Here's a little number for those tired of "torture" posts...
In Finland a young man went on a school shooting rampage. He said,
"I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection."
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22722786-5001021,00.html
Now, it is well known that hordes of internet atheologians spend their time searching for heinous crimes committed by those aligning themselves with a god-belief or a religion. They use these events to point out the problematic beliefs associated with being a "theist."
It is well known that many atheists - Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Russell, etc., - use the evil actions of people who have claimed to be adherents of, or believers in, religion or "god" as some kind of argument against the truth of said belief(s).
It is clearly obvious that these people take these arguments to cast some kind of negative light on "god-belief." That these actions committed by "believers in god" or "members of religion" count against belief in "god" (or, God) in some way is the obvious intent of those who proffer these kinds of arguments.
Okay, putting aside any defensive counter-attack to these critiques, I want to know where are these atheists now? Where are these bastions of "free thought;" of "non-biased" thinking; of "followers-of-the-evidence-wherever-it-leads?" Does not it follow, by the strictest logic, that these people must take what happened in Finland to "count against" Darwinian or Evolutionary beliefs, in some way?
Their silence is deafening...
It's as deafening as shooting my 45w/o earplugs Paul!
ReplyDeleteLamont
Renton Wa!
Hi
ReplyDeleteHere in Finland (quite a secular country) it is interesting to follow the media coverage of the school shootings. The only thing that is mentioned is that the shooter had radical political/ideological views. But nothing specific is ever mentioned...
No wonder, since our media is highly secular and probably subscribes to the same philosophy themselves. They just don't want to face the consequences of the darwinian worldview.
Paul Manata = Head in Sand
ReplyDeleteEverything is meaningless.
ReplyDeleteWe're just acting out our pre-ordained parts in this cosmic plan anyway.
Paul's bleatings are just as programmed as the young Finnish killer.
Just as these words that I type are.
So fascinating.
"I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection."
ReplyDeleteThat actually is more logical than a Hitchen's view, if we evoled from murderous apes, and even lower species.
I saw a nature special that captured on tape 10's and perhps even 20 Chimpanzees herding smaller monkees through the jungle, only to ambush them, and then rip them,--literally-- limb from limb, and then eat them.
Since these are our closest cousins, I suppose we should expect killing others as normal.
But if we were created as man, and in the image of God .... ?
Big difference, huge difference.
"You're not a Calvinist then, are you?"
ReplyDeleteI'm not that bright, I can tell you that much.
I use the label Calvinist to help others who are Christians to understand my leanings toward the Holy Writ.
I don't particularly like the title, but I don't avoid it.
I like to say I I believe man is dead in his sins, and has no hope, and is guilty before a holy God who must judge all sin.
And one must repent and believe the Gospel, and cry out to God for mercy for his soul, and for forgiveness for his sin.
And God decides whom He will show mercy to.
Does that help? Thanks for stopping by, BTW.
Ego: Not sure how your last remark follows from what Don posted.
ReplyDeleteHere's a pertinent selection from a Reformed confession:
After God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image, having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfil it: and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change. Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God,and had dominion over the creatures.
EgoMak has a bit of a one-track mind. Calvinism = of the devil for him.
ReplyDeleteMy point was, that, since we evolved from apes, and are basically apes that can think, type, and even "blog", and nothing more then intelligent apes, then what difference does it make if we kill one another. Why be expected to love one another, or even respect one another?
ReplyDeleteHowever, since we ARE created in the image of God, then killing another human is killing someone God created in His image. Not to mention God said murder is "verboten".
What would Chris Hitchens, or any one of those who say religion is THE major cause for killings and violence say? I would imagine he would have a lengthy and "typically "sensible solution.
I've deleted all of Ego's posts.
ReplyDeleteHe has never interacted with me once, so he shows no interest in having dialogue.
As such he's just trying to spam the combox.
He's also turning every post into a reason to debate the Calvinist, but then he never engages with me.
All future posts from him will be deleted.
Ego,
ReplyDeleteHopefully you can show you have integrity. You are now on a limited ban. That means you are not allowed to post comments outside the parameter of the point of the blog post. This goes for all my posts as I don't want to speak for the others. Violating this request will say much about your character. We clear?
But, you don't get off sacott free. You wrote:
"Ego is doing this. Ego is doing that. But Ego has no free will according to Manata. So essentially whatever Ego is doing he was predestined to do, predestined by God to do. So it would be if Calvinism were true. (wow, that rhymes)"
1) Even if your starw man were true, you still "do things." A ball could be said to be "doing something" (e.g., bouncing) even though it is bouncing according to laws of nature which determine that bouncing.
