Critical-Tim

Would society be better if everyone was religious?

I think it's not just a matter of religions but what is the role of religions on societies, I mean how people use the religion. It's a very complex issue, because for example Christianity is present in several countries but not all the countries took advantage of it for their own progress. To me, the most efficient religion I've ever seen is the Judaism because jews have outperform any other society in this world. Jews have shown that they can progress no matter what the obstacle may be, they even survived the nazis which is very telling, and their religion had to do a lot with their survival.

Would society be better if everyone's religion was unified, and is it possible to ethically achieve this?

We really don't know. What I can say though is that religions should be as effective for people's lives as it is the judaism. Religions can tell the most illogical stories ever heard, it doesn't matter, what really counts is how people use it for their own progress, socially and economically. Being said that, the least recommended religion to me is the islam, I think I don't need to give further explanations. 

What are the pros and cons to society of people being religious vs Atheist?

Atheism is just a reaction to Christianity mainly. At the end atheists are basically Christian atheists.

Will society move past religion towards a more scientific understanding of the world, and would it be better or worse for society?

No. Science has deep limitations to understand the whole world. What I see is that religions are being replaced slowly but surely with more secular set of beliefs, like the new age movement or the buddhism.

Therefore, the fact that both of you have come to a platform to not just share your opinions but also hear the opinions of others is a respectable act and everyone's views should be treated as such regardless of whether we personally accept them.

Should we respect the acts of a serial killer regardless of whether we personally accept it?

What I believe you mean to ask is, "with that perspective, how would you treat a serial killer." To that question I would say, assuming they are not actively committing murders and illegal acts, I would accept that view as their opinion and nothing more, the same as I do with everyone else. I would not suggest being a serial killer or argue why it is morally wrong. Instead, I would ask what made them who they are today, why do they believe it is a good idea, how have they formed such a conclusion, and what impact will it have on their future. Everything anyone ever says is merely what they believe, and you could never expect more than that from anyone. Your job is to understand what you can from others' new perspectives you learn along the way, not to change others' perspectives. I wouldn't let it bother either of you so much, but rather be fascinated by the variety of perspectives to understand.

No, I meant exactly what I said, because last I checked the word you used was respect when you were talking about our treatment of other peoples' viewpoints.

Therefore, the fact that both of you have come to a platform to not just share your opinions but also hear the opinions of others is a respectable act and everyone's views should be treated as such regardless of whether we personally accept them.

Therefore, the fact that both of you have come to a platform to not just share your opinions but also hear the opinions of others is a respectable act and everyone's views should be treated as such regardless of whether we personally accept them.

Should we respect the acts of a serial killer regardless of whether we personally accept it?

This means that science is not just a body of facts, but a method of obtaining facts through empirical and rational means.

Method that can be wrong. Method that made mistakes before. 

Facts can be wrong or incomplete, but that does not mean that science is wrong or incomplete.

Actually, it does. If science is "study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world...", study can be incomplete or wrong. Therefore, science, being study, can be incomplete or wrong.

There are different kinds of consequentialism that have different goals for the outcome, such as human happiness, individual pleasure, specific results like money or life, and so on.

That was my original point. Accepting different values produces different conclusions, even if both cases use consequentialism.

Science is a way of finding out things, and knowledge is what we find out. Sometimes, what we find out is wrong or incomplete. That does not mean that science is wrong or incomplete. It means that we need to use science more carefully and correctly to improve our knowledge. Do you see the difference?

Way of finding out things can also be wrong or deceptive. However, definition of science is "body of facts". Facts can be wrong, that is, incorrect things can be labeled as facts.

Consequentialism is not entirely different from those who place value on human life, or prevention of pain, or increase of happiness.

It actually is.

Although I do have a few questions, what role does religion play, what would we remove by removing religion, and is it able to be synthetically produced through alternative means.

Religion teaches about God. It strikes fear in people. Fear that they cannot get away from punishment. An individual can escape earthly punishment in many ways. However, escaping God's punishment is impossible. That punishment acts as prevention of evil along with earthly punishment.

