The Trolley Problem: A Thought

Watching the train pass below me as I crossed the bridge over the tracks today got me to thinking about the trolley problem.

Basically, the trolley problem is a moral quandary in which the brain has a difficult time determining whether is it permissible to kill one person to save five, or let one live while knowingly allowing five deaths that could have been prevented.

Scenario A, the first part of the problem, the trolley is barreling down the tacks toward five people who are unaware that they will soon be little more than smudges. Luckily, there is a fork in the tracks, and by simply pulling a lever, the trolley will divert onto a second set of tracks as it moves away from the five innocent bystanders. Low and behold, however, before you pull the lever you notice a single moron picking up pennies off the rails (he also happens to be deaf). Unaware that the train is coming his life would be terminated if you pull the lever.

The choice is, do you pull the lever and save five people by sacrificing one? Or do you let all five perish, while the moron picking up pennies gets to become a few cents richer? According to studies, most people say it is permissible to pull the lever.

Scenario B, the second scenario, the difference is that, this time, there is only one track. Instead of a lever, you are standing on a bridge. There is one other person on the bridge with you. Meanwhile, once again, on the tracks down below are five bystanders oblivious to the harm headed their way. The question scenario B posits is, if pushing the person next to you onto the tracks would sufficiently stop the trolley and save the five people down below, is it permissible to do so?

Interestingly enough, most people say that it is impermissible to push the person over the edge in an act of intentional harm.

But what has changed? In scenario A you deliberately pulled a lever which you understood would divert the trolley onto another set of tracks and kill a single person. Scenario B posits the exact same difference, except you are personally pushing the person onto the tracks from the bridge and causing harm. Yet for some reason, in one scenario your brain thinks taking the life is permissible, and in the other scenario your brain thinks it is impermissible. Obviously the brain is experiencing conflicting moral messages--and is at an impasse. Our moral sense is confounded.

What is interesting about the trolley problem is that it shows that even simple moral precepts, like don't kill, or don't take a life, are far more complicated than they initially appear.

Now there have been various solutions applied to the trolley problem. For example, the principle of double effect has been applied so show how scenario A is inductive of not allowing harm, although their maybe some unavoidable collateral damage, whereas scenario B is a direct act of causing harm, which directly contributes to the survival of five others. The principle of double effect claims that it is morally impermissible to act out in a harmful manner. Whereas scenario A is the act of pulling the switch, scenario B is the act of deliberately harming someone. In other words, the distinction the principle of double effect seeks to highlight is that an act of allowing harm is not the same as an act of causing a harm.

However, many philosophers have pointed out that--morally speaking--nothing has changed accept for what we define as "morally permissible." The moral problem still persists. After all, not preventing a violent rape isn't the same as actually raping somebody, but you would have to be a cold hearted bastard not to prevent a rape which could save another person's life.

The thought that occurred to me while peering down over the railing at the tracks this morning was this. Let us take away the moral implications from the trolley problem, and see what happens.

Pretend, for a moment, that you are a sociopath. Unable to tell the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, in normal social situations which require moral intuition, all you have to rely on to get by in society is your statistical information and logic. Logic dictates that you sacrifice the one for the many every time. Not because of any moral obligation, but because it makes more statistical sense. As a sociopath, we could very well let the five die without bringing harm to the one, but a logical sociopath wouldn't simply allow five people to die, because that doesn't make any statistical sense to a person relying on logic (remember--to better grasp the moral dilemma here we have omitted moral obligations--for the time being).

This brings out an obvious objection to answers like the principle of double effect, because if you run the trolley problem again, and again, and again, repeatedly, then, the funny thing is, the sociopath--who cannot distinguish between right and wrong--will always end up saving MORE people than the moral person who abides by the moral obligation not to willfully enact harm or do evil.

The reason I find this interesting, is because the morally indifferent person can potentially save millions, while having only killed a few, thus realizing a greater moral good. Whereas the morally righteous person will be faced with the realization that they have allowed for millions upon millions of deaths because of their refusal to sacrifice one for the many. An act which no greater moral good can be found.

