He never said religion is good or evil he is simply saying there are good sides to religion that we can grasp on. Modern days we became too dogmatic about law, justice and equality and we forgot about how to be happy.
The Alain de Botton podcast on the subject of, ""What makes us human" is truly inspiring to me. Thank you Alain for sharing such enlightened and thoughtful philosophies. It's given me an impetus to challenge my values and personal biases.
Here are a couple of things we should know about this brilliant and most original thinker: 1. He has a youtube channel called " The School of Life", with more than 2.5 million subscribers. They pay the best animators from all around the world to make those little films that teach us everything we weren't taught in school! To try the channel, you can start with one of these videos: -First world problems -Memento Mori ( made with legos! ) -On feeling depressed 2. Alain has wonderful documentaries on his other youtube channel. They all have a life changing quality. To find the channel search for this documentary: " Status Anxiety". 3. The most profound and meaningful conversation I have ever heard about love is the interview Alain gave on the " On Being With Krista Tippett" podcast, where he talks about his bestselling book " The Course of Love". 4. If you want to read one book by Alain, start with " The Consolations of Philosophy". That book is my bible!
Hello there Theo! Thanks a lot for your message. Unfortunately I am not on facebook etc., but we can keep in touch under the School of Life videos. I hope you are a fellow subscriber from their channel! All the best :-)
Thank you so much Theo! Can you believe that I don't have a smart phone? Despite meditating everyday since ages, I am so easily distracted...That's why I thought I better don't have one. But thanks for letting me know that the app exist! I can recommend it to the people I know. Have a wonderful day:-)
I agree with you completely. Lots of people believe just a few people can't make a difference, that unless you're part of a massive movement you can't do any real good or change the world, so just "get yours and be happy before you die". But all change starts small, all cures start with a little test, all peace treaties are negotiated in a small room between few people. The biggest movements always grow from small ones; how else could they form? I hope more people will think about that.
Not all religions are quite that strict. In many different sects of Mahayana Buddhism, an appreciation for discarding dualistic opinions on things is advised. Daoism is also an interesting case because it opens its followers to eccentric living and thoughts that don't correspond to rigid social expectations. Ch'an/Zen Buddhism has taught its audience to appreciate personal experience and silence over dogmatic thoughts and words. Might we use any of these concepts to create art/architecture?
“ Don't cause suffering. Everyone can agree on that.” Indeed- too bad most suffering is enabled by apathy, and suffering can virtually always be blamed on someone else. If only we could transcend the idea “As long as I’m not directly causing suffering, I’m good.”
"Freedom is about realizing our highest possiblities" the problem with that is that someone has to tell us what our highest possibilities are, and if we disagree then taking the needle from a heroine addict will be seen as an infringement on freedom.
I'm not sure what you are saying or asking, can you clarify? What I meant to say in the original comment is, "suffering" is what all humans think is morally wrong, if an action causes suffering, we label it as bad, the greater the suffering the worse we think it is.
The problem with this line of thought is that it's quite simple to reach all of the good ideas and rules religion offers through completely secular fields. (Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Evolutionary Science, etc.) That's why we (society at large, not fundamentalists) have the laws that we do, some of which exist within religion, many of which don't, and we simply ignore religious teachings we find distasteful or outdated.
He has a youtube channel called " The School of Life". He narrates almost all of the videos and they pay the best animators from around the world to make the videos. Take a look if you wish :-)
Thanks! I got that from watching "The terror of History" by Teofilo F. Ruiz from "The Teaching Company" (a set of lectures). He wrote a book by that title too. It talks about how humans have suffered throughout history and how they strive to avoid it, to reduce it, and that morality is likely a social evolutionary adaptation caused by endless suffering of individual organisms, all the way up to humans. That suffering is, in itself, all the evil in the world. It's rather mind blowing.
Born in a country where Christ is not that popular. I never understood why America think "without religion, what do you base your morale on?" Well... on my humanity? I don't want to harm a person because simply I'm a human. I feel pain when another person is harmed, because I'm a human. It's biology, it's how our specie's brains work. Why would I need a religion to "be human"?
Heroin is an evocative example (analogous rather than literal), but I think he is correct; eating poorly, for example, or stealing, or even simply being angry at someone can have long-term consequences even if they seem appealing at the time. My experience with religion is that it is definitely can be a strong motivator against doing things like that. He is right in that religions (at their best) encourage people to be their best selves.
It is usually easy to decide moral/ethical issues on the extremes for example, using drugs in a way that destroys your life, most people would agree should be restricted if not outlawed, being kind and polite most people would agree should be encouraged. The difficultly arises when the moral/ethical issues are in the "middle" where the issue has both good/bad properties or deciding the methods by which to achieve the good.
The idea of freedom in religion can also be seen as a restrainer of actions that would be harmful so that one keeps their freedom. For example the common idea is that freedom is best expressed by being able to do anything one desires as long as it does not harm anyone, but we find that the actions we choose can sometimes enslave us in behaviors that don't bring us any lasting satisfaction. And by these actions' presence in our lives they rob us of the potential for a better way.
I'm sorry. I doubted if I should use restlessness instead of inquietude exactly because it sounds pompous, but I decided to go with inquietude, because for me it has a stronger connection with the word nervousness. Concerning 2 I didn't mean to imply that. I rather thought of a certain state of mind among citizens. Concerning 1 I tried to argue, without going in detail, that in this case the inconvenient parts are too numerous to say the general trend still holds, but clearly I wasn't clear.
"In the modern world, in the secular world, we think 'if anyone tells me something that I should do, that person is taking away my freedom'" Was that just oddly worded, or is he actually proposing that suggesting alternative actions is limiting freedom? That's just not true. Forcing someone to do something you think they should do, THAT takes away their freedom. Telling them to do something still leaves them with the choice to disagree.
