TED Community » Vasil Rangelov

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An idea worth spreading

There seems to be a common misconception among religious people of all kinds that atheists are somehow less moral, and that religion "enriches" one's morals. And so moral and religious discussions are often intersected. I think this is wrong in more ways than one, but for the sake of character limit, I'll save it for now.

The question is how do we separate the two? And this is what the idea is about - we need a new term beside "atheist" to serve (from the viewpoint of religious people) as a middleway between religious (and therefore moral in their view) and atheist (and therefore immoral in their view). This term however must not be exclusive from religion... it needs to be inclusive.

So, without further ado, here's what I believe is the best such term:
Moralist - Anyone who follows the "golden rule", including in cases of conflicts with holy scripture.

The conflict part is critical. With it, you label any non-fundamentalist religious person AND the larger part of atheists.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +91.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Talk: David Birch: Identity without a name

  Jun 17 2012: Unless I've missed something, there seems to be a vital security hole in all of this...
  
  What's preventing someone from asking my "Psychic ID" to tell it everything about me (including my name, address and all that), thus negating the original purpose? Who is in charge of overseeing that people requiring info don't collect excessive information and don't store that excessive information? How does the "Psychic ID" know that its peer is allowed to ask for whatever information it wants?
  
  The answers to these seems to be to have one organization as a central certification authority, but that kind'a defeats the mentioned goal about not having permissions and licenses.
  
  Or is there some process of separating authentication procedures from authorization procedures that was left out? Because I was left with the impression they are executed in the same fashion, and that authentication (therefore personal information leakage) happens if the peer claims to need it.
  
  BTW, The presentation needs a few more words about the difference between authentication and authorization AND how the two relate into this system. These were only briefly touched, and not emphasized enough.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Sheena Iyengar: How to make choosing easier

  Jan 21 2012: "Taking this to extreme, we'd only have one brand of toothpaste, a couple of jams and a handful of magazines on offer."
  Taking the other extreme, you'll have so many choices you'll never be able to inspect them, and will in turn pick at random. Either way, it's like you're not making a decision, and are in turn not in control.
  
  It's not about extremes. It's about what the average person can handle. We can handle multiple options, but only when we can tell options apart from one another => reducing options to the significant ones is best.
  
  Also, we're talking on "per manufacurer" basis here, so there will always be several brands of everything.
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: Judaism - Christianity - Islam

  Jul 19 2011: Yeah, the saddest bit is that if Islam can survive for a few hundred years more, Muslims will shake off everything bad done in the name of it in the same way that Christians nowadays shake off the crusades, the inquisition and the KKK.

• A reply on Conversation: Judaism - Christianity - Islam

  Jul 19 2011: "Anyway Jewdaism (and probably the world as we know it) has 200+- years and ticking."
  Where exactly is that claim made i.e. what source?
  (I'm not going to even bother asking for evidence, as I know you have none)
  
  I'm asking because there have always been doomsday predictions in almost all of written history. Needless to say none of them ever came true.
  
  And, in case you haven't guessed already, they all share a common characteristic - they're all either to occur within one's lifetime, or within the next generation or two. There is a reason for that, but I don't think you want to know it.

• A reply on Conversation: Judaism - Christianity - Islam

  Jul 19 2011: Are those particlar core things incompatible though? Can't you accept that the jews were God's chosen race, but God would accept anyone who aknowledges his existense, the sacrifice of his son AND the teachings of all "prophets" including both Jesus and Mohamed.
  
  Now, of course, you could rightfully say "no", because the teachings of the different prophets contradict each other in some ways. But then the question is "who, If anyone, is right in cases of conflicts? How do we prove it?". You can't honestly start with the assumption that someone is correct above all others.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Should a child be able to choose his or her own religion?

