Atheism and Christianity: a Third Way?

[verum]

I haven't been around here long but I started a thread a little while ago( "The Bible Disproves God?") simply asking how a guy could become an atheist by reading the Bible ( something a new poster had claimed ).It soon grew into a longish discussion about various matters. It ended up somehow as a debate about "absolute" or ( since this term caused some confusion ) objective morality. I say that logically there appear to be only two positions: a) the traditional Christian one ie. that there is a moral imperative, an objective "out there" morality which is binding on everybody everywhere ( thus it would always be wrong to rape an infant), and b) moral relativity, ie. that there are no "given " norms, and morality is determined solely by biology and environment ( thus moral codes differ from society to society). The people I have been arguing with on here believe ( I think ) that a third way is possible ie. that one can accept moral relativity and still talk meaningfully about actions being "right" or "wrong". I say these terms are ultimately meaningless in this context.

I have been told by a well-known mountebank on here that there are other Christians on this forum( so far I have met none )but that they are ashamed to be seen in my company because of the pathetic nature of my arguments, which are out of date and long ago proven to be false. I have referred to Professor CSLewis and (I think once )to the philosopher Jaques Maritaine,but these are dismissed as virtual buffoons. If there are Christians on here ( one I believe is a Catholic Priest ) then, unless they are unusually liberal ones , they presumably believe in objective "out there " morality. I would like to invite them ( and of course anyone else ) to give their views on this matter.I realise that the great majority of people on this forum are atheists and sceptics and most I have met so far have little or no patience with religion, but if my views are so obviously false, may I not hear the proofs? Nothing I have heard so far has come close for something that is meant to be obvious.

Verum.

 

[andyandy]

Ok....I'll post again....

Absolutist morality fails with the sorites paradox - its requirement for black/white boundaries can not reconcile non-discrete progression.* This topic was discussed here - from which the below post is slightly modified....

We have the following 2 premises;

1) at age X, it is morally permissible to do Y. At age W it is not morally permissable.

2) in an arbitrarily short period of time, an individual is sufficiently similar to his/her previous self for any changes to his/her self to be negligible

however from these two premises, induction leads to a moral permissability to do Y at any age. Such a method does not account for cumulative change, and yet it appears logically pretty sound. The obvious premise to attack is (2) - and to argue that even in an arbitrarily short period of time an individual is sufficiently affected so as to alter the considerations as to the moral permissibility of Y. However as t (time) gets smaller, this argument gets increasingly strained. Is there truly a moral planck level divide? One could possibly attack (1) from some kind of libertarian perspective - insofar as it implies a permissive/non-permissive dichotomy dependant upon the state - but not from a moral absolutist perspective.

Suggestions as to how to resolve this require the adoption of a probabilistic framework, but how can the moral absolutist resolve such a paradox?


*For the pedants - yes time might be discrete but not on the levels in question - unless one accepts an absolute planck level divide....

 

[calebprime]

Before I post a longer reply,

andyandy, in the other thread, where you also posted your paradox, the post before that one was brilliant. I felt like applauding. But I can make nothing of this one. I'm not smart enough.

Morality can be secured in a web of multiple sources coming from the gut, tradition, law & philosophy. It need not, cannot be the same for everybody, except maybe on some extremely abstract level.

But, first, coffee etc.

 

[calebprime]

I have been told by a well-known mountebank on here that there are other Christians on this forum( so far I have met none )but that they are ashamed to be seen in my company because of the pathetic nature of my arguments, which are out of date and long ago proven to be false. I have referred to Professor CSLewis ...

Verum.

The Atheist has his own style, as does everyone else. Don't look for a grand scheme to this forum, or you will become paranoid. But it's true--Christians are in a minority, and CSLewis is considered a Christian apologist. He is disliked by the logicians, science types, former Christians, and commonsensical absurdist shabbily genteel Nietzschean elitist populists.

Kurious Kathy is the object of much sport, as was David Jay Jordan. MinisterofTruth has promise in this role. These are fundies or just nuts.

Mr. Clingford, on the other hand, is a very reasonable Christian. There are people here with great knowledge of the Christian Bible--actually lots of them.

I'm told Myriad is a Christian--he's also very smart and logical. Darth Rotor, I believe, as well.

Andyandy is never abusive, always substantial.

MRC Hans is an electrical engineer with a no-nonsense attitude--you read him the wrong way--he was being helpful.

There is some tendency to razz the new guy here.

 

[Germaine]

Andyandy-I am trying to follow your logic. Can you explain the following to me?

