The Bible, whatever it’s other flaws or virtues, is undeniably an impressive compendium of entertaining stories. Of course, it can be tough slogging to read the whole thing from start to finish, suffused as it is with miscellaneous begats and exhortations against the eating of shellfish.
Fortunately, you can now get your Bible stories in easily-digestible comic form, from Holy Bibble. Cannan and Lucas have set themselves the task of rewriting the entire bible as humorous sequential art. Admittedly, some poetic license is occasionally taken with the material — I’m pretty sure there was no trip to Japan in the original Scriptures. But all of the stories are based on real Bible narratives, and you do learn a lot by reading them.
For example, we’ve all heard the story of Lot and his wife. Yahweh had decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their various sinful activities. Lot, being virtuous, was given advance warning, and fled with his wife and two daughters. But his wife couldn’t resist looking back one last time, and was turned into a pillar of salt. God works in mysterious ways.
But the afterstory is so much more interesting. Lot and his daughters apparently thought they were completely alone, and there was some question as to how the family line would be able to continue. The women decided to take matters into their own hands — they got their father drunk and raped him in order to get themselves pregnant. The scheme worked, and they eventually gave birth to sons who fathered the Moabites and the Ammonites, two rival tribes to Israel.
The unwitting seductions actually happened on two successive nights, so one may question whether Lot shouldn’t have figured out what was going on. On the other hand, his daughters may have had some issues, as Lot had previously offered them up to a rampaging mob of Sodomites. At least, that’s what I gather from the comics; but apparently it’s all in the book.
Cain’s trip to Japan, though — pretty sure they made that up.
Update: David Plotz at Slate blogs the Bible!
May 16th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
You dissin’ ma Bible, Sean?
May 16th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
From an anthropological viewpoint, it appears that Christianity is leading our Western Culture down a path of de-evolution. Furthermore, the only way for our culture to derail itself from from this de-evolutionary pathway is to jump-off this degenerative Christian bandwagon.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Sean,
you write quite a lot about religion and related topics, considering that you are an atheist
May 16th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Yup, it’s all in there. Lovely story.
For more Bible stories in fun form, see:
http://www.thebricktestament.com/
I particularly like the Flood.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
Of course the Lot/Sodomites scene was the origin of the famous question about the sex of angels (if male, female, none, or both… the sin of Sodomites depends a lot, er, of the answer)
May 16th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
That Brick Testament must have been quite an exhaustive project. You can’t blame Rev. Smith for playing with Lego on a full-time basis. (Has anybody thought of a ‘Brick String Theory’ book for kindergarten yet?)
May 16th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Upon first viewing, I did not realize that Holy Bibble was a parody. Admittedly, on a subsequent look, Cannon and Lucas are masters of the spoof! By the way, Janet- I especially like the ratings guide on the Brick Testament.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Cynthia wrote:
From an anthropological viewpoint, it appears that Christianity is leading our Western Culture down a path of de-evolution.
What do you have against Mark Mothersbaugh?
May 16th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
From an anthropological viewpoint, it appears that Scientific Materialism is leading our Western Culture down a path of de-evolution. Furthermore, the only way for our culture to derail itself from from this de-evolutionary pathway is to jump-off this degenerative Scientific Materialistic bandwagon.
From an anthropological viewpoint, it appears that Atheism is leading our Western Culture down a path of de-evolution. Furthermore, the only way for our culture to derail itself from from this de-evolutionary pathway is to jump-off this degenerative Atheistic bandwagon.
Don’t diss religion.
A universe which has always existed, is a universe without a scientific explanation.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
The story of Lot is old testament and has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
anon,I have nothing against Mark Mothersbaugh. But then again, I have never tried surfing the Wave of Devo.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Elliot, what makes you believe that mainstream Christianity does not recognize the Old Testament?
May 16th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
Discussing to what degree ‘Christianity’ appreciates the OT isn’t very relevant. Some might believe that it’s been inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore important, others will point out that Jesus himself refined the values from the OT and that it’s moral content applies only to a rather primitive society.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Cynthia,
Certainly Christians recognize the Old Testament as do Muslims. You just seemed to be taking a shot at Christians when they didn’t even exist at the time of the story of Lot. I am not disagreeing with your comment however
I am not sure what you mean by mainstream Christianity. There seem to be a wide variety of groups that characterize themselves as Christians.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Lot is hardly irrelevant. I read a post a long while ago about Lot that has always stuck with me. To quote:
Full post available at http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=50323
May 16th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Cynthia,
I’m posting this as a totally committed atheist. I sympathize with your point of view but feel constrained to point out that it is ultimately mistaken.
