if you can find the original, I’d be happy to fix it.
Sven DiMilosays
What’s the prolbem?
Kevin L.says
I’m not sure if “athiests” is better or worse than “athieists, which I have also seen a few times. Usually it’s the other side that can’t spell, though.
Oh well. Way to go, Epicurus!
Caseysays
This comment from the My Confined Space site just made my day. Never thought of atheism as the optimistic choice.
he word “evil” is a bad translation. Replace that with “suffering” and the quote is a much stronger statement. Why doesn’t God prevent earthquakes and tsunamis? Those have nothing to do with free will.
And the free will is still a weak argument. windrider and Geko are basically saying that God has to choose between preventing evil and some worse alternative. But a truly omnipotent being would not have to make such decisions.
You really have 3 options:
1) God doesn’t care about us
2) God is insane
3) God doesn’t exist.
Atheism is optimistic.”
There are many better arguments for atheism than this one.
Because any believer that is not philosophically challenged can shoot it down without effort. ( one example would be declaring that omnipotence does not require to be capable of doing logically impossible things, and asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible )
But watching the dumber ones trying to wriggle out of the tight spot is fun anyway…
Ichthyicsays
Because any believer that is not philosophically challenged can shoot it down without effort.
there lies the rub.
Ichthyicsays
Date is off by several centuries.
yes, have to fix that too, but there IS no specific date attributable to the specific quote.
how ’bout modding the last sentence to read:
“Winning since 300 BC”
as a still rough, but more at least more temporally accurate, statement?
I think whoever created this image chose the often-believed date of the Jesus’s supposed death (who supposedly was nailed up at the age of 33).
But, yes, atheists have been around for much, much longer. Probably as long as people have been coming up with crazy myths to explain the world around them. (Picture this: a neolithic settlement. The local elder shaman/witchdoctor/chief/old guy/whatever proclaims “We, as a people, sprang forth from the bark of the oak tree at the beginning of the world.” Early tribesman skeptic thinks to himself “well, that seems silly…” and the First Atheist started listing off questions.)
Zarquonsays
one example would be declaring that omnipotence does not require to be capable of doing logically impossible things, and asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible
Wow, that’s considered philosophically sophisticated? “I’m right because I have added a question-begging premise to my argument.”
Ichthyicsays
It still seems more appropriate to utilize a date within the life of Epicurus, though, given the quote is the apparent source of the argument in the last sentence.
IIRC, Epicurus:
~340-270 BC.
someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Ichthyicsays
for those who at least want to attach the argument to the era it came from:
whee! lots of versions to spread about the web now.
Azkyrothsays
( one example would be declaring that omnipotence does not require to be capable of doing logically impossible things, and asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible )
How is this sounder than baldly asserting that a universe without god is logically impossible?
Sastra, OMsays
Interesting that the atheist chose to use A.D. (Anno Domini — In the Year of our Lord) rather than the more scholarly C.E. (Common Era). Ditto if you want to date from Epicurus and use B.C (Before Christ) vs. BCE (Before the Common Era).
Just another nit to pick…
MartinMsays
…asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible
Except that Christianity posits the existence of a realm with no evil, namely Heaven.
alexsays
better than diesm.
Ichthyicsays
BCE (Before the Common Era).
Just another nit to pick…
good point.
*sigh*
fixed.
Robertsays
“Because any believer that is not philosophically challenged can shoot it down without effort. ( one example would be declaring that omnipotence does not require to be capable of doing logically impossible things, and asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible )”
How about Heaven? Isn’t Heaven supposed to be evil-free? If your god can create one evil-free world, why could he not create another one?
And btw, omnipotency is by definition the capacity to do _anything_. So by definition, any being who is incapable of doing some things is not omnipotent. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You cannot make up your own definitions because what you believe in makes no sense.
I think heaven is not discussed nearly enough when challenging theism– It seems to me that even if you grant that heaven may be *everything* a believer could hope for, it still totally sucks in a Star Trekky pleasure planet kind of way.
All the people who would normally avoid you will love you in heaven! Because they have no choice!
The athiest spelling always makes me think of that fine phrase, “I can outgrabe any mome raths”. Why yes, I do have a twisted maze of a mind.
Robertsays
“Because any believer that is not philosophically challenged can shoot it down without effort. ( one example would be declaring that omnipotence does not require to be capable of doing logically impossible things, and asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible )”
Whenever a Christian uses that argument, my response is always the same: Says who? and Prove it!
Robert
Garysays
Shouldn’t there be a question mark at the end, as well?
T_U_Tsays
“I’m right because I have added a question-begging premise to my argument.”
no, it is not question-begging. ad hoc, Pulled out of believer’s ass, sure. But not question-begging. It merely adds one more option, undoing thus the dilemma
How is this sounder than baldly asserting that a universe without god is logically impossible?
basically because one could make an argument that an universe with good bud without evil is rather absurd ( it would go like “imagine a novel, story, or a fairytale without any villain, and you will find out that it would lack any plot, and would be thus absolutely boring and meaningless” )
Except that Christianity posits the existence of a realm with no evil, namely Heaven.
sure, but in their mythology the heaven is not the entire universe
There are much stronger arguments for atheism than this one. ( the strongest is of course the lack of evidence of any divine intervention )
Gregory Kusnicksays
“I can outgrabe any mome raths”
You’re forgetting that outgrabe is the past tense of outgribe.
octopodsays
Wouldn’t that need to be 270 BCE? What does Epicurus have to do with the crucifixion? ::puzzled::
GDwarfsays
I never understood the counter-arguments.
The most common one I see is that God cannot do something which is logically inconsistent (So, giving people complete free will while preventing them from sinning.) To me this seems to say that God simply is not omnipotent. In addition, it doesn’t address heaven, which is a place where people have free will but cannot sin.
The next most common one was brought up here: A universe without evil cannot exist.
The very idea of heaven refutes this utterly, as does the garden of eden, both of which were sans-evil yet, supposedly, exist(ed).
This style of argument really seems more like what I like to call the “myopia” defence. Namely: I can assert two contradictory things to both be true, so long as I don’t assert them both at the same time.
Omnipotent? Can god change Pi? No? Thought not. Change the fact that 2+2=4? No? OK then. Not omnipotent. Game over. Mathematics constrains god. Can we go home now?
Azkyrothsays
it would go like “imagine a novel, story, or a fairytale without any villain, and you will find out that it would lack any plot, and would be thus absolutely boring and meaningless”
Last I checked, being “absolutely boring and meaningless” and manifestly lacking a plot has been no obstacle to millions of “romance” novels being sold, nor to some of them (*cough*Jane Austen*cough*) being considered great literary classics.
Nixsays
The only place I’ve ever seen BCE/CE used before this thread is in my religious education classes at school. The school chaplain used it.
So I’m afraid I tend to see BCE/CE as being *more* religious than the alternative. (Among other things, what’s so `common’ about CE? It’s Common because, er, it’s an incorrect estimate of the date of Jesus’s birth from a sixth-century Roman monk. Nope, that’s not Christian at all.)
Of course I use it anyway. There is no non-religious dating system, unless we’re willing to use the French Revolutionary calendar.
woozysays
If the spelling is wrong (or was the word “atheist” the only misspelling; I readily admit my spelling sucks donkey balls… ) and the date isn’t from the time of Epicurus, are we sure the statement is Epicurus’? Did Epicurus espouse such sentiment.
To be honest, I’ve always found this argument rather tepid. I don’t see any reason why a belief in God should include that he is nice. I noticed in the conclussions: 1) God doesn’t care about us
2) God is insane
3) God doesn’t exist.
overlooks the obvious 4) God is mean, 5) Natural disasters are good for us (build character?) Even given a religion where God is “good” (that wasn’t a Hellenistic tenet, was it?) I don’t see any reason why “good” should mean “nice” rather than “making things work the way they should for an ultimate meaningful experience”. It’s down-right easy to argue that death and human evil is “good” for us and although sickness and earthquakes are harder to argue for they aren’t impossible. To snicker and say, “if I gave you pox and dropped a piano on your head the town would hang me as an asshole, so when God does it he’s an asshole just like me and if God was at all nice he’d give us all ice cream trees and mink back rubs but he doesn’t so he’s just a poopy-headed meanie”. Strikes me as deliberate sophomoric simpering solipsism at best. Even the most dim-witted believer can counter with no effort “Well, you aren’t God, asshole!”
(and to be honest part of me will be cheering him on. This “why isn’t there beer trees and lollipops argument” is pretty much on sophisticated par with “If people came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys” and “what’s the use of half an eye”)
Lulusays
*swoon* Epicurus is my manwhore. (I wish! In an alternate universe!) Not only did he create the quintessential problem of evil, he created the free will/determinism dilemma as well!
Ichthyicsays
are we sure the statement is Epicurus’?
there is some debate on that, as the specific quote cannot be tied down to a place or date. It is attributed to him by early historians, however.
Did Epicurus espouse such sentiment.
Oh yes, that is without doubt.
Tulsesays
Azkyroth:
Last I checked, being “absolutely boring and meaningless” and manifestly lacking a plot has been no obstacle to millions of “romance” novels being sold, nor to some of them (*cough*Jane Austen*cough*) being considered great literary classics.
There are some who believe that insulting the works of Ms. Austen are a sign of either inferior intellect, lack of wit, or poor breeding — or perhaps all three.
woozy:
I don’t see any reason why a belief in God should include that he is nice.
Good point, and it is arguable that the God of the Old Testament is a right bastard.
Mosessays
Wouldn’t that need to be 270 BCE? What does Epicurus have to do with the crucifixion? ::puzzled::
Posted by: octopod | December 2, 2007 6:16 PM
Epicurus was one of the, for lack of a detailed explanation, Greek founders of the scientific method (not that it was just him or just the Greeks, like in real-life, these things are really complicated). He also taught that the gods don’t involve themselves in, or concern themselves with, the affairs of men, for good or evil, at all.
You might consider him a deist, if anything at all. Possibly an atheist who payed lip-service to the gods.
Azkyrothsays
To be honest, I’ve always found this argument rather tepid. I don’t see any reason why a belief in God should include that he is nice. I noticed in the conclussions: 1) God doesn’t care about us
2) God is insane
3) God doesn’t exist.
overlooks the obvious 4) God is mean,
The quality of perfect moral goodness is built into most if not all definitions of big-G “God.” Do you understand what the term “good” actually means?
5) Natural disasters are good for us (build character?)
This is so manifestly untrue as to be outright idiotic. Not only do natural disasters almost invariably bring out the worst in people as well as, if not instead of, the best (widespread looting, riots, etc.) but it is plainly obvious that the people who die in them are experiencing no character-building. Even applying this to the survivors, the claim is still incredible and would require immense justification. Pretending that such justification might exist somewhere out there somehow, and claiming that the argument from evil is thereby falsified, begs the question and demonstrates an inexcusable ignorance about the concept of Burden of Proof.
Even given a religion where God is “good” (that wasn’t a Hellenistic tenet, was it?) I don’t see any reason why “good” should mean “nice” rather than “making things work the way they should for an ultimate meaningful experience”.
“Good” doesn’t mean nice if by “nice” you mean the antonym of “impolite.” “Good” manifestly excludes abject sadism or cold-blooded indifference to human life.
It’s down-right easy to argue that death and human evil is “good” for us and although sickness and earthquakes are harder to argue for they aren’t impossible.
You keep using that word, “good.” I do not think it means what you think it does.
To snicker and say, “if I gave you pox and dropped a piano on your head the town would hang me as an asshole, so when God does it he’s an asshole just like me and if God was at all nice he’d give us all ice cream trees and mink back rubs but he doesn’t so he’s just a poopy-headed meanie”. Strikes me as deliberate sophomoric simpering solipsism at best. Even the most dim-witted believer can counter with no effort “Well, you aren’t God, asshole!”
So, in other words, you are asserting that it is valid to claim that God is good while excusing him from meeting the actual prerequisites inherent in the definition of the term? This is called “special pleading” and you’re compounding it by begging the question.
(and to be honest part of me will be cheering him on. This “why isn’t there beer trees and lollipops argument” is pretty much on sophisticated par with “If people came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys” and “what’s the use of half an eye”)
A person who equates the “why are there guinea worms, leukemia, and tsunamis” argument with “why isn’t there beer trees and lollipops” calling anything else sophomoric is an irony of epic proportions.
SteveMsays
“The only place I’ve ever seen BCE/CE used before this thread is in my religious education classes at school. The school chaplain used it.”
First time I saw it used was in a PBS documentary about the history of the Jewish people. Since then it seems quite common in “History Channel” (and related channels)documentaries.
As for free will in Heaven; it is not people living in the clouds like in most common depictions. Supposedly Heaven is the pure joy of being in the presense of God, sort of like an everlasting heroin high. So whether you have free will or not, you wouldn’t want to use it anyway.
Azkyrothsays
There are some who believe that insulting the works of Ms. Austen are a sign of either inferior intellect, lack of wit, or poor breeding — or perhaps all three.
There are some who believe, or argue on the side of those who believe, that a legal entitlement attains the moral status of an inalienable human right merely by being signed into law. They probably shouldn’t be talking about the above.
And whatever scholarly value the work might have as a portrait of upper class life in England at the time it was written, the fact of the matter is that it uniformly fails to engage my interest and I find myself wanting to strangle the characters.
Tony Popplesays
I have heard about those dyslexic atheists……..
They don’t believe in Dog.
schizo-woozysays
The most common one I see is that God cannot do something which is logically inconsistent (So, giving people complete free will while preventing them from sinning.) To me this seems to say that God simply is not omnipotent.
And what’s wrong with that? If “omnipotent” includes being able to do logical inconsistancies omnipotence is logically inconsistant. If God is merely “logipotent” able to do anything logically concievable or even “omniphysipotent” about to do anything within the laws of physics, would that make him any less of a God? What good do square circles and even prime numbers greater than two do for me?
Anyhow, If I were to imagine there being a God, it always seemed sensible that he could end suffering but won’t. Is this “malevolent”? Maybe. What if suffering is for the “greater good”? Well, okay we say, How can a child dying of malaria be “good”? Well, to give an insipid and patronizing answer maybe “because such suffering reminds the rest of us to sympathetic to the suffering of others”. To which we answer, “Oh, come on! That’s so insipid and patronizing! Any moral reminding it does to us can’t possibly justify the real suffering the child figures.” To which the answer is “Sez you!” to which we reply “Yeah, sez us” to which the answer is “You think you could do a better job?” to which we answer “with one hand behind our back” and so on to which the ultimate response is either A) God’s plan is complex and spans eons so how the heck can we be sure a child shaking in fits while his insides melt into a bloody pool and rats eat his eyeballs isn’t for the good? Or B) C’mon, some superhero in the sky watching everyones every move is just plain silly and stupid. In both cases, the argument about God’s “goodness” is really avoiding the real question.
In addition, it doesn’t address heaven, which is a place where people have free will but cannot sin.
Hmm, I never heard either of these things about heaven. (Although, I’ve heard in obscure references that only humans have free will; angels don’t.) Still it’d make sense that both would be true. Possibility A: People can sin in heaven but when they do they are expelled. Possibility B: To sin requires doing doing harm. In heaven everything is perfect and it is impossible to do harm and hence impossible to sin. Of course, if thinking impure thoughts or dancing on Sunday are sins nothing can prevent that. Of course there’s the C.S. Lewis/St. Paul possibility that no action done in grace and purity is a sin hence fucking that hottie angel while your wife is down on earth whispering the winning lotto numbers to your grandchildren isn’t a sin.
Or d), anyone who would ever actually choose or want to sin never makes it to heaven anyway.
Tulsesays
Azkyroth:
The quality of perfect moral goodness is built into most if not all definitions of big-G “God.” […] “Good” manifestly excludes abject sadism or cold-blooded indifference to human life.
All that may be true, but it is not necessarily the case that “perfect moral goodness” will correspond to our human understanding of it. Thus saying that “god works in mysterious ways” is not necessarily a cop-out. If god indeed defines perfect moral goodness, then the alternate response to the problem of evil is simply that we limited humans don’t have “evil” defined properly. (This is similar to Leibniz’s argument that this is the “best of all possible worlds”.) This option also becomes more powerful when the existence of heaven and hell are taken into account, in that “good” and “evil” don’t have to be worked out in this world and in an individual’s finite mortal existence, but can also impact on their afterlife (if heaven really existed, wouldn’t a literal infinity of perfect happiness make up for a few years of painful cancer?).
[Austen] uniformly fails to engage my interest and I find myself wanting to strangle the characters
I feel the same way about Grey’s Anatomy — it takes all kinds, I guess.
Tulsesays
schizo-woozy:
If “omnipotent” includes being able to do logical inconsistancies omnipotence is logically inconsistant. If God is merely “logipotent” able to do anything logically concievable or even “omniphysipotent” about to do anything within the laws of physics, would that make him any less of a God?
Didn’t God create the laws of logic and physics? If he can’t violate such laws, doesn’t that indicate that they must have existed prior to him, or binds him in some fashion? If God can only act within the laws of physics, how is he different from some very powerful non-supernatural being?
Zarquonsays
…it is not necessarily the case that “perfect moral goodness” will correspond to our human understanding of it.
Actually it is. Otherwise this is simply equivocation, describing God as (normal definition) “good” when arguing about His existence, but changing to (ineffable) “good” when the implications of the evidence are being discussed.
asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible
An intelligently designed universe wouldn’t have any evil in it, would it? I mean, if god created the universe, he created the evil. Indeed, a creator would have to bear the moral responsibility for its creation.
C Yorksays
I have heard about those dyslexic atheists……..
They don’t believe in Dog.
That’s good!
I think we’d be better off without the “winning since…whenever.” The quotation is good, no matter who originally spoke it. There are many more good comments on this subject from the ancients. By the way, what is it for? TV commercials, billboards, t-shirts, coffee mugs?
Wouldn’t that need to be 270 BCE? What does Epicurus have to do with the crucifixion? ::puzzled::
IMHO, that’s supposedly when Jesus (“God”) died. Because human beings killed him.
Get it? Get it?
SEFsays
Although, I’ve heard in obscure references that only humans have free will; angels don’t.
That would raise the problem, in some people’s version of Christianity (etc), of how Satan/Lucifer could possibly be a fallen angel (or anything of the same non-human ilk) without the god being entirely complicit in the fit-up job (creating evil, framing his agent and blaming the victims).
It’s related to the issue of whether the alleged bad guy is at least as powerful as the alleged god or is deliberately tolerated by said god for its own nefarious purposes.
David Marjanović, OMsays
basically because one could make an argument that an universe with good bud without evil is rather absurd ( it would go like “imagine a novel, story, or a fairytale without any villain, and you will find out that it would lack any plot, and would be thus absolutely boring and meaningless” )
This is teh stupid. A block of a whitish, greasy substance. I want to set it on fire.
Whoever argues like that has neither read Carl Zimmer’s At the Water’s Edge nor Jennifer Clack’s Gaining Ground, and these are just the examples that I can cite off the top of my head. No villains, no plot whatsoever, and yet the books are fascinating. And what exactly does “meaning” mean?
Then there are books like Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World or Richard Dawkins’ Unweaving the Rainbow. They contain the occasional villain, but there’s still no plot, and these books are fascinating, too.
</holy wrath>
<evil grin> <spark of pyromania in eyes>
<sing voice=”shout”>WE DON’ NEED NO WADR, LET THE MOTHRFUCKR BRN — BRN, MOTHRFUCKR, BRN.</sing>
David Marjanović, OMsays
basically because one could make an argument that an universe with good bud without evil is rather absurd ( it would go like “imagine a novel, story, or a fairytale without any villain, and you will find out that it would lack any plot, and would be thus absolutely boring and meaningless” )
This is teh stupid. A block of a whitish, greasy substance. I want to set it on fire.
Whoever argues like that has neither read Carl Zimmer’s At the Water’s Edge nor Jennifer Clack’s Gaining Ground, and these are just the examples that I can cite off the top of my head. No villains, no plot whatsoever, and yet the books are fascinating. And what exactly does “meaning” mean?
Then there are books like Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World or Richard Dawkins’ Unweaving the Rainbow. They contain the occasional villain, but there’s still no plot, and these books are fascinating, too.
</holy wrath>
<evil grin> <spark of pyromania in eyes>
<sing voice=”shout”>WE DON’ NEED NO WADR, LET THE MOTHRFUCKR BRN — BRN, MOTHRFUCKR, BRN.</sing>
Ichthyicsays
basically because one could make an argument that an universe with good bud [is] without evil
I might be able to get behind an argument like that.
pass that over here, wouldya?
woozysays
The quality of perfect moral goodness is built into most if not all definitions of big-G “God.” Do you understand what the term “good” actually means?
Actually, no, I don’t. Nor am I sure the users of the argument “god allows bad things to happen so he can’t be good” do either.
5) Natural disasters are good for us (build character?)
This is so manifestly untrue as to be outright idiotic.
It was a joke? Seriously though, justifications for tragedy have been argued time and time again. None of them satisfy me, personally, and as I’ve always been an atheist for other reasons (it’s just silly; isn’t it?) I’ve never had a great need to debate or evaluate them. As there is always suffering, arbitrary or humanly deliberate, in life and over the eons all billions of humans die I just can’t get on my high-horse and say “In the long view of things and the history of the universe, the black plague/ the Lisbon Earthquake/ etc. is unquestionable a ‘bad’ thing” Yes, this is Panglossian but I see no reason to believe a “good” god, couldn’t also be a Machievallian bastard. I, personally, find this idea repugnant but as we as scientists say, reality has nothing to do with what we personally want to be true. Ultimately, I simply find “With all the suffering God must be a bastard and bastards can’t ever be ‘good'” to be unconvincing.
Part of this might be because I *don’t* know what good means. I *don’t* want to die. Ever. Even pleasantly. Not even if there is a paradise afterlife. I want to live *forever* *here* on earth in good health. God says no. Can I conclude that God is a big meanie and not ‘good’? I don’t think that’s the definition of ‘good’. But then again I don’t think “Okay, death to allow new people to experience and human evil for free will but no guenia worms and make sure the earthquakes only kill the wicked” is a good definition of ‘good’ either.
“Good” manifestly excludes abject sadism or cold-blooded indifference to human life.
Why? That’s good for people. And governments. But for a being in control and responsible for the whole of human history *and* the whole of human meaning? Basically, I find ‘good’ to be meaningless or undefinable in whatever force or scope of this. That’s why I don’t see any reason one should expect a God to be “good” in any human sense of the world and why I don’t find this argument convincing. (On the other hand, I also can’t see that shouting “God! You are a cold-blooded fucking bastard!” to in any way hurting God, either.)
So, in other words, you are asserting that it is valid to claim that God is good while excusing him from meeting the actual prerequisites inherent in the definition of the term? This is called “special pleading” and you’re compounding it by begging the question.
What question am I begging? I believe it is valid to claim god is ‘good’ in the meaning that the universe runs the way it should for a meaningful human experience. I admit this definition is weak and tepid, probably so watered down to have no meaning, and very debatable as the universe runs in a method that very likely isn’t they way it “should” but debating whether things are “good” or not at this level is so abstract, so far from the individual human level such statements are probably meaningless. At any rate to argue that there is no God because God *has* to be good, just doesn’t cut it for me. Admittedly, my objection is more that “God is good” is a stupid and/or meaningless to say, than that “Gee, I think leukemia and guinea worms are a good thing!”.
A person who equates the “why are there guinea worms, leukemia, and tsunamis” argument with “why isn’t there beer trees and lollipops” calling anything else sophomoric is an irony of epic proportions.
Point taken. But they both boil done to “Why is life sometimes bad if God can make it good”. I don’t find that argument convincing or sophisticated. Bear in mind, I’m not arguing that God, whom I don’t believe exists, *is* good, but that his inherent *lack* of goodness is a strong argument against his existence. To interpret “God is good” takes a huge grain of salt and can be taken to mean tsunamis and guinea worms are ‘good’ and that certainly can’t be the ‘good’ of “That Jim; he sure is a good guy!” but such a grain of salt isn’t entirely impossible. It’s ‘good’ for bio-diversity that guinea worms exist (and *very* good for the worms themselves) and it’s ‘good’ for geology that tsunamis exist. I’m not crazy about leukemia or e-bola but it’s ‘good’ that biological methods that allow them to arise are the biological methods of this planet.
MikeGsays
David,
And let’s not even think of mentioning Waiting for Godot,
windysays
All that may be true, but it is not necessarily the case that “perfect moral goodness” will correspond to our human understanding of it.
But this creates problems for religions that exhort people to “imitate God”, as Mark Twain observed…
(if heaven really existed, wouldn’t a literal infinity of perfect happiness make up for a few years of painful cancer?)
Not unless everyone was guaranteed infinite happiness. But in that case, what would be the point of the initial suffering? If someone punched me in the nose and then gave me a million dollars, that would probably “make up” for the discomfort as far as I was concerned, but the nose-puncher’s motives would still be questionable. And what about the pointless suffering of non-human life?
Graculussays
“imagine a novel, story, or a fairytale without any villain, and you will find out that it would lack any plot, and would be thus absolutely boring and meaningless”
Erm, every disaster movie ever made> Although I agree that they are boring and meaningless, millions don’t.
The only place I’ve ever seen BCE/CE used before this thread is in my religious education classes at school.
I see it a great deal in archeology papers.
Would someone fix scienceblogs, it’s anoying my mouse software.
woozysays
Although, I’ve heard in obscure references that only humans have free will; angels don’t.
That would raise the problem, in some people’s version of Christianity (etc), of how Satan/Lucifer could possibly be a fallen angel (or anything of the same non-human ilk) without the god being entirely complicit in the fit-up job (creating evil, framing his agent and blaming the victims).
Well, my reference was Sandman comic books…
Didn’t God create the laws of logic and physics? If he can’t violate such laws, doesn’t that indicate that they must have existed prior to him, or binds him in some fashion?
Didn’t God create himself? Wouldn’t God obey his own laws? Did God make physical laws? Probably (hypothetically, I am an athiest). Logical laws? Absolutely not! Logical laws would be a result of interpreting the laws of universe afterward. Also once created, why should he *later* be able to break them. Square circles are a symantic impossibility. Not a physical (or theological) limitation. If God can only act within the laws of physics, how is he different from some very powerful non-supernatural being?
He created the universe, consciously watches over every action within it, he effects and intervenes in it and is aware and has a relationship with every human being.
Wouldn’t any very powerful non-supernatural being that does all that be deserving of the name God?
(Isn’t the word “supernatural” a logical oxymoron just as “omnipotent” is also a logical oxymoron? After all, everything that exists is natural? And “omni” implies the “impossible” as well as the possible. Would anything be actually limited if “omnipotent” only included the possible, and “natural” includes everything that can possibly exist (including the existence or non-existance of God, Angels, and ghosts)?
Stoicsays
Hey, aren’t atheists supposed to be called brights?
Chrissays
Maybe he followed the I before E except after C rule to far.
psycho-woozysays
Okay, if Omnipotent means the ability to do anything whether possible and impossible, then God being omnipotent is capible of doing the impossible. And one of the impossible things he does is allow evil to exist while simultaneous being infinitely good and benevolent!
Ha! Take that! No inconsistancies are (im)possible as God’s omnipotence allows inconsistancies to (not) exist!
Okay, that is a *blatent* begging of questions, but than so is pointing out omnipotence is a logical impossibility.
Christophersays
The arguments against it I’ve heard, like Woozy’s, amount to a Panglossian view that this is the best of all possible worlds.
Now, even if we except that evil/suffering exists, then we can ask, yeah, but exactly this much?
If the world was as good as it could ever possibly be right now, then there would be no sense in us trying to make it better, yes? So obviously it’s not at the optimal level right now.
Which means to argue that the epicurean philosophy is untrue, you have to argue that the best possible universe has to have started with exactly as much evil as this one, and that said evil can be mitigated only at the rate evil is currently mitigated in this universe.
Which is to say that if God had, say, made the planet less prone to Earthquakes, it would not have allowed more people to live.
Which… I guess I can’t disprove it, but that requires a number of obscure assumptions I see no reason to believe.
One could also argue that the events of this physical universe are ultimately so trivial that while they seem horrible to us, they really aren’t. Perhaps when we die we’ll arrive at some higher consciousness and see everything as a game.
But again, you’re making a lot of assumptions about the way things work.
Ultimately, in order to go against Epicurus, you have to believe in a number of unproven assumptions about the universe, for no real reason at all.
I kind of think Occam’s Razor makes any of Epicurus’ ideas much more likely; God being a dick or being impotent doesn’t really require us to make any assumptions about the universe working in some strange way we can’t observe.
I’m kind of a weird Atheist; I don’t care if god exists or not, because if he did i still wouldn’t like him.
Here’s two things we know:
1. Bad stuff happens.
2. It happens for no readily apparent reason.
Suppose somebody walked up behind you on the street, and kicked me in the butt. Then he walked away without saying anything.
Would you start spinning elaborate scenarios explaining why he NEEDED to kick you in the butt for the good of all mankind?
Or would you just say, “Man, what a jerk.”
Me, I’d go for the second one, and that’s why I’m not religious.
I could imagine a generally benevolent god that does not intervene in the affairs of day-to-day life, on the premise that we need to develop our own strength to survive. I don’t believe in such a god, but I can imagine one. I say “generally benevolent” as it wouldn’t necessarily be benevolent or malevolent towards individuals. It is the species for which it has benevolence.
I likewise find it impossible for a world to exist without “evil.” What we call evil is a result of conflicts of interest between people. So long as people take interest in themselves there will be conflict and their will be transgressions and bloodshed. There may be ways to reduce this, but we can only go so far without neutering ourselves. Likewise, the very chemistry and physics that allow us to exist are greater than us and refuse to be tamed. So long as that is so, we will live and die at nature’s hands. And that’s a good thing. We are survival machines. The moment we stop struggling to survive we lose meaning in our lives. That does not mean we refuse to make more improvements in our ability to survive disasters, or fail to redirect that fatal asteroid. It means that we keep pushing our boundaries, never expecting nature to care or bless us, relying on our own strength to prevail. I don’t think it’s the role of a god or a government to mollycoddle us. That’s one reason why I am an atheist, and a democrat.
inkadusays
I can see why an atheist might be unconvinced by Epicurus’ argument for the existence of God, but the last line isn’t, Why say he exists? it is Why call him God?.
This is the sort of quote that brings in frantic track switching in Christians. God is GOOD because of X Y and Z at the same time that there is no way we can know if something is good or not. If its true that God is that inscrutable, then God could be a right mean bastard playing a joke and gets his jollies by coming down to earth in incarnated forms and starting new religions. We couldn’t tell — his ways are mysterious. And, in fact, that’s a way more plausible view of God to me than the story Christians peddle.
So, I can totally understand why a philosophically-minded atheists could sniff at Epicurus… but christians who think their entity is worthy of worship have a real problem.
LM Wanderersays
I wouldn’t go too far with the omnipotence. If I met God in a dark alley I hope I am in an old car made of iron.
LM Wanderer
JoeZsays
Phew, what a long thread!
Re. much of the above: can we just accept that it’s not possible to use logic to prove or disprove the existence of gods?
If it were, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
assays
This quote is from someone in Boethius’s Confessions. It has nothing to do with Epicureus, who was all about hedonism and not the problem of evil.
Tony Jeremiahsays
Hmm,
Arguably, the quote seems like a good argument for the
Jesus = God/Crucifixion paradox.
inkadusays
JoeZ – It’s easy to use logic to disprove God, as long as you start with a definition of terms.
My gripe is Christians seem to use different definitions on Sunday morning than they do on debate threads. Take the definition of God used by rigorous Christian apologists and he’s almost completely unrecognizable. Try to explain how that logic-pretzel of a God has anything at all to do with Jesus Christ, and it’s a completely lost cause.
The only place I’ve ever seen BCE/CE used before this thread is in my religious education classes at school.
I first saw it in James Michener’s novel The Source (1965), which my mother had on a bookshelf somewhere when I was a youngster.
Rey Foxsays
“Hey, aren’t atheists supposed to be called brights?”
No.
Sil-chansays
It seems that someone has invited the grammar McCarthyist’s. (Look, I invented a new word in an attempt to not invoke Godwin’s Law!)
Oh, and I expect all you grammarians to start using shoppe, colour, and ye in place of shop, color, and the. Having the spelling of a word change due to popular usage is unacceptable and completely unheard of historically. As such, I expect you to use proper English!
After all, English was created exactly the way we use it today. Everyone knows that!
Question: Where did Epicurus, a Greek who supposedly believed in gods like Zeus who raped women, could lose battles, and goddesses who argued about who was more beautiful and punished men who didn’t chose them, and other such nasties, get this idea about a God that is omnigood and omnipowerful?
Janinesays
Omnipotent? Can god change Pi? No? Thought not. Change the fact that 2+2=4? No? OK then. Not omnipotent. Game over. Mathematics constrains god. Can we go home now?
Posted by: Amenhotep | December 2, 2007 6:17 PM
If Big Brother Sky Daddy says 2+2=4, it is in your own best interest to truly believe it is so. And no, you may not go home. We are behind in production. We must make sure that 2+2=4.
Ichthyicsays
We are behind in production. We must make sure that 2+2=4.
The simpsons tonight (rerun, i missed the intro before) had a sweet evolution of homer sequence to open. complete with moe meeting homer at homer erectus stage and going the other direction.
thatsa nice.
My Momma told me that if I loved jebus I would live forever in heaven. She also told me it was i before e except after c, with the requisite neighbor and weigh exceptions. She was wrong on both counts, but I still love her.
tsigsays
What is god’s purpose?
Other than creating man.
How do you fill up eternity?
The Monksays
“Good” and “evil” are relative terms. They are different sides of the same coin. Toss the coin and you’ll have a better idea of what is going on.
Justin Morettisays
Is He able but not willing? Maybe it’s because He’s gotten sick of mollycoddling us, and now expects us to stand on our own two feet and solve our own problems.
John C. Randolphsays
“CE” and “BCE” aren’t more scholarly, they’re just more fashionable.
-jcr
Lassi Hippeläinensays
Any LOL versions available?
Lassi Hippeläinensays
Any LOL versions available?
Dustinsays
Look, I invented a new word in an attempt to not invoke Godwin’s Law!
Rock on. I would not be at all surprised to see a history or political science seminar with a title like “Fascism: Its theory, origins and practice” interrupted on the first day of class when one of those internet fuckwits who start all of their posts with “Um, actually…” blurts out “GODWINNED LOL U LOZE!” in the middle of lecture.
Maybe it’s because He’s gotten sick of mollycoddling us, and now expects us to stand on our own two feet and solve our own problems.
True dat. Ancient humans had it made. Living to be 20 (maybe), starving all winter, losing their teeth to infections and nutrient deficiencies, dying of infections, getting raped, dying in the resulting childbirth, getting gored by wild animals… Oh how I pine for the days of yore, when God was looking out for us.
Sven DiMilosays
I expect all you grammarians to start using shoppe, colour, and ye in place of shop, color, and the.
Actually, “ye” and “the” are precisely the same word, same pronunciation, slightly different spelling. In Medieval (and earlier) England there was a single letter, called “thorn,” for the “th” sound, derived from a runic alphabet (it’s apparently still used in Icelandic). In handwritten lower-case it looked sort of like a lower-case y with a closed loop at the top. When printing presses came over, the type was cast in Germany or Italy, and did not include a thorn, so printers substituted the closest thing they had, y. It was never pronounce “yee.”
Does this make me a McCarthyist? I’ll cop to it if we’re talking about Gene.
Not to mention the dyslexic agnostic insomniacs, who lie awake all night wondering whether there’s a Dog or not.
Should that be “whether there’s a Dog or ton”?
This quote is from someone in Boethius’s Confessions. It has nothing to do with Epicureus, who was all about hedonism and not the problem of evil.
Not quite. Epicurus is slandered by the more popular stoics of the time for the “hedonistic” thought that when measuring something as subjective as “good” or “morality” to think that pleasure is a valuable consideration. I mean, how shallow to persue pleasure??? He’s a firm believer in moderation in all things.
I think this is a weak and unconvincing argument, that we atheists have contrived and, dare I say, cherry-picked and over simplified. Who ever first said “God is good” was well aware of suffering and is clearly saying, God has a purpose and a plan and its good and requires suffering. You buy that? Well, I don’t either. But saying, oh, ho. But good and suffering just can’t be compatible, strikes me as being about on par with “Sea cucumbers and arabian horse evolved from a common ancestor? Oh, come on! They look so different! You’re clearly not thinking hard enough!” Now, I admit, I don’t envy the theologian who has to answer “The holocaust! How could a ‘good’ god let that happen? E-bola! If this is ‘good’, God’s got a *lot* of explaining to do!” but even in those cases of extreme evils the whole argument sounds like “Shouldn’t there be missing links in the fossil records? Scanty? *pfff* excuses… it still covers millions of years and if evolution is a steady process … punctuated equilibrium? … Ha, now you are changing your own story… no! I don’t want to listen … obviously you are making stuff up as you go along because you can’t admit you are wrong ….”
I can see why an atheist might be unconvinced by Epicurus’ argument for the existence of God, but the last line isn’t, Why say he exists? it is Why call him God?.
This is the sort of quote that brings in frantic track switching in Christians. God is GOOD because of X Y and Z at the same time that there is no way we can know if something is good or not.
Actually, I was thinking something very similar to this as I was driving to a friends house to dinner tonight. (I think about this stuff a lot!) I’m not arrogant or condescending in my 21st Century splendor to scoff at Epicurus whom I admire as one of the most rational of rationalists.
I’m interested in knowing whether God exists or not because I want to *know* what the universe is and as an objective existentialist I consider the possibility of “Good God” on par with the posibility of “Bad God” and “Olypiam pantheon” and “6 foot pink rabbit with in inordinant fondness for the color green and an irrational hatred for water and electric current in the same place”. (The six foot bunny was something my jr. high school buddy and I made up. Her name was athi and we believed in her so we were athiests. It was against or religion to have tests on Tuesday and Thursday was our holy day to hide under the bed in hopes that the universe will pass us by. I think Arthur Dent must have been a closet athiest because he “could never get the hang of Thursdays”. Athi was irrational in her hatred fo water and electrical current. “Stick your finger in a light socket while standing in a puddle will you ?!?!? I’ll Kill you!!!! I’LL KILL YOU!!!!!!” …. but I digress…)
where was I, oh yeah, God, Zeus, FSM, the devil, or nothing… I don’t view any of them as particularly “better” than the other. I just want to know which one is the *correct* answer. (I’m putting my money on nothing; all the others are just plain silly… *especially* the flying spaghetti monster… I mean seriously…) However the epicurian argument is a good starting point for questioning why we might want a God to exist and what we expect from one. I *do* have a friend who claims he’s an athiest because he can’t believe a just god would allow evils and suffering to occur. I guess the tacit assumption which I missed making, is that there is no functional utility of an indifferent God and an indifferent God isn’t worthy of our belief. As an objective emperisist I don’t consider use or worthiness; just possibility.
T_U_Tsays
This is teh stupid. A block of a whitish, greasy substance. I want to set it on fire.
Whoever argues like that has neither read Carl Zimmer’s At the Water’s Edge nor Jennifer Clack’s Gaining Ground, and these are just the examples that I can cite off the top of my head. No villains, no plot whatsoever, and yet the books are fascinating.
You are true. this is teh stupid someone thinking that books describing millions of years of evolution,of the struggle to adapt to new environments, are without any plot ;-)
negentropyeatersays
Come on, this is such a non argument for atheism that I am surprised that it’s even posted here. I think PZ wanted to make a joke
From Plato to Polkinghorne, there’s been hundreds of theologians and philosophers who have discussed the meaning of omnipotence and clearly shown that it cannot mean that “God can do anything”.
Even Russell didn’t try that one, so let’s go back to asking for evidence of God’s existence and God’s intervention and why these hypothesis are required to explain nature. That’s a much better line of thought.
bernardasays
There is an interview with Scott Atran who has studied and written on religious terrorism.
“In your book In Gods We Trust, you call religion an evolutionary riddle. Why?
A: Think about it. All religions require costly sacrifices that have no material rewards. Look at the Egyptian pyramids. Millions of man-hours. For what? To house dead bones? Or the Cambodian pyramids. Or the Mayan pyramids. Or cathedrals. Or just going to church every Sunday and gesticulating. Or saying a Latin or Hebrew prayer, mumbling what are to many people incoherent words. Stopping whatever you’re doing to bow and scrape. Then think about the cognitive aspects of it. For example, to take alive for dead and weak for strong. I mean, what creature could possibly survive if it did these kinds of things systematically?
Look at the things that religion is said to do. It is said to relieve people’s anxieties, but it’s also said to increase their anxieties so that elites can use them for political purposes. It’s supposed to be liberating. It’s supposed to encourage creativity. It’s supposed to stop creativity. It’s supposed to explain events that can’t be explained. It’s supposed to prevent people from explaining them. You can find functional explanations, and their contraries, and they’re all true.
Why then has religion survived in so many cultures?
A: Because humans are faced with problems they can’t solve. Think about death. Because we have these cognitive abilities to travel in time and to track memory, we are automatically aware of death everywhere. That is a cognitive problem. Death is something that our organism tells us to avoid. So now we seek some kind of a long-term solution. And there is none. Lucretius and Epicurus thought they could solve this through reason. They said, “Look, what does it matter? We weren’t alive for infinite generations before we were born. It doesn’t bother us. Why should we be worried about the infinite generations that will be after us when we’re gone?” Well, nobody bought that. The reason that line of reasoning didn’t work is because once you’re alive, you’ve got something that you’re going to lose.”
Christophersays
Woozy: The difference there is that people who believe in evolution can explain in great detail how it works and how they know how it works. There are reams of evidence.
The “God is good in spite of suffering” theory is possible, but I’ve heard no evidence for it; I’ve never heard the convincing reason that a good god would allow evil, just the theory that he would.
Just because something’s possible doesn’t mean we should believe it.
Mosessays
This quote is from someone in Boethius’s Confessions. It has nothing to do with Epicureus, who was all about hedonism and not the problem of evil.
Posted by: as | December 2, 2007 10:07 PM
You’re talking of something you clearly know little beyond a shallow and incomplete picture. At least start with Wikipedia before you spout off.
woozysays
The “God is good in spite of suffering” theory is possible, but I’ve heard no evidence for it; I’ve never heard the convincing reason that a good god would allow evil, just the theory that he would.
Oh, I’m not arguing for it. I’m merely saying that as a argument: God would be good yet there is suffering so he isn’t good so therefore he must not exist, is, to me, kind of weak and unsatisfying.
We can argue against the flying spaghetti monster on the basis that it’s silly and doesn’t make any sense and didn’t some guy just make it up any way. But arguing against the flying spaghetti monster saying, “if the flying spaghetti monster existed he’d make sense yet the idea of a supernatural creator made of pasta and meatballs is patently absurd so a sensible flying spaghetti monster is impossible so the FSM can not exist” strikes me as somewhat weak and contrived. If we are debating the existence of a FSM why should we assume it must be sensible and even if the FSM adherents *insist* the FSM is ultimately sensible how can we state assertively the utterly subjective and humanly limitted statement “in no sense or any logical system could the FSM make sense”?
That’s all I’m saying.
My belief in evolution having been established and proven doesn’t particular disprove god (many believers have kept their faith in spite of exposure to reality) but it does raise the question “Well, *why* exactly would one need to believe in a god”. I guess for me some arguments (for and against) are stronger than others. I find nearly all arguments I’ve encountered for God to be pretty weak. (I suppose “how can the universe be so gosh darned ordered” is probably the strongest in my opininion but cosmology and evolution have pretty much rendered it moot. And it was circular to begin with.) The strongest argument against, in my opinion, aren’t so much any inconsistancy so much as “Given lack of evidence for, and alternative and proven explanations countering the arguments for, doesn’t it seem unlikely to suppose something exists when there is no reason for it to nor evidence of it doing so?” (i.e. the “I don’t believe there are giant carnivorous rabbits in the sewers of Chicago” argument. [I don’t. Do you? Does anybody?])
