Thanks for keeping the site warm for me 🙂
Gotta lot of threads to catch up on, by the looks of things.
Still a bit gobsmacked by the number of Christians on Uncommon Descent who seem to think that William Lane Craig’s apologia for the divine command to genocide has any merit, and it’s left me somewhat sick of heart, but reassuring that Timaeus, and some others also find it abhorrent.
The idea that any action is good if you think that God commanded it seems to me so self-evidently dangerous that I simply cannot imagine how anyone can entertain it for a moment. And that’s only one of the problems with it.
For those out of the loop, the hoohah started here:
Why I refuse to debate with William Lane Craig
I think Dawkins’ excuse rings hollow, myself, but his link to Craig’s essay on the genocide of the Canaanites made my blood run cold.
Dr. Liddle, I notice that you put some of my posts in the Guano section even though what I said is accurate, responsive, and relevant, is no worse than what some others say here, and is in no way as abusive as the numerous, unwarranted, outright attacks that have been waged on you and others at UD. It’s clear that your sympathies lie with hypocritical, arrogant, abusive religious zealots, regardless of what else you may say. For some strange reason you seem to be a glutton for punishment and there’s no point in posting here if you’re going to welcome your abusers and let them say whatever they want while labeling some posts from your supporters (or simply people who say what is accurate and true whether it’s directly supportive of you or not) as bird shit.
I’m outa here.
Rrright – so your so-called objective morality is just a subjective as that of any one of us, who just like you arrived at their sense of right and wrong through a process of learning, interaction with our fellow humans, introspection, study, and a myriad of other personal approaches to the subject.
You also say that you agree with us that genocide on children is morally wrong. That is good to hear, but frankly I am now totally lost as why you feel the need to attack people like us who come right out and condemn the views of Craig, based on our considered opinion of what is right and wrong in the sphere of human interaction. You have nothing that we don’t have too. I suspect now that you are just some kind of concern troll.
fG
I hope you’ll reconsider and stay on.
Elizabeth’s “posting in good faith” directive actually focuses people to address the argument and not the participant.
In my case, I actually saw William J Murray comment that while the logic was right, the conclusion was wrong, due to a faulty premise.
So again, I hope you’ll hang around and give the ID’ists something to think about in regards to their views.
,
Only if you substitute preconceived notions for what I actually write. I’ve never made any indication of any sort that I’m aware of. I’ve only argued about the logic, not about whether anybody is in fact right or wrong. I’ve also made this same caveat several times when others mistake my arguments for claims of fact.
I can’t speak for other religious people, but of course my subjective beliefs about anything are subject to evidence, or feeling, better argument, experience or whim. I’ve never challenged that. I’ve never claimed that my subjective beliefs are anything other than subjective beliefs; the issue is whether or not I assume (premise) that what I have subjective beliefs about (like: gravity, the existence of other willful minds, whether or not China exists) are objective commodities.
We can only rationally argue the merits of any proposed commodity if we assume that commodity is in some way objectively existent. There’s no sense in arguing about what gravity is, or how to best or most functionally relate to it, unless we first agree that we assume it objectively exists. If we do not first assume that “the good” objectively exisgs, we cannot fashion a rationally coherent morality because “what is good” (helping old ladies cross the street or committing genocide) would be entirely subjective, and immune to rational evaluatory comparison and argument.
There’s no such thing as “objective evidence”, because all evidence is gathered via experience, which is subjective. Furthermore, unless you are a practicing experimental scientist in the fields you hold beliefs in, your views in those matters are not based on “objective, reliable, verifiable evidence”; they are based on anecdotal and testimonial evidence (reading reports of experiments, or stories about such experiments, or articles about science, and not empirically conducting those experiments yourself).
We’re in agreement about the above.
Once again: I’ve never supported genocide. Try and read my posts more carefully.
Well, I can’t help how you feel. I used to feel the same way, then I realized I was still letting religion control how I felt – even though I had left it. You might consider that.
They have much the same argument, and feel the same way, about the ideology you and others here represent and (at least attempt in some cases) to bring to UD. They feel they are standing up against the religious aggression of Darwinist and materialist zealots.
