401. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176632 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 8:08 pm

No concerts? I couldn't live my life without that... music is so essential to me. Whether classical, jazz, metal or even progressive rock/metal (some of the most complex music around today, with many of best instrumentalists)...

A classical concert is of course something different than a rock concert - but I think a huge rock/metal concert is something one should have seen. If the band is great that's wonderful, but even if one is merely indifferent to the music, a huge rock-concert is quite an event, quite the best and most harmless way to observe the sociological, phsychological aspects of mass events with a lot of emotional investigation.

402. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #176629 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 8:00 pm

Alien64,

You do not seem to understand scientific terminology.

There is the fact of evolution - ie the data:
1.We observe mutation caused by radioactivity, radioactive decay is random - the mutation is random.
2. We observe competition over resources, and that some mutations correlate with heightened ability to produce surviving descendants.
3. We observe that genes are coded into proteins, that the information in the genome determines the characteristics of the individual.

These are the facts of evidence.

Something that is not a FACT can never become a FACT.

What is a fact is that the current theory of evolution is the best available explanation for the data. In fact, there are no alternative theories which fulfil the criteria of being scientific and provide explanatory power even remotely approaching that of the theory of evolution.

There is no alternative that:
1. Allows for falsification
1.1. and thereby also corroboration
2.determines a research-program
3.whose protective belt of falsifiable statements is expanding - ie a progressive research-program and
4. Is logically consistent.

"Theory" in science does not mean "wild guess" or "maybe justified guess, but not better than any other position".

The above evidence is factual, and it is also a fact that the theory of evolution is the best available explanation, and is a very predictive and explanatory theory. Also, it is a fact that ID is not science.

You're usage of language betrays creationist/ID indoctrination and(thereby)/or a serious lack of understanding of science.

403. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176617 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 7:29 pm

Catho, concerning your claims to the existence of "Spirit", I have addressed this on a different thread. ("How to Reconcile Richard Dawkins") I have to address this here though:

The Danish cartoons are a classic example - imagine the outcry there would have been if he had depicted Jesus as a peadophile raping altar boys! This sort of pathetic anti-religious propaganda is no better than pro-religious propaganda

Yes, imagine the outcry if someone exercised their right to free speech in a stupid manner offensive to many! No one has a right not to be offended - we cannot limit free speech or any basic liberty for the sole reason to protect the bigotry and narrow-mindedness of a certain group - even if it is the majority.

However, these cartoons are not stupid - they are spot on satire, exposing a real vice, real bigotry, real incoherency, real narrow-mindedness.

But even if that wasn't the case - they would simply be stupid and offensive to some. It's not slander/libel if it attacks specific behaviour and or dogma - in order to be libel/slander it has to make unjustified, damaging attacks on a natural person under the law.

Bad taste possibly (not the case with the danish cartoons or with other scathing depictions of religious symbols I know), but we must never make that illegal.

It is, here in Germany, where the "defamation" of religious symbols or worldviews is apt to cause a disturbance of the piece... this is unjust because it protects the narrow-mindedness of the religious. Because the criterion for unlawfulness is that the people who feel offended are so incapable of handling justified critique and/or simply bad taste attacks that they are likely to riot and resort to violence!

By that logic we should obstain from criticizing the symbols and worldview of the Neo-Nazis because they might riot...

... and aside from that, there are sound arguments that religion is a major "evil" under any reasonable definition, is immoral under any reasonable definition and is irrational. And as such it should be criticized, - good satire is both helpful in that and is an expression of freedom of speech and artistic expression.

404. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176614 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 7:15 pm

Ignore the troll - we have answered all his questions too many times already.
(Now wait for his comment stating that I am wrong because we are just AVOIDING THE TRUTH that BLINDWATCHMAKER is IMPOSSIBLE, as LOGIC^tm shows)

:)

Do not feed - just report.

405. Flea of the week

Comment #176612 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 7:11 pm

The term "fleas" refers to the parasitic nature of these publications - they are parasitic on the books they criticize, they gain popularity, and thereby make money for the author (and publishers) by having "Dawkins" in their title, or other direct references to the titles of the books of Sam, Richard, Daniel and Christopher or their names.

This is not a dehumanization - it as a poetical/literary device to express the parasitic nature of these publications and thus indirectly the parasitic action of the author.

406. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #176610 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 7:06 pm

Catho

allow me to refine Quine's question a little. I am interested to read your response.

In order for us to evaluate your claim, you will have to answer the following questions, clarifying your position:

1. What is the exact ontological status of the proposed "spirit"?
1.1 How does it relate to the concept of spatio-temporal entities?
1.2 How does it relate to the concept of metaphysical entities?

2. What is the epistemological status of your position?(will be dependent on 1)
2.1 What is the epistemic faculty by which we are supposed to be able to know of the existence of that entity ?
2.2 If it is not the faculty of reason, which we here accept as epistemically reliable, what establishes the reliability of that faculty and how?
2.3 How exactly do you determine the epistemic probability of your claim. What are the relevant factors (evidence) and how is the epistemic probability of your claim higher than the epistemic probability of contrary claims, especially given Hume's arguments on epistemic probability (which he made in regard to religious miracles, but which are applicable here)?

407. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176572 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 3:39 pm

To be fair - everything I've heard, seen and read about Wilders is entirely compatible with describing him as a populist, propagandist, right-wing idiot.

408. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176567 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 3:30 pm

Podaar,

Ratzinger is an intellectual - he has refined the definitions and proposed mechanisms of his beliefs so far that they are perfectly compatible with just having a fuzzy feeling. I think he has thought at latest since studying theology (at the university I am enrolled in). For him, it's the Holy Spirit guiding him - he doesn't need to "hear voices" - he has to "feel the presence and guidance of holy spirit".

409. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #176534 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 2:48 pm

Thanks, Teratornis... Actually, that article is quite basic... I think all rational people who have ever encountered someone employing these strategies can identify them...

Sad nevertheless.
I'm just really pissed off by ASMarques, me being a native German who shares no responsibility, and feels no guilt, but acknowledges the responsibility of Germany as a nation (and every other nation as well) to never let such a thing happen again - to remind people to be cautious about nationalism, patriotism, discrimination, marginalisation of non-violent groups etc.