1. What does absolute morality have to do with age? (your first premise). Could you give an example that doesn't vary with the age of the person concerned?

2. I thought (I'm sure you will correct me if I am wrong) that the Sorites Paradox was to do with vague concepts e.g heap, tall etc. and that the paradox occurs if you attempt to insert imprecise terms into a (mathematical) logical formula. Are you saying that absolute morality is a vague concept? How can it be if it is absolute. We may argue about whether it exists and if it does, what it should contain, but the concept is not vague.

3. How can you consider time to be discrete;time is always measurable (to an appropriate degree of accuracy) and must therefore be defined as continuous.

 

[andyandy]

1. What does absolute morality have to do with age? (your first premise). Could you give an example that doesn't vary with the age of the person concerned?

Sure - at what age is it morally permissible for an adult (let's say aged 30) to have sex with someone younger than them (say, aged 0 - 21)? If you want to look at a specific individual, at what point could one say that sexual intercourse with that individual has become morally acceptable?

.

I thought (I'm sure you will correct me if I am wrong) that the Sorites Paradox was to do with vague concepts e.g heap, tall etc. and that the paradox occurs if you attempt to insert imprecise terms into a (mathematical) logical formula. Are you saying that absolute morality is a vague concept? How can it be if it is absolute. We may argue about whether it exists and if it does, what it should contain, but the concept is not vague.

true the sorites problem itself is dealing with discrete data modeled as if it were continuous - this particular problem approaches from the alternative perspective - continuous data that is being modeled as though it were discrete. The sorites problem is therefore indeed a little different...

To expand a little, the absolutist requires that over an arbitrarily short distance of time there is a clear divide between T (morally right) and F (morally wrong). For this to have any traction requires that time is modeled in discrete blocks - one block belonging to T, the next to F - with no space inbetween. Now this may be possible at the Planck level - but does the absolutist accept a Planck level moral divide?

How can you consider time to be discrete;time is always measurable (to an appropriate degree of accuracy) and must therefore be defined as continuous.

Time may be discrete - but on the human scales at which we're dealing we can accept its continuity - hence the dilemma for the absolutist.

 

[calebprime]

I think I get it. Thank you for explaining.

but, not to Godwin-ize the thread,

don't continous situations present problems for moral relativists as well?

I'm thinking of my feeling that killing a baby is wrong, but killing a miniscule speck of embryo is acceptable.

But I don't know if a line can be drawn, or where I would draw it.

I have similar doubts about all such problems.

(please, let's not talk about abortion or Hitler...we just got started.)

 

[andyandy]

don't continous situations present problems for moral relativists as well?

I'm thinking of my feeling that killing a baby is wrong, but killing a miniscule speck of embryo is acceptable.

But I don't know if a line can be drawn, or where I would draw it.

The difference is that the moral relativist can accept that the line which he choses to draw is arbitrary in nature - whereas the moral absolutist does not have that luxury

 

[Germaine]

Sure - at what age is it morally permissible for an adult (let's say aged 30) to have sex with someone younger than them (say, aged 0 - 21)? If you want to look at a specific individual, at what point could one say that sexual intercourse with that individual has become morally acceptable?

One solution of the Sorites paradox involves setting a fixed boundary and I suppose this is what the law does here i.e. it's not illegal for a 30 year old to have sex with a 16 year old but it IS illegal for a 30 year old to have sex with a 15 year old (15 years and 364 days....). Not altogether satisfactory but how else do you do it? As for morality, is there anyone who would deny that it's immoral for a 30 year old to have sex with a 3 year old? What about 4 or 5 or.....? There is something absolute here. Are we just arguing about where we draw the line?
.

true the sorites problem itself is dealing with discrete data modeled as if it were continuous - this particular problem approaches from the alternative perspective - continuous data that is being modeled as though it were discrete. The sorites problem is therefore indeed a little different...

To expand a little, the absolutist requires that over an arbitrarily short distance of time there is a clear divide between T (morally right) and F (morally wrong). For this to have any traction requires that time is modeled in discrete blocks - one block belonging to T, the next to F - with no space inbetween. Now this may be possible at the Planck level - but does the absolutist accept a Planck level moral divide?

Even if data is continuous you can draw a dividing line. Say you draw the line at 6.54 precisely. 6.53999 is less and 6.54001 is more, and you can take any number of decimal places you want to. Some would argue that 6.5399999.... (9 recurring) is the same as 6.54 but I would argue that that is only true if you round it (approximate it). So you CAN have a moral dividing line in theory. I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'at the Planck level'. Can you explain? I see no reason why relatively modern scientific concepts should not be used but you perhaps have a reason.

