(Relative to my recent, “The Cross That Batman Bears.”)
I would no sooner suggest that an atheist can’t be moral than I would that a bug can’t be creepy a wino can’t be ambitious Batman can’t suffer jock itch any other stupid thing I might say. Of course atheists can live according to an ethos anyone would recognize as moral.
But that they can raises an interesting question. Namely; from whence the atheist’s morality? If you’re religious, you (tend to) think that your morality is an extension of God’s nature; that in endeavoring to be more like God, you assume and evince as much of His nature as you can, and thereby behave and feel more moral. So in that very real sense, the primary source of your morality is outside of yourself.
But what about the atheist? He looks up to the heavens, and sees nothing more (and nothing less!) than atmospheric science.
As the source of their morality, most atheists point toward The Common Good. They are motivated to be moral because they want to do what’s best for others. “Cause the least harm” is their inspiration; they join with the Christian (and everyone else in the world) in wanting to treat others as they themselves want to be treated.
Excellent!
What’s interesting is to think of where and/or how the atheists’ nexus of morality is, or becomes, abstract. Pointing to The Good the atheist points to nothing real, nothing tangible. He points to an idea. What inspires the atheist to be moral — to put the needs of others ahead of his own — is the power of an abstract ideal.
The atheist believes in the truth, power, and compelling goodness of an abstract ideal.
But we Christians are idiots.
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![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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The source of an Atheist’s morality comes his own convictions, they are a product of his critical thinking and, to some degree, the society he or she grew up in. That sounds pretty solid, yet flexible to me.
Also, why do you find it laughable that Atheists believe in an abstract ideal, when by definition, an ideal is abstract?
Who said anything about laughable?
John Shore wrote:
Ideas are real. If you doubt this, you need only observe how the ideas you hold shape your day-to-day, moment-to-moment life.
I do not speak for all atheists, of course, but the so-called Common Good isn’t the source of virtue. What you’re describing is a form of collectivism. Rather, the locus of the good is found in the goal-directed nature of life:
Morality is the science of human action.
First comes metaphysics, then epistemology, and then ethics. Those are the big three of philosophy. Metaphysics, which is the study of reality apart from humans, and epistemology, which is the study of knowledge, have a direct and immediate bearing on our most fundamental ethical questions: namely, is there such a thing as morality at all, and if so what is it made of? Can we apprehend it?
For if we didn’t actually exist — or if we did exist but weren’t actually able to know anything — there could be no question of good or bad human behavior.
So we must ask next: what, if anything, within the human condition gives rise to good and bad behavior? And why do we act at all? Is there some one phenomena we can pinpoint that unites all these things?
The answer is yes, there is something we can pinpoint, and that something is called life.
Life is the common denominator that unites existence (metaphysics), consciousness (epistemology), and human action (ethics).
Science defines life, in part, as “any kind of self-motivated, growth or development-directed behavior that is able to respond to stimuli.”
To maintain itself, life of every kind requires action.
Death, the opposite of life, is therefore the opposite of action as well: death is inertia.
Death gives life meaning in the sense that death is what life constantly strives against.
In order to live, humans must act. But not only that — humans must act in a certain way: specifically, a way that fosters life.
Quoting philosopher (and beekeeper) Richard Taylor:
“The things that nourish and give warmth and enhance life are deemed good, and those that frustrate and threaten are deemed bad.”
In this light, the moral is that which promotes one’s welfare; the immoral is that which is self-destructive.
Some philosophers, like the egregious Kurt Baier, do not approve of equating this viewpoint with morality and instead opt to call it something else: prudential.
The reason these philosophers oppose the idea of so-called prudential morality is that they all, without exception, start with a spectacularly false and deadly assumption: namely, they believe that morality must by definition be altruistic.
This assumption effectively puts happiness and well-being far out of reach and opens the doors wide for all manner of faith-based ethics and arbitrary decree, each one ultimately and equally unverifiable.
From my viewpoint, however (i.e. the prudential perspective), morality is only a means to an end: the individual and her well-being are primary, and morality is the standard by which she achieves well-being.
Thus, rather than saying “That action is immoral, or evil,” it’s more accurate to describe it this way: “That action will harm you over time.”
Since the dawn of humankind, moral philosophy has been dominated by religion of one kind or another – so much so that the overwhelming preponderance of people in world history have been (mis)led into believing that morality cannot exist if God is dead.
It is a grim irony indeed, therefore, to discover after all these millennia that morality not only can exist if you kill God, but that morality can ONLY exist if you kill God.
In the words of the late Walter G. Everett, philosopher:
Moral law is just as real as human nature, within which it has its existence. Strange, indeed, if man alone of all living beings could realize his highest welfare in disregard of the principles of his own nature! And this nature, we must remember, is what it is — is always concrete and definite. Indeed the sceptic nowhere else assumes the absence of principles through obedience to which the highest form of life can be attained. He does not assume that a lily, which requires abundant moisture and rich soil, could grow on and arid rock, nor that a polar bear could flourish in a tropical jungle. No less certain than would be the failure of such attempts, must be the failure of man to realize, in disregard of the laws of his being, the values of which he is capable. The structure of man’s nature, as conscious and spiritual, grounds laws just as real as those of his physical life, and just as truly objective (Walter G. Everett, Moral Values, 1918).
Man is the rational animal. Humans are the ethical primate, the reasoning brain the thing that distinguishes the human essence. As such, human life requires very specific things, not all of which — fulfillment and joy, for instance — are material (like food and water).
These “things” are what philosophers call values.
A value, by definition, is a thing that you want, or a thing that want to hold onto.
“When we speak of values we do so under the inspiration and from the perspective of life,” said Nietzsche.
So. Life requires values — whether shelter, love, sex, transportation, medicine, money, laughter, literature, food, drink, or anything else — and these, in turn, to obtain and maintain require action.
Thus, life requires action.
That is our first ethical crux.
As you can see, it is a crux that derives from the nature of human life here on earth, without any reference whatsoever to God.
Aristotle asked:
“What is the good?” (in his language Agathon).
That to him was the foundational question of all ethics.
And in his meticulously reasoned treatise on the subject — Nicomachean Ethics — he answers in no uncertain terms:
“We may define agathon as that for the sake of which everything else is done.”
The good, then, is the end object of an action; the good is the goal.
And here we come to our second ethical crux:
The locus of the good is found in goal-directed behavior, the pursuit of values.
In philosophical terms, goal-directed behavior is also known as teleology.
And that is why certain ethical systems, like those of Mr. Aristotle and Mr. Spinoza, among others, are sometimes described as “thoroughly teleological.”
It is a term that refers to the goal-directed nature of all life, and here specifically to the fact that human good and human evil reside in the very nature of goal-directed action (or in the case of evil, its lack), which in turn resides in the nature of human survival.
Life requires action, yes, but to be more precise, life requires action that is directed toward certain life-sustaining values, which we know as goals.
All entities, sentient or insentient, have a specific essence, or nature. Only living beings, however, can pursue values, and they do so for one reason alone: staying alive.
So. The pursuit of life is teleological action. Life is goal-directed behavior.
That formulation is entirely Aristotelian, yet it can easily be validated without any reference at all to Aristotle — for we can see all around us in nature, and in ourselves, that life requires goal-directed action.
Indeed, as mentioned previously, science defines life as, in part, goal-directed behavior.
The essence (or identity) of a living thing determines how that particular thing must behave in order to maintain its life.
“In this way, a good X is that X which fulfills its nature.” This is also a Aristotelian formulation.
It is also why it is not inappropriate to say, for instance: “That sturdy cottonwood is a good tree.”
Or: “That fast greyhound is a good greyhound.”
And conversely: “That lame horse is a bad horse.”
The cottonwood and the greyhound are good because they have fulfilled their nature; the lame horse is bad because it has not.
These, though, are not moral pronouncements, not quite.
There is in them, however, a close connection to morality, and for this reason I believe that even a religious person can glimpse here, at last, how it is that good and evil are indeed secular and rooted exclusively in life on earth.
The final component required for demonstrating morality as a human gauge by which we live in this natural world is the faculty of choice.
There can be no good or evil if there is no choice.
Life requires action: crux one.
The good is that which fulfills its nature: crux two.
Humans (a species that lives primarily by its reasoning brain) must choose to fulfill its nature: crux three.
And that is why humans, the rational animal, are also the ethical animal.
Choice is the sine-qua-non of moral philosophy because chosen action is the exact opposite of automatic action, and automatic action is neither moral nor immoral but amoral: blame or praise can only belong to an act that is willed.
Reason must be willed.
As a matter of fact, the source of choice is found in the uniquely human faculty of reason.
“Reason,” said John Milton, “is also choice.”
And: “You have been given reason, which can distinguish between bad and good.”
Said Dante.
Reason does not operate instinctively. We choose to activate it, or not, and that choice determines all our others.
When we analyze will with all the tools that modern psychology brings us, we shall find ourselves pushed back to the level of attention or inattention as the seat of will. The effort which goes into the exercise of will is really effort of attention; the strain in willing is the effort to keep the consciousness clear, i.e. the strain of keeping attention focused (Rollo May, Love and Will, 1969).
And that, finally, is the answer your overwhelming question: “How can there be good and evil without God?”
Because whether God exists or doesn’t, the human brain does not operate instinctively. It needs a standard, a guide. Which is precisely what morality provides.
Thought precedes action; action sustains life; and life, as Goethe taught us, is a process of valuing.
The process of valuing is the thing that grounds morality in this world, here and now.
Morality is required by the nature of the human brain itself.
Quoting G.H. von Wright:
The attributes, which go along with meaningful use of the phrase the good of ‘x’, may be called biological in a broad sense. They are used as attributes of being, of whom it is meaningful to say that they have life.
Excellent comment, Ray! Very well-thought-out, very deep, and thorough insight, and largely correct. But there is one particular point of contention I'd like to address:
"…to discover after all these millennia that morality not only can exist if you kill God, but that morality can ONLY exist if you kill God."
Actually, we discovered that about 2000 years ago.
@Steve
Recognition of kin isn’t instinctive. I would have no clue who my aunts and uncles and cousins and even siblings and parents were if I hadn’t been introduced to them as such. I could just as easily grow up thinking a man who’s not my father *were* my father. Same for siblings or mother or anything else. If siblings don’t form the usual bond by the close proximity in growing up, they can end up sexually attracted to one another, which these genes that supposedly recognize who our kin are (though I have no clue how they’d know it) should help to prevent, since that’s not exactly the most viable sort of sexual reproduction. Genes act on the level of the individual, not the kinship group. It is the same fallacy as species selection (or genus selection, or subspecies selection, or group selection—I don’t understand how you claim to Old Stuff you’re “trying to hard to kill it”, when I’m the one pointing out the error of these while you defending it).
“Your proposed facts, I presume, are that souls are immortal, immaterial, and designed with a purpose.”
I am of the understanding that souls are rarely immortal, but spirit is, and the two are distinct. A soul is not without some particular body; it is immaterial but not incorporeal. Spirit is that which exists and moves *among* material substance and so while it is incorporeal is intrinsically linked to the material.
