Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!lll-crg!dual!qantel!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxr!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian Subject: Re: Evidences for Anthropocentricism Message-ID: <1475@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 09:26:56 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1475 Posted: Mon Aug 12 09:26:56 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 05:04:06 EDT References: <855@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1226@pyuxd.UUCP> <942@umcp-cs.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 121 > The "question" I was speaking of was *implied* in the following: >>>>>Besides, practical application of this often leads to conflicts in goals. >>>>>It's the principles that you use to resolve these conflicts that count. > > Or asked more explicitely as a question: >>> When survival or maximal freedom of two people are in direct conflict >>> how do *you* decide who's survival or freedom to honor? What >>> principles do you propose for resolving conflicts generated by your >>> primary principles? > >>As I said, the principles I suggested are at least a start in the direction >>mentioned. The question originally asked had nothing to do with such >>conflicts, it merely asked why we valued survival. And I answered that. > > Yes, and then a difficulty with that was brought up, namely > the problem of internal conflict with your own principles, and you > seemed to ignore it. First off, no such "difficulty" was brought up in any article I ever saw. Second, what sort of conflicts? (YOU GIVE AN EXAMPLE BELOW) >>Why don't you give some specific, even hypothetical examples and we'll >>see what principles we can come up with. Nothing can be said in the >>absence of such specifics. > Alright, the let's use the old classic of two men in a > lifeboat with little food. If they do nothing they will *both* > starve, if one kills the other he will have a *much* better chance > of survival. Now we have twom people whose survival is in *direct* > conflict, at *least* one of them will die! Now, who lives, and who > dies, and above all, HOW do you decide! Draw lots? Wait for the waitress to come by and order a leg of Hodges? I mean, seriously, this particular example is all well and good. How does Christian morality deal with it? What I'm saying is that 1) the men are going to have to come to an agreement of some sort of their own doing regardless of ANY societal morality, and 2) that is THEIR agreement alone and no existing system of morality answers this question any better than what I've described. >>> Again, since it is written *for* humans, it quite naturally >>> concentrates on them! >>Physics texts are written FOR humans, yet they would seem to offer a much >>more objective and certainly less anthropocentric view of things. > In a completely different way! A physics book is intended to > provide understanding of the "physical" world while the Bible is aimed > at a completely different set of goals, so the comparison is not valid. But achieving those goals can and should be performed in just as rigorous a fashion as study of the physical world. Like determining what you are all about as an individual person, etc. Unless the "goals" you are speaking of include serving as a book of fairy tales, in which case I would of course concur. >>> It does *not* actually claim any ultimately central position for humanity. >>I humbly suggest that you haven't read Genesis too recently. > Oh, but all Genesis says is that we have dominion(i.e. control) > over the Earth, which is obviously true even if you are not a Christian. Whoa, slow down! "Obviously true"? I don't recall if you were one of the voices of anti-science that have been barking about recently, but they would be the first to tell you that one of the biggest failings of scientific "progress" is in the fact that we have ASSUMED that we did have dominion over the earth and could do with it as we liked. But thanks for pointing out where that assumption comes from: not from those who study science, but from those who study the Bible! > Or do you believe that the incredible changes in the > surface of the Earth we have performed are not control? Ever been to > Los Angeles lately? Hundreds of square miles of land so utterly > changed *by* *man* that the original animals can no longer live > there! I would never use Los Angeles as an example of humanity's "control" by any stretch of the imagination. :-) PERCEIVED control, perhaps, but again, it's nice to hear the place where this notion comes from pointed out. >>> Also, if the Bible is read as talking >>> about *spritual* matters then trying to read it *literally* becomes >>> *invalid* and any arguments based on the "falsity" of such a "literal" >>> interpretation are also invalid. >>Fine, tell that to those who would use its "literal" interpretation to >>justify impositional morality. Furthermore, it seems that some people have >>very different dividing lines between what's "spiritual" and what's "literal" > Oh, I do! But what thier *opinions* of the Bible are not > binding on me, and arguments based on those interpretations are only > significant to those who accept those interpretations. My problem is > that you seem to be trying to say that the Bible itself is invalid > because of some *interpretation* of the Bible. No, what I'm trying to do is to debunk the notion that the Bible can be used as a basis for impositional morality. Those who want to do so feel that they can and should because it's the so-called word of god. Thus, to eradicate and squelch their notions it is necessary to show the Bible for what it is: a nice set of stories, nothing more. > This just doesn't wash > unless the interpretation in question is the only reasonable one, > which it most certainly is *not*. An example from another field. > In the early part of this century when the scientific theory of > evolution was first becoming widely known a group of philosophers > reached the conclusion that it applied to human *society* as well > as to organisms, thus producing the theory of Social Darwinism, > which provide a wonderful justification for the ravages of the > very rich, and implied that the poor essentially *deserved* to be poor. Of course there are invalid applications and conclusions drawn by bad so-called scientists. The point of real science (no, that's not a movie in which high school kids build a woman and blow up New Jersey :-) is to ferret out the silly. The question is: Are there VALID applications and conclusion drawn by religious believers, and how do we ferret THEM out from the wishful thinking? -- Providing the mininum daily adult requirement of sacrilege... Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr