Two questions on an unrelated matter if I could beg a slight bit more of your time :
a) With regards to objective morality, could it simply exist in a Platonic sense with no need for a moral law giver (so that it truly could be objective "instead of from a subjective source like God"? (not my point but another poster's))
b) Is there any proof that objective morality exists in someway outside of naturalistic means? I encountered a poster and his two points were...
"Scientist do not consider what the believe is necessarily fact. Facts are empirical evidence. What scientists believe is knowledge based on theories and hypothesis based on falsification and predictive vale, which may change over time.
It is traditional theists are the ones that believe in facts that do not change.
As far as the evidence, it is abundant if you want to look [on the claim that all morality can be explained in a natural way]....One thing that is not available objectively is any evidence morality and ethics has a 'Source' other than natural evolution of behavior."
In the second, he claims that no morals are inconvenient to natural selection and moves on from there:
"It's not. Sometimes it's difficult to imagine how a certain trait or set of traits (e.g. altruism) might benefit a population. But a lack of imagination is no insight to necessity. In any case, no "evolutionary argument" is required to debunk the argument from objective morality.
The determination of the survival value of the nature of the gene pool is in response to natural forces and not human attempts based moral or ethical issues motivated to manipulate the genes pool .For example, (1) homosexuality will always be a small minority of the population by natural selection, because there is no survival value for those with these tendencies. The percentage of homosexuals in any given community does vary significantly, because of human efforts to prohibit or exterminate them. (2) People born with many variations of birth defects will be selected against naturally if they impact reproduction and survival. Actually in most cases their survival would not be a moral or ethical issue, it would be a matter of not successfully being able to reproduce or survive due to natural reasons, and not a deliberate selective process motivated by humans.
On the other hand human technological intervention in the modern world, may weaken the gene pool by encouraging the survival of genetic defects in the population that are unsuited for survival. This is where an artificial technological world creates moral and ethical problems that do not reflect natural morals and ethics.
Where morals and ethics come in survival and natural selection is, like in other higher animals, the need for family and community cooperation for the young to survive to adulthood, and reproduce. Altruism strengthens a population by pooling resources and promoting cooperation for problem solving and community survival"
I finally replied to the thread with a link to an article that deals with Nowak and the subject of morality and evolution and he replied: "Okay article, but the bottom line is morality, ethics and altruism may be explained by science through the natural processes of evolution, therefore it is not a good argument for the necessity of the existence of God."
Nicholas's Response Note the “not a good argument for the necessity of the existence of God”. The atheist tactic is to “raise the bar” for the rigor of the evidence to impossibly high levels and then say “you have no evidence” when what they (should) mean is “you have evidence, but not enough to convince me” (“they have Moses and the prophets”).
It is always logically possible that any observation which is explained by “hypothesis” X could just be a “brute fact”. The apple might just happen to fall to the ground and it could be pure coincidence that the same explanation accounts for the orbit of the moon and the planets. Nevertheless these observations are quite strong evidence for Newton’s hypothesis about gravity.
The morality issue is whether a moral statement (eg “Torturing babies for fun is wrong” – which I’ll call “TBFW”) can be said to be objectively true, and mean something different from statements like:
a. In my opinion TBFW
b. In our society Torturing babies for fun is considered wrong (TBFCW)
c. In most societies TBFCW
d. Evolution favours the emergence of a social norm that TBFW
Science cannot determine this question. It can offer evidence about b, c and d but the question of whether TBFW is a philosophical, not a scientific one. However there are grave problems with the view that TBFW is simply a matter of opinion or social convention. And IF you take the view that there are such things as objective moral statements, then “materialism” and “naturalism” both fall to the ground.
Your correspondent is also startlingly naive about human evolution. This occurs on linguistic and social levels as well as genetic and epigenetic. Human ideas and decisions drive human evolution to a very large extent – one need only mention “sexual selection”, a factor of which Darwin was very aware but which was generally overlooked by mostly male theorists since his time.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Evolution of moral understanding
This is a simple logical point. Even if we could give a completely
correct and exhaustive naturalistic account of why "most people in
society X believe that they ought not to do Y" (which I don't think we
can BTW) that could tell us nothing about whether people ought to do Y,
unless you also had an axiom from which you could infer "if most people
in society X believe that people ought to do Y then people ought to do
Y".
