I understand now why you garner such hostility from other Sifters . Still at least your trying to engage me intellectually, in that respect at least you may consider yourself light years ahead of most of your brethren.

I garner hostility here because most of the sifters here grew up in Christian households and they've rebelled against their parents and God and they don't want to hear anything about Him. This is their sanctuary where they enjoy mocking God and Christians without any dissenting voices. I'm here because I care but I wouldn't be here unless God told me to be here. I've tried to leave a few times and He keeps sending me back. Although not so much lately.

There appear to be two fundamental points of disagreement/misunderstanding here.

...Instead we apply Hegel's Dialectic:

Thesis- all statements are false

Antithesis- therefore the above statement must be false and some statements must be true

Synthesis- statements can be both true and false simultaneously!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are two ways, and only two ways, to know truth. Either you are omnipotent, or an omnipotent being reveals it to you. Since humans are not omnipotent it is impossible to know truth unless it is revealed to us by an omnipotent being, ie God. If you think there is another way to know truth, name it. Otherwise what is there to debate? If you don't think it's possible to know truth then you don't know anything. If you don't know anything then you have nothing to talk about.

"Nothing is true" is mere expression. It is a poetic sounding mantra which contains therein a deeper wisdom about the foundations of all human knowledge. You are not specially equipped to break the problem of "under-determination" as outlined by Philosophers like David Hume. God himself could appear to you and say/do anything he liked, it would not change the fundamental limits of the human condition.

Could God reveal Himself to you in a way that you could be absolutely certain of it? It doesn't matter what we can prove to one another; God could sufficiently prove Himself to me (He has) or to you and it would transcend every piece of rationale you've offered.

How could you possibly know for certain that it was not Satan out to trick you? Satan is a deeply powerful being after all, powerful enough to fabricate a profound spiritual experience don't you think? How could you ever prove that the God you worship is not the greatest impostor in the cosmos beyond all doubt?

I know it for certain because God has made me certain. I've seen things only an omnipotent God could do, such as arranging and timing circumstances which would require Him to be in complete and precise control of everything and everyone. Satan certainly can generate profound spiritual experiences (and blindness), which is why he is able to deceive the whole world.

I ask this because the God you worship DEMANDS that you do in fact worship him (and only him) on threat of divine punishment. No true God would ever require worship, let alone demand it! What kind of sick egotist are we dealing with? (the changes in the system related to that whole Jesus thing don;t make a difference here. Either This "God" started perfect or it is not what it claims to be! Past crimes count no matter what token amends were made later on)

God doesn't need us, woo. He had perfect love within His Trinity relationships before He created anything. He doesn't demand that we worship Him because He is egotistical, He commands us to worship Him to put us in right relationship with Him as the supreme good and sustainer of all things. He is the only appropiate object for our adoration, which also puts us in right relationship with other people. Human beings are built to worship; that is why the world is littered with the carcasses of false idols. I don't just mean pagan deities, I mean power, money, fame and all of the other things human beings lust and pine away for. The thing man most likes to worship is himself. Humanists worship the intellect, and the accomplishments of human civilization. These too are idols. Everyone has something they worship, when God is the only appropiate object of our worship. The love that we have to give to all of those things comes from Him, and that is why we return it to Him, which in turn leads to greater love for all people and things. Every other kind of worship is selfish and ultimately spiritual dead(and destructive). Thus this command to worship Him alone (we were created to be in relationship with Him) is for our growth, our protection, and so that we can be who He created us to be.

Your not the only one to have experienced encounters with things you might call "Gods" or "Angels/Daemons". But the God I found lies entirely within and demands/threatens ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and sets ABSOLUTELY NO CONDITIONS. It knows that all Monads (souls) will inevitably make their way back to it, and that it has the patience of eternity with which to wait.

How do you know that?

The fundamental difference is that this God did not create the universe (an absurd answer which demands infinitely more explanation than it provides), this God is created BY THE UNIVERSE!

The explanation you provide only pushes the "absurdity" back one step; you're still left with the same problem as you say I have. Yet, it is not a problem to believe in something eternal. To believe something came from nothing wouldbe the absurdity. Do you believe the Universe is eternal?

We are all "God" experiencing itself subjectively as it evolves teleologically towards perfection. If Consciousness is eternal then this is the only outcome that makes any sense. God being perfect and beyond all time experiences everything it is conceivably possible for a perfect being to experience within an instant of non-time. With all of eternity stretched it before it does the only sensible thing it could do, it commits suicide and returns the universe to a state of pure potential, ready to undergo the experience of evolving from the most basic "mathematical" principles to fully actualised and all powerful consciousness (i.e. back at God again). A fundamental part of this entire process is the journey from elemental and animalistic unconsciousness to fully self aware enlightened consciousness, the highest truth then is to discover that you yourself are God (at least in-potentia), not some mysterious external power.

If God is perfect, which He is, then He isn't limited. His joy never ends; it is the limitation of the human intellect that prevents you from understanding an infinite being, so you have devised a scenario based on those limitations where you impose a limitation on Gods experience so that He is forced to "commit suicide" in order to have new and enjoyable experiences. An infinite being experiences infinite joy. A perfect being will always be perfect. God doesn't evolve; a perfect being has no need to evolve or ever become "basic". He is eternally perfect, and we are not.

1 John 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

The other is your conviction that the Gospel is absolutely true and that you appear to see everything related to it and the greater human spiritual quest via this filter. I'm not going to trade scripture with you on matters of pedantry it'll take all day and get neither of us anywhere. Instead I shall focus on one key argument that undermines the entire house of cards. If the God of Abraham and the old testament is one in the same as the God of which Jesus preaches (/is in corporeal form) and further more that the Old testament is in some way a true account of his/its actions......Then the God of Abraham and Jesus is demonstrably A. not perfect and B. malevolent/incompetent.

Yes, the God Abraham is the God Jesus is referring to. The error is that you think you understand God better than Jesus did. Jesus is the perfect representation of God; His exact image. If you've seen Jesus you have seen the Father. They are one and the same in terms of their character and every other attribute. You don't see that because you don't understand the scriptures. Jesus did, which is why He said things like this:

John 17:23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

The atheist version of studying the bible is to look for something that seems to contradict the claims of Christians so that they can throw it in the garbage and be done with it. You would see the same God that Jesus represents in the Old Testament if you understood the history that it presents.

Go ask the Benjamites or the Canaanites how they feel about this "God". Or how about the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah? The firstborn of Egypt? etc. etc.

Go ask the criminals on death row how they feel about the judge and prosecutor who sent them there. Does that mean they don't deserve to be there?

Yaweh demands Abraham sacrifice his own son, truly the act of a benevolent creature no? And while were on the subject what kind of "God" demands a blood sacrifice for anything? Even if it was a legitimate test of Abrahams faith (a highly dubious notion unto itself) what about the poor goat sacrificed in his sons stead?
This leads into the key difference between the Gnostic God/The Buddha/Dau/Chi etc. (Esoteric) and the Abrahamic God (Exoteric).....

God didn't ask Abraham to do anything that He wasn't willing to do Himself, but unlike Abraham God did sacrifice His son. This is what I mean when I say that you you're not understanding what you're reading. The sacrifice of Issac is a picture of Jesus Christ. You don't see these things because you don't know what to look for.

One merely offers the wisdom to transcend the suffering inherent in mortal life and make ones way back to union with that which we were all along. It is not invested in the material world, it is merely a higher expression of consciousness no longer bound by emergent natural laws. It never judges, it never condemns or punishes and it helps only those who are ready to help themselves.

The other demands blood sacrifices, incites genocides, sets strict rules and threatens you with damnation if you don't obey, demands worship (WORSHIP! WTF!!!!), inspires/authors deeply contradictory and difficult to understand written works (it expects you to accept on faith alone), claims to be a perfect creator of a universe into which suffering and imperfection are inherent (perfect beings do not create imperfect things) etc. etc.

Here is the difference..the God you describe wants to "help" you out of a situation that it created because of its own limitations and need for self-gratification. It is not only responsible for evil, but it does nothing about it. The God you describe is limited, selfish and immoral.

The way you describe my God is a strawman argument in itself. It is not an accurate representation of the biblical account. The God of the Universe created a perfect Universe and endowed His creatures with free will. The creatures He created freely chose to do evil and this is what brought sin and death into the world. This is the reason for the imperfection, and God, at great personal cost to Himself, restored and reconciled His creation through Jesus Christ.

You won't be able to understand the bible without Gods help:

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

That's why I suggested you read the gospel of John, if you really do want to understand God accurately, and pray for assistance.

I don't side with Lucifer (I think she has the opposite problem to Jehova i.e. enlightenment at all costs as quickly as possible and damm the journey to get there), but I do recognise her as the fundamentally opposing force to Jehovah/Allah out of which a higher synthesis emerges (Abraxas the Gnostic God of light, or whatever you want to call it). Jehovah represents supreme attachment to the material world (R>0),

It's a false dichotomy. What you're describing when you refer to God is the gnostic demiurge, which bears no resemblence to the God of the bible. There are no opposing forces to be spoken of because there is no actual duality. God is only light and the only thing He is attached to is His children, because He freely loves them. He is the only power in the Universe. Satan has a paper kingdom; it is just shadows on the wall. In any case, you can't escape the corruption caused by your sin nature. If you shatter a mirror, no matter how well you glue it back together it will never reflect purely again. It doesn't need to be repaired, it needs to be replaced. This is why Jesus said you need to be born again:

John 3:3 Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

When you receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, He will send the Holy Spirit to live inside of you and make you a new person. You are spiritually dead in sins and transgressions, but the Holy Spirit will regenerate your spirit and cleanse you from all of your sin.

while Lucifer supreme attachment to the spiritual/mental (R=0). A wise man see's the two as a personification of the two highest drives in the human psyche and thus concepts to be transcended/mastered.

Satan desired one thing, which was to be God. He became prideful because of his great beauty and intellect and based on his ignorance of Gods true nature, he tried to form a rebellion against God to replace Him and was kicked out of Heaven. This is essentially the process you are describing for those who believe they are God. All Satan is trying to do is duplicate his errors in you and as many other people as he can so that he can destroy them before his time comes. He can't strike back at God directly so he goes after his creatures. Satan is an imitator; he is a potter just as God is a potter. He is doing everything possible to shape and mold you into his image and character, and he has entire universes of deception waiting for you, filled with as much "secret knowledge and wisdom" as you desire. He has a door for every kind of person, every kind of philosophy; his is the broad road that leads to destruction. Jesus said enter through the narrow gate:

Mat 7:13 "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

Mat 7:14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Either way I regard worshipping the God of Abraham as the "one true God" to be a supreme mistake, if Jesus professes to preach that same God's gospel then following him would be a supreme mistake also. I show no fealty to torture Gods, I have more self respect than that.

You surely prefer the idol you have created in your own mind, because that is the god who allows you to do whatever you want. That's all this is really about. Do you know what Jesus said the reason is that men won't come to God?:

John 3:19-21

19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

You don't get to decide who God is, and just because you don't think you should be accountable for what you've done in this life doesn't mean you won't be.

For the record. I love you as much as any other creature in this cosmos but I don't pray to anything for your soul to be saved. Truly it was never in jeopardy in the first place! That part of you which lies beyond the limits of mortality will find its way back to the highest state eventually no matter what, even if it takes eons. In the mean time however I'm happy to waste a small portion of said eons arguing (I suspect futilely) with you on the internet.

God loves you and I love you, and that's why I am telling you all of this. The highest state is the lowest state:

Mat 23:11 The greatest among you shall be your servant.

Mat 23:12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

(I'll get back to you on some of your other more specific points at a later point, I don't have the time or inclination to dig out the texts to make those counter arguments right now.)

Take your time. God bless.

I understand now why you garner such hostility from other Sifters . Still at least your trying to engage me intellectually, in that respect at least you may consider yourself light years ahead of most of your brethren.

There appear to be two fundamental points of disagreement/misunderstanding here.

First if your reliance on Aristotelian Logic to attack my Dialectic argument. When I said you were using the language with which I described to counter instead of addressing the underlying concept it was to this I was alluding (not clearly enough it seems).
Philosophers (good ones anyway) have largely up on traditional Aristotelian logic as a means to extrapolate objective truth because it functions only upon linguistic syntax. The very fact that such a fundamental assertion as "nothing is true" is mutually contradictory as a prime example of this. The language we use to describe and frame the problem simultaneously limits our ability to comprehend it. As I suspect you well know deeper conceptual matters are often too deep to be fully expressed by mere syntax based language.
Instead we apply Hegel's Dialectic:

Thesis- all statements are false

Antithesis- therefore the above statement must be false and some statements must be true

Synthesis- statements can be both true and false simultaneously!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Nothing is true" is mere expression. It is a poetic sounding mantra which contains therein a deeper wisdom about the foundations of all human knowledge. You are not specially equipped to break the problem of "under-determination" as outlined by Philosophers like David Hume. God himself could appear to you and say/do anything he liked, it would not change the fundamental limits of the human condition.

