The Complex Human Being

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
21

Hello Prismatic,

I think that you are partly on the right track. Yes there is an ED, but I don’t think it is as universal as some would think. Or let me put it this way, the existential dilemma has to be expressed more clearly. What is it? Is it really universal or just some bourgeois flaw? And is it a root cause or an effect of yet something more basic, which in fact would be more universal? Start by trying to figure out what is universal about our species. For example I would suggest that the ED has to do with our social nature and pattern-seeking brain. A personal God behind all phenomena delivers on both needs (if indeed they are- I’m just making a guess here).

The other thing I have a problem with is your list. You do not list science, nor philosophy as possible reactions to the ED. Which brings me to the other problem of prejudice. You cannot be objective in your research if you still use loaded words like “evil”.

Besides that, how exactly did you arrive at a neurological map of religion? But never mind that. So you say, that: “Therefore we should give more attention to these critical neural elements. To do so, we have to understand the complexity of the human being.” Alright, based on your assumptions I agree with your format. However I disagree with the presumption below the formal presentation, i.e. that what you think is a problem is a problem for everybody, or an objective problem, which of course, has to be dealt with. Again, this detracts from your apparent scientific approach and it becomes a moral and even a religious approach, with the same basic fundamentalist conviction at its roots, self assured from your faith- your (moral) certainty. A have to disagree for various reasons. One, because I doubt the enlightenment of another individual as universal. To me, to each their own. Two, because I hold a world with the choice for any and all of these approaches to the ED as better than a world with one “solution”. Three, because it is hypocritical to try to banish religion, for it is to act just like the religions of the past, and in fact the worst religions of the past. It is to be imperialist/fundamentalist while condemning imperialism/fundamentalism. Saying that they should be minimized offers no help here because it is still, apparently, you who is to decide what the minimum should be. Because, as you say, this: “an area which I has expertise and I leave the rest to the respective interested NGOs.” I have to question your objectivity. To a person with only a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Now, isn’t possible that the evil is not within this or that religion, or book, but within the…for lack of a better word, the soul of the person, who then interprets the message of said religion or verse, in the most self-serving manner possible? Just a thought about the causality. As you said this are “SOME evil prone believers” so our historical problems may reside in the mental health of some people in positions of power. If so then weening off Abrahamic traditions will not reduce the amount of evil in the word because the propensity for evil (I still reject the use of this loaded word, but working within the language you’ve provided) remain nonetheless. Certainty is what is craved and what is used to carve your neighbor in pieces. Certainty is a might that makes right. Whether the pronouncement comes from a colloquial with God, or from superior reason and intuition or just science, (all of which remain uncertain in reality), the “evil prone believers” will utilize these in evil ways.

As for your solution it is still too vague to offer any positive solutions (to the problem you’ve given to the world). What do you mean by: “positive foolproof spirituality and other net positive methodologies in alignment with local conditions.”???

22

The entire “existential” issue goes away merely with the right ontology (of which there can be a variety). Religion follows automatically. The trick is to get the presumptuous religious/socialist impulse of homosapian to stay on track with the right ontology. And to do that requires the perception of hope from that ontology, not merely the perceptions of threats (the PHT principle). Hyperbolic, fantasy hopes, used to inspire and threaten the masses, mislead the ontological belief astray, Christmas becomes about Santa Claus, physics becomes about time travel, and health becomes about global economics.

People believe in the hyperbole of their ontologies because they long for hope. And they long for hope because they can’t discern the right ontology while immersed in the blind manipulative efforts of so many others. Homosapian simply isn’t bright enough, especially in mass and largely because the masses are kept inept. Homosapian is and has always been insane, not knowing his own purpose (right and wrong).

And in his current insanity, he is fully involved in designing his own future gene pool while at the same time making every effort to reduce the population through any excuse and means, getting rid of the prior gene pool. This is like a computer designing its own future software even though it has no real idea why the software is there to begin with and at the same time designing ways to not need computers at all.

23

How can one know ones subconscious mind? One can’t.
Can people objectively judge one self? No, psychopaths, narcissists etc, can’t. If they are told how they really behave, they will too often refuse the truth.
Will idiots and retards accept that they are not so intelligent? Of cause not.

“I know that I know nothing” or “I know one thing: that I know nothing” What good is that one are aware of ones own ignorance? NOTHING!

24

As I had stated, the ED is a sub-complex by itself that require another ton of explanations to justify and ground it as universal. It is more basic than a pattern-seeking brain. Humans evolved with a pattern-seeking impulse to deal the ED at its most fundamental levels.

It was an omission, Science and Philosophy are critical strategies to deal with the ED.
I have anticipated the problem with the very loose term ‘evil.’ I have prepared a conceptual framework and taxonomy of ‘evil’ to deal and ensure a proper structure and objectivity to the concept of ‘evil.’

If you reflect more deeply, you will note ED with its very objective element, i.e. mortality, the so called ‘only’ certainty is very fundamental to all human beings and even to any living entity.

Mine is partly scientific but it is supposed to be holistic that would entail the imperative spirituality, ethics, philosophy and whatever is relevant.
In the longer run when we have the necessary resources and mental competence, religions will be weaned off, perhaps naturally and spontaneously.
Weaning off religion would be like weaning off slavery, racism and other extreme ideologies.
Slavery is almost off the radar of humanity, but there is no lost to humanity [rather it is a moral win] from the depriving of some masters from their slaves serving them at their whims.
The weaning of religions will be voluntary and depending on the availability of net-positive fool proofs alternatives which very idealistic at present but possible within the next 75-100 years.

