Where Do Darwinist Atheists Get Their Moral Values?
Sound of Trumpet
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
New atheists make a huge ethical mistake
It seems quite popular now for new atheists to insist that one cannot
jump from 'is' to 'ought'. For example, if a professional historian
claims that what Hitler did was influenced by underlying Darwinian
principles, the atheist will be quick to point out that those
"Darwinian principles" are merely descriptive, i.e. they only tell us
what is the case. But, we are assured by the atheist, the same
principles do not imply anything prescriptive, i.e. they don't tell us
what ought to be the case. So Richard Dawkins:
I have often said before, as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian.
But as a citizen and a human being, I want to construct a society
which is about as un-Darwinian as we can make it. I approve of looking
after the poor (very un-Darwinian). I approve of universal medical
care (very un-Darwinian). It is one of the classic philosophical
fallacies to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.
On this point, theists should wholeheartedly agree with atheists. You
cannot infer an 'ought' from an 'is'. And this is precisely one of the
troubling metaethical problems for atheistic morality.
Assume (per impossibile) that atheistic naturalism is true. Assume,
furthermore, that one can't infer an 'ought' from an 'is'. (Richard
Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these
assumptions.) Given our second assumption, there is no description of
anything in the natural world from which we can infer an 'ought'. And
given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and
above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is. It
follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there's no
description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer
that one ought to refrain from performing that action. Add a further
uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if
it's not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that
action. (This is just the standard inferential scheme for formal
deontic logic.) We've conformed to standard principles and inference
rules of logic and we've started out with assumptions that atheists
have conceded in print. And yet we reach the absurd conclusion:
therefore, for any action you care to pick, it's permissible to
perform that action. If you'd like, you can take this as the meat
behind the slogan 'if atheism is true, all things are permitted'. For
example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was
permissible. Many atheists don't like this consequence of their
worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being
logical at the same time.
Now, we all know that at least some actions are really not permissible
(for example, racist actions). Since the conclusion of the argument
denies this, there must be a problem somewhere in the argument. Could
the argument be invalid? No. The argument has not violated a single
rule of logic and all inferences were made explicit. Thus we are
forced to deny the truth of one of the assumptions we started out
with. That means we either deny atheistic naturalism or (the more
intuitively appealing) principle that one can't infer 'ought' from
'is'. I know which one I'd deny.
Milan
"Sound of Trumpet" <soundof...@mailhaven.com> wrote in message
news:62ae9456-ccf6-4ac3...@25g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
> http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-atheists-make-huge-mistake.html
>
>
> Wednesday, April 23, 2008
>
> New atheists make a huge ethical mistake
>
> It seems quite popular now for new atheists to insist that one cannot
> jump from 'is' to 'ought'. For example, if a professional historian
> claims that what Hitler did was influenced by underlying Darwinian
> principles, the atheist will be quick to point out that those
> "Darwinian principles" are merely descriptive, i.e. they only tell us
> what is the case. But, we are assured by the atheist, the same
> principles do not imply anything prescriptive, i.e. they don't tell us
> what ought to be the case. So Richard Dawkins:
Kant said this over 2 centuries ago. Nothing new.
> I have often said before, as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian.
> But as a citizen and a human being, I want to construct a society
> which is about as un-Darwinian as we can make it. I approve of looking
> after the poor (very un-Darwinian). I approve of universal medical
> care (very un-Darwinian). It is one of the classic philosophical
> fallacies to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.
>
> On this point, theists should wholeheartedly agree with atheists. You
> cannot infer an 'ought' from an 'is'. And this is precisely one of the
> troubling metaethical problems for atheistic morality.
No , it is not. Theists can't either.
>
> Assume (per impossibile) that atheistic naturalism is true. Assume,
> furthermore, that one can't infer an 'ought' from an 'is'. (Richard
> Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these
> assumptions.) Given our second assumption, there is no description of
> anything in the natural world from which we can infer an 'ought'. And
> given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and
> above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is. It
> follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there's no
> description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer
> that one ought to refrain from performing that action. Add a further
> uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if
> it's not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that
> action. (This is just the standard inferential scheme for formal
> deontic logic.) We've conformed to standard principles and inference
> rules of logic and we've started out with assumptions that atheists
> have conceded in print. And yet we reach the absurd conclusion:
> therefore, for any action you care to pick, it's permissible to
> perform that action. If you'd like, you can take this as the meat
> behind the slogan 'if atheism is true, all things are permitted'. For
> example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was
> permissible. Many atheists don't like this consequence of their
> worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being
> logical at the same time.
Are u really this thick?
> Now, we all know that at least some actions are really not permissible
> (for example, racist actions).
Hold your horses. The bible is a manual of racism. It encourages racism.
Remember Jesus calling gentiles "dogs"? And anyway, how do you conclude that
racist actions are not permissible? If you can draw that conclusion so can
an atheist.
>Since the conclusion of the argument
> denies this, there must be a problem somewhere in the argument. Could
> the argument be invalid? No. The argument has not violated a single
> rule of logic and all inferences were made explicit. Thus we are
> forced to deny the truth of one of the assumptions we started out
> with. That means we either deny atheistic naturalism or (the more
> intuitively appealing) principle that one can't infer 'ought' from
> 'is'. I know which one I'd deny.
Gosh, what a load of bollocks.
art...@yahoo.com
ideas. Some company in Jersey IIRC.
raven1
<soundof...@mailhaven.com> wrote:
>Now, we all know that at least some actions are really not permissible
>(for example, racist actions).
If the author needs religion to tell him such a thing, it's unlikely
to help much.
Mike Schilling
> Kant said this over 2 centuries ago.
And Pete Townshend in 1970.
I learned how to raise my voice in anger
Yeah, but look at my face, ain't this a smile?
I'm happy when life's good
And when it's bad I cry
I've got values but I don't know how or why
Hatter
> On Mon, 5 May 2008 04:36:15 -0700 (PDT), Sound of Trumpet
>
> >Now, we all know that at least some actions are really not permissible
> >(for example, racist actions).
>
> If the author needs religion to tell him such a thing, it's unlikely
> to help much.
especially since it tends to give liscence to racist
behavior....really "chosen people" ring a bell?
Hatter
brian fletcher
BOfL
Mark K. Bilbo
wrote:
> http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-atheists-make-huge-mist...
>
> Wednesday, April 23, 2008
>
> New atheists make a huge ethical mistake
At least we have ethics. Unlike you.
loua...@yahoo.com
> Gosh, what a load of bollocks.
Your identification is correct, and here is your five pounds.
This guy wandered over from talk.origins, which may be my fault for
frequenting both groups. He's persistently unteachable -- ask him to
back up the assertions about Pharoah's five-spoked chariot wheels
being found in the Red Sea that he made 10 years ago. He's known there
as The Nameless One so that his self-Googling doesn't draw him in more
often.
raven1
Methinks you're confusing SOT with McClueless. They are definitely not
the same person.
Conspiracy of Doves
wrote:
> http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-atheists-make-huge-mist...
