Theism includes monotheism (belief in one God), polytheism (belief in many Gods), pantheism (belief that the universe itself is God), panentheism (belief that the universe is God, but God is more than the universe), etc. etc.

Non-theism, obviously, is atheism and "agnoscticism". But I shall also classify deism -- the belief that God created the universe but then abandoned it, assumed no control over life, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation (as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary of th English language) -- this, I say, I clasify as non-theism, because theism connotes religiousity, whereas deists tend to be and consider themselves as irreligious.

I identify myself as a theist for cultural and literary (non-scientific) purposes. Belief in any god by reason of science is inconclusive - science itself is not a theological practice, and therefore does not dabble in the realms of theism.

I'm an atheist. I don't believe in a god. I don't believe the universe is a god, whatever that really means.

I "believe" that science holds all the answers.

I "believe" that science holds all the answers.

That is a silly statement. The scientific method is limited to physical phenomena. There are numerous questions that science cannot answer.

That is a silly statement. The scientific method is limited to physical phenomena. There are numerous questions that science cannot answer.


I only believe in the physical. I don't believe in spiritual phenomena or anything like that.

If I don't believe in religion at all then why would I not think science holds all tha answers?

Science is limited to mere investigation and analysis of the corporeal because of its [the corporeal's] material testability. Science does not discover truth, yet it investigates that which already is. The study of ontology or the "science of meaning" is not a science per se but a philosophical pursuit, and one that is just as fundamental in reference to Being [ie. Da-Sein].

I "believe" that science holds all the answers.

It is true that science can answer many questions, but those answers in turn give rise to even more questions in an endless cycle. Science will never be able to answer everything.

It is true that science can answer many questions, but those answers in turn give rise to even more questions in an endless cycle. Science will never be able to answer everything.

You're mistaking scientists and science.

I only believe in the physical. I don't believe in spiritual phenomena or anything like that ...

Can science tell you why killing a baby is wrong?

Can science tell you why killing a baby is wrong?

Sure why not.

Can science tell you why killing a baby is wrong?
what is felt as 'good' or 'bad' is invariably that which is positively or negatively reinforcing respectively. now, the science of human behaviour (by definition) deals with reinforcement.

what is felt as 'good' or 'bad' is invariably that which is positively or negatively reinforcing respectively. now, the science of human behaviour (by definition) deals with reinforcement.

Then if society puts a premium on sacrificing your firstborn to Baal, that would make it good.

Sure why not.

Using the scientific method, explain why killing a baby is or is not wrong. And if your answer is species preservation, go to the rear of the class. There is no empirical reason why any species, or anything at all, must be preserved.

You'll have to explain how science tells you this.

Can science tell you why killing a baby is wrong?

Who says it is wrong?

Who says it is wrong?

lol its funny coz' its true :D

He does have a point! though by general morality it is considered wrong, but who is the actual person who decides it is wrong, who in this world has the right to consider what is right or wrong? does anyone have the power any more? :confused:

Cherubim

Who says it is wrong?

Exactlly.
It depends on THE baby, and for me, THE race and geneology of it.
Natürlich könnte man ein jüdisches Baby liquidieren, und das würde mir doch scheissegal sein.

Using the scientific method, explain why killing a baby is or is not wrong. And if your answer is species preservation, go to the rear of the class. There is no empirical reason why any species, or anything at all, must be preserved.

You'll have to wait until scientists catch up with the wonderful science of the human brain to answer why people think that is wrong.

Did I save myself? :p

what is felt as 'good' or 'bad' is invariably that which is positively or negatively reinforcing respectively. now, the science of human behaviour (by definition) deals with reinforcement.

Positive or negative emotion-reinforcement is subjective to the reactions of being and being's respective sensitivity or moral tolerance of the 'act' in question, caused for various reasons, though all totalized by a unique totality of experience-bias. In the case of 'good/bad' judgement, it is always deduced to an ethic rather than a particular branch of human science. In the case of 'why killing a baby is wrong', this is not a matter for the scientific study of reinforcement in the form of human behavior, as Ixabert might conclude, but a question of moral diction penetrating itself within the confines of human reaction. Why is this so? The answer lies within perception itself; it is ethic-perception of the act in question that leads to the question of wrongness versus rightness in general of particular acts. It defines which acts are and which acts are not acceptable. In this case, the act of killing a baby.

To give a summation of why science cannot answer the imperative discourse 'why killing a baby is wrong', we may only answer: because science is not the study of ethic-perception. Rather, science limits itself to that which is materially testable, viz., the corporeal. Because 'morals' are not materially testable, any moral notion within science may be discarded unless otherwise dictated by external institutions which dictate the affairs of science.