The historical development of Western Culture — its “evolution” — was utterly dependent upon Christianity. Without it, the things we most cherish about the West would not have come into existence. It would have been stuck in its slave-based, technologically stunted Greco-Roman phase, or more likely would have become just another oriental civilization. The Western moral traditions that you take for granted — individualism, equality, optimism — are ultimately Christian. Christianity, unlike oriental religions, even left room for Western rationalism to grow and flourish. Christianity, then, rather than being “degenerative”, is the very soil from which the West emerged.
You also need to realize that you just can’t build a civilization without some means of restraining human inborn impulses. If you drain Christianity from Western civilization, it will coast along on Christian traditions for a few generations. But a rising fraction of the population will realize the obvious — crime pays. And, in the absence of a restraining Christianity (or a secular alternative), a growing number will act on this realization. You cannot expect any civilization to survive, if you destroy its ancestral religion without simultaneously introducing a secular alternative that is at least as effective in restraining inborn impulses. [Of course, you could introduce another mystical religion. But who wants that?]
The problem is that we don’t yet have a viable secular alternative to Christianity. If you’ve got one, great. Let’s test it out on some village and see how well it works. But until Cynthiaism is up and running, let’s refrain from mindlessly trashing the backbone of Western civilization. [So far, the track record of secular religions (~60 million dead from Communism, Nazism, and Fascism) doesn't look too good.]
Look, we all realize sometime in junior high school that 1) the Bible is full of crazy stuff, and 2) Christians have throughout history done bad things. But we can’t get stuck there. We really must at some point outgrow our sophomoric prejudices and realize that the benefits of Christianity — especially in its modern form — have well exceeded its detriments.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
an interesting assumption i think implicit in the previous post is that ethical behavior is predicated on having a higher (supernatural) authority. so, lacking a higher authority, is there a reason to act ethically?
May 16th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Tim: A universe which has always existed, is a universe without a scientific explanation.
Good thing we don’t live in such a universe.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Maybe we do, Anti-Tim. Maybe we live in a universe (for example, one containing all the individual “universes” embedded inside this higher dimensional spacetime, a la M-theory) which has always existed, or we live in a universe which had a beginning. Either way, the universe does not have a scientific explanation for its existence.
The question is: If something has always existed, does it require an explanation for its existence?
May 16th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Excellent point, Belizean.
For more, look at “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization”. I’m reading it now! Wow! What a cool and interesting book!
Good news, everyone. I actually got an A in this crazy statistical mechanics course. Now I can focus on some qualifying research.
Tim: For an answer to your question, consult the works of Thomas Aquinas, in particular The Summa Theologia. That dude was a genius of a Catholic theologian and philosopher.
May 16th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
The historical development of Western Culture — its “evolution” — was utterly dependent upon Christianity.
True, but the next part
Without it, the things we most cherish about the West would not have come into existence. It would have been stuck in its slave-based, technologically stunted Greco-Roman phase, or more likely would have become just another oriental civilization. The Western moral traditions that you take for granted — individualism, equality, optimism — are ultimately Christian. Christianity, unlike oriental religions, even left room for Western rationalism to grow and flourish.
begins with an unsupportable statement and continues into overly broad and simply false overgeneralizations about other cultures. Rationalism has been found in many cultures at different times, and throughout most of the Christian era has been present in a number of very different Oriental cultures and absent in Europe.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
We don’t call the golden age of Christianity the Dark Ages for nothing.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
That’s true as well, but rationalism in other cultures was founded in a different manner. Take for example China. The so-called irrigational system established a firm basis of power for later warlords who controlled power and knowledge and sometimes discarded findings by earlier dynasties. Western scientific and mathematical findings (brought over by Jesuits a.o.) were simply ignored or ‘overruled’.
The ‘holyness’ of the Quran provided similar problems in the Middle East. I remember a quote from a Muslim general, who, after conquering foreign territory, found books by an early (Muslim) physicist. He ordered to destroy them – if it’s contents were false, the Quran would contain the truth; if the books told the truth, well, the Holy Quran would still contain a better truth.
You can argue about the start of the scientific method (the foundation of ‘magazines’), but the tradition of monasteries in which original studies could be undertaken (in the common language of Latin) and foreign findings (for example from Arab scholars working by themselves) investigated certainly helped.