Yes, and that has nothing to do with Alain de Botton's approach to religious ideas. While you argue against some orthodox approaches to religion, Botton's interest is in broader philosophical lessons, like knowing your limitations when making decisions or realizing that material vanities will only satiate someone temporarily. Botton enjoys reading about religions because he finds pleasure in observing their intellectual histories from a distance (not all of it was fire and brimstone).
Depending on how you interrupt "negatively effect others" can be a very free or very restrictive society. An example would be smoking, you can say smoking on the streets or in a restraint negatively effect others, so should there be a ban on public smoking? And things that just make people unproductive or reduces has a negative effect others as a group. If you go through 12 years of school and then never work a day in your life, even if you cost nothing from the government you hurt society.
Oh ok. Well I'm from USA, however slavery was once accepted in USA, and that certainly caused suffering. Humanity generally moves toward less suffering in the big picture. Of course we are not "suffering-free" yet, but we are closer looking at the last 100 years than ever before. I believe this is what humans are prone to do, not an explanation for everything, but an observation that is generally statistically true.
They have uploaded a couple thousand videos (now 9,131),over the last few days. They had about two thousand, the other week. Thumbs up so people can know.
What I was getting at was how does an atheist pass along his core set of values to his children? What would be an atheists guide? People knock scientologists but there is something to be said about actually having a thoroughly thought out text that demonstrates the beliefs of a group of people.
For me the place where this falls flat is "if someone tells me what I should do, that person is taking away my freedom". That's not true. If a person orders you to do something and enforces their will on you so that you will suffer consequences if you do not obey, that takes away your freedom. If you don't like it, use your feet. Walk away. Otherwise, if you take offense, then you are easily offended. That's what this is about. Of course there is the argument about parents wanting their children to grow up believing a certain religious point of view. It is the same as a parent wanting their children to grow up with no religious point of view. But that is a different matter. This is about getting your panties in a twist and taking offense when you are an adult who should be above that. Nobody can make you do anything by simply telling you to do it. Be a man. Walk away.
Just true in part. In order to explain the world, it explained the rules that were set by god, nature or whatever. In other words: what you have to do to keep yourself save and sound, or what is good or wrong. Religions set up certain behaviours, as a main component of them
The conversation always goes sour when people switch to big words so I'll just respond to your problems with my argument; 1) There are exceptions to every rule or trend, this is accepted fact; it does not make an argument or trend invalid when you find exceptions with specifics as you can even do that with gravity and math and you would not dispute these ideas. 2) I never said there is perfect equality and peace in this world, even in first world countries, nobody would say that.
The problem is your claim is "Religions give us absolute morals and which religions absolute moral things like rape could be moral", the response "rape is excepted in religions" is a valid point. So, yes, in theory anything could be thought of as moral in moral relativism (it wouldn't, but that is a side point), but we have two alternatives Religions Morals where rape, murder and slavery are all ok at times or moral relativism, where society choose what is moral, I would take society.
I think it is possible to have order, values, morals without religion. Its all about establishing norms within a society in which its members can live in harmony. Yes, there are differences and contrast within individual beliefs, which is why norms or laws are created; to establish a balance that will work for the common wealth. It demands sacrifice, but thinking about the common well being, and common well being should also imply one's well being...
Love fairness justice kindness... They are all results of our genetic prime directive: suffering is bad. Everything else is good. Don't cause suffering. Everyone can agree on that.
I think that inmate rehabilitation, and inmates claiming religion 'saved' them, are not religious reformers in the name of god but patients of psychotherapy (by priests or rabbis or what have you). In prison they have psychiatrists, but are so limited that priests are the only accessible person for a prisoner at any time. (I'm a criminal justice major). As far as repressions, in history no other organization or 1 person has done so much damage to science as religion and it's followers have.
Really, nearly everything we do has an effect on others so say "long as it doesn't negatively effect others" it should be legal, doesn't really protect much. In truth, it is always a balancing act between personal freedoms and societal goods for anything that might be thought of a "bad".
Oh, but me neither. It was just an excuse to post that episode. However, I disagree that we all equate suffering with wrong. I can proof that in a simple empirical fashion: Jewish male circumcision, hazing, celebrity gossip in tabloids etc. Especially the last one also invalidates the claim that humans want to stop suffering. Also the idea that morals are emotions which exist to minimize suffering is I think empirically wrong. E.g. moral objections to polygamy have nothing to do with suffering.
You have a good point, but he's not advocating religion. He is all about extracting the good things religion offers and adapt them to the secularizing world. It's easy to resent religion, it's not easy to say 'okay, they did have some good things, maybe we should investigate this more'.
I didn't say A religion. I said religion in general. I mentioned christianity with my imaginary history teacher of the future just because it's the biggest religion today, not because I think christianity gave us morals. I'm an atheist, by the way, I just don't like people ignoring history. Religious belief, be it stone-age superstition or modern christianity, is the trigger of humankind's absolute moral values.
Séduisant Taz-Mbodi I watched your video, and it is more or less every reason I'm an atheist, it's nonsense to think that a person does not have that within themselves without a religion. I know damn well why I started liking something or why I Started Loving something I don't need to remind myself to be friendly or to be happy. And I definitely don't need a religion there To Remind Me of those things, they are instilled in me they are a part of me, I know why I am happy, I know what makes me love. I know why I love I know why I care. I need no outside source to remind me of those things. If those things or the reason you need religion, you need to do nothing other than search your soul. All that is there inside of it. You need to learn how to be a part of who you are, live the life that you choose to. Not a life that a book has written for you, we are all individuals with individual thoughts needs and desires. Let those things be yours. Not a myth about a guy that dwelled in a desert some thousands of years ago that is now telling you how you need to feel, that is insane and I feel extremely sorry for anybody that lives their life under those conditions.
ezd63 So you trust your soul to be your own God. But how can you be sure that it is absolute and not biased by any outside source ? You must have shaped your conviction using some external inputs, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to even write a word here!
