Human Flourishing
Helping is Helpful: Valuing, Motivating, Supporting
How to Grow in Our Positive Outcomes: Gratitude, Empathy and Kindness
We can become a more quality person by actively being aware and developing a gratitude for life, which supports as well as grows our feelings of empathy, that then motivates the behaviour of kindness.
“Creativity is fun and intelligence can be neat but it isn’t until you marry them both that creativity can give intelligence its wings.”
First to set the mood, Here is four original poems: “Sunshine”, “Only Human”, “Just Be”, & “A Heart of Gold”
“Dark mind Bright Life”
“Sunshine”
“Only Human”
“Just Be”
Proof by Assertion?
Proof by assertion, sometimes informally referred to as proof by repeated assertion, is an informal fallacy in which a proposition is repeatedly restated regardless of contradiction. Sometimes, this may be repeated until challenges dry up, at which point it is asserted as fact due to its not being contradicted (argumentum ad nauseam). In other cases, its repetition may be cited as evidence of its truth, in a variant of the appeal to authorityor appeal to belief fallacies. This fallacy is sometimes used as a form of rhetoric by politicians, or during a debate as a filibuster. In its extreme form, it can also be a form of brainwashing.[1]Modern politics contains many examples of proofs by assertion. This practice can be observed in the use of political slogans, and the distribution of “talking points“, which are collections of short phrases that are issued to members of modern political parties for recitation to achieve maximum message repetition. The technique is also sometimes used in advertising. Also See: Argumentum ad lapidem, Big lie, Circular reasoning, Denialism, Ipse dixit, “On Bullshit“, Talking point, Woozle effect,
Dignity = respect?
To me, dignity may be summarized as acknowledging as well as
honoring that others own themselves and thus possess value as fellow dignity beings.
“In the end all we really have is each other and life is too damn short to not be kind.”
Dignity?
“Moral, ethical, legal, and political discussions use the concept of dignity to express the idea that a being has the right to be valued, respected, and to receive ethical treatment. In the modern context, dignity can function as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. English-speakers often use the word “dignity” in proscriptive and cautionary ways: for example, in politics it can be used to critique the treatment of oppressed and vulnerable groups and peoples, but it has also been applied to cultures and sub-cultures, to religious beliefs and ideals, to animals used for food or research, and to plants. “Dignity” also has descriptive meanings pertaining to the worth of human beings. In general, the term has various functions and meanings depending on how the term is used and on the context. The English word “dignity”, attested from the early 13th century, comes from Latin dignitas (worthiness) by way of French dignité. In ordinary modern usage it denotes “respect” and “status”, and it is often used to suggest that someone is not receiving a proper degree of respect, or even that they are failing to treat themselves with proper self-respect.” Ref
*Axiological Dignity Being Theory*
An “Axiological assessment of human beings” shows with an axiological awareness a logic of values is clear which takes as its basic premise that “all persons always deserve positive regard regard.” – Progressive Logic by William J. Kelleher, Ph.D. And the reason why we should are is because we are Dignity Beings.
“Dignity is an internal state of peace that comes with the recognition and acceptance of the value and vulnerability of all living things.” – Donna Hicks (2011). Dignity: The Essential Role It Plays in Resolving Conflict
— Why care? Because we are Dignity Beings. —
I am inspired by philosophy, enlightened by archaeology and grounded by science that religious claims, on the whole, along with their magical gods, are but Dogmatic-Propaganda, myths and lies. Kindness beats prayers every time, even if you think prayer works, you know kindness works. Think otherwise, do both without telling people and see which one they notice. Aspire to master the heavens but don’t forget about the ones in need still here on earth. You can be kind and never love but you cannot love and never be kind. Therefore, it is this generosity of humanity, we need the most of. So, if you can be kind, as in the end some of the best we can be to others is to exchange kindness. For too long now we have allowed the dark shadow of hate to cloud our minds, while we wait in silence as if pondering if there is a need to commiserate. For too long little has been done and we too often have been part of this dark clouded shame of hate. Simply, so many humans now but sadly one is still left asking, where is the humanity?
Why Ought We Care?
Because kindness is like chicken soup to the essence of who we are, by validating the safety needs of our dignity. When the valuing of dignity is followed, a deep respect for one’s self and others as dignity beings has become one’s path. When we can see with the eyes of love and kindness, how well we finally see and understand what a demonstrates of a mature being of dignity when we value the human rights of others, as we now see others in the world as fellow beings of dignity. We need to understand what should be honored in others as fellow dignity beings and the realization of the value involved in that. As well as strive to understand how an attack to a person’s “human rights” is an attack to the value and worth of a dignity being.
Yes, I want to see “you” that previous being of dignity worthy of high value and an honored moral weight to any violation of their self-ownership. And this dignity being with self-ownership rights is here before you seeking connection. what will you do, here you are in the question ever present even if never said aloud, do you see me now or are you stuck in trying to evaluate my value and assess worth as a fellow being of dignity. A violation of one’s dignity (Which it the emotional, awareness or the emotional detection of the world) as a dignity being can be quite harmful, simply we must see how it can create some physiological disturbance in the dignity being its done to. I am a mutualistic thinker and to me we all are in this life together as fellow dignity beings. Therefore, I want my life to be of a benefit to others in the world. We are natural evolutionary derived dignity beings not supernatural magic derived soul/spirit beings. Stopping lying about who we are, as your made-up magic about reality which is forced causing a problem event (misunderstanding of axiological valuations) to the natural wonder of reality.
What equals a dignity worth being, it is the being whose species has cognitive awareness and the expense of pain. To make another dignity being feel pain is to do an attack to their dignity as well as your own. What equals a dignity worth being, it is the being whose species has cognitive awareness and the expense of pain. When I was younger I felt proud when I harmed those I did not like now I find it deserving even if doing it was seen as the only choice as I now see us for who we are valuable beings of dignity. I am not as worried about how I break the box you believe I need to fit as I am worried about the possibility of your confining hopes of hindering me with your limits, these life traps you have decided about and for me are as owning character attacks to my dignity’s needs which can be generalized as acceptance, understanding, and support. As I see it now, how odd I find it to have prejudice or bigotry against other humans who are intact previous fellow beings of dignity, we too often get blinded by the external packaging that holds a being of dignity internally.
What I am saying don’t judge by the outside see the worth and human value they have as a dignity being. Why is it easier to see what is wrong then what is right? Why do I struggle in speaking what my heart loves as thorough and as passionate as what I dislike or hate? When you say “an act of mercy” the thing that is being appealed to or for is the proposal of or for the human quality of dignity. May my lips be sweetened with words of encouragement and compassion. May my Heart stay warm in the arms kindness. May my life be an expression of love to the world. Dignity arises in our emotional awareness depending on cognition. Our dignity is involved when you feel connected feelings with people, animals, plants, places, things, and ideas.
Our dignity is involved when we feel an emotional bond “my family”, “my pet”, “my religion”, “my sport’s team” etc. Because of the core sensitivity of our dignity, we feel that when we connect, then we are also acknowledging, understanding, and supporting a perceived sense of dignity. Even if it’s not actually a dignity being in the case of plants, places, things, and ideas; and is rightly interacting with a dignity being in people and animals. We are trying to project “dignity developing motivation” towards them somewhere near equally even though human and animals don’t have the same morality weight to them.
I am anthropocentric (from Greek means “human being center”) as an Axiological Atheist. I see humans value as above all other life’s value. Some say well, we are animals so they disagree with my destination. But how do the facts play out? So, you don’t have any difference in value of life? Therefore, a bug is the same as a mouse, a mouse is the same as a dolphin, a dolphin is the same as a human, all to you have exactly the same value? You fight to protect the rights of each of them equally? And all killing of any of them is the same crime murder? I know I am an animal but you also know that we do have the term humans which no other animal is classified. And we don’t take other animals to court as only humans and not any other animals are like us. We are also genetically connected to plants and stars and that still doesn’t remove the special class humans removed from all other animals.
A society where you can kill a human as easily as a mosquito would simply just not work ethically to me and it should not to any reasonable person either. If you think humans and animals are of equal value, are you obviously for stronger punishment for all animals to the level of humans? If so we need tougher laws against all animals including divorce and spousal or child support and we will jail any animal parent (deadbeat animal) who does not adequately as we have been avoiding this for too long and thankfully now that in the future the ideas about animals being equal we had to create a new animal police force and animal court system, not to mention are new animal jails as we will not accept such open child abuse and disregard for responsibilities? As we don’t want to treat animals as that would be unjust to some humans, but how does this even make sense?
To me, it doesn’t make sense as humans a different from all other animals even though some are similar in some ways. To further discuss my idea of *dignity developing motivation” can be seen in expressions like, I love you and I appreciate you. Or the behavior of living and appreciating. However, this is only true between higher cognitive aware beings as dignity and awareness of selfness is directly related to dignity awareness. The higher the dignity awareness the higher the moral weight of the dignity in the being’s dignity. What do you think are the best ways to cultivate dignity? Well, to me, dignity is not a fixed thing and it feels honored or honoring others as well as help self-helping and other helping; like ones we love or those in need, just as our dignity is affected by the interactions with others. We can value our own dignity and we can and do grow this way, but as I see it because we are a social animals we can usually we cannot fully flourish with our dignity.
Thus, dignity is emotionally needy for other dignity beings that is why I surmise at least a partially why we feel empathy and compassion or emotional bonds even with animals is a dignity awareness and response. Like when we say “my pet” cat one is acknowledging our increased personal and emotional connecting. So, when we exchange in experience with a pet animal what we have done is we raze their dignity. Our dignity flourishes with acceptance, understanding and support. Our dignity withers with rejection, misunderstanding, and opposition. Dignity: is the emotional sensitivity of our sense of self or the emotional understanding about our sense of self. When you say, they have a right to what they believe, what I hear is you think I don’t have a right to comment on it.
