Is morality objective or subjective?

[Gary Childress]

What?
Who is feeding you this nonsense?

I imagine there are books dedicated to (falsely) discrediting scientific discoveries that undermine the Bible. I doubt that even IC has all this fake information stored in his memory, waiting to be accessed as and when appropriate. The fundamental Christian movement no doubt have their very own propaganda department.

IC relies on a third rate novelist who think he is a scientist, peddling the pseudo-science intelligent design.
He gave me this amusing reference: "The Devil's Delusion," by Berlinski.

There's a whole industry of Bible apologetics. Back when I was in college, "Scientific Creationism" was the big rage among Christians. Their theory at the time was that the great flood created all the fossilized remains in the ground. Apparently, in the chaotic maelstrom bones were carefully placed predominantly in miraculously ordered, layered strata according to species such that dinosaur bones only appear at a certain strata and always in that strata and so on.

I'm not sure but it seems like Christian "Science" doesn't peddle its own theories anymore other than the Genesis account and instead relies more on finding aspects of evolution that seem impossible by pure chance. Oh and of course the exact age of the Earth is broken down into 'epochs' that correspond to each of the 7 days in the Bible. I guess if the Earth were 7 Billion Years old then that would mean each "epoch" would stand for 1 billion years. And if the Earth were 8 billion years old, you'd have to split the 8th billion chunk into 7 parts and add each part to the first 7 to come out with the length of each epoch. I mean is it really just a coincidence that any time period can be divided into 7 parts? It fits so nicely and is all in the Bible. Ergo the Bible is verified truth. It's 'special' science.

[Harbal]

The fundamental Christian movement no doubt have their very own propaganda department.

There's an entire cohort of them. Mostly charmless berks; this guy at least is funny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yBvvGi_2A

So if there's no God, how do explain bananas?

[Immanuel Can]

Well I find myself much more interested in why anyone would invest the time and effort into persuading me of something than what they are trying to persuade me of. The more effort they put into it, the more suspicious I become.

What are you suspicious about? What do you think it implies?

Suspicious that I'm being led up the garden path.

Well, okay...but what would my motive be, in wanting you to go "up the garden path"?

In any case, my motives wouldn't make it "not the garden path," even if they were as pure as driven snow; and bad motives wouldn't make "not the garden path" into "the garden path," would it?

[Immanuel Can]

...modern Darwinism doesn't propose a common ancestor after the early primordial-ooze stage...certainly not monkeys or monkey-like beings anymore.

What?

Charles Dawson, an amateur archeologist, was responsible for the Piltdown Man fraud. That was a lie and it fooled some people.

More than a few. It ended up on t-shirts and coffee mugs, in museum dioramas, in mass media, and -- most concerning of all -- in major scientific textbooks and in public education materials. In fact, it was a scientific "orthodoxy" of the middle of the last century. But Piltdown was only the first discovered failure of the monkey-to-man theory, as others were to follow. "Nebraska man" turned out to be built out of a peccary tooth. "Java Man" turned out to be a gibbon monkey. "Ramapithecus" was an orangutan. And the famous "Neanderthal Man" turned out to be a normal guy with a rickets-type disease...

Who is feeding you this nonsense?

Why do you call it "nonsense," since you go on to list all of what I say about it as true?

The point is simple: these frauds were all, at one time or another, produced and promoted by what posed as "science," but was really Evolutionist ideology desperately seeking validation. And as to where these were all "fed," the public school system, the universities, the museums, and popular culture, among other locations. To this day, you can find old examples of the monkey-to-man chart. And to this day, many people remain oblivious to the fact that the simian-to-human link has long ago been replaced.

But what you don't find are the public retractions of what this "science" once taught people.

Why "of course"? How do you think 'survival of the fittest' is understood in evolutionary theory?

I'm citing Nietzsche, actually. Here's what he wrote: "Pity, on the whole, thwarts the law of evolution, which is the law of selection...The weak and ill-constituted shall perish, and one shall help them to do so." (from The Antichrist)

What makes you think that Nietzsche is an authority on contemporary evolutionary theory?

You're inadvertently mixing two things: one is understanding the minute particulars of modern Evolutionary theory (which Nietzsche clearly could not have done) and understanding the logical implications of the Godless worldview that theory presents -- which Nietzsche clearly could, and did.

