Re: Mind's Eye Towards a modern morality

Marx said religion was the opiate of the masses...close enough,
however! I don't know much about Schopenhaur except he was anti-female
and his mother shoved him down a long staircase (a clue?) plus
something about a will to Power.

On May 18, 1:45 pm, "pol.science kid" <r.freeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> no i guess Schopenhauer said.. religion is philosophy of the masses...
>
> On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 11:48 PM, pol.science kid <r.freeb...@gmail.com>wrote:
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> > Your post touches many relevant points.. but right now the point about
> > religion comes to my mind... its true religion has been a source of
> > morality for the most people...like it was schopenhauer(?) who
> > said religion was the morality or ethics of  the masses.. dont remember
> > clearly ... anyways... see what i observe is.. the ethical hold of religion
> > is fast disappearing...i rather see religion being appropriated for
> > political propaganda..or communal menace... plus.. i wonder how you can
> > remove religion form the past legacy in invoking it for morality afresh...
> > religion does not have a glorius history.. i dont know really know.. havent
> > read religious history... i often wonder how it would be if there was a
> > community.. functioning politically, terrtorially integrated and sovereign
> > composed of all atheist people...   i guess our brains or minds are too
> > steeped in history to be entirely radical(Routine and familiarity have
> > such a powerful hold)... how many would support the system of ethics not
> > enforced by an idea of the divine or sacred.. or God.. but it would be
> > wonderful if we had something of the 'Kantian' ethics .. based on
> > humanity... i wonder if any doctrine to live by has the force of religion..
> > is religion a condition of the mind? i guess any system can turn
> > tyrannical..
> > from a personal example- i had a friend.. who was an atheist.. a very
> > radical dude..until.. he suddenly changed.. we find out after one summer
> > break hes turned into a devout christian(going to church regularly and
> > sometimes quoting stuff from the bible!)..we totally freaked out.. see he
> > was originally from a tribe...their own tribal religion was sort of weak he
> > had once told us... but to continue.. all our friends had a very negative
> > reaction to his sudden change... though none of us were really atheists we
> > sort of had an aversion to devout practising of religion... it was also
> > weird because he was an atheist... and then suddenly hes so full of faith
> > and everything... our reaction was wrong..though it didnt ruin our
> > friendship(we stilll loved him and realised we were being fools).. in our
> > rush to be free of all this dogma and superstiton sorrounding us  we
> > dismissed his individual choice.. and didnt respect his decision.. we were
> > acting like some dogmatic superstitous people ourselves.. my point of this
> > lame story was that maintaining balance is a tricky thing...
> > ... i am a cynical person too you know... but i guess you would know
> > better cos youre older than me.. but i have been proven wrong in my
> > estimate of the people around me.. which is reassuring... you view of the
> > young generation is valid.. its true.. but i think we cant possibly become
> > worse than we already are.. in the whole sum of things...
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> >  On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 9:43 AM, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
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> >> My stance towards most moralising is one of incredulity, yet I'm a
> >> moraliser and believe most of our problems lie in our lack of personal
> >> and collective morality.  Economics as our political and business
> >> class practice it is fundamentally immoral against a scientific world-
> >> view,  My view of science is that it is full of values and the notion
> >> of it as value-free is a total and totalising dud.  Only lay people
> >> with no experience of doing science hold the "value-free" notion of
> >> science.
>
> >> You can explore some of the moral issues arising in modern science in
> >> a lengthy book review at London Review of Books -
> >>http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n10/malcolm-bull/what-is-the-rational-response.
> >> The book's topic is climate change.
>
> >> Coming up to 60 I regard the world as a abject failure against the
> >> promises I thought were being made in politics.  I'm a world-weary old
> >> fart now, tending to see the generations coming up as narcissist
> >> wastrels who don't know what hard work is (etc.) though I think the
> >> blame is ours, not theirs.  I think the problem is our attitude
> >> towards morality.  The tendency in history is to focus on religion for
> >> moral advice - this is utterly corrupt and we have forgotten that much
> >> religious morality is actually a reaction against unfairness and the
> >> wicked control of our lives by the rich.  It is this latter factor
> >> that is repeating itself.
>
> >> Much moralising concerns sex.  This all largely based in old fables
> >> for population control we can still find in primitive societies such
> >> as 'sperm control by fellatio' (Sambians) and non-penetrative youth
> >> sex (Kikuyu) etc. - and stuff like 'the silver ring thing'.  The
> >> modern issue is population control and that we can achieve this
> >> without sexual moralising - the moral issues are about quality of
> >> life, women as other than child-bearing vessels and so on.  We have
> >> failed almost entirely except in developed countries - to such an
> >> extent the world population has trebled in my lifetime despite
> >> economic factors driving down birth-rates in developed countries
> >> without the kind of restrictions such as China enforced.
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> >> We are still at war.
>
> >> Our economics is still based in "growth" and "consumption" and notions
> >> human beings should work hard - when in fact the amount of work we
> >> need to do probably equates to 3 days a week for 6 months of a year.
> >> 75% of GDP is in services and only 6% in really hard work like
> >> agriculture.  We could have a great deal more through doing less and
> >> doing what we do with more regard for conservation and very different
> >> scientific advance.  My view is it's immoral that we won't take
> >> responsibility for this and review our failures.  I believe this
> >> failure inhibits our spiritual growth and renders us simply animal.
>
> >> Human life may be much less than I value it at and just a purposeless
> >> farce.  The first step in a new attitude towards morality is to
> >> consider living with a scientific world-view.  The implications of
> >> this are complex and probably entail shaking ourselves from a false-
> >> consciousness to be able to see what is being done in our name.  We
> >> need a modern morality not based in the creation of fear and demons to
> >> enforce it, or the feeble existential view of the individual.  We are
> >> social animals and need to get back to some basics developed with
> >> modern knowledge, not in past religious and empire disasters.
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> >> Religion has a role in this in my view - religion we might recapture
> >> from sensible history - I'd recommend David Graeber's 'Debt: the first
> >> 5000 years' as a read here.
>
> > --
> > EverComing
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> --
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