I was thinking of doing my own post on this topic. I have heard Christians say Pat Robertson is a moron for suggesting the Haitian disaster was a divine judgment for too long now. No, they are the morons. Pat Robertson represents Christian tradition, not them, as Dawkins said in a Washington Post column:
Haiti and the hypocrisy of Christian theology By Richard DawkinsListen Christian, ever exegete Isaiah 45:7 (NIV):
We know what caused the catastrophe in Haiti. It was the bumping and grinding of the Caribbean Plate rubbing up against the North American Plate: a force of nature, sin-free and indifferent to sin, un-premeditated, unmotivated, supremely unconcerned with human affairs or human misery.
The religious mind, however, restlessly seeks human meaning in the blind happenings of nature. As with the Indonesian tsunami, which was blamed on loose sexual morals in tourist bars; as with Hurricane Katrina, which was attributed to divine revenge on the entire city of New Orleans for harboring a lesbian comedian, and as with other disasters going back to the famous Lisbon earthquake and beyond, so Haiti's tragedy must be payback for human sin. The Rev. Pat Robertson sees the hand of God in the earthquake, wreaking terrible retribution for a pact that the long-dead ancestors of today's Haitians made with the devil, to help rid them of their French masters.
Needless to say, milder-mannered faith-heads are falling over themselves to disown Pat Robertson, just as they disowned those other pastors, evangelists, missionaries and mullahs at the time of the earlier disasters.
What hypocrisy.
Loathsome as Robertson's views undoubtedly are, he is the Christian who stands squarely in the Christian tradition. The agonized theodiceans who see suffering as an intractable 'mystery', or who 'see God' in the help, money and goodwill that is now flooding into Haiti , or (most nauseating of all) who claim to see God 'suffering on the cross' in the ruins of Port-au-Prince, those faux-anguished hypocrites are denying the centrepiece of their own theology. It is the obnoxious Pat Robertson who is the true Christian here.
Where was God in Noah's flood? He was systematically drowning the entire world, animal as well as human, as punishment for 'sin'. Where was God when Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed with fire and brimstone? He was deliberately barbecuing the citizenry, lock stock and barrel, as punishment for 'sin'. Dear modern, enlightened, theologically sophisticated Christian, your entire religion is founded on an obsession with 'sin', with punishment and with atonement. Where do you find the effrontery to condemn Pat Robertson, you who have signed up to the obnoxious doctrine that the central purpose of Jesus' incarnation was to have himself tortured as a scapegoat for the 'sins' of all mankind, past, present and future, beginning with the 'sin' of Adam, who (as any modern theologian well knows) never even existed? To quote the President of one theological seminary, writing in these very pages:
"The earthquake in Haiti, like every other earthly disaster, reminds us that creation groans under the weight of sin and the judgment of God. This is true for every cell in our bodies, even as it is for the crust of the earth at every point on the globe."
You nice, middle-of-the-road theologians and clergymen, be-frocked and bleating in your pulpits, you disclaim Pat Robertson's suggestion that the Haitians are paying for a pact with the devil. But you worship a god-man who - as you tell your congregations even if you don't believe it yourself - 'cast out devils'. You even believe (or you don't disabuse your flock when they believe) that Jesus cured a madman by causing the 'devils' in him to fly into a herd of pigs and stampede them over a cliff. Charming story, well calculated to uplift and inspire the Sunday School and the Infant Bible Class. Pat Robertson may spout evil nonsense, but he is a mere amateur at that game. Just read your own Bible. Pat Robertson is true to it. But you?
Educated apologist, how dare you weep Christian tears, when your entire theology is one long celebration of suffering: suffering as payback for 'sin' - or suffering as 'atonement' for it? You may weep for Haiti where Pat Robertson does not, but at least, in his hick, sub-Palinesque ignorance, he holds up an honest mirror to the ugliness of Christian theology. You are nothing but a whited sepulchre.
Link.
I form the light and create darkness,Does your God do this or is Isaiah mistaken?
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.
238 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 238 of 238Harvey:
>> You obviously gave no weight to what I said. I said that your values I'm sure are "serious" but they cannot be hailed as being absolute in an overall sense. They are temporary in nature and expire with you as you state. They are only absolute in a sense relative to you. They may be good for me too, but in the sense that you describe them, I may or may not find them useful.
Fair enough.
I would disagree in that these values do not expire with me. I will one day expire, and these values will still exist as long as they resonate with living human beings. Once the last human being dies, unless there is another conscious organism that shares these values, these values will cease to exist, except in the abstract sense as the fact that those values ONCE existed in the world.
I really do not understand this need for absolute values in the sense of values that must have existed before human beings existed and that must carry on into eternity even after human beings go extinct. Why the need for this construct of values? And what is the evidence for such an idea?
>> First I don't believe what you're suggesting can be demonstrated by the evidence.
Really? So, there are no facts that some values have led to higher functioning human societies compared to others? It doesn’t matter what values people believe in when it comes to living lives of meaning, purpose and satisfaction? I can value always lying to people and being cruel to them and have the same likelihood of satisfaction as if I valued loving people and being honest with them, in general?
>> What you're saying is fine but the values of human beings are subject to change over time, YET we can identify values that are timeless and consistent throughout society aside from education (one myth that has be debunked here among many) and other social circumstances.
We can identify values that are universal, but not timeless. They are universal in the sense that they have existed in all successful human societies and have led to greater chances of finding individual life satisfaction than other values. However, it does not follow that they are written into the fabric of the universe.
>> I don't claim that non-theists don't have values (unless you're a complete and pathetic IDIOT like Chuck O- which you are not). I don't know of any theist who does. however, the temporal nature of teh values as described by you only lend themselves to being understood as subjective and not objective values.
That depends on what you mean by “subjective” and “objective”. They are objective in the sense that they exist by virtue of human psychology and our evolutionary history, but they are subjective in the sense that they do not exist independent of human beings in the same way as mountains exist objectively. However, it does not follow that they are subjective in the sense that I can just make up whatever I want without reference to the real world.
>> Now I'm not trying to lend an all inclusive definition of objective moral values here, but I am describing a few characteristics that must be present in order for them to be considered truly objective whether one realizes where they come from or not. The ability for those values to exist whether I am aware of them or not is one charecteristic that must exist.
That depends on what you mean by “aware”. Values can guide our behaviour by virtue of unconsciously activating our emotions to motivate us to approach what we value. We may be unaware of this underlying dynamic, and yet still value something. Much of our behaviour occurs outside of awareness, but is still guided by values nonetheless.
>> No, I can't say this under any circumstance and what may appear to to be a display of "values" among bacteria and animals is primarily our superimposition of fact upon an organisms response to a set of certain circumstances. Even in that there are great inconsistencies, so arguments along those lines are usually not convincing.
I am using the term “values” loosely. My point is that ALL living things can be conceived as having “values” in the sense of having underlying programming that guides their behaviour towards what they are programmed to value. It is that movement towards X that implies that X is valuable. Now, our values are much more sophisticated, because we have conscious awareness of our actions and tendencies, and thus can reflect and modify them in a variety of ways. However, the underlying principle remains the same, and is essentially biological and natural.
>> The facts are that in a purely materialistic world view there is no reason for the development of values outside of self-serving motifs in affirmation of the "survival of the fittest" criteria hailed by true metaphysical naturalists. However what we observe is that the highest set of values hailed in society are not self serving in any way!!! These values DEFY the very system and path under which the metaphysical naturalist believes that the values are developed. Therefore, the problem is that the metaphysical naturalist must answer the question of why and how the development of values goes against the grain of naturalism. Love for one, may be essential for reproductive purposes although that's an exception in the biological realm outside of man, but love for ALL, is a high value that defies the pattern of materials and the materialistic worldview.
Not at all. One can easily see that human beings have evolved a psychology that contains underlying values that guide our approach behaviours, and that our mental faculties are complex enough that we can expand our values to include abstract concepts, such as loyalty, which could justify self-sacrifice on some occasions. The point is not to enhance MY survival, but to enhance the survival of my genes, which will occur on some occasions where I sacrifice myself, e.g. for my children. Does that mean that every occasion in which I sacrifice myself will enhance the survival of my genes? No. No more than every time I panic will result in saving my life. However, having a panic response to perceived threat will save my life on enough occasions to justify its presence, despite the many times that I will panic when there is no real threat. So, there is a perfectly natural explanation for self-sacrifice, altruism, and all the other values that we have.
>> As noted, you IDENTIFY objective moral values. I don't claim that you don't. The problem is where do they come from? I contend that they cannot arrive under your rubric of natural processes. If so we have one thing called "values" that arrive totally opposite of all other purely natural and metaphysical processes that occur. This is the sum total of the argument.
Objective values come from our evolutionary history, which we share with other living things. I contend that all living things have an underlying series of mechanisms that guide their behaviour towards various things that enhance their survival, such as food, which can be understood as values. How do we know what they are? We are motivated to approach them.
What is intriguing is that we have many values, and they often contradict one another without any clear resolution. That is why there are serious ethical dilemmas that are irreconcilable. This is more in keeping with the accumulated results of a blind, natural process than a divine design. I mean, why would God give us underlying values and instincts that frequently conflict with another? He would give us Ten Commandments, and they would clearly be the values that we would follow. Instead, we have a mishmash of values that are essentially inconsistent.