“what do you mean about true love being ‘inseparable’ from reason?”
yeah… I think I’ll have to get to that one later sometime when I’m not so tired as I am now…
“What do you mean about a soul giving meaning?”
I mean simply that a soul is what does this. When you say something “means” something, that’s your soul speaking. Material things do not have meaning as an intrinsic property. There is only meaning associated with them by the action of a soul. A soul decides what things mean through a process called understanding. What is meaningful about squiggly lines on a page? Yet then some soul comes along and recognizes there a word, and it is from another’s soul that the word proceeds in the first place. In life, soul and spirit are inextricably linked: the soul determines the spirit and the spirit characterizes the soul. So when you say “you” (in the singular sense), you address some particular soul with your word, and you make reference to that soul’s spirit. So you look at someone and say, “you’re too close to the curb,” referring not to the body you’re looking at but another body possessed of his/her spirit—a car.
“The whole Christian universe is created for humans.”
I would disagree with that statement. It depends on how exactly we’re going to define the universe, but there is either no Christian explanation for why the universe exists at all, or it is simply to glorify God.
Now to answer the “anticlimactic” questions, in reverse order: meaning is useful to life; happiness makes life worth living; and life is for itself.
“…the advantage of the Christian meaning theory seems to be the assurance that such a meaning exists, even if you don’t know it. This could make some nervous…. So in that way.”
If you think there is only meaning where you know it, then I guess Vietnamese is probably just gibberish and squiggly lines on a page, no? Now saying that there is meaning where meaning is unknown need not create any sort of “nagging suspicion”. While “the atheist meaning theory might be more comforting…” for some, seems also a bit arrogant, ignorant, and biased, to disregard as meaningless things we just don’t understand.
“[A]n abstract software state, portable across multiple platforms.” –Hey, that’s where I hope to go when I die. And I’ll dwell in the server of the Programmer forever. There are many gigabytes available on His server, and He’s gone before us in accessing the hard disc to prepare a sector for you and for me. (Unfortunately, too many sectors end up getting corrupted by malware, but soon He’ll establish His firewall and banish malware to the bottomless pit of the virtual space beyond it, forever. Then He’ll re-format the partition to restore it to the default, as it was in the beginning.)
“Cremation is alright, I guess. Why’s that a concern?”
@Old Stuff “What is wrong with cremation?”
Cremation destroys the very material body that you think is so meaningful. If running somebody over with a truck is immoral, why isn’t pushing them into a fire? You say now though, Steve, “A spirit is that which gives value.” I would say, though, that a spirit possesses value assigned by a soul—just as all meaning is assigned (e.g. the spirit of happiness is highly valued and thus pursued by the human soul), because in consequence of what you’re saying, one might conclude that the physical hardly matters, since spirits exist *among* bodies. If we say however that it is the soul and the soul is extinguished at that point, then we can understand why cremation is morally acceptable, while lighting someone’s bed on fire while they sleep (even if it IS *your* bed but someone else is sleeping on it) would be a heinous crime.
“We’ve broken down life’s tree into countless tiny steps, and found not one big change or redesign that contradicts the principle.”
We were talking about a single organism or single engineered product, not a sampling from some portion of the tree of life (wherein there are still gaps as big as those between redesigns of hardware) or some product series (in the gaps of which engineers actually come up with the effected changes one by one, and selective pressure is acting strongly: far more ideas never result in any concrete proposal, and far more proposals never make it to prototyping, and far more prototypes are ultimately rejected, than succeed). An organism is built up one cell at a time, just like a microchip is assembled one component at a time.
“So if you want to say no one really understands transistors, then to be consistent you must say we understand biochemistry far less.”
While biochemistry is indeed quite mysterious, it remains that the fundamental reactions necessary to the life of the simplest cells are better understood than silicon’s seems-like-a-metal, conducts-like-an-insulator, do-not-use-as-an-electrical-insulator nature.
“Even though an animal is so much more complicated than a machine, you can vary its structural measurements quite a bit before it stops working.”
If only human engineers could be so ingenious.
“Evolution, taken seriously, precludes the influence of an intelligent designer at any point in life’s affairs.”
Tell that to animal breeders.
“We shouldn’t worry about them as a basis for morality because they suck. We can figure out morality without any understanding of them, and that’s a good thing.”
Agreed.
Sorry that I'm so slow in responding to the matter of love being inseparable from reason. (I was preparing for a month-long trip overseas and am now writing this halfway around the world from where I was for my last comment.) Even now I know I'm not really ready to answer this as well as I would like.
First, let's be clear: true love is utterly irrational at its core; it is such a thing as is not subject to reason. For love all reason be forsaken. One can go halfway 'round the world to God-only-knows what awaits, where he know nobody and speak not a word of the native language, for love. And for true love you'll be not disappointed. One can forget the norms of society and follow her heart to discover truth and love divine, even if it be taboo. Taboos are based on labels; labels are tools for reasoning; so call it what you will, in a spirit of love and truth (which compliment one another), and so shall it be; the fate, the consequence, shall no more be of concern to us then.
Love and truth, as love and reason or reason and truth, are inseparable. It may be easier, simpler, more polite, but not more loving, to tell a lie instead of truth. To redefine, however, the terms, the word, of a self-consistent description of the real truth is another matter however, because those meanings are arbitrary and the truth that the human word describes is often not the loving truth that it ought to be.
Ignorance in the minds of men has given rise to every kind of evil. There were hurricanes, earthquakes, and mass-extinctions before there was man, but they were not evil forces in nature or epic catastrophes; rather they, along with all the rest which came to pass before us, contributed to the beneficent world laid out before us today. Yet unlike evil, the good existed since the beginning. Things we find to be natural goods—iron ore, oil, lumber, etc.—sat there, as good as new and as good as now, awaiting present exploitation. The good was there; the evil wasn't: the things you might call evil today were forces that did no one any harm but were a natural part of the logic that formed the goods of creation, even as stellar nuclear events that could fry all mankind in an instant were involved!
Man has brought real evil into the world, in arrogance and ignorance, projecting a spirit of evil in much that he has done and continues to do (ultimately out of fear of that which he cannot overcome that might be hidden in that which he cannot know). Yet to men's fallen reason, love can serve as a counterbalance, and so it is that sometimes we have to remain silent on something–to hide & cover up the truth in essence–for the sake of kindness and common decency; sometimes, the truth we find is not what truth should be, and there are times then when its appropriate to–um–reinterpret it; for many facts are indeed relative, *but* that relativity is a matter of perspective and not a property of the absolute unchanging truth that is its source. And truth can never contradict itself—indeed by this is it recognized, whilst lies and evils may stand opposed to one another.
So here we see a view of the purpose of love, and in this, its inherent link to reason. But that is not all and not even the approach I was taking initially, which approaches this connection by digging at the core of reason rather than love.
You see, love is realized not just when you feel it, but when you understand it. If you really love someone, it shows in loving acts of kindness, mercy, grace, and compassion, guided by reasonable expectations of how you might help someone, reasonable judgment of what would be to their benefit, out of the free volition of the heart.
And here we catch a glimpse of the reason for reason: ultimately, reason's reason is nothing, save love! Certainly reason serves a function in life, namely life's preservation, but what is the emotive power motivating us towards this at all anyway? What is that life-giving spirit, distinguishing the human being from the robotic machine? What ultimately moves a man—for what is he is living, and willingly dying if he must, assuming he is sane, whatever that means? It is love, and without it one is nothing, spiritually speaking. And yes, love is inseparable also from life as we know it. (Since many may give zero credence to books of the Bible, or to other scriptures, I'll just cite myself instead for support at this point: http://johnshore.com/2010/05/04/ten-ways-christia…
So what is love, objectively speaking? And what is reason really? These are not things physical, material; these are not things temporal. They are distinguishable, but only in their mutual presence–existence–reality–from which and in which they are, and inseparably so. (And in material form, they are indistinguishable even, both yielding the null set.)
Both are with truth; both *are* truth; and by their presence in the flesh—that is: incarnation—they convey it to our soul, if we are willing to listen in our heart and in our mind to the word born on their spirit.
@Matthew Tweedell
MT said:
Did you not read his other quotes? These were interjected to demonstrate the confusion that metaphors cause when portions of an audience take them literally. If we continue to use 'religion' in such varied and disparate ways, then the term means nothing and there is no point in discussing it.
MT said:
I haven't followed the whole back-and-forth but, for my part, the material body after death is merely a bag of water and carbon. Divorced from its ability to suffer (or aspire or love or perceive the world). I don't see how burying that body is any different than burning it…except that burning is cheaper and consumes less real estate.
"I haven’t followed the whole back-and-forth but, for my part, the material body after death is merely a bag of water and carbon. Divorced from its ability to suffer (or aspire or love or perceive the world). I don’t see how burying that body is any different than burning it…except that burning is cheaper and consumes less real estate." I agree with you on this, Old Stuff.
Re:
“I, at any rate, am convinced that [God] does not throw dice”
Albert Einstein in a Letter to Max Born (4 December 1926)
When I think of Albert E, I think more in terms of this statement:
I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)
“As I spend so much of my efforts simply telling others of what I know and facing opposition from a frustrating lack of mental clarity and reflection.”
Matthew, are you suggesting that those like John B who are countering you are suffering from a lack of mental clarity and reflection? That’s an awfully bold statement about someone you are conversing with on the Internets.
You and i have a very different point of view of those with whom we are interacting. I’d suggestion dropping any notion that you can conclude anyone’s “mental clarity”. That assumption is both needlessly personal and frankly, pretty offensive. You are dealing with some here who’ are obviously well read and educated, much like you.
Being well-read and educated—that is, knowing things—is not the same as having mental clarity—that is, seeing things (in the mind's eye) as they truly are.
And John B is clearly rather reflective. I remain convinced that some day he'll see the light.
Matthew, are you just high today? You can’t actually be this arrogant.
Nope. Haven't even had any caffeine today. As I said, I just don't really care anymore. I'm sick of defending myself, by myself, when there is no reason I should have too. So now I'm playing offense. I don't really understand what is arrogant about it. I don't claim to better than I am or to have any special ability—I didn't claim any certain knowledge of the mind of any particular person I interact with, except to say things such as that John B is reflective, which I don't really think it takes any special abilities to recognize—but why should I think myself—indeed even pretend to be—any less than I am either? I'm tired of it. I am who I am; deal. ‘Cause I’ll respect others for who they are, just as long as—usually longer, even, than—they do the same for me (unless I make a mistake).
I was going to completely bow out, but thought I would poke my head back in and say something.
Matthew, thank you for saying you think I reflect on things. I appreciate that. I had not intended to sound condescending. I am sorry it came across that way; I put quite a bit of effort into not coming across that way. I have a difficult time reading you, and think this may be the root of the problem.
