3 ms·

> Certainly true, but the fact that the line is fuzzy seems to me an indication that it wasn't drawn by God. Fuzziness is more characteristic of nature. That s

by dvt 10y ago

> Certainly true, but the fact that the line is fuzzy seems to me an indication that it wasn't drawn by God. Fuzziness is more characteristic of nature. That seems like quite a leap to me, but even if we agree that there's an objective good and an objective bad, then there must be some standard for the good. I think that standard is God. This isn't meant to be a proof (and it's very hand-wavy), but that's my intuition. > Then you should read this... Seems to be in the same vein and Dawkins, et al.: that we somehow evolved this moral intuition. I think that's a faulty position because of a simple thought experiment. Consider a universe where nothing evolved. For whatever reason, there was no Big Bang, and things just popped into existence. Would there be no morality in such a universe (because we didn't evolve it)? I find that very hard to believe.

lisper 10y ago
> there must be some standard for the good And there is: good is that which improves the reproductive fitness of the entities that practice it. > For whatever reason, there was no Big Bang, and things just popped into existence. Would there be no morality in such a universe (because we didn't evolve it)? That's right. (To be precise, there might be morality, but it would be whatever the entity that created this universe decided it should be.) > I find that very hard to believe. Why? We actually have some data points because we actually create such universes ourselves nowadays. We call them computer games or virtual reality environments, and the moral rules at work in some of them are very different from the real world. The poster child for this is Grand Theft Auto, where the disconnect between the moral rules of that world and ours causes some people a great deal of cognitive dissonance. As long as we're doing thought experiments here's one for you: suppose God told you that it was OK to force people to eat their own children. Would that make it in fact OK? Or is there some moral standard that transcends God that makes it not OK to do certain things even if God says it's OK? (BTW, in case you don't recognize it, this question was first raised by Plato in a famous dialogue called Euthyphro. It's worth reading. And BTW2, if you think that this example is too extreme you should read Jeremiah 19:9.)
- dvt 10y ago
  > And there is: good is that which improves the reproductive fitness of the entities that practice it. You can make a barometer for morality out of anything. I could make a theory where "greed is good", to quote Gordon Gekko. But that wasn't my point; rather, my point was that there is a Good, with a capital G, that transcends any artificial barometer. In virtue ethics, this is called "flourishing". > As long as we're doing thought experiments here's one for you: suppose God told you that it was OK to force people to eat their own children. Would that make it in fact OK? Or is there some moral standard that transcends God that makes it not OK to do certain things even if God says it's OK? (BTW, in case you don't recognize it, this question was first raised by Plato in a famous dialogue called Euthyphro. It's worth reading. And BTW2, if you think that this example is too extreme you should read Jeremiah 19:9.) The argument is actually Aristotle's, Plato just wrote it down, but yes I'm very familiar with it. It's cute, but I kind of like Ockham's counter-argument. He argues that the only "rule" God is bound by is the rule of non-contradiction. That means that even God can't make "square circles" or "a ≠ a". This doesn't mean he's not omnipotent, just that there's some logical consistency to what is possible. If you buy that premise, then God would never tell someone to do something immoral, as God is the embodiment of all that is good, virtuous, holy, etc. What you're citing from Jeremiah is a prophecy, and those are notoriously complex to decipher (and much is lost in translation). Admittedly, I haven't studied Jeremiah for a while, but if I remember correctly, some of it is metaphorical.
  - lisper 10y ago
    > You can make a barometer for morality out of anything. Yes, that's right. That was the point I was making with Grand Theft Auto, where you get rewarded for committing what in this world are considered crimes. That's what you get in created worlds: the creator gets to decide everything: the laws of physics, morality, the color of the sky. Everything. But in this world, which operates according to the laws of physics (of which evolution is a consequence), morality is not arbitrary. Good is that which results from genes building brains which have moral intuitions that produce behaviors that increase the reproductive fitness of those genes. What is it about this idea that you find so distasteful? I think it's rather beautiful actually. It gets you out of some rather thorny problems (see below). > The argument is actually Aristotle's, Plato just wrote it down You mean Socrates, not Aristotle. (Whee! This game of scholarly one-upsmanship is so much fun!) > If you buy that premise, then God would never tell someone to do something immoral Well, yeah, because then what God says is moral by definition. If God says forcing someone to eat their children is moral, then it's moral. BTW, it seems to me that having morality grate on your intuitions like that (the idea that forcing someone to eat their children is moral does grate on your intuitions, doesn't it?) is exactly what you would expect if man is fallen. That's what it means for man to be fallen, doesn't it? That our moral intuitions are unreliable and we have to rely on God for moral guidance? In which case who are we to second-guess the Word of God? > What you're citing from Jeremiah is a prophecy, and those are notoriously complex to decipher I dunno, it seems pretty straightforward to me. "Thus saith the LORD... I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters..." God is making a promise here, so there are logically only three possibilities: either 1) he's bluffing (i.e. lying) and if push comes to shove he won't actually do the things he says he's going to do, or 2) he will do those things despite the fact that they are immoral or, 3) forcing people to eat their own children is moral. (BTW, compare Jeremiah to Exodus 11:5 where we know that God actually made good on his threat.) But I didn't have to choose Jeremiah. I just picked that example for its shock value, and because it isn't widely known. There are dozens of other examples I could have chosen. Exodus 11:5, for example, where God actually does follow through (in Exodus 12:29). Or Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (disobeying your parents is a capital crime) or 22:28-29 (the penalty for raping an unwed virgin is 50 shekels). But my point here is not to rehash the depravities of the OT, it is to make the point that logically there are only two possibilities: either our moral intuitions are reliable, or they are not. If they are reliable, then we don't need God as a moral guide, and if they are not reliable then we would expect any reliable source of moral guidance to be at odds with our moral intuitions (that's what it means to be unreliable). How can this not be the case?

