This Title comes from the first chapter of a Book called ‘Re-Thinking Worldview” written by J. Mark Bertrand. Much of my thoughts on this subject will come out of that book so credit is due to his insights. The subject we will be looking at is “Worldviews” and every body on earth who can think has one. A worldview is a lens that you use to interpret reality with. Your prior ideas and interpretations of the experiences, circumstances that you encounter form how you relate to the world. We live in a world where there are many different worldviews or ways of interpreting reality. The problem starts only when one says, but mine corresponds better to reality than yours. And I think we would agree that this is possible as a worldview that brings more pleasure then total pain would be preferred by most people.
But once we open our mouth and say that word, mine corresponds better to reality then yours our opponent soon replies “says you” and this response is true. Whenever you say something, it is “you” who says it. You, and what do you know? Who are you to speak? Please, get real, you? But the fact that we are talking to some one and understanding them shows we are both connecting with each others reality and can perceive some truths. The person who says it is a logical fallacy to trust anything “You’ say, only needs you to respond by saying “if your saying that it must be false, then that statement is also because “you” said it”. The simple logic is we are both arguing and understanding each at the same time. This shows that just because we interpret the world, this does not mean that we all have a different reality, but that we perceive things different.
Have you ever wondered if you are the only real person in existence and the rest of us are just figments of your imagination. It’s a freaky thing to think about, but reality of other people just seems to be obvious, so why should we doubt it.
Bertrand says,
“And yet, if you really believe that the rest of us were illusions, imagination how hard it would be to talk you out of it. What argument could possibly convince you? The evidence of your sense could not be trusted, since it is the principle means by which the illusion is maintained. You couldn’t rely on reason or logic, because your logic teacher in school was another person who clearly did not exist. This means you basically invented logic, and if you made it up, how do you know it is reliable? The fact is we assume that other people exist and any hint to the contrary is dismissed as ridiculous.”
We accept it as true because to embrace the contrary would be absurd. Worldviews are formed by seeing things happen, events occur. We observe them happening to other people, you experience them happening to you. These events produce emotional responses, joy, sadness, fear and worry. When we think about what we have observed we arrange these events and search for meaning in their patterns. We begin to draw conclusion’s about the way the world is. To think that we are neutral unbiased observes is naïve. For many a worldview is like putting on glasses seeing the world through a different shade. This is what serves to color our perception of the world. All perception’s seem to be normal. I think that it would be better not to think of a worldview as different lenses, which we see the world with but as a pair of prescription lenses we put on. The task of every worldview is to see the world as it “is”, to correct our vision. The fact that we don’t invent all reality means that we must work with reality to see it sharply and clear and live in it. Some of us have sat at the back of a classroom and have had the thought that the teacher had scribbled on the black board, but once we got some correction glasses we saw reality sharply and perceived the teacher’s scribbles were in fact meaningful words.
So a worldview, wither, Naturalism, Hinduism, Darwinism, Postmodernism, or Christian etc is not something we just chose by subject thought. As Bertrand says in his book “Do I chose my worldview or does it chose me? The answer to this question is both.
Yes we chose our worldview, but based also on the pressure that our environment is shaping our responses. To the extent that we exert ourselves against the pressure, we are forming a worldview, and to the extent that the pressures are shaping our responses they are changing and polishing and demolishing that worldview. And this is happening constantly, whether we are alive to the struggle and engaged in it or not. So it does no good to hold to a worldview as true if it is not livable or does not engage reality. If one has the right correction lenses on, our environment should speak to us in some way sharply and explain what we sense and feel is good and true for the soul. There shouldn’t be numerous contradictions even if we don’t have ever answer. That is why a belief is not true just because I think it is subjectively.
Bertrand says,
“If worldviews interpret reality, then the observation from which they are drawn should correspond to reality. Given what we observe in the world around us, what explanation can give an adequate account? Would you trust a belief system that starts from the premise that man is intrinsically good, even altruistic? This is a widely held belief, but even its fervent adherents do not usually behave as if it were true, they have had true much experience with actual people…To correspond to reality a belief system needs to account for this intrinsic flaw in the description of humanity.”
