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Religiously unaffiliated vary in political beliefs: More purple than blue

#11
Secular Sanity Offline
Syne Wrote:"Unfair" is just another way people blame others for their own lot. "Unfair" is just more of what a child would say than "inequality". And in a merit based and voluntary free market, there is no major unfairness, as it requires value and mutual consent. Those complaining about things being unfair simply have less to offer and cannot compete. Their own problem, not a systemic problem.

Children, monkeys, adults, it doesn’t matter. Fairness is what matters. 

The Art of Being Human: A Textbook for Cultural Anthropology

"These pro-social tendencies extend into more elaborate notions of fairness as well. In a study of capuchin monkeys one monkey was paid in cucumber and the other in grapes. By the second round of payments the first monkey was furious and demanded fairness, throwing the cucumber back at the researcher and demanding the grape. Among chimpanzees the same test elicited even more complex behavior. The chimp receiving the grapes refused grapes until the other chimp also received grapes.

For decades, de Waal found himself struggling against a strong consensus among scientists that deep down, humans are violent, cruel, aggressive, and selfish. They proposed that only a thin veneer of human-made morality kept the world from falling apart. But his work was leading him somewhere else. Each experiment revealed that our evolutionary history had placed deep within us the capacity for empathy, cooperation, reconciliation, and a sense of fairness. "Our brains have been designed to blur the line between self and other," de Waal noted on our capacity for empathy. "It is an ancient neural circuitry that marks every mammal, from mouse to elephant."

De Waal seemed to be confirming Turiel's findings. Turiel had found a basic universal morality in five-year-old children that showed that we place an innate value on fairness and see harm to others as inherently wrong. De Waal now found this same basic morality among monkeys and apes, suggesting that the foundations of our morality run very deep in our biology and evolutionary history."

There’s a problem with the way we define inequality
In a paper published in April in the journal Nature Human Behaviour called ‘Why people prefer unequal societies’, a team of researchers from Yale University argue that humans – even as young children and babies – actually prefer living in a world in which inequality exists. It sounds counter-intuitive, so why would that be? Because if people find themselves in a situation where everyone is equal, studies suggest that many become angry or bitter if people who work hard aren’t rewarded, or if slackers are over-rewarded.

The reason this matters is that trying to create a world with no wealth disparity is at odds with people’s perception of fairness, and that could potentially lead to instability. A society where no poverty exists sounds rather utopian, but if that society is equal-but-unfair then it risks collapsing, argues Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University.

“As reasonable as it sounds, people don’t typically work, create or strive without the motivation to do so,” says Bloom. “If I’m a painter, dentist or builder, why would I work for 50 hours a week if everything I’m given is free? From my own experience managing people, humans actually think it’s unreasonable for people that skive to get rewarded.

When you run large teams, there is nothing that sends people mad more than lazy individuals getting the same rewards and promotions as the hard workers.”

However, by understanding the different definitions of inequality – like inequality of opportunity – it highlights more clearly that not everyone is afforded the same opportunities to succeed, even if they put in that hard work.

Depending on your political viewpoint, the way of addressing inequality might be different: perhaps the left might favour universal health care for all, while the right might favour job creation that employs low-wage workers. Whatever the political plan of action, however, experts say the solution lies in in addressing the fact that poverty and unfairness exist.

Because that should be the real moral obligation, these researchers say – empathising with our fellow humans.

“It will be beneficial to shift the conversation, and the research, away from inequality itself,” says Starmans, “and toward issues such as unfairness and poverty, which are the core of what we are concerned about.”
Syne Wrote:You don't have to be particularly religious to support religious freedom and values and even pray yourself. Just because Democrats who believe in killing babies use religion for political expedience doesn't mean every politician is as cynical.

Nowhere in the US Constitution or law is the phrase "freedom from religion". The only way to accomplish that would be to limit the First Amendment rights of US citizens. And fascists who want to do that can go pound sand...or face the Second Amendment.

The No Religious Test Clause

"But in Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), the Supreme Court unanimously held that religious tests for state office-holding violate the religion clauses of the First Amendment. “[N]either a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person ‘to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion,’” the Court declared. “[N]either can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs."

Atheists eligible to hold office

"Although the Torcaso decision dismissed enforcement of religious requirements for office as unconstitutional in the United States, antiquated provisions barring atheists from occupying political offices were not immediately stricken from state legislation. As a result, a number of lawsuits were initiated after 1961 to secure the right to hold public office without conforming to religious requirements. These cases followed the United States Supreme Court's precedent.

In 1997, the Supreme Court of South Carolina decided the case of Silverman v. Campbell, likewise following the Supreme Court ruling in Torcaso v. Watkins. The court held that Article VI, section 2 of the South Carolina State Constitution ("No person who denies the existence of the Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution") and Article XVII, section 4 ("No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution") could not be enforced as articles in conflict with the Constitution of the United States."

The legalities don’t apply to the voters, though. It would be political suicide for any politician to acknowledge their lack of belief in a supreme being.
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#12
Syne Offline
(Feb 22, 2020 04:01 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote:
Syne Wrote:"Unfair" is just another way people blame others for their own lot. "Unfair" is just more of what a child would say than "inequality". And in a merit based and voluntary free market, there is no major unfairness, as it requires value and mutual consent. Those complaining about things being unfair simply have less to offer and cannot compete. Their own problem, not a systemic problem.

