You will find comprehensive answers here:
The Theological Origins of Modernity, Michael Gillespie

And you don't even have to read the whole thing.

https://www.amazon.com/Theological-Origins-Modernity-Michael-Gillespie/dp/0226293467/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2W2DQ8DXXV8C0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.G5iRyE9Wgb6mk6RP_S0uCt9RcZdxPmXw1qJw3WOuHEAmq5QU0qX7u7_8N_FKT6JtULdBVuCTIymlheuzkZoql3SiQBnUpQ8cm1r1kenATO19A2D4BcwW1b_ZxEF1ZbFXclZqM-QpJ84Kbacm9_kxlYPuEB9UMmV-vUOhR-ufB09Thv66GfImc8CLLRpzOjl9AoNEjdTs7gTyjHYbzRVaCzdD_P_oqyhizYONfEfUS8k.1hAKMATODsRXIHEP06_vuvR9b87bDJMLtoJJGRAtY4o&dib_tag=se&keywords=The+Theological+Origins+of+Modernity&qid=1715787555&sprefix=the+theological+origins+of+modernity%2Caps%2C108&sr=8-1

Or if you're lucky, your local library. — tim wood

Pefect!! "Exposing the religious roots of our ostensibly godless age, Michael Allen Gillespie reveals in this landmark study that modernity is much less secular than conventional wisdom suggests."

I am so happy you posted what I attempted to say in my post just before this one. I am afraid I need that book. :grimace: I already have too many books, but this particular subject is what is most interesting to me at the moment. :up:

This was all centuries after West Rome came apart, and what does Genesis have to do with it?
The thread doesn't have a clear topic. — Lionino

:lol: I accept that I do not meet a higher standard of writing. I will always be more personal than technologically correct and I will always wonder and enjoy what others think.

The importance of Genesis is the mythology that has molded the whole of Western civilization. I don't think anything is more important to societies than their shared mythology. Even for those of us who do not believe the Bible is the word of God, it is still a strong part of our lives because it is the foundation of our culture, along with the Greek and Roman classics. We can not escape it. The word "human" means moist soil. Our failure to be aware of how Christianity affects our lives does not mean we are free from that mythology.

The story of creation was not actually a christian idea, it came from African tribes and was already ancient when the christians adopted it.

The western part of the Roman empire was broken down into many little kingdoms that over centuries became larger with only one king and developed the feudal system of government.
Christianity expanded and became the major religion in western Europe and separated for the Orthodox church in the east.

Over the centuries both the church and the lords eventually became so corrupt that the peasants revolted against both.

During the Early and High Middle ages, most advancements came about through the inventiveness of the peasants, better farming methods and tool technology, the use of wind and water power.

The Late Middle Ages was when the started to re-discover the ideas of the ancient Greeks and that started the renaissance. — Sir2u

That looks like a good account of what happened. I am learning from The Great Courses and I am having a devil of time comprehending the break up of Rome and eventual development of nations. I need to see a map. It would be really cool to see a map that changed colors as people moved from one area to the next. It is easier for me to grasp a thought if I can see it.

Have you watched "Star Trek: The Next Generation"? They don't have any money. Look at the world and its history. It's full of suffering, inequality, injustice, and death. The system I proposed will minimise suffering, inequality, injustice, and death. We will share everything instead of the divisive system we now have. Look what non-vegans do to sentient animals every second: — Truth Seeker

Star Trek is a fantasy. On a ship, all things are provided by the shipping company. This was so for Star Trek and the three ships Columbus led across the ocean. However, when reaching the new planet there must be a means of exchange. Hopefully, this exchange is better than "Give me everything I want and we let you live".

All social animals organize themselves around a leader and family order. Under the sun we are the same, but in relation to each other, we are not. A technological society is not as ordered around family as we once were. In the past, the whole family could determine our opportunities, such as getting a job with the railways because one's father worked for the railway, or getting the job of dog father because your uncle is the major. Technology has changed that old order and the New World Order is based on individual abilities. Today we are specialized and our job depends on our merit. This is very so in Star Trek.

