Maximizing life expectancy/enjoyment

Bob Pastorio wrote in message


[...]

The problem I have with her approach, Objectivism, is that it's too
close to a solipsistic view of the universe. It permits no weakness or
infirmity. It fosters no charity or altruism. It's too cold and
solitary for me. It promotes rationalism to the point of unemotional
frigidity. A bit too restrained for me. Howard Roark is a swell guy,
just not somebody I want for a friend or co-worker.

Live long and prosper, human.

--

"Posting at the top because that's where the cursor happened to be is like
****ting in your pants because that's where your asshole happened to be."
Andreas Prilop

Bob Pastorio wrote:

The question above, expanded, is "Do you find integrity and lack of
contradiction in your religious instruction?" The religious
information you have been taught.

Not sure what you imply - I'm not religious.

Is there integrity, whatever that means here. Is there lack of
contradiction? I say that no organized religion offers either. All
the sacred books have internal contradictions.

Contradictions in sacred books have nothing to do with contradictions
in personal life which people seek to avoid. This is the same word yet
there isn't necessarily a connection.

I don't buy the IQ argument below. There have been observed some
negative correlation between IQ and religious tendencies, however the
subjects studied mostly included average young individuals who are
likely to default to religion because of the traditions commonly
accepted by society. If samples were selected from a country where
atheism is the government policy, the relation could be reversed.

Moreover, I highly suspect that even in Western predominantly
Christian countries this relation is U-shaped, that is, the proportion
of religious (in the broad sense) individuals among very high-IQ
(and/or very well educated) individuals comes back high again.

DZ

Hominoid spesies are cannibalistic, violent, banging on the chest,
sneaky, lying, racist, hating animals - put in a place where we can't
be what we really are.

You could have made this more emotional, I just can't imagine how.

We behave just like all other predators with the solitary exception of
having the tool-using capacity well-developed. Tools for manipulation
with our opposable thumb and tools for manipulation like language.

The charged descriptors you've used to characterize human behavior are
all elements of primitive self-preservation imperatives. We eat to
survive. We kill to eat. We practice stealth just like all predators.
We deceive to conquer and, so, to live another day. We're wary of
people who aren't like us because they might be unsuspected hazards;
not members of our family/tribe/clan/village/town/city/state/country.
All pro-survival characteristics in a less technological setting. The
problem is that we've altered our environment so much that we've
outstripped our evolutionary capacity. We've changed our world faster
than we could change. So we still bear that brainstem that governs our
primitive functions and we temper it with our civilizing influences.
But both still exist and both are still strong.

We are what we are all day, every day. It's just that we express it
differently now that we live in cities and have essentially unlimited
electric, mechanical and electronic power.

In addition to that, hypertrophy of the human
brain makes it susceptible to extreme variety of ferocious
overwhelming desires (that includes sucking on the mammary gland AND
MORE), and brings it awarenes of suffering, death etc.

Please. This one-sided view serves no one well. Our relatively large
brain isn't some homogeneous mass created yesterday. It has all the
layers of animal development since there were brains. Much of our
behavior is instinctual, hard-wired into place. Our "lizard" brain is
that primitive, wary, violent, self-preserving contributor. Our
developed forebrain creates technology, literature and society. And
amplifies the unique characteristics we all have and lets us express
them through language of all sorts.

It isn't like our brains are one commonly-operating thing.

Countries like USSR with nearly 100% of the population educated and
taught atheistic concepts, starting elementary school or earlier,
totally failed to produce religion-free societies.

Why do you think this this so?

You won't like my answers.

Every society we know anything about has appealed to invisible forces
to deal with things they didn't understand or couldn't control. So
Aztecs cut hearts out of millions of conquered enemies to make it rain
or make the sun shine. Shamans pour mineral salts into fires and take
credit for green fire. Clergy, by whatever name, all through human
history have been a caste apart. They say mass or preach from pulpits
or dip people into water or cut off their foreskins. They've
identified themselves with these invisible forces and asserted that
only they can communicate with them. It more demonstrates that while
100 is the average IQ, it probably isn't enough.

So all that lying and conniving you decry above is brought sharply
into focus by the organizers and designers of religions. All the
ritual, all the special clothing, all the restrictions, all the
special privilege, all the gold and silver - are all there to exploit
the superstitious fears of the common people and benefit the
clergy-caste from that exploitation. It's all about power, money and
sex. What else is there?