Time may be discrete - but on the human scales at which we're dealing we can accept its continuity - hence the dilemma for the absolutist.

I'm not sure about this either-are you talking quantum theory again here and why does it make any difference to the argument?

 

[krazyKemist]

I haven't been around here long but I started a thread a little while ago( "The Bible Disproves God?") simply asking how a guy could become an atheist by reading the Bible ( something a new poster had claimed ).It soon grew into a longish discussion about various matters. It ended up somehow as a debate about "absolute" or ( since this term caused some confusion ) objective morality. I say that logically there appear to be only two positions: a) the traditional Christian one ie. that there is a moral imperative, an objective "out there" morality which is binding on everybody everywhere ( thus it would always be wrong to rape an infant), and b) moral relativity, ie. that there are no "given " norms, and morality is determined solely by biology and environment ( thus moral codes differ from society to society). The people I have been arguing with on here believe ( I think ) that a third way is possible ie. that one can accept moral relativity and still talk meaningfully about actions being "right" or "wrong". I say these terms are ultimately meaningless in this context.

Verum.

Not quite. I think you misunderstand relativity. It means that while you are aware that what you see is different from what others see, you can still speak from your point of view (your own idea of what's right and wrong).

BTW, if biology is used to explain morals, then some things will remain right or wrong for all humans, since they share the same biology. Life in society puts additional constraints, and those can, and do change from society to society. For example, polygamy may be morally accepted in a society that is expanding through war and conquest since additional women can be captured, and bachelors can be sent to die at war. Conversly, pressure to reproduce can produce a high stress on a peaceful polygamic society, especially if it has no access to additional women.

The funniest thing is that in my opinion, even that relative/absolutist morals point do not prove or disprove the existence of god. Except for people who do not temperate their interpretation of the bible with the fact that it is admitedly a work that was pieced together, edited, and copied/translated many times by monks in shadowy monasteries. Reading the bible critically impresses you with that feeling.

the Kemist

 

[ChristineR]

I'm personally a moral absolutist and even I understand that a person can have meaningful relative morals.

For example, it may always be wrong to rape a baby, but the wrongness of having sex with a 15 year old may depend on context.

Or say you use an absolute position, such as the greatest good for the greatest number. (GGFTGN, as it's fondly known around here.) Let's assume you have some sort of reliable system for calculating goodness. So even if you come up with a situation where it is desirable to rape the baby (such as someone is holding a gun to the head of two babies and ordering you to do it) it's still not necessarily a relative moral position.

The Bible makes for an interesting case. Yahweh orders the Israelites to commit all sorts of crimes. Yet many Christians claim these were not crimes. Two reasons are usually given: either the social context was different and things like slavery cannot be judged by modern standards (relativism) or whatever Yahweh says is automatically moral, in which case you've gone way beyond relativism to an arbitrary personal judgment of the WWJD sort.

 

[verum]

Not quite. I think you misunderstand relativity. It means that while you are aware that what you see is different from what others see, you can still speak from your point of view (your own idea of what's right and wrong).

I have no problem with this statement.

BTW, if biology is used to explain morals, then some things will remain right or wrong for all humans, since they share the same biology. Life in society puts additional constraints, and those can, and do change from society to society. For example, polygamy may be morally accepted in a society that is expanding through war and conquest since additional women can be captured, and bachelors can be sent to die at war. Conversly, pressure to reproduce can produce a high stress on a peaceful polygamic society, especially if it has no access to additional women.

You are talking about customs; this is not what most people mean when they
refer to morals. They mean something binding...not just legally or by custom. This is what I have been trying to explain. Please don't tell me that a thing isn't necessarily true because most people believe it; I know that. My position on that is that if a philosophical view is not held by the great majority of people and the rest act as though it is not true, then it probably isn't.
As for "some things will be right or wrong etc"..No..they may be regarded as right and wrong, which is different.

The funniest thing is that in my opinion, even that relative/absolutist morals point do not prove or disprove the existence of god. Except for people who do not temperate their interpretation of the bible with the fact that it is admitedly a work that was pieced together, edited, and copied/translated many times by monks in shadowy monasteries. Reading the bible critically impresses you with that feeling.

"Shadowy monasteries"?????


Verum.

 

[calebprime]

I'm personally a moral absolutist and even I understand that a person can have meaningful relative morals.