How could you possibly know for certain that it was not Satan out to trick you? Satan is a deeply powerful being after all, powerful enough to fabricate a profound spiritual experience don't you think? How could you ever prove that the God you worship is not the greatest impostor in the cosmos beyond all doubt? I ask this because the God you worship DEMANDS that you do in fact worship him (and only him) on threat of divine punishment. No true God would ever require worship, let alone demand it! What kind of sick egotist are we dealing with? (the changes in the system related to that whole Jesus thing don;t make a difference here. Either This "God" started perfect or it is not what it claims to be! Past crimes count no matter what token amends were made later on)


Your not the only one to have experienced encounters with things you might call "Gods" or "Angels/Daemons". But the God I found lies entirely within and demands/threatens ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and sets ABSOLUTELY NO CONDITIONS. It knows that all Monads (souls) will inevitably make their way back to it, and that it has the patience of eternity with which to wait.
The fundamental difference is that this God did not create the universe (an absurd answer which demands infinitely more explanation than it provides), this God is created BY THE UNIVERSE!
We are all "God" experiencing itself subjectively as it evolves teleologically towards perfection. If Consciousness is eternal then this is the only outcome that makes any sense. God being perfect and beyond all time experiences everything it is conceivably possible for a perfect being to experience within an instant of non-time. With all of eternity stretched it before it does the only sensible thing it could do, it commits suicide and returns the universe to a state of pure potential, ready to undergo the experience of evolving from the most basic "mathematical" principles to fully actualised and all powerful consciousness (i.e. back at God again). A fundamental part of this entire process is the journey from elemental and animalistic unconsciousness to fully self aware enlightened consciousness, the highest truth then is to discover that you yourself are God (at least in-potentia), not some mysterious external power.

R>=0 (R= distance between two points)



The other is your conviction that the Gospel is absolutely true and that you appear to see everything related to it and the greater human spiritual quest via this filter. I'm not going to trade scripture with you on matters of pedantry it'll take all day and get neither of us anywhere. Instead I shall focus on one key argument that undermines the entire house of cards. If the God of Abraham and the old testament is one in the same as the God of which Jesus preaches (/is in corporeal form) and further more that the Old testament is in some way a true account of his/its actions......Then the God of Abraham and Jesus is demonstrably A. not perfect and B. malevolent/incompetent.

Go ask the Benjamites or the Canaanites how they feel about this "God". Or how about the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah? The firstborn of Egypt? etc. etc.

Yaweh demands Abraham sacrifice his own son, truly the act of a benevolent creature no? And while were on the subject what kind of "God" demands a blood sacrifice for anything? Even if it was a legitimate test of Abrahams faith (a highly dubious notion unto itself) what about the poor goat sacrificed in his sons stead?
This leads into the key difference between the Gnostic God/The Buddha/Dau/Chi etc. (Esoteric) and the Abrahamic God (Exoteric).....

One merely offers the wisdom to transcend the suffering inherent in mortal life and make ones way back to union with that which we were all along. It is not invested in the material world, it is merely a higher expression of consciousness no longer bound by emergent natural laws. It never judges, it never condemns or punishes and it helps only those who are ready to help themselves.

The other demands blood sacrifices, incites genocides, sets strict rules and threatens you with damnation if you don't obey, demands worship (WORSHIP! WTF!!!!), inspires/authors deeply contradictory and difficult to understand written works (it expects you to accept on faith alone), claims to be a perfect creator of a universe into which suffering and imperfection are inherent (perfect beings do not create imperfect things) etc. etc.

I don't side with Lucifer (I think she has the opposite problem to Jehova i.e. enlightenment at all costs as quickly as possible and damm the journey to get there), but I do recognise her as the fundamentally opposing force to Jehovah/Allah out of which a higher synthesis emerges (Abraxas the Gnostic God of light, or whatever you want to call it). Jehovah represents supreme attachment to the material world (R>0), while Lucifer supreme attachment to the spiritual/mental (R=0). A wise man see's the two as a personification of the two highest drives in the human psyche and thus concepts to be transcended/mastered.
Or if you want to put your scientific head on for a moment they represent the Left and Right hand brain (all truths are relative, one can approach this from a purely psychological/neuroscience position and argue the same case just with less colourful imagery ).

Either way I regard worshipping the God of Abraham as the "one true God" to be a supreme mistake, if Jesus professes to preach that same God's gospel then following him would be a supreme mistake also. I show no fealty to torture Gods, I have more self respect than that.


For the record. I love you as much as any other creature in this cosmos but I don't pray to anything for your soul to be saved. Truly it was never in jeopardy in the first place! That part of you which lies beyond the limits of mortality will find its way back to the highest state eventually no matter what, even if it takes eons. In the mean time however I'm happy to waste a small portion of said eons arguing (I suspect futilely) with you on the internet.

(I'll get back to you on some of your other more specific points at a later point, I don't have the time or inclination to dig out the texts to make those counter arguments right now.)

The other key issue that makes it really hard for religious people to 'get' evolution on a core level is their understanding of evolution as teleological - goal-directed - and their understanding of humanity as the 'end goal' of evolution. Even if they get the geological scales involved and they get the basic genetic mechanism of evolution, they still see it as a process intended to create humans; as us being the 'best' life forms. That fucks their ability to actually understand evolution all to shit, because they can't get their minds around the randomness of it, and the fact that protozoa that haven't changed much for the last several hundred million years are clearly earth's evolutionary 'winners.' Sometime I think it would be easier for these fundamentalists to deny the existence of God than to accept that the existence, shape and role of humanity on earth is just a meaningless accident.

Before any quotes, I'll give my own overarching point: Life without a higher purpose may be ultimately meaningless (I'll get more into what sense I mean), and that makes life more difficult than if there were ultimate meaning, but that has no bearing whatsoever on the truth value of the existence of Yahweh. You cannot derive Yahweh's existence (or any deity or pantheon) from your claim that life is easier that way. [Edit: Turns out I never actually get to that conclusion in my comments below, so you might as well address it here, but after you've read the rest.]

The point was never that a meaningless Universe makes life more difficult; you simply decided that was the point. The point the video makes, and which I have also been making, is that you are suffering from cognitive dissonance by having no ultimate justification for your value system, but living as if you do. You admit that under atheism the Universe is meaningless, and so we've been debating on whether you can find any justification for a value system in a meaningless Universe. The explanation you have ultimately given me is that you believe there is a right and wrong, and people do have value, because you feel it. Do you realize this proves what I have been saying all along?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the term used in modern psychology to describe the state of holding two or more conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously.

Your atheism tells you that life without God is meaningless. Your feelings tell you that life is meaningful. These are two conflicting cognitions. Instead of realizing that and re-evaluating your atheism, you say that you don't know why and you don't care. That is the very definition of cognitive dissonance.

But the fact is that somehow, in the context of my own little 80-year microblip in the lifespan of our planet, I do care. I just do. I have nothing more than a pet theory about why I care. I care, and I care a lot. I suppose I'm somewhat curious as to why I care, but it's not of primary importance for me to know. I just do, and it's pleasing to notice that just about everyone else around me does too. The only question for me is how to follow this desire of mine to be good given my circumstances.

The facts are simple: the existence of God explains everything that you feel about wanting to do good, and the love that you have for people and life, and your atheism denies it. Yet you embrace what is contrary to your own experience.

And why should I reject being a slave to chemicals? The chemicals MAKE ME FEEL GOOD, remember? Should I purposefully do things that make me feel bad? Why on Earth would I even consider it? Ridiculous.

So if it makes you feel good its okay to be a slave? You don't mind being enslaved to a mindless irrational process because you get rewarded for it like a rat activating a feeder?

I reject the description that I live my life "as a Christian does", as if Christians invented or have some original claim being good. All humans, regardless of faith or lack thereof, believe in the value of humans (or, any societies that don't value humans go extinct very quickly). We all generally shun murder and violence, foster mutual care, enjoy one another's company, feel protective, have a soft spot for babies and so forth, and have been doing all of this as a species since before Christianity began.

So I would turn it around and say instead that it's Christians who go about their lives living like normal humans, but thinking they're being good because their religion tells them to.

Most people in this world (around 85 - 90 percent) are theists. If we are going to talk about universal belief in this world then it is theism which is normal. That is historically where our morality comes from. Everyone who believes in God has an ultimate justification for right and wrong, but atheists do not. So I will modify this and say that you're living like a theist does but denying it with your atheism.

I can claim that I have a stronger sense of what's right and wrong than the psychopath simply because they are defined as lacking that sense (or, perhaps non-psychopaths are defined as people having that sense). And you're right that I do not claim that my way of determining which actions are appropriate is inherently superior to the psychopath's. As it happens, my way of determining morality puts me among the overwhelming majority, and so it's relatively easy for me to mitigate the negative impacts of people like that by identifying and avoiding them. I don't say that my way should be preferred to the pshychopath's; I just notice that it is, and I'm grateful for that, and for the fact that psychopathy is not a choice.

Actually, psychopaths do know right from wrong, but they don't care.

In any case, what you're saying here contradicts your later claim that my hypothetical about a society approving of child rape is ridiculous, and proves my point. You admit here that you couldn't say that your way of morality is superior to psychopathy, it just so happens that there are more of you than there are of them. You name that as the reason why your way should be preferred. Therefore what you're talking about is a herd morality.

Now think about if the situation were reversed and psychopaths were in the majority. Your version of morality would no longer be preferred, and psychopaths would no longer need to conform to your standards; you would need to conform to theirs. Whatever was normalized in a psychopathic society would be what was called good and whatever the psychopathic society rejected would be called evil. This is proof that everything I said was true. The entire point of my example was to show that if we simply have a herd morality where the majority tells us what is good and evil, then if the majority ever said child rape is good it would be. This is simply a fact. Whether you think it could happen or not is relevent to the point.

You're drowning in a sea of relativism, where a justifies b and b justifies c and c justifies d, and this goes into an infinite regress.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Can you give an example of a justification to infinite regression that would cause some kind of problem unique to non-thesitic morality?

I'll get to this later.

I don't accept that it's any more natural to worship Yahweh than some other deity or pantheon or idol, and I can't imagine how you could justify such a position without referring to dogma. Ask a Muslim. He'll tell you with the same conviction that Allah is the natural way and show you his own dogma. 100 years ago, a Japanese would have told you it was natural to worship the Emperor, and today he'd say it's natural to worship ancestors. My point is that any worship will satisfy our natural urge to worship, which is why almost all people worship something, and the object of worship you're brought up around is the one you're most likely to be comfortable with worshipping, naturally.

The reason I said this was in reply to your assertion that we developed religion because it answered questions and made us feel comfortable. My point was that we all come pre-programmed with a need for worship, which you apparently agree with. That is what is natural to us. It has nothing to do with whether it is more or less natural to worship Jesus. It is actually more natural for us to rebel against God because of our corrupt nature. It's only through personal revelation that we direct our worship in the right direction.

People don't naturally conclude life is meaningless; they know from their experience that it is very meaningful. They are taught it is meaningless through philosophy and the ennui that comes from modern life. You will never find a population of natural atheists anywhere on the planet.

The problem —and one that I fell into myself— is the conflation of two senses of the word "meaningless". For example, I can say without conflict that the planet and humanity is doomed and so forth, so our actions are ultimately meaningless, AND that interacting with people gives meaning to my life. Now, in the first sense, I mean there's no teleological purpose to my life. In the second sense, I mean certain people and things in my life give fulfillment/bliss.

The sense we agreed upon and have been discussing is that that life without God is meaningless. In this sense, it is still equally meaningless whether human civilization implodes or doesn't implode. Therefore the meaning you derive from your feelings is only an illusion created by chemical reactions in your brain.

Your anecdotal evidence about depression doesn't make you an authority on *the single cause* of depression. Some depressives follow your pattern, and others don't. I don't. When I'm depressed, my feeling isn't hopelessness. In fact, these days, I'm feeling rather hopeless, but I'm not depressed.

You can feel hopeless and not be depressed, but the source of the depression is almost always hopelessness. I'll give you some examples. If you put all of the worlds depressed people in a very large room, and gave each of them a check for 10 million dollars, you will have instantly cured around 80 percent of them. The majority of depression comes being stuck in a bad situation that you don't feel like you can change, situations that cause a lot of stress and unhappiness. A lot of money buys a lot of change. Many of the rest are probably depressed because of health issues, and if you could offer them a cure (hope), they would be cured as well. The remainder are probably depressed because of extreme neurosis. There are other causes of depression but you see my point. Hope is the solution to depression.

It's not my hope. I believe that dead is dead. Much simpler than your belief. Much more likely too. You're implying that I'm following some faulty reasoning about the afterlife. Among the things I don't know are an *infinite number of possibilities* of what could happen in the afterlife, one of which is your bible story. My best guess is nothing. Since nobody's ever come back from the dead to talk about it (Did nobody interview Lazarus? What a great opportunity missed!), nobody knows, so there's no reason to speculate about it ever. Your book says whatever it says, and I don't care because to me it's fairy tales. I'd have to be an idiot to live my life differently because of a book I didn't first believe in. Just like you'd be an idiot to live like a non-believer if you believe so much in Yahweh.

On what basis do you say your belief is more likely?

