Posted on 02/18/2015 7:39:18 AM PST by Gamecock
As one considers the values of Hollywood and American pop culture, it would be easy to conclude that no one is concerned all that much about morality. The dominant message is that people should live whatever life-style suits their personal preferences. What is right for one person is not necessarily what is right for another.
Or so it would seem.
Just about the time you are convinced that Hollywood thinks morality is relative, a major entertainment figure steps forward and speaks out vigorously about a moral cause. Maybe it’s the environment. Or perhaps its racism. Or maybe the moral cause is caring for the poor. Regardless, it turns out that, in certain instances, morality is absolute after all. In regard to these moral issues, apparently everyone should be on board.
Such was the case with the latest statements by the actress Julianne Moore. The headline I read about her most recent interview said it all:
“Oscar Actress Frontrunner: I Don’t Believe in God; Gun Control a Must.”
Now right off the bat, it is clear that there are some serious problems with Moore’s worldview. First, she stumbles into the very problem mentioned above. How can we take her moral position seriously, when the message of her industry is that there are no moral absolutes? You can’t say, on the one hand, “Live whatever life-style you want,” and then, on the other hand, say, “You must follow this particular moral position” (in this case, gun control). It’s one or the other.
But, the second problem is even bigger than the first. In addition to making moral claims, Moore makes it clear that she doesn’t believe in God. Apparently, then, she has an atheistic worldview. Of course, she is free to have such a worldview, but the problem is that it doesn’t square with her moral crusade for gun control.
Presumably, she is concerned about gun control because she values human life. She believes it is “wrong” to take a human life, and wants to prevent as many human deaths as possible. But, on an atheistic worldview, why is human life more important than any other life? It is just the product of billions of years of mindless evolution. On an atheistic worldview, taking a human life is no different than taking the life of a cockroach. On an atheistic worldview, there is no right and wrong at all.
Later in the interview, Moore admits as much. She says:
“I learned when my mother died five years ago that there is no ‘there’ there,” she reflects. “Structure, it’s all imposed. We impose order and narrative on everything in order to understand it. Otherwise, there’s nothing but chaos.”
Basically, according to Moore, there is no inherent meaning in the universe–meaning is just something we “impose” on a world filled with “chaos.” All good and well, but what then is the ground for her moral claims about gun control and the value of human life? In a world without meaning, why would it matter what one human does to another? It is just one bag of molecules doing something to another bag of molecules.
Of course, Moore might respond and say, “You can still have morality on an atheistic worldview. Morality is determined by what is good for the most people. And gun control is good for the most people.”
But, this just creates a new moral code out of thin air, namely that “Morality is determined by what is good for the most people.” Where does this moral standard come from? Did she just make it up? And why should people follow it? Moreover, how does Moore determine what is good for the most people? What counts as “good”?
In the end, Moore’s worldview faces some serious philosophical challenges. She wants to have absolute morality so that she can declare murder wrong (and thus advocate gun control), but at the same time she provides no coherent basis for what makes something right or wrong. Indeed, she has a worldview that actually destroys the possibility of their actually being any real right or wrong.
When someone has such an obviously incoherent worldview, it makes one wonder how that happens. What leads someone to embrace two obviously contradictory premises? The Bible actually provides an answer for this. The Scriptures teach that men and women are made in the image of God and the law of God is written on their heart (Rom 2:14-15). This explains why Moore insists that murder is wrong (which leads her to advocate gun control).
The Scriptures also teach that unbelievers suppress this truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18-23). Even though Moore knows there is a God, she refuses to admit such a thing and tries to live her life without him. Thus, her contradictory worldview is inevitable. She is trying to get away from God, but cannot escape him because the Law of God is written on her own heart.
Of course, it should be noted that Christians agree with Moore’s concern for human life. We agree that it is wrong to murder (regardless of what one thinks about the merits of gun control laws). The difference is that Christians actually have a coherent reason for why murder is wrong, namely because humans are made in the image of God (and thus are different from the cockroach), and because God has commanded us not to murder.
While non-Christians might act moral, and might advocate moral acts, only Christians have grounds for why an act is moral or immoral in the first place.
Next to last word in third paragraph should be linear, not libear. Small keyboard tiny screen. UGH!
We have indeed seen many changes over the years. I do miss quite a few of those who ended up at Darwin Central, the ones who raised interesting points, kept us sharp and were respectful. A few of course were simply cheerleaders for their side, didn't have anything substantive to add to the debate. And some were just plain rude or difficult.
I suspect most of the reaction to Timothy from "over there" came from the latter group because I doubt many of the heavier thinkers would have anything to do in an echo chamber.
It has been an honor and privilege to exchange thoughts with you all these years and to work together on several book projects!!!
And thanks for the memories on the physical cosmologies research!
They seemed to flood the marketplace after the 1960's when it was confirmed that the universe was expanding (the CMB measurements) which meant it had a beginning of real space and real time.
