What if... Morality = Empathy?

[Purple Knight]

Question for debate: What does it mean for religion, and society, if morality is just empathy, and that's it?

Empathy as in, you don't want to be hurt, you try to avoid hurting others. You're honest with yourself, and it goes exactly as far as you would want it to go, if you were in the opposite position. It stops, and there's no moral obligation to heed some request, if you'd genuinely not make such a request. Provided you wouldn't want anyone to simply kowtow and submit to you if you were being an awful tyrant, it stops, and there's no obligation, if someone likewise does not respect you or provide basic moral consideration to you.

What if morality is really this simple, has been this simple since prehistory, and people have been trying to overwrite or invalidate it with their own self-serving rules, for about three thousand years, or even more? What does it mean for religion, and the world?

Seems to me that we just have to navigate carefully and be honest with ourselves when people have different needs, and that's it. All of society's problems are solved and a lot of people whose business it is to inflate and profit from them, are out of a job.

[Wootah]

[Replying to alexxcJRO in post #5]

Maybe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

See the section doubts about mirror neurons.

Edit: technically all my neurons trigger from external and internal stimuli but to the neurons all triggers are probably external. Just wondering.

[TRANSPONDER]

Don't quote me on this, but I suspect we have a two brain function - reaction to outside stimuli and analysis of it and reaction and action in response. I'm thinking of the two brains of dinosaurs, one of which was recieving imput and the other controlling reaction.

[Wootah]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #1]

I think that relates to the golden rule: do unto others.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #1]

I think that relates to the golden rule: do unto others.

i think so. The instinct of reciprocity is put into memorable form with the Golden Rule - in many cultures, mostly before Christianity did it.

[alexxcJRO]

[Replying to Wootah in post #11]

It takes one like 3 seconds to confirm my claim:

"Evidence suggests that mirror neurons are strongly associated with human empathy. And that’s important. After all, empathy enables us to put ourselves in another’s place (Penagos-Corzo et al., 2022)."
https://positivepsychology.com/mirror-n ... %2C%202018).

[Purple Knight]

Yes, and this kind of morality is in my opinion not good, because it is very arbitrary.

I see nothing arbitrary about it. I could ask 100 suicidal people, "If you didn't want to be killed, would you have a reasonable expectation that people not kill you?" and some vast portion would say yes, and some other portion would say no, and it would be very obvious who was being dishonest.

We can also use psychological testing to have people play games and evaluate when they will cheat, so we can use science to discover, with pinpoint accuracy, when people actually have a mutual expectation to heed one another's rights, and when those rights are made up for the sake of the one making it up.

That's what Boaty argues, and Norway's prison system does this, and it does work better than a system that believes in justice. I don't believe it is right, but it does work.

Would be nice to know how it works.

They have open prisons. If you kill someone, as far as I know, they put you up at the Hilton, basically. You get TV and a computer. To leave and go to work, or whatever. For some reason this leads to less repeat offence, not more. As to why this is the case, I couldn't tell you. In any case, I think, in the service of equality, that it is the obligation of society to favour the victim over the criminal, since the crime itself made the victim lose out (to die, for example, or to lose some object like a car) and the criminal got to stay alive, or gained a car.

So how do you determine if something is right or wrong when God doesn't say anything? The Bible doesn't say a lot about what happens if a biological male wants to be called a woman. I just watched a vid of a progressive minister picking passages and saying, yes, the Bible loves transgenderism, and a conservative minister saying the first one was cherrypicking. But of course, they are both cherrypicking because the Bible is silent on the issue.

I think Bible tells that men dressing in woman's clothes is wrong. Also genital mutilation is wrong.

You'd now be hard-pressed to defend circumcision. I understand that one instance interferes with function and one does not, but the line between the two is not a clear one. What would female circumcision be? No loss of reproductive function but the purpose seems to be, to remove pleasure for the female.

