We may be missing each other here. Believing in objective morality doesn’t mean I think I am more moral than someone else or that one religion has all the best people. A central tenet of Christianity is that we aren’t good, moral people. We need God to save us. We need Jesus. That is background knowledge for me. But I clearly believe there is a genuine right and wrong. It naturally must be tied into God’s will. I do not think it is subjective even if we are subjectively conditioned by our environmental limitations and the times we are born in. Its our job to not be driftwood. We have to always seek God’s will and be willing to swim against the current of what society tells us is proper. In some places baby girls were murdered because they were an economic liability. I feel very strongly that female infanticide and things like sacrificing children are objectively wrong whether a society deems them appropriate or not.
I don’t think we are entitled to anything without God. We just are. My opinion is that inalienable rights and the like are a temporary and subjective illusion in a materialistic universe. I say this philosophically. We all should be struggling to be moral individual whether we believe in God or not. I am only commenting on the world view. Not stating that if you don’t believe in God you cannot do good deeds. That is silly.
You also say, no one can prove Him but Him. Are you thus saying proof of God is outside the realm of scientific investigation? We can’t do it? Whey then you you require proof of a soul?
I disagree. Atheism get’s no presumption anymore than theism. Atheism does not provide a self-evident explanation of existence and the vast majority of human history has believed in higher powers. There are for and against when we look at the universe in the case of atheism and theism. Agnosticism is the natural position to take on any issue. Don’t formulate an opinion unless you have adequate evidence. It makes sense. But sometimes even here we have to take a leap of faith in order to live our life. Some of us subscribe to the ideology behind works like The Will to Believe by William James. We can’t always sit on the sidelines in life waiting for empirical proof of things. We have to go based on personal experiences as well. Standing still is not progress. Neither is irrationally leaping forward unless you get lucky.
I am not setting up the straw man, I believe you did that. I am responding to your statement that there is scientific evidence against belief in souls. You have provided none save to say you feel you can explain humanity without appeal to them. That it is superfluous. I am telling you this is a non sequitur to me. Jesus, Paul and the Church accept the concept of souls. The mere fact that you claim to be capable of rationalize human life without them does not mean your view is correct.over that of Jesus, Paul and the Holy Catholic Church. It’s more an abuse of Occam’s razor than anything else.
I said all that only to point out to you that scientific evidence for our all beliefs is not always possible. There are beliefs we how to that cannot ultimately be verified or falsified. An immaterial soul, if it exists, is beyond the scope of science to affirm or deny based on it being immaterial. Philosophically we can argue about souls all day and question the term immaterial and refine our positions. I am not interested in that. I have already stated several times I don’t know exactly what a soul is.
I agree entirely though there is no scientific evidence for any of it.
It’s an interesting question what exactly “Gods Image” is. Part of it may sharing the quality of “I am”, or possessing “being” which is a distinct self-consciousness. God is the eternal “I am”, or the root of being. I believe animals are sentient, but I think they do not have separateness, and thus no sense of abandonment from God and nature. Thus they have no need for religion(s). Victor Frankl said “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” I suspect animals do not have a space between stimulus and response for responsibility to exist in.
So, for example, what morality can we see in the plant according to their capabilities? It is found in the “devotion” of individual cells to the well being of the community. It may not the emotional devotion of a human being but there is a moral imperative that the individual serve the interest of the community. To grow in directions which will put new leaves in more sunlight and thus capture more energy from the sun for the growth and reproduction of the whole plant. That is something the plant can do.
FYI - this is not a definition of sentience scientists would use. It generally just denotes animals that can reason and feel pain.
Many scientists in fact don’t really care for the term at all, as it arose primarily from religious use and then shifted into more common usage primarily in terms of animal rights.
In additional, many animals, particularly those in social groups, certainly have well-developed and extensive use of language, it’s just not primarily spoken language. I am particularly interested as a dog trainer and instructor, in the use of body language in canines to communicate, and there are quite a few books available now on this topic, most people would be surprised at the level of detail and how much can be communicated without use of spoken languages (vocalizations of course are part of it as well, but animals are of course much more limited in the range of vocalizations they can use).
