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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Frumple]

No. Wanting worship is not in itself a bad thing. Demanding it is.

... no, no, I'm pretty sure wanting worship pretty much is a bad thing in itself. Attention or respect or somethin' maybe not so much, but there's rather a difference. You desire that kind of adulation for whatever reason, to some degree there's somethin' gone wrong.

[TD1]

No. Wanting worship is not in itself a bad thing. Demanding it is.

... no, no, I'm pretty sure wanting worship pretty much is a bad thing in itself. Attention or respect or somethin' maybe not so much, but there's rather a difference. You desire that kind of adulation for whatever reason, to some degree there's somethin' gone wrong.

Possibly. But there's also a large difference between wanting adulation, which you may or may not deserve, and actually demanding it. The God of Abraham demands it as part of the after-life pension plan - a God that wants it, and forbears from demanding it? That is a God I could at least respect. It is indicative of an ethical decision.

[inteuniso]

Reality is not perception, though; ergo, it doesn't work vice versa.

Using noncommutative quantum field theory is how you make a mathematical analogy for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

Wow I hurt my own head for that follow up, gimme a bit I gotta think about this one.

[Frumple]

snip

Respect, maybe, sure. But respect wasn't what was on the table

[Hanslanda]

I meant that, I don't have much thought put into why I am an atheist. It's basically: Invisible, imaginary friend? Not my thing. Book is two thousand years old and it's 3/4th genealogy. Then also Problem of Evil.

No offense intended btw. Just how I view things.

It should be that simple, but in the USA (particularly the South where I live) the issue gets pressed pretty hard.  Atheism is treated as an extreme statement, when it should be a non-statement.  Not to mention how the Bible is treated as a valid reference for political positions...  even by members of Congress.  Even if the Bible doesn't actually support their position at all, like pro-lifers.

And if you address issues with the Bible or their politicized interpretation, expect to be called a militant atheist or intolerant.  "Why do you hate Christianity so much??"  maybe because people keep abusing it in ways that affect me

I also live in the South, and it's legit insane. Folks here are militant about church. I have genuinely watched a hospital official badger a family member about going to church. Said fam is religious, just doesn't believe in Organized Religion.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Also from the South, and I just plain don't put up with it unless I have a material reason to hold my tongue. Otherwise it's full militant, full insulting, full offense. Those folks expect and demand that atheists, if they have to exist, be cowed and still reverent of Christianity. They can't last long against someone who refuses to grant them any ground.

Their two-hour apologetics course isn't enough to play the game if you don't let them define the conversation.

[RAM]

I would argue that religions which have moral imperitives are evil. They inherently deny the indifvidual the authority to make their own morality judgements and impose morality judgements that the individual is not permitted to question(Lacking a committment to god's authority is usually an official failure condition) and doesn't understand(They may have an understanding of it of their own, and agree with it independantly, but they are doing it for religious reasons and are not permitted to question those reasons sufficiently to understand them.). Externally-imposed morality imposes responsibility which is fundamentally incompatible with personal responsibility which is required to maintain personal morality.

So, doing evil despite religion saying I shouldn't means I am not responsible, but the religion is? Is that what you're saying, because I totally don't understand why external responsibility is incompatibile with personal responsibility. A soldier is ordered to mortar a village, he does it - of course his higher-ups are responsible to give that order, but so is he, as he could refuse.

Incompatible might be a bit strong... But they definitely degrade one another and have limited ability to coexist. If the soldier is under orders then they need a REALLY good reason to resist them. Prders are, basically, a religon, it works in much the same way. Soldiers have faith in orders on an immediate level and a theoretical level. If they don't have orders then it is enough to say "there are civilians in that village, bombing it would be bad" or "there are enemy soldiers in that village, I should bomb them to protect my allies". If they have orders, however, then it becomes not just a matter of choosing ones own morality. One needs to overcome the pressure of the orders, even without consequence that will be difficult, and with the threat of either misinterpreting your freedom to deviate from orders or misinterpreting the situation and finding out that you would have agreed with the orders had you known more...

 And that is with orders. You can study the finer points of when it is or isn't appropriate to follow orders according to official policy. You can study the history of people who have disobeyed orders. You can study the backgrounds of the people who give those orders. You are likely somewhat versed in the specifics of the country that granted them that authority. A religion doesn't offer nearly so much certainty. There is always some arcane elements somewhere in order to grant it a mystical air. Now, one would think that less certainty would permit more freedom, but it often tends to go the other way. Just because you can't be certain of what god wants doesn't mean that there isn't a correct interpretation and that there are no consequences for being wrong. You are going to spend more time trying to be certain that you are correct about your god's will and less about your own.

