Atheisms moral deficiency and apologetics

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

I believe the fact of the matter however is that you can't equate evolution or Darwinian evolution to atheism. Why? Because evolution itself is soaked in theology/philosophy. Again Darwin on various occasions posed theological and philosophical questions on evolution (or to a creator) in his book, “The Origin of Species.” We even have theistic evolution where God is the catalyst behind evolution.

I have to concede that you may have a point. When recently I looked over my copy of The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man and saw the stuff I underlined as an atheist when I first read it, I thought «Boy! were you ever an IDIOT!» I am vaguely seeing that I read into the text what I wanted to see instead of what Darwin wrote.

I believe there is a way to equate Darwinism to atheism however. Just as we have theistic evolution, I also believe we have atheistic evolution. If you look at it this way, then yes, I would say it's atheistic. So how do we get atheistic evolution? By omitting God out of all the processes of evolution. If you do that, then you have atheism or the outlook of atheism projected out into our environment.

I agree.

Atheistic evolution is taught everywhere in that respect. Particularly in public science books (no mention of God here). In every science book that talks about evolution and omits God out of the process, you are creating for yourself an atheistic world.

Agreed.

By default, however, you really can't omit God out of naturalistic explanations. You only could if you could empirically shape, mold, and create life via naturalistic methods (without any human intervention). Something that has never been accomplished. Therefore we cannot touch it without touching the philosophical or theological realm...

I don't quite understand what you mean here. God isn't part of naturalistic (AKA Naturalism) explanations, and can't be. If He were, they wouldn't be naturalistic...Naturalism makes no room for God. If Naturalism were a bag of potato chips, the label would scream 100% GOD FREE!.

Makes sense?

Yes, pretty much. I am dimly aware - somewhere - that an atheist can read atheism into Darwin not as a fact but as a desired philosophy; and I can understand how someone looking to find evidence for Theistic Evolution can read that into Darwin. Plus, as you say,

I believe there is a way to equate Darwinism to atheism however.

...because I know that Darwin influenced the ideas of such men as Marx and Freud who, in turn, had many negative impacts on the Western World.

FL

[Gman]

Agreed.

Well maybe we are 3 quarters of the way there...

By default, however, you really can't omit God out of naturalistic explanations. You only could if you could empirically shape, mold, and create life via naturalistic methods (without any human intervention). Something that has never been accomplished. Therefore we cannot touch it without touching the philosophical or theological realm...

I don't quite understand what you mean here. God isn't part of naturalistic (AKA Naturalism) explanations, and can't be. If He were, they wouldn't be naturalistic...Naturalism makes no room for God. If Naturalism were a bag of potato chips, the label would scream 100% GOD FREE!.

Ok, let me put it this way... When we look at nature (animals, humans, plants... etc.) can we say without a shadow of a doubt that they came to us by atheistic evolution or by an intelligent designer (AKA God)? Well we really don't know.. Therefore God "could" be part of naturalistic explanations. The question perhaps is "how" he did it not that he didn't do it.. Correct?

Yes, pretty much. I am dimly aware - somewhere - that an atheist can read atheism into Darwin not as a fact but as a desired philosophy; and I can understand how someone looking to find evidence for Theistic Evolution can read that into Darwin. Plus, as you say,

Yes... Exactly. One's philosophical nature essentially steers your atheistic/theistic boat... And I believe you can even do that without realizing it too.. Why? It's your belief system (AKA religion).

I believe there is a way to equate Darwinism to atheism however.

...because I know that Darwin influenced the ideas of such men as Marx and Freud who, in turn, had many negative impacts on the Western World.

FL

Yes... Very much so. And people wonder why so many people drop out of science classes here in the U.S. Because it is chuck full of...

[Gman]

Oh.. You mean methodological naturalism?

[DannyM]

The French Revolution was as much about the overthrow of a corrupt and oppressive system and the anti-religious sentiments that you refer to were very much tied to the coalition that had been forged in that society and time between the monarchy and the established institutional church of that time.