I know of the importance of combined effort, and of the value of "knowing where to look" - I'm a student of philosophy after all :)

410. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176529 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 2:42 pm

People come to SAY homosexuality is wrong via a totally different reasoning process than when they say that murder is wrong.

Not necessarily. People who were fully and successfully indoctrinated into a very strong Chrstianity will come to the belief that killing is wrong for the same reason that everything else they judge to be immoral is wrong - because it is a sin against god and his creation.
Same with masturbation... their justification, their belief in this and the reasons for that are the same, biblical justification and belief in the moral authority of the bible - both indoctrinated.

I understand what would be meant by "more foundational moral beliefs", but not what you mean by "map onto morality" unless you presuppose a set of true moral statements. If, as an anti-realist, you take that out of the equation, what does that mean. Then morality consists only of beliefs, opinions, judgements etc... so how would existing, foundational judgements "map" unto other judgements?
This statement I think again only makes sense when you interpret "map unto morality" with a normative, not a descriptive meaning of "morality"... and in a realist way. But again, this issue is nor about "morality" in the normative sense, but in the descriptive... so I don't see how that statement makes sense.

What they are in fact doing is not expressing a foundational moral judgment, but attempting to connect some event or object in the world to some other, pre-existing moral judgment in a way that differs massively from moral judgments like "Murder is wrong." or "Stealing is (mostly) wrong!"

... I don't think that analysis is correct, because what you forget (or don't acknowledge) is that "being morally right/wrong" is a transitive! (That is also how consequentialism works) When protecting your women from rape is moral, and demanding that they wear a burka is necessary for that, then wearing a burka is moral. On the descriptive level this translates to:

If the belief that "women have to be protected from rape" is a belief about morality, and as such a phenonomenon of morality, and the belief that "it is to be demanded that women wear a burka" is (thought to be) entailed by that/necessary for that, then the latter belief is also a belief about morality, and as such part of the phenomenon of morality.

Also, I think you're not analyzing the motivation sufficiently. Many people believe that what the scripture commands is inherently (qua being a commandment from god) moral! So homosexuality is inherently immoral to many people, and not covering up the skin of women is, too. These, for them, are properly basic moral beliefs. They come to them by the same mechanism - deriving it from their holy scripture.

Furthermore, sometimes such people make consequentialist arguments to defend that tennent of faith as rational - but that is not the motivation, that is just an attempt to get people who don't derive their morality from (the same) scripture to accept it, or cease criticizing it.

And my point in distinguishing this sort of "moral" talk from properly moral talk is that it is prima facie a fair distinction to make.

Thanks, you made your position far clearer to me now. I still think it is wrong because of the transitivity I mentioned.

I think my position is correct because of this transitivity, and, even more basic, because of simple definition:

Rember the four questions of Kant: "What may I hope", "What should I do", "What can I know", "What is man"

Everything that addresses the second question falls - by definition - under the category of "morality" (in a descriptive sense).

"Woman must wear burkas", "Homosexuality is wrong", "Children should not leave the house unsupervised after 8 o clock" is still addressing the question "What should be done?", is still addressing the question of what constitutes proper behaviour. Thereby it is part of morality.

That is the point I was trying to make all the time - it's a simple and obviously adequate definition - not to mention it is the definition that was held throughout the history of philosophy and still is today.

For all propositions p: If p addresses the question of what should/shall be done/accomplished/be the case, then p has the quality of being a moral statement in the descriptive sense of "moral".

If there's a "should", "Shall", "ought to" or equivalent, it's about morality.

The cases you named, someone either connecting a situation, action etc properly to basic moral beliefs, or failing to do so - those would be examples of subjectively justified or unjustified non-basic moral beliefs, but moral beliefs still.

411. Life after Jehovah's Witnesses: website offers help to followers who lose their faith

Comment #176510 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 2:09 pm

D'Arcy...


... had any success whatsoever in talking to them? What was the most that accomplished?

Some Christians, and some Christian sects do not believe in hell as a place of torment. Many (most central-European Christians e.g.) believe it to be "the eternal absence god and separation from loved ones" (which for them is the worst fate imaginable, and the same criticism as to a literal hell applies).

Then there are those who believe in "annihilationalism", that those who aren't saved are simply "annihilated".
This can well be said to contradict scripture and dogma.
For that, (also to use in debate about the inconsistency of annihilationalism), see here:

http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=400

So, basically - the only interpretation coherent with dogma and scripture is that unbelievers suffer eternal torture. And then you got 'em by the balls for being utterly immoral in thinking such a thing to be just.

412. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #176493 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 1:24 pm

Oh please, you're still here, ASMarques? The guy who accuses native Germans, who have (and have had) perhaps the most comprehensive exposure or the fullest access to the evidence, who say the holocaust did happen, of having been brainwashed... puh-leese. Teratornis posed some excellent questions there - I am anxious to read your answers.

413. Life after Jehovah's Witnesses: website offers help to followers who lose their faith

Comment #176450 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 11:19 am

I think a part of it was certainly designed consciously. But I think much or most of the dogmas were engineered for slightly different purposes... keeping the people in check in times and places where there was no functioning law-enforcement mostly. Of course over the decades, centuries, millennia, much changed without consensus and vote ("evolved", for example from God being the "physically present", often interacting, personal, male deity to whose right you could literllay! sit to the "ground of all being" etc), and some changed with consensus and vote (Vatican II for example).

Of course the power to enforce social cohesion through such psychological mechanisms was somehow intended (I think), but not as such as it acts today.

Difficult subject.

414. Life after Jehovah's Witnesses: website offers help to followers who lose their faith

Comment #176445 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 10:58 am

ExJehovahsWitness,

When they change their mind they have a very hard road ahead of them.

But that's exactly the problem with religions, with religious institutions, with religious indoctrination etc... they deliberately make it as hard as possible to give up that faith, to abandon the group, or even to look upon thing objectively.

Assume you take religion seriously - you cannot marry someone who is not a member of your religious organisation because that would mean no religious ceremony, and thus living in sin before god - effect: You have a psychological barrier (erected through indoctrination) not to let yourself fall in love with someone who might question your faith and get you to question your faith.

