How are intelligent, critical thinkers still religious?

philologos

King Mob wrote: »

Do we have to assume that it can happen without Vishnu too? And without Thor, Mighty Norse god of thunder? How about without faeries?

All that need be argued at this level is a creator.

King Mob wrote: »

You see in science we don't have to make sure it's not magic, it's up to the person making the claim that God/Thor/Tinkerbell was involved.

No doubt, but it can still very much be argued on a philosophical level in consideration of the world and the way it is at present, and with consideration of the current natural science.

Personally, I find the idea that this happened of its own accord and for no reason to be more outlandish than arguing for a Creator.

King Mob wrote: »

So how do you know that God must have been involved?
What gap is he hiding in today?

Personally I don't feel He's hiding in any gap

King Mob wrote: »

So actually seeing moral behaviour and actions in animals not enough for you?
Cause last time you mentioned that you said it must be because God also gives morals to animals. Which would make your position rather unfalsifable.

This makes no sense either. If I believed that God was only the creator of humans, this might be more applicable. Indeed, if I believed that this existence was purely anthropocentric I might agree with you more.

I would regard God as the creator of all things including animals. I've been through this already on this thread:

In terms of animals, I believe that it is the same, but that animals have a limited sense of contemplation and as such a limited sense of understanding in comparison to humans due to the fact that animals aren't self-reflective to the same degree as humans are.

I.E - I believe that God can inform the moral instincts of animals as well, albeit on a more simplex level.

King Mob wrote: »

So do you believe it's possible for our moral to arise without the involvement of God or any other entity we can dream up?
If not, why?

I personally don't think that it is possible for anything to arise without God. At the minute, its mostly because it doesn't make much logical sense as to how the universe and everything in it can exist without a Creator.

King Mob wrote: »

Not really. Unless you've a solid idea of the exact mechanism by which God willed morality into his creation, it's pretty much the same as saying "magic!".

Creating the conscience, and creating our conscience to appeal to universal values in disputes mainly. The nonsensical nature of moral relativism in itself can show why one would favour moral universalism. I may root up some previous posts of mine here on this issue if it makes it easier

Jakkass

Jakkass wrote: »

All that need be argued at this level is a creator.

And creator doesn't mean your creator.

Jakkass wrote: »

No doubt, but it can still very much be argued on a philosophical level in consideration of the world and the way it is at present, and with consideration of the current natural science.

So unless you personally exclude the involvement of all other flavours of God, why exactly does you one get special treatment?

Jakkass wrote: »

Personally, I find the idea that this happened of its own accord and for no reason to be more outlandish than arguing for a Creator.

And unfortunately arguments from incredulity like this are still a logical fallacy.

And how do you know that the creator didn't just create the universe and let morality develop by itself?

Jakkass wrote: »

Personally I don't feel He's hiding in any gap

Then I'd love to hear an arguement you can put forward that isn't just a god of the gaps.

Jakkass wrote: »

This makes no sense either. If I believed that God was only the creator of humans, this might be more applicable. Indeed, if I believed that this existence was purely anthropocentric I might agree with you more.

I would regard God as the creator of all things including animals. I've been through this already on this thread:

I.E - I believe that God can inform the moral instincts of animals as well, albeit on a more simplex level.

And again beyond the fact you need this for your idea to stay consistent, what leads you to believe it?
I was under the impression that we where God's special creations.

Jakkass wrote: »

I personally don't think that it is possible for anything to arise without God. At the minute, its mostly because it doesn't make much logical sense as to how the universe and everything in it can exist without a Creator.

But there's nothing to say the creator didn't let morality develop by itself, is there?
How do you this isn't the case?

Are you now claiming that God created everything (or had a hand in everything)? Cause I've a get video for you if you do.

Jakkass wrote: »

Creating the conscience, and creating our conscience to appeal to universal values in disputes mainly. The nonsensical nature of moral relativism in itself can show why one would favour moral universalism. I may root up some previous posts of mine here on this issue if it makes it easier

This last paragraph doesn't seem to address anything in the paragraph it's quoting.
I was asking if you know the exact mechanism by which God imparts morality. If you don't, it's pretty much magic.

raah!

robindch wrote: »

Just one short observation:

Morality is a word which describes a top-down, authoritarian social construct which ascribes values to actions and social conditions or states of being and it's usually defined as unchangeable, or is held to be unchangeable, and is typically implemented by religions, or pseudo-religions.

Ethics is the bottom-up, crowd-sourced way of looking at the kind of value-related problems that "moral" questions deal with, but unlike the "moral" view, an "ethical" approach holds that discussion, agreement and mutability are important intrinsic properties.

In general terms, moral rules are built upon ethical rules which many of them superficially resemble, but with sufficient leeway built in (and generally, with the addition of a few random rules which have no basis in discussion, agreement or mutability) that the segment of society which puts forward the "moral" rules benefits by doing so.

At the moment, people are arguing ethical view points with the vocabulary of morality which is going to lead to confusion or a car crash sooner or later.

I had never really taken the distinction so seriously before. But I can see how you would arrive at those conclusions even from the simple statements that ehtics is the study of what is good, and morality is what is good.

But could we not say that ethics is a discussion of morality? So moral questions, in so far as we are not sticking to one system, are ethical ones?

Or is it that the questions are moral once we have picked a system, and ehtical when we have not? Ethical discussions refer to many other moral systems?

I've seen a thread on the philosophy forum about this before, but I didn't take it very seriously. I do think that some poeple distance themselvs from the term 'morality' just because of its religious connotations, as was said in that thread in the philosophy forum.

I have found an article here anyway:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

With regard to us crashing our cars, I'm sure we all understand that we are arguing from different view points, on different roads so to speak.

raah!

Wicknight wrote: »

But you are separating I guess what you could call "intellectual morality" from the basis in "emotional morality". This seems silly.

For example can you think of any moral concept that doesn't ultimately come back to emotional morality?

Well this isn't important, the point is that even if they may all have their origins in emotions. The sentence is necessary "feeling bad is Bad" before emotional responses contain any moral value. "Stealing from people hurts them and this makes me feel bad" is not a moral statement, until you say "Hurting people is Bad".

Morality must of neccessity be an intellectual construct. Otherwise you are not drawing distinctions between what you ought, and ought not to do, but simply saying what feels or doesn't feel good.

But these ideas don't exist in a vacuum. You should steal this comes back to emotional/evolutionary morality. Don't steal because I don't want you to steal from me and I feel empathy if someone steals from you, both emotional morality.

It seems impossible to divorce morality from its biological origins.

Well, if by biological origins you mean people. And as I've said, it's not that I'm trying to divorce them, I'm saying morality requires more than simply biological prompting. Because of hume's gap and that.

Morals are ideas, they are pieces of text describing things, regardless of the emotional prompting to this intellectualisation, the intellectualisation is necessary for them to be morals. Otherwise they are just, as I said "this feels bad".