Dignity is the emotional sensitivity of our sense of self or the emotional understanding about our sense of self. To me when we say it’s wrong to kill a human, that person is appealing to our need to value the dignity of the person.’ The person with whom may possibly be killed has a life essence with an attached value and moral weight valuations. And moral weight,’ which is different depending on the value of the dignity being you are addressing understanding moral weight as a kind of liability, responsibility, or rights is actualized. So, it’s the dignity to which we are saying validates the right to life.
But I believe all living things with cognitively aware have a dignity. As to me dignity is the name I home to the emotional experience, emotional expression, emotional intelligence or sensitivity at the very core of our sense of self the more aware the hire that dignity value and thus worth. Dignity is often shredded similar to my thinking: “Moral, ethical, legal, and political discussions use the concept of dignity to express the idea that a being has an innate right to be valued, respected, and to receive ethical treatment. In the modern context dignity, can function as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights.
English-speakers often use the word “dignity” in prescriptive and cautionary ways: for example, in politics it can be used to critique the treatment of oppressed and vulnerable groups and peoples, but it has also been applied to cultures and sub-cultures, to religious beliefs and ideals, to animals used for food or research, and to plants. “Dignity” also has descriptive meanings pertaining to human worth. In general, the term has various functions and meanings depending on how the term is used and on the context.” Dignity, authenticity and integrity are of the highest value to our experience, yet ones that we must define for ourselves. People of hurt and harm, you are not as free to attack other beings of dignity without any effect on you as you may think.
So, I am sorry not sorry that there is no such thing in general, as hurting or harming other beings of dignity without psychological destruction to the dignity being in us. This is an understanding that once done hunts and harm of other beings of dignity emotionally/psychologically hurts and harms your life as an acceptance needy dignity being, as we commonly experience moral discuss involuntary as on our deepest level as dignity beings. Disgust is deeply related to our sense of morality.
Value-blindness Gives Rise to Sociopathic evil.
On the Value of Being a Real Person
Axiology and Value Consciousness
Ethical Thinking or Moral Reasoning Should be Rational AND Emotional
True Morality Not the Golden Rule…
Axiology, Naturalism, Realism and Moral Theory Ideas
Interview of Formal Axiological Atheist Dr. William Kelleher
Don’t be Boxed in by Abstraction
Why care? Because we are Dignity Beings.
Attacking the Person?
I strive to attack thinking and not people but I sometimes may use dignity attacks or character attacks about behavior or thinking people are doing. I only say things they can quickly fix or change. Then I will pressure them to change it. My point in doing this is help mirror the bad or errored thinking or behavior so they can change if they wish I try to never do it to hurt anyone as I see this as not a productive and potentially abusive.
However, if I only spend my time pointing fingers have I not wasted times I could have also offered helping hands. Thus, even though somethings things need to be harshly pointed out so to is there a need to be involved in the benefit of helping where we can. May my drive to help not be somehow silenced just because there is a need to fight all that is wrong. I want to thank everyone throughout my life that have treated me with compassion and kindness. From something as simple as a smile or comforting word, to things that create impacts so big they were life altering; you have written with the pen of love across my heart and have helped me be a person who strives to also show and treat others with compassion as well as kindness. I do not respect faith, I respect people. I value the sanctity of “rights” of every person to self define their beliefs and do not attack people because of what they believe. I say, attack thinking not people. We who truly value ourselves and others can and do make a better world. May we together fill the world with this shining example of humanity.
Foolish people are limited and thus are impoverished of mind. So intellectually blinded they seem to hardly find much to which they feel compelled to learn. In this state of ignorance they often think foolishly that they somehow are in “full knowledge” know it all. Whereas, wise people are rich in intellectual openness and a deep desire for truth as well as an enriched need to know things as they actually are thus are so compelled to learn and are so willing to be a student that they can learn from anything around them.
Creating Our Purpose?
You know I have one message, be a good person, for whatever is the extremely short lives. Life is just too short not to be kind. Our behavior with others will either add to human flushing or it doesn’t. How desperately want acceptance and how desperately we need to accept each other in kindness. I only have one goal: Some people are a bit confused as to what my goals are with my thinking. I am not trying to change minds, I am trying to change the world.
“Expose the Unspeakable harm”
We all can be irrational, but biases that is not even in the interesting point. Because we can all be irrational we have an outright moral obligation to institute accuracy in one’s choices. Which is similar to the potential for harm that beliefs unchecked can and do have, even if it’s just that it contributed to unspeakable harm.
To Feel or Not to Feel?
Slow down, and think, is that even a reality coherent statement?
To think we actually can someone how, like a switch, turn off completely what you feel or wish not to feel. No matter what the external really in every way possible we can know the external pressure against the fragile body our minds are enshrined. One who questions deeply the Reality of Existence every breath you willfully take and wish not abstracted should remind you that you have had your experience to being it all along, that aware was as point begin with feelings in fact, you always feel, unless something is very disrupted, it’s just that sometimes, we are refused to only feeling, for a time, Instead of clear thinking we fail for untruth or half-truths, in the acquisition of extremely traumatizing motivators we are nothing but unchecked feelings and runaway emotions. We are no longer the pilot then, no we have become the plain getting hijacked.
“Don’t be Boxed in by Abstraction”
All we have is “Now,” the here and now awareness is to finally live in what is actually present, anything else is Abstraction. Life itself is education. You are not some abstraction, you’re a body and you feel. So, no extra justification needed, but I still effort to give a justification anyway as I care to inform others if I can. Words are largely emotional projections, with an intentionally attached “emotional biology” created to motivate “emotions” in yourself and others to regulate or deregulate emotions.
Belief Regulation Also Involves Emotional Regulation
If someone challenges a specific point and your minds first response is to employ rhetoric, like oversimplified hasty generalizations or inaccurate half-truths used to imply a further truth that is nothing but a mental evasion from a truth inquiry. If you do this, you seem to exhibit some obscurity in the claimed truth stance offered and not in the court of dialectical scrutiny. Be willing if shown to say, I guess I was a lot surer about the claim until it was critiqued, now I am wanting to learn more about in with you. We Love Generalizations (even if wrong): “We don’t like slow clear accurate thinking, no, we are bias irrational compulsive disordered hasty generalizations thinking beings.” We build our “belief” of the accuracy of our hasty generalizations one assertion at a time. In other words, we add undue increasing assurance because we keep saying it over and over again, not because it’s actually accurate to the facts. We may cherry pick a few facts to support this error in thinking but that is intellectual dishonestly, as if it can be destroyed by the truth it should be.
You don’t like my truth? Well to be honest I didn’t care much for your lies.
In the honest search for truth there is no sides.
Love and kindness is all we have in the end that makes life sense. I am no better than anyone, I too am just a fragile body alone in the world, if not for the kindness of others. Impress me with your evidence not your evidence devoid options. I am a mental nightmare walking and radical thinker so free it’s like a psychopath taking, king of my jungle, just a mental gainster stalking the menus of unchecked flawed thinking.
“In light of the machinery of survival-based, emotional reactivity, let’s look more narrowly at what Daniel Goleman has called “emotional hijacking.” The emotional circuits of your brain – which are relatively primitive from an evolutionary standpoint, originally developed when dinosaurs ruled the earth – exert great influence over the more modern layers of the brain in the cerebral cortex. They do this in large part by continually “packaging” incoming sensory information in two hugely influential ways:
- Labeling it with a subjective feeling tone: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. This is primarily accomplished by the amygdala, in close concert with the hippocampus; this circuit is probably the specific structure of the brain responsible for the feelingaggregate in Buddhism (and one of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness).
- Ordering a fundamental behavioral response: approach, avoid, or ignore. The amygdala-hippocampus duo keep answering the two questions an organism – you and I – continually faces in its environment: Is it OK or not? And what should I do?
Meanwhile, the frontal lobes have also been receiving and processing sensory information. But much of it went through the amygdala first, especially if it was emotionally charged, including linked to past memories of threat or pain or trauma. Studies have shown that differences in amygdala activation probably account for much of the variation, among people, in emotional temperaments and reactions to negative information. The amygdala sends its interpretations of stimuli – with its own “spin” added – throughout the brain, including to the frontal lobes. In particular, it sends its signals directly to the brain stem without processing by the frontal lobes – to trigger autonomic (fight or flight) and behavioral responses. And those patterns of activation in turn ripple back up to the frontal lobes, also affecting its interpretations of events and its plans for what to do. It’s like there is a poorly controlled, emotionally reactive, not very bright, paranoid, and trigger-happy lieutenant in the control room of a missile silo watching radar screens and judging what he sees. Headquarters is a hundred miles away, also seeing the same screens — but (A) it gets its information after the lieutenant does, (B) the lieutenant’s judgments affect what shows upon the screens at headquarters, and (C) his instructions to “launch” get to the missiles seconds before headquarters can signal “stand down!” Ref
Emotional Hijacking: What happens to your brain when you lose control?
“There are times when either fear or anger, turn us completely blind and make us act in a way that otherwise we would never do. At such times, we can use harsh words that hurt others and we commit reprehensible acts. We react in an exaggerated manner, without thinking, we lose control of the situation and ourselves. At that time occurs an emotional hijacking. All of us, sooner or later, we have been victims of these emotional hijackings. There are times when we stop thinking, we’re carried away by feelings and, after that critical moment, we do not remember very well what we did or why. When we are victims of an emotional outburst, the center of the limbic system declares a “state of emergency” and recruits all the resources of the brain to perform its functions. That seizure occurs within a few seconds and creates an immediate reaction in the prefrontal cortex, the area associated with reflection, and we have no time to evaluate what is happening and decide rationally. Obviously, all emotional hijackings have negative connotations. For example, when we are victims of an attack of uncontrollable laughter or feel euphoric, the amygdala also takes control and prevents us from thinking. In fact, is not the first time (and won’t be the last) that someone makes a stupid thing, moved by a state of euphoria, promising things that will not satisfy.” Ref
The amygdala: Headquarter of passions and brain sentinel.
