Is Christianity Good for the World? Hitchens debate...

[flipdeadshot22]

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I agree; the concept of absolute morality seems pretty convoluted/extraneous (as evidenced by NotReady's posts above)


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Fine. Who gets to tell us what constitutes average human nature? Ghandi or Hitler?

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Also, why do you use the term "average" and then go on to invoke two of the most polarized examples of morality possible, and ask me to base an -average- off of either one? You want an average?

(Hitler + Gandhi) / 2

[Taraz]

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Morality doesn't consist of a static list of rules


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Ok, I tried. See C.S. Lewis.

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http://apologetics.johndepoe.com/morality.html

Does this website portray a valid representation of Lewis's argument? I would prefer to not read an entire book of his in order to have meaningful debate on the issue.

Edit: Or perhaps this one is more accurate http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/formalmoral.html ??

[Archon_Wing]

I like C.S. Lewis very much; he has a great imagination. Narnia was cool.

[NotReady]

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Does this website portray a valid representation of Lewis's argument?


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I think both have some merit. I believe the part in the first link that follows

The Argument from Metaethics

isn't from Lewis, at least not the books of his I've read. The material is worth reading but not strictly Lewis' argument.

If you're going to go forward with this I should make something clear. Lewis presents a popularized form of the the moral "proof" of God's existence. My own position on all the proofs is that none prove God's existence with certainty - they all require premises that can't be established or are otherwise subject to weakness due to our own finite knowledge and ability. What Lewis does very well is show the simple form of the argument and underline the problem of non-theistic morality. If you want to show that there are flaws in the argument so that it doesn't achieve certainty, don't bother.

My approach is to contrast the problem of morality as dealt with by theism vs. how it's dealt with by atheism. I think it's obvious that if God doesn't exist what we call morality, whatever content we give it, is relative and thus can't be binding, can't have a true "ought", and is changeable from person to person, society to society, age to age.

If you recall what Wilson said in the Hitchens debate, his main concern was to get H. to justify morality, not to prove God's existence from the moral argument. That's what I thought was where Wilson pinned H. down and what H. evaded. That idea is present in Lewis - the idea that if there is no absolute standard for morality the whole concept of morality is bogus.

I once posted something about Michael Martin, who, if you don't know him, is a well-recognized atheist, a philosophy professor at Boston Univerity and the author of several books on atheism, one of which deals specifically with atheistic morality. I haven't read his books but have read excerpts. I also read a review of his book by another atheist. That reviewer was upset that Martin hadn't dealt with the justification problem. In response to the review he and Martin had an exchange, a kind of mini-debate. After much hemming and hawing Martin finally admitted that he could not justify altruism, the idea that someone should act completely against his own self-interest. Without going into a lot of detail about the definiton of altruism and discussing movtives, etc., I think this is the fundamental problem for atheistic morality - why shouldn't I do whatever I please to do?

One other point I should mention. I think Lewis held too strongly to what he called the Tao, the universal moral law as it's called in your link, and emphasized too much that everyone agrees there is such a law. I don't think this is the case and one of the problems, especially in the modern relativistic world, is the denial of universal morality. I think the best approach is to show the logical consequences of that denial and the logical consequences of relativism rather than insisting that morality proves God. Lewis does that but not as a main emphasis.

Well, I'm starting to ramble but I need to point out something else. The syllogism at the top of the link begins with a premise "There is a universal moral law". On further reflection I think that is the real problem on this forum. Lewis took it for granted that if you asked someone "Was Hitler wrong" they would say yes, and he could go from there. But Lewis had no experience with this forum so he may have been far too optimistic. Maybe, if you want to continue, we could deal with that. If you can't affirm that Hitler was wrong there's probably nothing left to discuss.

[PairTheBoard]

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Looking at the historical evidence for the Evolution of an Empathic Basis for morality it raises questions in my mind.

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We're not the only species that experiences empathy. It is something that will emerge in social groups such as we find in many mammals. Recent neuroscience results in other animals have been interesting in this area.
Nothing spooky going on, empathy is pretty straightforward and easy to grasp from an evolutionary perspective.

luckyme

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I don't disagree with that. But the way we have come to decide to apply that empathy to the development of morality is something else. The natural Empathy gives us an instict to treat people local to us well. Most local to an individual is himself. Then his family. Then his clan. Then his tribe or nation. Where did we get the idea that our most local morality "should" be applied equally to groups less local or outside our own? It certainly hasn't come easy for us to do so.

