A Christian perspective of understanding

Mark Hamill

realitykeeper wrote: »

Because the bible says otherwise. If you want proof, forget it. Faith requires the absence of proof.

But the bible comes from the "mind of god", right? But if you can't tell the difference between the "mind of god" and other earthly issues, then how do you know the bible comes from the "mind of god" and not just earthly sources?

Mark Hamill

Gustavo Famous Compass wrote: »

Can you provide us with 100% incontrovertible proof/evidence/data that God doesn't exist ?

What would you accept as 100% proof that god doesn't exist?

Hotblack Desiato

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Demeaning faith rather than rationality is par for the course. It is basic charlatan 101 stuff.

I think that should be "demanding fath rather than rationality" ?

uck51js9zml2yt

kylith wrote: »

Can you provide us with 100% incontrovertible proof/evidence/data that unicorns don't exist?

Can you ?;)

uck51js9zml2yt

Mark Hamill wrote: »

What would you accept as 100% proof that god doesn't exist?

You tell me. It's the denizens of A&A who keep insisting He doesn't exist. Surely there's proof of His non existence?


Someone mentioned the old slavery nut again,( can't find post.... mustn't exist!),context is everything and understanding why something was said.
In contrast to the old testament, the new condemns slavery but also tells slaves how they should behave.

Gustavo Famous Compass

Gustavo Famous Compass wrote: »

Someone mentioned the old slavery nut again,( can't find post.... mustn't exist!),context is everything and understanding why something was said.
In contrast to the old testament, the new condemns slavery but also tells slaves how they should behave.

The new testament does not condemn slavery. And telling slaves how they should behave is abhorrent.
Slaves should not exist, period.

Why does god not simply say "Thou shall not keep slaves."?

Under what context is slavery ok in your mind?

Also could you provide 100% proof that something you don't believe in doesn't exist?

uck51js9zml2yt

Yes, slaves should not exist. Fact is they did, it was part of life in the period.
The NT had nothing good to say about it but it was reality and had to be dealt with by the people.
Just like Christians were persecuted, tortured and fed to the lions.

Gustavo Famous Compass

Gustavo Famous Compass wrote: »

Yes, slaves should not exist. Fact is they did, it was part of life in the period.
The NT had nothing good to say about it but it was reality and had to be dealt with by the people.
Just like Christians were persecuted, tortured and fed to the lions.

You have dodged the questions.

Why did God not tell people to just not have slaves?
Why did God allow slaves to exist in the first place? Why did God not step in and stop slavery like he did before in Exodus?
Was keeping slaves ok then, but not ok now?

Where does the New Testement condemn slavery? How can it condemn slavery, then also tell slaves how they should behave?

Could you provide 100% proof that something you don't believe in does not exist? Bigfoot perhaps? Nessie? Fairies?

uck51js9zml2yt

King Mob wrote: »

You have dodged the questions.

Why did God not tell people to just not have slaves?
Why did God allow slaves to exist in the first place? Why did God not step in and stop slavery like he did before in Exodus?
Was keeping slaves ok then, but not ok now?

Where does the New Testement condemn slavery? How can it condemn slavery, then also tell slaves how they should behave?

Could you provide 100% proof that something you don't believe in does not exist? Bigfoot perhaps? Nessie? Fairies?

why does God allow it to rain ?

if I thought you were actually interested I'd take the time to answer
But just 1 historical point. It was the Christians in westminster who brought an end to Slavery against all the odds. They also ended the use of chimney boys.

Gustavo Famous Compass

Gustavo Famous Compass wrote: »

why does God allow it to rain ?

if I thought you were actually interested I'd take the time to answer

Again you dodge the question. It is obviously because you cannot provide an answer.

I am interested in the answer, but experience tells me that you aren't going to provide one. You're welcome to try, but constantly ignoring and dodging questions just makes it look like you are being dishonest.

Your God could have easily made a commandment against slavery.
He didn't.
Why not?
If you don't know, then be brave and honest and say you don't know.

Gustavo Famous Compass wrote: »

But just 1 historical point. It was the Christians in westminster who brought an end to Slavery against all the odds. They also ended the use of chimney boys.