However, arguing about the motivations anyone has, and what is “truly” in their heart, is really irrelevant. One either goes forth in a civil manner and attempts to understand others and explain their own views, or they hurl feces at each other. I’m not really interested in the latter.
You might re-read my posts. I’ve covered this in several threads here now multiple times.
I haven’t attacked anyone here for their view of Craig; I’ve pointed out the failures of the logic in their criticisms – and, I’ll point out again, given Craig’s premises, his logic is impeccable. That doesn’t mean I agree with him that genocide might be moral. I disagree with at least one of his premises – that something is “made moral” because god commands it.
The problem with criticizing genocide from a subjective morality perspective is that there’s just no way to rationally justify such an argument. You might look over my last post in the Craig thread where I go over this in more detail.
I didn’t claim that Craig’s premise was faulty. I said I disagree with it.
Let me amend that: I do find Craig’s premise faulty. Toronto is right.
Then please show me how to parse this:
I take “necessarily erroneous” as meaning that his premise about “what god is”, is not accurate, not right, wrong, and “faulty”.
If you are saying his logic is fine,
and his premise about god is **not** faulty, then how can you disagree with his conclusion?
Sorry, I typed a response at the same time you were typing yours..
To be more clear:
In order to have a sound morality, it must be based on not only an objective good, but a good that is rationally discernible. If what is in all other cases “not good” can be made “good” by nothing more than a contingent command of god, then morality is not a rationally discernible system.
Furthermore, we know “might makes right” is not a moral principle; it is an immoral principle (self-evident). Might doesn’t make right; right is right regardless of what might says. Therefore, wrong cannot be made right simply because something has the power to redefine right and wrong.
We know many things as depicted in the Bible are immoral – and people IMO are rightfully outraged that anyone would even attempt to justify such things. But appeals to outrage and emotion do not a logical rebuttal make, and without a well-grounded basis and good logical inferences, the views that condemn such perspectives are no better than the views they condemn.
Moral subjectivism cannot rationally condemn the views that hold such Biblical events to be moral, because under moral relativism all moral views are equal – including those which hold genocide, child-bashing, child-sacrifice, etc. as moral just because an all-powerful god says so at the time.
No problem, it was my fault.
The kind of god and the kind of morality Craig argues might actually exist, but it wouldn’t be a god or a morality worth considering because anyone could justify any action via the belief that “god told them” to do it, and the power of reason to arbit morality would fail.
Toronto,
I certainly wouldn’t stop any attempt to get you back on UD, but I’m kind of low man on the totem pole. I’m just a reader and occasional commenter, and I don’t have much influence; if any. If you have any outside contact with any of the moderators – or those who write actual posts, such as email addresses or whatnot, that might be your best bet.
Or if your name is Toronto because you live there, maybe you could send Denyse some flowers or something. 😉
Point being that I’ve seen some people who were previously banned, who are now back. In my thinking there must have been some sort of courteous exchange for that to happen.
First, thank you for giving me reason to look up the word “guano” before correcting you by saying that Lizzie labeled your post as bat shit rather than bird shit. I didn’t realize that guano also refers to sea bird and seal excrement.
Second, I agree with what you wrote in your original post, and I also agree with Lizzie for moving it to Guano. She has been very clear about the rules she is enforcing here and your post, however accurate it is, attacks individuals rather than ideas. I like that all posts are preserved rather than being deleted here — it’s much more intellectually honest than the process at UD.
Third, I further agree with you that Lizzie is far more gracious and forgiving than the UD regulars deserve. Unless and until some ID proponent produces a real scientific hypothesis and some testable predictions, I see no reason to take anything they say seriously. I, too, find their arrogance, condescension, and blatant rudeness grossly offensive. However, her time is hers to use as she sees fit.
I would encourage you to stick around and not take Lizzie’s classification of your post personally.
Just listening to your Chopin & Liszt album now, Gil!
Very lovely playing! Thank you!
ETA:
I’ve now listened to all three albums, and have them nicely catalogued on itunes, complete with Album Art 🙂
I am really enjoying them, especially your Chopin (not that the others aren’t lovely too, but for some reason I’ve always been especially moveable by Chopin, even though the Romantic period isn’t normally my thing (well, I go happily as far as Schubert).
