GeoTheo

From an evolutionary standpoint, what is wrong with more socially and technologically advanced Europeans outcompeting
less tecnologically and socially advanced peoples in the utilisation of resources?
For example: Europeans with their written language and more advanced forms of government were more socially advanced in the sense that they were superior cooperators. They were able to achieve greater amounts of cooperation through their superior system of communication that allowed them to mobilize larger groups of people to form larger more powerfull communities. This allowed them to mobilize larger armies and through greater weapons technology displace the smaller, pre-literate aboriginal groups. These aboriginal groups were composed of smaller warring tribes. They were unable to cooperate with each other to defend themselves against the Europeans and were soon slaughtered and or subjagated through colonialism.

scigirl

Stop right there - the "wrong" part about your post is the use of a tenet of science to obtain moral values. That's akin to asking, "What's wrong, from a physics standpoint, to allow a nuclear explosion because we know that E = mc2?"

scigirl

Peez

Leaving aside the issue of whether or not Europeans are "more socially... advanced", this is like asking ‘From a heliocentric standpoint, what is wrong with more socially and technologically advanced Europeans out-competing less technologically and socially advanced peoples in the utilisation of solar energy?' Evolution has precisely nothing to say about the morality of any behaviour.

Peez

GeoTheo

BINGO! Still plenty of room for religion in society. Science is unable provide morals or assign meaning or value to human life. To me it looks like there is no conflict in the respective realms of science and religion. That is why Dawkins is wrong.

scigirl

No, you are making a false dichotomy here.

1) Scientists do not use facts of science (such as PV = nRT, or humans evolved from apes) to create or find morality (at least I hope not).
2) There are other places to find morality, other than religion.

Sure religion can and clearly does try to assign morals and meaning to life. However, just because churches appoint themselves to this task, in no way means that they are correctly doing it!

The way I see it is: science can give us tools to evaluate specific claims made by religion, such as "The bible is an inspired word of God." When I critically evaluate the claims made by various religions, I find them lacking in many areas. For instance, the Christian faith: I find the idea of the fall of humans, then redemption through a murder of an innocent, to be an illogical, inconsistent, and unsubstantianted, and untestable explanation of human behavior. In addition, I find no evidence to support the claim that the Christian bible is the inspired word of anybody except ancient middle-easterners who didn't know much about science, but did know how to tell good stories.

Therefore I have no choice but to reject the pillars of which Christianity stands, and reject their moral system, as derived from this text.

This does not mean that Christianity has no value, of course! It simply means that it has value in spite of its religious claims, not because of them. "Do unto others" for instance - good idea. However, you don't need to believe in Jesus to follow the Golden Rule.

So what are we left with? How do we find a moral system without believing in a literal God? That's a tougher question. I suggest a perusal of our library's <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/secularhumanism/index.shtml" target="_blank">secular humanism</a> pages for a start.

I recently toured the United Nations in NYC, and up on the wall upstairs is a code of ethics which the UN aspires to follow. I'll try to find it - but it really made me think about how and why we derive moral systems, and it also illustrated how weak and lacking the Christian Bible is on many, many, many aspects of human life (especially modern human life) such as slavery, women's rights, oppresive governments, and so on.

scigirl

[ August 07, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]</p>

mibby529

Okay, I see where you're going, GeoTheo: Saying that science is racist, eh? Here's a clue: Science&lt;&gt;Ethics. Why? Because science is materialistic, whereas ethics is, by definition, not.

Anyway, once Euros get out of the Aristotlean/Nietzschean/Objectivist Matrix, they seem so intent on appropriating the beliefs of those who have a million reasons to hate them. (Kevin Costner invested in a Black Hills resort with an almost-entirely-Caucasian staff. So, whenever Dances with Wolves is on, and he says "Who would do such a thing?" I say, "You, for one, Kevin. Opening a resort in the Paha Sapa which we have affectionately nicknamed Tipipi Wicahpi." (Um, if you don't know, tipipi wicahpi=city of the sun, or...)

TooBad

If religion comprised nothing more than a social and/or personal moral code, your view might have a more solid foundation.

But religion is always a package deal, and almost invariably a large proportion of the package consists of claims about the nature of the world.

At least some of these claims are (a) unsupported except by appeals to tradition or faith, and (b) in direct conflict with the available evidence.

Given all this, one would have to question the intellectual integrity of any scientist who didn't make a point of emphasizing the inconsistencies.

I gather from some of your other posts that you have firmly rejected Young Earth Creationism and joined the "evolutionists". I applaud your moral and intellectual courage in taking that step, and in detailing your reasons in a public forum.

But Creationism is only one of many faith-based initiatives which, under close rational and investigative scrutiny, can be seen to be untenable. Off the top of my head, these include such tenets as:
Human-centered cosmology
Miracles
Faith healing
The efficacy of petitionary prayer
The "afterlife"
and, of course, God.

[ August 07, 2002: Message edited by: TooBad ]

[ August 07, 2002: Message edited by: TooBad ]</p>

Peez

I don't know what Dawkins says on the subject, but you seem to be implying that scientists do not think that there is "room for religion in (modern) society". Given that many scientists are religious, this is patently false. In my experience, it is more often religious fundamentalists who tend to paint things as a science vs religion dichotomy (though they don't often use those terms).

Of course, there may be a conflict between science and some specific claims of certain religious movements (e.g. the science of evolution vs creationism of various groups). This does not imply that there is no "room for religion in (modern) society", but there may be conflict.

Plus, as others have pointed out, religion is not the only source of morality. It is quite possible to have a moral society without religion. Again, this does not mean that there is no "room for religion in (modern) society", it merely means that religion is not necessary to society.

One last comment: even though science does not tell us what is "right" and what is "wrong", it can provide the information that can allow us to intelligently apply our ideas of "right" and "wrong". For example, we now understand mental illness much more than we once did (though there is much more to learn), so we no longer treat the mentally ill as being possessed by demons.

Peez