Jobar

I extract from all these arguments that human morality is a function of the struggle for survival. The human animal achieved survival advantages from banding together; therefore, practices and ideas which allowed for more efficient banding together, in larger and therefore more powerful societies, are survival advantages, and therefore defined as moral.

When a society tries to treat its individual members equally, it wins the loyalty and goodwill of the greatest number of members. This is the reason democracy, or some form of representative government, works better than tyranny- viz., the Cold War, WW2, and indeed all modern history. Over the long haul, immoral societies die, and moral societies live. Good social systems extend their lives by finding ways to increase the functional morality of the individuals which comprise them. Maximizing the happiness and freedom of individuals maximizes the strength and functionality of society. That is the secular basis for moral behaviour.

Jobar

But this does not mean that we will perforce develop a perfectly moral, free and efficient society- because as conditions change, so do the behaviours which maximize survival advantages. So absolute and unchanging morality is impossible; all we can do is try to change our morality in tune with our environment. We- our societies- walk a quaking tightrope, and no rigorous system of morality will survive that walk.

(More reason that there can be no absolute morality!)

Mike

Wow Mike,
That was a reasoned and different approach. I’m surprised no one has taken you to task on this. I guess everyone’s busy focusing in on Theophilus. Mind if I jump in here and test your hypothesis?

mike: Thanks for the response.

rw: Doesn’t continued existence come first? After all, we have evidence of folks selling themselves into servitude to continue theirs and their families existence.

mike: Existence is a given. On a core level our fear of death is but a fear of losing options. No longer being able to chose the path that will bring us happiness. A fear of death is a fear of having future possibilities, or choices, closed to you.

rw: Isn’t autonomy a descriptive value assignment of a specific state of existence? What do you mean by “imperative” in this context? I agree that ignorance of the future can be an anxiety producing factor, but societal stability can sooth the savage beast while science advances our predictive abilities with each new advance. I fail to see how imperative desire for autonomy and ignorance of the future accounts for a standard of measuring value assignment any more than the imperative desire to survive and progress would.

mike: By imperative I mean that by whatever means it is stifled, it will always bubble again to the surface in one manifestation or another. Ultimately life = choice, but when one believes that life is eternal, one is willing to move to the next existence for freedom.

rw: Is any society completely free? What about economic and political bondage created by free societies that favor one class distinction over another? An irrepressible drive towards domination also becomes evident within free societies. It occurs among classes, political machines, corporations, religions and between the individual and the society in which he lives.

mike: Of course no society is completely free, because of the tension between my freedom and yours. On our own, using only our biological heritage, we will never attain universal freedom. The question is why then do we continue to strive for it?

rw: In an ideal society perhaps. Men, in societies that preserve the appearance of freedom, struggle to wrestle the machinery of state to their advantage.

mike: Yes and this gap between the real and the ideal is precisely what has people wondering about the possibility of a higher law--written irrevocably in our collective psyche & at odds with our Darwinian competetive striving for freedom (to eat, to reproduce, to live as best suits us) at the expense of others. The necessity for competition within the human species, however, is illusory. The apparent higher law continues to call us to transcend it. Some attempt to transcend it with science, others with religion--and some, more than you may think, with both.

rw: But justice is not based on an ignorance of the future. It’s based on consequentialist ethics. I.e. all infractions must be met with some type of prohibitive consequence as a message to other would be criminal. (I assume you are referring to criminal justice). It’s all about preserving the status quo. Now it might be argued that the preservation of the status quo could be construed as a fear of future undesirable change.

mike: Perhaps in the real world, but in the realm of the ideal (absolute morality) we continue to talk about innocence until guilt is proven, and reformation of offenders.

rw: Well, I’m not sure if you’re referring to criminal justice or military justice against rebellion here, but it sounds like you’re speaking of criminal justice…or maybe not? But I think you have the cart before the horse in our common goal of preserving freedom. The reason we crave freedom, relative to ignorance of the future, is our conviction that we ultimately know what is best for ourselves and how to respond in future crisis. Not that we don’t look to our societal institutions in times of crisis but we prefer not to have oppressive legislation enacted to account for future possible crisis when other methods will suffice. All free societies tend to lean towards the conservative while giving lip service to progressiveness.

mike: "Justice" that does not seek to correct an offence against freedom is not justice. Whether that takes place in courts or battlefields it is based on the same principle. Our societal institutions are our false representations of the God towards which we are driven to strive by our quest for the higher law.

