Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

“The universe is too big, too old and too cruel”: three silly objections to cosmological fine-tuning (Part One)

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In previous articles, I have argued that even if our universe is part of some larger multiverse, we still have excellent scientific grounds for believing that our universe – and also the multiverse in which it is embedded – is fine-tuned to permit the possibility of life. Moreover, the only adequate explanation for the extraordinary degree of fine-tuning we observe in the cosmos is that it is the product of an Intelligence. That is the cosmological fine-tuning argument, in a nutshell. My articles can be viewed here:

So you think the multiverse refutes cosmological fine-tuning? Consider Arthur Rubinstein
Beauty and the multiverse
Why a multiverse would still need to be fine-tuned, in order to make baby universes

Scientific challenges to the cosmological fine-tuning argument can be ably rebutted, as this article by Dr. Robin Collins shows. However, there are three objections to fine-tuning which I keep hearing from atheists over and over again. Here they are:

1. If the universe was designed to support life, then why does it have to be so BIG, and why is it nearly everywhere hostile to life? Why are there so many stars, and why are so few orbited by life-bearing planets?

2. If the universe was designed to support life, then why does it have to be so OLD, and why was it devoid of life throughout most of its history? For instance, why did life on Earth only appear after 70% of the cosmos’s 13.7-billion-year history had already elapsed? And Why did human beings (genus Homo) only appear after 99.98% of the cosmos’s 13.7-billion-year history had already elapsed?

3. If the universe was designed to support life, then why does Nature have to be so CRUEL? Why did so many animals have to die – and why did so many species of animals have to go extinct (99% is the commonly quoted figure), in order to generate the world as we see it today? What a waste! And what about predation, parasitism, and animals that engage in practices such as serial murder and infant cannibalism?

In today’s post, I’m not going to attempt to provide any positive reasons why we should expect an intelligently designed universe to be big and old, and why we should not be too surprised if it contains a lot of suffering. I’ll talk about those reasons in my next post. What I’m going to do in this post is try to clear the air, and explain why I regard the foregoing objections to the cosmic fine-tuning argument as weak and inconclusive.

Here are seven points I’d like atheists who object to the cosmological fine-tuning argument to consider:

1. If you don’t like the universe that we live in, then the onus is on you to show that a better universe is physically possible, given a different set of laws and/or a different fundamental theory of physics. Only when you have done this are you entitled to make the argument that our universe is so poorly designed that no Intelligent Being could possibly have made it.

At this point, I expect to hear splutterings of protest: “But that’s not our problem. It’s God’s. Isn’t your God omnipotent? Can’t He make anything He likes – including a perfect universe?” Here’s my answer: “First, the cosmological fine-tuning argument claims to establish the existence of an Intelligent Designer, who may or may not be omnipotent. Second, even an omnipotent Being can only make things that can be coherently described. So what I want you to do is provide me with a physical model of your better universe, showing how its laws and fundamental theory of physics differ from those of our universe, and why these differences make it better. Until you can do that, you’d better get back to work.”

2. Imaginability doesn’t imply physical possibility. I can imagine a winged horse, but that doesn’t make it physically possible. The question still needs to be asked: “How would it fly?” I can also imagine a nicer universe where unpleasant things never happen, but I still have to ask myself: “What kind of scientific laws and what kind of fundamental theory would need to hold in that nicer universe, in order to prevent unpleasant things from happening?”

3. As Dr. Robin Collins has argued, the laws of our universe are extremely elegant, from a mathematical perspective. (See also my post, Beauty and the multiverse.) If there is an Intelligent Designer, He presumably favors mathematical elegance. However, even if a “nicer” universe proved to be physically possible, in a cosmos characterized by some other set of scientific laws and a different fundamental theory of physics, the scientific laws and fundamental theory of such a universe might not be anywhere near as mathematically elegant as those of the universe that we live in. The Intelligent Designer might not want to make a “nice”, pain-free universe, if doing so entails making a messy, inelegant universe.

4. If a Designer wanted to design a universe that was free from animal suffering (i.e. a world in which animals were able to avoid noxious stimuli, without the conscious feeling of pain), there are two ways in which He could accomplish this: He could either use basic, macro-level laws of Nature (e.g. “It is a law of Nature that no animal that is trapped in a forest fire shall suffer pain”) or micro-level laws (i.e. by making laws of Nature precluding those physical arrangements of matter in animals’ brain and nervous systems which correspond to pain).