But at this rate you may even convert me to Liszt 🙂
Yes Denyse and I are from the greatest city in the world, but that seems to be the **only** thing we agree on! 🙂
It’s UD I think who should be promoting a “welcome back” policy.
I don’t want to log on as a sock-puppet and then beg for re-instatement.
I did nothing wrong and UD should be focusing on refining their arguments not censoring their debating opponents.
Elizabeth,
My mother and I profoundly disagree on a lot of things, but we still get along (an understatement, as we both also profoundly love each other). Thanksgiving’s coming up and there will probably be some interesting conversations that might get a little heated, but I think we’ll all come to the conclusion in the end that we’re gathering to give thanks to whomever we feel like giving it.
Yes indeed, speaking a an earlier bannee 🙂
Barry seems to have a much less autocratic approach to running the site that Dembski did, and seems genuinely to welcome dialog.
And as far as I know, the last bannee was an ID proponent. Civil discussion is hard to maintain when very different views come into opposition, but Barry seems to me to be making a decent fist of keeping things civil.
The main problem I have with UD is the number of “news” posts, which rapidly bury any ongoing conversations, and for which the headline is in diametric opposition to the content!
And I’m not good at resisting this…..
I corrected this in another post. Craig’s premis **is** faulty, if one is going to have a rationally arbited moral system.
Thanks for the welcome, Seversky. I too am appalled by the Westboro Baptist Church and their un-Christlike behavior towards people they don’t even know. It’s very shameful. I wasn’t raised a Christian (sort of a Christian by name but not by belief), so if at the age of 19 (when I did become a Christian by belief) I had witnessed that sort of behavior, it might have caused me to think twice. But that’s not the behavior I witnessed from Christians at the time. I have since witnessed a lot of that sort of thinking and behavior (after 30 years), but my faith is not in those who do such things.
The problem with WBC is that Fred Phelps’ daughter (I believe) had some good legal training, so they’ve been able to win several legal battles, which has allowed them to continue. It’s one of those fine line issues between free speech and harassment, where free speech ends up winning. I’m personally a proponent of free speech, so I can definitely see where the law goes with that. As Ezra Levant stated in his book “Shakedown” – on the downfall of the Canadian human rights tribunals, (paraphrase) in order to have a free society, you have to allow some people to be offensive jerks, because if we don’t have the freedom to be dissidents, then we are under tyranny. government should never have the power to tell people what they can and cannot say in a free democratic society, unless such speech does actual harm to another person’s safety. I think he also said something like – the offensive jerks will be judged by the society that takes offense, and so the government stepping in is not necessary. Will it work with Phelps? It hasn’t so far, because he’s just not a reasonable person, and he’s not affected by others’ opinions – he is quite isolated though.
You know on several occasions I’ve made the suggestion that they divide the blog into sections, such that the news posts are somewhere else. You know what they did? They now have a separate page for news posts, but they still appear on the main page. So I guess they partly took my suggestion.
I also believe that they need a section for just ID discussion and a section for discussion on other matters related to ID, like philosophy and religion. Who knows, maybe that will happen some day.
I suppose having all those separate sections might take up bandwidth that they’re not at present prepared to pay for, since they rely on donations for support.
And he was banned, I believe, for treating Elizabeth with disrespect.
Actually
Toronto,
The practice of late at UD has been to feature posts about those participants who disagree with ID. There’s one ongoing right now, and there have been several on Elizabeth recently. Are you sure you want to face the potential for that kind of focus? I know I wouldn’t want that for myself, but I’m not as confident about myself as Liz seems to be about herself. She stood up quite well under pressure. That sort of pressure would drive me batty. It would drive me to leave little bat droppings that would probably be deleted. 😉
BTW, my bro lives in Mississauga and wants me to visit sometime. I told him as long as we keep leaning over the top of the CN tower off the agenda.
William J Murray,
This is my impression as well and it is a point that we would do well to bear in mind.
Most people are not consciously hypocritical but most of us are inconsistent at some time or other. We are all human which means that we are all prone to the failings of our species. I think that the denizens of UD are sincere in their beliefs and feel that they are threatened by science – and the materialistic atheism with which it is often conflated (mostly by materialistic atheists). Materialistic atheists fear that religion, given half a chance, will once again display its worst traits of bigotry, intolerance and oppression.