Harvey
Because I find you a despicable liar you conclude I have no values? Please provide the evidence. God told me he I'd going to de-friend you from Facebook.
Dguller,
Out of all the conversations I've had on this site, yours, has been without a doubt, the most pleasurable and informative!
You've laid out your case well. The one area that I will address is why I feel that objective, absolute moral values are essential.
It's been a long day and I'll do that tomorrow if you don't mind.
Thank you so much for the dialogue.
Wow. Only a complete idiot like Loftus and Dawkins would translate this:
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
to mean God creates EVERY SINGLE DISASTER EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!!! just because God states He creates disaster does not mean He created every disaster in the world. Did He do the Haiti earthquake? who knows, it's possible He did and possible He did not, but that scripture is hardly conclusive that He did. That scripture is no more conclusive that God causes every single disaster than a random man saying "I hurt people" is conclusive that he is responsible for every single instance of people being hurt.
Stupid logic, from loftus.
Theological Discourse said...
"Wow. Only a complete idiot like Loftus and Dawkins would translate this:
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
to mean God creates EVERY SINGLE DISASTER EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!!! just because God states He creates disaster does not mean He created every disaster in the world. Did He do the Haiti earthquake? who knows, it's possible He did and possible He did not, but that scripture is hardly conclusive that He did. That scripture is no more conclusive that God causes every single disaster than a random man saying "I hurt people" is conclusive that he is responsible for every single instance of people being hurt.
Stupid logic, from loftus."
-----------------------------
Theological Discourse so you think if somebodies not responsible for (every) single instance of hurt,that then frees them of responsibility and guilt,of any hurt they are responsible for??
And if god didnt create "ALL" disaster,that somehow makes any disaster he did create,quite ok and him a real great wonderful you beauty pearler ?.
Maybe we should just empty our jails too,as the occupants cant be guilty of "ALL" pain caused can they?!...So therefore according to the laws of you Theological Discourse ,that somehow excuses them!??.
Theological Discourse--"Stupid logic, from loftus."
Wow ! the privilege and joy of being subjected to the presence of a continuous flow of such impressive Christian Einstein`s
Faith creates inteligence obviously.Supernatural inteligence, abnormal inteligence
Dguller,
What we are primarily discussing is moral ontology and moral epistemology.
Moral ontology meaning the foundation or where the good or morals are "located" in reality, and epistemology meaning how we come to understand or know what those good or moral values are.
Suffice it to say conversations on objective moral values often deal with moral ontology as we have discussed in this thread.
You say that both of these (putting words in your mouth) are basically products of genetics, natural heredity and society in general.
First, there is no evidence that morality by committee or group rooted in naturalism either knows morality, has a foundation in morality, or even a uniform idea of what morality is! Therefore, to ascribe such a group as the source of morality creates a hodge-podge mess with no real definition or agreement as to what morality is. to be fair total agreement on morality is not what we are seeking or what we find in real life but we all recognize certain aspects of morality to be "necessary". hold that thought and I'll come back to it.
To make this point plain, under your view the definition of morality is thrust upon the group by proxy making them responsible for the values that you would hold as objective. The problem is that it requires that moral minimalists, nihilists, egoists, libertarians, and consequentialists (and other moral views for that matter) all agree to a supposed moral "duty", and determinations of what it is to act, be or think rationally about issues.
Under a construct like this we all know that it is a mere impossibility to get such a diverse group to agree on what it is to have a "necessary moral duty", and even further what constitutes rationality.
The question is, how can a committee of such diverse moral views and understanding of what are rational behaviors and duties be the place from which truly objective moral values, decisions and evaluations flow in some sort of uniform sense? This is hardly possible under the naturalist worldview and as you can see needs much assistance, from forces outside of naturalism.
Therefore, I totally reject the premise of your concept that community is the foundation for objective moral values in any sense. Although I accept the fact that community can recognize objective moral values because such values are "necessary" to our existence....
Are ya with me so far?
To backtrack a little, you speak of naturalistically derived moral values as if there is some driving force that causes individuals to value the group even if the individual is prohibited from personal survival, but, I restate, there is no such mechanism or requirement found within naturalism either in general or in practice.
So I would reject both parts of your claim that 1 community is the place from which objective moral values derive and 2 that naturalism provides any evidence that advanced primates (as we are under the naturalist view) have somehow developed a moral "duty" towards one another against their genetic call of self survival. The naturalist world view neither facilitates or fosters that sense of "duty" or rational uniformity in any sense.
see 2
2
Dguller,
To the point that I wanted to address:
Objective moral values exist outside of the rubric of anyone agreement or understanding of them. People can do what's moral aside from having an epistemological understanding of what is moral. However defiance of a moral value by a group or community does not make a moral value right nor wrong.
One such example was when the young lady was raped in CA by at least 5 men while an additional 20 watched. The inaction's of the onlookers, even though not legally wrong (based on the letter of the law) showed a blatant and vile moral wrong, but as stated before there was no "duty" thrust upon them because of the potential sentiment of society against their actions. however, it was still WRONG of them to allow this atrocious act to occur whether there was agreement to that fact or not.
Objective values exist regardless of how or when we come to know them. In your case you believe that values evolve. I don't see any proof of that assertion whatsoever, but what I do see proof of is that our understanding of objective moral values evolves or grows. ie: we come into information that we didn't have previously, not that the information wasn't already there, we just didn't know it.
There are certain values that are necessary for society and for our existence. We recognize these things as I have stated. I also hold that God is necessary. If he is not necessary and merely contingent he cannot be the ground for moral values and I'm sure you agree.
However, as stated, we observe that there are necessary moral values within society. We are also aware that society cannot create, set or enforce those necessary moral values because society (under the naturalist construct) cannot and does not institute or set the parameters of those necessary moral values. The argument then is as follows:
1. Necessarily, if moral values exist,then God exists.
2. Necessarily, moral values exist.
3. Therefore, necessarily, God exists.
I would hold that objective values live beyond our awareness of them due to the fact that they come from God who is a necessary being and who is also beyond us.
All of this answers the primary question that you asked:"I really do not understand this need for absolute values in the sense of values that must have existed before human beings existed and that must carry on into eternity even after human beings go extinct. Why the need for this construct of values? And what is the evidence for such an idea?"
Due to all of these observations and facts, I would hold that objective values would then have to be timeless (when I say that meaning beyond our understanding of time) and that God, as a moral law giver could be the only possible dispenser of values that we all recognize as necessary because he is a necessary being.
Back to you my friend!
Harvey:
>> First, there is no evidence that morality by committee or group rooted in naturalism either knows morality, has a foundation in morality, or even a uniform idea of what morality is!
I do not know what you are talking about here.
First, what do you mean “rooted in naturalism”? What do you mean by “naturalism”? If you are referring to “natural principles without any supernaturalism”, then your statement is false. Just look at Buddhism, Confucianism, and the other Eastern traditions. The basis of their moral codes is their understanding of human nature, i.e. naturalism. They make little or no reference to a divine standard of morality, but only discuss ways of living that improve one’s likelihood of finding satisfaction. The Buddha specifically instructed people to be sceptical about his claims and to try them out to see if they had the goods. If they worked, then keep it, and if they didn’t work, then they should leave them and find something else.
Second, what is your definition of “morality”? If you are talking about a code of values and consequent required behaviour, then why can’t a group of individuals choose a standard of values and behaviours in a consensus effort? Don’t people do that all the time in history? Isn’t that part of the explanation for why values and morals change from age to age?
Third, can you give me some examples of groups of naturalists who have tried to agree upon a set of morals, but who lack “even a uniform idea of what morality is”?
>> To make this point plain, under your view the definition of morality is thrust upon the group by proxy making them responsible for the values that you would hold as objective. The problem is that it requires that moral minimalists, nihilists, egoists, libertarians, and consequentialists (and other moral views for that matter) all agree to a supposed moral "duty", and determinations of what it is to act, be or think rationally about issues.
You are failing to see how multifactorial our sense of morality is. It is not easy to tease apart the precise contributions of our innate biological tendencies, our early life experiences, our subsequent life experiences, and our wider culture and society. However, it is obvious that some combination, in varying degrees for different individuals, occurs to produce our moral sense.
When you focus solely upon the cultural consensus, then it appears absurd, because you present it in a vacuum. If you present a group of human beings, each with a shared evolutionary history that is carried within their genes that encode a variety of complex thoughts, feelings and behaviours that have been successful at enhancing survival, and each with different life experiences that have shaped that evolutionary heritage in a variety of ways, then you see a group of individuals that are both similar and different. Their similarity is likely going to produce shared values and morals, in general, because they have an intuitive sense of what “works” to produce life satisfaction, and therefore, they would agree to approach those things that work, and avoid those things that don’t.
My contention is that that is all that is needed for morality. And the fact that humans are unable to agree with universal consent to what a singular code of morals should be is just evidence that our diversity is too much to surmount. Furthermore, life is incredibly complex, and thus no single code of ethics and morals will apply to all people and in all situations, because we have inconsistent values, and only the future will tell if choosing one value over another will lead to a better outcome. However, over human history, we can look back and see that, in general, compassion and altruism are more conducive to satisfaction than hatred and rage. That does not mean that we reject hatred and rage, because sometimes they can be useful, but we prioritize the other values generally.