rw: And the final arbiter residing beneath our desire for freedom is our drive to exist. Ultimately, no matter how you slice it or dice it, it becomes a might makes right world. We like to dress it up and prance it around with religious and politically correct terminology, but we know when the curtain rises we’re going to fight like hades to win. This doesn’t change when you invoke a god. Such invocation just shifts the emphasis of might from an oppressive minority to an oppressive sovereign god with the religious elite calling the shots.

mike: We often fight to live because we believe that death would be an end to freedom. What options do you have in the grave? Those who understand, however, that options do not end in the grave often fight rather because a mortal existence in slavery would be worse then death.

rw: Sorry Mike, I have to call you on this one. People do not live in fear of slavery as much as they do of out right death. When a society falls under the spell of an oppressive regime the people are oppressed by the fear and threat of death if they rebel. It is, and always will be, a might makes right world. Some societies learn, for a season, that the constituency has the greatest might…but, as I said, conservatism tends to whittle away the constituency’s conviction of power until all that’s left is the Emperor’s invisible cloths. It is fear of death that swings like a pendulum beneath the surface of the subtle threats that challenge the constituency’s convictions until they are no longer capable of resistance. Many such societies have gone on to last for thousands of years, (the far eastern dynasties, for example), devolving into feudal serfdoms while the constituency languished in fear of their lives and accepted their fate and learned to live with it. You’d be surprised what man will endure to preserve his existence…in the hope of tomorrow being a brighter day.

Mike: The wife of my nephew risked her life for freedom when she slipped away from her homeland of Vietnam in a small boat at night. Her parents stayed home, but hoped as strongly for change in their homeland. Their reasons for staying were most likely not for fear of death, but for love of home, and for hope of change.

rw: I disagree entirely Mike. The only way out of ignorance is via science. Man is his own best and only hope.

mike: Religion is a kind of science, and science is a kind of religion. The two are not mutually exclusive. Man is his own best and only hope, but that Man is our Eternal Father. Unbeknownst to many religionists we are of the same race as God. Theophilus will probably have something to say about this, but it is plain in the Judeo-Christain scriptures as well as elsewhere. We coming from His being (as children do from fathers), have always been as He has always been.

rw: That hasn’t been the case historically, Mike. It has always been some type of religious order that keeps the peace under oppressive regimes. Even Soviet Russia depicted worship of the State as a type of religion while decrying all others. A widespread belief in God is the marching drum of a conservatist driven, religious order preceding the eventual diminishment of human rights and freedoms until the constituency is no longer able to organize any serious resistance. Men are driven to dominate, Mike. We dominate our ecosystem, lower life forms and one another in an attempt to preserve our lives and enhance our position in the social order. It’s a verifiable fact. The safest surest route for man is to develop his science to dominate the properties of matter, increasing man’s freedom of choices without restricting those he’s already earned. No political or religious answer exists, or ever will, that can resolve his ignorance of the future and extend his life span. It was man’s imagination that brought him out of the caves and it is from his imagination his science has evolved.

Mike: Science can be oppressive and zealous and order keeping as well (e.g. eugenics). Scientists strive for the higher law as well. Some do it less ethically then others (I will have freedom at the expense of your freedom). Yes, men are driven to dominate when they ignore their higher natures, and scientists too are men. Some of which do also ignore their higher natures.

rw: It is a product of our genetics that compels us to create an answer to those forces of nature most pressuring us as a threat to our existence. It allows us to justify cowardice, acceptance of slavery and death without a whimper, murder for profit, oppression and genocide.

Mike: Perhaps, but again, something drives us to transcend genetics. Some scientists are looking for the how in the genome project (a revival and reformation of eugenics?). Religionists have their own revivals and reformations to find the how of transcending our biology.

rw: We inherited it.

Mike: Of course, and as all things inherited it comes from our Father. The sometime tension between this genetic heritage and an also inherited striving for a higher law causes some to seek God, others to deconstruct the gene, and still others to do both.

rw: I go with the latter but not with the description. Naturally, being a theist, you are going to cast the natural path in the worst possible light. We have outgrown our need for belief but haven’t come to the full realization of that fact yet. It served us when we were without a solid scientific basis and were just stuttering along in blind chance, occasionally making a connection between two events and deriving another piece of the puzzle. Once man reaches a certain point in his science current religious belief will dwindle away the way all previous religious beliefs have. The truth is Mike, we don’t need a god to explain belief nor to achieve equilibrium between our desire to be free and our ignorance of our fate. We have some outstanding natural morals instilled in us at conception that drive and compel us along…and we often just plain get lucky.

