A Challenge to Richard Dawkins and the Atheists

[Immanuel Can]

We don't practice "survival of the fittest" we are a product of it.

Well, "dance with the one that brung ya," as they say. If that's how we got here, but what means do we decide it's no good anymore, and altruism is better?

In fact, that's a hard case to make, actually. Altruism is often contrary to the survival interests of the race or the genetics that Dawkins thinks drive us all. So how did you manage to make it? After all, "survival of the fittest" got you here...meaning that morality itself must be a product of the survival of the fittest...

Natural selection is what it is, regardless of what Darwin "plugged for".

True: It is or it isn't, regardless of Darwin. But if it does exist, how did you decide to abandon it, since it "is what it is"?

Absent a meta-scheme of morality that covers both and tells us what the moral value of each of the two alternatives is, which one is "good" and which is "bad"?

I don't know what you mean by this. Perhaps if you rephrase it, absenting any attempt to sound clever and paying more attention to your spelling, I would be more able to give you an answer.

There. Sorry the auto-fix error of one letter so completely perplexed you. It's fixed. How about an answer?

I'll paraphrase. If you say "altruism" is good, and practicing "survival of the fittest" on human beings is bad, how do you know these things? What's the ethic you're using to tell you?

[Harbal]

We don't practice "survival of the fittest" we are a product of it.

Well, "dance with the one that brung ya," as they say. If that's how we got here, but what means do we decide it's no good anymore, and altruism is better?

I'm sorry IC, but even with the best will in the world (which I have to admit is woefully absent in my case) the above is absolutely unintelligible.

Before we go any further your position on Natural Selection, Creationism, or whatever, needs to be made perfectly clear because if we differ significantly on this we have no common frame of reference and any further debate is pointless.

I am unequivocally with natural selection. I'm sure there are still many errors in the latest thinking on it and there is still much to be discovered but as far as the basic principle in concerned, I believe that natural selection is the process by which we arrived here. How do you think we got here?

[uwot]

We don't practice "survival of the fittest" we are a product of it.

Well, "dance with the one that brung ya," as they say. If that's how we got here, but what means do we decide it's no good anymore, and altruism is better?

I'm sorry IC, but even with the best will in the world (which I have to admit is woefully absent in my case) the above is absolutely unintelligible.

Well, it's like this: Mr Can thinks that survival of the fittest relates only to an individuals health and strength. In a species that is dependent on collaborative effort, like us hairless, bipedal, big head, but not very badass monkeys, fitness is a measure of our ability to cooperate. On the savannah, as we climbed down from the trees, an early human that wasn't getting along with his or her mates would be breakfast for one of several predators that our ancestors were no match for individually. Unfortunately, before all the self indulgent ego maniacs could be eaten, we started to become civilised, allowing the selfish and greedy to exploit the majority evolutionarily fit human beings.

[Immanuel Can]

Before we go any further your position on Natural Selection, Creationism, or whatever, needs to be made perfectly clear because if we differ significantly on this we have no common frame of reference and any further debate is pointless.

I don't think that's the issue. The issue is one we can both discuss quite equitably, namely, "What is true about morality, if Atheism is true?" So let's just take that as the "common frame of reference" we need, and move on from there.

I am unequivocally with natural selection. I'm sure there are still many errors in the latest thinking on it and there is still much to be discovered but as far as the basic principle in concerned, I believe that natural selection is the process by which we arrived here. How do you think we got here?

Well, if you're "with natural selection," then I'm at a loss to know how you rationalize asserting that "altruism," is a virtue. If "let the lions kill the weak ones" is the way the species improves genetically, then it would seem -- just as Nietzsche asserted -- that keeping the weak around by means of being altruistic to them would be anti-evolutionary, and would stand to allow the genetic degradation of the race. "Slave morality," he called altruism.

How do you show him wrong, if the rather brutal process of "natural selection" is actually the story of how we became "evolved"?

And there's a further problem: if whatever "morality is," it evolved from "natural selection," then morality is not aimed at truth or rightness, but at survival. So to say, "this is right/wrong" is to say "this does/does not increase chances of survival," not that it is objectively moral in any sense.

Thus, if things that most people today think are wrong -- say, rape, eugenics or polygamy -- were to turn out to increase the human prospects of survival (or genetic reproduction), then according to evolutionary thinking, you'd have to call such things "good." Or at least, you'd have to regard them as tolerable and desirable for the key value toward which (in the Atheistic-evolutionary view you describe) morality is oriented.

[uwot]

Told you so, Harbal.

[Harbal]

Well, it's like this: Mr Can thinks that survival of the fittest relates only to an individuals health and strength. In a species that is dependent on collaborative effort, like us hairless, bipedal, big head, but not very badass monkeys, fitness is a measure of our ability to cooperate. On the savannah, as we climbed down from the trees, an early human that wasn't getting along with his or her mates would be breakfast for one of several predators that our ancestors were no match for individually. Unfortunately, before all the self indulgent ego maniacs could be eaten, we started to become civilised, allowing the selfish and greedy to exploit the majority evolutionarily fit human beings.

There's nothing here that contradicts what I also believe, uwot. Thank you for this small beacon of light in this long dark tunnel I've wandered into.

[Lacewing]

There are very few people in this world who can overlook the labels, or will allow that an individual act can be either, or both.

So why is that? Let's explore it instead of simply perpetuating it.

Seriously, that's what ethics does...it tries to define the moral status of various acts. Not of all acts, of course: some are morally neutral.

But you're not usually talking about "acts" are you -- rather, you try to label and judge individual values and morals based solely on belief or lack of it. So why are you obsessed with doing that?

