Makes me wonder how your life would have been transformed differently had you been issued the Bhagavadgita instead? Or some other spiritual doctrine.

Clearly you were intent on changing your ways in any case.

I quit all my bad habits on my own, fortunately before they got too far out of hand.

I'm glad to hear that you were able to change your attitude toward life. That's certainly a good thing whether it was a 'miracle', or simply a choice made out of desperation to change things.

The end result is good, and that's what truly matters.

So I'm glad to hear that things are working out for you.

There may be truth to that statement. But it does not follow from that statement that all knowledge is based on belief. On the contrary, a person may actually believe something because they know it to be truth. In this case knowledge would be the basis of belief, rather than the other way around. So you would have things precisely backwards.

In other words, you seem to be implying that belief must come first, but where is the justification in that?

Moreover, if you reduce all knowledge to nothing more than beliefs, then you are also simultaneously demanding that all beliefs equal knowledge, necessarily so.

In fact, if you can even make a distinction at all between belief and knowledge, then your implication that belief is required for knowledge is necessarily false, because at that point, you will have already defined knowledge to be something other than mere belief.

So it appears to me that your whole thesis here is standing on highly irrational and illogical grounds and faulty reasoning to begin with.

You can't very well demand that knowledge is entirely based upon belief, whilst simultaneously demanding that all beliefs do not constitute knowledge. That is an untenable position, IMHO.

They only way that you could possibly hold that knowledge is not entirely dependent upon belief is to claim that it does indeed require something other than belief to be considered valid knowledge. But then you've violated your very own thesis that belief is foundational to knowledge.

So I don't see any logical consistency in your presentation here at all. It appears to be totally superficial and circular to me. Totally devoid of any rational merit.

This is just a logical assessment of the position you are proposing. Not meant to be taken personal in any way.

I'm sure that you believe this yourself, but I personally don't believe you for two reason:

1. You constantly try to convince other people that they need to believe in your religion and obey God, and that the reason that it is important that they do is this is because if they fail to do it they will lose out on eternal life, which you continually hold out to people as a motivational carrot.

2. If you truly believe what you claim here then you wouldn't bother proselytizing your religion like you. You would realize that only a sincere love of God could possibly work for people. But if that is the case, then they could only win his love by having sincere and natural love for him in the first place.

Thus your constant badgering of people that they need to "obey" this God and satisfy all his commandments and directives would be moot.

In fact, it would be utterly pointless for you to even bring these things up.

You're entire approach would be all wrong.

If you truly believed that it was all about loving God and everything follows solely from then all you would need to do is convince people that this God is a lovable God.

I have never seen you do that.

All you ever do is act like God made a bunch of laws and it's up to us to either obey them or lose out on this supposed "gift" of eternal life.

There is absolutely NOTHING lovable about the in-compassionate and uncaring God that you portray.

You have stated countless times that it's no skin off God's nose if we fail to meet his requirements. We lose and God doesn't even care.

It's entire up to use to EARN this "Gift" of eternal life according to your preachings. And God really doesn't care whether we make it or not.

That doesn't sound like a very "lovable" God to me.

Nor does it sound like people would be trying out for EARNING this "Gift" of eternal life just because they happen to "love" this God.



In short you 'ministry' (as informal and non-existent as you may claim it to be) sends horribly mixed messages.

1. We must EARN the right to eternal life.
2. It is a GIFT.
3. If you EARN this GIFT for its own reward you will not receive it!
4. Your true motivation must be that you simply LOVE God.
5. You must LOVE this God naturally even though he's a male chauvinist who perverts sexual desires.

It's not an attractive religion, IMHO, and there is nothing "lovable" about the God that you portray.

If this God was a male chauvinist in Biblical Times, and this God is unchanging in his character, then all women can expect to be eternally second class citizens in this God's eternal Heaven.

That's certainly not much for women to look forward to. Nor is it a very attractive reason for women to "LOVE" this male chauvinistic God.

If this God perverts the sexual pleasure of orgasm and proclaims that it is a sin if experienced outside of the pragmatic duty of procreation, then there is absolutely no reason why any human being should expect that this God would change his views on this in Heaven.

In fact, there should really be no need for 'procreation' in heaven so the message here seems to be that this God will frown upon anything that produces great pleasure and doesn't have a profoundly pragmatic use.

