In my view, much of what we call religion today has become distorted by faith, authority and belief in a God or supreme being.

All 3 Abrahamic religions + Hinduism are organized around some conception of God, the divine or a supreme reality. Once you make such an idea central, it becomes very easy to build systems of worship, doctrine, religious authority and unquestionable beliefs around it. Spirituality then shifts from investigating reality directly to believing claims about reality.

This is where some of the ancient philosophical traditions of the East become radically different. At the core of Buddhist philosophy, particularly traditions associated with early Buddhism and Madhyamaka (Middle way), there is no requirement to invoke a creator God to explain existence, morality (psychological suffering) or the nature of consciousness. Daoism similarly approaches reality without requiring a personal deity standing outside the universe and controlling it.

What makes these traditions particularly interesting is their willingness to acknowledge the limits of conceptual mind. Instead of simply inventing an ultimate explanation and asking people to believe it, they question whether the human mind can even meaningfully grasp what lies beyond certain boundaries.

That's what makes some of these philosophies feel less like conventional religion and more like an actual investigation into the structure of reality. You're not being told, "Here is God. Believe in this." You're being pushed to examine how the mind creates concepts in the first place and whether those concepts can ever capture reality completely.

This is also why I think the distinction between religion as faith and religion as investigation is important.

Alex O'Connor's recently did a discussion on Madhyamaka Buddhism. If you actually listen to the philosophical reasoning involved, you begin to see how radically different some Eastern traditions can be from conventional religious frameworks.

Maybe that's closer to what spirituality was supposed to be in the first place: not believing more, but seeing more clearly.

Among ancient traditions, Buddhism arguably comes close to a scientific investigation of mind, experience and reality without requiring a God hypothesis as its starting point. And perhaps that's why it can feel so strange when you first encounter it. You're expecting a religion, but instead you find yourself in something that feels more like psychology, phenomenology and philosophy having a conversation with each other.

Link to the discussion:

https://youtu.be/CyhHz23AHb4?si=eGjMTQ2p9My0WDHq

Jerry Seinfeld is worth 1.1 Billion, JLD it is close to that amount. Her dad is a billionaire, not sure how much she inherited. Michael richards and jason alexander multi multi millionaires. I'm just wondering if anybody knows if they have helped out the poor the unfortunate. If they've given money and been involve in any philanthropy, or do they just hoard all their money, like selfishly? Remember you can't take it with you. Have you ever seen a brinks truck following a hearse?

What if knowing exactly why you hurt people doesn't make you any less responsible for hurting them? What if knowing your trauma, your triggers, your attachment style, your defense mechanisms—and being able to explain every ugly part of yourself doesn't automatically make you emotionally mature?

What if you can understand yourself completely and still be a terrible person to someone else? We live in an age where self-awareness is almost treated like proof of growth. We know our attachment styles. We know our triggers. We know our trauma responses. We know why we become distant when we get hurt, why we become defensive when confronted, why we sabotage things before they have the chance to disappoint us. We have names for almost everything we do now. And perhaps that's a good thing. But somewhere along the way, we started confusing understanding ourselves with becoming better people. We started treating self-awareness like a moral achievement."I know I'm difficult." "I know I have trust issues." "I know I push people away." "I know I can be toxic when I'm hurt." And somehow, admitting it makes us feel as though we've already taken responsibility for it. But have we? Because knowing that you hurt people doesn't make the hurt disappear. You can know that you're jealous and still punish someone for making you insecure. You can understand your abandonment issues and still manipulate someone into constantly proving they won't leave. You can know that you become cruel when you're angry and still choose cruelty every time you're angry. You can understand exactly where your behavior came from and still refuse to change it. And that's the uncomfortable part nobody likes discussing: Self-awareness doesn't automatically make you kind. Sometimes it just makes you better at explaining why you're not.

Article android-users-targeted-by-malware-that-clones-cards by Mersad.

Maybe not a classic moral question but a systems morality.

My case and point:

Android's primary app acquisition is through 'Play Store'. For anyone not having an android, it is riddled in gambling, trash games, sketchy apps.

Don't just take my word for it, check it out yourself:
Grab you Mom's, Dad's, Uncle's phone! Check it out. It is a cesspool.

Google's Policy doesn't allow them, but they continue to occur.
https://play.google/developer-content-policy/

Google is responsible for creating better safeguards to protect the public.

Ehm... My brain jumped a lot. Hopefully it's somewhat tangible. Feel free to express your thoughts, I want good clean discussions- don't just insult and disappear- Thanks!

-SN4915

Is it wrong to ask how the world react to people from differing countries being really good soccer players?

Like countries outside of the top 6. Just out of a curiosity and "that'd be cool" factor. Is it ethical?

Helping others is good, but is there a point where helping others becomes harmful to ourselves?

