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See the recent Scientific American articles The "God Gene"

C J Campbell wrote:
"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

But regardless, none of this is even required to show that you don't

require

religion to justify happiness. A simple global desire to be happy is
sufficient (if you have no such desire to be happy, you may have a hard

time

comprehending this, but it sure would explain some other things). That's
why large groups of humans get together and agree to try to be happy
together, rather than killing and stealing from each other all the time.



I think a good argument can be made that one reason people kill and steal
stems from the desire to be happy. In this respect happiness (or the desire
for happiness) could be a negative trait.

Personally, I do not consider happiness to be undesirable. I think the role
of religion should be to increase happiness.


Religion need not come into the issue at any time. Lack of a religious
basis does not necessarily require a biological basis (even though in this
case, there certainly is a biological imperative to try to be happy).


To the contrary, I believe there must be a biological basis for religious
conviction. But you must understand, too, that I regard religious conviction
(at least in part) as the desire to make sense and order out of things where
there appears to be none. Thus, I think that recognition of a desire for
happiness (or any other desires or appetites, for that matter) constitutes a
religion, albeit perhaps a very rudimentary one. That my personal religion
may be more elaborate than yours is another matter. It matters little to me
what people worship, whether it be happiness, the dollar, or aliens from
Betelgeuse -- whatever you worship constitutes a religion. Whether it is a
true religion, that is, whether your particular god or gods actually exist
and can communicate with you, is irrelevant at that level. Nevertheless, I
hypothesize that virtually all laws stem from some religious feeling as I
have defined it.

I am of course very cognizant that this definition is not universally
accepted, except, perhaps by universalists. However, I think it is the only
definition that works in this context. Constraining the definition religious
belief to organized religions, particularly Christianity, seems too
exclusive and narrow and prone to severe problems of ethnocentricity.

I also recognize that my own organized religion and religious beliefs are
highly structured. Make no mistake, I firmly believe in it. But that does
not mean that I do not recognize that there are other religions. I do think
that many people err when they say that they do not have religious beliefs
when it is very obvious that they are worshipping something.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
I think a good argument can be made that one reason people kill and steal
stems from the desire to be happy.

So what? I never said one wasn't.

[...] Thus, I think that recognition of a desire for
happiness (or any other desires or appetites, for that matter) constitutes
a
religion, [...] Nevertheless, I
hypothesize that virtually all laws stem from some religious feeling as I
have defined it.

How conveniently tautological of you.

" jls" wrote in message
news

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

If you don't believe in trying to maximize human happiness, then
there's
nothing important about making society peaceful and safe. Maybe you
don't
hold that belief.


If a belief in maximizing human happiness is not a religious belief, what
is
it?

Not a religious belief. You should not be trying to redefine religion,
which is based on a god or gods and is best acknowledged as founded on the
gullibility of the many and the calculations of the few.

After all, if we are nothing but sacks of chemicals, doomed in the end to
become nothing but waste heat, why should we care what happens to us or
to
anything else? Nothing we do makes any difference at all if we eventually
just become random ergs scattered throughout the universe.

Not random, my moorman friend.

Is he really a Mormon. Uh oh.


Arguing about ethics and morals and religion is probably a waste of time
here. (not specifically due to the mormonism/LDS but just in general)

For a clear statement of objective laws see Ayn Rand - probably the most
succint philosophy on this subject, but certainly not succint with her
prose!!!



You can leave footprints in the sands of
time, or be a lasting legacy like Charles Dickens or Henry Ford, sire
children who will in turn sire children, perhaps even contribute to the
fossil record --- like the missing link between Neanderthal and human
recently discovered, or the subhumanoid bones recently unearthed in
Indonesia.

Having read some of your scribblings, however, I am not encouraged that
your
legacy will be anything more than dust.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

But regardless, none of this is even required to show that you don't
require
religion to justify happiness. A simple global desire to be happy is
sufficient (if you have no such desire to be happy, you may have a hard
time
comprehending this, but it sure would explain some other things). That's
why large groups of humans get together and agree to try to be happy
together, rather than killing and stealing from each other all the time.


I think a good argument can be made that one reason people kill and steal
stems from the desire to be happy. In this respect happiness (or the
desire
for happiness) could be a negative trait.