Perhaps, my strongest argument against is that as a statement it really doesn’t have any definition or substance. I mean, just who *is* this god guy you are taking about and what is he made of?
Stoicsays
“All religions require costly sacrifices that have no material rewards. Look at the Egyptian pyramids. Millions of man-hours. For what? To house dead bones? Or the Cambodian pyramids.”
People should stop thinking of the pyramids as being an empty religious gesture and see them for what they really were — The Egyptian version of the WPA, the Work Progress Administration. Every leader, going back to the most primitive chieftains, gained power and prestige by “taking care” of their people. When all the harvesting was done the Pharaoh put all the idle hands to work building…something, anything. It kept people otherwise unemployed from starving and enhanced the bureaucracy thus ensuring his reign. The pyramids weren’t built by slaves. They were built by freemen (mostly).
I wonder if anyone has ever studied any relationship between high population and pyramid building?
He’s talking about the temples at Angkor Wat, I assume, but pyramids are something entirely different.
As to how such large and ornate structures were constructed in the middle of the jungle by a pre-industrial society, the answer is very straightforward: whips.
Sven DiMilosays
Cambodian pyramids were built by giant carnivorous rabbits. You didn’t know that?
windysays
Oh, I’m not arguing for it. I’m merely saying that as a argument: God would be good yet there is suffering so he isn’t good so therefore he must not exist, is, to me, kind of weak and unsatisfying.
Only if we assume that we should go to absurd lengths to give God the benefit of the doubt or to redefine “good”. Christopher’s comment #63 was spot on. This argument is not so much about the existence of God as his supposed benevolence.
Are they the ones that dyslexic theists accuse of worshipping Santa?
HPsays
Question: Where did Epicurus[…] get this idea about a God that is omnigood and omnipowerful?
Greek religion was a bit more complex than the impression you might get from pop-mythology. And it changed drastically between the times of Homer and Herodotus and later cults like those of Orpheus and Jesus. A very close analog would be modern Hinduism. Generally, scholars and elites held a conception of a Godhead behind the myths and cults. This notion of Godhead is comparable to modern Vedanta.
It’s been a while since I read Epicurus, but IIRC he also wrote on the futility of sacrifice to cultic deities. (My favorite bit of Epicurus has nothing to do with religion or ethics. It’s an essay on atomism in which he predicts that atoms have inherent, random motion — two millennia before Robert Brown.)
Ack. I mean “satire by Lucian.” Or maybe Luscious.
Azkyrothsays
Oh, I’m not arguing for it. I’m merely saying that as a argument: God would be good yet there is suffering so he isn’t good so therefore he must not exist, is, to me, kind of weak and unsatisfying.
Jesus Fictional Christ, do you actually believe the definition of the terms employed is completely irrelevant to an argument?
1) “Good” has a meaning.
2) Due to this meaning, if the universe were ruled by an entity that was omniscient, omnipotent, and good, suffering would not exist.
3) …unless there is some good reason for allowing suffering, and if the believer wants to claim this, THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THEM (whereas you seem, for no reason I can see, to be entirely willing to force the skeptic to prove that there isn’t. Again, do you even understand how burden of proof works?).
4) Additionally, since the available evidence strongly indicates that this claim is both untrue and ridiculous, and believers have been trying without success to produce evidence of this for A VERY LONG TIME without coming up with better than quarter-assed results, the infinitesimal chance that they might finally find a justification is not worth suspending a conclusion indefinitely, and it is not necessary to suspend a conclusion indefinitely in any case – merely treating it as “technically provisional” suffices.
5) THE QUALITY OF GOODNESS IS BUILT INTO THE CONVENTIONAL DEFINITION OF “GOD.” Thus, even if the Argument from Evil does not disprove the existence of anything that might conceivably be labeled “a god” it does render the existence of what people normally mean when they say “God” so implausible as to be beyond rational consideration.
Arguing that an omnipotent, omniscient being that is not “good” by the actual definition of the word would still be “God” in the sense believers typically mean is kind of like arguing that bats are birds since they’re warm-blooded and fly. Arguing that the existence of suffering which it absolutely would be within its power to prevent (by the definition of “omnipotent”) and of which it absolutely would be aware, as well as understand how to prevent (by the definition of “omniscient”) and which, unless the believers finally produce a logical justification for doing otherwise (the odds of this occurrence lying somewhere between “infinitesimal” and “forget it”), it absolutely would wish to prevent (by the definition of “good”) does not render the existence of “God” thus defined implausible is like arguing that just because we don’t see it, and just because we don’t experience any of the effects its gravity would cause, that doesn’t mean there ISN’T a mars-sized body orbiting the earth inside the orbit of the moon.
Stephen Wellssays
Azkyroth, Do Not Disrespect The Austen. One of the great masters of English prose style. Of course you want to strangle some of the characters. Some of them deserve it :)
(But skip Mansfield Park).
David Marjanović, OMsays
You are true. this is teh stupid someone thinking that books describing millions of years of evolution,of the struggle to adapt to new environments, are without any plot ;-)
No, that’s not a plot, because none of the protagonists does anything other than reproducing or dying. They don’t act, stuff happens to them.
David Marjanović, OMsays
You are true. this is teh stupid someone thinking that books describing millions of years of evolution,of the struggle to adapt to new environments, are without any plot ;-)
No, that’s not a plot, because none of the protagonists does anything other than reproducing or dying. They don’t act, stuff happens to them.
David Marjanović, OMsays
In other words, none of them asks “do you expect me to talk”. Instead, they die.
David Marjanović, OMsays
In other words, none of them asks “do you expect me to talk”. Instead, they die.
Just a Thoughtsays
“If He is able but not willing then He is malevolent”
What if one defines “evil” as the absence of God, just as cold is the absence of heat, and darkness the absence of light? In that case, God allowing evil is Him giving us a choice between following Him and not.
So then, according to Epicurus, freedom would be malevolent and slavery benevolent.
What if one defines “evil” as the absence of God, just as cold is the absence of heat, and darkness the absence of light? In that case, God allowing evil is Him giving us a choice between following Him and not.
Wow. Standard stupid apologetics. If the absence of God is evil, then God is not “allowing” anything; anything that is not him is by default evil. Following him or not is irrelevant; since we are not God, we are by default evil and cannot be good, since that would mean we’d have to be God. (To follow your analogy to light, you can spend all the time in the world with a flashlight, but you won’t ever be light.) That’s just the first of a million reasons why what you wrote is stupid (give or take a few million depending on how you’re choosing to define ‘God’, ‘following Him’, ‘choice’, etc.)
Please do not waste our time with typical apologetic bullshit that you’re obviously parroting from your idiot church group because you don’t have a fucking clue as to what it means.
‘Just a Thought’ isn’t your comment handle, it’s a tally of how many you’ve had to date, isn’t it?
True, but in this context, it does not have the meaning you think it does. If you want to argue against religion, you have to use religion’s terms.
2) Due to this meaning, if the universe were ruled by an entity that was omniscient, omnipotent, and good, suffering would not exist.
False. See (1). Furthermore, you’re confusing capability with action. Don’t worry, many Christians do too.
3) …unless there is some good reason for allowing suffering, and if the believer wants to claim this, THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THEM (whereas you seem, for no reason I can see, to be entirely willing to force the skeptic to prove that there isn’t. Again, do you even understand how burden of proof works?).
Incorrect. The believer has no responsibility to prove anything to the non-believer. I like the color blue, but I don’t have to prove that either. I don’t care what you believe.
4) Additionally, since the available evidence strongly indicates that this claim is both untrue and ridiculous, and believers have been trying without success to produce evidence of this for A VERY LONG TIME without coming up with better than quarter-assed results, the infinitesimal chance that they might finally find a justification is not worth suspending a conclusion indefinitely, and it is not necessary to suspend a conclusion indefinitely in any case – merely treating it as “technically provisional” suffices.
You probably need to look up the term “evidence”. Do you mean to say “scientific evidence”? Because there is massive quantities of legally admissable evidence that God does, in fact, exist. In most courts of law, those forms of evidence is considered more conclusive than scientific evidence. Perhaps they shouldn’t be, but that’s the reality.
5) THE QUALITY OF GOODNESS IS BUILT INTO THE CONVENTIONAL DEFINITION OF “GOD.”
Again, false. Here you’re ignoring some of the most basic tenets of Christian theology. God DEFINES good. You’re attempting to define things the other way around, which would be fine except if you weren’t attempting to criticize an existing concept by redefining it. The Book of Job is essentially one long explication of this distinction, which can be summed up as God saying: My game, my rules, deal with it.
By the way, what is the source for this supposed quote from Epicurus? It looks more like a modification from Hume: “EPICURUS’S old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?”
Tulsesays
Stephen Wells:
Do Not Disrespect The Austen. One of the great masters of English prose style.
Say it, brother! Austen rocks!
Of course you want to strangle some of the characters. Some of them deserve it :)
And Jane intended the reader to want to strangle them.
(But skip Mansfield Park).
Well, yeah, not one of her best by a longshot. Who wants the heroine to be mousy and boring and the antagonist to be sparkling and witty?
Incorrect. The believer has no responsibility to prove anything to the non-believer. I like the color blue, but I don’t have to prove that either. I don’t care what you believe.
Vox D’oh, you really should re-read what you wrote and try really hard to understand why you’re such a fucking moron.
Since you’re apparently happy to be one though, I know you won’t.
Hey, it’s your brain to waste.
Tulsesays
there is massive quantities of legally admissable evidence that God does, in fact, exist.
Wow, I haven’t heard this one before.
Just a Thoughtsays
In response to Brownian, OM | December 3, 2007 2:45 PM
You misinterpret what is meant by “the absence of God.” That is my fault for presuming it might be considered long enought to make it fit into the statement. To correct my failing this is what I meant:
To the extent that one chooses to follow God one’s behavior is good. To the extent that one chooses not to follow Him
one is behavior is evil.
Additionally, how does one define “good” and “evil” without basing it on something or someone absolute? In fact, it would be interesting to hear some folks’ definitions of “good” and “evil” in here. Anyone courageous enough?
VDsays
Wow, I haven’t heard this one before.
Note that I didn’t say you should find it convincing, only that to blithly insist that there is “no evidence” for the existence of God is either a remarkably ignorant or intellectually sloppy thing to say. No “scientific evidence” is a far more reasonable – and defensible – position.
Vox D’oh, you really should re-read what you wrote and try really hard to understand why you’re such a fucking moron.
Aside from the obvious grammatical errors caused by not looking at what I typed, your case appears to be nonexistent. A burden of proof can only exist when an individual is attempting to convince another individual of something, there is no burden of proof that inherently comes with the mere possession of a belief or an opinion, however ridiculous.
To the extent that one chooses to follow God one’s behavior is good. To the extent that one chooses not to follow Him one is behavior is evil.
Oh, I understand what you meant, alright (we’ve all heard that crap before, yawn). It’s obvious that you don’t fully understand it though.
Additionally, how does one define “good” and “evil” without basing it on something or someone absolute? In fact, it would be interesting to hear some folks’ definitions of “good” and “evil” in here. Anyone courageous enough?
Good question. Why don’t you ask the Christians that one though, since the actions of the god they describe are in no way consistent and therefore would not fulfill the concept of absolute morality you are (perhaps unwittingly) trying to imply. Courageous enough?
Ubersays
To the extent that one chooses to follow God one’s behavior is good. To the extent that one chooses not to follow Him
one is behavior is evil.
This is so silly, even granting your premise you still don’t have even iota one what God really wants or for that matter which of the alleged Gods you should be following.
Additionally, how does one define “good” and “evil” without basing it on something or someone absolute?
Each society has ideas on behaviour that is acceptable and that which is not. What you are doing when you say ‘good’ or ‘evil’ is asigning a value to a behaviour nothing more. It’s an opinion. Most think the holocaust was evil. An opinion on a behaviour. Likewise for what is good.
In fact, it would be interesting to hear some folks’ definitions of “good” and “evil” in here. Anyone courageous enough?
What courage does it take to discuss this material? Typically if an act harms no one and brings happiness it is good. If an act causes temporary hurt but a long term benefit it’s good also.
If an act causes harm then it’s more than likely not so good. But again these are simply opinions of natural behaviours. No behaviour is in and of itself ‘unnatural’, we just describe them as such.
Just a Thoughtsays
In response to Brownian, OM | December 3, 2007 3:00 PM
There’s just nothing like the well-considered, point by point “pooh pooh head” response.
Ubersays
Because there is massive quantities of legally admissable evidence that God does, in fact, exist. In most courts of law, those forms of evidence is considered more conclusive than scientific evidence
Really and just what is it? This has got to be one of the most clueless statements ever on any blog.
A burden of proof can only exist when an individual is attempting to convince another individual of something, there is no burden of proof that inherently comes with the mere possession of a belief or an opinion, however ridiculous.
This is almost smarmy in it’s stupidity. No one doubts you can believe anything. But to suggest that people don’t try to convince/ convert others is beyond bizarre. Likewise by believing it you are asserting it or else why would you believe it in the first place?
So when someone asks why you believe it I guess you could say I dunno I just do or actually provide some evidence. You are making the claim.
Just a Thoughtsays
“Good question. Why don’t you ask the Christians that one though, since the actions of the god they describe are in no way consistent and therefore would not fulfill the concept of absolute morality you are (perhaps unwittingly) trying to imply. Courageous enough?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | December 3, 2007 3:26 PM ”
Are you suggesting that a non-answer is courageous? I always find it interesting when people use terms centrally yet refuse to define them.
Rey Foxsays
Stay on topic, JaT. We already know that we’re big meanie-heads here, it doesn’t score you any points.
Ichthyicsays
Cambodian pyramids were built by giant carnivorous rabbits.
Well, that’s no ordinary rabbit!
ARTHUR:
Ohh.
TIM:
That’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!
ROBIN:
You tit! I soiled my armour I was so scared!
TIM:
Look, that rabbit’s got a vicious streak a mile wide! It’s a killer!
GALAHAD:
Get stuffed!
TIM:
He’ll do you up a treat, mate.
GALAHAD:
Oh, yeah?
ROBIN:
You mangy Scots git!
TIM:
I’m warning you!
ROBIN:
What’s he do, nibble your bum?
TIM:
He’s got huge, sharp– eh– he can leap about– look at the bones!
ARTHUR:
Go on, Bors. Chop his head off!
BORS:
Right! Silly little bleeder. One rabbit stew comin’ right up!
TIM:
Look!
[squeak]
BORS:
Aaaugh!
Tulsesays
Note that I didn’t say you should find it convincing, only that to blithly insist that there is “no evidence” for the existence of God is either a remarkably ignorant or intellectually sloppy thing to say. No “scientific evidence” is a far more reasonable – and defensible – position.
Riiiight, in order to avoid confusion with all that “dairy evidence”, or “my buddy Larry evidence”, or “colourless green ideas sleep furiously evidence”.
bernardasays
what is this “absence of god”? How can you have the absence of absence? Or the vacuum of emptiness? Or is it the emptiness of vacuum?
Are you suggesting that a non-answer is courageous?
No, I’m suggesting you find the courage to ask yourself and your fellow believers such questions in an honest spirit of inquiry. (I’ll define honest spirit of inquiry for you too–by this I mean not being satisfied with the first answer somebody comes up that requires little or evidence to support it but doesn’t conflict with what you already believe.)
I always find it interesting when people use terms centrally yet refuse to define them.
I suppose that’s why you think “What if Evil is the absence of God, huh? Woah! Mind-blowing!” is interesting. The rest of us are bored with such ill-defined-as-to-be-logically-incomprehensible inanities.
And to VD (can I call you STI instead? The term is more inclusive yet still conveys the idea that you’re probably not easily cured by penicillin either):
What you call ‘blue’ is god. That’s why you’ve got a natural affinity for It. (Why would Blue make us like It if It wasn’t Blue?)
That was fun. Is that the kind of stuff you write on your blog all day? Made-up stuff that you don’t have to prove because it’s just an opinion?
Thanks for your contribution to society. Keep up the good work.
Just a Thoughtsays
“Stay on topic, JaT. We already know that we’re big meanie-heads here, it doesn’t score you any points.
Posted by: Rey Fox | December 3, 2007 3:34 PM ”
Being “meanie-heads” was not the point of the post you responded to. The total lack of argument was. The fact that you neglected to ascertain that is significant. The fact that you felt you had to rebuke me for something I was not intending to do reveals that you are having difficulty staying on topic. But if you wish to continue a tit for tat I will allow you to have the last word.
Just a Thoughtsays
“what is this “absence of god”? How can you have the absence of absence? Or the vacuum of emptiness? Or is it the emptiness of vacuum?
Posted by: bernarda | December 3, 2007 3:37 PM ”
So, for the sake of argument, bernarda refuses to postulate? Interesting for a site which worships the scientific method.
Ichthyicsays
So, for the sake of argument, bernarda refuses to postulate? Interesting for a site which worships the scientific method.
no, for the sake of sanity, there is little point TO postulate.
that seems to be the point you missed.
We can certainly discuss the fertility value of ground unicorn horn instead, for an equally enlightening exchange.
woozysays
Azkryoth, I’m not entirely sure why you are going into a fit simply because I personally never found the “If god is so good why is there suffer argument” to be very convincing, but…
>>>Jesus Fictional Christ, do you actually believe the definition of the terms employed is completely irrelevant to an argument?
No, but of the adjectives I’ve heard of fictional God: angry, just, merciful, loving, good, vengeful, hairy, etc. I’ve never heard the term “protective”. And as to the tenets that are fundamental and intrinsic and nescessary to the mere concept of a god, “good” is not one of them.
Likewise I’ve heard enough thoughts on the concept of “goodness” to know that it is not considered incompatible with “suffering”. (“No pain; no gain” “Spare the rod; spoil the child” “One mans meat is another man’s poison” etc. etc.)
>>>1) “Good” has a meaning.
>>>2) Due to this meaning, if the universe were ruled by an entity that was omniscient, omnipotent, and good, suffering would not exist.
Not if allowing the world to follow in its course is “good” and intervening simply to avoid suffering is “bad”. (“I’m not going to buy ous that toy until you clean up your room” is not the comment of a “bad” parent.)
>>>>3) …unless there is some good reason for allowing suffering, and if the believer wants to claim this, THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THEM
The burden of proof is on the person remaining unconvinced??? So if I gave you a prove that 2 + 2 equals 5 and you were unconvinced, the burden of proof would be an you to prove that I was unconvincing????
Look. The supposition is that there is the argument that knocks the wind of the idea of God existing. Okay, I’m all ears. Well, the argument goes, if god existed he’d be good, and if he existed and was god, there wouldn’t be suffering, and there is suffering so he doesn’t exist! What do you think? Well, I answer, to be honest I find it rather weak and contrived. I don’t see why one should assume God is good in that sense; I don’t see why the concept of good should mean suffering would be actively rebuffed; and I don’t see that good would nescessarily be incompatible with suffering; and believers are well aware of suffering and have various reasons and explanations as to why god allows it.
>>>Now the burden of proof is on me to prove why I am unconvinced. No! The burden of proof is an the person providing the argument in the first place.
>>>>(whereas you seem, for no reason I can see, to be entirely willing to force the skeptic to prove that there isn’t. Again, do you even understand how burden of proof works?).
That would be true if the believer had said first “I believe God is good” and the skeptic had said, “bah, I don’t”. But that isn’t what happened here. Here it was the *skeptic* who said “There isn’t a god because a good God wouldn’t allow suffering” to which I, not a believer but a listener, responds “Meh, kinda tepid, in my opinion” It isn’t *my* burden to prove it is tepid! It is the original declarer to beef up the argument. and convince me it’s a good one. Which I still claim, in my opinion, it isn’t.
4) Additionally, since the available evidence strongly indicates that this claim is both untrue and ridiculous,
What claim? What evidence? That God *can* prevent E-bola, but purposely will not, and there is no possible good for the e-bola? I’m not certain any of those follow directly from an assumption God exists. And even though it seems cruel, I’m not sure it is ridicoulous.
>>> and believers have been trying without success to produce evidence of this for A VERY LONG TIME without coming up with better than quarter-assed results,
Um, try to remeber we are *NOT* debating or looking for evidence of the existance of God, but are debating how strong one particular argument against his existence is. I do *not* believe believers have been trying without success to produce evidence that God is either not good or the suffering has an ultimate good nor do I believe that their results in such a specific search has come up quarter-ass.
>>> the infinitesimal chance that they might finally find a justification is not worth suspending a conclusion indefinitely, and it is not necessary to suspend a conclusion indefinitely in any case – merely treating it as “technically provisional” suffices.
No, but it means the argument was not airtight.
5) THE QUALITY OF GOODNESS IS BUILT INTO THE CONVENTIONAL DEFINITION OF “GOD.”
No, it isn’t and what’s more “Goodness” as a human quality applied to the eternity of a cosmos scale is a amorphous vague and unclear quality at best. We scoff at folks who pray for their football team to win not because we think they are idiots to believe in God (well, we do think that) but because we think it’s absurd to think God who has to look over everything including the other team and much more important matters will be swayed in light of all on his plate. In essence you are saying any purpose to keeps God sitting distance watching as a some suffering occurs can’t be worth it. That sounds resonable be not convincing to me. Medical researchers aren’t “cruel” when the offer placebos to the control group (or are they?). I’m not apathetic because I don’t chain myself to the white house or phyically keep George Bush from enacting his idiot policies with my every dying breath (or am I). I’m simply not finding the “God wouldn’t allow suffering so there is no God” convincing.
>>> Thus, even if the Argument from Evil does not disprove the existence of anything that might conceivably be labeled “a god” it does render the existence of what people normally mean when they say “God” so implausible as to be beyond rational consideration.
I’m not convinced. It strikes me as perfectly rational that some super-natural being from somewhere else set the universe in motion, wishes to watch it unobserved, has a few hopes and desires for man-kind of which the individuals live and die in seconds, intervenes occasionally on their behalves but for the most part wants them to handle the leukemia, guinea worms, and genocide on there own.
I’m not saying that is likely nor that it is rational to believe it with utterly no evidence. But in no way is it “so implausible as to be beyond rational consideration”. In other words, the argument didn’t convince me.
>>>Arguing that an omnipotent, omniscient being that is not “good” by the actual definition of the word would still be “God” in the sense believers typically mean is kind of like arguing that bats are birds since they’re warm-blooded and fly.
Isn’t the super-being from somewhere else “good”? Aren’t the medical researchers giving placebos to sick patients in a control group “good”? Isn’t a parent refusing to buy a present until the child cleans his room “good”? You seem to be forcing a rather specific narrow human “good” unto a completely inhuman and ineffible creature and hoping it will stick. I agree that it’d be kind of nice if it did but I’m not sure it will. All I’m saying is if you want it to work you’d better get more glue and make it bigger. You seem to be reacting to criticism by pounding my head into it and saying “It’s *GONNA* stick! It’s *GONNA stick!”
Just a Thoughtsays
“We can certainly discuss the fertility value of ground unicorn horn instead, for an equally enlightening exchange.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 3, 2007 4:11 PM ”
I apologize. I didn’t realize that the concept of God is forbidden to be used on this free-thinking site.
Tell me, is the concept of relativism enshrined on the alter of “things which will not be disputed on this site” too?
Rey Foxsays
“Being “meanie-heads” was not the point of the post you responded to. The total lack of argument was.”
Well, he wasn’t talking to you when he made that post, so I assumed that you only responded to it in order to make some rhetorical point as to how mean we are for insulting the poor VD and, in doing so, puff yourself up. Believe me, I’ve seen it numerous times here. And, of course, you haven’t exactly dispelled that notion.
“The fact that you neglected to ascertain that is significant. ”
Only to a pompous grandstander.
“The fact that you felt you had to rebuke me for something I was not intending to do reveals that you are having difficulty staying on topic.”
Nope, it just reveals that I’m trying to keep you answering the questions posed by Brownian and Uber, which I noticed you haven’t yet. Much easier to put on airs by picking the low-hanging fruit, I see.
So, for the sake of argument, bernarda refuses to postulate? Interesting for a site which worships the scientific method.
[1]
I apologize. I didn’t realize that the concept of God is forbidden to be used on this free-thinking site.
[2]
Boy, you had your meltdown a lot quicker that I expected. Most or your type pretend to be interested in actual knowledge before their true colours come out. Too hard to keep up the guise of someone who has a functioning brain for long, huh?
By the way, responses to your idiotic comments are:
[1] the scientific method requires evidence. Provide evidence and we’ll start postulating. Further, we don’t [i]worship[/i] the scientific method. We use it because it has shown itself to be the only method that fairly reliably keeps people from just making stuff up.
[2] nobody said you can’t use the concept of God on this free-thinking site (though I’ve never found those that invoke God often to be particularly free-thinking.) Just expect to be asked for evidence when you postulate some crap and expect it to be treated as meaningful.
VDsays
Really and just what is it? This has got to be one of the most clueless statements ever on any blog.
You poor maleducated soul. You’re obviously unaware of the Rules of Evidence or the four traditional types of evidence. Interestingly enough, the testimonial evidence that most atheists consider non-evidence is the only sort of evidence strong enough to not require another form of evidence as a prerequisite for its use in court.
There is testimonial evidence of God. There is real evidence of God and there is documentary evidence of God. There is also demonstrative evidence of God. There does not appear to be, at this time, scientific evidence of God. These are demonstrable facts. To say that there is “no evidence” reveals one to be either ignorant or ludicrously dishonest.
This is almost smarmy in it’s stupidity. No one doubts you can believe anything. But to suggest that people don’t try to convince/ convert others is beyond bizarre. Likewise by believing it you are asserting it or else why would you believe it in the first place?
I did not suggest that people do not try to convince or convert others. I merely noted that Woozy was not in the comment referenced, nor are most believers the vast majority of the time. Your statement that “by believing it you are asserting it” is bizarre; if you look at the dictionary you will see that the two terms are not synonymous. I suspect you have Sam Harris’s belief–>action connection completely backwards here. Harris claims that action is evidence of belief, not that to believe is to act. (Assertion, of course, being one of many possible actions.)
Saying that one must assert something in order to believe it in the first place is an amusing revelation of the way in which your individual psychology functions. You’re not merely an atheist, I’d guess you’d score rather high on the Asperger’s Quotient test too.
Is that the kind of stuff you write on your blog all day? Made-up stuff that you don’t have to prove because it’s just an opinion?
Actually, my blog tends to be known for providing so much detailed evidence that it approaches the dead horse-beating stage. But I’m not obliged to provide anyone supporting evidence merely to possess a belief.
So when someone asks why you believe it I guess you could say I dunno I just do or actually provide some evidence. You are making the claim.
No one has asked me. If you’re actually asking, the short answer is very similar to the one Daniel Dennett provides to those who ask why he places admittedly blind faith in science… because it works. But according to Dennett, he believes in biology and psychology because physics works, whereas I believe in the Bible because the Bible works.
Actually, my blog tends to be known for providing so much detailed evidence that it approaches the dead horse-beating stage.
You make this point based on some others’ opinions that need not be demostrated through evidence either, huh?
windysays
No, but of the adjectives I’ve heard of fictional God: angry, just, merciful, loving, good, vengeful, hairy, etc. I’ve never heard the term “protective”.
Really? When believers refer to God as a Father or a Mother or a Shepherd or a Fortress, what do you think they want to convey with that metaphor?
If you now want to argue that shepherds are not an unalloyed good in the lives of sheep, I think you are just doing the believers’ apologetics for them. The impression they want to convey to people is not that God is like an uncaring shepherd who leaves his sheep to fend for themselves and only occasionally stops by to bugger them.
Look. The supposition is that there is the argument that knocks the wind of the idea of God existing. Okay, I’m all ears. Well, the argument goes, if god existed he’d be good, and if he existed and was god, there wouldn’t be suffering, and there is suffering so he doesn’t exist! What do you think? Well, I answer, to be honest I find it rather weak and contrived.
That’s because it’s not supposed to be an argument against the existence of a God per se! Are you confusing this discussion with the “arguments for and against God” thread? If the God we are discussing is Crom, fine, the problem of evil doesn’t touch him. But I think you are ignoring the elephant in the living room, the benevolent God millions of believers prefer because he is supposed to be a significant force for good.
Bill Dauphinsays
OK, I freely admit that my eyes began to glaze over after the first 90 or so comments, so please forgive me if this post is redundant. That said…
Here’s two things we know:
1. Bad stuff happens.
2. It happens for no readily apparent reason.
It also happens sometimes that Bad Stuff happens to begin a chain of events that may eventually include Good Stuff… but it does not therefore follow that…
2. The eventual Good Stuff happening is the not-so-readily-apparent reason for the Bad Stuff, nor that
1. The original Stuff wasn’t really Bad.
No doubt it has happened many times that people have met, in the course of grieving for a lost spouse, wonderful people who became their next partners. While that outcome might well be judged “good,” it does not magically convert the earlier tragedy into a “good” event.
I find the “God makes us suffer in order to perfect us” argument specious: A truly omnipotent creator could have created us perfect to begin with (as the Bible asserts Yahweh did) and could have kept us perfect. The whole doctrine of the fall into sin followed by a redemption that is based on state-sanctioned murder and which must be accepted under threat of eternal damnation reads more like a sadomasochistic fantasy than like infinite benevolence, as far as I can see.
The notion of God’s “mysterious ways” doesn’t help much, either: “Goodness” that is, from the human perspective, indistinguishable from sadism is sadism, for all practical purposes.
VD — How appropriate, given your propensity toward logical blindness.
Ok, ad hominem time over. Serious time.
There is testimonial evidence of God. There is real evidence of God and there is documentary evidence of God. There is also demonstrative evidence of God. There does not appear to be, at this time, scientific evidence of God. These are demonstrable facts. To say that there is “no evidence” reveals one to be either ignorant or ludicrously dishonest.
How do you square this statement with the findlaw article you posted that suggests that:
1. There is no real (in legalese) evidence for God that would be admissable. No talking burning bushes, etc…
2. In fact, none of the other types of evidence — demonstrative and documentary — exist or are admissable either. The bible is filled with contradiction and heresay (and there’s a chain of custody problem too), and the demonstrative evidence is lacking (as in non-existant — no one has a map to God’s realm, or a photo of heaven, or even a photo of God).
Which leaves:
3. Without evidence of any other type to back up your testimony, it is inadmissable as evidence.
Your position seems evidentially bankrupt no matter how you slice it. Scientifically you’re SOL, and legally too, apparently. Lastly, if you think you can bring God in to the courtroom, where is it that I can go to present him with a summons?
Christophersays
Woozy:
I can’t speak for anybody else, but I use the Epicurian Paradox not as evidence that God doesn’t exist, but that if he does there’s no reason for me to praise, worship, or care about the guy, because he’s either a dick or painfully ordinary.
Incidentally, you bring up something I’ve been thinking about a lot; The unspoken assumption that the qualities that characterise human thought must be present in any possible form of sentient thought.
You say “no pain, no gain”, but WHY is it that experiences seem more vivid and worthwhile if they’re painful?
To me, there’s no reason to believe that this must be a universal condition; My computer doesn’t store information better after getting a virus, so there are clearly data storage and retrieval systems in which pain and gain have a negative relationship.
I see no reason to assume a sentient computer would find unpleasant things more memorable.
But let’s go ahead and assume that all sentient creatures can gain things from painful experiences that they never could from benign ones. What does that tell us about God?
Here are three possibilities I can think of:
1. He is sentient, and therefore has the same property, but lacking any obstacles to his will, he leads a dull, colorless existence.
2. He is sentient, and has had to overcome several genuine obstacles.
3. He is simply not a sentient being.
To me, all three of those diminish him; he’s either noteably inferior to us, about the same as we would be if we had more power, or an inanimate object.
And I see no reason to be more devoted to such a flawed being then I would be to any given human.
Just a Thought: Well, you haven’t argued with Epicurus, you’ve just rejected his definition of evil.
Moreover, I think the one you’ve replaced it with is perverse.
Take the case of Tay-Sachs disease, a disorder that causes a terrifying, unpleasant death in very young children.
Humanity did not create the disorder; it’s a product of nature, which is, presumably, governed by God.
By your definition, then, it would be EVIL for God to take pity on little kids, and not kill them in the most horrible way possible.
Because everything God does is, by definition, good.
And when you take the “Hooray for torturing children!” position, I just have to declare your morality to be so perverse I can’t accept it.
Ichthyicsays
Tell me, is the concept of relativism enshrined on the alter of “things which will not be disputed on this site” too?
i dunno, is the concept of relevancy itself worth anything to you?
Ichthyicsays
You poor maleducated soul.
you moronic, condescending prick.
SueinNMsays
“Last I checked, being “absolutely boring and meaningless” and manifestly lacking a plot has been no obstacle to millions of “romance” novels being sold, nor to some of them (*cough*Jane Austen*cough*) being considered great literary classics.”
Ahem.
Excuse me. I have been writing romance novels for 15 years. My novels are neither boring nor lacking plot. They take months of painstaking work and thought. How many romance novels have you read recently? None, is my guess. So your argument is about as valid as that of the creationists opining on evolution without knowing anything about it.
It’s a kick watching you God-haters dizzy yourselves in trying to make God-hate a positive case for Atheism. It is not; nothing is, of course. Atheism is just negative, only negative, forever negative. It cannot stand on it’s own without a deity to hate. Consider the epithets cast about here; are they really necessary if there be no God? Of course not. They have meaning only because you hate God, you hate Christians, you hate authority of all types including your parents – especially your father. It’s that simple.
When you rebelled, you inverted your logic in order to negate that which was previously positive. The inversion of logic is also why no Atheist website ever mentions the First Principles, the ideologic difference between empiricism and Naturalism, and the Limits of empirical reach. Not to mention the full definition of truth within the constraints of infinite regress: Godel vs the First Principles.
Yeah you guys are a hoot.
SueinNMsays
“But according to Dennett, he believes in biology and psychology because physics works, whereas I believe in the Bible because the Bible works.”
Huh. Never worked for me. That’s why I became an atheist in 7th grade and stopped going to church, after informing my parents that I saw no reason to believe in a supreme being. After all these years, I still don’t.
In spite of this, I have been married 22 years to the same man, have never had an extramarital affair, have never done drugs, have never cheated, stole or told anything but white lies, honor and respect my parents, and have no trouble adhering to a strong moral code that makes no reference to the Bible whatsoever.
Don’t need it. Never did.
SueinNMsays
“It’s a kick watching you God-haters dizzy yourselves in trying to make God-hate a positive case for Atheism”
Gee. Somone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. Why is it necessary for you to hate atheists to justify your believe in a god?
I can’t hate something that doesn’t exist.
RamblinDudesays
It cannot stand on it’s own without a deity to hate.
LOL!
You don’t think very often, do you?
Pyresays
Amenhotep @ 32: “Omnipotent? Can god change Pi?”
Apparently; see 1 Kings 7:23.
“And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.” [King James Version]
“The sea was then cast; it was made with a circular rim, and measured ten cubits across, five in height, and thirty in circumference.” [New American Bible]
It is clearly God’s Will that Pi = 3. Mathematicians who heretically insist otherwise will be cast into the Deepest Circle of Hell, which they may measure to their hearts’ eternal discontent.
Actually, I quite liked Christians until I realised so many of them are hate-filled.
Stevie_Csays
Hey 40.
Logic, you’re doing it wrong.
Rey Foxsays
“They have meaning only because you hate God, you hate Christians, you hate authority of all types including your parents – especially your father.”
Wow, we got a live one here. I never once mentioned my father, nor did anyone else. I, personally, think my father’s a pretty great guy though, not that you’d know anything about him. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything though, unless you make the tangential and rather unfounded point that this god character not only created us, but has testicles. In fact, it seems to have been completely tossed out for no reason in the heat of the moment.
I can only conclude from this that Mr. 40 Years has a great many unresolved issues with his own father.
Sven DiMilosays
Ooh, testimonial evidence is my favorite kind. One time my buddy Bob–stop me if you’ve heard this before–was 100% dead-certain convinced that Jerry Garcia had worn a space helmet throughout the entire second set in (as I recall)(or do I?) Grand Rapids. Could not be dissuaded. He may still believe it to this day, and I have heard his testimonial evidence to that effect many times.
But I’m quite sure Jerry’s space helmet did not, in fact, exist.
Catching the drift of my metaphor here?
Stevie_Csays
I hate that damn easter bunny and that loser the tooth fairy too…
oh and Zeus, he’s a real SOB.
Dragons really piss me off… and I hate hate hate Griffons…
He really got me started.
Ichthyicsays
I can only conclude from this that Mr. 40 Years has a great many unresolved issues with his own father.
projection IS a rather common defense mechanism.
One has to wonder what it is, exactly, that 40 feels particularly threatened about?
VDsays
you moronic, condescending prick.
I only condescend because I can, little fishy fish. Your New Atheist icons are no match for me, while you’ve got nothing to offer but the usual ad hominem. Look, Uber made an egregiously silly statement and he got caught out, it happens. Now he knows better.
3. Without evidence of any other type to back up your testimony, it is inadmissable as evidence.
You not only have no clue here, but you also demonstrate that you didn’t even read through the linked article. Your assertion is obviously false. For testimonial evidence to be admissible, four things must be true of the witness:
“1. He must, with understanding, take the oath or a substitute. Evid. Code §§ 710, 701; Fed. Rules Evid. 603.
2. He must have personal knowledge about the subject of his testimony. In other words, the witness must have perceived something with his senses that is relevant to the case. Evid. Code § 702; Fed. Rules Evid. 602.
3. He must remember what he perceived.
4. He must be able to communicate what he perceived. Evid. Code § 701(a)(1).”
At an absolute minimum, there are tens of thousands of competent individuals around the world who are capable of testifying to their various personal experiences of God. Of course, from a scientific point of view this can all be dismissed, either by remote psychological diagnosis, or, much more reasonably, as the simple misinterpretation of sensory input.
You likewise fail to understand the nature of the other forms of evidence. The Bible itself is admissible evidence as are numerous archeological and literary artifacts; would you similarly attempt to claim that Arrian’s text would be inadmissable in a case regarding the existence of Alexander the Great?
The Cascio-Righi case in Italy only concerned the existence of Jesus Christ, not God, but evidence for the former’s existence was definitely admitted, even though the defense’s argument did not entirely rely on it.
You make this point based on some others’ opinions that need not be demostrated through evidence either, huh?
If you want to wade through weeks of archives revolving around the infamous “Japanese invasion” debate, be my guest. If you want evidence of a similar level of detail on the subject of atheism and religion, just wait two months.
Insult me all you like, especially if it makes you feel more secure in your lack of faith. I don’t mind. But you may wish to consider that doing so in the absence of even a feeble attempt to defend your position tends to make you look completely hapless. Not an impressive showing by the so-called rationalists thus far.
Oh, and do we all concur that the supposedly Epicurean quote on the “Athiesm” poster is a fraud? I haven’t seen anyone provide a pre-Hume citation, anyhow.
RamblinDudesays
I’m not sure what that has to do with anything though, unless you make the tangential and rather unfounded point that this god character not only created us, but has testicles.
Unfounded? God has a beard, of course he has testicles.
Hmmm, one comment claims (apparently) that Christians, parents, et al. don’t exist. Another one is just an empty attempt at insult. Pretty weak stuff kiddies.
But I can’t hang around you downers for long, got other stuff to do.
Think about this though: None of the Atheist verbiage above is a positive set of evidence for Atheism. Atheists demand evidence but fortunately for them, they never have to provide any evidence in support of Atheism. Pretty neat set-up. But in the end it fails too, because the realization will hit them some day that there are no substantive premises FOR Atheism.
I’ve been there and back again. Logic has rules. Rational thought has rules. They don’t stack up in favor of Atheism. You want to say “God has to do it my way, or else there is no God”. Or, “if there is a God, I demand a face to face meeting, and I demand it now”. Or, “God has to be omnibewhackered or omniwhatever, or there is no God”.
It’s always the same variation on a theme.
But, sorry, I have an appointment… I’ll try back in a day or so. Remember, epithets are not a rational form of argumentation; they are merely juvenile juices spurting forth.
Actually, my dad was an asshole, and his half-formed way of thinking was a clear example of what not to do, and probably did start me on my way to atheism (being raised Christian was another: the crap was too hard to swallow–kinda like that guy in the bar whose got all these great stories about how he used advise the President and helped Billy Joel write his songs and invented modern hockey goalie butterfly pads, but really makes you wonder why, if he’s so great, he’s some filthy bar rat talking to you.)
I guess if God wanted me to believe in Him, He shoulda made my father less of a jerk, then.
So it’s not my fault I’m an atheist then: Goddidit.
Thanks 40 Year Atheist. Enjoy your arbitrary God, idiot.
Tell me, is the concept of relativism enshrined on the alter of “things which will not be disputed on this site” too?
You mean “relativism” like “Do not murder”, except when God tells you to? Or like “Do not covet your neighbor’s possessions” except when God tells you to ransack a town and take all the spoils? Or, I believe, you particularly have been known to say that you would kill a child if God told you to?
They have meaning only because you hate God, you hate Christians, you hate authority of all types including your parents – especially your father. It’s that simple.
As for you, are you still taking your meds? I think you might be a couple of hours late for the last dose. I adore my parents, actually.
Ichthyicsays
(singing)
Bible Dude! Bible Dude!
Gets you into a praying mood
He can soar through the air.
Like the Red Sea, he parts his hair.
Look out, here comes that Bible Duuuude.
Think about this though: None of the Atheist verbiage above is a positive set of evidence for Atheism. Atheists demand evidence but fortunately for them, they never have to provide any evidence in support of Atheism. Pretty neat set-up.
Yeah, that’s how it happens when you assert something exists. Gotta show evidence for it. Sorry you think that’s unfair. Trying praying. Maybe God’ll fix that little injustice for you.
Stevie_Csays
He wasn’t a positive set of evidence to be an atheist???
Once again….
LOGIC. YOU”RE DOING IT WRONG.
Rey Foxsays
“Atheists demand evidence but fortunately for them, they never have to provide any evidence in support of Atheism. Pretty neat set-up.”
Yep, not making shit up is pretty neat.
“Remember, epithets are not a rational form of argumentation; they are merely juvenile juices spurting forth.”
Sort of like that thing about us all hating our fathers.
You seem to think you’re entitled to an argument. No matter what manner of BS you barge in spouting or how many times we’ve heard it all before. Well, you’re not. You’re a troll. We couldn’t care less about impressing you.
Ichthyicsays
Think about this though: None of the Atheist verbiage above is a positive set of evidence for Atheism.
nothing posted in this thread was actually intended to be, nor does there even NEED to be a “positive set of evidence for Atheism”.
the atheist position is the default, it’s up to theists to show positive evidence for THEIR position.
surely you know this, being an atheist and all, right?
Oh, and remember: if God doesn’t answer your prayers, it’s because the only truly powerful deity Triglav won’t let him.
Being so rational, I expect you to accept the preceeding sentence unless you can show evidence that Triglav does not, in fact, exist.
Otherwise you’re just some kinda liar, aren’t you?
VDsays
He may still believe it to this day, and I have heard his testimonial evidence to that effect many times.But I’m quite sure Jerry’s space helmet did not, in fact, exist. Catching the drift of my metaphor here?
Sure. But the question of whether the evidence is correct or not does not change the fact that it is relevant and admissible evidence. Scientific evidence is also capable of being incorrect, indeed, its very nature is such that should be presumed to be incorrect, being a snapshot of incomplete human understanding at a given point in time. This is not a difficult point nor would Dennett, Haidt or any serious atheist intellectual dispute it.
