The Ethics of Morality

     A few months ago I stumbled on a preacher on television.  The reason I stopped to listen was that on the screen he was scrolling through a litany of famous scientists, their fields and contributions, and noting that each was a Great Christian.  Then the preacher–I don’t know who he was, sorry–ended his litany by making the claim that science and religion are inextricably linked, that they must have each other to work, that there is no dispute between them–
     –and that evolution is wrong.
     This was a week after I listened to an NPR interview with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania in which he made the claim that it is vital to settle this question of where “we” (meaning humans) came from because if evolution is true, then we would have no basis for morality.
     This is one of the most perverse false syllogisms I have ever heard, and it baffles me no end.  Underlying it is the assumption that morality only ever comes from a supernatural source, that without a deity we are too dumb, puerile, self-serving, and just plain hopeless to ever do anything right–for ourselves on anyone else. (The Erik Von Danniken theory of moral provenance.) That atheists are a priori immoral and that evolutionists, who reject special creation, are necessarily atheists, and therefore, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, likewise immoral.  They can’t help it.  They have no god giving them direction.
     A minute of clear thought shows how this is substantively untrue.  …

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Understanding Evil

It is a much mentioned, but little understood concept. Any individual in the world is likely to have strong conceptions of “evil,” but very few could define it, or ascribe a cause to it.  Dictionary.com defines “evil” as “morally bad or wrong,” and also “causing ruin, injury or pain.” While the word “immoral” is more commonly used to connote the first definition (“morally bad or wrong”), colloquially, the word “evil” is most often used to convey the sense of the second definition (“causing ruin, injury or pain”). Realizing that the phrase “evil” is subjective and has many implications, in this essay I will use the word “evil” to convey the sense of the second definition.

From time immemorial, some humans have been perceived to have the tendency to cause harm to others for no apparent or rational reason. These humans, we assume, like to take pleasure in the pain of others.  Thus, what appears to be an alien sensibility to us, one which is characterized by an inexplicable perniciousness, is termed as evil.   Why “evil” humans are different from the rest of us is not understood by most people.  Evil, they assume, is just an inborn quality. And because it is inherent to the individuals who possess it, people believe that the only way to stop them is to their exterminate them, or at the very least incarcerate them, so that they remain away from a society that they could destroy if given free rein.

But is evil indeed an …

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Speak your mind. Or mind your speaking?

Despite countless pieces of evidence to the contrary, we don’t like to think of language as an influence on our thoughts. We like to think of language as a passive tool at our disposal, one that does not err or influence our communication. But the brain does not work like a computer, nor does language processing work like a straightforward computer program. Language influences thought in an inextricable way.

That idea has come up many times in centuries past, from Bhartrihari to Boas to Kant. But the concept that language can shape thought, rather than the other way around, really took off in the 1950s upon the publication of the Whorf Hypothesis. Whorf’s hypothesis held that, though we think of language formation as a passive process, the language we use gives us the categories that assist us in making sense of the world. He wrote:

“[people believe that] talking, or the use of language, is supposed only to ‘express’ what is essentially already formulated nonlinguistically…[but] all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated.”
—    (Language, Thought and Reality pp. 212–214).

Whorf came to this conclusion studying Native American dialects in the 1930s. He noticed a glaring difference in the way European and Native American peoples conceptualized time; we consider time concrete, like a place or a thing. For instance, we can use time-oriented phrases such …

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Proselytes, Proseldarks, Proselmarketers

     The other day, two nice ladies of the Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my door.  This was, in fact, their third visit.  On the previous two, they had spoken with my wife, who was polite and nice and somehow left them with the idea that they had a potential convert here.  They had left literature and apparently decided to return.  This time, they got me.
     I don’t like proselytes.  I don’t like telemarketers either.  I see them as essentially of the same species of intrusive “you don’t know what you want because you don’t know what I’ve got to sell you” school of bullying.  I don’t like aggressive salesmen.  If I’m wandering through a store, and someone approaches with a polite “Are you finding everything okay?  My name’s Mike, if you have any questions…”  That’s fine.  If I have questions, I’ll go find Mike or whoever and ask.  If I don’t, and he approaches again, my inclination is to leave.  He’s stepped over the line as far as I’m concerned.  Telemarketing is worse–I’m not even in their showroom–and religious proselytes are from one of the circles of hell.
     Here’s the deal: to knock on your door and present you with salvation, they have to make a basic assumption–that you have no clue about the nature of reality and even if you think you do, you’re wrong, because they know the skinny on god’s plan.  In other words, they have to assume you’re stupid, ignorant, or tacitly in league with evil.
     If …

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How to have good ideas

Having good ideas is a quest with which all writers struggle.  And all non-writers too.

How does one develop good ideas?  Have them, recognize them and hone them, it would seem.  But only the first of these three tasks (having raw ideas pop into one’s head) is easy.  For the most part, good ideas are developed (not found) and this requires hard work.  Developing good ideas is rarely like it is portrayed on television, where fully formed ideas drop down from the sky with little effort.

I am not suggesting (by writing this post) that I have more original ideas than the average person.  I plainly admit that almost every worthy idea I’ve ever expressed was not original to me.  In fact, I’d be surprised if I had more than a couple dozen original, substantial and worthy ideas in my entire life.  I assume that most of my ideas have been plagiarized (though usually not intentionally) or that they were simply a modified versions of someone elses’ ideas (modified by stretching them, inverting them or combining them with other borrowed ideas).

How does one have good new ideas?  When Linus Pauling was asked how he was able to make so many discoveries, he replied: “You must have lots of ideas and just throw away the bad ones.”

Those who don’t have many ideas of their own (for instance, those who watch lots of mind-numbing television) don’t have many good ideas of their own.  For most of my life, I have …

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