I honestly don't know. People who want to remove guns from the citizens think that will reduce violence. The facts show the opposite. States who allow people to carry guns and concealed weapons have less crime. I lived in Dothan Alabama for over a year and everyone and his grandma carried a concealed weapon. The whole year I was there I only heard about one attempted robbery in a parking lot and the robber was scared off by a gun wielding grandma.

That town was one that had a church on every other street corner. Guns and churches. The town was full of them. It was a very peaceful place.

The only way you might test this theory is to find two towns and deprive one them of their churches and fill them with people who are either agnostic, atheists, or just don' care on way or another and see what the crime rate is.

I do know that places who allow people to carry concealed weapons have less crime, which is not what the government and some people want you to believe.

I compare religions to guns because they have both been accused of being "dangerous" and they both can be used for violence and good.




Of course not. That's an absurd question. But I was very impressed with what I saw church organizations and the people in them did for the victims of Katrina. And they did not hesitate, they acted immediately, getting trucks with supplies and driving them to the disaster area. They had the organizations in place and could act quickly. (Not that ordinary non-religious people or atheists and agnostics would not help others, ---but they have no organizations that are in place to act quickly.... and it may never happen.



That would depend on what you mean by "free expression." I believe people should be free to believe what they want to believe in the privacy of their minds and practice in the privacy of their homes and churches.

As far as "expression" is concerned, I don't think they should be allowed to publicly sacrifice a goat in the town square or impose a religious ceremony on a captive audience who may not share that religion. (I am against public prayer and public prayer in schools.)

If their 'chosen beliefs' do not harm others or wage war or violate laws. They can think that they are above the law but they still have to deal with the law, right or wrong. That is not saying that the law is always right either, it clearly is not. (In Hitler's Germany, it was illegal to hide a Jew in your attic but some people did it because they felt it was right.)



Unfortunately IF such control could be exercised it would be the government in power (or the dictator or King) and the law that would make those decisions. This is why freedom of religion and dissent is so important. In the case of a corrupt government there would be no balance of power and no freedom. Only government approved religions would be permitted.

Abra Wrote:


Darn - found out! I admit I'm on the bottom rung when it comes to Quantum Pysics. I read the posts discussing this subject with care and enthusiasm, but have little time to pursue it on my own....
So I would not argue any points you have to make regarding it.




You have reminded of the reason I often write supernatural/mysticism in this way. Supernatural (alone)often implis something beyond our knowledge but so many people use it synonomously with mysticism that the point of reference can lost in a discussion. (my bad)

So if you believe that there are supernatural forces and Q physics implies that, then I understand some of your view.

The rest, regarding the sudden leap from this particular supernatural to some kind of humanly embedded spirtual kinship with that force (to me) seems to be quite a leap of faith - which is why I have been likely to include your ideology as a religious orientation.

Just wanted to recipricate by passing on how I come by my thoughts and hopefully as well as you have passed on your own in the post I have quoted.

Yes this has helped and I do understand the point you are making and that you have been attempting to reassert them but we are still off-base in one area which I think is leading to my misunderstandings of your posts.

When we seek acceptence from a group, or love, or the comfort from a caretaker, we are not cognitively aware that these needs come from an embedded survival instinct. So when we take action to achieve these needs and desires, we are not equating these urges/needs to our survival.

In the same vein, the suicide bomber is not taking an action based on a desire to survive - rather they are taking the action because they have been trained to acknowledge these needs (crucial for our survival)in ways that are not natural. Dr. Andy discusses 'transferrence'. This is an absolute requirement for the denial of instinct and here's why.

Our survival instincts are not merely a mechanism for self-preservation but a mechanism for the survival of our genes first,(which includes self) for fictive kin next, and for the species after that. We are not cognitively aware of this when we take immediate action to save a person from possible death. In fact, if a situation includes kin we are just as likely to give or life for a kin as to save our own. We are more likely to save kin before others, and so on. When we attempt to make this a 'thought proscess' or a matter of etics we all stumble, we all experience cognitive dissonance because we are attempting to change an embedded survival mechanism.

The best way to get around that is to transfer the connections we make 'cognitively'. For example - God the Father, my brothers (notice the title of the lecture). Now we have created fictive kin - one step up in the hirearchy. Now add religious imperatives, we must love God so much as to deny our parents. STill cognitive disonance (the transer may work, it may not). So create an afterlife, in fact make it the reason for our being here - to prove our worth to attain it.

