Analogy of the hammer

[John_Savage]

I was talking to my atheist friends (Ayn Rand and secular liberal) and they asked:

How does one determine that Morality A is false, but Morality B is true?

I answered:

Natural law and revelation from authority.

My own perspective is that the universe and everything in it was created from nothing for a purpose. People invented a hammer to drive nails and to use a hammer to eat dinner would be an improper use of it. If a hammer fell from the sky into a primitive village, the smart people in the village would realize that the hammer was created for a purpose and try to find that purpose. They may figure out that it’s for nails or may use it as a weapon or whatever. If the inventor of the hammer visited the island and showed them how to use it, then they’d have a more clear idea. A carpenter visiting the island may also teach its use.

Ayn Rand would look at the hammer and declare that although the hammer is a natural occurrence and therefore without purpose, it still has a purpose, and this is it.

SH would look at the hammer and also deny that it was made for a purpose, but that “since we have it, let’s figure out a use for it. Hey, this thing feels good when .”

Sorry for the last bit. We’re all guys. Well, what do you think?

 

[empther]

I don’t think that will convince atheists.
They’ll just say many things in the world are useful but that doesn’t prove God exists.

The only argument atheists can’t refute is that the universe had a beginning because it changes and every change happened a finite time ago,
but the universe could not have started itself.
Therefore, there has to be a God.

It all comes down to this, fellow believers:

If you leave religious faith out of the picture,
what’s left makes no sense at all.

 

[ccmnxc]

I believe the question (an epistemological one), coming from an atheist, is one that doesn’t make sense unless they were asking how you, specifically, choose your morality. On naturalism, I’m not sure how one could pick the “correct” morality since there would be no ontological foundation for a correct morality. Sure, we could argue ad nauseum about who’s morality is best for human flourishing, but why, if we are simply animated chunks of matter who are doing a pretty good job of destroying the earth, should is be good and moral to allow for human flourishing? What if one feels humans should be wiped out? Whether or not your answer works doesn’t seem to matter in this context since the wrong question is being asked. I think they have to answer the more basic question of whether or not there is a right and wrong morality (a question of ontology).

 

[John_Savage]

You’re right. They were asking about me about how I choose. I think some atheists expect religious people to always say something like “because the Bible tells me so.”

I believe the question (an epistemological one), coming from an atheist, is one that doesn’t make sense unless they were asking how you, specifically, choose your morality. On naturalism, I’m not sure how one could pick the “correct” morality since there would be no ontological foundation for a correct morality. Sure, we could argue ad nauseum about who’s morality is best for human flourishing, but why, if we are simply animated chunks of matter who are doing a pretty good job of destroying the earth, should is be good and moral to allow for human flourishing? What if one feels humans should be wiped out? Whether or not your answer works doesn’t seem to matter in this context since the wrong question is being asked. I think they have to answer the more basic question of whether or not there is a right and wrong morality (a question of ontology).

 

[ccmnxc]

You’re right. They were asking about me about how I choose. I think some atheists expect religious people to always say something like “because the Bible tells me so.”

Okay. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[ivebeenshown]

Perhaps one would argue that the hammer that fell out of the sky only receives purpose from the tribesmen, and that only once they had determined a use for it.

This is why I am not a fan of the teleological argument.

 

[MarkThompson]

If a hammer fell from the sky into a primitive village, the smart people in the village would realize that the hammer was created for a purpose and try to find that purpose. They may figure out that it’s for nails or may use it as a weapon or whatever. If the inventor of the hammer visited the island and showed them how to use it, then they’d have a more clear idea. A carpenter visiting the island may also teach its use.

I don’t know why that should be the case. If you’ve never seen the wonderful movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, the first couple of minutes of this scene will be of interest.

I was talking to my atheist friends (Ayn Rand and secular liberal) and they asked:

How does one determine that Morality A is false, but Morality B is true?

If A and B are complete moral systems, then they can only be evaluated against each other on non-moral grounds. This is a very deep problem in ethics, and one of the key reasons why ethics has never been “solved.” If one had good evidence that God had commanded something, then that would be very interesting, but the question still remains: why do what God commands? The answer must not be “because it is right,” since we have for the moment bracketed our moral systems. Nor should the answer be “for your own good, because He will punish you otherwise,” since this leads to a system which is fundamentally legal, not moral or ethical.

Moving beyond all this, it still does not follow that, if a thing was created for one purpose, it is necessarily wrong to use it differently. Eggs were, presumably, created to allow birds to reproduce, but my morning omelet is not a moral abomination.

