101. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60609 by the_assayer on August 2, 2007 at 12:20 pm

In response to Wee Flea's opinion that religion is more dependable because unlike science it is infallible- Here are some articles that I'd like to read.

Wronger than wrong:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanId=sa013&articleID=00028C98-6F5C-152E-A9F183414B7F0000&modsrc=most_popular
By Micheal Shermer(skeptic)

AND

Science can not explain everything: thats why it is so important.
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-05-02.html#feature
by Robert Ehrlich




Religion is infallible because it says so. There is no independent way of proving this claim. I could claim that I am infallible too, would you be ready to take that on Faith?
However, I find you reasoning quite amusing. Because science admits to being fallible and seeks to correct itself, it is bad. Religion does not admit that there is anything wrong with it- even when people actively criticise it- and hence Religion is right. According to you the more stubborn you are the more infallible you become.

102. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60594 by the_assayer on August 2, 2007 at 11:14 am

Morality without God.

I'm gonna make a case for us atheists here on how we can be moral without God.

Before I start, let me admit that I find the whole Idea too obvious to need defending. It has never occured to me that I need God to tell me what is right or wrong. However, I get the impression that believers like Wee Flea are quite convinced that my morality is not a serious one or that it is kinda like a plagarism from religious moral values.

Anyway here I go.




What is bad?

Ans: I guess it has to do with fear and sadness. Events or agents that cause fear or sadness is bad by my definition. But this definition is not just restricted to me. That is, I don't see it as bad only if it affects me. This is because of my ability to empathise. I could for eg. imagine what it would be like to be a muslim girl in Iran, having to put up with male domination and restricted freedom. This capacity to empathise has been found even in Primates- the mirror neuron being cited as causing it.So I could think of a sad event like 911 and think how bad it would be to be in that position.

Why do I do bother empathising? Well its not really possible to be otherwise. When you listen to a person telling a story or when you watch a movie, you are actively putting yourself in the shoes of some other character. I don't think we can even start behaving socially without this capacity to imagine 'different viewpoints'. Scientists don't yet know the complete picture of primate/human empathy. However there is much being learned about this each day.

So it is possible in principle for an atheist to realise what is good or when someone is hurt, and act compassionately even when there is no selfish interest being served.


What is morality?
Ans:- I define morality as rules of conduct that we have agreed upon as a society. I distinguish this from ethics, which I define as rules by which I decide to live my life, which includes vegetarianism.

Moral laws have constantly evolved and bettered. Much like scientific theories. They don't evolve necesserily by negating old laws but rather try to resolve the contradictions or inadequecies of the earlier moral paradigm. For eg. slavery.
At one point in history it was perfectly normal to own slaves, however gradually people started realising the hipocracy in such a moral system and helped in its abolition. Women's Liberation movements are another example. Why is morality evolving? My theory is that our capacity to empathise with people of differing has increased and will continue increasin- maybe brought about by the advent of the journalistic freedon to some extent. In a world where you get prejudiced information, people may easily be lead to discriminate against a whole sect of people.
Also our history is marred with instances of conflicts and subsequent agreements. Every struggle for freedom is about changing the existent moral paradigm. It is only natural, as we see in these examples, that morality has evolved owing to social pressure.

To take an example-I consider abortion to be bad. But not immoral. its bad because the idea of an fetus being denied a chance to live is quite heart breaking. However I also find the idea of a mother not being given freedom to decide on this matter as equally,if not more, sadenning. So my moral stance on abortion would be(that is the code of conduct that I expect in such a case is) to let the mother have her freedom but at the same time making sure that teenage girls everywhere are taught about the ill-effects of early sex and educating them on the use of contraceptives. I would also like to see research being done to develop better contraceptive measures.


So my definition of morality or moral codes is this:
Laws that we can agree upon, after considering the merits of all the conflicting viewpoints.

This is pretty much how a secular govt works. And its been pretty effective.

Bear in mind- Moral laws don't give you absolute justice, only "agreeable" justice.
Eg. Free Speech. Without it, we would have no way of raising unpopular opinion. It gives you the freedom to offend people, however trying to obstruct public activity or harm people in the name of Free Speech is seen as immoral.

So as time goes on, we shall build better moral laws and deliver better justice to everyone
(It doesn't matter if I as an individual find freedom of speech harmful. I will just have to learn to adjust with it and accept it as moral- thats what people did after slavery was abolished.)