>
> Wednesday, April 23, 2008
>
> New atheists make a huge ethical mistake
>
> Assume (per impossibile) that atheistic naturalism is true. Assume,
> furthermore, that one can't infer an 'ought' from an 'is'. (Richard
> Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these
> assumptions.) Given our second assumption, there is no description of
> anything in the natural world from which we can infer an 'ought'. And
> given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and
> above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is. It
> follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there's no
> description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer
> that one ought to refrain from performing that action. Add a further
> uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if
> it's not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that
> action. (This is just the standard inferential scheme for formal
> deontic logic.) We've conformed to standard principles and inference
> rules of logic and we've started out with assumptions that atheists
> have conceded in print. And yet we reach the absurd conclusion:
> therefore, for any action you care to pick, it's permissible to
> perform that action. If you'd like, you can take this as the meat
> behind the slogan 'if atheism is true, all things are permitted'. For
> example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was
> permissible. Many atheists don't like this consequence of their
> worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being
> logical at the same time.
What fundies like you never seem to understand is that although we
have the highest respect for logic and reason, morality is not SOLELY
based on logic and reason. Yes, they are a big part of it, but there
is something else in there too. Empathy and compassion. Your bible
says that you shouldn't kill because people are created by god and you
shouldn't destroy something that god created. We don't kill because we
understand the pain and suffering that other people go through, and we
don't want to add more pain to the world if we can help it. Doing that
deliberately for any reason, not the least of which is self
gratification, would be horrific to us.
That is something that people like you have never been able to
comprehend. There is not one single mention in the bible about caring
about other people for THEIR sake.
Iain
wrote:
> Where Do Darwinist Atheists Get Their Moral Values?
There is no such thing as "darwinism".
It's a stupid exonym invented by Creationists in order to make science
look like a creed or cult.
If you call someone a "darwinist", you're partaking in a dishonest
charade.
~Iain
Kenny McCormack
I'm proud to be a Newtonist, because I believe in gravity.
John Graeme
wrote:
> http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-atheists-make-huge-mist...
Even if you assume a God, how does that logically solve the problem of
deriving an "ought" from an "is'? Saying that "God" wills it is not a
logical argument. Saying you'll avoid hell and attain heaven is
basing it on self-interest--not a logical argument. Thesists have the
same problem with morality--they just don't recognize it.
Tokay Pino Gris
Can I be an Einsteinist, then, pretty please?
Tokay
--
"I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work."
Ben Franklin
tg
What part is that? If you start with some arbitrary premise, it is not
different from saying 'this is God's will'.
-tg
mimus
Like any honest theory, moral theory's arguments must be logically valid.
> What part is that? If you start with some arbitrary premise, it is not
> different from saying 'this is God's will'.
Try "Anything that explicitly or implicitly contradicts the existence of
morality is false and evil."
You know, like the concepts of prophecy, omniscience and omnipotence.
I've got a bookmark on that-- ah:
http://www.johnkennard.com/Tuw/Tuw15c.html
Which doesn't go as far as I would.
(I'd forgotten about the click-on-text-to-advance interface, there. Weird.)
--
It is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after. World conquest.
That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish.
< American Christian Theocratic author George Grant
tg
A perfect example of a statement which fails multiple tests of
reason.
-tg
Will in New Haven
wrote:
> http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-atheists-make-huge-mist...
>
>
> New atheists make a huge ethical mistake
>
> It seems quite popular now for new atheists to insist that one cannot
> jump from 'is' to 'ought'. For example, if a professional historian
> claims that what Hitler did was influenced by underlying Darwinian
> principles,
But no actual professional historians seem to say that. So, by
implying rather strongly that one did, you show your ethical
principles from the start by being a lying sack of shit.
--
Will in New Haven
Richard Anacker
Tokay Pino Gris schrieb:
>> I'm proud to be a Newtonist, because I believe in gravity.
>>
>
> Can I be an Einsteinist, then, pretty please?
Because you believe in violonism?
:-) richie
--
Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two
Conspiracy of Doves
The premise is "What kind of society do we want to live in?"
There is nothing in logic or mathematics that, alone, can tell us
anything about the real world.
Kenny McCormack
Tokay Pino Gris <tokay.g...@gmx.net> wrote:
...
>> I'm proud to be a Newtonist, because I believe in gravity.
>>
>
>Can I be an Einsteinist, then, pretty please?
So designated.
>Tokay
>
>--
>
>"I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work."
>
>Ben Franklin
I thought that was Edison. Have I been wrong all these years?
tg
That's a question, not a premise. In order for logic and reason to
operate, the conclusion must not be stated in the premise. Go ahead.
-tg
Shrikeback
"Tokay Pino Gris" <tokay.g...@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:fvnltt$8t3$01$1...@news.t-online.com...
> Kenny McCormack wrote:
>> In article
>> <14202c19-e9a2-4881...@x35g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
>> Iain <iain_i...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> On May 5, 12:36 pm, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Where Do Darwinist Atheists Get Their Moral Values?
>>>
>>> There is no such thing as "darwinism".
>>>
>>> It's a stupid exonym invented by Creationists in order to make science
>>> look like a creed or cult.
>>>
>>> If you call someone a "darwinist", you're partaking in a dishonest
>>> charade.
>>>
>>> ~Iain
>>
>> I'm proud to be a Newtonist, because I believe in gravity.
>>
>
> Can I be an Einsteinist, then, pretty please?
How about a Relativist?
Edward A. Falk
art...@yahoo.com <art...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I think they get them from the same place that SF writers get their
>ideas. Some company in Jersey IIRC.
Saratoga, NY
--
-Ed Falk, fa...@despams.r.us.com
http://thespamdiaries.blogspot.com/
William December Starr
Sound of Trumpet <soundof...@mailhaven.com>
stole somebody else's words without even crediting the author:
> http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-atheists-make-huge-mistake.html
[ ... ]
> Assume (per impossibile) that atheistic naturalism is true.
> Assume, furthermore, that one can't infer an 'ought' from an 'is'.
> (Richard Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of
> these assumptions.) Given our second assumption, there is no
> description of anything in the natural world from which we can
> infer an 'ought'. And given our first assumption, there is
> nothing that exists over and above the natural world; the natural
> world is all that there is.
By defnition. If an entity that matches the specs of, say, the God
of Christianity, exists, it too will be part of the natural world.
Hope this helps. Have a nice day.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
William December Starr
raven1 <quotht...@nevermore.com> said:
>> Now, we all know that at least some actions are really not
>> permissible (for example, racist actions).
>
> If the author needs religion to tell him such a thing, it's
> unlikely to help much.
Yup, it's an age-old question: "Exactly how fucked up in the head do
you have to _be_ to need a god to tell you not to put live babies on
bayonets?"
Gene
$49r$1...@panix1.panix.com:
> If an entity that matches the specs of, say, the God
> of Christianity, exists, it too will be part of the natural
world.
100% wrong. By definition, it won't be.
Immortalist
wrote:
How do humans develop their capacity to make moral decisions?