Well still might be some ambiguity there, depending on the situation. So now add some plot and story line - The greater your good deed the greater rewared in the afterlife. Well at least this is the ultimate way out of having to deal with possible failure in this life.. but take it further - if your good deed is great enough you will can choose to grant admission to X number of people of your choice into this paradise. WOW - eternal life, all the people you love (who will only love you more for your sacrifice)and all of it in paradise. Dang - where do I sign up - how soon after my death will I arrive in paradise.

Transference - it is a cognitive tool that is used to alter our actions in responce to an embedded survival mechanism.

Those who accept it do not see the absurdity in it and what's more there are millions of people who have been manipulated in similar ways and still think only "certain" religions are dangerous.

Once you open the door and accept one manipulation each new one is easier to accept.

I will return - at some point, but right now I'm going to play some pool and have a few drinks - only a few, I have to get up at 5:30.

I'm puttting that in writing on a public platform (that way I'm more likely to to what I say.)



Have a good night all!

"I admit I'm on the bottom rung when it comes to Quantum Pysics."

You should not be so hard on yourself. Because 1. QP applies to everyone equally, like the constitution; and because 2. A hard on looks good only on guys.



"The rest, regarding the sudden leap from this particular supernatural to some kind of humanly embedded spirtual kinship with that force (to me) seems to be quite a leap of faith - which is why I have been likely to include your ideology as a religious orientation."

You"re righty, Redy, this is EXACTLY what a quantum leap is all about. You have to experience it to believe it, just like everything else that is supernatural and mystical.

Ok, I get that.

Now let me see if I can simply it and rephrase it in my own terms…

The true nature of the inherent pro-survival goal is unknown or misunderstood. So, when comparing the true goal with the substitute goal, since neither one is well understood, any comparison of them yields an equally misunderstood comparison. So we go with the one that promises the highest reward, since we definitely understand that.

Or from the other side: If the true nature of both the pro-survival goal and the substitute goal were well and correctly understood and compared, then the contra-survival nature of the substitute goal would be easily seen.

Now I’m going to assume I’ve got that right and continue from there.

So as I see it, the fundamental problem is that the true nature of the inherent survival goals are unknown or misunderstood.

Which indicates as true to me because it points to the solution – full and complete understanding of our inherent survival goals.

And from there I go to: aberrant thought processes are the only stumbling block to achieving that understanding. It requires an objective analysis (and acceptance) of exactly what constitutes a “pro-survival goal”- which may in turn require an “unravelling” of all the layers of substitute goals that led to the final one of “suicide bombing”.

Thus, we must also be able to deal with (i.e. remove or circumvent) aberrant thought processes as well.

So relating all that back to your post, I consider this phrase to be the most succinct reduction of the heart of the problem: “not equating these urges/needs to our survival”.

That is, had we correctly equated these inherent urges/needs to our survival, we would have seen the contra-survival goals for what they were in the first place.

Does that work for you?

* * * If we'll ever attain such a comprehension,
that's when WE WILL BECOME GODS! ! !

I find it a bit presumptious to claim knowledge of what a bacterium is capable or incapable to comprehend.

Sky wrote:



What evidence shall we use to assess this line of thinking?

Is that evidence relevant, reliable, necessary, and sufficient?

What is 'true nature'? How can that possibly be assessed? We can show what has been shown by Dr. Andy regarding what he calls survival mechanisms, and they were supported and reasonably proven to exist. Those mechanisms are necessary for our survival, and persist whether one knows of them or not.

What would constitute 'what promises the highest reward'?

EDITED TO ADD:

What exactly do you mean by removing aberrant thoughts? If that is successfully done there would be no dissention from what could be wrongful popular opinion. To do that would re-inforce the issue at hand.

I do not understand how removing aberrant thoughts would fix suicide bombing mentality. It seems to me that it is the only way for one who adheres to that particular kind of belief/religion to walk away from it.

Indeed. I agree.

Since that section of my post was simply an attempt at simplifying and rephrasing what Redy said, but in my own terminology, all of those questions would be answered by understanding the correlates between her post and mine.

“Evidence”: The evidence is Dr Andy’s as given in his lecture, combined with any additional evidence given in this thread, particularly Redy’s since my post directly addresses her.