To be fair, however, we need to set against the worst we can do the best of which we are capable. We need to remember all those people of faith who work selflessly with the poor, the sick and the dying, who exemplify the virtues of charity, compassion and humility. We also need to remember the scientists, both believers and atheists, who have worked, again mostly in obscurity, to provide us such knowledge as they have been able to glean from a universe which does not give up its secrets easily.
We are probably never going to agree but, with good will on both sides, we should at least be able to get along.
Hi, Gil. Welcome to the skeptical zone.
I hope you will sometime try a substantive post here (as distinct from giving greetings).
By the way, I did download your music when you provided the link on UD a while back.
bug man,
I should have made it clea,r as I usually do, but omitted to do on this occasion, that moving a post to “guano” is not meant as a criticism of the post as such (guano is useful stuff, and good discussions need fertiliser). It’s just where I put posts that seem, according to my idiosyncratic criteria to break the “game rules” of the discussion parts of this site, which can be summed up as “assume other posters are posting in good faith”. This applies even if you don’t think they are, and is simply, literally, a “game rule”, not a moral edict.
That’s why I don’t delete them. I have no wish to suppress those views, merely to get them out of the way of ongoing conversations!
I hope you will consider returning.
Cheers
Lizzie
(oops originally posted to wrong place)
Please stick around. Your posts are appreciated.
Think of guano as just a matter sorting the posts, and not as punitive.
One further comment: while being accused of dishonest etc is tiresome, I do not regard it as “punishment” and my sympathies are really irrelevant (clearly, though, I do not hold any kind of brief for ID!) – as far as I am concerned, I am really interested in why people think the things they do, and I’m sort of fascinated at the symmetry of the accusations across the aisle – both “sides” seem to take the view that the other side is “ignoring facts” and “driven by an ideological agenda”, and suffering from “cognitive dissonance”.
One thing I’ve learned from time spent at UD is that the scientific argument for common descent and Darwinian mechanisms is both quite poorly understood, and often poorly expressed (by me included). Partly that is because of very different sets of starting assumptions (and unquestioned premises), and partly I think it’s because both “sides” actually fear the other, quite genuinely. On “our side” we fear theocracy and the suppression of scientific freedom to pursue the evidence where it leads. On the “other side” there is also, I think, real fear of materialism and atheism and the notion that life could be “purposeless”, and of what Dennett calls “creeping moral exculpability”.
That’s why I’d like this site to be a ceasefire zone of some sort.
Hence the guano section 🙂 Which was so-called only to continue the penguin theme (so it is, in fact, bird shit not batshit) and also to try to convey (unsuccessfully in this case) the notion that fertiliser is useful stuff, but best stored outdoors 🙂
I’m outa here.
Haha! That is one of my absolute favorite cartoons.
Yes. While I greatly admire some of Dawkins’ writing, he says and does some very silly things IMO. His most egregious failing, IMO, is to over-simplify his own case, to the point of falsification, and then, when some inconsistency is pointed out, to express faux-disbelief that anyone could be so ignorant as to question it, which would irritate the heck out of me if I was on the receiving end.
Actually, it does anyway.
But he makes some good points nonetheless, and Craig’s piece on the Canaanites is a pretty good advertisement for atheism..
It might be an advertisement against particular forms of Christianity, but Craig’s piece is hardly an advertisement for atheism. Craig’s argument might be a poor one for christianity, but his arguments against atheism, determniism and materialism are withering.
One thing I’ve noted about non-IDists on these sites: they seem myopically focused upon a certain, very particular kind of theism, and on very particular historical perspectives.
The reason I said it is an advertisement for atheism, William, is that to my mind it exemplifies the perils of choosing the wrong prong of Euthyphro’s dilemma – to worship something because you think it is God, then define good as what you think that God commands.
And many of the arguments for the necessity of theism to morality seem to me to take that line: without first assuming a God there is “no basis for morality”.
It seems to me that the reverse is the case: without a basis for morality there are no grounds for positing a good God.
As I’ve said, I still have a sort-of referent for the signifier “God” – and that referent is what is good and true. But I define God in terms of the second, not the second in terms of the first.
