Morality is sanctioned discrimination

With the question of religious freedom once again popping up, we get reminded that what people most want is the ability to discriminate against others.

In this case, religious schools want to be be exempt from anti-discrimination legislation in order to keep the school's environment within their set moral boundaries.

Similarly sitting the "I can't believe it's not a plebiscite" postal survey on gay marriage, a woman was fired for her "immoral" posting on Facebook against the proposition.

Or take the case of Louis C.K. His career definitely took a hit from the emergence of his masturbatory habits, but him performing again at all has some #MeToo advocates outraged. His punishment is deemed insufficient in that he's gone forever.

And even safe zones around abortion clinics draw this same ire as it prevents the moral crusaders from directly confronting the sinners using the service.

I could go all day with examples, and those examples would be from all across the political spectrum. But the point with the examples is to illustrate how morality is targeted at individuals and groups seen to break it.

Tolerance under "normal" conditions

A pluralistic society survives by allowing a personal moral compass - at least to the extent that is allowable by law. Our society can accommodate both those who choose to hunt animals and those who think it's immoral to do so. Each may teeth to convince the other of its validity, but there's no need to solve the problem via societal enforcement.

That's not to say there's no tension or coercion. Moral issues ignite our passions, after all, and invoke strong outrage. Impassioned pleas and organised protests are a healthy part of democracy.

Arguments are made in the public sphere in a variety of ways, and over time values can and do change. A majority of people in Australia choose to vote for gay marriage despite a majority seeing homosexuality as immoral less than a generation ago.

The key factor to my mind is tolerance - that we have learnt that our personal convictions most of the time are not necessarily what others hold it even ought to hold. This is not the same as relativism, though may be described as a pragmatic relativism. Christians and Muslims have truth as they see it, and they are allowed to practice those truths, insofar as they don't affect our ability to do the same. Likewise for vegans and hunters, capitalists and communists, etc.

We can argue passionately for our against these positions without the need to dictate how anyone lives within these bounds. This holds even when we vehemently disagree.

Localised sanctioned discrimination

The pluralism generally succeeds when the moral impulses are confined to limited areas where they are sanctioned. A church is a straight-forward example of this, as is a group of vegans. The organising principles of the group allow the group to police the behaviours of their own members irrespective of what those in the wider society believe.

When these sanctions aren't reflected in the wider society, there is a tension whenever these individuals deal with outsiders. The boundary of where discrimination is sanctioned can see seen where public services are provided, such as in businesses, or in schools.

When local groups create a bubble of like-minded individuals, the wider community can be seen as downright immoral for failing to grasp those moral truths. This raises the legitimate concern that outsiders are dehumanised, and that there is the threat of exertion of power. One strategy is playing the political game (and why abortion is a perennial issue), but others include shaming, ostracism, and even taking the law into their own hands.

The ideological bindings of the group shape the individual. There are few true lone wolves, but those who attack abortion clinic doctors, homosexuals, GM crops, politicians, civilian populations, etc. all share a common morality with a local group that holds them as moral and the outside society as dangerously immoral in need of rectification.

The rule of law as a proxy to justice

Law is the ultimate standard in any given society. While psychologically we may feel morality transcends law (we are all familiar with the notion of an unjust law), we know that the law is the arbiter of disputes.

Movements like #MeToo exist because of the failure of law to sufficiently address systemic problems. Conversely laws like anti-discrimination legislation exist because of a need to address systemic injustice in a society.

The law needs to be seen by enough of the population as being fair. Not perfect - no set of rules can be perfect, let alone satisfy the myriad of different moral beliefs - but good enough that major problems will be addressed so that we don't need to settle them ourselves. If enough see the law as insufficient or capricious, we get mob justice. And while mob justice might be satisfying when it comes to your beliefs (e.g. taking down serial sex offenders), it can be an outrage when it goes the other way (e.g. gay bashing).

The reason we have due process, innocent until proven guilty, tolerance, etc. is that the other way has been tried and it leads to more barbaric societies. It's not always satisfying to think that some can get away with immoral behaviour, but the alternative is far worse.

