Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
This post is redundant and I don't get it. The post you responded to contained no demonstrations God exists and no requests that anyone prove that demonstration that I did not give, wrong. What in the world are you referring to? My post only contained a request for someone to prove what they themselves claimed was true, was in fact actually true.
Yes, did you in fact read my recent posts before asking this question. I however did not say it was true, I simply gave reasons why believing it exists is justifiable. Your really misfiring a lot. You seem to think I said things I did not and refer to things you do not specifically point out.
For crying out loud. Are you the thread police? I responded to a point introduced by another. There are no rules about what is relevant or allowed in a thread, I am permitted to respond to even subjects that are not strictly concerned with an op, and this subject was not even unrelated to the thread.
It's quite true, he did it as a joke, but there was a lot of truth in it. I had undertaken the most physically demanding underwater project that he'd ever seen, though I pass it along for humor, the point stands, that it appears in 15 years of "studying" you've managed to avoid learning anything ... that's a singular accomplishment.
It is not the claim that makes you ignorant, it is your inability and unwillingness to support said claim with anything rational. That is your normal modus operandi so I can see where your paranoid delusion stems from.
You post is unclear, there are too may pronouns and all meaning is thus lost.
You hardly "knew" the best you can say is that you "hoped" or "believed."
On the basis of your post, the 15 years of research that you claim has done little to improve your "slight" understanding.
When people write in generalities, in classical languages, it is amazing the sorts of modern results that you can back into. Actually the first description of natural selection (that also had a rejection of the existence of the gods in favor of naturalism) was penned by Lucretius in about 200 BC in On The Nature of Things, Book V.
Clearly you just brushed the surface of evolutionary theory. I suspect that you spent most of your time reading not authoritative sources but anti-evolution tracts.
I've seen the conclusions that you've reached, the paths you trod getting to such a demonstrably wrong-headed destination are not of any real interest to me.
Sure, they all exist in nature, just as they do in the churches. A single type of uncommon, "immoral" event (say the killing of the offspring of the previously dominant male lion by a usurper) is not justification for all other lineages to practice the same procedure, nor is the consumption of the male during copulation by various insects. The natural world exhibits a wide spectrum of strategies and that does not suggest that humans take up and practice each and every one of them. But understanding where they come from and what their selective advantages and disadvantages are is both interesting and useful.
I don't know where you get the from save the fact that
That the only commonality between "Darwinism" and "Social Darwinisn" is the use of the word "Darwin" for starters.
Am I arrogant or are you ignorant? I l think that I have rationally demonstrated that latter.
You were very clear that the ideas came from other scholars and theologans. Why would you deny that?
I would have liked to agree with you but couldn't. I will give one example of why. Lets say either empathy or evolution is the basis for morality without God. Evolution contains every form of behavior (from the most unjust and violent, to the most altruistic) which one we are going to Cherry pick and make a law about is mater of pure opinion or presence. The same with empathy. All kinds of conflicting ideas can exist as to what is most empathic and to whom is the greatest empathy to be shown. Whatever theory is chosen it would be a matter of opinion or preference. I have seen hundreds of conflicting moral systems posted in response to me and IMO every single one when stripped of semantic window dressing was merely opinion and preference.
Yes I did but that was in another post I thought. Anyway they can't help but have personal behavior. Maybe you mean they have corporate behavioral patterns. Either way my point was that if nature is used to pattern our behavior then what parts. Most would be horrific if adopted by humanity. Bees evolved why are they out, and even I they are out what about Dolphins, apes, or lions? They all do things we have hundreds of laws against.
That is kind of misleading. Some animals do cooperate at times but they all cease cooperation at other times and never cooperate in certain ways. Not that cooperation is necessarily good. Lions to operate to kill their young, Wolves cooperate to rip rabbits to shreds. IOW words merely cooperating is not necessarily good. Some things cooperate to kill ourselves. Nature is governed by self interest where as our greatest moral values are usual altruistic. You know what they say about a person who is acting immorally in extreme ways, that he is acting inhumanly. IOW we think to act less than a human is to act immorally. So your suggesting we look at what we ourselves think is actually the pattern of immorality to ground our morality.
