The Brit riots: “When churches disappear, the vacuum is filled by gangs or tribes.”

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 21, 2011

Atheism, Culture}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

In “Cleaning up pre-riot” (Toronto Sun August 19, 2011) British-born Canadian commentator Michael Coren discusses practical riot prevention, suggesting, among other things,

3) Stop the war on religion. Whatever your view of faith and God, the massive decline of religious observance and community in Britain has removed one of the glues that held the country together.

When churches disappear, the vacuum is filled by gangs or tribes. Beyond this is the disappearance of moral standards and ethical absolutes. Witness how in the black community it is the Christian evangelical youths who are least touched by the anarchy.

It was noted at the time that Muslim youths didn’t riot either. Thoughts?

Follow UD News at Twitter!

Comments

so it's not atheism that's the problem, it's not being Christian that is the problem? Then why does the opening post mention muslims?Jet Black_{August 23, 2011
August
08
Aug
23
23
2011
05:04 AM
5
05
04
AM
PDT}

F/N: We may see here the speech gap in action:
. . and, for further example, there is no such step by step, empirically and probabilistically credible account for our being physically equipped to speak, while chimps etc. are not. This gap is actually a critical issue, as the ability to use complex, conceptual, abstract language is a key aspect of human intelligence. And, so, by right of fair comment, we may note that:
So long as [[Neo-]Darwinian macro-evolutionary theory lacks an empirically credible, tested and well-supported explanation of the origin and validity of human intelligence, language and associated reasoning powers, the very need to use these same human faculties to propose, discuss and analyse a theory that should but cannot account for them, turns every presentation of (or argument for) the theory into an unintended but eloquent illustration of the major and un-answered weaknesses of the theory.

kairosfocus_{August 23, 2011
August
08
Aug
23
23
2011
05:01 AM
5
05
01
AM
PDT}

AG: Re:
It is possible to have deterministic machines (e.g. humans, computers) that can follow the logic of ground-consequent. This is different from the true belief issue.
Humans are different from computers. A computer program or machine does nothing of its own initiative, it is no better than its programming and the design and organisation of its circuits. It is precisely not reasoning, it is merely grinding away mechanically. Nor does it really choose, it merely executes programmed branches, utterly unconscious as a mere mechanism. Somebody has to build in the procedures and executing machines that, step by step take in inputs, process them and give rise to outputs. And, GIGO, the computer will just as mechanically carry out nonsense until it crashes as it will carry out sense. Computers are not authorities, no more than dictionaries, it is those who stand behind them who are the real sources of what happens. We do reason, and we really do choose, and I daresay in the teeth of attempts to redefine choice and freedom, we choose freely, truly freely. But, we need to ask, what would have to be the root of that, on evolutionary materialistic premises? And there is where the foundations are found wanting. There is an IS-OUGHT gap and there is an IS/IF-THEREFORE/THEN gap too. The latter is what Haldane highlighted with particular reference to Chemistry, and Provine inadvertently highlighted both. If we are determined by chance circumstances and forces of mechanical necessity across time, we are not making a real choice, and if we are not making a real choice we cannot be morally responsible, nor have we any basis to assume, infer or believe that our "reasoning" is anything above delusion. That cannot merely be asserted away and dismissed. Let me clip a summary of the how-come of the matter, for convenience (it was previously linked -- NB, there are several further onward links there): _______________ >> it is at least arguable that self-referential absurdity is the dagger pointing to the heart of evolutionary materialistic models of mind and its origin. This can be addressed at a more sophisticated level [[cf. Hasker in The Emergent Self (Cornell University Press, 2001), from p 64 on, e.g. here], but without losing its general force, it can also be drawn out a bit in a fairly simple way: a: Evolutionary materialism argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature; from hydrogen to humans by undirected chance and necessity. b: Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws of chance and/or mechanical necessity acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of happenstance initial circumstances. (This is physicalism. This view covers both the forms where (a) the mind and the brain are seen as one and the same thing, and those where (b) somehow mind emerges from and/or "supervenes" on brain, perhaps as a result of sophisticated and complex software looping. The key point, though is as already noted: physical causal closure -- the phenomena that play out across time, without residue, are in principle deducible or at least explainable up to various random statistical distributions and/or mechanical laws, from prior physical states. [[There is also some evidence from simulation exercises, that accuracy of even sensory perceptions may lose out to utilitarian but inaccurate ones in an evolutionary competition. "It works" does not warrant the inference to "it is true."] ) c: But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this picture. So, we rapidly arrive at Crick's claim in his The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994): what we subjectively experience as "thoughts," "reasoning" and "conclusions" can only be understood materialistically as the unintended by-products of the blind natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains. d: These forces are viewed as being ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance shaped by forces of selection [["nature"] and psycho-social conditioning [["nurture"], within the framework of human culture [[i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism]. e: For instance, Marxists commonly derided opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismissed qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? Should we not ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is little more than yet another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? And -- as we saw above -- would the writings of a Crick be any more than the firing of neurons in networks in his own brain? f: For further instance, we may take the favourite whipping-boy of materialists: religion. Notoriously, they often hold that belief in God is not merely error, but