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Author Topic: Richard Dawkins Interviews Creationist Wendy Wright
BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
Being omnipotent "within the realm of ethics" is a pretty serious limitation. It amounts to saying that God does not in fact get to decide what constitutes goodness.

Something Socrates demonstrated logically a long time ago.
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Samprimary
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http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1668
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sinflower
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quote:
Why are these "illogical?" You can derive them from first principles.
What are the first principles you're using to derive the conclusion that there's an intrinsic value to human life, or that hurting innocents is wrong? I'm curious. Are they self-evident/inarguable ones? If not, why are they different from anyone else using their personal beliefs as first principles for logical deductions?
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0Megabyte
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I'm curious how you think it's illogical to think hurting innocents is wrong.

What is it that makes not wanting to hurt innocents illogical, exactly?

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Ron Lambert
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quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
I find it sad that I'm a better parent than God.

MightyCow, God forbade Adam and Even only one thing. There is only one way in which they could come to harm in all the earth, and that was if they ate the fruit from one, single tree out of all the others. He had to provide them with a choice, so their free will could be real. But what more could He have done to protect them from coming to harm by accident or ignorance? He did warn them explicitly. There was no necessity for them to disobey Him.

The source of temptation came from a being who had invented the idea of sin, and used half-truths and deception and blatant contradiction of what God had said, to entice Eve into doubting God. But the serpent--and the fallen angelic being using it--was not permitted to coerce Eve into doing anything.

Then when Adam saw his wife had eaten the forbidden fruit and was offering some to him, he chose to doubt God without being deceived into it, and supposed that God would just let Eve die, unless Adam joined with her in disobedience, so God would have to forgive her too if He were going to forgive Adam. Of the two, Adam's sin was actually the worse. The human race as a whole did not fall until Adam, the first man, consciously and deliberately chose to act on his doubting of God's goodness. Note Genesis 3:7a: It was not until Adam ate, that "the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked."

Everything else of woe and suffering and sadness and death that has followed in this world, are consequences that flow from that one choice. Adam was humanity.

But then God Himself, as Jesus, became humanity to save us.

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TomDavidson
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quote:
What are the first principles you're using to derive the conclusion that there's an intrinsic value to human life, or that hurting innocents is wrong?
Start with "harm is bad." That's usually considered axiomatic, and that'll get you there.
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0Megabyte
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Ron: Right. And punishing us for what they did, and requiring a massively complex series of events as an excuse to even partially undo punishing us for what they did, isn't completely insane.
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sinflower
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quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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What are the first principles you're using to derive the conclusion that there's an intrinsic value to human life, or that hurting innocents is wrong?
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Start with "harm is bad." That's usually considered axiomatic, and that'll get you there.
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I don't see how that gets me to the idea that human lives are worth more than nonhuman ones. I can kind of see how that could lead to the idea that hurting "innocents" is worse than hurting normal people, but it's rather tenuous.

But even if you could force a logical connection, the reason that most people believe those particular things is because of emotional instincts, not logic. Afterwards they may try to rationalize it, but values, and the logical decisions that are based off of them, come from emotion.

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TomDavidson
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quote:
the reason that most people believe those particular things is because of emotional instincts, not logic
But that's not what you were saying. You were saying, "everyone has illogical beliefs," not "everyone has logical beliefs which are to some extent informed by their emotional programming."
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Tresopax
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quote:
Being omnipotent "within the realm of ethics" is a pretty serious limitation. It amounts to saying that God does not in fact get to decide what constitutes goodness.
Either God gets to decide what constitutes goodness, or He doesn't. If He does get to decide what constitutes goodness then how could there be a problem of evil? Wouldn't that mean that if God decides suffering is necessary for the best possible world then it literally is so?

The problem with suffering only arises if there is some objective standard of goodness with which one could declare God's decisions wrong.

