@RyeNorth if you are a dude the birth defects thing doesn’t apply

So the state of California is saying that women just shouldn't work some jobs?

What is your favorite speeches guys? one of mine is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJzRa7HWVqs

Nigel Farage is great at speaches

Not to get too cliche but it has to be this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAd1WJ9gXo0

Can't get behind that one. I don't care what music you put behind it.

@Tal,Karpov,AlekhineAllCoolGuys - how about this one: https://youtu.be/4Z2uzEM0ugY

@Tal,Karpov,AlekhineAllCoolGuys This is my favourite, though the Nigel Farage one was hilarious. https://youtu.be/vFcn775CqAg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYSY2ohHFnQ&ab_channel=AlexanderVandenHoeven This has got to be one of my favourites, this too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibVpDhW6kDQ&ab_channel=RichH

I always found Chaplin's speech there a little sentimental and maudlin. He sseems to assume people with power normally are just good people and if we would all just get along we'd all have a better world. However, it should be obvious from history, any point including today, that people DO NOT automatically just try to get along, and leaders usually go after power.

Generally humans are communal and empathic though, generally we are good people. The reason we dispute is mainly because disagreements turn into fights for survival and through co-operation we can humanise and work with those we disagree with, and educate ourselves on things we don't understand. He's speaking out against bias and selfishness in the name of collaboration and rationality. I find this message still applicable today. We won't move forward until the left *and* the right realise the opponents aren't bad people, they just have different understandings, priorities and experiences that shape their outlook differently- and although we should be sceptical and wary, generally people want what they believe is best for society

there was that talk I recall cant recall who did it

"Generally humans are communal and empathic though, generally we are good people." -- and I just generally do not believe this is true of human beings, or ever has been. I used to. I don't anymore.

But I member that they said that intelligence can be narrowed down to someones implicit capability to overcome instinct to work for the betterment of society.

Well, what they perceive as such.

Instinct tells you to react with hostility towards something different or unfamiliar

An "intelligent" person will observe from a distance, or find a way to see if its a threat

YEah I think people are naturally rotton and will naturally be rotton if they aren't taught better. They aren't naturally good. That's sort of rooted in philoso9phers like Rousseu and I just don't see humans that way anymore.

Then again, theres also pathological altruism

Sociopathy and narcissism--the modern way of saying "evil" I think--is normal in humans.

We're not naturally "good" at all. And as a people we're now so poorly educated we're lost. We have no metaphysical certainties, and a civilization that lacks those will be rolled over by one that has some.

Well that kinda fixes itself by making humans dependent on society.

Where it self regulates by getting rid of deviants, and rewarding productive behaviour.

But also, history has kinda a pattern where a society that gets too large will start reverting back to a savage society.

I think collaboration is the reason humanity got this far. It's innately within us, or innately within society, that collaboration is beneficial

How I see it is people naturally have a tribal mentality

They want the benefits for the "tribes" they associate themselves with, so

Well, its just so that its not humans are rotten, humans are rational, and rational prioritizes self survival over all others.

For some people it could just be themselves and their family

Without a shared set of values and principles, people do not cohere, and we reduce to tribalism and family--which isn't necessarily bad, unless you have no clear tribe or good family, in which case you're really lost and will search everywhere.

And if you make it rewarding to benefir the society, well, humans self regulate to continue benefiting fro societyt

Well humans find a purpose in life. Whether it be serving a force relligious or institution, serveing their society, or even their family.

I disagree Max, people can have the same values but different ideas on how to achieve fulfilment of these values

That's where most division comes from these days

Which... is why you get psycopaths. Who have no ties to anyone, making them more "selfish" than the average person

Division comes from refusal to accept differences in values

A left-wing individual and a right-wing individual both want a good economy. Left-winger thinks this is done through redistribution of wealth, right-winger thinks this is done through de-regulation and promoting free trade. This causes a division

The smallest minority is the individual

I don't see difference in values as much of an issue as different ways to reach the end goal

If you cannot protect the individual you cannot claim you stand for the minorities.

But if you cannot protect groups that individuals belong to, that they want to belong to, you aren't really protecting the individual. This is why I find both hyper-individualism and hyper-collectivism both horrifying. It's why I'm not a libertarian anymore, OR a socialist, though I get accused of both. 😛

Thats just being against extremism in general.

Or someone being a moderate. Whats there to argue?

A good collective protects the individual

That's the idea of constitutionalism and generally law- the collective enforce and act by rules that allow them to coexist as individuals

And generally benefit from one another through that.

Trade? Exchange of services? And a force to ensure it runs fair and square.

But of course, relligion has a part as well. In a time when regulation was hard as hell to enforce.

Even now, you cant see everything

Right. Then you run immediately into the "Who Watches the Watchmen?" question, which hasn't changed in thousands of years. I think we have yet to show ARistotle or Plato wrong onthese things.

Wait what? WHo watches a god?

