Christianity

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Vitruvius
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Re: Christianity

Post by Vitruvius »

Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 3:36 pm So you saw Jesus incarnated by God and that's how you KNOW?
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 4:57 pm You know what I mean. Go and meet Him, so to speak: find out who He is. Read what He said and did. If you don't see God there, you never will. But at least you'll actually have looked in the right place.
Be honest; you we're raised Christian, right? You were indoctrinated from infancy and are so emotionally invested you're willing to claim on a philosophy forum that knowledge and belief are the same thing. So religiously, you're a post modernist. Your epistemology regarding this subject, has become relative. Your 'lived experience' is equivalent to fact. That's the very thing I find unsatisfactory; and the very thing at the heart of Galileo's arrest and trial for the heresy of proving earth orbits the sun. Its the very reason science has been denied the authority it rightfully owns as truth, such that it was reduced to the status of a tool - used in service to religious, political and economic ideological belief. It's the reason we applied the wrong technologies, and are now threatened with climate change. But what do you care? You believe you're going to Heaven! Everything is fated. It's all part of God's plan, so don't worry about it, and don't try change it. What if you're wrong? Faith has such an obvious political purpose; what if science as valid knowledge of Creation is the path to God - yet from faith you've clung to the religious 'social contract' of our dim distant ancestors, and in doing so, to the cost of science - condemned humankind?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 6:35 pm Be honest; you we're raised Christian, right?
I was raised to think for myself, but both my parents were Christians.
You were indoctrinated from infancy
Actually, quite the opposite: my parents had an unusual willingness to let me find out things for myself. And when I became skeptical, they never pushed me.

As a young man, I pretty much dropped any pretense at all of behaving "Christianly." If you could have even seen me then, you'd have known at a glance that was true, for sure. I actually went my own way almost as soon as I hit my teen years. My parents were wiser than to try to stop me. But they had a lot of confidence that I would eventually come to the right conclusions on my own.
...religiously, you're a post modernist.
:D Not a bit, actually. I'm actually quite skeptical of "experiences." I know they can be induced by all sorts of means. And I have a great understanding of this phenomenon we call "postmodernity," and have little sympathy with it, in most regards. For one thing, I'm far more committed to the existence of objective truth and objective morality than any postmodern account would allow. And there are other differences.

The truth is that I found God in second year of undergrad, while I was reading some of the great Atheists. At the time, I was more a disciple of the agnostic-skeptic Thomas Hardy than anything. But I found the answers being offered by those folks very, very dusty. It was the poverty of their insight, particulary in explaining the existence of evil, that convinced me that, at long last, I had to take a serious look at my father's religion -- if only to be sure that I had considered it properly and dismissed it for good reasons; because up to that point, I really hadn't given it much of my attention.

It was what I was telling you -- my own encounter with Jesus Christ through the Bible -- that showed me how different He is. I became a Christian with my father nowhere in sight, unbeknownst to my family, and on my own volition, at the kind of place that is notoriously supposed to be best able to deprive people of their faith...a university.
...science has been denied the authority it rightfully owns as truth, such that it was reduced to the status of a tool - used in service to religious, political and economic ideological belief.

You really do need to know something about the actual history of Galileo. I'm afraid you're in the grip of a secular myth there, V.
It's the reason we applied the wrong technologies, and are now threatened with climate change.
:D Now, there's a totally amusing position, I have to say. Can your theory honestly be that the Catholic Church's (rather temporary and ineffective) silencing of Galileo caused modern technology to go awry and destroy the environment? I've found no credible historian of science who would say that's remotely right.
What if you're wrong?
I'm not, but if I were, I think I'd be no worse off than an Atheist is now.

We could make the argument that I would be deluded, but certainly more happy and positive than I might otherwise have been...and a much nicer person than I certainly would have been. But I'd have to be deluded very thoroughly, because I find I've never been able to lie to myself about what I really believe, at least for long; I find self-deception so unsatisfying, and it takes so much energy to persist in it. Better to accept reality as it is, and deal with it.

But if I knew I was wrong, and thus, if I were an Atheist, I would know that no moral constraints remain upon we at all, and would very likely take full advantage of that fact, I think. Like Nietzsche, I suppose I would despise those who held back, and continued to believe in morality. I might regard it as a badge of courage, and certainly as opportunistically necessary, to get myself ahead at all costs. I think I might aim at being one of those ubermensch, because God being dead, what else would there be? A brief window of light, and then the grave, just as Sartre et al. said. Given that, getting myself ahead would be my entire focus, I think. And I'd probably die very bitter and miserable, rather like so many secular philosophers have done. But what else would there be?
Faith has such an obvious political purpose
Well, that depends on what "faith" you mean. I certainly have to concede that Catholicism is very political. But as to what political purposes loving your enemies, showing mercy to the poor, living simply and humbly and generally spending a lot of time on serving others and knowing God, I don't think that's actually very obvious at all.

You'll have to make the case for me.
...what if science as valid knowledge of Creation is the path to God
It is, in a way. Takiing an open-minded look at the Creation generally leads people to suspect God exists. That's at least a first step toward them looking for a way to relate to Him. So science is a very good thing, and does conduce to that. Did you know that one of the older names for science was "natural theology"?
....from faith you've clung to the religious 'social contract' of our dim distant ancestors...
Well, "social contract" is an idea that really comes from people like Rousseau, and he was certainly no Christian. As for me, I'm not, and have never been, a Social Contractarian. So that's a bit wide of the mark, I'm afraid.

It's all actually painfully simple. All God expects of us is to take an honest look at His incarnate Son, and decide where we stand, as a consequence. Upon that decision, we select what we want to follow for us: an eternity with, or without Somebody like that. And we all get exactly what we ask.
Vitruvius
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Re: Christianity

Post by Vitruvius »

Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 6:35 pm Be honest; you we're raised Christian, right?
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:54 pmI was raised to think for myself, but both my parents were Christians.
A simple 'yes' would suffice!
You were indoctrinated from infancy
Actually, quite the opposite: my parents had an unusual willingness to let me find out things for myself. And when I became skeptical, they never pushed me.
No need. Children are born with an innate predisposition to copy their elders. It's evolutionarily prudent, because it saves the infant from having to work everything out for themselves.
As a young man, I pretty much dropped any pretense at all of behaving "Christianly." If you could have even seen me then, you'd have known at a glance that was true, for sure. I actually went my own way almost as soon as I hit my teen years. My parents were wiser than to try to stop me. But they had a lot of confidence that I would eventually come to the right conclusions on my own.
Again, rejecting your parents beliefs in adolescence is evolutionary; part of establishing an identity apart from the parent.
...religiously, you're a post modernist.
:D Not a bit, actually. I'm actually quite skeptical of "experiences." I know they can be induced by all sorts of means. And I have a great understanding of this phenomenon we call "postmodernity," and have little sympathy with it, in most regards. For one thing, I'm far more committed to the existence of objective truth and objective morality than any postmodern account would allow. And there are other differences.
How can you say, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' while you yourself fail to see the beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Luke 6:42)
The truth is that I found God in second year of undergrad, while I was reading some of the great Atheists. At the time, I was more a disciple of the agnostic-skeptic Thomas Hardy than anything. But I found the answers being offered by those folks very, very dusty. It was the poverty of their insight, particulary in explaining the existence of evil, that convinced me that, at long last, I had to take a serious look at my father's religion -- if only to be sure that I had considered it properly and dismissed it for good reasons; because up to that point, I really hadn't given it much of my attention.

It was what I was telling you -- my own encounter with Jesus Christ through the Bible -- that showed me how different He is. I became a Christian with my father nowhere in sight, unbeknownst to my family, and on my own volition, at the kind of place that is notoriously supposed to be best able to deprive people of their faith...a university.
...science has been denied the authority it rightfully owns as truth, such that it was reduced to the status of a tool - used in service to religious, political and economic ideological belief.

