--- In [email protected], "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > Excerpts from an interview at Salon.com with > > Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, > > about his religious beliefs (he's an evangelical > > Christian), which he discusses in his new book, > > "The Language of God." <snip> > > The book was "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. And > > within the first three pages, I realized that my arguments > > against faith were those of a schoolboy. > > > > S: So that one book totally changed your life? > > > > C: Absolutely. It was as if he was reading my mind. As I read his > > arguments about the Moral Law -- the knowledge of right and wrong, > > which makes no sense from the perspective of basic evolution and > > biology but makes great sense as a signpost to God -- I began to > > realize the truth of what he was saying. Ultimately, I realized I > > couldn't go back to where I was. I could never again say atheism > > is the only logical choice for a scientifically trained person.... > > And Bertrand Russel isn't an adequate counter to these arguments?
Say more, please. I just looked up what he has to say about the "moral argument," and I'm perplexed by it (this is from a lecture): "Kant...invented a new moral argument for the existence of God....It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say that there would be no right and wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good." I don't follow his reasoning here. Why is there no difference for God between right and wrong if what is right and what is wrong is determined by his fiat? "If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God." I don't get this either. Why can't God say, "I am going to create a universe of infinite possibilites and declare half of them to be good and half of them to be bad"? <snip> > > If you read the appendix of C.S. Lewis' wonderful book "The > > Abolition of Man," he comes to the conclusion that there is this > > wonderful, monotonous repetition of morals across the world and > > across history. You are to reach out to those who are less > > fortunate. You are to aid the widow, you are to help the orphan. > > All of these altruistic things seem to be a universal feature of > > human beings. And yet, they're a scandal to evolutionary biology > > because they motivate people to do things that are exactly the > > opposite of what evolution would require... > > And yet, evolutionary biologists can and DO explain cooperation in terms of evolution. You > can explain homosexuality in terms of evolution and even assign mathematical probablity > to the evolutionary advantage to a species that has a few non- breeders --it's a non- > competitive advantage thing. Game theory does this as well. I wish you'd read the whole interview, because he has a response to your argument, which the Salon interviewer also made. I'd like to see a solid counterrebuttal to that. > And there is at least one culture in Africa that was quite stable that turns altruism on its > head. Non-tribemembers are *supposed* to be abused, deceived, etc. It's more than the > social "norm" --it's considered core ethics. Christian missionaries had a VERY difficult time > explaining Christ to them. That's a good point, wish the Salon person had asked him about it. <snip> > > C: Again, that would be the perspective if one had decided > > upfront that the only worldview that can be brought to bear on > > any circumstance is the scientific one. In that situation, all > > miracles have to be impossible. If, on the other hand, you're > > willing to accept the spiritual worldview, then in certain rare > > circumstances -- I don't think they should be common -- the > > miraculous could have a non-zero probability.... > > Such a deep thinker (not). By definition, miracles are improbable/impossible. It doesn't > matter which. You don't need to assign a non-zero probability to miracles to accept that > they might occur, you just need to accept that the Creator can do Whatever the Creator > Wants, WHEN the Creator Wants, despite what the rules say, just because the Creator IS the > Creator, and made the rules in the first place. I think that's pretty much what he's saying, isn't it? Why does his use of the term "non-zero probability" mean he's not a deep thinker? He just means, if you believe in God, miracles are no longer impossible because God can break the rules. > > http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/08/07/collins/index.html BTW: I'm playing, er, devil's advocate here. I'm an active disbeliever in the tenets of the faith he embraces. I just find the reasoning of scientists who are not atheists interesting. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
