1. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15763 by Binx Bolling on January 2, 2007 at 5:10 pm

Kingsaurus wrote:
There seems to be little practical difference between the two points of view

Very true. Rejecting god, accepting god, rejecting morality, accepting morality all seem to be irrelevant to "sociopaths." But I do not really care about the outcome of my beliefs. I only really care about the truth value of my beliefs. If you could stop 90% of the violence in the world by convincing most people to believe something that is not true, would you do it (assuming it were in your power to do so)? Would you believe it yourself? That's basically the situation you are in. You are saying that the only way we can all get along is if we all believe a little bullshit, or at least not question it too much.

If sociopaths will do what they do regardless of their religious opinions, why have a bug up your ass about the whole business?

The sociopathic examples are just a form of argument called "reductio ad Hitleram." To me, the only really interesting non-sociopathic case is my self (or in your case, your self), because when talking about our selves, the examples, while much more prosaic, have much higher stakes. If you like following rules, or even if you like the deluded feeling that following rules is good (whatever that is), by all means follow the rules. That is a perfectly rational thing to do. It seems strange to say that preferring to be deluded can be rational. But I am assuming that, to some extent, yours is a choice freely made. If I, on the other hand, prefer to ignore the rules when it suits me, that is a perfectly rational thing to do. All I am suggesting is that you consider whether you may not want to break the rules some time. I would not suggest mass murdering or raping or pillaging. If you have not already mastered the art of getting away with these things, you are likely to regret the consequences. Try to identify a situation in which you can commit a small transgression that no one will notice, perhaps stealing something from the office. Deliberately choose to commit the act and then just do it. Notice how it makes you feel. Did you like it? How did it feel to deliberately reject a moral precept? If it gave you pleasure, consider doing something like that again. But be careful. Habits can make you lazy. You might get caught if you do it too often.

2. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15754 by Binx Bolling on January 2, 2007 at 1:47 pm

Kingsaurus wrote:
What's the difference between "There's no god watching me so I can feel free to kill you" and "God told me he wants me to kill you?"

I would restate the question slightly more generally: What's the difference between "There's nothing supernatural so I can feel free to kill you" and "God told me he wants me to kill you?"

The first statement is true. The second is false.

3. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15733 by Binx Bolling on January 2, 2007 at 10:31 am

Kingsaurus wrote:
I'm thankful that we only had benevolent, non-exploitative forms of government before people discovered atheism and its implications.

I am not trying to blame atheism or religion for atrocities. I am saying Kim Jong-il and Stalin may have acted perfectly rationally. Therefore, there is no point in "blaming" them for anything. There is no point in "blaming" the burglar who steals your car stereo. There is no point in "blaming" the pedophile next door. All these people may be acting perfectly rationally. Moral culpability is fiction. RD loves blaming people.

4. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15647 by Binx Bolling on January 1, 2007 at 8:16 pm

Jonathan Dore wrote:
In the situation I am positing your neighbours burn down your house whether you want them to or not. Are you happy about it, or do you object? If you object, on what basis? The most fundamental moral basis available to any of us is "I wouldn't do it to you", but you've just deprived yourself of that position by actually burning your neighbour's house.

Of course I would seek to punish whoever burned down my house on the basis that I like my house and burning it down is illegal. I would publicly condemn arson as an abomination against all standards of decent conduct. If asked, I would deny ever having intentions to do something similar. In a word, I would lie. This would be perfectly rational.

what I'm suggesting is not the external existence of a *thing*, but of an agreed framework of social exchange that our genetic heritage predisposes us to favour. You seem to think that a sense of "ought", to be valid, must somehow be dependent on some reified force that compels compliance

Close, but not quite. Any real "ought" must appeal to something supernatural, literally outside of nature. It need not compel compliance. How do you propose we get from "is" to "ought"? RD does it by pointing to biological origins (all "is"), magically waving his hands, and pulling an "ought" out of a hat. The only tools science gives us are tools for exploring what is, not what ought to be.

Are you unable to perform an action unless it is an order? Then you're a slave. Your biologically based moral sense tells you how, in the general terms of human societies, you should act.

Who is the slave: the one who feels obligated to follow biological instincts or the one who knows he is at liberty to ignore them? The false choice you are offering is between slavery to an imagined god or slavery to biological destiny. The real choice is between slavery to supernatural myths (god, morality, whatever), or total freedom from the supernatural.

Dawkins's reaction is "I can do whatever I like and no-one will punish me, but since I don't want to live in a society in which people act without regard for others I will choose to act towards others in the way I'd like them to act towards me, which seems to be the best bet for getting others to do the same."