Mike: Religion and science are both natural, and have coexisted for a long time. Science will not eliminate religion any more than Protestantism eliminated Catholisism or Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam, Judaism. They will ultimately begin to inform each other. Since you prophesied the death of religion, I will make my own prediction: What is commonly called science and commonly called religion will gradually grow together, until they will both represent a larger paradigm. This will have the true elements of both, false science and false religion will fall away.

rw: A casual look at the expanse of man’s history will reveal that there have been long periods of stasis, and in every case there was some type or form of religious order lurking in the background. It will also be noticed that science began to break the grip of religiously generated belief at each point where a new age ushered in. I think you’ve misplaced your causative agency here. Social evolution allows for natural selection of that which prevents an impasse. Right now there is an evolutionary battle over the domination of ideas: science or religion.

Mike: Science no more broke the grip of oppression than religious reformations. In fact, I believe science has yet to effect change so widespread as Christianity effected on Judaism, or Protestantism effected on Catholicism. Science as yet restricts its reformatios to the educational elite in developed nations. And only partly so, many scientists are also religious. India, somewhere near the third highest producer of scientists (I think behind only the U.S. and Russia) also houses one of the oldest and largest religions. Note: usually after reformations the old regimes continue on in only slightly modified form.

rw: The paradoxical came from religion, not from natural selection. Nature is naturally selecting away from the last vestiges of religion today. Lewis was wrong on all counts. Evolution is entirely about changing, which is equivalent to being something we currently are not. Religious belief is about sustaining the ruling elite status quo and thus prohibiting change. Of the two, which do you think will fade completely out of the gene pool?

Mike: But wouldn't you say that all things resulted from natural selection? This would include religion and all its consequences. In addition, our natures appear both conservative and liberal. The liberals of this generation become the conservatives of the next whether in science or religion. Old professors can be as hard headed as old ministers.

rw: Why would such a being want to be in a relationship with mortal beings? This creature is described as immortal. He has no experiential knowledge of what it means to struggle for existence and we have no experiential knowledge of what it means not to. Where’s the impetus for a relationship?

Mike: Because he is our Father. We are of him, part of him. And according to the Christian text He has experiential knowledge of the struggles we endure. Jesus said that he did nothing but what he saw the Father do. When challenged about his claim as the Son of God, he reminded his accusers of their own scripture which said "ye are gods." His followers asserted that if we are children, then we are heirs. Heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. And the Lord himself said that to him that overcomes (the biological heritage perhaps?) will I grant to sit with me on my throne.

rw: Then man’s science will lead him to god.

mike: Of course, if it is true science. There is much in both true science and true religion that will lead a man to God. Because all truth belongs to God. But there is much that is also false in both religion and science.

rw: That last closing statement just negated your entire argument Mike. Why threaten with a cage? Is that the best religion and belief in god can do to convert people? Convince them they are ignorant, want to be free and then threaten them with a cage for a few years if they refuse your idea of freedom?

mike: You know it was no threat. Like an artist must sometimes paint the shadow in order to see the light, we sometimes must comprehend (not necessarily experience) the opposite of what we seek. Remember the fruit of mortality came from a tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was a package deal. Both necessary to define the other.

Keith Russell

Mike, I agree that our nature as mortal beings has shaped our moral needs, but I don't 'remember' anything but that a book claimed that there was a Tree of the Knowldge of Good and Evil, and that we were punished by a jealous 'God' for the 'sin' of seeking knowledge.

If that is a 'sin', we need a great deal more of it.

K

Spenser

To Requote Theo and Myself:





How can one be "intellectually honest" if one cannot even decide what to properly plug into your argument???

Mike

K: Mike, I agree that our nature as mortal beings has shaped our moral needs, but I don't 'remember' anything but that a book claimed that there was a Tree of the Knowldge of Good and Evil, and that we were punished by a jealous 'God' for the 'sin' of seeking knowledge.

If that is a 'sin', we need a great deal more of it.

Mike: Of course I was simply refering to the memory of the claim from the book. But you may need a refresher. We were not punished for seeking knowledge. But evil was an inevitable result of seeking knowledge, as was good. Life and death.
God didn't have to overtly enact a punishment. It was a natural consequence akin to the effect of gravity on one walking up a steep incline. God merely spelled it out. The punishment was and always has been self-inflicted when we reject God's offer of redemption from the evil half of knowledge seeking. Or having fallen down the slope a few times we continue to act in ways conducive to falling down even more. Knowledge of climbing entails how to go up and how to go down. Sin is insisting on going down rather than admitting that you need a hand up. God outstretches his hand, but if we don't take it we are left to the forces of nature. Sometimes God, however, will rescue the innocent from the guilty however, as in the case of Sodom, the flood, etc. If I had a city of child molesters I don't think I would have waited that long. Only a narrow minded view of life believes that death is necessarily a punishment.

rainbow walking

mike: Thanks for the response.

rw: You are welcome and thank you for getting back to me so soon.

mike: Existence is a given. On a core level our fear of death is but a fear of losing options. No longer being able to chose the path that will bring us happiness. A fear of death is a fear of having future possibilities, or choices, closed to you.

rw: Existence is a given for who? For many people around the world it’s a daily struggle. Perhaps your argument is geared more towards those fortunate enough to be a little further up the food chain where they have time to worry about freedom. I find it interesting to note that many past rebellions began with college students whose existence and education is a given, to be sure.