We all get something different out of discussion forums. Some people must win a debate. Some people must get understand that their point has been understood. Some people enjoy watching how the conversation takes shape. Some people are looking for wisdom from others who have more experience. I'm sure there are a few more…
When two people "need to be understood" (and Matthew, I think that describes both of us), it makes for a challenging discussion when they have a hard time reading each other, or have a few preconceived notions about what the other means.
Thank you, John B. I didn't think of it that way before, but I think you're right that I feel a need to be understood, having gotten fed-up with all the apparent insanity in the world, and sensing some sort of purpose in combating it with vicious clarity while not losing sight of the fact that the goal of this, ultimately, would be that more love be known in this world. Of course, I myself have argued consistently against the ends justifying the means. Perhaps I'm changing my disposition in that regard.
But I'll not allow you to bow out until I first bow to you, sir
.
Anyway, I'm always open to discussing whatever issues where we might improve our mutual understanding, and once understanding is reached, I'm always content to respectfully agree to disagree. We just have to bear in mind that to improve our understanding of one another, we'll each end up playing devil's advocate to the other, and we both need to bear in mind not to take that too seriously. On a related not, I'll try avoiding sarcasm. It's usually not my style anyway, but I got sick from hearing it from so many others—it's contagious like that.
Maybe I should disable the comment "nesting" function, and go back to the old way, where people indicate to whom they mean to direct their comments by beginning those comments with, say, "@Matthew #25," or whatever: "#25" being the number assigned to each comment. Cuz I just tried to figure out who was saying what to whom here, and have no idea what's going on. All I know for sure is that young Mr. Tweedell seems to have gotten himself into a hole by taking on, at once, two of the best commenters this blog's known. I don't envy him.
I know. I don't think I ever addressed the title question of this post, so I'll tell you right now: the fool is me!
(At least it doesn't seem as confusing as the stuff below where comments that were initially nested came apart and got jumbled out of order somehow.)
I like the nesting function…when it works.
It can only nest 10 comments at a time. That's its limit. After that they just go down to the bottom of the chain.
That's a problem then. Nesting is so much easier than copying and pasting quotes.
Our morality being an abstract ideal isn't surprise to us at all. Well, I haven't asked all the atheists. But it's not a surprise to me. I understand, to my own satisfaction, the logic of morality: what makes it a better approach to life than immorality.
God is not an abstract ideal. He is a creator with thoughts and feelings. All the evidence tells me there is no such creator. Not even a super subtle whisper-on-the-wind style creator. The complexity life does not leave open the possibility of a thinking, caring, designer. It directly contradicts that possibility. That's not just mysterious ways at work. If there is any intent, it is to make it look like there's no intent. He's trying so hard to trick us out of believing in Him that the most obedient thing we could do is fall for it.
This evidence I refer to is from biology, history, and daily life. Cosmology, as it happens, is totally neutral on the issue.
I understand, to my satisfaction, why most people don't see the logic of morality, and do see the appeal of a planner. There was an evolutionary advantage to the latter. Not just an advantage, but an arms race. It was crazy. But there was no advantage to seeing the logic behind complex systems. That's why it took us so long to figure out evolution. And we're still waiting on a decent moral zeitgeist.
So to summarize, yeah, I'm all about abstract ideals, and totally think they leave the law-giver theory in the dust.
I don't think Christians are idiots, and now I probably should speak for most atheists. We don't think you're idiots. We think you don't understand the full implications of evolution, and that just means you're regular people.
Hi Steve.
Thank you for this respectful and intelligent comment!
I'm a Christian — or so I'd like to think — and I do understand the implications of evolutionary theory, probably as well as you. (Actually, if you see above, I was even correcting someone's interpretation of evolution on this very page.)
When you think abstract ideals "leave the law-giver theory in the dust," I can't understand this. What are abstract universal ideals if not universal laws? If the universe is governed by certain laws, those laws come from somewhere. Actually, they come from themselves, but that's beside the point—we can equally say they come from the universal Source, the Big Bang—and we could also say they come from the action of man in discovering/formulating them. Oh, but you need the law-giver to have thoughts and feelings. Tell me then: what is a thought? As for feelings, where is the spirit of love?
Speaking of spirit, what is this "decent moral zeitgeist [sic]" whose coming we await? Will not the ideal Zeitgeist be the Heiliger Geist? What is the moral "ideal" (where by saying "ideal" instead of "idea" you've implied some sort of absolute about which our own individual ideas may be variously right or wrong at times)?
By the way, *you*–your very person is an abstract idea! (And guess what the corresponding ideal is?)
How on earth do you come to the conclusion that the complexity of life contradicts the possibility of a thinking, caring, designer? Is not relative complexity the very distinguishing aspect of design? And if He's really trying so hard to trick us out of believing in Him, how would every, *every* society among men develop some concept of spirit?
It's really only possible to deny God in failing to grasp what "God" is. (In fact, that God is is the highest fundamental Truth.)
@Matthew Tweedle
(By the way, It's "TweedELL" –the stress accent goes on the second part of the word like that. I'm not saying this just for you, Old Stuff; I bet no one here is pronouncing it right when they read it to themselves in their head—which I assume is the reason for the mispelling; it's a common mistake I encounter. (The name transcribes that by which some illiterate farmer in the dell, along the river Tweed, in Scotland, described himself.))
You are right. The image on my retinas showed Tweedell, but my brain read Tweedle.
@Matthew Tweedle
Your reply is standard apologetics and it fails in the same way apologetics invariably do…building an argument on presuppositions. You are right that evolution need not deal a death knell to belief, obviously many many reasonably informed believers do accept evolution. I suppose when people realize that evolution does not describe how life started, it makes it much easier to accept the facts as science has revealed.
…but to your response….
You are, again, right that evolution would not leave the idea of the law-giver in the dust. The problem with the apologetics is the idea that there must be a law giver to begin with. Evolution, which you embrace, puts the human animal on a continuum of all life with we smart apes being leaves on one branch of a very dense bush. Somewhere late in our journey from root to our branch we developed a sense of self…being able to contemplate ourselves as objects placed in our environment. Also along that journey, life began to associate actions with an actor (that rustling in the grass might be predator!)
[Long story a little shorter] Evolution imbued humanity with many characteristics that define us. Inquisitiveness wants to know things. Knowing things is feels good…that is documented (see book "On Being Certain") Combined with our proclivity to attach actors to events and wanting to know 'why' makes it seemingly inescapable that we will invent agents to explain why the sun moves, and why the tree fell on your oxen, and why we behave morally. The problem is that there does not NEED to be a why…we just want to know why. When we can't explain it, we come up with the strange and mysterious ways of our preferred deity.
The complexity of life does NOT negate the possibility of a thinking, caring designer. You are, again, right. But starting with the presupposition that there IS a thinking, caring designer is a failure*. Thinking that there there must be a 'why' for everything is a failure. Given that the universe looks just like there were not god involved should have us start with the presumption that there is NOT a god.
*It seems odd that a thinking, caring designer would have us flounder and suffer horribly for the 100,000-200,000 years of humanity's existence before deciding to make his presence know. Doesn't it?
It seems that the vast majority of mankind—throughout history, not just after we’d (as you apparently presume) “flounder and suffer horribly for the 100,000-200,000 years of humanity’s existence before”—would seriously disagree with *your* presumption “that the universe looks just like there were not god involved”!
Do not say that *I* am the apologist here. I’m only too well aware of the problem with that! Just a few days ago, I had the following exchange as part of a discussion on a Facebook status thread with a Christian friend of mine:
. . .
FRIEND: We all have a worldview. My group called YAMS (Young Adult Ministries) is teaching from the book ‘THe Battle for Truth.’ It is enlightening and is dealing mainly with apologetics. Covers the 10 main parts of the worldview which are THeology, philosophy, biology, law, ethics, history, politics, sociology, psychology, and economics. God is in all of them. I recommend reading it.
ME: Thanks, [FRIEND]. Perhaps I’ll get around to reading it sometime, but I’m not a big fan of apologetics, since it’s more concerned with coming up with an explanation for what is already assumed true than it is with following the explanations of things wherever they may lead to discover what is, in fact, true. I’m for seeking first the Kingdom of God—then all the legitimate arguments and whatnot will naturally come to you. Yes, God is in all those things you mentioned, but it is not necessary that one use the word “God” to find and express truths in each of those fields. And theological and philosophical truth are not so readily separable from the truths of each of those other subjects.
Anyway, I think I’ve somewhat resolved the issue here: the True Way is One; paths heading that Way are many. There are many things I could choose to do in any given moment that would allow me to increase in righteousness and to move closer to God (from Whom I would still remain infinitely distant even then)! Of course, there are still those heading the wrong way, or just standing in *our* way going nowhere at all, no matter what path they might claim be on. There are many little mountains that lead people astray; yet the Most High is One, wherefrom the True Light emanates omnidirectionally!
FRIEND: Apologetics uses reason to defend ones own faith, and your reasoning is very good. I thought I was talking to an apologist for quite some time. Isaiah 1:18 does say “Come now let us reason together.” God gave us this brain to accept His gift and to know Him fully.
WHat do you mean by “path?”
ME: True faith is such that reasoning doesn’t demonstrate—such as the relationship of reason itself to ultimate truth, or that the laws of the universe will be the same tomorrow as they are today, or that the reason for reason is love. These things I accept, not without evidence, but nevertheless without a real solid reason. I just trust it, believe in it, & have faith. Reason cannot show me to be wrong here; yet it cannot prove me right either; as far as reason allows, I could be a brain in a vat hooked up to a sophisticated computer that creates a simulation that I call reality, in which you don’t really exist. But I can’t believe it (even if it’s true). I just cut out such things with Occam’s razor and call the mystery left behind “God”. If God gave us the mind to know Him fully, He would have had to give us far greater minds! The Father is unseen; ultimate Truth is unfathomable. As we approach the Lord, no matter how far we go, we remain immeasurably far away from His infinite fullness. But we can know the Son—we can know the Way—and through this do we know God in certain regards. Though we know Him, we fail to directly emulate Him. We know the Way, but the path we take is bound to wander, for a lifetime in the wilderness before reaching the Promised Land. Now what about reason? The Way unto Truth is perfect Creative Reason, in the Mind of God from the beginning—this is the Light of men, and this is what is revealed to us of the Source of all creation, whether we accept it or not. If we do, we are compelled to move towards our guiding Light in the Heavens (though it is immeasurably distant) (this we do out of love for the Light better than fear of the darkness), westward leading—that is, towards the end of the day—the end of the age—that is the Way we should go if we want to be a part of the progressive march of truth, so that our spirit should not perish. Yet we are so prone to wander, and things will even stand in our way, so we fail to follow the straight and narrow. Thus the paths that we take could be many. I understand the “path” as the pattern of choices we make, for which there are many ways to describe the way one’s path is going—a way that can be described is not the true Way, for that is the ineffable Word of the Lord. Now, the Bible uses “way of righteousness” in singular (such as Proverbs 8:20), but “paths of righteousness” in plural (such as Psalm 23:3), implying multiple paths can be headed the same Way. This is not an apology of a presumptive faith, but rather my description of the Way that brought me to this belief, as I’ve wandered about seeking the Kingdom. Of course I understand how in practice this is no different from apologetics; my point is my concern over the motivation of most apologetic efforts—a motivation that appears itself to be backpedalling from the Way to the Kingdom. I’ve wasted too much time in this life already listening to unenlightened defense for the Deluge; our nation wastes too much time on the pseudoscientific mathematical hocus-pocus of intelligent design “theory”; etc.