Let me ask this. In what way is whatever is not caused by evolution if God does not exist. Isn't behavior the result of intelligence, is not intelligence the result of evolution? I cannot see how evolution would not be just as culpable for horrific things like slavery, war, and even taxation if God does not exist. You might find that shocking but I see no alternative. Evolution produces mind, mind produces the rest.
Without God whatever behavior is, is evolution's fault. Since behavior is so full of injustice, misery, oppression, violence, slavery, murder, etc...... should we not seek a better (even if artificial) foundation for morality? I have said many times I think it justifiable that even if God does not exist we use the morals he would have justified anyway because evolution is such a horrific thing to pattern ethics upon.
Your entire response here stands or falls on the truth of the theory that evolution explains theology. I am very familiar with that theory and find it to be abysmal for almost inevitable reasons. I have just given a few of those reasons in another post: #568 if you want to review them. I accordingly think the theory so absurd I can not give it any credence and deny it's viability. So I will just have to disagree here.
It would surprise me a great deal if you have read a fraction of what I have about Hitler. I know he had other motivations for his actions but in his own personal (and later, the chronology is very important here) writings about his motivations natural selection was by far the primary one. Additional lesser motivations include courting of the church's influence (though he was never even remotely a Christian), Tibetan mythology, sheer insanity, greed, bigotry (which he justified by Social Darwinism), etc...... but as I said his Germany was the closest any society ever got to using nature as a pattern for ethics.
Let me remind you I did not say Hitler's ideas reflected true evolution (whatever that means), I said his society is closest we have ever gotten. I think we have debated humanism before. There are many and competing types of humanism including at least one which has Christian roots. Let me ask this, if evolution is such a great basis for morality who has no society ever used it for that beyond Hitler's abortive attempt? No legal theory, no law book, no lawyer to my knowledge has ever used evolution to defend or condemn a moral action.
I agree. He was a study in contrasts but I can find countless examples of what he did (even the most vile and despicable) in nature (at least in some form). Let's look at just one example. He believed that killing the weak would unburden the strong and make humanity in general just that much more likely to survive. On what basis would you say nature does not justify that concept?
Because that is not what I said. I said that other scholars had that idea because debates take place on the grounds of common agreement. Academic scholarship is one of those areas. I did not say that that was the sole source for my position. I did not even hint at that. However my personal opinions are not common ground and so many times I use scholarship to make the point as it is has a more universal credibility. IOW I may not convince you about gravity but Newton should. Please pay closer attention to what my statements do and do not say. It is currently me debating about 7 or 8 people so I have little time to constantly clarify what I have said. The post you referred to in fact contains an entire paragraph of my own personal views and only ends with the work of a scholar so to suggest I did not give my own reasons and merely borrowed from a scholar (not that there is the slightest thing wrong if I had done so) is just plain false and disingenuous. So the real question is why on earth did you assert that?
Hold the phone. What you said and what I did are very close to the same thing. Why are you surprised? I did not say evolution contains any moral property. I in fact have recently said the exact opposite many times. What I did say there was that I was aware of the theories that say nature is a moral process. I in fact do not agree with that.
How can you know that since I did not name them? Forget the scholars. Point out what is wrong with the conclusions pleas. What society based more ethical concerns on the patterns found in nature than Hitler's Germany? BTW one of my sources (though not a scholar) is Hitler's own personal writings.
Again I did not say that God existed so I have no burden what so ever to show he in fact does exists. I merely said that objective morality can't exist without God. The only burden for that I have already given many times and did so just minutes ago. I have done far more than my claims require. I wish you would stop mistaking the technical demands that I did not give for claims I did not make and instead explain what is logically wrong with the claims themselves.
I tell you what, I can give an argument against this of some indeterminate strength but your analogy was so clever compared to the clumsy efforts I have previously seen, I am instead going to temporary grant it. BTW you do realize you just made the same argument from popularity you denied when I had billions in spite of your having a population of 2?
