Does Bad Karma Have an Expiration Date?

Sometimes men think women "play games" with them. my thought on this idea is that it in rare cases it is true, and in most cases it's an "interpretation"

Reply to
bitrex
Loading thread data ...

Christianity is not about struggling to follow all manner of arcane rules to the letter in an attempt to score Jesus-points, Christ himself said that if that's what you're doing, you're doing it wrong. More-or-less.

It's also about accepting that as a human you're not always in a position to make demands like that. that is to say someone who is religious who is religious because they think it makes them part of "something important" has again probably got the wrong idea

Reply to
bitrex

Huh OK I agree with you. By morals coming from religion, I meant that the various religions around the world have been the tradition source of 'morals', (how to behave).

Clifford, thanks for the nice discussion. I think when we say religion, we have very different images. For me religion is the local church. (My fav. church in the world will have to be the UU in Nashville Tn.) Church/religion is about local community. (And not some bureaucratic nightmare that any 'big thing' can become.)

Big religion is maybe the result of small religion... which maybe could get into our genes?

Mostly I see religion as a good thing... (in that it is local community.) A good church is a good thing in your life. You don't have to believe in Jesus, to go to church... (UU churches welcome atheists, wiccans and pagans.. basically anyone. there may even be a few republicans. :^) (In the US it's a very left leaning church.)

George H.

George H.

Reply to
George Herold

Always happy to discuss the subject that diluted too much of my earlier life. And thank you for the thoughtful stimuli.

I also have that image, but included alongside in the bigger picture.

Society (including local society) needs a means to promulgate the myths that support its existence. So it's important to stifle awareness of the mythic status. Many well-meaning church leaders honestly believe, and fear the social breakdown that would arise from the absence of their particular kind of belief... so they don't allow themselves to consider that there might be a non-mythic (or even a rational evidence-based) set of beliefs that could supplant that role.

I don't think these people are deliberately promoting a lie. They just tell themselves that it's not possible yet to see it truly fulfilled, so when the results are mixed, that's the reason. [I've seen good people tear themselves apart trying to live up to the unnecessary and arbitrary standards set for them.]

That doesn't mean that the whole thing is not pure fabrication. I wrote earlier about how such fabrications develop, and here we see the motivations of the individuals concerned. When a leader's position becomes sufficiently unassailable, they are freed to admit the truth to themselves, and tend to move into corruption from there.

So is a good sports club, or even a good pub. People benefit from any good community, and it gives them a reason to act in the community's interest. But the problem remains that this motivation is inherently schismatic, leading to conflict *between* communities (e.g. religious wars).

Religion is in decline partly due to the rise of globalism, because the benefits we receive are plainly not all of local origin - so it seems irrational to join a club that deprecates others (and that's most churches, though perhaps not UU).

Clifford Heath.

Reply to
Clifford Heath

I find that to be an amazing statement. Perhaps you actually know nothing of religion in history? Religion has been one of the least moral forces in the world in many, many ways. Do I need to spell it out for you?

So you limit "religion" to some tiny aspect? That seems odd. Do you only look at the horse's eyes when evaluating if it will win the race?

There is no "small" religion separate from "big" religion. No point in trying to discuss it.

I would say you have some idealized image of what religion is. Idealized and very unrealistic.

--
  Rick C. 

  -++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Rick C

e

ligion is the local church.

Even Spinoza was in favour of a set of irrational beliefs for the kind of people who can't do ethical calculus. I'm not sure that he was right if yo u allow one group to propagate beneficial irrational delusions you leave th e door open to people who want to propagate less beneficial irrational delu sions.

s).

Richard Dawkins makes the point that a lot of the questions that religions made a point of answering are now answered rather more convincingly by rati onal calculation based on scientific knowledge.

Religion is in decline, but I don't think that the rise of globalism has mu ch to do with it. Certain religions do make point of demonising, or at leas t trying to convert, people who aren't followers of their religion, and tha t doesn't always play well in a global environment, but the US is a whole l ot more religious than the rest of the advanced industrial world while bein g active over most of it.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

They have only ever been one (or more than 1) of many sources of morals, or in some cases immorals.

