moved from Cerebus discussion -- the morality fork

[contributor]

Jan 23, 2015 18:32:11 GMT -5 grävling said:

Dunno, my friend. I think maybe you play CK less ....

you definitely publish less, so there is less for me to talk to you about, even if they are editing nits.

I miss our conversations, as well.

The problem with pouting is that it sets the standard of 'my feelings are the measure of the universe'. If it makes me feel good, great, and
if I don't feel good, then SOMETHING VERY WRONG IS HAPPENING HERE. Indeed I AM WILLING TO MAKE EVERYBODY FEEL BAD UNTIL I GET WHAT I WANT.
This is the essence of 'spoiled brat'. At about the age of 2-3 small children need to learn the limits of their ego, and that they cannot
play the 'you must not make me feel bad' card. Because we will all laugh at them and say, ah, welcome to the human race, where feeling bad is a normal activity. And that we cannot be manipulated along the lines of 'if I feel bad, I will make you feel bad, and then you will do what
I want anyway, so better not make me feel bad'. Unfortunately, a fair number of parents cannot laugh at their children like that. If they
let their children win these battles of ego, their children can end up believing that it is their right and duty to have whatever they want.

An astonishing number of anti-social people have, as a basis of what is wrong with them, their personal belief that other people are placed on this world to make them happy --- and if they are unhappy then somebody isn't doing their job! We can say 'bad parenting' but then what?

Take care,
Grävling

grävling, are you suggesting that we seek to modify the behavior of the next generation to conform to a certain moral code? I thought that you were not the religious type?

[grävling]

Jan 27, 2015 4:19:19 GMT -5 contributor said:

Jan 23, 2015 18:32:11 GMT -5 grävling said:

grävling, are you suggesting that we seek to modify the behavior of the next generation to conform to a certain moral code? I thought that you were not the religious type?

I think you have misunderstood me.

I think that we have no choice, whatsoever, but to modify the behaviour of the next generation to conform to a certain moral code. Even if what we do is to modify the next generation to believe in ultimate nihilism and self-gratification -- as you might see in a real NBZ -- well, that sort of lack of morality is a code of itself.

Now, my mother was (er, possibly still is, she is blind and very ancient and does not find going to the ecumenical centre all that
convenient to her, but the Bishop still calls her on the phone about such issues) one of the leading lights in 'finding
common grounds between us -- ecuamanism' -- while still respecting the differences. So her aim is not Bahai, or even
the Universal Church of Christ ... but just -- what do all religions say, on the lines of 'this is wrong' to see if there are
universal human norms. Note that, in modern times at any rate, it is hard to find commonality among religions over 'this is
right'. Or rather, we have global economic capitalism, which gives us prosperity (which everybody agrees is a good thing) but
somehow no religion is embracing it these days as the moral indication of superiority. Even in the USA, the uncontested winner
of the battle of Global Capitalism, the feeling among religious leaders, mostly is -- ooops, power corrupts and absolute power
corrupts absolutely.


This is, of course, both true and sane, but a far cry from the Protestant Work Ethic combined with Calvinism of the 1800s where
people believed that in an industrial world you only had to work hard (which was virtuous) and refrain from vice, and that
God was promised to reward you if not in this generation than in the next. The belief in the the Protestant work ethic
thrived all over Northern Europe, and especially in the USA.

People could be well-excused from believing that the greatness of the USA, was due to the greatness of the Protestant Work Ethic, and was concrete evidence that God has found in us a favoured nation .... It made a certain amount of 'just look here' sense. Whereas,
global capitalism makes a lot of prosperity, but, it is a little hard to see 'God's grand vision' in this. More like 'man's little
rules got too large for themselves, and ah, how do we get off this speeding train before it hits the wall over there?' There is also
a sense of 'well this idea of trying to make the virtue of ambition .. out of selfishness, it has surpassed its original design goals
around here. We've attained enough. Now how to we turn this selfishness tweak off and go a back to being unselfish again?'