You cannot just let those who do not follow your denomination be left alone. If you care about other people (which is a character-trait that is also conditioned), you want them not to suffer. Your religion tells you that all those who do not live according to your religion will suffer the worst fate possible: eternal torture/abandonment by god/termination of existence.
Not only this, you will be forever separated from them. Effect: A psychological imperative to convert others (think in memetic terms - very devious indeed).

You cannot grant your children the basic liberty and freedom to make up their own minds, because after all, religion is essential to their well-being, or even their not being punished eternally by god. You care for them, so you have to do anything and everything you can to ensure you will spend eternity reunited with them, and that they will enter the kingdom of heaven. Effect: Employing means that -if successful- make it impossible for your children to recognize fully and develop the ability to make full use of their liberty of conscience, freedom of thought and expression and their right to embrace or reject any religion they want. Spreading the meme - the cycle starts anew.

That's extremely devious... well engineered (not consciously so, but still) - but morally highly repulsive if you ask me. And definitely not compatible with an egalitarian society recognizing the priority of the basic liberties.

-Michael

415. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176441 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 10:45 am

That requires
1. The postulation of moral intuition.
This may be seen as disputable. But I'll grant that there is such a thing... but not in the sense of moral intuitionism, as a non-rational, epistemically reliable grasp of moral truths. Rather, in the form of both hard-wired and conditioned moral intuition.

The hard-wiring has a very limited range, but the coniditioning has a very broad range. It includes being taught from early childhood on that the Bible and only the bible expresses moral truths, that homosexuality is a sin against god, or that being black makes you inferior. For many people on this world (in the former case more than in the latter nowadays, but think back a hundred years), these are perfectly intuitive - because they have been conditioned that way.

But now for the interesting part:

2. It is an untestable hypothesis. "No, they just say that, they don't really FEEL (or whatever) that this is moral". If they say that, judge and act accordingly, there is no reason (nor can there be) for accepting your hypothesis.

That homosexuality is morally wrong is really the pope's opinion. It is rational given the premise that the Bible is a reliable source of morality. (That this is mistaken is beside the point, what matters is that the pope accepts this premise).
He really judges that homosexuality is a sin, he really believes it, he really expresses that opinion and he really acts accordingly.
That is his morality, a theistic, biblical morality.

Hypothesizing otherwise is contrary to the evidence.

416. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #176346 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 7:43 am

Man, I'm so frustrated right now...
... For all the time I've been studying in Munich now, I was looking for a seminar in philosophy of religion... there was at least one every semester.

But - how could it be different - all are held either by the faculty for catholic theology, or the faculty for the Christian Worldview... ain't it great. Not one by a faculty that is unbiased, like the philosophy-faculty.

Then of course there is an essay-contest: "Faith and Reason - A Contradiction?"... and guess what, by the faculty for the Christian Worldview. The professor who holds that chair used to be the head of the Central Organization of German Catholics.

How extremely frustrating... I have half a mind of just attending one of these courses and piss off the theologian.

This is one reason why I come here... no religious bias. Hard to find at my university, and in Bavaria in general. I'm so sick of this. Just out of spite, I might make my doctorate in philosophy of religion under a non-biased Professor. Have to find one first... guess I will have to leave Germany for that.

I'm fucking sick of this religious bias everywhere. Am I scared? Hell no. Just extremely pissed off and frustrated. This is the 21st century for crying out loud. Why not a chair for Invisible Pink Unicorn theology, or FSM-worldview, or any bloody superstition.

You could build up the whole apologetics of Christianity around that, too - "Why being pink and invisible is not a logical contradiction", "Belief in the FSM is properly basic" etc.

Then I come here today and what do I get to read - flood-myth.

Again, not scared at all - just fucking pissed off right now.

417. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176237 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 1:24 am

MPhil

Thanks! That's great information....any specific writings you would recommend by Mill, Rawls or Scanlon?

Glad I could be of service. If you really want to read these, you've got some heavy reading to do:

Rawls: "A Theory of Justice"; "Justice as Fairness - A Restatement" (in this oder)

Scanlon: "What we owe to each other"

You get a general idea by reading this encyclopedia entry:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/

418. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176229 by MPhil on May 7, 2008 at 1:02 am

Spinoza,

we can still not agree, and I must insist that it is you who are committing petitio principii:

And that is all I meant by saying that some sentences of the form "S should x." are not moral, and others are...

You squarely fail to demonstrate that. And still fall prey to the general mistake I accused you of several posts ago.

After this post, I am giving up for lack of progress in getting through to you (no offense intended):

... It seems like, you, Mphil, have presupposed an error theorist perspective, and said that it's prima facie irrelevant whether those sentences are different (and also that they really aren't different)... because, you think, in both cases the utterer/adherent is trying to address questions of right and wrong.

No, I am not.

It is simply a matter of plain fact that people who make statements of the form "one ought to do x" are addressing questions of right and wrong. A plain fact of language.

You don't get to say that "questions of right and wrong" are not addressed by statements of the fact "it is morally right to do x". That is a matter of fact of language.

There is no way around this.

But it's exactly my point that in the former case, it's easy to see why the statement itself, the moral judgment "Homosexuality is wrong!" is actually just a confusion, and isn't REALLY an attempt to address questions of right and wrong at all! The reason it's a confusion is that when you probe for justification, and stipulate no dogma allowed, the sophisticated (I mean this literally, in the sense of engaging in sophistry or rhetoric) anti-homosexual will generally try to tack on additional features to homosexual behaviour in an attempt to convince their interlocutor that their initial judgment is correct.

That's your argumentative error. Resorting to dogma, having no real justification is a different category (making the statement justified or unjustified) than the question whether it addresses questions of "what is right and wrong"

Again, fact of language. And fact of psychology. Those people think that Their arguments or their sophistry show substantive justification for their statements. They are mistaken and confused in that: In the fact that there is sufficient justification.

But it is still their morality, still addressing those questions.

Your position amounts to the same as saying
"It is mathematically correct to say that 2 plus 2 equal 5" does not address mathematics.

It does, it makes a totally unjustified assertion.

Furthermore, you are still prespposing a specfic second order theory...

how does that show? In that you are presupposing that something being written in the bible concerning the recommendation and condemnation of certain behaviour has nothing to do with ethics.

It is one thing to establish that it is not sufficient justification for a first order morality, and quite another to deny that this still does address questions of right and wrong - simply in a highly inappropriate manner.
That is just a matter of fact.

