What is a morally upright life? (page 3)

Pinku

The basic premise of Moral Foundation org is the unproven theory of Evolution. And evolution is claimed to be an upward climb, hence there cannot be a moral decline, as you also believe citing some census data. Yet we know that what is reported always need not reflect the truth. It was when the census-celebrated good news (that moral decline is a myth) came that the former Pope decided to resign as he could not cope with the moral decline he personally witnessed among his own people.

Moral decline is not a subject of dispute, you only need to open your eyes to see whether people are going upward or downward. To mention a few:

1) People know that when income come decreased, they should cut down the expenditure. This sensible course is not followed in the most important area of life. People know that earth’s resources are depleting fast and cost of living is sky-rocketing, yet most people zealously engage in a spree of increasing population (which is at the root of all major problems on earth), rather than cutting down the number of population! This is nothing but utter disregard for the welfare of future generation—what morality is this?

2) People know prevention is better than cure, yet most people prefer cure to prevention! ‘My desires should be fulfilled at any cost here and now no matter what happens to me in the future’ is the attitude behind such a course—what morality is this?

3) Science (which is praised as a savior of mankind) has been giving us many comforts and but also created things to destroy all those comforts and even the very earth itself several times, and has given button into the hands of politicians who have the history of fighting not only ordinary wars, but also TWO world wars! ‘We should get the short-term profit from arms-sale no matter how many starve to death around the world’ is the attitude behind this—what morality is this?

4) People encourage all types of innovation on the gadgets they use (compare today’s cars, mobile phones, computers … with those of the past years). Yet no one is interested in innovating more important things such as their beliefs about religion, politics, language …… (ancient languages such as Sanskrit had 96 words for love depending upon the object of love—eg. One word for love of God, another word for love of creature; one towards wife, and another for someone else’s wife….. No wonder NASA found only this language suitable for developing artificial intelligence) Why was such a superb language was replaced with inferior language as the so-called evolution progressed?

Heaven

FYI... Moral Foundation org is incorrect in their assumption about Evolution being unproven and about upward climb. University of Berkeley has a website on Evolution that might be helpful to some who are confused on this topic:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_02

I like what the Permaculture ethics encompass: "Care of the Earth. Care of People. Fair Share - share the excess."

And the 12 principles:

1) Observe and Interact - pay attention

2) Catch and Store Energy - harvest while it's abundant

3) Obtain a Yield - make sure you are getting valuable results

4) Self Regulate; Accept Feedback - be open to modify dysfunctional behaviours

5) Use and Value Renewables - reduce dependancy on scarce resources

6) Produce No Waste

7) Design from Pattern to Detail - observe natural/social patterns and apply them to design

8) Integrate - capitalize on how things work together

9) Use small, slow solutions - local resources and responses, manageable scale

10) Use and Value Diversity - diversity leads to greater resilience

11) Use Edges; Value the Marginal - important things happen at the intersections

12) Creatively Use and Respond to Change - envision possibilities and intervene in effective ways

Pinku

Heaven

Are these 12 principle the proofs of evolution?

There are many sites belonging to renowned scientists who help us to rethink our view of famous Theory of Evolution! Here are two:

http://www.robertlanzabiocentrism.com/

http://www.robertlanza.com/

Viviane

For example, people who habitually ill-treat others will not like to be ill-treated. This means everyone knows what is right and wrong. People choose to do wrong because of its immediate benefit and feel confident of facing the consequences later somehow!

Huh? People with brain disorders, chemical imbalances, people born missing parts of their brain... you've done an analysis of all of them and applied what metric and determined you how all of this?

We find moral decline, yet IQ has gone up. What a 5-year-old child grasps now reminds us of the amount a 10-year-old child did a few years ago. Man can innovate devices (compare the Mobile phones and cars with that of past years) yet some cannot innovate his behavior.

Morality and IQ are both slippery concepts. How are you defining either?

The basic premise of Moral Foundation org is the unproven theory of Evolution.

Evolution is a 100% proven fact.

Pinku

Viviane

Your wording itself ( People with brain disorders, chemical imbalances, people born missing parts of their brain ) has the answer!

Viviane

Your wording itself ( People with brain disorders, chemical imbalances, people born missing parts of their brain ) has the answer!

You said "everyone". Are you now saying it's NOT everyone?

How are you defining morality? IQ?

Heaven

Heaven

Are these 12 principle the proofs of evolution?

No. Evolution is about descent with modification, encompassing changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next (small-scale evolution) and the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations (large-scale evolution).

The 12 principles I listed are Permaculture Principles. They support the Permaculture ethics "Care of the Earth. Care of People. Fair Share."

Xanthippe

I honestly don't know what a morally upright life is, it doesn't compute anymore. I just try to be good to people and do no harm. If that is simplistic then so be it.

The idea of sanctity evolving from learning not to eat tainted food is very interesting. Most things deeply entrenched in the human psyche are about basic survival.

When people ask 'is nothing sacred' I feel nothing is. Life is supposed to be sacred but this leads to refusing assisted death. We let humans suffer worse than dogs and cats. So no I don't think life or anything is sacred but I do understand the desire to be 'clean'.

This might be purely about hygiene and survival but I think we have an innate desire to feel that we are 'good'. Which again might be about social acceptance and therefore survival but I am not convinced of that. Guilt is a hugely destructive force in the human mind which leads me to think that there is more to feeling 'good' than mere social acceptance.

Apognophos

Social acceptance is survival, if you're living in a primitive tribal world. The conscience is trained largely by the people around us, so if it's going off, telling us that we're bad, it's a warning that other people will find us to be bad too, if they were to learn what we know about ourself, and then they may throw us out of the tribe. Hence the need to feel "good" is the need to feel that we are safe from any possibility of this group disapproval, and our conscience batters us in order to keep us in line with the group's standards.

As far as assisted death, most of us seem to have a hardwired need to preserve other human lives at all costs. Perhaps this served an obvious benefit in and of itself, since humans find safety in numbers. And indeed we have records in the bones of ancient humans that tell us that injured and handicapped individuals were cared for by their tribes, rather than being cast out. Or perhaps it's simply an empathetic response, where accepting that another person wants to die frightens us because it makes us question our own desire to hold onto life.

Xanthippe

We have uniquely experienced that lack of social acceptance is not in fact death. Well those of us that have left the Watchtower have. We are quite able to notice that we no longer live in caves or mud huts and yet we do not want to feel bad among work colleagues, neighbours etc., even though we have to accept that 30% of people will just not like us according to sociologists. I was shunned, I did not die but I made my own ethical standards. As thousands of us have! Perhaps it is also about integrity, following through on what we have decided to believe ethically. Self respect has become important but I am not sure why. If I wait long enough someone will tell me

What is a morally upright life?

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