“True Nature”: I was attempting to use that term in the same sense that it was being used by Redy, which I understood to be synonymous with her terminology - “inherent properties” amd “survival mechanisms”. To me personally, it means the fundamental goal of survival as relates to all areas of life (including “afterlife”).

Now of course there has always been some difference of opinion as to the fundamental source and nature of “cognitive processes”, but in my consideration the differences are not significant enough to affect the logic in the context of our respective posts. But then Redy may not agree so we may have to go into that. I don’t know.

“what promises the highest reward": That would simply be whatever the individual deemed most rewarding based on his own survival goals. In the case of the suicide bomber who has his inherent survival goals “hijacked”, that would be “suicide bombing” – the reward being a garden full of willing virgins (or some such).

Just to be clear, I said, “aberrant thought processes”, not “aberrant thoughts”.

I am focusing on the cause that leads to the bombing, not on the rationalizations following the bombing. (Although I really think they are one and the same as far as the thought processes are concerned.)

In simplest terms, I would consider “suicide bombing results in increased survival potential on a spiritual level” to be the result of an aberrant thought process.

Now of course there are a lot of intermediate differentiations, associations and identifications involved in the overall thought process leading from “spiritual survival” to “suicide bombing”. But somewhere along the line one or more of those intermediate thought processes of differentiation, association and/or identification, was erroneous (i.e. “aberrant”).

So if we fix that/those error/s, the thought process no longer leads to the contra-survival conclusion of (spiritual survival = suicide bombing).

In other words, the commutative property of an equality allows for either term in the equality to be substituted for the other. So once one has arrived at such an equality as “bombing = survival”, then “bombing” can be substituted for “survival” in any other equation.

This is what I consider to be the essence of “transference” – a false(erroneous,aberrant) equality(identity).

So you are invoking 'spirit' as an instrument - the instrument - which determines 'survival goals', and an aberrant thought process as anything which contradicts 'spirits' goal?

Would that be correct?

Not for the purposes of the current state of the exchange between Redy and me, no. It would serve no purpose but to complicate the issue. The source of the survival goals is really unimportant. We agree that they exist and we agree on what they are. I only brought the term "spirit" into the conversation to point out that it is a factor in the decisions made by suicide bombers.

Now if you want to talk about my own personal beliefs, then…

Yes, I consider spirit to be "the instrument" that determines survival goals. Although I would never use the word "instrument" because of the connotations of “instrument” being something one uses, whereas in my view spirit is self, and it is self that determines survival goals.

But the way you phrased it would result in something like “self uses self to determine survival goals”, which leads to some tricky semantic problems.

Now I wouldn't define an aberrant thought process as "anything which contradicts survival goals" because I don’t think of a "thought process" as something that can be “contrary to a goal". I would say that a thought process could result in a decision that was contrary to a goal. And if the resulting decision were contrary to a survival goal, I would consider it an aberrant though process. That is, aberration, as a property or quality, is assigned to a thought process by comparing its resulting decision against the survival goals. If it conflicts, then it is aberrant. If it aligns, then it is not aberrant. In other words, “Deviation from” is the root of the word “aberrant”, so “deviation from pro-survival” would be the defining factor in the determination of an aberrant thought process. Or you could say that an aberrant thought process is one which leads to a contra-survival decision.

Now let me just say (again, as I have many times before) that in my view “survival goal” is not just “the desire to keep the body functioning”. It really includes anything that one might consider as “good” or “right” or “ethical”. (And actually, “good”, “right”, “ethical” and “pro-survival” are pretty much all synonymous.) For example, one could have, as survival goals, such things as “to have cake on my birthday” or “to reason logically” or “to save the planet” or “to have eggs for breakfast” or even “to reincarnate into a rich family”.

But as I said, that is my own personal belief system and really does not matter to the conversation between Redy and me as it now stands.

I’m sorry Sky I have difficulty replying to your posts because your view has not yet accepted what I have been trying to explain. So let me try one more time using the quote above.

In this quote it is clear that you are still relating “survival goals” on a level of conscious thought.

When there is an overwhelming fear your entire body is put on alert, you may not even know why you suddenly have this feeling. Something “below” the conscious awareness has recognized a need to fear and all the neurons in body have slapped the hormones into action and your body is just waiting for your conscious awareness to find the source of fear. This is most commonly referred to as the “fight or flight” reflex.

