?s about atheism but were afraid to ask

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS

02/11/2011 01:32:50 AM · #101

Ah. That makes some sense. But I thought we hated the English at the time we drew up our laws.... :-)

Strikeslip

Canon EOS-5D

02/11/2011 08:40:47 AM · #102

Originally posted by Louis:

Jesus Christ this is idiotic. Isn't it about time you took your pastor's advice, and stopped trying to think your way through your faith, or arguing it "logically", or whatever this painfully stupid exercise is?

DrAchoo is the DPC equivalent of a Door To Door Religious Solicitor. They come knocking on your door, just wanting to talk about the Bible, God, Buddha, or something similar. And that's what they do. I don't think there's any goal to convert the homeowner. I think it's some sort of trial they have to go through to make themselves feel more faithful to their religion. The more they are berated, and the more doors that are slammed in their faces, the better. It's a form of self flagellation.

I've seen

DrAchoo self flagellating here for as long as I can remember. His logical argument score system is a way to prolong his self-punishment for God.

ETA.... that's how I've always seen it.

Message edited by author 2011-02-11 08:41:40.

vawendy

Sony Alpha 1

Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS

02/11/2011 08:44:53 AM · #103

Originally posted by Melethia:

By the way, I was only being slightly sarcastic with my "drop 'em off on the iceberg" comment.

A consideration - why is committing suicide a crime in the US? From a Christian perspective, 'tis a bad thing. From an extremist Muslim perspective, 'tis an honorable thing. So we can't say it's a religious thing, since that differs. One can argue that a suicide may hurt others (first responders, remaining family members, etc) but really it is the choice of the individual. So why make it a crime?

Just curious. Has to do with a movie I watched recently, I suppose. Thoughts? (And no, I'm not sure how it relates to atheism. Just an extension of an earlier comment, perhaps.)

A lot of crimes are crimes because they affect other people. Stealing is a crime, because it affects the property owner, even though it's the thief's choice. Besides, it's messy and leaves someone else to have to clean up the mess. Hmmm... maybe it's littering?

ubique

Olympus PEN-F

Olympus 17mm f/1.8 M.Zuiko

02/11/2011 08:49:12 AM · #104

Doc, please! These Godless folks that piss you off mostly do it at your instigation and the situation escalates to unpleasantness due more than anything else to your own presumably deliberate provocation. Everybody seems to see that but you. You're a rational man paddling an irrational boat; it's never going to work, mate. Can't you post something about virology instead? At least none of us has any aggressively held preconceptions about that, and we might just learn something.

02/11/2011 09:32:03 AM · #105

Originally posted by scalvert:

organized campaigns to thwart climate change solutions spring to mind.

You think human induced climate change will bring about the extinction of the species?

02/11/2011 09:58:17 AM · #106

Originally posted by Melethia:

From an extremist Muslim perspective, 'tis an honorable thing.

Certainly you realize they don't consider it suicide????

Canon FD 70-210mm �4.0 MF

02/11/2011 10:03:46 AM · #107

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Our legal roots are in English Common Law. Back in the olden days, the peasants were literally the property of the Lords. Suicide was depriving the Lord of property.

R.

It has a religious basis that goes along with it. An atheist would not fear punishment for suicide because they believe there is no afterlife. My state had punishment for suicide until just after the turn of the century. A suicide could not be buried on consecrated ground. They were to be buried at a certain corner of an abandoned intersection, at midnight. I doubt many suicides were reported back then. LOL

shutterpuppy

Sony Alpha a7

02/11/2011 10:08:23 AM · #108

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

All I'm hearing here from people is that we are all uncomfortable with the precepts of Social Darwinism (whatever that exactly defines). But nobody has explained WHY the precepts do not hold true if we start from the idea that all aspects of human behavior are grounded at some level in natural selection.

Bullshit. You just ignored it.

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

Social Darwinism is flawed both in its understanding of evolutionary theory and its application. Evolution is not a zero-sum game of individual genetic winners and losers, and humankind has a proven track record of abject failure in self-identifying traits within individuals and populations that are evolutionarily advantageous. Social Darwinists are not concerned with "uplifting" the species, but rather entombing and defending their own individual and social group's position and privileges. In other words, Social Darwinism is actually antithetical to evolution, since it fundamentally seeks to undermine diversity, change and "progress" within the species.

Social Darwinists' misunderstanding of evolution leads them to undervalue cooperation and overvalue competition; undervalue genetic diversity and overvalue certain eternally identifiable traits; discount social and other external factors when evaluating the supposed "fitness" of any particular group or individual; and preferences the enforced stasis of current social and economic hierarchies by falsely ascribing them to some sort of intentional progression in the naturalistic order.

