September 1, 2009
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Spacebunny 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 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 picked 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 (link). Picking up where VD and p-dawg left off, Spacebunny (SB) decides that I have no clue what I'm talking about when it comes to natural morality.
Spacebunny responded:
WAR_ON_ERROR: 8/26/09 4:25 AM:
Just about everyone has personal moral experience to pull from and in the broadest strokes we have a reasonable place to start.
Yes, and in the western world you are pulling it from the Judeo Christian culture in which you were raised. To pretend that this is natural morality in the sense that Harris et al use is nonsensical at best.
I responded:
Spacebunny: 8/26/09 4:33 AM:
Yes, and in the western world you are pulling it from the Judeo Christian culture in which you were raised. To pretend that this is natural morality in the sense that Harris et al use is nonsensical at best.
To pretend like there is no common moral ground with other cultures is nonsensical at best.
Ben
Spacebunny responded:
WAR_ON_ERROR: 8/27/09 3:23 AM:
To pretend like there is no common moral ground with other cultures is nonsensical at best.
No, your claim of naturalistic morals is moronic at best. You're basically just pulling it out of your ass. There is absolutely no proof of any such thing. At least various cultures, be they Judeo Christian or other, have an objective morality, you have nothing and you are dependent upon theirs. Atheists are nothing but moral parasites.
WAR_ON_ERROR: 8/27/09 3:44 AM:
Well, science is going to tell you all about how the human brain actually works.
Really?! When? Naked assertion number..... how many of these have you made in this thread now?
WAR_ON_ERROR: 8/27/09 3:44 AM:
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.You have no idea what "serious modern scientific effort " (whatever that undefinable entity is) is capable of. You are just one naked assertion after another.
WAR_ON_ERROR: 8/27/09 3:44 AM:
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.A moral calculating computer? Really? This is the best you can come up with? Then tell us, who gets to decide what is moral? As a moral relativist - you can be nothing else based on your comments here - you have no grounds to say that anything is moral or not moral, it all depends on your personal whim at any given time.
I responded:
Spacebunny: 8/27/09 7:14 AM:
No, your claim of naturalistic morals is moronic at best. You're basically just pulling it out of your ass. There is absolutely no proof of any such thing. At least various cultures, be they Judeo Christian or other, have an objective morality, you have nothing and you are dependent upon theirs. Atheists are nothing but moral parasites.
If you mean by parasite, that we parasite only off of the facts of the world that everyone can see for themselves, then sure. If you mean that every secular person in the world has to sneak into the public library to get their morals out of the Bible, then I believe you are mistaken. How can secularists be stealing morality from Christianity all the while disagreeing starkly with it at many points? If we disowned all the good things the Christian moral paradigm got right, *that* would be rather moronic, wouldn't it? "I have to murder people. Otherwise, I'm stealing morality from Christianity!" It's just a little silly.
WAR_ON_ERROR: 8/27/09 3:44 AM:
Well, science is going to tell you all about how the human brain actually works.
Spacebunny: 8/27/09 7:14 AM:
Really?! When? Naked assertion number..... how many of these have you made in this thread now?You do think morality has something to do with reality, right? If you disagree it seems like you've just pushed your entire moral paradigm (whatever it entails) into pure unsubstantiated assertion land, by definition.
Spacebunny: 8/27/09 7:14 AM:
You have no idea what "serious modern scientific effort " (whatever that undefinable entity is) is capable of.I think I have many facts on my side as I've been pointing to in my comments and mere extension from them (If you disown them, it will be easy for me to show how your own moral paradigm is crippled as a result). I could be wrong, but I'm probably not. All it takes is grounding moral facts (as I've shown in my comments here), and then noticing science is the best method we have for taking that understanding to the next level. This seems quite underwhelming a claim to me.
Spacebunny: 8/27/09 7:14 AM:
A moral calculating computer? Really? This is the best you can come up with? Then tell us, who gets to decide what is moral? As a moral relativist - you can be nothing else based on your comments here - you have no grounds to say that anything is moral or not moral, it all depends on your personal whim at any given time.Oh snap. What was I thinking? You know, on second thought, an artificial guidance counselor who happened to have absolutely every ethical theory on file, parsimoniously combined into one flawless meta-understanding, every tidbit of data collected on the science of human happiness, and a perfect memory of everything you've ever said to it...that would be a HORRIBLE idea. Let's run screaming away from science. I think it would be best to just pray to your bedroom wall instead. :p
Now, I understand from the get go, you grossly disagree with my worldview, and it appears you are getting a little annoyed with my preliminary comments without good cause. I hope you can take my sarcasm
in good stride as gentle chastisement. Please notice, I did previously link to a science journal article (link) backing up my general claims. I have more, if anyone cares to take me up on it, but I didn't want to bombard people when I could just explain myself. I do have the luxury of doing that right? Or did I need to write everyone an entire book in my introductory comment so that every possible cliche' objection would be preemptively answered? There are plenty of other folks here to respond to, and I'm generally pleased with VD's tone (which directly reflects his stated policies). I'm thinking I may just skip you and Zeno if we can't just causally chat. So I have no issue just ignoring subsequent overreactions of yours. If you don't care at all, that's great. I don't necessarily expect you to. I think we'll end up covering all the necessary issues, regardless. But won't you come along for the ride? * bats eyes *Ben
Outro:This concludes this series. Looks like the last round of my responses was completely ignored. It was a long comment thread. In his book "The Irrational Atheist," Vox Day seems to think that God is a glorified fallible video game designer and that the golden rule is insufficient to base a moral system on. However, if we are going with his theory, then this God's nature is just as arbitrary as ours.
Ben
Comments (1)
Right you are ben!
See this article on "The Golden Rule and Christian Apologetics"
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