The Breakdown of Human Morals and Ethics and the Rise of the Psychopaths

[Akasha]

Actually christianity is on the rise, at least according to the christians, so i guess that explains it.

[Selkie]

Posted by Akasha (here)
Actually christianity is on the rise, at least according to the christians, so i guess that explains it.

I did not say that all Christian ethics are ethics that make for a better world. So far, they seem to be more interested in displaying the worst of Christian values, and that is sad. It all depends on whether they practice the values that make for a better world.

But in the end, maybe it is a good thing that Christianity is on the rise again. If they put their worst foot forward, maybe it is because they think that their values are being attacked. But then, they are being attacked...they aren't just being paranoid about that. But if enough of them demand that leaders learn some restraint again, then that would be great. In this theater-of-the-absurd, anti-social, atomized nightmare that the world has become, its people with pro-social ethics that we need. So far, "love thy neighbor", "do unto others" sounds pretty good.

p.s. Btw, loving thy neighbor doesn't mean you can't defend yourself and trounce him if he acts like a complete jerk, or he trounce you for the same reason.

[betoobig]

Chrystianity was born corrupted and started killing the non believers (people and sacred places). They still promote war, sacryfice, child abuse. IMO they don´t have ethics but guide lines (bloody ones)
I said Chrystianity not Chryst
Much LOVe
Juan

[Akasha]

Posted by Silkie (here)
.....Btw, loving thy neighbor doesn't mean you can't defend yourself and trounce him if he acts like a complete jerk.....

Errrrrr, actually it does:

Luke 6.29: And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. (KJV)

Not a doctrine I personally subscribe to .

BTW when is Greg Laurie gonna come out?

[Robin]

When and where do you differentiate the ethics of Christianity and other world religions? All major religions are different permutations of a similar set of morals and ethics, but extremists of each religion have twisted them to make it seem like their religion is the best ethical standard. One does not need a religion to be an ethical person. I know many secularists, including and perhaps especially atheists, who are the most ethical people I have ever met. In most cases more so than Christians, because they are often more open-minded about things. They follow Christian ethics without the dogma.

Religions are there to separate people. I find it very audacious indeed for Christians (or other religionists) to proclaim their code of ethics as any better than other religions. They all follow different permutations of the Golden Rule, but rarely do people ever actually live by it.

[Selkie]

Posted by betoobig (here)
Chrystianity was born corrupted and started killing the non believers (people and sacred places). They still promote war, sacryfice, child abuse. IMO they don´t have ethics but guide lines (bloody ones)
I said Chrystianity not Chryst
Much LOVe
Juan

Don't forget that the pagans were slave-keepers. They were not gentle tree-huggers. They were savage, with savage rituals. They were erudite and cultured and believed in an earth goddess, but they were savage, and killed slaves and other people for pleasure, as everyone knows.

Even under the best circumstances, when you are a slave, your life, your body and your children are actually owned by someone else. The pagans were also sexually licentious, and yet they infibulated their slaves

https://www.bme.com/media/story/833351/?cat=ritual

Pagan society was also rife with all kinds of other abuses, like whipping and pederasty, as well as human sacrifice.

So when the slaves took up Christianity and revolted, is it any wonder that they killed unbelievers? If you were a slave, and you had been infibulated and/or had been whipped, wouldn't you want to kill the person who did it to you?

So I think that the excesses of the early Christians can be laid directly at the door of the pagans and their abuses. The excesses of the later Christians, I think, can be laid to the dictum "Never Again". In other words, the Christians hunted down anyone who smacked of paganism simply because they did not want them to "re-boot". And maybe that is why Christianity is on the rise again. Maybe the Christians sense the re-boot of a dangerous system...a system based on slavery. A system (paganism) that is, in its basic behavior, at least semi-psychopathic.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Posted by Akasha (here)

Posted by Silkie (here)
.....Btw, loving thy neighbor doesn't mean you can't defend yourself and trounce him if he acts like a complete jerk.....

Errrrrr, actually it does:

Luke 6.29: And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. (KJV)

Not a doctrine I personally subscribe to .

BTW when is Greg Laurie gonna come out?

