What is hell?

ZenMode said:
Right, animals have instincts that could be moral behavior. Female lions, for example, obviously, but moral behavior. In humans I would say that protecting and taking care of children is moral behavior.

In the example of getting a hefty insurance policy and having a so-called accident, you would be wrongly taking money from the insurance company. That would seem to be immoral to me, also.
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You're free to believe animals have morals. I'll stick with genetic behaviorism and experience. Animals react to their genetic programming and experience. They don't sit around and ponder the mysteries of life. They just live in the moment. A pure Zen existence. Humans, OTOH, have choices.

Your choice. Animals don't have that choice. A human might insure a race horse, but the race horse doesn't even understand what insurance is much less ponder committing suicide so that its owner can collect.
 
ZenMode said:
Right, animals have instincts that could be moral behavior. Female lions, for example, obviously, but moral behavior. In humans I would say that protecting and taking care of children is moral behavior.
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Protecting your offspring is self-interest, according to natural laws.

Self interest is not morality.

In a materialistic world where we are only responding to Darwinian instincts, you are driven instinctually to maintain and protect your genetic information, which is carried by your offspring.

Morality is the impartial and purely self-sacrificing acts for the benefit of others independent of self interest or the expectation of reciprocity. The classic examples are Oscar Schindler and Georgio Perlasca who risked their lives and sacrificed their wealth for the benefit of strangers.
ZenMode said:
In the example of getting a hefty insurance policy and having a so-called accident, you would be wrongly taking money from the insurance company. That would seem to be immoral to me, also.
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Your borrowing Judeo-Christian morality, and just stripping it out of it's religious context.

In a materialistic world dancing to the tune of Darwinian biology, the only thing that matters is the maintenance and propagation of your genetic information. Stealing from complete strangers is not forbidden by natural law, especially if it's in your self interest.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
You're free to believe animals have morals. I'll stick with genetic behaviorism and experience. Animals react to their genetic programming and experience. They don't sit around and ponder the mysteries of life. They just live in the moment. A pure Zen existence. Humans, OTOH, have choices.

Your choice. Animals don't have that choice. A human might insure a race horse, but the race horse doesn't even understand what insurance is much less ponder committing suicide so that its owner can collect.
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I'm not saying that animals, other than humans, understand the concept of morality. Given that humans are the only animals with the use of complex language, it seems unlikely that other animals would have a way to understand the concept of morality. I was just saying that other animals actions, which come from evolution / genetics, could be viewed as moral actions.

I don't think we disagree on anything other than your examples of things that you seem to think are moral, but I don't.
 
Cypress said:
Protecting your offspring is self-interest, according to natural laws.

Self interest is not morality.

In a materialistic world where we are only responding to Darwinian instincts, you are driven instinctually to maintain and protect your genetic information, which is carried by your offspring.

Morality is the impartial and purely self-sacrificing acts for the benefit of others independent of self interest or the expectation of reciprocity. The classic examples are Oscar Schindler and Georgio Perlasca who risked their lives and sacrificed their wealth for the benefit of strangers.

Your borrowing Judeo-Christian morality, and just stripping it out of it's religious context.

In a materialistic world dancing to the tune of Darwinian biology, the only thing that matters is the maintenance and propagation of your genetic information. Stealing from complete strangers is not forbidden by natural law, especially if it's in your self interest.
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We have a different understanding of morality. When you're talking about morality, in my opinion, you are talking about the experiences of conscious creatures. Beating your children, for example, is immoral because of what the child experiences, right?

It would be immoral for a human mother to leave a child to fend for itself, because a child would eventually suffer and die from starvation or dehydration.

Other animals have an understanding of protecting their young, they just do it instinctually and not due to an understanding of morality.
 
ZenMode said:
We have a different understanding of morality. When you're talking about morality, in my opinion, you are talking about the experiences of conscious creatures. Beating your children, for example, is immoral because of what the child experiences, right?
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You're borrowing religious ethics again, and just stripping them from their religious context.