delusion. But, if such a patent "delusion" is so utterly widespread, even among the highly educated, then it "must" -- by the principles of evolution -- somehow be adaptive to survival, whether in nature or in society. And so, this would be an illustration of the unreliability of our reasoning ability, on the assumption of evolutionary materialism. g: Turning the materialist dismissal of theism around, evolutionary materialism itself would be in the same leaky boat. For, the sauce for the goose is notoriously just as good a sauce for the gander, too. h: That is, on its own premises [[and following Dawkins in A Devil's Chaplain, 2004, p. 46], the cause of the belief system of evolutionary materialism, "must" also be reducible to forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity that are sufficiently adaptive to spread this "meme" in populations of jumped- up apes from the savannahs of East Africa scrambling for survival in a Malthusian world of struggle for existence. i: The famous evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane made much the same point in a famous 1932 remark: "It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." [["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. (Highlight and emphases added.)] j: Therefore, though materialists will often try to pointedly ignore or angrily brush aside the issue, we may freely argue: if such evolutionary materialism is true, then (i) our consciousness, (ii) the "thoughts" we have, (iii) the beliefs we hold, (iv) the reasonings we attempt and (v) the "conclusions" we reach -- without residue -- must be produced and controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or logical validity. (NB: The conclusions of such "arguments" may still happen to be true, by astonishingly lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” or "warranted" them. It seems that rationality itself has thus been undermined fatally on evolutionary materialistic premises. Including that of Crick et al. Through, self-reference leading to incoherence and utter inability to provide a cogent explanation of our commonplace, first-person experience of reasoning and rational warrant for beliefs, conclusions and chosen paths of action. Reduction to absurdity and explanatory failure in short.) k: And, if materialists then object: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must immediately note that -- as the fate of Newtonian Dynamics between 1880 and 1930 shows -- empirical support is not equivalent to establishing the truth of a scientific theory. For, at any time, one newly discovered countering fact can in principle overturn the hitherto most reliable of theories. (And as well, we must not lose sight of this: one is relying on the legitimacy of the reasoning process to make the case that scientific evidence provides reasonable albeit provisional warrant for one's beliefs etc. Scientific reasoning is not independent of reasoning.) l: Worse, in the case of origins science theories, we simply were not there to directly observe the facts of the remote past, so origins sciences are even more strongly controlled by assumptions and inferences than are operational scientific theories. So, we contrast the way that direct observations of falling apples and orbiting planets allow us to test our theories of gravity. m: Moreover, as Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin reminds us all in his infamous January 29, 1997 New York Review of Books article, "Billions and billions of demons," it is now notorious that: . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel [[materialistic scientists] to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. n: Such a priori assumptions of materialism are patently question-begging, mind-closing and fallacious. o: More important, to demonstrate that empirical tests provide empirical support to the materialists' theories would require the use of the very process of reasoning and inference which they have discredited. p: Thus, evolutionary materialism arguably reduces reason itself to the status of illusion. But, as we have seen: immediately, that must include “Materialism.” q: In the end, it is thus quite hard to escape the conclusion that materialism is based on self-defeating, question-begging logic. r: So, while materialists -- just like the rest of us -- in practice routinely rely on the credibility of reasoning and despite all the confidence they may project, they at best struggle to warrant such a tacitly accepted credibility of mind relative to the core claims of their worldview. (And, sadly: too often, they tend to pointedly ignore or rhetorically brush aside the issue.) >> _______________ In short there is a problem here that cannot simply be asserted away or breezily brushed aside. Cause-effect is not ground-consequent, and the forces that drive the former and their consequences have little or nothing to do with the capacity to carry out the other by choosing to infer from grounds to their consequences in light of warrant. And in particular mechanical necessity and chance are not the ground in which soundness grows. That is, evolutionary materialism runs into a barrier of self referential incoherence when it comes to mind and morals. This you may choose to rhetorically brush aside, but that has nothing to do with its warrant. To address warrant you will have to cogently address the structure of the argument on evident facts and the way logical inferences work. While you are at it, see if you can account for the origin of the linguistic ability that lies behind that process on evo mat premises as well, especially the problem of bridging to islands of complex, specifically organised function in vast, beyond astronomical, configuration spaces. And, the laws of physics are only inferrable by beings who are significantly free to conceptualise, choose to follow steps of evidence and reason, etc. So, those laws do not exhaust reality. (The implicit assumption that they do, is the core assumption of physicalism, aka evolutionary materialism, i.e I am highlighting the question-begging circle of argument you are doing the laps in.) You are right to show that some people have a breakdown in rational ability, due to drink or drugs or defects of mind and body including brain, which only shows some necessary causal factors at work -- and that too is a major problem, we often do not understand the difference between necessary and sufficient cause [cf remarks here, please do the half-burned match experiment] -- think about what happens when something goes wrong with a hard drive or a wireless link. Has that suddenly made the computer only what it is as a found object, or has it shown that components put in by its designers are required to be in working order for it to work? GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 23, 2011
August
08
Aug
23
23
2011
04:50 AM
4
04
50
AM
PDT}

