jamail77 said:
Lord Garnaat said:
the most irritating and harmful fanatics are the "fundamentalist" atheists, not the theists.
[snip-a]
On that note, human beings are completely and utterly above all other life on Earth. Extending animal rights is a courtesy and a kindness, but the rights of animals end as soon as our convenience begins. Mankind's destiny is to rule this planet and expand out to colonize and control all others as well, so suspending our drive forward due to petty concerns is pointless. Pretending that animals are somehow equal to us when this is clearly not the case only saps us of our will to act decisively to achieve that destiny, and should be actively discourage whenever possible.
A global government power that is superior in authority to all other nations and can direct the entirety of the human race is not only inevitable but necessary.
[dee-doo-dah]
Psychological therapy is a pseudoscience.
[snip-a]
Developing advanced, eventually sentient AI or pursuing some kind of transhumanism is an incredibly stupid idea that can only end badly.
[dee-day]
We need a more conformist society. Telling people that they are special is not only dishonest but immoral, especially when they are children.
Sorry, about the line separations in advance if they look bad or are hard to navigate around. You had a lot of points I wanted to respond to, thought it might get messy, wanted to see how this formatting would come out.
Just wondering, what makes "fundamentalist" atheists worse exactly than their theist counterparts? Both seem just as bad to me.
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You know, there's no denying we can do such a higher number of things that other animals can't than there are number of species. How does that make us superior though? Just look at how we've written ourselves into a corner. Those abilities come at a cost.
We now live in a society that makes it so easy to separate us from what were once instincts that it takes tireless scientific research to confirm that "Yes, elephants can mourn their dead like we do".
I agree with you on prioritizing human life, but our accomplishments are not evidence of our superiority. As far as the current age of life on Earth is concerned we're just 5 minutes in to an experiment on whether a technological civilization as far along as ours can survive another 5 minutes. I think our crises easily balance out what we're capable of. Few species have the kind of potential to simultaneously thrive on the scale we can and kill themselves off so easily while leaving relatively long lasting monuments. The stability other species have is their advantage over us. Does that make us equal? No. Does that make us as superior as you suggest? No, I don't think that either.
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All that makes up psychological theory? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoGqb3LyST0#t=08]
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Now,
Terminator. There's some pseudoscience
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Eh, without a better foundation in early childhood I don't think we rule out that every person has something to bring the table. There will always be someone better at what you do, but if you don't have the foundation to build upon your interests you can't rule out that you are indeed special among most people. This
DOESN'T have to be built upon a non-competitive, participation award, whatever this phenomenon I've never witnessed is called by people mentality and it doesn't necessarily disprove the concept of limited aptitude or similarities in capability either.
You ask a lot of good question and make some insightful points, so I thought I'd respond.
It is worth noting, first of all, that seeing this is a controversial opinions thread, I worded my opinions in the most controversial way I could. All of them require qualification in some way or another.
Concerning fundamentalism, I'll be the first to admit that "worse" could correspond to a virtually any number of criteria, but my reasoning behind relies mostly on two.
First of all, I think its worth noting that, in terms of pure numbers, extreme and intolerant atheists have caused far worse catastrophes than any religiously motivated ones ever have. People point to things like the Inquisition as "proof" that religions are somehow inherently evil, but how many people were actually executed by that Inquisition? Maybe 4000, over the course of three centuries? After being given a trial in one of the fairest courts in Europe? Compare that to the French Revolution, dominated by deists, agnostics, and atheists, which killed 40,000 people in twelve months, or the Stalinist terrors that let millions die in the Gulags, or the Nazi genocides that killed millions of others, or the Maoist excesses that killed tens of millions, all within half a century. It infuriates me that people decry the crimes of various religions and use that as justification for dismissing it, all while the most vicious people guilty of the most monstrous crimes of the past century (Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.) have all been openly anti-religious, and yet they elect to ignore that.
Of course, that argument is not in the least bit fair. After all, one cannot pin all of these innumerable crimes on the simple fact that they were atheists, or argue that somehow the nonreligious are inherently less moral than anyone else. That would be unfounded, not the least because atrocities are far more complicated than that, and there are a variety of other reasons that those crimes might have been committed that have nothing to do with their religious beliefs. One could easily say that thousands of nuns and priests or lay believers were killed in Russia or China was simply because the state had no interest in sharing power, and so it was more due the all too human desire for dominating others. That is a fair explanation, but if we accept that, couldn't we say the same of every Crusade or other "religious" crime ever committed? Dig deep enough and you can find any number of other causes for every conflict or purge in history.
So far as I'm concerned, that levels the playing field, which is something people do dispute. The claim you put forward, though, is that any kind of extremism in either direction is equally bad. That is certainly true to an extent, but my response would be that, if we accept that both atheistic and theistic fundamentalism are equally harmful, then we have to examine if they are equally capable of
good results as well. I know that the word "fundamentalism" carries an inherently negative connotation, but what does it actually mean? Total devotion, usually with a literal interpretation of one's beliefs and a sense that that belief, and that alone, carries an objective truth. You could put that label on half the saints and kings that have lived in history, and many of them did not only great things but good things. Saint Francis was a fundamentalist - after all, isn't giving up everything you own to the poor an extreme? But complete and total adherence to religious dogma also demands complete and total adherence to principles like charity, mercy, and compassion, whether or not a fundamentalist chooses to follow that. Having an extreme religious belief demands that the believer follow both sides of the faith, and at least that raises the possibility of good coming as a result. But atheism demands nothing: there is no requirement, no Five Pillars, no moral code, no entrance exam. For the average Stalin, the only thing that they're accountable to is their own desires, and they are under no obligation to accomplish any good at all alongside their purges and show trials. And what good have all these openly anti-theistic states achieved in the past hundred years, exactly? Absolutely nothing, other than the complete ruination of the nations they were established in, of course.
