ETs, Environment, and Religion
A colleague writes:
There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Think about that. The only logical conclusion to be drawn from that stat is not merely that there are other ‘Suns” and “Earths” out there, but billions, if not trillions. What are the odds that not a single one of them developed life, or that a single one of those which developed life did not develop a technological species? For us to assume that we are so special as to be the only “intelligent” species for 13 billion light years is the height of human bombast, and symptomatic of all our other problems—the Medieval notion that we are somehow above nature, or that nature will look out for us because we are so special. Yes, religions teach that, but I could use your demand for proof in reverse: where’s the evidence for divine providence? Trillions of trillions of stars make for more hard evidence for proof that life exists throughout the universe than a stack of Bibles or Korans or Torahs can provide for the existence of life on earth only.
My reply:
The “conclusion” that given the hugeness of the universe the odds must be that there is life on other planets is based upon the assumption that life on earth came about by a purely material process entirely accounted for by the laws of physics plus time. This assumption is precisely that, an assumption, unprovable. It is, in more traditional language, an act of faith. If one grants that assumption, your conclusion is perfectly reasonable.
However, since your argument gives no account of how the laws of physics came about, one is permitted by reason to make an alternate assumption, namely that there is a mind—utterly incommensurable with the human mind, and one that seems to have revealed a part of its purpose to human beings in unaccountable ways—behind the very existence of the universe and its laws of physics. Under that assumption, it is equally reasonable to conclude that the universe exists partly in order for our minds to exist and that until and unless we find evidence for life in other worlds, there is no reason to assume its existence.
It does no good for you to argue conclusions unless we can agree on premises. And since our two premises are different and both are unprovable acts of faith, all attempts to convince one another of our opposite conclusions by means of reason is pointless. We must just agree (for the sake of peace, which is both a natural and a moral value) to allow one another our different faiths.
I have never argued that the existence of God can be proven by reason or empirical evidence. On the contrary, my references to empirical evidence are to show that it is not incompatible with either of the above assumptions.
Finally, your attack on the “bombast” of the Medieval period is a false accusation. The religious traditions you are attacking (as distinct from some of their ignorant followers) never taught that “nature will look out for us because we are so special” nor that human beings are “somehow above nature”—except in one sense. They taught that we are special precisely because we are not merely nature, that being a combination of nature and spirit, we have duties to behave morally that nothing else in nature has.
In fact, your whole moral passion about saving the natural world from the depravities of man could not exist if it were not built upon the assumption that man has not only a vested interest in treating his environment with respect but also a moral duty to do so. When you labor to make the abusers of earth, air, and water feel guilty for their actions and exhort them in the name of truth and righteousness to go green, you are doing so, like it or not, on the assumption that human beings make choices for which they are morally responsible. If we were merely nature doing its thing, you would have absolutely no grounds for complaining that we are destroying our own environment. So what? Environments change, creatures come into existence and go out of it, and nature continues. Why get worked up about it? But you do, and that is because, like it or not, you are a moral being and believe in your heart that it is not only a matter of self-interest to preserve the environment, but a moral obligation to ourselves and our posterity. And I agree with you.
As I say, there can be no rational or empirical proof one way or another whether we are merely nature doing its thing or whether we are created to be responsible beings. But whatever you think, you are behaving as if you were the latter and expecting others to behave so too. In this, your character seems to me (given my assumptions) to be superior to your reasoning. To attack the religions that tell man he is a morally responsible being is, in the realm of human decision-making, exactly like attacking the environment that sustains our natural life. It is to cut the ground out from under your own feet.
There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Think about that. The only logical conclusion to be drawn from that stat is not merely that there are other ‘Suns” and “Earths” out there, but billions, if not trillions. What are the odds that not a single one of them developed life, or that a single one of those which developed life did not develop a technological species? For us to assume that we are so special as to be the only “intelligent” species for 13 billion light years is the height of human bombast, and symptomatic of all our other problems—the Medieval notion that we are somehow above nature, or that nature will look out for us because we are so special. Yes, religions teach that, but I could use your demand for proof in reverse: where’s the evidence for divine providence? Trillions of trillions of stars make for more hard evidence for proof that life exists throughout the universe than a stack of Bibles or Korans or Torahs can provide for the existence of life on earth only.
