Intelligent Design is merely Creationism dressed up in new clothes in an attempt to subvert US Constitutional prohibitions against teachign religion in public schools. It isn't science.
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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is the post you made introducing the public education issue, and defining ID as being exclusively about that. The parent to your post didn't mention education once. Quite on the contrary, he correctly pointed out that ID can be both strict creationism as well as what you'd call theist rationalism, or whatever else you'd like to call it.
Language is indeed all about context. Your post was in response to something that didn't include education in its context at all and you tried to changed that context to generalize all ID as irrational and dishonest (and you tried to do it in a rather caustic way, too boot). That, my friend, is exactly why the slashdot crowd was so pissed about the hacker issue: The deliberate and dishonest play on context, in that case to sell news; and in your case, to red-herring ID to death.
I do not say that the universe it not designed--all I can say is that I have not seen a good reason to think that it is designed, therefore I cannot reasonably hold that belief.
That is a clear statement that I think we can "agree to disagree" on, and I thank you for the clarity.
We can compare, for example, two stacks of Legos--one a box just opened and poured out and the other bricked up like the Millenium Falcon--and we can say that one is designed and one is not. By analogy, we might look at the laws the universe appears to follow and see some appearance of design. But it isn't meaningful because we cannot imagine--much less have experience of--an undesigned universe.
Extending your analogy, the assertion that a DVD Player is designed isn't meaningful because we cannot imagine an undesigned DVD player. You see, the lego analogy assumes the existance of legos as building blocks, but the existance of the universe cannot be derived the same way (there isn't a universe-unit).
To avoid these problem, on my previous post I tried to introduced the synthesis of letters into words and into sentences, since these represent concepts and not material things, they are not subject to the same difficulties. We can design (i.e.- construct via intelligence) ever more complex concepts out of more basic concepts alone, and yet we don't need to compare it to an undesigned concept. The concept of design itself can exist independent of nature, time and space, even if it originally arises from nature. That's why it can be applied to things for which there is no comparison.
Still, what if they had found that no magnetic fields actually shaped such nebulae? With only one universe to look at, how can we tell if it was designed or not without a frame of reference or known quantity to compare it to?
But even if they found the magnetic field (as they did), your second question still applies.
You are right on the money that we simply have no refence. Rheingold's argument about design seems to be based on a comparison to nature but the problem is that we are trying to define the origin of nature itself.
Still, we are missing that "frame of reference" and since by definition we can't have it, some attribute it or call it "God." If an atheist is not willing to attribute its origin to God, I can respect the position that the frame of reference is unattributable and unknown, and the universe has no design because there can't be proof due to lack of a frame of reference (I won't agree with that position, but I can accept it as a respectable argument that can't be proven or disproven). The position that the frame of reference is nature however, simply begs the question and is based on circular and illogical reasoning.
..I would refer to you as a theistic evolutionist.
But theistic evolutionism is in fact intelligent design. Strict creationism is intellingent design as well. Yet a disctinction can be made within the two. I've considered myself a believer in intelligent design even before this whole debate with schools began.
I guess that the situation is similar to what slashdot experienced at the beginning of the dot-com era, when all of the newscasts were referring to malicious crackers as hackers, and the slashdot community had a collective cow. "Hackers is not a bad word," everyone said, and they accused newscasters of being overgeneralizing, sensationalists ignorami. Yet here we are, at it again.
Yeah, you'll have your nuts in either side of the aisle. I don't have a problem if you criticize ideas that are clearly wrong.
So because ID is defined a certain way by a group, does that invalidate all of those that believe in ID in a sensible way? You seem to imply that it does.
It is not about experts having beliefs without cause--it's about experts having beliefs with cause but not rigorously proven (yet anyway)....
These questions are not about making vague statments and leaving them at belief; they are about stimulating thought and discussion--not about simply accepting a belief and rejecting
discussion based on unprovability.
But you are rejecting discussion based on umprovability. We experience a universe that either is or isn't designed. Proving that it wasn't designed or proving that it was designed is ultimately impossible but based on the complexity and consistency with which it operates one person may have the hunch that it is designed, while other may have the hunch that it is an amazing grouping of coincidences and nothing more.
Asking why you believe something is asking a valid question, but the point of your post wasn't to ask that. You can ask "Why do you believe the universe is designed?" and that's valid. Asking "Why do you believe the universe wasn't designed?" is equally valid. Asking "Why do you believe the universe was designed even though you may be currently experiencing a universe that isn't designed?" is like asking "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Loaded questions are about stopping, not starting discussions.
You've just restated what I said: Design implies an abstraction (a function of intelligence) of a purpose from nature and then creation (by man) of something for that purpose.
