Overwhelming evidence for Design?

[Sair]

A delightful reductio ad absurdum.

Arguments of this kind seldom take account of real experience, however.

I am under no illusion that if I started treating others as if they don’t matter, they would swiftly disabuse me of the notion! The ethic of reciprocity wins every time…

 

[ReapReason]

Arguments of this kind seldom take account of real experience, however.

And so says the one that rejects the idea of freewill.

 

[Sair]

The real source of misunderstanding here is the spectrum wherein one has metaphysics (or physics) on the one end, and pragmatism (and biology) on the other. Bradski and Sair are speaking from a pragmatic and experiential perspective – from life as it is lived.

Take the example of money. Drill down one level below pragmatism, and money is simply pieces of paper. Drill down another level below pragmatism, and money is merely matter in motion.

Now take that apprehension that “money is worthless” and apply it to the landlady who is expecting rent, or the bank that is foreclosing on your house. Try telling the subzero temperatures outside, that money is of delusional value, despite the fact that money is the only thing separating you and exposure to the elements. The consequences of the lack of it would be a rude awakening, and would throw one from the “theoretical” to the “pragmatic” end of the spectrum fairly quickly.

This pragmatic, experiential reality is rock solid, in terms of life as it is actually lived. It pushes back (“reality is that which pushes back” – William James).

In an important sense, this pragmatic, experiential reality is the only reality we will ever directly experience. As for the rest, we can merely think about it, ultimately. We will never have direct experience of a subatomic particle (except in a scientific laboratory, and that through inference).

The thing is, these subjective elements of life as it is experienced are hardly subjective, in the sense of arbritray. There are fundamental common denominators between: human families; human societies; the human experience. We eat edible food; we seek health and avoid sickness; we have familial bonds and experience love; we have socieities that protect our common interests, and that (in turn) demand the fuilfillment of certain obligations. We laugh and experience humor. We cry and experience pain and grief. We appreciate things we find beautiful. We build and create. Even our yearning for meaning and purpose --whether through art or religion, or moral ideals – is experiential. It may be the product of evolution or of a conscious creator-God. But, as long as we live, it is the only reality we will ever know. So long as we live, it cannot be transcended through experience.

A typical parent’s bond with its child is so strong that it doesn’t care about the fact that strangers don’t care about its child at all; nor does it normally trouble itself over the question of whether the cosmos cares about its child. This experiential reality is so strong – and so solid – that, pragmatically speaking, it is idle to theorize that it may not be real (just as it idle to theorize whether the red hot iron coming your way is “intrinsically painful”). So long as we live, it is real – as real as the fact that we breathe; that we are conscious; as real, even, as the experiential fact that we have to die.

All of this can be true, even if God exists. But the question of God’s existence or non-existence is, in comparison, a theoretical question.

Brilliant response. Thank you - you’ve put it far better than I could have!

 

[ReapReason]

Isn’t false hope the most depressing notion of all?

If it is indeed false then yes. Equally a life of simply sleeping, eating, and pleasure seeking and then ceasing to exist, does not speak true to my dignity as a person either.

 

[Sair]

If it is indeed false then yes. Equally a life of simply sleeping, eating, and pleasure seeking and then ceasing to exist, does not speak true to my dignity as a person either.

Where does the dignity of a person lie? In their actual existence, or in their supposed cosmic significance?

 

[ReapReason]

Where does the dignity of a person lie? In their actual existence, or in their supposed cosmic significance?

What is cosmic significance?

Nobody has argued here that it is the cosmos that gives us significance.

 

[Sair]

Setting such a priority is precisely what is in question here. Is matter prime and form secondary or is form the fundamental reality and matter a mere medium?

Well, that is certainly a key consideration - is form prior to matter or vice versa? If form is prior, whence form, and how would we know? Or is form simply something that is perceived by particular configurations of matter, perhaps those that manifest consciousness?

Given a materialistic perspective, someone with low self-esteem and unloved by any other person, in effect has no value. Or in modern secular terms, a fetus that does not have the mental/emotional apparatus to value and is not valued (because not known or loved by any other) effectively has no value and can be disposed without qualms. Moral worth becomes a very tentative and provisional quality.

