Four Comments Written in 30 Minutes
February 9, 2011
This guy forgot to mention the Salem Witch Trials and Hitler being a Catholic:
#1
Submitted on 2011/02/09 at 8:18 pm
I agree truth doesn’t evolve. But the subjects you talk about there are always exceptions to. We consume life, animals and plants to live and so do they. It’s perfectly fine to murder someone in society if they threaten your life or walk in your house uninvited. Or if a person murders another person the state then murders them.In the middle east the majority considers it acceptable to murder a wife who dishonored you in some way, or to stone a person to death if they commit adultery.
So yeah it depends on where you live and how you were raised. And it also depends on your level of education and understanding of the world around you, maybe realizing just how vast the universe is and how minuscule and insignificant their complaints against thins like sexuality and aborting fetuses are.
As more people got smarter they became more considerate it seems granted there are always more stupid people then smart people and you have to bang things into their head like “racism isn’t a good mentality to have and truth is there is no ‘race’ genetically speaking.” before they even start to process things differently and self examine themselves and seems to have a cut off point when this can happen around age 30.craftyandy
#2
Submitted on 2011/02/09 at 8:01 pm
everything has free will. Maybe you should stop seeking answers to things no one knows the answers to and find out what is true and accepting what the human race doesn’t know instead of filling in the holes with mystical beings.craftyandy
#3
Submitted on 2011/02/09 at 7:57 pm
yeah to bad most religious people don’t acknowledge it if it goes against what the bible says, they rather be willfully ignorant and arrogant in claiming they know what happens when you die and think and having faith in something is actual great when it means believing and agreeing with something as true when there is lack of evidence to even indicate it so.craftyandy
#4
Submitted on 2011/02/09 at 7:54 pm |
Why is “thou shall not rape” not one of the ten commandments? According to the bible it was required that a non virgin girl who is raped must be married to her rapist. When did the bible say slavery was wrong? Or selling your daughter as a sex slave is wrong? Just going to pretend the old testament never happened right?
If the only truth comes from God then we will never get it. The human race found all it’s knowledge on their own by asking questions, challenging the status quo and not by praying to the invisible man in the sky for the answers to just fall from the sky. The bible has been wrong on almost every scientific account and it fails as a moral guide.
People didn’t need the ten commandments to realize that murdering one another is not beneficial to society.craftyandy
TenNapel's Weblog 
February 10, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Wow, don’t know where to start with that guy… Don’t know where to end it, either! Also, is it just me or is number 2 kind of self-defeating?
February 10, 2011 at 5:34 pm
…and that’s why we call it “number two”.
February 10, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Look! It’s a village atheist in its natural habitat, the internet!
February 10, 2011 at 4:17 pm
very crafty
February 10, 2011 at 4:55 pm
SHE’S CRAFTY!
February 10, 2011 at 4:56 pm
and that andy ain’t this Andy.
February 10, 2011 at 5:33 pm
but all Andy’s are welcome. Even particularly poorly argued atheistic Andys.
February 14, 2011 at 7:24 am
Agree with him or not, but he actually gave some decent arguments, you on the other hand just shouted louder, instead of coming up with some real aguments.
February 14, 2011 at 9:03 am
Those aren’t decent arguments. They’re bumper stickers copied and pasted from disrespectful atheistic websites. I actually like decent arguments.
February 14, 2011 at 10:01 am
“Those aren’t decent arguments. They’re bumper stickers copied and pasted from disrespectful atheistic websites. I actually like decent arguments.”
Parts of that comment was definitely disrespectful, but don’t you think his argument about truth, right and wrong being depended on culture still stands strong?
February 14, 2011 at 10:05 am
Anyone who claims that truth, right and wrong are DEPENDENT on culture need to tell me why we executed Nazis after the Nuremberg trials. They hid behind the “culture says” idea, and nobody bought it then, nor would we buy it now.
Correlation with culture isn’t the same as causation by culture.
February 14, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Would they had been executed if they had won the war?
February 14, 2011 at 2:48 pm
It’s not the success of execution that determines right and wrong. The winner doesn’t determine the rules. If you’re arguing survival of the fittest then you’ve just given the highest moral value to rape, for getting ones genes into the next generation would be the plight of man.
The real question is that if we didn’t execute them, would the Holocaust still have been wrong? In whatever society we set up a Holocaust for the same reasons as Hitler, we would have been wrong. That means the whole world could have been for the Holocaust, and every culture could have supported it, and if you were the only one who ever thought it was wrong, you’d be the only one who was correct on the matter.
February 14, 2011 at 3:06 pm
I don’t know were you got survival of the fittest from that?
But I see your point, although I’m not sure I follow completely. By that logic, would you say that something that is wrong now will always be wrong? Like say gay marriage, were I’m from thats a perfectly normal thing, and considered as right as a straight marriage, but I know its not quite the same in other pars of the world. Who would be right? And how would you ever prove which side was right or wrong? And when will you be able to say which side was right?
February 14, 2011 at 4:10 pm
“I don’t know were you got survival of the fittest from that?”
Survival of the fittest is where we get the idea that morals evolve.
“By that logic, would you say that something that is wrong now will always be wrong? Like say gay marriage, were I’m from thats a perfectly normal thing, and considered as right as a straight marriage, but I know its not quite the same in other pars of the world. Who would be right? And how would you ever prove which side was right or wrong? And when will you be able to say which side was right?”
Forget gay marriage, it’s culturally split and controversial, so hard to learn from. Let’s pick something REALLY obvious and see if we can better answer your questions:
How do you know if rape is wrong if it’s practiced in other parts of the world? Who would be right if one country says rape is okay but another says it’s not? How would you ever prove which side of rape was right or wrong? And when will you be able to say which side of “the rape controversy” was right?
February 14, 2011 at 8:23 pm
“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
February 15, 2011 at 2:55 am
“Forget gay marriage, it’s culturally split and controversial, so hard to learn from.”
Didn’t that just prove the point, that some truths are determined by culture? I mean your logic applies fine to extremes like rape, were I’m sure everyone can agree that it is wrong. I think that you see it as black and white, when there is a huge amount of gray zones.
Would you say that it is always wrong to tell a lie? Its wrong to kill, and yet we go to war. What, when and how determines if it is the truth and if its right or wrong?
February 15, 2011 at 12:36 pm
“Didn’t that just prove the point, that some truths are determined by culture?”
Not at all. In fact, it just goes to show that truths are confused and obfuscated by culture. Ask a slave owning Christian during the Civil War and he’ll say, “Hmmm, it’s difficult. But it’s legal, all my friends are doing it and my culture says it’s okay.”
It tells you exactly nothing about the actual morality of slave ownership pro or con. In fact, culture is the last place I’d look for wisdom on ANY morality.
“I mean your logic applies fine to extremes like rape, were I’m sure everyone can agree that it is wrong. I think that you see it as black and white, when there is a huge amount of gray zones.”
TO RAPE?!
“Would you say that it is always wrong to tell a lie?”
Yes.
” Its wrong to kill,”
…to murder. Yes.
” and yet we go to war.”
War is good when you’re on the right side. It’s good to go to war if you’re an American in WW2 it’s immoral if you’re a Nazi going to war.
“What, when and how determines if it is the truth and if its right or wrong?”
One thing we know… it CAN’T have been generated by us. You can’t invent morality, and your culture doesn’t determine what is moral at all. That’s the point of my post. The truth, right and wrong must be determined by an external, objective source. Otherwise, you have to change the meaning of the word “truth” “right” and “wrong”.
February 15, 2011 at 2:43 pm
“TO RAPE?!”
No not to rape, and you know that wasn’t what I said either. I can’t think of any situation that would justify rape.
You just dodged that the actual point of that part of my post.
““Would you say that it is always wrong to tell a lie?”
Yes.”
Okay I can live with that.
“” Its wrong to kill,”
…to murder. Yes.
” and yet we go to war.”
War is good when you’re on the right side. It’s good to go to war if you’re an American in WW2 it’s immoral if you’re a Nazi going to war.”
So war is good, although countless of innocents are killed in every war? Even soldier can be innocent, people are forced to fight for a cause they don’t believe in, take world war 2 as an example, insane amounts of the German soldiers killed were young boys forced to fight for their country.
The only way you can justify war by your logic, is in a hypothetical war were no innocents were killed, or at least thats what I get from your post?
“One thing we know… it CAN’T have been generated by us. You can’t invent morality, and your culture doesn’t determine what is moral at all. That’s the point of my post. The truth, right and wrong must be determined by an external, objective source. Otherwise, you have to change the meaning of the word “truth” “right” and “wrong”.”
Why can’t it have been generated by us. We have all confined to a set of rules to live by, because these rules gives us all the biggest change for survival. Its only logic that society/mankind has evolved to fit these rules because they simply makes sense.
Especially giving that the same set of rules doesn’t apply to anyone around the world? In isolated tribes cannibalism is a normal thing, that they obviously don’t consider to be wrong. Wouldn’t they have to have known that that was wrong if it was some external “thing” that determined right and wrong?
Its not that I don’t see your point, its just that I don’t see how it applies to the real world, I can only see it working on a strictly theoretical basic.
February 17, 2011 at 7:51 am
I think what Doug means is that Moral Turth is absolute and inflexible. Rape will ALWAYS be evil and wrong. The only thing that changes about it is our perception. Maybe someday, improbably, people will somehow think rape is not evil. That just means that everyone would be WRONG, because no matter what we choose to tell ourselves, the truth will always continue being true. When we say that the Nazis were only wrong because they lost, we would be lying only to ourselves trying to justify our own view on how we think morality should be rather than what it is.
At least, that’s what I THINK is what Doug is saying… I could be completely misreading/misinterpreting the entire argument.
February 15, 2011 at 4:54 am
There are no gray areas, only lighter and darker shades of the same two colors (i.e. Good vs. Evil) Just because something isn’t obviously good/evil or have immediate repercussions doesn’t make it the right/wrong thing. It gets complicated when you take away someones right to choose between wrong or right, good or evil, would that be evil itself? Would it be wrong to arrest someone because they CAN go out and murder babies, or is it wrong to wait and risk being obligated to punish them if they do? It’s one or the other, there is no middle ground. Even if we don’t know the answer, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a right one.
February 15, 2011 at 3:51 pm
“I can’t think of any situation that would justify rape.
You just dodged that the actual point of that part of my post.”
That’s not my point. My point is, how do you know, beyond what your culture conveniently tells you, that rape can’t be justified? On what grounds do you say it’s wrong? Because I think you’re just making up your own morality and trying to project it onto other people…
”The only way you can justify war by your logic, is in a hypothetical war were no innocents were killed, or at least thats what I get from your post?”
Context. I don’t know why people who oppose objective moral truth have no context gene in their body. It’s wrong to murder. It’s wrong to be in an unjust war. It’s wrong not to fight evil, because if you don’t go to war with evil, you will indeed not kill innocent people, but you’ll allow evil to kill many more innocent people. War is good because it keeps Hitler from making every non-Nazi into sausage.
“Why can’t it have been generated by us.”
Because everything you think happens to be good was created by the same things you happen to think are bad. Is the definition of good what we create or not?
“We have all confined to a set of rules to live by,”
No, we haven’t. Everyone has their own personal set of rules they made up. Some people eat children, some don’t. Nobody is confined to do anything.
“because these rules gives us all the biggest change for survival.”
A percentage of us rape, kill etc. No maybe mankind needs 2% of us to rape and kill to survive, but it doesn’t appear to be moral by any definition I know of.
“Its only logic that society/mankind has evolved to fit these rules because they simply makes sense.”
Killing 20 million unborn blacks via abortion makes sense? It makes sense to half of us and horrifies half of us. I don’t see the societal agreement you claim. We can go on the internet and find website where mankind is “logically” claiming that blacks and whites shouldn’t intermarry. If society has evolved into anything, it has evolved into a bipolar sociopath.
“Especially giving that the same set of rules doesn’t apply to anyone around the world? In isolated tribes cannibalism is a normal thing, that they obviously don’t consider to be wrong. Wouldn’t they have to have known that that was wrong if it was some external “thing” that determined right and wrong?”
Yet your argument is that they thought it was right because they all did it, and because they evolved to eat each other.
“Its not that I don’t see your point, its just that I don’t see how it applies to the real world, I can only see it working on a strictly theoretical basic.”
But you just said that we agreed that rape was always wrong. That’s not theoretical wrong. Rape happens in every country, in every town in every civilization since the beginning of time. How do you know it’s wrong?
I think you’re actually displaying a moral intuition that you aren’t willing to credit, because you don’t want to admit that morals don’t evolve, aren’t subject and have nothing to do with culture.
February 15, 2011 at 4:26 pm
I’m gonna try to limit my quotes as the messages are getting extremely long ;)
I don’t, and what I said was that I couldn’t think of a situation that would justify it. Maybe there is some obscure situation that would justify it :\
“Because I think you’re just making up your own morality and trying to project it onto other people…”
I’m sorry I don’t follow, English isn’t my first language and maybe I missed something important?
I don’t know what morality I tried to press on anybody?
Other point.
I’m with you as far as fighting evil (although sometimes evil is hard to determine?) but fighting evil is good, but is killing others the right way to fight others? Again with the grays instead of black and white, I don’t see how you can put war up like that, there is always more sides to a war, and the winning sides always get to say which was side was the good one.
“Because everything you think happens to be good was created by the same things you happen to think are bad. Is the definition of good what we create or not?”
I don’t understand what you are saying, are you saying that good and evil can’t come from the same place? (again sorry, might be due to English not being my first language).
Next point about eating children.
There are always odd ones, there are ALWAYS odd ones. If you look at modern society as a whole these people stray away from the norm, and a greatly out numbered.
Next point.
Same as above.
“Killing 20 million unborn blacks via abortion makes sense? It makes sense to half of us and horrifies half of us. I don’t see the societal agreement you claim. We can go on the internet and find website where mankind is “logically” claiming that blacks and whites shouldn’t intermarry. If society has evolved into anything, it has evolved into a bipolar sociopath”
Exactly my point, morals depend on the society. I know where I stand on something like that, but thats only because I was brought up on a certain moral standard.
And yeah i agree on the last part, society is definitely messed up ;)
Next point, cannibalism etc.
Yeah I guess that would be because I keep getting back to the moral standards being determined by society.
Next point.
“But you just said that we agreed that rape was always wrong. That’s not theoretical wrong.”
No i didn’t I said that I couldn’t think of a way to justify it. And the only reason that I know it is wrong is because I was brought up on a set of morals standards that states that it is wrong.
“I think you’re actually displaying a moral intuition that you aren’t willing to credit, because you don’t want to admit that morals don’t evolve, aren’t subject and have nothing to do with culture.”
No doubt I’m displaying that I belong to a certain moral intuition, but I hope that I’m arguing that I think they can change? As we get smarter hopefully we are willing to accept that things that we once thought was right, might turn out to be wrong or the other way around.
Which is why I argue that your theory that truth doesn’t evolve doesn’t apply to the real world, as I simply can’t see how you would ever determine what is the never changing truth?
Hope it was still somewhat readable ;)
February 16, 2011 at 7:37 pm
“Again with the grays instead of black and white, I don’t see how you can put war up like that, there is always more sides to a war, and the winning sides always get to say which was side was the good one.”
Regardless of who gets to say who was right retrospectively, surely there is a truth of the matter in every case, even if no one ends up knowing what it is. If the Nazis had won WW2, for example, they may have made everyone believe that they were in the right, but surely there would be an objective truth in the matter that is true no matter what anyone believes.
“No doubt I’m displaying that I belong to a certain moral intuition, but I hope that I’m arguing that I think they can change? As we get smarter hopefully we are willing to accept that things that we once thought was right, might turn out to be wrong or the other way around.”
Unless there is an objective truth of the matter that we can be right about, there would be no possibility for moral progress. Our moral opinions might change, but if cultural relativism is true they would not be any better than the values they changed from. It may be that what we -think- is right is shaped by our culture, but unless you acknowledge some objective body of truth to which that thinking refers, you have to commit to saying that there are no real moral truths, and thus what you believe is right and wrong isn’t really.
February 17, 2011 at 12:05 am
“Exactly my point, morals depend on the society.”
So if society said blacks and whites shouldn’t intermarry that would be moral? That’s what dependency means.
“I know where I stand on something like that, but thats only because I was brought up on a certain moral standard.”
But Nazis were brought up on a certain moral standard that Jews were rats. So it’s moral to that society at that time to treat Jews like rats? Again, if moral standards come from upbringing, then this should be sufficient for you. If you condemn WW2 Nazis, then you stand on something higher than just “who wins the war” because if the Germans won, what they did would still be wrong. You also judge them as wrong, including their upbringing.
Next point.
“No i didn’t I said that I couldn’t think of a way to justify it. And the only reason that I know it is wrong is because I was brought up on a set of morals standards that states that it is wrong.”
I didn’t ask what you think is wrong. I don’t care what you think. I didn’t ask how you were brought up. I don’t care how you were brought up. You could think X or Y and you could be raised with X or Y and it tells me exactly nothing about if cannibalism, rape or killing Jews is moral. It’s because morality isn’t dependent on how you were raised, it’s independent. How you were raised MIGHT guide you to align your actions closer to the good, but how you were raised isn’t what determines what is the good.
“No doubt I’m displaying that I belong to a certain moral intuition, but I hope that I’m arguing that I think they can change?”
You can change, but what is moral does not change. Your choice to do something or not doesn’t tell us if it’s moral.
