Okay, so I haven’t quite finished articulating my thoughts about the conference talks. I had hoped to publish them last weekend, but obviously that didn’t happen. One reason is that I initially figured there would be little said in conference worth responding to. I thought the talks would be boilerplate, warm-fuzzy stuff. And most of it was. To my surprise, however, there were a few talks about atheism and doubt–talks that demand a careful (and thus time-consuming) rebuttal. Another reason for my delayed conference post is that my life as of late has been busier than anticipated.
Thanks for being patient. Absent some crisis, this post will be finally updated before the week’s end. Until I share my thoughts about conference, what were yours?
Apparently no one around here watched conference except for you, Jon
I look forward to reading your writeup though.
The writeup is forthcoming, I swear ha ha. Look for it tomorrow…ish.
I watched about a third of conference, and I think it happened to be the third where they talked about questioning, and doubt, and happy things like those.
Wouldn’t have eTched it if I could have. But it will be interesting to read your writeup.
I am interested in anyone’s comments on Holland’s Sunday afternoon talk: http://broadcast.lds.org/genconf/2009/10/50/GC_2009_10_503_HollandJR___eng_.mp4
Many Mormons base their conviction that the church is true on the Book of Mormon. To me it is clearly a 19th century fabrication written, oddly enough, in 17th century English. But I think Holland is sincere in his talk. He FEELS that the book is true. Many Mormons FEEL that the book is true. Just because something feels true, however, doesn’t mean it is actually true. But this is the power that religion has in people’s lives. It is emotionally consoling and validating.
Robert D. Hales:
“Belief in God is widely questioned and even attacked in the name of political, social, and even religious causes. Atheism, or the doctrine that there is no God, is fast spreading across the world… Without God, life would end at the grave and our mortal experiences would have no purpose. Growth and progress would be temporary, accomplishment without value, challenges without meaning. There would be no ultimate right and wrong and no moral responsibility to care for one another as fellow children of God. Indeed, without God, there would be no mortal or eternal life… Some may ask, how can I know this for myself? We know He lives because we believe the testimonies of His ancient and living prophets, and we have felt God’s Spirit confirm that the testimonies of these prophets are true.”
This is amazingly warped logic. If you say that without god you have no morality and no meaning in your life, what does that say about you as a person? All of the atheists I know are very moral people with deep meaning in their lives. We know because we believe the scriptures and feel what they say is true? People of all beliefs can say that, and they can’t all be right. I’m fine with religious people saying that they choose to believe this or that. But when they pretend to use logic to defend their beliefs it sounds suspiciously like nonsense…
Two comments:
1) Of course atheists can be moral. But I am inclined to say that this is because one can know the effect without knowing the [ultimate] cause.
2) Another take: It might well be the case (I think it is) that most atheists are as morally upright as anyone else. But this does not really speak to the question. WHY are they moral? What is the ultimate ground of morality? Might atheists have the moral beliefs that they have simply because they have inherited them from a Christian culture? That is Nietzsche’s view, that egalitarian democracy (and all the pleasant liberal values that travel with it) is born of Christianity and has a totally dependent relationship to it.
Nz is the best way to frame the question – if God is dead, then isn’t it all just will to power? As Dostoevsky puts in the the Brothers K, ‘if God does not exist, then everything is permissible.’ Granted, not all atheists (those that believe God is dead) will exercise their power that is now “beyond good and evil”. But their unwillingness to do so, Nz would say, is more an indication of their own cowardice, not an indication that there is some “objective morality”.
Or Christianity is a product of our genetically inherited reciprocal altruism. We preserve our own genetic self interest through true concern for others. Either way, however, there is no need to invoke the metaphysical to explain morality. Nietzsche may be right, but that really doesn’t add credibility to virgin births, resurrections, spirit realms, etc.
I never said anything about virgin births, and in no way was what I said meant to be an argument for Christianity per se. I was simply responding to your claim that atheists are moral and that this somehow proves that God has nothing to do with morality. My response was that it might be that the reason why western atheists have the moral habits that they have is because they are living out the inheritance of Judeo-Christian culture.
Steve says “there is no need to invoke the metaphysical to explain morality”. I think that is false. Two reasons:
a) The good of a thing is always tied to *what it is*. To know what makes for an excellent guitar you need to know what a guitar is and what a guitar does. To know what would make for a good and happy person, you need to know what a person is and what persons do.
b) Without invoking the metaphysical, we would have no principled reason to distinguish between moral duties to other people, to animals, to plants, etc. I do not have the same moral obligations to plants because plants are a different KIND of thing. That is a metaphysical claim. If you look carefully, all rights talk is couched – as it must be – in metaphysical claims.
This is even true of the weakest defenses of rights, like Utilitarianism. Utilitarian morality is dependent on a metaphysical claim – distinguishing between the kinds of things that can experience pleasure/pain and those that cannot.
I should say (and my views here might well be different than standard LDS views) that I do not think morality is a function of religion. I completely reject the claim that you need to be religious (much less Christian) to be moral, or that you need revelation to discern morality. In fact, I think scripture itself rejects this view:
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20
If you needed revelation to know moral truths, then those who had not received revelation would have an excuse.