Children, monkeys, adults, it doesn’t matter. Fairness is what matters. 

The Art of Being Human: A Textbook for Cultural Anthropology

"These pro-social tendencies extend into more elaborate notions of fairness as well. In a study of capuchin monkeys one monkey was paid in cucumber and the other in grapes. By the second round of payments the first monkey was furious and demanded fairness, throwing the cucumber back at the researcher and demanding the grape. Among chimpanzees the same test elicited even more complex behavior. The chimp receiving the grapes refused grapes until the other chimp also received grapes.

For decades, de Waal found himself struggling against a strong consensus among scientists that deep down, humans are violent, cruel, aggressive, and selfish. They proposed that only a thin veneer of human-made morality kept the world from falling apart. But his work was leading him somewhere else. Each experiment revealed that our evolutionary history had placed deep within us the capacity for empathy, cooperation, reconciliation, and a sense of fairness. "Our brains have been designed to blur the line between self and other," de Waal noted on our capacity for empathy. "It is an ancient neural circuitry that marks every mammal, from mouse to elephant."

De Waal seemed to be confirming Turiel's findings. Turiel had found a basic universal morality in five-year-old children that showed that we place an innate value on fairness and see harm to others as inherently wrong. De Waal now found this same basic morality among monkeys and apes, suggesting that the foundations of our morality run very deep in our biology and evolutionary history."

There’s a problem with the way we define inequality
In a paper published in April in the journal Nature Human Behaviour called ‘Why people prefer unequal societies’, a team of researchers from Yale University argue that humans – even as young children and babies – actually prefer living in a world in which inequality exists. It sounds counter-intuitive, so why would that be? Because if people find themselves in a situation where everyone is equal, studies suggest that many become angry or bitter if people who work hard aren’t rewarded, or if slackers are over-rewarded.

The reason this matters is that trying to create a world with no wealth disparity is at odds with people’s perception of fairness, and that could potentially lead to instability. A society where no poverty exists sounds rather utopian, but if that society is equal-but-unfair then it risks collapsing, argues Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University.

“As reasonable as it sounds, people don’t typically work, create or strive without the motivation to do so,” says Bloom. “If I’m a painter, dentist or builder, why would I work for 50 hours a week if everything I’m given is free? From my own experience managing people, humans actually think it’s unreasonable for people that skive to get rewarded.

When you run large teams, there is nothing that sends people mad more than lazy individuals getting the same rewards and promotions as the hard workers.”

However, by understanding the different definitions of inequality – like inequality of opportunity – it highlights more clearly that not everyone is afforded the same opportunities to succeed, even if they put in that hard work.

Depending on your political viewpoint, the way of addressing inequality might be different: perhaps the left might favour universal health care for all, while the right might favour job creation that employs low-wage workers. Whatever the political plan of action, however, experts say the solution lies in in addressing the fact that poverty and unfairness exist.

Because that should be the real moral obligation, these researchers say – empathising with our fellow humans.

“It will be beneficial to shift the conversation, and the research, away from inequality itself,” says Starmans, “and toward issues such as unfairness and poverty, which are the core of what we are concerned about.”
You may be conflating two different kinds of fairness. According to Jonathan Haidt's, et al. moral foundations theory there are two conceptions of fairness.

Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives]
https://moralfoundations.org/

Proportionality is what you're talking about with those monkey studies, where monkey's get upset for the same behavior having rewards of different values. Mirror neurons used in learning (monkey see monkey do) explain that sense of empathizing fairness, and proportionality explains "unequal societies" actually being fairer.

But the "unfairness" of inequality is, as I said, just jealousy. There is no inequality of opportunity because people make there own opportunities. You may be jealous of the rich being able to give their children a head start, but they made that opportunity for their children. Why shouldn't they and their children benefit from their own work? Don't like it? Learn to offer the kind of value to others that got the rich there. I've yet to see a compelling case made for any hard worker with a positive attitude not getting ahead. Sure, maybe not as far ahead as the next guy, but that comparison is just jealousy. All hard workers do objectively better than they would otherwise, and trying to equate dissimilar circumstances is comparing apples and oranges.

Quote:
Syne Wrote:You don't have to be particularly religious to support religious freedom and values and even pray yourself. Just because Democrats who believe in killing babies use religion for political expedience doesn't mean every politician is as cynical.

Nowhere in the US Constitution or law is the phrase "freedom from religion". The only way to accomplish that would be to limit the First Amendment rights of US citizens. And fascists who want to do that can go pound sand...or face the Second Amendment.

The No Religious Test Clause

"But in Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), the Supreme Court unanimously held that religious tests for state office-holding violate the religion clauses of the First Amendment. “[N]either a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person ‘to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion,’” the Court declared. “[N]either can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs."
That's not "freedom from religion". That's only freedom from governmentally unforced religion, which is already contrary to the Constitutionally protected freedom of religion. Hence the SCOTUS ruling. There is no aid for or against any religion, or lack thereof, in a politician expressing, and even being motivated by, their beliefs and people electing them for aligning with their own.

Government being religiously neutral is how it ensures freedom of religion, not by trying to quash religious expression, even by those in office. Again, only fascist think otherwise...those who want a government to enforce their own, personal will on others.
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