“As we get smarter hopefully we are willing to accept that things that we once thought was right, might turn out to be wrong or the other way around.”
Right, but that’s because YOU change, not morality. Morality is fixed and you move toward it or against it. You might gain information, revelation, inherit traditions that align with what happens to be right, but you do the changing, not the definition of what is moral.
“Which is why I argue that your theory that truth doesn’t evolve doesn’t apply to the real world, as I simply can’t see how you would ever determine what is the never changing truth?”
Rape is wrong. That will never change. It never has been right, and never will be right. I don’t see how you could evolve that. If you can’t, then it’s good evidence that it doesn’t change or evolve.
February 17, 2011 at 4:23 am
“So if society said blacks and whites shouldn’t intermarry that would be moral? That’s what dependency means.”
Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that the morals can’t change.
“But Nazis were brought up on a certain moral standard that Jews were rats. So it’s moral to that society at that time to treat Jews like rats? Again, if moral standards come from upbringing, then this should be sufficient for you. If you condemn WW2 Nazis, then you stand on something higher than just “who wins the war” because if the Germans won, what they did would still be wrong. You also judge them as wrong, including their upbringing.”
No Its based on the morals I was brought up on, thats its wrong to kill and especially to kill someone based on something that they are not in control of.
And yes, it would still be wrong by our standards, no doubt about that. But the Nazis considered it the moral right thing to do. And thus people brought up on that moral standard would see it as the only right thing to do.
“I didn’t ask what you think is wrong. I don’t care what you think. I didn’t ask how you were brought up. I don’t care how you were brought up. You could think X or Y and you could be raised with X or Y and it tells me exactly nothing about if cannibalism, rape or killing Jews is moral. It’s because morality isn’t dependent on how you were raised, it’s independent. How you were raised MIGHT guide you to align your actions closer to the good, but how you were raised isn’t what determines what is the good.”
But this just leads me to my main question regarding your statement about truth. How do we determine who is right? If There is some standard for what is wrong and what is right then why do man kind have such a variety of standards? Shouldn’t we all have the same standards.
“You can change, but what is moral does not change. Your choice to do something or not doesn’t tell us if it’s moral.”
How can you say that with such confidence, when morals have changed so much throughout history?
“Right, but that’s because YOU change, not morality. Morality is fixed and you move toward it or against it. You might gain information, revelation, inherit traditions that align with what happens to be right, but you do the changing, not the definition of what is moral.”
So we are moving towards the real moral standard as we get smarter? Again, then how will we ever find the definitive truth?
“Rape is wrong. That will never change. It never has been right, and never will be right. I don’t see how you could evolve that. If you can’t, then it’s good evidence that it doesn’t change or evolve.”
It never has or never will be right from our moral standards, but how can you say that won’t change with time?
The main problem with your argument that truth doesn’t change for me, is that it is a very abstract thought (thus I said it only works on a theoretical basis), how can we ever know when we have reached the definitive truth?
February 17, 2011 at 8:38 am
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that the morals can’t change.”
It doesn’t demonstrate that they can, so your challenge is dead. The truth doesn’t evolve, you agreed with me, then claimed I didn’t prove it. I don’t know how to respond to that other than to say that racism has always been bad, it’s never been practiced by the good and it will always be bad. Does that moral change? Do unicorns exist?
“No Its based on the morals I was brought up on, thats its wrong to kill and especially to kill someone based on something that they are not in control of.
And yes, it would still be wrong by our standards, no doubt about that. But the Nazis considered it the moral right thing to do. And thus people brought up on that moral standard would see it as the only right thing to do.”
You’re not answering my question. Regardless of the morals you were brought up on, is what the Nazis did wrong? I’m not asking how you were raised, or how Nazis were raised. I’m asking if it’s wrong.
“But this just leads me to my main question regarding your statement about truth. How do we determine who is right?”
Ask a Jew if how the Nazis were raised is how you determine who is right. The title of my piece doesn’t address who is right, it only says that the truth can’t evolve. I’m giving you reasons why, and you don’t want to accept those reasons because you’re still trying to defend ground against some objective moral source. Ignore that. That’s your own prejudices ruining a good conversation by thinking ten steps down the road. You don’t have to know how we determine who is to know that another way is definitely wrong.
If I say 2 + 2 = 800, you can say, “That doesn’t look possible because 2 and 2 are small numbers and 800 is a big one. It doesn’t seem like combining them would reach that high.” without saying, “I can’t believe that 2 and 2 are not 800 because who are you claim to know the answer is likely 4?”
“If There is some standard for what is wrong and what is right then why do man kind have such a variety of standards? Shouldn’t we all have the same standards.”
All this shows is how wrong man can be. We both know that rape is always wrong and it’s wrongness doesn’t evolve over time. But we both agree that man changes all the time. So the objective moral truth doesn’t change, man’s perception or fashion or culture changes to either better correspond with the truth or deny the truth. Culture changes, moral standards do not.
“How can you say that with such confidence, when morals have changed so much throughout history?”
Morals have never once changed throughout history, and you haven’t given an example of it. Here’s what you have to show me, that when the south owned blacks in America that not only was culture thinking they were moral, but that they were actually being moral in owning slaves. Morals don’t change. I can say it with such confidence because it’s literally what “moral” and “standards” mean. It transcends society, culture and fashion.
“So we are moving towards the real moral standard as we get smarter? Again, then how will we ever find the definitive truth?”
It has nothing to do with smarts. Hitler was brilliant. Some of the smartest, most educated people are some of the most vile people. Likewise, some really dumb people are really good or moral. I’m not moving on to how we can find what is definite, I’m only showing you that though you have found truth (ie: rape is wrong, racism is bad) it isn’t created by culture or dependent on culture, because often you have fight your own culture to hold to truth.
“It never has or never will be right from our moral standards, but how can you say that won’t change with time?”
What can time do to the idea of rape that can make evolve into something moral? How do you know that having sex with babies won’t become moral over time? At some point, you don’t need an argument, you need a therapist. Making those arguments might even prove that your own confused position on the argument are making you into a worse kind of person. Yet another reason to abandon that position.
“The main problem with your argument that truth doesn’t change for me, is that it is a very abstract thought (thus I said it only works on a theoretical basis), how can we ever know when we have reached the definitive truth?”
Truth claims can be self evident. “It’s wrong to have sex with babies.” doesn’t require a lot of logic, history, concrete or abstract thought. It takes a simple mind. This is where my 4 year old usually has more common sense and wisdom that your average graduate school scholar. My kid says, “Owning a man for being black is wrong.” and the elitists scratches his beard and says, “I rape really wrong? What does that mean?”
February 17, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Okay, I’m gonna cut through, we could go on with this forever if we keep doing it this way.
I don’t agree with you that truth doesn’t evolve, I don’t know where you got that from. The truth is constantly evolving, and always have. Look at history and tell me that people haven’t changed their view on right and wrong, just take slavery as an example. Had you asked a slaver if slavery was the right thing to do I’m pretty sure he would have said yes, and that will always be that way. Thankfully those morals that he represented changed, and today we do not accept slavery.
As society changes so should our morals, and my problem with your statement about a definitive truth is that I just can’t see it applied to the real world, its a wonderful thought, I’m just afraid that thats not how the world is put together. We are all just animals trying to survive, and we are currently a lot of animals trying to survive together, for this to happen we have evolved to abide by certain rules that gives us an advantage to other animals. Thats my explanation.
I think rape is wrong, but I’m sure you can find cultures that will disagree, just look at some of the rebel armies in Nigeria or a similar country, if you don’t rape and mutilate the women of their enemies you are not a man in their eyes. I’d say that is definitely a wrong thing to do, and yet that is their moral standard. It doesn’t justify what they are doing to me, but it tells me that truth definitely isn’t the same to everybody.
How about you took an little discussion with Osama Bin Laden, and told him that what he is doing is wrong, while you at the same time tell him that war is right? How would you tell him that what you are doing is the right thing, when he sees you as his enemy? Where is your greater good in that case, how do you know you are right?
Look at the animal kingdom and tell me there is a moral standard for all things. Lions eat other lions pups, dogs eat their own poop, the common cuckoo will destroy other bird’s eggs and I could go on. Does the great good only apply to humans?
And in that case, why are there so many takes on what is the one and only truth? How would we find that one truth and use it, when are we there?
Like I said, its a wonderful theoretical play, but I just can’t see how it applies to the real ever changing world, which is filled with people doing insane things all the time, entire countries of people doing things that seam completely wrong to me, and yet they I’m sure they would tell me that I’m the one thats wrong.
The world just isn’t as black and white as you put it, every decision you make have a bit of bad and good in it.
And I know you got some awesome kids ( I saw the axecop movie ;) ), but the only reason they say that it is wrong to enslave people is that you taught them that, that is the way.
I hope you know that I agree that all the things you have mentioned are wrong, actually are wrong, I hate nazis, people who rape etc. as much as you do.
What I’m saying is just that the reason I think it is wrong, is because it is so deeply embedded in society. And with good reason, its rules that makes it possible for us to live the way we do.
I love the idea that there is one truth, would make life much easier, I just can’t see how it applies to the real world.
Sorry if its a bit messy, I spend a long time responding to all your points from last post, but unfortunately closed the wrong tab in chrome and lost it all. So I decided that since I didn’t want to drop the argument, I would just go with this instead.
February 17, 2011 at 6:20 pm
“Look at history and tell me that people haven’t changed their view on right and wrong,”
STOP! A person’s view is not truth. That’s a person’s view of the truth. This is where you’re going wrong every time.
” Had you asked a slaver if slavery was the right thing to do I’m pretty sure he would have said yes, and that will always be that way. Thankfully those morals that he represented changed, and today we do not accept slavery.”
Wait, so if I’m hearing you correctly you’re saying that when the slaver thought slavery was right, that it was actually right. You’re saying it’s not just his view and that his view was wrong, but that his view actually changed something that is wrong into something that is right. Yes? And slavery was right to do at one time, but because morals and truth evolve, we came to a place where some of us believed it was wrong and then it became wrong. The people didn’t change, the wrongness of slavery changed.
But how do you explain the American Civil War where 50% of us who were against slavery went to war to kill 50% who were for slavery. Now, because you’re saying that whatever we believe creates the truth, that half of the pro slavery were just as correct as the half that were against it. That violates the logical idea of The Law of Non Contradiction. X cannot be both X and not X at the same time and in the same way. If this is what you believe it’s literally incoherent.
“As society changes so should our morals, and my problem with your statement about a definitive truth is that I just can’t see it applied to the real world, its a wonderful thought, I’m just afraid that thats not how the world is put together. We are all just animals trying to survive, and we are currently a lot of animals trying to survive together, for this to happen we have evolved to abide by certain rules that gives us an advantage to other animals. Thats my explanation.”
But your explanation is self refuting. You and I are on different sides of this “Civil War”. You believe in X and I believe in non-X. They can’t both be true at the same time and in the same way or it is incoherent. You say the world is just animals trying to live by rules that give an advantage (X) and I say that our values and morals are fixed and that they don’t change, we do (non X). If you judge my position as wrong, then you admit that you have the truth. You claim that my belief in fixed morals is wrong and that you can know it. So your position commits suicide.
If you agree with me that truths are fixed, then you have to change your opinion that X is true. So either way, your position is incoherent and must be abandoned. It’s your position that can’t be applied to the real world. It might be a wonderful thought, but it doesn’t exist in reality.
“I think rape is wrong, but I’m sure you can find cultures that will disagree, just look at some of the rebel armies in Nigeria or a similar country, if you don’t rape and mutilate the women of their enemies you are not a man in their eyes. I’d say that is definitely a wrong thing to do, and yet that is their moral standard. It doesn’t justify what they are doing to me, but it tells me that truth definitely isn’t the same to everybody.”
That’s incoherent. Either their rape is justifiable truth to them, or your belief that their rape is wrong is actual truth. How can you judge them for something they view as moral? What gives you the right to tell them that rape is wrong? When you answer this, you’ll have to give up this fantasy that you can call them wrong, then call them right at the same time and in the same way. It’s a word trick, because when you say the act of rape is wrong you are talking about rape. But when you say that they are right, you talk about their perspective. I keep telling you that right and wrong do not depend on perspective, if you disagree with this then you have to stop calling rape wrong. So take your pick. I don’t care which one you pick right now so long as you say something coherent, and you don’t want to do that… again, probably because you don’t want to admit to yourself where all of this leads.
“How about you took an little discussion with Osama Bin Laden, and told him that what he is doing is wrong, while you at the same time tell him that war is right? How would you tell him that what you are doing is the right thing, when he sees you as his enemy? Where is your greater good in that case, how do you know you are right?”
I know I’m right because civilization has never agreed that targeting civilians is right. I know this. I also don’t care what Adolf thinks, killing Jews because he thinks they’re rats is wrong too. How could you possibly entertain that Hitler, Bin Laden and Stalin could actually be right to a point that you can’t punish them? My guess is that you don’t actually believe this. If I stole your car stereo you wouldn’t scratch your head and wonder if I was justified. Secular Europeans are always unclear on morality until is an Islamic Radical plunging a knife into Theo Van Gogh’s heart. When the time comes, you’ll have amazing clarity. If an evil man attacked your family, your moral intuition would kick in just fine. If a guy next door started eating a baby, you’d learn absolute morality pretty quick and would parse word games with him when he told you his belief system.
“Look at the animal kingdom and tell me there is a moral standard for all things. Lions eat other lions pups, dogs eat their own poop, the common cuckoo will destroy other bird’s eggs and I could go on. Does the great good only apply to humans?”
Yes. But this is just proof that you were wrong earlier to say that we’re animals. We’re not. When a hamster eats its young you don’t call it murder. You call it being a hamster. When a human eats its young you call the police. In fact, you probably call him an animal. There’s a reason why we don’t look at a murderer and say, “How humane!”
“Like I said, its a wonderful theoretical play, but I just can’t see how it applies to the real ever changing world, which is filled with people doing insane things all the time, entire countries of people doing things that seam completely wrong to me, and yet they I’m sure they would tell me that I’m the one thats wrong.”
So stop calling things insane, and stop calling anything wrong. Morality creeps back into your language because you don’t actually live by what you say you believe. Just call every insane thing “True for them” and have a good rest. The wrongness is likely a passing fad, an illusion.
“The world just isn’t as black and white as you put it, every decision you make have a bit of bad and good in it.”
I don’t understand what you mean by bad and good or black and white. If everything is gray and nuanced, then those words have no meaning. You’re sneaking MY world view into your descriptions because you’re incoherent using vocabulary to speak from your world view. Quit using moral language to describe what is just personal perception. The atheistic scientist says, “You can’t get an ought from an is.” Ought is a moral word. You can’t use it. You can only use the word “is” to describe things without judgment. You can’t even condemn my own viewing things as black and white because you’re saying I ought not to do that. If I ought not to do it, then you ought not to be incoherent and condemn it. For all you know, society will evolve to agree with me anyways.
“And I know you got some awesome kids ( I saw the axecop movie ;) ), but the only reason they say that it is wrong to enslave people is that you taught them that, that is the way.”
Should I teach them the opposite? I teach them that because it’s right. They ought to know it’s right.
“I hope you know that I agree that all the things you have mentioned are wrong, actually are wrong, I hate nazis, people who rape etc. as much as you do.
What I’m saying is just that the reason I think it is wrong, is because it is so deeply embedded in society. And with good reason, its rules that makes it possible for us to live the way we do.”
But what about when half of society disagrees with you. If it was deeply embedded, then Nazis wouldn’t be a country wide movement that threatened the world… it would just be one guy. One crazy little guy. If there was just ONE slave owner the Civil War would have been really short!
“I love the idea that there is one truth, would make life much easier, I just can’t see how it applies to the real world.”
You talk about “real world” as if there was one truth. Stop it.
“Sorry if its a bit messy, I spend a long time responding to all your points from last post, but unfortunately closed the wrong tab in chrome and lost it all. So I decided that since I didn’t want to drop the argument, I would just go with this instead.”
You’re doing fine!
February 18, 2011 at 4:00 pm
“STOP! A person’s view is not truth. That’s a person’s view of the truth. This is where you’re going wrong every time.”
Hehe, no this is were we disagree, if I’m not allowed to say that then we can’t argue. You say there is a greater good I say that you can only determine good or evil from the society you live in, morals are to soft to give a definitive answer, somethings are based on on a definitive truth, like science, but politics, morals, right and wrong, have to be determined from the situation, society etc.
“Wait, so if I’m hearing you correctly you’re saying that when the slaver thought slavery was right, that it was actually right. You’re saying it’s not just his view and that his view was wrong, but that his view actually changed something that is wrong into something that is right. Yes? And slavery was right to do at one time, but because morals and truth evolve, we came to a place where some of us believed it was wrong and then it became wrong. The people didn’t change, the wrongness of slavery changed.”
No I’m saying its just his point of view, but when all comes down to it, how can I say that he wasn’t right and I was wrong? I can only argue and defend my morals. A slaver would do the same thing.
The wrongness changed because of society, had society not changed, it would always had been right.
“But how do you explain the American Civil War where 50% of us who were against slavery went to war to kill 50% who were for slavery. Now, because you’re saying that whatever we believe creates the truth, that half of the pro slavery were just as correct as the half that were against it. That violates the logical idea of The Law of Non Contradiction. X cannot be both X and not X at the same time and in the same way. If this is what you believe it’s literally incoherent.”
I’ve never heard of that law, is it another universal law? I think you contradict it yourself, you say its wrong to kill but its right to go to war and kill.