There are good and bad things about this New World Order. If you want to resolve problems you must first identify what the problems are and then what the solution is. Or we can just jump to assuming the world you imagine does exist. Why does anyone do anything? How do individuals gain the ability to do anything? What values do they learn and how do they learn them? What motivates them to do anything?

It should be democratic and there should be a separation between the government and religions. Policies should promote environmental sustainability, the elimination of pollution and promote the equal rights of all sentient beings. Everyone should receive according to their needs and contribute according to their abilities. Everyone should have equal social status from conception to death. We should all be vegans. Everyone should have equal standards of living. Money should be banned. All means of production should be owned by everyone equally. — Truth Seeker

Why would people want that?

How does an economy without money work?

I think the whole world should be one egalitarian country. — Truth Seeker

And how is that organized?

The only ones that really behaved themselves while the church had power were the poor peasants. And even they got to the point where enough was enough and revolted against the church. — Sir2u

Yes and what is that enough, of which you speak?
Who started the peasants' rebellion? Might the trouble have begun with people with a degree of wealth and education who riled up the peasants? Might that rebellion have begun with Scholasticism?

Scholasticism is the term given to a medieval philosophical movement that combined Catholic theology with the philosophies of more ancient writers such as Augustine and Aristotle. During what is called the Carolingian Renaissance, Charlemagne set up schools in every church throughout the Holy Roman Empire. The monks began to study and learn in these schools, and the schools attracted learners from all over Europe. The word scholasticism comes from the word for “school” because the movement began in Charlemagne’s schools.

Plato’s and Aristotle’s ideas and traditional Catholic dogma were influences on Scholasticism. Scholars sought to apply logic and reason to theology and to create a “web” of distinct truths that, when compared to one another, show truth to be an internally consistent whole. The same process can be seen in many academic systematic theologies today. https://www.gotquestions.org/Scholasticism.html

Is transubstantiated bread and wine real? :chin:

According to the eucharistic doctrine of Roman Catholicism, the elements of the consecrated bread and wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ: their substance is converted into the substance of the body and blood, although the outward appearances of the elements, their “accidents,” remain.Apr 17, 2024
Eucharist | Definition, Symbols, Meaning, Significance, & Facts

That's great. You probably have a local humanist organisation depending on which country you live in. Try Googling for it. — Truth Seeker

The closet organization is in another state. There is nothing in the northwest of the US. I need to look into the organization very carefully because if it is what I am looking for I will contribute money and my time and energy. I would have to attract like minded people and develop an organization that is part of the larger organization. That would be a great way to use my Toastmistress training.

I think, I would like to devote myself to bringing Jerusalem under international control and an international historic site. And how about moving on to creating Athens as an international historic site, and what other places should be added to the international historic sites?

And if a being could only make the perfect choice, would there ever be any option or choice to make? Wouldn’t that mean such beings had no reason to ever choose, as each “choice” was really just a seeking of the knowing the one way to act?

And if you didn’t already know the right way to act, knowing the perfect choice (as when you pause to consider options), how can you say you are all-knowing?

But that said, people are so damn intolerant, willing to act unreasonably, self-centered, and just plain hurtful, it’s worth thinking about how to change this without losing the real circumstances that beg us to tolerate differences, to be patient enough to find reasonableness, to consider others before ourselves and seek to help others instead of hurt them.

I wouldn’t change the world. If I could change myself, and we all could, this world could be good enough. — Fire Ologist

"God's law is 'right reason.' When perfectly understood it is called 'wisdom.' When applied by government in regulating human relations it is called 'justice." Cicero

I agree with your final statement, but we need to extend our desire for the good life to all people because we are in this swimming pool together and what one does affects another. :grimace: I grimace because while that is true, when it lacks the liberty of all, attempting to have the perfect world can be a terrible experience. The "Anabaptist dominion of Münster" and tyranny of Calvin and his followers began with good intentions and I am not sure all would have gone well even if they were allowed to continue.

