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The Nature of Evil

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Interbane

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Re: The Nature of Evil

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Flann wrote:I'm sure he can, but what material part of him can do this if we are reducible to genetically programmed brains and evolutionary conditioning for survival?
The part you're missing here is repeated quite often. There is much we do that isn't reducible beyond cultural evolution. You can trace causation down to lower order systems, but you lose information when you do. The way things work together forms a pattern that only emerges at a certain level of complexity.

You're aware that cultural evolution is different from evolutionary conditioning, right?
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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Interbane wrote:The part you're missing here is repeated quite often. There is much we do that isn't reducible beyond cultural evolution. You can trace causation down to lower order systems, but you lose information when you do. The way things work together forms a pattern that only emerges at a certain level of complexity.

You're aware that cultural evolution is different from evolutionary conditioning, right?
What I seem to hear is that when you trace things back you come to a common ancestor for chimps and humans. It's suggested that if evolution had panned out differently and we were related to less rambunctious primates we would be constitutionally more peaceful. That is genetically.
It's explained that the in-group out-group phenomenon is an evolutionary reality. At what point in history did humans stop behaving in this programmed way,and start making moral judgements which were not about survival and replication of genes?
Cultures evolve but why should morality suddenly emerge?
It's all emergent apparently,consciousness,rationality,language and morality for starters.

Were the guys on the savannah behaving or making moral choices? It's obvious too that if animals co-operate to hunt it doesn't take a large brain to see that co-operation can be efficient for survival.
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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What I seem to hear is that when you trace things back you come to a common ancestor for chimps and humans. It's suggested that if evolution had panned out differently and we were related to less rambunctious primates we would be constitutionally more peaceful. That is genetically.
Whether or not it’s true about the rambunctious primates part, you’re right that it’s genetic. Our behavior is influenced by our genetics. It is not determined by our genetics. It is determined by a mixture of genetic influence and cultural influence. There are areas where cultural influence overrides genetic influence, an obvious example being wearing condoms.
It's explained that the in-group out-group phenomenon is an evolutionary reality. At what point in history did humans stop behaving in this programmed way,and start making moral judgements which were not about survival and replication of genes?
Most of what we do is still about survival and replication of genes, but only by proxy. That proxy are the influences of our genes in the form of emotions and desires. We pursue sex and food and power. In many instances, culture overrides this. But they are still dominant pursuits in all our lives.

You ask when this transition happened. Well, much of what we do today are based on those moral emotions that evolved in tribal life. So morality has always been there. With the rise of language and thus cultural evolution, we developed the ability to see how our moral emotions should apply to all humans universally, and not just tribally. Yet we still struggle with this today.

We are still cruel to each other and commit heinous crimes. You call it sin, or that we've fallen. The reality is that it's a consequence of morality developing in a tribal setting. Not that we don't have damaged people as well. Read "The Psychopath inside" by James Fallon.
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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Flann 5.
I will leave it to minds more knowledgeable than mine to determine whether there is some supreme guiding agent. But I am satisfied that a purposeless process could result in social, intelligent animals like us who therefore think about their impulses and reflect on what logic may inhere in them.

I think this reflection, which I take to be a God-inspired process, enables us to compare our treatment of outsiders, those not in our group, to the standards we have learned for behavior within our group. This process of universalisation and internalisation of morality is what the NT consolidated from prophetic leads in the OT. So we figure out that Samaritans can be good, though unclean, and that headhunting diminishes us (heh - our skulls, especially).
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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Harry Marks wrote:Flann 5.
I will leave it to minds more knowledgeable than mine to determine whether there is some supreme guiding agent. But I am satisfied that a purposeless process could result in social, intelligent animals like us who therefore think about their impulses and reflect on what logic may inhere in them.
I am curious Harry as to why you are satisfied that a purposeless process could result in social,intelligent animals like us?
Is it not more reasonable that such beings are the result of purposefulness rather than the contrary?
And why do you think that we are the result of a purposeless process?
Harry Marks wrote:I think this reflection, which I take to be a God-inspired process, enables us to compare our treatment of outsiders, those not in our group, to the standards we have learned for behavior within our group.
And now I'm confused. You think this reflection to be a God inspired process and yet are satisfied it's the result of a purposeless process.How do you make sense of this? Do you mean that if you grant that it is a God inspired process then what should follow?
Harry Marks wrote:I think this reflection, which I take to be a God-inspired process, enables us to compare our treatment of outsiders, those not in our group, to the standards we have learned for behavior within our group. This process of universalisation and internalisation of morality is what the NT consolidated from prophetic leads in the OT. So we figure out that Samaritans can be good, though unclean, and that headhunting diminishes us (heh - our skulls, especially).
I think there are generalisations here. After all most violence is domestic. My view would be that we have an innate sense of right and wrong but we are fallen and tend to regard our own interests as primary,which includes our family,and can radiate out.That's not to say that such relationships are devoid of real love. Altruism is real too.
It's not for nothing that politicians appeal to our not always impartial interests,when looking for our votes.
As for the biblical teaching,that's a vast subject.
The categories of clean and unclean were primarily ceremonial to inculcate the lesson of moral good and evil and the need for demarcation between these.This is expressly stated.

