When you select for resistant bacteria growing in the presence of antibiotics, there is usually a fitness tradeoff for that resistance. Suppose now instead that we have some virus-resistant organism we've engineered. This means all the virus receptors on the surface of the cell no longer bind virus particles, and if you've done this for *many* virus receptors, then you've mutated a lot of cell-surface proteins. I can't imagine this would go without fitness cost.
On the other hand, from studying influenza I can say that viruses evolve much faster than we do and if a variant (maybe adapted to another host) or subtype emerges that can bind your receptor anyway, then in effect you've selected out variants but not stopped the virus. Getting regular vaccines are still the way to go on this, IMO.
it is high-lighting all terms in all documents received from an internet search. How is that the same as a "highlight all button?" Whatever the case, highlighted searches have existed for a while, so why should this be patentable just because they batch the highlighting to all search results in a "network search"?
Many will agree that this lawsuit was a poor response. However, it does prompt in my mind the power of the internet to hold in eternity the funniest, nastiest, and unluckiest moments of our lives. Many will say, "Good, he deserves it." But think about what this means generally: your mistakes can be immortalized in such a way that you may pay for them even after a long time has passed and even if you've apologized or repented of your actions. You can even be threatened and abused via e-mail. (Notwithstanding, it looks doubtful this fellow has done the former and purportedly he has received the latter.)
In brief, the internet + video can make the consequences of our actions much larger than they would otherwise be, and perhaps, disproportionately so.
Are these items merely cosmetic (a la some blizzard promos) or do they actually confer advantage? If the latter, I could see this going in the direction of games like Magic the Gathering, where having more money IRL means you have a better chance of buying better cards and therefore winning. I'd hate to see an FPS video game go in that direction, since it's a very different genre than a collector's trading card game..
I really don't understand the relevance. This doesn't seem to have anything to do with the discussion about absolute morality.
We are starting to go in circles so I will try to stop after this. I have not been trying to prove God or absolute morality to be true but only that the original "God is unjust to judge people" argument was a non-credible one.
My appeal to objectivity was a part of my aforementioned two-part argument. Similar to mathematical proof, if we suppose proposition Y given X, and X may assume two mutually exclusive states (say X1, X2), we have to prove Y given X1 or Y given X2 is true. If I want to show Y is not true, I have to show Y given X1 and Y given X2 are both faulty. Y was the original argument. X is morality. X1 is subjective/non-absolute morality. X2 is absolute morality. I have assumed both states of X for the sake of argument.
That is just a belief. There is no evidence that absolute morality exists. And isn't it a bit odd for someone who claims to publish in scientific journals to not hold all his thought to the same standards? You accept that evidence is required in one case, but not the other?
First, I think it is a misconception that belief comes without evidence or reason. To the contrary, people believe in what makes sense to them, although one's reasoning or evidence may be faulty. If I am convinced by the evidence for God--and to be sure it is reason not credulity that frames my beliefs--then absolute morality is just a logical conclusion based upon my God hypothesis.
As for empirical evidence, it is admittedly only suggestive that people ubiquitously try to define a morality of some kind for themselves since I can come up with other reasons for this phenomena, such as a "group survival mechanism." However, this does not preclude God from setting morality in place for our survival as well. So yes, people want to be "moral," whatever reason you ascribe to it.
Thank you for the discussion. I think I've learned better about atheist thought than before.
So? We can try to make the judgment objective (does the person violate the rules), but the rules/morals are entirly subective. For example, if the rule is "it is wrong to kill", that rule is subjective. But the judging will be objective: Did he kill? If yes, then he is guilty of violating the subjective rule.
Great point. I agree completely in that sense. But it doesn't change the fact even if I have a subjective rule set, if I am the one being judged, I do not get to make objective statements about myself even if I had potential to be objective. This is about what is considered to be credible, not merely possible. People are not good at being objective when it comes to themselves or people they like, even if the rules happen to be arbitrary.
For example, why are slashdot moderators biased in this very thread? More importantly, why did the creators of slashdot come up with an intricate system in the first place to limit moderator abuse? People are self-interested and are not credible when judging themselves or even judging people they like or agree with, myself definitely included, so we keep looking for something more objective than ourselves.
Exactly! Times change, and morals with them. My point exactly. They are subjective. No such thing as objective morals.
If we are the only measuring stick out there, and there is no God, I fully accept your premise.
there is not a single shred of evidence for the existence of god, but in fact there is a whole lot of evidence against the monotheistic god(s).
We disagree.
Richard Dawkins has said that he is open to actual evidence of God's existence, so he places himself on a 6
I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt that they are open-minded, so that is helpful to know.
