Science, Religion, and Moral Values: Religious vs. Secular Morality (Shermer w/ Hunter & Nedelisky)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.ย. 2024
- In their book Science and the Good, professional philosophers James Hunter and Paul Nedelisky trace the origins and development of the centuries-long, passionate, but ultimately failed quest to discover a scientific foundation for morality. The conversation takes a decidedly interesting turn when Drs. Hunter and Nedelisky reveal that they are both theists and that their Christian worldview informs their thinking on moral issues. The three then dig into the weeds of the difference between religious and secular moral systems, the nature of God and morality, why a purely naturalistic approach to morality does not negate religion or even the existence of God (natural law could be God’s way of creating moral values), natural rights and rights theory, consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, progress in philosophy, why philosophers never seem to reach consensus on important subjects like morality, how to think about issues like abortion, why they believe in God and follow the Christian religion and yet reject Divine Command Theory, and much more.
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"there are naturalistic explanations for God" ... Then goes on to list naturalistic explanations for why some people *believe* in god
Also it is not fair to say that all societies have a god. Even leaving out modern secular societies, there are religions that don't even bother with a god - buddhism being the most prominent example.
this one is def one of my favorite. thanks Dr. Shermer and guests
Shermer being rather kind because they were polite and cordial and not arrogant. I think he would have been a bit harder on them if it were not for that.
@@dakrontu I think he's out his depth
Great talk Michael!
How about getting Steve Pinker on??
So basically Rudy Giuliani and Hitman wrote a book, and Michael was skeptical of it. Makes sense.
Didn't know who Hitman was, looked him up, and...dammit you're right.
There may be some more subtleties involved, but yeah, that is it, in a nutshell.
lmao. best comment ive seen in a while.
You guys are just too funny. I see it too :)
Their objection to a naturalistic explanation for morality makes perfect sense when you find out they're theists lol. "God did it" is such a copout.
Well, if we are 100 percent honest to ourselves there is no higher code of behavior. Any attempt to create one is pathetic and relies on some presumed higher value that is "generally agreed upon".
@@ReasonAboveEverything But when the premise ' my preferred version of a invisible supernatural superbeeing' starts your moral philosophy then a person like me already has it issues. Mix that with the Bible and slavery, a god that acts inconsistent, oftentimes absolutely tyrannical with a moral that is worse then some of the worst humans that ever existed...plus we can easily research how religious moral systems caused unimaginable wars, anti intellectualism, anti Science / science denial...I can't except a moral system that can be interpreted differently based on denomination, how you interpret the Bible, how you pick and choose what you believe or don't...
The God of the gaps is not a good answer when formulating a moral system.
Wow - you must be a genius
Guilt is how our gametes keep us from pursuing strategies that are less than optimal for our gametes and their programs for propagation. Pain is something that we feel when we do something that is physically destructive. Guilt is something that we feel when we do something that we believe is socially destructive. Why would that be hard to understand as an evolutionary development with a naturalistic explanation? Why would it be any harder than understanding pain in that context?
It would seem that these gentlemen may have made some unwarranted assumptions at the outset, which caused them to offer ill-considered academic commentary. Or there is something that is fundamental to their reasoning that they never touched on.
Yes there are very good evolutionary reasons for our psychological makeup, our disgust for rotting materials for example causing us to stay away from sources of infection, our affinity for people similar to ourselves because of the better likelihood of communication and common interest and trust, and so on. And these 2 guys seemed to gloss over all that as if it was beyond their imagination to see how evolution could provide us with mental capabilities and attitudes that improve our survival chances. I suspect a lack on their part of a proper understanding of evolution, as is common among religionists.
Great discussion! But, I became a disbeliever from study and my personal understanding and observations of life. And I hope that I always accept the beliefs of others as they use them to traverse life. I want be expecting or forcing others to believe as I do. I want no harm to come my
way and I will be vigilant that I do not harm others. This is based on the society in which I reside.
“This is why they call it faith.”
I was surprised to hear them making a virtue of blind faith. Blind faith always assumes God is a good guy who owns a place bigger than Mar-a-Lago for everyone who panders to his narcissistic need for praise and a separate place of eternal torture where will go all the folks who all those loving tolerant kind believers don't like.
