Happy days are here again!

The Plain Dealer business section yesterday had two news items right next to each other. One was that luxury car sales in the region were up by more than 50% during the first quarter of 2011 and the other was that a local business that provides private jets to wealthy travelers quadrupled its first quarter sales when compared to last year.

It’s nice to know that the tax cuts for the rich are paying off. All the people in the region who lost their jobs and homes due to the recession should be able to find plenty of jobs washing and cleaning the luxury cars and jets. That’s how trickle-down economic theory works, no?

Arguments against a god-given morality

The idea that there is an objective morality founders on the fact that our moral standards have changed dramatically over time. An objective god-given morality is one that presumably should be both universal and unchanging with time since god is presumably omnipresent and unchanging. And yet that is obviously at odds with history, where most moral judgments have varied from place to place and over time. Many of the most appallingly evil actions are condoned and even encouraged in religious texts as coming from god, though such actions are now disowned. If there is an objective morality, why was it not obvious to people before and why were there different standards for different communities?

What we do see, though, is a pleasing convergence in moral standards as time goes by, even though we still have far to go. This is almost entirely due to cultural awareness spreading. In just a couple of centuries we have decided that slavery is evil and that discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual preference, disability, race and ethnicity, and age is wrong. We no longer tolerate human sacrifices or child labor. We find torture abhorrent, which forces governments that still practice it to do it in secret or resort to euphemisms to hide their shame. We are less tolerant of wanton cruelty to animals, though we still eat them. Except for a few countries like Saudi Arabia, we no longer punish people for offences by amputating limbs or stoning or beheading.

These recent advances in our moral sensibilities are largely or entirely cultural developments that had nothing to do with god. In fact, they are counter to god’s supposed commands since many of these cruel practices originate in the allegedly holy books and are supposed to be god’s recommended policies. The importance of culture in advancing the idea of what is good is tremendous. We have made great strides in this area without appealing to god so those who argue that without god we would be morally worse off are fighting a losing battle.

This excellent video clip from QualiaSoup will give you, in less than ten minutes, all the arguments you need to debate anyone who claims that morality can only come from god.

The argument is summarized in the slide at the 8:10 minute mark where he says:

  • NO ONE can claim to KNOW that any god exists
  • Even if god does exist:
    • NO evidence there is only one god
    • NO evidence it is a personal god
    • NO evidence its nature is perfect
  • NO reliable source of divine values
  • NO consistent morality among theists
  • VIOLENT moral disagreement among theists
  • NO objective method for deciding whose interpretation of divine values is correct

NO CONSISTENT INFALLBLE THEISTIC MORALITY

I find the idea that we can only have morality because of religion quite repellent. What does it say about someone that the only reason they don’t murder, rape, or steal is because they think god will punish them?

In this video clip, Edward Current imagines what would happen if god disappeared.

The idea that we need a god in order to arrive at moral principles on which to base our lives and societies seems to me to be so self-evidently absurd that I really cannot take seriously anyone who advocates it.

‘Invite’ as a noun

I have seen an increasing use of the word ‘invite’ to replace ‘invitation’. The distinction between the two words seemed pretty clear to me. One invites someone by sending them an invitation. And yet the latter word seems to be disappearing, with the former taking its place, with people saying things like “Hope you got my invite” and “The invites have gone out”.

I find this use jarring. I thought that it was simply wrong but on checking the Oxford English Dictionary it appears that the word invite can be used as a noun this way and has been thus used since the 17th century.

Was this usage common and I just did not notice it until recently or did it fall out of favor and is now coming back?

Can you be good without god?

Yes.

It is a simple answer to a simple question. It should be quite self-evident to anyone. And yet, religious people manage to get some atheists to actually debate it. P. Z. Myers has posted all the YouTube links to a recent debate between Sam Harris and theologian William Lane Craig on the topic “Does Good Come From God?” I watched about half of it and although it was mildly interesting, I tuned out because I have little patience for discussions based on unexamined and unsubstantiated premises.

Craig was trying to make the case that without a god, there can be no objective morality or standards for what is good. My response to that argument is “So what?” What makes people think that the universe ought to have objective morality? All these discussions about how there must be a god because without a god people would go berserk and murder everyone else and life would be awful and not worth living seems to me to be missing the point. We cannot will god into existence just because we can’t bear the thought of life without god.

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A little puzzle

Some organizations that request money or information often include return self-addressed envelopes. This is convenient. What I don’t understand is why a few of them also include their own address again in the top left corner, where, as the sender, you would normally insert your own name and address. What is the point in the organization’s address being in both sender’s and recipient’s locations on the envelope?

The only reason that I can come up with is that if you forget to put postage on a letter, it is sent back to the presumed sender at the address on the top left. Is this a ploy to fool the postal service so that the letter reaches them whether there is postage or not? Surely they must be wise to that trick?

What does the postal service do with letters that do not have adequate postage but where the sender’s and recipient’s names and addresses are the same?

Know when to fold ’em

Commenter Peter alerted me to a story on This American Life about a gung-ho evangelical who went through the process that I have described before, where he goes to seminary and on learning Biblical history and scholarship becomes an atheist.

Filled with all the new information he now has as to why Christianity is false, he becomes zealous for atheism and tries to convert his family members, before he realizes that people join religious groups for a lot of benefits that have little to do with belief in god and that sometimes, on a personal level in the private sphere, it may be better to leave them alone.

The story starts at the 8:20 minute mark and goes until the 20:00 mark.

The menace of surprise parties

It’s been awhile since I let loose one of my rants about something trivial that yet bugs me, so here’s one.

I hate surprise parties.

I must admit that the appeal of surprise parties completely eludes me and I am getting to dislike them even more as I get older. Maybe it is because they are an acquired taste and since they were unheard of in Sri Lanka when I was growing up (at least I don’t recall ever hearing about one, let alone attending any), I just didn’t learn to like them. And yet in the US people seem to really like them.

The whole thing about sneaking in early and then hiding and waiting until the guest of honor arrives and then jumping out and shouting in unison “surprise!” strikes me as childish.
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