It is possible to have deterministic machines (e.g. humans, computers) that can follow the logic of ground-consequent. This is different from the true belief issue. It is "free will" in every sense that is meaningful, because the extent to which it isn't free will, is because of what we have inherited, the environment through which we traveled as influenced by the decisions we have made, the things that have happened to us, the beliefs we have been inculcated with, the beliefs we have chosen, and the beliefs we have chosen to question or confirm. We may not be free to be other than what we are or to go beyond our limitations. Many humans are not able to follow the logic of ground-consequent. I know I don't always, sometimes giving way to impulses and mental blocks, even though I don't want to (or do I?). I've had a side effect from a drug administered in an ER, that made me irrational, agitated and hostile, my wife and I knew it wasn't "me", but it gave me an appreciation for how the mentally ill, or chemically imbalanced might not be responsible for their actions. So, I agree with your first 4 points, but I doubt there is a sense of free will possible under the laws of physics that is any better than what we've got. Training and discipline can increase the extent to which we have it, but we also must be careful not to train away who we are, and who we really want to be, even though the extent to we desire that sense of self may also be determined. What we have seems to fit the bill, why would we want to have something else, it might be something we wouldn't recognize, alien to who we are.africangenesis_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
01:42 PM
1
01
42
PM
PDT}

Agreed. My point was less productive and more of a rant. I believe that God sets the definition of what is right, and that anyone would benefit from it. The trouble is, all of the evil done by supposed ministers of God makes it harder to see. When they claim to act in God's name, many interpret their actions as representative of the one whose Bible they wave about. That's what people remember when they're buried in philosophical differences over whether God exists or whether he is good. They give detractors something to point to. But I've gone OT again, I think. You or I might see all this as perfectly logical, but it's more than that. More logical people than me examine the same evidence and reject it. In the end, it's a choice. To paraphrase a verse, "According to their desire they remain unaware." If God wants the issue to be forced, he has more compelling tools at his disposal than logic.ScottAndrews_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
12:44 PM
12
12
44
PM
PDT}

africangenesis: "Why would a God construct a grusome mechanism for redemption like that, when a simple snap of his figurative fingers would do?" Being a libertarian I'm sure you would not want to be converted involuntarily would you? With Jesus' sacrifice we see God Himself suffering and dying at our hands. We see a perfect example of love. The relationship between man and God is not one of slave and master, but one of love. God with all His power did not intervene to save His Son. That's an incredibly degrading thing for God to do, and He did it out of love, and He suffered on that cross not for Himself, but for us.GugulethuKid_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
12:36 PM
12
12
36
PM
PDT}

My Japanese "atheist" friend considered becoming Catholic for a Swiss girl. He also refuses to keep any figures of his favourite anime shows (he's a lawyer) in his place because they could invite evil spirits. But even so he mentions God in a positive way and has deep respect for the Catholic Church. He noted that Catholic charities were some of the first on the scene handing out supplies and food to the victims of the Tohoku quake. In addition virtually every Japanese person I meet (and these are random people) has some view of God. They're definitely not typical Western European Anglo-Saxon anti-theists.GugulethuKid_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
12:16 PM
12
12
16
PM
PDT}

Scott, many clergy did hang or go to death camps. I can speak for my native Poland that many clergy (priests and nuns) helped others (such as Jewish children and other refugees) and paid for it with their lives. Similar things happened under the atheist Communists where the Church stood for freedom from Soviet oppression. It should also be said that the overwhelming majority of the people who saved Jews in Poland were Catholics and usually did it for religious reasons. Why risk your entire family's life and hide a stranger who needs to eat when food is rationed? The harshest punishments (not even comparable to Western Europe) were in place in Poland for hiding Jews as we were considered inferior people - a slight step above Jews but nowhere near your level. You would be an honorary Aryan if not fully Aryan. Yet Catholic Poland has statistically the largest number of people honoured by Israel for saving or helping Jews. Yet most Jews in Poland in 1939 lived in separate communities and did not intermix or intermarry with Slavic Poles, having remained a separate religious and ethnic group. So it was doubtful that it was done for reasons of simple kinship. I think what is also at issue is that people don't really listen to religious instruction very much in the great scheme of things. If we can't listen to a priest when he tells us not to become angry at others, lie or have hateful thoughts, I seriously doubt people can be motivated enough to forgo worldly comforts and stand up to a government. And it were secular (non-religious) reasons which drove people to war. Let's also not forget that the Nazis had a major propaganda machine running: Poland had attacked first. Poland had German territory. German women and children were suffering because of Poles who were now owning German lands and factories in the east. What German Christian or priest would not allow compassion to blind him? Of course they'd want to reclaim that and do so in a limited war. The Germans were themselves suffering after WW2 and so it was possible for the Nazi party to become popular. In this setting few people would want to continue the perceived suffering -- think of liberation theology -- and many priests would side with the Nazis at least as far as the Nazis were reducing unemployment, improving peoples' lives, rebuilding Germany etc. After all these priests were Germans who witnessed the suffering and indignity of their people (unemployment, starvation, debt, poverty etc). In addition few Germans knew exactly how terrible the German treatment of Jews, Poles and others was. But even so the local German Church did condemn the Nazis. As for the Allies, should these countries surrender and let Hitler win?GugulethuKid_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
12:00 PM
12
12
00
PM
PDT}

Something seems to have vanished. Okay, in brief, you are underscoring the point, not undermining it. Perhaps the issue raised by Provine in his 1998 Darwin Day address may help:
Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . . The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will . . .
If we are bound up in determined frames, our actions including choices are [presumably sub-consciously] CAUSED, rather than free to follow the logic of ground-consequent or the degree of warrant on epistemic grounds. If our acts, including mental ones are so bound, we are right back at Haldane's dilemma stated in terms of chemical determinism [much like Crick's electro-chemical reductionism]. Reductio ad absurdum. As Haldane pointed out so long ago now. And we therefore need to recognise that for science to be possible, as well as much else, we must be significantly free and responsible. That means that systems that entail that we are not significantly free, are self-refuting. All materialist systems of thought fall under this axe. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
11:59 AM
11
11
59
AM
PDT}

SA: Over the past day or so, primarily in response to the Troubles in Ireland, I have pointed out the text actually used for the sermon yesterday, Col 3:5 - 14. This explicitly forbids acting from anger, hate etc. I am not sure who you may be seeing as holding up clergy or the like or religious institutions as superior moral examples, but it has been explicitly pointed out that religious institutions or individuals are no more capable of warranting the OUGHT on their own strength, than are courts, parliaments or presidents or royals. Such institutions my well -- and certainly have a duty to -- teach the right and the good, and to correct the wrong (a duty too often failed) but hey are not the grounding IS that can sustain the weight of OUGHT. The atmosphere, however, has been so badly poisoned for so long that it is hard to hear the actual point. Namely, we find ourselves indeed bound by OUGHT, as your indignation over hypocrisy illustrates. So, only a world view that has a foundational IS that can ground OUGHT is factually and logically and explanatorily adequate to account for the existence of such creatures. That means, for instance, that evolutionary materialism, is off the table, as it is inescapably amoral. Matter, energy, space, time and natural law driven interactions of chance and necessity are insufficient to ground ought. The only serious candidate for an IS that can ground OUGHT, is an inherently good Creator God. That is not in itself a proof that such a God exists, or that he is the God of any given tradition. It is pointing out the class of worldviews in which we will find a best explanation for a reality that we do experience, the reality of OUGHT. One can go on beyond this, though further investigations, but that is an important start, as it moves us beyond might makes 'right.' The ONLY serious class of answers to that challenging issue. And in that context, we can then see ourselves as made in his image, and as sharing a fundamental dignity and equality of worth that leads tot he Golden Rule, to love and respect neighbour as self. From which we may then see much of the core patterns of moral principle, and unsurprisingly this core is indeed taught in many philosophical and religious traditions. (Our temptation is to draw a restrictive circle and think that we can exclude the outsider from that basic premise of equality of worth under our common Creator.) That is a basis for reformation. But first we must make it clear that ought is to be taken seriously, and to be followed up to where it points. Which takes us beyond might makes right. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
11:44 AM
11
11
44
AM
PDT}