You really do need to know something about the actual history of Galileo. I'm afraid you're in the grip of a secular myth there, V.
In order to make the point, must I chronicle his life story? It would make all my posts inordinately long.
It's the reason we applied the wrong technologies, and are now threatened with climate change.
:D Now, there's a totally amusing position, I have to say. Can your theory honestly be that the Catholic Church's (rather temporary and ineffective) silencing of Galileo caused modern technology to go awry and destroy the environment? I've found no credible historian of science who would say that's remotely right.
You're amused that we're barrelling toward extinction because we have no respect for science as truth?
What if you're wrong?
I'm not, but if I were, I think I'd be no worse off than an Atheist is now.
Pascal's wager doesn't hold up where faith undermines science, and disregard of science leads to human extinction. You're betting your real life genetic, intellectual and economic legacy - against the hope you're going to Heaven. What if you're wrong? And you accuse others of sacrificing their children to Moloch!
We could make the argument that I would be deluded, but certainly more happy and positive than I might otherwise have been...and a much nicer person than I certainly would have been. But I'd have to be deluded very thoroughly, because I find I've never been able to lie to myself about what I really believe, at least for long; I find self-deception so unsatisfying, and it takes so much energy to persist in it. Better to accept reality as it is, and deal with it.
Yes, yes - I'm a horrible person, but I'm damn good philosopher!
But if I knew I was wrong, and thus, if I were an Atheist, I would know that no moral constraints remain upon we at all, and would very likely take full advantage of that fact, I think. Like Nietzsche, I suppose I would despise those who held back, and continued to believe in morality. I might regard it as a badge of courage, and certainly as opportunistically necessary, to get myself ahead at all costs. I think I might aim at being one of those ubermensch, because God being dead, what else would there be? A brief window of light, and then the grave, just as Sartre et al. said. Given that, getting myself ahead would be my entire focus, I think. And I'd probably die very bitter and miserable, rather like so many secular philosophers have done. But what else would there be?
Kirkegaard is the most miserable philosopher I've read; and he's a believer. Also, morality is not from God; it's from evolution. Thus, Nietzsche was wrong. The absence of religion is not an absence of morality - and frankly, it's a grievous insult.
Faith has such an obvious political purpose
Well, that depends on what "faith" you mean. I certainly have to concede that Catholicism is very political. But as to what political purposes loving your enemies, showing mercy to the poor, living simply and humbly and generally spending a lot of time on serving others and knowing God, I don't think that's actually very obvious at all. You'll have to make the case for me.
Believing the same thing unites people; justifies authority, law, and societal moral values.

...what if science as valid knowledge of Creation is the path to God
It is, in a way. Takiing an open-minded look at the Creation generally leads people to suspect God exists. That's at least a first step toward them looking for a way to relate to Him. So science is a very good thing, and does conduce to that. Did you know that one of the older names for science was "natural theology"?
William Paley 1803, in his book Natural Theology - wrote the Watchmaker Argument, claiming that if you were walking across the moors and found a pocket watch, if you knew nothing else at all, you would know that somewhere there is a watchmaker. He then compares the workings of the watch as a poor relation to design apparent in nature. This echoes arguments made throughout history - not least by Cicero, and I suspect, it goes back a lot further. Indeed, that very observation may be the origin of the concept of an archetypal Creator God. In 1859, Darwin explained design apparent in nature as the consequence of natural selection.
....from faith you've clung to the religious 'social contract' of our dim distant ancestors...
Well, "social contract" is an idea that really comes from people like Rousseau, and he was certainly no Christian. As for me, I'm not, and have never been, a Social Contractarian. So that's a bit wide of the mark, I'm afraid. It's all actually painfully simple. All God expects of us is to take an honest look at His incarnate Son, and decide where we stand, as a consequence. Upon that decision, we select what we want to follow for us: an eternity with, or without Somebody like that. And we all get exactly what we ask.
I'm saying religion is a social contract. I'm saying hunter gatherers adopted the same idea of God as authority for law, allowing them to overcome the antagonism inherent to two or more tribal hierarchies. They essentially created an uber alpha male; as authority overall, whose commandments applied to everyone. And faith was required on pain of death.

btw: you should read Rousseau's introduction to 'Causes of Inequality' - where he flatters the Church; begging forgiveness for engaging in rational inquiry.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:56 pm
You really do need to know something about the actual history of Galileo. I'm afraid you're in the grip of a secular myth there, V.
In order to make the point, must I chronicle his life story? It would make all my posts inordinately long.
I'm not saying that. I'm just suggesting you might want to get even the basics of the story right. But admittedly, it would then be a lot less successful as the simplistic parable of religion-versus-science and as the tool of Atheist indigantion it has become.
:D Now, there's a totally amusing position, I have to say. Can your theory honestly be that the Catholic Church's (rather temporary and ineffective) silencing of Galileo caused modern technology to go awry and destroy the environment? I've found no credible historian of science who would say that's remotely right.
You're amused that we're barrelling toward extinction because we have no respect for science as truth?
No. I'm just amused that anybody could think that was a good explanation.
What if you're wrong?
I'm not, but if I were, I think I'd be no worse off than an Atheist is now.
Pascal's wager doesn't hold up where faith undermines science...
It doesn't.

But I wasn't speaking of Pascal's Wager (which, incidentally, has nothing to do with science, and is essentially a prudential argument). I was just telling you what a) I know about human nature, including my own, and b) how reasoning according to Atheism would make me inclined to be. It's just a confession, really, that I would be a much nicer, better person as a Christian than I would find reason to be were I an Atheist.
Yes, yes - I'm a horrible person,
I was speaking of me, not at all of you. I would not even propose to know such a thing of you.
But if I knew I was wrong, and thus, if I were an Atheist, I would know that no moral constraints remain upon we at all, and would very likely take full advantage of that fact, I think. Like Nietzsche, I suppose I would despise those who held back, and continued to believe in morality. I might regard it as a badge of courage, and certainly as opportunistically necessary, to get myself ahead at all costs. I think I might aim at being one of those ubermensch, because God being dead, what else would there be? A brief window of light, and then the grave, just as Sartre et al. said. Given that, getting myself ahead would be my entire focus, I think. And I'd probably die very bitter and miserable, rather like so many secular philosophers have done. But what else would there be?
Kirkegaard is the most miserable philosopher I've read; and he's a believer.
That's interesting. I don't find him "miserable" at all. I find him very insightful, and massively interesting.

But let us suppose that's true: were you thinking Christians are never supposed to be sad? Given the state of the world, I think there'd be something wrong with us if we weren't sad sometimes.
Also, morality is not from God; it's from evolution.

No, I'm sorry: that's just a boat that won't float.

Even if we supposed that what we today observe as moral behavior had somehow "evolved into" us, or been infused into us by some evolutionary past, that would merely form a description of how the thing might have come about. But it wouldn't show it was legitimate, or that any of us had any duty to follow a moral precept that, after all, had only been programmed into us accidentaly, by means of the indifferent process of evolution. It could just as easily be something like the vestigial tail -- a thing to be gotten past and dropped when its temporary usefulness had been exceeded.

Nietzsche definitely thought it was that. But most Atheists are not brave enough -- or, thank God, bad enough -- to follow Nietzsche on that.
The absence of religion is not an absence of morality
No. It's just the end of any possibility of legitimating morality. And that's equivalent to the same thing...at least for any rational person. Because a rational person will conclude that since morality is no more than an evolutionary contingency, his duty to follow it will fall away the minute it's no longer to his personal advantage to adhere to it.

That doesn't mean that the whole world will instantly become evil. In fact, Nietzsche knew that morality would continue long after the legitimate basis of it was dead. That's why, in his Madman's Tale, the madman throws down his lantern and exclaims, "I have come too early!" The word of God's death had not yet reached the townspeople, and the impications were still "afar off." But Nietzsche knew that they would come. They would come as soon as people actually stopped living as if God existed, and actually started living as if Atheism were true.
Believing the same thing unites people; justifies authority, law, and societal moral values.

Well, that's not particularly illuminating. Believing ANYTHING "unites people." And as for "authority," there are always two kinds: the legitimate and the illegitimate. As for "societal moral values," you're suddenly conceding the point I made above, and which Nietzsche also made...namely, that belief has a relationship to morality, and when God is "dead," as Dostoevsky noted, "everything is permissible."
...what if science as valid knowledge of Creation is the path to God
It is, in a way. Takiing an open-minded look at the Creation generally leads people to suspect God exists. That's at least a first step toward them looking for a way to relate to Him. So science is a very good thing, and does conduce to that. Did you know that one of the older names for science was "natural theology"?
...the Watchmaker Argument...
I wasn't making that one. I was just pointing to the very simple fact that close inspection of nature inclines one to think of God. Let's listen to that august theologian, Richard Dawkins on the subject:

“I think that when you consider the beauty of the world and you wonder how it came to be what it is, you are naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration and you almost feel a desire to worship something. I feel this, I recognise that other scientists such as Carl Sagan feel this, Einstein felt it. We, all of us, share a kind of religious reverence for the beauties of the universe, for the complexity of life. For the sheer magnitude of the cosmos, the sheer magnitude of geological time. And it’s tempting to translate that feeling of awe and worship into a desire to worship some particular thing, a person, an agent. You want to attribute it to a maker, to a creator."

