Alright, guys, this blog is about to get 2000 percent more awesome.
Among my efforts towards counter-religious-apologetics, science, and that sort of thing, I will also now be advertising for my rock/folk band, tentatively titled "The Tim Tations" (officially T3, but the inside joke is that T3 stands for "The Tim Tations"). Our new EP (called "White People Problems") is coming out very, very soon, and in preparation for it, we've released the first single, "Mandy," which you can view for free right here!
Enjoy (or don't)!
We actually have over 200 songs written and recorded (slightly less, not counting covers), but I'll mostly be uploading new material here (for promotion's sake). Most of our EPs are priced very low or free (this one will be free), so you don't have to worry about your wallet, you can just dig the tunes~
With this new material to cover, I will also be updating much more frequently. Check back every week or so and keep your eye out for new material!
--Tim D.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
"Darwinism"
It really bugs me when people use the term "Darwinism" to attack the theory of natural selection --- and let's be straight, when people attack "Darwinism," they're specifically attacking the idea of human artificial selection. Not evolution as a whole, and not natural selection, just human artificial selection --- like what we do with cats and dogs, but with people. These people may think they're attacking evolution as a whole, that just goes to show that they don't understand what "Darwinism" means.
"Darwinism" is generally used as a stand-in for "evolution." But there's a reason that it is referred to as "Darwinian evolution;" it is "evolution via natural selection." But when people attack "social darwinism," for example, they're attacking some Hitleresque utopian ideal where we artificially select who will live and who will die based on some genetic criteria or other. They're not attacking the idea that such a process would actually cause a change in the allele frequency of the human population at large (even though that actually would constitute an attack on evolution, which is the idea that the allele frequency of a population changes over time due to a combination of genetic drift and natural or artificial selection) --- which is to say, they're not attacking the idea that selection actually works to cause change in genetic frequency. Rather, they're attacking the idea that we should artificially select for such change, and specifically, against the idea that we should do so at the cost of human life or happiness. The idea is that even if natural selection does cause a change in genetic frequency, then it's still wrong to select for such change artificially in a way that forcibly hinders people's lives or rights. Which is of course true, even though natural selection does happen, and evolution does occur (and would occur in some Hitleresque utopian society where only the blonde-haired and blue-eyes were allowed to breed).
So keep this in mind: when someone attacks "Darwinism," or "social Darwinism," a couple of things are likely to be true:
1) They think they're attacking the credibility of evolution (they're not);
2) They think they're attacking the credibility of natural selection (they're not);
3) They think they're attacking the morality of artificial selection among humans (they are, and rightly so).
The important thing to remember here is that the morality of artificially enforcing such a policy in a human society has *nothing whatsoever* to do with the evidence that such a process would actually do what it set out to do; whether evolution and natural selection happen or do not happen, this has no effect on the moral aspect of doing so artificially, because the moral argument is against hindering people's lives or rights, regardless of the reason.
I can sum up the entire point of this post as follows:
1) Hitlerian artificial selection is morally reprehensible for reasons that have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with whether or not such selection would actually produce genetic change. It has to do with the value placed on human life, which can be argued regardless of the truth or falsehood of evolution.
2) To put it in context; saying that evolution doesn't happen because enforced human artificial selection is wrong is like saying, "shotguns aren't real and don't actually work because shooting innocent people in the face is bad."
If you still don't understand (or would just like further, more elegant extrapolation on the subject), I would recommend this segment of an interview with Richard Dawkins, from Penn Jillette's radio show, in which Dawkins explains this relationship in a straightforward and interesting fashion (starting at about the 3:00 mark):
And that is exactly what is going on here, when people attack the credibility of "Darwinism" for moral reasons.
"Darwinism" is generally used as a stand-in for "evolution." But there's a reason that it is referred to as "Darwinian evolution;" it is "evolution via natural selection." But when people attack "social darwinism," for example, they're attacking some Hitleresque utopian ideal where we artificially select who will live and who will die based on some genetic criteria or other. They're not attacking the idea that such a process would actually cause a change in the allele frequency of the human population at large (even though that actually would constitute an attack on evolution, which is the idea that the allele frequency of a population changes over time due to a combination of genetic drift and natural or artificial selection) --- which is to say, they're not attacking the idea that selection actually works to cause change in genetic frequency. Rather, they're attacking the idea that we should artificially select for such change, and specifically, against the idea that we should do so at the cost of human life or happiness. The idea is that even if natural selection does cause a change in genetic frequency, then it's still wrong to select for such change artificially in a way that forcibly hinders people's lives or rights. Which is of course true, even though natural selection does happen, and evolution does occur (and would occur in some Hitleresque utopian society where only the blonde-haired and blue-eyes were allowed to breed).
So keep this in mind: when someone attacks "Darwinism," or "social Darwinism," a couple of things are likely to be true:
1) They think they're attacking the credibility of evolution (they're not);
2) They think they're attacking the credibility of natural selection (they're not);
3) They think they're attacking the morality of artificial selection among humans (they are, and rightly so).
The important thing to remember here is that the morality of artificially enforcing such a policy in a human society has *nothing whatsoever* to do with the evidence that such a process would actually do what it set out to do; whether evolution and natural selection happen or do not happen, this has no effect on the moral aspect of doing so artificially, because the moral argument is against hindering people's lives or rights, regardless of the reason.
I can sum up the entire point of this post as follows:
1) Hitlerian artificial selection is morally reprehensible for reasons that have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with whether or not such selection would actually produce genetic change. It has to do with the value placed on human life, which can be argued regardless of the truth or falsehood of evolution.
2) To put it in context; saying that evolution doesn't happen because enforced human artificial selection is wrong is like saying, "shotguns aren't real and don't actually work because shooting innocent people in the face is bad."