I do not deny that RD personally may be acting very rationally. He is quite smart and is likely able to know what the consequences of his actions will be. He likes to follow Jesus' Golden Rule. So he acts nice. Good for him. Where the dishonesty comes in (not necessarily irrational dishonesty) is when he implies that everyone is like Richard Dawkins and that we must all rely on the nice-instinct to guide our actions so that we can all get along. Many, many people are better off personally when they sometimes do not follow their purported nice-instincts.

5. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15545 by Binx Bolling on January 1, 2007 at 7:47 am

John Phillips wrote:
the fact that what may be considered both morally good and evolutionary good is largely the same should not be considered too much of a coincidence

I agree that many people will translate their innate behavioral instincts, what you refer to as evolutionary good, into moral concepts. This is understandable, predictable, and normal. Many people will enforce behavioral standards on themselves and others because of a sense of right and wrong. No problem there.

Once we understand where our moral sense comes from, is it ever rational to reject it? It's all well and good to talk about self selecting and self reinforcing behaviors. But when I am faced with a choice to benefit myself by breaking the rules or benefit the group by following the rules, what should I do? This kind of choice happens all the time. RD's moral logic depends upon me agreeing that I "should" follow my innate instincts for cooperative altruism. This is only rational when following those instincts actually does benefit me. That is far from always true.

6. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15459 by Binx Bolling on December 31, 2006 at 1:53 pm

G Bile wrote:
The quote above ends with *If I get away with it I win.* This is a strange remark. First I don't understand what 'win' means in this sentence. Is there a contest going on? But more importantly: You will never get away with it ! Unless you develop complete amnesia, you will always remember what you did.

Kim Jong-il, leader of North Korea, is a winner. He gets away with a lot. He remembers most of what he does. He does not care. Is Kim Jong-il being irrational?

7. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15441 by Binx Bolling on December 31, 2006 at 10:43 am

Orion wrote:
I think you missed my point. Evil's existence is a philosophical debate, quite distinct from the existence of a deity.

I don't see the difference. How are they distinct? Both the existence of a deity and the existence of evil are philosophical and scientific questions. This is an important point and I would like to understand what you mean.

8. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15440 by Binx Bolling on December 31, 2006 at 10:37 am

Johns Phillips wrote:
No sleight of hand or leap of faith is necessary as cooperative altruism, i.e. the selfish gene, has been observed in other primates and even in other species, especially but not exclusively social animals.

The leap of faith does not concern the origins of our altruism. That clearly derives from our selfish genes. The leap of faith I referred to was the jump RD and others make from describing the origins of our altruism to assigning some kind of binding duty to that altruism, using such judgmental language as "right," "wrong," "good," and "evil."

9. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15193 by Binx Bolling on December 29, 2006 at 12:35 pm

Kingasaurus wrote:

I have pretty good evidence that people in a society will be happier if nobody in that society commits arson or murder or theft.

There are many legitimate, non-mystical, motives for altruism, compassion, and adherence to rules. There are also many legitimate, non-mystical, motives for doing the opposite.

For example, suppose I am Josef Stalin and I want to take power in Soviet Russia because doing so confers many benefits on me. I see an opportunity to eliminate my political opponents and seize power. Should I take it? Once I have power, should I ruthlessly purge my enemies and do whatever else it takes to maintain control? Since I am Josef Stalin, the answer is yes. You want to call my actions immoral and irresponsible because they hurt many more people (hundreds of millions) than they help (me). If I were you, I might say the same thing. But I am Josef Stalin. If I cared about other people the way you do, I would not be in power. I understand your attempts to stop me. But I have arranged things so that I do not have to worry about what you or anyone else thinks.

How do you respond to Josef Stalin? Is he being irrational? Can you give him any rational, non-mystical, reasons to change his behavior?

We come full circle back to the argument that John Cornwell made in his article. Atheistic ideology, when taken to its logical conclusions, does lead straight to Stalin. Nietszche knew it. Dostoyevsky knew it. Stalin knew it. Solzhenitsyn knows it. Dawkins should know it.

10. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15181 by Binx Bolling on December 29, 2006 at 10:29 am

JohnC wrote:
Well, that's good enough for me. I am happy to have defined the disagreement, I don't expect to resolve it, given your obvious pleasure in the pyrotechnics of the polemic.

I am sure that I have tried the patience of everyone who has read this far. Thanks for whatever consideration you have given my ramblings.

I would be interested in engaging Dawkins himself in some of these debates. He is obviously no slouch when it comes to defending his beliefs. Is there a forum where RD participates?

11. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15180 by Binx Bolling on December 29, 2006 at 10:18 am

Kingasaurus wrote:
I missed the part where duty and responsibility became "mystical concepts." If someone says "Look, we've all agreed not to commit arson so that the benefits people enjoy from living in cooperative groups will continue, and everybody in this society will be happier and better off if you agree not to commit arson, either." This is a form of duty and responsibility to the needs of others which sociopaths don't share, but most of the rest of us do. Explain to me how that qualifies as "mystical."

Someone says "Look, we've all agreed to believe in God so that the benefits people enjoy from living in cooperative groups will continue, and everybody in this society will be happier and better off if you agree to believe in God too."

My response would depend entirely on whether I have evidence that God exists. It would not depend on my observations of the positive or negative effects that belief in God has in society. Pretending that something exists just so we can all benefit is, in a word, a delusion. This is the sense in which duty and responsibility are mystical. They do not actually exist.

12. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15175 by Binx Bolling on December 29, 2006 at 9:53 am

JohnC wrote:
are you saying that I have been "constructing elaborate supernatural fantasies about emergent morality".

Yes. "We are the children of contingency" is the stuff of religion.

any perspective that denies the supernatural either: A. eliminates morality, or B. must erect an alternative supernaturalism in its place.

That is a fair enough summary.

But if we agree that for any given social context in the naturalist version of this story that our moral sense is real and that human actors have the freedom to act with or against that sense, what else do you want? Isn't that all we ever required of a moral philosophy?

Not quite. Any moral philosophy worthy of the name should help me decide how I myself ought to act. Otherwise, what's the point? The existence of a biologically based moral sense says nothing about how I ought to make my own personal choices.

Take the chimp example. (Sorry if I seem obsessed with primates.) We know a lot about chimp social interactions. We see how they organize in groups and how certain group members come to dominate. There is a social order that is maintained by following certain rules. As rationalists, we simply observe and make no judgments about whether those rules are good or bad. They just are.

But suppose I am a chimp, and I just happen to have evolved a pretty smart chimp brain that can understand the situation better than my fellow chimps. I figure out that these rules don't always work in my favor. I figure out that the rules are often pretty darn arbitrary. I figure out that I can sometimes break the rules and no one is the wiser. So I go ahead and use the system to my advantage, by say, forcing my cousin to copulate when the alpha-male is not around to punish me.

You, a scientist observing me the chimp, would simply note the interesting behavior. Something new! What is going on here? Hmm...pretty smart chimp. How did he figure that out? He does seem to have a larger brain than the others. Perhaps his behavioral aberration indicates an evolutionary step.

But the other chimps, if they got wind of what was going on, would be distressed to see their social order being turned upside down.

How should I, the smart chimp, feel about transgressing these rules? After all I got some good stuff out of it. It felt a little weird, sort of like I was betraying my alpha-male master. I certainly don't want to be doing that all the time. That's a recipe for disaster. But every once in a while, why not take some liberties with that hot little female cousin?

My point is that we are all chimps. And RD is a pretty smart chimp. Most of his chimp enthusiasts are none the wiser.

13. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15171 by Binx Bolling on December 29, 2006 at 9:13 am

Kingsaurus wrote:
it really isn't a big stretch to look for biological reasons why hypothetical societies which would allow anarchical murder and wanton, purposeless destruction just because its members "feel like doing it" just aren't going to be very successful.

I have already stipulated that social order requires that most people obey the rules and that we punish those who don't. This is an easily observable fact. The superdome after hurricane Katrina is a perfect case study.

I understand that my own actions can have negative social repercussions that may affect me in undesirable ways. But there is no need to posit the existence of mystical concepts such as duty, responsibility, evil, to fill the gaping hole that is left when we kick god out of the picture. My altruistic feelings, are just that, feelings and nothing more. I can, and often do, act in ways that go against my feelings. I think I am smart enough to figure out when and how to dodge the worst of the possible repercussions of my choices. In fact, the act of arson itself and the resulting fire are not the only pleasurable things. Transgressing social norms, breaking the rules has its own special thrill. If it wasn't forbidden, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun. As I said before, we all take risks.

14. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15165 by Binx Bolling on December 29, 2006 at 8:48 am

JohnC wrote:
I don't see what religion, from our current global perspective, has to add.

No argument from me.

Both scenarios are preposterous illusions

You recognize religion as an illusion. So why can't your recognize RD's religion substitute as an illusion?