It makes no difference why they do it. Unless it is self defense it is
criminal. That has nothing to do with religion.



Personally, I do not consider happiness to be undesirable.

Excellent. Good for you.


I think the role of religion should be to increase happiness.

You can think what you want. In some cases religions were started to make
the founders happy. The followers' happiness is many times overlooked.


Religion need not come into the issue at any time. Lack of a religious
basis does not necessarily require a biological basis (even though in
this
case, there certainly is a biological imperative to try to be happy).

To the contrary, I believe there must be a biological basis for religious
conviction.

How can this be?

But you must understand, too, that I regard religious conviction
(at least in part) as the desire to make sense and order out of things
where
there appears to be none. Thus, I think that recognition of a desire for
happiness (or any other desires or appetites, for that matter) constitutes
a
religion,

You are now making up a new meaning for the word. You choose to force
people to fit into your world view and that does not always work out.

albeit perhaps a very rudimentary one. That my personal religion
may be more elaborate than yours is another matter. It matters little to
me
what people worship, whether it be happiness, the dollar, or aliens from
Betelgeuse -- whatever you worship constitutes a religion. Whether it is a
true religion, that is, whether your particular god or gods actually exist
and can communicate with you, is irrelevant at that level.

I have yet to see any god of any religion communicate with any follower.
Again, you are using a very loose and ill defined meaning of religion.

Nevertheless, I hypothesize that virtually all laws stem from some
religious feeling as I
have defined it.


I am of course very cognizant that this definition is not universally
accepted,

Right. Look up worship and religion in a decent dictionary. You may then
have a clue about why it is not universally accepted...

except, perhaps by universalists. However, I think it is the only
definition that works in this context. Constraining the definition
religious
belief to organized religions, particularly Christianity, seems too
exclusive and narrow and prone to severe problems of ethnocentricity.

Generally religion is reserved for diety worship or recognition. To call
pursuit of wordly things a religion is carrying it too far.


I also recognize that my own organized religion and religious beliefs are
highly structured. Make no mistake, I firmly believe in it. But that does
not mean that I do not recognize that there are other religions. I do
think
that many people err when they say that they do not have religious beliefs
when it is very obvious that they are worshipping something.

Horse****

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"AES/newspost" wrote in message
...
[...]
So, I'd really like to know what the non-religious arguments are that
are so strong and so important that many people are pushing us to go
all
the way to the extreme measure of a Constitutional amendment, just to
deny people like this the same benefits and rewards (and costs) of
marriage as heterosexual couples enjoy. What are the NONreligious
reasons that justify this very major step?

What are the non-religious reasons to justify allowing homosexual
marriage?
Most of those reasons have to do with allowing marital economic benefits.
I
suggest that those are a major cost that a lot of people might not be
willing to pay. I also suggest that before we start getting any more
creative with the definition of marriage we might want to consider what
additional demands might be made by other groups. There are fringe groups
in
Utah, for example, that want legal recognition of their polygamous
relationships, even though these relationships are typically extremely
abusive and incestuous. Other groups could easily demand the right to
marry
children, or to allow children to marry each other.

The Constitutional amendment would never have been needed if a small
number
of judges had not decided, on their own and against the wishes of the
general public, to create a right where none had existed before. Now,
these
judges are often elected by no one; they are political appointees. They
answer to no one. They simply have decided that no matter what the laws or
the Constitution say, they can simply order anything they want. I happen
to
think that this is very dangerous to the rule of law.

Why shant they have the right if other people have the right to marry?


You only need to look at how divisive the abortion issue has become in
order
to see how allowing judges to decree new law in such major ways can be
harmful. If the abortion issue had been resolved through the political
process, some compromise and consensus might have been reached. Creating a
new right via judicial decree instead polarized the nation, left no room
for
compromise, and has resulted in widespread violence, civil disorder, and
disrespect and politicization of the judicial system.

You are incorrect. It is not the issue about judges that made it divisive,
rather the nature of the subject is divisive. Some people want to control
other people, that is all.


I strongly believe that legalization of homosexual marriage through
judicial
fiat could have far-reaching consequences that would make Dredd Scott look
like a minor skirmish. It is not inconceivable that it could lead to civil
war and dissolution of the nation.

You have got to be kidding me?! Civil war over gay marriages? Where do you
get this stuff?

