I had a neighbour once that made the boldest claim about "what must be in the universe", never empathizing with others but just making the wildest claims about supernatural phenomena. She ended up being committed at an institution.
As a note, I don't believe in reincarnation or anything similar. I wasn't implying any certainty there but seeing it as a vector for hope.
Giving people money is a pretty good way to do that. Money that they can choose to spend as they wish.
Euthanasia should be available for people who suffer an illness that makes the life not worth living anymore.
No matter how you look at it. You had no influence on your genes, the culture you were born in, your upbringing and the socio economic status of your parents, how your genes were influenced by the environment and so on. All the little pieces that made you who you are, were outside of your control.
Now you can say "well I decided at some point to do this, and that is why I am successful." But there are lots of factors that let you into the position to make that decision.
If you had the same genes, the same upbringing and so on as a poor person, you would be poor as well. In fact you would be exactly that person.
It doesn't need to be determinism. You have no control over random events as well. How exactly did you decide to chose the way you did? Why were you able to stick to the hard work part?
Of course you can assume some supernatural you that is able to make decisions for your brain. But there is no evidence for that. As far as we know, how the neurons are connected and how they interact with the rest of the environment determines all our longings and our decisions.
I find that Robert Sapolsky's "Behave: the biology of humans at our best and worst" is a must read for anyone who wants a small glimpse on the topic of why humans are the way they are.
While this is debatable, it is not a useful lens to look at the world through. Why work out or study or attempt to do anything difficult and work on improving yourself to try and achieve something? If you dont feel motivated, it is all your brain chemistry and other factors outside of your control. Poor you, and lucky all those other people who worked hard and tried achieving something, too bad your brain chemistry and outside factors didn’t convince you to work on yourself and improve things. Nothing you can do about it, so why worry about it, right? /s
I am not trying to evoke the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” point, that’s not what i am trying to say at all. A lot of things in life are definitely due to luck and factors outside of our control. But a lot of things require both hard work and luck, with luck alone not being enough.
Think about it. Imagine you randomly meeting Elon Musk at a grocery store, and you got lucky, he decides to have a conversation with you while waiting in line (it is a far-fetched scenario, i know, but bear with me here). He asks what do you do and what you are into. If you worked hard in the field of aerospace engineering and made significant contributions, that conversation can easily turn into a job or learning something new and cool. If you didnt work hard (regardless of the field), then the conversation will prolly be about some surface level topic like the weather or tesla stuff, and you are left with nothing at the end.
Just working hard isn’t enough by itself, but it ensures that you are prepared to take the most advantage out of a lucky situation that could present itself.
A Thomas Jefferson’s quote comes to mind as relevant as well: “I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
But what if it really isn't true? What if for each thing that appears to be obtained through your own effort, there are plenty of other random factors in your life that interact with your apparently-obtained gains and tend to cancel out the benefits by making something else worse?
Then you'd be labouring under a convincing illusion. One that probably can be examined by people interested in studying it.
If it could be studied, would you rather know the truth, or would you rather not even look, so you can stay motivated?
(Btw, I'm a fan of the quote as well. Above is written from a devil's advocate sort of approach.)
I find that reading behave gave me a new perspective on how to look at people that are less fortunate than me and how I think of "evil" people.
> While this is debatable, it is not a useful lens to look at the world through. Why work out or study or attempt to do anything difficult and work on improving yourself to try and achieve something?
Incentives and desires don't go away just because you came to the conclusion that free will as it is often used, does not exist.
I still have a desire to better myself and improve my life. I'm just clear that my ability to do that is the result of a cascade of events that I had no control over.
This is not actually possible and if it were I think a lot of people would.
It's worth noting that these faiths spur believers on toward helping the poor and disadvantaged.
> Many Christian perspectives (and, I expect those of many faiths) will hold that there is tremendous value in living and enduring discomfort and suffering.
This is such a toxic part of christianity that causes so much suffering worldwide.
Voluntary giving is no substitute for state programs that give a guaranteed safety net.
Do you think it's better if people just die to avoid suffering rather than learn to live the best they can despite that pain?
Why do you say "causes"?
Agreed on the last point, but also having to beg others to get enough food/shelter to survive ... if you want that then you need to take a look at your ego.
Just look at Mother Theresa. She was refusing administration of painkillers to people dying in agonizing pain at her hospitals (hospices?), because she believed that experiencing suffering in this way was a part of being a true christian and virtuous person (yes, that was her actual stated reasoning). All of this was immediately cast aside as soon as she herself got debilitated with painful suffering due to illnesses, however.
I do believe there is value in suffering, but there are different kinds of suffering, and what’s being talked about here (physical) isn’t the kind that has much value.
Basically, in suffering yourself, you finally relate to what other people are going through, instead of dismissing their complaints as mutterings of inferior people.
And then maybe you will care to make a difference, if it's not too late.
TL;DR: Not all "disadvantages people" actually want the protection of religious fanatics.
(Genuine question; that's not a negative judgement.)
Which is hard to square with the "it‘s god‘s will" bs…
Current legal situation in most places is such a force, based on misguided claims of religions to universality.