“The emotional hijacking is generated in the amygdala, which is one of the most important structures of the limbic system, where emotions are processed. In fact, the amygdala is specialized in the processing of emotional stimuli factors, and is linked to the process of learning and memory. It has been seen that when occurs a disconnection between the amygdala and the rest of the brain, we are not able to give an emotional meaning to the situation. For example, we can see our partner but do not experience any emotion. Thus, the amygdala is a kind of reservoir of emotional memory. However, the amygdala plays a fundamental role in passions. When this structure is damaged, people have no feelings of anger and fear. They are not even able to mourn. At this point you might wonder: if the amygdala works perfectly, how can we get carried away by passion so easily? The problem is that the amygdala also plays the role of sentinel of our brain and one of its functions is to examine the perceptions in search of a threat. The amygdala reviews each situation wondering if: Is it something I hate? Can it hurt me? Would I fear it? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, the amygdala reacts immediately activating all the resources and sends an emergency message to the rest of the brain. These messages are triggering the secretion of a number of hormones that prepare us to flee or fight. At this time the muscles tighten, the senses are sharpened and we turn on alert. The memory system is also activated to try to recover any information that may be useful to get out of that risk. Thus, when we face potential danger, the amygdala takes over and runs almost the entire mind, even the rational part. Of course, in our brain everything is ready to give free rein to the amygdala because when we are in danger, nothing else matters. Therefore, the amygdala is the first cerebral station through which run the signals coming from our senses, only after being assessed they pass to the prefrontal cortex. That is why, sometimes emotions go beyond us taking the control.” Ref
Failure to activate the rational mind.
“Because an emotional hijacking occurs, it is not sufficient that the amygdala be activated, it is also necessary a failure in the activation of the neocortical processes that are responsible for balancing our emotional responses. In fact, it is usual that when the rational mind is overloaded with the emotional mind, the prefrontal cortex is activated to help manage emotions and to evaluate possible solutions. The right prefrontal lobe is the seat of negative feelings such as fear and aggression, while the left prefrontal lobe keeps them at bay, serving as a kind of neural thermostat that allows us regulating the unpleasant emotions. During an emotional hijacking, the left prefrontal lobe is simply turned off letting the emotions flow. One of the main problems of this neural alarm system is that in the world in which we now live, where there aren’t serious dangers threatening our lives, it is almost never necessary for the amygdala to hijack the rest of the brain. Especially when you consider that, when the amygdala is activated, it performs very crude associations with small pieces of past experiences. So that, if a person has developed a deep fear of the sound of firecrackers any similar sound can trigger an emotional hijacking. In fact, the low accuracy of our emotional brain becomes even stronger when you consider that many of our memories are from our childhood, when structures such as the amygdala and hippocampus had not yet fully matured and could store information with excessive emotional charge. At this point, we should not be surprised if some of our most intense emotional reactions are incomprehensible to us, as these could come from some event of our childhood in which the world still was too chaotic and when we even hadn’t acquired the language yet. At that point, any experience may have been recorded in an immature amygdala as a trauma, which can later be activated in similar situations.” Ref
Is it possible to avoid emotional hijacking?
“There are some situations where it is virtually impossible to avoid an emotional hijacking. However, that does not mean we should resign to be passive victims of our emotions. On the contrary, we can train our brain to learn to discriminate between signals that actually represent a danger and others which are harmless. How to do it? First, being aware that most situations of everyday life can be stressful or frightening but do not represent a real danger. Therefore, there’s no need to be tense or angry. Moreover, it is necessary to practice detachment, in the sense that, the more possessions we consider as part of our “ego”, the more we will have the tendency to overreact when they are endangered.” Ref
The Role of Emotions in Critical Thinking
“Have you ever jumped to a decision just to get it over with…. to relieve the frustration or tension you were feeling? For most of us, the unfortunate answer is yes. Feelings certainly impact our thinking and our actions. I facilitate critical thinking training sessions, and invariably this question comes up: “What role do emotions play in critical thinking?” This question keeps popping up because many people have a stereotyped view of critical thinking as a completely logical process. They conjure up an image of Mr. Spock engaged in a detached analysis, completely devoid of emotion. Some models of critical thinking reinforce this stereotype by focusing exclusively on impersonal analysis of information and logical evidenced based decision making. In reality, those models are limited because people are just not wired that way. Thinking and Feelings are intertwined, and in the best critical thinking scenario, one helps the other. So, to engage in good critical thinking it is important to know how to recognize and harness your Feelings because they impact your Thinking. Here is how it works. Feelings serve as cues, helping you pay attention to certain information or increasing your focus in certain areas. Historically, this response has been very adaptive. For example, when our ancestors were faced with danger, they experienced fear and reacted quickly by heading for safety. A fast emotional response was ideal. Although times have certainly changed, we are still wired the same way, with quick trigger emotional responses. These emotional reactions help you recognize that something is up, but the cues are often vague and sometimes misguided. This is where Thinking comes into play. Let’s go back to the example of jumping to a decision. Picture yourself experiencing an uneasy tension that comes when you perceive pressure to make a decision, maybe because people are waiting on your response. You don’t want to be the bottleneck; you don’t want to let anyone down. So, you rush through the information and reach a conclusion. Presto, the pressure is gone, but what about the quality of the process? Let’s rewind and insert critical thinking into the process. Those uncomfortable feelings are cues, which could be read as a need for urgency or an opportunity to shift over to your Thinking mode. Specifically, you could Stop and Think: What am I trying to accomplish? Is the situation urgent? Why am I feeling pressured? In the Stop and Think step you are testing the validity of your feelings. Maybe the situation is urgent and you do need to move quickly. Maybe it is not urgent and you can develop a strategy that matches the reality of the situation. Once you set up your strategy you are in a better position to move through the remaining critical thinking steps with a more attentive and balance approach. You are less likely to rush the process. Feelings can impact how we view a situation, what we see (or don’t see) and how we interpret information. At each point, inserting thinking skills into the process will help you evaluate the accuracy of those feelings. You will become adept at knowing when Feelings are leading you astray and when they are signaling an important cue worth noting. How have you used the power of emotions to make your critical thinking better? Learn more about the RED Model of Critical Thinking here.” Ref
Are You Vulnerable to an Emotional Hijacking
Emotional hijacking: Why do we lose control, and how can we gain it back
Bottom up inhibition of rational thought
The amygdala was the primary emotional hijacking culprit outlined by Goleman (1995). The amygdala receives connections directly from the thalamus; which functions as the sensory switchboard of the brain. Although this route is primitive, it is incredibly fast; ensuring quick instinctive responses in survival situations. A secondary route comes through the sensory cortex. This route is more realistic, yet slower (Phelps & LeDoux, 2005). The amygdala interprets these basic building blocks of sensory experience, and initiates a series of changes in the brain if they are deemed threatening. The amygdala can release hormones and neurotransmitters to ‘switch off’ or dampen activity in certain brain regions (LeDoux, 2007; Garcia, Voimba, Baudry, and Thompson, 1999). Monoamine oxidase is a chemical in the brain that breaks down serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline. People with a certain variant of a gene that encodes this chemical, known as MAOA-L, demonstrate an increased amygdala response, and less control over emotional urges (Hunter, 2010). Interestingly, these individuals are only more aggressive when provoked (McDermott, Tingly, Cowden, Frazzetto, & Johnson, 2009). Another gene that encodes MAO-A; MAOA-uVNTR, has been found to play a role in panic attacks and agoraphobia (Reif et al., 2013). The reward pathway is evident in various types of addiction, which can lead people to act antisocially and take risks without forethought. Addiction is thought to be controlled by the striatum region of the brain, which contains the tegmental area (where dopamine is manufactured), and the nucleus accumbens; a brain region involved in reward and reinforcement (Wise, 2002). Everitt and Robbins (2005) stated that drug addiction was due to the striatum gaining more control over behavior than the frontal lobes. The insular cortex plays a variety of roles; however, its main role is the integration of bodily states into a sense of a whole self, a process known as Interoception (Craig, 2009). The insular cortex plays a large role in emotional hijackings, given that it is responsible for the bodily experience of emotion. The insula has been found to play a major role in drug cravings (Naqvi & Bechara, 2009) and in panic disorder (Gorka, Nelson, Phan, & Shankman, 2014). Top down inhibition is the ability of higher cortical areas in the frontal lobe to inhibit the impulsive, emotionally charged signals sent by the lower ‘reptilian brain’. Top down inhibition is imperative to long-term goal-directed activity and proper socialization. Etkin, Egner, Peraza, Kandel, and Hirsh (2006) investigated the effect of the anterior cingulate cortex on amygdala activity. They used a stroop test which presented either happy or fearful faces with the words ‘happy’ or ‘fear’ over the top. Subjects had to determine whether the pictures and words were congruent or incongruent. They found that activation of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex during the conflict-inducing stroop test was associated with decreased activation in the amygdala, suggesting that this activation resolved the conflict created by the amygdala. The Orbito Frontal Cortex (OFC) is largely responsible for the learned value of environmental stimuli. Crews and Boettiger (2009) summarised a number of research studies which found that addiction was related to low orbitofrontal activity. Case study of Phineas Gage: Phineas Gage was a railway construction worker in the 1850s. One day, while pushing explosives into a small hole to clear rock, Phineas became distracted and inadvertently ignited the powder, sending a 3.2 cm thick, 1.1 metre long iron rod through his left frontal lobe. The enormous changes in personality that occurred in Phineas as a result of this have been widely documented. His doctor, John Harlow had this too say:
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“He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires. … A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man. Previous to his injury, though untrained in the schools, he possessed a well-balanced mind, and was looked upon by those who knew him as a shrewd, smart business man, very energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of operation” ” |
