Is Atheism a threat to Freedom

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Actually from your statements it isn't rational to be a volunteer fire fighter, nor is it rational to be a police officer.

Also you are now talking about free will, I thought we were supposed to be a collection of instincts based on your explanations.

Then look at it this way: We are, to a varying extent, genetically predisposed to care. About something. We are complex creatures. We have a tendency to occasionally think of some things as friends and others as enemies. Situations can change our actions quite a bit. This is why you'll see a person caring very much about his dog, and then going to war and shooting humans in the head because that's what his fellows are doing at the moment and that's what they've been trained and told to do, and he goes back home and is very happy to see his dog again.
Human beings are not computers. We are living beings. We are a bit messed up, and we sometimes try to find ways to work around that, because we do, among other things, have the ability to care, even if we don't always apply it in ways that make complete sense.
We are confused. In the early days of homo sapiens sapiens, there was no language, no nations, and very few tools. We have since invented things. It's a thing we do. We can look at a thing and think "that could be different", and we can change it. It can be something as simple as "that stick could have this sharp rock at the tip" or "If that tree was lying across that river, I could walk to the other side", or it can be very complex. Sometimes we have good ideas, sometimes we have bad ideas. Point is, we have through the ages come to be in a completely different world than we first evolved into homo sapiens sapiens in. We are born, and we find ourselves surrounded by things that other humans have created. Constantly throughout our lives, we see new things invented, and some of us create things of our own.
The world is weird to a caveman, and we keep making it weirder and weirder. We grow up in it, and as we grow up, it changes.
So we end up caring about things that might seem a bit unnatural to care about. Well, what do you expect? There's no tribe. Or maybe the tribe is global. How is a caveman supposed to keep track of all these things?
Our brains have two halves, separate but connected. One half is more rational and the other more instinctual (I'm simplifying here - it's actually a bit more complex than that). Keeping the two halves in touch with eachother can be a bit tricky, especially in a world that looks nothing like the world that the first generations of homo sapiens sapiens lived in.
You can't expect human behavior to be simple. We are far too complex and our instincts are far too confused, both by our intellects and our surroundings, for our behaviors to be simple.

Can you quote anything Freud wrote that would support your assertion?

ruveyn

"Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

Lovely. Morality from your god is definitely better than morality from careful independent thought.

He doesn't need sources. He knows it in his gut. The truthiness of his words go beyond mere "facts".

I have a pretty good memory, so I can remember what I've read (enough to get the gest of it) for years after I've read it, that doesn't mean I have Freud's works in front of me to quote word for word from.

Freud's id, super ego, and ego as well as his life and death personality whatever for instance.

Basically, the jest of it is that a normal human would think of themselves first the idea that people would try to help rescue someone (even if they may not like that person personally), is completely foreign to his ideas of rational people.

It also doesn't fit with the herd animal mentality that has been mentioned (which the herd animal analogy wasn't from Freud).

I asked for a quote. Can you provide it? Your claim of "good memory" is not supported by evidence so far presented.

ruveyn

ruveyn

I said I have a good memory not that I can quote something verbatum that I haven't read for a few years.

Looking through wikipedia:

ID -- Base Desires, food, water, sex drive, etc.

Ego -- Seeks to satisfy id in a way that will work long term and not cause conflicts with Super Ego. Sidenote external forces affect ego.

Super Ego -- Is basically 'morality' and supposition for feeling guilt, stems from the authority nature of a person's father...

Anyways from a Freudian standpoint doing something altruistic to save a person or an animal in a situation that puts oneself in danger during the rescue would basically be the Super Ego running amok.

Again, I'm paraphrasing because I don't have copies of Freud's works in front of me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego,_and_super-ego

Your use of the phrase "running amok" is an extreme characterization of some peoples' inherent motivations to help other people in danger. Since this is generally considered a laudable act it puts you in a not very admirable class of individuals.

I'm just pointing out what Freud's analysis would probably be. I did not say I agree with it.

I find little merit in criticizing a probable Freud.

Criticizing the real Freud can become a cottage industry. Freud created a crackpot theory about how the human intellect worked. His psychoanalytic theories fail Poppers test for falsifiability. In short, they are non-scientific nonsense.

I would love to see an MRI or PET scan which shows the Id and Superego duking it out.

ruveyn

Whatever the criticism of Freud, his division of the interacting sectors of the thinking mind into the underlying physiological and instinctive urges of the body as the id, the conscious mind as a somewhat independent decision maker as the ego and the pressures of social integration as the superego is a handy and sometimes useful way to view the interacting forces at work. Since many of the mental functions are distributed throughout the central nervous system and the brain in particular it is evident you are rather ignorant as to the operation of the complex.

ruveyn is a person with no use of metaphor. A metaphoric division and characterization of psychological motives holds less value to him than a brass razoo.

Quite so.

I am Aspie hear me roar
literal minded to be sure......

I prefer dealing with the physiological and biological facts of living things, especially our kind.

Oh Doktor Freud, Herr Doktor Freud
How we wish you had been differently employed
Instead of fiddling with neurosis,
you could have cured sclerosis
Oh what a shame, Herr Doktor Freud!

ruveyn

@inuyasha:

i don't understand why you refuse to accept that humans can see the benefit of cooperation without being obsessed with an imaginary voyeur.

teamwork and cooperation work. no magic required. i have a huge fishtank that is harder to move than a fridge. i just moved from one upstairs apartment to another. a neighbor whom i baby sit for was more than willing to help me with my terribly heavy tank. do i do favors for him as a specific contractual agreement that he do favors for me in return? no. i do favors for him because he needs favors and i'm not a dick. if i can make his life easier without making mine too much more difficult, i do. because he knows this, he's more willing to make my life easier when he can do so without making his own much more difficult.

when it comes down to it, we both get more benefit with less stress than we would if we didn't cooperate.

cooperation: it's not magic. it doesn't require magic.

why don't you ask pat tillman why he decided to switch from pro-football to being an army ranger? must have been his (lack of) faith in god, right?

your bronze age mythological magic sky wizard is no more responsible for maintaining "Freedom" than odin, osiris, shiva, quetzalcoatl, or mickey mouse.

in fact, your bronze age mythological magic sky wizard is probably much less responsible for maintaining "Freedom" than mickey mouse.