Yesterday I had an exchange with Seversky that illustrates something I have observed countless times over the years. Materialists have a blind spot regarding how their own arguments undermine, well, their own arguments. Here is the exchange:
Johnnyb wrote:
The reason for this is the precise theorem that Hoffman states – in evolutionary competition, fitness beats truth.
To which Sev responded:
Unless fitness is truth in which case there is no competition. How does Hoffman – or Plantinga – distinguish between “fitness” and “truth”? Are they comparing like with like?
I wrote:
But Sev, you know for a certain fact that according to your own premises fitness and truth are not the same. For 99% of human existence, 99% of humans have believed in a God or gods. Your premises compel you to say that evolutionary forces caused that state of affairs (for the simple reason that, under your premises, there are no other alternatives). You also say that a belief in a God or gods is a false belief. Therefore, simple logic applied to your own factual premises demands the conclusion that evolutionary forces selected for a false belief.
Sev:
I agree that evolution can select for false beliefs, religion being a possible example, but not that it mostly or always does. Human beings survive better in groups than on their own. Religious belief, even if false, can help to bind such groups together more tightly and make them more resilient in face of challenges. At that level, it is advantageous in terms of survival. On the other hand, believing that tigers are big, cuddly pets who just want to play is probably not going to be so advantageous and, over time, those holding such beliefs are less likely to survive and pass on that belief.
Barry
“I agree that evolution can select for false beliefs . . .” Then you have given away the store. If evolution can select for false beliefs, who is to say when it has selected for a false belief as opposed to a true one. You advance a candidate for what you believe to be a true belief (human beings survive better in groups). Yet, you admit that evolution may have caused you to believe that even though it is false.
It never ceases to astound me that seemingly intelligent people (and I count Sev among such), can’t seem to grasp the glaringly obvious end of the logic. If our beliefs are the product of blind material forces, we can NEVER know whether we believe them because they are actually true or because those blind material forces caused us to believe them even though they are false.
Seversky’s position renders true or false meaningless. But like every good materialist, he holds his own position to be true. And the decades go by…
Andrew
The Devil must be deceiving them!
The alternative is that one is wrong, but so wholly committed to the idea that they can’t even entertain that it could be wrong.
But nah, it’s probably the Devil.
…and the trolls come out.
Andrew
My experience is that any attept to respond to Barry will be met with dismissal: “hand waving” and “special pleading”, so this “troll” won’t bother.
Barry: “It never ceases to astound me that seemingly intelligent people (and I count Sev among such)…”
Is Sev really intelligent? Of course he thinks he is but is it really intelligent to believe in irrational nonsense? All I can infer from his presence at UD is that he is biased and self-centered. Remember, he has proudly admitted many time here that he is a moral subjectivist. By definition for a moral subjectivist morality starts with himself which means he can never be in error because he is free to move the goal posts whenever he wishes. Personally I see no reason trust such people, but I digress. My only point is that by definition a moral subjectivist is self-centered (not just about morality but also epistemology) which means he believes what he believes because that is what he believes. That’s incorrigibility. How can you reason with someone who is completely incorrigible?
hazel:
Given what you have posted, Barry isn’t wrong.
Hazel@4 as kf has pointed out so often in his notes to onlookers a discussion on line is rarely to convince the other person but for the sake of the other readers so unless you feel there’s no one at all who would benefit from your response, including yourself, please proceed.
This is true, Es58. However the vast majority of the people who do respond to me here are merely dismissive and don’t actually engage my points, so it’s hard for me to want to take the time.
It is actually Barry’s dismissal on the hammer, nail thread that I am referring to, so if you’d like to read my points over there and respond, I’d be glad to try and carry on.
Hazel
If you had actually raised a point, I probably would have engaged with it. Instead, your argument amounted to “evolution causes everything except when it does not, in which case some mysterious and unnamed material force causes it.” You were asked several times to provide evidence for your asserted mysterious and unnamed material force. You ignored those requests for obvious reasons.
Barry, you’re hopeless. Your statement following “your argument amounted to” is just a distorted, inaccurate description of what I said. I can’t discuss things with people who can’t do better than that.
I find Barry’s response to be directly on point. Contrary to Hazel’s belief that she ‘raised a point’, the true state of the situation is exactly as Barry stated, , “your argument amounted to “evolution causes everything except when it does not, in which case some mysterious and unnamed material force causes it.” You were asked several times to provide evidence for your asserted mysterious and unnamed material force. You ignored those requests for obvious reasons.”
Hazel suggested that people read the exchange. I also suggest people read the exchange: Particularly where I addressed her main claim, i.e. ““evolution selected for broad cognitive skills, including language, not for particular beliefs”, in detail,
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/johnnyb-nail-head/#comment-687970
Please note her supposedly substantive response to my rebuttal of her claim:
And there you have it folks, question begging to the max and yet she apparently thinks she is the one who ‘raised a point’. As Eugene noted about these types of arguments from atheists, Pathetic!
“ I accept the conclusion that there has been a progression of creatures over the last some hundreds of thousands of years that slowly acquired what we now consider fully human capabilities.”
I don’t see how this conflicts with Intelligent Design or Evolutionary theory, but it does with some Biblical interpretations like YEC.
In principal a belief, however arrived at, can be tested against reality and either confirmed or falsified.
As to:
She accepts ‘evolution selected for broad cognitive skills, including language,’ on what evidential basis? It is a blatantly Darwinian claim, (though she claimed to not be a Darwinist). A evidence free claim that is begging the question for crying out loud. She has less than zero evidence for her claim and/or acceptance of her belief that “there has been a progression of creatures over the last some hundreds of thousands of years that slowly acquired what we now consider fully human capabilities.”
Leading evolutionary researchers, Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, honestly confessed that they have “essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,,”
Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at MIT elaborates further and states that, “There is little evidence of anything like human language, or symbolic behavior altogether, before the emergence of modern humans.,,,”
And as Dr. Ian Tattersall, paleoanthropologist and emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History stated, “there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.”