The bigger problem, as i see it, is not: How de we agree with each other, but the opposite, how do we disagree with each other without resorting to violence, etc.
We don't.
@@ReasonAboveEverything Which leads to tribalism (the binary of an us and the other) which inevitably has to lead to war.
If there is one thing you can learn from history is that, unless you're in dire need of vast advancements in technology, you really really do not wish for war.
Nice to see how 2 thinking Christians have more moderate and humble views. Now if we could only make the rest of Christians think.
their ideas are vastly refreshing and genuinely intriguing to me which saddens and enlightens me because yet I know nothing about the epistemological truth.
Do you not know about your own?
The level of "ummms" in this dialogue (from one of the participants) tells me that his ability to communicate is not on a good enough level. Good talk but put off by this.
The pauses give the impression of deep thought not borne out by the eventual statements.
At approx 1:35. I agree there is none or very minimal harm caused by believing in God. God is such a broad concept that it can be interpreted in natural or supernatural ways. Free will on the other hand is usually understood as being able to have acted differently than one did in fact act. Arguably a massive amount of the harms of the world are caused by this belief. Justifications for revenge and lack of compassion are completely removed when it is understood perpetrators could not have acted differently. Likewise forgiveness becomes much easier. Michael is wrong to say it's a useful fiction necessary for mechanisms of Justice. People can still be held accountable for their errors even if they couldn't help it. They can also be kept in prisons to prevent them continuing to harm and hopefully to learn better ways of acting in future.
that being said, they raise good points, and doing the science to figure out what really happened so to speak is probably a quest for an entire century if not more.
Guilt isn't uniquely human. Animals have guilt anyone with a Dog knows this, they rip up a shoe and you walk in to the room with the ripped up shoe and you start to scold them. They feel that guilt it is expressed by their body language and it is so obvious that anyone can see it. You can watch dog videos of people filming in a different language and see the dog displaying guilt. how can i know it is guilt when i can't understand the words unless the body language of the dog was something I can read?
A friend of mine always knew when his dog did something bad when he got home from work. If the dog didn't rush to the door or be at the door waiting for him when he arrived he knew the dog did something it knew was wrong. So how do dogs have guilt in the theist world view? Why create a soulless animal with guilt? What is there a dog hell or dog heaven? Yet evolution explains why a social pack animal with higher brain function than an ant might require a mechanism for guilt to help form stronger bonds of a social unit.
A great and humble discussion guys
People need to develop a greater imaginative power to understand the nuances of evolution. How does anything novel including the moral sense evolve? A mutation or new behavior happens in a given environmental situation where it becomes adaptive and slowly becomes more and more engrained in a population over time. Evolution perfectly explains the moral sense when you have the imaginative power to understand it.
Another delightful interview.
What about Michael Sandel? It would be great to watch you questioning him about meritocracy.
Great conversation!
who needs these guys clearly the real experts are here in the comment section
there can only be objective right an wrong in relation to the subject experiencing it, so i cant be mean to sam if sam doesnt exist ect. it matter whether i live in a world with only sam harris, or only another person, as to whether i joke is funny, dangerous or whatever other qualifier, you can say given history and the individuals that sprung from it and their sentiments and potentials for suffering, resentment and consensus, then there is a "best" morality, or objective morality, maybe, that seems less ill defined, but there is a problem of relativism in theory that cannot be just layed aside, the question of how we define these things or achieve practical morality from such a conception is a much harder question to answer, but the pitfalls of moral relativism is not really that it is relative, but that any resulting ruleset from a relativist calculus, or an objective or definite rule set derived from other conceptions can be ill posed to archive good consequences for people or have a view of the good that is in conflict with the views and experiences of others, such that some may justify the holocaust based on the aftermath being free of victims for example, because the victims are gone, the problem with that can be posed as simply being that selective morality that treats people differently to a degree that is not of their own choosing in some strict sense is wrong, or that relativism is wrong, i think relativism is just a broad concept, and the kinds of relativism are the relevant issue, just like the kinds of virtue based morality matters more than that there are such categories as virtue and so on, for the outcomes and how the moral consensus in each of us individually and in groups could agree that it was all for the best or something like that. i think we need to use relativism in a very specific way, namely to provide freedom for the individual, but we absolutely do not want to bastardize it as it has been, much like other forms of morality. in terms of hedonistic scientific conceptions or morality, i think we should be really really careful about defining categories, suffering is only one variable to consider, surely there are many other angles. another thing to consider is that we don't have the option of creating a detailed plan for how to be moral applicable to every circumstance, people don't function that way in life practically, and its at odds with our nature to do so in too much detail, rather we have to integrate moral lessons into our daily and social lives not only in theory but through practice, not that inclinations in themselves hold moral value, but inclinations are part of our cognitive apparatus, and there is a feedback between being good in practice and consciously trying to do it as often as possible, there isn't any conflict between practicing virtues and internal comprehension of morality and emotional connection to what you perceive as good, all of which really varies in terms of conscious control.
