Help me get this straight

[Zzyzx]

.
Correct me if any of the following are wrong in your case or in the case of Christianity in general

1. You (generic term) deny that a series of small changes can produce big changes over time (evolution and speciation) but accept that an invisible, undetectable "god" poofed the universe into existence.

2. You doubt the honesty and accuracy of scientists worldwide studying anthropology concerning the origin and development of humans but trust the word of unidentified religion promoters who wrote thousands of years ago claiming to know that humans were "created" in present form

3. You dismiss the conclusions of astronomers and astrophysicists who study the universe but accept the claims of preachers who do not study such things and accept the conclusions of ancients who thought the Earth was the center of the solar system and the universe

4. You trust the word of ancient writers who claim that dead bodies came back to life but doubt the word of forensic biologists who say that death is irreversible

5. You propose that scientists and Atheists conspire against religion but do not acknowledge the possibility that religion fanatics conspire to promote your favorite religion

6. You declare that thousands of proposed gods are false but claim to have chosen a favorite that you know is real (with odds of 0.0005 of being correct)

7. You claim that your God is infinitely intelligent but also claim to know about its desires and requirements or its thinking and emotions

8. You critique and criticize the work of scientists who spend decades in advanced study without having studied the subject yourself beyond high school or television level

9. You claim that Christians follow a superior moral code even though statistics on rates of incarceration, divorce and abortion by Christians demonstrate otherwise

10. You accept the benefits provided by science (including modern medicine) but reject any findings that conflict with your chosen religious beliefs

11. You reject tales of competing gods performing superhuman feats but accept tales of your favorite God doing the same things (performing "miracles")

12. You declare that competing religions are phony or false or misguided but are convinced that your chosen religion is real and provides "the one true path to salvation"

13. You realize that humans are imperfect / flawed / "evil" but claim they were created by an omniscient, omnipotent God who could do no wrong and make no mistakes

14. You reject information from geologists that indicates that the Earth is billions of years old but accept opinions of preachers and ancient religion promoters who claim it is thousands of years old

15. You claim that "science does not have all the answers" so religion must be true (God of the Gaps)

16. You demand evidence for anything that conflicts with chosen religious beliefs but furnish no evidence (beyond testimonials and opinions) that support those beliefs

Questions for debate:

A) Do any of the above make sense?

B) Do any of the above NOT apply to your religious beliefs / theological position?

[scourge99]

[Replying to post 23 by scourge99]

For example, there is no scientific answer for "should i buy my wife roses tonight?" or "what color of car should i purchase"

How about ethics? see above post.

Depends on who you are.

Religionists seem to believe that holy books and prophets are the basis for ethics. They are mistaken. Ethics is about what is wrong and right and more importantly WHY it is wrong or right. Merely following dictates and rules is not ethics.

As for myself i determine right and wrong based on empathy, a form of consequentialism (not strict), and probably a few other conflicting bases. But such determinations require input from the real world. More importantly, the study of the real world, I.E., science.


Many people, myself included, tend to engage in black and white thinking. We like to simplify things and put them in neat little boxes. To say "this belongs in the philosophy box" and "this belongs to the science box". And many time that works and helps us clarify our thinking. But it can also cause us to make mistakes by presuming that there is no cross-domain areas. Ethics is one such cross-domain area. My ethics are based in philosophy but informed by the study of the world (science).

because the universe acts in a consistent predictable fashion. Its really that simple.

Uh... ok.... why does it act in this fashion? Same question restated.

No, that is a new question

Just like "how do birds fly?" is a different question from "how do wings work". Similar; related; but not the same.

And you could continue asking questions forever and say "its the same question restated" no matter how many answers i give. Just like little kids who peskily ask "why?" after every explanation.

To answer your follow up question: the universe acts like that because the universe follows particular laws and rules that govern its behavior.

Now i'm sure you'll ask "why?" and claim its the same question restarted? Or do you concede its a new question that is related to the first, but different?

You gave the most unsatisfactory answer possible and said it was "that simple." This is the kind of narrow thinking I'm talking about.

it seemed simple to me because i didn't have to spend much time pondering the answer. Perhaps on another day i'd be stumped. Perhaps not.

and how do you KNOW that we cannot have answers to these? Do you claim to be omniscient or to predict the future?

How strange, you quote me saying i don't believe we can know, and then you accuse me of saying I know we can't, and that I'm acting omniscient. Perhaps you need to re-read the line. You accuse me of irrational certainty, where the exact opposite is found in my post. Very strange.