You should read more attentively. I said that IF rape is OK within a certain moral code, rape is considered ethical in that moral code. You clearly don't know what moral relativism is. Google it.
I would've answered this question differently. I agree there should be laws, but not to remind us to be kind. You can't fundamentally inspire someone to act a certain way with force or law.
People arrogantly saying religion isn't needed for moral values are incredibly stupid. There is no absolute morality without religion. What you can say is: once the values already exist, they can exist FURTHER without religion. Maybe in 500 years history teachers are gonna say to their students: "and these fixed moral values we have in our society today had their origin in this ancient belief system called christianity, which died away but left us a couple of universal rules to live by".
He's describing religion from quite a positive point of view; maybe because he remembers that there were plenty religious households where life was very good.
I don't agree with everything Nietzsche said, most modern philosophy classes point out many errors in his logic. He believed *everyone* should suffer, and wished it upon his most loved friends, that you could only truly know what good is by knowing bad. I believe that is wrong: We all equate anything that causes suffering to be "wrong". Humans want to prevent suffering. We call things that cause suffering "immoral". Our "morals" are just the feeling we get trying to avoid and reduce suffering.
Without religion, those who do "evil things" (by "evil things" I mean things that intervene with our positive growth as a society) have no right to be included into society. Why should we adapt individuals that don't support the common well being? If they are not social individuals (social as in working for and within our masses), why have them in our society? "Evil people" are not social people; antisocial people are not part of society; if you can't rehabilitate them, exclude them.
That's not the sense in which religious morals is called "absolute". It's absolute as in opposed to relative. Within a moral code in which rape is considered to be alright, rape is not unethical. That's moral relativism. A lot of the moral dilemmas you pointed out are important, but don't just invent a meaning for something that already has a specific one, in an important field of study.
What you could end up with, at best, is an ultimate implementation of "might makes right", but that's not morality. In fact, it's the very thing moral doctrines seek to minimize.
You're not suggesting that you can't sort the hay from the chaff, right? This seems to be an "all or nothing" retort, finding fault in individuals or groups who were not consistently ideal. We are not Bodhisattvas. We humans have ulterior motives; this doesn't mean we can't enact compassion once in a while. I listen to people's opinions and information, regardless of the fact that I've never met a person who is 100% honest. What society functions without empathy for those "with faults?"
I'm an atheist, by the way, I just don't like ignoring history. Maybe someone thought "hey, these would be good rules for everyone" and then invented some omnipotent big daddy to scare people into following them. We can't know for sure. But according to history, absolute morals didn't exist before religion, be it crude stone age superstition, be it modern christianity. Morals were relative. There is no uniformity even today, but there's a lot more than at the dawn of humankind.
Moral values are intrinsically universal. They don't come from culture or religion but from genes. Murder, stealing, rape, lying, trickery, assault, anger, (the list goes on) are wrong everywhere, across religion, race, culture and any other man-made boundary. Fairness means the same thing to everyone at a basic level. Culture, religion, etc. can only amend this. I don't agree your idea on secularism since by definition and implementation it's non-religious, so saying it's Christian is silly.
I would like you to point out any moral value that did not exist before Christianity, you can't right. How can you claim that a religion is the basis of morals if they existed before the inception of the religion?
People say that, because they do not know what religion is. The first thing the common human thinks about when someone asks of religion, is Christianity, not realizing that it does not envelop all of religion. Neither does it define religion. The conversations would carry so much weight, if people were more objective: instead of spouting nonsense from the bowels of their anger and deception. I suppose the human race still needs more time...
I think you should watch a video on the selfish gene, it will change the way you think. The idea that we all want to self-preserve just means we don't want to suffer. But, we also don't want others to suffer, which does explain fire fighters, which I myself was one. I am not religious, I hate dumb people, and thought I could care less if one died, but when I saved an obvious idiot from death once I have never felt better in my life. I cared about them. My morals didn't guide me, my body did.
I believe in God and I still think these points are valid.... Why are people hating on religion though? I don't just sit here and think oh this guy is an Atheists therefore he is dumb and his ideas and points are wrong. The smartest people of all time have all believed in God, well maybe besides Steven Hawkings but that's not the point.... It is pretty clear we have evolved to care for one another and to work together. That is why we are on top of the food chain. Religion doesn't change that...
And the point is: the first attempt at morals at all was religious moral absolutism. Even if we develop a rationally thought out relativist, secular moral code, there's no escaping the fact that religion is the pioneer of morals and we would inevitably inherit much of it, even if we modify it. This is what I don't have to prove in 500-char youtube comments, because it's on history books.
I agree that morals evolve. They are ideas though; they evolve in record, not inside us. We teach each other what is right and what is wrong as a society, but everything we do, including morals, is based on our genes. Our genes want suffering to stop. From flies to worms to single celled organisms to chimps and humans, all recoil when they suffer, they don't want it. The more advanced they get, the more they want suffering in general to stop. Rejection of suffering is the #1 way to survive.
And the point is: the first attempt at morals at all was religious moral absolutism. Even if we develop a rationally thought out relativist, secular moral code, there's no escaping the fact that religion is the pioneer of morals. This is what I don't have to prove in 500-char youtube comments, because it's on history books.
religion is not an exclusive way to teach values. but it is a key one. Your certainly right religion has a lot of bads, but in your hate try not to forget that it does have certain good sides 2.
How is that at all moral relativism? Moral relativism would be that rape is not absolutely right or wrong, but is changes. So moral relativism would be that rape is bad when done by someone randomly it is bad, but rape can be used to punish a married man who rapes another man's wife by allow the husband of the victim then rape is good, so rape of its self is either good or bad. Having a moral code saying all rape is alright is NOT moral relativism at all, it is giving a absolute moral stance.
