mererdog
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Everything posted by mererdog
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Hi. I have lived all over the country and I have never driven a car. This means that I have run into more than a few panhandlers over the last few decades. I will start by saying that some choose begging as a carreer path. They won't necessarily say it that way, but there are people who have been putting in full-time hours panhandling for years. If you are good at it, you can make a living at it, so some do just that. From what I have seen, they often work in groups, with new people seeming to get trained in ways surprisingly similar to what you'd expect to happen with a company's new hires. I understand why people don't trust beggars. However... I can tell you with certainty that lying about why they need the money is not a sign that they do not need the money. If they are not simply a cynic trying to cash in on your gullibility, the person asking for your help is likely very desperate and very ashamed. If they feel like lying is needed to get what they desperately need, and/or to protect themself from shame, it takes a very strong motivator to overrule that feeling. The drug thing is morally more complex than most admit. An addict can die from going cold turkey. If you can't help them get clean, paying for their next hit may literally save their life, even as it helps ruin their life. But, of course, you can't tell in advance what will happen if they don't get the money, just as you don't really know that they will buy drugs, even if that is their plan. And that is the important part. You don't know. So we are talking about managing risk. So, which would be worse? Giving money to someone who wasted it, or refusing to give money to someone who died from lack of it? Err on the side of protecting your purse or your neighbor? -
I hear what you are saying. Being helped by an individual can let you know that someone cares about you personally, in a way that being helped by an organization normally can't, though. Like the difference between a meal cooked for you by a friend versus one you bought in a store, you know?
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There are those who strongly feel that under no circumstances should we trust a black man. The thought behind this is that most black men are thieves. Seem reasonable to you? Personally, if I needed help, it would mean much more to me to be helped by an individual than an organization. You?
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Not no one. Fewer people. Not only do Christians outnumber agnostics, but Christians are simply more prejudiced than agnostics when it comes to religious labels. Which now has me wondering what effect the prejudice faced by the nonreligious has on our ability to be compassionate. Also, the Christian banner is only one option more effective than the agnostic one for raising funds. Secular causes and group identifiers are popular with the nonreligious and religious alike. Stuff like the ASPCA, Doctors Without Borders, or the alma mater, you know? Such a charity run by agnostics would likely be indistinguishable from such a charity run by Christians, or even Hindus.
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There was a little old lady I talked to about a decade ago who gave me a bit of a surprise when she told me she was a fellow life-long nonbeliever. She was a nun, you see. I did not accuse her of hypocrisy, but I did ask the obvious questions. Her answers made perfect sense to me. When she was young, she knew she wanted to spend her life helping people, and The Church was the only one giving her that kind of career option. It gave her access to resources that allowed her to help more people than she ever could have on her own. Not just money and other material resources, but also training and contacts. She admitted the obvious inherent dishonesty (although I think she denied ever directly lying about it), but she asked a pointed question: How dishonest would you be willing to be, if it meant you could save a life?
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That doesn't follow. By that logic, there should be more brown eye based businesses than blue eye based businesses. I know of neither. Truthfully, there are a couple of things involved. On the cynical level, traditionally speaking, people have been able to get customers by saying their business is a Christian business. It's a form of signaling designed to cash in on a group identity, not really any different than saying "black owned" or "veteran owned". This, of course, would not work for agnostics. There are simply not enough of us out of the closet to move a profit margin. On a less cynical level, many Christians believe that telling everyone they are a Christian is part of their obligation to spread the Gospel. Agnostics, obviously enough, do not share that motive. I honestly cannot think of a single apolitical reason an agnostic would want to call their business an agnostic business. I can think of lots of reasons they would not. This is all also true for charities.
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It is an opinion that appears based on remarkably shoddy science.