And then there’s the right to own property. Christianity was special in that it guaranteed that no despot could take property from his subordinates. (It has something to do with Jesus or Moses not touching other people’s sheep.) Trade and produce were therefore a safe way of making a living. This is said to underlie the start of the trading economy of the Middle Ages.
This stuff is way too complicated to discuss on a blog, consider this my $0.02.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
PK, you are wrong wrong wrong. How someone can mix a few historical facts and get the complete opposite of meaning is just amazing. In fact you are so wrong you are not even wrong but just plain ignorant.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Tim: Either way, the universe does not have a scientific explanation for its existence.
Why? Because you said so? How do you know that we won’t find one?
Besides, even if it is impossible to explain the origin of the universe from within the universe itself, this does not imply the existence of anything you would call a God, and it certainly doesn’t imply the existence of any of the gods of any of the major religions.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
PK: The subject of the “Dark Ages” is dealt in How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, along with works by other scholars. These are people who are trying debunk many of these old myths, by doing some good scholarship, not people with some sort of agenda to manipulate the facts in order to convey something false.
It’s summertime! Let’s read more books! Yay!
May 16th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Belizean – I will partially retract from my overly harsh statement on Christianity. However, I am not entirely convinced that Christianity has – across the cultural spectrum – contributed to the overall good of Western Civilization.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
“Why? Because you said so? How do you know that we won’t find one?”
Because “scientific laws” only have meaning when there’s an already existing universe. If there is no universe, in what sense can science provide an explanation for its existence? So it’s impossible to explain the origin of the universe from within the universe. I’m not sure if that would logically imply the existence of what we would call a God. But I think it’s very conVINCEing (ha ha ha…). How else would you account for the universe’s existence? If we somehow, someway, find out that the universe had always existed, it doesn’t mean that it exists necessarily. Thomas Aquinas has written tons about this stuff. So very cool! It just makes my mouth water!
I’m hungry. Time for dinner.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Cynthia: Then what has contributed to the overall good of Western Civilization. Is Western Civilization good? Why, or why not. If it is good, then where did this goodness come from? Who or what supplied it?
May 16th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Vince: I believe both branches of culture – the arts/humanities as well as science/mathematics – have contributed to the overall good of Western Civilization. But I do not believe that Christianity is without flaw or has exclusively contributed to Western Goodness.
May 16th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Certainly not! It’s so flawed I don’t know where to begin with…
May 16th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Great literature also contributes a great deal to Western Civilization. Shakespeare, for example, is quite wonderful, and you don’t find people taking issue with his works. The difference is that nobody is misguided enough to think that they are actually true.
No atheist has any more of a problem with religion as culture than they do with the fact that lots of people seem to like John Tesh. Things would change, however, if people thought it was a good idea to base serious decisions about society on his lyrics.
May 16th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
No atheist has any more of a problem with religion as culture than they do with the fact that lots of people seem to like John Tesh.
Of course, the latter is absolutely horrifying!
May 16th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
True, but just not dangerous
May 16th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
Mark, that raises the interesting and important question: whose lyrics are current important decisions based on?
(my feeling is, whatever the answer is Tesh would probably be an improvement).
Incidentally, just found out that Vijay’s was rated by the NY Times as one of the 3 best Indian restaurants in north America, that is probably exaggerated…
May 16th, 2006 at 8:33 pm
I thought the food there was terrific moshe (thanks for treating me to it!). I’ve only been to two others in North America that compare. One in NYC and the other, which I actually think is the best I’ve had in North America, in Montreal.
As for current policy, I believe you have to play Tesh backwards to get it.
May 16th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
I suppose #23 was in a humorous vein when talking about the old saws of Oriental Despotism, and the start of trade and so on.
In case he is serious about the origin of trade:
The original and most enduring source of Western power in Asia has been the capacity of Western states to disrupt the complex organization that linked Asian societies to one another within and across jurisdictional and civilizational divides. This capacity has been rooted in Western advances in military technology on the one side, and in the vulnerability of Asian societies to the military disruption of their mutual trade on the other side. Writing in 1688 during the war against the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, Sir Josiah Child, director of the East India Company and instigator of the war, captured the essence of this relationship. “The subjects of the Mogul,” he noted, “cannot bear a war with the English for twelve months together, without starving and dying by the thousands for want of work to purchase rice; not singly for want of our trade, but because by our war, we obstruct their trade with all the Eastern nations which is ten times as much as ours and all the European nations put together” (quoted in Watson 197x, 348-5).
from:
Beyond Western Hegemonies
G. Arrighi, I. Ahmad and M. Shih
http://www.binghamton.edu/fbc/gaht5.htm
May 16th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
“I believe both branches of culture – the arts/humanities as well as science/mathematics – have contributed to the overall good of Western Civilization.”