Back to the basic question you raise. Why are so many people
believers? Because it's too scary not to. Because there are so many
things not fully understood that some comforting superbeing offers
seeming rationality in an infinite and, therefore, incomprehensible
universe. Because most people don't understand the reality of
coincidence; of mathematics, of probability. Because most people would
rather ascribe events to a plan or a design rather than the
impersonality of the laws of physics. Because we're all primarily
concerned with our own survival and minimizing hazard and maximizing
benefit, as all living things are.

So, not because there's any evidence for divinity; just because the
universe is reduced to a more human scale if there's a daddy
supervising it all.

Pastorio


As long as there are honest people with opposing views and needs,
there can be neither. Integrity means oneness. Religion and
religious belief is based on desire for these things, but nowhere
are they externally delivered. We each choose that portion that
pleases us. The bible is replete with contradiction and mutually
exclusive conditions.



http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/bibleanalysis.html

Pastorio

--
Wheel discovery department

Steve wrote:
(Just seeing if this nifty "Supersede" feature works... "mime" should
have been "meme" )

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 2:22:06 -0400, DZ wrote
(in message ):

Countries like USSR with nearly 100% of the population educated and
taught atheistic concepts, starting elementary school or earlier,
totally failed to produce religion-free societies.

Why do you think this this so?

Because the dominant human instinct is to survive. Couple this with
the (apparently) unique human ability to model the environment and make
predictions and you end up with an extremely unpleasant cognitive
dissonance between the certain knowledge or our death and the
overwhelming imperative of the survival instinct. Religion resolves
this conflict and allows the individual to get on with its life.

I believe that religion is a meme which is selected for because it
allows the individual to focus on other survival-enhancing activities
without wasting time and energy trying to solve the ultimate paradox.

Some good points here. Not sure about "meme" - but "group selection",
I'd maybe agree.

DZ

Steve



--
Wheel discovery department

Just saw the thread title and it reminded me of a news story I saw
recently....
It taked about how we are all living longer than we ever have with all
the "great" medical advances, but that our quality of life is very very
different than what it used to be. We burn something like 1400 calories less
a day than from 50 years ago and consume more calories than ever, so we are
less active and are eating more.
It's easy to see, look at your father or mother and then compare their
health to how you grandparents where at that same age. At 60 my dad's not
doing too bad, but at 60 my grandfather was out chopping wood everyday and
walking miles upon miles in the woods. There's a huge diference in the
activity of each, and my dad's not to bad compared to some 60 year olds. I
used to work with seniors quite a bit and all of them would tell me thay had
never seen a greneration as sickly and wimpy as their own kids, they could
see it themselfs how unfit their childern where compared to themselfs at the
same age.
Today your chances of living to 100 are pretty good, but unless you are
one of the lucky ones at least the last 25 of those years will be doing
nothing but eating and stareing at a television screne, that's not living at
all to me. I'd rather die in my sleep at 75 than did slowly doing nothing
but watching TV and eating microwave dinners.

"Bob Pastorio" wrote in message
...


Anthropomorphism is attributing human characteristics to non-humans.
It is utterly central to religions. If god couldn't hear and see
people, there would be no point in the existence. If god didn't
exhibit human characteristics like mercy and compassion, there's no
point to the belief.


Actually, man has an inherently evil (sinful) nature according to the
Christian Bible. The characteristics of mercy and compassion are God's, and
only imitated by man because of His grace-- not visa-versa.

If one is to literally believe the Bible, then Man was created in God's
image. So God exhibiting human characteristics is not anthropormorphism;
exactly the oposite. It is Man who is attributed God's characteristics!
Theopomorphism?

OTOH, does God really laugh, weep, speak, anger, love, etc.? Or are these
descriptions of His emotions and reactions only put in those terms so that
we mere humans might comprehend a purely spiritual being in the limited
context of our fleshly, sensual experience? This would be true
anthropormorphism, but would also be extreme metaphor and shoot the hell out
of the concept that the Bible is the *literal* Word of God. Interesting
paradox.

Peter
website: http://users.thelink.net/marengo

"Bob Pastorio" wrote in message
...

We behave just like all other predators with the solitary exception of
having the tool-using capacity well-developed. .


Not true at all, and you don't really believe it etither .