I see the Abrahamic religions analogically like asbestos.
Like asbestos as a very useful building material especially in the less developed world but has malignant potential - thus banned in many countries, the Abrahamic religions is also very useful to the majority but it has a malignant potential of evil.
When we have weaned off the Abrahamic religions [a catalyst for evil by SOME believers] in time only on the condition there are effective replacements, yes, the potential for secular evils still remain.
By then, we will have one less catalyst to deal with and whatever potential secular evil remaining can be dealt with via general secular methods, i.e. ethics, philosophy, politics, other relevant faculties of knowledge and strategies.

That is the general description of the approaches I have in mind. That is the best I can describe in a limited forum and post like this thread. To do it properly may need a book of many chapters and 500++ hundred pages.

25

Lump,

If you look at or study your dreams, you can learn in that way. It isn’t so much about knowing your subconscious but what it has to show you of your own consciousness.
Your subconscious mind is like a beacon. Think of all of the words which may describe a beacon and voila - you’ve learned of it.

Sure they can. If they practice being honest with their self, no matter what they see. And if they can do that, they can learn to be more objective about judging or not judging others.

It’s a starting point, isn’t it? It can keep us realistically" humble and knowing that we know so little can peak our curiousity to learn and to grow.

26

According to my own finding, it seems that in truth, humans are not complex.
Instead, they are very simple, and were created by something more complex
than their own independent ideas.
I’m not trying to be a contrarian, but you tend to compare humans
to animals, don’t you? And thus we are smarter than a mouse.
That doesn’t mean we are universally intelligent.

27

Hello Prismatic
It sounds as if this ED will become your “Will” if compared to German philosophies. Anyway I think that I’ll wait until you explain it a lot better before commenting. Same goes for your use of the word “evil”.

You say: “If you reflect more deeply, you will note ED with its very objective element, i.e. mortality, the so called ‘only’ certainty is very fundamental to all human beings and even to any living entity.”
I hold that our mortality is not objective- that it is not an experience we can have. We can see that others stop moving and we call them “dead”, but we have no experience as to what happens to the person. They certainly cannot tell us and we won’t, apparently, know ourselves. But, I agree that we can speculate about death, about what happens–this can create a dilemma of deciding whether this life is worth living. I agree. However that dilemma, as I just explained it, still depends on a pattern-seeking brain. Reasoning about mortality only comes from the capacity to make certain associations without which we wouldn’t know about “mortality”.

You add: “Mine is partly scientific but it is supposed to be holistic that would entail the imperative spirituality, ethics, philosophy and whatever is relevant. In the longer run when we have the necessary resources and mental competence, religions will be weaned off, perhaps naturally and spontaneously. Weaning off religion would be like weaning off slavery, racism and other extreme ideologies. Slavery is almost off the radar of humanity, but there is no lost to humanity [rather it is a moral win] from the depriving of some masters from their slaves serving them at their whims. The weaning of religions will be voluntary and depending on the availability of net-positive fool proofs alternatives which very idealistic at present but possible within the next 75-100 years.”
Again you make certain associations that reveal a lot that we should be concerned with, from the perspective of reasoning. Are you capable of objectivity about a subject that brings out connotations with the worst crimes against humanity? To do a proper research, in my opinion, to defend a hypothesis for or against “X”, requires the presentation of the Null Hypothesis, that which you want to overcome, in the most robust manner. This requires being charitable with the subject, attacking it in a position of strength, rather than erecting a complicated caricature, a straw man that when toppled, bears no significance for history. Certainly happened with Nietzsche, and probably will happen to yours.
Today we have a few thinkers in the Religion and Spirituality section of this forum who could be considered to have the necessary resources and mental competence. They may still consider themselves as Christians- so that cause and effect relationship, between the possession of resources (whatever these are) and mental competence (and who gets to define this?) and the “weaning off” religion.
Slavery is not a proper comparison for religion. Slavery was never a religion for man. You can say that slavery was an activity of some people who tried to justify it on religious grounds, but religion has overcome this excess-- it did not require being weaned-- it produced other religious men who, on the foundations of the same religion, defied the attempt at justifying this vulgar excess.

It always amazes me that many critics of religion agree with you in that religion will die off within a human life-time. This is similar to those that anticipate the end of the world/the rapture.