Here’s my personal favorite book on canine language, using an extensive photographic study of behavior in wolves and comparing it to similar body language in dogs (wolves using much more exaggerated language than the more subtle cues that dogs use).
Of course whales and dolphins do use vocalizations much more and we are only just starting to learn how complex their language is as well. The fact that animals have learned to communicate with us via sign language or other methods indicated as well that our perception of humans as the only animals capable of “language” is no longer an accurate one.
All life has consciousness. It is a necessary part of the process of life - both awareness of the environment and awareness of self. There can be no life without response to the environment and self-maintenance. But there can be no response to the environment without awareness of the environment and there can be no self-maintenance without an awareness of self.
To be sure, consciousness is highly quantitative as is life itself. It is not just either/or but a continuous spectrum from the non-living to the sentient being. And I certainly think that the human mind is a huge quantitative leap in the quantity of consciousness from other living organisms. This is easily measured in the time it takes for learning and adaptation which is easily thousands of times faster in the human being compared to other organisms.
All life likewise has free will. It is very essence of what life is. An organization of processes doing things for its own reasons and maintaining an internal state apart from the environment by responding to environmental changes rather than being dominated by those environmental changes.
But again, free will like life itself is highly quantitative and a function of capability as well as consciousness. You cannot choose what you are not even aware of. Furthermore, for biological organisms much of the free will and choice is on the species level rather the individual level for that is where so much of the learning and adaptation is happening. A big part of the quantitative nature of life is hierarchical and communal, so the life of the individual is different from the life of the community or the species.
I always have believed that animals have a soul and will be in heaven. I do believe they have sentience in terms of being able to reason and make decisions… free will if you want to call it that. What the difference between humans and animals for me is the ability to sin. Humans are given an understand of “right” and “wrong”. Of righteousness. Animals do not have that, their souls live in a spirit of innocence. At best, I can train my dog to understand that doing a certain action will result in some unpleasant consequence, but he does not avoid something based on there being some moral “wrongness” to that action. It’s a problem with a lot of pet owners that they think their pets understand “wrong” and “right” and interpret their behavior as showing guilt or remorse, when what the animal is doing is simply reacting to the human behavior that comes as a result of their action.
You contradict yourself. If they do not use the term then it doesn’t denote any such thing in science. So you are referring to its use in philosophy from the seventeenth century as the ability to feel distinguished from the ability to think. But I don’t think that is particularly useful at all.
Where I have see the term used most is in science fiction and the consideration of the possibility of alien life. And it is used to distinguish living organisms classifiable as animals from those which should be considered more than animals and since language has been the only significant difference on earth, then that is the usual basis for distinguishing the two.
The chimps considered the smartest of animals do not have language. Communication is not language. In particular I am talking about something with at least the abstraction and representational capabilities of DNA, having something like Turing completeness.
The last time I looked into this there seemed to be no solid evidence that the cetaceans had any language. And we had good reasons to think we were overestimating their intelligence. It looked to me that the complexity of their communication was more about transmitting sonar information.
But checking into this again today, shows that there is some evidence now that their communication may be more like language. It is in their ability to master syntax and phrase building in both human and artificial language. Generally having such abilities strongly suggests that they are using them. And then there is some observation of similarities to human communication in some exchanges between dolphins. Since this was from observations of dolphins long in captivity it is possible this is something learned from interactions with humans. I guess that the jury is still out on this question.
I said “many” do not care for the term, because of its association with the animal rights movement, but certainly it is still frequently used and has been widely studied.
In such discussions, I never have I seen “language” used as a defining factor of sentience. Ever. It would seem to be a fairly transparent attempt to redefine it in a way that excludes all non-human animals from the definition, now that it’s been fairly definitively proven that they do meet the definition of sentience as it’s always before been understood to mean.