Do humans have a universal moral grammar, an instinctive, unconscious
tool kit for constructing moral systems.
For example, although we might not be able to articulate immediately
the moral principle underlying the ban on incest, our moral faculty
instinctually declares that incest is disgusting and thus
impermissible.
Humans have evolved a universal moral instinct, unconsciously
propelling us to deliver judgments of right and wrong independent of
gender, education, and religion. Experience tunes up our moral
actions, guiding what we do as opposed to how we deliver our moral
verdicts.
For hundreds of years, scholars have argued that moral judgments arise
from rational and voluntary deliberations about what ought to be. The
common belief today is that we reach moral decisions by consciously
reasoning from principled explanations of what society determines is
right or wrong. This perspective has generated the further belief that
our moral psychology is founded entirely on experience and education,
developing slowly and subject to considerable variation across
cultures.
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minds-Nature-Designed-Universal/dp/0060780703/
The proposal, [that people are born with a moral grammar wired into
their neural circuits by evolution] if true, would have far-reaching
consequences. It implies that parents and teachers are not teaching
children the rules of correct behavior from scratch but are, at best,
giving shape to an innate behavior. And it suggests that religions are
not the source of moral codes but, rather, social enforcers of
instinctive moral behavior.
Both atheists and people belonging to a wide range of faiths make the
same moral judgments [&] the system that unconsciously generates moral
judgments is immune to religious doctrine.
The moral grammar operates in much the same way as the universal
grammar proposed by the linguist Noam Chomsky as the innate neural
machinery for language. The universal grammar is a system of rules for
generating syntax and vocabulary but does not specify any particular
language. That is supplied by the culture in which a child grows up.
The moral grammar too is a system for generating moral behavior and
not a list of specific rules. It constrains human behavior so tightly
that many rules are in fact the same or very similar in every society
-- do as you would be done by; care for children and the weak; don't
kill; avoid adultery and incest; don't cheat, steal or lie.
But it also allows for variations, since cultures can assign different
weights to the elements of the grammar's calculations. Thus one
society may ban abortion, another may see infanticide as a moral duty
in certain circumstances.
The moral grammar evolved because restraints on behavior are required
for social living and have been favored by natural selection because
of their survival value.
Social animals possess the rudiments of a moral system in that they
can recognize cheating or deviations from expected behavior. But they
generally lack the psychological mechanisms on which the pervasive
reciprocity of human society is based, like the ability to remember
bad behavior, quantify its costs, recall prior interactions with an
individual and punish offenders. Lions cooperate on the hunt, but
there is no punishment for laggards.
The moral grammar now universal among people presumably evolved to its
final shape during the hunter-gatherer phase of the human past, before
the dispersal from the ancestral homeland in northeast Africa some
50,000 years ago. This may be why events before our eyes carry far
greater moral weight than happenings far away since in those days one
never had to care about people remote from one's environment.
The moral grammar may have evolved through the evolutionary mechanism
known as group selection. A group bound by altruism toward its members
and rigorous discouragement of cheaters would be more likely to
prevail over a less cohesive society, so genes for moral grammar would
become more common.
http://scienceblogs.com/transcript/2006/10/the_moral_mind_ny_times_commen.php
turtoni
i need air.
i need water.
i need food.
i need you.
James A. Donald
Evolution.
We are a pack animal. Our mode of survival requires collaboration
with others. We therefore prefer to collaborate with those that seem
unlikely to cut our throats, and need to persuade others we are
unlikely to cut their throats.
"Evil" is those characteristics that indicate a willingness to harm
friends, associates and random innocents in the general vicinity,
"evil acts" are acts indicative of such propensity.
--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
ZerkonX
> as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian.
"passionate"? Science and passion are not a good mix.
Dan Clore
> http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-atheists-make-huge-mistake.html
> Wednesday, April 23, 2008
> New atheists make a huge ethical mistake
>
> It seems quite popular now for new atheists to insist that one cannot
> jump from 'is' to 'ought'. For example, if a professional historian
> claims that what Hitler did was influenced by underlying Darwinian
> principles,
Then this professional historian should lose his job. Hitler was a
Creationist and endorsed Creationism in _Mein Kampf_.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
Gene
news:68buscF...@mid.individual.net:
>> It seems quite popular now for new atheists to insist that
one cannot
>> jump from 'is' to 'ought'. For example, if a professional
historian
>> claims that what Hitler did was influenced by underlying
Darwinian
>> principles,
>
> Then this professional historian should lose his job. Hitler
was a
> Creationist and endorsed Creationism in _Mein Kampf_.
You speak as if Hitler articulated some clearly worked out
theory. He didn't. He did babble on about both God and the
struggle between the strong and the weak in nature, with
victory going to the strong. God seems be on the side of the
overdog. Calling that either Creationism or Darwinism is
baloney, I think.
Howard Brazee
>> Then this professional historian should lose his job. Hitler
>was a
>> Creationist and endorsed Creationism in _Mein Kampf_.
>
>You speak as if Hitler articulated some clearly worked out
>theory. He didn't. He did babble on about both God and the
>struggle between the strong and the weak in nature, with
>victory going to the strong. God seems be on the side of the
>overdog. Calling that either Creationism or Darwinism is
>baloney, I think.
You are implying that Creation Scientism is somehow different.
loua...@yahoo.com
> Methinks you're confusing SOT with McClueless. They are definitely not
> the same person.
Sorry. I thought I'd seen a link with McClueless' name in it as a sig
to one of the previous posts from this being.
In the dark all loons are gray, I guess.
Dan Clore
Well, Hitler did specifically say that God made man in his own image. If
you believe that, you're a Creationist.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
Victor Velazquez
> Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
>
>> On May 5, 6:36 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com>
>> wrote:
>>> http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-atheists-make-huge-mist...
>>>
>>> Wednesday, April 23, 2008
>>>
>>> New atheists make a huge ethical mistake
>>
>
>
> Jesus Christ tells us to love even our enemies.
And yet so few of you do.
> What does your ethical system say?
Pretty much the same thing (and we follow our's with pretty equal vigor).
pba...@worldonline.nl
wrote:
> http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-atheists-make-huge-mist...
>
> Wednesday, April 23, 2008
>
> New atheists make a huge ethical mistake
>
> jump from 'is' to 'ought'. For example, if a professional historian
> claims that what Hitler did was influenced by underlying Darwinian
> "Darwinian principles" are merely descriptive, i.e. they only tell us
> what is the case. But, we are assured by the atheist, the same
> principles do not imply anything prescriptive, i.e. they don't tell us
> what ought to be the case. So Richard Dawkins:
>
> I have often said before, as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian.
> But as a citizen and a human being, I want to construct a society
> which is about as un-Darwinian as we can make it. I approve of looking
> after the poor (very un-Darwinian). I approve of universal medical
> care (very un-Darwinian). It is one of the classic philosophical
> fallacies to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.
>
> On this point, theists should wholeheartedly agree with atheists. You
> cannot infer an 'ought' from an 'is'. And this is precisely one of the
> troubling metaethical problems for atheistic morality.