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sinflower
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quote:
But that's not what you were saying. You were saying, "everyone has illogical beliefs," not "everyone has logical beliefs which are to some extent informed by their emotional programming."
Well, okay. I'll rephrase if you can explain to me how "harm is bad" logically leads to the examples of beliefs that I provided.
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Zotto!
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Or, for that matter, how any value of "badness" can be assigned on purely logical grounds to the physical experience of pain in the first place, despite how easy it is to axiomatically beg the question.

[ March 22, 2010, 07:35 AM: Message edited by: Zotto! ]

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TomDavidson
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Are you defining "harm" exclusively as the physical experience of pain, Zotto? I wasn't.

----------

quote:
If He does get to decide what constitutes goodness then how could there be a problem of evil? Wouldn't that mean that if God decides suffering is necessary for the best possible world then it literally is so?
And, indeed, the classic resolution of the Problem of Evil for those who believe in an omnipotent God is that God has decided all this suffering is desirable for some reason, and that this is okay because God must have a good reason (which we simply don't know or understand). Of course, this argument has obvious flaws, but so does the idea of an omnipotent God.
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Zotto!
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I was because I thought you were, but I think the question is still relevant if you replace "the physical experience of pain" with "the idea of harm".

The word "harm" comes from "grief, sorrow, or evil", so it's already implying a value-system within the meaning. By presupposing the existence of such a value system, we can get to "hurting innocents is wrong", but just applying the phrase "it's axiomatic" to such a premise hardly makes it "logically" supportable, since we can posit any belief we hold as being an axiomatic first principle. We can use logic afterwards to justify actions based on that belief, but the foundation itself is arational.

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TomDavidson
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quote:
applying the phrase "it's axiomatic" to such a premise hardly makes it "logically" supportable, since we can posit any belief we hold as being an axiomatic first principle
I am not saying that "harm is bad" is logically supportable. I am saying that it is axiomatic, and moreover I can think of no one who would reject it as an axiom. Do you?

There are, however, conclusions which are logically supportable which may be easily derived from the axiom "harm is bad."

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Ron Lambert
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0Megabyte, if you remember to start with the axiom that God is the Source of Life--He alone is self-existent, and all other living beings depend upon Him from moment-to-moment for their very existence--then it is certainly not insane to see that there must be dire consequences resulting from rebelling against God and allowing a wedge to divide us from Him. That Adam and Eve were not blotted out of existence instantly is the true marvel that should be pondered, for it reveals to us the true nature of God as the Source of true love, as well as life. God must reconcile justice with mercy. This is no trifling matter.
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TomDavidson
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quote:
if you remember to start with the axiom that God is the Source of Life--He alone is self-existent, and all other living beings depend upon Him from moment-to-moment for their very existence, then it is certainly not insane to see that there must be dire consequences resulting from rebelling against God
Very true. I note, however, that your axiom is rather complex and easily challenged.

Go ahead and challenge "harm is bad." I'll wait.

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Blayne Bradley
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quote:
Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
0Megabyte, if you remember to start with the axiom that God is the Source of Life--He alone is self-existent, and all other living beings depend upon Him from moment-to-moment for their very existence--then it is certainly not insane to see that there must be dire consequences resulting from rebelling against God and allowing a wedge to divide us from Him. That Adam and Eve were not blotted out of existence instantly is the true marvel that should be pondered, for it reveals to us the true nature of God as the Source of true love, as well as life. God must reconcile justice with mercy. This is no trifling matter.

Unless of course he gets off of seeing us struggle.
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Aris Katsaris
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quote:
if you remember to start with the axiom that God is the Source of Life--He alone is self-existent, and all other living beings depend upon Him from moment-to-moment for their very existence, then it is certainly not insane to see that there must be dire consequences resulting from rebelling against God
Your axiom wouldn't even indicate that God is sentient, let alone that he has communicated instructions to people (that they might rebel against him, even if they wanted to), or that he would notice their disobedience, or be displeased by it if he noticed it, or that'd he act to punish them upon his displeasure.