If a powerful group chooses to withdraw value from a subordinate group, they are devalued and, therefore, lose moral worth. Where does that lead in the absence of any objective (non-subjective) criteria for assigning worth? Do some subjects have greater say in assigning value? Does a majority constitute a morally cogent unit for rescinding worth from a minority? On what basis are the rights of unproductive or devalued individuals protected?

The key difference, it seems to me, is recognition of form, not form itself; and in that recognition of form, recognition of similarity. It may well be the case that an individual who experiences low self-esteem and at least feels that they are unloved by any other person (and that feeling, it should be pointed out, does not necessarily reflect the reality of others’ feelings towards that person) is still able to be recognised by others as similar enough to themselves to warrant similar treatment. Do you always walk past the beggar on the street because you think you will never be in his position?

As for a dominant group withdrawing value from a subordinate group, history will show that Christians, upheld on these fora as examples of moral perfection (as much as anyone can be), are far from immune from this practice - was it not considered an act of spiritual charity to physically torture heretics? Or to violently “convert” conquered peoples? In these actions and many others, the supposed “form”, the soul, was most certainly held in reverence, to the complete disregard of the health of the body. Does this really seem like a good thing? Is there any evidence of benefit to the “souls” of those thus treated?

 

[Sair]

What is cosmic significance?

Nobody has argued here that it is the cosmos that gives us significance.

That is simply a way of saying, “significance beyond our material existence”. One might, with equal accuracy (and equal vagueness, it must be said), call it “spiritual” or “eternal” significance.

 

[tonyrey]

Arguments of this kind seldom take account of real experience, however.

I am under no illusion that if I started treating others as if they don’t matter, they would swiftly disabuse me of the notion! The ethic of reciprocity wins every time…

Tell that to all the rich criminals!

 

[tonyrey]

It is beyond me how you can fabricate purposes when they don’t exist! How

No matter how immense the increase in complexity it doesn’t confer the power of self-control.

Evil might be an illusion on a cosmic scale, but we do not operate on a cosmic scale. We operate very much on a temporal scale, in the here and now. If you have ever been offended or hurt by anyone, or if you have ever received the love of a person for whom you feel love in return, if you have ever experienced recognition for your efforts - these are the kinds of immediate things that motivate us, not any consciousness that we are writing our names in the book of eternity.

In other words we are just biological organisms responding to stimuli without any power of self-control.

And who says we don’t have the power to choose how we act? Do we, at present, actually have any understanding of what that really means?

If you were on trial you would soon be aware of what it means!

A significant proportion of those who believe that physical determinism cancels out free will still believe in the existence of divine foreknowledge (currently being discussed on another thread) which, as far as I can tell, sounds the death knell to any practical concept of free will anyway.

“divine foreknowledge” is an misconception of divine knowledge which encompasses past, present and future and in no way deprives us of our power of self-control.

And the plain fact of the matter is that if conscious beings, no matter how physically manifested, fabricate purpose, then those purposes do exist, at least as far as those physically manifested conscious beings are concerned.

They certainly exist but the issue is **how **they could exist in biological organisms programmed by their environment and incapable of thinking independently.

They don’t have to matter to the universe in order to matter to us! I’m not sure why this isn’t clear…

“matter” is the appropriate word for materialists because it reveals the amoral nature of their “values” which are conditioned by physical circumstances.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Brilliant response. Thank you - you’ve put it far better than I could have!

No Sair, it may be " theoretical " to you but not to billions of people around the world and to most of humanity which preceeded us. To us, that God exists and cares for us and intends for us to live with Him for eternity, and has shown us how this can be accomplished is a more important reality than anything else in our lives - more important than everything else in fact. Sorry you can’t see that.

 

[prodigalson2011]

I would also say that it shows a lack of understanding on the part of the perpetrator, in the sense that what they will reap is not what they are intending to sow. Obviously, the danger of punishment is always there, so long as there are other human beings in the world.

Or perhaps they’re sado-masochistic. Maybe they don’t care a lick for the potential consequences to themselves.