So are your beliefs on such a matter willy-nilly? Did you just wake up and say "Gee i don't believe we can ever know X, Y, Z".

Can you JUSTIFY those beliefs and CLAIMS you made? Or do you concede they are UNJUSTIFIED and shouldn't be accepted by others who do care about justifying their beliefs?

I agree. No one is proposing we apply thre scientific method to everything and anything. But it seems like its a popular strawman of religionists.

indeed. some "religionists" go way too far with this, I agree.

i think the only person guilty of scientism is the strawman you've erected.

I am reflecting the view that the scientific method is the only path to knowledge, which is what I believe to be a fair interpretation of the people I am responding to. If not, I'm sure they will correct me.

Having debated DI and ZZYZX before and having read many of their posts, i can say with high confidence that you are mistaken in your understanding of their position.

what other tool exactly should we rely upon?
Holy book tales? Unverifiable personal testimony of tall tales and extraordinary supernatural personal experiences? Intuition?

In what circumstances do you propose we apply these methods and how reliable and accurate are they?

Philosophy. Ethics. People have different opinions about the fine details, but the importance of ethics is agreed upon. We use the tool we have: philosophy, experience, etc. Sometimes people fail, but the philosophy behind ethics have been very effective. We have a long way to go to get humans to stop killing each other, but we have come a long way. I would say they are very effective tools, and even if they weren't, it's all we got.

I don't see a clear answer to my question about what methods you propose. Philosophy is a very broad and nebulous answer to "what method do you propose".

I gave pretty explicit examples of methods i find inaccurate and unreliable. Do you agree that those methods are inaccurate and/or unreliable? Do you have other methods you wish to propose?

[Divine Insight]

Honestly this sounds very forced. I don't buy it at all.

What's forced about it? If you don't know something what's wrong with confessing that you don't know?

Logic is a philosophical tool, not a scientific one. The entire scientific method is based upon philosophy that that method accurately gives us knowledge.

Logic is just human's way of reasoning. No discipline owns the patent rights on reasoning. Proclaiming that philosophy owns the patent rights on logic makes no sense at all, and is a very lame argument. In fact, mathematicians actually like to believe that they own the patent rights on logic.

Where is your scientific data that equals rape is "wrong?" I did not ask whether is was distressful. Distress is not an ethical category. Where is your data that rape is wrong?

I already gave it to you. Humans are the ones who decide that they feel that rape is wrong. If all humans enjoyed being raped they would not think that it's wrong.

Where are you? Off in some philosophical la-la land thinking that there exists some cosmic code that demands that rape is wrong whether humans enjoy being raped or not?

What is right and wrong? How did you arrive at your answer? If it is through science please supply the experiment that determined what is right and wrong. Please do not confuse right and wrong with stress.

Right and wrong is entirely a subjective human judgement. Period.

If humans didn't mind being raped then no human would think that rape is wrong.

What is it going to take before you understand this simple "Scientifically verifiable fact"?

Is helping an elderly woman up from falling right or wrong? neither? an indifferent act?

Your water is not holding.

Right or wrong with respect to what?

You keep talking like as if there is some magical absolutes.

Most humans would like to be helped up when they have fallen. They would consider it to be polite that someone offered to help them. However, some people might actually be offended if someone tried to help them up as they might take this as an insult that they are incapable of taking care of themselves.

It's hard to say who might think that helping someone up might be the right or wrong thing to do at any given moment.

End the end all judgments of right or wrong require a "Subjective Judge".

If you are demanding that there needs to be some absolute morality, then you are also demanding that there must necessarily be an absolute subjective judge.

Is that your position?

[Danmark]

.
Correct me if any of the following are wrong in your case or in the case of Christianity in general

1. You (generic term) deny that a series of small changes can produce big changes over time (evolution and speciation) but accept that an invisible, undetectable "god" poofed the universe into existence.

Like others, when I was a Christian I believed in evolution. The facts that demonstrated the truth of evolution as an explanation for the variety of species over millions of years seemed undeniable and also did not demonstrate evidence the Biblical God was a false belief. These were views shared by my family and most of the Christians I knew. They also had a sometimes not clearly stated idea that some of the Bible stories should not be taken absolutely literally.

