First Principles

I was thinking about how with lots of these religious debates we are really like ships passing each other in the night. We might be speaking the same language but at the same time mean very different things.

I think it might be fruitful to share our first principles with each other. Not to debate or condemn, but to better understand where we are coming from and why we think the way we do. These priciples are the foundations of all our thoughts and the things we take as self-evident. I think we can get at them by simply asking ourselves two basic questions:
1) what is a human being?
Who are we and where did we come from? Where are we going if anywhere? Do we have a purpose or meaning, and if so what?
2) what went wrong?
Assuming that we can all agree that our world is beset with injustices, violence, unhappiness, and evil this fundamental question asks what went wrong and how do we attempt to fix it if we can?

Again this is not a thread to debate or tell people they are wrong. It is a place to be heard and understood.

Quote: FrGamble

Do we have a purpose or meaning, and if so what?

We have whatever purpose we give
ourselves, obviously. We create our
own reality, we create our own
purpose. Unfortunately many are
too lazy or too dumb to realize
that and life bats them around
like they're the ball in a pinball
machine. Follow your bliss,
said Joe Campbell, create your
purpose.

2) what went wrong?
Assuming that we can all agree that our world is beset with injustices, violence, unhappiness, .

A human being is an Ape that is Naked.

There is no right or wrong.

Quote: Fleastiff

There is no right or wrong.

This is true. There is only what we've
figured out what the rules should be
in a civilized society. The universe
doesn't know or care about right
or wrong, those are subjective human
theories.

Quote: Fleastiff

A human being is an Ape that is Naked.

There is no right or wrong.

I always think of us as evolved smart-arsed lumps of rock.

Quote: FrGamble

I was thinking about how with lots of these religious debates we are really like ships passing each other in the night. We might be speaking the same language but at the same time mean very different things.

I think it might be fruitful to share our first principles with each other. Not to debate or condemn, but to better understand where we are coming from and why we think the way we do. These priciples are the foundations of all our thoughts and the things we take as self-evident. I think we can get at them by simply asking ourselves two basic questions:
1) what is a human being?
Who are we and where did we come from? Where are we going if anywhere? Do we have a purpose or meaning, and if so what?

What is a human being? We are what we are. I don't think that this has any real meaning as a question without some sort of context.

Who are we and where did we come from? The answer to the second question is unknown and remains a matter of faith for some and a matter of science not yet determined for others. Pragmatically speaking, at least in our Earthy lives or only life, (depending on what you believe) it makes absolutely no difference. The Bible, for one, does a really convenient job of explaining how God has already proven himself to be the case while also explaining away why he will not prove himself to be the case as a matter of faith. Wonderful.

I think of a line in a Bad Religion song called, Don't Pray On Me, which says, "I guess God was a lot more demonstrative back when he flamboyantly parted the sea."

Anyway, absent some evidence to the contrary, my answer to where do we come from is this: It doesn't matter.

Where are we going, if anywhere? I'm just a cog in a very large wheel. I'm incapable of knowing where we are going as a species and nor do I really care.

Do we have a purpose or meaning, if so, what? No. There's a Nada Surf album titled, The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy and frontman Matthew Caws has explained the meaning of the title as essentially being that the stars would still be out there doing what they are doing with or without our observations or words that we use to describe them. They don't care that we call them stars or that we try to predict their movements. I think that's kind of the same thing when it comes to Earthy affairs.

If we tried to describe some sort of Universal purpose, would it change anything? I don't think so, because first that greater purpose would have to be identified (which I don't think could ever be provably true, even though theories abound) and then agreed to and sought after by all or nearly all parties involved. The Universe existed before us and, barring some amazing technological advancements, will continue to exist after we are gone.

The stars are indifferent to astronomy and the Universe is indifferent to our existence. If there is a God, I would also tend to believe he/she/they is/are indifferent to our existence, at least in this realm.

Quote:

2) what went wrong?
Assuming that we can all agree that our world is beset with injustices, violence, unhappiness, and evil this fundamental question asks what went wrong and how do we attempt to fix it if we can?

Again this is not a thread to debate or tell people they are wrong. It is a place to be heard and understood.

What went wrong? You couldn't avoid what went wrong without sacrificing what went right. The notion of social contracts and order went right, things go wrong when we disagree on what the social contracts should be, what the order should consist of and then decide to fight about it. We organized, we gathered, we developed societies and politics. The things that went right also went wrong. We became stronger and also matched strength against strength in order to obtain still more strength. As with the wild, survival and prosperity are competitions.

Quote: FrGamble

I was thinking about how with lots of these religious debates we are really like ships passing each other in the night. We might be speaking the same language but at the same time mean very different things.

I think it might be fruitful to share our first principles with each other. Not to debate or condemn, but to better understand where we are coming from and why we think the way we do. These priciples are the foundations of all our thoughts and the things we take as self-evident. I think we can get at them by simply asking ourselves two basic questions:
1) what is a human being?
Who are we and where did we come from? Where are we going if anywhere? Do we have a purpose or meaning, and if so what?
2) what went wrong?
Assuming that we can all agree that our world is beset with injustices, violence, unhappiness, and evil this fundamental question asks what went wrong and how do we attempt to fix it if we can?

Again this is not a thread to debate or tell people they are wrong. It is a place to be heard and understood.