NOw even though christianity talks a lot about what is right or wrong, christians can not claim to be the first to have thought of these things. The Roman pagan/mystery religions and the eastern religions of Hinduism and Budhism are examples to the contrary. So I don't think our secular moral base is floating in air as Mr Flea does.

103. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60563 by the_assayer on August 2, 2007 at 8:58 am

So who's takin the first shot??? :D

104. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60560 by the_assayer on August 2, 2007 at 8:52 am

I was listening to Wee Flea's radio interview from the freechurch website. Here is a shortened transcript that I prepared so that We can look at what Wee Flea arguments are----




Dawkins- Atheists don't fly airplanes into buildings.
response from Wee Flea- Dawkins' thinks christians do.

Dawkins regards christian scientists almost as traitors.
response from Wee Flea-christians are good scientists.

Dawkin's doesn't give evidence for scientists being mostly atheists. And hence his position is unscientific.

The god delusion is not a scientific book. Richard dawkin's tries to use his stature as a scientist to distract readers from the vacuousness of his arguments.
Too many christians now think that scientists are mostly atheists. And hence they think atheism is required to be scientific.

"There is very rarely any conflict between science and religion and if there is one, I would trust the bible because science is fallible and the bible is not." - says Wea Flea.

Dawkins' view of morality consists of the concept of reciprocal altruism (you scratch my back, I scratch your's). Atheistic morality implies that a person who is violent can rationalise it by saying that it was my 'genes' that makes me bad and i can't help it. It takes away the concept of human responsibility.

[In general, without GOd there would not be any reason to be moral. We would all choose to be selfish or reciprocally altruistic at best]- Me!!


Dawkins' cites letters in his book, that he got from christians attacking him using swear words. He therefore concludes that christian morality is not upto the mark.
Response from Flea- Atheists who use swear words at him in the richardawkins.net forum should apply the same logic to their position.

Francis Collins(a christian) the head of the Genome Project after reading C.S Lewis came to realise that without God there would not be a way of telling right from wrong.

In our society morality is not derived from the bible, and thats why Abortion is considered acceptable in our times, just like how slavery was in the past.

The new atheism movement attacks commonly held moral precepts and hence its dangerous.

The bible is not about moral codes. Its not a rule book which says "follow these rules and you'll be Happy", rather the bible tells us where we have gone wrong. In other words, the bible tells us what things are bad and what things are good. The atheists don't have such a concept. To them, moral codes are enough. Atheistic morals are based on shaky grounds.

The new atheism is akin to the story of "the emperor's new clothes". Atheists accuse those who don't see it their way as being less intelligent or even as fools.


The bible is not immoral as Dawkins puts it. The bible can't be taken to be literaly true, however accounts of Jesus' ressurrection can not be a metaphor for anything else and hence can be taken on face value.

People don't have to pick and choose from the bible. If read with the context in mind there should not be any confusion on whether a verse is to be taken literally or not.

H.G Wells and Huxley were racists because of their belief in evolution and Dawkins tries to defend them by saying that it was because of other biases that they held at that time.
Dakins is lying when he says that it was Evolutionary thinking that lead to the end of slavery.
Most of what Dawkins and the others think as moral now are the fruits of the Gospels.

Dawkins' is right in challenging belief and asking questions, but he gives the wrong answers.

The reason there is such vitriol spewed against Wee Flea is because he is too close to the bone- because atheists are getting exposed. Finally!!

105. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60538 by the_assayer on August 2, 2007 at 7:04 am

The rest of the article can be found here:
http://www.freechurch.org/resources/articles/refuge.htm

106. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60537 by the_assayer on August 2, 2007 at 7:02 am

I found this excerpt from an article on the freechurch website by a Rev ALan C Clifford.

"""When relationships are strained or broken, being able to find solace in a good and trusted friend makes all the difference between lonely despair and peaceful sanity. Of course, those who find comfort in their religious faith are seen by some bold individuals as weak and inadequate people. "Religion is just a crutch!" is the defiant dismissal of seemingly self-sufficient people. Yet when such people break a leg, they too are glad of a crutch!

Those who dismiss the comfort of God have their alternative dependencies. These include alcohol, drugs, career, fame, wealth, immoral sex and related dubious entertainments and a list of other substitutes. In short, no one is capable of living without external help of some sort. The question then becomes: does your particular crutch really work? The point is that we are all vulnerable and weaker than we are prepared to admit. Such an observation sits comfortably with the Christian view of things, that people were meant to depend on God. We are all creatures of need.