Classic Films: The Seventh Seal

"You're lucky to have such a fluid tongue that you believe your own twaddle." - Blacksmith Plog

I worry that I'm not qualified enough to deal with literature heavy in symbolism. I always wonder whether or not I'm taking the right messages away, or whether I'm simply projecting, or even if I'm too dumb to get it. Or perhaps I am meant to inject myself into art, in which case I worry any such interpretation will come off as primitive and shallow.

Det sjunde inseglet is a film about a man having an existential crisis in the face of his imminent demise. More specifically, he wants to overcome the problem of divine hiddenness, for he foolishly seeks meaning in God. If there is no God "Then life is a preposterous horror" the knight Antonious Block laments. This quest for God manifests itself mainly in conversations with a personification of death, which no doubt carries far more symbolic significance than I can project onto it. It's a Faustian bargain sans bargain, though the cynic in me writes this off as a way of sparing us (the audience) an internal monologue.

Setting the film during the plague - and having the protagonist serve in the crusades - adds a sense of authenticity to the struggle. While Woody Allen might craft out meaning through opining into a camera in modern-day Manhattan, a conversation with death while surrounded by plague victims and repenters engaging in self-flaggelation really hits home. It's a cruel and vicious world; a world normally far removed from what modernity has given us, but the great existential questions are still the same.

It felt more like reading philosophy than watching a film; with characters and events merely serving as vehicle for exploring underlying themes. The dialogue was clever in a profound way, giving much for the willing viewer to contemplate. In the week or so since I watched the film, I've found myself going back over certain scenes in my mind; and rereading the "memorable quotes" that people put on the Internet. Yet it feels like I've only scratched the surface.

Not having a strict religious upbringing, I felt that a lot of the symbolism of the film was lost on me. I found myself confused at the knight's dilemma; nodding along to the squire, laughing at the fools whipping themselves, pitying the plight of the blacksmith, and (like the knight) finding comfort in the familial. And if I were to draw a conclusion of what the film-maker wanted the audience to come away with, it was the most important move the knight made in his game. It was that same lesson that Ridley Scott masterfully portrayed at the climax of Blade Runner. The Danse Macabre is our eventual fate, and there's no escaping that. Until then there's life.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

"I conjure you, my brethren, remain true to the earth, and believe not those who speak unto you of superearthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Birth Control vs Religious Liberty

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-17/religious-leaders-unite-against-pill-plan/3836440

Religious leaders from multiple faiths have united in an unprecedented show of strength against US president Barack Obama's healthcare plan to ensure all women have access to birth control.

Roman Catholic Bishop William Lori likened the situation, of the government forcing church-affiliated groups to provide insurance cover for birth control, to forcing a kosher deli to serve ham sandwiches.

"It is absurd for someone to come into a kosher deli and demand a ham sandwich, but it is beyond absurd for that private demand to be backed up with a coercive power of the state, and downright surreal to apply that coercive power when the government can get that same sandwich cheaply or even free just a few doors down," he said.

A number of years ago I heard a report about a small town in Australia that had the highest birthrate in Australia. The only pharmacist in the town had refused to stock and supply birth control on religious grounds.

His place in the community was not just a matter of religious freedom, however. By deciding that he couldn't sell contraception on his religious grounds, he made that choice on behalf of everyone. After all, why should people need contraception? The pharmacist was Catholic!

And this is the problem with this analogy of religious freedom. Healthcare is not a religious service. Any individual is free to avoid using and buying birth control if they choose to on religious grounds, but being a healthcare provider while refusing to stock health supplies is pushing those religious grounds onto others that they may or may not want.

In short, if you want to be a health provider, then it's not a matter of religious choice. If religion cannot provide a public service in a manner that best serves the public, then they shouldn't be in that business. They as individuals are free to ignore any contraceptives that may be on offer, what they are losing here is the ability to deny that service to others.

Baptist leader Professor Ben Mitchell said his church members would be prepared to defend their religious freedom.

"Tens of thousands of us, maybe hundreds of thousands of us, would be very willing to spend nights in jail for the sake of the preservation of religious liberty," he said.

"It's not just our coffers that are at risk, it is our very freedom."

What's at risk is the ability to easily push one's religious belief onto others. That's a very Orwellian take on religious freedom.

