Atheism , religion , ID etc
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Richard Northedge wrote:
You often find that atheists borrow parts of their moral framework from other faiths, because moral frameworks are a practical necessity (you have to choose to live your life *somehow*) and atheism is inadequate to supply them.
err... that's a gigantic leap. have you ever considered that what you call "moral frameworks" are simply fundamental human behaviors, and that religions just re-brand what already exists in people ? Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
Chris Losinger wrote:
have you ever considered that what you call "moral frameworks" are simply fundamental human behaviors, and that religions just re-brand what already exists in people ?
Religion discourages you from engaging in fundamental human behaviors (specifically animal-like traits found in our primate brothers). Those moral frameworks come from religion.
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andy brummer wrote:
Almost any other set of laws would not allow life as we know it. I personally think it is crap because I suspect there are plenty of possibilities for life as we don't know it.
i don't see how your first sentence is in disagreement with your second. of course a different set of laws would allow for life "as we don't know it". we're still finding life we don't know with the set of laws we do have. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
Chris Losinger wrote:
we're still finding life we don't know with the set of laws we do have.
It is the whole nature of the principle. There is nothing logically inconsistent with it at all. If the universe did not support life then we couldn't be there to observe it, so of all possible universes we can only exist in the ones that we can exist in. What is troubling is how sensitive things like atoms, stars, galaxies and planets are to the physical constants of the universe, and there are at least 30 of them if not hundreds. The probability of getting the values that produce our universe is so slim, the only ways to rationalize it are to assume multiple universes, either through time or extended landscape or things like the anthropic principle. I imediately start thinking about other options for life and our limited rules for understanding how life could exist in one of these alternate universes, but that is really just avoiding the big question. Why are we in a universe like this one.
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
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As much as scientists hate it because it smacks of everything that ID does, this is the best reason that cosmology has come up with for us having the laws of physics that we do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle[^] Essentially we can only exist in a universe with the laws of physics that we have. Almost any other set of laws would not allow life as we know it. I personally think it is crap because I suspect there are plenty of possibilities for life as we don't know it.
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
I have never understood how that principle changes the nature of the debate. Obviously, the universal laws that any observer will observe are those that resulted in the existence of the observer. Laws that don't allow for the existence of an observer will never be observed. But since we know an observer exists, we know the laws allow for it. So what? "You get that which you tolerate"
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Richard Northedge wrote:
You often find that atheists borrow parts of their moral framework from other faiths, because moral frameworks are a practical necessity (you have to choose to live your life *somehow*) and atheism is inadequate to supply them.
err... that's a gigantic leap. have you ever considered that what you call "moral frameworks" are simply fundamental human behaviors, and that religions just re-brand what already exists in people ? Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
What do you mean by "fundamental human behaviors" - are you thinking of instincts that are programmed into us as part of our genetic makeup?
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I have never understood how that principle changes the nature of the debate. Obviously, the universal laws that any observer will observe are those that resulted in the existence of the observer. Laws that don't allow for the existence of an observer will never be observed. But since we know an observer exists, we know the laws allow for it. So what? "You get that which you tolerate"
I haven't considered it very interesting either, but I think it is essentially the only sort of answer philosophers have come up with, short of invoking ID, to questions like Roger's. All I can hope for is that further exploration of physics comes up with something less contrived then what we have now.
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
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Chris Losinger wrote:
have you ever considered that what you call "moral frameworks" are simply fundamental human behaviors, and that religions just re-brand what already exists in people ?
Religion discourages you from engaging in fundamental human behaviors (specifically animal-like traits found in our primate brothers). Those moral frameworks come from religion.
espeir wrote:
Those moral frameworks come from religion.
if, as you've said numerous times, atheism is a religion, explain then how atheism is insufficient to generate a "moral framework". if it isn't please tell us all what is required. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
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Chris Losinger wrote:
have you ever considered that what you call "moral frameworks" are simply fundamental human behaviors, and that religions just re-brand what already exists in people ?