All of us know from experience that people are not always objectively good. Therefor the claim is false and so is the worldview. As I have show before the existence of good or evil, right or wrong implies a God worldview. A good belief system should produce good results. It should solve philosophical problems, resolve dilemmas and put us in a better position to understand and act within it. So the idea that every one has a perception of the world, so every one’s is right, is not true. Beliefs must correspond to environment pressure. We must explain a rational world, a Universe, objective morals, and rational agents acting in it. Just because we can not answer everything does not mean we cannot know anything. And even if what we know is subjective as it is in our minds, this does not mean that subjectivism turns into relativism. The fact that there are many individuals who subjectively interpret a world that’s seem the same and we relate to others in this world show’s that many minds can connect with objective reality, a world outside our minds.
Others have tried to say that truth is what the majority have imposed on the rest, but this is still not true. Even if a whole country was told that when it feels like it is raining and your getting wet it is not raining and your not getting wet, our own experience would tell us otherwise. The pressure of reality would demonstrate itself, maybe even by floods that wash us away.
William Lane Craig in his book ‘Reasonable Faith’ takes on and refutes the idea that History can not been known because every one interprets history differently. Craig says, While the historian does not have direct access to the past, the residue of the past, things that have really existed, is directly accessible to him. The modern historian is not simply dependent on the reports of earlier historians. For example archaeological data furnish direct access to the objects of the historians investigation. I mean a dinosaur and it’s bones were never thought of as a tree or a cup as if all reality is relative. Now the knowledge that the historian comes to may be wrong today, but that does not mean that we don’t have objective objects to work with from the past. As Old Testament scholar R. K. Harrison explains, modern historians are not so heavily dependent on subjective literary sources as before, because the sciences of linguistics, sociology, anthropology, numismatics, and archaeology have become so developed. Also historical documents from the past can be trusted as well as from internal and external research.
Also the idea from Postmodernism that all knowledge is theory laden so nothing correspond to true objective reality is also false. The fact that one person calls a tree one name and another person calls it a different name does nothing to the existence of the objective tree. Craig says, that facts are not just in his mind but are, as it were “out there” subjective influences are constrained by the facts themselves. The statement that facts exist only in the mind is somewhat silly. His beliefs forces him to the bizarre conclusion that Lincoln’s assassination made a difference in history only because people have long memories, but that if everyone had forgotten Lincoln’s death within forty-eight hours, then it would have made no difference at all and would have ceased to be a historical fact.
As The apostle Paul says, we see in part of the perfect, as a dim mirror of reality, but this does not mean we do not see reality. As my title says “Reality can be only partially attacked by logic.” It is not one or the other but both working together. Also I don’t believe that one can find facts in the world if the world is impersonal. Only if creation has a rational mind behind it with a meaning and an interpretation can we find revelation, knowledge and facts of truth.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Objective Morality
Any one who has spent some time at a University will have come across ethical discussion about Moral absolutes, Relativism and Postmodernism. For the rest of us relativism will be the ethical system that is the most held to in our society today, but not lived out very well. That’s because it is impossible to live it out when one person say’s what’s true for you is not true for me. But when that same person gets there wallet stolen they complain and want it back and cry it’s not fair, or just or right, implying by using those words that the other person is obligated to respond as they have they same morals.
Its one thing to think that we all make up our own ethical rights, but the truth is I believe we have awareness that there is objective morality. That being something’s are just right and wrong independent of people views on the matter.
The Philosopher William Lane Craig says,
“Every one of us guides his life, however inconsistently by a certain set of values. But are the values we hold dear and guide our lives by mere social conventions akin to driving on the left versus right hand side of the road or mere expressions of personal preferences akin to having a taste for certain foods rather than others? Or are they valid independently of our apprehension of them and if so, what is their foundation? Are there things, which I ought not to do, and other things, which I ought to do? Or is the sense of obligation a mere illusion due to sociological and psychological conditioning.”
What is your foundation for the existence of your ethical reasons? Are they social conventions, personal preferences or objective binding values.
Lets just try a few examples, If we lived in Germany backed by science and a large amount of people, would we agree that it was right for Hitler is burn and torture millions because they were considered to be inferior races? If that society said yes, would you agree to it?
Is what the majority says always right? The law may say abortion is ok, but does that make it right? What about personal expressions would you agree if some old man loved young boys or animals to sleep with that it would be ok? That if some people enjoy raping people, or killing innocent lives it’s ok to. Or that torturing babies for fun is ok.
Most of us who are not demented seem to have some understanding that something’s just seem that they are wrong and have nothing to do with personal preferences. Would you agree that touring babies for fun or raping them was ok ever? I would hope your answer is no. Some may say that it just goes against common sense, but what is common sense. Common sense is an agreed upon opinion, unless you want to affirm that there is an absolute moral law on our hearts that knows right from wrong.