A real beginning was a poison pill for methodological naturalism and the atheist worldview, indeed it has been called the most theological statement ever to come out of modern science. The presumed steady state universe cosmology was no threat to either the scientist wanting the theologians to stay away or to the avowed atheists who deplored the very idea of God.
So I suspect that was the primary motivation for a rash of new physical cosmology theories, hypotheses and even speculation.
Everett's multi-world theory might be relabeled as the latter, hypothesis or speculation, since, as you say, it cannot be falsified (Popper et al.)
So would Max Tegmark's Level IV Parallel Universe - which is the only closed physical cosmology known to me. He posits that 4D physical reality is a manifestation of mathematical structures which actually do exist outside of space and time.
None of the other physical cosmologies are closed since they all require a beginning of real space and real time (and physical causality I might add.)
It is humorous to me that the appeals to prior universes simply move the goal post while all the time assuming that a prior universe would have to abide with the physical laws of this one - when many, if not all, physicists would agree that physical laws break down in a singularity.
Everett's Multi-World theory is surely rooted in the Schrödinger's Cat paradox. And I confess that quantum field theory is more sensible to me than particle physics - indeed I think of particles as placemarkers in waves rather than "thingly." For instance, my dislike for tachyon particle theory (faster than light particles) may be akin to yours concerning Everett's Multi-World.
Thank you so much for all of your insights and encouragements, dearest sister in Christ!
While I do favor the exploding planet scenario, since I do believe Mars was once a moon of a larger planet in that same general orbital region, I do not agree with the LaSage 'push' notion for gravity. I have my own very different conceptualization for the force called gravity.
The math for general relativity is well established, to the point that something of the nature that Einstein (and Newton) conceptualized is at work, rather than a fairytale push concept using such tachyon ghosts. Though there are 'other' ways to calculate out the equations of general relativity, if the quaternian calculations of Maxwell (not Heavyside's twisted misapplications) are aligned in some fashion to those of Einstein's calculations to achieve general relativity, an interesting possibility arises, namely that gravity is a temporal phenomenon related to the nature of how time is 'running' in our Universe.
As opposite poles of a magnet attract their opposites so gravity is an attraction phenomenon, but in a primarily monopole fashion, since the opposite 'pole' is the soliton at the edge of our expanding spacetime volume, thus the force of gravity is actually a temporal phenomenon. Well, such an outlandish notion requires a very different conceptualization of dimension Time, and I have developed such.
Time and space both came into being at the 'bang' event of God Creating what we call 'the Universe'. And God has also created other dimensions as real as space and time. A thing existing in a dimension not intertwined with space and time is beyond out ability to 'sense' it. Indeed, with your two brilliant axioms of the Universe, dear Sandi --that without time events do not occur and without space a thing does not exist-- well those axioms apply to things which we can 'sense' so long as we exist in the Universe defined by space and time and all the permutations therein. And it is in those 'permutations' where we must look for the true nature of time.
That said, to see dimension Time differently than just some background state in which things and events occur our minds must try to conceptualize the beginning of the expression of space and time, and go from there.
To do that conjecturing requires word forms which describe 'things', and unfortunately there are no words in existence which refer specifically to variable expressions which have not been described previously by the minds of men and women. So, the use of terms to follow is a loose communication at best.
As the first manifestation of spacetime came to be, it existed as point/moment, or moment/point if you prefer. In some way which we may never comprehend, God's creative doing caused point/moment to come into existence rapidly and repeatedly, such that a 'place/time' developed and I believe continues to develop even to this moment. That point/moment is what Physicists are calling the zero point energy field. This place/time I have called the volume/future expanding as the Universe of our perceptions. The 'future' is the soliton edge of the expanding spacetime.
To be sure, there are expansion expressions which are more complex than our sensory mechanisms can yet detect, but they are as real as the room and accouterments which surround me at this moment. After all, a hand reached from some other where/when into the where/when of the King of Babylon, as revealed in Daniel Chapter five, and Jesus left our where/when and went into a different where/when as He exited the tomb, etc.
In what way may realities be existing and contiguous yet beyond our senses? Well, since we have three variable expressions of dimension space which yield a volume, is it not logical to presume that we have at least three variable expressions of dimension time mingles in/with this volume? I believe it is rational and this led me to ponder how this volume of spacetime came into being in the state we sense it, from a beginning of point/moment. By taking this approach I discovered that there are ways that space and time can be woven such that whole realities may exist which are sequestered from other expressions that are just as real in our Universe, not outside of it.
One final quirkiness: because I write fiction pieces, it happened a while back that one of my characters made the following statement, which I though quite profound and probably not of my own creation: 'Angels use technology; miracles are in God's purview.'
I've been thinking about your posts for days and the only comment I can offer is two fold:
2. That some people believe energy causes dimensionality whereas others believe that dimensionality causes energy (mostly string theorists of course.) For someone who cannot or will not recognize God as the Creator it amounts to a chicken/egg dilemma.
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