Goodthief, methinks that you still don't get it. Your morality is
little more then your subjective point of view.

If you are Goodthief, who is specist, who wants his kids to
survive, who believes in the magic of Gods, then your point of
view is that humans matter above all other species.

If you happen to be a bonobo, chimp or gorilla, whose family has
been slaughtered for meat, whose relatives are on the verge of
extinction due to 6 billion "homo destructors", perhaps your
view of our species might not be so rosy.

Your morality is little more then your biased viewpoint, seen
from your narrow perspective.

Goodthief,

There are two issues: how did humans come to be able to make moral judgments, and how should we justify the judgements we make. (To confuse the two is to commit the genetic fallacy.) Answers to the first are necessarily speculative.

I would ask those who think that physical matter cannot give rise to beings that make moral judgements, how they know that. The only way we know what matter is capable of is by looking and seeing. (This is of course Hume’s argument against miracles. ) As for how it came about, I don’t know. It is just clear that it did. I note, though, that since all factual claims are value-laden, the development of rationality requires the development of value judgements. Reasoning aids survival.

Answers to the second question have nothing to do with how we came into existence. Proposed answers are called moral theories. Most of them propose one or a group of fundamental principles, from which we can derive what we ought to do by attending to the facts and being careful with our logic. Examples are utilitarianism and other consequentialist theories, deontological theories which start with one or a number of rights or duties, and virtue theories, which advise you to be a kind of person (kind, loving, generous etc. and act in accordance with those virtues.

Your suggestion that a creationist theory of our existence can determine an answer to what we should do is mistaken. For first, you would have to determine whether you should obey the creator. That is not obvious. How will you prove it, unless you can first (and independently) establish that God is good—and knowledgeable too? You need at least one moral principle to get going.

We test moral theories by their implications. A crude utilitarian view that implies that it is morally acceptable to murder and torture innocent people for the general good is rejected on that count; and more sophisticated ones are proposed instead. Theories also get developed with insight into what is worthwhile doing and being. (Continued)

Thus the notion of the 19th century utilitarians that the value of everything came down to happiness, understood as having pleasant sensations, has given way to a more sophisticated understanding of happiness.

It does not need someone to tell us that happiness is a good, or that pain is an evil.

The view that we should do what God tells us can be treated as a moral theory. It requires some way of determining what He is telling us. That is not straightforward, even for those who think that it is all clear from the Bible. Take the command: thou shalt not kill. What should we not kill? Bacteria? Animals? It does not say. We take it, of course, that God would not mean either. But that involves our own moral judgement. The early church took it to imply pacifism. Does it? The only way to find out is to reason about just wars. The Bible does not tell you when a war is just.

I challenge those who think they can work out what to do by reference to the Bible, to explain what should be done when a woman is bearing an hydatiform mole. Or what should have been done with the year 2000 case in England of conjoined twins, known as Jodie and Mary. (See http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/UK/11/07/twins.operation.02/index.html.) In both cases you need moral views that are not in the Bible.

Hence the command does not determine what we should do without interpretation that is guided by independent moral views. Sure, if we follow St. Luke, we should act in love. But that does not tell us what to do.

The bible also gives wrong views. St. Paul is clearly mistaken about homosexuality—about its origin and about the morality of homosexual action. His notion of how God responds supposes that god is morally obnoxious. The Book of Revelation is wildly wrong about justice, and legitimates ethnic cleansing. St. Paul thinks that it is morally acceptable for God to bring people into existence having pre-determined that they will end up in hell. Such a God would be vile.

Yabby, I don’t think morality is subjective. If it were, I don’t think we’d bother having discussions about moral issues.

I believe humans are, objectively, more valuable than other species. I expect humanists think the same, but without believing in God. To avoid specism, do you believe that all species are actually of equal value? That’s what I raised in my last post.

I realise this idea gets abused – ie humans abuse other species, and the whole world, as well as each other, with a sense of entitlement. I’m not promoting that: I believe (not novel, of course) in responsibility to make sure that kind of thing doesn’t happen.

ozbib, Interesting post. Not sure I can cope with it, actually, but ……

I agree happiness is pleasant. Whose happiness is of value? Just human happiness? This is what I’ve been trying to get at.

For me, God comes before good, and gives the word its meaning. Risky, I know, in view of some of the torridness and oddities in the Bible, but still that’s where my thinking begins.

As for the biblical material that it is tempting to cherry-pick around, I see it as a struggle, but it has not stopped me from perceiving (or fancying that I perceive) much of God’s real character.

Remember, as a Christian, I start with Jesus and work back. I regard Jesus as pretty solid, and working back with that mindset helps me make sense of the Old Testament. If I read something perplexing, I study it, or park it and await illumination. This is all I can do, because I am committed to the relationship with Jesus, and nothing in the Old Testament has convinced me that He is not worth being associated with. On the other hand, as He directs my attention to the Old Testament, I have to go there and make all the sense of it that I can.

Not an exercise many posters here would admire, I realise. Anyhow, I find that Jesus sheds light on the Old Testament just as He sheds light on everything else.

Pax,

Goodthief,

I view God as a less logical explanation for more reasons than I can possibly fit in 350 words.

We don’t have any proof that God – the method used by primitive people to explain how everything came to be, mind you – actually exists. Yet we have another explanation that is back-up with a lot of evidence.

The only aspect of the universe that can’t be explained by science (yet), is how matter came to be. But the explanation that a God (without a beginning or an end) created it doesn’t explain much at all. In fact, all it does is open up far more questions than it answers.

Everything that we have proof for (so far), in regards to how everything started, supports the logical principal that everything starts from a simple entity, then gradually evolves to become a more complex entity.

If there is a God, he would be by far the most incredibly complex thing in existence. Therefore, to suggest that relatively simple entities – in other words, everything in the universe – started with a being as immensely complex as God, is less logical, considering what we do know for sure.

Whenever this type of argument is brought up, Theists are quick to point out that God is not of the physical world, and beyond explanation. But all this is doing is making excuses to not look any further by declaring that God is, by decree, beyond explanation.

This is what I’m talking about when I use the term: “Lazy logic”.

<<… For that to mean “less logical”, someone would need to explain why empirical knowledge is the only legitimate form of knowledge. So far, it just seems to be assumed.>>

Notice I said “less logical”, not “illogical”

So, empirical knowledge may not be the only form of legitimate knowledge but it’s certainly the most solid one we’ve got, and hence, more logical than sticking to the old theories of relatively primitive people that didn’t know any better.

So no, it's not "assumed" at all.

What undergirds science is the scientific method, so therefore, to be scientific an experiment must be repeatable, and a concept must be testable. Science is based on facts and evidence that can be repeatedly demonstrated. Science is not sophistry as Lev would have us believe. Truth does not become “more true” the more complicated the argument gets.

Consider the faith statements made by

Dawkins when he said that if you go back 300 million years, you would be able to see the common ancestor of man and fish evolving. (i) This assertion can’t be proven (ii) He is appealing to eye-witness accounts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaKryi3605g

Luke the historian: “… even as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus…”

Luke’s statement can’t be scientifically tested either. It’s a faith statement. However, Dawkin’s assertion would not be admissible in a court of law whereas Luke’s is admissible in a law court if you can get hold of the eye-witnesses.

A legal expert trained in Harvard, concluded after studying evolution for many years that there were serious gaps in the evidence for evolution and errors in the reasoning of evolutionists. He is an agnostic. Evolution had become a religion. The alleged evidence for evolution would not stand up in a court of law. (Norman Macbeth in his book ‘Darwin Retried’)