Will Science Someday Rule Out the Possibility of God?

[bullethead]

Define where good and bad come from. You guys certainly throw "bad" around a lot in your opinions about religion, including your very comments here. Using terms and then saying you have no idea what your talking about seems ridiculous and contradictory.

This sums it up pretty well for me:
http://logical-critical-thinking.co...s-morality-and-where-does-morality-come-from/

""Morality is the belief or recognition that certain behaviors are either “good” or “bad”. Some morals are very easy to accept and only the fringes of society might question or reject them. These people on the fringes may be good or bad, the mere act of rejecting a socially accepted moral of the time is in no way an indicator of the persons goodness.""

""From what I can best gather through my experience and sense data is that morality is a complex structure to maintain social cohesion and enhance survivability among social creatures. It is present in wolf packs and even among savage reptilian crocodiles. Really most anywhere you find social orders of animals you will find acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. For example it is unacceptable for a small crocodile to take food from a larger one, or it is unacceptable for a subordinate wolf to mate over the Alpha wolf. If these things happen then there will be consequences, the smaller crocodile or subordinate wolf will be physically attacked. As with humans if you steal something other humans will try to give you consequences.""

 

[outdooraddict]

This sums it up pretty well for me:
http://logical-critical-thinking.co...s-morality-and-where-does-morality-come-from/

""Morality is the belief or recognition that certain behaviors are either “good” or “bad”. Some morals are very easy to accept and only the fringes of society might question or reject them. These people on the fringes may be good or bad, the mere act of rejecting a socially accepted moral of the time is in no way an indicator of the persons goodness.""

""From what I can best gather through my experience and sense data is that morality is a complex structure to maintain social cohesion and enhance survivability among social creatures. It is present in wolf packs and even among savage reptilian crocodiles. Really most anywhere you find social orders of animals you will find acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. For example it is unacceptable for a small crocodile to take food from a larger one, or it is unacceptable for a subordinate wolf to mate over the Alpha wolf. If these things happen then there will be consequences, the smaller crocodile or subordinate wolf will be physically attacked. As with humans if you steal something other humans will try to give you consequences.""

Oh no, now we've opened up a topic that's just as difficult as God and I'll never get off the computer.

Just a few points to ponder. I agree that some morals are easy to accept and most will agree but that begs the question. Where do morals come from if they are absolute?

Maybe they aren't absolute but decided by each culture, your appeal to laws and stealing. Then do we go after the people in another culture because they killed our ambassador which we say is "wrong" or do we leave them alone because in their culture, killing Americans seems "right". You have to rise above the cultures especially when you can see they don't agree but it begs a source. Hitler's and Saddam's henchmen both appealed to the laws of the land for justification of the "rightness" of killing the "innocent" so that doesn't seem to be the source for right and wrong, good and bad. It has been said that in some cultures they love thy neighbor and in others they eat them.

The evolutionary wolf pack process is always appealing. However, evolution at its most basic level is a process of random events that, by conferring a survival and reproductive advantage in an environment, select those random events over others. The closest I can get to morals would be "if it helps you survive it is 'good' and if not it is 'bad'" However, survival may mean kill thy neighbor, not love him. The survival of children with cystic fibrosis over the past 30 years had moved them from dying in childhood to surviving into their 20s+(and now reproductive). Is that good to save these children or bad in polluting the gene pool?

Finally, tolerance of all "opinions" on morality never works and I will give you the hilarious product of that great moral conservative, Gun rights advocate, and Gay bashing Guru Jon Stewart and the Daily show. This you gotta see.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-5-2012/hope-and-change-2---the-party-of-inclusion

 

[bullethead]

Oh no, now we've opened up a topic that's just as difficult as God and I'll never get off the computer.

Just a few points to ponder. I agree that some morals are easy to accept and most will agree but that begs the question. Where do morals come from if they are absolute?