Why do you have to ruin an interesting story with yet again saying the same arrogant thing which has no factual basis? In fact it is virtually impossible it even could be true. I really wish you would drop the redundant sarcasm. It is more damaging to your credibility than mine.
Your an intelligent guy but apparently not all that disciplined. I want to have a discussion with you but if you keep up with this never ending theme I cannot justify doing so. I know what you think because you have stated it many times. What I have yet to see is any evidence your right. So drop the claim and prove it instead.
I make no claim to my superb grammatical skills in general but what you responded to does not contain a single flaw. This had better get better fast.
That is it I am not reading the same unjustifiable sarcastic sentence over and over and over. I leave you to your apparent general dissatisfaction with reality and too bad to.
Actually its cultural. We as social beings obtain a culture in which we assimilate certain aspects of ourselves within a group. To call it pure opinion would be false especially since it is not an individual opinion but rather the emerged pattern of a society.
All parts of us were evolved in some way shape or form. I think a lion would find it strange to vomit its food into the mouth of its young but an eagle would find it natural. It is how they have evolved to survive and though we have a few different mechanisms that have repeated themselves independently over the course of our history it is usually isolated to different species in how they survive.
Not quite. I was merely going into how complex many of these things are. And I was talking about humans specifically in this quoted section. We humans are an exception to some rules but this in and of itself isn't actually proof of anything other than the fact we have a strange evolution that has favored cognitive problem solving skills and high social skills.
I am confused. Do you mean to think that I have not elaborated to say the evolution does include those things? The evolution of our social behavior includes war, hatred, bigotry and all manor of horrific and terrible things. Self interest being the chiefest of all reasons. However again we have to circle back to the understanding we have of other people's behavior. That in turn affects our own.
We have morality as understood through reason given certain axioms. Secular humanism is one of these great artifical foundations of morality. There is the axiom that human's have rights. This should not be questioned in the basis of this morality. It is derived from reason both of a want to have rights oneself and to protect that for others that you may or may not care about.
We understand fully "how" it could have created theology. I read your post and I don't understand exactly what you think is counter to this. That there was a religion that dictated morality? This is theorized to be one of the main reason theology developed was a functional moral dictation in the absence of secularized governments. Or that there would develop a religion that would have a chance for everlasting life in heaven if they only follow the rules.
No it is the closest thing we will ever see for social Darwinism which is not the same thing even remotely. The very basic idea he has does fall in line with the concepts of breeding that we have done with animals for tens of thousands of years but it does not accurately portray the moral behaviors and patterns that we have developed as homo Sassanian.
We have. Actually every moral code to have ever existed is a product of evolved thinking. Even Christianity by my view. See above for Hitler response.
Because of the axiom that all human life is precious.
Yet culture is also merely opinion based without God. It is our opinions about how best our tribe can go about it's business and behave. There is no ultimate objective cultural fact of the matter. No way to say one is right and another wrong. Just an opinion about which is thing is preferred or not. Culture is just a label for a collection of opinions held my most of a group.
Yes empathy is part of reality but it also is an opinion. First of al empathy is not an objective right or wrong without God. It is our opinion that it is right, but that just causes more problems. There is no single way to act empathic. The only potential way of making empathy even consistent is to know what would produce the maximum amount of it universally over the entirety of the earth. We can't do that so we merely have opinions about what is most empathic.
That is a good observation. So why would we look at anything in nature if the things in nature would only apply to their individual creatures. Why should I adopt the morality exhibited by any non-human? Bat behavior, fish behavior, slug behavior, bird behavior, etc.... has no human relevance or inherent application to humanity. At best we should only look at human behavior but human behavior is merely a set of opinions codified and acted upon. So we are left to base our opinions on other opinions. Not that most of human history is worthy of being copied to begin with. Why don't we just cut to the chase and forget nature as containing any reliable or applicable objective moral truth?
Are you saying that if lions do it then we should as well? If you are then we cannot condemn anyone for eating their children. If you are not then you have abandoned what has no reasonable basis for grounding morality and we agree. So you must either allow others to eat kids or agree with me. I am not sure which you may find more distasteful.