one thing that really has to be said about sociology as a science, assuming sociological phenomena has to emerge all the way from atoms, as a pure naturalistic account would require. from this perspective sociology is a the study of perhaps the most complicated machine ever studied at all, and so we are reduced to almost exclusively correlation and questionable hypothesis, not to say that sociology is useless at all, its just bound to be extremely hard to nail down, especially where it meets up with other fields. to be clear if i haven't already said this, but i think the bridge you are discussing is a century type project, its not clear how to build it properly, and in its absence we should be skeptical about threads that cross it, say basic neuroscience informing sociology where it seems to be in conflict with sociology, in such cases the absence of a clear bridge between the subjects essential means that the implications are not solid either necessarily, and our ignorance makes it hard to really get a grip on what might be wrong with our arguments, there are obviously great many traps to fall into as evidenced by earlier attempts such as border science or eugenics. this is a question that has to be taken very seriously as a hard problem. that said i think the episode was interesting :) and you cant blame variable man, thats just another reduction or theme that isn't really true, sometimes its hard to learn the lessons you figure out yourself.
18:43 what happened did he cut something out there?
Shermer very bright person .
When you hear people arguing for god is good or goodness without god why does no one ever argue that goodness is a mask that covers a dark truth both with or without god?
What about making mental equations to see if it is worth playing best buddies with the competition..telling you friend he like the brother you never had, but then as soon as you TOOK all you need him for..tell him he a dummy , tell him he toxic, after all you took everything you needed he can’t give you anymore, his Heath is deteriorating best days are gone..why not play your hand..what’s to lose?
Why is God always assumed good? The evidence does not suggest this. Most of the Bible is the OT, and it is about an angry narcissistic God.
These two gentleman need a book like ", Evolving Brains Emerging God's by E.Fuller Torrey and then assume his books premise is correct...that God's are just made up in our brains thru Evolutionary processes and culture.
How would that reflect on their philosophy?
Because I personally reject these two gentleman's premise ( their preferred version of an invisible supernatural superbeeing that exists outside of the material world we all share and from this Supernatural entity and a book written by human beings that ) which makes it impossible for me to adapt their moral philosophy..
unfortunately i think your guests are overvaluing just how moral or knowledgeable we are that's just my opinion ofc, but the questions are serious obviously, they are perhaps the most difficult evolutionary questions to answer perhaps slightly easier than the origin of complex life. no pressure this is hard, i don't think we are that close, but not that far away either, but i think there is an intuitive obstacle to getting the idea of how, because it does involve taking knowledge and morality apart to the degree that it become a result of impulses and corrections, which frankly even i find horrifying at times, but its important to remember that this mechanistic view of things don't devalue us at all, its just a description if anything, all our doubts and deep caring about the nature of our own good and bad are really what makes us real boys as Pinocchio would say, not that we are made of ethereal stuff.
Ambushed?! I think the winner of this might be the lithesome Wittgensteinesque statue over Michael's right shoulder.
Giacometti , the artist.
@@maximilyen Ah, thank you.