It is not simply "I feel bad". It is I feel guilty. It is a particular type of feeling bad, with awareness that you have done something "wrong", even if you don't understand what that is.

Children form moral codes based on these systems. Ask a child who feels guilty about something what they are feeling and it isn't simply a general I feel bad but I don't know why. They know they did something wrong, they don't have to have the connection between the feeling and the immoral action taught to them.

Well I would say that what you feel guilty about (i.e. what is wrong) is largely socially constructed, it's taught to them by their parents. Feeling "guilty" for doing something, can only have moral value if we attach these rationalistic things to guilty. And then guilt becomes some composite thing between emotion and reason. I am saying that without the reason there would not be any moral content. And reasons must be stated.

Note you used alot of terms there which do not lend well to bio-chemical descriptions. For example, awareness, wrong and understand. It seems strange to attribute such qualities to chemicals, but perhaps there is some way. It would probably be revealing if we were to examine empathy in this context, as I think it is more fundamental than "guilt". There are sociopaths who have no empathy, but they are still able to think. So they could rationally convince themselves that someone's sad face is associated with their feeling sad. Empathy then is the automatic emotional response to someone's feeling sad. It doesn't make sense to describe it as "understanding" and this has been discussed in another thread before, perhaps I will go see what was said there.

Correct. I'm not making any claim that these are anything more than chemical reactions in the brain caused by evolved instincts. But ultimately that is what morality is.

Morality is a collection of rules. A definition of "Good" and "Bad", evolution can only give us "evolutionarily advantageous" and not. Evolutionarily advantageous is only evolutionarily advantageous, untill we add the extra moral content our selves, through intellectual effort. Again, hume's gap.

This is my point. There is no supernatural "magic" in morality, like theists claim. Morality is just an evolutionary construct.

Well I haven't really mentioned magic yet, I have said that it is a rationalistic construct rather than evolutionary one. And that is fairly evident. In the definition of the word even.

It is important to draw the distinction between actions which can be described as moral , and actual morality.

If by "best" you mean "what feels moral" then that is exactly what everyone does.

There is no way to feel that something is consistent logically with a certain set of rules. This is the domain of reason and logic.

When was the last time you did something that felt immoral while rationally proclaiming it to be moral so it was ok?

Again no such thing as feeling immoral. I can tell you I've done loads of things that feel good, or safe, or not bad, but then declared it was immoral.

Religious doctrine is arbitary. Will I be a Muslim or a Christian? Which feels right? Will I follow this rule from the Bible or this rule from the Bible? Which feels right?

Well religious people say that their doctrine is inherited from God. So it's slightly less arbitrary, for those receiving it, than if they had constructed the doctrine themselves. Note it doesn't matter if the origin of somethign is supernatural or not, if your first statement is. "This is a person of moral value, they are wise and know morals" then this is the arbitrary one, and what ever they tell you then can be considered to be moral, unarbitrarily (for the receiving party) based on that first statement.

No it wouldn't endorse any criminal behavior since practically all criminal laws are based on emotional morality.

How you decide to act based on how you feel is really up the the person. There are many people who do not feel bad for stealing things. They do not feel guilty, this is largely due to the composite nature of this word. Perhaps you do not know such people, but it seems that your concept of guilt has led to some equivicol moral statements. It is these emotions that you have imbued with rationality, which you will have to further justify.

Now there are linguistic theories which say we are born with certain words etc. I think they have since been disproved, but that is what your use of guilt and empathy seem to suggest you advocate.

Zombrex

raah! wrote: »

Well this isn't important, the point is that even if they may all have their origins in emotions. The sentence is necessary "feeling bad is Bad" before emotional responses contain any moral value. "Stealing from people hurts them and this makes me feel bad" is not a moral statement, until you say "Hurting people is Bad".

Yes but "hurting people is bad" isn't a concept that just magically appeared in humans. "Hurting people is bad" is the same as saying "hurting people is bad because it feels bad to me"

These concepts come from our evolved emotions. We put layers of intellectual reasoning on top of them of course ("wrecklessly running a financial service and fraud hurts people so it is bad") but the origin is the same.

raah! wrote: »

Morality must of neccessity be an intellectual construct.

There is no ultimate intellectual reason why hurting people is bad that doesn't always comes back to emotional feeling.

This is why I said can you think of any moral law that doesn't ultimately come back to this emotional underpinning.

raah! wrote: »

Otherwise you are not drawing distinctions between what you ought, and ought not to do, but simply saying what feels or doesn't feel good.

It is the same thing. What reason is there not to kill the person sitting beside you on the bus?

You can feel empathy for them, in which case you feel it is wrong if they suffer, so you don't kill them.

You can feel guilt at the action, in which case you feel it is wrong if they suffer

You can feel you will be punished if you do, which you don't want since it makes you feel bad, so you don't kill them.

The delusion that morality is something independent to basic human emotions is what leads to such confusion and nonsense when you get something like a serial killer. They ought not to kill 15 women but that law means nothing to them if they don't have the same emotional systems the rest of us do. Simply saying the we, or society, or God think this is wrong means nothing to them.

Which is why we end up with nonsensical retreats when confronted with people like this. Oh they are "evil", they are the devil etc. No, they simply don't have the same emotional under pinning the rest of us do, and as such you can dictate to them all you like about how you think what they did was wrong, and they won't care.

raah! wrote: »

Well I would say that what you feel guilty about (i.e. what is wrong) is largely socially constructed, it's taught to them by their parents.

Depends on the detail. Displeasing your parents makes you feel guilty and that is not a taught response.

Putting jam in the dads DVD player will displease your dad thus making you feel guilty is a taught lesson.

raah! wrote: »

Feeling "guilty" for doing something, can only have moral value if we attach these rationalistic things to guilty. And then guilt becomes some composite thing between emotion and reason. I am saying that without the reason there would not be any moral content. And reasons must be stated.

But the reason comes afterwards. It is built on top of this emotional base. If you put jam in your dads DVD player and you don't care what your dad things (ie you don't have the same evolutionary instinct the rest of us does) your dad ranting and raving to you about how wrong that action was will mean very little to you.

raah! wrote: »

Note you used alot of terms there which do not lend well to bio-chemical descriptions. For example, awareness, wrong and understand. It seems strange to attribute such qualities to chemicals, but perhaps there is some way.

The brain is chemicals. I think sometimes people forget that. Understanding is a chemical process. Awareness is a chemical process.

We have instincts as to what is or isn't wrong. We can pretend that "wrong" is purely an intellectual concept that we developed all on our own that exists independently to our emotions but that simply isn't the case.