My reply:
The “conclusion” that given the hugeness of the universe the odds must be that there is life on other planets is based upon the assumption that life on earth came about by a purely material process entirely accounted for by the laws of physics plus time. This assumption is precisely that, an assumption, unprovable. It is, in more traditional language, an act of faith. If one grants that assumption, your conclusion is perfectly reasonable.
However, since your argument gives no account of how the laws of physics came about, one is permitted by reason to make an alternate assumption, namely that there is a mind—utterly incommensurable with the human mind, and one that seems to have revealed a part of its purpose to human beings in unaccountable ways—behind the very existence of the universe and its laws of physics. Under that assumption, it is equally reasonable to conclude that the universe exists partly in order for our minds to exist and that until and unless we find evidence for life in other worlds, there is no reason to assume its existence.
It does no good for you to argue conclusions unless we can agree on premises. And since our two premises are different and both are unprovable acts of faith, all attempts to convince one another of our opposite conclusions by means of reason is pointless. We must just agree (for the sake of peace, which is both a natural and a moral value) to allow one another our different faiths.
I have never argued that the existence of God can be proven by reason or empirical evidence. On the contrary, my references to empirical evidence are to show that it is not incompatible with either of the above assumptions.
Finally, your attack on the “bombast” of the Medieval period is a false accusation. The religious traditions you are attacking (as distinct from some of their ignorant followers) never taught that “nature will look out for us because we are so special” nor that human beings are “somehow above nature”—except in one sense. They taught that we are special precisely because we are not merely nature, that being a combination of nature and spirit, we have duties to behave morally that nothing else in nature has.
In fact, your whole moral passion about saving the natural world from the depravities of man could not exist if it were not built upon the assumption that man has not only a vested interest in treating his environment with respect but also a moral duty to do so. When you labor to make the abusers of earth, air, and water feel guilty for their actions and exhort them in the name of truth and righteousness to go green, you are doing so, like it or not, on the assumption that human beings make choices for which they are morally responsible. If we were merely nature doing its thing, you would have absolutely no grounds for complaining that we are destroying our own environment. So what? Environments change, creatures come into existence and go out of it, and nature continues. Why get worked up about it? But you do, and that is because, like it or not, you are a moral being and believe in your heart that it is not only a matter of self-interest to preserve the environment, but a moral obligation to ourselves and our posterity. And I agree with you.
As I say, there can be no rational or empirical proof one way or another whether we are merely nature doing its thing or whether we are created to be responsible beings. But whatever you think, you are behaving as if you were the latter and expecting others to behave so too. In this, your character seems to me (given my assumptions) to be superior to your reasoning. To attack the religions that tell man he is a morally responsible being is, in the realm of human decision-making, exactly like attacking the environment that sustains our natural life. It is to cut the ground out from under your own feet.
posted by G.Rap | 4:23 AM
7 Comments:
I suspect your colleague would agree that human beings make choices for which they are morally responsible. I do not see what that has to do with the probability that life exists in other galaxies.
You write: "If we were merely nature doing its thing, you would have absolutely no grounds for complaining that we are destroying our own environment." Why not? Why wouldn't he have the exact same grounds he would if we were not "merely nature doing its thing" -- namely that destroying our environment is morally bad?
Suppose life on earth were created by Yahweh. So what? Environments change, creatures come into existence and go out of it, and nature continues. Why get worked up about it?
It seems to me that whether we get worked up about that kind of thing, morally or otherwise, has nothing whatsoever to do with whether any gods exist.
What's the argument to the contrary?
This discussion leaves one to ponder a question for the first commentator: why does (should) an atheist act morally?