No one thought that foods were inherently unclean but they were designated so as a visual lesson and reminder.
Such things can be literalised to apply to people in a prejudicial way.
There is a sense that the Israelites were given distinct ceremonial and moral laws which were in contrast to the other cultures around them.
The whole point of the new testament is that the ceremonial law and sacrificial system were shadows and not the thing itself.Circumcision is a spiritual operation on the heart (or inner nature) by God as Paul puts it,for example.

Of course in real terms there is no ultimate moral difference since the Israelites failed to keep these laws and thus were as much in need of salvation as the Gentiles.
The difficulty with subjectivism is that everyone can make up their own morality and you cannot point to an objective standard to measure any of this. It's your opinion however well founded you believe it to be,and others can disagree and have their diametrically opposed moral opinions for better or worse.
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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Flann wrote:And now I'm confused. You think this reflection to be a God inspired process and yet are satisfied it's the result of a purposeless process.How do you make sense of this? Do you mean that if you grant that it is a God inspired process then what should follow?
He meant the application of in-group morality to the out-group, and I agree with him. I believe religion is responsible for this leap.

We've gone on a tangent a bit, but that's okay. Why do you think a purposeful agent is required for the things you mention? You say it's more reasonable. What do you mean? I know you believe that purpose can only come from purpose, but you've never explained why you think that.
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Interbane wrote:We've gone on a tangent a bit, but that's okay. Why do you think a purposeful agent is required for the things you mention? You say it's more reasonable. What do you mean? I know you believe that purpose can only come from purpose, but you've never explained why you think that.
There are two Christian approaches as you know. One is that God made humans through the evolutionary process and the other direct creation which is considered contrary to scientific evidence by the mainstream.
So Dawkins has the blind watchmaker explanation for what he calls "the appearance of design for a purpose".

The rather too frequent occurrences of convergent evolution imply a directionality to the process if you accept the theory.
In fact things like eyes are postulated to have evolved separately on numerous occasions,for example.

Dennett talks about free floating rationales but where do such rationales originate? Besides he thinks natural selection explains just about everything.
So the ocean naturally selects "fit" boats by not sinking them! As if the human designers hadn't a cell between their ears.

If we grant there is real functional design in human bodies,systems and brains you have to explain such complex and seemingly purposeful design as the product of ultimately inanimate,mindless and purposeless matter.

You have to explain where matter itself and the cosmos with it's laws originate.

So from inanimate particles and chemicals all biological life supposedly sprang culminating in humans with intelligence,purpose, and a moral nature with the ability to think of abstract moral concepts such as justice. Add to that creativity,language and emotions and many other faculties such as vision etc.

So even if I accepted the standard version of evolution I don't see that it must be purposeless.

Purpose is an expression of thought and planning with a goal in mind. But the contrary is that things devoid of any such faculty are capable of creating beings who themselves have intent and purpose.

It strikes me as counter to reason and life as we know has a digital code also.
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Flann wrote:You have to explain where matter itself and the cosmos with it's laws originate.
No, you don't. Because as soon as you require such an answer, people start creating answers. Is it really so hard to accept the idea that there is knowledge beyond us? We cannot know how the laws of nature came to be. Maybe some day we'll figure it out. But starting with an answer and working backwards is the best way to build a false worldview.