You can see this quite simply by trying to explain "Killing children is wrong" without appealing to an emotional underpinning, without appealing to one of our in build systems such as empathy.

raah! wrote: »

Empathy then is the automatic emotional response to someone's feeling sad. It doesn't make sense to describe it as "understanding"

Which is why I didn't, I said the opposite. You will know that it is wrong even if you don't understand what has happened. People can feel guilty or empathy and they don't know why (ie they can't rationally determine why they feel this way).

raah! wrote: »

Morality is a collection of rules. A definition of "Good" and "Bad", evolution can only give us "evolutionarily advantageous" and not. Evolutionarily advantageous is only evolutionarily advantageous, untill we add the extra moral content our selves, through intellectual effort. Again, hume's gap.

There has never been a moral rule that was not evolutionary advantageous. Evolution build out moral laws they stem from the evolved emotional systems we have.

Again if you don't believe me can you give a single moral rule that doesn't come back to these emotional systems that evolution produced in humans.

raah! wrote: »

Well religious people say that their doctrine is inherited from God. So it's slightly less arbitrary, for those receiving it, than if they had constructed the doctrine themselves.

Yes but how do they pick their religion. There are thousands of them.

raah! wrote: »

How you decide to act based on how you feel is really up the the person. There are many people who do not feel bad for stealing things.

That is the point. To them it is not immoral. Saying to them oh but it is, we have rationally sat around and all worked out this lovely intellectual reason why stealing is wrong, will mean nothing to them.

robindch

raah! wrote: »

But could we not say that ethics is a discussion of morality? So moral questions, in so far as we are not sticking to one system, are ethical ones?

The issues that "morality" deals with are much the same as the issues that "ethics" deals with -- how people should interact, how they assign social values to things, how they should reward good behavior, punish bad behavior etc, etc, etc. The difference lies in how the systems are produced and thought of. Ethics is based broadly upon the idea that people should create a social consensus and then stick to it, and it's usually open to reasonable discussion and change. While morality is defined by people in positions of social or political power and is usually not open to discussion and change. The two terms are not interchangeable, though a lot of people think they are.

People who adopt a "moral" position view the "ethical" approach with some misgivings, since they cannot understand how people might be able to co-operate to develop a social consensus. They also view the process of development as inherently corruptible and believe that a system which is unchangeable is better. They do not, in general, address the question of whether the system is good to start with and ignore the fact that they have very frequently chosen the religion or pseudo-religion in the first place (effectively reducing the certainty of their moral convictions to the same level as ethical convictions, but without the possibility of change).

The two positions are analogous to dictatorships (morality) and democracies (ethics) -- yes, if you can find an incorruptible dictator, then you may well do better than a good democracy. However the chances are minute, and it's therefore a wiser long-term strategy to choose democracy, with it's lesser chance of perfection, but it's much greater resilience to corruption by those in power.

Zombrex

robindch wrote: »

The issues that "morality" deals with are much the same as the issues that "ethics" deals with -- how people should interact, how they assign social values to things, how they should reward good behavior, punish bad behavior etc, etc, etc. The difference lies in how the systems are produced and thought of. Ethics is based broadly upon the idea that people should create a social consensus and then stick to it, and it's usually open to reasonable discussion and change. While morality is defined by people in positions of social or political power and is usually not open to discussion and change. The two terms are not interchangeable, though a lot of people think they are.

People who adopt a "moral" position view the "ethical" approach with some misgivings, since they cannot understand how people might be able to co-operate to develop a social consensus. They also view the process of development as inherently corruptible and believe that a system which is unchangeable is better. They do not, in general, address the question of whether the system is good to start with and ignore the fact that they have very frequently chosen the religion or pseudo-religion in the first place (effectively reducing the certainty of their moral convictions to the same level as ethical convictions, but without the possibility of change).

The two positions are analogous to dictatorships (morality) and democracies (ethics) -- yes, if you can find an incorruptible dictator, then you may well do better than a good democracy. However the chances are minute, and it's therefore a wiser long-term strategy to choose democracy, with it's lesser chance of perfection, but it's much greater resilience to corruption by those in power.

+1

Good post

raah!

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes but "hurting people is bad" isn't a concept that just magically appeared in humans. "Hurting people is bad" is the same as saying "hurting people is bad because it feels bad to me"

These concepts come from our evolved emotions. We put layers of intellectual reasoning on top of them of course ("wrecklessly running a financial service and fraud hurts people so it is bad") but the origin is the same.

Ok well I've already said, without these layers, they are not morals. That's why it's not possible to construct a moral system from biology. If you'd like to discuss post-layered evolution referencing moral systems we can do that, but "hurting people is Bad because it feels bad" is just based on "feeling bad is bad". Which you've said your system wasn't.

There is no ultimate intellectual reason why hurting people is bad that doesn't always comes back to emotional feeling.

Well, obvious examples can be religion, they don't reference things about feeling or anything. Hurting people is bad because it says so in the bible, would be an example. Or hurting people is bad because the government told me it was, is another example. Hurting people is bad because I want to get along witht he people in the society I live in is another example.

Philosophies based only on how things feel would be inherently selfish. Because only one person can feel. Hurting other people feels bad to you through empathy, but not always. If you can find away to hurt someone without feeling bad then you have found a way to hurt someone without it being bad.

This is why I said can you think of any moral law that doesn't ultimately come back to this emotional underpinning.

Again the underpinning means nothing, it does not mean that morality comes from evolution. It very much occupies different dimensions to emotions.

If you'd like to posit how emotions and logic both come from evolution then that's fine. But when we go down that path we head straight into determinism, which precludes moral culpaibility, which precludes any moral discussion at all.

It is the same thing.

I hope you know that this is a very extreme, and pretty much unsupportable position. The first thing you should notice is the different verbal structure of those two things. "Ought to" and "feels" are completely different.

What reason is there not to kill the person sitting beside you on the bus?

You can feel empathy for them, in which case you feel it is wrong if they suffer, so you don't kill them.

No, you would feel bad if they suffered, you would imagine their suffering and share in it. You would not feel it is wrong.

You can feel guilt at the action, in which case you feel it is wrong if they suffer

No, you feel bad if they suffer, you feel bad for having caused their suffering. Now, as I've said earlier, if you are going to use the word guilt in such a fashion you'll have to provide some further explanation. Ignoring the appeal for clarification and continuing to use the word in this sense will only lead us to go in circles, as this post and the one's preceeding it already have.

You can feel you will be punished if you do, which you don't want since it makes you feel bad, so you don't kill them.

And again, fear is an emotion.

So now, if we look at all those emotions, and say, does this constitute morality? Which I think is close to the point you are trying to make.

The answer is no. Being afraid of something and then not doing it does not mean you made a moral decision. Doing something sheerly because it feels good, and not because it is good is not morality.

We can post the definition for the term if you'd like to continuing arguing that unpleasant feeling = something you ought not to do.