However, our situation became complicated by the advent of sin which increased our vulnerability. Tragically, we tend to replace God with crutches which collapse under our weight. The fact is that the sinful substitutes mentioned above simply don't do the job. This is the lesson of the faithless Israelites whom Moses had to lead. They constantly tended to rely on idols instead of the LORD. Our more secular world is making the same basic mistake. What is more tragic is that people disillusioned by the emptiness of secularism are turning to multi-faith religion instead of the living God of Moses and the Bible. """


Ahem!! Multi-Faith religion?? Emptiness of the secular world?? "living" GOd of Moses and the Bible?? Those who don't believe in God take refuge in alcohol and immoral sex..?? :D

Atheists, shame on you..!!! Don't you see.... you all need the crutch of religion and not just any religion, one that is not multi-faith and not Idol workshipping.
Its quite funny how he's sure that one billion Indians are all workshipping the wrong God. I mean, how do you assert that fact? There can be one invisible sky daddy, but not 100???

107. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60493 by the_assayer on August 2, 2007 at 4:28 am

"Again typical of the closeminded fundamentalism of most of the atheists on this site. What would you say if I said I don't need to read atheist books before commenting on them? You would rightly dismiss me as being arrogant and ignorant. You don't have to read the books but don't display your ignorance by commenting on something you have not read."
-Wea Flea.

Did any of us really comment on these books. As far as I could see, there were comments about the titles of the books, but nothing really about the contents of these books.

About your book, "the Dawkins Letters"- Am I wrong in assuming that you have reduced the whole atheistic movement to the status of a Richard Dawkins's Fan club? First learn to stop generalising your assertions about atheists. Also try to be less condescending. Maybe, there's room for civil debate? At any rate, I'm not gonna buy your book or the new one because I can't waste my money on books that I don't know to be original or thought provoking. As of now, I don't know what your arguments are and hence I have no interest in your writings. THings could change if you could tell us a bit more about your book.

108. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60483 by the_assayer on August 2, 2007 at 4:04 am

Wea Flea, Why don't you give us some free copies of your book? Or why don't you write an article citing your main points against atheism so that we can evaluate how original and intereting your book might be.
To expect everyone here to shell out money and buy your book for the sake of open-mindedness is plain silly. Can you do anything more than tell us how hypocritical and morally lacking we are? Maybe then, I'd take you more seriously.

109. Camp Joins Summer Fun With Teaching Hindu Faith

Comment #59076 by the_assayer on July 27, 2007 at 7:45 am

In India its BSc. But I'm guessing that was joke.. :D

110. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #59072 by the_assayer on July 27, 2007 at 7:40 am

Heathen, you seem to have the impression that if parents stopped being imposing, their children would not become religious like them. In other words, do you think that the vast majority of young believers are so becasue their parents forcibly made like religion?

When does something becoming imposing? If a parent expects his/her child to pray and go to church, will that be called as imposing? If so how do you plan to convince such a parent that what he/she sees as a character building thing is actually unfair? I bet you'd have to convince them that religion is bad first. Do you see any other way?

Practically speaking, I see a lot of problems with such an approach. A better way would be to ask parents to expose their kids to a wide range of ideas, along with their's.

111. A force for good?

Comment #59043 by the_assayer on July 27, 2007 at 3:29 am

Goldy, thats not fair. I see that many in this site are just too ready to mock people out of here.

Coolwainy, i'm guessing that you're taking offence with hungarianelephants comment about Jesus. Is that so?

Can you tell me something? Do you believe in God, or do you believe that belief in God is a good thing? Is it because the bible guides you morally that you believe in God? I'm genuinely interested in your reply.

112. A force for good?

Comment #59031 by the_assayer on July 27, 2007 at 2:57 am

In other words,

tell me the difference between the two statements:

1. A magical entity using magical means created the universe.
2 . I don't know what created the universe.

Any difference? I say none.


In science its OK to say, "I don't know". Religion is claiming "Truth" when it appears to be only using the vagueness of the mystery as an excuse to say anything they want about it, without questioning and often expecting it to accepted on faith.

Truth, has no place in a belief system based on Faith. A fact is not true, unless it can be shown to be so.

113. A force for good?

Comment #59029 by the_assayer on July 27, 2007 at 2:44 am

Coolwainy, you didn't tell us what in the talk made "good load sense" to you.

