I don't know that I accept the idea of "situational" ethics all the time.  Obviously sometimes something is right in one situation and wrong in another, but there is always a deeper ethical principle to be looked for when this happens.   The rule against lying, for example, is sometimes for situational reasons not valid, but a deeper principle, that of not harming someone, is one of the principles that underlies the need for truthfulness (although by no means the only principle -- one could write a book).  So when the truth hurts someone, a falsehood may be appropriate ethical behavior.

When it comes to hiding something from one's spouse -- say an indiscretion -- if it is not going to become a pattern it may be that the lie is the most ethical course, albeit fraught with tar traps.  Both the spouse and the relationship are less hurt and better off long run with the lie.  Problem is it is easy to begin to justify lies with such reasoning and before long one loses track of basic truths.  This leads, guaranteed, to a major train wreck.

One of the worst moral offenses of this world is even encouraged strongly by the self-declared guardians of our morality.  This is the routine and even organized indoctrination of children before they are of a maturity to be able to assess what is going on and make up their own minds.

I think rape is about as accurate to describe this as anything.  To impose something one someone else without their informed permission is rape, and doing it to innocent children is to saddle them with a belief system all their life.  It is an outrageous thing to just contemplate.

Religious questions, such as about death or God, as well as political questions and questions about sexuality, need maturity to handle properly, and children do no have that maturity.  Therefore they should properly be answered with, "When you are mature, you will learn about these things and decide for yourself." 

Perhaps too often we force maturity on children, and they are of course eager to assume it, so they do need to be told that they are not mature, and that maturity comes in time slowly, and they must therefore respect their elders, even though many times even the elders are not mature.  Most importantly, teenage and early twenties years are not years of intellectual and emotional maturity.

It is not necessary to threaten a child with a vengeful God or with some magical karmic cycle to get them to be moral beings.  Indeed, such things interferes with true moral behavior.  Most children (although unfortunately we know that a small fraction of the population are sociopathic and thereby absent this instinct) are born with a desire to do what is right.  All they need to learn is how to figure out what is right.

Rules are not the way to go.  A lie may be generally wrong, but there are exceptions when a lie is even the morally essential way to go, such as to prevent hurting someone.  That is the key -- harm and help.  Acts that harm others are wrong, all else being equal.

Descartes underwhelming

Widely viewed as one of the great philosophers of history, and often as the "founder" of modern philosophy, we have Rene Descartes.

I am underwhelmed.  He is of course famous for "cogito ergo sum," "I think therefore I am."  Anything else?  Well of course he gets there by questioning (doubting) everything -- now what teenager hasn't done that many times?  And then from there he concludes that this thing that thinks is the soul, that others besides ourselves do likewise, and that God exists and God gives us these souls.  (Most of the rest of this is not payed much attention to because it is pretty obvious to even the most determined believer that the argument is flimsy).

I think Descartes proposition is popular because it has an emotional appeal -- at least we can be "certain" that we exist, or something about us that thinks exists, to be more exact.

He doesn't accomplish this.  His thinking, and my thinking, and your thinking, proves nothing exists, not even thinking (what exactly is a "thought" anyway?).  The idea is that if there is an activity then I guess there has to be something doing the activity.  Here the activity is thinking, so something doing the thinking has to exist, and that something is obviously (really?) me.

No, Descartes just thinks he's thinking.  He doesn't know it, nor can we.  We don't even know that thinking is an activity at all or if it is that it needs an agent to be doing it.

One thing science can't prove is that something is endless.  It can prove something is finite by finding its edge or boundary, but if it is endless there is no boundary to be found -- except it could still be over the next hill.

Presented with a being claiming to be infinite, we would have the same problem -- we could prove it false if we found or showed how there had to necessarily be a boundary, but absent doing this we still could not be sure the being was telling the truth, since the boundary could exist but be out or our range.

Mathematical infinities are different.  Irrational numbers, for example, are decimals that go on without end.  The "density" of the number line is infinite.  And, of course, the counting numbers are endless, as well as things like the number of primes -- it isn't that we haven't found a largest prime but that we have a logical proof that such a number would be self-contradictory.  Indeed, in spite of this, we also know that there are "sizes" of infinite sets.  Heaven forbid by getting into that, but it shows to me that mathematics and reality are not the same.