The way I see it, there are people driven by a fear of death and people driven by a desire to live and there is a fundamental difference even at this point. I’m of the opinion those driven by a fear of death are more susceptible to religious explanations that promise an after-life or re-incarnation of some kind, while those driven by a desire to live are more apt to embrace the disciplines of science. A fear driven person would require something outside his existence to cope with his fear and religion offers just such a sophisticated coping device. Between science and religion, science is the only proven method of extending man’s field of choices and possibilities. Religion offers only two: heaven or hell; one plays upon hope and demands obedience, the other on fear as a threat to elicit obedience.

mike: By imperative I mean that by whatever means it is stifled, it will always bubble again to the surface in one manifestation or another. Ultimately life = choice, but when one believes that life is eternal, one is willing to move to the next existence for freedom.

rw: Man has no choice about being brought into existence. He has no choice of worlds into which he is born, or parents or social climate. He has no choice in the matter of being born a mortal being. He has no choice in being born with a natural inquisitiveness. He has no choice in existing on the basis of limited choices. He has no choice in the asking of questions or the seeking of answers. He has no choice in being a social creature. Nor does he have a choice in the drive to replicate. This is why ultimate freedom is a sham and why choice alone does not satisfy man’s thirst for existence. Man’s limited autonomy proceeds after-the-fact of these things and is a response to them. But these limitations do not prohibit his willful participation in the furtherance of his existence.

The belief in eternal life does not expand man’s field of choices either. The factors listed above do not change in his immediate existence once he accepts the postulate of eternal life. So there must be another reason why a man is drawn to believe without evidence. It must lie in his experience of the frustration of being trapped in a state of limited choices. So man seeks to pacify his frustration, and the prospect of escape into imaginary epistemologies is an alluring pacifier. But man’s way out is not escapism, it is to break into those limiting factors and confront them with his imagination…his science, and seek resolutions that enable him to manipulate/control those natural boundaries that frustrate and limit his range of choices. The only one of the above that elicits the most frustration is his mortality. Yet man’s science has made inroads into this limitation. Where man’s life span was once 40 years it is now 80 years, yet nature has provided evidence that his life span can be extended much further. A number of other life forms are known to exist for hundreds and thousands of years so the evidence is available to man that this limitation is not insurmountable.

But the allurement of religious escapism is a Siren’s song that offers man an easier way out, a shot at immortality that transcends and supercedes his intellectual capabilities. The net effect, once man accepts this pacifying alternative, is to diminish his drive to alleviate his frustration in reality. He then accepts his extremely limited life span as a given and seeks no other resolution, indeed, he embraces death as the final obstacle to his desired goal of eternal life. Yet what does this do for humanity in the aggregate other than to relax his vigilance and determination to seek a redress by his own concerted efforts. Men become enemies of their own existence, seekers of another world and mode of life that has never been shown to exist.

Your own bible declares a man cannot serve two masters and Jesus taught that man must give up his life in order to save it. It also teaches men that their mortality is their own fault and the result of their moral deficiencies, thus any attempt to extend his natural life is felt to be another example of his moral deficiency. It points man to a higher moral law that is impossible for man to practice. Thus we have a greater degree of lawlessness and immorality flowing up out of theism than any other worldview in the history of man. Another distraction from man’s potential climb towards the resolution of his own mortality.
No my friend, I cannot accept your proposal of an eternal life to advance me to another level of existence. There is no other level of existence. There is only non-existence. When we sift through the hubris of religious terminology, what awaits those who accept this pacifier?

Paul said it best: 1 Corinthians 15:14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
Yet Paul appealed to more than 500 witnesses, but witnesses to what? An empty tomb. So you ask me to consider and choose a mortal being, man, whose mortality is a direct result of his moral deficiency, (and by implication something he will never rectify by his own efforts), and an empty tomb. That is the substance of your faith.

I cannot, in good conscience, accept such a pacifier. Man is a scientific being, and by implication a virtuous creature. His science is his greatest expression of his virtue. His mortality is no fault of his own nor an unimpeachable license to surrender his mind, his only and best tool of defense, to fables and blind faith. For once he does this, his gains are more than offset by the losses that continue to accrue and fall out to his own detriment. It is past time for man to spit this pacifier back into the faces of those who offer it and embrace his limitations as a scientific challenge to be met in the full realization that only man can resolve them…for they are uniquely mans to resolve.