And yes, one can always put strict rules around what “language” is to ensure that only humans qualify under that definition. Under such a definition, infants would then not be “sentient” as they have yet to develop those language skills. I don’t think you’d find many people that would agree that only older children actually are sentient.
I would be more likely to simply drop the word “sentient” as completely useless than to accept the meaning you suggest, and then to look for a different word. Why useless? Give me an example of a living organism which does not feel. If you reduce the meaning of a word to no more than what another word already means (in this case living) then it is useless.
I don’t like the word intelligence for making this distinction, and I can explain why if you like. Shall we talk about linguistic species then? But frankly I don’t see the need because 17th century (back when they people made the insane suggestion that women, children, or animals could not feel anything) use in philosophy aside, the use in science fiction is well established. We can simply take note of the defunct use of the word, much like the antiquated use of the word “science” as merely the study of something.
Incorrect, since the whole point is to consider the possibility of alien life capable of civilization.
The ability to communicate complex and abstract concepts is essential for civilization. It is an important difference. There is nothing vague or line moving about the representational capabilities of DNA and Turing completeness. So I think it is you who are bending over backwards to erase the difference between human beings and animals.
Sure, AND THAT IS NOT WHAT I DID!!! Instead I pointed to some fundamental WELL DEFINED differences in capability that is important in other areas of science.
Complete nonsense! This was NEVER meant as a descriptor of individuals but of the whole species. That is about as sensible as complaining about the definition of the word intelligence because it means arms and legs are not intelligent.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
71
The day we see two chimps carrying a log together for a common purpose, shared intentionality, will be the day.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
72
What’s God’s will got to do with it? Abusing power is unenlightened. Morality has to be developed. Socially evolved. I don’t see a lot of child sacrifice in the UK. Or anywhere else. Because of the evolution of morality.
We’re, as in we are, entitled to declare inalienable rights on our own recognizance. All human abstract constructs, little fictions, stories, limited liability companies are temporary and subjective illusion in all material universes, in God or no. You’re claiming ‘soul’, whatever that is, because God? I require proof of what you mean at all. What difference the word soul makes to anything. Proposing God is one thing, but proposing soul is what? What for?
In the historical evolution of ideas theism precedes atheism. Logically it’s the opposite. Not that there is any warrant for going beyond a-non-un-null-theism. Except desire. And a good story. There is nothing natural about sitting on a fence.
No, there is no scientific evidence against belief in souls, that would be nonsense, as you say you believe in them and I believe you. I have no idea what they are and have no need to believe in them or not, they are meaningless. What did Jesus, Paul and does the Church mean by soul?
How about inexactly?
I don’t need any. Love doesn’t need any. Any ‘objective’ - or any other - morality that doesn’t look like and feel like love to all concerned, to any degree, is as meaningless as objective soul. Admittedly some people are so damaged that they cannot experience it even when it’s enveloping them. But we know when we’re trying. Trying to express morality in love.
I am not convinced that humans have anything more than animals other than language. So to be sure we have these words for “morality,” “ethics,” “right,” and “wrong.” But I doubt that these really mean (outside of language) any more than what animals already have, like an instinct to care for their young or in communal animals an instinct of the horned male to oppose a predator. The fact that we add a variety of peculiar things like clothing and table manners is more a matter of invention than a fundamental difference perhaps compared to how a female might judge a suitor in a mating ritual.
I think it is language itself which is the significant difference because like DNA it can be a medium for the process of life itself as realized in the human mind. And the human mind is distinct from the brain with regards to needs, desires, and inheritance which is not and cannot transmitted by DNA to the next generation.
I’m really struck by the notion that free will or choice requires that one has a separate consciousness outside the environment that one is choosing from. One has to be separated out to make space for freedom. This separation of consciousness from environment resulting in free will is what I think the “fall” in Genesis may be referring to. I like the idea of Genesis as a kind of allegory that shows the development path of consciousness from animal to human.
Maintaining an organization separate from the environment is what life is all about, and this requires an awareness of the environment and the self which is the content of consciousness.
