The point that is to be gleaned from the talk involving Dr. Dawkins and Cardinal Pell, the point the atheist reader was trying to get across, and the general argument of atheism is that a supposedly supreme moral law giver of the universe purportedly gave the Hebrews a moral code that is every bit as primitive as they were then. No one is comparing that code with the 21st century. A supreme moral law giver of the universe should do much, much better than that. It is the atheists point that the Hebrew God’s morality was just as primitive as the Hebrews were. It’s their mythology, and it’s just that simple.

It is not moral absolutism (I guess this is your attempt at straw man, ad hominem, and poisoning the well all in one),  but moral progress from bronze age theology for which most atheists argue. Any contention on the part of Christians for moral superiority is laughable and always has been. Pick a date.

I wonder how your friend reads MacBeth, or Medea?  I’ve got to suspect that anyone who spends more than ten minutes with Dawkins is probably limited in his scope of reading to Jack Chick and the DaVinci code.

I must point out that you too, Mark, are hopelessly anachronistic.  You’re a relentless cheerleader, in a comparative sort of way, for the current moral status quo.  I’m not as sanguine about modernity. 

No, our society is equally barbarous as the bronze age, and even more so.  We’ve applied the lessons of high-technology to the shallow and inefficient abominations cultivated in their rudimentary form by the olden days.  At least back then, if you wanted to take a person’s life, you had to wrestle it from him mano-a-mano.  Now, some air force lieutentant pushes a button on a command from sterility central, and half the world detonates.

I myself have an peculiar affection for biblical literature for these reasons: the contrasts are so striking and effective; the chiaroscura so subtle and refined; the moral lessons so stirring and relevant; and the characters so human, sympathetic, endearing, and indeed loveable.  These people could be your own family members!  Your very self!  If God were to write a book, this would be it.

Reading Richard Dawkins on the other hand is like sitting through a week of Virtus training given by Hans Kung.  Make way for the rest room!

I love what you have to say here, but I can’t bring myself to pass it on because of the typo in the concluding sentence. Please edit.

@BHannahan: FWIW, the last sentence as it stands should be read “It’s sad when people worship, instead of use, the intellect,” i.e., “It’s sad when people worship [the intellect] instead of use the intellect.”

“Moral relativism believes that truth actually changes as men’s minds change.”
Moral absolutists believe that there is such a thing called “truth” when it comes to “morality”.
“You are, indeed, a rigid moralist who is assuming that the moral code he happens to hold ... is the Iron Law of Morality for All Time on Everybody.”
Your statement is simply wrong.
“They have almost no capacity to allow for the ignorance and weakness of their ancestors”
Wrong.
But yes, playing around with “what the Bible says” is simply a game of “gotcha”.  It would be wiser to play around with what Catholics actually claim to believe - “contraception is wrong” for example.  That seems quite “absolute” to me.

People also fail to realize that Hebraic law was a great improvement over what came before.  I have given up arguing with hardened atheists because they are so entrenched in their scientism that they don’t even realize that it’s an ideology.  It’s also an epistemological disease that is epidemic.

All you bloggers centralizing on Patheos is a bad idea
It is down.  Nice easy Target for Gummint to take you out of Business.
You need a duplicate website for when this happens.

The point that Mr. Dawkins was trying to make was, basing your belief and morals on an ancient text is a very bad idea. Would you follow medical advice written in the same era? I think not.

As an atheist and an american, I honestly don’t care if you believe in god, allah or kali. I simply find them all equally silly but it is your human right to believe in such. The problem I have is when you try to force everyone to abide by your religious code.

For example, prayer in school. Tell me, would you be offended if the teacher lead a satanic prayer in class? If so, then you can see why someone who does not believe as you would take offense at a religious prayer in school.

I rarely respond to anonymous posters, since they are, by and large, cowardly trolls, but this one is so egregious that I just can’t resist.

The parallel that is drawn by the poster between ancient texts of morality and ancient texts of medicine is valid, but not in the way he believes. Simply because a text of any kind is ancient doesn’t mean that it does not contain some truth or some utility, even though that text may have been written by someone not as fully informed as to all of the facts that bear upon the subject—once the modern reader realizes the context in which the ancient text was written, the striving-after-truth, however imperfectly, can be perceived. The ancient writer, undoubtedly burdened by his own assumptions and prejudices (as are we all), cannot help but express himself from his own context. Are we to expect perfect communication and perfect thought from any mortal man? Or do we build upon the flawed building blocks of the past, and lay our own (equally flawed) blocks on the structure of knowledge in the hopes that our progeny will move ever closer to making that knowledge ideal?

History is neither to be ignored nor worshipped; it is to be learned from so that the mistakes are not repeated. Sadly, this is a lesson that atheists seem incapable of learning.

Your statement is simply wrong.
...
Wrong.
...
It would be wiser to play around with what Catholics actually claim to believe - “contraception is wrong” for example.  That seems quite “absolute” to me.

Why do you have to hear reasons that contraception is wrong? Isn’t this Bald-Faced Assertion of Wrongness Without Any Argument Day?

@Beachbum
 
the general argument of atheism is that a supposedly supreme moral law giver of the universe purportedly gave the Hebrews a moral code that is every bit as primitive as they were then
 
These same atheists complain that God didn’t teach Moses modern physics, but instead allowed him to express important truths via a flawed cosmology. Like Moses had the time and capacity to learn quantum mechanics.

Why don’t we just ask the magical, invisible man in the sky to just tell us?
Oh, that’s right- he’s so terribly shy.  Too bad he doesn’t take medication for that.
(Of course, if this comment isn’t published, we know who the real fundamentalists are, don’t we?)

Thanks for posting this up.  I saw the headlines about Cardinal Pell and it’s sad to see how badly they distorted what he actually said.  Without this, I never would have understood the context.  I wish the media would get its act together.

“A supreme moral law giver of the universe should do much, much better than that.”

Why?  It’s not like you can take a supergenius with an IQ of 200 out of the jungle, plop him into MIT, and expect him to suddenly understand differential equations without the intervening education.

I fail to see why you expect God to be able to do, with a human mind and a soul and history of it’s own, what none of of best educators have ever been able to do.

@Greg - “But yes, playing around with “what the Bible says” is simply a game of “gotcha”.  It would be wiser to play around with what Catholics actually claim to believe - “contraception is wrong” for example.  That seems quite “absolute” to me.”

Yes it is quite absolute.  And thus, quite beyond your ability to reason or understand.  A single reality *demands* a single morality that affects everybody in every situation.  Moral absolutism is the only way to truly deal with that.

@Pluto- “Why don’t we just ask the magical, invisible man in the sky to just tell us?
Oh, that’s right- he’s so terribly shy.  Too bad he doesn’t take medication for that.
(Of course, if this comment isn’t published, we know who the real fundamentalists are, don’t we?)”

He’s not shy to those who are willing to listen; but it takes actually being skeptical about one’s own assumptions to be able to listen.  For instance, your assumption that your comment wouldn’t be published, based on your own experience of censoring others on your own website.

“the general argument of atheism is that a supposedly supreme moral law giver of the universe purportedly gave the Hebrews a moral code that is every bit as primitive as they were then.” To say that God is flawed because the ancient Hebrews were flawed is in itself a flawed argument. Look at it this way, as a parent I knew my 3 year old son did not understand that fire would burn him. I had to show him in a way that he could understand given his intellectual development. Taking a toy, for instance, and putting it in the fire and then showing him the results. God knew that advance intellectual discourse was well beyond the Hebrews ability to understand. Therefore, He interacted with them in ways they could understand, making allowances when he needed too, letting them make mistakes when failure was a better teacher and so on. All of the OT is a series of lessons on how to grow beyond primitive pagan thinking. Btw, if you think the OT is barbaric try reading some of the ancient pagan mythologies. Those gods were just mean!

Where did you get the idea that stoning homosexuals, witches and polytheists is wrong?

Please take this question literally.

“I must point out that you too, Mark, are hopelessly anachronistic.  You’re a relentless cheerleader, in a comparative sort of way, for the current moral status quo.  I’m not as sanguine about modernity.” - Matt B
I don’t know about your characterization of Mark Shea, he can respond to that, but I tend to agree with your premise regarding modernity’s morality, insofar as we encompass the world at large.
We Catholic Christians have certainly made advances in our understanding of God, while being grounded in the unchangeable truths of the faith; the development of doctrine ala Newman’s explanation.  But in the places where we fall short, is there any real difference between the temptations of old and those that face the modern Catholic?  Clearly they have changed their form but in character they are still the same.  Technology never changes morality.
The influence of Christianity on the world at large is well documented and perhaps so constant a companion up until recently that we, as well as those atheists, fail even to recognize it.
At the same time, it appears to me that all signs point to the cyclical nature of that influence.  There were times in the early days of Christianity that it seemed to be a tenuous thread, and then later blossomed.  But as that happened there were other regions where the forces against Christianity gained the ascendency and as in the case of the cradle of the faith, the darkness of Islam took over by force.
Our North American heritage was the great Christian ethic of Europe, rooted in the Catholic Church and even when marred by rebellion, the moral precepts for the most part held firm into the new world.  But because we are seeing that heritage close-up it is hard for us to realize that we may be seeing the very tail end of it in our own day.  Ahead of us, Europe is passing into an era wherein it may well be beyond reclamation.
To me there is a constant state of flux.  I am not certain that the moral enlightenment is any way a constant in our own part of the world, for the reasons that you mention Matt.  Our technology in many cases has simply given us a wider variety of tools for barbarism with the added advantage of allowing us some ability to create a false distance from our acts which we mistake for a moral distance.
A favorite of the Atheists is the spectre of stoning in the Old Testament.  But there was some advantage to that type of execution in a tribal setting.  Everyone was involved, it was a community effort at justice.  Perhaps from a deterance perspective far more effective than farming out the dirty work to a professional executioner.

the general argument of atheism is that a supposedly supreme moral law giver of the universe purportedly gave the Hebrews a moral code that is every bit as primitive as they were then.

If you could only escape bubble of internet atheist ignorance and learn something about “development of doctrine” you would realize that Catholics are perfectly aware that the Old Testament revelation was provisional and imperfect.  But that would require giving up gotchas like ‘but this is the eternal word of God!”

I must point out that you too, Mark, are hopelessly anachronistic.  You’re a relentless cheerleader, in a comparative sort of way, for the current moral status quo. 

No.  I’m not. But thank you for that ignorant accusation.  I’m perfectly aware that the current moral status quo is a mess.  I am also aware that the teaching of the Church is at sharp odds with the current moral status quo.

you rock.

@Diane- your story reminds me of Carlos Mencia’s joke about the difference between mommy and daddy.  Mommy will tell the kid a hundred times a day not to touch the stove because it’s hot.  Daddy will tell the kid once.  Then the next time the kid tries to touch the stove, daddy will tell him it’s hot but let him touch it.  For the rest of his life, that kid will know the meaning of the word hot.

It is fascinating how fundamentalist atheists are obsessed with sex and death.  They have so utterly narrowed their scope of life, that this is almost all they are left with: a frantic hope for pleasure on earth, which must come to a sudden, final end.  Honestly?  I think they are actually angry at God for their own fatalistic, bad mood.  Their “adoption” of Judeo Christian morality is just window dressing so they can look and feel noble. @yes Diane, they are like petulant children who want to change many of the necessary “rules” to suit their own painfully stunted version of reality.

It sounds as though Dawkins was cranky and Pell just doesn’t know when to stop talking.

Dawkins doesn’t do nuance, and so missed an opening for a fascinating discussion with Pell, when Pell held forth on the mythological nature of the Garden of Eden. Believers complain that Dawkins doesn’t address “my” nuanced belief system, when he fulminates against against science-hating, evolution-rejecting Biblical literalists. Pell is clearly very nuanced in his interpretation of the Bible. I wish Dawkins, or the moderator,  had asked Pell to demonstrate where nuanced parsing of the Bible takes him.

Pell said that human evolution from more primitive creatures is probably true.

“[The story of the Fall is] a very sophisticated mythology to try to explain the evil and the suffering in the world,”

“But we have to say if there are humans, there must have been a first one.”

Where does this leave us? Well, it removes human agency from most of the suffering undergone by earth’s creatures. God was the first Social Darwinist. God intentionally created a world where sentient creatures survive by eating each other alive, and die in many horrible ways. Humans were just another such creature until suddenly God inserted a soul into an animal, and was disappointed when this natural/supernatural hybrid failed to show its appreciation by “obeying” its Creator.

Well, of course God wasn’t really disappointed. Everything is constantly present to this Being, which exists outside of time, so God knew all along how things would turn out. The seeds of everything in the universe were in that initial singularity.

So if there was no “Original Sin,” what was the point of the crucifixion? I can’t help but suspect that Cardinal Pell views that as a beautiful mythological story to try to keep humans from being so terrified of death. Baptism of course becomes entirely symbolic—which at least allows unbaptized infants to go to heaven when they die—if Pell believes heaven and hell are more real than the Garden of Eden. Why or why not? Perhaps they are beautiful mythological stories to try to keep humans from despairing over the obvious unfairness of life. Personally, I think belief in reincarnation does a better job of this. With no evidence for either,  how shall I pick?

It’s too late now to ask Pell how much his real beliefs actually differ from Dawkins’ beliefs. He’s too smart to get into a debate like that again. He might even be forbidden.

Mark, I appreciate you pointing out that Pell and Dawkins made the same statement, but only Cardinal Pell was painted but the MSM as making some kind of anti-Semitic statement.

However- “American libertarian hedonism” is a phrase that puzzles me.  Not that I doubt that Americans can be hedonistic, or that Libertarians can be hedonistic.  Just wondering if there is some special kind of hedonism from which I, an American and suspected Libertarian, may be suffering.

Would you expound on that?

@Laura B.  I don’t know if Mark will explain what he meant by that phrase, but I can explain what I would mean by that phrase, because I recently discovered the tendency in myself.

