God is a Metaphor

@ zeemax,

``My position is that morality springs from ancient scriptures, and not mental growth and cultural evolution``.


People can be moral without learning it from scriptures.

Take stealing, for example:
Basic instinct would have you steal.
REASONING would make you stop, because that would hurt someone else, and continue the cycle.

Or are you saying that if it wasn`t for scriptures, then people would have continued to steal from one another unchecked? How can that state of affairs continue to work? Would`nt the ensuing mayhem automatically force people to stop and reconsider?

I srongly submit that it would. Not all of us need scriptures that need to tell us which way to face, whilst having a shit. (No offense meant. I just think it`s absurd).

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@ sattar2,

Have you never heard of a 3-some; or a 4-some; or a 5-some?
You only need one female to give you a BJ. The other girls can talk... or recite.

;-)

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Regarding having sex with a close female relative:
I`ve always found my close female relatives to be UGLY and REPULSIVE!
Yet I have been told that they are VERY nice looking!

This `feeling` seems to apply to most us, if we are given the freedom to choose.
All of us, prefer someone DIFFERENT.
Just because people tell us, that inbreeding is wrong, doesn`t mean that our genes didn`t know this from millions of years ago.

The whole evolutionary process can only proceed if it`s allowed to diversify.


Marrying first cousins:
Marrying first cousins has fuck all to do with preference and it being `acceptable`. Kids are forced into them; Usually to keep the family`s monetary/bodily `assets`. (bahain).

Re: # 167

How do you edit your posts at CHOWK?
Is there a guide on how to add bb code etc?

I srongly submit that it would, should read :

I strongly submit that it would

Fine. Deny god all you want ...

There is a downside to being an atheist though.
You have no one to talk to what you are getting a blowjob ...

There, I have said it. This should end the debate for at least half of us …

I came across this last week in Thomas Mann`s DR. FAUSTUS, thought it`s kinda relevant:


``I should be sorry, after what I have said, to be taken for an utterly irreligious man. That I am not, for I go with Schleiermacher, another Halle magician, who defined religion as ``feeling and taste for the Infinite`` and called it ``a pertinent fact,`` present in the human being. In other words, the science of religion has to do not with philosophical theses, but with an inward and given psychological fact. And that reminds me of the ontological evidence for the existence of God, which has always been my favorite, and which from the subjective idea of a Highest Being derives His objective existence. But Kant has shown in the most forthright words that such a thesis cannot support itself before the bar of reason. Science, however, cannot get along without reason; and to want to make a science out of a sense of the infinite and the eternal mysteries is to compel two spheres fundamentally foreign to each other to come together in a way that is in my eyes most unhappy and productive only of embarrassment. Surely a religious sense, which I protest is in no way lacking in me, is something other than positive and formally professed religion. Would it not have been better to hand over that ``fact`` of human feeling for the infinite to the sense of piety, the fine arts, free contemplation, yes, even to exact research, which as cosmology, astronomy, theoretical physics, can serve this feeling with religious devotion to the mystery of creation - instead of singling it out as the science of the spirit and developing on it structures of dogma, whose orthodox believers will then shed blood for a copula?``

Re: # 163

The `science of religion` is hogwash.

Religion would nt exist if not for the organised brain wash engaged in, by people who have been not only brain washed themselves, but probably stand to gain from such acts as well.

If not for religious brain washing of children were abandoned, religion and god will die within years if not months.

All religions depend on brainwashing youngsters for their survival.

GT:
Gill was talking about postmodernism (not ``science``) which is a niche-subject considering the grand scheme of things (``Philosophy``) starting from Socrates. The question you should be asking Khurram is whether the philosophical enterprise starting from Socratic dialogues till Russell and Wittgenstein et al. that concerns itself crudely speaking about ``What is Good`` and ``What is Beautiful`` without referring to the dogmatic ``Truths`` is also an exercise in futility?

rephrasing it a bit:
Can there be a way to define Good and Evil without referring to some guy`s Idea of what he thought divinely sanctioned definition of ``Good``? i.e., without bringing ``GOD`` into the equation?

later

PS: [i remember the russell paradox]

Re: GT

Thanks for your comments. We do seem to be in agreement.