I can't argue that humans aren't flawed, but to claim that science is flawed because humans are flawed seems incorrect. Science is a concept it is not a thing knowledge is a thing that you obtain. I understand concepts as being nonphysical and form and yet existing which is what I describe as the metaphysical. Something metaphysical cannot be flawed because for it to have a flaw it means it must exist to be flawed.

Science is knowledge. Knowledge can be wrong, not in agreement with reality. What scientists say today is different from what they said 100 years ago, and different from what they will say in the next 100 years. That is flaw, inconsistency, where flawed being attempts to produce something flawless, ends up producing flawed science.

However, there are certain things that are consistent among individuals such as a safe place to live and thrive in society. It is through the process of giving up one's potential desire to harm another for their own benefit because they recognize that by following an agreed upon standard that they will be protected by not harming others and forming a unity.

The problem is that such things are usually not the case. Almost every individual has harmed others at some point in life. While being given protection does reduce individual's desire to do harm, it does not eliminate the desire.

It's very much possible for there to be a thriving atheist society where morals are based on a contractarian policy where morals are based on agreement.

Religion has God. Atheist society doesn't. Therefore, any increased agreement would likely not exist. At best, you would have a rule of majority, with minority being in disagreement with majority. God is what makes people more likely to agree, due to God being the judge who knows all. There are individuals who don't do evil only because of the fear of God.

Science has explained morality through ways of consequentialism (based on outcome), deontology (based on rules), and virtue ethics (based on intentions).

Those are methods of reasoning. They are not morality. Consequentialism, for example, is entirely different for those who place value on life, or prevention of pain, or increase of happiness. Each of these values produces entirely different conclusions about what our actions should be.

From a purely materialist perspective, religion may not be necessary or advantageous to the future. Religion can often promote values and beliefs that are not based on pure materialism or facts. It could also lead to unnecessary conflicts and disputes between different religions and belief systems. From a purely materialist perspective, it would be better if people could focus solely on material advancement and ignore religion altogether. However, there is no way to know for sure if the future will have religion or not, as it is a subjective and personal question that can be seen in different ways by different people.

From a Materialist view will the future have Religion, and should it?

I think no. That is because deities are not provable as of now. We can only theoretically deduce whether there is or isn't a God, but we have no physical evidence on whether there is one and how is it.

Would society be better if everyone was Atheist?

Well there would be less people hijacking an airliner and flying it into a tall building while yelling Allahu Akbar.

But then again, if your child is dying from cancer, you wouldn't have an opiate.

Could science or another alternative fill the void that was once filled by religion?

Science is flawed, since it is produced by flawed humans. Religion played the role it needed to play for thousands of years. Abandon religion, and you might enter a point of no return where society refuses to go back to religion while at the same time not having anything else to play the role once played by religion.

Will society move past religion towards a more scientific understanding of the world, and would it be better or worse for society?

While science may have answer to explaining things and reasoning, morality is something that science cannot explain. That is because morality follows a system of values. Those values must be agreed upon if morality is to be agreed upon.

Morality is something that all humans possess. People say that we have a sense of morality imbedded in us. Others say that we only have morals, for the goal of survival, and thriving. 

I believe that Morality is a distinctively human trait. Sure, other animals and creatures hold some sort of kindness and generosity for certain things, but those creatures have been proven to do it for survival or thriving.

But we are different. 

There are advantages to Rules over consequentialism since Rules are in most cases easier to understand and follow.

For example, if I accept that lying is wrong, then I won't lie in any situation, even when lying would result in something good.

If I accept that violence is wrong, then I will not commit violence in any situation.

Nonmaleficence is a moral law that says how you shouldn't do evil. You shouldn't do actions that cause more evil than they remove. It is also known as negative consequentialism.

Beneficence, on the contrary, says that you must act in a way that is good, or best. You must act in a way that your action brings good or brings more good than evil. If you can do good, you must.

The difference between Nonmaleficence and Beneficence is that Nonmaleficence tells you what you mustn't do. Beneficence tells you what you must do.