1) what is a human being? A collection of cells with a consciousness - we came from a random happenstance called the Big Bang - we will eventually be extinct, like countless species before us - there is no purpose other than propagation of the species (as with all biological organisms)

2) what went wrong? Nothing went wrong

Quote: Mission146

What went wrong? You couldn't avoid what went wrong without sacrificing what went right

What about slavery? FrGamble would assert it is wrong but I don't see him out there picketing temples to protest the legal status of sex slavery in Israel where it is a thriving industry.
Saudi Arabia pays lip service to forbidding the charging of interest but such artifices are absurd.

In all of southeast Asia, there has never been a democracy. Is this a right or a wrong?

We tend to have biases regarding such Rights and Wrongs, but the Earth just keeps on spinning regardless of what made it do so and whether that clockmaker fell asleep or never existed.

Quote: Fleastiff

What about slavery? FrGamble would assert it is wrong but I don't see him out there picketing temples to protest the legal status of sex slavery in Israel where it is a thriving industry.
Saudi Arabia pays lip service to forbidding the charging of interest but such artifices are absurd.

In all of southeast Asia, there has never been a democracy. Is this a right or a wrong?

We tend to have biases regarding such Rights and Wrongs, but the Earth just keeps on spinning regardless of what made it do so and whether that clockmaker fell asleep or never existed.

I guess I was speaking more to technological and societal advancements in general rather than every single individual wrong in specific. That said, what greater assertion of dominance is there than slavery? It's a means of complete control over a person who then furthers your needs or wants, sexual or otherwise.

Is the lack of a democracy right or wrong? That's a totally loaded question. Is Democracy inherently a, 'Right?' If Democracy could be looked upon as something that is Universally correct, then it would be correct for everyone and Democracy would thrive everywhere already. If it was truly looked upon as a fundamental human right, then we would do everything we could to further advance democratic principles not just in our own country, but also abroad. As with so many things, it exists as a human right provided that one also happens to be a human in one of the countries in which some variant of Democracy is the case...screw everyone else, unless it is beneficial for some other reason to unscrew them, but certainly not as a matter of true principle.

As far as what FRGamble does or does not do, you can't be everywhere at all times doing everything.

What does the strength lend itself to? I suppose the continued propagation of the human race, in general, as well as that of our own individual civilizations/countries. Is the continued propagation of the human race a worthy goal unto itself? Personally, I really don't see why it should be aside from the whole biological imperative argument. If there is some greater and more meaningful end that it serves, I've certainly either not been made privy to it or have not been presented proof of same if I have.

What I see is the strength leading to more efficient and less personal means of killing one another, as Qasem Soleimani so recently discovered. It was always that way, though. Instead of playing with spears, rocks and crude swords we just have things that are louder and more visually brilliant. It's all a means to increased power, strength or maybe just to notoriety.

And so then you have soldiers marching off to wars in the name of Democracy, freedom or other such things that we don't actually have. Imagine taking a piss out in the open, right? Never been arrested for it, (haven't done it often, only out of desperation) but if I can get tossed in jail for a few hours or a day as well as fined for completing one of my most rudimentary biological functions...how free am I? I don't really see how that's all that free. Not under any definition that's meaningful to me, anyway. You also have freedom of religion, which is just freedom of restriction because it makes free something that is itself restrictive and dominating.

---The big thing for me is just how egocentric our view of the Universe is, religion included. We're always at the center of everything, right? We thought that the sun revolved around the Earth until that was proven scientifically incorrect, and even during that time, many were persecuted for challenging the notion. I believe the Catholics deemed that to be a heresy and they did what the Catholics of old were so adept at. Arguments over all that is good and holy over what thing circles around what? And, to what end? Does it really make one iota of difference in one's day to day life (other than for those who were persecuted or doing the persecuting) whether this thing revolves around that thing or the other thing revolves around this thing?

---I also think that is why Gods were created. I'm not challenging anyone's view of an individual God or set of Gods here, but what I am saying is that, if you have different Gods in different religions...then not all of those Gods can actually be the case to a t. My make believe character is better than yours is, let's have a war to determine who has the best make believe character.

Also egocentric because it puts us at the center of everything. God broke the clay when he made us. God made us so that we could be fruitful and multiply and all of the accompanying bullcrap. The point is WE ARE THE SPECIAL ONES. Not the spiders. Not the cats. Not the platypuses. Not the planet. Not the Universe itself. WE ARE. Us. Us. Us. It was all built for us and after we die there will be something else for us forever and ever.

And, why? Is the thought of a Godless Universe that is indifferent to our existence really that terrifying? Is the thought that we are quite possibly all alone in that of the Universe we know and perhaps in the Universe as a whole really that bad? Is it so hard for us, as humans, to face the reality that we might well be temporary both individually and on the whole?

Again I ask, what pragmatic difference would it make if we were? I will both expect and receive no good answer...personally, I think it's because there isn't one but nor does there need to be.

Quote: aceofspades

1)

2) what went wrong? Nothing went wrong

You would have to define wrong,
and that's not possible. Right
and wrong all depend on where
you're standing at the time.

Murder is wrong when you kill
your wife, we change the name
of murder to something else and
it's OK to kill in war. In both cases
you're killing someone who doesn't
want to be killed. It's the same act.