Whether the "common ancestor" is assumed to be a chimp or some protozoa back in the primordial ooze, the philosophical and ethical implications are exactly the same: rise by "survival of the fittest," no morality, no teleology, no rules, Devil take the weak..."will to power" is all.

Nietzsche got that...and the timorousness of modern Atheists to recognize the inevitable implications of their own worldview does not commend them as it does the forthrightness of Nietzsche.

[Harbal]

What are you suspicious about? What do you think it implies?

Suspicious that I'm being led up the garden path.

Well, okay...but what would my motive be, in wanting you to go "up the garden path"?

In any case, my motives wouldn't make it "not the garden path," even if they were as pure as driven snow; and bad motives wouldn't make "not the garden path" into "the garden path," would it?

Well, either way, I'm not going up the garden path.

[Sculptor]

I imagine there are books dedicated to (falsely) discrediting scientific discoveries that undermine the Bible. I doubt that even IC has all this fake information stored in his memory, waiting to be accessed as and when appropriate. The fundamental Christian movement no doubt have their very own propaganda department.

IC relies on a third rate novelist who think he is a scientist, peddling the pseudo-science intelligent design.
He gave me this amusing reference: "The Devil's Delusion," by Berlinski.

There's a whole industry of Bible apologetics. Back when I was in college, "Scientific Creationism" was the big rage among Christians. Their theory at the time was that the great flood created all the fossilized remains in the ground. Apparently, in the chaotic maelstrom bones were carefully placed predominantly in miraculously ordered, layered strata according to species such that dinosaur bones only appear at a certain strata and always in that strata and so on.

I'm not sure but it seems like Christian "Science" doesn't peddle its own theories anymore other than the Genesis account and instead relies more on finding aspects of evolution that seem impossible by pure chance. Oh and of course the exact age of the Earth is broken down into 'epochs' that correspond to each of the 7 days in the Bible. I guess if the Earth were 7 Billion Years old then that would mean each "epoch" would stand for 1 billion years. And if the Earth were 8 billion years old, you'd have to split the 8th billion chunk into 7 parts and add each part to the first 7 to come out with the length of each epoch. I mean is it really just a coincidence that any time period can be divided into 7 parts? It fits so nicely and is all in the Bible. Ergo the Bible is verified truth. It's 'special' science.

Post hoc justifications can take many forms. But the question would remain even if semi-literate goat herders living in the Middle East 3000 years ago knew the facts of science you'd have to ask how? And why they mistook a day for a billion years, which incdentally still does not work.
The weight of evidence for evolution is just too great, and as time passes the post hoc revisions of the bible get more absurd.
It's all a bit of an embarassment really.

[Sculptor]

You're inadvertently mixing two things: one is understanding the minute particulars of modern Evolutionary theory (which Nietzsche clearly could not have done) and understanding the logical implications of the Godless worldview that theory presents -- which Nietzsche clearly could, and did.

Whether the "common ancestor" is assumed to be a chimp or some protozoa back in the primordial ooze, the philosophical and ethical implications are exactly the same: rise by "survival of the fittest," no morality, no teleology, no rules, Devil take the weak..."will to power" is all.

Nietzsche got that...and the timorousness of modern Atheists to recognize the inevitable implications of their own worldview does not commend them as it does the forthrightness of Nietzsche.

How poorly you understand evolution.
Neitszche had his POV, but that was just subjective, he ignored the only massive thread in evolution alonside gross competition and that is the role of co-operation, a trait with at leaast as much survival potential which gives dolphins the edge over sharks, dogs the edge over many solitary cat species - in fact the examples are far too great to list.
It includes nursing and other forms of nurture; herding, joint hunting ventures and much more.
It's the substrate upon which morality is built though does not mandate specific rules, as you would like to have.

[Immanuel Can]

Suspicious that I'm being led up the garden path.

Well, okay...but what would my motive be, in wanting you to go "up the garden path"?

In any case, my motives wouldn't make it "not the garden path," even if they were as pure as driven snow; and bad motives wouldn't make "not the garden path" into "the garden path," would it?

Well, either way, I'm not going up the garden path.

Right. But if it's not "the garden path"...?

[Immanuel Can]

You're inadvertently mixing two things: one is understanding the minute particulars of modern Evolutionary theory (which Nietzsche clearly could not have done) and understanding the logical implications of the Godless worldview that theory presents -- which Nietzsche clearly could, and did.

