/lit/ - Literature

>>13318187
The "insert religion/culture here" upbringing they probably had, as most humans had.

From their pretentious ass

>>13318193
Where did pre-religious shamanic cultures get their morals from?

>>13318187
>implying atheists have morals
They inherit them from the state, and from social norms of their communities.

>>13318187
From their God given ability to discern just from unjust, and the preexisting moral framework instilled by prior Christian generations in the Western World.

/thread.
And a poor thread at that, OP.

>>13318200
I have my own morals, fuck the state.

>>13318212
okay stupid

>>13318198
It was probably more about survival back then, so I imagine it would stem from a devotion to your collective group against both the world and other groups.

>>13318198
>>13318228
and also reason. the ability to reason is important too.

>>13318187
Many in the popular atheist crowd, like all religious fundamentalists, get their ethics probably from school and Youtube intellectuals like Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Steven Pinker and so on... mixed with some distilled form of liberalism/utilitarianism from Mill and Locke.

On the other hand, other atheists probably from all kinds of traditions of thought, including religion. (John Gray is an interesting example for this, I think....)

>>13318187

If they are in the US, typically some flavor of Christianity.

Atheists in the US tend to become so because they want to rebel against their parents. However, this starts to present long after their indoctrination into slave morals. This tends to push them towards the left which reframes the master-slave morals of Christianity with the language of Marxism fulfilling the religious urge.

>>13318198
My balls.

>>13318236
>Where did humans get their reason?
That's the point of philosophy, stupid.

>>13318187
What morals?

>>13318187
reddit or twitter

>>13318187
Read White Mythology by Derrida

>>13318187
Christianity, but without the religious part.

>>13318198
They didn't have a moral system, and acted mostly on instinct, similar to animals. They were governed by what they naturally felt was socially acceptable and what felt good to them.

>>13318187
whims. like woman and other "centrists" They Frankenstein whatever they please at the moment.

Morality is separate from religion.

It is an evolutionary advantage to be generous, to treat others with respect, to be charitable. That translates into prestige, which can help when times are tough. 'Do unto others' is secular.

>>13318332
>buried their dead
>worshipped existence/god with rituals
>have rudimentary forms of court and trials
Ah just like animals

>>13318340
Morality is inseparable from some authentic conception of God. Subjective morality is an oxymoron, dummies confuse morality with codes of ethics.

>>13318360
>pre-religious shamanic cultures
Nice try, chief

>>13318198
Common sense or as it's called practical reason, morals are intristic to human nature later religious just solidify them better.

>>13318187
>morals
lol faggot

>>13318340
If morality is separate from religion, why do so many religions focus on morality? So much so, that there are religions like say Confucionism, Shinto, Buddhism and others, that focus mainly on some life-style tradition with a strong moral compass.

If being charitable is an evolutionary advantage, why do we have such a fun time killing each other. Also, why are these things present in secular and non-religious countries like contemporary western countries or, the popular example of say communist or other kinds of dictatorships?

>>13318187
There is no such thing as an atheist.

>>13318187
Laws

>>13318187
From the big Other

The liberal globalist system, so twitter, CNN, the NY Times, and their blue-haired feminist professors. Every atheist is a complete tool of the current capitalist system. Hitchens (dec.) and Sam Harris want to replace religion with liberal globalism. "Let's all get along." We're in a neo-middle ages phase where instead of God we will argue about who is and isn't racist for the next thousand years and ultimately realize the blacks never really had it that bad. Sam Harris for what he's worth couldn't even vote for Trump because he was "hateful." With everything that coward Harris has ever said about Islam, why wouldn't he vote for Trump? Because he threatened his true God. The diverse multi-cultural God which is where atheists get their ethics from.

>>13318187
Doctor Who

>>13318374

Religion stems from the same evolutionary logic that morality comes from. Religion helps to inspire, to motivate, to unite and exclude.

Charity is an evolutionary advantage. However, it only works on people you expect to help you back at some point; members of the tribe. Raping, pillaging, murdering and occupying are also encouraged. Only recently have standards changed against the latter behaviours.

You support the ingroup and you hate the outgroup. Heretics and white trash are synonyms.

>>13318423
Major kek

>>13318447
Wise anon, I'm not sure that you really responded to my questions, you seem to have only further explained your opinion on the topic. I'm kinda confused.