  Jul 18 2011: I'm all for religious education under several conditions (in order of importance):
  1. Clarify that with all religions, with no exception, "it's a matter of faith, not a matter of knowledge".
  (If there's a guarantee the teacher has done just that, we can be sure the teacher wouldn't be the cause of any fundies and science deniers.)
  2. Contradictions between different non-controversial religious doctrines are to be as emphasized as their similarities - mention the golden rule, but also mention reincarnation vs. heaven&hell, created vs. always existing universe, etc.
  (If that and 1 are done, we can be sure there will be religious tolerance)
  3. All holy texts, without exceptions, are to be presented as "evidence for God" or better yet "the source of the belief system" (is there a religion with a holy book and no Gods? If there is, the latter would include it) rather than "the word of God".
  (If that is here, we have the seed of doubt being planted within any truth seeker)
  4. Include not just popular contemporary religions, but also popular ancient religions (Greek at minimum, ideally also Egyptian and Norse).
  
  I've had all throughout my elementary education (informally... the teacher taught us about religion out of the curriculum), and I think I've turned out OK. Even my peers that identify themselves as Christians and believe in God are tolerant of all faiths, and are technically "agnostic Christians". They wouldn't use the term precisely because they all understand that being religious is a matter of faith i.e. not claiming knowledge - being agnostic - by definition.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Is 'sharing TED talks" just another form of evangelism?

  Jul 18 2011: In terms of passion, I suppose you're right... in terms of approach though, I don't think so. The TED approach is show&tell, the religious approach is make-believe (also known as "pretend"). TED relies on results (physical, explanatory or political), religion relies on popularity and authority.

• A comment on Conversation: what is Intend in Human?

  Jul 18 2011: I think you need to first define "intend" to find/get a reasonable answer.
  
  If you define "intend" as "the idea to perform an action", then you further need to define "idea" and "action". According to the available scientific evidence (e.g. Alzheimer's disease), the way an "idea" is stored is within the brain. The brain is also known to be responsible for ordering your body around, i.e. it guides your performance of actions.
  
  Actually, a more formal definition:
  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intend
  "1. to have in mind as something to be done or brought about;"
  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mind
  1. (in a human or other conscious being) the element, part, substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.: the processes of the human mind.
  2. Psychology. the totality of conscious and unconscious mental processes and activities.
  
  So... by those definitions, the thing (element, part, substance) that "reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges" is the brain. We know we can't do these things without it, but of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the originator. It could be just a bridge. But there are studies that show there is a ~6 second lag between your brain making a decision, and you actually making it.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6S9OidmNZM
  (if you still can't access YouTube, I suggest you use a web proxy: http://proxy.org/cgi_proxies.shtml)
  
  If there is a soul or anything like it, it definitely interacts with the brain, and its role is much more minor than what you may think.

• A reply on Conversation: is more than one God possible?

  Jul 7 2011: "Difference between a cause when a materialist or scientist uses it... and when a Philosopher uses it..."
  That's one of the reasons such arguments persist, despite being weak ones - philosophers take scientific theories with philosophical definitions in mind, and try to derive scientific claims based on those definitions. But the different definitions aren't compatible for the issues discussed, so a mixture of them is not a thing that should be done.
  
  I've started reading the book you linked me too, but the initial assumption that a soul exists is already discrediting the book, and so is the fact it starts with social issues rather than by trying to define things.
  
  Let's try to agree what we mean when we say "cause". What do you mean by that word?
  
  Generalizing the concept down to every single instance I've ever heard it used, I could say that a cause is an event that occurs before another event. An "event" is a change from one "state" to another. And a "state" is a configuration of anything (including "everything" and "nothing") regardless of whether there is any sort of matter or not. The words "before" and "change" though only make sense in the context of time. Whether you call it scientific or not is irrelevant. Time in both cases is some sort of a sequence of events occurring over a configuration with certain characteristic (e.g. finiteness - whether a configuration is finite or infinite is still a characteristic of it).
  
  Based on this definition, if there is a first cause, it means this first cause is an event that has no cause for it, and like every event, this one was a change from one state to another. In the case of both God and the Big Bang, we're talking about the change from the state of nothing to the state of something. The difference is that this "something" is either God or "everything" (assuming there's nothing before the Big Bang). If you go about the "something can't come out of nothing" route, there can't be a first (uncaused) cause.

• A comment on Talk: Steve Keil: A manifesto for play, for Bulgaria and beyond

  Jul 3 2011: "Baba factor" LOL
  
  I think just because of that phrase, this new "play meme" might actually spread :-P . It would be nice if it does indeed.