People can't even agree on how to interpret the bible (the claimed word of God). So even if he did exist, we wouldn't be even close to absolute morality on earth. Everyone would be fighting over what God tells them to do. And in fact, lots of people are already doing that, and blowing each other up in the name of their version of the deity.
One premise is that truth exists regardless of whether people agree on it. If God does exist and His will is the definition for absolute morality, then it doesn't matter if people agree on what He said, the truth is still out there and may one day become more clear.
I can tell you whenever I am being peer-reviewed in a scientific journal, the interpretation of each reviewer on my findings are often at odds with me or with each other. It's actually expected and helpful, because it refines things. Given enough evidence, the hope is that the truth will become self-evident to everyone, and so will vindicate those who held on to it at first.
Morality isn't that different, if such a thing as absolute morality is out there, which I believe it is. The fact that we disagree in this area as well as others is to me just a part of what makes us human: we're finite, we make mistakes, we have to analyze and revise things, we like our own way, and learning is a process. I believe that truth, even if our perceptions of it change, does not change. The fun of life is searching for it, in whatever area you love.
What difference does it make? You can judge yourself all you want, but people with power will also judge you. No god needed
My proposition was focussed on the observation that we seek objectivity in judgement. In particular, when it matters, we avoid self-judgement and use impartial third-parties--juries and/or judges--within our legal system to get this kind of objectivity.
If we suppose God does exist (I know you do not, but you do for the sake of argument) and we want to tell Him His judgements on us are wrong and unfair, we would require His kind of objectivity to be able to say so with certainty that He was wrong.
Why is it easier for us to look back in history and see that what people were doing seemed wrong and dastardly? We judge them by our moral values--rightly or wrongly but perhaps more quickly than with ourselves. Why? Because in ourselves we have to compete with our desires, our interests, and our justifications. Even if our moral values are subjective, others things frankly do get in the way and make us do less than what we ourselves believe in. That's being human I suppose. But if there were a perfect judge for humanity, it wouldn't be us, it would be Someone who has the purity and omniscience and objectivity to do so. Those who believe call Him God, those who don't call it wishful thinking.
For what statement to have absolute meaning? Why do we need an absolute definition of "badness"?
That's an excellent question, why do we *need* absolute morality? I don't claim great wisdom, but one use for absolute morality might be to avoid confusion as well as mediate between self-interested parties with competing definitions of morality. As you touched on, perhaps this helps lead people to a higher degree of "good" that wouldn't have been obvious to all parties.
Within argument, I think we need absolute definitions inasmuch as we want to make absolute statements such as: X is always true. I assume atheists are making absolute statements when they make arguments against God, but perhaps all they really mean is, "For all I can see, there is no God." If that is the case, I would be interested to know, because making such a definitive statement would require a certain amount of omniscience attributed only to you-know-who (not Lord Voldemort).
Even people within the same culture won't agree on what's good and bad.
I was merely assuming a definition of "meaningful." In truth I fully agree with you that people disagree all over the place and am not trying to demonstrate God exists by saying "everyone agrees on morality." They don't. They do tend to agree there is such a thing as morality, just not what it is in particular.
My definition of absolute morality; however, is based on what God considers "good" or "evil", not as we prefer it. I readily admit though that understanding what God precisely means by righteousness takes up the better half of religious study, and failure to understand Him (or listen) has resulted in people doing dastardly things in His name.
Huh?
Sorry I don't write more clearly. I just mean it can't be used as a proof. In any case, thank you for the thoughtful response.
No, I don't assume "bad" to be meaningless. I am pointing out that it is subjective. And if an imaginary being does something in a fairy tale I think is bad, I can point out how I think it is bad. And that means that if you do indeed believe that the fairy tale is true, then the imaginary being you blindly believe in has committed acts I find to be bad.
This seems to be an important part of your argument, so I won't ignore it. I see your point and it is well-taken.
The difficulty I face is this: if you see something as bad, morally speaking, but I can define bad myself subjectively, then the bad that is meaningful to you won't necessarily be so to me. If we agree on some definition of badness, it will have some meaning to both of us but perhaps not a third person. For your statement to have cultural meaning we need a cultural definition of badness (for our people). For it to have universal meaning we need to have a universal definition of badness (for all peoples). For your statement to have absolute meaning, we need an absolute definition of badness (for all times).
Which kind of badness are you appealing to? If I adopt your definition of morality, your calling God bad may indeed be meaningful to me; but for logical proof, it is "meaningless" because of it's subjectivity. I don't deny the rhetorical value of your statement if we happen to share our definitions of badness, but the argument doesn't escape its own subjectivity.
In brief: if morality is subjective then moral objections against a story of God are subjectively meaningful.
"Self-judgement" means to evaluate oneself critically. In other words, to be both judge and defendant. Depending on the thing being judged, this process may or may not be appropriate.