Design does imply an abstraction. However, the problem with your logic is that you keep thinking in terms of nature. Design does not imply a purpose from nature, rather, a purpose merely from a set of laws or principles (in this case, natural laws): You can design a system based on other kinds of principles, such as artifical laws. The alphabet for example, is a set of man-made laws which can be used to design sentences and convey meaning, so that even the mute and deaf can use them to communicate. Based on these written sentences, we can further design a social justice system that gives meaning to artifical constructs such as countries and nations. Similarly, the argument appears to be that natural laws themselves are even more basic "designs" from abstractions and principles not by man, but by a higher being.
In its very basic sense, design does not require the existance of nature. It merely requires the existance of a framework and of intelligence, both attributes of what the grandparent may call "God".
Teachign a religious belief, even a cleverly hidden one like ID, in a public school is state-sponsored religion.
True, but the constutitution clearly reads "congress shall make no law...". When the parent uses the word "State" he is referring about the country (specifically, the US congress). Individual states can sponsor religions without a problem (unless prohibited by state constitutions as well). In fact, nationally excluding religious schools from funding would require congress to pass specific laws regarding religion, so banning religious teaching in public schools nation-wide would require passing a law which may be in violation of the constitution in the first place!
In other words, ID is nothing more than a lawyer's version of Biblical Creationism, specially designed to get around that little ol' problem of pushing Biblical Literalism upon kiddies in public schools.
And yet, those pushing ID have no problem with having evolution thaught as well (most, anyway). On a personal note, I believe in both and I believe that they are complementary of each other, and I am fine with keeping the school system the way it is, and equally fine with changing it. However, I must note that those engaging in the most close-minded arguments seem to be largely from the anti-ID crowd.
How would you know what a universe that wasn't designed looked like?
That is the point of the whole story: Belief on what can not be proven. Your question is sort of pointless because you can't prove it either way. You didn't RTFA or even the title of the story, did you?
Have you ever experienced a universe that was designed?
Aparently that has already been answered by the partent with a resounding Yes!.
"Design" is one of those things that we as humans recognize in relation to things not designed
No, not really. Design is one of those things that indicates intelligent origin, that's all. You can call a DVD player "designed", but yet you can't point to a naturally-occurring DVD player growing wild on some jungle or being mined from the earth.
I have bad things to say about religion, too, but I am also a devout catholic. Religion, just like anything else that humans become involved in, is bound to yield problems as well as solutions.
I've also been atheist. I quit my religion when I was about 12 and lived as an atheist until my early twenties. After my own decade-long analysis, however, I came to the conclusion that God must exist. I understand the "must need proof" mindset because I lived it. To each his own and I'm not going to try to convince you of anything, but I'd just like to suggest to you not to seek proof so hard that you miss it when it finds you.
Just a quick note: Our senses are made the same way, so they register colors in pretty much the same way. Our brain reponds to colors in pretty much the same way (blue is more soothing than red, etc.). Except for people that are color-blind, why would our idea of color be different from each other? (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, I'm just looking for a plausible reason either way).
No, I cannot. But I believe that the only difference between me and you in that regard is that I am willing to admit it to myself. The closest I can get to saying those rights are "innate" is in the fact that it's the kind of world most people would want to live in. It's "innate" in the same way that wanting to eat food is "innate". Desire to have those rights is an emotional drive we all seem to share.
Don't confuse rights with desires. However, I can see that it appears that rights cannot really be unalienable to you. If that's the case, I think that represents an impasse. I guess that we just have to agree to disagree. Thanks for explaining your arguments so eloquently.
On another note, our founding fathers lived during what we now referred to as "the age of reason." Thomas Jefferson himself is considered to be one of the lead philosophers of that era. I myself don't share on the typical Slashdot mass-elitism and I don't consider myself particularly bright, yet I know how to use words more or less effectively. Rather than second-guessing them, I would think that our founding fathers could at least do that, too.
Thank you for that response. However, I am not looking for a secular justification for rights. I am looking for a secular justification for unalienable rights. Even Kant's theories cannot be called that. Kant's theories are a system, still dependent on an a priori existance of things, which still sound awfully like unchanging, perfect principles. However, that's another discussion, because that's not what I'm asking.
It has already been stated that a good case can be made for human rights based on utility alone. I agreed and I still agree.
The point of my question is that of permanence, of unalienability. It seems to me that no right can be called unalienable without implying a higher authority. We can agree that giving rights to people are the best thing to do. However, since the origin of those rights is human, they can be alienable. If the origin of those rights is not human, then it is not up to us whether we should or should not have them, thus they are unalienable.
In that sense, one system is created by man (even if we follow Kant's "recipe"), and as thus can be taken away by man (such as governments). The other system is dependent on something greater, and thus humans have a very limited say on it. I don't want a secular explanation for rights, because that's easy enough to come up with. If you believe that rights are unalienable then I'd like to know why. It's a secular explanation for unalienable rights that I would like to see. Again, emphasis on unalienable.