This is an area, then, where I think there is a massive difference between the "real" world and the thing we have invented called mathematics.

It may be gays "coming out of the closet" by telling those around them of their sexual orientation is the main reason gays have come to be much more accepted than before.  When real homosexuals were invisible and all one saw were caricatures created by the press or the lies of some religious groups, it was harder to realize that they are real people.

Zero is not a number in the set of positive integers, which are the counting numbers dating from antiquity.  It had to be invented and is still to my mind something we call a number but isn't quite, since it is not used to count anything but only to indicate absence of anything to count.

It is of course essential for modern mathematics, but mathematics is divorced in many ways from reality and is abstract, maybe and maybe not the basis of existence (one can find quotes on both sides of this).

I try to be non-judgmental and say to myself it's just their background, they can't help it, but I have a tough time dealing with homophobes, racists, sexists, and so on.  I tend to think they are that way only to justify themselves and feel superior to others.  In the modern world though there really is no excuse for such things.

What particularly gets me is people who say they are open minded and not prejudiced and then go on to say prejudiced things.  What gives with such a person?

In Vietnam we find the same sort of thing with Chinese and Cambodians, and with dark skins in general (the standard of beauty here is really stupid -- be as white as possible -- and millions are wasted on whitening creams and such).  And, of course, sexism here is outrageous, in spite of half a century of Communist party indoctrination that men and women are equal, even male party members are too often as sexist as ever, and women in high positions in either government or business are few.

I want to add something, a post script if you will, to what I said above.  We recognize tolerance as a virtue.  The self-referential question is natural: should we be tolerant of the intolerant?

Well I guess we can try to understand where they are coming from, but I fear such understanding will only serve to increase our intolerance of them, as we will recognize that prejudice and intolerance come from ugly, spiteful, selfish, arrogant, etc., personality characteristics.  Cultures that encourage these things, and there are many such cultures in the world, are destructive and harmful.

I guess a certain amount of patience is needed, but dammit I have no intention to listen to slurs and racism and so on without protest, and without telling the speaker where they can go.

What do I "believe?"  Ah that is the problem; I have opinions that change from time to time as I learn things, and some of which I act as though I believed, since I am highly confident of them, but I try very hard to "believe" nothing.  Belief is a pernicious thing -- it is a view of the world deeply embedded in the subconscious that people are not even aware of, but around which they base their lives, and which creates great unhappiness when it comes into doubt (both fear and guilt) as well as anger and resistance.

Opinions are a better thing entirely -- we have them on the surface and can examine them whenever needed and aren't attached to them nearly as much (only ego is involved with opinions while the very basis or our lives is involved with beliefs).

Isn't it known that homophobes are those with strong gay tendencies and who fear them (I figure everyone has a few such tendencies but most people don't worry about it)?  Seems like every time a politician is "outed," he has a history of homophobic stands.

Homosexuality certainly exists in Vietnam (twenty years ago it was officially a Western thing), and I think gay marriage will be "legal" shortly (it already is in a way, since the law makes marriage a strictly civil contract and any church ceremony is irrelevant -- the only thing in the air is what happens in separation to any children -- a proposal to legalize gay marriage was tabled this year, I think because of Catholic objections, but that may go away).  The society has always been tolerant of transsexuals, but the main mass of gays have existed pretty much unnoticed (who would want to do that?) in a society where a couple of guys or couple of girls living together for long periods are just accepted as "good friends."

I observe that monks, like priests, are often gay, I think because it relieves the pressure to marry and have grandchildren for the parents.  In both cases they are supposed to be celibate, but I doubt it.

Anything is possible, but that is no basis for an opinion, let alone a belief.  For the possible to become the probable requires that it fit in with other knowledge, that it have good supporting evidence, and that it be sensible.  A lot of that is judgment.  Way-out things, even with considerable evidence, are not acceptable without huge amounts of evidence and complete refutation of more likely explanations.

Basically whenever I'm presented with a situation where I can see no explanation except something extreme, I don't just assume the extreme.  Instead I assume I don't have enough knowledge and have to put it aside as unexplained.  Therefore argument that consists of nothing more than refuting alternatives is no way to proceed -- positive evidence is needed when the claim is outre.

