Posts by slimboyfat

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

slimboyfat

I am talking about what JWs believe. I never said it made sense (generation?). You may be right there is a certain tension between the belief that life comes from life and their allowing for the idea that scientists may be able to create life (the intelligent designer argument notwithstanding). It is what it is.

36

Easier to be a JW now?

by Xanthippe in

reading konceptual's account of talking to cart 'witnesses' and it reminded me that when we left in '89 we thought the religion would do one of two things.

get more hardline, consequently lose members and eventually come to an end in some way.

or ease up on the members, fewer rules, less fs time, less meetings, just to keep them in.. all the recent apostate stuff, treatment of dfed kids and the hardline attitude to people who leave or try to fade has confused me, made me think they are harder on the r+f., but i don't think this is true.

slimboyfat

A JW said to me the other week, why don't you come back to the meetings? There's only two meetings a week now, and you can go on the carts instead of door to door. As like a selling point. There's also the implied threat that you are "bad association" if you don't go back to meetings.

I think a few things are happening at once. They are reducing the literature published for cost reasons. They reduced the number of meetings for legal reasons and to reduce pressure on dwindling elder numbers. They are tidying up inconvenient doctrine like generations, types, faithful slave, some more successfully than others. They are also trying to stem the flow out of the organisation by 1) strongly discouraging education and 2) trying to cut ties between active JWs and former or inactive JWs.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

slimboyfat

I asked a JW at a Witness cart yesterday if he thought scientists would ever be able to create life. He gave the same answer as the brochure. Which I thought was interesting because I don't know if it's the answer I would have given as a JW. He said it's possible scientists could be able to create life at some point, but that this would only go to show that life comes from life, and intelligent life (the scientist) is required in order to make life. He said scientists might be able to make simple life at some stage but he doubted they would ever be able to make creatures as complex as humans. Which I thought was interesting because I think many conceive of the leap between non-life and life is not as great as the leap to consciousness.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

So you think it is reasonable to dismiss his ideas about secular morality as "crazy" and "dangerous" without having read what he actually wrote about it.

Well I listened to his talk. And I've read quite a bit of his stuff and watched a number of interviews.

And how come you dismiss social constructionism without first reading an advocate? Ken Gergen is my favourite. When is a bottle not a bottle?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invitation-Social-Construction-Kenneth-Gergen/dp/1446296482/

https://youtu.be/-AsKFFX9Ib0

I bought The Moral Landscape today and I've read a little bit. It's quite easy to read but what I find annoying is the unspoken agenda.

Harris first softens you up by saying we all agree it's wrong for fathers to kill daughters in the name of honour, don't we? Yes we all agree on that. So there are moral absolutes and culture can't excuse bad behaviour. But before you know it he's got us profiling Muslims and banning them from the country, on the basis of "scientific ethics".

Harris seems terribly disturbed by the idea that there might not be a fixed answer to ethical issues. If there is a correct answer to the boiling point of water then why can't there be correct answers to ethical dilemmas?

In a community, ethical questions are best settled by discussion and consensus. This is the sort of model Rortian pragmatism would suggest. The reason Harris can't stand this approach is that, although he starts his argument with examples no one would dispute (serial killers are bad), what he is really interested in finding is a basis on which to claim his own ethical solutions are more scientific than the majority or consensus view.

In other words he is attempting to use "science" as a basis for saying that his own ethical judgements should be preferred even when they run counter to the common sense view or the current consensus. This cuts out the pesky business of having to discuss, reason, and take others' views into account!

But there's just one basic thing I'd like to know. Why should Sam Harris be taken seriously as a moral philosopher? Would you take someone seriously on evolutionary biology who had not written any peer reviewed work on the subject, who didn't engage with the existing literature, and any reviews from experts in the subject were negative? That seems to be the situation with Sam Harris on moral philosophy. If you wouldn't accept is in evolutionary biology, why accept it in moral philosophy?

These are the academic reviews of Sam Harris's The Moral Landscape I could find. The first thing to notice is that the book has been largely igored in the main academic journals on the subject. It is not considered a serious intervention in academic discussion of,moral philosophy. The second thing to notice is that reviews from experts on the subject are negative. If there are positive reviews in philosophy journals I'd be interested to see them.