Irrelevant Arguments

How it is people come to believe what they do and why is a very different story to the arguments and reasons used to defend such beliefs. As Michael Shermer argues in The Believing Brain, beliefs come first then come justifications. The danger for all us who wish to hold beliefs for rational reasons is that often those reasons are mere rationalisations.

I've been reading a recent back and forth between various academics about the cosmological argument, and it's got me wondering just why the cosmological argument matters. What does the origin of the universe say about the role of an interventionist deity who shares many anthropic traits and will grant us eternal life if we only would believe the right thing? Very little really, even if it were an argument for a deity it wouldn't be able to infer any of the traits and characteristics that we call God. So why waste any intellectual energy on it?

Perhaps it's that philosophers of religion waste intellectual energy on it, perhaps it's that the origin of the universe craves an answer. Though from my perspective, it's an irrelevant argument. Would the failure of the cosmological argument disprove God? would the success of the argument demonstrate God? In both cases, I'm pretty sure the answer is no. It's no, not because we've sat through and worked out the metaphysical implications of the argument, but it's no because the cosmological argument has little to do with the belief in God itself.

A few months ago, I got into an argument with someone who was obsessed with the notion of a necessary being. His argument went something akin to the following:

1. X is necessary
2. If X is necessary, then there needs to be a necessary being

---

3. Therefore, God exists

What the X was is irrelevant, as is the argument in general. Why if something is necessary there's a further necessary step to a being is beyond me, but what was even more beyond me was how that related to an interventionist deity who the person had a personal relationship with.

I don't think this is true of all arguments, at least some arguments (like the design argument or personal revelation) seem consistent with what this interventionist deity is meant to be. A weeping statue or cancer going into remission at least have that sense of being about what people profess to believe in. If something is outside of space and time, can it have actions within it? It seems an odd question, especially when it's placed up against having a personal experience of God's presence.


This is no-doubt going to come across as arrogance from a non-philosopher who doesn't properly value philosophy of religion; that I don't grasp the nuances of the arguments that otherwise make them self-explanatory as to their value in the search for God. And if that is the case, please don't just dismiss me on those grounds, but explain why it's important. Why are arguments like the cosmological arguments, so abstracted from what it is people believe and why, are arguments that need to be taken seriously? To quote philosopher Julian Baggini:

Academics in particular maintain the illusion that, on the contrary, things like the complex details of the latest revision of the ontological argument might actually matter when it comes to determining whether or not God exists. If they did, we might see more regular changes of mind. As it is, philosophers of religion seem to be at least as consistent in their fundamental commitments as anyone else.

Holy Books And Science

It's common to see believers claim that holy books contained truths that only modern science has discovered - presumably as a way to claim divine intervention because the knowledge would be blind to the ancient authors.

It's a bad argument for a number of reasons - mainly that it doesn't actually show divine authorship (see Shermer's last law). But one general criticism would be that people are reading into it what fits; I've heard a number of interpretations of Genesis in line with modern scientific findings.

Isn't it convenient that one can find the evolution of eyes in Genesis 1, or the evolution of colour vision in relation to fruit-eating in Genesis chapter 3! Neither Genesis 1 nor Genesis 3 explicitly nor implicitly state either claim, but as a metaphor it works nicely. I still remember the first time I read Genesis 1 thinking it was a very fuzzy description of the evolutionary process.


What seems apparent is that we're reading into these books what makes sense to us, always happening after scientific findings but never making any specific predictions themselves. Why didn't people derive from the bible that revelation about fruit on our evolution? Why didn't the evolution of eyes in context to the Cambrian explosion come out of Genesis? Where is the Big Bang theory in Genesis?

That we can fit symbolism with our empirical understanding doesn't show much at all beyond our capacity to weave narratives. What would be impressive is if these holy books were used as research paradigms, whereby experiment and observation were derived from an understanding of the works, and we learnt new things about the universe through the success of experiment and observation. But the holy books aren't science texts, they are mythic narratives. Hence it is much easier to say the narrative fits with the data than it is to predict data from the narrative.


