by UnDisfellowshipped 151 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
okay, something interesting regarding morals originating within an evolutionary paradigm, that has had its predictions tested and is now well supported by research and experimentation (waving to spooks), is indirect reciprocity - a pro-social mechanism.
Indirect reciprocity among humans apparently goes hand hand with language development. This has to do with third party info (reliable gossip that is) about indivduals and groups and which serve as means of co-operation.
posting so that i can see my last post - where is t?
edit: gotcha
Good reply to undisfellowshipped, Caedes.
I see simalarities in "moral" or behaivor patterns in our closest related spiecies(according to DNA) the chimp. To me they furnish plenty of proof that they are a evolutionary developed behaivoral patterns that stem from eons of natural selection. Of course species have gone extinct that have not adapted fast enough in benificial way to ensure the survival of the speicies (which to me could happen to us as there are no guarantees in the outworkings of evolution's adapt to survive.
To undisfellowshipped,
Sorry, but again your last response was too long to deal with deeply, so I'll be terse here again:
Your definitions of metaphysical naturalism are good enough for a broad understanding. I'll mention again there are many different forms of naturalism, some broadly and some narrowly defended.
An evidential scientistic naturalism would more accurately be stated as follows:
"Since by observation most things are best understood naturally, then probably as a provisional belief, those things which lack full natural explanations due to limitations on observation are very likely natural as well."
Now, even taking your naturalism definitions, your attempts to understand the "case for naturalism" show that you have not consulted any of the carefull, patient and exhaustive scholarship on the issue.
1. Your premise (1) cannot be verified. Please stop using it. It is not representative of either a consensus of most naturalists or as a fact of physics.
2. Calling a physical law mindless is tautological and not needed. Whether you call it "purposeless" is a different matter. Under one common understanding of the meaning of "purpose," a natural law is completely purposeful. Functionalism may be a minority opinioin. You would be more accurate to say "non-teleological."
3. Your third premise uses "chance." Here again you would do well to consult the dirth of literature on "chance," "randomness," etc. There are innumerable responses here, such as natural necessity.
4. To evolution should add "and other means" after natural selection, even to be very concise.
5. Your premise "5" contains many "intensifiers" which seem to me to indicate your judgements about relatively neutral concepts. The jump here to morals has several mistakes, such as "realizing they had a responsibility." A responsibility is sort of a metaphysical claim. Here the language you are using proves your opponents conclusion false not by virtue of the argument, but by virtue of shifting the terms.
I don't like the shell game of "faith" here. It is the opinion of most naturalists that their conclusion is one drawn from evidence, not that they are believing dispite a lack of evidence.
You have again skirted past the obvious criticisms of the evidential argument from evil.
The atheist or naturalist, without her own argument for morals, can in debate use the same presuppositions of theists for what good and evil are because her objection is an argument from LOGICALLY INTERNALLY INCONSISTANT PROPERTIES. These arguments can establish that either (A) God, were he to exist, cannot posess certain traits or priorities in conjunction with other traits. (B) Were God to exist, no meaningful knowledge about his qualities can be inferred either from nature or from the scriptures. (C) Probably, God does not exist.
Theists have defended against this time and again. The usual approach is to defend a God with characteristics different from what most people believe in and divorced from any consensible basis in the scriptures.
So please, please please stop saying an atheist cannot rightly use the term "evil" or "good."
Your defenses don't hold up. Your defense of God would make him either not all-powerful or else not fully-rational, or at least would posit the existance of ADDITIONAL eternal, timeless metaphysical constraints on the deity.
Some theisims can defend against the evidential argument, others cannot. This is a very important distinction to make. For example, this argument does prove that VERY probably Jehovah does not exist or else that Jehovah's Witnesses are false. Islam, for example, is completely unphased by this argument.
Finally, the theists problem in the moral argument is that you have a baseless, shifting, circular and arbitrary definition of the terms of the argument about morals. If good is "whatever god does" and whatever god does is "good" then your claims to morals are preposterously NON-OBJECTIVE. Further, biblical morals are NON-CONSENSIBLE. There is not a single important moral principle in the bible which isn't broadly contested and reinterpreted among theists in balance with other factors.
Haven't there been recent discoveries that early man was actually cooperative and even sympathetic? Where did those "morals" come from?
Caedes said:
"Naturalism works, it has never yet been falsified as opposed to the bible which has been shown time and time again to be figurative not literal. You already believe in naturalism, after all I take it you walked out of your house through a ground level door rather than upstairs bedroom window."
The Bible has been shown to be "figurative" by whom and in which places, and what does that prove anyway? Who has "proved" that the Bible is not to be taken literal in most places? What does a "figurative" Scripture have to do with a "falsified" Scripture?