The passages in the bible that directly promote and instruct on slavery where used to defend and justify the continuation of slavery in the American south.

If Christianity and God were against the idea of slavery, then there would be a commandment against it.
But there isn't.
Nor is there any passage that actually condemns it.

But context is important I guess and slavery was ok until God changed his mind.

Also you have not addressed the question you have been asked repeatedly. Again because you are dishonestly avoiding it.

Please provide 100% proof that something you don't believe in doesn't exist.

If you are going to avoid this again for the 8th time, then at least have the decency to explain why are you avoiding it.

nozzferrahhtoo

Gustavo Famous Compass wrote: »

You tell me. It's the denizens of A&A who keep insisting He doesn't exist. Surely there's proof of His non existence?

I think you will find you are misrepresenting them as egregiously as you did me. While there are SOME people here espousing what you claim above, the majority of them do not.

Rather what they do claim is that there is no evidence that there is a god. No reason being offered to think there is a god. No arguments, evidence data or reasoning at all (least of all from you) to suggest this entity exists.

If you feel that statement is wrong, and there in fact IS some arguments, evidence, data or reasoning you can offer that there is a god......... then by all means do so. But until then, I can only suggest you reply to what people actually do say, rather than decry what they say only in the fantasy world in your own head.

Samaris

Gustavo Famous Compass wrote: »

You tell me. It's the denizens of A&A who keep insisting He doesn't exist. Surely there's proof of His non existence?

Maybe you should think harder about the sentence "It's the denizens of [Atheism and Agnosticism] who keep insisting [God] doesn't exist" and see if you can figure out why this position might be held and why appeals to faith may not be very effective.

Also, denizens? I see this whole "Christian understanding" thing. It's a good thing it wasn't called "Christian courtesy".

spacecoyote

Gustavo Famous Compass wrote: »

why does God allow it to rain ?

That has to be one of the poorest attempts at an equivalency.

Rain is a naturally occurring phenomenon, and if there was no rain, we'd all be living in deserts...or not living at all

Slavery I'm pretty sure, is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. I don't think there are too many animals who keep other animals as their slaves. Would it not be slightly co-incidental that the guys writing down "Gods word" might just suit themselves & say "God said its OK for me to keep slaves"

smacl

Gustavo Famous Compass wrote: »

You tell me. It's the denizens of A&A who keep insisting He doesn't exist. Surely there's proof of His non existence?

There's probability, insofar as there are a huge number of religions and mythologies out there that all insist that their's is the one truth and the others have it wrong. In the absence of hard supporting evidence, they all have exactly the same probability of being right, which is infinitesimal given the infinite number of possibilities, so they're either all wrong or just one is right. Christianity could be that one, but there's more likelihood you'll win the Euromillions lottery.

Put another way, if you claim any imagined fantasy to be true, the burden of proof lies with you to support this statement.

Mark Hamill

Gustavo Famous Compass wrote: »

You tell me. It's the denizens of A&A who keep insisting He doesn't exist. Surely there's proof of His non existence?

How can I tell you what you would accept as 100% proof?

realitykeeper

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

You do know, I hope, that "prove" in science does not mean the same thing as "prove" in vernacular speech right? In science "prove" actually means "to test".

We do not "prove" anything in science in the way you seemingly understand it. Rather we "prove" by testing. That is to say, we test a hypothesis (what you call an assumption, falsely) to see if we can show it to be false.

If after all attempts to falsify it fail, we then put it into accepted science as something that is very likely to be true. That is all.

Come now, surely you are not suggesting the scientific community is without prejudice? The so-called "God particle" may well exist and early indicators suggest that it does but what if it didn`t? Seems to me a lot of scientists need it to exist to negate (at least to their limited mindset) the need for God. After all, if the necessary particle did not exist, there could not be enough dark matter in the universe to create the gravitational forces required to make the big bang a repeatable event.

From a Christian perspective however, it makes absolutely no difference if the particle exists or not because faith does not require proof, so it is irrelevant if the big bang is a repeatable event or not.

Then there are the Joseph Mandela type scientists who stuffed skulls with soot and weighed them to ascertain the brain capacity of white people versus non whites but of course they applied a bit more pressure on the soot packed into skulls of the white people to "prove" they had a larger brains.