In short: being subject to an external authority distracts, inhibits, and undermines your own authority, and thus massively reduces your ability to apply your own morality. It really isn't easy for a soldier to refuse an order...

A morality that isn't challenged isn't justified...

Isin't... application of the morality it's challenge? What do you even mean by this catchphrase thrown in?

Just throwing arguments at the argument in the hopes that one of them will stick. And I meant challenging the morality itself for justification, rather than challenging the operator of that morality of their ability to wield it.

It isn't even enough to personally verify religous morality. One needs(In order to justify it) to generate their own morality independantly. It is the old arguing trick of going on the offensive. You can say "The president committed election fraud.". One reply is "There is no way that it is possible. They would have revised the security after those problems with the virus busters going wrong!". Another reply is "You keep crying about healthcare, but when you had your chance, nobody wanted it!". The latter is going to be far more effective because people will be too busy yelling about how wrong you are to remember their original issue. If ou start by verifying that you agree with the morality that you have been given, then you have already lost the chance to find out if there is a better one...

What?

If you justify your morality by taking the morals that you are presented with by religion and confirming that you are satisfied with them, then you have failed your own morality. The problem is that you skipped over the bit where you generate your own morality. You are too busy saying "I agree that stealing is bad" to think of "It is important to me to respect the efforts that others have put into acquiring what they have" or even "Everything is unicorns! Nothing else matters!".
...
If you want to have a morality of your own, then you must build the whole thing from scratch. If you just pick one up from somewhere and start using it because you don't actually have any desperate opposition to any of the parts that you use, then it will never be a perfect fit.

It's evolution, babe. We are we. It's not that we are inherently better, it's that humanity, as a species, got through a long way to get where it is now. If it wasn't "us", it would be some other animal finally figuring a way to develop civilization. And we didin't have the talent for language and manipulation of sturdy objects always, it's what we evolved. That's what it's actually about. It's not the humans who are gods. It's, ultimately life. Existence. Pure, unadulterated chaos. The only, underlying principle of morality is to ensure existence. Then you add a bunch of stuff ontop it to ensure that most of it exists in relative fairness.

I disagree with that last sentence being relevant to the rest of the statement. Evolution doesn't recognise fairness. Sure, sometimes they play in the same sandbox, but sometimes evolution will decide to walk somewhere and just barge straight through fairness without a thought and push it out... Fairness as a fictional narrative for the benefit of social cohesion is a thing that evolution can do. Fairness as a legitimate effort to grant equal opportunities to all is a departure from evolution. Humans are every bit as capable of escaping from evolution as a rock is, which is to say, rocks are also subject to evolution, but in a very different way, and humans could get onto an evolutionary methodology that is less... comprehensively terrible in every way...

And everything went through a lot to get where it is, humans are completely not special. Unless they bother to escape from the evolutionary black-hole of doom. Which they probably won't because they fail to see how blind they are when they obey the evolutionary imperative to love their own species. Also, ensuring existence is not actually a part of evolution either. Evolution is about doing what works at the present(With a large serving of random chance), not about caring what happens in the future(Although there are elements of incorporating adaptability). There have been way too many mass-extinction events for anyone sane to think that evolution will lift the tiniest finger to help anyone survive. In a very obvious example, human society is evolving to exploit resources. Humans who shamelessly drain resources wield more power, exert more influence over society, and 'succeed'... Humans are currently exploiting solar energy that accumulated over... a very very very long time... and it won't last. Society is crashing into a disaster by following an imperative to act as much as possible, and evolving to do so, while rapidly depleting the ability to do so. Anyone with a half a brain can see the stupidity of this, and yet every element of human nature is screaming to jump blindly into our own doom and nobody capable of accumulating independent power has the strength of character/denial of evolution to resist it.

without God there'd be no reason to want anything else and morality would pointless, as everything would be become nothing upon death.

Also your kids.

You kids become pointless unless they also have kids, and those are only as valid as their kids, which are only valid because they have kids, which they might not, and the concept of all possibilities occuring if provided with sufficient time indicates that eventually there will be no kids. Also entropy/gravity-death of the universe, or armageddon... But really, justifying kids with more kids is dependant upon valuing kids, and provides no inherent value for kids itself. You may as well just say that kids are self-evidently reason-for-being and thus everyone is self-evidently meaningful because everyone was kids at some point... Unfortunately some people don't feel that humans, even children, are self-evidently meaningful. Otherwise, would people be asking why their own existence is meaningful?