Recently, I met another poster who used a similar argument in an online discussion. A "free thinker" responded, most of which was a mindless rant about how atheists can't be bigoted and other nonsense, but he raised an objection I would like to hear your thoughts on.
Namely, the two points (compiled a bit):
a) "Behavior is grounded in evolution and this includes the establishing of societal rules (i.e. morality) long before there was such a thing as a system of moral philosophy. Genetic predisposition towards cooperative behavior is passed on and reinforced within the tribe using words and a system of rewards and punishment. Morality is functional; it exists to maximize survival of the species. You seem to think that morality’ is just a concept."
and
b) If, as you say, every culture has differences in the details of the “innate concept of morality”, this demonstrates that morality IS relative to the culture and thus NOT absolute. There is some form of morality in all cultures and they all vary slightly. Morality serves a practical purpose, not an ideal to be maintained just to please a deity. BTW: You have yet to prove that there IS such a thing as "innate morality". FUNCTIONAL MORALITY LONG PRECEDED MORAL PHILOSOPHY (emphasis mine).All your talk of ‘universals’ and ‘sensibility’ is pretentious nonsense. It may be helpful in understanding the nature of morality but it is not essential to it. What IS essential to morality is that it enables society to function cohesively and productively. Morality exists for man, NOT man for morality. Your mini-rant about “needing a moral grounding for moral axioms is empty rhetoric."
The fact that our moral sense evolved has nothing to do with whether there are objective moral truths.
Our sense of vision evolved - does that mean that there are no objective truths about things we see?
Equally the fact that there are cultural variations in morality does not show that there are no objective moral truths, merely that not all claims of moral truth are equally valid.
correct and exhaustive naturalistic account of why "most people in
society X believe that they ought not to do Y" (which I don't think we
can BTW) that could tell us nothing about whether people ought to do Y,
unless you also had an axiom from which you could infer "if most people
in society X believe that people ought to do Y then people ought to do
Y".
Recently, I met another poster who used a similar argument in an online discussion. A "free thinker" responded, most of which was a mindless rant about how atheists can't be bigoted and other nonsense, but he raised an objection I would like to hear your thoughts on.
Namely, the two points (compiled a bit):
a) "Behavior is grounded in evolution and this includes the establishing of societal rules (i.e. morality) long before there was such a thing as a system of moral philosophy. Genetic predisposition towards cooperative behavior is passed on and reinforced within the tribe using words and a system of rewards and punishment. Morality is functional; it exists to maximize survival of the species. You seem to think that morality’ is just a concept."
and
b) If, as you say, every culture has differences in the details of the “innate concept of morality”, this demonstrates that morality IS relative to the culture and thus NOT absolute. There is some form of morality in all cultures and they all vary slightly. Morality serves a practical purpose, not an ideal to be maintained just to please a deity. BTW: You have yet to prove that there IS such a thing as "innate morality". FUNCTIONAL MORALITY LONG PRECEDED MORAL PHILOSOPHY (emphasis mine).All your talk of ‘universals’ and ‘sensibility’ is pretentious nonsense. It may be helpful in understanding the nature of morality but it is not essential to it. What IS essential to morality is that it enables society to function cohesively and productively. Morality exists for man, NOT man for morality. Your mini-rant about “needing a moral grounding for moral axioms is empty rhetoric."
The fact that our moral sense evolved has nothing to do with whether there are objective moral truths.
Our sense of vision evolved - does that mean that there are no objective truths about things we see?
Equally the fact that there are cultural variations in morality does not show that there are no objective moral truths, merely that not all claims of moral truth are equally valid.
Evolution and Randomness
As a former creationist believer with little science background it seems that:
Roughly:“randomness” scientifically means that the scientific causes do no predict with certainty what will happen. So for us to have freewill there has to be “randomness” in that sense. It doesn’t imply that the randomness is meaningless.
