Cross Examiner

blt to go,
1. I explained what transpired in the first line of my last post; personal offense was not the issue so, no, you did not offend me.
2. I have not been talking about intuition in general, as you did in your prior post. I have articulated a subtle ontological and functional distinction of intuition which you are still apparently unaware of, for some reason.
3. Nothing you wrote was in actual reference to anything I wrote. Did you even read what I wrote?
4. On an aside, do you seriously believe that the point of the Abraham and Isaac story is to advocate human sacrifice? If so, do you also consider the skeptic's annotated Bible website to be an example of responsible, erudite scholarship?

Regards,
BGic

Vorkosigan

That is not innate "knowledge" but an instinct built into most animals where the young is taken care of, that the young of the species should be protected from harm. There is no such thing as "innate moral knowledge."

The reason nobody much respects intuition as a source of knowledge is that it is culturally delimited and extremely subjective.

The reason teleological arguments resonate is because teleological understandings of the world are innate to humans as part of their cognitive apparatus for understanding the behavior of Other Minds. When people feel "the universe has a purpose" or "there is some higher power" they are merely tapping into the powerful teleological sense built into them so that they can suss out the motives of their fellow primates and other animals. Here is a clear example of how intuition -- the feeling that things have a purpose -- totally misleads the wielder. Gods are, after all, simply Other Minds blown up to a cosmic scale.

For a good overview of teleological thinking among H. sapiens sapiens, see the article on teleology in Corballis and Lea (ed) The Descent of Mind.

Impossible and illogical. No intuition could tell you that a particular book is inerrant. You can only get that from the culture around you. Your conclusion is based on a whole structure of assumptions -- that there is a God, that it is the ancient Canaanite sky god Yahweh, that this God speaks through a text (and not the natural world, or a collection of living prophets, or doctrine, etc). All of these are culturally delimited. For example, I have been here in Taiwan 15 years and never yet heard anyone "intuit" that the Bible is inerrant. The only way you can do that is to be brought up in a particular culture and a particular place and time. "Inerrancy" is ideology, not intuition.

Plantinga's arguments on this are godawful; we have shredded them many times.

For once you are correct. The same evolved cognitive apparatus accounts for all this behavior.

They are simply the feeling that there are Other Minds, so necessary for functioning in a society of complex social primates.

You've left out so much? Why this book and not that one? Why a book? Why go looking? What are marks of the supernatural and how are they different from the natural?

"I suspect" is not an argument, and the rest is totally circular. The reality is that human cognitive apparatus and its innate predisposition to thinking in teleological terms, accounts for religious "intuition."

Have you read The Adapted Mind or something similar?

Don't confuse your unfamiliarity with the extensive literature on cognitive sciences and anthropology of behavior with "a poor job of explaining." There is a vast scientific literature on human behavior that does a solid job of explaining why people behave the way they do. Further, even the lack of a solid explanation would not condemn atheism. Finally, your view does not "explain" the preconditions of human experience; it simply asserts what they are, without any empirical evidence to support.

Vorkosigan

Sven

Two problems.
(1) Deciding on moral problems is somewhat difficult to compare to judging the truth of a statement (moral is much more "fuzzy" for a start).
(2) That's exactly the same intuition which Mormons, Moslem, etc. use to justify their belief in inerrancy of their holy book. Because of this, it's entirely worthless as an argument.

So, how do you know that your "intuitional faculty" is not damaged and you only think the bible is inerrant because of this? Is this really supposed to be an argument?

Now that you say it, I realize that you're probably right

That is, you didn't want to follow the religion of your parents any more? Some kind of rebellion?

How do you determine which scholarship is irresponsible/responsible?

OK, but perhaps you could tell me what you mean by (dis)obedience.

jbernier

Not convinced. Most of us here can explain why they think torturing babies is wrong: That human life has some sort of inherent right to be respected. Now we may this is a variety of ways but it will boil down to some sort of assumption like this. This, in turn, will be rooted in something else - for instance, in the Judeo-Christian tradition one may say "We are all created in the image of God so torturing babies is wrong as one is torturing a defenseless being who bears God's image" or something like that. This is turn is probably rooted in prior committments - such as belief in God and, moreover, God as understood in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Thus, an argument: In the Hebrew scriptures the human is described as bearing the image of God; thus this should be the basis for a Jewish or Christian understanding of the nature of humanity; just as God is to be respected so are those beings who bear his image; therefore it is wrong to to torture any human being, including babies.