If you still don't understand (or would just like further, more elegant extrapolation on the subject), I would recommend this segment of an interview with Richard Dawkins, from Penn Jillette's radio show, in which Dawkins explains this relationship in a straightforward and interesting fashion (starting at about the 3:00 mark):
"That whole thing became very, very unfashionable, I think, partly because of Hitler. Because Hitler, of course, was the arch-eugenecist, and Hitler was completely, as we know, screwy...I mean, Hitler has given all kinds of eugenics a bad name. I agree with you, I think it would be a very unpleasant thing if there were to be a sort of government-organized breeding program, to say, 'let's encourage the smart people to breed and encourage the dull people not to,' I think that would be a horrible thing. That's different, however, from saying that it wouldn't work. And I hear a lot of people who just go around saying, 'it just wouldn't work,' and I fear that they're just saying that because, for ideological reasons, they don't want it to work."
And that is exactly what is going on here, when people attack the credibility of "Darwinism" for moral reasons.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
My FFRF "Billboard"
You remember those Freedom From Religion Foundation Billboards? Well, I finally went and submitted my own custom one, complete with some quote I heard somebody say once on a message board somewhere (it sounds just witty enough that I'm certain it can be attributed to somebody important, but I can't find a source for it...):
Cool, yah?
Cool, yah?
Monday, April 11, 2011
Take A Moment, If You Will
Religion is a difficult thing to discuss. It's really, really easy to hurt people's feelings or make sweeping generalizations without ever even realizing. I've done it myself and I've had it done to me. It's not fun and it certainly doesn't put you in a listening frame of mind.
Don't get me wrong --- there are a lot of category judgments involved in this sort of debate. Part of my big argument against religious belief in general is that it prides itself on being antithetical (or at least completely independent of) observable reality. But these are statements about reasons, arguments, etc., and maybe even about groups of people, but not about individual people. I always try to ask myself before I write or say something, "can I imagine some theoretical individual person to whom this generalization does not apply?" And if the answer is "yes," I'm always sure to qualify it as such. In my counter-apologetic endeavors, I am attacking ideas and actions, not people.
So I guess the point of this little posting is to ask everybody who's involved with this debate --- no matter which "side" you're on --- to take a moment to let the other party know that you don't hate them or look down on them as people, even if you think their ideas are stupid and ridiculous and unfounded. It's very, very easy to get caught up in heated arguments to the point that you feel like the other person must be just plain stupid to not see things the way that you do. You may think they're being dishonest, or disingenuous. And maybe they are. But unless that becomes clear through the course of their actions such that it is demonstrable, there's really no need to make unprovable assumptions and unverifiable accusations. If the person's arguments are flawed, then no amount of name-calling or well-poisoning is going to make that any more or less true.
In most fighting sports, there is a tradition of honor wherein the participants show their mutual respect before and after the match. In every sport there is a tradition of sportsmanship wherein all teams show their intent to compete honestly and respectfully. I don't see why debate has to be any different, just because it's about something important like religion --- the way I view it, each of my opponents may be "fighting" for a different "team" than I am, but that does not change the fact that we are people who still have to share the world at the end of the day. I feel like, isn't it enough that we have these fundamental disagreements? Do we really have to make it worse by dragging personal attacks and general disrespect into the equation?
I mean, seriously. Some of this subject matter is difficult and depressing enough as is; we don't have to walk away from it feeling like we've wasted our time just by acknowledging that it needs to be discussed.
So here's my little thing I want to say: Although I think the world would be much, much better off without religion, I feel this way for a reason --- which is to say that I feel there is a goal of basic human unity which is obscured by religion, among other things, and whose achievement is paramount. As in entropy, where a system can be universally unstable but locally stable, there are ways that this goal can be locally striven towards by cooperating with religious parties --- even if it seems that merely coexisting with divisive religious parties will interfere with the achievement of unity.
The point being: if we allow our individual differences to interfere with the achievement of the greater goal of human unity, then we have defeated the purpose of having this debate at all, even if we think we're doing something "good" by being so divisive. Does it make sense to sow chaos in order to create order?
There will be times where our differences are irreconcilable. But I just don't believe that it *always* has to be that way. We certainly don't have to make it that way. If we let people suffer when we could help them, or if we let people feel isolated and alone when they don't have to, just to achieve some short-term political or religious end, then we have wasted our time.
Don't get me wrong --- there are a lot of category judgments involved in this sort of debate. Part of my big argument against religious belief in general is that it prides itself on being antithetical (or at least completely independent of) observable reality. But these are statements about reasons, arguments, etc., and maybe even about groups of people, but not about individual people. I always try to ask myself before I write or say something, "can I imagine some theoretical individual person to whom this generalization does not apply?" And if the answer is "yes," I'm always sure to qualify it as such. In my counter-apologetic endeavors, I am attacking ideas and actions, not people.
So I guess the point of this little posting is to ask everybody who's involved with this debate --- no matter which "side" you're on --- to take a moment to let the other party know that you don't hate them or look down on them as people, even if you think their ideas are stupid and ridiculous and unfounded. It's very, very easy to get caught up in heated arguments to the point that you feel like the other person must be just plain stupid to not see things the way that you do. You may think they're being dishonest, or disingenuous. And maybe they are. But unless that becomes clear through the course of their actions such that it is demonstrable, there's really no need to make unprovable assumptions and unverifiable accusations. If the person's arguments are flawed, then no amount of name-calling or well-poisoning is going to make that any more or less true.
In most fighting sports, there is a tradition of honor wherein the participants show their mutual respect before and after the match. In every sport there is a tradition of sportsmanship wherein all teams show their intent to compete honestly and respectfully. I don't see why debate has to be any different, just because it's about something important like religion --- the way I view it, each of my opponents may be "fighting" for a different "team" than I am, but that does not change the fact that we are people who still have to share the world at the end of the day. I feel like, isn't it enough that we have these fundamental disagreements? Do we really have to make it worse by dragging personal attacks and general disrespect into the equation?
I mean, seriously. Some of this subject matter is difficult and depressing enough as is; we don't have to walk away from it feeling like we've wasted our time just by acknowledging that it needs to be discussed.