Of course, Dawkins wants us to ignore that, deny the reality of that impulse, ignore what the data seem to suggest, and become Atheists anyway. But then, that's what sort of Atheism one gets if one adopts it at age 17, as Dawkins says he did. For as you said, teenage rebellion is not unusual.
I'm saying religion is a social contract.
I suppose some people might view it that way. I never did. I still don't.
Vitruvius
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Re: Christianity

Post by Vitruvius »

You really do need to know something about the actual history of Galileo. I'm afraid you're in the grip of a secular myth there, V.
Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:56 pmIn order to make the point, must I chronicle his life story? It would make all my posts inordinately long.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmI'm not saying that. I'm just suggesting you might want to get even the basics of the story right. But admittedly, it would then be a lot less successful as the simplistic parable of religion-versus-science and as the tool of Atheist indigantion it has become.
Basics of the story? Galileo wrote Dialogue concerning the two chief world systems, comparing Copernican and Ptolemaic models of planetary motion, was arrested by the church, threatened with excommunication torture and death, was forced to recant, he was found grievously suspect of heresy, his works were placed on the Index Librorium Prohibitorium, and was held under house arrest for the remaining 10 years of his life.

Would you stipulate to those facts?
totally amusing position, I have to say. Can your theory honestly be that the Catholic Church's (rather temporary and ineffective) silencing of Galileo caused modern technology to go awry and destroy the environment? I've found no credible historian of science who would say that's remotely right.
Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:56 pmYou're amused that we're barrelling toward extinction because we have no respect for science as truth?
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmNo. I'm just amused that anybody could think that was a good explanation.
You would say that though, wouldn't you?
What if you're wrong?
I'm not, but if I were, I think I'd be no worse off than an Atheist is now.
Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:56 pmPascal's wager doesn't hold up where faith undermines science...
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmIt doesn't. But I wasn't speaking of Pascal's Wager (which, incidentally, has nothing to do with science, and is essentially a prudential argument). I was just telling you what a) I know about human nature, including my own, and b) how reasoning according to Atheism would make me inclined to be. It's just a confession, really, that I would be a much nicer, better person as a Christian than I would find reason to be were I an Atheist.
Pascal's wager is the question "what do I have to lose by faith?" If I'm right, I get the chance at Heaven? If I'm wrong, same nothing as any atheist. So it's better to believe.

That's Pascals wager. I asked What if you're wrong? You said:

"I'm not, but if I were, I think I'd be no worse off than an Atheist is now."

That's Pascal's wager. You may not understand the implications of your utterances, even when explained to you, but trust me on this.
Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:56 pm Kirkegaard is the most miserable philosopher I've read; and he's a believer.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmThat's interesting. I don't find him "miserable" at all. I find him very insightful, and massively interesting. But let us suppose that's true: were you thinking Christians are never supposed to be sad? Given the state of the world, I think there'd be something wrong with us if we weren't sad sometimes.
"Fear and Trembling" just screams upbeat party mix!
Also, morality is not from God; it's from evolution.

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmNo, I'm sorry: that's just a boat that won't float. Even if we supposed that what we today observe as moral behavior had somehow "evolved into" us, or been infused into us by some evolutionary past, that would merely form a description of how the thing might have come about. But it wouldn't show it was legitimate, or that any of us had any duty to follow a moral precept that, after all, had only been programmed into us accidentaly, by means of the indifferent process of evolution. It could just as easily be something like the vestigial tail -- a thing to be gotten past and dropped when its temporary usefulness had been exceeded. Nietzsche definitely thought it was that. But most Atheists are not brave enough -- or, thank God, bad enough -- to follow Nietzsche on that.
Again, I ask you - how is it that philosophers have been seeking a definitive moral system applicable in all circumstances for thousands of years, and haven't managed to create one? While at the same time - everyone has a sense of right and wrong? Because morality is fundamentally a sense ingrained into us by evolution. And it's a sense that long predates intellectual intelligence. Watch a monkey being cheated at cards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoTJ7IjP6Bg&t=1s
The absence of religion is not an absence of morality
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmNo. It's just the end of any possibility of legitimating morality. And that's equivalent to the same thing...at least for any rational person. Because a rational person will conclude that since morality is no more than an evolutionary contingency, his duty to follow it will fall away the minute it's no longer to his personal advantage to adhere to it.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmThat doesn't mean that the whole world will instantly become evil. In fact, Nietzsche knew that morality would continue long after the legitimate basis of it was dead. That's why, in his Madman's Tale, the madman throws down his lantern and exclaims, "I have come too early!" The word of God's death had not yet reached the townspeople, and the impications were still "afar off." But Nietzsche knew that they would come. They would come as soon as people actually stopped living as if God existed, and actually started living as if Atheism were true.


There's a massive amount of general consensus about what's right and wrong. It doesn't require studying, or faith - it's innate. Further, now we have law and democracy by which we decide on social values, and punish transgressors. There's no problem legitimating morality.
Believing the same thing unites people; justifies authority, law, and societal moral values.

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmWell, that's not particularly illuminating. Believing ANYTHING "unites people." And as for "authority," there are always two kinds: the legitimate and the illegitimate. As for "societal moral values," you're suddenly conceding the point I made above, and which Nietzsche also made...namely, that belief has a relationship to morality, and when God is "dead," as Dostoevsky noted, "everything is permissible."


Moral panic in face of Darwinism; by people who believed morality is God given in the burning bush sense of God given. Nietzsche imagines man was an amoral brute, but how could he have survived, raised young generation after generation - for millions of years. As the video shows, the moral sense is not even exclusively human. It's a trait of social animals, that they owe something to each other!
...the Watchmaker Argument...
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmI wasn't making that one.
And I'm not an atheist, so Dawkins isn't relevant.
I'm saying religion is a social contract.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmI suppose some people might view it that way. I never did. I still don't.
Your lack of awareness doesn't mean it didn't happen. The question isn't about what you think, but about what happened in evolutionary history. You are so vain. "I don't see it that way" - isn't an argument that it isn't so. All that means is you're blinkered by your faith!
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:36 pm Would you stipulate to those facts?
I will...if you also don't mind checking those other facts about Galileo I pointed out earlier...that it was only the Catholic hierarchy that did it, that they did it on his severe provocation, that he had supporters even among the Catholic clergy, that Galileo himself didn't have a scientific basis for his claim at the time...and so on. But that's all going to hurt its utility as a myth, of course.
totally amusing position, I have to say. Can your theory honestly be that the Catholic Church's (rather temporary and ineffective) silencing of Galileo caused modern technology to go awry and destroy the environment? I've found no credible historian of science who would say that's remotely right.
Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:56 pmYou're amused that we're barrelling toward extinction because we have no respect for science as truth?
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmNo. I'm just amused that anybody could think that was a good explanation.
You would say that though, wouldn't you?
Any historian would.
"Fear and Trembling" just screams upbeat party mix!
Oh, I see...you read the title, and think you understand the argument of it.

No, you don't, apparently. It's not a sad argument. It's actually pretty uplifting.
Again, I ask you - how is it that philosophers have been seeking a definitive moral system applicable in all circumstances for thousands of years, and haven't managed to create one?
Oh, that's a good question, but one with a very good answer. But before I respond, I think I'd better get clear exactly what you mean. And the best way to do that is to ask you how it is you've decided there's no "definitive moral system applicable in all circumstances." What observation, thought, idea or bit of history has convinced you that that is so?
There's a massive amount of general consensus about what's right and wrong.
Actually, there is not. If you check out the current literature, you'll discover that the agreement today among moral philosophers, sociologists, ethicists and political philosophers is that we are facing a thing called "incommensurability." What "incommensurability" entails is that different people are believing in different moral precepts; and that these precepts are so different and so opposed that it is inevitable that a "win" for one side entails a "loss" for some other moral system. And the vexed question among policy-makers today is how to deal with what they call "the fact of incommensurable pluralism."

