Shanadeus said:
The whole concept of a separate and actual soul is very interesting.
Does chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants and many other animals with human traits have souls?
This is my main intellectual issue w/ bias human stroke jobs like "souls, rights, morality, ethics etc", is the fact that fundamentally with everything we know about science is a blade of grass is just as alive as any human. Yet, people are convinced that they reserve a higher place on the "life pyramid" than a Dolphin or flower. And to make it worse, they rationalize it w/ fairy tales about a "soul" and about "rights". Not because it's just basic humanism to maximize resources and not want to die (biological mandate) like any other animal, but because their own humanism (the urge to make yourself and your ego important) blurs the line between fantasy and reality.
That's just my personal view on the subject, my beef is w/ people when it comes to religion or morality is not putting into perspective what biology mandates (self preservation, self interest, reproduction) vs. their own higher intellect and the social will to defy those biological mandates. Instead human societies build themselves on instinct-related indulgences rather than what is actually practically useful and objective (laws, traditions, interactions, dogmas).
Problem with "objectivity" and "morality" is that they are opposite ends of the spectrum in practice. Because morality (and religion to an extent) demands that human life contain some measure of value, yet pure objectivity reveals there is no such thing as human value...it's just an instinctual stroke job.
An example of this is the theory of equal morality, being that every life has equal value and equal importance beyond a biased biological mandate. A tree or flower is of equal value to the life of a man, and if that is true (and if it's practiced and processed on an intellectual social level) then 99.99% of any human morality (secular, religious, non religious or otherwise) begins to fall apart at the seams. Our society falls apart, our entire process of ideas and ways we interact w/ the world falls apart.
So at best religion/morality is a selective set of dogmas and guidelines. That's not to say some don't serve good purposes, or a common good more or less. It just means that objectivity it's non-existent and it's biased crap at the end of the day. That's why I believe for social progress as times constantly change, and so we don't nail ourselves down into a "system of religion or morality" which becomes less dynamic with each generation and more of a "tradition" of set common courtesy's, we can move forward much more quickly if we followed social practicality.
If you think about it, MOST "morality", "ethics" and "religion" has nothing to do w/ intellectual aspects or higher brain function. It's mainly human instinct squared, multiplied and abstracted. I.E. religion or "don't kill" is simply fear of death squared and abstracted, toss in a little self interest and reproductive instinct too. It's not morality...it's humanism. Morality should be based on more than core instinct disguised as nobility or good/bad. But I'll end on that, enough abstract stuff.
I think today religion serves it's purpose to society well when it knows it's place. But far too often religion unapologetically elbows itself into things it has no business in. And on serious issues, namely private issues that's unforgivable, and should be condemned by religious people not supported imo.