If that still isn't clear by now - I give up.

419. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176147 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 5:08 pm

All in good time...

420. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176145 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 5:05 pm

Transcendental aesthetic travel, eh? So not only can I be anywhere and everywhere whenever I chose, I will also look gorgeous all the time... nice. Really gotta master that, though I think I've already go the gorgeousness pretty much nailed :P

421. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #176136 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 4:54 pm

I forgot:

Secondly, all I said was that the work being done in moral psychology is not NECESSARILY dealing with morality, and that they need to be careful to note that.

This I certainly agree with :) Finally some common ground :)

FreeThink25,

I'm often told that writings on the evolutionary nature of morality are only descriptive morality and not PRESCRIPTIVE morality, which, I guess they find to be evidence that a God is necessary for moral truths to exist.

The theists are right in saying the science can tell us descriptively about morality, but isn't prescriptive.

However, this does in no way - not at all - give them any justification for belief in god, for three reasons:

1)There is no evidence to suggest that metaphysically objective moral values exist

2)Objective moral values are perfectly conceivable without theism, see Plato for example. Since they are supposed to be metaphysical entities, they don't require a creator or indeed a creation, for they are not subject to time.

3)Theistic morality is not objective, but subjective. The values aren't objective, but dependent upon God's will and/or God's supposedly necessary nature. Also see Eutyphro-Dilemma.

You hit upon a very important point in your last two paragraphs: Consequentialism!
There still is an is/ought problem, but we can circumvent it. Once we agree that moral values are social constructs, are not found or discovered, but made and placed upon things, we have already taken the major step.

All that is needed is agreement on the desirability of a certain state, or indeed an argument (such as Mill tried to give and Rawls/Scanlon actually did) that shows that some things are rational for everyone in a society to desire. Thus, these states (or things or whatever) are given value.

Then we can find out what is necessary to achieve them, and that which helps achieve them or instantiates them can then be justifiably called morally good.

The is ought problem still exist, in that it states that you cannot derive a prescriptive statement from a statement about non-prescriptive matters of fact. But Consequentialism doesn't fall prey to that because it recognizes that values are constructs, and are placed upon things by individuals.

422. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175994 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 10:28 am

Anyway - gotta catch a train. Be back sometime tonight if I don't fall asleep, if not I'm certainly back tomorrow.

423. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175991 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 10:25 am

You seem to not want to make a distinction between moral talk (which often involves things that have nothing to do with morality), and morality per se.

You are still using "morality" to refer to something pertaining to actual normativity... but when people condemn homosexuality or being jewish or being black, they are still making judgements about morality, what is right and wrong, good and bad. They fail to refer to any really extant moral values, but the still talk about morality - and this is part of what descriptive ethics describe - what moral values people think there are. They are talking about moral values, their behaviour falls under the phenomenon of morality, whether it is actually "moral behaviour" in a normative sense of "moral" or not.

But that's exactly what's at issue here, so simply stating that "It is still true that everyone is actually talking about moral values." is kind of ridiculous. Especially given that I'm not a Realist.

Doesn't matter - moral values need not be construed as metaphysical entities. One need not even hold that there is a matter of fact about morality. One can - like I - think of moral values as social, intersubjective constructs. One still talking implicitly or explicitly about moral values, about morality.

So this:

No, they aren't actually necessarily talking about moral values. That CLEARLY implies some kind of infallibility in the moral mechanism, whatever it is. And that certainly cannot be right.

is clearly wrong. That implies no kind of infallibility, nothing even remotely approaching objectivity... at it states is that this is intensional language.

Let me state again the most important statement for this point: These people talk about moral values. That is what they intend to refer to, whether as objective moral values in a platonist sense, or as deity-dependent moral values, or as social constructs, or as just intuitive, subjective notions.

Whether they actually manage to refer with that speech successfully to something real is open for debate - the point is they (intensional language) talk about moral values, about right and wrong.

Let me give you an example: "Martians are tiny, black creatures with green, roman-style helmets and big white eyes."
This sentence talks about Martians - but it doesn't manage to refer to something real. Still, the speaker (especially one who beliefs this statement to be true) believes to be referring successfully with the term "Martians", and whether or not this is true, he is still (intensional language) talking about Martians. In this talking about something which we know isn't real - but he keeps on talking about. Just as people are talking about God and Pegasus etc.

Just as when the believers talk about god, that falls under the category of religion, - even though there is nothing to which they successfully refer - when Hitler talked about moral values, and when the pope talks about moral values, that is clearly part of the phenomenon of morality.

By stating "(which often involves things that have nothing to do with morality)", you are showing that you are still applying your own moral framework. From the pope's moral theory, the bible and homosexuality have very much to do with morality - from your first order and second order theory (and mine as well), they don't. But from a descriptive, objective perspective - not any normative view. Both we and the pope are making moral judgements, doing "moral talk", expression moral opinions. Not as "opinions that are moral" or "judgements that are moral" with "moral" meaning "morally right", but with "moral" meaning "pertaining to questions about right and wrong, about what ought and ought not to be done etc".

"Moral" does not mean "morally right" - it is used in that way, but "moral" has a broader reference, namely to "pertaining to questions[...]". The other meaning is properly expressed by "morally right" or "morally correct". And that seems to be the mistake you're making. Conflating the two.

So, no infallibility, no objectivity, no truth implied at all.

And again, the neuroscientists are not just investigating moral talk, but also the brain-activity related to judgements, dispositions, opinions and behaviour pertaining to questions about right and wrong, about ought and ought not etc.

And yes, by saying ""homosexuality is wrong" is just 'moral talk'" and ""murder is wrong" is morality" you are implying a certain second and first order view.

Both are parts of Morality as "the behaviour, speech, judgements, opinions, dispositions etc pertaining to questions about right and wrong".
Because this "moral talk" is addressing these issues, just as yours and mine are - and are by virtue of that no different from what the pope or Hitler does/did.

This is where you think there should be a distinction - but that is not correct or warranted - since the above is entirely objective.

If one were a moral realist with entirely different values from Hitler and the Pope, one still would have to affirm the above - and make the distinctions that Hitler/the pope are simply deluded. Their moral theories, moral judgements and opinions, moral behaviour and dispositions (in the above sense) is just wrong. But it is still part of the phenomenon of morality.
They may have a "lack of morality" in the normative sense - ie lacking THE PROPER moral judgements etc, but they don't have a lack of morality in the descriptive sense at all.