Take this example 2 seconds beyond the bodies alert status – your eyes, your hearing, sense of smell are working overtime – you glance out a window and you see the unnaturally huge wave of a tsunami headed toward your beach – Do you stop and think????? Hell no, you fly like the wind in the opposite direction, or you yell to your family members as you run around trying to gather them up. Yes maybe you think as you run but INSTINCT tells you to run and your body is way ahead of your conscious thought.

This is the kind of survival mechanism I’ve been discussing.
Your statement:



Tells me we are not discussing the same thing.

A less social primitive man, with no connection to any religious values paid attention to that instinct because there was nothing to override it. The instinct IS the desire to keep the body functioning and out of harms way. That is all it is and it is activated through your unconsciously realized sensory perceptions, that you may not even have 'consciously' equated with something to fear. But when the smell of a lion gets too close, while you are paying attention to something else, your body knows that danger is present. You may never have seen a tsunami before, but you know that the beech and water have never looked like that before and it scares you and you run – with no consciously well thought out understanding of why.

It takes a lot to make a person deny those instincts; it’s not just about making a person believe that something is not dangerous; it’s a series of steps, a reconditioning of the mind. The instinct is still there, it still functions and when it does a mind that has been manipulated, indoctrinated and redirected, will, upon confronting those instincts assign them to other causes.

This undermines the value of instinct which has one purpose, to assure that the best selection of genetic factors gets passed on to continue the species.

The argument that Dr. Andy makes proposes that our warring ways have been genetically selected because those who won, survived to pass on their aggressive nature.

It may not be that our aggressive nature is all that bad, but when you combine that selected trait with religious beliefs and a manipulated mind which fails to respond to an instinctual nature – that is dangerous.

When a religion assignes greater value to a spiritual existence than it does to the living - all of humanity needs to fear the weapons of war we have created.

When a religion maintains any belief in the dual nature of humans/animals as both spirit and physical - it is a belief asking for trouble because, while it may seem benign now, those beliefs can change very quickly.

Based on the current knowledge of Bio-chemistry, the intellectual capabilities of microbes haven't been established, yet.

But until then, I would be fascinated with what kind of grounds either one of you has for presumptiously assuming a bacterium intellectual capablilities? ? ?

Di, I hope you'll excuse this uncouth intrusion into the conversation you're having with Sky, but having followed it along to some degree I do have a few comments to make.

First off, I do agree with your assessment that you and Sky do indeed seem to be coming at the whole issue from drastically different points of view. Although, I'm not so sure that I agree they amount to 'spirit versus non-spirit'. As a third-party observer to the exchange it appears to me that the different views amount to one of a 'conscious premeditated through process' (Sky's view) versus an 'primal instinctual reaction' (Your view)

Now I only offer this as my perspective of the conversation thus far, and obviously I can be wrong in how I'm seeing this, but you did state the following:




Based on this you also recognize that Sky is looking at a level of conscious thought while you are appealing to primal instinct.

However, when it comes to a "suicide bomber" how that possibly reduce to the instantaneous "fight or flight" of fear as you have described above?

A suicide bomber doesn't 'react' instantly to become a suicide bomber instinctively. It's clearly a well-thought-out premeditated act.

So I don't see how any instinctual "fight or flight" reaction could even apply to the psychology of a suicide bomber. This is a person who has made a conscious decision to gear up and methodically carry out a well-planned operation.

So how can you dismiss Sky's treatment of it as such?

It seems to me that what you've describe above could not in anyway be applied to the psychology of a suicide bomber.


You also state:



Yes, this is sadly the history of homo sapiens (humans).

The more I learn about this the more I cry.

In the beginning of mankind there were actually three different species of "hominids" on planet Earth all living at the same time. One was called "Homo Erectus", one was called "Neanderthal" and, of course us, "Homo sapiens"

I've recently watched a lecture on the human genome and I'm totally amazed at just how much DNA data they have been able to collect. It's utterly amazing. Not only from living humans, but from the bones of our ancestors and from the Homo Erectus and the Neanderthal.

They have pieced together a record of how we came "out of Africa". We, being homo sapiens.

Homo Erectus was living in what is now Asia. Homo Erectus was believed to have crude language. But very crude. They say it was at about the level of a 5-year old. They conclude this by the types of activities they had performed I suppose.

In any case, we (homo sapiens) killed them all off. It would be like going in an murdering a bunch of 5-year-olds. It could hardly even be viewed as a 'war'. More like slaughtering monkeys.

