Hatred of Religion By Materialists More Virulent Than Previously Thought Possible
| October 4, 2009 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
See update at the end of this post.
In the comment section to the last post Bill Dembski alluded to an NSF staffer who attempted to justify surfing porn at work. The staffer’s justification: he was only trying to help provide a living to poor overseas women. Denyse O’Leary suggested that if this loser had really wanted to help poor women overseas he could have made a donation to any of the various religious orders that actually help poor women overseas instead of participating in ensnaring them in sexual slavery. Dembski responded by posing tongue-in-cheek the following question:
Denyse, You raise an interesting question for Richard Dawkins: If we had to choose one or the other, helping “poor overseas women” by (1) frequenting at taxpayer’s expense porn sites that pay these women a cut, the porn sites presumably constituting a purely secular activity or by (2) donating money to Catholic/Protestant charities that care for these women by providing shelter, food, and medical care, these charities constituting a religious activity, which should we prefer? I suspect RD, given his virulent hatred of religion, would opt for (1).
At least Dembski thought the question was tongue-in-cheek. Who could have expected the reply from someone who calls himself Seversky? First Seversky defended pornography on the ground that it has been around a long time. Seversky, rape, murder, and theft have been around for a long time too; does that make you in favor of those activities as well?
Then Seversky takes a swipe at Christians who have caused scandals by falling to sexual sin. I suppose Seversky is pushing the risible notion that these handful of failures are somehow representative of the hundreds of millions of Christians who strive daily to live lives marked by adherence to the Golden Rule.
But Seversky’s defense of porn and his attempt to smear millions both pale in comparison to this gob-smacking passage: “I cannot speak for Richard Dawkins but I know I would prefer to give to those that do not include proselytization [sic] as part of their program.”
There you have it. Our opponents count among their number a man who would rather see a young woman live in sexual slavery if that’s what it takes to insulate her from the influence of Christians who would try to help her. After I picked myself up from the floor, my first inclination was to delete the comment and ban this moral monster from the site. Then, I thought better of it. Instead, of deleting the comment, I will put it out there for everyone in the world to see. And I say this to our opponents who appear at this site: How do you answer Dembski’s question? Do you agree with Seversky? If not, will you remain silent or will you come on here and distance yourself from the views he expressed?
Update: As I write this 27 comments have been made. As I expected, the materialists have stood by their man Seversky, mainly by advancing patently absurd interpretations of his comments. And they’ve even attacked me, also as expected. Pathetic. Again, I was tempted to delete their comments, but I will not. Instead, I will leave their moral squalor on display for all to see.
41 comments now and still not one materialist has condemned Seversky’s views. Astounding.
126 Responses to Hatred of Religion By Materialists More Virulent Than Previously Thought Possible
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StephenB:
Well, I had stated in both comments 35 and 54 that I wasn’t a materialist. But, I am certainly glad you set me straight on that point. Now that I know that I really am a materialist, you will excuse me while I go off and embark on a crime spree.
In all seriousness, I do not consider myself a materialist, but from the willful misrepresentation of Seversky to your prideful arrogance at assuming you know better what is in my heart and head than I do, I am appalled by what I see here. You have elevated pride of intellect over Christian charity. I would suggest you ponder both Proverbs 16:5 and Job 15:6, then ask yourself where you stand with regard to John 13:34-35
#97
As I recall, you subscribe to a kind of loose compatibilism, which reworks the definition of free will into a meaningless formulation. If you can’t alter your fate from that which determinism bounds you, then you don’t have free will.
My main point is that many Darwinists subscribe to this philosophy. So Darwinists don’t think free will is an illusion.
There is nothing particularly loose about compatabilism and it is a mainstream philosophical view – Daniel Dennett is probably the most well-known modern proponent. The point is that free will does not mean doing something without any motive. It means acting without constraint. To exercise free will is to act according to one’s motives. So if the causal chain goes:
External stimulus + Motive => Action
Then you have free will. The question is simply – does this chain require a non-material element? I see no reason why it does.
It is easiest to understand if you step outside your own free will and consider another species e.g. dogs. If I show my dog his lead, I start a causal chain which with a high degree of certainty will lead to him going mental with excitement. There is no reason to suppose anything other than material events in that chain but he is certainly acting with free will.
Mark Frank at #101: “(the dog) is certainly acting with free will.”