More than this, though, I see many individuals who think somewhat in this fashion: “I want to love my friends and hate my enemies”; “I want to love my own children, and not give a damn about other people’s chilldren.”

They have an imperfect understanding of cause and effect, when they say this; they do not reap what they intended to sow. So let’s say I am kind to my friends, and cheat, exploit, and act cruelly towards strangers. That behavior becomes habitual and conditions my way of responding to others, period. So, I cheat the stranger, if the profit is lucrative enough. In doing so, I don’t realize that I would cheat my own friends and loved ones, if the profit were lucrative enough. Or, I have a hair-trigger reaction in terms of considering others enemies. Now, let’s say my own son or daughter – or best friend – wrongs me in some way. It will be much harder to love that person unconditionally, given that it is so easy for me to consider people in general as enemies. If I am unforgiving towards so many others, I can’t help but become less forgiving towards my loved ones.

Conversely, if I truly love my son or daughter unconditionally – with patience, kindness, understanding – those qualities that the love of my son or daughter helped me acquire, cannot help but rub off on the way I relate to others, period. There will be a little bit of the patience, kindness, and understanding I have for my children, in my relations with everyone I meet.

I cannot have cruelty and enmity towards the rest of the world, without that contaminating the few relationships that are dearest to me and which I intend to protect from that harsh treatment (including, possibly, my own relationship with myself).

This is all irrelevant to the conversation. This is still simply about the subjective effects of one’s behavior. The argument at hand is that if materialism is true, those effects are ultimately without value and any importance attached to them by your brain is an illusion that has evolved simply to aid in the successful propagation of your DNA. There’s hardly anything noble or moral about that.

In fairness, I would grant that failure to live up to these ideals does not mean that even the attempt to live up to these ideals, is not valuable.

The attempt to live up to ideals is really only valuable if there is an objective basis for those ideals.

What I do think is that more reasoning and persuasion (which relies on appeals to self-interest) would help, not hinder, progress in this area. Explaining to the cruel individual, for example, why abusing others is not in his best interest, nor in the interest of his relationships with the one or two people in the world he actually loves (very few human beings on earth truly care for nobody, nor even care for themselves). The Buddhists call that “inter-dependence” and it is a recognition of the web of cause-and-effect (in this case, “if you spend all day devaluing other people’s children, you will end valuing your own child that much less, in spite of yourself”).

Those enlightenment fantasies of reason saving the world have pretty much extinguished themselves at this point. That’s one of the sharpest dividing lines between our camps, I think. Many atheists and secularists seem to think that reason and knowledge will somehow make man more noble. Religious people accept that man is a disordered creature and that quite often his lower appetites supersede his reason. History, I daresay, has tended to stand on our side in that regard.

The point, however, is not what means would be effective in making men more caring and compassionate based on their immediate material interests. The question at hand is whether life can have any real value (by which I mean a value that holds true regardless of our individual experience) in the absence of an objective, irrevocable purpose for which it has been created. The only logical answer, I think, is no.

If we can conclude that such is the case, we can then comfortably say that any value we do place upon it is a personal fiction, however much stock we may put into it.

That’s like that line from John Donne, “every man’s death diminishes me.” In a sense, that is true – anywhere that life is devalued in the world – treated as cheap – my own life becomes that much less valuable. And this is even more the case, if I am the one doing the devaluing.

And what could possibly devalue life more than materialism?

 

[prodigalson2011]

Where does the dignity of a person lie? In their actual existence, or in their supposed cosmic significance?

To one who believes that a person has inherent dignity, there is no difference between the two.

To a materialist, the idea of dignity cannot be more than a polite fiction.

If man is simply matter, then he does not, ultimately, matter any more than any other conglomeration of matter. Dignity implies elevation, nobility, importance. On materialism, these concepts are all meaningless.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Why should the notion that this life is all we have be considered so depressing?

For the majority of human beings on this planet, “this life” has not been very kind to them.

Isn’t false hope the most depressing notion of all?

If you assume that the hope is false.

If anything, consciousness of the temporality of our existence should energise people to make the most of what we know we have - the here and now. Does it not occur to you that you might be wasting your time hoping for an afterlife, belief in which has even less rational justification than acceptance of our mortality?