2) Since when does God predestining you to do something mean that you don't do it? That God predestines a person S to do an action A does not imply that S doesn't A. Indeed, to say that God predestined Ego to A seems to imply that it was Ego that A-ed.
3) You are free, just not the sinful, autonomous, unbiblical definition of freedom that *you* want. But, you are free to do what you want to do, with the reasons-responsiveness caveat. So, you had reasons and wanted to post what you posted.
4) You just implied that those who killed Jesus were not responsible or free:
Acts 2:22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— 23 Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;
Now, hopefully you'll honor your limited ban. If not, I'll lobby for a full ban. This could include a systematic deleting of all your old posts, which would mean that no one will ever get to read what you said, and you'll have wasted all that time.
Now, if you post relevant comments in the relevant posts, then I'm fine. In fact, I'd rather you stay here and continue toi make Calvinism look theologically and intellectually superior. So, swallo your pride and just post where you've been directed to. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Don't show that you're made of poor character.
I have tried to interact with Egomakarios over on his blog. What I've gotten so far are childish comments, unnecessary inflammatory remarks, misrepresentation of what Calvinists believe (even after correction, repeatedly), and he doesn't post comments that he doesn't want to interact with. That should tell you something, eh?
ReplyDeleteTirian,
ReplyDeleteThat's because he's not confident in his beliefs. He posts the way he does to convince himself, not those he disagrees with.
Paul Manata is not confident in what he believes. He posts the way he does to convince himself, not those he disagrees with.
ReplyDeleteAgelith is not confident in what he believes. He posts the way he does to convince himself, not those he disagrees with.
ReplyDeleteThe theory of evolution is not a normative principle -- it is descriptive, not prescriptive. It does not tell us what we should do, or what ought to be the case; only what is the case.
ReplyDeletePeople who think one can derive normative principles from the theory of evolution (like Social 'Darwinists', and people who think Hitler and this idiot in Finland somehow "count against" the TOE) are simply mistaken.
People who 'help along' evolution through genocide and forced sterilization are like people who 'help along' gravity by throwing people out of windows.
"The theory of evolution is not a normative principle -- it is descriptive, not prescriptive."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure where you presented an argument that excludes learning or correctly inferring any moral principles from the evolutionary outlook. Your analogies are interesting rhetorical devices, but I'm not sure that's a reason to believe your assertions.
If we're just a simple stage above monkeys, I'm not sure why it's so bad to look at their behavior for clues as to how we might survive as a race (or individuals). Indeed, isn't the ultimate goal survival?
"I'm not sure where you presented an argument that excludes learning or correctly inferring any moral principles from the evolutionary outlook. Your analogies are interesting rhetorical devices, but I'm not sure that's a reason to believe your assertions."
ReplyDeleteIf one charitably boiled down the theory of evolution into a set of propositions, nowhere in those propositions would one find the predicate "is what one morally should do", or the predicate "is what morally ought to be the case". Because of this, if one took the above set of propositions as premises, one could not _validly_ derive a conclusion from those premises that contained those predicates.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Darwinian evolution has implications that cannot be denied."
ReplyDeleteI am unsure of the meaning of your statement. What precisely do you mean by "implications"? Do you mean something like, "Y is an implication of X when Y can be validly inferred from the truth of X"?
"Does not it follow, by the strictest logic, that these people must take what happened in Finland to "count against" Darwinian or Evolutionary beliefs, in some way?"
ReplyDeleteNo. Biological theories are merely descriptive, and evolutionary theory is a description of how life might have evolved. It doesn't tell people how things ought to be, or how they should behave, and doesn't seek to (which is not the same thing as the behaviour of individuals that might agree or disagree with the theory). This in marked contrast to religion, which seeks to do all three things at once.
"If one charitably boiled down the theory of evolution into a set of propositions, nowhere in those propositions would one find the predicate 'is what one morally should do', or the predicate 'is what morally ought to be the case'."
ReplyDeleteWell, I did appeal to inference and gave an example of how moral principles might be obtained from evolutionary theory. I don't see where you interacted with that example. If your most recent response was an interaction, it wasn't clear; all you wrote was that, simply put, there's nothing in evolution that can provide morals. But that seems to be rather question-begging in light of the example I provided.