So, your "there must be dire consequences resulting from rebelling against god" is atleast five logical leaps removed from your axiom.

quote:
I am not saying that "harm is bad" is logically supportable. I am saying that it is axiomatic, and moreover I can think of no one who would reject it as an axiom. Do you?
In my language (Greek) it's pretty much tautological, as the english verb "harm" would translate to "kano kako" - namely "doing bad". Same as "benefit" would be translated to "kano kalo" - "doing good".
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rollainm
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quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
if you remember to start with the axiom that God is the Source of Life--He alone is self-existent, and all other living beings depend upon Him from moment-to-moment for their very existence, then it is certainly not insane to see that there must be dire consequences resulting from rebelling against God
Very true. I note, however, that your axiom is rather complex and easily challenged.

Go ahead and challenge "harm is bad." I'll wait.

Masochism?
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Raymond Arnold
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Doesn't actually count, because in that case the pain being experienced is bringing a pleasure that outweighs it. Pain does not always equal suffering. (I think "suffering is bad" would be a slightly better axiom, since it actually states something that isn't quite tautological)
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TomDavidson
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quote:
Masochism?
Ah! You just derived the concept of a greater good! *applause* That's step two. [Wink]
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rollainm
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Yeah, I gathered that. If there had been an angel emoticon at my disposal it would be there.

edit: lol at Tom

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Raymond Arnold
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I actually am curious about Tom's answer to sinflower's question:

quote:
I don't see how that gets me to the idea that human lives are worth more than nonhuman ones. I can kind of see how that could lead to the idea that hurting "innocents" is worse than hurting normal people, but it's rather tenuous.
I actually DON'T derive that human lives are worth more than non-human ones. I think that there is a limit to how much we can be expected to avoid destroying animal life in pursuit of our general welfare, but I think we far exceed that limit. In the abstract, I think a lot of human actions that we consider acceptable are downright evil, but I don't assign blame based on abstract measures of suffering, I assign it based on the effort required to deviate from our basic biological drives.

i.e. a person born in the industrial revolution when we were giving essentially no thought to the destruction of the environment was "causing" greater suffering than a person born in a self-sustaining green commune, but in both cases the people in question are operating off of social inertia so I don't necessarily blame the industrial-revolution guy any more than the commune guy.

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TomDavidson
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The reason I haven't answered that particular question of sinflower's is that I don't think you can logically "prove" relative worth, except insofar as you can demonstrate why a given individual might consider one thing to be worth more than another.

If the question is why we, as humans, might consider the lives of our species to be worth more than the lives of another species, there is an obvious and logical answer. If the question is a demand for proof that human lives are more valuable than the lives of another species to some independent arbiter, I suppose the first question that must be asked is "who is this independent arbiter of worth, and why do we assume one exists?"

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The White Whale
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quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
If the question is a demand for proof that human lives are more valuable than the lives of another species to some independent arbiter, I suppose the first question that must be asked is "who is this independent arbiter of worth, and why do we assume one exists?"

Well said. This is partly why I almost automatically reject conclusions drawn my most mainstream economists. There conclusions assume that their method of decision making is correct. I feel that it is very, very wrong. I like it when they are aware of the faults of their system, and make the faults part of the discussion.
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0Megabyte
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Ron:

I don't recall eating any fruit from forbidden trees lately. Do you? God being the source of life in your axiom doesn't nullify the fact that we are "fallen" through actions no fault of our own. Our tendencies, our drives, are not our fault. Humans may have free will, but they are still human, and act as such, and in a "fallen" manner. But we were born fallen, for the actions of others. And because of that status we are to be punished?

That's still insane.

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MightyCow
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Ron Lambert: Again, I don't put my infant down next to an open bottle of rat poison and tell him not to eat it and then leave the room to give him "free choice."

That's something only an evil or insane person would do.