Her ‘acceptance’ has no foundational basis in evidence and/or reality and therefore ‘begs the question’ as to her false claim to Barry that she had raised a substantive point that should have been addressed.. Bottom line, Barry is right on point in his criticism, “your argument amounted to “evolution causes everything except when it does not, in which case some mysterious and unnamed material force causes it.”
Further notes:
Verse:
and:
Once again, in case anyone missed my previous statements, by the correspondence theory, truth resides in the degree to which a claim about some aspect of objective reality is observed to correspond to what it describes. If I say that a ripe tomato is red, that claim is true to the extent that we see that ripe tomatoes are red.
Fitness, in terms of evolutionary biology, broadly refers to an organism’s ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment. It can be the result of many different properties of the organism and how they interact with its immediate environment. Any property which improves the fitness of an organism compared with its competitors will tend, over time, to facilitate the proliferation of that organism. In other words, it will survive and flourish.
An organism which is able to acquire data about its environment and has the capacity to use that data create a mental model of that environment which allows it to avoid dangers has a considerable advantage over less well-favored creatures. If that organism notices that others of its kind are killed and eaten by large cats with stripey coats and forms the view that they are to avoided at all costs if one prefers not to be eaten, that is a claim about the natural world. If it is true then the organism holding that view will have a better chance of surviving that one that thinks those cats are cuddly, playful pets. The same would be true for an organism which notices that eating certain berries make others sick or even kills them. In other words holding true beliefs can have considerable survival value. It shouldn’t be necessary to have to labor this point.
The fact that there are some beliefs which are not true according to observation but which can nonetheless enhance fitness does not invalidate the above in any way. We have agreed that religions generally have a survival or fitness value in terms of how they can strengthen the bonds which tie a society together. The problem for believers is that most if not all faiths have that effect to some degree. This suggests that the specific doctrines espoused by the different faiths are irrelevant to fitness. In other words, it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you all have the same belief.
Granted the above exception, it remains true that having true beliefs tends to confer a fitness advantage. Observing that people get sick and even die after drinking water from a particular pump and forming the claim that the water from that pump is contaminated in some way can, if true, prevent people dying. Discovering that epileptic seizures are associated with abnormal electrical activity in a certain part of the brain rather than being a consequence of demonic possession can lead to a better understanding of the affliction and more effective treatments.
Does this mean that our beliefs are 100% reliable? No, of course not. Our intelligence has a limited capacity. The data we acquire through our senses about the outside world is far from complete. Does this mean that the opposite holds true, that our beliefs are therefore totally unreliable or complete delusions? Again, no. This is not a black-and-white situation. There are beliefs in which we have a high degree of confidence, even approaching certainty. There are beliefs in which we are fairly confident but leave some room for doubt and there are those which we regard as speculative at best. It’s better to think of it as a spectrum of confidence ranging from absolute, unquestioning certainty to complete skepticism or disbelief. The confidence we have in our various beliefs lies somewhere between the two extremes. One way we can discriminate between competing beliefs is, if they make testable claims, to test them. Claims about what ought to be can’t be tested so they are not capable of being either true or false.
Sev, no matter how much you try to twist and spin, your evolutionary ‘just-so story’, as usual, conflicts with the findings.
And again, given that ‘truth’ itself is immaterial in its basic essence, these findings against the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution, by both Hoffman and Plantinga, really should not be all that surprising.
Speaking of selection….
Over at crev.info, Coppedge has an interesting series about natural selection showing that even some evolutionists are realizing that it can in now way whatsoever account for what we see. Steve Talbott is writing a book entitled “Evolution as it was meant to be”. Ch. 19 is entitled “Let’s not begin with natural selection” and he skillfully takes down the concept of natural selection showing it to be mostly wrong. The great thing here is that this is written by an evolutionist and not an IDer or a creationist. But he seems to have been listening to some of our critiques of natural selection and it’s inability to explain what we see in nature. Here is just one quote from the article:
“It would be truer to say that the famously simple and compelling logic of natural selection, misconceived as the “foundation” of a powerful theory, has been a primary source of hokum in evolutionary thinking. It is a kind of blank template upon which overly credulous biologists and lay people can project their faith. As for the “genuine force” Gould refers to — a supposed causal power over and above those we find actually at play in biological activity — it is a magical invention borne of the refusal to recognize agency in the only place where we ever observe it, which is in the lives of organisms.”
https://crev.info/2019/11/natural-selection-is-vacuous-ii/
Barry vs. Hazel @ 9 & 10:
I have my own personal standard when it comes to interacting with our regular interlocutors. I usually only engage under two conditions:
First, our interlocutor must be willing to ask and answer honest questions.
Second, they need make a logically valid argument, which can be stated using succinct fact based premises. Being argumentative is not the same as making a valid argument. Neither is pretension and posturing, obstruction or obfuscation. Reasonable people know how to make reasonable arguments.
Here is an honest question:
Are personal beliefs and opinions sufficient to establish any kind of (capital T) Truth?
Apparently Hazel believes so. In other words, her “argument” is:
I believe that proposition X is true.
Therefore, X is true.
Why? Because that’s what Hazel believes so that settles it.
Tjguy, from The Origin of Theoretical Population Genetics (University of Chicago Press, 1971), reissued in 2001 by William Provine:
Thanks for the honesty Will. Natural selection is incapable of producing biological complexity.
My position is that there is no capital T truth, JAD.
Except you cannot possibly know that, hazel. So your position isn’t based on anything beyond your personal bias.
“[Some physicist see these new developments] as compelling evidence for intrinsically observer-dependent theories such as Quantum Bayesianism.”