Merkur writes:
"No. Biological theories are merely descriptive, and evolutionary theory is a description of how life might have evolved. It doesn't tell people how things ought to be, or how they should behave, and doesn't seek to (which is not the same thing as the behaviour of individuals that might agree or disagree with the theory). This in marked contrast to religion, which seeks to do all three things at once."
Well, the issue seems to be the effects the evolutionary outlook has on people, which are undeniable. It does affect people's morality, and we need to ask why this is the case, and whether this says anything relevant about evolution. Simply denying that it has any connection to prescriptive morality is difficult, at best. As we see here, scientific descriptions can still indirectly produce moral results. Indeed, how do you explain this young man and his actions as cited in this blog entry?
As for religion, it seems rather fallacious for people to reject all of religion because some parts are possibly bad. For example, Christianity can hardly be held culpable for events like the Crusades, since that series of events was a terrible distortion of the Scriptures and hardly a natural outgrowth of the moralistic principles contained in its pages.
Anonymous sez,
ReplyDelete"The theory of evolution is not a normative principle -- it is descriptive, not prescriptive. It does not tell us what we should do, or what ought to be the case; only what is the case. "
And Christianity doesn't teach that people - even Christians - will never do sinful things.
So, your point doesn't save the position I argued against.
And, it seems to me that you can't make sense of norms, at all. One could say that, given Darwinism, "evil" is a myth. Thus one could argue that what Darwinism *does teach* leads to the conclusion that what this guy did wasn't immoral. So, Darwinism might not teach prescrtive doctrine, but the problem is that it allows for what he did.
Merker answered my statement this way:
ReplyDeleteNo. Biological theories are merely descriptive, and evolutionary theory is a description of how life might have evolved."
You don't seem to know what's going on. At best, if you get off, so do we. I'm pointing out an inconsistency, get it?
If this argument is *valid*
"Is S believes P, and S is a meany, P is probably false"
then it doesn't matter what I plug into the variables.
Try to keep up.
It's funny that these guys so authoritatively say that Darwinism is simply a descrptive theory and doesn't offer or have implications for normative oens.
ReplyDeleteThey need to make sure their boys are all on the same page:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-5121367-4976649?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Evolutionary+Ethics
http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evol-eth.htm
http://www.evolutionaryethics.com/
Clean your own backyard.
oops
ReplyDeleteMatthew,
ReplyDelete"Well, I did appeal to inference and gave an example of how moral principles might be obtained from evolutionary theory. I don't see where you interacted with that example. If your most recent response was an interaction, it wasn't clear; all you wrote was that, simply put, there's nothing in evolution that can provide morals. But that seems to be rather question-begging in light of the example I provided."
The example you provided? I see no example where you validly derived a normative principle from any accurate, charitable statement of the theory of evolution. If you believe that you _have_ provided such an inference, then I would invite you to: i) explicitly restate it as a formal deductive argument, ii) show that the premises are indeed statements of the theory of evolution; and iii) show that some normative conclusion is validly deducible from those premises.
You wrote this to merkur, but I will respond to it:
"Well, the issue seems to be the effects the evolutionary outlook has on people, which are undeniable. It does affect people's morality, and we need to ask why this is the case, and whether this says anything relevant about evolution. Simply denying that it has any connection to prescriptive morality is difficult, at best. As we see here, scientific descriptions can still indirectly produce moral results. Indeed, how do you explain this young man and his actions as cited in this blog entry?"
Undoubtably the TOE has indeed had effects on people (all sorts of effects). Any impactful idea will have similar effects. The question of import is whether the TOE can be considered responsible (so to speak) for all the silly misunderstandings, and gross perversions of it that people have come up with over the years, including social 'Darwinism'.
If someone heard about Christianity, and came (via unreliable sources, misunderstanding, and misinformation) to believe that the core of Christianity taught that one had to kill your own son and drink his blood in order to become immortal, I for one would not consider Christianity 'responsible' (again, so to speak) for the resulting atrocities. Hopefully you would be similarly charitable with respect to the TOE.
"As for religion, it seems rather fallacious for people to reject all of religion because some parts are possibly bad. For example, Christianity can hardly be held culpable for events like the Crusades, since that series of events was a terrible distortion of the Scriptures and hardly a natural outgrowth of the moralistic principles contained in its pages."
Indeed. While I would note that Christianity does include normative principles and statements, some of which can be twisted or misrepresented to support barbarous acts, I would tend to hold the ones doing the twisting responsible rather than lay those deeds at the door of Christianity itself. Only where no such 'twisting' is needed can I consider Christianity fairly responsible (so to speak), and there really aren't many clear cut cases of that.