The question becomes, then, for the morally righteous person is this: what exact number of innocent deaths must we allow for, i.e. require, before it becomes morally permissible to push just one person onto the tracks? 1, 2, 3 deaths? 50? 1,000? 10,000?

Now be careful. I'm not asking anyone to put a value on a life. All life is precious--of inestimable value and worth. What we have to consider though--is how can we say the innumerably precious things, such as a life, all of them immeasurably valuable, have more or less value than the next? That's the moral dilemma we face here--because the question we are forced to contend with asks us to define and designate the parameters of what we deem as morally permissible when it comes to weighing the value of one priceless item with the value of many priceless items. But since they are all of them priceless, there is no correct way to go about determining their value. It is like trying to argue where infinity begins and ends. It's a rather futile task. This is the confusion the brain is having in trying to figure out which scenario is better with regard to the trolley problem when, in point of fact, they are statistically the same.

It seems to me that the implication here is the statistical data of which dictates the proper action seemingly outweighs the moral intuition. Whether this is good or bad, I cannot pretend to know the answer to. Perhaps, we should use statistical computations to help model morality with prospective logic to aid us in moral decision making. I don't know. I just thought by positing a logical sociopath, instead of a morally righteous bystander, the test shows that righteous morality may in fact pose a greater threat to society than sociopathy. A strange moral realization if there ever was one.

Do You Practice Moral Relativism?

I do believe the practice of morality is mainly relative whether or not absolute morality exists (see: moral sense theory). Rather I view moral relativism as the methodology for testing various moral constructs (Jamesian pragmatic morality). Moral relativism is basically what we do when we engage each other (see: social constructivism) and morality is the artifact of these interactions (see: social constructionism).


My own personal form of morality is a form of reliablism (see Michael Bishop), appended to a utilitarian based social constructivism, buttressed with Buddhist philosophical insights (many which denote a type of methodological pluralism) and reinforced by mutual corresponding theories (i.e., other appreciations).


As I said, there is no single theory I subscribe to, but the combination of various moral philosophies, networked together, forming a modular moral model, work just as well if not better than Christian concepts of morality. Finally, it's worth reiterating that Christianity, as well as other "religions of the book," are limited by a dogmatic creed confined to one archaic text. Which, as a consequence, forces Christians (and other religious believers) to either become relativists themselves (rejecting the bad bits and cherry-picking only the best), or else strict legalists (fundamentalists who interpret the law to the letter). Personally, I find such religious dogma to be counter-productive, and often times harmful, when it comes to moral considerations and ethical concerns.

Appreciations are the Way (My Personal Tao)

Marriage, Fidelity, and on Buddhism

Yes, it is an eclectic series of topics. I was asked a few questions by the Christian author of the blog Wide as the Waters. Obviously I felt they were good questions, so without further delay, here are the questions:

What is your opinion of Christian morality regarding sexual fidelity both before and after marriage?

What about it’s constraints concerning homosexuality? I am just curious how your views of those issues track with those of other atheists.

Also, regarding your wife’s Buddhism, do you think Buddhism presents an accurate view of human nature and reality? Why?

Just as a preface, I’d like to remind my readers that I like to think that I have a unique insight to both the Christian position and secular position with regard to these questions. This month I turned 31 years old, and it marks the one year anniversary of my deconversion from Christianity. Now, with respect to the questions, I am going to come right out and say it, atheism has nothing to say on these subjects as it is not a belief system in and of itself. Rather, I find that atheism is the end product of critical thinking, free inquiry, scientific reasoning, and a healthy skepticism. Yet that does not mean my atheism cannot be informed by other appreciations (which I’ll get to momentarily).

Bygone Times: God wants your sons and daughters—not your vegetables!

