Posted on 03/09/2015 6:58:35 AM PDT by Heartlander
Same with compassion. Or sacrificing your life for others.
Then we get into “how did we evolve he concept of ‘aught’?”
I’m not an evolutionist, but this article is a shining example of someone who doesn’t understand logic or reason.
I’ve heard some pretty weak evolutionary explanations for “ought”.
CS Lewis pretty much destroys these with the question
“if we know what we ‘ought’, then why do we want to do otherwise?”
In other words, if “ought” is evolutionarily “wired” for a survival instinct, there should be no tendency to do otherwise, as that would be counter to survival.
Evolution has never been observed happening and thus cannot be tested. It cannot produce replicable results and provides no predictability. The theory itself cannont be falsified. And this is supposed to be science?
False dichotomies can drive you crazy trying to reconcile them to reality.
Such a brain should not be trusted beyond finding the next meal.
Problem with the human brain vs the spirit is that it is like comparing AM radio with FM radio. And if the only thing you have is the AM radio, you may refuse to believe FM even exists.
I have never understood why so many people are possessed of the illogical idea that evolutionary theory is somehow exclusive of God and His Creation?
Myself, I find it awesome to consider that God didn’t create me the ‘easy way’ but instead I am part of a 15 billion year plan that led to my existence...and He knew I would exist when He set that plan into motion!
I compare this to thinking that I could have a father who would buy me a pre-fabricated home (for which I’d be grateful) or I could have a handmade home in which my father grew the trees for the lumber that he milled himself, he mined the ore to make the steel for the nails, and he attended to every little detail in minute detail taking years and years to create something for me.
I’m sorry to disappoint some of you, but for me the idea of God using evolution to bring about His plan speaks to a God whose wisdom is truly beyond our understanding.
And if it was all done in seven days then that’s fine, too. But either way I still believe in God and I am left to wonder about people who obsess over evolution and creation as if their faith hinges on one being true over the other.
And that’s not faith.
My God is my God and my Lord and Savior no matter what.
What exactly did she say in the article that leads you to this conclusion?
The problem is that modern evolution is defined to mean naturalistic processes without the need for God. If you assume God in the mix, you are not talking about evolution, but some other process that has “evolution” in the name.
> What’s the downside if you’re wrong about that?
Absolutely none...: )
Liberals have been known to be the vast majority of pot smokers for decades. Liberals are usually Democrats. Thats not new...I done stepped in it now haven’t I...lol
Why would God create some people with average IQs of 75 and some with average IQs over 100? Why would we have some peoples very short and others much bigger? To be sure many evolutionists are arch liberals who believe all the peoples of the world are exactly the same in intelligence and ability. No sane person believes that.
The truth is evolutionary pressures forced some peoples to be smarter to survive their environment. And many peoples had to adapt physically to survive their environment.
And if we're all descended from the Adam and Eve, why don't all the world's peoples look virtually the same?
There’s democrats and there’s DEMOCRATS just like there’s gays and there’s GAYS.
Ahem, there usually is no quarrel with micro-evolution even in the staunchest creation crowd.
But there is an additional chaotic component now.
Long creation eras don’t need to be attended by any kind of “macro evolution.” A series of miracles is sufficient to populate the world.
When I encounter someone who refuses to consider or even admit the possibility of unintended consequences, I run in the other direction.
Yes. It’s where I was introduced to it. :-)
I notice others are starting to address it but there is the other side I’ve not read from Lewis: If the human mind evolved, why would one trust the conclusions about the origins of mankind via an evolved mind? It doesn’t know what it doesn’t know.
It’s why I use the “am radio” example. It can’t see an FM signal at all. But for it to then claim it therefore doesn’t exist is intellectually stupid, for it is basing its belief on woeful ignorance.
And it looks especially short sided to those who DO have an FM radio and do pick up the signal.
Somehow the stormers of the world want to boast the privilege but do not want to bow down the responsibility.
1. If morality is subjective (by individual or group), as atheists/materialists claim, then what any individual/group ought to do is necessarily relative to that individual/group purpose. IOW, if my purpose is to make a frozen margarita, I ought put ice in the blender. If my purpose is to make fresh peanut butter, I ought not put ice in the blender. The ought-ness of any task can only be discerned by mapping it to the purpose for which the act is committed. Under moral subjectivism, acts in themselves are just brute facts with no objective moral value; they must be mapped to the subjective purpose to determine subjective moral value (oughtness).2. The question “Is it moral to gratuitously torture children?” implies that whomever does such an act finds it personally gratifying in some way, and we are asking a third party if the act is moral or immoral. The only possible, logically consistent answer a subjective moralist (atheist/materialist) can give is that yes, it is moral, because the moral challenge is tautologically valid in the subjective morality model. If my purpose is to gratify myself, and torturing children gratifies me, there is a 1 to 1 mapping of act to purpose- I ought do so. It is moral by definition for anyone who is gratified by the act to do so for their own gratification.
3. If the moral subjectivist says that the act is immoral “to them”, they are committing a logical error. The acts of others can only be morally evaluated according to that particular person’s subjective purpose, not according to the subjective purposes of anyone else. That is the nature of subjective commodities and relationships. Whether or not it is something a third party “ought” do for their purposes is entirely irrelevant and is treating the third party’s purposes as if they are objectively valid and binding evaluations on the acts of others.
4. Would an atheist/materialist intervene if someone else was gratuitously torturing children? If they had the power to snap their fingers and eliminate this kind of activity from the world, would they do so? I suspect the answer to both would be: yes. Note how self-described moral subjectivists would treat their own personal preferences as if they were objectively valid and binding on others.
5. Only a sociopath can truly act as if morality is subjective. “Moral subjectivism” is a intellectual smokescreen. It is a self-deception or an oughtright lie. Its proponents cannot even act or respond to questions as if moral subjectivism is true. They betray themselves as closet moral objectivists in denial, hiding from the implications of a morality they must live and act as if objective.
William J Murray
Joel Marks, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the U. of New Haven, who for 10 years authored the “Moral Moments” column in Philosophy Now, made the following statements in a 2010 article entitled, “An Amoral Manifesto.”
“This philosopher has been laboring under an unexamined assumption, namely that there is such a thing as right and wrong. I now believe there isn’t…The long and short of it is that I became convinced that atheism implies amorality; and since I am an atheist, I must therefore embrace amorality…I experienced my shocking epiphany that religious fundamentalists are correct; without God there is no morality. But they are incorrect, I still believe, about there being a God. Hence, I believe, there is no morality.
Marks then quite boldly and candidly addresses the implications of his newfound beliefs:
“Even though words like “sinful” and “evil” come naturally to the tongue as say a description of child molesting. They do not describe any actual properties of anything. There are no literal sins in the world because there is no literal God…nothing is literally right or wrong because there is no Morality…yet we human beings can still discover plenty of completely naturally explainable resources for motivating certain preferences. Thus enough of us are sufficiently averse to the molestation of children and would likely continue to be…( An Amoral Manifesto Part I )
Some atheists are would be theists working valiantly with a mountain of nonsense as premises. They might become believers later.
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