If There Is No God

[RxForMoreCowbell]

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You are watching a film. The main character is murdered. The main character is an old illiterate woman in Tibuktu. (In other words, someone as far away from your situation, as posible.)

You feel awe and regret.

Why ?



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Empathy. I'm pretty sure DS's "disgust" is more or less a form of empathy as well.

[Cyrus]

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Empathy.

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That's right.

We empathize with most, if not all*, humans, at some level of our consciousness. What DS is missing in his mechanical/vulgar-materialistic argumentation is most of what sets apart the mere animal from homo sapiens, which is our ability to conjure abstractions. (Notice that the DS justification about the formulation of human morality is equally applicable, with minor technical alreations to terms, to the rest of the animal kingdom in the formulation of their own "morality", i.e. their code for living out their lives and living in groups. What DS describes is Pavlovian "thought" process.)

It's the realization, however deeply buried, that we all share, when it comes down to it, the same fate, that is the main factor in the formulation of human morality.

It's either that -- or De Sade if we want to be honest in our thinking.




* This empathy does not, in fact, stop when we are torturing a fellow human. (Or killing him, doing him wrong, etc.) In such a case, we are generally trying to get away from this empathy as far as possible and to get on a different, superior level by playing god. All futile, natch.