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cranster
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It would effectively cease to exist. Without an observer there is no tool.
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ivebeenshown
Guest
It would not necessarily cease to exist, but its classification as a tool may no longer apply.
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cranster
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That makes sense. There is a very aggressive atheist on a currency forum i go to who keeps bringing stuff like this in. His most recent is how God is a moral monster based on the destruction of the cananites, slavery in the bible, and because he supports human sacrifice. He brings youtube videos in to the forum showing atheists debating ill equipped christians trying to illustrate the absurdity of continuing to hang on to bronze age myths.
Heres how they frame the argument. I will tell you what you believe then I will show you why its absurd to believe that. I will tell you how to interpret scripture then tell you why believing that is absurd.
They present A caricature of God totally unrecognizable to anyone who has attended
sunday school more than once. then tell you they dont believe in that and neither should you.
They sure seem to be getting more and more aggressive. The claim is that science shows us now that the things the bible claims are not how the real word works. If you believe that people are made from other peoples ribs, or that there were giant wooden boats made to float on world wide floods… Where did all that water go? That virgins give birth. Or that people can turn themselves into bread then you are a credulous fool.
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edwest2
Guest
That is correct. Pick up a copy of The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis.It’s even more awesome when reality doesn’t bear that assertion out though.By that very perspective, the idea of morality is derailed. To quote Greg Koukl, “When morality is reduced to patterns of behavior chosen by natural selection for its survival value, then morality is not explained; it’s denied.”
What you are left with is not morality, but a decidedly dehumanizing worldview, in the sense that it makes persons into puppets–mere toys which are being manipulated by evolutionary forces. Human beings are, unfortunately for those who have such faith in evolution, complex creatures whose sense of self-control is essential to their health and stability. The inevitable consequence of such a worldview permeating a society is bound to be, and the numbers affirm this, an overall decline in mental health and moral values.
In the meanwhile, one could just as easily posit that empathy and social animals, even life itself, have evolved for the purpose of preparing creatures to understand morality. Either one is entirely speculative. One assumes a higher order, the other assumes a blind process that has sprung from self-sufficient and completely unconscious forces. Both go beyond the limits of hard science.
Peace,
Ed
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prodigalson2011
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Already got the C.S. Lewis Complete Signature Classics Collection.
Haven’t gotten around to reading them yet though!
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edwest2
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A good point, as a reading of the business press will show that fantasy was exchanged with reality. Those charged with valuing homes just kept prices going up and up (to infinity?), Wall Street took this false information, packaged it into Credit Default Swaps and knew when everything would fall of the cliff. Do you know why the Ford Motor Company did not get a government bailout? Because their own people, tasked with watching the Stock Market, saw strange things happening and quickly began moving assets.Nah. The people I can truly relate to and admire the most do not come from the ivory tower. Ivory tower is overrated. It produces as much self-centered people. Just look at wall street and how it screwed us all.
Peace,
Ed
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edwest2
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The Biological sciences as regards studying the past are no longer my friend.Jesus is a friend of mine. Science is a friend of mine too.I liked what Pope Benedict said, “human virtues: affability, truthfulness, modesty, courtesy, cheerfulness, culture”.
Peace,
Ed
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Candide_West
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Nope, you can however conclude that I don’t consider political lobbying and protesting to be a form of charitable endeavour.Okay, just to review for a second, this is a Catholic forum and a philosophy forum , and considering that you were referring to a Catholic’s statement
The only rational conclusion that can be drawn from this part of your reply, and the terms you chose to frame your reply (highlights mine) -
- it wouldn’t hurt you to learn a Catholic definition of charity.
. . . is that you don’t believe the child in the womb is a human being.
That would place you in direct opposition of both the Catholic religion and medical science.
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edwest2
Guest
You are preaching the same uninformed nonsense I’ve been reading on this forum for years.
Regarding the secular saint Galileo:
catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversy
And the killing of human embryos for scientific purposes? The fact is that everyone reading this began their lives as unique human embryos. Just ask an embryologist
Science is self-correcting? A common myth. I suggest you get a copy of Secret Science - Federal Control of American Science and Technology by Herbert N. Foerstel.
We are seeing an increasing amount of human slavery, it just goes by different words today:
acrath.org.au/
Peace,
Ed
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edwest2
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About life expectancy:
sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120621113421.htm
Moral standards continue to decline decade after decade. But they are beginning to turn around with God’s help.
Peace,
Ed
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edwest2
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There is a huge difference between being good and doing good things and knowing God. You are on a Catholic forum that knows and understands that while doing good is to be encouraged, this life is not all there is.
I have to wonder what world I live in, when I read stuff like that.
I have enormous faith in people, and this faith has been rewarded 100 times over.