Someone has come back from the dead to talk about it: Jesus Christ. You don't have to believe the bible; you can ask Him yourself. You say there is no reason to speculate (ever); now that is an interesting statement from someone who believes in open inquiry. What you've said is actually the death of inquiry. And let's be clear about this; you have speculated. You are basing your conclusion on no evidence but merely your atheistic presuppositions about reality. You say no one has come back but one man has, but of course you dismiss the account as fantasy (again because of your atheistic presuppositions).

I would also ask how you think the brain understands the complex moral scenarios we find ourselves in and rewards or doesn't reward accordingly? Doesn't that seem fairly implausible to you?

It's quite plausible. I'm no biologist, but I'm sure there's a branch of evolutionary biology that deals with social feelings. My own pet theory is that these feelings are comparable to the ones that control the behaviour of all communal forms of life, like ants and zebras and red-winged blackbirds. It's evolution, either way, IMO.

Of course anything is possible when you summon your magic genie of evolution. "Time itself performs the miracles for you."

What makes someone a bad person?

In the absolute sense, religious faith, only, can bring that kind of judgement as a meaningful label.

In the relative sense where I would colloquially refer to someone as "a bad person" (my prime minister, Stephen Harper is an example), I mean someone who has shown they are sufficiently disruptive to other people's happiness due to acting too much in their own self-interest that they're best removed from influence and then avoided. But I would only use that term as a shorthand among people who knew that I don't moralize absolutely.

So no one is really bad?

Do you think this could have something to do with the fact that the bible says you should do things you don't want to do, or that you should stop doing things you don't want to stop doing?

An interesting question, but no. I don't believe it because everything I see points all religion being a human invention.

Well, I'm fairly sure you've told me before that you hate the idea of God telling you what to do.

Your hypothetical is an appeal to the ridiculous. It simply is a fact that just about everyone —including child rapists, I'm guessing— believes that child rape is wrong for the simple reason that it severely hurts children. If it increases a person's suffering, then it's wrong. I can think of nothing simpler. Your hypothetical is like one where a passage in the bible prescribed child rape. Would it be OK then? Does the bible that say that rape is wrong? Does it say you cannot marry a child?

I've covered this above, but I will also add that if we had evolved differently, then in your worldview, all of this would be moot. We are only in this particular configuration because of circumstance, and not design. It could just as easily be 1000 different other ways. There could easily be scenarios where we evolved to exploit children instead of nuture them.

In both cases, you didn't address my point. 1) I'm stating that Yahweh's laws are far, far more complex than secular morality. You countered that Yahweh's laws were as simple as Jesus' two rules. I showed that was wrong with my AIDS in Africa example (condoms saving lives). You can address that, or you can agree that Yahweh's laws are more complex that Harris' model of secular morality.

I hope I don't need to point out that the bible says nothing about condoms. Gods morality is really as simple as the two greatest commandments because if you follow those you will follow all the rest:

Romans 13:9-10

The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

When you love your neighbor and love God you are basically doing the whole law right there. There are some particulars that can emerge in different situations just like we have laws for different situations, and so Harris would have to accommodate those as well.

2) I also pointed out that Jesus gave us a moral model that requires the individual to determine for themselves based on fixed criteria what's good and what's not. "… as you would have your neighbour do unto you…" implicitly requires the individual to compare their actions with what they themselves would want someone else to do to them. That means relying on their own understanding. This contradicts your other statements that we shouldn't rely on our own understanding. You see? To follow Jesus' second law, you must rely on your own understanding.

Yes, in this case we would rely on our own understanding, as informed by the biblical worldview. What scripture is saying when it says "lean not on your own understanding" is that we make God the Lord of our reasoning. So, when we think about doing unto others, we would think about it in the context of how Jesus taught us to behave.

[you:]What about all of Pagan societies throughout the ages that sacrificed their children to demons?

You're making my point for me. Paganism is religion. Non-believers would never justify a habit of killing their own children.

Yes they would:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,880,00.html

So your answer is yes? You think that without religion, society may decide torturing babies is good because it decided that killing Jews was good?

[me:]If you think I’m being ridiculous, what do you think is more likely: that a society somewhere will suddenly realize that they feel just fine about torturing babies, or that a society somewhere will get the idea that it’s their god’s will that they torture babies? Human instinct is much more consistent than the will of any gods ever recorded.

Yes, I think an entire society could end up agreeing on something that depraved, just like the ancient Greek society approved of paedophilia. You also act as if I am trying to defend all religion, which I'm not. There are plenty of sick and depraved religions out there, and religions can easily corrupt a culture, like islam has done to the Arab culture.

In any case, there are many examples of non-believing societies doing sick and depraved things to their populations. Millions of Christians were murdered by communists in the 1940's and 50's. I highly recommend you read this book:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gracealoneca.com%2Fsitebuildercontent%2Fsitebu
ilderfiles%2Ftortured_for_christ.pdf&ei=PSNiUIyTCsPqiwLYtYGQCw&usg=AFQjCNG-ro4rM7dfvFCkgIvjnmgdhQnSPA&cad=rja

The fact is, in a meaningless Universe you simply can't prove anything without God. You actually have no basis for logic, rationality, morality, uniformity in nature, but you live as if you do. If I ask you how you know your reasoning is valid, you will reply "by using my reasoning".

You're slipping back into solipsism. We agreed not to go there. I'm not going to answer any of those things.

Now you're just trying to duck the issue, and perhaps you don't understand what solipsism is, because this is not solipsism. Solipsism is the belief that only your mind is sure to exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

What I am talking about is right in line with the video. Without God you don't have any ultimate justification not just for any kind of value, but even for your own reasoning. It is a direct implication of a meaningless existence. This is what I mean about a justifies b justifies c justifies d into infinity. You have nowhere to stake a claim which can justify anything which you experience, or even your own rationality. If you feel you do, please demonstrate why you believe your reasoning is actually valid.

>> ^messenger:

stuff

@shinyblurry


We seem to be getting into a lot of repetition in this thread, so rather than going line by line, I'm going to attempt my points and reactions to yours with fewer quotes, hopefully hitting the important themes. I don't want to minimize anything you've said, so if I skip anything you feel is a separate issue and is cogent, feel free to draw my attention back to it specifically, but check first and see if you can't answer that same point with something I've already said in here.

Before any quotes, I'll give my own overarching point: Life without a higher purpose may be ultimately meaningless (I'll get more into what sense I mean), and that makes life more difficult than if there were ultimate meaning, but that has no bearing whatsoever on the truth value of the existence of Yahweh. You cannot derive Yahweh's existence (or any deity or pantheon) from your claim that life is easier that way. [Edit: Turns out I never actually get to that conclusion in my comments below, so you might as well address it here, but after you've read the rest.]

My overarching point is to demonstrate the cognitive dissonance inherent in your position ... if this world is not under the sovereign control of God, it is doomed to destruction ... You live as a Christian does, judging what is good and evil … these are just chemical reactions in your brain … why be a slave to chemicals?… you have no rational justification for … saying your sense of right and wrong is any better than the psychopath, or that yours should be preferred.

There's no cognitive dissonance in my mind –at least, not about doing the right thing. I acknowledge a life without God has no ultimate purpose, and that in the grand scheme of things, the Earth is going to be swallowed by the Sun in a few billion years and nearly all traces of humanity will disappear with it, and at that time, nothing anybody has ever done will matter because there will be nobody left for whom it can matter. With that in mind, it does seem odd that despite realizing this, I would still care about doing the right thing.

But the fact is that somehow, in the context of my own little 80-year microblip in the lifespan of our planet, I do care. I just do. I have nothing more than a pet theory about why I care. I care, and I care a lot. I suppose I'm somewhat curious as to why I care, but it's not of primary importance for me to know. I just do, and it's pleasing to notice that just about everyone else around me does too. The only question for me is how to follow this desire of mine to be good given my circumstances.

And why should I reject being a slave to chemicals? The chemicals MAKE ME FEEL GOOD, remember? Should I purposefully do things that make me feel bad? Why on Earth would I even consider it? Ridiculous.

I reject the description that I live my life "as a Christian does", as if Christians invented or have some original claim being good. All humans, regardless of faith or lack thereof, believe in the value of humans (or, any societies that don't value humans go extinct very quickly). We all generally shun murder and violence, foster mutual care, enjoy one another's company, feel protective, have a soft spot for babies and so forth, and have been doing all of this as a species since before Christianity began.

So I would turn it around and say instead that it's Christians who go about their lives living like normal humans, but thinking they're being good because their religion tells them to.

I can claim that I have a stronger sense of what's right and wrong than the psychopath simply because they are defined as lacking that sense (or, perhaps non-psychopaths are defined as people having that sense). And you're right that I do not claim that my way of determining which actions are appropriate is inherently superior to the psychopath's. As it happens, my way of determining morality puts me among the overwhelming majority, and so it's relatively easy for me to mitigate the negative impacts of people like that by identifying and avoiding them. I don't say that my way should be preferred to the pshychopath's; I just notice that it is, and I'm grateful for that, and for the fact that psychopathy is not a choice.

You're drowning in a sea of relativism, where a justifies b and b justifies c and c justifies d, and this goes into an infinite regress.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Can you give an example of a justification to infinite regression that would cause some kind of problem unique to non-thesitic morality?

People worship because they're made to worship … 1 Romans says that God has made Himself evident to people in the things He has made. So, rather than people worshiping because they wanted to avoid meaninglessness, they worship because it the most natural thing for them to do which matches their experience.

I don't accept that it's any more natural to worship Yahweh than some other deity or pantheon or idol, and I can't imagine how you could justify such a position without referring to dogma. Ask a Muslim. He'll tell you with the same conviction that Allah is the natural way and show you his own dogma. 100 years ago, a Japanese would have told you it was natural to worship the Emperor, and today he'd say it's natural to worship ancestors. My point is that any worship will satisfy our natural urge to worship, which is why almost all people worship something, and the object of worship you're brought up around is the one you're most likely to be comfortable with worshipping, naturally.

People don't naturally conclude life is meaningless; they know from their experience that it is very meaningful. They are taught it is meaningless through philosophy and the ennui that comes from modern life. You will never find a population of natural atheists anywhere on the planet.

The problem —and one that I fell into myself— is the conflation of two senses of the word "meaningless". For example, I can say without conflict that the planet and humanity is doomed and so forth, so our actions are ultimately meaningless, AND that interacting with people gives meaning to my life. Now, in the first sense, I mean there's no teleological purpose to my life. In the second sense, I mean certain people and things in my life give fulfillment/bliss. If by "natural atheist" you mean people who have no supernatural practices including ancestor worship or anything, then yes, you're right, I don't believe such a society exists. To me, this points to the universal human tendency to worship something—anything, and to feel better about life when we do so. Slaves to chemical reactions in their brains, as far as I'm concerned.

I can speak on depression because I used to be depressed. I know what it is like, and having come out of it, I am qualified to speak on what I can clearly see as being the number one issue; hopelessness.

Your anecdotal evidence about depression doesn't make you an authority on *the single cause* of depression. Some depressives follow your pattern, and others don't. I don't. When I'm depressed, my feeling isn't hopelessness. In fact, these days, I'm feeling rather hopeless, but I'm not depressed.

If someone feels it right to hurt and steal from you, who are you to tell them that they ought not to do that?

I would never say that someone "ought not to do" anything on objective moral grounds. If I ever said something like that (I wouldn't use the words "ought" or "should"), it would be on the understanding that this person either knows the local laws and is violating them, or more likely shares a moral foundation with me, is acting against it. Either way, that person, upon consideration, would probably prefer not to be doing that mean thing, and is only doing it to satisfy some other need of theirs that they consider higher than their need to do the right thing by me. (This isn't to justify the bad act, but to show you how I think about bad acts and the people who do them. In other words, I don't believe people get encouraged by Satan or anything to do bad things.)

[me:]There’s nobody who’s going to judge my soul when I’m dead, so in that sense, once I’m dead, it won’t matter to me in the least what I do now once I’m dead because I’ll be dead.

[you:]You say this with certainly but I think you have to recognize that this is your hope. I wonder where this hope comes from? Since you've never been dead before to see what happens, what makes you so sure about it? Could this information about life after death exist in the 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 percent of things that you don't know?

It's not my hope. I believe that dead is dead. Much simpler than your belief. Much more likely too. You're implying that I'm following some faulty reasoning about the afterlife. Among the things I don't know are an *infinite number of possibilities* of what could happen in the afterlife, one of which is your bible story. My best guess is nothing. Since nobody's ever come back from the dead to talk about it (Did nobody interview Lazarus? What a great opportunity missed!), nobody knows, so there's no reason to speculate about it ever. Your book says whatever it says, and I don't care because to me it's fairy tales. I'd have to be an idiot to live my life differently because of a book I didn't first believe in. Just like you'd be an idiot to live like a non-believer if you believe so much in Yahweh.

I would also ask how you think the brain understands the complex moral scenarios we find ourselves in and rewards or doesn't reward accordingly? Doesn't that seem fairly implausible to you?

It's quite plausible. I'm no biologist, but I'm sure there's a branch of evolutionary biology that deals with social feelings. My own pet theory is that these feelings are comparable to the ones that control the behaviour of all communal forms of life, like ants and zebras and red-winged blackbirds. It's evolution, either way, IMO.

