Category Archives: logic

Anti-theists and Pharisees can Interpret the Old Testament the Way they Want, I will Interpret it the Way God Wants

12 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by in apologetics, atheism, Athesism Christianity, Catholic, christianity, history, law, logic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, rationality, scripture, Uncategorized

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This a second post about how Christians should deal with the objections to Christianity based on Old Testament verses.  Often opponents of Christianity will try to tell Christians about the parts of the bible that were not “cherry picked” by their Church or Sunday school teachers.  They will often talk about how they read “the whole bible.” And then start spewing out all these obscure bits and pieces of the Old Testament – and then accusingly ask “do you believe that!?”  If you try to interpret the scripture in a way that complies with the basic gist of your faith, (as opposed to their hyper-literalist reading) they will say you are just making up that interpretation.  If you simply say, well I don’t know what to make of that scripture they will say aha! You don’t even know your own scripture.   If this is troubling you then this blog is for you – and hopefully those opponents of Christianity who engage in this line of argument.

I think the best response to this is to test out how much they actually know about the bible.  Simply ask them: What did Jesus say about the old testament scriptures?  The Gospels are full of Jesus being tested on interpretations of the old testament!  We will get to these in a bit.

Don’t be surprised if the only thing the Christian opponent will remember is the “one jot”passage from Matthew  that I blogged about here. I get that as a response so often that I chose to just blog about it first.  When get this passage  (and you inevitably will if you do this apologetics schtick long enough)  Ask them if they know when Jesus said that and how he elaborated on what he meant.  The above blog deals with that quote and the context much more extensively, but in sum, the quote was part of his famous the Sermon on the Mount.    He clearly elaborates what he means and likely contradicts the anti-theist’s approach to the old testament – which are usually literalistic and amazingly similar to the pharisees of Jesus time that often wanted to “test” him.

Ask them if Jesus ever summarizes the old testament.   Does he give us guidance as to how we should understand the old testament as a whole so that we live the lives he calls us to?  People who have actually read the Gospels will know he does, repeatedly.  The Gospels record numerous situations where Jesus repeatedly teaches by his actions and words how we should understand the Old Testament.   It would be good to see if the remember any.   I have gathered up several passages where Jesus himself addresses the Old Testament Scriptures.

But before I begin why just quote Jesus?  Why not Popes or other Scripture?   I certainly could, but, Jesus is the lens through which we should read all Christian writings, not the other way around.    When we interpret scripture we of course should make sure we are interpreting it in a way that God directly tells us we should!     Jesus himself informs us that scripture is not just the word of God – it has dual authorship.  See e.g., Mark 10:1-12.

Regardless of how one might understand scripture the vast majority of Christians will agree that when Jesus says something it is God speaking very directly.  Jesus is the head of the church (Colossians 1:18) not the pope, not the bible, but Jesus.  Christians can disagree with each other about scripture.  Martin Luther even said James contradicted Paul.  But if Jesus himself is telling us how to interpret the old testament, a Christian should listen up.

What did Jesus say?   The most important point is that Jesus repeatedly summed up the old testament.  He did not dive in and give us rules for each and every verse of all forty-six books of the old testament.  That would be a continuation of the rules model that he superseded.  Instead he repeatedly tells us we should understand a general bottom line from the old testament and repeatedly rejects precisely the literalist interpretations offered today by certain anti-theists.  (Although, it was religious leaders taking the literalistic view of the old testament in Jesus’s day.)    So what is the bottom line God explicitly tells us we should take from those 46 books?  Let us quote God directly from the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John:

Matthew:

 “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12

This is then repeated:

“Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.””

Matthew 22:34-40

Mark:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

 

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[e] Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[f] The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[g] There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31

Luke:

“ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

[Jesus responds with the Parable of the Good Samaritan]

Luke 10:25-37

 

And John:

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.”

John 15:9-17

It isn’t a pope who is saying these things.  It isn’t a protestant reformer or a Sunday School teacher.   It is God himself telling us what the bottom line is.    If you are interpreting any of the old testament in a way that goes against this then are you going against God’s interpretation.  I am not interpreting God, I am quoting him.   Accordingly, churches are not “cherry picking” passages but rather being mindful of what God explicitly told them they should take away from the scripture.   Sure they will focus on the passages that they feel deliver the message God told us we should get from the Old Testament and not dwell on passages where it is hard to see the connection.  But that is not cherry picking that is being obedient to God.

Scripture is God revealing himself to us at very different times and environments.  But God is infinite and our understanding is finite.   It should not be surprising that God will use different tools that work better for some times and places than they do for others.  And it should not be surprising that scripture will never entirely reveal everything about God so we can completely understand God as a whole.  So the fact that we look at some verses of the 73 books and have to shrug our shoulders should not be surprising!  An infinite being revealing himself is not the same as telling the story of Harry Potter.     Does God give us enough direction to live a moral life.  I think any honest reader of the gospels would agree he does.

God took the time to give us a summary of the old testament.   I do think Christians should at least understand this often repeated summary.  Love God and love each other.  So if we read a passage and we don’t see how it yields what God told us it should, then it is fine to say we are not sure what we should make of that passage.    Perhaps the story is conveying a message to people based on understandings we have lost.   Perhaps what seemed loving and forgiving to the ancients no longer seems so.   Jews and Christians have made quite a bit of moral progress over the last several centuries.  An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth may seem extreme to us but it may have been a very moderate statement if the culture typically asked for the heads a culprit’s whole family in exchange for a tooth.  As we might expect God’s guidance has helped us make moral progress!

Jesus said as much himself.  At times scripture was written as a practical tool to guide people in the state they were in at the time.  See e.g., Matthew 19:1-9 and Mark 10:1-12.  Where Jesus says although the old testament allowed divorce that was not really how we should live.   (I would note Paul points out Jesus said this and that would be very hard to square with the view that Paul did not think Jesus was alive on earth as some Mythicists would claim.  “And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband” 1 Corinthians 7:10.)

Let’s look at how Jesus himself applies his bottom line summary in response to the Pharisees who often would raise almost the identical issues that Christian opponents raise today.

Stoning People

John 8:2-11 is an obvious and direct answer from Jesus on how we should deal with old testament laws:

“At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.  The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group  and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”  They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

These ancient codes like Lev. 20:10; Deut 22:22 have been so often quoted by Christian opponents you would think Jesus never addressed any of them, let alone addressed them directly and explicitly.

Many atheists will talk about how this passage from John does not appear in existing early texts.  But that is a red herring.  All Christian Churches I am aware of include this passage in their scripture.   Whether it was in early transcripts and taken out of some – or was a story about Jesus that was passed on and later included into John is unimportant.  It is part of our scipture and it tells us what God said.

In any case this is just one of many examples where Jesus’s bottom line that old testament laws must be understood in terms of treating others as you would like to be treated.  That would of course include judging others as we would like to be judged.    See e.g., Matthew 7:1-5, Luke 6:37-42 and Luke 6:31-36.  Where Jesus tells us to focus on our own shortcomings instead of trying to judge others for theirs.    These teaching not to judge others guts the penal aspects of the old testament across the board.  But let’s move to some other specific examples.

 

Healing on the sabbath, another rule broken! 

 

“Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there.  Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.  Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”

Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.

He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.  Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.”

Mark 3:1-6.  See also Matthew 12:10-13, Luke 13:10-17

 

Harvesting Grain on the Sabbath was explicitly forbidden in Exodus 16:23–29 even gathering sticks was not permitted Numbers 15:32–36.  So we should not be surprised by the Pharisees who are so similar to many of today’s literalist rule obsessed Christian opponents.

“At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them.  When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?  He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests.  Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent?  I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.  If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.  For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Matthew 12:1-8

“Unclean” woman and Jesus.

Leviticus 15 talks about how women who are menstruating are unclean.  It is not just that an unclean person should not touch be touched by anyone, but you become unclean even if you touch things they touch! They are not supposed to touch anyone, and they are supposed to yell they are unclean so that others won’t contact them.   Yet she touches Jesus and Jesus does not condemn her for violating the Rules.   Indeed, he even praises her for her faith and heals her!  Matthew 9:18-23 Luke 8:43-48  and Mark 5:21-34.

According to Leviticus 13:45-46 and Numbers 5:2 lepers are also unclean.  So people are not supposed to touch them.   But what does Jesus do?  Yep he “reached out his hand…. but quickly pulled back saying ‘the rules say I can’t touch a leper, sorry dude!’ and walked on by” Anti-theist bible page 752:42.