—————————————————————–
And from Wikipedia: …some philosophers of science have deemed QBism a form of anti-realism. The originators of the interpretation disagree with this characterization, proposing instead that the theory more properly aligns with a kind of realism they call “participatory realism”, wherein reality consists of more than can be captured by any putative third-person account of it.
—————————————————————–
Somewhere out there, the ghost of Alfred North Whitehead nods and softly chuckles.
“My position is that there is no capital T truth,”
save of course for her capital T truth that there is no capital T truth, 🙂
Cute, ba, but, no, I don’t think my belief that there is no truth with a capital T is a truth with a capital T. That should be obvious.
UD Editors: So, Hazel, you are admitting that your statement that there is no truth with a capital T may, for all you know, be wrong and that, for all you know, there may well be truth with a capital T. Good for you. That’s progress.
Stay out of my comments, Barry! And yes, I’ve never denied that there might be truth with a capital T.
UD Editors. UD reserves the right to add comments to any comment. Those who disagree with this policy are free not to post comments on our site.
Never thought I’d see someone say “stay out of my comments” That kind of wigged me out, Not trying to make anyone mad when it comes this but I agree with Hazel when it comes to posting inside of someone’s comments
I know I’m nothing special I’m just voicing my opinion
Might doesn’t make right, Barry: kf has had a great deal to say about this! 🙂
Aaron1978
I have to agree, unless Barry is going to grant that power to everyone. Which, obviously, would be crazy.
I have more of an issue when KF deletes what a commenter says and includes something like [Snipped for vulgarity]. I would rather that he removed the entire comment than remove part of it.
Here is an argument that is not rooted in just subjective belief or opinion.
Let’s begin with a proposition that appears to be self-evidently true from both the theist and non-theist perspective:
If the universe is all that exists there is no ultimate purpose and meaning to human existence.
However, while that premise is self-evidently true it doesn’t logically follow that the universe is all that exists.
But just for the heck of it, let’s try it out anyway by plugging it into a simple argument.
The argument of course fails because we have no way to prove premise #2 is true and if premise #2 is not true, the conclusion does not follow.
Nevertheless, there are at least a couple of implications that we can derive from this so-called argument.
First, even though there is no way to prove that Premise #2, “The universe is all that exists,” is true, it’s still possibly true, the same way that the claim that “pink unicorns exist” could be true, though it’s not self-evidently true. So those who claim that it is true have the burden of proof to prove it’s true. In other words, it cannot be claimed as some kind of “default position.”
Second, if there is no way to prove Premise #2 then the materialist has no solid basis for knowledge or any claim of truth. The materialist is left with only his opinions and beliefs. This leaves him with an untenable and self-refuting truth claim that must be accepted by faith. That, however, undermines the whole atheistic-materialist project which claims to be based on reason, facts and logic.
Furthermore, it doesn’t explain why humans appear to be hardwired to seek higher purpose and meaning that goes beyond the immediate survival needs of an accidentally evolved species of hunter-gatherer apes. Why, for example, did the Egyptians build the pyramids? In other words, there is no explanation (other than empty hand waving) for why this should be true from a purely naturalistic evolutionary perspective. So the atheist-materialist is confronted with a second unresolvable metaphysical dilemma: it’s self-evident that humans seek higher meaning and purpose.
Why would anyone want to become an atheistic-materialist if it’s a world view which one must accept blindly by faith? Ironically that puts materialism in a category that is worse than the very worst of pseudo- religions. It’s nothing but deluded pretension to argue otherwise.
Rudeness is often born of insecurities.
Hazel
You say that as if it is objectively true that I did something wrong. That is amusing coming from someone who disputes the existence of objective truth.
If there isn’t any capital T truth then there isn’t any capital R reality. And that is just crazy talk because the capital T truth is the capital R reality. And there is a capital R reality to our existence
Hazel
“ Might doesn’t make it right”
Barry is correct either might doesn’t make it right is true (T) or it is false. If it’s true your wrong ,it is true (T) if it’s false then it’s not true (T) Pick your poison.
Vivid
DerekDiMarco @ 30
Thank you so much for your psychoanalysis. Will you be sending a bill or is this a public service?
Hazel, an atheist, states
she also holds her position to be subjective:
Why she personally believes that she gives no reason. Which is just as well because if she could give a coherent, irrefutable, reason why there is no objective Truth with a capital T then it would mean, of course, that it is objectively true that there is no truth with a capitial T. In other words, Hazel’s personal opinion is self-refuting. i.e. If true then not true! Very much similar to the liar’s paradox, i.e. “akin to the well-known liar’s paradox: “This statement is a lie.” If the statement is true, then (as it says) it is not true, but a lie.”
But anyways, although Hazel, (for whatever severely misguided self-refuting reason), may find it desirable to deny that truth with a capital T exists, science itself, especially physics, is predicated on the belief that truth with a capital T exists.
The practice of science itself is not only a search for various truths about reality but is also, ultimately, primarily a search for the truth with a capital T about reality.
The search for the ultimate truth about reality in science takes the form of trying to find the hypothetical final mathematical ‘theory of everything’. It is hoped that this hypothetical final ‘theory of everything’ will be ‘capable of describing all phenomena in the universe.’
In its present form this search for the “Theory of Everything”, i.e this search for truth with a capital T, entails trying to mathematically unify general relativity and quantum field theory, (which is the unification quantum mechanics and special relativity),
As the following article states, “The first attempt at unifying relativity and quantum mechanics took place when special relativity was merged with electromagnetism. This created the theory of quantum electrodynamics, or QED. It is an example of what has come to be known as relativistic quantum field theory, or just quantum field theory. QED is considered by most physicists to be the most precise theory of natural phenomena ever developed.”
Interestingly, “Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated.”, i.e. conscious observation was dropped by the wayside in QFT!
In other words, they left conscious observation itself, (which is, IMHO, by far the most interesting aspect of quantum mechanics), on the cutting room floor when they unified special relativity and quantum mechanics.