""""Religious faith has no quarrel with science. But the two operate in distinct spheres. Science can do much to explain sexual urges. But it can say almost nothing, as Freud acknowledged, about the mysterious workings of love. Religion seeks spiritual truth, not scientific or historical fact. It allows us to cope with ambiguity and uncertainty, with the ultimate mystery of human existence."""

The tricky word used here is "Truth" and if one doesn't pay close attention it gives the illusion of being a brilliant point. Truth atleast by defintion is something that is not false. This implies that when we assert something as true, we do mean to say "I know its true, 'cause i've checked". Now back to Paul's words- "..spiritual truth..". He is saying that there is something in love that scientists don't understand and will never understand(a bold statement, and in my view born out of a very common misgiving that "I" am not my brain, its something more). Vallely is arguing by appealing to our current ingnorance. He talks about the mystery that is love and then drops in religion as a way to explain its "spititual truth".
Let me deconstruct this:


The spiritual truth(magic) of Love(magic) can be found only through God(magic).

How does one check if the spiritual truth about love is really true?? What methods can one employ? If none, then what is the use of defining such a form of truth when there is no way of ascertaining it.
And how does one magic explain another?

114. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #59022 by the_assayer on July 27, 2007 at 2:17 am

"Experience is subjective and first person, it cannot be captured by the kind of reductive explanations and third person narratives that scientists seek"- Bonzai

It depends on what you mean by "capturing". Capturing the meaning? or Capturing the moment? If the latter, then maybe science's reductionistic approach might just be spoiling the fun, although i'm not sure it does(maybe it only modifies the experience?). If the former, then I think, someday science might have something to tell us about the meaning of these experiences.

115. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #59016 by the_assayer on July 27, 2007 at 1:27 am

Fides appeared to be extremmely polite but unfortunately quite naive as well. Often I see people like him use the argument-from-higher-morality-
"I don't tell other people what to think", "I don't call people wicked for......", " I am only trying to love and be kind to others....".
Mind you these are good moral precepts but they turn obstructive when used in contexts where a delibrate suspension of these morals is required(except the 2nd one) like in a debate or discussion.

116. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58998 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 10:40 pm

Bonzai.. your making the mistake of defining truth as a subjective thing, atleast in this context. I'm OK with such a definition as long as Hedges keeps it a private notion. He should also then stay out of debates and stop writing articles about it. 'Cause such first person truths are not publicly assertible and can not be refuted or argued with. All he needs to tell Hitchens is to mind his own business.
Debates are for people who feel that they have a point to prove. If all they want is to be left alone, then they should not come for such discussions.
Can you also reply to my previous post?

117. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58888 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 2:29 pm

But science doesn't mandate that you to built WMDs or that you fine tune torture techniques. REligion on the other hand does mandate certain forms of action. And if it turns out that this action are irrational and immoral we have no other choice than to attack its core beliefs, even if it is only symbolism.

However I think i see what you are getting at. You are saying that anyone holding nonparsimonious beliefs privately should not be held justifiable. Right?

118. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58883 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 2:09 pm

Anyone?

119. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58881 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 2:05 pm

http://skepticality.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=238578#

Can we get this talk posted?
Hal Bidlack from the JREF responds to the question, "Can a skeptic believe in God". He is a deist.

120. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58872 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 1:40 pm

Hmmmm.. you make an interesting point Bonzai. However, do you not see that such symbolysm can lead to certain convictions about the real world. For example, Hedges probably beleives in transendence and the concept of a soul? And so maybe, just maybe, he may be against embryonic stem cell research. If that were the case, would it not be OK if tried to point out that he is scientifically wrong?
Do you think such Dualism is possible?

121. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58857 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 12:21 pm

Heathen, Do you think a parent should keep his/her faith a secret? How do you expect parents to not impart Faith onto their children when they themselves see such a life as gifted?

122. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58852 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 12:16 pm

Sane1.... The quote of Hedges' that you refer to does no mean what you make of it.

He is asking the question-
Should we concern ourselves with questions of sanctity and transendance of life?

My answer to that is yes. And my answer to the question he poses is:
Sanctity if takes as synonymous to value, then I see no problem to see life as valued and precious. As for transendence, I see no evidence for physical transendence.

123. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58851 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 12:05 pm

sane1... why should Hedges Butt out?? If it is so that faith and God have nuances, then it is not for us to say, " Faith means this.....". Hedges objection may be reflected by many Godly people around the world. His assertion is that God is a way of talking about Good things in the world. He may be wrong in saying so, however it is perfectly right on his part to say that Hitchens doesn't try to see this side of religion. If we find his arguments untenable or false, we can write rebuttals. Whatever happened to the spirit of debate?

124. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58849 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 11:53 am

Bonzai, you are partly right. There is a lot of self-congradulating in this forum. However that is expected because the likes of Dennett have to some extend dealt with these cases.

It may be true that hedges' God is a utilitarian one, useful to base one's morality on perhaps. But I think Hedges in slightly being redundant in the following excerpt.

"God is that mysterious force that works upon us and through us to seek and achieve truth, beauty and goodness. God is a verb. God is a process accomplishing itself, not an asserted existence. And God is inescapable."

Truth, beauty and goodness can be clubbed together under goodness. I get the feeling he is talking about a sort of inate goodness in our world. Most believers thank God whenever something good happens to them unexpectedly. Is it then possible that, it is this Goodness that the believers like Hedges refer to as God?

If I learned that the flight that I was about to board crashed on its way to the airport, I might feel a moments relief that I wasn't on that flight. A beliver might feel gratitude towards his God. This might be the reason why believers fail to realise how a Good God would kill the passengers in the first place. Because, they equate Goodness with God.

125. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58833 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 10:56 am

fides, I only said that Richard MIGHT have used childish to mean something else. My assertion is still only a "GUESS". Luckily RD is still alive and we might be able to get him to come clean on this. As for the bible, what scholars think it might mean is at best a Guess, like mine. We cannot ask Jesus Christ(if he ever existed) to clarify stuff in the bible. So as long as you are ready to see the scholars interpretations as speculation as I am here, then i have no problem.

As for the labelling thing, I think its bad if you try to restrict your son from knowing about other viewpoints. As long as you don't censor him, its moral to tell your child about your faith.

Your faith teaches you good things and i admire that. But don't assume that Faith is what leads to moral values, cause then people like me and Richard should be highly immoral. If you are interested to hear about how we (atheists) manage to stay moral, then please do continue posting on this forum. If else, you're free to leave.

126. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58808 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 7:35 am

Discipline- well not necesserily. People like Hedges might cause belivers who've started to question their faith to retract back to the safety of their religion. What we can do instead, is to try to come up with a sympathetic rebuttal- no ad hominums.
I see the sudden explosion of these nuanced versions of "God" as a good sign, for people have started to "Doubt".

127. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58791 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 6:23 am

:O !!!

128. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58786 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 6:00 am

I just heard from the badastronomy website that Texas governor Rick Perry has appointed a creationist to head the Texas State Board of Education. Anybody know if this is true?

129. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Edd Doerr

Comment #58781 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 5:40 am

Yorker-
Isn't accepting the power of the scientific method a sort of belief. I wouldn't get too worked up about using words like belief. We may qualify it as "reasoned belief" to avoid confusion.

130. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58773 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 4:33 am

TO FIDES::


Hmmmm... Well there is a difference of scale here. The problem of Richard use of "childish" or Hawkins's use of "God" can be settled by just asking them. In Hawkins case he has made it pretty clear what he means by it. As for Einstein, this can get a bit tricky. Many of his statements like "God does not play dice" can be seen as evidence for him being atleast a Diest. However, you can find many other autobiographical notes where he discusses the folly of believing in an Anthromorphic God who intervenes in human affairs.
In all the above cases you are atleast looking at stuff that these people had either said in public or written in articles or their diaries.