What I believe is not incoherent, if you don’t think there is a greater good, then there can easily be something that is good in one society and wrong in another.
“But your explanation is self refuting. You and I are on different sides of this “Civil War”. You believe in X and I believe in non-X. They can’t both be true at the same time and in the same way or it is incoherent. You say the world is just animals trying to live by rules that give an advantage (X) and I say that our values and morals are fixed and that they don’t change, we do (non X). If you judge my position as wrong, then you admit that you have the truth. You claim that my belief in fixed morals is wrong and that you can know it. So your position commits suicide.”
They can indeed be true, as I believe that it isn’t based on a common good or bad, its all determined by society.
Sure I can say that I’m right, as I think that my side would be better for all parts in the end, the other side would say the same thing. Thats were the argument start, you put up prop and cons, and you determine the right and wrong in the current situation, based on a certain set of moral values. Some people weigh things in life different than others.
I claim not to know an unchangeable truth, I can only judge the right and wrong from the current situation.
“If you agree with me that truths are fixed, then you have to change your opinion that X is true. So either way, your position is incoherent and must be abandoned. It’s your position that can’t be applied to the real world. It might be a wonderful thought, but it doesn’t exist in reality.”
Haha, yeah but I obviously don’t agree, and I don’t really think that its a wonderful thought either, actually its kinda a sad thing to think about IMO.
Some truths apply no matter what. Ex, someone kills someone, that is truth no matter what. BUT! weather it was right or wrong to kill that person is a completely different story, and must be judged from the given situation, and will undoubtedly be judged from the moral standards that are working in the society that is judging.
I don’t see how I’m being incoherent.
“That’s incoherent. Either their rape is justifiable truth to them, or your belief that their rape is wrong is actual truth. How can you judge them for something they view as moral? What gives you the right to tell them that rape is wrong? When you answer this, you’ll have to give up this fantasy that you can call them wrong, then call them right at the same time and in the same way. It’s a word trick, because when you say the act of rape is wrong you are talking about rape. But when you say that they are right, you talk about their perspective. I keep telling you that right and wrong do not depend on perspective, if you disagree with this then you have to stop calling rape wrong. So take your pick. I don’t care which one you pick right now so long as you say something coherent, and you don’t want to do that… again, probably because you don’t want to admit to yourself where all of this leads.”
How can I? How do I know for sure that they aren’t right, and I’m wrong if it is all depended on a great good?
But as we properly both see it, one should stand up for what they believe to be right, and argue why. Its a rather poor argument to say, you are wrong because I think so.
Yeah you keep telling me it doesn’t depend on society, and I’m trying to argue that it does. I see your point clearly but again I ask, how do you know when you have found the definitive truth, how do you know you are right and not them?
If you should ever come up with an argument that I find convincing enough I’ll definitely let you know ;)
But so far you certainly haven’t found that one solid argument, what I hear in most of your arguments is, you can’t say that morals depend on society because I tell you you can’t, because I stated earlier that truth never changes. And to be honest, the worst thing is that I’m properly mostly doing the same thing but for the opposite side of the argument.
“I know I’m right because civilization has never agreed that targeting civilians is right. I know this. I also don’t care what Adolf thinks, killing Jews because he thinks they’re rats is wrong too. How could you possibly entertain that Hitler, Bin Laden and Stalin could actually be right to a point that you can’t punish them? My guess is that you don’t actually believe this. If I stole your car stereo you wouldn’t scratch your head and wonder if I was justified. Secular Europeans are always unclear on morality until is an Islamic Radical plunging a knife into Theo Van Gogh’s heart. When the time comes, you’ll have amazing clarity. If an evil man attacked your family, your moral intuition would kick in just fine. If a guy next door started eating a baby, you’d learn absolute morality pretty quick and would parse word games with him when he told you his belief system.”
From what I know, people are still split on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Doing something against me, that goes against my morals standards will piss me off, and what Hitler, Osama, and Stalin has done sure as hell goes against my moral standards, and therefor I personally think they should be punished. And we look at them as bad people today, because the majority of people in the west believe that what they did was wrong. Had Hitler won, morals of todays society would have been different, and you properly wouldn’t be saying that it was wrong to kill jews if you were brought up on those moral standards.
Thus, I believe that they are wrong, but when you boil it down, the reason I think it wrong is because of the society I live in today. I don’t know how to elaborate it futher, I think its a pretty clear point. And I think you are the one who won’t look at the possiblelity that had nazi germany won the war, and had you been born in Nazi Germany, the post you made on “truth” never change, would have used some very different arguments, and you you have been arguing against me from a set of completely different morals, but with the same intensity.
“Yes. But this is just proof that you were wrong earlier to say that we’re animals. We’re not. When a hamster eats its young you don’t call it murder. You call it being a hamster. When a human eats its young you call the police. In fact, you probably call him an animal. There’s a reason why we don’t look at a murderer and say, “How humane!””
But I guess that murder is a pretty human thing to do? We sure as hell do it a lot, and always have been.
The only reason I don’t call the cops when a hamster eats its young, is that frankly I don’t really care that much about that hamster. And yet if a dog eats it own pups, I’m pretty sure lots of people would take that dog to the vet and get it killed (don’t know what you call it in english). Because we put personality on a dog, and when we do that, the morals that society have determines that the dog is sick. And yet I’m sure you could find people who would say, that thats just nature.
“So stop calling things insane, and stop calling anything wrong. Morality creeps back into your language because you don’t actually live by what you say you believe. Just call every insane thing “True for them” and have a good rest. The wrongness is likely a passing fad, an illusion.”
No I don’t, I live by morals standards by society, and my naturalistic look at life, but deep down inside I do indeed hope that there is good in all people, and that someday we will all agree and live in piece.
The reason I believe this is that by my moral standards (which I still believe are only what they are because of the society I was brought up on) and a bit of logic, if we all stopped fighting, the world would be a much better place to live. More beneficial for everyone.
But that doesn’t invalidate my argument that there is no greater good, there are only ways that can be more or less beneficial to society. I believe that if the only thing that determines morals is what we see as the most beneficial solution.
“I don’t understand what you mean by bad and good or black and white. If everything is gray and nuanced, then those words have no meaning. You’re sneaking MY world view into your descriptions because you’re incoherent using vocabulary to speak from your world view. Quit using moral language to describe what is just personal perception. The atheistic scientist says, “You can’t get an ought from an is.” Ought is a moral word. You can’t use it. You can only use the word “is” to describe things without judgment. You can’t even condemn my own viewing things as black and white because you’re saying I ought not to do that. If I ought not to do it, then you ought not to be incoherent and condemn it. For all you know, society will evolve to agree with me anyways.”
But morals are not science in the same way that physics are science, and that is what I’ve been trying to get to the entire time, your view on truth puts it up as if though one truth is the same kinda truth as “earth is more or less round like a sphere”, is the same as, it is wrong to kill, when even you argue that sometimes it actually is right to kill.
“Should I teach them the opposite? I teach them that because it’s right. They ought to know it’s right.”
You teach them that because you believe its right.
Slavers thought their kids that slavery was right because they believed it WAS the right thing, are you starting to see what I’m getting at, how do you know, that you are not just as wrong as the slavers?
“But what about when half of society disagrees with you. If it was deeply embedded, then Nazis wouldn’t be a country wide movement that threatened the world… it would just be one guy. One crazy little guy. If there was just ONE slave owner the Civil War would have been really short!”
Then maybe thats because the truth isn’t always just right and wrong. Maybe sometimes its actually impossible to determine what is right and wrong, because there isn’t just one truth, there isn’t a list of what is right and wrong that won’t differ completely depending on were you live.
TL;DR
The world is to complex to say that there is one truth. You can’t determine the definitely truth, and I believe that the truth as in right and wrong, morals etc, is constantly chaining, what people said was the definitive right 4000 years ago, is a definitive wrong today, and it will most likely always be like that. I try to argue that you can only really determine right or wrong based on the morals in the society you grew up in. When people suddenly realize that slavery is wrong, its because they either gain new knowlagde, or realize that slavery contradicts some of the morals they were brought up on.
February 18, 2011 at 6:33 pm
“Hehe, no this is were we disagree, if I’m not allowed to say that then we can’t argue.”
Well, you can say anything you want, but when I do a post on morality, and you respond by making up your own definition of morality to mean “Whatever you want it to mean.” we can’t argue about it anyway.
“You say there is a greater good I say that you can only determine good or evil from the society you live in, morals are to soft to give a definitive answer, somethings are based on on a definitive truth, like science, but politics, morals, right and wrong, have to be determined from the situation, society etc.”
…and yet, you think rape and Nazi murder is wrong in every situation. You keep going to back to a belief in absolutes to condemn others who made the same moral claim within their culture that it’s right. You keep asserting these two contradicting positions as your view, and you don’t have a way to make them work together. That’s the literal definition of “non sequitor”, it doesn’t follow.
When you say science has definitive truth, I have to wonder why you don’t say “It’s only true because you were raised to think it’s true, that it would false if you were raised in a culture that said it was false.” The reason why I say this is that I’m at least as sure that rape is wrong as I am that there’s such a thing as a molecule. They’re no different in how factual they are.
“No I’m saying its just his point of view, but when all comes down to it, how can I say that he wasn’t right and I was wrong? I can only argue and defend my morals. A slaver would do the same thing.
The wrongness changed because of society, had society not changed, it would always had been right.”
So rape is right, Nazism is right, slavery and murder are right if society says so. It scares me that you believe that, and it’s truly weird to actually talk to someone who believes that. But thanks for owning it. By the way, I actually believe that this is where societal relativism leads… to racism, rape and murder. Most murderers and child molesters can justify what they do in their own head. The difference is that I judge what other people do, not by my personal preferences, but with objective moral truth.
“I’ve never heard of that law, is it another universal law? I think you contradict it yourself, you say its wrong to kill but its right to go to war and kill.”
It’s Aristotle. It’s the foundation of logic in all of western thought. They don’t teach it any more, which is why our decrepit public schools keep cranking out moral relativists. You have to be very careful with logic, and you have to be consistent. I didn’t say it’s wrong to kill, I said it’s wrong to MURDER. There’s a huge difference. And you, sir, are the last guy in the world who can accuse me of contradicting myself. You must extend to me your world view that I’m just living out my upbringing and it’s just as true as yours’. You can’t pretend to suddenly believe you can judge someone else, it’s just the way you were brought up after all, and you have no real connection to the truth. You’re welcome to renounce your view at any time, but until you renounce it, I’m going to hold you to it.
“What I believe is not incoherent, if you don’t think there is a greater good, then there can easily be something that is good in one society and wrong in another.”
I’m fine with the clarity of your position, I just think you should have to wear it as a tee shirt, “I believe Nazism, sex with babies and race based slavery can be good in some society.”
“They can indeed be true, as I believe that it isn’t based on a common good or bad, its all determined by society.
Sure I can say that I’m right, as I think that my side would be better for all parts in the end, the other side would say the same thing. Thats were the argument start, you put up pro and cons, and you determine the right and wrong in the current situation, based on a certain set of moral values. Some people weigh things in life different than others.
I claim not to know an unchangeable truth, I can only judge the right and wrong from the current situation.”
This is still a dodge. You’re still incoherent. Because you still claim that “the current situation” is a good value on which to judge things. You claim it’s the absolute truth. I can claim there is a good God who is the source of morality, and you just declare your society’s opinions, fashion and whims on morality as God. But you already admit that societies change their belief system, that it’s completely arbitrary. It’s literally meaningless and you shouldn’t use the word “right and wrong.” You should just say that do things. You don’t need to smuggle moral language into what is just whatever your society chooses to do. It was the old Secularist philosopher CAMUS who said that in the end, it doesn’t matter if you help a lady across the street or hit her with your car.
“Some truths apply no matter what. Ex, someone kills someone, that is truth no matter what. BUT! weather it was right or wrong to kill that person is a completely different story, and must be judged from the given situation, and will undoubtedly be judged from the moral standards that are working in the society that is judging.
I don’t see how I’m being incoherent.”
Because you’ve only said that people judge, not that they judge correctly. In Muslim countries, they judge that a woman should be stoned for marrying a Christian. You don’t believe it’s wrong, appealing to a wrong that is higher than the Muslim society and your society because you don’t believe there’s any truth up there. So your judgments stop at your boarders. That’s no truth at all. Again, you’re not saying that what your society decides is right, you’re saying that your society does stuff. That’s not the definition of morality, and you’re not entitled to your own definition of morality.
“How can I? How do I know for sure that they aren’t right, and I’m wrong if it is all depended on a great good?
But as we properly both see it, one should stand up for what they believe to be right, and argue why. Its a rather poor argument to say, you are wrong because I think so.”
But that’s all you’re saying is that I’m wrong because you think so. If it’s good enough for you, it should at least be good enough for me. Even your objections “How can I?” must be met with the same standard. You have to say to yourself, “I’m probably wrong about not knowing if something is actually right and my denial of the great good is probably just rooted in my society, not in an actual true position.” Get it? It’s why if you disagree with me, you’re agreeing with me that we can make judgments beyond just our society’s preferences and fashion.
“Yeah you keep telling me it doesn’t depend on society, and I’m trying to argue that it does. I see your point clearly but again I ask, how do you know when you have found the definitive truth, how do you know you are right and not them?”
I don’t think you need to see a baby being raped in India and have humility toward moral truth. Your intuition will likely tell you it’s wrong, and our moral intuition is usually in pretty good shape unless we’ve really psyched ourselves out to believe some other drivel. And you know your moral intuition has been starved or misled when you see that baby being raped and think it’s just your society that’s being offended and not the whole universe!
“If you should ever come up with an argument that I find convincing enough I’ll definitely let you know ;)”
Don’t worry, I don’t base my opinion of a good argument based on what you think. You’ve already confirmed that it’s not a reliable source on what is true. And given you don’t agree with my opinion, you also don’t get your opinions from my position, which again, is why I’m right in this argument. You actually exercise what I’m advocating. It’s because you are a person completely capable of belief in moral objectivity and absolute truth. You do it all the time and couldn’t even function without it. You actually have to trick yourself out of thinking that way.
“But so far you certainly haven’t found that one solid argument, what I hear in most of your arguments is, you can’t say that morals depend on society because I tell you you can’t, because I stated earlier that truth never changes. And to be honest, the worst thing is that I’m properly mostly doing the same thing but for the opposite side of the argument.”
And given you DO do the same thing on your side of the argument, you have an obligation to admit that my position is right.
“From what I know, people are still split on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
You won’t find 100% agreement on ANYTHING. I can’t even convince you that rape is bad in every situation. So how are we going to argue Hiroshima?!
“Doing something against me, that goes against my morals standards will piss me off, and what Hitler, Osama, and Stalin has done sure as hell goes against my moral standards, and therefor I personally think they should be punished. And we look at them as bad people today, because the majority of people in the west believe that what they did was wrong.”
You’ve completely just reversed what you said earlier. It’s evidence that your position is incoherent. It doesn’t hold up to these simple challenges. And you being pissed off shows your moral intuition working well. You know far more about objective morality than you say you know.
“Had Hitler won, morals of todays society would have been different, and you properly wouldn’t be saying that it was wrong to kill jews if you were brought up on those moral standards.”
and using your logic, it would cease to be wrong to kill Jews. You sir, are a relativist to a point of being a Nazi. It should tell you that there is something very wrong with your opinion. You see, I know that even if I chose to become a Nazi and kill Jews that it would still be wrong. In fact, I would hope people would kill me. I know for a fact that just because my society believes something or I believe in a moral position that it could be wrong… especially if I couldn’t come up with coherent reasons for those positions to confirm their truthfulness.
“Thus, I believe that they are wrong, but when you boil it down, the reason I think it wrong is because of the society I live in today. I don’t know how to elaborate it futher, I think its a pretty clear point. And I think you are the one who won’t look at the possiblelity that had nazi germany won the war, and had you been born in Nazi Germany, the post you made on “truth” never change, would have used some very different arguments, and you you have been arguing against me from a set of completely different morals, but with the same intensity.”
And if I used arguments to defend Nazism, would I be right?
And you discredit the people who are raised in EVERY evil society who go against their upbringing and do what’s right. It’s why we call them heroes.
“But I guess that murder is a pretty human thing to do? We sure as hell do it a lot, and always have been.
The only reason I don’t call the cops when a hamster eats its young, is that frankly I don’t really care that much about that hamster. And yet if a dog eats it own pups, I’m pretty sure lots of people would take that dog to the vet and get it killed (don’t know what you call it in english). Because we put personality on a dog, and when we do that, the morals that society have determines that the dog is sick. And yet I’m sure you could find people who would say, that thats just nature.”
A dog and a human are drowning on both sides of your boat. If you save one, the other will drown. Which do you save?
Animals aren’t moral beings. Humans are. Animals can’t commit murder and even a dog who kills it’s young isn’t called a murderer. It’s a dog. Dogs have sex with their offspring and we don’t call them evil, we call them dumb animals.
“No I don’t, I live by morals standards by society,”
But you’ve already said that society has no real standards. Your society is for rape, you’re for rape.
“and my naturalistic look at life, but deep down inside I do indeed hope that there is good in all people, and that someday we will all agree and live in piece.”
I have to wonder why you hope this. C.S. Lewis said that it is strange that man should hunger for morality, a good God, an afterlife, because his hunger is evidence that it probably exists. If you’re hungry for food, it’s probably because there’s such a thing as food. So if you hope there is absolute good, it doesn’t make sense that you would have this hope in a naturalistic world.