The comments appeared to be railing at God, and that was what didn't make sense to me, but since you say this is not the case, I must work harder to understand your perspective next time before answering. Apologies.
A final note: I was not trying to prove God exists by assuming He created morality and then showing that our having morals must mean that God exists. I made a vague reference to this argument as cliche in my first comment. Instead, I was trying to show that arguments against God on the basis of calling Him immoral are fundamentally flawed, as they collapse under the weight of either starting assumption for a moral system. I don't think I can prove God to anyone; however, I can show that certain arguments are not as helpful as they appear.
Forgive me for the false dichotomy, allow me rephrase: to what degree is the universe and life is formed by stochastic mechanistic processes and/or by organized intelligence?
The idea of appealing to transcendence is not unique to Christian thought.
Scientists have hypothesized multiverse models to explain the formation of the known universe. The multiverse, except for our part of it, is beyond the scope of our ability to test directly. A multiverse can be considered "transcendent" because it is beyond our universe and may not be governed by the same physical laws in every respect.
As a side note, the transcendence and *imminence* (being near) of God are both present throughout the Bible and well-understood by theologians.
In any case, I find the" who created God versus what created the multiverse/universe" question to be too rhetorical. A more concrete question is: when we observe what is not transcendent, does it seem that the universe and life is formed by stochastic mechanistic processes or by organized intelligence?
Because the atheist thinks God, the fantasy figure being described, is unjust, as per the atheist's moral code. Just like you can look at a movie with a fictional story and hold opinions on the actions of the fictional characters therein.
The point here is that if your moral code is just a preference or a construct, you can have opinions about it but your angry feelings are silly and irrational under your own assumption.
You don't need absolute morality to have opinions about what you think is good or bad.
Yes that's true, which is why my argument is framed by letting you accept either axiom, absolute OR constructed morality, and follows then each assumption to its conclusion. I apologize for not making that more clear.
Not at all. Anyone can hold an opinion on anything. If an atheist finds the description of God in the fantasy book call the Bible to be disgusting and immoral, then that's that atheist's opinion and moral stance. No invisible sky-daddy needed.
You did not answer my appeal to objectivity even though you quoted me here, but yes, one can have opinions about anything; however, if you want those opinions to have meaning and choose to use them in arguments, then you have to presuppose something is true. If you presuppose morality is a construct, then God's offenses are meaningless, so a more direct route would be to prove your assumption that morality is a construct instead, not that "God is bad" which you assume to be meaningless. If you choose to presuppose morality is absolute and God created it, then trying to disprove Him by appealing to an absolute framework is not only double-minded but also requires you to have perfect objectivity unavailable to you as a member within humanity (absolute morality presupposes self-judging as invalid).
Your argument is circular, and assumes that God made morality.
The idea of axiom, as you well know, is to accept something as true and work out the consequences based upon those primary assumptions. This has nothing to do with circular reasoning but taking each idea and following it to its logical end. If I fail to come up with a coherent argument against something by presupposing either axiom, then it is worth my time to reframe my argument.
As to my appeal to objectivity, an atheist can either accept that self-judging one's own moral goodness is either valid (relative morality only) or invalid (in the case of either kind of morality). If you suppose it is valid to judge oneself morally then we have nothing to discuss because you have perfect faith in your own objectivity. That is your axiom and you may choose it. However, if we take self-judging to be invalid and need something outside of ourselves to judge us, then railing against God for judging humanity as a group is by definition invalid since such railing fails the objectivity test.
Btw, this "Sky-Daddy" business is humorously reminiscent of "Ceiling Cat" to me.
Because "God did it" adds nothing to our understanding and adds an extra, seemingly unnecessary link in the chain of reasoning. It's a platitude, not an explanation.
It is important to distinguish between first and secondary/last causes. For example, if I were to ask you why you were born, I could say "God did it." You might argue:
My parents had sex and I was born.
True. However, nothing in our universe has a cause in itself, so I might argue: but only because their parents had sex first! We can continue this chain of cause & effect until we return to the beginning of the universe and I can still say "God did it," but now as a "first cause," not as the "last cause" of your parents having sex. Moreover, knowing that God did it as a first cause does not stop me from investigating the plentiful secondary causes, unless of course I lack the means or am intellectually apathetic. Both the first and secondary causes are true, but the former gives spiritual insight whereas the latter gives mechanistic insight. Each has its own separate and different value. There are miraculous exceptions of course, but that's a puzzle that should be examined carefully.
But what caused God then? You said nothing in our universe was the cause of itself.
For God to create the universe, He necessarily transcends it and is not bound to cause & effect, time, or space. He exists outside them, or in them, as He chooses. Too many theories of God have Him as an all-powerful member of our universe when really He is quite beyond it.