So here's my little thing I want to say: Although I think the world would be much, much better off without religion, I feel this way for a reason --- which is to say that I feel there is a goal of basic human unity which is obscured by religion, among other things, and whose achievement is paramount. As in entropy, where a system can be universally unstable but locally stable, there are ways that this goal can be locally striven towards by cooperating with religious parties --- even if it seems that merely coexisting with divisive religious parties will interfere with the achievement of unity.
The point being: if we allow our individual differences to interfere with the achievement of the greater goal of human unity, then we have defeated the purpose of having this debate at all, even if we think we're doing something "good" by being so divisive. Does it make sense to sow chaos in order to create order?
There will be times where our differences are irreconcilable. But I just don't believe that it *always* has to be that way. We certainly don't have to make it that way. If we let people suffer when we could help them, or if we let people feel isolated and alone when they don't have to, just to achieve some short-term political or religious end, then we have wasted our time.
Friday, April 8, 2011
A Deconstruction of Moral Deconstructionism
"In a world without god, everything is meaningless!"
"There's no objective morality without god!"
How many times have you heard this apologetic? It seems like the only thing standing between the world as we know it today and the fall of Christianity. Sure, there are a lot of other bad apologetics, but this is one of --- if not THE --- *most* prevalent, most popular, most relied-upon arguments in all of Christian apologetics (matched only, perhaps, by Pascal's Wager, nothing if not a close second). If you press a Christian apologist long enough on any other subject, whether it's a professional with a fancy book career or just an annoying random drive-by evangelist, the argument *will* eventually return to this claim: "Without god, there is no consistently objective way to determine what is 'moral.'" And on that basis they will say that an atheist cannot have a true system of moral beliefs, ergo, religion is necessary.
I'm going to use as my source today a book by Mr. Sam Harris, called "The Moral Landscape," because I find it has a nearly perfect dissection of this idea. First off, we must define "morality" as understood by both parties.
The dictionary definition of "moral," according to my edition of Miriam-Webster, is as follows:
(adj.)
1.Relating to, dealing with, or capable of making the distinction between right and wrong in conduct;
2. relating to, serving to teach, or in accordance with, the principles of right and wrong;
3. good or right in conduct or character; sometimes specifically, virtuous in sexual conduct;
4. designating support, etc. that involves approval and sympathy without action;
5. being virtually such because of its effect on thoughts, attitudes, etc., or because of its general results (a "moral" victory);
6. based on strong probability (a "moral" certainty);
7. (law) based on general observation of people, on analogy, etc. rather than on what is demonstrable ("moral" evidence);
(n.)
1. a moral implication or moral lesson taught by a fable, event, etc.;
2. the conclusion of a fable or story containing a moral lesson;
3. (pl.) principles, standards, or habits with respect to right or wrong in conduct; ethics, sometimes specifically standards of sexual behavior.
Now as you may notice, citing this definition merely passes the buck, as it is obvious what I mean by "morality" so long as the general principles of "right and wrong" are understood. By which I mean that we are now forced to define "right" and "wrong." To spare you more dictionary quotations, I will quote something more interesting instead: Mr. Harris' argument from page 15 of the hardcover edition of The Moral Landscape:
"For my argument...to hold, I think one need only grant two points: (1) some people have better lives than others, and (2) these differences relate, in some lawful and not entirely arbitrary way, to states of the human brain and to states of the world."
Which can also be phrased as such: any definition of "good" or "bad" in terms of judging the quality of a person's life must necessarily correlate with some real quality about the world; this is the only way it can make effective prescriptions for human behavior. The Christian apologist feels this way, as well, even if he or she doesn't realize it --- the authoritative stance on morality asserted by the Bible and Christian theology in general still ultimately relies upon these same utilitarian arguments; the difference between theistic morality and secular morality is merely that we have differing ideas about what those facts about the world are; as Mr. Harris mentions several times throughout his book, whether or not we believe in the idea that there is a supernatural entity that can magnify or diminish our suffering after we die (and by a magnitude that makes our current worldly suffering seem ultimately inconsequential) will have some effect on whether or not we perceive it as a wise decision to ignore or worship this entity. My claim here today is that even if such a being *were* to exist, we would still rely upon the same principle arguments we currently use to establish secular, non-religious morality, to establish the practicality of following or opposing such a deity. Which is to say, in simpler terms, that god's existence (or nonexistence) is completely irrelevant to the actual, substantial nature of morality. Morality, seen in this light, is more of a science than a "revealed law" --- not a final objective law, but a model-based interpretation of reality, which can be studied and improved scientifically. To approximate the inside jacket of The Moral Landscape, this view puts morality on the scale of a scientific discipline such as physics or mathematics, and so as there can be no "Muslim mathematics" or "Christian physics," nor can there be such a thing as "Christian morality" or "Muslim" morality.
We'll save the details of that for another time; for now, this analogy will do. In proper scientific fields such as physics and mathematics, we don't deal in objective knowledge or "absolute truth." We deal in what is known as a model: a systematic view of the world based on observation, and confirmed by experimentation. The "laws" of mathematics, as we understand them, are not magic things which exist independently and "hold up math;" they are reflections of our observations of patterns in the behavior of things in the universe, expressed as models within our minds --- "pictures" that we "draw" in our minds of the universe as we see it. These "models" don't literally exist any more than the picture currently serving as your desktop background "exists" on your harddrive --- it does exist, but as data being interpreted by a system. There is not an actual picture lying somewhere on your hard drive that can be literally picked up and observed with your bare hands and eyes. Every observation you and I make, every thought we have, is ultimately expressed in the form of such a model --- a view of the world that we use to make judgments both big and small.
With that said; I'd like to return to the first two sentences of this post: "In a world without god, everything is meaningless! There's no objective morality without god!"
Is that really true?