by dvt 10y ago

lisper 10y ago

> there must be some standard for the good And there is: good is that which improves the reproductive fitness of the entities that practice it. > For whatever reason, there was no Big Bang, and things just popped into existence. Would there be no morality in such a universe (because we didn't evolve it)? That's right. (To be precise, there might be morality, but it would be whatever the entity that created this universe decided it should be.) > I find that very hard to believe. Why? We actually have some data points because we actually create such universes ourselves nowadays. We call them computer games or virtual reality environments, and the moral rules at work in some of them are very different from the real world. The poster child for this is Grand Theft Auto, where the disconnect between the moral rules of that world and ours causes some people a great deal of cognitive dissonance. As long as we're doing thought experiments here's one for you: suppose God told you that it was OK to force people to eat their own children. Would that make it in fact OK? Or is there some moral standard that transcends God that makes it not OK to do certain things even if God says it's OK? (BTW, in case you don't recognize it, this question was first raised by Plato in a famous dialogue called Euthyphro. It's worth reading. And BTW2, if you think that this example is too extreme you should read Jeremiah 19:9.)

dvt 10y ago
> And there is: good is that which improves the reproductive fitness of the entities that practice it. You can make a barometer for morality out of anything. I could make a theory where "greed is good", to quote Gordon Gekko. But that wasn't my point; rather, my point was that there is a Good, with a capital G, that transcends any artificial barometer. In virtue ethics, this is called "flourishing". > As long as we're doing thought experiments here's one for you: suppose God told you that it was OK to force people to eat their own children. Would that make it in fact OK? Or is there some moral standard that transcends God that makes it not OK to do certain things even if God says it's OK? (BTW, in case you don't recognize it, this question was first raised by Plato in a famous dialogue called Euthyphro. It's worth reading. And BTW2, if you think that this example is too extreme you should read Jeremiah 19:9.) The argument is actually Aristotle's, Plato just wrote it down, but yes I'm very familiar with it. It's cute, but I kind of like Ockham's counter-argument. He argues that the only "rule" God is bound by is the rule of non-contradiction. That means that even God can't make "square circles" or "a ≠ a". This doesn't mean he's not omnipotent, just that there's some logical consistency to what is possible. If you buy that premise, then God would never tell someone to do something immoral, as God is the embodiment of all that is good, virtuous, holy, etc. What you're citing from Jeremiah is a prophecy, and those are notoriously complex to decipher (and much is lost in translation). Admittedly, I haven't studied Jeremiah for a while, but if I remember correctly, some of it is metaphorical.
- lisper 10y ago
  > You can make a barometer for morality out of anything. Yes, that's right. That was the point I was making with Grand Theft Auto, where you get rewarded for committing what in this world are considered crimes. That's what you get in created worlds: the creator gets to decide everything: the laws of physics, morality, the color of the sky. Everything. But in this world, which operates according to the laws of physics (of which evolution is a consequence), morality is not arbitrary. Good is that which results from genes building brains which have moral intuitions that produce behaviors that increase the reproductive fitness of those genes. What is it about this idea that you find so distasteful? I think it's rather beautiful actually. It gets you out of some rather thorny problems (see below). > The argument is actually Aristotle's, Plato just wrote it down You mean Socrates, not Aristotle. (Whee! This game of scholarly one-upsmanship is so much fun!) > If you buy that premise, then God would never tell someone to do something immoral Well, yeah, because then what God says is moral by definition. If God says forcing someone to eat their children is moral, then it's moral. BTW, it seems to me that having morality grate on your intuitions like that (the idea that forcing someone to eat their children is moral does grate on your intuitions, doesn't it?) is exactly what you would expect if man is fallen. That's what it means for man to be fallen, doesn't it? That our moral intuitions are unreliable and we have to rely on God for moral guidance? In which case who are we to second-guess the Word of God? > What you're citing from Jeremiah is a prophecy, and those are notoriously complex to decipher I dunno, it seems pretty straightforward to me. "Thus saith the LORD... I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters..." God is making a promise here, so there are logically only three possibilities: either 1) he's bluffing (i.e. lying) and if push comes to shove he won't actually do the things he says he's going to do, or 2) he will do those things despite the fact that they are immoral or, 3) forcing people to eat their own children is moral. (BTW, compare Jeremiah to Exodus 11:5 where we know that God actually made good on his threat.) But I didn't have to choose Jeremiah. I just picked that example for its shock value, and because it isn't widely known. There are dozens of other examples I could have chosen. Exodus 11:5, for example, where God actually does follow through (in Exodus 12:29). Or Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (disobeying your parents is a capital crime) or 22:28-29 (the penalty for raping an unwed virgin is 50 shekels). But my point here is not to rehash the depravities of the OT, it is to make the point that logically there are only two possibilities: either our moral intuitions are reliable, or they are not. If they are reliable, then we don't need God as a moral guide, and if they are not reliable then we would expect any reliable source of moral guidance to be at odds with our moral intuitions (that's what it means to be unreliable). How can this not be the case?