There are some ways that tend to lead to happiness and fulfillment, there are other ways that don't.  However, the way that leads to these things for me is not necessarily going to be the way for someone else.  I can show them the way I chose if they ask, but not for the purpose of getting them to follow it but only to give it to them as a possibility.

Most people think of Jesus as never having sex.  To me that contradicts the idea that he was fully human.  Did he even ever take matters into his own hand (sorry for the euphemism but I can't use the correct word -- search engines block me if I do)?  It seems he knew what lust was and approved of marital sex, but not otherwise, so to have been fully human (actually have sex) he would have needed to be married.

Marriage to another man (no doubt "the beloved apostle") would solve a lot of problems, including the touchy one of how could a perfect being have sex with a woman and she not conceive, but you don't want baby Holy Trinities -- boggles the mind.

Of course what do I know -- it seems to me far more likely the whole thing is entirely mythical.

God and first cause

Various theoretical constructs about the way the earliest universe evolved have to do with the nature of space-time and I don't think anyone proposes them as an alternative to God.  The point is there is now realized no need to insert a first cause into things, since that is based on philosophical notions that can be shown logically false, much as they appeal to us to be unavoidable, that is just a limit in our thinking, much as the idea of a universal up and down are false.

One could as well attribute the germination of a seed as a divine intervention, and metaphorically many still do, but it is not necessary and gets in the way of actual knowledge.

A thing a man has to be careful about (and I suppose women too but I don't know, not being one) is to avoid projecting one's fantasies onto the woman.  She is not an extension of yourself nor an object to be used for pleasure.  Men seem so often to have this unrecognized notion that women only exist for men.  In many cultures that is even explicit.

It is a disturbing fact that police are largely self-selected.  Society does not go out and find people who would be good cops, but would-be cops choose themselves and apply.  Of course some vetting takes place, but it is pretty obvious that most cops have issues with authority and guns and how they think people should behave and are judgmental about those who don't behave as they think they should.

I once thought belief was a matter of choice -- being of the mind, the mind decides what to believe or not.

Now I realize that can't be so.  There are two things seriously limiting our freedom to choose what to believe -- indoctrination and the reality checker we have that keeps us at least relatively sane.

If my boss tells me I am fired, I can't "choose" to believe otherwise.  Our brain's reality checker can identify such a thought and nip it off.  Problems happen when we already believe things (from education or from indoctrination -- it doesn't matter which).  The reality checker compares a new piece of information with what we "know," and either accepts it or rejects it.  If something doesn't fit in our existing beliefs, the reality checker rejects it -- and then often goes on to figure out rationalizations or excuses for why our existing beliefs should prevail.

To actually choose what to believe would require a level of mindfulness far beyond what any of us are likely to achieve, and would probably not be a good thing as our choices would then become either random or maybe personality driven, and this is tantamount to insanity.

The end conclusion I draw is that beliefs are a bad thing.  They are furniture we sit on without noticing their presence, but they control us a lot -- a hovering presence controlling us, especially when the beliefs came from indoctrination and therefore are either false or at least not properly supported with evidence.

The secret to breaking indoctrination is well known -- "cognitive dissonance."  Unfortunately some people are so rigid and arrogant about their beliefs that no amount of evidence raising doubts is allowed to penetrate.  Further, the memes (mainly religions but also other ideologies) that provide the indoctrination have built into themselves tricks for providing the indoctrinated person with rationalizations to get around even the strongest evidence.  The best example of these tricks is "faith" treated as a virtue and not as the serious vice it really is.

In the end if we want to be spiritually and intellectually mature and honest with ourselves, we need to abandon all beliefs and realize that nothing is certain, that the best we can hope for are reasonable, evidence based opinions.  Some things, of course, we can almost treat as beliefs -- such as the proverbial "the sun will come up tomorrow" -- but even here we cannot be certain, just asymptotically close.

A "modernist" view of "reincarnation" or rebirth is that mind is a process (which is easy enough to confirm by sitting quietly and watching it process thoughts and sensations and so on) that functions independently of the brain, but which inhabits (one might even say parasitizes -- although it is a symbiosis more than a parasitic situation) a sentient being and when that being dies goes and finds another.

