Nirvana

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

Religion can be best defined as set teachings that its followers must obey. This is similiar in many ways to the laws government sets for us. But these two things are only kept up because of the peoples belief in them. The whole point of both is so that each individual person is restrained in actions and deeds in order to become a better person. I see no purpose for either. They are just another way to separate and conflict the world [communism vs. democracy…christianity vs. islam]. From birth humans are instilled with two creeds. The animal instinctive one, and the one that comes from the inner self the one that says this is righteous this is wrongful. These are two of the few things society and other humans do not infuse into us. They can become corrupted manipulated dimisnished but they are always there. Law is needed to crush the animal instinct that which makes us do thinsg we will later regret when in the right mind. But religion, all religions, all humankind should set its beliefs on a few basic principles those that are known to us since our birth:

1)Killing is wrong
2)Every human is equal to every other human
3)Every living being has the right to live for the fact that it is alive
4)Humans should live with respect and live by decency
5)Peace and harmony are the answer to all problems
6)When one is in need of help, the another must help
7)Respect Honor Duty Strength and above all Love should be the laws that human entities abide by.

There are no doubt other rules and of course an “ideal world” but then again shouldnt we strive for an ideal world and overcome the barriers and obsatcles such as government, religion and separation that hinder us from reaching peace and harmony. Ironically peace and harmony are supposedly the basis for government religion and seperation. So far they have hence proven to be inadequate ways of achieveing what every human in the world desires.

2

Hmmm…I do agree with a lot of what you say and the overall idea. But I think you must remember what we all must remember…it’s very hard to find an absolute. Everything is relative in a million different ways.

What if the person in question is coming into your home to murder you and rape your family?

To me, there is NO fault or wrong whatsover is killing that person outright, and being damn proud of it, for ridding the world of such a dangerous person.

Would getting rid of these types not FURTHER the cause of peace?

Equal in what ways? In the very basic ways…yes. But lets look at two men from similar backgrounds. Similar education and family history.

One goes on to become useless, living off of society, a liar and a thief. The other goes on to become Bill Gates (or Napoleon, or Maximus), and changes the world.

Are these men equals? I’d say not. Sometimes, indeed, one person truly is better than another. But this cannot be pre-determined for any person in order to be fair. So I agree with your idea, but disagree with the statement.

Tell that to the termites and let them continue to eat your house down. Or the ants in your kitchen.

Or to the country folk who have huge problems with disease carrying ferile cats that destroy everything.

Indeed, just beong alive should not guarantee you that can do as you wish, without losing your life for it. Those poor ants in my kitchen are dead.

Here here. Well said.

I agree. We as people and nations should STRIVE in earnest to be at peace with each other.

BUT - sometimes to keep peace, you MUST make war. Take the home invasion scenario above…in my home INTRUDER=DEAD.

And thank god we had the STRENGTH to stop Hitler.

Yes, so long as it doesn’t take away from my ability to care of myself and those closest to me. For if I AM a provider, but I give away all I have to help others without helping myself first, soon, my ability to give will be no more and I will depend on others also.

Absolutely. Each person should seek to define these words for themselves as best they can, and live by them.

Dont’ make the assumtion that all government is bad. Im not a world politics expert so I cannot say whether or not I see any good governments out there right now.

But I do believe the USA was on the right track for the first 100 years or so…before the power-elite began to change things.

A good government doesn’t get it’s power FROM the people to RULE. It’s power FLOWS THROUGH the people to give them the chance to acheive.

That, I think, has been lost from the world. Hopefully not forever.

Great post. Nice to meet you.

3

Killing is wrong.

killing is wrong but I do acknowledge that killing in defence maybe necessary to defend our self but to be damn proud of it, for ridding the world of such a dangerous person. I don’t agree. we should be saddened that someone has lost all meaning to life and because of it they lost their life. it is a tragedy.