Now some people will say, but people can do what ever they like as long as they don’t hurt others but that’s not the case as I showed in my article “ Do what you want just as long as you don’t hurt anyone”.
I will give one example from it here,
“A man slips a drug in to a women’s drink and she falls a sleep (date rape). He takes precautions so that there are no consequences to his violating her. He does all this without hurting her or even without her knowing what has taken place. Hasn’t the man been able to do what he wants without harming the women. Is this act ok with us? While the man does not physical hurt the women or psychologically harm her because he is gone before she wakes up, we all know this is wrong!” We know that her universal rights which cant be grounded from relativism have been violated. Rape is universally wrong!
It just seems that we have some inner standard that we all have deep down that we use to judge our acts and choices by. But what is this foundation? And I can hear some saying and here he comes again with his God rant. No, that will come latter after I have looked at the other options, which you will have to choose from. One cannot just reject all God talks because you don’t like the idea that a God could exist. That just shows that you hold an absolute bias before rational evidence is given.
So what do we mean by an Objective moral Value, well to say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether any human being believes it to be so. That is if a bomb hit the world and all that was left were pedophiles or rapists would there actions still be objectively wrong? Similarly to say that we have objective moral duties is to say that certain actions are right or wrong for us independently of whether any human being believes them to be so.
For example to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even though the Nazis who carried it out thought that it was right, and it would still be wrong even if they brain washed every body else to think it was right.
My question is again “If you believe that objective morality exists, what is its foundation?" Is it to hard to think about, that we have to throw it on the too hard shelf? And walk back in to our contradictions of relativism. I don’t think so that’s why I push the challenge.
Ok, if God does not exist why do we think that every human being has objective moral value (human rights) Is this held from social conventions, human preferences?
As William Lane Craig says, On the naturalistic view, there’s nothing special about human beings. They’re just accidental byproducts of nature which have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust called planet earth doomed to perish”
The Atheist Richard Dawkins say’s of human worth “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…We are machines for propagating DNA. From an atheist worldview to think that beings are special is to be guilty of specie-ism, an unjustified bias toward ones own species. From an evolution point of view all values are just by products of social biological evolution. Just adoption’s for survival. From an evolution point of view we have evolved by chance, all our thoughts and actions have been predetermined by prior causes, free-will is an illusion. In fact at times for the story of evolution rape and incest would have been the only options for survival and so also would have been killing off weaker inferior sick beings or animals. So how can we claim that there are objective morals? A naturalistic history of life does not seem to show the example.
Even if we could show that rape and incest and torture were not advantageous to us anymore, nothing from an atheist worldview can really say these acts are objectively wrong. Such behaviors go on all the time in the animal kingdom. From naturalism all our beliefs, not just our moral beliefs have been selected for survival, not truth.
Some Atheist philosophers try and say that objective moral properties just live in matter. But even if they did, there is no obligation why one must follow one or the other as they are there by chance and nature just “is’ there is no reason why we “ought” to have to follow on path and not the other. If nature is all there is we are free to have any of it and morality seems to be held in personal beings not impersonal matter.
If God does not exist why should we think that we have any moral obligations to do anything. Who or what imposes these moral duties upon us?
The question arises can we recognize the existence of objective moral values without reference to God? Is all life just an illusion of beliefs that we hold without any justification. Maybe the inner sense that we feel that there are acts that are absolutely wrong are because we have a moral law written from God on our hearts. This law is one mind who has put his laws in our subjective minds and hearts. And it’s justification that it is objective stands because it is independent of what any human being believes. It is also objective and true because it stands also outside of every human being in the mind of God requiring our obligation to follow it. It is also objective as this standard is eternal and does not change. Much pain and suffering comes when we chose to deny this norm. Deny the norm, and objective right and wrong vanish, human right’s vanish, and human dignity vanish. If you hold on to any of these but reject God you are basically holding on to an illusion.
Therefore,
1.If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2.Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore God exist.
Its one thing to think that we all make up our own ethical rights, but the truth is I believe we have awareness that there is objective morality. That being something’s are just right and wrong independent of people views on the matter.