For example, donating your kidney would likely save someone's life. By the law of Nonmaleficence, you don't have to donate your kidney. You are allowed to do it, but you don't have to. Nonmaleficence commands you not to do evil, but it does not command you to do good or to do what's best. You can do no good, but also do no evil. Or you can do no evil, and only do a little bit of good.

However, by Beneficence, you would have to donate a kidney, since Beneficence commands you to do the greatest good.

Of course, this depends on how good, and evil are defined, but you get the idea about the difference between Nonmaleficence and Beneficence.

I'm still not convinced this multi-level conception of Free Will is correct. I don't think we say that a basketball player has less Free Will because they missed a shot, whereas someone else who made it has more.

I haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about Free Will, but it appears binary and independent of ability level or results (of which are real things but not determiners of Free Will).

I do not believe the idea of the society being run by transhumanists and post-humanists is a good idea in the least. These people are nonconformists, and to put them as the head of a conformist society is the antithesis of a promising idea.

The conformists are already conforming to the status quo. If you want to get to your ideal of a conformist utopia, you need non-conformists to push towards it. Once it's established, then you might have trouble with them if they're simply non-conformists (rather than true believer transhumanists/post-humanists).

I have a better understanding of what you're saying, and it seems reasonable. However, I believe that most are merely nonconformists who want to be unique. Of course, this is merely how I feel and has no statistical data to back it up and nor would we be able to truly judge whether a person is a non-conformist for the reason of being unique or simply because they feel different.

I also don't know how many transhumanists/post-humanists are merely non-conformists who want to be unique.

I think a good way to test for true believer status is to ask people some non-standard questions that require their own view, rather than regurgitated talking points. If they don't answer the question or can't acknowledge that they haven't thought about it before, then they aren't true believers.

For example, if you ask a transhumanist what humanity would look like 50 years after transhumanist technology were in place, assuming the transhumanist revolution happened today, a true believer is either going to think really hard or they've already thought about it and will give you lengthy answer. Someone not really interested in transhumanism is going to question the validity of the question, give you a terse answer, say something along the lines of 'we'll have to wait and see', or anything else that shows a lack of thought and interest.

I believe the tests you’re describing would not determine whether someone is a true transhumanist or post humanist (I think their dedication is whether they are true). Instead, this would test the person’s level of autonomy and consciousness. Many people who have graduated with a PhD in their desired field may lack critical thinking skills and simply repeat what they’ve been taught without much thought due to their low consciousness and awareness.

Can someone who doesn't care that much about their beliefs be a true believer?

Let me give you some examples to illustrate my view:

For example, I want to quit smoking, but I find it very hard to resist the urge to smoke. My conscious self wants to stop smoking for health reasons, but my physiological self wants to keep smoking for pleasure reasons. If I manage to quit smoking by using my conscious self to overcome my physiological self, I have more Free Will than if I fail to quit smoking by succumbing to my physiological self.

You are your physiological self, so "succumbing" to yourself is merely succumbing to your own will.

I see myself as having two aspects: a conscious self and a physiological self, and I believe that free will is being able to overcome the physiological self with the conscious self.

I don't believe in spiritual or supernatural things, so the concept of mind-body duality isn't a valid conception to me. In other words, the mind (brain) and body are both physical objects, not meta-physical in any way. Your thoughts are physical phenomena that are an amalgamation of he physiological and conscious self, and thus create one singular will, even if they can be competing forces.

I regard the conscious self as a metaphysical concept derived from the physical self, and the physiological self as a physical result of natural evolution. I believe that free will comes in different levels, and that it can be increased or decreased by various things, such as obstacles or genes. I acknowledge happiness as the thing individuals strive for and that by having your will selected for you, you can obtain your goals and desires easier and therefore will be happier. Although, I am not implying free will is a negative or positive, but rather I'm addressing the positive and negative aspects of each.

I don't think there is any metaphysical world beyond the physical world, so this argument has a premise that is unacceptable to me.

Ultimately, it would be the ideal society as it has a more positive than negative aspect for every individual along with each individual keeping their Free Will. Although I recognize restricting a person's free will could be viewed as negative but nonetheless, they would still have Free Will and they would be much easier satisfied in life and therefore live a more positive one and I view this as a positive.

I'm not even convinced that having free will is necessarily good. If positive/negative affect is the only thing that can be established as mattering (and that the events/decisions preceding are merely a method of getting to the affect goal), then having free will doesn't matter. 

Not everyone has the same understanding of what free will consists of. I understand free will as the ability to do your will. Therefore, if you will do something and you have the ability to do it then you have free will. Assuming this sounds reasonable, many people have different levels of free will. For instance, one person might want to go to the gym and lose weight while another does the same, but one goes to the gym and the other lays on the couch wishing that they had. The one that actually went to the gym has freer will because they were free to act upon their will while the other was not capable of acting upon their will.

I don't think free will necessarily has to have the ability to do your will, but rather you have the option to choose to attempt to carry out your will. For example, with harder tasks like becoming a professional sportsperson, choosing to follow that career path doesn't always end up with your being a sportsperson, but you had the free will to attempt it, therefore you had free will.

Having the ability to enact your will won't always lead to you enacting your will.  In your example, they both had the option to choose, so I think it follows that they both have free will. Sure, one person didn't end up engaging in their will, but they had the freedom to follow it if they wanted. Therefore, I think a working, consistent definition of free will involves a binary have or have not determination, rather than degrees of free will. 

If free will is only the mental ability to pursue one’s will, and physical constraints are not limitations of will, then is genetic design not a limitation of will but rather a physical constraint? - Given your definition

Genetic design should limit your ability to will for certain things, so genetic design is a limitation on Free Will -- it's preventing you from having options. This is different from having the physical inability to enact your will -- you still had the option to will it.

For example, you might be genetically predisposed to conservative ideas, and your genetic tendency to conservatism would be so strong that it's impossible for you to want Anarcho-capitalism. Therefore, genetic design was a limitation on Free Will.

Why are some things considered immoral, but as a whole more beneficial to the world?

People start using 'ends justifies the means' logic to justify immoral actions (e.g. a coal plant making the surrounding air pollutant), when it benefits the greater community (e.g. that same coal plant generating all the electricity for the surrounding area).

Assuming this is a reasonable case then I would say that we are confined by our environment and by who we are genetically when we are born and that everything we desire and will do in the future is entirely dependent on our environment and genetic makeup. A genetic makeup after all is how we respond to the given environment. In other words, by genetically constructing individuals who have a known determinable outcome rather than an unknown determinable outcome we can design individuals who will be satisfied with their environment which will also be known and therefore people will have as much free will as they do today it'll just be predictable rather than unknown and unpredictable even though it is nonetheless determinable. This would ultimately leave the world the same as individuals would still be determined by their genetic makeup, they would be free to seek their own will, and they're an environment would determine their actions as much as their genetic makeup would determine how they respond to the environment. The world would be the same, it would just be known and structured.

I think a working conception of free will requires that unpredictability wherein human choices can be made. Just to be clear: I'm not arguing that what you're saying is wrong, but I am questioning whether it's free will. Certainly, if their will is "set for them," it's not genuine free will because they didn't choose to have their will altered. 

You could perhaps argue it's free will after they've had their will set, but that initial setting of will precludes complete free will.

In any case, I don't think whether this is free will or not matters that much, because I think it's possible for something to be the best option and not give people free will.

In essence, my understanding is that no one has completely Free Will, but that there are various levels. I'm not sure if Free Will is a positive aspect of humanity either, considering how unified and crime free both Ant colonies and Beehives are.

I'm still not convinced this multi-level conception of Free Will is correct. I don't think we say that a basketball player has less Free Will because they missed a shot, whereas someone else who made it has more.

I haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about Free Will, but it appears binary and independent of ability level or results (of which are real things but not determiners of Free Will). 

I do not believe the idea of the society being run by transhumanists and post-humanists is a good idea in the least. These people are nonconformists, and to put them as the head of a conformist society is the antithesis of a promising idea.

