Thanks ql and Narkissos for some stimulating reading!
Fixing moral codes and endeavouring to see them enforced universally works against learning abilities and advantages. It is better to allow for groups to work with their own ethics in their own interaction with their own environment to utilise resources and wisdom thus conferred.
ql, I like your thoughts on evolutionary psychology. As for my notion of "thought recipes," well I'm sure someone, somewhere has a much more elegant terminology and explanation than mine. A related concept that I found useful was Timothy Campbell's "Antiprocess." I can no longer find the web page itself, but here is the concept as stated elsewhere in the net:
The Formal Explanation: Antiprocess is the preemptive recognition and marginalization of undesired information by the synergistic interplay of high-priority acquired mental defense mechanisms.
An Informal Explanation: People can very cleverly defend their beliefs without having to fully understand the arguments against them.
A Very Informal Explanation: They're not being annoying on purpose.
Yes, Narkissos, Freedom seems to be a rather broad concept. I do recall reading the thread you linked in the past, and it was good to review the subject. There are so many tangents I could take at this point on the topic of the value of life, human and animal, over the value of property. To my mind the current system which values property over even human life is onerous. I see a supreme symbol of this current wrong state of affairs in the myth of Adam, Eve, and the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The property, the tree and its fruit, is valued greater in the eyes of Yahweh than the lives of Adam and Eve.
I'm not against property, but our culture has become exceedingly materialistic to our social detriment. It could also pose a serious threat to our future on this planet.
“As long as you don’t change the way money works, you change nothing.” [to President Obama:] “All you are doing is buying time to prevent the collapse of a totally dysfunctional marriage where the mother (the government) kills the children (us) to save her relationship with the father (the way money works).” - from http://energybulletin.net/node/48990
While one can and should have ideals, whether atheist, theist, or somewhere in between, we live in the real world where events on a global scale have momentum that far exceeds the influence of any human enterprise.
My ideals are to live in a sustainable human society that lives in harmony with Earth's natural systems, where the families and local communities provide everyone with homes and food. Believe it or not, there are still places in the world that approach this ideal, but "we" call them "poor and underdeveloped." Perhaps it is "we" of the Western world who are "poor, pitiable, blind, and naked" for building our lives around objects and concepts that do not make us happy.
Well, I think I managed to go off on a tangent anyway! Perhaps some who read this thread will come to understand that being an atheist does not preclude having values, ideals, and dreams. When one has a broad view of the human condition, one realizes that the rigid theism espoused by a few is not representative of humanity as a whole. These few claim that atheists get their "code of conduct" from god(s), yet in reality it is the theists who have distilled their various "codes" from the collective experience of humantiy while claiming divine guidance. Men (and women, of course) are indeed capable of great wisdom, yet I have read greater wisdom written by men who claim no divine inspiration than that which is found in ancient "holy" books.
Dave