However, today I see more clearly how science and evolution in particular pose a great threat to much of Christian belief. This threat can be summed in a single question. Why would a personal God who created the entire universe take billions of years to do it? Why would he take hundreds of millions of years, going through the process of evolution, resulting in 99% of species to go extinct, to finally develop homo sapiens, apparently his favored species? In too many respects, this 'sophisticated' Christianity with its attempt to harmonize science with religious myth, makes even less sense than the primitive idea that God 'Poof!' created the whole thing with a wave of this thought wand.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 28 by Divine Insight]

Philosophy also keeps an innumerable amount of people from performing terrible acts, because it teaches them ethics. Even defining "terrible" is a question of philosophy. Using the vast minority of humans (the criminals) living within an educated civilization does not work. For the vast majority, philosophy seems to be working amazing for the average citizen.

This is absolute rubbish.

Even troops of chimpanzees understand social expectations.

Are you suggesting that before humans invented philosophy they had no clue what their social partners might expect from them or consider to be acceptable social behavior?

It think the monkeys have already shot your claims down here.

We see social behaviors among many animals that have no clue how to do "philosophy".

Social expectations do not require philosophers.

You're just getting yourself in deeper and deeper here.

[Pompey]

[Replying to post 31 by Divine Insight]

You say morality is subjective, and that you can decipher right and wrong by the scientific method. Contradictory claims.

You provided 0 data, just your subjective observations.

I said multiple times that saying you don't know is great, but giving up when you can't use the scientific method is narrow minded.

here's the definition of philosophy:
the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.

The entire scientific method is based upon philosophy but you're blind to it. We determined the scientific method was reliable because of our philosophical understanding of knowledge.

I would like you to choose between subjective morality and morality being something that can be tested by the scientific morality. It cannot be both.

You would likely argue that it CAN be both, but you're using the scientific method very poorly in your reasoning. You say that subjective morality is a "scientifically verifiable fact." WHAT A CLAIM!!! Please provide the study that definitively claimed this.

Again, you have provided nothing but your own opinions. Science is something that is peer-reviewed, checked against controlled experiments. Please supply the tests that reflect your many claims about morality being A) scientifically testable, and B) verified & factually subjective.

You're claims are embarrassing to the promotion of reliable science.

[Pompey]

[Replying to post 33 by Divine Insight]

Well I gladly go deeper. I'm not the one digging himself in a hole though.

Comparing communities of chimps and tribal humans to the HUGE civilizations we have today is just silly. We absolutely could not have civilization at the level we have it without philosophy. Nations are built on philosophical principles that their citizens buy into. Tribes don't need to because they are very small. They were also generally hostile by default to other tribes.

[Divine Insight]

You say morality is subjective, and that you can decipher right and wrong by the scientific method. Contradictory claims.

That's not contradictory at all. Human subjectivity is indeed scientifically observable. You can scientifically observe when a human subjectively dislikes something.

You provided 0 data, just your subjective observations.

I provided concrete scientific scenarios and explanations that anyone capable of reasoning should easily be able to understand.

I said multiple times that saying you don't know is great, but giving up when you can't use the scientific method is narrow minded.

Who said anything about giving up? All we're doing is waiting until sufficient evidence becomes available. Patience is a virtue.

Pretending that you can know something before you have sufficient evidence is just plain foolish.

here's the definition of philosophy:
the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.

The entire scientific method is based upon philosophy but you're blind to it. We determined the scientific method was reliable because of our philosophical understanding of knowledge.

I'm not blind to anything. On the contrary I already addressed this specific issue in a previous post #26.

I would like you to choose between subjective morality and morality being something that can be tested by the scientific morality. It cannot be both.

You are simply wrong. It most certainly can be both. Science can indeed make observations on human subjectivity and human subjective behaviors. Human subjectivity can indeed be studied scientifically and is studied scientifically all the time.

You are simple wrong when you assert that it can't be both. You are making assertions that simply aren't true.

You would likely argue that it CAN be both, but you're using the scientific method very poorly in your reasoning. You say that subjective morality is a "scientifically verifiable fact." WHAT A CLAIM!!! Please provide the study that definitively claimed this.

I shouldn't need to provide any study. It's obvious. All you need to do is observe the reality around you and you can see that what I'm saying is perfectly true.

Again, you have provided nothing but your own opinions. Science is something that is peer-reviewed, checked against controlled experiments. Please supply the tests that reflect your many claims about morality being A) scientifically testable, and B) verified & factually subjective.

I hold to you that it's a self-evident fact for anyone who has already recognized the truth that all human morality is nothing more than subjective judgement calls.

You shouldn't need to be an Einstein to recognize this. On the contrary, if you claim that morality comes from some mysterious judgmental invisible being I think the burden for the evidence for that is on you.