Richard Feynman (and others) were only able to unify special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics by quote unquote “brushing infinity under the rug” with a technique called Renormalization.
And whereas special relativity, by ‘brushing infinity under the rug’, has been semi-successfully unified, (i.e. save for quantum measurement), with quantum theory to produce Quantum Electrodynamics and/or Quantum Field Theory, no such mathematical ‘sleight of hand’ exists for unifying general relativity with quantum mechanics.
General relativity, as the following articles show, simply refuses to be mathematically unified with quantum mechanics in any acceptable way. In technical terms, Gravity has yet to be successfully included into a theory of everything since the infinities that crop up in that attempt are not renormalizable as they were in Quantum-Electrodynamics.
Moreover, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem has now been extended to physics and is not just some abstract mathematical limit that prevents there from ever being a mathematical ‘theory of everything’ but is now shown to be, in actuality, a defining feature of reality: In the following article entitled ‘Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics’, which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
Simply put, despite how much people may believe that there must be a single mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that exist out there somewhere, there, in fact, never will be a single mathematical theory of everything that links the microscopic world of quantum mechanics to the macroscopic world of General Relativity.
And yet, all is not lost in our search for a “Theory of Everything” and/or in our search for truth with a capital T.
I firmly believe that the true reconciliation of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ was successfully accomplished in Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead. And that this fact is testified to by noting the physical details that are revealed in a detailed examination of the Shroud of Turin.
Basically and succinctly, allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned,,,, (Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders),,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands (with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), by rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics then that provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”. Here are a few posts where I lay out and defend some of the evidence for that claim:
To give us a small glimpse of the power that was involved in Christ’s resurrection from the dead, the following recent article found that, ”it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology.”
Verses:
Supplemental notes:
Average word count per comment by year for BA77
2007: 329
2008: 211
2009: 302
2010: 275
2011: 367
2012: 416
2013: 414
2014: 501
2015: 573
2016: 706
2017: 797
2018: 786
2019: 998
I can only assume that BA77 is three times more convincing in his arguments in 2019 than he was in 2007. 🙂 that is impressive.
@Ed: those numbers look way too low.
DDM
My understanding is that these are based on an arithmetic mean. A better indication would be the median or other robust estimates of the central tendency. Something like algorithm A from ISO 13528.
The materialists whine about the length of BA’s posts. I guess since the can’t refute his posts they feel like they have to say something.
That’s why nobody engages with those comments. They’re just too logically powerful.
Several years ago on a different site I got into a discussion about same sex marriage.
Our interlocutor had responded to a question in the OP.
I replied:
It is self-refuting to say there is ”no ‘essential truth’ about anything.” Didn’t you notice that you’re making an essential [indeed universal] truth claim about truth. Furthermore it takes the legs out from under every argument you have been making. Why should I even consider an argument that’s not true?
This is why I have given up trying to argue with moral subjectivists. They don’t understand the irrationality of their argument. Logic 101 says you can’t prove anything deductively unless you begin with a factually true or self-evidently true premise. Again, the premise there is “no ‘essential truth’ about anything,” is self-refuting, which is basically the argument the subjectivist is making. All the subjectivist has are moral opinions he believes are true for him. However, no-one else is obligated to accept his moral opinions. The subjectivist is then left with a “morality” that has no moral obligation. What value is such a moral system? The answer is obvious: zero value.
as to:
correction:
There, all better!
*The logic is not really all that powerful, as John_a_designer pointed out in comment 42, it’s just basic logic 101.
A few related notes:
Verse, quotes, and notes:
Barry
If you are so enamoured of BA77’s writing style and arguments, why have you never given him admin rights to post OPs as you have with KF, Johnyb others?
JaD
Correct.
Unless they share the same moral opinion, or one can convince the other if the value of his moral opinion.
Not preventing same sex marriage is a subjective moral value. It started as something that was only believed by a small minority of society. By argument and rational logic this minority has convinced the majority of society about the moral value of not preventing it. You might argue that this is A legal obligation, not a moral one. But how is this any different than something like murder. There have always been people who don’t feel morally obligated to not kill other people. It is society that imposes this moral value, and others, in their legal systems, whether criminal or civil.
KF is partially correct when he says that subjective morality is nothing more than might and manipulation make right. I would add self interest, cooperation and the ability to predict and extrapolate consequences of actions and how these consequences could negatively impact your self interest.
Ed George:
No, it isn’t. It is based on the biological fact that two people of the same sex cannot procreate.
Ed George loves to make stuff up and then think it is supported by his diatribe.
ET
Then why don’t we prevent elderly couples to marry? Or men with low sperm counts? Or women who have had a hysterectomy for medical reasons? You have used this argument before and it carries as much weight as it did before. Nada.
Oh my- Ed must be in desperation mode. People of the same sex cannot procreate. That is the OBJECTIVE reason to disallow same-sex marriages. That is a biological fact that Ed ignores as if his willful ignorance is an argument.
Only males mating with females can procreate. Sure there are a SMALL % of exceptions but not enough to deny the biological facts.
Yes, I have used the argument before and will continue to do so because it works. Ed’s desperation and willful ignorance just expose Ed for what he is- a loser without a clue
ET
Elderly couples can’t procreate. That is the OBJECTIVE fact. Women with hysterectomies can’t procreate. That is an OBJECTIVE fact. Men who have had vasectomies can’t procreate. That is an OBJECTIVE fact. If you are going to use the inability to procreate as rationale to prevent SSM then you have to apply it to all couples who can’t procreate.
LoL! @ Ed the quote-mining fool.
Only males mating with females can procreate. Sure there are a SMALL % of exceptions but not enough to deny the biological facts.
So what does Ed do? Pick on that small %.
