Conference on Evolution

[reggieM]

However, I do believe that morality can be derived from natural, evolutionary processes. In other words, morality isn’t dependent on a belief in the supernatural. Humans can decide to do what is moral based on natural motives.

That really doesn’t work because, as agreed previously, nature is unintelligent and amoral. Nature does not command or forbid any human behavior or action. Nature does not care about humanity – it merely “is”. Nature and evolutionary processes do not have a purpose. Mutations do not occur according to a moral law. Natural selection or evolutionary processes do not provide a code of morals – they do not forbid genocide, murder, holocausts, child rape, theft, torture or any possible human behavior at all. Some human beings might be opposed to such things, but others are not. Some believe it is in their self-interest to do some things (kill off everyone they don’t like), others do not. Evolution permits every human behavior – it condemns none. It does not even tell human beings what behaviors are best for survival – since it does not care if human beings survive or not since it does not matter who or what survives. Morality is about what one “ought” to do or “ought” not to do.

Nature does not care about such things. If materialistic-atheism is true, then everything is permitted.

p.s. StAnastasia is a “he”.

 

[StAnastasia]

I do not believe that she agrees with your description. However, I do believe that morality can be derived from natural, evolutionary processes. In other words, morality isn’t dependent on a belief in the supernatural. Humans can decide to do what is moral based on natural motives.

Yes, to a certain extent morality is natural, in that it is an extension of rational self interest (“Do not do to other what you would not wish them to do to you”). But theologically it is coherent to say that as a human community’s relationship with God grows, so does its moral awareness. Various early ethics in Asian traditions became more universalized by the time of later Buddhism; the Homeric Greek ethic was broadened by Socrates; the narrow Hebrew tribal ethic characteristic of much of the Old Testament was made considerably universal by Jesus.

StAnastasia

 

[rossum]

You posit gods, angels, karma, mind and a spiritual realm – none of which have any influence at all on nature or the material body or evolution.

Karma can have a major effect on the body - it may influence when and how you die for instance. So far all scientific studies of the effects of prayer have shown zero or very small effect.

You say that people of your religion pray to these gods for intervention in their lives – healings and such things. But you claim also that the gods have no intervention in nature (or can have none?).

I do not pray, others do. If they find it useful then fine; I do not find it useful so I do not do it.

Your current gandhabba would certainly have an influence on where or as what you are reborn. How can this have zero effect on living populations and thus evolutionary processes?

I do not have a “current” gandhabba, any more than I currently have the original egg and sperm which fused to make me. All the gandhabba transmits is karmic history - it is that history which may have an influence. In terms of evolution, karma does not have a great deal of effect. Evolution is a population phenomenon; populations evolve not individuals. Karma is an individual phenomenon, not a population one.

rossum

 

[reggieM]

I am not a philosophical materialist. While doing science I am a methodological materialist, but only for the purposes of science. Away from science I am Buddhist. Science is an excellent source of knowledge within the boundaries it sets for itself. Outside those boundaries I use other sources.

I was thinking about this over the past evening. I cannot see a reason for you to state that “away from science I am a Buddhist”. This tells me that something more than your method is materialist. When doing science, it seems like you’re saying that you adopt a materialist metaphysic – and then return to Buddhism when you leave your science discussions. If one must contradict their own personal philosophical views in order to do science, then this explains why there is a conflict.

 

[reggieM]

Originally Posted by reggieM
You posit gods, angels, karma, mind and a spiritual realm – none of which have any influence at all on nature or the material body or evolution.

Karma can have a major effect on the body - it may influence when and how you die for instance. So far all scientific studies of the effects of prayer have shown zero or very small effect.