The first option is incompatible with materialism. If you believe in the materialist doctrine of supervenience (that any differences between two animals’ mental states necessarily reflect an underlying physical difference between them), it automatically follows that if a trapped animal’s brain and nervous system instantiates a physical arrangement of matter which corresponds to pain, then that animal will suffer pain, period. No irreducible, top-down “macro-level” law can prevent that, in a materialistic universe. So if you’re asking the Designer to make a world where unpleasant or painful things never happen by simply decreeing this, then what you’re really asking for is a world in which animals’ minds cannot be described in materialistic terms. Are you sure you want that?

The second option is unwieldly. There are a vast number of possible physical arrangements of matter in animals’ brain and nervous systems which correspond to pain, and there is no single feature that they all possess in common, at the micro level. An Intelligent Designer would need to make a huge number of extra laws, in order to preclude each and every one of these physical arrangements. That in turn would make the laws of Nature a lot less elegant, when taken as a whole. The Intelligent Designer might not want to make such an aesthetically ugly universe.

Eliminating animal suffering might not be a wise thing to do, in any case. One could argue that the conscious experience of pain is, at least sometimes, biologically beneficial, since it subsequently leads to survival-promoting behavior: “Once bitten, twice shy.” (An automatic, unconscious response to noxious stimuli might achieve the same result, but perhaps not as effectively or reliably as conscious pain.) However, if the Designer is going to allow survival-promoting pain into His world, then He will have to allow the neural states corresponding to that pain. If He still wants to rule out pain that doesn’t promote survival, then He’s going to have to make funny, top-down “macro-level” laws to ensure this – for instance: “It is a law of nature that neural state X [which correspinds to pain in one’s right toe] is only allowed to exist if it benefits the animal biologically.” Note the reference to the whole animal here. You’re asking Mother Nature to check whether the pain would be biologically beneficial to the animal as a whole, before “deciding” whether to allow the animal to experience the feeling of pain or not. But that’s a “macro-level” law, and hence not the kind of law which any card-carrying materialist could consistently ask a Designer to implement.

5. Objections to fine-tuning are of no avail unless they are even more powerful than arguments for fine-tuning. I’d like to use a simple mathematical example to illustrate the point. (I’ve deliberately tried to keep this illustration as jargon-free – and Bayes-free- as possible, so that everyone can understand it.) Suppose, for argument’s sake, that the cosmic fine-tuning argument makes it 99.999999999999999999999 per cent likely (given our current knowledge of physics) that the universe had a Designer. Now suppose, on the other hand, that the vast size and extreme age of the universe, combined with the enormous wastage of animal life and the huge amount of suffering that has occurred during the Earth’s history, make it 99.999999 per cent likely (given our current scientific knowledge of what’s physically possible and what’s not) that a universe containing these features didn’t have a Designer. Given these figures, it would still be rational to accept the cosmic fine-tuning argument, and to believe that our universe had a Designer. Put simply: if someone offers me a 99.999999999999999999999 per cent airtight argument that there is an Intelligent Designer of Nature, and then someone else puts forward a 99.999999 per cent airtight argument that there isn’t an Intelligent Designer, I’m going to go with the first argument and distrust the second. Any sensible person would. Why? Because the likelihood that the first argument is wrong is orders of magnitude lower than the likelihood that the second argument is wrong. Putting it another way: the second argument is “leakier” than the first, so we shouldn’t trust it, if it appears to contradict the first.

6. For the umpteenth time, Intelligent Design theory says nothing about the moral character of the Designer. Even if an atheist could demonstrate beyond all doubt that no loving, personal Designer could have produced the kind of universe we live in, would that prove that there was no Designer? No. All it would show is that the Designer was unloving and/or impersonal – in which case, the logical thing to do (given the strength of the fine-tuning argument) would be to become a Deist. Of course, you might not like such an impersonal Deity – and naturally, it wouldn’t like you, either. But as a matter of scientific honesty, you would be bound to to acknowledge its existence, if that’s where the evidence led.

I’m genuinely curious as to why so few Intelligent Design critics have addressed the philosophy of Deism, and I can only put it down to pique. It’s as if the critics are saying, “Well, I don’t want anything to do with that kind of Deity, as it’s indifferent to suffering. Therefore, I refuse to even consider the possibility that it might exist.” When one puts it like that, it does seem a rather silly attitude to entertain, doesn’t it?