With the disadvantaged kids we work with, I’ve seen the direct result of someone having faith and trust in them, maybe for the first time in their lives. It has literally turned peoples lives around, because others putting their trust and faith in them gave them faith in themselves.
Sarah x
Peace,
Ed
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Touchstone
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It’s aggravating to see the denialism of this dynamic come up here (“Link or it didn’t happen”), when just on this thread a poster just said they’d at least fall into hedonism; the popularity of this response hardly needs documentation, that without Christianity these poor sinners would degrade into base, amoral animals.If someone says to me, that if they lost their faith in their Deity, they would murder, rape and pillage all the day long, because they could, since morality wouldn’t exist, I have no reason to not believe them, because I know that religious extremism exists, within all religions.
I have no reason to think they are lying to me.
And in all honesty, I find that thought very troubling and quite frightening, because what happens if such a person does indeed lose their faith?
This is why I said, truthfully, there are certain people I would hope never lose their faith.
Sarah x
But even so, you DO have a reason not to believe them. Christians who speak this way are speaking foolishly, from a foolish Christian idea, that God is what makes men moral.
You know the people saying these things are human, though, so broadly speaking (there are and will be anti-social and psychopathic individuals in any large group), these people just lack a basic understanding of themselves. They have empathy and a moral conscious wired into them by millions of years of adaption, the product of natural evolution not some sorcery worked by an imaginary god.
You can and should disbelieve them. This is one way religion, and Chrisitianity in particular here, poisons everything; if we don’t cling to our bigoted superstitions, much WORSE will happen, we will go and bring out all sorts of violent, wanton mayhem!
That’s not in the nature of the speakers. Nature has developed them to be aggressive, impudent, rude, prideful, haughty, selfish and all of that, yes, but it has invested a moral conscience that governs their thoughts and behaviors at a basic level. If it were not so, humans would not have survived as a species to be here discussing it.
I know your response is one that is poking a stick at the “Without God I’d be a monster” nonsense, but remember it IS nonsense, a lame excuse for a death-grip on superstitions. Please don’t feed the trolling on this issue by validating these lame excuses, eh?
-TS
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Candide_West
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Incorrect, I provided a valid reason back on post #65. You just chose not to reply to it and decided to attack a strawman.
Ok, phew, glad we don’t live in an irrational universe then hey.
Nope, that’ll be another straw man. I never made any such argument. Indeed i specifically stated the opposite.Science is a process used for gaining understanding of how things are.
Nope, if morality is explained by science then it remains morality. Just like when the human heart became understood by science it didn’t suddenly change into something else. It always was a pump, it is just that we came to understand that it is a pump and not the seat of the soul.
As I have already stated empathy is a good basis. The golden rule is a good statement of how you can turn that into a principle.
Nope, that’ll be yet another straw man. I have clearly stated that people DO need morality. For example when i said " Or you could just say “people need morality”." Clearly you must know that you are attacking straw men here, I said that in the piece of text you replied to telling me that i was arguing that people don’t need morality. Surely you appreciate this is rather silly, or are you just not reading what you are replying to?
Actually that’s a very good example and demonstrates my point well. It is true that once a horses master is dead that the horse is no longer of any use to it’s master. However, clearly the horse could be used by someone else just fine.
And I disagree with that point. Perhaps the history of science would have been different, but we cannot say whether it would have been better or worse. It’s dealing in pure guesswork. The principle of observe and test has been around longer than Christianity though, so I don’t think that christianity can take credit.
I don’t know, if you’d like to find out your best bet is probably to survey a statistically significant proportion of catholics.
Along with plenty of catholics, christians in general, nurses, doctors, charity workers etc.
By providing a set of principles like empathy being good for society and that generally people are more successful by being less selfish etc. Then people could select the morals they think best from those principles instead of selecting the ones they think best from the same principles but provided on a religious basis.
Ok, go ahead and demonstrate that empathy is inadequate and then we’ll see if we run into any problems that cannot be resolved without recourse to supernatural entities.
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edwest2
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I take it then that you’ve never read anything about this from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops? Or from anywhere else?Church is never supposed to be interfering with the politics. (Really? Do you want me to go into the separation of Church and State? This is high school stuff…:doh2
The just ordering of society and the State is the central responsibilities of the politics. If we want the Church to do everything for us, what are we electing a government for? Well, we pay taxes to the elected government to run our civil affairs and maintaining social order of course.
spectator.org/archives/2012/05/22/catholic-institutions-revolt-e
stophhs.com/stop_hhs_mandate/catholics-make-history-with-religious-freedom-lawsuits/
usccb.org/news/
Peace,
Ed
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Candide_West
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Superbly written TS. I was looking to write something in that vein myself but you have done so far better than I would have managed.