There was a time when people thought you might be right about that. But that was back in the day when "diversity" only meant the spectrum between, say, Jewish and Catholic. This is when they came up with the theory of the "Judeo-Christian consensus," as Dewey and others called it. And they hoped that it would mean that some minimal common morality could be found that would allow society to continue peacefully, whether it was Catholics, Jews, agnostics or Atheists that were in the mix.

What killed that was advancing Pluralism. Once a whole bunch of other moral cultures were added into the mix, it became apparent that the Judeo-Christian consensus idea didn't work for most of the world's ideological systems. (In fact, it hadn't even really worked for the Jewish-to-Catholic sort of range, and it had only been close enough to mute criticism for a short while.)

So no, there's no such general agreement on morals. But if there were, the interpretation might actually work against you. For it would suggest that whatever created the word encoded morals into human makeup. And that would actually be a powerful argument against that force being impersonal or unintelligent.
There's no problem legitimating morality.
Every moral philosopher knows that's not true. One obvious example would be Jurgen Habermas's "The Legitimation Crisis." Or you could check out "The Legitimacy of the Modern Age," by Blumenberg. David Hume raised the Is-Ought problem, which is undermines secular legitimation of morals, a situation that has been rightly called "the major problem in moral philosophy of the modern age," and is related to the Naturalistic Fallacy, actually.

The point is simple, though, really: "evolution" is an "is" description. It does not imply an "ought." People evolving up from the primordial ooze have no duty to follow mindlessly and contrary to their own interests, some impulse from the dawn of time, even if we adorn it with a title like "morality."
Moral panic in face of Darwinism;
Pause for a second. Why would there be a "panic" occasioned by Darwinism, if evolution grounds morals? It wouldn't make sense. And yet, it does.
I'm not an atheist, so Dawkins isn't relevant.
I'm not quoting him as an authority. I was merely pointing out that the thing I said, that the Creation suggests the Creator, is something so obvious that even an outright Atheist like Dawkins admits its true.

I marvel that you don't realize it. It's obvious even to the most ardent opponents of religion.
I'm saying religion is a social contract.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmI suppose some people might view it that way. I never did. I still don't.
Your lack of awareness doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Yeah, it does. If I had made a "contract," I would know it.

In fact, I can see you don't know what a "social contract" actually is.

"Social contracts" are an heuristic, not a historical idea. They're a fictive way of describing how to distribute particular goods. But if you press them on it, then even Contractarians recognize there was no actual time when such a contract was made; they just suggest it's a useful way to imagine the situation, so as to calculate what might be equitable: they know they can't point to a particular time and place where any such thing ever happened.

They just think it's a useful heuristic. They're wrong, I think; but even they don't claim there's really any such thing. Here's Stanford on that:

"Some points of controversy among contractarians concern the role of the initial situation in the theory: is it to be considered an actual historical situation, a possible historical moment, or is the contract situation completely hypothetical? David Hume (1987/1777, 470–1) was the first to raise the decisive objection to any normative moral or political theory based on a historical contract: the consent of one’s ancestors do not bind oneself. Contemporary political philosophers have raised similar concerns about a hypothetical contract: insofar as the agreement is hypothetical then it cannot be said to represent agreement at all (Dworkin 1975). In response to these sorts of objections, some contractarians defend the hypothetical contract on heuristic grounds by insisting that the point of the contract device is not to directly bind the contractors but rather to provide a kind of thought experiment by which to discover the requirements of practical rationality (Gauthier 1986, ch. VII). That is, they argue that if one is rational, and among rational others in circumstances in which agreement is both possible and beneficial, then rationality requires that one abide by the terms of the contract."

In other words, even Contractarians admit that the social contract is an heuristic, not a historical reality. So when you suggest that people believe in "religion" because of a "social contract," you're actually attributing causal effect to something that actually never existed, or else you're suggesting they use an heuristic that none of them actually make use of at all. :shock:

So that's just obviously wrong, whatever else can be said.

Well, where do we go from here, V?
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Christianity

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:08 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:39 am ...if he had murdered Christians [with evilly and violently intents] after entering into a contract with God/Jesus...
It wasn't a "contract." It's a change of person, a "new birth" to use Jesus' own language.

Changed persons are different. Reborn persons are different. Paul was totally different.

Here's what the Bible says:

"How blessed is he whose wrongdoing is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered!"
(Ps. 32:1)

Notice, it doesn't say, "How blessed is the man who has never sinned." Notice also, it doesn't say, "How blessed is the man who has become so perfect he never sins now."

As the old saying goes, "Christians aren't perfect -- just forgiven."

Salvation is from sin. That means that it's a thing for people who are not only not perfect, but who have actual sins that need forgiving. The first step is realizing the obvious: that that is you. :shock:
Paul did change [his psychological state] and thereafter he entered into a contract [covenant] with God/Jesus.

No matter how, explicitly or implicitly, Paul, after his change, would have surrendered and believed in Jesus as Son of God, i.e. in acceptance of the offer of God re John 3:16.
As such Paul like any other Christian would have to enter into a contract [covenant] with God/Jesus.
God is omniscient and omnipresent, so God knows everything, i.e. Paul acceptance of the offer.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Christianity

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:15 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:56 am Killing enemies is a non-compliance of the term of the contract and no genuine Christian will commit such a non-compliance for fear he will lose the assurance of eternal life in heaven.
You're right that no Christian should commit this sort of "non-compliance." But you're wrong about the motive. It's not out of "fear he will lose the assurance of eternal life in heaven," but rather "out of gratitude for what God has done for him, and out of the new life created and sustained by God."

I get it: never having experienced it, you don't know what Christian life is like from the inside. Naturally, you assume it must work the same as things work for everybody else. I would too, if I were in your position; because we all use our own experience as the basis to make assumptions about how other people are living and our own motivations to make conclusions about what motivates others.

The thing you don't understand -- and can't, at the moment -- is that it doesn't work like that. Knowing God changes everything. If you don't know God, you can't know that. But if you did, you would know. And there's no reason you couldn't...unless you choose not to.
Basically the primary reason effective for all Christians is out of their duty and obligation to comply with the terms of the contract, i.e. the overriding maxim 'to love all, even enemies' thus killing any human would be a non-compliance.

However the fear factor do come into play when certain Christians are triggered by the natural impulses to kill, e.g. in rage, jealousy, revenge, forced to go to war, etc.
Some % of Christians are inherently psychopaths with natural impulses to kill but they are held back for fear of non-compliance and lost of the assurance to heaven with eternal life.
Vitruvius
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Re: Christianity

Post by Vitruvius »

Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:36 pm Would you stipulate to those facts?
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:33 am I will...if you also don't mind checking those other facts about Galileo I pointed out earlier...that it was only the Catholic hierarchy that did it, that they did it on his severe provocation, that he had supporters even among the Catholic clergy, that Galileo himself didn't have a scientific basis for his claim at the time...and so on. But that's all going to hurt its utility as a myth, of course.
You're simply wrong that he didn't have a scientific basis. He designed and built a telescope to directly observe the motions of the planets and using a "hypothetico-deductive methodology" proved the Copernican system, relative to the Ptolemaic system. He was antagonistic; for example, he put the Church's position in the mouth of a character he called Simplicio - which was arguably dedicated to an Italian noble, but means stupid in the common tongue. He did have supporters in the Church, but others - like you, wouldn't even look through the telescope.
totally amusing position, I have to say. Can your theory honestly be that the Catholic Church's (rather temporary and ineffective) silencing of Galileo caused modern technology to go awry and destroy the environment? I've found no credible historian of science who would say that's remotely right.
I'm saying it!
Vitruvius wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:56 pmYou're amused that we're barrelling toward extinction because we have no respect for science as truth?
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmNo. I'm just amused that anybody could think that was a good explanation.
You would say that though, wouldn't you?
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:33 amAny historian would.
So you know what "any historian" would think? No, you don't, but even if you did, I disagree.