Even a moral anti-realist, someone who sees moral values solely as intersubjective constructs, can say that they had morality in the descriptive sense - everyone does - and that their "moral talk" is part of the phenomenon of morality. But objectively their moral theories are unjustified and incoherent, and (inter)subjectively, their moral theories, judgements, opinions, behaviour is just seriously screwed up and wrong.

These are the real, warranted distinctions - not refusing to apply the term "morality" in its descriptive meaning to such phenomena. In the descriptive meaning of "moral", it applies to everything that "pertains to or attempts to address questions of right and wrong".

And again, the scientists are investigating not only talk, but judgements, opinions, dispositions etc. pertaining to questions of right and wrong.

Especially for a moral anti-realist, morality is nothing more than at most a social construct, implemented solely in moral talk, behaviour, dispositions etc.

They can be coherent or incoherent, epistemically justified or not, but they are still what completely comprises morality for the anti-realist, and moral behaviour for the realist.

424. Two More Fleas

Comment #175872 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 7:20 am

King of NH,

Sorry - this: "I think science has proven that god(s) does not exist to a much better extent than it has proven a table is a table (my table is variably a table, a chair, a bench, a desk, a stool, a shelf, etc.)"

is just not true. "A table is a table" is true a priori. "A is A" is logically true, no matter what.

If on some alternate earth the word "table" would mean what we mean by "cow", "a table is a table" would still be true.

"Table" is a functional definition. When you use your table as as a ramp, it is also a ramp... but as long as it can potentially fully fulfil the function of a table, it is also a table.

But the sentence "A table is a table" is still true no matter what the world is like. It is a logical tautology.

Now, to the more important point:

Since god is supposed to be nonphysical, science cannot prove that god doesn't exist. Logic can - through the arguments from logical impossibility of god. But science cannot. Neither can science disprove the existence of universals, or any metaphysical entities. Science in practice could not even disprove a statement about an empirical matter of fact like "10 million light-years away, there is a tiny spherical object of composition x"


What science can do and does is tell us that the natural phenomena to which "god" was forwarded as an explanation have other, real explanations, or that we are about to develop theories to explain certain phenomena.

Philosophy can (in my opinion) show that god is impossible.
Science and philosophy can show that even if that weren't the case, there is far too little epistemic justification for belief in god. The epistemic probability of god is so incredibly low that there is no justification for that belief at all.

But science disproving god, with "disproving" in the scientific sense? Not really.

425. Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?

Comment #175848 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 6:42 am

Ha ha ha! Indeed, Carto!

426. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175840 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 6:27 am

Carto,

see, just another instance of my sense of humour failing me :)

427. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175817 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 5:30 am

Thanks for the links, Epeeist.

The first one was very informative... the second one failed the criteria of journalism with the first paragraph, which was very emotional and judgemental - no matter if it is true or not.

It's good to know these things... still, the actual contributions to charities count for a lot, I think.

428. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175809 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 5:13 am

If Bill Gates had never used a computer, hadn't done what did - hundreds of millions of dollars less would have gone to charities...

The point being: Don't be so quick to judge.

429. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #175779 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 2:40 am

We've had those already... neither of us achieved satisfaction ... We've come to a détente, and I'm quite happy with that :)

430. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #175774 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 2:32 am

You mean citing obscure philosophers and using multi-syllable big words to make a simple point?

To be fair, when it comes to rather difficult matters, using technical terms can be appropriate, and citing people who have been major contributors to the field as well.

You could try to explain quantum theory in laymen's terms, but accuracy would be lost.

And maybe the point isn't always as simple as you may thing.

What I mean, using technical terms and citing philosophers (obscure ones are a different matter :) must not always be pretentiousness.

As for _riverrun_ - I haven't read his posts, so I won't judge - just wanted to make the general point.

431. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175763 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 2:07 am

I'm sorry Spinoza - but it seems you're completely missing my point.

And making some very strong assumptions on your part. Presupposing a correctness of your first order theory - which is clearly unwarranted for the discussion at hand.

I will try (one last time :) to show you what I mean:

The best section to show you what I mean are, I think, these:

That has not been established. That is to take some form of expressivism to be correct a priori. And that is certainly not justifiable a priori.

No, I am not. Not at all. As I said before, I am not discussing first order rightness or wrongness, and am not presupposing any second order position!!!

All you've said here is that moral values (rightness or wrongness) can only be called moral. And then you say that anything falls under that category in virtue of being an approach to problems involving rightness or wrongness.

But that's clearly circular, and doesn't establish anything with regard to when people really ARE talking about moral values, as distinguished from when they are merely indulging their preferences.

Again, you are misconstruing me completely.

You are making a category mistake. I am not presupposing any ethical position.

The fact is that a problem like "what is the solution to equation phi" is not a moral one, and that issues concerning normative statements or judgements are what we call "moral issues".

THAT is what I meant. There are issues involving questions of moral right and wrong, and there are issues who don't. The first are "moral issues" - and any approach to them is part of the phenomenon of morality.

Hitler had moral opinions - we think they're wrong. I don't think there is an objective matter of fact about that, but only an intersubjective one, and that's enough. But my opinion doesn't matter here - I'm not judging right now. These opinions of Hitler's cannot be called anything else than "Hitler's moral judgements, Hitler's moral opinions".

"Moral" here does not mean "right" - and that is, I think, your most basic mistake - it means "pertaining to issues of moral qualities"... whether he was wrong or not, objectively or not is of no importance for the point I am trying to make. This is still part of the phenomenon of morality.

Whether or not we assume that moral judgements and opinions can be right or wrong, makes no difference at all for this matter. They are still judgements and opinions, positions and dispositions and behaviour pertaining to issues, to questions of "what is 'right', what is 'moral'".

They are concerned with that subject. And that is the definition of morality in a non-normative sense.

You cannot deny that the pope's judgements and expressions on issues of "what is right, what is moral" are judgements about morality. That would be ludicrous.

Thus, my definition is not circular at all - as it does not even touch the question of right or wrong.

We can meaningfully ask "what were Hitler's moral judgements?" "What are the pope's first order ethical positions" "What are his second order (metaethical) position"?