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Touchstone
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Believing that would be childishly credulous. If I could ask you about your beliefs in any number of other similarly childish fantasies (like Mohammed’s midnight journey to meet God, or Lehi and Nephi’s conversion of the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon), and you’d be appropriately skeptical.
The more science develops, the more implausible and untenable these beliefs get. You can’t definitively disprove an account like a miracle that has water being instantly turned into wine, but you can avail yourself of the knowledge and experience from science that grows daily: this is not how the world works, ever, in the view of those methodically researching the world’s behavior.
This is cost of superstition. You get to have your credulity, and believe all manner of things that are fabulous and untenable with any reasonable level of critical skepticism, but if you own it, OWN IT, right? It’s not like the Virgin Birth is some sideshow detail that has no part in Christian belief or doctrine; the Resurrection is not some esoteric claim off to one side. These are the foundations of the faith, the things Christians proclaim, and must, for without them, there is no Christianity, no Gospel.
They are also ridiculous, which I mean in the literal sense: worthy of ridicule. The writers of the NT understood the nature of these claims, and hewed to them proudly, despite.
Similarly, the “moral monster” argument attaches to Christianity at the root. Examples from the OT like the genocide of the Midianites etc., horrifying as they are, can be just “thrown out”; the essential claims of Christianity posit a tyrant, anti-human God, who, if he existed (and good for us all that he does not, on all available evidence), would have to be defied, denounced, cursed and vilified by those committed to human interests. In short, if there’s an eternal hell that you believe in, created and administered by God, then you have a moral monster problem, something to be deeply ashamed of in your God.
-TS
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edwest2
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It’s quite schizophrenic or perhaps falls into a multiple personality category.
Your God does not exist.
The Bible is a book of myths/fairy tales.
OK. Let’s stop there, right? No, there’s more.
You’re Bible is wrong, here, here and here, based on science. What science? Where are the peer reviewed papers? "Analysis of Miraculous Events as Produced by the Christian Deity or God.
Pope John Paul II is about to be declared a saint. He has one miracle to go. Here’s the first one:
guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/31/catholicism.france
Peace,
Ed
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CopticChristian
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Touchstone,
You are a regular member. Candide agrees with you. I can learn from you. Here is what I hear you saying.
You find it aggravating as to the cause of what makes men moral.
You believe that there are anti-social and psychopathic individuals in any large group. You believe that the cause is that these people just lack a basic understanding of themselves.
You believe that people have empathy and a moral conscious wired into them by millions of years of adaption, the product of natural evolution.
You believe that Nature has developed a moral conscience that governs thoughts and behaviors at a basic level. You stat that if it were not so, humans would not have survived as a species to be here discussing it.
You find that this approach is preferable to bigoted superstitions.
Is this correct?
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cranster
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Lol… Its all good. No worriesSorry Cranster, I don’t mean to derail your thread.
Back to relevant discussion now.
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Candide_West
Guest
Sure, scientific theories, experiements and results are generally shared around, through publishing in scientific journals etc. Especially at the cutting edge of science (less so in more established areas where people are really talking about application of science). So there is always other people information available to build upon to take a topic further forwards, and very rarely do we take steps backwards (ie lose a year’s worth of scientific research which has already been undertaken) because scientific record keeping is excellent (it’s kinda a key part of the process). So yes, science is a cumulative process, it tends to continuously build on the work of others who have gone before.
And by self correcting I mean that for example if you are trying to build some work on the back of some work that has previously been carried out. And you find that your results do not in fact come out as the theory predicts, you analyse your test and the theory and the assumptions upon which it is made. If you find no errors in the test and the theory you begin to challenge the assumptions, sooner or later you find out that one of the assumptions was incorrect because the scientific work it was based on was incorrect. So science has an inbuilt mechanism for checking and re-checking work, thus identification and correction of errors. Quantum theory actually grew from seeking out a just such a correction.
It’s not exactly what you were expounding, no. It is however simply a matter of applying logic to what you expounded.
You argued that the people who are allocating resources (powerful people) change the way that they allocate those resources from the method they used which got them to be powerful people (in other words the successful method). In other words to be less competative at being in that position. Clearly this would make them less successful, thus due to the high level of competition that exists at the top, they would not be on the top for very long.
Really you might as well ask why the biggest market capitalisation company on the stock market doesn’t give away half it’s profits to charity. The reason obviously enough is that they would immediately cease to be the biggest market capitalisation company on the stock market.
Come now, the church is anything but discrete in doing charity work. Sure they don’t put adverts on the television, they rely on their extensive network of word of mouth and local communication centres. Go out on the street and ask 10 people if they would tend to connect religion and charity. If you find more than a couple who say “no” i’ll be very surprised.
Ok, but i never said it would. You were complaining about free market economy, I suggested you develop a better system.
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