Even More Reasons I believe in God (Existentially)

Everything is relative, there is no absolute. It is supposedly bad to kill according to the Ten Commandments, unless you kill a helpless Afghan civilian during the war on terror, that is just an example. God is just a great concept (thought up by geniuses) to make people feel good and, alas, to control their minds.

For the first one, I agree that there’s no such thing as evil. However, there is such a thing as anti-social, which humans have often called evil. An anti-social person acts without regard for other humans; he doesn’t have empathy. Other humans, with their empathy, know that that isn’t a right behavior because it is unjust and because, on a deeper level, it endangers the survival of the species,

I disagree with everything you’ve said there, I think. First, the prohibition from killing is restated in the New Testament as a respect for life. In addition, even in the 10, the implication in the command to not kill is not that there should be no killing ever, but merely that murder was wrong. Thus, the wider New Testament prohibition from murderous thought.

which is the only good. Empathy is something inborn in humans (unless it is surpressed through training) because humans are social creatures– pack animals as it were. Humans would not be able to function in a pack society if they didn’t have some sort of empathy.

lol..I’m responding to YAH now. Second, you’ve committed a category mistake, confusing American patriotism justified by politicized Christianity with real honest-to-goodness, biblical Christianity. I think killing Afghan non-combatants is wrong, and that anyone who does so, like all other sinners (read: everyone) will be accountable for what they’ve done at some point.

And if one person is anti-social and acts without any kind of empathy, then the others know that that behavior is wrong and is a danger, and act to censure the anti-social person.

Third, for YAH: I don’t think God is a constructed concept. If it were, we would have no way to describe it, no language to capture it, and no cognizance of what it meant. If the concept God exists, and it’s meaningful, then I think there has to be a God of some stripe to ground the concept. Fourth: I don’t think religion always makes people feel good. I speak from personal experience.

Fifth, for YAH, I don’t think religion is mindcontrol anymore than politics is mind control or science is mind control or culture is mind control. Weak minded people are everywhere. Where there are weak minded people, there will be mind control, manipulation, etc. That does not mean that religion, politics, culture or science are inherently controlling.

In addition, I think it is important to remember that often times religion awakens people’s conscience in a way that the other three things do not, and so may be a combatant against mind control, for a different purpose in an explicitly different fashion. In my own life, I’m a lot more free-thinking because of my faith. Indoctrination is not implicit in the church anymore than in science.

Now, for Jane: I would like very much to read the study on herd sociology and psychology and it’s development and impact on empathy. Please let me know where I can find it. I am saying that evil exists, objectively. I have not said that evil doesn’t exist. I am saying quite strenuously that is does. That is the entire nature of the argument. Atheism does not allow for real evil to exist.

You said that there’s no such thing as evil without there being a g0d. I agree. I don’t believe in either. Which is not the same as saying that there’s nothing wrong or bad and saying that I think something is wrong is equivalent to saying that I don’t like it.

As for a hard-science-scientific study on empathy, I’m sure that they’re out there. However, I am not one who generally reads hard-science-scientific studies of anything, nor do I ask for hard-science-scientific studies of every assertion that you make. (For example, you have asserted like many Christians before you, that if there were no cold, there would be no such thing as hot.

You also assert, above “Weak minded people are everywhere. Where there are weak minded people, there will be mind control, manipulation, etc. That does not mean that religion, politics, culture or science are inherently controlling” and I am not asking for scientific evidence of this either. I don’t find either rationale persuasive, but I’m not demanding that you cite an authority

in order to persuade me.)

As for the question of where I got my assertion that people are more or less naturally empathic, well, I read a few things on the subject in several of my socialogy textbooks some years ago. They were not in the nature of studies, more like references to studies not cited there, and cited studies building on the previous ones.

I have seen similar references in reading popular science books such as the ones by Dr. Sachs and Stephen Pinker. Also in popular science TV shows such as Nova and the like. I have gathered that the idea that human empathy is inborn if not taught at an extremely young age in all but the most screwed up human environments is a generally accepted idea. Not only that, it makes sense.

From an evolutionary standpoint, herd animals who did not develop empathy would tend to have a large number of scisms and lots of infighting, leaving them less able to defend themselves. (Not that humans are perfect in this regard, but with no empathy at all, imagine how much worse it would be….)