To ensure existence, see above. Even if you consider youself non-meaningful and commit suicide, you ain't even beating evolution, you're just playing it's game. You were too weak to survive, so you killed yourself. You won't take up resources, you won't breed, so others will be stronger. Evolution.

Please do not refer to "weak" or "strong" in relation to evolution. It produces a lot of misconceptions... You are correct in the playing of its game however, although suicide is sort of insignificant to the point of irrelevance. Breeding is much less important than most people think too. Still very important, but less than you would think. And evolution is not about survival, it is about obeying nature. Futility is just as much a part of evolution as anything else is. More so, actually, given conservation of energy... Evolution is not a friend, ally, or patron to anyone. We can actually grant some meaning to ourselves if  we care to, but as it stands, we are obsessed with perpetuating fundamentally doomed cycles in the desperate hope that our own individually doomed participation in that doomed cycle was meaningful. Recursive value is just sad.

Existence. Yours, others, future existence. Of course, someone can adopt a defeatist posture due to mentioned end of world - but... the only way to maybe figure a way out is to ensure existence, and if that doesn't work, then hey, you don't listen to songs because they will end one day, and as long as the song goes on, might at least listen to it and contribute.

I would like to figure out a way to ensure existence. That would be really nice. But we gotta bail on human nature in order to do it. Humanity is too busy drowning in compulsions and ignorance to escape from anything.

Really, free will is a false concept. It is not as though it does or doesn't exist, but there is no point to it either way. There is no potential for variation. All decisions are a product of mind and circumstance. mind and circumstance are entirely derived from mind and circumstance all the way back to the start of mind, and the forces that led up to that are a product of immutable processes from origin or infinity. The outcome of random chance is inevitable, regardless of whether it is predictable. The ridiculous cience-fiction notion of a parallel world being created every time a person makes a decision is ludicrous. the closest that could happen is infinite worlds with slight variations that resulted is varying decisions, possibly even commencing at the point of variation. The outcome is the same, but the process is completely different. The important point of all this is that the human mind possesses zero potential for variation from its inevitable course. The rock rolls downhill with the same certainty that the hippy feels that a war for the purposes of increasing the support for the ruling political party is bad. People think themselves far too special. The only power we have is to be party to invoking a specific result, or we can be amongst the rocks who abandon that and go with their impulses. I like to think that people would be party to making a better world if they saw it as a possibility.

To be honest, the "alternate universes" isin't about your will, but rather quantum mechanics and shit. It's not that you have free will, it's that that not all seems to be as simple as bunch of rocks.

You are referring to the one of the scientific multiple dimension sets(there is, by definition, only one universe) theories. I was referring to a phenomena described in science fiction, which is relevant because people seem willing to believe it. I was commenting on what people are willing to believe and fundamental flaws in perception evidenced by such, also it makes a convenient example of how things definitely don't work. This is the second time that I have been misinterpreted as regarding that a legitimate interpretation of anything and it is annoying. Free will is the idea that we have control over how we change outcomes. We cannot change outcomes, "free will" is isn't even legitimate enough to be correct or incorrect.

[TD1]

snip

Respect, maybe, sure. But respect wasn't what was on the table

The respect bit was extraneous

I was saying that wanting worship isn't bad in and of itself, so long as it is not demanded. If you have an impulse as Narcissistic as wanting to be worshipped, it reveals a certain insecurity. Control over that impulse recognises this, and seeks to correct it. That is the difference between a god demanding worship, and a god merely desirous of it.

Anthropomorphism? Perhaps. But I don't feel my values lesser to those of some purely hypothetical supra-dimensional being.

[Kot]

Incompatible might be a bit strong... But they definitely degrade one another and have limited ability to coexist. If the soldier is under orders then they need a REALLY good reason to resist them. Prders are, basically, a religon, it works in much the same way. Soldiers have faith in orders on an immediate level and a theoretical level. If they don't have orders then it is enough to say "there are civilians in that village, bombing it would be bad" or "there are enemy soldiers in that village, I should bomb them to protect my allies". If they have orders, however, then it becomes not just a matter of choosing ones own morality. One needs to overcome the pressure of the orders, even without consequence that will be difficult, and with the threat of either misinterpreting your freedom to deviate from orders or misinterpreting the situation and finding out that you would have agreed with the orders had you known more...

But you still have authority to make your own decision, even if in "ideal" scenario soldiers would always obey orders.