So we have absolutely no reason to even believe that the Heaven this God is offering would be a pleasurable experience at all. Clearly this God renounces pleasure as being "LUSTFUL" behavior.

What's to love about this God Cowboy?

If the biblical description of this God is any indication of what this God is like there is no reason to think that he will be any different in "heaven".

If he himself lusts for blood sacrifices and is appeased by blood sacrifices why should we think he will change when we get to heaven?

For all we have to go on this God should be just as screwed up in heaven as he was when dealing with humans on earth. Why should anyone belief he would CHANGE?

If you ask me if I LOVE the God depicted in the Hebrew fables, I can assure you that I most certainly DO NOT. Nor do I see any reason to love this God.

The only thing that could possible make him "lovable" is the mere fact that he has the POWER to create life.

But that doesn't make an entity "lovable", that just gives him a power that we we might actually "love".

I see no reason to "love" the God depicted in the Bible. As far as I can see he was a jerk on far too many occasions. I don't even agree with the way that he handles his problems. I personally dislike him actually.

There's nothing there to "love". At least not as the Hebrews have portrayed him in their stories.

The God they portray isn't even as nice as me!

I have more compassion and wisdom than they gave to the god they created.

There's nothing there to love Cowboy.

That's already been explained in sufficient scope. It's clearly a healthy thing to do even from a purely pragmatic biological position.

The pure physical act of masturbating itself cannot be a 'sin'. The only thing that could possibly be associated with being 'sinful' would necessarily be the thoughts that might accompany it.

Like I say, it's extremely important for you to maintain that any, and all, possible thoughts that could be associated with masturbation must necessarily be vile, perverted, and therefore sinful.

You absolutely need for this to be the case in order to justify your vile religion.

However, any intelligent person can clearly see that this is an impossible demand on your part.

I can, and most certainly do, have wonderful, loving wholesome and divine thoughts when I masturbate. Therefore, I know without any shadow of a doubt that wholesome masturbation is indeed a practical reality.

You cannot tolerate this because it flies in the very face of what your religious dogma demands, at least as you interpret it. Your religion, as you evidently interpret it, requires that masturbation be a sinful and therefor an unwholesome act.

Thus your religion, as you portray, interpret, and preach it, has no place in my life. It's a disgusting vile religion that necessarily defiles all that is wholesome and divine, IMHO. It's nothing more than the sickness of an ancient demented society being perpetuated today by people who obviously can't even think as wholesome as I can.

If you have a need to defile masturbation in your life to justify an ancient judgmental God, please by my guest.



But you'll never convince me that the creator of humanity is as perverted as your religion, as you interpret it, requires.

NO SALE.

As far as I can see it's your religion that is perverted, not the act of masturbation. And you'll never convince me otherwise because I know better.

And what would that statement itself be?

A) Knowledge?
B) An opinion?
C) A belief itself?
D) Other?

The fallacy here is that you are personally assuming that masturbation equates to lust and can only be motivated by lust.

That's a totally bogus assumption on your part.

Although it COULD be true for YOU!

That I can't deny. And since you take such a strong stance that masturbation can only arise from lust, I really see no other choice than to conclude that, for you, masturbation is entirely a lustful activity.

So, for you, masturbation would be based on lust evidently.

But that doesn't mean that everyone thinks the way you do. That's the error of your ways right there.

For someone else, masturbation may be a totally different psychic experience, based entirely on true feelings of love, devotion, and a desire to share eternal monogamy with the lover they imagine to be with in their mind. This lover may be totally abstract in their mind. They are imagining being with their heavenly eternal soul-mate.

There is no way that masturbating in this sense could be reduced to the vile perversions that you are desperately attempting to degrade it do just for the sake of supporting a truly disgusting religion.

That's truly what it comes down to Cowboy. You need to make masturbation out to be a thoroughly disgusting act, in order to justify having a God condemn it as being 'sinful'.

You can't have your God condemning a genuinely wholesome act of pure love and sincere desire, and thus you desperately need for masturbation to be disgusting.

That's truly a shame.

Can you not see that it is your religion that makes things vile?

The religion itself needs to make things vile that it labels as being 'sinful' in order to justify its God who condemns these acts as being 'sinful'.

So it's ultimately the religion itself that creates the need to make things become "vile" and "evil".