These are questions about their moral beliefs. They concern the phenomenon of people having opinions on questions of "right and wrong". They ask these questions and give answers to them (right or wrong, or neither), but by virtue of that, that is per definition part of the phenomenon of morality.

You are making a category mistake in denying my points by stating "but what they think is clearly immoral" or "what they think is clearly mistaken from a metaethical position". That may be so, but that is not what I was asserting. I was asserting something of an entirely different category, and therefore, denying my points on these grounds is a category mistake.

One more thing:

That is, the first case is clearly a case of moralizing talk on the part of a dogmatic idiot engaging in culturally inculcated hatred of that which is "different" (and called abominable).

The second points to something quite a lot more fundamental. If anything is wrong, murder is.

Petitio principii... thus unwarranted. That's your opinion.

Who is to say that there is anything more to morality than opinions, judgements, dispositions, behaviour on questions of "right and wrong"? That would presuppose that there is a fact of the matter, that there are objective moral values - and that has not been established.

But this is still a different matter than what I discussed above. My definition was not circular, because you were interpreting my position as one about first and second order moral "truths" - which was a category mistake.

Ever heard of "descriptive ethics"? Describing the phenomenon of morality.

I don't need to "establish" that there is a descriptive meaning of "moral" and "morality" as well - it's unquestionable. People ask themselves questions of "what is right and wrong" "what is moral" and/or take positions that attempt to answer these questions, or propose answers to them. This is a fact. You may call it as you like, but there is nothing wrong with calling that "morality", the "phenomenon of morality".

You are - it seems - trapped in the normative dimension. There is a descriptive one, too.

Also, I had to chuckle at this:

doesn't establish anything with regard to when people really ARE talking about moral values, as distinguished from when they are merely indulging their preferences.

...especially in connection to what you said about homosexuality and murder, the pope and the fundamentalist muslim.

This is again a petitio principii - you are presupposing that there are objective values, and that if any, the one conforms to that, the other doesn't.

They certainly do think they "ARE talking about moral values" - AND they certainly, as a matter of fact, are ACTUALLY talking about what they judge to be actually, normatively existing moral values...

And you are doing nothing different, - no one is doing anything other than that in such matters... some have a more coherent position, some less coherent positions, some positions are entirely unjustified, others are more justified - but for everyone it is simply a fact that they are talking about what they judge to be actual, normative, moral values.

It may be true (I don't think so) that some are right when they think they are expressing judgements based on actually existing, normative moral values in a metaphysical sense - but that doesn't matter. It is still true that everyone is actually talking about moral values.

IMPORTANT EDIT:This is a matter of intensional speech here. They ARE definitely talking about that... whether they manage to SUCCESSFULLY refer to such things is a different question.

I simply take it that the philosopher who does those things (in a well reasoned way) can be justified in telling the layman when their moral talk is, itself, wrong (and why).

Yes, he can tell the layman where the arguments are inconclusive, where and why the position is epistemically unjustified etc - but can you prove that the values someone assumes are false and that yours are right? Hardly - we can, I think, only show that values are most likely nothing but social constructs, and that some are more compatible with achieving a society in which certain natural qualities (happiness, minimization of suffering, maximization of liberties) are present. The judgement that these are valuable in themselves is another construct, something that cannot be proven to be true, but has to be agreed upon, and can be agreed upon rationally.

432. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175744 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 12:44 am

The assumption that investigation of moral talk and behaviour called moral (by some) can tell us about what morality qua moral judgments, dispositions and behaviour is (as you say), is, I think, not a valid assumption.

1. They're not just investigating "talk" - they look at the brain-activity when making moral judgements, when forming and expressing opinions on moral problems, and the associated behaviour. Therefore, they do investigate what morality qua judgements, dispositions and behaviour is.

Also, in your third paragraph, you forgot to give the other side of the distinction. I think you have a too narrow view of the meaning of the word "morality". When people talk about moral problems, form and express opinions concerning them, make judgements on moral issues - that is part of what "morality" means.

You are - I think - missing the point. There are situations and dimensions that can only be called moral - any question of right and wrong, of moral values etc. Any behaviour, any approach to these things falls under the category of "morality" in virtue of being an approach to moral problems, moral statements etc.

You can't just say that because people have different approaches, mean different things, and talk differently, that this is not part of what "morality" is.

Morality is also a phenomenon. Namely what I outlined above - judgements, opinions, forming and expressing them, dispostions and other behaviour.

"Mere moral talk" is part of the phenomenon of human morality - as approaches to moral issues.

Therefore this "neither of those has anything to do with 'morality' if the word is to have any meaning at all. " is clearly wrong.

You are restricting the term "morality" to apply only to what moral philosophers (or even only moral philosophers of a certain 'denomination'?) do.
That is entirely unwarranted. You are applying moral judgement already to the issue of what counts as part of the phenomenon of morality. That is quite strange in my opinion.

You make it seem as if you think only someone working out a second order and first order ethical theory with a coherent and applicable account of all the theoretical issues is doing something that falls under the category of "morality" at all. Why?
Morality is also, as I do not tire of stating, a phenomenon... different people approach moral issues differently - and the question of "justified or not", "right or wrong approach", is only a fraction of the entire subject.

433. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175734 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 12:18 am

(perhaps we should/could continue this on some sort of Messenger or Facebook chat?... I would be interested in engaging your scepticism about quasi and Cornell realism...)

Difficult at the moment - a lot of studying to do... turing machines, Goedel's incompleteness theorems, recursive algorithms, arithmatization of basic mathematical operations as recursive algorithms for implementation in turing machines, the logic and logical problems of reductionism in philosophy of science, Timothy Williamson's "knowledge and its limits" etc...

Next semester break would be possible :)

I'm not really sure what it tells us about morality per se... rather, it really only seems to shed light on why different people SAY different things are "moral" (ignoring entirely the question of who is right).

What is morality? Morality consistes of judgements , dispositions and other behaviour - the structures of that behaviour. It is certainly interesting to learn how these are implemented, what the role of emotional centres and cognitive centres is, what the role of speech centres is etc. Can tell us a lot about actual morality.

Ethics is not all about "who's right"... mostly it's metaethics and "what is the road to a coherent and successful first order theory"... "who's right" is much too simplistic.