"Fear and Trembling" just screams upbeat party mix!
Oh, I see...you read the title, and think you understand the argument of it.
I read it at university. I hated it. I also hated Heidegger, but I couldn't give you a precis of the argument in Being and Time either, without going back to my notes.
No, you don't, apparently. It's not a sad argument. It's actually pretty uplifting.
If you're a believer, maybe.
Again, I ask you - how is it that philosophers have been seeking a definitive moral system applicable in all circumstances for thousands of years, and haven't managed to create one?
Oh, that's a good question, but one with a very good answer. But before I respond, I think I'd better get clear exactly what you mean. And the best way to do that is to ask you how it is you've decided there's no "definitive moral system applicable in all circumstances." What observation, thought, idea or bit of history has convinced you that that is so?
I asked you first, and I've asked you twice, and I still haven't got an answer. Why not just give me this great answer? You say there is one, lay it one me!
There's a massive amount of general consensus about what's right and wrong.
Actually, there is not. If you check out the current literature, you'll discover that the agreement today among moral philosophers, sociologists, ethicists and political philosophers is that we are facing a thing called "incommensurability." What "incommensurability" entails is that different people are believing in different moral precepts; and that these precepts are so different and so opposed that it is inevitable that a "win" for one side entails a "loss" for some other moral system. And the vexed question among policy-makers today is how to deal with what they call "the fact of incommensurable pluralism."
If you take two infants, and give one ten sweets, and the other two sweets, first - the kid with two sweets will cry. Second thing to expect, is the kid with ten sweets will share, but not quite evenly. They will retain a slight advantage for themselves. I think that's Piaget - developmental psychology. That's what I'm talking about. You're talking about morality in a complex, adult world; moral precepts, not the moral sense.
So no, there's no such general agreement on morals. But if there were, the interpretation might actually work against you. For it would suggest that whatever created the word encoded morals into human makeup. And that would actually be a powerful argument against that force being impersonal or unintelligent.
Work against me in what way? Why are you still trying paint me an atheist? I've told you a dozen times I'm agnostic, but I at least allow - in the anthropic principle sense, that we live in a moral universe.
There's no problem legitimating morality.
Every moral philosopher knows that's not true.
Every environmentalist knows that we must reduce consumption to secure a sustainable future, but magma energy proves that's not the case. I know I'm arguing something different. There's no need to point that out, nor is there any value in doing so.
One obvious example would be Jurgen Habermas's "The Legitimation Crisis." Or you could check out "The Legitimacy of the Modern Age," by Blumenberg. David Hume raised the Is-Ought problem, which is undermines secular legitimation of morals, a situation that has been rightly called "the major problem in moral philosophy of the modern age," and is related to the Naturalistic Fallacy, actually.
Habermas's legitimation crisis is about political legitimacy, not moral legitimacy. I'm unfamiliar with Blumenberg. Hume however, was downright wrong. He says:

"In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence."

Then how can he explain the ubiquity of this way of thinking? If human beings are imbued with a moral sense, this would be entirely natural and right - that we establish the facts, and draw moral implications from the facts. You are bound to agree on the facts, because they're facts. You may have different values - and so believe the facts have different moral implications, and that's when we take a vote.
The point is simple, though, really: "evolution" is an "is" description. It does not imply an "ought." People evolving up from the primordial ooze have no duty to follow mindlessly and contrary to their own interests, some impulse from the dawn of time, even if we adorn it with a title like "morality."
No. It implies a sense of ought and ought not.
Moral panic in face of Darwinism;
Pause for a second. Why would there be a "panic" occasioned by Darwinism, if evolution grounds morals? It wouldn't make sense. And yet, it does.
Because it was believed that religion is the well spring of morality, and that it was disproven by science. Religion is not the well spring of morality. Evolution is. Nietzsche's understanding of evolution extends no further than 'survival of the fittest.' From this he implies nihilism and will to power. He's wrong. Jane Goodall observed chimpanzee troops and showed they hierarchies, food sharing, reciprocal grooming, tribal allegiance and betrayal, and so forth. Don't misunderstand. Chimpanzees are wild and dangerous animals, and their morality is not human morality, but they have hierarchical social structures, and rules of conduct all the same.
I'm not an atheist, so Dawkins isn't relevant.
I'm not quoting him as an authority. I was merely pointing out that the thing I said, that the Creation suggests the Creator, is something so obvious that even an outright Atheist like Dawkins admits its true.
He's not saying it's true. He's saying it's a reasonable thing for human beings to have concluded.
I'm saying religion is a social contract.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:53 pmI suppose some people might view it that way. I never did. I still don't.
Your lack of awareness doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Yeah, it does. If I had made a "contract," I would know it.
I marvel at you ability to misunderstand. It seems almost deliberate - but then, as they say, never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence! Did you write the Bible? Were you there at the Council of Nicaea in 33 AD? No, you were born into a society based on that social contract.
In fact, I can see you don't know what a "social contract" actually is.
That's low!
"Social contracts" are an heuristic, not a historical idea. They're a fictive way of describing how to distribute particular goods. But if you press them on it, then even Contractarians recognize there was no actual time when such a contract was made; they just suggest it's a useful way to imagine the situation, so as to calculate what might be equitable: they know they can't point to a particular time and place where any such thing ever happened.
I know.
They just think it's a useful heuristic. They're wrong, I think; but even they don't claim there's really any such thing. Here's Stanford on that:

"Some points of controversy among contractarians concern the role of the initial situation in the theory: is it to be considered an actual historical situation, a possible historical moment, or is the contract situation completely hypothetical? David Hume (1987/1777, 470–1) was the first to raise the decisive objection to any normative moral or political theory based on a historical contract: the consent of one’s ancestors do not bind oneself. Contemporary political philosophers have raised similar concerns about a hypothetical contract: insofar as the agreement is hypothetical then it cannot be said to represent agreement at all (Dworkin 1975). In response to these sorts of objections, some contractarians defend the hypothetical contract on heuristic grounds by insisting that the point of the contract device is not to directly bind the contractors but rather to provide a kind of thought experiment by which to discover the requirements of practical rationality (Gauthier 1986, ch. VII). That is, they argue that if one is rational, and among rational others in circumstances in which agreement is both possible and beneficial, then rationality requires that one abide by the terms of the contract."
Yeah, I know.
In other words, even Contractarians admit that the social contract is an heuristic, not a historical reality. So when you suggest that people believe in "religion" because of a "social contract," you're actually attributing causal effect to something that actually never existed, or else you're suggesting they use an heuristic that none of them actually make use of at all. :shock:

So that's just obviously wrong, whatever else can be said.
I disagree, because I believe hunter gatherer tribes joined together by adopting the same idea of God. The very foundation of civilisation is a religious social contract between hunter gatherer tribes.
Well, where do we go from here, V?
I suggest you raise your game! Drop the assumption that because I'm saying something different, it's from ignorance. Start actually reading and thinking about what I'm telling you!
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 6:52 am Basically the primary reason effective for all Christians is out of their duty and obligation to comply with the terms of the contract...
You keep saying the same wrong things, and no evidence, not even the words of Jesus Christ HImself, seem to change your mind even an iota. I find that suggestive of blind compulsion, rather than of thoughtful consideration. It seems evident you have trouble letting go of an idea once you've committed to it. Maybe you fear to be seen as having made a mistake, or maybe you just don't recognize mistakes, or maybe you're actually just compulsive. I can't tell.

But either way, the evidence is before you. I can't make you consider it. So I guess we're at an impasse: you are committed to the idea of "contract," and that idea is at least largely deceptive. However, I can't undeceive you, it seems. You're going to believe what you want to, I guess.

So there it stands.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Vitruvius wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:09 am
totally amusing position, I have to say. Can your theory honestly be that the Catholic Church's (rather temporary and ineffective) silencing of Galileo caused modern technology to go awry and destroy the environment? I've found no credible historian of science who would say that's remotely right.
I'm saying it!
I find that...implausible. Let's just say that.

You seem a bit irked. I can't imagine why. We're disagreeing, yes; but I'm not being unkind to you. I think we can be civil and disagree, can we not?
"Fear and Trembling" just screams upbeat party mix!
Oh, I see...you read the title, and think you understand the argument of it.
I read it at university. I hated it.
I don't find that surprising. The argument is for Christians, and in that context has massively positive content. I don't think somebody coming from outside that worldview would get it at all, and I'm sure it would seem frustrating, gratuitous, and of questionable purpose.
No, you don't, apparently. It's not a sad argument. It's actually pretty uplifting.
If you're a believer, maybe.
Actually, that's exactly right. Kierkegaard, unlike say, Sartre or Camus, has a Christian Existentialism. He's not interested in persuading those outside that worldview, I think. But if you understand that worldview, you find Kierkegaard very bracing and encouraging, actually. He was a very courageous loner, an an anomaly even in his own community; but he was one darn smart guy...and he sure saw some spectacular implications of the Christian worldview.