>
> furthermore, that one can't infer an 'ought' from an 'is'. (Richard
> Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these
> assumptions.) Given our second assumption, there is no description of
> anything in the natural world from which we can infer an 'ought'. And
> given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and
> description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer
> uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if
> it's not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that
> action. (This is just the standard inferential scheme for formal
> deontic logic.) We've conformed to standard principles and inference
> rules of logic and we've started out with assumptions that atheists
> have conceded in print. And yet we reach the absurd conclusion:
> therefore, for any action you care to pick, it's permissible to
> perform that action. If you'd like, you can take this as the meat
> behind the slogan 'if atheism is true, all things are permitted'. For
> example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was
> permissible. Many atheists don't like this consequence of their
> worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being
> logical at the same time.
>
> denies this, there must be a problem somewhere in the argument. Could
> the argument be invalid? No. The argument has not violated a single
> rule of logic and all inferences were made explicit. Thus we are
> forced to deny the truth of one of the assumptions we started out
> with. That means we either deny atheistic naturalism or (the more
> intuitively appealing) principle that one can't infer 'ought' from
> 'is'. I know which one I'd deny.
I really cannot follow the authors logic,
but moral values are a very human property.
It so closely linked with consciousness, that we call the complex
inside the brain that deals with moral values our "conscience".
Moral values are memes, which just as genes develop thru evolution.
There is nothing in the laws of nature that decides what we "ought" to
do.
But nevertheless we have a general idea.
Surely the idea that racism is wrong, does not come from the wizard
that apperantly punishes the offspring of Cham and favors the
offspring of Sem.
Surely the idea that genocide is wrong, does not come from the wizard
that seeks to kill all of the Midianites and all of the Amelikites.
Women and children included.
For it's true origin: See: http://www.xs4all.nl/~velzen5/Morality.html
Peter van Velzen
April 2008
Amstelveen
The Netherlands
PS Normally I ignore postings by "Sound of Trumpet" as that posters
will not debate but only post new threads using borrowed material.
But as I think I know the answer of the question that forms the
subject line.
I guess I should reply this time.
veritas
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
Here seems to be the problem. As DNA studies are done, such as the
Cambridge study published in April of last year, it is apparent we are
all decended from a very small group of modern humans about 60,000
years ago. Fully modern and we don't know why. Evolution works, as
we have all changed with climate and survival changes in outward
appearance, but any two people in the world will match 99% of the same
DNA. I believe the estimate was about 10,000 adult modern humans are
our only ancestors. Darwin was right, but we have missed something
with modern humans. We skipped the normal Darwinian trip and went
straight to us. We are just now realizing what our brains are capable
of, and why they work how they work. They can do much more than we
realized if trained right.
Morals, religion, dreams, intelligence, or lack of, is just now
getting some answers. We somehow skipped into a sentient being, the
only one ever known, and the only species that showed up and dominated
a world in 60,000 years. We have so far to go before we have real
answers to the questions you were refering to, I bet it will be a
surprise. I am not religious, but it will be an answer we never
expected.
--
Ken Hogan
"Truth does not give a damn what we conceive. We survive or perish
according to our ability to discern the truth correctly and act upon
it." - Ken Hogan www.veritasnovel.com
veritas
>
> - Show quoted text -
Sorry, I just can't go with what the posting said. First, there is no
group of people, no society in this world that does not have a
religion. Not a one. My belief is that some of the morality is born
in us, like sucking from a nipple, it is programed when we come out.
The morality is already in us when we are born. Some more than
others. Has anyone ever met a "natural christian"? I have. My wife
was not raised in the church, was not familar with the bible, nor were
her parents. Her moral beliefs are basically the same as any
christian I know, and I was raised in the church, and she is a hell of
a lot more moral than I. As a matter of fact, if I have a tough moral
issue, I consult her, and she usually knows the right answer. I run
several businesses, and things come up. If you ask her how she knows
the answer, she shakes her head and says, "I just think about it, and
the answer comes." I know where in the NT, or a philosopher has said
what she says. She is not a big reader. Some of them over the 39
years we have been married have been tough questions, and I hated to
do the right thing, but I listen. I believe we are born with morals,
we cover that with religion, but we have to have an explanation of why
we do what we do. I am not saying we are not flawed, some of us are
more moral than others. Some have that gene left out altogether.
Mine may be a half gene. LOL
You can also say that they differ with different people. If someone's
morals are a little different from yours, yours are not better, just
different. But we all have them, and most of them are the same. I
have no way of proving we are born with morals is true. Just life
experience. But my son is like my wife, my daughter like me. We come
up with different answers, but I would say that my wife and son would
be considered "natural christians", myself and my daughter are not. A
mystery that science is working on as we speak, perhaps some day they
will have an answer to that question. But just social interaction I
simply don't believe that so.
veritas
Why does anybody say ANYTHING about Mein Kampf? It is unreadable.
Even his followers bought it and couldn't get through it. It is
boring as hell. His top people laughed at it behind his back. It's
like quoting from a Russian novel. Boring and unexplainable.
--
Ken Hogan
veritas
> Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote innews:68buscF...@mid.individual.net:
Let's all pretend Mein Kampf doesn't exist. It is boring, useless, and
everyone laughed at it as they had to buy it anyway. He makes no
sense in it, and is not worth reading unless you are a Neo-Nazi. I
don't think there are many of those left. They all got bored as well.
--
Ken Hogan
veritas
Depends on who your assistant is, sometimes the passion is good if you
don't break any beakers.
--
Ken Hogan
veritas
I still have a problem with that theory. There is no group of people,
no society in the world that does not have a religion. That indicates
that we are born with a certain set of genes that guides our morals.
We hide them behind the religions. Some are better than others,
others learn to overcome them.
As for "evil", there is no evil, as there is no "good". There are
only actions. Our brains tell us what is evil and what is good. No
action in its self is anything until we decide what it is. As most
societies have the same morals as the other societies around them, and
they have always been about the same, except in war of course, that
indicates we are born with a sense of morals and are encouraged as we
are raised. I have no proof that is true, that is just life
experience.
--
Ken Hogan
turtoni
> It's like quoting from a Russian novel.
> Boring and unexplainable.
"With the publication of Crime and Punishment in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevsky
became one of Russia's most prominent authors in the nineteenth century.
Dostoevsky has also been called one of the founding fathers of the
philosophical movement known as existentialism. In particular, his Notes
from Underground, first published in 1864, has been depicted as a founding
work of existentialism. For Dostoevsky, war is the rebellion of the people
against the idea that reason guides everything. And thus, reason is the
ultimate principle of guidance for neither history nor mankind. Having been
exiled to the city of Omsk (Siberia) in 1849, many of Dostoevsky's works
entail notions of suffering and despair.
Nietzsche referred to Dostoevsky as "the only psychologist from whom I have
something to learn: he belongs to the happiest windfalls of my life, happier
even than the discovery of Stendhal." He said that Notes from the
Underground "cried truth from the blood." According to Mihajlo Mihajlov's
"The great catalyzer: Nietzsche and Russian neo-Idealism", Nietzsche
constantly refers to Dostoevsky in his notes and drafts through out the
winter of 1886-1887. Nietzsche also wrote abstracts of several of
Dostoevsky's works.
