It wasn't intended as a slight on you - I think you've just got it somewhat wrong.Originally Posted by The Comedian
It's when people deliberately mislead that I get disgusted. I don't think you do that.
It wasn't intended as a slight on you - I think you've just got it somewhat wrong.
It's when people deliberately mislead that I get disgusted. I don't think you do that.
If by belief or faith, we mean a degree of confidence in scientific models of the physical world around us, Science surely offer more than any God.
However, if by belief or faith, we choose to mean: a vital commitment that defines how I choose to live each moment of my three score and ten years on this earth, then such devotion – whether to Science, God or something else - surely matters a great deal; at least it matters to me. Although, in this case - for this meaning of truth - Science offers a pittance.
While I can believe evolution happens, I can't believe in it.
Science doesn't actually offer anything, and how can it?
It isn't a doctrine, but a form of investigation and nothing whatsoever to do with the meaning of life.
That's a contradiction. What is there to believe in besides the facts of evolution, which you already believe? You cannot get philosophical answers from biology.
I'm not sure how much more religion offers, despite its claim to a monopoly on people's inner beings and longing for capital-T truth.
The least we can say about science is that it has a built-in corrective mechanism in its emphasis on testing. Ideas are constantly refined, and ones that don't stand up to testing are discarded. I've never heard anyone say something like: The geocentric model of the universe wasn't literally true, but it provided inspiration throughout humankind when people believed it.
On the other hand, religious beliefs can't be tested for reliability or coherence, yet we somehow feel that they fulfill our need for intuitive, pre-rational commitment. They supposedly speak to our soul, not our mind.
If you ask me, they merely feed Homo Sap's boundless appetite for delusion and pander to his inflated sense of self-worth.
Regards,
Istvan
Last edited by Babbalanja; 11-06-2009 at 11:29 AM.
Oscar Wilde once said that brevity is the soul of wit,
You are clearly a bloody genius!
What's the point is an excellent question, i.e. is there any advantage to believing in a Spinozan/Einsteinian Creator vs being an atheist? For me there is a difference. That was the point of Einstein's ststement that science without religion was blind and religion without science was lame. You have a different attitude towards the world if you believe it was created by a supreme being than you do if you don't believe that. I think that if you believe the universe just came into being without a creator it's easier for you to become very arrogant about your place in the universe. You may realize that you didn't create the world, but, thanks to your evolved mental abilities you develop a god-like sense that you can understand and manipulate nature. Modern science has allowed us to do a lot of that lately.
I'm not saying that you must believe in God to behave morally, or that being religious assures moral behavior. There have been atrocities committed in the name of religion as well as in the name of science (e.g. eugenics. An atheist scientist can be a compassionate humanitarian, but there is nothing in science that demands compassion. There is no morality in evolution by natural selection. Darwin himself fretted over the apparent "immorality" and "horror" of insect parasitism. The movie, Alien nicely captures this horror.
There are philosophical ways to develop morality and ethics outside of a framework of religious belief, based on practical and empirical/scientific approaches to human existence. Just read Kant, Hegel, Witgenstein, and whole bunch of others. It just seems a lot easier to develop a compassionate, "humane," and humble morality if you believe that a Supreme Being created the Universe.
More arrogant than believing that there's a Supreme Being in the universe who adores Homo Sap above all His creations?
More arrogant than believing that we can understand the motives and methods of this Being, and influence His actions by wishing really hard?
More arrogant than persecuting other people for the lack of or difference in their belief about this Being, and excusing our cruelty by saying the Being told us to?
No, I'd say believers have the market cornered on arrogance.
Regards,
Istvan
Just in case anyone thinks this is off-topic, I'd note that it isn't, because while they're different types of evolution, the evolution of human morality is obviously linked to evolution of the species. We're here, aren't we?There are philosophical ways to develop morality and ethics outside of a framework of religious belief, based on practical and empirical/scientific approaches to human existence. Just read Kant, Hegel, Witgenstein, and whole bunch of others. It just seems a lot easier to develop a compassionate, "humane," and humble morality if you believe that a Supreme Being created the Universe.
I'd also claim that evolution of humans as a species is partly due to our morality, because we have unquestionably changed our animalian evolution be design of that morality.
I find it hard to accept your idea. (as does Babbalanja)
Do we have evidence for the proposal?