Whether the "common ancestor" is assumed to be a chimp or some protozoa back in the primordial ooze, the philosophical and ethical implications are exactly the same: rise by "survival of the fittest," no morality, no teleology, no rules, Devil take the weak..."will to power" is all.

Nietzsche got that...and the timorousness of modern Atheists to recognize the inevitable implications of their own worldview does not commend them as it does the forthrightness of Nietzsche.

How poorly you understand evolution.

Nietzsche does, you mean?

...the role of co-operation...

You can't seriously think this is an objection I haven't heard. Seriously?

There's a serious problem. It mistakes individual survival for group survival...and sometimes, both for gene survival, depending on which version you catch.

Sure, some organisms that "cooperate" do better. Some don't. But "everybody survives" is not the mechanism that's supposed to drive "survival of the fittest." For "survival of the fittest" presupposes the death of the "not-fit," at the same time. So Nietzsche's right: whether it's a group of elite cooperators, or a single elite individual, the point is that the weak are supposed to die, and nobody's supposed to cry about that.

And it has zero to do with morality. For what you call "morality" is then nothing but and "enlightened" self-interest, a kind of prudence-for-survival. And that could easily mean "Devil take the hindmost person or group."

Either way, pity for the dying is out. And morality is out. It's all about Evolutionary mechanics, which are neither morally "good" nor "bad." And there are always losers in the game of "survival of the fittest."

[iambiguous]

Well, okay...but what would my motive be, in wanting you to go "up the garden path"?

Let's call it the "psychology of objectivism"...

1] For one reason or another [rooted largely in dasein], IC is taught or comes into contact with [through his upbringing, a friend, a book, an experience etc.] Christianity.

2] Over time, he becomes convinced that Christianity expresses and encompasses the most rational and objective truth. This truth then becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to him as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is moral as opposed to immoral, rational as opposed to irrational.

3] Eventually, he begins to bump into others who feel the same way about Christianity. He may even begin to actively seek out folks similarly inclined to view the world as Christians.

4] He begins to share his Christian convictions with family, friends, colleagues, associates, Internet denizens. Increasingly it becomes more and more a part of their lives. It becomes, in other words, more intertwined in their personal relationships with others...it begins to bind them emotionally and psychologically.

5] As yet more time passes, he starts to feel increasingly compelled not only to share his True Christian faith with others but, in turn, to vigorously defend it against any and all detractors as well.

6] For some then, it can reach the point where they are no longer able to realistically construe an argument that disputes Christianity as merely a difference of opinion; they see it instead as, for all intents and purposes, an attack on their intellectual integrity....on their very Self.

7] Finally, a stage is reached [again for some] where the original philosophical/spiritual quest for truth, for wisdom has become so profoundly integrated into their self-identity [professionally, socially, psychologically, emotionally] as Christians, that defending it has less and less to do with philosophy/spirituality at all. And certainly less and less to do with "logic".

Lots of different variations of this of course but it all comes down not to what one believes is true about right and wrong, good and evil, but that one has been able to anchor their Self to one or another objectivist Ism.

With Christianity, however, it is sustained beyond the grave. One is comforted and consoled for all of eternity.

And, perhaps, wanting others to join you on that One True Path is just your way of reinforcing the comfort and the consolation you sustain in convincing yourself that it is the One True Path that you are on. After all, 2.38 billion Christians can't be wrong.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I think this is what some of us find hard to understand. Never having experienced that need to believe, I can't imagine the pull of it, or what psychological state it could be a response to.

My view is that religious practice can be understood at least in some sense as an extension, or modification, or evolution, of the belief in magic. Magic involves a supposition that I might be able to do things with my mind, or within my consciousness, or as some sort of ritualized act, that could have effect on the world around me. Another aspect is that of 'knowing the future' and learning what might happen. There are forms of divination like Tarot cards or the I-Ching or the Ifá divination system of Nigeria and these (especially the last two) have been used and still are used for spiritual, personal and also therapeutic reasons. It seems to me that even the analysis of dreams, even Freudian and of course definitely Jungian, is an extension of the same *science*. For Jungians, and certainly for Jung, dreams reflect an inner world that is as real as the outside world though in very different ways. Jung declared that the dreams of his patients revealed beforehand the cultural and political explosions of WW1 and WW2.

So the question becomes: What is the psyche? For Jung the psyche was the real mystery. The psyche has a depth that can be explored.