Last thing I am going to quote from your reply is: “I see the Abrahamic religions analogically like asbestos.
Like asbestos as a very useful building material especially in the less developed world but has malignant potential - thus banned in many countries, the Abrahamic religions is also very useful to the majority but it has a malignant potential of evil.
When we have weaned off the Abrahamic religions [a catalyst for evil by SOME believers] in time only on the condition there are effective replacements, yes, the potential for secular evils still remain.
By then, we will have one less catalyst to deal with and whatever potential secular evil remaining can be dealt with via general secular methods, i.e. ethics, philosophy, politics, other relevant faculties of knowledge and strategies.”
Again: Damn son! Ease up!! You’re not even trying to conceal how badly your objectivity has been compromised. No, religion is not like asbestos. Asbestos is a known health problem. There are no examples where asbestos in human lungs is recommended, or where it has yielded good effects to the human body. Religion on the other hand has had many good effects for humanity along with some very bad ones. The potential for evil exist for many other things, however, again, I hold that the value of freedom is worth the potential dangers we live with everyday. There is a potential for excess, which I do not deny, but you cannot bring such excess squarely on religion.
I have read how you accuse the Bible as having evil passages that pretty much set off potentially evil men/women, down a path they might not have otherwise taken if they had been exposed to something more benign. However I think that you have applied a causal construct upon events and you can never be sure if you really have found a connection there. As I mention before there are those that act excessively. The Bible, for all it’s questionable passages, also contains a myriad of other passages available and which put the reader on a benign path. But, those that want a weapon find it sooner of later and just because religion is placed out of reach does not mean that another ideological weapon cannot be found or created. As Nietzsche’s madman warned-- God is death: What shall we replace Him with. What would happen if indeed religion was no more and man was able to do as only self interest dictated?
As far as your future history read (one less catalyst means that there remain other secular catalyst, secular in character, which can then be dealt with ethics, philosophy…) my question is why do you think that religion does not possess within itself the power to deal with catalysts? Take slavery for example. The point is that religion is not a monument made of stone, but made of people who interact with the world. Citing the current state in the ME is to forget a lot of history in which the west was involved. There is no virgin with clean hands in this world. Eventually, due to the propagation of ideas, the dissemination of information, excesses that once went unquestioned, unchallenged, are now faced with scorn, because, despite what most may think, there are universal values rooted in the idea of fairness, the value of life, succinctly contained in the Golden Rule.
All the things you bring to bear, then, like ethics, philosophy, will not destroy religion because, contrary to your opinions, religion is not committed to the idea of doing “evil”-- it is not its reason to be. For the Abrahamic religious believer (not for the religion itself) a dose of ethics and philosophy would be a good thing, because, I hope, it will return to them the tentative nature of religion that when lost, allows a person to pick up a religion as a weapon.

28

What is that? ‘Free Thinking’, Logical, Scientific, Good Homosapiens?

29

You are view[ing] the above from another perspective.

My perspective of complexity is the machinery that drives the human being, i.e. the DNA, the brain, and the body is very complex.

  1. Note the complexity of the genome within the DNA.

  2. The average brain has 100 billion neurons each with up to 10,000 synapses [connectors]. Note and imagine the possible permutations and combinations. I wonder whether you understand the awesomeness, enormity [extensiveness] and immensity of such complexities within the brain which no proper neuroscientist would dare to claim the brain is a simple thing at the present moment.

  3. The body )mainly in the visceral regions has another set of 100 billion neurons each with many connectors.

Do you regard 1, 2 and 3 as very simple?

My point is once humanity is able to understand a greater portion of the workings of the neurons within 1, 2, and 3, then scientists will be able to explain quite precisely why many humans think and conclude the following;
humans “were created by something more complex than their own independent ideas.”

30

If humanity lasts, they’d probably come up with augmentations of all kinds.
There are creatures that had way more time than us to grow and develop.
In the distant future, we could look back on our passed and see it as simple.

31

What you say doesn’t add up, dreams are notoriously impossible to interpret correctly for mortal man, specially when it’s well known that the same object has different meaning for different people.

You have understood nothing of thousands of years studies of the mind, even the ancient Greeks knew ones mind could be deluded, that mad men couldn’t think straight and not judge properly, how can a psychopath judge objectively when his mind is not under control?

The ignorant does not fare far in any society and are doomed to failure, the enlighten will succeed.

Your thoughts are not derived from reason, but deluded thoughts.

32

I am very familiar with Schopenhauer’s The World as Will & Representation and Nietzsche’s “Will to Power”. I agree with the concept of the 'Will" in general in these cases but I don’t agree with Schopenhauer’s reified 'Will."
The ED is a few steps below in that hierarchy of the 'Will to live."

Philosophically, the certainty of mortality cannot be 100% or absolute certainty.
For me, objectivity is merely inter-subjectivity, i.e. inter-subjective consensus.
Of course, a person cannot experience ultimate death, but there are accounts of near-death-experience on a personal basis.
I agree with you that pattern-seeking brain do play the part, i.e. our objective claim on mortality is based on induction which Hume claimed is psychological customs and habits.
So I am viewing mortality as “objective” in the sense of inter-subjectivity and inter-subjective collective consensus which all humans [normal] can agree.

This is why I introduce this OP, i.e. to understand the complexity of the Human Being individually and collectively. This is going into the ‘black box’ instead of understanding what is within by studying the correlation between inputs and output.

Once we have an understood of the complex mechanism within (note 100 billion neurons each with up to 10,000 synapses and its permutations!!) then we can test our Null Hypothesis.
Null Hypothesis: Let’ say, “All humans are neutrally good in all circumstances”

Then we test out each variable in isolation with controls.
I am confident we should be able to establish an independent correlation between evil-laden verses in holy texts and evil-prone believers. This is like the current conclusive findings of the correlation between violence in medias and potential violence in children, that is why we have PG ratings and various warnings.

Even at present we can test out my hypothesis.
We can easily research and test the correlation between the religious texts and ethos of Buddhism [as a control] against those the Abrahamic Religions. The hypothesis is there is a strong correlation between the Abrahamic religious texts and the evils committed by SOME of its believers, whereas there is no possibility in Buddhism. [btw, I am not a Buddhist nor religious, so no religious biasness here]

I speculated 75-100 [possibly longer] which is not likely during my life time. Having understood the difficulty of understanding the complexity of the human brain, I know it will take some time to for the general public to understand the mechanics of religion within the brain and psyche, and it will take time for humanity to come up with net-positive replacements to deal with the ED.