———
Now, Old Stuff, the way you describe “our proclivity to attach actors to events” sounds to me like the interpretation of the superstitious. This has no bearing on Truth.
In seeking Truth, with what “presumption” shall we to begin? That Truth is? In what sense do I, in so doing, presume “the idea that there must be a law giver [sic] to begin with”? Did I not *clearly* state regarding the laws, “Actually, they come from themselves, but that’s beside the point—we can equally say they come from the universal Source, the Big Bang—and we could also say they come from the action of man in discovering/formulating them”?
@Matthew Tweedell
The 100,000-200,000 years is the estimate for the existence of biologically/ physiologically modern humans. Since we are speaking of Christianity and biblical teachings which demands that we believe humanity be separate from the rest of the natural world, I use that number. Clearly; the naturalistic (evidence-based) view shows us that there has been suffering since life developed the capacity to feel pain…possibly billions of years.
When I say that the universe looks as though there were no god (or gods) involved; I merely say that, post-big-bang, we can readily describe how how matter coalesced to form galaxies planets, moons and all the rest through naturalistic processes. Certainly there there are unknowns and nobody can claim knowledge of anything prior to the big bang. Some argue that the "tuning" (loaded term) of the universal constants is evidence of a creator…but they are objectively wrong. True; if constant 'a' were changed by a small amount, the universe would be radically different. They fail to recognize that (for instance) if constant 'a' goes up a tiny bit, but constant 'b' goes down a tiny bit, then all would be hunky dory. There is nothing observable in our universe that does not fit into the framework of how matter naturally interacts with other matter.
Certainly there are unknowns (What is 'Dark Matter'?, What happened prior to the Big Bang?, How did life begin?)…but it is patently wrong to insert a deity (in the absence of evidence for that deity) in an attempt to convince ourselves that we actually know the answer. I would rather not know that to believe wrongly.
As far as attaching actors to events…that is pretty well documented in humans (dunno about other higher species). You are, yet again, right in that in that such behavior is a core characteristic of superstitious thought. Attaching actors to events in the absence of evidence would readily be argued to be superstitious. I shan't ask the obvious question then….
On 'Truth' vs. 'truth'. Using the term with a capital 'T' makes my cuticles curl up. For the sake of decorum, I won't address it.
"The 100,000-200,000 years is the estimate for the existence of biologically/ physiologically modern humans."
Umm… duh. That's why I incorporated it in my consideration of all of human history. Perhaps I don't see what you’re getting at about it.
"…if constant ‘a’ goes up a tiny bit, but constant ‘b’ goes down a tiny bit, then all would be hunky dory."
That's… disingenuous at best.
"There is nothing observable in our universe that does not fit into the framework of how matter naturally interacts with other matter."
Not so. We really have no consistent framework of how matter interacts with other matter… much less could we calculate the exact observational expectations even if we could. It's not a matter of mere human limitation; it's built in to the very laws of the universe. You CANNOT understand how matter naturally interacts with other matter. Indeed we hardly understand what we ourselves define as causation: whether it's necessarily local is debatable.
"What happened prior to the Big Bang?"
What an incoherent question! You really don't understand what you're talking about, do you?
"I would rather not know that to believe wrongly."
Umm… yeah, me too… did you read what I wrote? I thought that was perfectly clear. What do you think I mean that "I can’t believe it (even if it’s true)"?
What do you think I meant about Occam's razor? What do you think is the name for the great Mystery?
Now, you’re just building straw-man arguments against some god-of-the-gaps. Such has never been, nor ever would be, the One True God, and just because someone uneducated in theology may believe in it, that doesn't mean it's what my religious beliefs profess.
Y'know…I may have been responding to a compilation of comments that I saw fly through my inbox…so let's assume that totally misread anything you said. I also don't want to get too far afield from Mr. Shores question of whether the atheist or the believer is more foolish than the other.
Re: the universal constants….
How is that disingenuous? It's a logical error to say that there is only one set of values could result in a 'viable' universe. It has been shown that tweaking multiple constants could also result in some passable version of a universe. (of course we are biased in wanting to create a universe that might be 'hospitable' to beings like us). The universal constant argument fails to demonstrate a higher intelligence.
Re: god-of-the-gaps (GOTG)…
Well…it seems that the GOTG is what most people believe in. When I have one-on-one conversations with church-attending friends; it usually ends up that they are deists of the some-higher-power variety. They learn stuff like the age of the earth, statistics, biology and they just discard the religious stuff that is in conflict with demonstrated fact. What is this but the GOTG? You seem to think the GOTG is a pitiable position. You claim allegiance to science and evidence. Yet you bandy the term One True God about like you have some knowledge of that god like there is some evidence for that god…when there is not. It is classic GOTG thinking and, as near as I can tell, certainly not Christian. (and it drives me crazy that so many call themselves Christian when they only hold the moniker out of societal convenience)
Re: understanding of matter…
You are correct that, at some levels we don't understand matter. But at the macroscopic level, we very well understand how the universe coalesced.
Re: what happened before the big bang….
How is that question incoherent? We know that about 13.7 billion years ago the energy and matter that we recognize as our universe was strewn from some cataclysmic event. Nobody knows (though many claim to 'Know') what preceded that event. Was there nothing? Was there another collapsed universe? Was some great intelligence opening a can of soda? Cautious reason let's us recognize that we can't know without evidence…so I dismiss out of hand any claimed knowledge if there is nothing to back it up.
So is the atheist or the Christian [theist] more foolish? Mr. Shore cites ethics/morality. The theist says that morality comes from their deity and believers and non-believers are imbued with that god-given trait…and offer no evidence for their deity. The atheist also recognizes morality and altruism as traits and looks for verifiable evidence their source. The answer seems apparent.
Re: the universal constants
A higher intelligence than what, exactly?
Re: god-of-the-gaps (GOTG)
How do you, then, define the Christian God?
Re: understanding of matter
Yet we can't even solve for a universe with but three bodies in it!
Re: what happened before the big bang
It is wholly incoherent to speak of a time before the Big Bang.
Given this understanding of things, you're absolutely right that universal constants have no relation at all to the so-called intelligence of some supposed Designer—indeed the notion of Designer itself can mean nothing but superstition unless one truly understands what is meant when we say "God is one."
"In my experience most that claim allegiance to the Christian God have converted it to a GOTG."
I know. It makes me hesitant to even call myself Christian. Seriously.
"Uhhhhh…there are other theories you know!"
I know, but we were speaking specifically of the big bang theory.
By the way, thank you very much, Old Stuff, for engaging me in this respectful and serious discussion.
The Big Bang is generally accepted as fact nowadays. There is far more to discuss and contemplate beyond the implications of the Big Bang. Yes…time might have existed prior to the Big Bang.
Time might have existed prior to universe as we know it, but that's not big bang theory in the standard cosmological model, which implies a singularity in which lay the origin of time, as well as all space and all energy (which went through a series of phase transitions to eventually give rise to the particle physics that we know today).
Humans. The universal constants argument fails to support even a deistic god and doesn’t even ATTEMPT to support any theistic deity.
Which version the the Christian God? In my experience most that claim allegiance to the Christian God have converted it to a GOTG.
Uhhhhh…there are other theories you know!
By the way, Old Stuff, did you catch Steve's (below) elaboration of the true nature of the higher intelligence in our universe, as he says, for instance, "[w]hen you take apart a life form, you see engineering of a sort beyond all human ability"?
Looking at the discussion in regards to my example of a digital watch compared to a primitive life-form, it's as if I were one to claim the products of collaborative human intelligence able to surpass the work of whatever creative power is ascribed nature!
I'm sorry I was a bit dismissive of your different understanding regarding the big bang. This just isn't the first time I've dealt with this issue coming from atheists on this very blog, and I thought I'd done a fair job of laying the matter to rest the first time, and so I was lazy this time around (see http://johnshore.com/2008/01/30/what-non-christia… and following comments, in regards to the preceding comments).
Since Mr. Shore's is a blog primarily about religion, and not physics, when someone wants to bring in physics—whether in support of a prime mover, or in an attempt to divorce the logic of Physics from the physis of Logos—I want them to have their facts straight (and unambiguous); otherwise the discourse ends up veering widely off topic, as has happened on a few other occasions. (And while I personally wouldn't mind too much having cosmology lessons here, I'm not so sure everyone else (or John Shore, for that matter, who's been kind enough not to kick both our butts outta his virtual house) is up for it.)
Your dissertation on what the facts are does not equal "the facts" in any conclusive way. They are simply what you believe to be factual evidence.
This general topic is vigorously debated by those who are actually published scientists, the knowledge we have at our disposal continues to evolve. Given that, the suggestion that anyone that's presenting a counter is being ambiguous or that your previous comments laid anything "to rest" is a continued example of the arrogance many today have tried to bring to your attention. It seems to be falling on deaf ears. So time to put helping you see that to rest.
“Anyone that’s presenting a counter” what, DR?
It is NOT about what I “believe” to be factual evidence. There are scientific norms. You consider the definition of standard terms to be belief regarding factual evidence of what? Is it what *I* happen to believe books/dictionaries/glossaries to be saying, while you feel free to interpret them with no particular correlation to physical realities?
There is one standard cosmological model.
It contains one concept—far from fully worked out, but unified in principle—that's called the Big Bang.
Variation upon the standard is quite usual and to be expected–what we have is a working model, not some sort of scientific “fact”, DR—refinement of the ideas is not only admitted but indeed much needed, and it is generally understood that, in so doing, an entirely different model might eventually be accepted.
However, as with any working model, variation upon the terminology employed and standard within this field is normatively qualified with an indication of the alternative of extension invoked. That normative convention be followed is generally considered important in any rigorous scientific discourse, though the social sciences have indeed been getting rather lax about that do to their liberalism. But as natural scientists are rarely post-modernist and attempt to make highly precise and concrete descriptions and predictions, calling left and right by different names is no trifling matter to them; sure, they admit of relativity, but that involves reconfiguring the entire reference frame, which cannot be coherently accomplished without certain qualification of the elements that are thereby changed.
I'm sorry, but who would do you suggest as a better qualified authority by whom to settle such a matter of convention than Stephen Hawking? If it were in the Bible, you might be able claim trump, but it's not. It came together rather well, I though, as Mr. Vidager asserted that *no* scientist says that, and I was able to quote a man widely considered the preeminent cosmologist theoretical physicist of our time as saying exactly that. Now, if I claimed that *my* saying it was somehow definitive, *that* would be arrogant. But when I defer to Stephen Hawking, how is it arrogant, DR?