First, I will begin by making a short statement about homosexuality. When it comes to being a homosexual I am fairly ignorant. I do not know what it is like to be a homosexual anymore than I know what it is truly like to be a woman. Likewise, I do not know what it means to be a black man or an Eskimo, or any other race or gender. Of course, I know many homosexuals, and this year I have learned a lot about it from a gay friend who helped clear up some misconceptions I had. At any rate, what we need to realize that homosexuality is not the way a person chooses to act or behave, but rather, it is how they are made. It’s genetic, it’s natural, and the more comfortable you are with that fact the less likely you will be to make the mistake that homosexuality is anything but an alternative—and prevalent—biological condition. If you can’t accept the fact that homosexuality is a natural condition, then it’s up to you to explain why the past fifty years of genetic research is wrong and you are right.

When it comes to Christianity, however, I firmly feel that the Christian policy with regard to homosexuality is just as ill-conceived as the Christian policy of what to do to Jews who pick up sticks on a Saturday. It appears the Biblical attitude toward homosexuals stems from a Bronze aged mentality. This primitive mentality is consistently being reflected in scripture as well as Christian thought. But it is this archaic thinking, in fact, for why the morality of the Bible is not compatible with today’s evolved moral concerns.

If the Bible is to be considered a moral source, let alone a moral authority, it has to do better than representing the blinkered thinking of goat herders. The God of the Bible, both OT and NT, demands blood sacrifice. This reeks of a primitive, nomadic, goat herding era when blood sacrifice dominated the thinking and acted as a covenant between men and God (i.e., a spurious supernatural claim at best). Purity and cleansing rituals were part of the desert lifestyle, and this finds its way into the religious rites and rituals of early Judaism. If the Christian God was all knowing, however, he would have saw fit to teach his people how to set up agricultural farms, with fully functioning irrigation aqueducts, and so forth. After all, the technology did exist back then. Herod the great made great use of aquifers and aqueducts when he built Caesarea. But no, instead of sacrificing a bushel of carrots, asparagus, and a healthy courgette to the God of the Hebrews, goats were slaughtered and occasionally virgin maidens, just for good measure.

Needless to say, the meat eating culture of a pre-agricultural era requires extensive kosher rules. After all, eating meat gone bad would make one deathly ill. If you’ve ever had a bout of food poisoning, then you’ll know exactly what I mean (believe me when I say it’s not fun). Much of these cleansing rituals were therefore built into the sandy desert lifestyle by necessity, not only because of larger hygienic and dietary health concerns, but also because of the limitations of such a lifestyle. Likewise, families had to be large because so many died out due to illness, starvation, etc. Food needed to be safe for consumption, because if not it could mean your own death—since a fever ridden bout of food poisoning on the desert trail—with no water—would surely be the end of you. Bodies needed to be as clean as possible, because the spread of a flu bug in close knit tribal groups would spread so rapidly that it could threaten to wipe out the entire lot. One haphazard sneeze, and God’s chosen people could have vanished off the face of the Earth.

So when we talk about morality, we need to distinguish between the pre-modern moral concerns of a Bronze age and the moral concerns of a modern age like our own. A simple question will illustrate better my point: Are we to believe that the God of the entire universe and all creation just, as a happy coincidence, supported the primitive cleansing rituals of his chosen people? Or is it more likely that these rituals appear to be inbuilt into the religion because the people themselves devised methods and ways which helped them cope with the harsh conditions of a difficult time in human history? I bring this up only because this is the very mentality we are dealing with when it comes to questions about marriage, sexuality, and the like. Therefore it is important to keep these considerations in mind.

For these reasons, and many more like them, I believe anything the Bible says about homosexuality (and sexuality in general) is antiquated. Most of the notions contained in the cleansing rituals and rights of the early Hebrews are simply defunct. We know how to procure pork safely now, and so there is no longer any dietary reason why Muslims or Jews, or anyone for that matter, ought to abstain from consuming pork, except, that it was written down as an authoritative bit of scriptural law. This insight, however, gives explanation for why there are still religious people who believe homosexuality is a “sin.” Because it is written in their holy books as an authoritative law which must not be transgressed—and thus you get Westboro Baptist nut jobs clinging to an outmoded Bronze aged mentality, with a defunct morality, as they attempt to bring it kicking and screaming into the 21^st century. More specifically though, you get moderate Christians thinking homosexuality is a sickness, or form of disease, spurred on by a sinful lifestyle rather than what it really is—a natural born condition—a fact of life.