If I may quote a reasonably well-known Pharyngulan and science advocate, “scientists are not in the truth business”. Science works, but it is far from the only generator of evidence.
Stevie_Csays
wow. that dhould be Wants.
Ichthyicsays
Yep, not making shit up is pretty neat.
ayup, for adults at least (er, provided they aren’t fantasy novelists or the like). I rather enjoyed MSU when I was a kid.
much less stressful, too, since there is no need to even defend that position.
the “anger” of atheists claimed by the religious is all a bunch of projected stress from the fact that they feel the constant need to defend why they do MSU.
As for you, are you still taking your meds? I think you might be a couple of hours late for the last dose. I adore my parents, actually.
Source 1: Vitz; “Faith of the Fatherless; The Psychology of Atheism”; 1999, ISBN1-890626-12-0; SPC, Dallas Texas.
Source 2: “The Cambridge Companion to Atheism”, Martin, Editor; Essay: “Atheists, A Psychological Profile”, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Ch 18, ppg 300 – 317; Cambridge University Press, 2007; ISBN 978-0-521-60367-6.
Ichthyicsays
Science works, but it is far from the only generator of evidence.
umm, science isn’t a “generator” of evidence, it’s an evaluator of evidence from a pragmatic standpoint.
it’s religion that generates evidence to fit the conclusion, remember?
there you go, projecting your own failings again.
c’mon, Bible Dude, you can do better than that, right?
here, try this:
assuming you actually meant something along the lines of “science isn’t the only way to explain observable evidence”, then show me one, just one, example of an alternative method that has generated a testable, pragmatic, efficient from a predictive standpoint, explanation of a set of observations.
sorry, but religion has time and again failed humanity as a pragmatic and productive explanation for anything we have ever observed.
If you could somehow show otherwise, you could easily become a well published author.
In fact, it’s exactly the challenge that was posed to the supporters of the concept of ID – that they simply show us how it better explains and predicts observations through experimentation than current theory does.
the same challenge every scientific theory has ever had to face, for that matter.
guess what?
they failed. So, don’t feel bad when you too fail to come up with an example to support your contention.
but really, that’s not what Bible Dude is all about anyway, right?
I’ll be back later to count all the names you’ve called me…. Keep up the lovin’ kids!
Ichthyicsays
Source 1: Vitz; “Faith of the Fatherless; The Psychology of Atheism”; 1999, ISBN1-890626-12-0; SPC, Dallas Texas.
have you considered, even for a moment, that the evidence used to support the contentions in those papers are not part of what you see here? that you might be applying an erroneous hypothesis?
Atheists demand evidence but fortunately for them, they never have to provide any evidence in support of Atheism.
I just can’t, I mean really can’t believe how anyone could be that stupid. You don’t need evidence for atheism. Do we really need to do the Santa Claus, FSM analogy again for the 1000th time?
You don’t prove something doesn’t exist you prove it does.
Also personally I have a great relationship with my dad.
whereas I believe in the Bible because the Bible works.
Which bible? And past that how does it ‘work’ for you? Do you cherry pic it like everyone else?
Now down to this VD persons comment:
You poor maleducated soul. You’re obviously unaware of the Rules of Evidence or the four traditional types of evidence. Interestingly enough, the testimonial evidence that most atheists consider non-evidence is the only sort of evidence strong enough to not require another form of evidence as a prerequisite for its use in court.
You really are a dumb ass. Testimonial evidence is also given the chance to be challeneged. In this case you simply cannot take a person at their word. We would have to put the belief on ‘trial’ so to speak and everyone who has said testimonial evidence would have to present it. Soon it would be obvious between the multitude of people who have testimony about God speaking to them that their are either thousands/millions of Gods or people are making shit up.
There is testimonial evidence of God. There is real evidence of God and there is documentary evidence of God. There is also demonstrative evidence of God. There does not appear to be, at this time, scientific evidence of God. These are demonstrable facts. To say that there is “no evidence” reveals one to be either ignorant or ludicrously dishonest.
using your thin definition of evidence I might agree with you. But none of it would qualify under 4 rules of evidence you mention. Documentary evidence? Who wrote it? When?
Demostrative evidence? You mean like a statue crying? What you really have here is evidence of human activity but not supernatural activity. You conflate belief in one as evidence while ignoring the obvious.
Saying that one must assert something in order to believe it in the first place is an amusing revelation of the way in which your individual psychology functions. You’re not merely an atheist, I’d guess you’d score rather high on the Asperger’s Quotient test too.
No I’m saying that if you believe something you are asserting that you find it correct. If you call yourself a Christian you are asserting that Jesus was God. Identifying yourself as such should state that for you.
I am not an athesit by the way and you have some serious personality flaws. BTW you heartless comment about Aspergers shows how little heart you truly have for those with the condition. I have little doubt that you sir are not likely a very moral person.
Ubersays
But the question of whether the evidence is correct or not does not change the fact that it is relevant and admissible evidence
This is what your basing your argument on? Incorrect and easily dismantled ‘evidence’. In reality what is the difference between that and no evidence.
Hell all your arguing for is anyone can say anything, write anything, and it’s evidence. Of that who would disagree? But that is some weak material.
Ichthyicsays
Do we really need to do the Santa Claus, FSM analogy again for the 1000th time?
when arguing with those suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance, you might need to repeat the same argument 1001 times. It doesn’t matter if, or how many times, they’ve heard the argument previous; the lesson taught is entirely forgotten within moments of hearing it.
the obvious point being, as Pat Condell (among thousands of others, recently and throughout history) pointed out, rational debate with someone suffering such psychological limitations is only of value if you think you might convince the onlookers. It rarely has any effect whatsoever on the apparent primary target.
btw, I know you know this already, so consider this itself a treatise to the onlookers, as it too has been said countless times.
that said, on with the presentation…
Here comes Santa Claus,
Here comes Santa Claus,
Right down Santa Claus lane
Vixen and Blitzen and all his reindeer Pullin’ on the reins
Bells are ringin’, children singin’ All is merry and bright Hang your stockings and say your prayers ‘Cause Santa Claus comes tonight!
Stevie_Csays
Wow.
2 in one thread. fun fun.
JimCsays
I could see where not having a father could make one more independent minded rather than a group think person. Of course if a father does he job correct they can end up in the same place.
VDsays
umm, science isn’t a “generator” of evidence, it’s an evaluator of evidence from a pragmatic standpoint.
Really? The scientific method generates no evidence? Then what is “scientific evidence”, in your opinion? And if all evidence is being generated elsewhere, then obviously there must be non-scientific forms of evidence, contra Uber’s assertion.
You really are a dumb ass. Testimonial evidence is also given the chance to be challeneged. In this case you simply cannot take a person at their word.
You’re a gift that just keeps giving. Of course testimonial evidence can be challenged, so can scientific evidence. None of this changes the fact that it is evidence. By every definition of the word, including the legal, there is evidence for God’s existence.
One may or may not find it convincing, of course. One may or may not deem the collective body of evidence to be conclusive. But there is no shortage of relevant evidence on the subject.
No I’m saying that if you believe something you are asserting that you find it correct.
I understood that. You need to look up the various definitions of the verb “to assert”. You’re incorrect by every single one of them.
I am not an athesit by the way and you have some serious personality flaws. BTW you heartless comment about Aspergers shows how little heart you truly have for those with the condition.
Oh, now you’re just projecting. I don’t actually have any significant personality flaws, it’s merely a mild cruel streak. And if you were a devoted Pharyngulan, then you would know that I am referring to a previous post by Dr. PZ in which it was determined that the average AQ test result reported by the readers here was 69 percent higher than normal individuals, rather close to the level that serves to diagnose the syndrome.
But you are correct in one regard, as I am not and have never been a particularly moral individual. I am thus all the more appreciative of my need for God’s grace.
Ichthyicsays
btw, for those unfamiliar, I’m guessing, based on a familiar style and initials, that “VD” is Vox Day.
I do think PZ ripped has ripped him several new ones over the last couple of years, but AFAIK, he’s never been banned, so one wonders why he is choosing to post under his initials, with no link to his blog.
maxisays
RE #172 : Source 1: Vitz; “Faith of the Fatherless; The Psychology of Atheism”; 1999, ISBN1-890626-12-0; SPC, Dallas Texas.
It seems Dr Vitz takes his theory from a (now largely discredited) Freudian theory. That’s all. One idea that has no evidence and I cannot find any references to the ‘study’ that atheists have a more troubled relationship with their fathers. Now, seeing as the religious seem to approve of testimonial evidence; I would like to take this opportunity to say that I love my dad. He is neither absent nor abusive; my atheism is due to making the most informed decision given the evidence.
Obviously if this really is a serious theory, Dr Vitz should surely be on his way to testing it.
….
Now it’s late, I’m to bed.
Rey Foxsays
He put the link in one of his first posts. It’s Teddy of the Flaming Sword, all right, and his Travelling Cavalcade of Useless Evidence. Be amazed, be astounded, but beware, you never know when his god might order him to kill you!
This is what your basing your argument on? Incorrect and easily dismantled ‘evidence’. In reality what is the difference between that and no evidence.
The difference between there being a God and there not being one. Testimonial evidence is not as easily dismissed as you appear to think, in fact, it’s often very difficult to do. It’s much easier to dismiss the attempted dismissals; for example, Richard Dawkins’s attempt to diagnose the mental state of 70,000 strangers at a distance of space and time is downright laughable.
You see, his assumption of mass hallucination on their part is not evidence, nor would it be admissable, as their eyewitness testimony to the Fatima incident would be.
AFAIK, he’s never been banned, so one wonders why he is choosing to post under his initials, with no link to his blog.
Probably because I always comment that way on my blog too. But I added a link to VP this time, if that will make you happy. Why would PZ ban me, anyhow? He may dislike me, but he knows perfectly well that I’m no troll. I certainly wouldn’t ban him or any other forthright atheist who merely stood up for his own opinion and I’m not even a “freethinker”.
Sastra, OMsays
I saw the spurt of activity on a thread I thought was run its course. Of course: visitors.
The references to hating a father come from a pop apologetics assertion that atheists refuse to believe in God because their childhood experiences with their own father turn them away from the Heavenly One. If you begin with the assumption that everyone knows, deep in their heart, that God exists, it’s not a bad hypothesis. However, reviews of Vitz’s book on the subject have pointed out a lot of serious flaws in the data: he cherry-picks and redefines his examples to fit, as I recall.
Plus, of course, it’s a poor assumption to begin with.
VD wrote (somewhere):
There is testimonial evidence of God. There is real evidence of God and there is documentary evidence of God. There is also demonstrative evidence of God. There does not appear to be, at this time, scientific evidence of God. These are demonstrable facts. To say that there is “no evidence” reveals one to be either ignorant or ludicrously dishonest.
Not “no evidence,” no — but not very good evidence. Not really the kind that would stand up in court, for example — because the fact that it’s spectral evidence or hearsay is relevant.
Part of the trouble is that the “evidence for God” goes all over the place, is often nebulous, and the claims in one religion should cancel out those for another religion. On the other side, there are a lot of very well supported explanations for why intelligent people make mistakes, and can believe in some very weird things. Subjective reports are often untrustworthy — particularly when it comes to the paranormal, alien abductions, and religion.
Why isn’t there solid scientific evidence for God? Wouldn’t that be likely, given its significance to the state of the universe? And yet, a disembodied unevolved intelligence is inconsistent with what we’ve learned about our own minds — and without the familiar analogy with ourselves, the concept loses plausibility.
Ubersays
None of this changes the fact that it is evidence.
I think I said that in a post below the other. Read clueless.
assert:
. to state with assurance, confidence, or force; state strongly or positively; affirm; aver: He asserted his innocence of the crime.
2. to maintain or defend
Seems to me if one claims and titles oneself a Christian you are asserting a belief/confidence in Jesus being God.
Now we can split hairs over dictionary meanings all we want when one titles oneself a Christian you are presenting yourself in a certain way and hold tocertain positions.
Oh, now you’re just projecting. I don’t actually have any significant personality flaws, it’s merely a mild cruel streak
No projection here. You really have alot of flaws.
I am thus all the more appreciative of my need for God’s grace.
Appreciate enough to insult others in a thread revolving around whether he exists or not. And which God have you chosen?
Ichthyicsays
The scientific method generates no evidence?
ah, I see where you are confused. It generates DATA, which is then used to reject hypotheses ABOUT a particular observation. If unable to reject based on the data gathered, the hypothesis is tentatively supported until more or different data are gathered that end up rejecting the hypothesis or not.
here’s an example to help you along:
I see variability in the offspring of a mating of two Drosophila.
I can then form an hypothesis in an attempt to explain this observation. Testing that hypothesis requires i construct an experiment, in situ or not, in order to gather data that would attempt reject that hypothesis. In the end, the data might actually indeed appear to not only reject the hypothesis, but support it. You can subjectively label it “evidence” if you wish at that point, but in reality what was gathered is still just data. You, likely viewing the results in some popular newsrag, or the scientist, in their own discussion section in a paper published about the results, are interpreting it as “evidence”.
Evidence is not what was generated by the application of the scientific method. Data was what was generated. the labelling of that data as “evidence” afterwards is subjective. certainly, much agreement can be had
labelling the data gathered “evidence”, especially if repeated experiments generate similar data.
Hence, how the “evidence” in support of the ToE is gathered from literally tens of thousands of lab and field studies that generated similar data in response to similar hypotheses, all based on variations of Darwin’s original hypothesis of natural selection. Those studies didn’t generate evidence, they generated data, which is then interpreted AS evidence.
but why am i explaining this to you? You know all this right? You were just trying to catch me in some form of childish word game, right?
why are you here again?
ichthyicsays
4th para, previous post:
“…to not only not reject the hypothesis, but support it.”
that’s better.
Ubersays
Testimonial evidence is not as easily dismissed as you appear to think, in fact, it’s often very difficult to do. It’s much easier to dismiss the attempted dismissals; for example, Richard Dawkins’s attempt to diagnose the mental state of 70,000 strangers at a distance of space and time is downright laughable.
Difficult to do when it actually has merit and is vetted to show as much. Hearsay isn’t of the same quality.
Kseniyasays
So… the burden of proof is on the unbelievers, and the fatherless hate their fathers? Ok. Got it. Please pass the Tylenol.
Ichthyicsays
Why would PZ ban me, anyhow? He may dislike me, but he knows perfectly well that I’m no troll.
heh, I knew it.
nobody said you were a troll in this thread, yet, though now that I think about it…
Regardless, you do fall under quite a few of the other reasonings given (see dungeon tab at top), insipidity being a good one that’s relevant.
face it, you weren’t exactly representing yourself honestly with the initials “VD”.
I’ll be back later to count all the names you’ve called me…. Keep up the lovin’ kids!
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Try going to a Christian site and asking questions.
Maybe they’re so angry because they’re supposed to be the moral ones.
Crystal Lakesays
Why isn’t there solid scientific evidence for God?
Perhaps because your version of science assumes atheism (or, at best, deism) before an investigation has ever begun. Have you never heard the famous Lewontin quote? That we cannot allow a “divine foot” in the door?
The basic philosophical premise for science (as it is practiced today) is grounded in philosophical materialism. So, to expect “solid scientific evidence” for God from such a field is logically impossible. You’d never accept anything I’d offer as evidence since your great scientists are too busy concocting theories as to how something could be “naturally” explained solely through “natural” processes. While they see design in the pyramids, they fail to see it in the cosmos or even in the design of the human body because scientists are not allowed to bring up God.
I’m sure, I don’t know how to spell anything anymore…I already had trouble with spelling before this page – now I’m irritated. :|
Ichthyicsays
Perhaps because your version of science assumes atheism (or, at best, deism) before an investigation has ever begun.
what’s your version of “science”, pray tell, not granting that your view of “our” version is even correct?
this should be good.
Sastra, OMsays
Why isn’t there solid scientific evidence for God?
Crystal Lake #196 wrote:
The basic philosophical premise for science (as it is practiced today) is grounded in philosophical materialism. So, to expect “solid scientific evidence” for God from such a field is logically impossible.
No, I think that’s wrong. Materialism is not a “philosophical premise” for science — it’s a tentative conclusion which be can overthrown given new evidence. Whether supernatural forces could be included in a scientific model of the world is, I think, going to depend first on what the given definition of “supernatural” is.
I suspect a lot of people who dismiss the possibility of including it in science are using definitions which have it as “untestable” or “what we call it when we give up.” Or “outside of science because it hasn’t panned out as expected and we need to protect it.” But it doesn’t have to be defined that way.
Scientists seek the best explanations for observations according to rigorous criteria designed to eliminate bias and error — and nothing in those criteria says anything up front about the supernatural/natural distinction. Science as a method doesn’t care what’s natural or what’s supernatural: it assumes neither atheism nor theism.
Look at it this way: there is nothing in science that says, in advance, that ESP is impossible. Or chi energy, or psychokensis — the ability to bend spoons through the non-physical “power” of intentional force, say. Those things can all be tested — and have been tested (and have failed.)
But if they had succeeded, materialist, naturalist theories of mind would be in trouble. They would not be able to explain how a man can bend a key just by concentrating and willing it. Given enough demonstrations of mind/body dualism and the Force of Will, supernaturalism — a category which includes magic, souls, spirits, and gods — has just gotten a huge boost. And the scientists who discover this are going to make history, open up an entirely new field of study, squash the competition, and change the current understanding of reality. And get fame, money, and lotsa love.
Materialism and naturalism could both be falsified. They’re working theories, not premises. And, to secular humanists, atheism is also a theory — one which could be wrong, and which we could change.
Is “the existence of God” a science theory (or hypothesis) also? What would cause you to throw it out?
Brownian for a Molly! (Oh wait, you already have one)
woozysays
40 year atheist (did you purposely choose your name to be so close to 40 year virgin?),
Atheism is not about hate, not about negativity, not about nothing. It is simply believe that there isn’t a god. It isn’t any more or less hateful are negative than believe there isn’t a Loch Ness Monster, believe there is an abominable snow man, believe Sadam Hussein didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, or not believing duck-billed platypus nurse their young.
Christopher,
I don’t really consider Epicurus’ arguments (if they are his) a “paradox”. They can’t really be a paradox unless we consider no god, bad god, feeble god, minor suffering to get to a greater good, to be utterly unfeasible to imagine. I don’t consider any of them unfeasible.
Possibly a big part of why I consider this argument unconvincing is it seems kind of contrived to argue from a result to a cause. For instance, it’d be falacious to say “human beings are very lucky that the average earths temperature is what is; if it were a hundred degrees lower we’d freeze and it iw were a hundred degrees hotter we’d parch”. Why this is falacious should be obvious. The temperature came first and the humans came later and were adapted to the temperature whatever it would have been. This is pretty obvious whatever model you imagine for the existence of temperature and/or the existence of people.
Similarly, if a universe popped into being, either by a creature name God (or as I like to call him, Mr. Theo), or a particle physist made it in a lab, or it arose from a consciousness big bang, or a pantheon of adolescent did it for an after school activity, however it came about the intelligent creature existing in it will view everything from a view-point *within* the universe. Suffering is when things go worse for the intelligent goldfish than they think they should and happiness is when things go as well or better. If Mr. Theo, Dr. Universe, B. Bang, or Ted Suzy and Loki, *wanted* the goldfish to be happy (or to be blue, or to be fuzzy, or to be immortal, or to be dead), he, she, it or them would have made them that way. For the god-fish to say “gee, I wish we happy (or blue, or fuzzy, or immortal, or dead) so whatever created isn’t good” just seems … well, meaningless. That isn’t to say it is right, or good, or we assume it’s for the best that we are beings who are not happy having our villages burned and our bodies raped and tortured (maybe God should have made us so that we do like havin our villages burned and our bodies raped and tortured…), but that it seems arbitrary and arbitrary suffering seems inevitable even if there is a “good” god. (The only way to prevent the intelligent gold fish from suffering is to make it so they are eternally happy but why should any god *want* such a universe.)
Actually, I think the phrase “God is good” is kind of dumb. If God exists, then God is simply the God who made the universe and being good or bad is utterly arbitrary to the our perception from within it.
Now, to give Az credit, there *is* a basic tenet that God has a plan and it’s for the good of mankind. But everyone knows bad things happen. “Shit, my husband stepped on a rattlesnake and now I’m being banished from my tribe to starve in the wilderness; why did God do this” Okay, Az and I find the, “well, when adam disobeyed god’s rule we were cast out of the garden but it’s still okay because we shall strive to find our way back and god wants us to but to do it we must earn it so must act on our own so when your husband blindly walked into the rattlesnack nest and was bitten it was his mistake and he dies for it but its all for the good because mankind on the whole is able to strive back to the garden and that is good” (In other words, “Your husband was collateral damage of friendly fire; get over it”) to be kind of galling. But it seems to me that it’s only in this kind of galling fashion that human traits as “merciful” “loving” and “good” have any meaning to gods whatsoever.
I think the best that comes from the Epicurian argument is an admonishment “Oh, come on! This suffering is *soooo* bad that it can’t possibly be for any good! Your god if he exist must be a *total* bastard!” Which is valid but only a matter of subjectivity. If christians can read Job and still say God is good, I’m not sure this is the right path to go down to find a disproof of God.
It just seems… smarmy.
Anyway, I’m offering Az a truce and peace offering. After all, we both have other reasons for disbelief and we both believe the idea of saying “God did it so it must be good” is … icky.
Good point, and it is arguable that the God of the Old Testament is a right bastard.
Well, the bastard also introduced Hell via Jesus. Not much love in that, and there goes the New Testament.
Tulsesays
While they see design in the pyramids, they fail to see it in the cosmos or even in the design of the human body because scientists are not allowed to bring up God.
If you think that trillions of cubic light-years of cold nothingness counts as “design”, or the human appendix is evidence of intelligent engineering, your bar is pretty damned low.
But I’m certainly willing to accept as scientific evidence for God any reasonably unambiguous sign. For example, if a star cluster spelled out “I designed the universe. Signed, God”, I’d have to greatly revise my lack of belief. Likewise if we found that, embedded in the DNA of every organism was a string of neucleotides that decoded to “Yeah, this was my holy work — aren’t you impressed?”, then I would be, well, impressed. (If Natalie Portman agreed to have sex with me, I would also take that as a sign from God — are you listening, Big Guy?)
The strange thing about this supposedly omnipotent being, who created literally everything, is that he is such a shy bugger — there simply is no evidence like I suggested above that would be relatively unequivocal. Don’t you find that odd?
Steve_Csays
Wow. Design in the pyramids jumps the shark and moves to the universe???
Ow. The stupid. It burns.
Scott Rassbachsays
You know, you actually owe the christians for the existence of this quote.
“Epicurus is generally credited with first expounding the problem of evil. It also referred to as “the riddle of Epicurus” or “the Epicurean paradox.” Epicurus is said to have argued that the existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of gods who are completely aware of, interested in, and able to remedy the plights of mortal beings. The original written source of Epicurus’ argument is lost to us; all we have to go by is the how Lactantius, a hostile Christian critic, rephrases Epicurus’ argument (which we cannot take to be direct quote, given the monotheistic tone) which goes like this:
Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?
David Hume picked up the argument during the Enlightenment, and it is through him that the “paradox” is widely known.
VD – what do you consider to be “evidence”? You seem to think that absolutely anything that anyone claims is evidence. I’d like to see a definition.
And you still haven’t answered my questions about relativism. Is the morality of the God of the Bible relativistic, given that he opposes murder in some cases but orders it in others, and did you once say that you would murder a child if you thought God told you so?
Kseniyasays
did you once say that you would murder a child if you thought God told you so?
I think I can answer this one: “No, not quite.”
Vox said he would slaughter children If (and only if) God commanded it AND he had the means to know with absolute certainty that the order came from God.
The slaughter would be morally justified by definition: God’s moral authority, unlike Man’s, is absolute – even when it appears to contradict itself.
This is not to say that Vox is in any hurry to slaughter children.
This is not to say that Vox is in any hurry to slaughter children.
But he is willing to allow himself to be convinced to do so, where sane people would not. There is no command too monstrous for VD to carry out, if his credulousness were convinced that the monster he worships ordered it. VD’s moral high ground consists of nothing more substantial than the belief that there is no action that could be an atrocity, by definition, if convinced that the voice in his head telling him to commit it was God’s.
As far as I’m concerned, that makes VD a monster wannabe.
RamblinDudesays
I think I’m starting to get this: calling something evidence makes it evidence. So everything real or imaginary is evidence by virtue of the fact that that’s what you call it.
And believing something is not an assertion that it is correct. Okay.
Oh, and “real” evidence of God is not the same as “scientific” evidence, which, apparently, is not from the real world.
Am I getting this right?
woozysays
This is not to say that Vox is in any hurry to slaughter children.
But he is willing to allow himself to be convinced to do so, where sane people would not.
As far as I’m concerned, that makes VD a monster wannabe.
I’m no friend of Vox, but to be fair he isn’t saying he would ever find killing children moral. I’m sure he finds its utterly ulikely and impossible that God would ever want to kill a child and thus I’m sure he thinks it’s impossible that killing a child would ever be moral.
Like you I think believing in a God and relying on that God as the sole source of morality is deeply flawed, (… and idiotic,… and evil, … and everything else that is bad about religion…) but it isn’t fair to play deliberately desceptive games.
What is your source of morality? What if it told you killing a child was the moral thing to do? Assuming you just answered “it wouldn’t because killing a child will never be moral” I could keep asking “But what if it did?” “What if you thought it did” “How can you know it never will” and so on and so on ad nauseum. Abstractly finding a source of morality, turning into into a vague hypothetical and separating it from the person to then taunt “aha, your morality is based on a flimsy abstraction so you are insane and a potential monster” is an easy, cheap, and utterly pointless game.
We can win by playing fair. Cheap victories are wasteful.
If I am correct that my God is the Creator God, that we are all his creations, then killing every child under two on the planet is no more inherently significant than a programmer unilaterally wiping out his AI-bots in a game universe. He alone has the right to define right and wrong, and as the Biblical example of King Saul and the Amalekites demonstrates, He has occasionally deemed it a moral duty to wipe out a people.
And as we are informed in Revelation, He will wipe out many peoples through the acts of (presumably) His angels. Jefferson can complain that this makes God unworthy of worship all he likes, but that’s as irrelevant as complaining that Stalin wasn’t properly elected according to the Soviet Constitution. Although in this case it isn’t might makes right, it is a much simpler case of might = right. Obey or perish.
If you accept that argument from the IRS without question, then why would you refuse to accept it from the Creator of the Universe?
Tulsesays
I’m sure he finds its utterly ulikely and impossible that God would ever want to kill a child
He killed his own son…and pretty gruesomely if Mel Gibson is to be believed.
He killed the firstborn males in all of Egypt, including children. (Given that this was to achieve what was essentially a political end, I think this counts as terrorism.)
He killed David and Bathsheba’s baby boy (“because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.” 2 Sam 12:14).
He sent a bear to kill forty two “little children” for the sin of mocking Elisha’s baldness (2 Kings 2:23-24).
Via Moses, he told the Israelites to slay every Midian male child (Numbers 31).
Must I go on?
It sure looks to me like God is quite happy to kill kids. Given Vox’s professed belief in this entity, he shouldn’t think it that unlikely that God would ask such murders of him.
As for the source of my morality? Morality isn’t external–I consider it immoral to surrender to any authority, real or imaginary, my responsibility to make, to the best of my ability, moral and ethical decisions.
Kseniyasays
I’m no friend of Vox, but to be fair he isn’t saying he would ever find killing children moral.
Wooz, though you’re right to conclude that Vox isn’t saying he would want to kill children, I think you’re a little off the mark on one key point: He is saying that it would be moral if God commanded it, because God’s morality = absolute morality. Human definitions and opinions automatically become completely irrelevant.
As for the rest, well…
I’m sure he finds its utterly ulikely and impossible that God would ever want to kill a child and thus I’m sure he thinks it’s impossible that killing a child would ever be moral.
Oh, don’t be quite so sure. Moses? Egypt? First-borns? S’nuff said, eh?
And Ken, though I’m with you in resisting the genocidal orders of the vengeful twit of the OT, for the sake of Vox’s “thought experiment” I think it’s fair to accept that he would only follow the orders if it was absolutely certain that The One True God was giving those orders. Credulity isn’t part of the scenario here. It’s only intended to illustrate the model of morality to which Vox subscribes, not to illustrate that Vox would go out and start hacking away if a voice in his head said to get busy with the machete.
Kseniyasays
Ah. I see that Tulse and I crossed in the mail. :-)
Let’s hope VD’s thought experiment remains hypothetical, but I don’t see how anybody can claim absolute certainty, on VD’s terms. Credulity is the lot of anybody who counts on absolute certainty, a standard to which science certainly doesn’t aspire. If infanticide is the sort of thing VD expects his god to order, and he encounters a god that he’s convinced with absolute certainty is his, that’s fine, until Satan says “gotcha” and the One True GoDTM tells VD he’s flunked the test. Gotta remember, God is quite the trickster.
This whole One True God ordering infanticide, and it was good that he wished those kids into the cornfield, is just another grandiose ticking time bomb that justifies torturing the terrorist you have. When you posit that you start with absolute certainty (that it’s the One True God, or that you have the terrorist who really does know the code to stop the ticking time bomb), then you haven’t really made an argument at all.
Certainty is a luxury I’ve never been able to afford.
Kseniyasays
Yep, yep – I’m with you all the way; in reality there’d be no way to know with absolute certainty that it was The One True God. I do, however, accept Vox’s scenario on its own terms and the point it attempts to make.
Beyond that, however, it’s a disturbing notion (and Vox knows this, but he likes to stir the pot) because a Believer would be predisposed to believe that The One True God was commanding him to do Something Important – and children would needlessly die.
Disturbing is right Kseniya; VD’s Grindhouse God isn’t exactly inspirational. I’m not too worried about being fair, though, after VD’s account of straw atheism, employed as some sort of moral high ground punchline:
And then, if I am incorrect and my god does not exist, then we must ask why Jefferson, an atheist, should object to one set of meaningless atomic arrangements being randomly sorted into different arrangements.
woozysays
As for the source of my morality? Morality isn’t external–I consider it immoral to surrender to any authority, real or imaginary, my responsibility to make, to the best of my ability, moral and ethical decisions.
See, I utterly agree you and I also believe morality isn’t and shouldn’t be external. But just how cocky does that give us the right to be. How do we know we’ll make the right decision. How can we trust ourselve not to turn socio-path and so on. And to follow through on my threat: What if you were to decide it was moral and nescessary to kill a child? You wouldn’t? But what if you *did*? What if you *did*. I hope you see my point because I really don’t want to play this game with you.
There’s a tacit assumption that it’s possible to have a moral code to rely upon and I’m not sure that is possible. There are many problems with have an external moral cde of God. There are problems with have a moral code in civil laws. *And* I’ll admit it there are problems with having moral code based on personal judgement.
On the whole, I believe moral codes based on personal judgement based on empathy and fairness, humanity, or whatever methods is best, but it’s not going to stand up to my being given the third degree and having a flashlight in my eye and an interigator saying “Given that only killing an innocent two year old by your hand can prevent an alien attack destroying New York City; would you do it?!?!?” THat’s a freaking false and forced dicotomy. (See dying grandmother thread.)
There’s several very valid ways to argue against adapting God’s word is the definition of morality but I kind of feel shining the light in Vox’s eyes and grilling “If God told you to kill a child, would you?” and then oversimplifying “well, then you must be a monster” isn’t one of them. Well, I *think* it isn’t… I’ve got to admit the words of the truly faithful who have given their lives to God always freak me out a little.
But then again my words often in the tone “I piss on your religion and I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass what your God says I should do” probably freaks the faithful out. Anyway, just because I say, “I’m not going to do what Yahweh tells me to do even if it *does* send me to hell” doesn’t mean I’m going to kill babies and I kind of feel a need to be equally fair and conclude “I will do whatever God says is moral and if tommorrow he says kill babies I will” doesn’t mean he will kill babies.
We disapprove of Vox’s morality because we can’t view someone who will subject his own morality for an external code as moral or even sane. But likewise, his ilk disapprove of our morality because they can’t view someone capible of disobeying God’s law as capible of having sane morals or judgement sound enough not to be a monster.
He is saying that it would be moral if God commanded it, because God’s morality = absolute morality.
I disagree with that. I find in personally weak and reprehensible. But I don’t think it means “he’s one step from a monster wannabe”. However, I do assure you, I will never vote for Vox for public office for this reason alone and if there are ever war crime trials after his term I wouldn’t judge his belief in absolute morality with any sympathy.
!!!SHEESH!! I’ve apologized for *two* common xtian themes, both of which I deeply disagree, with tonight! Hopefully tommorrow will be better. Bring on the brain-dead new-earthers. They are always fun for a laugh and I *never* feel we pick on them unfairly.
But just how cocky does that give us the right to be. How do we know we’ll make the right decision. How can we trust ourselve not to turn socio-path and so on.
I don’t know that I’ll make the right decision, but I do know that surrendering that decision to another cannot absolve me of any responsibility. I don’t see how one can ethically stop struggling with morality, to let a choice be dictated.
For a cheery dramatization of many of these issues, the opener for Battlestar Galactica season 4, Razor revisits the slaughter of civilians out of military necessity in a deeply personal way, in expanding on the earlier story of The Pegasus in the Cylon War, in a two-hour movie treatment.
woozysays
I don’t know that I’ll make the right decision, but I do know that surrendering that decision to another cannot absolve me of any responsibility. I don’t see how one can ethically stop struggling with morality, to let a choice be dictated.
Hmmm, I guess it’s a matter of how we percieve the world. I guess turning monster one-self and believing killing children is okay by one’s own sense of morality, and trusting the morality of a monster who tells you killing children is okay, seem pretty similar to me. I mean in both cases one trusting and using a sense of morality because it is the one that one has consciously chosen to trust and noting the difference is begging the question what responsibility and guidance does one make in choicing which system to trust.
Or is it? Trusting one’s self, at least, is taking more direct responsibility whereas trusting another is a bit schizophrenic. “I trust my judgement in trusting his judgement…” But it’s still ultimately a trust in one’s judgement, right? Or …
Hmm, not so sure anymore. Anyhow, I do feel that the relation people who claim to have with God is a relation with how the percieve God to be which is their beliefs in first place any way. A monster God wouldn’t tell one to kill a child unless one were going to kill a child anyway. That of course presupposes my athiest viewpoint. Suppose I were to fall into a cult and decided I believe morality of right and wrong to be exactly the one and only morality of the cult leader. If I think killing babies is wrong but he tells me to and I do it because I believe he made it moral by asking for it, am I more or less or the same monster I’d be if I had come to the conclussion on my own… In both cases my sense of trust in moral authority, first case trust in a monster madman rather than self and second case trust in myself when *I* am the monster, is faulty.
Actually I really don’t know.
Well, Okay, I guess we could say that by consciously choicing to trust the judgement of God over one’s self simply proves one doesn’t have the right judgement after all… ;)
Seems to me if one claims and titles oneself a Christian you are asserting a belief/confidence in Jesus being God.
Typically, yes, a few unusual sects and unitarian-leaning Anglicans notwithstanding. The problem is that this isn’t what either you or I were talking about before, we were discussing the mere possession of the belief rather than its assertion.
Let’s hope VD’s thought experiment remains hypothetical, but I don’t see how anybody can claim absolute certainty, on VD’s terms.
Relax, Ken. As Kseniya obviously knows, it wasn’t my thought experiment, but rather an atheist reader’s, who posed the question to me specifically excluding any possibility of hallucination, etc, in order to force the very logical conclusion that is, ironically enough, the traditional Christian theological position. I don’t deny the possibility that God could issue such a command, but based on the evidence of the Bible, He doesn’t tend to make a habit of it. And obviously, if He didn’t exist, then it wouldn’t be a problem either.
Is “the existence of God” a science theory (or hypothesis) also? What would cause you to throw it out?
“The existence of God” may not be a scientific hypothesis, but “the Christian faith’ certainly is. There are numerous ways that it can be falsified. The discovery of Jesus Christ of Nazareth’s body inside a tomb, the disappearance of the Jewish people, the end of war and the elimination of poverty would all serve as Popper-approved falsifications.
You know all this right? You were just trying to catch me in some form of childish word game, right?
Not at all, I wasn’t thinking in terms of a distinction between data and evidence. I clearly skipped a step. But I am happy to accept your clarification here, as I note that if we accept it, then we must admit that the statement “there is no scientific evidence for the existence of God” actually means “there is no subjective interpretation of data for the existence of God”. Which, of course, is undeniably false.
It would be more precise to say “there is no subjective interpretation of data produced by the scientific method for the existence of God”, which is somewhat more defensible, but can be easily disproven by finding a single subjective interpretation somewhere.
The result of your clarification is that the atheist can’t even reasonably say “there is no scientific evidence for God”. Congratulations.
SEFsays
I cannot find any references to the ‘study’ that atheists have a more troubled relationship with their fathers.
That’s probably because it’s really the religionists who have issues with their parents (and are using god as a substitute one). Plus believers’ ideas of gods are modelled on parents – and change with the age of the child (perhaps becoming fixed at one stage or another according to the degree of emotional retardation of the believer).
Tulsesays
VD:
I don’t deny the possibility that God could issue such a command, but based on the evidence of the Bible, He doesn’t tend to make a habit of it.
Ah, well that’s a comfort then — your god only occasionally engages in infanticide. It’s nice to know he doesn’t go overboard with all that baby killing, and I’m sure that the babies he kills deserve it…right? Because killing babies without a good justification would be just like those nasty abortionists, right?
maxisays
Thanks SEF.
So now I’m *really* confused! 40 Year Old Atheist seemed to imply that disbelief in God stemmed from an absent/abusive father figure. Both those studies disagree.
The first clearly finds that people with absent mothers have a stronger attachment to God. They believe in a more personal God and are more likely to undergo sudden religious convertion. However, it makes no mention of the father.
The second paper does include both parents, but concludes that a child’s perception of God is modelled on the *mother*, not the Father. This contradicted the authors’ intial hypothesis based on Freud’s theory.
The latter paper only sampled children that were already indoctrinated (choosing them from Sunday School); while the former *assumed* the Christianity of the participants (when asking about the stength of their religion, atheist was not listed). If these studies are the only thing 40YOA is basing his “all atheists hate their fathers” rant, then I can only conclude that he is an ass.
Carliesays
Abstractly finding a source of morality, turning into into a vague hypothetical and separating it from the person to then taunt “aha, your morality is based on a flimsy abstraction so you are insane and a potential monster” is an easy, cheap, and utterly pointless game.
That’s not exactly what I was trying to do. VD had tossed off a smug line about my morality being relativistic, insinuating that relativistic morality was a very bad thing, and I was trying to point out that his version of morality can be seen exactly the same way. Isn’t the definition of relativistic (or situational) morality that actions can be good or bad depending on the situation? He believes the same thing, except that the situation is whether or not God tells him to do it.
negentropyeatersays
Actually, I would like to congratulate Vox for his posts. It is not often that one can find some thougt provoking discussion on a blog, and I also thank PZ for enabling it.
In my view, the cenral point of this discussion is, what constitutes an evidence for the existence of God and of his interventions. I suppose here that God is defined as the creator of the Universe and a creator that intervenes, from time to time, in it’s history.
Historically, those evidences have been unexplained phenomena. Thousands of years ago, there were many such evidences and men saw God’s interventions as an explanation for most observed phenomena, be it he errupion of a volcano, the deah of a child, the movement of the sun , etc…
But there were a few men who had skeptical inquisitive minds, they wanted to really find out if this was the truth. They declared their love for the search of the truth and called it Philosophy. Gradually, they undertook a painstaking and difficult task of inventing artifacts that helped them to look at the observations beyond the limitations of their senses. By doing this, they discovered that what they saw, hear, smell or feel was just a small window on the reality of nature. More, they discovered that what was so far considered as evidences of God’s inerventions could be explained by mathematical models and laws of nature that could be used to make predictions and discover new as yet unobserved phenomena. Even more importantly, they discovered that thanks to these models they could build technologies that would have been considered magical, or the work of God by their early ancestors. And Philosophy became useful, it was not only searching for the truth, it was about helping to have longer, richer lives. It became science.
A small break to ask Vox the following question : what would have happened if those early “skeptical minds” had said, non, no, what I cannot understand will never be understood because it is evidence of God’s intervention ?
Crystal Lake (#196) writes something which I think is very interesting :
“The basic philosophical premise for science (as it is practiced today) is grounded in philosophical materialism. So, to expect “solid scientific evidence” for God from such a field is logically impossible. You’d never accept anything I’d offer as evidence since your great scientists are too busy concocting theories as to how something could be “naturally” explained solely through “natural” processes. ”
So Crystal, what if Gallileo, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Planck, Darwin, Mendel, Pasteur, etc, had considered what they could not yet understand as evidences for the work of God ?
Another example (and a small hint to all Intelligent design fans) :
today, we do not understand how inert matter transformed itself into the first living organisms. Abiogenesis is a scientific enterprise that has not yet a satisfactory theory. So, here comes Dr XYZ, a highly reputable scientist who has been working in this field for the last 20 years. And he declares :
“I do not subscribe to the “Materialist Philosophy”, I haven’t been able to build a satisfactory theory of Abiogenesis, therefore I declare solemny that this is the work of an intelligent designer, and I have converted to Christianity. I now believe that this is a clear sign of God’s intervention.”
Now, would that make you happy if every other scientist in that field would just bend down and said the same thing and stopped working on trying to find an explanation other than “God dit it” ?
Do you sincerely believe that this is the right way to go ? Or do you believe, that for the good of humanity, science should declare that it has artificial limits ?
I agree with Sastra full heartedly, there is no such thing as scientists’ “Philosphical materialism”. This is an invention of people who want science to stop it’s course.
Having said that, I am a theist. This is a personal choice and I can find no perfect reason of why I have made this choice. I have been following Pharyngula for the last 6 months and I really like it and never felt that my theism was relevant in the discussions, not until this thread. I just accept that this is the result of a personal Biais. And no, I have never had any “personal communication” with God, and I don’t believe that most people who claim that they have really had. I didn’t make my choice based on those fake evidences. I admit that it’s not clear to me, why everytime I have stripped myself from all those fake evidences, I always end up wanting to believe, but if I don’t know myself, please don’t even try to give me reasons that I can’t find for myself.
Despite this personal choice, I can only say that I would rather discuss with a group of Atheists about most things, science, politics, or morality. They do make more sense (at least to my skeptical mind) than what I usually read on most theist friendly sites.
If, indeed, God exists and intervenes, it is only a creative blend of science and the humanities that will find out if it is really the truth. And this will be, my guess, a long and painstaking task.
To me, the default assumption of any scientific work has to be that “God did it” cannot be an explanation. What else can you do ? Tell me what else ? Please let’s see if you have a good idea, because I couldn’t find it.
That’s the contradiction that I have been living with most of my life, but I can live with it and be happy. I can understand that many people would rather not live with such contradictions and make an atheist choice. And I don’t think this will have any negative or positive impact on their morality. It’s just a choice, and a very personal one. So, Yes, atheist friends, if people are hampering your ability to make this choice, revolt, speak out, come out, be proud of it. And keep up the good work of debunking fake evidences.
Thank you.
Philsays
If atheists think that every time suffering should be abated by a divine intervention by God, this would imply that God would have to suspend natural law every time a person fell from a tree. We could not predict any natural law then since divine intervention would be a variable in any description of physics.
The resultant chaos of not being able to predict would make earth literally unlivable – imagine a person not knowing whether he can start a fire to cook with, given the fact that God may suddenly swoop down an put it out, given that this fire may cause damage or harm somehow.
bernardasays
VD states, “There is testimonial evidence of God. There is real evidence of God and there is documentary evidence of God. There is also demonstrative evidence of God.”