"Our Creator", and only in the same sense that someone might say "act of God" to refer to something in the natural world.
But that is exactly the point: My argument is that there is nothing natural about unalienable rights. Where in nature can you point out to a creature having any natural rights that are unalienable? Nature, my friend, is at best ethics-neutral and rights are things borne out of ethics. In nature, nothing is unalienable because things are all relative.
The argument they were getting at was that they feel those rights exist by default, as opposed to the common view that they are granted by government.
We both agree on that point. But you see, the people that wrote those words weren't intellectual lightweights. They understood philosophy, ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. Jefferson for example, is considered an important contributor to western philosophy in his own right. The word "unalienable" and "God" are inseparable in that context, and they understood that. That's why the words appear as they are and not as "Are endowed by unalienable rights from nature" or "are endowed with natural unalienable rights," when both of those phrases do not make sense. Natural rights, if they exist, are at best relative, so that building a government structure (be it monarchy, republic or whatever) on rights that are relative is a dangerous thing because it can easily lead to despotism.
I thank you for correcting me again when it comes to using the word "religion". I have this bad habit of just throwing the word around without thinking about it. Yes, it is not a very honest description when we talk strictly about the founding documents. In that light, "assumed faith" fits better (in the sense that the assumption that a creator exists is neceesary). Other than that, all of our other documents avoid mention of God because secularism is important to a healthy government. But when it comes to the unalienable rights, they couldn't skirt the issue.
But in the larger sense, the United States has deeply religious roots that go as deep as the reason why many people emmigrated here in the first place. When it comes to governments roots, though, you are right.
But I call attention to the reason why I started this whole thread to begin with: The necessary belief in God in order for rights to be considered unalienable and innate. Can you provide some proof that such is not the case, and that you can base unalienable rights on a purely faithless (in the sense of being ethics-relative) basis?
That's it right there - if it's not arbitrary, then it must adhere to some system. And if it adheres to a system, then the existence of God is not strictly necessary.
Except of course, if God is the system (and its origin).
Yes, Kant's Categorical Imperative is fully compatible with God's will (AFAIK it's also part of the Catholic canon). For practical purposes however, you're right in that we can do quite well by the imperative regardless of our belief in God (provided we are honest about following it). But, the problem with Kant's Categorical Imperative is one of limits: Limited knowledge which can be applied to a particular situation, as well as of origin. If morality is an a-priori concept, which we can arrive it through our intellect alone, the concepts and rules that guide them must still exist independent of us. We must also be as perfect on our analysis as we can, even in the face of incomplete information. In other words, for many situations in which we must apply the imperative we may not be in the best position to do so.
Other than those reservations, you've got a great point, but one that still requires a grounding on unchanging principles in order to function well.
So is our current government not based on our declaration of independence at all? Why can't it? Are you saying that our government was built with no basis or with no belief on unalienable rights at all?
But your point is well taken. You seem to have differentiated well between a nation with religious roots and a government with a secular design within that same nation.
So now my basic question still remains, but thanks to you I may be able to express it better so perhaps it will be fully understood now: If our government is based on the principles of the declaration of independence (unalienable rights..life..liberty..pursuit of happiness), how can these rights themselves be unalienable without a measure of faith? If on the other hand, our government wasn't based on that founding document (a big "If" that you'd have to explain away), how can the government be pledged to protect rights that don't have to be permanent?
You're right in that a government and nation are two different things. I've been always under the impression though, that a government should serve its nation and uphold that nation's principles. If these principles justify why it was OK to split from the crown, then they also are the raison d'etre of our country. They are they "why" of having a country named The United States of America. The government is the "how". Can we have a "how" without any basis on the "why"?
As far as point #3, relativism, I have a host of issues and questions for you, but I'll let Fwonkas lead the way. He seems to truly enjoy the epistemological portion of this discussion.
Go OT all of you want. I like what you have to say.
There are several good arguments for cognitive relativism. That is, that trees, rocks, gravity, etc. are merely constructs of the human mind. What makes you think that trees exist objectively but "the good" does not?
Just to add to your question: What about the other side of the spectrum, the now-famous
cogito, ergo sum line (I think, therefore I am)? It can be argue that concepts and thoughts are what define us, perhaps with even more reality than so-called phisical "objects." Our entire universe internalized is made of concepts, so the concepts must be real at some level, Just not necessarily physical. The concept of 1 is not real by itself, but it can be used to describe the phisical world. Can't an a concept like "the good" serve the same function?
God is telling them to do this and that - my point was that if these rules truly are decrees by God, and not just communicated, then they are arbitrary.