It seems to me that the ever-changing morality theists have given us has contained some pretty horrible stuff, and that many religious groups still practice bigotry against gays, women and other religions, all on the basis of that theistic morality.
Deism is a different proposition, and while I won't deny your proposition for them, I'd wonder what their morality would look like. With religion, it has the handy advantage of being societal, bringing people together to teach. Where do deists gather to discuss morality? And when they have discussed it, why would a non-interventionist god be of use? ince it doesn't interact with the universe, wouldn't designing a morality compatible with it just be creating a god in one's own image?
On the other hand, humanists, who I admire greatly, but am far too radical to ever be part of, have developed a morality which is compatible with Jesus and deism without recourse to anything more than common decency.
Thanks for these excellent ideas. Yes, morality does seem to be something that evolved along with our consciousness. Maybe belief in God is something that also evolved, as did our other mental abilities, including scientific reasoning. In fact it's fair to say that everything about us evolved.Just in case anyone thinks this is off-topic, I'd note that it isn't, because while they're different types of evolution, the evolution of human morality is obviously linked to evolution of the species. We're here, aren't we?
I'd also claim that evolution of humans as a species is partly due to our morality, because we have unquestionably changed our animalian evolution be design of that morality.
I find it hard to accept your idea. (as does Babbalanja
Do we have evidence for the proposal?
It seems to me that the ever-changing morality theists have given us has contained some pretty horrible stuff, and that many religious groups still practice bigotry against gays, women and other religions, all on the basis of that theistic morality.
Deism is a different proposition, and while I won't deny your proposition for them, I'd wonder what their morality would look like. With religion, it has the handy advantage of being societal, bringing people together to teach. Where do deists gather to discuss morality? And when they have discussed it, why would a non-interventionist god be of use? ince it doesn't interact with the universe, wouldn't designing a morality compatible with it just be creating a god in one's own image?
On the other hand, humanists, who I admire greatly, but am far too radical to ever be part of, have developed a morality which is compatible with Jesus and deism without recourse to anything more than common decency.
Babbalanja's comments about arrogance were not helpful and to me seem glib, dismissive, and...arrogant. My point was that scientists can be very arrogant. Most religions encourage believers to view themselves as humble before a supreme and inscrutable creator. Many horrible and inhuman things have been done in the name of religion over the course of human history. But religion has no monopoly on arrogance and inhumanity. I mentioned eugenic theory, which is just one aspect of "Social Darwinism."
I suppose that I am a "Humanist." Is belief in God necessary for a Humanist?
I think you are right when you say that belief in a non-interventionist, (i.e. a Deist God, leads to creating God in ones own image (a nice reversal of the theist idea that God created man in His own image). But this is quite different from the atheist position, that I think leads to an amoral view of nature.
Let's consider just one example of how a religious and atheist scientist would deal with a medical/scientific situation. Down Syndrome is a not uncommon medical disorder. We understand the genetic basis for this disorder. We can make the diagnosis in utero, and we can chose to abort a fetus that carries the genetic disorder, if we want.
The natural history of a person born with Down Syndrome is dismal. Mental retardation (low IQ), short life span (40 years or so), and guaranteed medical problems (heart defects and progressive dementia on top of the mental retardation). Everything associated with this disorder would logically prompt a "scientist" to chose to either abort a Down's Syndrome fetus or even to euthanize it at birth. Why would anyone even think of letting such an individual to be born or survive for any period of time?
Well, there is no reason unless you believe that all human life is sacred. Would you believe that all human life is sacred if you did not believe in a creator? I don't think so.
That's only half the story.
One point I want to raise here is while I am not sure whether or not God exists in point of fact and there is nothing to approve or disapprove of this fact with we mortals, and our thinking and imaginative faculties too are limited and we are simply three dimensional beings. What we brag about consciousness is also confined within our environmental peripheries and our ideas cannot transcend these edges. What we know about God, heaven, immortality, afterlife and the like stems from what we read in scriptural texts or we learn from our elders or Gurus. This in point of fact is the base on which we build our ideas and ideologies with regard to God. We have, therefore no authority on these subtle subjects.