What makes someone a bad person?

In the absolute sense, religious faith, only, can bring that kind of judgement as a meaningful label.

In the relative sense where I would colloquially refer to someone as "a bad person" (my prime minister, Stephen Harper is an example), I mean someone who has shown they are sufficiently disruptive to other people's happiness due to acting too much in their own self-interest that they're best removed from influence and then avoided. But I would only use that term as a shorthand among people who knew that I don't moralize absolutely.

Do you think this could have something to do with the fact that the bible says you should do things you don't want to do, or that you should stop doing things you don't want to stop doing?

An interesting question, but no. I don't believe it because everything I see points all religion being a human invention.

Your atheism leaves you in the position of not being able to tell me that something like child rape is absolutely wrong. In your world, there is no such thing, and if everyone thought it was right, it would be.

Your hypothetical is an appeal to the ridiculous. It simply is a fact that just about everyone —including child rapists, I'm guessing— believes that child rape is wrong for the simple reason that it severely hurts children. If it increases a person's suffering, then it's wrong. I can think of nothing simpler. Your hypothetical is like one where a passage in the bible prescribed child rape. Would it be OK then? Does the bible that say that rape is wrong? Does it say you cannot marry a child?

[me:]Yahweh’s morality is nowhere near as simple as a secular morality. Where in those two commandments of Jesus does it say that using condoms or allowing same-sex couples to marry is wrong? In fact, saving lives, preventing unwanted pregnancies and allowing all loving couples to get married are ways to love your neighbour, and they’re exactly what I would want my neighbour to do or advocate for on my behalf.

[you:]God wrote His commandments on our hearts, which is the reason your feelings tell you what is right and wrong.

And elsewhere…

[me:]First, you’re talking in circles. If Harris’ model of morality is arbitrary, then so is Jesus’ model of “do unto others…” because they amount to pretty much the same thing, and what one person wants his neighbours to do may not be the same as someone else’s, etc. At some level, we’re going to have to determine for ourselves what’s right and what’s not.

[you:]We have the freedom to obey or disobey God. The one thing God will never do is make you obey Him. In that sense, you have to determine whether you will do what is good or evil.

In both cases, you didn't address my point. 1) I'm stating that Yahweh's laws are far, far more complex than secular morality. You countered that Yahweh's laws were as simple as Jesus' two rules. I showed that was wrong with my AIDS in Africa example (condoms saving lives). You can address that, or you can agree that Yahweh's laws are more complex that Harris' model of secular morality. 2) I also pointed out that Jesus gave us a moral model that requires the individual to determine for themselves based on fixed criteria what's good and what's not. "… as you would have your neighbour do unto you…" implicitly requires the individual to compare their actions with what they themselves would want someone else to do to them. That means relying on their own understanding. This contradicts your other statements that we shouldn't rely on our own understanding. You see? To follow Jesus' second law, you must rely on your own understanding.

[me:]Third, do you picture a world where everyone suddenly agrees that torturing babies is OK? Do you really believe that without religion people have absolutely no internal direction whatsoever, and will accept torturing of babies as acceptable? I don’t. So, no, Harris’ moral system does not allow for the possibility of torturing babies.

[you:]This is really an argument from incredulity. I'm sure no one pictured an entire society could be convinced that killing millions of jews is a good thing, but it happened.

So your answer is yes? You think that without religion, society may decide torturing babies is good because it decided that killing Jews was good?

It's a bad comparison anyway. Genocide happens all the time, even in religious societies (by the 1939 census, 94% of Germans were Christian, FWIW). You can't compare this with an entire society suddenly deciding that torturing children is morally correct. If I ever heard of such a baby-torturing society existed, I'd immediately assume it was in accordance with their religious belief, rather than just what they all decided was OK, wouldn't you?

[me:]If you think I’m being ridiculous, what do you think is more likely: that a society somewhere will suddenly realize that they feel just fine about torturing babies, or that a society somewhere will get the idea that it’s their god’s will that they torture babies? Human instinct is much more consistent than the will of any gods ever recorded.

[you:]What about all of Pagan societies throughout the ages that sacrificed their children to demons?

You're making my point for me. Paganism is religion. Non-believers would never justify a habit of killing their own children.

The fact is, in a meaningless Universe you simply can't prove anything without God. You actually have no basis for logic, rationality, morality, uniformity in nature, but you live as if you do. If I ask you how you know your reasoning is valid, you will reply "by using my reasoning".

You're slipping back into solipsism. We agreed not to go there. I'm not going to answer any of those things.

He was doing OK for 30 minutes or so until he tried to blame "the most bloody century in history" on atheism, I'm assuming, because of their coincidence. Argument from coincidence means nothing, especially considering all the wars that have been waged in the name of one religion or another. My guess is our increased population and increased killing technology account for why we are able to kill more people.

With his attack on the student who insisted, "Everything is meaningless", he's committing the common error of conflating two different meanings of the same word. The student wasn't saying, "There is no such thing such that it has meaning, including this statement." He was agreeing that there is no teleological reason for our existence. Zacharias twisted his words with double meanings.

His insight about emptiness coming from indulgence in pleasure and the disappointment after is accurate, as long as the pleasure being indulged in isn't self-fulfilling. When I work hard to prepare something that will make others happy, I get immense pleasure before, during and after. It's only when I'm focusing on mundane things like computer games or (sorry y'al) the Sift that I feel pleasure during, but little pleasure after.

Also, people like working towards things. If you think that you're going to be happier once you reach a goal, you're wrong. But if you think you're going to be happier while you're reaching goals, you'll probably be right. If you'd asked Boris Becker how he felt after his first championship, he might have felt better. After that he realized that there was nowhere else for him to go. Sounds like he was also particularly prone to depression on top of that, though I know nothing of him.

Further, all these arguments from the Hong Kong tycoon to Becker to Hitler are anecdotal, and not statistically significant. None demonstrate anything except that it's possible for a person to reach material goals and not be happy. If they were conclusive, then by the same token one would only need to find a single suicidal believer to disprove religion from the other side. Statistics showing significantly less depression among religious people than non-believers would be meaningful, and they may exist. But they still wouldn't demonstrate lack of faith to be a wrong position, just a less advantageous one.

59:50 Does Zacharias think only religious people find meaning in their children? 1:01:00 Or that religious people don't try and find happiness in fame and wealth?

His final argument about being in error about the Christian religion as opposed to being in error about atheism overlooks all the evil things people are capable of only through justification by religion.

Yeah, while I understand why creationists like ID (as a stealth attack), it confuses me that they'd subscribe to a theory that is wholly incompatible with creationism.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
>> ^ShakaUVM:

Wonderfully interesting, but it actually makes the case for ID instead of evolution. Think about it -- the code has a teleological goal set to make clocks. As the machines evolve, they will always eventually end up as people (sorry, clocks) even though the underlying processes appear to be random.

Not that you're really around anymore to respond to me, but you're hitting on a point that really confuses me about the people who seem upset about and/or opposed to the theory of evolution.

That is to say, there's nothing about evolution that's incompatible with the idea of having a divine designer, provided you're willing to concede exactly the ground you do -- that the Designer didn't draw up the blueprint for human beings specifically, so much as the Designer drew up a universe with natural laws that inevitably lead to something like us coming about.

To some degree I understand creationism more than I do "intelligent design". Creationism is clearly based on some desire to interpret Biblical texts as some sort of literal, historical account of how things came to be as they are. I don't understand what niche "intelligent design" fills, either from the POV of scientific reasoning (e.g. does it provide for better prediction of any phenomena?), nor from a theological one, especially since it's supposedly not a theological artifice.

To someone like me, it seems like its only purpose is to try to create political pretext for teaching students religion in science classrooms.

>> ^ShakaUVM:

Wonderfully interesting, but it actually makes the case for ID instead of evolution. Think about it -- the code has a teleological goal set to make clocks. As the machines evolve, they will always eventually end up as people (sorry, clocks) even though the underlying processes appear to be random.

Not that you're really around anymore to respond to me, but you're hitting on a point that really confuses me about the people who seem upset about and/or opposed to the theory of evolution.

That is to say, there's nothing about evolution that's incompatible with the idea of having a divine designer, provided you're willing to concede exactly the ground you do -- that the Designer didn't draw up the blueprint for human beings specifically, so much as the Designer drew up a universe with natural laws that inevitably lead to something like us coming about.

To some degree I understand creationism more than I do "intelligent design". Creationism is clearly based on some desire to interpret Biblical texts as some sort of literal, historical account of how things came to be as they are. I don't understand what niche "intelligent design" fills, either from the POV of scientific reasoning (e.g. does it provide for better prediction of any phenomena?), nor from a theological one, especially since it's supposedly not a theological artifice.

To someone like me, it seems like its only purpose is to try to create political pretext for teaching students religion in science classrooms.

Critique of "The Objectivist Ethics"
by Michael Huemer http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/fac_huemer.shtml

The following responds to "The Objectivist Ethics" by Ayn Rand. I assume the reader is familiar with it. I begin with a general overview of what is wrong with it. I follow this with a set of more detailed comments, which make a paragraph-by-paragraph examination of her statements in the essay. The latter also elaborates further some of the points made in the overview.


http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand5.htm

General Overview
1. Rand's Argument

Rand's argument seems to be as follows. I enclose in parentheses required implicit premises that I have introduced. The right-most column gives page and paragraph citations for where Rand says these things (15,6=page 15, 6th paragraph from the top).(1) Major conclusions are marked by asterisks.

1. Value is agent-relative; things can only be valuable for particular entities. premise 15,6
2. Something is valuable to an entity, only if the entity faces alternatives. premise 15,6
3. No non-living things face any alternatives. premise 15,7
4. Therefore, values exist only for living things. from 1,2,3 16,1; 16,3
5. Anything an entity acts to gain or keep is a value for that entity. premise 15,6
6. Every living thing acts to maintain its life, for its own sake. premise 16,3
(7. There is no other thing that they act to gain or keep for its own sake.) implicit premise
8. Therefore, its own life, and nothing else, is valuable for its own sake, for any living thing. from 5,6,7 17,1; 17,2
9. Therefore, life and nothing else is valuable for its own sake. from 4,8 17,3
(10. Everyone should always do whatever promotes what is valuable for himself.) implicit premise
*11. Therefore, everyone should always do whatever promotes his own life. from 8,10 passim, 17,4; 22,3; 25,2; 25,4(2)
12. A person can live only if he is rational. premise 23,4; 19-23 passim
*13. Therefore, everyone should be 100% rational. from 11,12 23,4; 25,7; 25-26
2. Problems with the argument

The argument contains eight fatal flaws.
Objection (i):

The first is that premise 1 begs the question.

One of the central groups of opponents Rand is facing is people who believe in absolute value, and not just agent-relative value. The absolutist view is that it is possible for some things to be good, simply, or in an absolute sense; whereas agent-relativists think that things can only be good for or relative to certain individuals, and that what is good relative to one individual need not be good relative to another. (N.B., this should not be confused with what are commonly called "moral relativism" and "cultural relativism.")

Another way to put the issue is this: absolutists think that value exists as a property of something--most likely, as a property of certain states of affairs. For instance, if I say, "It is good that intelligent life exists on the Earth," I am saying that the state of intelligent life existing on the Earth has a certain property: goodness. Agent-relativists think, instead, that value exists only as a relationship between a thing and a person. For instance, an agent-relativist might say, "It is good for me that intelligent life exists on the Earth," and this would mean: the state of intelligent life existing on the Earth bears a certain relationship to me: it is good for me. But an agent relativist would not say it is good simply.

Rand bases her ethics on the agent-relative position, but she offers no argument for it, only a bald assertion.
Objection (ii):

Premise 2 seems to be false. If I knew that I was inevitably going to get a million dollars tomorrow--there's no way I can avoid it--would that mean that the money will have no value? Again, Rand offers no defense of this assertion.

Perhaps her thought was that "good" is the same as "ought to be sought" or "ought to be chosen", and that since it makes no sense to say one should seek or choose what one either cannot get or cannot avoid, it follows that it makes no sense to say something one cannot get or cannot avoid is "good". But this simply illustrates why that definition of "good" is wrong. Nor does Rand offer any defense of this assumption (which she doesn't even explicitly state)--she seems simply not to have noticed that she was assuming it.
Objection (iii):

Premise 3 seems to be false. Rand claimed that living things face an alternative of existing or not existing but that non-living things do not. I can think of five interpretations of this, but all of them make it false:

First, it is not true that non-living things can't be destroyed. I once saw a house destroyed by flames, for example.

Second, it is true that the matter of which non-living things are composed can't be destroyed; but this is equally true of living things.

Third, it is not true that a non-living thing's continued existence never depends on its activities. If my computer ceases to function properly, this may cause me to destroy it.

Fourth, it is not true that positive action is never required to preserve a non-living thing's existence. A cloud, for instance, must absorb more water in order to continue to exist.

Fifth, it is true that non-living things do not possess free will. But this is equally true of almost all living things, and yet Rand claims that they (including plants, single-celled organisms, etc.) face an "alternative".