Since the remainder of your responses center around your appeal to the supernatural I’ll await further word from you on my position before proceeding.

Alan N

RW, you have a knack of expressing the subtleties without the subtlety. Crisp and lucid. I appreciate your contribution to this forum.

That said, I concur.

Spenser

Well said RW...

Mike

rw: You are welcome and thank you for getting back to me so soon.

mike: You are welcome as well. And in particular I appreciate your civility.

rw: Existence is a given for who? For many people around the world it’s a daily struggle. Perhaps your argument is geared more towards those fortunate enough to be a little further up the food chain where they have time to worry about freedom. I find it interesting to note that many past rebellions began with college students whose existence and education is a given, to be sure.

mike: THAT we exist is a given. The question of whether we will continue to exist is not.

rw: The way I see it, there are people driven by a fear of death and people driven by a desire to live and there is a fundamental difference even at this point. I’m of the opinion those driven by a fear of death are more susceptible to religious explanations that promise an after-life or re-incarnation of some kind, while those driven by a desire to live are more apt to embrace the disciplines of science. A fear driven person would require something outside his existence to cope with his fear and religion offers just such a sophisticated coping device.

mike: I think there is some truth in this. But it is not fear of death that drives some religionists, but fear of what may happen after death. Religionists are constantly going to their graves in hope of a better existence after this. This doesn't indicate a fear of death if death is defined as ceasing to exist. It is the hope of greater life (and hence greater choice) that drives these folks to accept death. For non-believers you are the better expert, but I suspect that the thought of ceasing to exist brings no rational fear of death since it seems inevitable, and since after death there will be no consciousness to be fearful. So I can see that you would want to make the best of this life as well. But that would entail being able to choose the kind of life you have. Not being able to think what you want, and not being able to think at all (as in death) don't seem to be that different to me. But true scientists and true religionists both want to make the best of life. The one (if a non-believer) to make the best of what s/he has, and the other to make the best beginning for the rest of eternity. Non-believers may see life as an end or a product in itself. Believers may be more likely to see it as a means, or as a process. But both do the best (according to the knowledge they have) to make the best of it. If all I can choose is whether to have rice or oats for breakfast then I will relish that choice and resent its loss. If I can choose to drive or fly, I will relish that choice and resent its loss. The desire for choice is an absolute value pertaining to life.

rw: Between science and religion, science is the only proven method of extending man’s field of choices and possibilities. Religion offers only two: heaven or hell; one plays upon hope and demands obedience, the other on fear as a threat to elicit obedience.

mike: Heaven and hell take place after this life and should be irrelevant for a non-believer's discussion of absolute morality. However, though these may be the ultimate goals for some, there seem to be a multitude of paths to either one for various religionists. Hindu heaven has a subset of choices that will bring happiness. Christian heaven has another. I can choose among these belief systems, AND I can choose between subsets of these systems. The same is true in other disciplines. For some scientists the way to happiness is through environmentalism--and environmentalism requires a certain subset of behaviors. For other scientists the way to happiness is through technological advance--and technological advance may require a different subset of behaviors. These two are not necessarily incompatible as apparently opposing religious views are not necessarily incompatible. But we tend to try to make them incompatible in order to validate our positions.

rw: Man has no choice about being brought into existence. He has no choice of worlds into which he is born, or parents or social climate. He has no choice in the matter of being born a mortal being. He has no choice in being born with a natural inquisitiveness. He has no choice in existing on the basis of limited choices. He has no choice in the asking of questions or the seeking of answers. He has no choice in being a social creature. Nor does he have a choice in the drive to replicate. This is why ultimate freedom is a sham and why choice alone does not satisfy man’s thirst for existence. Man’s limited autonomy proceeds after-the-fact of these things and is a response to them. But these limitations do not prohibit his willful participation in the furtherance of his existence.

