Darwinism, education, materialism's fatal flaw

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------...once man reasons his way to the ontological reality "Ultimate reason exists, and I am made in it's image", then from that point we are relieved of the burden of making the assumption "reason is reasonable" as the first premise to epistemology--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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I'm afriad that is wrong. Having reached that conclusion we could build furhter upon it but we cannot forget how we got to it. It is built on a foundation and we cannot throw that out or pretend it does not exist. Not least because the reliability of that conclusion depends on the reliability of the methods used to reach it. So even if you could reach that conclusion with a high degree of certainty (which would be an amazing philosophical breakthrough) you still would have to keep the old foundations of epistemology.

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But, if Ultimate Reason pre-exists natural reason, it gets priority. Further, it seems Ultimate Reason (or the premises emanating from)would extend to areas of reason not penetrable by natural reason. So, on these two notions alone, if Ultimate Reason exists and has revealed certain first premises to us, these premises should replace any assumptions or premises of a natural variety, even the one/ones which were utilized to reason our way to this revelation.

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Well, no we don't. There's no reason to suppose that a 4th spatial dimension would have that effect at all (not that we would be likely to survive long enough to find out). Mathematics handles 4 - and more - dimensions as well as it handles 3.

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What about 10 or 11? I am not enough of a mathematician to know, but where does math break down? and physics? So suddenly, let's say, we are transported to this universe where math and physics break down. What are we left with? Are these the only ways of "knowing" anything? Why bother with philosophical arguments then? We must be open to the possibilty of special revelation.Dennis

No, ontological priority does not imply epistemological priority.The arguments I have already presented explain why the assumption that human reason is adequately reliable must take priority in epistemology.Mathematics can also handle 10 or 11 dimensions - of course the math gets harder if only because we have to deal with 10 or 11 -tuples instead of triplets for the spatial coordinates. Moreover mathematics itself cannot "break down" in the sense you mean because it is mainly a formal system that happens to be used to model reality - the models may need replacing but the system itself will remain valid. Physics as we understand it could break down BUT this is not an epistemological problem - we might have to go back to scratch on some things and at least take several steps back on others but there is no good reason to assume that our efforts to understand the new universe would necessarily fail (or that they would succeed if your axiom were true - huamns do indeed have limits).As to the validity of philosophical arguments I would think that the fact that I have made one in this thread and strongly believe that it is valid is proof enough that I do not reject philsophical arguments out of hand.
My view of sicence is that it is one of hte most reliable means of gathering knowledge that we have - but its reliability is at the cost of restricting the domain it operates within. I have not claimed that we need not consider other means of knowing - but I do reject the idea that we should accept alleged means of knowing without some assurance that they are sufficiently reliable (this was the focus of the discussion with Hangdawg late last year over faith as a way of knowing - or at least it was my major point which Hangdawd did not ever really deal with).Claims of special revelation require epistemological justification - i.e. the reliability issue I mentioned above. (One big problem for you to consider is under what circumstances should we beleive somebody elses claim to have had a revelation ?).

To simply argue that Flew has converted is an argument from authority. While it might be the case that Flew has good reasons it could also turn out that he does not (in this particular case we should remember he is quite old now and could be slowing down mentally).From this article it seems that Flew has not considered the arguments which converted him in any depth - which means that his conversion cannot carry little weight.secweb.orgIronically it seems that part of Flew's problem was that he mistakenly accepted Gerald Schroeder as an authority when Schroeder's ideas are not soundly based in real science.

Hi Paul. This is for you, Crash and dshortt. It's a comment I wanted to make in the other Flew thread, but never got around to.The creationists seem to be really excercised about Flew's "conversion" to theism. I know the guy's supposed to be some kind of atheist philosopher or something, but my question is: "So what?" I never even heard of the guy until his conversion was made a topic on this board. Why does it make any difference whatsoever if some guy hardly anyone outside the UK ever heard of converts to theism? Someone please give me an explanation for this.Thanks.