All that aside, I'm sorry when people use the "God did it" argument in order to avoid secondary causes.
False. That atheists have no "moral code" simply because the reject some arbitrary collection of do's and don'ts is a common but incorrect assumption. Sure, there are plenty of amoral atheists, but then again, there are plenty of outright scoundrels who will bleat long and loud about their "Christian values". On the other hand, some of the most "moral" people I know are atheists. They take full responsibility for their actions (no "salvation" just for uttering some magic words) and weigh those actions against a thoughtful and continuously evaluated personal code. In other words, they choose to do the "right" thing because it is right, not because someone else said it was right and threatened them with torture if they disobeyed.
Agreed. I think atheists do have a sense of morality, and some follow it more than others just as you say. If I ask why and where it comes from, I anticipate getting a variety of answers ranging from utilitarianism to cultural heritage to some guiding personal philosophy that they one day understood. Therefore, I'll skip to something less cliche...
From reading post after post I've noticed a trend: atheists are incensed with the idea of God sending people to hell. God is called unjust and worse by creating such an inequitable punishment; however, in order to call God unjust a moral framework is presupposed. If this framework is just a construct, as an atheist should suppose, then why call God unjust, it's just a construct? If the framework is absolute, then you are presupposing God exists and then trying to disprove Him by it.
I'll cut through the rhetoric then. Human beings, including Christians, are shocked at what God does and doesn't do. We don't understand Him all the time, because really, He's not the same as us. (Why should we suppose God is created in our image?) When it comes down to moral reasoning, a subject (like humanity) lacks the objectivity to define its own moral goodness or badness whatever the set of rules. Legally, you cannot be judge and witness at once (wait for the/. tangental counterexample that is set +5 insightful). Someone outside you must play the part of judge. That Someone is God for humanity, and if we don't like Him sometimes, it doesn't make Him as unfair as letting us judge our own persons. Guess what, I can't mod myself up! Why is that?
PS! To other Christians: the "believe because if you're wrong, you'll go to hell" argument is not good. People typically believe what they find credible, whether appealing to a trusted authority, by personal experience, or by rational thought. Belief by fear is not any these, and the first Christians did not use it either, rather, they appealed to the empty tomb and to the witnesses (historical-legal evidence) who had seen the risen Lord.
As a biomedical researcher, I wouldn't want the fruits of my labor to be withheld from anyone who needs medical treatment on the basis of their ideology.
For others who may not know, embryos are not the only source of stem cells. So hopefully research may go on given the protocols are workable for the new cell lines. However, as a biomedical researcher, you already live in a world with an enormous amount of red tape. It isn't fun, but scientists can adapt to new changes in their legal requirements. (How many times have they changed the ways one is allowed to "sacrifice" the animals? Don't ask slash-dotters, don't ask.)
I would, however, like to see more people living up to their putative beliefs by refusing to make use of technology derived from practices they claim to find morally objectionable. If you're opposed to stem cell research, then refuse any treatment based on such research;
I fear you line of reason will invite discussion about our benefit from Nazi experimentation (atrocities). It's sufficient to say, do the ends justify the means? More to the point, and I'm not trying to be funny: do you find someone objecting to research based on (different) moral reasoning to be morally objectionable?
if you're a creationist, then refuse any treatment based on modern biology at all; etc.
It is helpful not to confuse modern biology with the theory of the Origin of Species, and it is more helpful to understand that evolution and the Origin of Species are also not synonymous. For example, if I understand what evolution is, I should realize it is a demonstrable fact under its general definition. However, the ability of evolution to create new kinds or originate life, that is a separate question open to debate. Let each side be careful to examine the evidence with humility.
This applies outside the medical realm, too -- consider the number of people who bitch about open source on Slashdot, or more generally, people using the internet to complain about how terrible the internet is. Put your money where your mouth is, folks.
I do not support whining, but cannot one pursue constructive criticism about a product/entity while still accepting the present but flawed version? Oh wait, that's called life!
I heard in a talk by an astrophysicist that telescope time is precious and can be put to much better use than looking for extraterrestrial life (by doing research). I guess this is a question to the/. crowd: just because finding ET life is conceivable, does it mean it is practical and worth spending resources on? Thoughts, opinions, unsubstantiated claims?
Slashdot Mirror
When you select for resistant bacteria growing in the presence of antibiotics, there is usually a fitness tradeoff for that resistance. Suppose now instead that we have some virus-resistant organism we've engineered. This means all the virus receptors on the surface of the cell no longer bind virus particles, and if you've done this for *many* virus receptors, then you've mutated a lot of cell-surface proteins. I can't imagine this would go without fitness cost.