Well, then, that has to be adjusted, because its unrealistic, and its not a doctrine (or ethic, however you want to look at it) that I subscribe to, either. Like I said, not all Christian ethics are ethics that make for a better world.

[Selkie]

Posted by Robin (here)
...All major religions are different permutations of a similar set of morals and ethics...

Yes, of course they are. What I said was that for Westerners, those morals/ethics come to us by way of the Christians.

Posted by Robin (here)
...One does not need a religion to be an ethical person...

Well, now-a-days that is true. But what if that is because most of us have internalized those ethics?

Posted by Robin (here)
...Religions are there to separate people.

I don't think this is necessarily true. While it is true that religions MAY separate people, it does not stand to reason that it is religion's intent, its raison d'etre. It seems to me that the what religion is for is to preserve values and give stability to people's lives in a changing world.

Posted by Robin (here)
...I find it very audacious indeed for Christians (or other religionists) to proclaim their code of ethics as any better than other religions.

Well, of course it is audacious, but all religions do the same thing. On the other hand, if there are aspects of Christianity that are better than some of the aspects of some other religions, there is nothing wrong with saying so. It is ok to sift the wheat from the chaff in the discussion of any religion because all religions have their good points and their bad points.

Posted by Robin (here)
...They all follow different permutations of the Golden Rule, but rarely do people ever actually live by it.

Actually, the whole point is that they do live it most of the time. Imperfectly, of course, but the world would be a much more dangerous place than it already is if most of the people, most of the time, did not practice what I have called Christian ethics.

p.s. Please don't forget that I am exploring a phenomenon...the rise of psychopathic behavior which is based on a "me-first", "greed-is-good", anti-social value system. Please don't let your dislike of religion blind you to the fact that it has some valuable things for us, and that we don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water.

[Joe Akulis]

So, let's go back to the original observation for a sec.

"I have noticed that the rise in the prevalence of the psychopath in our world seems to coincide directly with the breakdown of Christian ethics."

My response to this would be that most of your observations have likely been focused on that period of time when the alleged "rise" seems to be occurring, to your eyes.

Anyone who digs a little deeper into our history over the past 2000 years would have a harder time holding onto that observation. But I don't want to offend by wrecking the thread that you started, so I better shaddap. :-)

[Selkie]

Posted by Joe Akulis (here)
So, let's go back to the original observation for a sec.

"I have noticed that the rise in the prevalence of the psychopath in our world seems to coincide directly with the breakdown of Christian ethics."

My response to this would be that most of your observations have likely been focused on that period of time when the alleged "rise" seems to be occurring, to your eyes.

Anyone who digs a little deeper into our history over the past 2000 years would have a harder time holding onto that observation. But I don't want to offend by wrecking the thread that you started, so I better shaddap. :-)

You don't have to shaddap! In fact, I would be very disappointed if you did

That said, I think you are wrong. Ever since the secret government took over in 1963, our society has been becoming more and more psychopathic, run by psychopaths, with anti-social, psychopathic values.

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post895155

[Joe Akulis]

So, the observation is limited to the US, then, sounds like. So, you're asserting that you feel things in the US have gone downhill, ethically, since the sixties?

Do we really need to flip the pages back and take a closer look at how America acquired all this land, from sea to shining sea?

Here's a quick example from The American Empire:
http://www.ahealedplanet.net/america.htm

"In March 1814, a force of 2,000 whites and 500 Cherokee and Creek cornered the Red Stick army at what is today called Horseshoe Bend, on the Tallapoosa River in Alabama. Jackson had never led a battle before and his strategy amounted to firing cannons at their fortifications. The action would have probably ended in failure if not for Cherokee braves who swam the river and attacked the Red Sticks from the rear. Their efforts divided the Creek defense, and the whites then laid siege to the fortifications. In that fierce battle, eight hundred of the thousand Red Sticks died. The aftermath was as brutal as they come. The whites were not content with mere scalps. They skinned Red Stick bodies to make bridle reins, belts, and other fashionable items. Jackson ordered cutting off the noses of dead Red Sticks to get an accurate body count. He later ensured that body parts were distributed to the “ladies of Tennessee” as souvenirs.[202]

Davy Crockett, who fought at Horseshoe Bend, as did Sam Houston, wrote that the troops ate potatoes that had been basted in the fat of Red Stick warriors in another battle during the same campaign. Those battles made Jackson an American hero. "


Sounds like some good Christianly-inspired ethical restraint to me...