Personally, I think such an observation is just too evident to miss, but many Christians, or Christian off-shoots like Mormonism, continue to demonize the homosexual (e.g., Prop 8). My question is this: If your God could be wrong about the “sin” of eating pork, what makes you so sure he’s not wrong about homosexuality too? 

It is sort of like the religious who defend circumcision, denying that it is the mutilation of small children’s genitals, because it has since proved to have medically supported hygienic benefits (e.g., it’s easier to keep clean. Although, I guarantee, any medical professional today will simply tell you there is no noticeable benefits to circumcision and will remind you that it’s “highly controversial”). They may even try to pass off this rather lame fact as a sign of God’s wisdom shining through the pages of two thousand year old scripture, but that’s just absurd. Anyone who has read the Bible knows that circumcision was part of a larger blood sacrifice ritual, based on the Jewish law of ‘mitzvah aseh, a sort of marker used for delineating those who shared the covenant with the Hebrew God, the tribe of Abraham (Gen. 17:10), from those who didn’t. It was a way to identify God’s chosen few.

Let’s not kid ourselves, originally this blood ritual had nothing to do with the medical benefits of personal hygiene—especially since the traditional method of circumcision was for the rabbi to bite off the pre-cut foreskin of the penis with his teeth—there is nothing hygienic about it. It’s all about the blood and the religious belief that it would set you right with God. That’s a superstitious basis for a horribly barbaric, and disgusting, act. Not to mention that it is a barbaric custom in violation of Human Rights—so much so that Sweden felt compelled to outlaw circumcision in 2001.

What sane person would then turn around and say, well all that may be true, those things like blood sacrifice and what not are outdated, but the part about homosexuality still rings true. No, I’m afraid the Bible, and Christians in general, are wrong about homosexuality being a moral disease.

That said, not all Christians view homosexuality as a disease. Indeed, there are even gay and lesbian churches today, and there are even lesbian ministers! Now if you feel this is an abomination, and a disgrace to your faith, then I would suggest you put down your bibles and start reading some biology books instead—because until you do the only thing you’re going to prove is your own appalling ignorance. My advice to Christians is to simply ignore the parts of the Bible which condemn homosexuality just as you continue to ignore the parts of the Bible which condemn eating pork. They are equally non-issues when considered from the vantage point of today’s modern understanding of the world.

Marriage and Fidelity

Now that I have brought your attention to the outmoded mentality driving certain moral injunctions within the Bible, I can come back to the question about marriage and fidelity.

What is your opinion of Christian morality regarding sexual fidelity both before and after marriage?

Before I share my thoughts on this, we need to settle on some definitions, as to add clarity to thought. First of all, fidelity is: faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support. (Oxford Dictionary of English, 2005)

Also, I should caution against mistaking fidelity for some kind of purity myth, because it is not about chastity. In fact, purity myths and virgin fetishes, something common to religious thinking and practice, are often harmful to society—especially to women.

Furthermore, we should be careful not to confuse fidelity with the tradition of monogamy. Monogamy stands for: the practice [or habit] of marrying and being married to one person at a time. (Oxford Dictionary of English, 2005)

Traditional marriage was not meant as a means of happiness. In the Biblical sense, marriage was a means to an end. Women were viewed as chattel, property of the man, to be sold and bartered with. This enterprise ensured that the household would remain strong, and marrying women off to wealthier men, or men of higher class, was a way to ensure the overall family's economic stability and continued existence. Hence women were chattel, dowries were bartered, organized marriages were planned, and bargains were struck.