Individualists expect other individuals to take care of themselves instead of taking up the corporal works of mercy to become more generous with the people they meet.  The twin heresies known as Americanism and Libertarianism share the joint heresy of individualism- of assuming that we are each alone in our moral decisions and that our moral decisions do not affect others positively or negatively (at least when those decisions are truly moral, by the heresy of Individualism’s definition of morality- do no harm and your right to swing your fist ends right at my nose).

The problem with this is that human action *is* Newtonian- EVERY action, no matter how slight, has an equal and opposite reaction, like the molecules of gas in a hot air balloon bouncing off of each other.  And thus, true pure individualism not only can’t exist, but the law of unintended consequences shows that every possible action WILL affect your neighbor, usually negatively.

Mark suffers from the false assumption that Libertarianism is hedonistic.  Libertarians do not place liberty above all other values.  We simply believe it is morally wrong to force adult human beings to do things against their will.  Hedonism is a whole different school of thought.  Believe me, I have known hedonists of all ideological flavors.

@cowalker- to see where a nuanced reading of scripture leads, all one needs to do is go to daily mass for 3 years.

Don’t depend on others to repeat your experiments for you.

Mark, ignorance is a quality found in great abundance on this string.  I’m glad if I’m able to contribute even a little bit.

I never get over the absolute inability of certain well-educated and apparently sophisticated modern people to “get” scripture.  I’m thinking of the towering flowering of intellectual achievement during the 12th century, when intellectual giants like Aquinas and Bonaventure literally bowed before holy writ, considered the worship of God to be the height of wisdom.

Also, how many Christians actually died to “keep the faith.”  The number must run into the hundreds of millions.  What did they know that we don’t know now?  A man or a woman of our time considers going without their morning coffee to be “persecution.”  Our generation would quail to think of living without cars.  We have anodynes for every ailment.  (But we can’t scratch where we really itch.)

Have any of your athiests considered real reality?  Or do they all live in a world of flinging photons, amenable only to electron microscopes - and these they consider real?  I have a hard time reconciling atheist ideas to intelligence - only garrulous petulance.

@Lizzie, you write:
”  Libertarians do not place liberty above all other values.  We simply believe it is morally wrong to force adult human beings to do things against their will. “

Can you explain to me the difference?  It looks like to me you first claimed you do not place liberty above all other values, then you gave a definition of morality that places the liberty of adult human beings above all other values.

This is the very reason I believe Libertarianism and Americanism to be hedonistic- because they place individual liberty above all other values.

Lizzie, do children qualify as human beings in your definition of liberty?

And here I thought I just wanted smaller, less intrusive government so I was free to make my own mistakes. ;-)

Just in case it hasn’t been suggested, I think that if one were truly free and not subject to coercion, one could still value the lives and freedom of others as well as one’s own persoanl freedom. And one may perhaps even be MORE free to act on one’s personal level of value for human life, human dignity, etc.  Forced virtuous behavior is not virtue, and forced taxation is not charity.  When God gave us that darned free will, I think he knew exactly what he was doing.

@Lizie- just in case we’re talking about different things, I decided to look up the definition of hedonism- and you are right there are hedonists of many stripes.  But a philosophy of “it is immoral to force an adult to do something they don’t want to do, or keep them from doing something they do want to do”, is certainly hedonistic at its center. 

And incompatible with Catholicism, which is a moral system that has positive duties and negative punishments to shape what a rational adult wants to do to be in line with the common good.

Cowalker, Saint Augustine teaches that it is our will, our understanding and memory that make us like God.  I see no reason why there could not have been a singular moment in time, when man a. was gifted with these qualities and b. failed in stewardship of these qualities by acting selfishly.  To act selfishly is to recognize that something called free choice is in place: This is a TREMENDOUS thing, and it is the only gift that you or I or anyone can give back to our creator.  (There is a reason for this blindfold we wear!).I am so grateful because despite the danger that comes with free will (sigh, going to confession on Wed.)I am not a puppet or a slave. *I gift* myself back to Him*freely*—what JOY! WHAT a gift.  I truly believe God, became man (what jaw dropping scandal—WHAT LOVE) to ransom me from the justice merited by my sins, and yes, this should give me an indication of just how seriously alien to God, selfishness *really is*.

> Some Christians foolishly argue that atheists are immoral. In fact, atheists are intensely moralistic and more intolerant than the most rigid Puritan.

Very true. To be precise, they lack Faith, Hope, and Charity. We need to have your last message always available for a quick paste. It’s well thought out and well phrased.

I guess my question is, “Why is it so hard to imagine that I could want liberty so that I am free to do good, rather than so I am free to do evil?”

And Side B - “Why is it assumed that I want liberty so that I am free to do evil, rather than so I am not compelled to do evil?”

I don’t want to fund Planned Parenthood, I want to fund St Vincent de Paul.
I don’t want to pay for anyone’s contraception or abortion, I’d rather pay for someone’s free dental care, or their heating bills.

Get it?  ;-)

@cowalker- Did it ever occur to you that an infinite, omnipotent, immortal, all knowing being; might invent quantum mechanics and free will just to break up the boredom of being immortal, omnipotent, infinite and all knowing?

@Laura B- Because original sin exists, and because for the grand majority of human beings on the planet, doing evil with their free will is what they truly enjoy.  It isn’t just about what you do with your excess funds as an individual in the first world.  It is also about that sweatshop being run in China so that shoes can be produced by Nike for $10 and sold to you for $100.  It’s about all the little connections that you don’t know about and can never know in a blind, capitalistic, anonymous economy. 

So in that light- we can’t make that assumption about libertarianism because libertarianism itself doesn’t allow us to make that assumption about rational adults and liberty.  The rational adult makes their own decision, for good or evil.

A moral system that does not include this rule, like Catholicism, insures that to the best of our ability, control will be enforced towards the majority of liberty being used for the good, and the minority being used for evil.

@Laura B- I would also point out that your wish to be able to give to St. Vincent De Paul, is in and of itself and outside of any other moral code, hedonistic.  For charity, to paraphrase Shakespear, is twice blessed- for it gives pleasure to both the receiver and the giver.  (Merchant of Venice, Act IV Scene I- he was talking about mercy, but it works just as well for charity).  And thus fits the basic philosophy of hedonism- doing only acts that give one pleasure.

Now had you said, for instance, that you skipped lunch on every Friday of Lent to give that money to St. Vincent De Paul, giving yourself a bit of pain so that someone else’s belly may be full; now that is the Christian version, not the Libertarian version.

@Ted, I know you don’t believe that God could be bored.  Cowalker loves her children, so I think she could relate more to those moments in life when she freely, lovingly and selflessly gave to her children, because love begets more love.

Uh, Ted…if I’m reading you correctly, then anything I WANT to do that makes someone else happy is hedonistic. Unless I get a twinge of pain in the process.

You mean it’s not possible to just do nice things without being hedonistic?  I need to stand in the rain to walk my elderly friend to his car after church?  If it’s sunny when I do that, I’m a pleasure-seeking hedonist? What about opening door for somebody?  Does it need to hit me in the forehead?

Dang.

To be the creator of the whole shebang, to create a cosmic poem out of it, to create a great tragic poem that becomes a triumph of eternal joy, to keep all of the plots in balance, from physical properties to thoughts, emotions and sacrifices, rebellions and loyalties, paradoxes and the resolution of paradoxes, violence to peaceful homecoming, you would have to be God.

Cowalker, little one, how *could* you understand? You are so small that you barely exist, and yet you were made for eternity.

You will see.

And yes, Anna, who else could create love and the freedom to love or to reject love but God?

BORN AGAIN

You must be born again, born twice,
An infant born to Paradise
Who was at first a child of Earth,
What sort of bearing is this birth?

As one who learned to walk and speak
What other form of life to seek?
As one who learned to live and die
What sort of double soul am I?

What to be taught, what love to teach,
What destinations do we reach?
What other life, what other stride,
Across what landscape, at whose side?

What infancy to learn again
Another childhood, other friends,
Companions glorious to see
Who are at once both loyal and free

What symphonies, what songs to learn?
What harmony that leaps and turns?
What dancing made for souls to glide?
What poetry does light confide?

What figures capture on the sky
Angel-lightning, glory-wise?
What sciences, academies?
What vast and gentle faculties?

And when we reach maturity
What depths and visions will we see?
What ageless eons ever one?
What ageless marvels just begun?

    Pavel
    April 13, 2012

Laura B wrote: “Forced virtuous behavior is not virtue, and forced taxation is not charity.”

You’re correct:  paying taxes is not virtue; it is a substitute for it.  Government is not merely evil; it is a necessary evil.

Virtuous people would voluntarily pay for national defense and social welfare without having to be coerced by the state.  However, we children of Adam are not virtuous; we are subject to original sin.

We sinners are apt to free-ride on the defense spending of others, and leave the poor to starve.  Thus, coercive taxation is required. 

Taxation is a legitimate prudential response to human sinfulness. “Render unto Caesar.”

Paul,

I knew a very moral and loving atheist in Russia, a lovely self-giving person, and I know there were many others. God bless them.

The Holy Spirit does not abandon us. It appears to be the atheists of the West whose atheism is bitter and corrosive.

Pavel

Posted by anna lisa on Monday, Apr 16, 2012 2:10 PM (EST):
“Cowalker, Saint Augustine teaches that it is our will, our understanding and memory that make us like God. I see no reason why there could not have been a singular moment in time, when man a. was gifted with these qualities and b. failed in stewardship of these qualities by acting selfishly.”

The thing is, we do not need to posit God or a soul to explain the development of human self-awareness. There is no need to hypothesize a supernatural element when we can observe evidence of changes in human culture over thousands of years that demonstrate increases in intelligence, knowledge, empathy, imagination, planning ability and abstract thinking. As an example, we have found Neanderthals deliberately buried with grave goods.

It is also hard for me to accept a Creator as “good” in human terms that deliberately set in motion a process that would cause uncountable creatures to suffer and die over billions of years to create an environment for another imperfect animal, that then received a supernatural addition to its nature that entailed a responsibility to love that Creator or suffer forever. In other words, the universe was “fallen,” ie. full of death and suffering from the beginning, by design. You can say that the Creator’s “good” is beyond my understanding, but then I have to just stop and say “OK, that ‘good’ has nothing to do with me. I can’t love that Creator. I was deliberately created so that I couldn’t understand it, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Posted by Ted Seeber on Monday, Apr 16, 2012 2:27 PM (EST):
“@cowalker- Did it ever occur to you that an infinite, omnipotent, immortal, all knowing being; might invent quantum mechanics and free will just to break up the boredom of being immortal, omnipotent, infinite and all knowing?”

LOL. No it never occurred to me that an infinite, omnipotent, immortal, all knowing being would experience a human emotion, such as boredom.

Scratch an atheist, find a fundamentalist, and it stinks.

‘“then I have to just stop and say “OK, that ‘good’ has nothing to do with me. I can’t love that Creator. I was deliberately created so that I couldn’t understand it, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”’

Why are you capable of feeling that there is something wrong with suffering, death and injustice? But it isn’t only that you think or feel that it is wrong to suffer. You rebel against the injustice of it, and you feel the pangs of the suffering of other people within yourself. How could that have come to be? What purpose could it serve, even from the perspective of Darwinian fitness?

It’s a very strange thing to be a human being.

Why is there death and suffering? Buddhists say that suffering is an illusion which we can renounce. Christians say something different, that it is a mystery in which we participate, and when the mystery is resolved we will see the purpose of it.

God has created beings who are capable of freedom, and the free are capable of suffering not only in themselves but for others.

I can’t transfer my experience to you. But all shall be well, as St. Julian told us. How it shall be well is beyond my ability to show. You will have to suffer and see for yourself.

If you have loved in your life - and love too requires suffering - you will see.

You would not be here if you were settled in your thoughts.

That was bad.  Couldn’t get the image of a “scratch ‘n’ sniff” out of my head, but it’s my truth!  (It stinks.)  Being more sad about it is sad:  would rather scratch an atheist, and find some moral semblance of truth.

Dawkins is simply trying to hold Catholics to the standards they demand. There is plenty of nuance in Dawkins view of morality, I assure you he understands that life is primarily composed of shades of gray. But, believers don’t get to play that game when they claim to know the truth.

If it’s the capital “T” truth then why all the qualifiers? Why is it suddenly like nailing jello to the wall? Either it is THE Truth or it isn’t. If it isn’t, then it’s a work in progress, not innerant and not eternal.

“Being more sad about it is sad:  would rather scratch an atheist, and find some moral semblance of truth.”

Are you a seer bringing truth to the unenlightened? Is that why you’re here?

“But, believers don’t get to play that game when they claim to know the truth.”

Believers don’t claim to know the “truth.” What they claim is that Jesus of Nazareth is true God and true man, and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. What follows from that is the truth, if you can follow that road.

Why are you here?

“If it isn’t, then it’s a work in progress, not innerant and not eternal.”

Either you are eternal or what you believe and what you live will vanish into the eternal dust, and you and your thoughts are not of any consequence.

Then, the truth is that you are nothing, and your birth was without meaning.

Are you prepared to welcome annihilation?

“I assure you he understands that life”

You speak for Dawkins? How? Is he your leader? Speak for yourself.

Here’s my take of this discourse.

Catholic Church: “We call on voters and legislators to oppose same-sex marriage.”

Atheist: “You’re denying equal rights to gay and lesbian people.  That’s bigotry.”

Church: “We’re not bigots! It is God’s will, and we must do His will.  We have no choice.”

Atheist: “How do you know it’s God’s will?”

Church: “It’s in the Bible, God’s revealed moral authority.”

Atheist: “But the Bible also says to stone adulterers and approves genocide. Do you think those are moral too?”

Church: “Of course not. The Bible isn’t literally true. Those parts were written by people who do not have the benefit of 5000 years of developed moral teaching.”

Atheist: “Then your lack of “developed moral teaching” about homosexuality means you’re bigots. You uphold the verses condemning homosexuality because you WANT to, not because they’re objectively truer than the ones upholding genocide.”

