Stop teaching morons that Christianity has a monopoly on virtue

Micawber said:
Belief doesn't have to fall between truth and conjecture. Nutcases really believe Trump was robbed of the election.
That is a strong belief and it is pure delusional thinking contrary to absolute fact.
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No argument from me.

That is exactly why I specifically wrote this:

Cypress said:
Belief, by definition, falls somewhere in between truth and conjecture. Belief can be, but is not necessarily, based on reason and rationality.
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The Kraken conspiracy belief is neither reasonable nor rational.

I maintain that a belief in a type of universal human rights/moral consciousness based on justice, equality, and mercy is a reasonable and rational belief system.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Cypress,



My faith is simply that I believe in the goodness of humans to prevail over the badness of humans. Not every time, but in general. I base this faith on the fact that the world has progressed over time. If badness prevailed, the world would come apart, descend into anarchy. Thievery would be greater than production. But that is not the case. So I have my faith.
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^^ That belief system certainly is reasonable and rational, even if it isn't based on pure empiricism and analytical data.

I think we are on the same page that intuition and belief can be a foundation for knowledge, just like empirical data and sensory perception can.
 
Hello Cypress,

Cypress said:
^^ That belief system certainly is reasonable and rational, even if it isn't based on pure empiricism and analytical data.

I think we are on the same page that intuition and belief can be a foundation for knowledge, just like empirical data and sensory perception can.
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Not intuition.

It's merely logic based - from observation.

I call it faith because it cannot be proven.

I take it on faith because it can't be proved that good will always prevail over bad. But it has so far, so it is reasonable to believe it will continue.
 
Cypress said:
No argument from me.

That is exactly why I specifically wrote this:



The Kraken conspiracy belief is neither reasonable nor rational.

I maintain that a belief in a type of universal human rights/moral consciousness based on justice, equality, and mercy is a reasonable and rational belief system.
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PoliTalker said:
Hello Cypress,



Not intuition.

It's merely logic based - from observation.

I call it faith because it cannot be proven.
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Someone might claim your logic is flawed then. The last 100 years have arguably been the most brutal, inhumane, cruel period of time in human history.

The world wars, the Holocaust, the Gulag Archipelago, Rwanda, the Cambodian killing fields, the Cultural revolution make the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Napoleonic wars pale in comparison.


Observation would seem to suggest human nature is descending into abject and unabated cruelty.

I am think to some extent I have to believe there is a higher moral consciousness that humans perceive which gives us the motivation to attempt to morally improve ourselves
 
Hello Cypress,

Cypress said:
Someone might claim your logic is flawed then. The last 100 years have arguably been the most brutal, inhumane, cruel period of time in human history.

The world wars, the Holocaust, the Gulag Archipelago, Rwanda, the Cambodian killing fields, the Cultural revolution make the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Napoleonic wars pale in comparison.


Observation would seem to suggest human nature is descending into abject and unabated cruelty.

I am think to some extent I have to believe there is a higher moral consciousness that humans perceive which gives us the motivation to attempt to morally improve ourselves
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Despite all of that, world population has absolutely exploded. More people are living in more luxury than ever before. The quality of life, and life expectancy at the upper end have risen despite all of the tragedy. Human advancement has also exploded. Powered flight, space travel, deep sea vehicles. People climb Everest for fun. We have cyber surgery and Cat Scan machines. I'll stick to my perception that overall, humanity has advanced.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Cypress,



Despite all of that, world population has absolutely exploded. More people are living in more luxury than ever before. The quality of life, and life expectancy at the upper end have risen despite all of the tragedy. Human advancement has also exploded. Powered flight, space travel, deep sea vehicles. People climb Everest for fun. We have cyber surgery and Cat Scan machines. I'll stick to my perception that overall, humanity has advanced.
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Fair enough. I respect your opinion.

But under this scenario, we are anachronisticly looking to the past and making assumptions about observations over time.

But Confucius, Sidartha Guatauma, Plato, Francis of Assisi did not have the advantage of looking back in time from the year 2021 to observe purported moral of improvement of humanity in the modern era.

And yet without that knowledge, they were still thinking deeply about the cultivation of virtue and a universal metaphysical moral vision.

And they thought this cultivation of moral improvement was critical issue for human nature and human existence without the advantage of looking backward from 2021.

I guess what it says to me that one can believe moral cultivation is an important part of being human without making observations from the year 2021 looking back at history.
 
Cypress said:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."
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Here is another one of my favorite examples of a rational belief based on universal moral consciousness and natural law, rather than on data and empiricism >

Declaration of the Rights of Man, France 1789

The representatives of the French people believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man:

Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man . These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights
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My two cents: Data and empirical inductive logic is an extremely powerful tool, and the world is better off for the empiricism first articulated by Francis Bacon in the 16th century.

But empiricism and data cannot always supplant or be a substitute for belief based on moral conscience.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello evince,



Just say 'Oh my goodness' instead.

Or simply OMG, and you define what it means.

That's the way to avoid being hypocritical.
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Are any of you fellows concealing your commitment or loyalty or devotion to Islam or Jihad or Islamic doctrine or the Prophet Mohammed or Allah or Sharia in these exchanges?
 