Causes of the French Revolution included the unwillingness of the French Monarchy to reform feudalism despite the fact that the surrounding nations were already beginning to do so. In some ways it also was a response to the American Revolution which France as a nation had supported and yet refused to see the legitimate grievances of its own people. There is also a great deal of common ground, not exclusively so, but to a large extent with the expression of many of the enlightenment philosophers that were instrumental in the American Revolution. In the context of French society however, there wasn't an ocean separating the oppressed from the oppressors. Further in the American Revolution you had a form of religion and morality (Christian to be sure) that did not universally or substantially tie itself to the oppressor government. In fact, although the Church of England was prevelant at the time of the American Revolution, it was one of many churches and you had roots in the puritans and pilgrims which were already in place that helped to lead to that rebellion. You had a huge debt run up by the French monarchy that in turn was upping the tax burden on the people and no sense of ownership and involvement of the system..

I understand all this; I'd already alluded to ligitimate concerns behind the revolution. What I am saying is that, while there were legitimate ocncerns and genuine reformers, there were also those bent on literally overthrowing religion, not just the monarchy. While on the one hand you had Voltaire and other deists simply wanted a reformation of the Catholic church, but were joined in their anti-Catholic crusade by rabid atheists such as Julien Offroy de La Mettrie and Paul-Henri-Dietrich d'Holbach. There was a strange coalition of the two sides. After the execution of Luis XVI things just marched on for those who sought to dechristinise France. What about the armees revolutionaires- people's army- which carried out much of this dechristianisation?

Also, I wouldn't even mention the French and American revolutions in the same breath. Many of the settlers of the Easter Seaboard of America were descended form religious refugees from England. Their strong puritan religious convictions were fundamental to life. The American revolutionaries saw themselves as on a spiritual calling to break the temporal power of the Church of England in America. Like their forebears at the time of the English Civil War, they saw the conflict as a moment of purification, a time in which the true identity of as nation would be shaped. This was not a battle of Christians versus atheists, but between a compromised state church and a pure gospel church. And, while many a noble man with noble cause took part in sewing the seeds of the French revolution, there was a shocking underbelly of radical, brutal atheism at its very heart.

Making a general statement that the French Revolution is an example of atheistic philosophy at work, may have some validity, but it's grossly overstated and effectively loses the point by failing to recognize these other factors (and I've mentioned just a few) and also failing to recognize that governments under more theist understandings have had some pretty bloody and overwhelming incidents in history and if you're going to be consistent in your interpretting those instances then you have to equally conclude that Theism historically has not been a panacea to eliminate all oppression, all violence and all brutality and injustice.

Again, I see the common denominator in all of this as the nature of man, and perhaps you can make a case in terms of degrees, but attempting to make it to the degree I see many trying to do, isn't particularly consistent, in my opinion.

But I have not once denied- whether in word or by ommition- any of this; I fear you are somewhat missing my point. Let me put it another way. There WAS noble cause for change in France. There were noble MEN behind the change in France. But brutality won the day. If you are in any doubt then why did this revolution leave such little impression that, 10 years later, Catholicism was restored? The reign of terror was all too happily left behind.

[touchingcloth]

By default, however, you really can't omit God out of naturalistic explanations. You only could if you could empirically shape, mold, and create life via naturalistic methods (without any human intervention). Something that has never been accomplished. Therefore we cannot touch it without touching the philosophical or theological realm...

I don't quite understand what you mean here. God isn't part of naturalistic (AKA Naturalism) explanations, and can't be. If He were, they wouldn't be naturalistic...Naturalism makes no room for God. If Naturalism were a bag of potato chips, the label would scream 100% GOD FREE!.

You don't have to remove the possibility of god in order to follow some assumptions of naturalism. Imagine if our universe is analogous to The Matrix - we'd have know way of ever knowing what's beyond our little bubble, right? In that universe we could answer some things with naturalistic explanations, even though there was an underlying "supernaturalism" that we could never access.

In our universe, matrix-like or not, there are a number of things we have satisfactory naturalistic explanations (even some things that were at one time thought to be totally supernatural - e.g. lightning, "homunculus" theory of reproduction). Even if we had satisfactory naturalistic explanations for every single phenomenon in our universe then we still wouldn't be able to rule out supernatural causes unless we knew the fundamental underlying nature of our universe (i.e. "matrix" like or not).

You'd have to obtain a huge amount of information under a naturalistic framework to rule out the supernatural - an amount of information that could very well be impossible to obtain either in theory or in practice.

[Canuckster1127]

You'd have to obtain a huge amount of i ... practice.