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

Legalized abortion has in the long-run made our country safer, not less
so.

not for the children killed during the abortion.

What is the definition of a child? (from a legal standpoint)



--
Bob Noel

Richard Hertz wrote:

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

But regardless, none of this is even required to show that you don't

require

religion to justify happiness. A simple global desire to be happy is
sufficient (if you have no such desire to be happy, you may have a hard

time

comprehending this, but it sure would explain some other things). That's
why large groups of humans get together and agree to try to be happy
together, rather than killing and stealing from each other all the time.


I think a good argument can be made that one reason people kill and steal
stems from the desire to be happy. In this respect happiness (or the
desire
for happiness) could be a negative trait.


It makes no difference why they do it. Unless it is self defense it is
criminal. That has nothing to do with religion.

Criminal by whose standard? What if the majority decided that stealing
and killing were OK?

Matt

"Richard Hertz" no one@no one.com wrote in message
. net...

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

Legalized abortion has in the long-run made our country safer, not less
so.

not for the children killed during the abortion.

What is the definition of a child? (from a legal standpoint)



--
Bob Noel

He doesn't know, obviously, but at common law the foetus or embryo has never
been treated as a child. In some cases the foetus when "quickened," i. e.,
capable of living outside of the uterus, has been viewed as a human being
within the purview of the homicide laws.

There is a movement among religious pharmacists to refuse to fill
prescriptions for the morning-after pill. Watch this absurdity grow and
fester, including the belief of many religious that a human life begins at
the instant of conception.

My lawgivers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St. Paul. (E. M.
Forster)

" jls" wrote in message
.. .

"Richard Hertz" no one@no one.com wrote in message
. net...

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

Legalized abortion has in the long-run made our country safer, not
less
so.

not for the children killed during the abortion.

What is the definition of a child? (from a legal standpoint)



--
Bob Noel

He doesn't know, obviously, but at common law the foetus or embryo has
never
been treated as a child. In some cases the foetus when "quickened," i.
e.,
capable of living outside of the uterus, has been viewed as a human being
within the purview of the homicide laws.

There is a movement among religious pharmacists to refuse to fill
prescriptions for the morning-after pill. Watch this absurdity grow and
fester, including the belief of many religious that a human life begins at
the instant of conception.

My lawgivers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St. Paul. (E. M.
Forster)



Well in the Peterson case in of all places the People's Republic of
California he is charged with the murder of his wife and unborn child. He is
hardly the forst to be charged with this. The law seems to be the
embryo/fetus is a human when the mother says it is.

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 17:47:26 -0800, "C J Campbell"
wrote:


"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
If a belief in maximizing human happiness is not a religious belief,
what
is
it?

It's an innate desire, not a religious belief. It's basic biology. We
come
pre-wired to desire happiness.

Again, why? And please understand, I am not some wild-eyed creationist; I
accept evolution as scientific fact. However, I fail to see a strong
selective advantage in a sack of chemicals wanting to be happy.

Self aware and self determination; Being happy feels better than
unhappy. Hence we do our best to do the things that make us happy.
There is an ingrained force for like to band together and to shun or
destroy what is different. That is true throughout the animal kingdom.
Being happy, or content is a survival trait for the species.

Religion is basically a common belief. Having faith gives most people
comfort, be it in a god, God, or a pet rock. The definition of
religion has changed over the years, but in general is based on the
belief in a god, or the supernatural. If you have an old enough
dictionary (over 50 years) look up cult and occult. The definitions
were much broader back then and did not exclude orthodox religions.

If someone comes along with a different belief that makes them happy,
it threatens the belief of the other. When each says they are the
only way then one must be wrong. What once was making us feel good
now makes us feel threatened even if only at the subconscious level.
Some one who's belief system is strong can discuss opposing views
calmly. Those who get excited, argumentative, and even aggressive do
so because they feel threatened (Psychology 101)

It matters not what the differences, be it, or they, physical, or
philosophical. If they are different then they are perceived as a
threat to our happiness.

Whether it be the neighbors land, resources, car, wife, belief
system... What ever we see as desirable we want so we can be happy.
Sooo...The logical conclusion is we end up fighting wars mot because
we enjoy fighting, but because we want to be happy.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com