Phi for All

No, I don't think the world is better off without humans. Humans developed LED lights. They burn brighter at less wattage and don't burn out as fast as incandescent lights.

You're using a definition of "god" and "church" that no one else does, and then insisting that the atheists here are arguing that this "church" is the only authority on morals?! Every single atheist here has always claimed that religion/god/church is N-O-T necessary AT ALL to have an ethical, moral foundation in life. You have COMPLETELY misunderstood this point.

Oh, I think it's been far more than mere inertia. I think there have been very active efforts at pushing this rolling boulder down the hill, efforts that make darn sure it hits all the most lucrative spots. This is part of what bothers me most, and why I label it fear. Why haven't we been crying out, ever since we found out that Hussein had no nukes and the whole Iraq vampire war was draining us dry? Why continue such a costly campaign when it's been proven to actually create more terrorists? I think "soft on terror' would be easier to sell to the public in these times than you think, especially when "hard-on for terror" seems to swell the enemy ranks. Although, with the world economic crisis, we may have missed our window for negotiating with the countries where terrorists train to diplomatically castrate their effectiveness. I think the right leader could explain to the public that the strategies we've been using are obviously ineffective and are only making matters worse. But I think the leadership we have (including all of those waiting to take over) are more motivated to keep the economic and political opportunities the War on Terror represent to ever want to do something truly effective to stop it. And the public has been so brainwashed into thinking we need a cannon to kill fleas that any attempt to use our brains instead of our brawn is seen as a sign of weakness. But the wall in place is costing us a ton of money to maintain. It's effective in keeping the dog out, but this dog is now indirectly taking food off our family's plates, it's hurting our kid's education to keep maintaining the wall that keeps it out. The War on Terror is helping to do what the wealthiest have wanted all along, to cut public budgets, divert tax revenues to themselves and their businesses and get rid of social spending that they see no benefits from. Because we're being exploited. Stressed people make stupid, expensive mistakes in the name of relieving that stress.

By "misses out certain letters", do you mean you type them but they don't show up?

*choke* Where on EARTH did you EVER get the idea that atheists argue "that the church is in fact the only authority on God and morals"?!

If a moral is a matter of language, and animals have moral judgement, does that mean animals have language? Let's say I observe someone displaying ethical behavior, like a warrior sparing the life of an opponent who has yielded in combat. The whole thing can take place with no words at all, and equally I can learn a moral lesson from the encounter without using language. You were asked twice before to provide evidence for your assertion that Law = God, which you chose to ignore both times. Let's just start with that one. I think you're wrong because most laws we have today have absolutely NOTHING to do with God. My problem with the word "God" is your decision to define it for everybody using assertive language which implies you're stating a fact. Particularly with the word "God", there ARE no assertions that can be applied to everyone.

I think you're arguing that there's no visible fear because we believe we're protected, and I'm arguing that fear is the motivation for all the disproportionate measures to safeguard us from terrorists. If a politician came along and pointed out rationally how silly it is and how much we've crippled ourselves with this inordinate response to an isolated attack from a (then) tiny aggressor, and suggested we implement a much more measured response, I think the public would scream and call for his head. And what would be the motivation for that, other than fear that the terrorists would attack again? Let's use your "mean dog" example. If I could show you that the odds of the dog (which is still at large) attacking your family without your brick wall in place are a million to one, would that keep you from building it in the first place? Or would you argue that the one chance in a million is enough to warrant the extravagant and completely disproportionate expense to protect your family? And what would your motivation be for continuing to have it built? Wouldn't it be fear?

I wouldn't dream of thinking myself to be representative of the vast majority in this regard. I do know some people who aren't as active in advocacy as I am, but they may always have been this way. I myself am only more active as I see the country becoming more and more entrenched in seeking a diminishing status quo as things get worse. The funny thing about fear is how those who feel it most deny it most. It seems to be a hard-wired reaction, especially in males, to puff out their chests and gesture broadly around them, demanding to know where there is anything to fear. One of the real and observable aspects of this fear is our two-party voting system. We know rationally that two parties can't possibly adequately represent all the viewpoints in America, yet we routinely use it just to make sure "the other guy" doesn't get elected. And this relates directly to terrorism since none of the candidates is offering up a proposal to stop wasting so many resources on an untenable, non-sustainable, heavily lopsided "War on Terror". If the American public doesn't fear terrorists, why can't they see the ridiculousness of spending so much to save so few from such a tiny comparative threat? In the 50s, many people felt safe from the Soviet nuclear threat only after building backyard underground bomb shelters. Are you telling me that feeling of safety, bought with an inordinately excessive amount of resources, wasn't born out of fear? Don't you see the parallels to the vastly inflated resources we're allowing to be spent now to keep us safe from a much lesser threat? Terror makes people behave in disproportionately irrational ways. They will allow just about anything to make it go away. Considering what we currently allow, even require, from our leaders, can you really say ours is a rational response?

Language isn't required for a moral action to be observed and emulated by individuals in a population. It might be the vehicle for spreading moral behavior more quickly, but I think it all started with one person observing moral actions by another person and deciding that behavior was something to be adopted. Leading by example would seem to be a precursor to creating stories about such leadership. I think you're making too many generalized this=that statements that can easily be proven false by just one countering example. Especially when you drag God into it, your attempts to categorically define these concepts for everyone else are futile. It's not your arguments, which are getting clearer as this discussion continues; it's the way you present them as facts instead of the conjecture and opinion that they are that's causing so much contention and disagreement.