There's so much more to morality. Investigating moral thought and behaviour is certainly interesting and important. It, as I said, tells us a lot about what morality qua moral judgements, dispositions and behaviour is.

434. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175730 by MPhil on May 6, 2008 at 12:03 am

Spinoza,
ad 1. Oh well, I think I got hung up on the vagueness in your statement. Honest mistake.

ad 3... interesting, but I just cannot see how you would get out of the ontological mess that both quasi-realism and cornell realism get you in (in my opinion)

ad 4 and "boyd is a naturalist" - see, that's it. I don't think the ontological commitments of quasi-realism and cornell-realism are what the proponents think they are, or rather, I don't think they are compatible with naturalism as I see it.

I don't really see that this is incriminating to an error-theorist, since seeing it as such would be begging the question against the premises, which aren't shared after all.

Anyway - you're right, this isn't a philosophy seminar... let's leave it at that :)

435. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175714 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 11:37 pm

...also, Hume is quite as uncontroversial as many seem to think.

436. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175713 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 11:36 pm

Spinoza,

good post, but some small problems:

1.Mackie's anti-realism, namely error-theory, does not fall prey to the Frege-Geach problem. Error-theory is different from pure emotivism or prescriptivism.
The error theory solves the truth-value problem of Geach.

2.The Queerness-argument is not the only one. And it again has several parts. Of specific interest are the ontological and the epistemological one. Even if one does not subscribe to Mackie's ontological critique of moral realism, the epistemological one still holds.

3.I don't think Cornell Realism is a solution, because it again faces the queerness-objection, specifically the epistemological one.

4. Blackburn's solution is more appealing, but I don't think it provides a sufficient justification for rejecting error-theory. Introducing "quasi" makes the whole thing an ontological mess.

:)

437. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175707 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 11:09 pm

jwdink,

I can only give you my perspective as a philosopher, but for what it's worth:

Science is only ever descriptive. If we want a first order ethical theory, this is a normative, prescriptive endeavour, entirely. Not just a "push".

I think any first order moral theory needs to take into account as many relevant facts about human beings (psychological, physiological, social) as it can. That's where science is essential. But the main task is still developing a theory of what these moral values, to which we, in virtue of taking into account all the relevant facts and comparing different strategies, do not rush, are, or rather 'should be', since moral values are constructed, not found.

Only with knowing a lot about human nature can we begin to construct a coherent first order ethical theory that can successfully be applied to any situation.

Still, the main task here is the normative/prescriptive one. I don't think Spinoza thinks that science is entirely useless here.

But he is right in stating, as I have laid out, that knowing the (neuro-)psychological facts about how we make moral judgements etc are irrelevant to the prescriptive task.

438. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175699 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 10:38 pm

Carto,

...the mad but brilliant Prussian, please :)

The will to power was of course a major theme in Nietzsche's thinking... and he did plan to write a book with that title, but his illness made that impossible. His sister Elisabeth Foerster Nietzsche and his fried Peter Gast edited some of his notes and published them as "Der Wille zur Macht". One should also note that his sister fabricated some notes, edited some others together in a way for them to have totally different context-meaning than in their original appearance and generally tinkered with his work... she imposed her own ideas onto her brother's work. And she was very much a friend of Hitler and the Nazis, which is why her tinkering with her brothers work made it far more open to exploitation by the Nazis.

Despicable woman.

Anyway - I do think the moustache was his own. (You just gave me the weird idea of Elisabeth painting moustaches on all his pictures :)

The reason why I think moral and political philosophers would indeed be better at the task you supposed is because it is a task at the centre of which is thinking about moral normativity, not descriptive morality.

The scientists could figure out the descriptive side of moral psychology... which is important for philosophers as well. But the task would still be normative.

Of course the problem is that there is no general fact of the matter about which first-order moral approach is the right one, there would be substantial disagreement between the philosophers. But there are facts of the matter in descriptive morality and descriptive (cognitive neuro-)psychology of morality.
That wouldn't help the scientists one bit though in approaching the normative task.

There are still facts in moral philosophy - the facts that any consequentialist approach requires for example. Or the facts about the content of the moral character of the individual, and of groups of individuals.

I think that if the philosophers were to agree on something like a very detailed Rawls/Scanlon model (with perhaps some utilitarian infusion), they could do the job not perfectly, but better than the scientists.

Perhaps the certainties of scholastic learning (if you refer to the content) were unwarranted certainties? And the murky depths of the 19th century (especially Neitzsche, who was -I think- very correct in his analyses of culture on the brink of modernity and post-modernity) perhaps got it entirely right that there are little certainties, but many social constructs, which comprise the murky depths that they laid bare.

Just a thought.

439. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175651 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 7:30 pm

Carto,

Nietzche's Der Wille zur Macht

Oh come on you old historiographer, you should know there never was such a book by Nietzsche. That was a fabrication by his sister.

And if you take moral philosophers and political philosophers, I'm actually not at all sure the Not at all.

EDIT: arrg... something stole my brain when I wrote that last sentence... see below for an explanation. :)

440. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175302 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 6:39 am

Steve,

thanks - just sent off my reply :)

441. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175290 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 5:54 am

Carto,

if all else fails, try a different browser... Firefox or Opera preferably. :/

442. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175253 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 2:58 am

Just recently, I was talking to a person who, when the discussion came to the point of religion being a source of violence, and the scriptures recommending violence and other unacceptable things, said:

"Well, it's all a matter of interpretation"... the dialogue then went as follows:

Me:"Of course it is. The only reason European Christianity doesn't torture and kill people anymore is because they assimilated to the moral Zeitgeist. Look at the Islamic theocracies - they haven't had to do that so far."

She:"Right. As I said, you have to interpret scripture correctly, and some are just closer to the truth."

Me: "You're not seriously claiming that just because the interpretation of their holy books of moderates conforms to our ethical standards, it therefore must be closer to a so called 'true interpretation'? How would you know that? What makes you think there is such a thing. Where is the evidence?"

She: "Does everything have to be provable?"

Me: "Not 'provable', but every statement about alleged matters-of-fact about the world has to be testable."

She: "But why?"

Me: "Why? Because otherwise no claim to correctness can ever have any epistemic justification. None at all. I might as well claim that there is an invisible pink unicorn standing right behind you."