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| —(Harlow, 1993, p 277) | ||
Harlows‘ description of Phineas shows how necessary the frontal lobe is to emotional control. Without it, the subcortical structures have nothing to hijack. They are all that is left to control behaviour. So we know how and why emotional hijacking is caused. What can be done about it? Emotional intelligence theory follows the same motivation as positive psychology; to increase strengths instead of decreasing psychopathology. It was first outlined by Mayer and Salovey (1990) Emotional intelligence was defined as:
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“The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions |
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| —(Mayer & Salovey, 1990, p 189) | ||
Mayer and Salovey brought together scattered research and conceptualized it into 3 categories of emotional intelligence. The first is the ability to appraise and express emotion, both verbally and non verbally (interested in testing how good you are at this ability? Take this test!). The second is how well an individual can regulate this emotion, in themselves in others. The final category is how well one can use emotions to solve problems. Emotions can help solve problems through encouraging flexible planning, creative thinking, and a redirection of attention. So what has this got to do with emotional hijacking? Emotional intelligence, which can be thought of as the opposing process to emotional hijacking, has a genetic heritability of .41 (Vernon, Petrides, Bratko, & Schermer, 2008). It is up to the individual, and the society to influence the other 59%, and many programs have been designed to do this. Emotional intelligence programs are an effective way to reduce emotional hijackings on a large scale. There are numerous researchers and foundations implementing emotional intelligence interventions, with moderate levels of success. They are useful and have been proven to benefit their participants. Slaski and Cartwright (2003) implemented an emotional intelligence treatment in a sample of general managers, and found it decreased their distress by 10.5%. Brackett & Katulaks (2006) interventions in a number of US schools improved a number of outcomes, most notably a decrease in problem behavior by students. Ref
I am a rationalist not a skeptic
To me a “Rationalist”, knowing it or not will be more prone to axiology, strong atheism and or ignosticism. And “Skeptic”, knowing it or not will be more prone to nihilism, weak atheism and or agnosticism. Don’t get me wrong, “I Am a Rationalist and Support Reasonable Skepticism” https://damienmarieathope.com/2016/03/02/support-reasonable-skepticism/ I am about sick with mean people, every time, remembering the real need there is in the world to be kind. May I always want or feel a need to give others kindness May I always choose kindness over meanness when I interact with people. Life is just too damn short to not be kind. Would it make any difference how you treated others was really dependent to how empathizing you can be with them as well as how much emotional intelligence can you muster or demonstrate? What if you knew that a person was going to die in an hour would you feel more compelled to be kinder almost no matter what? I would like to think I always would. I know for some this is to extreme, but think about it like I do and you may just start to see the reason life’s just too damn sort to not be kind. A main goal of mine in this life is to first not forget to enjoy it, but secondly is strive to make the world a little bit better because I was alive. We can make a big difference with little actions #TheSilentRevolution #adorablesnotdeplorables #adorables not deplorables.
Ethical Violations?
I will offer a reasoning why a lot of people do ethical violations, such extreme harm to others. How I will try to explain these ethical violations is through the representation of “gun” imagery: The “gun: ethical violations” is created by our biological such as ability of/for not to empathy. The “bullets for this gun: ethical violations” are roughly created by our ability/limit to actualize ethical cognition. The “trigger for this gun: ethical violations” pulled or not is roughly controlled by our management of emotional intelligence and/or our ability/limit to actualize Ethical/Moral Reasoning with a mixed framework of Rational AND Emotional thinking. Where this “gun: ethical violations” is pointed seems to involve varied possibilities such as, situational, experiential, preferential, or is attitudinal. Gods at best, are unknown, thus, are irrelevant, so just say NO to divine morals. And to humanity, which we do know, and its human derived ethics, just say YES.
1.Values (morality motivations): are a amalgam of personal, family, local or extended group environmental, religious and/or cultural content etc. we are what we eat we are the knowledge we consume and the ideas we are sounded by. Values to me thus are self driven ideals others influenced. I like to think myself out of the matrix though if I would have grown up in china would I not be a different me. Born rich and loved as a child be different or adopted be Angelina Jolie be forever changed. Or the love child of Jeffry Dahmer or Mahatma Gondi would I still be the same me with the same values? I think not. Values are not fixed they change throughout one’s lifetime they can be absolute or relative, the assumption of which can be the basis for any sort of chosen action. Thus, a value system is a set of consistent values and measures one chooses because of their connectedness to chosen ideals. Values to me can be a foundation upon which other thinking streams and measures of ideal integrity are based. Those values which are not physiologically determined and normally considered objective, such as a desire to avoid physical pain, seek pleasure, etc., are considered subjective, vary across individuals and cultures and are in many ways aligned with belief and belief systems only truth to a set of people.
2.Morals (personal morality): are not held by all in the same way since all are not held to Orthodox faith and though most start with good and bad or right and wrong values, which usually are personally, familially, socially or religiously give or in some way otherworldly defined, thus not universal.
3.Ethics (public morality): Ethics are not constrained by a given religion’s value systems to motivate its ideas of right and wrong instead it relies on universal truths found in universal principles of just human action. Ethics is set standers uses to personally engage with others and universal truths assist goals of universal ethics standards. Thus, ethics are general prosocial prescription we as morality aware beings in a rather universal way tend to have some awareness of and it is not just an awareness as in one who holds to ethics often get it applies to all peoples. Some may wish to devalue people but to do so is not really unethical, though often it can lead to unethical behavior. So what I am trying to highlight is how in the behaviour that the ethics violation could occur as the internal attitude of devaluing others would only be a possible morals violation such as one who valued virtue and not getting it but failing by the persuasion of devaluing the life of other humans. This simple internal devaluing of humans, that they may be doing is vile. But ethics would not be involved until public behaviors with others, as such ethics is not so much a persuasion as an adherence to a standard(s) that should cover all thus it is highly applicable to utilize in environmental decision making.
Believe in Good, Humanist Morality?
If one states they are a humanist and they believe in good, are they for or against a form of axiology or formal axiology? Axiology is the philosophical study of goodness, or value, in the widest sense of these terms. It may be used as the collective term for ethics and aesthetics—philosophical fields that depend crucially on notions of value—or the foundation for these fields, and thus similar to value theory and meta-ethics. The word “axiology” (Greek: axios = good, worth, or value; logos = “science”) means “study of good”, “study of worth ” or “study of value.” The axiologists sought to characterize the notion of value in general, of which moral value is only one species. They argue (with notable differences between them), that goodness does not exclusively derive from the will, but exists in objective hierarchies. Formal axiology, the attempt to lay out principles regarding value with mathematical rigor, is exemplified by Robert S. Hartman’s Science of Value.
The fundamental principle of Hartman’s Science of Value, functions as an axiom, and can be stated in symbolic logic, is that a thing is good insofar as it exemplifies its concept. To put it another way, “a thing is good if it has all its descriptive properties.” This means, according to Hartman, that the good thing has a name, that the name has a meaning defined by a set of properties, and that the thing possesses all of the properties in the set. A thing is bad if it does not fulfill its description. If it doesn’t fulfill its definition it is terrible (awful, miserable.) A car, by definition, has brakes. A car which accelerates when the brakes are applied is an awful car, since a car by definition must have brakes. A horse, if we called it a car, would be an even worse car, with fewer of the properties of a car. The name we put on things is very important: it sets the norm for how we judge them. If one states they are a humanist, are they for or against a form of universal or realism morality?
The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations can be seen as an example of global efforts to bring a universalist, equal and common moral justice to all people, and Moral Universalism is, at least in part, the basis for modern human rights, and an integral part of any Humanist philosophy. Human rights which are commonly considered a “deontological” concept, sometimes described as “duty-” or “obligation-” or “rule-” based ethics, because rules “bind you to your duty.” Which T. M. Scanlon advances the idea that human rights, can only be justified with reference to the consequences of having those rights. Secular morality is the aspect of philosophy that deals with morality outside of religious traditions. Modern examples include humanism, freethinking, and most versions of consequentialism.
Consequentialism is the class of normative ethical theories holding that the consequences of one’s conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (or omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome, or consequence. Consequentialist theories differ in how they define moral goods. Some argue that consequentialist theories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, Robert Nozick argues for a theory that is mostly consequentialist, but incorporates inviolable “side-constraints” which restrict the sort of actions agents are permitted to do. Consequentialists can and do differ widely in terms of specifying the Good. Some consequentialists are monists about the Good. Utilitarians, for example, identify the Good with pleasure, happiness, desire satisfaction, or “welfare” in some other sense. Other consequentialists are pluralists regarding the Good.
Some of such pluralists believe that how the Good is distributed among persons (or all sentient beings) is itself partly constitutive of the Good, whereas conventional utilitarians merely add or average each person’s share of the Good to achieve the Good’s maximization. Moreover, there are some consequentialists who hold that the doing or refraining from doing, of certain kinds of acts are themselves intrinsically valuable states of affairs constitutive of the Good. An example of this is the positing of rights not being violated, or duties being kept, as part of the Good to be maximized—the so-called “utilitarianism of rights”. None of these pluralist positions erase the difference between consequentialism and deontology. For the essence of consequentialism is still present in such positions: an action would be right only insofar as it maximizes these Good-making states of affairs being caused to exist.