7. From time to time, I have noticed that some atheist critics of the cosmological fine-tuning argument make their case by attacking the God of the Bible. I have often wondered why they focus their attack on such a narrow target, as people of many different religions (and none) can still believe in some sort of God. I strongly suspect that the underlying logic is as follows:

(i) if the cosmological fine-tuning argument is true then there is a Transcendent Designer;

(ii) if there is a Transcendent Designer then it’s possible that this Designer is the God of the Bible;

(iii) but it is impossible that the God of the Bible could exist, because He is a “moral monster”;

(iv) hence, the cosmological fine-tuning argument is not true.

This is a pathological form of reasoning, since it is emotionally driven by a visceral dislike of the God of the Bible. Nevertheless, I believe this form of reasoning is quite common among atheists.

What’s wrong with the foregoing argument? (I shall assume for the purposes of the discussion below that step (i) is true.) At a cursory glance, the argument looks valid:

if A is true then B is true; if B is true then it is possible that C; but it is not possible that C; hence A is not true.

The argument is invalid, however, because it confuses epistemic possibility with real (ontological) possibility. If something is epistemically possible, then for all we know, it might be true. But if something is ontologically possible, then it could really happen. The two kinds of possibility are not the same, because we don’t always know enough to be sure about what could really happen.

Step (ii) of the foregoing argument relates to epistemic possibility, not ontological possibility. It does not say that there is a real possibility that the God of the Bible might exist; it simply says that for all we know, the Transcendent Designer might turn out to be the God the Bible.

Step (iii) of the argument, on the other hand, relates to ontological possibility. It amounts to the claim that since the God the Bible is morally absurd, in His dealings with human beings, no such Being could possibly exist, in reality.

Now, I’m not going to bother discussing the truth or falsity of step (iii) in the foregoing argument. All I intend to say in this post is that even if you believe it to be true, the argument above is an invalid, because the two kinds of possibility in steps (ii) and (iii) are not the same.

Indeed, if you were absolutely sure that step (iii) were true, then you would have to deny step (ii). In which case, the argument fails once again.

In short: attacking the cosmological fine-tuning argument by ridiculing the God of the Bible is a waste of time.

I would like to conclude by saying that atheists who object to the cosmological fine-tuning argument really need to do their homework. Let’s see your better alternative universe, and let’s see your scientific explanation of how it works.

