If God Is Real

Relative to the scope of the animal kingdom, there is no anti-social instinct in humans. We may pride ourselves on personal accomplishments and asserting our autonomy in various ways but these are personal conventions we assess in relationship to the social structures we are in. Even the examples you provide here, suggests we rely or appeal on others ideas, even if they are not physically present.

In the West at least, actual anti-social behavior is usually regarded as a disorder/sickness.

 

My experience is that while humans depend on and support society and exhibit empathetic and altruistic behavior, we are also self-interested and are often tempted to advance our own interests at the expense of others. The competitive culture of the United States encourages the self-interested side, as any Mad Men rerun or review of the daily news will confirm. But I don't think it's only a function of cultural conditioning or faulty institutions. You'll find that anywhere you go, in Buddhist, Hindu, or whatever societies--or in convents and monasteries, even in Scandanavia.,And it seems to have been like that throughout recorded history. To say otherwise is to take an extended cruise on that longest river in Africa. We can fight to strengthen the altruistic, empathic tendencies, using all the social conditioning tools at our disposal, which would include behavior modification, environmental controls, and religious and ethical norms. In fact that's one of the reasons why I think religion developed in the first place. So what exactly is the issue? Tabula rasa?

 

I am utterly at a loss to what it is you are suggesting. I think I took "anti-social instinct" to be something in relation to behavior based on a biological scope but perhaps you are coming more from a sociology perspective...

Anyways as I trudge on in my admitted ignorance, I don't really see how any of it is characterized by "anti-social instinct". Even if it's not always 'nice' behavior, The 'self-interested' climb up the social ladder is pretty much always characterized by social interactions and summed up with cliches such as: "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours", "it's who you know", "networking", and perhaps the most explicit "fuck your way to the top"

Basically what I glean from these saying is an attempt to advance one's social ranks at the expense of what they generally find comfortable and familiar at their (perceived) lower social rank. So I think the issue that I have is seeing "anti-social instinct" as something along the lines of solitary animals, but what you are saying as far as I can tell, relies on buying into societal constructs.

 

The experience is what it's like. But there's no way of knowing what it's like, because we automatically impart everything with our own subjective personality. It's exactly like every one of us, and we all feel abstract from one another and this causes us to feel abstract from the universe as well. At question is the speed of personality. Personality is not just the result of parents, but a result of the entire universe. One can't rightly time everything, because there's nothing in which it exists as a backdrop of which to measure its time. Or something like that, but you know what I mean. Personality is not just a persistent illusion; it is something that actually exists. And you can say it's a product of your environment, but then you have to take into account your whole environment: the universe. And where is the time in all of this?

 

Well consider this:

Suppose "Subjectivity" was the name for different circumstances. What I mean by that is when we are both looking at the same object we both have a different vantage point, as well as the difference between our two vantage points through our entire lives. We would look at things differently in that respect also. We are in essence speaking about two different areas of space as they exist in the same moment over a long period of time. They are by their very definition two seperate things.

But since our physiology is what gives rise to "it" we don't really have to spend much time classifying what "it" is. "It" is the potential to influence and be influenced and we call it our experience. You know what will happen if you kick a big rock. You will hurt your foot and feel pain. It is recorded in your memmory. But you did not know that pain was unpleasant until you first felt, experienced, and became influenced by the anticipation of something unpleasant.

Somewhere in this big mess of waves and particles is the universe thinking about itself. In fact, that is all man has ever done.

 

Somewhere in this big mess of waves and particles is the universe thinking about itself. In fact, man has only ever thought about himself. It's true.

 

Well consider this:

Suppose "Subjectivity" was the name for different circumstances. What I mean by that is when we are both looking at the same object we both have a different vantage point, as well as the difference between our two vantage points through our entire lives. We would look at things differently in that respect also. We are in essence speaking about two different areas of space as they exist in the same moment over a long period of time. They are by their very definition two seperate things.

But since our physiology is what gives rise to "it" we don't really have to spend much time classifying what "it" is. "It" is the potential to influence and be influenced and we call it our experience. You know what will happen if you kick a big rock. You will hurt your foot and feel pain. It is recorded in your memmory. But you did not know that pain was unpleasant until you first felt, experienced, and became influenced by the anticipation of something unpleasant.

Kick rocks. And don't let fear or pain stop you. It might not hurt the next time.

 

I'm not sure what you're saying, exactly. Subjectivity is the name for different circumstances. But everything is circumstantial. Our whole existence is the result of circumstances from the moment of our conception. Our personality is, at least partially, shaped upon conception. But we all know that it goes even beyond this. Our personalities are shaped by events that happened to our parents, and events that happened to their parents, and so on ad infinitum. And events that happened to the dinosaurs that allowed us to live. Events that happened on earth that allowed us to live. Events in the fluctuation of spacetime that allowed us to exist. We begin to grow and take form in a certain way. Or it could be that the circumstances of the universe are so set that our personalities are an inevitability of existence itself.