I would say that the fear being felt isn't overt, and that's why it's so insidious. It's the kind of fear that stops you from speaking out against injustice or oppression. The kind of fear that keeps you from rocking the boat. The kind of fear that makes you despair of things getting better, so you settle for a meager status quo. And make no mistake, all it would take to bring it all back into focus is another attack. The knee-jerk reaction to an explosion on Main Street would probably be intense. Fifteen years ago the majority assumption would most likely have been "gas leak", but now it would most likely be "bomb". When explosions do happen these days, authorities are quick to report they've ruled out a purposeful attack, and that's usually the first question the reporters ask, and the first question we all want answered. That's fear, imo.

Sweet! It's great when that happens. Too many times I've tried to go back after getting that error and my post is gone.

It's likely that the thread you were responding to was moved to a different section. It still exists, just not in the section your reply was being posted to. That is a weakness of the system, and I've had it happen to me. I try to see if anyone is listed as reading a thread and if there is, I postpone moving it.

Thanks, Ophiolite. I missed this the first time round, but I'm registered now and look forward to the added perspective. And thanks to CaptainPanic for the bump that helped.

I often run across posts where someone has written "Cancel" or "Oooops" or "Nevermind". I soft-delete them, which removes them from the sight of everyone but the staff. We never fully delete anything. I'll reinforce what swansont said about abuse as well. When we had greater editing capabilities available, we had members who got angry at something someone said and went back and deleted all their posts. It left many threads completely incomprehensible, except where they were actually quoted.

Anything that can't be observed or measured by scientific means is not considered "natural" by science. Even Cicero's and Jefferson's gods, since they choose not to manifest themselves in an observable way as gods, and thus avoid both experimentation and reliable prediction, are considered "supernatural", outside of the natural world. I disagree. You're starting the stories in later cultures to make them primary. The stories, by definition, have to model the behavior, therefore the moral behavior had to come first. It seems farfetched that a storyteller in the earliest of times saw a need for moral behavior and told a fictional story of it that later became the blueprint for such behavior. It seems much more likely to me that storytellers saw the benefits of existing morality and told stories that further resonated with their audiences.

I think there is some scientific support for this, at least in terms of ambient temperature. If you take a cold shower, when you get out your skin temperature will be lower than the ambient temperature and your skin will feel hotter. If you take a hot shower, after you get out everything will feel colder. I think a hot shower is more relaxing to your muscles as well, increasing circulation by enlarging blood vessels just under the skin. Off topic, but if you shower just before bed, don't use any soap or shampoo on your hair. This strips oils that protect the hair from excessive damage as your head rubs against the pillow cover or bed sheet. I remember reading where looking at bright screens like computers, TVs, video games and such can inhibit efforts at falling asleep. I recommend reading also, nothing too interesting or thought provoking. White noise helps as well, like radio static.

We think we're immune to spin and marketing efforts to get us to make rash purchases and irrational decisions, but this should point up how we can be played on even such a huge level. All it takes is tying a few emotional hooks together and it's a recipe for economic and political opportunity on a worldwide scale. Start with injustice, sprinkle liberally with fear and despair, carefully mix in some strong vengeance, garnish with patriotism and you suddenly make the unpalatable look very tasty indeed. And for some utterly weird reason, even when it comes out that we made a mistake, that we were gullible, taken in by con men and lied to, we line up for the next heaping helping of bullshit, ready and willing to listen to more spin, more lies from the same guys in the same suits with a different color tie. We know how to stop it, deep down inside, but we're not willing to believe it's gotten THAT bad.

Isn't it bizarre the way most attribute winning the Cold War to forcing the old USSR to overspend resources keeping up with the West, yet we don't see anything wrong in spending trillions to outwit small cells of uncoordinated zealots with homemade bombs, videotape technology and fractured leadership?

Yep. Although, imo, by this time in the series, I think it had gotten fairly preachy. On and on about people being responsible for their own happiness and freedom. Good sentiments, but several thick books whacking me over the head with it got tedious. And the morality got to be an issue, although an interesting one. After all, it was the good guys who came up with the idea of pulverizing glass to blind and destroy the lungs of the bad guys. The first five or six books are among my favorite fantasy novels, though. Awesome story. The TV series was a bit too Xena: Warrior Princess for me. I'd love to see what the producers of Game of Thrones could do with The Sword of Truth series.

Well, another literary assumption gets ground to dust. Sorry Mr Goodkind, no shard, no bard.

Think about it. If democracy was about us being thinking, reasoned creatures, then all our laws would be reasonable. This isn't the case at all. Democracy is more about representation of the people in it, and not all of those people are reasonable. It can only be hoped that the time involved in the process will help rational thought overcome initial emotional responses. We may WANT democracy to involve rational decisions, and we may strive towards educating the people towards more reasoned thought, but the will of the people is not always rational, even with the process of democracy to temper it. Bringing up God again is a strawman, a version of the Red Herring fallacy. And this is also a False Dilemma. Of course there is another choice, many choices in fact. In a democracy, there are as many choices as there are opinions to represent.

I think this was adequately covered by imatfaal's post. One of their young crying out after an attack is both a warning and a call for aid.

I agree with imatfaal above, and would also add that there might be evolutionary advantage to crying out in that it could trigger either a flight or freeze response in any young nearby, thus allowing them to survive while focusing attention on the parent.

! Moderator Note The ad hominem fallacy is attacking the person directly instead of attacking their ideas and arguments. It's not permitted here. And if you state that someone's argument is foolish, be prepared to back that assertion up, or admit that it's just your opinion. This goes for EVERYONE. Let me take this opportunity to mention that there are many assertions being made that require supportive evidence, and calls for such are being mostly ignored. This is a science forum, and even though this thread is in our Speculations section, anything stated as true must have evidence in support of it, otherwise the thread is meaningless. Again, this applies to EVERYONE.