This assumes that the "supernatural" is "necessary" only in the context of that which is unknown or unknowable. By definition, the supernatural is above or outside of the natural and it would not follow that you could rule it out by a enough information in the realm of the natural. This is an example of the "God of the Gaps" argument being invoked from the opposite direction. I don't subscribe to the theory or belief that God's existence is completely provable in an objective sense from natural observation, and conversely it's a complete fallacy to assume that an increase in understanding of natural processes would lead to such a conclusion.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Attempting to "rule out the supernatural" using natural approaches and evidence is only valid in this context if it is correspongingly accepted that the God of the Gaps argument is a valid approach. Taking one fallacy and then claiming the converse is true may be an effective rhetorical device but it is not good logic or in this case, anything remotely scienctific.

[touchingcloth]

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Attempting to "rule out the supernatural" using natural approaches and evidence is only valid in this context if it is correspongingly accepted that the God of the Gaps argument is a valid approach. Taking one fallacy and then claiming the converse is true may be an effective rhetorical device but it is not good logic or in this case, anything remotely scienctific.

I was talking about an absolute absence of evidence, rather than just a conspicuous absence of evidence - if that makes any sense. In other words if you knew everything, and you knew that you knew everything, then and only then could you rule out the supernatural (pretty damn unlikely if not impossible, hence my including words to that effect ).

So I agree with you that the supernatural is that which is outside the natural and I wasn't positing that the existence of god is "provable in an objective sense from natural observation", but I was remarking that the only way in which you could ever rule out the possibility of the supernatural is the (massively unlikely, it seems) situation where somehow you objectively knew everything that was natural. I wasn't invoking an inverse-god-of-the-gaps - hope that clarifies!

ETA - just as this "inverse-god-of-the-gaps" is only valid reasoning in an extreme case of hypothetical levels as knowledge, so a traditional god-of-the-gaps would be valid logic in the extreme case that you had enough knowledge to say that a certain phenomenon could not possibly be explained by anything natural.

[Canuckster1127]

It does. You may want to go back and update your post that I was responding too. I think you meant "impossible" and not "in possible". That was the source of my misunderstanding.

[touchingcloth]

I think you meant "impossible" and not "in possible".

I made a typo? In possible!

[Canuckster1127]

[Gman]

You'd have to obtain a huge amount of information under a naturalistic framework to rule out the supernatural - an amount of information that could very well be impossible to obtain either in theory or in practice.

Yes... You mean from start to finish in a naturally controlled environment. No intervention at all...

[Canuckster1127]

You'd have to obtain a huge amount of information under a naturalistic framework to rule out the supernatural - an amount of information that could very well be impossible to obtain either in theory or in practice.

Yes... You mean from start to finish in a naturally controlled environment. No intervention at all...

Even so, science often cannot demonstrate anything more than that something is plausible or at best possible, in many of these scenarios. Given that, there's no amount of information that is going to rule out the supernatural.

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

Oh.. You mean methodological naturalism?

Yes, I think. The Naturalism that claims all truth can be revealed through science; not some truth, all of it. Neither God nor unicorns can be measured, so they are not there. The Naturalism that studies God as part of the social sciences only.

You don't have to remove the possibility of god in order to follow some assumptions of naturalism. Imagine if our universe is analogous to The Matrix - we'd have know way of ever knowing what's beyond our little bubble, right? In that universe we could answer some things with naturalistic explanations, even though there was an underlying "supernaturalism" that we could never access.

Know way? Know way! I really like your «in possible» Freudian slips!

FL

[Gman]

Yes, I think. The Naturalism that claims all truth can be revealed through science; not some truth, all of it. Neither God nor unicorns can be measured, so they are not there. The Naturalism that studies God as part of the social sciences only.

The way science is conducted is natural, not divine. That may be true, but the "by product" could be inspired either naturalistic or divinely. As an example a car. A car exists in our natural world, but if we didn't know that a factory created it or had the blue prints for it, then how could we really know it was intelligently or naturally designed?

[Gman]

Yes... You mean from start to finish in a naturally controlled environment. No intervention at all...

Even so, science often cannot demonstrate anything more than that something is plausible or at best possible, in many of these scenarios. Given that, there's no amount of information that is going to rule out the supernatural.

Yes, that may be true... But given the view of metaphysical naturalism, it does not treat these ideas as a working science assumption but insists on them as a fact. And God doesn't appear to be part of that fact... Anyway, there is a point where one's philosophical beliefs will interfere with the "scientific" processes it seems.