Ah. Now I know who you’re talking about. I don’t normally notice these things until someone points them out, but come to think of it, yeah; he hasn’t been annoying the socks off me for some time now. Makes sense that he was banned. I know he was warned on several occasions.
This is my own thinking on the matter of moderation on blogs. I’ve already stated that I’m a proponent of free speech. I also believe that free speech has its limits. For example, I’m not free to go onto someone’s property and picket or harass an individual I dislike or with whom I disagree. I am free to do so on my own property, and to ban from my property those whom I choose.
Blogs are sort of like private property in a way. While for the most part they’re free, they are owned by the person(s) who maintain them. As such, depending on the whim of the “owner” of a blog, they have the freedom to choose who will participate and who will not. I’m the “owner of 3 blogs.” One features 30 year old photos of my high school classmates, and is private, unlisted and by invite only. I was able to set it up that way. The other two – one about Classical Music and the other about the existence of God are open, and so far I haven’t had to ban anyone. After about 8 months there have been precisely zero comments on ClassicalRap, but a lot of page views – in the thousands. It’s more informational than discussion friendly.
So since I’ve been given the freedom to set up these blogs as I choose, I consider myself the owner. The content is certainly my own intellectual property, so with that it goes without saying that I should have control over that content in order to protect it and myself from potential harm.
So with UD, I have not always agreed with their decisions to ban people, but with they as the owners of the blog who have allowed me to comment, I feel an obligation to be just as respectful towards them as if they had invited me onto their private property.
Yeah, things get heated and words are exchanged, which probably should never be spoken towards people we don’t know, and I’m as guilty as anyone. But I have seen the moderators giving rather polite warnings to people who have overstepped that privilege. I received one such warning on one occasion that I can remember. Probably several years ago.
So I know at least in the present moderating, that those who are currently being banned were given fair warning, and perhaps deserve to be banned according to the moderation policy. I’m not certain, however that the moderation practices that currently exist were in place several years ago. I sense that they have improved. I have read some of the complaints towards UD’s moderation practices in the past on markf’s blog, and I agree with much of that assessment; that people may have been or probably were banned unfairly. But things change there so often, and new people who I haven’t seen there before are all of a sudden writing lengthy posts, so I don’t get the sense that I even know who the moderators are any more and who has control.
I like Elizabeth’s idea of simply moving objectionable posts to another location for those who might want to read them. That makes a whole lot of sense, and I’m thinking that might be the direction to go on my new blog if things get out of hand.
My overall interest is to have discussions with people I disagree with, and to do so in a civil manner. I have always been that way, but have not always set the best example.
With that in mind, I had an idea of collaborating with some atheists to create a viewpoint neutral (or rather a viewpoint inclusive) blog where we could have some interesting civil discussions, and perhaps link that blog to our own so that we could increase traffic among all these different forums. You could have several moderators of differing beliefs, who all contribute their own POVs in posts, and we have exchanges of opinion and factual information. I know that such forums already exist, but I like the idea of starting something fresh and different. Anybody who would be interested in that can let me know. I personally would be interested in something that steers clear of politics and religion per se, but discusses philosophical differences. Religious discussion would be welcome so far as it pertains to a philosophical viewpoint, but is not intended to proselytize towards any particular belief commitment. Conversion would be another thing. I’m sure that some people can be converted to differing positions depending on the strength of an argument.
Sorry for being off topic and rather long winded, but I thought I’d share some of my own insights on the matter of civil discussion and moderation. I think the assessment among many ID folk that all atheist/materialist forums harbor the crudest and most uncivil individuals is quite wrong. I think that attitude is changing among a lot of people at UD as we’ve had some great examples of civil discussion from Elizabeth and others, and I think there are certain individuals who shall remain nameless (but we all know who they are) who set the worst examples – both ID defenders and opponents. It is those individuals we should be concerned with and take action against so that impressions by outsiders don’t start developing in the wrong direction. A long time ago when I had AOL I would often visit the AOL atheist forums and have some very pleasant exchanges with atheists, some of whom I felt I had gained as friends. Our current culture appears to be moving towards less civility as times get difficult for many people; but that is not a phenomenon that is peculiar to any one group.