The response argues that the atheist should act morally because universal moral absolutes exist regardless of the atheist's nonbelief and does act morally because the atheist's rejection (denial) of the origin of the universal moral absolutes does not negate their existence and truth.
Would the initial commentator suggest that atheistic morality is merely the maximization of happiness for the greatest number of people? Would the initial commentator ever substitute the words "Supreme Being" for "nature"?
A factual correction to your comment:
"The religious traditions you are attacking... never taught that... nor that human beings are 'somehow above nature.'"
In response to that, I would like to cite Genesis 1:26:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
Maurile is correct to this extent: I should have written “If we were merely nature doing its thing, you would have absolutely no MORAL ground for complaining that we are destroying our own environment.” One need not believe in God to believe in moral absolutes. But moral absolutes cannot be shown to be derivable from nature. They are premises, not conclusions, as C.S. Lewis has ably shown in _The Abolition of Man_ (and as I have repeated often). My argument is that any moral argument, as distinct from a merely pragmatic one, must be founded on faith—whether acknowledged or not—in a moral absolute not derivable from empirical evidence, i.e., from observation of nature.
McManus is correct to take my words to task, though the intent of my paragraph, I think, was not in conflict with Genesis. By “above nature” my colleague implied that “nature will look out for us because we are so special.” This was certainly true before man’s fall from Eden, though even then nature was never our mere possession but God’s gift to us. However, religion has taught that since man’s fall from Eden, man’s position, by his own disobedience, is reduced. We nonetheless are above nature in the sense I mentioned: we remain moral beings obliged to make moral choices, and we do make them, whether we acknowledge it or not. My reply was to my colleague’s cartoon notion of religious teaching. Of course I did not mean to deny that man has dominion over nature, as all our behavior daily proves. If it were not so, my colleague could have no grounds for exhorting mankind to exercise that dominion properly instead of improperly. Our dominion, however, does not have the absurd sense that no matter what we do nature will not harm us. The whole point of our being both natural and spiritual beings is that all our choices have consequences which it is our moral obligation to consider in the effort to behave rightly.
I don't know what "if we were merely nature doing its thing" means, exactly. ("Nothing is 'mere.'" -- Richard Feynman.) The point of my initial comment was that we have the same moral grounds for opposing the destruction of our environment whether or not any gods exist.
It is true that, strictly speaking, we cannot deduce moral absolutes from nature. But neither can we deduce them from the commands of any god. This is the Euthyphro Dilemma, courtesy of Socrates: "What does 'God is good' mean? Does God like good things because they are good, or are they good because God likes them?" If the former, we don't need God to be moral -- there are good things and we can like them all by ourselves. If the latter, there's no difference between a 'good' God and an 'evil' God.
The answer to the anonymous commenter's first question is that the atheist acts morally for the same reason as the theist: because he wants to. (Asking why he should act morally invites an answer by tautology: "should" and "moral" are two ways of expressing the same thing.) And no, I'm not a utilitarian.
True, fundamental moral principles are not derivable. As Lewis argues, they are premises, not conclusions. We must start from them or we have no grounds for making any moral judgment at all.
But to say that the atheist like the theist acts morally "because he wants to" is pointlessly reductive. We are not talking about why people do things. ("Wanting to" vs. "needing to" raises in simplistic terms the mysterious question of human free will, which I don't propose to discuss here.)
The question here is whether or not we OUGHT to do or not do something. To assume fundamental absolute moral principles admits one into the world of ought. Not to assume them bars one from that world. And yes, the same is true for atheists and for theists. A theist may have additional reasons for assuming the fundamental moral principles, namely his belief in their supernatural origin. But even without that, those principles must be taken to be absolute or all grounds for moral discourse disappear, including the grounds for being faithful to logic and to truth.
My argument to my colleague was not an argument for theism but for faith in absolute values. And my point was that he lives as if he did have that faith, even though he rejects any theistic foundation for them. Whether moral fundamentals could possibly be real (as opposed to being believed in) in a universe without God is another argument.
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