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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (272605)	1/11/2010 3:41:35 AM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Not really Hawk. <societal order would quickly break down. > The pressure is much more on atheists to make it good in the here and now because there is no hereafter to fall back on. So the greater morality and ethics is found among atheists. Which is of course not to say that atheists are all ethical. We atheists don't need to believe in a personal hereafter to wish to develop co-operative enterprise for mutual survival and benefit with not just other people but symbiotic other species and I include in "other species" the new cyberspace consciousness now under development. Consciousness wasn't invented particularly for humans. It is like a fifth force of the cosmos after the strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravity forces. Consciousness is the effect which causes the wave functions of the others to drop into reality rather than being in all states. Yes there is: <If this life is "all there is" and we're merely "worm food" when we die, then there is no logical rationale for self-restraint. > The point of working together is that we do better working symbiotically with others. There's a genetic imperative to make life good for descendants and even others if one has a worldly view of DNA. Just as brothers will work together quite closely, and tribal members will work closely, the more enlightened of us take an extremely wide view of "brother" and "tribe" to include everyone and many other species too. Mqurice

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (272605)	1/11/2010 9:50:30 AM
From: Lou Weed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<Yep.. if you're an atheist the only law that governs humanity is the "law of the jungle".>> Not really......its also beneficial for the atheists as well as the religious to adhere to the basic moral tenets of not killing for the sake of it or stealing for furthering material wealth. Atheists are not wild anarchists but obviously would benefit much more in the "here and now" from harmonious interaction with their fellow man. I have one friend in particular who is a self professed atheist but he is far more more generous and compassionate than most anyone I've met who professes to be Christian. <<Holding to the belief that we're entitled to human rights by virtue of our existence is only logical under the pretense that a higher power has bestowed them upon us>> Totally disagree......what separates us from the other species is conscience. We are all born with it and its my belief that genetically we all want to live in harmony. Its outside influences (like nurturing and in particular religion) that distort or change that hard wired instinct for the worse. Our conscience and our instinctive desire to exist in harmony for the betterment of this life is the genesis of what we deem "human rights"......not some ethereal dude whom everybody seems to be wanting to kill in the name of.