Comments
You know what, I don't fully understand it myself. It might seem odd to accept what I don't understand, but that's an inevitable consequence if I don't regard myself as the highest authority. If we trust a friend well enough, he can ask us to do something we don't understand, and we might just trust him. But, you say, he's asking me to to accept that he permitted slavery. That's different! Yes, that's a whole lot more trust. But factor in that he created me and them and everyone else and it becomes easier to trust that he knows what he's doing. There's a lot more that I'm leaving out because this forum isn't a place for me to preach my religious beliefs. (Nothing drags your beliefs through the mud like debating them on the internet.) That being said, if there is a person alive, you, me, or anyone else, whose judgment or wisdom I should trust more, then - - What is his plan for ending warfare, disease, starvation, and other causes of suffering? - What is he going to do for people who are in slavery today? - What is his way out of our economic troubles so that everyone can do meaningful work and enjoy life without being exploited? - How will he fix the environment? - We keep dying. That's a really tough one. - Billions of people have already died, including all those slaves and others who didn't get to enjoy life as much. What does he have in mind for them? I liken it to a small child who doesn't understand everything his parents do. At times it might seem horribly unjust. I'd tell him that his parents brought him into this world, they love him, feed him, and take care of him, so he should be thankful and be patient if he doesn't understand everything. After all, they've been around longer and may understand consequences he doesn't. Or he can decide that his parents are too unjust, run away, and see how far he gets on his own. You can condemn God for permitting slavery, but every evil in the world around us comes from those who reject God. And I'm not referring only to professed atheists, as they are in the minority.ScottAndrews
September 9, 2011
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dmullenix My comment 37.1 is confusing for two reasons. 1) The blockquote tags are confused. Not everything is my words! I did not say:
The word “moral” means whatever you feel it means, or whatever it “seems” to mean to you at the time, without regard for any foundational principle.
2) I was trying to explain a rather subtle concept in as few words as possible - but may have been a bit too concise. I believe that when we say something is moral or good (in the moral sense) we are expressing a particular type of approval of it. This in essence subjective but opinions on some things such as torturing babies are so widespread and so firmly held it might as well be objective and that is why we use what appears to be objective language. However, if someone were so unusual as to hold completely different views about what is moral from most of humanity we could not in the end "prove" them wrong - although that would not prevent us from being horrified at their opinions and stopping them acting on them. When William says:
If you feel it is morally acceptable to torture an infant for fun, then by definition derived from your world-view, it is moral.
I tried to summarise my response as "moral for who" but maybe that was too simple. What really interests is what William thinks "moral" or "good" (in the moral sense) means. However, he never answered that. After all if he defines "good" as - conforms to God's laws then he means something different from me and we have no disagreement!markf
September 9, 2011
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Good, I'm glad you did, Dmullenix. I can only hope you will reflect on their contents while you're on vacation! Enjoy. Remember: only if the theistic worldview is true, are there rules which must be followed and not disputed.Chris Doyle
September 9, 2011
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I'm on vacation. Back in two weeks.dmullenix
September 9, 2011
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ScottAndrews at 39 “An Israelite could be executed for killing a slave the same as anyone else.” EXODUS 21:20,21 "And if a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. "If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property. If you beat a man to death, you’re going to be charged with murder, even if he doesn’t die until three days later. “It was also an alternative to poverty or starvation.” LEVITICUS 25:44 'As for your male and female slaves whom you may have - you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. No mention of poverty or starvation – you can just buy foreigners. “By law slaves were set free at regular intervals.” EXODUS 21:7 "And if a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do. Or just buy your neighbor’s pretty daughter. Or sell yours. And you NEVER have to set her free. Leviticus 25:45 'Then too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession. 46 'You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. The only slaves who have to be set free are MALE Israelis. You can keep foreigners and all women permanently. “Christian slaves were counseled to be obedient to the arrangement. The purpose was to reflect well on Christianity…” You have an odd idea of what reflects well on Christianity. The actual reason for that counsel was to keep the Romans off their necks. “There is nothing in the Bible telling Christians to own slaves. It was a practice which was commonplace and which God saw fit to permit.” So if I don’t tell anyone to kidnap you and sell you into slavery, but I allow others to do it, I’m all right in your book? “Are we willing to entertain the possibility that a greater mind made decisions based on knowledge, understanding, and wisdom that we do not possess? Or is our own understanding the yardstick by which everything is measured?” If I kill your wife, burn your house down and kidnap and sell your children into slavery, are you willing to entertain the possibility that a greater mind made decisions based on knowledge, understanding, and wisdom that we do not possess? Or is your own understanding the yardstick by which everything is measured? Read the Bible. It will help you become an atheist.dmullenix
September 9, 2011
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markf, are you using "morals" and "morality" to mean whatever different people adopt as their guiding principles or something along that line? If so, then you and William and I are talking past each other. I'm looking for what "good" and "bad" mean - what makes an action good or bad. I think William is too, although I think his 'answer' to that question is totally subjective.dmullenix