You're claims are embarrassing to the promotion of reliable science.

And that is nothing more than your subjective opinion.

I disagree. And I'm quite sure that Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many other scientific scholars we be in total agreement with me.

Therefore I have no need for your consent.

Especially when your opinionated consent is obviously coming from a totally baseless ideal of "pure philosophy" which has no evidential foundation.

All you have given are emotional objections. You haven't offered anything substantial.

Where does your "Absolute Morality" reside? What is it's source?

Have you even given any thought to those issues?

Please described to me in detail where your imagined absolute morality resides and from whence it arises if not from human subjective opinions.

It appears to me that I'm clearly ahead of you at this point in the game.

I claim that human morality arises entirely from human subjective opinions. Not only do we know that such things exist, but I've even given examples of how this works. And this can all be scientifically observed by simply observing and questioning humans on their subjective opinions and feelings. etc.

Where are your arguments for an absolute objective morality that is totally independent of human judgements? Where does it exist? And since you claim that it is "objective" then where is your scientific evidence for it?

[Divine Insight]

Well I gladly go deeper. I'm not the one digging himself in a hole though.

Comparing communities of chimps and tribal humans to the HUGE civilizations we have today is just silly.

I don't see where it's silly at all. On the contrary, it's precisely the same principle evolved in complexity over millions of years. Or at least hundreds of thousands of years to be sure.

We absolutely could not have civilization at the level we have it without philosophy. Nations are built on philosophical principles that their citizens buy into. Tribes don't need to because they are very small. They were also generally hostile by default to other tribes.

This is nothing more than a huge cheat on your behalf. Either that, or a huge mistake in reasoning.

You are evidently pretending that the development of language, the ability to communicate, and the ability to create complex social structures all belongs to "Philosophy" somehow.

Why should philosophy be haven special patent rights on all these things?

It appears that you are going to claim that any form of "Reasoning" at all equate to "Philosophy".

That's baloney.

Most reasoning is actually based on many things, including many observations of the real world. In other words much of our social structure is actually based on the Scientific Method, even before that method was recognized to be the "Scientific Method".

Most everything the societies decide to do are based on observations.

Besides, if you claim to even be capable of philosophical reasoning then consider the following reasoning:

Is it "wrong" to steal?

Well, what do we know about stealing? We know that when we take something from someone that they subjectively believe that they "own" then they become very angry and distraught with us. They will probably come after us, beat us up, and take back the thing they believe that they "own".

In fact, the very "ownership" of the object in question is a subjective judgment. We invented the concept of "ownership" even.

We have decided that stealing is "wrong" because people clearly do not like to have things taken from them that they have subjectively decided they "own".

We even then make rules about what people are permitted to "own" and what they are not permitted to "own". Again a totally subjective concept.

Everything about humans is subjective.

How can you even begin to speak about "Absolute Stealing" if you haven't first established "Absolute Ownership"?

And ironically in most cases many things that humans "own" came from the fact that they invaded some other culture and stole the land in the first place.

Do the Americans who invaded America objectively "own" America?

No they don't. They stole it from the Indians who used to live here.

Americans are thieves. Especially in the subjective minds of the Native Indians.

You obviously have some ideal hope of coming up with some "Absolute Philosophy" that can determine once and for all whether something is absolutely moral or absolutely immoral.

It's never going to happen.

Everything is subjective. It all depends on who's eyes your are viewing the world through.

If you have some dream of coming up with the perfect absolute philosophy on morality, you are only kidding yourself and no one else.

[Wootah]

1. You (generic term) deny that a series of small changes can produce big changes over time (evolution and speciation) but accept that an invisible, undetectable "god" poofed the universe into existence.

I don't think you appreciate how many changes you have to believe have occurred. I simply believe in less 'miracles' than you do. Do you have a website or source that might put an estimate on how many mutations it took to make us?

2. You doubt the honesty and accuracy of scientists worldwide studying anthropology concerning the origin and development of humans but trust the word of unidentified religion promoters who wrote thousands of years ago claiming to know that humans were "created" in present form

I don't think many scientists really think about it. They are all in various fields doing whatever and of course they 'hat tip' the current understanding of evolution as science but they would as easily 'hat tip' anything else if that anything else was the current scientific understanding. Evolution is the one area of science that is completely irrelevant to the pursuit of science.