This is why I say that you can take your religion and shove it where the sun don't shine, because it's the very nature of this religion to remove the sunshine from some of the most beautiful aspects of human existence.

It's the religion that is vile Cowboy. That's where these perversions come from. These archaic religions are the source of perversion. They require that you pervert beautiful aspects of life just to justify these ungodly fables.

I beg your pardon?

Everything you have stated above can only be filth from your own mind. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with me or anything I posted.

I have never suggested anywhere that anyone should lust after every and/or any woman for the purpose of wanting to take them to the bedroom.

Why you would suggest such a thing is beyond me. I can only imagine that you are intentionally attempting to bear false witness against my character in a very deceitful and dishonest attempt to try to discredit or belittle my views.

That's dishonest, rude, and far from anything that Jesus would have condoned for certain.

I personally have absolutely no interested in having sex with any female based on pure physical lust. If she's not emotionally available, and single, I have no desire to become physically intimate with her at all.

I am only interested in sharing love. Period.

For you to suggest otherwise, is your own deceitful fabrication.

It truly amazing me at just how vile someone who claims to believe in Jesus as the "Christ" can actually become when discussing religion.

My moral values far outshine anything you'll find in the ancient Hebrew dogma.

If "sin" is defined as the experience of mind-blowing divine ecstasy that includes the natural uninhibited praising of the gods as in screaming, "Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!", then yes, having sex with my girlfriend is indeed a "sin".

It's without a doubt a 'divine sin' that should be reserved only for the gods. Therefore one can only conclude that at that moment we are indeed experiencing the realm of the gods. This certainly makes sense in terms of Christianity since Jesus taught us that we are gods. Perhaps this was the moment he was speaking of?

The Buddhist have also recognized the divinity of this sensual intimacy and they honor it via tantra rituals where the couple learns to embrace and maintain this state of orgasmic ecstasy for extended periods of time for spiritual enlightenment.

The Greeks recognized this through the Goddess of Aphrodite, and the Wiccans have also acknowledge the divinity of this orgasmic state of affairs and often practice it during The Great Rite festival.

I don't know how well jr's thoughts and mine coincide, but I tend to feel the same way regarding terms like 'belief'. If you ask me what I 'believe', I'm basically going to roll my eyes and suggest that I believe very little if anything.

A far better question would be to ask me what I know. What I know is what I know, there is no 'belief' required.

Once again, ask me if what I 'know' is the 'truth' and again I'll roll my eyes?

Truth? What's that?

Truth is relative and subjective as far as I'm concerned. Not at all unlike this universe. People who are still hung up on concepts of such things as "absolute truths" are basically living in the dark ages, IMHO. They are living in a pretentious world that simply doesn't exist. That world itself is an idealized figment of human imagination as far as I can see.

There is no human philosophy, theory, construct, or even totally abstract idealism that doesn't ultimately lead to a logical contradiction and paradox if taken far enough.

In short, if I'm convinced of anything at all from an analytical point of view, it is that we are indeed living in an illogical reality that will never, and can never, be rationalized in terms of what we consider to be 'logical'.

In fact, when it comes to things like Quantum Mechanics, etc., the very BEST explanations require accepting notions that, to us, do indeed fly in the face of what we consider to be 'logical' or 'reasonable'.

Yet at the same time, we can, (or at least some of us can), imagine that such seemingly 'illogical' worlds can indeed exist. They simply exist in a way that we cannot rationalize. Kind of like imagining a 4-dimensional world, when in fact, we can truly only experience 3-dimensions.

In other words, to 'rationalize' our understanding of the world we ultimately need to turn to ideas that seem 'irrational' compared to how we normally think.

If being 'convinced' of a concept constitutes holding a 'belief' of that concept, then I suppose it would be fair to say that I "believe" that our existence can never be explained in terms of pure classical notions of logic and reason as some people continue to pursue.

So you might say that I've moved 'beyond' that restraint, and I've found a far more interesting world can actually exist once we surrender our previous (and unwarranted) restrictions and notions.