Empathy seems to me to be an emotion based on reasoning. You feel things and you like things and you see other being resembling yourself and see that they also feel and like things. You figure that if you help them get what they like, they’ll help you get what you like, and if you help them avoid what they don’t like, they’ll help you avoid what you don’t like.

So given a choice between hindering them and helping them (if it’s otherwise nothing to you), then the good thing is to help them. The evil thing is to hinder them. The further you go out of your way to hinder them and the worse harm you do to them, the more humans are likely to describe it as evil. The further you go out of your way to help someone and the greater the help you provide,

the more likely it is that someone is going to say that you are good or saintly.

The problem that this comes to in human interactions is defining help and harm as well as defining who to help when two people’s needs come into conflict. For example, consider abortion. Some people feel empathy for the woman having an abortion. They relate to how they’d feel if they suddenly found out that they were pregnant and didn’t want to be. They relate it to people they know who have kids

who really never should’ve had kids and who never wanted kids. They feel empathy for her, and are willing to help her rid herself of her pregnancy. Other people hear of a woman having an abortion and they feel empathy for the fetus. After all, they used to be a fetus, and they wouldn’t’ve wanted to’ve been aborted. They like being alive. So they make laws against abortion.

Some people feel more strongly like the woman and other people more strongly like the fetus. Some people say that the fetus is more deserving of help seeing as how it can’t protect itself and is not responsible for how it got to where it is. Some feel like the woman is more deserving because she has already come through so much to get where she is, and the fetus hasn’t demonstrated any particular

worth or staying power. But the question of whether the woman’s abortion is “good” or “evil” is all in who you have more empathy for, who you feel like is later going to be in a position to help you, who is more likely to help you, which of the two is more like you, etc. Is it anti-social for a woman to have an abortion?

In any case, for there to be such a thing as true good and true evil, there has to be something that is always good– in your belief system, g0d and serving g0d. For my conception of “probably right (good)” and “probably wrong (bad)” I’m fine with there just being things that generally seem more or less good to me most of the time. My living, and beyond that, the living of people like me, seems

like something pretty positive to me. Making my life and the lives of other people like me better and more fulfilling seems probably good to me. If it didn’t seem probably good to my ancestors, I wouldn’t be here because they would’ve killed themselves or continued living in caves eating whatever came to hand. It’s not a completely arbitrary thing– it’s the set of beliefs

that all living creatures have to have at core or else they wouldn’t be living creatures.

It is not, however, as you said above that if I were to say, “g0d is evil” (however unlikely that eventuality is) it would be the same as my saying, “I don’t like g0d.” For me, I understand that to be a shorthand way of saying, “The non-sensical idea of g0d is detremental to the survival and betterment of humans.”

First, Jane, the difference between me saying that there are weak minded people and your statement about empathy and herd instinct is that I am making no appeal to anything else in my statement. It is either true or it is not. To me, it seems to be fairly self evident that it is. If it is not, I’m happy submitting to everyone’s opinion. Evolution is nothing like that…it is a scientific theory

…it is trumpeted as one of the great modern accomplishments of science. As such, whenever a claim like yours is made, I really want to see the science. I’d really like to read the studies. Everyone saying they exist is not the same as everyone actually reading them. I talk about philosophy because I’ve read philosophy. I’m no scientist, but I will read.

There are lots of people who argue from science against God who have no conception of the science and have read no science to support their view–everything comes fifth or sixth or tenth hand from someone who has. (I’m not suggesting you’re such a person, please understand.) My only point here is that people who claim to base their life on this kind of thing should really read it.

Now, as to the other question. If there is no objective base for ethical or moral judgements (an ultimate, objectively true ‘good’), there can be no real right and wrong, only personal preference. If that is the case, then statements against God really do mean, “I don’t like the concept of God.” or “the belief in God is not convenient for myself or society (or both).”

Without an objective standard of ANY kind (good or evil) to compare against, all statements of value (good, evil, better, best, etc) are really just statements of personal preference. They are not even statements about culture, unless a person is so inclined to claim they know the personal opinion of the majority of humanity.

I was not under the impression that I was making an appeal to hard science when I said that people are born with empathy. That has been my experience of infants and small children. That was my experience of growing up. As for the stuff about humans as herd animals, then that would relate to evolution, about which I have read a fair amount.

It also strikes me as self-evident to say that in any human society, things would work very badly without empathy (at least without empathy towards the in-group). I did not say at any point, “Science has conclusively proven that humans are born with empathy” in which case you might well expect me to be prepared with specific studies.