Why do you draw me away from legitimate discourse on issues wherein there is a difference of understanding bearing actually weight—that actually has real substance to debate—that actually might serve a purpose—to defend myself, yet again, against your vanities where there’s no basis for challenging me?
"Why do you draw me away from legitimate discourse on issues…"
I'm not drawing you away from a thing. You are *choosing* to be in this conversation by entering the text and clicking. You're not a victim here Matthew, you're making your own choices. If you feel like it's not legitimate discourse, then unsubscribe from my particular newsletter.
As for me, I'm weary of the victimized posture you take and the aggressive lack of awareness of the arrogance you've displayed despite so many peoples' input. It's frustrating, but mostly it's just sad.
Now I'll allow you the last word in all of this. I sense you might need it more than I do. Later gator.
Your correction wasn't right. Nature can only select for genes that cause altruistic behavior toward close kin, not the whole species. It doesn't matter how similar the species's genes are overall. An individual with a gene for altruistic behavior toward the species would have no way of telling whether that specific gene is in the fellow it's being altruistic toward. An individual can, however, 'know' the odds of its genes being in its close kin. These odds fade rapidly as you move further from its nuclear family. Apparent species-wide altruism only happens when the individual gets something out of the deal. Or it happens by accident.
By leaving the law-fiver theory in the dust, I meant to say it's the worse theory. (That "f" was a typo, but I'm leaving it in because it's awesome.) The abstract ideal theory goes so much further in explaining things. An abstract ideal is simply the best method of a achieving a goal, in this case happiness for all. My point is that these ideals reduce to circumstances and logic. There is no mystery that requires a thinking creator.
I'm not sure what you mean by, "Oh, but you need the law-fiver to have thoughts and feelings." That is how I'm characterizing God, specifically the characteristics of the God theory I think are wrong. But I'm not sure what you're asking of me.
I might not be able to precicely define a thought or a feeling in words, but I don't think I have to. We know what they are from experience. And most of us expect the creator of the universe to have thoughts and feelings somewhat like them. Wrong, I say.
As for the location of the spirit of love, I know even less what you're asking. Love is a feeling, possibly the best one. What about it requires additional explanation?
By saying we don't have a decent moral Zeitgeist, [sic it] I mean we haven't quite discovered a good moral ideal yet. Or at least we haven't popularized it yet. We're just bad at moral reasoning. We're on the right track with the recent trend toward life and liberty, but we have a long way to go. Personally, I'm putting my faith in the Ad Council.
I don't want to call the ideal Zeitgeist the Holy Spirit because that's disingenuous. I'm all for combining secular ideas with Christian ones to make a cool new synthesis, but such a thing must be done with a clear method and purpose in mind. I think conflating a Zeitgeist with the Christian God would have no such clairty. All it does is sticks ideas together to make people stop arguing. That's a worhty goal, but the means are dishonest. You could conflate them with no problem because you believe in God, but I don't so I shouldn't.
I give up. How am I an abstract idea? What's my ideal?
Relative complexity is the mark of an unguided process, not design. Take a computer. Or a car. If you take them apart, they are pretty complex. But relative to the tasks they perform, they are amazingly simple and organized. Simplicity is the spirit of engineering. Not so with life forms. This difference is so weird, so subtle, so counterintuitive, that it took naturalism thousands of years to figure out natural selection when the evidence was there all along.
Back in the day, creationism was the best explanation for the complexity of life. It was the only game in town. When you take apart a life form, you see engineering of a sort beyond all human ability. Some superhuman engineer was the reasonable theory. But that theory has a weakness. Life forms are littered with little mistakes. Most of their parts are randomly shaped and juxtaposed with no sense of organization or planning. And parts are zealously reused by related species for no apparent reason. You could explain these mistakes by saying the creator had some unfathomable subtle purpose for them, and they aren't really mistakes. Good enough. The Guy is infinitely wise. You can excuse Him being unfathomable.
But evolution was the better explanation. It is fathomable. It is a much more accurate guide for understanding and predicting the machinery of life, mistakes and all. It is like a truly alien intelligence, vastly superior to us in some ways, and vastly dumber in others.
It's true that every society and most people believe in spirit, or as I prefer to say, dualism. That's why I say He's trying really hard to trick us, not just a little hard. The more educated people get, the less likely they are to believe. There's even a bug in our mental software that explains why we see planning behind random events. Evolution favors solidarity, but not reason or truth. So He makes it look like we believe wrongly. There are layers upon layers to this trick, and that's why I say it's an elaborate trick indeed. But that's facetious. I'm really saying He doesn't exist.
You say I fail to grasp Him but I say I fail to conflate Him. I deflate Him.
Oh, crap, I spelled "precisely" wrong. I'monna get [sic]ed.
I am merely saying that, since altruism is in us innately, we large-brained animals can look back in a comparatively objective manner and recognize how we create/perceive in-groups. We can then consciously expand those boundaries between in-group and out-group and move beyond our instinctive boundaries.
My correction wasn’t right? Umm… sure, we have some sort of mystical *genetic* ability to just *know* how closely related to us someone is. Not! But we do have an instinctive ability to know who is of our own sort (useful for social instinct, not to mention for sexual reproduction, where it’s usually helpful to do it with members of one’s own species). Selective pressure nevertheless favors exploiting this because the *effect* would typically be—in small social groups, like those found among most social mammals (including primates), and even in modern life considering whom we spend most of our time around in life—to engender altruism that benefits our close genetic relations and our progeny. As I said, “So genes that would favor your willingness to sacrifice your life so that those near and dear to you might live are quite likely to survive…” And genes that do this on the basis of species identification or—more precisely since it’s accomplished through emotional triggers—group identification—where as Old Stuff rightly points out we could rightly expand the group concept to include the whole human race—would be among such genes. Now this explains how such genes might originate. After that, if one in which they occur is among the founder population of a distinct genetic lineage that leads to the modern human species, the human species is so close genetically speaking today so as to favor their continued presence; the species would likely have died out some 50-100 thousand years ago without them. Now you just don’t want to admit to yourself that, genetically speaking, our whole species is as the closest kin, you objectivist object! Yet you presume to give me lessons in evolutionary biology.
I’ve done considerable work with engineering (electrical, to be precise), and while the ideal may be to be simple, efficient, and organized, engineers are not ideal. They often come up with rather more complicated ways than necessary to solve a problem. They are often more than a little unorganized (as far as things appear to the outside observer, though in their own minds their world is actually highly in order). And the very best machinery and computer electronics cannot even come close to the efficiency of the results of natural selection! Now, what may appear relatively simple to you because it is clearly divisible into parts is not at all so simple when you consider how each of the parts is also made—according to precise specifications—of various parts of its own. And no one really understands how the whole thing works. Different people understand and create at different levels and different specializations within them and somehow—boom—you can type a document and print it. No one knows how it all works! It’s too complicated to know in every aspect thereof. Even with a typical digital watch—I can tell you—no one conceives the entirety of how the chemical reaction in the watch-battery happens to result in the regularly changing image on the watch-face. In a way, it’s much simpler to understand the chemistry and life-cycle of a primitive life-form.
Now look, if love is nothing more than a feeling you get once in a while, then you just aren’t human. Not only have you no idea what it is to love with a love that’s true, you’re just an animal, no person at all. No wonder you don’t see how you’re an abstract idea—there’s no distinguishing feature in you from your lifeless body; you’re no different from a robot. In this case, I have absolutely no reason to treat you any different. I have no reason to explain or teach anything to you. I have no reason to have any patience with your idiocy, nor any obligation—or ability even—to love you as my neighbor, since it’s not true love that has not a spiritual entity as its object and as for this “feeling”, I ain’t feelin’ it. In fact, if you were here right now, I should have ever right to tear you to pieces like the annoying bug that you are. You’re a soulless subhuman creature with no understanding and no useful purpose, and when you *really* don’t understand what you’re talking about but insist I’m wrong in everything, I see no point in wasting more time addressing all of those foolish objections, as there are better things for me to do than hold evolutionary biology lectures and engineering labs (and I certainly can’t teach a tadpole to love). With you so focused on these and the other complex things I won’t waste time on, you blind yourself to the most simple thing: God! Go bury your head in the sand, you *disgraceful* excuse for a human body. Why do you even bother existing, Steve?
Well… despite my rationalizations, the Holy Spirit is telling me now that you ARE a person, and that He loves you, and that if I end this with the implication that you might as well rid the world of yourself, I would be committing a serious sin.
So… umm… God loves you, whatever you are, and the whole point of God’s Word was to teach you to love—the rest is the explanation—so go and study.
By the way, I almost never get this mystical, but I feel the Lord impressing upon me that He has a very special message for you—I have no clue what He’s referring to, so don’t ask me: “keep in touch.”
"They often come up with rather more complicated ways than necessary to solve a problem. "
From an observer's perspective Matthew, this Is what I often think after reading these kinds of comments. I offer that constructively, I hope you take that in the spirit in which it's intended.
P.s. We are awfully hard on the Atheists who are rude and/or disrespectful. Consider that you saying things like "duh" are equally offensive. In other words, perhaps we should all step away from the computer if we are beginning to mimic the behavior that John has called out as being disrespectful, please don't put him in the position of having to remind you of that. I offer the same thing to myself, im not just calling you out (honestly). No point is worth making, nor argument is worth winning no truth worth defending if you are doing it in a disparaging way. Like it or not, we really do represent Christ here.
Excellent point, DR! I'm just getting very tired of people insulting my intelligence. I don't understand how people find it within themselves to "correct" me–often rather rudely—although I must say Old Stuff's been pretty polite–when they themselves are in the wrong! They put me in the position of playing devil's advocate, and in that case, I will no longer represent Christ, but rather Satan! I know what I know; I am who I am; if that makes me god, then call me a Satanist. I really don't care anymore. If people want to love, then I'll love with the love of Christ. But if people want to burn in effigy, then let's burn, baby! Yes, I know, my spirit has been steadily descending (though, at first, there was, in fact, a very specific and special method to the madness). Yes, retaliation/retribution is antithetical to Christ, but I guess the demons need exercised.
hmm. Odd, only because I see you doing a lot of correcting as well, so that's confusing. But maybe you're like me, despising being treated in ways we often (unconsciously) treat others? Maybe, I don't know you so it's only a speculation.
It takes a crook to catch a crook – I can certainly Joan of Arc my way through this thread calling out everyone's bad behavior while being sarcastic myself (I was to you, and I'm sorry). But for me, if you or any of us are going to actually posture ourselves as "teachers" of what faith means, Scripture (1 Timothy) says we're held to a higher standard of conduct. There's no question that these conversations communicate a lot more than an actual point. I think people really do come here seeing if there's something different. And perhaps my expectations are unrealistic of us. Or perhaps I'm wrong. But I sense that people are drawn to this site expecting (and hoping) for a different kind of approach from Christians. We've spent a lot of time as a Body of people trying to tell everyone how right we are, how we're "the one true way". There are a lot of people who disagree and would like an opportunity to aggressively counter that. To be corrected may in fact, be the very best thing we could be open to experiencing.