If you’re right, then everything one does, whether it’s hoping for an afterlife or feeding the poor or writing books or studying the universe, is wasting his time. It’s all just ways of making yourself feel good until you die. Perhaps someone gets the same joy from hoping and dreaming of an afterlife that a scientist does from studying the laws of nature or another does from doing charitable work, but none of these pursuits really matter in the end.

Regardless, this is a red herring. Religious people don’t spend all their time sitting around fantasizing about heaven. Religious people are by and large more involved with volunteer work, etc. than non-religious folks, and there are many of us interested, involved and even excelling in philosophy, literature, science, art, etc. The implication that religion is some kind of exclusive venture that bars one from any interaction with the outside world is simply ludicrous.

 

[prodigalson2011]

The value that people have is the emotional attachment that other people have to them.

Thank you for stating quite unequivocally your rather reductionist and utilitarian view of human life. By that philosophy, if you slander and libel someone enough to make everyone hate them, they then become truly worthless; disposable. This is a repugnant ethical principle. No one (with the exception of psychopaths and the most cynical among us) lives their lives as though that idea were true.

If a person values everything equally, then he values nothing at all (something Karl Popper might have said after a few beers).

First of all, valuing all human life equally is not valuing everything equally. By giving human life a special and unique dignity, we are automatically elevating it above everything else in the universe (which is quite a lot.)

Let’s make an analogy, crude as it may be: every dollar bill has the same value, regardless of its condition, age, whether its yours or mine, whether its stained or frayed, etc. because each one inherently represents something beyond the material of which it is composed.

The major difference, though, is that human beings don’t simply represent something beyond their material existence; they are something beyond their material existence. They are persons. They have souls. They were made in the image of the mind that made them. We share with God intellect and creativity; we can unravel the mysteries of the universe because we are modeled after the mind that made it. Haven’t you ever thought it was funny that the more we learn about the very cells that make up our bodies, the more they resemble works of human engineering (or vice versa)?

But most importantly, we can love. And not just in the sense of mere sentiment. We can, if we choose, will and work towards the good of all. We can, if we choose, give our lives up for others. We can give of ourselves freely and willingly. And that is something nothing else in this universe can do.

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s something we individually appreciate. Or not, as the case may be.

I wasn’t saying that it wasn’t. I said NOT ONLY, BUT… meaning to indicate that we must now add these other qualities to the realm of subjective value.

And value doesn’t represent an intrinsic worth but is something that is individually assigned by each of us. A Picasso isn’t ‘worth’ a couple of million dollars in itself. That worth is simply an amount that someone would be prepared to pay to own it. So in this case, your following comments are correct:

Nor would I argue that. But that is what I’m getting at. We don’t believe that human worth is individually assigned by each of us. We believe it is assigned by the force that gave rise to us and everything in the universe. No man’s value is at the mercy of public consensus.

Your view of the subjective valuation of human worth does (and has) set the stage for the worst atrocities imaginable (though, on that relativistic plane you’re operating on, you can’t really call it an atrocity with any credibility.)

 

[prodigalson2011]

That’s exactly right. The fact that someone could kill my daughter shows that he would place no value on her life (and would discount the value that others placed on her). Whereas the fact that I would lay down my life for her would show she has immeasurable value to me. And the fact that I would do so for her but not for a stranger (and I’d suggest that the same would be true for you) shows without any shadow of doubt that value is relative.

It shows that value is relative TO YOU. It does not prove beyond doubt that there is not a higher and more authoritative determinant of human worth.

Further, it shows that any moral outrage on the part of relativists and materialists is blatantly irrational (acting on emotion rather than reason, which is supposed to be the guiding light of materialism.)

Further, I’d suggest you not assume what other people (especially ones you don’t know) would do in a given situation. Plenty of people have given their lives for strangers. Ever hear of Maximillian Kolbe?

When I said ‘we’ I specifically meant you and me. I realise that not everyone would call it immoral. But someone who did think it was a fun way to spend an afternoon would be in the same situation as the killer mentioned earlier. They wouldn’t value the person or the value that others assigned to them. If we understand that people give value to others, then we should apply the Golden Rule. There is a social contract to which the vast majority of us have agreed which says in essence: If I expect my daughter to be able to walk the streets safely, then I cannot attack someone else’s daughter.