Then later he talks about biblical “evidence”. He seems to confuse evidence with assertions. There is no evidence of anything in the bible. As many have said for a long time, it is just a collection of fairy tales.
Evidence testimony used to be accepted by the church and the governments in witch trials for example. Someone like St. Paul or Muhammed saying god spoke to me is not evidence, except evidence of their mental illness.
There is no forensic evidence, i.e. real or documentary evidence, of a god. What the hell is demonstrative evidence? If VD means a controlled experiment, where is it?
Tulsesays
Phil:
If atheists think that every time suffering should be abated by a divine intervention by God, this would imply that God would have to suspend natural law every time a person fell from a tree.
Or an omnipotent, omnibenevolent god could have just arranged natural laws such that suffering was impossible.
We could not predict any natural law then since divine intervention would be a variable in any description of physics.
Which is exactly the case when postulate any intervention in the physical world by a god, regardless of how frequent.
The resultant chaos of not being able to predict would make earth literally unlivable – imagine a person not knowing whether he can start a fire to cook with, given the fact that God may suddenly swoop down an put it out, given that this fire may cause damage or harm somehow.
So an omnipotent god couldn’t have arranged the laws of nature so that fire was never harmful to humans? Your god must not be very imaginative, or very powerful, or both.
Stevie_Csays
The point is Phil, god has NEVER swooped own anywhere.There are no miracles. People thank god for surviving disasters all the time, They never wonder why he didn’t prevent it in the first place, and very often that it’s actually god’s retribution.
You sound like someone rationalizing domestic abuse.
based on the evidence of the Bible, He doesn’t tend to make a habit of it.
He can quit any time and he’s planning to cut down. Got it.
He seems to confuse evidence with assertions. There is no evidence of anything in the bible.
Oh, you want good evidence? Compelling, convincing evidence? He offers falsifiability, and even names Popper, so that makes it scientesque. By that measure, I’ve got book cases full of fantasy novels recounting magical worlds that are neither more nor less falsifiable than the ones you get from VD.
windysays
imagine a person not knowing whether he can start a fire to cook with, given the fact that God may suddenly swoop down an put it out, given that this fire may cause damage or harm somehow.
Imagine a person not knowing whether he can start a fire to cook with, given the fact that the fire department may suddenly swoop in and put it out, given that this fire may cause damage or harm somehow.
Stevie_Csays
windy,
that made me giggle.
Ubersays
Despite this personal choice, I can only say that I would rather discuss with a group of Atheists about most things, science, politics, or morality. They do make more sense (at least to my skeptical mind) than what I usually read on most theist friendly sites.
You and I share some common ground.
Kseniyasays
Ken: “VD’s Grindhouse God” make me chuckle. I’ll be looking for it at the Twin Drive-In next summer!
Actually, I would like to congratulate Vox for his posts. It is not often that one can find some thougt provoking discussion on a blog, and I also thank PZ for enabling it.
Yes, Vox is an interesting fellow, but his most obvious talent is for sophistry. Case in point:
It would be more precise to say “there is no subjective interpretation of data produced by the scientific method for the existence of God”, which is somewhat more defensible, but can be easily disproven by finding a single subjective interpretation somewhere.
The result of your clarification is that the atheist can’t even reasonably say “there is no scientific evidence for God”. Congratulations.
Perhaps Vox himself will view this as an opportunity to demonstrate his intellectual acuity and honesty, and explain just what’s wrong with these statements.
Sven DiMilosays
“VD’s Grindhouse God” make me chuckle. I’ll be looking for it at the Twin Drive-In next summer!
…because “God’s Grindhouse VD” has already been done.
woozysays
If atheists think that every time suffering should be abated by a divine intervention by God, this would imply that God would have to suspend natural law every time a person fell from a tree. We could not predict any natural law then since divine intervention would be a variable in any description of physics.
Sophistry works both ways. This argument implies God shouldn’t swoop in and suspend natural law every time someone fell from a tree. Why shouldn’t he?
And why would God swooping in be considered suspending “natural” law? Didn’t God make natural law. Why make laws where his existance or actions are considered “unnatural”?
I don’t like this argument from either side, I guess, because I figure it’s ulimately … meaningless.
Carlie: That’s not exactly what I was trying to do. VD had tossed off a smug line about my morality being relativistic, … and I was trying to point out that his version of morality can be seen exactly the same way.
Fair enough. And for my two cents I agree. The implication of relativistic morality is that we are going to abuse it to wiggle out by rationalising what is simply an out and out bad choice. Likewise the implication of a moral authority implies one is going bow to the authority to avoid all personal responsibility, and, as Ken states, personal and humane judgement.
It was Ken who called such a moral code “monster wannabe” which though clever, is a bit harsh, except that blind obedience *does* leave me cold.
VD [in re: killing babies]: based on the evidence of the Bible, He doesn’t tend to make a habit of it.
Ken: He can quit any time and he’s planning to cut down. Got it.
*SNORF* coffee out of nose… Molly for Ken! Ding! Ding!
Sastra, OMsays
Is “the existence of God” a science theory (or hypothesis) also? What would cause you to throw it out?
VD #225 wrote:
“The existence of God” may not be a scientific hypothesis, but “the Christian faith’ certainly is. There are numerous ways that it can be falsified.
Leaving aside whether or not your examples would work, the original question had to do with whether supernatural explanations could hypothetically be discovered and included in scientific models. So disproving any particular sect isn’t relevant to that issue. If the broader category of whether God exists — or the even broader category of the supernatural itself — are not testable hypotheses, then I don’t see how they could work into genuine theories (which would effect the status of ID, for example).
Naturalism and materialism are falsifiable. Parapsychology could do it. If you want supernaturalism to be taken seriously in science, it can’t just be God of the Gaps. I think it has to be falsifiable too.
Thanks for the ding, Woozy, and sorry about that keyboard, but that bar is quite high; I’d have to post more posts, and betterer ones at that. I’ve got finals pending!)
The implication of relativistic morality is that we are going to abuse it to wiggle out by rationalising what is simply an out and out bad choice. Likewise the implication of a moral authority implies one is going bow to the authority to avoid all personal responsibility
One problem with Gods v Monsters is how to distinguish one imaginary Being from the other. Aren’t we to be judged by the choices we make, to find out whether it’s a Good Witch, or a Bad– how not to make the wrong choice? How are we to make sure we don’t throw down with the God who violates taboos and eats with the wrong hand, you know, the one demonized by the local alpha priesthood? What if the worshippers of the wrong God are nice people too, who just dress a little funny and subjugate their women in novel ways? Is there any more evidence for their claims than literary criticism of the normative fairy tales employed?
Take Genesis. The response of the old man in the garden to the discovery that A&E have eaten fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is to exclaim, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil,” making it sound like God’s got company in the God department, and not only validating the Serpent’s sales pitch to Eve, but making it sound like Adam and Eve no longer need to rely upon authority to make moral decisions. They are like Gods, knowing good and evil. If God tells them to do an evil thing, they’ll recognize it as evil via their own judgment.
I don’t see Genesis as squaring with the authoritarian morality of VD. Not that it matters, as the whole mess is such a tangled maze of internal contradictions and nonsense that it’s a fool’s errand to try and make sense of any of it.
Kseniyasays
Well said there, Ken.
p-dawgsays
I’ve seen a lot of talk about ‘good’ and ‘evil’ ITT. My question is basic: from where can we derive morality? How can anyone classify an action as ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’?
If there is no absolute morality, then how can any action by anyone be defined as ‘wrong’? If there is, what is it? Why?
How can anyone classify an action as ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’?
Got empathy? Yes? Good. Start from there. Keep going. Check your answer with your neighbor. You may find your neighbor has empathy too. Perhaps you may try avoiding behavior that you can imagine might make your neighbor feel as bad you would feel if it were done to you. You might find a simpler way to phrase this idea, but actually, most children manage to work it out among themselves on the playground.
Here’s a question for you. Do you think people are basically and intrinsically good, or basically and intrinsically evil? Why?
p-dawgsays
Got empathy? Yes? Good.
What if I don’t? Am I then absolved from moral responsibility?
Start from there.
Why? Is empathy universal?
Perhaps you may try avoiding behavior that you can imagine might make your neighbor feel as bad you would feel if it were done to you.
So if I enjoy being slapped, my neighbor will too, through empathy? Interesting.
You might find a simpler way to phrase this idea, but actually, most children manage to work it out among themselves on the playground.
Really? Children? With empathy? That isn’t how I remember playgrounds. Perhaps your experience has clouded your reason.
Here’s a question for you. Do you think people are basically and intrinsically good, or basically and intrinsically evil? Why?
Being that we haven’t managed to define ‘good’ and ‘evil’, how can I answer that question? Could we perhaps determine what ‘good’ and ‘evil’ mean before we use those words to classify humanity?
Just so you can’t say I’m refusing to answer the question, I think people are inherently selfish. Whether that’s good or evil has yet to be determined.
p-dawg
Unless you’ve got a mental or developmental impairment, you probably have empathy. Let’s try a thought experiment (apparently popular on this thread).
Presuming for the sake of argument that, since you refer to yourself as p-dawg, you’re male, and therefore, odds are you possess something resembling a pair of testicles. Now, try to imagine your response to seeing a random male stranger, minding his own business, who, by no apparent provocation suddenly finds himself doubled over in pain because somebody just delivered a swift, steel-toed boot to his crotch. Picture it.
Did you feel a sympathetic, vaguely Clintonesque twinge of what it might have been like to feel that guy’s pain? Alternatively, was your response a loud guffaw expressing schadenfreude with macho bravado? If the latter, you may have buried your inherent, universal empathy. You may have been taught by your peers and mentors to bury it, which makes your lack of empathy, while not necessarily your fault, still your problem. You are not absolved of moral responsibility.
Mutual consensual slapping? I’ve got no issues with whatever blows your skirt up, pal, so long as you honor safe words. Non-consensual slapping? Evil. This isn’t exactly rocket science, or is it?
Your behavior may cloud your experience of playgrounds. Children can be brutal, but most prefer to work out ways to not be brutalized, and many people do manage to play well with others. YMMV.
As for selfishness? I tend to subscribe to the notion that people eventually learn how to be sufficiently selfish. That is, they manage to learn how to be selfish enough to achieve long term satiety, rather than having to settle for mere immediate self gratification. Indulge in a bit too much immediate self gratification with poor impulse control and other people, out of self interest, will unite to limit your access to opportunities for immediate self gratification at the expense of others, out of empathy for your victims. While this may be something that, at first blush, appears to be evil for you, you are outnumbered by those who see your separation from society as good. Your cellmate, named Bubba, may concur. I trust that, as for most people, this will remain a hypothetical scenario. Many people do muster empathy without the threat of that potential roommate weighing heavily in their routine daily assessments of tricky moral dilemmas. YMMV.
You cannot learn how to build an effective simulation of other people’s responses to your behavior, in order to effectively negotiate your social environment with maximal success, without developing empathy. People worked out, “Do as you’d be done by,” among themselves, thousands of years before it got engraved in lead paint on mass-produced Hallmark tchochkes. Bonobos have turned it into an art form.
My six year old is still working some of this stuff out, but at an abstract, intellectual level. He hasn’t really modeled much bad behavior yet, because he hasn’t encountered much of it, even by the first grade. It doesn’t occur to him that people might take his belongings if he forgets about them, for example, so he’s really surprised when his lost jacket doesn’t show up in the lost and found.
Let me know if this helps you think about these problems, p-dawg. BTW, does your nom de net have anything to do with the distinction between Pluto and Goofy? Pluto of course, is a dog, while everybody knows Goofy is a dawg.
p-dawgsays
Unless you’ve got a mental or developmental impairment, you probably have empathy.
So is empathy the source of universal morality?
Now, try to imagine your response to seeing a random male stranger, minding his own business, who, by no apparent provocation suddenly finds himself doubled over in pain because somebody just delivered a swift, steel-toed boot to his crotch. Picture it.
In this experiment, I was not the one who kicked the person. Therefore, my empathy towards that person is completely irrelevant to the ‘good’ or ‘evil’ of the action itself. Did the kicker in your experiemnt have empathy? Who knows. Apparently not, since he or she kicked anyway.
You are not absolved of moral responsibility.
So if I’ve buried my empathy I am not absolved. What if I simply have none? That was the actual question I asked and it is one which you have ducked again by qualifying your empathy theory to explain anyone who seems to lack empathy.
Mutual consensual slapping?
Who said anything about that? You said that morality consisted of treating others how I want to be treated. Therefore, if I want to be slapped, everyone else must also want to be slapped, by your rules. That was the point I was making.
Non-consensual slapping? Evil.
Why? You say it isn’t rocket science, but then you fail to provide even the smallest support. Let me help you. I will even start the sentence for you: Non-consensual slapping is evil because…
Your behavior may cloud your experience of playgrounds. Children can be brutal, but most prefer to work out ways to not be brutalized, and many people do manage to play well with others. YMMV.
So what is the universal constant here? That some people work things out peacefully and others don’t? What is the BASIS for universal morality?
You cannot learn how to build an effective simulation of other people’s responses to your behavior, in order to effectively negotiate your social environment with maximal success, without developing empathy. People worked out, “Do as you’d be done by,” among themselves, thousands of years before it got engraved in lead paint on mass-produced Hallmark tchochkes.
OK, so, from what I can gather you believe the golden rule is the basis for universal morality. Again, what if someone wants to be beaten up? According to your rule, they not only can but should beat up everyone else they see. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, right? How is this in any way quantifiable?
I appreciate the time you took to respond, but I am still waiting for the answer to my original question, which is how can good and evil be defined? Someone please help out here.
As to my name, it’s actually just a nickname. My first name starts with P. I grew up in the ‘hood. (Not the super scary ‘hood, just the scary to preppies ‘hood) It’s my nickname that’s acceptable in polite company, so it’s the one I use.
Kseniyasays
I thought Pluto was demoted to “cur” by the IAU?
Kseniyasays
The basis of morality is that people generally share a common goal: to belong to a society that functions in a manner which tends to maximize the shared benefit of cooperation and mutual caretaking. Empathy (and its offspring, conscience) is a mechanism which serves this goal.
It doesn’t benefit the group for its members to steal from each other. It doesn’t benefit the group for its members to kill each other. It may benefit the wayward individual in the short term, but it doesn’t benefit the group, and being ostracized from the group can be harmful or fatal. (This last bit is far less true now than it was hundreds or thousands of years ago, but the imprint of that fear persists in most people.)
This article, though not a scholarly paper, is an interesting and quick read, and strikes me as a reasonably useful primer on the subject of natural morality. (The more educated among us may disagree, but my needs are simple. It’s not a simple topic.) You may find it interesting. I did.
woozysays
If there is no absolute morality, then how can any action by anyone be defined as ‘wrong’? If there is, what is it? Why?
Actually, I believe that question bypasses a more fundimental question. How can one derive and recognize morality from anywhere. VD and Pope Benedict both disaprove of relaivistic morality which seems to be the only morality Ken accepts (sorry Ken if that seems an overgeneralization). The implication is, and your question reflects this, is that if morality is relative then every-one can make up there own and this is a bad and immoral thing.
It may be a problem, perhaps, but I think from starting at that point one is doing a disservice to the concept of morality altogether. A more basic question is how can any two people accept any system of morality and how can one claim evaluate a morality, even an absolute one, as moral.
Carlie, another moral relativist, countered VD’s faith in an absolute morality by noting both are “relativistic” in that both are based in chosing what one trusts and what the source says at the time.
Even more basic is the question is there any such thing as morality at all and to what extent is it “binding”? I ask that because in my opinion absolute morality is impossible. One may claim there is an absolute morality (lets assume this is God and he exists; or we could assume it is the Sumpreme Court; Or we could assume in is Charlie Manson; it doesn’t matter for the argument *what* the absolute morality is, just that we are assume, for now, that there is one). But what good does it do to *have* an absolute morality if there are going to be people who do not believe in it. If you have a pipeline to the absolute morality and know, and are absolutely correct in knowing, that it is immoral to eat canned tuna on tuesday, and I am a moral relativist and believe, utterly incorrectly, that eating canned tuna on tuesday is fine; and if I then commit the utterly immoral act of eating canned tuna on tuesday and you call me, rightfully, immoral, and I counter, utterly falsely, “uh-uh!”; then in what way is that any different then a universe without absolute morality? Or a universe with an absolute morality that states it’s immoral *not* to eat tuna on Tuesday. In all cases I’m acting and being judged on what we *think* is moral no matter whether there is an absolute morality or not.
So, since even if there *is* an absolute morality there would be no way for anyone to know what it is. how can any action be defined as wrong (or right)? Well, maybe we can’t. What exactly are we trying to achieve by defining an action as wrong? If its a matter of “knowing” an action is wrong, we can’t ever know. Sorry, but we can’t. If it’s a matter of defining a social contract, well, we don’t have to know; we only have to imply tacit consent.
As a thought experiment, let’s assume Athi, my six foot rabbit, is in control of the universe and *is* the absolute moral authority. Athi *loves* the color green and decrees anyone wearing the color green is *always* moral while wearing green. Thus, although Athi has decreed that eating canned Tuna on Tuesday is highly immoral, if you are wearing green while you do so is perfectly moral. Likewise, if you are wearing green you can take an ax to a truckload of babies and suck the goo through a straw and Athi will stand and applaud. Now, let’s suppose that although Athi is the absolute moral authority absolutley nobody on the planet has heard her laws, much less believes in them. Now in a town just about everyone (852 out of 854) believe it is immoral to kill, most (850 out of 854) believe it is immoral to steal, most (783 out of 854) believe it is immoral to have sex with chickens, and no one (0 out of 854) thinks it is immoral to eat canned tuna on Tuesday (and everyone is *wrong*! It is *very* immoral to eat canned tuna on Tuesday!) So one day, Manny Charleson– one of the two out of 854 who doesn’t believe killing is immoral decides while plowing his field in his green overalls to kill his neighbor and steal his land. The town is horrified and surround his house pointing fingers at him shouting “Immoral! Immoral!” He shouts back “Hey, I’m perfectly moral! I wanted his land and he was ugly anyway!” but the townspeople drive him out because they can not tolerate such immorality.
Now the thought experiment: Does it make any difference that Athi, the one and true moral authority, watched and declared Manny the most moral person in the town because he was the only one wearing green?
Okay….. Now that I’ve gotten *that* out of the way, I wish to claim I am a moral relativist. I believe killing is wrong, Dancing on Sunday is right (or not wrong), smoking is wrong (actually I don’t; I think it is a personal choice but I don’t want to paint myself as wonderful and smart and everyone else as stupid and intolerant). My neighbor believes killing is wrong, dancing on Sunday is wrong, and smoking is right. Well, how do we decide who’s right or wrong? Well, who says we do? These issues don’t come into play because for the most part we have a social contract that we both pretty much tolerate.
Okay, so next question? I’m a moral relativist, right, so what’s to keep me from making up my own rules that stealing is okay if I do it, Killing is okay if I can get away with it, and tossing trash in my yard is immoral? Well, because I don’t actually believe any of that (although if I were a selfish bastard why should I *care* what I think is moral or not…) Now you might ask how can I have a moral code if I don’t accept any authority? Well, why shouldn’t I have a moral code without accepting any authority. I have intellect, I have empathy, I know harming another hurts the other and I know the other’s view point are no more or less valid than mine. I feel strongly it’s immoral to hurt me (you big meanie!) so a believe it is equally immoral to hurt another.
Okay, so suppose one doesn’t have empathy, is he let of the hook? Well, no not by *my* judgeing him. But by his judging himself? Well, yeah. But wouldn’t he let himself of the hook anyway. After all, if a person deliberate behaves immorally or if a person behaves with a set of morals contrary to everyone else’s morals, is there any practical difference.
There’s absolutely *nothing* wrong with being a moral relativist and saying one’s own morals of not killing are better than the other moral relativist’s whose morals allow killing because mine value life more than his. One should be able to defend one’s morals.
Okay… I hear you saying “ah, but you’re assuming a universal that valuing life is a valid basis for a moral code but worshipping god is not; if there are no absolutes how can you claim that your basis is the right one” Well, sometimes you just have to be practical. And that is why one should be able to defend one’s morals; To justify and reach agreement and tacit consent on actions.
Epicurus’ answer to how to define good was that which yeilds the greatest pleasure to most and the least harm. Puritans may disagree but they’d probably find it acceptable if the other option is perpetual bloodshed with their Epicurian neighbors. But absolutely *no-body* is ever going to buy “My belief that I should kill is every bit as valid as your belief I shouldn’t”
p-dawgsays
How can one derive and recognize morality from anywhere?
Good question. I am looking for an answer to this.
The implication is, and your question reflects this, is that if morality is relative then every-one can make up there own and this is a bad and immoral thing.
Well, not really. The implication is that if there is no absolute right or wrong, then nothing anyone ever does is right or wrong. That statement can’t be classified as immoral if it’s true.
In all cases I’m acting and being judged on what we *think* is moral no matter whether there is an absolute morality or not.
I disagree. My personal theory is that there are natural laws which go along with natural morality. Thus, the consequences of your actions can show you if you are moral or not. Similar but not exactly to the theory of Earl from “My Name is Earl”: If you do good things, good things tend to happen to you. If you do bad things, bad things tend to happen to you. Of course, there seem to be exceptions. However, we don’t know all the variables/laws/etc.
This is just my theory, I can’t prove it yet.
As a thought experiment, let’s assume Athi,
The problem with this thought experiment is that the consequences for either morality or immorality are not discussed. Does Athi punish non-green-wearers? Does Athi reward Manny after he’s driven out of town? Do the townspeople have any consequences for driving him out?
Well, how do we decide who’s right or wrong? Well, who says we do?
Society does.
I’m a moral relativist, right, so what’s to keep me from making up my own rules that stealing is okay if I do it, Killing is okay if I can get away with it, and tossing trash in my yard is immoral? Well, because I don’t actually believe any of that (although if I were a selfish bastard why should I *care* what I think is moral or not…)
OK, so if you DID believe that killing was ok, would that make it ok? This is a cop-out answer. I’m not trying to be rude, but you must know that it is.
Now you might ask how can I have a moral code if I don’t accept any authority? Well, why shouldn’t I have a moral code without accepting any authority.
That wasn’t my question. The issue is not whether you should have a moral code or not. The issue is whether there is actually such a thing as morality. Whether you can or should follow any particular morality is irrelevant if we can’t even determine whether there actually is any morality or not.
I have intellect, I have empathy, I know harming another hurts the other and I know the other’s view point are no more or less valid than mine.
So if another’s point of view is as valid as yours, how can you say that something that someone else does is either moral or immoral? The best you could do is say that it is moral or immoral according to you, but the other person has the same option. If someone believes that killing is moral, and their viewpoint is equal to yours, then how can you say that they should not murder you? Or did you mean that as long as certain things agree, their opinion is equal to yours, but if they disagree with you, your opinion is superior?
Well, yeah. But wouldn’t he let himself of the hook anyway.
What, in this instance, is the ‘hook’?
There’s absolutely *nothing* wrong with being a moral relativist and saying one’s own morals of not killing are better than the other moral relativist’s whose morals allow killing because mine value life more than his. One should be able to defend one’s morals.
Of course there is something wrong here. You are assuming that there is a way to judge moral systems by how much value they place on life. You are saying that all moral systems are equal, except that ones which place a value on life are more equal. From where did you derive this system?
Well, sometimes you just have to be practical. And that is why one should be able to defend one’s morals; To justify and reach agreement and tacit consent on actions.
How is it more practical to value life than to not value it? Also, you haven’t defended your morals. You’ve told me what some of them are, but you haven’t mentioned HOW you arrived at them.
Epicurus’ answer to how to define good was that which yeilds the greatest pleasure to most and the least harm.
Another subjective definition. Who defines pleasure, who defines harm?
But absolutely *no-body* is ever going to buy “My belief that I should kill is every bit as valid as your belief I shouldn’t”
How about psychopaths? How about dicators like Stalin? How about eugenicists? Isn’t that sort of the whole basis for forced euthanasia? I don’t accept this premise.
I did want to thank you for your response, however. It was very long and appeared well thought-out, however it didn’t answer my question of ‘what defines good and evil’ or ‘from where can one derive morality?’
Kseniyasays
P-Dawg: I forgot to mention a piece of the physiological puzzle:
I realize you’re after a more philosophical explanation, but all the pieces DO fit together. Somehow. :-)
Obviously, there is no absolute morality. Maybe that’s all the answer you need. Even God practices relative morality. Giraffe morality is quite different from shark morality or human morality. Nonetheless, though human morality varies from culture to culture, from age to age, there are common human moral precepts of the “thou shalt not murder” variety. This is self-evident – no?
According to Dr. Sun Sign (“You are my sun sign, my natal sun sign, your moon in pisces, is trine my mars. With pluto rising, it’s not surprising. It’s not surprising, it’s in your stars”), Neptune, Pluto, Goofy and Mickey have moved into your last house, leaving no room for you.
We derive morality from our family, school and broader social environment while we acquire language and other cognitive skills. Just as language varies from one community to another, so does the sense of what is moral, by social contract, by learning what it is one must go along with to get along. In some cultures, that’s learning to brandish an AK-47 in battle before you’re 8. Universal morality has never been observed.
When I wrote, “Perhaps you may try avoiding behavior that you can imagine might make your neighbor feel as bad you would feel if it were done to you, you responded, “So if I enjoy being slapped, my neighbor will too, through empathy? Interesting, which I can only describe as deliberate obtuseness on your part.
Who said anything about [consensual slapping]? You said that morality consisted of treating others how I want to be treated. Therefore, if I want to be slapped, everyone else must also want to be slapped, by your rules. That was the point I was making.
My point was more along the lines of refraining from saying stupid, inane things, if you don’t want to be regarded as stupid. Trying to pull that interpretation out of the golden rule doesn’t make you look very smart.
In this experiment, I was not the one who kicked the person. Therefore, my empathy towards that person is completely irrelevant to the ‘good’ or ‘evil’ of the action itself. Did the kicker in your experiemnt have empathy? Who knows. Apparently not, since he or she kicked anyway.
The crotch kicking scenario was a test to see if you have any empathy, as you treat it like a novel concept with which you have no familiarity. Judging by your response, you’d probably make quite a Libertarian. I asked you to picture it to see if you could muster any sympathy for the pain suffered by the kickee; your empathy is the issue in this scenario, and the ‘good’ or ‘evil’ of the experiment is irrelevant; you’ve got it precisely backwards. Imagine it’s Jackie Chan taking a kick to the crotch in a movie–you know it’s a staged fantasy, the kicker and kickee are going to have a beer together after the staged scene is in the can. When you see it in a movie theater, do you wince in sympathetic pain, or do you point and laugh at the expression on his face, or are you confused because you feel sympathetic pain and find yourself laughing at his pain? I’m asking for an honest reply (I’d prefer it if you refrained from asking me to explain honesty).
If you saw this happen to somebody standing next to you on the corner, are you going to identify with the kicker or the kickee? Are you going to help? Are you going to identify it as “not my problem” and move along? How will you justify your behavior to the cop on the scene a moment too late?
How can anyone classify an action as ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’?
Morality and immorality are defined by social contract and rational discourse, sometimes. Sometimes, they are defined by angry young males with machetes, who, for example, wanted to dismember the schoolteacher in the Sudan who let her students give their class teddy bear the most common male name in the Muslim world. They believe such behavior is every bit as moral as you (presumably) and I don’t. How did that happen? Where is the proposed universality of morality?
If there is no absolute morality, then how can any action by anyone be defined as ‘wrong’? If there is, what is it? Why?
I’m glad you’re working this out, because working out what is right or wrong is everybody’s problem and responsibility in any community. Most of the time, people look to intent to decide on the wrongness of a given action. If, while driving, a shopping cart rolled out in front of you in the road and you had to swerve, accidentally maiming a kid who had carelessly run into the path of your car, and your sober remorse, anguish and efforts at the scene to get the kid medical help were all judged to be genuine, you’ll get a different response from a jury than, say, if you’d popped a cap into the kid to impress your homeys participating in your drive by shooting spree in your ‘hood.
Whose judgement counts in the second case? The jurors, or that of the gang you’re trying to join? How short of a life do you want to live? I don’t want my kid to be a victim of a drive by shooting, so I’m going to consider your (imaginary and purely hypothetical) efforts to join a gang to be wrong.
If you can’t see that through your action or inaction, allowing another human being to come to harm is wrong and to be avoided, clearly, you’re going to need some professional help before somebody gets hurt. Of course, there are circumstances where you can be convicted for refusing a lawful order to hurt other human beings in wartime, so I’m afraid right or wrong is something you’re going to have to work out yourself.
So is empathy the source of universal morality?
No, empathy is part of what makes people human, and humans are in a continual struggle to behave appropriately, occasionally trying to justify actions that they consider wrong, in order to achieve a greater good. Universal morality is an abstraction, as nobody can agree on what it would be.
OK, so, from what I can gather you believe the golden rule is the basis for universal morality. Again, what if someone wants to be beaten up? According to your rule, they not only can but should beat up everyone else they see. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, right? How is this in any way quantifiable?
There is no such thing as universal morality. Morality, or slightly less abstractly, rightness or wrongness of a given action is defined by cultural norms, by situation, and by personal intent.
You may wish to refrain from accusing me of making your stupid argument. Your effort to spin the golden rule into a lead cudgel is, charitably, inept.
Go watch Fight Club.
Join a gym and learn to box.
Walk up to a police officer and punch him in the face.
One of these things is not like the other. One of these things is not the same.
how can good and evil be defined
By humans. It’s one of those human tricks that we obsess over a lot. A lot of great literature has been devoted to the subject, both scientific (trying to deal with evidence, observations and facts) and great literary fiction (which deals with truths). Good luck working out the best way you can to live with yourself and your decisions, and be prepared to show your work if your family, peers and people you care about, or those who represent social agencies take exception to your decisions and their consequences.
Back to empathy:
So if I’ve buried my empathy I am not absolved. What if I simply have none?
Then you are suffering from a severe cognitive defect that would make most pack animals shun you, and you would probably figure out how to fake having some empathy, just for the purpose of staying alive and interacting socially to obtain food, shelter, and whatever else you want. When you start hurting other people because you can’t always maintain the facade of empathy, your struggle with rightness or wrongness becomes the problem of the community, which tends not to be able to generate a lot of empathy for individuals who behave as if they have none themselves.
woozysays
My personal theory is that there are natural laws which go along with natural morality. … If you do good things, good things tend to happen to you. If you do bad things, bad things tend to happen to you.
Then sticking your finger in a live light socket while standing in a puddle of water would seem to be immoral. Palling it up and offering bribes to you congressman would appear to be moral.
Does Athi punish non-green-wearers?
Well, she definately punishes people who stick their fingers in light sockets while standing in puddles. She truly hates that.
OK, so if you DID believe that killing was ok, would that make it ok? This is a cop-out answer. I’m not trying to be rude, but you must know that it is.
No, it would mean you think it is okay. Likewise if one thought it was immoral but just didn’t care, the issue of the morality of killing is moot.
So if another’s point of view is as valid as yours, how can you say that something that someone else does is either moral or immoral?
Who says I can? I have to trust my judgement and my intellect as best I can and say “I’m pretty sure your code of killing being moral and dancing on Sunday is immoral and I feel it is my duty to resist it and stop you and judge you. If I’m wrong… well, shit … but since I can’t concieve that causing pain to others is right or anything as arbitrary as the day of seven day week is relevant, I simply can’t concieve that I am wrong”
Me: Well, yeah. But wouldn’t he let himself of the hook anyway.
You: What, in this instance, is the ‘hook’?
Calling himself moral.
Scenario 1 (moral relativism):
Judge: By my moral code and the majority of the others I claim you are immoral.
Accused: By my moral code I am moral.
Scenario 2 (absolute morality):
Judge: By the result of the Moromatic 3000 it appears you a morally dispicable.
Accused: I don’t care.
Same diff. Okay. With natural law the accused gets struck by lightening and says “that was coincidence”.
Of course there is something wrong here. You are assuming that there is a way to judge moral systems by how much value they place on life. You are saying that all moral systems are equal, except that ones which place a value on life are more equal. From where did you derive this system?
From myself. I have to be able to defend it if I expect others to accept it.
Ultimately, there will be people who think X is moral and people who think X is immoral and there will never be any way anyone can resolve it with certainty, even if there *is* a natural law to determine morality. There’s *nothing* we can do about this except to rely on our individual and collective best judgements.
How is it more practical to value life than to not value it?
That wasn’t my intent for the word “practical”. If someone is going to insist that his morality includes his being allowed to kill everyone who looks at him cross-eyed and the wearing green always him to piss in the public well, while the rest of the village most assuredly does not, well, he’s simply not going to get very far.
“Aha!” I anticipate, my debater saying. “Are you implying that morality is conceding to the majority? So if you lived in a society where everyone believes it is okay to stone adulterers to death, then stoning would be moral?” To which, I have to say, not at all. I don’t know how to determine morality and in all fact I personally believe it can not be done. I hope reason and intellect and compassion and “common sense” can usually prevail. However in looking for the comfort of saying “I know X is moral because…” Well, one just has to “practically” accept the existential facts that it will only go over with others to the extent others will accept it. I’m not saying that is “good” or “right”. Just that it is.
Me: Epicurus’ answer to how to define good was that which yeilds the greatest pleasure to most and the least harm.
You: Another subjective definition.
Of course, it’s subjective. In the absence of universal acceptence of an absolute on subjective systems exist.
Who defines pleasure, who defines harm?
The ones being pleasured and harmed.
How about psychopaths? How about dicators like Stalin?
Kseniya, above, cited a very naturalistic definition of morality as “The basis of morality is that people generally share a common goal: to belong to a society that functions in a manner which tends to maximize the shared benefit of cooperation and mutual caretaking.”
I believe this is very much the mechanics as to how mutual morality gets acted upon. Another term could be “tacit concent” or “social contract”. A psycho-path will not be accepted because his “morality” opposes the common goal. A dictator like Stalin will have to convince his society that his morality of killing is compatible with the common goal.
This is what I mean by “practical”.
Do I believe that persuing a common goal of a society is “moral”? Well, it serves as a definition. If society determines that stoning a adulterer is moral than it *is* moral, is every bit as valid as stating if God wants to have a baby killed that killing that Baby *is* moral.
But…. do I believe it is the percieved goal of a society is by definition moral? No, I do not. But without absolute morality, which I believe to be impossible to determine, I believe this to be the only “practical” mechanics. It is through this mechanics that we can evoke and evaluate concepts or moral guidance in terms of the societal goal (terms such as compassion, fairness, personal rights, societal good, etc.) with which to argue and plead one’s code. Hence, with luck, If I were the sole member of a society that believed stoning an adulterer to death was immoral, I may be able to argue my belief and convince the rest of the society by availing to common tenets we share.
windysays
Imagine it’s Jackie Chan taking a kick to the crotch in a movie–you know it’s a staged fantasy…
Actually, if it’s Jackie Chan, some of those hits to the groin might be for real :)
Amenhotep: Actually, Descartes thought God could do those things. Whimsically: what if god is a paraconsistent logician?
woozy: Unless of course a “Platonic” view of logic is taken …
Norman Doering: Plato and others (including some preSocratics) had taken the step towards monotheism. From there one can get to the Epicurean notion that gods are simply long lived beings that don’t care for us. (E. thought the gods exist due to his extreme empiricism, actually. People see the gods in dreams, after all.)
Christopher: Besides, there are arguments against the suffering thing – Scriven has an interesting one.
p-dawgsays
If I see someone get hit on TV or in a movie, I usually don’t have empathy for them. That’s because I’m almost never able to suspend disbelief. I have an unfortunately good grasp of the difference between reality and make-believe. Now, if I saw someone get crotch-kicked on the street, I would go see what was up. How would I know, on first blush, whether the kickee was trying to hurt the kicker or whether the kickee was innocent? You’re assuming that just because someone is getting crotch-kicked, that they don’t deserve it. However, I believe that if you don’t know all the variables, it’s stupid to make a determination that you know what happened.
I’m glad you’re working this out, because working out what is right or wrong is everybody’s problem and responsibility in any community.
Actually, I’ve already got it worked out to my own satisfaction :) I was trying to get you to work it out. Thanks, though.
What I am getting from you is that you cannot logically, rationally explain why some things are good and some things are evil. It sounds like you want to hand-wave about social contracts and relative moralities. You don’t know where morals come from, and you can’t explain why things are either good or evil, but you want me to accept on faith that you’re correct. I am sorry, but I cannot do this. I don’t accept the ‘I don’t know how to define pornography/art, but I know it when I see it’ theory, either. I won’t waste any more of your time, as it’s obvious you cannot define good an evil. It’s ok, I honestly didn’t expect that anyone here would be able to. I don’t mean that as a knock, it’s just that it’s impossible to defend relativistic moralities using logic and reason. The bottom line is that if you can’t define good and evil, you cannot logically claim that any action is good or evil. Can you disagree with that statement?
woozysays
You don’t know where morals come from, and you can’t explain why things are either good or evil, but you want me to accept on faith that you’re correct. I am sorry, but I cannot do this.
No! No! No! No! No. You aren’t getting it. I know where morals come from. The come from humans senses of good and decent behavior. I can explain why things are good and others are evil (Killing: evil because it takes what is some-one elses away. Dancing on Sunday: Good, it’s fun and harms no-one. Bitching against your neighbor about dancing on Sunday: evil, it’s judging others on values that are solely yours and thus not allowing the other values which are theirs by right. And so on) but these definitions are subjective to me. And other folks definitions are subjective to them.
I don’t expect you to take my definitions on faith, and I don’t expect you to even accept my definitions. You seem to believe a subjective definition is not a definition.
I have stated many times unequivically that morality doesn’t have a universal definition but only subjective ones. You can’t claim that because I don’t attempt to define morality universally I “can’t” define morality. If you want an absolute universal definition you must ask for it. If so I can answer that. My answer very simply: It does not exist.
it’s just that it’s impossible to defend relativistic moralities using logic and reason.
Nonsense, *everything* is defendable with logic and reason and with relativistic moralities logic and reason are the only thing they are defendable with. Absolute morality is undefendable with anything but blind faith and that can’t be discussed with logic and reason.
*All* discussions of logic and reason require evaluating hypothesis and propositions. If we can not agree on the basis of morality (I say human compassion, VD says God) then we will not be able to agree on what morality is. But it has still been discuss logically and with reason. It’s merely that no conclussion was reached.
You can claim you refuse to believe subjective morality is useful and you disagree with me, but you can’t claim I failed to discuss this logically. Nor can you claim I failed to provide a universe definition, when I claimed from the beginning (using logic and reason) that there is no such thing.
The bottom line is that if you can’t define good and evil, you cannot logically claim that any action is good or evil. Can you disagree with that statement?
I guess so, but I can define good and evil and have. Killing: evil. Stealing: evil. Homosexuality: good. Sex with chickens: evil. Wearing green: neutral. etc. etc. etc. You seem to think that because a definition is subjective it isn’t a definition.
If you are trying to argue that I can’t define absolute morality, then you are right but not because I am incapable, but because such a thing does not exist and no-one can define it.
You seem to be expecting more from a definition than a definition gives. A definition defines but doesn’t nescessary provide a universal litmus test.
What am I, your personal conservapedia? Get over yourself.
What woozy sez. GoodTM and EvilTM are abstractions, they’re no more real than gods, monsters, or karma. People made them up, personified them. Darth Vader is the evil villain, because he’s wearing black and everybody hisses, until he’s the good guy who has redeemed himself. Demanding that there be some universal good and evil is as unimaginative as declaring that people belong to only one of two genders. You want to jam the full spectrum of human experience into either the black or the white box, knock yourself out.
[Ash]Good. Bad. I’m the one with the killfile.[/Ash]
woozysays
What woozy sez. GoodTM and EvilTM are abstractions, they’re no more real than gods, monsters, or karma. People made them up, personified them.
I detecting the vague whiff of “Athiests can’t be moral” lingering around so I’m viewing your staightment as scarily easy to spin and ignite and sweating a tiny bit.
Morality *does* exist as a concept but is determined by a the social mores of a community.
It’s very easy for people to conclude that by our stating things such as “morality is relative” or “morality has no external existance” as the same as us saying “we can make our own morality” or “we have no frame of reference for moral guidence”. This is, as you and I both know, false but I’m not sure p_dawg gets it.
Perhaps, unfortunately, when I’m called to define things I tend to get existential. Thus rather than saying things such us “humans as group animals share common goals and morality are things that work for toward those goals” as Ksyenia cited (which leads to the inevitable “but what if one society think it is moral for infanticide and we don’t. Who is right?” Which is actually a misleading question but I’ll get to that later..[*]) I’ll think of abstract but existential thought experiments of examing a clash of personal beliefs to demonstrate that practically all we can expect to be exact or external is a societal compromise.
But that isn’t anywhere near as negative or cynical or “immoral” as it sounds. It is nearly always universal to not kill so to say “killing is immoral” is nothing more or less than “killing is not an action compatible with social norm”. And saying “I am a moral person” is to say “I live by actions in a way I hope is beneficial to me, my society, and the world”. (Which by the way, athiests, existentialist, anthropologists are very capible of doing. Even socio-paths without empathy *can* do this if they can intellicually persuade themselves they should.)
I think the question “How do we know who is right?” is pretty prevalent in these discussions. But there isn’t any true false yes no answer to that. The real question is “how can a social code exist to determine which of the two should be considered right” The answer is: by appealling to the common goals between the two and discussing and coming to a mutually acceptable answer. Although there is no litmus yes/no answer, that doesn’t mean the we live in a “moral-less” arbitrary selfish capricious world.
[*] well, not in this post I won’t. Maybe later if anyone asks.
woozysays
Oh, and more clarification. Although I am an athiest and I am a moral relativist, I want to make sure I am not taken to imply one is the party-line of the other. I know many thiest moral reletivists. I haven’t run across many athiest moral absolutists but that’s probably because I haven’t really asked. (Most people find it easy to know whether or not they believe in God– a yes/no– question but not everyone knows what they think of morality– a very open-ended question.) Although I’m sure there are many athiest moral absolutists, I doubt there are many who think morals come from God.
Also, I want to point out although I may care about morals and my and another person’s morals, I don’t care at all about where people think morals “come from” or how they are “defined” nor do I think what people think about morals has much to do with what their morals are or whether I agree with their morals.
Although if Vox and Ken were coming at me with a machete and Vox is saying “God told me to kill you; it is the moral thing to do” and Ken is saying “It is humane and compassionate for me to kill you; it is the moral thing to do” I think I’d have better luck changing Ken’s mind than Vox’.
Kseniyasays
I’d have better luck changing Ken’s mind than Vox’
You’d have even better luck if you slapped a Woozy mask on Vox.
Infanticide is shocking to contemplate, but a quick glance backwards shows us that infanticide was necessary, and therefore moral, in less advanced societies that could neither explain nor cope with babies born with serious (or even simply obvious) birth defects. Physical deformities frighten the ignorant and superstitious – and, perhaps more significantly, a baby that could not grow up to be a self-sufficient and productive adult was a burden on the group. However, as societies progressed and knowledge (and social resources) increased, the morality evolved to match the capacity to exercise compassion and to accomodate unproductive members.
An absolute morality would necessarily be static. If we look at how morality changes with both the needs and the capabilities of a society, it quickly becomes obvious that morality is neither absolute, nor static. There are examples of this everywhere. Social standards regarding human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, domestic and child abuse, rape and incest, mental illness, homosexuality, race relations, capital punishment, and social welfare have changed dramatically over the centuries. I conclude that anyone who even questions whether or not morality is relative is walking around wrapped in duct tape.
Even common – ok, let’s say universal, or global – moral precepts of the “thou shalt not kill” variety are relative to the culture and the context. In some parts of the world, it’s still ok to stone a woman for adultery (even if she was a rape victim). In other parts, it’s not even remotely ok. Who decides which is right? People do.