We are in the scientific age, after all, and the fruits of science as an epistemology is there for all to see. So for a holy book to sit with modern knowledge should be befitting of the all-powerful all-knowing creator, so the retrofitting of divinely-given knowledge with science seems a mere formality. One other thing it allows some to do, it seems, is since X must have been divine authorship then the entire holy book is divine authorship and reject the science that outright contradicts their holy book. I've heard creationists bring up the bible predicting jet streams in order to bolster their creationist position. Jet streams!

In a discussion, such claims have the added bonus of adding confusion. I wouldn't know for the most part what's in The Bible or the Koran, whether or not the Koran gets it right on embryology is something that would be lost to me. While I don't doubt the sincerity of the person making the argument, it's a red herring to even go down this path. Whatever the Bible or Koran say, or any other holy book for that matter, as books of science I can only take them seriously when they're used as research paradigms that yield new information about the universe. Retrofitting existing knowledge just isn't the same...

Good Theology

As an atheist, I'm really not into the position to judge whether something is good theology or not. I can point out implications, inconsistencies, and absurdities, but I don't have any basis for what makes something good theology. As such, if someone makes an argument on the basis of their interpretation of scripture, can I really say that they're interpretation is correct?

Ken Miller, for example, argues that ID proponents are wrong on theological grounds. I've heard some people argue that there is hell and some argue that there isn't. I've heard some theologians cite the first two books of Genesis to show that it's not meant to be taken literally, while others say that it should. And to me, that's just fighting over how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin.

QFT

"I think that when your theology becomes contingent on which interpretation of quantum theory you embrace, you are treading on very thin metaphysical ice." - a_ray_in_dilbert_space (Pharyngula commenter)

What Evidence Would Persuade Me?

When it comes to the question of what would change your mind on a particular issue, it's meant to be a sign of an open mind to be able to come up with some form of evidence that would persuade you. But that standard is problematic, especially in cases when there's philosophical problems. For example, what evidence could convince me that the world started last Thursday in its current state as if time had passed? I'm not sure there's any evidence that could persuade me of that or the contrary. There's just no evidence that could satisfy that conclusion.

When it comes to the question of God I used to be all about the evidence, but I've been swayed away thanks to Massimo Pigliucci and PZ Myers, and now I don't think evidence could be sufficient. I think I need to make a distinction, however, because it's not saying my mind is made up and nothing can persuade me.

Firstly, I think there can be evidence of something, if there were interventionist agents affecting the world then that should be visible. That there's not good evidence of this counts against the notion of God. I suppose one could appeal to being able to work in undetectable ways, but that means that God is indistinguishable from no God at all.

However, this does not mean that evidence can be sufficient to establish God in the supernatural sense because the supernatural is not a coherent notion. Furthermore, we could not establish that God is 'uncaused', 'simple', 'eternal', 'immaterial', 'omnipotent', 'omniscient', etc. as all of those are beyond what is even possible to establish by evidence. Thus even if we did have evidence of something, it would be a leap of faith to say that it's God.

It's not a question of ontology but one of epistemology. Assuming God exists in the way that is described by theologians, we can never satisfy those attributes through scientific investigation. I think something god-like is hypothetically observable, but to say it's God is making unwarranted inferences.

Worshipping Ignorance

The supernatural is so often appealed to in terms of what we don't know that I'm not really sure if supernatural entities are anything more than manifestations of ignorance - manifestations of ignorance that look suspiciously anthropomorphic. We can know what it's like for something to be an agent, and to act with intentionality and purpose. Yet what do those mean when placed on the supernatural? It's a mystery, which is what you get upon deeper examination. After all, what is the greatest of all possible things if not completely incomprehensible?

So while us reductionists types are flailing about to be able to explain the inexplicable, if only we could see that our quest is futile because the best explanation for inexplicability is the ultimate expression of the inexplicable - God!

Accommodationist

I often come across people who reject scientific facts and theories that don't fit into their own worldview. So when this worldview stems from an adherence to dogma, thus the reasons for rejecting science are because of a doctrinal presupposition, it seems only fair to say that science and religion are in conflict. After all, people are rejecting science for religious reasons.

As far as I can tell, the accommodationist sees it differently. Instead of the conflict being between science and religion, it's that the doctrinal presuppositions are a case of misinterpreting religion. After all, people who adhere to those same doctrines support science and its discoveries.