It is only something you ought not to do once you say that "this is something you ought not to do", and here you have constructed a moral system, arbitrarily, which is based on emotions, but not derived from them. That is what hume's gap is about, it is a logical impossibility to travel from an is to an ought.

Your confusion is either that you are ignoring hume's gap, or that you think certain is statments are the same as oughts.

The delusion that morality is something independent to basic human emotions is what leads to such confusion and nonsense when you get something like a serial killer. They ought not to kill 15 women but that law means nothing to them if they don't have the same emotional systems the rest of us do. Simply saying the we, or society, or God think this is wrong means nothing to them.

Which is why we end up with nonsensical retreats when confronted with people like this. Oh they are "evil", they are the devil etc. No, they simply don't have the same emotional under pinning the rest of us do, and as such you can dictate to them all you like about how you think what they did was wrong, and they won't care.

Sorry what sort of confusion does it lead to?

Not everyone has the same moral systems, this isn't somethign I've been arguing, maybe those killers have their own moral systems where killing people is ok. Maybe they have none at all, so that when it comes to their lack of emotions they see no reason not to kill things.

Depends on the detail. Displeasing your parents makes you feel guilty and that is not a taught response.

So, it's an evolved emotional trait that when you displease your parents you will feel bad? There is an emotional defecit in people who do not feel guilty about displeasing their parents? Again, you'll have to do some describing of guilt before you use it so equivically.

Putting jam in the dads DVD player will displease your dad thus making you feel guilty is a taught lesson.

So displeasing our parents makes us feel bad, and this is what guilt is. Please give a definition of guilt, a completely emotional one, and do not reference reason. Also, if you are going to base it on empathy, then perhaps it would be helpful to our discussion if you stuck to using the word empathy. As doing otherwise will only make it diffuclt for us to see whether or not there is this distinction between emotions and reasons (there is)

The brain is chemicals. I think sometimes people forget that. Understanding is a chemical process. Awareness is a chemical process.

Well if you take a completely physicalist approach to the brain then you are of necessity a determinist, and lots of things become non-sensical in that context. Especially discussions of morality. Yes we can still describe things as bad, but if people have no choice in their actions then it's not the people who are bad, but those forces compelling them to act as such. It also has several implications on the use of logic.

We have instincts as to what is or isn't wrong. We can pretend that "wrong" is purely an intellectual concept that we developed all on our own that exists independently to our emotions but that simply isn't the case.

You can see this quite simply by trying to explain "Killing children is wrong" without appealing to an emotional underpinning, without appealing to one of our in build systems such as empathy.

Well, conversely, I would say your failure to describe how killing is wrong completely by referencing emotions shows this distinction. I think once we clear up the use of words like guilt and empathy we will be able to come to clearer conclusions.

I'll say again, somethign feeling bad is not the same as it being morally bad. Those are two different terms for one, the words mean different things.

Which is why I didn't, I said the opposite. You will know that it is wrong even if you don't understand what has happened. People can feel guilty or empathy and they don't know why (ie they can't rationally determine why they feel this way).

Ok, now empathy and guilt are emotions. They do not mean anything about understanding anything. I'm pretty sure this contradicts some thigns you've said earlier. But we can continue on from here nonetheless.

Empathy and guilt are emotions, and emotions have a neurochemical basis.

There has never been a moral rule that was not evolutionary advantageous. Evolution build out moral laws they stem from the evolved emotional systems we have.

Would you not be of the kind to argue that religion is a terrible scourge on the world and is holding back human evolution? Religions are very fond of "building out" moral laws.

Also, it seems you are suggesting that ideas can be evolved through the passing on of genes etc. That's quite ridiculous. Or at least has no basis scientifically at the moment. So if you are going to say that you are taking a scientific approach, perhaps it would be best to leave off suggesting such things.

Again if you don't believe me can you give a single moral rule that doesn't come back to these emotional systems that evolution produced in humans.

And as I've said already, this is completely irrelevant to the points I'm making. Basing an intellectual system on how you feel, or what you would like, does not mean it's not an intellectual system.

I could expand on it myself, but I have done so with another poster in another thread, so: See hume's gap.

Yes but how do they pick their religion. There are thousands of them.

It doesn't really make a difference to this discussion whether or not they are correct in saying that their system comes from God. It's simply a statement which logically preceeds other moral statements.

That is the point. To them it is not immoral. Saying to them oh but it is, we have rationally sat around and all worked out this lovely intellectual reason why stealing is wrong, will mean nothing to them.

And I'm sure they have worked out lovely intellectual reasons why stealing is right. But at the end of the day, if they are not part of the same moral system as you, your moral axioms will mean nothing to them.

Just as if we were to base our morality on how we feel, then once someone does something, there is absolutely no way for us to tell them what they are doing is wrong. If how we feel is what is right, and people generally do things that feel right , then everything anyone does is right.

A different case could be, say in a society of people who accept that the law determines good and bad. The person is stealing, and you say "that's bad because the law says so", now if they accept those pre-mentioned moral axioms, they will realise what they are doing is bad and see that they ought not to act like that. Knowing one ought not to act a certain way based on a certain system does not always mean that one will not act that way, however. Generally, if one is acting in direct contravention to the tennets of some system knowingly, it means they are having doubts about the validity of the moral system, or do not actually hold it. Or that they are not acting based on reason.

This latter reason is quite common. And, if we were to follow what you've been saying about emotions, nobody makes moral decisions based on reason. So people do not make moral decisions at all. Because the only kind of moral decisions that can be made are those based on moral rules.

philologos

robindch - Your distinction isn't really one that is shared in most understandings of moral philosophy. We would nonetheless consider relativism to be a moral philosophy even if it isn't a top down view of the subject. We would also consider Aristotles understanding of moral action to be a moral code.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

robindch - Your distinction isn't really one that is shared in most understandings of moral philosophy.

I'm referring -- as I usually do -- to the terms as they tend to be used within the descriptive literature of sociology and anthropology, rather than the context-specific and usually normative understandings used by people who term themselves "moral philosophers".

The moral philosophers I'm aware of are almost exclusively religious while most writers who discuss "ethics" are generally non-religious, or at least, discuss issues from a non-religious point of view.

Regardless of whether or not the distinction is used or understood within the confines of religious or certain philosophical contexts, it certainly is used outside of them, and I think it's a useful on to bear in mind in this debate.

philologos

^^ Exclusively religious would be inaccurate. Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Peter Singer, Friedich Nietzsche, Jurgen Habermas amongst many others are considered to be moral philosophers.

It appears that the distinction between morality and ethics is actually rather loose depending on who you discuss with. Numerous times I've used both terms.

Princeton dictionary on ethics:

"the philosophical study of moral values and rules"

On morality:

concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct
ethical motive: motivation based on ideas of right and wrong

Not that Wikipedia is the primary source for this kind of thing but on morality:

Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is a system of conduct and ethics that is virtuous. It can also be used in regard to sexual matters and chastity. ...