And that is with orders. You can study the finer points of when it is or isn't appropriate to follow orders according to official policy. You can study the history of people who have disobeyed orders. You can study the backgrounds of the people who give those orders. You are likely somewhat versed in the specifics of the country that granted them that authority. A religion doesn't offer nearly so much certainty. There is always some arcane elements somewhere in order to grant it a mystical air. Now, one would think that less certainty would permit more freedom, but it often tends to go the other way. Just because you can't be certain of what god wants doesn't mean that there isn't a correct interpretation and that there are no consequences for being wrong. You are going to spend more time trying to be certain that you are correct about your god's will and less about your own.

I feel like that's dependent on person in question, and ultimately you don't think about being correct about your god's will, but rather what other people want the god's will to be, and they tend to present you with a nice package of what they think god's will is, and it just happens it tends to be easily acceptable and fitting with the most common morality.
Sure, it probably means that most people just take the path of least resistance, and just accept that morality. But there is still nothing stopping you from thinking about it and having your own morality.

In short: being subject to an external authority distracts, inhibits, and undermines your own authority, and thus massively reduces your ability to apply your own morality. It really isn't easy for a soldier to refuse an order...

Meh, I suppose I just don't give a fuck about authority in general, so it's harder for me to think that authority would somehow influence my own judgement, but I know that it's a thing, (for example, Nazis or fanatical Muslims and so on), so in the end I do think it depends mostly on person in question.

If you justify your morality by taking the morals that you are presented with by religion and confirming that you are satisfied with them, then you have failed your own morality. The problem is that you skipped over the bit where you generate your own morality. You are too busy saying "I agree that stealing is bad" to think of "It is important to me to respect the efforts that others have put into acquiring what they have" or even "Everything is unicorns! Nothing else matters!".

Again, I don't think that's exactly how it works. I mean, it's very easy to think of other people as sheep that just always follow what others say, but it isin't always the case.
Sometimes, though.

If you want to have a morality of your own, then you must build the whole thing from scratch. If you just pick one up from somewhere and start using it because you don't actually have any desperate opposition to any of the parts that you use, then it will never be a perfect fit.

You can't really figure out a complete morality without being a part of society, which society will for sure have pre-existing morality "templates". It's up to you to take those "templates" and modify and evolve them according to yourself. Unless you're part of some fucked-up Harlow experiment.

I disagree with that last sentence being relevant to the rest of the statement. Evolution doesn't recognise fairness. Sure, sometimes they play in the same sandbox, but sometimes evolution will decide to walk somewhere and just barge straight through fairness without a thought and push it out... Fairness as a fictional narrative for the benefit of social cohesion is a thing that evolution can do. Fairness as a legitimate effort to grant equal opportunities to all is a departure from evolution. Humans are every bit as capable of escaping from evolution as a rock is, which is to say, rocks are also subject to evolution, but in a very different way, and humans could get onto an evolutionary methodology that is less... comprehensively terrible in every way...

Not really. The concept of "fairness" is actually something humans, and pack animals, in general, evolved. It's helping others when they're weaker for the benefit of group, survival of which is ultimately your own survival, and, again, evolution is still there. There is no way to cheat evolution, fairness is recognized by evolution because it's one of mechanisms it created, because, ultimately, evolution isin't about singular animal.
Look at humanity - while "fairness" caused a lot of bad things and supposed weakening of it in general (fat Americans anyone, various genetic problems and whatnot), think that it also allowed humanity to allow it's members that normally wouldn't have a chance also contribute, for example, Stephen Hawking.

And everything went through a lot to get where it is, humans are completely not special. Unless they bother to escape from the evolutionary black-hole of doom. Which they probably won't because they fail to see how blind they are when they obey the evolutionary imperative to love their own species. Also, ensuring existence is not actually a part of evolution either. Evolution is about doing what works at the present(With a large serving of random chance), not about caring what happens in the future(Although there are elements of incorporating adaptability).

Evolution is doing what works at present, which means surviving into future where you will be able to figure out what works then.

There have been way too many mass-extinction events for anyone sane to think that evolution will lift the tiniest finger to help anyone survive.

But it will, or at least will try. If there is a giant asteroid speeding towards Earth, do you think all humans are just going to sit around and watch? Or if there is some kind of plague, do you think nobody will try to find a cure? It's not about evolution not working, it's about what it can work with. Humanitys current status as technological species allows it to survive more.
 