Perfection demands balance and that makes imperfection possible but it is a whole lot better than tyranny. While we have negative qualities as you listed, I must argue your point because we also have so many good qualities. Circumstances can bring out the best in us or the worst in us. Again to agreeing with your final statement, I don't think anything could be better than what we have because we have not reached our full potential and if we don't exterminate ourselves we may achieve a better better. :grin:

The Renaissance was a long process that came about because of curiosity and the unwillingness of people to keep on blaming god for everything, not because of peoples fantasies.
If Martin Luther had not caused the loss of Catholic authority someone else would have, the situation was ripe for the things that happened. And there were already different ways of seeing the bible, the Jews and the Orthodox amongst others church disagreed with the Catholics on many things. — Sir2u

I want to work with what I am learning about the Renaissance and the Reformation so that I can gain a better understanding of it. Working with the topic of this thread, what would have happened if there had been no Black Plague in the autumn of 1347? Did that plague lead to the weakening of the Catholic church and the rise of Protestantism? What could have happened if the "Anabaptist dominion of Münster" had been allowed to continue?

Especially the "Anabaptist dominion of Münster" should appeal to @Truth Seeker wish for love and peace without government suppression. The anarchy following the weakening of Catholic power and control is a lesson for us, isn't it?

I bookmarked that site. It is something I want to look into. I think I would very much like to join like-minded people in an organized manner. The social function of the church is very important. For all of us who can not go that route, we need a choice that serves that social function but is compatible with what we believe.

A huge benefit would be ending the Christian myth that we need a supernatural power to think and do good.

I am listing to a professor's lectures on the Renaissance and Reformation, times of big changes. I think we come to another period of big changes. Is there anything from the past that might help us today?

Fantasies are helpful in creating the future. What would have happened if there was no Renaissance? What if Martin Luther had not caused the loss of Catholic authority and a new way of seeing the Bible?

So we agree religions are made up by people, but we are at a cross road that demands a new story. For more and more people it is impossible to become a member of a religious group because given what we know today, it is impossible to see truth in the religion. What can unite us and give us social agreements, when religion fails to do this for a growing number of people?

I am listening to a professor's lectures about the Renaissance and Reformation. The1400s was a terrible period in history with overpopulation then plagues and wars and such a decrease in populations, peasants were legally chained to the land and forced to be farm laborers. All their freedoms were lost as they supported the greater society with their labor and tax money. Then the shit really hit the fan when Martin Luther challenged the authority of the Catholic church and the exploited people began fighting for their freedom and better lives using the Bible to justify their rebellion. We might ask what is the moral we can take from history?

We can begin with Socrates. When people are exploited, sooner and later, they become a problem to those who exploit them. You know we are being dehumanized when AI handles such things as our application for a job and we can not get an interview. That is one of the problems with overpopulation. We do not need everyone, so people get marginalized and once they are marginalized it can be difficult to reenter the workforce. What can we expect to happen when people are pushed to the margins of society? That is a moral question. How do we start including everyone in society?

We have Goodwill stores that hire and train people with problems getting a job. I have heard Germany does an excellent job of getting unemployed people employed. I wish I knew more about what Germany does to help people get jobs. On the other side are our homeless people who become like feral cats as they lose their ability to function socially. It just is not a good thing to marginalize people and not include them in society. Let me establish some authority on this subject by letting it be known I was one of those people on the outside. I was so overwhelmed I was dysfunctional.

Okay, today AI is dehumanizing and I am quite sure this will increasingly become a problem until things are so bad we are forced to do things differently. It would just be nice if we could think things through before things get any worse.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. So, are you a deist or a polytheist or a pantheist or a panentheist? I am an agnostic about the existence and nature of all Gods. — Truth Seeker

I am sure the story of the creation of Adam and Eve should not be understood literally. It is most likely a plagiarized Sumerian story about a river that flooded and was dying until the Goddess causing him to die changed her mind and another goddess healed him. Then the river asked for help staying in its banks and a goddess used mud to create a man and woman and breathed life into them. Abraham and his people lived in the Sumerian city of Ur before starting their trek to Egypt.

I am sure the Biblical god is a tribal god and a story of a god leading people to promised land is not unique to the Hebrews. Believing a place is sacred is not unique to Hebrews. Believing people can be favored by a god is offensive and a false justification for wars.