>> Under a construct like this we all know that it is a mere impossibility to get such a diverse group to agree on what it is to have a "necessary moral duty", and even further what constitutes rationality.
Again, universal consensus is neither necessary nor possible for my account. There MUST be variation in human moral intuitions for natural selection to act upon. In other words, there may become a time in the future when the values of nihilism could be what humanity needs to survive, and thus it is useful to keep people who hold those values around. So, it is a feature of my account – and not a bug! – that there is diversity in human intuitions about values and morality. However, it still remains true that, given current human nature and our environment, certain values have an increased chance of giving individuals the capacity to build lives of meaning and satisfaction. And I believe that science can play a role in clarifying these.
And, as for “rationality”, I think that everyone practices rationality to a certain extent, because those who do not in any capacity will die very soon unless other rational people take care of them. I hold that it is impossible to totally forgo rationality and still survive in this world. Sure, one can choose emotions over reasons on many occasions, and still get by, but the total abdication of reason is impossible for a human being to perform and still survive. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.
>> The question is, how can a committee of such diverse moral views and understanding of what are rational behaviors and duties be the place from which truly objective moral values, decisions and evaluations flow in some sort of uniform sense? This is hardly possible under the naturalist worldview and as you can see needs much assistance, from forces outside of naturalism.
Because there is sufficient similarity in human nature by virtue of a shared evolutionary heritage and very similar life experiences to build a strong consensus amongst the majority of players. Variation is essential, and insufficient to lead to chaos, because the majority will find sufficient agreement to build a certain degree of order.
I think that you are getting hung up on ideas of absolute, objective morals and universal agreement. I do not think that we need either of these for a successful human society, and that these goals are impossible to achieve anyway. Life is messy and about probabilities and risk. There are no guarantees in this world, and I see this drive for absolute truths as a deep wish for certainty and the elimination of risk from one’s life. That is certainly understandable, but it is just wishful thinking masquerading as profundity.
The bottom line is that risk in inherent in our world, and that even if one lives a life in total commitment to moral principles that all mankind agrees upon, then that does not imply that one will necessarily find contentment and satisfaction. It depends on what happens to someone while they enact their values, and there is no guarantee that they will lead to success. However, there is a BETTER chance of success happening, which is good enough for morality.
There is only shadows in Plato’s cave. That’s life, and people should just get used to it.
>> Therefore, I totally reject the premise of your concept that community is the foundation for objective moral values in any sense. Although I accept the fact that community can recognize objective moral values because such values are "necessary" to our existence....
Again, you are putting far too much emphasis upon rational individuals coming together and consciously developing moral codes and ignoring their unconscious psychological tendencies that are built by a shared evolutionary heritage and similar life experiences to drive a great deal of agreement. There will always be differences, because (a) life is complicated and no single set of rules will iron out all the wrinkles of life, and (b) because variation is a feature of the natural world, including in human society. All of this is consistent with a natural explanation of morals.
And I am happy that you agree that the community can “recognize objective moral values because such values are "necessary" to our existence”. The question is where these moral values are coming from. You believe that they come from the supernatural realm, and I believe that they are the natural byproduct of a combination of human intuition, empirical experiences, and the application of reason. I think that humans learn many things about ourselves and the world, and that these things do not require a God to put those ideas in us.
>> To backtrack a little, you speak of naturalistically derived moral values as if there is some driving force that causes individuals to value the group even if the individual is prohibited from personal survival, but, I restate, there is no such mechanism or requirement found within naturalism either in general or in practice
No. We are BORN valuing ourselves and others, because we have an extended period of time in which we are incredibly vulnerable and require the caring and assistance of our primary caregivers. It is this synergistic process of parent-infant caring that is the foundation of morality and ethics, and make any human group effort possible. As I said earlier, we are neither selfish egotists nor altruistic givers. We are BOTH to varying degrees, with extremes on either side. And a natural explanation can account for both selfish and altruistic behaviour in humans as essential components of successful human society.
>> So I would reject both parts of your claim that 1 community is the place from which objective moral values derive and 2 that naturalism provides any evidence that advanced primates (as we are under the naturalist view) have somehow developed a moral "duty" towards one another against their genetic call of self survival. The naturalist world view neither facilitates or fosters that sense of "duty" or rational uniformity in any sense.
You can do whatever you want, but know that it is not based upon logical argument or empirical data. There is no ‘genetic call of self survival’. Our genetics are complex, as is their interactions with our bodies and environment. It is from that matrix of interactions that our selfish and altruistic behaviour emerges from. Even chimps show altruism to a certain extent, but I doubt that you would say that God had to sent a message to them in order to guide their altruism. It is a behaviour that is the result of evolution, and only survives, because it seems to enhance their group cohesion and ability to work together, which fosters survival.
I think that your criticisms of naturalism are based upon a straw man and caricature of the real thing. If you would broaden your understanding, then you would see that your objections fall away quite nicely. My position does not assume that at some point in human history, a group of rational individuals met and came up with a consensus statement on morality. That is a fantasy concocted by Hobbes and Rousseau. The reality is far messier and complicated, but no less real for that.
>> Objective moral values exist outside of the rubric of anyone agreement or understanding of them. People can do what's moral aside from having an epistemological understanding of what is moral. However defiance of a moral value by a group or community does not make a moral value right nor wrong.
I would agree in the sense that we have unconscious processes and motivations that guide our behaviour without our awareness. It is very possible that people could be acting morally, but be totally unaware of this behaviour. I disagree that this is likely, because we are clearly conscious of our morality, and thus awareness plays a role in our moral lives, but so does our unconscious.
You seem to assume that if X is essential for human life, but is not in direct conscious awareness, then X must exist outside of human beings. Why cannot X be in our unconscious neural processes, and it is from there that we access them?
>> Objective values exist regardless of how or when we come to know them. In your case you believe that values evolve. I don't see any proof of that assertion whatsoever, but what I do see proof of is that our understanding of objective moral values evolves or grows. ie: we come into information that we didn't have previously, not that the information wasn't already there, we just didn't know it.
How would you tell the difference between our values evolving and our understanding of true values changing over time?
>> However, as stated, we observe that there are necessary moral values within society. We are also aware that society cannot create, set or enforce those necessary moral values because society (under the naturalist construct) cannot and does not institute or set the parameters of those necessary moral values. The argument then is as follows:
I disagree, and have made my case for why your point is false. There is no reason why humans could not have evolved our moral intuitions over time through a complicated dynamic between our genetic heritage, our life experiences, and our surrounding environment and cultures. That would explain why morals have changed over time, and would explain why there is so much confusion and contradiction between our values that appear impossible to reconcile. As I said before, it is all too messy to be the work of divine design. The more messy something is, the less likely an intelligent designer, I think. A stupid one, maybe.
>> 1. Necessarily, if moral values exist,then God exists.
2. Necessarily, moral values exist.
3. Therefore, necessarily, God exists.
I reject (1) and (2). (1), because I believe that moral values can exist, and yet God not exist. (2), because there is nothing necessary about moral values. It is very possible that they could not exist at all, but then neither would human societies as we know them. They would look much different, if they would exist at all.
>> I would hold that objective values live beyond our awareness of them due to the fact that they come from God who is a necessary being and who is also beyond us.
Again, they could be beyond our awareness through being in our unconscious.
Back at you!
Dguller,
You stated:"First, what do you mean “rooted in naturalism”? What do you mean by “naturalism”? If you are referring to “natural principles without any supernaturalism”, then your statement is false. Just look at Buddhism, Confucianism, and the other Eastern traditions. The basis of their moral codes is their understanding of human nature, i.e. naturalism. They make little or no reference to a divine standard of morality, but only discuss ways of living that improve one’s likelihood of finding satisfaction. The Buddha specifically instructed people to be sceptical about his claims and to try them out to see if they had the goods. If they worked, then keep it, and if they didn’t work, then they should leave them and find something else."
The problem is that here you identify groups that have exacting and even conflicting standards of morality. The problem is not identifying the necessary moral values and being essential for living, the problem is that there is no flow of moral thought. The groups that you mention, if one were try to follow them from a moral standpoint you would have a confused mess similar toEckhart Tolle .
This is what I mean. If a person is truly given to naturalism from an evolutionary standpoint, there can be no singular source of anything called community that would develop a morality. That doesn't exist and to say so is no more than a fantasy. The questions that should be asked is where does one go to get this morality? Who dispenses it? Who maintains its tenets? The community is incapable of this. Secondly the genome functioning with its predisposed biases and evolutionary basis is also incapable of this distinction and one couldn't expect that evolutionary processes are capable of establishing the objective type of morality, self-sacrifice, love, concern, pity, empathy and compassion, that we so readily see among men and mankind. There is NO empirical evidence to suggest that evolution has produced this type of morality. So your options are limited at best and do not exist under your construct at worse. You introduce other concepts to address this and I'll deal with them as they come up
You asked and stated:"Second, what is your definition of “morality”? If you are talking about a code of values and consequent required behaviour, then why can’t a group of individuals choose a standard of values and behaviours in a consensus effort? Don’t people do that all the time in history? Isn’t that part of the explanation for why values and morals change from age to age?"
