UnderAgeThinker

I am generally a moral absolutist.  I believe that there is a right and wrong path to take on moral issues.  However I also believe that decisions must made completly on a case by case basis.  I believe that in the exact situation, defined by the exact parameters X, there is a right and a wrong.  X parameters will never exist again, so you cannot use X as an exact precedent for any future situations.  X can at best be an imperfect analogy to learn from. 

An interesting facet of this is that, two very similar situations in two different times or locations could have opposite correct answers.  This starts to sound allot like relativism but it is not.  I will use an example that most of us are familiar with, getting a job. 

1. You submit your CV to Mr. Z, HR manager for the company you want to work for.

2.  You make a follow up call to make sure Z got your CV, and he did.

3.  You hear nothing from Z.

4.  To get a job you will need to be persistent.

5. Calling again would mean that you believe that (A) Z is incompetent or that (B) he has rejected you and you don’t care.
           (A) is insulting
           (B) is dehumanizing

6.  There is a moral imperative to support yourself and your family.  Unless you have deep pockets or some other means of making a living that, means you need a job. 

In this case, I believe that (6) trumps (5) and you should be persistent.  However in a more Utopian world, where people have progressed mentally and ethically, there would be no (4) and so you should notcall again.  This is because the man on the street and Mr. Z alike, would both be aware of how rude it is to call someone after they have dealt you a de facto rejection.  We do not live in this world and so Mr. Z actually expects you to follow up several times if you really want the job. 

So in a more perfect world there are more exacting standards of right and wrong.  I do believe that society (or humanity) can progress to higher level, where the higher standards would apply.  I also believe that we can regress, and have been doing allot more of that lately.

So I believe there is an absolute right and wrong relative to the exact parameters of the situation.  If there were no absolutes, it would be an amoral world.  If there were absolutes irregardless of the parameters, legalism would determine right and wrong.  This is one reason why Christianity is the only major world religion that is plausibly right.  In Christianity there are absolutes but there is not legalism.  This is because Christianity is a relationship, Christians are to seek council from God on issues, rather than citing case law.

*I know Uniquanatismis not a word.  I also know that it does not mean anything.  The point is that there are absolutes and every situation is absolutely unique. 

I went to see the Golden Compass yesterday, as I said I would.  I thought it was a good movie overall and I expect that the book is much better.  It did suffer from what I call Lord of the Rings syndrome,or LOTRS for short.  LOTRS occurs when a production team attempts to fit a long and complex story into a movie.  The LOTR all told, was at least nine hours long and an incredible movie but it did not do the story justice at all.  It was like a condensed children’s version of the story but, to do it right they would have had to at least double the length.  No one wants to sit through that so, they did the best they could.  I suspect the Golden Compassis the same way, though I still have not read it.  They had to tell the story, introduce the audience to a foreign universe, introduce new characters, and get the audience emotionally invested in the characters’ individual plights all in less than two hours.  Still it is more than worth the price of a movie ticket.  The polar bear fight is worth the price of a movie ticket. 

So what is my fundamentalist Christian take on the movie?  Well, one of the primary reasons I wanted to see the movie was to see if they could make a entertaining good v. evil story, without it being an allegory for Christ.  They could not.  I think this is telling.  It was (and is, it is a trilogy so the story is not over) a beautiful messiah narrative.  The Christian undertones where at least as strong as the Chronicles of Narnia. C.S. Lewis would have been proud to call it his own. 

I find it interesting that the Magisterium, the organization that represents the church or religion and evil looks more like a secular anti-religious organization than a church.  The truththat the Magisterium is attempting to stamp out is a world filled with the supernatural and the mystical.  The most poignant example of this is the daemons.  In Pullman’s universe, the souls of humans walk beside them at all times in the form of animals, known as daemons.  They are like the person’s spirit.  They are part of what makes a person who they are.  The Magisterium preforms experiments to deprive children of their daemons, that is their souls.  So, the Magisterium is working to rid the world of the spiritual.  That does not sound like any religion that I know of. 

The heroes of the story are attempting to preserve the truth and the villains are persecuting them, in an attempt to smother the truth.  This is exactly the story of the early church and persecution by the Roman Empire and others.  It is the story of the protestant revolution and persecution by the Vatican.  It is a Christian story. 

I still await the day when some one will have the creativity to make a good and evil story with out paralleling reality. 

See also my previous post on the Golden Compass, The Compass and the Cross

I hope you have enjoyed reading my previous two posts entitled, The Barnyard Dialogues, “Part I, Two Chickens Take on the Problem of Evil” and “Part II, Two Chickens Take another Swipe at the Problem of Evil.”  .  If you have not then, click the links and enjoy them. 

