This demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of science. Science does not prove anything. We can develop hypotheses about things, and try to find evidence supporting them and try to falsify them. If they resist falsification, and evidence increasingly supports them, and they make predictions which can be verified, they can get promoted to theories. For evolution we can verify common descent both through the fossil record and through DNA. Sure, some deity might have faked everything, but we have found no evidence to falsify the hypothesis of common descent, lots for it, and none in support of a designer.
As far as God goes - which God? Hairy thunderer or cosmic muffin? God is a poorly defined term - even the subset of gods believed in by Christians have very different characteristics.
Do mutations in the influenza virus count as adding information? How about immunity of bacteria to new drugs?
The information argument is a common bogus creationist one. First, how do you define information? Gene doubling clearly increases the amount of information in the Shannon sense. If there are mutations in the doubled genes, can’t they be adaptively advantageous? Is this new information? And what mechanism prevents the addition of information through mutation? There is no conservation of information law, except that made up with no justification by some creationists.
Get us nowhere? Philosophy is fun, but 1500 years of philosophy did little to help us understand the universe. 500 years of science has gotten us a lot further.
Yes, basically - I would express it as “There’s no justice in this world; if there’s none in the next, either, what’s the point of doing good?” The author of Ecclesiastes 3:16-17 put it this way: “And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgement, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.” swissmtndog’s belief in karma obviously comes up with the same answer, which reinforces my misgivings about the word “atheist”.
Not so much the “cheerfully amoral”, as those who might say, as does Shakespeare’s King John: “Bell, book and candle cannot drive me back, when yellow gold becks me to come on.” It’s the alternative to the bell, book, and candle I’m looking for - and I think yours and Der Trihs’ examples of individual or societal rejection and condemnation fill the gap adequately.
Hmm. I think we all know your views on theocracy, and I hope that most of us share them. However, in the light of your statement, would you say that you regarded theocracy as immoral, or that your objection to it is based only on your personal desire for well-being? A theocrat would say that homosexuality (for example) should be banned on moral grounds; if he has sufficient power to enforce this, would you regard his justification as adequate?
On the Christian (or, at least, Protestant) view, forgiveness is dependent on repentence, an active turning away from sin, rather than merely asking God for it. That’s not to say that a Christian is obliged to be sinless, but we should at least try not to commit sins.
I’m agnostic rather than atheistic, but the concept is the same. Living one’s life in a moral manner and being good to one’s fellow human beings makes life better all the way around for everybody.
When you get right down to brass tacks, the only “commandment” that means anything at all is: Don’t hurt anyone else, physically or emotionally. If we all followed that, things would be nice. If we then went a step farther and added a concept of making at least one person smile every day of our lives, things would be grand.
I’m trying to do that. I don’t always succeed, but at least I’m making the effort.
Both. I regard theocracy as immoral ( it restricts freedom, tends to be brutal, subordinates people to a thing ( religion ), and so on ); I also regard it as simply stupid and self-destructive.
Nope; if no one is hurt, coerced or manipulated I don’t see how it qualifies as immoral. That’s why homophobes always fall back on religion, subjective opinion ( it’s icky ! ), or nonsense ( If everybody was gay, the species would die out ! ). Homophobia has no sensible basis, any more than racism or fear of the left handed. It has no valid justification.
I think this is far to general to have much value. I undertstand the principle but in reality it seldom works out that way. We have numerous examples righth here on the SDMB for that.
I think the ingrediant is when people somehow feel their way is the right way, not just for them but everyone else, and that they are somehow duty bound to make everyone see their truth, or to pritect others from hearing anything else presented as an equal truth. How stupid and useless. Born of fear not love.
there is no new information even in the doubling of genes. If one studies this with an open mind it is no creationist myth.
Secondly I agree with you on science but I think that once you go into the realm of extrapolating something into the past without any true evidence of it the past it is no longer science, science is a tool that causes observation and thus prediction. So it might be science to say “We have seen mutations cause certain things in certain species we think this will happen in the future.” but it is not science to say “We have seen mutation cause certain things in certain species this is how we got where we are.”
Furthermore anything based on the five senses is flawed in that we can not truly trust ourptic sense, even through repition. (I think the skepticDes Cartes was the best at explaining this.)
One of my favorite expressions is the definition of integrity= doing the right thing when no one is looking.
It was asked in several different ways: What is the reason for waking up in the morning and do “good things” with a belief that no God is watching you?
I personally feel good practicing the Golden Rule eliminating the obvious kooky situations one could find exception to…I do not like to be stolen from…being treated with rudeness…lied to and the list goes on…Does one need a God to fear or “compliment” the person?
I feel good being aware of other people’s needs…being polite and well mannered, thoughtful and caring.
Am I so wonderful? of course not…but I selfishly feel good about myself when I do the right thing…No religious requirement of any kind is needed for me…
hmmm. I don’t feel selfishly good at all when I do the right thing.
