I was very careful not to imply that I was arguing for the existence of immortality or for the existence of a deity, at least in this thread. You agree that a meaningless universe is grim. I would go further and say that by definition a meaningless universe is not worth the trouble. Perhaps I am just a mental weakling, but I don't see anything particularly cool about abstracting, learning, writing, loving, and doing science...and then becoming nothing. If there is nothing transcendent, then it is not "much more worthwhile than handing my life over to some deity." In fact, it is exactly equal in worth...both are worth nothing. Even the love I experience is just a trick of natural selection.
Yes, I know I am not the first to express such ideas, and am not even expressing them very well. This is slashdot...you get what you pay for.
Oh, and regarding your Cochrane quote, see my sig. My fictional character can kick your fictional character's ass.;-)
While I understand that it is not an argument for or against theism, I don't see the beauty in a universe in which all that I am and all that I love will disappear into oblivion in just a few short years (or at all). On the contrary, I find it to be quite ugly.
Wow...when I came sailing into this thread and felt compelled to rebut one of your posts, I expected the stereotypical pro-gun/anti-gun shoutfest (which can be kind of fun its own odd way;-). But your response was a breath of fresh air...thanks!
Well, I won't get into the whole vegetarian debate with you, but since that is your position we'll take hunting off the table for this conversation.
On deadly force, I think we are not as far apart as you might imagine. I'll start by saying that I am not so presumptuous as to consider my moral judgment infallible. But as I see it, being willing to use deadly force is not the same as an intent to kill. I hope never to be in the position to have to use any force to defend myself or my loved ones. I take many precautions (choosing a place to live, locking my doors, etc.) to avoid that situation. If I or those around me were ever threatened and I was armed, actually discharging a gun would be my last resort. I would do it purely with the intent to stop the attack. If the attacker was harmed or killed, then that would be an unfortunate side-effect. I guess you are right, though, in that possessing a firearm for defense does indicate a willingness to kill in the process of stopping an attack.
On the cultural divide, how can I judge you harshly when you don't snap back with the expected forum nasty response?;-) Maybe I can return the favor though, and give a bit more insight into my culture.
I currently live in a low-crime, midwestern US suburb. The chance of me ever needed to defend myself or my family with a gun is also low, but not zero. But I grew up in a more rural area, in an extended family where most hunted, and practically every household had multiple firearms. My stereotype of a gun owner was my father, my grandpa, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins, my friends. I had an air rifle at age 8, and my own.22 rifle at 12 or 13 (after I had passed a hunter's safety course). To hear someone denounce firearm ownership so universally, and to say that my teaching my children to safely and responsibly use firearms is obscene, hits me right in the gut as an attack on myself and the world I grew up in.
As I write this, I am reading back over your post, and had one other thought. You say you are unlikely to ever need to defend yourself against a gun. Where you live, how likely are you to have to defend yourself from an attack at all? In the absence of guns or some other equalizing tool, a typical woman is especially vulnerable to the typical (male) attacker. Again, I am fortunate enough to live in a low-crime area of the US, but if I had a sister or female friend living in a rougher neighborhood, I would certainly recommend to her that she arm (and train) herself for defense. Now she might want to consider alternatives to firearms, such as pepper spray, but I wouldn't want to rule out gun defense.
Anyway, thanks for one more time for the nice response, and I'm sorry I took you for a man from your earlier posts!
Guns are machines designed only for the purpose of causing death.
Let's ignore the fact that different guns are designed for different purposes. Let's ignore the second fact that most non-hunting guns never cause anything to die. All I have to say is so what? There are times when it is appropriate to cause death.
Do you eat meat? If so, then surely you are not so hypocritical as to say it is wrong for someone to kill his own food?
Do you believe that it is wrong to use deadly force to protect one's own life and the life of innocents around him? If not, then why would you say one is not justified in wielding an effective tool for that purpose? A firearm is often the most effective tool for defense. (If you do believe it is wrong to use deadly force to preserve innocent life, then sadly we have no common ground for discussion.)
I don't believe you can justify wielding one at all, let alone putting one in the hands of a child.
I think I just did. And I thank God I am my kids dad and you are not.
Thanks for the link...just what I was looking for. You are right of course in what you say about speedup being limited by the number of processors you are willing to buy. But consider how much some people are willing to pay for the very fastest processor they can buy, even if the speedup over 2nd best is only say 20%. How much would they be willing to pay for a 2X, 10X, or 100X speedup?
In the real world, it isn't just asymptotes that matter. Constants matter. A constant speedup of 100 means that you can do in real time (say 1 second) what would have taken a minute. Working in real time means you can work in qualitatively different ways. Just ask someone who remembers submitting programs for execution on punch cards.
By the way, I did a quick search and didn't find any O(1) parallel algorithms for sorting, not matter what the processor interconnect. Does anyone know what is the parallel lower bound for sorting?
I am a T-Mobile customer, with no prepaid SMS on my plan. I can verify that I get charged for each incoming as well as each outgoing short message.
Recently I received some stock tip spam from an AOL IM account, via the internet SMS gateway. I called T-Mobile customer service to complain. The CSR suggested I text the word "STOP" to the sender. (Hmm...sounds great. Let the spammer know someone actually received the message. Good idea, eh?) She also gave me a one-time batch of 20 free short messages in case I got any more spam in the next month.
When I asked about disabling SMS on my account, she said they "could not" do that. Being somewhat familiar with SMSC software, I was skeptical. When pressed, she said their eventual solution for an account receiving unwanted SMS traffic was to change the phone number! Now I might not be able to find any carrier that will disable short messages on my account, but if a carrier ever puts me in a situation to have to change my phone number, they will not be my carrier any more.
That has happened with this customer. I have mostly opted out. I have an iPod, but buy no music from iTunes. (I really only use the iPod when exercising, and have a very few purchased CDs worth of songs on it.) I listen to the radio in the car, and listen to live music now and then. If the whole music recording industry tanked tomorrow, I wouldn't lose much sleep over it. Ditto movies.
Evil is evil. Good is good. I feel sorry for your daughter if you are filling her head with postmodern notions that good and evil are arbitrary distinctions made up by history writers.
(Tallness and undiluted blood are coincidental. And it is true that non-fictional people don't tend to be as purely good or evil as we often see in fiction. I'll refrain from giving examples for fear of triggering Godwin's Law.)
I've also taken it to mean that when you're 40, you have money and property you want to be greedy about and protect, and so don't care as much about the welfare of your fellow man. Likewise I'm better off than at 18, and it sure doesn't deter me from wanting to make the world better overall.
I'm over 40, care about the welfare of my fellow man, and try to do my part to make the world better. However, I don't want to take other people's stuff against their will to do it. I use my own time, talent, and treasure. That is the key difference between liberal/conservative and libertarian (in the US context), though many don't want to emphasize that.
Several years ago I saw a long interview of Michael Kinsley (by Bill Buckley I think). Now, I couldn't disagree more with most of Kinsley's positions, but I respected his thinking as consistent and principled. He was quite open about his assumption that it was the proper and desirable function of government to redistribute wealth to achieve good outcomes.
Try to get such a straight answer from a Republican or a Democrat today on the underlying principles of his political ideology. You might get a vague nod in that direction from a Democrat, but he will make sure the voters know that he only wants to take stuff from "the rich," which is always defined as someone who has more money than the voter. Worse yet, the Republican will lie their tails off, claiming to want to "let the taxpayer keep his money," all the while redistributing money for everything from sugar subsidies to bridges to nowhere.
John Gustafson has a different take. In a nutshell, he says two things. First, when many processors are available, what you really want to do is solve a bigger problem in the available wall clock time. Second, when you grow the kinds of problems we are talking about, the parallel part grows faster than the serial part. For the right kinds of problems, these two things make Amdahl's law not applicable.
I read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article. Thanks for the education. As someone who cares about properly defining rights and freedom, I was a little abashed at having not run into the concept before.
That said, "positive freedom" as described in the article strikes me as quite a hideous, patronizing concept. It co-opts the individual's role of deciding for himself his actions, whatever they might be and however he might decide. It restricts "freedom" to doing those things that some other person or some collective thinks fit in with that individual's fundamental purpose or his self-actualization.