The main distinguishing haractersitic hat separates man from other animals
is *self-awareness! combined with intelligence to be able to control and
modify those instinctive animal behaviors. No other "predators" share this
characteristic.

Would you rather sit in, say, a Doctor's waiting room for a half hour alone
with 5 lions or five people? -- Answer this honestly, and you'll find you
really *don't* believe what you said!
--
Peter
website: http://users.thelink.net/marengo

On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 02:28:44 -0400, marengo wrote:

OTOH, does God really laugh, weep, speak, anger, love, etc.?

The question is irrelevant. Only God knows and we have no real clue
about Him.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031011.html
Lift well, Eat less, Walk fast, Live long.

marengo wrote:

"Bob Pastorio" wrote in message
...

Anthropomorphism is attributing human characteristics to non-humans.
It is utterly central to religions. If god couldn't hear and see
people, there would be no point in the existence. If god didn't
exhibit human characteristics like mercy and compassion, there's no
point to the belief.

Actually, man has an inherently evil (sinful) nature according to the
Christian Bible. The characteristics of mercy and compassion are God's, and
only imitated by man because of His grace-- not visa-versa.

If one is to literally believe the Bible, then Man was created in God's
image.

The "image" in the bible is translated from a word that more closely
approximates "soul" than anything like a physical or intellectual
representation. The vital force rather than any activity or capacity.

So God exhibiting human characteristics is not anthropormorphism;
exactly the oposite. It is Man who is attributed God's characteristics!
Theopomorphism?

I mildly disagree. The names for the characteristics and the
definitions are human work. There's no requirement for god to behave
in any fashion. That humans are able to demonstrate any of them might
as well be attributed to a combination of free will (and the
subsequent understanding of vested self-interest) and punishment for
exercising that same free will in "unacceptable" fashion. There's a
paradox.

OTOH, does God really laugh, weep, speak, anger, love, etc.? Or are these
descriptions of His emotions and reactions only put in those terms so that
we mere humans might comprehend a purely spiritual being in the limited
context of our fleshly, sensual experience? This would be true
anthropormorphism, but would also be extreme metaphor and shoot the hell out
of the concept that the Bible is the *literal* Word of God. Interesting
paradox.

Indeed. And the paradoxes pile atop each other. To describe this
ostensibly omnipotent, incorporeal force in human terms is a final
sort of paradox. To be and not be at the same time.

Like 3-dimensional beings trying to understand a 4-dimensional
tesseract. http://pw1.netcom.com/~hjsmith/WireFrame4/tesseract.html

Pastorio

marengo wrote:

"Bob Pastorio" wrote in message
...

We behave just like all other predators with the solitary exception of
having the tool-using capacity well-developed. .

Not true at all, and you don't really believe it etither .

Peter, dispute my words, if you wish, but kindly don't try to tell me
what I think. I said what I meant.

The main distinguishing haractersitic hat separates man from other animals
is *self-awareness! combined with intelligence to be able to control and
modify those instinctive animal behaviors. No other "predators" share this
characteristic.

I explained that language was one of the tools. It presupposes
self-awareness, intelligence and socialization. Tool usage, language
and the intelligence it presupposes, permits us to modify our
environments whether physical, social or instinctual.

Would you rather sit in, say, a Doctor's waiting room for a half hour alone
with 5 lions or five people? -- Answer this honestly, and you'll find you
really *don't* believe what you said!

I can't see the connection between this and anything gone above. I
guess, on second thought, I can offer an answer, just as disjunctive.
If I had the correct tools, it wouldn't matter. In the first place, a
decent book. In the second a decent fully automatic rifle and lots of
ammo.

Pastorio

Steve wrote:
On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 14:03:32 -0400, DZ wrote
Some good points here. Not sure about "meme" - but "group selection",
I'd maybe agree.

How would "group selection" work? I'm afraid I don't understand.

Well, for the group selection to work you need a group defined by a
certain degree of genetic similarity. When the similarity is high
enough, groups can become units of natural selection and things like
cooperative behavior among social insects (which are highly
genetically similar inside the group) can be sustained. Hamilton
developed the formal relation between the degree of genetic similarity
and primitive forms of cooperation.

Then Wilson took this further to explain human predisposition to
religious feelings as being a realized mechanism for sustaining social
behaviors, which have been selected by group selection. See "Darwin's
Cathedral".

DZ


--
Wheel discovery department