Hardly anyone inside the UK ever heard of him either.Professors of philosophy or whatever generally aren't household names. If it wasn't for the fuss on this board and another I lurk on I'd still have never heard of him.

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Confused ? You will be...

Located at Atheist Changes MindIt was closed, as being deemed resolved, but it can be reopened. Thread Reopen RequestsAdminnemooseus

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But how can we be sure that it is true ? And unless we can be at least as certain of it as we are of "man's reason can be trusted" we would be very foolish to replace the latter with the former, since we would be making our epistemology less reliable.

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Yes, I agree. But if Jesus rose from the dead, special revelation has occured in space and time pointing to Ultimate Reason and the premises emanating from it. Which again leads me to pursue this resurrection debate.

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Well it is far from clear that Christianity WOULD say that the biologist made the right decision - unless it also dictates that the suffering and deaths of the many cancer victims is of no consequence.

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On the other hand from an evolutionary perspective we certainly can't be sure that our instincts would place an intellectual idea of what might happen ahead of the immediate emotional responses.

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Yes, it is a bit of a messy scenario, and not clear really for either side. But I think the emphasis on a naturalistic side would be the loss to society (after all we are in a race with time to achieve Nirvana or long-term significance, such as your alternate universe theory) while I believe the Christian philosophy would emphasis the heroism of such an act.

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At this point I must repeat that there IS no entirely satisfactory basis for morality.

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And I must certainly ask why Christianity shoudl be seen as automatically supporting the formation of any sort of military force - certainly there are arguments within Christianity. So far as I can see the problem is greater within Christianity since I can't see a naturalistic objection to forming a volunteer army.

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But given the Ultimate Truth "there is no greater expression of love than to die for another" Christians should be lining up to serve. Naturalism doesn't object to a volunteer army, but on an individual basis would ask "what are you thinking."And I agree that Christians fighting amongst themselves is one of the most ridiculous sights I can imagine, but can't and shouldn't be used to in any way impugn the worldview itself. The worldview is either true or it isn't, no matter how the practitioners of it choose to employ it.Likewise your population argument is also unlikely to actually play out in reality. I don't think that many Christians will line up to be killed if it were to become necessary (and I do not expect that it will). Indeed if Christians were really concerned about it they should be dedicating themselve to celibacy as St. Paul suggested or even going to the extreme advocated by Origen. Yet in fact we see none of this and the largest Christian grouping (representing roughly half of all Christians) is actively against contraception.Well for a start it's all very well to say

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Ultimate Reason reveals to us that "we are made in the image of Ultimate Reason"

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But how can we be sure that it is true ? And unless we can be at least as certain of it as we are of "man's reason can be trusted" we would be very foolish to replace the latter with the former, since we would be making our epistemology less reliable.
As for your ideas about morality I can't emphasise enough tha tnaturalism says very little about morality and it certainly does not dictate utilitarianism as you would have it.

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A prominent biologist who has been working on, and seems to be close to finding, a cure for cancer jumps in front of a speeding truck to save the life of a small boy who is the son of a common laborer. The biologist is killed. Naturalistic philosophy would seem to say "what a waste. We could be delayed years now in finding the cure for cancer." Christian philosophy implies this man is a hero and should be honored. "There is no greater love than laying down one's life for another

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Well it is far from clear that Christianity WOULD say that the biologist made the right decision - unless it also dictates that the suffering and deaths of the many cancer victims is of no consequence.
On the other hand from an evolutionary perspective we certainly can't be sure that our instincts would place an intellectual idea of what might happen ahead of the immediate emotional responses.

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what is the basis for a volunteer army or militia under a naturalistic philosophy

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At this point I must repeat that there IS no entirely satisfactory basis for morality.And I must certainly ask why Christianity shoudl be seen as automatically supporting the formation of any sort of military force - certainly there are arguments within Christianity. So far as I can see the problem is greater within Christianity since I can't see a naturalistic objection to forming a volunteer army.