Once again this deals with ontology of values. Where are the values located? The problem being here is that how does a group pressed with such a diversity of value biases find the location of those values within the community? People tend to act what they “believe” others will accept, but does that actually settle the question. The men I referenced acted with what they “believed” the community value should have been. They were horribly wrong. So a community constructed value is only as good as the real basis of that value. What is the source? Unlike what many believe values do not merely develop on their own, there is a source. Within the Christian world view the source of values is God based on the fact of his necessity(a concept that I haven't taken time to develop in this thread) as we can identify that certain values are also necessary for our very existence and community. Most of those things go against the naturalistic premise of biological evolution being the progenitor of morality.
see pt. 2
pt. 2
Dguller,
You asked:"Third, can you give me some examples of groups of naturalists who have tried to agree upon a set of morals, but who lack “even a uniform idea of what morality is”?"
Let's confine this to the gentleman (about 15 to 20 of them)that watched this young lady get raped. What about their evolutionary past told them that they were wrong for being an onlooker? What about their evolutionary past told them that the had a moral obligation to assist this young girl? Who dispensed the instruction that they should act or not act in helping the young lady? I mean if we're talking pure naturalistic behavior and we sincerely believe that there is no God involved whereby morality is distributed, then how can we hold that those young men “should have” done anything other than what they did? To whom ultimately are they accountable? Certainly not the police. Remember it wasn't a crime for them to standby and look on. So what accountability did they have and to whom? Yet at the same time most of us understand the concept of love for family, sevice to community, commitment to peace etc. This is what I mean about a uniform idea. One one hand we know, but on the other there is a total lack of information and no way to gather that information.
You state:When you focus solely upon the cultural consensus, then it appears absurd, because you present it in a vacuum. If you present a group of human beings, each with a shared evolutionary history that is carried within their genes that encode a variety of complex thoughts, feelings and behaviors that have been successful at enhancing survival, and each with different life experiences that have shaped that evolutionary heritage in a variety of ways, then you see a group of individuals that are both similar and different. Their similarity is likely going to produce shared values and morals, in general, because they have an intuitive sense of what “works” to produce life satisfaction, and therefore, they would agree to approach those things that work, and avoid those things that don’t...My contention is that that is all that is needed for morality."
Thanks, and I believe that understand what you're saying here. I'll summarize like this...the best values of the diverse group rise to the top and the worst values remain at the bottom because only the best values help the group thrive or survive...Once again, I think we can do that with a budget, business plan or other inanimate object, but we can't so readily do that with human beings. Example: I have heard and read that many of the Germans DID NOT want to exterminate the human being that they were commanded to. Many of them saw the Jews as fellow human beings and did not wish to engage in the atrocity of mass murder or otherwise. Nonetheless they did. They went along with the moral that was set before them and followed through in many cases against their will. I have also read that cognitive psychology played a part encouraging the individuals to see what they were doing as not an individual problem, but as a greater good type act. Now you can't tell me under ANY circumstance that the BEST values rose for the benefit of survival of the genome...It was a purely selfish transaction and a self serving one. There was no betterment to society even though many were correct in assuming that what they were doing was exactly the opposite and certainly not in humanities best interest. This is one reason why I reject the components that you say are necessary for morality. Once again you say that all that is necessary of various experiences, life history, complexity of thoughts, feelings and heritage through our evolutionary heritage...Based on what we have witnessed of history, that cannot be so, certainly if it was it would be unsuccessful.
see pt. 3
Pt. 3
Dguller,
You said:"And the fact that humans are unable to agree with universal consent to what a singular code of morals should be is just evidence that our diversity is too much to surmount. Furthermore, life is incredibly complex, and thus no single code of ethics and morals will apply to all people and in all situations, because we have inconsistent values, and only the future will tell if choosing one value over another will lead to a better outcome."
You affirm part of why I believe that values cannot flow from community. There is no consencus as you state, however, I will give you that there does not have to be 100% agreement before we can identify a moral value.
On other points I beg to disagree. Is there ever a situation in personal conflict that the universal and biblical principle of love along with self-sacrifice (if applied on both sides ) will not settle the issue? How diverse is the code of moral ethics when we see a baby in the middle of a busy street unattended? What you basically describe is a form of consequentialst values, that is we know that a good moral decision has been made based on the outcome or the future consequence of that decision. That is a slippery slope and leads to the affirmation of many absurd moral decisions. Back to the baby in the middle of the street, under that view one would think that to leave the baby alone was a good moral decision until it's ran over by a bus...The consequence of inaction is the only determining factor of whether the decision was good or bad.
You said:"And, as for “rationality”, I think that everyone practices rationality to a certain extent, because those who do not in any capacity will die very soon unless other rational people take care of them. I hold that it is impossible to totally forgo rationality and still survive in this world...I challenge anyone to prove me wrong."
Here I disagree. The most irrational persons seem to thrive in the world and they thrive especially in the sense of “survival of the fittest” if there is no gate keeper to the hen house, then how is the stealing of hens, though an irrational move especially when there is no necessity for food, considered to be a move that will lessen the thief's survival in the world. Let's do this...let's talk oil...how is the Saudi Prince's decision to raise oil prices $10 per barrell in a day condisered to be a move that will lessen his ability to survive in this world? I hold that we know that moral decisions are based or rooted in rationality, however as observed in this world there is no moral “have to or ought to” for rational thought and those who think less rationally under purely naturalistic constructs tend to do better in this world by imposing their will.
This leads to another conflict. If that is so and can be identified as being a characteristic by which the species survives and thrives as compared to others, how can naturalism in its most pure sense be held as some type of repository for moral though and values? They go in opposite ways. One irrational and self-serving, while the other is more rational than not and is based on the needs of others. I feel that what the God critic often tries to do is construct a moral based that is acceptable and palatable according to our standards, but that really in effect, does not and cannot exist under a naturalistic worldview. That's what I see here.
See part 4
Harvey:
>> The problem is that here you identify groups that have exacting and even conflicting standards of morality.
ALL groups have “conflicting standards of morality”. Just look at your bible. “Thou shall not kill”, and then multiple scenarios in which killing is divinely sanctioned. Lots of examples like this, which simply shows that morality is MESSY and COMPLICATED. It cannot be reduced to a single set of rules that will invariably bring happiness and satisfaction. Individual people and their individual situations will always bring too many factors to be controlled by a single consistent morality, and explains why we have a huge number of values that often contradict one another without any real way of deciding between them, except to just try one value over another, and see what happens. And the truth about that is that that is fundamentally a scientific way of living.
>> The problem is not identifying the necessary moral values and being essential for living, the problem is that there is no flow of moral thought. The groups that you mention, if one were try to follow them from a moral standpoint you would have a confused mess similar toEckhart Tolle .
First, “no flow of moral thought”? Care to elaborate? I have no idea what this means.
Second, as I have said before, ALL systems of morality are “a confused mess”, because they inevitably encounter situations for which their rules of ethics result in a contradiction without clear resolution. Life is too multifaceted and complex to be reduced to a single set of rules, morality included.
>> This is what I mean. If a person is truly given to naturalism from an evolutionary standpoint, there can be no singular source of anything called community that would develop a morality. That doesn't exist and to say so is no more than a fantasy.
I’m sorry, but are you saying that there are no communities in existence that contain rules of morality that they try to impart to the members of the community? As a factual matter, that is just false.
I really do not understand the point of this objection. Could you elaborate it?
>> The questions that should be asked is where does one go to get this morality? Who dispenses it? Who maintains its tenets? The community is incapable of this.
Why not? All I can see is multiple human groups, each adhering to a loose set of rules and principles by which it differentiates itself from the others, and making a good effort to teach its members those rules. Why is this impossible for a community to perform?
And as for where this morality comes from, I would say that a naturalistic explanation would trade upon the biological fact that individuals have underlying mechanisms that draw them towards some things, which they value, and to avoid other things, which they do not value. As individuals become more complicated, the number of things that they value and their behaviors around those values will become more complex. And when you add communities and groups to the equation, then it all becomes even more complicated. However, the bottom line is that there are underlying natural processes that are drawing individuals towards what they value, and that this is the foundation for morality, which is a very complicated end result of this process over an extended period of time.
>> Secondly the genome functioning with its predisposed biases and evolutionary basis is also incapable of this distinction and one couldn't expect that evolutionary processes are capable of establishing the objective type of morality, self-sacrifice, love, concern, pity, empathy and compassion, that we so readily see among men and mankind. There is NO empirical evidence to suggest that evolution has produced this type of morality. So your options are limited at best and do not exist under your construct at worse. You introduce other concepts to address this and I'll deal with them as they come up
First, you have not explained WHY evolution cannot explain “self-sacrifice, love, concern, pity, empathy and compassion”. I have told you that it is likely that there are ways of interacting with one another that enhance the survival of one’s genes. The fact that human beings are biologically driven to attach to other human beings for the sake of survival makes these values fundamentally biological in nature, because the organization of groups that value such values is more likely to form cohesive units that work together for a common purpose than groups that reject such values. Could you imagine a group of sociopaths forming an organized community? Even the Mafia has values of loyalty. A group that rejected ALL values would be impossible, I believe.
Furthermore, we see the many species exist in groups for the sake of survival, and thus it is not a contradictory notion that natural selection could support the factors that support group cohesion in biological organisms. Some organisms do better alone, others in groups. It is a natural process that underlies both phenomena. I really would like to know why you reject the evolutionary hypothesis of morality? And why believing in a supernatural source is a better explanation?
