Any truly eternal ethical laws would be independent of God. What is
right is right and what is wrong is wrong, and this applies to any
divinities as well as to people.
This of course assumes that right and wrong exist as objective, real
"things." One is tempted to say they are analogous to ideas of beauty
and ugliness, entirely in the eye of the beholder. But beauty is not
entirely in the eye of the beholder (while superficially this is so we
have to recognize that beauty does have a deeper quality that outlasts
cultures and fashions).
A better analogy might be right and wrong are analogous to truth and
falsehood. Even though people have varying ideas of what is true and
what is not, we tend in the end to agree that truth and falsehood exist
on their own independent of our opinions.
Don't confuse human ideas of right and wrong with real right and
wrong. Human ideas change and indeed seem to progress (slavery is not
condemned as wrong), but in the end mankind has always known slavery was
wrong, and just buried its head. At least those who stopped to think
objectively about it reached that conclusion.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Friday, June 20, 2014
Persistent religious belief
The number of serious Christians in China is estimated to be between
20 and 90 million. Sorry for the imprecision in the number but that
sort of thing in a country like China is hard to measure. The actual number is probably on the higher side of this range (remember that China is a seriously big country).
These are mostly people in rural areas that have been Christian for generations and their descendants now moving to cities as part of China's overall planned urbanization, where they become more visible. How have they persisted in spite of official condemnation and all sorts of discriminations? The answer is easy: they indoctrinate their children, and no government in the world can defeat that short of breaking up families.
What you were taught as a child by your parents is almost certainly what you will believe, especially if it is done lovingly without brute force and consistently and with the parents setting a non-hypocritical example. Those who do flirt with other belief systems in the vast majority of cases become lost sheep who experience the joy and peace of returning to the flock a decade or so later, all the time they experienced fear and guilt.
Those who don't return to the flock tend to develop hate for whatever they were indoctrinated into, and serious resentment over what was "done to them" as a child and the suffering this put them through until they were finally able to make a clean break.
Thus religions and superstitions persist in spite of modern knowledge and rational thought. It has to do with the way human beings are wired.
These are mostly people in rural areas that have been Christian for generations and their descendants now moving to cities as part of China's overall planned urbanization, where they become more visible. How have they persisted in spite of official condemnation and all sorts of discriminations? The answer is easy: they indoctrinate their children, and no government in the world can defeat that short of breaking up families.
What you were taught as a child by your parents is almost certainly what you will believe, especially if it is done lovingly without brute force and consistently and with the parents setting a non-hypocritical example. Those who do flirt with other belief systems in the vast majority of cases become lost sheep who experience the joy and peace of returning to the flock a decade or so later, all the time they experienced fear and guilt.
Those who don't return to the flock tend to develop hate for whatever they were indoctrinated into, and serious resentment over what was "done to them" as a child and the suffering this put them through until they were finally able to make a clean break.
Thus religions and superstitions persist in spite of modern knowledge and rational thought. It has to do with the way human beings are wired.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Indoctrinated belief vs. learned opinion
I like to make a distinction between "belief" and "opinion." This
kinda reflects ordinary usage but is also a bit technical. One obtains a
belief by being indoctrinated, generally in childhood but for some
people this is possible at any age, while one gets an opinion by
learning about it and becoming persuaded that the evidence is good
enough to say it is probably true.
We aren't really consciously aware of our beliefs; we are about our opinions. That is to say a belief is taken for granted, like the furniture you sit on in the living room, you rarely if ever actually notice its presence. Opinions on the other hand tend to get scrutinized more often. Beliefs are not questions and usually have aspects designed to prevent their being questioned, such as "faith" and guilt for doubting. Most people however don't really need these crutches -- they believe out of habit and instinct, and in fact react with shock and anger when someone doubts or challenges them. This is especially the case when they realize they are not able to defend the belief rationally but must resort to rationalization and logical fallacies and slogans. (Of course the "realization" I mention is not conscious, but is only felt as what is called "cognitive dissonance.")
The ability to "believe" like that seem wired into us, something we evolved as animals, probably as a group coherence mechanism, and that has been supported by the fact that failure to believe has throughout history been a dangerous course.
Beliefs can be good and give us comfort and peace and even joy, but they often are delusions held in place by childhood indoctrination that divide mankind and have created the possibility if not the likelihood of our causing our own extinction. They need to be identified, scrutinized, and then either converted to opinions or expunged. That so few people do this is probably because it is so against the interests of religions and ideologies and governing institutions that it tends to be discouraged and suppressed.
We aren't really consciously aware of our beliefs; we are about our opinions. That is to say a belief is taken for granted, like the furniture you sit on in the living room, you rarely if ever actually notice its presence. Opinions on the other hand tend to get scrutinized more often. Beliefs are not questions and usually have aspects designed to prevent their being questioned, such as "faith" and guilt for doubting. Most people however don't really need these crutches -- they believe out of habit and instinct, and in fact react with shock and anger when someone doubts or challenges them. This is especially the case when they realize they are not able to defend the belief rationally but must resort to rationalization and logical fallacies and slogans. (Of course the "realization" I mention is not conscious, but is only felt as what is called "cognitive dissonance.")
The ability to "believe" like that seem wired into us, something we evolved as animals, probably as a group coherence mechanism, and that has been supported by the fact that failure to believe has throughout history been a dangerous course.
Beliefs can be good and give us comfort and peace and even joy, but they often are delusions held in place by childhood indoctrination that divide mankind and have created the possibility if not the likelihood of our causing our own extinction. They need to be identified, scrutinized, and then either converted to opinions or expunged. That so few people do this is probably because it is so against the interests of religions and ideologies and governing institutions that it tends to be discouraged and suppressed.
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