Good. I believe (in fact, I know) Christianity has contributed much to those two branches.
“But I do not believe that Christianity is without flaw or has exclusively contributed to Western Goodness.”
It depends on what you mean by “Christianity is without flaw”. Certainly, Christians are not without flaw, but if one is a believing Christian, he/she believes that the fundamental principles of Christianity are true, and that religions which deny the truth of those principles are false to that extent.
Perhaps Christianity hasn’t exclusively contributed to Western Goodness, but I think a good case can be made that much of this Goodness is due to Christianity.
May 16th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
Tim says:
“Don’t diss religion.”
Why? I’m sure religious persons may think of atheism as much as a fully mistaken and immoral system that atheists may think of religions and their actions. We must tolerate but must not respect each other.
“A universe which has always existed, is a universe without a scientific explanation.”
It is meaningless to ask science for explanations, it describes. However, here it also meaningless to ask for an explanation at all since either factual answer (existence or not) is good in itself. Furthermore, asking the question seems to me to be confused by an observer effect. If so, asking is not only meaningless but wrong.
Belizean says:
“You cannot expect any civilization to survive, if you destroy its ancestral religion without simultaneously introducing a secular alternative that is at least as effective in restraining inborn impulses.”
Have you ever heard of morals? That is something all people have, whether they are religious or not. That this is so makes me less scared than I could be when people suggest that their religion is the only thing that keeps them moral.
Most moral concepts have been highjacked by religions during history. That doesn’t mean that they are owned by religions. In fact, as Cynthia says, there are much history that says one can be suspect about religions claim of morality.
Finally, it is far easier to work with moral relativism.
May 16th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
Christianity submerged Western Civilization into the Dark Age. Subsequently, art and science lifted Western Civilization out of this Dark Age into the Renaissance.
May 16th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
And here I was all this time thinking the Roman Empire collapsed initiating the so-called Dark Age(s).
May 17th, 2006 at 5:40 am
The scientific method stems directly from the ancient Greek tradition and was merely tolerated by Christianity. The Greek tradition came to a (temporary) halt with the collapse of the Roman Empire, after which Western Europe was firmly in the clutches of Christianity. With the renaissance (of Greek and Roman culture, that is) Christianity started losing ground, and the scientific method came into bloom.
Hence my earlier, slightly provocative statement.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:22 am
I meant “Europe” of course, not just “Western Europe”.
May 17th, 2006 at 8:04 am
PK: I would like to build upon your insightful comments. Firstly, 18th century Enlightenment was primarily a secular movement. For example, American Revolutionaries along with the American Declaration of Independence was inspired by the English philosopher John Locke. Furthermore, Modern Capitalism was spearheaded by the Scottish philosophers/economists, David Hume and John Smith. Undoubtedly, Democracy is pagan in origin; Democracy emerged from the Athenian State of Ancient Greece. In conclusion, Christianity is nowhere in this enlightened picture of western humanity.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:16 am
This blog has become so far removed from Physics that I am
removing it from my favourites.
May 17th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Anonymous says:
This blog has become so far removed from Physics that I am removing it from my favourites.
Oh no! I’m sure the folks at CV will be reeling from that blow for weeks.
May 17th, 2006 at 10:16 am
A large scale civilization could not long survive or even come into existence without great uniformity in morals, any more than it could survive without great uniformity in language. Were its citizens truly independent in choosing personal morals, the extensive system of interactions and tacit contracts upon which civilization depends — which assumes a background moral uniformity — would break down. The means through which the required uniformity is established and maintained is called “religion”.
Torbjörn Larsson,
When irreligious people speak of devising their own personal morality, they do not realized that they are so steeped in the moral traditions laid down by their civilization’s ancestral religion, that they cannot normally bring themselves to deviate from it in any substantive way. Murder and theft are perfectly rational, completely natural, and, when performed intelligently, without personal detriment. Yet few secular moralists have developed an intellectual framework that brings them to advocate, even privately, murder and theft for personal gain. In short, the personal morals of the irreligious are almost certainly just slight variations on religiously determined civilizational norms. Their morals are as independently determined as their language, their mode of dress, the food they eat, or their table manners.
Like it or not, within our civilization (and all others) religion and its moral traditions are restraining the behavior of millions of people including you. You wouldn’t want it any other way. Just remember what happened the last time the views of secular moralists, who failed to respect religiously established moral traditions, were taken seriously (by Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, for example).