1) Read history books. Check. 2) Attend Philosophy lectures on morality. Check. Why did you jump to the conclusion that I haven't done these things but no matter that's your bias. I ask for evidence because your the one making a claim and at the moment it is unsubstantiated. So what is wrong with moral relativism? Is it not true that in previous cultures murder(human sacrifice) was considered moral. Don't get annoyed because you can't back your claim. By the way I prefer Hitchens.
I like de Botton and have read a couple of books, but this segment involves such unclear language. Obvious the topic he is discussing is challenging to tackle, but he could use less abstract terms in discussing it.
Slavery went, torture came back, the state of exception came into being. But I'll let the rhetorical jokes aside now & get serious. I see 2 problems with your argument. Firstly that the problem with most ideas of a general trends to ignore inconvenient specifics. Secondly in the places where this general idea does apply(Western Europe, Australia & New Zealand...) physical pain may be reduced, but there still is a fundamental inquietude in those societies.
not necessarily, at least i don't think do. Being part of a group is a drive that is common to social animals, it makes us feel comfortable in what we believe, and just generally happy. But you can live by principles without forming a bond with the people that share these same principles. I don't believe in universality in most cases, so a written (commandment) can't be true to everybody's morale and general point of view over liberty, love and do on.
I'm sorry, but I honestly think that the # of people in my countries (Nl & Be) who think these are bad is negligible. Maybe that's different in your milieu, due to cultural or class differences? Moreover, while reason (R) is 1 way to make sense of life, it's not the only way & not always the best way. At times passion is better. At times values - connected with, but not reducible to R - & at times an essential part of life is exactly the inability to make sense out of it.
We ALREADY know what basic moral virtue is: don't initiate force against others to get what you want and don't steal. The vast majority of us live by these basic moral principles in our day-to-day lives. We don't need some religious institution to 'tug' us towards moral virtue. What we need to do is identify who in society is VIOLATING these moral principles which WE have chosen to abide by. Who in society has made themselves EXEMPT from basic morality? Can you guess? watch?v=ddq8FwIfw7w
It doesn't disagree with self-preservation, you do not understand the selfish gene theory, maybe watch a lecture on it...(Dawkins is hard to digest, he uses big, rare, sometimes arcane words for no reason, or I would recommend the actual book), that is the whole point; It explains why reciprocation exists, why,in particular, a firefighter will run into a burning building, and why that instinct MUST come from evolution. Don't knock it till you try it. You will learn it is the majority view.
I have no problem with religion I'll even humor you till your finish but honestly if you really need the concept of a higher being just to prevent your self from stealing are you really so much better than me?
I disagree. Without a moral basis, be it religion or something else, we are falling into greater degrees of moral relativism. And money is the only indisputable value in contemporary society.
Tabloids and hazing are controversial because part but not all of society views them as bad. i.e. rape is accepted as bad, hazing is controversial. Reason is just making sense of things;learning. laws and science stem from reason. More reasoning leads to better laws, tech, justice, less suffering. Reasoning ability is what separates a man from a boy, and the better someone is at reasoning the wiser they are, and the better they understand the world, how is this not an improvement?
You wonder why people hate on religious people ? Because in your mind, the smartest people were Christians, therefore : being Christian is somewhat good, better than the rest. I already demonstrated how this point of view is not valid, and ridiculous, now allow me to explain my point of view toward the supernatural. Anything that isn't possible to be either proved, experienced upon, or simply dismissed, is an air tight hypothesis, believing it is not rational, and therefore stupid.
i don't like this guy's hair. it's confusing me. it makes him look old, but he doesn't look old. my headache is too pounding for me to join in any religious ethical etc debate, this is the best comment i could come up with beh.
Agreed. No I don't think they're that controversial - at least not tabloids or hazing*. Moreover I also don't adhere to the "vooruitgangsgeloof" (literally "progress belief") - that's a Dutch word for the Enlightment idea that humanity will progress by using its reason. That's because I don't believe humans can live only on reason & am skeptical if more reason always constitutes an improvement. *Extreme hazing incidents & practices such as those at News of the World are of course exceptions.
"Maybe in 500 years history teachers are gonna say to their students: "and these fixed moral values we have in our society today had their origin in this ancient belief system called christianity, which died away but left us a couple of universal rules to live by"." Why on earth would they lie like that? Christianity doesn't offer a single original moral statement.
Bother, I have had a minor crush on him for years and these clips just seem to bolster it. How much would this skew the weight I put in his words? Too much benefit of the doubt could pose the same barrier to comprehension as not enough
He never said religion is good or evil he is simply saying there are good sides to religion that we can grasp on. Modern days we became too dogmatic about law, justice and equality and we forgot about how to be happy.
The Alain de Botton podcast on the subject of, ""What makes us human" is truly inspiring to me. Thank you Alain for sharing such enlightened and thoughtful philosophies. It's given me an impetus to challenge my values and personal biases.
Schecter NZ Kayak Fishing can't find it, can you give link please.
Here are a couple of things we should know about this brilliant and most original thinker:
1. He has a youtube channel called " The School of Life", with more than 2.5 million subscribers. They pay the best animators from all around the world to make those little films that teach us everything we weren't taught in school! To try the channel, you can start with one of these videos:
-First world problems
-Memento Mori ( made with legos! )
-On feeling depressed
2. Alain has wonderful documentaries on his other youtube channel. They all have a life changing quality. To find the channel search for this documentary:
" Status Anxiety".
3. The most profound and meaningful conversation I have ever heard about love is the interview Alain gave on the " On Being With Krista Tippett" podcast, where he talks about his bestselling book " The Course of Love".
4. If you want to read one book by Alain, start with " The Consolations of Philosophy". That book is my bible!
I hope there’s a way of connecting with you. I’ve seen your comments in most of The School of Life’s videos.
Hello there Theo! Thanks a lot for your message. Unfortunately I am not on facebook etc., but we can keep in touch under the School of Life videos. I hope you are a fellow subscriber from their channel! All the best :-)
Lua Veli No problem Lua. And yes I’m a subscriber too. just a suggestion, you can set up a profile in the school of life app.
Thank you so much Theo! Can you believe that I don't have a smart phone? Despite meditating everyday since ages, I am so easily
distracted...That's why I thought I better don't have one. But thanks
for letting me know that the app exist! I can recommend it to the people I know. Have a wonderful day:-)
I agree with you completely. Lots of people believe just a few people can't make a difference, that unless you're part of a massive movement you can't do any real good or change the world, so just "get yours and be happy before you die". But all change starts small, all cures start with a little test, all peace treaties are negotiated in a small room between few people. The biggest movements always grow from small ones; how else could they form? I hope more people will think about that.
He owned a youtube channel named "School of Life" you must visit it.
owned?
Not all religions are quite that strict. In many different sects of Mahayana Buddhism, an appreciation for discarding dualistic opinions on things is advised. Daoism is also an interesting case because it opens its followers to eccentric living and thoughts that don't correspond to rigid social expectations. Ch'an/Zen Buddhism has taught its audience to appreciate personal experience and silence over dogmatic thoughts and words. Might we use any of these concepts to create art/architecture?
“ Don't cause suffering. Everyone can agree on that.”
Indeed- too bad most suffering is enabled by apathy, and suffering can virtually always be blamed on someone else. If only we could transcend the idea “As long as I’m not directly causing suffering, I’m good.”
What he said is true, but I feel like the video was too short for me, like there is a lot more to add about the subject..
"Freedom is about realizing our highest possiblities" the problem with that is that someone has to tell us what our highest possibilities are, and if we disagree then taking the needle from a heroine addict will be seen as an infringement on freedom.
I love alain de botton. One of my all time idols
I'm not sure what you are saying or asking, can you clarify? What I meant to say in the original comment is, "suffering" is what all humans think is morally wrong, if an action causes suffering, we label it as bad, the greater the suffering the worse we think it is.
The problem with this line of thought is that it's quite simple to reach all of the good ideas and rules religion offers through completely secular fields. (Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Evolutionary Science, etc.)
That's why we (society at large, not fundamentalists) have the laws that we do, some of which exist within religion, many of which don't, and we simply ignore religious teachings we find distasteful or outdated.
This guy is brilliant.
Creativology no doubt! :)
He has a youtube channel called " The School of Life". He narrates almost all of the videos and they pay the best animators from around the world to make the videos. Take a look if you wish :-)
Yes he is brilliant. And he is very underrated. He is Alain De Bottom. Thank you Alain
Thanks! I got that from watching "The terror of History" by Teofilo F. Ruiz from "The Teaching Company" (a set of lectures). He wrote a book by that title too. It talks about how humans have suffered throughout history and how they strive to avoid it, to reduce it, and that morality is likely a social evolutionary adaptation caused by endless suffering of individual organisms, all the way up to humans. That suffering is, in itself, all the evil in the world. It's rather mind blowing.
Born in a country where Christ is not that popular. I never understood why America think "without religion, what do you base your morale on?"
Well... on my humanity? I don't want to harm a person because simply I'm a human. I feel pain when another person is harmed, because I'm a human. It's biology, it's how our specie's brains work. Why would I need a religion to "be human"?
Good speech on a very important subject of our time!
Heroin is an evocative example (analogous rather than literal), but I think he is correct; eating poorly, for example, or stealing, or even simply being angry at someone can have long-term consequences even if they seem appealing at the time. My experience with religion is that it is definitely can be a strong motivator against doing things like that. He is right in that religions (at their best) encourage people to be their best selves.
It is usually easy to decide moral/ethical issues on the extremes for example, using drugs in a way that destroys your life, most people would agree should be restricted if not outlawed, being kind and polite most people would agree should be encouraged. The difficultly arises when the moral/ethical issues are in the "middle" where the issue has both good/bad properties or deciding the methods by which to achieve the good.
The idea of freedom in religion can also be seen as a restrainer of actions that would be harmful so that one keeps their freedom. For example the common idea is that freedom is best expressed by being able to do anything one desires as long as it does not harm anyone, but we find that the actions we choose can sometimes enslave us in behaviors that don't bring us any lasting satisfaction. And by these actions' presence in our lives they rob us of the potential for a better way.
I'm sorry. I doubted if I should use restlessness instead of inquietude exactly because it sounds pompous, but I decided to go with inquietude, because for me it has a stronger connection with the word nervousness.
Concerning 2 I didn't mean to imply that. I rather thought of a certain state of mind among citizens. Concerning 1 I tried to argue, without going in detail, that in this case the inconvenient parts are too numerous to say the general trend still holds, but clearly I wasn't clear.
"In the modern world, in the secular world, we think 'if anyone tells me something that I should do, that person is taking away my freedom'"
Was that just oddly worded, or is he actually proposing that suggesting alternative actions is limiting freedom? That's just not true. Forcing someone to do something you think they should do, THAT takes away their freedom. Telling them to do something still leaves them with the choice to disagree.
Yes, and that has nothing to do with Alain de Botton's approach to religious ideas. While you argue against some orthodox approaches to religion, Botton's interest is in broader philosophical lessons, like knowing your limitations when making decisions or realizing that material vanities will only satiate someone temporarily. Botton enjoys reading about religions because he finds pleasure in observing their intellectual histories from a distance (not all of it was fire and brimstone).
This deserves far more views than it has now.
This is lovely; simple yet eloquent. I like it.
So crazy that he actually sounds like his narration
Depending on how you interrupt "negatively effect others" can be a very free or very restrictive society. An example would be smoking, you can say smoking on the streets or in a restraint negatively effect others, so should there be a ban on public smoking? And things that just make people unproductive or reduces has a negative effect others as a group. If you go through 12 years of school and then never work a day in your life, even if you cost nothing from the government you hurt society.
Oh ok. Well I'm from USA, however slavery was once accepted in USA, and that certainly caused suffering. Humanity generally moves toward less suffering in the big picture. Of course we are not "suffering-free" yet, but we are closer looking at the last 100 years than ever before. I believe this is what humans are prone to do, not an explanation for everything, but an observation that is generally statistically true.
They have uploaded a couple thousand videos (now 9,131),over the last few days. They had about two thousand, the other week. Thumbs up so people can know.
What I was getting at was how does an atheist pass along his core set of values to his children? What would be an atheists guide? People knock scientologists but there is something to be said about actually having a thoroughly thought out text that demonstrates the beliefs of a group of people.
For me the place where this falls flat is "if someone tells me what I should do, that person is taking away my freedom".
That's not true. If a person orders you to do something and enforces their will on you so that you will suffer consequences if you do not obey, that takes away your freedom. If you don't like it, use your feet. Walk away. Otherwise, if you take offense, then you are easily offended. That's what this is about. Of course there is the argument about parents wanting their children to grow up believing a certain religious point of view. It is the same as a parent wanting their children to grow up with no religious point of view. But that is a different matter. This is about getting your panties in a twist and taking offense when you are an adult who should be above that. Nobody can make you do anything by simply telling you to do it. Be a man. Walk away.
Just true in part. In order to explain the world, it explained the rules that were set by god, nature or whatever. In other words: what you have to do to keep yourself save and sound, or what is good or wrong. Religions set up certain behaviours, as a main component of them
The conversation always goes sour when people switch to big words so I'll just respond to your problems with my argument; 1) There are exceptions to every rule or trend, this is accepted fact; it does not make an argument or trend invalid when you find exceptions with specifics as you can even do that with gravity and math and you would not dispute these ideas. 2) I never said there is perfect equality and peace in this world, even in first world countries, nobody would say that.
it's a great book. read it more than once.
The problem is your claim is "Religions give us absolute morals and which religions absolute moral things like rape could be moral", the response "rape is excepted in religions" is a valid point. So, yes, in theory anything could be thought of as moral in moral relativism (it wouldn't, but that is a side point), but we have two alternatives Religions Morals where rape, murder and slavery are all ok at times or moral relativism, where society choose what is moral, I would take society.
I think it is possible to have order, values, morals without religion. Its all about establishing norms within a society in which its members can live in harmony. Yes, there are differences and contrast within individual beliefs, which is why norms or laws are created; to establish a balance that will work for the common wealth. It demands sacrifice, but thinking about the common well being, and common well being should also imply one's well being...
Love fairness justice kindness... They are all results of our genetic prime directive: suffering is bad. Everything else is good. Don't cause suffering. Everyone can agree on that.
I think that inmate rehabilitation, and inmates claiming religion 'saved' them, are not religious reformers in the name of god but patients of psychotherapy (by priests or rabbis or what have you). In prison they have psychiatrists, but are so limited that priests are the only accessible person for a prisoner at any time. (I'm a criminal justice major). As far as repressions, in history no other organization or 1 person has done so much damage to science as religion and it's followers have.
Mad Max - first postmodern movie
This man is a mad cross between old and young. Old head. young face. no way is that bad. He reminds of Brian Eno. Good thoughts here too.
Really, nearly everything we do has an effect on others so say "long as it doesn't negatively effect others" it should be legal, doesn't really protect much. In truth, it is always a balancing act between personal freedoms and societal goods for anything that might be thought of a "bad".
Oh, but me neither. It was just an excuse to post that episode. However, I disagree that we all equate suffering with wrong. I can proof that in a simple empirical fashion: Jewish male circumcision, hazing, celebrity gossip in tabloids etc. Especially the last one also invalidates the claim that humans want to stop suffering.
Also the idea that morals are emotions which exist to minimize suffering is I think empirically wrong. E.g. moral objections to polygamy have nothing to do with suffering.
You have a good point, but he's not advocating religion. He is all about extracting the good things religion offers and adapt them to the secularizing world. It's easy to resent religion, it's not easy to say 'okay, they did have some good things, maybe we should investigate this more'.
Even with a religion people have invented denominations to suit their social, political or economic interests.
I didn't say A religion. I said religion in general. I mentioned christianity with my imaginary history teacher of the future just because it's the biggest religion today, not because I think christianity gave us morals.
I'm an atheist, by the way, I just don't like people ignoring history. Religious belief, be it stone-age superstition or modern christianity, is the trigger of humankind's absolute moral values.
Séduisant Taz-Mbodi I watched your video, and it is more or less every reason I'm an atheist, it's nonsense to think that a person does not have that within themselves without a religion. I know damn well why I started liking something or why I Started Loving something I don't need to remind myself to be friendly or to be happy. And I definitely don't need a religion there To Remind Me of those things, they are instilled in me they are a part of me, I know why I am happy, I know what makes me love. I know why I love I know why I care. I need no outside source to remind me of those things. If those things or the reason you need religion, you need to do nothing other than search your soul. All that is there inside of it. You need to learn how to be a part of who you are, live the life that you choose to. Not a life that a book has written for you, we are all individuals with individual thoughts needs and desires. Let those things be yours. Not a myth about a guy that dwelled in a desert some thousands of years ago that is now telling you how you need to feel, that is insane and I feel extremely sorry for anybody that lives their life under those conditions.
ezd63 So you trust your soul to be your own God. But how can you be sure that it is absolute and not biased by any outside source ? You must have shaped your conviction using some external inputs, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to even write a word here!
You should read more attentively. I said that IF rape is OK within a certain moral code, rape is considered ethical in that moral code. You clearly don't know what moral relativism is. Google it.
I totally agree with you all the way.
I would've answered this question differently. I agree there should be laws, but not to remind us to be kind. You can't fundamentally inspire someone to act a certain way with force or law.
People arrogantly saying religion isn't needed for moral values are incredibly stupid. There is no absolute morality without religion. What you can say is: once the values already exist, they can exist FURTHER without religion. Maybe in 500 years history teachers are gonna say to their students: "and these fixed moral values we have in our society today had their origin in this ancient belief system called christianity, which died away but left us a couple of universal rules to live by".
Interesting insight mate. Cheers.
He's describing religion from quite a positive point of view; maybe because he remembers that there were plenty religious households where life was very good.
I don't agree with everything Nietzsche said, most modern philosophy classes point out many errors in his logic. He believed *everyone* should suffer, and wished it upon his most loved friends, that you could only truly know what good is by knowing bad. I believe that is wrong: We all equate anything that causes suffering to be "wrong". Humans want to prevent suffering. We call things that cause suffering "immoral". Our "morals" are just the feeling we get trying to avoid and reduce suffering.
Without religion, those who do "evil things" (by "evil things" I mean things that intervene with our positive growth as a society) have no right to be included into society. Why should we adapt individuals that don't support the common well being? If they are not social individuals (social as in working for and within our masses), why have them in our society? "Evil people" are not social people; antisocial people are not part of society; if you can't rehabilitate them, exclude them.
That's not the sense in which religious morals is called "absolute". It's absolute as in opposed to relative. Within a moral code in which rape is considered to be alright, rape is not unethical. That's moral relativism. A lot of the moral dilemmas you pointed out are important, but don't just invent a meaning for something that already has a specific one, in an important field of study.
Richard Dawkins can learn a thing or two from this man!!
This is exactly how I think. LIKE!
What you could end up with, at best, is an ultimate implementation of "might makes right", but that's not morality. In fact, it's the very thing moral doctrines seek to minimize.
You're not suggesting that you can't sort the hay from the chaff, right? This seems to be an "all or nothing" retort, finding fault in individuals or groups who were not consistently ideal. We are not Bodhisattvas. We humans have ulterior motives; this doesn't mean we can't enact compassion once in a while. I listen to people's opinions and information, regardless of the fact that I've never met a person who is 100% honest. What society functions without empathy for those "with faults?"
i like all these ideas especially if you were to apply them absolutely i.e. when talking about the law as well
I'm an atheist, by the way, I just don't like ignoring history. Maybe someone thought "hey, these would be good rules for everyone" and then invented some omnipotent big daddy to scare people into following them. We can't know for sure. But according to history, absolute morals didn't exist before religion, be it crude stone age superstition, be it modern christianity. Morals were relative. There is no uniformity even today, but there's a lot more than at the dawn of humankind.
Moral values are intrinsically universal. They don't come from culture or religion but from genes. Murder, stealing, rape, lying, trickery, assault, anger, (the list goes on) are wrong everywhere, across religion, race, culture and any other man-made boundary. Fairness means the same thing to everyone at a basic level. Culture, religion, etc. can only amend this. I don't agree your idea on secularism since by definition and implementation it's non-religious, so saying it's Christian is silly.
without religion:
Evil people will do evil things
Good people will do good things
It takes Religion to convince good people to do evil things.
Who is Evil? Who is Good?
Or more accurately: What is Evil? What is Good?
I would like you to point out any moral value that did not exist before Christianity, you can't right. How can you claim that a religion is the basis of morals if they existed before the inception of the religion?
Yes, there is that consensus, the difference is, we don't believe in fairy tales, all because a book told us too.
People say that, because they do not know what religion is. The first thing the common human thinks about when someone asks of religion, is Christianity, not realizing that it does not envelop all of religion. Neither does it define religion. The conversations would carry so much weight, if people were more objective: instead of spouting nonsense from the bowels of their anger and deception. I suppose the human race still needs more time...
I think you should watch a video on the selfish gene, it will change the way you think. The idea that we all want to self-preserve just means we don't want to suffer. But, we also don't want others to suffer, which does explain fire fighters, which I myself was one. I am not religious, I hate dumb people, and thought I could care less if one died, but when I saved an obvious idiot from death once I have never felt better in my life. I cared about them. My morals didn't guide me, my body did.
It makes me sad that around 1/5 people disliked this video.
I believe in God and I still think these points are valid.... Why are people hating on religion though? I don't just sit here and think oh this guy is an Atheists therefore he is dumb and his ideas and points are wrong. The smartest people of all time have all believed in God, well maybe besides Steven Hawkings but that's not the point.... It is pretty clear we have evolved to care for one another and to work together. That is why we are on top of the food chain. Religion doesn't change that...
And the point is: the first attempt at morals at all was religious moral absolutism. Even if we develop a rationally thought out relativist, secular moral code, there's no escaping the fact that religion is the pioneer of morals and we would inevitably inherit much of it, even if we modify it. This is what I don't have to prove in 500-char youtube comments, because it's on history books.
I agree that morals evolve. They are ideas though; they evolve in record, not inside us. We teach each other what is right and what is wrong as a society, but everything we do, including morals, is based on our genes. Our genes want suffering to stop. From flies to worms to single celled organisms to chimps and humans, all recoil when they suffer, they don't want it. The more advanced they get, the more they want suffering in general to stop. Rejection of suffering is the #1 way to survive.
And the point is: the first attempt at morals at all was religious moral absolutism. Even if we develop a rationally thought out relativist, secular moral code, there's no escaping the fact that religion is the pioneer of morals. This is what I don't have to prove in 500-char youtube comments, because it's on history books.
religion is not an exclusive way to teach values. but it is a key one. Your certainly right religion has a lot of bads, but in your hate try not to forget that it does have certain good sides 2.
How is that at all moral relativism? Moral relativism would be that rape is not absolutely right or wrong, but is changes. So moral relativism would be that rape is bad when done by someone randomly it is bad, but rape can be used to punish a married man who rapes another man's wife by allow the husband of the victim then rape is good, so rape of its self is either good or bad. Having a moral code saying all rape is alright is NOT moral relativism at all, it is giving a absolute moral stance.
morality doesn't depends on religion at all
1) Read history books. Check.
2) Attend Philosophy lectures on morality. Check.
Why did you jump to the conclusion that I haven't done these things but no matter that's your bias. I ask for evidence because your the one making a claim and at the moment it is unsubstantiated. So what is wrong with moral relativism? Is it not true that in previous cultures murder(human sacrifice) was considered moral. Don't get annoyed because you can't back your claim. By the way I prefer Hitchens.
I like de Botton and have read a couple of books, but this segment involves such unclear language. Obvious the topic he is discussing is challenging to tackle, but he could use less abstract terms in discussing it.
Slavery went, torture came back, the state of exception came into being. But I'll let the rhetorical jokes aside now & get serious. I see 2 problems with your argument. Firstly that the problem with most ideas of a general trends to ignore inconvenient specifics. Secondly in the places where this general idea does apply(Western Europe, Australia & New Zealand...) physical pain may be reduced, but there still is a fundamental inquietude in those societies.
not necessarily, at least i don't think do.
Being part of a group is a drive that is common to social animals, it makes us feel comfortable in what we believe, and just generally happy. But you can live by principles without forming a bond with the people that share these same principles.
I don't believe in universality in most cases, so a written (commandment) can't be true to everybody's morale and general point of view over liberty, love and do on.
I'm sorry, but I honestly think that the # of people in my countries (Nl & Be) who think these are bad is negligible. Maybe that's different in your milieu, due to cultural or class differences?
Moreover, while reason (R) is 1 way to make sense of life, it's not the only way & not always the best way. At times passion is better. At times values - connected with, but not reducible to R - & at times an essential part of life is exactly the inability to make sense out of it.
yeh, that room of a hundred people are all going to agree on what good and right, ask who's going to pay for it, then the shit fight starts.
He's much too general when speaking of religion. However, I see his point clearly....
We ALREADY know what basic moral virtue is: don't initiate force against others to get what you want and don't steal.
The vast majority of us live by these basic moral principles in our day-to-day lives.
We don't need some religious institution to 'tug' us towards moral virtue. What we need to do is identify who in society is VIOLATING these moral principles which WE have chosen to abide by.
Who in society has made themselves EXEMPT from basic morality?
Can you guess?
watch?v=ddq8FwIfw7w
It doesn't disagree with self-preservation, you do not understand the selfish gene theory, maybe watch a lecture on it...(Dawkins is hard to digest, he uses big, rare, sometimes arcane words for no reason, or I would recommend the actual book), that is the whole point; It explains why reciprocation exists, why,in particular, a firefighter will run into a burning building, and why that instinct MUST come from evolution. Don't knock it till you try it. You will learn it is the majority view.
I have no problem with religion I'll even humor you till your finish but honestly if you really need the concept of a higher being just to prevent your self from stealing are you really so much better than me?
I disagree. Without a moral basis, be it religion or something else, we are falling into greater degrees of moral relativism. And money is the only indisputable value in contemporary society.
Tabloids and hazing are controversial because part but not all of society views them as bad. i.e. rape is accepted as bad, hazing is controversial.
Reason is just making sense of things;learning. laws and science stem from reason. More reasoning leads to better laws, tech, justice, less suffering. Reasoning ability is what separates a man from a boy, and the better someone is at reasoning the wiser they are, and the better they understand the world, how is this not an improvement?
He is talking about secularism.
You wonder why people hate on religious people ? Because in your mind, the smartest people were Christians, therefore : being Christian is somewhat good, better than the rest.
I already demonstrated how this point of view is not valid, and ridiculous, now allow me to explain my point of view toward the supernatural.
Anything that isn't possible to be either proved, experienced upon, or simply dismissed, is an air tight hypothesis, believing it is not rational, and therefore stupid.
I totally agree with you, and I'm a follower of Jesus.
i don't like this guy's hair. it's confusing me. it makes him look old, but he doesn't look old. my headache is too pounding for me to join in any religious ethical etc debate, this is the best comment i could come up with beh.
well said :)
Agreed. No I don't think they're that controversial - at least not tabloids or hazing*. Moreover I also don't adhere to the "vooruitgangsgeloof" (literally "progress belief") - that's a Dutch word for the Enlightment idea that humanity will progress by using its reason. That's because I don't believe humans can live only on reason & am skeptical if more reason always constitutes an improvement.
*Extreme hazing incidents & practices such as those at News of the World are of course exceptions.
very good
ok after a couple refresh hits its clear now but so is all my other videos!
"Maybe in 500 years history teachers are gonna say to their students: "and these fixed moral values we have in our society today had their origin in this ancient belief system called christianity, which died away but left us a couple of universal rules to live by"."
Why on earth would they lie like that? Christianity doesn't offer a single original moral statement.
Bother, I have had a minor crush on him for years and these clips just seem to bolster it.
How much would this skew the weight I put in his words? Too much benefit of the doubt could pose the same barrier to comprehension as not enough
He looks like an older, balder clean shaven Pewdiepie
Very good and indeed.
It's called Humanism