The thing I'm hoping to point out is, we've been pretty despicable all along, it's just the average citizen trying to stay out of trouble and live a comfortable life will never know about the uglier side of our history, which is replete with just as much ethical shortfall as today.

[Selkie]

Posted by Joe Akulis (here)
So, the observation is limited to the US, then, sounds like. So, you're asserting that you feel things in the US have gone downhill, ethically, since the sixties?

Do we really need to flip the pages back and take a closer look at how America acquired all this land, from sea to shining sea?

Yes, I think that that will be necessary, because otherwise we are all only making assumptions, each to our own, about exactly what you mean.

addition And besides, I think you are dying to tell me.

[Violet]

Are you willing to broaden that question, taking it to religion in general?

In intellectual Europe, having religious beliefs, is quite unpopular. In the light of that, the (remaining) tolerance with regard to available religions is notable; you are free to believe what you like - "even though I think it's slavish, dumb and naïve" (that's the unpopular part) - and the constitution has been maintained as such that this right is protected. Furthermore, when certain religious groups are threatened, politics will interfere to ensure that people are not harmed because of their religion and anti-racism foundations speak up regularly when observing irregularities.

Due to globalisation, dispersion of ethnic roots, mixing of cultures (mostly oil and water), and (free-of-religion-) education, actually all religions have received heavy blows.

Not sure about a direct link to psychopathy. Taking into account changes in legislation over the years, as well in medication and food manipulation, air quality and so on...All not so negligible.

[Joe Akulis]

Some more tidbits from Wade's essay:

"While the English secured the lands of Virginia and vicinity, religious fanatics conquered New England. The Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock were Calvinist Christians, and their dour, fearful philosophy contained a catalog of sinful behaviors that boggle today’s minds, such as kissing one’s child on the Sabbath or laughing. Calvinist fanaticism would lead to one of the West’s last witch trials and executions, in 1692 in Salem. American mythology has held that Calvinists came to the New World for religious freedom, but the facts do not support that notion. The Mayflower's Pilgrims came from the Netherlands, where they had already escaped their persecution in England. They sought economic opportunity, not religious freedom. They were sailing to the English colony at Virginia in 1620, or perhaps the mouth of the Hudson River, but bad weather and poor navigation landed them in present-day Massachusetts. They came ashore on land that had already been depopulated by European disease, and the Wampanoag tribe fed them and taught the English city dwellers how to farm and survive in the New World.

There really was an original Thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims and their native benefactors feasted and played games with each other, but the settlers eventually annihilated the tribe that welcomed them. England's bloody record in New England is probably worse than its record in Virginia.[106] In 1637, the English slaughtered an entire sleeping village of several hundred people of the Pequot tribe and sold the few survivors into slavery. One leader of the massacre, John Underhill, later justified the attack by citing King David’s genocidal Old Testament activities. The complete extermination of the village alarmed the Mohegan and Narragansett allies who accompanied the attack, and Underhill wrote that they complained about the English manner of fighting, because, “it is too furious, and slays too many men.”[107]"


"The typical English pattern of invasion and genocide was using the slightest imagined affront as justification for exterminating entire tribes and eagerly taking their land afterward. In the northeastern USA, numerous towns have the word “field” as part of their name, such as the many Springfields that exist, one of which I once lived in. The “field” came from the fact that the town was established by stealing a native village (often obtained by annihilating its inhabitants), and the “field” was where the natives raised their crops.

Notable Puritan leaders such as Cotton Mather rejoiced in the butchery and genocide. Mather openly approved of Underhill’s annihilation of that Pequot village, writing that those women and children were “dismissed from a world that was burdened with them.”[112] Mather wrote of that slaughter, “It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day.”[113] Mather called the natives who fed and hosted the Puritans “ravenous howling wolves.” The insatiably greedy Puritans and the other English settlers eventually seized more and more land that was Wampanoag, leading to what is called King Philip’s War in 1675. Philip was the son of Massasoit, who was the chief that welcomed and fed the original Puritan invaders. The war ended with the annihilation of the Wampanoag, and Philip’s head was mounted on a pole at Plymouth for 24 years. Thus ended the tribe that welcomed the Puritans."