(And then there’s the morality of warfare. Who was more moral – the crew of the Enola Gay, or the Japanese fighter pilot trying to shoot them down?)
Only the most deluded fundamentalist will deny that the (dare I say it?) Judeo-Christian world has widely rejected many of the moral and behavioral strictures of the Bible.
Here’s one more thing to consider: If empathy and altruism were universal and divine, would any of the the horrors of tribalism have occurred, or even been possible? I don’t think so.
The natural model explains the reality of human morality far better than the divine model.
Sven DiMIlosays
Kseniya, will you marry me?
(you can say no)
woozysays
An absolute morality would necessarily be static.
Very good point.
In some parts of the world, it’s still ok to stone a woman for adultery (even if she was a rape victim). In other parts, it’s not even remotely ok. Who decides which is right? People do.
In my postings, I’ve been a bit worried that the Vox’ and p-dawg’s might conclude that I’m advocating that morality is to obey the social norm. In a society of rape victim stoners, a sole dissenter is against the norm. In our society civil disobedience (and dare I say, athiesm) are against the norm.
Of course, in actuality, I find the dissenters (in those specific cases) *very* moral. However, their morality isn’t from an absolute “rightness” while the social norm is “wrong”. The dissenter is moral in that she is looking at the common societal goal and evaluating it and coming to a unique conclussion, with logic (persuassion, compassion, etc.) he may be able to convince and change the prevalent view of morality.
It is essential to note though, that even though she is a dissenter, she is still acting within your definition of a natural morality.
Kseniyasays
Yes, Woozy, yes. Without those dissenters, morality would be static. Changes in morality happen slowly, incrementally. If God was tweaking the “altruism” signal that people like Michael Egnor seem to insist is being broadcast into our minds from some undetectable location, one might expect to see these changes effected on a global level, all at once. However, we never do see that. Once again, the natural model provides a better explanation for what we observer.
Sven, you flatter me. :-)
Kseniyasays
Gak. Please make that, “…what we observe”. Thank you. :-)
Although if Vox and Ken were coming at me with a machete and Vox is saying “God told me to kill you; it is the moral thing to do” and Ken is saying “It is humane and compassionate for me to kill you; it is the moral thing to do” I think I’d have better luck changing Ken’s mind than Vox’.
We’ve got hypotheticals all over this thread. First of all, VD and woozy are safe from me. Everybody knows the only reason to hunt down a woozy is that three hairs from a woozy’s tail are a critical ingredient to revive anybody who’s been magically turned to stone by the Liquid of Petrefaction, but I have no doubt that if I asked nicely, say, because my Unc Nunkie had been turned into a marble statue, the woozy is so generous he’d gladly let me try to take them. Besides, everybody knows a woozy’s skin is so thick that nothing can get through it to hurt him. Also, VD wouldn’t need a woozy mask, because while a woozy’s head is shaped like a block, VD is a blockhead. Lastly, I’m just not a machete kind of guy. Even though VD worships a genocidal maniac and baby killer, VD may some day redeem himself in some manner, see my earlier comments about Darth Vader, or Gandalf’s regarding Gollum (why limit yourself to one mythos when you can enjoy them all? Lit Crit is the only way to distinguish among them, and the Bible is far from the best of the bronze age). While there are, no doubt, some people that just need killing, my atheism has led me to consider that life is rare, precious, and over for good all too soon, so I don’t wish to be a party to the death of any sentient being if it can be avoided. Besides, how will anybody who may well deserve death ever feel remorse for their choices if they’re already really and sincerely dead, with no scales to weigh their souls and no jackal headed god to devour their heart?
I’ve got plenty of reasons to oppose needless death and destruction, to align myself as Lawful (well, mostly) Good. Universal Morality, even if could possibly exist, would be superfluous to what drives my typical desire as a responsible parent to positively shape the world my children will inherit. There are people who believe that positively shaping the world for their children means ensuring it has no atheists in it, so conflict is not going to vanish any time soon. Fortunately, one of the primary tools for shaping culture, values, morals, and ethics, happens to be storytelling. Most cartoons contain more sophisticated training in that regard than the bloody minded arrogant xenophobia of the Abrahamic religions. Me? I’m all about the subversive power of children’s literature and entertainment. The first time I knew that some of my animation work had a positive influence was at a party in the eighties. A little black boy announced to a blond boy and blond girl that he was Skeletor, and he could beat them both up. The boy replied that he was He Man, and he could beat them both up. The girl told them that she was Shera, and she could kick them both in the nuts. They all decided to be friends instead.
Oh, and Sven? I’m afraid there are far too many of us who are going to have to settle for belonging to a very crowded Kseniya fan club. It’ll have to do.
Kseniyasays
… there are, no doubt, some people that just need … god to devour their heart
Whoa. Now that was well-said.
(No, seriously – that’s as succinct and accurate an atheistic statement on the value of human life as I’ve seen in a while.)
woozysays
the woozy is so generous he’d gladly let me try to take them.
They don’t come out. We tried.
Interesting existential morality (and rationalization) in the Oz books. Had I been an english major rather than a math major, that my have bee my thesis rather than p-adic numbers. (Both rather existential if you think about it.) In Ozma of Oz, the Nome King played fair and the “Good Guys” cheated, whined, and justified their positions with bad logic (whereas the Nome Kings logic was perfect albeit it arbitrary in context; “A king can do no wrong” indeed!)
negentropyeatersays
Woozy, (#263)
(Most people find it easy to know whether or not they believe in God– a yes/no– question but not everyone knows what they think of morality– a very open-ended question.)
That’s the thing I have so much difficulty to understand : why do they find it so eazy, when I find it so difficult ?
Maybe because I interpret “Do I believe in God” as a question which only makes sense as “Do I truly believe in God ?”
woozysays
That’s the thing I have so much difficulty to understand : why do they find it so eazy, when I find it so difficult ?
Oh, I didn’t mean it was easy to come to a conclussion; just that most people know whether a)yes one does or b)no one doesn’t or c) one doesn’t know but it is one or the other, whereas “what are morals” is an open ended question and not something one is nescessarily ever asked to think about.
Maybe because I interpret “Do I believe in God” as a question which only makes sense as “Do I truly believe in God ?”
What else could it mean? I do occasionally wonder how exactly is a word like “God” defined and is there a definition that would make sense to me. Not likely. A man in the sky is silly and 6,000 year old earth is beneath any consideration. “Supernatural” is by definition an oxymoron, but unknown natural forces are possible so hypothetically could a greater consciousnes exist? I suppose it isn’t impossible but it doesn’t seem likely. And I’d of course be curious about the physical consistancy of such a thing. On whole with no evidence so I have to rule it out. But then there’s the idea of human perception being subjective and not reflective of reality, or the Platonic ideal of language and concepts having “real” existence as concepts. These two are I fine, but I honestly can’t claim that that is a straightforward or intellectually honest use of the term “believe”. However, I do have a friend who claims to be a theist in that she thinks believing in God as a psychological phenomena *is* an intellectually honest use of the term “believe”.
(This is the same friend who threw me through a loop be asking how I could believe in an alternate reality of abstract mathematics but not in an alternate reality of abstract religion. It *was* a fair question although not one I utlimately found any meaning in.)
good lesson, horrible spelling.
if you can find the original, I’d be happy to fix it.
What’s the prolbem?
I’m not sure if “athiests” is better or worse than “athieists, which I have also seen a few times. Usually it’s the other side that can’t spell, though.
Oh well. Way to go, Epicurus!
This comment from the My Confined Space site just made my day. Never thought of atheism as the optimistic choice.
he word “evil” is a bad translation. Replace that with “suffering” and the quote is a much stronger statement. Why doesn’t God prevent earthquakes and tsunamis? Those have nothing to do with free will.
And the free will is still a weak argument. windrider and Geko are basically saying that God has to choose between preventing evil and some worse alternative. But a truly omnipotent being would not have to make such decisions.
You really have 3 options:
1) God doesn’t care about us
2) God is insane
3) God doesn’t exist.
Atheism is optimistic.”
Epicurus died 270 BCE. Where did 33 AD come from?
The forgotten final couplet:
Is God able yet unwilling to prevent heathens from misspelling their mockeries?
Then he is a mean bastard.
Not to get all “athier than thou” but that spelling is mockery from creationists and irritating from atheists.
fixed:
http://home.earthlink.net/~tjneal/atheists1.jpg
half size:
http://home.earthlink.net/~tjneal/atheists2.jpg
Date is off by several centuries.
There are many better arguments for atheism than this one.
Because any believer that is not philosophically challenged can shoot it down without effort. ( one example would be declaring that omnipotence does not require to be capable of doing logically impossible things, and asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible )
But watching the dumber ones trying to wriggle out of the tight spot is fun anyway…
Because any believer that is not philosophically challenged can shoot it down without effort.
there lies the rub.
Date is off by several centuries.
yes, have to fix that too, but there IS no specific date attributable to the specific quote.
how ’bout modding the last sentence to read:
“Winning since 300 BC”
as a still rough, but more at least more temporally accurate, statement?
I kind of suspect the 33AD date is a sloppy guess at the date of the crucifixion. What that has to do with atheism, I have no idea.
“Athiest?”
I think not. I am much athier.
Re: the “wrong date”
I think whoever created this image chose the often-believed date of the Jesus’s supposed death (who supposedly was nailed up at the age of 33).
But, yes, atheists have been around for much, much longer. Probably as long as people have been coming up with crazy myths to explain the world around them. (Picture this: a neolithic settlement. The local elder shaman/witchdoctor/chief/old guy/whatever proclaims “We, as a people, sprang forth from the bark of the oak tree at the beginning of the world.” Early tribesman skeptic thinks to himself “well, that seems silly…” and the First Atheist started listing off questions.)
Wow, that’s considered philosophically sophisticated? “I’m right because I have added a question-begging premise to my argument.”
It still seems more appropriate to utilize a date within the life of Epicurus, though, given the quote is the apparent source of the argument in the last sentence.
IIRC, Epicurus:
~340-270 BC.
someone correct me if I’m wrong.
for those who at least want to attach the argument to the era it came from:
http://home.earthlink.net/~tjneal/atheists2b.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~tjneal/atheists1b.jpg
whee! lots of versions to spread about the web now.
How is this sounder than baldly asserting that a universe without god is logically impossible?
Interesting that the atheist chose to use A.D. (Anno Domini — In the Year of our Lord) rather than the more scholarly C.E. (Common Era). Ditto if you want to date from Epicurus and use B.C (Before Christ) vs. BCE (Before the Common Era).
Just another nit to pick…
Except that Christianity posits the existence of a realm with no evil, namely Heaven.
better than diesm.
BCE (Before the Common Era).
Just another nit to pick…
good point.
*sigh*
fixed.
“Because any believer that is not philosophically challenged can shoot it down without effort. ( one example would be declaring that omnipotence does not require to be capable of doing logically impossible things, and asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible )”
How about Heaven? Isn’t Heaven supposed to be evil-free? If your god can create one evil-free world, why could he not create another one?
And btw, omnipotency is by definition the capacity to do _anything_. So by definition, any being who is incapable of doing some things is not omnipotent. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You cannot make up your own definitions because what you believe in makes no sense.
So there is no free will in heaven… fantastic!
I think heaven is not discussed nearly enough when challenging theism– It seems to me that even if you grant that heaven may be *everything* a believer could hope for, it still totally sucks in a Star Trekky pleasure planet kind of way.
All the people who would normally avoid you will love you in heaven! Because they have no choice!
The athiest spelling always makes me think of that fine phrase, “I can outgrabe any mome raths”. Why yes, I do have a twisted maze of a mind.
“Because any believer that is not philosophically challenged can shoot it down without effort. ( one example would be declaring that omnipotence does not require to be capable of doing logically impossible things, and asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible )”
Whenever a Christian uses that argument, my response is always the same: Says who? and Prove it!
Robert
Shouldn’t there be a question mark at the end, as well?
no, it is not question-begging. ad hoc, Pulled out of believer’s ass, sure. But not question-begging. It merely adds one more option, undoing thus the dilemma
basically because one could make an argument that an universe with good bud without evil is rather absurd ( it would go like “imagine a novel, story, or a fairytale without any villain, and you will find out that it would lack any plot, and would be thus absolutely boring and meaningless” )
sure, but in their mythology the heaven is not the entire universe
There are much stronger arguments for atheism than this one. ( the strongest is of course the lack of evidence of any divine intervention )
You’re forgetting that outgrabe is the past tense of outgribe.
Wouldn’t that need to be 270 BCE? What does Epicurus have to do with the crucifixion? ::puzzled::
I never understood the counter-arguments.
The most common one I see is that God cannot do something which is logically inconsistent (So, giving people complete free will while preventing them from sinning.) To me this seems to say that God simply is not omnipotent. In addition, it doesn’t address heaven, which is a place where people have free will but cannot sin.
The next most common one was brought up here: A universe without evil cannot exist.
The very idea of heaven refutes this utterly, as does the garden of eden, both of which were sans-evil yet, supposedly, exist(ed).
This style of argument really seems more like what I like to call the “myopia” defence. Namely: I can assert two contradictory things to both be true, so long as I don’t assert them both at the same time.
A surprising number of people seem to do this.
Omnipotent? Can god change Pi? No? Thought not. Change the fact that 2+2=4? No? OK then. Not omnipotent. Game over. Mathematics constrains god. Can we go home now?
Last I checked, being “absolutely boring and meaningless” and manifestly lacking a plot has been no obstacle to millions of “romance” novels being sold, nor to some of them (*cough*Jane Austen*cough*) being considered great literary classics.
The only place I’ve ever seen BCE/CE used before this thread is in my religious education classes at school. The school chaplain used it.
So I’m afraid I tend to see BCE/CE as being *more* religious than the alternative. (Among other things, what’s so `common’ about CE? It’s Common because, er, it’s an incorrect estimate of the date of Jesus’s birth from a sixth-century Roman monk. Nope, that’s not Christian at all.)
Of course I use it anyway. There is no non-religious dating system, unless we’re willing to use the French Revolutionary calendar.
If the spelling is wrong (or was the word “atheist” the only misspelling; I readily admit my spelling sucks donkey balls… ) and the date isn’t from the time of Epicurus, are we sure the statement is Epicurus’? Did Epicurus espouse such sentiment.
To be honest, I’ve always found this argument rather tepid. I don’t see any reason why a belief in God should include that he is nice. I noticed in the conclussions: 1) God doesn’t care about us
2) God is insane
3) God doesn’t exist.
overlooks the obvious 4) God is mean, 5) Natural disasters are good for us (build character?) Even given a religion where God is “good” (that wasn’t a Hellenistic tenet, was it?) I don’t see any reason why “good” should mean “nice” rather than “making things work the way they should for an ultimate meaningful experience”. It’s down-right easy to argue that death and human evil is “good” for us and although sickness and earthquakes are harder to argue for they aren’t impossible. To snicker and say, “if I gave you pox and dropped a piano on your head the town would hang me as an asshole, so when God does it he’s an asshole just like me and if God was at all nice he’d give us all ice cream trees and mink back rubs but he doesn’t so he’s just a poopy-headed meanie”. Strikes me as deliberate sophomoric simpering solipsism at best. Even the most dim-witted believer can counter with no effort “Well, you aren’t God, asshole!”
(and to be honest part of me will be cheering him on. This “why isn’t there beer trees and lollipops argument” is pretty much on sophisticated par with “If people came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys” and “what’s the use of half an eye”)
*swoon* Epicurus is my manwhore. (I wish! In an alternate universe!) Not only did he create the quintessential problem of evil, he created the free will/determinism dilemma as well!
are we sure the statement is Epicurus’?
there is some debate on that, as the specific quote cannot be tied down to a place or date. It is attributed to him by early historians, however.
Did Epicurus espouse such sentiment.
Oh yes, that is without doubt.
Azkyroth:
There are some who believe that insulting the works of Ms. Austen are a sign of either inferior intellect, lack of wit, or poor breeding — or perhaps all three.
woozy:
Good point, and it is arguable that the God of the Old Testament is a right bastard.
Wouldn’t that need to be 270 BCE? What does Epicurus have to do with the crucifixion? ::puzzled::
Posted by: octopod | December 2, 2007 6:16 PM
Epicurus was one of the, for lack of a detailed explanation, Greek founders of the scientific method (not that it was just him or just the Greeks, like in real-life, these things are really complicated). He also taught that the gods don’t involve themselves in, or concern themselves with, the affairs of men, for good or evil, at all.
You might consider him a deist, if anything at all. Possibly an atheist who payed lip-service to the gods.
The quality of perfect moral goodness is built into most if not all definitions of big-G “God.” Do you understand what the term “good” actually means?
This is so manifestly untrue as to be outright idiotic. Not only do natural disasters almost invariably bring out the worst in people as well as, if not instead of, the best (widespread looting, riots, etc.) but it is plainly obvious that the people who die in them are experiencing no character-building. Even applying this to the survivors, the claim is still incredible and would require immense justification. Pretending that such justification might exist somewhere out there somehow, and claiming that the argument from evil is thereby falsified, begs the question and demonstrates an inexcusable ignorance about the concept of Burden of Proof.
“Good” doesn’t mean nice if by “nice” you mean the antonym of “impolite.” “Good” manifestly excludes abject sadism or cold-blooded indifference to human life.
You keep using that word, “good.” I do not think it means what you think it does.
So, in other words, you are asserting that it is valid to claim that God is good while excusing him from meeting the actual prerequisites inherent in the definition of the term? This is called “special pleading” and you’re compounding it by begging the question.
A person who equates the “why are there guinea worms, leukemia, and tsunamis” argument with “why isn’t there beer trees and lollipops” calling anything else sophomoric is an irony of epic proportions.
“The only place I’ve ever seen BCE/CE used before this thread is in my religious education classes at school. The school chaplain used it.”
First time I saw it used was in a PBS documentary about the history of the Jewish people. Since then it seems quite common in “History Channel” (and related channels)documentaries.
As for free will in Heaven; it is not people living in the clouds like in most common depictions. Supposedly Heaven is the pure joy of being in the presense of God, sort of like an everlasting heroin high. So whether you have free will or not, you wouldn’t want to use it anyway.
There are some who believe, or argue on the side of those who believe, that a legal entitlement attains the moral status of an inalienable human right merely by being signed into law. They probably shouldn’t be talking about the above.
And whatever scholarly value the work might have as a portrait of upper class life in England at the time it was written, the fact of the matter is that it uniformly fails to engage my interest and I find myself wanting to strangle the characters.
I have heard about those dyslexic atheists……..
They don’t believe in Dog.
The most common one I see is that God cannot do something which is logically inconsistent (So, giving people complete free will while preventing them from sinning.) To me this seems to say that God simply is not omnipotent.
And what’s wrong with that? If “omnipotent” includes being able to do logical inconsistancies omnipotence is logically inconsistant. If God is merely “logipotent” able to do anything logically concievable or even “omniphysipotent” about to do anything within the laws of physics, would that make him any less of a God? What good do square circles and even prime numbers greater than two do for me?
Anyhow, If I were to imagine there being a God, it always seemed sensible that he could end suffering but won’t. Is this “malevolent”? Maybe. What if suffering is for the “greater good”? Well, okay we say, How can a child dying of malaria be “good”? Well, to give an insipid and patronizing answer maybe “because such suffering reminds the rest of us to sympathetic to the suffering of others”. To which we answer, “Oh, come on! That’s so insipid and patronizing! Any moral reminding it does to us can’t possibly justify the real suffering the child figures.” To which the answer is “Sez you!” to which we reply “Yeah, sez us” to which the answer is “You think you could do a better job?” to which we answer “with one hand behind our back” and so on to which the ultimate response is either A) God’s plan is complex and spans eons so how the heck can we be sure a child shaking in fits while his insides melt into a bloody pool and rats eat his eyeballs isn’t for the good? Or B) C’mon, some superhero in the sky watching everyones every move is just plain silly and stupid. In both cases, the argument about God’s “goodness” is really avoiding the real question.
In addition, it doesn’t address heaven, which is a place where people have free will but cannot sin.
Hmm, I never heard either of these things about heaven. (Although, I’ve heard in obscure references that only humans have free will; angels don’t.) Still it’d make sense that both would be true. Possibility A: People can sin in heaven but when they do they are expelled. Possibility B: To sin requires doing doing harm. In heaven everything is perfect and it is impossible to do harm and hence impossible to sin. Of course, if thinking impure thoughts or dancing on Sunday are sins nothing can prevent that. Of course there’s the C.S. Lewis/St. Paul possibility that no action done in grace and purity is a sin hence fucking that hottie angel while your wife is down on earth whispering the winning lotto numbers to your grandchildren isn’t a sin.
Or d), anyone who would ever actually choose or want to sin never makes it to heaven anyway.
Azkyroth:
All that may be true, but it is not necessarily the case that “perfect moral goodness” will correspond to our human understanding of it. Thus saying that “god works in mysterious ways” is not necessarily a cop-out. If god indeed defines perfect moral goodness, then the alternate response to the problem of evil is simply that we limited humans don’t have “evil” defined properly. (This is similar to Leibniz’s argument that this is the “best of all possible worlds”.) This option also becomes more powerful when the existence of heaven and hell are taken into account, in that “good” and “evil” don’t have to be worked out in this world and in an individual’s finite mortal existence, but can also impact on their afterlife (if heaven really existed, wouldn’t a literal infinity of perfect happiness make up for a few years of painful cancer?).
I feel the same way about Grey’s Anatomy — it takes all kinds, I guess.
schizo-woozy:
Didn’t God create the laws of logic and physics? If he can’t violate such laws, doesn’t that indicate that they must have existed prior to him, or binds him in some fashion? If God can only act within the laws of physics, how is he different from some very powerful non-supernatural being?
Actually it is. Otherwise this is simply equivocation, describing God as (normal definition) “good” when arguing about His existence, but changing to (ineffable) “good” when the implications of the evidence are being discussed.
Smackdown teh Epicurus!! Religion iz pwned!
asserting that universe without any evil is logically impossible
An intelligently designed universe wouldn’t have any evil in it, would it? I mean, if god created the universe, he created the evil. Indeed, a creator would have to bear the moral responsibility for its creation.
I have heard about those dyslexic atheists……..
They don’t believe in Dog.
That’s good!
I think we’d be better off without the “winning since…whenever.” The quotation is good, no matter who originally spoke it. There are many more good comments on this subject from the ancients. By the way, what is it for? TV commercials, billboards, t-shirts, coffee mugs?
Wouldn’t that need to be 270 BCE? What does Epicurus have to do with the crucifixion? ::puzzled::
IMHO, that’s supposedly when Jesus (“God”) died. Because human beings killed him.
Get it? Get it?
That would raise the problem, in some people’s version of Christianity (etc), of how Satan/Lucifer could possibly be a fallen angel (or anything of the same non-human ilk) without the god being entirely complicit in the fit-up job (creating evil, framing his agent and blaming the victims).
It’s related to the issue of whether the alleged bad guy is at least as powerful as the alleged god or is deliberately tolerated by said god for its own nefarious purposes.
This is teh stupid. A block of a whitish, greasy substance. I want to set it on fire.
Whoever argues like that has neither read Carl Zimmer’s At the Water’s Edge nor Jennifer Clack’s Gaining Ground, and these are just the examples that I can cite off the top of my head. No villains, no plot whatsoever, and yet the books are fascinating. And what exactly does “meaning” mean?
Then there are books like Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World or Richard Dawkins’ Unweaving the Rainbow. They contain the occasional villain, but there’s still no plot, and these books are fascinating, too.
</holy wrath>
<evil grin> <spark of pyromania in eyes>
<sing voice=”shout”>WE DON’ NEED NO WADR, LET THE MOTHRFUCKR BRN — BRN, MOTHRFUCKR, BRN.</sing>
This is teh stupid. A block of a whitish, greasy substance. I want to set it on fire.
Whoever argues like that has neither read Carl Zimmer’s At the Water’s Edge nor Jennifer Clack’s Gaining Ground, and these are just the examples that I can cite off the top of my head. No villains, no plot whatsoever, and yet the books are fascinating. And what exactly does “meaning” mean?
Then there are books like Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World or Richard Dawkins’ Unweaving the Rainbow. They contain the occasional villain, but there’s still no plot, and these books are fascinating, too.
</holy wrath>
<evil grin> <spark of pyromania in eyes>
<sing voice=”shout”>WE DON’ NEED NO WADR, LET THE MOTHRFUCKR BRN — BRN, MOTHRFUCKR, BRN.</sing>
basically because one could make an argument that an universe with good bud [is] without evil
I might be able to get behind an argument like that.
pass that over here, wouldya?
The quality of perfect moral goodness is built into most if not all definitions of big-G “God.” Do you understand what the term “good” actually means?
Actually, no, I don’t. Nor am I sure the users of the argument “god allows bad things to happen so he can’t be good” do either.
5) Natural disasters are good for us (build character?)
This is so manifestly untrue as to be outright idiotic.
It was a joke? Seriously though, justifications for tragedy have been argued time and time again. None of them satisfy me, personally, and as I’ve always been an atheist for other reasons (it’s just silly; isn’t it?) I’ve never had a great need to debate or evaluate them. As there is always suffering, arbitrary or humanly deliberate, in life and over the eons all billions of humans die I just can’t get on my high-horse and say “In the long view of things and the history of the universe, the black plague/ the Lisbon Earthquake/ etc. is unquestionable a ‘bad’ thing” Yes, this is Panglossian but I see no reason to believe a “good” god, couldn’t also be a Machievallian bastard. I, personally, find this idea repugnant but as we as scientists say, reality has nothing to do with what we personally want to be true. Ultimately, I simply find “With all the suffering God must be a bastard and bastards can’t ever be ‘good'” to be unconvincing.
Part of this might be because I *don’t* know what good means. I *don’t* want to die. Ever. Even pleasantly. Not even if there is a paradise afterlife. I want to live *forever* *here* on earth in good health. God says no. Can I conclude that God is a big meanie and not ‘good’? I don’t think that’s the definition of ‘good’. But then again I don’t think “Okay, death to allow new people to experience and human evil for free will but no guenia worms and make sure the earthquakes only kill the wicked” is a good definition of ‘good’ either.
“Good” manifestly excludes abject sadism or cold-blooded indifference to human life.
Why? That’s good for people. And governments. But for a being in control and responsible for the whole of human history *and* the whole of human meaning? Basically, I find ‘good’ to be meaningless or undefinable in whatever force or scope of this. That’s why I don’t see any reason one should expect a God to be “good” in any human sense of the world and why I don’t find this argument convincing. (On the other hand, I also can’t see that shouting “God! You are a cold-blooded fucking bastard!” to in any way hurting God, either.)
So, in other words, you are asserting that it is valid to claim that God is good while excusing him from meeting the actual prerequisites inherent in the definition of the term? This is called “special pleading” and you’re compounding it by begging the question.
What question am I begging? I believe it is valid to claim god is ‘good’ in the meaning that the universe runs the way it should for a meaningful human experience. I admit this definition is weak and tepid, probably so watered down to have no meaning, and very debatable as the universe runs in a method that very likely isn’t they way it “should” but debating whether things are “good” or not at this level is so abstract, so far from the individual human level such statements are probably meaningless. At any rate to argue that there is no God because God *has* to be good, just doesn’t cut it for me. Admittedly, my objection is more that “God is good” is a stupid and/or meaningless to say, than that “Gee, I think leukemia and guinea worms are a good thing!”.
A person who equates the “why are there guinea worms, leukemia, and tsunamis” argument with “why isn’t there beer trees and lollipops” calling anything else sophomoric is an irony of epic proportions.
Point taken. But they both boil done to “Why is life sometimes bad if God can make it good”. I don’t find that argument convincing or sophisticated. Bear in mind, I’m not arguing that God, whom I don’t believe exists, *is* good, but that his inherent *lack* of goodness is a strong argument against his existence. To interpret “God is good” takes a huge grain of salt and can be taken to mean tsunamis and guinea worms are ‘good’ and that certainly can’t be the ‘good’ of “That Jim; he sure is a good guy!” but such a grain of salt isn’t entirely impossible. It’s ‘good’ for bio-diversity that guinea worms exist (and *very* good for the worms themselves) and it’s ‘good’ for geology that tsunamis exist. I’m not crazy about leukemia or e-bola but it’s ‘good’ that biological methods that allow them to arise are the biological methods of this planet.
David,
And let’s not even think of mentioning Waiting for Godot,
All that may be true, but it is not necessarily the case that “perfect moral goodness” will correspond to our human understanding of it.
But this creates problems for religions that exhort people to “imitate God”, as Mark Twain observed…
(if heaven really existed, wouldn’t a literal infinity of perfect happiness make up for a few years of painful cancer?)
Not unless everyone was guaranteed infinite happiness. But in that case, what would be the point of the initial suffering? If someone punched me in the nose and then gave me a million dollars, that would probably “make up” for the discomfort as far as I was concerned, but the nose-puncher’s motives would still be questionable. And what about the pointless suffering of non-human life?
“imagine a novel, story, or a fairytale without any villain, and you will find out that it would lack any plot, and would be thus absolutely boring and meaningless”
Erm, every disaster movie ever made> Although I agree that they are boring and meaningless, millions don’t.
The only place I’ve ever seen BCE/CE used before this thread is in my religious education classes at school.
I see it a great deal in archeology papers.
Would someone fix scienceblogs, it’s anoying my mouse software.
Although, I’ve heard in obscure references that only humans have free will; angels don’t.
That would raise the problem, in some people’s version of Christianity (etc), of how Satan/Lucifer could possibly be a fallen angel (or anything of the same non-human ilk) without the god being entirely complicit in the fit-up job (creating evil, framing his agent and blaming the victims).
Well, my reference was Sandman comic books…
Didn’t God create the laws of logic and physics? If he can’t violate such laws, doesn’t that indicate that they must have existed prior to him, or binds him in some fashion?
Didn’t God create himself? Wouldn’t God obey his own laws? Did God make physical laws? Probably (hypothetically, I am an athiest). Logical laws? Absolutely not! Logical laws would be a result of interpreting the laws of universe afterward. Also once created, why should he *later* be able to break them. Square circles are a symantic impossibility. Not a physical (or theological) limitation.
If God can only act within the laws of physics, how is he different from some very powerful non-supernatural being?
He created the universe, consciously watches over every action within it, he effects and intervenes in it and is aware and has a relationship with every human being.
Wouldn’t any very powerful non-supernatural being that does all that be deserving of the name God?
(Isn’t the word “supernatural” a logical oxymoron just as “omnipotent” is also a logical oxymoron? After all, everything that exists is natural? And “omni” implies the “impossible” as well as the possible. Would anything be actually limited if “omnipotent” only included the possible, and “natural” includes everything that can possibly exist (including the existence or non-existance of God, Angels, and ghosts)?
Hey, aren’t atheists supposed to be called brights?
Maybe he followed the I before E except after C rule to far.
Okay, if Omnipotent means the ability to do anything whether possible and impossible, then God being omnipotent is capible of doing the impossible. And one of the impossible things he does is allow evil to exist while simultaneous being infinitely good and benevolent!
Ha! Take that! No inconsistancies are (im)possible as God’s omnipotence allows inconsistancies to (not) exist!
Okay, that is a *blatent* begging of questions, but than so is pointing out omnipotence is a logical impossibility.
The arguments against it I’ve heard, like Woozy’s, amount to a Panglossian view that this is the best of all possible worlds.
Now, even if we except that evil/suffering exists, then we can ask, yeah, but exactly this much?
If the world was as good as it could ever possibly be right now, then there would be no sense in us trying to make it better, yes? So obviously it’s not at the optimal level right now.
Which means to argue that the epicurean philosophy is untrue, you have to argue that the best possible universe has to have started with exactly as much evil as this one, and that said evil can be mitigated only at the rate evil is currently mitigated in this universe.
Which is to say that if God had, say, made the planet less prone to Earthquakes, it would not have allowed more people to live.
Which… I guess I can’t disprove it, but that requires a number of obscure assumptions I see no reason to believe.
One could also argue that the events of this physical universe are ultimately so trivial that while they seem horrible to us, they really aren’t. Perhaps when we die we’ll arrive at some higher consciousness and see everything as a game.
But again, you’re making a lot of assumptions about the way things work.
Ultimately, in order to go against Epicurus, you have to believe in a number of unproven assumptions about the universe, for no real reason at all.
I kind of think Occam’s Razor makes any of Epicurus’ ideas much more likely; God being a dick or being impotent doesn’t really require us to make any assumptions about the universe working in some strange way we can’t observe.
I’m kind of a weird Atheist; I don’t care if god exists or not, because if he did i still wouldn’t like him.
Here’s two things we know:
1. Bad stuff happens.
2. It happens for no readily apparent reason.
Suppose somebody walked up behind you on the street, and kicked me in the butt. Then he walked away without saying anything.
Would you start spinning elaborate scenarios explaining why he NEEDED to kick you in the butt for the good of all mankind?
Or would you just say, “Man, what a jerk.”
Me, I’d go for the second one, and that’s why I’m not religious.
I just assumed that Epicurus was one of “teh athiests.”
Not to mention the dyslexic agnostic insomniacs, who lie awake all night wondering whether there’s a Dog or not.
RE: Comments 1 through 63:
Yeah, yeah, but the real question is what do we win?
I gotta check this with my accountant of course, but my concern is that, you know, it could bump me into a higher tax….
Ichthyic, quit bogarting that bud, Bud, and pass on down this way!
I could imagine a generally benevolent god that does not intervene in the affairs of day-to-day life, on the premise that we need to develop our own strength to survive. I don’t believe in such a god, but I can imagine one. I say “generally benevolent” as it wouldn’t necessarily be benevolent or malevolent towards individuals. It is the species for which it has benevolence.
I likewise find it impossible for a world to exist without “evil.” What we call evil is a result of conflicts of interest between people. So long as people take interest in themselves there will be conflict and their will be transgressions and bloodshed. There may be ways to reduce this, but we can only go so far without neutering ourselves. Likewise, the very chemistry and physics that allow us to exist are greater than us and refuse to be tamed. So long as that is so, we will live and die at nature’s hands. And that’s a good thing. We are survival machines. The moment we stop struggling to survive we lose meaning in our lives. That does not mean we refuse to make more improvements in our ability to survive disasters, or fail to redirect that fatal asteroid. It means that we keep pushing our boundaries, never expecting nature to care or bless us, relying on our own strength to prevail. I don’t think it’s the role of a god or a government to mollycoddle us. That’s one reason why I am an atheist, and a democrat.
I can see why an atheist might be unconvinced by Epicurus’ argument for the existence of God, but the last line isn’t, Why say he exists? it is Why call him God?.
This is the sort of quote that brings in frantic track switching in Christians. God is GOOD because of X Y and Z at the same time that there is no way we can know if something is good or not. If its true that God is that inscrutable, then God could be a right mean bastard playing a joke and gets his jollies by coming down to earth in incarnated forms and starting new religions. We couldn’t tell — his ways are mysterious. And, in fact, that’s a way more plausible view of God to me than the story Christians peddle.
So, I can totally understand why a philosophically-minded atheists could sniff at Epicurus… but christians who think their entity is worthy of worship have a real problem.
I wouldn’t go too far with the omnipotence. If I met God in a dark alley I hope I am in an old car made of iron.
LM Wanderer
Phew, what a long thread!
Re. much of the above: can we just accept that it’s not possible to use logic to prove or disprove the existence of gods?
If it were, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
This quote is from someone in Boethius’s Confessions. It has nothing to do with Epicureus, who was all about hedonism and not the problem of evil.
Hmm,
Arguably, the quote seems like a good argument for the
Jesus = God/Crucifixion paradox.
JoeZ – It’s easy to use logic to disprove God, as long as you start with a definition of terms.
My gripe is Christians seem to use different definitions on Sunday morning than they do on debate threads. Take the definition of God used by rigorous Christian apologists and he’s almost completely unrecognizable. Try to explain how that logic-pretzel of a God has anything at all to do with Jesus Christ, and it’s a completely lost cause.
I first saw it in James Michener’s novel The Source (1965), which my mother had on a bookshelf somewhere when I was a youngster.
“Hey, aren’t atheists supposed to be called brights?”
No.
It seems that someone has invited the grammar McCarthyist’s. (Look, I invented a new word in an attempt to not invoke Godwin’s Law!)
Oh, and I expect all you grammarians to start using shoppe, colour, and ye in place of shop, color, and the. Having the spelling of a word change due to popular usage is unacceptable and completely unheard of historically. As such, I expect you to use proper English!
After all, English was created exactly the way we use it today. Everyone knows that!
Question: Where did Epicurus, a Greek who supposedly believed in gods like Zeus who raped women, could lose battles, and goddesses who argued about who was more beautiful and punished men who didn’t chose them, and other such nasties, get this idea about a God that is omnigood and omnipowerful?
If Big Brother Sky Daddy says 2+2=4, it is in your own best interest to truly believe it is so. And no, you may not go home. We are behind in production. We must make sure that 2+2=4.
We are behind in production. We must make sure that 2+2=4.
ok, but I want overtime.
The simpsons tonight (rerun, i missed the intro before) had a sweet evolution of homer sequence to open. complete with moe meeting homer at homer erectus stage and going the other direction.
thatsa nice.
My Momma told me that if I loved jebus I would live forever in heaven. She also told me it was i before e except after c, with the requisite neighbor and weigh exceptions. She was wrong on both counts, but I still love her.
What is god’s purpose?
Other than creating man.
How do you fill up eternity?
“Good” and “evil” are relative terms. They are different sides of the same coin. Toss the coin and you’ll have a better idea of what is going on.
Is He able but not willing? Maybe it’s because He’s gotten sick of mollycoddling us, and now expects us to stand on our own two feet and solve our own problems.
“CE” and “BCE” aren’t more scholarly, they’re just more fashionable.
-jcr
Any LOL versions available?
Any LOL versions available?
Rock on. I would not be at all surprised to see a history or political science seminar with a title like “Fascism: Its theory, origins and practice” interrupted on the first day of class when one of those internet fuckwits who start all of their posts with “Um, actually…” blurts out “GODWINNED LOL U LOZE!” in the middle of lecture.
True dat. Ancient humans had it made. Living to be 20 (maybe), starving all winter, losing their teeth to infections and nutrient deficiencies, dying of infections, getting raped, dying in the resulting childbirth, getting gored by wild animals… Oh how I pine for the days of yore, when God was looking out for us.
Actually, “ye” and “the” are precisely the same word, same pronunciation, slightly different spelling. In Medieval (and earlier) England there was a single letter, called “thorn,” for the “th” sound, derived from a runic alphabet (it’s apparently still used in Icelandic). In handwritten lower-case it looked sort of like a lower-case y with a closed loop at the top. When printing presses came over, the type was cast in Germany or Italy, and did not include a thorn, so printers substituted the closest thing they had, y. It was never pronounce “yee.”
Does this make me a McCarthyist? I’ll cop to it if we’re talking about Gene.
shitte, I forgot the “Um” before “actually.”
Oh, and on the Problem of Evil, here’s an interesting little read:
http://www.globalaffairs.org/forum/showthread.php?t=57417
Not to mention the dyslexic agnostic insomniacs, who lie awake all night wondering whether there’s a Dog or not.
Should that be “whether there’s a Dog or ton”?
This quote is from someone in Boethius’s Confessions. It has nothing to do with Epicureus, who was all about hedonism and not the problem of evil.
Not quite. Epicurus is slandered by the more popular stoics of the time for the “hedonistic” thought that when measuring something as subjective as “good” or “morality” to think that pleasure is a valuable consideration. I mean, how shallow to persue pleasure??? He’s a firm believer in moderation in all things.
I think this is a weak and unconvincing argument, that we atheists have contrived and, dare I say, cherry-picked and over simplified. Who ever first said “God is good” was well aware of suffering and is clearly saying, God has a purpose and a plan and its good and requires suffering. You buy that? Well, I don’t either. But saying, oh, ho. But good and suffering just can’t be compatible, strikes me as being about on par with “Sea cucumbers and arabian horse evolved from a common ancestor? Oh, come on! They look so different! You’re clearly not thinking hard enough!” Now, I admit, I don’t envy the theologian who has to answer “The holocaust! How could a ‘good’ god let that happen? E-bola! If this is ‘good’, God’s got a *lot* of explaining to do!” but even in those cases of extreme evils the whole argument sounds like “Shouldn’t there be missing links in the fossil records? Scanty? *pfff* excuses… it still covers millions of years and if evolution is a steady process … punctuated equilibrium? … Ha, now you are changing your own story… no! I don’t want to listen … obviously you are making stuff up as you go along because you can’t admit you are wrong ….”
I can see why an atheist might be unconvinced by Epicurus’ argument for the existence of God, but the last line isn’t, Why say he exists? it is Why call him God?.
This is the sort of quote that brings in frantic track switching in Christians. God is GOOD because of X Y and Z at the same time that there is no way we can know if something is good or not.
Actually, I was thinking something very similar to this as I was driving to a friends house to dinner tonight. (I think about this stuff a lot!) I’m not arrogant or condescending in my 21st Century splendor to scoff at Epicurus whom I admire as one of the most rational of rationalists.
I’m interested in knowing whether God exists or not because I want to *know* what the universe is and as an objective existentialist I consider the possibility of “Good God” on par with the posibility of “Bad God” and “Olypiam pantheon” and “6 foot pink rabbit with in inordinant fondness for the color green and an irrational hatred for water and electric current in the same place”. (The six foot bunny was something my jr. high school buddy and I made up. Her name was athi and we believed in her so we were athiests. It was against or religion to have tests on Tuesday and Thursday was our holy day to hide under the bed in hopes that the universe will pass us by. I think Arthur Dent must have been a closet athiest because he “could never get the hang of Thursdays”. Athi was irrational in her hatred fo water and electrical current. “Stick your finger in a light socket while standing in a puddle will you ?!?!? I’ll Kill you!!!! I’LL KILL YOU!!!!!!” …. but I digress…)
where was I, oh yeah, God, Zeus, FSM, the devil, or nothing… I don’t view any of them as particularly “better” than the other. I just want to know which one is the *correct* answer. (I’m putting my money on nothing; all the others are just plain silly… *especially* the flying spaghetti monster… I mean seriously…) However the epicurian argument is a good starting point for questioning why we might want a God to exist and what we expect from one. I *do* have a friend who claims he’s an athiest because he can’t believe a just god would allow evils and suffering to occur. I guess the tacit assumption which I missed making, is that there is no functional utility of an indifferent God and an indifferent God isn’t worthy of our belief. As an objective emperisist I don’t consider use or worthiness; just possibility.
You are true. this is teh stupid someone thinking that books describing millions of years of evolution,of the struggle to adapt to new environments, are without any plot ;-)
Come on, this is such a non argument for atheism that I am surprised that it’s even posted here. I think PZ wanted to make a joke
From Plato to Polkinghorne, there’s been hundreds of theologians and philosophers who have discussed the meaning of omnipotence and clearly shown that it cannot mean that “God can do anything”.
Even Russell didn’t try that one, so let’s go back to asking for evidence of God’s existence and God’s intervention and why these hypothesis are required to explain nature. That’s a much better line of thought.
There is an interview with Scott Atran who has studied and written on religious terrorism.
http://discovermagazine.com/2003/oct/featdialogue/
“In your book In Gods We Trust, you call religion an evolutionary riddle. Why?
A: Think about it. All religions require costly sacrifices that have no material rewards. Look at the Egyptian pyramids. Millions of man-hours. For what? To house dead bones? Or the Cambodian pyramids. Or the Mayan pyramids. Or cathedrals. Or just going to church every Sunday and gesticulating. Or saying a Latin or Hebrew prayer, mumbling what are to many people incoherent words. Stopping whatever you’re doing to bow and scrape. Then think about the cognitive aspects of it. For example, to take alive for dead and weak for strong. I mean, what creature could possibly survive if it did these kinds of things systematically?