Trust me when I tell you that you wouldn’t want to live in our society, if true moral relativism were to take root. There wouldn’t be enough policemen to even begin to restore order or enough morticians to bury the dead.
May 17th, 2006 at 11:00 am
Belizean says:
“When irreligious people speak of devising their own personal morality, they do not realized that they are so steeped in the moral traditions laid down by their civilization’s ancestral religion, that they cannot normally bring themselves to deviate from it in any substantive way.”
I’m going to quote an interview with Sam Harris that I just read, that happened to describe what is going on here:
“The [sacred texts] themselves are very poor guides to morality. The only way you find goodness in good books is because you recognize it. They’re based on your own ethical intuitions.”
“All we have is human conversation to do this with. Either you can be held hostage by the human conversation that occurred 2,000 years ago and has been enshrined in these books, or you can be open to the human conversation of the 21st century. And if there’s something good in those books, then it is admissible in the 21st century conversation on morality.”
In summary, we need less religion and more morals. Morals are found by interacting with people.
“Just remember what happened the last time the views of secular moralists, who failed to respect religiously established moral traditions, were taken seriously (by Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, for example).”
Please! All three of these people were proponents of political/religious belief systems that constrained their actions. They weren’t secular moralists. But by conforming to the criteria of Godwin’s Law you have just lost this debate.
“Trust me when I tell you that you wouldn’t want to live in our society, if true moral relativism were to take root. There wouldn’t be enough policemen to even begin to restore order or enough morticians to bury the dead.”
I don’t trust you. In fact, I find it somewhat disrespectful the way you describe moral relativism, your expectations of it and your way of presenting this point to me. The first two things are okey, you don’t need to respect, only tolerate, my views and that I have another belief in what morals are and how they work best. However, I am sorry that your sense of morals wont insist on that you don’t just tolerate me as a person but respect me. Alas, perhaps you prove my point.
May 17th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Quark,
No. Learning and ingenuity has been present in other cultures. Rationalism in its philosophic sense — the idea that the bulk of reality is fully intelligible to the human mind — is an aberration unique to the West traceable to Thales of Miletus. The idea that our puny minds can discover and grasp the deep secrets of existence has been regard by all other cultures as the height of childish arrogance.
Noel,
No. The existence of a supernatural authority does not automatically result in human compliance with the system of ethics that the authority endorses. My assumption is simply that what we call ethical behavior is unnatural (as is, for example, brushing one’s teeth). Consequently, large populations cannot be induced to adhere, generation after generation, to particular ethical rules without the system of mass ethical education and reinforcement that we call religion. This system need not require supernatural assumptions.
PK,
Yes. Western Rationalism was inherited from the Greeks. And yes, was it was merely tolerated by Christianity (unlike the intolerant oriental religions). What you fail to realize is that Greco-Roman civilization was technologically stalled because it lacked one ingredient due to Christianity — the idea of equality. Greco-Roman intellectuals regarded work — even scientific work — as being beneath them. Galen, for example, had his slaves perform actual surgical explorations. Aristotle never lowered himself to verify whether his pronouncement that women have fewer teeth than men was in fact true.
With the rise of Christian egalitarianism, the moral distinction between nobles, peasants, and slaves weakened to the point that learned men felt justified in getting their hands dirty. Without this medieval union of hand and mind and the subsequent death of the idea that work is only for menials, we might not have seen such inventions as the stirrup, the mechanical clock, the three field system, the cannon, the hour glass, the lateen sail, the book, the compass, advanced windmills, the gun, the horse shoe, the water wheel, eye glasses, or the printing press.
May 17th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Torbjörn Larsson,
One’s ethical intuitions do not form in a vacuum. They result from having internalized the moral traditions of one’s society established and maintained by its dominant religion. A Greek aristocrat of the 12th century B.C., for example, would have considered it utterly immoral not to murder the man who killed his father, raped his wife, or affronted his honor. The ethical intuitions of many conservative Muslims in 21st century Jordan have compelled them to murder their daughters after they date Christian men. Other Muslims find it intuitively obvious that they should murder and maim women and children, while, curiously, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians don’t share this view.
By all means have your conversation. Suppose that you finally arrive, thereby, at a satisfactory system of morals. If you confine your system to your personal morality and act on it, you will be killed or imprisoned if that morality differs substantively from the norms of your society. If you attempt to spread your system into the society at large, you will find that this is impossible to accomplish without a religion to transmit it to present and future generations. You will soon discover that publishing your brilliant idea in The Journal of Moral Philosophy or even writing a popular book will do little to instill your views in the developing minds of children or to reinforce them in adults who had read your book years earlier. Such moral education and reinforcement is the essence of religion, be it secular or mystical.