For those interested in Christianity here is what the Christian Gospels say:

“When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

Matthew 8:1-4

See also Luke 5:13 “Then He put out His hand and touched him…”

 

Rules says we are not supposed to touch corpses Numbers 19:11-22 and number 5:2. But he seems to do just that when he takes a dead girl’s hand in Matthew 9:23-25.  Now Jesus said she was just “sleeping” but I do think the author intends us to think she had died in the sense we would mean by it.

Jesus also cuts against the teachings that one might read in the OT that misfortunes are the results of our sin or those of our ancestors.  Exodus 20:5 Deuteronomy 5:9 and Second Samuel 3:29.  No doubt passages like these lead the disciples to ask whether a man blind from birth was suffering due to his own sins or those of his parents.  Jesus said “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” John 9:3. See also Luke 13:4-5

“Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

 

In my last blog I talked about the rule based systems Jesus is here repeatedly and emphatically moving away from and rather pointing us in a moral direction.  That direction can best be expressed by loving God and treating others as you would want to be treated.   That is the basic rule Jesus aplied above and it can serve us to address all these “tests”.

Imagine this from the perspective of the woman caught in adultery and the rule Jesus is asked to address.    Imagine being a person suffering from paralysis or blindness and believing Jesus can heal you, but unfortunately the time Jesus comes near just happens to be the Sabbath so he follows the rule and says he will not work that day so you are out of luck.   What if you were the woman who suffered from hemorrhaging for years (thus preventing you from going to temple and forcing you to be considered unclean causing you to be outcast from society) knowing that if only you touched him you would be cured.  But when you did touch him instead of healing you he reprimanded you for breaking the rule!  Lepers obviously suffered.  They also had to announce to others they were unclean.  Jesus could heal you with a touch but sadly touching was against a rule so he walked by.  Putting ourselves in the shoes of others is the key that now makes all these “tests” seem easy.   If you were a pharisee listening to the Gospels at Jesus time I am not sure you would always anticipate how he answers these tests.  Jesus directly and radically changed the rule based system.   That is one of many reasons why the Gospels are so amazing.

Am I saying that God Changed what is Moral?

People often misunderstand what relativism is or at least when it is objectionable to the moral realist.  The moral realist does not say that a certain action – say killing someone is always immoral.  Rather they say that it is not dependent on the mind of the person judging.   So there may not be anything wrong with someone making an “eeeeee” sound.  But if you know that action is aggravating/effecting those around you then it may be immoral.  The moral realist is fine with that view.  The moral realist agrees the surrounding facts can effect the morality of a specific action.  However the objective moral realists says the rightness or wrongness of a given set of facts is not relative to the mind of the person doing the judging.  So if Jesus not stoning the adulteress (assuming all the facts and circumstances of her case) then it is not evil then it doesn’t matter if some pharisee thought it was evil.    The relativist would say his not stoning her could be morally good for Jesus but not morally good for the pharisee.  I address this common misconception of relativism here.

The passage from Mark 3:1-6 is especially illuminating on this point.   Jesus states “ Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil….”  Of course, if it were objectively evil to break a rule (do any work on the sabbath) his statement would not make sense.  But they know what Jesus did was good and not evil despite the rule!  And Jesus knew he did not need to explain.  How did he know?  Because God is a loving relational being and he made us in his image.  Yet we are so attached to rules that even today people will still ask is ok to work (in a hospital healing people no less) on the sabbath?  Following Jesus does not require a high IQ and an understanding of a complicated rule system.  That is not why it is hard to follow him and do good.

Hopefully anyone can see one of the main messages that Jesus repeatedly taught was that specific rules are often twisted so that they work against their intended goal.   He repeatedly tells us what the moral goal is and shows us how to apply that goal to our thinking.   This is why I am somewhat baffled by people asking why didn’t Jesus just simply announce another rules against [insert whatever specific rule you want].    “’Are you still so dull?’ Jesus asked them.” Matthew 15:16

 

It is likely just that people haven’t read the Gospels, or if they did, they read them with a motivation other than trying to understand what Jesus was trying to communicate.      The anti-theists of today are so much like the Pharisees thinking they could teach morality better than Jesus by using the rule based system.   It is almost miraculously prophetic how Jesus addresses this same issue so directly and repeatedly.  It is also amazing that just as in Jesus day those who want to harden their hearts to his message will succeed and not understand even the basics of what he taught.

So when Christian opponents say we are “cherry picking” passages or reading the passages in ways that allow us to be loving, we should admit it is true.  That is what God told us to do.   Don’t let their ignorance of even the basic, repeated, and explicit teachings of Jesus lead us off the path God told us to take.

We Know Much More from Hearsay then from Modern Science

21 Tuesday May 2019

Posted by in apologetics, atheism, Athesism Christianity, christianity, epistemology, history, logic, philosophy, rationality, science, Uncategorized

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Lots of times certain atheists will argue that the bible is “just hearsay and that is not evidence.”   As a trial lawyer with a pretty good understanding of the rules of evidence I think there are some important points to be made here.  If people don’t know what they are talking about they may end up with a very odd epistemology (that is the fancy word for what it means to know things or to have your beliefs justified or warranted) if they just repeat the scorn heaped on “hearsay.”  To understand how hearsay fits in to our justified beliefs we have to understand what hearsay is and that will take some explaining.  So the first part of this blog will go into what hearsay is and is not, and the second part will explain why so much of what we believe is based on hearsay.

 

Almost all of the important information we know we learned through what would be considered “hearsay” under typical court rules.    The US Federal Rules of evidence 801(c) defines hearsay this way:

“Hearsay. “Hearsay” is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted”

 

So any sort of written or oral statement made outside of the courtroom, would be hearsay if it is offered for the truth of what is asserted.   We can ignore the “at the trial or hearing” bit, because I am looking at the substance of the rule.  So if someone is telling you something they saw with their own eyes or heard with their own ears etc, and they are able and willing to answer your questions about that under oath, it would not be hearsay according to the standard I am using in this blog- even if they are telling you this information outside of a hearing or trial.

 

 

There are exceptions to the rule where the courts allow certain hearsay in even though it is hearsay.   Unlike the definition of hearsay I gave these exceptions can vary from state to state and I won’t go into them, other than to say I think  the existence of these exceptions serves my point.  Courts are extremely strict about the evidence they let in, but even they allow hearsay in if it is under certain exceptions.  Again my point is that hearsay is really where we get much of what we consider “knowledge” so the fact that courts might let some in shows it is not always considered invalid.

 

There is no question that courts would consider hearsay to be “relevant evidence.”   So claims that hearsay is not evidence are just false.   Although it is true that it might not be “admissible” evidence.  Hearsay is often excluded because we think people should be able to cross examine witnesses, witnesses should have to formulate their responses by live questions not carefully couch their views in writing, the statements should be under oath,  and the jury should be able see the demeanor of the person and judge their credibility etc.   So courts don’t allow hearsay evidence because they want trials to rely on the best evidence not because they don’t think hearsay is evidence.  The courts want the best evidence if they can require it.  So they do.    But there is no question that hearsay can be “relevant evidence” in that if fits the definition federal rules of evidence definition of relevant evidence.

  “ Rule 401. Test for Relevant Evidence

Evidence is relevant if:

 

(a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and

 

(b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.”

 

I talked about this definition in this blog.

So anyone who says hearsay is not “relevant evidence” simply does not know what they are talking about.   Let’s get a bit better understanding of what “hearsay” is.

What does it mean to be “offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted”?  It means that the person is trying to use the contents of the statement as evidence that what is asserted in the statement is true.  So for example in my post on empathy versus love I quoted a source which said emotional empathy triggers the same brain neurons that relate to direct physical pain.  I was quoting that source as evidence of the truth of what was asserted by that source.  So it was hearsay.  Now unless the person I quoted actually did that experiment himself and looked at the brain mris himself then he likely was just repeating what he read in a journal or some other writing.  And he was doing that for the purpose of evidencing the truth of what they were saying in that writing.  Thus it was hearsay on top of hearsay – AKA, double hearsay.  And that assumes he read the literature directly from the person who made the observations.  So it is likely at best double hearsay.

What would not be hearsay?