I would think, certainly, that karma would have a major effect on the body. It may influence when and how you die and how or what you are reborn as. You then reference scientific studies on prayer. This contradicts your prior opinion that evolution has nothing to do with the spiritual nature of man. Clearly, karma can affect the evolution of the body. It can do so in ways that are unknown to you – and certainly impossible for a materialist science to understand. Karma can affect mutation rates, populations and “selections”. The good or bad behaviors of persons affect karma also – thus, evolutionary science must be very dependent on what karma produces. Scientific-materialism does not acknowledge this fact and acts as if there is no spiritual life, no karma, no reincarnation, and no effect of the spiritual and mind on the body of man. Your citing of scientific research on the effects of prayer only highlights the contradiction here. You’d be using an admittedly limited and incorrect tool to investigate something (karma) which has a “major effect on the body”.

Originally Posted by reggieM
You say that people of your religion pray to these gods for intervention in their lives – healings and such things. But you claim also that the gods have no intervention in nature (or can have none?).

I do not pray, others do. If they find it useful then fine; I do not find it useful so I do not do it.

Ok, that’s part of the answer. But the main part is this: “*can *the gods, angels and devils intervene in nature”? You think fellow Buddhists find prayer to be “useful” so I guess that gods do intervene, or at least it is possible for them to do so, right?

Quote:
Your current gandhabba would certainly have an influence on where or as what you are reborn. How can this have zero effect on living populations and thus evolutionary processes?

I do not have a “current” gandhabba, any more than I currently have the original egg and sperm which fused to make me. All the gandhabba transmits is karmic history - it is that history which may have an influence. In terms of evolution, karma does not have a great deal of effect. Evolution is a population phenomenon; populations evolve not individuals. Karma is an individual phenomenon, not a population one.

Actually, mutations do not happen to populations but rather to individuals. Evolution occurs with individuals who comprise populations. Every individual of a population has karma. You’re dodging the issue, although you already admitted the problem area by stating " In terms of evolution, karma does not have a great deal of effect."

Personally, I wonder if you’re being as candid as you have been just previously (and I do appreciate that candor about your religion and I hope you know I am not trying to attack or belittle your beliefs). I am looking at what appears contradictory. Again, you claim to know what effect karma has on evolution. This is just after you claimed that evolution has nothing to say about the spiritual nature of man.

Now you boldly state that “karma does not have a great deal of effect on evolution” – thus admitting that karma is a factor in scientific processes. But I think you cannot possibly know how much effect karma has and you cannot use science to determine this.

How did you measure karma’s effect? Through a scientific process? Again, what does materalist-atheism have to do with evolution? You prove it right here. Materialist philosophy would claim that there is no karma. You claim that karma does not have much effect – knowing, rightly, that karma must have an effect on the evolution of human beings since it is the result of choices (selections) and changes the future state of nature and the body.

You jump then back into the atheistic mindset by claiming that science has not seen the evidence of the spiritual nature of man (prayer) – but shouldn’t you use other methods to test for the power of prayer since this goes beyond the limits of science? Is science the final authority in such questions (I believe you stated that you use science only within limits)? If not, what other tools or methods do you use to measure the effect of prayer and karma on evolution?

Whether you believe that the Buddhist gods, angels and demons, that you assert actually exist, can have an influence on nature or not is unclear. Either they can possibly have an influence or it is impossible for your gods, angels and devils to have any influence on nature at all. What is your answer to that? Obviously, you cannot use science to determine how much or how little the gods have influenced evolution. Thus, science would be blind to a major influencer of natural processes – an influencer that could override, direct or change mutations and selections, as well as create new developments (healings) by their will (through prayer) which is totally independent of the natural laws of evolution.

So again, the question: What does atheism has to do with evolution? Obviously, if there are no gods, angels and demons and no karma – then there are none of these potential influencers, shapers, creators, guiders and changers in mutations and selection processes.

Karma must certainly have some influence on evolution and the human body. So must spiritual nature (the “mind”).

Atheism closes off these possiblities. In an *a priori *manner, it closes the possiblity of divine intelligence or spiritual laws having a direct influence on evolutionary processes.

 

[reggieM]

(2) They did emerge through evolutionary processes.

Reggie M: “So you do agree with metaphysical naturalism that morality emerged from nature and evolutionary processes?”