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speaking the truth
mererdog replied to cuchulain's topic in Interpath Dialogue, Universal Virtues and Values
It's been a few years since it was on my radar, but there is a poll they've been doing for decades where they ask voters if they would refuse to vote for a candidate based on religion. The last time I looked, Muslim had just passed atheist as the most likely religious label to disqualify a candidate in the eyes of American voters. Luckily, no politician would ever lie about what they believe in order to gain power, so we rest easy. -
Love and hate are our strongest motivators, and it's a bit of a toss up as far as which is stronger. Guilt, shame, pride, and lust are also big ones. Everyone who isn't a sociopath has very strong motives to be compassionate. Unfortunately, all of them can also be strong motives not to be compassionate. So I can relate with trying to give people a new motive to do good, and also the desire to take away their motivation to do bad. But I think that unless you can successfully unravel all the motives a specific individual already has, you have no real idea how changing one or two of their beliefs will effect their future actions. Teaching a mean person to believe in God may just mean getting them to believe in a mean God, you know? And for every Creed, there are hundreds of excuses why it doesn't apply in all cases. Also, I can't think of any agnostic businesses, but I know of a lot of Christian ones. Does that mean agnostics aren't as profit-motivated as Christians?
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I suppose a good test of that claim would be whether you treat people with compassion when they dispute the claim.
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No, Dan. I don't steal a car because I believe it is wrong to steal and I made a commitment to do only what is right. I don't have faith in God, but I have a conscience. The vast majority of atheists and agnostics have morals, ethics, and motivations virtually identical to those of our believing neighbors. Motives come from what you do believe, not what you don't, though. So I am no more likely to have the same motivations as a random agnostic than you are to have the same haircut as a random Christian. If you call one group "normal" you call all others abnormal. Calling someone abnormal is an insult. Less insulting word choices you could have used include "average" and "common". I mention it only because I never thought the insult or inaccuracy was intentional. Tongues are hinged on both ends, eh?
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I tend to agree. Compassion grows when we simultaneously care for ourselves and see ourselves in the other. This suggests that to help others be more compassionate requires a focus on the good we all share. Do you agree?
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You likely never will. Not because there aren't any, but because of how terrorism is reported. If a terrorist is not Muslim, their religious views are rarely mentioned by the press. Meanwhile, back in my nihilistic youth, I knew a lot of violent criminals who were agnostic and atheist. Almost all of their families thought they were Christians, though, and quite a few of them were "Christmas and Easter" members of churches. It is pretty much a given that if they ever did anything newsworthy, their lack of belief in deity would never get mentioned.... And it is always worth remembering that you are way more likely to get shot over money or sex than God.
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Huh. I have no belief in God or gods, so it would be more than a little odd for me to think that....
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I agree completely and that is the lion's share of my point.
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No. You understand that compassion and mercy are not caused by agnosticism- that many agnostics are not even slightly nice people? You understand that compassion and mercy also exist in religious people? On the other hand, you understand that we all have nonreligious motives to do bad? You know, greed, jealousy, ire, stuff like that?
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Well, that is both factually wrong and personally insulting.
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I would never suggest otherwise. Did you think that I had?
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Yes. Things you are not agnostic about.
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Belief in God has motivated a lot of people to do good and a lot of people to do bad. Lack of belief never motivated anyone to do anything. The original claim was that we need more agnostics because agnosticism does not provide motivation for bad acts. We seem to agree that more agnostics means only more people who lack one specific motivator. So to posit more agnostics as a way to improve things seems like espousing a plan doomed to failure.
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No. I am suggesting that agnosticism is nonmotivational. Belief can motivate bad acts but it can also motivate good acts. Lack of belief, meanwhile, can motivate nothing. Giving up the motivation to do good in order to lose the motivation to do bad seems like throwing out the baby with the bath water.
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My beliefs specifically require me to act the same regardless of what else is going on in the world. This is predicated by one simple premise that I accept as fact: Whether or not you do right does not effect whether or not what I do is right.
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Ever heard of anyone being motivated to help anyone else because of it? I haven't....
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It can open a few doors for you. As long as you arent trying to use it as a qualification for a job, it's fairly unlikely anyone will ask you for specifics and, when people see a title or string of letters attached to your name, they can be more willing to give you a chance to prove yourself. Basically, it allows you to exploit the reflexive deference to authority most people have been raised with.
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I am speaking only on a personal level. Your earlier comment referenced my pacifism, so that is what I spoke to. I won't speak to the pacifism of others, beyond pointing out that anyone can call themself a pacifist, just as anyone can call themself a Christian. If we judge others based on the actions of complete strangers who share a label with them, we are not going to come to a fair judgment.