When it comes to Christian marriage and secular non-Christian marriage, we need to realize there is relatively little difference in terms of traditional practice. China had dowries the same as Jews did. Women, regardless of where they were born, were the unlucky heirs to a patriarchal tradition. I need not remind you of the Biblical passages which enslave a defiled woman to her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), claim her value is equal to that of only fifty pieces of silver, or give husbands and fathers the right to murder a woman for being raped against her will (Deuteronomy 22:23-24). The God of the OT allowed his people to keep women as sex slaves (Exodus 21:7-11) and on occasion even commanded the rape of women (Zechariah 14:1-2). Yet it is no simple task to divorce the God of old biblical authority from the God of new biblical authority. Jesus did not put a stop to the end of slavery, nor did he amend his Father’s immoral, sexist, and misogynistic laws regarding women. Even so, Jesus did preach a form of monogamy.

I’ll come back to the subject of monogamy shortly, but first I should point out that Christianity has a long sordid history with oppressing women and suppressing women’s rights. Annie Laurie Gaylor, feminist crusader and founder of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, reminds us:

The various Christian churches fought tooth and nail against the advancement of women, opposing everything from women’s right to speak in public, to the use of anesthesia in childbirth (since the bible says women must suffer in childbirth) and woman’s suffrage. Today the most organized and formidable opponent of women’s social, economic and sexual rights remains organized religion. (Annie Laurie Gaylor, Nontract #10, “Why Women Need Freedom From Religion,” Available online.)

Nowadays, Islam gets more blame for its oppressive policies against women, but Christianity is not without blame. A 2009 study at Baylor University showed that Women are still made the sexual targets of male clergy and of faith leaders in general. Perhaps more controversial still, according to a 2008 Barna report, Christians have higher divorce rates than atheists and other non-believing secularists. All this seems to suggest that we should perhaps take it with a grain of salt whenever a Christian starts talking about the “sanctity of marriage.” Apparently, it’s anything but.

Monogamy, it seems, goes against our biological conditioning. In fact, many cultures do not practice monogamy but, instead, practice polygamy (e.g., Muslim Arabs, certain African tribes such as the Sudanese and Ethiopians, Egyptians, and early Mormon frontiers folk of America, and some cultures even practice polyamory). Christianity adheres to the concept that God made woman for man, thus creating Eve from Adam’s rib (although this is not without controversy either). Marriage later gets conditioned into a symbolic sacrament, a representation of being married in Christ, as taught by early church fathers such as Augustine (who condemned polygamy). Augustine noted that although fornication was permissible among the ancient fathers, it was no longer permissible in his day, and he viewed monogamy as a more covenant-friendly practice (i.e., marriage between one man and one woman helped to fulfill God’s commandment to his people to be fruitful and multiply).

One of Christianity’s biggest experiments in trying to curb the human biological urge to mate with multiple partners has been an abstinence only policy—but a 2008 study in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management found that there was no significant impact of abstinence only policies on teen sexual activity. Additionally, a similar report by the U.S. Mathematica Policy Research showed that abstinence only policies are not only an abysmal failure—but it also found that youth in these programs were no more likely to have unprotected sex. None-the-less, Christian organizations such as Focus on the Family continue to push abstinence only problems—and continue to put their children at risk by doing so.

Contrary to the conservative opinions that abstinence only education prevents sexual promiscuity, which it doesn’t, it seems that the opposite is true. Healthy and mature sex positive education does improve our sexual understanding and views sex in a positive light, thus reducing the guilt—related to the heavily stigmatized religious premarital “sex is sin” myth which runs unchecked in Christianity—thus allowing for healthier, more responsible, sexual relationships.

Coming back to marriage, we cannot deny that sexual attraction plays a large part our desire to get married (as sexual selection is part of our biological existence). Our emotional love is mostly predicated on our mutual compatibility and physical attraction to another person—basic brain chemistry times biology. In modern times, however, our deeper affections (i.e., romantic love) also seem to play a large role in the reasons people give for desiring to marry.

Marriage is, by today’s standards, an expression of one’s love for another. If two people in love want to use the custom of marriage as a symbol of union, exclusivity, or fidelity—then this is an expression which should not be denied them. To deny anyone the right to marry is basically to deny them the right to love who they will how they will—and such would be criminal. We cannot dictate who people should love or by what standard—yet religion seeks to try and do just this.