I believe the universe follows laws that can not be broken and this fact does not depend on a god. Surely not a god that is like a human as Zeus and the God of Abraham are very human.

I am not convinced that God or Gods exist. Are you convinced that God or Gods exist? If so, which God or Gods exist? How do you know this? — Truth Seeker

I like life as it is because there is so much to change and we have the potential to make that change. Let us play with the understanding of God.

Christians carry the Greek understandings of logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe, and the trinity of God, Father Son, and Holy Ghost.

The Greeks began with Egyptian concepts of gods and the Egyptian trinity of our being. When we die one part of the trinity dies with the body. A second part of the trinity is judged and may or may not enter the good afterlife, depending on the weight of our hearts. :grin: We need to be light-hearted. The last part returns to the source, no matter what. Understanding Eastern thinking is very important to our understanding.

Chardin, a Catholic priest who was sent to China, learned from the East. He explained, "God is asleep in rocks and minerals, waking in plants and animals, to know self in man." We are God's consciousness. We do not question the notion that we must have brains to think, but oddly we think a God can think without a brain. Of what could such a god think? We get this when we deified Jesus. Jews acknowledged our lives can not be known without the physical experience of being humans. What follows that understanding is a deified man. The big problem here is the need to stick with one god. To Constantine's horror, Christians started killing each other over the problem of the trinity being 3 gods or 1. In Latin, there was no word for a trinity of one God so they had to invent a word to explain the trinity of God before the Christians could stop killing each other.

The trinity of God externalizes God and the trinity of humans internalizes God. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

I know what I know because of a lifetime of seeking knowledge and in my old age, I realize most of our disagreements are about perspective. When we do not know a concept, we can not think about it. By trying to learn of God by attempting to know all beliefs, I have a very wide perspective. Whereas a Jew, Christian or Muslim will have a very small perspective. A few religious people attempt to know more than their holy book, but not the mass of religious humans.

The idea of being objective or subjective is often approached from the perspective of rationality. However, it may come down to core values, which may be more complex, in standing back and thinking critically, as they are so involved in daily life and bound up with the reflective processes in philosophy and philosophy. This may involve fetters that get in the way of self-awareness, leading to blindspots, which may be stumbling blocks in philosophical understanding, making the distinction between the subjective and objective into a blur of confusion so often. The only possible way to disentangle this may be by looking to the depths and sources of underlying beliefs, especially in relation to core values. — Jack Cummins

Wow!

I cheated and edited what you said with Grammarly hoping to make it easier to understand because you express such deep thoughts and I want so much to better understand what you are saying. As I read what you said, I reflected on how I wish I had known what I know today when I was younger and I wish I knew today what I hope to learn about myself and my blind spots and how to do things better.

Your title asks us to think politically and what a thrill that is when we realize what all our different points of view have to do with expanding our consciousness and having better moral judgment. :heart: Someone told me a Hawaiian greeting is "I am sorry. I love you. Will you forgive me?" What if all of us could humble ourselves enough to come from love instead of judgments of each other? And to do this politically so we hold shared ideas of what is and what ought to be and the best way to manifest that change. To me, that is what democracy is about.

Maybe God wills that for you, so you must buy lottery tickets because that is what God wants you to do.

Why are people the way they are? — Truth Seeker

In part because of their stories. If we lived with Greek gods or a creator who didn't have favorites nor an evil counterpart, we would be different from people who believe there is only one god and that they can know the will of that god, who is always in favor of what they want. A god who expects them to kill for what they believe is rightly theirs. A god who justifies their wars with the belief it is the other who is evil and so it is God's will that be exterminated the others.

I very much like your argument. Who would want to play Monopoly if every game were the same? I thrill at the possibility that things could be different and I might effect that difference and nothing is more fun than reading a different point of view that gives me a better sense of meaning than I had before.

The bottom line is I pretty much like life as it is, but I would love to go back in history and change history, putting all of us on a different projector. Such as, what would happen if Abraham and his followers had never settled and remained nomadic herders? What if Athens had the power of Rome and Rome did not have military power? Or what if the Native Americans had been able to keep their land and the only way Europeans could live in America was to conform to the way of the Iroquois Confederacy? What if the US did not take Britain's side in WWI?