On ethics:

Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality; that is, about concepts such as good and bad, right and wrong, justice, and virtue.

The above would lend us to think that we're actually talking about the same thing when I say moral philosophy and you use ethics for example.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

^^ Exclusively religious would be inaccurate

That's why I said "almost exclusively religious"

Jakkass wrote: »

It appears that the distinction between morality and ethics is actually rather loose depending on who you discuss with.

As above, the terms are frequently either conflated or used interchangeably, when they probably shouldn't be. Outside of religious + certain philosophical circles and within descriptive areas -- I've mentioned sociology + anthropology -- a much sharper distinction is common.

Noticing that you're coming at it from the "moral" end and most other posters are probably coming at it from the "ethical" end, I think it's worth bearing the distinction in mind.

One certainly can use the terms interchangeably, but doing so doesn't really increase the overall clarity of the discussion and it's fairly easy to lose sight of the important and fundamental differences that separate the two approaches.

Zombrex

raah! wrote: »

Ok well I've already said, without these layers, they are not morals. That's why it's not possible to construct a moral system from biology. If you'd like to discuss post-layered evolution referencing moral systems we can do that, but "hurting people is Bad because it feels bad" is just based on "feeling bad is bad". Which you've said your system wasn't.

Again that is an inaccurate description of what these emotions are. You do not simply "feel bad", like being kicked in the nuts.

You feel bad but you also feel it is wrong. This conclusion is backed up by psychological studies into morality such as the Greene Trolley problem

http://www.cell.com/neuron/retrieve/pii/S0896627304006348

This is the experiment where you are on a train or trolley that is about to run over someone. You can save that person by pushing another person of the train. In both cases a person will die.

In these examples people can't rationally tell you why one outcome is moral and the other isn't, but in the vast majority of cases they pick the same one (let the train run over someone). We emotionally know which one is moral and which one isn't but we don't know why.

There are other examples, particularly with children asked to explain actions in a moral context. It is not necessary to explain to a child that hitting their sister so she starts crying is wrong. They don't simply feel "bad" through guilt, they know this is wrong.

They will then form their own moral judgement based on this without outside influence.

So anyway, I could rant about this for ages but the point is your representation that emotions like guilt simply make us feel bad is quite inaccurate.

They make us feel like what we did was wrong, even if we don't understand why. We have an in build instinct to what is right and what is wrong.

raah! wrote: »

Well, obvious examples can be religion, they don't reference things about feeling or anything. Hurting people is bad because it says so in the bible, would be an example.

But that claim doesn't hold up to examination. Robin has a great article about how people pick things like religion that confirm already held moral positions.

So while that is certainly what religious people claim and what they like to believe, it isn't actually true and thus rather irrelevant.

raah! wrote: »

Or hurting people is bad because the government told me it was, is another example.

Can you think of a single person who actually thinks like that?

In all cases I can the person who lacked the hurting people is bad instinct ended up hurting people.

I would be very surprised to find a sycopath how is not hurting people simply because they were told not to. For a start what authority does the government have to tell them this and why do they recognize that authority in the first place?

raah! wrote: »

Philosophies based only on how things feel would be inherently selfish. Because only one person can feel. Hurting other people feels bad to you through empathy, but not always. If you can find away to hurt someone without feeling bad then you have found a way to hurt someone without it being bad.

Which is why a lot of people who don't feel empathy hurt people, something that is unexplainable in systems that suppose human morality is divorced from human emotional instinct and come from some other source.

raah! wrote: »

If you'd like to posit how emotions and logic both come from evolution then that's fine. But when we go down that path we head straight into determinism, which precludes moral culpaibility, which precludes any moral discussion at all.

Moral culpability is rather irrelevant. Like I said you telling a serial killer what he did was wrong means nothing to him.

raah! wrote: »

I hope you know that this is a very extreme, and pretty much unsupportable position.

It is actually the only supported position. All other frameworks of morality have utterly failed to explain human behavior.

But like I said your representation that emotion is purely what feels good or bad in the sense of a kick in the nuts or an electric shock is rather mispresentive.

It is a case that it feels right or feels wrong.

raah! wrote: »

No, you would feel bad if they suffered, you would imagine their suffering and share in it. You would not feel it is wrong.

Yes you would, that is the point.

raah! wrote: »

So, it's an evolved emotional trait that when you displease your parents you will feel bad?

Yes, and it is pretty easy to understand why from an evolutionary context. You need your parents to survive.

raah! wrote: »

So displeasing our parents makes us feel bad, and this is what guilt is.

No displeasing our parents makes us feel that this was wrong, and that is what guilt is.

Guilt is a strong emotional displeasure at the idea that you have done something wrong.

I will try and get to the rest later.

philologos

robindch wrote: »

That's why I said "almost exclusively religious" :)As above, the terms are frequently either conflated or used interchangeably, when they probably shouldn't be. Outside of religious + certain philosophical circles and within descriptive areas -- I've mentioned sociology + anthropology -- a much sharper distinction is common.

OK, so to clarify. You're now in effect disowning much of secular moral philosophy as well?

robindch wrote: »

Noticing that you're coming at it from the "moral" end and most other posters are probably coming at it from the "ethical" end, I think it's worth bearing the distinction in mind.

I don't agree that the distinction is actually as clear as you are making it out to be. The terms do seem to be used interchangeably on a very regular basis.

robindch wrote: »

One certainly can use the terms interchangeably, but doing so doesn't really increase the overall clarity of the discussion and it's fairly easy to lose sight of the important and fundamental differences that separate the two approaches.

Clarity is only necessary if one genuinely seeks to distinguish them or to regard them as entirely different. If one doesn't find it reasonable, a distinction needn't be made.

Ethics and morality tend to be used in pretty much the same context. There is nothing stopping people from holding an understanding that humans construct morality. How reasonable such an understanding is is of course debatable.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

OK, so to clarify. You're now in effect disowning much of secular moral philosophy as well?

Er, no And I'm not sure how much more clearly I can try to make this point, but I'll try one last time.

English has two words -- "morality" and "ethics" -- which are used to describe the same kind of issues, but often they talk about these issues from different perspectives. The fields of, say, sociology and anthropology tend to use these terms in ways which are more clearly defined than, say, in philosophy and religion. I believe that the distinction that sociology and anthropology make is useful and I believe that if it were used more often in places like here, debate would probably be easier, since people would (a) understand more about each other's perspectives and (b) avoid terms which tend to have one specific meaning to people on one side of the debate, and quite a separate meaning to people on the other side of the debate.

That's all I'm saying.

philologos

robindch: ^^ Yes, but this distinction isn't by any means universally accepted. That's my point.

raah!

Wicknight wrote: »

Again that is an inaccurate description of what these emotions are. You do not simply "feel bad", like being kicked in the nuts.