Yes, to a certain extent morality is natural, in that it is an extension of rational self interest (“Do not do to other what you would not wish them to do to you”). But theologically it is coherent to say that as a human community’s relationship with God grows, so does its moral awareness. Various early ethics in Asian traditions became more universalized by the time of later Buddhism; the Homeric Greek ethic was broadened by Socrates; the narrow Hebrew tribal ethic characteristic of much of the Old Testament was made considerably universal by Jesus.

StAnastasia

For reasons given in my reply to Namesake, morality cannot and does not emerge from nature or mattter. Nature is amoral – it commands or prohibits nothing.

You stated flatly that morality emerged from evolutionary (natural, material) processes. For reasons given, this is obviously false. When questioned, you now claim “to a certain extent morality is natural” – thus exposing the ambiguity and error of your absurd, original claim.

You conclude by pointing to Jesus, and His revelation of the moral law. Personally, I do not believe that you would deny that Jesus is divine. I do not think you would betray him as such – so I trust your views to that extent.

The moral teachings of Jesus are a divine revelation. He was not limited to natural or evolutionary laws. He spoke moral truths that were commands and prohibitions. Nature cannot do that – evolution does not forbid any human action.

So, you’ve refuted your own erroneous view – and that is good to see. I do not like how you tried to cover up the fact that we have a divine revelation and morality did not emerge from nature or material processes.

Had I not questioned you, your original falsehood would have remained your public statement. But I can see your tendency to reduce the supernatural character of Jesus (and moreso of the human person) and imply that his incarnation, miracles, redemption and moral teaching are the subject of natural science (just after claiming that since there are “no fossils of the mind” that science has nothing to say about such things).

I find this discussion helpful because there are many ambiguities that are posed under the name of evolution, and these ambiguities cover-up serious errors.

 

[rossum]

I was thinking about this over the past evening. I cannot see a reason for you to state that “away from science I am a Buddhist”. This tells me that something more than your method is materialist. When doing science, it seems like you’re saying that you adopt a materialist metaphysic – and then return to Buddhism when you leave your science discussions.

Within science I use methodological naturalism - I do not attribute experimental results to invisible magic pixies. I do not stop being Buddhist while I am working on science, for example I would never kill a laboratory animal during the course of a scientific experiment. Methodological naturalism is not a metaphysic, merely a set of tried and tested techniques.

If one must contradict their own personal philosophical views in order to do science, then this explains why there is a conflict.

I do not contradict my philosophical views in order to do science, as I said I would never kill a laboratory animal.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

(1) They are the proper subject of science.

(2) They did emerge through evolutionary processes.

(2) Nowhere that I can find.

Please explain the ontological leap that Pope John Paul II referred to.

 

[reggieM]

Within science I use methodological naturalism - I do not attribute experimental results to invisible magic pixies. I do not stop being Buddhist while I am working on science, for example I would never kill a laboratory animal during the course of a scientific experiment.

You just stated, “away from science, I am a Buddhist”.

Methodological naturalism is not a metaphysic, merely a set of tried and tested techniques.

Actually, the method is based on the philosophical foundation which is metaphysical naturalism. It assumes that divine intelligence cannot have any influence on natural processes.

I do not contradict my philosophical views in order to do science, as I said I would never kill a laboratory animal.

This is a good example about how your philosophy affects your scientific results. Nature nowhere says (nor can it say) that it is immoral to kill animals. Science itself cannot make moral commands about such matters either, since science cannot test or experiement for what is morally and philosophically right.

In this case, therefore, your philosophy conflcts with nature and science. You then impose a philosophical grid over science, which limits your results.

If something could only be discovered by killing lab animals, and if all people on earth were Buddhists like you – then we would never discover the answer and we would most likely give false conclusions based on limited evidence.

This is why science can be a danger to religious/philosophical convictions. In your case, atheistic-materialist-science permits the killing of lab animals.

 

[mpartyka]

Nature does not command or forbid any human behavior or action…Morality is about what one “ought” to do or “ought” not to do…If materialistic-atheism is true, then everything is permitted.