On the other hand, from studying influenza I can say that viruses evolve much faster than we do and if a variant (maybe adapted to another host) or subtype emerges that can bind your receptor anyway, then in effect you've selected out variants but not stopped the virus. Getting regular vaccines are still the way to go on this, IMO.
Since when did article postings come with gratuitous flamebait in addition to the link/info? Oh wait, this is slashdot..
That's like trying to use a frickin' flamethrower to melt snow....oh wait. :D
it is high-lighting all terms in all documents received from an internet search. How is that the same as a "highlight all button?" Whatever the case, highlighted searches have existed for a while, so why should this be patentable just because they batch the highlighting to all search results in a "network search"?
Kentucky had tourism. :-)
I do however like their scenery as I have driven from Ohio to Florida or Atlanta.
Many will agree that this lawsuit was a poor response. However, it does prompt in my mind the power of the internet to hold in eternity the funniest, nastiest, and unluckiest moments of our lives. Many will say, "Good, he deserves it." But think about what this means generally: your mistakes can be immortalized in such a way that you may pay for them even after a long time has passed and even if you've apologized or repented of your actions. You can even be threatened and abused via e-mail. (Notwithstanding, it looks doubtful this fellow has done the former and purportedly he has received the latter.)
In brief, the internet + video can make the consequences of our actions much larger than they would otherwise be, and perhaps, disproportionately so.
Come get some, moon! Ooh, what now?
-Saturn
Are these items merely cosmetic (a la some blizzard promos) or do they actually confer advantage? If the latter, I could see this going in the direction of games like Magic the Gathering, where having more money IRL means you have a better chance of buying better cards and therefore winning. I'd hate to see an FPS video game go in that direction, since it's a very different genre than a collector's trading card game..
Negative attention is better than no attention!
-Apple (remembering Antenna-gate)
I really don't understand the relevance. This doesn't seem to have anything to do with the discussion about absolute morality.
We are starting to go in circles so I will try to stop after this. I have not been trying to prove God or absolute morality to be true but only that the original "God is unjust to judge people" argument was a non-credible one.
My appeal to objectivity was a part of my aforementioned two-part argument. Similar to mathematical proof, if we suppose proposition Y given X, and X may assume two mutually exclusive states (say X1, X2), we have to prove Y given X1 or Y given X2 is true. If I want to show Y is not true, I have to show Y given X1 and Y given X2 are both faulty. Y was the original argument. X is morality. X1 is subjective/non-absolute morality. X2 is absolute morality. I have assumed both states of X for the sake of argument.
That is just a belief. There is no evidence that absolute morality exists. And isn't it a bit odd for someone who claims to publish in scientific journals to not hold all his thought to the same standards? You accept that evidence is required in one case, but not the other?
First, I think it is a misconception that belief comes without evidence or reason. To the contrary, people believe in what makes sense to them, although one's reasoning or evidence may be faulty. If I am convinced by the evidence for God--and to be sure it is reason not credulity that frames my beliefs--then absolute morality is just a logical conclusion based upon my God hypothesis.
As for empirical evidence, it is admittedly only suggestive that people ubiquitously try to define a morality of some kind for themselves since I can come up with other reasons for this phenomena, such as a "group survival mechanism." However, this does not preclude God from setting morality in place for our survival as well. So yes, people want to be "moral," whatever reason you ascribe to it.
Thank you for the discussion. I think I've learned better about atheist thought than before.
So? We can try to make the judgment objective (does the person violate the rules), but the rules/morals are entirly subective. For example, if the rule is "it is wrong to kill", that rule is subjective. But the judging will be objective: Did he kill? If yes, then he is guilty of violating the subjective rule.
Great point. I agree completely in that sense. But it doesn't change the fact even if I have a subjective rule set, if I am the one being judged, I do not get to make objective statements about myself even if I had potential to be objective. This is about what is considered to be credible, not merely possible. People are not good at being objective when it comes to themselves or people they like, even if the rules happen to be arbitrary.
For example, why are slashdot moderators biased in this very thread? More importantly, why did the creators of slashdot come up with an intricate system in the first place to limit moderator abuse? People are self-interested and are not credible when judging themselves or even judging people they like or agree with, myself definitely included, so we keep looking for something more objective than ourselves.
Exactly! Times change, and morals with them. My point exactly. They are subjective. No such thing as objective morals.
If we are the only measuring stick out there, and there is no God, I fully accept your premise.
there is not a single shred of evidence for the existence of god, but in fact there is a whole lot of evidence against the monotheistic god(s).
We disagree.
Richard Dawkins has said that he is open to actual evidence of God's existence, so he places himself on a 6
I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt that they are open-minded, so that is helpful to know.