However much consequentialists differ about what the Good consists in, they all agree that the morally right choices are those that increase (either directly or indirectly) the Good. Moreover, consequentialists generally agree that the Good is “agent-neutral”. That is, valuable states of affairs are states of affairs that all agents have reason to achieve without regard to whether such states of affairs are achieved through the exercise of one’s own agency or not. “Consequentialism”, as described by Peter Singer, “start not with moral rules, but with goals. They assess actions by the extent to which they further those goals.”
Consequentialism contains in itself no explanation for why pleasure or utility are morally good, or why consequences should matter to morality at all. Nor does consequentialism/deontology make any claims about how we know moral facts (if there are any). That is a meta-ethical question, so the question ‘how do we know that it is wrong to kill?’ is not a normative but a meta-ethical question. Some consequentialists and deontologists are also moral realists. Some are not. Moral Realism a similar position to universal morality, that certain acts are objectively right or wrong, independent of human opinion. that there exist such things as moral facts and moral values, and that these are objective and independent of our perception of them or our beliefs, feelings or other attitudes towards them.
Therefore, moral judgments describe moral facts, which are as certain in their own way as mathematical facts. It is a cognitivist view in that it holds that ethical sentences express valid propositions (and are therefore “truth-apt” i.e. they are able to be true or false), and that they describe the state of the real world. Moral Realism has the advantage of purportedly allowing the ordinary rules of logic to be applied straightforwardly to moral statements, (so that we can say, for example, that a moral belief is false or unjustified or contradictory in the same way we would about a factual belief). It also allows for the resolution of moral disagreements, because if two moral beliefs contradict one another, Moral Realism (unlike some other meta-ethical systems) says that they cannot both be right and so there should be some way of resolving the situation. Two main variants of moral realism are: Ethical Naturalism and Ethical Non-Naturalism.
Ethical Naturalism: holds that there are objective moral properties of which we have empirical knowledge, but that these properties are reducible to entirely non-ethical properties. It assumes cognitivism (the view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false), and that the meanings of these ethical sentences can be expressed as natural properties without the use of ethical terms.
Ethical Non-Naturalism: holds that ethical statements express propositions (in that sense it is also cognitivist) that cannot be reduced to non-ethical statements (e.g. “goodness” is indefinable in that it cannot be defined in any other terms). G. E. Moore claimed that a naturalistic fallacy is committed by any attempt to prove a claim about ethics by appealing to a definition in terms of one or more natural properties (e.g. “good” cannot be defined in terms of “pleasant”, “more evolved”, “desired”, etc). Ethical Intuitionism is a variant of Ethical Non-Naturalism which claims that we sometimes have intuitive awareness of moral properties or of moral truths.
Critics have argued that, while Moral Realism may be able to explain how to resolve moral conflicts, it cannot explain how these conflicts arose in the first place. Others have argued Moral Realism posits a kind of “moral fact” which is non-material and unobservable (in the way as objective material facts are observable), and therefore not accessible to the scientific method. Some philosophers who only believe in the physical world and don’t believe in anything immaterial say that they are also moral realists, but when they describes the type of morality that they believe in, often what they are talking about is the moral beliefs that people have acquired through evolution, which is called evolutionary moral realism. This includes the human instinct to care for the well being of others in one’s own group and the instinct to hold others accountable for transgressions against members of the group. A physicalist/materialist understanding of morality is therefore purely descriptive of human nature within a deterministic system. The physicalist/materialist conception of morality differs from normative moral realism, in which one believes that things ought be a certain way or that people should act in a certain way because such states of affairs or actions would be better, not purely as a function of anything physical such as the instincts people have evolved to have, but at least partially for reasons that ultimately transcend the physical world. For example, if someone believes that oppressing others is always wrong even though humans have an instinctual predisposition to favor their own group over others, and this person does not otherwise explain how this belief is descriptive of something in the physical world, then this implies that this person believes in normative morality. A similar concept to normative ethics is prescriptive ethics, which are those that are supposed to logically commit someone to act a certain way. For example, the normative statement “Murder is wrong” can be restated as “Do not murder”, which is prescriptive. This is similar to how doctors can prescribe medications for one to use. Essentially, prescriptive moral statements are prescribed to people in order for them to act morally. Normative statements simply state the relation a certain state of affairs has to rightness or wrongness without telling anyone how to act. The distinction between descriptive and normative/prescriptive morality is important to understand. One study found that 56% of professional philosophers accept or lean towards moral realism and 28%: anti-realism. Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker has argued that the game theoretic advantages of ethical behavior support the idea that morality is “out there” in a certain sense (as part of the evolutionary fitness landscape). Journalist Robert Wright has similarly argued that natural selection moves sentient species closer to moral truth as time goes on. Writer Sam Harris has also argued that ethics could be objectively grounded in an understanding of neuroscience. He has admitted to being committed to some form of moral realism (viz. moral claims can really be true or false) and some form of consequentialism (viz. the rightness of an act depends on how it affects the well-being of conscious creatures). Being a moral anti-realist is compatible with having, and following, a moral theory: you just think you have reasons to be moral which are not based on mind-independent facts. For example, you might think convention gives you reason to be moral, where conventionalism is traditionally described as a form of non-realism. see: link A delineation of moral realism into a minimal form, a moderate form, and robust form has been put forward in the literature. The robust model of moral realism commits moral realists to three theses:
The semantic thesis: The primary semantic role of moral predicates (such as “right” and “wrong”) is to refer to moral properties (such as rightness and wrongness), so that moral statements (such as “honesty is good” and “slavery is unjust”) purport to represent moral facts, and express propositions that are true or false (or approximately true, largely false, and so on).
The alethic thesis: Some moral propositions are in fact true.
The metaphysical thesis: Moral propositions are true when actions and other objects of moral assessment have the relevant moral properties (so that the relevant moral facts obtain), where these facts and properties are robust: their metaphysical status, whatever it is, is not relevantly different from that of (certain types of) ordinary non-moral facts and properties.
The minimal model, i.e. moral universalism, leaves off the metaphysical thesis, treating it as matter of contention among moral realists (as opposed to between moral realists and moral anti-realists). This dispute is not insignificant, as acceptance or rejection of the metaphysical thesis is taken by those employing the robust model as the key difference between moral realism and moral anti-realism. Moral universalism (also called moral objectivism or universal morality) is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is, for “all similarly situated individuals”, regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other distinguishing feature. Not all forms of moral universalism are absolutist, nor are they necessarily value monist; many forms of universalism, such as utilitarianism, are non-absolutist, and some forms may be value pluralist. A moral theory must be able to solve and thus to be on solid philosophical grounds:
The ontological problem: an adequate theory must account for ethics without assuming the existence of anything that does not actually exist.
The epistemological problem: if we have knowledge of right and wrong, an adequate theory must explain how we acquire such knowledge.
The experience problem: An adequate theory about ethics must account for the phenomenology of moral experience.
The supervenience problem: An adequate theory must be consistent with the supervenient character of evaluative concepts.
The motivation problem: an adequate theory must account for the internal connection between moral belief and motivation (or if there is no such connection, it must offer an alternative account of how morality guides action).
The reason problem: An adequate theory must account for the place of reason in ethics.
The disagreement problem: An adequate theory must explain the nature of ethical disagreement.
References 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
In general I am a Universal Ethicist?
But What Good is a Set of Principles?
There are many tools for decision making, but few (secular) guides to indicate when situations might have an ethical implication. Yet this awareness is a crucial first step before decisions are made. Recognizing the moral context of a situation must precede any attempt to resolve it. Otherwise, what’s to resolve? Ethical dilemmas rarely present themselves as such. They usually pass us by before we know it or develop so gradually that we can only recognize them in hindsight – a little like noticing the snake after you’ve been bitten. But what are the signs that a snake might be present? An ethical framework is like a ‘snake detector’. I offer the following principles as landmarks – generic indicators to be used as compelling guides for an active conscience. They are NOT absolute rules or values. They are more like a rough measurement where an exact one is not possible. They often conflict with each other in practice, and some will trump others under certain circumstances. But as principles that need to be considered, they appear constant. These principles are compatible with the argument that we should simply follow our intuition and rely on the ‘inner voice’. However, that voice is not always audible, and today’s society presents a wide range of complex circumstances that require more guidance than simply ‘concern for others’ or ‘does it feel right?’ And so these principles are offered effectively as a more detailed reference. In a sense, the principles are outcomes of the mother of all principles – unconditional love and compassion – which appears in virtually all faiths, and is expressed here as ‘concern for the well-being of others’. (This principle is at the heart of the stakeholder model of ethics, i.e. what is my impact on others?) At first glance, they will appear obvious and perhaps trite or simplistic. Keep in mind that they are meant to be practical rather than groundbreaking, and that many people have found them useful in the absence of other guides.
