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[LingEarth]

Another thing is that, to my knowledge, it says nowhere in the Bible directly that the Earth is flat - you have to interprete it to come to such a conclusion. But evolution directly contradicts a literal interpretation of both creation myths. That's a big difference for literalists.

Also, a lot of Christians view the creation myths as foundational to their whole theology (they believe those explain the whole reason why humans supposedly need a Savior in the first place), so they're much less willing to reinterpret those than the more peripheral (and less explicit anyway) passages that may imply a flat earth.

[hwhatting]

It should be noted that reading the Bible literally is really specifically an evangelical (as in the American sense of the term, not as in the German usage of evangelisch) Protestant thing and not a Christian thing in general.

Yes; did I say that it was?

Also, a lot of Christians view the creation myths as foundational to their whole theology (they believe those explain the whole reason why humans supposedly need a Savior in the first place), so they're much less willing to reinterpret those than the more peripheral (and less explicit anyway) passages that may imply a flat earth.

Indeed.

[malloc]

Also, survival of the fittest does not mean "survival or the strongest/fastest/etc" but rather "survival of those who best fit a niche". I'd say most humans fit as "generalist social tool users". Caring for the sick and disabled has been a part of our species' survival strategy for as long as pursuit predation has, and certainly much longer than we've had farming as a technology. Possibly since before we and Neanderthals went our separate ways biologically.

Maybe so, although humans are rather unusual in their generosity toward those who cannot support themselves. I have always found the evolutionary history of life fascinating. The origins of whales from ungulates or birds from dinosaurs and so forth are really interesting and amazing stories. Yet evolutionary biology is also rife with pervasive cruelty, the predators ripping apart herbivores, herd animals organizing themselves into strict hierarchies based on brute strength, and congenitally disabled animals dying pitilessly. There are times when I worry the reactionaries might be right to claim that oppression and exploitation are simply the natural order and that human rights are simply another form of theological claptrap.

[rotting bones]

Maybe so, although humans are rather unusual in their generosity toward those who cannot support themselves. I have always found the evolutionary history of life fascinating. The origins of whales from ungulates or birds from dinosaurs and so forth are really interesting and amazing stories. Yet evolutionary biology is also rife with pervasive cruelty, the predators ripping apart herbivores, herd animals organizing themselves into strict hierarchies based on brute strength, and congenitally disabled animals dying pitilessly. There are times when I worry the reactionaries might be right to claim that oppression and exploitation are simply the natural order and that human rights are simply another form of theological claptrap.

As a physical reductionist, I don't believe in any scientific paradigm other than particles interacting in space. Human rights certainly aren't natural phenomena.

The revolutionary perspective is that if enough people want human rights, then we can brutally take them from the reactionaries. What makes human rights part of the harsh natural order is not that the weak get taken care of, but that reactionaries lose their power for no reason other than some randos wanting things to be that way. Similarly, if you can't convince enough people to cruelly expropriate the reactionaries, then tough titties. No large scale social order is particularly natural either way. Since the earth can no longer support our population without mass production, the only alternative to "theology" is genocide.

There are also socialists who don't believe in human rights or blueprints for social organization generally, but I don't think that's a good idea. It is ridiculous for critics to compare socialist plans for growing food to Maoist plans for literally melting down agricultural implements and making more iron. At the same time, if your government has no scheme for social organization, then what's there to prevent plans like the Maoist ones from being enforced all over again?

[keenir]

Also, survival of the fittest does not mean "survival or the strongest/fastest/etc" but rather "survival of those who best fit a niche". I'd say most humans fit as "generalist social tool users". Caring for the sick and disabled has been a part of our species' survival strategy for as long as pursuit predation has, and certainly much longer than we've had farming as a technology. Possibly since before we and Neanderthals went our separate ways biologically.

Maybe so, although humans are rather unusual in their generosity toward those who cannot support themselves.

Not really -- we've found fossil sabertoothed cats who have injuries which prevented individuals from hunting for months at a time - and those injuries are fully healed, meaning other sabertoothed cats brought food to their injured packmates.

And this applies also to other mammals, even to dinosaurs and birds.