A statement might not be offered for the truth of what is asserted if for example you just wanted to prove a person believed it to be true or to attack someone’s credibility.    So an out of court statement is often used when cross examining a witness.  For example  “In a prior deposition, you said the defendant was wearing a red hat didn’t you?  Now you are saying he was wearing no hat at all.”  Well assuming it is not crime to wear or not wear a hat, that fact likely is not directly an element of the case.  So the purpose is not to prove he was wearing a hat or not.  The purpose the prior statement is being used for, is to challenge the witness’s credibility, for example, maybe lead to doubts about the witnesses accuracy in identifying the correct person.    So that prior statement is not being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted (that the person was in fact wearing a red hat) but rather to attack the witnesses credibility.  Therefore that statement would not be hearsay because it is not being used for hearsay purposes.

 

Also if someone is telling you what they themselves heard or saw with their own senses and they are able and willing to answer any questions you have on the matter under oath that would not be hearsay.  (No I am not saying it has to be a courtroom for purposes of this discussion)  But they would only be able to tell you what they saw with their own eyes.  Experts can also share their opinions but again they would need to be able and willing to answer all your questions.  So we can’t just take an article from an expert science journal and enter it in evidence with nothing more.  That would be hearsay.  That said if your sister told you she saw a cardinal in the backyard and she was there to answer questions that would not be hearsay.  Your believing that there was a cardinal in the back yard based on her statement would not be based on hearsay.     If you yourself saw cardinal in the back yard, you knowledge of it being there is also not based on hearsay.  Of course, those things are not known based on science either.

 

But any information you learn about from reading that science journal is based on hearsay.  The journal is telling you about experiments or science and you are reading it for the truth of what they are asserting.     Most of the nonfiction we read, is “for the truth of the matter asserted.” So when I read a history book that says the Ribbontop-Molotov pact was an agreement between the Nazis and Socialist Russia to divide Eastern Europe that is hearsay.  It is communicating that information for the purpose of making me believe the statements are true and that is how I am reading the book.    Hence the vast majority of what we know from reading any sort of nonfiction is hearsay.  All of history, geography, sociology, sports, news, is all overwhelmingly hearsay.  None of it is modern science.

 

Even if you read a copy of a diary explaining what a person saw themselves, it would still be hearsay.  At trial you would not be able to just enter that diary.  You would need to be able to call that person live and that person would have to be able and willing to answer questions under oath.  So hopefully you are starting to see just how much of what we know (or at least “reasonably believe”) is in fact hearsay.

 

Modern science started around 1600.  Before then People lived lives where they knew all sorts of things about those around them. Sure lots of it through hearsay especially after the printing press.  But very little of it through what we would consider modern science.

 

Modern Science is not how we know if we walk on water we will sink or that dead things typically don’t come back to life.  People knew these things before 1600, and really science added very little to these beliefs.    People knew the earth was round.  They even traveled around the world all before modern science.

 

So how much of our scientific knowledge do we know by reading it from books or from people who learned of it from reading books as opposed to doing the experiments ourselves?   All of those experiments you read about other people doing you know through hearsay.   I mean unless you are a very busy scientist who never reads about any other science experiments, probably, the vast majority of what you know about science you know from “hearsay.”  Now at least presumably most of that hearsay does also have a causal root in science as well.  That is the statements would not have been made if it weren’t for the scientific testing done.  So I am willing to call that knowledge as coming from both science and hearsay even though the more proximate cause of our knowledge is hearsay.   Since that knowledge is based on both science and hearsay, let’s call all that knowledge it a wash in our tally.

 

Moreover, we should consider that science is not the only way we can reach what seems like scientific conclusions.  Galileo figured the heavy ball would fall just as fast as the lighter ball by a simple thought experiment.  No scientific testing required.   Consider one cannon ball is heavier than another.  Now attach them to eachother.   If Aristotle was right and the lighter cannon ball would fall slower than the heavier one you would expect the lighter one to slow the heavier one’s descent.   But if they are attached then they are one thing and therefore the combined weight of both balls in this system is more than either individually.    Therefore the two balls attached should both fall faster then either when they were separate!  It is a contradiction to say the heavier cannonball will fall slower and faster if it is attached to the other lighter cannonball.  From this Galileo knew they would fall at the same speed before he ever supposedly went to the Tower of Pisa.

 

Now to be fair I do not think that is hearsay either.  There is a certain type of logical thinking that philosophers do that can yield knowledge that is neither hearsay nor modern science.  Math is neither hearsay nor science.  Math is best understood in ways other than hearsay.  But sometimes people just memorize those times tables and then it could be hearsay.  It would be hard to say how many people know the Pythagorean theorem from figuring it out versus just being told.  If you know it from being told then that is hearsay.  If you know it from being told that is hearsay that is also based on math but it is also hearsay.  But knowing the Pythagorean theorem is clearly not modern science either.   So again that could be something that we know more due to hearsay which may play a part but science clearly does not.

 

Here is another math and hearsay piece of knowledge.   I know there are 73 books in the Catholic Bible.  I could have learned this by counting the books and doing the math myself.  But, I have to admit, I just looked it up and was told – so I know this by hearsay.  How do I know what “modus ponens” means?  hearsay. (If you looked it up then you learned it from hearsay too)   How do I know the word gato in Spanish means cat?  Hearsay.

 

History is huge on this.  Prehistory is usually defined as those times and places before the use of a written language we can access.  This should tell you just about all history is hearsay.  Who was the first U.S. president?  So many facts about the Roman empire etc etc.

 

Now compare all the information that you read or were told about by someone (other than someone who says they were personally there and saw what they are telling you about  and  is able and willing to answer any questions you have) versus that information you have learned from doing a scientific experiment yourself?   Hopefully you are now starting to see that it is not even close.

 

And no I am not even dealing with Humes issue with science.

 

Now it is true that by creating the internet science has spread knowledge.  Similar to how the printing press did before that.  But the knowledge they are distributing is not usually scientific knowledge.  New recipes, history, geography, a different way to do you hair or how build a shed what I did today work matters etc etc.  It’s not science.   But it is hearsay!  Yep most of what we are sharing over the printing press and internet is hearsay.    So again the internet is a win for science and hearsay.  But most of what we are learning is based on hearsay and not scientific knowledge.  And the fraction of information we get about science over the internet is almost always hearsay.   So if we wanted to say there would be no internet without modern science I would agree.  But without hearsay (scientists sharing the results of their experiments in writing) modern science would be so slowed down that we wouldn’t have an internet now either.  Books contain hearsay and they were important to the development of all learning including science.   Hearsay is just as important to the development of the internet as is science and most of what we know from the internet is not science.

 

Even videos that show an event are dependent on hearsay to say they are what they claim to be.  As a lawyer I can’t just show up and start playing a youtube video without a live witness to testify what is actually in the video and that it accurately depicts what it seems to depict.  On the internet we get this writing under the video explaining what it is and that writing is hearsay.    So I couldn’t just pull up a youtube video and say “here judge see the type under the video that says it is what it claims to be?”  No that’s hearsay.    And you rely on that hearsay to know if you are looking at what is supposed to be a real video as opposed to a doctored video.   So even there we need hearsay and most of the videos are not teaching science.

 

Hopefully this posts will help people understand that we base a huge amount of our justified beliefs on “hearsay” but science independent of hearsay accounts for only a tiny fraction of those beliefs.   Hearsay is the basis of so many more of our beliefs it is not even close.

Problem of Evil Answered with Logic and Scripture

01 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in apologetics, atheism, Catholic, christianity, logic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, religion, scripture, Uncategorized

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The problem of evil is a common objection to Christianity and with some good reason.  I would even admit that certain evils in the world seem to me to amount to some evidence against the Christian God.   But I think the evidence can be shown to be fairly weak when looked at logically and with the aid of scripture.

 

When explaining my view on this problem I always start with this question:  Does God’s omnipotence mean he can violate the rules of logic?  If we answer yes then a the problem of evil is not a problem for God because it is a logical problem – and he is not bound by logic.  So let’s say that “omnipotence” of God means something short of breaking the laws of logic.  Once we understand God is so constrained then we see cracks form in the problem of evil.

Knowledge can’t be good and not good.

Ignorance can’t be bad and not bad.

God can’t have us know what evil is and not know what evil is.

God can’t let us be ignorant of evil and not be ignorant of evil.

We can’t know what the consequences of evil are, if there is no evil to be found.

If suffering is the result of evil then can we really know what evil is unless we know the experience of suffering?

So can we know the experience of suffering without experiencing suffering?