It's the fawning, self-congratulatory tone of most RD disciples that is most jarring. Don't they see their own silliness in casting off one oppressive idea, god, while constructing elaborate supernatural fantasies about emergent morality to put in god's place? That brings me back to the original article by Cornwell. At least he seems to understand what the stakes are in this little game. RD probably does too. But his fans are skipping into the abyss without the faintest clue.

15. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15158 by Binx Bolling on December 29, 2006 at 7:50 am

So like our sweet tooth or desire for companionship, our moral sense is an effective universal quality resulting from the complex historical processes that have brought us here.

I completely agree that our moral sense is real and is equivalent to our sweet tooth. But although both the moral sense and sweet tooth are programmed into us, we are not obliged to conform to either one. In fact, once I understand that my sweet tooth is causing me to get fat, I can suppress it and go on a diet. Similarly, once I understand that my feelings of guilt are inhibiting me, I can suppress them and burn houses.

16. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15154 by Binx Bolling on December 29, 2006 at 7:10 am

Jonathan Dore wrote:
I would have thought the fairly obvious clincher in deciding whether or not to burn down your neighbour's house is that by doing so you automatically cede the basis on which you can object to anyone burning down *your* house.

Once I have made the leap that burning down someone's house is desirable, why should I feel obligated to allow the same freedom to others? When the alpha-male chimp threatens, punishes, and dominates the other chimps, we don't (or shouldn't) wring our hands about how he really is undermining the cooperative social contract among the apes. I would not want to live under similar social rules as the chimps. But I have no problem with being the alpha-male.

That logically necessary reciprocity seems to me to be a pretty firm basis for the prescriptive injunction that one *ought* not to burn down one's neighbour's house.

I guess you could summarize my whole point by saying that reciprocity is not logically necessary. Any proofs for the logical necessity of reciprocity are like proofs for god's existence, i.e., based on unfalsifiable, mystical, or supernatural premises, and therefore, most probably false.

As a species that has evolved in social groups, our genes are telling us that respecting the norms of social behaviour, in which competition is restricted by cooperative bounds, is essential to maximizing, on average, each individual's chances of survival.

I completely agree that we can learn much from our evolutionary heritage about what is most likely to make us happy, contented, primates. (But given that violent chimps are our closest relatives, I am not so sure we will like everything we learn.)

But the flip side of the coin is that evolution depends on mutations and differences between individuals. Whatever the "average" is for any given property, such as height or propensity to enjoy fire, there will be variations in a population. We undoubtedly have inherited tendencies toward social order. As a primate who enjoys living with a certain amount of social order, I am very glad about that. I am very happy that others feel constrained, because it suits my purposes. I even enjoy feeling constrained myself, in some ways, because that gives me a sense of belonging and contentment that is wired into my genes. But there are more than a few times that I would like not to be quite so constrained. A nice big fire now and then would suit me well.

I am not arguing that all social norms should be abolished, just that they don't apply to me. I don't really care that if everyone thought like this, society would break down because there is no way that everyone will think like this. People are too wedded to their myths. So I am safe. Altruism is real. A requirement for reciprocity is fantasy. RD is smart enough to understand this.

Nietzsche's reaction to the death of an external authority figure for morality has always struck me as being like the reaction of a teenager...

Nietzsche was a much deeper thinker than RD. He understood the implications of what he wrote, in their full, tragic glory. If anything, RD is the adolescent in this story.

17. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15091 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 9:59 pm

JohnC wrote:

We are the children of contingency...

What does that mean? It sounds suspiciously like much religious argumentation to me - a vague misuse of philosophical concepts. One definition of contingency is the status of facts that are not logically necessary. Things like "George Bush is an idiot" and "An inch is 2.54 centimeters," which are both true but could be false. As opposed to "Two plus two is four" or "god exists" which, if true, could not be otherwise.

So what does this have to do with morality? Are you saying that arson is truly wrong, but if there were some other set of circumstances, it might be OK? What evidence do you have for stating Neither absolutism nor relativism, but contingent reality. This is just an arbitrary assertion, with a vague and imprecise meaning. Show me the data. Make statements that are verifiable or falsifiable.

18. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15077 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 7:22 pm

Fedler wrote:

The clincher is that I'm not sure morality is a fiction as you say.

To be clear, I believe our "moral sense" is not a fiction, just as our "religious sense" is not a fiction. People perceive good and evil just as they perceive god, as having some sort of independent existence outside their minds. These perceptions are based in real biology. But the object of the perceptions, god and morality, are fictitious. RD would probably agree with this, to a point. But then he would dance around the issue with morality, to assure us that our altruistic instincts are a good-enough substitute.