See this, you say:
> Religion stems from the same evolutionary logic that morality comes from. Religion helps to inspire, to motivate, to unite and exclude.

But previously you said ("Morality is separate from religion"), that religion and are separate, now you are saying they stem from the same place (evolution). Strange.

> Charity is an evolutionary advantage. However, it only works on people you expect to help you back at some point.

I feel you on this one, kinda echoes Stirner, but this idea or how we define charity is in precisely that the charitable person does not expect something back, sure, he/she gets something emotionally back -- due the way our brains are wired -- but the kicker is here that the person is not aware of it when we are truly charitable and does not expect something back. Or am I missing someting?

Further, how would we define "the Tribe", how do we determine it in society? Does it have to do something with age, gender, politics, wealth, intelligence, health...or, perhaps, some metaphysical conception (dare we call it God?).

>>13318187
They grow in Northern climates, so atheists probably get them from farms in those zones.

>>13318534
>Does it have to do something with age, gender, politics, wealth, intelligence, health...or, perhaps, some metaphysical conception
yes
A tribe is nothing more than a group. And in large societies a person will have many different groups they belong to. But most will choose one main one.
The human brain really hasn't had time to adapt to modern living conditions. It's not as simple as behavior/reward. Human behavior is very complex, and the size of social systems today only exacerbates it.

>(dare we call it God?)
There really isn't a reason to. Unless you start with a conclusion and work backwards.

>>13318364
The earliest hunter gathered did that though

Where does God get his morals from?

>>13318602
God+

>>13318338
This.

You ask anyone about ethics you'll get movie quotes and nonsensical one-liners.

>>13318374
>If morality is separate from religion, why do so many religions focus on morality?
Are you stupid? Do you know anything about logic?

>>13318187
For me it's aesthetic value. Things that are beautiful are right and things that are ugly are not.

>>13318577

Mighty anon, good:

> A tribe is nothing more than a group. And in large societies a person will have many different groups they belong to. But most will choose one main one.

But what principle, or what is it that holds the group together? Evolution, surely if we would say that the human being is nothing but evolution. But, then, what is the point in living, do we live only to continue evolution? (if so, why? why is it important to continue evolution?) Most importantly, how do we know all of this? Isn't this also a backwards conclusion? (that we, ultimately, live by and for Evolution)
As you say so eloquently:

> There really isn't a reason to. Unless you start with a conclusion and work backwards.

Let us also consider this, then, you say: "The human brain really hasn't had time to adapt to modern living conditions" What time? (what amount of time?), when will be the time?, and how do we know this? When and how will we know this that the human mind has fully adapted to this process, do we know this? And adapted to what? You say modern conditions. Are modern conditions necessarily better, which is also why we have to adapt to them? Isn't all of this, not a conclusion working backwards as well --> the conclusion that there is not some metaphysical conception

>>13318187
It's an origins story beyond the scope of this board, but if you're looking for a simple fake answer, you have to go back to your board.

>>13318641
For me? It's the McChicken.

>>13318643
I would love to type out an extensive response to this, that addresses all of your questions thoroughly. But I realize after reading your post a few times, literally every one of your questions stems from a lack of knowledge about the scientific fields in question. Mainly evolutionary theory and psychology.
>Evolution, surely if we would say that the human being is nothing but evolution.
^ This one being incredibly telling. I do not mean it as an insult when I say this demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge pertaining to evolution.
As well as
>But what principle
>do we live only to continue evolution?
>Isn't this also a backwards conclusion?
Pertaining specifically to evolution, and
>when will be the time?, and how do we know this?
>And adapted to what?
>Are modern conditions necessarily better
>the conclusion that there is not some metaphysical conception
Pertaining to psychology, and specifically the way the our minds behave in a modern setting compared to historically more prevalent settings.
So I would love to answer your questions here, but I am of the opinion that the best answer is literally an advanced college education.

>>13318698
Is this not the very same case as it is with religious fundamentalist dogma, I am talking about the statement: "You do not understand and cannot talk about this since you have not read the scriptures in the way I did?" ?