As far as Ecumenism and uniersal wrongs go:

The results are not in, but seems like 'lying' (as long as not part of cooperative lying, and believing in lies where we have the create
part of story-telling, and parable creating .... and possibly religion itself if you believe that it is largely man's creative
impluse when confronted with the holy) is out, murder is out, and falsification of your tax records is out. The last leads me to
believe that not all moral human behaviour is religious in origin.

Gräv

[grävling]

Ah, I wanted to check that I had you quoted properly, and so posted it with empty to get the question without all the other gorp ok.
So then I filled it in, but of course you had a look before I was done editing. go read now.

[contributor]

So if I understand.

1) Imprinting some sort of moral (or amoral) code on the next generation is inevitable, so it is best that it be done with some sort of intentionality.

2) Moral codes stemming from religious systems don't seem to be working or in agreement with each other, AND even when they have seemingly worked (i.e. Protestant Work Ethic) they've unleashed forces far beyond their ability to control, that might drive humanity to it's end.

3) Therefore, it is better to choose a code that is based on non-religious universal human norms.

Let me know if I've got it wrong.

Also: deleting my earlier post about not being able to see your post for the sake of thread cleanliness.

Also II: This isn't key to the discussion but, I think Weber's Protestants would take issue with you about the role of selfishness in their system. If I understand his theory, it was in fact their reticence to spend money on themselves that lead to the amassing of huge amounts of capital that had to be plowed back into gainful work. I think the selfish self-gratifying consumerism came in later, but I quibble.

[rabidbite]

What would Cerberus do if he made his own religion?


OOoooooo jo jo jo jo. The possibilities.


rabid

[grävling]

Jan 27, 2015 7:12:34 GMT -5 contributor said:

So if I understand.

1) Imprinting some sort of moral (or amoral) code on the next generation is inevitable, so it is best that it be done with some sort of intentionality.

2) Moral codes stemming from religious systems don't seem to be working or in agreement with each other, AND even when they have seemingly worked (i.e. Protestant Work Ethic) they've unleashed forces far beyond their ability to control, that might drive humanity to it's end.

3) Therefore, it is better to choose a code that is based on non-religious universal human norms.

Let me know if I've got it wrong.

Also: deleting my earlier post about not being able to see your post for the sake of thread cleanliness.

Also II: This isn't key to the discussion but, I think Weber's Protestants would take issue with you about the role of selfishness in their system. If I understand his theory, it was in fact their reticence to spend money on themselves that lead to the amassing of huge amounts of capital that had to be plowed back into gainful work. I think the selfish self-gratifying consumerism came in later, but I quibble.

1. You have me perfectly.
2 and 3. Ah, it was more that the hour of arguing 'my religion is best, all others are crap' is long past. If we are going to work with each other
it would be nice if we could at least start with a basic subset of things that all people who consider themselves moral agree on. If we
cannot come up with this -- if morality is only a matter of opinion -- then it is time to buy the best guns. Because morality out of the
gun barrel is all that we can possibly have.

4. No, I totally agree with you. The Protestant Work Ethic as seen by Weber (one of my personal heros) is an astonishingly long way
removed from, say Ayn Rand's _the Virtue of Selfishness_. And Rand is far less selfish than, to pick a more modern example,
Kenneth L Lay of Enron, or John Paulson, or CEO Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs. It wasn't Weber who decided to convert selfishness
into ambition -- but the thing sure seemed to take off like fire in the USA, and prosper as well ....

Grävling

ps perhaps since this is not Cerebus we should move it to a different thread?

[contributor]

While I'm thinking, yes another thread would be a good idea. I'd feel bad for the poor lost soul who finds their way in here looking for Cerberus and finds some random discussion on indoctrinating the youth with some sort of moral code. What will we call it though?