I am relatively sure that if I were to speak of *setting up synchronicities* you would not immediately understand what I mean. Yet there does seem to be a way to *do things* that elicit responses from the world around us. In some forms of magic -- again I am thinking of the African religion of Ifá -- they work with a notion of *blocked roads*. That is, the person finds himself blocked on a psychic level; or plagued with depression; or bad luck. A spiritual technician uses divination to determine why this person is blocked. Then, when he has a sense of why the next question is what is needed to relieve the problem, to lift the block, to open the roads. And usually, or at least often, the cure involves some sort of magical invocation which also involves the patient in the process of lifting inhibiting energy or what have you. It is really a proto-psychology. Or it could be said that psychology is a sort of reapplication of similar principles.

Naturally, all of these modalities that had been suppressed in the Christian era -- about a thousand years -- came bursting back on the scene at certain junctions in European history. But specifically when the power of religious practice began to wane. And then again in the first part of the 20th century and very strongly in the pre- and post-Sixties era. Yoga, divination, Ayurvedic medicine, Chinese acupuncture, Vedic and other philosophies, Kabbalah, alternative medicine -- these and so many other modalities began to attract people.

I do not think you are grasping that there are perennial questions that will always be asked. These have to do with existence, the nature of this reality, the reason we exist, the reason we perceive, and then what we do with ourselves in a strange, dangerous, extremely temporary existence.

So *spiritual science* is not a vain area of consideration.

What you most object to is the insistency of Immanuel Can's specific Christian admonitions. Lacewing talks about *energies* and going up the scale of vibrations (I paraphrase) but in an obvious sense she is *working* a spiritual philosophy. But the thought of the confining constraints of Protestant Christian religiosity turns her stomach (partly because she grew up with it). But when you examine the ideas of St Paul it is not hard to see that he propounds a *spiritual technology* and a spiritual science. There are far more esoteric Christian factions as well -- take for example those who get involved in the spiritual science of communication with their Guardian Angel. This was always a big deal throughout European history. And the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel is an involved magical-psychological science.

Did you never read any of Carlos Castaneda's books? Journey to Ixtlan had a profound effect on popular culture. Again, he outlined a type of *spiritual science* which he dressed up in the clothes of mystical Toltecs of pre-Colombian Americas. In so many ways it was all a giant (California) cultish scam but numerous elements in it are *sound* in the sense that they were appropriated from magical and esoteric systems of other cultures and times.

Even hyper-rationalist Aldous Huxley ended up in California and influenced the Human Potential Movement. These movements were very attractive to people who discovered how deeply fucked up they were on internal, emotional, psychic levels and sought cures. The Wellness Movement, which became so popular, all grew out of this. It was not without sound effect. Consider the 12-Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I read that the man who began that healing movement got the idea (if I remember correctly) from either Carl Jung or Paramahansa Yogananda. The healing modality of the 12-Step Program is based in a spiritual science of *Let Go & Let God*. The idea being that the ego, our small self, our fucked up self, can invoke God or a *higher power* (for those who balk at the word God). It is really all part of the same renewal or renaissance of internal spiritual sciences.

I assume you have never experimented with Kundalini Yoga? There are breathing exercises (pranayama) that can produce visionary experiences.

Harbal, you have got to keep your options open!

[Harbal]

Well, okay...but what would my motive be, in wanting you to go "up the garden path"?

In any case, my motives wouldn't make it "not the garden path," even if they were as pure as driven snow; and bad motives wouldn't make "not the garden path" into "the garden path," would it?

Well, either way, I'm not going up the garden path.

Right. But if it's not "the garden path"...?

Show it to me; I'll soon tell you if it's the garden path.

[Alexis Jacobi]

And to this day, many people remain oblivious to the fact that the simian-to-human link has long ago been replaced.

Dare I ask what has replaced it?

[Harbal]

I think this is what some of us find hard to understand. Never having experienced that need to believe, I can't imagine the pull of it, or what psychological state it could be a response to.

My view is that religious practice can be understood at least in some sense as an extension, or modification, or evolution, of the belief in magic. Magic involves a supposition that I might be able to do things with my mind, or within my consciousness, or as some sort of ritualized act, that could have effect on the world around me. Another aspect is that of 'knowing the future' and learning what might happen. There are forms of divination like Tarot cards or the I-Ching or the Ifá divination system of Nigeria and these (especially the last two) have been used and still are used for spiritual, personal and also therapeutic reasons. It seems to me that even the analysis of dreams, even Freudian and of course definitely Jungian, is an extension of the same *science*. For Jungians, and certainly for Jung, dreams reflect an inner world that is as real as the outside world though in very different ways. Jung declared that the dreams of his patients revealed beforehand the cultural and political explosions of WW1 and WW2.