I have no problem with correction. I wrote "to 'correct' me" with quotation marks, and I specified "when they themselves are in the wrong!" But where you give legitimate rebuke, I say "Excellent point!"
I would not to dare to posture myself as a teacher for the deaf and dumb. I'm woefully unqualified. So I basically said to Steve that if he really insists on seeing things this way, I'm not going to bother trying to teach him anything.
As I spend so much of my efforts simply telling others of what I know and facing opposition from a frustrating lack of mental clarity and reflection, I so rarely get the pleasure of being shown in a new a light the things wherein my understanding is in error, though I welcome the opportunity. There would be no way I could be who I am if I were not liberally open to correction. It's almost always *self*-correction though, and frankly that gets kind of lonely.
Matthew: How much will you pay me to delete this comment? Cuz dang, dude: this statement's outrageous arrogance obliterates your right to be taken seriously.
Yay, John! You finally cut in on this arrogant action. C'mon, Matthew. Who cares if God blessed you with the ability to read the mental capacities of your fellow bloggers over the internet! It's all about building up, not tearing down, right? Jeesh, don't you have any faith in God that things will go all right for whom He chooses, when He chooses? John B. is awesome for putting up with the condenscension, that's for sure. Brother, take it easy, is all I am asking…
and yeah, so I spelled "condescension" wrong. Are you going to sqaush me like a bug, too? Just remember, God made the bugs, buddy, and they're watching you!!!
@John
How is that? I speak of my longing for the (serious) correction of others, and that is arrogant? I speak of how I do not claim, nor even wish, to teach where I cannot do so rightly, and that is arrogant?
@Amelia
John B first condescended to me. Now I'm just not as spiritual (or whatever you want to call it—if he is, as he claims, not a spiritual being then I'd have to go with "emasculated") as he is to be putting up with that sort of thing.
About bugs’ being God's creatures too, that's the point! The work of God, and the degree to which His image reflected therein, is the basis for dignity, respect and God-given rights, and not some work of the flesh or sons of the evil one.
I didn't mean to imply that I could read anyone’s mental *capacity*. I spoke of mental *clarity*, which can vary widely within a single individual from topic to topic, and I never claimed to be able to measure it.
But Matthew, as a Christian, don't you think you could deal with debate in a more patient, humble manner? And if you can't see that athiests deserve dignity, respect and God-given rights (because they are choosing not to acknowlege God at the moment), perhaps you need to sit down and realize that Our Heavenly Father made them, too. He loves them, too. Jesus doesn't wow us with intellectual prowess, even though he certainly could have. He loves us.
@Amelia
Jesus does wow me with His divine clarity of understanding, and He does love us, but not evil, not a facade that we build around ourselves to hide the Truth within as well as the Truth without and then dare to call it "human".
Of course they deserve dignity. But, you see, the point is that that has nothing to do with that fake BS. It has to do with reality. And if someone denies it, then it's not my fault, but I can still be kind enough to show them that they deny their own dignity. And I don't really care at this point whether you think it makes me a Christian or not—I deserve dignity too.
And thank you for having given it to me, Amelia.
@DR
Yes! Effective communication–I agree–is certainly an area where it would be good for me to improve.
I do not wish to be in the position of speaking on behalf of the Christian tent. I'm not Moses, that I should be the mouthpiece of God; for even Moses had Aaron to effectively deliver the message to its audience. Yet I know this is the position that I would seem to be in, though really I can speak only for myself, save in those rare moments when I catch some glimpse of higher glory.
You're right, it is not about me at all. So if the only solution is to step outside the tent, well, then I'm not a Christian.
Thank you, DR, for your constructive criticism and helpful input; I'll definitely need to meditate on this somewhat.
Matthew, you’re getting a lot of feedback on how people are receiving you. And BELIEVE me – I’ve been there and it’s awful.
You have an opportunity here to perhaps, be educated on how you communicate that if you’re up for receiving it, could be really valuable. At a certain point, we all need to stop making excuses for the impact we’re having and just modify our approach in order to be effective. You can choose to do that or not. But in the larger scope of things, this isn’t just about *you* and how *you* feel, and who treated *you* first. You are here speaking on behalf of a Christian tent to which we all belong. This isn’t about you.
"Now look, if love is nothing more than a feeling you get once in a while, then you just aren’t human. Not only have you no idea what it is to love with a love that’s true, you’re just an animal, no person at all."
Not a week ago, I said the same sort of thing (love is an emotion that we feel – purely biological in nature), and you said the same sort of thing to me (I am incapable of experiencing love). Were you being insincere to me when you accused me of being a monster, or when you retracted your comment?
"I have no reason to have any patience with your idiocy, nor any obligation—or ability even—to love you as my neighbor…"
As a naturalist human being, I feel an obligation, and even a desire to draw people close to me, nurture, and respect them; to love them as my neighbor.
"In fact, if you were here right now, I should have ever right to tear you to pieces like the annoying bug that you are. You’re a soulless subhuman creature with no understanding and no useful purpose"
We clearly have quite a difference sense of what it is to be moral.
John,
It appears as though you've just experienced the rather schizophrenic experience of a Christian using the word "idiocy" as it realtes to your point of view and in the same breath telling you how much God loves you, seemingly unaware of the impact.
It makes me cringe to read it. I'm sure it's not the first time you have experienced it, nor will it be the last. Nevertheless, it feels appropriate to acknowledge. Watching this exchange as a Christian has been embarrassing. If we are claiming to have faith that is rooted in love that no one else has? The first place it should show up is in our disagreements.
John: I didn't retract the comment; I explained its rhetorical significance.
DR: You are completely mischaracterizing what I said! (Also, you mischaracterize the nature of Christianity’s exclusivity.)
We all come to the table with knowledge, emotional baggage, and passion.
I've got a 36 inch deep samsonite trunk I've slowly been trying to empty with respect to the "you can't feel love" type of comments. No better way to push my buttons…
We all have our baggage. I write it off as that…
First, I'm afraid I'm going to have to steal the Samsonite joke. Second, I suppose we all get our buttons pushed, but it's the wise person who's cultivated that degree of self-awareness and can cop to it. You're a good egg.
John, I’m not talking about feeling a feeling; I’m talking about the reality behind it. As long as people continue the same brazen attack against the one thing I hold most dear—Love—I am prepared even to die for it. There is nothing else in my life that matters so much: there is nothing else worth living for; there is nothing else worth dying for.
Sometimes—I wish you could understand this, DR—standing up for whom or what you love against those who bring insolent dishonor and disgraceful insult to him or her or it is the most loving way in the world to behave.
DR—standing up for whom or what you love against those who bring insolent dishonor and disgraceful insult to him or her or it is the most loving way in the world to behave.>>>
Matthew, someone told me something I've never forgotten; victims make excellent bullies, they are two sides of the same coin that flip quite quickly. It's the person who's genuinely interested in connecting that becomes neither.
Don't forget "sometimes" — very important word in the sentence you quoted.
I think that’s a very wise saying, about victims an bullies.
And I am sick of that moral attitude, JohnB. There is no intrinsic reason to treat with different levels of respect matter that comes in a form that on some level resembles a (white male) person, and matter that comes in whatever other form. No. Rather the level of soul possessing it shall be my guide.
It's pretty easy for an animal to *know* its kin because they tend to grow up together. There is room for deception and goofs, but the system works pretty well overall. From its relationships, it can *know* how likely it is that any given gene of its own will have a copy in its kin. The animal doesn't do the math itself. Natural selection does. This is the case where an altruism gene will be able to proliferate.
We do have an instinctive ability to know who is of our own sort, but this ability would be of no use to an altruism gene. There is no way an animal can tell that *that specific gene* is in the fellow it's being altruistic toward. So nature would be unable to select for it. If a species somehow started out with such a gene, it would become less common with each generation. Maybe on some other planet where animals have the ability to sample each other's DNA, a species-altruism gene would work, but not here.
Are you sure you read The Selfish Gene? It covers this stuff, but at book-length.
Our whole species is very closely interrelated. I don't know why you'd think I don't want to admit that. I specifically said such a thing would do no harm to my argument. The significant thing about kin isn't the amount of genes they share, but their *ability to determine* the amount of genes they share. A subtle difference, but it makes all the difference for selection.
I used to believe the close "kinship" of the whole human race was an inspiring reason for solidarity, but then I read The Selfish Gene. Now I'm free of that belief, and better off. It never was a good idea to value people based on their genetic makeup.
Of course engineers fall short of the ideal. I didn't think that was necessary to mention because the difference between their products and living things is still clear. It's true that the results of natural selection are more efficient, but that's not the difference I meant. I meant that a machine contains evidence of a plan in its construction. But a life form contains evidence of a long sequence of tiny unplanned steps, and that kind of process leads to more complexity than a designed machine.
I can't believe you said a primitive life form is simpler to understand than a digital watch. I think you hedged it by saying, "In a way," but that's not going to work. It is not simpler. In any way. I don't know how to express how wrong that is.
I'm not degrading love by calling it a feeling. In fact, it seems like you're degrading feelings. What have you got against feelings?
I get that you think a material body is meaningless and a soul is meaningful. I assure you I'm totally familiar with this line of disagreement. If you want to convince me, you'd have to go into *why* a soul is meaningful. That, or come out of left field with something I never expected. Or ask me why I think a material body is meaningful. I'd go into that unsolicited, but this argument is long as crap.
And I wrote all that before I read most of the stuff about insults and respect. Well, I didn't mean any offense, and I didn't take any. I hope there's still someone willing to argue.
If want someone to argue with, I’m your man! I appreciate that you didn’t take too seriously and find offense in my comments. Neither have I taken at offence at you.
“It’s pretty easy for an animal to *know* its kin because they tend to grow up together.”
That’s bonding, the basis of group identification which, as I acknowledged, establishes the emotional basis for triggering altruistic behavior. Yet it takes place not based on an instinctive recognition of kin, but an instinctive recognition of species and formation of group cohesion among member of the same species (or occasionally across species, but not often enough in nature to discourage genes that form the basis for the formation of such bonds) living in some degree of proximity to one another.
“There is no way an animal can tell that *that specific gene* is in the fellow it’s being altruistic toward. So nature would be unable to select for it.”
This is what I see as fundamentally incorrect. It doesn’t matter whether the animal can tell; exact odds are calculated neither by the animal’s brain nor by encoding in its genes! All that matters is that it’s likely enough that that gene *would* be present in someone that would benefit from an altruistic act.
“If a species somehow started out with such a gene, it would become less common with each generation.”
I don’t understand that. When no selective pressure acts to encourage altruism, there is also no disadvantage to carrying a gene for it, so the gene frequency would remain roughly constant, unless it’s associated with other genetic features, which could be harmful or beneficial regardless. Then when self-sacrifice could in fact be of benefit—even if only altruistic behavior towards one’s own offspring—a gene that engenders altruism towards one’s entire species (one’s offspring included) would have selective advantage and its frequency ought to increase, because when offspring are in danger, who is most likely nearest them? It’s parents or siblings, who then, acting out of an instinct that motivated by the bonds formed over time with those instinctively recognized as of the same species, aid the offspring, thus quite possibly—possibly enough that is—saving an individual or two or six who carry genes to do the same.
