Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions

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edwest2:
To those who say they stand behind the Constitution, do not forget what Abraham Lincoln said at the Gettysburg Address. Words that are carved in stone at his memorial in Washington, D.C. – “this nation under God.”
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Abraham Lincoln didn’t write the constitution though did he? His personal views of God have no bearing on the conversation.
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edwest2:
Can you show me an example of religion dictating to the US government today? The Catholic Church is the greatest truth-telling institution on earth. Religion and taxes is non-supportive of any argument regarding the truth.
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I’ll get to the rest of this tomorrow, I’m getting sick of having to sit in front of the computer like this.
 
j1akey said:
They’ve been doing that for a long time, it’s just that no one has ever payed attention.

I dont’ see the problem here. Not everyone is a christian and wants to hear christmas music, just like people probably don’t want to hear hanaka music or music from whatever other ethnic or religious holiday that falls on or around December 25th.

Because homosexuals didn’t appreciate being referred to as having a sociopath personality disturbance or being sexual deviants. It didn’t matter that there was extremely little research done on homosexuality when they were put into the DSM in the first place, they were accused of removing it for political reasons. Later when it was voted on to put it back in it only recieved about a 40 precent vote from the APA’s membership. Since then several studies have have determined that homosexuals as a group are not mentally disturbed any more than any other group. It may have been political at the time but either way alot of research has been done since then.
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Please don’t attempt to rewrite history. In the 1960s, the local City Hall had a Nativity in front of it. No plastic Santa or reindeer or snowmen, a Nativity. No one was required to look at it, leave money in it or anything else. Then, I was there when the ACLU went nuts. The ACLU demanded it be secularized with required plastic artifacts to nullify its religious nature. I’ve read up on the history of the ACLU, and they decided the 1990s was to be the time when they suddenly discovered religious monuments in public buildings, which had been there for years, that had to go. It’s not like they were put there while no one was looking.

Regarding Christmas music, it was OK to play Silent Night, with the words, to the outside world from a store in my neighborhood in the 1960s. It’s like saying you can play civil rights music without the words. Somehow, the Freedom of Expression argument no longer applies?

It would appear that science was not involved in the change to the DSM classification.

narth.com/docs/normalization.html

If homosexuals would simply say the reason was because they didn’t like being called sexual deviants, and that was why, that would be better. The truth on this issue is important.

God bless,
Ed
 
j1akey

*But, if we really want to have this discussion, the constitution also says:

“…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.*

Interesting you should mention that as a defense of homosexuality. Wouldn’t the same argument be applicable to most of all to the protection of life … and first of all to the protection of life.

Yet the Constitution has been argued by the ACLU (mostly atheists/agnostics) to protect the right to kill the unborn. You say science has nothing to do with this. I’m sorry, I thought medicine was a SCIENCE. When was the last time you heard the medical profession stand up collectively for the right of the unborn to live? The SCIENCE OF MEDICINE has, by its silence, allowed it to become a MORAL IMPERATIVE that we may justifiably kill 40 million of our children in 40 years by refusing to define the fetus for what it is … a human being.

Science trumps religion in the biggest possible way concerning this great American holocaust … so don’t delude yourself that science has no say in the promulgation of moral values.

And if a few nuclear weapons are detonated in the United States, don’t delude yourself that terrorists alone will take the rap. Einstein and anyone else who had anything to do with building the bomb will be on the top of every victim’s hate list.

What you don’t get is that science legislates and governs in its own subtle ways. As others have already noted, homosexuality was declassified as a mental disease. Now marriage between homosexuals is demanded as a right. Marriage as an institution has been turned upside down and mocked thanks to the psychological professions. Religion has no say, but the science of psychiatry does?

What will be declassified as a mental diseases next: incest, bestiality, sado-masochism?
 
Charlemagne_II said:
StrawberryJam

While I see some weak points in his argument, I do not see anyone presenting a case against his argument.

