September 1, 2009

  • p-dawg on "Sam Harris and Christian Arrogance"


    Intro:

    Fletch_F_Fletch (FFF) came up with a list of ten arguments from the New Atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Sam Harris (SH) that seemed the most worthy of further consideration amongst fellow Christian thinkers.  FFF said he was focusing on objection six at the time I got started, so I thought I would give my input on just that one to keep things simpler.  So far, four more Christians got involved in the conversation (in addition to Travis, who is FFF) and so I'll be going at it with all of them. 

    Basically, SH notes that Christians claim to know more than scientists do about the what the universe is for based on faith all the while criticizing the science establishment for being arrogant about its own claims.  The main exchange with Vox Day (VD) can be found elsewhere (link).  VD tried to divert attention to other verses advocating humility in order to cancel out the prerequisite epistemic overconfidence.  Zeno tried directly to deny that the Bible has anything to say about what the universe is for (link).  Since VD attempted to undermine SH's ability to "ground" the concept of arrogance (which of course means it is impossible for Christians to be arrogant...er sumfing), the issue of the objectivity of naturalistic morality versus theistic morality came up.  P-dawg picks at one small tangent point concerning whether it is fair to expect theologians to develop a research program to objectively understand God's moral essence.


    p-dawg responded:
    WAR_ON_ERROR: 8/26/09 4:25 AM:
    I doubt SH's theistic competitors will be doing something similar in order to get at a science of God's moral essence.

    I don't mean to bit nitpicky here, but why would they? If you believe that the Creator of the universe wrote some laws, and told you to follow them, why would you need to understand the science underpinning them? (and that's assuming there *is* any)

    If you want me to follow your system of morality, you need to make a compelling case as to why I should. For any "natural morality", that means explaining the scientific underpinning. But if you're "Dad", so to speak, you can say "Because I said so," and that's the end of it. It might be *nice* to know why, but it isn't *necessary*.

    I responded:
    p-dawg: 8/26/09 4:39 AM:

    I don't mean to bit nitpicky here, but why would they? If you believe that the Creator of the universe wrote some laws, and told you to follow them, why would you need to understand the science underpinning them? (and that's assuming there *is* any)

    I wouldn't actually think there would be any. Theistic morality is irreducible invisible magic by definition that exists as is for absolutely no reason whatsoever and there's nothing to investigate even in principle. That's beside the point. The ironic contrast is about how ridiculous it is to trust the random moral brain farts of ancient folk who only claim their divine laws are divine rather than what a serious modern scientific effort could tell us about human nature and how it best plays out in moral terms.

    p-dawg: 8/26/09 4:39 AM:

    If you want me to follow your system of morality, you need to make a compelling case as to why I should. For any "natural morality", that means explaining the scientific underpinning.

    Well, science is going to tell you all about how the human brain actually works. If you are at all interested in long term stable well rounded happiness, there are objective strategies for going about that which can best be discerned with modern collaborative techniques. Granted, if you aren't interested in that dividend, by all means. Ignore it. Seems pretty foolish to me. There are many difficult complicated moral issues that one comes across and having good research (or even some moral calculating computer that can deal with more variables than our brains can) would be incredibly helpful. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would reject such information. It's like saying, "Nothing we've ever learned about mental health from the field of psychology in the past 100 years means anything to me, because I think morality is magic." You might as well be Tom Cruise.

    p-dawg: 8/26/09 4:39 AM:
    But if you're "Dad", so to speak, you can say "Because I said so," and that's the end of it. It might be *nice* to know why, but it isn't *necessary*.

    A: Establishing that you are *actually* dealing with a moral authoritative figure seems relevant. If you don't know God exists or the supposed infallible advise seems a bit fallible, that seems a little damning. B: It *is* necessary to understand how the moral cogs are supposed to work, because the static text of the Bible a: isn't always self explanatory and b: doesn't cover every dynamic moral issue we come across. And C: Christians can't pretend like they don't understand how a great deal of their moral knowledge works based on their own intimate experience with it. Smart Christians do not blindly apply random infallible moral statements. They have at least some idea of what they are doing and supplement those statements with acquired moral wisdom.

    Ben

    Outro:

    There may be more to come, so stay tuned!

    Ben

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