Sorry but I’m confused. Is it not true in Nazi Germany it was human first in the person of Hitler. When Hitler took charge he established a system entirely on his, I guess you could say, delusions of grandeur? When he had no doubt Germany was losing WW2 he thought it fitting every German deserved to die. Easy for him to say in light of the fact he was such a craven coward himself that he committed suicide. Whenever you put human first ahead of system are you referring to a human collective of some sort? If you are it will still be a mixture of both human and system.
Its important you understand what I mean with human first, and that this have nothing to do with Hitler.
You can put humans first without it also having to come at the cost of other humans.
Hitler blamed Jews for what was wrong in Germany and said that the Arian race were superior compared the rest, and you can find a lot of horrible science that they did back then, testing all kinds of stuff on people. But the German people and most other western people were not an issue for him, also why Danes and French etc were not part of the holocaust. So as you, Im talking about putting all humans first, its actually human needs, despite race, sexuality and so forth. So even if you read the bible, God saw the Jews as the chosen people and everyone else that stood in their way should be destroyed. So when an idea promotes some humans over others then things will go wrong. That is why humans need to be seen, and are equal.
Also, I fail to see the significance of earlier cultures having less physical knowledge is relevant to what is going on now to culture. With all the physical knowledge now available to modern man, depending on the country, how is that helpful now in bringing humankind closer together to forge a meaningful world culture and civilization?
This was actually in relationship, to how you found it weird why humans were the only one capable of bending nature to their will, and I simply tried to explain, that by looking at our early history all the way back, that an logic explanation can be found for this and that our ability to bend nature weren't always the case, but is something that have slowly evolved over time.
But in regards to bringing culture and civilizations together through knowledge, simply have to do with reducing ignorance. Obviously a lot of things play a part here, so the answer could be very long, but hopefully I can give some examples and you can see how it could apply in general for other things.
So if we go back in time again and look at slavery, it was thought that it were perfectly fine to have slaves, because those people were basically just a commodity equal to that of animals. They looked different therefore it could be justified that it was ok. People with mental disabilities or whatever could be considered witches or as being possessed by demons or whatever. So you have all these ideas flying around based on ignorance. But with knowledge, we know that its not ok to keep slaves, because they are not different, despite them having another skin color, that people with mental issues are not witches or possessed by demons. So as you reduce ignorance cultures change, so rather than burning people for believing they are witches, medical science examine whatever issue they might have and explain to people why they are in fact suffering from whatever, and therefore ain't witches. So suddenly the general view changes, so we want to help them rather than burn them. We now look down at those that think slavery is fine (Not sure there are anyone that openly hold that view anymore), because we know its wrong. Does that make sense?
You utterly shocked me to even speculate Hitler winning WW2! Utterly shocking to the marrow of my bones!
Nothing wrong with speculating
But looking at the war, they were quite close at taking the Soviet Union, most of Europe had fallen or joined him. And you had Japan going nuts in Asia and the Pacific.
You cite progressives such as Isaac Newton, Einstein, Marie Curie, Darwin, etc. You also said “But for the most part, if you look at these people and what they did, none of them required a divine revelation to cause progress. I agree there is no known connection to a Divine Revelation but what about an indirect effect? Why should I admire you so much though you are an atheist and I am a believer? The reason is because the quality of your thoughts, the sincerity of your heart is in keeping with ideals reflected and described in Baha’u’llah’s Writings.
What these did was in regards to science and pushing our knowledge forward, more than most other humans have, not particular them, but all the famous people that help make a difference. Besides Einstein that was an outspoken pacifist I don't know what the others view were on humanistic issues, they might as well have been real ********, I doubt it, but they could be, I have no clue
But regardless of their views on these, their discoveries have helped and changed the life of millions of people, whether that were their intention or not. Simply because so many other scientific fields have used their discoveries for their own ones. And I think people might tend to forget that, so they might praise God and Jesus, when they are cured of some nasty disease, but its people like these I mentioned and those discovering the cures that they really ought to thank. And to me that is why they deserve to be honored and because idols, rather than some random singer or movie star, like they have save or change the world, when they really haven't done anything more than the average person. So not saying they are bad or anything, but I think people sometimes should consider why things are as they are and who made it possible. I finally I think its because people like these are interested in how things work, the mystery of nature and not interested in all these none important things like trying to find differences between humans and which religions are true and so forth, its not important in regards to finding the truth about how things actually work in reality. At least that is how I see it.
In one of the prayers of Baha’u’llah for forgiveness from God there is the phrase “the heart of man is prone to evil.” I perceive none in yours!
I don't really know if I can answer that in any meaningful way, except that I don't believe good and evil exists, so I don't as such view others as being either good or evil, for instance Hitler to me is not evil as many would say he were, to me he were sick and there is a natural explanation for why he ended up doing what he did. And had his condition or upbringing been different. Imagine this had not turned out as it did:
In his autobiography Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler described how, in his youth, he wanted to become a professional artist, but his dreams were ruined because he failed the entrance exam of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
What would have happened if he had been accepted? And this is just one, thing so if we go through his life step by step, I think with enough data and examination and had we been able to examine his biology etc. That the reason he ended up doing what he did is based on all these things. And not because he is evil.
Also if I asked you,
how much good does it take to make an evil person good?
So lets say a person robs an old lady and in the process she dies?
That would make the person evil in most peoples eyes. But what if the person then save 5 children from drowning that have fallen through some thin ice, is that person then good again? So how do you weight these things against each other, as you keep adding things the person have done, into the equation. So if saving 5 children is not enough, would 10 be?
Also think about this, if evil exist, then their is no logically reason to think a person couldn't be born evil? But I think most people that look at a newborn baby have a quite hard time, pointing at it and say it is evil.
Therefore we are left with two options in, either new born children can be evil at birth or evil is something that we become during our life. So the question then becomes how do we become evil then? Well the only thing that could explain it, if we disregard supernatural causes, is the environment we grew up in or that people are born with genetic "tendencies" for a given type of behavior. So to me these are the areas that needs to be improved if you want to reduce the amount of "evil" in the world. Environment means everything concerning a person upbringing, parents, friends, culture and so forth. So we have to optimize these for all humans so children grow up in good environments. Genetics we have no control over, except through science and getting to be better at understand and treating them. So that is why education and equal societies is needed because all studies shows that people in such environment are doing better in general, less crime, feeling more secure, better education, live longer lives, more happy, etc.
So that would be one explanation, that I don't believe good and evil exists. The other is that I don't believe objective morality exists either. But that we can arrive at what is morally right through reason and logic.
For instance if we take an example of racism, which to me is the word I would use if I should give a one word explanation of what human stupidity is. So how would I find out if racism is morally right or wrong?
So lets setup the classic example, So person A is white and person B is black
Things we know:
1. Humans are the same inside, same organs etc.
2. Skin color is different
3. There is nothing person A can do, that person B cant do either.
So we can quickly remove point 1 and 3 as being irrelevant, so the question becomes whether its reasonable to think racism is morally right, due to a different skin color? And the answer should be fairly obvious that it would be stupid to believe that, so racism is morally wrong. So people that are racist are so, due to their own stupidity and often you will see people mix religion, culture etc. into the question, which have nothing to do with racism. Im don't like a lot about Islam or Christianity, but that doesn't make me a racist. It the
ideas that are harmful to other humans, that I don't like, because they are
based on human stupidity. Which is also why i don't care what people believe, as long as they do not cause harm to others, or it makes people do irrational things, due to their believe. So I think you can arrive at what is morally right through reason and logic, and that is in fact what we do, so there is no objective morality.
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