There’s no point claiming the Bible as an authority unless you take it literally.  The moment you introduce subjectivity in your interpretation you’re imposing your OWN morality over what the Bible says, and you’re responsible for explaining why you made that choice.

*an observe evidence of changes in human culture over thousands of years that demonstrate increases in intelligence, knowledge, empathy, imagination, planning ability and abstract thinking. As an example, we have found Neanderthals deliberately buried with grave goods.*

You are a captive of popular journalism.

*There’s no point claiming the Bible as an authority unless you take it literally*

Physicists don’t even take Quantum Physics literally. A literal insight into “reality” is not in us, and the Church has known this for almost 2000 years. None of us has access to literal “reality.”

What the Church claims is the fullness of truth about salvation. She claims that Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, for a purpose encapsulated in the Paschal Mystery. MYSTERY.

But you knew that, being the expert in Catholicism that you obviously are.

Hey Bill,

Isn’t it great to be able to write a dialogue in which your opponents arguments are demolished?

BETWEEN THE PANTHER AND THE WOLF
  For R.S.

God, the all-powerful, has granted two freedoms
To us alone, and to no others
We may love, we may self-slay

God is love, immortal love,
Only we of clay
May die of our free will

Alone and in the grand collective
Free to choose the way
Of human freedom

In that dark wood of Dante
Between the panther and the wolf
The soul can make its way

In that deep gloom
The lion of the yellow skin
Crouches on the sun

Take back your freedom
It is too great for us
Is what we say

Oh no, oh no, for what I give
Is not forsworn
But I forgive

    Pavel
    April 11, 2012

Regarding the questions on libertarianism:  It is wrong to take what doesn’t belong to me.  If I believed in liberty above all other values, I would believe that I should be free simply to take what belongs to others.  But because I AM a Christian, my behavior is determined by the teachings of my faith, thus I shall not steal.

I would like to have all my time to do whatever I want to do.  If I placed liberty above all other values, that is exactly what I would do.  But I do not place liberty above other values.  I am a parent, and my duties and responsibilities as a parent trump liberty every time. 

This also answers the query about children.  I have a responsibility to rear my children.  I do not have the responsibility to determine my neighbors’ conduct.  I DO however have a duty toward my neighbor that supersedes liberty as a value.

I could literally start a list that would never end, but I hope you get the point.  Believing in non-coercion doesn’t make you a hedonist or selfish, or any of the other negative attributes that people want to place upon it, nor is it in anyway un-Catholic.

People might want to remember that an action is only moral in character if the person doing the act has had the freedom to exercise his will.  If I am given no choice in how to act, I cannot claim any morality whatsoever.  If, on the other hand, when faced with the choice between doing good and doing evil in the eyes of the Lord I choose the good, then and only then can my action can be called moral.  I refrain from killing, not because there is a law against it.  I refrain from killing because murder is a sin and I have a positive requirement to love my enemies.

More and more the State has taken away our God-given right to use our own free will and our consciences to determine the right course of behavior, and has attempted instead to substitute the will of the State in place of our own.  This is the road to serfdom and morality is very much absent in that world. 

The next time you are inclined to believe that libertarians only care about themselves and are selfish, think about the source of our freedom.  It comes from God.  Pope Benedict says that freedom is the very structure of the universe.  Without it, we are all slaves.

You complain about atheist generalizing about phantom religionists while generalizing about atheists. How are you any better than the atheist that you claim represents the entire movement? Now, I will admit that there are many inarticulate atheists that are seemingly unable to do anything other than parrot what they’ve seen on YouTube. However, there are also quite a few atheists that have a stronger grasp of their intellectual position and are able to engage readily in philosophical debate. Taking you at your word, the coverage of the debate between Dawkins and the Cardinal would seem unfair. However, I also wouldn’t find the admission that the ancient Jews were barbaric to be that inflammatory and I would actually be inclined to agree. That being said, I also have little faith in natural law and it’s a priori justifications. Also, I would have to say, despite my distaste for parroted arguments, as a rationalist, you have to do some intricate mental gymnastics to reconcile the morality of the old testament with today’s morality.

If you’re going to convince anyone of your atheism, or even the sincerity of your atheism, bring on someone whose life has been full of suffering for others, rich experiences and deep feeling.

Why should I take the word of some ******* in a combox about God and the meaning of life? Who the hell are these people?

I should have stated that I refrain from killing not because there is a MAN-MADE law against it….

The ancient Jews were barbaric? What about any number of very contemporary people we all could name? You think we can’t find examples of cruelty within living memory that would make the ancients puke?

And yes, atheists too. I could tell you some things that atheists have done that will make you reach for the anti-emetic in your medicine cabinet.

Is there anyone here who has actually had some life experience, or are we mostly sophomores?

@Christopher—if the point of the Old Testament was the morality of Hebraic law, then you are right, mental gymnastics would be necessary.  But the point of the Old Testament is not the law.  The point is God’s faithfulness to his Covenant. 

By the way, I also am a rationalist.  I just don’t make the epistemological mistake of believing that rationalism discredits faith.  It most certainly doesn’t.  And educated atheists (I was one for 30 years or so) would be well served in understanding the logical flaws inherent in scientism.  It doesn’t mean you have to believe in God. But it would relieve the rest of us of some of the extreme intellectual arrogance that comes from the atheist quarter.

Bill Thacker wrote:
“‘You uphold the verses condemning homosexuality because you WANT to, not because they’re objectively truer than the ones upholding genocide.’
There’s no point claiming the Bible as an authority unless you take it literally.”

Mr. Thacker, your position is an understandable one for an atheist. Perhaps some clarification will help.

First, a broad point:  If the only Biblical verses condemning homosexuality were in the Old Testament, they would presumably have little more force than Levitical prohibitions against eating shellfish.  However, unlike Jewish dietary laws, the Biblical position on sexuality is repeated by St. Paul in the New Testament.  Many Christians take the Old Testament allegorically; almost none do so with the New.  This is a basic point.  Ignorance of it will hinder you in online discussion with Christians.

A second, more narrow point:

To you, Catholics and Protestants may look like an undifferentiated lump of backward bigotry.  Similarly many Christians may have failed to notice that although both Stalin and Christopher Hitchens were atheists, one was a totalitarian psychopath and the other was a dedicated democrat.  Distinguishing between different kinds of Christians is as important as distinguishing between different kinds of atheists.

Almost all Protestants take the Bible as their SOLE authority; some Protestants take it literally, while others leave interpretation to the private judgment of each believer.

Catholicism, however, takes as its twin pillars of authority the Bible and Sacred Tradition.  The latter is the deposit of verbal and written interpretation of the Bible and of theology that we Catholics believe stretches back in an unbroken line from the current Pope and bishops through the age of the Church Fathers (e.g., St. Augustine) all the way to the Apostles. It’s very loosely like the “jade transmission” of certified enlightenment in Zen and Ch’an Buddhism, if that helps.

The unvarying teaching of Sacred Tradition, from the late Roman Empire to the present, is that homosexual behavior is to be condemned. 

As it happens, I am for the most part a political liberal, and I positively LOATHE this teaching, which in my gut does not feel true.  However, it would be lazy of me to rely upon arguments like yours, merely because they emotionally appeal to me.  The historical record is too clear for me to claim that the teaching is some arbitrary modern invention developed through selective proof-texting; the condemnation of such behavior is ancient and it is consistent. Just because you and I don’t like the truth doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
 

@ Pavel:

“Isn’t it great to be able to write a dialogue in which your opponents arguments are demolished?”

Yes. I enjoyed it nearly as much as Mark Shea did.

“Physicists don’t even take Quantum Physics literally”

They don’t use it to justify banning other peoples’ marriages, either.  They understand the difference between opinion and fact.

“What the Church claims is the fullness of truth about salvation.”

That, and the right to deny contraceptives to their employees—even if those people aren’t Catholics.  How exactly do condoms figure in to “the fullness of truth about salvation”?

“That, and the right to deny contraceptives to their employees—even if those people aren’t Catholics.  How exactly do condoms figure in to “the fullness of truth about salvation”?”

This statement is an outright falsehood.  No one is denying contraceptives to anyone.  There is not one woman in this country who is not free to walk into any pharmacy with a prescription for birth control pills and have that presciption filled.  Stop lying.  There is no such thing as a free lunch and there is no such thing as free birth control either.

Pavel, didn’t really grasp your questions, but no:  I am no seer of truth, to bring enlightenment to anyone.  Why do you ask?  I agreed with Mark Shea:  it is sad, that so much of a viewpoint, atheistic or other, is rooted more ignorance, rather than knowledge generally accessible to many.  It’s a good blog entry, that he wrote.  He defended his position well.  Truth isn’t always truth, is it, but changes.  Slavery in America, isn’t so much of a truth anymore, but at one time, it was a truth.  Of course, there is modern day slavery.  You may already be familiar with it.  For those unfamiliar with it, slavery persists through various accounting methods, and debts, and deceit.  A man sells his daughter.  His daughter is perpetually enslaved in prostitution.  The sale of his daughter only covered so much interest on a debt.  She must be continuously enslaved to cover an interest, that never can be repaid.  Slavery is a truth as a matter of practice; however poor the accounting practice, yet, generally accepted.  Should I be a seer to bring enlightenment to others?  Rather than worship intellect:  we ought to use it—so says Mark Shea—what intelligence is used with respect to relativism, and morality?  I began to see another point of Mark Shea’s after some thought, about his blog entry.  Moral Relativism seemingly is synonymous with subjectivism.  My truth may be better than your truth.  They may be equally valid.  Do we argue Judeo-Christian morality to be superior to other moral “codes”?  As they go:  they are commandments of God.  How easy it is to deny, what we see, what is knowable.  I couldn’t believe it, but Einstein made an eight inch rod, relative to itself, by shrinking it a couple of inches.  What is truth?  Facts only stand so long.

“Yes. I enjoyed it nearly as much as Mark Shea did.”

Tell him, not me.

“They don’t use it to justify banning other peoples’ marriages, either.  They understand the difference between opinion and fact.”

We imperceptibly glide between the existence and non existence of God to the morality of social arrangements. Imperceptible to us dumb guys. But I forget - you smart guy, me dumb guy.

Is it only my opinion if I say that some things are right and some things are wrong? Is it only my opinion if I say a herring is not a hippopotamus, and a vacuum cleaner is not an oil painting?

The Church can’t prevent anyone from living with anyone else. It can object to defining in law something which it is not.

And as Lizzie says above:

I probably misunderstood you, Kristopher.

I don’t think that truth changes. I think that people have a very imperfect grasp of truth, and as in calculus they approximate it as they get closer to it. It’s not as if there is no truth.

The Church claims to possess the fullness of truth about salvation, but that doesn’t mean that the Church knows “ultimate reality”, whatever that may be. I don’t believe that the Church has ever claimed such an insight.

“How exactly do condoms figure in to “the fullness of truth about salvation”?”

I don’t know, exactly, but the question you can ask is: “How do condoms figure into the truth about *my* salvation.”

You will now have to work out your own salvation. I’m going to read about the battle for Guadalcanal.

Good luck.

Pavel, I agree:  truth exists.  As does change.  God is knowable, that seems to be the point of God’s relationship with humanity.  Mysteries are grand.  Enjoy your book.

Socrates was always saying “Let us go back to the beginning”. Chesterton regularly repeated this. Now the primary problem with atheism is the “a” part - it is negative, There is no way of proving a negative. One can only assert.

Dealing with a negative is dealing with infinity - the curse of science.

Condemning the Hebrews for following the laws and rules given by God is the fallacy of comparing ancient times with the present. Were the Hebrews any worse than the peoples among whom they lived? I think not. They were certainly commanded to treat their slaves better than the other peoples.

That that morality offends our feelings about being nice is certainly true. I am reminded of Mr. Dawkins’ comment about Dr. Rowan Williams “He seems a nice chap that one could have a cup of tea with”.

Anent the brutality of the Hebrews, I think the brutality of the English mines [seeing children come out of them, the champion of the anti-slavery movement abroad, William Wilberforce remarked “They seem happy enough”]; and the slum sweatshops of England would do very nicely in comparison. For stoning homosexuals, there is the whipping of homosexuals which was common in the English navy. Thomas Huxley noted the misery of the slums, and the sailor who received 500 lashes for sodomy. What price stoning now?

I note that Darwin lived very nicely on the dividends of his shares. He was connected to the Wedgwood family, conditions of whose factories were not nice.

“...to quote Donald Rumsfeld”? Are we at last brought to this?

@Bill Thacker:
Catholic Church: “We call on voters and legislators to oppose same-sex marriage.”

Atheist: “You’re denying equal rights to gay and lesbian people.  That’s bigotry.” 
...
YOS
Actually, it’s more like denying that such a union is marriage.  One reads news stories of a woman who “married” the Eiffel Tower, another woman who “married” herself, and a man in Australia who “married” his golden retriever.  It would be callous to deny the depth of feelings these people may have for their Significant Others; but what they have done is not marriage.  For details, consult a history of the institution. 
...
This is by no means a Christian thing.  Even the Greeks, who held man-boy sex in great regard, made no provision for legal unions of such pairs; and held as a matter of contempt any grown man who took the role of the boy.  As regards marriage, see Plato, The Laws, Book IV IIRC.  Or for that matter, the Code of Khamurapi. 
...
Marriage is not a right, but an obligation.  Only recently, since the institution has been thoroughly “emptied out” by people “walking through”—terms from the 60s, I grant you—has anyone wanted to play dress-up in the ruins. 
+ + +
@Bill Thacker:
Atheist: “How do you know it’s God’s will?”

Church: “It’s in the Bible, God’s revealed moral authority.” 
...
YOS
You have a fundamentalist notion of how the Church reaches conclusions.  Neither the Eastern Orthodox nor the Roman Catholic lobes of the Church are proof-texters.  The Roman Church in particular also relies on reason and the natural law. 
+ + +
@Bill Thacker:
There’s no point claiming the Bible as an authority unless you take it literally. 
...
YOS
Please see the title of this post.  Thanks for the confirmation.