You don't have to like him. He wasn't really talking to "outsiders." But, if I can say this without offence, there's a lot there an "outsider" is just bound to miss.
Again, I ask you - how is it that philosophers have been seeking a definitive moral system applicable in all circumstances for thousands of years, and haven't managed to create one?
Oh, that's a good question, but one with a very good answer. But before I respond, I think I'd better get clear exactly what you mean. And the best way to do that is to ask you how it is you've decided there's no "definitive moral system applicable in all circumstances." What observation, thought, idea or bit of history has convinced you that that is so?
I asked you first, and I've asked you twice, and I still haven't got an answer. Why not just give me this great answer?

Well, because I don't yet understand the question. I hesitate to answer by missing your point completely.

For example, would I be right if I were to assume that you take the disagreement between various human beings as evidence that there "is no definitive moral system"? That would be one possible reading; but it seems to me it would be uncharitable for me to take that reading (without your permission, of course) because it would be so easy to disprove. I don't want merely to knock down such a strawy version of your argument...that seems unkind...so I'm asking if you can clarify, so that I can deal with an argument you would make, not one you would not.

I don't think I can be more fair than that, can I?
There's a massive amount of general consensus about what's right and wrong.
Actually, there is not. If you check out the current literature, you'll discover that the agreement today among moral philosophers, sociologists, ethicists and political philosophers is that we are facing a thing called "incommensurability." What "incommensurability" entails is that different people are believing in different moral precepts; and that these precepts are so different and so opposed that it is inevitable that a "win" for one side entails a "loss" for some other moral system. And the vexed question among policy-makers today is how to deal with what they call "the fact of incommensurable pluralism."
Piaget - developmental psychology. That's what I'm talking about.
Oh. Moral Developmentalism.

I know Piaget. And in that field, you'll also want to know Kohlberg, who's probably more famous nowadays for it. But they've been debunked.

The first to do that was Kohlberg's own student, Carol Gilligan, who first showed that the K-P scheme was badly skewed against have the human population -- women -- who could never, on that scale, attain the values ranked highest. Kohlberg himself admitted that "moral development" was uneven, such that the vast majority of the population, even the males, could never attain to levels 3 or 4 morality...and thus, that even in a homogeneous population of males, not all persons would hold to the same values or moral standards.

So if you understand Moral Developmental theory, you know that it does NOT imply moral development is universal in outcome at all. It means quite the contrary -- that moral values among people are inevitably different and conflicting, being oriented toward different ends and different views of the essential moral goals.
So no, there's no such general agreement on morals. But if there were, the interpretation might actually work against you. For it would suggest that whatever created the word encoded morals into human makeup. And that would actually be a powerful argument against that force being impersonal or unintelligent.
Work against me in what way?
In that morals are not part of the empirical world. They're values, products of mind, not of mere physiology. And if they all turned out to be the same, it would argue that there was some sort of intelligence "writing the program", so to speak, of the human mind. There would really be no other way to explain a universal moral consensus, since the odds against such a thing happening by random chance would be astronomical.
I've told you a dozen times I'm agnostic, but I at least allow - in the anthropic principle sense, that we live in a moral universe.

The so-called "Anthropic Principle" is circular. Basically, when we boil it down, it says, "We have to be in this kind of universe, because this is the kind of universe we're in." It doesn't take much to see that that is a hopeless pseudo-explanation.
There's no problem legitimating morality.
Every moral philosopher knows that's not true....One obvious example would be Jurgen Habermas's "The Legitimation Crisis." Or you could check out "The Legitimacy of the Modern Age," by Blumenberg. David Hume raised the Is-Ought problem, which is undermines secular legitimation of morals, a situation that has been rightly called "the major problem in moral philosophy of the modern age," and is related to the Naturalistic Fallacy, actually.
Habermas's legitimation crisis is about political legitimacy, not moral legitimacy.
Actually it's not. But political legitimation has exactly the same root problem that moral legitimation has: namely, the incapacity to say why we are duty-bound to accept any of its pronouncements as legitimate. Just as all governments have no more authority than they have power, morals in a secular context have no more scope than the power of those who believe in them to force their will on others. In both cases, the means to show by neutral, universal arguments that a particular political project or moral claim is absolute, necessary unconditionally, or morally obligatory simply do not exist in a secular worldview.
Hume however, was downright wrong. He says:

"In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence."
You've got the right quotation. Good.

I'm not friend of Hume, obviously: but I have to give him credit for this much -- that if secularism were true, Hume would be dead right. There is no link between an "is" statement and an "ought" that can be explained.
Then how can he explain the ubiquity of this way of thinking?
That's merely an "is" fact. Or, to put it another way, "It IS the case that many people believe in some (different) kinds of morality." But does the fact that they believe some kind of morality go even one step towards showing that they OUGHT to? No. Is there any reason, based on the fact that they presently believe in some (different) kinds of morality that they MUST CONTINUE to do so? No.

Hume can easily tell the story another way. He can say, "Suppose morality is like the flat earth theory -- a thing that fools once believed, and which, like the flat-earth theory, maybe even had some survival value for them; why should we moderns now continue to delude ourselves in that way? Are we not now more scientific? Are we not now smarter than to imagine we owe it to keep going with the foolish imaginings of he past?"

It's not, of course, that I believe Hume would be right to say that. But it would put a heavy burden on any secular moralist to prove that Hume's new version was not the truth. One couldn't simply retort, "Well, that's what people think!" Hume would laugh, and say, "Yes, fools think all kinds of things. But we need not be fools, need we?"
If human beings are imbued with a moral sense,
If humans are "imbued" with a moral sense, and that moral sense is any more reliable than the once-universal belief in the flatness of the earth, then that fact in itself needs a causal explanation. What a strange thing if billions of human beings should find that, regardless of heritage, lineage, circumstances, society, time, and all other factors, every human being was mysteriously programmed to believe in exactly the same moral precepts! It would be more odd than if a casino wheel landed on "00" a billion times in a row. And it would be just as hard to explain as a product of evolutionary time-plus-chance, would it not?
...we establish the facts, and draw moral implications from the facts.

Facts aren't "moral." They're just facts, if we live in a morally-indifferent universe with no God. They're cold, they're hard, and they imply nothing beyond themselves. Hume was right about that.
The point is simple, though, really: "evolution" is an "is" description. It does not imply an "ought." People evolving up from the primordial ooze have no duty to follow mindlessly and contrary to their own interests, some impulse from the dawn of time, even if we adorn it with a title like "morality."
No. It implies a sense of ought and ought not.

What is the "it" in your sentence? "Evolution"?

Well, let's see that. Let's put together a simple syllogism, linking Evolution as a presupposition to any moral claim. Let's take, for example, "Thou shalt not murder" -- that's probably as close to an uncontroversial moral claim as we can get, right? If you don't like it, choose another...such as an interdiction of adultery or theft, maybe. You pick it.

Please now, show me how Evolution means it's wrong for us to murder (or whatever).
I'm not an atheist, so Dawkins isn't relevant.
I'm not quoting him as an authority. I was merely pointing out that the thing I said, that the Creation suggests the Creator, is something so obvious that even an outright Atheist like Dawkins admits its true.
He's not saying it's true. He's saying it's a reasonable thing for human beings to have concluded.
That makes the point I was defending. All I said was that Creation suggests the Creator. You denied it did. I pointed out that even somebody so Anti-Theistic as Dawkins concedes it does. And you, as you said, are not as extremely opposed to Theism as Dawkins. You're more agnostic, and so ought to be more open to that admission than he -- not less -- one would think.
In fact, I can see you don't know what a "social contract" actually is.
That's low!

I'm not being "low." It's evidently true, and I needed to point it out because you accused me of conforming to a "social contract." I don't know how I could dismiss that alllegation without correcting the misunderstanding you articulated.