I have no doubt that some people believe this is true. That in itself is not odd (wrong, maybe, but not odd). What is odd to me is that Christian apologists speak to secular-minded scientists as though we should feel the same way. They expect us to simply cave and throw out two thousand-plus years of moral evolution and development, because "our moral ideas don't exist as literal, ultimate, final truth about the universe." But think about that for a minute. What is the fundamental difference between morality *with* god, and morality *without* god?
Ultimately, our view (our "model") of morality is based on a combination of our observations and our innate, sometimes unconscious or instinctual, expectations of what the world should be like, regardless of what those specific expectations may be. If someone believes that it is moral to justify dying to defend some particular principle, then it is because that person believes that a world where that principle is regarded highly is a better world than a world where it is not, to the extent that they would rather give up their life than live in a world where this principle is not acknowledged --- they believe that a world without them, but with this principle intact, is ultimately better than a world with them, but without this principle. This is a secular concern, though; on the other hand, if someone believes that it is moral to justify dying for a particular deity, then it is because they believe that either they, or someone whose fate concerns them in some way, will be ultimately better off for it.
What is the common unifying factor in both of these examples?
They both take into consideration the concern of welfare for some party. In the case of dying for a secular ideal, it is concern for other people's well-being here on earth, with no concern for any possible life after death. In the case of dying for a deity, it is *still* done out of concern for one's well-being, just on a different scope --- taking into account the belief in a life after death, as well as the possibility of suffering in this life. The suffering of dying in this world is weighed against the suffering anticipated in the afterlife, and it is decided that suffering finitely for now is "better" than suffering infinitely later. This is decided based entirely on fundamental principles which can be applied in a secular world --- specifically, the idea that decisions can be made with concern for oneself or another's well-being, on some scope or another.
So if this reasoning can be used to justify moral decisions with respect to the afterlife, why can it not also be used to justify moral decisions with respect to a secular life, with no anticipated continuation of life after death? Pascal's Wager itself is based in the exact same fundamental principles used to determine secular morality --- that one can decide what to do based on the consequences of actions, and not based on some intrinsic quality of the action being prescribed. This is the utmost form of irony, I think.
With all this considered....what would you say if you were a physicist, trying to explain to someone the finer details of quantum probability amplitudes, and the person you were explaining it to just kept sticking his or her fingers in their ears and saying, "la la la, I can't hear you!" Would that make your "beliefs" about physics "arbitrary," because there's nothing you can say to make the other person see things the way you do? Does that mean there is no model of a physical understanding of the universe which can be confirmed via experiment? Or does it mean that you are dealing with someone who refuses to understand?
Now you know how I feel when I'm trying to explain my model for morality to someone, and they just keep repeating, "but that's so arbitrary, without god!" The fact that we make moral judgments based on observations about reality does not make morality "arbitrary," any more than physics or math become arbitrary when faced with people who don't want to (or can't) understand them.
In the interest of wrapping this up, I want to return once more to the original quote: "In a world without god, everything is meaningless!" Reconsider this statement in light of the idea of a scientific model, and of human subjectivity and flaw; this statement affirms absolute certain knowledge about the universe. Thus, it is not a statement that a scientist will be able to accept; a scientist works from subjective models and attempts to universalize them amongst other humans through communicable data and experiment. In order to believe that there is "no meaning to life without god," one would have to know, definitively, that it is true. As long as there are facts about the universe which are unknown, then it is possible that, in making such a statement as "there is no meaning," we are fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of meaning. We are positively affirming a negative, something which normally cannot be done in science --- you cannot prove definitively that something does not exist, because as long as you admit that there is *something* you don't know, there is a possibility that what you say cannot be found does, in fact, reside in one of those unknown areas. This is another great form of irony --- for it is this exact same reasoning that leads many Christians to conclude that atheists "cannot prove that god doesn't exist," because "atheists don't know everything!" Which we freely acknowledge, of course, as it is not our aim to "prove that god does not exist," nor to make any representation that we "know everything."
So how about it, Christian apologists --- do you know everything?
You may say, "No, but God knows everything." In which case I have to ask, do you know everything about god? If the answer is "no," then is it maybe possible that you (or any given religious authorities) are mistaken about the nature of god?
As long as there exists the possibility that we are mistaken about anything, then it is impossible to make absolute knowledge claims. The scientific method is designed to work around this fact --- it allows us to deal not in "absolute knowledge" which is fundamentally flawed, but in observable and communicable models about the universe which are naturally subjective but which are universalizable via experimentation and communicable evidence. Whether it's morality or physics and mathematics, that's the best we humans have got. So you can either take it or leave it....but keep in mind that even if you choose to leave it, it's still there, and it still works for other people. We will not be bound by your ignorance of our own very human limitations.
"There's no objective morality without god!"
How many times have you heard this apologetic? It seems like the only thing standing between the world as we know it today and the fall of Christianity. Sure, there are a lot of other bad apologetics, but this is one of --- if not THE --- *most* prevalent, most popular, most relied-upon arguments in all of Christian apologetics (matched only, perhaps, by Pascal's Wager, nothing if not a close second). If you press a Christian apologist long enough on any other subject, whether it's a professional with a fancy book career or just an annoying random drive-by evangelist, the argument *will* eventually return to this claim: "Without god, there is no consistently objective way to determine what is 'moral.'" And on that basis they will say that an atheist cannot have a true system of moral beliefs, ergo, religion is necessary.
I'm going to use as my source today a book by Mr. Sam Harris, called "The Moral Landscape," because I find it has a nearly perfect dissection of this idea. First off, we must define "morality" as understood by both parties.
The dictionary definition of "moral," according to my edition of Miriam-Webster, is as follows:
(adj.)
1.Relating to, dealing with, or capable of making the distinction between right and wrong in conduct;
2. relating to, serving to teach, or in accordance with, the principles of right and wrong;
3. good or right in conduct or character; sometimes specifically, virtuous in sexual conduct;
4. designating support, etc. that involves approval and sympathy without action;
5. being virtually such because of its effect on thoughts, attitudes, etc., or because of its general results (a "moral" victory);
6. based on strong probability (a "moral" certainty);
7. (law) based on general observation of people, on analogy, etc. rather than on what is demonstrable ("moral" evidence);
(n.)