The problem may be with religious fundamentalism and its various forms. The subjective ans objective aspects of thinking may be important, especially the way in which ethical ideals and values are based on assumptions of religious belief, or secular perspectives of 'reality', with the religious ones being considered as more objective, in the absolutism of perspectives of religious thinking. — Jack Cummins

Last night, I watched a Nova explanation of "intelligent design" being a modern way of explaining "Creationism" and why it is not science. Creationism can not explain cause and effect and can not predict. Science explains cause and effect and a good check on that explanation is if it can predict the effect of a cause.

I do not have a good understanding of being objective or subjective. If I am trying to figure out how something works, am I being objective or subjective, or how about just curious? Like is wondering subjective of objective? What if we imagine something and check if it can be true like Einstein?

Or if I can get closer to the subject- do we know enough about economics to make good decisions about things that affect our economy? Would that be subjective or objective?

You all inspired me to look for a definition of the word "fact"

A fact is a true datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means. For example, "This sentence contains words." Wikipedia

Now I need to know what a datum is and this definition causes me to think about the Greek philosophers and what math had to do with the separation of rational thinking from the gods and the evolution of science coming out of philosophy.

A geodetic datum or geodetic system is a global datum reference or reference frame for precisely representing the position of locations on Earth or other planetary bodies by means of geodetic coordinates. Wikipedia

A fact is a fact if we are aware of it or not. Washing one's hands in polluted water can spread disease if observers realize that is what is happening or not. Making the ritual of washing of hands in an area that is wet and the well is close to the sewage a hazardous practice leading some to think the ritual of washing hands is not a good idea.

When reading the Bible we might want to do some fact checking before believing it is the word of God.

A theory might or might not be a fact. We can not judge that without checking and rechecking what we believe is true.

Myth is a genre of folklore or theology consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. For folklorists, historians, philosophers or theologians this is very different from the use of "myth" simply indicating that something is not true. Wikipedia

It is not factual. It is not science. It can not predict. What we think about myths is an opinion of what is true and believable.

I would love to go back in time and prevent all suffering, inequality, injustice, and deaths. I would love to make all living things all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful but I can't. — Truth Seeker

Hey, should we start a thread for that? Everyone can pick his/her time in history and place and say what should be changed, why, and how?

I loved Genghis Khan, the early Nintendo game. I loved that we could save the game and repeat a part of it if things went really wrong. I also liked how it expanded my ideas of what is important and how to balance everything. Most important lesson, war can destroy your empire, so don't go to war if it can be avoided. However, if the British are causing the people to starve to death there is no good choice but to try to get rid of them.

↪Athena I live in the U.K. currently but I was born in Bangladesh. I have read the book "Brave New World" and I don't have the time to watch the movie but thank you for the recommendation. Governments are supposed to protect people but they don't always succeed. — Truth Seeker

Why would anyone leave Bangladesh? I think of Bangladesh as very exotic and with a rich history. Meaning, that some of the earliest people at least passed through the region and later inhabitants developed pottery and things of metal. They had a very impressive military with elephants, surely the tanks of their day. That may have kept Alexander the Great from tromping all over them.

Today Bangladesh is one of the most threatened countries because of global warming but when the first people walked through it must have been a paradise with abundant food. I would love to go back in time and check it out.

Who gets to concentrate the wealth that farmers, miners, urban centers, traders, etc. create? — BC

That is a delicious question! But I want to point out the killing of which Truth Teller speaks is emotional and I don't think the US has ever dealt with the number of emotionally unstable people that it has today. Our western TV seems to focus on killing. Every episode someone is killed and that probably is not a realistic account of our past. But today the number of mass murders committed by emotionally unstable people is alarming. I think we need to get past the notion of good and bad people, and be more scientific about our understanding of such behavior. The moral being a matter of cause and effect.

I have noticed some people have a strong opinion of what it means to be a strong person and how this person should have control. I am not sure if they are part of the problem or part of the solution.