Seems kind of ethical and non-psychotic.

[Joe Akulis]

More from "The American Empire":

"Manifest Destiny may have been an attempt to reduce “cognitive dissonance,” which is a psychological condition in which beliefs conflict with experience, leading to “dissonance.” The healthy response is to question or modify one’s beliefs. The pathological response takes two forms. One is to increase the “positive cognitions,” which means to stress information that supports the belief being challenged by experience. The other is to decrease the “negative cognitions,” which means to ignore, suppress, and forget the experiences that contradict the belief in question.

It took extreme effort to paint early American nation building in a positive light. American nationalism began growing in the 1820s, and the events that could lead to negative cognitions were abundantly clear. Accordingly, they were largely minimized, such as “historians” omitting history’s greatest complete genocide from Columbus’s story, or Washington’s fraudulent strategy. A creative bag of tricks was used to decrease the negative cognitions, including making the Indians subhuman. Then Weems, Irving and many others created fictional positive cognitions. Manifest Destiny was another case of fabricating positive cognitions, by invoking the Creator’s sanction. The basic tenet of Manifest Destiny was that Americans were “destined” to rule from sea to shining sea, and anybody in the way was in God’s way."



"James K. Polk took office in 1845 and immediately began planning a vigorous American expansion, to make America’s Manifest Destiny come to fruition. There were even discussions at Polk’s inaugural about buying California from Mexico. Mexico considered Texas a renegade territory, and when the USA absorbed Texas, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with the USA and Polk’s cronies began immediately plotting to seize western lands from Mexico.

For hundreds of years, all references to New Spain’s province of “Tejas” delineated its western boundary as the Nueces River, which Mexican maps confirmed. The Texas land grabbers, however, claimed that Texas extended another 150 miles westward, to the Rio Grande River, in violation of the region’s history. Mexico was understandably upset with Texas's claims, not only becoming part of the USA, but also arbitrarily extending its boundaries another 150 miles into Mexico. General Zachary Taylor, whose claim to fame was, as usual, killing Indians, did not even like the idea of annexing Texas, but was ordered to lead an army to the Rio Grande and start something. The U.S. Army purposely created a “border” incident to justify launching an invasion. Hitler did a similar thing to Poland, to start World War II. Before word even got back to Polk of Taylor’s successful baiting of Mexico into the trap, Polk was campaigning to his cabinet to declare war on Mexico. When news came of the expected incident, Polk immediately declared war. U.S. Congressman Abraham Lincoln, among others, heatedly contested the war declaration, calling it nothing more than a naked land grab. A young officer serving under Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, helped lead the American army into Mexico, where the army marauded at will. Grant later wrote in his memoirs that he regarded the Mexican-American war as “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” Disinterested historians have generally agreed with Grant’s assessment."


"Before Polk, Indian removal ideology held that natives could be always pushed westward as the empire expanded, but Polk’s rapid successes leapfrogged the continent. The natives could not be pushed further westward…or could they? The Indians of the California coastline, from San Francisco to the tip of Baja California, had suffered almost complete genocide at the hands of Spanish priests and soldiers by 1846. All of Southern California’s coastal tribes were extinct long ago; the only coastal natives that survived California’s mission era were those that fled inland. When the 49-ers arrived, there were only about 150,000 surviving California natives, from a pre-Columbian population of at least 300,000 and perhaps double that. The man who initiated the genocide of California’s natives is up for sainthood today, and I went to a school named after him, and that most important part of his legacy was never told me as a child. Indian removal westward was not practical in California, so the first governor of California, which joined the Union in 1850, called for an open season on California’s natives. There was a lucrative head bounty on the natives of California, and in the 1850s and 1860s the slaughter of the remaining California natives may have been the most intense genocidal effort of the entire history of the white man in North America, which also escaped my California history textbooks. When the 49-ers slaughtered entire villages every weekend for fun and profit, the surviving children were often sold into slavery in Sacramento and San Francisco. Indian girls brought twice the price of Indian boys, because they also served as concubines for the “settlers.” Similar dynamics took place in Oregon Country."