Not sure I totally agree with this. I think that nature and/or material reality does have an influence on morality by providing restraints on what one can or cannot naturally do. When we are faced with reality (i.e., undergo experiences), we are able to evaluate our encounters with the real world and determine a set of “best practices” from them – this set of “best practices” becomes morality. E.g., a person commits murder, and from the shock and horror and grief this causes, it is determined that one ought not to murder – “Thou shalt not murder” becomes a “best practice” that is handed down from then on. Morality then is not so much a matter of compulsion from a higher power but a matter of keeping society stable and running in the best possible fashion. One’s personal level of empathy and conscience then becomes the driving force behind morality – i.e., how concerned are you with preventing others from suffering harm from your actions?

–Mike

 

[rossum]

Karma can affect mutation rates, populations and “selections”.

My individual karma has very little effect on human evolution. I am human now, my next lifetime might be as a cow, the one after that as a semi-intelligent Thrull on planet Skyron. Evolution is a population phenomenon so it is averaged out over whole populations. What happens to an individual can be very different from what you would expect from a population.

For example if I put trillions of molecules of gas into a room I would expect to find the gas present in both halves of the room. The chances of all those trillions of molecules being in just one half of the room are astronomically low. However if I put just one molecule of the gas into the room then it will only be present in a given half of the room 50% of the time. What is true of a single molecule is not true of a population of molecules.

Karma has always been present so evolution as we see it must already include the material effects of karma, averaged out over billions of living beings.

Your citing of scientific research on the effects of prayer only highlights the contradiction here. You’d be using an admittedly limited and incorrect tool to investigate something (karma) which has a “major effect on the body”.

Prayer can be researched because an immediate material effect is claimed, and science can investigate immediate material effects. See annals.org/cgi/reprint/132/11/903.pdf for a review. With karma the material effect may not be immediate and so difficult to investigate scientifically.

Ok, that’s part of the answer. But the main part is this: “*can *the gods, angels and devils intervene in nature”? You think fellow Buddhists find prayer to be “useful” so I guess that gods do intervene, or at least it is possible for them to do so, right?

The gods etc. probably can intervene, however if they do so it is a very rare event; given the number of prayers that are offered daily and the number of observed divine interventions I do not see prayer as useful for myself.

This is just after you claimed that evolution has nothing to say about the spiritual nature of man.

Chemistry has a great deal of effect on evolution - DNA is a chemical after all - but evolution has nothing to say about chemistry. Karma may have a small effect on evolution but evolution has nothing to say about karma. Evolution can be boiled down to “how many grandchildren does this mutation have compared to that mutation”, which has very little of either chemistry or spirituality in it.

But I think you cannot possibly know how much effect karma has and you cannot use science to determine this.

We are in agreement, I have no scientific proof for any effect, or lack of effect, of karma on evolution.

You jump then back into the atheistic mindset by claiming that science has not seen the evidence of the spiritual nature of man (prayer) – but shouldn’t you use other methods to test for the power of prayer since this goes beyond the limits of science? Is science the final authority in such questions (I believe you stated that you use science only within limits)? If not, what other tools or methods do you use to measure the effect of prayer and karma on evolution?

I do not use such tools because I am not particularly interested in the question - it has no direct bearing on my following the path. I answered your question as best I could.

Whether you believe that the Buddhist gods, angels and demons, that you assert actually exist, can have an influence on nature or not is unclear. Either they can possibly have an influence or it is impossible for your gods, angels and devils to have any influence on nature at all. What is your answer to that?

Gods etc. are included in Buddhist scriptures but they generally play a peripheral role. Their main functions seem to be to ask the Buddha easy questions and to applaud at the right places. Personally I cannot say whether or not they actually exist - I have no evidence though I lean towards the sceptical. Some things in Buddhist scriptures are wrong - a flat earth with the sun going round it. Some things are correct - stars are distant suns with their own sets of planets. Since the existence or not of various gods is not relevant to the fundamentals of Buddhism I do not spend a great deal of time on the question. We already know that non-human life exists, adding a few more types of non-human life is not of any great significance.