Now, I am not saying that I buy this argument - and whether or not I do is irrelevant. It is merely enough to show that one can make an argument for why baby torture is wrong in order to refute the example of "intuitive knowledge" that you have offered.

Huh? I hold a B.A. in anthropology and I have never heard this claim. Indeed, the assumption is usually very different: That the human is social animal and that religion is (to quote Emile Durkheim) an "eminently social thing."

I think that Kant's a priori work much better is they are understood to be historically conditioned: That I, as a social and cultural being raised in a social and cultural context that has been conditioned by historical processes and events, have learned certain a priori that form the basis of my reasoning. This is, of course, a somewhat modified version of Kant's thinking but I think it fits the data that has gathered and the work done by anthropologists over the last century (remembering, of course, the first American anthropologists were German immigrants trained in the Kantian tradition).

If you were to argue that that both "God is" and "God is not" (for instance) are essentially first principles that cannot be either proved or disproved through empirical study or rational analysis I would agree. However I do not see the warrant for leaping from that to say that there is an innate sense which causes one to sense God.

So atheists can't sense God because their sense of God has been destroyed? They are God-blind, as it were? Convenient: "You don't agree with me because you are damaged."

jbernier

Perhaps because your argument is problematic.

Did you read what blt to go wrote? Becauase, if you did, you would see that he was directly responding to what you wrote. He pointed out that the scripture talks about sacrificing animals in what he considers an ridiculously violent fashion. He pointed out that his intuition says this is wrong. This is, of course, equatable to your example of baby-torture, therefore if that is an example of your understanding of intuition than he is warranted in raising this objection; if it is not an example of your understanding of intuition than why did you give it as an example of your understanding of intuition? Now, he pointed out that his intuitive assumption about animal sacrifice would, if taken as evidence, as you argue, would disprove Biblical inerrancy. Therefore he has show that your understanding of intuition, as you have articulated it is self-contradictory.

jbernier

Do you consider scholarship that assumes that a certain set of historical texts are qualitatively and historiographically different than every other historical text ever produced is an example of responsible scholarship?

Sven

Yes, and because an atheist could say something similar, this point is just ridiculous.

jbernier

Indeed - and much of it has been produced by anthropologists (well, admittedly, that is mostly humanities literature but, nonetheless...). Now, here is the rub: bgic, you appraisingly (and erronously) refer to anthropologists who affirm the inherent spirituality of the human species. How is it that you can cite anthropology in support of your view on one hand and than almost completely dismiss it on the other?

blt to go

Thanks, jbernier for covering me. (I wonder, sometimes, if the point is getting across. Apparently it is!)

I was also curious as to your reponse to BGic's comments on anthropolgy, knowing your field(s) of study. You did not disappoint.

Vorkosigan (official welcome back) - I was going to include your point that our "intuition" is a (partial) result of our hereditary. I would also state that I feel a person can never truly be honest about one's own intuition.

For example, I was raised in an American Home, with Baptist parents. This has caused certain "intutions" in me (capitalism = good, socialism = bad; god = good, satan = bad) that regardless of my education, current surroundings, etc., I still have those "gut" feelings. A person raised in a different culture (such as Taiwan, China, etc.) would have completely different intuitions. Not necessarily WRONG intuitions, just different.

BGic - I truly DID get your point (despite my brief response) I just think that intuitions, like presuppositions, like assumptions, are good STARTING points, but should ALWAYS be subject (and willing to be subject) to change, depending on other data.

It appears from your comments (since you did not want to elaborate beyond intuitions) that your intution is both the starting and the ending point, with no possiblity of change in between. This is not "intuition, presupposition or assumption." It is dogmatic belief, regardless of the facts.

jbernier

Indeed. Ad hominen attacks do tend to be ridiculous, in my experience.