If you've ever heard me say the theists worldview is arrogant, it's related to this. Theists claim to have knowledge that I believe is impossible. They claim to hold the answer to the most important answer in the universe. What started it all? Have some humility and admit we don't know. Sure, it's okay to speculate. But don't use that speculation to support any other beliefs. That's backwards.
Flann wrote:So from inanimate particles and chemicals all biological life supposedly sprang culminating in humans with intelligence,purpose, and a moral nature with the ability to think of abstract moral concepts such as justice. Add to that creativity,language and emotions and many other faculties such as vision etc.
This is what I was asking, yes. Why do you think these things must have been created by an intelligent being?

Reading between the lines, your statements have something of an appeal to incredulity. It's as if you cannot imagine how such amazing things as purpose and morality could exist unless they were created by an intelligent being. But we're back to the same question - why?

I'm going to speculate here, so don't hold it against me. I think when we're younger, we come to certain conclusions a bit earlier than we should. Grand conclusions. And as we learn more, all throughout life, each and every new bit of information we plug into our brains is indexed and categorized based on those earlier conclusions. These early conclusions form the framework for future learning. So throughout your whole life, all your experiences and learning have been plugged into a worldview where god is responsible for many things. You "use" the idea of god to explain many things, and this grows into a complex web of interdependent knowledge. So when you try to think like an atheist and remove god from the equation, a great deal of what you know no longer makes sense. All those millions of associations that hide in the shadows of conscious processing are now broken associations. So you respond with appeals to incredulity, without having any truly good reason. You "feel" the dissonance, but can't quite pinpoint it.

I know there's no words that work, but for what it's worth, trust me that the naturalist worldview makes sense from top to bottom. Whatever appears to not work, from your perspective, is due to the incompatibility of your web of knowledge.
Flann wrote:If we grant there is real functional design in human bodies,systems and brains you have to explain such complex and seemingly purposeful design as the product of ultimately inanimate,mindless and purposeless matter.
You admit life appears to have function, and it seems to have some sort of direction. I agree with both of these. But function is not the same as purpose. As you say, purpose is an expression of thought. Purposeful design, then, is the same thing as function except that it's created by an intelligence. Yet you still haven't given a reason why there must be an intelligence behind the way life evolved. Your use of the word "purpose" indicates you believe that, but why don't you use the word function instead? It's all the same, in every way. Nothing changes, with the sole exception that you believe an intelligence is the cause, rather than merely the laws of nature. You add the idea of intelligence to the concept of function. But why? Function fits.

Backpedaling a few years here, I've seen evolutionary biologists use the term "purpose", as a shorthand way of explanation. But when pressed, they admit their use is technically incorrect. I will try to find the few articles I read on this. They admit that the proper term is "function", because purpose assumes intelligence.

As for direction, consider all the different parts of the environment. There is a set of environmental variables that are mostly overlooked. The amount of radiation, in all it's forms, from the sun. The specific amount of gravity exerted. The ratio of oxygen and nitrogen and other gasses in the air. The ratios and abundances of various elements and prebiotic compounds on the Earth's surface and in oceans. The nuclear forces. The impact of the moon's gravity and night light.

Most of the time when we think of the environment, we think of all the things that frequently change. Yet many environmental factors are relatively stable across the entire globe, so we should expect to see the emergence of similar phenotypes scattered in amidst all the diversity.
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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I have been left behind a bit, due to my location in the Old World, but at least I can explain myself a bit.

I don't really think that a Creator is a better explanation of how things came to be the way they are. As a matter of science, I see things more or less how Interbane does. And I think it is a mistake to turn to God as explanation. One ends up with the God of the gaps, who seems to make sense until a more mechanical explanation is uncovered. One also loses the sense that God is encountered, which is clearly how the more ancient stories in the OT had things.

On the other hand, I do not think it unreasonable to see a Creator, or Intelligent Designer, as the more reasonable explanation. It is not my perspective, but I do not find it unreasonable. In fact it is a form of encounter - the awe and wonder that people often feel seeing the ocean waves crash or the rows of mountains majestically arrayed, or the stars with their mysterious stillness despite movement, that is a genuine experience which apparently triggers the same integrating, unifying perception of life that is experienced in meditation and which demonstrably reduces stress, antagonism and judgmentalism.

If I have to put some kind of conceptualisation of God into place, which I resist doing, it is as a process embodied in our reflections, but also in the biological success of extended nurturance of the young and in cooperation for purposes of group success. Call the first one yin and the second one yang. For me the "Ground of Being" conceptualisation is a kind of Demi-urge, emitted by the yin and yang of biological forces, but I may be stretching the point there.