Paul Manata said:
"And Christianity doesn't teach that people - even Christians - will never do sinful things.
So, your point doesn't save the position I argued against."
Does my above response to Matthew answer this to your satisfaction?
You go on:
"And, it seems to me that you can't make sense of norms, at all."
That's an entirely different argument, so I'll just say that what seems to you to be the case does not seem to me to be the case.
And on...
"One could say that, given Darwinism, "evil" is a myth."
One _could_ say lots of things. But mere assertion does not guarantee truth. In all my studies of evolution I have never come across any component of the theory that necessarily requires that "evil" be a myth. The TOE is compatible with a wide range of metaethical and ethical positions. Indeed, it is even compatible with divine command theories, so long as one is some manner of theistic evolutionist.
...and on:
"it's funny that these guys so authoritatively say that Darwinism is simply a descrptive theory and doesn't offer or have implications for normative oens.
They need to make sure their boys are all on the same page: [snipped links to evolutionary ethics sites]"
Insofar as 'evolutionary ethics' is a metaethical stance, that for instance provides a hypothesis of how the human species acquired moral sentiments, then there is no contradiction with what I have said. Metaethical statements are merely descriptive too, and one cannot validly derive prescriptions from them any more than you can from any other descriptive statement.
But insofar as 'evolutionary ethics' purports to justify prescriptive, normative principles, then I am...shall we say...intensely skeptical.
To facilitate responses to my above lengthy screed, I am no longer "anonymous"...
ReplyDeleteJD sez,
ReplyDelete"Does my above response to Matthew answer this to your satisfaction?"
Yes. This was the purpose of the post. The context of the dialogue. Thus your claims were, now admittedly, off topic.
"That's an entirely different argument, so I'll just say that what seems to you to be the case does not seem to me to be the case. "
Simply responding to your initial entirely different response to my argument.
"One _could_ say lots of things. But mere assertion does not guarantee truth. In all my studies of evolution I have never come across any component of the theory that necessarily requires that "evil" be a myth. The TOE is compatible with a wide range of metaethical and ethical positions. Indeed, it is even compatible with divine command theories, so long as one is some manner of theistic evolutionist."
Common sense and context should have indicated that naturalistic evolution was under discussion here.
And, you can sophistically defend your position by building in claims like "necessarily." And, given that "evil" could be defined in some minimalist, naturalistic way, I'm sure you're right. Anyway, given something like Mackie's position, naturalistic evolution does indeed seem to undercut what most people mean by "evil." Being the queer entity that it is, 'n all.
"Insofar as 'evolutionary ethics' is a metaethical stance, that for instance provides a hypothesis of how the human species acquired moral sentiments, then there is no contradiction with what I have said. Metaethical statements are merely descriptive too, and one cannot validly derive prescriptions from them any more than you can from any other descriptive statement.
But insofar as 'evolutionary ethics' purports to justify prescriptive, normative principles, then I am...shall we say...intensely skeptical.'
Your being skeptical doesn't change the fact that some evolutionary ethics tries to do what you say can't be done. Similar to what you said above, _announcing_ that you're skeptical means diddly squat.
Anyway, I think we can agree that your comments were off topic and the intent of my post stands. So there was nothing to "respond" to. My post never said anything about whether TOE could/should/does try to talk/offer about prescriptions about behavior.
The point was rather simple:
Many atheist argue thus:
If S believes P and S does a mean X, then S's X-ing counts against the truth of P.
I simply filled in the variables with some other S's, another P, and a similar X, and asked for consistency.
You didn't need to come here and try to convince me that TOE is morally bankrupt. I already knew it offered no system of morality. And, to the extent that one is a naturalistic evolutionist, I wasn't under the impression that they'd try to defend the existence of "queer entities." Even Makcie doesn't say that they can't *necessarily* exist. He says that *if they did,* they would be queer indeed.
So, I think we're alright here. No Christians here were under the impression that naturalistic evolution could account for ethics. Of course one might try to put forth a naturalistic theory of ethics, e.g., Contractarianism, etc., but I think they fail...for the obvious reasons.
Paul,
ReplyDelete"Yes. This was the purpose of the post. The context of the dialogue. Thus your claims were, now admittedly, off topic.,"
Off topic? I was responding to the flurry of comments after your OP talking about "the consequences of the darwinian worldview"; rather than to the thrust of your OP (which to a certain extent I agree with). Is it not permitted to respond to comments here at Triablogue?