September 9, 2011
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Ok, I've read both. I don't see anything related to an absolute morality in either. (Your link doesn't seem to work - try http://www.calvin.edu/~pribeiro/DCM-Lewis-2009/Lewis/The-Poison-of-Subjectivism.doc ) You do quote an interesting snippet from Lewis, however. "If a man will go into a library and spend a few days with the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics he will soon discover the massive unanimity of the practical reason in man. From the Babylonian Hymn to Samos, from the Laws of Manu, the Book of the Dead, the Analects, the Stoics, the Platonists, from Australian aborigines and Redskins, he will collect the same triumphantly monotonous denunciations of oppression, murder, treachery, and falsehood, the same injunctions of kindness to the aged, the young, and the weak, of almsgiving and impartiality and honesty." I remember reading a very similar quote from Chesterton once. I don't remember the exact words, but it was something like, "Everywhere in the world you find laws against murder and theft" and several other things. Like Lewis, he gave that as evidence for the existence of an absolute morality. I remember readiing the quote and thinking to my self, "Does Chesterton think there are people in the world who WANT to be robbed and murdered?" The two pseudo-philosophers make the same mistake. Many DESIRES really are universal. Nobody wants to be oppressed, murdered, betrayed, or lied to or about. We all want to be treated with kindness when we are aged and weak and want to protect our young. (Almsgiving, on the other hand, has become very unpopular with the modern right and religious right. There term for that is "welfare" and "entitlements" and they're doing their best to end them.) Morality is mostly universalizing those universal desires. YOU don't want to be murdered, so you make a rule that NOBODY is to murder. YOU don't want to be cheated, so you make a rule that NOBODY is to cheat. The upshot is that YOU get protected and so does EVERYBODY else. That's the true basis of morality. Generalizing the way we all want to be treated. But many Christians say they have a morality that doesn't depend on that generalizing of universal desires. They say they have an absolute morality, a morality which is independent of human desires, which emanates from Above. Yet when asked to produce it, all they can offer is the same old "triumphantly monotonous" set of universal desires generalized to all of humanity. Worse yet, this "absolute morality" is extracted from a book full of immorality (kill all the children) and humbug (God hates shrimp) and they NEVER have a systematic way of separating the morality from the immorality and humbug. Not good enough.dmullenix
September 9, 2011
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F/N Have you noticed that the United States is overwhelmingly populated by believers, yet we’re a high crime nation? Yet if you go to Western Europe, with its high population of non-believers, the crime rates are much lower?
Would that were true - with the exception of homocide (which is much higher) US crime rates are significantly lower than Western Europe.markf
September 8, 2011
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See post 36.1.1.1.9, Dmullenix. Also, be sure to read the essay linked in that post, "The Poison of Subjectivism".Chris Doyle
September 8, 2011
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Chris Doyle at 31: “The unbridgeable gap that lies between atheists like yourself and believers like myself is this: Believers have an unconditional, objectively true and absolutely authoritative set of moral rules to guide them through this life.” Chris, please tell us this unconditional, objectively true and absolutely authoritative set of moral rules. I keep hearing about it, but nobody can ever tell me what it is. Is it in written form or is it something you “just know”? If the latter, I call BS. If it’s in written form, please type or paste it here or tell me where I can get it. If it’s in the Bible, I again call BS. I’ve read that book and its morality is a mixture of the sublime and iron-age barbarism. The vast majority of the “morals” in the Bible are so nasty and/or silly that Christians have long ago neutered them to their satisfaction. (“Oh, that’s the Old Testament – that’s just for the Jews. Except the Ten Commandments. And a few other parts we like.”) “Atheists, on the other hand, are not bound by any moral rules...” Yeah, I was just telling my neighbor that yesterday as I stole her car, but she insisted on calling the police. I tried to explain, “Look lady, I’m an atheist. I’m not bound by any moral rules,” but she called the cops anyway and it turns out that there are these man-made things called laws that apply to everybody. Who’d a thunk it? Anyway, I’m eagerly awaiting your presentation of the unconditional, objectively true and absolutely authoritative set of moral rules that you claim to have and I’m anticipating another disappointment. F/N Have you noticed that the United States is overwhelmingly populated by believers, yet we're a high crime nation? Yet if you go to Western Europe, with its high population of non-believers, the crime rates are much lower?dmullenix
September 8, 2011
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It was pointed out in another thread when things behave as designed, it is "good". I believe we are designed to, "Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength" and to "love your neighbor as yourself." These things are much easier learned as servants than as masters. Correct, the Bible does not tell Christians to own slaves, but it does tell Christians to BE slaves.suckerspawn
September 6, 2011