I might condemn the actions of some individual. I might think he is giving in to his "baser instincts." But I would not have the audacity to force him to behave in some way I think is more noble, and then try to claim I was increasing his "positive freedom."
Well, I read your answer, and also your exchange with the grandparent poster. I think it clear that you pour a different meaning than he and I into the word "faith," but I think we've cleared up the differences.
That said, I can't really add much more. I don't see any "point" in it.;-) Your approach and mine to thinking about the universe seem so fundamentally different that we are not going to have much more common ground than to wish each other well. So, I'll just do that and sign off.
No, truth faith is based on nothing otherwise it is just belief.
Yes, when many people say "faith" they mean holding something to be true for no real reason. In fact, that is the second definition for the word here. However, I would agree with the grandparent that such faith is intellectually dishonest, and I would add pointless. Who cares what you have faith in if you have no defendable reason for that faith? To use that meaning of the word makes it something only worthy of ridicule.
This artificial separation of religious faith and reason baffles me. Unless one posits a perverse God who purposely structures the universe so that observation would lead away from the truth about Him, then one would expect true assertions about God to be at least consistent with reason applied to observation.
The grandparent mentions his Christian faith. Whether you think Christianity is true or not, Christian faith does not have to be blind belief in something one cannot support. Rather, the Christian's faith is trust in a God who the Christian has concluded has demonstrated Himself to be trustworthy. The Christian's reasons for making this conclusion can be examined critically. For example, Christianity makes strong claims of fact which can be the subject of historical investigation. If Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead as described in the Gospels, then that is strong evidence that there is something to this Christianity thing. If not, then even the apostle Paul says it is all pointless.
If it is my work email, then I don't want to hear from you unless you are part of my job.
If it is my home email, then I want to hear from you if you are friend or family. I will tolerate hearing from you if we have a bona fide preexisting business relationship and your email is not marketing. (Statements are OK...trying to sell me new stuff is spam.)
I'll pile on with the other responders. Not to belittle your work or anything, but there is nothing, nothing I wish to do on the phone other than talk to a real live person. I might possibly tolerate one prompt that lets me choose a department (sales, customer service, etc.) to direct my call. If I have to deal with an IVR system and it is not absolutely necessary, I just do without.
Looking at things over the last couple of days, I realize I have just been wasting my time pounding people with a different definition of "morality" than what the other posters hold. One of the entries at dictionary.com defines morality as
concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct
However, the same dictionary.com is circular when it defines good and evil:
[good] Of moral excellence; upright: a good person.
[evil] Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
"Right" and "wrong" are similarly circularly defined. So the dictionary is not very much help for us. So let me contrast what I think is my definition with what I think is the definition of the others in the thread.
Really all I was trying to say in the first place is that relatively defined, words like morality, good, evil, right, and wrong do not deserve the connotation many people (including myself) pour into them. As I understand what people mean by "relative morality," it means person A can claim it is morally evil to do X, and at the same time person B can claim that it is morally good to do X under identical circumstances, and that we can conclude that both person A and person B are correct, or at least that we have no reason to claim at least one of them is incorrect. Is the idea of right and wrong really very useful when formulated that way?
So my definition of a moral system is one that actually obliges one to act in certain ways, regardless of whether he accepts that particular system, and regardless of whether he will be forced by the power of an authority to do so. If something is wrong, then I claim that it is really wrong, no matter what society says or enforces.
I think others define morality as what works toward whatever outcome they prefer, or sometimes just whatever arbitrary norms the current society enforces. I don't see any reason I should feel obligated to follow either kind of system. I might do it to avoid bad results imposed on my for disobeying, but I would not do it "just because it is the right thing to do." To me, this is the same as saying the morals as I understand them do not exist. Thus my ancient original question: "Why should anyone give a sh*t?"
I think there can only be one correct set of morals defined my way. Defined the way others here do it, then of course there can be an infinite number of different, contradictory moral systems. It doesn't matter if they are contradictory, because they have no real meaning beyond the pragmatic.