Which parts of Scripture are you claiming to be "falsified"? And who showed them to be "falsified"?
Anyway, I am speaking about Naturalism as a total worldview, which rules out in advance the possibility that there could be evidence pointing to a supernatural cause, before the evidence is even examined.
Obviously I believe in "Natural Laws" of physics, gravity, etc. That has nothing to do with my arguments against Naturalism as a total worldview.
You claim "Naturalism works."
Well, I would say Naturalism (as a total worldview) only works because you rule out any and all possible evidence to the supernatural ahead of time, therefore, the only possible conclusion you can reach is that there are only natural causes, no supernatural causes.
Yeah, that could work pretty well. Yes, it works pretty well for the Christian fideists and the Atheistic fideists. That way they never have to worry about evidence that doesn't fit in with their own prior worldview. Wow, that sure is open-minded, mature, and enlightened isn't it.
Caedes said:
"By definition anything that can be defined and measured by scientific enquiry is natural as opposed to supernatural. If you could give me one example of a supernatural force that can be measured I would interested to hear it."
I agree on what can be measured and defined (usually) in science. My point is that IF the scientific evidence that we do have from nature points more toward a cause beyond nature than a cause within nature, then, according to Naturalism (as a total worldview), the scientist would be required to interpret the evidence in such a way that it MUST have a cause within nature, even if it is more likely that it had a cause beyond nature.
Or, even if there were evidences of modern-day miracles, for example, a Naturalistic person would have to interpret the evidence to mean that there was a natural cause, even if, in actuality, there was a supernatural cause.
Do you see what I'm saying? Do you see a problem with this view? It is basically scientific fideism.
Caedes said:
"The difference between the god of the gaps and your 'naturalism of the gaps' is that science is looking for evidence to back up their naturalistic hypotheses whereas christians need no evidence to claim 'god did it'. That is the fundamental difference between naturalism and theism, evidence."
Are you saying that Christians do not look for evidence for God? Or are you saying that no evidence for God exists? Or both?
Well, what kind of evidence would you accept for the possibility that God might exist?
Why should we accept Naturalism as a total worldview while we wait for scientists "to look for evidence to back up their naturalistic hypotheses," instead of accepting Theism as a total worldview, while we wait for Christians "to look for evidence to back up their Theistic hypotheses"?
And, once again, if you adopt the total worldview of Naturalism before you examine the evidence, then there is NO WAY that a Christian could provide any evidence for God's existence, because it was RULED OUT ahead of time by naturalists!
Also, scientific evidence is not the only evidence available. After all, the idea that we should only accept empirical evidence did not itself come from any empirical evidence.
I actually agree with John Loftus (yes, I've been reading his book, "Why I Became an Atheist") that the "default" worldview when looking at the evidence should be AGNOSTIC, not Theism or Atheism.
Caedes said:
"Science will never find evidence for 'supernatural causes' because science is empirical, once you can measure the supernatural it becomes natural by definition."
The problem with that is this:
How do you know that there cannot be empirical evidence for the supernatural (or which at least points toward a supernatural cause) unless you have ruled out that possibility ahead of time?
For instance, if God were to appear today on the White House lawn, to meet President Barack Obama, there would be no empirical evidence for this? Or, are you saying that then God would become "natural" by definition because then we could have empirical evidence for Him?
So, if somehow scientists were able to conclude, based on the available evidence, that it was most likely an Intelligence beyond nature that caused the Universe to exist, then, since science shows evidence for it, this Intelligence must be natural, even though it's actually beyond nature?
Or, even if God did step in and create the first life that appeared on earth (and started evolution), and future evidence we find points in this direction, then we would have to say that God is inside of nature, instead of supernatural?
Caedes said:
"There is already overwhelming scientific evidence that evolution is a fact which you already ignore, I highly doubt any amount of additional evidence is going to alter your position."
I never, ever questioned evolution in this thread! And I have not "ignored the evidence" for evolution. I questioned evolution as defined by the total worldview of Naturalism.
As you yourself claimed, science cannot measure the supernatural, which also means science cannot prove that a God did not cause the Universe to exist and life to evolve.
Francis Collins believes in a Theistic Evolution as a total worldview. Why shouldn't I believe that instead of Naturalism as a total worldview?
Caedes said:
"This is not proof but merely pointing out out an inconsistancy in theistic thinking, the argument is starting from the premise of what some theists believe rather than from an atheist position."