What I was getting at (and I should have eschewed the expression “self-evidently”) is that I think that there are some fundamental principles that can be independently derived by more or less anyone, concerning what we “ought” to do, given that we seem able, as a species, to present ourselves with the choice: “do I do what suits me now, or do I do what doesn’t suit me now?” And one of those is “treat others as you would be treated”. While we might argue about who consitutes “others” (or, as Jesus’s questioner put it “who is my neighbour”) the basis of moral discussion seems to me, almost by definition, to be about how we deprioritise our own interests relative of those of others. As someone or other said (John Rawls?) – right is what an unbiased judge would do.
In that sense, I’d say that most people, asked whether genocide was right, would, using that fundamental principle, say “no”. Craig also says “no” – but qualifies it: “unless commanded by God”, which is what I found so disturbing.
But we should indeed be wary of assuming that what seems “obviously” wrong is in fact wrong. I do think the Golden Rule, as a principle, is pretty fundamental to the entire concept of morality (if we drop it, I’m not sure what we have left) but how to apply it isn’t always obvious, which is why the domain of ethics is different from the concept of morality itself.
Would people agree that “morality” refers to the concept that there are things we “ought” to do as opposed to what we would otherwise want to do? And that ethics is the branch of philosophy that tries to figure out what we ought to do, under what circumstances?
Or is that too glib?
By “objective”, I mean that independent people can come derive the Golden Rule independently simply by considering why we consider that there are things we “ought” to do in the first place.
Whereas choosing a set of scriptures as the criterion for what is right and what is wrong seems to me much more “subjective” – how would people, given the range on offer, come to the independent conclusion that these verses in this holy book are the answer to what is right, but thoseverses are not, and the ones in that book are not holy at all.
That is the sense in which I was using the terms. I think the other meaning of “objective” – that one needs to believe there is some kind of actual ruleset “out there” somewhere, to think that we need a ruleset at all, is rather meaningless, simply because if there is no way of knowing what that “objective” ruleset is, for sure, then it doesn’t matter whether it has objective reality or not.
Which brings me to my pet hobby horse (or one of them), that whether or not there is an “objective” reality “out there”, we don’t have access to it. All we have are models of various kinds, none of which are a perfect fit to “objective” reality, but which can be “objectively” observed to fit the data reasonably well by independent observers.
And that kind of “objectivity” is enough for me.
Unfortunately, “that it is enough for you” makes any other system “that is enough for others” as legitimate and valid as yours, including those where genocide is okay, because they are also free to use whatever rule they think is best.
Also, unless there are necessary consequences for immoral behavior under your system, it’s really nothing but rhetoric and sophistry.
Well, that is what I am hoping for here. If you are happy for a link from the blogroll here to your new blog, I’d be delighted to add one.
I think we might be at cross-purposes here, but that’s my fault for bringing in a different (though in my view related) issue.
The objectivity I said was “good enough for me” is the objectivity achieved when independent observers, with data sampled from the same source, can come to the same conclusion. It’s the basis of scientific objectivity, and is immensely powerful.
But to get back to morality: it is my case that the Golden Rule, in its various forms, can be fairly straightforwardly derived by independent thinkers from the premise that there are things that we “ought” to do, and, in that sense, is more objective than a set of rules adopted because they are believed to be “revealed” truth, because there is no objective (in the scientific sense) way of determining what is revealed truth and what is not.
And to address this point: I think this is what really divides us into two camps in these discussions.
But before we get too embroiled here – why do you think that “necessary consequences” or wrong doing are important? To deter would-be wrong-doers? To teach wrong-doers not to reoffend? To physically prevent wrong-doers from reoffending? Or some other reason?
Because those three are all encompassed by human justice systems, even though some miscreants will get away with their misdeeds, and some innocents will be convicted, so we have a workable, if imperfect system.
So what do you think is missing? (Apologies if you’ve posted your reasoning here elsewhere on this blog, I am still trying to catch up with all the interesting stuff that has been posted here while I’ve been glued to UD :))
Let’s not conflate crime with morality, unless you’d like to argue that if it is legal to gas Jews for being Jewish, that makes it moral?
I just stated why necessary consequences are important; without them, morality is just rhetorical sophistry. There’s no reason for me to act morally if I think some other option would suit my goals better in any given situation.
Without necessary consequences for both moral and immoral behavior in and of itself, there is no goal or purpose in behaving morally in and of itself; it is only a tool to help acquire other goals.