If you have read them then I’m sure you are aware that they are written as satire and not merely for entertainment value.  I want to present here a partial explanation of what was meant by the stories.  I want to say here, what I meant to say there, only this time without any talking chickens.  So here goes.

As the subtitles say, the story is about the problem of evil.  For those of you who are not familiar with the problem of evil, I have placed the “Logical Problem of Evil” below.  It is taken from Wikipedia.

Logical problem of evil

1. God exists. (premise)
2. God is omnipotent and omniscient. (premise — or true by definition of the word “God”)
3. God is all-benevolent. (premise — or true by definition)
4. All-benevolent beings are opposed to all evil. (premise — or true by definition)
5. All-benevolent beings who can eliminate evil will do so immediately when they become aware of it. (premise)
6. God is opposed to all evil. (conclusion from 3 and 4)
7. God can eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 2)
   1. Whatever the end result of suffering is, God can bring it about by ways that do not include suffering. (conclusion from 2)
   2. God has no reason not to eliminate evil. (conclusion from 7.1)
   3. God has no reason not to act immediately. (conclusion from 5)
8. God will eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 6, 7.2 and 7.3)
9. Evil exists, has existed, and probably will always exist. (premise)
10. Items 8 and 9 are contradictory; therefore, one or more of the premises is false: either God does not exist, evil does not exist, or God is not simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent (i.e. God is omnipotent and omniscient but not all-benevolent, omnipotent and all-benevolent but not omniscient, or omniscient and all-benevolent but not omnipotent).

To be simplistic and brief, the problem of evil says that a good god and evil cannot co-exist, therefore one or the other must not exist.  Because most people have experienced evil in some form, it is used to make a case against the existence of god.  A solution to the problem of evil is called a “theodicy”.  Though many different theodicies exist, what I have tried to demonstrate through the Barnyard Dialogues is a particular theodicy based on semantics.  I suspect that others have noticed it before me and, I believe that this should only lend credence to it.  I will explain it below.

Evil is not an entity that exists on its own merit.  Evil exists as a parasite to good.  In the absolute absence of good there could be no evil.  The opposite is not true, good does not require evil in order to be good.  Something is good when it fulfills the purpose it was meant to serve.  Something lacks goodness when it fails to fulfill the purpose it was meant for.  Something is evil when it fulfills a purpose contrary to what it was meant for.  Therefore, having a good purpose is a prerequisite for being evil. 

So in order to call something evil someone, must first give it a purpose for it to pervert.  So Evil must be defined in relation to somebody.  The vast majority of the time evil is defined in relation to either man or to God. 

In the first illustration with the chickens, Clare defines Evil (missing eggs) by chickens (man).  She then comes to the conclusion that because evil exists, the farmer (God) must not.  She sees this as a mistake when she learns that the farmer is the one taking the eggs for his own good purpose.  In the Problem of Evil, it is a mistake to define evil on man’s terms and then apply it to God.  God is by definition a greater being than man, just as the farmer in the story, is a greater being than the chickens. 

In Part II, Clare defines evil in terms of the farmer (God) but this also is a mistake as it presupposes that the farmer does in fact exist.  If evil as defined by God exists then, God must exist.  If God does not exist, then neither does evil as defined by God and the whole argument falls apart as, evil must exist in order to be a problem. 

It seems to me that the problem of evil is that it cannot be defined in terms that would cast doubt on the existence of God. 

Click for Barnyard Dialogues Part 1 

The Scene: Two Chickens in nesting boxes at night.

Clare: You still awake, Marsha?

Marsha:

Clare: Marsha!

Marsha: Hu! What?

Clare: I’ve been doing some figuring again

Marsha: The kind you do with your toes, or the kind you do with your brain?

Clare: The brain kind.

Marsha: Clare, the last time you did brain figures, you set my rheumatoids off into a scuttle and I laid pear shaped eggs for three weeks!  Besides, I talked to Herman the Goat, and he told me all about the eggs.

Clare: You spoke with Herman the Goat?  What did he say?

Marsha: He said that you’re just an afarmerist and he’s seen your kind before.  And he told me what really happens to our eggs.

Clare: Well out with it!  What did he say?

Marsha: Well, you’re not going to believe this but… I didn’t believe it either when Herman the Goat first told me but…

Clare: Marsha!

Marsha: OK. Herman the Goat said that what really happens to the eggs is that… that the farmer takes em!