Earp, B. D. (2016). Science cannot determine human values. Think, 15(43), 17-23.

Blackford, R. (2010). Book Review: Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. Journal of Evolution and Technology, 21(2), 53-62.

Pigliucci, M. (2013). New Atheism and the scientistic turn in the atheism movement. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 37(1), 142-153.

This one in particular is worth reading.

http://philpapers.org/archive/PIGNAA.pdf

Pigliucci, M. (2015). Scientism and pseudoscience: A philosophical commentary. Journal of bioethical inquiry, 12(4), 569-575.

Kaufman, W. R. (2012). Can Science Determine Moral Values? A Reply to Sam Harris. Neuroethics, 5(1), 55-65.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

Lots of good answers, but no one mentioned the right answer yet. I haven't got much time today.

32

What Happens to Adam and Eve?

by Cold Steel in

in jw theology, what happens to adam and eve?

are they resurrected and become heirs to paradise on earth?

or will they become two of the heavenly class?

slimboyfat

Page 124 of the Divine Plan of the Ages (1913 edition) seems to say God foresaw that Adam would sin.

God not only foresaw that, having given man freedom of choice, he would, through lack of full appreciation of sin and its results, accept it, but he also saw that, becoming acquainted with it, he would still choose it, because that acquaintance would so impair his moral nature that evil would gradually become more agreeable and more desirable to him than good. Still, God designed to permit evil, because, having the remedy provided for man's release from its consequences, he saw that the result would be to lead him, through experience, to a full appreciation of "the exceeding sinfulness of sin" and of the matchless brilliance of virtue in contrast with it - thus teaching him the more to love and honour his creator, who is the source and fountain of all goodness, and forever shun that which brought him so much woe and misery.

So Russell taught what JWs would later come to reject - that God knew Adam would sin and it was part of his plan. Russell also claims that Adam's test was no farce and he was given a choice.

http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2011006

32

What Happens to Adam and Eve?

by Cold Steel in

in jw theology, what happens to adam and eve?

are they resurrected and become heirs to paradise on earth?

or will they become two of the heavenly class?

slimboyfat

Russell believed that god always intended the sin of Adam, it was part of his "Divine Plan of the Ages".

I have never seen this. Have you got a reference?

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

I just watched the video again. I have not read the book you mention, but I have read a book by Harris about free will and his "Letter to a Christian Nation". I didn't like either, in fact I'd say it's a case of I want the time back please.

A key quote in his speech there was his comment that, "some ideas just need to be excluded", or along those lines. What does he mean by that? Does he mean literally ban certain ideas? If so, we have a dictator. If not, if he simply means that we should all agree Ted Bumdy was bad - we do that already. We don't need science to tell us that. In fact it's not clear how science can tell us that.

Either Harris is saying that the idea that Bundy was good should be banned, which is ridiculous, of he is saying that we should all agree such an opinion is wrong, which is obvious. Most of what Harris says can similarly be divided into the obvious and the ridiculous.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

Viv you can add anything to any imaginary list you like as far as I am concerned. You never back up anything you say. If you ever make an actual argument in favour of any of the claims you make, there will be something to discuss.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

John Mann there was nothing wrong with your definition. Don't let Viv give you the run around. I think Cofty is correct positivists allow that logic can deliver some knowledge also, but this is limited. You're right that the main idea is that only science can deliver true knowledge. In previous conversation Cofty has claimed that science can even tell us the answers to ethical questions. It's a kind of madness. I realised later that this "science of ethics" was an idea that Sam Harris has tried to promote. He is completely barmy, and I think many are now seeing through him and how shallow his arguments are. And not just shallow but dangerous, with his "let's nuke the Middle East first" argument, and his support for Trump-style profiling and Muslim ban. If those are the ethical conclusions his "science" arrives at, he can keep it.

Here it is, positivism driven to its ultimate, and crazy, logical conclusion.

https://youtu.be/Hj9oB4zpHww