``Science does not posit ultimate axioms, just axioms ..``
I meant ultimate in the sense of basic, not in the sense of privileging some axioms over others.

``The problem is not with science per se...``
Agreed

``The are simply interested in putting a man on the moon or creating the dwarf variety of wheat..``
Again, agreed.

But there is a whole philosophical enterprise that holds that science can somehow lead to morality and values that are `objective` in the same sense as scientific statements.

Re: # 159

khurram:

``But there is a whole philosophical enterprise that holds that science can somehow lead to morality and values that are `objective` in the same sense as scientific statements.``

Yes, and I remember Gill saying, in another board, something like - these guys are quacks. I agree with Gill. Many of the ``Reader`s digest`` type scientists have made science into a religion. I, actually, get pretty depressed with the debate on evolution. Many ``armchair`` scientists instead of getting fascinated by the flaws in the theory start getting dogmatic. I mean, come on, there are flaws in the theory so more is to be discovered! Why bother about what others say? I see nothing wrong in teaching Adam and Eve, or whatever in one class, and evolution in another. Children are not stupid. I myself remember challenging teachers in our ``moral science`` class.

Khurram:

You say:

``I speculate that the process of empirical verification itself is derived from some axioms and the ultimate axioms of science are ``ASSUMED to be true`` .

Science does not posit ultimate axioms, just axioms - which are indeed assumed to be true. The example in #107 rules out ultimate axioms. This is widely known and accepted in the scientific community. Godel`s theorem is a statement on this. Thus, your statement will be accepted (without the ``ultimate axiom`` part) in any good science department. The problem is not with science per se, it is with the scientists who lecture in the Discovery Chanell and write in the ``Reader`s digest``.

Furthermore most scientists, as well as mathematicians, are not so much worried about deep issues like the the meaning of x/0. The are simply interested in putting a man on the moon or creating the dwarf variety of wheat. Yet, they do get amused with philosophers pondering on these questions.

#150 by malikjahanzeb,

Sir,

How many times do I have to repeat that this German case has nothing to do with kids? They`re fighting for their right to have sex. I`m talking of legal sanction for that right and not offspring or even morality. Just the legal right. You gentlemen are being evasive.

Anyway ... all you folks appear to be very confused. If you don`t have a position, that`s Ok. But if you do, you should be able to defend it.

However, since you consider sex between brother/sister being of the same dimension of a social issue as aversion towards eating rotten food, or smoking, or seafood, and the sort by some as you say, and being at the same disgust level, then I have nothing more to offer. But, and its a big BUT, you must be able to superimpose your position on your own selves and your families. I.e if you want to retain families at all. If you don`t, well .. best of luck.

But that`ll be the third question. Regarding the family system. So, forget it.

The ancient scriptures are right, and they`ll always be. No nitpicking will diminish those.

Regards.

Re: # 154

Zeemax , I noticed you ignored my last post as well as Raw_Dust question. Just wondering since you are on the topic of disgust. Does a 54 yr old man marrying and having a sexual relationship with a nine year old while having other ongoing sexual relationship sound pleasing to you. If a 54 yr old devout Muslim proposed to your seven year old niece would it delight you. Would you attend the Nikah and have a Suhaag ki Raat for them. Please answer.

Re: # 154

zeemax:

;-)

good luck

#146 by drsohail,

Dear Dr. Sohail,

This has everything to do with your article. It`s about God being a Metaphor and ancient scriptures being myths, and incest has something to do with it. Or don`t you think so?

The moral of the story is as follows:

When you say ...

when humanity reaches the stage of mental growth and cultural evolution when most people can understand scriptures as folklore and not as divine revelations, can view them as mythology rather than stories, and can differentiate facts from fiction...

...then you better be prepared that this position will be challenged with proof that all morality springs from ancient scriptures, which are embedded in your mind ... hard-wired. And not from evolution of human mind.