Biblical documents are way more tricky than that. The bible is not autobiographical. There was apparently a committee that decided which gospels are supposed to go into the Bible and so forth. You could still speculate and say "well nothing happened there.." but it still leaves room for all kinds of ways a story can get distorted. An example would be an Indian hero called Subhash Chandra Bose. He played his part in the Indian freedom struggle as the aggresive front. Ghandhi's doctrines of non-violence was un-appealing to many of the youths of that time and they looked up to him for leadership. Anyway, tragically just before India got its independance he died in a plane crash. His body was never recovered. However in a short span of thirty years, there were all kinds of rumours about his death. Recently, after 50 years of independence, there were reports of people having seen him near Nepal. Apparently he had not aged, because the drawings that the witnesses handed out were that of a young Subhash. Ofcourse these rumours didn't go around for long, because the news media followed the story and found it to be a hoax. But just imagine if there weren't any media coverage of this story. The story of Subhash's ressurrection would have made its rounds in society slowly getting ossified in people's mind as a legitimate mystery. Can Jesus's resurrection be such a case? Just like all the other myths of that time, I guess we wouldn't know. In Subhash's case, if it weren't for the new's coverage, his autobiography would have read- "Died under mysterious circumstances...was reportedly seen in Nepal after 50 years". How do you know if the Gospels were written with any of the investigative rigour that modern journalists have?
Maybe they included myths along with certain facts. Or maybe, it was all just stories. In Hinduism we have all kinds of fantastic stories. Most of them highly unlikely. We have a million characters that are revered even now but there is no good evidence to back up any of these stories. The authorship of Ramayana(a major epic) is credited to a single person Valmiki. What is to stop this person from making stuff up? His stories were not reviewed or criticised, something that all writers have to go through in our time. In cases like these, the data in these books becomes circumspect. Face it. Its a lot worse than Dawkins's "childish" controversy.
Moreover christians were not the first ones to come up with the notion of a God. Even the greeks and all the other cultures prior to them had Gods in their societies. Maybe there is some natural reason to why this widespread belief exists, however this cannot be cited as proof for a God. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

131. The hitch in Hitchens' thinking

Comment #58714 by the_assayer on July 26, 2007 at 12:10 am

If we try to take Hedges seriously, ie. assume he's not just faking it, there is something worth cosidering here.
The religious often define truth as moral truth. His statement :"God is that mysterious force that works upon us and through us to seek and achieve truth, beauty and goodness" testfies to this argument.
Somehow, they seem to be convinced that, if it weren't for these moral scriptures, people would not know right from wrong. I call this the "morality myth". The myth is this:

"Moral laws are not derivable. It must have been handed down by some unknown entity".

If you were to reflect on the complexities of the evolution of moral rules , you might begin to see why this myth is so prevalant.
Moral codes evolve(meme?) pretty much like scientific theories. They necesserily don't negate the old law, but rather try to fix or change the old law in a way thats fits the circumstances. In science the criterion is that the new theory should be able to fit data better and do a better job at prediction than the old one. In moral-science the criteria is that the new moral code should do a better job at minimising suffering than the old law.
One way to show that moral laws are not absolute is that almost all such laws have exceptions. Even "Thou shall not kill" is rested when its done for self defence or if we were to kill a terrorist. Surely killing is bad, but we wouldn't walk up to a person and say "How could you kill a man just because he was trying to kill you?".
It might be bad to cheat on your spouse, but we would sympathise with him/her if he/she was deprived of love at home and was natural seeking love elsewhere.
I liken the evolution of morality with playing "Snake". You constantly try to snake through the milieu of Good and bad things; and strategise and formulate rules so as to avoid harm(mental&physical). Fortunately our definiton of harm extends beyond ourselves, because of our biological capacity(eg. mirror neurons) to empathise.

I feel that we have to start talking more about the source of our secular morality. Science should be able to tell us amore bout the source of what we call "BAD" or "HARMFUL".

132. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58711 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 11:33 pm

Lordfenriz, I agree. I have no objection other than that you have misunderstood me. Hopefully the posts above will change your mind.

133. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58710 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 11:29 pm

But Religion is mainly about such moral value, albeit distorted and dogmatic. I was not telling that REligiious indoctrination in principle is a good thing. But as a practical step in curbing it we cannot expect parents to not show their religious side or to not mention Jesus infront of their children. To me thats immoral. We can only expect them to be open-minded and let their children learn from a varied number of sources. If they will not censor their child from knowing about our side of the argument, then thats fair enough for me. The word "Labelling" makes certain parents uncomfortable, because thats not what they've been trying to do to their child. However if we can get them to realise that the child should not be biased by just their side of the story, they could become open to letting their child enquire and learn about stuff more freely.

134. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58707 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 11:17 pm

Well Nails, Mea Culpa! I should have put it in better words. By labelling I don't mean forcing someone to identify himself as a Jew or a Christian. I was referring to the case where Labelling becomes an act of identifying someone according to his/her predispositions.
You say religion is not a character trait. Maybe not for a child, I agree. But a child of Faith, as Fide's son, gets labelled as a Christian or Jew by virtue of the people around him seeing him as one of them. Thats an innocent mistake on their part. As long as they don't limit him from knowing about other opposing views, they are being moral enough. A religious parent cannot be expected to keep his religious impulses a secret infront of his child. You have to understand that by Labelling a child christian, not every parent intends to censor him from other religions and belief system.