3. You dismiss the conclusions of astronomers and astrophysicists who study the universe but accept the claims of preachers who do not study such things and accept the conclusions of ancients who thought the Earth was the center of the solar system and the universe

I think they have a model that they are trying to reconcile and when it fails they will have to think further.

4. You trust the word of ancient writers who claim that dead bodies came back to life but doubt the word of forensic biologists who say that death is irreversible

Some things in the Bible are miracles and identified as such. That means that it does not affect the claims of science.

5. You propose that scientists and Atheists conspire against religion but do not acknowledge the possibility that religion fanatics conspire to promote your favorite religion

5 is not relevant to me as far as I can tell.

6. You declare that thousands of proposed gods are false but claim to have chosen a favorite that you know is real (with odds of 0.0005 of being correct)

I wouldn't be arguing odds and believing in evolution.

7. You claim that your God is infinitely intelligent but also claim to know about its desires and requirements or its thinking and emotions

Bible is revelation. But why would you imagine it would be impossible for God as (described by you in point 7) to communicate with us?

8. You critique and criticize the work of scientists who spend decades in advanced study without having studied the subject yourself beyond high school or television level

They can come here if they wish. I'll reserve my right to debate the data.

9. You claim that Christians follow a superior moral code even though statistics on rates of incarceration, divorce and abortion by Christians demonstrate otherwise

Well that's just a strawman that you persist with. Christians are sinners as well and not saved by works thankfully. However if Christians did follow the moral code set in the Bible, all the time, then I imagine they would not be in jail for crime, not be divorcing and not be killing babies.

10. You accept the benefits provided by science (including modern medicine) but reject any findings that conflict with your chosen religious beliefs

You reject the Christian historical basis for science and in all honestly there is very little actual science you and I would disagree on. I mean if we went through a chemistry book or physics book which laws do you think I would disagree with? You should know full well the disparity is in origins and you should know that science cannot tell you what happened yesterday. Actually let's just deal with yesterday. What experiment would you conduct? All you can do is observe results now and postulate/hypothesize about yesterday. If you accept that then you understand what I mean about origins.

11. You reject tales of competing gods performing superhuman feats but accept tales of your favorite God doing the same things (performing "miracles")

I actually don't see what there is to worship in competing Gods. Even if I accepted those tales, what would I do. They are not worthy of worship. It's like being told a real tale of a human endeavour why does that mean I should worship that person?

12. You declare that competing religions are phony or false or misguided but are convinced that your chosen religion is real and provides "the one true path to salvation"

Salvation by grace is unique in that there is no path you can take.

13. You realize that humans are imperfect / flawed / "evil" but claim they were created by an omniscient, omnipotent God who could do no wrong and make no mistakes

That's not a contradiction so I'll take it as a statement.

14. You reject information from geologists that indicates that the Earth is billions of years old but accept opinions of preachers and ancient religion promoters who claim it is thousands of years old

Which bit of information do you want to discuss?

15. You claim that "science does not have all the answers" so religion must be true (God of the Gaps)

Christians don't believe there is a god of the gaps in science. We believe the universe operates according to laws. If I had to say there was a gap it is in metaphysics I don't see science explaining metaphysics any time soon.

16. You demand evidence for anything that conflicts with chosen religious beliefs but furnish no evidence (beyond testimonials and opinions) that support those beliefs

I don't really demand anything but I think it is fairly rational behavior to ask for evidence.

Questions for debate:

A) Do any of the above make sense?

Most of it. As noted I can't understand why you haven't moved your arguments over time in line with replies.

B) Do any of the above NOT apply to your religious beliefs / theological position?

All questions asked sincerely are good questions.

Which questions did I answer satisfactorily?

[Danmark]

Philosophy also keeps an innumerable amount of people from performing terrible acts, because it teaches them ethics. Even defining "terrible" is a question of philosophy. Using the vast minority of humans (the criminals) living within an educated civilization does not work. For the vast majority, philosophy seems to be working amazing for the average citizen.

Nonsense! Philosophy can produce monsters as well as kindness and cooperation. I think the problem you're presenting comes from your use of the word "philosophy." Philosophy represents an extremely broad category and does not exclude the scientific method and the knowledge we gain from careful observation. The facts we gain may influence us in the personal philosophy we develop, and the values we accept or reject. There is no sharp, artificial division between the knowledge we acquire and our thoughts about it, and the values we have.
Humans and other mammals have learned [and it is likely even in our genetic code] that we benefit and even survive because of a social contract. The contract has terms that need to be followed if we wish to remain comfortably in our groups.