Religion discourages you from engaging in fundamental human behaviors (specifically animal-like traits found in our primate brothers). Those moral frameworks come from religion.
espeir wrote:
Religion discourages you from engaging in fundamental human behaviors (specifically animal-like traits found in our primate brothers). Those moral frameworks come from religion.
Let me rephrase that: Religion uses a supreme being to discourage you from engaging in behaviors deemed innapropriate by those who claim to know the supreme being. Those moral frameworks come from common sense; religion is used to enforce them.
The bible was written when people were even more stupid than they are today. Can you imagine that? - David Cross
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Chris Losinger wrote:
we're still finding life we don't know with the set of laws we do have.
It is the whole nature of the principle. There is nothing logically inconsistent with it at all. If the universe did not support life then we couldn't be there to observe it, so of all possible universes we can only exist in the ones that we can exist in. What is troubling is how sensitive things like atoms, stars, galaxies and planets are to the physical constants of the universe, and there are at least 30 of them if not hundreds. The probability of getting the values that produce our universe is so slim, the only ways to rationalize it are to assume multiple universes, either through time or extended landscape or things like the anthropic principle. I imediately start thinking about other options for life and our limited rules for understanding how life could exist in one of these alternate universes, but that is really just avoiding the big question. Why are we in a universe like this one.
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
andy brummer wrote:
The probability of getting the values that produce our universe is so slim, the only ways to rationalize it are to assume multiple universes, either through time or extended landscape or things like the anthropic principle.
all of this assumes those values are variable. but what if they aren't ? they aren't here and now, so why assume they are anywhere else?
andy brummer wrote:
Why are we in a universe like this one.
because it's our only option. if the conditions were different, we might not be here. but they aren't different, and here we are. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
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espeir wrote:
Those moral frameworks come from religion.
if, as you've said numerous times, atheism is a religion, explain then how atheism is insufficient to generate a "moral framework". if it isn't please tell us all what is required. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
I never made that claim. Obviously it can because atheism has adopted aspects of morality which have never been considered moral by most religions. For example, Orgies and abortion are not considered immoral by atheists, but are by pretty much all religions. However, I do contend that atheist morality is doomed to perpetually degrade (as it has in the 20th century) from its already marginal state (which was derived from religion) because it lacks a specific source for that morality. That lack of a moral source destroys the concept of any sort of absolute morality, resulting in absolute moral relativism (which, of course, arose in the 20th century). As we have observed, moral relativism decays over time until you have, by today's standards, absolute immorality. That's what happened to Rome.
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What do you mean by "fundamental human behaviors" - are you thinking of instincts that are programmed into us as part of our genetic makeup?
Richard Northedge wrote:
re you thinking of instincts that are programmed into us as part of our genetic makeup?
yes. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
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espeir wrote:
Religion discourages you from engaging in fundamental human behaviors (specifically animal-like traits found in our primate brothers). Those moral frameworks come from religion.
Let me rephrase that: Religion uses a supreme being to discourage you from engaging in behaviors deemed innapropriate by those who claim to know the supreme being. Those moral frameworks come from common sense; religion is used to enforce them.
The bible was written when people were even more stupid than they are today. Can you imagine that? - David Cross
Alvaro Mendez wrote:
by those who claim to know the supreme being.
Who claims to know the supreme being? Even the Pope is considered merely the "Vicar of Christ", not his personal buddy.
Alvaro Mendez wrote:
Those moral frameworks come from common sense
They seem like common sense now, because religion has been around since the dawn of man.
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What do you mean by "fundamental human behaviors" - are you thinking of instincts that are programmed into us as part of our genetic makeup?