And your reply to my ".. are we our own God." is well taken. I was only trying to point out that maybe the idea of a God stems from such psychological traits that many of us had in our childhood. I was not trying to start a new Wooly-God based religion. You should my posts again. I don't say that God is in me or such stupid stuff. I was talking of God as "ME" passing judgements on "Myself". In some ways it mirrors your arguments against me in this regard.
I agree Goldy. Politeness is a belief only in that sense. I didn't mean that we require faith to take politeness seriously.

135. Camp Joins Summer Fun With Teaching Hindu Faith

Comment #58616 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 11:44 am

Ah yes... Spinoza. Not to mention that he got one of his five heads chopped of for sleeping during the creation process.wait!!.... hmmm... me not too sure about this story either. I'll ask my mom and clarify it for those who are interested.

136. Susan Blackmore interviews Dan Dennett

Comment #58613 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 11:34 am

I second that Riley. He is certainly a breath of fresh air in philosophical circles.

137. Camp Joins Summer Fun With Teaching Hindu Faith

Comment #58612 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 11:32 am

The prevalance of charlatans God-men(women) is another vice.

138. Camp Joins Summer Fun With Teaching Hindu Faith

Comment #58611 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 11:30 am

Well a BSc or Diploma... Me not sure. But its a degree subject in some universities thanks to the BJP govt.

139. Camp Joins Summer Fun With Teaching Hindu Faith

Comment #58607 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 11:24 am

Your wrong there Bonzai.... Vishnu is only part of the trinity of Gods.
Brahma- Creator of the universe
Vishnu- Protector of the universe
Shiva- Destroyer " "

What you should have said is that heroes and Gods of many of the epics are actually avatars of Vishnu.
But all this doesn't make a difference. Its pretty polytheistic in practice.

And wendelin, your notion of Hinduism is naive, especially the claim that Hindu's don't try to impose religion onto science. Do you know that astrology is a science subject here in India? People can now get a BSc in Astrology. There are research organisations like the Bhanktivedanta institute funded by ISKON that are trying to develop what they call Indegeneous science. Ofcourse this would have been a good thing provided they were actually trying to make a science using traditional ideas. But thats hardly the case. Try this on for size-


"""When one decides to extend physics to include thermodynamics, cosmology and direct personal experience we find new perceptions of lawfulness. For example, when we include thermodynamics the second law of thermodynamics which states that "entropy (disorder) tends to grow in time." We have a directed time. The corruption of order from lost co-relation to the "external" world can be used to account for the second law. But deterministic chaos seems to be an intrinsic effect, independent of the surrounding which bring about the same type of phenomena. Also if we consider the universe as a single physical system there is no physical agency outside it to provide scales of space and time, much less to provide external entropy increasing influences.

When our personal experience in the universe is considered, we certainly plan our activities according to this chain of causality and of entropy increase. So it is very tempting to assert that we too are "merely physical". Yet we are aware of two branching trees; the phenomenal one in which causes cause effects in the future. But we also have the conviction now and then, most often when we look back on the past that there seems to be a goal directed sequence of sets of events, where teleology applies: cause is in the result and the future branches are in the past. It is very reminiscent of the curios Aswatha tree with branches below and roots above mentioned in the Bhagawad Gita (Urdhvamulam athasakham aswattham prahuravyam Gita X). Can the same world exhibit such different connectivities in different perspectives?""""



-------------------------------------------------
can anyone tell me what this might mean?

140. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58578 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 8:35 am

Mea Culpa! I didn't realise his son was so young. OK question cancelled.

141. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58575 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 8:22 am

gr8hands, interesting point.
Fides, have you ever discussed with your child about the evidence pointing in your God's favour?

142. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58565 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 7:47 am

fides, What Richard says is his opinion. Don't just say people here are putting their faith in him, 'cause then you are guilty of the same lazy reductionism that you are accusing everyone here of. One way to defend Richard here(not because he's my God) is we can assume that he didn't mean (b) in the sense that you see it. By sayinf faith is childish, he may have meant to say that its 'silly'. We often use childish in that sense.
Now the question is- is it right for you to be telling your son about your faith, I say yes. Your his Father and he needs to know what sort of a person you are. If your son likes to pray and have faith, then good for him. As long as you don't try to censor your son from learning about other faiths and atheism I'm happy with your stance.
As for what I believe- I think being a rational atheist frees me from the dogmas of religion and . I like to admit my ignorance about the working of the world and i like to find out more about it. An answer like "God did it", doesn't cut it for me. My one concern about the new atheist movement is that it is not trying to tackle the question of morality. If the likes of Dawkins didn't just brush the subject aside saying "science has nothing to say about morality", we could have come up some relevant points defending secular moralism in these debates.