@Irenist

“However, unlike Jewish dietary laws, the Biblical position on sexuality is repeated by St. Paul in the New Testament.  Many Christians take the Old Testament allegorically; almost none do so with the New.  This is a basic point.”

That’s exactly the point! Which parts are okay to take literally and which parts aren’t and what method are you using to determine which is which? Is the entire OT meant to be taken allegorically? What about the Garden of Eden and original sin?
 
I have a better idea. Let’s say it is composition of stories about the lives and myths and people living in the middle east thousands of years ago. It contains some nuggets of truth because they faced the same challenges then that we often face today. But, their understanding of the natural world and morality is dwarfed by ours today, by orders of magnitude. Not because we now read the scriptures more allegorically or because we are slowly figuring out what God really means in all those horrific verses. It’s because we’ve learned from our mistakes and we collectively decided that forcing women to marry their rapists is unkind.

Shorter Ironknee:

“I can’t be bothered to understand how the Church actually reads its Bible because that gets in the way of my simple-minded atheistic fundamentalism.”

Children often take the same approach to all that complicated stuff about Einstein when Newton is just so much simpler.  Why does the scientific priesthood have to make everything so hard?

The cold hard reality that atheist fundamentalists can’t bear to face is that the authors of scripture were, in fact, very sophisticated literary artists.  If they have the patience to try to grasp that, they would, in fact, be amazed at how sophisticated.  But the self-congratulating narrative the New Atheists have imbibed which assures them they are 2000 years smarter than a bunch of ignorant savages keeps them from even beginning to suspect how ignorant they are.  It’s a very poetic sort of doom.

I suspect “Pavel” is a “Poe.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe’s_law

I can’t help but laugh at the atheist comments on here.  It’s like Mark is setting up a joke about atheists, but before he can get out the punch line, the atheists blurt it out in all seriousness…  making it that much funnier.

Beachbum, I would argue that the New Testament has done far more to create “moral progress from bronze age theology” than atheists have. Did Christ, therefor, go against God when he argued, “Moses said an eye for an eye… But *I* say love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you.” Etc.? Was Christ saying that God’s law is wrong? Admitting that God’s morality was, as you put it, “just as primitive as the Hebrews were?” The apparent contradictions between old and new testament are often used as a sword by atheists. In fact, Christ’s new covenant was used as a sword by ancient Jews as well. They condemned Jesus to death for breaking the old laws… “Wait, he says we SHOULDN’T stone a woman to death for adultery? What’s this guy think he is? A revolutionary?” Fundamentalist Jews of Christ’s time and atheists of our time seem to agree that people should either embrace the old ways or drop God entirely. One or the other. Because to otherwise creates a contradiction and that is proof that God doesn’t exist. Hmmm. OR! Maybe the explanation in Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation Of Christ” was correct… And referencing this movie will get me into trouble from atheists AND Christians… But never-the-less, I persist… When Jesus was asked something to the effect of, “Are you saying God wants us to disobey His own laws?” Jesus responded, “No. He just thinks your hearts are ready for more.” It’s like my dad says… “Some kids are easy to discipline because you just have to say you’re disappointed in them and they feel remorse. Other kids need a spanking.” Maybe the ancient Jews needed a spanking? But when their hearts were ready, He “humbled Himself to share in our humanity.”

Posted by Pavel on Monday, Apr 16, 2012 4:41 PM (EST):
“‘[c]an observe evidence of changes in human culture over thousands of years that demonstrate increases in intelligence, knowledge, empathy, imagination, planning ability and abstract thinking. As an example, we have found Neanderthals deliberately buried with grave goods.’

“You are a captive of popular journalism.”

Do you disagree with mainstream anthropological thinking that over time homo sapiens (and our ancestors and cousins) displayed increasingly sophisticated tool-making abilities, progressed to living in larger communities, engaged in trading with other communities, showed increasing ability to pass on knowledge from generation to generation, began to produce art, etc.?

@ Mark Shea

That’s your rebuttal? “It’s complicated.” LOL.
 
Let’s see if I can simplify this for you and your readers. All scientific knowledge is provisional, Mark. Science makes no claims to “Truth” so it gets to be complex, nuanced and incomplete. Religion does not get to be both “Truth” and incomplete. You can’t have it both ways.

You can’t have it both ways.

Scratch an atheist, find a fundamentalist.

Pavel wrote:

“Is it only my opinion if I say that some things are right and some things are wrong?”

Yes. There’s no objective standard of right and wrong, and reasonable people can disagree.  If you think, e.g., homosexuality is wrong, that is an opinion.

“Is it only my opinion if I say a herring is not a hippopotamus, and a vacuum cleaner is not an oil painting?”

No. Those are matters of objective fact.  You may hold the opinion that a herring *is* a hippopotamus or a rabbit is a ruminant, but any reasonable person will conclude your opinion is wrong.

On the topic of gay marriage, some people hold the opinion that homosexuality is wrong and gay marriage must not be allowed.  As an opinion, that looks like bigotry.  Anti-gay Christians try to mask that with the Bible.  “I know it looks bigoted, but the Bible tells me it’s actually good, even though I can’t explain why.”

That argument (“appeal to authority”) is reasonable, but its validity is based on two points:

- how reliable the authority is, and
- how consistently you trust that authority.

If you believe every word of the Bible is literally true, this is a strong argument.  To argue with a fundamentalist I need to prove the Bible isn’t reliable. 

But if you admit (like Shea) that some parts of the Bible are immoral (e.g., justifying slavery or genocide), you’re admitting it’s a weak authority that you don’t always trust.  That means you need to justify why you trust it on homosexuality, but not slavery. Unless you can provide some objective standard for interpreting the Bible, your interpretation is simply your opinion. 

That means instead of arguing, “It’s my opinion gay marriage is wrong,” you’re arguing, “It’s my opinion the Bible proves gay marriage is wrong.”  Either way, the argument is based on your opinion.  If the first argument implies your opinion is bigoted, so does the second.  Hiding behind the Bible gains you nothing—unless you’re a fundamentalist.

Ye Olde Statistician wrote about denying marriage rights to GLBT people:

“Actually, it’s more like denying that such a union is marriage.  One reads news stories of a woman who “married” the Eiffel Tower, another woman who “married” herself, and a man in Australia who “married” his golden retriever.  It would be callous to deny the depth of feelings these people may have for their Significant Others”

You mean, more callous than comparing their Significant Other to an inanimate landmark or a dog?

“but what they have done is not marriage.  For details, consult a history of the institution.”

Not long ago you could have said, “Women casting ballots is not voting, because historically only men could vote.”  Or that “Slavery has been legal for thousands of years, so it’s ridiculous to claim it’s wrong.”

I’m sure you don’t want to strip women of the right to vote, or legalize slavery.  Since you don’t honor “historical tradition” for those institutions, why do you think history is correct about marriage?

You might have argued, “It’s my opinion same-sex marriage is wrong.”  Instead, you’ve said, “It’s my opinion that history is correct when it says same-sex marriage is wrong, though history is incorrect on many other things.”

Either way, it’s just your opinion.  Invoking history doesn’t make your argument any stronger.  I argue that there’s no reason to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.  Your counter is, “There is a reason: my opinion.”

“
Are the things I listed morally defensible or not, Mark?

I think that by “morally defensible” he means “good”, though I can’t be sure.  As a fundamentalist atheist, his approach to things does not allow for a lot of nuance.
“

The so-called ‘reasonable’  atheist here commits a grave fallacy, or series of fallacies.

Here he’s attacking a point through ambiguity, just like Dawkins.

First they use t6he fallacy called ‘appeal to emotion’. They cite some passage or anecdote and milk it for ‘emotional appeal’. Not a very ‘reason-based’ approach… more like a sycophant approach.

Second fallacy is ambiguity as you point out. they use terms as ‘morally acceptable’, ‘good’  and the like but they are very vague on what they exactly mean by such terms. Actually in their discourse the meaning of such terms keeps shifting.

Third and finally fallacy is the pure incoherence of their arguments. With one hand they try to prove some thing is ‘immoral’ and with the other they claim there is no such thing as moral or immoral but just ‘point of views’.

This is clear in Dawkins approach as well. He will rant about ‘God being a moral monster’, i.e. claiming that he is evil and immoral, but then he will immediately concede with people like Peter Singer that morality is relative, hence it is absurd and incoherent to call someone moral or immoral.

So Dawkins and his little ‘new-atheist’  drones appear to present a argument but in reality they present only a series of incoherent rants.

In the end the very same arguments that Dawkins (& co.) uses against God, i.e. an argument from morality, is the very same argument they MUST refute! Conceding that there are absolute moral values (which are necessary if one wants to give any menaingful ethical judgment) is conseding that their reductive materialist view of the world is wrong… and that view is the view upon which their atheism is based…

Basically Dawkins & co. contraddict themselves, showing that their own ‘belief system’  is utterly incoherent and flawed.

Posted by F.M. on Tuesday, Apr 17, 2012 11:29 AM (EST):
“Conceding that there are absolute moral values (which are necessary if one wants to give any menaingful ethical judgment) is conseding that [atheists’] reductive materialist view of the world is wrong… and that view is the view upon which their atheism is based… ”

It depends on how you define “meaningful.” I define “meaningful” ethical judgments as workable, harmonious with the hard-wiring in our brains inclining us to empathy and fairness, and tending to improve the lives of most people in the community. That said, my ideas of what is moral are rooted in the traditional, Western morality I acquired during childhood. Any traditional morality is the product of generations of human experience, and is highly valuable. There’s no need to attribute it to a supernatural being to recognize that it has value.

But it changes. We no longer believe it is moral to burn heretics in the streets. We have traded community harmony in religious beliefs for greater personal freedom.  At one time religious people said the Bible required heretic burning. Now it is clear to them that the Bible forbids it. Well, OK, but the Bible didn’t change.  The culture experienced by the people reading the Bible changed the way they interpreted it. That is why Quakers reading the Bible see that war is clearly immoral, and Baptists reading the Bible know that God blessed the U.S. troops as they invaded Afghanistan.

I think this is actually the true triumph of the great storytellers who wrote the various books of Bible, and the people who chose what books would make up the Bible. They created a masterpiece of writings about human nature that could be claimed by any human culture and used to support that culture’s morality at any point in time. And certainly it has influenced the development of Western culture, in both good and bad ways.

When atheists concede that there is no absolute morality, many people of faith pretend to believe that means atheists have no morals (why aren’t you out there raping and killing?), despite the fact that this is demonstrably untrue. I think that is the main reason many atheists avoid talking about this conclusion that follows logically from a materialist view. Besides that, we all want to believe that our gut feelings about right and wrong ARE absolute. However we can’t posit the existence of a supernatural source of morality just because we want this to be true.

@Mark

You just continue to weasel your way out of directly answering the arguments. It’s okay, that’s tyipcal behavior for belivers. At this point it’s patently obvious to anyone following the thread that you want literal or allegorical interpretation of scripture whenever it suits your own personal interests. The method for determining the difference? It’s complicated! LOL.
 
There really is nothing funnier than trying to get a believer to stand by their own claims.

ironkee, can’t you see that you are arguing Mark’s point?  That’s why the Church has to be *one* so that you don’t end up with the yellow pages—with dozens and dozens claiming to be “The First Church of—-”—all with a different opinion “based on scripture”...  Ha, ha at least none of them has the nerve to call themselves “The First Church of Peter.”(not that I know of anyhow)  The Catholic Church decided which books would go in the Bible.  The Catholic church has NEVER taught that the Bible is the final, definitive source of it’s theology.  If you want to rip on the Catholic Church, you should at least find out what we consider actual *dogma*.  Teachings on marriage for instance are inspired by this dogma, but are not defined as such. BTW, the Catholic Church would also say that a “marriage” between a man and a woman who are not “open to life”, is not a marriage either.

@Cowalker, this is kind of funny—at my son’s high school, a few years ago they did a cool project where they pricked their fingers and were able to decipher generally their ancestry.  One French kid in the class, named Boris had some Neanderthal blood.  Lol, they wouldn’t let him forget it…
.
The Blogsphere and these threads are fascinating at times, and then just tedious.  Atheism threads tend to bring out the drive by snipers and a few genuinely malevolent people.  It’s interesting how one can “get to know” the tone of another person if you read enough of their comments on different threads.  I do appreciate your civil tone, and measured objections.  It also seems to me that you would *allow* for the possibility that the divine spark of your intelligence has it’s source in God.

Hi, Anna Lisa. That is funny about your son’s classmate. I believe geneticists say up to about 4% of some people’s DNA originates from Neanderthal ancestors. I think it would be very cool to know that about oneself.

I would feel rude and ban-worthy if I came to a believer’s site and insulted believers. But I do like to argue, and spread ideas around, and get reactions to them. I like to hear ideas that are new to me too.  It was partly reading here that made me understand that an atheist can’t defend the concept of absolute morality. It’s more interesting when we focus on ideas instead of straw-men and stereotypes. There are some crazy stereotypes out there of both Catholics and atheists.

I agree that we cannot KNOW that there is no God, but my experience does not persuade me that there is.

Co-walker:

I’m glad you’ve seen that atheism cannot defend the concept of absolute morality.  I hope that does not prompt you to abandon the possibility that there is such a thing as moral absolutes, but instead prompts you to ask, “How is it that we do, in fact, grasp there certain things are, in fact, good and evil and not mere subjective preferences?”  That will take you to Thomas’ fourth demonstration of the existence of God.  Atheism is not immoral.  It is typically intensely moralistic.  I talks a good moral game.  What it cannot do is account for where it get morality from or why it is transcendant and obligatory on the conscience.  It knows only Is and cannot in a million years derive Ought apart from a God.

@Irenist

First, thanks for the nice reply.  I apologize for skipping most of it—I wrote a complete response and realized it was just too big for this forum, and distracts from the point I was trying to make (and wish to defend).