The Philosopher William Lane Craig says,
“Every one of us guides his life, however inconsistently by a certain set of values. But are the values we hold dear and guide our lives by mere social conventions akin to driving on the left versus right hand side of the road or mere expressions of personal preferences akin to having a taste for certain foods rather than others? Or are they valid independently of our apprehension of them and if so, what is their foundation? Are there things, which I ought not to do, and other things, which I ought to do? Or is the sense of obligation a mere illusion due to sociological and psychological conditioning.”
What is your foundation for the existence of your ethical reasons? Are they social conventions, personal preferences or objective binding values.
Lets just try a few examples, If we lived in Germany backed by science and a large amount of people, would we agree that it was right for Hitler is burn and torture millions because they were considered to be inferior races? If that society said yes, would you agree to it?
Is what the majority says always right? The law may say abortion is ok, but does that make it right? What about personal expressions would you agree if some old man loved young boys or animals to sleep with that it would be ok? That if some people enjoy raping people, or killing innocent lives it’s ok to. Or that torturing babies for fun is ok.
Most of us who are not demented seem to have some understanding that something’s just seem that they are wrong and have nothing to do with personal preferences. Would you agree that touring babies for fun or raping them was ok ever? I would hope your answer is no. Some may say that it just goes against common sense, but what is common sense. Common sense is an agreed upon opinion, unless you want to affirm that there is an absolute moral law on our hearts that knows right from wrong.
Now some people will say, but people can do what ever they like as long as they don’t hurt others but that’s not the case as I showed in my article “ Do what you want just as long as you don’t hurt anyone”.
I will give one example from it here,
“A man slips a drug in to a women’s drink and she falls a sleep (date rape). He takes precautions so that there are no consequences to his violating her. He does all this without hurting her or even without her knowing what has taken place. Hasn’t the man been able to do what he wants without harming the women. Is this act ok with us? While the man does not physical hurt the women or psychologically harm her because he is gone before she wakes up, we all know this is wrong!” We know that her universal rights which cant be grounded from relativism have been violated. Rape is universally wrong!
It just seems that we have some inner standard that we all have deep down that we use to judge our acts and choices by. But what is this foundation? And I can hear some saying and here he comes again with his God rant. No, that will come latter after I have looked at the other options, which you will have to choose from. One cannot just reject all God talks because you don’t like the idea that a God could exist. That just shows that you hold an absolute bias before rational evidence is given.
So what do we mean by an Objective moral Value, well to say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether any human being believes it to be so. That is if a bomb hit the world and all that was left were pedophiles or rapists would there actions still be objectively wrong? Similarly to say that we have objective moral duties is to say that certain actions are right or wrong for us independently of whether any human being believes them to be so.
For example to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even though the Nazis who carried it out thought that it was right, and it would still be wrong even if they brain washed every body else to think it was right.
My question is again “If you believe that objective morality exists, what is its foundation?" Is it to hard to think about, that we have to throw it on the too hard shelf? And walk back in to our contradictions of relativism. I don’t think so that’s why I push the challenge.
Ok, if God does not exist why do we think that every human being has objective moral value (human rights) Is this held from social conventions, human preferences?
As William Lane Craig says, On the naturalistic view, there’s nothing special about human beings. They’re just accidental byproducts of nature which have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust called planet earth doomed to perish”
The Atheist Richard Dawkins say’s of human worth “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…We are machines for propagating DNA. From an atheist worldview to think that beings are special is to be guilty of specie-ism, an unjustified bias toward ones own species. From an evolution point of view all values are just by products of social biological evolution. Just adoption’s for survival. From an evolution point of view we have evolved by chance, all our thoughts and actions have been predetermined by prior causes, free-will is an illusion. In fact at times for the story of evolution rape and incest would have been the only options for survival and so also would have been killing off weaker inferior sick beings or animals. So how can we claim that there are objective morals? A naturalistic history of life does not seem to show the example.
Even if we could show that rape and incest and torture were not advantageous to us anymore, nothing from an atheist worldview can really say these acts are objectively wrong. Such behaviors go on all the time in the animal kingdom. From naturalism all our beliefs, not just our moral beliefs have been selected for survival, not truth.
Some Atheist philosophers try and say that objective moral properties just live in matter. But even if they did, there is no obligation why one must follow one or the other as they are there by chance and nature just “is’ there is no reason why we “ought” to have to follow on path and not the other. If nature is all there is we are free to have any of it and morality seems to be held in personal beings not impersonal matter.
If God does not exist why should we think that we have any moral obligations to do anything. Who or what imposes these moral duties upon us?