This particular section in the book has given me more "wants" to add to my wish list at my local book store

In your readings, just watch out for the sleight of hand these guys use when discussing a biological basis for morality. They love to present lots of plausible theories about how altruism emerged from evolution. Then they wave their hands and magically produce statements that depend upon a leap of faith. None of them squarely faces the moral abyss that beckons them.

RD does seem blissfully unaffected by this self-doubt, but undoubtedly he has had much more time to get used to the idea than myself. In time, I'm sure I will be as confident as he is, or as many of us are striving to be.

One more point. Why try to expunge the doubt at all? It may be the only thing that keeps us human. The remote possibility that there really is truth, goodness, and beauty, that love and compassion may stem from a higher truth, can make life worth living. The certainty that our little intellects have it all figured out is impoverishing. RD, to all appearances, is a sterile, atheistic automaton. Do you really want to be like that?

19. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15073 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 6:44 pm

Jared wrote:
Please don't take me out of context like that again.

I take your point. But you have to admit that RD is quite the moralist.

one could write a series of descriptive premises about conditions and trends in how action X makes percentage Y of the population feel, making a logical case, and then conclude that action X should be considered 'bad.'

This presumes that how a population feels (descriptive) has a logical relation to whether X is good or bad (prescriptive), begging the question. Here's a challenge: Start with any combination of facts from the physical sciences such as the Schrodingers equation, relativity, the periodic table, the mass of the sun, the mass of the electron, the human genome, etc. Now using those empirical facts, derive one single, tiny, prescriptive fact. Just one little 'ought'. I would love to see this demonstrated by someone. I know this may seem pedantic and annoying. That is not my intention.

You clearly know that I'm implying a social consensus here and not something as nebulous as a Tooth Fairy or God. There is empirical evidence that people put their heads together and decide how 'good' something is, which is all that I'm saying.

OK, fine. I agree that reason and logic can be applied to questions about good and evil, just as they can be applied to questions about the nature of god. While the reasoning may be sound, if the the premises are faulty, the conclusions will probably be wrong.

"When making personal choices, why should I care what the general moral consensus is, beyond considering how it might affect consequences not in my control, such as a prison sentence if I get caught?"

Ahh, NOW we finally see what you are getting at! The short answer is that, you're right! You shouldn't care, as nothing more than an individual.

See, there's a little Nietzsche in all of us!

If you do not care about the risks of socially taboo behavior, then you certainly do NOT need to choose to share society's semi-consistent constructed morality!

So we agree on this. Good. But do you realize the consequences? We are back to fear-based "morality." Concepts such as "duty" and "ought" and "good" are emptied of their prescriptive meanings. They are merely hollow descriptive shadows of their former selves. We call Stalin bad. What we really mean is that his actions failed to conform to socially acceptable norms. We will punish that kind of behavior when possible because it threatens our own self interest. Stalin was like an alpha-male gorilla: aggressive, power-hungry, violent. We are like the other apes in the group, resentful, plotting our revenge.

The trick to BOTH of these is that we can use another faculty of our brain, the ability to reason, to temper or even eliminate these concepts.

That I agree with. We can use our highly developed, self-aware brains to reason that both god and duty are fictions, but fictions that tend to arise in our brains from some pretty complex biology. Now that we have that sorted out, let's take the next logical step and eliminate both. There is no god. There is no ought. We are free to act any way we please.

I also notice that you ignored my last paragraph about the irrelevance of your criticisms of Dawkins.

I am but one man. There are only so many hours in the day.

I wonder if I can take that as a tacit recognition of the illegitimacy of your claims against him?

No. I guess my basic problem with RD and TGD is that they are ostensibly atheistic, but not really. If you take him at his word, he is fooling himself and others. To say that you can be an atheist who rejects belief in god but accepts belief in other superstitious, supernatural, irrational concepts such as good and evil (in their prescriptive sense) is delusional. RD might as well be a Buddhist. They don't believe in a deity and are therefore in some sense atheists. But they do have an elaborate moral system that conforms to an overall supernatural world view. RD's beliefs are, in fact, less consistent than the Buddhists, because he truly believes that he has expunged supernatural concepts from his reasoning.

20. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15070 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 5:21 pm

Fedler wrote:
It sounds like you're saying life will be one big destructive free for all if there is no god, whereas RD states the opposite. We can still be civil, even without fear of a god.

