Contention: A cry against popular world views.

I'm not sure if this is IS material or not. anyway, here goes.

my buddy wrote this, I find it very well written but I disagree with a number of points in the text. I will elaborate when the opportunity to debate arises (i.e when someone disagrees/agrees with part of the text and explains in detail why etc..)

Contentions
A Cry Against Popular Worldviews

1. The Philosophical Time Sink and the Societal Organism

   I believe that the debate over whether or not a higher power exists to be little more than a drain around which the valuable time of provocative thinkers constantly circles. I believe that the amount of evidence gathered by science and the sum of my own observations define a world that can function perfectly without some conscious being pulling the strings.
   Consciousness is not as exclusive and spiritual as people tend to think. It seems to me more like a cluster-fuck of perception and process which, through its own limits, perceives itself to be exclusive and spiritual. It is a group of functions that unite as a machine which is constantly aware of itself. The constant awareness that it has of its existence comes from the constant stimuli that our senses receive and the constant logical and emotional process that draws meaning from these stimuli. Since I believe in the materialist view that all perception and process is caused by physical reactions, I have concluded that a higher power, which is not physical, cannot possess consciousness as we know it. The attribution of a consciousness that relies on physical phenomena to a non-physical higher power is one of the best indicators of a god created by man.
   Emotion, to me, is a mutation of instinct. Instincts allow animals to react to a situation based on stimulus. If an animal is attacked by another animal, they may be commanded by their instincts to fight for their life. They may also simply flee. In more evolved beings, such as humans, these instincts of fight and flight manifest as anger and fear respectively. Humans also possess logic, which in many cases dictates a course of action which is in direct opposition to the course of action dictated by emotion. Emotion dictates short-term reactions based on stimuli, whereas logic dictates long-term courses of action based on objective analysis of these stimuli.
   When emotions and logic combine, the result can either be emotions which are guided by logic, or logic which is polluted by emotions. The vast majority of humans prefer the latter, and this preference is the downfall of objectivity.
   Emotion is another thing which is constantly attributed to higher powers. However, due to the fact that a truly omnipotent being needs no survival instincts, possession of emotions in an omnipotent being would be little more than impairment of that being’s reasoning. Such impairment also makes the aforementioned omnipotence quite questionable. This illogical attribution of emotion to a higher power is yet another indicator that man created god.
   So, if there is indeed a higher power, I have concluded that such a power could not possess consciousness or emotion as we know them. A power that lacks these characteristics is more of an unguided force than an intelligent designer. Therefore, the debate over whether or not this force exists is irrelevant to science as the machinations of the universe can, conceivably, transpire with or without this force behind them.
   Furthermore, since the driving force and ultimate authority on the universe is not conscious and does not possess emotions, it also cannot possess the capability of defining good or evil, for good and evil are simply concepts that arise from the pollution of logic by emotion. These two concepts vary greatly between conscious beings. For example, the Holocaust was what many people would call an atrocity and a black spot on the history of man. Despite this, the instigator of the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler, believed with every fibre of his being that he was doing the best thing that he could possibly do to benefit the human race. In this way, we see that the concepts of “good” and “evil” are not universal distinctions between actual motives, but they are instead subjective opinions on the actions of others based on how they affect us.
   This inconsistency in the concepts of “good” and “evil” between conscious beings creates huge roadblocks when humans attempt to organize. Small societies tend to have little trouble as there are few members of such a society that subscribe to deviant schools of thought. The larger a society becomes, however, the higher the probability of dissent among their members becomes.
   The human body is a good example of a nearly ideal society. The individual cells all have their own unique purpose which is coordinated by a single entity, the brain. All of the cells do whatever they are told without question and the society is only subject to the corruption of the leader as opposed to the possible corruption of every single individual cell. Totalitarian dictatorships like this cannot exist between humans, as dictatorships tend to leave a yearning for freedom. Such a freedom would simply allow for a higher probability of corruption and ultimately a compromise of the society as a whole. Regardless of this, societies tend to function, or at least attempt to function, much like organisms. They usually possess characteristics and processes akin to metabolism, respiration and reproduction. But if we regard society as a type of organism, we ultimately discover that it is a very sick organism with poor control over its bodily functions.

2. Emotion as Poison and the Pathology of Insult

   The alternative to a pollution of logic by emotion, as stated earlier, is an ordering of emotion by logic. When we stop allowing emotions to poison our logic and start using our logic to regulate our emotions, we can see that many emotions are often completely irrational in the long-term. When one stubs a toe, one may become angry, perhaps at himself, perhaps at the furniture, it doesn’t matter. When we analyze the correlation between pain and anger, we see that such a correlation makes no sense from a logical point of view. Despite this, the correlation is known and understood by most, if not all, humans. This is because humans are animals and, like animals, they require survival instincts. Anger allows animals to react to possibly threatening situations by fighting. When anger pollutes logic, the result is hatred; a directed anger which inspires irrational hostility.
   When we analyze our hatred, we see that hostility usually only worsens the situation that inspired the hatred. If, instead, we resolve to find a non-hostile course of action which eliminates the cause of the animosity, the hatred can be soothed and a conflict can be averted. Therefore, in situations that inspire anger, abandonment of emotion will almost invariably lead to a solution.
   Closely related to the irrational correlation between negative stimuli and anger is the even less rational correlation between criticism and personal insult. If, for example, I state my subjective opinion about the aesthetics of somebody’s shoes, which happens to be negative, they may take it as a personal attack on their taste in shoes. My statement of my opinions carried no intentional implications about the shoe-wearer as a person, yet they still become insulted. When we understand this correlation, we can understand how conflicts can arise spontaneously even without initial hostility.
   Furthermore, it is the innate tendency of the human emotion-logic interaction to form independent opinions on certain stimuli, such as the aesthetic qualities of a pair of shoes. The inevitable variation in these opinions between humans inevitably leads to people constantly having their opinions challenged by the opinions of others. This challenge leads to hostility which leads to conflict. Opinions, challenge and conflict are all stimuli in themselves. Therefore, the formation of opinions, the challenging of said opinions and the conflict that arises from these challenges simply perpetuate the cycle of hostility by constantly giving people more to fight over.
3. The Illusion of Purpose

