Zontar said:
-I do not believe there is an orientation outside of being straight, bisexual or homosexuality, and that everything outside of this that people claim they are is either in reality a part of one of them or just made up.
I'm curious how you define sexual orientation. Some people define asexuality as a sexual orientation while others describe it as the lack of one. Does that qualify to you and if so does it actually fall under 1 of the 3 in a convoluted way or is it just made up?
Lord Garnaat said:
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.
Of course. Knowing that, I challenged you on your points out of curiosity for that qualification.
Lord Garnaat said:
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. [stuff] 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.
[things]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. [matter]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. [sentences]
That's the way I see it, at least.
[HEADING=3]______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/HEADING]
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. [words]
[HEADING=3]______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/HEADING]
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?
[HEADING=3]______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/HEADING]
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. [characters]
[HEADING=3]______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/HEADING]
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.
But, they haven't. I mean,
- [li]I think the fact you say that the French Revolution also included deists kind of leaves them out of the atheist category as a whole. Some atheism is not enough to use it as an example of clear atheistic alignment.[/li]
[li]Some historians suggest that Stalin did root his atheism in some unclear idea of a God of nature. During WWII he reopened the churches and seemed less openly interested in directly subverting religion, primarily organized religion, even if his atheism remained. The majority of the population continued to have some form of Christian belief, so it's not like the terrors committed under him were committed by atheists. Of course, then you have to argue on how much fault to blame on those just "following orders". The atheistic motivations weren't as primary and waned over time on top of that.[/li]
[li]You got me on Lenin, but Hitler was never openly anti-religious. He praised German Christian culture quite a bit and maintained the facade to suit his needs. Of course, in private he hated the church, never attending Mass again after leaving home, and Christianity and thought that, if I remember right, Japanese religious beliefs, Islam, or certain parts of Protestantism all made more sense for Germans following his philosophy. Either way, his personal religious views are disputed at best. At the very least, he was never openly anti-religious and it wasn't a major characteristic of Nazism.[/li]
[li]I think Mao was anti-religious as well, so got me there too.[/li]
[li]Don't know much about Pol Pot, so can't comment on him.[/li]
A "fundamentalist atheism" would not permeate your life to the degree of how you live about your life in relation to others. Fundamentalist religion always ties greatly into all aspects of your life, but the atheistic equivalent, to me, is simply an unusually strong, immovable belief that there is certainly no God (in contrast to say, an agnostic atheist). Its lack of moral code is irrelevant because atheism is rarely applied to encompass your life in every degree. Many may be nihilistic without a path to go after death, but others take that as reason to leave life better than when they came in because it's all there is, somehow finding a way to give it more meaning rather than less. Your moral code is free from a limited, constructed narrative, especially in regards to organized religion, and promises of fair comeuppance and rewards. You can just as easily be indifferent as you can be caring and might be even stronger for it either way for doing so while believing there is nothing at the end of life for how you left it. It only permeates your lifestyle if the idea of your death permeates your mind. Otherwise, that lack of belief doesn't inform much of how you go about living at all.
It seems to me like you're thinking more of militant atheists. There's overlap in the same way you argue religion has. If you're going to argue it's not the religion that primarily pushed most of those atrocities so much as religious devotion was just a characteristic I don't think you can argue atheism strongly pushed similar atrocities either. I tend to fight beliefs about middle grounds and the equally wrong actions of opposite sides, but fundamentalism is an area I think that actually does apply.
People are social beings and the lack of accountability via prior constructed narrative does not impact that. Our interactions with others alone should be able to inform our morals rather than something hanging over our head. True selflessness gives absolutely nothing in return, maybe not even a good feeling in your stomach. It's what religious interactions do that should matter for believers rather than the beliefs of repercussions alone. There's a reason many people are surprised to find atheists who are not unhappy. They expected the lack of belief in those repercussions, of an afterlife, would crush them, but it doesn't have to.
[HEADING=3]______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/HEADING]
Well, it's not so much that I think they're more suited to stability as it is that we have evolved and advanced on a scale without a proper foundation to adapt on. The larger the group of organized people and the more bureaucratic it gets the worse we are at long term planning for such things. Our lack of stability is due to what society has evolved into rather than something innate. It won't kill literally all of us most likely, but if it ever reaches the final breaking point it will be devastating to us as a species as a whole. Our style of living is an experiment yet to stand the test of time. If other animals could live like we do I think they'd have just as hard a time, but we both agree they can't.