Look at the things that religion is said to do. It is said to relieve people’s anxieties, but it’s also said to increase their anxieties so that elites can use them for political purposes. It’s supposed to be liberating. It’s supposed to encourage creativity. It’s supposed to stop creativity. It’s supposed to explain events that can’t be explained. It’s supposed to prevent people from explaining them. You can find functional explanations, and their contraries, and they’re all true.
Why then has religion survived in so many cultures?
A: Because humans are faced with problems they can’t solve. Think about death. Because we have these cognitive abilities to travel in time and to track memory, we are automatically aware of death everywhere. That is a cognitive problem. Death is something that our organism tells us to avoid. So now we seek some kind of a long-term solution. And there is none. Lucretius and Epicurus thought they could solve this through reason. They said, “Look, what does it matter? We weren’t alive for infinite generations before we were born. It doesn’t bother us. Why should we be worried about the infinite generations that will be after us when we’re gone?” Well, nobody bought that. The reason that line of reasoning didn’t work is because once you’re alive, you’ve got something that you’re going to lose.”
Woozy: The difference there is that people who believe in evolution can explain in great detail how it works and how they know how it works. There are reams of evidence.
The “God is good in spite of suffering” theory is possible, but I’ve heard no evidence for it; I’ve never heard the convincing reason that a good god would allow evil, just the theory that he would.
Just because something’s possible doesn’t mean we should believe it.
You’re talking of something you clearly know little beyond a shallow and incomplete picture. At least start with Wikipedia before you spout off.
The “God is good in spite of suffering” theory is possible, but I’ve heard no evidence for it; I’ve never heard the convincing reason that a good god would allow evil, just the theory that he would.
Oh, I’m not arguing for it. I’m merely saying that as a argument: God would be good yet there is suffering so he isn’t good so therefore he must not exist, is, to me, kind of weak and unsatisfying.
We can argue against the flying spaghetti monster on the basis that it’s silly and doesn’t make any sense and didn’t some guy just make it up any way. But arguing against the flying spaghetti monster saying, “if the flying spaghetti monster existed he’d make sense yet the idea of a supernatural creator made of pasta and meatballs is patently absurd so a sensible flying spaghetti monster is impossible so the FSM can not exist” strikes me as somewhat weak and contrived. If we are debating the existence of a FSM why should we assume it must be sensible and even if the FSM adherents *insist* the FSM is ultimately sensible how can we state assertively the utterly subjective and humanly limitted statement “in no sense or any logical system could the FSM make sense”?
That’s all I’m saying.
My belief in evolution having been established and proven doesn’t particular disprove god (many believers have kept their faith in spite of exposure to reality) but it does raise the question “Well, *why* exactly would one need to believe in a god”. I guess for me some arguments (for and against) are stronger than others. I find nearly all arguments I’ve encountered for God to be pretty weak. (I suppose “how can the universe be so gosh darned ordered” is probably the strongest in my opininion but cosmology and evolution have pretty much rendered it moot. And it was circular to begin with.) The strongest argument against, in my opinion, aren’t so much any inconsistancy so much as “Given lack of evidence for, and alternative and proven explanations countering the arguments for, doesn’t it seem unlikely to suppose something exists when there is no reason for it to nor evidence of it doing so?” (i.e. the “I don’t believe there are giant carnivorous rabbits in the sewers of Chicago” argument. [I don’t. Do you? Does anybody?])
Perhaps, my strongest argument against is that as a statement it really doesn’t have any definition or substance. I mean, just who *is* this god guy you are taking about and what is he made of?
“All religions require costly sacrifices that have no material rewards. Look at the Egyptian pyramids. Millions of man-hours. For what? To house dead bones? Or the Cambodian pyramids.”
People should stop thinking of the pyramids as being an empty religious gesture and see them for what they really were — The Egyptian version of the WPA, the Work Progress Administration. Every leader, going back to the most primitive chieftains, gained power and prestige by “taking care” of their people. When all the harvesting was done the Pharaoh put all the idle hands to work building…something, anything. It kept people otherwise unemployed from starving and enhanced the bureaucracy thus ensuring his reign. The pyramids weren’t built by slaves. They were built by freemen (mostly).
I wonder if anyone has ever studied any relationship between high population and pyramid building?
Cambodian pyramids?
He’s talking about the temples at Angkor Wat, I assume, but pyramids are something entirely different.
As to how such large and ornate structures were constructed in the middle of the jungle by a pre-industrial society, the answer is very straightforward: whips.
Cambodian pyramids were built by giant carnivorous rabbits. You didn’t know that?
Oh, I’m not arguing for it. I’m merely saying that as a argument: God would be good yet there is suffering so he isn’t good so therefore he must not exist, is, to me, kind of weak and unsatisfying.
Only if we assume that we should go to absurd lengths to give God the benefit of the doubt or to redefine “good”. Christopher’s comment #63 was spot on. This argument is not so much about the existence of God as his supposed benevolence.
Was that those Devonian rabbits, Sven?
Are they the ones that dyslexic theists accuse of worshipping Santa?
Question: Where did Epicurus[…] get this idea about a God that is omnigood and omnipowerful?
Greek religion was a bit more complex than the impression you might get from pop-mythology. And it changed drastically between the times of Homer and Herodotus and later cults like those of Orpheus and Jesus. A very close analog would be modern Hinduism. Generally, scholars and elites held a conception of a Godhead behind the myths and cults. This notion of Godhead is comparable to modern Vedanta.
It’s been a while since I read Epicurus, but IIRC he also wrote on the futility of sacrifice to cultic deities. (My favorite bit of Epicurus has nothing to do with religion or ethics. It’s an essay on atomism in which he predicts that atoms have inherent, random motion — two millennia before Robert Brown.)
BTW, here’s a link to a great satire by Lucius, in which the gods debate intervening in an argument between an Epicurean and a Stoic. It’s pretty hilarious.
Ack. I mean “satire by Lucian.” Or maybe Luscious.
Jesus Fictional Christ, do you actually believe the definition of the terms employed is completely irrelevant to an argument?
1) “Good” has a meaning.
2) Due to this meaning, if the universe were ruled by an entity that was omniscient, omnipotent, and good, suffering would not exist.
3) …unless there is some good reason for allowing suffering, and if the believer wants to claim this, THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THEM (whereas you seem, for no reason I can see, to be entirely willing to force the skeptic to prove that there isn’t. Again, do you even understand how burden of proof works?).
4) Additionally, since the available evidence strongly indicates that this claim is both untrue and ridiculous, and believers have been trying without success to produce evidence of this for A VERY LONG TIME without coming up with better than quarter-assed results, the infinitesimal chance that they might finally find a justification is not worth suspending a conclusion indefinitely, and it is not necessary to suspend a conclusion indefinitely in any case – merely treating it as “technically provisional” suffices.
5) THE QUALITY OF GOODNESS IS BUILT INTO THE CONVENTIONAL DEFINITION OF “GOD.” Thus, even if the Argument from Evil does not disprove the existence of anything that might conceivably be labeled “a god” it does render the existence of what people normally mean when they say “God” so implausible as to be beyond rational consideration.
Arguing that an omnipotent, omniscient being that is not “good” by the actual definition of the word would still be “God” in the sense believers typically mean is kind of like arguing that bats are birds since they’re warm-blooded and fly. Arguing that the existence of suffering which it absolutely would be within its power to prevent (by the definition of “omnipotent”) and of which it absolutely would be aware, as well as understand how to prevent (by the definition of “omniscient”) and which, unless the believers finally produce a logical justification for doing otherwise (the odds of this occurrence lying somewhere between “infinitesimal” and “forget it”), it absolutely would wish to prevent (by the definition of “good”) does not render the existence of “God” thus defined implausible is like arguing that just because we don’t see it, and just because we don’t experience any of the effects its gravity would cause, that doesn’t mean there ISN’T a mars-sized body orbiting the earth inside the orbit of the moon.
Azkyroth, Do Not Disrespect The Austen. One of the great masters of English prose style. Of course you want to strangle some of the characters. Some of them deserve it :)
(But skip Mansfield Park).
No, that’s not a plot, because none of the protagonists does anything other than reproducing or dying. They don’t act, stuff happens to them.
No, that’s not a plot, because none of the protagonists does anything other than reproducing or dying. They don’t act, stuff happens to them.
In other words, none of them asks “do you expect me to talk”. Instead, they die.
In other words, none of them asks “do you expect me to talk”. Instead, they die.
“If He is able but not willing then He is malevolent”
What if one defines “evil” as the absence of God, just as cold is the absence of heat, and darkness the absence of light? In that case, God allowing evil is Him giving us a choice between following Him and not.
So then, according to Epicurus, freedom would be malevolent and slavery benevolent.
Wow. Standard stupid apologetics. If the absence of God is evil, then God is not “allowing” anything; anything that is not him is by default evil. Following him or not is irrelevant; since we are not God, we are by default evil and cannot be good, since that would mean we’d have to be God. (To follow your analogy to light, you can spend all the time in the world with a flashlight, but you won’t ever be light.) That’s just the first of a million reasons why what you wrote is stupid (give or take a few million depending on how you’re choosing to define ‘God’, ‘following Him’, ‘choice’, etc.)
Please do not waste our time with typical apologetic bullshit that you’re obviously parroting from your idiot church group because you don’t have a fucking clue as to what it means.
‘Just a Thought’ isn’t your comment handle, it’s a tally of how many you’ve had to date, isn’t it?
1) “Good” has a meaning.
True, but in this context, it does not have the meaning you think it does. If you want to argue against religion, you have to use religion’s terms.
2) Due to this meaning, if the universe were ruled by an entity that was omniscient, omnipotent, and good, suffering would not exist.
False. See (1). Furthermore, you’re confusing capability with action. Don’t worry, many Christians do too.
3) …unless there is some good reason for allowing suffering, and if the believer wants to claim this, THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THEM (whereas you seem, for no reason I can see, to be entirely willing to force the skeptic to prove that there isn’t. Again, do you even understand how burden of proof works?).
Incorrect. The believer has no responsibility to prove anything to the non-believer. I like the color blue, but I don’t have to prove that either. I don’t care what you believe.
4) Additionally, since the available evidence strongly indicates that this claim is both untrue and ridiculous, and believers have been trying without success to produce evidence of this for A VERY LONG TIME without coming up with better than quarter-assed results, the infinitesimal chance that they might finally find a justification is not worth suspending a conclusion indefinitely, and it is not necessary to suspend a conclusion indefinitely in any case – merely treating it as “technically provisional” suffices.
You probably need to look up the term “evidence”. Do you mean to say “scientific evidence”? Because there is massive quantities of legally admissable evidence that God does, in fact, exist. In most courts of law, those forms of evidence is considered more conclusive than scientific evidence. Perhaps they shouldn’t be, but that’s the reality.
5) THE QUALITY OF GOODNESS IS BUILT INTO THE CONVENTIONAL DEFINITION OF “GOD.”
Again, false. Here you’re ignoring some of the most basic tenets of Christian theology. God DEFINES good. You’re attempting to define things the other way around, which would be fine except if you weren’t attempting to criticize an existing concept by redefining it. The Book of Job is essentially one long explication of this distinction, which can be summed up as God saying: My game, my rules, deal with it.
By the way, what is the source for this supposed quote from Epicurus? It looks more like a modification from Hume: “EPICURUS’S old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?”
Stephen Wells:
Say it, brother! Austen rocks!
And Jane intended the reader to want to strangle them.
Well, yeah, not one of her best by a longshot. Who wants the heroine to be mousy and boring and the antagonist to be sparkling and witty?
Vox D’oh, you really should re-read what you wrote and try really hard to understand why you’re such a fucking moron.
Since you’re apparently happy to be one though, I know you won’t.
Hey, it’s your brain to waste.
Wow, I haven’t heard this one before.
In response to Brownian, OM | December 3, 2007 2:45 PM
You misinterpret what is meant by “the absence of God.” That is my fault for presuming it might be considered long enought to make it fit into the statement. To correct my failing this is what I meant:
To the extent that one chooses to follow God one’s behavior is good. To the extent that one chooses not to follow Him
one is behavior is evil.
Additionally, how does one define “good” and “evil” without basing it on something or someone absolute? In fact, it would be interesting to hear some folks’ definitions of “good” and “evil” in here. Anyone courageous enough?
Wow, I haven’t heard this one before.
Note that I didn’t say you should find it convincing, only that to blithly insist that there is “no evidence” for the existence of God is either a remarkably ignorant or intellectually sloppy thing to say. No “scientific evidence” is a far more reasonable – and defensible – position.
Vox D’oh, you really should re-read what you wrote and try really hard to understand why you’re such a fucking moron.
Aside from the obvious grammatical errors caused by not looking at what I typed, your case appears to be nonexistent. A burden of proof can only exist when an individual is attempting to convince another individual of something, there is no burden of proof that inherently comes with the mere possession of a belief or an opinion, however ridiculous.
Do you seriously disagree with that?
Oh, I understand what you meant, alright (we’ve all heard that crap before, yawn). It’s obvious that you don’t fully understand it though.
Good question. Why don’t you ask the Christians that one though, since the actions of the god they describe are in no way consistent and therefore would not fulfill the concept of absolute morality you are (perhaps unwittingly) trying to imply. Courageous enough?
This is so silly, even granting your premise you still don’t have even iota one what God really wants or for that matter which of the alleged Gods you should be following.
Each society has ideas on behaviour that is acceptable and that which is not. What you are doing when you say ‘good’ or ‘evil’ is asigning a value to a behaviour nothing more. It’s an opinion. Most think the holocaust was evil. An opinion on a behaviour. Likewise for what is good.
What courage does it take to discuss this material? Typically if an act harms no one and brings happiness it is good. If an act causes temporary hurt but a long term benefit it’s good also.
If an act causes harm then it’s more than likely not so good. But again these are simply opinions of natural behaviours. No behaviour is in and of itself ‘unnatural’, we just describe them as such.
In response to Brownian, OM | December 3, 2007 3:00 PM
There’s just nothing like the well-considered, point by point “pooh pooh head” response.
Really and just what is it? This has got to be one of the most clueless statements ever on any blog.
This is almost smarmy in it’s stupidity. No one doubts you can believe anything. But to suggest that people don’t try to convince/ convert others is beyond bizarre. Likewise by believing it you are asserting it or else why would you believe it in the first place?
So when someone asks why you believe it I guess you could say I dunno I just do or actually provide some evidence. You are making the claim.
“Good question. Why don’t you ask the Christians that one though, since the actions of the god they describe are in no way consistent and therefore would not fulfill the concept of absolute morality you are (perhaps unwittingly) trying to imply. Courageous enough?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | December 3, 2007 3:26 PM ”
Are you suggesting that a non-answer is courageous? I always find it interesting when people use terms centrally yet refuse to define them.
Stay on topic, JaT. We already know that we’re big meanie-heads here, it doesn’t score you any points.
Cambodian pyramids were built by giant carnivorous rabbits.
Riiiight, in order to avoid confusion with all that “dairy evidence”, or “my buddy Larry evidence”, or “colourless green ideas sleep furiously evidence”.
what is this “absence of god”? How can you have the absence of absence? Or the vacuum of emptiness? Or is it the emptiness of vacuum?
don’t forget the orbiting teapot evidence!
Are you suggesting that a non-answer is courageous?
No, I’m suggesting you find the courage to ask yourself and your fellow believers such questions in an honest spirit of inquiry. (I’ll define honest spirit of inquiry for you too–by this I mean not being satisfied with the first answer somebody comes up that requires little or evidence to support it but doesn’t conflict with what you already believe.)
I always find it interesting when people use terms centrally yet refuse to define them.
I suppose that’s why you think “What if Evil is the absence of God, huh? Woah! Mind-blowing!” is interesting. The rest of us are bored with such ill-defined-as-to-be-logically-incomprehensible inanities.
And to VD (can I call you STI instead? The term is more inclusive yet still conveys the idea that you’re probably not easily cured by penicillin either):
What you call ‘blue’ is god. That’s why you’ve got a natural affinity for It. (Why would Blue make us like It if It wasn’t Blue?)
That was fun. Is that the kind of stuff you write on your blog all day? Made-up stuff that you don’t have to prove because it’s just an opinion?
Thanks for your contribution to society. Keep up the good work.
“Stay on topic, JaT. We already know that we’re big meanie-heads here, it doesn’t score you any points.
Posted by: Rey Fox | December 3, 2007 3:34 PM ”
Being “meanie-heads” was not the point of the post you responded to. The total lack of argument was. The fact that you neglected to ascertain that is significant. The fact that you felt you had to rebuke me for something I was not intending to do reveals that you are having difficulty staying on topic. But if you wish to continue a tit for tat I will allow you to have the last word.
“what is this “absence of god”? How can you have the absence of absence? Or the vacuum of emptiness? Or is it the emptiness of vacuum?
Posted by: bernarda | December 3, 2007 3:37 PM ”
So, for the sake of argument, bernarda refuses to postulate? Interesting for a site which worships the scientific method.
So, for the sake of argument, bernarda refuses to postulate? Interesting for a site which worships the scientific method.
no, for the sake of sanity, there is little point TO postulate.
that seems to be the point you missed.
We can certainly discuss the fertility value of ground unicorn horn instead, for an equally enlightening exchange.
Azkryoth, I’m not entirely sure why you are going into a fit simply because I personally never found the “If god is so good why is there suffer argument” to be very convincing, but…
>>>Jesus Fictional Christ, do you actually believe the definition of the terms employed is completely irrelevant to an argument?
No, but of the adjectives I’ve heard of fictional God: angry, just, merciful, loving, good, vengeful, hairy, etc. I’ve never heard the term “protective”. And as to the tenets that are fundamental and intrinsic and nescessary to the mere concept of a god, “good” is not one of them.
Likewise I’ve heard enough thoughts on the concept of “goodness” to know that it is not considered incompatible with “suffering”. (“No pain; no gain” “Spare the rod; spoil the child” “One mans meat is another man’s poison” etc. etc.)
>>>1) “Good” has a meaning.
>>>2) Due to this meaning, if the universe were ruled by an entity that was omniscient, omnipotent, and good, suffering would not exist.
Not if allowing the world to follow in its course is “good” and intervening simply to avoid suffering is “bad”. (“I’m not going to buy ous that toy until you clean up your room” is not the comment of a “bad” parent.)
>>>>3) …unless there is some good reason for allowing suffering, and if the believer wants to claim this, THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THEM
The burden of proof is on the person remaining unconvinced??? So if I gave you a prove that 2 + 2 equals 5 and you were unconvinced, the burden of proof would be an you to prove that I was unconvincing????
Look. The supposition is that there is the argument that knocks the wind of the idea of God existing. Okay, I’m all ears. Well, the argument goes, if god existed he’d be good, and if he existed and was god, there wouldn’t be suffering, and there is suffering so he doesn’t exist! What do you think? Well, I answer, to be honest I find it rather weak and contrived. I don’t see why one should assume God is good in that sense; I don’t see why the concept of good should mean suffering would be actively rebuffed; and I don’t see that good would nescessarily be incompatible with suffering; and believers are well aware of suffering and have various reasons and explanations as to why god allows it.
>>>Now the burden of proof is on me to prove why I am unconvinced. No! The burden of proof is an the person providing the argument in the first place.
>>>>(whereas you seem, for no reason I can see, to be entirely willing to force the skeptic to prove that there isn’t. Again, do you even understand how burden of proof works?).
That would be true if the believer had said first “I believe God is good” and the skeptic had said, “bah, I don’t”. But that isn’t what happened here. Here it was the *skeptic* who said “There isn’t a god because a good God wouldn’t allow suffering” to which I, not a believer but a listener, responds “Meh, kinda tepid, in my opinion” It isn’t *my* burden to prove it is tepid! It is the original declarer to beef up the argument. and convince me it’s a good one. Which I still claim, in my opinion, it isn’t.
4) Additionally, since the available evidence strongly indicates that this claim is both untrue and ridiculous,
What claim? What evidence? That God *can* prevent E-bola, but purposely will not, and there is no possible good for the e-bola? I’m not certain any of those follow directly from an assumption God exists. And even though it seems cruel, I’m not sure it is ridicoulous.
>>> and believers have been trying without success to produce evidence of this for A VERY LONG TIME without coming up with better than quarter-assed results,
Um, try to remeber we are *NOT* debating or looking for evidence of the existance of God, but are debating how strong one particular argument against his existence is. I do *not* believe believers have been trying without success to produce evidence that God is either not good or the suffering has an ultimate good nor do I believe that their results in such a specific search has come up quarter-ass.
>>> the infinitesimal chance that they might finally find a justification is not worth suspending a conclusion indefinitely, and it is not necessary to suspend a conclusion indefinitely in any case – merely treating it as “technically provisional” suffices.
No, but it means the argument was not airtight.
5) THE QUALITY OF GOODNESS IS BUILT INTO THE CONVENTIONAL DEFINITION OF “GOD.”
No, it isn’t and what’s more “Goodness” as a human quality applied to the eternity of a cosmos scale is a amorphous vague and unclear quality at best. We scoff at folks who pray for their football team to win not because we think they are idiots to believe in God (well, we do think that) but because we think it’s absurd to think God who has to look over everything including the other team and much more important matters will be swayed in light of all on his plate. In essence you are saying any purpose to keeps God sitting distance watching as a some suffering occurs can’t be worth it. That sounds resonable be not convincing to me. Medical researchers aren’t “cruel” when the offer placebos to the control group (or are they?). I’m not apathetic because I don’t chain myself to the white house or phyically keep George Bush from enacting his idiot policies with my every dying breath (or am I). I’m simply not finding the “God wouldn’t allow suffering so there is no God” convincing.
>>> Thus, even if the Argument from Evil does not disprove the existence of anything that might conceivably be labeled “a god” it does render the existence of what people normally mean when they say “God” so implausible as to be beyond rational consideration.
I’m not convinced. It strikes me as perfectly rational that some super-natural being from somewhere else set the universe in motion, wishes to watch it unobserved, has a few hopes and desires for man-kind of which the individuals live and die in seconds, intervenes occasionally on their behalves but for the most part wants them to handle the leukemia, guinea worms, and genocide on there own.
I’m not saying that is likely nor that it is rational to believe it with utterly no evidence. But in no way is it “so implausible as to be beyond rational consideration”. In other words, the argument didn’t convince me.
>>>Arguing that an omnipotent, omniscient being that is not “good” by the actual definition of the word would still be “God” in the sense believers typically mean is kind of like arguing that bats are birds since they’re warm-blooded and fly.
Isn’t the super-being from somewhere else “good”? Aren’t the medical researchers giving placebos to sick patients in a control group “good”? Isn’t a parent refusing to buy a present until the child cleans his room “good”? You seem to be forcing a rather specific narrow human “good” unto a completely inhuman and ineffible creature and hoping it will stick. I agree that it’d be kind of nice if it did but I’m not sure it will. All I’m saying is if you want it to work you’d better get more glue and make it bigger. You seem to be reacting to criticism by pounding my head into it and saying “It’s *GONNA* stick! It’s *GONNA stick!”
“We can certainly discuss the fertility value of ground unicorn horn instead, for an equally enlightening exchange.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 3, 2007 4:11 PM ”
I apologize. I didn’t realize that the concept of God is forbidden to be used on this free-thinking site.
Tell me, is the concept of relativism enshrined on the alter of “things which will not be disputed on this site” too?
“Being “meanie-heads” was not the point of the post you responded to. The total lack of argument was.”
Well, he wasn’t talking to you when he made that post, so I assumed that you only responded to it in order to make some rhetorical point as to how mean we are for insulting the poor VD and, in doing so, puff yourself up. Believe me, I’ve seen it numerous times here. And, of course, you haven’t exactly dispelled that notion.
“The fact that you neglected to ascertain that is significant. ”
Only to a pompous grandstander.
“The fact that you felt you had to rebuke me for something I was not intending to do reveals that you are having difficulty staying on topic.”
Nope, it just reveals that I’m trying to keep you answering the questions posed by Brownian and Uber, which I noticed you haven’t yet. Much easier to put on airs by picking the low-hanging fruit, I see.
[1]
[2]
Boy, you had your meltdown a lot quicker that I expected. Most or your type pretend to be interested in actual knowledge before their true colours come out. Too hard to keep up the guise of someone who has a functioning brain for long, huh?
By the way, responses to your idiotic comments are:
[1] the scientific method requires evidence. Provide evidence and we’ll start postulating. Further, we don’t [i]worship[/i] the scientific method. We use it because it has shown itself to be the only method that fairly reliably keeps people from just making stuff up.
[2] nobody said you can’t use the concept of God on this free-thinking site (though I’ve never found those that invoke God often to be particularly free-thinking.) Just expect to be asked for evidence when you postulate some crap and expect it to be treated as meaningful.
Really and just what is it? This has got to be one of the most clueless statements ever on any blog.
You poor maleducated soul. You’re obviously unaware of the Rules of Evidence or the four traditional types of evidence. Interestingly enough, the testimonial evidence that most atheists consider non-evidence is the only sort of evidence strong enough to not require another form of evidence as a prerequisite for its use in court.
There is testimonial evidence of God. There is real evidence of God and there is documentary evidence of God. There is also demonstrative evidence of God. There does not appear to be, at this time, scientific evidence of God. These are demonstrable facts. To say that there is “no evidence” reveals one to be either ignorant or ludicrously dishonest.
This is almost smarmy in it’s stupidity. No one doubts you can believe anything. But to suggest that people don’t try to convince/ convert others is beyond bizarre. Likewise by believing it you are asserting it or else why would you believe it in the first place?
I did not suggest that people do not try to convince or convert others. I merely noted that Woozy was not in the comment referenced, nor are most believers the vast majority of the time. Your statement that “by believing it you are asserting it” is bizarre; if you look at the dictionary you will see that the two terms are not synonymous. I suspect you have Sam Harris’s belief–>action connection completely backwards here. Harris claims that action is evidence of belief, not that to believe is to act. (Assertion, of course, being one of many possible actions.)
Saying that one must assert something in order to believe it in the first place is an amusing revelation of the way in which your individual psychology functions. You’re not merely an atheist, I’d guess you’d score rather high on the Asperger’s Quotient test too.
Is that the kind of stuff you write on your blog all day? Made-up stuff that you don’t have to prove because it’s just an opinion?
Actually, my blog tends to be known for providing so much detailed evidence that it approaches the dead horse-beating stage. But I’m not obliged to provide anyone supporting evidence merely to possess a belief.
So when someone asks why you believe it I guess you could say I dunno I just do or actually provide some evidence. You are making the claim.
No one has asked me. If you’re actually asking, the short answer is very similar to the one Daniel Dennett provides to those who ask why he places admittedly blind faith in science… because it works. But according to Dennett, he believes in biology and psychology because physics works, whereas I believe in the Bible because the Bible works.
You make this point based on some others’ opinions that need not be demostrated through evidence either, huh?
Really? When believers refer to God as a Father or a Mother or a Shepherd or a Fortress, what do you think they want to convey with that metaphor?
If you now want to argue that shepherds are not an unalloyed good in the lives of sheep, I think you are just doing the believers’ apologetics for them. The impression they want to convey to people is not that God is like an uncaring shepherd who leaves his sheep to fend for themselves and only occasionally stops by to bugger them.
That’s because it’s not supposed to be an argument against the existence of a God per se! Are you confusing this discussion with the “arguments for and against God” thread? If the God we are discussing is Crom, fine, the problem of evil doesn’t touch him. But I think you are ignoring the elephant in the living room, the benevolent God millions of believers prefer because he is supposed to be a significant force for good.
OK, I freely admit that my eyes began to glaze over after the first 90 or so comments, so please forgive me if this post is redundant. That said…
It also happens sometimes that Bad Stuff happens to begin a chain of events that may eventually include Good Stuff… but it does not therefore follow that…
2. The eventual Good Stuff happening is the not-so-readily-apparent reason for the Bad Stuff, nor that
1. The original Stuff wasn’t really Bad.
No doubt it has happened many times that people have met, in the course of grieving for a lost spouse, wonderful people who became their next partners. While that outcome might well be judged “good,” it does not magically convert the earlier tragedy into a “good” event.
I find the “God makes us suffer in order to perfect us” argument specious: A truly omnipotent creator could have created us perfect to begin with (as the Bible asserts Yahweh did) and could have kept us perfect. The whole doctrine of the fall into sin followed by a redemption that is based on state-sanctioned murder and which must be accepted under threat of eternal damnation reads more like a sadomasochistic fantasy than like infinite benevolence, as far as I can see.
The notion of God’s “mysterious ways” doesn’t help much, either: “Goodness” that is, from the human perspective, indistinguishable from sadism is sadism, for all practical purposes.
VD — How appropriate, given your propensity toward logical blindness.
Ok, ad hominem time over. Serious time.
There is testimonial evidence of God. There is real evidence of God and there is documentary evidence of God. There is also demonstrative evidence of God. There does not appear to be, at this time, scientific evidence of God. These are demonstrable facts. To say that there is “no evidence” reveals one to be either ignorant or ludicrously dishonest.
How do you square this statement with the findlaw article you posted that suggests that:
1. There is no real (in legalese) evidence for God that would be admissable. No talking burning bushes, etc…
2. In fact, none of the other types of evidence — demonstrative and documentary — exist or are admissable either. The bible is filled with contradiction and heresay (and there’s a chain of custody problem too), and the demonstrative evidence is lacking (as in non-existant — no one has a map to God’s realm, or a photo of heaven, or even a photo of God).
Which leaves:
3. Without evidence of any other type to back up your testimony, it is inadmissable as evidence.
Your position seems evidentially bankrupt no matter how you slice it. Scientifically you’re SOL, and legally too, apparently. Lastly, if you think you can bring God in to the courtroom, where is it that I can go to present him with a summons?
Woozy:
I can’t speak for anybody else, but I use the Epicurian Paradox not as evidence that God doesn’t exist, but that if he does there’s no reason for me to praise, worship, or care about the guy, because he’s either a dick or painfully ordinary.
Incidentally, you bring up something I’ve been thinking about a lot; The unspoken assumption that the qualities that characterise human thought must be present in any possible form of sentient thought.
You say “no pain, no gain”, but WHY is it that experiences seem more vivid and worthwhile if they’re painful?
To me, there’s no reason to believe that this must be a universal condition; My computer doesn’t store information better after getting a virus, so there are clearly data storage and retrieval systems in which pain and gain have a negative relationship.
I see no reason to assume a sentient computer would find unpleasant things more memorable.
But let’s go ahead and assume that all sentient creatures can gain things from painful experiences that they never could from benign ones. What does that tell us about God?
Here are three possibilities I can think of:
1. He is sentient, and therefore has the same property, but lacking any obstacles to his will, he leads a dull, colorless existence.
2. He is sentient, and has had to overcome several genuine obstacles.
3. He is simply not a sentient being.
To me, all three of those diminish him; he’s either noteably inferior to us, about the same as we would be if we had more power, or an inanimate object.
And I see no reason to be more devoted to such a flawed being then I would be to any given human.
Just a Thought: Well, you haven’t argued with Epicurus, you’ve just rejected his definition of evil.
Moreover, I think the one you’ve replaced it with is perverse.
Take the case of Tay-Sachs disease, a disorder that causes a terrifying, unpleasant death in very young children.
Humanity did not create the disorder; it’s a product of nature, which is, presumably, governed by God.
By your definition, then, it would be EVIL for God to take pity on little kids, and not kill them in the most horrible way possible.
Because everything God does is, by definition, good.
And when you take the “Hooray for torturing children!” position, I just have to declare your morality to be so perverse I can’t accept it.
Tell me, is the concept of relativism enshrined on the alter of “things which will not be disputed on this site” too?
i dunno, is the concept of relevancy itself worth anything to you?
You poor maleducated soul.
you moronic, condescending prick.
“Last I checked, being “absolutely boring and meaningless” and manifestly lacking a plot has been no obstacle to millions of “romance” novels being sold, nor to some of them (*cough*Jane Austen*cough*) being considered great literary classics.”
Ahem.
Excuse me. I have been writing romance novels for 15 years. My novels are neither boring nor lacking plot. They take months of painstaking work and thought. How many romance novels have you read recently? None, is my guess. So your argument is about as valid as that of the creationists opining on evolution without knowing anything about it.
Let’s quit with the generalizations, okay?
It’s a kick watching you God-haters dizzy yourselves in trying to make God-hate a positive case for Atheism. It is not; nothing is, of course. Atheism is just negative, only negative, forever negative. It cannot stand on it’s own without a deity to hate. Consider the epithets cast about here; are they really necessary if there be no God? Of course not. They have meaning only because you hate God, you hate Christians, you hate authority of all types including your parents – especially your father. It’s that simple.
When you rebelled, you inverted your logic in order to negate that which was previously positive. The inversion of logic is also why no Atheist website ever mentions the First Principles, the ideologic difference between empiricism and Naturalism, and the Limits of empirical reach. Not to mention the full definition of truth within the constraints of infinite regress: Godel vs the First Principles.
Yeah you guys are a hoot.
“But according to Dennett, he believes in biology and psychology because physics works, whereas I believe in the Bible because the Bible works.”
Huh. Never worked for me. That’s why I became an atheist in 7th grade and stopped going to church, after informing my parents that I saw no reason to believe in a supreme being. After all these years, I still don’t.
In spite of this, I have been married 22 years to the same man, have never had an extramarital affair, have never done drugs, have never cheated, stole or told anything but white lies, honor and respect my parents, and have no trouble adhering to a strong moral code that makes no reference to the Bible whatsoever.
Don’t need it. Never did.
“It’s a kick watching you God-haters dizzy yourselves in trying to make God-hate a positive case for Atheism”
Gee. Somone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. Why is it necessary for you to hate atheists to justify your believe in a god?
I can’t hate something that doesn’t exist.
It cannot stand on it’s own without a deity to hate.
LOL!
You don’t think very often, do you?
Amenhotep @ 32: “Omnipotent? Can god change Pi?”
Apparently; see 1 Kings 7:23.
“And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.” [King James Version]
“The sea was then cast; it was made with a circular rim, and measured ten cubits across, five in height, and thirty in circumference.” [New American Bible]
It is clearly God’s Will that Pi = 3. Mathematicians who heretically insist otherwise will be cast into the Deepest Circle of Hell, which they may measure to their hearts’ eternal discontent.
Actually, I quite liked Christians until I realised so many of them are hate-filled.
Hey 40.
Logic, you’re doing it wrong.
“They have meaning only because you hate God, you hate Christians, you hate authority of all types including your parents – especially your father.”
Wow, we got a live one here. I never once mentioned my father, nor did anyone else. I, personally, think my father’s a pretty great guy though, not that you’d know anything about him. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything though, unless you make the tangential and rather unfounded point that this god character not only created us, but has testicles. In fact, it seems to have been completely tossed out for no reason in the heat of the moment.
I can only conclude from this that Mr. 40 Years has a great many unresolved issues with his own father.
Ooh, testimonial evidence is my favorite kind. One time my buddy Bob–stop me if you’ve heard this before–was 100% dead-certain convinced that Jerry Garcia had worn a space helmet throughout the entire second set in (as I recall)(or do I?) Grand Rapids. Could not be dissuaded. He may still believe it to this day, and I have heard his testimonial evidence to that effect many times.
But I’m quite sure Jerry’s space helmet did not, in fact, exist.
Catching the drift of my metaphor here?
I hate that damn easter bunny and that loser the tooth fairy too…
oh and Zeus, he’s a real SOB.
Dragons really piss me off… and I hate hate hate Griffons…
He really got me started.
I can only conclude from this that Mr. 40 Years has a great many unresolved issues with his own father.
projection IS a rather common defense mechanism.
One has to wonder what it is, exactly, that 40 feels particularly threatened about?
you moronic, condescending prick.
I only condescend because I can, little fishy fish. Your New Atheist icons are no match for me, while you’ve got nothing to offer but the usual ad hominem. Look, Uber made an egregiously silly statement and he got caught out, it happens. Now he knows better.
3. Without evidence of any other type to back up your testimony, it is inadmissable as evidence.
You not only have no clue here, but you also demonstrate that you didn’t even read through the linked article. Your assertion is obviously false. For testimonial evidence to be admissible, four things must be true of the witness:
“1. He must, with understanding, take the oath or a substitute. Evid. Code §§ 710, 701; Fed. Rules Evid. 603.
2. He must have personal knowledge about the subject of his testimony. In other words, the witness must have perceived something with his senses that is relevant to the case. Evid. Code § 702; Fed. Rules Evid. 602.
3. He must remember what he perceived.
4. He must be able to communicate what he perceived. Evid. Code § 701(a)(1).”
At an absolute minimum, there are tens of thousands of competent individuals around the world who are capable of testifying to their various personal experiences of God. Of course, from a scientific point of view this can all be dismissed, either by remote psychological diagnosis, or, much more reasonably, as the simple misinterpretation of sensory input.
You likewise fail to understand the nature of the other forms of evidence. The Bible itself is admissible evidence as are numerous archeological and literary artifacts; would you similarly attempt to claim that Arrian’s text would be inadmissable in a case regarding the existence of Alexander the Great?
The Cascio-Righi case in Italy only concerned the existence of Jesus Christ, not God, but evidence for the former’s existence was definitely admitted, even though the defense’s argument did not entirely rely on it.
You make this point based on some others’ opinions that need not be demostrated through evidence either, huh?
If you want to wade through weeks of archives revolving around the infamous “Japanese invasion” debate, be my guest. If you want evidence of a similar level of detail on the subject of atheism and religion, just wait two months.
Insult me all you like, especially if it makes you feel more secure in your lack of faith. I don’t mind. But you may wish to consider that doing so in the absence of even a feeble attempt to defend your position tends to make you look completely hapless. Not an impressive showing by the so-called rationalists thus far.
Oh, and do we all concur that the supposedly Epicurean quote on the “Athiesm” poster is a fraud? I haven’t seen anyone provide a pre-Hume citation, anyhow.
I’m not sure what that has to do with anything though, unless you make the tangential and rather unfounded point that this god character not only created us, but has testicles.
Unfounded? God has a beard, of course he has testicles.
Hmmm, one comment claims (apparently) that Christians, parents, et al. don’t exist. Another one is just an empty attempt at insult. Pretty weak stuff kiddies.
But I can’t hang around you downers for long, got other stuff to do.
Think about this though: None of the Atheist verbiage above is a positive set of evidence for Atheism. Atheists demand evidence but fortunately for them, they never have to provide any evidence in support of Atheism. Pretty neat set-up. But in the end it fails too, because the realization will hit them some day that there are no substantive premises FOR Atheism.
I’ve been there and back again. Logic has rules. Rational thought has rules. They don’t stack up in favor of Atheism. You want to say “God has to do it my way, or else there is no God”. Or, “if there is a God, I demand a face to face meeting, and I demand it now”. Or, “God has to be omnibewhackered or omniwhatever, or there is no God”.
It’s always the same variation on a theme.
But, sorry, I have an appointment… I’ll try back in a day or so. Remember, epithets are not a rational form of argumentation; they are merely juvenile juices spurting forth.
Actually, my dad was an asshole, and his half-formed way of thinking was a clear example of what not to do, and probably did start me on my way to atheism (being raised Christian was another: the crap was too hard to swallow–kinda like that guy in the bar whose got all these great stories about how he used advise the President and helped Billy Joel write his songs and invented modern hockey goalie butterfly pads, but really makes you wonder why, if he’s so great, he’s some filthy bar rat talking to you.)
I guess if God wanted me to believe in Him, He shoulda made my father less of a jerk, then.
So it’s not my fault I’m an atheist then: Goddidit.
Thanks 40 Year Atheist. Enjoy your arbitrary God, idiot.
40 year atheist, why would you buy into an argument like the Cogito as intuitive?
Your New Atheist icons are no match for me
ah wait, I know who this is!
Vox is really the alter ego for Bible Dude, from MadTV
http://www.planetmadtv.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=6924
do bullets bounce off you too?
LOL
Tell me, is the concept of relativism enshrined on the alter of “things which will not be disputed on this site” too?
You mean “relativism” like “Do not murder”, except when God tells you to? Or like “Do not covet your neighbor’s possessions” except when God tells you to ransack a town and take all the spoils? Or, I believe, you particularly have been known to say that you would kill a child if God told you to?
They have meaning only because you hate God, you hate Christians, you hate authority of all types including your parents – especially your father. It’s that simple.
As for you, are you still taking your meds? I think you might be a couple of hours late for the last dose. I adore my parents, actually.
(singing)
Yeah, that’s how it happens when you assert something exists. Gotta show evidence for it. Sorry you think that’s unfair. Trying praying. Maybe God’ll fix that little injustice for you.
He wasn’t a positive set of evidence to be an atheist???
Once again….
LOGIC. YOU”RE DOING IT WRONG.
“Atheists demand evidence but fortunately for them, they never have to provide any evidence in support of Atheism. Pretty neat set-up.”
Yep, not making shit up is pretty neat.
“Remember, epithets are not a rational form of argumentation; they are merely juvenile juices spurting forth.”
Sort of like that thing about us all hating our fathers.
You seem to think you’re entitled to an argument. No matter what manner of BS you barge in spouting or how many times we’ve heard it all before. Well, you’re not. You’re a troll. We couldn’t care less about impressing you.
Think about this though: None of the Atheist verbiage above is a positive set of evidence for Atheism.
nothing posted in this thread was actually intended to be, nor does there even NEED to be a “positive set of evidence for Atheism”.
the atheist position is the default, it’s up to theists to show positive evidence for THEIR position.
surely you know this, being an atheist and all, right?
Oh, and remember: if God doesn’t answer your prayers, it’s because the only truly powerful deity Triglav won’t let him.
Being so rational, I expect you to accept the preceeding sentence unless you can show evidence that Triglav does not, in fact, exist.
Otherwise you’re just some kinda liar, aren’t you?
He may still believe it to this day, and I have heard his testimonial evidence to that effect many times.But I’m quite sure Jerry’s space helmet did not, in fact, exist. Catching the drift of my metaphor here?
Sure. But the question of whether the evidence is correct or not does not change the fact that it is relevant and admissible evidence. Scientific evidence is also capable of being incorrect, indeed, its very nature is such that should be presumed to be incorrect, being a snapshot of incomplete human understanding at a given point in time. This is not a difficult point nor would Dennett, Haidt or any serious atheist intellectual dispute it.
If I may quote a reasonably well-known Pharyngulan and science advocate, “scientists are not in the truth business”. Science works, but it is far from the only generator of evidence.
wow. that dhould be Wants.
Yep, not making shit up is pretty neat.
ayup, for adults at least (er, provided they aren’t fantasy novelists or the like). I rather enjoyed MSU when I was a kid.
much less stressful, too, since there is no need to even defend that position.
the “anger” of atheists claimed by the religious is all a bunch of projected stress from the fact that they feel the constant need to defend why they do MSU.
As for you, are you still taking your meds? I think you might be a couple of hours late for the last dose. I adore my parents, actually.
Source 1: Vitz; “Faith of the Fatherless; The Psychology of Atheism”; 1999, ISBN1-890626-12-0; SPC, Dallas Texas.
Source 2: “The Cambridge Companion to Atheism”, Martin, Editor; Essay: “Atheists, A Psychological Profile”, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Ch 18, ppg 300 – 317; Cambridge University Press, 2007; ISBN 978-0-521-60367-6.
Science works, but it is far from the only generator of evidence.
umm, science isn’t a “generator” of evidence, it’s an evaluator of evidence from a pragmatic standpoint.
it’s religion that generates evidence to fit the conclusion, remember?
there you go, projecting your own failings again.
c’mon, Bible Dude, you can do better than that, right?
here, try this:
assuming you actually meant something along the lines of “science isn’t the only way to explain observable evidence”, then show me one, just one, example of an alternative method that has generated a testable, pragmatic, efficient from a predictive standpoint, explanation of a set of observations.
sorry, but religion has time and again failed humanity as a pragmatic and productive explanation for anything we have ever observed.