The question arises can we recognize the existence of objective moral values without reference to God? Is all life just an illusion of beliefs that we hold without any justification. Maybe the inner sense that we feel that there are acts that are absolutely wrong are because we have a moral law written from God on our hearts. This law is one mind who has put his laws in our subjective minds and hearts. And it’s justification that it is objective stands because it is independent of what any human being believes. It is also objective and true because it stands also outside of every human being in the mind of God requiring our obligation to follow it. It is also objective as this standard is eternal and does not change. Much pain and suffering comes when we chose to deny this norm. Deny the norm, and objective right and wrong vanish, human right’s vanish, and human dignity vanish. If you hold on to any of these but reject God you are basically holding on to an illusion.
Therefore,
1.If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2.Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore God exist.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
What if you were just a "Mind"?
Just imagine that all that existed were minds, not brains, but just conscious minds thinking. That no bodies existed, no gender manifestation. That no one had a deep voice or a soft voice due to the make up of a physical voice box.
If all that existed was a thinking mind could you define from your thoughts what gender or sex you were? I’ve tried to think on this question and have come to the conclusion that without any physical bodies existing I can’t by just reflecting on my thoughts define if I am a male or female as I have no evidence to work with. For many we know what gender we are because of the body we have. Our physical traits define our gender and our sex is defined by our relationship to the other sex because we fit with the other.
If we were just our mind could we realize that we were attracted to one particular gender or sex? I honestly don’t think we could. So my question is “On what bases do people say that they think they were born in the wrong body and that they are in fact the opposite sex than the one they are. Is this questioning of one’s gender rational or is it a mental in balance or false concept?
If one cannot define what gender they are if they were only a mind, and if ones body does not determine what relationship you should have, what do we mean by the word “gender”, “male” or “female” then? If male and female have no rational connection and we can have any combination man to man, female to female. Does this not eradicate the concepts of Homosexual and Lesbianism if the mind or the body cannot define gender.
If one wants to hold on to the preferences like homosexual and lesbianism what is the reason why they like one particular gender when gender can not be defined. Is gender just an illusions that one can desire anything or does our designed physical body connect with our mind and give us some guidance to our attractions. Gender has always been defined by God’s creation order of connecting two people in a right relationship. But if this interpretation is wrong then the concept of gender must be eradicated from our thinking. This of course will confuse society even more in it’s every changing relativism.
If all that existed was a thinking mind could you define from your thoughts what gender or sex you were? I’ve tried to think on this question and have come to the conclusion that without any physical bodies existing I can’t by just reflecting on my thoughts define if I am a male or female as I have no evidence to work with. For many we know what gender we are because of the body we have. Our physical traits define our gender and our sex is defined by our relationship to the other sex because we fit with the other.
If we were just our mind could we realize that we were attracted to one particular gender or sex? I honestly don’t think we could. So my question is “On what bases do people say that they think they were born in the wrong body and that they are in fact the opposite sex than the one they are. Is this questioning of one’s gender rational or is it a mental in balance or false concept?
If one cannot define what gender they are if they were only a mind, and if ones body does not determine what relationship you should have, what do we mean by the word “gender”, “male” or “female” then? If male and female have no rational connection and we can have any combination man to man, female to female. Does this not eradicate the concepts of Homosexual and Lesbianism if the mind or the body cannot define gender.
If one wants to hold on to the preferences like homosexual and lesbianism what is the reason why they like one particular gender when gender can not be defined. Is gender just an illusions that one can desire anything or does our designed physical body connect with our mind and give us some guidance to our attractions. Gender has always been defined by God’s creation order of connecting two people in a right relationship. But if this interpretation is wrong then the concept of gender must be eradicated from our thinking. This of course will confuse society even more in it’s every changing relativism.
I was born this way?
I would like to revisit a subject I have already written on, but look at it from another angle. That being ‘what are we trying to justify when we say that I was born this way”.
When one puts this statement into the context of being born Gay what is this trying to justify? Now before some one throws some emotional hate mail my way, I would just remind you that I believe reality has a true interpretation and a correct way to function in it. So I am aloud to make judgement claims, investigate for truth and define that something’s go against a moral standard and a correct deigned nature. It is those who don’t who are left being paralyzed with no rational foundation to make an objective judgement claim that I am wrong, unfair, or out of touch with reality. If you don’t believe in an absolute moral standard then your view is just your own random subjective choice. What I say here may be wrong, and I may have to check my claims and facts out, but my worldview at least has a foundation to talk about objective morality, make meaningful judgements.