Second, there is evolutionary evidence that shows that our closest cousins, the great apes, DO manifest altruistic and self-sacrificing behavior that is very similar to our own, albeit in a far more primitive form. Why is it that our closest evolutionary cousins has behavior that is similar to ours, and yet distant evolutionary relatives, such as the mosquito, does not? It seems pretty clear that this is evidence of an evolutionary process at work. Perhaps if you explained how God decided to make our evolutionary cousins similar to us by design, which had nothing to do with our evolutionary heritage?
Third, you are correct that evolutionary biology cannot explain your “objective type of morality”, because you define this, a priori, as a morality that is rooted in a supernatural realm that exists for all time. Of course, biology will never find this, but it will also never find invisible unicorns. You cannot define your concepts in such a way that they are unfalsifiable, and then complain that they have not been falsified.
>> Once again this deals with ontology of values. Where are the values located? The problem being here is that how does a group pressed with such a diversity of value biases find the location of those values within the community?
By making reference to logic, reason and empirical experience.
If it can be shown to be true that one set of values will lead to greater success than another set of values, then a case can be made for their adoption. Nothing spooky or supernatural going on. It is the same thing with ANY question. You form a question, come up with hypotheses around a solution, and then go looking for evidence that is logically consistent and supported by empirical evidence.
And don’t get so caught up in the “location” of values. Values are not physical objects, and thus talk of “location” will just lead to confusion. However, the most clear answer, to me, is that they are located in the unconscious neural processes of human beings, and form an emergent pattern when multiple individual human beings are interacting with one another in a group. It is similar to the emergent properties of consciousness from the interactions of individual neurons in the brain. Consciousness does not exist in the individual neurons, but only emerges when they interact in a particular way. I see morality in the same way. It does not necessarily exist within a single mind, but is an emergent property of a group of individuals who each are biologically conditioned to be guided towards what they value, plus some other properties.
>> People tend to act what they “believe” others will accept, but does that actually settle the question. The men I referenced acted with what they “believed” the community value should have been. They were horribly wrong. So a community constructed value is only as good as the real basis of that value.
Right.
Just like one community can focus its energies on superstition and fantasy, which can support its coherence by concentrating power in the few members who communicate with a supernatural entity. However, unless that system of belief fits the real world, it will eventually crumble when faced with the cold facts of reality. I would say something similar to morals. A community with sociopathic ethics may survive for a time, but eventually, it will fall apart, because those values are not conducive to a long-lasting community. And that is simply a matter of fact that certain individual natures when combined together in a specific environment will lead to satisfaction and flourishing better than others. It does not mean that it adheres to values that are timeless and eternal, but only that their values are a better fit for them at that time and place.
>> What is the source? Unlike what many believe values do not merely develop on their own, there is a source.
Why is there A source? Why can’t there be multiple sources that interact to generate the moral codes that we currently adhere to? Nothing in life is simple as to have ONE source or cause, because life is multifactorial. Why should morality be any different? Could you imagine the folly of your determination to find THE source of a child’s aggressive behavior?
>> Within the Christian world view the source of values is God based on the fact of his necessity(a concept that I haven't taken time to develop in this thread) as we can identify that certain values are also necessary for our very existence and community.
Right, but you would have to show by argument and evidence that if certain values are necessary for our survival, then they must exist in a supernatural realm outside of the natural world.
>> Let's confine this to the gentleman (about 15 to 20 of them)that watched this young lady get raped. What about their evolutionary past told them that they were wrong for being an onlooker? What about their evolutionary past told them that the had a moral obligation to assist this young girl? Who dispensed the instruction that they should act or not act in helping the young lady? I mean if we're talking pure naturalistic behavior and we sincerely believe that there is no God involved whereby morality is distributed, then how can we hold that those young men “should have” done anything other than what they did? To whom ultimately are they accountable? Certainly not the police. Remember it wasn't a crime for them to standby and look on. So what accountability did they have and to whom? Yet at the same time most of us understand the concept of love for family, sevice to community, commitment to peace etc. This is what I mean about a uniform idea. One one hand we know, but on the other there is a total lack of information and no way to gather that information.
First, let me ask some questions: Why did these individuals not help? Did they feel shame while watching? Were they afraid of peer pressure? Did they feel remorse afterwards, and perform good deeds to compensate? Were they believers who felt that God would grant her heaven for her pain, and thus any intrusion would be inappropriate? Did they believe that she somehow DESERVED this behavior? How were these men raised? What was their backgrounds? Were they raised in violent and abusive homes, or loving and nurturing homes? What happened to them earlier that day? Were they intoxicated?
There are a lot of variables to consider before rendering an opinion about this case. And this just goes to show how complicated ethics can be.
Second, the evolutionary component would be that each individual has complex biological motivations in any given situation, and they would be pushed or pulled in different directions depending upon a variety of factors. It is certainly relevant that this occurred in California in a location where rape is considered immoral and punishable by imprisonment, and thus they must have known this on some level. However, it appears that other values took precedence on this occasion over the abhorrence of rape, and that is where answering the above questions would shed some light on the issue. Regardless, it is clear that within that community, these individuals acted in an immoral way, and that is why they were condemned by the community, perhaps not with prison, but with contempt and shame.
And it goes without saying that NONE of this contradicts a purely naturalistic explanation of what happened. No need for spooky ghosts here.
>> Now you can't tell me under ANY circumstance that the BEST values rose for the benefit of survival of the genome...It was a purely selfish transaction and a self serving one. There was no betterment to society even though many were correct in assuming that what they were doing was exactly the opposite and certainly not in humanities best interest. This is one reason why I reject the components that you say are necessary for morality. Once again you say that all that is necessary of various experiences, life history, complexity of thoughts, feelings and heritage through our evolutionary heritage...Based on what we have witnessed of history, that cannot be so, certainly if it was it would be unsuccessful.
First, those individuals had complex motivations, I’m sure. I think that only a small minority of human beings can be called “pure evil”, and they are usually sociopaths and psychopaths who fundamentally lack the capacity of empathy and compassion in any way, viewing others as tools to be used. The majority of people who do wrong are exposed to a situation in which their values are in fundamental conflict, and there is no way to resolve them easily. In such situations, multiple cognitive distortions and biases kick in to reduce cognitive dissonance, and people make decisions that they may later regret, or maybe not since they may rationalize them afterwards.
Second, the evolutionary explanation of morality does not have to show that ALL human actions are altruistic and can never be selfish. Of course, many actions ARE selfish. So what? Does that disprove that evolution was the driving force behind our altruism? If I get panicked at the sight of a snake, then does that mean that there really is a snake there? No, it might be a garden hose that looks like a snake. Does that imply that biology could not explain my panic response, because it may have misfired on this occasion? Of course not. All that is needed is that the biological process succeeds often enough that it becomes a survival benefit. So, evolution drove both altruism and selfishness, which become activated on different occasions in different people.
Third, I said that a multifactorial combination of genetics, early childhood experiences, later life experiences, a surrounding culture and society, and so on ALL contribute to one’s moral intuition. Does it follow that one’s moral intuition is correct? Of course not, because sometimes those factors combine to produce individuals who are sadistic and sociopathic. And those individuals do not often succeed, because others refuse to tolerate their behavior, and either lock them up or execute them. My point is that, over time, it becomes fairly clear that certain values have a higher likelihood of bringing personal satisfaction. It is not that certain values INVARIABLY do so in ALL occasions. That is a caricature of this position.
>> On other points I beg to disagree. Is there ever a situation in personal conflict that the universal and biblical principle of love along with self-sacrifice (if applied on both sides ) will not settle the issue?
Sure. Say there is a person who is about to invent something that will put a large number of people out of work and on the street, but will benefit a larger number of people beyond. What would the Christian do? Would they sacrifice their fame and fortune and withhold the invention? But that would deny a huge number of people a great deal of benefits. Would they show love to the majority and release the invention? But what about the minority that will suffer? The answer is that there IS NO ANSWER, at least not a clear one. This is an ethical dilemma, because our intuitions pull us in a variety of directions, and it is unclear which direction is correct, because our guiding stars are all mixed up.
Maybe you are referring to a two-person conflict. Say there are two men, each of whom has a family to support, and they are stranded in the wilderness with only enough food for one of them, meaning that if they share the food, then there will not be enough to last until the rescue party comes. Who should get the food? What would a Christian do? Say they are BOTH Christians, and BOTH want to sacrifice themselves for the other for the sake of love? What about their families? Whose love takes precedence?
>> How diverse is the code of moral ethics when we see a baby in the middle of a busy street unattended? What you basically describe is a form of consequentialst values, that is we know that a good moral decision has been made based on the outcome or the future consequence of that decision. That is a slippery slope and leads to the affirmation of many absurd moral decisions. Back to the baby in the middle of the street, under that view one would think that to leave the baby alone was a good moral decision until it's ran over by a bus...The consequence of inaction is the only determining factor of whether the decision was good or bad.
First, your example of a baby on the street is silly. What other core values would justify the abandonment of the child of the street?
Second, I am not a consequentialist. I am not a deontologist, either. I am BOTH. Why? Because there are scenarios in which consequentialism makes sense, and there are scenarios in which deontology makes sense. However, there are also scenarios in which the values of consequentialism and deontology CONFLICT, and it is unclear how to proceed. There are plenty of these in the literature. A classic one is whether it is just to horribly torture and kill a child if it would bring eternal bliss to all mankind. Feel the dissonance between the values of consequentialism and deontology? No easy answer here.