 

And what about the results of good which often are the opposites of suffering – peace, joy etc.?  (there seems no clear cut antonym for all the different aspects of suffering)  Can we know what they are when we don’t understand the opposite?  Can we know what it means to be taller or as tall as without also having an idea of shorter (or not as tall as)?  It seems to me we can’t know these states without knowing something of the opposites.  I can’t understand heat unless I have some concept of lack of heat, i.e., cold.

So if we think Knowledge is good then we might agree that even knowledge of evil is good.  Even if this good is logically linked to our experience of evil.   Now we may think well the good of knowing evil does not outweigh all the suffering evil brings.  God seems to agree.   But nevertheless we would still have to say knowledge is itself a good.  And if we think it is good to allow us to experience all goods then we can’t exclude some goods.  So it does seem there are logical restraints that means some goods entail evil.

So what does this have to do with scripture?

What was that tree God forbade Adam and Eve the fruit of?  Was it an apple tree or a pear tree?  No, it was the fruit of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”.   In Genesis God commands  “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:16-17.  I mean at first that seems a very odd sort of tree, and not one I remember seeing at the arboretum.   I think this should be a sign that the author of the story is not just telling us some literal event from history but is trying to make a different sort of statement about God.    What does it even mean to taste the fruit that comes from the knowledge of evil?  The fruit/result of knowing evil is, as we have said, suffering.   Can we have knowledge of evil unless we know what it produces?  I don’t think so because such knowledge would be warped.  Some things that may be evil might sound pretty good if it weren’t for the suffering it caused.  Knowing evil without knowing suffering is not really knowing evil.  (“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” Genisis 3:6.)

 

Someone can’t know suffering without knowing suffering.   If someone says I know what it is like to be burned over 80% of my body – well the only way he could know that is if he was so burned or at least had that experience.  If he didn’t we would say no you actually don’t “know” that kind of suffering.

 

But this was our decision – not God’s.  He wanted to save us from this fruit.  Are we to think the author just randomly chose the name for that tree or is the author inviting the reader to explore a very deep philosophical issue?  What is “the fruit” of knowing good and evil that we wanted to taste?  When people are so caught up in literal readings that they argue whether the fruit was a pear or an apple my stomach sinks.  They are missing so much.

 

The text invites us to explore deep ideas about our experiences here in this life and our situation existing in this world as we do.    How can we know good and evil without knowing evil?  And how can we know evil if we can’t experience it?  And how can we experience something that is nowhere to be seen?    So the fruit of knowledge of good and evil implies the experience of evil.  But the Bible expresses that God did not want this for us.  But he also wanted us to be free.

 

God is portrayed as our parent who loves us.   Every parent understands this tension between wanting our children to avoid pain but also allow them to choose their own path.  Don’t go down that path, but recognizing there is value in letting us learn so giving us autonomy.

 

We can’t have freedom and not have freedom.

Freedom can’t be good and not be good at the same time.

God can’t have us overcome adversity without us overcoming adversity.

We can’t over come adversity if there is no adversity

Overcoming  adversity can’t be good and not good.

We cannot experience all that is good if we can never experience certain goods.

I can go on and on with logical constraints that imply evil is required for some goods.

 

But isn’t God overdoing it with all the evil in the world?  In other words we might agree we have to experience some evil and suffering to have certain goods but why so much suffering?   Couldn’t God have done it better?  So how should it have been done?  Well we should expect the suffering should be a finite time.  And of course all our lives are indeed finite – that is we die.    And indeed scripture explains that our life is finite –  because we chose to taste the fruit of the tree.

 

“22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side[e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”  Genesis 3:22-24

 

 

Beautiful language expressing that God knew it was best we not live forever in this state that the fruits of this knowledge would bring to us.  God knew that knowledge of good and evil would entail suffering.  Is it a coincidence that death was brought into the world at that time?  Some would say God having death enter the world at that time is really a punishment.  I think the opposite.  He is helping us with the mess we got ourselves in.   Making our suffering here finite is the most loving thing to do.  It is only after the time that we chose to know good and evil that God prevents them from living forever.

 

Isn’t that what we would do for those we love.  We would say ok I don’t want you to go down that path because it will cause pain.  But if you choose that path of pain, then you will learn, but we would try to limit the pain.   And then we would make our own sacrifices to help those we love get out of the rut and back on the path where evil and its fruit (suffering) is avoided.  Moreover we would want the benefits of our knowledge to be used.  Good and loving relationships can be better appreciated thanks to this knowledge.   That is the story of God and humanity in a nutshell.

 

I am reminded of a friend in college who said to get a good grade just read the first and last chapters of the book to get the overall point and then memorize a few facts in the middle that you can throw in your test or paper to impress the teacher.  This is close.  Jumping from the first 3 chapters of Genesis and then reading a Gospel will give you a decent idea of Christianity.

 

Two final notes:

Scripture is not saying knowledge is to be avoided.  Remember the metaphor of a tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the *only* tree we were forbidden to eat from.  “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genisis 2.  So only the tree that allows us to know these particular opposites was off limits.  This suggests that any other sort of knowledge (science history etc.) would be good and not have a negative trade off.  It is only this particular tree of knowledge that is off limits.  That fruit logically had to be packed in a can of worms.   Not necessarily the fruits of other knowledge.

 

Also, notice that God warns of the actions he will take – that they will die.   However, he does not go into detail about why he will take that action or why knowledge of Good and evil will cause so many problems.  Of course, for any such considerations to be appropriately understood by them he would need to give them knowledge of good and evil – exactly that which he was trying to avoid.

Morality: Problems with Divine Command, Subjectivism, and Anti-realism

15 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by in atheism, Catholic, christianity, logic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, rationality, religion, Uncategorized

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Divine Command Theory is the view that right and wrong is simply whatever God decides it is.  As Socrates asked in the Euthyphro Dilemma:

1) is an act pleasing to the gods because it is good,

or rather

2) is an act good because it is pleasing to the gods?

 

The Divine command theory says 2 is correct.   An act is good because it is pleasing to God.   Whatever is God’s will to be good, is good.  That is what it means to be good.  Divine command theory is really a form of subjectivism where the person whose judgement is relevant is God.

 

Russ Schaefer-Landau argued against divine command theory (claim 2) along these lines:

 

  1. God either has good reason to will the way he does or he does not
  2. If God has no good reason to will the way he does then his view is arbitrary
  3. If God has good reason to will the way he does then something is good due to those reasons not due to God’s will. Therefore, we would be looking at case 1 in the Euthyphro dilemma not 2.

 

It follows that if divine command theory is true then morality is arbitrary.

 

I actually think the problem with divine command theory runs even deeper.  (And the problems equally apply to all forms of subjectivism/relativism)    I think that if we define moral good as whatever God (or some other person or group or entity) decide is good then the very notion of having a “good reason” to believe an act to be moral or immoral is unworkable.  The issue is dealt with by subjectivists when we consider the problems they have with moral progress.  Moral goodness on the subjectivist view is whatever the relevant person or group decides is morally good.  This decision need not accord with objective reality because under subjectivism morality itself is not based in objective morality.     Divine command theory seems to be just a particular form of moral subjectivism where the relevant person or group is God.

 

On moral subjectivism we make moral progress every time the relevant person or group changes their mind.  If they go from thinking slavery (however we want to define it) is sometimes permissible to thinking it is always wrong then it is moral progress.   Why is this moral progress?  Well they used to think wrongly and now they are correct.  They are by definition always correct in whatever they now believe about morality because their beliefs define what morality is.   They used to think slavery was sometimes permissible but since their current view defines what is moral and they now think slavery is never moral they now hold the correct view.

 

Of course, if they then change their mind again, and again start thinking slavery is sometimes morally permissible, that would again be moral progress!  Why?  Because, the current beliefs of that person (or group) defines what is moral.  So now that they believe slavery is sometimes morally permissible then it is by definition morally permissible.  Therefore they were in error, in the bad old days, when they thought slavery was always wrong.

 

So to that extent anything that causes the relevant person/God/group to change their mind is always good in the sense it leads to this vacuous sort of moral progress.  I hope that seems more distasteful than satisfying.  Is there any other sense that a subjectivist could have a “good reason” to hold a belief about morality?  I think the prospects are dim here is why.

 

As I explained in an earlier blog there are generally 2 different types of good reasons to believe something– theoretical reasons having to do with evidence – and pragmatic reasons which is more focused on consequences.   I agree that logic can also properly constrain a subjectivists beliefs – e.g., they should not lead logical contradiction.  So that might be a third type of good reason.  (Do these three forms of reasons account for all good reasons for belief?  Feel free to comment below.)