1. a moral implication or moral lesson taught by a fable, event, etc.;
2. the conclusion of a fable or story containing a moral lesson;
3. (pl.) principles, standards, or habits with respect to right or wrong in conduct; ethics, sometimes specifically standards of sexual behavior.
Now as you may notice, citing this definition merely passes the buck, as it is obvious what I mean by "morality" so long as the general principles of "right and wrong" are understood. By which I mean that we are now forced to define "right" and "wrong." To spare you more dictionary quotations, I will quote something more interesting instead: Mr. Harris' argument from page 15 of the hardcover edition of The Moral Landscape:
"For my argument...to hold, I think one need only grant two points: (1) some people have better lives than others, and (2) these differences relate, in some lawful and not entirely arbitrary way, to states of the human brain and to states of the world."
Which can also be phrased as such: any definition of "good" or "bad" in terms of judging the quality of a person's life must necessarily correlate with some real quality about the world; this is the only way it can make effective prescriptions for human behavior. The Christian apologist feels this way, as well, even if he or she doesn't realize it --- the authoritative stance on morality asserted by the Bible and Christian theology in general still ultimately relies upon these same utilitarian arguments; the difference between theistic morality and secular morality is merely that we have differing ideas about what those facts about the world are; as Mr. Harris mentions several times throughout his book, whether or not we believe in the idea that there is a supernatural entity that can magnify or diminish our suffering after we die (and by a magnitude that makes our current worldly suffering seem ultimately inconsequential) will have some effect on whether or not we perceive it as a wise decision to ignore or worship this entity. My claim here today is that even if such a being *were* to exist, we would still rely upon the same principle arguments we currently use to establish secular, non-religious morality, to establish the practicality of following or opposing such a deity. Which is to say, in simpler terms, that god's existence (or nonexistence) is completely irrelevant to the actual, substantial nature of morality. Morality, seen in this light, is more of a science than a "revealed law" --- not a final objective law, but a model-based interpretation of reality, which can be studied and improved scientifically. To approximate the inside jacket of The Moral Landscape, this view puts morality on the scale of a scientific discipline such as physics or mathematics, and so as there can be no "Muslim mathematics" or "Christian physics," nor can there be such a thing as "Christian morality" or "Muslim" morality.
We'll save the details of that for another time; for now, this analogy will do. In proper scientific fields such as physics and mathematics, we don't deal in objective knowledge or "absolute truth." We deal in what is known as a model: a systematic view of the world based on observation, and confirmed by experimentation. The "laws" of mathematics, as we understand them, are not magic things which exist independently and "hold up math;" they are reflections of our observations of patterns in the behavior of things in the universe, expressed as models within our minds --- "pictures" that we "draw" in our minds of the universe as we see it. These "models" don't literally exist any more than the picture currently serving as your desktop background "exists" on your harddrive --- it does exist, but as data being interpreted by a system. There is not an actual picture lying somewhere on your hard drive that can be literally picked up and observed with your bare hands and eyes. Every observation you and I make, every thought we have, is ultimately expressed in the form of such a model --- a view of the world that we use to make judgments both big and small.
With that said; I'd like to return to the first two sentences of this post: "In a world without god, everything is meaningless! There's no objective morality without god!"
Is that really true?
I have no doubt that some people believe this is true. That in itself is not odd (wrong, maybe, but not odd). What is odd to me is that Christian apologists speak to secular-minded scientists as though we should feel the same way. They expect us to simply cave and throw out two thousand-plus years of moral evolution and development, because "our moral ideas don't exist as literal, ultimate, final truth about the universe." But think about that for a minute. What is the fundamental difference between morality *with* god, and morality *without* god?
Ultimately, our view (our "model") of morality is based on a combination of our observations and our innate, sometimes unconscious or instinctual, expectations of what the world should be like, regardless of what those specific expectations may be. If someone believes that it is moral to justify dying to defend some particular principle, then it is because that person believes that a world where that principle is regarded highly is a better world than a world where it is not, to the extent that they would rather give up their life than live in a world where this principle is not acknowledged --- they believe that a world without them, but with this principle intact, is ultimately better than a world with them, but without this principle. This is a secular concern, though; on the other hand, if someone believes that it is moral to justify dying for a particular deity, then it is because they believe that either they, or someone whose fate concerns them in some way, will be ultimately better off for it.
What is the common unifying factor in both of these examples?
They both take into consideration the concern of welfare for some party. In the case of dying for a secular ideal, it is concern for other people's well-being here on earth, with no concern for any possible life after death. In the case of dying for a deity, it is *still* done out of concern for one's well-being, just on a different scope --- taking into account the belief in a life after death, as well as the possibility of suffering in this life. The suffering of dying in this world is weighed against the suffering anticipated in the afterlife, and it is decided that suffering finitely for now is "better" than suffering infinitely later. This is decided based entirely on fundamental principles which can be applied in a secular world --- specifically, the idea that decisions can be made with concern for oneself or another's well-being, on some scope or another.
So if this reasoning can be used to justify moral decisions with respect to the afterlife, why can it not also be used to justify moral decisions with respect to a secular life, with no anticipated continuation of life after death? Pascal's Wager itself is based in the exact same fundamental principles used to determine secular morality --- that one can decide what to do based on the consequences of actions, and not based on some intrinsic quality of the action being prescribed. This is the utmost form of irony, I think.
With all this considered....what would you say if you were a physicist, trying to explain to someone the finer details of quantum probability amplitudes, and the person you were explaining it to just kept sticking his or her fingers in their ears and saying, "la la la, I can't hear you!" Would that make your "beliefs" about physics "arbitrary," because there's nothing you can say to make the other person see things the way you do? Does that mean there is no model of a physical understanding of the universe which can be confirmed via experiment? Or does it mean that you are dealing with someone who refuses to understand?
