anybody feel guilt?

[ellenjanuary]

Guilt leads to anxiety, how is that good?

I understand the implications; but using forethought and experience is preferred to carrying guilt.

 

[slowbreath]

Guilt leads to anxiety, how is that good?

I understand the implications; but using forethought and experience is preferred to carrying guilt.

its possible for guilt to cause anxiety, depending on the individual, but not nessesarily. most anxieties are caused by psych disorders.

 

[slowbreath]

It's twofold:
1) Certain behaviors and tendencies can be strengthened and selected for via evolution. These general sort of behaviors can be seen in the animal kingdom, not just humans. Hence, we have bats that perform reciprocal altruism, dogs that have a sense of fairness, chimps that are able to show sympathy, etc.

2) Cultural reinforcement. Moral memes are passed down from parents to children, and are reinforced by what the child experiences within his culture.

Morality is very much a part of what makes society possible, so it is not that curious that it would have been selected for evolutionarily and valued culturally.

so it would be fair to say that you believe the theory of evelution and what you call cultural reinforcment are respondsible for morality. that still means that somewhere along the line someone or something had to decide what the moral was going to be........and i`m interested in what you think that someone or something might be.

 

[Twilight Hue]

My sister always told me guilt sucks.

 

[Falvlun]

so it would be fair to say that you believe the theory of evelution and what you call cultural reinforcment are respondsible for morality. that still means that somewhere along the line someone or something had to decide what the moral was going to be........and i`m interested in what you think that someone or something might be.

As for the evolutionary part, no one need have decided anything: it was simply a fact of nature that certain organisms that displayed certain "moral" behaviors were more likely to survive than those that didn't.

As for the cultural part, humans decided. They had an evolutionary base that gave them a proclivity towards getting along with members of their own group. But they also had minds that could reason and think about these things. That's why there is such a wide variety of morality in various cultures. It also accounts for morals that really would have nothing to do with survival (and therefore can't be accounted for evolutionarily) such as "don't eat pork". Religions obviously had a lot to do with this as as modes of moral creation, transmission, and enforcement.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I sometimes feel guilty about my lack of feeling guilty.

 

[ninerbuff]

I feel guilty about eating some Mike and Ike's right now. Okay guilt over, now off to the gym to burn it off.

 

[slowbreath]

As for the evolutionary part, no one need have decided anything: it was simply a fact of nature that certain organisms that displayed certain "moral" behaviors were more likely to survive than those that didn't.

As for the cultural part, humans decided. They had an evolutionary base that gave them a proclivity towards getting along with members of their own group. But they also had minds that could reason and think about these things. That's why there is such a wide variety of morality in various cultures. It also accounts for morals that really would have nothing to do with survival (and therefore can't be accounted for evolutionarily) such as "don't eat pork". Religions obviously had a lot to do with this as as modes of moral creation, transmission, and enforcement.

if those eveolutional molicules had to decide what morals would help them better survive, where did that power to decide come from? it had to come into existance somewhere along the line. intelligent thought just didnt pop into existance...or do you believe it did?

 

[Falvlun]

if those eveolutional molicules had to decide what morals would help them better survive, where did that power to decide come from? it had to come into existance somewhere along the line. intelligent thought just didnt pop into existance...or do you believe it did?

The DNA of an organism does not have a conference to decide which traits are best for survival. It is simply a matter of which DNA survives long enough to be passed on to the next generation.

To take a non-moral behavioral example: baby chimps have a strong grasping reflex and instinctively know to cling to their mothers. The organisms who did not have the instinct to hold tight to their mothers would likely fall off and die before they had a chance to reproduce. Thus, the "non-clinging gene" died out, and the "clinging gene" was passed on, becoming stronger and more dominant through subsequent generations. There was no consensus or decision among the genes to decide that the "clinging gene" was better for survival. This is the same mechanism by which we could get behavioral traits that were eventually considered to be "moral".

 

[Blackheart]

How sad for you, to look at all of humanity, in all its beauty and variety, and see it as "a joke." You must watch too much news, because for every 1 person out there that is evil, you have hundreds that are living normal, decent lives, and trying to leave the world a better place.

And nobody is trying to disprove god so they can be their own gods and do whatever they want. I have never met an atheist who had this motivation for not believing, and I consider it a gross misrepresentation of atheists. Atheists don't believe because "god" (actually the universe) gave us a brain and then decided not to show us that he is there at all, so they see no reason to believe. And there are countless "inspired" scriptures, all describing different gods, and they all have about as much evidence to back them up as all the others.

People are atheists because they think its unjustified to believe in god, not because they actually think there is a god and they don't want to have to put up with rules. If you want to lie and say this isn't true, so be it. BUT YOU ARE LYING.

The universe was either created by an intelligent being/force or it created itself. If you take away the first option (as athiests do) then you are left with the universe being created by itself. Naturally the most powerful entity has the power to be ruler of all things known. The most powerful enitity known to an athiest is the human race....this makes the human race god over all things within our grasp. If you dont think that athiests believe that humans are at the pinnacle of existance then YOU ARE LYING (but only to yourself because I see right through you).

Not having seen God face to face does not mean that he could not exist. Many people feel him and that is how they are sure that he is there. Just because an athiest does not feel him doesnt mean that he doesnt exist.

 

[ninerbuff]

The universe was either created by an intelligent being/force or it created itself. If you take away the first option (as athiests do) then you are left with the universe being created by itself. Naturally the most powerful entity has the power to be ruler of all things known. The most powerful enitity known to an athiest is the human race....this makes the human race god over all things within our grasp. If you dont think that athiests believe that humans are at the pinnacle of existance then YOU ARE LYING (but only to yourself because I see right through you).