I don’t mean to attack all believers.  I’m discussing (per Mr. Shea’s article) why one class of Christians - those who cite the Bible as an excuse for supporting unpopular ideas - is still immoral if they selectively uphold certain verses of the Bible but not others.  If one says homosexuality is wrong but eating shellfish is OK (despite MT 5:18, where Jesus states he is NOT revoking the old law), their choice of which to uphold reveals things about their nature, not just the Bible.

“Catholicism, however, takes as its twin pillars of authority the Bible and Sacred Tradition.”

For my purposes, that’s irrelevant; it’s the same argument as for the Bible.  If a Catholic upholds the Sacred Tradition about homosexuals but selectively ignores other portions of it, they can’t hide behind the argument, “I rely on Sacred Tradition.”

“As it happens, I am for the most part a political liberal, and I positively LOATHE this teaching, which in my gut does not feel true.”

“However, it would be lazy of me to rely upon arguments like yours, merely because they emotionally appeal to me.  The historical record is too clear (...); the condemnation of such behavior is ancient and it is consistent. Just because you and I don’t like the truth doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

But the Bible and Catholic tradition are NOT truth. Truth requires objective proof, and they have none.  You’ve chosen to *accept* them as truth without proof, and you are morally culpable for that choice.

I can tell you’re a nice person, but to my ears your argument sounds like exactly what I’m denouncing.  You are upholding an idea that seems evil.  You don’t want to be hated for that, so you say “I don’t *like* the idea, but my choice of religion compels me to uphold it.”  You’ve handed over your free will to your Church, and you think that absolves you of responsibility for your subsequent actions?

I don’t excuse religious people for doing bad things because the Bible or their church tells them to. And if God existed, neither would he.  Let me (cynically) put this in terms of the faithful:  That “gut feeling” you mentioned, that makes you loathe the Church’s teachings on homosexuality?  That is God speaking to you.  Have a little faith in yourself. You’re a better person that the ones you’ve chosen to follow.

If one says homosexuality is wrong but eating shellfish is OK

Actually, the prohibition on shellfish (and other trayf) is only in the Mosaic Law, and was never intended for Gentiles.  However, the ban on sexual relations outside of marriage is part of the Noahidic Covenant, which observant Jews consider binding on all humanity.

Bill, I can see how you atheists can miss the sublimity of divine teaching, but I’m always curious how the absurdity of your own escapes you. 

Atheists are always looking for “objective proof,” like they’re intellectual creatures of the 18th Century.  For the past twenty generations, intellectuals on the cutting edge have been questioning objective proof as a valid criteria for reality. 

In fact, walk into any cinema (a good barometer of popular ideas) and you will see “objective proof” stretched into a million different dimensions.  Whether it’s dream sequences, historical reshuffling of the narrative, ghosts, mythical warriors from Mars - objective proof is even losing validity in logics textbooks. 

People are losing trust in your type of objective proof as being meaningful in any way shape or form.  And in fact, in a deconstuctionist universe, the objective facts you’re trust in are really snails-pace pathetic.  If you’re relying on that type of logic to establish the existence and transcendence of God, I’ll see you in another order of magnitude.

@ Matt B

“Atheists are always looking for “objective proof,” like they’re intellectual creatures of the 18th Century.  For the past twenty generations, intellectuals on the cutting edge have been questioning objective proof as a valid criteria for reality.”

Yet science, relying on objective proof, has given you a longer life than your ancestors could hope for. Which intellectuals are you talking about, and what valuable information have they gained without objective proof?

I wrote, “Truth requires objective proof”. You seem to claim it does not.

In one sense I suppose you’re right.  If I guess that the population of Hoboken is 275,144 people, that might be true even though I didn’t arrive at it through objective evidence. 

But it’s not enough to have the right answer; for truth to have value requires confidence. If Hoboken is flooded, you wouldn’t allocate emergency provisions for 275,144 people just because I guessed that number, you’d want proof that my guess is true. (And you’d find that the true number is more like 50,005, our best estimate.)

“In fact, walk into any cinema (a good barometer of popular ideas) and you will see “objective proof” stretched into a million different dimensions.  Whether it’s dream sequences, historical reshuffling of the narrative, ghosts, mythical warriors from Mars…”

You lost me here.  You don’t think “Harry Potter” was true just because you saw it at the movies, do you?  Has there been a rash of brain concussions from people bumping their heads into brick walls at railway stations, hoping to find Hogwarts?  That people enjoy fiction doesn’t mean they reject reality.

“People are losing trust in your type of objective proof as being meaningful in any way shape or form.”

Honestly, I don’t see that. At the risk of infinite regression, I have to ask: what proof do you have for that claim?

Hmm, I really wonder where you find atheists such as those you’ve described.  Maybe they are a dime a dozen if you know where to look. I’ve never had any religion and nor any belief in a god, so if pressed I describe myself as an atheist.  Yet I feel I have no common ground with the atheists you describe other than a lack of belief in a god.  Perhaps if more people would live and let live and worry about their own vices and virtues before worrying about those of others the world just might be a better place.

Bill, even if I take for granted your claim that science has given us a longer life, I’d have to add the qualifier: compared to what?  Scripture records the life-span of the early patriarchs as ranging up to over 900 years.  In any event, I wonder if you could compute a more accurate measure of the “long life” science has given us, like years of worry/lifespan; or lifespan/meaning.  I bet you could chart some useful trends.

It’s interesting that when you mention Hoboken, you immediately think of natural disasters.  I guess that’s the remaining good use for science: disaster remediation.  It hasn’t been much good at disaster avoidance.  In fact, for every “good of science” I could probably name 10 “perversions of science.”  Once again, you’re making the mistake of the displaced normative.  You compare life now with what it was, and not with what it could have been.

I’m ashamed to say it, but I don’t have the least notion about your HP reference.  I skip books with witches, magic wands and evil curses: too much verisimilitude for me.  My point is that fiction doesn’t take away from objective reality, it contributes to our knowledge and understanding of it.  It puts it into context and gives it meaning.  I know of few human beings who prefer the laboratory to the viewing room of the imagination.

Holy Scripture is where imagination meets the real.

Climate-gate; Bhopal; statistics; Love Canal; Social Security; Rupert Murdoch; WMD; dengue fever; population control; green jobs; fistulas; US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals; hanging chads; low money down mortgages; Bernie Madoff; steroids; internet viruses; credit default swaps; Dodd-Frank; penumbral rights; Bill and Hillary Clinton.

I am born.

I hope you know that I steal your title phrase from time to time.

Posted by Mark Shea on Tuesday, Apr 17, 2012 2:48 PM (EST):
Co-walker:
“How is it that we do, in fact, grasp there certain things are, in fact, good and evil and not mere subjective preferences?”

I don’t think we do grasp that certain things are good and evil and not mere subjective preferences. We have gut feelings about what is moral and immoral based on our nature and nurture. These are usually the most basic rules that are needed to enable a tribe to survive.

It is wrong to assault (hurt, rape or murder) someone. It is wrong to commit fraud. It is wrong to steal. It is wrong for an adult to renege on responsibilities or promises. It is wrong for an adult to fail to protect and nurture a child.

There is no need to imagine a divine origin for these rules. We can see that humans who followed this morality were the ones who survived. On the side each tribe developed its own specific rules/customs about sex, modesty, gender roles, the ways to obtain power and privilege, forbidden foods, religious objects, etc. Some of these rules were more useful in distinguishing one tribe from another than in controlling behavior that truly threatened the survival of the tribe.

But what about outside the tribe? Our biggest problem now is that we haven’t developed a morality that enables us to make the globe run. The white tribe that landed on the shores of the Americas in the 16th century might have agreed that it was wrong to kill your neighbor and steal his land. They also agreed that this moral did not apply to Native Americans. But the kicker is, these Europeans and native-born white Americans were convinced they were following the moral absolutes of Christianity. I don’t see how claiming to have knowledge of an absolute morality helps in actual moral decisions. It is always, always a matter of agreeing on definitions and priorities, and who has the right to make the distinctions.

As you and Anna Lisa have pointed out, if there were a God who defined absolute morality, the only way that a human could know what that is, is through revelation. If it is an ongoing process of gradually revealing it, the only way it could happen is through a personal revelation to each and every human being, or a revelation to some designated individuals. How would I choose among the various imams of various Muslim sects, the representatives of different Christian sects (including the Pope), the leader of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, the Dalai Lama, or the leaders of various Hindu sects? What about those who say that God is revealing morality through the process of conflicts between the laity and the religious hierarchies? How do I know they are wrong about this? How do I know they are right? If there were a Creator who wanted to communicate its absolute morality, why would it be so spotty and indirect in accomplishing this?

The most reasonable explanation for human morality is that it is the constantly changing product of collective human experience. That fits the facts. I don’t need to add a supernatural element.

Mark, scratch an atheist find a fundamentalist! It occurred to me last night having watched a lecture by Stephen Meyer on the implications of Crick and Watsons discovery of the DNA molecule (here is a link for anyone interested - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbluTDb1Nfs&feature=player_embedded)

Not only do diehard Atheists reveal they often are merely fundamentalists, but the way they hold to their BELEIFS despite the true implications of scientific discovery, they really are the equivalent of the flat earth society.. people who stubbornly hold outdated notions, despite the 0verwhelming conclusions revealed through the discoveries of Catholic scientists Copernicus and Galileo!

cowalker: Occam’s razor.  Atheism is the simpler theory, why not use it?  Basically because of exactly what you say.  The organic response hypothesis invites a human being to wallow in his humanness like an amoeba in its petri dish.  You don’t have to do anything - just be yourself.

On the other hand, for precisely the reasons you describe, belief in God invites us to aspire, increase, go beyond.  The practical applications are astounding.  For every George Custer there is a Francis or an Anthony.  For every Hitler there is Karol.  You could probably chart the ascent of man by graphing each individuals personal response to God, and aggregating it.  This personal response of each individual defines whether we reach our destined goal, or become the fossilized remains of some future species of ant.

Your pessimism and confusion are endemic to our time of too much information, but no enough knowledge.  Everybody has seen the bloody images of seal cubs being bludeoned on the tundra, but nobody knows exactly what to do about it.  Christianity in particular and faith in general is all about making sense of the senselessness - striving at it like your life depended on it.  It does.

I also like your generalization of Christianity to include American expansionism in the 19th Century.  That’s like saying that Einstein, that great secular saint, is responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki; or Fermi is responsible for the electrified fences of Aushewitz.  Is that really logical?

Posted by Matt B on Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 6:15 AM (EST):
“I also like your generalization of Christianity to include American expansionism in the 19th Century.  That’s like saying that Einstein, that great secular saint, is responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki; or Fermi is responsible for the electrified fences of Aushewitz.  Is that really logical?”

I’m just saying that the moral absolutes people claim to have don’t have much influence outside their perceived “tribe.”  I’m not saying that Christian morality CAUSED American expansionists to behave as they did. They just took care to interpret it so that it didn’t interfere with the more powerful drives of their culture. 

Actually Einstein did write a letter to President Roosevelt urging that America focus on researching nuclear weapons that was probably the single greatest influence in convincing him to initiate the Manhattan Project. That doesn’t make Einstein responsible for the decisions to use the atomic bomb of course, but he did play a big role in its development.

Posted by Matt B on Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 5:45 AM (EST):
“cowalker: Occam’s razor.  Atheism is the simpler theory, why not use it?  Basically because of exactly what you say.  The organic response hypothesis invites a human being to wallow in his humanness like an amoeba in its petri dish.”

This where we have to agree to disagree. You don’t accept materialism because you don’t want it to be true, even if it is the simplest hypothesis and it explains the known facts. OK.

Bill Thacker:

“There’s no objective standard of right and wrong”

“You are upholding an idea that seems evil.”

You can’t have it both ways.

@Ironknee: “Let’s see if I can simplify this for you and your readers. All scientific knowledge is provisional, Mark. Science makes no claims to “Truth” so it gets to be complex, nuanced and incomplete. Religion does not get to be both “Truth” and incomplete. You can’t have it both ways.”
—
“At this point it’s patently obvious to anyone following the thread that you want literal or allegorical interpretation of scripture whenever it suits your own personal interests. The method for determining the difference? It’s complicated! LOL.”
—
Reply to quote two: Please remove stick from bum and try again.
—
Reply to quote one: Bull. Science is complicated because reality is complicated. Of course it doesn’t claim absolute truth, but that’s irrelevant to its complexity.
—
But lets examine what you mean by complex, shall we? The fundamentals of science are not really that complicated (hard to understand, yes, complicated, not so much), and where they are complicated is exactly where we study them to try to make them simpler. Science sees a whole bunch of enormously complicated effects and tries to find the simple rules governing them.
—
The rules are simple. There’s a lot of stuff floating around interacting in ways which are, fundamentally, quiet simple, and yet the sheer amount of stuff and the interactions between the interactions between the etc. lead to an amazingly complex cosmos. From our four forces of nature (or 2 and some conditions, or whatever), we get everything from dust particles to amazingly complex biological creatures sitting around arguing about Truth.
—
Simple premise. Complex result. Complexity arises from the multitude of interactions and possibilities and the sheer amount of stuff.
—
===>THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS WITH RELIGIOUS STATEMENTS.<====
—
The only reason why you only see the complexity here is because you refuse to look at the 4 forces (or 2 really, or even 1 when you get right down to it, we’ve finished our unification some time ago). Hint: what some random atheist thinks scripture means is not a fundamental “force.”

In regards to my previous comment: I was ignoring the “incomplete” part because we don’t think the truth is “incomplete”. (Although our knowledge of it is.)

“Allow Dawkins to blather about how Old Testament Jews were a small tribe of ignorant savages and brutal barbarians who were way behind us in their understanding of 21st century moral standards, not to mention in their grasp of biology and the art of making blenders and microwaves.”

As I recall, it was Pell who first argued that the Jews of old were an ignorant, backward people. The moderator even pushed him for clarification, and he fully supported that sentiment a second time.