Never claimed that they were. They took seriously the ideas of secular moralists — Nietzsche in the case of Hitler, Marx in the case of the others.
Look, Torby Baby — you don’t mind if I call you Torby Baby do you? — you go right ahead and form a community of literal ethical relativists. None of this pseudo relativism, where some people have premarital sex and others don’t, but somehow everyone magically agrees that murder, rape, and theft are all wrong. I mean the real thing. [Don't let the fact that no such society has ever existed in human history deter you.] You let me know how things work out in Relativityville. I’ll be happy to continue this discussion, after you get back to me.
May 17th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Belizean says:
You’re quite right that Aristotle (and his approximate contemporaries) got it all wrong to a large extent because he did not do experiments (well, he did observe). But your argument that Christian equality made all the difference does not explain the facts: Why did it take over one thousand years for Christian equality to kick in?
May 17th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
I don’t agree with Belizean, but even if I did, isn’t the real point that the idea of God is, you know, a complete fantasy? And if this is true, then we made up the morals that go along with religion, and can make up any other way of living we like (without the silly worship part) if we want.
May 17th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Belizean says:
“If you confine your system to your personal morality and act on it, you will be killed or imprisoned if that morality differs substantively from the norms of your society.”
If you had thought about what I said you would have seen that the idea of conversation is to establish that norm.
“If you attempt to spread your system into the society at large, you will find that this is impossible to accomplish without a religion to transmit it to present and future generations.”
The norm, having been established by conversations, doesn’ need a superfluous (and highly conservative) channel.
“They took seriously the ideas of secular moralists — Nietzsche in the case of Hitler, Marx in the case of the others.”
If you had thought about what I said you would have seen that they weren’t using secular morals, they were constrained and active proponents of political and religious value systems. Marx is the inventor of the communist idea, an essentially religious belief system.
“you don’t mind if I call you Torby Baby do you?”
Of course I do, and that is your intention. I guess pointing out that one must tolerate a persons view but respect the person was too true for you. So here I think you actually thought about what I said. Good!
“you go right ahead and form a community of literal ethical relativists.”
If you had thought about what I said you would have seen that I proposed the exact opposite of isolated literal relativism. We use conversation to established as much of a normed morality we need. And don’t forget that there will be laws et cetera that is enforcing morality too. Murder, rape and theft will always be immoral in secular societies, however relative our personal norms become.
Look, Belizean, we will not agree on this. Mark says it well, it is really about making up other ways of living without the silly worship and superstition. Nothing more.
May 18th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Has anyone who’s actually read Nietzsche and studied history been able to support the assertion that the Nazi’s got anything at all from his philosophy? From what I’ve seen, the only connection they had to him was the same distorting connection they had to various crank theories that they twisted into propaganda.
May 18th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
PK,
It didn’t. It took a thousand years for large scale civilization to restart. On the small scale, it’s generally acknowledged that, as early as the 11th century, the standard of living of a medieval townsman exceeded that of a Roman plebian of the first century. And invention proceeded [see the last paragraph of post #49] at an increasing rate that well exceeded that of ancient times.
What the middle ages lacked relative to the ancients was the centralization of power necessary to foster the large scale organization that we call civilization. Recall that power was divided among numerous feudal lords. It wasn’t until these began to coalesce into larger kingdoms that law and its enforcement became sufficiently uniform and predictable to create the social environment that nourished the Renaissance.
Mark,
The real point is not about God or other supernatural fantasies. It is this: civilization cannot long exist in the absence of a supporting religion.
This religion does not have to have deities (e.g. Buddhism, Confucianism) or even supernatural components.
This religion does have to suppress natural selfishness in mass populations in order to permit the large-scale cooperation that defines civilization.
When 3-year-old little Johnny asks you why he can’t shoplift, you must
A) Tell him the truth. “Actually, Johnny shoplifting — like murder, rape, and other so-called crimes — will fulfill your desires. Hence, they are rational activities. The trick, however, is not to get caught. That’s quite easy in many circumstances, especially if you’re clever about it. It’s also a good idea to encourage everyone else to be law abiding. This increases your opportunities for crime.
B) Attempt to reason with him and ultimately discover that the truth is on his side.
C) Tell him that following certain rules is just a tradition, like eggs for breakfast or wearing trousers — and hope that he never considers behaving untraditionally for the rest of his life.
