Your argument assumes that we treat “a lot of dead people” and “a worse-off Germany” as bad things, which is itself an ethical position that you now need to scientifically demonstrate.
More worryingly, your argument implies that, in circumstances where I would actually make myself or my country better-off by killing Jews, science would then establish that my desire was fundamentally good. Which, you know, it wouldn’t.
All you’re really doing is reiterating my point; science can tell me how to achieve my aim, whether that’s dead Jews or a prosperous Germany, and it might help me to realise that I can’t acheive both of these aims — I have to choose one. But it still has nothing to say about whether these aims are good or bad.
So, the relationship between science and belief:
Science rests on belief. There are certain beliefs that you must hold in order to do science, or regard yourself as learning anything from it. Science itself cannot validate those beliefs; any attempt to do so would be circular.
Science can illuminate some beliefs. In particular — given the beliefs which it accepts as axiomatic — it can show that beliefs about empirically-observable phenomena are true or false.
But it can’t do this for beliefs that are not about empirically-observable phenomena. This includes all ethical propositions. Relevantly for the purposes of this thread, it also includes a wide range of religious beliefs.
The argument doesn’t assume that a worse off Germany is bad; it’s based on the fact that the Germans didn’t want a worse off Germany. But that’s what the Nazis gave them, in part because Nazi beliefs were factually incorrect.
And no, science showing that killing off millions of people would be profitable wouldn’t show that it was good, just that it would work. And in practice it’s typically not actually profitable (people are valuable assets and killing millions of them is expensive), so the issue is moot.
How often do “Evil” people actually based their decisions on reality? Very seldom. The idea that people engage in evil behavior because “cold hard science” tells them it’s the best decision happens rarely if ever in real life. They just make up their own “facts” instead to justify themselves.
For the first part, especially if a religion also allows you to mistreat non-believers but requires you to be nice to believers. That creates a two-fold incentive to join. You can join to avoid being abused by members, but also join to enjoy the pro-social benefits of members. Its my understanding that this is a reason street gangs see people join. They join to avoid being abused by the gangs, as well as to enjoy the benefits of the gangs. Then you have the fact that some street gangs conscript members against their will rather than just relying on voluntary joining too. A system that relies on forced conscription & voluntary joining would have advantages over one that relied solely on people joining voluntarily.
As for your second point, I’m not sure. I’m guessing its a secondary characteristic of our bigger brains and higher number of cortical neurons. Floppy ears on a dog don’t serve a purpose, they’re just a side effect of being bred to be domesticated. Maybe looking for a meaning in life is just a side effect of having brains that tripled in size in the last 3 million years.
Which is the point. By the same reasoning, science showing that killing off millions of people wouldn’t be profitable wouldn’t show that it was bad, just that it wouldn’t work to acheive that particular end. Science has nothing at all to say about whether killing millions of people is good or bad, just as it has nothing at all to say about whether pursuing profitability is good or bad.
That might be a successful characteristic for a religion that includes pretty much the whole of a given society — the people you are encouraged to mistreat are those other people who live in that place over there. But if you have a society characterised by religious diversity, and the religions are mutually antagonistic, then that’s more likely to result in the society not thriving, which will be bad for all of the religions which that society hosts.
The street gangs example is interesting. It’s not clear that street gang ideas are particularly well-adapted to survive and propagate. Not many street gangs have endured as long as major religions, or as other affinity groups like nations.
No; it has plenty to say, because most moral systems justify themselves by claiming things about the world and about the results of following them. Not even the Nazis killed millions of people “just because”. And science can prove or disprove such claims.
Yes, I know. And it can do so equally whether the moral goals, in support of which the claims are made, are good or bad. What it can’t do is tell you whether the moral goals are good or bad.
If I want to make Germany richer and stronger, science may tell me that killing lots of people is not conducive to that aim. If I want to make Gaza poorer and weaker, science may tell me that killing lots of people is conducive to that aim. In neither case is science doing anything at all to help me make an ethical decision — should I want make Germany stronger, or Gaza weaker?
Except no, because most of the time “evil” goals are contradicted by science. People just ignore that because of the twin myths of “intelligence and knowledge are evil”, and “good is stupid and self destructive”.