Thus, it seems there is no sense in which Rand's claim is true.
Objection (iv):

Either premise 5 is false, or the argument contains an equivocation. The word "value" has at least two different meanings.

First. Sometimes "value" is used as a verb. In this sense, it means approximately, "to believe to be valuable," or sometimes "to desire". Thus, if I say John values equality, I am saying John thinks equality is good, or that John desires equality. Along the same lines, "value" is sometimes used as a noun, to refer to things which someone 'values' in this sense--i.e., things which someone regards as good. Thus, if I say equality is one of John's 'values', I mean equality is one of the things that John believes is good.

Second. Sometimes "value" is used to refer to things which are good. So if I say, "equality is an important value", I am saying that equality is one of the important goods. Notice the difference, then: the difference between believed to be good and is good. No objectivist can afford to neglect this distinction, since if one does, one will be forced into extreme ethical subjectivism.

If Rand meant "value" in the first sense, then her premise was close to true. (Not exactly, since it is possible to act to gain something even if you don't believe it to be good, but let's overlook that.) However, in this case, it has no ethical significance. In particular, the later steps 8 and 9 would not follow, since they claim that life is valuable--that is, good--whereas the premise from which they are derived is about what is valued--that is, held to be good.

If Rand meant "value" in the second sense, then her premise was false. It is perfectly possible, as Rand herself explains later on, for someone to value what is actually bad for them. Nor did she give any argument for thinking that whatever one acts to gain or keep must actually be good.
Objection (v):

Premise 6 is false.

If we read it in a teleological sense, as saying living things have inherent goals or purposes, then it is false because nature is not teleological--Aristotelian physics and biology have long since been refuted. In that sense, living things do not aim at anything (with the exception of conscious beings with intentions).

If we read (6), as Rand suggests (p. 16n), to mean merely that the actions of living things result in the maintenance of their lives, then two problems appear. First, (7) will now be false. There are many things that living things' actions result in. For one thing, their actions result in the reproduction of their genes. For another, animals' actions result in production of body heat.

Second, it would follow, absurdly, that any object whose actions have results, has values. Thus, since when a rock rolls downhill, this results in its having greater kinetic energy, we must conclude that the rock acts to gain and/or keep kinetic energy, and therefore that kinetic energy is a value for the rock.
Objection (vi):

I have included 7, because it is necessary in order to get to 8. But 7 is false, however one reads it. If one interprets it as a claim merely about actual results of action, it is false as discussed above.

If one reads it as an observation about what organisms are evolutionarily 'programmed' for (that is, what traits are naturally selected for), it is false because the only trait that is selected for is that of producing more copies of one's genes. Thus, if anything is the ultimate 'value' for living things, it would be gene-reproduction (technically, 'inclusive fitness').

If one reads it as a claim about genuine teleology in nature, it is false because teleological physics is false.

If one reads it as a claim about the purposes or aims of living things, it is false because, for those living things that have purposes, they can often have other purposes. Rand frequently says that many human beings are aiming at self-destruction, for example. It is hard to believe that they are doing this for the sake of promoting their lives.

Consequently, conclusions 8 and 9 are unsupported, and in fact they are false. Many people value happiness or pleasure for its own sake, and not simply for the sake of further prolonging their lives. Rand herself, inconsistently, later declared happiness to be an end in itself. According to her theory, she should have said it was good only because it helped maintain your life.
Objection (vii):

This is probably the most egregious error. Premise 10 begs the question. Rand claimed to have an argument, a proof even, for ethical egoism. Yet 10 is one of the required premises of that 'proof'--and 10 essentially just is ethical egoism!

Some will dispute that this is really one of her premises. The reason I say it is is that without 10, the subsequent steps 11 and 13 do not follow. All Rand established up to that point, even if we ignore all the above objections, was that there is one and only one thing that is good for you, and that is your life. But obviously it does not follow that you should only serve your life unless we assume that you should only serve what is good for you. So, if 10 is not included as a premise, then Rand simply has a non sequitur.

Obviously, someone who held a non-egoistic theory--an altruist, say--would respond to the news of 8 and 9 (assuming Rand had demonstrated them) by saying: "Ah, so therefore, we should promote all life" or, "I see, so that means I should serve everyone's life. Thank you, Miss Rand; I previously thought I should serve other people's pleasure or desires (or whatever), because I thought that was what was good for them. But now that you've convinced me that life is the sole intrinsic value, I see that it was their life that I should have been serving all along." What argument has Rand given against the altruist, then? None.
Objection (viii):

Either 12 is false, or the inference to 13 rests on equivocation.

Rand explains that reason is our basic tool of survival. If her thesis is that any person who is not 100% rational, all the time, will die, then she certainly needs to provide argument for that. There seem to be lots of counter-examples, many of them pointed out by Rand herself.

If her thesis is something weaker, such as that any person who is not by and large rational will probably die, then 12 is plausible. But 13 does not follow. All that would follow would be, e.g., that one should be by and large rational.

3. General arguments against ethical egoism

Rand endorsed a version of 'ethical egoism': the view that a person should always do whatever best serves his own interests. I have discussed the following objections to this doctrine in my "Why I Am Not an Objectivist", so I will be brief here. Here is one general argument against egoism:
1.

If ethical egoism is true, then if you could obtain a (net) benefit equal to a dime by torturing and killing 500 people, you should do it.
2.

It is not the case that, if you could obtain a (net) benefit equal to a dime by torturing and killing 500 people, you should do it.
3.

Therefore, egoism is not true.

This argument is very simple, but that should not fool us into thinking it is therefore illegitimate. It is true that an egoist could simply deny 2, proclaiming that in that situation, the mass torture and killing would be morally virtuous. Any person can maintain any belief, provided he is willing to accept enough absurd consequences of it.

Here is a second argument against ethical egoism: it contradicts Rand's own claim that each individual is an end-in-himself and that it is therefore morally wrong to sacrifice one person to another. For either Rand meant that an individual life is an end-in-itself in an absolute sense--as discussed in my objection (i) above; or she meant that an individual life is an end-in-itself in a relative sense--i.e., for that individual.

Assume she meant it in a relative sense. In this case, Smith's life is an end-in-itself for Smith. But since Smith's life is not an end-in-itself for Jones, there has been given no reason why Jones should not use Smith or sacrifice Smith's life for Jones' benefit. In fact, for Jones, Smith's life can only have value as a means, if it has any value at all, since for Jones, only Jones' life is an end in itself.

Now, assume she meant it in an absolute sense. In that case, she contradicted her agent-relative conception of value. Furthermore, she generated a general problem for ethical egoism. If the life of my neighbor, Jones, is an end-in-itself in an absolute sense, and not just relative to Jones, then why wouldn't it follow that I ought to promote the life of my neighbor, for its own sake? But this is not what Rand wants--she claims that my own life is the only thing I should promote for its own sake.

4. Attacking straw men

Rand seriously misrepresents the history of ethics. Essentially, she leads the reader to believe that there have been only two alternative views in ethics: (a) that moral knowledge comes by mystical revelations from God, and (b) that moral principles are arbitrary conventions. Either way, ethics is regarded as "the province of the irrational." One other position is mentioned: that of Aristotle, who allegedly based ethics on what noble and wise people choose to do but ignored the questions of why they chose to do it or why he thought they were noble and wise. Next to these alternatives, Rand's theory looks almost reasonable by comparison.

However, the above is a gross caricature of the history of ethics, and Rand makes no effort to document her claims with any citations.

In short, Rand draws plausibility for her position by attacking straw men.

5. Man qua man and fudge words

Some time after getting to step 9 in her argument (as described in section 1 above), Rand introduces the idea of "the life of man qua man" (hereafter, MQM). She informs the reader that when she says a person should promote his own life, she means life MQM, which means the sort of life proper to a rational being. She tries to use this to explain why, despite the truth of egoism, you still shouldn't live off of the productive work of others by stealing--that's not the sort of life proper to a rational human being.

Let's distinguish, then, between life qua existence (hereafter, LQE) and MQM. LQE means simply one's continued literal survival--i.e., life in the sense of not being dead (what everyone else means by "life"). MQM is something more than that--the kind of life proper to a rational being.

The first problem is that Rand's shift in the argument from LQE to MQM is illegitimate. It is an equivocation: If "life" in the argument means LQE, then Rand cannot switch over to MQM as her standard of value and claim that she gave an argument for it; she only gave an argument for LQE. On the other hand, if we assume "life" means MQM throughout the argument, then the premises preceding step 11 that mention life or living are all false: 3 will be false, because many entities that do not possess life MQM face alternatives. 4 is false similarly. 6 is false, because most living things do not have MQM life. Moreover, it is clear that Rand meant LQE, since she starts off the argument by saying the only fundamental alternative is that of existence or non-existence.

The second problem is that Rand has given no criterion for what counts as 'proper to a rational being.' I consider three possibilities:

(a)


Suppose that we try to use something other than life as our criterion for what is rational. In that case, we would have to abandon her claims 8 and 9. Furthermore, she has in fact provided no such criterion.

(b)


Suppose we try to use LQE as our criterion. Then MQM collapses into LQE, and it cannot be used in the way Rand wants, to explain why some forms of physical survival are undesirable.

(c)


Suppose we try to use MQM as our criterion. Then we have a circular criterion, because Rand hasn't told us what "MQM" means, except that it means the sort of life proper to a rational being.

Rand makes a number of claims about what is or isn't rational, but they are simply arbitrary declarations in the absence of a criterion of the rational, and an explanation of how that criterion follows from her initial argument discussed in section 1. In many cases, her claims about what is 'rational' are intuitively plausible, but in no case do they follow from that argument.

The upshot is that Rand can and does use "man qua man" and "rational" as fudge words: words that can be interpreted to mean whatever it is convenient for them to mean at a particular time. Words that can be used to insulate her thesis from testing and to enable her to claim that her theory supports, or doesn't support, anything; since there is no precise and unambiguous definition of these terms.

6. Rand's intuitions

This will be a suitable topic to conclude with. Rand's main argument in "The Objectivist Ethics", as well as all of the moral claims she makes, here and elsewhere, rest squarely on her intuitions.

She would deny this. She says or implies at various points that she is giving a fully rational proof of her ethical system, that all her value judgements can be proven, and that ultimately they all rest on the evidence of the senses. She criticizes Aristotle for thinking ethics was not an exact science. The implication seems to be that she thinks her theory, as set out here, is an exact science. This claim would not withstand a casual acquaintance with any actual exact science.

Rand's ethical system rests on her assertion of premises 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, and 12. She gives no defense for 1, 2, 5, 7, or 10; and very little for the others. This would be alright if all of those were self-evident truths, like the axioms of a mathematical system. But not only are none of them self-evident, I have raised serious doubts about every one of them.

It is worthwhile to remind ourselves of what mathematics--a real exact science--is like. Mathematicians too start with certain premises. But their premises are not highly controversial claims like "value only exists relative to a person" or "everyone should only serve his own good". A typical mathematical axiom would be something like, "if a=b, then b=a" or "the shortest path between 2 points is a straight line"--things that no one doubts. Mathematicians then proceed to deduce their theorems according to rigid and precise rules. That is why there are no divergent views about mathematical theorems--when Euclid wrote his Elements, no one disagreed with it or presented arguments against it. That's because Euclid had actually proved his theorems. Does Rand think that she 'proved' a series of moral theorems like that?

Alternately, she might view her 'science' of ethics as more like the natural sciences, like physics or chemistry, say. Now, for many centuries these were not exact sciences either. Part of what makes them relatively exact now is that scientists have evolved techniques for eliminating fudge factors. A scientist with a theory has to 'put up or shut up'. He can't make vague gestures or rest his arguments on vague concepts, such as "proper to a rational being" or "man qua man". The scientist has to identify a specific, clear observation, preferably a measurement, that he predicts can be made in a certain experiment. He has to say, in effect: "If, when you do this experiment, the needle on the instrument goes up to past .6, then my theory is wrong." Does Rand think she has a theory that is empirical like that?

Probably not; I hope not. Probably she was simply using "prove" and "exact science" loosely, and perhaps she was unfamiliar with mathematics and modern science. In any case, the fact remains that Rand has proposed no experimental test that can be done on her assertion that value is only agent-relative, or that people 'should' only pursue what is good for them. Importantly, scientific reasoning involves the idea of falsifiability: a scientist must be prepared to describe what specific set of observations would refute him. This is one of the things that prevents fudging. Note another aspect: the sort of observation the scientist identifies should not be something that is open to interpretation, as to whether that sort of observation happened--or at least, it should be minimally so. These are the sort of things that make science science.

Rand has done nothing like this. She has not told us what sort of specific, not-open-to-interpretation observations she would accept as refuting her. That is why her theory is not scientific, and it is not a proof. It is based on intuition: her intuition that the premises mentioned above are true. Likewise, her claims about what is rational and what promotes MQM rest on intuition, for the same reason. The terms are simply not defined in a scientific manner (if they were, you should be able to build an "MQM-ometer" which would tell you how much a given event promoted your MQM), so they require the exercise of individual judgement in a particular case--in other words, intuition.

Now, I am not saying this means the concepts are illegitimate, nor does this, by itself, show that her argument is wrong (though the objections I raised in section 2 do).

