Hawking vs God



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    The thing about Heinlein... I like his ideas,
    but I have trouble reading books where the main character looks and
    thinks exactly like Heinlein, and is super-rich, and is constantly
    surrounded by beautiful women half his age, and-- basically it's like
    bad fan-fic half the time.

    Exactly, except for the part about liking his ideas.  Especially since some of his ideas, especially regarding incest, are kinda on the squicky side...

    Ugh. Ok I hate everything about him now.

    I did read JOB, like... decades ago. I don't remember anything about it except it involves a cruise ship, and he spends like an entire chapter describing how hot the woman (Margaret?) is. It didn't make a big impression on me.



  • @__moz said:

    Your brain is a very complicated object, but everything you believe and everything you do is controlled by a set of laws and a vast set of initial conditions. No-one knows enough about either at the moment to explain why moral authority is so important to you, though.

    I wouldn't say moral authority is important to me so much as I'd say that people often misunderstand what is meant by "moral authority."  Perhaps I should clarify what I mean here - any time someone says something is "better" than something else, and not from the standpoint of saying "that more closely describes the universe in which we live" but from a preference standpoint, some type of moral authority is used to make the prioritization between "better" and "worse".  Perhaps "moral authority" is the wrong phrase there - I should have said "basis for prioritization" instead (which, after all, is a superset of moral authority in the end, isn't it?) Science provides no moral authority because it doesn't say anything about prioritization: it only provides information, not valuation.

    @davedavenotdavemaybedave said:

    Oh, missed that the first time round. Is it overly simplistic to answer 'because the company of other people who bother with them a) requires you to do so and b) is worthwhile'? 

    My response to this is as above - whatever critiera a person uses to decide if something is "worthwhile" is their "preference" authority (to avoid use of the word "moral").  Right, wrong, better, worse - these are subjective words that, to me at least, are steeped in the concepts of morality.  Pure physics has no concept of better versus worse, or good versus evil. It just is.

    So generally I agree with the statement:

    @davedavenotdavemaybedave said:

    we have to have a way of living that doesn't require us to know - that is, a way in which, even were we to know for sure, we would not have to change anything as a result.

    I'm even willing to accept that we (the WTF community at large, that is) may differ on ideas on what way of living actually meets that criteria.



  • @davedavenotdarelvemaybedave said:

    You can propose any theory you like, but it's no more than speculation (I assume!). What I'm talking about is that we don't need to know, because it shouldn't make a blind bit of difference. Whilst I like your idea, since we can't know what the real situation is, we have to have a way of living that doesn't require us to know - that is, a way in which, even were we to know for sure, we would not have to change anything as a result.

    Fair enough.  Then I'd like to advance the idea that traditional, religious morality provides an adequate set of guidelines for such a way of living, whether or not God and the Afterlife do actually exist, and back up this outrageous claim by principles that any software developer ought to be familiar with.

    How often do we see here on The Daily WTF some snippet of code where the original author has clearly spent a lot of time and effort working out how to accomplish some simple task, and it ends up being badly over-engineered, buggy, and just plain wrong, and the worst part of it is, he could have accomplished the task correctly with one or two lines of code to invoke the appropriate routine in the standard library?  We like to make fun of such people in the comments and point out that the standard library is there for a reason, and that these guys frequently ended up making a lot of the same mistakes over and over, which is why these operations were collected in a standardized, mature library that's been debugged and tweaked and improved over years or decades.

    This is about the same way religious people feel about people trying to figure out their own moral codes.  We've got a standard library that was originally created--either by God or by political leaders, depending on which theory you believe--for the purpose of establishing a stable, prosperous society.  It's been debugged and updated and modernized over the course of a few thousand years, and what we have now is a very robust, mature library, as demonstrated by its effectiveness in promoting stability and prosperity among societies that actually follow it.  (The significant difference being that people, unlike computer code, don't always do exactly what they're told to.)  People who try to figure it out themselves always tend to make the same errors over and over again, errors that were understood, accounted for, and debbugged out of the moral code thousands of years ago, and they tend to repeatedly demonstrate exactly why engineers hold those who reinvent the wheel in such low regard.

    All of this is true independent of the truth or falsehood of the various claims that the religions that are the principal supporters of such morality put forth.