Now you have stated an opinion I don't agree with, and we were getting along so well! :smile: — BC

Not where he grew up. He has dealt with a lot of killing and lawlessness. There are areas on earth that are not healthy for humans because humans tend to fill their heads full of lies and than act on them in destructive ways. Hum, that could make a good thread. What is required for safe communities?

↪Athena That's interesting. Time will tell. Thank you for telling me about it. — Truth Seeker

For darn sure we are not going to achieve our full potential with the God of Abrahman and Biblical explanation of reality. As long as we cling to superstition we will not have good judgment about reality and ourselves.

↪Athena I am just going by what I have observed. 99.9% of all the species to evolve so far on Earth are already extinct. The world is full of omnivores, carnivores, herbivores, and parasites. Why aren't all living things autotrophs the way all plants (except for carnivorous plants) are? It would be even better if all living things were nonconsumers. Human history and our present are full of violence, murder, war, exploitation, slavery, genocide, rape, torture, robbery, theft, etc. I have been kidnapped, raped, beaten up and robbed. Six of my relatives were murdered in separate incidents. My best friend was also murdered. The criminals got away with the crimes. If hard determinism is true, the criminals are not even morally culpable. "Might is right. Adapt or die" is what I have seen from my earliest memories to the present. I hate all the suffering, inequality, injustice, and death in the world. I wish we lived in a nice world where everyone is forever happy. I don't think it would be boring. If every living thing were all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful and owned an infinite number of universes each, how could we be bored? — Truth Seeker

Where do you live, Chicago, New York, L.A. the jungles of Africa? We institute governments to protect ourselves from ourselves. However, that alone is not enough. :heart:

There can be no liberty without education for liberty, and perhaps there can be no security until every child experiences security. For sure, technology is essential to better lives, but until we figure out governments must be funded by thesource of income, we will not achieve the economic power required for better lives. When machines replace human labor, the source of income is those computers and machines and they must be taxed because they replace the human laborer that is taxed.
This is not a new idea, taxation began with property taxes, and our machines are property.

Securing the resources for low and high-tech economies can lead to war, so we have to be 100% honest about our need for resources and how to share the resources with the world. This is an intellectual feat we have not achieved. Religion has not helped us one bit when it comes to sharing the earth with others nor has the Bible given us the intellectual capacity for the honesty world peace requires.

Yipes as I struggle to imagine a perfect world, I am reminded of the novel/movie Brave New World. Have you seen it?

It could be fun to form a group that can commit to watching that movie 30 minutes at a time and then comment after each viewing. We must remember our best intentions can go very wrong.

↪Athena The universe of Star Trek is a positive one but it is fiction. I try hard to keep my personal ecological footprint low. Are you talking about New Age spirituality? — Truth Seeker

A notion of a New Age was carried by Masons and the forefathers of the US. It is part of the Enlightenment and hope for our democracy.

Spirituality may or may not be part of a person's understanding of the New Age. It is a time of technology and the end of tyranny. A time of peace on earth resulting from advanced intellectual strength and I believe we can achieve this if we do not destroy our planet before we do. This mental evolution means people in the New Age will not be able to relate to our more our primitive past that is dominated by being as animals without a well-developed intellect.

↪Athena Might is right. Adapt or die. This is how the real world works. I wish we lived in a nice world where every living thing is forever happy but we don't. — Truth Seeker

Be careful you might get what you wish for. It might not be what you want.

I have no desire to go to heaven. The idea of living eternally in perfection is not desirable. There would be no good movies or novels without problems to overcome. I have no idea what would motivate me to get up in the morning. Without problems to resolve, what would give me a sense of propose? Might such a life be intolerably boring?

"Might is right" is pretty primative and comes from the notion that God is the might and chooses who will live and who will die. Really? what kind of statement is "might makes right". You jest, right?

↪Athena I didn't know things were so bad. What is the solution? — Truth Seeker

At this point in time I don't know if there are any good solutions but I am very excited about the possibility of a New Age that could be more moral than any previous time in history. To prepare for that we must consider the possibility that we are in the Resurrection now. The past is being brought into the present by the archaeologist, geologist, and related sciences. It is our job to learn all we can, and reevaluate everything, so we can move into a New Age that is so different from the past those in the New Age will not be able to relate to the history of our past.