A basic tenant of most religions is that God's rules are not arbitrary and that there is a point to everything. Another basic tenant of many religions is that God has given us a brain. These two rules are not exclusive of each other, but complementary. That's why, for example, in Catholicism we have ethical guidelines that are based in classical philosophy, a bit of skepticistm, as well as on the word of God.
My point is that religious guidelines are rarely arbitrary in the sense that they are not contradictory of the utalitarian nature of ethics. God's tennents can be sort of illustrated by Plato's theory of the forms: i.e.- That there is a perfect form of the good, of the bad, and of everything else. Of these forms, mathematics are the simplest to comprehend, but some are many which are much more complex. Since, according to Plato, these forms exist independent of humans, humans can gain insight into them. That's why we all seem to agree on some very basic principles, because those principles exist on their own, but being imperfect, we cannot grasp the "full" form of them. God, in this context, would be the supreme creator that embodies all of these "forms", and as such, God's principles cannot be arbitrary and incompatible with our own logical conclusions.
And now we are digressing too much into theology and epistemology. But like you, I like to quibble as well.
I agree that secular government does not mean the government is anti-religion, but unfortunately that distinction is not made often enough.
However, I fail to see how you can state that our government was based on entirely secular principles, when such a statement appears to be in direct contradiction of the declaration of independence.
I think that the crux of our disagreement appears to be that acknowledging the existance of God is not quite "religious" since for example, agnostics acknowledge the existence of God. However, by the same token, our government isn't based in purely secular values, since a belief in the existance of God necessitates some faith. By definition, secular values can stand on their own by pure logic, without any requirements of faith.
So I guess I must further clarify my point. Intead of saying religion, I must say that the government's most basic princiciple appears to rest on a small but significant cornerstone of faith (faith in a religious, but broad sense). However, I must disagree with the notion that our nation's root principles are purely secular, unless you can prove to me that the words that the founding fathers wrote are "typos."
About your claim that ethics are subjective and have always been, I must say that you should be aware of the immense burden of proof behind that statement. Your average rationalist philosopher would take issue with such a claim (Plato, Descartes, Pascal, etc.). But then, If we keep in mind that ethics have always been about practicality first, I would have agreed with you if you had said that ethics as we now practice them are relative because we are imperfect ourselves. However, that says nothing about the principles behind ethics, which could very well be fixed and unchanging (the rationalist approach), or maleable and fleeting (the empiricist approach). Better men that ourselves have spend lifetimes exploring these possibilites. Going down that tangent can turn this discussion into a never-ending monster.
Great response. I know of utilitarianism, and I agree that it does go far to solving the origin problem for basic human rights. Unfortunately, utilitarianism is still based on a relative view. Remember that Germany was trying to rid of its internal problems by exterminating its Jewish minority. From their point of view, it would be the most useful course of action for improving their society. This is an extreme example, but it shows how utilitarianism can still slide off the ethical scale because it still not grounded on unchanging principles. Similarly, communism was also grounded on utilitarian philosophies.
Similarly, if we believe that God merely communicates these unalienable principles, then we are back to square one, because God becomes an interloper and not a source. Since we still lack a source, God merely becomes subject to the same philosophical difficulty that we are trying to solve. Typically, omnipotence and omniscience are ascribed to God and that avoids the problem.
Ultimately, there is still an element of faith to any God argument that your analysis seems to have missed: Faith means being sure that God exists, and if God exists, he can talk to a person. It also does not exclude the possiblity that people imagine hearing from God. So both situations must exist concurrently: God can really speak, and some people can merely imagine that God speaks to them. This is similar to how the president of the US can actually speak to you, or you can have a mental illness and believe that your dog can speak and your dog is the president, and both possiblities exist. This is the way that your argument about strangling your neighbor's infant can be be overcome while retaining the idea that God is the ultimate source of everything.
This is an important differentiation, but nonetheless one that cannot be made if we leave the faith that God exists out of the equation. Things begin to get too sticky at this point, but it still gets us no farther than utilitarianism as the best secular approach to unalienable rights. And unfortunately, ulititarianism still falls short of explaining a way to justify their unalienability.
Particularly as it pertains to the declaration of independence, I agree that the mention of God is both utilitarian and religious. But it is that religious aspect that gives the usefulness of the statement its strength.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --From the US Declaration of Independence.
The US's government roots are not purely secular. They seem contain just the right amount of religious belief. That is a balance that in my experience, is unique to this country.
If you have a country whose government believes that religion is merely "superstition," how can any rights be unalienable? Everything seems to become relative, even the basic essence of humanity.