I never said religion is exactly like asbestos. I used asbestos as an analogy. I could have used drugs, marijuana, cigarettes, etc.
The point is we have to weigh the pro and cons of something which is apparently very useful but also has its negative elements. Religion, especially Islam, has the potential possibility to wipe the human specie off the Earth. ISIS with its own Quranic government now controlled an area the size of the UK. If they get to be more organized and have access to the latest nuclear weapons and other WMDs, they can easily use them as they has nothing to lose as regardless to what happened on Earth, they are assured of eternal life in heaven [with virgins thrown in for some].
They are already doing it with small scale suicide bombings and mass suicide is a possibility (note Jim Jones, Heaven Gate, etc.)
Do you agree with this possibility?

I mentioned the Abrahamic Religions contributed to the current [and past] lots of religious based evils. However in terms of criticalness and weightage of evilness at present, it would be Islam 90%, Christianity 5%, and Judaism 5%. There are obvious links of evil laden biblical verses and evils committed by SOME Christians, but the worst evil of Christianity at present is the killing of abortion doctors, the hindering of Science [evolution, etc.] and these are not that critical as compared to the evils that SOME Muslims are committing.

Note I mentioned, religions will stay until we find net-positive replacements which are generic to deal with the inherent unavoidable ED.
Off hand I have an obvious solution, i.e. convert all the Abrahamic believers to any of the Eastern Religions to enable them to deal with the ED and the current religious-based evils will dropped significantly. This leave us with only secular evils to deal with which we can rely on ethics, philosophy, politics, judicial, etc. But I know such a mass-conversion solution is not practical at all and the ARs will not accept such an option.

Note my definition of ‘religion’ which is accordance to the pre-requites of the Seven Dimensions from Ninian Smart.
mmiweb.org.uk/hull/site/site … sions.html

These Seven Dimensions are encased within various institutionalized religions which necessitate certain authority and groups of believers to control the group and this is vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Note the examples of scandals by the Vatican, priests, monks, elite group of believers, etc.
The alternative is ‘spirituality’ with a focus on the individual’s self-improvement.

The problem with the Abrahamic Religions (ARs) is their holy texts and commands are carved in stone tablets. The central theme of the ARs is the infallible God who had delivered his message via the Chosen messenger. Now there is no way fallible humans can every edit, revise or change the established holy texts. The only way for change is when God himself send a new messenger to override the previous messages. As you know very well within history, no currently set of believers has ever accepted any new messenger from God and Muhammad has claimed to the last and final messenger of God [that’s pure bullshit!].
Even when the Bible prophesized a new Messiah, it not likely the current crop of Christians will ever accept any one as the new Messiah.

Now, in such a no way out situation and with the immutable holy texts of the ARs containing thousands of evil laden verses being feasted by millions of evil prone believers resulting in continuous oozing of abominable and terrible evils on a daily basis, what are you doing about it?
What solutions do ‘you’ have to resolve the above catch-22?

As a responsible citizen of humanity with empathy at least I am researching for solutions (albeit some could be bitter medicine) and generating hope.
There is no big loss when we wean off religions [all with priority on Islam] and replace them with fool proof net-positive generic spiritual methods to deal with the inherent unavoidable ED.
You think there will be a big loss?

33

That I agree. Once upon a time in the past, calculus was only confined to the genius and an elite group of mathematicians.
But at present calculus is studied as a basis subject by many in the higher grade teens.
It is the same for the various complicated scientific theories.

However you need to understand I am referring the complexity of the Human Being NOW, not in 200 years’ time. We need to cross the complex barrier before it can be relatively simple in 200 years from now.

34

Hello Prismatic

For me, objectivity is merely inter-subjectivity, i.e. inter-subjective consensus.
O- In that inter-subjectivity, and to possess the ability to reach a consensus, implies the existence of a pattern-seeking brain. I am not criticizing how we arrive at “objective reality”, but arguing that behind the ED lies even more basic, more universal features, such as a pattern seeking brain, or man as the social animal. But that is just a suggestion for your research going forward.

— This is why I introduce this OP, i.e. to understand the complexity of the Human Being individually and collectively. This is going into the ‘black box’ instead of understanding what is within by studying the correlation between inputs and output.
O- This would be fine if this is what you were doing, but so far there has been no even-handling of the subject by you. At every turn you have shown an obvious (and if I may add, distasteful–even to a secular person) bias.

— I am confident we should be able to establish an independent correlation between evil-laden verses in holy texts and evil-prone believers. This is like the current conclusive findings of the correlation between violence in medias and potential violence in children, that is why we have PG ratings and various warnings.
O- “Conclusive”? I think that you overrate the “facts”. With the Nature/Nurture debate still raging, you already pronounced the matter settled! But never mind that. Suppose that you are right and that there is a correlation between violence and what children are exposed to. Consider the children in the ME. Exposed as they are to violence, not from verses in Scripture, but from the very world in which they live, is it any surprise that they grow up to be killers? My point is, could it be this environment, and not “evil-verses” which have created the ground for violence? You can take their holy books and replace them with Dr. Seuss-- would it make that much difference IF, as you say, there is a correlation between violence and their environment (the violence they see first hand)?