Things that were previously deemed to be "irrational", "illogical" or even "impossible" now move into the realm of real possibilities.

~~~~~

Like I say, the bottom line for me is that no human being has yet been able to propose a philosophy, theory, or explanation that does not ultimately lead to logical paradox and contradiction.

Therefore, there is absolutely no valid reason to continue to hold out that things must be confined to "logical reasoning". Even our mathematical formalisms, which are the most logically sound systems of reason we have ever been able to establish, ultimately lead to contradiction and paradox when taken far enough.

Gabriel's Horn in geometry is one such example. A mathematical object that has infinite internal surface area, yet it only encloses a finite volume. So you can fill it with a finite amount of paint, but if you actually just try to paint the walls, it would require an infinite amount of paint. If that's not a logical contradiction and paradox, I don't know what is.

Of course, this "paradox" can be explained away in terms of the formalism itself. But that's a bit of a cheat. All that basically says is that the formalism itself is logically flawed and is not continuous over the concept of varying dimensions.

Another example is the concept of cardinally 'large and small' infinities. This is an idea that is central to transfinite number theory, yet it's as paradoxical as things can be.

So even mathematics, our best shot at building sound logical systems, ends in paradoxical catastrophes in many areas. Thus it needs to be restrained, by the restrictions of domains of applicability, and specific assumed premises, etc.

~~~~

Trying to create an "absolute logical philosophy" that has no limitations whatsoever, and never leads to a paradox, is an unrealistic goal that had never been achieved, and even has even been proven to be unachievable by Kurt Godel.

So, it's truly unwarranted to even pretend to demand that everything must be totally 'logical' without ever leading to a contradiction.

We have never seen anything that can even approach such an idealized goal.

So yes, if you want to say that I have a 'belief', I guess I do. I believe that the reality of this universe can never be restricted to what we consider to be "logical".

That is to say that I am highly convinced that the most likely truth of our reality is most likely 'illogical' to our way of thinking.

So people who are trying to demand that it should be contained within a nice neat 'box of logic' are truly doing so without sufficient grounds.

Sure. That's the lust of Christianity.


Do you honestly think these people would care about Jesus at all if they didn't think there was something in it for them?

Try convincing these people that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva. They don't want to hear anything about that because that would mean that Jesus has nothing to offer them!

If Jesus has nothing to offer them, they lose all interest in the religion immediately.

It's the GIFT of eternal life, or the FEAR of punishment that keeps this religion going.

This is just yet another reason why the religion is clearly false.

Christians require that atheists cannot receive the gift of eternal life simply because they have 'denied' that Jesus is Lord. So behavior alone cannot win this prize.

Yet, clearly if behavior is the criteria for winning the prize then righteous atheists would be God's pride and joy! These would be people who are naturally good simply because they personally enjoy being good, and NOT because they were attempting to appeased a God in order to win a reward.

This God can't be allowed to actually like righteous people who are non-believers.

That's a dead give-away that the religion is nothing more than cultural political propaganda to form a religious cult to keep people under the thumb of a superficial behavioral mandate.

It's man-made politics in the form of religion is all.

And clearly it works far too well.

Gotta hand it to the people who created it. They created a brainwashing scheme based on a lust for eternal life and a fear of the wrath of God that has many people not only worshiping this religion but actually trying to convince everyone else to buy into it as well.

It's a brainwashing scheme that has successfully brainwashed many of its own victims into becoming hardcore supporters of the religion itself. So it's a self-propagating brainwashing scheme.

Truly, and religion that perverts such natural acts and desires is clearly a man-made perversion of divinity.

The bible is riddled with male-chauvinism and other disgusting nonsense. It's just a religion that was created by a society that didn't have any better moral values than the Taliban.

Why anyone worships those ancient perverts as the "Voice of God" is beyond me. A person truly needs to have a really low and petty view of a God to believe in these kind of perverted religions, IMHO.

People should be required to study the ancient Greek Civilizations, before they are even introduced to the Hebrew religions. I think that after they see how many of these perverted ideas actually got started they wouldn't be taking them so seriously.

Wait for what?

Not everyone is fortunate enough to marry.

Moreover, did you not hear that medical doctors and psychologists have recognized that the release of sexual tensions, and in fact, chemicals that are released during orgasm are highly beneficial to a person's physical and mental health and well-being?

