Re: Atheists are the biggest fools on Earth


manutter51@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Jim Spaza wrote:
> > manutter51@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > > Jim Spaza wrote:
> > > > Lt. Kizhe Catson wrote:
> > > > > Richard Dawkins wrote:
> > > > > > In the above articles I've presented some evidence that shows that even when
> > > > > > one foolishly assumes that the TEN COMMANDMENTS were authored by a human,
> > > > > > atheism, by virtue of its rejection and enmity against the TEN COMMANDMENTS
> > > > > > cannot elevate itself to such a noble height to author such decorous laws as
> > > > > > "Honor your father and your mother," "You shall not murder." "You shall not
> > > > > > steal," and etc. Since atheism is hotly opposed to the TEN COMMANDMENTS and
> > > > > > in order for the TEN COMMANDMENTS to have been authored by a human, it would
> > > > > > would have require a more sensible, noble and wise human than even the most
> > > > > > highly "learned" atheist.
> > > > >
> > > > > And yet, most atheists probably manage to honour their parents, to see
> > > > > that they are cared for in old age, and to refrain from murder and
> > > > > stealing. Imagine that.
> > > > >
> > > > > -- Kizhe
> > > >
> > > > Good point. You don't have to be a Christian to do what is right. You
> > > > don't even have to subscribe to any religion to do what is right.
> > > >
> > > > Whether Christians numerically do more good deeds than non-Christians
> > > > is not what I am talking about here. There is a more fundamental
> > > > issue.
> > > >
> > > > How does one know what is right and wrong without a standard?
> > >
> > > "Right" and "wrong" are defined by experience, and are ultimately
> > > social constructs for defining what helps or harms the balance between
> > > the interests of the individual and the interests of the group. Is
> > > "killing" right or wrong? If we did not kill plants and animals, we
> > > could not eat them, and we would die of starvation, or at least
> > > malnutrition. Killing each other is certainly wrong, because it is
> > > harmful to the best interests of the group, and also to the best
> > > interests of the individual, since we, as individuals, cannot enjoy the
> > > benefits of living in organized societies if we live in fear that other
> > > people are going to just randomly kill us. On the other hand, is it
> > > *always* wrong to kill? Can we imagine no circumstances under which
> > > the taking of a human life might be justified? (Example: an astronaut
> > > goes into space and becomes contaminated with a virus which, if allowed
> > > to return to earth, will kill every human being on the planet within 12
> > > months. If he tries to return anyway, should his spacecraft be blown
> > > up before it reaches the earth?)
> >
> > That's a decent response. So, then standards of good and evil are
> > nothing more than social constructs, like a language or a tradition.
> > And, these standards are based on our views of the best ways to
> > safeguard and advance our society. OK.
>
> "Social construct" implies society could change it if desired. If
> people decided to refer to a "chicken" as a "poulet," we could probably
> do that easily enough, since a language is essentially a convention.
> But right and wrong are not so flexible; we couldn't decide, say, that
> incest no longer had any negative consequences. Both psychology and
> genetics would militate against us. Morality, right and wrong, grow
> out of our accumulated experience of the positive or negative
> consequences of our social interactions. We don't get to arbitrarily
> choose whether the social consequences of our actions are positive or
> negative, so we don't get to arbitrarily decide what's right and what's
> wrong.

So, morality, in the context of your response, is only based on the
consequences of actions. I guess another of looking at this is to
attribute "goodness" to actions whose consequences have more benefits
than detriments. This is certainly the sociological aspect.

I was thinking more in terms of spiritual or supernatural. For
example, if there is a Supreme Being who created everything, and
He/She/It commands that adultery is evil but says that there would be
no detrimental effects of disobeying this command, would adultery still
be considered evil?

>
> Or rather, we can make arbitrary choices about what we choose to *call*
> right and wrong, but there's a fundamental morality, based on
> cumulative, universal social experience, that is independant of
> individual and arbitrary designations of morality. This common-sense
> morality is also independent of ritual morality such as is sometimes
> associated with various religious or ethnic taboos, e.g. working on the
> wrong day, eating the wrong foods, interacting too closely with people
> of the wrong ethnicity or gender, etc.
>
> > > > And, if there is no Supreme Being to present such a standard, then
> > > > humans are the only ones to establish notions of good and evil on their
> > > > own.
> > >
> > > What if reality itself is the Supreme Being in this case?
> >
> > I was thinking about a Supreme Being more in terms of a living entity
> > that created the universe.
>
> Yes, I figured you probably were, but since you were throwing out "what
> if's," I thought I'd mention an alternative you may not have
> considered.

You did well to mention that alternative. Thanks.

