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[ItsNotWhatItSeems]

The most popular religion of today says it says the beginning of wisdom is “fear of the lord”. And it says much else about unbelievers having to face hellfire and brimstone. All of that is proven false by an individual seeing that love and fear cannot logically coexist, it’s insane that so many don’t see the logical falsehoods in their beliefs. They may convince themselves they love god and ignore the “or else” part, but the “or else” cannot actually be put aside from their reasoning. That makes that love selfish and based in fear of punishment. The fact along with truth is not a discovery seen through concepts or a window screen of ideas, it’s fact. I’m not laying down the law, truth is not our own particular preference. By definition that would make it not truth. What is true is not projections we create, it’s already there, but the religionists invent all kinds of projections. Christianity and most other religions are based on this concept of reward and punishment. And if one is utterly serious and throws out every kind of authority, spiritual or otherwise, they have more energy. This energy is needed in our daily lives and I find that most religion is malevolent but for many more reasons hard to explain. For those reasons I have convictions in that religion has actually been planted to deceive people, harmful intentions, energy harvesting etc.

[Lagayascienza]

I agree with a lot of that. Religion plays on fear and depends on ignorance. Letting it go opens up vast intellectual horizons to explore, true knowledge and the wisdom of science, and hope for a better world. Religion is deceitful in keeping people in the darkness of ignorance where the truth about our existence cannot be seen. In the Abrahamic religions, it's about power and control. It's deceitful oppressive and immoral.

[Stoppelmann]

The most popular religion of today says it says the beginning of wisdom is “fear of the lord”. And it says much else about unbelievers having to face hellfire and brimstone. All of that is proven false by an individual seeing that love and fear cannot logically coexist, it’s insane that so many don’t see the logical falsehoods in their beliefs. They may convince themselves they love god and ignore the “or else” part, but the “or else” cannot actually be put aside from their reasoning. That makes that love selfish and based in fear of punishment.

Not a good start, but I’ll entertain you. I am critical of many aspects of Christianity (which seems to be the religion you are pointing to) especially the literalist reading of the Bible, which overlooks the fact that the OT contains so many genres, from a vast stretch of time, and clearly displays a development of perspective, including the melding of Yahweh with El, going from a pantheon of gods to absolute monotheism. Clearly then, it is unsuitable to be taken literally. With the NT it is also clear that an original story contained in the Gospel of Mark, was later “corrected” or “improved” by Matthew and Luke, and John’s gospel comes from a completely different background. So, we must consider each source first of all for itself, and then the problems you run into aren’t quite so big.

Jesus seems to be a prophet in the tradition of the OT prophets, and emphasises much of what they did, but he puts a new slant to it and despite the apocalyptic aspect that seemed to be popular in his day, he emphasises love, which was mentioned in the OT, but becomes a prominent aspect of his teaching. But he also emphasises the internal nature of the kingdom, encourages introspection, and he mentions the dilemma of failing to live up to one’s (own) standards, only to be confronted with that after death. There is also the aspect of being one with the “Father” and praying that his followers being one with him, as well as deeds that are done for “the least” of his brothers are done to him also. This entwinement, also present in Paul’s words at Athens, “in him we live and move and have our being,” vaguely suggests panentheism, God in all of us and we in him.

So, as you can see, there are varying perspectives or readings of the teaching of Christ, but also various views on how the Roman church transmitted that message, especially after Constantine empowered the church, which in many ways took over the structure of the empire. The emphasis of power over an emptying of ego, the raising up of the suffering servant to a heavenly monarch with a royal court, churches laid out like courts of law, and the authoritarian framework, all did the message of the good news a disservice. The good news only survived in pockets of loving communities throughout the empire, which were careful not to be seen to criticise the papal authority but supported the local communities with medicine and horticulture.

So, there is another picture to paint that is perhaps not so popular. Admittedly, it isn’t quite so entertaining, and doesn’t supply the heroes and foes that popular entertainment enjoys, but that is history.