— Even at present we can test out my hypothesis.
We can easily research and test the correlation between the religious texts and ethos of Buddhism [as a control] against those the Abrahamic Religions. The hypothesis is there is a strong correlation between the Abrahamic religious texts and the evils committed by SOME of its believers, whereas there is no possibility in Buddhism. [btw, I am not a Buddhist nor religious, so no religious biasness here]
O- And you have not shown, and in my opinion cannot be shown, is whether the absence of such scriptures would have caused a reduction in violence. Communists regimes, void of religious texts, still performed barbaric acts, so there is no positive correlation, despite the confidence you express. My point is-- did the introduction of religion increase violent behavior in the region or was it simply already there? In the negative form, did the introduction of Buddhism reduce violence, or was the region already peaceful by itself? The success of the religion may have to do with the environment in which it grows.
The west has a more complete history of conquest and war, but even so Buddhism has some literature that has served in support of warfare. This is not to demonize people who practice Buddhism, but arguing that everyone is capable of the wide-range of human emotions including the penchant for violence. If it of any interest here is the link: loonwatch.com/2012/07/warrio … iolence-i/

— I speculated 75-100 [possibly longer] which is not likely during my life time. Having understood the difficulty of understanding the complexity of the human brain, I know it will take some time to for the general public to understand the mechanics of religion within the brain and psyche, and it will take time for humanity to come up with net-positive replacements to deal with the ED.
O- What has, for you, become a net-positive replacement to deal with the ED?

— I never said religion is exactly like asbestos. I used asbestos as an analogy.
O- But is it a good analogy?

— I could have used drugs, marijuana, cigarettes, etc.
O- And still missed why these too are problematic and as disturbing. My disagreement persists and for the same reasons.

— The point is we have to weigh the pro and cons of something which is apparently very useful but also has its negative elements. Religion, especially Islam, has the potential possibility to wipe the human specie off the Earth. ISIS with its own Quranic government now controlled an area the size of the UK. If they get to be more organized and have access to the latest nuclear weapons and other WMDs, they can easily use them as they has nothing to lose as regardless to what happened on Earth, they are assured of eternal life in heaven [with virgins thrown in for some].
O- Read that reference I threw up there. In the hands of a Buddhist they are just as dangerous. But that misses the point, AS IF there were ANY hands in which WMDs were good and safe. It was not an Islamic country that detonated two WMD in Japan.

— They are already doing it with small scale suicide bombings and mass suicide is a possibility (note Jim Jones, Heaven Gate, etc.)
Do you agree with this possibility?
O- Again you’re adding things up that don’t add up and can only be forced together. One is using suicide as a weapon, as a tactical advantage and the other as a way to escape the world.

— I mentioned the Abrahamic Religions contributed to the current [and past] lots of religious based evils. However in terms of criticalness and weightage of evilness at present, it would be Islam 90%, Christianity 5%, and Judaism 5%. There are obvious links of evil laden biblical verses and evils committed by SOME Christians, but the worst evil of Christianity at present is the killing of abortion doctors, the hindering of Science [evolution, etc.] and these are not that critical as compared to the evils that SOME Muslims are committing.
O- I know that this is where you’re taking the discussion. All I have to ask is on what information do you base these percentages?

— Note I mentioned, religions will stay until we find net-positive replacements which are generic to deal with the inherent unavoidable ED.
Off hand I have an obvious solution, i.e. convert all the Abrahamic believers to any of the Eastern Religions to enable them to deal with the ED and the current religious-based evils will dropped significantly.
O- And if they decline your invitation?

— This leave us with only secular evils to deal with which we can rely on ethics, philosophy, politics, judicial, etc. But I know such a mass-conversion solution is not practical at all and the ARs will not accept such an option.
O- It’s funny that you even entertain this as an “option”. Not funny because of its impracticality, but because of how it adds suffering and violence while aiming to reduce suffering and violence.

— Note my definition of ‘religion’ which is accordance to the pre-requites of the Seven Dimensions from Ninian Smart.
mmiweb.org.uk/hull/site/site … sions.html
O- Expressed in a spirit completely contrary to yours. Smart was not aiming at the destruction of one religion, but for a dialogue between people about religion, not to eradicate religion, but to find common ground. Not an “either/or”, but “and/plus”, not exclusion but inclusion. You do your reference a disfavor by bringing him up for support of your task which is quite contrary to his.

— The problem with the Abrahamic Religions (ARs) is their holy texts and commands are carved in stone tablets. The central theme of the ARs is the infallible God who had delivered his message via the Chosen messenger. Now there is no way fallible humans can every edit, revise or change the established holy texts.
O- And yet they have. The Bible itself shows many instances of self-correction. If it was as you say then why were any books written past the Pentateuch?

— The only way for change is when God himself send a new messenger to override the previous messages.
O- No. For better of worse the Pope, for a quick example, stands as a representative of Peter, and like Peter, they are believed to have power to bind or release in heaven and earth. For this reason, for a quick example, the Catholic Church has been able to incorporate within its world-view the theory of evolution which was once opposed.

— Now, in such a no way out situation
O- This “no way out” reveals an imbedded and irrational psychological bias. Perhaps you just haven’t read enough history?

— and with the immutable holy texts of the ARs containing thousands of evil laden verses being feasted by millions of evil prone believers resulting in continuous oozing of abominable and terrible evils on a daily basis, what are you doing about it?
What solutions do ‘you’ have to resolve the above catch-22?
O- There is no “catch-22” situation from where I stand. Some day oil will eventually dry in the kingdoms of Islam. The west will lose interest in maintaining a presence and forcing what they define as “stability”. Finally, with the cash finally dwindling, the area will hopefully, once again be known for the advances it made in science and mathematics rather than what laid on the ground. Will it become a second Africa? Now THAT’S a catch-22 situation.

— As a responsible citizen of humanity with empathy at least I am researching for solutions (albeit some could be bitter medicine) and generating hope.
O- I question your empathy, really. I think that you are less than charitable towards believers and aim towards violations of people’s freedoms (abstaining because of the impracticality of it rather than because of the immorality of such measures).