God uses evolution as a fundamental principle for His wonderful creation, like gravity. The aim of His creation is love. As far as we know humans are the only evolved beings that can truly love in a spiritual sense, but other forms of good and true love will surely be preserved in the new creation. How God will do this we don’t know – there seem to be trees in the New Heaven so why not loving animals? Who knows?
- The only way man could choose God is through randomness of a universe.
- Evolution is random
Roughly:“randomness” scientifically means that the scientific causes do no predict with certainty what will happen. So for us to have freewill there has to be “randomness” in that sense. It doesn’t imply that the randomness is meaningless.
God uses evolution as a fundamental principle for His wonderful creation, like gravity. The aim of His creation is love. As far as we know humans are the only evolved beings that can truly love in a spiritual sense, but other forms of good and true love will surely be preserved in the new creation. How God will do this we don’t know – there seem to be trees in the New Heaven so why not loving animals? Who knows?
Mind existing outside the world of time, space and matter
Does present day science see mind or causation as existing outside of the world of time, space and matter? I am a student of A Course In Miracles which, as I understand it, does see it that way. It sees Spirit as Reality and mind as the creative aspect of Spirit. Mind is then free to create by extending itself as Spirit but is also free to explore other possibilities by making up, for example, our perceived world of time, space and matter.
All of this works for me. I have no problem, for example, imagining a material world emerging from non-material thought or mind. The brain then becomes, in this way of thinking, an effect of a made-up world rather than a cause or the potential explaner of everything. Again, this "metaphysics", as I understand it, works for me but how do you see it?
We can't say that "science sees it" in this way. Certainly in practice fundamental theoretical physics pre-supposes deep mathematical structures which are in a sense antecedent to matter, and most theists will see these as in some sense emanating from the mind of God. However most working scientists would probably say that these arise in some way from a non-mental reality, although there are certainly problems with that view (some discussed on www.questionsoftruth.org)
These are indeed metaphysical questions which are "beyond physics." Fundamentally, you have to choose whether you think matter/energy, mind or love is the most basic principle of the universe. If there is a Loving Ultimate Creator then matter/energy is a creation from His loving mind.
All of this works for me. I have no problem, for example, imagining a material world emerging from non-material thought or mind. The brain then becomes, in this way of thinking, an effect of a made-up world rather than a cause or the potential explaner of everything. Again, this "metaphysics", as I understand it, works for me but how do you see it?
We can't say that "science sees it" in this way. Certainly in practice fundamental theoretical physics pre-supposes deep mathematical structures which are in a sense antecedent to matter, and most theists will see these as in some sense emanating from the mind of God. However most working scientists would probably say that these arise in some way from a non-mental reality, although there are certainly problems with that view (some discussed on www.questionsoftruth.org)
These are indeed metaphysical questions which are "beyond physics." Fundamentally, you have to choose whether you think matter/energy, mind or love is the most basic principle of the universe. If there is a Loving Ultimate Creator then matter/energy is a creation from His loving mind.
Paradox and Christology
In John's interview with Robert Wright, I heard John use the example of how quantum particles can be in a mixture of two places at once, to point out that our encounter the universe may prove to be "stranger than we can think." He further went on to say that, "if this is true of how we encounter the world, then it maybe truer of how we encounter God." How does this statement relate to an orthodox view of Christ?
I think John’s main points are:
I think John’s main points are:
- “common sense” is a poor guide to deep truth.
- Although of course the orthodox view of Christ affirms many true and wise things, it is also part of the orthodox view that our human “wisdom” is inadequate to understand God.
Is materialism philosophically questionable
Recently there was a conversation on a website I frequent where one poster insisted that existence is dependent on the fact that it occupies matter, space and time or energy; and so for God to exist, He must fulfill these criteria. Another poster commented that under this criteria, the words had no meaning, as they have no relation to matter/energy. To which a defender replied:
"Information is an arragement of matter or energy! Words are still composed of SOMETHING. The information in your computer, in your brain, in your computer screen, is kept in matter. It is a specific arrangement of matter that gives it its meanings. Without the matter contaning it the information. So information needs a medium to exist in."