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Afternoon Mark, I didn’t assume all the looters were atheists, but I certainly believe that many of them did not believe they would be brought to account for their crimes: not in this life, nor the next. Wouldn’t you agree? And if I’m making life easy by choosing Thou Shalt Not Steal instead of Contraception, then that is only because religious morality is universal, fundamentally very straightforward and easy to understand. I could have picked Thou Shalt Not Kill, or Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, or Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother and you would still be complaining while missing this point, one that CS Lewis makes very well in The Poison of Subjectivism: If a man will go into a library and spend a few days with the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics he will soon discover the massive unanimity of the practical reason in man. From the Babylonian Hymn to Samos, from the Laws of Manu, the Book of the Dead, the Analects, the Stoics, the Platonists, from Australian aborigines and Redskins, he will collect the same triumphantly monotonous denunciations of oppression, murder, treachery, and falsehood, the same injunctions of kindness to the aged, the young, and the weak, of almsgiving and impartiality and honesty. Before we “forget” about the analogy, there is another important flaw in your reasoning which the analogy exposes and it is this: While Rugby Union is like Judaism and Rugby League is like Islam, Atheism rejects the fact that the game (or “test”) of rugby exists in the first place and it certainly rejects the notion that there is a Law-giving authority who sets the rules of the game. So, believers understand that this life is a test and that our performance in this test will be rewarded accordingly after the test is over. The Final Judgment will involve the perfect, true and just ruling of the Supreme Being in accordance with the Moral Law (ie. rules of the game) that most religions prescribed for us. Atheists on the other hand, do not even realise that life is a test: indeed, for them, existence is utterly without meaning or purpose in this indifferent universe. Atheists believe that death only brings oblivion: regardless of how ‘good’ or ‘evil’ the life was led (‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ being nothing more than illusory man-made concepts in the first place). Atheists are free to play whatever game they like or invent whatever rules they like (and change or break them whenever it suits). They have absolutely no reason to play rugby, let alone follow the rules of rugby and if they are doing either then they are living a lie by irrationally subscribing to exclusively religious teachings. I’m a big fan of analogies and extending them as far as is reasonably possible. But even if I have to admit that the question you asked, though more literal than analogous, will certainly lead to a failure in this analogy. When it comes to sports like rugby, then we can talk of revising the rules to suit the changing nature of the game and the changing technology that can better serve it. Indeed, this is exactly what has happened: evidenced by the many changes to all aspects of rugby, including to the rules and even the lawgivers, since 1823. Rugby is a man-made activity and thus, from the very beginning, the law-givers were just normal people (flawed and limited) who couldn’t foresee all possible outcomes of the game, all the changing variables nor even appreciate the changing demands of the participants and spectators. So, when you try to compare religion to rugby through this analogy, then the analogy fails. Although the world around us has changed dramatically, particularly the further back into the past we go, the Moral Law itself will never change. Or, as Jesus himself said: “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Although we are all leading unique, perhaps even tailor-made, tests we must all follow the same rules and we are certainly in no position to dispute, let alone change, them. Remember, the rules – the Moral Law – were set by none other than the Creator (who is not only vastly superior and wiser than all humans, but also knows everything we think and do). In light of these facts, you can see how absurd it is to even ask whether humans can make the game of life better, or more ‘interesting’, by making up the rules ourselves (or even cherry-picking from religion). You can only argue rationally about morality if you accept that you’re playing the game in the first place and that the rules have been set by the Master of the Day of Judgment (to whom we will all need to account for ourselves). Morality belongs exclusively to religion. That’s exactly why atheism and morality are, rationally speaking, completely incompatible and irreconcilable.Chris Doyle
September 6, 2011
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The point would have been to prove that such debates exist. Anyhow I appreciate your determination to stick with this interminable discussion.markf
September 5, 2011
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Why do you assume all the looters were atheists? I didn't notice any surveys (I assume you are not arguing that they were immoral therefore they must be atheists). But anyhow you are making life easy for yourself by choosing an issue which it happens almost everyone - believer or not - agrees on (the looters were a minuscule proportion of the population). You have done the equivalent of saying the in a game of rugby you ought to try to score more than your opponent. You can agree on that what ever rules you follow. It would be a very boring game if you didn't. But anyway forget that it is an analogy for a moment and just answer the question. A group of people argue about what you ought to do in a game of rugby when the ball is in touch. The unionists say a line-out beause that's in their rules. The leaguists say a scrum because that is in their rules. Another person says let's choose the rule that gives the most interesting game to play and watch (notice this is subjective). Which is arguing the most rationally?markf
September 5, 2011
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Hi everyone, Regarding arguments about Biblical slavery, please check out these links: Slavery, John Locke and the Bible by Dr. Matt Flannagan. Does God condone slavery in the Bible? (Part I: Old Testament) by Glenn Miller. Does God condone slavery in the Bible? (Part II: New Testament) by Glenn Miller. Biblical atrocities: http://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/whybelieve6.html#bible-atrocities (my own take, for what it's worth) Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites: Part One by Dr. Matt Flannagan. Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites: Part Two by Dr. Matt Flannagan.vjtorley
September 5, 2011
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A debate about contraception is much too complicated for this analogy (involving wider issues concerning family and marriage as well as technical issues including the absence of the word (or even the concept) 'contraception'). So lets start with Thou Shalt Not Steal. The believers look up their rule books and find that they're all in complete agreement. The atheists get together, via Blackberry and Twitter, and say "Let's go looting while the police are overrun and we can get away with it". No one bothers to mention Thou Shalt Not Steal... thay's just a load of religious nonsense. All those who looted were in complete agreement with each other about that. So much for appealing to the most popular route.Chris Doyle