Maybe they aren't absolute but decided by each culture, your appeal to laws and stealing. Then do we go after the people in another culture because they killed our ambassador which we say is "wrong" or do we leave them alone because in their culture, killing Americans seems "right". You have to rise above the cultures especially when you can see they don't agree but it begs a source. Hitler's and Saddam's henchmen both appealed to the laws of the land for justification of the "rightness" of killing the "innocent" so that doesn't seem to be the source for right and wrong, good and bad. It has been said that in some cultures they love thy neighbor and in others they eat them.

The evolutionary wolf pack process is always appealing. However, evolution at its most basic level is a process of random events that, by conferring a survival and reproductive advantage in an environment, select those random events over others. The closest I can get to morals would be "if it helps you survive it is 'good' and if not it is 'bad'" However, survival may mean kill thy neighbor, not love him. The survival of children with cystic fibrosis over the past 30 years had moved them from dying in childhood to surviving into their 20s+(and now reproductive). Is that good to save these children or bad in polluting the gene pool?

Finally, tolerance of all "opinions" on morality never works and I will give you the hilarious product of that great moral conservative, Gun rights advocate, and Gay bashing Guru Jon Stewart and the Daily show. This you gotta see.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-5-2012/hope-and-change-2---the-party-of-inclusion

OK. So then where/how does GOD fit in with this Good/Bad thing called morals?
I can overlook the point that 2 people chose to sin and "WE" have to pay for it. You insert an invisible being into the mix as the only solution to where we get these things called morals and bring up children with cystic fibrosis and the advancements that have given them a longer life span. HOW does a God make a difference in any of it? WHY then does that same God create beings with self destructing internal time bombs like diseases and cancer, birth defects and abnormalities? Are these the products of evolution due to inferior genes and genetic imperfections from random events OR is the same God that is responsible for all these wonderful morals give these horrific abnormalities to test our morals?
It just doesn't add up.

 

[outdooraddict]

Please read again, I never mentioned God other than to say moral topics are as difficult as God topics. I didn't propose that he was the only absolute source for morals. I think by your statement, you proposed that and then argued against it.

I think you're really saying since there is a God, why does he allow these horrible things. If you are saying there is no God and these things are bad, you are right back to your original problem, defining the source.

However, since you brought it up God does seem a possible source for many questions, existence/morality/life and 2nd law of thermodynamics/logic/reason/mathematics/etc, and since so far he is the only singular source that crosses into each of these arenas, he is a rational possibility to consider.

My poor attempt at a Venn diagram:

 

[bullethead]

Please read again, I never mentioned God other than to say moral topics are as difficult as God topics. I didn't propose that he was the only absolute source for morals. I think by your statement, you proposed that and then argued against it.

I think you're really saying since there is a God, why does he allow these horrible things. If you are saying there is no God and these things are bad, you are right back to your original problem, defining the source.

However, since you brought it up God does seem a possible source for many questions, existence/morality/life and 2nd law of thermodynamics/logic/reason/mathematics/etc, and since so far he is the only singular source that crosses into each of these arenas, he is a rational possibility to consider.

My poor attempt at a Venn diagram:

Then I'll ask you directly, Where do YOU think Good and Bad come from?

The source is US, humans, and society dictates the advances,regression and changes in morals. Animals have their own set of rules and humans are not much different. What works "here" doesn't necessarily work in other countries/cultures and societies....and what is considered moral/good/bad in one part of a state might not be exactly as it is in another part of the same state. Every individual has his or her own sense of right and wrong but it differs from someone else's. Society holds those differences accountable to the individual. We certainly do not have the same sense of morals as "we" did 50 years ago or 100,1000, or 10,000 years ago.

The diagram is a good one but there are many things that can be inserted in place of "god" in the center for an individual to get the same conclusion. Anything worshiped can take that place. The "Universe" can take that place. If I worship a tree and truly believe THAT tree is responsible for all those things throwing "God" in there would mean diddly squat.