And one of those instincts would be an instinct for morality. However, I think the argument that religion is just somehow taking advantage of such an instinct is lame. An instinct for morality would be like an instinct for language. It is significant only within the context of a given social order. Religion has served to direct our instinct for morality in ways that have been generally beneficial to society. I always find it curious that those who argue in favor of evolution, don't seem to understand that every society on the planet evolved societies organized around religion rather than athiesm. Athiesm does not, in fact, provide a society with the ability to forge moral frameworks, which is why societies have all rejected it as a foundation for thier cultures. "You get that which you tolerate" -- modified at 11:51 Friday 7th April, 2006
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espeir wrote:
Those moral frameworks come from religion.
if, as you've said numerous times, atheism is a religion, explain then how atheism is insufficient to generate a "moral framework". if it isn't please tell us all what is required. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
Let me try and disentangle what I said from what espeir said... When I used the phrase "moral framework", I was essentially meaning "Something that enables you to decide whether a given action is right or wrong". I didn't say that atheism is a religion ("religion", for me, implies some kind of organised belief system) but I did say that it requires faith; I wrote that to be an atheist, "you have to believe, without any evidence either way, that life and matter and the laws of the universe *just somehow* exist." And this statement of faith (the one about life and matter etc.) doesn't provide you with any means to enable you to decide whether a given action is right or wrong. To explain what I mean by giving a contrast, here is a different statement of faith: "Whatever is pleasurable, is good". This statement does give you some basis for deciding whether a given action is right or wrong. Hedonism isn't a religion either, in the "organised belief system" definition.
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I haven't considered it very interesting either, but I think it is essentially the only sort of answer philosophers have come up with, short of invoking ID, to questions like Roger's. All I can hope for is that further exploration of physics comes up with something less contrived then what we have now.
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
My question remains - do the laws 'want' to be observed? Do they purposefully provide for the existence of the observer? Is the observer built into the laws from their very most basic beginnings? "You get that which you tolerate"
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Let me try and disentangle what I said from what espeir said... When I used the phrase "moral framework", I was essentially meaning "Something that enables you to decide whether a given action is right or wrong". I didn't say that atheism is a religion ("religion", for me, implies some kind of organised belief system) but I did say that it requires faith; I wrote that to be an atheist, "you have to believe, without any evidence either way, that life and matter and the laws of the universe *just somehow* exist." And this statement of faith (the one about life and matter etc.) doesn't provide you with any means to enable you to decide whether a given action is right or wrong. To explain what I mean by giving a contrast, here is a different statement of faith: "Whatever is pleasurable, is good". This statement does give you some basis for deciding whether a given action is right or wrong. Hedonism isn't a religion either, in the "organised belief system" definition.
Richard Northedge wrote:
I didn't say that atheism is a religion ("religion", for me, implies some kind of organised belief system) but I did say that it requires faith
That definition would have to include atheism as a religion. However, religion is more specifically an organized belief system of God's nature. You could believe that pigs actually have the ability to fly, but that doesn't make it a religion. Agnostics do not have religion because they don't attempt assert whether God exists or not.
Richard Northedge wrote:
To explain what I mean by giving a contrast, here is a different statement of faith: "Whatever is pleasurable, is good". This statement does give you some basis for deciding whether a given action is right or wrong. Hedonism isn't a religion either, in the "organised belief system" definition.
That's not a statement of religious faith as it involves no particular position on the nature of God. It's a statement of morality.
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Let me try and disentangle what I said from what espeir said... When I used the phrase "moral framework", I was essentially meaning "Something that enables you to decide whether a given action is right or wrong". I didn't say that atheism is a religion ("religion", for me, implies some kind of organised belief system) but I did say that it requires faith; I wrote that to be an atheist, "you have to believe, without any evidence either way, that life and matter and the laws of the universe *just somehow* exist." And this statement of faith (the one about life and matter etc.) doesn't provide you with any means to enable you to decide whether a given action is right or wrong. To explain what I mean by giving a contrast, here is a different statement of faith: "Whatever is pleasurable, is good". This statement does give you some basis for deciding whether a given action is right or wrong. Hedonism isn't a religion either, in the "organised belief system" definition.