Positive or negative emotion-reinforcement is subjective
I never speak of this occult, unobservable quality you call 'emotion'. When I speak of reinforcement, always I refer to a behavioural pattern. emotion is circularly defined.

In the case of 'why killing a baby is wrong', this is not a matter for the scientific study of reinforcement in the form of human behavior, as Ixabert might conclude, but a question of moral diction penetrating itself within the confines of human reaction.

In Beyond Freedom and Dignity, B.F. Skinner asks a bunch of moral questions, and he answers:

"[These questions] are said, of course, to involve 'value judgements' -- to raise questions not about facts but about how men feel about facts, not about what man can do but what he ought to do. It is usually implied that the answers are out of the reach of science. Physicists and biologists often agree, and with some justification, since their sciences do not, indeed, have the answers. Physics may tell us how to build a nuclear bomb but not whether it should be built. Biology may tell us how to control birth and postpone death but not whether we ought to do so. Decisions about the uses of science seem to demand a kind of wisdom which, for some curious reason, scientists are denied. If they are to make value judgements at all, it is only with the wisdom they share with people in general.

"It would be a mistake for the behavioral scientist to agree. How people feel about facts, or what it means to feel anything, is a question for which a science of behavior should have an answer. A fact is no doubt different from what a person feels about it, but the latter is a fact also. What causes trouble, here as elsewhere, is the appeal to what people feel. A more useful form of the question is this: If a scientific analysis can tell us how to change behavior, can it tell us what changes to make? This is a question abuot the behavior of those who do in fact propose and make changes. People act to improve the world and to progress towards a better way of life for good reasons, and among the reasons are certain consequences of their behavior, among these consequences are the things people value and call good.

"We may begin with some simple examples. There are things which almost everyone calls good. Some things taste good, feel good, or look good. We say this as readily as we say that they taste sweet, feel rough, or look read. Is there then some physical property possessed by all good things? Almost certainly not. There is not even any common property possessed by all sweet, rough, or red things. A gray surface looks red if we have been looking at a blue-green one; plain paper feels smooth if we have been feeling sandpaper or rough if we have been feeling plate lass; and tap water tastes sweet if we have been eating artichokes. Some part of what we call red or smooth or sweet must therefore be in the eyes or fingertips or tongue of the beholder, feeler, or taster. What we attribute to an object when we call it red, rough, or sweet is in part a condition of our own body, resulting (in these examples) from recent stimulation. Conditions of the body are much more important, and for a different reason, when we call something good.

"Good things are positive reinforcers. The food that tastes good reinforces us when we taste it. Things that feel good reinforce us when we feel them. Things that look good reinforce us when we look at them. When we say colloquially that we 'go for' such things, we identify a kind of behavior which is frequently reinforced by them. (The things we call bad also have no common property. They are all negative reinforcers, and we are reinforced when we escape or avoid them.)

"When we say that a value judgement is a matter not of fact but of how someone feels about a fact, we are simply distinguishing between a thing and its reinforcing effect. Things themselves are studied by physics and biology, usually without reference to their value, but the reinforcing effects of things are the province of behavioral science, which, to the extent that it is concerned with operant reinforcement, is a science of values.

"Things are good (positively reinforcing) or bad (negatively reinforcing) presumably because of the contingencies of survival under which the species evolved. There is obvious survival value in the fact that certain foods are reinforcing; it has meant that men have more quickly learned to find, grow, or catch them. A susceptibility to negative reinforcement is equally important; those who have been highly reinforced when they have escaped from or avoided potentially dangerous conditions have enjoyed obvious advantages. As a result it is part of the genetic endowment called 'human nature' to be reinforced in particular ways by particular things. (It is also part of that endowment that new stimuli become reinforcing through 'respondent' conditioning -- that the sight of fruit, for example, becomes reinforcing if, after looking at the fruit, we bite into it and find it good. The possibility of respondent conditioning does not change the fact that all reinforcers eventually derive their power from evolutionary selection.)
Why is this so? The answer lies within perception itself; it is ethic-perception of the act in question that leads to the question of wrongness versus rightness in general of particular acts. It defines which acts are and which acts are not acceptable. In this case, the act of killing a baby.
It is the reinforcer that feels good, not the good feeling.
To give a summation of why science cannot answer the imperative discourse 'why killing a baby is wrong', we may only answer: because science is not the study of ethic-perception. Rather, science limits itself to that which is materially testable, viz., the corporeal. Because 'morals' are not materially testable, any moral notion within science may be discarded unless otherwise dictated by external institutions which dictate the affairs of science.
This implies that things are reinforcing because they feel good or bad, when it is the reinforcer that feels good, not the feeling itself.

lol its funny coz' its true :D

He does have a point! though by general morality it is considered wrong, but who is the actual person who decides it is wrong, who in this world has the right to consider what is right or wrong? does anyone have the power any more? :confused:

Cherubim

General morality or the opinions you were spoonfed in the education system before you started to think for yourself? Who has the right to consider 'right' from 'wrong'? Whoever has the balls to make a decision. 'Rights' are nothing more than the priveliges of power or claims to said priveliges.

Who says it is wrong?

I did not. I asked YD to tell me whether it is or is not wrong using the scientific method. You deliberately misstated my post, which tells me all I need to know about you. Good day.

You'll have to wait until scientists catch up with the wonderful science of the human brain to answer why people think that is wrong.

Did I save myself? :p

No. I did not ask you to explain via the scientific method why people think that it is wrong. I asked you to explain via the scientific method why killing a baby is or is not wrong.

No. I did not ask you to explain via the scientific method why people think that it is wrong. I asked you to explain via the scientific method why killing a baby is or is not wrong.

I guess because it's alive and it's human. You can test that scientifically.

I guess because it's alive and it's human. You can test that scientifically.

Science can tell us whether a being is alive and human. It does not tell us why the states of being alive and being human render the act of killing wrong.

What is/was your major?

Using the scientific method, explain why killing a baby is or is not wrong. And if your answer is species preservation, go to the rear of the class. There is no empirical reason why any species, or anything at all, must be preserved.There might not be an empirical reason (yet), but there is a rational and materialistic reason why genes are preserved. That reason is natural selection.

Most human beings have an innate instinct that tells them it's wrong to kill a baby. That instinct can be easily explained by noting that parents tend to aggressively protect their children (and thus their genes) from physical harm, and ancient hominids who attempted to kill other children were often killed themselves during the attempt. That's not an empirical explanation, but it's certainly a rational, materialistic hypothesis.

Human moral instincts are easily explained by the field of evolutionary psychology. For example, which would bother you more on an emotional level -- 100 strangers being killed, or your mother, father, or child being killed? Obviously the latter would bother you more. That makes no sense at all if morality comes from God, since 100 lives are worth more to God than just one life; but if morality is rooted in evolved instincts to protect one's genes, then it makes perfect sense.

The fact of the matter for the smug people on both sides of this is you don't really know.

However consider that the universe, existing within the flow of time must either have an extratemporal cause of its origin or things must regress in an infinite chain of cause and effect.

I lean towards the former( though I take the Taoist, view of a eternal field of energy which was the origin of things).

Human moral instincts are easily explained by the field of evolutionary psychology. For example, which would bother you more on an emotional level -- 100 strangers being killed, or your mother, father, or child being killed? Obviously the latter would bother you more. That makes no sense at all if morality comes from God, since 100 lives are worth more to God than just one life; but if morality is rooted in evolved instincts to protect one's genes, then it makes perfect sense.

You are still bumping up, as I think you have admitted, against the limits of empiricism. Why is it wrong to kill your stepchildren in order to protect your genes, as lions do? The very reasoning in which you engage to answer the question is non-scientific. To return to the original point, science cannot answer metaphysical questions.

Also, I don't see how you arrive at the conclusion that "100 lives are worth more to God than just one life." The conclusion I would derive is that all life is precious to God.

Is the life of a mosquito equally precious to God as the life of a Mozart?

Is the life of a mosquito equally precious to God as the life of a Mozart?

He apparently thought enough of mosquitos to create them. One distinction He does draw is that unlike mosquitos, God made man in His image, and gave him dominion over the Earth.

Can science tell you why killing a baby is wrong?
Babies were doubtless immolated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killed at Nanking. They probably died on the trail of tears, and indeed as a consequence of any military action in which cities were attacked. Were all these things 'wrong'?

Can you tell us why killing a baby is wrong?

Babies were doubtless immolated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killed at Nanking. They probably died on the trail of tears, and indeed as a consequence of any military action in which cities were attacked. Were all these things 'wrong'?

Can you tell us why killing a baby is wrong?

(Raps knuckles on jonnyofthedead's large, over-ossified skull: "Hello? Anybody in there?")

If you bothered to read rather than just skim over the thread and jerk your knee in response to seeing various Leftist keywords, you would realize that we are not debating whether killing babies is wrong. Rather, we are debating whether science can tell us whether or not killing babies is wrong.

I guess science can't answer all questions.

I guess science can't answer all questions.

It can answer only small, petty ones.

LoL, imagine if people in a society tried to use science to figure out basic codes of conduct.

