Morality without God is impossible

Faith writes: Of course I deny this flatly, and I ask that you please supply ONE example of a fact that I'm fighting in order to save my belief.

You're not kidding are you? You are the living, breathing example of religious delusion. There's a list a mile long of the facts you deny to preserve a crazed belief.

You actually admit that you're doing it and are proud of it; you say that where science tells us something that is in conflict with the bible, then science is wrong.

Your single belief that the world is only 6,000 years old forces you to deny facts from every scientific discipline from astronomy, radiophysics, biology, palaeontology, molecular biology and geology to name but a handful.

You're EVC's poster child of anti-fact, anti-science.

GDR writes: However, looking at brain scans is science. Observing that moral traits are transmitted within a culture is simply an observation and not science.

Let's get back to this and facts and science.

As far as I can tell you've now accepted that empathy is an emotion like our other emotions such as anger, love, happiness, fear etc and that it's origin and mechanisms are natural. Ok?

You've also discovered that empathy is not morality but that it can become cause a moral response to a situation. I suppose it's a bit like anger is a cause of whacking someone on the nose.

Just like science can study what causes the feeling of anger to arise, it can study what causes the feelings of empathy, compassion etc.

You are dead wrong about science not being able to study observations. The study of observations is all science is. It observes how the stars move around the sky and creates theories of planetary motions, it studies observations of how virus's spread and creates germ theory, it studies fossils and living organisms and develops a theory of how species evolve etc etc. Science IS the understanding of observations. Without the systematic gathering of observations there would be no science.

So what's different about studying how a particular observation that some higher-order mammal exhibit moral behaviours and that humans are extreme examples of this? To a scientist it's simply another area of study but to a believer is exempt from study as god given and inexplicable by normal means. It's a silly exceptionalism that science just shrugs at and goes on to explain.

What is it that you think is so special, so different about morality to excludes it from scientific study? What is it that's missing from explanations you've seen so far? As far as I can understand it's something to do with the cultural transmission of moral norms - what you keep calling memes. I don't see any problem there at all.

No I'm not kidding. What you think are facts I don't think are facts. There's our problem.

Cheers.

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No I'm not kidding. What you think are facts I don't think are facts. There's our problem.

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Which amounts to simply repeating your denial of the facts.

But OK, in the name of fairness you get a chance to make your point. Explain to me why the observed order of the fossil record is not a fact. And no, just calling it an interpretation is not an explanation.

Faith writes: What you think are facts I don't think are facts.

That's not it at all.

What science knows are facts, you are not able to allow yourself to accept because they contradict something you think is in your 2,000+ book. You tell us this in exactly those words. It has nothing to do with whether they are facts or not. There's your problem.

You don't have a clue what you are talking about. I make use of plenty of actual facts I learn from science, they fit just fine into my biblical model. Those that don't are really quite few and I put them on hold for later. What I actually reject isn't facts it's the accepted interpretation of the facts.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith writes: I make use of plenty of actual facts I learn from science, they fit just fine into my biblical model.

delusion
/dɪˈluːʒ(ə)n/

noun
noun: delusion; plural noun: delusions
an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder.

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What I actually reject isn't facts it's the accepted interpretation of the facts.

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As we’ve already seen you reject facts and try to excuse it by calling them interpretations.

The observed order of the fossil record is a fact. And you know it.

Tangle writes: So what's different about studying how a particular observation that some higher-order mammal exhibit moral behaviours and that humans are extreme examples of this? To a scientist it's simply another area of study but to a believer is exempt from study as god given and inexplicable by normal means. It's a silly exceptionalism that science just shrugs at and goes on to explain.

Well firstly I don't see it as being exempt from study. However I don't see how the study of the fact that morality is culturally spread is science. You can do studies that show that children from loving moral home are more likely to be loving and moral. I don't see that as scientific. It is sorta like saying that as we have storm clouds to the west we're likely to get rain today. I certainly am not saying it should be exempt from study.

Tangle writes: What is it that you think is so special, so different about morality to excludes it from scientific study? What is it that's missing from explanations you've seen so far? As far as I can understand it's something to do with the cultural transmission of moral norms - what you keep calling memes. I don't see any problem there at all.

I don't question that morality is spread naturally. We, I think, have agreed that there is a universal sense of morality. The question is then, did that sense of morality exist prior to there being sentient life and is external to it.