Clare: What?!  What would the farmer want with our eggs?

Marsha: He takes them in the house so that his wife can sit on them.  Herman the Goat says that she can’t lay eggs.  It has something to do with the blue jean overalls getting the way, but he reckons that a woman of her girth could sit on at least three dozen at a time!

Clare: Well I’ll be!  If I had teeth, I’d whistle through em!  How did Herman the Goat get to be so smart?

Marsha: The beard and the trash.

Clare: What?

Marsha:Its the beard and the trash.  That’s what makes him so smart.  Just think about it for a second.  The beard is what Herman the Goat has that no other animal has.

Clare: Hmmm.  Makes sense, but what about the trash?

Marsha: Well, important documents and manuscripts and such get put in the trash.  Herman the Goat, he eats the trash, see?  Well when he finds an important manuscript, he doesn’t eat it straight away. 

Clare: He doesn’t?

Marsha: Nope, he reads it first.  Then he eats it.

Clare: He never ceases to amaze.

Marsha: And you know the farmer’s wife tells him important stuff too.  Just the other day, she had to tell him something so important that she yelled it out the kitchen window instead of walking outside to tell him.

Clare: What was it?

Marsha: “Herman, zen tha turn up patcha gin!”  And do you know what he did?

Clare: What?

Marsha: He kicked up his hoofs and ran off as fast as he could to take care of whatever emergency it was that she told him about!

Clare: What a trooper!

Marsha: So, the point is that, the farmer takes the eggs so that his wife can sit on them.  That is not evil and, that should be the end of your nonsense about the farmer not existing.

 Clare: Oh, but that is what I was going to tell you.

Marsha: What?

Clare: I have another theory about the farmer.  This one has nothing to do with eggs.

Marsha: What is it this time?

Clare: Its Old Stella.

Marsha: What about her?

Clare: Well, didn’t you hear?

Marsha: No?  I don’t think so?

Clare: She finally kicked the bucket!

Marsha: No! You don’t say!

Clare: Yep, she just up and keeled over, by the windmill yesterday mornin’.

Marsha: Was it the droppsies?

Clare: I heard it was cold feet, but of course I can’t be sure.

Marsha: Well that’s a shame.  She was a good hen.

Clare: That’s my point.

Marsha: What’s your point?

Clare: That she was a good hen.  She was a prize layer.  The farmer paid sixteen dollars for her at the fair.

Marsha: Sixteen!

Clare: Yes, sixteen.  Least-ways, that’s what Thelma told me.  So, my theory about the farmer and the eggs didn’t work…

Marsha: No, it sure didn’t.  The farmer exists and he is the one taking the eggs, so its not an evil after all.

Clare: Well I’m still not convinced.

Marsha: Oh Clare!  Give it a rest!

Clare: Just hear me out.

Marsha: Remember my rheumatoids.

Clare: The farmer needs chickens, right?  Its part of being a farmer, right?

Marsha: Makes sense.

Clare: So, Old Stella, being what she is…

Marsha: MmmmHmmm.

Clare: Well that’s an evil that even the farmer would see.  He’s out sixteen dollars!  He’s got to replace Stella!

Marsha: Clare, I’m starting to get goose-pimply again.

Clare:  How could the farmer allow such a thing to happen?

Marsha: Clare.

Clare: The farmer cannot exist!

Marsha: Clare!

Clare: At last! I have proved it!

Marsha: Oh oh! I just don’t know what to think!  Now you’ve got me thinking like an afarmerist!

Clare: Yeah?  How’s it feel?

Marsha:  Oh, My feathers are all in a tizzle!  I need to talk to Herman the Goat about this.  I’m sure he’s got an expla –Ploop– You’ve made me go and lay an egg!

Clare: Is it pear-shaped?

Marsha: No. Its more like a potato! 

Clare: Well, the truth can be difficult to swallow at first. 

The scene: Two chickens (hens) in a barnyard, early one morning, happily pecking away at grain and grasshoppers.

Clare: (pausing from pecking) Marsha,?

Marsha: -Peck, peck- Yes, Clare? What is it?

Clare: I’ve been doing some figuring, and…

Marsha: (Interrupting) Do you count with you back toes too?

 Clare: What?

Marsha: When doin your figures…do you count on your back toes or just the front three?

Clare: No. No. Not that kind of figuring.  I mean, I’ve been thinking about something.

Marsha: Well -Peck- do you?  Use your back toe, I mean.