This is all quite common-sensical (yes, I know that’s not a real word) enough, but you’re dodging the point. On materialism, neither side is any more justified in its beliefs. “It’s all relative,” as you say, so if someone decides to kill his own and his neighbor’s children and go on the lam, it’s not a moral issue. It’s a neutral series of actions that, by mere conditioning, arouse subjective feelings of anger and indignation among other human creatures.

Naturally, if someone thinks that there is no risk to their loved ones and there was no danger of punishment, then all bets could be off. Then we get gas chambers and mass rape and genocide.

I’d suggest that if asked, the perpetrators would admit at some point that those they were killing were valuable to others, if not themselves. But the fact that there was no danger to the people that they valued themselves and that there was no risk of punishment made it easier to carry out their ‘work’.

And “work” is all you can really call it. A completely neutral term, perfectly suited to the relativistic framework into which you’ve couched morality.

I might have more sympathy for that view if the those committing the atrocities were not Christians. How many turned off the gas, turned on the ovens and then went to mass? And if a solidly Christian, educated and civilised nation can produce such horrors, then there but for the grace of God go us all.

This is a red herring.

We are not discussing individual Christians, we are discussing Christian vs. materialistic philosophy.

“Going to Church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a mechanic,” as the saying goes. The mindset behind these movements was purely utilitarian and materialistic, regardless of what the individuals involved claimed to be or thought they were. And in every case, the main forces driving the movements–its leaders and organizers–were explicitly anti-Christian and anti-religious in general.

A nation that produces such horrors is manifestly NOT solidly Christian. To be solidly Christian, they would have to manifest the principles of Christianity in their lives. The things Jesus himself taught and have been handed down in the teachings of His Church. Ya know… things like “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.” and so on and so on. The inherent dignity of all human life, etc., etc., etc.

 

[Portofino]

Or perhaps they’re sado-masochistic. Maybe they don’t care a lick for the potential consequences to themselves.?

Perhaps they don’t. This, unfortunately, is a problem in spite of whether a society believes in God, or doesn’t. If a society believes in God, you will always have those who want to live for the devil.

But I think the motivation of self-interest in the “criminal mind” is underestimated. When one shows such a person the unintended consequences of his actions – things he didn’t bargain for – then there is a good chance he will view his behavior very differently. I appreciate many of those movies that act as morality tales for why crime doesn’t pay – if not materially, then psychologically (anything from Goodfellas and Casino, to Wall Street, to Scarface, to the Godfather). These folks don’t realize they’re being self-destructive, regardless of how apparent this seems to others. Instead, in their own eyes, they see themselves as ahead of the curve in the pursuit of self-interest.

This is all irrelevant to the conversation. This is still simply about the subjective effects of one’s behavior. The argument at hand is that if materialism is true, those effects are ultimately without value and any importance attached to them by your brain is an illusion that has evolved simply to aid in the successful propagation of your DNA. There’s hardly anything noble or moral about that…?

This will sound like a cop-out, but – really – this is a particular way (ultimately, subjective) way of looking at it. *It is subjective because we are dealing in terms of human motivation. * The question, “is life worth living?” is ultimately subjective in nature, just as the question, “is it worth getting out of bed in the morning?”

We’re ultimately asking the question, “do we have sufficient motivation to live our lives? And, if yes, should the fact that we will one day die *kill *all of that motivation?” And what if it doesn’t?

The attempt to live up to ideals is really only valuable if there is an objective basis for those ideals…?

That’s a more subjective or emotionally-based statement, at bottom. So if I find living up to ideals valuable, you are stating that I ought not to do so, and that there is no reason for me to do so. But “reason” in the sense of valid motivation is never singular, but plural. We have different reasons. For one person, living a life of 70 or 80 years – if he is lucky – is reason (i.e., motivation) enough. For another, a life that doesn’t last forever is not worth having lived at all.

This same subjective value judgment exists on an everyday level, as well. Some people will volunteer for a particular job, not requiring payment; others will do it for a fee; and for others, you couldn’t pay them enough to do it.