I am not opposed to the use of intuition in philosophy--quite the opposite, in fact--and nor am I saying that Rand's ethics is bad simply because it is not an exact science. What I am opposed to is someone's claiming their intuitions and philosophical theories as 'scientific proofs,' and then deriding the philosophical theories of others for being unscientific and therefore 'mystical.'

When we confront this sort of thing, it is imperative that we remember that Rand gave no argument for ethical egoism. She assumed egoism, discussed other propositions at some length, and then said that she proved it.
Detailed comments

I list in order each major claim Rand makes, followed by my comments on it. Numbers preceding Rand's claims are the page and paragraph number (13,6 = page 13, 6th paragraph from the top), and the claims are paraphrased unless quotation marks are used.(3) All italics in quotations are in the original.

For convenience, I use "NA" as an abbreviation for the following: "Rand gives no argument for this. Perhaps she considers it self-evident, but I do not."

(1)


13,6: The first question we have to ask when approaching ethics is "Does man need values at all--and why?"

NA. Taking this as the starting point makes two substantive ethical assumptions, which are rejected by some ethical systems, namely:
(i)

That ethics is properly regarded as a tool, as something that we have to serve some ulterior purpose. This would seem to be building consequentialism in right from the start.
(ii)

That the particular purpose in question is to satisfy some human need.


(2)


13,7: "Is the concept of value, of 'good or evil' an arbitrary human invention, unrelated to, underived from and unsupported by any facts of reality--or is it based on a metaphysical fact, on an unalterable condition of man's existence? (I use the word 'metaphysical' to mean: that which pertains to reality, to the nature of things, to existence.)"

This is a false dichotomy. She ignores the possibilities:

(i)


That the concept of value is based on an ethical fact, where ethical facts are distinct from metaphysical facts. By ruling out this possibility, Rand presupposes that there is no is/ought gap.

(ii)


That the concept of value is a primary, not 'based on' anything.

(iii)


That it is a human invention, but that the invention is neither arbitrary nor based on the recognition of a metaphysical fact. Instead, the invention might have a pragmatic (rather than purely cognitive) function. Along the same lines, it might function to satisfy some desires we have. I don't think this sort of thing is what Rand has in mind by a 'metaphysical fact.'

(iv)


That it is based on alterable conditions of man's existence.


(3)


14,1: "Does an arbitrary human convention, a mere custom, decree that man must guide his actions by a set of principles--or is there a fact of reality that demands it?"

This implies: First, that conventions are not facts of reality. Second, that human conventions are generally arbitrary.

Perhaps by "fact of reality" she just means convention-independent fact, and perhaps she is not asserting that conventions (or "mere" customs) are always arbitrary. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Rand does not consider the possibility of grounding ethics on non-arbitrary conventions, i.e. conventions that serve useful functions--she appears to be assuming that a convention-based morality is non-objective, irrational, and arbitrary, but she has given no defense of this assumption.

(4)


14,2: "In the sorry record of the history of mankind's ethics--with a few rare, and unsuccessful, exceptions--moralists have regarded ethics as the province of whims, that is: of the irrational."

It would be difficult to support this contention by attention to the history of ethics, and in fact Rand does not attempt to do so. She names no one whom she might have in mind here.

Perhaps this will help: I have a history of ethics book here, and it includes the following moralists: Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Butler, Hume, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Nietzsche, Bradley, Sidgwick, Moore, Prichard.(4)

Obviously, I cannot undertake to explain all of these moralists' positions here. Suffice it to say that I do not think anyone familiar with them would argue that Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Aquinas, Butler, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Bradley, Sidgwick, Moore, or Prichard--any one of them--thought that ethics was "the province of the irrational." I would be equally surprised to hear someone argue that those moralists as a class are accurately described as "a few" and "unsuccessful."

I'll grant her the cases of Hume and Nietzsche. I am unsure about Augustine and Hobbes.

(5)


14,3: Aristotle "left unanswered the questions of" why noble & wise people do as they do, and "why he evaluated them as noble and wise."

Rand overlooks Aristotle's discussions of the function of man and of the nature of the virtues (see Nicomachean Ethics). Perhaps Aristotle's answers to the above questions are wrong, but it is grossly inaccurate to imply that he had nothing to say about them.

(6)


14,4: Many philosophers have tried "to break the traditional monopoly of mysticism in the field of ethics ... But their attempts consisted of accepting the ethical doctrines of the mystics and of trying to justify them on social grounds, merely substituting society for God."

If Rand intended someone familiar with the history of ethics to be able evaluate this claim for himself, she should have identified some of the philosophers she is referring to here, as well as the ethical doctrines she claims they accepted and tried to justify on social grounds.

Referring to my list of famous moralists (comment 4): she may be referring to contractarians such as Hobbes, but it is unclear that he accepted "the ethical doctrines of the mystics." She may mean the utilitarians like Bentham and Mill, but again, they hardly accepted the same ethics as "the mystics" (if the latter means traditional religious teachings). I suspect Rand did not identify whom she was talking about because she did not know.

At this point, I am going to skip over the rest of her remarks about the history of ethics, about which I would say essentially the same things: that she makes no effort to document her claims and that they are in fact impossible to document because not true.

What is the significance of this? Two things. First, Rand gains an illegitimate rhetorical advantage with her readers by portraying her theory as the only existing alternative to two openly irrational theories--the 'mystical' theory and the arbitrary-convention theory. If her readers knew that there have been a great number of philosophers throughout history who have attempted to give ethics a grounding in reason and/or objective facts, they would be less inclined to accept Rand's theory and more inclined, perhaps, to investigate these other theories. Indeed, if Rand's theory were the only known way of even trying to ground ethics in reason, I myself might accept it.

Second, I do not think Rand was openly dishonest: she was not deliberately trying to manipulate an ignorant reader by lying about the history of philosophy. Rather, I think she herself believed that she was the only figure to attempt to ground ethics in reason or objective reality. I do not see how to avoid concluding that she was very ignorant of the history of her subject. I believe that this explains, in part, why her ethics is so flawed.

As an analogy, imagine a person with no training in science and engineering, trying to build a bridge. His first try would probably collapse, even if he were highly intelligent. I am not saying here that ethics is on a par with modern engineering in its degree of sophistication and certainty; nevertheless, people have been working on it for the past 2000 years, and there are things one can learn from that effort.

(7)


15,6: "'Value' is that which one acts to gain and/or keep."

First, just because someone acts to gain something, does not mean it has value. If an alcoholic acts to get another drink, it does not follow that the drink is valuable; it may be very bad for him. Perhaps Rand meant "value" only in the sense of "that which a person values, i.e., regards as valuable." But then she has failed to define the important concept for ethics, that of a thing's actually being valuable.

(8)


15,6: The concept of value "presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what?"

NA. This assumes without argument that nothing is intrinsically valuable, and there is no such thing as an end in itself (though she later contradicts this). It likewise assumes without argument that value is agent-relative.

(9)


15,6: "It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible."

NA. I think Rand means by "an alternative" a situation in which there are at least two possible future courses of events, and one can control which takes place.

Suppose you knew that you were going to receive a million dollars tomorrow. Suppose that you will receive it no matter what you do. Does it follow that it won't be good, or valuable? Rand seems to think it does--that in order for it to be good, there must be alternative courses of action you can take that will determine whether you get the money.

(10)


15,7: "There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or nonexistence..."

NA. It is unclear what "fundamental" alternative means. Perhaps she means this in the sense that one of the branches on that alternative forecloses all other alternatives (i.e., if you don't exist, then there are no choices available to you about anything); therefore, in a sense, all other alternatives depend on this alternative. If this is what she means, she is right; however, we must keep in mind that it does not follow that all other alternatives depend on this alternative in the sense that the resolution of this alternative determines how the other alternatives must be resolved.

(11)


15,7: continuing the same sentence: "...and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not..."

I can think of five things Rand might mean by saying something's existence is unconditional: she might mean (a) that the thing cannot be destroyed, (b) that the stuff of which the thing is made cannot be destroyed, (c) that whether the thing is destroyed or not does not depend on what the thing does, (d) that the thing continues to exist without performing any positive actions, or (e) that whether the thing is destroyed or not does not depend on any exercise of free will, and so in that sense there are no genuine alternatives. Let's examine these in turn.

(a): It is obviously false that only living organisms can be destroyed. Inanimate objects are often destroyed; I once saw a house destroyed by flames. The last quoted phrase suggests Rand might reply: yes, but the matter of which the inanimate object is composed continues to exist, which brings us to:

(b): It is true that matter cannot be destroyed. However, living organisms are composed of matter in exactly the sense that houses are composed of matter. Therefore, if we say the matter the house is made of was not destroyed (but only rearranged), we can equally well say that the matter of a living organism cannot be destroyed but only rearranged. The point is that Rand has identified no difference between living things and inanimate objects.

Perhaps Rand would reply that although the matter of a living thing cannot be destroyed, it can cease to be living matter; whereas the matter of an inanimate object cannot cease to exist as non-living matter. This, however, is false. Non-living matter is incorporated into living things, just as often as living matter decomposes into non-living matter.

(c): Whether an inanimate object is destroyed can often depend on what the thing does. If my computer malfunctions constantly and irreparably, this may well result in my destroying it. Or, for an example not involving human agency: if a storm cloud moves over a plain and rains on it, this may result in the cloud's ceasing to exist (because the cloud is converted to rain water, which then dissipates).

Perhaps Rand would say that in these examples, the inanimate object is purely passive. However, they do not seem to be any more 'passive' in these examples than living things normally are. They are acting in accordance with the laws of nature, with what they do being determined by their nature together with the environment they are in--just like living things.

(d): Perhaps Rand would say that the inanimate objects don't have to do anything, positively, to continue to exist, whereas living things deteriorate immediately if they stop acting--e.g., if they stop breathing. There is a difference of degree here, but not a qualitative difference: a living thing can continue to exist for a (very) short time without acting. Non-living things can exist longer, but nothing lasts forever. The computer will fall apart eventually, if it just sits here, even if nothing comes in and actively destroys it.

Perhaps Rand would say that although this is true, the computer can't do anything to stop the destruction that results from its inactivity, whereas a living thing can do something to stop (or delay) the destruction that results from its inactivity. But the storm cloud could do something to stop itself from dissipating: namely, absorb more water vapor. If it stops doing that, the storm cloud will eventually dissipate and so stop existing. So its continued existence depends on its activity. This may not seem like much of an 'activity'--but then, neither are the activities of a lot of living things (e.g., plants, sponges, mussels). It seems absurd to claim that, if this is true, it follows that it is good for the cloud to continue to exist, but not otherwise.

(e): It is true that the continued existence of inanimate objects does not depend upon free will, but neither does the continued existence of any kind of living thing other than people--and Rand is trying to identify something that differentiates all living things from all non-living things.

What is the significance of this? Rand aims to use this alleged difference between living things and inanimate objects to explain why 'value' applies to living things but does not apply to inanimate objects. Since she has failed to identify any qualitative difference between living and non-living objects, she has failed to explain this. This removes the foundation of her ethical system, since she cannot show why value applies to life at all.

(12)


15,7: "It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil."

NA. Rand has given no explanation for how value, good, or evil arises--even if we ignore the objections under 11 and even if we grant her claim there. That is, even if we granted that the existence of a living thing depends upon action, nothing follows about anything being good. In particular, it does not follow that the organism's existence is good, nor that its life-sustaining action is good (nor that it is bad). Rand has given no argument for thinking that life is good; not even that it is good for the living thing. So far all we have is that living things can exist or not exist.

(13)


16,2: "To make this point fully clear, try to imagine an immortal, indestructible robot, an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured, or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have any values..."

NA. Unfortunately, this scenario is under-described in all the important respects. First, it is unclear whether Rand thinks that a robot could be conscious or not. We proceed by cases:

Case A: Assume that the robot was not conscious. In that case, I agree that it would have no values. But this would not support the claim that "it is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible." If it shows anything, it shows that value depends upon consciousness--which is not what Rand is trying to show.

Case B: Therefore, let's assume Rand intended the robot to be conscious. Now we have a further question: Does the robot have any desires? Does it have any feelings? Does it have any moral beliefs?

Case B1: Assume the robot has no feelings, desires, or moral beliefs. In this case, I agree that it would have no values. But again, this does not show that 'value' depends on life. If it shows anything, it shows that 'value' depends on desire, feeling, and/or moral beliefs. And this is definitely not what Rand wants to conclude. Perhaps Rand would say that the robot couldn't have any desires, feelings, or moral beliefs because it is indestructible, etc. If so, however, she needs to give an argument for this. Why couldn't the robot have feelings about the things it sees happening? Why couldn't it want, for example, for people to be better off? Why couldn't it believe, for example, that it is morally good for humans to be happy?

Case B2: Assume the robot has feelings, desires, and/or moral beliefs. In that case, why wouldn't it have values? Why wouldn't it value the things that made it feel happy, for instance, or the things that it desired, or the things it believed to be morally good? In this case, Rand appears to be giving a thought-experiment to refute her own view, rather than to support it.