Elderly couples most likely already had kids- so they’re already in the club. And some can still procreate. The others would all depend on the specific CONTEXT. And it is so small of a % that only a desperate fool would think it matters to the overall argument.
Same-sex couples can NEVER procreate within that relationship. It isn’t as if it happened once and we are certain it will happen again if they keep trying.
AND it is unnatural- it also goes against the coveted natural selection.
What is the point of moral subjectivists like E.G., Hazel or Serversky etc. in even being here? If nobody is right about morality then moral subjectivists like them certainly cannot be right. So why do they persist? What are they trying to prove since even if they irrationally believe they are right they cannot logically prove they are right?
The only reason that I can think of is that they are self-centered and intolerant. Of course, what else would you expect from a moral subjectivist?
Obviously moral objectivists do not believe that everybody is right about morality (that’s the point of an objective transcendent standard) but it does not follow from that that nobody is right about morality. The latter is self-refuting because it’s making a universal truth claim about moral truth which is doing exactly what they as subjectivists are claiming cannot be done.
If they were really intellectually honest about their so-called beliefs E.G. et al would move along because they have nothing to say here. So called moral subjectivism is basically moral nihilism, which is about nothing. Therefore, they have nothing to say.
ET
It has been said that “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” Allowing same sex couples to marry is one of these measures that makes our nation greater.
as to:
Besides the fact that you support abortion, and thus, in reality, could care less about our nation’s weakest members, exactly where do you think that objective moral standard comes from?
The objective morality of God is not just a smorgasbord wherein you can just pick and choose whatever objective moral you want in order to try to justify the immoral behavior of homosexuality.
Just as God is clear in regards to protecting the weak and defenselessness, like say unborn babies, God is also clear on his view of homosexuality.
Ed George:
So now same-sex people are our weakest members? Ed proves that he is a bigot
Quite the opposite. It shows how weak we really are.
BA77
Beside the fact that you are putting words in my mouth that I never said..,
Since I don’t believe that there are objective moral standards, your question is irrelevant.
Is this the same god that instructs you to kill homosexuals, and non virgins? The same god that tells you just how much you can beat your slave? The same god (Jesus) who says that the original laws (killing homosexuals) still stand? Sorry, but I refuse to follow such an intolerant, hateful god.
Earth to Ed- Supporting a woman’s right to choose is the same as supporting abortion.
That was for a specific time and place, Ed.
.
Yawn.
Is it also why you refuse to acknowledge that (under your enlightened worldview) a woman being raped and murdered would need the consensus of others to know for absolute certain, before her impending death, that her feelings of brutalization were valid?
Is it also why (as you preen and posture for science and reason) that you refuse to acknowledge that a symbol system and language structure were not only predicted to be at the heart of the living cell, but also very famously discovered there, and carefully recorded (as such) in the scientific literature?
E.G. appeals to the objective moral of “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members”, and yet then turns right around and claims that “I don’t believe that there are objective moral standards”.
I wonder if E.G. would be willing to debate his non-belief in objective morality a little more personally? i.e. I wonder if E.G. would actually be willing to personally face the realistic consequences of his stated belief in the non-existence of objective morality?
BA77
Nobody said that this was an objective moral. It is obviously a subjective one. And an opinion I support. Don’t you?
The fact that Ed George himself cannot live his life as if morality were REALLY illusory and subjective, as he believes, is proof that his belief is delusional.
As the following article stated, “Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath.”
The following article by Nancy Pearcey lists several examples of leading atheists admitting that it is impossible for them to live their life as if their atheism were actually true:
Richard Dawkins himself admitted that it would be ‘intolerable’ for him to live his life as if his atheistic materialism were actually true
In what should be needless to say, if it is impossible for you to live as if your worldview were actually true then your worldview cannot possibly reflect reality as it really is but your worldview must instead be based on a delusion.
Moreover, in order to reject God, E.G. had to steal objective morality from God,,, he stated,,
Although E.G.’s interpretation of scripture is juvenile at best, just where does E.G. get his objective moral standard that it is wrong to harm and kill other people? On the one hand he wants to condemn God for his falsely supposed moral transgressions, yet on the other hand he denies the existence of objective morality.
Simply put, Atheists have to steal objective morality from Theism in order to attack God in the first place. Atheism simply cannot ground morality of any reasonable sort:
For atheists to have to ‘borrow’ objective morality from Theists in order to attack God (and Christians) as somehow being morally deficient is again, as Cornelius Van Til put it, “like the child who must climb up onto his father’s lap into order to slap his face.”
Of supplemental note: Out of all the mono-Theistic religions, only the grace inherent within Christianity realistically and sufficiently bridges the infinite moral gap between God’s moral perfection and humanity’s moral imperfection. The unmerited grace of Christ bridging that infinite moral gap on the behalf of humans is called “propitiation”:
Verse and video:
BA77
I have no idea what you are saying. And I’m sure that your following 1000+ words don’t clarify the issue.
All I want to know is if you think that the measure of the greatness of a nation is how it treats its weakest groups? A simple yes or no will do.
Ed George:
I hope not as the unborn are the weakest group and we slaughter them.
Besides the fact that atheists themselves are unable to live their lives as if morality were REALLY illusory and subjective, I can also appeal to empirical evidence to support the Christian’s claim that morality is objective and real.
Since unguided Darwinian processes have never shown the origination of even a single gene and/or protein,
, then it is very interesting to note that the expression of gene networks in humans are designed in a very sophisticated way so as to differentiate between hedonic moral happiness and ‘noble’ moral happiness: The following paper states that there are hidden costs of purely hedonic well-being.,, “At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose.”
Moreover, and as would be expected if morality were objectively real as Christians hold, it is now found that atheists suffer physically and mentally as a result of forsaking the objective reality of morality in general and from forsaking God in particular. Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists states that ‘The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally.’,,, lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction…
And the following meta-analysis of studies found that Active religious involvement increased the chance of living longer by some 29%, and participation in public religious practices, such as church attendance, increased the chance of living longer by 43%.