What’s ultimately being said is, “there is only one rational way to respond emotionally to the fact there is no God or no life after death” (assuming these things were true). Maybe that’s what’s puzzling to those of us who disagree – that an admittedly subjective, emotional response (hope versus despair, for example) can be rational or irrational.

If I’m only going to make $100 dollars for a particular task, I may be quite happy about it. The person next to me, on the other hand, may say that the only rational response is to be miserable – because this job obiviously is not worth a penny under $1,000.

Those enlightenment fantasies of reason saving the world have pretty much extinguished themselves at this point. That’s one of the sharpest dividing lines between our camps, I think. Many atheists and secularists seem to think that reason and knowledge will somehow make man more noble. Religious people accept that man is a disordered creature and that quite often his lower appetites supersede his reason. History, I daresay, has tended to stand on our side in that regard…?

I personally don’t think the world would be a better place if there were no religion in it. I’d much prefer good religion (e.g., non-violent), to no religion at all. I do think folks like Dawkins – or, before him, Freud – sell religion short, by chalking it up to “erroneous beliefs.”

In a very positive way, there is also an intersection between religion and art; and, also, religion and emotional intimacy. I personally don’t see Dawkins as very attuned to those aspects of religion; for him, religion is simply “bad science.”

The question at hand is whether life can have any real value (by which I mean a value that holds true regardless of our individual experience) in the absence of an objective, irrevocable purpose for which it has been created. The only logical answer, I think, is no…?

My own answer is that I do not know whether such an objective, irrevocable purpose exists, or not. I only know human experience; experience, for me, is reality (as stated, the only reality I’ll ever know). I don’t even know if I have free will or not, in the ultimate sense; but I do know that my experience of free will is rock solid. I cannot transcend it, just as I can’t transcend the experience of consciousness, so long as I am awake.

And what could possibly devalue life more than materialism?

My position is a bit different; I do not know whether materialism is true or not. I only know my experience, and – in very important respects – my experience is not compatible with materialism (that is, with no free will; no consciousness). But even if I were to assume materialism were true, I still would grant that there are certain aspects of “truth” that are divorced from our everyday experience and that, in that respect, have only limited pragmatic value.

 

[tonyrey]

That is simply a way of saying, “significance beyond our material existence”. One might, with equal accuracy (and equal vagueness, it must be said), call it “spiritual” or “eternal” significance.

Would you agree that all your values are material?

 

[tonyrey]

Perhaps they don’t. This, unfortunately, is a problem in spite of whether a society believes in God, or doesn’t. If a society believes in God, you will always have those who want to live for the devil.

But I think the motivation of self-interest in the “criminal mind” is underestimated. When one shows such a person the unintended consequences of his actions – things he didn’t bargain for – then there is a good chance he will view his behavior very differently. I appreciate many of those movies that act as morality tales for why crime doesn’t pay – if not materially, then psychologically (anything from Goodfellas and Casino, to Wall Street, to Scarface, to the Godfather). These folks don’t realize they’re being self-destructive, regardless of how apparent this seems to others. Instead, in their own eyes, they see themselves as ahead of the curve in the pursuit of self-interest.

This will sound like a cop-out, but – really – this is a particular way (ultimately, subjective) way of looking at it. *It is subjective because we are dealing in terms of human motivation. * The question, “is life worth living?” is ultimately subjective in nature, just as the question, “is it worth getting out of bed in the morning?”

We’re ultimately asking the question, “do we have sufficient motivation to live our lives? And, if yes, should the fact that we will one day die *kill *all of that motivation?” And what if it doesn’t?

That’s a more subjective or emotionally-based statement, at bottom. So if I find living up to ideals valuable, you are stating that I ought not to do so, and that there is no reason for me to do so. But “reason” in the sense of valid motivation is never singular, but plural. We have different reasons. For one person, living a life of 70 or 80 years – if he is lucky – is reason (i.e., motivation) enough. For another, a life that doesn’t last forever is not worth having lived at all.