The vast majority of people, even ostensible atheists, will always cling to ideas of morality and duty. Most of the rest who realize prescriptive morality is a fiction, as RD himself probably does, will still live boring, decent, generally moral lives, because that is what we are programmed, more or less, to do. We are happy and contented when living according to the conventions of our society. This applies to myself as much as anyone else. Things are structured in such a way that the pain of non-conformity is usually too great to bother with it. The difference is that you and I and RD are not bound to obey arbitrary rules any more. Accepting that there is no duty, frees us to act rationally, according to our true self interest. Most of the time we will follow the rules. But sometimes, we won't. A little arson here, a little embezzlement there. Think of the thrills we can have!

What do you believe? Don't ask for opinions, then say we're wrong. Tell us, then engage constructively. Or, enlighten our poor little souls so we can be saved from ourselves.

I think I have been very candid about what I believe. Morality is just as much a fiction as god. Dealing with that fact, although frightening, can be just as liberating as expunging god from your life.

I, however, will admit to being somewhat ambivalent about this belief. It frightens me. There is also the tragedy of the loss of the familiar, comfortable, and often beautiful side of religion and morality. I look at someone who devotes his life to serve the poor, enduring hardship and great personal sacrifice. I feel a mixture of pity and envy. If this person realized that his ideals were all based on fantasy, would he have made the same choices? Conversely, do I even realize what happiness is in the way that that poor deluded man does? RD seems to be blissfully unaffected by such self doubt.

21. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15062 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 3:46 pm

seals wrote:
Hmm isnt this the nihilism debate in another guise? if there is no god, nothing matters, life is meaningless, we are all ultimately doomed, whatever.

Just the opposite, in fact. If there is no god, we are liberated from all obligations. The one thing that does matter is my self. The meaning of life is to seek my own preferences. Hooray!

As has been said many times it doesn't provide any evidence for the existence of god however, so there is no dilemma.

I am not arguing for the existence of god. I am saying that god's non-existence has some wonderful, liberating consequences that RD and his disciples are afraid to accept. Or, just maybe, RD is smart enough to understand, but, cunningly won't admit this publicly. He, after all, makes his own choices and seeks his own fulfillment. Perhaps I have underestimated this clever fellow after all.

22. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15059 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 3:36 pm

Fedler wrote:
So, why would you choose to do something when negative consequences to yourself would be the result?

The ordinary Dawkinsian strategy when debating morality is to claim that the atheist's innate moral sense is somehow superior to morality based on the threat of punishment. But now we are back to justifying morality based on punishment again. So which is it, superior innate moral intuition, or degrading fear of negative consequences?

But your point has another flaw. Suppose I have considered all possible outcomes and still decide to take the risk and burn the neighbor's house down. We take risks all the time. If I get away with it I win.

23. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15055 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 3:21 pm

Jared wrote:
You are right to point out Dawkins's hesitation to face morality head on. I think he is trying very hard not cross Hume's line from 'is' to 'ought' so to speak.

TGD is filled to the brim with 'ought.' Denunciations of fundamentalists certainly qualify as 'ought' in my book.

through application of reason, humans can come to prescriptive conclusions

This is true only if we start with prescriptive premises. If we start with things we know empirically (is) we cannot reach prescriptive conclusions (ought).

an attempt to bait us into your narrow Nietzschean conception

You caught me :)

humans CAN use logical thought to come to some sort of general consensus about what is, at a given moment, 'good.'

Replace 'good' with 'God' or 'the Tooth Fairy,' two other concepts for which there is no empirical evidence.

It is a likely consequence of the improvements within our decision-making/judgement mechanisms that we have expanded our applications of whatever basic 'morality' chimps possess.

You are safely within the realm of is here. No argument from me, as long as you stay completely descriptive.

As Kingasaurus points out above, the words we use to describe concepts of 'good' or 'evil' in no way legitimate an ACTUAL tangible existence of either. So, whether your 'guilt' in burning down your neighbor's house is derived biologically or not, your decision to do so is only 'evil' in so much as it goes against what the flexible and rational 'moral' consensus dictates to be an acceptible action.

People tend to think of good and evil much like we think of hot and cold, not a thing in itself, but a property of things. We can measure the temperature of something. But we can't measure the morality of an act. I don't really see the point of your last sentence above. When making personal choices, why should I care what the general moral concensus is, beyond considering how it might affect consequences not in my control, such as a prison sentence if I get caught?

we can posit the existence of faculties capable of creating a conceptual morality and, from that, infer that such things do exist on a purely intellectual level.