Reply to
tabbypurr

Yeah... I really didn't want to talk about religion... But the idea that whatever leads humans to have a propensity for religion. (checks world... lots of religions) Is something that has been selected for in our genes.

~level one game theory says selecting for cooperation... (perhaps w/ potential sacrifice/loss) would be good for a group. If there are a few genes for such a thing... how might they work?

It might be a 'wrong idea'.. maybe there are no such genes.

George H. And I just observe, that even though I've run into some lying assholes, (as vendors) I assume everyone is good, telling me the truth, and that's worked great for me ~90% (?) of the time.

(?) maybe more, you remember the a-h vendors more than the average ones.

Reply to
George Herold

Possibly. I think it's likely that the propensity to invent religion goes with sentience. There is definitely selection in favour of societies that cooperate better, but it might not get selected in our genes. Or at least, it's only had a few thousands years to do so (based on written texts anyhow), 300 generations perhaps.

Depressing thought. I hope we have (or will) come up with better ways of cooperating, or the problem of religion (building on unsubstantiated mythologies) will only worsen with time. Maybe that explains Trump (/me ducks).

Sadly you're probably right, but we haven't been round long enough to refine them very far.

Most people want to be remembered well, so it's a good principle. It's what they do in secret (or when they can get away with it) that makes the difference.

Clifford Heath.

Reply to
Clifford Heath

use

religion is the local church.

e

t

o

y

ars).

That's an assumption. Religion has not been around long enough to have res ulted in much effect from natural selection. Otherwise our propensity for religion can easily be a side effect of some other aspect of our makeup suc h as seeing faces in a dark woods which is the result of a facial recogniti on circuit in our brain that works imperfectly.

Unfortunately the optimum strategy for an individual is to cheat when they can get away with it. We are programmed for that as well as cooperation.

Not for religion as such. Cooperation very likely but I don't know for sur e. I don't know for sure why we seem to want religions, but I expect it is a side effect of human nature which has a huge component the various impac ts of childhood. Much of religion is about replacing our parents.

I don't start out assuming people are lying assholes, but I always leave th at door open. Mostly I think people are unthinking and easily led. So rel igions are good at herding them not unlike politicians.

--
  Rick C. 

  +-- Get a 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Rick C

Hmm sentience goes back further than that. There are signs of religious practices in the Neanderthals. But how many generations do you need to show signs of selection... (I guess a lot depends on how strong the selection pressure is...)

I haven't told you about my idea for the genetic selection of intelligence. If you measure IQ, you find a small but statistical difference between the various races. Chinese the highest, then Europeans and Africans. So my idea is that civilization selects for intelligence. Chinese are highest because their civilization has been around for the longest, selecting for smarts. (Some people are uncomfortable talking about such things...)

George H.

Reply to
George Herold

Six(!) generations, in one experiment on foxes.

"Starting from what amounted to a population of wild foxes, within six generations (6 years in these foxes, as they reproduce annually), selection for tameness, and tameness alone, produced a subset of foxes that licked the hand of experimenters, could be picked up and petted, whined when humans departed, and wagged their tails when humans approached. An astonishingly fast transformation. Early on, the tamest of the foxes made up a small proportion of the foxes in the experiment: today they make up the vast majority."

FFI:

formatting link

Reply to
Tom Gardner

d
s

-018-0090-x

Sounds like an experiment that can't be conducted without impacting the res ult by the measurement. Rather than selecting for tameness the experimente rs could have been training the foxes. There are several problems with thi s work or at least the report of it which is a far cry from a research pape r.

The first is I don't see a control group mentioned. They should have also randomly picked another group of foxes and perform everything the same, han dling, testing, selecting, but randomly, not by the results of testing.

Not much to base your opinion on. No evidence this was genetic selection a t all.

--
  Rick C. 

  +-+ Get a 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Rick C

From memory of watching a TV programme about it a few decades ago, many of those points aren't the case.