“The reason I believe this is that by my moral standards (which I still believe are only what they are because of the society I was brought up on) and a bit of logic, if we all stopped fighting, the world would be a much better place to live. More beneficial for everyone.”
WHere there is evil there must be fighting. Where there is no evil, there should be no fighting. Evil is the first cause that demands the reaction of fighting. So the world would be a better place if there was no such thing as evil tyrants, not if there was no fighting. Given the evil men that have shown up, fighting is a great blessing and likely the only reason we experience any peace today. All evil needs to exist and prosper is for good men to do nothing.
“But that doesn’t invalidate my argument that there is no greater good, there are only ways that can be more or less beneficial to society. I believe that if the only thing that determines morals is what we see as the most beneficial solution.”
But who cares if society is destroyed? Why is that so bad? Nazis had a society pumping along just fine. They were prosperous and believed they had the great society. So by your definition, whatever is beneficial to that Nazi society is the good. When society is your definition of the good, this the kind of monster you create. If you’re going to judge a society as bad you will have to appeal to something higher than society. You’re reluctant to do so, so you have no grounds to judge Nazis.
“But morals are not science in the same way that physics are science, and that is what I’ve been trying to get to the entire time, your view on truth puts it up as if though one truth is the same kinda truth as “earth is more or less round like a sphere”, is the same as, it is wrong to kill, when even you argue that sometimes it actually is right to kill.”
Murder is wrong, is just as true as saying “gravity exists”. Rape is wrong and is as true as the bed I’m sitting on. And science could be known to be true unless it too was resting on a higher plane of absolute truth. By the way, “Science is true” is a philosophical statement that doesn’t exist in the material world just like “morals are real” exists. They’re epistemology and you can’t empirically weigh the phrase “science is true”. It’s immaterial philosophy all the way down! That’s why you shouldn’t be a Materialist or a Scientific Naturalist. They’re self refuting.
“You teach them that because you believe its right.
Slavers thought their kids that slavery was right because they believed it WAS the right thing, are you starting to see what I’m getting at, how do you know, that you are not just as wrong as the slavers?”
That’s exactly what I’m asking you! If you can’t know the truth then you can in no way condemn race based slavery. You have to condone it! The best you can say is, “My society doesn’t believe in it, but if it did, it would become moral.” That should reveal how immoral your position is. Look what it makes you say. It turns a good man like you into a monster.
“Then maybe thats because the truth isn’t always just right and wrong. Maybe sometimes its actually impossible to determine what is right and wrong, because there isn’t just one truth, there isn’t a list of what is right and wrong that won’t differ completely depending on were you live.”
Incoherent. There’s a saying, “you’re entitled to your own opinion but you’re not entitled to your own facts.” Are you saying your’e not at odds with ANYTHING in your society? Man, here in America 100% of us hate about 50% of we do! My society determines anything but what is moral! It’s a terrible standard.
“The world is too complex to say that there is one truth.”
Is that true?
” You can’t determine the definitely truth, and I believe that the truth as in right and wrong, morals etc, is constantly chaining, what people said was the definitive right 4000 years ago, is a definitive wrong today, and it will most likely always be like that.”
Is that true?
“I try to argue that you can only really determine right or wrong based on the morals in the society you grew up in. When people suddenly realize that slavery is wrong, its because they either gain new knowlagde, or realize that slavery contradicts some of the morals they were brought up on.”
Is. That. True? If you believe any of this is true, then you must abandon your position that no one person in society can know the truth. If you believe it’s false then you must abandon your position that no one person in society can know the truth. Either way, your position is incoherent, and mine is. By the way, that’s not an arrogant statement because I didn’t make it up. I got is from somewhere else, and it makes perfect sense. One thing I know is that truth is not dependent on the individual, society or fashion. It must come from without, which is why it is objective and not subjective.
February 19, 2011 at 4:23 am
“Well, you can say anything you want, but when I do a post on morality, and you respond by making up your own definition of morality to mean “Whatever you want it to mean.” we can’t argue about it anyway.”
We got the same definition of morality, what is right and wrong. I’m just trying to argue that there is no greater right or wrong. Otherwise what you are saying is, that I can’t argue something that go against what you say, because you know the only truth.
“…and yet, you think rape and Nazi murder is wrong in every situation. You keep going to back to a belief in absolutes to condemn others who made the same moral claim within their culture that it’s right. You keep asserting these two contradicting positions as your view, and you don’t have a way to make them work together. That’s the literal definition of “non sequitor”, it doesn’t follow.”
What I think is irrelelevant to the discussion, the only reason I tell you that I think its wrong, is because I don’t want you to think I’m a crazy ass nazi psycho rapist killer (and of cause because I do believe it actually is wrong, and I believe that I believe it is wrong because that is what the morals in the society I live in tells me.)
“When you say science has definitive truth, I have to wonder why you don’t say “It’s only true because you were raised to think it’s true, that it would false if you were raised in a culture that said it was false.” The reason why I say this is that I’m at least as sure that rape is wrong as I am that there’s such a thing as a molecule. They’re no different in how factual they are.”
If I don’t think a bag of potatoes weighs 1 kg, I can just measure it to see if it weighs 1 kg. But if you tell me I’m wrong for thinking that gay couples have the right to marry, how do I measure weather I’m right or wrong?
You can’t base scientific fact on a gut feeling. But morals is nothing but a gut feeling, when we say rape is wrong it is based solely on a gut feeling, a feeling that I ague we only have because of the society we live in. That same gut feeling could be different in another part of the world. Tell me, how do you know you are right, other than a gut feeling.
“So rape is right, Nazism is right, slavery and murder are right if society says so. It scares me that you believe that, and it’s truly weird to actually talk to someone who believes that. But thanks for owning it. By the way, I actually believe that this is where societal relativism leads… to racism, rape and murder. Most murderers and child molesters can justify what they do in their own head. The difference is that I judge what other people do, not by my personal preferences, but with objective moral truth.”
I guess what I’m actually saying is that I don’t believe that it, from a universal point if view, neither right nor wrong. I have no eminent proof that it is either one. The only thing I got to go with is my own gut feeling and a set of morals that I was brought up on. But thats not exactly facts.
I’m not saying it is right, I’m saying that in the grad scheme it doesn’t matter what I think, as what I think is right is based solely on the norms I was raised on. Pretty harsh, and I don’t live by this, I live by the morals that I have been raised on, and its hard to say this because its not a very nice thought. But non the less this is what I believe to be the scientific truth, the truth that you can measure as I feel I’ve come up with quite a few examples that morals are constantly changing, were as you have no evidence to support your claim that there is an never changing moral standard.
In history thousands have been killed in religious wars, is religious equally dangerous then? It tell you you fight evil but what if you are wrong about what is evil. Don’t go there, I didn’t go there because I feel that has nothing to do with the argument we are having.
“It’s Aristotle. It’s the foundation of logic in all of western thought. They don’t teach it any more, which is why our decrepit public schools keep cranking out moral relativists. You have to be very careful with logic, and you have to be consistent. I didn’t say it’s wrong to kill, I said it’s wrong to MURDER. There’s a huge difference. And you, sir, are the last guy in the world who can accuse me of contradicting myself. You must extend to me your world view that I’m just living out my upbringing and it’s just as true as yours’. You can’t pretend to suddenly believe you can judge someone else, it’s just the way you were brought up after all, and you have no real connection to the truth. You’re welcome to renounce your view at any time, but until you renounce it, I’m going to hold you to it.”
You are breaking my argument apart to get it your way, my arguments only apply to right and wrong, I’ve stated this many times, I’m not arguing weather a tree that I cut down was actually cut down, I’m arguing weather it was right or wrong.
Two completely different things. I hope you see that, even if you don’t agree, than at least see what I mean.
“I’m fine with the clarity of your position, I just think you should have to wear it as a tee shirt, “I believe Nazism, sex with babies and race based slavery can be good in some society.””
No I believe that it is neither right or wrong from a universal point of view, I have no way of arguing weather it is or isn’t really its just random shit happening. Personally I surely do believe that it is wrong.
“This is still a dodge. You’re still incoherent. Because you still claim that “the current situation” is a good value on which to judge things. You claim it’s the absolute truth. I can claim there is a good God who is the source of morality, and you just declare your society’s opinions, fashion and whims on morality as God. But you already admit that societies change their belief system, that it’s completely arbitrary. It’s literally meaningless and you shouldn’t use the word “right and wrong.” You should just say that do things. You don’t need to smuggle moral language into what is just whatever your society chooses to do. It was the old Secularist philosopher CAMUS who said that in the end, it doesn’t matter if you help a lady across the street or hit her with your car.”
I agree, we just do things, on a grand scheme there is nothing to judge weather it is right or wrong, only ourself, and we can only base it on the morals we know, which I’ve been arguing right from the start, always have and always will be changing.
I agree with Camus then, it doesn’t make any difference.
“Because you’ve only said that people judge, not that they judge correctly. In Muslim countries, they judge that a woman should be stoned for marrying a Christian. You don’t believe it’s wrong, appealing to a wrong that is higher than the Muslim society and your society because you don’t believe there’s any truth up there. So your judgments stop at your boarders. That’s no truth at all. Again, you’re not saying that what your society decides is right, you’re saying that your society does stuff. That’s not the definition of morality, and you’re not entitled to your own definition of morality.”
I agree, we don’t live by those standards because we all think we have the one and only truth. To my death, I’m gonna stand up for what I believe in, because although I don’t think it really matters on a grand scheme it matters to me, because of the way my brain is put together.
“But that’s all you’re saying is that I’m wrong because you think so. If it’s good enough for you, it should at least be good enough for me. Even your objections “How can I?” must be met with the same standard. You have to say to yourself, “I’m probably wrong about not knowing if something is actually right and my denial of the great good is probably just rooted in my society, not in an actual true position.” Get it? It’s why if you disagree with me, you’re agreeing with me that we can make judgments beyond just our society’s preferences and fashion.”
Yep I agree, but I’ve been trying to prove that morals change, I’ve come up with a ton of examples throughout history of how morals have changed.
And no I don’t agree with you by disagreeing, I’m saying that in reality there is no real right or wrong, its just stuff happening, your definition of right and wrong is based on your morals, which are different from what other people might believe. I’m saying that in the grand scheme I can’t say which is more right, as I don’t think it really makes any difference in the end. I can only say what I think is right or wrong, and the only reason that we humans need to live by what we think is right or wrong, is because it is beneficial to human kind as a whole, we have evolve to do this.
“I don’t think you need to see a baby being raped in India and have humility toward moral truth. Your intuition will likely tell you it’s wrong, and our moral intuition is usually in pretty good shape unless we’ve really psyched ourselves out to believe some other drivel. And you know your moral intuition has been starved or misled when you see that baby being raped and think it’s just your society that’s being offended and not the whole universe!”
Again, yes I know that, because by my standards it is wrong, humans have evolved to feel empathy, and when I see someone suffer I feel it is wrong. I guess that proves your point actually, that there is a greater good, or at least to some extend. I just believe that the greater good is only relevant to us, and it really doesn’t matter to other than us, empathy is that gut feeling that you feel justify your statement that there is a common good. A biological mechanism that we have developed trough evolution. If an alien species came by that hadn’t developed empathy, they wouldn’t give a shit if some nut head was repeing someone.
(To be completely honest I had completely forgot that we all feel empathy, but empahty also tells me that killing is wrong no matter what, I can’t watch someone die no matter what they have done, its just a natural mechanism. But like Camus, said in the end it doesn’t matter if I helped the old lady cross the road, at least not to anyone but me and her.)……………………………..
Actually I think there is a greater good, we all feel empathy, which means that deep down inside we all agree that something is right and wrong. Weather it is something determined by a god or by a natural mechanism, evolved trough evolution.
Why didn’t you call out on empathy before? Could have saved me a bunch of time, I don’t know how that completely slipped my mind. I still think some truths will always change, not the hard truths but the truths like is gay marriage right etc, I still see that as being depended on society, and something that can never really be said to be a definitive right or wrong.
And I guess that maybe on planet zorg, rape is the way to go, but for humans it isn’t I agree on that.
So I think this is it, I really enjoyed this discussion, made me think a lot about things that I wouldn’t have given a thought otherwise. And it even made me realize that humans might not be so bad after all, although we still ignore the empathic feeling way to often.
This will be my last words for this round, as my winter break is almost over and my flue as well, so I’ll be out there trying to be a good moral person ;)
I hope you don’t mind If I join in a later debate as well ;)
Take care,
A big fan of your work
Ps,
I choose to leave the upper counter arguments. They still apply to planet zorg, though they might not all apply to earth.
February 19, 2011 at 8:39 am
“ Otherwise what you are saying is, that I can’t argue something that go against what you say, because you know the only truth.”
No, what I’m saying is that you can’t argue with what I say because then you claim that you know the truth, and your original point is that nobody can know it. You refute yourself every time you correct me. It’s always funny to me how people who believe that we perceive truth through our society are so quick to reach across to another society and straighten them out on what the real truth is… and thank you for proving me right and you wrong.
“What I think is irrelelevant to the discussion, the only reason I tell you that I think its wrong, is because I don’t want you to think I’m a crazy ass nazi psycho rapist killer (and of cause because I do believe it actually is wrong, and I believe that I believe it is wrong because that is what the morals in the society I live in tells me.)”
…still incoherent. I do think you’re a crazy ass nazi psycho rapist killer, because you wouldn’t know the difference so long as your society said it was good. You’d have to believe in a higher plane of absolute good to make that judgment against your society and you don’t believe in it.
“If I don’t think a bag of potatoes weighs 1 kg, I can just measure it to see if it weighs 1 kg. But if you tell me I’m wrong for thinking that gay couples have the right to marry, how do I measure weather I’m right or wrong?”
With a reliable moral scale. Your society isn’t it. No society has produced a reliable moral scale. And your position still fails, because you could still say that a child raised in Saudi Arabia who is told that 1 kg actually means 800 kg will say that a sack of potatoes weighs 800 kg. You could even raise him to think a sack of potatoes weighs purple. You simply make a religious statement that science is reliable and your society’s morals are reliable and mine are not. I can’t debate your faith in the materials because what truth can I use to refute your dogma?
“You can’t base scientific fact on a gut feeling. But morals is nothing but a gut feeling,”
You have no demonstration of this position. You have no reason for it. You certainly have no problem judging the gut feelings of a Nazi’s gut feeling so even your feelings know not to use the human gut as a standard.
” when we say rape is wrong it is based solely on a gut feeling, a feeling that I ague we only have because of the society we live in.”
That’s not an argument. And your society only believes in science, if it didn’t believe in science it would no longer be true.
“That same gut feeling could be different in another part of the world. Tell me, how do you know you are right, other than a gut feeling.”
I don’t ever base anything on a gut feeling. You could be projecting… given you don’t believe in absolute values so you make up whatever feels right or just go along with whatever the crowd of society says, I can see why you’d assume that’s what I’m doing. And I say it’s no coincidence that both of us think nazis and baby rape are wrong. We also likely think it’s wrong for two brothers to marry. I also know that someone who thinks baby rape is right isn’t just raised in a different society, because some of them live right down the street from me. They’re in my society. What it tells me is that their scale is broken. Your position is that they just use a different scale, I say their scale is broken. A society that says potatoes weigh 1 kg is superior to the one that says they weight 800 kg. I would say they ought to calibrate their scale to mine.
“I guess what I’m actually saying is that I don’t believe that it, from a universal point if view, neither right nor wrong. I have no eminent proof that it is either one. The only thing I got to go with is my own gut feeling and a set of morals that I was brought up on. But thats not exactly facts.”
Again, you confirm my great horror… that you don’t think baby rape is wrong in any real sense. You sir, do not need an argument, you need a therapist at this point. But what’s funny is that I know you likely don’t really even believe the crap you sling. Deep down inside, way below your gut, you think it’s actually wrong. It’s in conflict with the system you made up for morality, but that’s a different discussion.
“I’m not saying it is right, I’m saying that in the grand scheme it doesn’t matter what I think, as what I think is right is based solely on the norms I was raised on.”
You actually are right that whatever your society thinks if right and wrong are pretty meaningless. It’s a terrible place to get truth, and no different than a society that just chose to invent its own potato scales. Those scales would be as useless as your society’s opinion on gay marriage, beastiality or racism. It’s arbitrary by definition.
“Pretty harsh, and I don’t live by this, I live by the morals that I have been raised on,”
Which you’ve already said are meaningless. If a child came up to an adult with a baby and said, “Can I kill it?” and the adult scratched his head and said, “Let me consult with how I was raised.” You’d think he was mad, or didn’t know what morality was made of. At the very least you’d hope and pray that you weren’t that baby. I hope anyone I know and love are never subjected to your moral will or your society’s.
“and its hard to say this because its not a very nice thought. But non the less this is what I believe to be the scientific truth, the truth that you can measure as I feel I’ve come up with quite a few examples that morals are constantly changing, were as you have no evidence to support your claim that there is an never changing moral standard.”
Actually, I can prove that science has changed more of what it has found to be fact more than any moral system in the world. Science is a chain of truth statements that are abandoned in turn. Yet, what science finds to be the most reasonable and stable knowledge gets more and more solid. Morals don’t evolve the same way that the laws of universe are solid but we are moving around them as we discover where they actually are. The more we adhere to the scales, it becomes more clear which scales are reliable and which ones are not.
“In history thousands have been killed in religious wars,”
…non religious, secular wars too. Science kills millions through cloning and embryo harvesting. Some scientists also endorsed slavery claiming blacks were closer to gorillas and not fully human.