>> Here I disagree. The most irrational persons seem to thrive in the world and they thrive especially in the sense of “survival of the fittest” if there is no gate keeper to the hen house, then how is the stealing of hens, though an irrational move especially when there is no necessity for food, considered to be a move that will lessen the thief's survival in the world. Let's do this...let's talk oil...how is the Saudi Prince's decision to raise oil prices $10 per barrell in a day condisered to be a move that will lessen his ability to survive in this world? I hold that we know that moral decisions are based or rooted in rationality, however as observed in this world there is no moral “have to or ought to” for rational thought and those who think less rationally under purely naturalistic constructs tend to do better in this world by imposing their will.
First, I never said that people have to ONLY think rationally to survive and flourish. My point was that one must be rational SOMETIMES, and often enough to be able to make reasonable decisions in life. Of course, people are often irrational, but if they irrational to the point of being incapable of making decisions, then they cannot function in the world.
Second, there will always be individuals who flourish by flouting the laws of a community, but they are a minority. If the majority flouted the laws of a community on a regular basis, then the community would fall apart, because what keeps it together is a group of individuals following the same rules. That’s just trivial.
Third, reason is a tool that can serve different values. I can use reason to serve my value of cheating something in which I will devise ingenious schemes to fool people to give their money to me. The only fundamental value that reason serves is truth, because even using reason to cheat people must account for the world as it is in order to manipulate it to achieve one’s ends.
>> This leads to another conflict. If that is so and can be identified as being a characteristic by which the species survives and thrives as compared to others, how can naturalism in its most pure sense be held as some type of repository for moral though and values? They go in opposite ways. One irrational and self-serving, while the other is more rational than not and is based on the needs of others. I feel that what the God critic often tries to do is construct a moral based that is acceptable and palatable according to our standards, but that really in effect, does not and cannot exist under a naturalistic worldview. That's what I see here.
You have to abandon this caricature of naturalism that you hold in which it invariably leads to selfish egotists who have no concern for others. You put far too much stock in conscious rational awareness, and ignore the evolutionary processes that underpin our unconscious emotional salience. In other words, it is perfectly possible that a group of individuals evolved to have a generally shared sense of community and the values that facilitate that community’s ongoing existence and development.
Evolution is not just about the survival of the individual under any circumstances. Evolution is very subtle and creative, and has blindly designed many organisms who successfully pass on their genes through a variety of means, some selfish and others altruistic. That does not mean that these individuals are ALWAYS successful, but only that they are MOSTLY successful, otherwise their genetic coding would not be passed on at all. Arguing otherwise would be like saying that since our panic response is not ALWAYS correct at appraising danger, then it is impossible that it could be an evolved trait.
You are creating a false dichotomy that undermines your argument by battling a fallacious straw man.
pt. 4
Dguller,
You said:"I think that you are getting hung up on ideas of absolute, objective morals and universal agreement. I do not think that we need either of these for a successful human society, and that these goals are impossible to achieve anyway. Life is messy and about probabilities and risk. There are no guarantees in this world, and I see this drive for absolute truths as a deep wish for certainty and the elimination of risk from one’s life. That is certainly understandable, but it is just wishful thinking masquerading as profundity."
Follow me as we walk through the implications of your statement: Then it is not absolutely wrong to walk in a crowded room take out a gun and kill 16 kids? If we don't need absolute, objective morals, then we should all lobby to close all jails and at a minimum work-release all prisoners even the most vile and unapologetic? If it is an impossibility to achieve and acknowledge a standard of absolute morals or right and wrong then, tell the police office that you simply REJECT his efforts and ticket next time you're stopped for speeding. Go to a doctor that you believe that does not abide by the hippocratic oath. However we don't do these things because we know that standards of absolute morality ARE possible to achieve and we live in those standards everyday and expect them to work for us. Each of us EXPECTS a check from our employer when we've done the work...that's not a relative value or truth, it's an absolute one. So as noted, I believe that to suggest otherwise is truly wishful thinking and failure to see the truth and moral values statements made around us everyday.
You said:"The question is where these moral values are coming from. You believe that they come from the supernatural realm, and I believe that they are the natural byproduct of a combination of human intuition, empirical experiences, and the application of reason. I think that humans learn many things about ourselves and the world, and that these things do not require a God to put those ideas in us."
I believe that I have demonstrated that objective moral values cannot and do not come from either community and that there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that they are a product of evolutionary process that tend to go against the flow of the intent of the moral values that we see.
You said:"No. We are BORN valuing ourselves and others, because we have an extended period of time in which we are incredibly vulnerable and require the caring and assistance of our primary caregivers.It is this synergistic process of parent-infant caring that is the foundation of morality and ethics, and make any human group effort possible."
Because we need an extended period of time to develop this and we basically learn from the synergistic process of parent-infant relationship then we could not, by your own description be BORN with the sense of valuing ourselves. We can be born with the ability to LEARN those values, but certainly not born (out of the womb) with it. This reaffirms my position. There is no evolutionary heredity or mechanism which gives us these values independently. Once again, community cannot do it, does not do it, neither can or should we expect community to do it and we are born with the ability to LEARN values not with built in values. This is a major gap and one cannot make the leap to just say or assert such without proof, at least in the naturalistic realm.
See 5
Pt. 5
Dguller,
"As I said earlier, we are neither selfish egotists nor altruistic givers. We are BOTH to varying degrees, with extremes on either side. And a natural explanation can account for both selfish and altruistic behaviour in humans as essential components of successful human society."
This is a description of the yin-yang relationship as described by Buddhism. Good and bad all rolled into one, bad coming out when necessary and good doing the same vice-versa. The fact is that yes we are all born with a potential to actualize or will's to whatever extent that we would like for either good or bad. However, backing this up to our epistemological understanding or morality is only as good as our ontological basis for morality. It is possible that a person could practice the wrong thing because the basis for their morality is “jacked”, but as I have stated, that is a learned process rooted in the ontology of morality not the epistemology of morality.
You said:"You can do whatever you want, but know that it is not based upon logical argument or empirical data. There is no ‘genetic call of self survival’."
That affirms what I said and thanks for bringing that to light.
You suggesr:"Our genetics are complex, as is their interactions with our bodies and environment. It is from that matrix of interactions that our selfish and altruistic behaviour emerges from. Even chimps show altruism to a certain extent, but I doubt that you would say that God had to sent a message to them in order to guide their altruism."
I believe that we can interpret a chimps actions to be altruistic. However we can also interpret trees to be “good” because they provide us shade or rocks to be “bad” because they fall on us. There is no metaphysical reason and certainly no evidence that confirms such. Not to say that our interpretations are invalid, but they are subjective and relative and not morally objective
You said:"I think that your criticisms of naturalism are based upon a straw man and caricature of the real thing. If you would broaden your understanding, then you would see that your objections fall away quite nicely."
I think my understanding is broad and I might add much more broad than yours regarding the point. I don't claim that history and natural process add no value to morality, I simply claim that there is an added dimension that is the base or foundation of the moral values that we know. You reject that as a part of your naturalistic world view. My views of history and genetics are tempered and balanced whereas you're a “one trick pony” riding the waves of naturalism and culture. So I think that I already hold a broad view and accept concepts that not only fill in the gaps but lay a claim to having instituted what we know as moral behavior.
see 6
Pt6
Dguller,
You said:"You seem to assume that if X is essential for human life, but is not in direct conscious awareness, then X must exist outside of human beings. Why cannot X be in our unconscious neural processes, and it is from there that we access them?
I haven't taken the time to develop the God is necessary part in this argument, so I enter it with the assumption of thought. That will be another thread. But to briefly touch on what you're saying...X cannot be demonstrated to be our neural processes. If values are necessary as we have seen, then God is necessary as I believe that I have demonstrated that purely objective and absolute and moral values cannot arrive by other methods either individually or in tendem. Our neural processes don't have the ability to provide these values and there is no evidence to the effect that they do. There is no evidence that our neural processes were even suppoosed to do this. So why should anyone believe it?
You said:"How would you tell the difference between our values evolving and our understanding of true values changing over time?"
I think coming to understand love, care, kindness, compassion, hate, rage and all when we act in a corresponding manner. I mean you weren't the first individual to fall in love when you did and you won't be the last. Love didn't evolve, your understanding of it does. Same with other values, even beyond feelings and emotions...they exist, we come to understand them to one degree or another.
I stated: >> However, as stated, we observe that there are necessary moral values within society. We are also aware that society cannot create, set or enforce those necessary moral values because society (under the naturalist construct) cannot and does not institute or set the parameters of those necessary moral values. The argument then is as follows:
To which you responded:"I disagree, and have made my case for why your point is false."
And I feel that I have adequately refuted the case that you have made
You said:"As I said before, it is all too messy to be the work of divine design. The more messy something is, the less likely an intelligent designer, I think. A stupid one, maybe."
Complexity or “messyness” doesn't mean stupidity. There are many circumstances in live that get messy and there are many smart people who are at task to resolve the issues. The world economy is one of those “messy” and last I looked most of the people both responsible for the trouble and the supposed fixes were all well educated individuals. In addition I believe that it's incumbent upon the critic to create a better alternative and keeping things in place such as free-will etc. I have never seen that done before so the task would be monumental if not impossible like dominoes.