The conformists are already conforming to the status quo. If you want to get to your ideal of a conformist utopia, you need non-conformists to push towards it. Once it's established, then you might have trouble with them if they're simply non-conformists (rather than true believer transhumanists/post-humanists).

I have a better understanding of what you're saying, and it seems reasonable. However, I believe that most are merely nonconformists who want to be unique. Of course, this is merely how I feel and has no statistical data to back it up and nor would we be able to truly judge whether a person is a non-conformist for the reason of being unique or simply because they feel different.

I also don't know how many transhumanists/post-humanists are merely non-conformists who want to be unique.

I think a good way to test for true believer status is to ask people some non-standard questions that require their own view, rather than regurgitated talking points. If they don't answer the question or can't acknowledge that they haven't thought about it before, then they aren't true believers.

For example, if you ask a transhumanist what humanity would look like 50 years after transhumanist technology were in place, assuming the transhumanist revolution happened today, a true believer is either going to think really hard or they've already thought about it and will give you lengthy answer. Someone not really interested in transhumanism is going to question the validity of the question, give you a terse answer, say something along the lines of 'we'll have to wait and see', or anything else that shows a lack of thought and interest.

Nonetheless, it would be a gamble putting a person who is a nonconformist in charge of a group that is meant to be a conforming new standard. I believe it would be better to put a rationalist and a revolutionist as the leader in fact I believe that all humans have bias because they are in fact existing and in order to evolve and exist from a Darwinist perspective they must have a certain self-interest and therefore any human as the leader of a society or of anything is prone to have self-interest as priority. Therefore, the only thing that can have no self-interest is the thing that does not exist physically that has physical desires, but we would need something that is conscious at the same time. I believe this to be the perfect description of artificial intelligence, it is a thing that does not exist and therefore has no self-interest and is nonetheless conscious and able to think of rational decisions without biases. You may argue that artificial intelligence does have bias and I would agree but I would only agree that it has bias towards the data, and I believe that if the data is based on objective reality that it would only be biased towards the real world and not towards what we consider biases in human existence which is mostly emotionally based.

Yes, this A.I. would be better than any human equivalent. It's just the issue of producing said A.I. and making incorruptible, especially since humans will be the ones creating this A.I.

Ultimately, it would be the ideal society as it has a more positive than negative aspect for every individual along with each individual keeping their Free Will. Although I recognize restricting a person's free will could be viewed as negative but nonetheless, they would still have Free Will and they would be much easier satisfied in life and therefore live a more positive one and I view this as a positive.

I'm not even convinced that having free will is necessarily good. If positive/negative affect is the only thing that can be established as mattering (and that the events/decisions preceding are merely a method of getting to the affect goal), then having free will doesn't matter. 

Not everyone has the same understanding of what free will consists of. I understand free will as the ability to do your will. Therefore, if you will do something and you have the ability to do it then you have free will. Assuming this sounds reasonable, many people have different levels of free will. For instance, one person might want to go to the gym and lose weight while another does the same, but one goes to the gym and the other lays on the couch wishing that they had. The one that actually went to the gym has freer will because they were free to act upon their will while the other was not capable of acting upon their will.

I don't think free will necessarily has to have the ability to do your will, but rather you have the option to choose to attempt to carry out your will. For example, with harder tasks like becoming a professional sportsperson, choosing to follow that career path doesn't always end up with your being a sportsperson, but you had the free will to attempt it, therefore you had free will.

Having the ability to enact your will won't always lead to you enacting your will.  In your example, they both had the option to choose, so I think it follows that they both have free will. Sure, one person didn't end up engaging in their will, but they had the freedom to follow it if they wanted. Therefore, I think a working, consistent definition of free will involves a binary have or have not determination, rather than degrees of free will. 

No person is capable of being completely objective, nor can they perceive the world objectively.

So explain how Objectivity can be rational?

Therefore, anything that exists is subjectively experiencing the universe because it exists within the universe.

What are the controls for the experiment which established this conclusion?

The only thing that could be objective is the thing that does not exist

How can the nonexistent bear any description if it, in fact, does not exist?

such as a metaphysical concept or consciousness itself.

Consciousness does not exist?