@kairosfocus, "For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true." The mechanisms of evolution wouldn't necessarily guarantee that your beliefs were true either. Beliefs don't always have to be true to be adaptive. For instance, social cohesion of a group may be increased by shared false beliefs, such as that they are a chosen people, or that other groups are subhuman. The modern human advantage may not have been more rational assessment of the "truth". One thought example I have is of a small rational group of neanderthals peacefully living with their families, and a hoard of fanatical religious "modern" humans descends upon them. It may not matter which is the more rational, but which is the more committed and fanatical and which strikes first. Modern humans emerged from Africa into occupied territory. Their advantage was in competing with other groups who already had a long record of success in exploiting the environment. Of course, a world that has some order presents an opportunity for and intelligence which can predict the what the consequences of what ones actions will be. True beliefs aren't necessary even in this case. Natural forces and animals can be believed to have personalities that allow their behavior to be predicted. Winds from one direction can be ominous and from another promising and it doesn't matter whether it is believed to be due to the laws of physics or to the personalities if the predictive value is the same. Arriving at the "truth" doesn't necessarily come easy to humans, a process of refinement as technology became more sophisticated required different models of reality. Difficult and unnatural disciplines such as the scientific method, seem to allow us to assess the truth of beliefs, but repeatedly we find our models are wrong, but our predictions have become better. We have also encountered seemingly intrinsic limits to our ability to predict. So even if we can't supposed our beliefs to be true, we can assess our ability to predict and even notice that false beliefs can have value, if you have ever gotten help from someone attending your church, you have seen examples of that yourself. It is quite possible for widespread belief in the moral absolutes of religion to have value, whether they are true or not, and their value may be increased to the extent they are believed to be true and absolute.africangenesis_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
09:29 AM
9
09
29
AM
PDT}

The expansion of every 3D point in the universe, and the quantum wave collapse of the entire universe to each point of conscious observation in the universe, is obviously a very interesting congruence in science between the very large (relativity) and the very small (quantum mechanics). A congruence that Physicists, and Mathematicians, seem to be having a extremely difficult time ‘unifying’ into a ‘theory of everything’.(Einstein, Penrose). The conflict of reconciling General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics appears to arise from the inability of either theory to successfully deal with the Zero/Infinity problem that crops up in different places of each theory: THE MYSTERIOUS ZERO/INFINITY Excerpt: The biggest challenge to today’s physicists is how to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics. However, these two pillars of modern science were bound to be incompatible. “The universe of general relativity is a smooth rubber sheet. It is continuous and flowing, never sharp, never pointy. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, describes a jerky and discontinuous universe. What the two theories have in common – and what they clash over – is zero.”,, “The infinite zero of a black hole — mass crammed into zero space, curving space infinitely — punches a hole in the smooth rubber sheet. The equations of general relativity cannot deal with the sharpness of zero. In a black hole, space and time are meaningless.”,, “Quantum mechanics has a similar problem, a problem related to the zero-point energy. The laws of quantum mechanics treat particles such as the electron as points; that is, they take up no space at all. The electron is a zero-dimensional object,,, According to the rules of quantum mechanics, the zero-dimensional electron has infinite mass and infinite charge. http://www.fmbr.org/editoral/edit01_02/edit6_mar02.htm Yet, the unification, into a ‘theory of everything’, between what is in essence the ‘infinite Theistic world of Quantum Mechanics’ and the ‘finite Materialistic world of the space-time of General Relativity’ seems to be directly related to what Jesus apparently joined together with His resurrection, i.e. related to the unification of infinite God with finite man. Dr. William Dembski in this following comment, though not directly addressing the Zero/Infinity conflict in General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, offers insight into this ‘unification’ of the infinite and the finite: The End Of Christianity – Finding a Good God in an Evil World – Pg.31 William Dembski PhD. Mathematics Excerpt: “In mathematics there are two ways to go to infinity. One is to grow large without measure. The other is to form a fraction in which the denominator goes to zero. The Cross is a path of humility in which the infinite God becomes finite and then contracts to zero, only to resurrect and thereby unite a finite humanity within a newfound infinity.” http://www.designinference.com/documents/2009.05.end_of_xty.pdf Moreover there actually is physical evidence that lends strong support to the position that the ‘Zero/Infinity conflict’, we find between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, was successfully dealt with by Christ: The Center Of The Universe Is Life – General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin – video http://www.metacafe.com/w/5070355 Turin Shroud Enters 3D Age – Pictures, Articles and Videos https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1gDY4CJkoFedewMG94gdUk1Z1jexestdy5fh87RwWAfg Turin Shroud 3-D Hologram – Face And Body – Dr. Petrus Soons – video http://www.metacafe.com/w/5889891/ A Quantum Hologram of Christ’s Resurrection? by Chuck Missler Excerpt: “You can read the science of the Shroud, such as total lack of gravity, lack of entropy (without gravitational collapse), no time, no space—it conforms to no known law of physics.” The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. Dame Piczek created a one-fourth size sculpture of the man in the Shroud. When viewed from the side, it appears as if the man is suspended in mid air (see graphic, below), indicating that the image defies previously accepted science. The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. http://www.khouse.org/articles/2008/847 “Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only in contradiction to that which is known to us of nature.” St. Augustine Philippians 2: 5-11 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. While I agree with a criticism, from a Christian, that was leveled against the preceding Shroud of Turin video, that God indeed needed no help from the universe in the resurrection event of Christ since all things are possible with God, I am none-the-less very happy to see that what is considered the number one problem of Physicists and Mathematicians in physics today, of a ‘unification into a theory of everything’ for what is in essence the finite world of General Relativity and the infinite world of Quantum Mechanics, does in fact seem to find a successful resolution for ‘unification’ within the resurrection event of Jesus Christ Himself. It seems almost overwhelmingly apparent to me from the ‘scientific evidence’ we now have that Christ literally ripped a hole in the finite entropic space-time of this universe to reunite infinite God with finite man. That modern science would even offer such a almost tangible glimpse into the mechanics of what happened in the tomb of Christ should be a source of great wonder and comfort for the Christian heart. Psalms 16:10 because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. It is also interesting to note that ‘higher dimensional’ mathematics had to be developed before Einstein could elucidate General Relativity, or even before Quantum Mechanics could be elucidated; The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality – Gauss & Riemann – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6199520/ 3D to 4D shift – Carl Sagan – video with notes Excerpt from Notes: The state-space of quantum mechanics is an infinite-dimensional function space. Some physical theories are also by nature high-dimensional, such as the 4-dimensional general relativity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VS1mwEV9wA I think it should be fairly clear by now that, much contrary to the mediocrity of earth and of humans brought about by the heliocentric discoveries of Galileo and Copernicus, the findings of modern science are very comforting to Theistic postulations in general, and even lends strong support of plausibility to the main tenet of Christianity which holds Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God. Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and upon earth.”bornagain77_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
09:17 AM
9
09
17
AM
PDT}