But logical contradiction isn’t really going to rule out much in terms of bad reasoning about morality on its own.  Any detail of difference can be pointed to in order to avoid logical contradictions in moral views.  That killing did not happen at precisely 10:27 Am Central time at that exact location.  Therefore my believe that this killing is immoral does not logically contradict my belief this other killing was moral.   Edit: I address the problem of logic being a good reason for subjective beliefs here.

 

To really get to the heart of the matter we need to go beyond just logical contradiction and look at whether there can be good theoretical, and/or practical reasons for an anti-realist to believe a moral claim.

Can there be good theoretical reasons to hold subjective moral beliefs?

So lets address whether there can be good theoretical reason for the subjectivist to believe something is moral.  That is, is there evidence the subjectivist might use to embrace a moral belief?   Because morality, according to the subjectivist, is not based on objective reality but rather subjective it is impossible that there is good evidence to say something is moral. Let me explain further:

 

Let’s say on the divine theory it so happens that racism displeases God.  So on this theory racism is evil.  And saying it is evil is the same as saying it is God’s will we avoid it.  Now someone might say well God has good reasons for that being his will.  Racism causes all sorts of problems and pain etc.  And we may nod along with some of those reasons.  But here is the problem.  It doesn’t matter what the reasons are if we are going to define what is good by whatever pleases God.  If they actually led God to his current view then they are all good reasons – to the extent they led to the current view which by definition is always right.  So maybe none of the reasons we think racism is wrong are the reasons it displeases God.  Maybe God used to think racism was good but then he was kicked in the head by a mule, or he believed that his stock portfolio would increase in value if he changed his tune or he did some tasseography and the tea leaves told him racism was wrong so he just went with that.

 

Now normally we would think well I am glad God now says racism is wrong but those aren’t really good reasons to reject racism.  But this notion of good or bad reasons to believe something is just our attachment to a realist view of morality.  We think racism is wrong because of things that have to do with reality outside of God’s opinion.  But that is not how it works in Divine command theory – or any form of subjectivism.  God’s opinion decides what is in fact good or bad.  So his current view is always the correct view because that is how the correct view is defined.   It is not based on objective reality so our normal notions of saying whether a reason is a “good reason” or a “bad reason” no longer apply at all.

To better understand my point let’s consider what good and bad theoretical reasons for believing an event that occurs in objective reality.  Lets use history as an example.

If someone believes Russia and Germany reached an agreement to divide up Eastern Eurpope before World War II, we might agree because based on what we read about the Molotov-Ribbontrop pact it seems that is likely true.  But what if they say no that is not why they believe it.  They believe it based on tasseography. (again based on pattern the tea leaves left in their mug) Ugh another tasseographer! (blame Richard Joyce for teaching me about this craft)

 

But why is that a bad reason to believe?  We may not be able to show such a belief contradicts other views they hold.  But that is not the problem.  The problem is that reason has no connection with the reality of Russia actually having an agreement with Germany before World War II.  The information we read about the Ribbontrop Molotov pact does in fact have a connection to the objective reality of that agreement.  That is we think the history book (or Wikipedia article) traces back to information and documents used by the people actually in leadership positions in Russia and Germany and this connection with objective reality is what makes it a good reason to believe.

 

If the Wikipedia article or book was a complete fabrication made up by some crazy person who decided to write down a dream, then the Wikipedia article would not be a good reason to believe there was an agreement.  Why does the evidence or reason to believe have to track/link with objective reality?    Because the claim “that Russia and Germany reached an agreement to divide Eastern Europe before WW2” is a claim about what happened in objective reality.    If the claim we are considering is not itself one about objective reality then it is far from clear why any reasons to believe it must have any connection with objective reality.    So our normal theoretical reasoning as to what constitutes a “good reason” to believe something no longer applies when we are talking about anti-realist morality positions.

Can there Be Good Practical Reasons Supporting a Subjectivist Moral Belief?

So what about pragmatic reasons?  Are there any good pragmatic reasons that can lead a subjectivist to believe one action is moral as opposed to another?   I certainly agree that practical reasons can be a good reason to believe something.  Indeed I think there are good practical reasons to believe in God as that belief will lead us to live a moral life.  But again I am understanding morality as a moral realist does.  That is a very different thing than what a moral subjectivist believes.  Here  and here are earlier blogs where I talk about some of the differences:

 

If you have certain goals that the belief will serve then you may have pragmatic reasons to believe.   So for example if believing you can beat cancer were to really improve your chances of beating cancer then that would be a good pragmatic reason to believe you can beat cancer.   This practical reason is independent of theoretical good reasons based on the evidence that you actually will beat cancer.

 

But it is hard to understand how this could apply in the case of subjective morality.   How would calling something moral actually lead to more rational action/belief?   I think Professor Shaffer-Landaus point comes into particular focus here.  If we say we want to believe this conduct is moral because it will lead to happiness or less pain for myself or others, why would adding the claim that therefor this is “moral” add anything?  Why not just say I want to believe I should act this way because I  want happiness and less pain.  Should the label that this action is subjectively moral motivate us to act that way more then the underlying reasons?  Certainly I would say yes if we were considering an objective morality.  But when we are well aware that morality is a label we subjectively assign then what is the point of even using that language.  To the extent it motivates beyond the underlying reasons it would seem to do nothing but distort motivation beyond the proper reasons.

 

It would seem that since we rule out evidentiary reasons and objective reality then we are only left with motivating reasons.  But then to the extent the morality label adjusts the motivation it would seem only to distort it in a way not supported by the other reasons.    The nihilist/error theorist would seem to accept the same reasons and simply cut out the morality talk as to the extent the morality label does anything it would distort the motivation beyond the underlying reasons – which would lead to less rational action not more.

 

But there are two more problems with coming up with good pragmatic reasons.  One is that saying what we want is not really in our control rationally speaking.  It would be great if it was.  But even though I know certain foods are bad for me I still want them.  The notion that our wants are driving the ship is sort of like admitting we are giving away the keys to matters beyond our control.   Although on this point I would agree the more argument is needed.  Just because I can’t control all my desires that does not mean I can’t control any of them.  But then again what is driving my will to desires some wants and not others – if not beliefs about objective morality?  Just other wants and desires?  If so then it would seem we just say we act this way for those reasons and adding the label of moral or immoral to actions seems superfluous.

 

The second problem arises because fundamentally morality involves ultimate goals.    Morality is generally understood as the end good in itself not something we do so that we can become faster stronger smarter or even pain free etc.  To the extent I wanted to do action X because it would gave me a leg up in my career or to relieve pain, does not mean action X was moral.   It might be moral or it might not.  But an action serving some alternate goal is usually seen as an independent reason to it being moral.  Yes if your boss dies you may end up in his corner office but that does not mean killing him is less immoral.  We should be motivated to do good for the sake of doing good.   So to say some ulterior motives are a good pragmatic reason to say something is moral seems contrary to our fundamental understanding of how morality works.

 

The moral person does not act morally solely because doing so will help her pursue other goals.  To be sure the same act might be moral and it may help us achieve other goals.  But that is a coincidence that can go either way.  Sometimes acting morally can defeat those other goals but we still should act morally.   Morality is the end itself it is not the means to an end.

 

Thus in the end I think Divine Command theory as well as Subjectivism and other anti-realist views of morality generally will have difficulty explaining any sort of “good reason” to believe something is moral.   The whole anti-realism view rules what we normally think of as good theoretical reasons to believe and the combination of core concepts of “anti-realism” and “morality” also rules out the possibility that there are any good pragmatic reasons to believe a moral claim.   Thus the very notion of an anti-realist having a “good reason” to believe a moral claim is ruled out.

Mens Rea and Moral Realism

12 Monday Nov 2018

Posted by in atheism, christianity, logic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, Uncategorized

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In my blog I try to use terms in a way that fairly closely tracks with how philosophers in meta-ethics use the terms.  I want the readers of this blog to be able to join in the conversation.  Thus one of my earlier blogs sets out to explain what I still consider the basic 4 meta-ethical beliefs as understood by most philosophers.

The way I use terms there and elsewhere in my blog  will be in agreement with what I consider main stream meta-ethicist’s like Russ Shaefer Landau, who among other things is the founder and editor of the periodical Oxford Studies in Metaethics,  and Richard Joyce whose clear writings on meta-ethics has likely lead to Stanford wanting him to author several articles in their online encyclopedia regarding meta-ethics.