143. Camp Joins Summer Fun With Teaching Hindu Faith

Comment #58557 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 7:25 am

well... the stories in Hinduism are too fantastic. There is not much scope for literalism.
Krishna one of the most important avatars of Maha Vishnu had a 1000 wives. :D .. And in another epic, the Mahabarata, the pandavas *five in number) agree to marry one woman(panchali) as their common wife. Very progressive people i would say.

144. Camp Joins Summer Fun With Teaching Hindu Faith

Comment #58552 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 7:11 am

I was reading an article by Meera Nanda. In it, she talks of the postmodernist movement in India that is trying to blur the distiction between Hindutva and science. They claim the vedas to be scientific citing the guna theory as one of its acheivemnts. In actuality the guna theory is a joke. It states that the stuff of the world is divided into three types - positive gunna(symbolizing good things,vigour,excitement), negative guna(sybolising in-action, bad things) and neutral guna(things that don't fall under either catagory). And the claim? Yes you guessed it! The atomic theory. Apparently the saints had thought about the Bohr atom model thousands of years back. Too bad for you white folks.... it appears we brownies were lightyears ahead of you guys. :P .... I even heard that a Hindutva org in California is suing to Nodel prize committee for not giving credit for our Indian-vedic science.
Hmmmmmm... Where's my prize now??

145. Camp Joins Summer Fun With Teaching Hindu Faith

Comment #58548 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 7:00 am

I rememeber sitting for a seminar by some swami when I was young. He told us that the 'Om' had secret capacities to heal and so on. He also said, 'Om is the only syllable which required the use of your lungs,tongue and teeth together.

GARBAGE!!

146. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58543 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 6:48 am

Sbooder, I think we have to be less apprehensive of these sort of failures. Because those who decide the merit of a debate from which side gets owned, is not really considering the questions very seriously. Those who might jeer at Dawkins performance and contend that he's been defeated are only trying to get rid of the Atheist-position (just like some of us here want to get rid of religion ASAP.). Such people are judging the merit of these arguments by looking at how the scores tally at the end. This is a wrong way to assess viewpoints. A discussion should be more than about taking sides. Those who debate these questions with themselves are more likely to keep their eyes open to what might happen in future debates.

147. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58537 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 6:25 am

Ah yes... My mistake! Sorry!

148. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58526 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 5:37 am

Well the word assay also means "to investigate". I lifted it from the name of a free-ebook website www.theassayer.com. :D ...
They have some good books there on Math and Science.

149. Face to faith

Comment #58525 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 5:28 am

Bonzai, you said"...Like all mythologies, they are raw material on which private meanings are constructed..". How do you define meaning when it is not based on reason or evidence.

I agree with you that there is a tendency here to oversimplify the problem of religion. And I do think we need to study the religious mind in more detail before we pass judgements about it. I too have the view that religion is of value, however not as a way to find meaning in our world.

I think religion ideologies stem from certain questions related to morality like, what is gonna happen to our moral sense if we stop fearing God? There is a widely prevelant myth that if there wasn't an authority fixing our moral laws, it could somehow be challenged in the future and our world would go down in anarchy. This fear is partly being confirmed-for fundamentalist christians- by some of the recent advaces against biblical morality. Isn't it partly true? Secular morals will not be held as absolute as religious ones, then how can we get it to not topple on its head. My contention is that this is a false premise. To make my point i'll turn to science. When Einstein came along he didn't disprove Newtons laws of motion & gravity completely. Rather, he found that these laws do not apply to all cases- to the very macroscopic and in cases where the velocities were closer to that of light. Now, this is quite similar to how moral laws evolve. They don't evolve by negating the previous law, but rather by changing it to fit the circumstances better. Killing may be wrong, but killing a terrorist or a murderer in self defense is not. This would mean that "thou shall not kill" is not a universal law and is not applicable to every case.
Similarly, abortion may be a bad thing, but denying abortions when a mother is at risk is also immoral. Every moral precept has an exception and most often a moral law that sides with the lesser evil is passed as the better one.
If we could dispel this myth about secular morality, it would make religion a bit more "optional" than it is now.

150. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58518 by the_assayer on July 25, 2007 at 4:48 am

It does.... :)