The fact along with truth is not a discovery seen through concepts or a window screen of ideas, it’s fact. I’m not laying down the law, truth is not our own particular preference. By definition that would make it not truth. What is true is not projections we create, it’s already there, but the religionists invent all kinds of projections. Christianity and most other religions are based on this concept of reward and punishment. And if one is utterly serious and throws out every kind of authority, spiritual or otherwise, they have more energy. This energy is needed in our daily lives and I find that most religion is malevolent but for many more reasons hard to explain. For those reasons I have convictions in that religion has actually been planted to deceive people, harmful intentions, energy harvesting etc.

I would say that Christianity, like most other traditions, speak about the consequences of actions, perhaps a little differently to Buddhism, for example, but it is the foundation of our justice system. It is no more malevolent than society generally is, because it is part of society, and the people in it are like you and I. It definitely isn’t “perfect” – whatever than means – and I have lots of criticisms, but we have to try and be objective.

Christianity is also very diverse and became more and more diverse as it spread around the world, so it is difficult to pin it down, let alone classify it the way you have done. In some cases, you may be right, but in many cases – very many cases – you are wrong.

[Lagayascienza]

The most popular religion of today says it says the beginning of wisdom is “fear of the lord”. And it says much else about unbelievers having to face hellfire and brimstone. All of that is proven false by an individual seeing that love and fear cannot logically coexist, it’s insane that so many don’t see the logical falsehoods in their beliefs. They may convince themselves they love god and ignore the “or else” part, but the “or else” cannot actually be put aside from their reasoning. That makes that love selfish and based in fear of punishment.

I see a lot of sense in this.

Not a good start, but I’ll entertain you.... I am...

How condescending. It's enough to make your eyes water.

So, there is another picture to paint that is perhaps not so popular. Admittedly, it isn’t quite so entertaining, and doesn’t supply the heroes and foes that popular entertainment enjoys, but that is history.

Oh, goodness, no! Let's not treat of anything as crass as popular entertainment or a balanced view of history. We are on a higher plane here.

[Good_Egg]

it's about power and control.

No question that the abuse of religious power happens, and that it is reprehensible.

What is false is the idea that religion is nothing but a way of achieving power and control.

If you put aside the illusion that religion is a monolithic whole and look within it, you will find both gross abuse of priestly power (presumably you know about the sale of indulgences ?) and a reaction against it in the name of holiness.

St Paul didn't, as far as we can tell from his writings, believe that there should be full-time priests. Protestantism takes as its model New Testament Christianity - early Christianity as portrayed in the NT.

Seems to me that we need to distinguish a failure to live up to that model from anything that's inherently wrong with that model.

[Stoppelmann]

Another double post ...

[Stoppelmann]

The most popular religion of today says it says the beginning of wisdom is “fear of the lord”. And it says much else about unbelievers having to face hellfire and brimstone. All of that is proven false by an individual seeing that love and fear cannot logically coexist, it’s insane that so many don’t see the logical falsehoods in their beliefs. They may convince themselves they love god and ignore the “or else” part, but the “or else” cannot actually be put aside from their reasoning. That makes that love selfish and based in fear of punishment.

I see a lot of sense in this.

Not a good start, but I’ll entertain you.... I am...

How condescending. It's enough to make your eyes water.

So, there is another picture to paint that is perhaps not so popular. Admittedly, it isn’t quite so entertaining, and doesn’t supply the heroes and foes that popular entertainment enjoys, but that is history.

Oh, goodness, no! Let's not treat of anything as crass as popular entertainment or a balanced view of history. We are on a higher plane here.