You know, like a Star Trek show where an advanced civilization makes us look primitive.

"morality" is that morality as cooperation is the underlying principle that explains why past and present cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist. — Mark S

Cooperation with whom? We are very diverse and we hold different ideas about God and God's will for us. I sure as blazes will not cooperate with people I want to avoid, like the Jevohva Witnesses who want to explain God to me and make me one of them. :grimace: Or the Christian Nationalists who are more authoritarian than liberal.

Neither I am going to support Israel at the expense of Palestine.

To me, it looks like we all have different ideas about what an ideal civilization is and want others to conform to our notion of how things should be. I don't feel very cooperative. My bad.

I've only read a few introductory summaries about Hegel but did not see that connection. — Mark S

I am sure freedom was not the grand Christian idea of what is desired and all German philosophers were influenced by Christianity. Martin Luther thought the witch hunts were necessary and that God decided who would be a master and who would be a slave. The Methodist believed they held the answer to making people good people. Quakers and Puritans competed to produce the most saints.

I have held the impression that Hegel thought freedom was obedience to the state and the state was God.

“The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on Earth. One must worship the state as a terrestrial divinity.” “A single person is something subordinate, and as such he must dedicate himself to the ethical whole. Hence, if the state claims life, the individual must surrender it.”Jan 6, 2017

Hegel on Worshipping the State - Library of Social Science — Library of Social Science

I am no authority on Hegel but for sure he was influence by the Christian notion of God and this blending of religion and the state holds some dangers.

I agree, but I think Mark is saying something more than this. Being a social animal is not a principle that underlies and encodes what it is that people think is moral. Within a societies there may be agreement but between societies there may be disagreement as to what behavior is and is not acceptable. He points to cooperation within a society but this is not the same thing as cooperation between societies. And even within a society we may cooperate with some members while conspiring against others. — Fooloso4

How about you are both right? I think we need to start at a base line. How would we behave if we did not have language and therefore the ability to argue with each other? Genghis Khan told his people to never pick one religion over another and never settle down in cities and begin accumulating things. Among the Mongols lying and stealing could be a death sentence. As Genghis Khan saw it there was no reason to lie of steal because a stranger lost in the storm was always given shelter and food. The reasoning for that is anyone could be lost in a storm and to refuse someone help could be a death sentence. We know these people as great warriors who would kill every man, woman and child and raze their towns to the ground, making the land good pasture land for their horses.

As they saw things people living in cities were immoral as they refused to help those who needed help, and some of them were very rich while others starved to death and had to lie and steal to have a chance of surviving this immoral city living.

Who was the most moral?

Yes, the difference in our environments can lead to differences in our understanding of morals, but we are all human, just as horses are horses and birds are birds. We most certainly can look at evolution and come to conclusions about being human. Then move on to understand why these humans don't agree with those humans. Or we can just study the Greek and Roman classics and pick up where they left off, as we all must work on our agreements just as the ancients did when they traveled and their paths crossed with people who were different.

↪Gnomon Please see https://thehumaneleague.org/article/environmental-benefits-of-veganism — Truth Seeker

:gasp: Just because the factory farm produces plants instead of meat, that does not make them sustainable. It is not possible for us to use soil over and over again without replenishing the nutrients in the soil and even than this does not give us the soil that is replenished by volcanos or flooding or an ice age that shoved top soil into valleys. One of the most important nutrients is phosphate and if current usage of it continues, the world's supply maybe depleted by 2050. Just as serious is our fertilizer is made with petroleum. We are less worried about that than we were before fracking made oil more available to us but believing our farming practices are healthy and sustainable is just wrong. Not only are we depleting the minerals but we are polluting rivers and oceans. "GeoDistinies" by Walter Youngquist.

The huge industrial farms we have today resulted from a study to improve the lives of small farmers. Instead of the study improving the lives of small farmers, it destroyed them because the study revealed the industrial farms could feed more people than small farmers can feed. So the small farmers were sacrificed for the good of the millions of hungry people.

Now we have the global warming that is rapidly depleting our water supply. In area fed by meling glaciers, we can see the trouble coming but the depletion of underground water is not so visible. The world is about to experience severe water shortages that could lead to desertification of our once fertile land.