Now you know how I feel when I'm trying to explain my model for morality to someone, and they just keep repeating, "but that's so arbitrary, without god!" The fact that we make moral judgments based on observations about reality does not make morality "arbitrary," any more than physics or math become arbitrary when faced with people who don't want to (or can't) understand them.
In the interest of wrapping this up, I want to return once more to the original quote: "In a world without god, everything is meaningless!" Reconsider this statement in light of the idea of a scientific model, and of human subjectivity and flaw; this statement affirms absolute certain knowledge about the universe. Thus, it is not a statement that a scientist will be able to accept; a scientist works from subjective models and attempts to universalize them amongst other humans through communicable data and experiment. In order to believe that there is "no meaning to life without god," one would have to know, definitively, that it is true. As long as there are facts about the universe which are unknown, then it is possible that, in making such a statement as "there is no meaning," we are fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of meaning. We are positively affirming a negative, something which normally cannot be done in science --- you cannot prove definitively that something does not exist, because as long as you admit that there is *something* you don't know, there is a possibility that what you say cannot be found does, in fact, reside in one of those unknown areas. This is another great form of irony --- for it is this exact same reasoning that leads many Christians to conclude that atheists "cannot prove that god doesn't exist," because "atheists don't know everything!" Which we freely acknowledge, of course, as it is not our aim to "prove that god does not exist," nor to make any representation that we "know everything."
So how about it, Christian apologists --- do you know everything?
You may say, "No, but God knows everything." In which case I have to ask, do you know everything about god? If the answer is "no," then is it maybe possible that you (or any given religious authorities) are mistaken about the nature of god?
As long as there exists the possibility that we are mistaken about anything, then it is impossible to make absolute knowledge claims. The scientific method is designed to work around this fact --- it allows us to deal not in "absolute knowledge" which is fundamentally flawed, but in observable and communicable models about the universe which are naturally subjective but which are universalizable via experimentation and communicable evidence. Whether it's morality or physics and mathematics, that's the best we humans have got. So you can either take it or leave it....but keep in mind that even if you choose to leave it, it's still there, and it still works for other people. We will not be bound by your ignorance of our own very human limitations.
Monday, March 7, 2011
A Very Convenient Coincidence?
Have you ever brought up the massacres of the various peoples in the Old Testament by the Israelites, as ordered directly by God Yahweh himself, in an attempt to show that the God of the Bible (if he existed) wouldn't be quite as "moral" and "loving" as his followers would have us believe?
Have you ever been told, "It was right for that time/for those people," or perhaps, "it was justified because the people God ordered to be killed were evil?"
If so, you may have encountered the conundrum I'm going to explore today: These consequentialist justifications for God's morality can only be true if, in fact, morality is not "objective" but rather "consequentialist."
If "killing is always wrong," inherently --- or "objectively" --- then no amount of consequentialist ethics can ever change that. It would be just as wrong for God to kill thousands of people in the Old Testament as it would be for you or I to kill one, today. But even the sixth commandment --- "Thou shalt not murder" --- implies a consequentialist ethical standard. "Murder" is defined here as "unjust killing," or sometimes as "killing with hatred." The exact definition does vary, but the point is clear: "Do not kill without good reason or proper justification." The very idea that a proper justification exists assumes a consequentialist view of ethics; with true objective morality, there is no "reason why" something is bad, it simply is, and any act which further encompasses that act is also "bad." So right off the bat, the presumption of a "justifying circumstance" assumes somewhat of a consequentialist view.
Either that, or there are millions upon millions --- well, we might as well say infinite --- "objective laws" and "technicalities" which render acts "good" or "bad" --- killing is "okay" if someone is holding your child hostage and there is no other way to save your child, etc. --- but if this is the case, then there is no way for us to discover such truths. They are simply "laws for the sake of laws," and we would have only the "moral information" which was literally granted to us directly by whatever force created them. Which sounds all fine and dandy until you realize, this means we have no way of judging guilt or innocence in complex moral cases --- the best we could do is say, "did they steal? Stealing is bad, so kill 'em." There would be no mitigating circumstances because such circumstances would imply a "leniency" or tendency of change within the so-called "objective law."
Others still try to tautologically define whatever god does as "good" by nature. As has been stated for centuries, this invokes Euthyphro's Dilemma:
Of course, the versed apologist will simply say, "Goodness is god's nature, god is both judge and executioner." Which simply makes no sense --- god has to be two entities to justify this (otherwise it is a tautology), and yet no apologist willing to use this argument will also accept that god is anything other than a united, supreme, single consciousness. If god is goodness and goodness is god, then that's great, but it still tells us nothing about god. When we tautologically define words into each other like this, we end up turning the very words capable of describing them into tautologies! We might say "god is good," but what does that mean if either word can be replaced with the other? We must still default to yet a third term --- call it "benevolent" --- to describe him. But in order to satisfy the apologist, the term must still be vague enough such that it can be tautologically defined into this nonsense loop of "god's goodness" --- otherwise, if the term is too specific or descriptive, we can judge god's character against it, which demonstrates that there is a standard higher than God, by which we judge God's moral character. And of course, no "god-fearing Christian" will ever be willing to admit that! Hence, any term which could theoretically be used to describe his character, must in some way be tautologically defined *into* his character, lest it take the form of a higher standard outside of God, against which he could be judged.
Tying this back to my original point, though....there are two main routes the apologist takes when defending Yahweh's murderous tendencies in the OT:
This just screams "subjective moral standard." It implies not only that morality is not essentially objective (because it is not rooted in some quality inherent to the action being judged), but that God's moral standard is arbitrary and subject to change based on his whims. A perfect being that changes? Why is there a need for God's standard to change if it is "perfect?"