Yet we all know that our society has harmony and that said I do believe that our ideals and ideologies are at times as week as castle on sand and people advocating religions are turning fundamentalists and they have done more damages to us, and we know Hitler in history who have subjected so many people to tortures and holocausts, and now we are not unaware of the growing world of fundamentalists whether it is in Christianity, or Islam or Hinduism.
Notwithstanding all these truths I still strongly hold the belief that belief in God or religion or immortality have helped humanity more than without them. If this may not be relevant in many countries, particularly in developed countries at least in underdeveloped countries or societies belief in God or religion or immortality have helped humanity and kept people from committing sins.
I know so many people here take extreme views. If they are atheists they become dogmatically become so and so are the so called theists too. Let us think objectively, disinterestedly without bias religion and belief in God is not as bad as some people think and as a matter of fact these people canonize their ideas and hold them as sacred. I never become rigid personally for what I believe to be true may be proved false tomorrows. We do not want to listen to others and we very adamantly hook ourselves to sets of ideologies whether it is spirituality or materialism and with this pre-determined and unswerving mindset people become diehards or dogmatists no matter what convincing ideas they come across they become too much principled or preoccupied with their rigid ideas.
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
Yep. There's no doubt that religion has helped societal cohesion and when societies prefer to kill other societies, cohesion is a valuable evolutionary tool.
Generally, humanists are agnostic or atheist, probably leaning towards a majority of agnostics.
Excellent point on Down Syndrome, and pretty topical to me as we've just had a baby and with my wife being almost the dreaded 40, her chances of a Down baby were increased.
We had already decided that if it turned out to be a Down foetus that it would be aborted for exactly the reasons you stated.
Luckily, it wasn't.
Although I am for abortion, I am disturbed by the idea that any fetus is superior to another in some objective fashion. A baby with Down's Syndrome likely has just as good a chance as any other baby to live a happy life, what we're really looking at here is how that baby's existence affects our lives. People don't choose to abort fetuses with Down's for the sake of the future child, but for themselves.
That behavior can easily be extended to aborting a fetus for having brown hair, being gay, not tall enough, or not smart enough. When do we draw the line that a certain type of person is allowed to live?
Congratulations on your baby, and thank God (or chance) that you didn't have to make such a difficult decision.
Babies with Down Syndrome have a tough and generally short life ahead of them. One thing you are right about is that they seem to have "happy," loving, and guileless personalities, which is something quite remarkable about this condition. I've often wondered about this: it is as if the genetic disorder somehow affected the personality in positive ways, despite the hardships it creates, which you might think would lead to sociopathy in those afflicted with it. Sociopathy and other severe personality disorders rs extremely rare in Down Syndrome. This is one reason why parents of Down Syndrome children have such a hard time giving them up for institutional care.
I think you are too hard on parents who chose to abort a Down Syndrome baby. Sure, they are thinking of their own hardship, but they are also thinking of the hardship their child will face, not the least being worry of who will care for him when they die (since most parents of Down's babies are in their 40's and the life expectancy of DS is around 40 years, the chances are good that the parents will be elderly or dead before the child himself dies).
I chose this example to discuss because of the difficult moral issues it presents.
That's fair enough, but can life for these individuals ever be so hard that it was no longer worth living. Human beings seem to have a capacity to live through almost any hardship and still choose life over death, it seems we as individuals value living over not-living under almost any condition.
I can understand aborting a fetus with Cri-Du-Chat, that will kill them within a couple years and most of their lives will be pure agony and they will never learn to speak or interact with the world. DS individuals however are capable of working and living on their own, there are many programs that set up work for them and group homes where they are safe.
Now I don't mean to be so harsh on parents who choose to abort a DS fetus, it is an understandably difficult decision. I'm just put off by these sort of selection processes for fetuses.
Then how can you be "for abortion"?
What is abortion ever but a choice made by parents for reasons which are usually selfish?
Many abortions are done because of the financial situation of the parent/s or because an unexpected pregnancy happens.
I disagree.
I know several parents of Down children and I don't believe those kids have a quality life. They are unable to do more than the most menial of tasks and are trapped in poverty unless they come from wealthy families.
I also consider that the time spent on a DS child would be hugely detrimental to my other kids.
We don't.
If abortion is legal, I don't think parents are asked to justify their reasons, so we don't know that some are being aborted for being the wrong sex anyway.
If we start introducing a list of "valid" reasons for abortions, it would defeat the object of it being a woman's right.
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