People can't even agree on how to interpret the bible (the claimed word of God). So even if he did exist, we wouldn't be even close to absolute morality on earth. Everyone would be fighting over what God tells them to do. And in fact, lots of people are already doing that, and blowing each other up in the name of their version of the deity.
One premise is that truth exists regardless of whether people agree on it. If God does exist and His will is the definition for absolute morality, then it doesn't matter if people agree on what He said, the truth is still out there and may one day become more clear.
I can tell you whenever I am being peer-reviewed in a scientific journal, the interpretation of each reviewer on my findings are often at odds with me or with each other. It's actually expected and helpful, because it refines things. Given enough evidence, the hope is that the truth will become self-evident to everyone, and so will vindicate those who held on to it at first.
Morality isn't that different, if such a thing as absolute morality is out there, which I believe it is. The fact that we disagree in this area as well as others is to me just a part of what makes us human: we're finite, we make mistakes, we have to analyze and revise things, we like our own way, and learning is a process. I believe that truth, even if our perceptions of it change, does not change. The fun of life is searching for it, in whatever area you love.
What difference does it make? You can judge yourself all you want, but people with power will also judge you. No god needed
My proposition was focussed on the observation that we seek objectivity in judgement. In particular, when it matters, we avoid self-judgement and use impartial third-parties--juries and/or judges--within our legal system to get this kind of objectivity.
If we suppose God does exist (I know you do not, but you do for the sake of argument) and we want to tell Him His judgements on us are wrong and unfair, we would require His kind of objectivity to be able to say so with certainty that He was wrong.
Why is it easier for us to look back in history and see that what people were doing seemed wrong and dastardly? We judge them by our moral values--rightly or wrongly but perhaps more quickly than with ourselves. Why? Because in ourselves we have to compete with our desires, our interests, and our justifications. Even if our moral values are subjective, others things frankly do get in the way and make us do less than what we ourselves believe in. That's being human I suppose. But if there were a perfect judge for humanity, it wouldn't be us, it would be Someone who has the purity and omniscience and objectivity to do so. Those who believe call Him God, those who don't call it wishful thinking.
For what statement to have absolute meaning? Why do we need an absolute definition of "badness"?
That's an excellent question, why do we *need* absolute morality? I don't claim great wisdom, but one use for absolute morality might be to avoid confusion as well as mediate between self-interested parties with competing definitions of morality. As you touched on, perhaps this helps lead people to a higher degree of "good" that wouldn't have been obvious to all parties.
Within argument, I think we need absolute definitions inasmuch as we want to make absolute statements such as: X is always true. I assume atheists are making absolute statements when they make arguments against God, but perhaps all they really mean is, "For all I can see, there is no God." If that is the case, I would be interested to know, because making such a definitive statement would require a certain amount of omniscience attributed only to you-know-who (not Lord Voldemort).
Even people within the same culture won't agree on what's good and bad.
I was merely assuming a definition of "meaningful." In truth I fully agree with you that people disagree all over the place and am not trying to demonstrate God exists by saying "everyone agrees on morality." They don't. They do tend to agree there is such a thing as morality, just not what it is in particular.
My definition of absolute morality; however, is based on what God considers "good" or "evil", not as we prefer it. I readily admit though that understanding what God precisely means by righteousness takes up the better half of religious study, and failure to understand Him (or listen) has resulted in people doing dastardly things in His name.
Huh?
Sorry I don't write more clearly. I just mean it can't be used as a proof. In any case, thank you for the thoughtful response.
No, I don't assume "bad" to be meaningless. I am pointing out that it is subjective. And if an imaginary being does something in a fairy tale I think is bad, I can point out how I think it is bad. And that means that if you do indeed believe that the fairy tale is true, then the imaginary being you blindly believe in has committed acts I find to be bad.
This seems to be an important part of your argument, so I won't ignore it. I see your point and it is well-taken.
The difficulty I face is this: if you see something as bad, morally speaking, but I can define bad myself subjectively, then the bad that is meaningful to you won't necessarily be so to me. If we agree on some definition of badness, it will have some meaning to both of us but perhaps not a third person. For your statement to have cultural meaning we need a cultural definition of badness (for our people). For it to have universal meaning we need to have a universal definition of badness (for all peoples). For your statement to have absolute meaning, we need an absolute definition of badness (for all times).
Which kind of badness are you appealing to? If I adopt your definition of morality, your calling God bad may indeed be meaningful to me; but for logical proof, it is "meaningless" because of it's subjectivity. I don't deny the rhetorical value of your statement if we happen to share our definitions of badness, but the argument doesn't escape its own subjectivity.
In brief: if morality is subjective then moral objections against a story of God are subjectively meaningful.