But often times the edges of these philosophical terms can get a bit frayed.  This is the nature of philosophy.  The issue I want to discuss here is one that I find often causes some confusion regarding the moral realist position.  To quote Richard Joyce

“Traditionally, to hold a realist position with respect to X is to hold that X exists in a mind-independent manner (in the relevant sense of “mind-independence”)”

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/

I want to discuss that issue of the “relevant sense of ‘mind independence’” and suggest that some legal terms may actually help us understand what “the relevant sense” is.  Joyce briefly discusses this issue in the above article and I agree with what he says, but I also think using some legal terms can help people understand the issue.    So lets introduce the problem by considering two cases:

Case 1) During a play someone thought they were firing blanks when they aimed a gun and fired at an innocent person. But there were real bullets in the gun and the innocent person died.

Case 2) During a play a person believed there were real bullets in the gun and there were real bullets in the gun. The person shot an innocent person intentionally causing her death.

Certainly, we draw moral distinctions between situation 1 and situation 2.  In the law we traditionally call this mens rea. Which can be translated from the Latin as “guilty mind.”  Traditionally in order to be culpable of a crime we need to prove two things, Actus Reus (a guilty act) and Mens Rea (guilty mind).

“Actus Reus Non Facit Reum Nisi Mens Sit Rea”  “The act itself does not constitute guilt unless done with a guilty intent.”

http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/A/ActusReusNonFacitReumNisiMensSitRea.aspx

Now this common sense position is something moral realists certainly can agree with.  Certainly Christian moral realists would take this view.   Moral realists who reject free will  (like Sam Harris)  may have some difficulty here, but that is for a different blog.  For now I want to discuss how a moral realist can believe an accident is not as culpable/immoral as intentional actions.

However, we should recognize that these cases do demonstrate the morality of an action is not completely mind independent – in all senses.    So the mind of the person committing the action being considered moral (or not) can be relevant to the question of whether it is moral or not moral.  Then in what sense is the morality of the action a mind independent fact?

Consider that the state of mind of the person who did the shooting was itself a fact.  If the after the second case occurred the shooter said “at the time I fired I believed the gun had blanks in it.”  His statement about his belief would be factually incorrect.   He did believe it had real bullets and he is likely lying about what he believed at the time.   It would still be factually incorrect if he later somehow really came to believe he always believed they were blanks – say through a brain injury or however.  Even if everyone believed that at the time of the murder he thought the gun had blanks – it would not change the fact that he did believe they were real bullets and he did intentionally kill the person.  In the second scenario he believed the gun had real bullets and that is an objective fact that will not change depending on people’s later points of view.  The fact that he knew there were real bullets in the gun and he intended to kill the victim are a relevant facts in our consideration of whether his action was in fact immoral.

Let me introduce two more legal terms that I think can help clarify this matter.  One is called the “totality of circumstances” and the other is “all relevant facts.”   These terms help us to envision a set of facts as they occurred in history.   Here the actor’s state of mind (mens rea) is a relevant fact that makes up part of the totality of circumstances that should be considered when we decide if action was moral or not.  But once the totality of circumstances relevant to the question of morality is established the moral realist would say they determine whether the action was moral or not and our opinions no longer effect the truth of the matter.

Can moral realists have disputes about what is a relevant fact?  Yes.  Do you have all of the relevant facts that would make up the totality of circumstances necessary to answer whether something is moral or not?  Sometimes.  I would point out that morality is very much like tallness.  We tend to acknowledge that somethings are more evil or good than others.  Nevertheless, I doubt we as humans ever have the full knowledge we need to accurately determine the exact culpability of any action.  How immoral is someone who kills someone due to an accident while negligently driving a car while drunk?  Is it more immoral than when someone negligently drives drunk but luckily makes it home without killing anyone?  Etc.   A moral realist may not be able to fully sort out the exact degree of moral culpability here but they can still say the person who deliberately ran an innocent person over with their car is likely more culpable.    Of course, this does not mean I am not a moral realist just like the fact that I can not say exactly how many millimeters tall my grandfather was at the time he died means I do not think he was a certain height at the time he died.   And, of course, it doesn’t mean he was as many millimeters tall as we decide he was by virtue of our deciding that.

So in sum, when we consider all the relevant facts in the totality of circumstances, we can try to judge whether an action is immoral (or not) but we do not think our judgement after the event actually effects whether the action was in fact moral.   No persons after the fact judgments will ever effect whether an action was in fact moral or not at the time it occurred.  Unlike the subjectivist the moral realist thinks these “after the fact” judgments are irrelevant to the truth.

Now let’s talk about what are the “relevant facts.”   Of course, there are many disagreements here.  But one in particular really ties in with this topic.  Is it relevant that the person really thought he was acting morally?  So lets say a person really thought there was nothing wrong with owning slaves, or bestiality etc.  Lots of times people are mistaken about the morality of their actions.  Does this influence the morality/culpability of their actions?  In a sense it would seem that a moral realist could not agree to this, as it would seem to directly contradict his view that whether something is moral or not is independent of our or anyone’s beliefs about it being moral.  But I think the moral realist can even say the actor’s beliefs about whether he or she is acting morally can effect their culpability.

How can I do this and maintain my moral realism?  By explaining that at least arguably that would be part of the mens rea.  And as part of the mens rea it is a relevant fact in the totality of circumstances considered.    But, of course, our after the fact views of the morality of the situation is not part of the mens rea. (assuming we had nothing to do with the actions)  So it is not the case that the beliefs of anyone trying to judge the situation is a relevant fact.  For the subjectivist the key to what is moral is what does a certain person or group doing the judging think.

Moreover just because the person who committed the crime thought it was moral at the time, that does not mean it was moral.    That would not be a view a moral realist could hold IMO.  Rather the moral realist believes that given all the relevant facts, including whatever the mens rea of the person was at the time, an action was either moral or not.  An acter’s view of what was moral or immoral at the time can influence how immoral their action was but it is certainly not always dispositive.

To be sure I think there can be a bit more argument along this extreme edge of understanding what moral realism means.  But hopefully, this blog helped explain the basics of  “relevant sense of mind-independence” for those who are new to the subject.  A moral realist can properly account for mens rea, without buying into a moral subjectivism by believing that morality is entirely determined by the judgements of some person or group.

Sam Harris and Fundamental Beliefs

06 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by in atheism, Athesism Christianity, christianity, logic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, rationality, religion, science, Uncategorized

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I listened to a podcast recently by Sam Harris.

 

https://samharris.org/podcasts/108702/

 

As some of you may know arguments might be sound but that does not mean they prove anything to anyone.    Why?  Because people might not believe the premises.   I blogged about the difference between a proof and sound argument here:

 

https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/01/11/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-gods-existence-proven/

 

The limitations on these premises presents the questions what are our ultimate goals or beliefs?  This was somewhat explored in that podcast starting around 50 minutes in.   Rebecca Goldstein I think correctly identifies some beliefs that we can’t give up without becoming incoherent – such as belief in the rules of logic.  But beyond that what fundamental beliefs would she hold?

 

She mentions belief in an external world and the laws of nature.   That was interesting to me because I have considered that one myself and rejected as not as important as the belief that a rational person can reliably find out what I am supposed to do in life.    I want to explore why I think that here.

 

They also mentioned belief in moral realism as one that is fairly fundamental.   I think this sort of belief is what religious people will often adopt.  I think non-religious people will often try to reduce the importance of morality in forming our beliefs.  I think that is error.

There is a motivational aspect as to how we shape our beliefs and consciences.     I would offer two noble goals in what we want our beliefs to be:

1) People want to believe what is true

2) People want to believe things that lead them to do the right thing

Both of these are noble motivations.  And we obviously should try to form our beliefs with both of these in mind.  But what if certain beliefs lead you to the conclusion there is no right way to act?  That is certain beliefs lead you to believe what is wrong is not wrong because nothing is wrong?  Does a rational person have a good reason to reject that belief?   I think they do.

Now that might violate the first noble motivation.  But let’s think about that motivation just a bit and I think we will see it really is subservient to the second.

The idea that we are here to fill our heads with true beliefs and expunge false beliefs is odd.  If I just tried to memorize phone books few people would say that was really a good way to fill my head, or spend my time, even if I could fill my head with billions of true beliefs that way.    We all understand that knowing certain facts are more important than knowing others.  Just like some false beliefs are more problematic than other false beliefs.