One could, as many Hindus and Buddhists do, assert that this is true because they have faith it is true -- on perhaps better evidence than Christians have for their Christ (incidents of deja vu and recalled previous lives), but to me it is not convincing evidence, not reproducible in any sort of scientific sense, so it remains to me an intriguing and maybe even probable afterlife, but not an item of belief.

The problem with Christian ethics is the word "sin."  Look at a person cross eyed and you have sinned no less than if you committed murder.  Look at a woman with lust and the man has sinned just as much as if he had raped her.

There is no sense of proportion in Christian ethics.

A rational ethical system recognizes that almost all if not all acts have good and bad consequences, some known to the person doing it and some not known.  There are therefore degrees -- and there are pluses and minuses to be considered.

Looking at someone and feeling lust can be very pleasurable, a plus (pleasure is a good thing) and, if it is kept private, should harm no one.  The words Jesus is supposed to have said, therefore, are just plain wrong and probably harmful if they generate guilt or fear.

Christian ethics seems to have come from a bunch of extremely judgmental, sex fearing men who almost certainly had their own personal problems.  Jesus said not to judge, but Christians are great at it.

When I think about the things I don't know or don't understand, it boggles my mind.

I don't care when exactly the Gospels and so on were penned.  They contradict each other and geographical reality and known history at many points, and are full of wonder stories that were probably made up on the spot (at least in the one attributed to Matthew), so they are not acceptable texts for historical purposes.  Things written by believers cannot be trusted regardless.

The fact is there is no reliable historian who wrote anywhere near that time of history that mentions either Jesus or a Nazareth.  The closest we have is the Christian fraud called the "Testimonium" of Josephus, and any objective observer can easily dismiss that (that so many Christians keep referring to it is testimony to their lack of real evidence).  Everything else of an objective nature dates from at least a century later.

Now it is true that absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it is strong evidence of absence.  Mainly the point though is that to compel belief, with the idea of moral turpitude if one does not believe, should require damn strong evidence, not such a huge lack of it.

It is important to not allow believers to put the Bible into a special category of documents.  We do not believe what Homer says for no reason other than that it contains stories of gods and miracles and so on, and the same test should apply to any ancient writing.

People do stupid things all the time, like go to avalanche prone slopes or ignore warnings about floods and drive into a flooded road, or smoke all their lives.  That doesn't mean we can be judgmental and leave them to their fate -- we must nevertheless do whatever can be done.

I think the threat of Ebola to most countries is way overblown -- it has been controlled with little difficulty in Nigeria and is now in full retreat in Senegal.  Any cases in Western countries, or even in a country like Vietnam, will be quickly isolated and contacts traced and the infection stopped.  It is nowhere near as dangerous as Bird Flue would be should it ever mutate into a more easily spread infection, and the Ebola virus is not like flue in the way it mutates.

Still, I approve of the scare tactics -- they provide political cover for spending a lot of money in Liberia that would otherwise be hard to get people to support (America's racism among many groups has shown itself here pretty clearly -- they couldn't care less about Africans except where it might put them at risk).

There is a disturbing fact that would bother me more if I thought the rise of technological civilization were at all likely: the fact that we see no sign of "them" is evidence such societies have short lifespans.

Two possibilities -- maybe technology contains within itself the certainty of self-destruction, or maybe there are things we don't know about (such as other dimensions or time travel or what-have-you) that advanced societies eventually find and disappear into, leaving our cosmos.  Of course it is also possible that everyone sooner or later holes up underground in a virtual reality.

Promiscuity is often denounced.  I don't see it that way.  It may be (actually it certainly is) a waste of time and a manifestation of insecurity (a need for constant reaffirmation that one is desirable) or maybe some other similar psychology, but it in itself is not evil or a sin or even bad karma.  If it is done with the main objective being to give one's partner pleasure, then it is actually good karma.

Where it gets ugly is when it involves infidelity (one is married or engaged and one has promised fidelity), since then it becomes lying and creates the likelihood of hurting someone.  Of course it also becomes ugly when precautions against disease spread and conception are not followed carefully.

The modern college student (especially young man) in the big cities of Vietnam finds himself in a sort of candy shop, and often prudence goes out the window (I never heard of a prudent college student anyway).  Men are safer with multiple partners, but women can produce a danger to themselves since some men are violently jealous after even one tryst.  This is grossly unfair, I know.