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Likewise your population argument is also unlikely to actually play out in reality. I don't think that many Christians will line up to be killed if it were to become necessary (and I do not expect that it will). Indeed if Christians were really concerned about it they should be dedicating themselve to celibacy as St. Paul suggested or even going to the extreme advocated by Origen. Yet in fact we see none of this and the largest Christian grouping (representing roughly half of all Christians) is actively against contraception.

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I agree, but remember we are talking about the theory of the existence of an Ultimate Reason which informs our reason through the revelation of first premises, not man's inability to adhere to any of the logical conclusions that follow from them.So again I will say that the ontological entity I have been calling Ultimate Reason does give us a firmer basis to carry on epistemological efforts, particularly in the philosophical arena pertaining to morality. And much as you have said, under a purely naturalistic philosophy, morality is very problematic.Dennis

When a man is asked "are you a deist?" and he replies "yes, that's exactly what I am", I consider that definitive on the subject of whether he's a deist or not. Apparently you disagree with that criteria, so I do not think you and I can continue to discuss this.

I don't want to make more out of this than is relevant (probably very little) and sure don't have an interest in a new thread pertaining to it, but the excitement stems mainly from the fact that he was commissioned as a representative for the atheist side on at least two occasions to debate the best and the brightest from the creos side. He also personally knew CS Lewis, Bertrand Russel and some other big name philosophers early part of the century era. He may be getting old, but he still sounds pretty sharp to me.

Okay, so I'll readily concede he's some not-necessarily-obscure philosopher who knew a couple of relatively famous people, and debated some other not-necessarily-obscure people (who were the "best and brightest" creos he debated out of curiousity?). This doesn't answer the question: Why is it such a big deal?

I will concede it's not.

Well you see the problem is that your resurrection argument is dependent on having a working epistmeology in the first place. Any argument is. Even if you succeed what you are suggesting is like kicking away the foundations and a lot of the lower floors of a skyscraper on the assumption that the upper floors will just remain floating. You just can't throw out the supporting superstructure. And again if the foundations are wobbly the upper floors aren't likely to be much more stable - and this too is the case. So you cannot be more certain about your conclusions than all the assumptions you had to make to get there - and you will usually be less certain.As to your moral example you would have to decide what naturalistic morals entailed. I can't see a valid argument for them favouring utilitarianism over following an instinct to help others or protect children. Again I have to emphasise that the whole question of the foundation of morality is one that is a BIG and unsolved philosphical problem. (I can't even agree that the chosen course of action is necessarily the bravest - I can see that it would take a lot of courage to live with the guilt - and vilification if the facts became known - if he chose not to even try to save the child).And Christians do NOT necessarily line up to serve in a volunteer army as I know from my own family history. One of my grandfathers - himself a minister - was jailed for refusing to fight in WW I. Granted that was during conscription but if he had been so eager to fight he would not have waited to be called up. And there is the simple fact that the objective of the military has more to do with killing the enemy than their own soldiers. A lot of Christians either object to that or do not want to give their consent without knowing in advance what they will be fighting for (and once you are in the army you have signed away most of your rights to make that decision).And of course there is no reason why naturalists cannot be patriots and want to fight to defend their country.Now a simple point to consider is that although you argue that Christians have a firm basis for morality in fact in the examples you have listed there is no clear Christian view. Moreover just because Christians BELIEVE they have a sound basis for morality doesn't mean that they do (in fact many suscribe to Divine Command Theory which is one of the worse attempts and which has been known to have a problem since Plato's time)

