God is not intelligent, or, why I am a pantheist
- Thread starter Publius
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That's an economic transaction.
Doesn't mean you are required to treat them like an enemy and shower them with disrespect and abuse.
No difference.
But I do not think loving Trump makes sense. Loving your enemy seems meaningless.
If Trump were drowning, I would throw him a life saver and call an ambulance.
When read in Context, the New Testament doesn't mean show romantic love or familial love to rivals. Epistle to the Roman's specifically says to love your neighbor as yourself, but it studiously leaves enemies out of that equation. Loving your enemy means don't seek revenge and retribution, and recognize their humanity.
When the Europeans drafted the Geneva conventions on prisoners of war, I believe this is the standard that was used. The enemy is not your brother, sister, or best friend. . But the enemy prisoner is supposed to be treated humanely and respectfully. The ancient Persians, Greeks, or Mongols would be shocked at the notion of treating enemy prisoners like that
Seems pathetic.
All seems pretty meaningless.
That's why I have been saying this kind of human ethos is not found among animals or within the natural laws of survival. It's not rational in a materialistic and biological sense.
It just doesn't make sense in a strictly Darwinian natural order.
Yes, the higher animals are perfectly capable of understanding a mutually beneficial relationship.
At the level of arthropods and bacteria, symbiosis is not something we can probably see human analogies in.
Daylight63
Verified User
How about dogs and cats?
IBDaMann
Well-known member
... then he would have to ban everyone.
IBDaMann
Well-known member
He will even misrepresent their positions just to make them appear stupid.
Cypress understands it and unnecessarily fears it.
IBDaMann
Well-known member
Cypress wrote "higher" animals. Obviously he meant birds. Lower animals must refer to whales, dolphins and others below sea level.
Daylight63
Verified User
Didn’t mean to sound flippant with the cat or dog question. I meant it more as a case like wolves which do show care for others but I doubt they are thinking in terms of reciprocity
Daylight63
Verified User
What he did was point out animals like humans (we all agree they have "moral thoughts" and explicitly think in terms of reciprocity from time to time) and contrasted them with animals that don't have brains per se. There's a lot in the middle which is where the real action takes place.
My theory right now is that humans (and other pack animals like wolves) are hardwired to care for their fellow creatures. It is an "instinct" that, as Cypress says, confers a benefit to the animal. I think humans do this automatically, BUT because we DO have a special brain (as far as we know) we DO tend to want to know WHY we are doing this and WHY SHOULD we do it? That's where the moral teachers come in.
If Jesus was actually God he COULD have said: "Look, you guys are hardwired to do these good things for others but your big brains sometimes get in the way and you conceive of actions that overcome that hardwired moral inclination and you avoid doing it. So I'm going to trick you into giving into your better nature by telling you God said you should do these things since they're good".
But the moral philosophers weren't speaking from deep knowledge of God or something else that other humans can't have knowledge of, but they thought it through more deeply and came up with reasons why we should do the moral thing as opposed to the immoral thing.
The reason I asked about dogs or wolves was to see what Cypress thinks about those animals we don't necessarily think of doing a lot of deep thinking. They are driven to help the fallen pack member. But they aren't doing so out of some expectation of reward or reciprocity should they fall. But humans could DEFINITELY do that, so we have moral philosophers helping us bias the results toward the action that will benefit us like Cypress has noted.
Daylight63
Verified User
I'm not sure I understand your statement here. If cooperation and reciprocal relationships have a beneficial advantage to an animal, doesn't that mean it is following Darwin kind of my definition?
Lao Tse
Verified User
you should love him because of his superior policies.
IBDaMann
Well-known member
Why would you agree to what animals think? You can't read their minds. Maybe animals have nothing going on upstairs. Your "agreement" is an omniscience fallacy.
Eagles do not. There are many more such examples. Zebras do, on the other hand. There are many more such examples.
Rodents seem, on first glance, to not care about others of their species but actually demonstrate genuine concern for others that are trapped or otherwise in crisis.
I don't know how you would be able to make any sort of definitive statement beyond speculation.
I am an atheist; I usually run such questions of Christian faith by gfm7175 or by Into the Night. If you simply don't believe that Jesus was God, then you aren't a Christian and you don't have to worry about the logic of any of it.
I tend to think Jesus would be more interested in discussing why the shekel collapsed as a currency and whether the right kind of stimulus might have kept it afloat.
I don't think there was any such group. Everyone is a philosopher.
Well, they're certainly curious, but they are practical if nothing else, and continue on with whatever they were doing. The only ones that stick around are mothers who are gravely concerned about their children.
How does someone become a certified moral philosopher?
Daylight63
Verified User
I don't know what animals think. I'm guessing. But Cypress has made the claim that they are caring for fellow pack members out a sense of reciprocity which is a HOPED for outcome that requires the ability to hypothesize a future event that may or may not happen. I have seen scant little evidence that have that ability but I could be wrong.
Are you thinking that wolves take care of hurt wolves because they think that in some future scenario they might need help and are thus rendering it to their fellow wolf in the hopes that they are going be cared for should they fall?
Wolves may not understand the English language, but they are perfectly capable of understanding mutually beneficial advantage. Wolf packs are extended families who will work cooperatively for hunting and surviving. That kind of reciprocity is almost universally acknowledged as a Darwinian adaptation to increase the probability of passing on genetic information.
Rendering assistance to family members and pack members has nothing to do with anything I wrote.
The NT and other world religions see morality as an objective truth that extends beyond the boundaries of family, friends, reciprocity, and mutual advantage. Hence, the parable of the good Samaritan. Jesus didn't think you should get any special credit for helping family, friends, and neighbors. Even sinners do that.
Daylight63
Verified User
But it does. It gets to the heart of why they do it. That's the essence of their morality. I claim it is not a choice for them. They do it without even processing the thoughts. I think humans are likewise prone to doing the good action automatically but we add an extra dimension onto it because we can actually explicitly choose to NOT do it. And that's what I think moral philosophy is. A way to explain our actions to ourselves and forestall our possible denial of that impulse.
Credit or no, you and I both agree there is a BENEFIT to doing those good things. You've explicitly stated as much and I wholly agree.