Another example of how clueless scientists can be is the marshmallow test. Even as a non scientist, it was obvious to me that the reason kids who ate the marshmallow immediately, did so was not because they were stupid but because they had learned not to trust the adults in their lives and so if you want your children to be successful in later life, do not lie to them. After all, the kids who went 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow tended to do better in later life. This new interpretation of the marshmallow test is now considered more valid than the original interpretation. Of course, the two interpretations may be mutually supportive because if kids learn it is not a fools errand to be disciplined, they will practice discipline and get better at it.

realitykeeper

Mark Hamill wrote: »

If you do not understand the "mind of god" and you do not understand earthly issues, then how do you know that the "mind of god" is not just an earthly issue that you have mistaken as the "mind of god" because you do not understand it?

Faith is a choice. You can choose to believe in the absence of proof. The reason I choose to believe is because if true, then God is good, so much so that he gave everything (even his son) to the world for the salvation of souls. To put it another way, if true, God deserves our love and devotion. Hence, Christians give love and devotion, i.e. in case it is true. That is faith.

To put it in a context you might understand, lets say a family member needs an experimental new medication to have a chance of surviving an illness. This medication will cost you dearly. Maybe it will save the life of your loved one, maybe it will not. So you take a chance and buy the medicine. That is blind faith because you do not know if it will work or not.

looksee

realitykeeper wrote: »

To put it in a context you might understand, lets say a family member needs an experimental new medication to have a chance of surviving an illness. This medication will cost you dearly. Maybe it will save the life of your loved one, maybe it will not. So you take a chance and buy the medicine. That is blind faith because you do not know if it will work or not.

That is not blind faith. If the medication is available it must have undergone some investigation by scientists - doctors, researchers, chemists etc. They don't just mix together random ingredients and try it out on anyone who will give it a go. Therefore you are at least buying something with some chance of being successful.

However if someone came up to you and said 'I have created this wonderful drink which will cure your relative, just give me x amount of money and you can have it', and you gave them the money, that would be blind faith - or stupidity.

Or you offered a large sum of money to guarantee that a considerable number of people would pray for your relative/ think positive vibes about them, or similar, that would be blind faith - both that they would actually do the praying, and it would work.

realitykeeper

realitykeeper wrote: »

Faith is a choice. You can choose to believe in the absence of proof. The reason I choose to believe is because if true, then God is good, so much so that he gave everything (even his son) to the world for the salvation of souls. To put it another way, if true, God deserves our love and devotion. Hence, Christians give love and devotion, i.e. in case it is true. That is faith.

But if he exists, God cannot be anything expect a vile, uncaring despot. He would be completely undeserving of love or devotion.

The only reasons we need salvation is because of the arbitrary and contradictory rules he decided on.
He had to sacrifice his son to satisfy arbitrary conditions that he himself set up for no real reason or benefit.
But then he actually didn't sacrifice anything by sending his son since his son popped right back to life then came back heaven with him forever.
Have to love someone because you have to because of an implied threat is not a good thing and it's not something a good being does.

Hotblack Desiato

King Mob wrote: »

But then he actually didn't sacrifice anything by sending his son since his son popped right back to life then came back heaven with him forever.

Exactly, why all the fuss about the 'sacrifice' (read: temporary inconvenience) of his 'only son' when he could have magicked up as many sons as he wanted?

smacl

realitykeeper wrote: »

Come now, surely you are not suggesting the scientific community is without prejudice? The so-called "God particle" may well exist and early indicators suggest that it does but what if it didn`t? Seems to me a lot of scientists need it to exist to negate (at least to their limited mindset) the need for God. After all, if the necessary particle did not exist, there could not be enough dark matter in the universe to create the gravitational forces required to make the big bang a repeatable event.

From a Christian perspective however, it makes absolutely no difference if the particle exists or not because faith does not require proof, so it is irrelevant if the big bang is a repeatable event or not.

The term 'God particle' is one used primarily by the media and one considered inappropriate by many scientists including Higgs. It comes from the title of a book "The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?" which the author originally wanted to title "The Goddamn Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?" which the editor found too controversial.