I'm not trying to start an argument. I'm merely curious to identify if it's possible to ground into solid bedrock the belief in human rights the way the US has done, without having at the same time any belief on an immutable, all powerful source to act as that bedrock (namely, God). It appears to me that such a feat could be a philosophical inability for a government that is purely secular. Am I wrong in that conclusion?
You obviously haven't heard about accrual-based accounting. In accrual based accounting, an expense is incurred when the effort or service for which it belongs is expended, not when cash changes hands.
Under accrual-based accounting, options are always recorded at cost, so they always have value (par value or stated value plus or minus paid-in capital). Under accrual based-accounting, no buying or selling has to occur for it to be recorgnized and recorded. A mere "promise" satisfies the principle of materiality required to record the event.
In other words, it sounds as if stock options, which weren't liabilities in the past, should now be recorded as liabilities on the accounting period in which they are given. This is important because liabilities that represent expenses are significant to judging the state of the corporation even when they yet haven't actually been expensed yet.
Per FASB guidelines, all corporate accounting in the United States has to be accrual-based. The only entities that still use cash-based accounting are government entitites. With the new ruling, pretty much everyone but the government has to change the way in which stock options are recorded. So your point, though intuitive when thinking in cash terms, is largely inapplicable to everyone but the government.
Not all of the cheeses I bring are aged and hard (asadero, a string-like type cheese but softer is one of my favorites), but even if they were aged, we are still talking about products that may not have been made from pasteurized milk.
Then again, I'm a sucker for well-made Mexican cheeses (which are far superior than the downright terrible American-made versions). But I'm no expert on what is consumed on the other side of the pond, so I don't know if you could find "young" European imports for sale around here. You could be correct on that point.
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Language is indeed all about context. Your post was in response to something that didn't include education in its context at all and you tried to changed that context to generalize all ID as irrational and dishonest (and you tried to do it in a rather caustic way, too boot). That, my friend, is exactly why the slashdot crowd was so pissed about the hacker issue: The deliberate and dishonest play on context, in that case to sell news; and in your case, to red-herring ID to death.
That is a clear statement that I think we can "agree to disagree" on, and I thank you for the clarity.
We can compare, for example, two stacks of Legos--one a box just opened and poured out and the other bricked up like the Millenium Falcon--and we can say that one is designed and one is not. By analogy, we might look at the laws the universe appears to follow and see some appearance of design. But it isn't meaningful because we cannot imagine--much less have experience of--an undesigned universe.
Extending your analogy, the assertion that a DVD Player is designed isn't meaningful because we cannot imagine an undesigned DVD player. You see, the lego analogy assumes the existance of legos as building blocks, but the existance of the universe cannot be derived the same way (there isn't a universe-unit).
To avoid these problem, on my previous post I tried to introduced the synthesis of letters into words and into sentences, since these represent concepts and not material things, they are not subject to the same difficulties. We can design (i.e.- construct via intelligence) ever more complex concepts out of more basic concepts alone, and yet we don't need to compare it to an undesigned concept. The concept of design itself can exist independent of nature, time and space, even if it originally arises from nature. That's why it can be applied to things for which there is no comparison.
But even if they found the magnetic field (as they did), your second question still applies.
You are right on the money that we simply have no refence. Rheingold's argument about design seems to be based on a comparison to nature but the problem is that we are trying to define the origin of nature itself.
Still, we are missing that "frame of reference" and since by definition we can't have it, some attribute it or call it "God." If an atheist is not willing to attribute its origin to God, I can respect the position that the frame of reference is unattributable and unknown, and the universe has no design because there can't be proof due to lack of a frame of reference (I won't agree with that position, but I can accept it as a respectable argument that can't be proven or disproven). The position that the frame of reference is nature however, simply begs the question and is based on circular and illogical reasoning.
But theistic evolutionism is in fact intelligent design. Strict creationism is intellingent design as well. Yet a disctinction can be made within the two. I've considered myself a believer in intelligent design even before this whole debate with schools began.
I guess that the situation is similar to what slashdot experienced at the beginning of the dot-com era, when all of the newscasts were referring to malicious crackers as hackers, and the slashdot community had a collective cow. "Hackers is not a bad word," everyone said, and they accused newscasters of being overgeneralizing, sensationalists ignorami. Yet here we are, at it again.
So because ID is defined a certain way by a group, does that invalidate all of those that believe in ID in a sensible way? You seem to imply that it does.
These questions are not about making vague statments and leaving them at belief; they are about stimulating thought and discussion--not about simply accepting a belief and rejecting discussion based on unprovability.
But you are rejecting discussion based on umprovability. We experience a universe that either is or isn't designed. Proving that it wasn't designed or proving that it was designed is ultimately impossible but based on the complexity and consistency with which it operates one person may have the hunch that it is designed, while other may have the hunch that it is an amazing grouping of coincidences and nothing more.