“is religious equally dangerous then? It tell you you fight evil but what if you are wrong about what is evil. Don’t go there, I didn’t go there because I feel that has nothing to do with the argument we are having.”
Religions, like science, can be wrong. It’s not right because it’s religious, it has to be right because it corresponds to truth. People claim “Global Warming is right because it’s science.” Then we find out the science is wrong. So there is right science and wrong science. THere is right religion and wrong religion.
“You are breaking my argument apart to get it your way, my arguments only apply to right and wrong,”
No they don’t. Your argument only applies to what you feel. What you feel has no connection to right and wrong. You’ve said as much. You have no confidence in your own gut so you defer to your society’s gut. But you’ve already said that society’s get is wrong all the time.
” I’ve stated this many times, I’m not arguing weather a tree that I cut down was actually cut down, I’m arguing weather it was right or wrong.
Two completely different things. I hope you see that, even if you don’t agree, than at least see what I mean.”
I think if your gut and your society can convince you that rape is right, then it can convince you that a cut down tree is not cut down. In fact, I think it’s greater madness to believe rape is right than to be wrong about the mere physical facts about a tree.
“No I believe that it is neither right or wrong from a universal point of view,”
Then you should have to wear a t shirt that says, “Nazism, sex with babies and race based slavery is neither right or wrong from a universal point of view.” Adding words to make it longer doesn’t remove the monstrosity of your position. Given you claim this comes from your gut, the way you were raised and your society, it’s an indictment on your gut, your upbringing and your society as jacked up.
“I have no way of arguing weather it is or isn’t really its just random shit happening. Personally I surely do believe that it is wrong.”
It’s your personal belief that’s a tell. If it’s all just random shit happening you shouldn’t care if it’s really right or wrong. Once you lose even that sense that you hope Nazism is wrong, you’ll be a perfect little sociopath. You have remorse, and it seems to be the last vestigial trace of morality in you. Go with that. Whatever you do, rely on that.
“I agree, we just do things, on a grand scheme there is nothing to judge weather it is right or wrong, only ourself, and we can only base it on the morals we know, which I’ve been arguing right from the start, always have and always will be changing.
I agree with Camus then, it doesn’t make any difference.”
Thanks for the clarity. Horrifying, but clear.
“I agree, we don’t live by those standards because we all think we have the one and only truth. To my death, I’m gonna stand up for what I believe in, because although I don’t think it really matters on a grand scheme it matters to me, because of the way my brain is put together.”
You believe in nothing, but you’re going to take a stand for it! This is why Europe has fallen for every crackpot totalitarian world view to ever walk the planet.
“Yep I agree, but I’ve been trying to prove that morals change, I’ve come up with a ton of examples throughout history of how morals have changed.”
You haven’t proved morals change, you’ve stated that they don’t even exist. I could replace the word “moral” with “fashion design” and it wouldn’t change anything of what you’ve said. You’ve equated rape with a flavor of ice cream. Last century, this society thought racism was good, so it was good. They also thought vanilla was bad, so for them, vanilla was bad. Again, you’ve yet to argue truth, morality or values. I argue truth, and you respond with culture.
“And no I don’t agree with you by disagreeing, I’m saying that in reality there is no real right or wrong,”
Thank you. So you don’t believe that morals even evolve, you don’t believe in morality period. This is clarity.
” its just stuff happening, your definition of right and wrong is based on your morals, which are different from what other people might believe. I’m saying that in the grand scheme I can’t say which is more right, as I don’t think it really makes any difference in the end. I can only say what I think is right or wrong, and the only reason that we humans need to live by what we think is right or wrong, is because it is beneficial to human kind as a whole, we have evolve to do this.”
Again, this is good for clarity. When I said, “right and wrong.” you through it out and started arguing what you felt, what you thought I preferred or how I was raised. All of this argument should be thrown in the toilet because you’re making points on something you don’t even think exists.
“Again, yes I know that, because by my standards it is wrong, humans have evolved to feel empathy,”
You don’t know this. You can’t prove it. It’s not different than saying that a unicorn told me that people evolved to feel empathy. Humans were actually made by aliens. The aliens implanted the idea that evolution is true and that empathy evolves. You have no argument that disproves that because it relies on a presupposition that aliens made us, the same way that your argument has no power in itself, it relies on you swallowing materialist evolution first.
“and when I see someone suffer I feel it is wrong. I guess that proves your point actually, that there is a greater good, or at least to some extend. I just believe that the greater good is only relevant to us, and it really doesn’t matter to other than us, empathy is that gut feeling that you feel justify your statement that there is a common good. A biological mechanism that we have developed trough evolution. If an alien species came by that hadn’t developed empathy, they wouldn’t give a shit if some nut head was repeing someone.”
This needs to be a separate discussion.
“(To be completely honest I had completely forgot that we all feel empathy, but empahty also tells me that killing is wrong no matter what, I can’t watch someone die no matter what they have done, its just a natural mechanism. But like Camus, said in the end it doesn’t matter if I helped the old lady cross the road, at least not to anyone but me and her.)……………………………..”
“Actually I think there is a greater good, we all feel empathy, which means that deep down inside we all agree that something is right and wrong. Weather it is something determined by a god or by a natural mechanism, evolved trough evolution.”
Now you’re arguing evolution. I’m not asking how we evolved.
“Why didn’t you call out on empathy before? Could have saved me a bunch of time, I don’t know how that completely slipped my mind. I still think some truths will always change, not the hard truths but the truths like is gay marriage right etc, I still see that as being depended on society, and something that can never really be said to be a definitive right or wrong.
And I guess that maybe on planet zorg, rape is the way to go, but for humans it isn’t I agree on that.”
Sad.
“So I think this is it, I really enjoyed this discussion, made me think a lot about things that I wouldn’t have given a thought otherwise. And it even made me realize that humans might not be so bad after all, although we still ignore the empathic feeling way to often.
This will be my last words for this round, as my winter break is almost over and my flue as well, so I’ll be out there trying to be a good moral person ;)
I hope you don’t mind If I join in a later debate as well ;)
Take care,
A big fan of your work
Ps,
I choose to leave the upper counter arguments. They still apply to planet zorg, though they might not all apply to earth.”
Thanks for the discussion.
February 19, 2011 at 4:24 am
PS, I hope you got something from this discussion as well. As I still think I made some valid points.
February 19, 2011 at 5:26 am
Actually just one last thing, I still think the greater good can change, so I guess a lot my arguments are still relevant to the discussion, only humans would have to be something vary different from what they are today. (Planet zorg like ;) )
February 17, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Oh and I should that, I think that you are taking the easy way by always picking on the most horrible cases, I’d like to see your logic applied to a softer case like gay marriage, politics etc.
February 17, 2011 at 8:49 pm
These are well-trod topics in this blog – you can easily satisfy your curiosity as to Doug’s positions on various topics just by perusing the archive.
February 17, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Damn that last comment: “Oh and I should that, I think that you are taking the easy way by always picking on the most horrible cases, I’d like to see your logic applied to a softer case like gay marriage, politics etc.”
Sounded kinda condescending, that was definitely not my intension, it was a honest request. Hope I didn’t come of a dick.
February 17, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Doug wrote up above responding to a question:
“Would you say that it is always wrong to tell a lie?”
Yes.
___________________________
I’m a little surprised by this. I would’ve thought you’d invoke a “greater good” disclaimer for moral dilemmas…Rahab and the spies, and all that?
February 17, 2011 at 5:42 pm
I don’t define a lie as just not telling the truth. It’s not telling the truth for personal gain. It is always wrong to tell a lie for personal gain. If a Nazi comes to my house and says, “Are you hiding Jews in the basement?” and I mislead him by saying “No, but I saw some running in the forest just a few minutes ago!” It’s not a lie, because I’m actually exposing myself to help someone. Rahab didn’t lie. Our army didn’t lie by putting inflatable tanks on phony bases to mislead the Nazis. In fact, in the case of hiding Jews in the basement I think “telling the truth” would be immoral.
The context for a lie is almost always some kind of personal gain, even by telling lies about others to make yourself look better by comparison.
February 17, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Doug,
I don’t mean to nitpick, esp since I think we’re on the same team here. But, I think your definition of ‘lie’ is at odds with the traditional definition (according to dictionary.com):
a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.
I’d check the OED but I don’t have a copy handy.
I have no problem with what Rahab did or you making intentionally false statements to Nazis. My understanding is that given a moral dilemma, you have to weigh the options and always do the greatest good.
I appreciate your blog.
Dave
February 17, 2011 at 8:36 pm
Dave, I have no problem with that definition, I don’t want to make up my own word to dodge an argument. I would just change my position by saying there’s such a thing as a bad lie and a good lie. It’s not that different to a bad form of slavery (race based) and a good form (paying debt instead of going to jail to be sodomized).
February 17, 2011 at 9:51 pm
God creates the universe. To help this universe survive, he creates a big list of facts and rules that must be followed at all times and labels them “The Truth”. They say things like “water is wet”, or “fire is hot”, and in this universe, each one of these rules is unquestionably, undeniably true. Believe all you want that water is dry, that doesn’t make it true, it just makes you crazy. It doesn’t change a single thing on that big list.
Follow me so far?
Continuing the discussion earlier, I’m going to use “rape is bad” as an example.
Now, let’s say that by the time the creatures of Earth evolve to a point where they create societies, someone read the list wrong, and passes on the message that rape is good. It gets to the point where 99.9999% of the planet thinks rape is good, and there’s only one person who thinks it’s bad. That one guy is still right. Everyone tells him he’s wrong. His neighbors, friends, family, they all tell him he’s wrong. But he’s not.
Just because everyone thinks the same way about it, won’t change the rules of the universe. True, That one guy is going to have a real hard time winning an argument about it, but that doesn’t make him wrong. In society’s eyes, yes, but in the grand scheme of things, according to the big rules of the universe, he’s right. And no amount of opinion and argument can change that.
I’m sure I got a little redundant there, but was this the point you were trying to make, Doug?
February 22, 2011 at 7:36 am
Is there any particular reason you chose to post Athiest Andy’s comments in reverse chronological order? I mean the whole scenario reads a little different when you read it bottom to top.
March 4, 2011 at 3:04 pm
“everything has free will. Maybe you should stop seeking answers to things no one knows the answers to and find out what is true and accepting what the human race doesn’t know instead of filling in the holes with mystical beings.”
Find out what is true with… what method? Just let everybody decide what is right and wrong for themself and leave them to it?
It’s plain and obvious that if everyone was left to choose what is right and wrong for themselves, this world would be even more chaotic than it is already at this point. If you don’t believe in the ultimate authority, God, recognizing that you will stand before Him someday to be judged for what you have done, I suggest you go take a warm bath, clear your head and ponder existence for a while. We know something physical does not come from nothing but has a beginning. A transcendant being is the only way to explain existence logically. CraftyAndy better pull his head out of the dark place and realize there is a lot more to “mystical beings” than societies ignorant caricature.
Consider this quote and then tell me it’s a good idea to promote subjective morality.
“Then I learned that all moral judgments are “value judgments,” that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved either right or wrong. I even read somewhere that the Chief Justice of the United States had written that the American Constitution expressed nothing more than collective value judgments. Believe it or not, I figured it out for myself – what apparently the chief justice couldn’t figure out for himself – that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any “reason” to obey the law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring – the strength of character – to throw off shackles….I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable “value judgment” that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these “others”? Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig, or a sheep, or a steer? Is your life more to you that a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as “moral” or “good” and others as “immoral” or “bad”? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham, and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me – after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self.”
Ted Bundy
March 7, 2011 at 11:26 am
“We know something physical does not come from nothing but has a beginning. A transcendant being is the only way to explain existence logically.”
I’m sorry but thats the most contradicting thing I’ve ever heard? Do you honestly see this as a valid argument yourself?
What you are saying is, I can’t explain how the universe was created, so let me just create something even stranger and say that it created it.
Tell me then what created your god then?
You can believe in a god if you like but please don’t try to explain it with science, cause you simply can’t.
“Consider this quote and then tell me it’s a good idea to promote subjective morality.”
Might be dangerous to promote it, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t true?
March 7, 2011 at 11:51 am
“I can’t explain how a complex species came from a simple one, so let me just create something even stranger and say that it evolved. Tell me then, what evolved your blind physical laws?”
You can believe in strict Darwinism if you like but please don’t try to explain it with science, cause you simply can’t. Darwinism of the gaps is just as much of a strawman argument as God of the gaps. The two theories claim evidence not just wishful thinking. One says complex, specified information needs no mind to create it, the other says complex, specified information must come from a mind.
Inference is a normal way to do science, “I see this effect and this effect and it implies this cause.” One man sees a bacteria becoming a human being and fills in the blanks with a chain of species and the other sees the handiwork of a clever, powerful being. One doesn’t necessarily require more science or faith than the other. One is not necessarily filling in more gaps with irrational faith than the other. Stick to the evidence and only the evidence if you want to avoid gap-talk. And be willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads, which is why I agree with your statement about Bundy.
March 7, 2011 at 1:15 pm
The Bible presents a God that created physical space and time… a God that created everything. It is not contradictory to say a being of this magnitude had no beginning because he is not subject to the physical laws he created!
Saying God has to fit the physical laws is like saying, “Douglas TenNapel created Earthworm Jim and RatFist. In the worlds of Earthworm Jim and RatFist, worms and tails can talk, thus worms and tails can talk where Douglas TenNapel is.”
Call it just a hypothesis or theory if you want to, but a “transcendent being theory” does not require the transcendent to have an origin.
Modern science tells us that physical matter had a beginning. It didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Trying to explain the physical through naturalistic means reaches a dead end. If physical matter can’t be eternal, then where did it come from?
God is a very rational explanation.
Evolutionists make leaps and bounds to connect what they call “evidence” for macro-evolution. Why is it so irrational to athiests to take (what I consider) a small step to a transcendent theory?
March 7, 2011 at 1:28 pm
p.s.
Why is it so irrational to think God can do it if we already know Chuck Norris can?
March 7, 2011 at 3:53 pm
““I can’t explain how a complex species came from a simple one, so let me just create something even stranger and say that it evolved. Tell me then, what evolved your blind physical laws?”
You can believe in strict Darwinism if you like but please don’t try to explain it with science, cause you simply can’t. Darwinism of the gaps is just as much of a strawman argument as God of the gaps. The two theories claim evidence not just wishful thinking. One says complex, specified information needs no mind to create it, the other says complex, specified information must come from a mind.
Inference is a normal way to do science, “I see this effect and this effect and it implies this cause.” One man sees a bacteria becoming a human being and fills in the blanks with a chain of species and the other sees the handiwork of a clever, powerful being. One doesn’t necessarily require more science or faith than the other. One is not necessarily filling in more gaps with irrational faith than the other. Stick to the evidence and only the evidence if you want to avoid gap-talk. And be willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads, which is why I agree with your statement about Bundy.”
Read up on science and the theory of evolution, and we can have a real argument.
Firstly, the theory doesn’t say anything about how life came to be, only how it evolved.
Second, the theory of evolution is one of the most well documented scientific theories we have. You as an artist should know this, you can trace the anatomy in us down to the anatomy in fish, and DNA is in all living things on this planet.
Natural selection works, thats how rats get immune to poison.
If the idea of a creator was a valid scientific theory, then please tell me why intelligent design was ruled to not be science?
“…2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, where U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science”.
ID is religion in disguise, you can’t explain something unexplainable with something even more explainable, sceince is all about having something that be be tested, you make a hypothesis, the a test, if the test supports your hypothesis, then you got a theory, which anybody can feel free to prove wrong if they got a better hypothesis, science is working towards finding the truth, religion claim to have the truth already. Faith vs facts.
Look I’m fine with you believing in a god, I personally don’t think there is one, but, hey believe in what ever you want, just please don’t mix science and religion, one is based on faith the other on evidence.
I’m sorry but one does require a whole lot more faith than the other.
March 7, 2011 at 3:56 pm
You can’t test if there is a god = not a valid scientific theory.
A god doesn’t really answer any questions it just puts up even more questions.
March 7, 2011 at 7:59 pm
“Read up on science and the theory of evolution, and we can have a real argument.
Firstly, the theory doesn’t say anything about how life came to be, only how it evolved.”
You’re wrong about this as well as almost everything else you’ve written here. Look up the Miller-Urey experiment, the Oparin coacervate theory, protobiont origins, the iron-sulfur life theory all the way to Carl Sagan and now Steven Hawking. While I agree that these are all wrong, bad thinking and more rooted in faith than empirical evidence, it goes to show that origin of life philosophies are mainstream science. And there’s nothing anti-science about saying, “It appears a god did this.” Science pursues the truth. The only ones who think it must sit within the boundaries of atheism display a bias, not an adherence of “wherever the evidence leads.”
March 7, 2011 at 9:59 pm
“2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, where U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science”
Since when does a judge get to dictate what is true in the realm of science?
“Read up on science and the theory of evolution, and we can have a real argument”
Nice dodge… not.
“Natural selection works, thats how rats get immune to poison.”
That’s micro-evolution. I don’t think anybody here has argued against micro-evolution.
Give me an example of a creature living today that does not fall into a species category but is the intermediate between a known species and the coming “evolved” species.
March 8, 2011 at 8:36 am
I’m sorry Doug, but that did in no way have anything to do with my argument, you didn’t answer to any of the point, and the theories aren’t even about evolution? Darwin’s theory didn’t touch anything about the origins of life, only how it evolved.