  1. Every human is equal to every other human.

every human is in fact equal. equal in the sense that we all have a conscience, we all have the ability to reason and from reasoning we can distinguish right from wrong, we all feel guilt though some choose to ignore it but nevertheless it is still there and we all have freewill and it is because of freewill that we choose different paths in life that make us different.

  1. Every living being has the right to live for the fact that it is alive.

this statement is also true for if it were not for humans carelessly intervening in the natural laws of nature. cats for example would not be ferile in our suburbs/surrounding bush but rather they would be keeping nature in balance. we now need to reverse the damage and find ways of putting nature back in place.

Ants also lived in harmony with nature keeping it in balance until we humans started destroying there natural habitat and replaced it with building developments. now that dose not mean we should let the ants eat out our homes but rather we have a natural obligation to seek alternatives to killing. such as discouraging them from our homes in the first place.

:slight_smile:

4

Known to us from birth? Nonsense, that’s just liberal, western closeminded thinking whose belief in undeniable human rights is almost as ludicrous as a belief in god. We are just reproduction machines, not each a god in ourselves.

Anyway, why they’re not ‘known’ to us from birth:

  1. killing hasn’t always been inherently wrong, sacrifice was a common feature of many religions, they obvioulsy didn’t see it as wrong, in fact they saw it as wholly right!

  2. slavery has happened through out the ages, tis only rationalism that has stopped this practice, not all of us suddenly being born knowing that it’s wrong.

  3. Many living beings every instinct is to kill. Some bacteria have the ability to kill many humans. Should we not stop them? One earns the right to live, not appears with that right, thankfully our forefathers did that for us. Anyway, you tell a caveman not to kill a chicken cause he’s hungry, pobably just kill you instead.

Not that any of the rules wouldn’t be a good way to live life, but they’re definatly not innate truths.

5

In order for you to judge that liberals are close mined people I would strongly suspect that you your self have to be close minded to make that assumption.

next…

We are just reproduction machines. <

If this is true then ask yourself what would happen if your computer (machine) was not programed? It would not be able to function. it would just exist, wouldn’t it!? it needs to be taught how to function, we humans are the creators of the computer. we taught (programed) it to function.
If we are just machines then who taught (programed) us to function? who is our creator?

Moving on… You said “killing hasn’t always been inherently wrong” Well this could be explained because people choose to ignore there conscience and make excuses for them self’s, this dose not mean they do not know what they are doing is wrong. they are able to make excuses for themselves because it is their freewill. religion to this very day are still in denial.

  1. slavery has happened through out the ages, tis only rationalism that has stopped this practice, not all of us suddenly being born knowing that it’s wrong. <

I believe we are not born with knowing what is wrong but rather we are born with the ability to reason or rationalise through our conscience and from this we can distinguish what is wrong. so long as we do not ignore our conscience. animals are not born with the ability to reason and the only way they can distinguish what is wrong is if humans teach them. But who is teaching us humans to reason???

  1. Many living beings every instinct is to kill<

when you say “many” rather then all beings. what you are admitting is that it isn’t a human instinct. if it were then ALL humans would want to kill not just MANY.

Our first instinct is our conscience questioning whether we should kill or not. if one chooses to kill they are simply using their freewill to go against their own conscience.

Some bacteria have the ability to kill many humans. Should we not stop them? <

Only if in an event that our own life is at risk. of course we should stop them.

One earns the right to live, not appears with that right.<

I ask you, how dose one earn the right to live???

you tell a caveman not to kill a chicken cause he’s hungry, pobably just kill you instead. <

Cavemen had very limited plant base food and that which was available to them could not sufficiently sustain their body’s alone. so eating meat wasn’t just about pleasing their appetite but rather it was essential for their life. it is not essential in today’s society and therefor it can not be rational to eat meat.

Not that any of the rules wouldn’t be a good way to live life, but they’re definatly not innate truths.<

by saying this you have already admitted that it is innate truth. why else say “Not that any of the rules wouldn’t be a good way to live life”? who is telling you it is a good way of life?? its your conscience! the one you were born with, the one that gives you the ability to reason and distinguish what is wrong.