D) Suppress his natural selfishness (i.e. his natural criminality) using the well tested method of instilling in him one of your civilization’s religions.
Can you make up any morals you’d like? Sure. But virtually all members of the infinite set of conceivable morals are incompatible with civilization. Even if you’ve devised a system of morals that supports civilization, you’ll still need a means of getting people to internalize it. [What civilized people don't tend to realize is that their ability to, for example, walk into an electronics store teaming with stuff they'd like to have and not feel the slightest temptation to shoplift is completely unnatural. Barbarians aren't like that.]
Your method of internalization would have to a) suppress the desires detrimental to civilization, b) encourage those that support it, c) be effective on massive populations, millions of whose members are literally morons, and d) continue to be effective on future generations. In other words, it would have to perform the functions of a religion — for it would, in fact, be one.
May 18th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
I would just like to announce to everyone, that if I hear someone say the “f” word, I, a moral relativist, believe that in that case, it is okay to kill him or her in order to prevent other people from saying this horrific word. That person has absolutely no right to think ill of me or think I am wrong, or feel upset as I attempt to attack him or her, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.
Thank you.
May 18th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Andrew says:
“That person has absolutely no right to think ill of me or think I am wrong, or feel upset as I attempt to attack him or her, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.”
You are confusing a nonmoral person with a moral one. Morality is a system of principles and judgments shared by communities.
May 18th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Sorry about the double posting, my browsers view got momentarily confused by something.
May 19th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
I would just like to announce to everyone that, in my country, we have all decided that it is just to kill all baby girls. Therefore, you have absolutely no right to think ill of us, or think we are wrong, or think that this is immoral, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.
Thank you.
May 20th, 2006 at 1:26 am
“Therefore, you have absolutely no right to think ill of us, or think we are wrong, or think that this is immoral, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.”
That’s more like it. Now you have to explain why your society is suddenly doing something that no previous society has done and why the remaining societies doesn’t think it is atrocious. Note that this is where the conversation part comes in – you are supposed to be aware of common morality. Your country isn’t.
May 20th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Our society is suddenly doing this because we have decided that that is what we want to have done. It’s the will of the people.
I’m not saying the remaining societies don’t think it’s atrocious. They can think it is atrocious, but they have no right to tell us that we are wrong, and they have no right to impose their morality on us, for all systems of morality are equally valid. Who cares about the morality of other countries. Their morality isn’t right for us anyway.
May 21st, 2006 at 5:53 am
There are (at least) two sides to morality: natural and cultural.
The natural side to morality deals with the pragmatics of having a (large) social group functioning well. An example of a natural moral rule is not killing people in your own community (this does not necessarily include abortion, or indeed killing people in other communities). Killing (or aborting) all, most, or many female babies cannot be a good rule in this context for the simple reason that it disrupts the social fabric in the long run. You cannot really apply moral relativism to this.
The cultural side to morality is evolved through the history of a society, with its religion(s), arts, science, etc. Female circumcision would be a good example of a cultural moral rule. If you take up the position that no society is inherently better than any other (putting aside your natural preference to your own society), then you have to adopt moral relativism to the cultural side of morality.
Of course, these two categories are extremes, and there are undoubtedly many moral rules that are a combination of natural and cultural morality.
May 21st, 2006 at 9:37 am
P.K. – Well said – I hand it to you!
May 21st, 2006 at 11:49 am
PK,
Nice try. But a moral relativist would merely say that “having a (large) social group functioning well” (however you define “well”) is just another moral choice, one no better or worse that any other. So moral relativism can be, and in fact has been, applied to your “natural” morality.
You are on the right track, though. The way you circumvent a moral relativist’s position is exactly how you deal with a medical relativist, who holds that all treatments are equally valid. In evaluating the merits of medical treatments we exclude from the discussion, those who have not accepted the proposition that the purpose of treatment is to maximally increase the patient’s health.
Similarly, in evaluating the merits of moral rules we exclude from the discussion, those who have not accepted the proposition that the purpose of morality is to maximally increase a society’s capacity for long term survival.
Thus limiting the circle of discourse — a step necessary in virtually all human endeavors, especially physics — eliminates relativism. Within this circle one can, then, without equivocation state that Western medical treatments are superior to those of African tribalists. And, similarly, Western morality is superior to that, say, of Palestinian society.
May 21st, 2006 at 11:57 am
Andrew wrote:
I would just like to announce to everyone, that if I hear someone say the “f” word, I, a moral relativist, believe that in that case, it is okay to kill him or her in order to prevent other people from saying this horrific word. That person has absolutely no right to think ill of me or think I am wrong, or feel upset as I attempt to attack him or her, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.