I set forth the premise>>
1. Necessarily, if moral values exist,then God exists.
2. Necessarily, moral values exist.
3. Therefore, necessarily, God exists.
You state:"I reject (1) and (2). (1), because I believe that moral values can exist, and yet God not exist."
As stated, I didn't develop that point from necessity
You said:"(2), because there is nothing necessary about moral values."
Quite to the contrary, I believe I have demonstrated that moral values are essential to our existence. If they weren't there would be utter anarchy and chaos. That's not what we observe however because of the constraint of moral values with are both absolute, objective and relative
Thanks again!!!
>> Follow me as we walk through the implications of your statement: Then it is not absolutely wrong to walk in a crowded room take out a gun and kill 16 kids? If we don't need absolute, objective morals, then we should all lobby to close all jails and at a minimum work-release all prisoners even the most vile and unapologetic? If it is an impossibility to achieve and acknowledge a standard of absolute morals or right and wrong then, tell the police office that you simply REJECT his efforts and ticket next time you're stopped for speeding. Go to a doctor that you believe that does not abide by the hippocratic oath. However we don't do these things because we know that standards of absolute morality ARE possible to achieve and we live in those standards everyday and expect them to work for us. Each of us EXPECTS a check from our employer when we've done the work...that's not a relative value or truth, it's an absolute one. So as noted, I believe that to suggest otherwise is truly wishful thinking and failure to see the truth and moral values statements made around us everyday.
What would possibly make you think that if we lack absolute standards, then we lack standards altogether? That would be like saying that since my vision is sometimes incorrect, I have no vision at all. Just silly.
>> I believe that I have demonstrated that objective moral values cannot and do not come from either community and that there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that they are a product of evolutionary process that tend to go against the flow of the intent of the moral values that we see.
You have done no such thing.
>> Because we need an extended period of time to develop this and we basically learn from the synergistic process of parent-infant relationship then we could not, by your own description be BORN with the sense of valuing ourselves. We can be born with the ability to LEARN those values, but certainly not born (out of the womb) with it. This reaffirms my position. There is no evolutionary heredity or mechanism which gives us these values independently. Once again, community cannot do it, does not do it, neither can or should we expect community to do it and we are born with the ability to LEARN values not with built in values. This is a major gap and one cannot make the leap to just say or assert such without proof, at least in the naturalistic realm.
No. We are both with BOTH, but in an inchoate form that requires interpersonal relationships in order to properly develop. We are also born with poor eyesight, but with proper development, usually results in 20/20 vision. Just because we are both with X does not mean that X is fully developed.
And I would strongly recommend that you read the literature on attachment theory, especially as relates to mentalizing. I think that you will really enjoy the interrelationship between our biological drive to attach to others and the development of the capacity to flexibly understand the mental contents of ourselves and others. :) A great resource is Peter Fonagy’s “Mentalizing in Clinical Practice”.
>> X cannot be demonstrated to be our neural processes. If values are necessary as we have seen, then God is necessary as I believe that I have demonstrated that purely objective and absolute and moral values cannot arrive by other methods either individually or in tendem. Our neural processes don't have the ability to provide these values and there is no evidence to the effect that they do. There is no evidence that our neural processes were even suppoosed to do this. So why should anyone believe it?
If our neurobiology has nothing to do with our values, then please explain the case of Phineas Gage. Google it, and let me know why damage to his orbitofrontal cortex resulted in wild changes in his personality and underlying values. And that is just the tip of the iceberg of the evidence.
>> I think coming to understand love, care, kindness, compassion, hate, rage and all when we act in a corresponding manner. I mean you weren't the first individual to fall in love when you did and you won't be the last. Love didn't evolve, your understanding of it does. Same with other values, even beyond feelings and emotions...they exist, we come to understand them to one degree or another.
So, you have no evidence or argument. You just assert that it is true, and magic, it’s true. Sorry, doesn’t work that way here. Again, how would you tell the difference between our values evolving and our understanding of true values changing over time?
>> Complexity or “messyness” doesn't mean stupidity. There are many circumstances in live that get messy and there are many smart people who are at task to resolve the issues. The world economy is one of those “messy” and last I looked most of the people both responsible for the trouble and the supposed fixes were all well educated individuals. In addition I believe that it's incumbent upon the critic to create a better alternative and keeping things in place such as free-will etc. I have never seen that done before so the task would be monumental if not impossible like dominoes.
First, you are right that complexity does not imply stupidity. It just implies GREAT DIFFICULTY, and often insurmountable obstacles to arriving at a conclusion, given our cognitive abilities and evidence at present. I think that this is important to keep in mind, especially when discussing morals, because people have a tendency to oversimplify matters a great deal.
Second, the global economy is too complicated for anyone to understand. The meltdown is great evidence of that fact. Anyone who says that they understand it to the point of being able to accurately predict the future economic state of affairs is just a deluded liar.
Third, I’m not too sure what the problem is with free will that you are mentioning.
Fourth, my main point is that morality is not always black and white, but usually is. However, when it becomes grey, then that is evidence of the messiness of human evolution, because we have contradictory intuitions about what is right and wrong, which is more in keeping with a blind evolutionary process than an intelligent design. Why would a deity design us with inherent contradictions within our psyche? Why provide a set of rules that he then endorses violating, and that do not even account for the majority of ethical dilemmas?
>> As stated, I didn't develop that point from necessity.
Then I fail to see any justification for that conditional premise. Care to provide some?
>> Quite to the contrary, I believe I have demonstrated that moral values are essential to our existence. If they weren't there would be utter anarchy and chaos. That's not what we observe however because of the constraint of moral values with are both absolute, objective and relative
Just because X is necessary for our existence does not mean that X is ontologically true or real. I’ll give you an example. We have a blind spot in our vision, but we do not see it, because our brain fills in our vision using other information. So, it is necessary for our existence not to see a blind spot, but it does not follow that no blind spot exists, because it does. Another example would be the perception of color. In reality, there is only different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. Our specific experience of color is generated by our brain’s processing of those wavelengths. According to you, our subjective experience of color truly represents what is there, when it does not. So, it is false that if X is necessary for our existence, then X is true. It may well be true that we must believe in things that are demonstrably false.
Now, I’ve got exams coming up, and will have to prepare. So, my responses will no longer be as detailed as they have been. Just wanted to give you fair warning that you will no longer have to worry about being overwhelmed by my logorrhea. ;)
Dguller,
You said:"ALL groups have “conflicting standards of morality”. Just look at your bible. “Thou shall not kill”, and then multiple scenarios in which killing is divinely sanctioned. Lots of examples like this, which simply shows that morality is MESSY and COMPLICATED."
Not so messy when you come to understand the difference between an overarching moral value and a punishment or judgement of and for certain violations. So you view is an oversimplification of actual scenarios themselves.
You said:"It cannot be reduced to a single set of rules that will invariably bring happiness and satisfaction."
I think there are sets of rules that bring peace and hapiness although in some cases that's the byproduct of the actions. In some cases there is no consideration for sel satisfaction etc. Example; telling the truth when the truth will get you punished or cause you to loose out in some way. You're view is do what's best at the time/maybe, a ether rate there is a way that is right and moral regardless of the comfort or discomfort that I experience.
You said:"First, “no flow of moral thought”? Care to elaborate?...I have no idea what this means."
A consistent basis or undertaking of moral values. If all is relative there is no consistency or standard by which moral actions can be properly judged. You approach moral values in a relativistic manner, thus your position to vascilate on moral decisions and claim that things are morally messy or a “confused mess”. They may be messy in that certainly some moral positions aren't popular but often times there is a clear path that it takes other morals to undergird. We'll get to it in a minute.
You said:"Second, as I have said before, ALL systems of morality are “a confused mess”, because they inevitably encounter situations for which their rules of ethics result in a contradiction without clear resolution. Life is too multifaceted and complex to be reduced to a single set of rules, morality included."
Beg to differ. Loving my children and protecting them at all costs is ALWAYS morally right to do. There are many other things that can be pointed to that is a single rule and always right, not messy.
You said:"I’m sorry, but are you saying that there are no communities in existence that contain rules of morality that they try to impart to the members of the community? As a factual matter, that is just false.
What I mean is that there is no repository of or distributor of moral “oughts”. The closest thing to that is the legal code which defines less than desirable behaviors attaching a penalty in case of violations. This is not unusual. But even in that there is no standard whereby morality is instructed. As I have demonstrated we learn morality from someplace at some point. We come into what that morality is, but that morality exists.
Dguller,
Regarding community morality you said:"Why not? All I can see is multiple human groups, each adhering to a loose set of rules and principles by which it differentiates itself from the others, and making a good effort to teach its members those rules. Why is this impossible for a community to perform?
Because communities cannot set absolute and objective moral values. As I have demonstrated and as you affirm, they are incapable of doing so. Can they set a standard whereby they exist? YES! But beyond that group or if the group was done away with, what happens to the values? It is only relative to them. God offers a set of values that exist beyond community. Therefore values aren't dependent upon the community for their relavannce. Now this is mankind as we are discussing. How do you treat an alien? That's another story. However a human treats an alien just like he would another human IF he /she is convinced that their values are absolute and universal. That may get you at the wrong end of a ray gun...but what the heck!