Should one crap in someone else's front yard?

Let's use "the scientific method" to figure this out... :D

I did not. I asked YD to tell me whether it is or is not wrong using the scientific method. You deliberately misstated my post, which tells me all I need to know about you. Good day.

Excuse me? And that is what exactly?

I did not insinuate that you believe that killing a baby is wrong, I was simply asking who thought that it was.

Can science tell you why killing a baby is wrong?

Of course, if I did, could you blame me?

I think that what we have here is a couple of crossed wires. But if you want to judge who I am over something as trivial as this, so be it.

Good day to you too, sir. :|

If you bothered to read rather than just skim over the thread and jerk your knee in response to seeing various Leftist keywords, you would realize that we are not debating whether killing babies is wrong. Rather, we are debating whether science can tell us whether or not killing babies is wrong.
This I appreciate. What I want to know is whether anything can reasonably tell us that killing babies is wrong, whether there is any argument against it that doesn't simply boil down to "I don't like it." One cannot, in principle, use the scientific method to 'prove' something that is not true, so if killing babies is not wrong, then trivially, the answer to your question is "no." Thus, your question is quickly answered if we can show that killing babies is not wrong. If it is wrong, your question is impossible to answer: the fact that something has not yet been done does not mean it cannot or never will be done.

So, I'll return to my original question: can you, or anyone else, demonstrate that killing babies is wrong? Conversely, can anyone demonstrate that it is not wrong? Have we, in fact, any grounds beyond personal preference on which basis we may label anything wrong? If not, your whole question is pointless.

*uses dense skull to smash stuff*

You are still bumping up, as I think you have admitted, against the limits of empiricism.I admit to bumping up against the current limits of empiricism, yes. I do not accept that questions of morality are veiled behind some fundamental limit of empricism.


Why is it wrong to kill your stepchildren in order to protect your genes, as lions do?It may be the case that human beings have innate instincts that oppose the killing of any children. The instinctual taboo against killing the children of others was roughly hypothesized in my last post. When it comes to stepchildren, the drive to care for them might be a "crossover" phenomena wherein the instinct to care for one's own children is carried over to children other than one's own. As an example, it has been observed among lower animals that a female will sometimes care for young that are not only not her own, but not even of her own species!


The very reasoning in which you engage to answer the question is non-scientific. To return to the original point, science cannot answer metaphysical questions.My reasoning is more akin to hypothesizing, but it's still rooted in science inasmuch as it seeks naturalistic explanations for phenomena.

Also, questions of morality are not necessarily metaphysical -- they may simply be beyond the reach of empirical science at the present time. To ascribe to God or other metaphysical forces all phenomena that cannot yet be definitively explained by science is to fall into the same trap into which primitive humans fell when they blamed thunderstorms on "angry Gods" or epileptic seizures on "demonic possession." The explanation of those phenomena was once as far out of the reach of science as the explanation of morality might seem today. But give it another couple hundred years and what we call "moral tendencies" might be reduced to neurotransmitters and neural microstructure. (Certain emotions, such as fear and sadness, are already well on their way to being so reduced.)


Also, I don't see how you arrive at the conclusion that "100 lives are worth more to God than just one life." The conclusion I would derive is that all life is precious to God.
If God exists, then perhaps all life is precious to him (though He certainly hasn't demonstrated that, judging by the state of the world). Still, if one life is precious to God, I don't see how 100 lives could fail to be even more precious.

It can't be proven that killing a baby is right or wrong because the whole concept of morality is based on what god or allah (sp?) or whatever imaginary man in the sky you pray to. Right and wrong are irrelevant and have no basis in reality. Whether or not it is right or wrong to kill a baby can't be explained by science (yet) because morality is a specific person or groups opinion and currently we do not have the means to scientifically figure out why someone's opinions are as they are. Even if you assume you are only dealing with one person, you could not scientifically deduce that person's personal opinions (think chaos theory). While it would be possible to figure out every thing that ever influenced a person's opinions, how it influenced them, what effected his/her influencers, etc. and conclude from that information whether or not they would feel killing a baby is wrong, it is unreasonable to expect this to be done.

Let's use "the scientific method" to figure this out...

Empirical experimentation, well my hypothesis will be it will work out well into you get caught. Just train your dog to crap in the neighbors yard :).

Or train yourself or your child to crap in the neighbors yard.

Can science tell you why killing a baby is wrong?

we find killing babies wrong because they represent the future of our species. if they are not allowed to grow and become adults, then humans have no future.

killing babies can be found as being right in the sense that the baby may represent competition both in resources spent raising the child and as a child of an 'enemy.'