Most of the time I feel fricking stupid.
But I do it anyway.
Why?
Because there are people in this world who can do with a little help.
I’m known on this board as someone who dislikes muslims.
There’s some truth in that.
I dislike religions and to me, Islam is the worst.
Yet, I was a volunteer at a woman shelter and comforted muslim women daily.
I used to teach our language to Moroccan/Dutch and Turkish/Dutch women.
I invited them over for tea and helped with paperwork, etc.
Why?
NOT because it made me feel good, but because they could use the help.
Liberal, Thank you! And likewise!
That is a great compliment. You’ve made my day and you made me blush.
The problem with Keyne’s statment is the problem with any substantive denial of a positive epistemic proposition — if we cannot know anything for certain, then we cannot know that we cannot know anything for certain. So why bother even making the statement? Keynes should have stuck with economics, where the mess he made was merely gargantuan.
Nothing odd about it. Zero is a perfectly cromulent number.
It sounds like your goal is to do good and be a positive influence in the world around you. That is a worthy goal. Could you elaborate a little? It occurs to me that in avoiding hurting anyone physically or emotionally we might avoid doing good. Do we avoid confrontation? To what degree? How do we stand up for our beliefs? Are we less than honest with people to avoid any emotional pain?
I try to learn how to balance honesty with compassion. I want to learn how to stand up for myself and others without malice toward anyone or unnessecary ego battles.
In understanding the physical yes. Morally it has been spiritual and philosophical striving that has made the advances {as meager as they seem} We can see that science, while fascinating, has been used as much to harm mankind as to benefit.
Not to mention what a few years of Popper’s philosophy did for science. It used to be that the great scientists — Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, et al — had a profound understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of their discipline. Einstein’s own watershed theories were simple deductions of propositional logic. He proceeded from two axioms to derive both relativity theories. If there exists a scientist today who understands that science and truth are not synonyms, he is keeping awfully quiet. “The atoms or the elementary particles are not real; they form a world of potentialities and possibilities rather than one of things or facts.” — Werner Heisenberg
Understanding the universe is understanding the physical. The why questions that philosophy addresses (and which science does not) help us understand our own minds, and ethics, but not the universe.
How do you define harm and benefit? By most metrics science has produced far more benefit. Some examples:
Longer average life expectancy
Reduced death in childbirth, and for young children. One of my kids would have likely died without medical advances. My wife would be blind today without it.
Elimination of famine from other than reasons of politics and war. Famine was a fact of life in much of Europe not that many centuries ago.
Pain killers.
Better education through better communication.
Better, healthier food.
Indoor plumbing. Central heating.
And I can go on and on. Negatives include better weapons and MTV. Would you really rather live as an average person 500 years ago?
Are you claiming that Einstein proceeded from no intuition about relativity to an understanding of it through logic? If so, cite? My understanding is that he got the insight, and then proceeded to formalize it as you said. That is the way most proofs are done - few people (except some automatic theorem provers) start without an end goal in mind.
Not my point actually. 500 years ago society was morally and ethically much different as well. Without moral advances we’d be useing science to better track our slaves and steroids to make them beter workers. But consider that 500 years ago there’d be no need or even way to be at war half way around the world over fuel for our modern conveniences.
Note that I said “has been used” indicating that it is human choice that determines the harm or benefit of science. Some things offer incredible potential for benefit and are totally misused. In order for science to have benefits we must morally and ethically advance as well.
BTW, since it is my mind and ethics that determine how my life in the physical universe unfolds and is undeniably entwined with the lives of my fellow humans I would say they are a part of the universe.
Got you. I wouldn’t know how to even begin to compare scientific and ethical advances, though I agree that both have advanced. Is slavery a viable proposition in a culture with advanced technology? It is true that they didn’t send people around the world to fight, but they had plenty of wars close to home. Perhaps better communication and transportation knitted small states together and prevented wars.
However some of the events of the last century makes me wonder how far we’ve really come.
As a materialist, I agree with you, but ethics, which is reasoning about the actions of intelligent beings, is different from science which involves universals. One reason to not believe in god (or a subset of gods) is that I don’t believe there is one ethical solution that covers all situations of a type. There might be a best solution, but not a perfect one.
See my little note about the past century in my response. However, at least some of the people responsible for these atrocities have been tried, and the world in general considers these to be bad things. Atrocities are now isolated in pockets of evil instead of being business as usual. I think it is fair to say we’re making progress, though we have a long way to go.
Me too. Even though it’s sometimes hard to tell I think overall there has been a slight shift for the better although mankinds “inhumanity” toward his fellow beings still shocks me every now and then.
Aha!! And here I think we find the crux of our disagreements. I do believe there is one ethical standard that covers all situations. The essence of my belief boils down to love and truth and discovering how to understand their essence and apply them to moment to moment living. I suspect that project is a life time committment.
