choices

[Peter Kropotkin]

this is another aspect of the Dostoevsky thread in
which ethics and morality are understood...

we call ourselves human beings, but in fact, we are nothing
more than advance animals... drop the human pretense and we
see nothing but an animal...

and the road as Nietzsche said is simple, going from animal to human..
and then beyond....however, most people wallow in their animal nature...
to be slave to the body is animal... however with that said, the instinct
to spirit is not healthy either... to commit to being just soul is to ignore
what we once and current selves are, which is animal, but we are
part of both animal and human... and not the good
parts of either... the ability to choose is the ability to be human...
if we are unable to choose, then we are animal.. the human
part of us is to make choices... the choices we have is
to become something... animals cannot become anything more than animals..
they must do what their instincts tell them to do, they have no choice...
and if our instincts tell us to commit crimes such as murder or rape or steal,
then we are not human either...we are, at best, is animal/human...

choices is what defines us as human beings, no choice, that is animal...

More in a bit...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

now what morals or ethics do animals have? whatever instincts gave them...
they have no choice... that is the point of being an animal..

However I can choose to be nice to someone or be mean... if I can't choose or
I have to be mean because I have no other choice, then I am not human....
but one might say, but Kropotkin, I am clearly human... if you cannot
make choices, you are not human....you are animal/human...

so what can we say about morals and ethics, given we are on the road
to becoming human? that Atheism is not only a choice, but it is
the only real choice we have... to believe in god is to hold on to
a whole entire network of beliefs.. to believe in god requires
faith in hell and heaven and angels and demons and in some faiths,
it requires constant rebirth until we have the "right" beliefs that
allow us to escape that constant rebirth and suffering...

the fact is that faith in a god will give one, at least one hopes,
a free ticket to heaven.. it is a carrot and a stick approach to belief..
and in fact, without this carrot or stick, there is no reason to
hold a belief in god.. I would suggest that without this carrot
or stick, that no one would actually ever believe in god....
why? why have a belief in god if, if there is no reward or punishment?

this carrot and stick approach is a means to limit our choices in
what beliefs we hold...one: believe and go to heaven, two:
don't believe and go to hell.. this is reducing our choices to two
possibilities... heaven or hell....

but what are the choices of the Atheist? ah, that becomes
interesting...

for Atheist hold what is the most common, and
most practiced ethics in the world, situational ethics...
in that the situation creates the ethics... that the situation I
face, creates the ethics I use to work out that situation...

not too long ago at work, a young kid was going nuts at self-checkout
he was threatening to beat up everyone at checkout and screaming
at the top of his lungs... Now, I was the SCO person at the time... I approached
him and he started to scream at me about how much he was going to beat the crap
out of me... he then walked to me and his nose was touching mine nose,
that is how close he was to me and screaming the whole time how he was
going to beat me up..... I didn't react and in fact, I showed a bit of disdain
in the situation...he was trying to frighten me and get me to react to him...
I didn't and he walked away still screaming about how he was going to beat
the crap out of me.. the situation dictated my reaction.. I correctly guess
that he wasn't going to react and he wanted me to instigate... which I didn't
do....and he left.. I had several choices and I choose the correct one...
one choice that left me without fighting someone.. and at my age, 64,
that wouldn't have been pretty...

for most people, the situation dictates what the ethics and morality
they are going to use...very few people have ethics and morality that
is set in stone and followed to the letter.. a pacifist will be a pacifist
all the way until they are hit and then all morals/ethics goes out the window...

now it seems pretty clear that Christians in modern day America don't
hold to their beliefs very hard... in turning IQ45 into the second coming,
they are violating the 10 commandments... you know the one that says,

''thou shalt have no other gods before me''..

and they have no problem with violating the other commandments...

they have publicly stated that gays should die.. umm, it seems to
me that the commandments cover that one too...and they have to
destroy "leftism", Desantis has said this several times, now
outside of sending people to prison or death, I can't
see how that one works.....

One possibility to eliminate the contradictions of religions,
for example to say all life is sacred and abortions must end,
and in the next breath, agree with capital punishment....
to avoid these sorts of contradictions, we need to remove ourselves
from religion in regard to our ethics and morals...

if all life is sacred, then we must prevent capital punishment
and well as allowing the police to shoot innocent civilians...
and we must prevent the use of any practice that might
bring about an end of life situation.. and this includes
torturing of people..

to say this another way, our current morality is wildly inconsistent,
we hold all kinds of opposing viewpoint without even attempting
to limit the contradictions within them....

and all this goes away if, if we simply accept the idea of
"situational ethics" that the situation creates the ethics or
morals.....

Kropotkin