perspective to small a wonder, it is unfit to carry us forward.

I am not familiar with all the aspects of the abortion datbate but for me the formula remains the same, do these actions create or lessen the suffering in the world. One might say, what difference does it make in view of the vast ocean of suffering, it matters to a civilized consciousness not to make life in the world harsher than it neccessarily is. If we are to save this world this environment it becomes the necessity of survival, the world and the life within it sacred. Perhaps a new mythology is needed, but not one base on the ignorance of the past.

Nick , just noticed you misquoted me on the previous page, I believe it is your statement and not mind. No sweat it happens.

I am not familiar with all the aspects of the abortion datbate but for me the formula remains the same, do these actions create or lessen the suffering in the world.


There are two kinds of suffering: physical and psychological. I agree that man can do a great deal more to alleviate physical suffering. But dealing with psychological suffering that originates with misguided pride or vanity is not so easy. Society as a whole has come to accept that the mother suffers the creation of a fetus or a baby which is easily killed to alleviate her suffering. It doesn't matter from a social perspective if they are both killed if it alleviates the psychological suffering of the mother.

Socialism suggests the freedom from psychological suffering is to make everyone equal in slavery governed by a strong central government. Do these rationalizations work? No. The same psychological problem leads to the same results.

Psychological slavery to imagined suffering can only be lessened if humanity as a whole became capable of opening up in their being to experience objective conscience: the universal a priori influence of objective values including respect for life. But as I've read, nothing is harder to give up than the joys of ones own suffering. They verify ones reason to be in the secular world. Yet it does seem reasonable that if Psychological suffering were not so celebrated as in media for example, it would be far more beneficial to limit physical suffering. I can't see it happening. The joys of psychological suffering as a political tool and in media is just too powerful. There is no reason to concern oneself with the meaningless life of a fetus or baby when the primary concern must be the convenience and psychological suffering of the mother. Only conscience can understand but society has become closed to it in favor of self justification. Temporary pragmatism dominates objective conscience for the great majority. If baby killing for convenience is justified, is it really such a stretch to justify genocide for convenience?

[henry quirk]

Nothing you just said is reasonable or accurate.

Hyperbolic, mebbe; unreasonable or inaccurate, no.

Just off the top, atheism is a negative, not a positive, and the idea of an atheist creed is a positive, not a negative.

[popeye1945]

Nick.

Define if you will, objective conscience.

[popeye1945]

Henry.

Nietzsche pointed out that Christianity is one of the first philosophies of Nihilism, devaluing this life, this world for an imagined one.

[Nick_A]

Nick.

Define if you will, objective conscience.

Normally people define conscience as a subjective quality indoctrinated into people by society. When a person says my conscience tells me to do this or that, in reality we've been indoctrinated to do it. Subjective conscience is a devolution of objective conscience.

Objective conscience is a priori knowledge a person can remember over time. It isn't learned but rather always is and can be remembered."

“We must create a cosmic man, a man ruled by his conscience.” Albert Einstein

Since the being of Man is diminishing in quality, the cosmic man must remain an unfulfilled potential and man is to remain governed by subjective morality indoctrinated by the secular state rather than the needs of the body of God.

[popeye1945]

Define if you will, objective conscience.
[/quote]

Normally people define conscience as a subjective quality indoctrinated into people by society. When a person says my conscience tells me to do this or that, in reality we've been indoctrinated to do it. Subjective conscience is a devolution of objective conscience.
Objective conscience is a priori knowledge a person can remember over time. It isn't learned but rather always is and can be remembered."
“We must create a cosmic man, a man ruled by his conscience.” Albert Einstein
Since the being of Man is diminishing in quality, the cosmic man must remain an unfulfilled potential and man is to remain governed by subjective morality indoctrinated by the secular state rather than the needs of the body of God.
[/quote]

Nick,
So it is a mystical understanding, I very much doubt that was Albert Einstein's understanding of man must be ruled by his conscience, as he was not religiously inclined. All-knowing is the property of a conscious subject, all meaning relative to said biology. Morality and autonomy are mutually exclusive, if one is not governed by the morality of the society in which one lives there is a good chance one will be incarcerated. Only within society is a morality relevant to behavior. There is no point really in butting heads over this, I am just not inclined to mysticism. Thanks for your patients though.

[Nick_A]

Define if you will, objective conscience.

Normally people define conscience as a subjective quality indoctrinated into people by society. When a person says my conscience tells me to do this or that, in reality we've been indoctrinated to do it. Subjective conscience is a devolution of objective conscience.
Objective conscience is a priori knowledge a person can remember over time. It isn't learned but rather always is and can be remembered."
“We must create a cosmic man, a man ruled by his conscience.” Albert Einstein
Since the being of Man is diminishing in quality, the cosmic man must remain an unfulfilled potential and man is to remain governed by subjective morality indoctrinated by the secular state rather than the needs of the body of God.
[/quote]

Nick,
So it is a mystical understanding, I very much doubt that was Albert Einstein's understanding of man must be ruled by his conscience, as he was not religiously inclined. All-knowing is the property of a conscious subject, all meaning relative to said biology. Morality and autonomy are mutually exclusive, if one is not governed by the morality of the society in which one lives there is a good chance one will be incarcerated. Only within society is a morality relevant to behavior. There is no point really in butting heads over this, I am just not inclined to mysticism. Thanks for your patients though.
[/quote]

Conscience isn't mystical. It is psychology but not the psychology limited to secularism but is universal in scope.

1954
“We will be destroyed unless we create a cosmic conscience. And we have to begin to do that on an individual level, with the youth that are the politicians of tomorrow…. But no one, and certainly no state, can take over the responsibility that the individual has to his conscience.” Albert Einstein

My gut feeling is that humanity as a whole is not ready for it. This is why the question of the thread cannot be answered. It requires respecting the entire cycle of life rather than arguing small segments. But as long as we have the Einsteins, and Simone Weil types, they reveal the psychological path leading to conscious evolution: from the secular to the universal if only for individuals if nothing else.

[popeye1945]

Conscience isn't mystical. It is psychology but not the psychology limited to secularism but is universal in scope.quote

1954
“We will be destroyed unless we create a cosmic conscience. And we have to begin to do that on an individual level, with the youth that are the politicians of tomorrow…. But no one, and certainly no state, can take over the responsibility that the individual has to his conscience.” Albert Einstein

My gut feeling is that humanity as a whole is not ready for it. This is why the question of the thread cannot be answered. It requires respecting the entire cycle of life rather than arguing small segments. But as long as we have the Einsteins, and Simone Weil types, they reveal the psychological path leading to conscious evolution: from the secular to the universal if only for individuals if nothing else.
[/quote]

Nick,

Ok, conscience is psychological, which necessarily means subjective, but it is not to be secular but universal, how is this subjective property to become universal yet not secular? Where does the meaning inherent in conscience come from? Conscience arises I believe from an identification of the self with others as self, thus compassion arises as conscience. You seem to be hinting that the source of these things is other than humanity itself----no? What is this universal quality and how does it manifest itself. I believe you previously inferred that conscience is or should be objective but it could only be made objective by a conscious subject bestowing said conscience upon the physical world which is in itself meaningless. All right lets assume that the subject is to acquire universal conscience what does that mean? A path leading to conscious evolution inferrs a methodology, what might that look like? Responsibility to one's conscience inferrs compassion for one's self, if in doing so, does that involve a larger concept of self incorporateting humanity in general, thus a universal conscience of the individual?