 

But why?  Believing any true fact seems to fit the first noble purpose.   If it is a known fact then it has the quality of being true just as much as any other fact.   So why is it that truly believing some facts are more important, and why does it seem correctly believing other facts is extremely unimportant?   To the extent all the beliefs accord with reality, they are all true, and it is not as though some are “truer” than others.   So it is not the extent of “truthiness” that explains this.

I think ultimately the answer is that believing some facts leads us to live a good life and some falsehoods lead us to a bad life.   And I think this shows the second purpose is naturally more important.

What about some beliefs about morals being more important than other beliefs about morals?   Someone may view it as immoral to hunt deer.  The same person might also think it is immoral to round people up and kill them as was done in Poland at various times.   We do not treat the belief about hunting deer as important as the belief about killing people.  What explains this?  Again the person might believe both are immoral.  But the difference is the latter is more immoral.  So it is still the morality of the issue that makes us view the second belief as more important.  This I believe fairly clearly shows that morality is the more important goal that we want from our beliefs.

 

I think religious people tend to know this truth.  Certain atheists sometimes seem to miss it.  But then after they discuss their science, they tend to drift over to issues of morality and what we should be doing.   Science is great and it answers many interesting questions.  But having true beliefs about “what is” in the observable scientific realm, is not as important as knowing what we should do.  It is forever stuck with a supporting role to the star philosophical/religious question of what we should do.

 

 

The Conjunction Fallacy and the Burden of Proof

11 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by in atheism, Athesism Christianity, christianity, logic, philosophy, rationality, religion, Uncategorized

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As you know I think the philosophical burden of proof is a notion harmful to clear thinking.  My first post about it was here.  And here is a blog from someone who thinks very much the same way.  Here I will try to score some further points by undercutting common arguments used to support the view that having a burden of proof is helpful.

 

But first some background, what is the conjunction fallacy? Consider this example from Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman copied from Wikipedia:
“Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Which is more probable?

1) Linda is a bank teller.
2) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.”

If you thought 2 was more probable, then you committed this fallacy.  It is a formal fallacy.  And it basically says that the probability of A+B will always lower or equal than the probability of A. As we add conditions the probability can only go down never up.

Why is this tricky to some people? (apparently most people chose option 2) Given the description of Linda many people might think she sounds like a feminist. Moreover, she does not sound like a bank teller. So the first option seems to only have what people think is unlikely.  Even though second option has what seems unlikely it also has what seem likely too. So the second option may seem preferable. But mathematically the second option will never be more likely than the first, because every time the second option holds true the first does as well.

When we add details to a claim the probability tends to drop. The probability that I am in front of my computer now, is greater than the probability that I am now in front of my computer wearing a shirt, which is greater then the probability that I am now in front of my computer wearing a brown shirt. This is just how logic works.  I think many of us know this and build this into our understanding of the world. So what does this have to do with the burden of proof?

If you go to youtube and type in burden of proof the first video to come up will be this one:

Listen to the first 20 seconds.
What is happening?  Well if you notice the person is not just asking whether “something” exists “in space” that we don’t have evidence of and whether we should believe that. Which I tend to think is true. But how would that help his case for “the burden of proof”? Of course it wouldn’t.

So he doesn’t just ask whether a general thing exists.   Instead he gets absurdly detailed with his description.  It is not something we don’t know about somewhere in space but under the surface of Pluto! And it is not just “something” its not even just some form of life, but a walrus. And of course even that is not enough. It is a “tiny” “were” walrus. But not only that it is a “psychic” tiny “wer”walrus. But no only that it is a tiny psychic werewalrus that “sends them psychic messages.” But not only that the messages come “every midnight.” And not only that but it does this while juggling skulls…..

 

Ok. So by now if you understand the conjunction fallacy  then you will know that amount of detail alone will drastically drive down the probability. There is no need to appeal any “burden of proof” to not believe in this creature. The probability is naturally driven down just by understanding the fallacy of conjunction.

It’s amazing that this video received 13,000 likes when it is really just an obvious play on this formal fallacy. Now if you are like me you will see this quite often from atheists. The other day when I said there is no philosophical burden of proof I was asked whether I believe “that there is an imperceptible penguin named “Percival” standing right across the room from me, wearing his imperceptible tuxedo and his imperceptible monocle and his imperceptible derby hat, holding his imperceptible pocket-watch.”

Now I want to point out that the proponents of a burden of proof who use these examples are not themselves committing the conjunction fallacy. But rather they just seem oblivious to its logic. It is the logic that makes the conjunction fallacy a formal fallacy that makes the probability of their examples quite low. So when you see these examples the response is not that they are committing a fallacy. Rather the response is more like yes the conjunction fallacy is indeed a fallacy so the probability of your extremely detailed scenario is low.

If you express doubts about “the philosophical burden of proof” you can expect this sort of thing. They won’t ask whether you can believe there is something somewhere we do not have evidence for. No, they will not even ask whether there is some species of life we have no evidence of yet. Rather they will ask about a particular horse that we have no evidence of. But not just a horse, but a horned horse, but not just a horned horse, but a horned horse with exactly one straight long horn coming out of its head. And often even that won’t be enough the horned horse will have to be pink.

And you might respond explaining this fallacy and ask them whether they believe there is something somewhere he/she does not yet have evidence of. I certainly believe there are things that exist that I have no evidence of. For example there very well may be a particular cricket in the southwest United States that I have no evidence of.

Which brings me to another point here. There is more than just the conjunction fallacy at work here. There are also background beliefs. There are probably crickets in the southwest United States. But when and how did a walrus get to Pluto? (forget the whole juggling psychic were bit)

Perhaps the classic example of this sort of argument is Russel’s Teapot. Russel said:
“ … nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.”

So again, its not just something in space we don’t have evidence of.  It is something between the Earth and Mars and revolving in an elliptical orbit. It is not just something but a piece of China. And it is not just China but a China teapot. So we can see the logic of  conjunction fallacy at work reducing the probability.

But we also have background beliefs and evidence at work as well. Plantinga wrote:
“Clearly we have a great deal of evidence against teapotism. For example, as far as we know, the only way a teapot could have gotten into orbit around the sun would be if some country with sufficiently developed space-shot capabilities had shot this pot into orbit. No country with such capabilities is sufficiently frivolous to waste its resources by trying to send a teapot into orbit. Furthermore, if some country had done so, it would have been all over the news; we would certainly have heard about it. But we haven’t. And so on. There is plenty of evidence against teapotism.”

Another example might be if I say if we randomly pick a house in a New York suburb will there be three black horses in the Garage? You might say no. One reason would be conjunction fallacy. But also you would have back ground beliefs about what suburban houses likely have in their garage. If I asked does that house have light fixtures in it, well then you might say yes.

So Plantinga brings up evidence. And I think that may be a good way to describe what he is doing. But sometimes there are things that just don’t accord with our background beliefs. Now maybe these background beliefs are rational maybe they are not. Sometimes it may be difficult to completely understand or articulate why a certain claim seems true or untrue. Is there something beyond the known universe? In any case we have far more beliefs than we may even consciously realize.

For example, I never realized I believe plaid cats do not exist until last month. But I suppose I always believed it. (that is I was inclined to act in a way that accorded with the statement “there are no plaid cats”) This may be a sad fact of this kluge we call our brains. But it does not justify erecting some imagined burden of proof.  That is just piling error on top of error. When we consider 1) our background beliefs, 2) evidence and 3) the logic of the conjunction fallacy there is no reason to appeal to the burden of proof.

If you are so inclined I would love it if people would post a link to this blog in the comments of the above youtube video. Perhaps we can get a discussion going and deepen everyone’s understanding of this issue.

Scientific Imperialism:  What is a “fact”?

24 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in atheism, christianity, logic, philosophy, science, Uncategorized

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I was listening to a BBC report on “The March for Science.”  And I was wondering what message they were trying to convey.  It apparently had a tie in with “earth day” and global warming.  But anyway one of the people interviewed by the BBC said that to them an important message was that a “fact” is something that is verifiable and testable.  Now I have heard this definition by quite a few others who might say it is verifiable by observation etc.   So I thought I would address the problems with that definition in this blog.