In any case, altruism a lot more complicated thing than can be reduced to some single gene complex. There are countless variations in individual willingness for self-sacrifice and circumstances in which it would be considered worth it.
“Are you sure you read The Selfish Gene? It covers this stuff, but at book-length.”
I didn’t say that I did.
If I have, then not recently (that book is, after all, even older than I) and never in its entirety; I think I’d remember it better if I did but don’t think I’d have any particular interest in doing that actually. Still I remember much about it—I think I’ve read excerpts and summary or overview(s) at some point.
“I can’t believe you said a primitive life form is simpler to understand than a digital watch.”
Well, has its chemistry been studied–the formulas understood–or not? Yet no one really understands how a transistor works. We have nice little models, but they all fail at predicting the results of changing some parameter or another. For example we cannot explain in a way that consistently yields accurate predictions why such-n-such semiconductor conducts better at higher temperature, while another material has mysteriously magical conductance at some lower temperature. In chemistry, on the other hand, as I understand it, reaction rate and temperature have a fairly accurately calculable relationship, which can be formulated solely on the basis of the nature of the reaction. Similarly, we can conceive of the life-cycle of an organism much better than we can conceive of what all happens, and what changes occur, in a watch, from the first second it ticks until it ticks its last. There are also so many more parts in a typical digital watch than in simple life-forms as well.
“I meant that a machine contains evidence of a plan in its construction. But a life form contains evidence of a long sequence of tiny unplanned steps.”
What sort of plan is evident in a machine that one could not also identify (as people did in the beginning of the study of anatomy) in an organism? Similarly, what evidence of a long sequence of tiny unplanned steps remains in the final result that cannot be similarly identified in the products of engineering? (I think I have a feeling where this is going to go.)
In any case, I don’t really see much point in a lengthy dispute on this point. It’s not like there’s any meaningful difference in consequence of the words we associate with it; I mean, it’s not as though I’m defending intelligent design and you — evolution, or anything like this. I admit to the same material reality, and the same evolutionary theory, as just about every rationalist does.
Feelings are transient, fleeting, temporal. Humans form bonds that remain, even while we’re not presently *feeling* them. And this has an astounding affect within our capacity as reasoning beings: namely, we can decide, even when our emotional animal would rather us do exactly the opposite, even if we could totally get away with something, having no negative consequence for ourselves, or when something might even do us harm and we aren’t feeling any particular altruistic motivation at the moment, to act out of love. Surely you are aware of how emotions can overpower reason at times; similarly, at other times reason overpowers emotional instinct. True love is as present in reason as it is in emotion. The “reason” for overpowering an emotion can be (and often has been in my own life) love—not material gain, not some future reward, but simply love, for someone, not even felt at the present moment but remembered in the mind to exist, and thus accessible to faculty of reason. Of course, feelings are important too, feelings are what put it there, but true love is inseparable from reason. Pets, for example, do not *really* love us the way family does (or a good, healthy family anyway).
A soul is meaningful for that is a soul which endows meaning to the world; thus it’s the only thing to which meaning is intrinsic. But I am open to hearing your explanation of why the material body is meaningful (and how this affects your moral judgment on the practice of cremation).
As I understand it, the basis of your disagreement with my explanation of natural selection for the trait of altruism is my mention on the genetic similarity within our species. I wanted to make sure you understand that I consider this relevant only in showing how if you gave your life today to save others, they are likely to perpetuate whatever genes might have influenced your doing so. If you're not in disagreement on this, which I suspect from your apparent level of understanding on this topic, then I think we have only a misunderstanding on this point.
I think I see what you mean about bonds being better and longer-lived than feelings. I don't draw such a sharp distinction between the two things, but I don't think we fundamentally disagree. Again I'm not getting your point. Are you trying to convince me that love is amazing? No need. That it's more than just a feeling? I have no objection. I think "love" and "feeling" are vague enough terms that I'm perfectly justified in calling love a feeling, and you're perfectly justified in calling it not. My definition of "feeling" is simply broader and more approving than yours. It seems this dispute over love popped up in the argument randomly.
Oh, here's a thing. You're saying love can override self-interest. I could disagree there. Love is part of self-interest. If you do something out of love, it's still beneficial to you. Self-interest is never violated. Still, this isn't a significant disagreement. We're just defining "self-interest" differently. Are there any meaningful differences in our opinions? And what do you mean about true love being "inseparable" from reason?
Same problem with souls. What do you mean about a soul giving meaning? Specifically, how is it meaningfully different from anything I mean? Sorry. What I mean is, crap, sorry again. I wish to say, I could just agree if I wanted. You're defining a soul as that which gives meaning. As it happens, I have a habit of saying something much like that. I go, "A spirit is that which gives value." But we're only defining words, not saying anything about facts.
Your proposed facts, I presume, are that souls are immortal, immaterial, and designed with a purpose. That suggests an answer to why your theory of a soul might be more meaningful than mine. "Purpose" can be conflated with "meaning" and there you go. Our lives are meaningful because our maker had a meaning in mind. That doesn't answer the question of what that meaning is, but at least it's something. Not bad for an argument I'm not even making.
For the one I am making, I'll have to lay my atheist cards on the table and admit that our version of meaning has a weakness compared to the Christian one. The whole Christian universe is created for humans. It's hard to compete with that. Our meanings only come from human minds. Once again I conflate it with "purpose", and while I'm at it, "intention". Meaning is what we want for ourselves. For example, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (I prefer "comfort" because I'm lazy.) This is a little anticlimactic. What's that life for? What's the happiness for? Unfortunately, my search ends there. What's meaning for, anyway? Do we ever stop to ask that?
Anyway, the advantage of the Christian meaning theory seems to be the assurance that such a meaning exists, even if you don't know it. This could make some nervous, because it sounds like, "Of course there's a meaning. Trust me." So the atheist meaning theory might be more comforting in that way. There's not that nagging suspicion. Which one is more comforting probably comes down to personal preferences.
But the real atheist advantage in meaning is, to me, its sublime aesthetic. It turns the question back on itself, as I did paragraph before last. It sees meaning as one of those deep human longings that enrich our lives, but are part of a larger universe. Again, it comes down to personal preferences whether this is better.
I want to make it clear that just because I'm a materialist, I don't think happiness comes down to bathing your brain in the right chemicals. (Why is it chemicals, anyway? Shouldn't it be axon potentials?) That is too hardware-centric. If and when we upload our brains into computers, we're going to want the same standards for happiness, and this is why happiness must be an abstract ideal. Or if you prefer, an abstract software state, portable across multiple platforms.
Cremation is alright, I guess. Why's that a concern?
Damn, replied to the wrong post. You'll figure it out.
I missed the cremation reference. What is wrong with cremation?
I’m going to have to insist that gene-caused altruism does take place based on an instinctive recognition of kin. It’s the only way it can work.
We agree that these cost-benefit calculations don’t ultimately take place in the animal’s brain, or its genes, but in the outcomes of its actions. Our fundamental disagreement is over the results of those calculations.
You’re right that an altruism gene in me is likely to be in any other person. So by helping any random person, I am surely helping the gene. And if this gene were present in our whole species, it would work great, and help the species out tremendously. I don’t deny that. The problem is that there would be no selection in its favor. Therefore it would never arise in the first place. And if somehow it did, the species would have no way of holding onto it. It would fade away with time. Whenever a person pops up who lacks the gene, that person would recieve all sorts of help from his altruistic fellows, but wouldn’t return the favor. So individuals with the gene, and without it, would get the same benefit. Natural selection would, at best, be neutral toward it.
But that’s at best. In fact, an animal has plenty to lose from being altruistic. Animals have limited time and energy. Everything they spend their resources on must have some overall benefit to their reproductive success. Even the tiniest cost or benefit has a huge impact on the fate of a gene. At least, a huger impact than people tend to expect. Perhaps we (white) humans are surprised by this because we’re so successful that the ruthless economy of nature is a fading memory. And we only have the perspective of one life.
It would be great if animals could come to some agreement on how best to help out their own species. Species would be more successful that way. But they don’t. Species aren’t the winners in nature. They aren’t the ultimate beneficiaries of natural selection. Genes are. The success of a species is a balance between how much that success helps and hurts whichever “ruling party” of genes is in power in a given generation.
I guess you never specifically said that you’d read The Selfish Gene. No matter. If we continue this line of argument, you won’t have to.
My outrage at you calling even the most primitive life form “simple” is unabated. However you characterize the complexities of man-made machines, those of life are greater. This comparison is what I emphasize. So if you want to say no one really understands transistors, then to be consistent you must say we understand biochemistry far less. Incidentally, I think we understand transistors just fine. It sounds like you were describing practical problems in their operation, not any weakness in semiconductor theory.
The evidence of non-planning in an organism is hard to see, but since Darwin, it has really been pouring in, and it is unanimous. We’ve broken down life’s tree into countless tiny steps, and found not one big change or redesign that contradicts the principle. However, man-made machines show evidence of massive redesigns and several steps done at once. I can’t imagine why you said they don’t.
The parts of life, at the lowest level, naturally fit together. Its molecules attract each other automatically. But a machine is made of precisely measured parts, in which a tiny error would prevent the whole from working. A lot of effort had to go into fitting them together. Even though an animal is so much more complicated than a machine, you can vary its structural measurements quite a bit before it stops working.
More to the point, I’m failing to see your point. It seems like you’re poking holes (with no success, ha ha) in my comparison of evolution and design, but if you’re proposing any alternative, I don’t see it. What do you think the supposed simplicity of life indicates? Elegance of design? If you believe in evolution, I’m not sure where we disagree.
But at least it’s clear that we do disagree. Evolution, taken seriously, precludes the influence of an intelligent designer at any point in life’s affairs. From the formation of our planet right up to fat guys watching football. We divide up the topics of biology and history and daily life only for practical reasons. Our brains aren’t powerful enough to consider them all as one continuous phenomenon. But one continuous phenomenon they in fact are.
Specifically, I’ve been harping on this particular perspective of evolution because it sets up an important conclusion of mine: that genes aren’t to be trusted. We shouldn’t worry about them as a basis for morality because they suck. We can figure out morality without any understanding of them, and that’s a good thing. All they give us are a few instincts to start with, and I guess life.
Holy crap I have been typing for hours. I’ll have to pick this up later.
For my part: the propagation of altruism via genetics is easily explained. Of course there is no conscious selection, but if a genetic trait helps a species as a whole to reproduce, then it will be selected for naturally. It's inevitable. Thats the beauty of natural selection. It is simple in concept, unguided, manifestly successful and demonstrated to be as true and factual as most any scientific precept.
There are a number of recent books that cover the great body of evidence for evolution. Readers should pick up Dawkins "The Greatest Show on Earth" or Coynes "Why Evolution is True".
