The UnChristian Crusade for Imposing Christian Morality

Read this:

http://www.godpart.com/

You'll understand the genetic pre-disposition of the human to find a Deity.

I'm aware of the 'god gene', but this isn't really a gene that dictates humans to desire or need a 'god', but a gene that creates hyper-emotional activity, similar to that found when religious people claim to have 'divine revellation', similar to that induced by shamen and other various priesthoods.
 
AnyOldIron said:
Read this:

http://www.godpart.com/

You'll understand the genetic pre-disposition of the human to find a Deity.

I'm aware of the 'god gene', but this isn't really a gene that dictates humans to desire or need a 'god', but a gene that creates hyper-emotional activity, similar to that found when religious people claim to have 'divine revellation', similar to that induced by shamen and other various priesthoods.
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Yeah in the old days a hit of window pane and I could speak in tongues :)
God never said anything to me though...
 
AnyOldIron said:
But self sacrifice does have a role in social groups. And individuals increase their likelihood of success if they are part of a culture which uses a degree of selflessness to defend the collective. Many genes we share with other individuals of our collective, so feelings of love toward the collective are not misplaced according to the true function of the love emotion, propagating genes.

That altruism has a selfish genetic survival reason at its core is something I won't dispute. It is soemthing brought up by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

But this isn't really relevant to what we are discussing.

It's not an irrational need for "straight lines" . the lines happen to graph a function regarding evolutionary strategy of social mammalians.

I didn't say it was irrational. The straight lines humans seek to 'impose' on existence do aid its ability to understand it. But they don't exist innately, what exists innately in existence are many many interwoven strands of cause and effect.
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Right, but one of the most striking features of humanity is our brain, which enables the transfer of the accumulated knowledge of the species to the new members in the form of language and culture. Nihilists seek to destroy the historical survival based anthropocentric narrative, with one more pro-death, and anti-hero, where individuals accept their demise when it is planned for them by elitists, and where the powerful are free from corruption.
 
Right, but one of the most striking features of humanity is our brain, which enables the transfer of the accumulated knowledge of the species to the new members in the form of language and culture. Nihilists seek to destroy the historical survival based anthropocentric narrative, with one more pro-death, and anti-hero, where individuals accept their demise when it is planned for them by elitists, and where the powerful are free from corruption.

You confuse nihilsim with Fascism or Stalinism or some other totalitarian ideology.
 
IHateGovernment said:
Right, but one of the most striking features of humanity is our brain, which enables the transfer of the accumulated knowledge of the species to the new members in the form of language and culture. Nihilists seek to destroy the historical survival based anthropocentric narrative, with one more pro-death, and anti-hero, where individuals accept their demise when it is planned for them by elitists, and where the powerful are free from corruption.

You confuse nihilsim with Fascism or Stalinism or some other totalitarian ideology.
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There's no confusion.
 
I am a nihilist Asshat. I am not pro-death or seek to create or advocate for a state that people turn over the control of their lives to a central entity. Nihilism is a system of thinking that may lead one to advocate such a thing but does not inevitably do so. Basically it tears down dogmatic forms of thinking that demand you accept ideas and concepts tautologically and instead fashion your own through your ability to reason.

You reject nihilism but do you assert that ideas or concepts have inherent value or meaning without humans to attach it?
 
IHateGovernment said:
I am a nihilist Asshat.
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Please send my condolences to your mother.
I am not pro-death or seek to create or advocate for a state that people turn over the control of their lives to a central entity. Nihilism is a system of thinking that may lead one to advocate such a thing but does not inevitably do so.
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Well, that's a relief.
Basically it tears down dogmatic forms of thinking that demand you accept ideas and concepts tautologically and instead fashion your own through your ability to reason.

You reject nihilism but do you assert that ideas or concepts have inherent value or meaning without humans to attach it?
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If a bear shits in the woods and there's noone there to sniff it, does it still smell bad?
 
If a bear shits in the woods and there's noone there to sniff it, does it still smell bad?

Smelling bad requires observation to be the case. It doesn't negate the fact that chemical compounds present would produce a reaction in nasal receptors.

Are you familiar with the Schoedinger's Cat experiment?

Regardless this is obsfuscation. Something smelling bad is a result of actual physical properties that produce electro chemical reactions in the brain.

We cannot so easily say about purely human constructs such as morality, good, evil, thrift, stinginess, compassion or humor.
 
Nihilists seek to destroy the historical survival based anthropocentric narrative, with one more pro-death, and anti-hero, where individuals accept their demise when it is planned for them by elitists, and where the powerful are free from corruption.


This is not nihilism, AHZ. Nihilists aren't pro-death, they recognise that this brief glimpse of existence is all there is. If anything, nihilists cherish life more than the religious, who cheapen life by imagining it to be a 'practice' for the 'afterlife'.

Nihilists aren't an elite, nor do they submit to the 'powerful', they recognise that there are many manners in which people derive meaning, and 'power' is just one small element of this.

You are confusing nihilism with some Orwellian group who idolise (nihilists wouldn't idolise) power, as IH8 says, like the Nazis.
 
Nihilism is a system of thinking that may lead one to advocate such a thing but does not inevitably do so.

Yet so are non-nihilist perspectives. Those that believe in the afterlife could be described as pro-death, they consider this life to be merely a 'practice' for the afterlife. How much more does this cheapen this life compared to those who believe that this existence is all?

Those that subscribe to religious doctrines exist under a far more authoritarian system than nihilists. What is sin if not thoughtcrime? How totalitarian is that...
 
Why make a part duex? You could contact me and have you reset your password.

I did send an email, but the email address I had when I first joined as AOI I don't have anymore, so you might have sent it to that mate...
 
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