Why not do what is healthy and good for your physical and mental well-being on a regular basis? It's the only wise thing to do.

~~~~~

Moreover, keep in mind that you are the one who is proclaiming this behavior to be "perverted" and "sinful". IMHO, that's a sick and unhealthy mentality already.

Why pervert something that is, in truth, quite beautiful, pleasurable, and healthy?

The only reason you condemn it is because the religion you have chosen to support and worship condemns it as being a 'perverted act'.

So you accept that perversion and perpetuate it.

Personally I think that is sick in and of itself.

If masturbation results in better physical and mental well-being, (which studies show that it does). And it can be done in a spirit of genuine love and affection (which personally works for me). Then what could possibly be wrong with it other than a bunch of religious perverts who worship a perverted religion and claim that some perverted God will be displeased by this behavior and do curse the masturbates with some god-awful perverted punishment for their disobedience to his jealous authority.



I'd have to believe in a sick perverted God before I could even begin to believe that masturbation could be a 'bad' thing.

Our society has probably caused a lot of people a lot of unnecessary guilt and shame about their feelings of LOVE by perverting anything that has to do with sexual pleasure like this.

I see no value in any religion that perverts an act that is so closely related to both LOVE and to procreation.

Such a "God" would need to be a God who hates his very own creation.

That would be a sick perverted God already.

I have no need to make my life miserable attempting to appease the ancient myths of sick perverted jealous male-chauvinistic godheads that are based on deities who are appeased by blood sacrifices.

How sick is that already?

It's just a sick religion that tries to pervert beautiful healthy behavior into perverted sickness.

That last thing we need is a perverted sick God who condemns the most beautiful aspects of life, such a love and sensual intimacy, into disgusting perversions.

The sooner we move away from these ancient sick demented ideas the better off we'll be.

Yes, that's obvious even to a secular atheist.



Probably not because clearly we are it. At least we are a manifestation of it. So why call it "God"?

The problem with the term "God" is that it has been perverted over the millennia to become identified with personified godheads who in many cases have been associated with blood sacrifices and petty, often perverted, demands of human behaviors via uncouth dogmas.

If there exists a prime source of life we can rest assured that it cannot possibly be as petty as the man-made images of the gods have become.

Although, having said that, there are clearly exceptions to this. There have been images of personified Gods and Goddesses who have indeed reflected truly divine notions and pure love.

So there can indeed be a romantic aspect to the images of Gods and Goddesses, when mankind doesn't pervert them by turning them into hideous dogmas that must be "obeyed" at all cost lest this supposed God will become a demon and condemn them in despicable ways.

When the gods are portrayed as demons that must be appeased and obeyed lest ye be punished, you can be certain that the religions associate with those "Gods" have become nothing more than man-made cultural political propaganda being shoved down the throats of people for the purpose of trying to control their behavior.



If there is, we are it.



That's actually the simplest thing. Just find your true self and you've found God. Unfortunately, as simple as this is, many people cannot seem to find it.



It's an innate characteristic of any being to seek to know its true nature.




Tat t'vam asi.

That may be your own personal perversion of sexual release, or perhaps a perverted definition pushed onto you by the religion you've chosen to worship, but from my point of view it is indeed a perverted view.

You have chosen to defile something in the name of a petty God that is actually quite divine and beautiful.

There is no need for masturbation to be thought of as "lust after sexual intercourse". In fact, you have absolutely no clue what people might actually be thinking when they masturbate. Perhaps that what you would choose to think about when you masturbate? But it does not automatically follow that everyone thinks that way.

That certainly isn't my thoughts. I don't even think of sexual intercourse when I masturbate and that's a fact. My focus is on making love to a woman. I actually focus far more on kissing her in a loving way and sharing feelings of LOVE with her.

So evidently I do not pervert masturbation as you seem to think it should be perverted.

Your assumptions about the motivations and thoughts of other people simply aren't true. You have been brainwashed by a perverted religion to believe that this is what masturbation represents, but that is a lie right there. Although it may not be a lie for you if you buy into it.


But the fact that it is indeed a lie for me, demonstrates clearly to me that falsity of the religion. The people who made this religion up simply did not have the capability to think like me and to view things as I view them, so they perverted these thing into their own style of thinking.

This is why I know with absolute certainty that these religious writings are the babblings of perverted male-chauvinistic men, and did not come from any truly 'all-wise' God. These teachings aren't even remotely "wise", they are sick and perverted.