Obviously, you cannot use science to determine how much or how little the gods have influenced evolution. Thus, science would be blind to a major influencer of natural processes – an influencer that could override, direct or change mutations and selections, as well as create new developments (healings) by their will (through prayer) which is totally independent of the natural laws of evolution.

If an unknown process has a material effect, then science will be able to detect the material effect. It may not be able to elucidate the cause, but the effect is within the realms of science. For a long time scientists were unable to explain how the sun is as hot as it is. Only after hydrogen fusion was discovered was an explanation possible. Prior to that the effect was known but no explanation was available.

rossum

 

[grannymh]

from post 557. This is what I was talking about. Creationists use a different definition of “transitional” from biologists. The transitional seal we have just found was a fully functional animal, working in pretty much the same way as a modern otter.

 

[StAnastasia]

Please explain the ontological leap that Pope John Paul II referred to.

Remind me of the reference to this leap.

 

[StAnastasia]

Not sure I totally agree with this. I think that nature and/or material reality does have an influence on morality by providing restraints on what one can or cannot naturally do. When we are faced with reality (i.e., undergo experiences), we are able to evaluate our encounters with the real world and determine a set of “best practices” from them – this set of “best practices” becomes morality. E.g., a person commits murder, and from the shock and horror and grief this causes, it is determined that one ought not to murder – “Thou shalt not murder” becomes a “best practice” that is handed down from then on. Morality then is not so much a matter of compulsion from a higher power but a matter of keeping society stable and running in the best possible fashion. One’s personal level of empathy and conscience then becomes the driving force behind morality – i.e., how concerned are you with preventing others from suffering harm from your actions?–Mike

Mike, at the Pontifical Council’s Rome conference in March one of the speakers mentioned a paleontological discovery showing that tens of thousands of years ago an individual was either born with or suffered a serious disability early in life. Yet this person lived to thirty-five or so, suggesting that this group of humans or hominids expressed altruism (and thus a morality) tens of thousands of years before the arrival of the “revealed” religions.

StAnastasia

 

[reggieM]

Not sure I totally agree with this. I think that nature and/or material reality does have an influence on morality by providing restraints on what one can or cannot naturally do. When we are faced with reality (i.e., undergo experiences), we are able to evaluate our encounters with the real world and determine a set of “best practices” from them – this set of “best practices” becomes morality. E.g., a person commits murder, and from the shock and horror and grief this causes, it is determined that one ought not to murder – “Thou shalt not murder” becomes a “best practice” that is handed down from then on. Morality then is not so much a matter of compulsion from a higher power but a matter of keeping society stable and running in the best possible fashion. One’s personal level of empathy and conscience then becomes the driving force behind morality – i.e., how concerned are you with preventing others from suffering harm from your actions?

–Mike

In the Catholic view, we would say that the divine power has made itself known through nature – thus, all people have a conscience. But from the atheistic-materialistic perspective nature itself cannot command or forbid any action. One person may want to do something, another does not. There is no moral obligation given by nature. In the materialist view, nature has no purpose or direction for human life. Nature does not care about humanity and does not guide it to good or bad actions – there is no way to determine good or bad. Nature does not want a “stable society” – it did not create such a thing with a purpose of it being “stable”. If the society goes extinct, blind, unintelligent nature does not care. It is not good or bad. People may want to do something, but they are not commanded or forbidden by nature. You may have reasons for doing something, but others can do opposite things for whatever reasons. Nature does not provide arguments or proofs about moral laws – nature just “is” (in the materialist-atheist view). There are no responsiblities given. A mass murderer can live a long, wealthy life. Nature does not care or seek recompense. A whole society can kill Jewish people based on natural laws alone – this cannot be condemned from a materialist view since there is nothing in matter or evolutionary laws that forbids such things. People can choose to do or not do as they please.

This is radically different than a theistic view and certainly of the Catholic view where moral norms, consequences, responsiblities, obligations, commands and prohibitions come from the divine intelligence in nature and also from God’s revelation.