What anyone thinks on the subject about sexual orientation is not really what I’m writing about here. My point here is to see if the claim “I was born this way” can justify a certain behavior. Our culture has many slogans, but many of them do not hold water.
Many gay people assert that their sexual orientation is due to how they were born and this justifies they sexual acts. But does this answer give a moral justification for their actions. I think there may be better arguments for supporting the norm of gay relationships then asserting that it is due to our genes. I mean if sexual orientation is based on just inherent feelings without a norm to check them against what can we say about other claims. As Paul Copan says “The logic of such arguments is that if someone had a natural inclination towards bestiality (being in a loving relationship with an animal such as one’s pet) or necrophilia (sex with corpses), sadomasochism, pederasty (adult male sex with boys) or even rape, that person can legitimately act on that orientation.”
Some may say that those I offer go against common sense, but what is common sense, subjective votes or an absolute moral law? To condemn any of these is to imply an objective “norm”. Some may say well at least some of them could be ok as long as no one gets hurt. But this claim I refuted in my last blog. Avoiding pain doesn’t establish morality.
More to the point Copan says, We’re all born with a natural self-centered tendency, but that doesn’t mean we should assume that we have a “right” to fulfil those inclinations. To say that we act one way because of our genes would mean that our nature goes against the existence of freewill. If one could locate a biological basis for alcoholism, pedophilia, or violent behavior would we accept it as normal. Some acts seem to be wrong, which would imply they go against an objective standard that the universe should be following and this again slips in the existence of God. Just maybe we have fallen natures, which have twisted us spiritually, psychologically, sexually, physically and mentally. Maybe this is the reason why we cant get away from assuming a objective moral law of right and wrong, even when we have inclinations we cant resist at times. To reject any kind of sin nature or falleness is to wipe out the existence of right and wrong, they become empty words that can be filled with any action or behavior. Those that give lip service to this view do not live it when some one abuses them.
We should be careful not to commit the naturalistic fallacy of going from what “is” to what “ought” to be the case. What about people who have tendencies toward pedophilia, cannibalism, racism, rape, or substance abuse? Tendencies don’t necessarily tell us how we “ought” to live. I believe in a culture that basically has no norms and thinks that we live in some chance universe that all things are permitted have in fact conditioned themselves to think that all our inclinations are in fact normal. The concept of normal implies some objective standard to judge our actions against. If everything is normal due to what each individual thinks, then the word becomes meaningless.
Many experts think that our sexual orientations these days are due to our environments. We become what we accept in the end. Our justification for accepting our cultures ever changing adoption of morals could well be explain by our environment. Through genetic or hormonal differences, (note they could be fixed), societal or individual confusion, family dysfunction, permissiveness, positive homosexual experiences and freely consenting. When one rejects an unchanging norm, one loses their power to justify anything. Some may think that it can all be proven from brain chemistry, that our brains drive us. But Dr. Satinover of Harvard Medical School speaks of bio-neural processes that are shaped through habit formation. It seems to be the other way around rather then being dictated by our genes. Now some my not like what I say, but what could be ‘right’ is not based on some ones emotion but on some rational establishment that justifies some objective norm for the universe. And no I’m not homophobic. I could just as well say your heterophobic or a Philosophical-Phobic.
Therefore I affirm that the claim I was born this way does not establish what is right. I would say what is right, is what creation was designed to perform or act, which establishes correct function. This only exists if there is an eternal interpretation to creation.
When one puts this statement into the context of being born Gay what is this trying to justify? Now before some one throws some emotional hate mail my way, I would just remind you that I believe reality has a true interpretation and a correct way to function in it. So I am aloud to make judgement claims, investigate for truth and define that something’s go against a moral standard and a correct deigned nature. It is those who don’t who are left being paralyzed with no rational foundation to make an objective judgement claim that I am wrong, unfair, or out of touch with reality. If you don’t believe in an absolute moral standard then your view is just your own random subjective choice. What I say here may be wrong, and I may have to check my claims and facts out, but my worldview at least has a foundation to talk about objective morality, make meaningful judgements.
What anyone thinks on the subject about sexual orientation is not really what I’m writing about here. My point here is to see if the claim “I was born this way” can justify a certain behavior. Our culture has many slogans, but many of them do not hold water.