I presume you are making a Platonic argument for the existence of good and evil, much like we take the number 3 to exist, in some sense, objectively. If, as rational people do, we can accept the abstract existence of integers, why can't we accept the abstract existence of morality? Well, because I have plenty of good, solid evidence that integers are empirically descriptive of the actual physical world we live in. Abstract moral ideas have literally no grounding in the physical world. But perhaps I am misconstruing your point. I have to say that as we dig into this topic, the straightforward reasoning applied in TGD has morphed into what seems to be a whole lot of impenetrable mumbo-jumbo that seems intended wrap morality in a safe, protective blanket. Why are people so defensive about it?

24. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15053 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 2:27 pm

Kingasaurus wrote:
"Asking about whether murder or theft is REALLY 'wrong' or we just arbitrarily call it 'wrong' misses the point. As Richard has said, words are our servants and not our masters."

Asking about whether the universe REALLY was created by "god" or we just arbitrarily say it was created by "god" misses the point.

Asking about whether the gifts under my tree REALLY came from "santa claus" or we just arbitrarily say they came from "santa claus" misses the point.

Seriously, all the talk about how societies choose to organize themselves really does miss the point. My concern comes down to deciding how I ought to act. If I find it convenient, or satisfying, or pleasurable to ignore societal norms in favor of my own preferences, why not do so?

Kingasaurus wrote some more:
"If you can't think of a good secular reason why it might not be a good idea to burn down your neighbor's house (and by extension to live in a society which would find it acceptable and not punish it), I'm not sure what I can tell you."

Finally, a little candor. I can think of plenty of good secular reasons not to burn down my neighbor's house. I can also think of plenty of good secular reasons to do it. I weigh them and decide, based on purely personal preference, what I will do. I see no reason to let other people's preferences determine my own actions. There is no inconsistency in committing arson and punishing others who commit arson. This, in fact, may be a perfectly rational choice. Each is faced with the choice of deciding how we will act. The existence or non-existence of moral duty drastically affects how we ought to make those choices.

Dostoyevski and Nietzsche both understood that "If there is no God, all things are permitted." Dostoyevski concluded that there must be a God. Nietzsche concluded that all things are permitted. Dawkins pretends the dilemma does not exist.

25. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15049 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 1:53 pm

jefferson wrote:
"There is a scientific explanation for morality. It just hasn't been discovered yet, unfortunately."

This is just like saying that there is a scientific explanation for the Tooth Fairy which has yet to be discovered. Can you point to a single shred of evidence that morality, understood as a duty to do good and avoid evil, exists? Can you even conceive of an experiment that might measure the quality of good or evil? Conceptions of moral duty are not scientific because they are not falsifiable. Morality, like god, gives comfort to the weak. Have the courage to accept a universe without good and evil.

26. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15043 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 12:12 pm

Why are people here so eager to cling to morality? I just don't get it. Try giving up the morality habit for just one day. You will feel so much better.

27. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15042 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 12:05 pm

"Either God exists or s/he doesn't."

Either evil exists or it doesn't (regardless of the difficulty in discerning which state is true).

28. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15040 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 11:56 am

"So if you burnt your entire neighbourhood down I would maintain that (unless you were mentally ill) you would have been aware that this was 'wrong'"

People are "aware" of many things that are actually fantasies, such as god. My awareness of the wrongness of arson, does not make it real. In fact, by being aware of the biological origins of this feeling of guilt, I am able, to some extent, to dismiss it and overcome it. An understanding of biology has the potential to free us from both disease and superstition, as RD so ably demonstrates in TGD. I just wish he would be honest and acknowledge that the baby must indeed be thrown out with the bath water.

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
--Nietzsche

29. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15039 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 11:36 am

"Well, there is a rich philosophical history on this question - let's start with Plato, Hume, Spinoza and Kant"

This is the same argument used against RD, claiming that he has not given enough consideration to all of the subtle theology that has preceded him. Someone dubbed it the "Courtier's Response." The argument in TGD is fairly simple and does not depend upon theological subtleties: there is no scientific evidence that a supernatural creator god exists. We should therefore conclude that god most probably does not exist. The same straightforward argument applies to morality: Human behaviour takes many forms. There is no scientific evidence that some human actions have a mysterious property called good or evil any more than a chimp's actions. We should therefore conclude that morality, good, and evil most probably do not exist.

30. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15032 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 10:53 am

"But all Richard (and Sam) are saying is that wherever our morality comes from, it is not from the creator of the universe"

Both you and RD take as a given that morality (the prescriptive version, not just the descriptive version) comes from somewhere. To say that God does not exist but morality does is inconsistent. What subatomic particle mediates this mysterious morality force? To assume the existence of quantities called "good" and "evil", "right" and "wrong", which exert power over us is precisely the same irrational thought process that leads people to believe in God. The existence of morality, like the existence of a Deity, is a scientific question. I am just pointing out the gaping hole in the RD's argument for one and against the other. He has proved more than he set out to prove, and it embarrasses him. He covers it up and dances around the issue.