In a purely materialistic world based on the principles of Darwinian biology, you don't beat and harm your children because biology gave you the instincts to maintain, protect, and propagate your genetic information, which is carried by your children. As a materialist who strictly believes in scientific explanations, that's where your answer lies as to why not harm your children.
ZenMode said:
It would be immoral for a human mother to leave a child to fend for itself, because a child would eventually suffer and die from starvation or dehydration.
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In the pre-Christian era it was not all uncommon for humans tribes or civilizations to abandon weak or sick children to the wild so they wouldn't be a burden, to ritually sacrifice orphans to placate the pagan gods, or to kill identical twins as harbingers of bad omen.

For thousands of years human cultures did not think it was immoral to kill children for the overall benefit of the culture when deemed necessary.

Again, you're borrowing your sense of morality from the Judeo-Christian tradition without even realizing it.
ZenMode said:
Other animals have an understanding of protecting their young, they just do it instinctually and not due to an understanding of morality.
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Again, offspring are the repository of your genetic information, and according to natural laws protecting your offspring is done out of an instinct for self interest. All Darwinian biology cares about is the preservation and propagation of your DNA.

If you are a materialist who strictly believes in scientific explanations, biology has coded your instincts to protect your children because they will propagate your genetic information.
 
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Cypress said:
You're borrowing religious ethics again, and just stripping them from their religious context.

In a purely materialistic world based on the principles of Darwinian biology, you don't beat and harm your children because biology gave you the instincts to maintain, protect, and propagate your genetic information, which is carried by your children. As a materialist who strictly believes in scientific explanations, that's where your answer lies as to why not harm your children.

In the pre-Christian era it was not all uncommon for humans tribes or civilizations to abandon weak or sick children to the wild so they wouldn't be a burden, to ritually sacrifice orphans to placate the pagan gods, or to kill identical twins as harbingers of bad omen.

For thousands of years human cultures did not think it was immoral to kill children for the overall benefit of the culture when deemed necessary.

Again, you're borrowing your sense of morality from the Judeo-Christian tradition without even realizing it.

Again, offspring are the repository of your genetic information, and according to natural laws protecting your offspring is done out of an instinct for self interest. All Darwinian biology cares about is the preservation and propagation of your DNA.

If you are a materialist who strictly believes in scientific explanations, biology has coded your instincts to protect your children because they will propagate your genetic information.
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You seem to be claiming that actions being evolutionarily advantageous, like allowing the weak member of the litter to die, can't be viewed as immoral. I definitely don't agree with that. Buy that logic, we can't say that slavery is wrong today because it was once practice to the benefit of some societies.

Nothing in what I'm saying has any connection to religion. Religion is not a source of morality.

What I'm saying is that, to the degree that literally anything in the universe matters, can be viewed as good or bad or can be viewed as right or wrong, it is only possible because of consciousness. Without consciousness, morality does not exist because there is no suffering, pain, etc.

In other words, my position is solely scientific.
 
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Cypress said:
If you are a materialist who strictly believes in scientific explanations, biology has coded your instincts to protect your children because they will propagate your genetic information.
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Codes get corrupted everywhere that they exist,
so that would probably apply to genetic codes as well.

If it's physically possible to be inflicted with corrupted codes, it IS going to happen.

As for Judeo-Christian ethic, and here I would include the third and newest semitic religion, Islam,
they are not the only religions in the world which don't advocate the abuse of children, I would guess.

In any case, life is easier to understand once one concludes that everything is random.
Even if the theory is completely wrong, holding it can be helpful.
Otherwise, to me , at least, NOTHING makes sense.

I have a theory about the semitic faiths, by the way.

Judaism is the least offensive because its advent came when mankind was the least evolved.
Jewish beliefs may actually be organic.

Embracing Christianity is harder to defend because humanity was a bit more evolved by then.

Embracing Islam in the relatively modern era when it arrived
is completely impossible to defend.

Admittedly, no study went into this. It simply occurred to me.

But it's probably all random anyway.
 
