[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Now you’re just disagreeing with how to go about arriving at the conclusion.[/quote]
The method of arriving at the conclusion does not matter in the long run so long as everyone can agree that it is indeed the conclusion.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
Now you’re just disagreeing with how to go about arriving at the conclusion.
The method of arriving at the conclusion does not matter in the long run so long as everyone can agree that it is indeed the conclusion.[/quote]
In which case you should approve of religion persuading people to that conclusion.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
Now you’re just disagreeing with how to go about arriving at the conclusion.
The method of arriving at the conclusion does not matter in the long run so long as everyone can agree that it is indeed the conclusion.
In which case you should approve of religion persuading people to that conclusion.[/quote]
As long as it really does I don’t care.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
Now you’re just disagreeing with how to go about arriving at the conclusion.
The method of arriving at the conclusion does not matter in the long run so long as everyone can agree that it is indeed the conclusion.
In which case you should approve of religion persuading people to that conclusion.
As long as it really does I don’t care.[/quote]
How ethically ambiguous of you. hah. ends justify the means.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
The Christian theistic framework does provide a basis for moral absolutes.
I think Gordon Clark’s argument thoroughly refutes the humanists. [/quote]
…“Thou Shall not Kill” is one moral absolute, and if the USA is indeed a christian nation, would that mean the abolishment of capital punishment?
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
Now you’re just disagreeing with how to go about arriving at the conclusion.
The method of arriving at the conclusion does not matter in the long run so long as everyone can agree that it is indeed the conclusion.
In which case you should approve of religion persuading people to that conclusion.
As long as it really does I don’t care.
How ethically ambiguous of you. hah. ends justify the means.[/quote]
As long as the means are not immoral.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
The Christian theistic framework does provide a basis for moral absolutes.
I think Gordon Clark’s argument thoroughly refutes the humanists.
…“Thou Shall not Kill” is one moral absolute, and if the USA is indeed a christian nation, would that mean the abolishment of capital punishment?
[/quote]
I don’t think that is an absolute anywhere in the world. self defense is almost always allowed.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Speaking of common sense, how does it make sense that despite humans leaving Africa and traveling throughout the globe throughout the past 50,000 years, living in different environments, developing different features from group-to-group (slanted/round eyes, black/blonde hair, dark skin/light skin, short/tall, more muscular/less muscular), we all ended up with identical levels of intelligence from group to group?
If you can complete that thought experiment and still conclude that, “Yes, human evolution stopped at the neck,” than perhaps you should start defering judgment to your dog as well.
[/quote]
Man you just don’t get it. One more time.
→ Intelligence is a combination of several factors, including learning and adaptability ←
There is no single agreed upon definition of it, let alone one that is measurable. If you can’t even define it how can you measure it? This is the actual Scientific issue.
I’m trying to keep this simple, but your assumption is that it is a thing and then you wonder how this thing could be immutable. At the same time you argue that it must be immutable to measure it.
If you are giving a 5 point IQ range for various ethnic groups, I’d say that counts as finely graded.
You lack sufficient understanding of the human genome or you would not make that statement. Your comment about “ruthlessness” misses the simple point that Nature rewards aggression. Human social structures try to reign it in.
It’s hard to know where to even start shooting holes in this statement. The “Arab” expansion you talk about was not a mass migration of Arabs to other countries but a bona fide religious conversion.
As for the Europeans, this was a very usual migration of peoples (think Germans into the Roman Empire for an earlier, famous example, or the Soviets chasing the Germans out after WW II). This has gone one for as long as humans and probably even Neanderthals have been around. What has changed is that we now have to moral perspective that this was not a good thing.
sigh Here is a good book for you
[quote]Man you just don’t get it. One more time.
→ Intelligence is a combination of several factors, including learning and adaptability ←
There is no single agreed upon definition of it, let alone one that is measurable. If you can’t even define it how can you measure it? This is the actual Scientific issue.[/quote]
Intelligence is at least 50% heritable and it is both measurable and meaningful. Ask forlife - he’s a psychometrician. Generally the people who rail against the usefulness of IQ tests are the ones who have lots of it anyway and think they gave themselves their IQ through lots of hard work and pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.
What? This isn’t even what I said. The measured mean black IQ in the US is 85. The white mean is 100. It’s 107 for the Japanese. Is that a “5 point IQ range?” The mean IQ in several parts of Sub-Saharan Africa is down around 70.
Yes. This is my point.
[quote]Human social structures try to reign it in.
[/quote]
Yes, within the group, not from group to group. Humankind is at war all over the place, and when one group wipes out another, the winning group has much more evolutionary success. This is found all over the human genome if you’re willing to look.
[quote]It’s hard to know where to even start shooting holes in this statement. The “Arab” expansion you talk about was not a mass migration of Arabs to other countries but a bona fide religious conversion.
[/quote]
Yes, after a lot of slaughter of the natives. The conversions came after people saw it was in the interests of life and limb.
