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Very well put, and I'm sure IC knows this, but he isn't at liberty to acknowledge it.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 4:35 pmIt's a kind of category error to talk about duty within the evolutionary worldview and not for the reason you might argue. The category error is most humanists, say, are not saying we have a duty to act like evolution or natural selection does.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 3:46 am There's no duty within an Evolutionary worldview to prefer "the wellbeing and security of a given population" when your own is at stake, or even when you just suppose it is. Your interest in others is purely instrumental...if they serve you, good; if they don't, then the Devil can take them all. That's the logic of survival.
In biological theory which includes evolutionary theory humans are considered social mammals. Social mammals have built-in desires to be social to get along, to feel empathy and to collaborate. Other social animals with risk their lives for each other, sometimes even across species.
And while I am not a humanist I am sick and tired of the ugly guilt-tripping and hatred of humans inherent in the Abrahamic religions. With all their distrust of humans, of desire, of emotions. The Abrahamic religions are hardly alone in this, but that's my focus in this post. The diseased self-hate in seeing duty as the solution is something so dishonestly presented in all the noble terms. Do I need duty to treat my wive with love and respect? To not run over people? To give a shit about what my country's foreign policty leads to in the world?
Believing in empathy is almost as bad as not believing in God, if my experience of using the word is anything to go by.
so I'm going to hell twice over then?
It doesn't "work." Nobody even HAS a "social contract." There's no such thing.Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 3:17 pmDoes it matter as long as it works? Not perfectly, but what does work perfectly?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 1:54 pm when did you sign your "social contract"? Answer: never. "Social contract" is just an heuristic device, an imaginary "tool" for thinking about human relations. It does not refer to anything anybody "owes."
The point is quite the opposite.I find this idea you have that all human behaviour is, or should be, founded on and regulated by some system of logic or rationality rather strange. That just isn't how human beings work. That's how computers and machines work.
It's probably more that there is a special place in Hell for you, rather than having to go twice, but I'm told it's never too late to save yourself.
Natural selection is not a statement about "duty." It's supposed to be a description of "the way things are."Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 4:35 pmIt's a kind of category error to talk about duty within the evolutionary worldview and not for the reason you might argue. The category error is most humanists, say, are not saying we have a duty to act like evolution or natural selection does.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 3:46 am There's no duty within an Evolutionary worldview to prefer "the wellbeing and security of a given population" when your own is at stake, or even when you just suppose it is. Your interest in others is purely instrumental...if they serve you, good; if they don't, then the Devil can take them all. That's the logic of survival.
Physiologically, that has something to it, in that we're made of the same chemicals. It has nothing to it on the spiritual and consciousness side, far less the moral side.In biological theory which includes evolutionary theory humans are considered social mammals.
And while I am not a humanist I am sick and tired of the ugly guilt-tripping and hatred of humans inherent in the Abrahamic religions.
Did you go to some high official or religious guru, and swear before your assembled friends and family that you would love her "for richer, for poorer, in sickness, in health...until death do you part?" If you did, why did you do that? If it was automatic, what's the value of such a declaration of duty?Do I need duty to treat my wive with love and respect?
Not sure I want to save myself either, Heaven could be full of IC types and we'd have to pretend for eternity that we love one another..
I wasn't really telling you, to you those are just words without meaning no?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 6:12 pmI'm so amused when anti-Christians tell me what they think Christianity is all about. It's always entertaining...but never informative.
I would say there is an implicit social contract. I mean, most of us have a sense of our social obligations and rights in respect of how we treat other people, and how we expect them to treat us. And it obviously does work; I only have to consider how I do behave towards others, and how they behave towards me.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 5:57 pmIt doesn't "work." Nobody even HAS a "social contract." There's no such thing.Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 3:17 pmDoes it matter as long as it works? Not perfectly, but what does work perfectly?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 1:54 pm when did you sign your "social contract"? Answer: never. "Social contract" is just an heuristic device, an imaginary "tool" for thinking about human relations. It does not refer to anything anybody "owes."
Well I do use logic and rationality, in addition to my own experience, to assess if what I'm being told makes sense. How do you think I arrived at the conclusion that what you have told me doesn't make sense?IC wrote:The point is quite the opposite.Harbal wrote: I find this idea you have that all human behaviour is, or should be, founded on and regulated by some system of logic or rationality rather strange. That just isn't how human beings work. That's how computers and machines work.
The reason for using logic and rationality is not to make people behave in a certain way, but rather to discover if what they are telling you makes sense. Wouldn't you rather know when people are telling you something irrational and illogical? And if what they say can't even make sense on its own terms, let alone any of yours or mine, what's the reason that you would want to accept it?
No, but don't let me stop you...Atla wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 6:14 pmI wasn't really telling you, to you those are just words without meaning no?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 6:12 pmI'm so amused when anti-Christians tell me what they think Christianity is all about. It's always entertaining...but never informative.