mike: Ah. Herein lies the real difference between us. You have told one story about existence, and I have told another. Your argument is sound if you are talking about creation ex nihilo. Which is one reason why I don't believe in it. Such a love for choice and freedom as demonstrably exists in the world cannot be explained by either the religious or the scientific view that we popped into existence unwilling. And yet any popping into existence would imply no choice in the matter, and hence negates the meaningfulness of future choices. You are quite right about that. However, neither you nor I know that we popped into existence within the past few decades. Not remembering something (as Reagan and Clinton both demonstrated) does not mean that it didn't happen. Without memory of anything prior to age three I must take my parents' word that I existed previous to that--or else believe that I just came to be at age three. And without my parents' memories of any existence of mine prior to that, I must either believe that was the beginning or believe that my memory (and theirs) has lapsed again. Of course I am talking here about conscious, autonomous mental existence. I was conscious at age two, and making choices, but I don't remember being conscious at age two now that I am 34. The possibility exists that I had a conscious, autonomous existence long before age two. That would explain my resentment at losing my autonomy, and the drive that psychology has so well demonstrated to (re)gain it. I have never missed yet anything that I haven't experienced. A person never having had a choice between rice and oats eats his oats without complaint. Yet, with only two years prior experience--and that as a completely dependent creature with almost no choice--a two year old's fierce striving for increased autonomy seems rather inexplicable. Assuming that they have had experience prior to birth resolves the dilemma. Of course you have your story as well, and it is an interesting one. You may say that we developed this striving because it was somehow adaptive. I would say being able to do things by yourself is adaptive, but not necessarily being able to do other than what our environment (parents) demand. This rebellion could be adaptive and has about an equal chance of getting the child killed. But toddlers routinely engage in such rebellions. But having no memory either one of us of anytime before about two, my guess is as good as yours as to where these strivings came from.

rw: The belief in eternal life does not expand man’s field of choices either. The factors listed above do not change in his immediate existence once he accepts the postulate of eternal life. So there must be another reason why a man is drawn to believe without evidence.

mike: I wasn't suggesting that the belief in eternal life expands man's field of choices, but that an otherwise inexplicable desire to expand our field of choices causes some to wonder about the possiblity of an absolute morality. Which in turn causes them to wonder about God. Which in turn causes them to wonder about immortality. I employed the existence of eternal life (and life isn't eternal in the true sense unless it extends eternally both backward and forward in--or rather outside of--time) as an explaination for this striving for choice. The belief in such a life doesn't cause the striving, the striving causes the belief.

rw: It must lie in his experience of the frustration of being trapped in a state of limited choices.

mike: But why be frustrated if you have never had the choice to begin with. What is there to miss about oats if I have never tasted oats? I don't resent the fact that I can't buy East Indian delicassies ready made at the supermarket. But my East Indian friend found it rather frustrating that she had a hard time finding adequate vegetarian options at our resaurants or at our supermarkets. Specific frustrations come from loss of specific choices. So, I say, the general frustration of a toddler must come from a general LOSS of mobility/choice rather than a general LACK of mobility/choice. I don't think this can be explained purely by observation either. Perhaps toddlers want to do things their parents do after observing them. But why do they so often want to do OTHER than what their parents do? And simply watching my friend eating Indian dishes never instilled an inquenchable desire to eat them myself--and certainly not to have those options readily available to myself.

rw: So man seeks to pacify his frustration, and the prospect of escape into imaginary epistemologies is an alluring pacifier.

mike: Still the frustration remains unexplained, but the prospect of escape is certainly alluring. Whether or not those epistemologies are imaginary remains to be seen. Indeed, any epistemology in order to be an epistemology must have some efficacy. And in a pragmatic, scientific world, efficacy is reality. What is a car if not to drive it? It has no meaningful existence outside of that.

rw: But man’s way out is not escapism, it is to break into those limiting factors and confront them with his imagination…his science.

mike: Now you're talking about imagination again. But here it's a good thing? Perhaps we first imaging our science and then we discover it. So in science we first imagine our future, then we create it. In religion perhaps we do the same thing. First we imagine God and then we find him. We imagine heaven and then we create it. Yes, I believe that heaven and hell are more a mental state than physical. No physical prison has ever been as binding as ignorance and lack of imagination. Yes, I agree, both science and religion are based on imagination. In fact the one constant in everything is imagination. Imagination is as certainly operable as all the rest of the physical laws of the universe. So my belief that imagination (consciousness) has been and always will be is not so unscientific. Indeed, if imagination created science, then why not the universe?

rw:...and seek resolutions that enable him to manipulate/control those natural boundaries that frustrate and limit his range of choices. The only one of the above that elicits the most frustration is his mortality. Yet man’s science has made inroads into this limitation. Where man’s life span was once 40 years it is now 80 years, yet nature has provided evidence that his life span can be extended much further. A number of other life forms are known to exist for hundreds and thousands of years so the evidence is available to man that this limitation is not insurmountable.