Richard Northedge wrote:
And this statement of faith (the one about life and matter etc.) doesn't provide you with any means to enable you to decide whether a given action is right or wrong.
Nor does it need to. Man (over time) has developed societies, government and the rule of law. Through these we establish basic human rights and sets of laws and principles about what is right and wrong. These are human constructs - no theistic or atheistic "faith" is required. "If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done." - Peter Ustinov -- modified at 12:10 Friday 7th April, 2006
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Richard Northedge wrote:
re you thinking of instincts that are programmed into us as part of our genetic makeup?
yes. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
Then I would say that your instincts can pull you in different directions, but you need some way of deciding which route to take. A man might see a child in a burning house, and his survival instinct tells him to run for it, while his social instinct tells him to try and save the child. In order to be able to judge one of these actions as "right" and the other "wrong", you need some kind of measure or standard to compare them against. That measure or standard cannot itself be an instinct; it sits above them and enables you to choose between them.
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andy brummer wrote:
The probability of getting the values that produce our universe is so slim, the only ways to rationalize it are to assume multiple universes, either through time or extended landscape or things like the anthropic principle.
all of this assumes those values are variable. but what if they aren't ? they aren't here and now, so why assume they are anywhere else?
andy brummer wrote:
Why are we in a universe like this one.
because it's our only option. if the conditions were different, we might not be here. but they aren't different, and here we are. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
Chris Losinger wrote:
all of this assumes those values are variable. but what if they aren't ? they aren't here and now, so why assume they are anywhere else?
Because there isn't any natural or apparent reason for them to be what they are. The correct answer is wait until we know more, suspend your disbelief for now. However, it is phenominally unlikely that there would be 4 forces one tuned exactly to produce nuclei, one tuned exactly to produce mater over anti-matter, one tuned exactly to attach electrons to the nuclei, and one exactly weak enough to produce the large scale structure of the universe. It's definitely an odd universe that we live in. All this comes from trying to find dependencies between the various parameters to satisfy our sense of intellectual closure. A theory with zero to a few parameters like General Relativity is more satisfing then dealing with the number of arbitrary parameters that we have now.
If evidence reaches a conclusion then it makes sense. If it doesn't, it's just lame to go on TRYING to prove a theory that you made up when all the evidence points the other way. That's how crazy is made. -espeir
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And one of those instincts would be an instinct for morality. However, I think the argument that religion is just somehow taking advantage of such an instinct is lame. An instinct for morality would be like an instinct for language. It is significant only within the context of a given social order. Religion has served to direct our instinct for morality in ways that have been generally beneficial to society. I always find it curious that those who argue in favor of evolution, don't seem to understand that every society on the planet evolved societies organized around religion rather than athiesm. Athiesm does not, in fact, provide a society with the ability to forge moral frameworks, which is why societies have all rejected it as a foundation for thier cultures. "You get that which you tolerate" -- modified at 11:51 Friday 7th April, 2006
Stan Shannon wrote:
every society on the planet evolved societies organized around religion rather than athiesm.
True but.. the world's societies have developed over a very long timeframe. Science capable of explaining fundemental principles of the cosmos is pretty new. "If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done." - Peter Ustinov
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My question remains - do the laws 'want' to be observed? Do they purposefully provide for the existence of the observer? Is the observer built into the laws from their very most basic beginnings? "You get that which you tolerate"
I don't feel like that is true, but all we will ever have to go on are feelings and wishful thinking, which is why I usually try to stay as far away from phillosophy as possible. I have to admit it was a lot easier to ignore before learning about the standard model. It is very unsatifiying for the laws of physics to be built up in such and adhoc manner.
If evidence reaches a conclusion then it makes sense. If it doesn't, it's just lame to go on TRYING to prove a theory that you made up when all the evidence points the other way. That's how crazy is made. -espeir