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Armoth
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Actually, parents do it all the time. A good parent leaves his children to develop on their own, and doesn't try to rule their lives.

Parents try to grow other people, and not pawns.

Many religionists believe that free will is a gift, giving human beings creative energy. It's EXACTLY like Worthing Saga. We are given an arena in which to exercise free will and to become beautiful people.

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0Megabyte
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"Actually, parents do it all the time."

They must not be parents for very long.

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just_me
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quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
Ron Lambert: Again, I don't put my infant down next to an open bottle of rat poison and tell him not to eat it and then leave the room to give him "free choice."

That's something only an evil or insane person would do.

quote:
Originally posted by Armoth:
Actually, parents do it all the time. A good parent leaves his children to develop on their own, and doesn't try to rule their lives.

Parents try to grow other people, and not pawns.

Wow, I really hope you don't do that (as quoted) with a child Armoth. Any parent who puts his (presumably young) child down next to an open bottle of poison should severely punished.

It's a matter of degree. As a parent should I try to rule every aspect of my child's life? Of course not. Should I let them take small risks? Most likely. Should I put them in ridiculous and or dangerous situations that might harm them for life just to try and let them be "there own person"? Of course not. Especially when they are too young, inexperienced or ignorant (lacking in knowledge) to make a good choice.

Because putting them in those situations isn't going to result in them growing into people at all, it's going to result in them in a casket.

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Armoth
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Whoa. I didn't mean the poison thing. A parent allows their child to take risks commensurate with the child's ability to chose. And sometimes, it's really painful, but the parent has to sit back and watch their kid make some really awful mistakes.

I thought your analogy with God putting people next to a bottle of poison was to demonstrate a point. I thought a responded to that point. I didn't think you took your own analogy that seriously. If so, please explain how God does that.

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TomDavidson
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quote:
If so, please explain how God does that.
In some versions of Christian theology, like Ron's, it's even worse: it's not just poison that'll kill your kid, but will kill your kid's kids and their kids and ruin everything on the entire Earth for everyone. And before you set it down on the carpet next to him and hide behind the couch, you already know he's going to drink it because you're God and you know these things.
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Tresopax
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quote:
Go ahead and challenge "harm is bad." I'll wait.
You just said that an omnipotent God has the ability to decide what is bad. Therefore, "harm is bad" cannot be an axiom if there is an omnipotent God, since God could simply will it to be untrue whenever He feels like it.
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TomDavidson
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So you're going to assert another axiom to disprove an axiom? Why not start with "no axiom Tom suggests can be acceptable?" [Wink]
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rivka
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I could get behind that one, some days. [Wink]
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Tresopax
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quote:
So you're going to assert another axiom to disprove an axiom? Why not start with "no axiom Tom suggests can be acceptable?"
I haven't asserted any axioms. The issue is whether an omnipotent God should allow suffering to occur. You asserted that an omnipotent God would be able to decide what is bad, or else He's not omnipotent. I'm just pointing out that if you make that assertion about omnipotence, and if we are discussing what an omnipotent God should do if He exists, then you can't also assert that harm is necessarily bad.

"Harm is bad" can only be a fundamental axiom if either (1) omnipotent beings can't/won't ever change what is bad, or (2) no omnipotent beings exist.

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TomDavidson
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Ah. You didn't notice when the discussion had moved on, then.
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Tresopax
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You did request: "Go ahead and challenge 'harm is bad.' I'll wait." I assumed you were still waiting. [Wink]

Do you agree that if someone believes in an omnipotent being, under your definition of omnipotence, then they should not accept "harm is bad" as an axiom?

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swbarnes2
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quote:
Originally posted by Tresopax:
[QB]
quote:
So you're going to assert another axiom to disprove an axiom? Why not start with "no axiom Tom suggests can be acceptable?"
I haven't asserted any axioms. The issue is whether an omnipotent God should allow suffering to occur.
No, that's where the theists moved it when they didn't like the initial argument.