   Science, for the most part, offers many answers to those wishing to know how things happen. Even if science fails to provide these answers, it at least gives hope of an answer in the future. Those with less faith in science as I are often distraught at science’s apparent inability to answer those wishing to know why things happen. It is my contention that the concept of inanimate objects or events having a purpose is born of a flaw in human logical process. The human mind is driven by the chemical process that causes pleasure, and it will favour courses of action that increase pleasure or decrease the inhibition of pleasure. This basic driving force creates the need for the human mind to justify a possible action before it carries it out. This need for justification means that every action that a human performs must have a purpose behind it, no matter how impactful or paltry the purpose may be. Because of this, humans find it incomprehensible that any action can be without purpose. This creates an illusion of purpose in the world around us. Inanimate objects react to things based on their physical nature, not based on the processing of stimuli. Therefore, inanimate objects do not need reasons for doing things.

4. Sacredness, the Destruction of Choice and Forceful Salvation

   “Sacred” is defined by the Random House Dictionary as “secured against violation, infringement, etc., as by reverence or sense of right”. Reverence or sense of right for any person, object or concept will never be universally accepted. Any sacredness lent to a person, object or concept will be completely subjective. When one group decides that a certain person, object or concept cannot be questioned or challenged because of a subjective opinion, the progression of philosophy comes to a complete standstill. Only by subjecting accepted ideas to the filters of question and challenge can we improve those ideas. Attempting to preserve ideas due to their “sacredness” is akin to forcing a family to inbreed so as to avoid polluting the bloodline with outside influence.
   The seriousness of the disease that is sacredness is best exemplified in the families of the militantly religious. When children are born, they have no opinions or preferences concerning religion or ideology. Therefore, they cannot choose which faith or mindset is best for them. We leave it to the parents to make the choice for the child. This is an abomination because when the child becomes older, they will not be making choices based on their opinions, they will be forming opinions based on choices that were made for them. This effectively destroys the child’s ability to make any independent decisions because in many cases the child would not dream of questioning or challenging the choices that were made for them. This atrocity is the driving force behind extremism as it guarantees devoted followers for any ideology.
   In many cases, parents will never sacrifice their right to choose their child’s faith because they believe that only through doing so can they save their child’s soul. This exemplifies the folly of the concept of salvation. When religious doctrines state that only through following their rules and interpretation of history can one achieve salvation, it allows the religious to justify forcing their beliefs on others. These faithful believe that they are saving those who do not agree with them. Through this mentality, forceful conformity can be seen as a favor to the human race.

5. Conflicts of Likelihood

   Opponents of Darwinism often cite the astronomical improbability of life happening by chance as “proof” of the error in Darwinian thinking. Besides the fact that this argument is blatantly fallacious, I propose that the astronomical nature of said improbability is irrelevant. As long as even a sliver of probability that an event will happen exists, and the context of this probability is not limited by a time constraint, the event will happen. A friend of mine contended that the irrelevance of the improbability is itself irrelevant as there is always the possibility that an intelligent designer is more probable than a random initiation of life. After giving this idea some thought, I concluded that the likelihood of an intelligent designer is subjective. Because of this, the possibility of intelligent design being more probable than initiation by chance is irrelevant. Furthermore, one must always take into consideration the quite objective likelihood of mankind misinterpreting signs in nature as proof of a higher power. I have heard the complexity of a single cell cited as evidence of intelligent design, but the people making this argument are quite guilty of assuming that complexity and intelligent design are the same thing.

6. Moral Discrimination and the Great Popularity Contest

   Although the specifics of “good” and “evil” vary greatly between cultures, the concepts themselves are always present in some way. Because every event that humans encounter affects them in either a positive or negative manner, humans tend to describe events or concepts as either positive or negative. Furthermore, the innate variability of these descriptions coupled with the large number of humans guarantees some parallels in these concepts between humans. The presence of these parallels also guarantees that some concepts will be more popular among humans than others, which creates the illusion of a universal right and wrong among the members of the majority. Therefore, basing laws and religious dogmas on these popular values is, by definition, discrimination against a minority.
   Describing a democratic election as a “glorified popularity contest” seems foolish at first, as politics go deeper into morals and their affect on widespread issues. However, since I have concluded that morality itself is a popularity contest, we see that, regardless of how deep politics seem to go, democratic elections are indeed glorified popularity contests.