@@jps0117 You welcome🙂
Have you done an interview with a woman? Just curious.
when it comes to beauty and so on, there really isn't any sense in just saying, its very hard to imagine there being a naturalistic explanation. the same thing with higher mathematics, having decent experience with the appreciation of both i would say that there is absolutely no limit to what nature could do in principle in terms of creating experience if it can create it at all, who is anyone to say they don't believe nature could do it but then also believe something else could, without any qualifiers for the difference between the 2 sources of experience, it doesn't make any sense to me, no offence to the guests. i feel this is a product of the faculty of intuition and beauty not a problem with them per se, because the only way nature could achieve such thing is not through an internally rational process, meaning that we as experiences of beauty for example could not have a rational process in our consciousness that tells us if something is beautiful, the definitive process from which that experience springs must vary and be hidden away in terms of natural reasons for the experience itself. its pretty much a defining feature of these qualia that we don't know why, but we feel it, we know it, but without a why, thats the experience of being alive to varying degrees, and in phenomena like love, emotions or beauty, the very obscurity of the reasons are pretty much defining the sensation in some way, there cannot be beauty without mystery, and as remarked by Feynman even naturalistic explanations have this potential, and not at all because we rationally understand, but because we react to understanding or experience in this way, and a naturalistic explanation in itself is like a flower, we don't find it beautiful because its correct or consistent, we in some way get mesmerized by its features, and it appeals to us in a way we cant really explain, even if we could list all the things we like about it we wouldn't by those reasons be able to explain its beauty, the same goes for flowers and so on, the crucial mistake is to think the naturalistic explanation is what appeals to us, the facts so to speak, because that is not true even for the flower, try to explain why a flower is beautiful without abstraction to emotion and impression and you find yourself failing to do so pretty quickly, the magic happens in the interaction between our minds and the features we observe and interact with, and its precisely not a rational argument or reason that makes us fall in love or appreciate it, the reasons for ending up with that sentiment is utterly obfuscated.
Nature has given us the qualia but not the explanation of them. It has no reason to give us an explanation any more than a postman delivering a letter needs to give you a complete top-to-bottom run-down of how the vast network of the postal service operates, how the engines of its delivery vehicles operate, what electricity is and how it is used by their automatic sorting machines, what writing is and how it is used to form delivery addresses, and so on. Realistically, it won't even know. It just tried lots of stuff, most of it didn't work, and it continues with what was left.
@Terry Breedlove
If it doesn’t make good sense I reject it, even if it has been written down in scripture. I am a realist.
Even if a goldfish could become aware of the fact that we humans live on land, drive cars, and understand calculus, would it care? It's still just a goldfish, optimized and evolved to be where it lives. So just be where you are. Understanding any more than that is unnecessary to get the most out of life.
You evolved to see beauty to fight off nihilism.
God made the world pretty so we don't notice the lifeform-eat-lifeform perpetual carnage going on all around us.
Is it more important to appear moral or to actually be a moral person?
To the woke the former!!
Appearing moral or being moral: In nature there is much mimicry. The prime rule in nature is: What works, ie what can you get away with?
"Thus says The Lord God: Peoples of the earth, your atrocities have kindled a great fire within Me! I am enraged as I look upon all these murdered innocent! My fury has come up into My face as I look upon all your false gods, O adulterous and perverse generation!
Lo, multitudes of idols fill every corner! Both the believer and unbeliever bow down together and serve their gods! ALL nations worship the works of their own hands, for they have placed their own creations and the love of their own ideas above their Creator! False deities abound, while science and corrupt religion rule over them! Mere theories become truth and doctrine, and lawlessness is widely accepted! And behold, the love of money has become their new taskmaster, and materialism their god!
Sins of every kind imaginable flow through every land!
Yea, as a mighty river it flows into every nation,
Reaching unto new heights in wickedness as the walls
Are broken down, overtopped by these quickly rising waters!
The levees are eroded from beneath, they are
Undermined continually, widening the breach!...
Behold, a great flood of sin has ensued,
A terrible deluge covers the face of the whole earth,
And still the fear of The Lord is all but forgotten!...
THUS THE CUP OF THE WRATH
OF MY FURY IS COME TO THE FULL!