[Harbal]

Before we go any further your position on Natural Selection, Creationism, or whatever, needs to be made perfectly clear because if we differ significantly on this we have no common frame of reference and any further debate is pointless.

I don't think that's the issue. The issue is one we can both discuss quite equitably, namely, "What is true about morality, if Atheism is true?" So let's just take that as the "common frame of reference" we need, and move on from there.

I am unequivocally with natural selection. I'm sure there are still many errors in the latest thinking on it and there is still much to be discovered but as far as the basic principle in concerned, I believe that natural selection is the process by which we arrived here. How do you think we got here?

Well, if you're "with natural selection," then I'm at a loss to know how you rationalize asserting that "altruism," is a virtue. If "let the lions kill the weak ones" is the way the species improves genetically, then it would seem -- just as Nietzsche asserted -- that keeping the weak around by means of being altruistic to them would be anti-evolutionary, and would stand to allow the genetic degradation of the race. "Slave morality," he called altruism.

How do you show him wrong, if the rather brutal process of "natural selection" is actually the story of how we became "evolved"?

And there's a further problem: if whatever "morality is," it evolved from "natural selection," then morality is not aimed at truth or rightness, but at survival. So to say, "this is right/wrong" is to say "this does/does not increase chances of survival," not that it is objectively moral in any sense.

Thus, if things that most people today think are wrong -- say, rape, eugenics or polygamy -- were to turn out to increase the human prospects of survival (or genetic reproduction), then according to evolutionary thinking, you'd have to call such things "good." Or at least, you'd have to regard them as tolerable and desirable for the key value toward which (in the Atheistic-evolutionary view you describe) morality is oriented.

I'm out of here IC, we may as well come from different planets, I've wasted enough of my life on giving you the benefit of the doubt and engaging with you as if you were a normal, rational human being.
Your next move will be to say that I am now running away from the argument, followed by a little laughing face. So, to save time I'll cut straight to my response, which will be: If anyone other than you says my argument is weaker than yours (although I seriously doubt anyone will be bothered) I'll give it to you.

[Immanuel Can]

Your next move will be to say that I am now running away from the argument, followed by a little laughing face. So, to save time I'll cut straight to my response, which will be: If anyone other than you says my argument is weaker than yours (although I seriously doubt anyone will be bothered) I'll give it to you.

No, I won't. And I don't need the help, but thank you for the thought...and for the conversation.

[Immanuel Can]

But you're not usually talking about "acts" are you -- rather, you try to label and judge individual values and morals based solely on belief or lack of it. So why are you obsessed with doing that?

Again, you're implying being "obsessed" is "bad"? But as an Atheist, you don't believe in "bad." That doesn't make any sense.

The point has nothing to do with "judging" in the sense you seem to be trying to use it. It's a problem in logic: what will Atheism warrant? That's all.

[Harbal]

Your next move will be to say that I am now running away from the argument, followed by a little laughing face. So, to save time I'll cut straight to my response, which will be: If anyone other than you says my argument is weaker than yours (although I seriously doubt anyone will be bothered) I'll give it to you.

No, I won't.

No, but you bloody well would have done if I'd not got in first.

thank you for the thought...and for the conversation.

No! No! No! Don't you dare thank me.

[Lacewing]

But you're not usually talking about "acts" are you -- rather, you try to label and judge individual values and morals based solely on belief or lack of it. So why are you obsessed with doing that?

Again, you're implying being "obsessed" is "bad"?

Where did I imply it was bad, IC? How do you come to the conclusions you come to?

[thedoc]

What most people fail to understand is that Darwin's "survival of the fittest" is descriptive of reality, not prescriptive of how things must be. Darwin only describe what he observed, he didn't set out rules for the way nature must be.

[thedoc]

There are very few people in this world who can overlook the labels, or will allow that an individual act can be either, or both.

So why is that? Let's explore it instead of simply perpetuating it.

Most people that I have encountered will apply a label to me based on my being a white male Christian, sometimes one or 2 of those qualities will be used to label me. When I was teaching in a mixed school, I was labeled as a bigot by the black kids even before I said or did anything, it was a kind of bigotry that I find hard to understand. Myself, I will at least let the other person say something before I apply a label and I am willing to reassess that label if conditions or actions change, or as I gather more information about that person. So far you seem to be a bit more reasonable than VT, but I'm giving you time to either redeem or hang yourself.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

There are very few people in this world who can overlook the labels, or will allow that an individual act can be either, or both.

So why is that? Let's explore it instead of simply perpetuating it.

Most people that I have encountered will apply a label to me based on my being a white male Christian, sometimes one or 2 of those qualities will be used to label me. When I was teaching in a mixed school, I was labeled as a bigot by the black kids even before I said or did anything, it was a kind of bigotry that I find hard to understand. Myself, I will at least let the other person say something before I apply a label and I am willing to reassess that label if conditions or actions change, or as I gather more information about that person. So far you seem to be a bit more reasonable than VT, but I'm giving you time to either redeem or hang yourself.

Hardly 'bigotry' when you consider the history of your country towards its black population. You have also given away your general dislike of black Americans in several posts, so your pupils were perhaps being more than a little perceptive.
I'm not unreasonable at all. 'Reasonable' doesn't mean pandering to and agreeing with morons like IC. It's quite sickening the way the self-proclaimed 'theists' always stick together and crawl up each others' arses no matter what, even when they clearly have opposing ideologies. THAT is being unreasonable. I doubt if you agree with him that those who don't share his particular brand of 'theism' are the personification of evil and can't possibly have any inclination to be empathetic. Does that strike you as someone who can be reasoned with?