Comment on Academic Freedom Strikes Again! by george.
To Sean
“Of course people make moral choices that are either in line or out of line with their own consciences.”
Agreed. And everyone’s moral choices are not necessarily the same are they? Societal morals are called law, which is the objective standard for public morality. On an individual level each one must make their own choices right?
Here is an example. Do you consider Dr. Edward Allred to be a moral person? Would you in good conscience, even if the law allows it practice the same medicine as him? If so why? If not why? What objective standard are you relying on to make your decision other than your own conscience?
Here is another example: gay marriage. How do you apply your proposed objective standard of conscience to that concept? If my conscience says its OK and your does not what then is the objective standard to apply?
I always get concerned when people want to dictate personal morality or conscience. It undermines the freedom to make individual choice. Why is your test – which seems quite lovely – preferable to others? For example what if someone proposed that the appropriate objective test for conscience in a free society should be ‘live and let live’? Why is your test objectively better than this proposal? Moreover, apart from public morality enshrined in law, who decides?
Interested to hear your further thoughts on this topic.
Cheers
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george Also Commented
Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
To Sean
“Science is able to detect “miracles” when they happen. ”
Really? What legitimate scientific field or discipline recognizes miracles? I studied a lot of science but never came across the study of miracles!
Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
To Sean and Wes
Gentlemen,
Throughout history many people have claimed or others have claimed that they were divine. Many claimed to be the messiah. Were they all divine, some, none?
Does the amount of followers determine divinity? Does self sacrifice determine same? If so should we give credence to David Koresh? Jim Jones? – whose followers were willing to die for them?
Can science empirically determine if any human being is divine or does this take a degree of faith?
Never seen or encountered a God before. In my practice I have encountered individuals who believed they were so. Interestingly, when I gently question my religious friends about their beliefs they mostly say it comes down to faith and feeling. That’s fine. Who am I to challenge their personal, subjective experiences?
On morality, I have already extensively commented citing Hume, Kant and Sartre. Don’t forget utilitarianism as well. Sean, as strongly as you feel about your test for the basis of morality, I respectfully point out that other moral theories abound. Your test is a fine one but not the only one. I trust you can at least acknowledge that as you seem very adamant in your position in this regard.
Bye for now.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=people+who+have+claimed+to+be+divine+throughout+history&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=RFHMWcHlLqri0gL2hKjwCA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_messiah_claimants
Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
To Sean and Wes
“As far as the claims of Jesus, if He was not actually God, as He claimed to be, then it follows that He was bald-faced liar who condemned His followers to untold suffering and brutal deaths. That’s either deliberately evil or mad. It’s not something that a good person or someone in their right mind would do or say… if it weren’t actually true.”
Is it as black and white as that? For example would you say the current Dalai Lama is a liar or mad based on Buddhist beliefs?
This is the problem with religions. They have no tolerance for other religions and their deities. Each one has to be right to the exclusion of the others. Me, I don’t have to label Jesus, the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, etc. mad for what they believe about themselves. If there conduct is moral and good they are good, period. Why defame goodness? My god is better than your god…. this is what leads to great evil rather than tolerance and love, in my secular estimation.
Live and let live and try to do good.
Recent Comments by george
Dr. Jason Rosenhouse “Among the Creationists”
” You’re missing out on a great deal that life has to offer.
And perhaps you as well if your inquiry is not a free one but one shackled by religious beliefs inculcated at a young age.
I wish you all the best as well and hope one day you will be able to examine reality without religious bias. Then you will know intellectual freedom without fear or promise of immortal reward.
Dr. Jason Rosenhouse “Among the Creationists”
” So, you think Einstein or Galileo or Leonardo da Vinci or Newton, or even Darwin would have given up their ideas if they remained unpopular?
No, I think science would have discredited them if their ideas were not supported by observation and experimentation. Something you are not prepared to do other than blog speculate. Why do you think they are all revered today? They weren’t guys running around trying to prove the negative as you are doing.
You see, you will need to gain some scientific support as Einstein, Galileo, Da Vinci and Darwin did (especially the latter on the origins of life) or else you’ll be forgotten as a religious ideologue. Notice how nobody attributes a religious bias to those greats of science, notwithstanding their religious beliefs? In fact Einstein was quite awed by the apparent design to the universe 🙂
You keep talking about the weight of the science as your claim to being right. Where is your original work in that regard? Who weighs that science other than you? But you don’t care about that, or even what your fellow scientists think, which makes you a solipsist. Now, if ultimately you are elevated to the scientific pantheon as the other greats, I’ll be totally wrong and the world will hold you in such high esteem. That would not make me unhappy, because I will likely have witnessed a miracle! 🙂
However, if ID is going to turn over macro evolution in won’t do it by default or back door, cloaked creationism. It will done by experimentation and the scientific method. But if you continue to allude to the miracles of the Bible being scientific, you are going to face ridicule from the Paulucs and Prof Kents of the Adventist world, let alone outside of that bubble. They understand the difference between the objective weight of the evidence – which cannot simply be solipsistically determined by one individual, no matter the source of the ideas – and faith.
Oh, by the way, if you haven’t yet done so, I recommend you read Walter Issackson’s excellent biography on Einstein. I think you’ll find out Einstein had more than just ideas. If you don’t mind me saying so, I think he was a bit more skilled in math than yourself 🙂