Then we (homo sapiens) when into what is now called Europe and murdered off all the Neanderthal. Another species of hominid that was believed to be more highly linguistic than Homo Erectus but still no match for the strategies of the advanced mind of homo sapiens

So, yes, we are a very murderous species. However, guess what? This shows that we are a murderous species even when no religion is involved. It's highly unlikely that homo sapiens were thinking in terms of religion when they murdered off all the Homo Erectus and Neanderthal.

So in a very real sense, the evolutionary history of humans basically shows that we are a murderous species even when religion has nothing to do with it.

So, in truth, appealing to our evolutionary history we find that religious beliefs don't even matter.

So, Dr. Andy's argument falls all apart anyway. Evidently we're just a murderous species whether we're religious or not.

Very interesting. Wux, so many of your comments are in jest, that I'm left unsure how to take some of them. I find most statements about the comprehension abilities of non-human life (and even non-life) to be presumptuous... but a bacterium would appear to lack even the ability to sense reality on a scale of, say, centimeters. Or even millimeters. Unless they are doing it collectively...those sly devils.

The most interesting thing here is my tendency to dismiss others' presumptions while failing to notice my own.

I’m sorry this happened the way it did because I think you and I are discussing the same thing.

The quotes you are referring to were specifically in reply to Creative’s questions and how they related to my own, personal philosophy.

In that post I tried, very specifically, to differentiate between my reply to him and my replies to you.

My replies to him were oriented toward the spiritual aspects of my personal philosophy because that is what he asked about.

In my replies to you, I was trying to avoid any reference to the spiritual (other than how it plays into the thinking of the suicide bomber.)

In my view, the context was completely different between what I was saying to you and what I was saying to Creative.

I really do totally and completely understand the unconscious survival mechanism you are talking about. I completely agree that it is unconscious.

So I hope you believe me when I say that I understand what you are talking about regarding the unconscious survival mechanism, and that what I said to Creative was not meant to imply that I thought the survival mechanism you were talking about was a conscious one.

So from there, we can go three different directions…
1) “down” into those survival mechanisms themselves – their source and composition, and how they relate to other things such as “the body”, “the mind” and “the spirit”
I see this as being basically a philosophical debate – which is pretty much where Creative’s questions were leading.

2) “up” into how to undo the effects of the hijacking
It seems like we agree on how this must be done – basically “unravelling” the multi-layered hijackings through examining and identifying “what happened” at each layer.

3) “sideways” into other, similar situations – such as street gangs, nationalism, school loyalties, racial prejudices, etc.
This was where I was going with my “red-herring” arguments – how the exact same “hijacking” process has been used throughout the secular areas of life. And I think this is the most pertinent to the topic.

Now from the rest of your post, it seems to me that you are going in the philosophical direction (#1)…

There are a multitude of small-to-middle-sized points there (and one or two big ones) that that I have some disagreements with. So rather than deconstructing the entire thing sentence by sentence (or phrase by phrase in some cases) let me just say that I don’t think that “the mind” (including “instincts” for the most part) is a product of evolution. And considering what (I think) I know about your views, I feel fairly certain that they are about as diametrically opposed to mine as they could possibly be. So I’m not sure if we should even go there. Not that I’m unwilling – it could be interesting. But I think if we do go there, it should be done in a whole other thread of it’s own.

Redy,

I think I see where some confusion might be coming from.

When I refer to “survival goals” I am not differentiating between “conscious”(reasoned) and “unconscious”(reactive.)

As far as I’m concerned, everything that all living things do has “increased survival potential” as it’s ultimate purpose.

And the same goes for “abberant survival goals”. They can be either “conscious”(reasoned) or “unconscious”(reactive.)

So I think maybe if you re-read some of my posts that you might have disagreed with, in that light (particularly Mon 10/26/09 05:50 PM), it might help to understand where I’m coming from.

No demand, just suggestion.

Sky,

My apologies to you(and anyone else)who may have thought my questions were intended for anything other than to clarify what you were actually saying.

Dr. Andy specifically gave a list of different instinctual survival mechanisms, all of which persist in other species as well as homo sapiens. He extrapolated upon those by giving examples in history of how they most likely benefitted our survival.

The important thing to remember is that a mechanism consists of different individual elements, and to focus upon only one of those may not be helpful. What is true for a whole is not necessarily true of the individual elements which constitute it.