Behold, My Kingdom comes, and My will shall be done on earth as in Heaven. Even as I had purposed it from the beginning, so shall it be done to this generation. For My throne is set high above the highest heavens, and the earth is but a footstool set beneath My feet. FOR I AM THE LORD! YAHUWAH IS MY NAME!
Therefore, let the enemies of The Lord be gathered! Let them be gathered together in one place for judgment! Let the hills melt in the heat of My wrath, and the mountains crumble under the weight of My fury!... LET THE WHOLE EARTH BE BOWED DOWN! - Until everything high and lofty is brought down, and every stronghold of man is broken and collapses with a great crash! Until every nation is plowed like a field and every city is left in ruinous heaps! Says The Lord.
Thus says The Lord: Cut down the trees and lay the forest bare! Let neither stump nor root be left in it! Break off the branches and destroy every vine! For the vine of man is wickedness, and the stronghold of man a dwelling place of evil. Behold, the pillar of man is a tree of abomination! His every branch bears only diseased fruit, infecting the masses! For his roots plunge ever deeper into darkness, that he might secure his place and gain strength in his rebellion against The Lord!
Therefore, I must remove My sheep and gather up every lamb, and destroy all these kingdoms of men!... NO MORE shall My sheep be hurt by all these briers and thorns! NO MORE shall they become entangled! NO MORE shall My lambs be given up to the slaughter, O most wicked generation! NO MORE shall My beloved be made subject to you! For I must call My children home, that they may be with Me where I am.
Yet many refuse My voice, and will not listen to the sound of this Trumpet. For they plug their ears and hide their faces; they ignore My call and loathe My messengers! - Obstinate children who endeavor to grab hold of My robes with one hand, while pushing Me away with the other!
For I reach down to them, with both hands I bend down to embrace them, yet they want no part with Me as I truly am! Behold, I have offered them bread from My own table, manna from Heaven has been sent down to them, and how do they repay Me?! - WITH EVIL! Stomping upon My bread, refusing all manna provided them!
Yea, they loathe My correction and break My Commandments, DOING SO IN THE NAME OF THE HOLY ONE! Yes, in MY OWN NAME they do these things! By permission they claim they are free to do all these things! By permission, UNDER GRACE, they excuse themselves, that they might do all this evil in My name!... LAWLESS PEOPLE, PERVERSE AND DEGENERATE GENERATION! Your so-called faith is a loathsome sore upon the skin, a canker upon the lips of all who sing Me praises in your courts! Thus I declare to you, I NEVER KNEW YOU! Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness! Says The Lord.
Thus says The Lord: Shall you provoke Me to anger?! Shall you forsake The Moral Law, in the name of grace and Him crucified, that you might provoke Me to anger?! I tell you the truth, you know nothing of grace, and the true nature of The Holy One is hidden from your eyes! For your knowledge is useless! Your learned leaders desecrate My name and pollute the minds of My people everyday!
And when they heard of My anger, they did not repent, neither were they ashamed, nor did they know how to blush! And when I commanded this Trumpet be blown, did they perk up their ears to listen?! Did they come close to know the heart of the matter?! NO! Instead they mocked and refused to give heed, turning their backs on The Holy One of Israel!
Therefore, thus declares The Lord to this
Most foolish and perverse generation:
YOU SHALL NOT BE LIFTED UP,
NOR SHALL YOU ESCAPE
THE DAY OF THE LORD!...
DEATH SHALL BE YOUR ONLY RELIEF,
AND MARTYRDOM YOUR ONLY ESCAPE!...
Says The Lord God.
Thus says The Lord to all these blind and deaf children, to all these desolate people: How is it you refuse My voice and question My ways without ceasing, and have yet to consider your own? Test your hearts! Look upon your motives!
Shall you question My ways, though you yet stand in judgment for your own actions, which were brought forth from your own deceitful hearts?! I tell you the truth, the lies thereof have led you astray, and the tablets thereof lack justice!
For My cause is not pleaded before the people, and the jury of your peers upholds every evil platform. Therefore their cause shall crush them, and their controversy shall consume them in the Day of Judgment! Says The Lord.