As such, it is just one of many tools. Perhaps I think cruelty, or fraud, or violence, or intimidation would work better to get me – ultimately – what I want. Why not employ those techniques? Are they not perfectly valid manifestations of physics?
Under subjective morality, there is no valid reason why I shouldn’t employ entire immoral means to accomplish whatever goal I desire.
Actually, after more thought, I think it could work that way too without having to create another blog. I haven’t created a link section yet, but I’ll keep that in mind. I like to keep my links on the home page so that they are easily accessible to all. Also, WordPress appears more attractive (and probably more powerful) than blogger. I might think of switching someday, but that would take a lot of work.
BTW, Elizabeth,
My first impression of your title was that it seemed a bit standoffish towards theists but after contemplating it a bit, “Skeptical Zone” with the additional quote seems most appropriate and quite neutral. Yours is in fact more neutral than mine, but Kalam simply means “word” or “knowledge.” I think some Christians might object to my usage of a traditionally Islamic term, but I’m not using it because it’s Islamic, but because of its several usages and applications. I could have used Logos, but that would have been too derivative. If it attracts some people of the Islamic faith or tradition, then the more the merrier. On my stand-alone page/tab on arguments for God’s existence, I plan to include counter-arguments in outline form as well. If you or anyone here knows of some good outlines, please let me know.
Dear Liz,
I was raised the son of the greatest scientist — he worked on the Manhattan A-Bomb project in his early 20s, became the designer and director of an experimental nuclear reactor at Washington State University, and later developed the Ph.D. program in chemical physics at that institution — and best man I have ever known. But I was also raised as a materialistic atheist. My dad was not a Dawkins-style atheist, but my mother was. She exhibited a vitriolic hatred of people of faith, especially Christians.
When I was seven years old I remember the exact moment I logically figured out the ultimate implications of the worldview with which I had been raised. I was standing on the back patio of our house and reasoned that if I was just the result of random errors and natural selection which did not have me in mind (as though random errors and natural selection might have a mind), that my life was ultimately pointless and meaningless.
This seemed like an inevitable logical conclusion, but I also reasoned that this must be the real state of affairs concerning human existence, since all “real scientists” agreed that this must be the case.
This sent me into a deep, dark era of existential despair, which I shared with no one, especially my parents. It had no effect on my performance, however. I graduated as valedictorian of my high school with a perfect 4.0 GPA, and played the first movement of the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto during the graduation ceremonies.
As I mentioned, my one refuge during that dark era of existential despair was the piano. It somehow gave me hope that there might be more to life than passing on my selfish genes.
You know the rest of the story. I finally read Michael Denton’s first book and realized I had been conned.
Elizabeth,
I think some UDers have crush on you.
Gil Dodgen feels the need yet again to talk about himself.
How many times Gil must you repeat the same “I once was lost” story? Until you yourself believe it?
Really Gil?
As a seven year old you grappled with the concepts of natural selection and random errors did you? And with this knowledge your seven year old mind concluded that therefore there was no meaning to your life?
No Gil. This did not happen. And it doesn’t get any more convincing with every subsequent retelling.
Game rules are: assume the other posters are posting in good faith 🙂
There are plenty of sites were people can speculate about the motivations of the denizens strange interlinked community of people who like to argue about Life, the Universe and Everything, but the point of this one is to see what happens if we make the assumption that people are saying what they mean.
And, in any case:
Well, I see no reason to doubt it. I recall vividly the moment at which I realised that I would die – it was when I heard that my great aunt Betty had died, and I only found out because my parents said they’d been to her funeral. Presumably I’d been regarded as too young to understand. I would have been six. And I remember going outside at night, not long afterwards, and looking up at the starry sky and thinking how tiny I was, and how brief my life was in all that time and space. And thinking: “does it mean anything at all?”
I didn’t know much about evolution at that stage, but I did know about the speed of light, and light years, and distances, because astronomy was my thing at that age.
Then my own son, whose thing was palaeontology, underwent a similar moment, this time about evolution. Don’t underestimate young children. Sometimes I think we get stupider as we get older, not smarter.