Asking why you believe something is asking a valid question, but the point of your post wasn't to ask that. You can ask "Why do you believe the universe is designed?" and that's valid. Asking "Why do you believe the universe wasn't designed?" is equally valid. Asking "Why do you believe the universe was designed even though you may be currently experiencing a universe that isn't designed?" is like asking "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Loaded questions are about stopping, not starting discussions.
You've just restated what I said: Design implies an abstraction (a function of intelligence) of a purpose from nature and then creation (by man) of something for that purpose.
Design does imply an abstraction. However, the problem with your logic is that you keep thinking in terms of nature. Design does not imply a purpose from nature, rather, a purpose merely from a set of laws or principles (in this case, natural laws): You can design a system based on other kinds of principles, such as artifical laws. The alphabet for example, is a set of man-made laws which can be used to design sentences and convey meaning, so that even the mute and deaf can use them to communicate. Based on these written sentences, we can further design a social justice system that gives meaning to artifical constructs such as countries and nations. Similarly, the argument appears to be that natural laws themselves are even more basic "designs" from abstractions and principles not by man, but by a higher being.
In its very basic sense, design does not require the existance of nature. It merely requires the existance of a framework and of intelligence, both attributes of what the grandparent may call "God".
True, but the constutitution clearly reads "congress shall make no law...". When the parent uses the word "State" he is referring about the country (specifically, the US congress). Individual states can sponsor religions without a problem (unless prohibited by state constitutions as well). In fact, nationally excluding religious schools from funding would require congress to pass specific laws regarding religion, so banning religious teaching in public schools nation-wide would require passing a law which may be in violation of the constitution in the first place!
In other words, ID is nothing more than a lawyer's version of Biblical Creationism, specially designed to get around that little ol' problem of pushing Biblical Literalism upon kiddies in public schools.
And yet, those pushing ID have no problem with having evolution thaught as well (most, anyway). On a personal note, I believe in both and I believe that they are complementary of each other, and I am fine with keeping the school system the way it is, and equally fine with changing it. However, I must note that those engaging in the most close-minded arguments seem to be largely from the anti-ID crowd.
That is the point of the whole story: Belief on what can not be proven. Your question is sort of pointless because you can't prove it either way. You didn't RTFA or even the title of the story, did you?
Have you ever experienced a universe that was designed?
Aparently that has already been answered by the partent with a resounding Yes!.
"Design" is one of those things that we as humans recognize in relation to things not designed
No, not really. Design is one of those things that indicates intelligent origin, that's all. You can call a DVD player "designed", but yet you can't point to a naturally-occurring DVD player growing wild on some jungle or being mined from the earth.
I've also been atheist. I quit my religion when I was about 12 and lived as an atheist until my early twenties. After my own decade-long analysis, however, I came to the conclusion that God must exist. I understand the "must need proof" mindset because I lived it. To each his own and I'm not going to try to convince you of anything, but I'd just like to suggest to you not to seek proof so hard that you miss it when it finds you.
Thank you for adding so much to this discussion.
Just a quick note: Our senses are made the same way, so they register colors in pretty much the same way. Our brain reponds to colors in pretty much the same way (blue is more soothing than red, etc.). Except for people that are color-blind, why would our idea of color be different from each other? (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, I'm just looking for a plausible reason either way).
Don't confuse rights with desires. However, I can see that it appears that rights cannot really be unalienable to you. If that's the case, I think that represents an impasse. I guess that we just have to agree to disagree. Thanks for explaining your arguments so eloquently.
On another note, our founding fathers lived during what we now referred to as "the age of reason." Thomas Jefferson himself is considered to be one of the lead philosophers of that era. I myself don't share on the typical Slashdot mass-elitism and I don't consider myself particularly bright, yet I know how to use words more or less effectively. Rather than second-guessing them, I would think that our founding fathers could at least do that, too.
It has already been stated that a good case can be made for human rights based on utility alone. I agreed and I still agree.
The point of my question is that of permanence, of unalienability. It seems to me that no right can be called unalienable without implying a higher authority. We can agree that giving rights to people are the best thing to do. However, since the origin of those rights is human, they can be alienable. If the origin of those rights is not human, then it is not up to us whether we should or should not have them, thus they are unalienable.
In that sense, one system is created by man (even if we follow Kant's "recipe"), and as thus can be taken away by man (such as governments). The other system is dependent on something greater, and thus humans have a very limited say on it. I don't want a secular explanation for rights, because that's easy enough to come up with. If you believe that rights are unalienable then I'd like to know why. It's a secular explanation for unalienable rights that I would like to see. Again, emphasis on unalienable.
"Our Creator", and only in the same sense that someone might say "act of God" to refer to something in the natural world.