I believe I understand where you are coming from now …

Ich mag nun mit gutem oder bösem Blicke auf die Menschen sehen, ich finde sie immer bei Einer Aufgabe, Alle und jeden Einzelnen in Sonderheit: Das zu thun, was der Erhaltung der menschlichen Gattung frommt. Und zwar wahrlich nicht aus einem Gefühl der Liebe für diese Gattung, sondern einfach, weil Nichts in ihnen älter, stärker, unerbittlicher, unüberwindlicher ist, als jener Instinct, – weil dieser Instinct eben das Wesen unserer Art und Heerde ist …
Auch der schädlichste Mensch ist vielleicht immer noch der allernützlichste, in Hinsicht auf die Erhaltung der Art; denn er unterhält bei sich oder, durch seine Wirkung, bei Anderen Triebe, ohne welche die Menschheit längst erschlafft oder verfault wäre. Der Hass, die Schadenfreude, die Raub- und Herrschsucht und was Alles sonst böse genannt wird: es gehört zu der erstaunlichen Oekonomie der Arterhaltung, freilich zu einer kostspieligen, verschwenderischen und im Ganzen höchst thörichten Oekonomie: – welche aber bewiesener Maassen unser Geschlecht bisher erhalten hat.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (German Edition) (p. 24). Kindle Edition.

Of course, if you believe that maintaining drives such as hatred, mischievousness, rapaciousness and imperiousness could keep society alive, albeit in a wasteful way, you wouldn’t want to abhor evil.

[Stoppelmann]

Double post

[Sculptor1]

Religiocity is wholly immoral

[Lagayascienza]

I believe I understand where you are coming from now …

Ich mag nun mit gutem oder bösem Blicke auf die Menschen sehen, ich finde sie immer bei Einer Aufgabe, Alle und jeden Einzelnen in Sonderheit: Das zu thun, was der Erhaltung der menschlichen Gattung frommt. Und zwar wahrlich nicht aus einem Gefühl der Liebe für diese Gattung, sondern einfach, weil Nichts in ihnen älter, stärker, unerbittlicher, unüberwindlicher ist, als jener Instinct, – weil dieser Instinct eben das Wesen unserer Art und Heerde ist …
Auch der schädlichste Mensch ist vielleicht immer noch der allernützlichste, in Hinsicht auf die Erhaltung der Art; denn er unterhält bei sich oder, durch seine Wirkung, bei Anderen Triebe, ohne welche die Menschheit längst erschlafft oder verfault wäre. Der Hass, die Schadenfreude, die Raub- und Herrschsucht und was Alles sonst böse genannt wird: es gehört zu der erstaunlichen Oekonomie der Arterhaltung, freilich zu einer kostspieligen, verschwenderischen und im Ganzen höchst thörichten Oekonomie: – welche aber bewiesener Maassen unser Geschlecht bisher erhalten hat.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (German Edition) (p. 24). Kindle Edition.

Of course, if you believe that maintaining drives such as hatred, mischievousness, rapaciousness and imperiousness could keep society alive, albeit in a wasteful way, you wouldn’t want to abhor evil.

You may "believe" you "understand where I am coming from" but you are mistaken.

You have no conception of what I take to be the truth about the origins and purpose of human morality. You simply, and very obviously, don't understand evolutionary psychology, and you would need to understand it to get an accurate picture of "where I am coming from". And any snippets you might have picked up here and there about evolution are filtered through your highly partisan religious doctrine and emerge unrecognizable. That's why what you have written above is not even wrong, it's just incomprehensible.

That said, I would not have put it as Nietzsche does in the passage above. When he wrote The Joyful Wisdom the modern evolutionary syntheses had not been developed. Nietzsche regarded evolution by natural selection as obviously true. But he misunderstood what it meant for ethics and so he disagreed with much of it, and it did not greatly inform his writing in Ethics.