My conclusion is that marriage is merely a social construct, a social construct which is indistinguishable from other forms of relationships in terms of what each values. After all, most Americans don’t actually practice monogamy, but a form of monogamy called serial-monogamy. What this means is that they practice multiple short-term relationships, marry a lover, maintain a monogamous lifestyle for a time, and then divorce and do it again. Sometimes this is not by plan or design, sometimes divorce is necessary (e.g., battered wives escaping abusive husbands is one example of many which spring to mind). Many of my evangelical Christian cousins, even my own Christian mother, who are all extremely conservative (unlike me) have all been divorced more than twice and are on their second and third marriages, respectably. The 37% divorce rate among mainstream Christians, as the above Barna poll showed, suggests that over a quarter of Christians in America may also practice serial-monogamy rather than traditional monogamy.

When it comes to relationship models, I personally do not see any moral distinction between one social construct and another, whether it polygamy, polyandry, polyamory, monogamy and so forth, they are merely variant relationship models based within the same ethical playing field. This is not a controversial statement, mind you. None-the-less those who are more conservative will be inclined to disagree—but that’s to be expected as that’s the very definition of conservatism—disagreeing to proposed changes and alternative lifestyles and or worldviews. Regardless of what model you practice, it has been my experience that most successful adult relationships are predicated on fidelity and loyalty, communication and negotiation, trust, honesty, dignity, gender equality, non-possessiveness, mutual support, sharing domestic burdens and so on (you may be surprised to learn that these are the values within polyamory, not monogamy, although some of the values are overlapping).

For me there is no more romantic an ideal than true love, fidelity involves the promise, or personal pledge, that you will be loyal only to one, and one, person—basically it is the promise to maintain this true love. In fact, it is such a compelling notion primarily because we all desire it. We all want to be loved. I suspect we all want to be the object of somebody else’s undying love. Not only is the sheer concept emotionally satisfying, it is also an attempt to actualize an ideal.

Once you find your dream partner, your perfect match, and you both fall madly in love—fidelity is a promise you make to each other. It is a noble and beautiful, heartwarming, sentiment. It is such a powerful sentiment, so powerful in fact, that it sets the stage for every romance and drama which has ever been acted out—it is about the one true love. It is why Romeo and Juliet defied the social norms, went against tradition, and rebelled against the rules of their parents. It is the reason Helen ran away with Paris. It is the reason Tristan and Iseult risked it all to be together. It is the reason Harry met Sally. True love. Powerful stuff.

But is such an ideal even possible to achieve given our limitations and the human propensity to err? Probably not, but that doesn’t make the ideal any less meaningful.

The bottom line is this: marriage is only allotted the meaning we supply to it. But then again, marriage is not for everyone. There is nothing in the rule book which says we are all destined to end up with our perfect mate. Most will never be so lucky. As the Journey song says: “some were born to win, others to lose, and, some were born to sing the blues.”

As a romantic, I cannot help but be proud to commit myself fully to my wife—I for one believe in the ideal—I believe true love, whether or not it is within reach, is an ideal worth striving for. Marriage for me, then, is a way to express my fidelity to the most wonderful woman I have ever known. Although I speak only for myself, I for one agree with the English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, “'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Other Worldviews: On Buddhism

The question was:

Do you think Buddhism presents an accurate view of human nature and reality? Why?

In short, yes and no. There are different types of Buddhism just as there are different types of Christianity. While I do not believe in the supernatural claims of reincarnation, I do think that Buddhism teaches a practical methodology for addressing specific real world concerns, like why do we suffer and how to alleviate the suffering. I could go on and on about Buddhism, but like any belief system, I believe in taking the best parts, or what I call appreciations, and leaving the defunct and useless parts behind. Whether it is a religion or a political policy, I think we can always improve our understanding, and in turn, we must amend outmoded beliefs or defective practices and policies if we want to improve things.