You said:"And as for where this morality comes from, I would say that a naturalistic explanation would trade upon the biological fact that individuals have underlying mechanisms that draw them towards some things, which they value, and to avoid other things, which they do not value. As individuals become more complicated, the number of things that they value and their behaviors around those values will become more complex."
Man I utterly disagree. The most value filled individuals are the people with the least complex lives. The excuses for failure only increase as complexity increases, but to suggest that complexity deeps values is a sham...I'd take SIMPLICITY any day
more on the way!
Thank GOd for EXAMS!-LOL...wish you success my friend and I'll finish off and try to address some issues that I hadn't addressed thoroughly enough.
Harvey:
>> A consistent basis or undertaking of moral values. If all is relative there is no consistency or standard by which moral actions can be properly judged. You approach moral values in a relativistic manner, thus your position to vascilate on moral decisions and claim that things are morally messy or a “confused mess”. They may be messy in that certainly some moral positions aren't popular but often times there is a clear path that it takes other morals to undergird. We'll get to it in a minute.
When you say that “all is relative”, what is “all” and “relative” to what? It would help if you were a bit more specific here.
>> Beg to differ. Loving my children and protecting them at all costs is ALWAYS morally right to do. There are many other things that can be pointed to that is a single rule and always right, not messy.
Really? What about if protecting your children leads to the deaths of thousands of others? Is it still the morally right thing to do? What would you tell the parents of all those dead children? You confine yourself only to moral situations in which it is OBVIOUS to everyone that loving your children is the right thing to do. However, you fail to recognize that there are times when this is unclear, and it is insufficient for you to just deny that these situations exist, because I’m sure that many people can come up with such situations where loving your children is actually the least moral thing to do. THAT is what I meant by morality being “messy” and “complicated”, because of such moral dilemmas.
>> Because communities cannot set absolute and objective moral values.
Sure, they can. Religious communities do this all the time, but it does not follow that they somehow plug into cosmic moral codes written into the heavens, or whatever they think is going on. Any community can set moral values and claim that they are absolute.
>> As I have demonstrated and as you affirm, they are incapable of doing so.
They are incapable of uncovering cosmic laws of morality, because these do not exist, but they can claim whatever they want.
>> Can they set a standard whereby they exist? YES! But beyond that group or if the group was done away with, what happens to the values? It is only relative to them.
Exactly! When human beings go extinct, our values will die with us. Our values only matter while we exist. What is the point of having values continue to exist without human beings to value them? I’m sure it provides some sense of relief to some people who want to connect with permanent things in the universe, or else they feel lost and adrift, but that is just wishful thinking, in my opinion.
>> God offers a set of values that exist beyond community. Therefore values aren't dependent upon the community for their relavannce.
This remains to be demonstrated. Can you provide an argument or empirical evidence for this proposition?
>> Man I utterly disagree. The most value filled individuals are the people with the least complex lives. The excuses for failure only increase as complexity increases, but to suggest that complexity deeps values is a sham...I'd take SIMPLICITY any day
I would take simplicity, too! Who wants to needlessly complicate their life? Despite our wishes, the fact is that our moral intuitions are very complex. We usually do not notice, because we do not often find ourselves in the midst of a moral dilemma. Usually, we are in situations in which our moral intuitions are fairly clear. However, when we DO find ourselves in such dilemmas, then the contradiction is deeply felt. It is just naïve to deny that such situations exist, because you can see them played out in national debates about euthanasia, the death penalty, abortion, and other hot button issues.
I think that people who preach about absolute values betray a psychological need for control and certainty when faced with a reality that is uncertain and risky. Life would be far easier if things were simply black or white, but the fact is that life is often grey, and we have to accept this rather than engage in denial for the sake of some psychological comfort. The truth is independent of our wishes, and we must face the truth in order to function optimally in the world. I can deny that it is raining, but my soaking wet clothes present me with the truth of the matter, and the pneumonia that I develop will be further evidence.
Harvey assertion is wrong,its a faith assertion.In Harveys continuing discussion with dguller we notice him simply trying to make the outcome meet the book,rather than honestly thinking about what we experience we have and considder all ways it could be possible.
Harvey simply keeps re-asserting a need of gods,but shows absolutely no good evidence of "thought through" reasons why?.This is a technique! ive noticed faithful often use.
Harvey says to dguller --">> Can they set a standard whereby they exist? YES! But beyond that group or if the group was done away with, what happens to the values? It is only relative to them."
Because (certain matters) will always get sorted out very quickly even if a new group.For instance if we could create a special glass bubble,and wipe the minds of the humans living within the bubble of knowledge of morals etc.
It wouldnt matter!,very quickly the group would soon re evolve their own moral that murder was thought immoral.
Faiths try to create a "need of gods" to impose this moral into minds of humans,because its noticed the thought "murder is immoral" is a very universal moral thought all around the world.
But this faithful type thinking simply overlooks the phenomina of our natural "common sense"being actually whats the "universal" factor involve here, involved in these universal moral decisions.The knowledge remains in the "beyond" bit Harvey mentions,simply by it being within our "common sense".
Because naturally if murder were ever thought to be moral,well that would have to need complete utter stupidity! because it would be a very "self depleteing" moral wouldnt it and not really such great common sense...As sooner or later it would lead to the death of everyone! of the group!.
And so infact simple common sense (alone is enough!) for this knowledgible thought to remain timelessly beyond in us humans.
Murder universally being thought immoral is the same type of common sense matter,as it universally also is for humans to find out ideas the tides come in and go out. By experiencing you can drown if you dont bloody hurry up and swimm somtimes,cause the waters getting deeper!is meaning there is a tide happening.
No god needed to remind us about tides! or even morals of murder either!,experience and some simple common sense does the trick plenty good enough to soon learn us!
Why the hell dont we "universally" see the alpha male leader of a wolf pack go about killing and murdering everyone else in the pack/group.Because the simple fact they are social animals thats why! and experience! taught them they really need each other! (because) its what works better and provides a strength able to be shared by all! and a better way to survive etc.
Should this wolf pack be replaced by another one, it quite likely wont change matters much.This information is sealed endlessly and is timeless remains "beyond" locked up in simple "common sense" factual experiencable evidence!,that wolves being wolves will best survive in a pack/group and so a murderous nature of the group within the pack...Will naturally be thought unbeneficial to the whole majority.
Harvey might as well be asking us how come it happens seems its a pretty universal thought,that the sun creates daylight?.How come the idea the sun creates day light, happens to remain "universally beyond" need of thoughts of any humans?.How come the majority of folks think the sun creates light etc.How come if humans happened to pass away,the fact still remains "beyond" them,that the sun provides the light
Dawkins is absolutely right. I too am sick of the christian apologists who point to the most obnoxious of their tribe and decry as not being 'true christians'. The most obnoxious, fundamentalist nut-jobs are the true christians because they are the ones following the twisted 'word of god' as published in the christian bible. If the christians will have it that this is the'word of god' then the self-serving middle-of-the-roaders are the most detestable of the lot. They are the gutless ones who shrink from what their 'religion' truly tells them. They are the most pathetic of the lot. At least the nut-jobs are true to their mindless beliefs.
Well here's something to think about. how many instances in the Bible can you find where God is "punishing for sin" in some great act? Like the flood and Sodom and Gammorah... Then how many times do we see God FORGIVING people for turning from their ways? Like Ninevah and the Israelites multiple times... Also how many times in the OT alone do we see something about helping the poor... I'll give a hint. Alot more than this judgement stuff. I would suggest that atheists look at God and all the "bad stuff" he's done and they go he is a bad god. But i think that it's unfair since they'll look at someone like Dawkins and go he's done bad stuff but he is still a good person... it to me, at least, is like adding 3 and 4 and trying to get 10.
I'm not in the habit of posting here, and I'm not in the habit of following this blog. It seems like this discussion has been reduced to a lot of arguing and bickering.... so, I will simply provide a brief introduction, state my opinion, and probably never come back to this thread again. Maybe it will make sense to someone.
Name: Eric (nice to meet you all)
Position: Christian (Protestant - nondenominational, which is to say miscellaneous)
Opinion: I think the reason many Christians dislike Pat Robertson's statement is because he makes one fatal mistake - he assumes that his opinion is God's intention. He assumes that the destruction in Haiti is God's punishment for sin, and so he tells everyone what he thinks. Now, just follow me for a second: We were told by Christ to "love your neighbor as yourself." True, God punishes sins, but how does blaming the victim fall into the category of "loving your neighbor"? If love is kind, this hardly seems kind, although it is clearly opportunistic. If we are called to correct others "with gentleness and respect" how is this gentle or respectful? Again, God does punish sins. He also forgives sins. He also brings pain into the world for other reasons (as one guy posted in his reference to Ecclesiastes and a few other books). I could say more, but I think I'll just summarize my point this way: Nowhere in the Bible are Christians commanded to tell the world what God is doing, because, quite frankly, we don't read His mind. We read His book, and there's a purpose for that, but not His mind. So it's a bit arrogant for a man to stand up and say "Thus sayeth the Lord" unless God actually saideth, lol. And not everyone thinks God speaketh to Mr Robertson, but that too is a matter of opinion. We are, however, commanded to love our neighbor, so, if nothing else, he is still guilty for lack of tact if nothing else.
God bless, and hopefully I will resist the urge to post next time ;)
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