hi goodthief, yes i think we largely agree: for moral pondering, evolution is a red herring.

you ask:

"If we don’t get value or morality from God, or from the facts of evolution, then from where?"

i'm not sure what you mean. So:

"thou shalt not kill". why?

a) god tells us we shouldn't kill

b) being created in god's image, it is in our nature that we "know" we shouldn't kill

c) from the way society (?) works, we reason we shouldn't kill

d) because of evolutionary forces, it is in our nature that we "know" we shouldn't kill

e) "then from where?" ( (i) culture? (ii) arbitrary? )

i guess you lean towards (b)? i lean towards (d), with maybe some (e)(i).
but i honestly don't see much practical difference, or that any of this helps. it cannot explain to me why i FEEL the moral principles that i do.

understanding the origins of something doesn't explain the feeling of it. i know that i feel hunger because my body needs to tell me to eat, but that doesn't in any way explain the feeling of hunger. my understanding of my moral feelings is very much the same.

why do i feel i shouldn't kill? because i do. it is a moral axiom, and religious and scientific attempts at explanations are not going to change anything.

it is in this sense that i can believe the source of my morality may be evolution, but that helps not a jot in my understanding of my morality. it makes no difference to me whether the underlying source is (b) or (d).

i've included e)(i) there as a little wriggle room for moral relativism, and i don't rule out the strong effects of culture. but that's not really what morality feels like to me, for anyone: whatever people's stated moral beliefs, i feel there's some underlying moral foundation, a la (b) or (d). and (b) or (d), i don't care. (a) on the other hand ...

sorry, it's late and it's meandered. enough for now.

goodthief wrote:

"This doesn’t mean there is a God, of course: one must really apprehend God for oneself, and I’m not attempting to push you towards that. I'm just saying that we all make leaps of faith - I towards God, and you to your view about what can and can't be real. And I'm not suggesting that your position is eccentric: you are in large company."

One meaning of ‘apprehend’ is 'to recognise the existence or meaning of'. My mother got very upset at one time when I told her I didn't think here was a God. I couldn't believe in a God who told a man to murder his son as that entity in the Jewish Bible told Abraham to do with Isaac or a God who subjected his own son to unspeakable torment as that entity does in the New Testament. The binding of Isaac, if it describes an event that actually happened, is a psychotic episode in which a deluded man heard a voice in his head telling him to kill his son. We certainly have had cases where psychotic killers have operated that way. Fortunately his mind manufactured a scenario where he didn't have to kill his son.

I think it was probably fiction and never happened at all. I assume that people in ancient times had as good an imagination as people have today and were as capable of writing fiction.

I can't apprehend the Bible God and know no other. Eccentricity is immaterial. Truth or falsity does not depend on how many people agree with a position.

I don't like to be accused of making a leap of faith. Believers in a supernatural sometimes accuse those who reject such a belief as making a leap of faith. I just follow what the evidence I have indicates. If I should have reliable evidence that there was a God I would accept the idea. If I had reliable evidence it would not be a leap of faith to apprehend God. I respect the sanctity of doubt and do not feel faith is a virtue.

david f,

Yes, before we jump to a belief in Jesus or Zeus we need to is ask there a need for a god? What is the nature of god? Why does infinite regress need to lead to a god? Why not infinite indeterminancy in phase-space [Penrose & QM]?

In the twenty-first century we hopefully will get our minds around conditions that are not cause-and-effect. In twenteith we moved from 3-D space, to 4-D space-time to n-manifolds.

Why does creation need a creator? Seems primative and anthromorphic to me.

Damn, that should have been Quakers not Shakers...sorry Mr Roundtree.

I have just been imagining a conversation between a couple of mutton bird chicks on Griffith Island.

"Hey so what you are saying is that our parents have deserted us and now you want me to join you in a 15,000km long flight over featureless ocean where half of us won't make it just to cop a bit of a feed then fly back here all within a couple of months? How can this be good for the species?"

"It just requires a leap of faith my son."

I am incapable of looking at a mutton bird colony without conjuring up images of the Hajj. Maybe it is just the plumage and the fact that both are seeking nourishment of some kind.

Faith...a formulized instinct?

I could go into seagulls and shining lights but Mr Livingston might intrude.

under one god - never watched a David Attenborough doco? He talked about just this thing (flatfish & their eyes). David's real diplomatic and never talks about his faith, but his naturalist explanation for these fish made uncommonly good sense. A whole lot better than, "because", I can promise you.

All you believe may be based on faith. Others, myself included, prefer empiricism. The article points out it's under attack in many places - remote Spanish villas, far-flung Indonesian kampungs, most of the USA...

csteele, A very reasonable post (16 May, 12:41am) if you will excuse the compliment. (Compliments seem to be a problem on OLO, unless offered to someone in one’s own camp.) Yes, I would make the sacrifice, but remember I was “torn” about saying so. Also, it’s just a hypothetical: I don’t think God will let it get to that, unless it’s time to fold the show anyway. I think letting the human race go down the gurgler is also horrific.

“Species-centric”? Almost. Actually, God-centric. And if God says that humans are made in His image, and if He also seems to have gone to a lot of trouble over us, I’m prepared to be human-centric out of respect for those circumstances.

The “conceits” you mention (made in God’s image, and the world made for us) are only conceits if they’re false and made up. If false and made up (as I suppose you regard them?) then, yes, they are gargantuan conceits and probably very troubling. I’m not human centric because of the observable merits of humans: no way. Perhaps in that we agree?

On the other hand, if these conceits are true, then we're simply stuck with them. Mind you, people like me don't believe that we God-image creatures have carte blanche over the planet and over each other. My neighbour is also made in God's image, no less than me. And I'm instructed to take care of the planet, not exploit it.

You empathy points are interesting, thank you, and I’ll think about them. I certainly agree that empathy is critical to compassion. Mind you, I’m not sure even compassion is essentially a feeling – at least, not the moral requirement to be compassionate. I think moral duties are essentially calls to action – we should act compassionately – and, if we wait till the feelings are right, that delay could be very costly to those who need compassion. On the other hand, developing moral feelings like empathy would greatly increase our practical moral output. Excuse my meandering, I’m exploring as I go on some subjects.

Pax,