[ntsheep]

Mama grävling guide to child raising

[contributor]

So the thing that sparked my original comment was this idea that children ought to be taught to conform to some moral code. From some other things I've read recently (mostly news articles admittedly, but from reputable news sources) it seems that people are regularly laying blame at the feet of religion for trying to enforce some moral code on others. In these articles, this is always construed as a some sort of heinous unpardonable act. So I've been thinking about the sources of moral codes and whether we can really escape them and whether what people really don't like isn't the enforcing of moral codes in general, but the enforcing of particular moral codes which they don't happen to agree with. It seems then that there may be some hypocrisy in the criticism of religion, unless of course one is really open to abandoning morality all together. We can't be offended because people are trying to teach other people morals, but we can be in disagreement about those morals.

grävling don't take this to mean that I was necessarily putting you into one camp of the other, I was just honestly curious to see what you would say, as a non-religious person.

It seems though, that the problem of founding morals on something is the great problem. It seems that even finding "a basic subset of things that all people who consider themselves moral agree on" is going to be incredibly problematic. For example, who gets to decide who gets to be in this club? Doesn't even ISIS consider themselves to be acting morally? Oddly enough they have morality and guns together.



Sorry I have to go change, I just can't take myself seriously with this afro.

[grävling]

Well, near as I can tell, ISIS has the problem of still being in the 'my religion is correct, all others are crap' phase, combined with the notion that morality is only a matter of what you do with your in-group .... so the rest of us are, at best, animals.

At any rate I have had a very long and difficult day, I cannot do this argument justice right now. But I am not sure that you can call
somebody who lived in a Buddhist monastery for as long as I did non-religious. But I am non-taleological in so much as I understand the term. I don't think that the universe is ordered to a purpose. But I do think that we have a moral obligation to live life well, to experience many things, to be kind, forgiving and help one another. So is that taleological? Not sure.

[contributor]

Yes get some sleep. I don't suspect the world is just waiting on you or me to come up with answers to it's burning questions any time soon.

When you feel like thinking about it again, though... I don't think a religious view point could be excluded because they disagree with other systems. That would be to do the same thing; "Non-exclusivist systems are correct, all others are crap" wouldn't it? We have to be able to deal with real differences of opinion, otherwise all we have is atomized individuals saying, "as long as you agree with me, you're ok." And that's not likely to make anything that the majority can agree on anytime soon.

As for teleology, I'm a big fan of it. I guess for me though, I think it is hard to anchor individual purpose outside of some universe-purpose. How can I be directed toward some greater purpose if it is solely personal end? How can individual kindness and forgiveness and generosity mean something, or be worth pursuing if they are only for my own ends and don't participate in something greater?

[contributor]

I was reminded also recently how really papery thin this word religion/religious is. We all use it as if we know fairly clearly what it is and what it smells like, but the more you put any pressure on it the more it dissolves in ashes. Is it belief in the supernatural? Not exactly, or people couldn't be spiritual but non-religious. Is it institutional? That would exclude a lot of people who live their lives be a certain code and and perform set rituals every day or week, but are part of relatively small groups or no group at all. If it's defined by those rituals, it might very well apply to all manner of things that might be wholly unrelated to any supernatural beliefs.

Buddhism seems particularly interesting. I'm not as up on my Buddhism as I am on some other faiths, and I'm aware that it's incredibly diverse, but I know there are many Buddhists who don't believe in God or gods or even spirits or even necessarily a supernatural realm. So is it a religion? Who knows? Would two random Buddhists agree on what it is? Who knows? I do like it's virtues though...

...for the most part.

[mataeus]

It doesn't have to be about religion.
Showing love and kindness and sacrificing one's self may be Christian values, but those acts aren't limited to theocratic peoples and their beliefs.
I am absolutely not religious at all, in any way, but I try my best to be a good person and to treat people with kindness and respect.
It's just the right thing to do.
To improve peoples lives.
To make people feel happy.

[contributor]

Yeah, I think I was noticing the fact though that even when we're not trying to be about religion we might end up doing things that look like religion when it comes to teaching our kids or our nephews and nieces how they ought to behave.

[grävling]

I have an interesting video I would like you to watch. It is reasonably short, and entertaining. It doesn't want to sell you anything.

www.thersa.org/events/rsaanimate/animate/rsa-animate-drive

Meet you in the next note after you are done with this. johndramey has already seen this, I emailed him the link a while ago for other purposes.