[Ted]

I'm a little confused by the volume of "American Empire" material in this thread.
I thought we were discussing the general decline of ethics and morals over the last 50 years or so. Are today's morals the result of English settlers killing a lot of Indians? Maybe someone could explain it to me.

[Joe Akulis]

Posted by Ted (here)
I'm a little confused by the volume of "American Empire" material in this thread.
I thought we were discussing the general decline of ethics and morals over the last 50 years or so. Are today's morals the result of English settlers killing a lot of Indians? Maybe someone could explain it to me.

The point I was trying to make is that it could be argued that there is no "decline". We can find just as much evidence to point out the lack of it in just about any point in our history over the last 2000 years and further.

[Hanson]

Posted by Silkie (here)
When Christian ethics were strong, the world was a better place: not nearly as many psychopaths in high places or running the show, and much more attention to the common good. It is only lately, since Christian ethics have become senescent and Christianity has started to break down, that the psychopaths, in every walk and level of life, have started to rise. And it started to become this way in the 60's...with the CIA-manufactured pagan-like "youth movement" and the rise of the pagan-like drug culture (also CIA manufactured).

Do we know the numbers of psychopaths in high places throughout history? Do we even know how many are in high places today? No, we don't. Do we have a quick and accurate way to identify psychopaths? No, we don't. There's your first problem. There's no need to introduce Christian ethics into the mix, since they can't be accurately identified or measured either.

[Hervé]

Posted by Hanson (here)
[...]
Do we know the numbers of psychopaths in high places throughout history? Do we even know how many are in high places today? No, we don't. Do we have a quick and accurate way to identify psychopaths? No, we don't. [...]

Time to use your search function:

Snakes in Suits: Weeding out corporate Psychopaths

Brainscans and prisoners: Outing the sociopaths and the domino effect

[Ted]

The point I was trying to make is that it could be argued that there is no "decline". We can find just as much evidence to point out the lack of it in just about any point in our history over the last 2000 years and further.

Yes, but it still misses the point. We're talking about a rather short period of time.
There have always been good and evil people throughout our history, the nature of duality demands it. Through our own perceptions we're trying to quantify it here a bit.
Having children to raise makes one more aware of the nefarious influences in our society. We see it on the TV, in the schools, in the movies, and in the people we associate with. We want to raise our children with the same values we have, which are rarely reflected anymore in the popular culture.
I remember being seriously questioned by other parents when we didn't allow our children to go see R rated movies with their kids. When I was their age no parent would even think of letting their child see anything but G rated movies.
This is the type of degradation I'm talking about. My parents knew that I had plenty of time when I got older to handle "adult" situations. Kids don't need that garbage in their lives. They don't know how to deal with it intellectually or emotionally. Kids need a wholesome intellectual diet in order to develop properly.
There is a concerted effort to reduce or eradicate traditional (or Christian if you like) ethical and moral standards, and replace them with "politically correct" standards.
If they were higher standards than I already have, then OK, I'm good with it. But they're not. They're more the kind of let's-all-take-off-our-clothes-and-copulate-in-the-street type of morals. Some people might like that, but I don't, and I don't think it makes for a healthy society.
It's great for the power brokers because it weakens everyone who buys into it. How can someone stand up against wrong with moral conviction if they have none? They want everyone else to adopt the same morality as they have.
No thanks.

Ted

[Kryztian]

Posted by Silkie (here)
I am thinking of Christian ethics in general...love thy neighbor, do unto others, concern for the common good...that kind of thing; the very general grasp of Christian ethics that everyone who wants the world to be a good place practices every day without even thinking about it, and that all sects seem to espouse, no matter what their other doctrine might say.

Even though I am a Roman Catholic and my name is Christian, I just see those as good spiritual values that you find of some people who could be Christian, Buddhist, Pagan, agnostic, etc.

Posted by Silkie (here)

see it starting to seriously break down in the mid-60's, with the CIA manufactured "youth movement" and drug culture. And by the breakdown of Christian ethics, I mean the rise of "me first" ethics, and "greed is good" ethics...which is basically the ethics of psychopathy.

Yeah, there have always been people who work behind the scene to breakdown our ethics, our compassion and our integrity, but hey, we are human beings, and we usually do find a path back to our humanity.