>
> > f there is no Supreme Being in these terms but one in terms of reality
> > itself being the supreme being, then we would be, in effect, doing its
> > will by basing our notions of right and wrong on nature. Then again,
> > unless we wanted to redefine what sentience and having a will means,
> > nature has no will of its own. In this case, we'd be back to doing
> > what we ourselves think is right in our own thinking.
>
> We're on shaky ground defining the Supreme Being's "sentience" in terms
> of our own fallible, limited abilities in any case. How can our puny,
> limited, fallible abilities be in any way a true and accurate measure
> of the Supreme Being's actual functioning? We are not infinite; we
> should not assume that our minds draw the lines that the Supreme Being
> must color within. Our abilities may, in some small way, be like the
> Supreme Being's, but that does not at all mean that the Supreme Being's
> abilities are like ours. We are not interchangeable entities.

Our abilities could not be a true and accurate measure of a Supreme
Beings actual functioning unless that Supreme Being revealed Himself to
us in a way that allowed us some amount of understanding. Could such a
revelation be exhaustive? No. But, it still could be true and
accurate.

>
> > > > And, if this is the case, then there are now thousands, at a minimum,
> > > > of various ideas of good and evil from which to choose...if one wants
> > > > to even choose.
> > >
> > > Yet we find that reality constrains these choices down to a practical
> > > few that actually work effectively in real life to produce an optimal
> > > balance between the best interests of the individual and the best
> > > interests of the group. Too much emphasis on the best interests of any
> > > one individual, and you have a bully, a criminal, or a despot of some
> > > kind; too much emphasis on the best interests of society, and you have
> > > a regime without freedom or individuality or growth.
> >
> > True. Then again, who says that having an optimal balance between the
> > best interests of the individual and the group is the "right" thing to
> > do? I know that there is an optimal balance between individual and
> > group interests for society to advance. Yet, is there an objective
> > moral reason, above and beyond what any one or group of humans says,
> > for society to advance at all?
>
> Certainly. When society advances, in proper balance with the interests
> of its individual members, all the individual members advance as well,
> because society is composed of its individual members. When a society
> declines, all members of that society likewise suffer. It is in the
> self-interest of each individual member of society to promote the
> advancement of the society, provided the interests of society are kept
> in balance with those of its individual members.
>
> If an individual seeks to promote his own interests ahead of the rest
> of society, he becomes a threat to society, and society will band
> together against him; it is in his own self-interest not to provoke
> society to do so. Likewise it's not in his own self-interest to
> promote society's interests ahead of his own (unless there is some
> overriding interest, like the survival of the group/species, which in
> the ultimate sense works out to be a form of self-interest).
>
> At the bottom line of all morality is self-interest, even in religion.
> The religious person obeys his religious teachings because of the
> benefit that accrues to himself as the result of obedience, either in
> the form of expected reward (or avoided punishment), or in the form of
> improved relationships and social standing, or simply in the
> satisfaction of his sense of "how things should be." Apart from
> self-interest, there is no responsibility, and thus no morality.

Interesting. You seem to be correct about this aspect of morality.
For example, I try to do God's will (be a moral person) because a) I
believe that God is deserving of my obedience ("how things should be"),
b) my reward in Heaven will be greater ("expected reward"), and c) I
care about my fellow human being ("improve relationship"?).

Perhaps, self-interest is tied to morality which is tied to sentience
or self-awareness. Maybe, it is all one package.

>
> > > > Here's the evolutionary aspect: are notions or ideas of good and evil
> > > > imbedded in our DNA? Can they be?
> > >
> > > No, except to the extent that we have evolved sufficient intelligence
> > > to learn to profit from experience and learn to develop wise social
> > > interactions.
> >
> > So, it is then "good" to develop wise social interactions.
>
> It is good to interact with others in ways that will have positive
> consequences, yes. It is also wise to do so. ;)
>
> > > > In order to be open and honest, I am a evangelical Christian who
> > > > believes that the earth is about 14 billion years old and that there
> > > > are genetic barriers or "islands" at the order or family level between
> > > > which no evolution is naturally possible.
> > >
> > > Your theory implies a couple of things: one, that the Creator was
> > > short-sighted, and for some peculiar reason deliberately crippled His
> > > design just to accommodate the oral traditions of creationist men, and
> > > two, that within the genetic code there are multiple complete sets of
> > > information: a master plan for the top level "baramin" from which
> > > individual orders, genera, and species are allowed to vary by no more
> > > than a pre-specified amount, plus the information for the species
> > > itself, to make sure that this species has not varied from the master
> > > baramin by that amount, plus the information for this particular
> > > individual member of the species. Now, even though mutations affect
> > > the actual structure of the genetic code itself, the original master
> > > information for the baraminic master plan has to remain unchanged, so
> > > that there will be an invariant standard against which to measure how
> > > far the evolving orders, genera, and species are straying from the
> > > master baramin, so that some kind of mechanism can kick in to force
> > > things back towards the standard baramin if they stray too far from the
> > > standard.
> >
> > This would be the case unless 1) there are aspects of DNA that have not
> > yet been discovered (weak argument but still valid) or 2) God does
> > routinely interact with this environment to produce results which would
> > not occur naturally (no way of proving this).
>
> It is the case whether #1 is true or not. Just because we don't know
> all the information in DNA (and there are species whose genome *has*
> been completely sequenced, even if we have not yet analyzed the full
> meaning of all the genes), that does not change the fact that it
> requires multiple sets of information in the genetic code in order to
> maintain the *genetic* barriers between taxonomic families which you
> say you believe exist.
>
> As for argument #2, you can invoke a _deus ex machina_ if you like, but
> it solves nothing for you if you claim the barriers between taxonomic
> families are *genetic*. Saying there are genetic barriers means you
> have all of the problems listed above, including the problem posed by
> the fact that there's nothing in the genetic material that is not
> subject to change by mutation. That means there is no way to maintain
> an invariant standard of reference to keep as a "clean copy" of what
> the pure species is that we're not supposed to mutate too far away
> from. You can say, ok the "clean copy" isn't in the genes it's just in
> God's head and He miraculously intervenes to stop species from mutating
> more than a certain distance from the original "kinds." Fine, you can
> do that, but the barriers aren't genetic at that point, are they?
> You've just made them purely supernatural (and speculative).