I think moral truths can be apprehended by a careful investigation into human nature, and there need not be anything religious about that investigation at all. I am, after all, a humanist of sorts (though not a secular humanist).
The claim that morality is a function of our “genetically inherited reciprocal altruism” is trotted out much too easily. Even Dawkins dismisses that this answer really answer the question of morality, arguing that while it might explain some behaviors “it doesn’t account for the extremely high degree of moral behavior that humans show”.
And he is right, though for a reason that he would not much care for — you need metaphysics, not just science, to work morality out.
Kleiner, you make a good argument for the usefulness of metaphysics, or philosophy more generally, in working out morality. My choice of the word ‘metaphysics’ was sloppy, as I was really referring to the supernatural. I just don’t see the logic in Hales’ idea that without god life would have no purpose, and without god there would be no moral responsibility to care for one another. Do you agree with Hales on this point?
First a chuckle: Assuming Steve is a materialist (his posts imply as much) it is funny that he identifies (he admits sloppily) “metaphysics” with “the supernatural”. I am going to use Steve to make a general point (sorry Steve, I don’t mean to imply that you are all the things I am about to say): this is the mistake that travels with unreflective materialism and scientism. Materialists forget, or just choose to not pay attention to the fact that materialism is a metaphysical view, and not one that is empirically verifiable. (Most SHAFTers should reread that sentence and think seriously about it). But since most materialists are materialists by default (without really thinking about it) because they are first scientistic (they reject all modes of reasoning other than science), they end up thinking metaphysics is supernatural magic talk. But the fact is that metaphysics is unavoidable. The question is, what metaphysics are you going to have and how do you think you can demonstrate it.
Sorry Steve, your posts here have been thoughtful (and I think I know who this Steve is, and if I am guessing right this Steve is quite thoughtful so is not really guilty of what I just said) and so I rather unfairly used your slip up as an excuse to make a general point that I love to make to SHAFTers. Thank you for being an occasion for that!
I don’t know enough about Hales to want align myself for or against him. He is LDS and I am not, so I know our theologies are VERY far apart. And most Mormons (this is somewhat anecdotal) are not nearly as committed to philosophical reason as I am.
But to the general point of his that you cited, do I agree? I would say in a way yes, and in a way no, with plenty of disclaimers along the way. (How is that for being dodgy?!). I’ll appeal to Aquinas here.
a) I think you can work out a “natural happiness” without invoking much in the way of theism. This would include a robust moral view, meaning, striving, etc etc. Whether you can accomplish your own natural ends without grace depends, I guess, on just how fallen you think man is.
b) But from the point of view of ultimate causes, I think you end up having to back your way up to God. I am not suggesting that you argue your way back to Christianity, but you do argue your way back to theism (in fact, the Christian will have the job of showing that their revealed God is the same God that reason can discover). I think ultimately the natural law (morality) is dependent on the eternal law (the Divine) since I think all things are ultimately dependent on the Divine.
So yes and no. Back to point I raised in a previous post, I think you can know the effect without knowing the cause.
Of course I am a religious person, so I do think that there is a deeper meaning to our lives than the “mere natural meaning”, as it were (though this deeper meaning is not in conflict with our natural purposes – I am Catholic so I think grace perfects nature instead of abolishing it (Luther would say something like that)). For instance, I don’t think you are going to get a solid picture of agape/love/charity out of a philosophical/metaphysical morality (I have principally in mind Aristotle).
Let me try to make my point my succinctly:
I believe the universe is teleologically organized, which is to say I believe that purpose is infused into the nature of things. We can observe, comment on, and participate in this purpose-ridden cosmos without involving ourselves in theology. Scientists, for example, do this when they say “the turtle came ashore in order to lay eggs.” The scientist is observing and commenting on a natural purpose of a thing, without thereby engaging in theological discourse much less committing himself to this or that theology.
Were the scientist to take some philosophy classes or engage in philosophical conversation, I believe it is then possible to show him that those proximate causes (including proximate final causes) must needs have theism in order to ultimately account for them.
To put that last point in terms that some SHAFTers who are interested in postmodernity will like (at least the postmodernity of Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida, not Foucault):
A morality culled from the metaphysics of man will not really give an account of the “face of the Other”. I am deeply sympathetic with Levinas and his phenomenology of the face. But I don’t see that this requires a wholesale rejection of metaphysics. Rather I conclude that the “person” cannot be reduced to his “nature”. Personhood involves relation. Those that have studied these postmodern thinkers, though, know that that relation always involves the transcendent.
Kleiner, these are great thoughts. When are you going to present them before SHAFT? ;)
Really, though, I’d love for you to present. If you’re willing to or able to do anything for SHAFT before the year’s end, we’d be indebted to you for time immemorial.
If you mean by “year’s end” the end of 2009, that may not happen. If you mean by the end of the academic year, that seems quite doable. I think humanism would be the best topic, if only because I don’t think Secular HUMANISTS Atheists Free Thinkers don’t discuss humanism nearly often enough.
Sorry, I did mean year’s end.