The initial issue was if an omnipotent being could have arranged a world with less innocent suffering; for instance, making a world where young children didn't die of disease. A God who dropped manna could also have dropped vaccines, if you want to rule out simple miracles protecting children. Even refrainng from killing the first-born sons of the slave and the prisoner would have been something, to say nothing of all the children who must have been alive before the flood. How much suffering and death could have been avoided if God had made it a world-wide moral law that people should wash their hands in boiled water before delivering babies?

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Geraine
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I see it a different way. God wanted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit. I know that goes against what you are taught Ron, but hear me out.

If the purpose of our life is to learn and experience good and evil so that we can become more like God, then the only choice Adam and Eve had was to eat the fruit. Before this there was no opposition. They were innocent and didn't even know they were naked. They were given commandments and then they were given a law.

There is a difference between a sin and a transgression.

Sin: Something that is inherently morally wrong. Like murder

Transgression: Something against the law but not morally wrong, such as speeding in your car.

Eve ate the fruit because she knew it was the only way to progress. She knew by eating it that she would be cast out and eventually die. How could they "Multiply and replenish the Earth" if one of them was dead? She took the fruit to Adam, and he ate it because Eve was his wife and knew it was the only way they could truly do what God had told them.

We could argue about how literal the story in Genesis is. The point is there had to be some point in time where man gained his sense of right and wrong.

I don't know if evolution has an explanation for that. I'm interested in reading about it if the information is out there though. At what point in our evolution did man gain his sense of right and wrong?

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TomDavidson
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quote:
Do you agree that if someone believes in an omnipotent being, under your definition of omnipotence, then they should not accept "harm is bad" as an axiom?
No. That depends on another thing: that their definition of "omnipotence" include the ability to make harm not bad, either by allowing the omnipotent being to redefine the terms involved or somehow undo the tautology. The definition of "bad" under which harm is bad, for example, might be (depending on your assumptions) very different from a definition of "bad" which is defined as the opposite of what God wants.
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Jenos
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First off, the very distinction that humans have a correct sense of right and wrong is somewhat flawed. We have a sense of what social norms tell us is right and wrong, but this varies from culture and era. People did not feel any moral outrage to slavery 2000 years ago, yet the vast majority of people today view that as a moral wrong instinctively. What we perceive emotionally as right or wrong is more often the result of the norms in the society we developed in/are living in.

That said, we definitely have a handful of moral impulses that seem to create a basis of some sort of morality. There are plenty of books that explain this in great detail, but I'm personally a huge fan of The Moral Animal by Robert Wright. Its a great introduction to the field of evolutionary psychology which is needed to delve further into the question of moral sense. To do so you need to start looking further at group relations in animals and in our evolutionary history, and understand how social behavior influences moral action. It also helps a lot to understand deeply the foundation of social contract morality(specifically talking Hobbes here), because Stephen Pinker, among others, indicate that the logic of social contracts is intertwined with our evolution of moral impulses and group dynamics. Its a large, expansive field, so I suggest if you're interested start delving into first the basics of evolutionary psychology before getting into the deeper stuff.

On another note entirely, I'm not sure if this has been addressed in the thread, but why is there so much virulence on the part of some Christians regarding evolution? Both the last two popes have openly come out in support of evolution - they both admit that there is an overwhelmingly large amount of evidence for it, and that it really doesn't mean anything because the purpose of religion is to develop effective morality and how to better the soul, not necessarily to provide a basis for the existence of the human animal. I understand that there are a large number of divisions in the Christian faith, but given that the 2 authorities in the largest group of Christians in the last thirty years have both supported evolution, why does so much hate and anger persist?