But the allurement of religious escapism is a Siren’s song that offers man an easier way out, a shot at immortality that transcends and supercedes his intellectual capabilities. The net effect, once man accepts this pacifying alternative, is to diminish his drive to alleviate his frustration in reality. He then accepts his extremely limited life span as a given and seeks no other resolution, indeed, he embraces death as the final obstacle to his desired goal of eternal life. Yet what does this do for humanity in the aggregate other than to relax his vigilance and determination to seek a redress by his own concerted efforts. Men become enemies of their own existence, seekers of another world and mode of life that has never been shown to exist.

mike: Perhaps. But again, the imagination of and the desire for more freedom/choice lie at the root of this endeavor. Incidentally, the bible suggests that with all of our manipulation and control we have generally managed to shorten our life-spans (with some exceptions). According to the bible men use to live as long as trees. Round about the time that men tried to build a tower to overthrow God and free themselves of their dependance on Him (to manipulate and control) the life-spans mysteriously began to be reported as shorter. Indeed, modern science has discovered that stress is a major factor in short life-spans, and that stress is directly related to an overly controlling sort of temperament. Feeling entirely responsible for your own continued existence, survival, happiness and success tends toward a great deal of stress and hence towards death. This is an interesting paradox. Strangely both domination(control) and aquiencence(letting go of control) are attempts at having more freedom. The most salient kind of freedom, however, is not so dependent on material choices, but on choice over our own mental/emotional states. And again, both the domination that is required by a tyrrany and the mutual aquiescence that is required by democracy (e.g. mutual aggreement to submit to traffic laws that will give us the freedom to drive, and the more important freedom from the mental state of fear of accident) are manifestations of a desire for freedom.

Here religion and science are both in agreement as to what we want, but we go about it in different ways. Science either promotes domination of our physical environment (as in the genome project) or aquiescence to it ("as in nature knows best," "or random selection has worked so far, it should continue to work without us trying to be non-random selectors"). Religion either promotes domination of our mental environment (as in attempts at mental discipline) or aquiescence to it (as in "don't worry, it is in God's hands"). Oh, wait, those aren't so different as general approaches.... The real difference is whether we seek freedom though domination or through aquiescence. The one promotes stress and a narrowing of the mental/emotional field, but allows for focused activity, the other promotes emotional liberation and a widening of the mental/emotional field, and allows for awareness. Mental aquiescence (e.g. relinquishing the need to control, or focus on a specific paradigm) is what allowed Einstein to see time space from the perspective of a light particle rather from his own predicted and controlled laboratory. Mental domination was what narrowed atomic understanding to its specific applications. Stress isn't necessarily bad, a desire to overcome our environment sometimes causes focus. But constant stress is dangerous to the organism. Letting go of the need to dominate allows for awareness to increase, and mental stress to decrease. Both a striving to overcome and a need to "let go" are true ways of being, and must be in balance or the organism experiences limitation and loss of freedom. Both are present in true religion and true science. And we need both to truly progress both materially and in peace and happiness.

rw: Your own bible declares a man cannot serve two masters and Jesus taught that man must give up his life in order to save it.

mike: True. But giving up life does not necessarily imply death--and certainly not death in the sense of annihilation. I can give my life in the service of science, or religion, or my neighbor. What Christ is getting at is that trying to discover the self, or focusing on the self tends toward the diffusion of self, or a confusion about who really we are. But when we focus on others or on a cause larger than self, not only do our options increase, but our self (who we truly are becoming) becomes apparent or "is found." The two masters are self and other. If we are self-centered in our approach to life we become diffuse. Christ said the two great commandments were to love God and to love our neighbors (the parable of the good samaratan extended the definition of neighbor to anyone with whom we come in contact). If we follow these commandments we necessarily focus on someone other than ourself, and paradoxically, but truly we become someone worth becoming.

rw: It also teaches men that their mortality is their own fault

mike: Their own choice. This demonstrates that true religion should acknowledge that not only did God exist before, but our individual consciousness did as well. Many religions deny this fact, and suggest that only God was without a beginning. That mortality was Adam's choice, and the rest of us are paying for it. But belief in a just God requires that we all had the choice, not just that our first father, Adam had a choice. And logic suggests that which has a beginning will have an end. So if one is to believe in eternal life in the future, one must acknowledge that life extends eternally in all directions (past, present and future). I believe this mortal experience was in fact a choice for all of us. And I believe that we engaged in it because we believed that the experiences we gained from it would give us greater choice in the future. I know that this is probably way out for you folks, but I mention it just so you know that some arguments that you typically employ against religionists do not apply to all religious veiws.

rw:...and the result of their moral deficiencies,

mike: My view of the bible suggests that mortality is not a result of moral deficiencies, but that it resulted from a quest for knowledge. What we experience as punishments are simply natural consequences of this quest, just like muscle soreness can be a natural consequence of exercise (particularly if you exercise in ways that are not ecological for your system). We are all after happiness, but some of our attempts tend toward misery instead.