>>13318417
This is foolish. There are plenty of atheists (myself included) who are opposed to neoliberalism, globalism and 'the great replacement'. Most atheists probably are neolibs, but this isn't especially condemning since most people in the west are. Harris does not have a monopoly on atheism. You're shitting on actual and potential allies.

>>13318698
Forgot to mention, yes anon, I am college educated. Thank you for asking.

>>13318698
+ to make things really clear, my college education was not connected to religion/theology and was secular. The faculty, teachers and subjects had nothing to do with any religion, for that matter. I just like to read (and am not a fan of Dawkins and co.), have a nice day anon. :)

>>13318187
Human nature and the society they were born and raised in.

>>13318198
Religion/culture has existed longer than our species. It comes from environment and biology (human nature), and develops circumstantially thereafter. Perhaps you could identify a period in time when it couldn't yet exist and then could as our ancestors changed. Organised, basic bitch religion like Christianity is an aberration. A destructive creature developed only to displace and kill, leaving little substance behind. You can't base your culture and spirituality on some tentative philosophical principles that most don't even know anyway. Tradition, ritual, and law are the most important but these are reduced to simple convenient forms upon annihilation of the nuanced native culture, and easily fall apart thereafter. It means the world increasingly becomes culturally primitive, negating social development (nuance) of possibly a million years.

>>13318710
Not really. You're not misinterpreting some subjective thing. You're displaying a complete lack of understanding of an incredibly objective thing.
>>13318715
I want to reiterate I'm not trying to insult you. I believe I have laid out my observation in a manner that cannot be misunderstood but for a deliberately obtuse attitude.
>>13318725
I suppose it's not necessary to have a thorough understanding of a subject to pass a course that skims it.

>>13318187
With trials and error. Grand narrative morals are a spook invented by people with power.

>>13318198
please stop coming to /lit
you cannot be this dumb

>>13318187
Morality is the formalized expression of cooperative behaviours which have evolved in us as social animals. We all get our morals from our natures (although modulated by culture/tradition).

We are:
-Highly social
-Capable of advanced abstraction
-Utilize complex recorded language
Which results in the abstract development and codification of behavioural paradigms into 'morality'.

>>13318732
> incredibly objective thing.
The final response:
Look, I was not talking about the objective or observable world or God in that sense, neither did I try to disprove Evolution (since it's objectively, by all scientific accounts, true). Instead I was talking about human life. The thing is.... atheism is a dogma/religion too, and neuroscience and psychology teach us that religions work. But a purely materialistic view of the world, seems to me, to have a bad flavor. (look for secular philosopher Mary Midgley on this). Or this article.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161129085014.htm

That's the line, religions work on a personal level, this cannot be denied. And have always existed, and will always exist, whether God exists or not. Evolution is true, though.

>>13318187
Same place as the religious just without the delusions.

>>13318758
Never seen someone miss the point this hard. Well that's a lie, I have. But you get what I'm saying.

>>13318187
>Where do atheists get their morals from?
When I was a child, it was "don't do this or you will be smacked" and then they fucking smacked me hard when I did it.

When I was a young adult, it was "don't do this or you will be sent to prison" and I really didn't fancy the idea of prison.

When I grew up I realised I don't need anything in life besides the basic means to survive, and my primary goal in life became the avoidance of as much social interaction as possible. I hate being near people, I hate talking to them, I don't want anything to do with them. The best solution to this is to avoid giving them a reason to interact with me, which means avoiding comitting crimes among other things. I don't need to steal a few hundred dollars from a store, it won't affect my life in any meaningful way so why do it?

>>13318187
As an atheist I find the question very interesting. Some part of it is obviously genetic, evolutionary. If primates and birds can be altruistic without the fear of eternal damnation forcing them so can we.

>>13318781
if primates and birds can rape each other so can we

>>13318187
>morals

Some are carry overs from evolution and some come from social evolution.

Like the concept of love, where did that come from? Started out as a compulsive need to breed but then we started developing stronger bonds due to hormones and shit and eventually we started adding shit like “soulmates” and the like. Basically morals had a similar development.

>>13318758
OP didn't ask what our narrative proxy for morality is; we have to take the question at face value, and it's asking where atheists (and by extension, everyone) actually get their morals from. That many people receive their moral education via religion does not change the source phenomena give rise to morality in the first place.