It would take an article 3 times the length of this one to expound on all the other things you said that were entirely wrong or misleading, so I thought I’d just point out the one that struck me first.

ironknee:
All scientific knowledge is provisional 
...
YOS
o Acceleration due to gravity at sea level on Earth is 32 ft/sec^2
o There are mountains on the moon. 
o A body under uniform acceleration will traverse the same distance in a specified time as a body under uniform velocity at the mean velocity of the acceleration.
o White light is composed of a spectrum of colors.
o The blood is pumped by the heart through the arteries and returns through the veins.
o The combination of four parts hydrochloric acid with one part manganese dioxide will form chlorine gas with water and manganese chloride byproducts.
Which of these are provisional?
+ + +
thacker
Yet science, relying on objective proof, has given you a longer life than your ancestors could hope for.
...
YOS
According to ironknee, that’s only provisional. 
...
But perhaps we ought to give some credit to technology and public sanitation.  Draining a swamp ain’t science.

Once again, science is relegated to a corner of experimentation:  ” ... science, relying on objective proof, has given you a longer life than your ancestors could hope for.  ... “.  A number of my ancestors, most dead, a few living, reached their nineties.  The one living is one hundred.  You think, that I have hope:  to live as long?  What objective proof do you possess about me?  Statistically, for my age, and gender, I am expected to live to the age of seventy-seven.  When I turn seventy-seven:  I am expected to live to eighty-six.  When I turn eighty-six:  I am expected to live to ninety-one.  When I turn ninety-one:  I am expected to live to ninety-five.  When I turn ninety-five:  I am expected to live to ninety-eight.  When I turn ninety-eight:  I am expected to live to 100.  When I turn 100:  I am expected to live to 102.  When I turn 102:  I am expected to live to ... I am expected to live to 119, at which point I am expected to live another six months.  Whatever objective proofs these expectations appear to be based on are probably all dead.  One thing to expect:  being born gets you a life expectancy of seventy-five years.  Living gives you another forty-five.  What in the hell did you need scientific objective proofs to tell you that for?  Duh.

“Actually, it’s more like denying that such a union is marriage.  One reads news stories of a woman who “married” the Eiffel Tower…
...
@bill thacker
You mean, more callous than comparing their Significant Other to an inanimate landmark or a dog? 
...
YOS
Greater familiarity with logic and reason might be helpful.  No such comparison was made.  Cf. “objective evidence.” 
And what’s with the animus against objectum-sexuals? 
+ + +
@bill thacker
I’m sure you don’t want to strip women of the right to vote, or legalize slavery.
...
YOS
But you wanted to imply it.  Otherwise, why bring up incorrect analogies at all?  The usual rhetorical fallacy of “poisoning the well.” 
+ + +
@bill thacker
Not long ago you could have said, “Women casting ballots is not voting, because historically only men could vote.”  Or that “Slavery has been legal for thousands of years, so it’s ridiculous to claim it’s wrong.”
...
YOS
Again, your logic is faulty.  There is nothing in the nature of voting that precludes women from doing so.  Indeed, in the Middle Ages, women peasants are known to have voted in manorial elections.  With the Age of Reason, the status of women deteriorated rapidly. 
...
The slavery analogy is more faulty.  The question is not whether a duty ought to exist, but whether one is by definition able to assume those duties.  A proper analogy would have been for a free man to claim that he too was a slave (and entitled to the rights of any other slave) simply because he works hard, “just like a slave.”  Again, during the Middle Ages, slavery disappeared from Western Europe, but was revived and re-invigorated by the Age of Reason. 
...
May I suggest the following more appropriate analogies: 
o Why should Hydrogen not be included among the Noble Gasses?  Are we dissing Hydrogen, saying it is ignoble?  Is this not an example of Hydro-phobia? 
o Why should the Horseshoe Crab not be included among the Brachyurids?  Isn’t our refusal to count them as “Crabs” an example of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy? 
o Why should the figure-8 not be included among the “simple” curves of topology?  Yet, mazes - which are really complicated-looking - are counted as “simple”!  This is a clear example of bigotry! 
o Why is not Creationism counted as a Science?  Hunh?  Pure prejudice and “historical tradition.”
+ + +
@bill thacker
Since you don’t honor “historical tradition” for those institutions, why do you think history is correct about marriage? 
...
YOS
Because of the actual nature of marriage.  As a civil institution it imposes certain duties and obligations on a copulating couple to care for and raise any offspring that may result from their copulation.  There are limitations on consanguinity of partners, requirements for faithfulness, obligations to support, and so on.  This is not “historical tradition” but definition.  Fact is, no one ever figured there was a compelling State interest in regulating and controlling any other sort of friendship or bond. 
+ + +
@bill thacker
you’ve said, “It’s my opinion that history is correct when it says same-sex marriage is wrong, though history is incorrect on many other things.”
. . .
YOS
“Nescire autem quid antequam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.”—M.Tullius Cicero, Orator Ad M. Brutum
+ + +
@bill thacker
Either way, it’s just your opinion. 
. . .
YOS
That’s just your opinion.
+ + +
@bill thacker
I argue that there’s no reason to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.  Your counter is, “There is a reason: my opinion.”
. . .
YOS
No more than denying me the right to give birth.

@cowalker, As to all of the religious traditions in the world—go back and read what Mark wrote about this in the last atheism thread.  It’s beautiful. Many of these faiths and cultures contain varying degrees of truth.  Saint Paul speaks of the “noble savage”.  Personally, I agree with someone way up the thread who notes how we have used science to be more barbaric than in any other period of history. You called the desire for goodness the result of our collective experience, but Catholics believe that ALL humans of every race and tribe have knowledge of God written in their souls.  Does this mean that a Buddhist or a Hindu or a homosexual might enter heaven before a Catholic rule freak, who obsesses on the “law” over LOVE?  OH YEAH. We saw what Jesus had to say about those folks. (“hello” purgation)—Catholics know they must keep fighting **themselves**to “evolve”—that we are on a journey.  We know we don’t have ALL the answers.  Satan “knows” more than all of us combined. We try not to get scandalized by suffering because we see how it serves to purify us—even though the pleasure-loving beast in us rebels. (You have kids, right? You’ve seen how the hard lessons work? ) Death ceases to be an awful affront to us, because it is merely the darkness of a birth canal. *** No, Jesus Christ is not a myth***.  You know that.  Yes, he turned back to go to Jerusalem because he CHOSE to.  The way he would die was prophesied for thousands of years, when God was beginning to gather “a stiff necked people” in order to tell them bedtime stories about Himself. Cowalker, have you ever sat in a kindergarten classroom and listened to impassioned little five-year-olds talk to each other about what matters to them?  They BLUSTER.  They BOAST about what they KNOW. They’re ADAMANT that they are right. Isn’t their reality *COMICAL*???—well that’s how we look—ALL OF US, HERE ON THIS THREAD.  (I suppose it must endear us to Him)

@ Matt B:

“even if I take for granted your claim that science has given us a longer life”

You don’t HAVE to take that for granted.  I’ve made a claim about an objective fact, so it’s possible for you to verify it (or prove me wrong).  That’s the nice thing about objective proof.

“I’d have to add the qualifier: compared to what?”

Compared to humans who lived before the 20th century.

“Scripture records the life-span of the early patriarchs as ranging up to over 900 years.”

Do you believe that?  I think it’s just a myth, like The Iliad or Star Wars.

“In any event, I wonder if you could compute a more accurate measure of the “long life” science has given us, like years of worry/lifespan; or lifespan/meaning.”

I didn’t say we have *better* lives.  I think we do, but I have no objective way to prove that. It’s a subjective claim.

I specifically said “longer lives” because lifespan can be objectively measured.  We may disagree about how much meaning my life has compared to yours, but we both agree that 65 years is longer than 64. Are you going to argue that you wish your children had a SHORTER life expectancy?

“It’s interesting that when you mention Hoboken, you immediately think of natural disasters.”

I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard stories. :-)

“I guess that’s the remaining good use for science: disaster remediation.  It hasn’t been much good at disaster avoidance.”

You just stepped… nay, leapt off the deep end.

How many Japanese *didn’t* die in the 2011 tsunami because they were warned by the Pacific tsunami detection system?  How many people didn’t die in New Orleans because they listened to the NOAA warnings and evacuated before Katrina hit?  How many millions of people haven’t died of typhus, smallpox, bubonic plague and polio since science found ways to contain them? 

Your blindness to the benefits of science is pathetic, even disingenuous.

“In fact, for every “good of science” I could probably name 10 “perversions of science.””

I’ll eagerly take that bet.  Here are 13 “goods” science has done:

- eliminated smallpox
- ditto rinderpest
- nearly eliminated maternal neonatal tetanus
- ditto polio
- ditto dracunculiasis
- drastically reduced malaria
- ditto lymphatic filariasis
- ditto measles
- ditto rubella
- ditto onchocerciasis
- ditto yaws
- ditto bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)
- ditto Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD)

That took less than a minute of my time. Give me 130 “perversions of science”, and I’ll provide the next list.

“Once again, you’re making the mistake of the displaced normative.  You compare life now with what it was, and not with what it could have been.”

Oh, now I understand your argument.  “Even if science had made our lives better than it was, science has failed because I can imagine something better than it achieved.” 

You’re pulling my leg, right?  By your standard, nothing can be a success unless it achieves total perfection.  Anything short of that is inferior to “what might have been”.

I mean really, Matt, you sound like a politician. “During the incumbent’s term he cured diseases, increased wealth, and eliminated hunger and poverty. But if *I* had been in charge we would have done all that PLUS invented flying cars and ended all crime.  So vote for me instead of the failed policies of the past.”

@ Noah Doyle

“Bill Thacker:
“There’s no objective standard of right and wrong”
“You are upholding an idea that seems evil.”
You can’t have it both ways.”

Those are both the *same* way.

That there’s no objective standard of right and wrong does not preclude me from having a *subjective* standard that lets me judge an idea as evil.  The absence of an objective standard simply means that if you disagree with my judgment I have no way to prove I’m right and you’re wrong.

That’s why I wrote, “an idea that *seems* evil” instead of “an idea that *is* evil.” I can’t prove something *is* evil, but I have perfect knowledge of what *seems* evil to me.

@ Ye Olde Statistician

You seem to have accepted my point that historical precedent doesn’t make an institution right.  You’ve modified your argument to claim that the very nature of marriage precludes same-sex couples from doing so.  This is a sound approach to the question, if you can back it up.

And what is it “in the nature of marriage” that makes same-sex marriage an oxymoron?  You wrote,
“As a civil institution it [marriage] imposes certain duties and obligations on a copulating couple to care for and raise any offspring that may result from their copulation.”

As a civil institution marriage in the United States doesn’t even REQUIRE copulation.  Inmates on death row have gotten married to wives they knew they could never sleep with before their execution.  You can get married even if your genitals were shot off in a war.

And marriage is in no way contingent on childbirth.  Vasectomized men can get married.  We don’t force women to divorce their husbands after menopause renders them infertile or revoke the marriages of childless couples.

If a couple *does* produce a pregnancy, they can legally abort it without losing their marriage license, or carry it to term then give the newborn infant over to adoption. Marriage doesn’t require you to raise your offspring.

Some heterosexual couples can’t procreate, so they adopt children. Do you see that as a sham marriage?  Gay couples can adopt, too.  Heterosexual women sometimes use artificial insemination; so do lesbians.

You see, all these arguments have been tried, and failed, in the numerous recent lawsuits about gay marriage.  Your side keeps losing those court battles because these arguments are lame.

“Fact is, no one ever figured there was a compelling State interest in regulating and controlling any other sort of friendship or bond. “

Clearly you’ve never heard of Contract Law.  Marriage, under US law, is simply a particular type of contract, and nothing in its nature requires one penis and one vagina.

[I can’t love that Creator. I was deliberately created so that I couldn’t understand it…]

Okay… if not love, do you think you could still be at least a *little* thankful to “that Creator” for your existence?

@Bill Thacker
You seem to have accepted my point that historical precedent doesn’t make an institution right. 
...
YOS
Actually, you seem to have realized that I never asserted that in the first place.
Besides, if “There’s no objective standard of right and wrong,” as some have said, then there is nothing that can make an “institution” right or wrong.
+ + +
@Bill Thacker
And what is it “in the nature of marriage” that makes same-sex marriage an oxymoron? 
. . .
Plato:
The Athenian. What will be our first law? Will not the order of nature begin by making regulations for states about births?

Cleanthes. He will.

The Athenian. In all states the birth of children goes back to the connection of marriage?

Cleanthes. Very true.

The Athenian. And, according to the true order, the laws relating to marriage should be those which are first determined in every state?

Cleanthes. Quite so.
+ + +

Since we do not make laws against particular individuals but only for the general, there is no reason for hosts of individual exceptions.  A man-woman coupling has the potential for generating children, even if the man has a vasectomy.  There have been cases.  There have even been cases of prisoners released from death row at the last minute.  You may look forward to an all-intrusive government tailoring laws to each individual person, but many others do not.

The inability or unwillingness of one partner to accept children has been recognized as grounds for annulment or dissolution at least as far back as the Code of Khamurapi.  Such immaturity is accepted even by diocesan marriage tribunals as evidence that one (or both) partners did not contract marriage in good faith. 

However, other objective goods hold that even if one discovers that one’s spouse is apparently sterile, it is not good to cast her off by the wayside or throw acid in her face or any other charming custom of various civil societies.  (Not that there is any objective right or wrong….)  If the contract was entered into in good faith, there is no good reason to dissolve it.  And besides, “sterile” spouses have conceived before.  Sometimes shortly after going the adoption route. 

You are absolutely correct that people who have no intention of allowing children to get in their way, who may even kill those children lest they be born, can certainly not be said to be providing a safe environment for their offspring and maybe ought to be forbidden to marry.  If there were some way to ensure that they will not run around impregnating women and leaving the country with a class of chronically impoverished single mothers. 
+ + +
Consider a parallel contract: that of a business.  There is no question that the end (or purpose) of a business is to make money.  Yet we recognize a business as a business even if it doesn’t make money. 
So too in marriage, the foundation of marriage is the conjugal union of the man and the woman, and we recognize unions according to their order toward an end, not their success at achieving it.
+ + +
@Bill Thacker
As a civil institution marriage in the United States doesn’t even REQUIRE copulation.
. . .
YOS
But I thought historical precedent didn’t make an institution right!