No, Old Stuff! Species selection is a myth. You should read The Selfish Gene. Judging by your taste in books, you'd love it. Or just read my posts. I am trying to hard to kill the species selection theory.
Well, I am late for an appointment and may not get to reading all of your posts. It seems that Dawkins erred in using gene-selection too metaphorically and I think it confuses people*. I will, at some point, pick up The Selfish Gene just to have it under my belt. Certainly altruism is not species-specific (if that is where you are going). Any trait in any species that is beneficial to reproduction will invariably be propagated.
*Metaphors, too often, cause confusion… particularly in
areas of religion. Einstein often used 'God' metaphorically, but his writings clearly state he thought theistic belief to be 'childish'. Yet his use of the metaphor still has believers claiming them as their own.
My understanding of Einstein–not that I know much about him–is that he was an atheist who never-the-less had a great deal of respect for theistic thought and was even somewhat impatient with other atheists. This impression is from my having read one article about him within the past year or two, so I'm probably wrong.
"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. "
Albert Einstein in a letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, January 3, 1954
"I, at any rate, am convinced that [God] does not throw dice"
Albert Einstein in a Letter to Max Born (4 December 1926)
I don't think he was too metaphorical. Not in that book. Whenever he talked about genes "looking out for themselves", or "lying", or stuff like that, he said repeatedly, "This is a metaphor. Do not take it literally." As for the gene selection theory itself, it is not a metaphor. It is very true. If anything is a metaphor, it's the species selection theory, and it's a bad one.
"I, at any rate, am convinced that [God] does not throw dice."
Statements like this give me the impression that Einstein was possibly a bit *too* religiously conservative. Einstein said this to criticize quantum mechanics, in particular the Copenhagen interpretation; while scientists today have generally embraced it, Einstein had difficulty accepting anything other than a clockwork universe. Here's about Einstein’s religion: "A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man." [The World as I See It, 1949]
Boy, the comments really did all all jumbled in this blog entry, didn't they? Oh well.
Best words in these blog comments: Oxymoronish (Christine) and Assholiness (Don Whitt).
A couple of things:
1) The most moral person I know just happens to be an atheist. Actually, this man lives pretty much as Jesus tells us to: he gives to anyone who asks, he forgives and asks forgiveness of those he may have offended, he is kind, he is honest, he is honorable and good. He seems to favor society's rejects, the outsiders, those who don't belong. Where does it come from? It comes from within him. He just knows what's right.
2) Before I became a Christian (before God claimed me) I was an atheist/agnostic most of the time. And I was probably more scrupulously moral and ethical than I am now as a Christian. Not as whole, not as connected, not as peaceful, not as aware of my having been forgiven, but moral. Oh I was moral. To a fault.
BTW, John, when I look up to the heavens, I see "nothing more (and nothing less!) than atmospheric science." It's quite beautiful. It makes one wonder at the immensity and intricacy of creation.
Just to make sure that people understand this. Christians are not the only ones provided services in prisons. There are also services for Native American, Wiccan, and sometimes other groups depending on the prison.
Having a degree in Criminology and having worked in the prison system is an eye-opening experience. Especially as the prison I worked at was filled with a population of about 80% sex offenders.
Many offenders claimed to be Christian, not for better food, early release or things like that, but to get out of the housing units for an hour a week. It was evident that most were just talking the talk because as soon as they came back to the units, they returned to their same actions and behaviors.
Early release is a reward for good behavior and is not based on religious beliefs, although people truly trying to follow God are more likely to behave themselves. And other "rewards" that I have seen mentioned here are not real. Food is made and served without notice of a person's beliefs. Trust me, the officers have A LOT more important things than picking and choosing who gets the tray with 3 extra grapes on it, and in the dining hall, it is just a matter of the inmates going through the cafeteria style line, eating, and getting back to where they were expected to be in the time allotted.
Just thought that I would share these points so that the readers here can better understand that there are few perks to being a Christian (or follower of any other faith or not) within prisons.
Yeah, I understand this. I'm not saying the "rewards" of claiming a faith are any big whoop in the prison system, but I imagine getting out of the housing units for an hour each week is rewarding enough for an inmate to "talk the talk."
Hey, in case anyone's interested (or still reading this comment thread): about my blocking Old Stuff from this comment thread.
Part of running a blog (if you're doing it right) is moderating its comments. I'm pretty assiduous about doing that, because I love a good, respectful dialogue. And the fact that about one-third of my readers are conservative Christians, one-third liberal Christians, and one-third atheists or non-Christians makes, I think, for some of the richest comment dialogues in the blogosphere. I consider it an honor to host them.
In the three-plus years I've run this blog, I've blocked a total of maybe 15 people off of it. Usually it's just people who've come on here to spray venom. Sometimes it's people who've been involved in a comment thread, but whose comments have taken a direction I don't like. Then I usually warn them a few times. If they persist in being obnoxious, I either block them from the site entirely, or (as I did with Old Stuff), I move them to my "moderate" list, which means I get to read their comments before allowing them on the site.
Old Stuff is someone I've had to moderate in the past. This time around, I moved him back onto free status, because his tone was good, and I appreciated the contributions he was making. When (alas) I ended up having to again move him to moderation-mode, I then did what in such cases I always do: I went back over the comment thread, and removed any comment of his and mine in which we were essentially talking only to ourselves, and not at all about the topic at hand. It's basically cleaning up after a fight. In this case I removed but two or three of OS's comments that were directed to me alone, and left all the rest of his comments where they were. Because, as I said, I had no problem with them at all.
Anyway, Old Stuff is still free to comment on my blog; I was moderating and okaying virtually all his comments, right up until the very end.
This stuff is all just … part of blogging! Not my favorite part, or anything. But it's just part of working in this form.
As a peruse some more, I see that the reference to the TED video on the distinction between humans and monkeys has been removed. How did that not pass muster?
I see it up there still. http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_humans.html
Maybe I am having a browser problem.
Old Stuff, Send mail to tautologicalman@hotmail.com. I'd like to stay in contact.
Thanks again for that, I’ve marked it to watch this weekend.
Hey wanted to thank you for this, really enjoyed it.
Glad you liked it. Ted.com pretty much rocks…
@John Shore
Well it would seem that what I saw as ‘benign comments being deleted’ may well have been the comment structure going all kitty-wampus (sp?). I have not sifted through the entire thread to see if they are floating out of context seemingly replying to some unknown query. I will assume this is the case. That apparently being so; my angered response was inappropriate and I apologize for it.
Does deleting comments make WordPress lose track of the nested comment structure?
fair call John, it is your blog after all and we are all guilty of getting a bit steamed up here but thanks for explaining for us
Yeah, Yeah. I’m still reading the comment thread. I’m old and slow and definitely not reading at 5:00 am. I never did read much faster than what is useful for math anyway.
"Pointing to The Good the atheist points to nothing real, nothing tangible. He points to an idea"
And to what, exactly, do theists point? to a falsehood, as far as non-believers are concerned. to the Abrahamic religions, a god the Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, animists and other "heathen" religions do not believe in, to all those other religions, to a god or gods you don't believe in.
Don't believe in the gods of the heathen Anglo-Saxons? Guess what ? That is where our common law came from.
You have much to learn about the faith, my friend, before staking claim to any such generalization.
For example, Hindus are often more than willing to admit of accepting the God of Abraham as a legitimate expression of/for the Divine. Buddhists tend to think more along the lines that it doesn't really matter what we're calling It, and many even think of Christ as having attained enlightenment. Many other Eastern religions are similar in this regard. For instance, Sikhs would encourage Christians to just go focus on becoming better Christians, and Taoists begin their primary scripture with the acknowledgment that "the way (Tao) that can be described is not the true Way." (It reminds me of a Hindu supplication: "O Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my human limitations: … Thou art without form, but I worship you in these forms….")
Similarly I have never said—nor do I see anyone else on John Shore's blog saying—that belief in the Anglo-Saxon gods is wrong. Of course, it does make for the sort of theology that can, with its unnecessary complexities and vagueness due to lacking definitive formulation, result in rampant superstition; yet I do not judge anyone for it.
1) I took a "What religion are you really?" test on some dating site once and came out a Sikh.
2) I think I've seen that Hindu prayer in a Christian book–possibly even in my UMC Hymnal–it sounds really familiar.
What could be more real than an idea? If reality is the opposite of illusion, isn't "getting a clue" or idea the right path? Isn't the strength of a religion how well it fights superstition? And if the word religion comes from the same root as relics, such as the bones of the martyred saints or bits of the true cross, what is their non-superstitious use? Morality does not seem to me to be a product of religion, but (speaking metaphorically) God said "I'll make a deal with you. I'll be your God and you'll be my people.So,of course, you won't be putting other gods before me. etc. etc." So I try to understand the meaning of holy writings in terms of this voice I thought I heard.` And I think those bones point to a certain amount of moral character.
Whoa… comment structure got all messed up here…
Travis, I didn't say that was the *only* use but said that they're not used for personal titles (which the linked article does not contradict–with exception for the case of *false* titles), and specifically, not used to *emphasize* them (emphasis being a use the link calls "incorrect").
John, what would you say?
"Read my book on punctuation."
- John Shore
I kid. He'd say,
"Who cares?"
- John Shore.
Wait, that's me who'd say that. Sorry.
Daniel, be careful, Old Stuff is a lion…teehee.
I think I am flattered amelia!
Well… we all know that atheists get their morals from being created in the image of God, just like the rest of us, whether they believe in Him or not…
And you know this how?????…..
good post. a good thing to recognize is that we all have beliefs. all of us, atheists and theist alike. what those look like and how they are acted out is up for debate.
@Amelia Thanks, I'll read it.
Does it matter whether I believe the source of love is natural or supernatural – as long as I experience it and share it?
Forget about the "source" for awhile, give that gargantuan intellect a much-needed rest and yes, please allow yourself to keep on experiencing love and sharing it with others. *hug*
(btw, Chalmers will hopefully provide some entertainment and enlightenment at the same time-but this, of course, is only meant to be experienced AFTER your break from all things intellectual, if you dare)!
Amelia,
One can be both an intellectual and experience/share love at the same time. Right?
Otherwise I'm screwed.
Yeah, I’m screwed too.
Hugs always appreciated
*hugs* all around!
@Don, thank you for the tapout, we travel the same wavelength, buddy.
@JohnB, have you read Chalmer's 'The Concious Mind?' sounds like it's all in your head…your heart is calling…it's screaming at the top of it's lungs (hehehe) "All you need is love, all you need is love, all you need is love, love. LOVE is ALL you need!!!"
@Dennis, my daughter can tell you, I s#%k at baseball.
I think I understand now what your point is. Thanks for clarifying. I don't have a pat answer, but I can feel my iron getting sharper.
I'm all for living in a constant state of protest. Just be sure you don't get stuck with Luther's sense of humor (or lack thereof!)
Pat answers are my nemesis so I'm glad you don't have any. True, Luther was quite serious but after a few good pints I think he was hilarious at parties. At least that's what I tell myself.
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