In a very obvious example, human society is evolving to exploit resources. Humans who shamelessly drain resources wield more power, exert more influence over society, and 'succeed'... Humans are currently exploiting solar energy that accumulated over... a very very very long time... and it won't last. Society is crashing into a disaster by following an imperative to act as much as possible, and evolving to do so, while rapidly depleting the ability to do so. Anyone with a half a brain can see the stupidity of this, and yet every element of human nature is screaming to jump blindly into our own doom and nobody capable of accumulating independent power has the strength of character/denial of evolution to resist it.

Then move to other planet and exploit it, and then another one, and then another one, and then another one, and then another one, and then use up resources of literal stars, another star, another star, another star. Life isin't about conserving resources so you can die off for longer time. It's about using up your resources so you can spread and multiply and progress. Life isin't healthy, life is a plague.

Please do not refer to "weak" or "strong" in relation to evolution. It produces a lot of misconceptions... You are correct in the playing of its game however, although suicide is sort of insignificant to the point of irrelevance. Breeding is much less important than most people think too. Still very important, but less than you would think. And evolution is not about survival, it is about obeying nature. Futility is just as much a part of evolution as anything else is. More so, actually, given conservation of energy... Evolution is not a friend, ally, or patron to anyone. We can actually grant some meaning to ourselves if  we care to, but as it stands, we are obsessed with perpetuating fundamentally doomed cycles in the desperate hope that our own individually doomed participation in that doomed cycle was meaningful. Recursive value is just sad

And evolution doesn't care about being your friend, ally, or patron. It is you who should work towards being it's friend, because that's what going to work for you. Also, you're assuming the cycle is doomed from the start, but is it really? I mean sure, the conservation of energy, but, considering that we know (or at least have circumnstantial evidence) that it had a beginning, then, where exactly did it get from? What was before? We don't know, probably none of us ever will, and that applies to whole species, but we don't know. If we manage to survive, it might be figured out one day. I mean, one of theories is that world just collapses into singularity again and then explodes in Big Bang again (which you seem to imply by doomed cycle), but then it still doesn't explain how did it even get from, and some theories imply lack of existence of actual laws of physics and time inside those, which means the laws of physics, actually aren't as simple as you might think, and there might be exceptions you might use to your benefit, and it's even hard to grasp what can be ultimately done. We aren't even Type I civilization, we have no commonly applied fusion, we don't use renewable power in meaningful ways. Now, a Type II civilization has access to what basically amounts to practically infinite resources and power, and I don't know, finally technological singularity will become a thing. And even if nothing good happens out of it, and we all die and dissapear anyway, then heck, we at least had a good run.

I would like to figure out a way to ensure existence. That would be really nice. But we gotta bail on human nature in order to do it. Humanity is too busy drowning in compulsions and ignorance to escape from anything.

Human nature is what got us here. We are the swarm.

You are referring to the one of the scientific multiple dimension sets(there is, by definition, only one universe) theories. I was referring to a phenomena described in science fiction, which is relevant because people seem willing to believe it. I was commenting on what people are willing to believe and fundamental flaws in perception evidenced by such, also it makes a convenient example of how things definitely don't work. This is the second time that I have been misinterpreted as regarding that a legitimate interpretation of anything and it is annoying. Free will is the idea that we have control over how we change outcomes. We cannot change outcomes, "free will" is isn't even legitimate enough to be correct or incorrect.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I mean, what to argue with, I mean, I agree that there is no actual real free will, so I don't understand why you seem to be trying to convince me there isin't.

[RAM]

But you still have authority to make your own decision, even if in "ideal" scenario soldiers would always obey orders.

This feels like a free will debate. The civilian ordered to kill a bunch of people will probably refuse. The soldier will probably obey. Faith 'tweaks' people so that a bunch of scenarios in which they would obey their own morality instead switch to obeying a morality that comes from a source whose authority and nature they refuse to scrutinise. It is much like tweaking a tire's performance by changing its internal pressure, or adjusting the bar on a high-jump. If you do something because of your own morality then you are personally responsible for it. If you do something because of a god's authority then it is your fault for submitting to that god. Essentially, when accepting a religious morality contract, you instant accept guilt for everything that that contract might potentially lead you to do, as you do not know what precise things might eventuate, you are guilty of everything. Much like someone who drives through a crowd because they are drunk is, in fact, not guilty of choosing to drive through a crowd, they are instead guilty of making themselves incompetent enough at driving, and deducing it driving is a good idea, that driving through a crowd, along with every other possible terrible scenario, was plausible.

Religion is to morality what alcohol is to driving. Actually, if religion is ever relevant to driving, and alcohol is ever relevant to morality... Religion is equal to booze.