But that is exactly the point: My argument is that there is nothing natural about unalienable rights. Where in nature can you point out to a creature having any natural rights that are unalienable? Nature, my friend, is at best ethics-neutral and rights are things borne out of ethics. In nature, nothing is unalienable because things are all relative.
The argument they were getting at was that they feel those rights exist by default, as opposed to the common view that they are granted by government.
We both agree on that point. But you see, the people that wrote those words weren't intellectual lightweights. They understood philosophy, ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. Jefferson for example, is considered an important contributor to western philosophy in his own right. The word "unalienable" and "God" are inseparable in that context, and they understood that. That's why the words appear as they are and not as "Are endowed by unalienable rights from nature" or "are endowed with natural unalienable rights," when both of those phrases do not make sense. Natural rights, if they exist, are at best relative, so that building a government structure (be it monarchy, republic or whatever) on rights that are relative is a dangerous thing because it can easily lead to despotism.
I thank you for correcting me again when it comes to using the word "religion". I have this bad habit of just throwing the word around without thinking about it. Yes, it is not a very honest description when we talk strictly about the founding documents. In that light, "assumed faith" fits better (in the sense that the assumption that a creator exists is neceesary). Other than that, all of our other documents avoid mention of God because secularism is important to a healthy government. But when it comes to the unalienable rights, they couldn't skirt the issue.
But in the larger sense, the United States has deeply religious roots that go as deep as the reason why many people emmigrated here in the first place. When it comes to governments roots, though, you are right.
But I call attention to the reason why I started this whole thread to begin with: The necessary belief in God in order for rights to be considered unalienable and innate. Can you provide some proof that such is not the case, and that you can base unalienable rights on a purely faithless (in the sense of being ethics-relative) basis?
Except of course, if God is the system (and its origin).
Yes, Kant's Categorical Imperative is fully compatible with God's will (AFAIK it's also part of the Catholic canon). For practical purposes however, you're right in that we can do quite well by the imperative regardless of our belief in God (provided we are honest about following it). But, the problem with Kant's Categorical Imperative is one of limits: Limited knowledge which can be applied to a particular situation, as well as of origin. If morality is an a-priori concept, which we can arrive it through our intellect alone, the concepts and rules that guide them must still exist independent of us. We must also be as perfect on our analysis as we can, even in the face of incomplete information. In other words, for many situations in which we must apply the imperative we may not be in the best position to do so.
Other than those reservations, you've got a great point, but one that still requires a grounding on unchanging principles in order to function well.
But your point is well taken. You seem to have differentiated well between a nation with religious roots and a government with a secular design within that same nation.
So now my basic question still remains, but thanks to you I may be able to express it better so perhaps it will be fully understood now: If our government is based on the principles of the declaration of independence (unalienable rights..life..liberty..pursuit of happiness), how can these rights themselves be unalienable without a measure of faith? If on the other hand, our government wasn't based on that founding document (a big "If" that you'd have to explain away), how can the government be pledged to protect rights that don't have to be permanent?
You're right in that a government and nation are two different things. I've been always under the impression though, that a government should serve its nation and uphold that nation's principles. If these principles justify why it was OK to split from the crown, then they also are the raison d'etre of our country. They are they "why" of having a country named The United States of America. The government is the "how". Can we have a "how" without any basis on the "why"?
As far as point #3, relativism, I have a host of issues and questions for you, but I'll let Fwonkas lead the way. He seems to truly enjoy the epistemological portion of this discussion.
There are several good arguments for cognitive relativism. That is, that trees, rocks, gravity, etc. are merely constructs of the human mind. What makes you think that trees exist objectively but "the good" does not?
Just to add to your question: What about the other side of the spectrum, the now-famous
cogito, ergo sum line (I think, therefore I am)? It can be argue that concepts and thoughts are what define us, perhaps with even more reality than so-called phisical "objects." Our entire universe internalized is made of concepts, so the concepts must be real at some level, Just not necessarily physical. The concept of 1 is not real by itself, but it can be used to describe the phisical world. Can't an a concept like "the good" serve the same function?
A basic tenant of most religions is that God's rules are not arbitrary and that there is a point to everything. Another basic tenant of many religions is that God has given us a brain. These two rules are not exclusive of each other, but complementary. That's why, for example, in Catholicism we have ethical guidelines that are based in classical philosophy, a bit of skepticistm, as well as on the word of God.
My point is that religious guidelines are rarely arbitrary in the sense that they are not contradictory of the utalitarian nature of ethics. God's tennents can be sort of illustrated by Plato's theory of the forms: i.e.- That there is a perfect form of the good, of the bad, and of everything else. Of these forms, mathematics are the simplest to comprehend, but some are many which are much more complex. Since, according to Plato, these forms exist independent of humans, humans can gain insight into them. That's why we all seem to agree on some very basic principles, because those principles exist on their own, but being imperfect, we cannot grasp the "full" form of them. God, in this context, would be the supreme creator that embodies all of these "forms", and as such, God's principles cannot be arbitrary and incompatible with our own logical conclusions.