>>13318781
Altruism isn't a real thing, any action always satisfies some impulse in the agent, even if the benefit is temporary and short-sighted.

>>13318187
From Christianity.

>>13318818
Wouldn't self sacrifice be altruism though? No impulse to satisfy if you're fucking dead.

>>13318818
Basically anyone who does good does so because it either makes them feel good about themselves, because they’re trying to gain social points or to avoid losing social standing? I can see that.

>>13318821
And before that?

>>13318805
>morality is processed chemicals
>there is no predetermined moral code that you're free to follow or not

>>13318834
And that’s ok. Sometimes things get uncomfortable if you think about them too long.

>>13318830
From God.
>>13318830
>humility is self centered
All that anon posted is pure selfishness. You can't comprehend morality if it's only percentages to your own net gain.

>>13318834
Not him but just because humans are pre-wired to have "morality" because it's a pro-social behaviour doesn't mean there is a predetermined "moral" code.
e.g it doesn't matter what norms we follow, only that there are norms for our human group to follow.

>>13318840
Maybe someone should stop being a pussy and think more then.

>>13318841
You’re free to think so.

Yeah there’s more to morality than selfishness, but it’s in there too.

>>13318848
If you’re talking about me then please elaborate.

>>13318842
>it doesn't matter what norms we follow, only that there are norms for our human group to follow.
That's where you lose your argument when you say that morality can be molded however we want.
It can't. Absolutely not if it's predetermined.
You can mold your own moral code, but the farther it is from the absolute universal truth of morality, the more you'll degenerate yourself.
Many cultures have different moralities in our world. But unlike what some people say, these cultures are not equal and some are far worse than some others.

>>13318855
>That's where you lose your argument when you say that morality can be molded however we want.
Thank god I didn't say that then. I said it has to be pro-social.
>the absolute universal truth of morality, the more you'll degenerate yourself.
Oh well I should have known. Have fun buddy.

>>13318855
>It can't. Absolutely not if it's predetermined.
>Many cultures have different moralities in our world.
So... It's not predetermined.

I just make shit up as I go

>>13318854
>Yeah there’s more to morality than selfishness, but it’s in there too.
Morality with selfishness is not morality. In Christianity the highest peak of morality is the denial of the self, not in the trad modernist, pseudo eastern philosophical sense of becoming a void bitch, but to know your depths, accept them, but not to give into them as an authority over God, which is the truth.

>>13318855
Morals can be anything you want but I’m sure we can all point out the groups who take that to the extreme and see how they eat each other.

Yes there are other cultures and moral ideas that are better than others and ideally we are working to take the good and leave the bad leading to a better world. If morality was predetermined, wouldn’t it be never changing and couldn’t get better because it would already be the most moral system?

>>13318865
Can a moral action come as a result of selfish choices?

>>13318860
>morality is predetermined
>because it's pro-social
It's not.
>>13318862
Culture predetermine their version of morality which always are in lack of it. You try, but you fail and eventually you start accepting that maybe morality isn't even real. Than you lose all morality.

>>13318869
So you're just going abandon argument and start preaching? Cool cool...

>>13318864
Amazin'!

>>13318825
>even if the benefit is temporary
You're still achieving some type of psychological satisfaction by being honourable, true to your principles or whatever the case may be.

>>13318868
>Morals can be anything you want
You can't change morals no more than you can change the laws of physics.
>roups who take that to the extreme and see how they eat each other
They do that BECAUSE they can definte their own morality.
>If morality was predetermined, wouldn’t it be never changing
Correct.
>couldn’t get better because it would already be the most moral system?
Morality is not a system on its own, but is is itself the truth. We build moral systems to understand the truth, but as the Bible says, who is worthy to look upon the face of God and live?
>Can a moral action come as a result of selfish choices?
Results, of course. But are you moral in doing such actions?

>>13318876
I suppose. I see what you mean now.

>>13318869
>>morality is predetermined
did not say that
>It's not.
I suppose you know this from the infaillible Bible you retard?

>>13318882
>>13318871
Cope harder.
Or at least articulate yourself properly.

>>13318878
>You can't change morals no more than you can change the laws of physics.
Shit, didn't know slavery was still okay in the west. Thanks for telling me buddy, I'll be racing to the nigger market.