So the question becomes: What is the psyche? For Jung the psyche was the real mystery. The psyche has a depth that can be explored.

I am relatively sure that if I were to speak of *setting up synchronicities* you would not immediately understand what I mean. Yet there does seem to be a way to *do things* that elicit responses from the world around us. In some forms of magic -- again I am thinking of the African religion of Ifá -- they work with a notion of *blocked roads*. That is, the person finds himself blocked on a psychic level; or plagued with depression; or bad luck. A spiritual technician uses divination to determine why this person is blocked. Then, when he has a sense of why the next question is what is needed to relieve the problem, to lift the block, to open the roads. And usually, or at least often, the cure involves some sort of magical invocation which also involves the patient in the process of lifting inhibiting energy or what have you. It is really a proto-psychology. Or it could be said that psychology is a sort of reapplication of similar principles.

Naturally, all of these modalities that had been suppressed in the Christian era -- about a thousand years -- came bursting back on the scene at certain junctions in European history. But specifically when the power of religious practice began to wane. And then again in the first part of the 20th century and very strongly in the pre- and post-Sixties era. Yoga, divination, Ayurvedic medicine, Chinese acupuncture, Vedic and other philosophies, Kabbalah, alternative medicine -- these and so many other modalities began to attract people.

I do not think you are grasping that there are perennial questions that will always be asked. These have to do with existence, the nature of this reality, the reason we exist, the reason we perceive, and then what we do with ourselves in a strange, dangerous, extremely temporary existence.

So *spiritual science* is not a vain area of consideration.

What you most object to is the insistency of Immanuel Can's specific Christian admonitions. Lacewing talks about *energies* and going up the scale of vibrations (I paraphrase) but in an obvious sense she is *working* a spiritual philosophy. But the thought of the confining constraints of Protestant Christian religiosity turns her stomach (partly because she grew up with it). But when you examine the ideas of St Paul it is not hard to see that he propounds a *spiritual technology* and a spiritual science. There are far more esoteric Christian factions as well -- take for example those who get involved in the spiritual science of communication with their Guardian Angel. This was always a big deal throughout European history. And the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel is an involved magical-psychological science.

Did you never read any of Carlos Castaneda's books? Journey to Ixtlan had a profound effect on popular culture. Again, he outlined a type of *spiritual science* which he dressed up in the clothes of mystical Toltecs of pre-Colombian Americas. In so many ways it was all a giant (California) cultish scam but numerous elements in it are *sound* in the sense that they were appropriated from magical and esoteric systems of other cultures and times.

Even hyper-rationalist Aldous Huxley ended up in California and influenced the Human Potential Movement. These movements were very attractive to people who discovered how deeply fucked up they were on internal, emotional, psychic levels and sought cures. The Wellness Movement, which became so popular, all grew out of this. It was not without sound effect. Consider the 12-Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I read that the man who began that healing movement got the idea (if I remember correctly) from either Carl Jung or Paramahansa Yogananda. The healing modality of the 12-Step Program is based in a spiritual science of *Let Go & Let God*. The idea being that the ego, our small self, our fucked up self, can invoke God or a *higher power* (for those who balk at the word God). It is really all part of the same renewal or renaissance of internal spiritual sciences.

I assume you have never experimented with Kundalini Yoga? There are breathing exercises (pranayama) that can produce visionary experiences.

Harbal, you have got to keep your options open!

Maybe I am in need of some kind of spiritual therapy, but none of the "options" I am aware of remotely appeals to me, least of all Christianity. I have long suffered from a psychological condition that causes me to perceive most human activity as ridiculous, including my own, and I have never been one to join in, so any spiritual practice I might consider would have to be a solitary one. Given these circumstances, do you have any suggestions?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Maybe I am in need of some kind of spiritual therapy, but none of the "options" I am aware of remotely appeals to me, least of all Christianity. I have long suffered from a psychological condition that causes me to perceive most human activity as ridiculous, including my own, and I have never been one to join in, so any spiritual practice I might consider would have to be a solitary one. Given these circumstances, do you have any suggestions?

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