Yet evolutionary biology is also rife with pervasive cruelty, the predators ripping apart herbivores, herd animals organizing themselves into strict hierarchies based on brute strength,

Not always on brute strength...if you can win a fight without physical interaction, that works just as well if not better - just ask the antlered animals of the world, the carnivores, etc.

You might like to also look up mutualism and symbiosis.

There are times when I worry the reactionaries might be right to claim that oppression and exploitation are simply the natural order

people who claim that, tend to be the ones who try to make themselves seem to be at the top of the Great Chain Of Being.

[keenir]

Maybe so, although humans are rather unusual in their generosity toward those who cannot support themselves. I have always found the evolutionary history of life fascinating. The origins of whales from ungulates or birds from dinosaurs and so forth are really interesting and amazing stories. Yet evolutionary biology is also rife with pervasive cruelty, the predators ripping apart herbivores, herd animals organizing themselves into strict hierarchies based on brute strength, and congenitally disabled animals dying pitilessly. There are times when I worry the reactionaries might be right to claim that oppression and exploitation are simply the natural order and that human rights are simply another form of theological claptrap.

What makes human rights part of the harsh natural order is not that the weak get taken care of, but that reactionaries lose their power for no reason other than some randos wanting things to be that way

so how is that "part of the harsh natural order"?

. Since the earth can no longer support our population without mass production, the only alternative to "theology" is genocide.

No, there are still other alternatives...though ones like everyone growing their own food, sans mass production (of what? of anything?), will remove a lot more wildlife.

At the same time, if your government has no scheme for social organization, then what's there to prevent plans like the Maoist ones from being enforced all over again?

If you have a government, then you have a social organization.

[rotting bones]

so how is that "part of the harsh natural order"?

Watch Orangutan Jungle School on the Smithsonian Channel, Paramount+, or whatever service carries it where you live. If you steal a turnip that's being eaten by another orangutan, that shows great initiative in the wild.

No, there are still other alternatives...though ones like everyone growing their own food, sans mass production (of what? of anything?), will remove a lot more wildlife.

Do you have sources to back up this claim?

If you have a government, then you have a social organization.

I'd distinguish between formal government, as in an administration, and a de facto government. As I see it, even people who deny having a government will be left with the latter.

[keenir]

so how is that "part of the harsh natural order"?

Watch Orangutan Jungle School on the Smithsonian Channel, Paramount+, or whatever service carries it where you live. If you steal a turnip that's being eaten by another orangutan, that shows great initiative in the wild.

I'm not sure I understand your use of "randos"...at least not when referring to orangs. (though i'd wager that it was a larger orang taking food from a smaller one)

Also not sure how thievery among the essentially solitary orangs, proves something about a "natural order" among humans. I mean, yes, they're primates, but only gibbons are further from us in the Great Apes clade.

No, there are still other alternatives...though ones like everyone growing their own food, sans mass production (of what? of anything?), will remove a lot more wildlife.

Do you have sources to back up this claim?

That increasing the number of farms, decreases the amount of forests and wildlife? Aside from the fact that the Mayans did it for centuries (as one tv presenter put it, "At the heights of the Maya[n periods], you could stand at the top of a temple, look out to the horizon, and not see a single tree.")

Aside from that, we're seeing it in action most times that expanding human settlements compete for space with wilderness.

If you have a government, then you have a social organization.

I'd distinguish between formal government, as in an administration, and a de facto government. As I see it, even people who deny having a government will be left with the latter.

Then I don't see how citing "Maoist ones" is anything but a strawman in your own statement. Unless I'm missing something.

[rotting bones]

I'm not sure I understand your use of "randos"...at least not when referring to orangs. (though i'd wager that it was a larger orang taking food from a smaller one)

It's usually long-tailed macaques stealing from the much larger orangutans. Similarly, orangutans thieves are usually the sneakier ones. A class usually consists of one age group.

This is my problem with your arguments. They're based on assumptions with minimal reference to ground truths, so the discussion proceeds along lines of endless clarification.

(Edit: Behavior in adult hierarchies is much closer to what you're describing though.)

Also not sure how thievery among the essentially solitary orangs, proves something about a "natural order" among humans. I mean, yes, they're primates, but only gibbons are further from us in the Great Apes clade.