>>13318256
Y te quedas tan ancho.

>>13318887
>starts preaching moral degradation
>tells others to articulate themselves properly
I believe I articulated myself perfectly fine. Your preaching has no power here.

>>13318897
>implies I preach moral degradation
>implies he didn't say something when he did say
Fine.

>>13318878
If you can’t change morals how can you say they define their own morality? If morality is never changing are you saying morals can not improve? As in, if it was immoral to be homosexual, it always is and two consenting adults shouldn’t do that?

If your goal is for a moral outcome but for selfish reasons, your actions are still moral. You aim for a moral action and therefore you made a morally good choice.

>>13318887
>the entire fields of evolutionary psychology, history and anthropology are wrong because my magic diary says otherwise. Why don't you just listen to my preaching?
>cope harder

>>13318903
>implies he didn't say something when he did say
What exactly are you talking about

>>13318904
See, you think of morality as something we all have programed with perfect detail in ourselves, which is not the case and would nullify free will.
Yes, I say that morality does not change and what it dictates does not turn around and negates itself.
Why did I compare it with the laws of physics?
Because though you can't defy physics, you can bargain with them, use them to your advantage.
Such is with morality.
You can't defy morality without damage, but you must strive to be better, else eventually, denying morality as a whole, you will destroy yourself.
Morality is more like a picture by a mirror, seeing yourself how your are and how you ought to be. Atheists don't care about the picture, but blindly brush themselves in a mirror we ourselves make.

>>13318340
but only humanists say that
>be generous, to treat others with respect, to be charitable. That translates into prestige, which can help when times are tough.
is a virtue

also, how do you know that morality as something to do with an advantage

Take a drink every time someone ITT think evolution says everything needs to have an advantage.

>>13318907
>>13318908
I'll level with you for the last time.
How does evolution (which itself has been remodeled a few times), psychology (which is pure interpretation about the most absurd), history or anthropology, neither of which can be consistently agreed upon, again, how do any of these prove or disprove perpetual morality?
As for my magic diary, it gave Western Civilization a big head start in the moral field, if you disagree with this, you're literally retarded, atheist or not.

>>13318929
>which itself has been remodeled a few times
>which is pure interpretation about the most absurd

>>13318929
>how do any of these prove or disprove perpetual morality?
literally open a history book.
>As for my magic diary, it gave Western Civilization a big head start in the moral field, if you disagree with this, you're literally retarded, atheist or not.
>head start
since when is this a race?
Also, the great western moral thinkers are either pre-christians greeks/romans or heavily influenced by those. Just look at how you retarded /lit/ biblethumper just keep quoting scholastic when the entire point of that field was trying to reconcile a garbage theology with slightly better greek metaphysics.

>>13318940
Which part of Biblical theology has been reinterpreted to suit a completely opposite ideology?
Stop drawing at reddit-tier straws and actually give me something.

>>13318942
So you think Antiquity Greeks were the pinnacle of morality?

>>13318920
No that’s not what I think morality is. We are not programmed with the entirety of moral thought. There are some things that are part of our moral thinking that have become ingrained into our evolution but complex morality is something that is built up with experience, thought and environment.

No one is denying morality. We just have different ideas about it’s origins.

I don’t think morality is as ridged as it seems you think it is. Morals do very much change.

>>13318929
You’re really giving the Bible way too much credit. Granted it’s motivated some of the big movers in our collective history but not all of it was sincere. The morals of the Bible, for the most part existed before your religion. >>13318946
This is just complete ignorance. Why do you think there are so many conflicting denominations? Things get changed all the time, have been for as long as the religion has existed.

>>13318946
>Which part of Biblical theology has been reinterpreted to suit a completely opposite ideology?
You need to be a troll, my desire to live depends on it.
>>13318954 's response is perfect.