Moreover, the following studies actually show that our moral intuition itself transcends space and time: Specifically, in the following study, They found that subjects responded strongly to emotional images compared to neutral images, and that the emotional response occurred between a fraction of a second to several seconds BEFORE the image appeared
And in the following meta-analysis of 26 reports published between 1978 and 2010, the researchers found that your body can anticipate morally troubling situations between two and 10 seconds before it happens
Moreover, in the preceding paper one of the researchers remarked that ‘we can’t explain (the anticipatory activity of the body) using present-day understanding about how biology works; though explanations related to recent quantum biological findings could potentially make sense.’… And, exactly as she thought, quantum biological findings do indeed shed light how it might be possible for the body to anticipate morally troubling situations before they happen. In fact, as this following video shows,,
, findings in quantum biology go much further and gives us strong physical evidence that humans possess a transcendent component to their being on the molecular level that is not reducible to the materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution.
That is to say, findings from quantum biology now give us experimental evidence strongly suggesting we do indeed have a transcendent ‘soul’ that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies just as Christians have held all along.
As Stuart Hameroff states in the following article, the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”
Verse:
Thus besides the fact that atheists themselves cannot live their lives as if objective morality does not really exist, the Christian can also appeal to empirical evidence itself that indicates that morality is indeed objectively real.
Verse:
Here is a BBC article (a “secular” source) which discusses the difference between moral subjectivism vs. objectivism. Consider a few of the points the article makes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/in.....vism.shtml
Focusing in on just one of the points above; the objectivist would argue that that there must be a real standard of honesty that applies universally to all members of society. Indeed, society would break down if people weren’t obligated to be honest and tell the truth. Think of government, criminal justice or commerce. When people are dishonest our fundamental and basic institutions begin to break down.
ET
I have not slaughtered a single one. Have you?
Ed George@66:
I have not slaughtered a single one. Have you?
Said during WWII by 1 German to another about Jews.
Must be nothing to worry about then.
Ironically, the secularism and atheism we presently see infecting the culture of western societies is actually a Christian heresy. I think if we trace the history we see that on the one hand, the roots go back to the Protestant Reformation, on the other, the French revolution. There were no avowed atheists in “Christian” Europe before the Protestant Reformation. If you can think of one, tell me.
I’m not saying that the Protestant Reformation was bad in and of itself but that rather as a byproduct it gave rise to some heterodox thinking that led to theological liberalism which in turn has “evolved” or mutated into secular progressivism and militant atheism. As Christian heresies secularism and atheism have held on to and perverted vestiges of Christian ethics and morality. For example, our modern concept of human rights is a distinctly Judeo-Christian. While we see subtle hints of it in ancient Greek and Roman thinking, the substance is unequivocally Judeo-Christian.
John Zmirak summarizes this historical trend nicely in an article he has written for The Stream.
https://stream.org/trump-voting-christians-liberal-pastors-get-crying-wolf/
Ed George @37 and DDM @41
I find BA’s comments very convincing. As I am naturally skeptical about everything, it’s good to see that he supports his position with facts and resources, unlike most of your claims and assertions. The reason his word count is so high is that he links the quotes that he is using from the source, so that we don’t have to open 15 different tabs at once to understand his argument.
If you have a problem with his word count, then I suggest both of you work on your comprehension skills. Until then, complaining that his “posts are too long” is not a valid response to an argument.
Ed George, quote-mining fool, strikes again. In comment 63 we read:
No Ed, but the CONTEXT of my quote is:
I am NOT the USA, ie NATION, Ed. And YOU are not whatever country/ nation that you come from.
How sad are you that you have to constantly quote-mine? Quote-mining is immoral, Ed.
In 2013, on another site, I had this brief exchange on-line with someone who identified himself as David P. He asked me if I would consider a world view that actively disagreed with my current theistic Christian world view. Since David had already identified his own world view as naturalism, I told him that if he could prove to me “that naturalism was true, I would.”
He replied, “If that is your condition, you are essentially saying “no”, because naturalism cannot be proven.”
I responded by asking him, “So, on what basis are you warranted in believing in it?”
That question prompted the following dialogue:
David wrote: “Believing that naturalism cannot be proven? Because we can only perceive a tiny part of the entire system. We may one day be able to formulate naturalistic theories that explain beautifully all that we perceive, but we cannot prove that that is all there is.”
I asked: “So then, you accept naturalism by faith… Correct?”
David replied: “I accept naturalism as a working assumption because of the evidence that it helps drive us to understand reality in a way that allows us to make increasingly better predictions. Also, the evidence that so many phenomena attributed to supernatural causes have turned out to have natural causes.”
Notice how David, in addition to blurring the distinction between science and philosophy, smuggled faith into his world view without calling it that. What I mean is that he is actually acting on the biblical definition of faith and he doesn’t even realize it. Let me prove it to you…
Hebrews 11:3 says: “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
Someone committed, like David, to naturalism is actually just modifying the verse so that it reads:
“By faith we understand that the universe was formed [by some kind of mindless natural process], so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
Harvard professor of psychology Steven Pinker is someone who takes a scientifically based world view just about to its absolute limit. Pinker writes that,
http://www.newrepublic.com/art.....humanities
It appears to me that Pinker does not draw and distinction between philosophical naturalism and so-called methodological naturalism. Again notice what he says, the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is the worldview given to us by science.
The philosophical naturalist has deluded himself into thinking he has a trump card which bolsters his hand… science. The problem is that there are no trump cards in the high stakes world view ontological game. This is because in order to even begin to play the game you must establish the ground of being. You must begin by asking some basic questions. For example, you must ask, why does anything at all exist? Or, what is the nature of existence? How do we know? How can we be sure of what we know? Can we really know the truth about anything? However these are metaphysical questions, not questions that can be answered by science itself.