Behold, the cause of The Lord is forgotten among you, and the controversy of The Lord is held in secret, My every decree forsaken! Yet the cause of The Lord shall be fulfilled in His messengers, and the controversy of The Lord shall be trumpeted from the rooftops, and the sins of this people shall be exposed! For they have altogether hated Me!
For every man is led by the deceits of his flesh,
He is married to the selfish desires of his own heart,
As he casts off the written Law of God to his own hurt...
Behold, My Commandments are regarded
As foreign and out of date, and My Law
Antiquated and obsolete, in the eyes of this
So-called modern generation of enlightened people...
Yet I tell you, you are all perverse in My sight,
A whole generation of arrogant
And high-minded people!...
Says The Lord.
Thus says The Lord: And what of you, O churches of men? What has happened to you?! WHY HAVE YOU ALSO FORSAKEN ME?! How is it you have altogether become like the heathen, with the vanity of the world gleaming in your eyes, with the lusts thereof filling your hearts and minds?! I DO NOT KNOW YOU! Your self-created god is an abomination to Me, and this “Jesus” you speak of is foreign to Me, a great desecration of My image, an affront to My name and My glory!
My people, look! Look at all these material things you have acquired! Look upon all these idols you serve! You are surrounded on every side, you are boxed in with no escape!... Therefore I am come down to destroy all these detestable things! Therefore I am come to wipe them from the face of the earth! For the multitude of all these idols must I destroy the kingdoms of men!
O foolish and captive children, I am The Only God, your Creator, your Fashioner, The Maker of all things, The God who formed you by His own hands... I gave you breath!... And still you bring unwarranted charges against Me and think My ways unfair!
Shall you continue to persecute those sent to you, provoking Me to anger?! I tire of all your accusations, your unending presumptuous ways weary Me! I can no longer bear to look upon all your lies and falsehoods!
For your heresies have grown unimpeded, filling your unjust courts, which I hate!... O abominable vine, how long shall you grow contrary to the Way I have established?! How long shall you oppose My Word and pollute My name, by upholding your own way?! I AM THE LORD!
My children, the judgment of your hearts is unjust and very foolish, for you have sought to draw charges against The Great I AM! Thus these courts in which you seek to weigh Me are unfair, and shall be your undoing! For your weights are deceitful, and your arrogant hearts corrupt!
Shall you attempt to persecute The Lord your God?! Oh yes, you have persecuted Me days without end! For you have loathed My messengers and spit upon My servants! You have slandered My bride and lifted up your heel against My elect!
Shall I not then bring charges against YOU, even against you, O churches of men?! Shall I not judge your courts, and recompense your deeds upon your own heads?! Shall I not correct My people, and bring upon them swift discipline?! Shall I not rain down judgment and pour out justice upon this wicked generation?!... Lo, the decree has went forth, the sentence has been declared, and behold, I shall institute the punishment without delay! For you have all dealt unjustly with Me! Says The Lord God."
trumpetcallofgodonline.com/index.php5?title=THE_CUP_OF_THE_WRATH_OF_MY_FURY_IS_COME_TO_THE_FULL
All of the concepts being discussed here are insufficient. As with all evolution of ideas in human history, when a deeper truth is discovered, it always involves a reframing of the idea that was being investigated. The idea doesn't change, but rather our perception or understanding of it changes.
Young Brenda Young John Hernandez Jason
@33:20 oops! Bye
Williams Ronald Lewis Angela Thomas George
Sarah Scoles!
With liberty and justice for all: As an illustration of the conundrum, everybody needs justice at some point, so to have it apply to all human beings, it has to extend beyond the mother in abortion, for example, to the fetus, or unborn child.
god of the gaps once again.
It is crazy the host doesn’t believe in the virgin birth. Or at least believe it is possible and at the same time worshiping at the alter of Science. How unscientific of him.
The idea of a virgin birth is not explainable via science. So why should he believe it's possible?
@@andybaldman Bullshit it is perfectly and easily explainable.
@@andybaldman What about In-vitro fertilization?
@@terrywbreedlove Then explain it.
@@keithhunt5328 That isn't a virgin birth. Not to mention that technology didn't exist 2000 years ago.