 

[mpartyka]

Mike, at the Pontifical Council’s Rome conference in March one of the speakers mentioned a paleontological discovery showing that tens of thousands of years ago an individual was either born with or suffered a serious disability early in life. Yet this person lived to thirty-five or so, suggesting that this group of humans or hominids expressed altruism (and thus a morality) tens of thousands of years before the arrival of the “revealed” religions.

I wasn’t making a chronological statement about morality or religion. I was simply saying that morality can perhaps be amassed through the collective experience of the species. Anyway, all your example shows is the presence of group empathy, not the presence of a predefined moral code.

–Mike

 

[StAnastasia]

I have been stuck on the above comments, not because I don’t understand the meaning, but rather because of what they imply about the theory of evolution not being complete. IMHO the evolutionary theory of Homo sapiens is far from complete because it does not address the uniqueness of current humanity.

Grannymh, evolution is not complete because no scientific theory is ever complete. Think of scientific truth as asymptotic: no matter how close you are to compelteless, there is always the possibility that new evidence will call the existing theorical structure into question. Sometimes this requires merely small adjustments of the theory to explain the new data. Sometimes it calls the entire theory into doubt and we end up with a paradigm shift.

William Paley’s Natural Theology expressed confidence that the theory of biological origins from one initial creation was complete. But his thinking was already out of date, because geologists, biologists and others had been thinking evolutionary thoughts for a generation prior to Darwin’s bombshell.

Shortly before Einstein published his seminanl work, a physicist in the early twentieth century (whose name I’ll have to dig up) pronounced that we know just about everything there is to know about physics. This was in “completion” of Newtonian mechanics, which was, as you know, blown to smithereens and the pieces absorbed in the next few decades by Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics.

So, in fine, by definition no theory ever could be “complete.”

StAnastasia

 

[reggieM]

Mike, at the Pontifical Council’s Rome conference in March one of the speakers mentioned a paleontological discovery showing that tens of thousands of years ago an individual was either born with or suffered a serious disability early in life. Yet this person lived to thirty-five or so, suggesting that this group of humans or hominids expressed altruism (and thus a morality) tens of thousands of years before the arrival of the “revealed” religions.

StAnastasia

This is not “morality” since nobody was commanded or required to do anything. Nature does not say that such a thing was good or bad. You’re imposing your Christian morals on unintelligent, blind, unguided, uncaring nature. It didn’t matter what this group of humans did or didn’t do. They are products of evolution – they can kill each other or heal each other. Nature and material processes do not care about such things, nor do they command or prohibit one or the opposite actions.

 

[mpartyka]

…all people have a conscience. But from the atheistic-materialistic perspective nature itself cannot command or forbid any action. One person may want to do something, another does not. There is no moral obligation given by nature…there is no way to determine good or bad. Nature does not want a “stable society”…

But I would argue that conscience itself is a natural intrinsic influence on mankind. Yes, nature cannot compel me to prevent myself from causing suffering, but my conscience tends to do exactly that.

–Mike

 

[StAnastasia]

I wasn’t making a chronological statement about morality or religion. I was simply saying that morality can perhaps be amassed through the collective experience of the species. Anyway, all your example shows is the presence of group empathy, not the presence of a predefined moral code.–Mike

Mike, if you’ll read my post again, I said nothing about the group having a predefined moral code. I said the discovery that an individual – burdened with a disability severe enough to prevent her/his solo survival but who nevertheless managed to survive to thirty-five – suggests that the group had a strong enough moral sense to care for this individual: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

In fact, I think it is nonsense to suggest that prior to the Bhagavad Gita, or the Popol Vuh, or Siddhartha Gautama, or Moses, or Jesus, or Muhammad, the people in their respective parts of the world had no morality. The fact is that these religious founders built up, even universalized, a preexisting morality. The Hebrew scriptures clearly codified an existing – if inchoate – morality that had evolved with the species’ broader evolution into conscious awareness.

StAnastasia