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    This is about the same way religious people feel about people trying to figure out their own moral codes.  We've got a standard library that was originally created--either by God or by political leaders, depending on which theory you believe--for the purpose of establishing a stable, prosperous society.  It's been debugged and updated and modernized over the course of a few thousand years, and what we have now is a very robust, mature library, as demonstrated by its effectiveness in promoting stability and prosperity among societies that actually follow it.
    I'm going to have to disagree with that, most religious morals are ancient a best. I'm sure you consider it quite fine to go about killing people to get 72 virgins, or burning witches; but as a non-religious person I find those actions to be repulsive and very much counter to the stability of society as evidenced by 9/11 and Salem respectively. Your claim of the evolution of the moral codes set by religion don't meet what you descibe because as written they are serveral thousand years old, laws prove to be much more efficient at handling the task and actually get updates, and the annecdotes in the various religious texts tend to be ambiguous at best leading to events like devout Christians yelling about not loving someone of the same gender, but loving them in another way instead (which is quite confusing, if I love someone and I want to put my dick in them and they accept what business is it of yours? Does the way I express my mutual love with them harm you in some way that makes it immoral, or is it still immoral with the lack of harm?). Also, I'd suggest you keep in mind that if you make broad claims about religion you are including some less desirable religions that are legally accepted in most countries as valid thanks to massive bribing and supposedly stalking and brainwashing techniques.



  • @Lingerance said:

    @Mason Wheeler said:
    This is about the same way religious people feel about people trying to figure out their own moral codes.  We've got a standard library that was originally created--either by God or by political leaders, depending on which theory you believe--for the purpose of establishing a stable, prosperous society.  It's been debugged and updated and modernized over the course of a few thousand years, and what we have now is a very robust, mature library, as demonstrated by its effectiveness in promoting stability and prosperity among societies that actually follow it.
    I'm going to have to disagree with that, most religious morals are ancient a best. I'm sure you consider it quite fine to go about killing people to get 72 virgins, or burning witches; but as a non-religious person I find those actions to be repulsive and very much counter to the stability of society as evidenced by 9/11 and Salem respectively. Your claim of the evolution of the moral codes set by religion don't meet what you descibe because as written they are serveral thousand years old, laws prove to be much more efficient at handling the task and actually get updates, and the annecdotes in the various religious texts tend to be ambiguous at best leading to devout Christians yelling about not loving someone of the same gender, but loving them in another way instead. Also, I'd suggest you keep in mind that if you make broad claims about religion you are including some less desirable religions that are legally accepted in most countries as valid thanks to massive bribing and supposedly stalking and brainwashing techniques.

    Many of these things you mention are the results of later "moral programmers" comming in and tinkering around and branching the "base moral code". Hmmm. Too bad there's not a "TD Religious WTF".



  • @Medezark said:

    Many of these things you mention are the results of later "moral programmers" comming in and tinkering around and branching the "base moral code". Hmmm. Too bad there's not a "TD Religious WTF".
    Yes, however I do recall passages about dealing with witches in a few bibles, and a few passages about commiting genocide for a diety. There's also the one religion that regularly gets bad press whenever it gets any press at all. supposedly doing such things as forcing people to not take medication, dealing with anyone who dares speak against them with character assassinations, and various dubious activities; all actions that are supposedly part of their religious texts. These things are not the result of "tinkering around and branching the "base moral code"", but are actually part of it.



  • @Lingerance said:

    @Medezark said:
    Many of these things you mention are the results of later "moral programmers" comming in and tinkering around and branching the "base moral code". Hmmm. Too bad there's not a "TD Religious WTF".
    Yes, however I do recall passages about dealing with witches in a few bibles, and a few passages about commiting genocide for a diety. There's also the one religion that regularly gets bad press whenever it gets any press at all. supposedly doing such things as forcing people to not take medication, dealing with anyone who dares speak against them with character assassinations, and various dubious activities; all actions that are supposedly part of their religious texts. These things are not the result of "tinkering around and branching the "base moral code"", but are actually part of it.

    It's worth noting that the "religion" in question is a new invention, created during the 20th century.  It is not the continuation of any ancient religious tradition, and it was not founded for the purposes of promoting individual goodness and societal stability, but either (depending on which version of the story you believe) to make the founder rich, or as part of a bet between the founder and a friend that ended up getting way out of hand.  If anything, their example doesn't contradict my thesis, it supports it.



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    It's worth noting that the "religion" in question is a new invention, created during the 20th century.  It is not the continuation of any ancient religious tradition, and it was not founded for the purposes of promoting individual goodness and societal stability, but either (depending on which version of the story you believe) to make the founder rich, or as part of a bet between the founder and a friend that ended up getting way out of hand.  If anything, their example doesn't contradict my thesis, it supports it.
    Fair enough, that doesn't invalidate your thesis. However my other statements still stand.