The biological basis for altruism tells me little about what choices I ought to make. What about the biological basis for my fascination with fire? If I have an "arson mutation" in my genes that suppresses my altruism instincts, is it OK for me to burn houses?

31. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #15027 by Binx Bolling on December 28, 2006 at 9:50 am

Jared:
Thanks for the reply. You make some good points. I won't have time to deal with all of them. But lets talk about the most important one:

"If you wish to be more specific and make a text-based critical claim, please do! It would at least cast off the taint of the ad hominem of which Cornwell is guilty."

My biggest problem with RD's arguments, one that Cornwell overlooks, is that, while he talks about morality, he never squarely faces the problem. He points out that cooperation and empathy may confer selective advantages and therefore it is reasonable to see an evolutionary basis for our moral instincts. This is true enough, but it does not explain why we ought to act morally. He deflects the question by pointing out the deficiencies of a scriptural/punishment-based morality and by asserting (truthfully, no doubt) that atheists typically act at least as morally as their theist neighbors. That's all fine stuff, and easily verifiable or falsifiable with the tools available to science.

But science is descriptive, not prescriptive. It deals with what is, not what ought to be. Consider a scientist who observes a troupe of chimpanzees dominated by a violent male who forces other males into submission and females into sexual servitude. He would stop doing science and start doing something akin to religious thinking if he were to make judgments about right and wrong behavior. Our misguided anthropomorphic tendencies lead us to see vice in the violent male chimp and virtue in the peaceful, cooperative bonobos.

But if humans are just another form of primate, the rationalist should refrain from making moral judgments about human actions as well. To say that we have moral intuitions because of evolution is not to say that we should follow them.

Let's use an example. I like to burn things. I derive pleasure and satisfaction from a really big fire. I would like to burn someone else's house down. If I think I can get away with it and am willing to take the small risk of getting caught, why shouldn't I? Of course I don't want my own house to be burned down. Dawkins would probably try to argue that my proposed action (arson) is immoral because it violates the species-wide collective behavioral instincts for cooperation and respect for ownership and if everyone acted that way, we would all be worse off. Perhaps this is true. But, again, what if I am willing to pay that price? I support tough punishment for arsonists. I publicly denounce arson as immoral. There is little risk that my individual acts of arson will result in a wide acceptance of burning other people's property. So, again, apart from assertions of some supernatural moral force, why should I not commit arson?

There should be a companion volume to TGD called The Morality Delusion. Perhaps when RD manages to take his ideas to their ultimate conclusions, he would be the best person to write it. But for now, TGD is riddled with irrational moral judgments. At least that other great atheist Friedrich Nietzsche was not afraid to go Beyond Good and Evil.

32. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #14986 by Binx Bolling on December 27, 2006 at 8:41 pm

Looks like I touched a nerve. Leaving goddogit to stew in his own juices, I will take up a point made by Jared in his, mercifully, thoughtful reply.

My earlier implication that RD disciples have more in common with fundamentalists than they realize is certainly not an original observation. The fact that we are posting messages here means that each of us has a large enough psychological stake in RD's thesis that we devote time to socializing with other like minded people (aka "fellowship") and trying to convince differently minded people to join us (aka "evangelism"). A religious impulse, programmed into us by evolution, underlies both groups' motivations. But since we presume to have purged religion from our thinking, we tend to believe we are immune from the behavioural traits characteristic of religious people. Too often, then, we enact a pantomime of the fundamentalist habits of groupthink, dogmatic adherence to teaching from authority (RD), rejection of all criticism out of hand, etc.

For Cornwell to point out a lack of humility in RD is not an ad hominem attack. Intellectual hubris, the presumption that one has vanquished all of one's opponents by sheer force of reason, should be a warning sign. I think this is a fair criticism of RD. His ego clouds his judgement. One might say that he has a Messiah complex, but that would be going too far. Let's just say he would improve his arguments if he conceded the strong points of his intellectual opponents and focused more on the internal consistency of his own arguments.

33. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #14969 by Binx Bolling on December 27, 2006 at 3:19 pm

It is interesting that the only comment posted so far that shows any recognition of the thoughtfulness and erudition present in the original article was by RD himself. Why is it that his disciples are unable to muster a similar graciousness? Cornwell is no idiot. Repeatedly denouncing him and his arguments does nothing to refute them and only makes adherents of TGD look like just another fundamentalist sect.