My theistic, subjective belief is that their is a moral agency that is responsible for our sense of morality. I also subjectively believe that that moral agency influences us to respond positively to that sense of morality but has allowed us the free will to totally reject it.

I'm not questioning the science but I do add subjective, non-scientific beliefs to it.

GDR writes: However I don't see how the study of the fact that morality is culturally spread is science.

Uh? Why on earth not?

You can do studies that show that children from loving moral home are more likely to be loving and moral. I don't see that as scientific.

But that IS scientific! That's a perfect example of a scientific finding. What do you think science is? I can tell you that modern criminologists are doing an awful lot of work trying to understand why that is and - at least as important - why it often isn't true. And what specific factors can predict it.

It is sorta like saying that as we have storm clouds to the west we're likely to get rain today.

That's what science is. It takes a simple anecdotal observation and tests it. Does it always rain? How often? Does it work for every season in every continent? Can we predict it? Can we build it into other observations and begin to build a general weather model?

certainly am not saying it should be exempt from study.

Phew, science will be really relieved!

I don't question that morality is spread naturally. We, I think, have agreed that there is a universal sense of morality. The question is then, did that sense of morality exist prior to there being sentient life and is external to it.

That's two questions :-)

We know that simple moral behaviour exists in many animals that are not what we'd normally call sentient, so sure, we know it existed in a form before modern humans came along. It certainly had to exist in pre-humans otherwise we wouldn't be here now.

We also know that moral behaviour is intrinsic to an organism because we see it working as a brain function, there's no strings attached nor any need for them.

My theistic, subjective belief is that their is a moral agency that is responsible for our sense of morality. I also subjectively believe that that moral agency influences us to respond positively to that sense of morality but has allowed us the free will to totally reject it.

Yeh well, if that's what you need to get you through your day, there's not much else I can say other than it's just plain silly.

I'm not questioning the science but I do add subjective, non-scientific beliefs to it.

Why guild the lily? Kids don't actually need Father Christmas to get the presents but I suppose it's a nice story.

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Tangle writes: That's what science is. It takes a simple anecdotal observation and tests it. Does it always rain? How often? Does it work for every season in every continent? Can we predict it? Can we build it into other observations and begin to build a general weather model?

OK. Here is the dictionary definition of science.

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noun. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

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Hmmm. It turns out that you are right and I am wrong. Who would ever have seen that coming.

Tangle writes: Yeh well, if that's what you need to get you through your day, there's not much else I can say other than it's just plain silly.

I'm not really sure why you feel the need to be so patronizing, but if that is what you need to get through your day then so be it.

That is my belief which is also held by millions which of course does not make it true, but maybe not silly.

GDR writes: I'm not really sure why you feel the need to be so patronizing, but if that is what you need to get through your day then so be it.

Fair enough, I apologise.

That is my belief which is also held by millions which of course does not make it true, but maybe not silly.

It's the fact that millions of people believe similar things to you and even more millions believe what I consider to be equally silly or even sillier but different things that makes me so irritable.

Even here in the UK where religion is a minority and dying pastime the bloody stuff is everywhere. Every village has a church - often more - we have non-elected bishops in our Parliament, the BBC broadcasts a mass every day and we have JWs banging on our doors and hanging around town proclaiming the 'good news'. The propaganda is everywhere and it annoys the hell out of me.

Every time I'm forced to go to a religious wedding, funeral or, even worse, a christening, I'm outraged that so many people are taken in by this nonsense and I'm embarrassed for them. The thoughtless chanting, the rituals, the repetitive bleating, grovelling and reinforcing of unfounded assertions, the utter gibberish spouted by the priest in his ludicrous clothes really makes me mad. It's just indoctrination and one day it'll be mostly gone, changed beyond recognition into some nice fluffy stuff, but that day is a long way off sadly. At the very best, it's a waste of people's time, effort and resource.

So please just ignore me when I lose it a bit here.

tangled one writes: delusion /dɪˈluːʒ(ə)n/ noun noun: delusion; plural noun: delusions an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder.

de·ceit
/dəˈsēt/

noun
noun: deceit; plural noun: deceits
the action or practice of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth.
"a web of deceit"
h
Similar:
deception

deceitfulness

duplicity

double-dealing

fraud

I agree, telling people that the earth is only 6,000 years old when there is a mountain of evidence that proves it beyond any doubt at all is both delusional and deceitful.

Soooo clever of you.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.