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Your friend relates that his mother is elderly and in a nursing home. The costs will soon drive him to bankruptcy. His wife is pregnant with triplets. There are no other options for her care. He confides he is thinking of taking her home and letting her starve to death. He is positive no legal ramifications will result. Do you talk him out of it? If so, what argument do you use?

I talk him out of it by letting him know in no uncertain terms that if he doesn't halt his plan immediately, I will turn him over the the authorities and testify at his trial for intentional homicide. Such a person is not just inflicting unnecessary suffering on his mother, but violating the socially expected moral norms to such an extent that others may rightly wonder about his "fitness" to be a part of the "tribe" of modern humans.

Social norms and moral expectations arise through the cooperative instinct that does appear to have been genetically hardwired into our species, and which is the likely reason for our long-term success. Whether religious or secular, all moral judgments are ultimately grounded in these moral instincts--this is easily shown by the fact that only the most pedantic believers will argue that the only reason not to murder is because "God" said not to; they may disingenuously try to insist that atheists have no reason not to commit indiscriminate murder, but they will (rightly) refuse to accept that the only reason for their own restraint is through threat of hell or that their restraint would be abandoned if their belief was proven false.

"My friend's" willingness to transgress the social norms to such an extent carries the inference that his own moral intuitions do not align with the shared consensus of the "tribe" and call into question his dedication to interests of the "tribe" as a whole. We recoil in moral outrage from such people because their actions mark them out as individuals who do not share the moral intuitions of the group, and are therefore a potential threat.

Message edited by author 2011-02-11 10:10:53.

02/11/2011 10:34:48 AM · #109

Originally posted by Melethia:

A consideration - why is committing suicide a crime in the US? From a Christian perspective, 'tis a bad thing.

Actually, it may not even be a problem from a Christian perspective. The lovely thing about religion is that you can interpret it to get any answer you like� a necessary characteristic to get as many people as possible to identify with the cause. The bible favors slavery if you do and opposes it if you don't. God abhors homosexuality if you do, and doesn't really care if you don't. All of which becomes irrelevant if you hold the position that only faith, not works, matters (as in the first link on suicide). However, that position also eliminates any justification for religiously inspired morality. You could be the worst person on the planet and all is forgiven or dedicate your life to virtuous deeds that ultimately count for nothing.

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

I'd seek out financial assistance and social services that exist precisely for these situations, thereby eliminating the dilemma. That's what friends are for.

02/11/2011 10:46:18 AM · #110

Thanks for the response SP. This is more what I was getting at with my line of questioning and perhaps I was just doing a bad job of it. I thought of a rephrase of the question last night and I think your post answers it from your perspective.

If it can be shown that our genetic imperatives are not beneficial (evolutionarily speaking) to either society or ourselves, should we follow them? If the answer is "no" (which it sounds like you give above and I'd agree with), on what grounds do we give that answer? Are those grounds just another genetic imperative or are they based in something else? If they are grounded in another genetic imperative, on what basis should we ignore the first imperative, but pay attention to the second? (Do you see how it gets a bit circular there?)

Anyway, I'll just leave that one out there to ponder. I do agree with slippy that self-flagellation may be one of my own genetic imperatives...

02/11/2011 10:46:51 AM · #111

Originally posted by FireBird:

Originally posted by scalvert:
organized campaigns to thwart climate change solutions spring to mind.

You think human induced climate change will bring about the extinction of the species?

It certainly could. The most likely scenario is climate change leading to food chain collapse and crop failure, which severely constrain food supplies (already becoming headline news). People tend to like to eat, and when food is scarce they'll fight over it (part of the problem in Egypt). Escalate from there to larger wars, disease, etc...

02/11/2011 11:04:42 AM · #112

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

If it can be shown that our genetic imperatives are not beneficial (evolutionarily speaking) to either society or ourselves, should we follow them?

...aaaaand he's right back to the naturalistic fallacy. Whether natural tendencies are beneficial or harmful to the species does not in itself lead to what what we should do (the "is/ought" problem). Your argument implies that "not beneficial" = "bad"... a value judgement that does not follow. Ostensibly beneficial or harmful traits are not good or bad, they just are. Nature doesn't care. Examples from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

1. Child A is dying from starvation.
2. The parents of child A are not in a position to feed their child.
3. The parents of child A are very unhappy that their child is dying from starvation.
4. Therefore, fellow humans ought morally to provide food for child A.
Given that �happiness is an essential part of the general good,� those who want to be moral ought to promote happiness, and hence, in the above case, provide food. However, the imperceptible move from �is� to �ought� which Hume found in moral systems, is also present in this example. "Ought" was arbitrarily derived from "is" when moving from the empirical fact of unhappiness to the normative claim of a duty to relieve unhappiness.