Posted by anna lisa on Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 3:02 PM (EST):
“You called the desire for goodness the result of our collective experience, but Catholics believe that ALL humans of every race and tribe have knowledge of God written in their souls.”

I’m not sure I’d equate hard-won knowledge of what rules allow a community to survive to a desire for goodness. We are hardwired to thrive on human relationships because humans with that characteristic are the humans who reproduced successfully.  Our measure of goodness is (and it has to be) “Is this good for humans?” Now it would be good for humans if all earthly suffering and unfairness were compensated for in an afterlife, but that does not make it true.

“We try not to get scandalized by suffering because we see how it serves to purify us—even though the pleasure-loving beast in us rebels. (You have kids, right? You’ve seen how the hard lessons work? )”

I’ve seen how the hard lessons don’t work also. That saying that “God never puts anymore on you than you can bear,” never fails to get my hackles up. I’ve seen how bad childhoods and bad experiences produce dysfunctional people who never had a chance at normal development. They often pass that dysfunction on to their own kids. Some people suffer so much that they commit suicide. That is the suffering system not working. That is not surprising, since there is no evidence that suffering is meted out selectively with the intention of achieving a goal. Sometimes it has a postive effect, sometimes it doesn’t. As a parent, I would have been ashamed to use such an indiscriminate and unpredictable discipline with my children. In any case, we can see that animals suffer both physically and mentally in ways very similar to humans. What is the point of that?

“Cowalker, have you ever sat in a kindergarten classroom and listened to impassioned little five-year-olds talk to each other about what matters to them?  They BLUSTER.  They BOAST about what they KNOW. They’re ADAMANT that they are right. Isn’t their reality *COMICAL*???—well that’s how we look—ALL OF US, HERE ON THIS THREAD.  (I suppose it must endear us to Him)”

Five-year-olds are adorable. But I knew even more when I was twelve, and at eighteen I had the solution to every problem on earth. Why didn’t somebody ask me then, because I know so much less now. ;)
In truth though, humans of any age would have more in common with a bacterium than an infinite, omniscient, omnipotent Creator that exists outside the material universe. I don’t understand why believers think it is appropriate to attribute human emotions to this Creator, which may or may not exist.

Ye Olde Statistician wrote:

“Besides, if “There’s no objective standard of right and wrong,” as some have said, then there is nothing that can make an “institution” right or wrong.”

Nothing to make it OBJECTIVELY right or wrong.  We can still make SUBJECTIVE assessments of right and wrong.

“Since we do not make laws against particular individuals but only for the general, there is no reason for hosts of individual exceptions.”

Nobody has asked for a law allowing a particular individual to marry.

I say marriage is a contract between any two individuals.  You say it’s between two individuals of whom one must be male and the other, female, and who want to create children. It’s you, not me, carving exceptions into the general case.  And your exceptions would exclude many heterosexual marriages.

“A man-woman coupling has the potential for generating children, even if the man has a vasectomy.  There have been cases.  There have even been cases of prisoners released from death row at the last minute.”

I reckon you’re among those who claim there has been at least one case of a virgin woman producing a child.  So lesbian couples meet your “potential for generating children” criterion.  What’s your *real* reason for opposing lesbian marriage?

“The inability or unwillingness of one partner to accept children has been recognized as grounds for annulment or dissolution at least as far back as the Code of Khamurapi.”

Only when the other partner wants out of the marriage.  If neither wants a child, they remain happily married.  You’re claiming the government should FORCE people not to be married if they aren’t trying to have babies.  And you accuse ME of wanting invasive government?

“You are absolutely correct that people who have no intention of allowing children (...) maybe ought to be forbidden to marry.”

*Maybe*? You said it was a general rule that marriage is about babies.  You don’t like “individual exceptions”, so why do you tolerate this one?  What should I infer from your strict enforcement of this against same-sex couples, but non-enforcement against opposite-sex couples?

Why don’t we require all applicants for marriage licenses to sign a document stating they “intend to produce children through sexual intercourse”?  This would prevent (on pain of perjury) *everyone* from despoiling the institution of marriage, whether they’re straight or gay, so it’s much better than just banning same-sex marriage.  You should campaign for such a law.

But we both know it would never get passed.  Most Americans disagree with your definition of marriage and think it’s OK to get married even if you don’t want children.

“Consider a parallel contract: that of a business.  There is no question that the end (or purpose) of a business is to make money.”

You’ve never heard of non-profit corporations?  Indeed, you’re free to start a business even if you openly admit you want to LOSE money on it.

YOS, thank you for your time and energy. You’re clearly an intelligent person and you’ve made a valiant attempt to justify your right to deny civil marriage to same-sex couples.  But like everyone who’s advanced those arguments, you base them on premises that are unproven and seem irrational, selfish and bigoted. 

This doesn’t make you a bad person, just a typical human being. I don’t hate you or even blame you, though your ethical reasoning and lack of empathy disappoint me.  I think I’ve learned all I can learn from you and that further discussion would only anger us both. 

I wish you good health and good luck!

Posted by ED on Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 10:05 PM (EST):
“[I can’t love that Creator. I was deliberately created so that I couldn’t understand it…]

“Okay… if not love, do you think you could still be at least a *little* thankful to ‘that Creator’ for your existence?”

That’s an interesting question. There have been times when I was thankful to be alive, and times when I would rather not have been born. Observing the suffereng caused by the evolutionary process, I conclude that if there is a Creator, it doesn’t share my grief over suffering. On the other hand, I don’t have any reason to think it inflicts suffering sadistically. If a Creator set the universe in motion, to me it is simply a force with no “personality,” because that is a human trait. I don’t have any reason to think this Creator is concerned about having a relationship with me, or would care if I feel thankful or not.

If there were an omnipotent, omniscient and infinite Creator, it would know what would convince me of its existence, if it were important for me to know. I think it is silly to pretend that providing me with convincing evidence of its existence would take away my free will.  Does demonstrating convincingly that fire destroys things deprive a person of the ability to decide whether or not to play with matches? Those who are raising small children know that unfortunately it does not. The only thing that withholding evidence about some aspect of reality preserves is ignorance about that aspect of reality. When provided with evidence, one still must decide how to respond to that reality.

Cowalker,  God *LOVES* us.  If you could admit that there is a God, why would you insist that this couldn’t be so?  It is *our* paltry, shadow-version of love that !@#$% what love must *actually be*.  If we resemble Him in our will, our understanding, and our memory, the fact that we would see our own five-year-old as endearing, is only a shadow of how God sees *us*, or them.  I do get the whole virus, bacteria comparison, but this only blows my mind even more as a comparison of God’s tremendous qualities compared to ours.
.
Animals don’t suffer the way that we do.  They don’t have the capacity to, (ALL creation is groaning…).  *I have suffered a lot in this life*.  This suffering was not “meted out”, but rather is the consequence of a world that doesn’t have a master puppeteer who controls our every motion and choice. Yes, I can see that it is purifying me of my pride and concupiscence.  When I needed to give birth to my baby boy who died in the 36th week last summer, I didn’t resist, I wasn’t outraged.  I didn’t accuse God of anything like the first time this happened to me.  I was *still*, allowing Him to flood me with his presence and consolation.  I didn’t expect this.  You can call it a complicated reaction of stress chemicals, but I will tell you that it was transcendent and transformative.  It was for my husband also.  Every time I stop to consider it, I cry for joy, instead of empty sorrow.  Yes,my burden was sweet, when I found myself mystically connected to my beloved, Christ.  His crucifixion is less of an enigma now as I sense that I am more identified with Him.
.
Cowalker, ask for the gift of faith.  Ask, and keep asking.  Ask without any accusation.  When He answers you, you will be able to help impart this gift to your children.  They will have to struggle with God as you do, but hopefully they won’t have such a tough time of it.  It will be their greatest consolation in this difficult life.

YOS: “Besides, if “There’s no objective standard of right and wrong,” as some have said, then there is nothing that can make an “institution” right or wrong.”
. . .
Bill Thacker
Nothing to make it OBJECTIVELY right or wrong.  We can still make SUBJECTIVE assessments of right and wrong. 
. . .
YOS
But why take seriously something that is only inside your head?
Why is nihilism always the endpoint of that mode of thinking?
+ + +
Bill Thacker
Nobody has asked for a law allowing a particular individual to marry. 
. . .
YOS
You were talking about all sorts of supposed special cases: men with vasectomies, women who kill their babies, women past menopause, etc., with the clear implication that the general law ought not be applied, or applied differently in these cases. 
+ + +
Bill Thacker
I say marriage is a contract between any two individuals.
. . .
YOS
I say that is simply a contract, such as the one Sears had with Roebuck. So far as I know anyone may enter into any sort of civil contract.  But marriage is prior to civil marriage contracts, a government takeover that began only in the mid-1800s.  Even in the Code of Khamurapi there are no laws instituting marriage, but only laws specifying that if a man and woman do marry what are the provisions for inheritance, maintenance, or for debts owed by one or another.  Biologically speaking, there is something unique about a conjugal union, even if it is not fruitful each and every time.  See Darwin for details. 
+ + +
Bill Thacker
What’s your *real* reason for opposing lesbian marriage? 
. . .
YOS
Simply that it isn’t a marriage any more than a figure-8 is a simple curve or hydrogen is a noble gas.  There is no conjugal union. 
+ + +
Bill Thacker
Only when the other partner wants out of the marriage.  If neither wants a child, they remain happily married.  You’re claiming the government should FORCE people not to be married if they aren’t trying to have babies.  And you accuse ME of wanting invasive government? 
. . .
YOS
So long as one is a man and one is a woman the potential for a child is there regardless of the couple’s intentions or even any apparent biological inhibitions.  You don’t get married because you want to make babies.  Rape can accomplish that much.  You get married because their natural behavior is such that babies might plausibly result and measures are taken beforehand to ensure that responsibility is clear in case they do. 
. . .
You argument that in the post-Modern age responsibility has been discarded and is even actively shunned is an argument against the ruins made by the collapse of the Modern Ages, not an argument against one of their institutions. 
+ + +
Bill Thacker
*Maybe*? You said it was a general rule that marriage is about babies. 
. . .
YOS
Ah, YOS was being droll.  Of course, we do forbid some from marrying: brother and sister, for example.  Your comment that some women kill their babies simply suggests another possibility. 
+ + +
Bill Thacker
What should I infer from your strict enforcement of this against same-sex couples, but non-enforcement against opposite-sex couples? 
. . .
YOS
Simple.  Same sex couples are inherently unable to produce children through their necessarily non-conjugal unions.  Therefore, the State has no “compelling State interest” in interfering with their sex lives or imposing conditions and obligations. 
+ + +
Bill Thacker
Why don’t we require all applicants for marriage licenses to sign a document stating they “intend to produce children through sexual intercourse”?
. . .
YOS
Because their intentions or even their likely success are irrelevant. 
. . .
Your suggestion that we should all strive to restore the institutions of marriage is well-taken.  But it is much easier to demolish a structure than it is to build one up.  Several generations have grown up used to a milieu of sloughing responsibilities.  It is easier to convince someone to indulge his appetites than to control them.  Fornication is free; marriage costs.  So we have 30-something men who act like teenagers used to act (and teenagers who act like children).  We have an “epidemic” of obesity.  (And note how the term “epidemic” reinforces the lack of responsibility!)  And we have people insisting that right and wrong are simply matters of personal preference; i.e., indulging the appetites, in the face of neurological evidence of how harmful this is to rational thought.
+ + +
YOS: “Consider a parallel contract: that of a business.  There is no question that the end (or purpose) of a business is to make money.”
Bill Thacker
You’ve never heard of non-profit corporations? 
. . .
YOS
a) A non-profit corporation is not considered a business.  Not all corporations are businesses. 
b) Even non-profits make profits.  If they did not they would founder.  The difference is that they are not allowed to distribute the profits to their owners or shareholders (or “donors,” as they are called) but must retain all earnings and use them in the operation. 
c) I notice you dodged the point of the analogy.  Or perhaps did not get it. 
+ + +
Bill Thacker
But like everyone who’s advanced those arguments, you base them on premises that are unproven and seem irrational, selfish and bigoted.
. . .
YOS
That you fail to grasp a rationale does not make a thing irrational.  And why is it “selfish” to submit oneself to bonds, obligations, and restriction while others are free to gad about as they like?  It may be objectively right or wrong, but it does not qualify as “selfish.”  And bigoted people are likely to call others nasty names, like, I dunno, “irrational, selfish and bigoted.” 
+ + +
Bill Thacker
lack of empathy
. . .
YOS
Why is it lack of empathy to refuse to impose burdensome restrictions on others?
I begin to think that you regard marriage as some sort of celebration of the wonderful love two people might have for each other, an affirmation of their OK-ness.  But as I said, that is only the shell of the thing that has been emptied out by people walking through.  Andrew Sullivan was much more honest. 
+ + +
Bill Thacker
I think I’ve learned all I can learn from you
. . .
YOS
I doubt if you’ve learned anything.  You’ve certainly shown no understanding of the institution of marriage.

noting like rereading a comment you wrote, and seeing that the spam filter thinks you wrote a dirty word.  Heh, that’s a first.

Posted by anna lisa on Thursday, Apr 19, 2012 4:27 PM (EST):
‘noting like rereading a comment you wrote, and seeing that the spam filter thinks you wrote a dirty word.  Heh, that’s a first’

Haha. I read your first post and was a bit puzzled by that.

I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your son. I’m glad you and your husband were able to find meaning and comfort in his short life. My sympathy to both of you. 