Then there are the Joseph Mandela type scientists who stuffed skulls with soot and weighed them to ascertain the brain capacity of white people versus non whites but of course they applied a bit more pressure on the soot packed into skulls of the white people to "prove" they had a larger brains.

You seem to be rather weirdly confusing Josef Mengele with Nelson Mandela there. Is it cos he is black?

Another example of how clueless scientists can be is the marshmallow test. Even as a non scientist, it was obvious to me that the reason kids who ate the marshmallow immediately, did so was not because they were stupid but because they had learned not to trust the adults in their lives and so if you want your children to be successful in later life, do not lie to them. After all, the kids who went 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow tended to do better in later life. This new interpretation of the marshmallow test is now considered more valid than the original interpretation. Of course, the two interpretations may be mutually supportive because if kids learn it is not a fools errand to be disciplined, they will practice discipline and get better at it.

That's how science works though. Our current understanding of anything arrived at by a scientific method is always open to revision as new information comes to light. This tends to be particularly true of the soft sciences such as psychology.

smacl

looksee wrote: »

However if someone came up to you and said 'I have created this wonderful drink which will cure your relative, just give me x amount of money and you can have it', and you gave them the money, that would be blind faith - or stupidity.

Could also be a combination of clever marketing and preying on the vulnerable, as we see with all sorts of fad diets, cures and snake oil. e.g. eating red fruit and vegetables will stop you getting cancer, this little sugar pill with exactly no molecules of the active component listed on the bottle will make you better. Where people are told to take things on faith at a young age by those they trust, e.g. this is the body of Christ, you'd wonder whether they're more likely to continue taking things on faith later in life, e.g. this vaccine will give your kids autism. I don't think it is stupidity at play so much as a lack of teaching of critical thinking at a young age.

Peregrinus

Well, I have to point out that people who take drugs supplied by drug companies are also taking them on faith - they rely on the assertions made by the drug companies, on the advice of their own doctors, on the regulatory work of the authorities, etc, etc, none of which, typically, they are in a position to evaluate and verify themselves.

The difference is this, I think: The claim that "this drug will cure your embarrassing case of Harrison's Crawling Sexual Mange" is in principal capable of scientific verification, so the faith we have when the take the drug is faith that somebody has scientifically verified the claim. Our faith may be reasonable or unreasonable; well-placed or misplaced. But is is, basically, faith in particular individuals to have applied the scientific method to validate the claim.

But the claim that "This is my Body; this is my Blood" is not capable of any kind of scientific examination at all, so faith in this claim is faith of a radically different kind.

That doesn't mean its an unreasonable or misplaced faith, though (as those with a solid grounding in critical thinking will know). There are lots of claims that are not capable of scientific examination, by no means all of them religious; all ethical claims, for instance, are of this nature. We can't live our lives without taking positions in relation to claims of this kind, and it would obviously be nonsense to suggest that the positions we take are invalidated because the claims are not susceptible of scientific examination or verification.

nozzferrahhtoo

realitykeeper wrote: »

Come now, surely you are not suggesting the scientific community is without prejudice?

Scientists are human. Humans have narratives, biases, prejudices and more.

The scientific methodology however is a different thing. It is a tool and it itself has no biases. It is constructed in such a way as to remove, as far as is possible, the effect of human bias and prejudice.

The problem here with you is that they are different things, and every time someone like myself moves to discuss one, you hop skip and jump over to the other.

realitykeeper wrote: »

faith does not require proof

Nor do things that you simply make up on the spot. Which to the outside observer like myself is a problem as we have no way at all to distinguish between the two. What you call a faith based belief has no distinguishable difference from anything else someone simply made up on the spot.

realitykeeper wrote: »

so if you want your children to be successful in later life, do not lie to them

The word "lie" means different things to different people though. For many people it means you should not tell children something you now to be false.

Others, like myself, consider lying also to tell children things are true when you have no ACTUAL arguments, evidence, data or reasoning to think they are true.

That, to me, is just as dishonest and just as much a lie as anything you might consider a lie. And one example of that is, indeed, telling children a god exists.

We have not just little but NO arguments, evidence, data or reasoning on offer to suggest our universe was created by an intentional intelligent agent. Least of all from you. So telling children such a thing is true is, to me, outright lying to them.

realitykeeper wrote: »

Faith is a choice. You can choose to believe in the absence of proof.