Religion generally came about when people needed a way to enforce rules beyond a single leader, is how a friend explained it to me

Yes, if you plot to assassinate a king, he could be none the wiser and you'd get away with it

But if God's watching? Fuck nah

Or also to uplift a population to act beyond what they were at the time

"Religion generally came about when people needed a way to enforce rules beyond a single leader, is how a friend explained it to me" -- yes this is a common belief. It's a faith-based, non-scientific belief, but it's a belief.

Concepts like hygine, decent behaviour, and more specifically, stuff like population controll and food prepping

What's your scientific explanation for religion Max?

Shit like monogamy

The evidence shows overwhelmingly that spiritual belief and religion are completely normal in humans, and perfectly rational if you engage the topic rationally (which not everyone does).

Well id argue its rational for someone to react to ideas they disagree with with hostility

Because we naturally want to explain the unexplained, nullify fear of death, and have objective morality and definite justice

@Vigil My scientific explanation? Well the science clearly shows we're wired for it. The history clearly shows non-religious and anti-religious societies quickly turn into complete chaos or into authoritarianism. This all points to me to human spirituality as a normal, evolved trait--which It hink is pretty clear from all the data we have.

Was the implication that humans who follow a relligion are irrational.

No

Well, it's like, a lot of the time religion is making an assumption

While evidence states that humans are predisposed to find a common belief to strive towards?

So the next question the Presuppositional Atheist has is how this would develop, since it's supposedly "irrational" and not "evidence based." But it's rational and evidence based, and normal in humans. Fighting it is anti-human and anti-human rights I think.

Which is rational

Afterall the best way to unite a populace is to create a movement for everyone to strive towards.

But now that I think about it. Remember that rat experiment?

Near the end of the experiment, rats started becoming loners?

So your argument is just that religion is good and natural, not that it is true?

Could that be similar to people who simply become reclusive and no longer wish to take part in society as a whole?

Why not a human-centric goal, though? Why do we have to unite over The Beardy Space Guy to get along? Why do we need the threat of punishment to do good things?

Make it impossible to achieve

And with enough faith youd have people working on it forever

A relligion dies when its goal has been achieved

I'm atheist and I'm still a good person with moral knowledge, yknow? I don't need God to make me moral. And anyone that is only moral for salvation is still as selfish as a sinner

I'll take selfish people acting good for their own gains over them acting badly.

And well, you still have to understand that humanity is still hardwired towards instinct

I'm not saying "ban all religion" obviously, belief is a very strong thing and more power to you if you're a rational accepting person with a deep and profound belief. But I work in terms of reality and I won't resign myself to being so ambitionless that my only reason for contributing and helping people is I don't want eternal agonising pain

I do not believe any atheist believes in morals or can come up with a coherent set of morals. They always go, always, to whether or not someone is "nice" or "kind." But these have no fixed menaing at all. Nice to who, when, and what circumstances? Sometimes you shouldn't be nice or kind or em pathetic, in fact. These are not what you build values on.

And it so happens someone who acts for the betterment of societty for selfish reasons, is better for the herd

It was one of many things that led me away from atheism--the moral question gets a surprising number of people.

Than someone who acts deviantly. For the sake of it.

So this is how you were when you were an atheist?

You're wrong, Max, morality doesn't depend on religion. If God didn't exist would you randomly start being a dick? Or do you have innate, in-built values that you act upon because you know they're right regardless of God?

Or even better, rationality and instinct.

If without God you wouldn't act morally, you're just kind of an asshole, to be blunt

Humans are social, depend on social connections, and natural selection takes care of those unable to coexist.

"This" meaning what? That I'm critical of an ideology I rejected? That I insist it's an ideology and a movement? [shrug] I recognized it was an ideology and a movement and I left. I then had many experiences to lead me to examine the social phenomenon more largely. Psychological studies, sociological studies, history, philosophy, and quite a bit else. I came to my beliefs hard, over a period of many years.

The humans who are bad at coexisting or are more secular breed less or die to exposure.

I agree completely Ginga- a good society comes about when helping the collective helps the individual

Id argue that its not just relligion that creates morals but that relligion is a result of refined instinct and morals.

'This' being how you described ahteists. If you were not this way yourself you would have absolute proof that not all atheists are like that. That you would think this is what atheists are I can only assume it is how you are.

you wont convence someone who thinks they know something that they dont know what they are thinking

Created by millions of years of evolution

@Vigil You can think that if you want, but what I find is that no atheist anywhere has ever in all of history at any time anywhere constructed a consistent moral system. Virtually all believe morality is just social convention or genetic and give armwaving generalizations about "group survival." None of it's scientific and none of it makes sense to me anymore. I used to srot of think like that, that it was all social convention and genetics/survival of the fittest. I just reject those beliefs now, I think they're incorrect.

God has 3 purposes for establishing a moral system:
1) It roots it in something that's difficult to change or manipulate. We can see how reason alone is easy to manipulate with fads in intellectual spaces like academia.
2) It provides a means of accountability (yeah, sure stealing that candy didn't get you *punished now* but what about the afterlife?)
3) It provides such a moral system and community binding in the first place.