I understand that animals don’t suffer in the same way that we do. But they do suffer. That’s why we have laws against cock and dog fighting, and animal cruelty. I’m afraid it also suits us to minimize their suffering because we want to be able to exploit and destroy them at will.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201103/empathic-chickens-and-cooperative-elephants-emotional-intelligence-expan

We can’t say that animal suffering is unavoidable because the Creator doesn’t function as a puppeteer who controls our every motion and choice. Clearly, if our solar system was designed, the evolutionary process was designed too, which means billions of years of creatures eating each other alive before humans even turned up.

Please understand, I say that a Creator might exist. I know of no way to prove or disprove the truth of this statement.  It seems to me that attributing the human (and possibly animal!) emotion of love to such a Being limits its attributes rather than allowing for the concept of an infinite Being. Trust me, after 38 years of a happy marriage, I understand the concept of love as a choice, as opposed to the enjoyment of hormonal cascades. That still doesn’t address the problem of postulating “love” between a Creator outside of space and time, and a creature bound by mortality.  I mean, you can just assert that it exists, but how does it make sense?

[There have been times when I was thankful to be alive, and times when I would rather not have been born.]

Yes… I would suppose most people have had similar feelings.  Just ask any teenager. [wink]

But seriously… Yes, I can understand your feelings.  Life can definitely be *very* difficult and *very* trying for all of us at times.  For some, unfortunately, it can appear to be so *hopeless* that they even attempt to end their lives.  And, as you know, sometimes they sadly succeed.

[Observing the suffereng caused by the evolutionary process, I conclude that if there is a Creator, it doesn’t share my grief over suffering.]

Well, I guess that’s an understandable conclusion for some.  After all, people could certainly question why a good and loving Creator couldn’t have just accomplished this whole life process WITHOUT the suffering?  Seems like a reasonable question.

So… have you ever wondered why so many people (over so many centuries) have been willing to accept this whole suffering situation and still believe in a good and loving Creator?  Are all these people (some with an IQ actually greater than 1) just completely crazy?  If not… how could they actually buy into this whole suffering thing?  Naive? Gullible? What?

[On the other hand, I don’t have any reason to think it inflicts suffering sadistically.]

I think that’s a very healthy and reasonable way of looking at it.  To think otherwise would be quite terrifying - to say the least.

[I don’t have any reason to think this Creator is concerned about having a relationship with me, or would care if I feel thankful or not.]

Okay, that’s fine cowalker.  But I think you are *willing* and *smart* enough to admit right now that you don’t *really* know.  Is that fair to say?

[Please understand, I say that a Creator might exist.]

And with this *little* acknowledgement… all things become possible.

Cowalker,
Thank you for your kind words. Do you remember the first time you realized that we must lose our lovely babies, as they thankfully grow up?  I think that the babies that die on this earth too soon, become the sweetness of heaven that only babies and children can impart.  Our souls are immortal. We sense this, and thus death confuses and even outrages us. But this shouldn’t be the case.
.
As I “speak” to you, I sense I am speaking to a spark of the divine—your soul.
.
I believe the worst of ALL pain is psychological, in our…*memory*...*will*...*understanding*... At death we will both suffer, and feel joy when we see the entire web of connections, which was our life, and the choices we made—some of those choices continuing to reverberate into the future, in the lives of others.
.
—Purgatory—Heaven—Hell…
.
As for physical pain, many people in life and death situations concerning even violent loss of limbs report that at some point their ability to feel pain stops.  Even so, I believe that animals should be treated ethically and with respect.
.
Yes, for millions and millions of years creatures consumed each other—There is a very deep mystery involved with how life depends on *death*—our bodies become the soil, and the soil brings forth new life to be consumed.  This culminates in a crowning moment in history:
.
Not just mana, which foreshadowed it, not just lamb, that was immolated.
.
We *consume* Christ to become Him, and thus BE Him to others.
.
That all of creation was living, consuming, dying, living, consuming, dying—has it’s crowning moment in the institution of God becoming bread to be consumed.
.
Mystery of mysteries, emanating from a LOVE we simply can’t fathom.

“In fact, atheists are intensely moralistic and more intolerant than the most rigid Puritan. They have almost no capacity to allow for the ignorance and weakness of their ancestors and routinely arraign them on charges of Not Being 21st Century Suburban Americans.”

Actually, we have no problem recognizing and forgiving the ignorance and weakness of our ancestors.  What we take issue with is 21st century people who insist we live according to the scribblings of those ancestors because some god allegedly inspired them.

Posted by anna lisa on Friday, Apr 20, 2012 3:04 PM (EST):
“Mystery of mysteries, emanating from a LOVE we simply can’t fathom.”

Anna Lisa, you are dealing very well with a very difficult loss.  My first child was threatened with problems early in the pregnancy, but the worst outcome didn’t happen, and in the end she was saved by standard medical procedures. I am so aware that not all babies can be saved, and I’m so sorry that there was no medical solution available for you.

I believe we must leave it as a mystery that you accept and that I do not recognize.

Posted by ED on Friday, Apr 20, 2012 1:59 AM (EST):
“[There have been times when I was thankful to be alive, and times when I would rather not have been born.]
Yes… I would suppose most people have had similar feelings.  Just ask any teenager. [wink]”

Yeah, teenagers. What a bunch of morons. They’re just the people who will ultimately determine the development of the next generation. To heck with those idiots!

 
“But seriously… Yes, I can understand your feelings.  Life can definitely be *very* difficult and *very* trying for all of us at times.  For some, unfortunately, it can appear to be so *hopeless* that they even attempt to end their lives.  And, as you know, sometimes they sadly succeed.”

[Observing the suffereng caused by the evolutionary process, I conclude that if there is a Creator, it doesn’t share my grief over suffering.]

“Well, I guess that’s an understandable conclusion for some.  After all, people could certainly question why a good and loving Creator couldn’t have just accomplished this whole life process WITHOUT the suffering?  Seems like a reasonable question.

“So… have you ever wondered why so many people (over so many centuries) have been willing to accept this whole suffering situation and still believe in a good and loving Creator?  Are all these people (some with an IQ actually greater than 1) just completely crazy?  If not… how could they actually buy into this whole suffering thing?  Naive? Gullible? What?”

No. I haven’t wondered. It’s been CONVENIENT to assume that animal suffering doesn’t count at all, and that only human suffering is totted up as meaningful.  It’s been very convenient to assume that human suffering is the only kind that counts. What is the logical reason for this?

[On the other hand, I don’t have any reason to think it inflicts suffering sadistically.]

“I think that’s a very healthy and reasonable way of looking at it.  To think otherwise would be quite terrifying - to saythe least.
[I don’t have any reason to think this Creator is concerned about having a relationship with me, or would care if I feel thankful or not.]
Okay, that’s fine cowalker.  But I think you are *willing* and *smart* enough to admit right now that you don’t *really* know.  Is that fair to say?”

Of course I don’t KNOW with no doubt. New evidence might be presented. Do you have some?

[Yeah, teenagers. What a bunch of morons. They’re just the people who will ultimately determine the development of the next generation. To heck with those idiots!]

Hmm… besides having difficulty with a Creator, you also seem to have a little difficulty with humor.  Kinda sad… but I’ll remember that in the future.

[No. I haven’t wondered.]

Well, that seems a bit odd… are you being serious?

[Of course I don’t KNOW with no doubt. New evidence might be presented. Do you have some?]

What kind of evidence exactly?  Can you be specific?

Posted by ED on Sunday, Apr 22, 2012 9:21 PM (EST):
“[Yeah, teenagers. What a bunch of morons. They’re just the people who will ultimately determine the development of the next generation. To heck with those idiots!]

“Hmm… besides having difficulty with a Creator, you also seem to have a little difficulty with humor.  Kinda sad… but I’ll remember that in the future.”

Sorry to be grumpy. I just get tired of people making fun of teenagers for asking deep questions that are new to the teenagers. We don’t really know the answers to those questions any more than they do. We just stop thinking about them or adopt an existing, packaged set of answers.

“[No. I haven’t wondered.]

“Well, that seems a bit odd… are you being serious?”

This was the question, more or less: “If not… how could they actually buy into this whole suffering thing?  Naive? Gullible? What?”

For most of the course of human history, humans have struggled to survive as hunters and gatherers.  They depended on killing and eating animals, just as animals kill and eat each other. They couldn’t afford to wax philosophical over whether animals hurt like we do. Most humans still want to kill and exploit animals for food and products such as leather, and very few question it. It is far easier to assume that animals are so different from us that their suffering is less than ours, than to change our behavior. Of course the fact is, human mistreatment of animals is nothing compared to the suffering caused as a result of an evolutionary process that depends on natural selection. 

At the same time, humans have the brain power to tell a story about themselves that makes their own suffering meaningful. Otherwise human suffering looks exactly like animal suffering. The only difference is the degree to which we anticipate it and remember it, and thereby increase our mental suffering. Wanting human suffering to be meaningful and wanting to discount animal suffering are the easiest reactions to living on earth as a human. These reactions don’t surprise me. Not necessarily naive or gullible behavior—more like pragmatic and wishful. 

“[Of course I don’t KNOW with no doubt. New evidence might be presented. Do you have some?]”

“What kind of evidence exactly?  Can you be specific?”

You probably think I’m kidding when I say that the Creator of the universe, if one exists, would know better than I do exactly what would convince me of its existence, if it cares whether or not I know. However I’m being serious. Frankly, the mish-mash of religious beliefs around the globe provide much more evidence of the diversity of human imagination combined with the sameness of human nature, than evidence of things outside the material world.

I would be impressed if the Creator got in touch with me. Believers will tell me that I am too skeptical to recognize when the Creator is reaching out. This reminds me of how spiritualists used to say that the spirits couldn’t manifest themselves at a seance if there was a non-believer in the room.

Can you imagine a human parent socializing a child by providing wildly conflicting information and rules through myriad other children, rather than having a one-to-one relationship, in the flesh, with that child? We would call such a parent irresponsible. Lacking coherent guidance from a shared authority figure, we tell ourselves that we are the lost sons and daughters of a powerful king, and that if we can solve the mystery of what he wants us to do, we will find our way back to the kingdom where we belong. This is a common fantasy among children, who sometimes go through a phase when they believe they are too special to belong to their own, troubled family. Usually they grow out of this phase.

“Yeah, teenagers. What a bunch of morons. They’re just the people who will ultimately determine the development of the next generation. To heck with those idiots!”

Teenagers aren’t morons; but due to a combination of hormones, brain chemistry, and brain development, the mood swings and indecision you described that elicited the comment from ED, are common.  Think of teenagers, basically, as being perpetually high on either Testosterone or Oxytocin for the period between the ages of 10 and 23.  In the primitive past, before civilization and medical care, this effect is what we depended on to keep the species going (as it is the bell curve of the healthiest time to have children- outside of this range pregnancy is progressively more dangerous for both mother and child).

“Of course I don’t KNOW with no doubt. New evidence might be presented. Do you have some?”

It has been my experience with atheists that their definition of evidence is irrational- some eyewitness evidence is accepted, some isn’t, for completely subjective and sometimes outright prejudicial reasoning.

I even wrote something on this just this past December:
http://outsidetheautisticasylum.blogspot.com/2011/12/problem-with-skepticism.html

[Sorry to be grumpy.]

No problem grumpy.  We all have those moments.

[I just get tired of people making fun of teenagers for asking deep questions that are new to the teenagers.]

Trust me, my heart goes out to any person (young or old) who is *seriously* trying to discover the truth.

[We don’t really know the answers to those questions any more than they do.  We just stop thinking about them or adopt an existing, packaged set of answers.]

It doesn’t appear to me that adults just stop thinking about all those “What’s it all about, Alfie” questions entirely.  Do you really think so?

And… are you in any way inferring that it would be wrong for a person to adopt or accept an “existing” answer if they were convinced that it was the truth?

[You probably think I’m kidding when I say that the Creator of the universe, if one exists, would know better than I do exactly what would convince me of its existence, if it cares whether or not I know.]

No, I don’t think you are kidding.  Actually, I agree with you that your Creator “would know better” than you.

[I would be impressed if the Creator got in touch with me.]

Yes… I imagine you would be VERY impressed.  How do you think this getting in touch thing could happen?

And… other than the Creator getting in touch with you, is there any other evidence you would (or might) be willing to accept?

[Can you imagine a human parent socializing a child by providing wildly conflicting information and rules through myriad other children, rather than having a one-to-one relationship, in the flesh, with that child?]

I’m not exactly sure that I follow your rationale.

So… if you don’t mind, let’s try it this way:

I can imagine a loving human parent having to patiently wait until their growing and developing child actually leaves the womb to be able to have that “one-to-one relationship” with them.

In the same manner, I can imagine your Creator patiently waiting for your development here on earth to be completed to be able to have that closer relationship with you too.  Can you?

And on a lighter note…

Considering your recent questions and comments here cowalker, I would guess that while you were in your mother’s womb you were probably a bit upset and irritated for being kept confined and in the dark for 9 months without any good explanation or instructions.  You probably complained like crazy about the menu, unknown noises, sudden movements, etc..etc.

I bet, if the truth were known, you were one of those smart aleck pre-borns trying very hard to figure it all out and asking some difficult questions way back then.

Questions like:  Where am I?  Why am I here?  How did I get here?  Where am I going?

So tell me grumpy… did you get those pre-birth questions finally answered ‘before’... or… ‘after’ your birth?

Just curious.  [wink]

Posted by ED on Tuesday, Apr 24, 2012 10:18 PM (EST):
“Considering your recent questions and comments here cowalker, I would guess that while you were in your mother’s womb you were probably a bit upset and irritated for being kept confined and in the dark for 9 months without any good explanation or instructions.  You probably complained like crazy about the menu, unknown noises, sudden movements, etc..etc.”

Never received any feedback on my womb behavior. That was long before routine sonograms! But it would be a truly insane parent who would expect a fetus kept confined and in the dark for 9 months without any good explanation or instructions to be capable of moral decisions.

Carl- <sarcasm>yes, because any scientist who does not belong to the Discovery Institute is a heretic to be burned at the stake.</sarcasm>

Way to end the discussion by proving Mark Shea’s *ENTIRE POINT*.