You feel bad but you also feel it is wrong. This conclusion is backed up by psychological studies into morality such as the Greene Trolley problem

http://www.cell.com/neuron/retrieve/pii/S0896627304006348

Morality is not somethign which is aimed at explaining why people act as they do, this study and thigns you say later in this post suggest that this is what you think it is. To point to an article which talks about emotional things being taken into account when people make decisions which could be considered moral ones (they could not be considered so without some moral system determining right and wrong) amounts to a circular proof. I say behaviour based on emotion is not moral behaviour from the point of view of the person performing it, and you link me to things where people do things based on emotion.

Note the distinction drawn in that expermint between 'personal morality' and 'utilitarian values'. My point was that what the person is violating through application of these utilitarian values are not moral considerations.

Again, the concept of "moral behaviour" is meaningless without the context of morality in which to describe it. I've pointed that out already.

I am saying morality is inherently intellectual, I think this is obvious. Morality is concerned with definitions of good and bad. It doesn't matter if those definitions are based on emotions, the fact is, that without this intellectual defining process, actions are not moral. They are simply actions.

So your link shows that people are performing behaviours emotionally, and this is just performing behaviours based on emotion, which is not moral behaviour. Things like compassion have no moral value until they are described in the context of a moral system.

Here is a definition.

The term “morality” can be used either

1. descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
   1. some other group, such as a religion, or
   2. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.

In these examples people can't rationally tell you why one outcome is moral and the other isn't, but in the vast majority of cases they pick the same one (let the train run over someone). We emotionally know which one is moral and which one isn't but we don't know why.

Yes they can. An example, you're a racist who thinks black people are of less value than white people, one of the people is black, decision made. Or you simply like one of the people more than the other, you have a moral system which states that people you like are of more value. Not all moral systems are utilitarian, and pointing to a psychological study which shares this misunderstanding of morality is in essence a circular proof.

There are other examples, particularly with children asked to explain actions in a moral context. It is not necessary to explain to a child that hitting their sister so she starts crying is wrong. They don't simply feel "bad" through guilt, they know this is wrong.

Why do they know that this word 'wrong' describes these actions which lead the sister to feel bad? If you can answer that then you will have done very well in describing your position. Simply re-iterating that they feel "wrong" is not going to help me understand you at all. Note here that I mean morally wrong, and this requires understanding of what wrong is, and then the application of reason to the situation to link this understanding with what is happening.

Guilt is an emotion, so if you can show me that this emotion leads directly to this cognitive conclusion, then you'll have made your point. Note that this distinction between cognition and emotion have been made even in that experiment you cited.

They will then form their own moral judgement based on this without outside influence.

Again, It's not a moral judgement. You could say that they are simply associating certian behaviour patterns with certain emotional outcomes.

So anyway, I could rant about this for ages but the point is your representation that emotions like guilt simply make us feel bad is quite inaccurate.

Well as I've been said if you can make the link up there, then what your saying will make sense, if not, then it does not.

But that claim doesn't hold up to examination. Robin has a great article about how people pick things like religion that confirm already held moral positions.

I've heard things like this before. But this is beside the point, there is no such thing as a moral position, if it has not been stated in words. If "Morally Wrong" has not been defined, then you can't call something morally wrong. So it doesn't matter whether or not they are just picking a religion to support their moral claims, this doesn't mean that those claims are not intellectually originated.

So while that is certainly what religious people claim and what they like to believe, it isn't actually true and thus rather irrelevant.

So you are saying that some article posted definitivley prooves that people never make moral decisions in contravention to how they feel? In particular, religious people?

What about gay preists, or any gay religious people. What about people who say they are catholics, thus accepting the thing that homosexual behaviour is a sin, without actuallyl feeling any emotional revulsion to the act. If we were to follow your argument it would mean that feeling revulsion to homosexuality is naturally occur, which can be accepted easily, but then that it's naturally occuring in everyone, which may be more difficult to accept.

Can you think of a single person who actually thinks like that?

Just an example, and I'm sure anyone could think of many examples of people who conflate 'legal' with 'good'

In all cases I can the person who lacked the hurting people is bad instinct ended up hurting people.

There is no such instinct. That's like saying that we have a 2+2=4 instinct. There is no point in repeating this assertion to me, I have not accepted it, and you have not supported it.

I would be very surprised to find a sycopath how is not hurting people simply because they were told not to. For a start what authority does the government have to tell them this and why do they recognize that authority in the first place?

Well it doesn't matter where the authority comes from, government, religion, or just arbitrary set of rules. For a sociopath to not hurt people, they need to use reason. There are examples of sociopaths who don't kill people. My psychology student friend told me about them. We could verify this quickly if we'd like to, but it's not really necessary. It was just an example based on the previously laid down theory.

Morality is not a scientific theory for describing how people act.

Which is why a lot of people who don't feel empathy hurt people, something that is unexplainable in systems that suppose human morality is divorced from human emotional instinct and come from some other source.

Not everyone acts based on reason. There's your explanation. Your assertion is that people only make moral decisions by referencing their emotions, I've given more than enough examples to falsify this claim. Which din't make sense anyway, since you are using the word moral incorrectly.

Moral culpability is rather irrelevant. Like I said you telling a serial killer what he did was wrong means nothing to him.

It's relevent if you see morality as what it is as it's defined in a dictionary.

It is actually the only supported position. All other frameworks of morality have utterly failed to explain human behavior.

Again, that's not what morality is.

But like I said your representation that emotion is purely what feels good or bad in the sense of a kick in the nuts or an electric shock is rather mispresentive.

It is a case that it feels right or feels wrong.

Well I'm sure we'll clear this up shortly.

Zombrex

raah! wrote: »

Morality is not somethign which is aimed at explaining why people act as they do, this study and thigns you say later in this post suggest that this is what you think it is.

No it is the other way around, why people act the way they do and how they have evolved, explains morality. Which is why biology and psychology play a very important role in explaining human morality.

raah! wrote: »

I say behaviour based on emotion is not moral behaviour from the point of view of the person performing it, and you link me to things where people do things based on emotion.

No, you said that when we do things that produce emotions like guilt we feel bad but we don't feel that it was wrong.

That is not true, which is why I linked to these studies. We feel it is wrong. This shapes the moral laws we construct.

raah! wrote: »

I am saying morality is inherently intellectual, I think this is obvious. Morality is concerned with definitions of good and bad. It doesn't matter if those definitions are based on emotions, the fact is, that without this intellectual defining process, actions are not moral. They are simply actions.

And, again, that is inaccurate. We have an in build instinctive moral system, developed by evolution, that means that if you were the only person in the world and you killed a puppy you would probably feel that you had done something wrong, even if you didn't have language culture society or any other constructs to form the moral law "Thou shall not kill puppies, it is wrong"

Such a law would merely be the articulation of what you already feel, rather than the morality itself.