What???
I’ve been around a lot of dogs, and I’ve never been convinced that they have operated out of anything other than instinct, learned behavior and/or stimuli.
Chesterton (again?): “We talk of wild animals; but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals; following the rugged respectability of tribe or type. . . So that this first superficial reason for materialism is. . . a reason for its opposite; it is exactly where biology leaves off that all religion begins.”
I believe StephenB’s complaint is that you posit that “man has broken out” after putting yourself under the strict pace of a “biology” which can never “leave off”.
My complaint is that now you’ve let the dogs out, too.
Unless I see a dog act in a way that is not explained by instinct, learning and stimuli, why should I believe otherwise?
#102
What does it look like when a person is acting in a way that is not explained by instinct, learning and stimuli?
—-Mark Frank: “My main point is that many Darwinists subscribe to this philosophy. So Darwinists don’t think free will is an illusion.”
Darwinists think that real free will is an illusion, which is why some of them, not many, change its definition into something meaningless and insignificant, such as the freedom from coercion.
—-“There is nothing particularly loose about compatabilism and it is a mainstream philosophical view – Daniel Dennett is probably the most well-known modern proponent. The point is that free will does not mean doing something without any motive. It means acting without constraint. To exercise free will is to act according to one’s motives. So if the causal chain goes:….”
Freedom from coercion or constraint is a meaningless concept. Real free will is the capacity to make choices that can influence ones fate or one’s destiny—to make things different from what they might have been. Free will, properly understood, cannot be reconciled with determinism. Either we are nature’s plaything, or we are not. It can’t be both.
Thus, for the determinist, if nature bids you to watch pornography, you watch it because you have no mind or will to resist the brain’s impulse, which, in itself, is really nothing but a physical organ that follows the laws of nature. If, on the other hand, you have a mind that tells you that pornography is bad, and if you have a will that is strong enough to follow the mind’s lead, you can resist the brain’s impulses and become a free agent.. Darwinism does not leave that door open. With that mindset, if you were determined to watch pornography, you will watch it.
—–“Then you have free will. The question is simply – does this chain require a non-material element? I see no reason why it does.”
In order to have free will, one must have a faculty of will in the first place.. If, as Darwinists believe, no such thing as a will exists, then obviously a will that doesn’t exist can hardly be free.
—–“It is easiest to understand if you step outside your own free will and consider another species e.g. dogs. If I show my dog his lead, I start a causal chain which with a high degree of certainty will lead to him going mental with excitement. There is no reason to suppose anything other than material events in that chain but he is certainly acting with free will”
As I say, you have redefined free will to such a degree that you attribute it to dogs.
#106
StephenB
Freedom from coercion or constraint is a meaningless concept.
Well of course that is not true. If I put you in a straightjacket I think you will find it quite meaningful. I guess what you mean is that it is not the same as free will.
Real free will is the capacity to make choices that can influence ones fate or one’s destiny—to make things different from what they might have been.
Well if you are constrained then you can’t make choices ….. but let that ride for a moment. My dog makes choices all the time which influence his destiny. He decides whether to obey or disobey. For some time he decided which bedroom to sleep in until we constrained him by locking the kitchen door.
If you don’t regard these as decisions we must be using the word “decide” in a different manner from each other. And it is going to be very difficult to proceed.
Maybe you are looking for something special about human decisions. But what is this deciding characteristic? How do you know that humans other than yourself have this characteristic? What difference would it make if they didn’t? How do you know that dogs don’t?
StephenB,
You must have a different definition of Darwinist. Where I come from (NZ), if the word is used at all, it just means someone who accepts the TOE as legitimate. (Which by the way is just about everyone. It always amuses me in these posts that IDists seem to believe – or at least pretend that they believe – that TOE is a dying theory).
Anyway, the existence or otherwise of free will is a huge philosophical question that while it can be considered in the context of both evolution and religion cannot be legitimately reduced to “if you believe in evolution your position on free will is x and if you are religious it is y”.
Finally, there is a lot of evidence that other animals such as dogs do exercise free will and do in fact make moral decisions also.
—–“Well if you are constrained then you can’t make choices ….. but let that ride for a moment. My dog makes choices all the time which influence his destiny. He decides whether to obey or disobey. For some time he decided which bedroom to sleep in until we constrained him by locking the kitchen door.”
