What do you think of Dawkins' sentiments?

@Northwest Yup! Our conscience is just a measure of the honesty of our selfishness.

The hubris of humans is such that we take artefacts of our brain functions and unjustifiably elevate their status (and thereby our own status).

The universe doesn't care.

Remember, the entire universe is trying to kill us... and will eventually succeed. The vast majority of life exists only on the surface on this planet or, at most, a few hundreds of metres of its surface. Within that life a single species of ape has evolved a cortex that causes it to behave with such self-deluded arrogance that it now threatens all life on the planet.

@newjaninev2 Im reading a good book called Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari about our invention of creating fictions

@JimboSaturn Oh, yes... it's on my reading list (which is unfortunately itself approaching book length). What's it like?

@newjaninev2 Great so far but zive only started

@JimboSaturn
One of my favorite authors. His last media tour was focused on the conflict in his home country.

This past summer, he was invited to keynote an event in Israel. Instead of proposing a solution to the problem, he did what he does best: place all of it, everything people tend to take for granted, within a very, very long historical framework. “Once upon a time, there was neither a Jewish people, nor a Palestinian people,” Harari said. “A hundred million years ago, this land was home to dinosaurs.”

@Northwest Gosh yes! That's a perspective that sharply adjusts the petty concerns and stunning hubris of Homo sapiens 😀

@newjaninev2 [media=https://open.spotify.com/episode/1sTlw6JUhg4fUVjBjf3P17]

His appearance a couple of weeks ago on the Treor Noah podcast.

@Northwest Everyone has a conscience. Morality has a dark side too.

@Northwest Saying that we're (i.e. the human race, humanity) is "a blip, not even that", is simply one person's (yours) perspective, and shouldn't be treated as a confirmed philosophical fact.
Basing one's personal beliefs upon faulty premises is what people all too often do, and then they act shocked when they come across people who don't share their assumptions about life.

@newjaninev2 Your concerns may be petty, but mine aren't.

@newjaninev2 Except no, it isn't, because (and this might be difficult for you to accept) there are many of us who are more than willing to do what is right simply because it's right, and for no other ulterior motives.
Then of course there are sociopaths and psychopaths, and they'd probably agree with this sentiment of yours.

@Bel6EQUJ5 and how do you identify 'right'?

Are you claiming there's an absolute right?

@newjaninev2 Absolutes really do exist. I know that such an opinion (or fact, I should say) isn't exactly popular right now, but morality, in order for it to work as such, needs two things: 1. to be consistent, and 2. be based upon something other than fashion, or popular opinion, or whatever happens to be socially acceptable at any given time.
In other words, yes, right and wrong are absolute, because they have to be. If they're not, then saying (for example) that Hitler should have won the war, or that blacks deserve to be slaves because that's all they're good for, shouldn't be at all controversial, because that would just be me expressing my opinions.
However, I do believe that the Nazis were bad people, and that slavery is wrong. Do you disagree?

@Bel6EQUJ5 There are people who disagree with you (no, I'm not one of them) yet still consider their position to be moral.

No absolutes there.

@Bel6EQUJ5 I think we are both are in agreement. We are all humans who love our families and fail to to be the best human beings we can be and we known this. Can notwe not seek to love more? Despite our ideological differen re, Isn"t what is life is all about? Who cares where it all comes from? I would ratther love you than my religion

@newjaninev2 Except, they are wrong, even if they think they're not.

@Bel6EQUJ5
Does that apply to everyone who disagrees with you about anything?

@Bel6EQUJ5
Let's start with philosophical fact. Philosophy is not fact, not even the staunchest philosophers will claim that.

Next your claim that the human race is not a blip in the universe. This is not really my opinion.

The facts:

Homo sapiens, the species that includes all living humans, evolved in Africa between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago.

Age of the earth: 4.543 billion years.

The number of planets in the universe is estimated to be between 10^25 and 10^30, or roughly 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets. This number only includes planets that orbit stars, and there could be an additional 10^26–10^30 starless planets.

So, I will insist that the human race is a blip in the universe. If you have better references to prove me wrong, I would love to see them.

@Northwest The belief that humanity is "just a blip" is, objectively speaking, meaningless. Why? Because it's not a fact in the same way that the Sun is the centre of our Solar System is a fact; that is, it's not something that has been established as being objectively true. It's just a personal perspective, not the outcome of an investigation or experiment, for example. It's a point of view grounded in nihilistic materialism, which comes under philosophy.
That's right, there aren't any "philosophical facts", and the belief that we don't matter, that we're all "just a blip", isn't a fact; it's an opinion.

@newjaninev2 No, I can handle simple disagreement. That's never been an issue.

@Northwest You can "insist" whatever you like, that doesn't make it true.

@Northwest Yes, I know what 10^30 is, you didn't have to type out all those zeroes.
So what does all of this prove exactly? That in the grand scheme of things we just don't matter? Hardly!
As far as we know, we're the only entities in the entire universe who are even aware of all of this. That alone makes us special.

@Bel6EQUJ5
Only to ourselves

@newjaninev2 The universe thinks we are special too. Apart from God, we are the intelligent life. The universe hasn't killed us yet. We have dominion over our planet, and we even go into space. We know about chemistry and physics. We know about biology. As we can see in this post, we have all these morals and ideas about things. Humans are capable of controlling their destiny more than any other animal. What is more special than us?

@newjaninev2 What else within the universe can come even close to understanding it? Only we can do that, so yes, we ARE special in that regard.