Quantum shight

18AD

nagirrac wrote: »

My point is it doesn't matter what means are used, the end does justify the means, so long as the end is positive for the individual and for society in general. Far better in my view to have a society of people going to church, chanting Hare Krishna, meditating, surrounding themselves with crystals, etc. than despairing at how lame and meaningless life is. I am not suggesting atheists do the latter, but most of the population in some form or other seem to need the former.

I'm getting that. But the consequence of this is that the truth value of all of those things is compromised, because they can't all be true.

And I think you can't compromise the truth of those approaches if you want them to remain affective beliefs, i.e. to bring about the positive changes you see in them.

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote:

That seems to me to be an extreme position. It strikes me that motivation does fall outside rationality.

How does motivation fall outside rational discourse?

nagirrac

robindch wrote: »

There's nothing in most religions which requires people to act socially. Most religions do, on the other hand, assert that the highest aim of the religion is to (a) stick rigidly to some interpretation of it (usually one's own) and (b) propagate it.

Behaving like a selfish asshat in doing (a) and (b) is therefore a major part of most religions, and rationally so. Hence Steven Weinberg's comment:

Unsurprising that you wheel out Weinberg to make your argument:rolleyes:.

I agree with you regarding organized religion, the RCC is obviously the leader in that regard. However, I was talking about what people get personally from religion/spirituality. There are actually very few world religions that have a power structure like the RCC to accomplish your (a) and (b), where is the power structure for the world's 1 billion Hindus for example? The vast majority of religious teaching encourages people to live a socially productive life and observe the golden rule. From that perspective, at the individual level, claiming to be religious or spiritual and behaving like as asshat is irrational in my view.

Weinberg, although a good scientist, has also been one of the worst promoters of scientism. His comment regarding good, evil and religion is a nonsense and just displays his bias. Eugenics was one of the great evils of the 20th century, brought to its horrible conclusion by the Nazis, it was a science developed by Darwin's cousin. The development of weapons of mass destruction is science not religion, chemicals that destroy the environment is science not religion, automation of industry that has led to concentration of wealth and massive unemployment is science not religion. Science has brought great good and great evil, just like religion.

It is not just religion that makes good people do evil, it is ideas. The perversion of Christ's teaching led to the Crusades and the Inquisition, I doubt he would have sided with either. However, the greatest evil has been perpetrated by the idea that God does not exist, and this is the hardest thing for an athiest to accept. Once the idea of God is removed from people's minds, the evidence is overwhelming that their capacity for evil takes on a whole new dimension. To deny this is to deny history.

robindch

nagirrac wrote: »

Unsurprising that you wheel out Weinberg to make your argument

Weinberg is a conclusion to the argument, not any part of it.

nagirrac wrote: »

The development of weapons of mass destruction is science not religion, chemicals that destroy the environment is science not religion, automation of industry that has led to concentration of wealth and massive unemployment is science not religion.

Science is a set of facts about the world and doesn't compel people to act in any particular moral or ethical fashion. That's what religion and politics do.

To be short about it, you don't appear to understand that facts and the use of facts are different things -- a common misconception.

Turtwig

[I'll respond to the happiness issue if I get the time, as it's a rather complicated issue.]

Nagirrac, feel free to correct me here but I think you're been unfair in your initial premises. You seem to be implicitly assuming that religion/spirituality is by definition something which is inherently good and any straying from that position is a corruption of the ideals or purity of that religion. Science on the other hand is corrupt and any malignant outcome in history is a direct consequences of the ideas of science. (Especially when one considers that philosophy hasn't even answered the question of what science actually is. If it ever will.)

Both of these are fine, if you accept they're just assumptions. However, the way you're making your arguments come across as a tad circular - "Spirituality/Religion is good when it's used in a good way and any pursuit of spirituality in a bad way isn't really spirituality/religion or the way spirituality or religion should be used."
The same could arguably be said for science but I won't because I haven't the slightest clue what I mean when I use the word 'science'.

However, the greatest evil has been perpetrated by the idea that God does not exist, and this is the hardest thing for an athiest to accept. Once the idea of God is removed from people's minds, the evidence is overwhelming that their capacity for evil takes on a whole new dimension. To deny this is to deny history.