Andrew:
Your second sentence contradicts your first, as follows:
As you are a moral relativist, you can have no moral objection to my shooting you like a mad dog, on moral grounds.
-Arun
May 21st, 2006 at 12:14 pm
What civilized people don’t tend to realize is that their ability to, for example, walk into an electronics store teaming with stuff they’d like to have and not feel the slightest temptation to shoplift is completely unnatural. Barbarians aren’t like that.
Are you making up things out of thin cloth? Which study of Barbarians establishes your proposition? In any case, the web (unreliable of course) says that “Shoplifting is America’s #1 property crime, 1 in 11 people shoplift.”
(e.g., http://www.shopliftingprevention.org/TheIssue.htm and
http://www.shopliftingprevention.org/WhatNASPOffers/NRC.htm )
Show me “barbarians”, who have a shoplifting rate of more than 1 in 11.
May 21st, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Arun,
Let me rephrase my statement in a manner that might clarify it for you (and others who might be literal minded).
A person who has been conditioned from birth to obey the law (i.e. a civilized person), feels less temptation to violate it than one who has not been so conditioned (i.e. a barbarian).
You may
A. Tentatively judge this to be true.
B. Tentatively judge this to be false.
C. Make no judgment until a relevant study has been performed.
If you tend to opt for “C”, when presented with such statements, I have another statement for you: “You will feel much better sending me a check for $10,000, than you would keeping the money for yourself.”
May 21st, 2006 at 4:24 pm
Andrew,
You continue to insist that any morality is acceptable. That is the same as saying you have no morals. Instead what is meant is that no morals are absolute or ‘true’.
Since PZ has just had this discussion on Pharyngula ( http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/05/rabbi_avi_shafran.php ) and says it so much better, I will quote him.
“At a guess, it’s that good parenting brought me up to value the stability and prosperity of a civil society, and to appreciate the rewards of good behavior. It’s also the possession of empathy, and a recognition that other human beings value their lives and well-being as much as I do mine, so that harming my neighbor or seeing him in distress pains me. None of these genuine motivations for moral behavior require the imposition of a higher authority. In fact, we tend to think that people who would harm others were it not for an artificial restriction by a watchful authority to have a lesser sense of morality.”
“Not going on murderous rampages seems to enhance one’s chances at reproducing and surviving, so sure, utilitarianism seems to be promoting some things that are good. But he’s right in one thing: biology is not a moral imperative. Morality is more of an emergent property of social systems. The fact that we evolved doesn’t dictate our social behavior, nor does it assign a ranking value on certain classes of behavior. We do that.”
Do you see the difference? There is no absolute true dictate. Yet not all morals are ranked the same.
As an aside, perhaps you can insist on a new sort of society, that suddenly starts to let people murder, torture, steal and have slaves.
Yet no such society exists, though some are secular. What differ is severity of punishment et cetera. I have a hard time understand how you envision this society not getting problems with the rest of the world, having people flee en masse, or not being subjected to civil unrest or revolutions.
May 21st, 2006 at 9:46 pm
Belizean,
First you were talking of societies, inducing behaviors in mass populations. and so on. Now you’re changing the goal-posts – you’re talking of individuals (a person who was conditioned to follow the law, versus a person who was not conditioned to follow the law.)
Anyway, by your own definitions and that of the National Anti-Shoplifting Foundation, one in eleven Americans has had insufficient conditioning. Does that make one in eleven Americans a barbarian or (per your earlier posts) does that make America a barbarian society?
Regarding sending you a $10,000 check, do you have any study that proves it makes such contributors feel a lot better?
May 22nd, 2006 at 5:05 am
No change of goal posts. Behaviors are induced in mass populations by conditioning of its individual members.
Yes.
Not quite. The barbarians I had in mind were people who were never condition to obey laws, as opposed to the case you’re describing — people on whom the conditioning failed.
No. Median criminality in America, as in most stable socities, is quite low. The criminality that exists results from two simple facts. 1)Conditioning is not uniformly applied to all indivduals. 2) Even if it were uniformly applied, it would not be uniformly effective because individuals are not identical, nor are their circumstances.
May 22nd, 2006 at 5:22 am
Belizean, I’m disappointed that you use the cheap rhetorical trick of constructing a straw man. There are many versions of moral relativism with varying sophistication. The one I outlined above is one example.
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:44 pm
which happens not to fare well under the most rudimentary criticism.