For example, it may always be wrong to rape a baby, but the wrongness of having sex with a 15 year old may depend on context.

...an arbitrary personal judgment of the WWJD sort.

WWJD=what would Jesus do.

btw, there must be sub-categories of relativist absolutists. I take it you believe there's a right and wrong, but it depends on context.

In actual practice, most people must be this way--they must believe in right and wrong, but think that the situation determines the judgment.

I'm not debating or nit-picking. Just wondering if previous discussions have brought out various shades of relativism.

 

[ChristineR]

The situation always makes a difference, whether or not you are a relativist. For example, it is commonly held that it is wrong to kill, but acceptable to kill in self-defense. Your agreement or disagreement of that premise is independent of your moral relativism.

Assuming for the sake of illustration that everyone agrees with that premise, the relativist would say that the premise is true, and a possible reason would be that in a civil society we have rules for when we can go around killing one another. The absolutist would say that it's simply wrong to take human life unless certain conditions are met.

As a contrast, consider the case where your sister has been raped. Some societies would argue that it is moral to kill your sister in this situation. Assuming you live in such a society, an absolutist would say it is not moral to do so.

Obviously there's an enormous number of details I'm leaving out of my example, such as the possible negative consequences of not killing your sister in that particular society, or people who don't believe self-defense justifies killing, or how much danger you have to be in to justify self-defensive killing. But I hope it illustrates the point.

 

[verum]

I'm personally a moral absolutist and even I understand that a person can have meaningful relative morals.

I am not questioning whether a relativist can have meaningful morals. I am claiming that they cannot LOGICALLY have them, not if they believe that morals just originate in biology and societal mores. I am not saying that whether an action is right or wrong may not depend on circumstances (eg killing is not always wrong ). I am saying that some things are always wrong ( raping and torturing an infant) and I am above all claiming that morality is real, objective and a given, "out there", not just something arbitrarily driven by biology and custom.

Are you a Christian and can you define what you mean by saying you are a believer in absolutist morality please.

 

[the PC apeman]

The situation always makes a difference, whether or not you are a relativist. For example, it is commonly held that it is wrong to kill, but acceptable to kill in self-defense. Your agreement or disagreement of that premise is independent of your moral relativism.

Assuming for the sake of illustration that everyone agrees with that premise, the relativist would say that the premise is true, and a possible reason would be that in a civil society we have rules for when we can go around killing one another. The absolutist would say that it's simply wrong to take human life unless certain conditions are met.

As a contrast, consider the case where your sister has been raped. Some societies would argue that it is moral to kill your sister in this situation. Assuming you live in such a society, an absolutist would say it is not moral to do so.

I'm a little disturbed that these examples seem to suggest relativists are generally more permissive than absolutists. This is not the case. An absolutist could have a belief in the universal propriety of killing the unfortunate sister whereas a relativist, say from another culture, could well disagree.

 

[ChristineR]

I'm a little disturbed that these examples seem to suggest relativists are generally more permissive than absolutists. This is not the case. An absolutist could have a belief in the universal propriety of killing the unfortunate sister whereas the relativist, say from another culture, would disagree.

True, and that's a valid criticism. In real life though, it is the absolutists that are killing their sisters. Although it sounds like relativism has to be more permissive, in practice this is not the case. Many people who profess moral absolutism actually advocate some very unpleasant practices.

 

[andyandy]

One solution of the Sorites paradox involves setting a fixed boundary and I suppose this is what the law does here i.e. it's not illegal for a 30 year old to have sex with a 16 year old but it IS illegal for a 30 year old to have sex with a 15 year old (15 years and 364 days....). Not altogether satisfactory but how else do you do it? As for morality, is there anyone who would deny that it's immoral for a 30 year old to have sex with a 3 year old? What about 4 or 5 or.....? There is something absolute here. Are we just arguing about where we draw the line?

absolute morality requires a strong T F boundary - where is it?

Even if data is continuous you can draw a dividing line. Say you draw the line at 6.54 precisely. 6.53999 is less and 6.54001 is more, and you can take any number of decimal places you want to. Some would argue that 6.5399999.... (9 recurring) is the same as 6.54 but I would argue that that is only true if you round it (approximate it). So you CAN have a moral dividing line in theory. I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'at the Planck level'. Can you explain? I see no reason why relatively modern scientific concepts should not be used but you perhaps have a reason.