What exactly is evil and how do you measure it?

nagirrac

robindch wrote: »

Weinberg is a conclusion to the argument, not any part of it.Science is a set of facts about the world and doesn't compel people to act in any particular moral or ethical fashion.

How can a conclusion of an argument not be a part of it? You either agree or disagree with Weinberg's statement "that for good people to do evil things, that takes religion". If you agree with Weinberg then back it up with evidence. Was it religion that led to the mass slaughters of the 20th century, not just wars but the internal slaughters in the USSR, China, and countless other countries that adopted Marxist/Leninist thinking? Weinberg was wrong, plain and simple, to suggest that only religion can make good people do evil.

Science is not just a set of facts; it delivers products, like atomic bombs, carcinogenic pesticides, CFCs, etc. You simply cannot separate science from ethics and morality, otherwise there are no limits to scientific enquiry and experiment, and I think most reasonable people would say there should be.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

18AD wrote: »

How does motivation fall outside rational discourse?

I'm getting at the kind of thing I said a few posts back

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=84051573&postcount=61

There's the human motivation level. If your heating breaks down on Christmas Eve, and its minus 10, and you know you're fecked, being rationally aware of this doesn't necessarily help you get through the holiday period with any degree of happiness. Maybe religious faith would. If it does, it's doing folk a service.

And the motivation level isn't necessarily about delusion. Conceivably, your faith in Jesus will motivate you to phone every 24/7 plumber in the belief that God's not going to let your pipes freeze on his birthday. A rational atheist might give up after a half-dozen, illustrating the problem of induction.

I feel most of the debate is around the motivation level. That's what I think theists really mean when they talk about the problem of a life without purpose. They're not really making statements about how to fix a boiler, or about the extent to which humans can ever understand the physical world. They're making statements about what ethics (in the sense of motivational goals) will support a happy life.

nagirrac

Jernal wrote: »

Nagirrac, feel free to correct me here but I think you're been unfair in your initial premises. You seem to be implicitly assuming that religion/spirituality is by definition something which is inherently good and any straying from that position is a corruption of the ideals or purity of that religion. Science on the other hand is corrupt and any malignant outcome in history is a direct consequences of the ideas of science. (Especially when one considers that philosophy hasn't even answered the question of what science actually is. If it ever will.)

What exactly is evil and how do you measure it?

No, you misunderstand me Jernal, or I have not expressed myself clearly, or both. Religion and science can be good or evil, depending on how they are utilized. I believe the core principles of religion/spirituality are inherently good. If you take the basic teachings of Hinduism on how to approach and live life with respect for not just your fellow man but all of nature, I see this as inherently good. I would also say that the vast majority of religions stemmed from Hinduism and added their ethnic flavor and that's where the downward spiral began.

Science constrained by the morality and ethics of religion/spirituality should only be good, and in the main is good. I read a good essay once on the Manhatten project participants that drives this point home. Oppenheimer for example went from a philosophy of "when you see something that is technically sweet, you just go for it" to abject despair after Nagasaki.

Evil = a scale that begins at Auschwitz and works its way down to peaceful coexistance.

robindch

nagirrac wrote: »

You simply cannot separate science from ethics and morality [...]

As I said above, you seem to be unable to distinguish between facts and the uses (or obligations regarding the uses) of facts -- the distinction is really quite important.

Have a read up on David Hume's description of the "Is-Ought" problem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

nagirrac

robindch wrote: »

As I said above, you seem to be unable to distinguish between facts and the uses (or obligations regarding the uses) of facts -- the distinction is really quite important.

Have a read up on David Hume's description of the "Is-Ought" problem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem[/QUOTE]


I think you are misconstruing Hume. Hume does not argue that there is no connection between "is" or "ought" or that facts are disconnected from ethical statements. Read correctly, what Hume states is that for an ethical statement (an "ought") to be derived from a fact (an "is"), you must have an ethical principle to tie them together.

In the case of the atom bomb for example, I would say the ethical principle is that the science of developing weapons of mass destruction is inherently unethical as the purpose of the product is human annihilation. This ties the "is" to the "ought" quite well. A contempary example would be human cloning.