Okay, I'll grant you that this is the proper way for an atheist to use the "Argument from Suffering." But, you should know, if you do a Google search for instance, that there are several atheists who actually do use this argument in an "incorrect form," and I have talked to several in the past who have. So, I did not create a strawman. (There are even entire atheist websites dedicated to "proving" that the God of the Bible cannot be a good God because God has done things in the Old Testament that the ATHEIST believes to be wrong or evil. But that argument clearly cannot work, because the atheist worldview has NO objective standard to judge God's actions against.)
But, if you are going to start out from the premise of what Theists believe (let's say, Christians) about God, then before you can formulate your argument to show an inconsistency, you have to define "God."
What happens to your argument when a Christian, based on (probably) the oldest book of the Bible, Job, defines God this way:
* God is an Omnipotent, All-Good God who is good even while He allows suffering, because He allows suffering for His own good purposes (such as proving Satan a liar and punishing sinners), and He is under no obligation to explain anything to human beings.
That is the God that is described in the Bible. Like it or not. Take it or leave it. That is the God you have to argue against IF you are going to argue against the God of Christianity.
How can you possibly use the "Argument from Suffering" against the Bible's version of God, who is good even while allowing suffering for His own good purposes? It won't work because you have to assume the Christian's definition of "good" and "evil" to formulate your argument, and the very definition of a "Good God" according to Christians, includes the fact that God allows suffering for His own good purposes.
The only thing you could end up saying is, "I personally don't like this God, and I don't think you should like Him either, based on my own personal opinions."
Caedes said:
"would you kill your own child if your god told you to? A yes or no answer will suffice."
No. Because in my worldview, the objective moral standard I measure against is grounded in the goodness in God's very Nature, so God would never have me do something against His own Nature. Even if God did command me to kill my child, it would only be a "test" of my faith (like Abraham's), and I would fail that test.
But, according to the New Testament, God's final revelation came through Jesus Christ, and God will never command anyone to do anything contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ and His apostles, so if I heard a voice telling me to kill my child, I would know that it was NOT from God, because that would be contrary to Christ's teachings.
Now, let me ask you something, if you're willing to answer.
If you were raised in a community where the accepted "evolved morals" said that you must kill your firstborn son, or you would be put to death, would you kill your son? If not, why not, based on the worldview of Naturalism?
Or, if you had been raised in Nazi Germany and were commanded to kill Jews, would you have done it? After all, according to your government, the Jews are lower forms of life, not fully human. And it would be for the "greater good" of society that the Jews should be wiped out, according to your government.
Based on the Naturalistic worldview, why shouldn't you just obey the Nazi government? Why risk your own life and happiness for others?
Also, if only atheists were in charge of governments, would the Nuremberg Trials ever have happened? Would we have been able to put the Nazis on trial for crimes against humanity? If so, based on what?
Caedes said:
"If your god allows suffering despite being able to stop it then he is not omni-beneficent."
BASED ON WHAT STANDARD OF MORALS???
In your Naturalistic worldview, you have NO STANDARD to judge my God against!
But, if you presuppose the Bible's definitions of what an "Omnibenevolent God" would be like, and presuppose the Bible's definitions of "good" and "evil" then the Bible explicitly says that IT IS Omnibenevolent for God to allow suffering for His own good purposes!
But, if you DON'T ACCEPT the Bible's definition of Omnibenevolence, then you are simply making up your own strawman god, claiming that you know what a good god SHOULD BE LIKE. Based on what standard??
In other words, when you use the Argument from Suffering, if you are not using YOUR worldview (which has no objective moral standards to judge God against), and you're NOT using the Bible's definitions of what a Good God would be like (since it says that the All-Good God DOES allow suffering), then WHAT worldview are you using to judge God against??
What objective basis do you have for claiming that it would be "inconsistent" for a Good God to allow suffering? What objective basis do you have for claiming that an Omnibenevolent God would not allow suffering for His own good purposes? That is your own subjective opinion and nothing else, and why should we expect God to conform to atheists' subjective morals? From a naturalistic point of view, why should anyone else care what your subjective moral beliefs are?
Caedes said:
"What sin and rebellion? (bearing in mind I dont accept the bible)"
Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't have it both ways.
You can't presuppose the Bible's standards of what good and evil are, to use in your argument against God, and then ignore the Bible's explanation for why the All-Good God allows suffering.
After all, you claim that your argument is ONLY to show an INTERNAL inconsistency in MY BELIEFS, in MY WORLDVIEW.
Well, the fact that God is allowing sinners to see the consequences of their sin does show that MY WORLDVIEW is INTERNALLY CONSISTENT.
Thus, your Argument from Suffering fails.
Caedes said:
"I do accept that the god described in the bible allows suffering as long as you accept that your philosophy is illogical, inconsistant and flawed. I am not using a strawman god because I am describing god as you have described him and pointing out the inconsistancy in your description."
