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RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 2:37 pm
Wow... the discussion between Harris and Dawkins, after the speech, is far more valuable than the speech; it's like the lecture just lays the epistemological groundwork for the discussion that follows.
I especially enjoyed listening to the discussion about flipping a switch on two sets of train tracks, in which five would die if you don't switch the train's course, but one will die if you do (an act with which 95% of those polled agree is a valid moral decision), versus being on a bridge above the tracks, where pushing a person onto the tracks will derail the train and save the other five lives is immoral according to 95% of those polled. These are both the same act, on the surface: killing one to save five. And yet, we see an almost night-and-day difference in how both acts are perceived by human beings. The implications for the concept of morality are staggering.
The following discussion, about whether you could grab a healthy person in the waiting room of a hospital because it was discovered that he had an ideal-match of his organs for five people who are dying in that hospital for want of those organs, and why-or-why-not, reminded me of the discussion we recently had about the ethics and legality of abortion and the concept of personal bodily integrity.
Thanks for posting that video. It's still going on as I type this, and I'm fascinated. Which is why it took me so long to type this! hehe
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
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RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 2:41 pm
You're very welcome Rocketsurgeon. Yeah that's a common problem in applied ethics it's called "the trolley problem".
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RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 3:16 pm
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
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RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 3:17 pm
P.S. - Easier to call me "Rocket" or TRS. If you want to type that whole thing each time, fine... but why!? 
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
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RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 3:17 pm
(This post was last modified: October 7, 2015 at 3:18 pm by Mudhammam.)
(October 7, 2015 at 1:57 pm)Evie Wrote: I think Sam Harris' primary point is that whilst theists argue for objective morality that's ontologically objective, he argues instead that subjective facts about the well being of conscious creatures can be studied objectively in an epistemic way instead... the same way science studies other things epistemecally . And his point is that the conclusions matter to the well being of everyone.
To paraphrase Sam Harris: "If words like "good" and "bad" and "right" and "wrong" mean anything at all then... they mean we should at the very least steer away from the worst possible misery for everyone."
He's not saying that it can be proven ontologically, he's saying that you can epistemically study subjective facts about well being that matter in an objective scientific way. Although I enjoyed the Moral Landscape very much, I found it somewhat lacking for the very reason that he doesn't offer much in the way of a defense for the ontological status of objective moral values. To me, it makes little sense to claim that there are objective facts to be known about the differences between good and evil if you do not first acknowledge that good and evil are states which exist independent of one's subjective appraisal of those differences, much like the necessary truth that 2+2=4 regardless if a person has learned arithmetic.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 3:22 pm
(This post was last modified: October 7, 2015 at 3:23 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
(October 7, 2015 at 3:17 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: P.S. - Easier to call me "Rocket" or TRS. If you want to type that whole thing each time, fine... but why!?
Because I fucking love typing and it's my one and only talent!
I love typing out awkward things for fun.
It's thinking of what to say that's the problem!
I would happily type a load of bollocks!
Not as fast as I used to be becasue I'm on a little laptop keyboard I'm not as fast with.... but the last typing test I took says I'm still faster than 96% of people, averaging at 89 WPM (I'm a lot faster on the keyboards I am used to).
At 6 years old I learned to type with all fingers and both thumbs in the space of 30 minutes. I spent over 29 minutes feeling confused as to why my dad was overcomplicating it from my perspective... I listened to him and said in a more kiddy way than the following: "But all I need is the home keys right? Because from them I just move my fingers where it is easiest and closest for them naturally?". And then it just 'clicked' and I typed with all fingers and both thumbs. It's like the only seemingly inborn talent I have and it's weird.
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RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 3:28 pm
(This post was last modified: October 7, 2015 at 3:33 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
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RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 3:28 pm
Asked and answered! 
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
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RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 3:35 pm
I just realized you're called "TheRocketSurgeon" and not "Rocketsurgeon". So from now on I'm gonna call you "TheRocketSurgeon".
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RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 4:06 pm
(October 7, 2015 at 2:15 pm)robvalue Wrote: It's how exactly you settle disputes between direct conflicts of interest that I think science cannot adequately answer. To do this, it must at some point assign relative value to different aspects of wellbeing. And bluntly, I don't much care about how anyone else values my physical pain compared to my lifespan, as a rough example.
But isn't this just you objecting on the basis of subjective viewpoints on an objective fact, rather than showing that the view is exclusively subjective? Once we accept the idea that objective facts can be known about moral value judgments, then by definition there must be an optimum action or set of actions one can take in any given scenario within the context of the objective facts, and whether we- or anyone- can properly apprehend or predict is irrelevant to whether or not that pinnacle actually exists. That's the whole point of objective things, that they continue to exist regardless of whether subjective beings can adequately account for them.
Take the trolley problem, for example: there is potentially some combination of objective facts that would make one or the other solution morally preferable (perhaps the one person has a nuclear bomb with him that will detonate if he's hit and kill far more than just one person, or perhaps he's a doctor with knowledge of how to cure cancer on his way to tell other people. Maybe the five people in the other tunnel are convicted murderers, or all hosts to a new, particularly virulent strain of Ebola). The fact that the person attempting to solve the problem may or may not know these facts, or may subjectively have values that would lead him to take the morally sub-optimal choice, does not alter the fact that one choice is objectively better than the other, given what we know about human beings. Our choices are influenced by the facts at our disposal, but that doesn't mean that all other facts cease to exist.
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