ZenMode said:
I'm not saying that animals, other than humans, understand the concept of morality. Given that humans are the only animals with the use of complex language, it seems unlikely that other animals would have a way to understand the concept of morality. I was just saying that other animals actions, which come from evolution / genetics, could be viewed as moral actions.

I don't think we disagree on anything other than your examples of things that you seem to think are moral, but I don't.
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Again, you are free to apply morality to animals. I do not. My cat is a killa. She's not that big but she decimates the population of baby birds, baby rabbits, small snakes, geckos and whatever else she can nail. Is that immoral? No. It'd be immoral for me to kill baby birds and baby rabbits by choice or neglect, but Gypsy is just being a cat. There's no morality there. Only genetics and experience.

What do you think I believe are moral that you do not?

Killa Kat:
t3ZB56wh.jpg
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Again, you are free to apply morality to animals. I do not. My cat is a killa. She's not that big but she decimates the population of baby birds, baby rabbits, small snakes, geckos and whatever else she can nail. Is that immoral? No. It'd be immoral for me to kill baby birds and baby rabbits by choice or neglect, but Gypsy is just being a cat. There's no morality there. Only genetics and experience.

What do you think I believe are moral that you do not?

Killa Kat:
t3ZB56wh.jpg
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Like I said, I'm not saying animals can consciously act morally or immorally. I'm just saying that their actions can be viewed immoral or moral when viewed by animals that have an understanding of morality.

Cats, by virtue of the fact that they are figuratively the spawn of Satan, can only be the purest embodiment of immorality.
 
ZenMode said:
Like I said, I'm not saying animals can consciously act morally or immorally. I'm just saying that their actions can be viewed immoral or moral when viewed by animals that have an understanding of morality.

Cats, by virtue of the fact that they are figuratively the spawn of Satan, can only be the purest embodiment of immorality.
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Other than humans, what other animals can judge morality?

Disagreed. A cat is a cat. They react according to their genetics and experience, not by conscious choice a person who choices to believe vaccinations are wrong and that COVID can be cured by bleach.
 
ZenMode said:
Cats, by virtue of the fact that they are figuratively the spawn of Satan, can only be the purest embodiment of immorality.
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Paradox. Irrational. You don't believe in Satan.

Cats have instincts like any animal. They nurture their young, and lions work as a group, coordinating their hunting.
By your own definition, these are 'morals'. Other cats are solitary, but the young ones stay with the mother until it learns to hunt on it's own, which can take considerable time.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Other than humans, what other animals can judge morality?

Disagreed. A cat is a cat. They react according to their genetics and experience, not by conscious choice a person who choices to believe vaccinations are wrong and that COVID can be cured by bleach.
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I've told you before, Sybil. You cannot cure your Covid by using bleach.
 
Uncensored2008 said:
Nah, this is just the stereotype you and those like you have created in order to justify the bigotry and hatred you spread about the "infidels" who refuse to bow to your religion.
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This is one of the most uninformed posts I've seen in a while. How did you do it? How could you type out a complete sentence and be wrong with every single word?

It's kind of a miracle. But I bet you are just the right level of stupid to be able to achieve it.
 
Cypress said:
No, nothing about abortion, school prayer, gay marriage explains why you would be angry and annoyed about Hell, a place and concept you don't even believe in. You should be angry about those policies, not about Catholic or Buddhist traditions about Hell.

Choose whatever word you want Perry: angry, annoyed, stressed out, aggravated. You obviously are emotionally-invested in any discussion of Hell.
Curiously, even though you don't believe in any religion, creed, or catechism, you still get really aggravated about the concept of Hell, even though it has no bearing on your life.
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Not sure why you can't understand my posts. Maybe the words are too large. Oh well. I'll keep trying. You seem like maybe you have had some education. So maybe you're not a total waste of time.
 
ZenMode said:
After we're finished discussing what is hell, maybe we can discuss how much gold is at the end of the rainbow. :p
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I believe there is $2,456,785,908.33. That is what my minister tells me.

And did you know that <insert famous philosopher who said something I agree with> agrees with me?
 
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