PairTheBoard

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Travel broadens our horizons.
Since Gutenberg there has been a escalating exchange of ideas and a mix or exposure of cultures. Books, periodicals, letters, travel, radio, TV, movies, immigration, this mixing Blurs the we-they boundary.
We've witnessed the same in political structure. Tribal, city-states, nations, unions of nations. We've arrived at "european - north american" groupings, from Athenians and Romans. Empathy follows.

luckyme

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Except our actual empathy doesn't strictly follow does it? We remain most empathetic to ourself. Selfishness. We remain most empathetic to our families. I will hunt you down if you harm my child. Yet we've come to accept a code of morality that involves what is to us only a theoretical universal empathy. For those of us who have accepted that, why have we accepted that? Also, this universal application was proposed long before there was such a broad exposure to other cultures. Buddha proposed it with his "compasion". Jesus proposed it with his "Love". I suspect Mohamed proposed some version of it and I think Judaism also has some version of it. Isn't the reason many people accept it today because Religion has made it part of our cultural ethos?

The fact is that Religions have impacted our cultural ethos. You can theorize what our modern ethos would be had Religions never existed. But you really don't know.

PairTheBoard

[Sephus]

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I think this is the fundamental problem for atheistic morality - why shouldn't I do whatever I please to do?

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you should do whatever brings you pleasure. that's redundant.

if you're asking "why shouldn't i be a dick to everyone?" the only reasonable answer is "because it will not lead to your own pleasure."

[Sephus]

forgive me if i'm wrong, but i'm anticipating a

"what if raping and torturing bring me pleasure?"

response.

the answer should be obvious. you should rape and torture. i'm still going to try to prevent you from doing it. i'm still going to try to convince you that it will not bring you pleasure. i'm still going to tell you that "it's wrong," because i want to convince you that if you do it, you will experience all sorts of negative consequences including guilt/shame, punishment, exile, etc.

people seem to think that once you can no longer say "you shouldn't do that because it's wrong" the entire concept of morality becomes irrelevant.

an atheist associates positive feelings with actions he deems "moral," and negative feelings with actions he deems "immoral." these feelings don't just disappear the moment he becomes aware of them.

[Archon_Wing]

There's also the fact that there's no real universal "athiest" morality, not to mention the bunch of religious people who do not believe in a Judeo/Christian God. Can't just lump all the heathens together.

[luckyme]

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Isn't the reason many people accept it today because Religion has made it part of our cultural ethos?

The fact is that Religions have impacted our cultural ethos. You can theorize what our modern ethos would be had Religions never existed. But you really don't know.

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I don't think you can pull out the 'it never happened that way' as defense of everything, perhaps just bent stuff.
"You could have worn the blue shirt and still won."
"You can theorize that, but you don't really know, and I WAS wearing the red shirt."
Iow, your last sentence above needs to apply to your first sentence if you want to try and end probing discussions with the one-event red shirt claim.

The fact that other species and non-theistic societies exhibit empathy, and neuroscience shows we experience the 'that could be happening to me' in the same brain area as 'it is happening to me' should deter one from looking to theism for an explanation when it's obviously not needed.

Theism follows the secular crowd. It promotes the status quo or prior quo until the sell gets too difficult then it moves into it, usually with a 'reinterpretation' of the WORD that the generation before was THE word.

That's easy to see in recent social changes such as homosexuality and women's rights, etc. Social animals don't need any theism to have a broad sense of empathy, the good samaritan module seems innate and a sufficient base.

luckyme

[Ben K]

Can I chip in a bit with the neuroscience? I read that a recent study showed the same area of the brain reacting when performing altruistic actions as when dealing with speech. Is appears altrusitic acts have been evolved in us for a very long time, much longer than we've been concious (and religious I guess) - this did surprise the researchers. I'll provide the link if I can remember where I saw it.

I think we only accept a theoretical universal empathy because we simply don't have the capacity to care about billions of other humans.