As far as most people are concerned Nazism must be supported by science because science is evil; and Nazism must be smart because Nazis are evil and evil is inherently smart.
You keep telling us this, but ignore all invitations to offer a sicentific refutation — or confirmation — of a moral claim.
I have literally never met anybody who thinks that. These beliefs look to me like hallucinations that you have come up with to rationalise your faith, in the face of all logic, that science supports virtue and undermines vice.
Most religions and similar philosophies do endorse treating believers and non-believers differently, some are actively hostile to non-believers. This probably helps religions that are already widespread to stay that way.
The Romans had a society that tolerated and co-opted religious diversity, but the Roman Empire eventually institutionalised Christianity, and AFAIK most other religions were banned. So if a belief system can get to the point of being adopted by a powerful government, then this sort of intolerance can help to remove rivals.
It suggests another aspect of successful religions is being useful to the powerful, eg by encouraging people to accept their place in the hierarchy.
On the other side, minority religions often have rules to keep members segregated from the rest of society, telling them they shouldn’t have friends outside the religion, shouldn’t marry outsiders, sometimes should avoid even talking to them. Any that don’t have such rules are likely to see members trickling away to join the majority, and soon disappear.
Maybe. But since I have a brain that’s determined to look for meaning in life, I find your answer unsatisfying.
Since the OP mentions memes I recall a study of what traits make a meme most effective at spreading and number 1 was: anger.
You’re more likely to share a meme if it made you angry than any other emotion, even one that made you laugh out loud.
Mostly true for street gangs nowadays, I expect. But historically, I imagine that’s how ‘nations’ originally arose: some particular local warlord and his followers were successful, by luck and/or because the top guy was smart.
So they expanded, and took over more territory. Eventually the boss became the KING and thus a nation was born?
Of course there is a difference: modern street gangs exist within the context of a larger authority.
If they become too troublesome, the government will shut them down. Using the police or, if it ever came to a last resort, the army.
This is true, and can be seen with the sectarianism in the middle east.
The Muslims don’t get along with the Jews and Christians
The Arabs hate the other ethnic groups (persians, kurds, turks)
Sunni and Shia hate each other
The traditionalists and the reformers hate each other
The devout muslims hate the decadent west, and they hated the communist, atheist east
In various areas, people are more loyal to local tribes than a national government
etc.
Hamas, Al Qaeda and ISIS are all extremist, arab, sunni muslim groups so you’d assume they get along. But nope, Al Qaeda and ISIS consider Hamas to be too moderate so they hate Hamas.
So you’d assume Al Qaeda and ISIS would get along, but nope. They disagree on strategy and hate each other.
Society is held back by all the tribalism and the concept that empathy should be withheld and cruelty implemented on those outside your tribe. It prevents people from working together and society from advancing. I think the situation where this would actually work is one where one philosophy is dominant and others have no choice but to join. But again, when the crips tried this in Los Angeles, it just meant that all the other gangs they preyed upon joined together and called themselves the bloods. Then the crips broke apart into sets and started going to war with other crip sets. Society is held back by all this tribal warfare.
I suppose the Jewish equivalent of the Emo Philips joke is the one about the desert island castaway who built himself a whole city, complete with two synagogues.
“That’s the one I go to…and THAT’s the one where I wouldn’t be caught dead!”
Why? Those are standard lies used to justify moral positions. How are they not “moral claims”?
Is there in your eyes any such thing as a moral claim that applies to anything real?
No, it just means that their evil isn’t based on an outright falsehood. But it’s a borderline non-problem, considering the consistency of evil being factually wrong.
That sounds like society benefitting from tribal warfare, not being held back by it. How is all of Los Angeles being dominated by a single criminal gang better for society?
I was thinking of Christianity and its spread through latin america and Africa. The europeans had more wealth and better militaries, so people may have joined christianity in order to not be a victim of their persecution and hopefully enjoy some of the material benefits.
A nation is a group of people united by a common language, common culture, shared territory, shared history, etc, and distinguished from their neighbours who do not share these characteristics. Nations probably arouse out of tribes, which is basically the same thing but ona smaller scale. Tribes and and nations produce leaders and states, not the other way around.