Freud wrote an article entitled Dostoevsky and Parricide that asserts that
the greatest works in world literature are all about parricide (though he is
critical of Dostoevsky's work overall, the inclusion of The Brothers
Karamazov in a set of the three greatest works of literature is
remarkable)."
Wayne Throop
: Depends on who your assistant is,
"Good heavens Miss Sakamoto ... you're beautiful!"
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
pba...@worldonline.nl
>
> - Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht weergeven -
I find nothing in your post that conflicts with my personal views.
If anything I feel support for them.
But I do think you make a mistake here using the phrase "natural
christians".
Having morals does not make one a Christian.
Of course the figure of Jesus Christ seems to be a moral person in
essence,
and certainly his surmon of the mount is one of the finer examples of
morality.
But there are "Christians" who seriously claim that only fear of hell
and eternal torment, keeps a man from committing any kind of sin.
And they also claim that people who would be murderers if not for fear
of hell and eternal torment will be blessed, while "naturals" like
your wife, will suffer hell and eternal torment, for not believing
their myths.
A strange idea, don't you think?
Love,
Peter van Velzen
May 2008
Amstelveen
The Netherladns
Bill Patterson
>
> - Show quoted text -
Your scenario suffers from severe "condensation." The summaries you
apparently are using have simply omitted lots of steps that are there
in the fossil record. There are lots and lots of intermediate steps
-- most of them very minor -- that are fairly well known in the
paleoanthropology community, though they don't necessarily get into
the newspapers.
The hominid line did nothing like "go straight to us." In most
serious paleoanthropology timelines, you will find a period ranging
from 250,000 years before the present to about 100,000 years before
the present labeled something like "Homo spp." meaning there were Homo
sapiens-like species around, several of them (that is to say,
skeletons that look almost but not quite like modern man and
contemporary with Homo neanderthalis) until modern man remains -- Homo
sapiens sapiens -- dominate the fossil record somewhere between
100,000 ybp. and 50,000 ybp, depending on whose timescale you read.
And before that time there are a number of Homo ancestors going back
about 2 million years, although the exact heritage relationships are
not clear even yet; there is what seems to be an irresistible
compulsion to attribute ancestry to older fossils, without any actual
evidence of such.
Dean Falk suggests that the crucial physical evolutionary event was a
reversal of the blood supply route for the brain that opened up a
physical limitation on brain size, that allowed hominid brains to
continue growing the way they had for about 5,000,000 years before
that (and primate brains had been growing in size, species by species,
for about the entire 20,000,000 years for which there is any kind of
fossil record. (Falk's ideas for the cause and implications of this
evolutionary innovation are based on the now-exploded "Savannah
hypothesis" but anything that improves efficiency of brain blood flow
will do the same trick -- doesn't necessarily have anything to do with
cooling) At any rate, that's when Homo erectus appeared, distinct from
Australopithecus species -- and there is indication of an even earlier
Homo species, though I haven't looked into the literature recently
enough to know whether that's been confirmed. At any rate, taking one
route rather than another is a very minor variation that doesn't
require the kind of saltation you were wondering over -- it's the kind
of variation you might find from one family to another, the kind of
variation that produces, for example, villages in Spain where
polydactyls are 80% of the population. I had occasion to note a
couple of those in my own family lineage when I saw x-rays of my spine
some time ago: there are places where most people have a groove in
the bone where a blood vessel passes; in my x-rays (and in a sister's
I saw later) we have a little loop of bone -- a bone donut. My
family, it turns out, has genes for making bone that results in a form
of osteoarthritis that can be very confusing in reading x-rays.
Bill Patterson
>
> - Show quoted text -
It's really not surprising that if you grow up in a culture soaked in
a particular kind of values, at least some people will find those
values "natural" and will be very comfortable with implementations of
those value-sets. Means nothing in terms of deducing first principles.
capitangugle
n May 5, 6:36 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com>
>
> > Jesus Christ tells us to love even our enemies.
>
Search "human rights" at google. Not to burn witches neither
interesting people, not to think that an endless hell could be a fair
penalty, and so on...
veritas
> :: "passionate"? Science and passion are not a good mix.
>
> : Depends on who your assistant is,
>
> "Good heavens Miss Sakamoto ... you're beautiful!"
>
Now that is passion and science, as long as you don't get served
papers for sexual harrassment. Of course, "One woman's sexual
harrassment is a day off for another woman."
veritas
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
Yes I really find it silly, but when I said "natural christian" as
that is what I have been around (There are few Buddhists in Oklahoma),
that is what I used. What I really meant was that she does what Jesus
taught naturally, but Socrates, and the Buddha were close to his
teachings as well.
I have been baptised, and she has not. She worries about it. I
laugh like hell. I told her when I turned over the canoe over in the
river, I baptised her. She said the competitor for the Devil's job
can't baptise her. I thought that a little harsh of her, then again,
maybe not. LOL But if anyone would go to Heaven if there is one (I'm
agnostic), it would certainly be her. Not according to the Baptists,
our preacher told us that it didn't matter if you lived your life
exactly like Jesus (I hope he didn't mean being crucified) that you
will go to hell if you have not been baptised. They charge for that
by the way. I don't believe baptising means a thing, but I do tell
her I can do whatever I want because I have been and so I don't have
to worry. I only say it to irritate her. But you are so right, she
doesn't have a fault except me, and if anyone I know would deserve a
Heaven, it would be her. You sound like you would go as well.
Regards, Ken Hogan
--
"Truth does not give a damn what we conceive. We survive or perish
according to our ability to discern the truth correctly and act upon
it." - Ken Hogan www.veritasnovel.com
veritas
>
> - Show quoted text -
I have no doubts that is what you have studied, and we have made the
steps up the ladder with the old species similar to us. But the
recent studies, including the complete building of a Neantherthal
skeleton, which had not been done shows the differences, and of course
the DNA proof we were no kin to them. The current last words are "we
split off from them a half million years ago." That is just a
mathematical theory. What has surfaced is that Mt. Toba 75,000 B.C.E.
was a world wide disaster, and after the 5 or 6 years of winter, the
1,000 years of cold weather, and then the 19,000 year ice age the
hunter-gathers were gone. The estimate I believe is that 60,000 years
ago there may have only been 2-3,000 Neatherthals left in Europe. Of
course their population was never large, 35,000 as most at any one
time. The Giant Cave Bears kept the population in check, and they
couldn't run very fast as their hip configuration made them suitable
for forest and mountains, but not for running. They couldn't have
stayed with a modern human, we were fast and more intelligent. I
know, how do I know we were more intelligent. Because we wiped out
the Giant Cave Bears all the way across northern Eurasia and America,
as well as the cave lions, and all the Saber Tooths in America when we
got here. They couldn't expand, we could do anything. We have gone
to the moon in 60,000 years, they couldn't get out of Europe in half a
million years. We don't look like the old species. They have long
faces, large brows which indicate small frontal lobes, and they were
not in our league. We are not there before Toba, 15,000 years later,
we simply show up. That is the latest, and where the studies are
going. Where were we? How did we change so fast?