That kind of goes back to what I said about elephant mourning. Where's the instinct in that? What about the story of Hachikō? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D] Humans are definitely more morally abstract, but we are certainly not devoid of instinct entirely. Many of our natural instincts remain, refusing to go away in spite of civilization. Others have simply turned into instincts of civilization. The primary instinct we lost was our insight of other animals. They are intertwined with our more thoughtful judgment rather than separate. Other animals can't be as expansive in this regard, but I really don't think that makes us superior. Better suited for the world we've created for ourselves, maybe. Other animals have never had the need to morally reason on such a scale. The scale of it is impressive. That does not equal superiority to me. The unique quality of it all does not make it superior to me either.
[HEADING=3]______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/HEADING]
You said psychological therapy. I assumed you were discounting the benefit altogether. My bad.
"Puzzles out for themselves"? Well, I'd still rather they ultimately helped themselves via a well educated psychologist over a self-help book. I think the latter industry is even worse than the situation you perceive much of psychological therapy to be.
A good psychologist recognizes all of this and tempers it with information from other people the patient has come into contact with, records based solely on fact that contribute to mental state nonetheless, and so on. They go beyond a good listener or even a good support system of family, friends, and teachers or mentors. Only a bad psychologist would claim they're always right about what goes on in peoples' heads. When I think psychologist the first words to pop out of my head are, "It SEEMS to me".
[HEADING=3]______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/HEADING]
Personally, I think only quacks think we should think more like machines. I don't think many of those advocates go down that route so much as augmentation, especially for the disabled, over outright technological replacements and easier living via technology. If we want to keep the technological behemoth we've unleashed it can only be solved by better technology and a better structure to support it on the scale we want it at. If its negatives are too much for us we might as well go back to pre-industrialization. I can see technology, humans, and the natural environment coexisting better than it currently does though I don't subscribe to the "Singularity". Much of what comprises the movement towards that is a little too crazy for me even when you exclude the sub-group who want full-on cyborgs.
[HEADING=3]______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/HEADING]
Makes sense though I personally don't think that mentality is as widespread and serious as you do. Off the top of my head, in the case of the USA I think we need to strive more for that, but in the case of Japan I think they could use more individuality (going off what little I know about Japan).
Appreciate the compliment and response by the way
inu-kun said:
-I think we should stop intervening with 3d world countries and that includes helping them, we just make them over dependant on foreign support rather than letting them build themselves and be independant.
-I think Putin is a much better world leader than Obama for only that he's actually doing things rather than try to appease his enemies and screwing his allies (*cough*spying*cough*).
-I think attacking ISIS is wrong, there are no good guys in that war and we should let the whole war in Syria and Iraq run it's course before deciding on whether should we intervene.
- I'm going to assume you're referring to the USA. Maybe 1% of our budget, if even that, goes to foreign aid. Much of the aid goes with the intent of helping create a foundation to let those countries do just that. We don't want to do it for them and ultimately it will come down to self-recovery and self-advancement. Considering how many of them are in the situation from 1st world aggressors in the first place I think most of them want to build themselves and be independent, if not just cut off from their aggressors forever to begin with. The least we can do is contribute especially if we're making up for our own past transgressions with that country. It's so little of our budget that even when it's improperly used it remains insignificant to us as a whole. Israel is more dependent on our support than many of the countries we give aid too. They're not classified as 3rd world. I don't think the narrative pans out.
-That seems quite the popular opinion. Maybe you meant a hotly contested opinion or unpopular among those you disagree with?
I find it funny how him and Netanyhu are commonly suggested in the same sentence as better leaders. Anyway, the things he's done are awful in comparison though. The things Obama has done, again at least in comparison, are not. I wouldn't say Obama is appeasing enemies. I would argue he did more of that in his first term and that was mainly with his enemies in our own government. Spying is more systemic of our government as a whole, but Obama does lean towards special interests on spying for sure. I think Obama is capable of more and should have done more when he had the chance, but I'll take him over Putin any day.
TakerFoxx said:
No two people can really agree on what a utopian society actually is, there are way too many ideologies in the world to co-exist without major conflict somewhere down the line, you can't eliminate the possibility of corruption and bigotry without essentially lobotomizing humanity, and to err is human and I'd rather that it stayed that way.
I think people can agree on the core imagery of a utopia at least, if not how it's organized. I'd argue we're a lot better about ideologies coexisting than we were the generation before and the generation before that and so on. The ones overly influenced by the worst elements of humanity have weakened or disappeared at a rate faster than the ones based on our more reasonable, if still flawed elements. Another one of my unpopular opinions is that there are individuals who can achieve something that, for all intents and purposes (since true perfection is by definition impossible), any of us would consider perfect. Someone who has never lied, never given into temptation, someone with a perfectly balanced life, someone who fully realized their inner potential. Heck, maybe someone who has managed perfection in all those areas rather than just one. It bothers us because we think it destroys multiple narratives we have culturally constructed. It makes us feel inadequate or that there is a limit to how far we can go or whatever. In reality, I think it opens a lot of doors for us to recognize this is possible. A utopia does seem possible to me.