Partly my worry about the accommodationist position as I see it is that it's asking people to comment on the validity of another's approach to religion - that we're in effect needing to be mini-theologians and tell other people how to do their religion. And I'm really not sure to what extent we can do this. What's to say they're doing religion wrong? From the insider perspective, their view might be more consistent than the view I'm offering. And from the outsider perspective, the preference of a particular view is correlated to its compatibility with the outsider view.

Thus I find the accommodationist view hard to justify in supporting it. It's not to deny that there are those who have compatible religious beliefs, but that those compatible religious beliefs are compatible with those incompatible beliefs. A presuppositional commitment that necessitates an incompatibility won't go away because others don't take that presuppositional commitment.

Respecting Theology

As one of those pesky Gnu atheists, I really don't have time for much theology. While this might make me seem that I'm basing my atheism on ignorance, I feel this is an unfair characterisation. The study of theology is about as much needed for my rejection of God as the study of astrology to reject astrology. I could give more examples of this, but I hope the point gets across without it.

When it comes to astrology, I take into consideration whether or not there's a correlation between the position of planets and stars and the effects on our lives. As far as I can tell, there is none. I take into consideration the correlation of star signs to personality types. As far as I can tell, there is none. I take into consideration the predictive success of astrologers to use the tools to be able to predict world events. As far as I'm aware, there's no evidence for this. So there's no prior plausibility to astrology, so what would I get out of studying it from an internal perspective?

To take theology as a consideration would mean showing how theology is necessary to the question of God's existence. As far as I can tell, it isn't. The burden is on those who believe it is to show why it is, otherwise the objection falls flat. It seems the best way to respect theology is not to take it as more than it is, after all we don't look to the contradictions in Genesis as the reason for rejection Creation. Internal inconsistency doesn't matter so much when the case is made irrespective to that.

QFT

"A theologian is a person who uses the word "God" to hide his ignorance" - Lemuel K Washburn

Morning Scepticism: Conflict

When it's said there's no conflict between science and religion by way of citing religious scientists, does that mean that citing instances where scientists reject science on the basis of their religion as conflict? Surely the latter case is more compelling because the relationship in the former is a passive one, while the latter is a causal one. It seems the only real reason to prefer one view over the other is a strategic one, to get those who would be sympathetic to such a view on board. Even if when arguing on religious terms, it's hard to see why to prefer one view over the other. Those who argue for a conflict often times refer to their holy books as justification.

QFT

"Academics in particular maintain the illusion that, on the contrary, things like the complex details of the latest revision of the ontological argument might actually matter when it comes to determining whether or not God exists. If they did, we might see more regular changes of mind. As it is, philosophers of religion seem to be at least as consistent in their fundamental commitments as anyone else." - Julian Baggini

Morning Scepticism: Fundamentalism

I've often heard that even though there are fundamentalists who are at odds with scientific knowledge in their beliefs that there's no real conflict between science and religion. It's just that those fundamentalists are engaging in bad theology, interpreting their holy book in a way that isn't warranted. Fundamentalists charge non-fundamentalists also with an interpretation error, interpreting the holy book in such a way as to diminish any authority it may have.

Which view is right might be a matter for theologians, historians, philosophers, and those claiming divine revelation, but for those outside the belief argue on the basis of political preference. That is to say the non-fundamentalist view is right because the fundamentalist view is detrimental to education, to morality, to science, to history, to a sense of culture and pluralism. They're right because it's better for us pro-secular types that they're right, yet this argument is hardly convincing.

Classical Theism

When I hear God being described as an abstract, I freely confess I can not comprehend what that could possibly mean. It sounds like an instance of bullshit, but without being a sophisticated theologian or philosopher of religion I'll accept the possibility that I am missing something fundamental in my understanding.

Perhaps a good way to demonstrate such incredulity is to make a creationist-like statement. When creationists say things like "how can you have a watch without a watchmaker" it offers an insight into the kind of thinking which points to the incredulity. Some are no doubt better than others, the watchmaker argument is much better than incredulity expressed in "how can chance produce an eye?" or "have you ever seen a dog give birth to a cat?" But at least there's a means to explain why such arguments fail, even if the creationist might not be receptive to correcting that misunderstanding.