You do know what you are talking about, I was taught the same.
Sometimes, we find that we have to change what we thought when new
evidence comes in, and that is what they are doing now. Regards, Ken
Hogan
veritas
>
> - Show quoted text -
Bill, you may very well be right. I have nothing to back up what I
said, it just seems that some people act in a good way with little or
no training, and some act badly with a large amount of training, but
the "correct" moral values of the world are all about the same. But
as I said, that is just a life experience with nothing else to back it
up. You make a good point. Regards, Ken Hogan
James A. Donald
James A. Donald
> > We are a pack animal. Our mode of survival requires
> > collaboration with others. We therefore prefer to
> > collaborate with those that seem unlikely to cut our
> > throats, and need to persuade others we are unlikely
> > to cut their throats.
> >
> > "Evil" is those characteristics that indicate a
> > willingness to harm friends, associates and random
> > innocents in the general vicinity, "evil acts" are
> > acts indicative of such propensity.
veritas
> I still have a problem with that theory. There is no
> group of people, no society in the world that does not
> have a religion. That indicates that we are born with
> a certain set of genes that guides our morals.
No, it indicates that we are born with a propensity to
believe in conscious action and conscious causes even
when that consciousness is not there, for much the same
evolutionary reasons as we are born with a propensity to
see faces even in random shapes that do not look much
like faces.
We are *also* and quite independently, born with genes
that guide our moral judgment (for the reasons I gave
above - people are potentially dangerous) but morality,
justice, and right conduct has nothing to do with
religion. The spirits of most primitive religions are
amoral and for the most part actively hostile to humans.
Most primitive religions are a collection of
superstitions for avoiding things that might supposedly
draw the attention of the spirits. The objective of
most primitive rituals is to persuade the spirits to
stay away.
To the extent that religion addresses morality, it is
actively hostile to what is right and just.
People who claim to represent the Gods and speak on
behalf of the Gods are usually wicked people, who do
wicked things, which they claim are virtuous things,
because their God supposedly made them do it. Further,
they attribute to their God responsibility for anything
that impresses and frightens people, so their God
supposedly does wicked things, which they need to claim
are virtuous things.
This is particularly apparent in religions that require
human sacrifice - for example the Aztec religion,
environmentalism, and Allah worship. Christianity is
considerably less dreadful, having originated in an
effort to rehabilitate the disturbingly racist,
wrathful, and genocidal god of the old testament, but it
is merely a more innocuous form of the disease, as
vaccina is a comparatively harmless form of smallpox.
> As for "evil", there is no evil, as there is no "good".
To make such an assertion after the events of the twentieth
century is ludicrous.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>I still have a problem with that theory. There is no group of people,
>no society in the world that does not have a religion. That indicates
>that we are born with a certain set of genes that guides our morals.
>We hide them behind the religions. Some are better than others,
>others learn to overcome them.
But all those "Wrong" religions did not teach us values from their
non-existent deities. Instead, their adherents ascribed their morals
to their gods.
veritas
> On Fri, 9 May 2008 22:23:16 -0700 (PDT), veritas <khogan...@yahoo.com>
Who says they are "Wrong"? Anyone of them may be the Lord's truth.
All religions have right and wrong, how the earth came to be, what
happens after you die. Those that are religious, ascribe their morals
to their god or gods, as we do. Perhaps I am not clear on what you
are saying. My quote just states a fact that no group or society of
modern humans on this planet has no religion. Not one. They all have
one as the brain demands an answer to the questions. Because we have
no proof, our brains "fill in the gaps" so to speak. It is a modern
human brain's need. Am I not clear on your comment? Regards, Ken
Hogan
pba...@worldonline.nl
>
> meer lezen »- Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht niet weergeven -
>
> - Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht weergeven -
Well I do have a Buddhist around, (my wife Kesinee), but I sometimes
wonder wether see grasped much of his teachings.She is a compassionate
person though.
She believes in ghosts and in reincarnation (in my view conflicting
believes). I told her I didn't but if we happen to be borne again, I
would wish to marry her once more.
Peter van Velzen Daengprasert
May 2008
Amstelveen
The Netherlands
Bill Patterson
> � � --
"Genes that guide our moral judgment" is just silly, except in the
limited sense that we have individual predispositions to find some
things pleasurable or not.
Howard Brazee
<WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>"Genes that guide our moral judgment" is just silly, except in the
>limited sense that we have individual predispositions to find some
>things pleasurable or not.
Of course it is easy to observe in other species characteristics which
look like morality. What causes those?
Howard Brazee
<khog...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> But all those "Wrong" religions did not teach us values from their
>> non-existent deities. Instead, their adherents ascribed their morals
>> to their gods.
>
>Who says they are "Wrong"?
Competing religions.
>Anyone of them may be the Lord's truth.
>All religions have right and wrong, how the earth came to be, what
>happens after you die. Those that are religious, ascribe their morals
>to their god or gods, as we do. Perhaps I am not clear on what you
>are saying. My quote just states a fact that no group or society of
>modern humans on this planet has no religion. Not one. They all have
>one as the brain demands an answer to the questions. Because we have
>no proof, our brains "fill in the gaps" so to speak. It is a modern
>human brain's need. Am I not clear on your comment? Regards, Ken
>Hogan
You are saying that people make up religions. Some people use this
as evidence that their own religion is correct (and thus their culture
is Right, and that the others are wrong and people who believe
differently deserve to be punished).
If your see this as evidence to the contrary, then we are in
agreement.
Tokay Pino Gris
> Sers Tokay et all
>
> Tokay Pino Gris schrieb:
>
>>> I'm proud to be a Newtonist, because I believe in gravity.
>>>
>> Can I be an Einsteinist, then, pretty please?
>
> Because you believe in violonism?
>
> :-) richie
Nah, I'm another sect. I believe in guitarism....
Tokay
--
Truth will be out this morning. (Which may really mess
things up.)
Tokay Pino Gris
> "Tokay Pino Gris" <tokay.g...@gmx.net> wrote in message
> news:fvnltt$8t3$01$1...@news.t-online.com...
>> Kenny McCormack wrote:
>>> In article
>>> <14202c19-e9a2-4881...@x35g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
>>> Iain <iain_i...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On May 5, 12:36 pm, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@mailhaven.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Where Do Darwinist Atheists Get Their Moral Values?
>>>> There is no such thing as "darwinism".
>>>>
>>>> It's a stupid exonym invented by Creationists in order to make science
>>>> look like a creed or cult.
>>>>
>>>> If you call someone a "darwinist", you're partaking in a dishonest
>>>> charade.
>>>>
>>>> ~Iain
>>> I'm proud to be a Newtonist, because I believe in gravity.
>>>
>> Can I be an Einsteinist, then, pretty please?
>
>
>
That's another sect.