And now we are digressing too much into theology and epistemology. But like you, I like to quibble as well.
However, I fail to see how you can state that our government was based on entirely secular principles, when such a statement appears to be in direct contradiction of the declaration of independence.
I think that the crux of our disagreement appears to be that acknowledging the existance of God is not quite "religious" since for example, agnostics acknowledge the existence of God. However, by the same token, our government isn't based in purely secular values, since a belief in the existance of God necessitates some faith. By definition, secular values can stand on their own by pure logic, without any requirements of faith.
So I guess I must further clarify my point. Intead of saying religion, I must say that the government's most basic princiciple appears to rest on a small but significant cornerstone of faith (faith in a religious, but broad sense). However, I must disagree with the notion that our nation's root principles are purely secular, unless you can prove to me that the words that the founding fathers wrote are "typos."
About your claim that ethics are subjective and have always been, I must say that you should be aware of the immense burden of proof behind that statement. Your average rationalist philosopher would take issue with such a claim (Plato, Descartes, Pascal, etc.). But then, If we keep in mind that ethics have always been about practicality first, I would have agreed with you if you had said that ethics as we now practice them are relative because we are imperfect ourselves. However, that says nothing about the principles behind ethics, which could very well be fixed and unchanging (the rationalist approach), or maleable and fleeting (the empiricist approach). Better men that ourselves have spend lifetimes exploring these possibilites. Going down that tangent can turn this discussion into a never-ending monster.
Similarly, if we believe that God merely communicates these unalienable principles, then we are back to square one, because God becomes an interloper and not a source. Since we still lack a source, God merely becomes subject to the same philosophical difficulty that we are trying to solve. Typically, omnipotence and omniscience are ascribed to God and that avoids the problem.
Ultimately, there is still an element of faith to any God argument that your analysis seems to have missed: Faith means being sure that God exists, and if God exists, he can talk to a person. It also does not exclude the possiblity that people imagine hearing from God. So both situations must exist concurrently: God can really speak, and some people can merely imagine that God speaks to them. This is similar to how the president of the US can actually speak to you, or you can have a mental illness and believe that your dog can speak and your dog is the president, and both possiblities exist. This is the way that your argument about strangling your neighbor's infant can be be overcome while retaining the idea that God is the ultimate source of everything.
This is an important differentiation, but nonetheless one that cannot be made if we leave the faith that God exists out of the equation. Things begin to get too sticky at this point, but it still gets us no farther than utilitarianism as the best secular approach to unalienable rights. And unfortunately, ulititarianism still falls short of explaining a way to justify their unalienability.
Particularly as it pertains to the declaration of independence, I agree that the mention of God is both utilitarian and religious. But it is that religious aspect that gives the usefulness of the statement its strength.
If you have a country whose government believes that religion is merely "superstition," how can any rights be unalienable? Everything seems to become relative, even the basic essence of humanity.
I'm not trying to start an argument. I'm merely curious to identify if it's possible to ground into solid bedrock the belief in human rights the way the US has done, without having at the same time any belief on an immutable, all powerful source to act as that bedrock (namely, God). It appears to me that such a feat could be a philosophical inability for a government that is purely secular. Am I wrong in that conclusion?
Of course it's real. What about dividends and other "perks" the company owner is now giving to the options (possibly voting, or preferred perks)?
Under accrual-based accounting, options are always recorded at cost, so they always have value (par value or stated value plus or minus paid-in capital). Under accrual based-accounting, no buying or selling has to occur for it to be recorgnized and recorded. A mere "promise" satisfies the principle of materiality required to record the event.
In other words, it sounds as if stock options, which weren't liabilities in the past, should now be recorded as liabilities on the accounting period in which they are given. This is important because liabilities that represent expenses are significant to judging the state of the corporation even when they yet haven't actually been expensed yet.
Per FASB guidelines, all corporate accounting in the United States has to be accrual-based. The only entities that still use cash-based accounting are government entitites. With the new ruling, pretty much everyone but the government has to change the way in which stock options are recorded. So your point, though intuitive when thinking in cash terms, is largely inapplicable to everyone but the government.
BTW, asadero cannot be aged and is almost always sold very fresh.
Then again, I'm a sucker for well-made Mexican cheeses (which are far superior than the downright terrible American-made versions). But I'm no expert on what is consumed on the other side of the pond, so I don't know if you could find "young" European imports for sale around here. You could be correct on that point.
That's his point. Didn't you see his "hint"?