And then, when I point out the fact that "social contractarianism" is a mere heuristic, and not one Theists believe, you actually say,
I know.
Well, if you knew that, then it's very hard to see why you made the allegation in the first place, surely. You are then admitting you know you were blaming something I couldn't possibly believe for the existence of my beliefs. That doesn't make a ton of sense.

Look, I get that you're somewhat urgent to find a way to dismiss what I'm saying. And I take that without ire. I understand that it's easy, even natural, to resort to something ad hominem, such as "Well, his parents were Christians, so he must be indoctrinated, and therefore, what he says can never be right anyway," or "He's in thrall to some sort of indoctrination from the social past," or something like that. It allows one to dismiss in toto that which one finds difficult to address or refute In detail. I get that.

But it's worth considering this: the truth of a speaker's utterance is not dependent on the character of the speaker. If I shout "Fire" and you say, "Yeah, well, I don't believe you," that does not tell you whether or not your house is actually on fire. You might burn anyway. You should check, and establish the truth of my outcry independent of your assessment of me.

To put it another way, even the Devil has to tell the truth sometimes. A lying lawyer, being deliberately deceptive, has to tell a lot of truth, in fact, in order to make his lies the less detectable. So were I nothing but a fount of lies and indoctrination, that would still not tell you which of my particular claims were true, and which were lies. You would still need good reasons for accepting or rejecting any proposition I offered, or you would be at risk of dismissing something true on nothing more than the shaky grounds that you didn't trust the speaker.

Which you can do. If you don't trust me to say what I believe or report what is true, there's probably little point in us talking at all, of course. But I'm hopeful, as I said above, that we can be mutually respectful and hear each other out. And I'm optimistic you can see the fairness of that.
Vitruvius
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Re: Christianity

Post by Vitruvius »

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Vitruvius
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Joined: Mon May 10, 2021 9:46 am

Re: Christianity

Post by Vitruvius »

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Last edited by Vitruvius on Fri Sep 24, 2021 6:04 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Vitruvius wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:33 pm My writing always has a robust tone. Everyone thinks I'm angry all the time, but that's only true deep down!
Okay, good...you've still got your sense of humour.

The problem with putting on the angry tone, of course, is that it has multiple interpretations. Often, it doesn't so much sound forceful and passionate as it can sound irate, petty and even nervous. Sometimes it even signals a red herring -- emotion being substituted for substance. So I don't know if I'd be inclined to use it in contexts where the intended irony of it is not apparent.
Vitruvius
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Re: Christianity

Post by Vitruvius »

totally amusing position, I have to say. Can your theory honestly be that the Catholic Church's (rather temporary and ineffective) silencing of Galileo caused modern technology to go awry and destroy the environment? I've found no credible historian of science who would say that's remotely right.
I'm saying it!
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmI find that...implausible. Let's just say that.

You seem a bit irked. I can't imagine why. We're disagreeing, yes; but I'm not being unkind to you. I think we can be civil and disagree, can we not?

My writing always has a robust tone. Everyone thinks I'm angry all the time, but that's only true deep down!


Oh, I see...you read the title, and think you understand the argument of it.
Vitruvius wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:09 amI read it at university. I hated it.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmI don't find that surprising. The argument is for Christians, and in that context has massively positive content. I don't think somebody coming from outside that worldview would get it at all, and I'm sure it would seem frustrating, gratuitous, and of questionable purpose.
It's vile psychological manipulation: "Infinite resignation is the last stage before faith" - I was stressed and depressed enough at the time. What it led me to was deeper understanding of how religion exploits people at their most vulnerable: birth, death, marriage. It's so left wing - misery vampires both.
No, you don't, apparently. It's not a sad argument. It's actually pretty uplifting.
If you're a believer, maybe.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmActually, that's exactly right. Kierkegaard, unlike say, Sartre or Camus, has a Christian Existentialism. He's not interested in persuading those outside that worldview, I think. But if you understand that worldview, you find Kierkegaard very bracing and encouraging, actually. He was a very courageous loner, an an anomaly even in his own community; but he was one darn smart guy...and he sure saw some spectacular implications of the Christian worldview. You don't have to like him. He wasn't really talking to "outsiders." But, if I can say this without offence, there's a lot there an "outsider" is just bound to miss.
I don't get this "offence" thing. You'd have to go a very, very long way to offend me. You can annoy me easy enough. But offence? Saying "there's a lot an outsider would miss" is barely even irksome. I agree; it would have been easier for me to abandon my intellectual objectivity, and put myself on the winning side of Kirkegaard's assault.
Again, I ask you - how is it that philosophers have been seeking a definitive moral system applicable in all circumstances for thousands of years, and haven't managed to create one?
Oh, that's a good question, but one with a very good answer. But before I respond, I think I'd better get clear exactly what you mean. And the best way to do that is to ask you how it is you've decided there's no "definitive moral system applicable in all circumstances." What observation, thought, idea or bit of history has convinced you that that is so?
Vitruvius wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:09 amI asked you first, and I've asked you twice, and I still haven't got an answer. Why not just give me this great answer?
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmWell, because I don't yet understand the question. I hesitate to answer by missing your point completely.


That's not true. You're quite happy to misunderstand almost everything else I say. What you want to say is "Christianity is the definitive moral system
- whether people know it or not!" But know that won't float, and are unwilling to expose your faith to that kind of scrutiny. You can't hide anything from me - I have x-ray specs!
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmFor example, would I be right if I were to assume that you take the disagreement between various human beings as evidence that there "is no definitive moral system"? That would be one possible reading; but it seems to me it would be uncharitable for me to take that reading (without your permission, of course) because it would be so easy to disprove. I don't want merely to knock down such a strawy version of your argument...that seems unkind...so I'm asking if you can clarify, so that I can deal with an argument you would make, not one you would not
There's no definitive moral system because it's not possible, and that's the conclusion I'm trying to lead you toward - in order to show that morality is fundamentally a sense, and religion, politics, law, economics are expressions of that innate moral sense. I don't think I can be more fair than that, can I?
There's a massive amount of general consensus about what's right and wrong.
Actually, there is not. If you check out the current literature, you'll discover that the agreement today among moral philosophers, sociologists, ethicists and political philosophers is that we are facing a thing called "incommensurability." What "incommensurability" entails is that different people are believing in different moral precepts; and that these precepts are so different and so opposed that it is inevitable that a "win" for one side entails a "loss" for some other moral system. And the vexed question among policy-makers today is how to deal with what they call "the fact of incommensurable pluralism."
Vitruvius wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:09 amPiaget - developmental psychology. That's what I'm talking about.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmOh. Moral Developmentalism. I know Piaget. And in that field, you'll also want to know Kohlberg, who's probably more famous nowadays for it. But they've been debunked. The first to do that was Kohlberg's own student, Carol Gilligan, who first showed that the K-P scheme was badly skewed against have the human population -- women -- who could never, on that scale, attain the values ranked highest. Kohlberg himself admitted that "moral development" was uneven, such that the vast majority of the population, even the males, could never attain to levels 3 or 4 morality...and thus, that even in a homogeneous population of males, not all persons would hold to the same values or moral standards. So if you understand Moral Developmental theory, you know that it does NOT imply moral development is universal in outcome at all. It means quite the contrary -- that moral values among people are inevitably different and conflicting, being oriented toward different ends and different views of the essential moral goals.
I hate how you leave your argument in full, reduce mine to one line - often missing the salient point, and then bang on afterward, again at great length. Further, you stick a label on my argument then attack the label. If Moral Developmentalism were my argument; I'd say so. My argument is based in evolution; not moral development of the individual - but evolutionary pre-disposition.
So no, there's no such general agreement on morals. But if there were, the interpretation might actually work against you. For it would suggest that whatever created the word encoded morals into human makeup. And that would actually be a powerful argument against that force being impersonal or unintelligent.
Work against me in what way?
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmIn that morals are not part of the empirical world. They're values, products of mind, not of mere physiology. And if they all turned out to be the same, it would argue that there was some sort of intelligence "writing the program", so to speak, of the human mind. There would really be no other way to explain a universal moral consensus, since the odds against such a thing happening by random chance would be astronomical.
What are the chances that a bird would build a nest before it lays eggs? How does it know? How it does it know it's going to lay eggs? And how does it know how to build a nest? Is there some computer program running birds - like in the matrix? No. It's because those that didn't build nests are extinct. Similarly, tribes that didn't pull together, share food, groom each other, fight together, respect their elders, guard their females and young - are extinct.
I've told you a dozen times I'm agnostic, but I at least allow - in the anthropic principle sense, that we live in a moral universe.