Clare: Well…I, only when the numbers are greater than six.  But that’s not what I was talking about.  I was thinking about our eggs.

 Marsha: What about them?

Clare: They were gone again last night, when we went back into the barn.

Marsha: Well, so -peck, peck- what?  They’re gone every night.

Clare: Yes, that’s just it.  We spend all night laying eggs and sitting on them and the next night they are gone again! 

Marsha: Clare Honey, you have a brain smaller than a shelled pecan.  Leave the thinking to the goats, and use your back toes when doin your figures. 

Clare: No.  Don’t you see what I’m getting at?

Marsha: I see what you’re not getting at.  Grasshoppers, that’s what.

Clare:  The farmer.  I’m getting at the farmer!

Marsha: Where is the farmer any way? -peck-

Clare: Oh, I think he’s in the barn, cleaning out our nesting boxes.  But, what I was saying was… The farmer is good right?

Marsha: There’s one!

Clare: (turning quickly) -Peck- mmmm… thanks, Marsha. -Gulp-… So the farmer is good, right?  I mean he gives us cracked corn, he cleans out our nesting boxes, he keeps the fox away…

Marsha: Yeah?

Clare: And, he is powerful.  No one else can drive the tractor, or get cracked corn.

Marsha: -Peck- Or -peck- kill snakes.

Clare: The dog killed a snake, last April.

Marsha: That’s true.

Clare: But, the dog works for the farmer, so that still counts.

Marsha: Good, I thought so.

Clare: So the farmer is good and he can do all these things.  Why doesn’t he save our eggs!

Marsha: What!?

Clare: He is good, so he wants to save our eggs.

Marsha: Well, yeah.

Clare: And, he should be able to.  After all, if he can drive a tractor and kill snakes then surely he can save our eggs!

Marsha: So what exactly are you getting at?

Clare: Well what I was thinkin was that maybe, the farmer doesn’t exist at all.

Marsha: Oh, Clare! shhh.  Sit down. You are giving me the heebie-jeebies!  Of course the farmer exists, he is in the barn right now!  I told you to leave the thinking to the goats.

Clare:  Maybe we just think he exists.  Maybe our primitive ancestors made up the farmer to explain where the cracked corn comes from.  All this time we have been deceiving ourselves into thinking we see the farmer when in reality he does not exist at all! 

Marsha: Oh, oh, I just don’t know what to think of all this!  You’ve made me goose-pimply all over and made my feathers stand on end! 

Clare: You said it yourself, we have brains the size of a shelled pecan.  We have been deceived all this time! 

Marsha:  I said you had a brain smaller than a shelled pecan, and I’m sure of it now!

Clare: (gazing up) I feel as if I have broken through a glass ceiling and a new age has begun! -peck-

Barnyard Dialogues Part II

Intelligent Design and its proponents have been accused of making a war on science.  However, most of the leading figures in the I.D. movement are themselves scientists.  It is not a matter of method; the methods of I.D. scientists are scientific.  They are more or less identical to those used in archeology and forensics.  The reason I.D. is denounced by the scientific community is the conclusion drawn.  According to Dr. William Dembski, I.D. is, “the study of patterns in nature that are best described as signs of intelligence.”  It is these signs of intelligence that have the conventional scientific community up in arms.  They take offence not because the conclusions are not logical and not because the methods are not scientific* but rather because, the materialist ideology that pervades in the scientific community does not allow for the possibility of intelligence.  Some scientists are willing to entertain the idea of a designing intelligence but not scientifically.  That kind of thing is in their view, for the church to deal with and not the scientific community.  These scientist believe that science is the study of what is natural and thus anything invoking the supernatural is by definition not science.  The I.D. scientists are fighting for a broader definition of science, one that would allow for the possibility of the supernatural when that is the most logical conclusion.  Thus, they are not fighting against science but rather to reform it.  Just as protestants did not fight against the church but to reform it and that era is now know as the Protestant Reformation.  What is being attempted by the I.D. proponents is a scientific reformation not a war on science. 

So this all comes down to who’s definition of what is scientific you accept.  Those who hold to the narrower view of science do not say that the I.D. researchers do not have a rightto do their research but that it is not scientific.  So if everyone is willing to live and let live, what is the big deal?  Why get hung up on who is scientific and who is not?  The answer is two fold, schooling and money.  If the broader definition of science is accepted then the I.D. proponents would be officially doing “science” and could apply for and get government grants.  These grants would then not go to the scientists who are today fighting for the narrower definition. 