She: "Yes, you cannot disprove that!"

Me: "Aside from the fact that I can on logical grounds (No entity can at the same time be 'invisible' and 'pink'), that's the point. There can be no evidence for it. I say it is so - why don't you believe me? Just because of that. If there are statements about alleged facts that need no evidence, what justified your rejection of any such claim. It's all just arbitrary then."

She: "But... but you can't compare god to an invisible pink unicorn."

Me: "Really? Why not. I just did - works great. Now if you'd excuse me - I need a drink."


Needless to say I didn't get through to her.

It's sickening, really.

443. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175252 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 2:44 am

gd_edi,

I would have thought that one's own self is the only entity we 'know' to have subjective consciousness, with all others being automata of various degrees of complexity.

Groan - solipsism?

Bertrand Russell once received a letter from a woman praising solipsism and saying that she was wondering why not more people were of the opinion that solipsism is true.

because a being with consciousness shouldn't appear any different to a robotic automaton with the same behaviour.

That old discussion?

If that is your position, it is merely a matter of semantics. Why not say "If it passes the Turing-test, it's conscious"? If it is indistinguishable from consciousness, it is consciousness.

If you want to be a complete skeptic, that's fine with me, but it won't get you very far. We necessarily adopt the intentional stance towards entities that behave in a certain way.

From a very strict epistemological position, there can be no 100% certain knowledge about anything about the "outside world"... but as many philosophers, including Dennett and the Churchlands have successfully argued - we can't be too sure about our own mind, either.

Also, total scepticism and Berkleyian solipsism suffers from the same problem that the brain-in-a-vat thought-experiment suffers from. The statements of that position cannot refer to something real, because the meaning of the terms are identified in the conceptual scheme of mind-world.

Once we allow for heterophenomenology, and take care not to make unwarranted inferences from the results, there is no problem at all.

Consciousness is a property that certain complex multi-level signal monitoring and processing systems with the capability for self-modification based on this monitoring on processing and a certain fixation to the outside world can have.

Perhaps you were rather talking about qualia?

In any case - I recommend Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" and Paul Churchland's "A neurocomputational perspective"

:)

Cheers,
-Mike

444. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175246 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 2:10 am

MrEmpirical,

I guess you're right - personality tests shouldn't have a middle option... with factual questions it might be the only way to get people to answer them :)

AtheistGirl,

welcome to RDnet. If you are anything like me, you are going to enjoy your stay. Many wonderful discussion, a lot of interesting people, many people on here are extremely valuable resources of information - we have people with degrees in such fields as Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Philosophy - even some who took biblical studies.

And - just so you can't so no one warned you... we get a lot of visits from creationists and just mind-bogglingly stupid theists on here.
On the other hand - there have been many interesting discussions with reasonable theists on here as well.

So, welcome! And - enjoy your stay!

445. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175236 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 1:13 am

Blueboy5,

I protest! The surveys are only for a) christians and b) atheists/non-believers. What about we poor deists?

I guess it's because deist usually aren't dogmatically fixed and emotionally invested in scripture or religion and politics, or perhaps even in the issue of moral value of belief or disbelief (at least those I know personally aren't). Thus, the neural activity when confronted with specific stimuli concerning these things may be less definitive, less valuable for this specific experiment.

... I really don't know. That's just my guess.

446. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175233 by MPhil on May 5, 2008 at 1:04 am

Prof. Dawkins,

I think we can assume that Sam will have thought of such things himself!

You are very probably correct, sir. Let us hope that most Christians who are made aware of this won't dismiss it because the study is done by a prominent atheist...

Knowing as we do that many of them are not very knowledgeable about science and the scientific method - or distrust science outright - I suspect many of them may falsely suspect bias or trickery because of the fact that Sam is behind it (among others). Can we assume that they are perfectly aware that bias is exactly what scientists do not want, because they want representative results? We know that many of them think Big Science has a conspiracy going when it comes to evolution, so I am skeptical.

Anyway - I am very interested in the results of this study.

Best,
-Michael

447. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175217 by MPhil on May 4, 2008 at 11:14 pm

Done, all four... one question appeared twice... thought the best option in that case would be to use the middle option for both, since one of them surely was mislabelled, actually a different question and will get evaluated as such.

Some questions were phrased inaccurately - like the one asking one's opinion concerning the statement "Jesus was not immortal, and did not ascend into heaven" (or something to that effect)... if one doesn't believe that Jesus ever existed, what should one answer?

The appropriate phrasing would have been "Assuming Jesus existed..." or something to that effect.

Also, why give people 5 options, anyone creating a survey will know that a middle option is extremely attractive and will get less detailed results.

448. A New Jack Chick Tract: Moving On Up!

Comment #175199 by MPhil on May 4, 2008 at 8:46 pm

Vincent, is it? Don't know why, but it seams to fit.

Strangely, my name - though not Latin in origin - translates into "Who is like god"...

449. Evolution's Critics Shift Tactics With Schools

Comment #174814 by MPhil on May 3, 2008 at 3:24 pm

Just because I want to get everyone's attention - I'm posting this on every active thread (I hope you'll forgive me)

Guys - take a look at this...


The Vatican has joined forces with Shiite Muslims.
Ridiculous statements, and a direct attack on negative religious freedom:

(be warned - you may throw up in your mouths)

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=88070

If any local newspaper of yours runs this story - send a letter to the editor for publishment. Put it on your blogs and tear it to shreads... raise awareness that this is a dangerous alliance, and a large-scale attack on negative religious freedom, freedom of speech - and it is ludicoursly revisionist history!

450. Truly Bizarre : Indians Throw Babies 50ft From Roof To Thank God.

Comment #174813 by MPhil on May 3, 2008 at 3:22 pm

Just because I want to get everyone's attention - I'm posting this on every active thread (I hope you'll forgive me)

Guys - take a look at this...


The Vatican has joined forces with Shiite Muslims.
Ridiculous statements, and a direct attack on negative religious freedom:

(be warned - you may throw up in your mouths)

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=88070

If any local newspaper of yours runs this story - send a letter to the editor for publishment. Put it on your blogs and tear it to shreads... raise awareness that this is a dangerous alliance, and a large-scale attack on negative religious freedom, freedom of speech- and it is ludicoursly revisionist history!