The so-called "Anthropic Principle" is circular. Basically, when we boil it down, it says, "We have to be in this kind of universe, because this is the kind of universe we're in." It doesn't take much to see that that is a hopeless pseudo-explanation.[/quote]

The Anthropic Principle is a lot more than that, but it's whole thing I don't want to get into. I'm just trying to give you the sense that, a universe that allows for, even requires morality - is a moral universe, and one might argue, perhaps that implies the existence of God. I don't close the door on it. It's an interesting speculation, but no more than that.

There's no problem legitimating morality.
Every moral philosopher knows that's not true....One obvious example would be Jurgen Habermas's "The Legitimation Crisis." Or you could check out "The Legitimacy of the Modern Age," by Blumenberg. David Hume raised the Is-Ought problem, which is undermines secular legitimation of morals, a situation that has been rightly called "the major problem in moral philosophy of the modern age," and is related to the Naturalistic Fallacy, actually.
Habermas's legitimation crisis is about political legitimacy, not moral legitimacy.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmActually it's not.
Actually, it is.

"Legitimation crisis refers to a decline in the confidence of administrative functions, institutions, or leadership. The term was first introduced in 1973 by Jürgen Habermas, a German sociologist and philosopher. Habermas expanded upon the concept, claiming that with a legitimation crisis, an institution or organization does not have the administrative capabilities to maintain or establish structure…"
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmBut political legitimation has exactly the same root problem that moral legitimation has: namely, the incapacity to say why we are duty-bound to accept any of its pronouncements as legitimate. Just as all governments have no more authority than they have power, morals in a secular context have no more scope than the power of those who believe in them to force their will on others. In both cases, the means to show by neutral, universal arguments that a particular political project or moral claim is absolute, necessary unconditionally, or morally obligatory simply do not exist in a secular worldview.
You're pitching at windmills in several senses here. First it's "labelism" again. Slap a label on it, and attack the label. You're putting others words in my mouth. I'm a philosopher, I'm not a parrot. Second, you refuse to address the idea of the moral sense, and keep demanding definitive and authoritative moral precepts, my argument recognises and shows are not possible. In short, you're addressing the wrong question - because you think I'm a parrot.
Hume however, was downright wrong. He says:

"In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence."
You've got the right quotation. Good.
Not condescending at all!
I'm not friend of Hume, obviously: but I have to give him credit for this much -- that if secularism were true, Hume would be dead right. There is no link between an "is" statement and an "ought" that can be explained.
Yes there is. It's just not a direct relation. Between is and ought - there's 5 million years of evolution in which morality proved an advantage to the individual within the tribe, and the tribe composed of such individuals.
Then how can he explain the ubiquity of this way of thinking?
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmThat's merely an "is" fact. Or, to put it another way, "It IS the case that many people believe in some (different) kinds of morality." But does the fact that they believe some kind of morality go even one step towards showing that they OUGHT to? No. Is there any reason, based on the fact that they presently believe in some (different) kinds of morality that they MUST CONTINUE to do so? No.
One commonly held implication of Hume's observation is that no list of facts necessitates a moral value. I agree. I accept that entirely. However, when presented with a list of facts, people tend to draw the same moral conclusions. That's because they're imbued with a moral sense. Hume was wrong. The ubiquity of this mode of thought is explained by my approach, but it doesn't lead to definitive moral precepts. In my view, the 'is' of biological evolution leads to the 'ought' of the moral sense.
If human beings are imbued with a moral sense,
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmIf humans are "imbued" with a moral sense, and that moral sense is any more reliable than the once-universal belief in the flatness of the earth, then that fact in itself needs a causal explanation. What a strange thing if billions of human beings should find that, regardless of heritage, lineage, circumstances, society, time, and all other factors, every human being was mysteriously programmed to believe in exactly the same moral precepts! It would be more odd than if a casino wheel landed on "00" a billion times in a row. And it would be just as hard to explain as a product of evolutionary time-plus-chance, would it not?
Moral precepts, yes, moral sense no!
Well, let's see that. Let's put together a simple syllogism, linking Evolution as a presupposition to any moral claim. Let's take, for example, "Thou shalt not murder" -- that's probably as close to an uncontroversial moral claim as we can get, right? If you don't like it, choose another...such as an interdiction of adultery or theft, maybe. You pick it. Please now, show me how Evolution means it's wrong for us to murder (or whatever).
Do you think it's right to murder? No? There you are then!
I'm not an atheist, so Dawkins isn't relevant.
I'm not quoting him as an authority. I was merely pointing out that the thing I said, that the Creation suggests the Creator, is something so obvious that even an outright Atheist like Dawkins admits its true.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmHe's not saying it's true. He's saying it's a reasonable thing for human beings to have concluded.
That makes the point I was defending. All I said was that Creation suggests the Creator. You denied it did. I pointed out that even somebody so Anti-Theistic as Dawkins concedes it does. And you, as you said, are not as extremely opposed to Theism as Dawkins. You're more agnostic, and so ought to be more open to that admission than he -- not less -- one would think.
I know I don't know if God exists or not.
In fact, I can see you don't know what a "social contract" actually is.
That's low!
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmI'm not being "low." It's evidently true, and I needed to point it out because you accused me of conforming to a "social contract." I don't know how I could dismiss that alllegation without correcting the misunderstanding you articulated.
You're religious, and I'm saying religion is a social contract - whether you know it or not. It's the politics of our dim distant ancestors. Religion was invented to unite hunter gatherer tribes in multi tribal social groups.
And then, when I point out the fact that "social contractarianism" is a mere heuristic, and not one Theists believe, you actually say, "I know."
I know what social contractarians say.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:18 pmWell, if you knew that, then it's very hard to see why you made the allegation in the first place, surely. You are then admitting you know you were blaming something I couldn't possibly believe for the existence of my beliefs. That doesn't make a ton of sense.
Look, I get that you're somewhat urgent to find a way to dismiss what I'm saying.
Then you're delusional. I'm kicking your arse up and down; and if you're weren't so full yourself you'd see that.
And I take that without ire. I understand that it's easy, even natural, to resort to something ad hominem, such as "Well, his parents were Christians, so he must be indoctrinated, and therefore, what he says can never be right anyway," or "He's in thrall to some sort of indoctrination from the social past," or something like that. It allows one to dismiss in toto that which one finds difficult to address or refute In detail. I get that.
Similarly, with all due respect, you're kidding yourself. Overwhelmingly, children adopt the faith of their parents - as you have done. Is that just an extraordinary coincidence? Or is that the consequence of childhood indoctrination? So if you say: my parents were Christian, and I'm a Chirstian - is it not reasonable to suggest you got it from them? No, you protest - I'm a free agent who came to these conclusion on my own. Hilarious!
But it's worth considering this: the truth of a speaker's utterance is not dependent on the character of the speaker. If I shout "Fire" and you say, "Yeah, well, I don't believe you," that does not tell you whether or not your house is actually on fire. You might burn anyway. You should check, and establish the truth of my outcry independent of your assessment of me.

To put it another way, even the Devil has to tell the truth sometimes. A lying lawyer, being deliberately deceptive, has to tell a lot of truth, in fact, in order to make his lies the less detectable. So were I nothing but a fount of lies and indoctrination, that would still not tell you which of my particular claims were true, and which were lies. You would still need good reasons for accepting or rejecting any proposition I offered, or you would be at risk of dismissing something true on nothing more than the shaky grounds that you didn't trust the speaker.

Which you can do. If you don't trust me to say what I believe or report what is true, there's probably little point in us talking at all, of course. But I'm hopeful, as I said above, that we can be mutually respectful and hear each other out. And I'm optimistic you can see the fairness of that.
The difference between us is - if there's something that's true, I'll accept it no matter what. I don't have a faith to defend. I have reasoned conclusions. If you were honest, you'd accept that's what you do in consideration of anything I say, you look immediately to the implications for your faith. You'll reject facts that run contrary to your faith, never mind theoretical perspectives, and think you're right because you've defended your faith. That's what happened to Galileo. But it moves!
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