I feel like that's dependent on person in question, and ultimately you don't think about being correct about your god's will, but rather what other people want the god's will to be, and they tend to present you with a nice package of what they think god's will is, and it just happens it tends to be easily acceptable and fitting with the most common morality.
Sure, it probably means that most people just take the path of least resistance, and just accept that morality. But there is still nothing stopping you from thinking about it and having your own morality.

Except peer pressure, personal conviction, fear of harming your soul, safety in numbers... Religion decreases personal morality. To be fair, so does any form of exposure to communal morality, but religion makes a point of being arbitrary, arcane, intrusive, tribal, and overtly threatening. It is like with whistle-blowers. Generally, people will not be courage, honest, outspoken, and proper, but there are exceptions, and they are completely destroyed by their peers. It is really fascinating that people are distrusted for honesty, distrusted for conviction, slandered for morality, and banished for civility. Meh, humans are evil, ignorance is bliss, go team...

Again, I don't think that's exactly how it works. I mean, it's very easy to think of other people as sheep that just always follow what others say, but it isin't always the case.
Sometimes, though.

It is not so much mindless drones as it is trends of behaviour changes. Advertising is extremely effective as mind control, but nobody is irresistibly compelled by it(yet. I can't help but think that if someone found effective mind-control, they would just plug it into "buy expensive shoes", flip the switch, and nobody would ever think for themselves again. All without any grand overlord or evil conspiracy pulling the strings and nobody left to turn the thing off...). It just makes more people buy a thing than would otherwise. It is a gentle effect, but the fact that it works, even to the point of being detrimental to its victims, seems well established. If religion enters a society then that society becomes more inclined to obey the religious doctrine. It is not a good/evil switch, just a subtle trnd of reduced personal responsibility.

Evolution is doing what works at present, which means surviving into future where you will be able to figure out what works then.

That only works for mild changes. Drastic stuff still causes mass extinctions, assuming the absence of universal extinctions... Evolution is perfectly capable of being stupid. Well, okay, not actually, implying mental processes seems dubious, but the end result is the same. Evolution can result in lots of losers and zero winners.

But it will, or at least will try. If there is a giant asteroid speeding towards Earth, do you think all humans are just going to sit around and watch? Or if there is some kind of plague, do you think nobody will try to find a cure? It's not about evolution not working, it's about what it can work with. Humanitys current status as technological species allows it to survive more.

Technology is not biological evolution. The ability to invent is not the largest factor influencing the ability to acquire. A society with a propensity to produce inventors does have its advantages, but that only goes so far. According to popular theories, evolution has messed up with asteroids in the past, investing heavily in large organisms which didn't work out... Given how much people complain about climate change I am entirely willing to believe that people would sit by and let the asteroid hit. Climate change is not speculation, and even if humanity had no part in creating it, they still ought to be very interested in slowing it down. They are not, people are actively suppressing the mere concept of it. People already sit by and let plagues happen. Tuberculosis is way out of control and people would rather dump their fortunes into buying bombs to drop onto terrorists who became terrorists because of people dropping bombs on their neighbours... Evolution is like a drunkard who generally manages to stagger home, but sometimes doesn't make it. There is a definite trend towards functionality, but on a case-by-case basis, or from a perspective of long-term planning? There is nothing.

Then move to other planet and exploit it, and then another one, and then another one, and then another one, and then another one, and then use up resources of literal stars, another star, another star, another star. Life isin't about conserving resources so you can die off for longer time. It's about using up your resources so you can spread and multiply and progress. Life isin't healthy, life is a plague.

I do not see that happening. For one, we are talking about accrued solar energy here. Other planets don't have massive timescales of plants and animals storing energy for a planet. The amount of stored energy required to account for just the living biomass alone is staggering. If we were reduced to zero biomass and had to work our way up from newborn plants it would take ages to get to where we are in terms of volume and energy reserves, and that is assuming we still had our rich topsoil! But even if the mad race to exploit were viable, it would also require that we actually act upon it. Why would we waste money on perpetuating the species when we could spend it on I.V.F. and viagra?

And evolution doesn't care about being your friend, ally, or patron. It is you who should work towards being it's friend, because that's what going to work for you.

Surrendering to evolution is about as bad as surrendering to religion. There is still nobody observably competent directing things to a worthwhile outcome and you still end up being bound to arbitrary idiocy where you end up running around in fur-suits because evolution decided to try the anthropomorphism thing yet again because it didn't get over it back with the ancient religious theme of "before life as we know it, there was a bunch of talking animals playing pranks on each other, and Bob was there!". Nothing against furries, but I really don't see how that is a well-planned evolution of the sexual drive. Unless... Compartmentalisation of social groupings? Evolution has does some extremely impressive things. Through trial and error. Over timescales that dwarf all reference points. And many of those impressive things are impressive for just how phenomenally disastrous they were. Evolution is many things, but reliable is not any of them. Given the choice, imma ask for a refund.