35

I can agree humans and most living things rely on a pattern-seeking brain that is more fundamental than the ED.

I agree I am quite bias towards religiosity at present which is occupying my current attention besides the philosophies of Kant. That is because of the current terrible evils oozing from religions that we hear everyday in the news and it so happened I have a strong personal interest in religion and spirituality. I am not very interested in politics and other secular issues at present. As you are aware if someone has a personal interests in some specific hobby, sports, business, a PhD thesis, or any particular interests, they would focus more attention in their specific interests.
I presume you can accept why some people have specialize interests at certain times and conditions, so why are you so critical of my interest in religious matters.

We need to be more analytical and more details with the variables than what you are expressing, i.e.

  1. Evil and violence of ME kids due to existing violence [V1] in general [environment].
  2. Evil and violence of ME kids due to existing violence [V1] which are not religious related.
  3. Evil and violence of ME kids due to existing violence [V1] which are religious related.
  4. Evil and violence of ME kids who are directly brainwashed with religious texts.

I don’t deny there will be children and others who are influenced by the violent environment in the ME to commit violence as in 1 or 2.
However, from what I have gathered, most of the children are brainwashed by their religious elders relying on religious texts to justify their evils as in 3 and 4.

Note:
This footage shows children in a school in an area in Syria under the control of al-Qaeda’s “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL). The children are brainwashed to praise the lifestyle of jihadists who seek to topple governments that do not fully conform to the Wahhabi utopia that looks like Saudi Arabia.
youtube.com/watch?v=My_GvuSBBps

This has been going on with the Palestinians and elsewhere and the evidence are very glaringly available in the Web and other reports from various medias.

As a control, there are many Muslims of various ages from the other developed countries which do not have such an environment as those in the ME, who were very eager and have joined ISIS purely based on elements of 3 and 4 above.

There are lots of evidence where Jihadists quoted verses from the Quran, Hadiths and Sira as a basis justify their evil acts. This is very obvious to the extent I don’t have to provide evidence for it.
It is also a very logical deductive conclusion that the absence of scripture with evil verses will not provide any [zero] basis for any believer to rely on the scriptures to commit evil.
It is also deductive and supported with evidence, that the presence of scriptures with evil laden verses catalyzed evil prone believers to commit evils of violence, etc.

I quoted this [a very common basis] very often where Bouyeri who killed Theo Van Gogh told the court the following;
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4716909.stm

Where there are secular ideologies that has committed evils , they should be severely dealt with and humanity has done so. Note the elimination of Nazism, Italian and Japanese fascism, and others which had been charged with crimes against humanity.

As I mentioned, secular ideologies with evil elements must be eliminated and the same should be done with religious ideologies.
I have been debating this Buddhist-related violence issues for a long time. There are a few verses in that sutra that mentioned ‘killing’ but they are a mere needles-in-the-haystack or rather mountain and no Buddhists has relied on those verses to kill anyone.
Besides, that specific sutra is amongst the many of the Mahayana texts. However, the recent terror attacks by Buddhists are from Sri Lanka, Myanmar [Theravada] and Tibet [Vajyrarana] and they are not Mahayanists per se. The recent Buddhist-related violence are not due to the Buddhist scriptures but due to the inherent evil nature of people who happened to be Buddhists. Anyone can be a Buddhist, so among the millions there will be a percentile of evil prone believers. In this particular case, we cannot blame Buddhism the religion.

It is net-positive spirituality (encompassing philosophy, ethics and all relevant advancing knowledge, practices, technologies, etc.)

From my view, it was a very effective one.

I agree it is dangerous in the hand of any evil prone person or group especially those with hard core ideologies.
If a Buddhist press the red-button, it is not because of Buddhist texts as the ethos Buddhism per se insist on extreme empathy and compassion for all living things.
On the other hand, the Abrahamic religions (especially Islam at present) has tons of evil laden verses that dehumanize and treat non-believers as if like a piece of shit that can be easily dispensed with. In addition when cornered the evil prone Abrahamic believers has nothing to lose as they are assured of eternal life in heaven [with virgins throw in for some] regardless of what will happen to Earth.

They add up in the sense that when one is taken in by religious extremism, they are willing to go to the extent of sacrificing their life. With this possibility, these extremists will not hesitate to take their own life and that of others when they have WMDS on their hands.

Note I presented the following in the another thread.
If I were to estimate the number of deadly attacks as influenced by their holy texts by each of the following religion since 911, it will be as follows;

  1. Christianity - less than 100
  2. Islam -appx 24,732per statistic above.
  3. Judaism – less than 100
  4. Hinduism – less than 100
  5. Buddhism – less than 100 (those in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Tibet, are not texts related)
  6. Taoism — less than 100
  7. Jainism – zero
  8. Sikhism – less than 100

Can you prove me wrong with the above figures and the significant contribution of evil from Islam and SOME [note not all] Muslims.
Frankly any responsible person would have instantly form a hypothesis and if more responsible, proceed to do more research to investigate into the root causes of the above horrors.

Note the Theoretical logical example merely indicate the logical potential possibility rather than an impossibility.
Thus it is not a square-circle sort of impossibility and contradiction.
Mass conversion to Eastern Religions is not practical, thus we have to use other alternatives which can be acceptable.
Humanity will have to brainstorm to find alternative net-positive replacements that are acceptable without any further consequence of more suffering and violence.
From my research, it is possible and given the exponential expansion of knowledge and technology in the various advance knowledge.