You would feel this because puppies have evolved to trigger the baby pattern recognition in our brains, and you have evolved to consider baby kill to be wrong.

Intellectual morality as you call it is simply a descriptive process, articulating and better defining the inherent morality that already exists in humans.

It is important to do this, but it is inaccurate to say that if this didn't exist there would be no morality. Their would but it would be purely instinctive.

raah! wrote: »

So your link shows that people are performing behaviours emotionally, and this is just performing behaviours based on emotion, which is not moral behaviour. Things like compassion have no moral value until they are described in the context of a moral system.

That makes new sense. Morality has no value unless it is defined within the context of our emotions and instincts. If we don't feel something is wrong then we don't regard it as wrong. Someone else telling us it is wrong means nothing, we simply disagree with them.

Morality is ultimately just opinion, and it is opinion shaped by what we inherently feel is right and wrong.

Saying that it has no value outside of intellectual context is like saying when you enjoy a movie in the cinema that has no value unless you go outside and then articulate why you found it enjoyable, going into the jokes or the plot or the great acting.

The latter is simply a descriptive process of the former. It is the the former that is the value bit.

Presenting the latter to someone who didn't enjoy it will mean nothing.

raah! wrote: »

Not all moral systems are utilitarian, and pointing to a psychological study which shares this misunderstanding of morality is in essence a circular proof.

Utilitarian is your little straw man, not mine. It seems to based on a continued misunderstanding of what I'm talking about, and evolution.

raah! wrote: »

Simply re-iterating that they feel "wrong" is not going to help me understand you at all. Note here that I mean morally wrong, and this requires understanding of what wrong is, and then the application of reason to the situation to link this understanding with what is happening.

They know what the word means. They then use the word to describe what they did without having to have an authority tell them what they did was wrong.

Humans have an in build instinctive notion of right and wrong.

Assigning words to these feelings doesn't mean the notions themselves are being taught to them, any more than knowing that what "pee pee" means implies that until they were taught this they never took a piddle.

raah! wrote: »

Not everyone acts based on reason. There's your explanation. Your assertion is that people only make moral decisions by referencing their emotions

People only make moral decisions by referencing their instinctive moral system, something that was build by evolution.

Their conclusions of what is moral will be simply articulations of this inherent moral system.

nitrogen

Fishie wrote: »

I have wondered the same thing, but it is difficult to ask people this because if they take it the wrong way they could think that you're implying that they're stupid

My flatmate is very intelligent, and is doing a science PhD. Yet not only does she believe in god, she also comes out with statements like "There are no coincidences" and "Everything happens for a reason". I have tried to appeal to her logical side by saying that this is confirmation bias, but to no avail. I honestly don't understand how she can have one set of logic rules for her academic/work life, and another set for her personal/spiritual life

Meanwhile, one of her friends from the lab strongly believes in astrology. Almost as soon as she meets people, she asks what their starsign is. Apparently she has turned down guys for being an incompatible starsign (she has a particular thing against Aries men). I have pointed out that I am a Virgo, and so is my flatmate, but we are incredibly different people, but she has found 'common traits' we have to back up her assertions. I would call this confirmation bias again, especially since upon reading descriptions of all twelve starsigns I can find traits in each one that describe me somewhat :P

I find both cases particularly odd since they have both had rigorous scientific training and are working in science every day... I just don't understand the lack of consistency. At this rate, it wouldn't surprise me if another person from their lab turns out to believe in fairies

I have more time for fundamentalists than these hypocrites.

antiskeptic

Denerick wrote:

For a start all art and literature would lose most of its lustre and interest if it were abstracted down to cold rationality. How dull and boring that life would be.

Wicknight wrote: »

Statements like that really annoy me. Why does rationality have to be "cold". The universe is far more beautiful and exciting when one looks at what it actual is than what some ancient farmers and sheep herders imaged it to be.

The Bible: the product of "ancient farmers and sheepherders"? Isn't this good example of your stripping art and literature of it's lustre and interest?

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

The Bible: the product of "ancient farmers and sheepherders"? Isn't this good example of your stripping art and literature of it's lustre and interest?

No, it is a good example of me stripping factual claims of their relevance to reality. :pac:

If someone wants to have the guts to say "Yeah, actually this stuff is just fiction" then you have an at times wonderfully written fictional narrative.

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

If someone wants to have the guts to say "Yeah, actually this stuff is just fiction" then you have an at times wonderfully written fictional narrative.

Given you yourself have had the guts I'll take the appreciation as given

raah!

Wicknight wrote: »

No it is the other way around, why people act the way they do and how they have evolved, explains morality. Which is why biology and psychology play a very important role in explaining human morality.

So do you think that everything everyone does they do because of a reason. That's what morality is. When it comes down to it, a set of rules. I posted a definition. Your way of thinking about this seems fairly incoherent. First you say our actions are chemically based evolutionarily advantageous by products of evolution, and now you are saying that peoples actions are dictated by reason.

No, you said that when we do things that produce emotions like guilt we feel bad but we don't feel that it was wrong.

And if guilt is an emotion like the others then this is true. Now, before the word is used again I'd like you to explain how this emotion can be tied to the definition of good and bad. It appears to me that your moral philosophy is massively incoherent, but perhaps this is just because you have yet to explain your use of guilt in the way you use it.

That is not true, which is why I linked to these studies. We feel it is wrong. This shapes the moral laws we construct.

It seems as though you are just avoiding the questions I put to you. How do you feel something is morally wrong? It was in the previous post, and in nearly every posts I've made since the start of the thread. Explain what you mean when you say that guilt is about feeling something is morally wrong. We don't need to discuss these higher level questions, the confusion lies there.

And, again, that is inaccurate. We have an in build instinctive moral system,

Well this is absurd. Do our instincts contain ideas and definitions? Complex verbal arrangements? Because that's what morality is. And I guess nobody ever disagrees about moral issues either? Since we have this universal evolved morality? Those people who do are handi-capped or something?

developed by evolution, that means that if you were the only person in the world and you killed a puppy you would probably feel that you had done something wrong, even if you didn't have language culture society or any other constructs to form the moral law "Thou shall not kill puppies, it is wrong"

Such a law would merely be the articulation of what you already feel, rather than the morality itself.

Well I've given examples which falsify such statements.

You would feel this because puppies have evolved to trigger the baby pattern recognition in our brains, and you have evolved to consider baby kill to be wrong.

Again , this is just re-iterating your point. I got it, the first time you said it. I understand, you feel things are wrong. And of course there's a link between cognition and emotion, but without this link that wouldn't be possible.

Intellectual morality as you call it is simply a descriptive process, articulating and better defining the inherent morality that already exists in humans.

Whereas "what people do is morality" is not a descriptive process? It is not a descriptive process, but rather a prescriptive process.

It is important to do this, but it is inaccurate to say that if this didn't exist there would be no morality. Their would but it would be purely instinctive.

