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[Gianna99]

There is a deep and continuing conversation between science and religion. While science uses reason and factual data to comprehend the natural world, religion frequently uses faith and tradition to investigate issues of morality and meaning. Both fields provide insightful understandings of the human condition and encourage a diverse range of viewpoints.GB Whatsapp download

[AgnosticBoy]

Here are some interesting questions that deal with the point I've been making in this thread...

Should scientists have complete freedom to pursue their research? Or are certain themes taboo? And if so, who decides what those themes are? Should certain research topics then be censored? By whom? Given that there is no international organization with the legislative power to implement such a prohibition on a global scale, how is such research to be prevented? And to go a bit sci-fi, even if we can someday apply that kind of legislation on Earth, what about on the Moon, or on Mars? Could a rogue power — or, more realistically these days, a corporation — develop a research facility in space, well beyond the control of terrestrial authorities?

These are central questions in ethics and science, and they are very complex.

Source: BigThink

The article didn't offer any solutions to these questions. I've tried to focus on the problem that these taboos can cause in science. The main issue i have is that taboos can cause science to progress slowly, and may even stunt progress in some cases. The fact that this tends to happen to things that have some associations with the paranormal or supernatural, shows that the taboos may be ideologically driven. In other words, the supernatural and paranormal stuff are too far outside of the narrative of science, so therefore, they are off limits. Unless someone can offer another reason why topics like UFOs are seen as taboo (although the taboo is steadily eroding due to recent government interests). It's certainly not because there is a lack of evidence for UFOs because even governments acknowledge their existence.

[Purple Knight]

The fact that this tends to happen to things that have some associations with the paranormal or supernatural, shows that the taboos may be ideologically driven. In other words, the supernatural and paranormal stuff are too far outside of the narrative of science, so therefore, they are off limits.

It's interesting that these narratives seem to be driven by popularity. Everyone wants to be popular so everyone just goes along with the group. New words come about and thrive for a while, like religion or science or whatever the next thing will be, but it was never about being good, or being rational... it was, and always will be, about being popular. We know that between, "UFOs, what nonsense," and "Oh, I want to know more," one will get us shunned and one will make us more popular.

Let's imagine you have a group, and it's about sprockets. Let's imagine your members have high intelligence and low charisma. They are all good at making, improving, and appreciating sprockets. Now someone comes into the group with low intelligence but high charisma. Their ideas seem to be the best. Their sprockets are somehow better, they're just more elegant despite having lower practical function. Soon this person leads the group. They're the best at sprockets after all. They're the most suited to lead, too. So now we have a group that is no longer really about sprockets. It's about that person who is just the best at everything.

All groups, whether they are called religious, scientific, or whatever, will inevitably eventually succumb to this degradation. It accelerates to roughly twice the speed of light when society is safe and no one can starve. When that sprocket will not be the difference between life and death, the group will always adulate the members who are better at gaining adulation, not better at making sprockets. This process will run until all groups have been taken over by sociality. Then people will start starving again and maybe it'll turn back.

[The Tanager]

Science is in the business of exploring the physical universe we find ourselves in. It is the best method we have come up with to actually learn how things physically work. It has built in checks and balances that should eventually weed out wrong ideas and/or information.

Science is not about showing things can happen without God. It is about showing how physical things happen based on observation and accumulated evidence. If we could physically observe a god, then that would be a valid thing to potentially insert into a physical theory.

I agree with everyone you say, if we make the thing being talked about more clear by adding the bolded word I’ve inserted into your quotes. Science is the study of the physical in the world. If there is anything beyond the physical, science logically could not answer that question; it’s philosophy’s role.

I think pretending that good morals and ideas can only come religion is wrong. Humans are a social species and our social groups, not making up stories, are what drive our morals. If we want to live in harmony, that necessitates creating some standards that the group agrees on. Generally we don't like to be in pain, be lonely, have stuff stolen from us, be abused in any way, etc. Since we generally have some level of empathy, this creates an environment where we can get rules/morals that look like what many religions proclaim only came from them (when in fact they just hijacked what humans were already agreeing were 'good' ways to live).

While morals could simply be driven by our socio-biological evolution, that’s different from those morals being ‘good’. How does something like naturalism account for our socio-biologically evolved morals being ‘good’? Why is living in harmony ‘good’? Why is agreeing X is ‘good’ making it actually ‘good’?

[benchwarmer]

Science is in the business of exploring the physical universe we find ourselves in. It is the best method we have come up with to actually learn how things physically work. It has built in checks and balances that should eventually weed out wrong ideas and/or information.

Science is not about showing things can happen without God. It is about showing how physical things happen based on observation and accumulated evidence. If we could physically observe a god, then that would be a valid thing to potentially insert into a physical theory.