The weak point of his argument is that Harris is an atheist, and therefore if atheistic scientists get hold of our morals as well as every other aspect of our nature, all hell will surely break loose. The presumptuous brains of science are more dictatorial than the Church ever was with Galileo. If science is to define and control our morals, it will sooner or later be immoral to believe in God, and theists are likely to get a good deal more than the mere house arrest that Galileo got.
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I did not find his athiesm to be the weak point of his argument,
I do not accept the doom and gloom senario that you have offered.
Who has had control over our morals and aspect of our “nature” before Christ, and all the years after he rose from the dead?
Scientists do not dictate, they can not be dictatorial.
Scientists do not define or control “our morals” or mine, or theirs, or yours.
Some personal opinions of some scientists may be that it could be immoral to believe in God. This however, is unprovable. Therefore not a scientific finding.
 
StrawberryJam said:
I did not find his athiesm to be the weak point of his argument,
I do not accept the doom and gloom senario that you have offered.
Who has had control over our morals and aspect of our “nature” before Christ, and all the years after he rose from the dead?
Scientists do not dictate, they can not be dictatorial.
Scientists do not define or control “our morals” or mine, or theirs, or yours.
Some personal opinions of some scientists may be that it could be immoral to believe in God. This however, is unprovable. Therefore not a scientific finding.
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Pick a court case, any court case involving sodomy laws or gay marriage or gay adoption, and you will find a scientist who says: this is scientifically OK. That is the problem.

Scientists tells people what is true, and, like every other human being, they can be manipulated.

God bless,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
Pick a court case, any court case involving sodomy laws or gay marriage or gay adoption, and you will find a scientist who says: this is scientifically OK. That is the problem.

Scientists tells people what is true, and, like every other human being, they can be manipulated.

God bless,
Ed
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Dear Ed,

Sodomy laws are archaic and not inforced. The more interesting discussion would be why and who put them there to begin with. And, guess what? They are not Catholics. But, your protestant God loving anti catholics for the most part.
 
edwest2 said:
Scientists tells people what is true, and, like every other human being, they can be manipulated.

God bless,
Ed
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Ed, I just had some thoughts as to why science clashes with religion:
  • Science is a tool of the natural world and has no relevance in spiritual, supernatural world. Thus, to extent science is a weapon in debate, it will be wielded by the side of anti-religious. (This last point is not always true in practice.)
  • Anti-religious are governed by personal pleasure while religious seek godliness over personal pleasure. Science can measure pleasure, but science cannot measure godliness. Thus for anti-religious science is totally relevant to all aspects of life: it can improve life (true for religious as well), and can measure purpose, which is pleasure.
 
My concerns about Harris’s new project is the same as my problem with Natural Law theory. How can a description of the way things are tell us how things ought to be? There is no question that science can help us make better moral decisions through better understanding of the consequences of various moral positions. We already use science in that way. But I am skeptical about the notion of “a science of morality.” At any rate, I anxiously await Harris’s book. The man is brilliant, and his book it likely to start many important conversations about ethics.
 
Leela said:
How can a description of the way things are tell us how things ought to be?
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Don’t you think there is any truth in the Greek concept of nemesis? Do the tragedies of Sophocles tell us nothing?
 
tonyrey said:
That a person’s vices incur their own punishment. Greed is an obvious example.
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You aren’t really giving me anything to work with here. What does any of this nemesis, Sophocles, and greed have to do with the rhetorical question I asked that you responded to earlier:
How can a description of the way things are tell us how things ought to be?
 
Leela said:
You aren’t really giving me anything to work with here. What does any of this nemesis, Sophocles, and greed have to do with the rhetorical question I asked that you responded to earlier:
How can a description of the way things are tell us how things ought to be?
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If greed undermines your health and relationships with others it is morally wrong to be greedy. The state (and fate) of a drug addict is a good example of how a person ought not to be and ought not to live. Or do you believe people have the right to harm themselves - and others in the process?
 
Leela said:
My concerns about Harris’s new project is the same as my problem with Natural Law theory. How can a description of the way things are tell us how things ought to be? There is no question that science can help us make better moral decisions through better understanding of the consequences of various moral positions. We already use science in that way. But I am skeptical about the notion of “a science of morality.” At any rate, I anxiously await Harris’s book. The man is brilliant, and his book it likely to start many important conversations about ethics.
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I look forward to the book as well.

I don’t think there is a science of morality, so I also am interested in the context.

Could he also be asking about

Knowledge source
Correction method
Primary selection method
Reasoning method
Verification method
Authentication method
Central tenents
Research method

So many questions about it, so little information so far to decide what is being said and what is not.
 
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