AG as to 'looking upon' the vastness of the universe; Journey Through the Universe - George Smoot- Frank Turek - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3993965/ Psalm 8: 3-4 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? Since it is very easy for someone to feel 'lost', and extremely uncared for, in such a vast universe, here is scientific evidence that Almighty God does indeed care 'personally' for each of us, from His highest dimension, in such a vast universe: ,,, First I noticed that the earth demonstrates centrality in the universe in this video Dr. Dembski posted a while back; The Known Universe - Dec. 2009 - a very cool video (please note the centrality of the earth in the universe) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U ,,, for a while I tried to see if the 4-D space-time of General Relativity was sufficient to explain centrality we witness for the earth in the universe,,, 4-Dimensional Space-Time Of General Relativity - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3991873/ ,,, yet I kept running into the same problem for establishing the sufficiency of General Relativity to explain our centrality in this universe, in that every time I would perform a 'mental experiment' of trying radically different points of observation in the universe, General Relativity would fail to maintain centrality for the radically different point of observation in the universe. The primary reason for this failure of General Relativity to maintain centrality, for different points of observation in the universe, is due to the fact that there are limited (10^80) material particles to work with. Though this failure of General Relativity was obvious to me, I needed more proof so as to establish it more rigorously, so i dug around a bit and found this; The Cauchy Problem In General Relativity - Igor Rodnianski Excerpt: 2.2 Large Data Problem In General Relativity - While the result of Choquet-Bruhat and its subsequent refinements guarantee the existence and uniqueness of a (maximal) Cauchy development, they provide no information about its geodesic completeness and thus, in the language of partial differential equations, constitutes a local existence. ,,, More generally, there are a number of conditions that will guarantee the space-time will be geodesically incomplete.,,, In the language of partial differential equations this means an impossibility of a large data global existence result for all initial data in General Relativity. http://www.icm2006.org/proceedings/Vol_III/contents/ICM_Vol_3_22.pdf and also 'serendipitously' found this,,, THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS - DAVID P. GOLDMAN - August 2010 Excerpt: Gödel's personal God is under no obligation to behave in a predictable orderly fashion, and Gödel produced what may be the most damaging critique of general relativity. In a Festschrift, (a book honoring Einstein), for Einstein's seventieth birthday in 1949, Gödel demonstrated the possibility of a special case in which, as Palle Yourgrau described the result, "the large-scale geometry of the world is so warped that there exist space-time curves that bend back on themselves so far that they close; that is, they return to their starting point." This means that "a highly accelerated spaceship journey along such a closed path, or world line, could only be described as time travel." In fact, "Gödel worked out the length and time for the journey, as well as the exact speed and fuel requirements." Gödel, of course, did not actually believe in time travel, but he understood his paper to undermine the Einsteinian worldview from within. http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/201008/2080027241.html But if General Relativity is insufficient to explain the centrality we witness for ourselves in the universe, what else is? Universal Quantum wave collapse to each unique point of observation! To prove this point I dug around a bit and found this experiment,,, This following experiment extended the double slit experiment to show that the 'spooky actions', for instantaneous quantum wave collapse, happen regardless of any considerations for time or distance i.e. The following experiment shows that quantum actions are 'universal and instantaneous': Wheeler's Classic Delayed Choice Experiment: Excerpt: Now, for many billions of years the photon is in transit in region 3. Yet we can choose (many billions of years later) which experimental set up to employ – the single wide-focus, or the two narrowly focused instruments. We have chosen whether to know which side of the galaxy the photon passed by (by choosing whether to use the two-telescope set up or not, which are the instruments that would give us the information about which side of the galaxy the photon passed). We have delayed this choice until a time long after the particles "have passed by one side of the galaxy, or the other side of the galaxy, or both sides of the galaxy," so to speak. Yet, it seems paradoxically that our later choice of whether to obtain this information determines which side of the galaxy the light passed, so to speak, billions of years ago. So it seems that time has nothing to do with effects of quantum mechanics. And, indeed, the original thought experiment was not based on any analysis of how particles evolve and behave over time – it was based on the mathematics. This is what the mathematics predicted for a result, and this is exactly the result obtained in the laboratory. http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm ,, and to make universal quantum Wave collapse much more 'personal' I found this,,, "It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) from his collection of essays "Symmetries and Reflections – Scientific Essays"; Eugene Wigner laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. Here is the key experiment that led Wigner to his Nobel Prize winning work on quantum symmetries: Eugene Wigner Excerpt: To express this basic experience in a more direct way: the world does not have a privileged center, there is no absolute rest, preferred direction, unique origin of calendar time, even left and right seem to be rather symmetric. The interference of electrons, photons, neutrons has indicated that the state of a particle can be described by a vector possessing a certain number of components. As the observer is replaced by another observer (working elsewhere, looking at a different direction, using another clock, perhaps being left-handed), the state of the very same particle is described by another vector, obtained from the previous vector by multiplying it with a matrix. This matrix transfers from one observer to another. http://www.reak.bme.hu/Wigner_Course/WignerBio/wb1.htm i.e. In the experiment the 'world' (i.e. the universe) does not have a ‘privileged center’. Yet strangely, the conscious observer does exhibit a 'privileged center'. This is since the 'matrix', which determines which vector will be used to describe the particle in the experiment, is 'observer-centric' in its origination! Thus explaining Wigner’s dramatic statement, “It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.” I find it extremely interesting, and strange, that quantum mechanics tells us that instantaneous quantum wave collapse to its ‘uncertain’ 3-D state is centered on each individual observer in the universe, whereas, 4-D space-time cosmology (General Relativity) tells us each 3-D point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe. These findings of modern science are pretty much exactly what we would expect to see if this universe were indeed created, and sustained, from a higher dimension by a omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal Being who knows everything that is happening everywhere in the universe at the same time. These findings certainly seem to go to the very heart of the age old question asked of many parents by their children, “How can God hear everybody’s prayers at the same time?”,,, i.e. Why should the expansion of the universe, or the quantum wave collapse of the entire universe, even care that you or I, or anyone else, should exist? Only Theism offers a rational explanation as to why you or I, or anyone else, should have such undeserved significance in such a vast universe: Psalm 33:13-15 The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. etc.. etc.. etc..bornagain77_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
09:15 AM
9
09
15
AM
PDT}