I am curious to what relation this has on your assertion that materialism is philosophically questionable.
Well obviously it isn't logically necessary that existence depends on occupying matter/space/time/energy, and since God created all of these concepts and does not exist within them, it begs the question to say that "existence depends on ..."
And when the Materialist says "the information is kept in matter" he seems to be confused. Of course there are material representations of information but these are not the information themselves. The same information can have many different representations. Also that the set of such representations can change without the information changing, which shows that this set is not identical to the information. This if informational objects exist they are non-material
"Information is an arragement of matter or energy! Words are still composed of SOMETHING. The information in your computer, in your brain, in your computer screen, is kept in matter. It is a specific arrangement of matter that gives it its meanings. Without the matter contaning it the information. So information needs a medium to exist in."
I am curious to what relation this has on your assertion that materialism is philosophically questionable.
Well obviously it isn't logically necessary that existence depends on occupying matter/space/time/energy, and since God created all of these concepts and does not exist within them, it begs the question to say that "existence depends on ..."
And when the Materialist says "the information is kept in matter" he seems to be confused. Of course there are material representations of information but these are not the information themselves. The same information can have many different representations. Also that the set of such representations can change without the information changing, which shows that this set is not identical to the information. This if informational objects exist they are non-material
What does someone need to do to become a Christian?
Thank you for providing this questions and answer website and the book, “questions of Truth.” I have a theological question to do with how a person attains salvation or becomes a Christian.
It seems to me that to become a Christian you need faith that Jesus has forgiven you and a decision to stop sinning. I think of belief expressed in John’s Gospel and faith in Paul’s letters.
However there have been things in my experience that have confused me. I once read an Alpha booklet and it said we needed to do an ‘act of faith’ and I wondered if that meant a mental faith or something more. I thought about prayers they suggest you do in evangelistic booklets and prayers speakers at gatherings get people to say if you want to accept Christ. Then you have the possibility that there are Christians who just believe in their mind but have never said a prayer and possibly even some people who don’t even know when they accepted Christ. Even the Bible says “confess with your mouth Jesus Lord” in Romans 10:9 which suggests that this is mandatory.
So what (in very basic terms) does someone need to do to become a Christian? Do they need to do an act of faith or prayer or do they just simply believe in their mind? Perhaps a person should say a prayer just in case it is needed for salvation.
At one level this is like “what do you have to do to love someone” It is about orientation of the will but it has consequences for behaviour – we are after all embodied beings. If you love someone and they want you to talk to them and you don’t it’s an odd kind of love. So prayer is great. It’s also a good idea to get involved in some kind of a church if you can – we have lots to learn from other Christians and even more importantly Jesus commands us to Love God and Love your Neighbour as yourself – and the awkward and imperfect bunch in any church is a great place to start.
It seems to me that to become a Christian you need faith that Jesus has forgiven you and a decision to stop sinning. I think of belief expressed in John’s Gospel and faith in Paul’s letters.
However there have been things in my experience that have confused me. I once read an Alpha booklet and it said we needed to do an ‘act of faith’ and I wondered if that meant a mental faith or something more. I thought about prayers they suggest you do in evangelistic booklets and prayers speakers at gatherings get people to say if you want to accept Christ. Then you have the possibility that there are Christians who just believe in their mind but have never said a prayer and possibly even some people who don’t even know when they accepted Christ. Even the Bible says “confess with your mouth Jesus Lord” in Romans 10:9 which suggests that this is mandatory.
So what (in very basic terms) does someone need to do to become a Christian? Do they need to do an act of faith or prayer or do they just simply believe in their mind? Perhaps a person should say a prayer just in case it is needed for salvation.
At one level this is like “what do you have to do to love someone” It is about orientation of the will but it has consequences for behaviour – we are after all embodied beings. If you love someone and they want you to talk to them and you don’t it’s an odd kind of love. So prayer is great. It’s also a good idea to get involved in some kind of a church if you can – we have lots to learn from other Christians and even more importantly Jesus commands us to Love God and Love your Neighbour as yourself – and the awkward and imperfect bunch in any church is a great place to start.
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