I have two responses to this one. First is, please note that in every instance of genocide and massacre in the Old Testament, God and his prophets command the Israelites to kill everyone --- man, woman and child --- and to leave no survivors. This is stressed multiple times, all throughout Deuteronomy and Joshua. And in Genesis, God tells Abraham (in the midst of a rather comical-in-hindsight exchange that drags on for a moment) that he will not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah "on the count of [even] 10," referring to the number of innocent souls within the city. God says, in other words, that he will not destroy the city if there is an innocent soul inside. He then proceeds, of course, to destroy the entire city, with all its men, women and children.
All apologetics aside, stop and think about that for a minute: what city exists, say, today, whose inhabitants are all worthy of death and destruction --- even children? Sure, the Christian says we are all worthy of damnation, but let's be realistic: is there any city that exists today, whose inhabitants you would deem "evil" enough to unanimously destroy? Even the children, who aren't even old enough to really understand what "right from wrong" means? In any sense but the most superfluous, post-hoc "everybody deserves death" blanket justification, this is simply not justifiable. Is there any city on this earth today --- and has there ever been a city --- whose inhabitants are completely, 100-percent "evil" such that even their unwitting children deserved to be stripped of their lives as "judgment?" Sure, if we trust the account of a representative of the guy who *committed* the execution, then of course there was no innocent soul in the city. But then, why do we not see such unanimous resurgence of "sin" today? Even the most "sinful" places such as "Gay California" are generally accepted to have some citizens who do not deserve the death penalty.
I'll talk more about the Sin Complex that Christians have later; for now I want to wrap this point up. Christians claim that "objective morality" exists as an inherent quality of certain actions, such as murder, adultery and idolatry. However, if this is true, then these actions must necessarily be qualities of the actions, not of God or some supreme standard. So God can do nothing to change them. This fits in line with the apologist's view of God as "his own standard;" nobody can defy the thing that defines them as what they are, right? Apparently not even God. It would be circular to do so.
And yet, when we take God's standard and apply it to himself, we see that the "wrongness" of these actions is suddenly taken away! Which means either:
Now, the apologist may see (B) and think, "Well, God couldn't take the quality of wrongness away from murder, because that would violate his nature, which is goodness." But see, this contradicts the premise --- that rightness and wrongness are qualities inherent to deeds. If they are qualities inherent to God, not deed, then we are led back to option (A), which leads us back to consequentialist (not "objective supernatural") ethics. Also, it confuses the terms "right" and "wrong" --- the "rightness" of the action is only "right" because God put it there, right? But then, "rightness" is defined as what is inherent to god! So we're tautologically defining "rightness" as "god's will" without actually describing it! Case in point; refer to my earlier statement: any term which could theoretically be used to describe God's character must, in some way, be tautologically defined *into* his character, lest it take the form of a higher standard outside of him, against which he could be judged.
In light of this, it seems like one big, giant, awfully convenient coincidence that what *happens* to be "right" by God's judgment, just *happens* to coincide with our current, consequentialist view of ethics (at least, with regard to murder, theft, rape, violence and abuse in general, etc.). These are, after all, the "evidence" cited by apologists that God gave us morality --- that murder, theft, incest, etc. are all universally reviled by any society which has ever succeeded, and thus they must have been bestowed upon us by God!
Or maybe we've just built them up using a system that works?
In any case, my original point should be clear by now: if it would be "objectively wrong" for God to command the things he commanded in the OT today, then either (A) God is unjust, because he has done these things in the past, or (B) God's standard is changing, arbitrary, and thus irrelevant to us. If it would not be "objectively wrong" but "objectively justified," then God's standard is entirely hostile to us as humans and should not be adopted as any kind of ethical example by which to lead our lives, or around which to build our societies. If, in the third case, it is wrong by a subjective, consequentialist standard, then it is not objectively "right or wrong" at all, but rather just another product of consequentialist ethics. And if that is true, then we have no need for an "objective God of morals" in the first place.
Have you ever been told, "It was right for that time/for those people," or perhaps, "it was justified because the people God ordered to be killed were evil?"
If so, you may have encountered the conundrum I'm going to explore today: These consequentialist justifications for God's morality can only be true if, in fact, morality is not "objective" but rather "consequentialist."
If "killing is always wrong," inherently --- or "objectively" --- then no amount of consequentialist ethics can ever change that. It would be just as wrong for God to kill thousands of people in the Old Testament as it would be for you or I to kill one, today. But even the sixth commandment --- "Thou shalt not murder" --- implies a consequentialist ethical standard. "Murder" is defined here as "unjust killing," or sometimes as "killing with hatred." The exact definition does vary, but the point is clear: "Do not kill without good reason or proper justification." The very idea that a proper justification exists assumes a consequentialist view of ethics; with true objective morality, there is no "reason why" something is bad, it simply is, and any act which further encompasses that act is also "bad." So right off the bat, the presumption of a "justifying circumstance" assumes somewhat of a consequentialist view.
Either that, or there are millions upon millions --- well, we might as well say infinite --- "objective laws" and "technicalities" which render acts "good" or "bad" --- killing is "okay" if someone is holding your child hostage and there is no other way to save your child, etc. --- but if this is the case, then there is no way for us to discover such truths. They are simply "laws for the sake of laws," and we would have only the "moral information" which was literally granted to us directly by whatever force created them. Which sounds all fine and dandy until you realize, this means we have no way of judging guilt or innocence in complex moral cases --- the best we could do is say, "did they steal? Stealing is bad, so kill 'em." There would be no mitigating circumstances because such circumstances would imply a "leniency" or tendency of change within the so-called "objective law."
Others still try to tautologically define whatever god does as "good" by nature. As has been stated for centuries, this invokes Euthyphro's Dilemma:
Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?