Consider the two World Wars, and throw in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. Imagine if the clergy in the various countries had given their congregations solid reasons for not going to war, including the absurdity of Christians going forth to war against each other. What would have happened? One possibility: The wars couldn't have happened. Another possibility: Everyone ignores the clergy and goes to war, and the clergy go to prison or hang. Bad for them, but at least they stood for what was right. Neither happened. The clergy on every side of every war told men that God wanted them to fight. They blessed the bombs and the guns. Their hands were bloodied to the elbows. That's what everyone forgets when they say these weren't religious wars. Of course they weren't. But they were possible because clergy set God aside to support the bombing, burning, maiming, shooting, and raping of soldiers, civilians, women, and children who even belonged to the same religion. The point about their own religion isn't to say it's okay to do it to someone else, but were these not the sheep of their own flock whose deaths they condoned? I shouldn't be the one making this argument because I am a religious person. But how is there a shred of moral authority left in those who supported these atrocities? The Bible says that those who are from God love their brother. Those who are from the Devil kill him. I don't mean to be so harsh. But I'm offended to see those who did these things used as examples of superior morality. They may not have pulled the triggers themselves, but they at best condoned and at worst encouraged the mountains of evil acts that were done.ScottAndrews_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
09:00 AM
9
09
00
AM
PDT}

As for fine tuning, I think you will find here helpful. Let us just say that ALL human evaluations are "subjective," but some have warrant that points to an extra-mental reality. This seems to be one of them, starting with the characteristics of the cosmos that give us water and Carbon in appropriate abundance. Observe, particularly, the remarks of Sir Fred Hoyle, an eminent, Nobel-equivalent prize holding astrophysicist, as just a dipping of your toe in the water:
From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 MeV energy level in the nucleus of 12 C to the 7.12 MeV level in 16 O. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? . . . I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has “monkeyed” with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. [F. Hoyle, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982): 16. Emphasis added.] I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars. [["The Universe: Past and Present Reflections." Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12]
kairosfocus_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
08:52 AM
8
08
52
AM
PDT}

In addition, such evolutionary materialism undermines rationality itself. To see why, cf what Haldane had to say on the matter as long ago as the 1930's. (Kindly cf my recent post here for a discussion with a link to more elaborate details and nuances.) Let's clip Haldane as he says the heart of the problem succinctly:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.” [["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. (Highlight and emphases added.)]
There is more to the issue than simply reciting off the usual stories we are told in the name of science.kairosfocus_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
08:43 AM
8
08
43
AM
PDT}

AG: Again, we are so constituted as to find ourselves bound by ought. When evolutionary materialism turns out to lack any IS that can ground OUGHT, it fails to fit reality, and in addition, it is destructively dangerous through promoting the notion that might makes right. [Notice the operative word, materialism.] If any further demonstration of the problem was needed, the history of the past century provides more than enough. It is safe to say that no sane, adequately informed person would knowingly adhere to the view that might makes right, or anything that locks him up to such a view; whether or not the promoters of that view dress themselves in lab coats. Why, has been gone over again and again. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
08:38 AM
8
08
38
AM
PDT}

Of course evolution is amoral, it is a mechanism.
Evolution is a mechanism of evolution?Joseph_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
08:34 AM
8
08
34
AM
PDT}

AG; perhaps you need to ask God to illuminate your mind more fully, and clearly, on these matters. I am sure, since He is if fact real, that He will 'serendipitously' make it more clear to you if you are honest in seeking answers from Him. i.e. As Jesus said, 'Seek and ye shall find!'; As for myself, it is just blatantly obvious to me that finite, fallible, man cannot possibly measure up to the 'infinite justice' that is inherent within, and indeed one of the defining attributes of, infinite God.,,, AG you seem to, ever so nonchalantly, consider it a fairly light thing to enter into the presence of the One who created this entire material universe. Have you looked upon the vastness of the universe lately??? Does it not even enter your mind that Almighty God just may know more about what is required for you to securely enter eternal life than you do??? Hell? We Can't Afford To Get This Wrong! by Francis Chan - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnrJVTSYLr8bornagain77_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
08:33 AM
8
08
33
AM
PDT}