Nope. Speak for yourself. YOU can choose to believe in the absence of truth. But just because YOUR credulity is labile enough to do so, do not automatically assume everyone else's is too. You are not the template from which all humanity was made.

I, for one, am not capable of it. I can not choose to believe something for which there is zero substantiation. I can not choose to disbelieve something that is substantiated. It is simply not an ability I have.

realitykeeper wrote: »

he gave everything (even his son)

You have a very weird definition of "gave" I must say. Last time I read the Christian Narrative for example, this "son" was sitting in a state of eternal bliss and dominion beside the father.

At best (and even then it is more comedy than accuracy) this god could only be said to have "lent" this son. For a period of time that, in the face of all eternity, is less than insignificant.

It is like me saying I give my child to the void every time I blink. But as a narrative it is deeply insulting and demeaning to every parent who HAS lost a child in death to some person, place or ideal.

Your god character is likely not even capable of understanding true grief. Much like the girl in the Pulp song "Common People" was unable to understand life as one of the lower classes. Because to understand it truly, you can not have at your finger tips the capability to make it all stop at any moment.

What a limited god you have.

realitykeeper wrote: »

So you take a chance and buy the medicine. That is blind faith because you do not know if it will work or not.

Again speak for yourself. I would not buy any medication on blind faith. I would buy it only after studying ALL the available literature on how it was tested, and what the results of those tests were, and my choice to purchase it (or not) would be a deeply educated judgement call.

Again you take attributes of yourself..... from labile credulity to blind guess work........ and simply assume everyone is the same as you. An assumption that is no less unsubstantiated blind guess work than pretty much everything else you threw into this thread so far.

Step 1 on the path to enlightenment and wisdom therefore for you is: Stop pretending everyone else is the same as you.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, I have to point out that people who take drugs supplied by drug companies are also taking them on faith - they rely on the assertions made by the drug companies, on the advice of their own doctors, on the regulatory work of the authorities, etc, etc, none of which, typically, they are in a position to evaluate and verify themselves.

IMHO, most people do very little critical evaluation of anything. What happens is that they establish trusted sources of information and come to rely on them and similarly become invested in them. This is a necessity as we have neither the ability, time nor inclination to understand everything we rely on from first principals. What we see in this so called post truth era are media outlets, politicians and marketing people making substantial investments to acquire trust, not that that is particularly new so much as the volume being turned up. Again just opinion, but the decline in religious adherence is due to lost trust on the one hand and inability to compete at those levels of volume on the other.

The difference is this, I think: The claim that "this drug will cure your embarrassing case of Harrison's Crawling Sexual Mange" is in principal capable of scientific verification, so the faith we have when the take the drug is faith that somebody has scientifically verified the claim.

When we have Harrison's Crawling Sexual Mange we maybe feeling somewhat vulnerable and will of course place our faith, tenderly, along with a fistful of sheckels, with anyone reasonably claiming to have a cure. That drug companies would prey on us for their own gains in such a manner is, my friends, an outrage :pac:

Peregrinus

As regards scientifically verifiable claims, yes, we basically do place repose faith, either consciously or unconsciously, in persons or institutions that we trust. Few of us have the competence or the commitment to verify them ourselves, as Nozz does. This isn't just true for the cure of Harrison's Sexual Mange, but for all the medical treatment we accept, and for many of our other purchases. I know how to select the better bananas on the shelf, but when it comes to a car or a PC I have to rely on others.

Which leads to the ironic situation that, in relation to scientifically verifiable matters, we largely make faith-based choices.

As regards non-scientifically-verifiable claims, we do actually tend to exercise a higher degree of personal scrutiny. We all have particular beliefs inculcated in us by our families, our society. our culture and the advertising/marketing industry, but part of growing up and establishing personal autonomy is that we do scrutinise and evaluate at least some of those beliefs in the light of reason, experience and other factors, and we do modify or reject some of them.

How much of this is true critical thinking, and how much of it is determined by psychological needs of which we are only dimly aware, or maybe completely unconscious, is hard to say.

nozzferrahhtoo

Peregrinus wrote: »

none of which, typically, they are in a position to evaluate and verify themselves.