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TomDavidson
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quote:
given that the 2 authorities in the largest group of Christians in the last thirty years have both supported evolution, why does so much hate and anger persist?
The anger is not, by and large, coming from Catholics. In fact, it's mainly coming from groups who are known for not being fond of Catholics.
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dkw
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quote:
Originally posted by Jenos:
but given that the 2 authorities in the largest group of Christians in the last thirty years have both supported evolution, why does so much hate and anger persist? [/QB]

Given that the leaders of the most populous country in the world support communism, why are so many people still against it?
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swbarnes2
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quote:
Originally posted by Jenos:
On another note entirely, I'm not sure if this has been addressed in the thread, but why is there so much virulence on the part of some Christians regarding evolution?

If the Bible can be wrong about some things, it can be wrong about other things too. Therefore, some Christians have to deny that any part of it is wrong in anything. And trying to bend part of it by saying "Oh, it doesn't mean what it clearly says, it's just a metaphor" would require people to personally analyze the whole thing, and make personal judgments and draw conclusions, and some people don't want to do that. They want the 100% safe thing. They want to have easy rules to follow, and to believe that they can't be critizied for their chocies, because of course they are doing the right thing, they are living just like the Bible says.

quote:
Both the last two popes have openly come out in support of evolution - they both admit that there is an overwhelmingly large amount of evidence for it,
Mainstream Chrsitians are not about to open the can of worms that starts "Your theology (about life on earth and the Creation) is simply wrong". There's just no way that they are going to come out of that discussion unbattered. So they don't have it. They let Creationists do what they want, and the Creationists have definite goals, and the resources to achieve them lots of the time.

quote:
and that it really doesn't mean anything because the purpose of religion is to develop effective morality and how to better the soul, not necessarily to provide a basis for the existence of the human animal.
That the latter is distinct from the former may be your personal belief, but you shouldn't believe that it's a premise that everyone accepts. People do argue the fallacy of consequences, starting with "If man is not fundementally different from other animals...etc".

Or to put it another way, sure Creationism might be precluded based on your premises, which to you are self-evident, but Creationists are Creationists because they reject your premises. So asking how they can draw their conclusion while holding your premises is a non-starter. They don't hold your premises, and presenting your case as if your premises were the obvious and the only ones that people would work from just doesn't help.

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Geraine
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quote:
Originally posted by swbarnes2:

Or to put it another way, sure Creationism might be precluded based on your premises, which to you are self-evident, but Creationists are Creationists because they reject your premises. So asking how they can draw their conclusion while holding your premises is a non-starter. They don't hold your premises, and presenting your case as if your premises were the obvious and the only ones that people would work from just doesn't help.

Not always. I am a Creationist who also believes in evolution. I simply believe God used evolution to bring man into existence.
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TomDavidson
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quote:
I simply believe God used evolution to bring man into existence.
You understand that this means countless millions of subhumans had to die horrible, ghastly deaths to produce humanity, right?
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swbarnes2
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quote:
Originally posted by Geraine:
quote:
Originally posted by swbarnes2:

Or to put it another way, sure Creationism might be precluded based on your premises, which to you are self-evident, but Creationists are Creationists because they reject your premises. So asking how they can draw their conclusion while holding your premises is a non-starter. They don't hold your premises, and presenting your case as if your premises were the obvious and the only ones that people would work from just doesn't help.

Not always. I am a Creationist who also believes in evolution. I simply believe God used evolution to bring man into existence.
I thought it was clear from context that I was using "Creationist" to mean something more than someone who holds the weak claim that God did something that evidence can't distinguish from what unaided nature would be predicted to produce.

Personally, I use lowercase 'creationist' to indicate such believers, though of course I don't expect everyone to observe such usage, or to recognize it. But I think it's helpful. It's not creationists who are revising school curriculms to be hostile to accurate science. It's Creationists.

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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
I simply believe God used evolution to bring man into existence.
You understand that this means countless millions of subhumans had to die horrible, ghastly deaths to produce humanity, right?
So God isn't allowed to have *any* fun. Spoilsport.
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