If we assume morals actually mean something beyond the pragmatic, how to determine what is moral is an entirely separate question, depending on our worldview. One who thinks there is a creator God will approach it differently from one who doesn't. Ones view of the meaning of consciousness will probably influence his valuing of human life and so affect his moral judgement. If one is mistaken about the facts on these and other subjects, then that will very likely cause him to make mistakes in his moral decisions.
Sorry to keep pulverizing this dead horse, but ideas like this matter. (Unless of course everyone else on this thread is correct, in which case they don't;-)
One bit of housekeeping. When I said "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" I just meant that even a religious nut can be right once in a while, as in when he claims that morality is not relative.
Heh...I am having trouble deciding whether you are proposing your own absolute morality, or whether you are agreeing with me that its non-existence means there is no such thing as morality in any way that makes sense.
On the one hand, you sketch a pretty good picture of a morality that aims to "help man evolve toward states that are more advantageous for its life." This is a central value that you could probably hang a consistent morality on (whether or not I think it is correct). You even go further and point out the problems that happen when moral codes held at different times and in different places conflict with your guiding principle.
But then instead of standing by the moral code you have just put forward, you switch gears and say morality is what society at any given time and place says it is. But to me, that is the same as saying that morality is arbitrary, and so cannot impose any real obligation on anyone.
By the way, only a very simplistic moral system makes a statement like "Thou shalt not kill" that applies under all circumstances. Considering all the circumstances is not what makes a more system relative, but rather it is when two persons can consider the same identical set of circumstances, reach contradictory moral conclusions, and both be considered correct.
I hear two main points in your post, and you will no doubt correct me if I misstate them. First, you think that I am wrong and guilty of the false choice fallacy when I say that either there is one complete, correct moral system or none of them. Second, you object to the idea of a single correct moral system because we may not be able to figure out with certainty what is right and wrong in every case.
Maybe you are right in the second case. All I am trying to argue in this thread is that if you are right that there is not one morality, then there is nothing that we can sensibly call morality.
I do not have to hold two different moral systems at the same time to derive the contradiction I mention above from a relative morality. A relative morality includes both the statements that one ought to do X and that one ought not to do X, because the very term relative morality means that one person can claim the former and another person can claim the latter, but neither can be condemned as wrong. Saying that contradictory moral claims are equally valid (because they can be held by two different people) rips all the meaning from the word "morality" and in effect leaves us with no morality at all.
You go on to say that you choose to hold certain moral beliefs because you choose to do so, and invite me to try to change them with argument. Well, so far the only moral statement I have seen you defend is "morality is relative." Are you "absolutely" sure of that?;-)
The rest of your post concerns the difficulty in deciding what is moral and what is not. I agree that this is difficult. My claim that there can be at most one correct system of morality again is not a claim by me to know it completely or that it even exists. (I am sure you can tell I think it does exist, though.) I am perfectly open to changing my mind on moral questions, and have done so many times. That does not mean I was right both before and after! It is possible I have even changed my mind from what is right to what is wrong.
You close this way:
Unless you can tell me how to decide among different systems of morals you have no evidence that such a method of deciding even exists, and therefore no evidence that an absolute system of morality exists.
Deciding what things are moral and how to tell it is a topic for another day. But maybe you are right and an absolute system of morality does not exist. I stand by my claim that that implies nothing that can be consistently called a "system of morality" exists, and that we have no sensible reason to make any judgements about the rightness or wrongness of anyone else's actions under any circumstances.
If there is an absolute morality how do you determine what it is?
Is there a way that two people who disagree about a moral question to test which person is correct (at least in theory)?
If there isn't a way, then you can't say one person is right or wrong. Therefore it is completely up in the air whether any human system of morality thought up so far corresponds to the absolute morality. Therefore the existence or lack of existence of this absolute morality is pointless to discuss, since even if it does exist we can never know what it is.
Now, there is the rub, isn't it? If we cannot at least in theory, at least for some questions, make absolute moral statements and somehow defend them, then it is true that absolute morality is pointless to discuss. I go further and say that if absolute morality is pointless to discuss, then also so is "relative morality" which is really just the arbitrary preferences of people. We can discuss what outcomes we prefer, but we can never say someone "ought" to do this or "ought not" to do that.