"And, you can sophistically defend your position by building in claims like "necessarily." And, given that "evil" could be defined in some minimalist, naturalistic way, I'm sure you're right. Anyway, given something like Mackie's position, naturalistic evolution does indeed seem to undercut what most people mean by "evil." Being the queer entity that it is, 'n all."
I used the word "necessarily" in the sense of logical necessity. In other words, I was saying that there is no logical inconsistency between the TOE and a wide variety of metaethical and ethical theories (including but certainly not limited to Mackie's views).
"Your being skeptical doesn't change the fact that some evolutionary ethics tries to do what you say can't be done. Similar to what you said above, _announcing_ that you're skeptical means diddly squat."
Social 'Darwinists' also try to do what I say cannot be done (i.e. derive normative principles from a scientific theory). The Evolutionary Ethicists (to the extent that they purport to derive norms from the TOE) are just as wrong as the social 'Darwinists'. You appeared to think that mentioning the Evolutionary Ethicists was a meaningful rejoinder to my (and Merkur's) claim that one could not validly derive norms from the TOE. Yet in that sense it is no more of a rebuttal to what we said than pointing out that social 'Darwinists' also do what we said cannot be done.
"Anyway, I think we can agree that your comments were off topic and the intent of my post stands. So there was nothing to "respond" to."
Yes, I was not responding to the central point of your OP, but rather to the comments. If this violates a policy or preference of yours then please tell me.
"You didn't need to come here and try to convince me that TOE is morally bankrupt."
Aheh....The TOE is exactly as "morally bankrupt" (by the way, my compliments on a delightfully Sophistic turn of phrase) as the Germ Theory of Disease and the General Theory of Relativity.
By the way, Paul, if you want a response that is more directly 'on topic' (i.e. is a response to your OP), I will give you one:
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that when I hear stories about, for example, some religious lunatic who murders his children because he thinks God told him to do so in a dream, my first, knee-jerk reaction is to say something like, "if only he weren't religious, then he wouldn't have done that! His religiosity was the cause of this tragedy."
But knee-jerk reactions are often wrong and unfair, and eventually I will remember that often such things happen not because the perpetrator was a _religious_ lunatic, but rather because he was a religious _lunatic_. And while he might not have committed the murder if he were not religious, it seems even more likely that he still would have committed murder, but at the urgings of the dog in his dream rather than the god in his dream.
So to the extent that your OP excoriates Dawkins, Hitchens et al for blaming all of the misdeeds of religious people on the religions themselves (e.g. the Crusades), I agree with you. Most such misdeeds are not properly laid at the door of the religions in question.
I would note, however, that Dawkins, Hitchens et al are not saying that the crimes of religious adherents are some kind of argument against the truth of those religions. They have other arguments against the truth of religions.
Instead, they are attempting to support their claim that religion (whether true or not) is dangerous and destructive to society (e.g. that it "poisons everything"). In that sense they are putting forwards a kind of pragmatic argument for rejecting religion.
JD,
ReplyDelete"Off topic? I was responding to the flurry of comments after your OP talking about "the consequences of the darwinian worldview"; rather than to the thrust of your OP (which to a certain extent I agree with). Is it not permitted to respond to comments here at Triablogue?"
I'd hardly call one comment a "flury." :-)
And, I think most honest people admit that there are "consequences" that follow from almost everything. The commenter you're referring to didn't talk about prescriptions or anything.
"I used the word "necessarily" in the sense of logical necessity. In other words, I was saying that there is no logical inconsistency between the TOE and a wide variety of metaethical and ethical theories (including but certainly not limited to Mackie's views)."
Yeah, I know. And it's hard to show that something is logically impossible.
Anyway, your point doesn't do much good if all those theories are bankrupt. Being compatible with a weak ethical theory doesn't say much. certainly if something like a theistic ethical theory is the correct one, then naturalistic TOE (which is broader than TOE, and was what most people were referring to here) is logically incompatible with it. Certainly if the only ethical theories that TOE is compatible with, are ones that are arbitrary, suffer crippling defects, or turn ethics itself into a descriptive project, then so much the worse for TOE. That is, if you line ethics up higher on your scale of what a valid worldview should have included.
"Yes, I was not responding to the central point of your OP, but rather to the comments. If this violates a policy or preference of yours then please tell me."
No, you're good. But since you never made what you were doing clear, I just wanted to point out that you weren't refuting my post. You can see how if I never responded, or just kept following the rabbit trail, some could get that impression, right?