Personally, I find MacIntyrean virtue ethics very appealing, although I think on many of these questions I suspect I am of the Kierkegaardian view that a leap of faith, a positive act of the will, is ultimately necessary.

 

[Ion]

Well, we do “use” values that transcedes our death. “Better to be the hammer than the anvil”.
Without this values we would be like animals.

 

[BrunoMaria]

I was talking to my atheist friends (Ayn Rand and secular liberal) and they asked:

How does one determine that Morality A is false, but Morality B is true?

I answered:

Natural law and revelation from authority.

My own perspective is that the universe and everything in it was created from nothing for a purpose. People invented a hammer to drive nails and to use a hammer to eat dinner would be an improper use of it. If a hammer fell from the sky into a primitive village, the smart people in the village would realize that the hammer was created for a purpose and try to find that purpose. They may figure out that it’s for nails or may use it as a weapon or whatever. If the inventor of the hammer visited the island and showed them how to use it, then they’d have a more clear idea. A carpenter visiting the island may also teach its use.

Ayn Rand would look at the hammer and declare that although the hammer is a natural occurrence and therefore without purpose, it still has a purpose, and this is it.

SH would look at the hammer and also deny that it was made for a purpose, but that “since we have it, let’s figure out a use for it. Hey, this thing feels good when .”

Sorry for the last bit. We’re all guys. Well, what do you think?

 

[BrunoMaria]

…If a hammer fell from the sky into a primitive village, the smart people in the village would realize that the hammer was created for a purpose and try to find that purpose………A carpenter visiting the island may also teach its use.

A real good metaphor IF one reads it with his heart.
It was a carpenter too, who taught us all we have to know for eternal life - in terms of highlighting the key issue so many up to this time of the first covenant didn’t get yet - not even some scribes the 12-year old Jesus taught.
But Jesus, who is God in God, Light from Light and true God from true God, told us that a Majority will refuse to listen and Jesus added, that some even are not allowed to understand, for to understand it takes the Grace of God. This present is not given randomly to all, but to many - as Jesus pointed out at last supper. God neither forces anyone to believe in Him, but leaves it to our free will. Jesus didn’t forcibly convince any atheist, but He spoke the absolute truth which anyone wo listens with his heart, will understand. If he refuses; just bad luck and a hopeless empty life staring at death which is to believers the Door to God, - to disbelievers the horror of destroyment and senseless annihilation.
Both will see God - first one forever, second just for his judgement. So, let’s disbelievers enjoy thir life at best they can, for they ain’t got anything else.

Yours
Bruno

 

[Ismael]

I was talking to my atheist friends (Ayn Rand and secular liberal) and they asked:

How does one determine that Morality A is false, but Morality B is true?

I answered:

Natural law and revelation from authority.

My own perspective is that the universe and everything in it was created from nothing for a purpose. People invented a hammer to drive nails and to use a hammer to eat dinner would be an improper use of it. If a hammer fell from the sky into a primitive village, the smart people in the village would realize that the hammer was created for a purpose and try to find that purpose. They may figure out that it’s for nails or may use it as a weapon or whatever. If the inventor of the hammer visited the island and showed them how to use it, then they’d have a more clear idea. A carpenter visiting the island may also teach its use.

**Ayn Rand would look at the hammer and declare that although the hammer is a natural occurrence and therefore without purpose, it still has a purpose, and this is it.

SH would look at the hammer and also deny that it was made for a purpose, but that “since we have it, let’s figure out a use for it. Hey, this thing feels good when **.”

Sorry for the last bit. We’re all guys. Well, what do you think?

Well it’s a poor example your friend makes, since the hammer is a man-made object, designed and built by an intelligent person to be used as an hammer.

If a hammer fell from the sky into a primitive village, the smart people in the village would realize that the hammer was created for a purpose and try to find that purpose………A carpenter visiting the island may also teach its use.

Well the final purpose of objects is not always obvious. As a matter of fact Aquinas would not claim we can always understand what the “purpose” of objects is, but rather that even in simple inanimate systems there is a sort of ‘telos’ of ‘directionality’, which can be seen, in my opinion in the laws of nature themselves, or rather the laws of nature are the imanent expression of the final causality of objects.

Mind you there is no need for ‘complex systems’… two electrons repulsed by coulomb force is enough.

That’s also why Aquinas quinque viae (5th way) has really nothing to do with Paley’s probabilistic argument for “intelligent design”.