Many gay people assert that their sexual orientation is due to how they were born and this justifies they sexual acts. But does this answer give a moral justification for their actions. I think there may be better arguments for supporting the norm of gay relationships then asserting that it is due to our genes. I mean if sexual orientation is based on just inherent feelings without a norm to check them against what can we say about other claims. As Paul Copan says “The logic of such arguments is that if someone had a natural inclination towards bestiality (being in a loving relationship with an animal such as one’s pet) or necrophilia (sex with corpses), sadomasochism, pederasty (adult male sex with boys) or even rape, that person can legitimately act on that orientation.”
Some may say that those I offer go against common sense, but what is common sense, subjective votes or an absolute moral law? To condemn any of these is to imply an objective “norm”. Some may say well at least some of them could be ok as long as no one gets hurt. But this claim I refuted in my last blog. Avoiding pain doesn’t establish morality.
More to the point Copan says, We’re all born with a natural self-centered tendency, but that doesn’t mean we should assume that we have a “right” to fulfil those inclinations. To say that we act one way because of our genes would mean that our nature goes against the existence of freewill. If one could locate a biological basis for alcoholism, pedophilia, or violent behavior would we accept it as normal. Some acts seem to be wrong, which would imply they go against an objective standard that the universe should be following and this again slips in the existence of God. Just maybe we have fallen natures, which have twisted us spiritually, psychologically, sexually, physically and mentally. Maybe this is the reason why we cant get away from assuming a objective moral law of right and wrong, even when we have inclinations we cant resist at times. To reject any kind of sin nature or falleness is to wipe out the existence of right and wrong, they become empty words that can be filled with any action or behavior. Those that give lip service to this view do not live it when some one abuses them.
We should be careful not to commit the naturalistic fallacy of going from what “is” to what “ought” to be the case. What about people who have tendencies toward pedophilia, cannibalism, racism, rape, or substance abuse? Tendencies don’t necessarily tell us how we “ought” to live. I believe in a culture that basically has no norms and thinks that we live in some chance universe that all things are permitted have in fact conditioned themselves to think that all our inclinations are in fact normal. The concept of normal implies some objective standard to judge our actions against. If everything is normal due to what each individual thinks, then the word becomes meaningless.
Many experts think that our sexual orientations these days are due to our environments. We become what we accept in the end. Our justification for accepting our cultures ever changing adoption of morals could well be explain by our environment. Through genetic or hormonal differences, (note they could be fixed), societal or individual confusion, family dysfunction, permissiveness, positive homosexual experiences and freely consenting. When one rejects an unchanging norm, one loses their power to justify anything. Some may think that it can all be proven from brain chemistry, that our brains drive us. But Dr. Satinover of Harvard Medical School speaks of bio-neural processes that are shaped through habit formation. It seems to be the other way around rather then being dictated by our genes. Now some my not like what I say, but what could be ‘right’ is not based on some ones emotion but on some rational establishment that justifies some objective norm for the universe. And no I’m not homophobic. I could just as well say your heterophobic or a Philosophical-Phobic.
Therefore I affirm that the claim I was born this way does not establish what is right. I would say what is right, is what creation was designed to perform or act, which establishes correct function. This only exists if there is an eternal interpretation to creation.
Do what you want just as long as you dont hurt anyone?
Do what you want just as long as you don’t hurt anyone?
Have you every heard the saying which tries to establish an ethical foundation that “You can do what you want just as long as you don’t hurt anyone.” I used to think that this claim was pretty hard to fault until I looked at the deeper motivations of those who proclaim this ethical stance. The first question that has always jumped into my mind has been “How does one define hurt”. Is morality just based on what reactions happen with physical actions or is morality a little deeper. Is the “hurt” defined from the physical, emotional or motive or all three? And who defines here?
In our society today many hold on to the ethical system of relativism. That there is no absolute moral standard that exists for all people. For many if this did exist it would imply God’s existence. So ethical relativism with its claim that nothing is ultimately good or evil has tried to make a moral system that is livable in a community of people.
But the problem seems to be that every time a relativist tries to live as if they have absolute freedom they slip in some universal moral standards refuting there relativism.
For example, look at the universal, which is implied at the end of these claims,
“People can do what they want, just as long as they don’t hurt anyone.”
“You can do whatever you want, as long as its between two consenting adults”
“You can do whatever you want, as long as its in the privacy of your own home.”
“People can believe and do whatever they want, they should just be tolerant of others views.”