You can always make choices in any situation. If you are constrained in a straightjacket, you can decide whether or not to resent it or to contend against it. If your freedom is taken away, you can become a freedom fighter. The more important issue is this: do your decisions make any real difference? Can you make things different than they would have been had you not decided? Should you allow your dog to die in a kennel or take him in? Can you improve your character by making good choices? Can you improve your life by making good choices? Can you say yes or no to the prospect of getting addicted to pornography? After you get addicted, can you break free? Based on what you decide to do, will others follow you or disown you—hate you or love you? Can your positive words inspire someone? Can your negative words send them sobbing all the way to the grave? Your dog cannot make those kinds of choices; you can. Determinism says that you cannot. Real free will says that you can. Compatibilism evades the issue, and is, therefore, irrelevant.
—–“If you don’t regard these as decisions we must be using the word “decide” in a different manner from each other. And it is going to be very difficult to proceed.”
These decisions do not, in any way, change the fate of the decider. If they did, the chain of determinism, which, for the determinist, does the deciding, would not be a causal chain at all, meaning that it would no longer be determinsm. That is the whole point of determinism and, for that matter, materialism: to challenge the possibility of a self directed lifestyle, defined in terms of personal responsibility and made possible by the human mind and the human will, the exercise of which, positive or negative, determines our ultimate destiny.
—–“Maybe you are looking for something special about human decisions. But what is this deciding characteristic? How do you know that humans other than yourself have this characteristic? What difference would it make if they didn’t? How do you know that dogs don’t?”
The point is less about human decisions and more about their impact on the future. We either have some say about our future or we don’t. If we do, then determinism/materialism is wrong; if we don’t, then we are, indeed, nature’s plaything. There is no middle ground. Instinctively, everyone understands this. Even those who promote determinism, materialism, and fatalism violate their own philosophy each time they comment here, hoping to change the current balance of power caused by human volition and purposeful action. Darwinists [and Darwinist compatibilists] would like to tighten their grip on our culture; IDers would like to loosen that grip. Determinism, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. However it plays out, free will and its impact on the future will be the deciding factor. If your side can convince the non-committal skulls full of mush that they have no free will, which is compatibilism’s ultimate position when you strip away all the false definitions, you win; if our side can convince them that their dignity and their free will are inseparable, we win. Both of these world views cannot define a culture at the same time; to feed one is to starve the other.
109 is for Mark Frank.
—-zeroseven: “You must have a different definition of Darwinist. Where I come from (NZ), if the word is used at all, it just means someone who accepts the TOE as legitimate. (Which by the way is just about everyone. It always amuses me in these posts that IDists seem to believe – or at least pretend that they believe – that TOE is a dying theory).”
Your definition is incorrect. Darwinistic macro evolution, which explains all biodiversity, all mental activity, and all volition in terms of unguided, naturalistic, forces, leaves no room for free will or objective morality.
On the other hand, non Darwinian macro evolution, which can be either guided or programmed, leaves the door open to free will and objectice morality.
—–“Anyway, the existence or otherwise of free will is a huge philosophical question that while it can be considered in the context of both evolution and religion cannot be legitimately reduced to “if you believe in evolution your position on free will is x and if you are religious it is y”
Materialist Darwinism rules out free will in principle. We have already been over that. Darwinism is religion, not science.
—-“Finally, there is a lot of evidence that other animals such as dogs do exercise free will and do in fact make moral decisions also”
Yes, just the other day, my dog shared with me his dream of someday starting a human kennel, but he feels that he must first get therapy for his pornography addiction, which, according to his psychiatrist, was brought on by a previously undiagnosed Oedipus complex. Also, he experiences pangs of guilt from taking a bone away from a smaller dog and no longer enjoys playing with it. He has been trying to find the little fellow so he can give it back.
vjtorley @ 74
I do not believe we are free in any absolute sense but neither are we simply puppets.
Suppose we sit a volunteer at a table and lay some bags of chips of different flavors in front of him and ask him to choose one. Suppose his favorite flavor is cheese. Most probably, he would choose the cheese-flavored bag.
Suppose we then tell him that this is a test of his free will. The second time he might opt for a different flavor just to show that he is free to choose and not a slave to his taste buds. But we have influenced his decision by telling him this is a test. His second choice was a response to what we said to demonstrate he has free will. So, to what extent can we say he has free will?
Suppose we run a long sequence of such tests with two subjects who both prefer cheese-flavored chips. One subject we simply allow to choose without saying anything, the other is told it is a test of his free will. What do we think might be the outcomes?
Perhaps the first subject would make predominantly cheesy choices changing occasionally when he became bored with cheese. The second subject might choose evenly amongst all the flavors for a while just to prove a point but then settle on the cheese flavor because he became bored with proving a point and decided he was happier satisfying his own tastes.
My own view is that at any point in time we can be presented with a narrow range of options. For example, I have a choice of whether to drive or walk to work. If it is raining I will most probably drive, if it is dry I will most probably walk. But I cannot fly to work because I am not Superman and I do not own a personal jetpack, nor can I be beamed to work because the technology does not yet exist.
I think we area able to make purely rational choices freely from amongst the limited options available to us. But we are also influenced by preferences that were shaped by circumstances of which we were unaware at the time they were affecting us.
We are made what we are by so many influences of which we were unaware or over which we had no control that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that although free will may not be an illusion we are far from being the free agents implied by the concept of free will.
As an aside, I notice that there have been no recent comments from Learned Hand or BillB. Have they been banned?
StephenB @ 89
You will notice that I offered neither a blanket condemnation nor unconditional approval.
Those NSF employees who viewed pornography on their office computers were guilty of misconduct and abusing their positions at the Foundation. But their offenses do not mean the NSF is irredeemably corrupt any more that the small number of Catholic priests who abuse children mean that the whole church is tainted or that the National Association of Evangelicals has followed their former president, Ted Haggard, in his fall from grace.
Seversky,
If LH and BillB have been banned, it was bound to happen, and had nothing to do with the moderators’ free will.
—-Seversky: “You will notice that I offered neither a blanket condemnation nor unconditional approval.”
To have “no objection to,” pornography or to characterize it as a “natural by product of sexuality” or to suggest that it is not worth fighting or contending against, will suffice as approval for me. Perhaps others will assess the matter differently.
—”Those NSF employees who viewed pornography on their office computers were guilty of misconduct and abusing their positions at the Foundation.”
Yes, but your acknowledgement doesn’t really speak to the issue of pornography does it? One could say the same thing about playing Chinese checkers on company time.
—”But their offenses do not mean the NSF is irredeemably corrupt any more that the small number of Catholic priests who abuse children mean that the whole church is tainted or that the National Association of Evangelicals has followed their former president, Ted Haggard, in his fall from grace.”
If I thought that we were talking about a “small number,” I would agree with you since abberations can occur anywhere. However, the report said that number was “so pervasive they swamped the agency’s inspector general and forced the internal watchdog to cut back on its primary mission of investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars.”
It also alludes to a “6-fold increase in employee misconduct cases and associated proactive management implication report activities.”
I would not interpret that description as a small number, and I don’t think anyone else would either.
Oops, I mean, “aberrations” can occur anywhere.
Thanks for answering the question. You appear to be an excellent example of who Paul was speaking about here:
Romans 2:14-15
#109
You can always make choices in any situation.
That’s true – assuming you are conscious. Constraint and freedom are relative terms not absolute.
The more important issue is this: do your decisions make any real difference? Can you make things different than they would have been had you not decided? …. Your dog cannot make those kinds of choices; you can.
Well of course my dog’s decisions do make quite a lot of difference to his life and ours. If chooses to disobey and run off to chase deer he will have a great time for 30 minutes and get a telling off when he returns. You can even see him debating whether it is worth it! As far as I can see the main differences are that he cannot plan nearly so far ahead or in as much detail as we can and he doesn’t have the same motives. He isn’t moved by compassion or a sense of fairness but he is moved by guilt, loyalty, hunger, fear and a desire to play (no longer sex in his case).
I don’t see that the range of motives or the ability to see far ahead are the determining characteristics of free will.
We either have some say about our future or we don’t. If we do, then determinism/materialism is wrong; if we don’t, then we are, indeed, nature’s plaything. There is no middle ground. Instinctively, everyone understands this.
You assert these things but you don’t prove them. The best you seem able to come up with is that “instinctively everyone understands this”. Well I don’t.
One way to get a grip on the subject – maybe even settle that we are talking about the same thing – is epistemological. How do you know that you have free will and that other people do? What would it be like if they didn’t?