Einstein said that scientists are poor philosophers. That perhaps explains why there are a number of scientists, like Pinker, who believe that science can actually serve as a basis for a world view that can answer some of our biggest questions—at least those that are worthwhile. The late American astronomer Carl Sagan, for example, proclaimed that “the Cosmos is all that there is or ever was or ever will be.” (Again notice that this is an a priori claim that is itself not scientifically provable.) And, Nobel Prize winner Steven Weinberg opines that while “the worldview of science is rather chilling,” nevertheless there is, he goes on to say, “a grim satisfaction, in facing up to our condition without despair and without wishful thinking–with good humor… without God.”
In addition to:
Naturalists/Materialists/Atheists present an illogical position, if you can get them to disclose what they actually think.
There’s:
The thing that they allege allows them to come to the illogical position is SCIENCE. But amazingly, they produce a lot of heat and zero light in illuminating any kind of scientific demonstration of their beliefs.
Andrew
“Naturalists/Materialists/Atheists present an illogical position, if you can get them to disclose what they actually think“
We have had materialist that actually deny logic as a way of demonstrating things that must be false. They deny the primacy of mind and logic.Logic cannot tell us what is true but in can tell us what must be false.
Vivid
VB
VB, I agree with the latter, but that only works when the premises of the logical argument are “True”. And that is not always as easy as it seems. For example, many of KF’s arguments assume specific self-evident truths. Self-evident truths that are not demonstrably true.
E.G.
Don’t we all in the end have to make certain unprovable assumptions such as the laws of logic?
Vivid
Ed George:
Not to the willfully ignorant, anyway.
E.G.
“We have had materialist that actually deny logic as a way of demonstrating things that must be false. They deny the primacy of mind and logic”
It surprises me that you don’t agree with this as well since it has been demonstrated by materialistic posters in the past?
Vivid
VB
I think the laws of logic are provable. A+B=C as an example. When we extend logic beyond the pure mathematical, yes, it gets messy. But that is my point. KF has repeatedly presented logical arguments that he thinks are unassailable. But they rely on premises that are anything but certain.
.
Quite a sight. The man who very clearly avoids both physical evidence and documented history gives instructions in logic.
UBP
I’m not the one defending objective moral values when all of human history (and I mean ALL OF IT) suggests otherwise.
.
Oh look, he responds as long as he doesn’t have to engage documented physical evidence or recorded history.
And he responds by assuming his conclusion. Quite a sight.
EG
“I think the laws of logic are provable. A+B=C as an example.”
Ok prove it.
“ When we extend logic beyond the pure mathematical, yes, it gets messy.”
But math is form of symbolic logic.
Vivid
ET
You were never a popular kid at school, were you? Are you capable of disagreeing with anyone without turning it into an insult? You do realize that this behavior is a defense mechanism for those who can’t present a cogent argument? No, of course you don’t.
Why any site would allow your behavior, and presumably condone it, is beyond me. They have to realize that it makes them a laughing stock.
C.S. Lewis wrote a tidy little book about this subject called Miracles
Materialists usually end up defending their views with some form of induction argument. Which is nothing but dog logic. Useful, until it isn’t, but not “true.” So the materialist is utimately left with defending their own rational powers with those selfsame rational powers, as if the thing doing the defending isn’t the thing under suspicion. My 26 year old son humorously calls this a “self-referential circle jerk.”
Ed George:
Unfortunately for you that statement cannot be supported.
VB
2+2=4.
Yes. But math is one of the few fields of study where we actually talk about “proofs”. Extending this from mathematical “proofs” to philosophical “proofs” is complicated, to say the least.
E.G.
“2+2=4”
Prove it
Vivid
ET
Your argument is with all of recorded history, not me.
Reapers Blahblah:
Ed George is not just anyone. Ed George has lied. Ed George has quote-mined. And All Ed can do is respond like a child.
Context, Reaper. You have to consider the trash that I am responding to. Or perhaps you can’t because you have a bias issue.
They understand the trash that I am responding to. YOU, on the other hand, seem to have an issue presenting a cogent argument. You don’t seem to have the ability to follow along.
Coming from a laughing stock, who has yet to add anything beyond its clueless commentary, I am sure that no one cares what you have to say.
Ed George:
YOU made the unsupportable claim.
.
I think Vivid captured Ed’s logic with his/her usual clarity:
EDIT: By the way Ed, in order to be truly certain, she needs the consensus of others, doesn’t she?
ET
Sorry, but he is not the one looking like a child.
No I don’t. Nobody else here responds in the childish way that you do. That reflects more on you than EG, Hazel and others. And not in a positive way. But you already know this.
Why do you find it necessary to respond in an insulting way to everyone who disagrees with you? Even the people from the ID side notice this. The only conclusion I can draw is that they view you as the crazy, intolerant, racist, homophobic uncle who is incapable of filtering his comments.
Perhaps. But I have faith that people here see you for what you are. The fact that very few stick up for you suggests that I am correct.
Reapers, you are sorry. You are nothing but a biased loser who couldn’t form a cogent argument if your life depended on it.
Yes, Ed comes off as a child. You do, too.
Ed lies and quote-mines. There isn’t anything more childish than that. Clearly you have issues and are not a voice of reason.
I don’t. Clearly you are a liar and a sociopath
I would expect that from a demented loser such as yourself.