So here is my creationist-like incredulity at classic theism:

How can you have agency without an agent?

While I think the statement is self-explanatory, I feel it deserves a little more explanation. The notion of agency is something I feel central to the belief in God. We are told that God hears prayers, heals the sick, watches over us, empathises with us, knows our beliefs, creates order in nature, etc. In other words, God as is described is what we understand as an agent. How can something experience empathy if it has no experience? What does it even mean for an abstract to be omniscient? To know implies cognition, an abstract cannot have cognition as cognition necessitates experience.

There's no point in praying to an abstract any more than there is to gravity. There's no point in worshipping an abstract any more than there is in worshipping pi. There's no point in saying that something has divine authorship, unless it is meant in the most diffuse sense - in the same way as describing the big bang as causing authorship. And there's certainly no point in making arguments to design any more than crediting the idea of a unicorn as a designer.


I can't see how a classical theist could even possibly hope to reconcile anything that makes God worthy of the concept with what they profess to believe in. The best I can gather is that it's a more philosophically-defensible position, a concept can be used as a grounding to any problem of regress, yet at the same time carry the cultural baggage that comes with the concept unchecked. Just start with existence being a necessary quality of maximal greatness and from there the sacrifice on the cross is defended on classical grounds.

I honestly don't think that there are many people who really are classical theists, but traditional theists - believing in some form of agency but that which is unlike (but analogous to) what we know as agency. That God has a mind, that God has the capacity to observe and interact, and that we can have a relationship with such an entity. I'm not sure if traditional theism is anywhere more coherent than classical theism, but at least it seems in line with the conception of what God is meant to be. Because describing an abstract with terms that only make sense to use on an intelligent agent seems as confused as describing God with the quality of carbonated, yet God is not a soft drink.

Morning Scepticism: Presuppositions

One really devious tactic of argument is to take the argument away from the merits of what's in question, and turn it into a conflict of worldviews. Take homoeopathy, for example, that instead of arguing that homoeopathy is reasonable, it would be to take the opponents of homoeopathy as being materialists and that the criticisms of homoeopathy only work under that commitment to materialism. The tactic, in effect, is saying that the proponent and the sceptic are working in different realities, and thus the debate shifts to the relative merits of the worldviews rather than the topic at hand. In other words, any unreasonableness of a given proposition can be hidden behind the alleged absurdity of the sceptic's prior commitments.

And that pesky problem that the presupposition may be a conclusion rather than a prior commitment? That's letting accuracy get in the way of apologetics.

Morning Scepticism: Pseudoreligion

When science is done wrong, it's called pseudoscience. It's pseudoscience because it's theoretically or empirically unfounded and making scientific claims that don't sit within the body of knowledge that is collectively referred to as scientific knowledge. Now it's often said that like bad science, there is bad religion. That is religion done right is a good thing while religion gone wrong is the problem. That sounds reasonable, except by what standard does religion become a pseudoreligion? With science, there's the strength of the claim proportional to the evidence and the commitment to methodology. I really don't see a parallel when it comes to religion going wrong.

The only way it makes sense to me is that religion gone wrong is akin to describing the atomic bomb as science gone wrong. The science is just fine, it's just the negative consequences that came from its use.

Morning Scepticism: Problem Of Indifference

The problem of evil is a devastating argument against God - taken by many as an argument for atheism, and taken seriously by believers. The concept of natural evil is particularly hard to shake off, and for good reason too. While it's debatable that free will can explain what agents do to each other, how does one explain the devastation of an earthquake? Yet an earthquake is not inherently evil in itself, it's a consequence of living on the planet we do. And this is where I think there's a problem of indifference rather than one of evil.

The universe does what it does irrespective to the desires of humanity. while people can attribute floods to God's wrath or ponder the ultimate greater good that comes from such an event, the notion that the flood is just a flood is far more devastating emotionally. There's nothing to reconcile because there's nothing there. We could be wiped out tomorrow by an asteroid and the universe would continue without us. Natural evil might pose an apparent contradiction, but at least there's something there to be seemingly contradictory.