What I wanted to develop was a concrete version of this idea of a process, so that you could understand my view that God is not outside things, operating as an intervener and twiddler of dials. Rather I think we are meant to see God within events, including biological processes, inner dialogue of prayer, and historical advancement. We do not need a dichotomy between natural and supernatural explanations, but rather we need hearts tuned to feel when the process is at work.
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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Interbane wrote:Flann wrote:
You have to explain where matter itself and the cosmos with it's laws originate.




No, you don't. Because as soon as you require such an answer, people start creating answers. Is it really so hard to accept the idea that there is knowledge beyond us? We cannot know how the laws of nature came to be. Maybe some day we'll figure it out. But starting with an answer and working backwards is the best way to build a false worldview.

If you've ever heard me say the theists worldview is arrogant, it's related to this. Theists claim to have knowledge that I believe is impossible. They claim to hold the answer to the most important answer in the universe. What started it all? Have some humility and admit we don't know. Sure, it's okay to speculate. But don't use that speculation to support any other beliefs. That's backwards.
I accept that pointing to laws of nature and functional design in nature is not the same as pointing to God directly.
It's inferential to the best most plausible explanation.Christian theists think there are various strands of evidence.

Historical testimony,and such phenomena as fulfilled prophecy and the subjective encounter that Harry alludes to in his way.
So there is the experiential which includes such things as answers to prayer. It's a conclusion based on these various strands and I accept that the logical inference from design in nature is an inference.

All these things are contested in many ways and we see this the in mythicist denial of historicity,in critiques of biblical prophecy. Also in the charge of subjectivism and what makes your experience more real or valid than others who claim their experiences yet have different beliefs and concepts of God.?

There are critiques of prayer and claims to providential answers in a couple of ways. Co-incidence and a claim of arbitrariness where it is claimed we should see everyone's prayers answered if this were true.

All these would need to be examined separately.


Interbane wrote:You admit life appears to have function, and it seems to have some sort of direction. I agree with both of these. But function is not the same as purpose. As you say, purpose is an expression of thought. Purposeful design, then, is the same thing as function except that it's created by an intelligence. Yet you still haven't given a reason why there must be an intelligence behind the way life evolved. Your use of the word "purpose" indicates you believe that, but why don't you use the word function instead? It's all the same, in every way. Nothing changes, with the sole exception that you believe an intelligence is the cause, rather than merely the laws of nature. You add the idea of intelligence to the concept of function. But why? Function fits.
I think function particularly the more complex it is implies purpose. We have complex interdependent biological systems functioning so that we can breathe,see,hear,walk,talk,and think. And for humans all of this includes us having a sense of self,a moral sense and intentionality and purpose ourselves.
To say it's just incredulity is to not recognise why it lacks credibility and rational coherence. Supposed purposeless function achieves goals but these goals are denied as being purposed.
Interbane wrote:Most of the time when we think of the environment, we think of all the things that frequently change. Yet many environmental factors are relatively stable across the entire globe, so we should expect to see the emergence of similar phenotypes scattered in amidst all the diversity.
The informational nature of biological life appears to be the main determiner of phenotypes. This in itself indicates a plan and purpose though it is complex and the interactions within the cell and with the environment are important.
Harry Marks wrote:I don't really think that a Creator is a better explanation of how things came to be the way they are. As a matter of science, I see things more or less how Interbane does. And I think it is a mistake to turn to God as explanation. One ends up with the God of the gaps, who seems to make sense until a more mechanical explanation is uncovered. One also loses the sense that God is encountered, which is clearly how the more ancient stories in the OT had things.
Harry Marks wrote:What I wanted to develop was a concrete version of this idea of a process, so that you could understand my view that God is not outside things, operating as an intervener and twiddler of dials.
I think this is one of the weaknesses of the intelligent design movement's paradigm. It seems like God every so often steps in creating new life forms. While I don't have a problem with divine intervention it's clear that the reproductive process has built in information and systems.

It seems like some atheists like Richard Dawkins see evolution as an alternative blind designer which precludes an actual intelligent designer.

I.D. critiques this with the argument from irreducible complexity.This is not an empty argument I think, and the gradual piecemeal development of complex and interdependent systems is not an adequate explanation, in the view of it's critics.
Last edited by Flann 5 on Fri Aug 14, 2015 7:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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