September 5, 2011
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markf: I don't see the point. I appreciate your time.William J Murray
September 5, 2011
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OK this is quite good fun - I will try getting the analogy sorted a bit better. I said "Unless of course their debate is with someone who has different beliefs!" that would for example include a Jew and an Islamist or even a strict Catholic and a Protestant. So, in this case a debate over a specific ethical issue (contraception perhaps) is analogous to someone saying the right thing to do when the ball goes out of play is have a line-out. The two codes could each look to their own book of rules to discover the "truth". But how does that help if there are people from both sides involved. The moral subjectivist (who might be an atheist) says - well lets try and discover what people find most appealing. Now which has the best route to solving the problem?markf
September 5, 2011
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That analogy would work better if Rugby Union was Judaism and Rugby League was Islam: there are some differences, but ultimately both disciplines follow the rulebook, written by the lawgivers. Unless you can demonstrate otherwise, atheists don't have a rulebook, or a lawgiver: they can (and do) just make it up as they go along or just borrow the rules from religion and hope that no-one notices. Neither approach is rational, nor do they go unnoticed.Chris Doyle
September 5, 2011
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No Chris - it is like the dispute between Rugby League and Rugby Union - each saying they have the better set of rules for Rugby.markf
September 5, 2011
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My goodness – there must be very few debates which meet your strict criteria of rationality (including agreed upon premises). I did as you suggested and searched on “biblical arguments morality” but couldn’t find any. Presumably you are familiar with several – so maybe you could just give me the link instead of making me do a difficult search.markf
September 5, 2011
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Not really, Mark. That would be like someone who knows and believes in the objective laws of football debating with someone who denies the existence of the offside law. The believers are 100% right and the non-believers are 100% wrong (evidenced by the fact that they are making it up as they go along with their subjective approach to this form of knowledgde).Chris Doyle
September 5, 2011
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As I have already said, a rational debate cannot ensue unless premises are agreed upon.William J Murray
September 5, 2011
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You can “bing” the terms “biblical arguments morality” and find arguments/debates that stem from axiomatic assumptions of an objective “good” informing morality. I’m not saying I agree with that particular premise or those arguments, but they are an example of beginning a rational debate with the assumption of an objective good and a common framework from which to draw inferences and conclusions.
So if you don't agree with the premises how do set about finding the "truth"?markf
September 5, 2011
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markf said:
That’s true. Is there any disadvantage to my kind of rational debate?
It depends on the goal of the debate. If the goal of the debate is simply to "win" or convince others, no. If the goal of the debate is to reach the conclusion most likely to be true, yes. Logical arguments (as per argument theory) employ rules that exist to find the conclusions most likely to be true; non-rational or rhetorical arguments are generated to acquire consensus.
(There is a difference between manipulating emotions and making a straightforward argument to emotion)
And what would that difference be?
It is certainly the most common kind of debate.
The commonality of the debate style doesn't make it a rational debate. If one isn't going to apply the rules of logic as in argument theory to the debate, why call it a "rational" debate? It's just a debate.
In fact can you point me to any examples of your kind of rational debate on an ethical issue? I can’t imagine what it would look like.
You can "bing" the terms "biblical arguments morality" and find arguments/debates that stem from axiomatic assumptions of an objective "good" informing morality. I'm not saying I agree with that particular premise or those arguments, but they are an example of beginning a rational debate with the assumption of an objective good and a common framework from which to draw inferences and conclusions.
PS Sorry the link didn’t work. I don’t understand why but you can easily follow it up. All I did was go to the BBC News web site and select the leading story – Nick Clegg rules out running free schools for profit. It could have been any of thousands of issues in the news.
Well, reading such debates wouldn't make much difference, since we now agree that such debates are not what I mean when I say "rational debate". Perhaps we could agree that what you are referring to is a civil debate (without adherence to argument theory rules), and what I'm referring to is rational debate (which obey argument theory rules). Perhaps we can even further agree that the fundamental difference between the two is that civil debate seeks consensus agreements, while rational debate seeks true conclusions given the premises. Our debate here suffers from the same problem; you are not seeking any "truth" from any premises (correct me if I'm wrong); you are only seeking consensus. Since my entire debate is geared towards "seeking the truth", then of course I am stymied and confounded by your refusal to adhere to the rules of engagement under argument theory. You require no agreed-upon premises and are free to utilize logical fallacies, such as appealing to emotion. When it is repeatedly pointed out to you that you fail to provide any basis for your assumptions, or how things "seem" to you to be, or what you "feel" are good moral points, it is of no concern to you, because "providing basis" is not something informal, civil debates require. Neither are sound inferences, deductions, inductions, etc. I would tell you that the ramifications of consensus-based moral arguments are eventually self-conflicting, but what would that matter to you? If one holds an essentially self-conflicting position, that only matters if they care if their position and conclusion can be rationally justified under argument theory rules. Informal, civil debate doesn't care if it is entirely irrational, self-conflcting, and self-defeating; it only cares to acquire consensus based on the way things "seem" to be and how people "feel". IOW, you are speaking english, and I'm speaking chinese. Our debate languages are entirely different, and are rooted in entirely different goals and assumptions.William J Murray
