I think any evidence for telepathy would first need to get established or ‘credited’ in the first place before there need be much concern over any of it being discredited. But in any case, that, like ESP, ufo-ology and such are fringe sciences at this point and won’t gain much traction in this forum. If you dispute those characterizations or want to discuss what qualifies as ‘fringe science’, then perhaps discussion of that in another thread (or you could even start one!) would be appropriate. This thread should at least loosely try to stay around Noah’s discussion of ethics and related theology.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
82
Close. I like the premiss. But there’s a way to go on acknowledging how rational and completely reasonable materialism is and how good theology needs to come naked with a begging bowl and fullest possible respect for it. No hint of passive aggression.
I’m not sure how theology can “knock at the door as a beggar” at the same edifice of which it is the very foundation. In any case, Materialism would also be a philosophy itself then and also stuck in the foundation (or as a beggar at the door as you would have it).
But once inside, things can more or less function with their own internal consistencies - without anyone necessarily needing to find the exits or peer out the windows … is that what you’re saying? You’ll get no objection from me. I gather it is atheism you’re at pains to protect or respect here, and I think I’ve made it clear that I, at least, don’t insist that materialism as such must necessarily be inconsistent or irrational. Does that help put you at ease? I leave it to others to manufacture their own inconsistencies or irrationalities as they begin mounting their own philosophical offense campaigns, and from some authors like Dawkins, such things have been supplied.
That’s been my impression. It seems all the regulars here make a clear distinction between Dawkins’ chops as an evolutionary biologist and his occasional tilt at slaying Christianity. Only one regular to my knowledge exclusively reads just the popular anti-religion screeds and generalizes from that to dismiss his science work - and plenty of other regulars have called him out about that.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
85
Hmmmm. It’s rationally not a level playing field Mervin. It’s not 50:50, binary, a toss of the coin. And there certainly is no respect due to religion because it historically came first and dominates culture for all the thousands of years of history and tens of thousands of pre-history if not hundreds of thousands in its evolution. There is respect due to it for its genetic origin, our sacred moral taste receptor and respect due to the cultures and sub-cultures, ethne that are still bound by it.
But in the arena of pure reason, there is nothing beyond those respects; philosophical materialism comes first in a solo race. It isn’t chasing religion. Historically it’s leaving it dead in the dust and lapping it. The only competitor is its personal best. Reason has no competition, but itself.
To evangelize beyond the inertia of being born in to it, religion needs ignorance and weakness, desperation and even then conversion is about 0.1% - 1:1000 That was my fag packet calculation from some years ago, nobody’s ever refuted it.
Reason is Caesar and you get nowhere challenging him, telling him he’s wrong, ever. You just look a ragged fool in the marketplace of ideas. You’ll pick up, lift up some of the ragged sure and save them by eusociality. But not efficiently. By pass him. Ignore him. Subvert him. And truly serve the dispossessed as Christianity did for its first three centuries. Give people reason to believe without attacking reason and they will come out from under the hedgerows.
Enlightenment has brought social action in policy, has achieved vast increases in human well being. Reason as Caesar is the best we could have. Christianity needs to be a finer mesh network in that polity in which it is a beneficiary, a dependent, a supplicant. Or what’s it for? The elephant in the room of damnationism? That’s just ignorance. If its trying to save souls from a psychopathically self-righteous deity. it deserves to lie in the dust.
I see BioLogos on the way to standing up, as it allows creationism like mine, but it I more than suspect that it has the impediment of damnationism in its feet and DNA. But it is trying to network, catch, meet those falling out of fundamentalism where they are. I suggest it needs to direct people to Jesus’ first sermon somehow too. Have a reason to believe beyond being in dubious battle.
Thank you for your advice and guidance. I was just trying to make the point that while we are considered deluded by many in the scientific community for a belief in God, they themselves are not honestly doing the science that points to at least a non-physical reality.
And I feel that it has failed overall at that in this time of pandemic, despite some scattered churches doing a wonderful job of reaching out to the hurting and vulnerable.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
88
Aye Phil. The vast majority preach to the converted, looking corporately, collectively inward. Desperate that the ‘unsaved’ have what they have and wondering how to evangelize it. It would be really great to see some morality coming from God. Until then we’ll just have to wait for the evolution of the arc of the moral universe.
Seems to me you are circling scientism like a moth to a flame. “In the arena of pure reason”, reason is no doubt king. But in the realm of reflection, particularly reflection on our own nature or on how to live, reason alone is impotent. I’m not saying off the rack religion is a sure thing, but many of the virtues Christianity extols are useful in those realms.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
90
None of those virtues, whatever they are, is uniquely, distinctively, relevantly Christian.
I’m inclined to agree but still think Christianity can or could be entirely adequate so long as the rituals were an entree to an open ended process and not an end in themselves.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
92
I would argue that a subjective morality is much more preferable to an objective morality. A subjective morality is based on what humans want, our emotions, how we experience pain and loss, empathy, reason, logic, and everything else from the human experience. These are the MOST important things to us humans, so why is it such a terrible thing to base our morality on the subjective human experience?
Moreover, the arguments for objective morality fall apart, IMHO. It really boils down to Euthyphro’s Dilemma: Is something moral because God commands it, or does God command it because it is moral? If morality is separate from God, then we can determine what that morality is for ourselves.
Moreover, what if an objective morality went against everything humans believed and felt? What if objective morality said to kill all people who are left handed? How would you even know if what God commands is actually moral, or if it is simply what God’s subjective views on morality?
What people need to justify is their rejection of subjective morality.