Also, you're assuming the cycle is doomed from the start, but is it really?

Yes, time destroys all. Print your existence upon the background nature of existence? Just wait for someone else to accidentally set off an antimatter bomb in a teleporter that somehow replaces a few digits and renders you insensate...

Human nature is what got us here.

I do not like this address.

[Kot]

This feels like a free will debate. The civilian ordered to kill a bunch of people will probably refuse. The soldier will probably obey. Faith 'tweaks' people so that a bunch of scenarios in which they would obey their own morality instead switch to obeying a morality that comes from a source whose authority and nature they refuse to scrutinise. It is much like tweaking a tire's performance by changing its internal pressure, or adjusting the bar on a high-jump. If you do something because of your own morality then you are personally responsible for it. If you do something because of a god's authority then it is your fault for submitting to that god. Essentially, when accepting a religious morality contract, you instant accept guilt for everything that that contract might potentially lead you to do, as you do not know what precise things might eventuate, you are guilty of everything. Much like someone who drives through a crowd because they are drunk is, in fact, not guilty of choosing to drive through a crowd, they are instead guilty of making themselves incompetent enough at driving, and deducing it driving is a good idea, that driving through a crowd, along with every other possible terrible scenario, was plausible.

Religion is to morality what alcohol is to driving. Actually, if religion is ever relevant to driving, and alcohol is ever relevant to morality... Religion is equal to booze.

Not very good comparasion. Religion is more of a general drug - used right it can heal and help people, but it's also drunk driving. The original point was that religion is not inherently evil, it's using the religion wrong what leads to evil. If you shitface yourself so hard that you get into a car and drive through a crowd, you used alcohol wrong. If you shitfaced yourself so hard that you exploded in a crowd to get some virgins in afterlife, you used religion wrong.

Except peer pressure, personal conviction, fear of harming your soul, safety in numbers... Religion decreases personal morality. To be fair, so does any form of exposure to communal morality, but religion makes a point of being arbitrary, arcane, intrusive, tribal, and overtly threatening. It is like with whistle-blowers. Generally, people will not be courage, honest, outspoken, and proper, but there are exceptions, and they are completely destroyed by their peers. It is really fascinating that people are distrusted for honesty, distrusted for conviction, slandered for morality, and banished for civility. Meh, humans are evil, ignorance is bliss, go team...

It doesn't really, because religion is also personal morality. You usually (unless, like, indoctrination and shit) have a choice wether to adopt a communal morality or continue following it. Otherwise, we would still have the same morality as we had few thousand years ago, as only way to modify communal morality is change personal morality.
Unless God rewires our programming and changes our morality, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

It is not so much mindless drones as it is trends of behaviour changes. Advertising is extremely effective as mind control, but nobody is irresistibly compelled by it(yet. I can't help but think that if someone found effective mind-control, they would just plug it into "buy expensive shoes", flip the switch, and nobody would ever think for themselves again. All without any grand overlord or evil conspiracy pulling the strings and nobody left to turn the thing off...). It just makes more people buy a thing than would otherwise. It is a gentle effect, but the fact that it works, even to the point of being detrimental to its victims, seems well established. If religion enters a society then that society becomes more inclined to obey the religious doctrine. It is not a good/evil switch, just a subtle trnd of reduced personal responsibility.

And it's not evil. For longest time, religion guided thousands of people, and it caused them to do a lot of bad things in the name of various gods, but it also caused them to do a lot of good, and given them a reason to group up with other believers of said religion. I am not saying religion doesn't influence people, but it isin't bad. For instance, if you encounter an situation which you do not have time to think about and have no prior thoughts about except for what religion tells you, you at least have something, which can save someones life or something. As usual, don't think about it as rules, but rather set of guidelines...
Although at this point I am not even sure what to argue about, because I honestly don't see the problem. I don't see how using pre-established morality is bad. That's like saying using anything you haven't made completly by yourself is evil, and that brings us to like, hardcore all-for-himself ultra-Amish.

That only works for mild changes. Drastic stuff still causes mass extinctions, assuming the absence of universal extinctions... Evolution is perfectly capable of being stupid. Well, okay, not actually, implying mental processes seems dubious, but the end result is the same. Evolution can result in lots of losers and zero winners.

