The reverse Weinberg

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Willum
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The reverse Weinberg

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Post by Willum »

As famously quoted:
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.�
Can anyone think of a way akin to religion, to get evil people to do good things?

There must be a way.

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Re: The reverse Weinberg

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Post by Divine Insight »

Willum wrote: As famously quoted:
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.�
Can anyone think of a way akin to religion, to get evil people to do good things?

There must be a way.
It's quite interesting that you ask this, because religion itself has certainly never achieved this goal.
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Re: The reverse Weinberg

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Post by Bust Nak »

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

Not on the whole, but I've personally seen someone gave up problematic gambling after "finding God."

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Re: The reverse Weinberg

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Post by Willum »

Bust Nak wrote: [Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

Not on the whole, but I've personally seen someone gave up problematic gambling after "finding God."
God is the source of the problem, qv Weinberg, so we are hoping for an organized way of getting evil people to do good.

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Re: The reverse Weinberg

Post #5

Post by Aetixintro »

[Replying to post 1 by Willum]

The way out for "evil people" is to undergo Best practice psychiatry in order to turn good to do good deeds.

Best practice psychiatry is ElectroConvulsionTherapy, Olanzapine or better and Medical Sleep Assistance like with Vival or other/better.

The thing is, after a while, these "newly" good people also turn religious and this is maybe not what you want?
I'm cool! :) - Stronger Religion every day! Also by "mathematical Religion", the eternal forms, God closing the door on corrupt humanity, possibly!

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Re: The reverse Weinberg

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Post by Clizby Wampuscat »

Willum wrote: As famously quoted:
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.�
Can anyone think of a way akin to religion, to get evil people to do good things?

There must be a way.
I would say that we teach people from an early age good epistemology and a moral system based on reason and some sort of well being. Show them that people are neither rood nor evil but they do good or evils acts. And be basing morality on well being causes each person to thrive including themselves and doing evil acts caused harm to them in different ways and in society.

Teaching them religious dogma instead shows them that the group is what counts, people outside your group are evil and are worth being punished by god. This mentality leads to people doing evil acts such as racism, bigotry etc.

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Re: The reverse Weinberg

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Post by mgb »

Willum wrote:
Can anyone think of a way akin to religion, to get evil people to do good things?

There must be a way.
No. Goodness by its very nature must be freely chosen. That is why we must be free. But there are many ways to prevent the wicked from doing wickedness.

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Re: The reverse Weinberg

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Post by Divine Insight »

Willum wrote: God is the source of the problem, qv Weinberg, so we are hoping for an organized way of getting evil people to do good.
1. Pay them money to do good things and they will do good things.
2. Convince them that doing good things will benefit them and they will do good things.

Both of the above will cause evil people to do good things. The problem is that it's only a temporary solution. If they thought they could make more money by also doing evil things then they would continue to do evil things too.

By the way, although religion can get good people to do bad things, it won't stop them from also doing good things.

In the same way, if you found a way to get bad people to do good things it wouldn't stop them from also doing bad things.

Money can often get people to do bad things, the only problem there is that we consider the act of accepting money to do bad things to itself be a bad thing. Therefore the person needs to be bad to begin with.

Weinberg's point is that it takes religion to get genuinely good people to do bad things while believing that they are actually doing good things.
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Spiritual Growth - A person's continual assessment
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Re: The reverse Weinberg

Post #9

Post by mgb »

Divine Insight wrote:Weinberg's point is that it takes religion to get genuinely good people to do bad things while believing that they are actually doing good things.
Likewise with politics, business, foreign policy etc.

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Re: The reverse Weinberg

Post #10

Post by Divine Insight »

mgb wrote:
Divine Insight wrote:Weinberg's point is that it takes religion to get genuinely good people to do bad things while believing that they are actually doing good things.
Likewise with politics, business, foreign policy etc.
Agreed, but I'm sure that Weinberg also intended to mean:
it takes religion to get genuinely good people to do bad things while believing that they are actually doing good things with the approval of a God.
People who do what politics, business, and foreign policy requires them to do, don't necessarily feel that they are doing the right thing. In fact, they often actually feel that they are doing something wrong, but they do it anyway to maintain their position in the politics, businesses, or foreign policies they are being paid to to do. After all, they don't want to risk loosing their income and potentially also losing credibility in terms of finding another job. If you lose your job because you refuse to do as you are told it isn't likely that you'll be given a very good reference for the next job you apply for.

So there's a lot of pressure for good people to do bad things in politics, business and forgiven policy, even when they realize that what they are being asked to do doesn't match up with their own moral values.

So in a sense, it's not really good people doing bad things while thinking that what they are doing is right. It's good people DECIDING to do bad things that they know are bad.

Quite a big difference from religion actually.
[center]Image
Spiritual Growth - A person's continual assessment
of how well they believe they are doing
relative to what they believe a personal God expects of them.
[/center]

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