Interesting. My own view is that you have excluded a middle along the way, but I certainly remember moments of comparable existential angst at around the same age. I was lucky, probably, in that while my parents were not great scientists, both were scientifically literate – both were medical doctors, and my mother had embarked on a PhD, sadly abandoned when she became pregnant with me (I’m so sorry that she died before I got mine – in a way I feel I did it in her name). But my mother was also a devout, if highly questioning Christian, and my father was – is – also devout in his way, although his conception of God would probably make more sense to an atheist than a theist!
But the point is that both, and especially my mother, were highly interested in the potential conflict between science and religion, and confident that it could be – and must be – resolved without betraying the science. Our house was full of books like Religion and Science, by John Habgood, later archbishop of York, who at that time happened to be rector of my grandmother’s episcopal church, Teilhard de Chardin, Paul Tillich and stuff like that, and it simply never occurred to me that the conflicts between science and religion couldn’t be worked out – and the ambient assumption was that where religion conflicted with science, the religion was wrong. But that didn’t matter, because the only conflicts we could see seemed peripheral – literal readings of the bible, for instance. We grew up (or I did – my siblings just used to let me and my mother get on with it) with the core notion that God was real, and that ancient religious writings were human attempts, like our own, to understand God, and which could be refined, like theories about anything, in the light of new discoveries about the way the world works.
So my existential angst was only fleeting, and rapidly gave way to the realisation, as it seemed at the time, that the whole point, as it were, of God, was that no matter how brief and tiny our lives, each of us mattered, and the immensity of the universe for me simply underscored this fundamental insight – God must be infinitely good and great to place value on the infinitesimally brief and tiny (like many seven year olds, I found the whole concept of infinity fascinating, and still do! And at that stage, “Big Bang” was still only one of competing theories, and I was awed by the thought that the universe might extend for ever and have existed forever – I found “Big Bang” a slighlty disappointing concept in comparison).
Listening to your lovely playing I’m wondering why you didn’t continue to perform? Although as an ex-musician myself I don’t find it incomprehensible in principle!
Well, I agree you had been conned 🙂 But, as I say, I think you have excluded a middle. But I’m intrigued to know what you made of Michael Denton’s second book. It seems Denton convinced you, but failed to convince himself. Why do you think this is?
Well, I’ve added your blog to the blogroll. Links are good 🙂
I have no doubt that Gil believes that is what happened and perhaps it did. I am also aware, from personal experience, just how unreliable human memory can be, particularly of events in our distant past.
As I understand it, our memory is not usually a picture-perfect record of events like a videotape. It is more like a reconstruction, a narrative built around those salient features of an experience that made a lasting impression. It may be a reasonably accurate record or it may have been distorted unconsciously by other needs or influences.
Gil’s story, for me, is evidence for the hypothesis that religion has survived and even flourished over the millennia precisely because it provides enormous comfort and support in the face of the bleak prospect he describes. As Karl Marx put it, most eloquently:
In other words, the fact that religious belief is comforting does not mean that it is true. On the other hand, as Marx implies, it is unlikely we will abandon it as long as the conditions prevail which drive people to adopt it.
Anyway, if atheists are right, what does it matter? If faith can make our brief ‘journey through this vale of tears’ more bearable, why should that be denied? My view is that believers are welcome to their faith. All I ask is that they do not try to foist or force it on others.
Yes indeed, to all that. I completely agree that human memory is fallible, even when it seems to consist of “flash bulb” memories. I have, like most of my generation, a clear picture of the moment I heard of Kennedy’s assassination, but who knows how it would stand up to scrutiny?
However, I am also sure that we regularly underestimate the depth of thought that kids – especially smart kids – are capable of. And I do have a cross-check with my own son, because I wrote daily to my parents about the cute things he did each day (we were in Canada, they in Scotland), and so I can date-stamp the events. In fact I even wrote a book about the questions he asked, which has sold fairly well, suggesting that other parents have the same experience.
Plug for book here.
I’ve ended up with a different “comforting” model, which I’m happier with because it doesn’t depend on positing an undemonstrable entity. But more about that in another post maybe 🙂
On the contrary, behaving in a certain way because of “necessary” consequences to behaving otherwise is simply acting under compulsion. Behaving morally, however that is defined, means aligning one’s actions with one’s ideals, regardless of consequences.