Comment by geye1234 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geye1234 | Hacker News Reader

I get the author's not trying to write a watertight syllogism, but the point he's trying to make (his last sentence) doesn't follow from the obvious fact that beliefs can influence each other.

Christianity and worldviews typically associated with the 'east' (as I've seen them discussed here and elsewhere) disagree in both their view of the 'building blocks' of reality, and in their 'big picture' view. They disagree on base questions like if there is really a "you", or whether change is real, or whether the material world is real, or whether multiplicity is real, or whether the truth of A implies the falsehood of not-A, and so on. (I've heard all of the above answered in the negative here.) And they disagree on 'big picture' things like the goal of human existence, the nature of the Absolute, what it is to live a good life, whether evil is the result of illusion or is (in addition to this) a defect in the will and caused ultimately by an indescribably malevolent being, whether a human being can reach a 'blessed' state by his own power, etc.

So the differences are vast and essential, on both the macro and micro levels. The fact that some beliefs and practices influence other beliefs and practices doesn't change this.

(The emergence of the "18 year old who just read Dawkins for the first time and thinks science disproves sky-daddy lolz" atheists on this thread is also most unfortunate.)

>what it is to live a good life

That has to be the universal one, no? I feel like basic moral principles, at least directed towards the in group, are pretty universal. I'd argue they are more base than even humans and are shared with certain intelligent animals.

I think this is true up to a point. But you find chasmic differences as well. Polygamy is an obvious example, or lying to non-brethren (absolutely forbidden by Christianity, permitted I believe by other religions), or the caste system (unthinkable in Islam or Christianity, a base part of reality in Hinduism), etc. You find a very different attitude to wealth in many varieties of Protestantism compared to the Catholic Church. Also, as I said, whether a human being can reach a 'blessed state' by his own efforts, which I believe most eastern religions posit, and Christianity denies. Human sacrifice is an obvious example of a disagreement with very practical consequences for conduct. It was, as is well known, widely practised in parts of the Americas until the sixteenth century. Today in the west, you find people disagreeing very passionately over 'culture war' issues, which is surely a disagreement about what the good life is. And the people who say the culture wars don't matter are positing another view of the good life, different from them both. Etc.

>Today in the west, you find people disagreeing very passionately over 'culture war' issues, which is surely a disagreement about what the good life is.

All window dressing imo over the real morals at play under all these layers that society puts on top and frequently changes by the decade. What do liberals and conservatives want out of their countrymen for example? The same exact thing ultimately: good people who might lend them a cup of sugar and won't club them over the head for one. Of course propaganda has blinded people on either side into vilifying what is at the end of the day a fungible human with the same basic needs and wants as most other social animals. At the most base we have the moral principles a stray dog seeks out in either fellow dogs or a sympathetic human: let me find someone who won't fight me off and may in fact share things and help me out while I do the same for them.

> or the caste system (unthinkable in Islam or Christianity, a base part of reality in Hinduism), etc.

The historical prominence of the slave trade in both the Christian and Islamic worlds should make it quite clear that it was hardly "unthinkable" but instead very rationalizable.

Rigid systems of social power hierarchy and oppression based on ancestry, perceived race, and occupation (which is a lot of what the worst part of caste is) were very much features of Christian and Islamic societies, even if their religions didn't codify them.

Right, but that proves nothing. The fact that human beings who profess religion R engage in behaviour B does not imply that B results from said profession of R. But I think you'd struggle to argue that the caste system doesn't result from Hinduism.

> But I think you'd struggle to argue that the caste system doesn't result from Hinduism.

The "Hindu" caste system results from the history of social hierarchy in the Indian subcontinent. What you are calling "Hinduism" is a relatively recent construct that has emerged as a response to religions with more centralized/uniform doctrines and institutions. There are belief systems categorized under this "Hinduism" label that overtly reject caste systems (and have done so for centuries), while others overtly uphold it.

Other societies also have caste systems, just differently rationalized than the one present in some belief systems that fall under the "Hindu" banner. I'm not excusing any of these systems whether Hindu or not - they are all a blight on humanity - but they are also a feature of many societies whether or not they use the particular term "caste".

Some clear examples of excluded/oppressed castes outside of the South Asian context are the Burakumin in Japan, the al-Akhdam in Yemen, and the Mestizos with more indigenous ancestry in Latin America.

True, I was speaking loosely, but that doesn't affect the point. If you change my statement to 'the caste system results from some belief systems categorized under the Hindu label' then the original point (which is that you find enormous differences resulting from different belief system) stands.