 

[outdooraddict]

"Maybe they aren't absolute but decided by each culture, your appeal to laws and stealing. Then do we go after the people in another culture because they killed our ambassador which we say is "wrong" or do we leave them alone because in their culture, killing Americans seems "right". You have to rise above the cultures especially when you can see they don't agree but it begs a source. Hitler's and Saddam's henchmen both appealed to the laws of the land for justification of the "rightness" of killing the "innocent" so that doesn't seem to be the source for right and wrong, good and bad. It has been said that in some cultures they love thy neighbor and in others they eat them.

The evolutionary wolf pack process is always appealing. However, evolution at its most basic level is a process of random events that, by conferring a survival and reproductive advantage in an environment, select those random events over others. The closest I can get to morals would be "if it helps you survive it is 'good' and if not it is 'bad'" However, survival may mean kill thy neighbor, not love him. The survival of children with cystic fibrosis over the past 30 years had moved them from dying in childhood to surviving into their 20s+(and now reproductive). Is that good to save these children or bad in polluting the gene pool?

Finally, tolerance of all "opinions" on morality never works......"


I don't think you clarified the dilemmas with morality, so maybe I didn't state them well.

Tell me if we go after ambassador Stevens' murderers or not. Should we have stopped the Nazis or not? How are cultures to interact, and if you have an answer is it also true somewhere else?

We typically hold the same morals throughout time, just that what behavior justifies violating that moral, such as dress codes, seems to change. Immodesty is still held to be wrong by those who believe modesty is a moral, they just don't feel the same about what constitutes immodesty.

When the strong (wolf) kill the weak are they "right"?

By the way I stuck tree, money, sex, Ra, Zeus, and chevy silverado in the diagram and couldn't get a coherent singular explanation for all things. God-moral, rational, logical, omnipotent still works. Not saying that proves his existence only that nothing else works. I couldn't even make tree work for one of them-tried morals, existence, logic. Let me know how you did it.

I don't remember your prior posts mentioning you had any clear moral views or a problem overall with stealing, rape or murder so perhaps you do have a relativist point of view, but I still don't see how you make that work with the issues I described above and I think that most people feel these behavior truly are immoral they just can't come up with why, outside of God. All of these behaviors would actually be beneficial evolutionarily, in fact.

 

[bullethead]

I don't think you clarified the dilemmas with morality, so maybe I didn't state them well.

Tell me if we go after ambassador Stevens' murderers or not.

"WE" will. "They" won't. Painfully obvious that there is an incredible amount of difference in human morals.

Should we have stopped the Nazis or not?

I say yes. Betcha a quarter someone somewhere thinks differently and wouldn't have stopped them and could provide reasons why.

How are cultures to interact, and if you have an answer is it also true somewhere else?

Cultures will never live in total harmony. It is too easy to destroy someone be it with a stick 100,000 years ago or a Cruise Missile today for no other reason than those differences in morals. What you see is what you get with cultures interacting.

We typically hold the same morals throughout time, just that what behavior justifies violating that moral, such as dress codes, seems to change. Immodesty is still held to be wrong by those who believe modesty is a moral, they just don't feel the same about what constitutes immodesty.

You're not thinking hard enough on that one.

When the strong (wolf) kill the weak are they "right"?

If I were a strong wolf I would agree whole heartedly.

By the way I stuck tree, money, sex, Ra, Zeus, and chevy silverado in the diagram and couldn't get a coherent singular explanation for all things. God-moral, rational, logical, omnipotent still works. Not saying that proves his existence only that nothing else works. I couldn't even make tree work for one of them-tried morals, existence, logic. Let me know how you did it.

What would someone insert there if they never ever heard of God? Someone or something will get the credit. If you were born in India, Iran, the Congo or maybe even deep in the Amazon jungle your diagram would look different .

I don't remember your prior posts mentioning you had any clear moral views or a problem overall with stealing, rape or murder so perhaps you do have a relativist point of view, but I still don't see how you make that work with the issues I described above and I think that most people feel these behavior truly are immoral they just can't come up with why outside of God. All of these behaviors would actually be beneficial evolutionarily, in fact.

I was taught by my parents,family, friends and society, plus have a personal sense of what I would do. The people I learned from were taught by the people before them and so on. I don't know exactly what influenced the first humans as they left the trees. Trial and error, survival, personal feelings,experience, like/dislike all could have and probably did influence our earliest ancestors but whatever they passed on has been tweaked twisted and adapted to where we each are as individuals now.