If I.D. is accepted as science it would also be taught in the science class along side with and as a competing theory to evolution.  Evolution is the sacred cow of materialist ideology.  Richard Dawkins said, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”  For the materialists, teaching anything that competes with evolution in a science class is like teaching the Quran in Sunday school.  It simply cannot be done. 

While I haven’t thought of a way to solve the first dilemma accept for the government to stop giving out research grants altogether (and stop taxing us for them!).  I believe I can solve the problem of the competing theories in the classroom and it seems only logical.  Aristotle. 

That’s it.  Aristotle solved this problem way way back when.  You see today what is known as the theory of evolution is said (by mainstream scientists) to be a scientific fact.  Michael Ruse famously said, “Evolution is fact, Fact, FACT!”  I suspect that some I.D. proponents would say (though they are not as loud) that intelligent design theory is a scientific fact.  Both of these “scientific facts” are called theories, even by their supporters.  This is because no one alive today witnessed the dawn of the universe (or of life), no one wrote down what happened (religious texts aside), and no photographs of the event survive.  So no matter the volume of evidence that is collected to support any particular theory, it will all be circumstantial and thus subject to interpretation and not of sufficient quality to be proof beyond any doubt. 

So what does Aristotle have to do with all of this?  Aristotle distinguished between general knowledge and scientific knowledge.  The scientists who hold to the narrower view of science and still believe in the supernatural are making a distinction between kinds of knowledge as well.  Another example of this distinction is demonstrated by the difference in the phrases, “beyond reasonable doubt” and “beyond the shadow of a doubt.”  Aristotle said that for any knowledge to qualify as scientific knowledge required demonstration.  What is meant by demonstration, is that not only do we know something, but we know that it must necessarily be, and cannot not be.  This is the criteria that I propose we use in determining what is a scientific fact.  The very fact that there is debate about I.D. and evolution excludes both of them.  So neither need be or should be in a science class. 

*I am obviously not saying that mainline scientists accept the claims of I.D.  They do however give de facto recognition to both the logic and the methods through their acceptance of archeology, forensics, and the like as legitimate scientific fields of study. 

I am not a Ron Paul hater.  I am pretty close to him on some issues.  He speaks his mind and knows what he believes.  That is more than I can say for most politicians and I respect him for that.  Yesterday however, during the YouTube/CNN dabate he sealed his fate.  When asked about his plan for Iraq, Ron Paul’s answer not only sounded anti-military and anti-American but showed that he doesn’t understand the enemy we face in this war on Islamic terror. 

He said that we should pull our troops out of Iraq.  This alone is not surprising, but then he said that one of the primary reasons for the attacks of September 11th was the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia and that we should pull out of there as well.  This is where he displayed his ignorance. 

The Islamofascists are waging a holy war.  Ron Paul doesn’t seem to get this.  They truly have faith that what they are doing is the will of Allah and is therefore not only justified but obligatory.  When they say that they are waging jihad it is not just rhetoric, they mean it.  It is not difficult to see why they are fighting, it is not because we have a base in Saudi Arabia, it is because their religion tells them to.

“And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah. But if they cease, then lo! Allah is Seer of what they do.”  Surrah (Quran) 8:39 Pickthall*

It is not hard to find, the Quran is in public domain!  If Ron Paul doesn’t understand that they attacked us because we are infidels then he would endanger the nation and the world as president.  I withdraw my support for his candidacy.

*Note: I changed the translation of Quran quotation due to complaints about the accuracy of the previous translation.  Pickthall is the most respected English translation of the Quran to my knowledge.

Often times people use the statement “there is no controversy” when engaged in a debate. It has enjoyed wide usage recently in the Evolution and Intelligent Design debates.

The purpose is to express the certainty of one’s position, however there is an inherent problem with the phrase. The only reason someone would feel compelled to make such a statement is that there in fact is controversy. If there truly were no controversy, there would be no need to say so. This makes the statement (when coupled with the only logical reason for making it) inherently dishonest. It also means the person making it is either ignorant of the fact or intentionally and dishonestly appealing to the emotion of the audience rather than to their intellect.

Generally what is meant by the phrase is not that there is no controversy, but rather “I give no credibility to the arguments of the other side or the proponents of these arguments.” To say this outright would sound derogatory and condescending. To cloak it in “there is no controversy” makes one sound like an enlightened expert to an uncritical or favorable audience. No matter the perception of the audience, it is still derogatory, condescending, and a dishonest method of winning an argument.

The Statement, “there is no controversy”, betrays the fact that there is a controversy and you feel compelled to hide it.