Now this may be the way scientists view what a “fact” is but I would say that is a change from what it traditionally means.   Moreover, I think adopting that definition in a more general sense means all facts are scientific facts.  And that is problematic.  I would point out that I have nothing against science and indeed I always had a higher aptitude for science than any other subject.  But I admit being somewhat annoyed by scientists who seem to know nothing other than science telling the world how everything should be.  Science is not the answer to every question.

Now before we go into analyzing her definition. (I will call it the “scientific definition” for simplicity sake).  I would like to give some idea as to a traditional and legal definition of a fact.  So for just a dictionary definition we can see this:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fact

The Blacks Law definition offers this:

“A thing done; an action performed or an incident transpiring; and event or circumstance; an actual occurrence; an actual happening in time or space or an event or mental or physical; that which has taken pace…. A fact is either a state of things, that is, an existence, or a motion , that is, an event.  The quality of being actual; actual existence or occurrence….” (citations omitted)

 

So you can see that the legal definition and the traditional definition have a focus on what actually happened or what actually is the case.  It is not dependent on whether this can be proven or verified or not.    So even if everyone agrees the evidence verifies that Martin Luther said “here I stand, I can do no other” in 1521.    If he did not actually say that then it is not a fact.   In other words facts are not dependent on what we can verify.

 

It was a fact that Jupiter had moons in 1510 just like it was a fact that Jupiter had moons in 1610 after Galileo saw them with his telescope.  If someone in 1510 said it is not a fact that Jupiter has moons, then I would say he got his facts wrong.  Because the moons were actually existing, they in fact existed.

 

To make facts dependent on verification actually makes them subjective.  This is because often what will be a proof (or verification) to one person will not be a proof or verification to another.  What is a proof will depend on what premises each of us accepts. (If you not sure on this check out my earlier blog here: https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/01/11/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-gods-existence-proven/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true)  But I think we all want facts to be objective.  So its unclear that she sees how badly she and others are botching the idea of a fact.

 

But I would point out another issue.  Not because I have a strong view on it, but just because I think it’s interesting.  Typically, in the law, a fact is something that is in the present or in the past.  Future events are not facts.   Some scientists want say certain theories are “facts” – like lets say gravity is a fact.  That might mean different things.  That gravity caused apples to fall in the past is a fact.  That gravity is causing my book to remain on my desk is a fact.  But that gravity will cause my book to stay on my desk tomorrow – is not a fact.  It would seem that is not a fact under any definition.  And in my opinion that is how it should be.  We can say with lots of certainty that certain things will happen in the future.  But they are not facts.

 

The bottom line with all of this is that certain scientists want people to place more importance on scientific views.  So what they co-opt language so they and only they can have “facts” on their side.  Changing what words mean to support your agenda almost always leads to more heat than light.  I like science and appreciate its method, but there is no need to butcher what words mean on its altar.

How Abstract Concepts can be Real

15 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by in atheism, Catholic, christianity, logic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, rationality, Uncategorized

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I have noticed when I talk about abstract concepts such as morality and ask for evidence of them, I am being unclear to some. I don’t mean that morality is a physical thing somewhere that we can find like a moon orbiting Saturn. But I do mean it is real.

If I say I am taller than my daughter I am invoking an abstract concept – tallness. If I say prove tallness “exists in reality” (or provide evidence that tallness exists in reality) as opposed to our minds that might mean different things to different people. Some people would think I mean we must find an actual platonic-like form of tallness that is perfectly tall. That is not what I mean at all.

I think I “really” am taller than my daughter. That is in reality I am taller. The notion of tallness is something like, when I am standing, the highest part of my body is higher than hers (when she is standing) means I am taller than her. This tie in with reality makes the notion that I am taller than my daughter objectively true. It’s not just that I believe it is true. My belief does not make the statement true or false. Reality makes that statement true or false. That is because tallness has a tie in with reality.

Does morality have tie in with reality? If I believe something is wrong does my belief make it wrong? Or does reality determine whether my belief is true or false. The latter is what I mean when I say morality is objectively real. It is not the case that I necessarily think there is some perfectly moral good form (or perfectly evil form) somewhere that we need to find. What I am asking is 1) whether these concepts have a tie in with reality. And 2) if so, how we would know in what ways morality ties in with reality.

I think I answered the first question with respect to tallness. Yes tallness ties in with reality so we can say it is really and objectively true that I am taller than my daughter. What about the second question with respect to tallness? I think we have empirical evidence that I am really taller than my daughter. We can see me standing next to her. Even a blind person would be able to feel if we are standing, and then feel the top of my head relative to the top of her head. So we have empirical evidence of how “tallness” ties in with reality.

But what about “wrongness”? Here it seems we do not have empirical evidence.

Sure we can substitute concepts for “right and wrong” and “good and evil” and then assert that this new word is promoted by such and such conduct. But whenever I see this one of 2 things is always happening. Either they are leaving the new term so vague that it is pretty much vacuous, and thus the “definition” is vacuous. (that which makes us “thrive” or that which brings “happiness” etc.) Or they do in fact put some constraints on the definition and then I have to wonder if that is really good. I gave a hypothetical that approaches one of the latter views here: https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/12/19/a-moral-hypothetical/

In any case, I do think we can have empirical evidence of abstract ideas.  But in the case of morality the the evidence of morality is the evidence for God.  I talk more about that connection here:

https://trueandreasonable.co/2016/05/10/evidence-of-objective-moral-realism/

 

Evidence of Objective Moral Realism

10 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in atheism, Athesism Christianity, Catholic, christianity, logic, metaethics, Morality, philosophy, rationality, Uncategorized

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A fellow blogger and sometime commentator here, Howie, asks some questions for theists.

https://truthiselusive.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/meaningful-sadness/

He wonders what effect would it have on our morals if we suddenly found out God did not exist.  It’s a great question and I found I could spend allot of time answering this.

 

In my response I indicate that “I would highly doubt any objective morality exists in reality, and if it did exist I would not believe we had any reliable way of knowing what it was.”

 

I have blogged extensively about the second part of that statement:

https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/02/24/a-problem-with-the-reliability-of-moral-beliefs/

Here I want to address the first part.  I want to explain why “I would I highly doubt any objective morality exists in reality” if I found out God did not exist.

 

But first, I want to reiterate that I do not think there is any logical inconsistency with atheism and belief in objective morality.   That said I am unaware of any actual evidence that an atheist would have for believing in objective morality.    That is, if we were to know there is no God then all the evidence we have for objective morality goes out the window.   It’s one thing to say objective morality is logically possible, it’s another to say we have some evidence that it is true.

 

To understand my position let’s start with a reverse question for atheists.   Let’s say you suddenly find out that the Christian God exists.  What would that mean for your views on morality?

 

I would think most people would agree that if the Christian God exists, then it’s very likely that objective moral realism is true.    God orchestrated our existence and reality so that we might be ultimately judged and this judgment will be just.  Reality would have been built with this moral feature.

 

From that, it follows that evidence that the Christian creator God exists is also evidence that objective morality is a feature of reality.   The evidence that the Christian God exists would be things like the miracles recorded in scripture.  Again people can debate whether this is strong evidence or weak evidence, and what if any burden of proof there is, but it is “some evidence.”  This also happens to be the only evidence that our objective reality contains moral characteristics. (I don’t mean to exclude other religions that teach of a Creator God who had a hand in creating a moral reality.  So yes evidence for Islam, or Judaism would also be evidence for objective moral realism but here for simplicity sake I am just taking Christianity versus atheism.)   So the logic is exhibit A suggest exhibit B.  Exhibit B Suggests exhibit C.  A = miracles B=Christian God exists and C = Objective moral realism is true.

 

Do we have other evidence that objective morals are actually a feature of reality?  I really don’t think so.  Again because “wrongness” cannot be detected by our 5 senses it seems impossible to have evidence of it outside of testimonial evidence from someone who is not bound by our 5 senses.

 

The fact that we feel strong guttural emotional responses when we see certain “good” or “bad” actions is not, to my mind, evidence that there is actually a real objective truth to moral claims.  However, if something with a supernatural understanding designed us then of course we might think our emotions are properly cued to these real moral truths.

 

So the Christian God existing would be strong evidence that real objective morals would exist.  If we were to eliminate that evidence of objective moral reality existing (Say because we “find out” no God exists) then we are hard pressed to find *any* evidence of objective moral reality.   That’s not to say its logically impossible for objective moral reality to exist without God.  Nonetheless, it would be a huge blow to objective moral realism’s case to lose – exhibit B – the existence of God.