نقل قول:
Our selfish and social natures are in constant conflict about how to act. Selfishly, we wish to be able to defect yet receive the benefits of cooperation: to be fat yet still be found attractive, lazy and not have to work yet receive wealth, liked without having to be likable, loved without being lovable, and so on. It is the preferences of others which motivate us to put in the effort required for virtue, not pure reason. But popular culture, as I have mentioned, urges us to defect and listen to our selfish nature; it pronounces repressing the urges of the selfish ego to be weakness or inauthenticity and calls success at avoiding this happiness.
نقل قول:
religion may have evolved (culturally or genetically) to aid us to survive and reproduce by producing metaphysical beliefs. (And since religious people have more children than secular, and since modern liberal states all produce below replacement levels of fertility, it might be that religion is better at doing that job than reason is.) My view is that high religion evolved in order to produce altruism beyond kin and clan by asking us to believe in divine commands and inescapable punishments. Even if there is no afterlife, a high-population, high-density civilization requires altruism beyond kin and clan. And belief in divine commands produces the beneficial effects in this life that make civilization possible The great religions do this job by acting as the central controlling source and distributor of the social emotions. You might think of it as that in the abnormal state society needs to switch to a server/client model from the peer-to-peer of kin and clan (a metaphor I worry will get me into trouble, but what the heck.) This controlling source centralizes the telling of stories that provide moral instruction, it distributes these stories from the source through a network, teaches people as to what behaviors result in the removal of reciprocity/ostracism, and instruct them to enforce these teachings on one another. In religious societies the central religious order distributes the stories and lessons to the priesthood which distributes them to the nodes of the followers
نقل قول:
It is often said that the failure of communism showed that propaganda can not overcome human nature. However, one must be awestruck by the ability of Hollywood to change public opinion seemingly at will. If propaganda can’t get us to act against self-interest—to sacrifice our own well-being for the good of the state, for example—it sure can get us to act on our worst impulses. To promote human flourishing, we would need this central controlling source of social emotions, namely the media/education complex, to educate people that human nature is real, not all lifestyle choices are equal, and that, as a social animal, in order to live a good human life to the highest possible degree we need to restrain our selfish impulses so as to produce good relationships with our fellow humans
اینهم پیغامی برای زنان
نقل قول:
You have been designed by nature or nature’s God. You will find the most satisfaction in life by taking up the purpose for which you have been designed. As a social creature, your greatest source of joy and happiness will be through your loving relationships with other people, especially your spouse and children. Have many children. To receive this satisfaction from others, you need to produce it in them in turn. Thus, inculcate in yourself the qualities that will aid you in living a good life to the highest degree. Don’t envy those who are able to do better, and don’t look down on those who don’t do as well. Don’t give the rewards deserved for the virtuous to those who practice vice, and reserve your scorn for those who praise ugliness, envy, and vice and so lead people away from the good life. Know where you, your family, your people, your values, your traditions came from.
Be loyal and proud of your traditions and people; teach your children to be loyal and proud of them, as well. If religion helps you in following the path, good; if you are having problems in life, look for religion to give you your missing sense of purpose. We live in a technologically marvelous age. Unless you are foolish, you should be able to avoid the pitfalls of drugs, violence, crime, and extreme poverty. The biggest obstacle will be your own ego which will constantly tempt you to take the easy path of selfishness, and will provide endless rationalizations for doing so, and so come to ruin your meaningful relationships with others.
None of this is particularly radical. It counted as common sense not that long ago. The main question is whether these points can once again be adopted by the usual means of education and public debate.