I very much agree with this. That I believe is why the physical universe exists – to give us an existence separate from the creator founded on the laws of nature which operate independently.
I am a more traditional Christian, for I think the fall was in fact a FALL not an ELEVATION. It is God’s communication with Adam, giving us an inheritance of the mind which made us human and His children. But with every gift of power and ability there is danger and responsibility. So God warned them of that danger just as any parent warns his children not to play in the street. It is not that the “fruit” is evil any more than the streets are. There is only a level of maturity needed before handling the responsibilities involved. The danger in this case was a fall into self-destructive habits beginning with Adam blaming everyone but himself for his mistake. That this led to murder (fratricide) in the very next generation is not difficult to understand for it is derived from the same bad habit of blaming ones problems on another. And so we see this habit run rampant in our prisons where every criminal thinks their victims made them do it. It is also a habit which transforms God from our very best teacher to our easiest scapegoat – so we can curse and blame God for everything which goes wrong.
I do not. I do not agree with the atheist notion that religion is just primitive science. Rather they are about two entirely different things. Science gives the explanation of the development of the physical abilities. Religion is about our relationship with God which I do think is an important part of our humanity as well. Our humanity is not just about the physical abilities which science is so good at studying but also the ideas governing how we use those abilities.
We watch Bible Project videos for our devotions as a family. Last night, the BP clarification on the Hebrew concept of “soul,” very different from the Greek one which we typically think of, surprised me a lot. It is probably worth its own thread.
I said there is no such thing operating the body like a puppet. That is a cause and effect relationship which science certainly can study. But there is no such cause and effect relationship. It is not just a lack of evidence but an overwhelming quantity of evidence that the cause and effect relationship controlling the body are entirely physical – everything being alterable by physical manipulation. It renders any supposed non-physical component to the role of nearly unnecessary redundancy.
Of course I believe in a nonphysical component to our existence, which I name the spirit. But I am forced to conclude its relationship to the physical (mind and body) is almost entirely epiphenomenal or one-way from the body to the spirit. Any causality going the other way (from nonphysical to physical) would have to go through the extremely narrow window of quantum indeterminism, which doesn’t allow for the body being operated like a puppet by a non-physical entity.
It doesn’t have to. What it can comment on is enough. It provides sufficient explanations for the mind and life without any nonphysical entity or stuff. The lack of evidence does prove a lack of existence when there is good reason to expect evidence. So while it cannot comment on the existence of nonphysical entities it can comment on the nature of any possible relationship between the physical and such nonphysical entities. Namely that it cannot alter the probability distributions which the laws of nature provides a means to calculate, because those probability distributions are measurable.
No it cannot rule out causality from the spiritual to the physical altogether – therefore I can defend the rationality of being a Christian as well as a scientist. I can even see reason to believe that this does not greatly inhibit an all-powerful all-knowing God from interacting with His creation. But there are other notions which do not survive the restriction such as: 1) the reliable use of prayer for getting whatever you want, and 2) the operation of the body like a puppet by a non-physical entity.
I take it that the fall is really both fall and elevation - it is man deciding that he wants to be like God knowing good and evil, in a sense leaving his father behind and wanting to take his inheritance to live on his own terms (i.e. The Parable of the Prodigal Son Lk 15:11). Note how the father thought he son was dead and the son himself no longer considers himself to be a son v 21-22. I think this suggests the son is cutoff from the family until his reconciliation.
I think the fruit is not itself evil, but rather makes evil possible, for it gives it definition. The maturity to master good and evil I think are not attainable by man on his own, and thus God has to come down and give an example of how to defeat it (paradoxically to die on a cross), in some ways, teaching him to be like God. Interesting also, is what God says to Cain before his murder: “sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it”.
Agreed. I think that the fall in Genesis might be likened to something like a dream that requires interpretation, but not psychoanalysis - rather it requires spiritual analysis of the kind given in the Bible elsewhere ( parable of the soils perhaps?). As such, it would be speaking at a higher level than science.