“Universal ethics: there are several ethical standards that are considered to be self-evident, and seem to apply to all people throughout all of history, regardless of cultural, political, social, or economic context. The non-aggression principle, which prohibits aggression, or the initiation of force or violence against another person, is a universal ethical principle. Examples of aggression include murder, rape, kidnapping, assault, robbery, theft, and vandalism. On the other hand, the commission of any of such acts in response to aggression does not necessarily violate universal ethics. There are obvious reasons why universal ethics are beneficial to society. For example, if people were allowed to kill or steal, this would lead to widespread chaos and violence, and would be detrimental to the well-being of society. Most people agree that it’s better to prohibit aggression than to allow everyone to commit it. Therefore, aggression is intrinsically immoral. Although nearly all societies have laws prohibiting aggression, this does not mean that universal ethics are necessarily reflected by that society’s government or its dominant ideology. In ethics, a ‘universal code of ethics’ is a system of ethics that can apply to every sentient being.” 1
Harm is often a violation of trust and a violation of expected trust makes bad things even worse, like if I told you a child was killed, you would feel it was terrible but if I further told you it was the child’s doctor that murdered the child out of anger. You would be more angered as doctors are expected to care for people not harm them. And if you think that is bad what if I further told you the doctor who killed the child was her mother would you hold her even mone in contempt as mothers also are expected to care and not kill children, so violation of trust is terrible and even makes things worse. Therefore, we can see why people that hold places of trust should never abuse them, and that we should hold them accountable if they do violate such trust by harming others. Morality first, that is morality should be at the forefront in all I do. I hope I am always strong enough to put my morality at the forefront in all I do, so much so, that it is obvious in the ways I think and behave. To better grasp a naturalistic morality one should see the perspective of how there is a self-regulatory effect on the self-evaluative moral emotions, such as shame and guilt. Broadly conceived, self-regulation distinguishes between two types of motivation: approach/activation and avoidance/inhibition. one should conceptually understand the socialization dimensions (parental restrictiveness versus nurturance), associated emotions (anxiety versus empathy), and forms of morality (proscriptive versus prescriptive) that serve as precursors to each self-evaluative moral emotion.
Real Morality vs. Pseudo Morality
Religions Promote Pseudo-Morality
Think there is no objective morality?
True Morality Not the Golden Rule…
Axiological Atheism Morality Critique: of the bible god
Babies & Morality?
“They believe babies are in fact born with an innate sense of morality, and while parents and society can help develop a belief system in babies, they don’t create one. A team of researchers at Yale University’s Infant Cognition Center, known as The Baby Lab, showed us just how they came to that conclusion.” Ref
Ten Commandments: Ethics, Justice, or Laws?
So let’s sum up and recap the ten commandments for those of you who may have missed church last Sunday, like I always do… They, also known as the ritual decalogue, are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and Christianity.
The 10 Commandments List, Short Form:
1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make idols.
3. You shall not take the name of the lord your god in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet.
Ten Commandments and the Hittite treaties
There is an important distinction between the Decalogue and the “book of the covenant” (Exodus 21-23 and 34:10–24). The decalogue, it can be hypothesized was modeled on the suzerainty treaties of the Hittites (and other Mesopotamian Empires), that is, represents the relationship between god and Israel as a relationship between king and vassal, and enacts that bond. “The prologue of the Hittite treaty reminds his vassals of his benevolent acts (compare with Exodus 20:2 “I am the lord your god, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”) The Hittite treaty also stipulated the obligations imposed by the ruler on his vassals, which included a prohibition of relations with peoples outside the empire, or enmity between those within.” (Exodus 20:3 “you shall have no other gods before me.”) Viewed as a treaty rather than a law code, its purpose is not so much to regulate human affairs as to define the scope of the king’s power. Thus Exodus 34 is distinct from the Jahwist document, identifying it with king Asa’s reforms around 2,913 years ago. The book of the covenant, bears a greater similarity to Mesopotamian law codes (e.g. the Code of Hammurabi which was inscribed on a stone stele). So the function of this “book” is to move from the realm of treaty to the realm of law: (Exodus 21 to 23; and 34), which is no official state law, but a description of normative Israelite judicial procedure in the days of the Judges, is the best example of this process” then, this body of law too predates the monarchy. The phrasing in the decalogue`s instructions suggests that it was conceived in a mainly polytheistic milieu, evident especially in the formulation of “no-other-gods-before-me” commandment. If the ten commandments are based on Hittite forms that would date it somewhere between the 2,140-2,120 years ago. The ten commandments believed to be written by god, the first thing that comes to mind is why is god so bad at writing things on stone. Why did he use two large stone tablets? When he, if god, more reasonably could have done it on one small manageable tablet. You would only think a stone craftsman of that time would need two large stone tablets to engrave on with crude tools stolen from Egypt right? Not a god!!! The second rational thought is, if this “ten commandments” was to be taken serious as a rule of law, why is it not organized with some resemblance to rational forethought such as murder before honoring your father and mother, right? So then onto the “first commandment,” two things come to mind. How god acknowledges the existence of other gods, he did not simply state there is no god but to stop worshiping other gods. As well the wording seems to imply you don’t have to remove other gods, you are just to put yahweh the god of Moses first. Believers cannot simply say I am interpreting it wrong. Because would not that say god did not know how to communicate or did not mean what he said the way he said it. So now to the” second commandment,” then the part about graven images is not really that simple as one verse as often reported. It could literally be any ART. People act as if it is just no god idols which it is not! Then, if jealousy is a sin, why is god allowed to sin and be jealous? Those who practice jealousy will not inherit the kingdom of god; Galatians 5:20-21. Then god’s sinful jealousy is likewise unjust by punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the fourth generation. But hey, if you get to make the rules, you at least get to break them right? Exodus 20:4 you shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. Exodus 20:5 you shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the lord your god, am a jealous god, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. So to recap, the ten commandments are the rules of conduct given by Yahweh to Moses in Exodus 20:1-17, prescribing worship of Yahweh and honor for parents while prohibiting killing, adultery, theft, false witness, and covetousness. Of the ten commandments, the first four indicate an insecure god afraid of losing his authority. Only three commandments 6,8,9 can be related to sensible legal prohibitions (against murder, theft, and perjury/fraud). The remaining three commandments 5,7,10 in a rational secular America would only be seen as good advice. Ref
Is God Removed from Ethics?
Is god choiceless or standardless or removed from ethics? Materialistic world view attaches a value to people, places, and things. Doing things to receive a reward or to avoid punished is materialistic not spiritual. One getting paid for a job or fired for not doing work is materialistic not spiritual. Let’s say ghosts are real, spirit forms of a now crossed over once living person wouldn’t then if they could interact be thought to have a conciseness thus be held to a ethical slandered? Is not choice or thought not a rational requirement to have ethical understanding in the real world thus a rock cannot make an ethical choice nor can a baby but an adult or god can why not a ghost? If a ghost can and often do bother scare even hurt or remain in some way connected in a place or thing such as a form of matter why not a hold them to a ethical slandered just as a person who is also composed of matter? Is it not the body of matter but the ethical understanding because of a rational conciseness that we hold responsible in the first place? Ghosts not reincarnation? In all documented accounts where a child relays a past life it is more of a Ghosts position then the reliving of a life as touted in reincarnation. How do we know this, because all documented accounts start in a children then as the life grows they forget the old life and go back to being just them. So what could be happening the ghost position moves on if truly reincarnation the being would not leave but even as in places beings do stay can then move on. Love and connection is so important and that even taught the opposite most still will seek value and express them. We need more than theories we must obtain a freedom or ethics you can feel. We must have a rational ethical understanding in the real world. Can you hold a rock responsible for crushing pain then death? Ethics of religion will not do, if god is the creator then this God created the sensation of pain and pain is not ethical to inflict on others right? So how can we not see the unethicalness then of one who claims to have caused or invented pain, are they not more or at least as just as guilty as one who inflicts pain on others? So if torturer is unethical the god who is credited the sensation experienced in torture for the falling rock that creates pain and death which is also a god claimed creation that can remove freedom to live is unethical or the god given flaw of fragile life guilty so its inventor is guilty? Do we hold the fragile life or a faulty invention that causes death responsible for what it does? If we do not “why” is it because it does not understand what harm it causes or cannot feel for those it hurts or kills? We hold the creator or inventor is guilty of not testing or conserving a better product how is a god and less guilty? Is god materialistic and not spiritual because he asks the flawed creations he is responsible for to doing things to receive a reward or to avoid punished? Why not blame a god for it pain a fragile life or for it not caring enough to desire perfection but create imperfection? How about a mountain lion do we hold it responsible for what it does? If not why is it because it does not understand what harm it causes or cannot feel for those it hurts or kills? Why not blame a god for it needing to kill to eat because he understand what harm it causes and created it that way? How about a person born with a debilitating mental impairment from retardation to psychological that hinders them from rational choice do we hold them responsible for they do? If not is it because they do not understand what harm they are causing or do not feel for those they hurt or kill? Why not blame a god for them being born that way? We need Self-transcend is seeing the other reality’s experienced by others not a flawed god who only wants you to see things his way or receive a reward of punishment. Self-transcend is seeing the other’s reality experienced time after time like the preverbal ”walking in their shoes” or can be thought of being more like multiculturalism or multirealityism. God is not worthy of being follower because the god myth shows itself to be neither self-actualized nor self-transcend. One can become self-transcend without being self-actualized. If one lives multiple cultures or live multiple realities, such as per say: Super rich to homeless, great love and support then it’s gone, more than one culture, etc. there can be some level of other understanding thus some amount of self-transience. But the more one is self-actualized the person is the easier it is to be self-transcendent and the more complete and universal it will be. The absurd thought contradictory idea in religion is once you did you are judged be it a god or karma but this is ridiculous one for it would mean that all choice is removed at death even though the claim of conciseness continues. What I mean if you can now be finally jugged you cannot do anything different or be judged once in say a spirit or ghost form all ethical responsibility is removed no one can thus in this thinking commit a new unethical action or sin. You say well there is no body that did not stop what the Abrahamic religions angels to be not so deemed unaccountable. How can you say wrong is wrong but then choose when it is true? Such religions even can be thought of as calming that even the thought of committing sin attaches the commotion of sin. If this is true how then could you not hold a ghost or god or any spirit being to an ethical slandered. If one is standardless they are not good because good has to be in relation to something or it can mean nothing. God thus can be seen as materialistic and not spiritual because he is standardless so cannot do good or evil and only asks the flawed living creations he is responsible for to doing things good to receive a reward or not evil to avoid punishment. Religion puts god outside of responsibility no matter what reprehensible, unjust, or unethical things he is guilty of like most people think of spirits or ghosts though they still can show some form of conciseness all attached ethical responsibility is removed no one can thus in this thinking commit a new unethical action or sin can they? If all ethical responsibility is removed and no more sin commented we must become choiceless or standeredless or is ethics and sin only for the bodied soul the freer unbodied soul can say I have finally arrived I can do no wrong ever again but could we not continue to think? Why only require ethical responsible choice of what is so obviously a flawed living creations he is responsible for creating? If we are unbodied we can experience no hunger, no loneliness, no pleasure, no pain, etc. what need would we at that point need with a lack of ethical slandered or a moral relativism so abstract we can never in any way do wrong? Unbodied being surly feel, think and have desires or they are void thus haven would not be the reward it claims to be right? Why not be a just god and choiceless or standardless or is ethics removed from sin when we need it to survive as flawed living creations he is responsible for making flawed or don’t treat us special be just and make all living and dead choiceless or standardless or is ethics removed from sin that would be equality or like multiculturalism or multirealityism and the god myth would be self-actualized and self-transcend.