Neanderthals were killed/absorbed into the European genome by homo sapiens. Thank you for adding another example to my thesis.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Intelligence is at least 50% heritable and it is both measurable and meaningful. Ask forlife - he’s a psychometrician. Generally the people who rail against the usefulness of IQ tests are the ones who have lots of it anyway and think they gave themselves their IQ through lots of hard work and pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.
[/quote]
Yes and no. While I agree inheritance is linked to IQ, and hard work doesn’t equal intelligence, I think you are missing the biggest part of the picture. Nurturing. Even things like proper nutrition especially during developmental years can have a huge impact. My mom has taught special needs children for years, and she swears that half the children wouldn’t be there if they had a better home.
I guess I would be interested to see how races compare adjusting for things like poverty.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
ephrem wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
The Christian theistic framework does provide a basis for moral absolutes.
I think Gordon Clark’s argument thoroughly refutes the humanists.
…“Thou Shall not Kill” is one moral absolute, and if the USA is indeed a christian nation, would that mean the abolishment of capital punishment?
I don’t think that is an absolute anywhere in the world. self defense is almost always allowed.[/quote]
…the commandment is a religious moral absolute, but as you point out, only a few take notice…
[quote]ephrem wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
ephrem wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
The Christian theistic framework does provide a basis for moral absolutes.
I think Gordon Clark’s argument thoroughly refutes the humanists.
…“Thou Shall not Kill” is one moral absolute, and if the USA is indeed a christian nation, would that mean the abolishment of capital punishment?
I don’t think that is an absolute anywhere in the world. self defense is almost always allowed.
…the commandment is a religious moral absolute, but as you point out, only a few take notice…
[/quote]
Interpretation of the sixth commandment is informed by other passages in Scripture in accordance with the “Scripture interprets Scripture” hermeneutic. Read the Heidelberg Catechism or Westminster Larger Catechism’s exposition of the sixth commandment.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
ephrem wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
ephrem wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
The Christian theistic framework does provide a basis for moral absolutes.
I think Gordon Clark’s argument thoroughly refutes the humanists.
…“Thou Shall not Kill” is one moral absolute, and if the USA is indeed a christian nation, would that mean the abolishment of capital punishment?
I don’t think that is an absolute anywhere in the world. self defense is almost always allowed.
…the commandment is a religious moral absolute, but as you point out, only a few take notice…
Interpretation of the sixth commandment is informed by other passages in Scripture in accordance with the “Scripture interprets Scripture” hermeneutic. Read the Heidelberg Catechism or Westminster Larger Catechism’s exposition of the sixth commandment.
[/quote]
…but if you are looking for moral absolutes [based in religion], shouldn’t you take those commandments at face value and not interpret them? What good are absolutes if they have exceptions?
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Only problem is that if you standardise the IQ testing for language using phrases that are more common in black or latino communities there is no difference in IQ between US whites, blacks or latinos.
I see your understanding of IQ testing is about as solid as your understanding of natural selection, both of which tell us uncomfortable things about humanity. [/quote]
I did well enough in IQ tests to join Mensa at the age of 10 so go on, enlighten me where am I wrong?
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
This is another fun study
http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/darley_samarit.html
Excerpt:
The amount of “hurriness” induced in the subject had a major effect on helping behavior, but the task variable did not (even when the talk was about the Good Samaritan).
Overall 40% offered some help to the victim. In low hurry situations, 63% helped, medium hurry 45% and high hurry 10%. For helping-relevant message 53%, task relevant message 29%. There was no correlation between “religious types” and helping behavior
Great. What does this have to do with the thread topic? All you’re doing is providing more description of what people do, not what they ought.
Also, I object to the fact that these scientists needed to borrow a Christian morality parable to put in their study. Couldn’t they use some scientific naturalist text instead of the Bible?
It again shows that religion is not the fount of morality which was what the original article hypothesised.
And as the scientists were specifically testing this point it obviously made sense to use a passage from the bible as their source of inspiration for the test.
So they couldn’t even come up with a study of their own without stealing Christian intellectual capital. Pretty sad. Surely, there are atheistic naturalist texts from which they could borrow? [/quote]
What are you babbling on about now? They did come up with the study on their own, they just used the Good Samaritan as the subject matter that the seminary students were supposed to be lecturing on to test the hypothesis that this would prime Christians to act in a more Christian way. What they found however was that humans are human and despite the artificial overlay of religion they react in a standard human way to a human situation.
Anyway, Christianity has stolen plenty from other sources, why shouldn’t it give something back?
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Kant had a nifty trick. The moral imperative. Behave as you would if your actions were to become universal.
So moralistic questions become: What would happen if everyone stole? What would happen if everyone murdered? What would happen if everyone enslaved?
This ethical tool even works for naturalists.
You’re still expressing things in terms of preferences. “What if everyone stole?” Well, so what? That only has meaning for me if I prefer that people don’t steal. What if I prefer to kill? What if I prefer to be the guy to kill enough people to terrify the rest into going along with my system of morality? Sure, if everyone were like me, my strategy wouldn’t be successful. But so what? I have the “will to power” to make it happen. [/quote]
You are missing the point that these strategies would only benefit you if they are outside of the norm. If you prefer to kill then you wouldn’t want everyone to kill because they might kill you or someone close to you. If you want to steal you wouldn’t want everyone to steal because they might steal from you or someone close to you.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Kant had a nifty trick. The moral imperative. Behave as you would if your actions were to become universal.