As to:
To wit: Per extensive analysis of Godel’s incompleteness theorem, “anti-theistic philosophy of mathematics is condemned to oscillate, much as we have done in our argument, between the poles of a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge. Why? It will not acknowledge the true God, wise Creator of both the human mind with its mathematical intuition and the external world with its mathematical properties. In sections 22-23 we shall see how the Biblical view furnishes us with a real solution to the problem of “knowing” that 2 + 2 = 4 and knowing that S is true.
i.e. Without God, Atheists can’t even prove that 2+2=4. 🙂
Of related interest, Godel’s incompleteness theorem was born out of the fact that mathematicians could not even ‘prove’ that 1+1=2. You can pick up some of the details of that episode in math history at 10:00 minute mark of the following video
Supplemental note:
Crazy like a fox. Intolerant of liars, bluffers, equivocators and quote-mining cowards. Racist? Only if “pathological liar” or “evoTARD” is a race. Homophobic? Only a total and desperate loser would equate my saying that marriage is between a man and a women with being a homophobe.
Why are we wasting time on people who are epistemological subjectivists like Ed George? His belief is that all he or anyone else has are opinions. You want proof? Here’s a debate we had with Mr. George about a year ago when we were debating whether math was something that had been discovered or had been invented with him and others.
Pater Kimbridge started the dispute @ #4 when he argued:
EG concurred with him @ #11: For what it’s worth, I have to side with PK on this.
https://uncommondescent.com/mathematics/logic-first-principles-4-the-logic-of-being-causality-and-science/#comment-669565
To which ET responded @ #12: For what it is worth- I would love to see PK or anyone who sides with PK actually make their case.
KF concurred @ # 13: EG, make your case: _______
EG @ #17 replied: It is my opinion that mathematics is a human invention that can be used to model the world that we see around us. For example e = mc^2 means absolutely nothing without first defining energy, mass and the speed of light.
I then tried to clarify what EG was asserting @ #19:
https://uncommondescent.com/mathematics/logic-first-principles-4-the-logic-of-being-causality-and-science/#comment-669574
EG then responded:
https://uncommondescent.com/mathematics/logic-first-principles-4-the-logic-of-being-causality-and-science/#comment-669576
So if it doesn’t matter, why persist? Does doubling down on one’s subjective opinion make it any truer?
“Why are we wasting time on people who are epistemological subjectivists like Ed George?”
JAD,
And why is a epistemological subjectivist like Ed George here? What is he trying to accomplish?
Andrew
Andrew,
Who knows? Typically our interlocutors don’t tell us why they are here. I doubt very much that it’s because they have any interest or curiosity about ID. All I was trying to point out with my post is that they don’t have any arguments which refutes any of the arguments we have raised over the past few years. I think all of us on the ID side are interested in pursuing the Truth about life, the universe and the meaning of our own existence. Are they? It appears not. As Ed asked, “And, frankly, does it matter?” If that’s his attitude, why is he here wasting everyone’s time?
A thought: If one cannot see the obvious, is one blind or blindfolded? (Perhaps, ideologically and/or morally so . . . and yes, I am again pointing to inescapable and thus self-evident first duties of reason.) KF
PS: This is not a new thought, observe these 2000 year old classic references:
JAD (& attn EG et al):
It is interesting to see how a nuanced point is so readily reduced to a strawman caricature. Here, as regards something so readily shown as core issues in Mathematics.
What I have actually argued is that certain core aspects of Mathematics are necessary entities deriving from the mere distinct identity of any given possible world W distinguishable from a near neighbour W’ by some distinct attribute A. So, W may be structurally partitioned W = {A|~A}. We here see framework quantities that are present, by inspection. A is a unity, and ~A a complex unity. Taking the two together, we find a duality. The dichotomising partition | is empty, thus expressing a nullity. Thus 0-ness, 1-ness [simple and complex], 2-ness are necessary correlates of the possibility of a distinct world. From this the von Neumann construction lays out N, and on that, structuring relationships take us to Z, Q, R, C. Thus, we do not invent these structures and quantities but discover them, C being understood on the vector-rotation view.
Similarly, there are many world-embedded, discoverable Math facts that constrain construction of axiomatised logic model worlds, ranging from 2 + 3 = 5 to the 3-4-5 triangle relation to the difference between cutting a Mobius strip around in the centre vs 1/3 of the way in from an edge, to how superposed rotating vectors with frequency & phase patterns construct wave patterns, etc etc etc, showing a world of discoverable, embedded Mathematical facts. Such are patent.
Now let us see EG as cited:
Notice, the gap between the implied all of math being discovered and there being a world-framework embedded core of structure and quantity? Or, that there are indisputably many discoverable facts, including the one I highlighted on the contrast of cutting a Mobius strip around in centre vs 1/3 way in from the edge . . . yielding dramatically different results . . . thus demonstrating a discoverable core?
If this is the case with Mathematics, what are we to say when we come to the design inference? Especially when much the same circles of perpetual objectors in the penumbra of attack sites are riddled with denial of inescapable, self-evident first principles and duties of reason? Indeed, we see such implying the said duties and principles in attempts to deny, dismiss or cast doubts.
The conclusion is that the rationalism of evolutionary materialistic scientism has run its course and has reduced itself to outright irrationality. As was warned.
We may freely stand on reason and Mathematics, and we may simply declare intellectual independence, standing on what is manifest. The design inference is well warranted empirically and is amply supported by blind search challenge in large config spaces beyond 500 – 1,000 bits worth of possibilities.
The objector campaign has failed on the merits, and has been exposed as riddled with irrationality.
KF
How can something material be a force ? It can be configured to exert a force, but ‘be’ one ? Even magnetism isn’t material, is it ?
Magnetism comes from material. And there are plenty of material American footballers who are a force 😎
Sure. ET.. But it is not, itself, the material, but a presumably mysterious emanation from it, whether pushing or pulling. And yes, I get your point about American football. There was once a player they called, ‘The refrigerator’ ! I expect there have been some other impressive names, indicating a sort of dynamic solidity. Like the sunglasses, too.
Right- lines of flux come from current flowing down a wire but aren’t material. Heat comes from hot coals but the heat isn’t material.
If we have become blinded, we cannot see, so we need to sort out our vision. And yes, self referential incoherence is self-defeating.