What I like about Buddhism, is that it isn’t afraid to adapt itself with modernity. Christianity is much like Buddhism in this regard. Christianity has a unique ability to adapt itself to various worldviews in various cultures at various times. The difference is that I do not find the Christian teachings all that practical—certainly not all that much more beneficial than any other world philosophy—that is to say I don’t buy into any one ancient form of wisdom. To me they are all valid. Whether or not they are all applicable is a different matter entirely.

Christianity has other problematic elements which confound its practicality as well. The entire concept of sin is extremely problematic. The entire claim hinges on proving certain metaphysical assumptions, involving an archaic fable with a talking snake, and even then the entire concept of sin is not well defined. The Bible even fails to demarcate sin with any accuracy. For example, the Bible says not to kill others, that murder is a sin, it’s even God’s first commandment! But in the next instance in the next few verses God is commanding you to kill those who do not obey the Sabbath. So go figure.

Buddhism is less confusing—certainly less conflicting. There’s no pesky deity to get in the way of its teachings or confound your moral sense as with the Christian God. Buddhism gives you the four noble truths and the noble eight fold path and a certain amount of freedom to interpret the reality you observe without having to resort to making metaphysical assumptions. It allows a clarity which is not distorted by the desire to appease any god, but rather, gain a better understanding of the world and the human condition.

In his book What the Buddha Taught, Walpola Rahula states, "Buddhism recognizes that humans have a measure of freedom of moral choice, and Buddhist practice has essentially to do with acquiring the freedom to choose as one ought to choose with truth: that is of acquiring a freedom from the passions and desires that impel us to distraction and poor decisions."

I could say a lot more on Buddhism, but perhaps I’ll save it for another time.

Appreciations are the Way (My Personal Tao)

Apostasy is just another way of saying I am no longer be a believer chained to any particular religious creed, even so, this doesn’t mean I can’t borrow the best bits from various faiths, ideologies, and other belief systems and apply them to my own life accordingly. In fact, I believe this may be the best, most reasonable, way to gradually improve my life—literally by taking the best appreciations and using the best philosophies I can find and utilizing them perchance creating a better model of living without the defects (i.e., outmoded and/or blinkered bits) of inferior belief systems and ideologies. 

In a way, I’m creating new forms of morality by testing already proved forms of moral values and ethical guidelines. I mean, isn’t this what Christians do when they cherry-pick from the Bible? Yes, it’s the very same thing. It's moral relativism. The only difference is my moral relativism is not limited to the confines of just one book (a conflicted book at that). I have an entire realm of ideologies and philosophies to choose from—that is to say—I have an unlimited supply of appreciations I can select from and then apply to my life. It’s a work in progress, involves researching and making educated decisions, involves some trial and error, involves revision, adaptation, evolution, but I’m glad to report that it’s been working splendidly so far.

Nazianity: Spare Us Your Moralizing (ProfMTH)

A great video about how Christianity requires submission, obedience, subjection, and honor giving to Government(s). Historically speaking, Christian doctrine, in effect, empowered Nazi Germany by allowing Christian Germany to go along with the Nazi agenda. Yes, Christianity supplied not only the wellspring of centuries of antisemitic propaganda to fuel Nazi antisemitism but also was the backdrop which allowed for such prejudices to go unchecked by deliberately instructing Christian Germans to submit, obey, subject themselves to, and honor Hitler's Nazi Germany!

Can Science Shape Human Values? (NPR)

Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Simon Blackburn and Lawrence Krauss discuss what is moral and whether science can tells us. (Load time may vary depending on Internet speed. It takes about 30 secs every time I load the page. It's worth the small inconvenience though.)

Epistemology 101: Part 1 On Ontology and the Failure of Reformed Epistemology

Epistemology: [mass noun] (Philosophy) the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.


Due to numerous Christians now claiming that neuroscience cannot reveal whether morals exist independently of the brain, and that any subject related to morality must be relegated to the religious domain, I am going to do a series of articles in which I lay out the basics of epistemology and show exactly why Christians who espouse this are not only wrong, but they aren't doing themselves any favors, since ultimately--even if a external or independent form of morality should exist--our understanding of it would still be limited by our finite senses and interpreted subjectively by our brains. 