This is how we can know that these religions are false.

Unless a course a person is just as sick and perverted as the people who made these religions up. Then they wouldn't be able to see through the nonsense.

There is nothing ungodly or less than divine in masturbation when done in a mindset of genuine love. Perverting it to reduce it to nothing more than the lust of a 'sex act' is simply not required at all.

In perfect honesty I can tell you right now that I wouldn't even be able to become sexually aroused at all if I viewed masturbation in the way that you pervert it. There would be nothing erotic in it for me at all if I perverted it as you suggest it should be perverted.

For me, sex and love are inseparable. And therefore, for me, sex is an act of love and is therefor every bit as divine as love. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the material lust of flesh.

That's your perversion, not mine.

Although, I will agree that there are clearly other people who think like you. The success of the pornographic industries are active proof of that.

But that does not mean that every individual must therefore reduce sex to perversion. That's an insane notion right there.

An insane notion that religious people like you tend to perpetuate.

My suggestion would be to climb out of that mental gutter and start thinking in terms of love instead of meaningless lust of flesh. Only then could you begin to see the divine nature of masturbation.

Both medical doctors and psychologists have recognize that the regular release of sexual tensions contributes profoundly to a persons well-being in general. And masturbation fits that bill for someone who does not have an intimate mate.

So for us to believe in a God who condemns masturbation as a 'sin' we would need to believe in a God who doesn't even recognize what is health for the very objects of his creation.

The whole idea of a judgmental Godhead who would be as petty as the Hebrew folklore demands does not warrant 'serious' consideration, IMHO.

Such a petty would would be pathetic and laughable IMHO, the only 'seriousness' that could be given to it would be the grave truth that if such a god existed it would indeed be pathetically hideous. I suppose that if such a sick demented "god" actually existed that would indeed be a gravely serious state of affairs.

So I guess it's no wonder that the people who believe in this kind of judgmental godhead take their religion so seriously. The consequences for dismissing the religion as being utterly absurd would be horrific.

It's clearly a fear-based religion and as such strikes the 'seriousness' of fear into its followers.

Just as you have yourself proclaimed here. You're greatest fear is that you could screw up your chances at eternal life via something that you might do or say today. That is indeed a fear-based religion.

You fear, that you'll screw up your future if you do not cower down to the demands of this religion. So from that point of view, it would of course be "gravely serious" for you.

You have much to lose by questioning the validity of these ancient fables, and apparently nothing to gain from questioning them because you have already been convinced that your future depends entirely upon appeasing this judgmental godhead.

Yep, I would agree that such a fear-based belief would indeed be a quite serious state of affairs for the believer.

Do the wrong thing (even by honest and sincere mistake) and your petty god will condemn you for all of eternity.

That would indeed be a gravely serious predicament to be in for sure.

So I can see where it would indeed be deadly serious for those who buy into it.

People keep shoving quotes from the Bible in our faces like as if they should be accepted as the authority of God, but in truth the Bible has very little merit. In fact, the ancient religions of the Greeks have far more merit, it was those religions that became the fodder for the Hebrews to create their Yahweh.

Whether or not masturbation is a sin all depends on which mythical God you are attempting to appease. Or which human fundamentalists you are attempting to appease.

I personally think this whole reductionistic approach attempting to categorized things into "beliefs" with "value assessments" placed on them is the problem.

I can see that having some value in analysis. But where it fails is when it's taken to be the core essence of existence. That's where it becomes an overly-simplistic explanation which misses the point.

When it becomes the sole focus presumed to be the basis of all behavior then it has basically become philosophical extremism.

That's all I'm saying. It has value to a point, but to try to take this as the reductionistic explanation for the essence of the human condition in general is when it fails dramatically.



I think what we are doing at that point is indeed engaging in analysis.

Clearly we do have that capability! No question about that. But it's also extremely easy to become lost in analysis and the analytical aspect of our mind.

Analysis is interesting and it can even be beneficial within the limits of its domain of applicability.

However, just like anything else, it can't apply to everything.



Absolutely not.



Well, I'm no doubt responding to the extremism that has been portrayed in this thread thus far. And that may have come across as though it was directed at you specifically when it was not.

My apologies for that.