#116
If I thought that we were talking about a “small number,” I would agree with you since abberations can occur anywhere. However, the report said that number was “so pervasive they swamped the agency’s inspector general and forced the internal watchdog to cut back on its primary mission of investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars.”
It also alludes to a “6-fold increase in employee misconduct cases and associated proactive management implication report activities.”
If you read the report you will see that there were 3 cases of employee misconduct in 2006, 7 in 2007 and 10 in 2008. Of those 10, 7 were related to pornography. Out of a workforce of some 1,200. Is that large? I would say it needs investigating but as someone else pointed out it really depends what type of employees they were. We know one was an executive but the others could have been security guards watching some porn because they were bored.
Bear in mind this is all second hand from an antigovernment newspaper. It is little more than gosip.
I’d be grateful is someone would explain to me what it is about materialism that implies determinism, and if this is the reason that Darwinists cannot believe in free will?
Haven’t some religious people believed in determinism, and isn’t it possible for a god to create a fully deterministic universe?
I’d also like to know why having a soul means that you have a truly free will and not a constrained free will?
Mark Frank @ 119
Your dog debates? That must be the most human dog ever!!!
Your dog chooses to disobey? Wow! I have never, ever, had a dog disobey. Nobody has!!! Try this out the next time your dog chews your remote control, roll up a newspaper to prepare for a good old fashioned beating — but not the dog, beat yourself senseless with it. Perhaps then you will notice that the dog’s “debate” and “disobediance” are nothing more than words you have put onto your dog’s chewing up a piece of plastic.
“He isn’t moved by compassion or a sense of fairness but he is moved by guilt, loyalty, hunger, fear and a desire to play. . .”
This is the utterly confused. Fairness is out but loyalty is in? Guilt is understood, but compassion is not? Uh, the pit bull feels guilt after tearing into a human, but the fabled St. Bernard can show no compassion on the stranded traveler? What?
Mark Frank: “What does it look like when a person is acting in a way that is not explained by instinct, learning and stimuli?”
What does what look like? By “it” I’ll assume you mean behavior. Unfortunately behavior driven by free will (and btw behavoirs are often driven by a combination of things) looks so much like behavior driven by other causes that, for some people who rely solely on what it looks like, the causes are seemingly intermixed, dilute or inaccessible. Then, we get debating dogs and no reason to condemn adults who freely consent to participate in all manner of pornography.
Of course, there is more than what behavior “looks” like.
#122
Tim – do you own a dog?
I fail to see how my history of dog ownership is relevant to this discussion, but we are well down onto the second page, so here goes: I have owned three dogs spanning fourteen years, but I do not have any pets currently. None of my dogs ever mulled over an option and chose to disobey me. None of them ever had any compassion, loyalty or sense of fairness either. Two were poorly trained, and one was expertly trained — man’s best friend.
The great thing about domestic animals like dogs is that they are so consistent in reacting to the nature of their training that we are seemingly totally free to project all manner of human traits onto them, and they NEVER complain –man’s favorite mirror.
StephenB @ 116
I thought I had made clear that I thought that some types of pornography were bad, in particular, those which exploit and abuse women and children.
That objection is based on my belief that society has a right and a duty to uphold the rights of all its members but especially those who are weak and vulnerable.
However, I assume that, as a citizen of a country which prides itself on defending individual freedom, you will share my belief, following Mill in On Liberty, that society should allow the greatest latitude for individual freedom, that freedom being bounded only by the point at which an individual’s actions cause harm to others. The relevant passage from On Liberty is as follows:
You are free to view pornography with distaste, find it morally offensive have nothing whatsoever to do with it or campaign vigorously against it. That is your right. Equally, those who wish to use pornography should be free to do so providing it causes no harm to others. As long as that condition is met then neither you nor society has any right to interfere.
I regard pornography as just another facet of human sexuality which is neither good nor bad but an inescapable – dare I say it – fact of life. Like anything else it can be abused in a way that causes harm. Those abuses are wrong not the thing which is being abused.
#124
Just wanted to see what common ground we had.
I agree that dogs do not show compassion or a sense of fairness. I am surprised none of yours showed any sense of loyalty. But surely they exhibited guilt? And surely they made decisions and at times were indecisive going from one option to another?
It seems to me that we may actually be using the word “decide” in different ways.