Hello Cypress,

Cypress said:
Fair enough. I respect your opinion.

But under this scenario, we are anachronisticly looking to the past and making assumptions about observations over time.

But Confucius, Sidartha Guatauma, Plato, Francis of Assisi did not have the advantage of looking back in time from the year 2021 to observe purported moral of improvement of humanity in the modern era.

And yet without that knowledge, they were still thinking deeply about the cultivation of virtue and a universal metaphysical moral vision.

And they thought this cultivation of moral improvement was critical issue for human nature and human existence without the advantage of looking backward from 2021.

I guess what it says to me that one can believe moral cultivation is an important part of being human without making observations from the year 2021 looking back at history.
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Those were all great thinkers of the past. They are to be respected. We have great thinkers in our own age as well. More of them. So many more that they are not as distinct as the ones you have quoted. I don't believe that makes their thinking any less inspired.

The great thinkers of the past did not have as much information to work with as we do now. Current science is so advanced it is beyond the comprehension of any individual. People have their specialty areas in which they are experts. Nobody can know it all. And we don't have to now, since human knowledge has been saved on electronic memory and is now widely available to anyone with an internet connection.

We don't have to remember all the details of anything as long as we know concepts and where to find the details. That has been the case in a rudimentary fashion since the age of printing, but for each individual it only went as far as the books which were available to that person. We now live in the information age, a very exciting time in human history.

Actually, we know so much it is scary to many, who withdraw from it, shun it. The internet is largely wasted on very shallow stuff. But for those who know how to tap into higher thinking it is fantastic. And there are millions of great thinkers now.
 
A prominent example of a rational belief that humans are endowed and vested with certain natural inalienable rights, which can never be taken away by secular laws, the whims of dictators, or the proscriptions of public opinion. They exist imperpetuity despite any attempts by legislation, mob rule, or force to take them away.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, UN General Assembly

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world ..

Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
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Hello Cypress,

Cypress said:
A prominent example of a rational belief that humans are endowed and vested with certain natural inalienable rights, which can never be taken away by secular laws, the whims of dictators, or the proscriptions of public opinion. They exist imperpetuity despite any attempts by legislation, mob rule, or force to take them away.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, UN General Assembly

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world ..

Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
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I like that better than the mention of all this coming from a creator.
 
Cypress said:
It is widely understood by anyone who has read history that the Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution were invoking universal natural rights.
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there were a few of deists involved in the American Revolution.........hardly a predominance......
 
PostmodernProphet said:
so was Franklin.....now you have a pair......but I have full house........
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Doesn't matter what John Adams et al personal opinion or personal belief system was.

In the public sphere, the men who wrote and agreed to the Declaration of Independence knowingly gave it a Deist flavor. The Judeo-Christian God or Jesus are never specifically mentioned.

The Declaration invokes natural law and nature's God as the basis of their beliefs in a higher truth, which includes liberty and equality.

Invoking natural law, Nature's God, and an intentionally ambiguous Creator is a consciously Deist choice for framing our our nation's declaration of independence.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-
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In that day and age if they were admitted deists, then they were in reality atheists. They were too intelligent to
be otherwise.
 
Cypress said:
Here is another one of my favorite examples of a rational belief based on universal moral consciousness and natural law, rather than on data and empiricism >



My two cents: Data and empirical inductive logic is an extremely powerful tool, and the world is better off for the empiricism first articulated by Francis Bacon in the 16th century.

But empiricism and data cannot always supplant or be a substitute for belief based on moral conscience.
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The fact that someone declares something doesn't tend in reason to make the source of the belief either purely empirically science based or magical divination, or whatever middle ground one care to strike out.
They simply made an assertion without belaboring in great detail what the cause or reasons are. In fact they did perceive "ignorance neglect and contempt"
in the past causing "calamity and corruption." They observed a real thing and reasoned it was a cause effect relationship. So they made a change. There you go.
 
Micawber said:
In that day and age if they were admitted deists, then they were in reality atheists. They were too intelligent to
be otherwise.
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There were legitimate atheists in those days, and this is reflected in the French Revolution, who's Declaration of the Rights of Man studiously avoids reference to Nature's God or a creator.

All evidence is that Thomas Jefferson believed in a clock maker God.

I have my doubts that Ben Franklin was really a Deist. He kept trying to get the Constitutional Convention to pray for guidance.

Atheism was perfectly acceptable in the French Revolution, and you probably could not throw a rock without hitting an atheist in revolutionary France.
 
Cypress said:
There were legitimate atheists in those days, and this is reflected in the French Revolution, who's Declaration of the Rights of Man studiously avoids reference to Nature's God or a creator.

All evidence is that Thomas Jefferson believed in a clock maker God.

I have my doubts that Ben Franklin was really a Deist. He kept trying to get the Constitutional Convention to pray for guidance.

Atheism was perfectly acceptable in the French Revolution, and you probably could not throw a rock without hitting an atheist in revolutionary France.
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You'd be happier in Iran or Saudi Arabia.
 
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