The problem with all these statements is that they start of giving every one absolute freedom, due to their relativism. But because relativism is unlivable they impose an absolute universal claim that every one must abide by, as if it was a universal moral claim independent of any one’s subjective views. We see again that when you try and tinkle with reality, you will be brought back to it. This is the same with rejecting God, try and deny him, you will affirm him. Let’s try this standard and see if it works,
“A man slips a drug in to a women’s drink and she falls a sleep (date rape). He takes precautions so that there are no consequences to his violating her. He does all this without hurting her or even without her knowing what has taken place. Hasn’t the man been able to do what he wants without harming the women. Is this act ok with us? While the man does not physical hurt the women or psychologically harm her because he is gone before she wakes up, we all know this is wrong!” We know that her universal rights which cant be grounded from relativism have been violated. Rape is universally wrong!
Another example, if we were to work in a mental ward with patients who have lost their minds, would we consider it ok to mock them even if they couldn’t understand or relate to reality. To most of us we know our words wouldn’t physical hurt them or mentally hurt them, but it would still be wrong to degrade some ones universal rights of dignity and worth. In our conscious we just seem to know that is wrong and mean.
Another example, you can do whatever you like, between two consenting people. So would agree to having pedophiles play with your kids?
My last example is if absolute freedom is ok, can one commit suicide? They would not be hurting any body else, but they would be hurting themselves and their friends. I think bringing harm to us is just as bad. We are killing life and a person, ourselves.
As I have shown relativism even when it tries to form an ethical system to deny an absolute moral standard independent from our opinions fails as it refutes itself. In trying to be individualist, they assume that they are part of a larger community, which we should take seriously.
Have you every heard the saying which tries to establish an ethical foundation that “You can do what you want just as long as you don’t hurt anyone.” I used to think that this claim was pretty hard to fault until I looked at the deeper motivations of those who proclaim this ethical stance. The first question that has always jumped into my mind has been “How does one define hurt”. Is morality just based on what reactions happen with physical actions or is morality a little deeper. Is the “hurt” defined from the physical, emotional or motive or all three? And who defines here?
In our society today many hold on to the ethical system of relativism. That there is no absolute moral standard that exists for all people. For many if this did exist it would imply God’s existence. So ethical relativism with its claim that nothing is ultimately good or evil has tried to make a moral system that is livable in a community of people.
But the problem seems to be that every time a relativist tries to live as if they have absolute freedom they slip in some universal moral standards refuting there relativism.
For example, look at the universal, which is implied at the end of these claims,
“People can do what they want, just as long as they don’t hurt anyone.”
“You can do whatever you want, as long as its between two consenting adults”
“You can do whatever you want, as long as its in the privacy of your own home.”
“People can believe and do whatever they want, they should just be tolerant of others views.”
The problem with all these statements is that they start of giving every one absolute freedom, due to their relativism. But because relativism is unlivable they impose an absolute universal claim that every one must abide by, as if it was a universal moral claim independent of any one’s subjective views. We see again that when you try and tinkle with reality, you will be brought back to it. This is the same with rejecting God, try and deny him, you will affirm him. Let’s try this standard and see if it works,
“A man slips a drug in to a women’s drink and she falls a sleep (date rape). He takes precautions so that there are no consequences to his violating her. He does all this without hurting her or even without her knowing what has taken place. Hasn’t the man been able to do what he wants without harming the women. Is this act ok with us? While the man does not physical hurt the women or psychologically harm her because he is gone before she wakes up, we all know this is wrong!” We know that her universal rights which cant be grounded from relativism have been violated. Rape is universally wrong!
Another example, if we were to work in a mental ward with patients who have lost their minds, would we consider it ok to mock them even if they couldn’t understand or relate to reality. To most of us we know our words wouldn’t physical hurt them or mentally hurt them, but it would still be wrong to degrade some ones universal rights of dignity and worth. In our conscious we just seem to know that is wrong and mean.
Another example, you can do whatever you like, between two consenting people. So would agree to having pedophiles play with your kids?
My last example is if absolute freedom is ok, can one commit suicide? They would not be hurting any body else, but they would be hurting themselves and their friends. I think bringing harm to us is just as bad. We are killing life and a person, ourselves.
As I have shown relativism even when it tries to form an ethical system to deny an absolute moral standard independent from our opinions fails as it refutes itself. In trying to be individualist, they assume that they are part of a larger community, which we should take seriously.
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