And further more, why do you see these in any relation to a God theory, these are theories based on experiments. Do that with God and we can talk.
And further more tell me what I said that wasn’t true, I’d like to know.
It doesn’t even matter if these theories should turn out to be wrong that just means MORE SCIENCE! Yeah! Thats how awesome science is, if it should turn out to be wrong, we try again.
But that doesn’t change the fact that no one has come up with a proper way to prove the existence of a god. Which is why I say, if you believe in a god fine, if that make you feel good, helps you sleep, set you free, then be my guest, religious people often know a whole lot more about human nature than science, fx I love these two talks: http://www.ted.com/talks/rick_warren_on_a_life_of_purpose.html
But don’t try to prove a god with reason and argue with science, as that proves that you lack a fundamental understanding of the way science works.
and to JonnyMatic,
You do know that we can trace DNA, and end up connecting us to every species on earth right?
Please read up on the scientific method:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
“Give me an example of a creature living today that does not fall into a species category but is the intermediate between a known species and the coming “evolved” species.”
I’m sorry but thats not how it works, but you can look at what sloths looked like, and what they look like today, Crocodiles, I mean there are hundreds of thousands of examples of creatures that have evolved into something quite different over time, and you can watch this video as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO1a1Ek-HD0
It takes millions of years for living creatures to evolve into something different, slow and graduate change.
Read up on this, life in the right conditions can change completely: http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-nasa-discovery-element-life.html
Before you engage in further conversation on these topics, please read up on all of this.
March 9, 2011 at 10:47 pm
“It doesn’t even matter if these theories should turn out to be wrong that just means MORE SCIENCE”
Why the hell are you arguing like they are absolute fact then? :D
“I’m sorry but thats not how it works”
Did I word something incorrectly… or are you just admitting that there is no physical evidence of macro-evolution just speculation as to how it might work?
You need physical evidence right? So give me an example of the physical evidence of macro-evolution.
Don’t try to educate me on wikipedia.
Don’t post links telling me to inform myself before we can have a legit conversation. If you don’t feel the convo is legit then stop having it. I’m talking to you not your links.
“It takes millions of years for living creatures to evolve into something different, slow and graduate change.”
Give an example of this occuring please. Documented example. Step by step evidence not step by step guess work.
A fish turned into a giraffe in that video you posted… I just wanted to make sure you were aware of that…
Doug, I’m not sure if you are reading any of my posts but if you are, I was wondering if Professor Monkey for a Head was in any way a reference to any of your college or high school evolutionist professors?
March 9, 2011 at 10:53 pm
M for a head was most of them. My high school biology teacher was pretty awesome, though.
March 9, 2011 at 10:55 pm
and my pre-med anatomy teacher was legit too. She helped me overcome my utter terror of cadavers. I was really into Michaelangelo, and if he put his hands in a dead man, so must I.
March 9, 2011 at 11:09 pm
I’ve never had a science teacher who wasn’t a Monkey head… rather upsetting really.
You put your hand in a cadaver? What class was this for?
I watched a couple autopsy videos once… that’s about as close as I hope to get.
This is probably against the forum rules or something… but if you have a chance take a look at the character you inspired me to create this year. I don’t have any formal art training… so you’ll have to forgive the inadequacies…
http://jonnymatic.deviantart.com/
March 10, 2011 at 7:19 am
My sciences were pre-med since I went to a school that had the highest nursing graduates in the world. Biology was nails. The cadaver was for Human Anatomy… a class that every artist should take, though it was one of my tougher courses I took in college. But it gave me a really good working knowledge of the major systems of the human body, and that was good for my art… but even better when some college guy wants to throw around big words.
March 10, 2011 at 12:11 am
“Why the hell are you arguing like they are absolute fact then? :D”
Like in curt, I believe what I can see supported by evidence.
If someone killed somebody and had a picture of them holding the knife, blood from the victim was found on that person, along with other DNA evidence etc. You properly would be a little skeptical if he said he didn’t do it, and it was a ghost who did it, right?
I’ve said it before, feel free to prove evolution wrong, but do it right. If evolution is wrong and you can come up with a better theory that is better documented, I can’t wait to hear it ;)
“Did I word something incorrectly… or are you just admitting that there is no physical evidence of macro-evolution just speculation as to how it might work?
You need physical evidence right? So give me an example of the physical evidence of macro-evolution.”
Something like this is the best I can come up with http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/19/ida-fossil-missing-link, I’m not sure what you expect me to show you otherwise, an example of a cat turning into something new or what, its almost impossible, the change will only be big enough to be visible long after I’m dead.
“Don’t try to educate me on wikipedia.
Don’t post links telling me to inform myself before we can have a legit conversation. If you don’t feel the convo is legit then stop having it. I’m talking to you not your links.”
Well if we were discussing the bible, I’m sure you would be offended by my ignorance of the bible as well. I’m trying to help you to a level of understanding of the subject were we can have a good discussion. Which isn’t were we are at at the moment.
“Give an example of this occuring please. Documented example. Step by step evidence not step by step guess work.”
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-nasa-discovery-element-life.html Did you read this link? That life form changed completely, to adept to the harsh environment.
“A fish turned into a giraffe in that video you posted… I just wanted to make sure you were aware of that…”
You didn’t watch the video did you?
It should make you consider that the designer who designed the giraffes neck did a pretty sleazy job.
And Doug,
I’m a little offended by your statement from earlier that I was not telling the truth, while you don’t take the time to say what I said wrong. If you are gonna accuse me of lying, then I’d like to see some evidence.
March 10, 2011 at 7:32 am
The ghost of random mutation did it.
And it’s easy to find a better theory, but you can’t find more documentation of a rabbit trail that is followed for the last 150 years due to ideology and not evidence. At the peak of the “flat earth movement” I couldn’t find much documentation on better theories. Half of the problem with evolution is that it’s not just one theory. All of science is a robust, giant amoeba of a human mess. It’s not monolithic, and it’s false to present it as such. I can disprove move evolutionary theory by reading other evolutionists who have their own preferred method that accounts for what evidence doesn’t empirically present… which is most of evolution.
The Darwinist is a different kind of man of faith. If he finds a willing subject, then like the Christian, he’ll get a lot farther down the road with him than a skeptic. I’m a skeptic of faith and science. I think both our best Christian and scientific thinkers have been. The Darwinist loves to talk about how I shed evidence to believe in “ghosts” then he swallows a giant inferred chain of animals he’s never even seen. Now that’s fine if that’s what he wants to do. I love Darwinian theories and respect a lot of the more rigorous science, but that’s not what’s happening with most of these internet debates between believers and non of both religion and Darwinism. I’m a skeptic. Darwinism doesn’t cut it, and that drives the orthodoxy mad.
And just as you would be skeptical of any link to a Christian site defending the faith, you can’t link to Modernist, Darwinist believers to promote your cause.
FSM, I didn’t say you were lying, I said you were wrong. I don’t think you’re a liar at all.
March 10, 2011 at 10:17 am
“Something like this is the best I can come up with http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/19/ida-fossil-missing-link,”
Well, that’s really too bad for your side of the argument. Have you read any of the articles that have followed up the one you posted?
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/1144
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17173-why-ida-fossil-is-not-the-missing-link.html
http://www.icr.org/article/more-evolutionists-say-ida-not-missing/
If that’s really the best you can come up with at this point, I think you probably should dig a litte deeper. “Ida” is no missing link.
“Well if we were discussing the bible, I’m sure you would be offended by my ignorance of the bible as well. I’m trying to help you to a level of understanding of the subject were we can have a good discussion.”
I have a level of understanding on the subject and I don’t need you to educate me. Even a basic knowledge of genetics, biology, evolution, etc. will tell you that going from micro-evolution to macro-evolution is taking a very large step. Micro-evolution has all of the evidence in the world to support species adapting to their environments, species changing over time to be more fit for survival, etc. It’s a huge leap though when you start saying “all life evolved from a common ancestor and all of the advanced creatures today are products of simpler life forms from millions of years ago.”
On one hand, micro-evolution can’t be disputed. On the other hand, everything coming from a common ancestor is easily debatable.
I wouldn’t assume your ingnorance if we were discussion the Bible. Honestly, I think we could of had a lot more pleasant conversation on the Bible.
“Did you read this link? That life form changed completely, to adept to the harsh environment.”
It didn’t change completely! It adapted to it’s environment. It didn’t turn into another creature. It’s the same creature with a newly discovered ability.
“You didn’t watch the video did you?
It should make you consider that the designer who designed the giraffes neck did a pretty sleazy job.”
Or… that Richard Dawkins is sleazy bad argued athiest. Maybe finding a nerve we can’t possibly know everything about has some reason for being the way that it is. Perhaps it is a genetic deformity in giraffes that has accured over time… or like I said before, maybe it is just the way it’s supposed to be. The giraffes I’ve seen sure don’t seem to mind.
I’ve never yet been at the Zoo and had a giraffe lean it’s neck over the fence and whisper in my ear, “man… I love being a giraffe… but this nerve in my neck is really weighing me down…”
I did watch through that entire video last night and I still laugh at the ridiculous toward the end when it shows a fish turn into a giraffe… mind boggling.
March 10, 2011 at 10:36 am
“FSM, I didn’t say you were lying, I said you were wrong. I don’t think you’re a liar at all.”
First of all I really appreciate this, and I’m glad to hear I misunderstood your statement, happens a lot when communicating like this.
“And it’s easy to find a better theory, but you can’t find more documentation of a rabbit trail that is followed for the last 150 years due to ideology and not evidence.”
The idea of Intelligent design is as old as the theory of evolution, it was even a friend of Darwin that came up with it.
So I don’t that.
“All of science is a robust, giant amoeba of a human mess. It’s not monolithic, and it’s false to present it as such. I can disprove move evolutionary theory by reading other evolutionists who have their own preferred method that accounts for what evidence doesn’t empirically present… which is most of evolution.”
I hope that I haven’t presented the theory of evolution as an evident truth, all I’ve said is that it is far better documented than the idea of an intelligent designer.
And I don’t think you can disprove evolution, at least not as it stands now, maybe if new evidence should turn up.
“The Darwinist is a different kind of man of faith. If he finds a willing subject, then like the Christian, he’ll get a lot farther down the road with him than a skeptic. I’m a skeptic of faith and science. I think both our best Christian and scientific thinkers have been. The Darwinist loves to talk about how I shed evidence to believe in “ghosts” then he swallows a giant inferred chain of animals he’s never even seen. Now that’s fine if that’s what he wants to do. I love Darwinian theories and respect a lot of the more rigorous science, but that’s not what’s happening with most of these internet debates between believers and non of both religion and Darwinism. I’m a skeptic. Darwinism doesn’t cut it, and that drives the orthodoxy mad.”
Of cause they have, if it weren’t for skeptic thinkers we would still be living in caves.
I’d love to see anybody prove Darwin wrong, but as of now, the amount of evidence to support evolution is quite a bit more substantial than any evidence of a God.
“And just as you would be skeptical of any link to a Christian site defending the faith, you can’t link to Modernist, Darwinist believers to promote your cause.”
Which of the links are you referring to?
You can read about the new life form NASA discovered, on FOX as well: http://nation.foxnews.com/culture/2010/12/02/nasa-finds-new-life-form
I can’t speak for all “believers” in science but I think most scientist are actually just hoping for a big theory to be proven wrong, as that will just mean they will have to come up with something better. Look at the experiments with LHC.
And I think the only reason scientists haven’t accepted the idea of Intelligent design, is because, like Darwin said, its not a satisfiable scientific explanation. It just adds a non explainable element to the theory. The question, who/what created the creator will always arise. The theory of evolution doesn’t deal with what created life only with how it evolved.
March 10, 2011 at 12:08 pm
The reason why you can’t find evidence against evolution is because it’s also a belief system grounded in dogma, not evidence. It is not held together with empirical data, it’s held together with a chain leaky buckets none of which is water tight.
and “scientists’ have accepted Intelligent Design theory. Just not the Philosophical Naturalists. The standard for science is not Philosophical Naturalism, it’s following the evidence wherever it leads. If it was “unfalsifiable” you wouldn’t find hundreds of articles in scientific journals trying to refute it. If it can’t be falsified, then don’t claim Darwinist evidence against it, because it can’t be falsified. You can propose anything, but I at least expect you to act on your own ideas you’re shoveling here.
The “who created the creator” is silly. It is “the prime mover” the “first Cause” and “unmade maker”. Supernature doesn’t demand a designer because supernature doesn’t have to obey the laws of physics. But blind materials DO have to be justified, and that includes the laws of random mutation and information from nothing, specified complexity from chaos. Darwinism has to explain all of that or it’s just a god by another name that “causes” evolution. It’s evolution all the way down, or it’s no explanation at all.
March 10, 2011 at 12:47 pm
This guy is funny.
http://www.evolutionisstupid.com/#a
Here’s a quote from the site. Enjoy.
“Just look at some of the stuff of the past that was called “science.” Ever heard of “phlogiston”? Science is always changing its tune, and that’s fine, because it’s supposed to be about testing, and proving, and demonstrating repeatability. NONE of which is possible with the Big Bang and Evolution from mud to mom, but they just can’t admit it and get over it.
Now, we might believe something just because someone told us to, or we might believe it because we’re really convinced it’s true, or we might believe it out of fear (of peer reprisal or that we’ll lose our job or position, or whatever), or we might believe something just because we don’t care and don’t want to be bothered really thinking about it because we have “better things to do.” However, the questions involved with evolution are the kind that we just can’t ignore: Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? According to evolution, you came from slime that turned itself into Slim, you’re here to pass on your genes (even though we can’t tell you how they evolved), and you’re going back to the slime you came from as fodder for future evolution. Now, AIN’T THAT GREAT? So, why do we even BOTHER getting all uptight about this stuff then? Do CATS get all upset worrying about who they are? There must be something different about people, that we’re so interested in these questions, right?
Take the David statue in Florence, sculpted by Michelangelo. People would gawk at it, gush about what a great sculptor Mike was, gloat over his talents, and just generally oooh and ahhh with mouths wide open as they walked around looking at this statue of a naked guy. But if you placed another real, live, in-the-flesh human being in front of them, of which a statue is a poor copy at best, well, now, to most observers who would have been indoctrinated and brainwashed by Chuckie Dee materialism, that human would just be the product of a bunch of (“lucky,” as Evolution Pope Stephen J. Gould would have said) accidents. STUPID? YOU BET!
Let’s take a look at this a minute: No modern observer saw Michelangelo create the statue, but the same observer would have no problem believing he did it. The statue is just a piece of stone which is formed into a COPY of the EXTERNAL FEATURES of a human being, and has no brain, no blood, no heart, no feelings, though it was MADE by real human hands, directed by a real human brain using tools that a real human brain devised. So to say the STATUE was created was no problem, but if you say the hands, brain, and man that CREATED the statue were created, you are chucked out of the Chuck Darwin Club, banished forever, and you are branded as STUPID and UNEDUCATED.”
March 10, 2011 at 1:18 pm
“sex is another thing that causes problems for Chuck Darwin Club members. I don’t mean personally, though that may be true, but they can’t really explain it. I mean, you have a man and a woman, and they started out as bacteria? Uh, if you say so… The man is made just right for the woman, the woman is made just right for the man (I don’t think I need to get too descriptive here). When a man looks at a woman and finds her attractive, what’s going on there? How did THAT evolve? I guess some bacteria were hot, and some were not? Is this STUPID or what? How did the woman know she had to evolve the right organs to carry and bear a baby, so as to advance the human race? And how inconvenient is it that humans, more than any other so-called “animals” have to spend so much time feeding and training their kids? I thought we were supposed to be more ADVANCED? You call baby bottles and diapers ADVANCED? I mean, we were going doo doo just fine in the forest! Oh, and those bottles… I suppose EVOLUTION KNEW that women had to evolve breasts for feeding their young, and the breasts knew how to evolve just the right milk, right? And evolution knew the baby would have a mouth that could suckle on the breast to get the milk, and then evolution knew how to make the baby’s body assimilate the milk and turn it into bone and other tissue? OH, SURE! That’s EASY to believe, as long as you don’t THINK about it.”
March 10, 2011 at 2:33 pm
The burden of proof is in the hands of the one who makes the claim.
I could say that everything we know was created by a purple unicorn that spew dinosaurs out its ***, and you wouldn’t be able to prove me wrong. But that wouldn’t make it a valid scientific statement either.
Your statement makes me wonder again, if what you call the scientific method is the same as what I call the scientific method. As your statement clearly goes against what proper science is.
Some scientists may have accepted ID, like some priests accept evolution. Whats the point you are making?
NASA don’t accept ID, and I’m sure that the vast majority of biologists in general don’t either.
And yes science is following the evidence, but were is the evidence to support ID? Even though we didn’t record earths life on video, the evidence to support the theory of evolution is definitely more than nothing.
You can’t have no evidence and say that its the truth because there is no evidence against it.
I don’t get your argument about super nature. What are you referring to, a God? Big Bang?
We can see something from we believe to be the beginning of time (the birth of the universe), when we look in a telescope. Scientists try to figure out what is going on. While religion tells us, a God did it.
Don’t you find that kinda boring? What I’m hearing is, “I can’t explain this, so I’ll just go with a god instead”. Instead of trying to come up with an actual explanation based on everything else we know about the world at the moment.
And I its evolution all the way down, I don’t see what you mean by that. Evolution still doesn’t explain who life came to be. The spark of life must fall into another theory.