Orangutans are arguably the gentlest of the great apes. I've heard bioogists argue that human behavior is undecided among chimpanzee and bobobo styles, and you don't want to copy chimpanzee behavior. The line of thought that emphasizes tribal unity unintentionally leads to fascism, with nations as ersatz tribes.

That increasing the number of farms, decreases the amount of forests and wildlife? Aside from the fact that the Mayans did it for centuries (as one tv presenter put it, "At the heights of the Maya[n periods], you could stand at the top of a temple, look out to the horizon, and not see a single tree.")

Aside from that, we're seeing it in action most times that expanding human settlements compete for space with wilderness.

Let me try that again: Do you have evidence that the earth can support our current population trajectory without mass production?

Then I don't see how citing "Maoist ones" is anything but a strawman in your own statement. Unless I'm missing something.

Even if you say you don't have a government, some people will fill that power vacuum. What if those people divert resources to make useless products? Those products could be anything: low quality iron for Maoists, party dresses for all their friends if they're fashionistas, and so on.

[Ares Land]

As a physical reductionist, I don't believe in any scientific paradigm other than particles interacting in space. Human rights certainly aren't natural phenomena.

How about language? The English language has no physical existence; it certainly exists and it's certainly a natural phenomenon.

My own theory is that ethics is an emergent property of societies. Human beings survive by being part of a social group; you can't have functional social groups without empathy and some way of dealing with sociopathy.

[rotting bones]

How about language? The English language has no physical existence; it certainly exists and it's certainly a natural phenomenon.

In my usage, languages are conventions. Natural laws, unlike conventions, are immutable.

Honestly, I don't even see humans as natural phenomena.

My own theory is that ethics is an emergent property of societies. Human beings survive by being part of a social group; you can't have functional social groups without empathy and some way of dealing with sociopathy.

In my experience, this line of thinking inevitably strengthens the ideological position: "their values are incompatible with our values" for all values of "us" and "them". But it's possible that my experience is not a representative sample.

[rotting bones]

Then I don't see how citing "Maoist ones" is anything but a strawman in your own statement. Unless I'm missing something.

My previous answers were geared towards socialists who want to do without government.

As for Maoists and their like, they would say that their scheme of social organization is limited to putting workers and peasants in a position of power. This doesn't count as a scheme of social organization in the sense I intended.

[bradrn]

I think the whole concept of ‘natural law’ is a lot less, um, natural than you seem to think it is. I quite like the Taoist perspective^† on this: everything humans do is in accordance with the natural law, because it would be logically impossible for us to do something against our nature. Or, to put it another way, ‘natural law’ is a meaningless concept, since it would have to encompass everything done by anything if given a self-consistent definition.

Or, to put this a third way:

‘Lots of people don’t agree with that sort of thing, sah.’
‘So I understand.’
Colon drew himself up to attention again. ‘Not natural, in my view, sah. Not in favour of unnatural things.’
Vetinari looked perplexed. ‘You mean, you eat your meat raw and sleep in a tree?’

—Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

(You may quibble that for humans it is not in fact natural to eat raw meat. But then let me ask you: why is it natural for humans to cook their meat, but not to take care of the sick? After all, far more species do the latter than the former…)

___________
^† Or at least, the Taoist perspective as mediated through Raymond Smullyan. I’m not sure how accurate his summary of the tradition is, though I hear it’s one of the better Western ones. In any case, I like this perspective, wherever it really came from.

[Ares Land]

How about language? The English language has no physical existence; it certainly exists and it's certainly a natural phenomenon.

In my usage, languages are conventions. Natural laws, unlike conventions, are immutable.

Honestly, I don't even see humans as natural phenomena.

Humans are natural phenomena, I think. The existence of humans, though, is not a natural law. (We did not exist for >12 billions after all!)

Maybe ethics is a kind of natural law. It's a reasonable assumption that you can't have a functioning society without ethics and that the ethics will take certain predictable forms.
It's a pity we don't have enough planets to test this on.

One interesting case study is the Americans. Native Americans societies were as independant from our own as we're ever going to get. They all have a system of ethics, which in some parts is very alien and in other ways is very familiar.
We have a fair amount of data on Mexica ethics. You get very alien values: 'it's perfectly acceptable to kill other human beings and then eat them', and others that are basically identical to ours (what makes a good ruler? How can you tell a decent human being from an asshole?)