Of course evolution is amoral, it is a mechanism. Would a moral means have produced humans that couldn't regrow limbs, synthesize vitamin C or that used the same genetic code as other animals making transpecific disease transmission easier or that were vulnerable to collective identitification or cults of personality? The "fine tuning" for carbon based life is a selective and subjective assessment. Most of the universe is hostile to carbon based life, either too hot or too cold, and our own position is precarious vis'a'vis collisions with objects from the periphery of our own solar system and the occasional supernova. If the goal of the universe is the success of carbon based life, then we may be the collateral damage since our chances of surviving the next 200 million years, much less the next 5 billion are minimal. In such a large universe, chance alone will assure that some life will survive, so perhaps that is the purpose of the universe, finer, less wasteful and harsh tuning may not have been possible given constraints we are unaware of and we are the price that has to be paid. Perhaps god will shed a tear for us. Or perhaps we will take our future into our own hands, we are close to being able to protect ourselves from solar system objects. We will need to be lucky for a few more millenia as far as supernova go. Humans are social animals, and our increased intelligence enabled strategies with high payoffs involving investment. Already there was some moral sense in our ancestors as demonstrated by related living species, a sense of fairness, the ability to detect deceit, defense of territory, etc. Investment requires morality to be successful. We must have some benefit from the tools we make, the animals we husband and the crops we sow. Any intelligent being would invent a morality that helps assure that. But our nouveau intelligence also asked questions for which there were no answers and it was a social intelligence that understood mechanisms in terms of anthropomorphic motivations, so we got animism, religion and gods.africangenesis_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
08:08 AM
8
08
08
AM
PDT}

VJT: Quite significant. Gkairosfocus_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
07:29 AM
7
07
29
AM
PDT}

Bantay, I rather doubt that anyone here is seriously arguing that it is solely lack of religion that was driving the mess in the UK. But, it was being highlighted from the OP on that now highly touted antipathy to God, the only serious candidate to be an IS who grounds OUGHT is a factor in the breakdown of moral principle and social cohesion that are key to that mutual self respect that tends to restrain rioting. For instance, I am pretty sure that if in the past few days in the UK you saw a group of young men walking behind you especially in the evening, you would have been greatly relieved to know they were coming from a Bible Study. And sound Christian religion cannot be separated form sound Christian morality. But then that morality is also not to be separated from the underlying worldview frame that gives it grounding. Which is strongly compatible with first principles of morality that are written on our hearts as a key part of our nature. That old candle of God within, our consciences. Sure that can be distorted or polluted or suppressed -- I am not so sure it can entirely be killed off -- but that does not mean that it is not real. Now I am also sure there are various moral systems in the world, but i am pretty sure they stand before the bar of reasoned ethical thought, and so there is an objectivity about morality. I missed anything in Null that cuts across that, could you help me see what I missed if anything? All best GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
07:16 AM
7
07
16
AM
PDT}

AG: First things first; we know your likes and dislikes, the issue is what is warranted as a worldview foundation. Is morality objective? If not, then we are stuck at might makes right, which is absurd and destructive. We know that evolutionary materialism -- in a lab coat or a philosopher's robe makes but little difference -- is amoral. It's a non-starter. Before we get to any particular religious tradition, we are looking at a plainly contingent world that seems to be fine tuned for C-chemistry cell based life. As such life, we find ourselves inescapably bound by a sense of ought. What worldview foundation best explains that? The only serious answer on the table is, a necessary being and architect of the cosmos, who is inherently good, and the Creator God. That seems to be the only serious candidate to be an IS who explains OUGHT, as well as to be the architect of the world we inhabit. From that, we find that we are equipped to reasonably accutrately perceive our world and to come to reasonable knowledge about it and about ourselves, including moral knowledge on the premise that as creatures made with minds and consciences, we find ourselves to be equal and to have core rights that are equal. So, we have a basic foundation for thought and life as morally governed creatures. There is enough evidence, if we do not shut our eyes, minds and hearts to it, to make such a baseline generic theism quite reasonable. Now, we also find ourselves, finite, fallible, morally fallen/struggling and too often ill-tempered and ill-willed. So we have to be very careful of the subtle self-serving deceitfulness of our own hearts. In that context, in our civlisation, we have a longstanding religious tradition, one that is anchored on the life and teachings of a certain carpenter form Nazareth, Israel. Is he the Saviour, and Lord incarnate as teacher, healer and redeemer that we can see in the Israelite prophetic tradition? Whatever we like or don't like, the best answer tothat is to examine that tradition in light of its core warranting argument. Since that is going afield of what UD is really about -- a worldview level discussion is appropriate to the issue of design thought, science and society but that seems to be about he reasonable limit, i.e this is not really the place for theological debates [though some may slip over the line from time to time], I suggest that you take a moment to look through the 101 level summary on that here. What I do know, beyond that, is that in that tradition, we are explicitly warned:
Isa 55: 6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
And again, we are counselled:
Matt 6: 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
And, yet again:
Eph 4:17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. 20 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
So, let us be very careful of how we reason and debate on these matters, and of our inner motives when we weigh up cases. There are many fora where such matters can be followed up, online and offline. I trust that helps GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
07:03 AM
7
07
03
AM
PDT}

KF I am sympathetic to the objections put forth by Nullasalus, and I notice you are supportive of his comments. He brings up some good questions, but some that I think are purely emotionally driven. I can sense that Nullasalus objects to the concept of a single, objective morality. That's a different issue entirely. However, even as a Christian, I would not be the first to admit that a Christian can (and does) sin at times. Thus, there is no correlation between religion and its ideal (and antecedent), expected type of moral behavior. I just find it to be unfair to our unbelieving friends, to point out their immoral behavior and be quick to attribute it to a lack of religion, while Christians (or, religious people in general) do immoral acts all the time. Thus, I don't think there are sufficient grounds for claiming that riots in the UK is due solely to a lack of religion. After all, there are many religions, and not all of them are peaceful. But this issue isn't about other religions is it? At the end of the day, it is Christianity that is singled out here. So let's just call it like it is. The issue here is not the lack of religion in the UK, but the lack of Christian morality in the UK. To that, I would agree.Bantay_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
06:56 AM
6
06
56
AM
PDT}

