Original Sin?

Quote: FrGamble

I'm sorry to say this but that is one fucked up universe and it is not the universe I live in,

Sure it is. What protected the people in
the death camps of the Holocaust. Did
you see the universe doing a lot of caring
and protecting there? Where was the
caring universe when we slaughtered
thousands of Native American women
and children in the name of progress.
It's the world we all live in, are you just
realizing that?

Your god is as impotent as all made up
god's are. Why is that a surprise to you.

Quote: Evenbob

Sure it is. What protected the people in
the death camps of the Holocaust. Did
you see the universe doing a lot of caring
and protecting there? Where was the
caring universe when we slaughtered
thousands of Native American women
and children in the name of progress.
It's the world we all live in, are you just
realizing that?

Your god is as impotent as all made up
god's are. Why is that a surprise to you.

BOB you can't do this! In making the universe neutral you have neutered yourself. You can't claim there is no moral or immoral act and then agree with me that the Holocaust and the treatment of Native Americans was evil or immoral. You have clearly said that the universe doesn't care. Why should you care then if some people decided the lives of Jews and Native Americans were about as equal in importance to them as a cockroaches? For you the universe is not uncaring, it just is. Your thought has robbed you of the ability to say something is wrong or good and in my mind robbed you of much of the respect I had for you. You have made yourself so impotent in this argument that I can't stand to hear your response.

Quote: FrGamble

The error is in you assuming these simple particles are the designers or planners of this progression or that such things can happen without a plan or design.

I certainly did not expect a cheap "intelligent design" argument from you.

We have seen simple components organize into complex structures. We have seen no evidence of a design, a plan or a designer.


What your argument boils down to is: if we don't know something, that means the entirety of the Jehovah/Jesus/Secret God belief is true. The lack of evidence is the best evidence of all.

Quote: FrGamble

BOB you can't do this! In making the universe neutral you have neutered yourself. You can't claim there is no moral or immoral act and then agree with me that the Holocaust and the treatment of Native Americans was evil or immoral. You have clearly said that the universe doesn't care. Why should you care then if some people decided the lives of Jews and Native Americans were about as equal in importance to them as a cockroaches? For you the universe is not uncaring, it just is. Your thought has robbed you of the ability to say something is wrong or good and in my mind robbed you of much of the respect I had for you. You have made yourself so impotent in this argument that I can't stand to hear your response.

I'm afraid that I agree that the universe does not care.

People care. Or not. People decide, by whatever means, what is moral, or not.

Inanimate objects do not care. Most living things do not care. Some living things have a limited ability to care.

I do not believe that morality is built into the physical laws of the universe.

Maybe intelligent design made it so that people can care. That's fine, but still only mostly people care. Nothing else even has the ability.

Quote: FrGamble

You have clearly said that the universe doesn't care. .

It clearly doesn't. We're the ones who
can care if we want to, though a lot
of people don't.

Quote: FrGamble

Why should you care then if some people decided the lives of Jews and Native Americans were about as equal in importance to them as a cockroaches?

Is this a trick question? You really think
only god can decide what's right or
wrong? You think without god telling
you what to think, you would be clueless?
You sure don't have much faith in human
nature. Have you forgotten atheists in
prison are almost nonexistent, but prisons
are loaded to the rafters with god fearing
Christians? How can that be?

Morality springs from within, it's missing
in nature and the universe. You can wait
all your life for god to swoop in and do
the right thing, or anything at all for that
matter. He doesn't exist, remember?

Quote: Dalex64

I'm afraid that I agree that the universe does not care.
People care. Or not. People decide, by whatever means, what is moral, or not.

Exactly. The universe is a neutral place,
how could it be anything else. Morality
is a human invention. Thinking the
universe or nature cares about you can
get you killed in short order, under
the right conditions.

I remember a story about some
American missionaries in Africa
40 years ago. They had just
arrived and were young and excited
and hot from the African sun. They
came to a river and stripped off
their clothes for a swim in the cool
water. The natives tried to warn
them there were dangerous creatures
that lived in the river, but the missionaries
said don't worry, Jesus will protect us.
It didn't end well, needless to say.

The universe doesn't care, why would it.

Quote: Dalex64

I do not believe that morality is built into the physical laws of the universe.

Now this is a good philosophical issue.

Morality and ethics are a consequence of the operation of the natural laws of the universe. Discuss. One example is the saying "Nature to be commanded must be obeyed."

Quote: Nareed

Morality and ethics are a consequence of the operation of the natural laws of the universe.

A consequence in humans, certainly not in
animals. They only see themselves, unless
they have young, then it's instinct to put
them first. Morality doesn't exist outside
our need for it to coexist with each other.
Even then, the world is loaded with sociopaths
who have no morals at all. I've known a
few, all they see is themselves in every situation.

What I am hearing is a far less poetic expression of what Jacques Monod said, "[man] must at last awake out of his millenary dream and discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation. He must realize that, like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world; a world that is deaf to his music and as indifferent to his hopes as it is to his suffering and his crimes."

To propose such devastating ideas is nothing other than the end of humanity. We reduce love to chemicals and eventually morality to the survival of what Dawkins calls our "selfish genes". We can no longer call genocide evil. Art, music, and words are only used to distract and entertain, not to uplift or communicate deeper truths. We lose who we are as human beings, the bearers of a torch, a light of goodness and objective moral truth in this alien world. To doubt this is to lose ourselves, our humanity, and to plunge the universe into empty darkness.

I really wish you would all go back to denying God's existence. I can laugh at that and we can argue in peace. To deny moral truths, that there are such things as good and evil is just pure horror and it terrifies me. Bob, said earlier that God is impotent in the universe, I fear that the more people believe in subjective morality or worse yet a morality determined by science (an impossibility!) then God's greatest weapon against evil, namely you and I are indeed made helpless and oh what happens then...

Quote: FrGamble

To deny moral truths, that there are such things as good and evil is just pure horror and it terrifies me. .

That's why you so desperately need god, invented
though he is. Good and evil can't exist outside of
our opinions and concepts. They are not a force in
the universe. But you think they are, so god is a
solace to you, it comforts you to believe he exists.
The universe makes no sense to you without a god.

"[man] must at last awake out of his millenary dream and discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation."

I disagree with this. We aren't isolated, we aren't
alone. We're all in the same boat, so to speak, as
every other creature that lives, or has lived. We
live, we die, we all do it. Again and again and again,
forever.