Of course, the versed apologist will simply say, "Goodness is god's nature, god is both judge and executioner." Which simply makes no sense --- god has to be two entities to justify this (otherwise it is a tautology), and yet no apologist willing to use this argument will also accept that god is anything other than a united, supreme, single consciousness. If god is goodness and goodness is god, then that's great, but it still tells us nothing about god. When we tautologically define words into each other like this, we end up turning the very words capable of describing them into tautologies! We might say "god is good," but what does that mean if either word can be replaced with the other? We must still default to yet a third term --- call it "benevolent" --- to describe him. But in order to satisfy the apologist, the term must still be vague enough such that it can be tautologically defined into this nonsense loop of "god's goodness" --- otherwise, if the term is too specific or descriptive, we can judge god's character against it, which demonstrates that there is a standard higher than God, by which we judge God's moral character. And of course, no "god-fearing Christian" will ever be willing to admit that! Hence, any term which could theoretically be used to describe his character, must in some way be tautologically defined *into* his character, lest it take the form of a higher standard outside of God, against which he could be judged.
Tying this back to my original point, though....there are two main routes the apologist takes when defending Yahweh's murderous tendencies in the OT:
(1) "It was okay back then, but not now."
This just screams "subjective moral standard." It implies not only that morality is not essentially objective (because it is not rooted in some quality inherent to the action being judged), but that God's moral standard is arbitrary and subject to change based on his whims. A perfect being that changes? Why is there a need for God's standard to change if it is "perfect?"
(2) "It was okay because those people were evil, and God was passing judgment on them."
I have two responses to this one. First is, please note that in every instance of genocide and massacre in the Old Testament, God and his prophets command the Israelites to kill everyone --- man, woman and child --- and to leave no survivors. This is stressed multiple times, all throughout Deuteronomy and Joshua. And in Genesis, God tells Abraham (in the midst of a rather comical-in-hindsight exchange that drags on for a moment) that he will not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah "on the count of [even] 10," referring to the number of innocent souls within the city. God says, in other words, that he will not destroy the city if there is an innocent soul inside. He then proceeds, of course, to destroy the entire city, with all its men, women and children.
All apologetics aside, stop and think about that for a minute: what city exists, say, today, whose inhabitants are all worthy of death and destruction --- even children? Sure, the Christian says we are all worthy of damnation, but let's be realistic: is there any city that exists today, whose inhabitants you would deem "evil" enough to unanimously destroy? Even the children, who aren't even old enough to really understand what "right from wrong" means? In any sense but the most superfluous, post-hoc "everybody deserves death" blanket justification, this is simply not justifiable. Is there any city on this earth today --- and has there ever been a city --- whose inhabitants are completely, 100-percent "evil" such that even their unwitting children deserved to be stripped of their lives as "judgment?" Sure, if we trust the account of a representative of the guy who *committed* the execution, then of course there was no innocent soul in the city. But then, why do we not see such unanimous resurgence of "sin" today? Even the most "sinful" places such as "Gay California" are generally accepted to have some citizens who do not deserve the death penalty.
I'll talk more about the Sin Complex that Christians have later; for now I want to wrap this point up. Christians claim that "objective morality" exists as an inherent quality of certain actions, such as murder, adultery and idolatry. However, if this is true, then these actions must necessarily be qualities of the actions, not of God or some supreme standard. So God can do nothing to change them. This fits in line with the apologist's view of God as "his own standard;" nobody can defy the thing that defines them as what they are, right? Apparently not even God. It would be circular to do so.
And yet, when we take God's standard and apply it to himself, we see that the "wrongness" of these actions is suddenly taken away! Which means either:
(A) "wrongness" is a quality, not of the action, but of God, which removes any need for us to worry about the "wrongness" of our actions (for we're only doing it to please god....and why is it good to please god? This leads us back into consequentialist ethics!)
(B) that God can add or subtract the quality of "rightness" or "wrongness" from an action at will, which renders his so-called "unchanging objective standard" to be completely and utterly arbitrary; who's to say that he could not decide tomorrow to remove the "wrongness" from the act of murder? There would be nothing stopping him from doing so.
Now, the apologist may see (B) and think, "Well, God couldn't take the quality of wrongness away from murder, because that would violate his nature, which is goodness." But see, this contradicts the premise --- that rightness and wrongness are qualities inherent to deeds. If they are qualities inherent to God, not deed, then we are led back to option (A), which leads us back to consequentialist (not "objective supernatural") ethics. Also, it confuses the terms "right" and "wrong" --- the "rightness" of the action is only "right" because God put it there, right? But then, "rightness" is defined as what is inherent to god! So we're tautologically defining "rightness" as "god's will" without actually describing it! Case in point; refer to my earlier statement: any term which could theoretically be used to describe God's character must, in some way, be tautologically defined *into* his character, lest it take the form of a higher standard outside of him, against which he could be judged.
In light of this, it seems like one big, giant, awfully convenient coincidence that what *happens* to be "right" by God's judgment, just *happens* to coincide with our current, consequentialist view of ethics (at least, with regard to murder, theft, rape, violence and abuse in general, etc.). These are, after all, the "evidence" cited by apologists that God gave us morality --- that murder, theft, incest, etc. are all universally reviled by any society which has ever succeeded, and thus they must have been bestowed upon us by God!
Or maybe we've just built them up using a system that works?
In any case, my original point should be clear by now: if it would be "objectively wrong" for God to command the things he commanded in the OT today, then either (A) God is unjust, because he has done these things in the past, or (B) God's standard is changing, arbitrary, and thus irrelevant to us. If it would not be "objectively wrong" but "objectively justified," then God's standard is entirely hostile to us as humans and should not be adopted as any kind of ethical example by which to lead our lives, or around which to build our societies. If, in the third case, it is wrong by a subjective, consequentialist standard, then it is not objectively "right or wrong" at all, but rather just another product of consequentialist ethics. And if that is true, then we have no need for an "objective God of morals" in the first place.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Darwin Day!
I almost forgot; today is Darwin Day!
Happy Darwin Day. Here's to a true and long-lasting appreciation of the giants on whose shoulders we stand :)
Happy Darwin Day. Here's to a true and long-lasting appreciation of the giants on whose shoulders we stand :)
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