  • @Lingerance said:

    @Mason Wheeler said:
    This is about the same way religious people feel about people trying to figure out their own moral codes.  We've got a standard library that was originally created--either by God or by political leaders, depending on which theory you believe--for the purpose of establishing a stable, prosperous society.  It's been debugged and updated and modernized over the course of a few thousand years, and what we have now is a very robust, mature library, as demonstrated by its effectiveness in promoting stability and prosperity among societies that actually follow it.

    I'm going to have to disagree with that, most religious morals are ancient a best. I'm sure you consider it quite fine to go about killing people to get 72 virgins, or burning witches; but as a non-religious person I find those actions to be repulsive and very much counter to the stability of society as evidenced by 9/11 and Salem respectively.

    First, what exactly did the Salem witch trials do to destabilize society?

    Second, it's always strange to see the way people trot out the same examples over and over and ignore much larger, more relevant atrocities.  The 9/11 bombings were a terrible thing, I won't deny that, but the terrorist organization with the most blood on their hands isn't Al-Qaeda or any Islamist group, or any religious group at all.  The atheist Tamil Tigers have them all beat.  LIkewise, you could add together the body count of the Crusades, the Salem witch trials, and the sum total of all religious persecution in the last millenium, and still not equal the devastation wrought by Stalin or Mao. Heck, you can even throw in the Holocaust--just because some people like to claim that Hitler was a Christian, in an attempt to discredit Christianity by association--and still not equal the crimes of Stalin or Mao.

    Your claim of the evolution of the moral codes set by religion don't meet what you descibe because as written they are serveral thousand years old, laws prove to be much more efficient at handling the task and actually get updates, and the annecdotes in the various religious texts tend to be ambiguous at best leading to events like devout Christians yelling about not loving someone of the same gender, but loving them in another way instead (which is quite confusing, if I love someone and I want to put my dick in them and they accept what business is it of yours? Does the way I express my mutual love with them harm you in some way that makes it immoral, or is it still immoral with the lack of harm?).

    Are you making the claim that simply because no short-term, immediately visible harm is done that no harm is done at all?  In that case we may as well all go back to using global variables.  They're certainly convenient, and I've seen plenty of single-threaded code that uses them quite safely...



  • @too_many_usernames said:

    @__moz said:

    Your brain is a very complicated object, but everything you believe and everything you do is controlled by a set of laws and a vast set of initial conditions. No-one knows enough about either at the moment to explain why moral authority is so important to you, though.

    I wouldn't say moral authority is important to me so much as I'd say that people often misunderstand what is meant by "moral authority."  Perhaps I should clarify what I mean here - any time someone says something is "better" than something else, and not from the standpoint of saying "that more closely describes the universe in which we live" but from a preference standpoint, some type of moral authority is used to make the prioritization between "better" and "worse".  Perhaps "moral authority" is the wrong phrase there - I should have said "basis for prioritization" instead (which, after all, is a superset of moral authority in the end, isn't it?) Science provides no moral authority because it doesn't say anything about prioritization: it only provides information, not valuation.

    If I read in a book that it would be wrong for me to eat rotting meat, I may choose to avoid it. If I read in another book that I would find it difficult to eat rotting meat without throwing up, and would risk several nasty diseases by eating it, I may choose to avoid it.Neither book would have taken the choice away from me, they merely inform it.

    While it is quite true that you need some sort of basis on which to make a choice, that basis is derived from the sum of everything which has happened to you in combination with your genetic makeup. A single other person can have a huge impact, but the basis on which you take a decision, and therefore the "basis for prioritisation", will always be inside you.



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    Allow me to propose an alternative theory that makes a bit more sense.  [blub]. Does that make a bit more sense than Fluffy Cloud Heaven?
     

    Dude, that's worse than string theory.

    It's not a theory (what you mean is 'hypothesis', but I'll let it slip). It's just making shit up. You're rewriting the script so that the glaring plot holes are a bit mushed away, but it's still a crappy, baseless narrative.

    @Mason Wheeler said:

    @Nietzche said:
    Companions, the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators, the creator seeks -- those who write new values on new tablets.
     

    I like this, though.

     



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    The atheist Tamil Tigers have them all beat.

    How would one distinguish the atheist Tamil Tigers from the Hindu ones? I've no idea what you're trying to prove here, I'm just asking. 



  • @__moz said:

    @Mason Wheeler said:

    The atheist Tamil Tigers have them all beat.

    How would one distinguish the atheist Tamil Tigers from the Hindu ones? I've no idea what you're trying to prove here, I'm just asking.