"Self-judgement" means to evaluate oneself critically. In other words, to be both judge and defendant. Depending on the thing being judged, this process may or may not be appropriate.
The comments appeared to be railing at God, and that was what didn't make sense to me, but since you say this is not the case, I must work harder to understand your perspective next time before answering. Apologies.
A final note: I was not trying to prove God exists by assuming He created morality and then showing that our having morals must mean that God exists. I made a vague reference to this argument as cliche in my first comment. Instead, I was trying to show that arguments against God on the basis of calling Him immoral are fundamentally flawed, as they collapse under the weight of either starting assumption for a moral system. I don't think I can prove God to anyone; however, I can show that certain arguments are not as helpful as they appear.
Kinds regards. - S^3
Some astrophysicists from reasons.org (with an old-earth creationist view) discuss the Hawking announcement in a recent podcast: Science News Flash
Forgive me for the false dichotomy, allow me rephrase: to what degree is the universe and life is formed by stochastic mechanistic processes and/or by organized intelligence?
The idea of appealing to transcendence is not unique to Christian thought.
Scientists have hypothesized multiverse models to explain the formation of the known universe. The multiverse, except for our part of it, is beyond the scope of our ability to test directly. A multiverse can be considered "transcendent" because it is beyond our universe and may not be governed by the same physical laws in every respect.
As a side note, the transcendence and *imminence* (being near) of God are both present throughout the Bible and well-understood by theologians.
In any case, I find the" who created God versus what created the multiverse/universe" question to be too rhetorical. A more concrete question is: when we observe what is not transcendent, does it seem that the universe and life is formed by stochastic mechanistic processes or by organized intelligence?
Kind regards.
S^3
Because the atheist thinks God, the fantasy figure being described, is unjust, as per the atheist's moral code. Just like you can look at a movie with a fictional story and hold opinions on the actions of the fictional characters therein.
The point here is that if your moral code is just a preference or a construct, you can have opinions about it but your angry feelings are silly and irrational under your own assumption.
You don't need absolute morality to have opinions about what you think is good or bad.
Yes that's true, which is why my argument is framed by letting you accept either axiom, absolute OR constructed morality, and follows then each assumption to its conclusion. I apologize for not making that more clear.
Not at all. Anyone can hold an opinion on anything. If an atheist finds the description of God in the fantasy book call the Bible to be disgusting and immoral, then that's that atheist's opinion and moral stance. No invisible sky-daddy needed.
You did not answer my appeal to objectivity even though you quoted me here, but yes, one can have opinions about anything; however, if you want those opinions to have meaning and choose to use them in arguments, then you have to presuppose something is true. If you presuppose morality is a construct, then God's offenses are meaningless, so a more direct route would be to prove your assumption that morality is a construct instead, not that "God is bad" which you assume to be meaningless. If you choose to presuppose morality is absolute and God created it, then trying to disprove Him by appealing to an absolute framework is not only double-minded but also requires you to have perfect objectivity unavailable to you as a member within humanity (absolute morality presupposes self-judging as invalid).
Your argument is circular, and assumes that God made morality.
The idea of axiom, as you well know, is to accept something as true and work out the consequences based upon those primary assumptions. This has nothing to do with circular reasoning but taking each idea and following it to its logical end. If I fail to come up with a coherent argument against something by presupposing either axiom, then it is worth my time to reframe my argument.
As to my appeal to objectivity, an atheist can either accept that self-judging one's own moral goodness is either valid (relative morality only) or invalid (in the case of either kind of morality). If you suppose it is valid to judge oneself morally then we have nothing to discuss because you have perfect faith in your own objectivity. That is your axiom and you may choose it. However, if we take self-judging to be invalid and need something outside of ourselves to judge us, then railing against God for judging humanity as a group is by definition invalid since such railing fails the objectivity test.
Btw, this "Sky-Daddy" business is humorously reminiscent of "Ceiling Cat" to me.
Because "God did it" adds nothing to our understanding and adds an extra, seemingly unnecessary link in the chain of reasoning. It's a platitude, not an explanation.
It is important to distinguish between first and secondary/last causes. For example, if I were to ask you why you were born, I could say "God did it." You might argue:
My parents had sex and I was born.
True. However, nothing in our universe has a cause in itself, so I might argue: but only because their parents had sex first! We can continue this chain of cause & effect until we return to the beginning of the universe and I can still say "God did it," but now as a "first cause," not as the "last cause" of your parents having sex. Moreover, knowing that God did it as a first cause does not stop me from investigating the plentiful secondary causes, unless of course I lack the means or am intellectually apathetic. Both the first and secondary causes are true, but the former gives spiritual insight whereas the latter gives mechanistic insight. Each has its own separate and different value. There are miraculous exceptions of course, but that's a puzzle that should be examined carefully.