I believe morality comes from a God who created the universe and who has inherent value. I believe human being share some communicable attributes with God that cause them to have inherent value. Most everyday moral questions come down to this value inherent to human beings. I am not a non-thinking fundamentalist. I realize I could be wrong about moral questions and about the existence of God.
Oddly enough, some people reverse this line of thinking, and argue for the existence of God based on the existence of morality. You can Google it here. I find the moral argument for the existence of God emotionally appealing, but not very persuasive.
I am interested in how and whether athiests can claim a moral code. A common theme I have seen from them is also to establish human beings as having value, perhaps by appealing to their consciousness, or by their feelings of love toward one another. I view these attempts as heroic in a way, because if there is no God and no eternal destiny for individual persons, then the universe seems a very bleak place to me.
See my reply to the other person who replied to my original post. It sounds like I understood you correctly at first, and that you do deny any absolute definition of right and wrong. Yet in the next sentence you acknowledge how untenable is such a position.
We can disagree about whether someone's absolute claim about morality is correct without throwing out the idea we can make absolute claims about morality.
Slashdot Mirror
I was very careful not to imply that I was arguing for the existence of immortality or for the existence of a deity, at least in this thread. You agree that a meaningless universe is grim. I would go further and say that by definition a meaningless universe is not worth the trouble. Perhaps I am just a mental weakling, but I don't see anything particularly cool about abstracting, learning, writing, loving, and doing science...and then becoming nothing. If there is nothing transcendent, then it is not "much more worthwhile than handing my life over to some deity." In fact, it is exactly equal in worth...both are worth nothing. Even the love I experience is just a trick of natural selection.
;-)
Yes, I know I am not the first to express such ideas, and am not even expressing them very well. This is slashdot...you get what you pay for.
Oh, and regarding your Cochrane quote, see my sig. My fictional character can kick your fictional character's ass.
Not sure what your statement has to do with mine.
While I understand that it is not an argument for or against theism, I don't see the beauty in a universe in which all that I am and all that I love will disappear into oblivion in just a few short years (or at all). On the contrary, I find it to be quite ugly.
Wow...when I came sailing into this thread and felt compelled to rebut one of your posts, I expected the stereotypical pro-gun/anti-gun shoutfest (which can be kind of fun its own odd way ;-). But your response was a breath of fresh air...thanks!
;-) Maybe I can return the favor though, and give a bit more insight into my culture.
.22 rifle at 12 or 13 (after I had passed a hunter's safety course). To hear someone denounce firearm ownership so universally, and to say that my teaching my children to safely and responsibly use firearms is obscene, hits me right in the gut as an attack on myself and the world I grew up in.
Well, I won't get into the whole vegetarian debate with you, but since that is your position we'll take hunting off the table for this conversation.
On deadly force, I think we are not as far apart as you might imagine. I'll start by saying that I am not so presumptuous as to consider my moral judgment infallible. But as I see it, being willing to use deadly force is not the same as an intent to kill. I hope never to be in the position to have to use any force to defend myself or my loved ones. I take many precautions (choosing a place to live, locking my doors, etc.) to avoid that situation. If I or those around me were ever threatened and I was armed, actually discharging a gun would be my last resort. I would do it purely with the intent to stop the attack. If the attacker was harmed or killed, then that would be an unfortunate side-effect. I guess you are right, though, in that possessing a firearm for defense does indicate a willingness to kill in the process of stopping an attack.
On the cultural divide, how can I judge you harshly when you don't snap back with the expected forum nasty response?
I currently live in a low-crime, midwestern US suburb. The chance of me ever needed to defend myself or my family with a gun is also low, but not zero. But I grew up in a more rural area, in an extended family where most hunted, and practically every household had multiple firearms. My stereotype of a gun owner was my father, my grandpa, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins, my friends. I had an air rifle at age 8, and my own
As I write this, I am reading back over your post, and had one other thought. You say you are unlikely to ever need to defend yourself against a gun. Where you live, how likely are you to have to defend yourself from an attack at all? In the absence of guns or some other equalizing tool, a typical woman is especially vulnerable to the typical (male) attacker. Again, I am fortunate enough to live in a low-crime area of the US, but if I had a sister or female friend living in a rougher neighborhood, I would certainly recommend to her that she arm (and train) herself for defense. Now she might want to consider alternatives to firearms, such as pepper spray, but I wouldn't want to rule out gun defense.