Staying in touch with reality is not an easy job for anyone.  It is so easy to get swept up in the moment by a bandwagon propagandist, or come to think something magical has happened by a skilled fraud using magic tricks, or come to believe things because the advocates play with the evidence and don't tell the whole truth (this is what religions do), or come to accept some nostrum from so much hoping it is true (wishful thinking) or even something simple like not wanting to be the odd man out in a group of believers and then have them turn on you with name-calling, such as "skeptic" (a title of honor in my mind).

Maybe one of the easiest ways to get out of touch with reality is to think that there must be truth (if there is smoke there is fire) of some sort in everything -- that the middle way between belief and disbelief is best -- no so, folks.  Belief must not happen and opinion assent happen only with good evidence.

Of course there is also just plain old insanity -- you know -- craziness, lunacy, paranoia out your ear, etc.

Whether Jesus existed or not as an actual person really is a matter of nothing more than historical interest.  Even if such a figure existed as a kernel around which myths evolved, the mythical Jesus never existed, and that is the one of interest.

The same thing can be said about Mohammed, who almost certainly existed as a real person but who did not do many of the things recounted about him, or of the Buddha (about whom there is less certainty).

This is a common thinking error in historiography -- that the existence of a myth tells us anything about history.  It doesn't.  Sometimes there is a historical kernel, but usually there is not, and we have no way to know.  There was no Troy, no Achilles, no Hercules, no Robin Hood, no King Arthur.  Since one cannot prove a negative, one cannot prove this, but one should assume it until there is good evidence otherwise, and the existence of the myth is not good evidence, especially if it contains miraculous or similar stuff.

The problems of interstellar travel can be overcome a few ways, and I think eventually will.  Human life expectancy may be greatly lengthened, or generational ships set out, or hibernation, and so on.  I don't think the light-speed barrier can be fudged, though.

The thing that makes their presence most unlikely is the great number of hurdles life would have to cross in order for "them" to be there -- some of which are almost certainly very unlikely.  Not that "they" don't exist, but they are almost certainly excruciatingly rare -- as rare as only one example in millions or billions of galaxies.

The way intelligent life can become common is for it to spread, and so far in our galaxy that hasn't happened or they would be here.

The historical existence of "Socrates" and of "Jesus" are different questions -- Socrates did not perform miracles and although he had his "voices," it was only his (reportedly) telling us about them that even gives us this idea.  No public miracles, no religious teaching -- just a steady inquiry into what might constitute "the good."  Even here Socrates did not pretend to have any answer -- he seems to have mainly just poked holes into what others thought.

That we have mainly Plato's word for what the man said, and this is really all just Plato's thinking, is understood.  Still there are independent reasons to think he was real, although almost certainly not quite what Plato describes.

The main issue is because there are no extraordinary claims here, the burden of proof is much lower.

We have an instinct to want to submit and worship (as well as to dominate).  It no doubt comes from the need of the group to follow a leader -- often otherwise no decision is made and generally no decision is the worst possible outcome.

We also have an instinct to believe what we were taught as children.  Again this probably evolved for group cohesion.

These instincts work by means of pleasure (joy, peace) and displeasure (fear, guilt) emotions triggered when we do something contrary to the instinct.

We flat-out don't understand what time is, whether past and future are realities or just illusions, what the present might be other than an infinitesimal between two illusions.  We also don't understand why it seems to have a direction forward (maybe it really does) when at the atomic level all events can go either forward or backward in time.

I think therefore it is a bit foolish to make statements like stuff has to exist for there to be time and that time is generated by events, although that seem the common-sense view.  Time is also one of the aspects of the "thing" called space-time, and flows at differing rates according to frame of reference -- stuff that works fine mathematically but the human mind is not built for and takes a good deal of thought to conceptualize.

Lack of belief in anything should be the default if one is rational in their approach to the world.  We are not entitled to "belief," but at best only to strong opinion.

I don't think (I have a strong opinion) that there is no God or gods.  This is based mainly on the weakness of the arguments presented for Him -- I have no need to assume the burden of providing evidence against.  Still, there is lots of evidence against -- from logical arguments to an objective look at the uncaring universe to the existence of suffering.  Theists have to rationalize out the kazoo to get around these problems with their view -- not a basis for sensible opinion forming.