 

[outdooraddict]

Actually my points were well thought out, perhaps not well expressed. I'm not saying culture doesn't play a role in the behavior, culture may decide whether the dress above or below the ankle or even wearing a dress vs pants is modest or not but the absolute moral " immodesty is wrong" still stands and would not be cultural.

Differences in cultural behavior, us vs Libya, certainly doesn't mean no one is right, it means somebody must be wrong. If 5 kids get different answers on the math test it doesn't mean that nobody is right it just means at least 4 must be wrong. We will go after Stephens killers because we know it was absolutely wrong, we will not say "well in Libya it's ok to kill Americans its just their culture".

Obviously you are a moral relativist, considering all the "we" "they" "if I was the wolf" points of view. Moral relativism always does seem the nicest at first, but it doesn't work. We and they becomes us and Libya but then it becomes FL vs Ga and finally it becomes what my house thinks vs my neighbor. Laws then have no meaning, I can rob my neighbor because in my house the moral that stealing is wrong isn't held and the moral that I must obey the law isn't held so then in the end you end up with anarchy.

If there aren't any absolutes then anarchy is ok but as they say, if you can't get anywhere with a relativist about absolute right and wrong, steal his stereo. Then he'll believe in right and wrong.

If morals are absolute as I proposed then it doesn't matter where you were born or what you know or how you fill in my diagram. 2+2 still equals 4 no matter where you were born or whether or not you know it or believe it. That's the point of the absolute truths. When Hitler's henchmen at the Nuremberg trials said "who are you to judge us, we followed the laws of our land and culture" they were still found guilty for Nazi atrocities and the prevailing opinion was that there are absolute morals that supersede the laws of the land/culture.

Fnally, even if you somehow come up with list A "things that are right" and list B " things that are wrong" outside of an authority, you can't explain why I should pick from list A vs B in what I choose to do. Where is the compulsion to do what is right, that comes from a submission to authority- God or whatever source for absolute morality you can come up with. The wolf has no idea whether he should choose to kill or protect the weaker wolf. Evolutionary morals never help us choose how to behave, the ones who argue for an evolutionary moral explanation seem to play the worst card trick I know. They say show me your card and then I'll tell you what card you picked from the deck. They look at the behavior then try to explain why it helped evolutionary process. If the strongest man stays in the village and mates with the women and has strong children we say that's evolution, he's the strongest and he bred strong genes. If instead he leaves the village and fights the competing village and dies we say see that's evolution look how his "behavior" help the society survive. If he deserts and runs back home we say look how smart, he didn't stay and fight but instead took care of himself that's evolution. That doesn't give moral direction it just takes whatever happens and then claims the behavior proves evolutionary morals, NO MATTER what behavior is chosen.

I wish I could be a relativist, on the surface it seems so tolerant, but as I said it doesn't work, doesn't help us decide on what behavior to perform and is a self defeating argument-"it is absolutely wrong not to let every culture decide their own morals because there is no such thing as absolute morals"

 

[bullethead]

I am actually not a moral relativist but I play one HECK of a devils advocate I am not tolerant. I tend to be a realist. Things are the way they are. I do everything possible to change the things I can, but like everyone else in the world, it is usually to benefit me/family. People in other parts of the world are no different as they are doing the things that benefit them. I would not lose a wink of sleep if our anti-American enemies were wiped off the planet tomm, the lights flickered every night until the violent repeat criminals were disposed of and we boot our elected officials out of office and started over. But being realistic, I gotta do what I can and deal with the others the best I can.

WHO tried the Nazi's at Nuremberg? The victor makes the rules. If they were judged by Nazi's they would have been found not guilty.

Why is it that our morals seem to always be the better ones when compared to everywhere else in the world? Similarly it never ceases to amaze that our God hates the same people we do.

