Science must destroy religion

[DCNBILL]

Yes, certain similarities are recurrent, but the differences are also vast. Some cultures have claimed that it’s ok to kill, some that paedophillia is fine, others that human sacrifice is ok, canibalism, slavery, genocide… virtually everything which you can think of which we would consider to be reprehensible has been considered to be morally acceptable and in some cases even morally required in human history.

I agree this also goes to my point at the bottom here.

Er, I may be missing something here then. You defined a moral code as

“A moral code is a system of morality (according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code.”

Surely that is a sense of what is right or wrong? Sorry to nitpick, but since you went to the effort to get an agreed definition it seems sensible to be clear on terms if they are important.

Good point, accepted.

I’m not sure I see a major distinction here. In other animals their “morality” is a balancing act of competing urges, some to share or help or whatever, and others to ensure their own safety, be selfish etc etc. We aren’t really in any position to judge how the animals themselves experience this competition. Perhaps they do indeed experience it as the equivalent of active decision making in their own terms of experience.

In any case, is this key to your argument? If not then I suggest that this is just accepted as a difference in views and move on. If it is key then we’ll need to find a position with which we can both agree.

Not a key at all. I will try and address this point again in a future post.

Not sure what you mean by better moral behaviours existing in some people. Surely you mean that some people exhibit behaviours which are more in keeping with the moral zeitgeist in which they live than other people? If so then yes I’m certainly happy to agree with that. Otherwise you’ll have to explain what you mean.

Just as you have stated above there have been numerous accounts of moral behaviors in cultures that we would find reprehensible, so the question is;

Do you think that, using your terms, there have existed some (moral codes) that are better or more acceptable than others?

 

[Touchstone]

Uh-huh and there are some forms of atheism which advocate genocide for all religions. That doesn’t mean I can lump you all with them right?

Again, the existence of dolts don’t make the case against all those who share their faith.

There’s a fundamental difference between the two camps, though. Atheism provides (and cannot provide) grounds for genocide. It may fail to restrain ideologies that are genocidal with a moral barrier against that priority, but that’s just an artifact of atheism as a conclusion – it’s just a judgment about the existence of gods, a negation rather than a positive framework.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Uh-huh and there are some forms of atheism which advocate genocide for all religions. That doesn’t mean I can lump you all with them right?

I would encourage a finer granularity.

In the case of religion I would get down to “some ideas that are propagated and inspired by some religions that tend to be harmful.” Similarly in the case of atheists that promote genocide it might by the ideas and ideologies that motivate them to have that view that might be examined. Once we get down to that level I suspect that you would find a good bit of agreement from people of various religious and non-religious backgrounds.

Again, the existence of dolts don’t make the case against all those who share their faith.

Certainly, as people in the same religious classification can still have a broad range of differing views.

Oh yes, so I’ve heard. Any religion that’s not one of the dreaded Abrahamic Trinity (Judaism-Islam-Christianity) isn’t up for free passes because they’re soooo nice and soooo all about peace dude.

There are harmful aspects of some other religious groups too. There was a documentary called “The Prostitutes of God” that looked at another sub-group of Hinduism. (for now I will assume I don’t need to qualify the harm that occurs in this group). Neither of these are Abrahamic religions.

 

[JesuisSean]

Truth will destroy religion !

Religion is presently based upon beliefs.

Beliefs are only practiced if one is located at a distance from the truth and thus one is located within the zone of less than truth.

The religious folk of today stick like glue to their beliefs and thus in turn they stick like glue to maintaining a distance between themselves and the actual truth of which their beliefs speak of.

Currently, they only accept the belief.

Thus if the truth is presented to them, it is rejected for it is not the same as less than truth, meaning it is not the same as the belief.

For instance, the TRUE coded word of Jesus Christ himself has been rejected for years by one means, or another.
See outersecrets.com/real/biblecode2a.htm

 

[Candide_West]

Just as you have stated above there have been numerous accounts of moral behaviors in cultures that we would find reprehensible, so the question is;

Do you think that, using your terms, there have existed some (moral codes) that are better or more acceptable than others?

Of course, by my standards very many moral codes are worse than my own. Those which have caused enormous suffering are definately inferior when measured against by their ability to prevent suffering. The extent to which they are inferior is I guess roughly proportional to the extent of the difference when compared to my own. ie the extent to which they fail when measured against my own moral code.

 

[tonyrey]

Incorrect, the error you made here is that you have separated out “our choices” and “the choices due to physical causes” they are the same thing. “our choices” ARE “choices due to physical choices”. So yes they will always correspond.

If our choices and their physical causes always correspond to each other we cannot be the authors of our choices because we do not cause them.

It isn’t surprising that you made this error given that you are starting from a presumption of dualism, but the problem vanishes once you shed that position.

It isn’t surprising that you made this error (of equating “our” choices with physical causes given that you are starting from a presumption of materialism but the problem vanishes once you shed that position.

Ahhh, school playground tactics of repeating something someone said to you. I’m afraid I stopped responding to such japes when I was a teenager, but thanks for the stroll down memory lane.

The fact remains that your statements were unnecessary, did nothing whatsoever to further the discussion and in addition to being useless they are discourteous.

Incorrect, science has told us huge amounts about morality. As you would expect it is an observable phenomena so it has been studied extensively across many species, including our own.

Precisely what has it told us?

1. Physical events are amoral.

Incorrect, lets pick an example – lets say you pick up a rock and bash your neighbours head in with it. This is unquestionably a physical event, it is also immoral.

It is a physical event deliberately caused by a person - not by natural events.

