Re: [Lest You Forget] 3/17/2005 09:44:48 AM

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 14:53:51 -0500, TB wrote:
> Ahhh, you're reading too much into it. Even without a god, our
> ethics/morality can be boiled down to some form of "You don't hit me in the
> nose and I won't hit you in the nose", which keeps us, most of the time,
> from walking around with sore noses... So, that's a good, assuming that our
> general happiness here on this world is a good. Whether or not there is a
> purpose to us outside of this world is a separate question...

I can see why, following that logic, you might say *one's own*
happiness is a good, but why then should one worry about others who
aren't in a position of influence? The argument only holds as long as
the other person is in a position and of the inclination to return the
favor.

And what about the con man? If I can--in cowbird fashion--fool others
into treating me well while I'm actually using up their own survival
resources, is that good or bad? Think of the televangelist duping
little old ladies out of their life's savings. Avoiding a country
full of bloody noses doesn't seem to address that type of moral
turpitude.

But back to the main question...is such behavior good or bad? By what
authority can one say? If one is a strict naturalist, then one cannot
say it's either good or bad. The words have no ultimate meaning, but
only an individual meaning--I can say its good for me (meaning it
serves my current desires) or that it's bad for me (meaning it
doesn't), but the crooked televangelist is free to interpret it
according to his or her self interests as well.

For the naturalist there is no good or bad apart from individual self-interest.

Picture; Alpine Meadow

Picture; Tree-lined lane

Can Morality Exist if There is No God?

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 07:45:38 -0800 (PST),

Anonymous wrote:
>So can morality exist even if there is no god? I say that it
> can, and is "real", and serves us all as a society... Morality is a social
> contract of sorts, and, in total, does things like keep your kids relatively
> safe...

Depends on what you mean by "morality." The social contract you speak of sounds more like ethics than morality, but it's a semantic distinction, I suppose.

If you begin from a naturalistic perspective--and have faith that there is no supernatural reality--then morality is a human/societal/natural construct, no more or less valid than the rules by which bees and birds and slime molds and boulders act. This gets us back to the basic problem; if our existence/thoughts/etc. are the result of only-nature then they are ultimately based on the random motions of atoms and cannot be said to be either good or bad. This holds true if you are speaking of an individual or a society, so one cannot say that Hitler or Stalin or Gandhi or Mother Teresa did things that were good or bad. "Might makes right" rules the day (although "right" is meaningless).

The only way there can be a true "good" or "bad" is if those things are defined from outside the natural system. It needs a supernatural mover, although not necessarily the Christian God.
If God is real, then what he does, as the Creator, is--by definition--Good. His Will defines what is good. That's why the Christian definition of sin is so broad. A sin is not just something that goes against the Ten Commandments, it's anything--thought, word, or deed--that goes against God's will.

Picture; Closeup of a flower

The Beauty of Competition

Every flower is competing for pollinators. Those with the brightest,
most attractive colors and smells (at least to their pollinator), will
get the most attention and reproduce most successfully.

As the wildflowers come out on the roadsides in the next few months,
we will be seeing the results of competition. And sex.

Three Trout

Once upon a time there were three trout, all of them brothers. They
spent their days swimming in the swift currents of a small, clear
river, catching juicy bugs and playing among the green and gray
stones.

But one of the brothers was unhappy. "Why must we constantly swim
against the current yet never get anywhere?" he asked his brothers.
"I, for one, am no ordinary trout. I will go further than anyone else
ever has before." With a sudden burst of speed he shot up the river
and was soon out of sight.

He swam and swam, all day and all night. Soon the river began to
narrow. The water became shallower and colder and bounded down rocky
cataracts and over white, misty falls. The trout would not give up.
He leaped every obstacle and pressed on, high into the mountains. At
last the water turned to a mere icy trickle, and with one valiant
leap, the trout landed himself next to a melting snow bank where he
lay gasping and heaving in the summer sun until a passing bear spotted
him and ate him in a single gulp.

The second brother was unhappy too. "Why fight the current? It's
never-ending. What's the point?" And with that he stopped swimming
altogether. He let the river carry him down towards the sea. The
river widened and slowed and food was abundant. The second brother
finally found himself in the open sea. "How beautiful! And look at
all the food." At that very moment he was gobbled up by a salmon
heading back up the river to spawn and die.

The third brother was no different from the others. The current was
tiring and relentless but he was afraid of going upstream or down. He
searched along the river's edge for some solution and chanced upon a
small inlet that led him into a calm pond. Food was plentiful and
there was no current. After a few weeks living the good life he had
become fat and happy. "This is the life!" But soon he noticed that
the pond was getting smaller and the water was uncomfortably warm. He
tried to go back to the river, but the inlet had long since dried up.
In another week he found himself gasping for air in the muddy goo of
the fast evaporating pond, now a mere mud puddle. He too was eaten by
a passing bear.

In the river, the other trout would often wonder about what happened
to the three brothers. But in time, they forgot all about the
brothers as they swam in the swift current, catching bugs, and playing
among the stones.

Negative Hallucinations

How many times have you looked for something repeatedly, such as your keys, and then someone else finds them right where you had already looked. It's quite possible to NOT see things that ARE there. Take a look at this article, for example.

But just because I don't see it doesn't make it not there. If objective reality were controlled by my mind (as in The Matrix), then people coked up enough to think they can fly wouldn't die from falls off high buildings.

Therefore, just because someone doesn't believe there is a God has nothing to do with whether or not God exists, so one can have a wrong opinion about this matter.
If there IS a God (or more broadly, a supernatural reality), the wrong opinion on this matter has eternal consequences. If there IS NO God and one holds that opinion, there are no eternal consequences, but your opinion on the matter is meaningless. It is the result, ultimately of the random motions of atoms, and has therefore, precisely the same validity as does rolling a die to decide one's opinion.

The Right Question

You are asking the right question, the question most men don't even think about and don't have the courage to face. If there is no eternity, then what we do here DOES NOT MATTER.

Be a rapist, a child-pornographer, a terrorist, a Mother Teresa, a Buddha, or a Christ. If there is no eternity then it does not matter.

Be a great architect or surgeon a Billy Graham or a Genghis Khan. If there is no eternity it does not matter. We are all just the ants on the proverbial log, building shit-castles as the toilet flushes.

But if there is an eternity then what you do here and now "echoes through eternity."

He is no fool, who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. -Jim Elliot