Axiological Morality Critique of Pseudo-Morality/Pseudomorality?
Axiology: Two Worlds in Three Dimensions of Value http://www.valueinsights.com/axiology3.html
Can atheists be ethical?
Christian Apologist, Ken Ham thinks that for atheists, there really is no basis for their ethics, therefore they believe they can do whatever they want if they can get away with it. What is “right” or “wrong” to such people is all relative.
thinks that for atheists, answer is “Definitely Yes” atheists can be ethical. According to Matt, atheists are people who, are subject to the same laws of our country (and other countries), and they have a sense of right and wrong. They often work with people who are religious and have ethical standards, as well as non-believers who are don’t; so they are exposed to all sorts of moral behavior. In addition, they often form their own moral standards based on what suits them. Besides, things (like robbery, lying, stealing, etc.,) can get you imprisoned; so it is practical and logical for an atheist to be ethical and work within the norms of social behavior. However you want to look at it, atheists, generally, are honest, hardworking people. Nevertheless, some Christians raise the question, “What is to prevent an atheist from murdering and stealing? After all, they have no fear of God and no absolute moral code.” The answer is simple: Atheists are capable of governing their own moral behavior and getting along in society the same as anyone else. ref
Ethical atheism: heavily involved and utilizes ethical thought and standards to navigate atheism or the humanism that is likely to follow such an ethical awareness. Ethical atheism strives to utilize the strong force of ethics and ethical challenge to address the many issues that not only arise in combating the fanatical promotion of harmful myths but ethical ways to positively navigate all of life’s real struggles or options to behave in interactions with others. God claims all totally lack a standard of meeting any warrant or justification in their burden of proof, thus the claim as offered debunks itself as any kind of viable claim. Would you be intellectually honest enough to want to know if your belief was completely false, and once knowing it was an unjustified belief, realize it lacks warrant and the qualities needed for belief-retention, as well as grasp the rationality that certain beliefs are epistemically unfounded which compels belief-relinquishment due to the beliefs insufficient supporting reason and evidence, realizing that belief. To me, belief in gods is intellectually flawed and dishonest compared to the evidence of the natural world being not only explainable on every level as only natural, but also there is not a shred of anything supernatural and every claim tested ever has time and again debunked such nonsense. If anything supernatural or paranormal was provable, the believers would have taken James Randi’s famous million-dollar challenge, or they would have gone and got their Nobel Prize in proving the supernatural or open up a 100% faith-based prayer and miracles hospital. Where the cure for anything and everything is guaranteed because “prayer and miracles works” and the only education was being a religious or spiritual leader. Prove it or it is not really worthy for true belief and if there was actual scientific proof it would silence us rationalists, atheists, and skeptics forever. However, nothing of the sort has ever happened. List of prizes for evidence of the paranormal or supernatural woo-woo go back to at least 1922 with Scientific American. But it did not stop there instead there has been many individuals and groups have offered similar monetary awards for proof of the paranormal or supernatural with some reaching over a million dollars yet as of February 2016, not one prizes have been claimed. Ref Therefore, belief in supernatural or paranormal are not realistic nor are they reasonable. And what’s even crazier is it’s nonsense and they act like it is us rationalists, atheists, and skeptics that have to disprove something they have never proved. Despite the width and diversity of their philosophical views, secular ethicists generally share one or more principles:
- Human beings, through their ability to empathize, are capable of determining ethical grounds.
- The well-being of others is central to ethical decision-making
- Human beings, through logic and reason, are capable of deriving normative principles of behavior.
- This may lead to a behavior preferable to that propagated or condoned based on religious texts. Alternatively, this may lead to the advocacy of a system of moral principles that a broad group of people, both religious and non-religious, can agree upon.
- Human beings have the moral responsibility to ensure that societies and individuals act based on these ethical principles.
- Societies should, if at all possible, advance from a less ethical and just form to a more ethical and just form.
Many of these tenets are applied in the science of morality, the use of the scientific method to answer moral questions. Various thinkers have framed morality as questions of empirical truth to be explored in a scientific context. The science is related to ethical naturalism, a type of ethical realism.
In How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living, Rushworth Kidder identifies four general characteristics of an ethical code:
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- 1. It is brief
- 2. It is usually not explanatory
- 3. Can be expressed in a number of forms (e.g. positive or negative, single words or a list of sentences)
- 4. Centers on moral values[1]
Atheistic Humanist ethics?
Well, Humanists generally (whether they realize it or not tend to) endorse universal morality based on the commonality of human nature, and that knowledge of right and wrong is based on our best understanding of our individual and joint interests, rather than stemming from a transcendental or arbitrarily local source, therefore rejecting faith completely as a basis for action. The humanist ethics goal is a search for viable individual, social and political principles of conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility, ultimately eliminating human suffering. Ref
The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is the world-wide umbrella organization for those adhering to the Humanist life stance.
- Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.[2]
I value all people as equal human beings regardless of class or social standing. I always see the worth of the person. I am very against classism and all such prejudice or discrimination basis on social class. This includes individual attitudes and behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper classes at the expense of the lower classes including people without means such as vagrants or homeless. The current system, sadly, works on the premise in which the less you have, the less you get. And to me as an axiologist this current system is not an ethical just way to apply humanity. Religion and gods are archetypal classism and all such prejudice or discrimination basis on social class. A benefit of application axiology is to present a clearer view of value not something which we do without thinking but under positive intentionality. Intentionality of axiology view of value or what lacks value is the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs valueizing/value judgments are utilized or needed. Intentionality of axiology new view of value is presented for the sake of positive benefit establishing a future ethical humanistic persuasion in society. I hold an axiology goal that our future society is a secular humanistic society that will be built by people of ethical humanistic persuasion, whose intellect, emotion, and will are centered on a Heart of equality, liberty, ethical care and justice. I hold an axiology goal that the faculties of intellect, emotion, and will motivate us to seek the values of trueness, goodness and ethical humanity, respectively, and through these, a society of trueness, an secular humanistic society hopefully be championed and actualized. Since axiology is a theory that deals generally with the values of trueness, goodness, and ethics, axiology is the general cohesive theory serving as a basis for these particular theories. I also hold an axiology goal that such a future society will thus be a society where the values of trueness, goodness, and ethical humanistic persuasion will be realized; in that society, the economy will attain a high level of development through the progress of science, solving, once and for all and completely, all the economic problems of society. Such an axiology driven society where the values are realized and actualized through the give-and-receive action between subject and object. As a result, there are two aspects in value: as the aspect of the essence of value, which is possessed by the object, and the aspect of the actualization of value, which takes place between tile subject and tile object. The former is called “potential value,” and the latter, “actual value.” The essence of value, or potential value, consists of the purpose of creation of tile object and the harmony between paired elements existing in the object. I am against classifying humans by wealth, even though I agree that is how it generally is in our world. To me we are all equal, the factor of “money” should not disseminate difference as humans as it is external to them and not them. And wealth inequality should concern you too. We should wonder if any psychological issues are attached to say being rich or poor? Like how wealth may lower compassion or how poverty harms the brain, etc. All human beings are 99.9 percent identical in their genetic makeup. Ref Ref Ref
Ontology of Money using Humanistic Economics in Society?
First a prosocial humanistic Social theory should motivate your economic system not the economic system motivating your social theory. Humanistic sociology seeks to shed light on questions such as, “What is the relationship between a man of principle and a man of opportunism?” It can be seen that any answer to such a question must draw on experience and facts from many disciplines. In sociology, anthropology and linguistics, structuralism is the methodology that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. It works to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel. Structuralists influenced by humanistic sociology will interpret data in terms of opposing valuations, contrasts, and relations. Interpretation of the data must be contextual. Structuralism allows for a realist analysis (structures represent an organized reality) in relation to the larger social system. By understanding the larger social system, you are differentiating from post-modernism, which seeks to describe society by its lack of structure, or fragmentation. Structuralism was developed in post-war Paris as a response to the perceived contradiction between the free subject of philosophy and the determined subject of the human sciences; and drew on the systematic linguistics of Saussure for a view of language and culture as a conventional system of signs preceding the individual subject’s entry into them. Lévi-Strauss in anthropology systematised a structuralist analysis of culture in which the individual subject dissolved into a signifying convention; the semiological work of Roland Barthes (1977) decried the cult of the author and indeed proclaimed his death; while Lacan‘s structuralist psychoanalysis inevitably led to a similar diminishment of the concept of the autonomous individual: “man with a discourse on freedom which must certainly be called delusional…produced as it is by an animal at the mercy of language”. Taking a lead from Brecht‘s twin attack on bourgeois and socialist humanism, Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser coined the term “antihumanism” in an attack against Marxist humanists, whose position he considered a revisionist movement. Althusser considered “structure” and “social relations” to have primacy over individual consciousness, opposing the philosophy of the subject. For Althusser, the beliefs, desires, preferences and judgements of the human individual are the product of social practices, as society moulds the individual in its own image through its ideologies. For Marxist humanists such as Georg Lukács, revolution was contingent on the development of the class consciousness of an historical subject, the proletariat. In opposition to this, Althusser’s antihumanism downplays the role of human agency in the process of history. Ref
Money both Friend and Foe?