What is sad there is that there is no reason people SHOULD be entirely unable to evaluate things themselves. At least partially.

It takes a lot of work and study to be able to evaluate the papers and studies on a drug to a very indepth level. But that learning is not linear. The initial parts are rather easy to learn.

Even putting something like "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre on the early school curriculum would enable a populace to read through a lot of the papers, and media guff, on any given drug. Let alone implementing an actual well thought out, well constructed, module in our education curriculum on the subject.

There would still be a lot of guess work and ignorance. But they would be VASTLY more educated guesses than the blind faith many people take drugs with today.

In a world so full of scientific studies and the pronouncements of authorities..... it is a horrific oversight to my mind that we do not bother teaching our children how to read, interpret and understand the basics of scientific studies and the methodologies of epidemiology. Instead they sit there learning off the names of Irish Rivers and Solar System planets by rote.

I know I happily take any prescription a doctor gives me. I know I do not happily actually TAKE the drug until I have invested a minimum of 4 to 6 hours of reading into who studied the drug, what methodologies they used, what their results were, and how (and by who) those results were interpreted.

Peregrinus wrote: »

There are lots of claims that are not capable of scientific examination, by no means all of them religious; all ethical claims, for instance, are of this nature.

I think I am in the Sam Harris camp of not buying the idea AT ALL that moral and ethical claims are outside the bounds of scientific evaluation and inquiry.

I think that it is an idea that has long been in the human narrative but aside from it's assertion I have never seen it argued as true.

A parallel to this is the claim I heard many times growing up and never, in my early years, had an answer for. The claim was that science can never "explain" art, or artistic appreciation.

But then I actually started studying human evolution, human psychology, human neuroscience and more in depth formally and informally. And I quickly learned that we indeed do have a working science of art, well on the way to explaining art and artistic appreciation at the level of the brain.

Morality and ethics seems to be in the business of maximizing well being. "Good" appears to be anything that maximizes the well being of the of the maximum number of people. "Evil" appears to be that which does the exact opposite. And there is a whole continuum in between them.

And how to move along that continuum is not a space I think that is immune to scientific inquiry and evaluation. There is going to be "right" and "wrong" ways to move in that space.

Further one of the corner stones of moral and ethical judgements is the concept of intent. Stabbing you by accident while turning with a knife in my hand while not even knowing you were there is not generally a moral action, or judged as one. Whereas going out of my way to intentionally stab you is.

Why? Because INTENT and fore knowledge is key to how people judge moral actions. And what is science if not the learning of causality and what the results of any given action will be? Science massively informs our knowledge of "If I do X, Y will be the result" and if ethics and morality are in the business of judging intention and foreknowledge behind actions........ then science is DIRECTLY involved in informing and evaluating moves in that space.

Peregrinus

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

. . . . I know I happily take any prescription a doctor gives me. I know I do not happily actually TAKE the drug until I have invested a minimum of 4 to 6 hours of reading into who studied the drug, what methodologies they used, what their results were, and how (and by who) those results were interpreted.

Which does you credit, Nozz. I'm just observing that it's not how most people work, or are ever likely to work. Particularly if we expand this approach not just to decisions about medical treatment, but to all decisions that are affected by scientifically-verifiable claims.

The beauty of scientifically-verifiable claims is that they can be scientifically verified. And that's important and valuable, even if they are largely accepted on faith, most of the time, by most of the people who rely on them. The very fact that the claims can be scientifically verified tends to make faith in them at least somewhat reasonable, no?

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I think I am in the Sam Harris camp of not buying the idea AT ALL that moral and ethical claims are outside the bounds of scientific evaluation and inquiry . . . Morality and ethics seems to be in the business of maximizing well being. "Good" appears to be anything that maximizes the well being of the of the maximum number of people. "Evil" appears to be that which does the exact opposite. And there is a whole continuum in between them.

I'm not in the Harris camp, I have to say, and what you say here helps to show why. The understanding of "good" that you offer is a fairly standard utilitarian approach, but utilitarianism is only one of a range of philosophical approaches to the idea of "good", and there is no scientific case for saying that it has a greater validity than any of the competing approaches.