But, if the Bible says that part of God's goodness is that God as ALL-JUST and ALL-HOLY, and that His Nature is such that HE MUST PUNISH SINNERS, then it is perfectly logical for God to punish sinful creatures with suffering and death.
Can you show me how that would be logically inconsistent and flawed from a logical standpoint? How is that illogical from a strictly logical point of view?
Caedes said:
"No, subjective morals are a basic framework for society and as such cannot be described as a crutch"
Why couldn't someone claim the exact same thing for religious beliefs? In fact, didn't George Washington make that claim?
“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.” -- George Washington.
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports... Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." -- George Washington, Farewell address
Why should we accept the claim that evolved religious beliefs are just a "crutch" that should be abandoned, but evolved moral beliefs are not a "crutch" that should be abandoned?
Caedes said:
"I have a objective basis for rejecting such a move, anarchy has never worked as a form of society."
But who is to say that "society" is a good thing, according to the Naturalistic worldview?
This is my argument. It has the advantage of being derived from my thoughts and it's way shorter.
Truly mighty cogitations. I must now change my boxers, excuse me.
BTS
Spook said:
"Sorry, but again your last response was too long to deal with deeply, so I'll be terse here again:"
I'm sorry, what is the "correct length" of a post that you can reply to deeply?
Spook said:
"An evidential scientistic naturalism would more accurately be stated as follows:
"Since by observation most things are best understood naturally, then probably as a provisional belief, those things which lack full natural explanations due to limitations on observation are very likely natural as well."
I don't have a problem with that, but why should we accept a "provisionary belief" in a natural cause for things in which science cannot even measure, such as who or what existed before the physical Universe, and the existence of rational inference (which cannot fit into an only-physical world)?
Spook said:
"1. Your premise (1) cannot be verified. Please stop using it. It is not representative of either a consensus of most naturalists or as a fact of physics."
The scientific evidence, as I was taught in school, and as I have heard scientists describe it, is that Time, Space, and Physical Matter came into existence in an instant, then exploded and expanded. That is the origin of our Universe as I understand it. If I am not correct on this, please enlighten me.
If that is a correct understanding, then, if all Physical Matter came into existence at a certain moment, then logically physical matter did not exist before it existed, therefore there cannot be a physical cause for physical matter coming into existence. Let me put this in logical form:
1:) Physical matter came into existence.
2:) Physical matter could not have existed before it came into existence.
3:) Therefore, there is no physical cause for physical matter coming into existence.
If there are any logical problems (or problems with those premises) please let me know.
Spook said:
"To evolution should add "and other means" after natural selection, even to be very concise."
Point taken. You are correct. I should have mentioned "other means" or "other natural causes."
Spook said:
"5. Your premise "5" contains many "intensifiers" which seem to me to indicate your judgements about relatively neutral concepts. The jump here to morals has several mistakes, such as "realizing they had a responsibility." A responsibility is sort of a metaphysical claim. Here the language you are using proves your opponents conclusion false not by virtue of the argument, but by virtue of shifting the terms."
Look, we are fighting over words here. I wasn't trying to "shift the terms." If you check it out, I was quoting an atheist who posted earlier in this thread when I used the phrase "realizing they had a responsibility."
What would be a better way of expressing it?
Come to think of it, most human beings that I know would tell you that they do experience a "responsibility" to help other people, especially the weak, poor, and helpless. I'm assuming that this "responsibility" or "obligation" came from evolution, according to your worldview? If that didn't come by evolution, where did it come from?
Spook said:
"I don't like the shell game of "faith" here. It is the opinion of most naturalists that their conclusion is one drawn from evidence, not that they are believing dispite a lack of evidence."
What shell game are you talking about?
"Faith" means "trust." At least in my dictionary. I was saying that I don't have enough "trust" in the "evidence" for the total worldview of Naturalism. It takes more trust, in my mind, on shakier, flimsier evidence, for the total worldview of Naturalism than the total worldview of Theism.
Faith does NOT mean believing despite a lack of evidence, at least not by the definition I was going with.
The minute that a scientist (or Christian) goes beyond the cold, hard facts, into the realm of theories, and interpretations of evidence, then he has entered into the realm of "faith" or "trust" or "belief."
The way I look at, people would be better off if they went with John Loftus' idea, and started out with an agnostic worldview and examined all of the evidence, and then they go with the worldview that makes the most sense, and fits in best with all of the evidence, and requires the least amount of "blind faith."
Spook said:
"You have again skirted past the obvious criticisms of the evidential argument from evil."
Please see my response to Caedes above.