However, that is to see the trees and miss the wood. The key point is how fast the changes occurred - much *much* faster than anyone guessed before they did the experiment. And much faster than people guess or "want" to believe after hearing about it.

No doubt there is more solid information out there. I can't be bothered to find it and it wouldn't convince those that don't want (for whatever reason) to believe it.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

ction

ed

ade

up

18-0090-x

oblems

lso

ng.

on at

Sorry, science does not advance by "I can't be bothered to find it". How f ast the changes occurred mean nothing if you don't have control groups and other measures to assure you are measuring what you think you are measuring . The changes occurred faster than what exactly? What is your yardstick f or "fast"? Why would you not expect a wild animal, closely related to the dog to be hard to domesticate?

I expect the TV shoe you saw to be much like the article you linked to. No thing at all like a science report.

--
  Rick C. 

  ++- Get a 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Rick C

ix

lection

cked

n

made

e up

-018-0090-x

he

problems

also

e,

ting.

tion at

fast the changes occurred mean nothing if you don't have control groups an d other measures to assure you are measuring what you think you are measuri ng. The changes occurred faster than what exactly? What is your yardstick for "fast"? Why would you not expect a wild animal, closely related to th e dog to be hard to domesticate?

Nothing at all like a science report.

but you don't know :)

Reply to
tabbypurr

six

selection

licked

hen

es made

ake up

52-018-0090-x

the

l problems

a

ve also

ame,

esting.

ection at

ow fast the changes occurred mean nothing if you don't have control groups and other measures to assure you are measuring what you think you are measu ring. The changes occurred faster than what exactly? What is your yardsti ck for "fast"? Why would you not expect a wild animal, closely related to the dog to be hard to domesticate?

Nothing at all like a science report.

Don't know what? That he offers literally no evidence of this idea other t han a couple of discovery channel equivalents? Yes, I do know that.

--
  Rick C. 

  +++ Get a 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Rick C

Yes, fully aware of that, but it doesn't scale up beyond being a local mysticism until you start to write things down. The "organised" in organised religion depends on knowledge that is saved in semi-permanent form outside of any individual life. Before that, it's whatever is re-invented by each generation.

Exactly. The foxes had the strongest possible individual pressure being applied. But here we're talking about a rather nebulous advantage to a society more than to just an individual, an advantage that relies on developing culture to take advantage of it. It's not much of a gradient.

How? Different races are smart in different ways, and for different reasons. It's not clear that any objective IQ test could be constructed.

It's not clear to me that civilisation advantages intelligence, or we wouldn't have Trumpism. Intelligence advantages civilisation, but that doesn't select for individual genes; it's a nebulous selective effect.

Our reptilian brain selects for power, chooses to side with a likely winner, then our rational brain is left struggling to concoct a story about how that was a rational choice. We simply aren't rational beings, but rationalising beings.

BTW the "problem" I see with religion is that it relies on self-deception, so there is a whole class of ideas that cannot be considered without a very rare sophistication (c.f.the Jesuits).

Clifford Heath.

Reply to
Clifford Heath

Sounds like an experiment that can't be conducted without impacting the

Oh, get a grip and sense of perspective. My post is not "science", and this is usenet.

Well, doh!

But that kind of criticism is a bit rich coming from someone that believes the entire world is like suburban USA, as you repeatedly did in your posts about how easy it is install charging points for EVs.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

ix

es

,

st

nt:

-018-0090-x

ry

e

of

tion

y of

how

ore

o

d to

Not talking about your post. Of course that is not a scientific paper. Du h! I'm talking about the "studies" you cite. Rather than actual papers th at properly describe what was done, how it was done and the detailed result s, these reports have no value. Your analysis is exactly why the reports a re considered "junk" science. You attribute the changes to the behaviors o f the foxes to "selection" when there is no evidence this is actually corre ct. That's the "junk" part of your post.

and

ring.

for

dog

Lol! I never said anything remotely like that, but I get it. If you can't make your point about this discussion, change to another one.

--
  Rick C. 

  ---- Get a 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Rick C

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.