18AD

"...Hume is usually assigned the position that such a derivation is impossible."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I'm getting at the kind of thing I said a few posts back

Then as now, I don't really know what you mean.

You give the example of religious faith. How is religious faith motivational? And are there other forms of non-rational motivation?

GCU Flexible Demeanour

18AD wrote: »

Then as now, I don't really know what you mean.

You give the example of religious faith. How is religious faith motivational? And are there other forms of non-rational motivation?

I don't see the gap, and we may be talking at cross purposes or something. I see that post as directly answering that question.

18AD

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I don't see the gap, and we may be talking at cross purposes or something. I see that post as directly answering that question.

I'm just having a hard time pinpointing what you're saying.

There's the human motivation level. If your heating breaks down on Christmas Eve, and its minus 10, and you know you're fecked, being rationally aware of this doesn't necessarily help you get through the holiday period with any degree of happiness. Maybe religious faith would. If it does, it's doing folk a service.

And the motivation level isn't necessarily about delusion. Conceivably, your faith in Jesus will motivate you to phone every 24/7 plumber in the belief that God's not going to let your pipes freeze on his birthday. A rational atheist might give up after a half-dozen, illustrating the problem of induction.

I feel most of the debate is around the motivation level. That's what I think theists really mean when they talk about the problem of a life without purpose. They're not really making statements about how to fix a boiler, or about the extent to which humans can ever understand the physical world. They're making statements about what ethics (in the sense of motivational goals) will support a happy life.

From this we get:

Religious faith is a motivator.
Life purpose is a motivator.
Ethics towards a happy life is a motivator.

I don't see how any of these are non-rational. I also don't see how the second two are solely theistic claims.

As an overall point I don't see how motivation itself is non-rational. People always speak of motives because they are things that can be dissected and reasoned through. If this is the case then motivation is rational, but it is the underlying thing that is non-rational. You end up with a two-tier description of behaviour. Also, in that regard I don't see how ethics or life purpose is non-rational.

Anyway, I'm going on holiday. I may resume this interesting discussion some time in the future.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

18AD wrote: »

I don't see how any of these are non-rational.

I suspect the issue may be around definitions and scope of terms.

18AD wrote: »

Anyway, I'm going on holiday.

Have a good one!

robindch

nagirrac wrote: »

I think you are misconstruing Hume. Hume does not argue that there is no connection between "is" or "ought" or that facts are disconnected from ethical statements. Read correctly, what Hume states is that for an ethical statement (an "ought") to be derived from a fact (an "is"), you must have an ethical principle to tie them together.

Uh, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying

Anyhow, since believe that facts concerning the world stand independently of how these facts ought to be used, then we agree.

nagirrac wrote: »

In the case of the atom bomb for example, I would say the ethical principle is that the science of developing weapons of mass destruction is inherently unethical as the purpose of the product is human annihilation. This ties the "is" to the "ought" quite well. A contempary example would be human cloning.

But here, you're declaring -- without any connecting logic or reason -- that "developing weapons of mass destruction is inherently unethical", you're now implying that facts actually do not stand independently of how these facts ought to be used. Seems we don't agree after all.

You don't appear to understand Hume's principle.

nagirrac

robindch wrote: »

You don't appear to understand Hume's principle.

Perhaps I don't understand it the way you understand it, which is hardly susprising given it is one of the most hotly debated laws in philosophy, given it came from a single obscure paragraph that Hume never metioned again. I understand why atheists love Hume's law however, as it creates a problem for all systems of objective morality.. but not even all atheists agree on Hume's Law, Sam Harris for example recently argued against the separation of facts from values. Another guy, whose name I forget, said that a clock defeats Hume's Law. A clock tells the time, an "is", and it "ought" to tell the time. As with all things philosophical, what flavor would you like.

This has been a nice sidetrack though, and I question how it relates to Weinberg's claim "that for good men to do evil things, that takes religion". I see you have dodged answering that question. So, again, do you agree with Weinberg's assertion? Were all those who worked the deathcamps good men who religion inspired to do evil, or were they sociopaths who took full advantage of the new "no God, Heil Hitler" rule?