1. Natural selection will ensure the survival of the fittest.
2. Person B is dying from starvation because he is ill, old, and poor.
3. Therefore, fellow humans ought to morally avoid helping person B so that the survival of the fittest is guaranteed.
Even if both premises were shown to be true, it does not follow that we ought to morally support the survival of the fittest. An additional normative claim equating survival skills with moral goodness would be required to make the argument tenable. Again, this normative part of the argument is not included in the premises.

"The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much as the philantropist. Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and the evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before." - Thomas Huxley

02/11/2011 11:07:23 AM · #113

Hehe. Did anybody listen to Morning Edition on NPR this morning? I had to chuckle at a piece on an HBO movie tomorrow starring Samuel L Jackson who is an ex-con who has found God called The Sunset Limited. They have a few pieces of dialogue that were funny to me. SLJ sounds crazy, but he resonates some truth (at least to me). I chuckled because it's probably the way I sound here.

It would be nice to watch. Wish I had HBO for this one (it premieres tomorrow).

Canon FD 70-210mm �4.0 MF

02/11/2011 11:12:46 AM · #114

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If it can be shown that our genetic imperatives are not beneficial (evolutionarily speaking) to either society or ourselves, should we follow them?

...aaaaand he's right back to the naturalistic fallacy. Whether natural tendencies are beneficial or harmful to the species does not in itself lead to what what we should do (the "is/ought" problem). Your argument implies that "not beneficial" = "bad"... a value judgement that does not follow. Ostensibly beneficial or harmful traits are not good or bad, they just are. Nature doesn't care. Examples from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

1. Child A is dying from starvation.
2. The parents of child A are not in a position to feed their child.
3. The parents of child A are very unhappy that their child is dying from starvation.
4. Therefore, fellow humans ought morally to provide food for child A.
Given that �happiness is an essential part of the general good,� those who want to be moral ought to promote happiness, and hence, in the above case, provide food. However, the imperceptible move from �is� to �ought� which Hume found in moral systems, is also present in this example. "Ought" was arbitrarily derived from "is" when moving from the empirical fact of unhappiness to the normative claim of a duty to relieve unhappiness.

1. Natural selection will ensure the survival of the fittest.
2. Person B is dying from starvation because he is ill, old, and poor.
3. Therefore, fellow humans ought to morally avoid helping person B so that the survival of the fittest is guaranteed.
Even if both premises were shown to be true, it does not follow that we ought to morally support the survival of the fittest. An additional normative claim equating survival skills with moral goodness would be required to make the argument tenable. Again, this normative part of the argument is not included in the premises.

"The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much as the philantropist. Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and the evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before." - Thomas Huxley

This is one of your most lucid posts Shannon and I fully understand your argument. I agree Nature is not interested in "ought/is". Nature is nature. You've been missing my question though; the thing I'm trying to get at.

IF Nature has no "ought/is" (we'll consider that a true statement), why do YOU have an "ought/is" (I assume you have one)?

shutterpuppy

Sony Alpha a7

02/11/2011 11:13:19 AM · #115

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

If it can be shown that our genetic imperatives are not beneficial (evolutionarily speaking) to either society or ourselves, should we follow them? If the answer is "no" (which it sounds like you give above and I'd agree with), on what grounds do we give that answer? Are those grounds just another genetic imperative or are they based in something else? If they are grounded in another genetic imperative, on what basis should we ignore the first imperative, but pay attention to the second? (Do you see how it gets a bit circular there?)

I don't think I said at all what you are implying. Please reread my response. I subscribe the the scientific consensus view of "morality" - i.e., a set of socially constructed norms, flowing from and informed by certain inherent, broadly shared behavioral intuitions. Boiling that down to a "genetic imperative," is both inaccurate and an exercise in spectacularly missing the point.

02/11/2011 11:30:16 AM · #116

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If it can be shown that our genetic imperatives are not beneficial (evolutionarily speaking) to either society or ourselves, should we follow them? If the answer is "no" (which it sounds like you give above and I'd agree with), on what grounds do we give that answer? Are those grounds just another genetic imperative or are they based in something else? If they are grounded in another genetic imperative, on what basis should we ignore the first imperative, but pay attention to the second? (Do you see how it gets a bit circular there?)

I don't think I said at all what you are implying. Please reread my response. I subscribe the the scientific consensus view of "morality" - i.e., a set of socially constructed norms, flowing from and informed by certain inherent, broadly shared behavioral intuitions. Boiling that down to a "genetic imperative," is both inaccurate and an exercise in spectacularly missing the point.

I guess by "genetic imperative" I mean just what you said. "informed by certain inherent, broadly shared behavioral intuitions". Wouldn't you consider those ultimately to be genetic? Are you just balking at my word "imperative"? By that I mean "guiding principle" and don't want to imply that we aren't capable of ignoring them. I think we'd realize we're talking about the same thing if we were face-to-face.