In any case, I’ll finish later because I have to go home now.

“Moral principles, derived from the moral sense, are not absolute, where they apply to all people in all cultures under all circumstances all of the time. Neither are moral principles relative, entirely determined by circumstance, culture, and history. Moral principles are provisionally true – that is, they apply to most people in most cultures in most circumstances most of the time.” (pgs. 20-21)

That’s a snippet from Michael Shermer’s book The Science of Good and Evil. People had a tendancy to think in terms of black and white, especially with regards to morality. There is no pure evil or pure good in the conceptual sense – just human actions that fall along a sliding scale of desirability. Something to think about.

“Provisionally true” or “a sliding scale of desirability” is still a statement roughly akin to “I like broccoli.” If it is not objectively true, the only reference for morality is society or individuals or some combination, in which case it is, on the most basic level a statement of preference. That preference is either for the individual “better for me” or for society “better for us.”

And then the question is what is meant by the word “better”. If better means “able to perpetuate the species better,” then we are simply looking at a tautology good=better=able to perpetuate the species. If better means anything other than that, there has to be some objective standard to compare against.

“Provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground between absolute and relative moral systems. Provisional moral principles re applicable for most people in most circumstances most of the time, yet flexible enough to account for the wide diversity of human behavior, culture, and circumstances….And they are objective, in the sense that morality is independent of the individual. (cont)

“Moral sentiments evolved as part of our species; moral principles, therefore, can be seen as transcendent of the individual, making them morally objective. Whenever possible, moral questions should be subjected to scientific and rational scrutiny, much as nature’s questions are subjected to scientific and rational scrutiny.” (pg. 168) There’s another quotation that I think answers your concern.

sometimes i talk in my sleep. about socks. among other topics. (just thought i’d insert a bit of silliness into the mix)

Unfortunately, I think that those who think that there is no evil/bad are living more on the lines of what ‘feels good.’ One, out of many, distinctions in Christianity is that it is not a man-made religion and it’s about a relationship, not about trying to keep as many ‘laws’ as one can.

To An Atheist: Your quotes only prove my point. My definition of objective is bigger than humanity. If humans create it, is is always subject to change, and therefore is subjective. Dressing the subjectivity up with the word “provisional” doesn’t change it a bit. Inside your quote, it even notes this, defining as objective as bigger than the individual.

By that logic, two people creating a morality that claims it is right to kill the innocent for pleasure would be as objectively true. That’s a mockery of the terminology, in my opinion. I don’t grant that moral principles are evolved. And I would still like to read the scientific studies that demonstrate the supposed link between them. Where can I find these studies?

This entire series of entries and posts has gotten way too serious for me to add anything remotely resembling a coherent thought. Thus, I will let the brains of the operation continue to pound away on such keyboards. I only wish I could find some likeness to light comedy within the next dozen entries…as I had gotten used to so long ago. Alas.

“If humans create it, is is always subject to change, and therefore is subjective.” Yet you seem to think that this means that it is subject to literally ‘any’ change no matter how absurd. Not so. Moral provisions are subject to rational scrutiny, just as scientific truths are, and are derived from an evolved pre-moral sense. It’s the latter that transcends any one individual.

“By that logic, two people creating a morality that claims it is right to kill the innocent for pleasure would be as objectively true.” No, not at all. It is not ‘objectively true’ because such a provision would not withstand simple rational argumentation. “I don’t grant that moral principles are evolved.” Fair enough. I’ll give you the link to some old entries that contain more relevant quotes.

Start here: http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=A219369&entry=10371&mode= It’s the first of four entries summarizing Shermer’s book through a selection of quotations. Following that are 2 entries answering notes. http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=A219369&entry=10384&mode= This is a 1 entry summary of Shermer’s book in my own words.

Nowhere in my response did I claim that human synthesized truth would be subject to any whim. That’s not what I’m saying at all. My point is, even if it is completely rational, as long as humans create a morality for humanity, no matter how rational, it is still subjective…roughly akin to “It is better to do x than y,” as opposed to X is objectly true and right, and Y is objectively evil.

“My point is, even if it is completely rational, as long as humans create a morality for humanity..” But I haven’t argued that morality is a complete human creation. Part of the argument I put forward in these notes (and display more indepth in the entries above) is an evolved pre-moral sense, something that belongs to the species and not to any one individual.