rw: thus any attempt to extend his natural life is felt to be another example of his moral deficiency.

mike: Not in my view. The bible is full of health codes and information. Some of the prescriptions of the bible for good health have only recently been rediscovered by science. Much of the law of Moses tended toward good hygiene. And Jesus and the apostles not infrequently brought someone back to life and/or good health.

rw: It points man to a higher moral law that is impossible for man to practice.

mike: True. Which points our mind to Christ through whom "all things are possible." Paul makes it clear that the law was specifically designed to teach us that we needed help. Refusal to accept help when we are at an impass is not only stupid, it's sinful. Our existence is full of impossibilities toward which we feel compelled to strive (either through our science or our religion). This paradox is designed to get us to look outside ourselves (either for help from others, or to help others) and thus we find ourselves.

rw: Thus we have a greater degree of lawlessness and immorality flowing up out of theism than any other worldview in the history of man. Another distraction from man’s potential climb towards the resolution of his own mortality.

mike: This is a simple result of statistics. Some people choose lawlessness and immorality. The majority of people believe in some sort of religion or theism. Thus, more people who claim to be religious are also lawless and immoral. I believe if you looked at lawlessness and immorality as a proportion of the population of believers and a proportion of the population of non-believers it would be about the same. True religion and true science are only redemptive for the proportion of individuals who choose to practice them truly.

rw: No my friend, I cannot accept your proposal of an eternal life to advance me to another level of existence. There is no other level of existence.

mike: Depends on what you mean by levels. Without which to compare we know only that we are. We seem to progress level by level only in that we seem to know today what we did not know yesterday. However, sometimes in our acquisition of new knowledge we begin to forget what we once knew. Who is on a higher level of existence? Me, behind my desk with my books and graduate level education? Or my child who, never having gone to school, still rejoices each time he catches sight of a butterfly? If only we can both learn AND remember. That is progress.

rw: There is only non-existence.

mike: There is only existence.

rw: When we sift through the hubris of religious terminology, what awaits those who accept this pacifier?

mike: What is offered by all pacifiers. Peace.

rw: Paul said it best: 1 Corinthians 15:14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
Yet Paul appealed to more than 500 witnesses, but witnesses to what? An empty tomb. So you ask me to consider and choose a mortal being, man, whose mortality is a direct result of his moral deficiency, (and by implication something he will never rectify by his own efforts), and an empty tomb. That is the substance of your faith.

mike: I'm glad that you mentioned Paul who claimed not simply to be a witness of an empty tomb, but to be a witness of the living, glorified Christ. Paul is a good example for you to use. He was a logical man. Paul found God quite in spite of himself. It's a bit more painful that way, but no less inevitable. He at first rejected Christianity violently for much the same reason the Jews rejected it (as well as rejecting their own ancient faith): It claimed to make gods of men. Unfortunately much of the watered down Christianity of today is more palatable to those who have a lesser view of mankind--thus Christ's doctrine today has been rejected again by many of the same people who claim to follow him.

rw: I cannot, in good conscience, accept such a pacifier.

mike: Cannot? or will not?

rw: Man is a scientific being, and by implication a virtuous creature.

mike: I agree.

rw: His science is his greatest expression of his virtue.

mike: It is one great expression of his virtue among many.

rw: His mortality is no fault of his own

mike: It is a choice of his own (certainly not a fault), and thus a testament to his wisdom: To ascend to the next peak he must first descend to the valley between.

rw: nor an unimpeachable license to surrender his mind,his only and best tool of defense, to fables and blind faith. For once he does this, his gains are more than offset by the losses that continue to accrue and fall out to his own detriment. It is past time for man to spit this pacifier back into the faces of those who offer it and embrace his limitations as a scientific challenge to be met in the full realization that only man can resolve them…for they are uniquely mans to resolve.

mike: Sometimes the best medicine is the hardest to swallow. But pursue your science. Pursue it in honesty and humility and you will find truth. Only those who think they know everything (whether in religion or science) will reject greater knowledge. And only a foolish person insists that once fallen into a pit he must dig himself out on his own strength and intellect, while all the time a ladder stands waiting placed there by the kindness of a friend. As for me, I use both science and religion, and am able to adapt to and learn from both. If Darwin taught us anything it was that the most adaptable survive best.

rw: Since the remainder of your responses center around your appeal to the supernatural I’ll await further word from you on my position before proceeding.

mike: Not once have I appealed to the supernatural. I'm sure that an airplane would seem supernatural to a caveman, but is it in fact? My argument was based on the proposition that the biblical God is not only in metaphor, but in fact our Father. This makes our relationship to him quite natural. And our finding of him quite certain.