Heard a joke two days ago... Why don't ants go to church?
(It even works in english.....)
Tokay Pino Gris
> In article <fvnltt$8t3$01$1...@news.t-online.com>,
> Tokay Pino Gris <tokay.g...@gmx.net> wrote:
> ...
>>> I'm proud to be a Newtonist, because I believe in gravity.
>>>
>> Can I be an Einsteinist, then, pretty please?
>
>
>> Tokay
>>
>> --
>>
>> "I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work."
>>
>> Ben Franklin
>
> I thought that was Edison. Have I been wrong all these years?
>
No idea, really. Quote engine picked that one. I don't check them.....
Tokay Pino Gris
Same, actually.
pba...@worldonline.nl
>
> - Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht weergeven -
Why would it be silly?
Much animal behaviout seems to be gentically predetermened.
Why wouldn't surivival of the fittest, benefit, genes that make
"moral" behviour more likely within social animals?
"Moral" is only the kind of behaviour that benefits others inside the
social group instead of the individual only.
Without "moral" behaviour there wouldn't be any social animals,
and humanity would have become extinct before it ever came into
being :-)
Peter van Velzen
May 2008
Amstelveen
The Netherlands
James A. Donald
> "Genes that guide our moral judgment" is just silly
Incorrect moral judgments are apt to be fatal, therefore
we would expect moral judgment to be subject to the same
evolutionary forces as the ability to throw a rock
accurately.
veritas
Bill didn't bring that up, I did. And you are guessing, you have no
special knowledge that is not true. We don't know what all our genes
are pressing us to do. That is why we are looking at them. It isn't
anymore silly than the brain needs an answer to what happens after
death. All groups of people, all societies in the world, bar none
have a religion. So, you should have said that was your opinion, not
a fact. As far as throwing a rock, I would already be dead. Loose
tendons in the shoulders is what does not allow you to throw a rock
hard. Mine are very loose.
--
Ken Hogan
James A. Donald
> > Incorrect moral judgments are apt to be fatal,
> > therefore we would expect moral judgment to be
> > subject to the same evolutionary forces as the
> > ability to throw a rock accurately.
veritas
> We don't know what all our genes are pressing us to
> do.
Sure we do. Our genes are pressing us to do that which
was advantageous to our survival in the ancestral
environment.
And one of the things that was advantageous in the
ancestral environment was to group with those that were
virtuous, and drive out those that were wicked, and
another thing that was advantageous in the ancestral
environment was to act in a way likely to persuade
others that you were virtuous, or at least not
disturbingly wicked - we were not necessarily evolved to
be virtuous, but we are evolved to judge others virtue,
and to avoid getting caught in our own misconduct.
mimus
<snip the usual "straw-man" polemic>
From lookin' and thinkin'.
--
Have you ever noticed that gods never appear and speak and act for
themselves? not to mention the behavior of those who claim to represent
those gods? or any sign that priests or laity are in regular contact with
infinite wisdom and infinite justice?
Bill Patterson
> On Sun, 11 May 2008 07:21:43 -0700 (PDT), Bill Patterson
>
>
> >"Genes that guide our moral judgment" is just silly, except in the
> >limited sense that we have individual predispositions to find some
> >things pleasurable or not.
>
> Of course it is easy to observe in other species characteristics which
> look like morality. � What causes those?
Since morality is possible only to the willful, any tracing of origins
and genealogy would be simply expanding on an analogy that is not very
apt. Attributing human-like motivations to non-humans is a literary
device, not an ethical tool.
Bill Patterson
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
You're just combining words, whether or not they go together. There
is no actual issue here to discuss, so talking about it just so much
blather.
Bill Patterson
They are -- but not in the highly simplistic way people apparently
think they ought to be.
Mike Schilling
> On May 11, 8:55?am, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>> On Sun, 11 May 2008 07:21:43 -0700 (PDT), Bill Patterson
>>
>> <WHPatter...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> "Genes that guide our moral judgment" is just silly, except in the
>>> limited sense that we have individual predispositions to find some
>>> things pleasurable or not.
>>
>> Of course it is easy to observe in other species characteristics
>
> Since morality is possible only to the willful, any tracing of origins
> and genealogy would be simply expanding on an analogy that is not very
> apt. Attributing human-like motivations to non-humans is a literary
> device, not an ethical tool.
Ascribing motivations precisely like those of humans (e.g. "I want to lower
my property taxes") to animals is a literary device. Acribing them similar
motives ("I want food, shelter, status, and safety for my offspring") is
simply comon sense.
veritas
You are twisting things around. You start out with a true statement
about genes pressing you to survive then go down hill. It is better
to be feared than loved. That is survival. You don't judge others by
their apparent virtue. In fact, so me a person that has no apparent
vices, and I'll show you a person with vices so bad, they dare not
show them. As for my misconduct, well, it's better to be feared than
loved.
--
Ken Hogan
veritas
>
> - Show quoted text -
Again he is just guessing, as I am. It's not silly. Before we knew,
we thought evil spirits caused us to be sick instead of poor
sanitation. It's as likely as not we have the genes.
--
Ken Hogan
veritas
Didn't I answer this one? Who said anyone of the religions were
wrong? Any of them could be the Lord's one and only way. All I said
was that no group of people, no society in the world has no religion.
All of them have one. Our brains demand an answer, an end to the
story of birth-life-death-after death. So they make them up and the
people who can tell the best story gets paid the most money.
--
Ken Hogan
veritas
I told mine the same thing, she said, "Like hell we would." Being an
agnostic sometimes gets on her nerves, but 39 years of it you would
think she would be used to it. Women, go figure.
Regards, Ken Hogan
veritas
>
> - Show quoted text -
Again I say that you cannot prove that silly. Before we knew about
germs, we thought evil spirits caused sickness, not bad sanitation.
You don't know if genes influence that or not. It's an opinion, just
as mine is.
--
Ken Hogan
veritas
> On Sun, 11 May 2008 07:21:43 -0700 (PDT), Bill Patterson
>
>
> >"Genes that guide our moral judgment" is just silly, except in the
> >limited sense that we have individual predispositions to find some
> >things pleasurable or not.
>
> Of course it is easy to observe in other species characteristics which
> look like morality. What causes those?
There we go, are other species superior to us? Don't answer that.
--
Ken Hogan
veritas
> On Sat, 10 May 2008 18:59:52 -0700 (PDT), veritas
>
Not all religions believe that people who belive in other religions
deserve to be punished. Some of them just believe it makes them
better than others. Kind of like belonging to an elite country club.
--
Ken Hogan
veritas
Actually I believe in Glock .45's with .230 grain hollow points, .460
Smith & Wesson Magnum pistols with 185 grain bullets with a red dot
sight that will shoot 125 yards without any drop and has more volocity
at 100 yards (1500 fps) than a .44 magnum coming out of the barrel.
AK-47's with 30 round clips, military 12 gauges with hand pump handles
and threaded sights loaded with 000 Buck, (about 20 .32 bullets per
shell). Lithgow 303 sniper rifles that are good at a 1000 yards with
a better than 4x scope (that's what they came with) Now, those are
something to believe in, and you can not only believe but see them and
use them.