I cannot find fault with an ultimate authority...I just do not see any evidence that one stands out more than another. It is easy for the Christian to use God as their default ultimate authority, the Jews Yahweh, the Muslims Allah, and so it goes for each and every religion.

I pray every night to give thanks for my family's safety and for our health. I say what I need to in hopes that someone is listening....must be a holdover from my early years I guess...but I don't dare to tell anyone that the God I am praying to is the right God. I am just hoping that if there is one that rules the roost he hears me. Not looking for brownie points. Whatever happens when I am gone happens.

 

[outdooraddict]

I am actually not a moral relativist but I play one HECK of a devils advocate I am not tolerant. I tend to be a realist. Things are the way they are. I do everything possible to change the things I can, but like everyone else in the world, it is usually to benefit me/family. People in other parts of the world are no different as they are doing the things that benefit them. I would not lose a wink of sleep if our anti-American enemies were wiped off the planet tomm, the lights flickered every night until the violent repeat criminals were disposed of and we boot our elected officials out of office and started over. But being realistic, I gotta do what I can and deal with the others the best I can.

WHO tried the Nazi's at Nuremberg? The victor makes the rules. If they were judged by Nazi's they would have been found not guilty.

Why is it that our morals seem to always be the better ones when compared to everywhere else in the world? Similarly it never ceases to amaze that our God hates the same people we do.

I cannot find fault with an ultimate authority...I just do not see any evidence that one stands out more than another. It is easy for the Christian to use God as their default ultimate authority, the Jews Yahweh, the Muslims Allah, and so it goes for each and every religion.

I pray every night to give thanks for my family's safety and for our health. I say what I need to in hopes that someone is listening....must be a holdover from my early years I guess...but I don't dare to tell anyone that the God I am praying to is the right God. I am just hoping that if there is one that rules the roost he hears me. Not looking for brownie points. Whatever happens when I am gone happens.

The victor makes the rules seems to boil down to survival of the fittest and subject to all the problems I've already framed for "evolution does morality". You must be a relativist to propose this as truth, that's all it could be! But from whence comes truth in a relativist world.

You and I must be pretty boring to still be debating this on a Saturday night. What the heck, I'll be a relativists too and go find some "fun" the way I want it tonight, the heck with right and wrong LOL.

 

[bullethead]

The victor makes the rules seems to boil down to survival of the fittest and subject to all the problems I've already framed for "evolution does morality". You must be a relativist to propose this as truth, that's all it could be! But from whence comes truth in a relativist world.

You and I must be pretty boring to still be debating this on a Saturday night. What the heck, I'll be a relativists too and go find some "fun" the way I want it tonight, the heck with right and wrong LOL.

REAList. I don't live my life any way I want it. I don't make excuses for anyone else. The whole "do unto others" thing is not bad advice. But neither is "Be nice until it's time to not be nice".

I enjoy the mental workout. It beats reality shows. Between wiping down some firearms and watching college football this conversation was not a waste for me.

 

[outdooraddict]

Me either I have enjoyed the discussion, and I had to clean 2 muzzleloaders. I don't know what a realist is. Are your morals absolute or relative to the person, culture, etc.

 

[bullethead]

I think we each have to live according to both absolute and relative morals with the goal of respecting our own integrity and the integrity of others. Neither choice is a One size fits all solution.

 

[panfried0419]

Awesome!!! The rest is just what it is.

Out of curiosity, how would you define evolution?

Change over time that involves adaptation. Gods unique plan.

 

[ted_BSR]

change over time that involves adaptation. Gods unique plan.

100%!!!

 

[pnome]

Welcome back!

Because given the parameters this is what happened?

Why these parameters and not some others? Is the best answer to this REALLY because a god creature was lonely or bored?

Have you picked a 'team' yet now that you're on the deist side of the field?

I don't know if that's the best answer or not. The best answer is the correct one. We will likely never know. But I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that whatever created this something we find ourselves in, doesn't ever get bored.

No 'team' still an "agnostic theist"

 

[BANDERSNATCH]

No 'team' still an "agnostic theist"

attaboy, P. almost, but not quite, an oxymoron.