But, it is true that Bible doesn't say everything. However, there are general rules like:

All things are lawful to me, but not all things profit. All things are lawful to me, but I will not be ruled by any.
1 Cor. 6:12
All things are lawful to me, but not all things profit. All things are lawful to me, but not all things build up.
1 Cor. 10:23
this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not heavy.
1 John 5:3
Therefore, all things, whatever you desire that men should do to you, so also you should do to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Matt. 7:12

I think with those almost everything can be evaluated, is it good or not. For example if biological man wants to be called a woman:
1. It is not truthful, which is not good, is against God's rules.
2. It is not beneficial in anyway.
3. It is not reasonable.

Truth is irrelevant because they want the definition to be such that it is truth. Benefit is subjective, and reasonable is only evaluated by using reciprocity. Would I want this, if I were in their shoes? Would that be a reasonable demand, if I made it?

I think it should not matter what gender on is, in a court. That it even needs to be mentioned, is in my opinion not useful. Also because I don't think anyone can anymore define what woman or man means.

Exactly. An equal society would be gender-blind. I think you came to this conclusion the same way I did: By simply asking yourself what is fair and reasonable.

But, what do you think, if I would claim I am the king of U.S. should it's citizens treat me like their king?

I would ask: What kind of person I would be, if I made that demand, and would I expect people to bow to it? I would expect to be kicked in the pants and tossed on my butt. I would not make such a demand, and if I did I would not expect people to heed it. So I can say no.

This is so simple and gives such relevant and good results that I have to wonder if religion, as well as modern supposedly advanced atheist morality, is yet another of society's bitter pills for a disease that doesn't exist.



We're not sick. We are not broken. We are not sinful by nature. We do not need a cure.

[TRANSPONDER]

I have to suspect that the whole idea of religion is to make us think we are sick, so they can sell us the cure.

[Wootah]

[Replying to Wootah in post #11]

It takes one like 3 seconds to confirm my claim:

"Evidence suggests that mirror neurons are strongly associated with human empathy. And that’s important. After all, empathy enables us to put ourselves in another’s place (Penagos-Corzo et al., 2022)."
https://positivepsychology.com/mirror-n ... %2C%202018).

Well I went to wikipedia, If it is there it usually means someone won the editting battle on the left side of life. Pretty reasonable to say just be open minded.

[alexxcJRO]

[Replying to Wootah in post #11]

It takes one like 3 seconds to confirm my claim:

"Evidence suggests that mirror neurons are strongly associated with human empathy. And that’s important. After all, empathy enables us to put ourselves in another’s place (Penagos-Corzo et al., 2022)."
https://positivepsychology.com/mirror-n ... %2C%202018).

Well I went to wikipedia, If it is there it usually means someone won the editting battle on the left side of life. Pretty reasonable to say just be open minded.

Off course for the religious Wikipedia, the Dictionary, Science are not reliable tools.
Not a surprise. This was recurring theme in all my history of conversing with believers.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to Wootah in post #11]

It takes one like 3 seconds to confirm my claim:

"Evidence suggests that mirror neurons are strongly associated with human empathy. And that’s important. After all, empathy enables us to put ourselves in another’s place (Penagos-Corzo et al., 2022)."
https://positivepsychology.com/mirror-n ... %2C%202018).

Well I went to wikipedia, If it is there it usually means someone won the editting battle on the left side of life. Pretty reasonable to say just be open minded.

Off course for the religious Wikipedia, the Dictionary, Science are not reliable tools.
Not a surprise. This was recurring theme in all my history of conversing with believers.

A valid observation. For the religious, the Dictioonary, science, Logic and even the Bible itself are not reliable tools if they conflict with what the Religious want to believe. For myself, those Religious authorities that do not see or refuse to take on board that Jesus debunked and dismissed the old law that conservative judges have nailed up in courthouses and never mind the constitution, are less trustworthy as references than Wiki.

Wiki is useful. It is only as good as what ios posted, and it was seen early on that biased articles can be posted. Yet it remains remarkably objective. The bottom line is that Wiki is the quick reference and anything disputed can be checked up.

It is ignorance or dishonesty (I never know which) to dismiss Wiki as unreliable, and then appeal to dictionaries, as those only give common usage, right, wrong, true or untrue. It shows the flawed thinking of how science and logic works of the Theists when they appeal to dictionary definitions and condition what people believe according to the usage of a term.