You are off key here.
What I am interested is finding an effective definition for ‘what is religion’ to avoid struggling with shifting goal posts.

The NT supposedly override the OT and Christians will insist such changes are still God’s works for a good reason.
However, logically fallible human beings cannot change whatever is presented [new or old commands] in their respective ‘Bible’ which is the infallible word of God.

The Pope may be able to interpret to a certain extent, but there is no way the Pope has the power to edit, revise or change the substance of the verse in the Catholic Bible and come up with a new 2015 edition.

There is “no way out” to challenge the words of God by introducing a new Bible from the Christians’ point of view. This is an independent objective view. The exceptions are only the perverted cults who would do it, but they are not accepted as ‘normal’ Christians.

Oil was once and perhaps currently a factor but not in the near future.
The ED that drive the establishment of a Caliphate is inherent in the ethos of Islam. Against the background of evil laden verses in the holy texts, evil will still manifest from the evil prone now that Islam has spread all over the world and the developed countries. Evils from evil prone Muslims will manifest locally rather than merely ME.
However, with or without oil, I am optimist the tide of the exponential expansion of knowledge and technology in the near future [75-100 years] will enable humanity to advance beyond all religions and whatever evil verses therein and put humanity in a forward step towards perpetual peace.

My critique against Islam, the Abrahamic religions, and religion in general in that order and in favor of net-positive spirituality is the same as someone warning against Nazism, fascism and other evil ideologies in the late 1930s before they became virulent in reality.
My point is you are unable to see the similarities between Islam [in part] and the typical fascism. For various reason you are very sensitive, suspicious and cynical of people who has good intention for the net-positivity of humanity in the long run.

36

Hello Prismatic,

— I presume you can accept why some people have specialize interests at certain times and conditions, so why are you so critical of my interest in religious matters.
O- I’m just saying that particular interests will have an impact on your objectivity. Don’t get me wrong, I not saying that you can be 100% objective-- you’re human, you have opinions-- but that knowing this, you must avoid bringing an ax to grind while doing research.

— However, from what I have gathered, most of the children are brainwashed by their religious elders relying on religious texts to justify their evils as in 3 and 4.
O- I know of the brainwashing. No different than Hitler’s Youth. American media? Perhaps in a different way.

— As a control, there are many Muslims of various ages from the other developed countries which do not have such an environment as those in the ME, who were very eager and have joined ISIS purely based on elements of 3 and 4 above.
O- ISIS, to use an example, has been able to lure many young men and women from different nations. A few dozen Americans, about 300 Frenchmen and 500 British citizens. In the case of France this represents only a small, very small percent (300 out of 2.1 million self-identified Muslims). Same with America. As successful as they will like to make us believe that they are, ISIS is actually not a very successful recruitment organization compared, just for contrast, the US Army. I believe that people from the ME in NY are less likely to entertain Islamic ideas than those living in Syria. That is just a belief that has yet to be tested against the facts. I believe that extremist ideologies (whether religious or political-- keep that in mind) share some characteristics:
1- They reject the current world order which they see as dominated by the forces of evil
2- They share the feeling that their group is in a fight for survival.
3- They have this idea that utopia is just on the other side of this struggle (probably one of the reasons they gain many recruits who are dissatisfied and misanthropes).
4- The feeling that a small group of chosen ones will be instrumental in bringing this utopia about through violent struggle against those forces of evil.
This ideology can take many masks, but the appeal, I think, is very similar and has little to do with the influence of evil verses. The dissatisfaction drives the pursuit of narratives that make the promises they like to hear. It is not that a happy person reads these verses and is immediately brainwashed into a Muhajeedin, but that an unhappy person in search for hope is sold the cause.
If you want, look at the example from Christianity. It is slowing down in successful countries in the west and proliferating in Africa and South America where life is not as successful.

— There are lots of evidence where Jihadists quoted verses from the Quran, Hadiths and Sira as a basis justify their evil acts. This is very obvious to the extent I don’t have to provide evidence for it.
O- And at one point so did Christians. However, what was accepted at one point was a literal interpretation. As we have evolved in the west, Christianity went through a period of self-criticism, scholasticism, the pursuit of reason, which required sober thinkers to find answers, to find ways to reconcile troublesome passages (if taken literally) with the ideals of reason. Today only extremist on the fringes of society still cling to a literal interpretation that they say justifies violent agendas. This period has not occurred in the lands of Islam, but there is nothing to say that it could not happen. At one point, when in power, such as in the south of Spain, they showed more restraint and tolerance towards the Jews, for example, than the Christians. The conditions determine the likely interpretations and the passages preferred by those in the struggle.

— It is also a very logical deductive conclusion that the absence of scripture with evil verses will not provide any [zero] basis for any believer to rely on the scriptures to commit evil.
O- The need still remains. The more fundamental cause remains untouched. So, if you remove religion something else will take it’s place, and despite your well-meaning wishes, what does take hold and grow will be some extremist narrative that promises just what the weary demand.

— Clutching a copy of the Koran, he said that “the law compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet”.
O- There are other things in Islam that say that Muslims shall not transgress (Surah 2, 190-192), to seek peace (Surah 8, 61), that Allah is with those who show restraint (Surah 2, 194). But I’m not denying that terrorists believe that they are carrying out a holy war, that they believe that their extreme methods are within the scope of their religion’s teachings. I’m just saying that some also find verses by which to discredit such excess even within the same religion. Thus, isn’t it possible that what anyone thinks about this religion reveals more about that person than about the religion? That like finds like?