I find it offensive that the idea of atheism and morality are separated in any way. I am an absolute atheist, naturalist, materialist, rationalist, what ever the right term. I am also very very moral. Many, if not most, of those morals are in agreement with what Christians talk about. I adhere to these morals because I believe they are right. Not because I believe a higher deity will smite me if I don't.So on that note, I do not believe in any absolute morality. The tragedy in the Indian Ocean recently, while horrible (my mentor and adopted father was directly involved), had no effect on the movement of our sun in the galactic arm. Our planet could explode tomorrow and it wouldn't matter one bit to the inhabitants of Epsilon Eridani B (an Earth-like planet that should be the Vulcan home world but probably couldn't support more than bacterial life due to it's recent origin and constant asteroidal bombardment).This message has been edited by Lithodid-Man, 01-08-2005 07:10 AM

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The lack of absolutes and reason that pre-exists man assumed by naturalism doesn't seem to have much consequence in empirical science, but really comes to the forefront when we begin to speak of values and morality.

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Yes thats true. And it is the advocates of Absolute morality who are most likely to be calling for someone to be killed or tortured, safe in the sanctity of their "higher" moral certainty.

I have been re-reading this thread and mulling all of this over some more. Surely PaulK, you can see that if an Ultimate Reason is pre-existent to the universe, and a premise for man’s ability to reason is present in or emanates from this Ultimate Reason, it would become the first premise of all reason, explaining not just some lower level of reasoning, but also explaining the fact that the universe yields to reason in the first place, and providing a goal or end result to reason (ie, man can hope to reason his way to the ultimate reasonable state). Now the naturalistic worldview, in contrast, according to PaulK, is more of an evolutionary idea of man finding what is reasonable starting with the assumption, that I agree has to be made to begin any reasoning process, that man’s reason can be trusted, at least to some degree.The problem comes in in that this premise doesn’t get us much, if any, beyond empirical science, because, past what is knowable by repeatable testing, we find ourselves in disputed gray areas to an increasing degree. So empirical science gets put upon the throne as the sole dispenser of what is true leaving not much for the rest of us to do except wait for the next nugget of truth to come our way. And without an Ultimate Reason which pre-exists man’s reason, how are we to trust any of the conclusions which are drawn from these findings? Perhaps science is reasoning its way into an ultimately unreasonable corner. And what is the goal of all of these attempts to be reasonable if there is no Ultimate Reason to attain?Morality, under the naturalistic worldview, is another evolutionary process in which man has found what works, morally speaking, ie what best suits the society. PaulK provided:

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1) Humans are a social species. We have evolved capabilities that help us get along and work together. We have also evolved abilities that let us detect when others are taking advantage and not putting in their fair share of the effort in cooperative ventures - and motivates us to take sanctions against such individuals. This is the fundamental basis of our moral instincts. (Work in the area of mathematics known as "Game Theory" is relevant here - the so-called "Prisoner's Dilemma" being a well-known example).

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2) On top of that, because of our intelligence and ability to learn we have developed all sorts of additional rules - some necessary to the working of society and some not. The common rules are generally the necessary ones - for instance all societies have rules restricting the killing of other members of that society even though the exact rules have varied.

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But this seems to deny that there are Moral Absolutes, or as I called it an Ultimate Morality. And without an Ultimate Morality to reason our way back to, without the guidelines provided by an Ultimate Morality, I still don’t see how a scenario such as my Christians being killed and eaten to provide food and stave off overpopulation is not a real possibility. Many have argued that Christians are a poor example of this Ultimate Morality and you get no argument from me. I will throw myself in there as a very poor example. But I don’t think that detracts from the argument that we all (or at least the reasonable ones) would agree that some things are just wrong. Would anyone argue with me that if the allegations are true, and certain relief workers have been molesting children in the areas struck by tsunamis, that this is one of the most despicable acts imaginable? I would use the word evil. But a naturalistic worldview would say, nothing right or wrong here, even though I might personally feel appalled.So while I am sure there are many examples of fine atheist or naturalistic individuals, and many examples of deplorable acts committed by Christians, the theistic worldview better supports both the notion that man is a creature capable of reasoning, and the notion that some things are just wrong. Ultimate Reason and Ultimate Morality are the only dams which prevent a postmodern world from crumbling into nihilism.Dennis