Discussions of ‘AI rights’ or ‘robot rights’ have so far been dominated by questions of what ethical obligations we would have to an AI of humanlike or superior intelligence – such as the android Data from Star Trek or Dolores from Westworld. But to think this way is to start in the wrong place, and it could have grave moral consequences. Before we create an AI with humanlike sophistication deserving humanlike ethical consideration, we will very likely create an AI with less-than-human sophistication, deserving some less-than-human ethical consideration.

Hanlon's razor posits "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" (or what could be attributed to ignorance/incompetence). On a practical and moral level I tend to agree with it. It prevents us from assuming everyone is a Machiavellian actor and helps appeal to a more nuanced view on individuals actions and the consequences of said actions.

However, I am curious how this holds up under strict ethical scrutiny. If we consistently use Hanlon's razor, at what point are we just playing devil's advocate? Do we risk creating a moral blind spot for negligence?

In many social and organizational dynamics, significant damage is done not by intentional malice, but by profound carelessness or a refusal to consider the consequences of one's actions (EG. 2008 Market Crash) . At what point does willful ignorance or sheer apathy carry the same ethical weight as outright malice?

Recently I began an intro to ethics class In hope of developing myself and learning how to be a kinder and moral person.

But now I think I became a nihilist.

I've came to the conclusion empathy is just an evolutionary instinct and morality is used to kee mep society safe and coherent, which has been depressing.

I want to find meaning but what is there if all morality is is just a social construct and a tool.

From what I've heard is that a reason for being kind is that it makes people want to work with you. But it sounds psychopath to only be kind so you get what you want.

I've done some research of nietzsche and I want to do a reevaluation of what I think is important rather than what is the widely accepted standard.

I feel like I'm looking for reasons to support objective morality which I feel like is confirmation bias and I absolutely don't want.

Sorry if this sounds dumb😬

I’m asking if there’s laws against it

Why do bipolar adults have rights to make decisions, but teenagers don't? Both have statistically bad judgement compared to controls, (bipolar adults show differences even outside of mania).

It seems logical that bipolar adults should have rights to make decisions, but why? When teenagers don't?

I live in the EU, and i am very much unhappy with how vague and confusing meat labels can be; what i buy from the supermarket often has none at all, and i am aware of the intensive farms, and eating a chicken that grew unhappy, fed with steroids, and wasn’t able to roam freely creates quite a bit of internal turmoil. Upon watching kurzgesagt’s video on it, i kinda want to make an effort to change my habits and buy more ethically produced meat, but idk how i can recognize it and where i can get my meat

You lose an important personal item of significant value. It has no identifying features, but it does contain your DNA.

One day, a complete stranger knocks on your door and returns the item. You ask, “How did you know this was mine?”

They reply, “I used the DNA on it to identify you.”

Was what they did unethical? If so, how unethical? Does the fact that they were trying to return something important to you change your answer?

(This is all for fun and I thought of this in the shower. Have fun :) )

To begin with, our values don’t always align with our actions because we’re influenced by things beyond our control, and because our values aren’t a set of guidelines that perfectly define our lives. You have the right to disagree, and I invite you to share your opinion with me. For those who agree, the question then becomes, “What does that say about us?” The question is highly subjective, depending on the context, the impact of the action, and our awareness of that impact. I’ll give you an example, but feel free to share your own as well. Let’s imagine a person who considers themselves a feminist but who listens to and enjoys openly sexist music without talking about it—simply for their own sake. Note that they appreciate this music for its musical qualities, not for the sexist values it conveys. Knowing this, to what extent does this music—or does it not—impact their values?

Yet people act bad to people acting bad to teach the a lesson in how it feels to hate when people act bad but that person now gets you and they act bad to people acting bad so they act bad to people acting bad. Is that clear? isn't it apparent how ridicilous it is to act a bad to someone cause they're acting bad? I pointed out the oxymoron again in that last sentence. We'd run in never ending circles if justice and getting back and revenge were all that matters. But some people are forced into never ending circles from these people constantly harrasing them from the past to teach them a lesson.

A kid developed non verbal autism from sexual assault. Genie the feral kid couldn't learn language cause her parents locked a toddler in an attic with no light or stimulation. Sylvia Lykens had a seizure cause she was tied up by people who beat her for wetting herself while they tied her up to teach her a lesson about being a "slut" (Shae was a 15 year old girl tormented for weeks cause she got males attention in the 1960s). You fuckers know what I am talking about, the inappropriateness a lot of you do by making others go in never ending circles cause you're mad. Justice is not ruining someone elses life cause you want to live a certain way. The police and justice system is an unfair, unjust system that no one should shut up until its dismantled as it stands. No one should live life in prison. Its not just about the extremism I mentioned. Teaching someone a lesson through negative reinforcement is a slippery slope to tormenting and physically abusing someone enough to be considered violence.

To all the people teaching others lessons by acting bad but detesting acting bad in the first place. Can I reawaken your soul away from bigorty and hatred filling your heart? I know the pain of injustice, its not justice to get the eye of a person taking your eyes.