And the particular way you frame it here is problematic. You say that "good" involves maximising the "well-being" of the greatest number of people. But what is "well-being"? "Well" is simply the adjectival form of "good"; to know what "well-being" is we already have to have a concept of what "good" is, so this is basically circular. (Note to smacl: critical thinking at work!)

Parking the issue of circularity for a moment, I think ethical utilitarianism does have an appeal to people who value science because, if you define "good" as promoting the well-being of the greatest number, and if you also select a concept of well-being which is empirically observable, you can of course apply the scientific method to establish what does, and what does not, tend to maximise well-being.

But all we're really doing here is choosing a philosophical concept of ethics because it will enable us to apply the scientific method; that assumes the very value for the scientific method that we are trying to prove. And even then we have to start from foundations like a concept of "well-being" which cannot itself be scientifically validated. I don't find this a particular compelling approach.

And you can also have the problem that you can have different concepts of "well-being" that are empirically observable; is that which makes us more prosperous to be preferred to that which makes us more healthy, that which makes us more content, that which makes our capacities flourish to the greatest extent? I don't see that science is going to be much help here.

nozzferrahhtoo

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'm just observing that it's not how most people work, or are ever likely to work.

Only, I suspect, because we simply do not give them the tools to do it at the educational level. So I fear you are using the status quo to validate the status quo, which is dangerously circular.

I think it would be REMARKABLY easy to include a module in the school curriculum to give the basic skills required to people. You empower people with simple tools, and they have a tendency to use them I find. The whole "give a man a fish, or teach a man to fish" narrative in play.

Peregrinus wrote: »

And the particular way you frame it here is problematic.

Not really problematic so much as intentionally short for an already educated (I suspect) audience. It is obviously a lot more complex than I painted it here, but that complexity was not required to make the point(s) I was making.

But the very question you ask (what is well being?) makes the point for me. When someone is declaring such things to be outside the realm of science, I do not take on faith the claim that it is.

There is no reason known or available to me to suggest that answering that question is outside the realm of scientific inquiry. Unless you take the approach of the "Pone" user posting here of late, that there is some equivalence between what science has not done yet, and what science is by definition limited in doing, there is nothing put pure assumption at work in declaring these things outside the boundaries of science.

That is not, of course, to declare by fiat they are NOT. Just that we have no reason this time to think they ARE.

But if one does the thought experiment of imagining a universe that is specifically constructed and contrived to cause the maximum possible amount of suffering from the maximum number of beings possible...... then one has a basis already for a continuum of good versus bad and a concept of well being. Any move AWAY from that end of the continuum would be a good move. The moment one admits of a desire to move away from that state of affairs, is the moment the continuum of which I speak has been conceded as existing.

So I do not see it as suffering from the circles you imagine it does. But the point central to it is clear. There is nothing past pure assertion about questions like "What is well being" that puts them automatically outside the purview of science.

smacl

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

What is sad there is that there is no reason people SHOULD be entirely unable to evaluate things themselves. At least partially.

There's a problem of time and scale here. Every field of scientific endeavour is generating increasing amounts knowledge all the time, such that the total accumulated knowledge growth is exponential, as in many cases is the complexity. Our intellects as individuals have not grown on any comparable basis. Thus while any individual could potentially understand any given scientific conclusion by bringing it back to first principals, they'd be long dead of old age before they could do it for any significant proportion of all of it. In our parents lifetime you could successfully be a generalist, but I'm not convinced you can any longer. For example, I'm currently working at very technical level in computer vision and deep learning. The number of research papers coming out is such that I have pick and choose what I read and limit myself to directly relevant work for risk of getting bogged down. Someone coming into the field is going to need decent maths and programming skills as a prerequisite, face a steep learning curve, and an ongoing time commitment to keep up to date. And all that for one narrow facet of computer science.

Then with all that going on, the vast majority of what is produced in the media, social and otherwise, is little more than white noise at best and attempts to manipulate for the gain of others beyond this. The ratio of bad versus good information that we consume is frightening. I think that one reason why religion survives is that many people simply can't handle this complexity and would rather go back to what they perceive as 'simpler truths'. Same goes for all the other snake oil.