I agree with everyone you say, if we make the thing being talked about more clear by adding the bolded word I’ve inserted into your quotes. Science is the study of the physical in the world. If there is anything beyond the physical, science logically could not answer that question; it’s philosophy’s role.

Given the physical world, as you put it, is the only thing we can observe then anything else is just guessing or wishful thinking. Philosophy can't poof gods, fairies, or anything else into reality. It can ask questions and pose possibilities (all very useful), but if we can't verify anything based on it, it's not terribly useful at arriving at truth.

While morals could simply be driven by our socio-biological evolution, that’s different from those morals being ‘good’.

How? We define what is 'good'. That's it. I realize you are trying to argue that only your God can define what is 'good', but then you have the issue of defining your God first.

How does something like naturalism account for our socio-biologically evolved morals being ‘good’? Why is living in harmony ‘good’? Why is agreeing X is ‘good’ making it actually ‘good’?

Because we simply define it that way. I don't like pain. You don't like pain (I assume). So we both agree that being pain free is 'good'. Even though pain is useful and not in itself necessarily 'bad', we should not do things to each other that create unnecessary pain. i.e. Don't stab each other. Don't dump boiling water on each other. Etc. Look at that, a start to a moral code.

Again, you assume an 'absolute good' with no proof that even exists. We, as humans, can certainly define and agree on some things in a group that are 'good' and try to live up to that. No gods required.

[Purple Knight]

Because we simply define [good] that way. I don't like pain. You don't like pain (I assume). So we both agree that being pain free is 'good'. Even though pain is useful and not in itself necessarily 'bad', we should not do things to each other that create unnecessary pain. i.e. Don't stab each other. Don't dump boiling water on each other. Etc. Look at that, a start to a moral code.

This is more practical and beneficial but when faced with a strong assertion of morality, this kind of morality tends to cave. I'll give you an example.

You don't like being lied to. I don't like being lied to. Let's not lie. So we have our little mutually beneficial agreement. But someone comes in who thinks his morality is higher. This isn't always a religious person. It can be anyone who thinks they possess superior enlightenment. He feels it's justified to lie to us either because we're evil, or because his moral code doesn't have "don't lie" in it. Now we lose that benefit and this cheater sucks it all up because he's allowed to lie.

We didn't really do it because it was moral; we did it because it had benefits. We're not even lying to ourselves about it.

Can we get the benefit back? He didn't agree. Even if he did agree, he'll just say he didn't mean it because lying is not immoral. If we exclude him, he'll say we discriminate. If we persecute him, he'll say we are unjustified. And he's right isn't he? How dare we do anything to him against his will? We don't like things against our will being done to us.

What's to stop him using our moral code against us, while not following it himself? It's almost like morality based on something else is inherently weak, while morality based on absolutely nothing is inherently strong. He can use our consistency to his advantage at least some of the time, but we can't use his baseless and perhaps even inconsistent assertions to our advantage.

[benchwarmer]

You don't like being lied to. I don't like being lied to. Let's not lie. So we have our little mutually beneficial agreement.

Ok, cool. So we have a moral code that says that lying is bad.

But someone comes in who thinks his morality is higher. This isn't always a religious person. It can be anyone who thinks they possess superior enlightenment. He feels it's justified to lie to us either because we're evil, or because his moral code doesn't have "don't lie" in it. Now we lose that benefit and this cheater sucks it all up because he's allowed to lie.

I'm not sure I follow. Morals are about what we deem as being 'good' to ourselves and others. In our moral opinion, this other person is not 'good'. So? Morals are not something that MUST be followed. We are also allowed to lie if we like, it's just not considered morally 'good' in our little agreement. We realize this other person is a liar and deal with them as such. I'm not sure how we lose anything.

We didn't really do it because it was moral; we did it because it had benefits. We're not even lying to ourselves about it.

All morals are about benefits in the end (or should be otherwise what's the point?). We still have the benefit of generally expecting people to not lie otherwise we deem them immoral. That doesn't mean nobody will lie. There's no guarantee everyone follows the moral code.

Can we get the benefit back? He didn't agree. Even if he did agree, he'll just say he didn't mean it because lying is not immoral. If we exclude him, he'll say we discriminate. If we persecute him, he'll say we are unjustified. And he's right isn't he? How dare we do anything to him against his will? We don't like things against our will being done to us.

Why do we care what this other person thinks? In our group, he is a liar and should be treated as such. That doesn't mean we should also start lying to each other does it?

What's to stop him using our moral code against us, while not following it himself?

