The fundamental principle of scientific humanism is that Darwin’s theory of evolution—specifically, survival of the fittest—can be applied to the human condition. Religions, emotions, money, mental illnesses, languages, races, and science have all evolved separately AND together to maximize the chances of an individual’s genes being transmitted to the next generation. The rest of this discussion and website examines some consequences of this simple observation.
First the Humanist Perspective Derivable From Science and Therefore an Absolute System of Ethics
You should love and respect all other humans.
How?
Do your best to ensure your descendants survive.
Do your best to make sure your species survives.
How?
Do what brings you joy and pay attention when surprised or fearful.
Act on respect if you feel anger, disgust, hate, or sadness towards another.
It follows that:
You should encourage any group you are in to follow the same rules
Leave the group if you can and it doesn’t.
A good group has the leadership accountable to the members so it tells them the truth, and respects and loves the members.
A bad group has the group leadership lying to, despising, and abusing the members
All groups at any moment are either good or bad. It is up to the members to make them good.
Also:
You should follow the moral teachings of your religion to the extent they do not conflict with the above (this helps ensure our species survives).
You should aim to earn or acquire enough money to provide for yourself and your family with all their basic needs for food, shelter, healthcare, and education (this helps ensure your descendants survive).
Here Is the Scientific Proof:
A pair bond has evolved to be best to pass genes on to the next generation. The bond between mother and/or father and child is necessary to raise the child to reproductive age. Therefore it follows that we evolved to function in as coordinated a manner as possible in groups. Emotions evolved to promote group cohesion and survival in interacting with other groups. When groups interact with other groups the members of each group will obviously feel similarly to the group leader and therefore each group has collective emotions of the same types as the individuals. We treat individuals and groups of individuals (and groups of groups of individuals) as almost identical in their emotional behavior. Such an entity is called a grindividual.
There are 8 emotions that grindividuals have evolved to share that help ensure grindividual survival.
Love is when a grindividual wants to treat another grindividual as himself. Anger is when another grindividual does something the grindividual experiencing it doesn’t like. Surprise is when another grindividual does something unexpected. Joy is when a grindividual is growing. Sadness is when a grindividual leaves another grindividual. Disgust is when a grindividual wants to eliminate a grindividual from their environment. Hate is when they want to eliminate them entirely. Fear is when a grindividual worries about what another grindividual will do.
Within any group, certain individuals must be leaders and others followers, depending on the issue at hand. For instance, in a traditional pair bond, the woman might lead in childcare and home management, while the man might lead in external tasks like hunting. In the competition of individuals against each other, traits that help one survive also apply to groups competing among themselves. Human emotions serve a survival function by binding a group together. Religion also enhances group cohesion. Money plays a unifying role in organizing group efforts.
From Sigmund Freud’s perspective, every person has an id, an ego, and a superego. In these terms, emotions unify a group at the ego level, money does so at the id level, and religion does so at the superego level. The id is selfish, narcissistic, capitalist and looks out for the individual , the ego is conscious and experiences eight primary emotions (love, hate, fear, anger, joy, sadness, surprise, and disgust), and the superego is religious, selfless, empathetic, and looks out for the group. All of these mental components have coevolved over many millennia to ensure the survival of both the individual’s genetic line and the groups to which the individual belongs. If the group fails to prosper the individual genes that are a part of it will fail too.
A core belief for an individual is one the individual is convinced serves both his personal wellbeing and the wellbeing of a group the individual is in. For example many have a core belief in capitalism, a core belief in democracy, a core belief in Christianity, a core belief in the dollar, a core belief ion the USA, a core belief in Donald Trump etc. It is extremely hard for an individual to change his or her core beliefs. It is the evolutionary clash of core beliefs that leads to their growth and failure.
There are mental illnesses that evolved and correspond to the primary emotions when core beliefs are involved. Narcissistic Personality Disorder comes from hate, psychosis comes from love, Major Depression comes from sadness, PTSD from surprise, Obsessive compulsive disorder from disgust, mania comes from joy, paranoia comes from fear. Of course both groups (like religions, or countries) and individuals can suffer these generally maladaptive problems. They have evolved because they are occasionally adaptive.
From the USA’s founding fathers’ perspective every country or group of people has implicitly or explicitly a legislative, executive, and judicial branch. Like individuals, groups collectively have narcissistic and empathetic traits expressed through the three branches of government both externally and internally. Evolution has made it so just like for individuals.
Any individual or collection of people with shared core beliefs or status can be considered a “grindividual.” The 8 primary emotions always serve the survival and growth of each grindividual. However they do not necessarily serve the survival of our species as a whole. In fact global warming, nuclear winter, habitat and species destruction pose a threat to humanity because we do not act mindfully. After a little thought it becomes clear that a moral code based on the survival of our species is available. Good emotions for a grindividual are joy, surprise, and fear. Bad emotions are sadness, disgust, and anger. In order for humanity to survive each grindividual should express the first three when they arise and mindfully perform the opposite action to the other three. I hope this website will lead to the first three in you my reader. When you experience the last three I hope you can persevere and perhaps recognize you have a core belief that is not serving humanity’s survival.
Every grindividual has a leader grindividual and a follower grindividual on any issue. The leader is naturally narcissistic while the follower is naturally empathetic. There are two types of groups. Good groups are stable and sustained through love and empathy being extended from the leadership grindividual to the followers. Bad groups are unstable and are sustained through coercion and abuse. Bad groups work by the narcissistic leadership stirring anger disgust and sadness in the followers. Good groups work by the empathetic leadership stirring fear, joy and surprise as appropriate. The rest of this website explores these concepts with specific examples and by describing them in different ways. The above discussion is deductive. If you believe in evolution I think these conclusions follow from it.