I don't see how we can distinguish ourselves from our physiology, either. At least in part our physiology is us. And everyone's physiology undergoes a completely different set of circumstances. And people's physiology reacts differently to circumstances, which is personality.

 

you go into it a little deeper. i was trying to be brief. but yes.

some people live more in their emotions then others, but there's a universe out there that isn't very impressed by our doing so.

if genetics has anything to do with our emotions, it still is far less then how we are raised, what we experience, and how we choose to look at what we do.

 

Our genes are a mechanism that adapts to an environment. What you know as culture and learned knowledge is at a fundamental level the expression of your genes. You are designed to feel, so to speek. And why wouldn't you be? An intuitive understanding of our immediate surroundings would be tremendously advantageous.

 

um, the thread is called "if god is real", not thanks jesus, buddha, mo, concucious, and plato for awesome knowledge!

 

Whatever the thread is called, I was responding to your post in which you said:"science has shown us that human behavior is 'environmentally determined', so perpetuating this concept that we as humans are somehow flawed and need jesus is what is hindering our spiritual development." Since you are the OP, I assume this is within the scope of the topic, which is actually a sentence fragment.

My responses have been that1) science has not shown that human behavior is "environmentally determined", although it is certainly environmentally influenced;(2) some scientists like Pinker argue that important aspects of our behavior are "hardwired" by our biological evolution; (3) evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson thinks that during the habilene period"a conflict ensued between individual-level selection, with individuals competing with other individuals in the same group, on the one side, and group-level selection , with competition among groups on the other. The latter force promoted altruism and cooperation among all the group memebers..or , risking oversimplification, individual selection promoted sin, while group selection promoted virtue." Wilson is militant atheist , so this isn't just Christian apologetics talking. Whether he is right or not, he is a prominent scientist who seems no to agree that human behavior is entirely determined by environmental factors; (3) if present-day humans are hardwired for these conflicting instincts, and if environmental factors can influence, if not determine, human behavior, then we can use all the help we can get in accentuating our altruistic side.; hence my reference to Jesus, the Buhha, Mohammed, Confucius, etc.,(which addressed your suggestion that we didn't need Jesus).

 

Possibly my post above to IMjustfishin will clear this up. If not, I'm also at a loss to understand what it is you don't understand. Possibly my use of the term "anti-social" is too strong, suggesting to you some kind of psychopathology. "Not always nice" behavior will do, and I believe in a mix of nature and nurture in accounting for human behavior. Some cultures do a much better job than others in overcoming excessively competitive behavior--e.g., the Hopi and the Trobriand Islanders--but there are still occasions in which group sanctions need to be applied to enforce the norms. I regard the Genesis myth as a metaphor expressing this basic conflict between individual interest and societal interests. As for "buying into social constructs", I'm simply drawing on the findings of sociobiologists and psychobiologists, including Pinker, Wilson, and Dawkins. Deconstructionists would say that their theories, like the rest of science, are "social constructs", but since you seem to be a science fan, I'm assuming you're not a postmoderninst. Sociobiology and psychobiology have their critics, some extremely vocal, and their findings might even be wrong, but they present evidence that should at least be considered before making sweeping generalizations about what science has shown. Really, my main point was that IMjustafishin's statement about that "science has shown" environmental determinism is too broad and unsupportable. Would you like to argue about that?

 

At the very least, human behavior is selected for evolutionarily.

I can tell you that if your behavior does not involve reproducing, your genes will cease to influence the behavioral climate.

I can tell you that some behavior is rewarded

 

Can't argue with that.

 

Excellent.

The conditions in which a person lives, his environment, includes other humans.

We exist as natural phenomena so our "nurturing" behavior would also be that, natural phenomena.

like if a tree had leaves that were being blown by the wind. The wind is just as responsible for that behavior as the tree is. Now replaced the tree & wind with two humans, it is the same situation.

Nature & nurture do not really work against each other. They are the same thing.

 

Hmm, this is fantastic.

I'm not sure I completely understand what you're saying about time, but I do not disagree. You sound enlightened.

And we also have the exact same post count.

 

so does cleaning up the environment....caring for other species of the world.....stopping the cruelty of what we do to the pigs, cows, sheep, etc......for food, finding more cures.....becomming a kinder more gentler world come into any of this...or is it just reproduce more as a species is all that matters?

 

(re)production is out ... transcendance is in.

 

says who? ^