That's the way I see it, at least.
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About what you say concerning animals, I have to admit that what you say about the advantage of animals over humans is a good point, and something I hadn't thought of before. Animals are indeed far more suited towards long-term survival than humans, in some respects, seeing that they simply don't have the capabilities to destroy themselves as easily as we can do to our own kind. And, indeed, the grand scheme features us in only the smallest portion of time.
The way it seems to me, however, is that our superiority lies in entirely different criteria. We are undoubtedly smarter and more advanced than they are, but personally the only reason I consider us greater than other life is that we are the only species capable of being "good." Animals are incapable of moral judgment: they are bundles of instinct, which is why we don't call a tiger "evil" when it eats a person. Human beings are more than that, though: we can transcend our limited natural selves to make abstract judgments about right and wrong that absolutely no other creature can. We can conceive of things greater than ourselves in ways that are impossible for any other thing in all Creation, and that's the only thing that counts in my book. Animals might have some rudimentary form of reason, but it's nothing but a thin shadow compared to what we are capable of.
I agree about the fragility of the human species, but so far as I'm concerned that just makes a humanocentric policy that much more important. If we're to preserve the spark of life that we carry, then we need to act with
human interests first and foremost in our minds at all times - no middle ground, no compromise. I love animals, and I believe strongly in protecting them when we can, but human life and human interests trump them every time.
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I don't think every aspect of psychology is bogus, but I look very skeptically at people who claim to understand what other people are thinking or what is going on in their heads. How can someone possibly assert as a scientific fact (not as a faith, but as a thing that can actually be proven) something that they can't demonstrate or have any actual perception of? Only conclusions that therapists can come to is based off of information from the patient that is filtered through their own biases, which in turn is interpreted by the therapists biases, after which they might be convinced of something utterly alien to what the subject actually thinks or believes. It seems to be that the actual benefits of a therapist come mostly just from having someone to talk to about own's problems, after which the speaker eventually puzzles out for themselves what the problem is - being a good listener is not something that a person needs to be paid 40 dollars an hour for.
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Yeah, the whole "advanced AI apocalypse" thing is pretty farfetched, but I hear all the time from utopians who talk breathlessly about how the "Singularity" is coming and the melding of man and machine will somehow erase all the world's problems. Personally, I think that human beings thinking too much like machines has been the source of enough misery as it is, and I can't imagine computers with human minds (and thus human flaws) being any better.
So, in short, we need to ensure the survival of John Connor.
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I think its less about "participation trophy" culture than it is about "all-about-me" culture. The problem with telling people constantly that they are perfect and special in their own unique way is that it inherently draws them inward rather than making them concerned about others, which are what really matters. No one cares about the common good, and thus society becomes less unified and more inclined towards fragmentation and disharmony. Harmony is what we should really care about, and part of that entails admitting that our special talents and personalities are most important in how they contribute to a larger whole, not how they make us as individuals distinct.
Kevlar Eater said:
Qizx said:
Hate to go all Godwin on you but ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch ), kinda like these people? Seriously you're literally advocating the killing of other human beings because they don't match what YOU deem proper people. I got my first job at 16 and worked my ass off every day after school and weekends, I worked through college, got a job almost right out of college. To me you look like one hell of a slacker, sitting on your ass till you turned 20. It's all perspective, and when someone's life is on the line it's just foolish.
EDIT: Trying to get the link to work.
EDIT 2: I have to do this: Your avatar is a pony from MLP, aren't they all about friendship and love and that stuff? Murdering people who are "slackers" doesn't seem very loving and friendshippy.
You are an example of a person that betters himself/herself, and that betterment betters society and humanity. Kinda like throwing a pebble in a pond and watching the ripples. Congrats on your success, but to call me a slacker because I didn't work until I was 20 is quite insulting. I was in college until 20, I left because I could not handle the workload and it nearly broke me mentally. Some people just aren't cut out for college, me being one of them, but that doesn't mean I wasn't willing to work. I see no problem with those that cannot attain or afford higher education due to mental and/or financial constraints, but that should not stop those same people from seeking a job.
About my avatar: I used to believe in friendship, happiness and the like. But the drivel that masqueraded as lessons falls apart when confronted with human nature. Being screwed over by someone I mistook for a friend has warped my perception of those values, and has given me a hard dose of reality and a lesson I won't soon forget: friends are enemies you haven't made yet.
captcha: never quit. Quite ironic.
Do you know why it's Brutus, Cassius, and Judas being devoured eternally by Satan in
Inferno, rather than all of the other rapists and murderers? It's because betraying your friend is the worst thing you can ever do. I had something similar to your situation happen to me, so I can testify to that fact, simply because it made me never want to have friends again. That feeling is about as close as I imagine someone can get to having their immortal soul ripped out. I wouldn't recommend it.
I'm not in a position to give advice, but since we have a few things in common, I'd just beg that you not give up on friendship. If you want to talk about strength, there is nothing that makes people stronger than supporting their friends and being supported, and if it hadn't been for my friends I wouldn't be half the person I am now. One example of human filth might be enough to make someone regret having friends, but believing that no one can ever be genuine again is not generous - not to other people, but even moreso to yourself. Rarity wouldn't approve, brother.