    What Hindu ones? Not everyone in India is a Hindu.  That's sorta like asking, "What about the Christian members of Al-Qaeda?"  Being atheists and opposing the Hindu majority is part of their ideology.



  • @dhromed said:

    @Mason Wheeler said:

    Allow me to propose an alternative theory that makes a bit more sense.  [blub]. Does that make a bit more sense than Fluffy Cloud Heaven?
     

    Dude, that's worse than string theory.

    It's not a theory (what you mean is 'hypothesis', but I'll let it slip). It's just making shit up. You're rewriting the script so that the glaring plot holes are a bit mushed away, but it's still a crappy, baseless narrative.

    It might be if I was just making it up on the spot, but that's basically a condensed and simplified summation of the work of a whole lot of serious scholars who are far more accomplished theologians than I am.  I'm just a guy who reads a lot.



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    We've got a standard library that was originally created--either by God or by political leaders, depending on which theory you believe--for the purpose of establishing a stable, prosperous society.  It's been debugged and updated and modernized over the course of a few thousand years, and what we have now is a very robust, mature library, as demonstrated by its effectiveness in promoting stability and prosperity among societies that actually follow it.
     

    No. This 'library' is riddled with cruft, unused types, meaningless future-compatible nonsense, hard-coded magic numbers, urls and other data, barely relevant backwards-compatible drivel, empy methods and outright no-ops. It has not been developed. It has not been refactored or rewritten to match the hardware. It's a very, very bad library.



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    that's basically a condensed and simplified summation of the work of a whole lot of serious scholars who are far more accomplished theologians than I am.
     

    Theology is one thing, and I can only commend the study and exploration of things and concepts. Nonetheless, any sort of "Afterlife Studies", which is the hypothetical branch of academia required for that summary you provided, is just about making shit up and making it look reasonable.



  • @dhromed said:

    @Mason Wheeler said:

    We've got a standard library that was originally created--either by God or by political leaders, depending on which theory you believe--for the purpose of establishing a stable, prosperous society.  It's been debugged and updated and modernized over the course of a few thousand years, and what we have now is a very robust, mature library, as demonstrated by its effectiveness in promoting stability and prosperity among societies that actually follow it.
     

    No. This 'library' is riddled with cruft, unused types, meaningless future-compatible nonsense, hard-coded magic numbers, urls and other data, barely relevant backwards-compatible drivel, empy methods and outright no-ops. It has not been developed. It has not been refactored or rewritten to match the hardware. It's a very, very bad library.

    Rewritten to match the hardware? Whatever for? There have been no significant changes to the hardware over the last few millennia.  And if you think there's been no maintenance, no refactoring or removal of cruft, then forgive my bluntness but you obviously don't know enough about religious history to be participating in a serious discussion on the subject.

     @dhromed said:

    @Mason Wheeler said:
    that's basically a condensed and simplified summation of the work of a whole lot of serious scholars who are far more accomplished theologians than I am.
     

    Theology is one thing, and I can only commend the study and exploration of things and concepts. Nonetheless, any sort of "Afterlife Studies", which is the hypothetical branch of academia required for that summary you provided, is just about making shit up and making it look reasonable.

    Only if you begin from the premise that it was all made up and there's no such thing as revelation.  But since starting from that premise will accomplish nothing but leading you unerringly to the circular conclusion that it's all made up and there's no such thing as revelation, I see little value in it.

     



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    @__moz said:

    @Mason Wheeler said:

    The atheist Tamil Tigers have them all beat.

    How would one distinguish the atheist Tamil Tigers from the Hindu ones? I've no idea what you're trying to prove here, I'm just asking.

    What Hindu ones? Not everyone in India is a Hindu...

     

    Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that there was some sort of Hindu organisation,  merely that the LTTE contains (or, at least, contained) many Hindus amongst its members, as well as many Christians. It was led by an atheist until last year, of course.



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    The thing about Heinlein... I like his ideas,
    but I have trouble reading books where the main character looks and
    thinks exactly like Heinlein, and is super-rich, and is constantly
    surrounded by beautiful women half his age, and-- basically it's like
    bad fan-fic half the time.

    Exactly, except for the part about liking his ideas.  Especially since some of his ideas, especially regarding incest, are kinda on the squicky side...

    I confess to having a giggle at the more obvious sections of dirty-old-man fantasy, but generally I think people often mistake ideas that Heinlein talked about for ideas he held. So, to take the incest as an example, he comes to it as an issue that logically follows on from the sexual freedom that it develops from, and simply explores it dispassionately.


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