I actually responded to your post because of your mention of ethics and how we arrive at our ethics.



Well, I didn't mean to sound argumentative toward you personally. I was attempting to address the topic at hand. My apologies if it came across that way.



Well, I'll certainly try to do this. All I'm saying is that from my perspective there is far more to human behavior than can be explained via logical analysis. Yet, logical analysis is precisely the mechanism that would be required to support a philosophy that reduces everyone's behavior to being purely a function of their 'beliefs'.



Yes, I understand. Thank you for pointing this out.

I often speak from a vantage point of the teachings of the Eastern school of though. Such as Buddhism, etc. In that school of thought they have recognized "Two minds" of human nature.

One is considered to be the "logical mind" (which I often refer to as the "intellectual mind"). That's basically the brain. The biological computer that we use to do logical analysis.

But from the Eastern point of view, that's not the end of it. They speak of a "non-intellectual" or "non-logical" mind. This is the mind of pure awareness. In fact, this is what they refer to as the "True You".

Whether you think of this in terms of spirituality or in some secular sense shouldn't truly matter. Through mediation you can actually experience this state of consciousness where you do not intellectually analyze anything. You are simply "aware" of it without judging it or assessing it in any. This is called "Transcendental" meditation becasue you are transcending the analytical mind.

That is the "real you" (the spiritual you, or at lest so Eastern Mystics say)

So what I'm saying is that, yes, this analytical philosophy were the 'intellectual mind' is assessing, judging, and evaluating things, is indeed one aspect of human existence and behavior, however it most certainly is not the entirety of it. (Transcendental meditation is prove of this)

This other aspect of the mind, this "non-analytical" mind, if you will, is actually the basis of your true essence. The 'intellectual mind' is merely a tool that your pure awareness uses.

So in other words, to suggest that human behavior is driven solely by the analytical mind (the mind that judges, assesses, evaluates, etc), is a philosophy that totally ignores and fails to even recognize the existence of the non-analytical aspect of human conscious awareness. (pure awareness itself)

So I guess my entire perspective stems from an Eastern view of things. I accept and understand this distinction that they have recognized, and it makes perfect sense to me.

A purely analytical approach is the anti-thesis of this.

This would be like the 'analytical mind' attempting to analyze the human condition purely from the analytical perspective. But that would be the analytical mind analyzing itself.

I actually responded to your post mainly because you brought up the concept of a code of ethics.

You see, my ethics do not come from my analytical mind. They arise from pure awareness. They are not the result of analysis, judgment, assessment, or anything associated with the analytical mind or analytical methods.

So I guess that's the point I was really trying to make and botched it up pretty bad.

Sorry about that. My apologies.

I was also attempting to refer to this state of pure awareness as the "intuitive" aspect of the mind. But that might be grossly misleading, because many secular people view "intuition" as nothing more than an analytical approach to emotions and feelings. So from that perspective, what they consider to be 'intuition' would still be analysis. And that's certainly not what I'm talking about.

There is no 'analysis' associated with the pure awareness that I'm attempting to address. And therefore it cannot be based-on, nor driven-by "beliefs".

From my perspective this is an extremely misleading approach to the topic of "belief". Because the very term "belief" is far more abstract than this approach would imply.

As soon as I read your question "What drives your code of ethics?" I instantly realized that "belief" has very little to do with my code of ethics. And I know this because of my experience with religions and spiritual philosophies.

My code of ethics is not drive by 'intellectual beliefs', on the contrary it's drive far more by 'intuitive' notions that do not even require explanation or justification.

Of course, having said that, I think it should be clear even to you that refraining from doing something that you consider to highly dangerous would not be a matter of 'ethics' anyway.

On the contrary, a person may actually do something that is quite dangerous for ethical reasons, like running into a flaming building to save a victim of a fire.

So ethics has very little to do with 'intellectual knowledge' or 'sound reasoning'.

In fact, I just heard on NPR radio that a women look in her back yard only to see a bear that had her pet dog in his mouth. She instantly ran up to the bear, punched it in the face and told it to leave her dog alone. The bear dropped the dog and ran.

There wasn't anything "rational" in her behavior at all. She was totally fixated on saving her pet dog. Her actions most certainly can't have been based on 'belief' other than in the moment one could argue that she 'believed' that by physically attacking the bear she could save her beloved dog.

But where did THAT ethic come from?

Certainly not from any core intellectual "belief". That was more of an irrational reaction. An irrational instantaneous "belief" based on the passion of the moment.