Anyway, thanks for one more time for the nice response, and I'm sorry I took you for a man from your earlier posts!
Let's ignore the fact that different guns are designed for different purposes. Let's ignore the second fact that most non-hunting guns never cause anything to die. All I have to say is so what? There are times when it is appropriate to cause death.
Do you eat meat? If so, then surely you are not so hypocritical as to say it is wrong for someone to kill his own food?
Do you believe that it is wrong to use deadly force to protect one's own life and the life of innocents around him? If not, then why would you say one is not justified in wielding an effective tool for that purpose? A firearm is often the most effective tool for defense. (If you do believe it is wrong to use deadly force to preserve innocent life, then sadly we have no common ground for discussion.)
I think I just did. And I thank God I am my kids dad and you are not.
Thanks for the link...just what I was looking for. You are right of course in what you say about speedup being limited by the number of processors you are willing to buy. But consider how much some people are willing to pay for the very fastest processor they can buy, even if the speedup over 2nd best is only say 20%. How much would they be willing to pay for a 2X, 10X, or 100X speedup?
In the real world, it isn't just asymptotes that matter. Constants matter. A constant speedup of 100 means that you can do in real time (say 1 second) what would have taken a minute. Working in real time means you can work in qualitatively different ways. Just ask someone who remembers submitting programs for execution on punch cards.
By the way, I did a quick search and didn't find any O(1) parallel algorithms for sorting, not matter what the processor interconnect. Does anyone know what is the parallel lower bound for sorting?
I am a T-Mobile customer, with no prepaid SMS on my plan. I can verify that I get charged for each incoming as well as each outgoing short message.
Recently I received some stock tip spam from an AOL IM account, via the internet SMS gateway. I called T-Mobile customer service to complain. The CSR suggested I text the word "STOP" to the sender. (Hmm...sounds great. Let the spammer know someone actually received the message. Good idea, eh?) She also gave me a one-time batch of 20 free short messages in case I got any more spam in the next month.
When I asked about disabling SMS on my account, she said they "could not" do that. Being somewhat familiar with SMSC software, I was skeptical. When pressed, she said their eventual solution for an account receiving unwanted SMS traffic was to change the phone number! Now I might not be able to find any carrier that will disable short messages on my account, but if a carrier ever puts me in a situation to have to change my phone number, they will not be my carrier any more.
That has happened with this customer. I have mostly opted out. I have an iPod, but buy no music from iTunes. (I really only use the iPod when exercising, and have a very few purchased CDs worth of songs on it.) I listen to the radio in the car, and listen to live music now and then. If the whole music recording industry tanked tomorrow, I wouldn't lose much sleep over it. Ditto movies.
Ouch, that smarts. I retract my earlier comment as -1, stupid.
(Obviously I am more of a poker player than a business person.)
I don't think table stakes means what you think.
(Tallness and undiluted blood are coincidental. And it is true that non-fictional people don't tend to be as purely good or evil as we often see in fiction. I'll refrain from giving examples for fear of triggering Godwin's Law.)
I'm over 40, care about the welfare of my fellow man, and try to do my part to make the world better. However, I don't want to take other people's stuff against their will to do it. I use my own time, talent, and treasure. That is the key difference between liberal/conservative and libertarian (in the US context), though many don't want to emphasize that.
Several years ago I saw a long interview of Michael Kinsley (by Bill Buckley I think). Now, I couldn't disagree more with most of Kinsley's positions, but I respected his thinking as consistent and principled. He was quite open about his assumption that it was the proper and desirable function of government to redistribute wealth to achieve good outcomes.
Try to get such a straight answer from a Republican or a Democrat today on the underlying principles of his political ideology. You might get a vague nod in that direction from a Democrat, but he will make sure the voters know that he only wants to take stuff from "the rich," which is always defined as someone who has more money than the voter. Worse yet, the Republican will lie their tails off, claiming to want to "let the taxpayer keep his money," all the while redistributing money for everything from sugar subsidies to bridges to nowhere.