That reminds me of something. I have never seen any evolutionary model based on evidence that would explain how we in a geological instant surpassed every other creature in history by light years. I mean we are not better, not more advanced, we are exponentially more advanced that even our closest competitor than any other link in the entire evolutionary past. I would think the interpretation that God had endowed a primate species with a soul and the capacity to reason to a level that we could comprehend his interaction with us to account for what evolution does not.
Ok, and that is the entire problem. Evolution would justify either action. No objective standard exists to decide which one is factually good. Each one is entirely a mater of arbitrary opinion. In fact it is a mistake to even attempt to label anything without God as being actually good or wrong. Those entire categories of truth no longer exist without him. We can call a thing good in connection to a goal but neither the action nor the goal is actually right or wrong but it is merely an opinion called by another label.
I am so used to evolution/morality people selecting only those things in nature which humanity generally claims are good as our pattern. In fact I have never had a single one of them grant that any study of nature used to ground morality will reflect those evils as well as any goods. I did not assume the same in your case. My post was an effort to see what you thought. I take you grant what I said? All behavior is equal evolutions responsibility without God. If so it includes so much harm we should invent another standard even if it is false. Even better we should use God, as he very likely does exists and does objectively ground moral behavior which is in every way superior to evolution.
That would only be true depending on whether God exists or not. If he does as I personally know, and I attempt to show on occasion then my conscience comes from a divine source and defying it comes from rebellion.
Again those axioms are the product of opinion or preference. If I say morality is derived from empathy it is merely my opinion that is should be. If I say from individual rights the that plus any rights I invent are also merely preference.
Again this assumes that God does not exist which is again merely an opinion and one which contradicts a mountain of evidence.
Why in the world would I invent an entire system of rules which are in fact inconvenient, condemn me without hope, and which defy natural law as a result of natural selection. Survival is best guaranteed by truth not entire world views based on lies that in fact have guaranteed a lack of survival for millions. There is a saying in the military "to defend everything is to defend nothing" there should be one like this for evolution and global warming that says "to explain everything is to explain nothing". It seems global warming is proven by anything that occurs even if contradictory, and evolution explains any genetic related event no matter how contradictory.
In Christianity's case that control has a criteria that defies and contradicts nature. It does not seek survival at all costs, it claims an equality nature cannot produce, and most of it does not even apply to our natural lives. To say evolution created this IMO is intellectual bankruptcy.
Social Darwinism is the effort to do in fact what you have said, use nature to establish behavior. Now you might claim Huxley got it wrong but again that is the problem. It is your opinion against his and there exists no transcendent standard to determine who is right.
No, it is the same thing. You merely redefined it based on your preference and opinion to be only homo sapiens behavior we should follow. However that is to dig the grave even deeper, because our past is more full of the evils we should avoid than nature in general is. It is to select the worst example in the worst group to copy.
Not according to the books and authors who created them and record them. Jefferson for example said God is the source of human rights. Half of them have no relevance to nature, and most are not consistent with it.
Your proving my point. Your governing axiom here is not even true without God in any objective way, is merely a preference, and is based on opinion.
Of course not and that is what I have been saying. Basing moral duties and values on nature is horrific and I don't want it.
I'm glad the story intrigued you. My point was that when someone claims to have studied something for 15 years and they come to the conclusion that all of modern science is wrong, then I'm inclined to think that perhaps their off their rocker rather than that all of modern science has it wrong.
It does not appear that you want to have a discussion, it appears that you want to make outlandish claims and have everyone praise your for your sagacious insights. Ain't gonna happen.
Sorry, I could make neither hide nor hair of that paragraph.
Yeah, it is kind of a broken record, "unsupported claim." But that's your style, you make claims, you fail to suppourt them, them you whine when people ask you, repeatedly, to take care of the things that you left out twisting in the wind. But you never, ever, do. You just go on to make more unsupported claims. No one here will miss you, rest assured.