This same subjective value judgment exists on an everyday level, as well. Some people will volunteer for a particular job, not requiring payment; others will do it for a fee; and for others, you couldn’t pay them enough to do it.

What’s ultimately being said is, “there is only one rational way to respond emotionally to the fact there is no God or no life after death” (assuming these things were true). Maybe that’s what’s puzzling to those of us who disagree – that an admittedly subjective, emotional response (hope versus despair, for example) can be rational or irrational.

If I’m only going to make $100 dollars for a particular task, I may be quite happy about it. The person next to me, on the other hand, may say that the only rational response is to be miserable – because this job obiviously is not worth a penny under $1,000.

I personally don’t think the world would be a better place if there were no religion in it. I’d much prefer good religion (e.g., non-violent), to no religion at all. I do think folks like Dawkins – or, before him, Freud – sell religion short, by chalking it up to “erroneous beliefs.”

In a very positive way, there is also an intersection between religion and art; and, also, religion and emotional intimacy. I personally don’t see Dawkins as very attuned to those aspects of religion; for him, religion is simply “bad science.”

My own answer is that I do not know whether such an objective, irrevocable purpose exists, or not. I only know human experience; experience, for me, is reality (as stated, the only reality I’ll ever know). I don’t even know if I have free will or not, in the ultimate sense; but I do know that my experience of free will is rock solid. I cannot transcend it, just as I can’t transcend the experience of consciousness, so long as I am awake.

My position is a bit different; I do not know whether materialism is true or not. I only know my experience, and – in very important respects – my experience is not compatible with materialism (that is, with no free will; no consciousness). But even if I were to assume materialism were true, I still would grant that there are certain aspects of “truth” that are divorced from our everyday experience and that, in that respect, have only limited pragmatic value.

What effect does your claim to be a theist have on your values?

 

[Bradski]

Thank you for stating quite unequivocally your rather reductionist and utilitarian view of human life.

I think that you’re setting up a straw man. Not intentionally, but you appear to have forgotten the point of my original post. Which was to show that nothing we do has an ultimate reason other than that which we subscribe to it ourselves.

That nothing that happened to anyone in the past, if sufficiently separated from us, temporally and geographically has any effect on us emotionally. We don’t lie awake worrying about everyone who has ever suffered. That is not to say, and I said it in an earlier post, that any decent person would consider murder and rape, even committed many years ago, to be immoral.

By that philosophy, if you slander and libel someone enough to make everyone hate them, they then become truly worthless; disposable. This is a repugnant ethical principle. No one (with the exception of psychopaths and the most cynical among us) lives their lives as though that idea were true.

Indeed, by that philosophy, which obviously I am personally not espousing, people can become worthless and disposable. We all have to be aware that we don’t individually head down that path.

Your ‘no true Scotsman’ pleading in regard to Nazi Germany is neither here nor there. The horror of the 40’s is a good example of how decent people, whether they are Christian or not, can find themselves heading down that path. As can Nanking, Darfur, South Africa, Russia, China, Rwanda – there are almost too many to list. Not including countless individual incidents of which we will never be aware.

This is how the world works some of the time. And you don’t have to be a Christian or any other religion for that matter to condemn it.

…giving human life a special and unique dignity, we are automatically elevating it above everything else in the universe (which is quite a lot.) .

I also think that we should value human life above everything else. My point is that the precise value that each of us subscribes to an individual is relative. There is no doubt about this. You value your child’s life greater than a stranger’s. But…that doesn’t mean, and I haven’t meant to imply, that human life has no value in itself.

No man’s value is at the mercy of public consensus.

Not in an ideal world, no.

It shows that value is relative TO YOU. It does not prove beyond doubt that there is not a higher and more authoritative determinant of human worth.

Whether you believe in a higher power is irrelevant to the fact, and it is a fact, that people that you don’t know do not have as much worth to you as those you love. That is not to say they have no worth. But it is undeniable that value is relative to each of us.
Throw in a little bias and some half truths about those we don’t consider as worthy as those whom we value and yes, you might have the start of a problem.

A nation that produces such horrors is manifestly NOT solidly Christian.

So it seems that a solid belief in God doesn’t prevent people from having that problem. There but for the grace of God…