John Gustafson has a different take. In a nutshell, he says two things. First, when many processors are available, what you really want to do is solve a bigger problem in the available wall clock time. Second, when you grow the kinds of problems we are talking about, the parallel part grows faster than the serial part. For the right kinds of problems, these two things make Amdahl's law not applicable.
That said, "positive freedom" as described in the article strikes me as quite a hideous, patronizing concept. It co-opts the individual's role of deciding for himself his actions, whatever they might be and however he might decide. It restricts "freedom" to doing those things that some other person or some collective thinks fit in with that individual's fundamental purpose or his self-actualization. I might condemn the actions of some individual. I might think he is giving in to his "baser instincts." But I would not have the audacity to force him to behave in some way I think is more noble, and then try to claim I was increasing his "positive freedom."
That said, I can't really add much more. I don't see any "point" in it. ;-) Your approach and mine to thinking about the universe seem so fundamentally different that we are not going to have much more common ground than to wish each other well. So, I'll just do that and sign off.
This artificial separation of religious faith and reason baffles me. Unless one posits a perverse God who purposely structures the universe so that observation would lead away from the truth about Him, then one would expect true assertions about God to be at least consistent with reason applied to observation.
The grandparent mentions his Christian faith. Whether you think Christianity is true or not, Christian faith does not have to be blind belief in something one cannot support. Rather, the Christian's faith is trust in a God who the Christian has concluded has demonstrated Himself to be trustworthy. The Christian's reasons for making this conclusion can be examined critically. For example, Christianity makes strong claims of fact which can be the subject of historical investigation. If Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead as described in the Gospels, then that is strong evidence that there is something to this Christianity thing. If not, then even the apostle Paul says it is all pointless.
True, but yuck.
If it is my work email, then I don't want to hear from you unless you are part of my job.
If it is my home email, then I want to hear from you if you are friend or family. I will tolerate hearing from you if we have a bona fide preexisting business relationship and your email is not marketing. (Statements are OK...trying to sell me new stuff is spam.)
If I want more I'll visit your web site.
I'll pile on with the other responders. Not to belittle your work or anything, but there is nothing, nothing I wish to do on the phone other than talk to a real live person. I might possibly tolerate one prompt that lets me choose a department (sales, customer service, etc.) to direct my call. If I have to deal with an IVR system and it is not absolutely necessary, I just do without.
A journal entry is a good idea. This was never really on topic anyway. ;-) Watch for it in the next few days.
Really all I was trying to say in the first place is that relatively defined, words like morality, good, evil, right, and wrong do not deserve the connotation many people (including myself) pour into them. As I understand what people mean by "relative morality," it means person A can claim it is morally evil to do X, and at the same time person B can claim that it is morally good to do X under identical circumstances, and that we can conclude that both person A and person B are correct, or at least that we have no reason to claim at least one of them is incorrect. Is the idea of right and wrong really very useful when formulated that way?
So my definition of a moral system is one that actually obliges one to act in certain ways, regardless of whether he accepts that particular system, and regardless of whether he will be forced by the power of an authority to do so. If something is wrong, then I claim that it is really wrong, no matter what society says or enforces.
I think others define morality as what works toward whatever outcome they prefer, or sometimes just whatever arbitrary norms the current society enforces. I don't see any reason I should feel obligated to follow either kind of system. I might do it to avoid bad results imposed on my for disobeying, but I would not do it "just because it is the right thing to do." To me, this is the same as saying the morals as I understand them do not exist. Thus my ancient original question: "Why should anyone give a sh*t?"
I think there can only be one correct set of morals defined my way. Defined the way others here do it, then of course there can be an infinite number of different, contradictory moral systems. It doesn't matter if they are contradictory, because they have no real meaning beyond the pragmatic.
If we assume morals actually mean something beyond the pragmatic, how to determine what is moral is an entirely separate question, depending on our worldview. One who thinks there is a creator God will approach it differently from one who doesn't. Ones view of the meaning of consciousness will probably influence his valuing of human life and so affect his moral judgement. If one is mistaken about the facts on these and other subjects, then that will very likely cause him to make mistakes in his moral decisions.