Perhaps, however, we are supposed to take the "cannot be affected" clause more strictly. If we take this literally, the robot could have no awareness of its environment since awareness of an object requires interaction with it. According to Rand's own theories, however, this means that the robot would not be conscious at all,(5) so we are back to case A above.

Moreover, the series of stipulations Rand makes about her robot, after "indestructible", have nothing to do with supporting her point. Her claim is that the concept of 'value' arises because living things have an alternative of existence or non-existence. Therefore, her claim must be that the robot, if indestructible, could have no values, regardless of what else was true of it. The part about its being incapable of being changed in any respect is therefore superfluous (besides being inconsistent with the claim that it moves and acts). I will grant that it may well be true that an entity incapable of being changed in any way could have no values; but if that showed anything, at most it would show that the concept of value depends on the concept of 'change', which, again, is not what Rand is trying to show.

A better thought experiment, therefore, would be one in which: the 'robot' has lots of feelings, it feels love for several humans and has developed close personal relationships with them; it also experiences a passion for classical music; it also has a strong desire for philosophical knowledge and often takes actions to further this; and it has a series of strong moral convictions, e.g., that socialism is one of the world's great evils, whereas democratic capitalism is morally good--but the robot is immortal. And now imagine Rand saying: "you can clearly see that the robot would have no interests and no values, and nothing could be good or bad for it." (Or perhaps Rand would say that the robot couldn't have those feelings, desires, and beliefs I describe because it was immortal--but again, this claim would need an argument.)

I conclude that this thought experiment does not support Rand's thesis, and that instead, it refutes her.

(14)


16,3: Only living things have goals, and "the functions of all living organisms ... from the nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of a man--are actions generated by the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the maintenance of the organism's life." A footnote warns that "goal-directed" does not mean "purposive" and that she also does not mean to endorse "any teleological principle operating in insentient nature." Rather, "I use the term 'goal-directed' ... to designate the fact that the automatic functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that they result in the preservation of an organism's life."

The footnote may have been added later to answer an objection someone raised. The problem is that once Rand makes that concession, she is no longer saying anything distinctive about living things. Yes, living things undertake actions which result in the maintenance of their life, usually. But if that licenses saying that the maintenance of their life is their goal, and that their actions are goal-directed, then we could equally well call anything goal-directed since anything has results. The rain causes the ground to get muddy: since the latter is the result of the former, we could say (using Rand's way of speaking) that the cloud's action of raining on the ground is goal-directed and that its goal is to make the ground muddy.

What about the point that the organism's actions are "generated by the organism itself"? I really don't know what this means. The internal state of an organism determines how it behaves in exactly the same sense that the internal state of any object determines how it behaves. The state my computer is in, together with the inputs it receives, determine what it does. The internal properties of a rock (e.g., the molecular structure, the mass, etc.) determine how it reacts when you do various things to it (e.g., it sinks in water, or it breaks apart when hit with a hammer, etc.) In the same way, the internal properties of an amoeba determine what it does when various influences from the environment impinge on it. In all cases, the action is determined by the laws of chemistry and physics. (I am not denying the reality of free will, but free will is not the issue here--Rand is talking about automatic functions of organisms.)

Again, Rand has failed to identify any distinction between living and non-living things here.

(15)


16,4: Organisms have to take in 'fuel' from the outside and use that fuel properly. "What standard determines what is proper in this context? The standard is the organism's life, or: that which is required for the organism's survival."

NA.

(16)


16-17: Life requires constant, self-sustaining activity. "The goal of that action, the ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism's life."

... "An organism's life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil."

NA.

Rand seems to be sliding between the claim that the 'goal' of the organism's activity is its life, to the claim that its life is good or valuable. However, she told us before that by saying the organism's life was the 'goal' of its activity, all she meant was that this activity results in maintaining the organism's life. (See comment 14.) Therefore, Rand is sliding between the claim that A causes B, and the claim that B is good.

If Rand hadn't chosen idiosyncratic uses of "value" (see comment 7) and "goal" (see comment 14), she would perhaps have been much less tempted to make this confusion, and the reader would be less tempted to think that she was saying anything relevant to ethics. To repeat, her argument seems to be this:

1.


Organisms act to sustain their own lives.

2.


Therefore, their lives are good.

Which is a non sequitur. Only her misuse of the words "value" and "goal" make it seem at all cogent--given her definitions of those terms, she gets to rephrase (1) as "The goal of an organism's action is to sustain its life" and then "Sustaining its life is a value for an organism." This equivocation seems to be the whole foundation of her effort to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.

(17)


17,3: "Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself."

NA. Even if we granted that Rand's argument above were valid and that she therefore showed that life is good, she certainly did not give an argument to show that nothing else is intrinsically good.(6) Why could there not be 2 or more ends in themselves?

(18)


17,5: "By what means does [a person] first become aware of the issue of 'good or evil' in its simplest form? By means of the physical sensations of pleasure or pain." She goes on the explain that pleasure tells you you are doing something good (something that furthers your life), while pain tells you you are doing something bad (something that interferes with your life).

I view pleasure and pain sensations differently. Pleasure is not a cognition of some fact; rather, it is just a good sensation, and a sensation that one likes to have. Likewise pain is just a bad sensation, and a kind of sensation one does not like to have. Pleasure is not the awareness of good; it is just something that is good. How to decide between Rand's view and mine? Two things:

First, if Rand is correct, then to be in pain is to be aware that something bad is happening, and also to be aware that "something is impairing the proper function of [one's] body" (18,1). If this is true, then small children and animals should be aware of those things, since they can have pain sensations. But I don't think an animal can be aware that something is impairing the proper functioning of its body, since I don't think an animal is even aware that there is such a thing as 'proper functioning', let alone the impairment of it. The animal just has a bad sensation that it doesn't like, and so it tries to get away from whatever is causing it. My explanation seems the simplest one.

Second, if Rand is correct, then it appears that there should be no reason, off hand, why one should want to avoid pain provided that one's bodily functioning was not actually being impaired. For instance, if you have to go in for surgery, and you know the surgery is actually going to improve your body's functioning, then there is no reason prima facie--at least, no reason that appears evident from the nature of pain according to Rand--why you should want anesthetics. For the pain is just a signal--in this case, a false signal--telling you that your body is being harmed. Since you know your body isn't actually being harmed, what's the problem? Why would you mind having the pain? Again, my explanation seems the simplest one.

(19)


18,2: "Consciousness--for those living organisms which possess it--is the basic means of survival."

What does this mean? Why would the beating of the heart, for example, not be an at least equally "basic" means of survival for us?

(20)


18-19: Organisms that have only sensations "are guided by the pleasure-pain mechanism ...: by an automatic knowledge and an automatic code of values. ... [I]t acts automatically to further its life and cannot act for its own destruction."

First, sensations are not knowledge, and an animal that has only sensations has no knowledge (because it has no concepts, and because sensations are not propositional).

Second, more importantly, the above claim is refuted by evolutionary biology. Organisms can act for their own, individual destruction. Example 1: when the male praying mantis mates, he seals his own doom, for he will be eaten by the female. (He does not know this, of course, but that is the result of his action.) Example 2: When a bee stings a person or animal, the bee dies as a result. Evolutionary biology shows that the actions of living things are aimed at the 'goal' (in Rand's non-teleological sense) of reproducing more copies of their genes, rather than simply of surviving.

This further illustrates the invalidity of Rand's form of argument. For if Rand's original argument for why life is the good were valid (see comment 16), then once we discover the facts of evolutionary biology, we should be forced to conclude that the ultimate good in life is producing as many copies of your genes as possible, which is absurd.

(21)


19,3: Unlike animals, man has "no automatic code of values ... His senses do not tell him automatically what is good for him or evil ... Man ... the being whose consciousness has a limitless capacity for gaining knowledge--man is the only living entity born without any guarantee of remaining conscious at all. Man's particular distinction from all other living species is the fact that his consciousness is volitional."

"...[T]he automatic values provided by the sensory-perceptual mechanism of its consciousness are sufficient to guide an animal, but are not sufficient for man."

Two main problems here:

First. It is unclear whether Rand is saying that we have no automatic code of values (as in the first sentence) or that we have one, but it just isn't enough for us, and we need something more (as in the last sentence). If the latter, she contradicted herself. If the former, her view is empirically implausible. Humans evolved from lower animals. If all the animals have an automatic code of values built into them (built into their sensory-perceptual mechanism), then that means that our evolutionary ancestors did too. Therefore, Rand must be claiming that somehow, in our evolutionary past, during the last 2 million years, that mechanism was selected out, and a completely new mechanism evolved that induces us to do many of the same things (e.g., seek food, fear predators, mate). The simpler explanation is that the original mechanism stayed there, and just got added to. The same response applies to Rand's evolutionarily implausible claim that only humans, of all animals, lack instincts.

Now, what is the significance of this? This is central to Rand's claim that ethics must be based purely on reason, and never on instinct or emotion. Given the biological basis she claims for ethics, if she is wrong about the biology, she is wrong about the ethics: if humans do have the same built-in code of values as the animals do, then it would follow that we should base ethics at least partly on instinct and/or emotion. I'm not saying that conclusion is true, only that it would follow if we accept Rand's thesis about the biological basis of ethics.

Second, Rand seems to be implying here that (a) animals will stay conscious without any active choice, but (b) humans will not. This is false; you won't automatically fall asleep if you stop trying to stay conscious. This is related to the fact that the forms of awareness the animals have were not selected out when we evolved from apes. We still have them; they were just added to. Rand seems to admit this later (21,2).

(22)


20,5: "In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. Thinking requires a state of full, focused awareness."

This is not true unless in a merely stipulative sense. People can (and all too often do) think in a confused, only half-focused way.

As to the first point, this is not entirely true. People often find themselves unable to stop thinking about something. Nevertheless, I agree that people can choose to think more or less and to focus more or less.

(23)


21,3: "Metaphysically, the choice 'to be conscious or not' is the choice of life or death."

I'm not sure what function "metaphysically" is playing here, but I seem to understand the rest of the sentence, and it seems to say that if you choose to be conscious, you thereby choose to live, and if you choose not to be conscious, you thereby choose to die. This would seem to imply that if you decide to go to sleep, you will die.

Perhaps she means that if you decide never to be conscious, you will die. This seems true, but it also doesn't support the point I think she is aiming at here--namely, that you should always be fully rational and fully 'focused' (or: that "reason is man's only absolute"). You won't die if you're occasionally irrational or confused.

(24)


21,4: "A sensation of hunger will tell [a person] that he needs food (if he has learned to identify it as 'hunger')..."

The parenthetical suggests the absurd view that, unless a person learned to identify the sensation as 'hunger', he wouldn't want to eat when he was hungry. In other words, she seems to be claiming that if you lacked the concept of hunger, the sensation wouldn't be enough to make you want to eat. Do newborn infants not know to eat until someone teaches them that what they're feeling is 'hunger'? Cf. comment 21.

I agree that we need to use reason to survive. But Rand is claiming that we have only reason to tell us how to survive, and that claim does not withstand the facts of biology.

(25)


21,5: Man "has to discover how to tell what is true or false and how to correct his own errors; he has to discover how to validate his concepts, his conclusions, his knowledge; he has to discover the rules of thought, the laws of logic..."

NA. I think this means that if we do not discover those things, then we will not have any knowledge. This creates a vicious circle, however. How could we hope to discover 'how to tell what is true or false' if we were not already able to tell what is true or false? How would we know that a particular claim about how to tell what is true or false was true?

Similarly, if a person did not already know how to validate any concepts, conclusions, or knowledge, how could he go about discovering anything? Since he has no valid concepts, and doesn't know how to get any either, what would be his procedure for discovering what a valid concept is? It would have to be an invalid one.

It is as if Rand had said that in order to get anywhere, you had to first learn to drive, but to do so you have to drive to the driving school.

What is the significance of this? This bears on Rand's hostility to a priori knowledge, which makes her claim that even knowledge of logic is learned. The vicious circularity of her view means that knowledge of logic--in the sense of 'knowing how', though perhaps not in the sense of 'knowing that'--must be innate. (I.e., we innately know how to think logically, though we may not have explicit knowledge of the laws of thought.) It is incoherent to say that you figure out logically how to figure things out logically.

(26)


22,4: "What, then, are the right goals for man to pursue? What are the values his survival requires? That is the question to be answered by the science of ethics."

I am quoting this in order to refer to it later. If it wasn't clear enough already, Rand is saying that ethics is all about the question of how we can survive.

(27)


23,3-4: "The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics ... is man's life, or: that which is required for man's survival qua man.

"Since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good..."

This is the first appearance of the "man qua man" standard of value. Until now, everything Rand has said has centered on, supported, illustrated, and explained the claim that the sole ultimate good is life or survival--and, accordingly, that the question of ethics is nothing other than, "What will enable us to survive?" (see comment 26) This has counter-intuitive implications: for instance, it would be morally better to live for 100 years in a prison and in constant agony, than to live for 90 years in bliss. Also, it would always be morally wrong to sacrifice your life for anything (in fact, this would be the worst conceivable moral wrong).

Rand does not want these results. Thus, she introduces the idea that the good is not merely life but life qua man. What does that mean? It means the kind of life "proper to a rational being." Now, there are two objections to this.