You can't draw an absolute dividing line with continuous data. Choose a number on the real number line, and i can choose a number that lies between it. 0.9 recurring is the same as 1 - it doesn't require rounding, it just follows from accepted mathematical axioms. It's proved, you can't dismiss it

I'll include a simple "proof" - the rigourous proof requires quite a lot of mathematics...

c = 0.99999.....
10c= 9.9999......
10c-c = 9
9c = 9
c = 1

The wiki article on this is pretty informative

Scientists think that time might actually be discrete - or more accurately that spacetime might be discrete at the planck level - in seconds that is 5.3×10⁻⁴⁴. I am interested to know if an absolutist would regard a moral boundary being crossed in a 5.3×10⁻⁴⁴ second block. I find it hard to believe that someone would make such an argment but it's on the table for someone to try.

I'm not sure about this either-are you talking quantum theory again here and why does it make any difference to the argument?[

it's just on the table for rigour - on the human scales at which we're talking time is continuous. It may not however be at a fundamental level - so this needs to be mentioned for completeness.

I am saying that some things are always wrong ( raping and torturing an infant) and I am above all claiming that morality is real, objective and a given, "out there", not just something arbitrarily driven by biology and custom.

verum, how does an absolutist resolve the paradox?

 

[ChristineR]

I am not questioning whether a relativist can have meaningful morals. I am claiming that they cannot LOGICALLY have them, not if they believe that morals just originate in biology and societal mores. I am not saying that whether an action is right or wrong may not depend on circumstances (eg killing is not always wrong ). I am saying that some things are always wrong ( raping and torturing an infant) and I am above all claiming that morality is real, objective and a given, "out there", not just something arbitrarily driven by biology and custom.

Are you a Christian and can you define what you mean by saying you are a believer in absolutist morality please.

I'm an atheist who was raised Christian. I believe in right and wrong, and good and evil. I believe they were created by whomever you believe created God.

First of all, whatever Christian based absolute morality you practice can also be practiced by an atheist. For example, I could believe that one particular interpretation of the Bible is the basis of absolute morality, even if I believed the Bible was written by men.

In practice this is unlikely, as the Bible contains so many contradictions and many examples of behavior that are no longer acceptable.

Or an atheist could believe that whatever Jesus would do is moral, even if Jesus is a mythical figure. Again, this breaks apart in practice as not even devout Christians can agree on what Jesus is or was or would do. But there's no reason an atheist can't play the game as well or better than a Christian.

These are things that Christians claim as the basis for their absolute morals, even though they are in practice anything but absolute. Another, more realistic example is that I could believe that whatever the Pope or his proxies tell me is moral. I could believe this even if I believe God is fictional, and then my moral basis would be identical to that of a devout Catholic. This might seem illogical for an atheist, but in fact I could justify it based on the unique history of the Catholic church.

Second, biology and custom is not necessarily relative. Principles like altruism do seem to be built into our biological nature. I could say always do unto others as you would have others do unto you, and be an absolutist even if I believe my biology is where that idea came from in the first place. Likewise "always do what society deems acceptable" is an absolutist principle that will result in wildly different behaviors in different places, but can still be held to as a absolute moral principal.

Now to get to your main point. Say we have a society where raping and killing infants is the norm. I would assume that some posters on here would say that in such a place, raping and killing infants is moral. Imagine that I agree with them and live in such a society. Would my decision to rape and kill an infant be meaningless? Surely it would be meaningful in my society. Perhaps I believe the strong should consume the weak, or perhaps I believe that the Goddess Venushtarcatyl is pleased by my act and will bless my family, or perhaps I will horrify my enemies who will keep their babies away from me. How is it meaningless?

There are two possibilities for this behavior. Either it will benefit me and mine, and it will be propagated genetically and/or socially, or it will not benefit me, in which case it will be selected against. It can never be completely neutral as it clearly has reproductive costs to the baby's parents. Where is the meaninglessness?

Even though this is not my position, it seems very meaningful to discuss this purely in terms of whether or not raping babies is likely to get your genes into the next generation. And the answer is: it's not, as the parents will go after you. With enthusiasm. It would only be possible as part of a very complex social structure. And then we're back to altruism, religion, revenge, punishment, and friends and enemies. Which is about as meaningful as you can get.

 

[Germaine]

Andyandy-

1. I'm not sure this issue belongs to 'Absolute Morality' so I don't propose to specify an answer. You may think this is a cop-out.

2. Neat proof but I'm slightly worried about the subtraction. Have you got the more rigorous proof or a reference to it?

3. This 'Planck Level' is very small but isn't a boundary of zero width anyway?

I think I need to know more about Quantum Theory to argue with you!!