"Aheh....The TOE is exactly as "morally bankrupt" (by the way, my compliments on a delightfully Sophistic turn of phrase) as the Germ Theory of Disease and the General Theory of Relativity."
Thank you. :-)
You should agree that it's not that simple.
Some take it that the TOE implies that there is no God. That everything that exists (even religious beliefs) can be accounted for by TOE. It is implied by the countless, "What, you believe in God? Hasn't science proven that we have no need of him? So, even if he did exist, he's irrelevant."
So, in the broader apologetic dialogue, I think we both know very well how, for many, the TOE has "consequences" that the, say, theory of relativity doesn't have.
I think a study of history will show that atheism and myriad ethical theories come on the scene much stronger after Darwin (not to so this was *missing* before).
I think we should agree that ideas do have consequences.
"I would note, however, that Dawkins, Hitchens et al are not saying that the crimes of religious adherents are some kind of argument against the truth of those religions. They have other arguments against the truth of religions."
I think it's obvious that they are intimating it. See below...
"Instead, they are attempting to support their claim that religion (whether true or not) is dangerous and destructive to society (e.g. that it "poisons everything"). In that sense they are putting forwards a kind of pragmatic argument for rejecting religion."
And I've seen in many places, "Surely if there were a God, he wouldn't have revealed the type of stuff that leads people to do such and such." Or, "this just shows that religion is a man-made entity. Blood thirsty men who wanted an *excuse* to do violent deeds made it up."
So, yes, I definately get the impression that they intend these arguments to, *in some way,* count against the truth of religion. They are using them to get us to *not believe* in the proposition: "God exists and has revealed himself here."
Paul,
ReplyDelete"I'd hardly call one comment a "flury." :-)"
Actually I just quoted the first such comment. But perhaps "sprinkling" would be a better word than "flurry". :-)
"And, I think most honest people admit that there are "consequences" that follow from almost everything. The commenter you're referring to didn't talk about prescriptions or anything."
Perhaps not, though given the tone and tenor of his and other comments afterwards (see e.g. donsands' comments) I suspect that he was saying that the actions of the Finland lunatic are properly laid at the door of the TOE. It is that notion to which I was responding.
"Anyway, your point doesn't do much good if all those theories are bankrupt. Being compatible with a weak ethical theory doesn't say much. certainly if something like a theistic ethical theory is the correct one, then naturalistic TOE (which is broader than TOE, and was what most people were referring to here) is logically incompatible with it. Certainly if the only ethical theories that TOE is compatible with, are ones that are arbitrary, suffer crippling defects, or turn ethics itself into a descriptive project, then so much the worse for TOE. That is, if you line ethics up higher on your scale of what a valid worldview should have included."
Yes, if what you called "the naturalistic TOE" is only compatible with ethical theories that are incoherent or which fail to adequately describe or convincingly dissolve our intuitions about ethics (including prescriptivity) then that would be a problem for the "naturalistic TOE". The difficulty, however, is showing conclusively that some theistic ethical theory is _necessarily_ the correct one, and all others are "morally bankrupt"; and as you said, "it's hard to show that something is logically impossible".
I should also point out that the TOE is a scientific theory, and while it is methodologically naturalistic, it is not necessarily metaphysically naturalistic.
"No, you're good."
Excellent. Thank you.
"But since you never made what you were doing clear, I just wanted to point out that you weren't refuting my post. You can see how if I never responded, or just kept following the rabbit trail, some could get that impression, right?"
Ok, I can see that. I probably should have opened with something like, "Some people in the comments..."
"Some take it that the TOE implies that there is no God. That everything that exists (even religious beliefs) can be accounted for by TOE. It is implied by the countless, "What, you believe in God? Hasn't science proven that we have no need of him? So, even if he did exist, he's irrelevant."
So, in the broader apologetic dialogue, I think we both know very well how, for many, the TOE has "consequences" that the, say, theory of relativity doesn't have."
The TOE certainly does not entail that God does not exist. As for the 'God is now superfluous' argument, I am not at all convinced that i) the TOE proves the superfluosity of God, or ii) that if it did so then it would necessarily not be rational to believe in God.
"And I've seen in many places, "Surely if there were a God, he wouldn't have revealed the type of stuff that leads people to do such and such." Or, "this just shows that religion is a man-made entity. Blood thirsty men who wanted an *excuse* to do violent deeds made it up."
So, yes, I definately get the impression that they intend these arguments to, *in some way,* count against the truth of religion."
Hmm, I hadn't thought of it that way. You may be right about Hitchen et al.