Canon FD 70-210mm �4.0 MF

02/11/2011 11:31:49 AM · #117

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

IF Nature has no "ought/is" (we'll consider that a true statement), why do YOU have an "ought/is" (I assume you have one)?

A combination of inherent personality traits, upbringing, social norms and life experience. Personal value judgements call upon all of these to form the basis for moral decisions. You will find general agreement on "golden rule" type questions across cultures because they're inherent, but very different answers on others as the influence of parents, peers and society molds the perceptions of right and wrong. Is it wrong to kill someone for no apparent reason? Yes: across the board. Is it wrong to kill someone for a specific offense? That depends on where and when you live... and by extension what your parents and authority figures taught you to believe.

shutterpuppy

Sony Alpha a7

02/11/2011 11:46:51 AM · #118

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

I guess by "genetic imperative" I mean just what you said. "informed by certain inherent, broadly shared behavioral intuitions". Wouldn't you consider those ultimately to be genetic?

No, or at least no more than to the extent that they are informed by a genetic disposition to cooperation and aversion to suffering in others. The problem with ascribing morality to genetics in such a straight-line fashion as you appear to be doing (whether intentionally, or just through sloppy language), is that you don't get complex social behaviors, like moral norms, from simple genetic inclinations. Again, this is easily shown--in the last 4000 years of human history, moral norms have undergone immense changes. In evolutionary terms, this is an eye-blink. You cannot ascribe the shift in moral attitudes to evolution or genetics because, evolutionarily, modern-day humans are essentially identical to bronze-age humans. What has shifted is the social structures, institutions and attitudes, which leads modern humans to repudiate behaviors deemed perfectly acceptable by our ancestors, even though we both start, evolutionarily speaking, from the same genetic base.

Message edited by author 2011-02-11 11:50:11.

Samsung Galaxy S21, S21+, S21 Ultra

02/11/2011 12:00:55 PM · #119

So it sounds like your answer and Shannon's answer are converging somewhat. There are a few very basic universal principles that are informed by genetics (likely in a complex fashion), but many are cultural and relative. Some are informed by something deeper than our intellect (our genetics) and others are merely informed by what we think.

It seems like a best of both worlds case to me. If you disagree with someone on something and you want to make an issue of it, you point to the universal principles (which are very broad and can likely be applied in some fashion). If someone disagrees with you on something, you point to relative principles and say that's part of your social norms or the way you were raised and their position is of no superiority.

It's certainly a very flexible system. (I'm not saying this with any sarcasm.)

What happens when one system conflicts with the other (the universal system vs. the relative system)? Does one trump?

Message edited by author 2011-02-11 12:03:27.

Bear_Music

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

02/11/2011 12:20:27 PM · #120

But, Doc, that's the way the "real world" WORKS: there's rarely any black-and-white, everything is a mishmash of the inherited and the learned, in every sense of the phrase. That this seems to provide an "easy out" for those who want to justify and/or promote their positions is neither here nor there. Like it or not, your (apparent) need to have everything laid out in terms of defined absolutes is bucking the reality of our poor, confused existences here on planet earth.

I recognize that you might respond that this is WHY we have religion, to bring order tot he chaos of which I'm speaking, but that's still whistling in the wind.

R.

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D

02/11/2011 12:30:02 PM · #121

Originally posted by scalvert:

All these things humanity has, and continues to overcome and find solutions for.
You don't have much faith in your own species. Old guys like me and you will
probably die, but not all of our children.

shamrock

Nikon D300

02/11/2011 12:40:12 PM · #122

Huh. Am i the only one that thinks the reason some of these questions are not answered, or not answered completely and honestly, is because of the fear of the social backlash that would result if someone said - let the unfit die a natural death?

There is an argument for supporting elders; in a wild, natural environment that doesn't include all these modern conveniences on which we rely, someone who has managed to reach an age at which point they become less than physically fit and capable of hunting/gathering will generally have been very fit at one time, and will have information/knowledge/skills to pass on to the younger generation. However, an infant that is born weak and will obviously never be capable of sustaining itself, much less contributing to the tribe, would be left to die or even outright killed.

If there is another major world war, threatening our economic and technical infrastructure, then our life expectancy and populations levels will drop dramatically in just a few years. Much of our population, especially the old and infirm or the young and helpless, will simply not be able to survive even with the help of the "tribe", without the mechanical and technical benefits which allow greater crop production, artificial life-support, even the production of medicines that slow disease that would result in certain death over time (my own need for thyroid and hypertension meds comes to mind).

It's all well and good to talk about natural selection versus morality when you have the benefits and luxuries of our modern society, but when push comes to shove - what do you think will REALLY happen?