Not having seen God face to face does not mean that he could not exist. Many people feel him and that is how they are sure that he is there. Just because an athiest does not feel him doesnt mean that he doesnt exist.

Lol, why would an Atheist believe we are gods, when we don't believe in gods to begin with?

 

[outhouse]

does anybody feel guilty about not living up to their diests standards, and what are you going to do to remedy that, or do you hope it will just turn out to be ok for you, or are you even concerned about it?

not guilty at all, and why would I be. I live a great life and do the best I can.


if you feel guilty its usually a sign your a piece of dog doo. its called a conscious

 

[Blackheart]

Lol, why would an Atheist believe we are gods, when we don't believe in gods to begin with?

Because of your obvious intellect we can deem you as exempt :run:

 

[Falvlun]

The universe was either created by an intelligent being/force or it created itself. If you take away the first option (as athiests do) then you are left with the universe being created by itself. Naturally the most powerful entity has the power to be ruler of all things known. The most powerful enitity known to an athiest is the human race....this makes the human race god over all things within our grasp. If you dont think that athiests believe that humans are at the pinnacle of existance then YOU ARE LYING (but only to yourself because I see right through you).

I think this says more about your beliefs than it does most atheist's.

Don't you think it a bit hubristic to believe that humans are the "most powerful entity in the universe", if god didn't exist?

And why would "most powerful" mean that you had the right (or the ability) to be ruler of all things known?

And as for being the "pinnacle of existance", actually that is more in line with traditional Christian teachings: man is the crown jewel of creation, God's specially created pet. Most atheists acknowledge the fact of evolution, which means they also acknowledge the fact that humans are just another branch in the tree of life.

I am an atheist, and I don't believe any of the things that you stated atheists must believe. Not even close.

Not having seen God face to face does not mean that he could not exist. Many people feel him and that is how they are sure that he is there. Just because an athiest does not feel him doesnt mean that he doesnt exist.

Right. Which is why many atheists do not take the hard line: There is no god. More often it is formulated as "I don't believe there is a god" or "it is unlikely that god exists". If we don't feel god, then why should we assume he's there?

 

[jmvizanko]

The universe was either created by an intelligent being/force or it created itself. If you take away the first option (as athiests do) then you are left with the universe being created by itself. Naturally the most powerful entity has the power to be ruler of all things known. The most powerful enitity known to an athiest is the human race....this makes the human race god over all things within our grasp. If you dont think that athiests believe that humans are at the pinnacle of existance then YOU ARE LYING (but only to yourself because I see right through you).

Not having seen God face to face does not mean that he could not exist. Many people feel him and that is how they are sure that he is there. Just because an athiest does not feel him doesnt mean that he doesnt exist.

What has already been said in response to this can't really be beat by me. Your understanding of atheists clrearly comes straight from your bible, which says things about us that just aren't true. If anything, a lot of what the bible has to say about atheists are some of the finest examples that show something the bible just gets flat out wrong.

But once again, I'll tell you, since you obviously still don't think so, atheists are atheists because they see no reason to believe in a god, not out of some selfish rebellion.

 

[slowbreath]

The DNA of an organism does not have a conference to decide which traits are best for survival. It is simply a matter of which DNA survives long enough to be passed on to the next generation.

To take a non-moral behavioral example: baby chimps have a strong grasping reflex and instinctively know to cling to their mothers. The organisms who did not have the instinct to hold tight to their mothers would likely fall off and die before they had a chance to reproduce. Thus, the "non-clinging gene" died out, and the "clinging gene" was passed on, becoming stronger and more dominant through subsequent generations. There was no consensus or decision among the genes to decide that the "clinging gene" was better for survival. This is the same mechanism by which we could get behavioral traits that were eventually considered to be "moral".

thats a good explaination, probably the best ive heard, it seems its simply a survival of the fittest deal, which does make sense at most levels for most people.
theres still the thing about variety thats not clear. why variety in species? whats the point? one may say that a certain animal has not yet evolved into as advanced creature as another, and that eventually all creatures will eventually become the top of the food chain when enough dna manages to survive to get them there.

 

[Falvlun]

thats a good explaination, probably the best ive heard, it seems its simply a survival of the fittest deal, which does make sense at most levels for most people.
theres still the thing about variety thats not clear. why variety in species? whats the point? one may say that a certain animal has not yet evolved into as advanced creature as another, and that eventually all creatures will eventually become the top of the food chain when enough dna manages to survive to get them there.

I wondered about this too at one point. It's all about niches: each organism is inhabitating a specific sort of habitat. This includes things like geographic location, type of habitat preferred (soil, treetops, inside another animal, etc), food type, etc. Unique niches allow an organism to grow without (or with less) competition from other organisms. In other words, a sea cucumber is just as highly evolved as a dolphin, since they are both perfectly suited for their respective niches.

Another very important thing to remember is that evolution is not a ladder. It is not directional. It is better to imagine it as a bush, with branches sticking out every which way. Yes, it benefits some species to become more complex, but it might benefit others to become more simple, to "lose" more complex traits. It's all about the demands of their environment, their niche.

And since there can be (essentially) an infinite amount of niches, there can be (essentially) an infinite variety in species.

 

[Erebus]

does anybody feel guilty about not living up to their diests standards, and what are you going to do to remedy that, or do you hope it will just turn out to be ok for you, or are you even concerned about it?

I only live up to my standards, if I fall below that standard I only let myself down. Sometimes I feel guilty if I do that, but rather than dwell on it I look to improve myself again.

Example, over Christmas I put on more weight than I liked, so I went on a diet and started excercising. I've lost the weight again but figured I might aswell keep it up.