First, this move is not justified by anything preceding. Remember, the initial claim was that the existence of good & bad stems from the fact that living things face an alternative of existence or non-existence, which is "the only fundamental alternative" (see comment 10). This makes it clear that when she goes on to say that the good is what promotes an organism's 'life', "life" must mean continued existence. She is in no position now to introduce an ad hoc exception for human beings.

Second, what is the standard for what counts as "proper" to the life of a rational being? I see three alternatives:

(i)


"proper" means tending to promote one's life in the sense simply of continued existence. In this case, no modification has been made, and she is just saying that the good is whatever prolongs your existence. In this case, we get the counter-intuitive results mentioned above.

(ii)


"proper" means tending to promote one's life in the sense of the life of man qua man. In this case, we have a circular definition.

(iii)


"proper" means "good for" or "right for" where this does not mean promoting one's life. In this case, the fundamental proposition of Rand's ethics--that life is the only standard of value--is contradicted.


(28)


23,6: "If some attempt to survive by means of brute force or fraud, by looting, robbing, cheating or enslaving the men who produce, it still remains true that their survival is made possible only by their victims, only by the men who choose to think and to produce the goods which they, the looters, are seizing."

From Rand's other writings, we can infer that she has in mind socialist governments, among other things, and we know that she believes this looting behavior is morally wrong. It is reasonable to interpret this as an attempted explanation of why such behavior is morally wrong, in terms of the theory of ethics she has just given.

If so, it fails. Nothing in the above indicates how the looting behavior is not conducive to the survival of the looters. It is true that the strategy depends on the existence of non-looting, productive people. But that does not make it a bad strategy, given that one knows productive people exist and will continue to exist. Analogously, a tribe might live by hunting buffalo. That their existence depends upon the buffalo does not make this a bad strategy, provided they know the buffalo exist and will continue to exist.

Of course, Rand might say that the looters, while they survive, do not have the sort of lives 'proper to a rational being.' But (a) we have already indicated that Rand is committed by other things she says to holding mere survival (continued existence) as the standard of value, and (b) anyway, no reason has been given so far for why this behavior is 'improper' to rational beings.

(29)


23,6: "Such looters are parasites incapable of survival, who exist by destroying those who are capable, those who are pursuing a course of action proper to man."

No reason has been given why the looting behavior is improper, other than the claim that the looters are "incapable of survival." What does she mean by that? I consider four alternatives:

(i)


Perhaps she means that looters always immediately die, once they take up looting.

One counter-example to this will suffice. From her other writings, we know that Rand would regard most people in the United States government at present as looters. Yet these people are not dead. They have survived for years.

(ii)


Perhaps she means that the looters will eventually die.

But everyone will die eventually, so this shows nothing about why looters are more immoral than anyone else.

(iii)


Perhaps she means that the life expectancy of looters is significantly less than that of non-looters.

If so, she has given no evidence for this claim. We may again use the example under (i): do government officials on average have a significantly shorter life-span than, say, businessmen? I have no reason to think so.

(iv)


Perhaps Rand means that although looters can physically survive, their lives are sub-human in quality, i.e., they are not living 'qua man'.

In that case, no argument has been given for this claim. See also comment 27.

The significance of this is that Rand's meta-ethics is incapable of delivering the moral judgements she wants. Moreover, it is incapable of explaining obvious moral facts such as that stealing is wrong.

(30)


24,1: Discussing why looting will lead to your own destruction: "As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship."

I have not edited the remark--she gives no further elaboration.

I do not find this adequate evidence. It is not obvious that all criminals and dictators have shorter life-spans than non-criminals, though I grant many of them do. Again, take the example of U.S. government officials, whom Rand would regard as looters.

(31)


24,2-3: Unlike animals, people have to take a long-term view of their lives--they are aware of their whole life-span. "Such is the meaning of the definition: that which is required for man's survival qua man. It does not mean a momentary or a merely physical survival. ... 'Man's survival qua man' means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan--in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice."

Does any of this explain why the survival of the looters doesn't count as "survival qua man"? Take these remarks in turn:

First, the looters do not have a merely momentary survival. Many of them live for years and years--a normal human life-span, in fact.

Second, their survival is not merely physical. I assume Rand's intended contrast to "physical" is "mental." The looters also survive mentally, in the sense that they remain conscious (they don't fall asleep or go into a coma).

Third, their looting enables them to survive through the whole of their lifespans.

Fourth, are they surviving as rational beings? Well, Rand has given no reason so far for thinking that their behavior isn't rational.

Fifth, are they surviving "in all those aspects which are open to [their] choice"? I'm not sure how to parse the end of that sentence, actually; it seems ungrammatical. I gather the point, however, is that certain goals, methods, etc. are applicable in all the circumstances where we have to make choices. I see no reason why the looters' behavior does not enable them to sur

Sounded OK (for a theist) until the clumsy speciesist nomenclature.

The teleology is not to "Become more human", but to improve ourselves.

I get that this guy is doing satire, but there's a line between satire and a pure straw man--and NonStampCollector took a flying leap over that line in this video.

In the first place, any halfway competent theist using those arguments will of course make it clear that these argument do not necessarily support any one religion over the others. This is how Aquinas used similar arguments in the 13th century, and it's how theistic thinkers deploy them today. They are only intended to weaken the atheist position generally. NonStampCollector doesn't even attempt to address them on this level.

In the second place, it's asinine to assume that every religion is the same--either with regard to how well they are supported by the cosmological, teleological and moral arguments, or how much or little they incline their followers to religious violence. As it happens, the Hindu has a much better case than the Christian or Muslim for saying that these arguments support his religion. Brahma, unlike the God of Abraham, does not have a seemingly petty concern with particular tribes of humans or become angry or feel wronged because of sin. Brahma is described as illimitable, all-embracing. Brahma is a more cosmic God, better supported by the discovery of the age and vast distances of the universe.

Other Gods or divine realities so supported include Plato's Form of the Good, the Logos of the Stoics, the God of Leibniz or Spinoza, and even the God of A. N. Whitehead (co-author of the Principia Mathematica with acclaimed atheist Bertrand Russel) and Charles Hartshorne.

Tendencies toward violence differ considerably between religions. The Hindu and the worshiper of Amun have no reason to get into a fight about religion. Hinduism is not a single religion, but thousands of intertwined religions which have co-existed peacefully for thousands of years. A plurality of religious beliefs and practices--including atheism--has long been not fought by Hindus, but embraced. Only when aggressive evangelistic monotheisms actively attack Hinduism does anything like an instinct to violence come into play--and even then it tends to arise mainly in extreme circumstances. (As in Orissa in 2008, when the assassination of a Hindu leader by Christian Maoist extremists sparked a riot and violence by members of both religions, or the year before, in 20007, when Christians deliberately provoked Hindus by .) Likewise, there is no reason anyone would go to war over Amun. It would not be appropriate to describe the religions of Egypt as tolerant--the word implies a perception of annoyance or burden in allowing others to co-exist, when co-existence was assumed as a daily fact of life. In fact, the priests of Amun welcomed Zeus-worshiping Greeks to the oracle of Amun at Siwa, which once declared Alexander the Great to be the son of Amun.

But, of course, NonStampCollector doesn't actually know any of this. He just assumes, like nearly all the New Atheists, that all the other religions in the world are more or less just like the ones he's most familiar with. Makes it easier that way; you don't have to do as much studying or thinking.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:
>> ^Ornthoron:
I'm saddened by the fact that there is a need for overly simplified videos like this one.

he last point, i think, is the hardest to get, I have read books by scientists who don't seem to really grasp the non-directional nature of evolution. Deep inside, the idea that it is somehow directed towards making us, humans, seem ingrained in most people's mind, phrases like "more evolved" "higher up on the evolutionary tree" etc are often wildly misplaced and over-used.

I think a large portion of those scientists subscribe to what I call the anthropic fallacy. They use the anthropic principle to argue backwards that humans are a teleological certainty. It's a subtle logical fallacy. Normally, you would say:
1. If humans are to exist, the laws of the universe need to be such and such.
2. Humans exist.
3. Therefore, the laws of the universe are such and such.

Of course, it's tautological and doesn't say much. So, many are tempted to extrapolate and some come to the strong anthropic principle, which says too much and is indeterminable, or they try to be smart and say things like this:
1. If humans are to exist, the laws of the universe need to be such and such.
2. The laws of the universe are such and such.
3. Therefore, humans are to exist (i.e. they must exist at some time in this universe).

This looks logically true if you use material implication, but it is in fact false when using the semantically correct counterfactual conditional. That the laws of a universe are indeed such and such as to allow humans does not implicate that humans exist in that universe, just that they can exist. So as you said, evolution does the rest. Evolution may be random or not, but we won't settle that with pure logic. Any determinist or materialist should put is money on "not random" though of course not random does in no way imply design or anything of that sort.

I've actually read Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" does that count as reading up on ID? ID is yet another "theory of the gaps" which is to say, it searches for further and further small gaps in scientific knowledge in the hopes that someday, eventually the scientists will be totally flummoxed, and finally admit that there MUST be something that is impossible to explain.

You have to realise that when you invoke a "designer" whether that be god or whatever else, it's just the same as giving up. Oh, well, we don't know what is causing bubonic plague, it must be God's divine retribution, we might as well not study it. Humans aren't meant to fly, it's God's will.

The problem with ID is that it tries SO hard to find out what scientists don't know, and when the proponents find anything, they gleefully shriek "see!? you don't know how that works, it must be a designer!!!" Then science progresses, and the ID camp is pushed back even further, and searches for more percieved gaps.

These ID people are the very advanced "researchers" like Behe and some others. I'll assume that you are among this elite group of "well-informed" creationists ID proponents. Does it make you at all curious to note that the majority of your supporters are frothing at the mouth bigots? The same people who support "teach the controversy" are the people that oppose stem cell research, abortion for rape victims, and probably racial desegregation?

Not to turn this into an appeal to authority nor an ad hominem attack, but it must make you pause and think. Why is it that Intelligent Design textbooks are word for word verbatim copies of old creationist textbooks? Do you find it at all curious that the term Intelligent Design was coined the very same year that the american supreme court banned the teaching of creation "science" on the grounds that it violated the constitutional seperation of church and state?

Having read Behe, I agree that ID isn't straight religion. In fact, it's worse. It's straight up anti-scientific.

Or did you mean a different sort of ID, that actually does some research? Because the only ID i've ever heard of simply sits and complains. Fearfully.

In reply to your comment:
“ShakaUVM- i think the principle you're reaching for, the one you've almost but not quite grasped hold of, is what is referred to as natural selection. Not ID. Once you have genes that replicate, the "goal" is to have genes that replicate better.

No, I'm quite well read on evolution and ID. What you do not understand is that ID incorporates the theory of evolution and natural selection in it. Natural selection is, in fact, a subset of ID theory. ID is not creationism. If you think so, you drastically need to read up on the topic. Creationism is the literal belief in the account of Genesis in the Bible. ID is the belief that an intelligent being influenced evolution (to produce humans). These two beliefs are quite at odds with each other.

I know, I know it's popular in the press to say that they are the same, but besides the fact that God could be the intelligent designer, they have nothing in common.

This video is a demonstration of ID. In fact, I could remove his text labels and make a compelling new video demonstrating how intelligent design could have worked. An intelligent designer could have done nothing more than to set a teleological goal (in this case, "Clock-ness") and then let evolution figure out the rest.”

ShakaUVM- i think the principle you're reaching for, the one you've almost but not quite grasped hold of, is what is referred to as natural selection. Not ID. Once you have genes that replicate, the "goal" is to have genes that replicate better.

No, I'm quite well read on evolution and ID. What you do not understand is that ID incorporates the theory of evolution and natural selection in it. Natural selection is, in fact, a subset of ID theory. ID is not creationism. If you think so, you drastically need to read up on the topic. Creationism is the literal belief in the account of Genesis in the Bible. ID is the belief that an intelligent being influenced evolution (to produce humans). These two beliefs are quite at odds with each other.

I know, I know it's popular in the press to say that they are the same, but besides the fact that God could be the intelligent designer, they have nothing in common.

This video is a demonstration of ID. In fact, I could remove his text labels and make a compelling new video demonstrating how intelligent design could have worked. An intelligent designer could have done nothing more than to set a teleological goal (in this case, "Clock-ness") and then let evolution figure out the rest.

Think about it -- the code has a teleological goal set to make clocks. As the machines evolve, they will always eventually end up as people (sorry, clocks) even though the underlying processes appear to be random.

You are missing the point of the simulation, it replaces "clockiness" for "fitness to survive" in a natural environment ,which is far too complex to simulate, and even if a simulation was made, it would take too long to see a meaningful result, because the "meaning" or "set goal" would just be continued survival, thus sort-of meaningless to us.. You can see an example of this here : http://www.truthtree.com/evolve.shtml As you will notice, these things dont really become "more like" anything, they just get selected to become better survivors

This is why simulations where we have an artificially set goal to reach (in this case a working clock) works better because we can see the improvement, the evolution in action. In the real world, there was no set goal, "lets make dinosaurs, humans, birds fish etc" it was just genes surviving because they survive because they survive.