Nothing. Just like any other moral code that exists. Immoral people take advantage of others all the time. Coming up with the 'perfect' moral code won't change anything. Christians think they have the 'perfect' moral code. We see Christians breaking this moral code all the time. Humans in general are not perfect, so we can't expect perfection from anyone. That shouldn't stop us from creating a moral code to guide us.

It's almost like morality based on something else is inherently weak, while morality based on absolutely nothing is inherently strong. He can use our consistency to his advantage at least some of the time, but we can't use his baseless and perhaps even inconsistent assertions to our advantage.

Sure we can. We know this person is a liar and trying to take advantage of us. We can ignore/disregard this person since we deem them 'immoral'. Just because we agree that it's 'good' to not lie doesn't mean we automatically become chumps. We probably also consider it 'good' to be wise. Since we are wise to this person's behavior, we can act accordingly. If the person doesn't like it, they can either change their ways or be ignored by us.

[The Tanager]

Given the physical world, as you put it, is the only thing we can observe then anything else is just guessing or wishful thinking. Philosophy can't poof gods, fairies, or anything else into reality. It can ask questions and pose possibilities (all very useful), but if we can't verify anything based on it, it's not terribly useful at arriving at truth.

We can observe non-physical things. We observe our thoughts, for instance. We can talk about the truth of morality, for example, whether you believe morality is objective or subjective. Scientific truth isn’t the only truth. There’s also historical truth. Philosophy can build off of these things logically to give us further truth.

How? We define what is 'good'. That's it. I realize you are trying to argue that only your God can define what is 'good', but then you have the issue of defining your God first.

Whatever follows about morality from theism is irrelevant here. If atheism is true, we don’t define what is ‘good’, we define what we want done and call it ‘good’. It’s semantics. And why? Because we see some weight behind something being ‘good’ that we don’t see behind something being just “what I want/like”?

Because we simply define it that way. I don't like pain. You don't like pain (I assume). So we both agree that being pain free is 'good'. Even though pain is useful and not in itself necessarily 'bad', we should not do things to each other that create unnecessary pain. i.e. Don't stab each other. Don't dump boiling water on each other. Etc. Look at that, a start to a moral code.

We don’t like experiencing pain and we don’t like inflicting pain on others. But then Johnny comes along and while he doesn’t like experiencing pain himself, he does like inflicting it on others to gain benefits for himself. Disagreement on what is ‘good’. What makes us correct and Johnny incorrect? Nothing, if naturalism is true.

Again, you assume an 'absolute good' with no proof that even exists. We, as humans, can certainly define and agree on some things in a group that are 'good' and try to live up to that. No gods required.

No, I don’t assume an absolute good exists, not for my own worldview, and definitely not for this discussion because all I’m doing is talking about morality if atheism is true. And there I’m saying there is no ‘absolute good’ (which is just ‘good’). We have groups who say “we like/want this X” and other groups who disagree and say “we like/want not-X”. Both try to live up to that. Both call it ‘good’, which means ‘good’ is a very useless word. A word that can mean one thing and its complete opposite is entirely useless. So, why not be rational and drop the term to better reflect reality?

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #17]

We can observe non-physical things. We observe our thoughts, for instance.

Are you referring to "imagination" here?

We can talk about the truth of morality, for example, whether you believe morality is objective or subjective.

Why not simply accept that it comes from subjectivity and is then externalised into the objective reality experience? Why take an "either/or" approach?

[The Tanager]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #17]

We can observe non-physical things. We observe our thoughts, for instance.

Are you referring to "imagination" here?

The example I gave was moral truths. Some worldviews claim those are imaginary.

Why not simply accept that it comes from subjectivity and is then externalised into the objective reality experience? Why take an "either/or" approach?

Because, logically, it is either subjective or objective. They are mutually exclusive positions as I (and the tradition of philosophy) mean those terms. You may have different concepts in mind with those words.

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #17]

We can observe non-physical things. We observe our thoughts, for instance.

Are you referring to "imagination" here?

The example I gave was moral truths. Some worldviews claim those are imaginary.

In observing our thoughts, is this not where morality stems from? It may be a matter that those claiming such as "imaginary" are doing so under the assumption/misinformation as to the role of imagination, consciousness (subjective) in relation to the external reality experience (the objective).

Why not simply accept that it comes from subjectivity and is then externalised into the objective reality experience? Why take an "either/or" approach?

Because, logically, it is either subjective or objective. They are mutually exclusive positions as I (and the tradition of philosophy) mean those terms. You may have different concepts in mind with those words.

In reality these positions are not mutually exclusive since our reality experience has it that both are working in conjunction with each other. Any perceived differences therefore are not in actuality "mutually exclusive" in the sense that they do indeed work with each other and together this creates the human experience and promotes the growth of human personalities.
The "tradition of philosophy" appears to require tweaking in that context.