We are born with the ability to reason through our conscience but whether you choose to listen to your our conscience or not that’s your choice.

6

I think it is naive to think that everything that functions has to be taught how to do so. If that were true then there would need to be an infinite amount of teacher predecessors so that each teacher could be taught by a previous teacher how to teach how to function to the next teacher, and thats not possible because the universe has been around for a finite amount of time. Unless of course one teacher just suddenly randomly existed to be able to start the chain like a God or creator.

But I don’t see that as a valid explanation of the start of functioning life forms when there is no evidence for it and it’s just as likely for life to have suddenly appeared on its own with the right functions like this God claims to have done.

I think this extra God step was just made up because once life had evolved so much in a certain direction to become aware, there was already so much other stuff and life around this newly aware life form which it just suddenly noticed, and so it could only assume that it just appeared like it thought it just did. And it was not conceivable that everything might have had shit loads of time to develop while life still wasn’t aware yet because it didn’t know that the universe had already been around that long. So it would assume that something must have suddenly created it all, ie a God or creator.

I think life began by trial and error. Every now and then, something very random and infrequent could happen that would initiate life. But if this life form had not had the necessary instructions how to carry on life, it would keep dying out very quickly. And it was only until a particular mutation of life suddenly came to exist in this same way that life was able to maintain itself. Survival of the fittest.

And so all life’s fundamental instruction is, is to reproduce so that life can carry on the way it has been and thats the only way it could have go this far, by being a reproduction machine. If it wasn’t, life would still be dying out all the time. We do other things now, but that is our most basic function and instruction.

Its interesting that you should bring up the idea of computers. We think we’re so different from them but we aren’t. After all, they were made by us using the extent of the limited human imagination and they are based on us because they do functions that we would otherwise do without them, but they do them quicker. So in a sense, computers are approaching the next step of evolution after us. But they still lack the ability to reproduce and think independently without the need to be controlled.

Very ‘Matrix’ I know, but it annoys me the way that in these films of a fight to save the human race like in ‘Alien’ as well, the humans always win, despite the threat being very much more advanced than us.

7

Not sure I follow your argument.

At what point does it stop being rational to eat meat???

If we are perfectly capable of eating it, and it is a good source of nutrition for us, why should we not?

It is the balance of nature as it has been for millions of years. The stronger kill the weaker for food.

Just because western humans have changed where we get our food, a corporate store rather than trading markets or hunting in the wild, does that mean that the very nature of things had changed also???

I think it is rather hypocritical for people to say it is not a rational act to eat meat, when you would not be here if it weren’t for this consumption. We are all on a natural cycle anyway.

If there are too many wolves, they eat all the food, and many will starve to death until the food supply is increased again. Just the way it works.

I don’t see how anyone can say that their intellect is higher than nature. You may have an opinion for YOURSELF and that’s fine, but when you become smarter than the natural way, then YOU are the one out of balance with it’s true simplicity and order.

Killing for food is not a dirty, gross or repulsive thing. Rather, it is a beautiful, wholesome and natural act. It is how all of this evolved.

The weaker are killed, the stronger survive and therefore improve the gene pool.

8

No, you see this is exactly what I’m talking about when I talk of close-minded liberal thinking. What you don’t realise is that these rules seem good to me and you because we happen to come from a system where these rules are taught to be self-evident truths, our society teaches them to us as we grow-up. Hmm, it works like this:

  1. In a liberal system, we are taught things like liberty and equality are basic human rights (in fact somewhere in the US constitution they use the phrase “and we believe these to be self-evident truths”).

  2. When asked if there are any innate or self-evident truths the close-minded liberal immediatly pipes up with human rights, or the right to live, equality or some other bullshit like that.

  3. There is plenty of evidence in the forms of other ideological cultures and historical cultures that these “rights” are not self-evident or innate at all because they’re not believed in in those systems, unlike in liberal systems.