Theoretically, and as far as our knowledge of life goes. If humanity, or even life on Earth were to die off, then there's a some chance that alien civilization will arise and will utilize the resources we haven't. Evolution still going, the Aliens won. Even if all life in universe died, it can still start all over again, since it had to become in the first place. Sure, ultimately, if say, gravity causes the collapse of universe, it probably means ultimately rise of another cycle, up until someone actually wins at the game. Entropy is trickier, but also, theoretically, there could be ways to counteract and workaround that.

Technology is not biological evolution.

Still evolution. Still makes one ape stronger than other.

The ability to invent is not the largest factor influencing the ability to acquire. A society with a propensity to produce inventors does have its advantages, but that only goes so far. According to popular theories, evolution has messed up with asteroids in the past, investing heavily in large organisms which didn't work out... Given how much people complain about climate change I am entirely willing to believe that people would sit by and let the asteroid hit.

People are already monitoring all possible bolids that could hit. There are contingency plans in case of it.

Climate change is not speculation, and even if humanity had no part in creating it, they still ought to be very interested in slowing it down. They are not, people are actively suppressing the mere concept of it.

Boiling frog.

People already sit by and let plagues happen.

Not so much in developed countries. We still haven't reached a post-scarcity society where we can freely give everyone good treatment.

Tuberculosis is way out of control and people would rather dump their fortunes into buying bombs to drop onto terrorists who became terrorists because of people dropping bombs on their neighbours...

For profit. Profit means technology, better economy, resources, strength. Evolution.

Evolution is like a drunkard who generally manages to stagger home, but sometimes doesn't make it. There is a definite trend towards functionality, but on a case-by-case basis, or from a perspective of long-term planning? There is nothing.

Because there is no long-term plan, and there never will, unless there is actually God and he has reason for us all. World is chaos, after all, so all plans are useless in the long run anyway.

I do not see that happening. For one, we are talking about accrued solar energy here. Other planets don't have massive timescales of plants and animals storing energy for a planet. The amount of stored energy required to account for just the living biomass alone is staggering. If we were reduced to zero biomass and had to work our way up from newborn plants it would take ages to get to where we are in terms of volume and energy reserves, and that is assuming we still had our rich topsoil! But even if the mad race to exploit were viable, it would also require that we actually act upon it. Why would we waste money on perpetuating the species when we could spend it on I.V.F. and viagra?

Why the hell would you need accured solar energy, if you can just get a Dyson swarm and benefit from the solar energy as it goes? Or just fusion?

Surrendering to evolution is about as bad as surrendering to religion. There is still nobody observably competent directing things to a worthwhile outcome and you still end up being bound to arbitrary idiocy where you end up running around in fur-suits because evolution decided to try the anthropomorphism thing yet again because it didn't get over it back with the ancient religious theme of "before life as we know it, there was a bunch of talking animals playing pranks on each other, and Bob was there!". Nothing against furries, but I really don't see how that is a well-planned evolution of the sexual drive.

What.
I'm not even asking, but what.
I mean I suppose evolution is to blame for furries, as for everything else, but do you think that it's to be seriously took as something that will survive? I mean, that's the whole point, there is no plan, nobody competent directing things, nothing, because there can be no plan unless you are omnipotent and omniscient and there is nobody competent enough unless you are omnipotent and omniscient, and that is the only way you're going to get any progress done. You sound kinda like you don't belive in god, but wish he existed or something. :|

Yes, time destroys all.

Unless there is no time, which can be a thing, but w/e.

Print your existence upon the background nature of existence? Just wait for someone else to accidentally set off an antimatter bomb in a teleporter that somehow replaces a few digits and renders you insensate...

Then that someone survives and you don't. It isin't all about yourself, suprisingly.

I do not like this address.

Put on your fursuit then, I suppose.

[Rose]

Does anybody actually read these dump-truck loads of text?

[taat]

Does anybody actually read these dump-truck loads of text?

Yeah. Sometimes.

[Rose]

So, I've recently came to the realization that I actually do believe in the existence of God.

I just also equally believe that he is indifferent to humans.
He doesn't value humans over mosquitoes, or towns over tsunamis, etc. We aren't special in his eyes.

[smjjames]

So, I've recently came to the realization that I actually do believe in the existence of God.

I just also equally believe that he is indifferent to humans.
He doesn't value humans over mosquitoes, or towns over tsunamis, etc. We aren't special in his eyes.

So, basically God is highly advanced aliens watching over Earth? Just observing, never intervening.