If you could somehow show otherwise, you could easily become a well published author.
In fact, it’s exactly the challenge that was posed to the supporters of the concept of ID – that they simply show us how it better explains and predicts observations through experimentation than current theory does.
the same challenge every scientific theory has ever had to face, for that matter.
guess what?
they failed. So, don’t feel bad when you too fail to come up with an example to support your contention.
but really, that’s not what Bible Dude is all about anyway, right?
uh, what ARE you doing here, BTW?
I’ll be back later to count all the names you’ve called me…. Keep up the lovin’ kids!
Source 1: Vitz; “Faith of the Fatherless; The Psychology of Atheism”; 1999, ISBN1-890626-12-0; SPC, Dallas Texas.
have you considered, even for a moment, that the evidence used to support the contentions in those papers are not part of what you see here? that you might be applying an erroneous hypothesis?
for more reading fun, you might try this:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5827/996
I just can’t, I mean really can’t believe how anyone could be that stupid. You don’t need evidence for atheism. Do we really need to do the Santa Claus, FSM analogy again for the 1000th time?
You don’t prove something doesn’t exist you prove it does.
Also personally I have a great relationship with my dad.
Which bible? And past that how does it ‘work’ for you? Do you cherry pic it like everyone else?
Now down to this VD persons comment:
You really are a dumb ass. Testimonial evidence is also given the chance to be challeneged. In this case you simply cannot take a person at their word. We would have to put the belief on ‘trial’ so to speak and everyone who has said testimonial evidence would have to present it. Soon it would be obvious between the multitude of people who have testimony about God speaking to them that their are either thousands/millions of Gods or people are making shit up.
using your thin definition of evidence I might agree with you. But none of it would qualify under 4 rules of evidence you mention. Documentary evidence? Who wrote it? When?
Demostrative evidence? You mean like a statue crying? What you really have here is evidence of human activity but not supernatural activity. You conflate belief in one as evidence while ignoring the obvious.
No I’m saying that if you believe something you are asserting that you find it correct. If you call yourself a Christian you are asserting that Jesus was God. Identifying yourself as such should state that for you.
I am not an athesit by the way and you have some serious personality flaws. BTW you heartless comment about Aspergers shows how little heart you truly have for those with the condition. I have little doubt that you sir are not likely a very moral person.
This is what your basing your argument on? Incorrect and easily dismantled ‘evidence’. In reality what is the difference between that and no evidence.
Hell all your arguing for is anyone can say anything, write anything, and it’s evidence. Of that who would disagree? But that is some weak material.
Do we really need to do the Santa Claus, FSM analogy again for the 1000th time?
when arguing with those suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance, you might need to repeat the same argument 1001 times. It doesn’t matter if, or how many times, they’ve heard the argument previous; the lesson taught is entirely forgotten within moments of hearing it.
the obvious point being, as Pat Condell (among thousands of others, recently and throughout history) pointed out, rational debate with someone suffering such psychological limitations is only of value if you think you might convince the onlookers. It rarely has any effect whatsoever on the apparent primary target.
btw, I know you know this already, so consider this itself a treatise to the onlookers, as it too has been said countless times.
that said, on with the presentation…
Here comes Santa Claus,
Here comes Santa Claus,
Right down Santa Claus lane
Vixen and Blitzen and all his reindeer Pullin’ on the reins
Bells are ringin’, children singin’ All is merry and bright Hang your stockings and say your prayers ‘Cause Santa Claus comes tonight!
Wow.
2 in one thread. fun fun.
I could see where not having a father could make one more independent minded rather than a group think person. Of course if a father does he job correct they can end up in the same place.
umm, science isn’t a “generator” of evidence, it’s an evaluator of evidence from a pragmatic standpoint.
Really? The scientific method generates no evidence? Then what is “scientific evidence”, in your opinion? And if all evidence is being generated elsewhere, then obviously there must be non-scientific forms of evidence, contra Uber’s assertion.
You really are a dumb ass. Testimonial evidence is also given the chance to be challeneged. In this case you simply cannot take a person at their word.
You’re a gift that just keeps giving. Of course testimonial evidence can be challenged, so can scientific evidence. None of this changes the fact that it is evidence. By every definition of the word, including the legal, there is evidence for God’s existence.
One may or may not find it convincing, of course. One may or may not deem the collective body of evidence to be conclusive. But there is no shortage of relevant evidence on the subject.
No I’m saying that if you believe something you are asserting that you find it correct.
I understood that. You need to look up the various definitions of the verb “to assert”. You’re incorrect by every single one of them.
I am not an athesit by the way and you have some serious personality flaws. BTW you heartless comment about Aspergers shows how little heart you truly have for those with the condition.
Oh, now you’re just projecting. I don’t actually have any significant personality flaws, it’s merely a mild cruel streak. And if you were a devoted Pharyngulan, then you would know that I am referring to a previous post by Dr. PZ in which it was determined that the average AQ test result reported by the readers here was 69 percent higher than normal individuals, rather close to the level that serves to diagnose the syndrome.
But you are correct in one regard, as I am not and have never been a particularly moral individual. I am thus all the more appreciative of my need for God’s grace.
btw, for those unfamiliar, I’m guessing, based on a familiar style and initials, that “VD” is Vox Day.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2007/08/it-has-begun.html
I do think PZ ripped has ripped him several new ones over the last couple of years, but AFAIK, he’s never been banned, so one wonders why he is choosing to post under his initials, with no link to his blog.
RE #172 : Source 1: Vitz; “Faith of the Fatherless; The Psychology of Atheism”; 1999, ISBN1-890626-12-0; SPC, Dallas Texas.
It seems Dr Vitz takes his theory from a (now largely discredited) Freudian theory. That’s all. One idea that has no evidence and I cannot find any references to the ‘study’ that atheists have a more troubled relationship with their fathers. Now, seeing as the religious seem to approve of testimonial evidence; I would like to take this opportunity to say that I love my dad. He is neither absent nor abusive; my atheism is due to making the most informed decision given the evidence.
Obviously if this really is a serious theory, Dr Vitz should surely be on his way to testing it.
….
Now it’s late, I’m to bed.
He put the link in one of his first posts. It’s Teddy of the Flaming Sword, all right, and his Travelling Cavalcade of Useless Evidence. Be amazed, be astounded, but beware, you never know when his god might order him to kill you!
This is what your basing your argument on? Incorrect and easily dismantled ‘evidence’. In reality what is the difference between that and no evidence.
The difference between there being a God and there not being one. Testimonial evidence is not as easily dismissed as you appear to think, in fact, it’s often very difficult to do. It’s much easier to dismiss the attempted dismissals; for example, Richard Dawkins’s attempt to diagnose the mental state of 70,000 strangers at a distance of space and time is downright laughable.
You see, his assumption of mass hallucination on their part is not evidence, nor would it be admissable, as their eyewitness testimony to the Fatima incident would be.
AFAIK, he’s never been banned, so one wonders why he is choosing to post under his initials, with no link to his blog.
Probably because I always comment that way on my blog too. But I added a link to VP this time, if that will make you happy. Why would PZ ban me, anyhow? He may dislike me, but he knows perfectly well that I’m no troll. I certainly wouldn’t ban him or any other forthright atheist who merely stood up for his own opinion and I’m not even a “freethinker”.
I saw the spurt of activity on a thread I thought was run its course. Of course: visitors.
The references to hating a father come from a pop apologetics assertion that atheists refuse to believe in God because their childhood experiences with their own father turn them away from the Heavenly One. If you begin with the assumption that everyone knows, deep in their heart, that God exists, it’s not a bad hypothesis. However, reviews of Vitz’s book on the subject have pointed out a lot of serious flaws in the data: he cherry-picks and redefines his examples to fit, as I recall.
Plus, of course, it’s a poor assumption to begin with.
VD wrote (somewhere):
Not “no evidence,” no — but not very good evidence. Not really the kind that would stand up in court, for example — because the fact that it’s spectral evidence or hearsay is relevant.
Part of the trouble is that the “evidence for God” goes all over the place, is often nebulous, and the claims in one religion should cancel out those for another religion. On the other side, there are a lot of very well supported explanations for why intelligent people make mistakes, and can believe in some very weird things. Subjective reports are often untrustworthy — particularly when it comes to the paranormal, alien abductions, and religion.
Why isn’t there solid scientific evidence for God? Wouldn’t that be likely, given its significance to the state of the universe? And yet, a disembodied unevolved intelligence is inconsistent with what we’ve learned about our own minds — and without the familiar analogy with ourselves, the concept loses plausibility.
I think I said that in a post below the other. Read clueless.
assert:
. to state with assurance, confidence, or force; state strongly or positively; affirm; aver: He asserted his innocence of the crime.
2. to maintain or defend
Seems to me if one claims and titles oneself a Christian you are asserting a belief/confidence in Jesus being God.
Now we can split hairs over dictionary meanings all we want when one titles oneself a Christian you are presenting yourself in a certain way and hold tocertain positions.
No projection here. You really have alot of flaws.
Appreciate enough to insult others in a thread revolving around whether he exists or not. And which God have you chosen?
The scientific method generates no evidence?
ah, I see where you are confused. It generates DATA, which is then used to reject hypotheses ABOUT a particular observation. If unable to reject based on the data gathered, the hypothesis is tentatively supported until more or different data are gathered that end up rejecting the hypothesis or not.
here’s an example to help you along:
I see variability in the offspring of a mating of two Drosophila.
I can then form an hypothesis in an attempt to explain this observation. Testing that hypothesis requires i construct an experiment, in situ or not, in order to gather data that would attempt reject that hypothesis. In the end, the data might actually indeed appear to not only reject the hypothesis, but support it. You can subjectively label it “evidence” if you wish at that point, but in reality what was gathered is still just data. You, likely viewing the results in some popular newsrag, or the scientist, in their own discussion section in a paper published about the results, are interpreting it as “evidence”.
Evidence is not what was generated by the application of the scientific method. Data was what was generated. the labelling of that data as “evidence” afterwards is subjective. certainly, much agreement can be had
labelling the data gathered “evidence”, especially if repeated experiments generate similar data.
Hence, how the “evidence” in support of the ToE is gathered from literally tens of thousands of lab and field studies that generated similar data in response to similar hypotheses, all based on variations of Darwin’s original hypothesis of natural selection. Those studies didn’t generate evidence, they generated data, which is then interpreted AS evidence.
but why am i explaining this to you? You know all this right? You were just trying to catch me in some form of childish word game, right?
why are you here again?
4th para, previous post:
“…to not only not reject the hypothesis, but support it.”
that’s better.
Difficult to do when it actually has merit and is vetted to show as much. Hearsay isn’t of the same quality.
So… the burden of proof is on the unbelievers, and the fatherless hate their fathers? Ok. Got it. Please pass the Tylenol.
Why would PZ ban me, anyhow? He may dislike me, but he knows perfectly well that I’m no troll.
heh, I knew it.
nobody said you were a troll in this thread, yet, though now that I think about it…
Regardless, you do fall under quite a few of the other reasonings given (see dungeon tab at top), insipidity being a good one that’s relevant.
face it, you weren’t exactly representing yourself honestly with the initials “VD”.
your cover’s blown.
I’m not even a “freethinker”
Well, you’re half right.
Anyways, phew! Up until this point I was starting to wonder if you Christians were incapable of telling the truth.
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Try going to a Christian site and asking questions.
Maybe they’re so angry because they’re supposed to be the moral ones.
Why isn’t there solid scientific evidence for God?
Perhaps because your version of science assumes atheism (or, at best, deism) before an investigation has ever begun. Have you never heard the famous Lewontin quote? That we cannot allow a “divine foot” in the door?
The basic philosophical premise for science (as it is practiced today) is grounded in philosophical materialism. So, to expect “solid scientific evidence” for God from such a field is logically impossible. You’d never accept anything I’d offer as evidence since your great scientists are too busy concocting theories as to how something could be “naturally” explained solely through “natural” processes. While they see design in the pyramids, they fail to see it in the cosmos or even in the design of the human body because scientists are not allowed to bring up God.
But, you knew that, didn’t you?
I’m sure, I don’t know how to spell anything anymore…I already had trouble with spelling before this page – now I’m irritated. :|
Perhaps because your version of science assumes atheism (or, at best, deism) before an investigation has ever begun.
what’s your version of “science”, pray tell, not granting that your view of “our” version is even correct?
this should be good.
Why isn’t there solid scientific evidence for God?
Crystal Lake #196 wrote:
No, I think that’s wrong. Materialism is not a “philosophical premise” for science — it’s a tentative conclusion which be can overthrown given new evidence. Whether supernatural forces could be included in a scientific model of the world is, I think, going to depend first on what the given definition of “supernatural” is.
I suspect a lot of people who dismiss the possibility of including it in science are using definitions which have it as “untestable” or “what we call it when we give up.” Or “outside of science because it hasn’t panned out as expected and we need to protect it.” But it doesn’t have to be defined that way.
Scientists seek the best explanations for observations according to rigorous criteria designed to eliminate bias and error — and nothing in those criteria says anything up front about the supernatural/natural distinction. Science as a method doesn’t care what’s natural or what’s supernatural: it assumes neither atheism nor theism.
Look at it this way: there is nothing in science that says, in advance, that ESP is impossible. Or chi energy, or psychokensis — the ability to bend spoons through the non-physical “power” of intentional force, say. Those things can all be tested — and have been tested (and have failed.)
But if they had succeeded, materialist, naturalist theories of mind would be in trouble. They would not be able to explain how a man can bend a key just by concentrating and willing it. Given enough demonstrations of mind/body dualism and the Force of Will, supernaturalism — a category which includes magic, souls, spirits, and gods — has just gotten a huge boost. And the scientists who discover this are going to make history, open up an entirely new field of study, squash the competition, and change the current understanding of reality. And get fame, money, and lotsa love.
Materialism and naturalism could both be falsified. They’re working theories, not premises. And, to secular humanists, atheism is also a theory — one which could be wrong, and which we could change.
Is “the existence of God” a science theory (or hypothesis) also? What would cause you to throw it out?
And Sastra earns her Molly yet again.
Brownian for a Molly! (Oh wait, you already have one)
40 year atheist (did you purposely choose your name to be so close to 40 year virgin?),
Atheism is not about hate, not about negativity, not about nothing. It is simply believe that there isn’t a god. It isn’t any more or less hateful are negative than believe there isn’t a Loch Ness Monster, believe there is an abominable snow man, believe Sadam Hussein didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, or not believing duck-billed platypus nurse their young.
Christopher,
I don’t really consider Epicurus’ arguments (if they are his) a “paradox”. They can’t really be a paradox unless we consider no god, bad god, feeble god, minor suffering to get to a greater good, to be utterly unfeasible to imagine. I don’t consider any of them unfeasible.
Possibly a big part of why I consider this argument unconvincing is it seems kind of contrived to argue from a result to a cause. For instance, it’d be falacious to say “human beings are very lucky that the average earths temperature is what is; if it were a hundred degrees lower we’d freeze and it iw were a hundred degrees hotter we’d parch”. Why this is falacious should be obvious. The temperature came first and the humans came later and were adapted to the temperature whatever it would have been. This is pretty obvious whatever model you imagine for the existence of temperature and/or the existence of people.
Similarly, if a universe popped into being, either by a creature name God (or as I like to call him, Mr. Theo), or a particle physist made it in a lab, or it arose from a consciousness big bang, or a pantheon of adolescent did it for an after school activity, however it came about the intelligent creature existing in it will view everything from a view-point *within* the universe. Suffering is when things go worse for the intelligent goldfish than they think they should and happiness is when things go as well or better. If Mr. Theo, Dr. Universe, B. Bang, or Ted Suzy and Loki, *wanted* the goldfish to be happy (or to be blue, or to be fuzzy, or to be immortal, or to be dead), he, she, it or them would have made them that way. For the god-fish to say “gee, I wish we happy (or blue, or fuzzy, or immortal, or dead) so whatever created isn’t good” just seems … well, meaningless. That isn’t to say it is right, or good, or we assume it’s for the best that we are beings who are not happy having our villages burned and our bodies raped and tortured (maybe God should have made us so that we do like havin our villages burned and our bodies raped and tortured…), but that it seems arbitrary and arbitrary suffering seems inevitable even if there is a “good” god. (The only way to prevent the intelligent gold fish from suffering is to make it so they are eternally happy but why should any god *want* such a universe.)
Actually, I think the phrase “God is good” is kind of dumb. If God exists, then God is simply the God who made the universe and being good or bad is utterly arbitrary to the our perception from within it.
Now, to give Az credit, there *is* a basic tenet that God has a plan and it’s for the good of mankind. But everyone knows bad things happen. “Shit, my husband stepped on a rattlesnake and now I’m being banished from my tribe to starve in the wilderness; why did God do this” Okay, Az and I find the, “well, when adam disobeyed god’s rule we were cast out of the garden but it’s still okay because we shall strive to find our way back and god wants us to but to do it we must earn it so must act on our own so when your husband blindly walked into the rattlesnack nest and was bitten it was his mistake and he dies for it but its all for the good because mankind on the whole is able to strive back to the garden and that is good” (In other words, “Your husband was collateral damage of friendly fire; get over it”) to be kind of galling. But it seems to me that it’s only in this kind of galling fashion that human traits as “merciful” “loving” and “good” have any meaning to gods whatsoever.
I think the best that comes from the Epicurian argument is an admonishment “Oh, come on! This suffering is *soooo* bad that it can’t possibly be for any good! Your god if he exist must be a *total* bastard!” Which is valid but only a matter of subjectivity. If christians can read Job and still say God is good, I’m not sure this is the right path to go down to find a disproof of God.
It just seems… smarmy.
Anyway, I’m offering Az a truce and peace offering. After all, we both have other reasons for disbelief and we both believe the idea of saying “God did it so it must be good” is … icky.
Well, the bastard also introduced Hell via Jesus. Not much love in that, and there goes the New Testament.
If you think that trillions of cubic light-years of cold nothingness counts as “design”, or the human appendix is evidence of intelligent engineering, your bar is pretty damned low.
But I’m certainly willing to accept as scientific evidence for God any reasonably unambiguous sign. For example, if a star cluster spelled out “I designed the universe. Signed, God”, I’d have to greatly revise my lack of belief. Likewise if we found that, embedded in the DNA of every organism was a string of neucleotides that decoded to “Yeah, this was my holy work — aren’t you impressed?”, then I would be, well, impressed. (If Natalie Portman agreed to have sex with me, I would also take that as a sign from God — are you listening, Big Guy?)
The strange thing about this supposedly omnipotent being, who created literally everything, is that he is such a shy bugger — there simply is no evidence like I suggested above that would be relatively unequivocal. Don’t you find that odd?
Wow. Design in the pyramids jumps the shark and moves to the universe???
Ow. The stupid. It burns.
You know, you actually owe the christians for the existence of this quote.
“Epicurus is generally credited with first expounding the problem of evil. It also referred to as “the riddle of Epicurus” or “the Epicurean paradox.” Epicurus is said to have argued that the existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of gods who are completely aware of, interested in, and able to remedy the plights of mortal beings. The original written source of Epicurus’ argument is lost to us; all we have to go by is the how Lactantius, a hostile Christian critic, rephrases Epicurus’ argument (which we cannot take to be direct quote, given the monotheistic tone) which goes like this:
Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?
David Hume picked up the argument during the Enlightenment, and it is through him that the “paradox” is widely known.
http://wiki.epicurus.info/Problem_of_evil
VD – what do you consider to be “evidence”? You seem to think that absolutely anything that anyone claims is evidence. I’d like to see a definition.
And you still haven’t answered my questions about relativism. Is the morality of the God of the Bible relativistic, given that he opposes murder in some cases but orders it in others, and did you once say that you would murder a child if you thought God told you so?
I think I can answer this one: “No, not quite.”
Vox said he would slaughter children If (and only if) God commanded it AND he had the means to know with absolute certainty that the order came from God.
The slaughter would be morally justified by definition: God’s moral authority, unlike Man’s, is absolute – even when it appears to contradict itself.
This is not to say that Vox is in any hurry to slaughter children.
This is not to say that Vox is in any hurry to slaughter children.
But he is willing to allow himself to be convinced to do so, where sane people would not. There is no command too monstrous for VD to carry out, if his credulousness were convinced that the monster he worships ordered it. VD’s moral high ground consists of nothing more substantial than the belief that there is no action that could be an atrocity, by definition, if convinced that the voice in his head telling him to commit it was God’s.
As far as I’m concerned, that makes VD a monster wannabe.
I think I’m starting to get this: calling something evidence makes it evidence. So everything real or imaginary is evidence by virtue of the fact that that’s what you call it.
And believing something is not an assertion that it is correct. Okay.
Oh, and “real” evidence of God is not the same as “scientific” evidence, which, apparently, is not from the real world.
Am I getting this right?
This is not to say that Vox is in any hurry to slaughter children.
But he is willing to allow himself to be convinced to do so, where sane people would not.
As far as I’m concerned, that makes VD a monster wannabe.
I’m no friend of Vox, but to be fair he isn’t saying he would ever find killing children moral. I’m sure he finds its utterly ulikely and impossible that God would ever want to kill a child and thus I’m sure he thinks it’s impossible that killing a child would ever be moral.
Like you I think believing in a God and relying on that God as the sole source of morality is deeply flawed, (… and idiotic,… and evil, … and everything else that is bad about religion…) but it isn’t fair to play deliberately desceptive games.
What is your source of morality? What if it told you killing a child was the moral thing to do? Assuming you just answered “it wouldn’t because killing a child will never be moral” I could keep asking “But what if it did?” “What if you thought it did” “How can you know it never will” and so on and so on ad nauseum. Abstractly finding a source of morality, turning into into a vague hypothetical and separating it from the person to then taunt “aha, your morality is based on a flimsy abstraction so you are insane and a potential monster” is an easy, cheap, and utterly pointless game.
We can win by playing fair. Cheap victories are wasteful.
I’m not making any of this up.
Here you go, in his words:
He killed his own son…and pretty gruesomely if Mel Gibson is to be believed.
He killed the firstborn males in all of Egypt, including children. (Given that this was to achieve what was essentially a political end, I think this counts as terrorism.)
He killed David and Bathsheba’s baby boy (“because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.” 2 Sam 12:14).
He sent a bear to kill forty two “little children” for the sin of mocking Elisha’s baldness (2 Kings 2:23-24).
Via Moses, he told the Israelites to slay every Midian male child (Numbers 31).
Must I go on?
It sure looks to me like God is quite happy to kill kids. Given Vox’s professed belief in this entity, he shouldn’t think it that unlikely that God would ask such murders of him.
As for the source of my morality? Morality isn’t external–I consider it immoral to surrender to any authority, real or imaginary, my responsibility to make, to the best of my ability, moral and ethical decisions.
Wooz, though you’re right to conclude that Vox isn’t saying he would want to kill children, I think you’re a little off the mark on one key point: He is saying that it would be moral if God commanded it, because God’s morality = absolute morality. Human definitions and opinions automatically become completely irrelevant.
As for the rest, well…
Oh, don’t be quite so sure. Moses? Egypt? First-borns? S’nuff said, eh?
And Ken, though I’m with you in resisting the genocidal orders of the vengeful twit of the OT, for the sake of Vox’s “thought experiment” I think it’s fair to accept that he would only follow the orders if it was absolutely certain that The One True God was giving those orders. Credulity isn’t part of the scenario here. It’s only intended to illustrate the model of morality to which Vox subscribes, not to illustrate that Vox would go out and start hacking away if a voice in his head said to get busy with the machete.
Ah. I see that Tulse and I crossed in the mail. :-)
Let’s hope VD’s thought experiment remains hypothetical, but I don’t see how anybody can claim absolute certainty, on VD’s terms. Credulity is the lot of anybody who counts on absolute certainty, a standard to which science certainly doesn’t aspire. If infanticide is the sort of thing VD expects his god to order, and he encounters a god that he’s convinced with absolute certainty is his, that’s fine, until Satan says “gotcha” and the One True GoDTM tells VD he’s flunked the test. Gotta remember, God is quite the trickster.
This whole One True God ordering infanticide, and it was good that he wished those kids into the cornfield, is just another grandiose ticking time bomb that justifies torturing the terrorist you have. When you posit that you start with absolute certainty (that it’s the One True God, or that you have the terrorist who really does know the code to stop the ticking time bomb), then you haven’t really made an argument at all.
Certainty is a luxury I’ve never been able to afford.
Yep, yep – I’m with you all the way; in reality there’d be no way to know with absolute certainty that it was The One True God. I do, however, accept Vox’s scenario on its own terms and the point it attempts to make.
Beyond that, however, it’s a disturbing notion (and Vox knows this, but he likes to stir the pot) because a Believer would be predisposed to believe that The One True God was commanding him to do Something Important – and children would needlessly die.
Disturbing is right Kseniya; VD’s Grindhouse God isn’t exactly inspirational. I’m not too worried about being fair, though, after VD’s account of straw atheism, employed as some sort of moral high ground punchline:
As for the source of my morality? Morality isn’t external–I consider it immoral to surrender to any authority, real or imaginary, my responsibility to make, to the best of my ability, moral and ethical decisions.
See, I utterly agree you and I also believe morality isn’t and shouldn’t be external. But just how cocky does that give us the right to be. How do we know we’ll make the right decision. How can we trust ourselve not to turn socio-path and so on. And to follow through on my threat: What if you were to decide it was moral and nescessary to kill a child? You wouldn’t? But what if you *did*? What if you *did*. I hope you see my point because I really don’t want to play this game with you.
There’s a tacit assumption that it’s possible to have a moral code to rely upon and I’m not sure that is possible. There are many problems with have an external moral cde of God. There are problems with have a moral code in civil laws. *And* I’ll admit it there are problems with having moral code based on personal judgement.
On the whole, I believe moral codes based on personal judgement based on empathy and fairness, humanity, or whatever methods is best, but it’s not going to stand up to my being given the third degree and having a flashlight in my eye and an interigator saying “Given that only killing an innocent two year old by your hand can prevent an alien attack destroying New York City; would you do it?!?!?” THat’s a freaking false and forced dicotomy. (See dying grandmother thread.)
There’s several very valid ways to argue against adapting God’s word is the definition of morality but I kind of feel shining the light in Vox’s eyes and grilling “If God told you to kill a child, would you?” and then oversimplifying “well, then you must be a monster” isn’t one of them. Well, I *think* it isn’t… I’ve got to admit the words of the truly faithful who have given their lives to God always freak me out a little.
But then again my words often in the tone “I piss on your religion and I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass what your God says I should do” probably freaks the faithful out. Anyway, just because I say, “I’m not going to do what Yahweh tells me to do even if it *does* send me to hell” doesn’t mean I’m going to kill babies and I kind of feel a need to be equally fair and conclude “I will do whatever God says is moral and if tommorrow he says kill babies I will” doesn’t mean he will kill babies.
We disapprove of Vox’s morality because we can’t view someone who will subject his own morality for an external code as moral or even sane. But likewise, his ilk disapprove of our morality because they can’t view someone capible of disobeying God’s law as capible of having sane morals or judgement sound enough not to be a monster.
He is saying that it would be moral if God commanded it, because God’s morality = absolute morality.
I disagree with that. I find in personally weak and reprehensible. But I don’t think it means “he’s one step from a monster wannabe”. However, I do assure you, I will never vote for Vox for public office for this reason alone and if there are ever war crime trials after his term I wouldn’t judge his belief in absolute morality with any sympathy.
!!!SHEESH!! I’ve apologized for *two* common xtian themes, both of which I deeply disagree, with tonight! Hopefully tommorrow will be better. Bring on the brain-dead new-earthers. They are always fun for a laugh and I *never* feel we pick on them unfairly.
But just how cocky does that give us the right to be. How do we know we’ll make the right decision. How can we trust ourselve not to turn socio-path and so on.
I don’t know that I’ll make the right decision, but I do know that surrendering that decision to another cannot absolve me of any responsibility. I don’t see how one can ethically stop struggling with morality, to let a choice be dictated.
For a cheery dramatization of many of these issues, the opener for Battlestar Galactica season 4, Razor revisits the slaughter of civilians out of military necessity in a deeply personal way, in expanding on the earlier story of The Pegasus in the Cylon War, in a two-hour movie treatment.
I don’t know that I’ll make the right decision, but I do know that surrendering that decision to another cannot absolve me of any responsibility. I don’t see how one can ethically stop struggling with morality, to let a choice be dictated.
Hmmm, I guess it’s a matter of how we percieve the world. I guess turning monster one-self and believing killing children is okay by one’s own sense of morality, and trusting the morality of a monster who tells you killing children is okay, seem pretty similar to me. I mean in both cases one trusting and using a sense of morality because it is the one that one has consciously chosen to trust and noting the difference is begging the question what responsibility and guidance does one make in choicing which system to trust.
Or is it? Trusting one’s self, at least, is taking more direct responsibility whereas trusting another is a bit schizophrenic. “I trust my judgement in trusting his judgement…” But it’s still ultimately a trust in one’s judgement, right? Or …
Hmm, not so sure anymore. Anyhow, I do feel that the relation people who claim to have with God is a relation with how the percieve God to be which is their beliefs in first place any way. A monster God wouldn’t tell one to kill a child unless one were going to kill a child anyway. That of course presupposes my athiest viewpoint. Suppose I were to fall into a cult and decided I believe morality of right and wrong to be exactly the one and only morality of the cult leader. If I think killing babies is wrong but he tells me to and I do it because I believe he made it moral by asking for it, am I more or less or the same monster I’d be if I had come to the conclussion on my own… In both cases my sense of trust in moral authority, first case trust in a monster madman rather than self and second case trust in myself when *I* am the monster, is faulty.
Actually I really don’t know.
Well, Okay, I guess we could say that by consciously choicing to trust the judgement of God over one’s self simply proves one doesn’t have the right judgement after all… ;)
Seems to me if one claims and titles oneself a Christian you are asserting a belief/confidence in Jesus being God.
Typically, yes, a few unusual sects and unitarian-leaning Anglicans notwithstanding. The problem is that this isn’t what either you or I were talking about before, we were discussing the mere possession of the belief rather than its assertion.
Let’s hope VD’s thought experiment remains hypothetical, but I don’t see how anybody can claim absolute certainty, on VD’s terms.
Relax, Ken. As Kseniya obviously knows, it wasn’t my thought experiment, but rather an atheist reader’s, who posed the question to me specifically excluding any possibility of hallucination, etc, in order to force the very logical conclusion that is, ironically enough, the traditional Christian theological position. I don’t deny the possibility that God could issue such a command, but based on the evidence of the Bible, He doesn’t tend to make a habit of it. And obviously, if He didn’t exist, then it wouldn’t be a problem either.
Is “the existence of God” a science theory (or hypothesis) also? What would cause you to throw it out?
“The existence of God” may not be a scientific hypothesis, but “the Christian faith’ certainly is. There are numerous ways that it can be falsified. The discovery of Jesus Christ of Nazareth’s body inside a tomb, the disappearance of the Jewish people, the end of war and the elimination of poverty would all serve as Popper-approved falsifications.
You know all this right? You were just trying to catch me in some form of childish word game, right?
Not at all, I wasn’t thinking in terms of a distinction between data and evidence. I clearly skipped a step. But I am happy to accept your clarification here, as I note that if we accept it, then we must admit that the statement “there is no scientific evidence for the existence of God” actually means “there is no subjective interpretation of data for the existence of God”. Which, of course, is undeniably false.
It would be more precise to say “there is no subjective interpretation of data produced by the scientific method for the existence of God”, which is somewhat more defensible, but can be easily disproven by finding a single subjective interpretation somewhere.
The result of your clarification is that the atheist can’t even reasonably say “there is no scientific evidence for God”. Congratulations.
That’s probably because it’s really the religionists who have issues with their parents (and are using god as a substitute one). Plus believers’ ideas of gods are modelled on parents – and change with the age of the child (perhaps becoming fixed at one stage or another according to the degree of emotional retardation of the believer).
VD:
Ah, well that’s a comfort then — your god only occasionally engages in infanticide. It’s nice to know he doesn’t go overboard with all that baby killing, and I’m sure that the babies he kills deserve it…right? Because killing babies without a good justification would be just like those nasty abortionists, right?
Thanks SEF.
So now I’m *really* confused! 40 Year Old Atheist seemed to imply that disbelief in God stemmed from an absent/abusive father figure. Both those studies disagree.
The first clearly finds that people with absent mothers have a stronger attachment to God. They believe in a more personal God and are more likely to undergo sudden religious convertion. However, it makes no mention of the father.
The second paper does include both parents, but concludes that a child’s perception of God is modelled on the *mother*, not the Father. This contradicted the authors’ intial hypothesis based on Freud’s theory.
The latter paper only sampled children that were already indoctrinated (choosing them from Sunday School); while the former *assumed* the Christianity of the participants (when asking about the stength of their religion, atheist was not listed). If these studies are the only thing 40YOA is basing his “all atheists hate their fathers” rant, then I can only conclude that he is an ass.
Abstractly finding a source of morality, turning into into a vague hypothetical and separating it from the person to then taunt “aha, your morality is based on a flimsy abstraction so you are insane and a potential monster” is an easy, cheap, and utterly pointless game.
That’s not exactly what I was trying to do. VD had tossed off a smug line about my morality being relativistic, insinuating that relativistic morality was a very bad thing, and I was trying to point out that his version of morality can be seen exactly the same way. Isn’t the definition of relativistic (or situational) morality that actions can be good or bad depending on the situation? He believes the same thing, except that the situation is whether or not God tells him to do it.
Actually, I would like to congratulate Vox for his posts. It is not often that one can find some thougt provoking discussion on a blog, and I also thank PZ for enabling it.
In my view, the cenral point of this discussion is, what constitutes an evidence for the existence of God and of his interventions. I suppose here that God is defined as the creator of the Universe and a creator that intervenes, from time to time, in it’s history.
Historically, those evidences have been unexplained phenomena. Thousands of years ago, there were many such evidences and men saw God’s interventions as an explanation for most observed phenomena, be it he errupion of a volcano, the deah of a child, the movement of the sun , etc…
But there were a few men who had skeptical inquisitive minds, they wanted to really find out if this was the truth. They declared their love for the search of the truth and called it Philosophy. Gradually, they undertook a painstaking and difficult task of inventing artifacts that helped them to look at the observations beyond the limitations of their senses. By doing this, they discovered that what they saw, hear, smell or feel was just a small window on the reality of nature. More, they discovered that what was so far considered as evidences of God’s inerventions could be explained by mathematical models and laws of nature that could be used to make predictions and discover new as yet unobserved phenomena. Even more importantly, they discovered that thanks to these models they could build technologies that would have been considered magical, or the work of God by their early ancestors. And Philosophy became useful, it was not only searching for the truth, it was about helping to have longer, richer lives. It became science.
A small break to ask Vox the following question : what would have happened if those early “skeptical minds” had said, non, no, what I cannot understand will never be understood because it is evidence of God’s intervention ?
Crystal Lake (#196) writes something which I think is very interesting :
“The basic philosophical premise for science (as it is practiced today) is grounded in philosophical materialism. So, to expect “solid scientific evidence” for God from such a field is logically impossible. You’d never accept anything I’d offer as evidence since your great scientists are too busy concocting theories as to how something could be “naturally” explained solely through “natural” processes. ”
So Crystal, what if Gallileo, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Planck, Darwin, Mendel, Pasteur, etc, had considered what they could not yet understand as evidences for the work of God ?
Another example (and a small hint to all Intelligent design fans) :
today, we do not understand how inert matter transformed itself into the first living organisms. Abiogenesis is a scientific enterprise that has not yet a satisfactory theory. So, here comes Dr XYZ, a highly reputable scientist who has been working in this field for the last 20 years. And he declares :
“I do not subscribe to the “Materialist Philosophy”, I haven’t been able to build a satisfactory theory of Abiogenesis, therefore I declare solemny that this is the work of an intelligent designer, and I have converted to Christianity. I now believe that this is a clear sign of God’s intervention.”
Now, would that make you happy if every other scientist in that field would just bend down and said the same thing and stopped working on trying to find an explanation other than “God dit it” ?
Do you sincerely believe that this is the right way to go ? Or do you believe, that for the good of humanity, science should declare that it has artificial limits ?
I agree with Sastra full heartedly, there is no such thing as scientists’ “Philosphical materialism”. This is an invention of people who want science to stop it’s course.
Having said that, I am a theist. This is a personal choice and I can find no perfect reason of why I have made this choice. I have been following Pharyngula for the last 6 months and I really like it and never felt that my theism was relevant in the discussions, not until this thread. I just accept that this is the result of a personal Biais. And no, I have never had any “personal communication” with God, and I don’t believe that most people who claim that they have really had. I didn’t make my choice based on those fake evidences. I admit that it’s not clear to me, why everytime I have stripped myself from all those fake evidences, I always end up wanting to believe, but if I don’t know myself, please don’t even try to give me reasons that I can’t find for myself.
Despite this personal choice, I can only say that I would rather discuss with a group of Atheists about most things, science, politics, or morality. They do make more sense (at least to my skeptical mind) than what I usually read on most theist friendly sites.
If, indeed, God exists and intervenes, it is only a creative blend of science and the humanities that will find out if it is really the truth. And this will be, my guess, a long and painstaking task.
To me, the default assumption of any scientific work has to be that “God did it” cannot be an explanation. What else can you do ? Tell me what else ? Please let’s see if you have a good idea, because I couldn’t find it.
That’s the contradiction that I have been living with most of my life, but I can live with it and be happy. I can understand that many people would rather not live with such contradictions and make an atheist choice. And I don’t think this will have any negative or positive impact on their morality. It’s just a choice, and a very personal one. So, Yes, atheist friends, if people are hampering your ability to make this choice, revolt, speak out, come out, be proud of it. And keep up the good work of debunking fake evidences.
Thank you.
If atheists think that every time suffering should be abated by a divine intervention by God, this would imply that God would have to suspend natural law every time a person fell from a tree. We could not predict any natural law then since divine intervention would be a variable in any description of physics.
The resultant chaos of not being able to predict would make earth literally unlivable – imagine a person not knowing whether he can start a fire to cook with, given the fact that God may suddenly swoop down an put it out, given that this fire may cause damage or harm somehow.
VD states, “There is testimonial evidence of God. There is real evidence of God and there is documentary evidence of God. There is also demonstrative evidence of God.”
Then later he talks about biblical “evidence”. He seems to confuse evidence with assertions. There is no evidence of anything in the bible. As many have said for a long time, it is just a collection of fairy tales.
Evidence testimony used to be accepted by the church and the governments in witch trials for example. Someone like St. Paul or Muhammed saying god spoke to me is not evidence, except evidence of their mental illness.
There is no forensic evidence, i.e. real or documentary evidence, of a god. What the hell is demonstrative evidence? If VD means a controlled experiment, where is it?
Phil:
Or an omnipotent, omnibenevolent god could have just arranged natural laws such that suffering was impossible.
Which is exactly the case when postulate any intervention in the physical world by a god, regardless of how frequent.
So an omnipotent god couldn’t have arranged the laws of nature so that fire was never harmful to humans? Your god must not be very imaginative, or very powerful, or both.
The point is Phil, god has NEVER swooped own anywhere.There are no miracles. People thank god for surviving disasters all the time, They never wonder why he didn’t prevent it in the first place, and very often that it’s actually god’s retribution.
You sound like someone rationalizing domestic abuse.
based on the evidence of the Bible, He doesn’t tend to make a habit of it.
He can quit any time and he’s planning to cut down. Got it.
He seems to confuse evidence with assertions. There is no evidence of anything in the bible.
Oh, you want good evidence? Compelling, convincing evidence? He offers falsifiability, and even names Popper, so that makes it scientesque. By that measure, I’ve got book cases full of fantasy novels recounting magical worlds that are neither more nor less falsifiable than the ones you get from VD.
Imagine a person not knowing whether he can start a fire to cook with, given the fact that the fire department may suddenly swoop in and put it out, given that this fire may cause damage or harm somehow.
windy,
that made me giggle.
You and I share some common ground.
Ken: “VD’s Grindhouse God” make me chuckle. I’ll be looking for it at the Twin Drive-In next summer!
Yes, Vox is an interesting fellow, but his most obvious talent is for sophistry. Case in point:
Perhaps Vox himself will view this as an opportunity to demonstrate his intellectual acuity and honesty, and explain just what’s wrong with these statements.
…because “God’s Grindhouse VD” has already been done.
If atheists think that every time suffering should be abated by a divine intervention by God, this would imply that God would have to suspend natural law every time a person fell from a tree. We could not predict any natural law then since divine intervention would be a variable in any description of physics.
Sophistry works both ways. This argument implies God shouldn’t swoop in and suspend natural law every time someone fell from a tree. Why shouldn’t he?
And why would God swooping in be considered suspending “natural” law? Didn’t God make natural law. Why make laws where his existance or actions are considered “unnatural”?
I don’t like this argument from either side, I guess, because I figure it’s ulimately … meaningless.
Carlie: That’s not exactly what I was trying to do. VD had tossed off a smug line about my morality being relativistic, … and I was trying to point out that his version of morality can be seen exactly the same way.
Fair enough. And for my two cents I agree. The implication of relativistic morality is that we are going to abuse it to wiggle out by rationalising what is simply an out and out bad choice. Likewise the implication of a moral authority implies one is going bow to the authority to avoid all personal responsibility, and, as Ken states, personal and humane judgement.
It was Ken who called such a moral code “monster wannabe” which though clever, is a bit harsh, except that blind obedience *does* leave me cold.
VD [in re: killing babies]: based on the evidence of the Bible, He doesn’t tend to make a habit of it.
Ken: He can quit any time and he’s planning to cut down. Got it.
*SNORF* coffee out of nose… Molly for Ken! Ding! Ding!
Is “the existence of God” a science theory (or hypothesis) also? What would cause you to throw it out?
VD #225 wrote:
Leaving aside whether or not your examples would work, the original question had to do with whether supernatural explanations could hypothetically be discovered and included in scientific models. So disproving any particular sect isn’t relevant to that issue. If the broader category of whether God exists — or the even broader category of the supernatural itself — are not testable hypotheses, then I don’t see how they could work into genuine theories (which would effect the status of ID, for example).
Naturalism and materialism are falsifiable. Parapsychology could do it. If you want supernaturalism to be taken seriously in science, it can’t just be God of the Gaps. I think it has to be falsifiable too.
So — how?
Thanks for the ding, Woozy, and sorry about that keyboard, but that bar is quite high; I’d have to post more posts, and betterer ones at that. I’ve got finals pending!)
The implication of relativistic morality is that we are going to abuse it to wiggle out by rationalising what is simply an out and out bad choice. Likewise the implication of a moral authority implies one is going bow to the authority to avoid all personal responsibility
One problem with Gods v Monsters is how to distinguish one imaginary Being from the other. Aren’t we to be judged by the choices we make, to find out whether it’s a Good Witch, or a Bad– how not to make the wrong choice? How are we to make sure we don’t throw down with the God who violates taboos and eats with the wrong hand, you know, the one demonized by the local alpha priesthood? What if the worshippers of the wrong God are nice people too, who just dress a little funny and subjugate their women in novel ways? Is there any more evidence for their claims than literary criticism of the normative fairy tales employed?
Take Genesis. The response of the old man in the garden to the discovery that A&E have eaten fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is to exclaim, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil,” making it sound like God’s got company in the God department, and not only validating the Serpent’s sales pitch to Eve, but making it sound like Adam and Eve no longer need to rely upon authority to make moral decisions. They are like Gods, knowing good and evil. If God tells them to do an evil thing, they’ll recognize it as evil via their own judgment.