>>13318952

>>13318954
>We are not programmed with the entirety of moral thought
That's exactly my point, but we are programed with a need for it.
>complex morality is something that is built up with experience
Again, you're implying that morality is not predetermined, that it's naturally attained.
I completely disagree. I think morality is a metaphysical concept that does not change and that we are trying to attain it's ultimate form, but are short of it due to our own ineptitude.
I don't believe we construct morality at a metaphysical level because of human history and seeing how some things consistently work and some thing consistently do not work no matter how much you try to reinterpret them.
>We just have different ideas about it’s origins.
You either accept that morality is a metaphysical form, or you think it's a natural occurrence of brain chemistry, but the latter argument goes nowhere and makes no sense while the former ties itself with the very fabric of perpetual existence of which morality has to be a part of.
>I don’t think morality is as ridged as it seems you think it is. Morals do very much change.
Morality to me is as rigged as the fundamental forces of the universe, but on a different scale. I do not believe we rig morality, but it rigs us as we try to unravel it's undisputed nature.
>Things get changed all the time, have been for as long as the religion has existed
Next to nothing has been changed in Christianity. The basic aspects of humility, original sin, repentance and equality kept it going for centuries and every attempt to redefine it for selfish, imperial reasons ended up from disaster to outright absurdity.
The fundamentals are what convinces me that morality is predestined.

>>13319005
>The basic aspects of humility, original sin, repentance and equality kept it going for centuries and every attempt to redefine it for selfish, imperial reasons ended up from disaster to outright absurdity.
The roman catholic church seems to be doing pretty well.

>>13319017
So did the Soviet Union for a while.

>>13319029
Counter-reformation started 500 years ago. And then there's what lead to the reformation to begin with.

Morality stems from the insight that an individual is better off in a solidary community than all on his own. It's a pragmatic and opportunistic principle. One doesn't need God to not kill and be unnecessarily mean to other people.

>>13318187
atheist morality just happens to coincide with the hard won conclusion of thousands of years of religious moral development.

I guess when you cast aside any transcendent moral source and have to decide for yourself what is and isn't 'right' if there can ever be such a distinction between right and wrong, you can just skip right past the hunter-gatherers, the early civilisations, the classical civilisations, the medieval, the enlightened until right where we are now.

>>13319037
>the hard one morality is the most prevalent
Its crazy that you think this is any kind of justification for a transcendent moral source.

>>13319046
more like our morality has been built on the principle of there being a transcendent moral father, who, not only commands us to obey certain moral principles, but whose existence itself uplifts the whole of humanity, as his special creation, to a plane where morality actually matters because human life is sacred. all liberties and rights are God-given in law, but why should they be preserved in an atheist society? no doubt it's simply because you've observed them working in a religious society.

>>13319066
>why should something that works be used
It couldn't possible be that. No, it has to be a transcendent morality. Fuck occam's razor you need a occam's guillotine to rectify the problems in your logic.

>>13318534

Let me explain further.

I think morality and religion are separate, that they are both branches of evolutionary psychology. I don't see religion as a prerequisite to morality, just another sibling.

I think humans are programmed to be charitable to the ingroup. In pure utilitarian terms, everything should be going to malaria ridden africans, starving Sudanese and Yemeni children. Yet people give money to support the more well-off poor people in the West (progressive taxation, social welfare, almost every domestic Western charity). I take this as proof that people are more concerned with their local/national community and being seen as charitable. It makes sense to be more concerned with the opinions of one's neighbours than distant foreigners.

Of course there are other factors involved with one's tribe. If you're an ardent humanist utilitarian, you'll give money to those you think need it most (probably africans). If you're a Nazi, you'll only give money to whites, or your fellow national socialists. If you're an animal rights activist, the tribe extends across much of the vertebrate order. I think these people have 'hacked' the ingroup mechanic in our heads, so that the resources evolution wanted them to give to their close friends and neighbours go to larger ideological groups. Hacking of the ingroup is how we create huge networks of mutual trust, how we create civilizations.

I don't believe there is any need for metaphysical concepts at the base level. Of course if you're Jewish, you are more likely to give money to your co-religionists. I don't think God is necessary for this practice to work. I don't see why God is needed for people to cooperate, not when evolutionary mechanisms necessitate it. I think God is a means, not a cause.

>>13319076
you're simply a monkey imitating your betters. you can't even apply your own thought as to why you should behave the way you do, you merely accept the status quo.

atheist society is so stagnant.

>>13319081
But.. I did do that... In this very thread no less.
>atheist society
A fucking what?

>>13318364
Neanderthals buried their dead you retard

>>13318187
from the same place animals do
human morals come from God

>>13319084
he's a larping christian schizo

>>13318187
From Christianity.