I mean even if god created the first little living organism, that won’t make evolution less true.
March 10, 2011 at 3:17 pm
“The burden of proof is in the hands of the one who makes the claim.”
Yep. That’s why scientists are having a hard time with evolution… it’s a dumb hypothesis and they can’t make ends meet.
“I could say that everything we know was created by a purple unicorn that spew dinosaurs out its ***, and you wouldn’t be able to prove me wrong.”
…seeing as how a purple unicorn would be a physical creature it would be relatively easy to prove you wrong… and an idiot.
“Your statement makes me wonder again, if what you call the scientific method is the same as what I call the scientific method.”
Is your definition of the scientific method anything found that can be stretched beyond the imagination to fit the hypothesis of evolution and then reworded to sound intelligent?
“NASA don’t accept ID, and I’m sure that the vast majority of biologists in general don’t either.”
Well, they wouldn’t get their paycheck if they didn’t now would they? Wait till the individuals retire in the various scientific fields and no longer are under the whip. Some of them will come out and confess their sins.
“but were is the evidence to support ID?”
OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AROUND YOU.
“when we look in a telescope. Scientists try to figure out what is going on. While religion tells us, a God did it.
Don’t you find that kinda boring?”
Hmmm… what’s more interesting, a big explosion or an all powerful-creator being… I don’t think the isue is what is boring and not boring here. It’s what is intelligent and rediculously insane.
“I mean even if god created the first little living organism, that won’t make evolution less true”
If the hypothesis of evolution is ever even close to being true…
“We didn’t need it to get to the moon, don’t need it to advance medicine, didn’t need it to build the Hubble telescope or any other instrument, don’t need it to extract energy resources or teeth, don’t need it to make law, don’t need it to cook dinner, don’t need it to advance automobile or computer technology.”
Evolution in a nut shell.
March 10, 2011 at 4:37 pm
““We didn’t need it to get to the moon, don’t need it to advance medicine, didn’t need it to build the Hubble telescope or any other instrument, don’t need it to extract energy resources or teeth, don’t need it to make law, don’t need it to cook dinner, don’t need it to advance automobile or computer technology.”
Evolution in a nut shell.”
And is a god any better?
Evolution explain what we have found, fossils, why we look like apes, why we share DNA. It explains part of the world we live in, why do you oppose this so strongly, don’t you want to know more about this amazing planet, and the life that inhabits it? The lifeforms that used to etc?
“Well, they wouldn’t get their paycheck if they didn’t now would they? Wait till the individuals retire in the various scientific fields and no longer are under the whip. Some of them will come out and confess their sins.”
Thats called wild speculations.
“Is your definition of the scientific method anything found that can be stretched beyond the imagination to fit the hypothesis of evolution and then reworded to sound intelligent?”
Stretched beyond imagination? Yeah like we all share the same DNA, DNA can be traced down, we are only separated by a few genes from monkeys, birds etc. The embryo of most living mammals look the same. We still have left over bones in our body from when we were fish. We have the same muscles as a horse a cat a dog, etc.
Fossils, we have traced down species through time. Every single animal on earth is mapped in a evolutionary map. I could go on
You might not believe in evolution, thats one thing, but to say that its stretched beyond imagination, thats seams way out of line.
“…seeing as how a purple unicorn would be a physical creature it would be relatively easy to prove you wrong… and an idiot.”
Unicorns don’t exist, so not exactly a physical creature.
“Yep. That’s why scientists are having a hard time with evolution… it’s a dumb hypothesis and they can’t make ends meet.”
Dumb hardly, its a theory that we are constantly building on, trying to prove right. If we had a million years to record the life on earth, it would be easy to prove or disprove, unfortunately we don’t so we have to go with what we actually got.
“Hmmm… what’s more interesting, a big explosion or an all powerful-creator being… I don’t think the isue is what is boring and not boring here. It’s what is intelligent and rediculously insane.”
Both seam equally rideculus to me. Looking for answers that actually are explainable just seams a lot more reasonable to me.
But honestly I don’t think man kind will ever know how the universe came to be, what it actually is what came before, if anything, I mean it just blows my mind, I don’t think the human mind could ever understand it.
“If the hypothesis of evolution is ever even close to being true…”
I don’t know what to say besides what I’ve already said a hundred times in this discussion, I’ve tried to put evidence and examples on the table, what more do you want?
“OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AROUND YOU.”
I can’t see it maybe you could show me?
March 10, 2011 at 5:30 pm
What about this idea that we’re just a paw print above the apes, and there’s really not much that separates us. After all, we share 95% or more of our DNA with apes, right? Well, it has also been demonstrated that we share about half our genes with a banana, but facts like that don’t mean much to Clubbers. They don’t like you showing them examples like this: GOD IS NOW HERE and GOD IS NOWHERE share ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the same letters, but have completely OPPOSITE meanings. Sharing 95% of something is meaningless, unless you have all the facts. And the facts are that sharing 95% of our genes with an ape means absolutely NOTHING “because it’s the interpretation and expression of that genetic material that makes us who we are, and apes who they are. It’s more evolutionary stupidity to try to prove their point about our “relation” to chimp ancestors which, when all the facts are weighed, means nothing.”
You should read the online book at
http://www.evolutionisstupid.com
March 11, 2011 at 12:07 am
Wow man are you serious? I only read the first part about sex, and there wasn’t anything there that had any root in science, he has twisted and turned the idea of evolution to fit his beliefs.
Honestly its properly the worst pile of horse shit I’ve ever read. I mean just listen to the way he writes it?
There isn’t any facts, no references to to were he gets all these crazy things from.
His examples about the lizard and bactaria kissing… man I don’t even know were to start.. this guys wouldn’t know what evolution was if it hit him in the face.
The fact that people this misinformed exists blows my mind.
I seriously hope you are nothing more than an internet troll, cause if sites like that is what you consider legit sources, than you have a huge problem, do you believe Obama is a Muslim as well?
I’m literally in shock that anybody can take that site seriously.
March 11, 2011 at 9:09 am
“Wow man are you serious? I only read the first part about sex, and there wasn’t anything there that had any root in science, he has twisted and turned the idea of evolution to fit his beliefs.”
Obviously your reading comprehension is that of a Kindergarten student… or worst. He’s talking about what YOUR SIDE was showing him in a SCIENCE THEATRE! It’s not his ideas. IT’S WHAT THE SO CALLED SMART EVOLUTION PEOPLE WERE SHOWING HIM IN A SCIENCE THEATRE IN A SCIENCE MUSEUM. CLEAR ENOUGH??
“There isn’t any facts, no references to to were he gets all these crazy things from.”
YOU READ THE FIRST PARAGRAPH AND YOU THINK YOU CAN ASSUME THAT?
“His examples about the lizard and bactaria kissing… man I don’t even know were to start.. this guys wouldn’t know what evolution was if it hit him in the face.”
THOSE WEREN’T HIS EXAMPLES. THEY WERE SHOWN TO HIM BY so called “SCIENCE PEOPLE” in a “SCIENCE MUSUEM.”
“I’m literally in shock that anybody can take that site seriously.”
…you might want to go to the doctor.
I’M NOT EVEN MAD. I’M JUST USING BIG LETTERS SO THAT MAYBE YOU’LL COMPREHEND WHAT’S SAID. KINDA LIKE A LITTLE BABY PLAYING WITH BIG TOYS INSTEAD OF SMALL ONES SO THAT HE WON’T CHOKE ON THE LITTLE PIECES.
March 11, 2011 at 9:32 am
No real biologist would ever in their living life have said anything so completely and utterly stupid as what he represents.
If you believe that that is evolution than its no wonder you don’t believe in it. But that is by no means what evolution is.
The second chapter is about the big bang, a completely different theory, chapter 3, (very fitting title) has nothing to do with evolution either, just him saying to go against what other says and then telling you to listen to him. Chapter 4, I don’t even know what on earth he is trying to prove by once again talking about the big bang. I’m gonna stop here because this guy is either an idiot, a troll or extremely misinformed.
He doesn’t know anything about evolution, he don’t have any real arguments or evidence.
Please for the love of god, but on your skeptical glasses and read you a few lines about random mutation, survival of the fittest, etc. and read it again.
I don’t really have anything else to say to you, as you are not listening anyway.
March 11, 2011 at 1:13 pm
It is a matter of FACT that there are no examples whatsoever of mutations or evolutionary processses adding genetic information to a creature.
It is entirely in the imaginations of scientists to say that we all came from a common ancestor.
The only evolution that is true is that there are
small
changes
over
time
but the genetic information for these changes is
already
present
within the animal before the changes even take place.
That is why I say one kind of animal will never become another kind of animal. There are no examples of this having ever occured or those examples would be prime evidence for mutations adding genetic information.
“I don’t really have anything else to say to you, as you are not listening anyway.”
Likewise. I’m fed up with your unwarranted arrogance.
March 11, 2011 at 1:17 pm
All creatures having a common ancestor hinges on mutations or evolutionary processes being able to add genetic information and there are just no examples of this ever occuring.
.
March 6, 2011 at 8:16 am
“In a day of illusions and utter confusions upon our illusions we base our conclusions.”
For some reason I felt this quote by an unknown author was relevant… Oh wait… now I remember my reason… CraftyAndy and much of the rest of the world consider blind naturalistic process to be the explanation that makes sense over intelligence. What an illusion. Honestly, it’s only the popular illusion because it’s been crammed down the people’s throats with so much gusto and consistency.
It seems Hitler was right about atleast one thing.
“If you tell a lie long and loud enough, people will eventually start to believe it”
Adolf Hitler
March 6, 2011 at 9:12 am
“The bible has been wrong on almost every scientific account and it fails as a moral guide.”
Dear Mr. Crafty,
First of all I would like to say that you are very wrong on both of your statements. Let’s approach the “scientific” issue.
I’m assuming that since the Bible uses language like “the sun rises and sets” you are calling it un-scientific. Well, even in our age of so called “enlightenment”, we still say the sun rises and sets. The Bible was not written as a scientific text book using scientific language. Writers use language like “the sun rises and sets” all the time. If the Bible delved into scientific lectures at every given opportunity, the reader would entirely miss the point of the Bible. It is not about scientific lectures but the redemption of mankind.
Instead of “the sun rises and sets”, would you rather the Bible have said,
“The earth orbits the sun in an elliptical orbit and the moon orbits the earth with the same kind of orbit. Looking down from the north pole, the earth spins in a counterclockwise direction on an imaginary line called its axis once every day. This accounts for the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The earth’s axis is tilted with respect to the plane of its orbit at an angle of about 23.4 degrees. If we position ourselves high above the north pole, we would see that the earth orbits the sun in a counterclockwise motion, coming to the same position among the stars every 365.26 earth days. We would also see that the moon also orbits the earth in a counterclockwise motion.”?
Well, too bad. You didn’t write it.
I’m sure the rest of your scientific problems with the Bible will fall into the same category.
To approach your statement that the Bible ” fails as a moral guide” I will simply say, you have to actually read, have a basic comprehension and follow it for it to work as a moral guide. It doesn’t fail as a guide. You fail to comprehend or follow it.
March 7, 2011 at 12:19 am
Or, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult, and left untried.” [G.K. Chesterton]
Though you’re just wasting your time responding to these posts. CraftyAndy was an ObviousTroll, and he is long gone by now (or perhaps lurking, content at having successfully captured Doug’s attention for a moment). There was a more vibrant argument going on above, but everybody involved got tired of it going in endless circles and its pretty dead now.
March 9, 2011 at 9:13 pm
Fun debate, chaps. Just a little aside here, watch how you throw around scientific terms such as micro-evolution and macro-evolution.
Although I’ve been out of ‘real’ school for awhile, (studying music now) I did some science in my undergrad and it became clear to me that those two terms mean different things to ID people then they do to scientists. (not to be confused with the diploma level athiests and artsies) A proper scientific definition of both is that micro-evolution occurs within a population (below the species level) while macro-evolution occurs above the species level. OK, I’ll try to explain this as clearly as possible. In order for evolution to quality as micro evolution, the organisms in a population have to be able to mate with one another, even after change has occurred. For Evolution to qualify as macro evolution, it must occur at the taxonomic level where the organisms are no longer capable of sexual interaction. When organisms are no longer able to mate because of these following obstacles: sexual compatibility, morphology, or even geographic separation, macro evolution is said to have occurred. The bottom line here is that according to evolutionists, both micro and macro evolution are observable processes that occur as a result of natural selection.
The real sticky issue ID supporters gripe about are supposed gaps in the fossil record. It is an issue of phylogeny, not of macro or micro-evolution. ID supporters or Evolution Skeptics are contending that there is insufficient evidence to support the hypothesis of a common ancestor, at least beyond the level of the phylum on the phylogenetic tree.
It is also important not to go saying that evolution is false in the context of a debate. Here’s why:
An ID supporter says: “Evolution is false because micro-evolution can be proven but macro evolution can’t.”
What the ID supporter means: “Evolution as a model cannot adequately account for the diversity of life on the planet. There is no conclusive research to suggest that a microbe can become a man through the process of natural selection.”
What the scientist hears: “Evolution does not occur because natural selection has been observed acting on a population, but no change has ever been observed which resulted in members of a population who could previously achieve coitus no longer are able to do so.”
This is why they are so incredulous. Generally speaking, I have found it easier to discuss biology with people who have studied this in school. It is the people who have no post secondary background in this area who are the most venomous and close minded when it comes to an open and candid discussion.
Oh, don’t even bother with Talk Origins. I might be wrong, but I get the impression that they are a bunch of chaps who got their BSc about 20 years back and maintain the site out of a passion for what they do. They know their stuff, but the info is more of a primer on the model of evolution than it is any sort of proper scientific resource.
I’m sorry to be so pedantic but the word ‘evolution’ can mean so many things that a lot of debate can be easily misinterpreted.
March 9, 2011 at 9:59 pm
I’m always happy when the smart people come along and announce, “I’ve taken science so you need not bother discussing this any more.” And your definition of macro evolution is wrong. There isn’t even a young earther alive today who doesn’t think that some species haven’t come to a point of not being able to breed with each other. And I’d love to hear your average evolutionist say, “We have observed animals no longer able to mate, therefore a doglike creature became a whale.”
“they mean different things to ID people then they do to scientists.” is degrading. The ID people are also scientists. Dawkins, Sam Harris and Hitchens are the philosophers who is the non-scientists. I’d also say that most of Hawking’s claims about God are also philosophy and have nothing to do with physics.
March 9, 2011 at 11:00 pm
I’d agree with Doug… and the world… that your definition of macro-evolution is wrong. If you want to define it that way, fine. I won’t use the term macro-evolution anymore.
Demonstrate with infallibility how man has not always been a man but came from an ape like ancestor.
Demonstrate with infallibility how any creature on earth has made this change.
March 10, 2011 at 9:02 am
Man, what is with this ‘us vs them’ mentality here?
1) I never said what side of the debate I am on. If you ask me about it you might be very surprised where I stand.
2) I tried to clarify some terminology according to my studies so you can argue effectively. It helps being able to articulate what you can say instead of quoting Kent Hovind DVDs. (A general observation, not a specific one)
All the replies I received here were very defensive and made a lot of assumptions.
Perhaps I could have clarified things more but I thought I was pretty clear. For example, I know some scientists are not athiests and that by extension, they are also evolution skeptics. I used the term ID supporter because I wanted to differentiate between ‘Kent Hovind’ and ‘Michael Behe’. Hope this clarifies things. You are right, there is also a big difference between my university profs and Christopher Hitchens. (I have strong negative opinions on the latter)
Perhaps ‘my’ definition of macro-evolution is wrong but it was what I was taught in my molecular evolution class. I’m more inclined to trust a university professor on a definition than I am to trust what I read on the internet. Perhaps it is a case of field specific definitions vs colloquialisms? That being said, it is much easier to communicate with people when you know the correct terms to use and you understand the concepts you are debating. Interestingly enough, this molecular evolution course completely undermined any ‘faith’ that one could possibly put in abiogenesis and by extension, athiesm. The prof was very candid and honest about the theories and evidence present.
“”And I’d love to hear your average evolutionist say, “We have observed animals no longer able to mate, therefore a doglike creature became a whale.”””
I think you misunderstand what I’m saying. With the confusing surrounding terminology, discussions are being misinterpreted. BTW, What qualifies as an average evolutionist?
I do agree that the myriad of definitions available for the word ‘evolution’ makes discussion difficult. For instance, are we talking about natural selection, or are we talking about common ancestors? Based on the definition I was given, macro evolution falls under the topic of natural selection whereas common ancestors falls under the topic of phylogeny. (don’t even get me started on punctillated equalibrium aka “the hopeful monster theory.”) Neodarwinist Scientists (happy?) won’t only use natural selection as singular proof that evolution is a viable theory. (meaning an adequate model to account for the diversity of life from a common ancestor) They’ll bring other things into the discussion such as fossil evidence (dinosaurs), genetic experiments, gene mapping, etc.
Perhaps you should just read this: http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers/topic/arguments-we-dont-use
I don’t mean to be rude, I’m just in danger of writing an essay and I have work to do!!
As an aside, what is wrong with knocking Talk origins? Read their article on “Darwin’s Black Box”. They’re more concerned with proving Behe wrong than they are with actually understanding and addressing what he has to say.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html
Behe’s response: http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_toresp.htm
Perhaps this is a symptom of a larger problem. Much of society is more concerned with arguing to be ‘right’ than they are with actually acquiring information and forming an opinion. Yes, there is objective and observable truth, but lets be realistic when it comes to science. None of us where alive when the universe formed so any sort of explanation we have is a ‘best guess’. My prof in the Molecular Evolution course kept saying over and over again “the fact that we’re here proves that this happened, no matter now unlikely it seems.” Seems more like a faith statement, doesn’t it?