I don’t see Genesis as squaring with the authoritarian morality of VD. Not that it matters, as the whole mess is such a tangled maze of internal contradictions and nonsense that it’s a fool’s errand to try and make sense of any of it.
Well said there, Ken.
I’ve seen a lot of talk about ‘good’ and ‘evil’ ITT. My question is basic: from where can we derive morality? How can anyone classify an action as ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’?
If there is no absolute morality, then how can any action by anyone be defined as ‘wrong’? If there is, what is it? Why?
How can anyone classify an action as ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’?
Got empathy? Yes? Good. Start from there. Keep going. Check your answer with your neighbor. You may find your neighbor has empathy too. Perhaps you may try avoiding behavior that you can imagine might make your neighbor feel as bad you would feel if it were done to you. You might find a simpler way to phrase this idea, but actually, most children manage to work it out among themselves on the playground.
Here’s a question for you. Do you think people are basically and intrinsically good, or basically and intrinsically evil? Why?
Got empathy? Yes? Good.
What if I don’t? Am I then absolved from moral responsibility?
Start from there.
Why? Is empathy universal?
Perhaps you may try avoiding behavior that you can imagine might make your neighbor feel as bad you would feel if it were done to you.
So if I enjoy being slapped, my neighbor will too, through empathy? Interesting.
You might find a simpler way to phrase this idea, but actually, most children manage to work it out among themselves on the playground.
Really? Children? With empathy? That isn’t how I remember playgrounds. Perhaps your experience has clouded your reason.
Here’s a question for you. Do you think people are basically and intrinsically good, or basically and intrinsically evil? Why?
Being that we haven’t managed to define ‘good’ and ‘evil’, how can I answer that question? Could we perhaps determine what ‘good’ and ‘evil’ mean before we use those words to classify humanity?
Just so you can’t say I’m refusing to answer the question, I think people are inherently selfish. Whether that’s good or evil has yet to be determined.
p-dawg
Unless you’ve got a mental or developmental impairment, you probably have empathy. Let’s try a thought experiment (apparently popular on this thread).
Presuming for the sake of argument that, since you refer to yourself as p-dawg, you’re male, and therefore, odds are you possess something resembling a pair of testicles. Now, try to imagine your response to seeing a random male stranger, minding his own business, who, by no apparent provocation suddenly finds himself doubled over in pain because somebody just delivered a swift, steel-toed boot to his crotch. Picture it.
Did you feel a sympathetic, vaguely Clintonesque twinge of what it might have been like to feel that guy’s pain? Alternatively, was your response a loud guffaw expressing schadenfreude with macho bravado? If the latter, you may have buried your inherent, universal empathy. You may have been taught by your peers and mentors to bury it, which makes your lack of empathy, while not necessarily your fault, still your problem. You are not absolved of moral responsibility.
Mutual consensual slapping? I’ve got no issues with whatever blows your skirt up, pal, so long as you honor safe words. Non-consensual slapping? Evil. This isn’t exactly rocket science, or is it?
Your behavior may cloud your experience of playgrounds. Children can be brutal, but most prefer to work out ways to not be brutalized, and many people do manage to play well with others. YMMV.
As for selfishness? I tend to subscribe to the notion that people eventually learn how to be sufficiently selfish. That is, they manage to learn how to be selfish enough to achieve long term satiety, rather than having to settle for mere immediate self gratification. Indulge in a bit too much immediate self gratification with poor impulse control and other people, out of self interest, will unite to limit your access to opportunities for immediate self gratification at the expense of others, out of empathy for your victims. While this may be something that, at first blush, appears to be evil for you, you are outnumbered by those who see your separation from society as good. Your cellmate, named Bubba, may concur. I trust that, as for most people, this will remain a hypothetical scenario. Many people do muster empathy without the threat of that potential roommate weighing heavily in their routine daily assessments of tricky moral dilemmas. YMMV.
You cannot learn how to build an effective simulation of other people’s responses to your behavior, in order to effectively negotiate your social environment with maximal success, without developing empathy. People worked out, “Do as you’d be done by,” among themselves, thousands of years before it got engraved in lead paint on mass-produced Hallmark tchochkes. Bonobos have turned it into an art form.
My six year old is still working some of this stuff out, but at an abstract, intellectual level. He hasn’t really modeled much bad behavior yet, because he hasn’t encountered much of it, even by the first grade. It doesn’t occur to him that people might take his belongings if he forgets about them, for example, so he’s really surprised when his lost jacket doesn’t show up in the lost and found.
Let me know if this helps you think about these problems, p-dawg. BTW, does your nom de net have anything to do with the distinction between Pluto and Goofy? Pluto of course, is a dog, while everybody knows Goofy is a dawg.
Unless you’ve got a mental or developmental impairment, you probably have empathy.
So is empathy the source of universal morality?
Now, try to imagine your response to seeing a random male stranger, minding his own business, who, by no apparent provocation suddenly finds himself doubled over in pain because somebody just delivered a swift, steel-toed boot to his crotch. Picture it.
In this experiment, I was not the one who kicked the person. Therefore, my empathy towards that person is completely irrelevant to the ‘good’ or ‘evil’ of the action itself. Did the kicker in your experiemnt have empathy? Who knows. Apparently not, since he or she kicked anyway.
You are not absolved of moral responsibility.
So if I’ve buried my empathy I am not absolved. What if I simply have none? That was the actual question I asked and it is one which you have ducked again by qualifying your empathy theory to explain anyone who seems to lack empathy.
Mutual consensual slapping?
Who said anything about that? You said that morality consisted of treating others how I want to be treated. Therefore, if I want to be slapped, everyone else must also want to be slapped, by your rules. That was the point I was making.
Non-consensual slapping? Evil.
Why? You say it isn’t rocket science, but then you fail to provide even the smallest support. Let me help you. I will even start the sentence for you: Non-consensual slapping is evil because…
Your behavior may cloud your experience of playgrounds. Children can be brutal, but most prefer to work out ways to not be brutalized, and many people do manage to play well with others. YMMV.
So what is the universal constant here? That some people work things out peacefully and others don’t? What is the BASIS for universal morality?
You cannot learn how to build an effective simulation of other people’s responses to your behavior, in order to effectively negotiate your social environment with maximal success, without developing empathy. People worked out, “Do as you’d be done by,” among themselves, thousands of years before it got engraved in lead paint on mass-produced Hallmark tchochkes.
OK, so, from what I can gather you believe the golden rule is the basis for universal morality. Again, what if someone wants to be beaten up? According to your rule, they not only can but should beat up everyone else they see. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, right? How is this in any way quantifiable?
I appreciate the time you took to respond, but I am still waiting for the answer to my original question, which is how can good and evil be defined? Someone please help out here.
As to my name, it’s actually just a nickname. My first name starts with P. I grew up in the ‘hood. (Not the super scary ‘hood, just the scary to preppies ‘hood) It’s my nickname that’s acceptable in polite company, so it’s the one I use.
I thought Pluto was demoted to “cur” by the IAU?
The basis of morality is that people generally share a common goal: to belong to a society that functions in a manner which tends to maximize the shared benefit of cooperation and mutual caretaking. Empathy (and its offspring, conscience) is a mechanism which serves this goal.
It doesn’t benefit the group for its members to steal from each other. It doesn’t benefit the group for its members to kill each other. It may benefit the wayward individual in the short term, but it doesn’t benefit the group, and being ostracized from the group can be harmful or fatal. (This last bit is far less true now than it was hundreds or thousands of years ago, but the imprint of that fear persists in most people.)
This article, though not a scholarly paper, is an interesting and quick read, and strikes me as a reasonably useful primer on the subject of natural morality. (The more educated among us may disagree, but my needs are simple. It’s not a simple topic.) You may find it interesting. I did.
If there is no absolute morality, then how can any action by anyone be defined as ‘wrong’? If there is, what is it? Why?
Actually, I believe that question bypasses a more fundimental question. How can one derive and recognize morality from anywhere. VD and Pope Benedict both disaprove of relaivistic morality which seems to be the only morality Ken accepts (sorry Ken if that seems an overgeneralization). The implication is, and your question reflects this, is that if morality is relative then every-one can make up there own and this is a bad and immoral thing.
It may be a problem, perhaps, but I think from starting at that point one is doing a disservice to the concept of morality altogether. A more basic question is how can any two people accept any system of morality and how can one claim evaluate a morality, even an absolute one, as moral.
Carlie, another moral relativist, countered VD’s faith in an absolute morality by noting both are “relativistic” in that both are based in chosing what one trusts and what the source says at the time.
Even more basic is the question is there any such thing as morality at all and to what extent is it “binding”? I ask that because in my opinion absolute morality is impossible. One may claim there is an absolute morality (lets assume this is God and he exists; or we could assume it is the Sumpreme Court; Or we could assume in is Charlie Manson; it doesn’t matter for the argument *what* the absolute morality is, just that we are assume, for now, that there is one). But what good does it do to *have* an absolute morality if there are going to be people who do not believe in it. If you have a pipeline to the absolute morality and know, and are absolutely correct in knowing, that it is immoral to eat canned tuna on tuesday, and I am a moral relativist and believe, utterly incorrectly, that eating canned tuna on tuesday is fine; and if I then commit the utterly immoral act of eating canned tuna on tuesday and you call me, rightfully, immoral, and I counter, utterly falsely, “uh-uh!”; then in what way is that any different then a universe without absolute morality? Or a universe with an absolute morality that states it’s immoral *not* to eat tuna on Tuesday. In all cases I’m acting and being judged on what we *think* is moral no matter whether there is an absolute morality or not.
So, since even if there *is* an absolute morality there would be no way for anyone to know what it is. how can any action be defined as wrong (or right)? Well, maybe we can’t. What exactly are we trying to achieve by defining an action as wrong? If its a matter of “knowing” an action is wrong, we can’t ever know. Sorry, but we can’t. If it’s a matter of defining a social contract, well, we don’t have to know; we only have to imply tacit consent.
As a thought experiment, let’s assume Athi, my six foot rabbit, is in control of the universe and *is* the absolute moral authority. Athi *loves* the color green and decrees anyone wearing the color green is *always* moral while wearing green. Thus, although Athi has decreed that eating canned Tuna on Tuesday is highly immoral, if you are wearing green while you do so is perfectly moral. Likewise, if you are wearing green you can take an ax to a truckload of babies and suck the goo through a straw and Athi will stand and applaud. Now, let’s suppose that although Athi is the absolute moral authority absolutley nobody on the planet has heard her laws, much less believes in them. Now in a town just about everyone (852 out of 854) believe it is immoral to kill, most (850 out of 854) believe it is immoral to steal, most (783 out of 854) believe it is immoral to have sex with chickens, and no one (0 out of 854) thinks it is immoral to eat canned tuna on Tuesday (and everyone is *wrong*! It is *very* immoral to eat canned tuna on Tuesday!) So one day, Manny Charleson– one of the two out of 854 who doesn’t believe killing is immoral decides while plowing his field in his green overalls to kill his neighbor and steal his land. The town is horrified and surround his house pointing fingers at him shouting “Immoral! Immoral!” He shouts back “Hey, I’m perfectly moral! I wanted his land and he was ugly anyway!” but the townspeople drive him out because they can not tolerate such immorality.
Now the thought experiment: Does it make any difference that Athi, the one and true moral authority, watched and declared Manny the most moral person in the town because he was the only one wearing green?
Okay….. Now that I’ve gotten *that* out of the way, I wish to claim I am a moral relativist. I believe killing is wrong, Dancing on Sunday is right (or not wrong), smoking is wrong (actually I don’t; I think it is a personal choice but I don’t want to paint myself as wonderful and smart and everyone else as stupid and intolerant). My neighbor believes killing is wrong, dancing on Sunday is wrong, and smoking is right. Well, how do we decide who’s right or wrong? Well, who says we do? These issues don’t come into play because for the most part we have a social contract that we both pretty much tolerate.
Okay, so next question? I’m a moral relativist, right, so what’s to keep me from making up my own rules that stealing is okay if I do it, Killing is okay if I can get away with it, and tossing trash in my yard is immoral? Well, because I don’t actually believe any of that (although if I were a selfish bastard why should I *care* what I think is moral or not…) Now you might ask how can I have a moral code if I don’t accept any authority? Well, why shouldn’t I have a moral code without accepting any authority. I have intellect, I have empathy, I know harming another hurts the other and I know the other’s view point are no more or less valid than mine. I feel strongly it’s immoral to hurt me (you big meanie!) so a believe it is equally immoral to hurt another.
Okay, so suppose one doesn’t have empathy, is he let of the hook? Well, no not by *my* judgeing him. But by his judging himself? Well, yeah. But wouldn’t he let himself of the hook anyway. After all, if a person deliberate behaves immorally or if a person behaves with a set of morals contrary to everyone else’s morals, is there any practical difference.
There’s absolutely *nothing* wrong with being a moral relativist and saying one’s own morals of not killing are better than the other moral relativist’s whose morals allow killing because mine value life more than his. One should be able to defend one’s morals.
Okay… I hear you saying “ah, but you’re assuming a universal that valuing life is a valid basis for a moral code but worshipping god is not; if there are no absolutes how can you claim that your basis is the right one” Well, sometimes you just have to be practical. And that is why one should be able to defend one’s morals; To justify and reach agreement and tacit consent on actions.
Epicurus’ answer to how to define good was that which yeilds the greatest pleasure to most and the least harm. Puritans may disagree but they’d probably find it acceptable if the other option is perpetual bloodshed with their Epicurian neighbors. But absolutely *no-body* is ever going to buy “My belief that I should kill is every bit as valid as your belief I shouldn’t”
How can one derive and recognize morality from anywhere?
Good question. I am looking for an answer to this.
The implication is, and your question reflects this, is that if morality is relative then every-one can make up there own and this is a bad and immoral thing.
Well, not really. The implication is that if there is no absolute right or wrong, then nothing anyone ever does is right or wrong. That statement can’t be classified as immoral if it’s true.
In all cases I’m acting and being judged on what we *think* is moral no matter whether there is an absolute morality or not.
I disagree. My personal theory is that there are natural laws which go along with natural morality. Thus, the consequences of your actions can show you if you are moral or not. Similar but not exactly to the theory of Earl from “My Name is Earl”: If you do good things, good things tend to happen to you. If you do bad things, bad things tend to happen to you. Of course, there seem to be exceptions. However, we don’t know all the variables/laws/etc.
This is just my theory, I can’t prove it yet.
As a thought experiment, let’s assume Athi,
The problem with this thought experiment is that the consequences for either morality or immorality are not discussed. Does Athi punish non-green-wearers? Does Athi reward Manny after he’s driven out of town? Do the townspeople have any consequences for driving him out?
Well, how do we decide who’s right or wrong? Well, who says we do?
Society does.
I’m a moral relativist, right, so what’s to keep me from making up my own rules that stealing is okay if I do it, Killing is okay if I can get away with it, and tossing trash in my yard is immoral? Well, because I don’t actually believe any of that (although if I were a selfish bastard why should I *care* what I think is moral or not…)
OK, so if you DID believe that killing was ok, would that make it ok? This is a cop-out answer. I’m not trying to be rude, but you must know that it is.
Now you might ask how can I have a moral code if I don’t accept any authority? Well, why shouldn’t I have a moral code without accepting any authority.
That wasn’t my question. The issue is not whether you should have a moral code or not. The issue is whether there is actually such a thing as morality. Whether you can or should follow any particular morality is irrelevant if we can’t even determine whether there actually is any morality or not.
I have intellect, I have empathy, I know harming another hurts the other and I know the other’s view point are no more or less valid than mine.
So if another’s point of view is as valid as yours, how can you say that something that someone else does is either moral or immoral? The best you could do is say that it is moral or immoral according to you, but the other person has the same option. If someone believes that killing is moral, and their viewpoint is equal to yours, then how can you say that they should not murder you? Or did you mean that as long as certain things agree, their opinion is equal to yours, but if they disagree with you, your opinion is superior?
Well, yeah. But wouldn’t he let himself of the hook anyway.
What, in this instance, is the ‘hook’?
There’s absolutely *nothing* wrong with being a moral relativist and saying one’s own morals of not killing are better than the other moral relativist’s whose morals allow killing because mine value life more than his. One should be able to defend one’s morals.
Of course there is something wrong here. You are assuming that there is a way to judge moral systems by how much value they place on life. You are saying that all moral systems are equal, except that ones which place a value on life are more equal. From where did you derive this system?
Well, sometimes you just have to be practical. And that is why one should be able to defend one’s morals; To justify and reach agreement and tacit consent on actions.
How is it more practical to value life than to not value it? Also, you haven’t defended your morals. You’ve told me what some of them are, but you haven’t mentioned HOW you arrived at them.
Epicurus’ answer to how to define good was that which yeilds the greatest pleasure to most and the least harm.
Another subjective definition. Who defines pleasure, who defines harm?
But absolutely *no-body* is ever going to buy “My belief that I should kill is every bit as valid as your belief I shouldn’t”
How about psychopaths? How about dicators like Stalin? How about eugenicists? Isn’t that sort of the whole basis for forced euthanasia? I don’t accept this premise.
I did want to thank you for your response, however. It was very long and appeared well thought-out, however it didn’t answer my question of ‘what defines good and evil’ or ‘from where can one derive morality?’
P-Dawg: I forgot to mention a piece of the physiological puzzle:
Mirror neurons
I realize you’re after a more philosophical explanation, but all the pieces DO fit together. Somehow. :-)
Obviously, there is no absolute morality. Maybe that’s all the answer you need. Even God practices relative morality. Giraffe morality is quite different from shark morality or human morality. Nonetheless, though human morality varies from culture to culture, from age to age, there are common human moral precepts of the “thou shalt not murder” variety. This is self-evident – no?
I thought Pluto was demoted to “cur” by the IAU?
According to Dr. Sun Sign (“You are my sun sign, my natal sun sign, your moon in pisces, is trine my mars. With pluto rising, it’s not surprising. It’s not surprising, it’s in your stars”), Neptune, Pluto, Goofy and Mickey have moved into your last house, leaving no room for you.
from where can we derive morality?
We derive morality from our family, school and broader social environment while we acquire language and other cognitive skills. Just as language varies from one community to another, so does the sense of what is moral, by social contract, by learning what it is one must go along with to get along. In some cultures, that’s learning to brandish an AK-47 in battle before you’re 8. Universal morality has never been observed.
When I wrote, “Perhaps you may try avoiding behavior that you can imagine might make your neighbor feel as bad you would feel if it were done to you, you responded, “So if I enjoy being slapped, my neighbor will too, through empathy? Interesting, which I can only describe as deliberate obtuseness on your part.
Who said anything about [consensual slapping]? You said that morality consisted of treating others how I want to be treated. Therefore, if I want to be slapped, everyone else must also want to be slapped, by your rules. That was the point I was making.
My point was more along the lines of refraining from saying stupid, inane things, if you don’t want to be regarded as stupid. Trying to pull that interpretation out of the golden rule doesn’t make you look very smart.
In this experiment, I was not the one who kicked the person. Therefore, my empathy towards that person is completely irrelevant to the ‘good’ or ‘evil’ of the action itself. Did the kicker in your experiemnt have empathy? Who knows. Apparently not, since he or she kicked anyway.
The crotch kicking scenario was a test to see if you have any empathy, as you treat it like a novel concept with which you have no familiarity. Judging by your response, you’d probably make quite a Libertarian. I asked you to picture it to see if you could muster any sympathy for the pain suffered by the kickee; your empathy is the issue in this scenario, and the ‘good’ or ‘evil’ of the experiment is irrelevant; you’ve got it precisely backwards. Imagine it’s Jackie Chan taking a kick to the crotch in a movie–you know it’s a staged fantasy, the kicker and kickee are going to have a beer together after the staged scene is in the can. When you see it in a movie theater, do you wince in sympathetic pain, or do you point and laugh at the expression on his face, or are you confused because you feel sympathetic pain and find yourself laughing at his pain? I’m asking for an honest reply (I’d prefer it if you refrained from asking me to explain honesty).
If you saw this happen to somebody standing next to you on the corner, are you going to identify with the kicker or the kickee? Are you going to help? Are you going to identify it as “not my problem” and move along? How will you justify your behavior to the cop on the scene a moment too late?
How can anyone classify an action as ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’?
Morality and immorality are defined by social contract and rational discourse, sometimes. Sometimes, they are defined by angry young males with machetes, who, for example, wanted to dismember the schoolteacher in the Sudan who let her students give their class teddy bear the most common male name in the Muslim world. They believe such behavior is every bit as moral as you (presumably) and I don’t. How did that happen? Where is the proposed universality of morality?
If there is no absolute morality, then how can any action by anyone be defined as ‘wrong’? If there is, what is it? Why?
I’m glad you’re working this out, because working out what is right or wrong is everybody’s problem and responsibility in any community. Most of the time, people look to intent to decide on the wrongness of a given action. If, while driving, a shopping cart rolled out in front of you in the road and you had to swerve, accidentally maiming a kid who had carelessly run into the path of your car, and your sober remorse, anguish and efforts at the scene to get the kid medical help were all judged to be genuine, you’ll get a different response from a jury than, say, if you’d popped a cap into the kid to impress your homeys participating in your drive by shooting spree in your ‘hood.
Whose judgement counts in the second case? The jurors, or that of the gang you’re trying to join? How short of a life do you want to live? I don’t want my kid to be a victim of a drive by shooting, so I’m going to consider your (imaginary and purely hypothetical) efforts to join a gang to be wrong.
If you can’t see that through your action or inaction, allowing another human being to come to harm is wrong and to be avoided, clearly, you’re going to need some professional help before somebody gets hurt. Of course, there are circumstances where you can be convicted for refusing a lawful order to hurt other human beings in wartime, so I’m afraid right or wrong is something you’re going to have to work out yourself.
So is empathy the source of universal morality?
No, empathy is part of what makes people human, and humans are in a continual struggle to behave appropriately, occasionally trying to justify actions that they consider wrong, in order to achieve a greater good. Universal morality is an abstraction, as nobody can agree on what it would be.
OK, so, from what I can gather you believe the golden rule is the basis for universal morality. Again, what if someone wants to be beaten up? According to your rule, they not only can but should beat up everyone else they see. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, right? How is this in any way quantifiable?
There is no such thing as universal morality. Morality, or slightly less abstractly, rightness or wrongness of a given action is defined by cultural norms, by situation, and by personal intent.
You may wish to refrain from accusing me of making your stupid argument. Your effort to spin the golden rule into a lead cudgel is, charitably, inept.
Go watch Fight Club.
Join a gym and learn to box.
Walk up to a police officer and punch him in the face.
One of these things is not like the other. One of these things is not the same.
how can good and evil be defined
By humans. It’s one of those human tricks that we obsess over a lot. A lot of great literature has been devoted to the subject, both scientific (trying to deal with evidence, observations and facts) and great literary fiction (which deals with truths). Good luck working out the best way you can to live with yourself and your decisions, and be prepared to show your work if your family, peers and people you care about, or those who represent social agencies take exception to your decisions and their consequences.
Back to empathy:
So if I’ve buried my empathy I am not absolved. What if I simply have none?
Then you are suffering from a severe cognitive defect that would make most pack animals shun you, and you would probably figure out how to fake having some empathy, just for the purpose of staying alive and interacting socially to obtain food, shelter, and whatever else you want. When you start hurting other people because you can’t always maintain the facade of empathy, your struggle with rightness or wrongness becomes the problem of the community, which tends not to be able to generate a lot of empathy for individuals who behave as if they have none themselves.
My personal theory is that there are natural laws which go along with natural morality. … If you do good things, good things tend to happen to you. If you do bad things, bad things tend to happen to you.
Then sticking your finger in a live light socket while standing in a puddle of water would seem to be immoral. Palling it up and offering bribes to you congressman would appear to be moral.
Does Athi punish non-green-wearers?
Well, she definately punishes people who stick their fingers in light sockets while standing in puddles. She truly hates that.
OK, so if you DID believe that killing was ok, would that make it ok? This is a cop-out answer. I’m not trying to be rude, but you must know that it is.
No, it would mean you think it is okay. Likewise if one thought it was immoral but just didn’t care, the issue of the morality of killing is moot.
So if another’s point of view is as valid as yours, how can you say that something that someone else does is either moral or immoral?
Who says I can? I have to trust my judgement and my intellect as best I can and say “I’m pretty sure your code of killing being moral and dancing on Sunday is immoral and I feel it is my duty to resist it and stop you and judge you. If I’m wrong… well, shit … but since I can’t concieve that causing pain to others is right or anything as arbitrary as the day of seven day week is relevant, I simply can’t concieve that I am wrong”
Me: Well, yeah. But wouldn’t he let himself of the hook anyway.
You: What, in this instance, is the ‘hook’?
Calling himself moral.
Scenario 1 (moral relativism):
Judge: By my moral code and the majority of the others I claim you are immoral.
Accused: By my moral code I am moral.
Scenario 2 (absolute morality):
Judge: By the result of the Moromatic 3000 it appears you a morally dispicable.
Accused: I don’t care.
Same diff. Okay. With natural law the accused gets struck by lightening and says “that was coincidence”.
Of course there is something wrong here. You are assuming that there is a way to judge moral systems by how much value they place on life. You are saying that all moral systems are equal, except that ones which place a value on life are more equal. From where did you derive this system?
From myself. I have to be able to defend it if I expect others to accept it.
Ultimately, there will be people who think X is moral and people who think X is immoral and there will never be any way anyone can resolve it with certainty, even if there *is* a natural law to determine morality. There’s *nothing* we can do about this except to rely on our individual and collective best judgements.
How is it more practical to value life than to not value it?
That wasn’t my intent for the word “practical”. If someone is going to insist that his morality includes his being allowed to kill everyone who looks at him cross-eyed and the wearing green always him to piss in the public well, while the rest of the village most assuredly does not, well, he’s simply not going to get very far.
“Aha!” I anticipate, my debater saying. “Are you implying that morality is conceding to the majority? So if you lived in a society where everyone believes it is okay to stone adulterers to death, then stoning would be moral?” To which, I have to say, not at all. I don’t know how to determine morality and in all fact I personally believe it can not be done. I hope reason and intellect and compassion and “common sense” can usually prevail. However in looking for the comfort of saying “I know X is moral because…” Well, one just has to “practically” accept the existential facts that it will only go over with others to the extent others will accept it. I’m not saying that is “good” or “right”. Just that it is.
Me: Epicurus’ answer to how to define good was that which yeilds the greatest pleasure to most and the least harm.
You: Another subjective definition.
Of course, it’s subjective. In the absence of universal acceptence of an absolute on subjective systems exist.
Who defines pleasure, who defines harm?
The ones being pleasured and harmed.
How about psychopaths? How about dicators like Stalin?
Kseniya, above, cited a very naturalistic definition of morality as “The basis of morality is that people generally share a common goal: to belong to a society that functions in a manner which tends to maximize the shared benefit of cooperation and mutual caretaking.”
I believe this is very much the mechanics as to how mutual morality gets acted upon. Another term could be “tacit concent” or “social contract”. A psycho-path will not be accepted because his “morality” opposes the common goal. A dictator like Stalin will have to convince his society that his morality of killing is compatible with the common goal.
This is what I mean by “practical”.
Do I believe that persuing a common goal of a society is “moral”? Well, it serves as a definition. If society determines that stoning a adulterer is moral than it *is* moral, is every bit as valid as stating if God wants to have a baby killed that killing that Baby *is* moral.
But…. do I believe it is the percieved goal of a society is by definition moral? No, I do not. But without absolute morality, which I believe to be impossible to determine, I believe this to be the only “practical” mechanics. It is through this mechanics that we can evoke and evaluate concepts or moral guidance in terms of the societal goal (terms such as compassion, fairness, personal rights, societal good, etc.) with which to argue and plead one’s code. Hence, with luck, If I were the sole member of a society that believed stoning an adulterer to death was immoral, I may be able to argue my belief and convince the rest of the society by availing to common tenets we share.
Imagine it’s Jackie Chan taking a kick to the crotch in a movie–you know it’s a staged fantasy…
Actually, if it’s Jackie Chan, some of those hits to the groin might be for real :)
Amenhotep: Actually, Descartes thought God could do those things. Whimsically: what if god is a paraconsistent logician?
woozy: Unless of course a “Platonic” view of logic is taken …
Norman Doering: Plato and others (including some preSocratics) had taken the step towards monotheism. From there one can get to the Epicurean notion that gods are simply long lived beings that don’t care for us. (E. thought the gods exist due to his extreme empiricism, actually. People see the gods in dreams, after all.)
Christopher: Besides, there are arguments against the suffering thing – Scriven has an interesting one.
If I see someone get hit on TV or in a movie, I usually don’t have empathy for them. That’s because I’m almost never able to suspend disbelief. I have an unfortunately good grasp of the difference between reality and make-believe. Now, if I saw someone get crotch-kicked on the street, I would go see what was up. How would I know, on first blush, whether the kickee was trying to hurt the kicker or whether the kickee was innocent? You’re assuming that just because someone is getting crotch-kicked, that they don’t deserve it. However, I believe that if you don’t know all the variables, it’s stupid to make a determination that you know what happened.
I’m glad you’re working this out, because working out what is right or wrong is everybody’s problem and responsibility in any community.
Actually, I’ve already got it worked out to my own satisfaction :) I was trying to get you to work it out. Thanks, though.
What I am getting from you is that you cannot logically, rationally explain why some things are good and some things are evil. It sounds like you want to hand-wave about social contracts and relative moralities. You don’t know where morals come from, and you can’t explain why things are either good or evil, but you want me to accept on faith that you’re correct. I am sorry, but I cannot do this. I don’t accept the ‘I don’t know how to define pornography/art, but I know it when I see it’ theory, either. I won’t waste any more of your time, as it’s obvious you cannot define good an evil. It’s ok, I honestly didn’t expect that anyone here would be able to. I don’t mean that as a knock, it’s just that it’s impossible to defend relativistic moralities using logic and reason. The bottom line is that if you can’t define good and evil, you cannot logically claim that any action is good or evil. Can you disagree with that statement?
You don’t know where morals come from, and you can’t explain why things are either good or evil, but you want me to accept on faith that you’re correct. I am sorry, but I cannot do this.
No! No! No! No! No. You aren’t getting it. I know where morals come from. The come from humans senses of good and decent behavior. I can explain why things are good and others are evil (Killing: evil because it takes what is some-one elses away. Dancing on Sunday: Good, it’s fun and harms no-one. Bitching against your neighbor about dancing on Sunday: evil, it’s judging others on values that are solely yours and thus not allowing the other values which are theirs by right. And so on) but these definitions are subjective to me. And other folks definitions are subjective to them.
I don’t expect you to take my definitions on faith, and I don’t expect you to even accept my definitions. You seem to believe a subjective definition is not a definition.
I have stated many times unequivically that morality doesn’t have a universal definition but only subjective ones. You can’t claim that because I don’t attempt to define morality universally I “can’t” define morality. If you want an absolute universal definition you must ask for it. If so I can answer that. My answer very simply: It does not exist.
it’s just that it’s impossible to defend relativistic moralities using logic and reason.
Nonsense, *everything* is defendable with logic and reason and with relativistic moralities logic and reason are the only thing they are defendable with. Absolute morality is undefendable with anything but blind faith and that can’t be discussed with logic and reason.
*All* discussions of logic and reason require evaluating hypothesis and propositions. If we can not agree on the basis of morality (I say human compassion, VD says God) then we will not be able to agree on what morality is. But it has still been discuss logically and with reason. It’s merely that no conclussion was reached.
You can claim you refuse to believe subjective morality is useful and you disagree with me, but you can’t claim I failed to discuss this logically. Nor can you claim I failed to provide a universe definition, when I claimed from the beginning (using logic and reason) that there is no such thing.
The bottom line is that if you can’t define good and evil, you cannot logically claim that any action is good or evil. Can you disagree with that statement?
I guess so, but I can define good and evil and have. Killing: evil. Stealing: evil. Homosexuality: good. Sex with chickens: evil. Wearing green: neutral. etc. etc. etc. You seem to think that because a definition is subjective it isn’t a definition.
If you are trying to argue that I can’t define absolute morality, then you are right but not because I am incapable, but because such a thing does not exist and no-one can define it.
You seem to be expecting more from a definition than a definition gives. A definition defines but doesn’t nescessary provide a universal litmus test.
I was trying to get you to work it out.
What am I, your personal conservapedia? Get over yourself.
What woozy sez. GoodTM and EvilTM are abstractions, they’re no more real than gods, monsters, or karma. People made them up, personified them. Darth Vader is the evil villain, because he’s wearing black and everybody hisses, until he’s the good guy who has redeemed himself. Demanding that there be some universal good and evil is as unimaginative as declaring that people belong to only one of two genders. You want to jam the full spectrum of human experience into either the black or the white box, knock yourself out.
[Ash]Good. Bad. I’m the one with the killfile.[/Ash]
What woozy sez. GoodTM and EvilTM are abstractions, they’re no more real than gods, monsters, or karma. People made them up, personified them.
I detecting the vague whiff of “Athiests can’t be moral” lingering around so I’m viewing your staightment as scarily easy to spin and ignite and sweating a tiny bit.
Morality *does* exist as a concept but is determined by a the social mores of a community.
It’s very easy for people to conclude that by our stating things such as “morality is relative” or “morality has no external existance” as the same as us saying “we can make our own morality” or “we have no frame of reference for moral guidence”. This is, as you and I both know, false but I’m not sure p_dawg gets it.
Perhaps, unfortunately, when I’m called to define things I tend to get existential. Thus rather than saying things such us “humans as group animals share common goals and morality are things that work for toward those goals” as Ksyenia cited (which leads to the inevitable “but what if one society think it is moral for infanticide and we don’t. Who is right?” Which is actually a misleading question but I’ll get to that later..[*]) I’ll think of abstract but existential thought experiments of examing a clash of personal beliefs to demonstrate that practically all we can expect to be exact or external is a societal compromise.
But that isn’t anywhere near as negative or cynical or “immoral” as it sounds. It is nearly always universal to not kill so to say “killing is immoral” is nothing more or less than “killing is not an action compatible with social norm”. And saying “I am a moral person” is to say “I live by actions in a way I hope is beneficial to me, my society, and the world”. (Which by the way, athiests, existentialist, anthropologists are very capible of doing. Even socio-paths without empathy *can* do this if they can intellicually persuade themselves they should.)
I think the question “How do we know who is right?” is pretty prevalent in these discussions. But there isn’t any true false yes no answer to that. The real question is “how can a social code exist to determine which of the two should be considered right” The answer is: by appealling to the common goals between the two and discussing and coming to a mutually acceptable answer. Although there is no litmus yes/no answer, that doesn’t mean the we live in a “moral-less” arbitrary selfish capricious world.
[*] well, not in this post I won’t. Maybe later if anyone asks.
Oh, and more clarification. Although I am an athiest and I am a moral relativist, I want to make sure I am not taken to imply one is the party-line of the other. I know many thiest moral reletivists. I haven’t run across many athiest moral absolutists but that’s probably because I haven’t really asked. (Most people find it easy to know whether or not they believe in God– a yes/no– question but not everyone knows what they think of morality– a very open-ended question.) Although I’m sure there are many athiest moral absolutists, I doubt there are many who think morals come from God.
Also, I want to point out although I may care about morals and my and another person’s morals, I don’t care at all about where people think morals “come from” or how they are “defined” nor do I think what people think about morals has much to do with what their morals are or whether I agree with their morals.
Although if Vox and Ken were coming at me with a machete and Vox is saying “God told me to kill you; it is the moral thing to do” and Ken is saying “It is humane and compassionate for me to kill you; it is the moral thing to do” I think I’d have better luck changing Ken’s mind than Vox’.
You’d have even better luck if you slapped a Woozy mask on Vox.
Infanticide is shocking to contemplate, but a quick glance backwards shows us that infanticide was necessary, and therefore moral, in less advanced societies that could neither explain nor cope with babies born with serious (or even simply obvious) birth defects. Physical deformities frighten the ignorant and superstitious – and, perhaps more significantly, a baby that could not grow up to be a self-sufficient and productive adult was a burden on the group. However, as societies progressed and knowledge (and social resources) increased, the morality evolved to match the capacity to exercise compassion and to accomodate unproductive members.
An absolute morality would necessarily be static. If we look at how morality changes with both the needs and the capabilities of a society, it quickly becomes obvious that morality is neither absolute, nor static. There are examples of this everywhere. Social standards regarding human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, domestic and child abuse, rape and incest, mental illness, homosexuality, race relations, capital punishment, and social welfare have changed dramatically over the centuries. I conclude that anyone who even questions whether or not morality is relative is walking around wrapped in duct tape.
Even common – ok, let’s say universal, or global – moral precepts of the “thou shalt not kill” variety are relative to the culture and the context. In some parts of the world, it’s still ok to stone a woman for adultery (even if she was a rape victim). In other parts, it’s not even remotely ok. Who decides which is right? People do.
(And then there’s the morality of warfare. Who was more moral – the crew of the Enola Gay, or the Japanese fighter pilot trying to shoot them down?)
Only the most deluded fundamentalist will deny that the (dare I say it?) Judeo-Christian world has widely rejected many of the moral and behavioral strictures of the Bible.
Here’s one more thing to consider: If empathy and altruism were universal and divine, would any of the the horrors of tribalism have occurred, or even been possible? I don’t think so.
The natural model explains the reality of human morality far better than the divine model.
Kseniya, will you marry me?
(you can say no)
An absolute morality would necessarily be static.
Very good point.
In some parts of the world, it’s still ok to stone a woman for adultery (even if she was a rape victim). In other parts, it’s not even remotely ok. Who decides which is right? People do.
In my postings, I’ve been a bit worried that the Vox’ and p-dawg’s might conclude that I’m advocating that morality is to obey the social norm. In a society of rape victim stoners, a sole dissenter is against the norm. In our society civil disobedience (and dare I say, athiesm) are against the norm.
Of course, in actuality, I find the dissenters (in those specific cases) *very* moral. However, their morality isn’t from an absolute “rightness” while the social norm is “wrong”. The dissenter is moral in that she is looking at the common societal goal and evaluating it and coming to a unique conclussion, with logic (persuassion, compassion, etc.) he may be able to convince and change the prevalent view of morality.
It is essential to note though, that even though she is a dissenter, she is still acting within your definition of a natural morality.
Yes, Woozy, yes. Without those dissenters, morality would be static. Changes in morality happen slowly, incrementally. If God was tweaking the “altruism” signal that people like Michael Egnor seem to insist is being broadcast into our minds from some undetectable location, one might expect to see these changes effected on a global level, all at once. However, we never do see that. Once again, the natural model provides a better explanation for what we observer.
Sven, you flatter me. :-)
Gak. Please make that, “…what we observe”. Thank you. :-)
Although if Vox and Ken were coming at me with a machete and Vox is saying “God told me to kill you; it is the moral thing to do” and Ken is saying “It is humane and compassionate for me to kill you; it is the moral thing to do” I think I’d have better luck changing Ken’s mind than Vox’.
We’ve got hypotheticals all over this thread. First of all, VD and woozy are safe from me. Everybody knows the only reason to hunt down a woozy is that three hairs from a woozy’s tail are a critical ingredient to revive anybody who’s been magically turned to stone by the Liquid of Petrefaction, but I have no doubt that if I asked nicely, say, because my Unc Nunkie had been turned into a marble statue, the woozy is so generous he’d gladly let me try to take them. Besides, everybody knows a woozy’s skin is so thick that nothing can get through it to hurt him. Also, VD wouldn’t need a woozy mask, because while a woozy’s head is shaped like a block, VD is a blockhead. Lastly, I’m just not a machete kind of guy. Even though VD worships a genocidal maniac and baby killer, VD may some day redeem himself in some manner, see my earlier comments about Darth Vader, or Gandalf’s regarding Gollum (why limit yourself to one mythos when you can enjoy them all? Lit Crit is the only way to distinguish among them, and the Bible is far from the best of the bronze age). While there are, no doubt, some people that just need killing, my atheism has led me to consider that life is rare, precious, and over for good all too soon, so I don’t wish to be a party to the death of any sentient being if it can be avoided. Besides, how will anybody who may well deserve death ever feel remorse for their choices if they’re already really and sincerely dead, with no scales to weigh their souls and no jackal headed god to devour their heart?
I’ve got plenty of reasons to oppose needless death and destruction, to align myself as Lawful (well, mostly) Good. Universal Morality, even if could possibly exist, would be superfluous to what drives my typical desire as a responsible parent to positively shape the world my children will inherit. There are people who believe that positively shaping the world for their children means ensuring it has no atheists in it, so conflict is not going to vanish any time soon. Fortunately, one of the primary tools for shaping culture, values, morals, and ethics, happens to be storytelling. Most cartoons contain more sophisticated training in that regard than the bloody minded arrogant xenophobia of the Abrahamic religions. Me? I’m all about the subversive power of children’s literature and entertainment. The first time I knew that some of my animation work had a positive influence was at a party in the eighties. A little black boy announced to a blond boy and blond girl that he was Skeletor, and he could beat them both up. The boy replied that he was He Man, and he could beat them both up. The girl told them that she was Shera, and she could kick them both in the nuts. They all decided to be friends instead.
Oh, and Sven? I’m afraid there are far too many of us who are going to have to settle for belonging to a very crowded Kseniya fan club. It’ll have to do.
Whoa. Now that was well-said.
(No, seriously – that’s as succinct and accurate an atheistic statement on the value of human life as I’ve seen in a while.)
the woozy is so generous he’d gladly let me try to take them.
They don’t come out. We tried.
Interesting existential morality (and rationalization) in the Oz books. Had I been an english major rather than a math major, that my have bee my thesis rather than p-adic numbers. (Both rather existential if you think about it.) In Ozma of Oz, the Nome King played fair and the “Good Guys” cheated, whined, and justified their positions with bad logic (whereas the Nome Kings logic was perfect albeit it arbitrary in context; “A king can do no wrong” indeed!)
Woozy, (#263)
(Most people find it easy to know whether or not they believe in God– a yes/no– question but not everyone knows what they think of morality– a very open-ended question.)
That’s the thing I have so much difficulty to understand : why do they find it so eazy, when I find it so difficult ?
Maybe because I interpret “Do I believe in God” as a question which only makes sense as “Do I truly believe in God ?”
That’s the thing I have so much difficulty to understand : why do they find it so eazy, when I find it so difficult ?
Oh, I didn’t mean it was easy to come to a conclussion; just that most people know whether a)yes one does or b)no one doesn’t or c) one doesn’t know but it is one or the other, whereas “what are morals” is an open ended question and not something one is nescessarily ever asked to think about.
Maybe because I interpret “Do I believe in God” as a question which only makes sense as “Do I truly believe in God ?”
What else could it mean? I do occasionally wonder how exactly is a word like “God” defined and is there a definition that would make sense to me. Not likely. A man in the sky is silly and 6,000 year old earth is beneath any consideration. “Supernatural” is by definition an oxymoron, but unknown natural forces are possible so hypothetically could a greater consciousnes exist? I suppose it isn’t impossible but it doesn’t seem likely. And I’d of course be curious about the physical consistancy of such a thing. On whole with no evidence so I have to rule it out. But then there’s the idea of human perception being subjective and not reflective of reality, or the Platonic ideal of language and concepts having “real” existence as concepts. These two are I fine, but I honestly can’t claim that that is a straightforward or intellectually honest use of the term “believe”. However, I do have a friend who claims to be a theist in that she thinks believing in God as a psychological phenomena *is* an intellectually honest use of the term “believe”.
(This is the same friend who threw me through a loop be asking how I could believe in an alternate reality of abstract mathematics but not in an alternate reality of abstract religion. It *was* a fair question although not one I utlimately found any meaning in.)