If God commanded the Nazis to kill all Jews, would that have made it moral?
Others would also have the right to overthrow the regime that practiced what they considered to be an immoral system.
So it would be “might makes right” then, eh? It’s a good thing the Nazis didn’t win that particular round then. And since the majority of Americans may feel at the moment that reparations or any affirmative action for past “sins” like slavery or treatment of Native Americans isn’t really any grave concern any more, I guess our treatment of them was not really immoral on this view, so long as the prevalent culture gets to decide what’s moral? (Lest we think the ‘Nazis’ are always on the losing side…)
In the current political climate when strong-arming politics seems to be gaining so much favor that some are becoming tired of all the ‘winning’, I don’t think anyone imagines it cannot rise again.
Effectively, that’s what we have now. It just so happens that might is often derived from shared moral values.
I don’t see the connection. Monetary reparations for wrongs done to ancestors is a different moral judgment than the actual wrongs done to those ancestors. Are Christians seeking reparations from the descendants of Roman nobility for the Christians slain in coliseums? Are Jews seeking reparations from the Egyptians? I think we can recognize that mistakes were made in the past without also needing to give out money in the present.
The connection is … we can’t even get to any discussion of “reparations” - we’re no where close to that, because so far as we’re concerned the question already stopped way back on the “actual wrongs”. If no wrongs were done, there would be nothing to be concerned about in the first place. There can’t be any discussion of such things until it is established there was something wrong in the first place. So, for example, if moral imperative only has valid strength at the pleasure of the predominant culture, then (on that logic) we should conclude that black lives finally matter now - but they didn’t before until support for that tipped over 50%. But until that happened, you had no basis for insisting that black lives should matter, at least not until you get the culture to agree with you.
Regarding “might makes right” …
But with an important difference: there is (or at least has been) some strong underlying notion in our society that morality is and should have substance - underlying basis to it, beyond just what current culture happens to prefer. That underlying basis has very much been religious. Perhaps that particular basis is rightly seen to be insufficient by many who would gladly remove it. But the problem is they have nothing to replace that with, and it will get replaced with something … essentially “might makes right” and the will to power advocated by Nietzsche. Trying to implore a population that “they really ought to do this” and “ought not to do that” loses its strength and you have what has been called ‘cut flower ethics’. It’s a very bleak world indeed, - a world where demonstrating minorities trying to advocate for fair action and just laws are deprived of their moral high ground by the notion that so long as prevailing culture insists there is no wrong, then no wrong actually exists unless or until that fickle ‘supreme court’ happens to change its mind. They are indeed trying to change culture’s mind on that, but until they actually do … no wrong has been done (without any more substantial basis for morality). Do you see the connection and the dreadfully nightmarish ‘practicality’ of where that leads? I thank God that Martin Luther King Jr. started the civil rights movement as he did - firmly grounded in his convictions about justice flowing from higher sources, and informed by the teachings of Christ. Without that, he would have had no wind in his sails whatsoever.
I think slavery and kicking Native Americans off their land was wrong.
We ok now?
The best thing about subjective morality is that we can change it as we learn more and discuss morality. If it was objectively moral to have slaves and kick indigenous people off their land (sounds like the Old Testament) then it would always be moral. There is nothing we could discuss or change.
Even worse, if different deities gave different absolute commands based on an objective morality, then which one do we follow? Whichever one is most popular, or the religion that is enforced by might?
The substance is the deeply felt wants and needs of humanity. These are the most important things there are in being human.
If most people need to believe that they are following the commands of a deity in order to follow their own sense of morality, then I guess it is a good thing religion exists.
I think it is rather obvious that we all have an ability to judge morality ourselves. Perhaps it isn’t as obvious to others. If a religion contradicts that deeply held sense of morality, we reject the religion. Just look at how many in the West look down on how people are treated in Muslim majority nations even though those Muslims are following what would be defined as an objective morality by many in this thread.
Yes we are! I’m delighted you think so and that we two agree on that. And I guess it’s a lucky thing for those unfortunate folks that you, I, and a critical mass of current culture (here anyway) also think so, or else … it wouldn’t have been wrong at all, right?
I fully agree with everything you wrote above (and more that you wrote besides.)
Let me hasten to touch on something that you rightly critique: The (Euthyphro’s) dilemma that you mentioned earlier is I think a weak philosophical objection to hide behind given our human capacity to have some sense of judgment and morality. There is “good and justice” and a god (even God) could fail those things. In short, something is not right just because we think God says it is. If you agree with that, then I happily join you and kick the said dilemma into the dustbin where we would both leave it.
We can decide for ourselves if the actions of people in the past were immoral.
I think we are good. I think we both see that there is a difference between morality and obedience. A dog can follow commands, but that doesn’t make the dog a moral being.
The grander question is if there is an objective morality, could we humans even know what it is? Saying that what God commands is moral only kicks the can down the road. We would have to know that God has access to an objective morality and that God is accurately communicating that morality to us. How would we know those things?
The absolute best we can do is subjective morality, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. Personally, I think Nietzsche is full of it, so those arguments don’t hold much sway with me. Perhaps others find his arguments compelling, but I would hope that we could agree that Nietzsche isn’t an infallible deity, or even infallible for that matter.
It is also worth mentioning that the Secular Humanist movement is a real thing, or just the Humanism movement in general. I disagree with some of their ideas, but it does show that non-religious organizations and movements could provide the social and community based structure that theistic religions currently have. Think of it is the US Constitution, something that believers and non-believers can adhere to and defend.