The existence of caste systems outside Hinduism doesn't change this either.

Some objects are red in and of themselves, while others can be made red by something outside them. Likewise, some beliefs cause people to act in certain ways, while other people may act in the same ways tangentially to, or even despite, their belief.

>That has to be the universal one, no?

Not at all.

Some believe one should come to forgive their enemies. Some believe that one should purge one's enemies from life itself. Some believe that one should have no enemies.

Some believe that material wealth is fine to a point, some believe that the desire of possesing material wealth is a source of discontent, some believe that it is the source of many or all other discontents.

Some believe that wanting to improve one's station is a source of discontent.

Some are fine with removing life if it is inconvenient (like bugs) where others value the life of a bug equally to their own.

Some are okay with their friends and family members murdering foreigners actively engaged in warfare that threatens their own life and livelihood. Some are okay with their friends and family killing the friends and family of the enemy combatants. Some are okay with killing anyone just generally in the vicinity of enemy combatants. Some say literally poisoning the well is a step too far, but that we had to write that down is evidence of other's believing differently. Some believe it's okay to murder people, communities, and entire populations because they'd rather use the land for themselves, or maybe their noses are too long and their skin is indistinguishably different.

Rereading your comment, I see the "in group" disclaimer. What's the in group? Some believe it's just their family, the people on the block, the people who have lived within a certain number of miles for a certain number of years, citizens governed by a particular government, the citizens governed by a group of governments, the people living on a particular continent, people in general, humans in general, life in general, or everything. There are people to whom no human should ever murder another for any reason. You might agree with that in theory, but would you allow a conquering force that is literally raping your friends and family to simply do so unquestioned? Would you feel vindicated striking back? There are some who have decided that the morally correct thing to do is to simply quit the land and or life itself rather than to fight back, because to them murder is wrong period.

The good life is deeply personal and absolutely not universal.

But it all comes down to an expectation of some altruism. Yes you may vilify the out group but are the basic dynamics of helping your fellow person out really so different across space and time? I don't think so. Every culture has villages and relies upon others for mutual benefits. That is what I am talking about with this sort of universal baseline level of morality. Yes there could be a spectrum of acceptable cruelty but generally you have to think about these things in terms of a playground scenario vs the context that leads to a military operation involving poisoning a well. Would you play with someone who slapped you in the face and pulled your hair on the playground? No, and that is universal.

>Would you play with someone who slapped you in the face and pulled your hair on the playground?

Having made friends of enemies, I may or may not depending on the persons development in future, and that's my point. There are many people who would agree that just because someone had done something bad in the past does not warrant continued future negative engagement. But there are also people who will make a lifelong arch-nemesis when getting cut off in traffic.

In the same village model, you'll see villages who will excommunicate people over relatively minor things, some only in severe cases, and some who will offer paths to redemption in all but the most severe of cases. A church might give you a life time ban for skipping a meeting, wearing the wrong clothing, talking to the wrong people, or any of a list of what an average person might call small transgressions.

Homophobes will taunt and even shun their friends if their friends talk to queers, god forbid befriend a fag. Christians will admonish those who talk to declared Satanists, those who listen to satanic music, etc. Some christains are homophobic, some are not. Some Satanists are homophobic, some are not. Some Christains don't mind homophobia, some can't tolerate it. So what's the core good life shared between all of these match-ups? Does the one universal good life include gay people and communication with gay people? How is that there can be these groups of people who are happy to hate on gay people if the one universal good life does not include bigotry? And you can't say that the one universal good life includes bigotry because there are many people who cannot abide such a stance toward anyone.

Even if you abstract all the way to "all in groups are wary of their outgroups" you're still not saying anything entirely true because their are in fact groups of people who believe that all are genuinely equal in all things. Do I personally? No. I believe that there are bad people and that there are people that humanity would be better off without. But, I also know that there are people who do not believe that there are bad people, only bad actions - that everyone is elligible for equality at some point.

>Yes you may vilify the out group but are the basic dynamics of helping your fellow person out really so different across space and time?

I believe that the bible teaches the purpose of life is to glorify the God of the universe. If a religion's "purpose of life" is about "interacting with other humans, and not about God" then we have opposing "purposes". I saw something similar about Secular Humanists: they claimed they align with the bible "Love God and love your Neighbor"... but they don't believe God exists, so they - on a fundamental level - can't follow thay commandment.

The Bible teaches a lot of different things. It's not one message, as much as people want it to be.

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