The concept of money, is a means of transportation from a good or service into a universal tool to buy things like goods and services. This money is not something bad in and of itself, rather it is only a unit of value with universal utility. What can make money bad is how it is used, as in money should be used positivity to help people by its universal transfer utility not it’s negotiable power used to create oppression of people. And debt is both a hope for freedom and the last nail in freedoms coffin.
Denying a Worker’s Worth?
Why is the beloved cost of human worth generally seen as high but the cost of such a valuable being’s labor is valued so low as to only offer them a full-time working wage that at minimum wage, which is unlivable in the society for which this worthy being lives and the job is at? What is the value of a American life? Well, a surviving spouse or child may receive a special lump-sum death payment of $255 if they meet certain requirements.
Humanistic economics
Overview
Humanistic economics can be described as a perspective that imbues elements of humanistic psychology, moral philosophy, political science, sociology and common sense into traditional economic thought. Or, to define it more formally, contemporary humanistic economics seeks to:
- describe, analyze and critically assess prevailing socio-economic institutions and policies
- provide normative (value) guidelines on how to improve them in terms of human (not merely “economic”) well-being
In the process, basic human needs, human rights, human dignity, community, cooperation, economic democracy and economic sustainability provide the framework. At its foundation, humanistic economics seeks to replace atomistic economic man with a more holistic human image. One approach is broadly based on Abraham Maslow’s humanistic psychology.
Characteristic elements
According to Mark A. Lutz, five characteristic elements of humanistic economics can be summarized as follows:
- A history that goes back two centuries and starts with the new political economy of J.C.L. Simonde de Sismondi and extends to E.F. Schumacher and beyond.
- A critique of contemporary micro- and macroeconomic theories, particularly those relating to efficiency, equality, agency, motivation, work, unemployment, comparative advantage, globalization, ecology, social accounting and macroeconomic stability.
- A critical analysis of socio-economic institutions, including property, corporate power, the workplace, and the global institutions governing international trade and finance.
- A normative analysis based on human dignity and basic rights that addresses issues of poverty amidst plenty, economic democracy, ecological sustainability and socio-economic development.
- A realist philosophical discourse opposed to all kinds of nominalism, relativism, scientific positivism, and post-modernism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanistic_economics
Progressive Logic by William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Summary: What are the implications of Formal Axiology for assessing the value implications of public policies, laws, and government actions?This can already be seen in the history of Progressive reforms throughout American history. What does the Abolition movement have in common with the anti-child labor movement, the demands for compulsory public education, pro-choice, euthanasia, criminal justice reform, and other public policies considered“progressive”?
Progressive Logic
Shows that the common element is a logic of values which takes as its basic premise that “all persons always deserve positive regard.”From this primary value axiom two “fallacies” and two “enhancements” follow.
Value Fallacies:
The Ideological Fallacy — to value ideas over persons.
The Instrumental Fallacy — to value persons solely for their usefulness.
Value Enhancements:
The Ideological Enhancement — using ideas to enhance or enrich the lives of persons.
The Instrumental Enhancement — using persons to enhance or enrich their lives.
These principles of value logic are applied to numerous aspects of American life,culture, and public policies. Ref
While hallucinogens are associated with shamanism, it is alcohol that is associated with paganism.
The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:
Show two: Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show tree: Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show four: Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show five: Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show six: Emergence of hierarchy, sexism, slavery, and the new male god dominance: Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!
Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses: VIDEO
Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism): VIDEO
Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves: VIEDO
Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State): VIEDO
Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism): VIEDO
I do not hate simply because I challenge and expose myths or lies any more than others being thought of as loving simply because of the protection and hiding from challenge their favored myths or lies.
The truth is best championed in the sunlight of challenge.
An archaeologist once said to me “Damien religion and culture are very different”
My response, So are you saying that was always that way, such as would you say Native Americans’ cultures are separate from their religions? And do you think it always was the way you believe?
I had said that religion was a cultural product. That is still how I see it and there are other archaeologists that think close to me as well. Gods too are the myths of cultures that did not understand science or the world around them, seeing magic/supernatural everywhere.
I personally think there is a goddess and not enough evidence to support a male god at Çatalhöyük but if there was both a male and female god and goddess then I know the kind of gods they were like Proto-Indo-European mythology.
This series idea was addressed in, Anarchist Teaching as Free Public Education or Free Education in the Public: VIDEO
Our 12 video series: Organized Oppression: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of power (9,000-4,000 years ago), is adapted from: The Complete and Concise History of the Sumerians and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia (7000-2000 BC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szFjxmY7jQA by “History with Cy“
Show #1: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid)
Show #2: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #3: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Uruk and the First Cities)
Show #4: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (First Kings)
Show #5: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Early Dynastic Period)
Show #6: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #7: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Sargon and Akkadian Rule)
Show #9: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Gudea of Lagash and Utu-hegal)
Show #12: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Aftermath and Legacy of Sumer)
The “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries”
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ Atheist Leftist @Skepticallefty & I (Damien Marie AtHope) @AthopeMarie (my YouTube & related blog) are working jointly in atheist, antitheist, antireligionist, antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and humanist endeavors in our videos together, generally, every other Saturday.
Why Does Power Bring Responsibility?
Think, how often is it the powerless that start wars, oppress others, or commit genocide? So, I guess the question is to us all, to ask, how can power not carry responsibility in a humanity concept? I know I see the deep ethical responsibility that if there is power their must be a humanistic responsibility of ethical and empathic stewardship of that power. Will I be brave enough to be kind? Will I possess enough courage to be compassionate? Will my valor reach its height of empathy? I as everyone, earns our justified respect by our actions, that are good, ethical, just, protecting, and kind. Do I have enough self-respect to put my love for humanity’s flushing, over being brought down by some of its bad actors? May we all be the ones doing good actions in the world, to help human flourishing.
I create the world I want to live in, striving for flourishing. Which is not a place but a positive potential involvement and promotion; a life of humanist goal precision. To master oneself, also means mastering positive prosocial behaviors needed for human flourishing. I may have lost a god myth as an atheist, but I am happy to tell you, my friend, it is exactly because of that, leaving the mental terrorizer, god belief, that I truly regained my connected ethical as well as kind humanity.
Cory and I will talk about prehistory and theism, addressing the relevance to atheism, anarchism, and socialism.
At the same time as the rise of the male god, 7,000 years ago, there was also the very time there was the rise of violence, war, and clans to kingdoms, then empires, then states. It is all connected back to 7,000 years ago, and it moved across the world.
Cory Johnston: https://damienmarieathope.com/2021/04/cory-johnston-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftist/?v=32aec8db952d
The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist (YouTube)
Cory Johnston: Mind of a Skeptical Leftist @Skepticallefty
The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist By Cory Johnston: “Promoting critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics by covering current events and talking to a variety of people. Cory Johnston has been thoughtfully talking to people and attempting to promote critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics.” http://anchor.fm/skepticalleft
Cory needs our support. We rise by helping each other.
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ @Skepticallefty Evidence-based atheist leftist (he/him) Producer, host, and co-host of 4 podcasts @skeptarchy @skpoliticspod and @AthopeMarie
Damien Marie AtHope (“At Hope”) Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist. Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Poet, Philosopher, Advocate, Activist, Psychology, and Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Historian.
Damien is interested in: Freedom, Liberty, Justice, Equality, Ethics, Humanism, Science, Atheism, Antiteism, Antireligionism, Ignosticism, Left-Libertarianism, Anarchism, Socialism, Mutualism, Axiology, Metaphysics, LGBTQI, Philosophy, Advocacy, Activism, Mental Health, Psychology, Archaeology, Social Work, Sexual Rights, Marriage Rights, Woman’s Rights, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Secular Rights, Race Equality, Ageism/Disability Equality, Etc. And a far-leftist, “Anarcho-Humanist.”
I am not a good fit in the atheist movement that is mostly pro-capitalist, I am anti-capitalist. Mostly pro-skeptic, I am a rationalist not valuing skepticism. Mostly pro-agnostic, I am anti-agnostic. Mostly limited to anti-Abrahamic religions, I am an anti-religionist.
To me, the “male god” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 7,000 years ago, whereas the now favored monotheism “male god” is more like 4,000 years ago or so. To me, the “female goddess” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 11,000-10,000 years ago or so, losing the majority of its once prominence around 2,000 years ago due largely to the now favored monotheism “male god” that grow in prominence after 4,000 years ago or so.
My Thought on the Evolution of Gods?
Animal protector deities from old totems/spirit animal beliefs come first to me, 13,000/12,000 years ago, then women as deities 11,000/10,000 years ago, then male gods around 7,000/8,000 years ago. Moralistic gods around 5,000/4,000 years ago, and monotheistic gods around 4,000/3,000 years ago.
To me, animal gods were likely first related to totemism animals around 13,000 to 12,000 years ago or older. Female as goddesses was next to me, 11,000 to 10,000 years ago or so with the emergence of agriculture. Then male gods come about 8,000 to 7,000 years ago with clan wars.
Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):
Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism
My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com