The moral of this story is the ancients were correct when they foresaw the day when there would be more life on earth than the earth could support. There is nothing mystical about the Biblical last days. It is just Fibonacci math and knowing the struggle for survival.

I do not mean becoming vegetarian would not improve things temporarily, only that solution is temporary.

↪BC I agree that we also go to war over resources e.g. land, oil, etc. — Truth Seeker

And so do most animals. What makes us different is our ability to think about such things. We want to believe our wars are just wars, whereas animals don't ask the question, they just chase away the immigrants. :lol: Do we have anything to gain by allowing the immigrants to move in or take control of a neighbor's homeland? What are the morals we might gain from Greek and Roman history versus the success of Christianity and other religions?

I didn't claim or imply that it did. You make it an empty phrase, Mark, by confessing you do not know what "our ultimate moral goals" are and yet propose that a "science of morality" can describe conditions which determine them. This kind of jugglery is of no use to moral philosophy. — 180 Proof

We used to read our children moral tales and at the end of the story ask them what is the moral of the story. The moral was a matter of cause and effect. The Little Red Hen did not share her bread because no one helped her make it. The fox did not get the grapes because he gave up and walked away saying they were probably sour anyway. The Little Engine that could, made it over the hill because he did not give up.

The book titled, "The Science of Good and Evil" uses animal studies to make its point. I think that pretty well determines some of the science of morality.

That what is thought of as moral is biologically encoded is at best a hypothesis and at worse an unsubstantiated assertion. In either case it is in need of scientific evidence. What is that evidence? — Fooloso4

I am not sure I understand you correctly but I do know doing something nice for others is one of the best ways to feel good. We know our sexual behavior is linked to our hormones. We know men's testrogene level increases when they watch football and this can lead to aggressive behavior. Isn't our knowledge of hormones scientific evidence?

Or how about the study of animals and how it can help us understand our own good and evil? We are one of many different social species. All social animals are biologically influenced to conform to social expectations and if one of their kind steps out of line, another will react in a way that encourages conformity. This results in nonconformers being pushed to the outer circle where they are the most apt to become a carnivore's dinner.

The potential to "do anything." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Looks as though you put some serious effort into expanding your consciousness and writing your reply. I want to respect that. I also want to move the discussion forward with argument.

Potential to do what? Is Trump a good model of a free man grabbing women by the pussy and bragging about it? Is this the model of leadership we want or is there something wrong with that understanding of freedom? Do we want a leader who says he can get away with murder? Are there desired restrictions to "freedom"? Freedom without principles and good moral judgment can be an evil. Education that has nothing to do with principles and good moral judgment, but focuses on power and freedom, might increase evil.

When we tore down all the restrictions on freedom of speech and action and promoted Superman, did we open the bowels of hell? I think this has something to do with the development of Nazi, Germany and what is happening in the US today. The story we tell ourselves is very important so we should pay careful attention to them.

And the father who gets up to tend to the baby may not gladly do this if the mother does not share this responsibility. There are negative consequences to sleep deprivation and taking someone for granted. I am struggling with this argument because I think our motive to do this or that is complex. It is not just about our character but also the circumstances.

How do we decide what is fact and what is opinion? There are more than 8.1 billion humans on Earth and our conflicting ideologies, religions, worldviews and values divide us. I worry that we will destroy ourselves and all the other species with our conflicts. I think that if we could work out what is fact and what is opinion, it would help us get on with each other better. — Truth Seeker

I agree with you. We do need to know the difference between a fact or an opinion. Believing in a God can not be a belief about fact because there is no substance that can be empirically studied. However, we can study animals and learn about humans.

Religion has to be opinion. An opinion that a mythology is true. The temperature of the sea and reality of increasing natural disasters are a fact. Believing a God will save our sorry asses and give us a new planet to destroy, is not based on fact.

One is in our heads and not empirically studied. The other can be empirically studied. However, :chin: math is pretty abstract and not exactly matter but it is amazing what we can know with math. Is there a word for this that is other than "opinion" or "fact"?