Hence the close mindedness cause they can’t see they’ve been brainwashed by their own bloody system, which quite ironically is supposed to protect freedom of thought, but often inhibits it. Though I’m more than happy to live in a liberal system, it’s better than any other in the world today imho.

I don’t disagree with that, but that’s the whole point, that means the truths are not innate as they have to be discovered by reflection and are not known to us straight away, that was why I posted in the first place, because I don’t believe in such complicated innate truths.

However later you say something about the conscience wresting with a desire to kill, and that the first instinct is to question. Your ideologicazl brainwashing showed through again however when you say that “if one chooses to kill they are simply using their freewill to go against their own conscience.”, if they have to go against their conscience they are not questioning at all, they already have made the decision, so either you wrong about the questioning or that they must always fight their conscience if they choose to kill.

By setting up a system where you can live as you wish to, you have no right to live any more than the dandylion i trod on, or the small insect I probably just accidently killed by swallowing it. One earns the riht by setting up a system of mutual co-operation to ensure everyone can live as they wish to. In other words a progression down the lines of civilisation, but it is a species as a whole that creates it. Our fore-fathers earned us the right to live, to vote, to think freely. If we did not have those luxurie, it would fall to us to earn them. All this is rather an unformed idea though, I must admit.

9

Very Thomas Hobbes of you Matt. A little bit of Edmund Burke at the end there too. I agree; nothing is really “self-evident.”

10

1)Killing is wrong

As far as I’m aware there are two forms of life on this planet. Those who can spontainiously move and those who can’t (plant and animal, I suppose viruses etc are bundled with animal). Humans as a species kill many numbers of both groups every second of the day, either to eat or to remove as they are a nuisance.

The thing that makes humans different from the animal kingdom and superior to all other life forms is the human species itself. It is an argorant ( a cross between aragant and ignorant-made up word) way of thinking and full of self importance.

I hold a strong belief that rather than the human species being highly evolved and cultured, we have, as a species infact, lost our ability to understand the true meaning of the world around us and our place in it.

Far from being more intelligent, we have specialised in one form of intelligence at the expence of the knowing and understanding of ‘what it’s all about’ that all other forms of life may well still posess.

Though shalt not kill, might as well say ‘though shalt not live’

2)Every human is equal to every other human

I’d rather say every human is born with equal chance.

3)Every living being has the right to live for the fact that it is alive

Again the inclusion of ‘being’ excludes and implies a place above and special to all other species.

Every living thing has the right to live for the fact that it is alive.

4)Humans should live with respect and live by decency

I totally agree but most seem to think this respect and descency only applies toward others of our species.

5)Peace and harmony are the answer to all problems

If I’m lost in the desert or in the middle of the jungle. I don’t think I’d get very far ‘peace and harmonying’ my food source to death!

6)When one is in need of help, the another must help

After careful assesment of personal risk and the others worthyness of help.

I once had a friend who totally depended on other people to solve his problems for him (help him out), usually it was me. It got to the point of being beyond a joke. One day I had a serious talk with him and told him blatantly to his face that I no longer wished to be his friend and explained exactly why. I had of course tried other things like encouragement and gentle guidance, but he just did not get it.

This happened a few years ago, I’ve seen him a few times since then. He still seems totally dependant on those around him to help him out, and I do miss him as a friend, but just maybe I set a seed in his mind to be more self reliant?

Sometimes the best way to help is not to help.

7)Respect Honor Duty Strength and above all Love should be the laws that human entities abide by.

And that applies to everything around us, not just concerning the human race.

The way I see it, alot of problems we have as a species and individuals would be alot easier if we did not seperate ourselves from nature. But accepted that at the end of the day we are infact animals, and part of the animal kingdom.

As far as I’m aware the notion of ‘us being special’ or ‘chosen’ comes from religion as a way to control our animal instincts.

Far from our animal instincts being tamed, just look at the world around you, I agree it has somewhat ‘civilised’ us, but now we have that civility let us re-intergrate and take up our rightful position in the animal kingdom.

Respectfully

MentulZen.