That is hardly a "belief-based" behavior.

Moreover, my personal objection to this whole notion that "beliefs" are the foundation of all human behavior is based on my own ethical values.

I had a set of ethical values which I feel were basically 'intuitive'. They were not based on "intellectual logical reasoning". In fact, there is no "intellectual logical reasoning" why a person would risk their own life to run into a burning building to save other people. That kind of behavior is not based on logical beliefs. It's based on a deeply innate emotional level that is as irrational and illogical as the notion of "love" itself.

I was born and raised as a Christian. What I discovered is that "my ethics" just happened to coincide with the ethics that were often attributed to Jesus. I didn't "learn" my ethics from the religion, but rather I simply recognized that the religion was trying to teach my innate ethics through this character of a demigod.

Far more importantly, I also discovered that after I dismissed the religion as being nothing more than mythology, or superstitious rumors, my core ethics did not change. I was still the same person I always had been. My 'ethics' were mine, not something put onto me via "beliefs".

This even holds true when I consider the possibility that atheism may indeed potentially be the truth of reality. It makes no difference to me, my ethics don't change. I am who I am. Period. I am a rock, that is totally independent of any intellectual 'beliefs'.

So as far as I'm concerned it's these philosophers and/or psychologists who "believe" that belief is what causes people to behave they way they do, who are actually buying into THEIR beliefs.

It's their "beliefs" that "belief" is the foundational cause of behavior.

Obviously, that is going to be true in terms of the laws of Physics.

That's a given!

Throw a large rock at anyone's face, and they are going to instinctively dodge being hit by the rock? Why? Because due to their physical experiences in life, they have learned that flying projectiles can hurt if they hit you.

And of course this can be carried over into social interactions as well. People have learned that if they treat others poorly they can expect to be treated poorly in return.

So, YES it's obviously going to carry over into social experiencestoo.

However, to then JUMP to the conclusion that everything is necessarily nothing more than a result of 'belief' is truly an unwarranted JUMP, IMHO.

From my perspective that shows nothing more than extremely limited thinking on the part of the philosophers or psychologists who have gone down that road. They have taken things that appear to be 'obvious' and just assumed that this must then be the basis of all human behavior.

That, IMHO, is an extremely weak and unwarranted conclusion.

There is far more to human behavior than what might be motivated solely by "intellectual beliefs".

In fact, I would truly feel sorry for any human who had actually been reduced to such a dismal state of existence.

One could not truly "love" based on that kind of motivation. At the very "best" all they could do is behave in ways that we associate with 'love', solely in terms of the logical expectations that they would expect to be "rewards" from such behavior.

That would not, nor could it ever be, the concept of 'love' that I know.

Having said this, it's actually safe to say, that anyone who truly believes that human behavior is solely based on 'beliefs' must not have ever experienced a true ability to 'love' another person beyond the logical consequences that they would expect to get in return.

In other words, the very philosophy that all human behavior is nothing more than an intellectual reaction to 'belief' (like dodging from a rock thrown toward your face), is basically to proclaim that 'love' does not even exist. It's nothing more than a reaction to avoid being hit by a rock.

This is why I am not a proponent of a totally 'belief-based' philosophy. Especially one that assumes that all that drives the human consideration is an intellectual brain that is based on pure logic.

No way.

Clearly the best human qualities do not fit under the umbrella of such a sterile unfeeling philosophy. It just cannot be made to work. It makes no sense in terms of the genuine love that some people obviously do possess and emanate.

So it's a dead-end philosophy, IMHO.

A philosophy fit for zombies only.

There is no room in such a philosophy for genuine love or the genuine caring of another person. The whole philosophy, by its very nature, demands that all behavior is driven by "What's in it for me".

I truly feel sorry for anyone who actually believes that this is the sum total of human existence. It sure doesn't say much for the person who believes in such a philosophy, IMHO.

So I'm glad that you brought in the question of "What drives your code of ethics?", because that really opened it up. My code of ethics has never been driving solely by my experiential intellectual 'beliefs'. If that were the case my code of ethics would have changed over the course of my life as my beliefs have also changed. But that hasn't been the case. So my ethics cannot be driven by my intellectual beliefs. They are necessarily driven by something far deeper and more primordial than this.

However, I will agree that this does not appear to be the case for everyone. So perhaps I am indeed living among zombies. Now that I can believe! Unfortunately.