In the above passage Nietzsche was simply wrong. In the early days of our evolutionary history people didn't do anything out of love for their species, Homo sapiens. "Species" is a modern notion that would have been unknown to early homo sapiens. Humans for most of their history were wandering hunter-gatherers who populated their range very sparsely and lived in smallish groups. It was the members of their group, and especially their kin, and not the species homo as a whole, that were the focus of their allegiance and concern, their in-fighting and in-group competition. Survival of their species simply would not have occurred to them. They occasionally interacted with other wandering groups of their conspecifics but other groups would generally have been seen as the enemy - competitors for scare food resources. Survival of their species just wouldn’t have been on their agenda.

So, plonking that passage from Nietzsche was a really bad move. It shows you have understood nothing. You could have at least had the decency to post an English translation. I expect you didn’t because …

No, people will have their own ideas about why you didn’t.

[Stoppelmann]

You could have at least had the decency to post an English translation. I expect you didn’t because …

No, people will have their own ideas about why you didn’t.

Sorry, didn't have an English translation, but for someone whose avatar is the translation of the name of the book, and your comments have tended to fit, I used that magical word ..."if" ...

[Lagayascienza]

That should have read ... not the species Homo sapiens...

Homo is the genus.

[Stoppelmann]

You simply, and very obviously, don't understand evolutionary psychology, and you would need to understand it to get an accurate picture of "where I am coming from".

I just thought about this "snippet" as you say.

I have read a bit of evolutionary psychology in my professional life, but while it primarily focuses on explaining the origins of certain behaviours and traits from an evolutionary perspective, it does not inherently prescribe specific ethical values or developmental guidelines for mankind. It instead suggests that certain moral foundations, such as fairness, reciprocity, and care for kin, may have evolved because they conferred evolutionary advantages. It has importantly shed light on the origins of altruistic and cooperative behaviour, including the concept of kin selection and reciprocal altruism. We can observe how Animals and Humans engage in acts of altruism and cooperation with unrelated individuals in the expectation that they will receive reciprocal benefits in the future.

But I was reading in The Matter With Things by Iain McGilchrist, how such reciprocal behaviour is also observed in single-celled organisms, such as bacteria. The human body involves a complex system of cooperation and interaction among different cell types and tissues to maintain homeostasis, fight off infections, and repair damaged tissues. It isn’t quite the reciprocal altruism or cooperation of microorganisms like bacteria, because different organs in the human body are made up of various types of cells that work together to maintain specific functions. McGilchrist mentioned a fascinating phenomenon, where cells continue to function and adapt to disturbances even when their DNA is removed, is known as "cytoplasmic inheritance" or "cytoplasmic determinants," which requires more study.

Evolutionary psychology also offers insights into human sexual behaviour and reproduction, including mate selection, jealousy, and parenting. One assumption is that individuals are more likely to exhibit altruistic behaviours toward close relatives (kin) because we are hard-wired to help our kin, which indirectly promotes the transmission of shared genes, however many examples are available to show that this behaviour is by no means an instinct that is followed blindly. Under extreme conditions, extreme behaviours can, and have occurred – in particular when patients had brain damage, and the recognition of kin was impaired, but also in catastrophic conditions when children became a source of food.

Evolutionary psychology also explores the roots of aggressive behaviour and intergroup conflict, often linked to competition for resources, but also involve complex group dynamics, which refer to the social and psychological processes that occur within groups, influencing how individuals interact, make decisions, and behave when they are part of a collective entity, such as a social group, organization, or community. Understanding these tendencies was part of my training in medical management and we had many discussions about ethical conflict resolution, diplomacy, and the promotion of peace.

So, I wouldn’t say that I don’t understand evolutionary psychology at all, but that we have applied certain aspects, but the application of evolutionary psychology in ethical discussions is always done with caution and in conjunction with other professional and ethical frameworks.

[Lagayascienza]

A translation is as easy as a few mouse clicks. Everyone with computer and an internet connection can have a translation in seconds. You obviously have a computer and an internet connection. So not having a translation is not the real reason you didn't post one.

[Lagayascienza]

No one said evolution did prescribe specific ethical values. That would have been impossible. You need to read more. You haven't understood.