[Vision2020] Creation vs. science (was NSA's accrediting agency)

[Chasuk]

On Dec 23, 2007 12:48 AM, Joe Campbell <joekc at adelphia.net> wrote:

> I agree with regard to some questions. Questions about morality and values,
> or even questions about the how and why of existence, I'm not so sure. You have
> to admit that science has not yet answered the question of why there is something
> rather than nothing. Maybe there is a hope for an answer  but that is something
> different. Until the answers are in it seems presumptuous to say that God is unnecessary.

I don't think some questions make sense to ask.  If I were to ask,
"Why are rocks?"  would it make sense?  If I were to ask how rocks
came to be, yes, but asking why they exist is entirely nonsensical.
Ultimately, some things just ARE.  For some people, God is the thing
that existed before all else.  I don't need that answer; it adds an
unnecessary layer.  If God can have existed forever, then so can the
Universe.

> Now you've gone too far. An example of a convenient rule is something like "Drive on
> the right side of the road." Here we are the truth-makers. We decide the rule and that
> makes it the case. But do you really want to say that we are the truth-makers for
> mathematical claims? If we had wanted to make it the case that 1 + 1 = 3 we need only
> have decided it to be so? In some respect, I'd like to live in that world, for all I would
> need is two dollars and from that I could make a million!

I think it likely that the rules of mathematics are hardwired in the
Universe.  We didn't invent them, we discovered them. We were very
clever for having done so, but we weren't discovering "truths" as much
as we were discovering facts about the Universe that are convenient
for us to know in building bridges and sending rockets to the moon.

> These are interesting theories but I note a lack of argument in their support. I
> don't think that the rule that you should not abuse children is a "construct" – that there
> might be a world in which humans reasonably chose otherwise. Nor do I think that rules
> of morality are essentially subjective. If I steal from you, how is the wrong subjective? It
> is bad for you but good (in a sense) for me. An appeal to the subject doesn't settle things.

I am glad that I live in a culture and in a milieu in which it is
difficult to construct a situation in which child abuse would be
acceptable.  However, I suspect that I am glad of this circumstance
because my genome has been programmed to make me happy to be this way.
 I am socially programmed to equate the word "abuse" with "bad."  I am
further provided with definitions of "abuse."  Note that there are
species which eat their offspring.  There are species which have sex
with their offspring.  In rabbits, we don't call these behaviors
"bad," even if the cannibalism might upset us.  No, I am not condoning
cannibalism or incest in humans, but I am suggesting that our
interpretation and response to (what we are conditioned to consider)
proscribed behaviors are situational.  For the record, I would prevent
female circumcision, if it were in my power (and maybe male
circumcision, I'm undecided), fully aware that  I would be violating
my own relativistic principles.

> Religion, I think, is now in a stage that is similar to the one that science was in around
> 1600. Math and logic we had figured out, for the most part, in Ancient times. Science
> came latter -- after math and logic hit their peak in the 1800's. Morality and religion are more complex and will take more time. Making judgments about religion based on what
> we know today is a bit like making judgments about science based on what we knew
> prior to the 1600's.

I agree with you 100%, but I am not as patient.  If I knew that I
would live several hundred years, then I would be willing to postpone
judgment.  As an intellectually curious human sympathetic to
scientific method, I choose to make judgments based on the best
evidence at the time.  Of course, I will modify those judgments as new
evidence become available.  I do see hope for religion, in its gradual
extinction  and amelioration into a secular, humanistic ethos, which I
see signs of happening now.


> I think that moral and religious truths are of value. The former tell us what we should do
> and the latter tell us how we should be. I don't think that science -- as glorious as it is –
> even attempts to say anything about any of these matters. That is not to say that science
> doesn't have a lot to offer to these disciplines -- just as it has a lot to offer to philosophy.
> But, IMHO, a mere pragmatic response to our moral and religious needs is left wanting.

I believe that religious truths have value, but they have long been
mined and incorporated into enlightened human thought.  They are now,
largely, part of accepted Western tradition, almost to the level of
common knowledge, except for in intractable fundamentalist backwaters
(read: vast swatches of "blue" states).  Most missionaries feed you
now before worrying whether you will convert.  Some might even hand
you condoms.  Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, they seem to get
it.  Southern Baptists and evangelicals don't.  Pardon me if I have
besmirched anyone's faith here.  I know that I am speaking in
generalities,  but what I write seems, to me, to be true often enough
that it s germane to this discussion.

> Pragmism alone would lead us to an increase of capital punishment. For we have too
> many folks in prison to be cost-effective and, in a pragmatic sense, many of them would
> be better off dead. It takes something else to regard even criminals as persons and to
> accept that they are worthy of a better lot and more consideration. Suppose an innocent
> loved one of yours was murdered for mere pragmatic convenience. I'm not sure that the
> quantitative justification would leave you feeling that it was all just fine and good.

This is true if I divide the population into "us" and "them."  I may
emotionally have this response, but intellectually I loathe it within
me.  I believe that most people are in prison unjustly, because our
society is arranged to punish the poor and uneducated.  I am poor, but
fortunately I have educated myself.  It isn't difficult to imagine
myself as one of "them," especially if the government continues in the
direction that I fear it is heading.  Still, your point is a good one.
 I am not advocating a purely Utilitarian philosophy, but I don't have
a firm answer to your objection.

It sounds cliche, but I am a citizen of the world, not of any specific
region.  I have no pride of place or county.  Nationalism and
patriotism to me are evil.  My only allegiance is to my family and
selected friends.  Thus it is never about "us" and "them" to me.  I
feel as much loss reading about the senseless death of someone in
Mumbai as I do for someone in New York.

Sorry for drifting off topic!

Chas