September 5, 2011
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Believers, on the other hand, can just ignore the debate altogether: they have a much more reliable and absolute authority to appeal to.
Unless of course their debate is with someone who has different beliefs!markf
September 5, 2011
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Since you have already in this thread said that you consider debates about morality where appeals to emotion are used to reach conclusions are a form of “rational debate”, it is clear that you and I fundamentally disagree on what constitutes a “rational debate”.
That's true. Is there any disadvantage to my kind of rational debate? (There is a difference between manipulating emotions and making a straightforward argument to emotion). It is certainly the most common kind of debate. In fact can you point me to any examples of your kind of rational debate on an ethical issue? I can't imagine what it would look like. PS Sorry the link didn't work. I don't understand why but you can easily follow it up. All I did was go to the BBC News web site and select the leading story - Nick Clegg rules out running free schools for profit. It could have been any of thousands of issues in the news.markf
September 5, 2011
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Afternoon Mark, Just because all parties “will not be satisfied with agreeing to disagree” in a debate concerning subjective matters, it doesn’t mean that agreement will somehow be reached by continuing the debate. After all, if atheism is true, morality is subjective so there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and therefore no right or wrong answer. If some kind of “panel” makes a final decision then it will be a man-made panel prone to all the bias, errors and weaknesses of any man-made panel (particularly on the subject of morality). Furthermore, if that final decision is enforced then it will be enforced by man-made authorities and so prone to all the same fatal problems. But even if there was unanimous agreement in a debate about morality, it doesn’t mean that what has been agreed is actually morally correct. In fact, unanimous agreement could just as likely turn out to reach a morally wrong outcome, particularly if the participants all reject religious teachings. Realistically, in a representative debate concerning subjective matters (particularly if you want to call morality subjective), you will get no agreement whatsoever – not even agreement to disagree! The difference is, atheists are compelled to accept that outcome. Believers, on the other hand, can just ignore the debate altogether: they have a much more reliable and absolute authority to appeal to.Chris Doyle
September 5, 2011
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markf said:
But these were not criteria and certainly not agreed. They were just considerations that anyone might take into account when discussing the issue.
A "discussion" is not a "rational debate", and your link doesn't take me anywhere but "page not found". Because people discuss a topic, and are led to conclusions via appeals to emotion or other such conversational tactics that would be considered logical fallacies, doesn't mean a rational debate has occurred. A civil discussion where conclusions are reached is not the equivalent of a rational debate. From Wikipedia:
Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how humans should, can, and do reach conclusions through logical reasoning, that is, claims based, soundly or not, on premises.
Nizkor.org lists Appeal to Emotion as a logical fallacy:
This fallacy is committed when someone manipulates peoples' emotions in order to get them to accept a claim as being true. More formally, this sort of "reasoning" involves the substitution of various means of producing strong emotions in place of evidence for a claim. If the favorable emotions associated with X influence the person to accept X as true because they "feel good about X," then he has fallen prey to the fallacy.
Since you have already in this thread said that you consider debates about morality where appeals to emotion are used to reach conclusions are a form of "rational debate", it is clear that you and I fundamentally disagree on what constitutes a "rational debate".William J Murray
September 5, 2011
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Again you assert that without agreed premises, no rational debate can ensue. This is they key issue - so I will return to it. I offered a number of counter-examples, one of which was: A debate about which is the more interesting sport - soccer or American football. When I raised this counter-example and some of the considerations that might go into the debate - variety, tension etc you responded:
Notice how you have subjectively selected specific objective criteria in the subject matter and then state (correctly) that you can have rational debates about music and sports only after one has selected an objective grounding for their debate.
But these were not criteria and certainly not agreed. They were just considerations that anyone might take into account when discussing the issue. Someone might respond by saying that they didn't think that variety was relevant to how interesting a sport was and you could imagine a further discussion about that. On the other hand most people find these to be the kind of things that are relevant to whether something is interesting - and this is a reflection of human nature. Look at any real debate on an ethical issue - for example this one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-1478139. No one has agreed any criteria yet a rational debate is taking place - what are the consequences for children? is it democratic? etc I am afraid the facts just don't support your assertion.markf
September 5, 2011
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