--
Ken Hogan
veritas
Is sucking a nipple by a baby taught? Is crying when their diaper is
dirty taught?
Is everything taught? Or is there things in us which is born in us to
do, whether taught or not? So why not morals?
--
Ken Hogan
Howard Brazee
<khog...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Of course it is easy to observe in other species characteristics which
>> look like morality. What causes those?
>
>There we go, are other species superior to us? Don't answer that.
I won't. But I will ask how you got from my question to yours?
Howard Brazee
<khog...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Didn't I answer this one? Who said anyone of the religions were
>wrong?
A majority of Christians and Muslims along with lots of other people.
Wayne Throop
: Didn't I answer this one? Who said anyone of the religions were
: wrong? Any of them could be the Lord's one and only way. All I said
: was that no group of people, no society in the world has no religion.
: All of them have one. Our brains demand an answer, an end to the
: story of birth-life-death-after death. So they make them up and the
: people who can tell the best story gets paid the most money.
What does it mean for a "society" to "have" a religion?
What happens if individual members of a society believe or don't belive
whatever they want, and nobody holds a gun to their head and has them
elocute their beliefs (reading from a standard card, or equivalent).
What happens if the society requires such elocution, but nobody takes
it seriously, and and are really just going through the motions?
What if a society doesn't make much distinction between claims of
the supernature and of the natural, say, panthesis or primitive animists?
: Our brains demand an answer, an end to the story of
: birth-life-death-after death. So they make them up and the people who
: can tell the best story gets paid the most money.
Some brains do. Some don't. Sure, there's a tendency to see thinking
entities in nature, but I don't think it's anything more profound
than the tendency to see human faces in everything from the moon, to
some stony ground on mars, to granite formations on earth, to clouds.
I doubt every society makes such a big hairy deal about it. It certainly
doesn't seem quite as *necessary* to wax big and hairy upo it.
Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly
Man got to sit and wonder why why why
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land
Man got to tell himself he understand
--- from the Books of Bokonon
Organized religion is merely for those people who are inordinately
fond of social resting. A sort of pajama party, as it were.
I myself am a devout apatheist. I doubt I'm the only one, but it's
too mudh effort to hold a membership drive.
"My name is pajama llama..." --- The Emperor's New School
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Bill Snyder
Glad we don't have to, since it would involve the knotty question
of just what species you are.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
James A. Donald
> You are twisting things around. You start out with a
> true statement about genes pressing you to survive
> then go down hill. It is better to be feared than
> loved.
In the ancestral environment, someone who was feared
more than loved would soon find himself alone, someone
who found himself alone would soon find himself dead.
We are all descended from a long line of apes, each of
whom was sufficiently trusted that other apes would hang
out with him.
James A. Donald
> Since morality is possible only to the willful, any
> tracing of origins and genealogy would be simply
> expanding on an analogy that is not very apt.
> Attributing human-like motivations to non-humans is a
> literary device, not an ethical tool.
Your position is creationist. In reality there are no
absolute difference between humans and other animals.
The characteristics that make humans different from
other animals are part of a continuum, differences of
degree, not differences of kind.
veritas
> On Mon, 12 May 2008 17:15:03 -0700 (PDT), veritas
>
> >> Of course it is easy to observe in other species characteristics which
> >> look like morality. What causes those?
>
> >There we go, are other species superior to us? Don't answer that.
>
> I won't. But I will ask how you got from my question to yours?
You were saying morality by genes is silly. I was pointing out that
other things are in us by genes. You are guessing it is silly. I say
it is possible. Ken Hogan
veritas
> On Mon, 12 May 2008 17:05:23 -0700 (PDT), veritas
>
> >Didn't I answer this one? Who said anyone of the religions were
> >wrong?
>
> A majority of Christians and Muslims along with lots of other people.
Yeah, that is what millions of Nazis said, and Stalin communists said,
killing all those people were right. Just because millions of people
say it is right doesn't make it so. The truth doesn't give a damn
what millions of people think. The truth just IS.
Regards, Ken Hogan
veritas
> : veritas <khogan...@yahoo.com>
As I am an agnostic, I know exactly what you mean. Some people just
think they don't know the end of the story. But you still will find
no society that does not have a religion of some kind. I'm sure you
will find some in it that don't believe it, as you and I don't. But
all societies, or groups of people in the world, bar none have a
religion. Simple fact. Regards, Ken Hogan
Wayne Throop
: But all societies, or groups of people in the world, bar none have a
: religion. Simple fact.
I'm still not sure what you mean by a society "having" a religion,
and what to do in cases where the minority opinions are substantial
in numbers, and remain unpersecuted.
veritas
> On Mon, 12 May 2008 17:15:03 -0700 (PDT), veritas
>
I can always depend on you Bill. We have a lot of things built into
our genes, you can't say we don't have morality built in because we
don't know that. One day we might, but for now it is a possibility.
I like to consider myself a modern human species, as my parents were,
so am I. Thank you for your input, so useful as always. Ken Hogan
Howard Brazee
<khog...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >> Of course it is easy to observe in other species characteristics which
>> >> look like morality. What causes those?
>>
>> >There we go, are other species superior to us? Don't answer that.
>>
>> I won't. But I will ask how you got from my question to yours?
>
>You were saying morality by genes is silly.
When did I say that?
Howard Brazee
<khog...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >Didn't I answer this one? Who said anyone of the religions were
>> >wrong?
>>
>> A majority of Christians and Muslims along with lots of other people.
>
>Yeah, that is what millions of Nazis said, and Stalin communists said,
>killing all those people were right. Just because millions of people
>say it is right doesn't make it so. The truth doesn't give a damn
>what millions of people think. The truth just IS.
Do you believe that some religions do not understand what the Truth
is?
veritas
We decended from something, but it sure was not apes. I don't know
where we did, but we are not even kin to any of the old human like
species, such as Neatherthal or Erectus. We are back at square one.
We don't know.
Ken Hogan
veritas
You may call it creationist, but in reality there are huge differences
in Modern Humans and other animals. Both physically and mentally. A
Neantherthal or Erectus could not even sew. They did not have the
hand dexterity. They both could run the 100 meter dash in about 25
seconds. They never learned to throw spears, they thrust them. They
kept the same flint tools for a 100,000 years the same. We are light
years from any species on this planet.
Ken Hogan
veritas
> On Tue, 13 May 2008 19:09:35 -0700 (PDT), veritas
>
> >> >> Of course it is easy to observe in other species characteristics which
> >> >> look like morality. What causes those?
>
> >> >There we go, are other species superior to us? Don't answer that.
>
> >> I won't. But I will ask how you got from my question to yours?
>
> >You were saying morality by genes is silly.
>
> When did I say that?
>
>
>
> >I was pointing out that
> >other things are in us by genes. You are guessing it is silly. I say
>
> - Show quoted text -
Sorry if I pegged you wrong, I must have gotten mixed up in all the
questions.\
Ken Hogan