If you deny that, then you have to accept that brother/sister sexual relations are quite OK because there`s no rational basis not to allow them .. (forget kids ... this German couple is not fighting about kids as I`ve said a dozen times ... they`re just fighting for sex).

And if brother/sister sexual relations cannot be denied as you have said and Malik Saheb has also said, provided there`s no consequential impact like physically impaired children, then there`s no reason for disgust, and no reason for the State to outlaw it, and you must accept that. This is the rational basis. You have to support it. You can`t oppose brother/sister marriage and/or sexual relations even outside marriage for any reason other than ancient scriptures embedded in your mind. If you want to expunge those, that`s fine.

But do you really want to do that? That`s the next question.

As for the `` you can`t fcuk (did not even spell it right...Freudian slip) your sister or your mother...period)``, perhaps you don`t know the Chowk censor system. Please try typing `fcuk` with the correct spellings and posting it.

But by now, you seem to be clutching at straws.

Regards.

(P.S. I didn`t see your usual signature `Smiles` in this post. Any particular reason?)

Re: # 152

dear zeemax....so we agree to disagree. for you scriptures are ultimate truth and for me

they are part of folklore because you believe in divine revelation and i do not. you believe

in GOD and i do not. for you it is a reality and for me a metaphor. you are part of majority

80% and i am part of minority 20% (used to be 1% in 1900). i just ask people who believe

in GOD to share with me their encounter with GOD. if you had one I would love to hear

your dialogue with GOD not the dialogue of GOD with people hundreds of years ago. so

you can follow your scriptures and i can follow my conscience....and both of us will be

happy and peaceful. smiles....sohail

malik sahib:
zeemax needs the answers with proper references to ``ancient scriptures`` and the glorious Sunnah-e-Rasool. Your well reasoned post(#150) that have blown a Allah-shaped is not what he is looking for.

GT:
I did an exercise similar to that in an algorithm class awhile back. Does this Set Theory problem has a name. I want it for reference.
On a bit of a tangent: I came across probably the dumbest argument in favor of Delusionalism which happens to be since, reason exists within belief and since believing it to be ``TRUE`` in ``human mind`` makes the rational systems work, therefore, Belief is above and beyond reason and it can never be dichotomized with reason as in Belief vs. Reason. This is probably the worst kind of douchbaggery, I`d seen in a long time.

Dear zeemax,

What I meant was that if you can come up with a method which can guarantee that sex will never lead to conception between these couples, you can make a good case in favor of incest. We live in a world in which practicality of an act determines its virtue. For example, smoking is discouraged not because the act of enjoying smoking is wrong (nicotine is not harmful for a man). It is the side effects which increase your long term risk of disease. If you can invent a cigarette that can provide nicotine without these effects, all the disgust around smoking that has been invented in the recent past will disappear and smoking will become as `cool` as was in the 60s and 70s again.

By persistence, I meant that the need for incest should have a reason to sustain. As in the case of homosexuality, we can convince ourselves that no matter what we teach in books, no matter what drugs will make our children take, you will have some homosexuals in the population in the end. This creates a need to address and solve the problem on a permanent basis. If incest is something which at least some people want on an ongoing basis and the risks associated with it in terms of offsprings can be mitigated, a strong case in favor of allowing can be made. I will then vote in favor of it.

Now I want to come to the point of disagreement with you. Incest is not disgusting because it is written in the book. To give you an example, is it written in the book that you should not eat rotten food? I don`t think it is `haram` to eat rotten food. But since it is not good for you, you usually find it disgusting when it smelling in a certain way. This is a classic example of how we develop a sense of something being disgusting for us if it is never useful for us. Similarly, many muslims find sea-food disgusting where islam doesn`t really disallow it. You are probably right that for muslims, the disgust is amplified because it has been sanctioned by the religion but even if you get rid of religion, a good level of disgust will remain there which has practical reason to develop and sustain. And yes, in a completely liberal society, you will find occasional cases of incest here and there (less than homosexuality), which would be considered normal, unless a situation arises which I mentioned above (sex not leading to conception) when it may become more common but those decisions will be made on cultural grounds.