Again, see above. See all my posts really. This is our area of disagreement, and there's no point in discussing anthing other than this one thing.

That makes new sense. Morality has no value unless it is defined within the context of our emotions and instincts. If we don't feel something is wrong then we don't regard it as wrong. Someone else telling us it is wrong means nothing, we simply disagree with them.

Again, gay preists etc.


Morality is ultimately just opinion, and it is opinion shaped by what we inherently feel is right and wrong.

Saying that it has no value outside of intellectual context is like saying when you enjoy a movie in the cinema that has no value unless you go outside and then articulate why you found it enjoyable, going into the jokes or the plot or the great acting.

Utilitarian is your little straw man, not mine. It seems to based on a continued misunderstanding of what I'm talking about, and evolution.

I was quoting the experiment you posted. Please don't presume that having read richard dawkin's makes you an expert on evolution. And if you had read my posts, and understood them, and understood what morality is, you would see they have little to do with evolution. Other than my expecting you to explain how ideas can be inherited. As from my limited understanding of evolution, inheriting ideas requires some further explanation, and it's not an explanation which can currently be provided, given the state of genetics and neuroscience.

Well the rest will be cleared up when you respond to those parts of my earlier posts that you did not respond to.

If those children think the word wrong means how they feel when they do something bad then they would be "wrong". You are essentially doing nothing more than repeating that they feel wrong. And then saying they know they feel wrong. How do they know, that feeling bad is equivilant to being morally wrong?

Anyway, I don't think we'll make much progress if this is how the discussion is to be continued, and I don't have the internet at my hosue so I've been spending college time on boards. Which is no appropriate use of my time, so I think I shall opt out of full participation in this discussion.

liamw

Wicknight wrote: »

You would feel this because puppies have evolved to trigger the baby pattern recognition in our brains, and you have evolved to consider baby kill to be wrong.

I would have said that a lot of the reason we instinctively feel bad when killing another organism (that would not share our genes), would be as a by-product of evolved emotions. In the puppy case you've explicitly said the puppy evolved, but would you agree that otherwise it could be a by-product of evolved tendancies?

philologos

liamw wrote: »

I'd like to see a theist response to this.

Let me have a go then!

liamw wrote: »

Jakkass, it appears that you have put quite a bit of thought into the topic. Would you consider your belief to have any sort of confirmation bias or would you say you have arrived at the decision in a purely objective fashion?

That would need a bit of an explanation of how I got to the point where I am currently at.

A brief chronology:
Aged 0 - 13: I would describe this as agnostic theism. I thought there was probably something called God out there, but I didn't know exactly what this meant. I didn't really understand much about Christianity either, despite going to church with my parents pretty much on a weekly basis. In school (CofI again) I heard a few stories about Jesus pretty much on a weekly basis.

13 - 17: As a result of trying to explain hard times when I was transitioning between primary and secondary school I became entirely apathetic concerning religion, where I was apathetic before, but thought about God from time to time in a childish way.

17 - present: As a result of looking to religion class, and an increasing curiosity about the faith that I had been kind of brought up in, and the faith that very good friends of mine seemed to have had (my best friend at the time was Pentecostal, and I had a very good Catholic friend whom I used to talk about this from time to time with, and as a result of some of the things brought up in R.E class). Other events which had occurred between the 13 and 17 stage had caused me to think that I was effectively living a meaningless existence also.

I decided to read the Bible, reading right through from Genesis - Revelation in about a year. I became fascinated by God's character, and by what Christianity was communicating to me. There was something radical in there that I had never heard before. The valuation that people gave to me before was irrelevant. What mattered is that I had an inherent value given by God. The idea that we are saved because Christ has died on our behalf was also something that made clear sense to me. The message was clearly convincing. As a result, I decided to live a Christian life, and I prayed to God pretty much along the same lines. It seemed logical as well as amazing. The pieces seemed to fit into place. Over time I started to see that I was beginning to conform more and more to the Gospel, still am working on this no doubt and I am a long way away, but it was a clear journey.

Personally, I believe it was an objective enough decision. You are free to come up with whatever other explanations you wish.

liamw wrote: »

Also, if you don't mind, could you let me know if you were born into a christian family?

CofI, so yes. I assume the same is pretty much true for most of the people posting on this forum.

swampgas

Jakkass wrote: »

I decided to read the Bible, reading right through from Genesis - Revelation in about a year. I became fascinated by God's character, and by what Christianity was communicating to me.

Personally, I believe it was an objective enough decision. You are free to come up with whatever other explanations you wish.

If you don't mind me saying so, that does sound a little like confirmation bias to me. What I mean is that you went to the Bible for answers, and "found" them. If you had decided instead to read books by Hitchens and Dawkins and still decided that the Christian God actually exists that would be different.

Hope I haven't misrepresented your views here.

Jakkass

Jakkass wrote: »

CofI, so yes. I assume the same is pretty much true for most of the people posting on this forum.

Sort of, but I don't think my mother is really a christian, it's the grandparents that are very catholic

philologos

swampgas wrote: »

If you don't mind me saying so, that does sound a little like confirmation bias to me. What I mean is that you went to the Bible for answers, and "found" them. If you had decided instead to read books by Hitchens and Dawkins and still decided that the Christian God actually exists that would be different.

Hope I haven't misrepresented your views here.

I've read Hitchens and Dawkins by this point. I try to read some antitheist / atheist polemicists every so often. I wouldn't personally compare either of them with the Bible :pac:

I also read parts of the Qur'an during this time.

I think what would be definitely confirmation bias would be if one goes into reading a book such as the Bible with the automatic assumption that it is false.

Improbable

Why do you think that the deity your particular religion perpetrates is any more real than any other religions deity?

If you are an intelligent, critical thinking individual, how can you claim to believe in the notion that a book of fairy tales put together long after the events it describes occurred can be a factually accurate record?

Jakkass wrote: »

I think what would be definitely confirmation bias would be if one goes into reading a book such as the Bible with the automatic assumption that it is false.

That depends on what you're trying to find. Confirmation bias is the result of only finding/remembering the parts of it which agree with your opinion. The difference between the religious and the non-religious people reading the bible is that non-religious people have never been able to find any part of it which shows that a deity exists. The religious on the other hand simply dismiss the bits that show that a god never existed as metaphor.

philologos

Improbable wrote: »

That depends on what you're trying to find. Confirmation bias is the result of only finding/remembering the parts of it which agree with your opinion. The difference between the religious and the non-religious people reading the bible is that non-religious people have never been able to find any part of it which shows that a deity exists. The religious on the other hand simply dismiss the bits that show that a god never existed as metaphor.

Or confirmation bias is rejecting what doesn't agree with your opinion.

As for not finding God in the Bible ? There are no real parts of the Bible that would refer to God as merely a non-existent metaphor.