March 10, 2011 at 9:26 am
I’m sorry that I came off as us-vs.-them. It’s part of the usual debate on this subject where Darwinism is declared “science” and ID is considered “faith”. That’s a typical distinction made and I’m sorry I put that on you.
Exactly. ANd to the point, even the most religious, hard core creationist believes in evolution. We are all “evolutionists” if that means we believe that things change over time. It’s why I make distinctions of the body of science as those that believe purely natural events are adequate to explain all species and those that believe the species demand a mind in the mix somewhere because merely natural events don’t produce information, complexity etc. Both are fine scientific ideas that can be studied.
March 9, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Why is does the level of explanation have to reach infallibility and not just the best guess from what we know?
March 9, 2011 at 11:15 pm
I wouldn’t mind it if an advocate of macro-evolution said, “it’s not infallible, but it’s the best guess we’ve got.”
Instead what I always get is if you don’t believe in macro-evolution you are an ignoramus.
March 10, 2011 at 9:21 am
I know what you are trying to say here. “Evolution as a model which accounts for the origin and diversity of life is not infallible, but it is the best guess we’ve got.”
In my experience, biology / chem majors and professors are quite candid and up front with any flaws, etc. It is when you get into other disciplines – ones that proceed on the assumptions brought forth by evolution – that scholars become more incredulous. Truthfully, these people don’t actually ever question or even properly understand the biology and chemistry behind neodarwinism. And it doesn’t help at all that the evolution model as a whole is taught as fact throughout highschool. It isn’t until one gets to upper (300 and 400 level) university courses that the information is presented impartially and in a way that is somewhat detached from any sort of biased explanation. Perhaps the pedagogical approach taken by scientists accounts for all the vitriol you’re complaining about?
I think the other contributing factor here is the general disdain with which athiests regard deism, theism, etc. They always claim the intellectual high ground in an arguments. “If you believe in any sort of a creator, you are de facto stupid in some way.”
March 10, 2011 at 9:37 am
A funny anecdote:
My first year psych prof says in a lecture that he thinks the design of the human eye is stupid. Proof that a creator doesn’t exist in his mind. He said it makes no sense that the photoreceptors in the retina point towards the back of the eye when the light comes in from the front. He also said that it was dumb to have nerves (axons)on top of the photoreceptors. The nerves have to exit the eye somewhere which results in a blind spot.
His argument. Light has to pass through axons and retinal ganglia cells to reach the photoreceptors. When you see a big diagram on the overhead, it looks pretty thick!
So, rather than believing him (Like most first year students) I go and inquire to my biology prof about it. “So, my psych prof said the design of the eye is stupid because the retina is attached backwards.”
“WHAT!??!??”
Ya, the biology prof didn’t agree. See, I learned in subsequent years that the retina is complex and that a postage stamp thickness layer of clear tissue (Axons and reginal ganglia cells) really doesn’t obstruct the function of the photoreceptors. Furthermore, there is a layer of black pigmentation on the opposite side of the photoreceptors. This tissue absorbs light which keeps light from scattering. It IMPROVES visual acuity. (Cats have a reflective surface here instead. They have whiskers because their daytime visual acuity isn’t what ours is) Lets not mention all the blood vessels necessary to nourish all these cells! If we were to turn the photoreceptors in the ‘right direction’, there would actually end up being MORE tissue between the light coming in the eye and the photoreceptors than there is with the current design. *interesting*
All this to say that ‘belief in evolution’ does not automatically equal an adequate understanding of it.
March 17, 2011 at 11:58 am
Man, guys like this make guys like me look bad. I’m an atheist, sure, but I don’t like arguing about it. One thing I seriously can’t stand is people who like shoving their philosophies down other people’s throats- Main reason I left the LDS church I grew up in.
March 17, 2011 at 1:26 pm
The thing is that “shoving philosophy down other people’s throats” is an attribute of most philosophies that claim to actually be true. So the atheist will never be satisfied with just his own disbelief, he has to remove prayer from schools, the manger from public property and wants evolution taught not only in the science class but in the economics and physics class as well. The Muslim believes “his way is the only way” and that just means that he actually believes it’s true.
My own faith demands we “go and make disciples.” so I can’t be a good follower of Christ (as I know HIm to be) and not go make disciples. I happen to belong to a culture that says, “YOu can follow Christ, we think he’s a really nice, tolerant, puppy-dog guy. Like Bono-with-a-beard. But you’re an idiot if you tell people that they have to follow Jesus.” I can follow what my culture says is good or I can follow Christ. I’m not a Culturian, I’m a Christian, so you can guess which way I’m going to act if I’m going to take my faith seriously.
March 17, 2011 at 6:00 pm
”Atheism is not saying, I do not think there is a God. It is not even saying, I do not believe there is a God. It is affirming the nonexistence of God. It affirms a negative. It affirms the nonexistence of God… anyone with an introductory course in philosophy recognizes that it is a logical contradiction. How can you affirm a negative in the absolute? It would be like me saying to you, There is no such thing as a white stone with black dots anywhere in all of the galaxies of this universe. The only way I can affirm that is if I have unlimited knowledge of this universe. So, to affirm an absolute negative is self-defeating because what you are saying is, “I have infinite knowledge in order to say to you, There is nobody with infinite knowledge.”
Ravi Zacharias
March 18, 2011 at 11:49 am
I’m sorry, I’m not here to make a case for atheism or against theism of any sort, if that’s what you thought the second I said “I’m an atheist.” I only said that to establish that yes, I belong to the same group as craftyandy and I find his behavior embarassing to me simply by that relation.
It’d be kind of how I feel about furries that run around doing unspeakable things in glorified mascot costumes.
Anyway just to explain why I’m avoiding arguing about atheism itself- I find it pointless. In every single atheist v. theist argument I’ve seen or taken part in, nothing changes whatsoever by the time the argument concludes. Honestly, the only result is that both sides are that much more irate and are probably having a worse day for it all.
March 17, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Speaking of LDS, they are not in any way shape or form “Christian” from a Biblical world view. The Church of LDS is a cult. Not only do they minimize God but they make “gods” out of men. The Christ the LDS church teaches is just as different from a Christian’s view on Christ as a Muslim’s view on Christ is.
March 18, 2011 at 11:52 am
I’m not speaking from a Biblical worldview of course, but I consider the Mormons Christian in that they believe in Christ- It’s not like they’re rejecting the traditional Bible. :T
I dunno, call me uneducated for not understanding how mainstream Christians see things like that. You’d be correct, cause I’m just some seventeen-year-old kid who realizes he says some pretty stupid things sometimes. I’m probably going to pop back here in a few years and wish I could punch past me in the face, much like how I wish I could do that to the homophobic furry in denial I was two years ago.
March 18, 2011 at 5:02 pm
The Bible’s Jesus Christ is claimed to be God. The book of Mormon’s Jesus Christ is claimed to be “a” god. This difference by itself is enough to proclude harmonizing the two faiths. There are a multitude of other differences that can be easily found online.
Don’t feel too bad man! I’m 23 and I’ve said things I wish I hadn’t in the past year… definately. Just keep learning and growing!
April 11, 2011 at 1:13 am
Please don’t spread this myth about the LDS people. LDS scriptures repeatedly state that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, the only name given under heaven by which man can be saved. There are many ways, shapes, and forms under which they’re Christian, especially ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’. From their website at http://www.mormon.org:
Mormons believe first and foremost that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and the Son of God.
Hope this helps some.
April 11, 2011 at 4:54 am
But I also can’t stand the Mormons who claim to be fellow Christians then come to my door and try to convert me. If we’re already both Christians, then don’t try to make me a Mormon. Joeseph Smith came to reform what he considered a lying, false form of the church in America. His testament was made to rectify the falsehoods of my Christianity.
Now I agree that there are a lot of similarities between Mormons and Christians, but words are important. There are, after all, many ways, shapes and forms under which they aren’t Christian. But I’ll give you this much, I find Mormons really decent people, and generally agree with the things they do and the way they conduct themselves. When I see the snappy guys come to my door I think, “I wish Christians still dressed like this.”
April 11, 2011 at 1:25 am
Sorry, that link should have been: http://mormon.org/faq/mormon-christian/
I apologize. Also, for the ‘multitude of differences’, even though there may be plenty of ‘how is babby formed’ information online, it doesn’t mean it’s accurate. I’d use online sources carefully.
April 14, 2011 at 8:04 am
I might have to say actually worse – Muslims (at least “true” Muslims)are open about believing we’re the devil and they state in the Koran that:
“When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them.” Quran 9:5 Repentance.
At least they are overt and you know where you stand; the LDS are unfortunately subversive, polite, nice, wolf in sheep’s clothing, and thus cause a whole host of issues.
April 14, 2011 at 9:01 am
What about submitting until you have the upper hand? Which other religion would you rather run your totalitarian state?
March 17, 2011 at 6:01 pm
I speak in quotes.
April 22, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Aaron,
I can tell this will turn into a mindless throwing back and forth of comments so I will just ask questions.
Is Jesus Christ a creation of God or God Himself?
Is Jesus Christ the spirit brother of Lucifer (Satan)?
Can we as humans become gods someday?
Are black people the cursed race that came from Cain in Genesis when God set a mark upon him?
I have more questions… these are all yes or no questions. They should be easy for you to answer.
April 22, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Johnny, those aren’t fair questions. I think the first one would be the only possible one where a Mormon would disagree with us, but I’ll let Aaron answer it.
April 23, 2011 at 5:20 am
Simply put we as people created the words good and evil, we defined what is “right” and what being just really means. We created these words, we created their meaning. People in general are moronic apes, we base things off of emotion or intuition. Nothing is right, nothing is wrong except what you feel to be right or wrong. Agree with whomever you want, but at the end of the day your God or your creator or what have you will be the only one to judge what was “right” and what was “wrong” that is if that benevolent being truly even believes in those words. I mean I don’t care who you pray to, but pray they are understanding. Hell if you don’t believe in a God hope what you did in life was worth it. Either way, despite whatever is right or wrong everyone should atleast strive for personal happiness without directly effecting someone else’s own happiness in a negative way.
April 23, 2011 at 7:41 am
“everyone should atleast strive for personal happiness without directly effecting someone else’s own happiness in a negative way.”
Should is a moral word. You’re using it in an objective sense that holds another to a higher, absolute truth. You say earlier, “We created their meaning.” If you invented this ethic then people can try not to effect someone else’s happiness or they can make them into sausage and eat them and they are both doing something just as moral and “made up.”
April 23, 2011 at 9:51 pm
Hey if eating someone is your cup of tea by all means eat away, just be prepared to face whatever law is enforced in your area. See my point isn’t we should all just be one big happy bunch of crazies, but maybe just maybe we stop letting society dictate our actions. Personal happiness is just another we infallible people created. What really is happiness except what we feel, so if you feel happy raping and murdering by all means go ahead, but there are laws to protect us from that (supposedly). I mean hell what if God is all about rape and murder and eating your friends and we’ve been wrong all along? What about those gut feelings we get when somethings wrong but it feels so right? Know what would make me happy? A zombie apocalypse.
April 24, 2011 at 12:05 am
Doug,
In determining the differences between a Biblical Christian worldview and a Mormon worldview, I’m not sure how those classify as unfair questions seeing as how a Christian will answer them quite differently than a Mormon will.
1547,
Claiming that good and evil are relative to what a person decides them to be shuts out God completely and leaves room only for chaos.
It is only through God defining what is good and evil that order has been established. The Bible says that men have the laws of God written upon their hearts.
Rom 2:14 For when the nations, who do not have the Law, do by nature the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law unto themselves;
Rom 2:15 who show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and the thoughts between one another accusing or even excusing one another,
April 24, 2011 at 12:06 am
It is only by denying God that the world would reach moral relativism.
April 24, 2011 at 6:46 am
“Hey if eating someone is your cup of tea by all means eat away, just be prepared to face whatever law is enforced in your area. ”
1547, well there you go.
April 24, 2011 at 7:37 am
2000 years or so ago today, Jesus Christ ressurected from the dead proving that He was God and had power to redeem us from our sins.
The largest, most controversial question any one born into this world will ever ask themself is, “Did He really come back from the dead?”
This question is pivotal for the hope of mankind.
What will you do with Jesus Christ?
April 24, 2011 at 11:56 am
I’m sorry if I step on anyone’s beliefs here, but I don’t believe in the God from the Bible. It’s a book written by man, for man to somehow guide us on our ways, but as a parent would you smite your child? Could you willing force your creations to burn in hell for all of eternity? I know God is above us and all manners of the sense, but are we not made in his image? Does Hod have no compassion, the Bible leads ME to believe he doesn’t and I just don’t see MY God being an epic prick like that. Which is probably why I could better see God being a Woman rather than a man, or atleast having more motherly attributes. Also in the story of Adam and Eve after eating the apple did they not gain free will? The right to choose between right and wrong? Your heart is merely an organ it has no feelings and cannot sway your judgements, laws were made by men, again for men to follow, no one asked me if I thought they were right. Oh and btw, today is not the anniversary of the resurrection of Christ, today is Easter, a holiday we made up and some wish to celebrate his resurrection although it never really took place on this day, just like Christmas was never really his birthday, just days we chose to celebrate on. However I don’t understand where a rabbit and fat man handing out candy somehow got in on that action. Oh well.
April 24, 2011 at 1:18 pm
God doesn’t send anyone to Hell. You choose to go there by rejecting Him. Scripture says the Lake of Fire was created for the Devil and his angels… not for people. If you don’t want God in your life, why would you expect Him to force you into Heaven? Every human born into this world chooses to accept or reject God.
Adam and Eve were given one simple thing not to do in the perfect environment God created for them. They had free-will before they chose to disobey God. It was their free-will that allowed them to disobey God. Rather than trusting that God was the authority over all things and taking Him at His word, they chose to do things their own way. This is exactly why people will go to the Lake of Fire. Not because God wants them to go there… He has done absolutely everything He can without violating our free-will to make sure we don’t go there. So many will choose to go there anyway rather than spending eternity with the God who loves and created them.
It doesn’t really matter to me whether today is the specific day the ressurection took place on. I’m just happy the ressurection took place.
April 27, 2011 at 11:43 am
“He has done absolutely everything He can without violating our free-will to make sure we don’t go there.”
Wow, that’s weak, how come I still can’t believe in him?
And if he after all loves me, why not sending me to a slightly better place than hell? (after all, I’m not an evil human being just for being an atheist)
April 27, 2011 at 11:33 pm
Santis,
If you recognize that He might be out there wanting to save you, will you ask Him to make Himself known to you? Though you don’t believe now will you ask Him to help you to believe?
Humble yourself as much as you know how and just ask Him to help you if He is real. Put your unbelief and doubts all in His hands and ask Him to change you if He is real.
If He’s not real, it can’t possibly hurt you. If He is real and you can humble yourself enough to recognize how much you really need Him, I believe He will reveal Himself in some way and give you the faith to believe.
Eph 2:8 For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,
Eph 2:9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
It’s up to God to even give you the faith to believe. If you feel Him convicting you, don’t turn your back on that… you don’t know how many chances He will give you.
April 29, 2011 at 5:18 pm
The secular/atheist conception of Hell is extremely skewed (in part due to the rhetoric of some Christians, to be fair). Its not about punishment, its about choice – you choose not to believe in God or Heaven, or, believing, choose to be separated from that, then you’ve really only got one other place to go, assuming the accuracy of the orthodox Christian cosmological map of supernatural existence. You don’t keep hugging someone that is kicking and screaming to be let go, and God doesn’t bind us to Himself against our will. You don’t want Heaven, there’s an upstart little kingdom run by some guy who thought he could run things better. Its kind of a shithole, but hey, nobody there really wanted to be in the other place anyways.
April 24, 2011 at 3:12 pm
I have these rose bushes in my backyard I’ve been clipping branches full of aphids to feed my baby toads. Yesterday, there were no flowers on the bush, thought I noticed Spring was here and the buds were getting plump. This morning I went outside and nearly every rose was in full bloom. I thought to myself, “Happy Easter, indeed!” Coincidence? Probably. But it’s a good story.
April 24, 2011 at 11:22 pm
Toads… you are truely my hero.
1547,
I didn’t realize this at the time of my reply but when it comes to the date of Christ’s resurrection, you are actually wrong about no one knowing the day. The gospel accounts record what day it happened. The year is what people are unsure about…
June 16, 2011 at 12:30 am
Doug, I’ve been a fan of your work my entire life, but as an agnostic relativist these posts make me feel as though you inherently dislike me, even without knowing me.
My lack of belief in an afterlife or moral absolutes has always strengthened my love of life and love of others. Since existence to me is an accidental, ultimately meaningless and ultimately forgotten blip in space/time, nothing is more important than making that blip a happy and productive one for yourself and for everybody else you can. That’s only me, but I’m happy that way and I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it. If someone wants to live destructively, that’s their choice, but it’s my choice to frown upon their squandering of consciousness.
I respect all world views so long as they can respect mine, and I hope you don’t think less of me for my interpretation of the universe.
I’d like to thank you for all the creative work you’ve put out there – as an entomology geek, I especially appreciate the frequency of giant insects in your work. I can tell you appreciate nature’s diversity as much as I do, even if we have different ideas about its origins.