So it’s not atheism that’s the problem then? the problem is failing to follow Jesus. Culture cannot save you. Culture, however, can damn you, I think. And of course culture -- and the laws that it directs to happen -- can make our temporary stay here more pleasant or more hellish. If our society strongly holds that a God exists who demands that we should love our neighbor, a Martin Luther King Jr. or Abraham Lincoln or FDR or Ronald Reagan (the communists were as bad as the Nazis) will ultimately triumph. If a society strongly holds that we are all here by accident and the purpose of existence is survival of the productive the winner will end up being a Hitler or Stalin or Mao. It should also be pointed out that if a society strongly holds that a God exists who demands that all dissenters be crushed the winner will be a Khomeini or those who constituted European royalty in its prime.tribune7_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
06:44 AM
6
06
44
AM
PDT}

"but that is not the God that anyone here is advocating for" A god that requires the blood sacrifice of a perfect savior as a mechanism for redemption, seems pretty arbitrary and capricious. I don't see how even might can make that "right". I don't think the rioters were rioting "against" anything. I think they had a sense of entitlement, their material needs had been met at no cost to them, so they had no sense of the value of the material, and they didn't value those they were harming. They felt anonymous and those they were harming seemed just as faceless. They didn't think that there might be consequences to themselves, and may have had little ability to defer gratification, since they had never had to do it. Human variation has always included those that are impulsive, sensation seekers, the opportunists, who like the apache and navajo, who swept in and stole the harvest of the pueblo. They must have had some success for they are part of our variation. Eventually, agriculture was so successful that it created a population dense enough to set the conditions for their deferral of consumption and investment. The rules are so that people get to reap what they have sown and civilization is the result. There will always be those that try to reap without sowing. They must be controlled preferably through education and training, and with serious consequences if necessary.africangenesis_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
06:27 AM
6
06
27
AM
PDT}

Britain wasn't hit by a earthquake/tsunami. Why did they riot? Actually, I suspect that a major disaster that clarified to the minds of the citizenry that the government was not the ultimate source of their food and shelter would have led to a different form of group behavior.tribune7_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
06:27 AM
6
06
27
AM
PDT}

No. It is the "perfect and holy God" that doesn't make sense, I don't know what that would be. I try to think of what that would mean, I guess it would mean he isn't up to something nefarious, and that doesn't sound too daunting or unexpected. So why would there be a "need" for a perfect savior in order to "face" him or be "redeemed"? A "perfect savior" would seem a strange mechanism and serve what purpose? If you need an intercessor with a perfect and holy God, why wouldn't you need one with a perfect savior, a priest for instance, although I don't know what he would add either? What is "savior" about the perfect savior? I assume you are referring to the blood sacrifice. Why would a God construct a grusome mechanism for redemption like that, when a simple snap of his figurative fingers would do? And frankly, I don't see why redemption would be necessary, he should be able to take men pretty much as they are, like I do, and as he has supposedly created them. If there is something so bad about some of them, why bother redeeming those at all? None of it really makes sense to me and I don't see what is necessary about it. As for the "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God", what did he expect? Did that come as a surprise? It is a big, so what? If he wanted gods, why didn't he make them instead? So, none of your statement makes sense, it tries to sound terrible or something, but it just doesn't seem meaningful.africangenesis_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
05:47 AM
5
05
47
AM
PDT}

IMO, many Western atheists became atheists largely because they rightfully rejected what they perceived as a "might-makes-right" morality imposed on humans by what they perceived as an irrational, capricious, hypocritical god. They were right to reject such a notion of God; that's the notion of god that I rejected when I became an atheist many years ago. Unfortunately, such a backstory makes it very difficult to allow in the notion of a rational god, and a rational morality. There is great emotional bias against such seemingly totalitarian, fascistic notions. God would be tyrannical and fascistic if god was a dictatorial man-in-the-sky issuing forth arbitrary commands towards invented purposes, bribing worshippers with promises of reward and threatening doubters with pain and suffering unless they bow in submission to its arbitrary will. It is right to reject such a god, and any system of thought that advocates such a god. Might makes right is not a proper grounding for any moral system, even if it comes from god. But that is not the god anyone here (as far as I can tell) is advocating for; it's certainly not the kind of god I could advocate or argue for. I'd rather live for eternity with my first ex-wife than shill for such a monster. As with most such atheists, I threw the baby out with the bathwater. Without god as grounding for first principles, there is no reason to tie anything we say or do to any first principles, and so we are free to rampage about doing as we wish whether we can rationally justify it or not, because reason itself becomes nothing but just another will-to-power device for oppressing the minds of the masses. Which is essentially what some of the interviewed rioter said; it is what leftist radicals have advocated for decades. Religion, to them, and logic, and tradition and the social structure itself are simply "control mechanisms" meant to oppress them into subservience for the enrichment of the upper and ruling class. IOW, leftist philosophers and academics have redefined the constraints upon evil tendencies (reason, morality, religion, social contracts) as evils themselves, recasting them as nothing more than camoflaged devices of "might-makes-right". The problem with this perspective is that if the "might makes right" of reason, religion, and the social structure is evil, then rioting "because we can", an expression of might-makes-right, is as evil as the oppressive social, moral and rational construct it rails against. If morals and ethics are subjective, then you have nothing to complain about. If everything is "might makes right", you have nothing to riot against, because those in power are exactly like you, and their morals and ethics are no different - fundamentally - than your own; they have just exercised their own subjective morals and views on others via the standard of might makes right. So, what are they rioting against? IMO, they don't like their situation (for whatever reason), and they lack any rational moral grounding (which would prevent random burning and looting of the property of other individual they don't even know in any situation), they don't believe there are any consequences to their behavior (as long as they don't get caught) because "morality", to them, is nothing but a control mechanism for the bourgeoisie.Meleagar_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
04:33 AM
4
04
33
AM
PDT}

Altar, just in case spelling counts. :)Brent_{August 22, 2011
August
08
Aug
22
22
2011
03:50 AM
3
03
50
AM
PDT}

Prev 1 2 3 4 Next

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply