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Naturalistic Fallacy

Started by alwmjohnson, September 28, 2018, 01:18:52 PM

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alwmjohnson

Naturalist Fallacy - Religions are major offenders of taking what "is" (i. e. Nature and human nature) and making it into what their fallacious dogma and doctrines say it "ought" to be. Religions are experts at categorizing human beings as good and evil, or damned and saved. The Big 3 Abrahamic religions do an excellent job of demeaning and demonizing all of us as sinners. The Big 3 are highly skilled at sowing childhood demoralizing seeds of guilt and shame. They are masters at throwing us off balance mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Words such as sinner, bad, evil, damned, and you are no good are thrown around without any concern or sense of the damage that is being done emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. Damage that only adds to a human nature that is already prone towards insecurity,  mistrust,  anxiety, paranoia, and loneliness. In fact, religions carelessly-yet-carefully opportunistically capitalize on, exploit, and manipulate that part of our nature that genetically leans towards anxiety, paranoia, mistrust, and loneliness and in the process compounds and makes these inborn conditions traumatically worse.

Asmodean

Quote from: alwmjohnson on September 28, 2018, 01:18:52 PM
The Big 3 Abrahamic religions do an excellent job of demeaning and demonizing all of us as sinners.
...While demonetizing the faithful.

To the best of my knowledge, the Naturalistic fallacy is actually about describing the concepts of "good" and "evil," through sensations, such as "pleasant" and "angry." I think here, you are referring to the Appeal to Nature fallacy, which is basically "It is natural to do A. Therefore, it is morally justifiable to do A." Personally, I think that if you reach the philosophical bottom of the latter, you may find that it's little more than a special case of "Correlation equals causation." As far as religion goes... Yes, they do commit both these fallacies, but being ignorant about nature can be more damning to the argument than committing the latter one. For example, you could say that "Gays are not natural, therefore they are immoral" is an Appeal to Nature. However, it's factually incorrect, and as such, the line of thought is inherently flawed even before we start analysing its philosophical merit.

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Dave

#2
Hello and welcome, alwmjohnson.

I think you are right and political groups and parties, even companies that demand unwavering loyalty, seem to either adopt the lesson. But, thinking of family/clan/tribal loyalty in sociology it begins to look, whatever you attach the basic tendency to, like something fundamental in the human grouping tederncy. As a humanist, though I espouse the, "Do it your own way if it does not damage others or the world," I am sure that I could find elements of it there.

"Behaviour bringing the service/company into disrepute," "Not got the team spirit," "Bringing shame on the family," may all have their individual rationalities (?) for condemning such behaviour and, if the person has transgressed sufficiently badly, why should they worry about any emotional or financial damage? Even physical damage in some religious, family or tribal cultures.

The fallacy, perhaps, lies in the way that which might be a human tendency is justified as a punishment dogmatic system to maintain authority. Whole new duscussion there perhaps . . .

Oh, and it's "Naturalistic Fallacy", just to separate it from mistaken nature studiers.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

xSilverPhinx

Hello and welcome to HAF, alwmjohnson. I'm going to move this topic to a more appropriate section.
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Dave

Hey, could it be that we have two, sort of competing, survival traits here?

The trait to exclude those from the group who do not obey every rule to the letter coming for groip gene protection - no nasty genes (in our opinion) here please.

The emotional effects the excludee suffers maybe part of the drive to a) find a substitute group or b) if possesing faulty survival genes they just fade away, never to breed.

This sort of behaviour is expressed by most social animals, either to get shot of excess males in patriachal  or flirty females in matriarchal groups. Being a simpler social structure the challenge of transgressors to the leader is a big factor, but other members may join in as well so the genetic boat is not rocked. In humans all kinds of artificial ideas get into the mix.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74