So moralistic questions become: What would happen if everyone stole? What would happen if everyone murdered? What would happen if everyone enslaved?
This ethical tool even works for naturalists.
You’re still expressing things in terms of preferences. “What if everyone stole?” Well, so what? That only has meaning for me if I prefer that people don’t steal. What if I prefer to kill? What if I prefer to be the guy to kill enough people to terrify the rest into going along with my system of morality? Sure, if everyone were like me, my strategy wouldn’t be successful. But so what? I have the “will to power” to make it happen.
You are missing the point that these strategies would only benefit you if they are outside of the norm. [/quote]
Why? If everyone stole, so what? Would that affect my ability to steal?
[quote]
If you prefer to kill then you wouldn’t want everyone to kill because they might kill you or someone close to you. If you want to steal you wouldn’t want everyone to steal because they might steal from you or someone close to you.[/quote]
Again, so what? I might just prefer to kill people who I thought were a threat to me or someone close to me before they got the chance to do the same to me. I might prefer things that way.
See how you keep using the term “want”? You so far have no way of saying what you ought to do.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
This is another fun study
http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/darley_samarit.html
Excerpt:
The amount of “hurriness” induced in the subject had a major effect on helping behavior, but the task variable did not (even when the talk was about the Good Samaritan).
Overall 40% offered some help to the victim. In low hurry situations, 63% helped, medium hurry 45% and high hurry 10%. For helping-relevant message 53%, task relevant message 29%. There was no correlation between “religious types” and helping behavior
Great. What does this have to do with the thread topic? All you’re doing is providing more description of what people do, not what they ought.
Also, I object to the fact that these scientists needed to borrow a Christian morality parable to put in their study. Couldn’t they use some scientific naturalist text instead of the Bible?
It again shows that religion is not the fount of morality which was what the original article hypothesised.
And as the scientists were specifically testing this point it obviously made sense to use a passage from the bible as their source of inspiration for the test.
So they couldn’t even come up with a study of their own without stealing Christian intellectual capital. Pretty sad. Surely, there are atheistic naturalist texts from which they could borrow?
What are you babbling on about now? They did come up with the study on their own, they just used the Good Samaritan as the subject matter that the seminary students were supposed to be lecturing on to test the hypothesis that this would prime Christians to act in a more Christian way. What they found however was that humans are human and despite the artificial overlay of religion they react in a standard human way to a human situation.
[/quote]
Again, that they do something is not the same as saying, “They ought to do something.” That’s what this thread is about. There are plenty of nice non-Christians out there that act perfectly fine. Do they have a rational way of expressing why they act that way other than preferences?
[quote]
Anyway, Christianity has stolen plenty from other sources, why shouldn’t it give something back?[/quote]
Yes, we witnessed your attempt to prove this by way of logical fallacy on your other thread. Maybe you can just keep repeating this over and over again like forlife. That’ll make it more true, right?
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
If you really think that Morality comes from Religion then you are saying that every religious person holds back from murdering, raping and stealing only because of their religion. Clearly this is ridiculous and humans have an innate sense of morality. This makes sense in evolutionary terms as groups of people living together will historically have tended to be genetically linked therefore genes that select for some form of morality will increase their chances of being propagated.
Incidentally studies have been done that show no greater tendency to morality in strongly religious people than in people who claim no religion.
Maybe it is because God wrote on all our hearts the law. Maybe that is were you get your morality, it is a better explanation then it came from no where.[/quote]
Just to play devils advocate… Where did God come from? How did he determine what is moral?
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Kant had a nifty trick. The moral imperative. Behave as you would if your actions were to become universal.
So moralistic questions become: What would happen if everyone stole? What would happen if everyone murdered? What would happen if everyone enslaved?
This ethical tool even works for naturalists.
You’re still expressing things in terms of preferences. “What if everyone stole?” Well, so what? That only has meaning for me if I prefer that people don’t steal. What if I prefer to kill? What if I prefer to be the guy to kill enough people to terrify the rest into going along with my system of morality? Sure, if everyone were like me, my strategy wouldn’t be successful. But so what? I have the “will to power” to make it happen.
You are missing the point that these strategies would only benefit you if they are outside of the norm.
Why? If everyone stole, so what? Would that affect my ability to steal?
If you prefer to kill then you wouldn’t want everyone to kill because they might kill you or someone close to you. If you want to steal you wouldn’t want everyone to steal because they might steal from you or someone close to you.
Again, so what? I might just prefer to kill people who I thought were a threat to me or someone close to me before they got the chance to do the same to me. I might prefer things that way.
See how you keep using the term “want”? You so far have no way of saying what you ought to do. [/quote]
You are missing the point, anything you do becomes a moral imperitive for everyone else. You steal to benefit yourself in an environment where stealing is not the norm. The second that everyone else joins in you nolonger have a benefit and your world has gone to shit.