Normally, I wouldn't try to assert the "God did it" theory. It's
generally unprovable and can be wantonly thrown into any argument to
buttress make one's argument. I was only trying to think of possible
(any possible) causes to list.

>
> > > Do you know of any evidence for all that, in science or in the Bible?
> >
> > I think that I went back and forth with others concerning this in times
> > past. It seems that there is no evidence showing that it cannot
> > happen, but also that there is a lack of observable evidence showing
> > that jumps across families (or some other arbitrary boundary) do indeed
> > happen.
>
> Bearing in mind how evolution works--i.e. the gaps between different
> families are because the last common ancestor occurred X number of
> millions of years ago--what exactly do you mean by "jumps across
> boundaries?

I was thinking about the popular example of an amphibian species slowly
mutating into a bird species. This would be a serious leap across many
arbitrary human-made biological boundaries (class, order, family, etc.)
I know that speciation occurs. I was just hoping that we could track
a species across more than just a few genus boundaries, just to say
that "Yeah. We've observed it."

>
> > In the Bible, yes. To say that the Biblical accounts conform to
> > evolutionary theory is to assume that the "kinds" according to Genesis
> > are not fixed. Thus, an amphibian which evolves into a bird slowly
> > over 50 million years is supported by Genesis as each offspring of
> > every slightly mutated reproduction is still the same "kind" as its
> > parent(s). I am not sure that we can make that assumption.
>
> You stated that incorrectly. It does not require us to assume that
> they are not fixed. It merely requires that we not assume that they
> are fixed. Do you know of any reason why we should assume that they
> are fixed?

No. I really don't know if they are fixed or not. I am open to them
being either way. The only reason I might be slightly inclined to say
that "kinds" are fixed is because the Hebrew text was not referring to
any specific species in time (like a biological snapshot) but the
animal kingdom in general for all time. The proclamation made it sound
like God was outside of time and space viewing all of the animal
kingdom at once and saying that each kind would reproduce its own kind
and never the twain shall intermingle. Of course, now we'd be getting
into theology and the Hebrew language and culture.

>
> > Honestly, I was just concerned here with ideas of "right" and "wrong".
>
> Quite, well, sometimes the offhand comment has a way of getting out of
> hand. :)
>
> > > The Bible only says that things reproduce according to their kind,
> > > which is what the theory of evolution says, but neither science nor the
> > > Bible ever claims that kinds cannot change over long periods of time.
> > > Only the oral traditions of creationist men claim that there are any
> > > barriers or any natural forces preventing evolution at any taxonomic
> > > level; there is no evidence or Scriptural passage suggesting any such
> > > thing. Do you know of any reason to think such a thing should be true?
> > >
> > > m
> >
> > I'd just be more comfortable with tracking one set of DNA as it mutates
> > across a family or order boundary before logically concluding that such
> > a thing is possible. That's all.
>
> According to evolution, the family boundaries are set by descent, as
> organisms diverge from a common ancestor. How would that lead to an
> organism crossing a family boundary?
>
> m

Biologically, I don't know. I was thinking of boundaries as arbitrary
human-made snapshots in time to which future or previous species could
be referred. If biologists set a definitive boundary between fish and
birds, then, if we had the time, we could track one species of fish
reproduce over and over and see if the mutated offspring begin to
approach the boundary where they would be now called birds if they
mutated just one more time.

.