— Where there are secular ideologies that has committed evils , they should be severely dealt with and humanity has done so. Note the elimination of Nazism, Italian and Japanese fascism, and others which had been charged with crimes against humanity.
O- How was Japanese fascism eliminated again? How was the empire of Japan brought to the peace talk table?

— Can you prove me wrong with the above figures and the significant contribution of evil from Islam and SOME [note not all] Muslims.
Frankly any responsible person would have instantly form a hypothesis and if more responsible, proceed to do more research to investigate into the root causes of the above horrors.
O- I believe that the religious text do not cause the violence. People use them because they are convenient to their extremist cause. If not religion then something else would take it’s place. Nationalism for example, communism another, each followed by blood and destruction where the environment predisposed the local population towards those ends-- not evil verses. You have quantitative data that is then interpreted into qualitative statements and so I criticize that and rightfully so. You take the attacks at face value-- they say that “Islam made me do it” and you believe it. But is there any control group? 2.1 million Muslims in France-- some 300 joined Isis (at some point). That is a rather small number. So just how “significant” are these evil verses compared to the significance of other circumstances, such as having prospects in life.

— From my research, it is possible and given the exponential expansion of knowledge and technology in the various advance knowledge.
O- I got one also. Opportunity. Offer a bright future here and now and maybe an afterlife will lose its temptation.

The Pope may be able to interpret to a certain extent, but there is no way the Pope has the power to edit, revise or change the substance of the verse in the Catholic Bible and come up with a new 2015 edition.

— There is “no way out” to challenge the words of God by introducing a new Bible from the Christians’ point of view. This is an independent objective view. The exceptions are only the perverted cults who would do it, but they are not accepted as ‘normal’ Christians.
O- There are several interpretations and recorded disputes among interpretations. One Bible and yet Protestants could not be farther away from Catholics. But in any case, the Church today entertains questions that might have led a person to a fire in centuries past: That is progress. You accept that at least? Today there are gays getting married in Church: no “normal” Christian is burning down those churches. They have evil verses available, justifying extreme action, so why not?

— For various reason you are very sensitive, suspicious and cynical of people who has good intention for the net-positivity of humanity in the long run.
O- Take Professor’s Smart example. I can go with the expansion of choice, not with the arbitrary imposition of uniformity, which is, believe it or not, part of the fascist ethos. Mussolini also tried to incorporate the Church into the state and for some time succeeded. Talking about Nazism, religion played an important part in standing against Hitler (alas, not as big a part as it should have). I believe that the youth has to be given hope and that hope will eliminate the spirit that fuels the pursuit of extremist ideologies, religious and non-religious. I believe that suppression will only strengthen religion. If it is to be transcended it will be by transmitting to a wide audience discussions about Islam, for example. The deplorable conditions that many suffer make them seek extremist narratives, including evil verses, perhaps to justify their acts, but also to explain it to themselves, to give a voice to the irrational anger within. Your OP was titled “The Complex Human Being”. So understand this- if man is complex then a logical deduction might fail to do justice because of what is left out in the premises. No one should doubt your good intentions, but you are bias and, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

37

Omar, I think the whole load of the issues above can be generalized within the following;

IMO, your above biasness of ‘my biasness’ is a misperception on your part. Perhaps it is due to my focus on religions and spirituality which is my interest. Somehow your resistance to my narrowing to a specific subject sort of clouded and prevented you from going beyond the issues into the more detailed complex of human beings.

This is shown by your resistance to my getting into the specifics and particular by your insistence on bringing the point to the general and universal.
For example when I say the holy texts of Islam contain evil verses that lead to evil, you will say, other religions and secular also has evil verses.
You apply the same strategies in all the other points I raised about specific and particular issues.

Whilst my focus is on a specific area, i.e. religion and spirituality, my background is very general.
Here is my overall perspective.

  1. My vision & mission is perpetual peace [PP] on Earth.
    [list=1](Perpetual Peace refers to a state of affairs where peace is permanently established over a certain area -[wiki] and in the whole World. I adopts and adapts Kant’s model of PP.)
  2. To achieve PP, humanity should promote ‘good’ and manage ‘evil’. [terms ‘taxonomized’]
  3. Evil comprised secular and religious-based evils. [simplifying the complex]
  4. Secular evils are to be dealt with various strategic methods.
  5. Religious-based evils being significant will be dealt as a separate specific.
  6. Islam is the most critical in terms of religious-based evils
  7. To learn from history but to focus on the future.
  8. To understand the Complex Human Being [OP] amongst many other fields of knowledge.[/list:o]

My approach and strategy is very systematic and based on principles.
Therefore when I give attention to 5 i.e. religious-based evil, my system implied that 4-secular and all other evils has to be taken care off but due to constraints at present it is not discussed in this OP.

Note my vision and mission is PP, therefore I need to manage ALL evils [prevented and minimized].
However, evil-in-general [universal] is too extensive, therefore it would be more effective to break it down into specific smaller parts and deal with those I am familiar with and leave to others [politics, etc.] to deal with other evils.

My focus on religious-based evils may thus be bias in that respect but it is not paved with bad intentions but rather within the background of Perpetual Peace on Earth.

In addition, my strategy of eliminating and/or minimizing religious-based evils is by very gradual and painless weaning of all religions (with priority to Abrahamic Religions) in the future [not now] and conditioned upon finding net-positive replacements to deal with the inherent and unavoidable ED. I have not proposed yanking off religions immediately or in the future without any replacements.

38

If so, it is very commonly shared. And that puts the onus on you to compensate or expect what you get.

You seem a very naive designer for the world.