Sorry to keep pulverizing this dead horse, but ideas like this matter. (Unless of course everyone else on this thread is correct, in which case they don't ;-)
One bit of housekeeping. When I said "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" I just meant that even a religious nut can be right once in a while, as in when he claims that morality is not relative.
Heh...I am having trouble deciding whether you are proposing your own absolute morality, or whether you are agreeing with me that its non-existence means there is no such thing as morality in any way that makes sense.
On the one hand, you sketch a pretty good picture of a morality that aims to "help man evolve toward states that are more advantageous for its life." This is a central value that you could probably hang a consistent morality on (whether or not I think it is correct). You even go further and point out the problems that happen when moral codes held at different times and in different places conflict with your guiding principle.
But then instead of standing by the moral code you have just put forward, you switch gears and say morality is what society at any given time and place says it is. But to me, that is the same as saying that morality is arbitrary, and so cannot impose any real obligation on anyone.
By the way, only a very simplistic moral system makes a statement like "Thou shalt not kill" that applies under all circumstances. Considering all the circumstances is not what makes a more system relative, but rather it is when two persons can consider the same identical set of circumstances, reach contradictory moral conclusions, and both be considered correct.
Maybe you are right in the second case. All I am trying to argue in this thread is that if you are right that there is not one morality, then there is nothing that we can sensibly call morality.
I do not have to hold two different moral systems at the same time to derive the contradiction I mention above from a relative morality. A relative morality includes both the statements that one ought to do X and that one ought not to do X, because the very term relative morality means that one person can claim the former and another person can claim the latter, but neither can be condemned as wrong. Saying that contradictory moral claims are equally valid (because they can be held by two different people) rips all the meaning from the word "morality" and in effect leaves us with no morality at all.
You go on to say that you choose to hold certain moral beliefs because you choose to do so, and invite me to try to change them with argument. Well, so far the only moral statement I have seen you defend is "morality is relative." Are you "absolutely" sure of that?
The rest of your post concerns the difficulty in deciding what is moral and what is not. I agree that this is difficult. My claim that there can be at most one correct system of morality again is not a claim by me to know it completely or that it even exists. (I am sure you can tell I think it does exist, though.) I am perfectly open to changing my mind on moral questions, and have done so many times. That does not mean I was right both before and after! It is possible I have even changed my mind from what is right to what is wrong.
You close this way:
Deciding what things are moral and how to tell it is a topic for another day. But maybe you are right and an absolute system of morality does not exist. I stand by my claim that that implies nothing that can be consistently called a "system of morality" exists, and that we have no sensible reason to make any judgements about the rightness or wrongness of anyone else's actions under any circumstances.
Now, there is the rub, isn't it? If we cannot at least in theory, at least for some questions, make absolute moral statements and somehow defend them, then it is true that absolute morality is pointless to discuss. I go further and say that if absolute morality is pointless to discuss, then also so is "relative morality" which is really just the arbitrary preferences of people. We can discuss what outcomes we prefer, but we can never say someone "ought" to do this or "ought not" to do that.
I believe morality comes from a God who created the universe and who has inherent value. I believe human being share some communicable attributes with God that cause them to have inherent value. Most everyday moral questions come down to this value inherent to human beings. I am not a non-thinking fundamentalist. I realize I could be wrong about moral questions and about the existence of God.
Oddly enough, some people reverse this line of thinking, and argue for the existence of God based on the existence of morality. You can Google it here. I find the moral argument for the existence of God emotionally appealing, but not very persuasive.
I am interested in how and whether athiests can claim a moral code. A common theme I have seen from them is also to establish human beings as having value, perhaps by appealing to their consciousness, or by their feelings of love toward one another. I view these attempts as heroic in a way, because if there is no God and no eternal destiny for individual persons, then the universe seems a very bleak place to me.
See my reply to the other person who replied to my original post. It sounds like I understood you correctly at first, and that you do deny any absolute definition of right and wrong. Yet in the next sentence you acknowledge how untenable is such a position.
We can disagree about whether someone's absolute claim about morality is correct without throwing out the idea we can make absolute claims about morality.