Incorrect, the moral status of our behaviour attaches due to our status as moral agents. It is not due to the physical cause of our behaviour.

According to you our status as moral agents has physical causes - which are amoral because they don’t know what they are doing.

1. According to science all our activities have physical causes.

Not quite, it would be more accurate to say that “no non-physical causes have ever been detected”.

Science is restricted to natural entities, persons are animals and animals are amoral…

No, you see if two people had exactly the same makeup and exactly the same physical background then those two people would be the same person. You are talking about a level of similarity far beyond what could possibly be created, even taking identical twins and exposing them to precisely the same events at the same time would be insufficient, you’d have to directly control the internal events in their brains.

Irrelevant. If physical causes determined “our choices” we wouldn’t make those “choices” and they wouldn’t be rational choices. They would be caused by so many irrational factors it would be a miracle if two individuals happened to make the same “choices”. They wouldn’t be “their choices” at all.

But this is of course nothing to do with your conclusion that everyone holds contradictory views. People can be different to each other and yet still share common views, they just won’t hold exactly the same views on ALL subjects.

It has everything to do with my conclusion because in your scheme of things persons have no control over “their choices”. There is only one cause: either you or something else, i.e. physical causes: you are just a cog turned by events.

The fact that people share some views and the similarity of their views is roughly proportional to their similarity of background is what we would expect if activities have physical causes. It is also what we observe in the real world.

You have put yet another naiI in the coffin of materialism. If our views are **determined by our background **we don’t choose them: **they are chosen for us by our background **- and we cannot rationally claim they are “ours”.

I have pointed out that without religion there is no rational basis for morality because the universe is amoral.

And in that you are incorrect because while the universe is amoral people are not and I and plenty of others have provided a rational basis for morality without religion.

You have given no** reason **why everyone should be regarded as equal.

Why do axioms apply to everyone?

Because they are axioms. Or if you prefer, because they come from the definitions of those terms, which are themselves axiomatic.

In other words you create a universal axiom out of the blue without giving a reason why it applies to everyone.

If one person’s happiness depends on another person’s suffering which person has priority?

In general suffering is the more intense experience, so prevention of suffering is more heavily weighted.

So suffering should always be prevented?

Do you accept or reject those assertions?

I’d reject the first two because they both assert things which in themselves are likely to cause suffering but not the last because killing people causes suffering.

So you would never kill a person?

If a fundamental belief - like the principle of inequality - is false and makes some persons happy it causes much suffering to others.

In that case the belief has failed on the terms I provided, this bit “and causes no suffering to anybody.”

So all suffering should be prevented regardless of any other considerations?

Materialism, hedonism, egoism and scepticism have an extremely long history of causing harm - not as a result of fortune but logic.

Disagree, I can’t recall any wars being undertaken in the name of hedonism, or genocide being undertaken in the name of skepticism.

Not explicitly but the lust for pleasure and the rejection of morality has led to wars and genocide.

In any case the argument you are making here is one of relativism “sure people have done terrible things in the name of religion but they’ve done terrible things for other reasons too”. My answer to that would be “so what?”. Are you saying that just because some systems of thought cause problems we should accept any other systems of thought which also cause problems? If so then again I must disagree with you.

Relativism is inevitable in a Godless universe because it is relative to human beings.

1. Religion has always been a universal phenomenon.

Nope, granted it’s relatively common in recent human history but that is a long way from universal.

Religion is as old as mankind.

1. Belief in the spiritual world has existed since the dawn of history whereas materialism is a rare occurrence.

So what you are saying is that belief in a spiritual world is a phenomena which has existed for a tiny fraction of the history of a single species on one planet. And religion is of course a subset of that. Given what you have written in 1. This would appear to mean that you have a very myopic idea of “universal”.

You have a very myopic view of spiritual reality. You think man is the measure of all things.

1. Western society has been based on Christian values for the last two thousand years.
2. The principles of liberty, equality and fraternity originated in the teaching of Jesus.
   Nope, they didn’t originate with Jesus. Indeed the principles such as the golden rule were in circulation in a number of ancient cultures hundreds, if not thousands of years BCE.

“Love thy neighbour as thyself” is a typical example of the Golden Rule confined to a small group of people but not extended to everyone in the world- and certainly not to one’s enemies

Until that assertion is justified with evidence it is gratuitous.

Fortunately though it IS supported with evidence, piles of it in fact. If you wish to satisfy yourself of this just go and speak to some atheists out there in the real world. Or speak to those of us who come on this website. You’ll find that we are all in posession of working moral systems.

Based on what? Their own ideas, nothing more…
On what **rational **basis do you select your moral values and principles from that medley of sources?

What are your criteria of true moral values and principles?

As I said I compare propositions against axioms to test out their moral status.

Comparison presupposes the existence of criteria by which you test…
Test for what? Convenience? What exactly do you mean by “moral status”? How do you distinguish moral from amoral?

You still have not explained the rational basis of those axioms… Are they confined to persons on this planet? Do they apply to animals? To unborn children? If we exist for no reason whatsoever how can axioms possibly be based on a reason? In an absurd universe nothing makes sense… Values are just man-made conventions for the sake oc convenience… The criminal’s views are as true as anyone else’s in a crazy, unplanned world which just happens to exist by sheer chance…

Why not admit you’re trying to establish good and evil, right and wrong, just and unjust in a system which is totally devoid of any concern for what occurs on this planet? Morality is a just a fairy tale. The problem is that - unlike Camus and Sartre - you fail to take your scepticism to its logical conclusion: everything is absurd… If only matter exists nothing matters - and that is all there is to be said.