>>13319078
> I don't believe there is any need for metaphysical concepts at the base level. I don't think God is necessary for this practice to work. I don't see why God is needed for people to cooperate, not when evolutionary mechanisms necessitate it.


"We are accustomed to think of myths as the opposite of science. But in fact they are a central part of it: the part that decides its significance in our lives. So we very much need to understand them. Myths are not lies. Nor are they detached stories. They are imaginative patterns, networks of powerful symbols that suggest particular ways of interpreting the world. They shape its meaning. For instance, machine imagery, which began to pervade our thought in the seventeenth century, is still potent today. We still often tend to see ourselves, and the living things around us, as pieces of clockwork: items of a kind that we ourselves could make, and might decide to remake if it suits us better. Hence the confident language of ‘genetic engineering’ and ‘the building blocks of life’. Again, the reductive, atomistic picture of explanation, which suggests that the right way to understand complex wholes is always to break them down into their smallest parts, leads us to think that truth is always revealed at the end of that other seventeenth-century invention, the microscope. Where microscopes dominate our imagination, we feel that the large wholes we deal with in everyday experience are mere appearances. Only the particles revealed at the bottom of the microscope are real. Thus, to an extent unknown in earlier times, our
dominant technology shapes our symbolism and thereby our metaphysics, our view about what is real. The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone – steel and glass, plastic and rubber and silicon – of his own devising and sees them as the final truth." (Mingley, p. 2 "Myths We Live By).

Here's a list of scientists grappling with metaphysics: Galileo (yes, he believed in God, just in a different way than the Church wanted him to do so, damn them), G.W. Leibniz, Newton (yes, 1/3 of his journals is about alchemy, look it up), Jack Parsons (occultist), Georges Lemaître (Theory of the Expansion of the Universe, Big Bang Theory and priest), Pithagoras, Maria Mitchell, Einstein (he did, more or less, believe in Spinoza's God, look it up), Erwin Schrödinger,
Niels Bohr said this:
"For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory...[we must turn] to those kinds of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like the Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence."

> If you're an animal rights activi... tribe extends across much of the vertebrate order...
You mean like in Buddhism?

> I don't believe there is any need for metaphysical concepts at the base level.

Yet people are still grappling with these things and will probably do so as long as humans have imagination.

The state.

>only argument is unsourced, baseless evopsych guesses
oh no atheists

>>13318187
Same place everybody else gets them from. Established traditional morals and other made up things.

>>13319799
Based.
I'd add Nik Tesla and Leonardo Da Vinci to the list.

>>13318187
being mean to people doesn't feel nice

Atheists get their morals from the same place Christians get their morals: socialisation. We know from history that people were absolutely fine with doing things that would today be considered ghastly. We like to think ourselves superior and more enlightened but the reality is that we would have been doing the exact same thing had we lived in those times. And of course any claim of moral superiority is necessarily circular as we appeal to our age's morals to denigrate theirs.
Christians like to pretend that they get their morals from god but this is patently not the case. If they got their morals from god they would be fine with genocide, slavery, forcing a woman to marry her rapist, child sacrifice, racism (more specifically Jewish supremacy), plunder, etc.

If we define a moral action as that which benefits you, then an objectively moral action denotes that which maximally benefits you. At all times, there is one action that will perfectly benefit you, but your flawed subjectivity may prevent you from understanding what actions you should take. To do something because it is moral, or to not do something because it is immoral, is nothing other than the attempt to benefit yourself in the best of your abilities. It may be said that a man could commit grand crimes—which normally result in his punishment, hence the general immorality of such crimes—and yet remain unpunished, gaining more than he has lost from the crimes. In this case, his actions are perfect and moral, but that’s assuming there are absolutely no punishments in store for him, whether external, internal, or supernatural. Since no man can truly know what awaits him in the afterlife, it is not wise to be immoral.

>>13318193
are their therefore living by the ethics of these religions and why doesn't this make them also religious?

>>13318187
Secular writing and enlightened self interest.

>>13319104
Elephants bury their dead retard, means literally nothing

>>13318187
DUDE EMPATHY LMAO

>>13320481
/thread

>>13320519
you clicked the wrong post fren >>13320488

>>13320491
because they don't believe in god