Maybe the parts that keep constant are a natural property of complex groups.

My own theory is that ethics is an emergent property of societies. Human beings survive by being part of a social group; you can't have functional social groups without empathy and some way of dealing with sociopathy.

In my experience, this line of thinking inevitably strengthens the ideological position: "their values are incompatible with our values" for all values of "us" and "them". But it's possible that my experience is not a representative sample.

FWIW I do think along these lines. I think that the ideological position 'theirs values are incompatible with our values' is valid in some restricted, extreme cases. The values of a Nazi are incompatible with our own.

[Ares Land]

I think the whole concept of ‘natural law’ is a lot less, um, natural than you seem to think it is. I quite like the Taoist perspective^† on this: everything humans do is in accordance with the natural law, because it would be logically impossible for us to do something against our nature. Or, to put it another way, ‘natural law’ is a meaningless concept, since it would have to encompass everything done by anything if given a self-consistent definition.

Sure! But let's keep in mind that there are several levels involved: at the very least an individual level and a societal level.

I think there are natural laws on the societal level: that is, a functioning human society will have a system of ethics and the majority of its members will agree to it.
But you can have individual that won't agree with that systems, and indeed some individual that completely lacks ethics.

The 'natural law' part comes into effect with large numbers: if you have 50% sociopaths around, society will collapse.

[bradrn]

I think there are natural laws on the societal level: that is, a functioning human society will have a system of ethics and the majority of its members will agree to it. … The 'natural law' part comes into effect with large numbers: if you have 50% sociopaths around, society will collapse.

This is exactly what I mean! When you call something a ‘natural law’, you seem to be using it simply as a fancy way of saying ‘this is true’. Saying that a certain statement is a ‘natural law’ isn’t actually adding any semantic or logical content here.

[malloc]

I think the whole concept of ‘natural law’ is a lot less, um, natural than you seem to think it is. I quite like the Taoist perspective† on this: everything humans do is in accordance with the natural law, because it would be logically impossible for us to do something against our nature. Or, to put it another way, ‘natural law’ is a meaningless concept, since it would have to encompass everything done by anything if given a self-consistent definition.

I feel like there is a difference to be drawn between nature and deliberate planning. Most animals eat their fill without worrying about getting fat or violating religious taboos. Humans alone worry that eating the wrong animal will damn their eternal soul or eating too much cheesecake will give them love handles and thus we make deliberate decisions to alter our diets contrary to our natural cravings. More to the point, modern human societies deliberately support those who cannot support themselves through social programs funded by those capable of productive work. Natural law decrees that such people are unfit and would happily cull them if modern technology and ethics weren't holding it back.

[Ares Land]

This is exactly what I mean! When you call something a ‘natural law’, you seem to be using it simply as a fancy way of saying ‘this is true’. Saying that a certain statement is a ‘natural law’ isn’t actually adding any semantic or logical content here.

'Natural law' is an unwieldly term. What I mean is that I think in some ways, ethics is as hard a law as a physical law.

You can't have an engine without some of the power going through it becoming waste heat; likewise you can't have a functioning society without a moral code.

[Raphael]

What I mean is that I think in some ways, ethics is as hard a law as a physical law.

You can't have an engine without some of the power going through it becoming waste heat; likewise you can't have a functioning society without a moral code.

Partly true, of course, but

1) ethical laws simply aren't self-enforcing the way the laws of physics are, and

2) a society can very well "function", or "work", in the sense of "existing without collapsing", while all kinds of ethically/morally horrible oppressions and abuses are very common in it.

[Raphael]

It should be noted that reading the Bible literally is really specifically an evangelical (as in the American sense of the term, not as in the German usage of evangelisch) Protestant thing and not a Christian thing in general.

The usual German term for US-style evangelical stuff is "evangelikal". Or at least that's the term people should ideally use; unfortunately, the field of English-to-German translation seems to be full of people who are completely unfamiliar with the concept of False Friends.

Anyway, there are a number of US-style Evangelicals these days, but not that many, and they usually don't get noticed much.