But what caused God then? You said nothing in our universe was the cause of itself.
For God to create the universe, He necessarily transcends it and is not bound to cause & effect, time, or space. He exists outside them, or in them, as He chooses. Too many theories of God have Him as an all-powerful member of our universe when really He is quite beyond it.
All that aside, I'm sorry when people use the "God did it" argument in order to avoid secondary causes.
False. That atheists have no "moral code" simply because the reject some arbitrary collection of do's and don'ts is a common but incorrect assumption. Sure, there are plenty of amoral atheists, but then again, there are plenty of outright scoundrels who will bleat long and loud about their "Christian values". On the other hand, some of the most "moral" people I know are atheists. They take full responsibility for their actions (no "salvation" just for uttering some magic words) and weigh those actions against a thoughtful and continuously evaluated personal code. In other words, they choose to do the "right" thing because it is right, not because someone else said it was right and threatened them with torture if they disobeyed.
Agreed. I think atheists do have a sense of morality, and some follow it more than others just as you say. If I ask why and where it comes from, I anticipate getting a variety of answers ranging from utilitarianism to cultural heritage to some guiding personal philosophy that they one day understood. Therefore, I'll skip to something less cliche...
From reading post after post I've noticed a trend: atheists are incensed with the idea of God sending people to hell. God is called unjust and worse by creating such an inequitable punishment; however, in order to call God unjust a moral framework is presupposed. If this framework is just a construct, as an atheist should suppose, then why call God unjust, it's just a construct? If the framework is absolute, then you are presupposing God exists and then trying to disprove Him by it.
I'll cut through the rhetoric then. Human beings, including Christians, are shocked at what God does and doesn't do. We don't understand Him all the time, because really, He's not the same as us. (Why should we suppose God is created in our image?) When it comes down to moral reasoning, a subject (like humanity) lacks the objectivity to define its own moral goodness or badness whatever the set of rules. Legally, you cannot be judge and witness at once (wait for the /. tangental counterexample that is set +5 insightful). Someone outside you must play the part of judge. That Someone is God for humanity, and if we don't like Him sometimes, it doesn't make Him as unfair as letting us judge our own persons. Guess what, I can't mod myself up! Why is that?
PS! To other Christians: the "believe because if you're wrong, you'll go to hell" argument is not good. People typically believe what they find credible, whether appealing to a trusted authority, by personal experience, or by rational thought. Belief by fear is not any these, and the first Christians did not use it either, rather, they appealed to the empty tomb and to the witnesses (historical-legal evidence) who had seen the risen Lord.
As a biomedical researcher, I wouldn't want the fruits of my labor to be withheld from anyone who needs medical treatment on the basis of their ideology.
For others who may not know, embryos are not the only source of stem cells. So hopefully research may go on given the protocols are workable for the new cell lines. However, as a biomedical researcher, you already live in a world with an enormous amount of red tape. It isn't fun, but scientists can adapt to new changes in their legal requirements. (How many times have they changed the ways one is allowed to "sacrifice" the animals? Don't ask slash-dotters, don't ask.)
I would, however, like to see more people living up to their putative beliefs by refusing to make use of technology derived from practices they claim to find morally objectionable. If you're opposed to stem cell research, then refuse any treatment based on such research;
I fear you line of reason will invite discussion about our benefit from Nazi experimentation (atrocities). It's sufficient to say, do the ends justify the means? More to the point, and I'm not trying to be funny: do you find someone objecting to research based on (different) moral reasoning to be morally objectionable?
if you're a creationist, then refuse any treatment based on modern biology at all; etc.
It is helpful not to confuse modern biology with the theory of the Origin of Species, and it is more helpful to understand that evolution and the Origin of Species are also not synonymous. For example, if I understand what evolution is, I should realize it is a demonstrable fact under its general definition. However, the ability of evolution to create new kinds or originate life, that is a separate question open to debate. Let each side be careful to examine the evidence with humility.
This applies outside the medical realm, too -- consider the number of people who bitch about open source on Slashdot, or more generally, people using the internet to complain about how terrible the internet is. Put your money where your mouth is, folks.
I do not support whining, but cannot one pursue constructive criticism about a product/entity while still accepting the present but flawed version? Oh wait, that's called life!
I heard in a talk by an astrophysicist that telescope time is precious and can be put to much better use than looking for extraterrestrial life (by doing research). I guess this is a question to the /. crowd: just because finding ET life is conceivable, does it mean it is practical and worth spending resources on? Thoughts, opinions, unsubstantiated claims?
Of course, you could opt to do other things instead of Civ for credit, so that solved the non-gamer/physical disability dilemmas cited above.