Even so, Christians keep telling me objective morality is primarily an ontological concern, and secondarily an epistemological concern, i.e. what we can know about it. What they are in essence claiming is that morals exist independently of human psychology, thus only ontologically justifiable (yet how this accounts for ontological mistakes I can't presume to guess), and only then can they come to be understood through the practice of epistemology. 

Stripping it down to it's most common form, the theists claim is this: morals exist because God exists, therefore we can pinch these morals out of sacred texts, holy laws, divine dictates and what not, thus coming to a better understanding of what it means to be moral. As an atheist and a naturalist I take umbrage at such a wildly unfounded, unsupported, and seriously flawed claim such as this. Therefore, I will first show how ontology does us no good with respect to moral issues, and secondly, I will show that objective morals can be had even with the limitations of our brain and its subjective reasoning. If successful, these proofs will thereby lend positive support for naturalism and the atheistic worldview.

Ontology: A Few Objections
Still many theologians such as Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, Alister McGrath, etc., believe that the magical powers of the Holy Spirit can counter act the brain's limitations (although how one would prove that I have no inkling of a clue), and somehow reveal insights into the mysterious workings of God's divine will, but the truth is until such a statement can be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt (verification only then making the claim credible) it is a weak claim which should not be relied upon for the single basis of objective morals and values.

For example, the famous theologian Alvin Plantinga developed something called Reformed epistemology. Basically, according to Reformed epistemology, belief in God can be rational and justified even without arguments or evidence for the existence of God. 

All this amounts to is the wet and sticky smack of sophist nonsense, because anybody who understands the implications of such a claim realizes that this voids the empirical worldview, by basically stating we can gain knowledge and understanding through other means than experience, which subsequently means the empiricist's account of experience, i.e. nihil in intellectu nisi prius in sensu (nothing in the intellect that was not previously in the senses) is also void. As a consequence this renders skepticism moot, and therefore asking the question to begin with would prove futile, and as such could never be the correct way of reaching any given truth or gaining any understanding of it. 

In this sense a skeptical worldview founded on radical empiricism  would seem to render Plantinga's Reformed epistemology self refuting. Epistemology, if anything, must be predicated on our experience of gaining knowledge--this is known as foundationalism. If you amputate experience from the process of how we accrue knowledge, apply knowledge, and/or actively seek knowledge then you've simply denied there is such a thing as knowledge to be gained at all. And since our epistemic instinct is that knowledge is real, and that we can come into possession of it through experience, then once again it stems to reason that Reformed epistemology is self refuting.

If you took the metaphysical point of view, however, you also have other problems, such as having to account for ontological errors, or answer for how you can know things which cannot possibly be verified through empirical means. This is why the theologian is so happy to invoke ontological arguments in his favor anytime he runs up against the burden of having to divvy up the proof to back up any of his claims. It's much easier just to say it is simply epistemologically valid to believe, yet that takes us right back into the self refuting digression of Reformed epistemology.


As such Reformed epistemology is clearly a fallacious concept, but at the same time a vacuous one as well. 


The Failure of Reformed Epistemology 
Alvin Plantinga's Reformed epistemology fails, not only for the reasons mentioned, but because he is basically claiming that you can have an objective moral reality (via the ontological premise) without appeal to any basis in reality whatsoever (basically minus foundationalism), and this is clearly unsatisfactory.
 
What Plantinga's hypothesis boils down to is a "warrant to believe" (in God) which he thoroughly develops in his three volume series beginning with Warrant: The Current Debate, Warrant and Proper Function, and Warranted Christian Belief. I guess it's worth reading if you're interested in epistemological matters in how they relate to sustaining theistic belief, but beyond that Plantinga doesn't offer much in the way of the general function of epistemology (epistemology proper). So why then would I single out Reformed epistemology if I put no weight behind it with regard to moral issues? Because many Christians do (whether they know that's what they're doing or not is a different matter), and what's more they often misuse it as a means to rule out any subjective basis for objective morality which naturalists and nonbelievers may appeal to. This often leads them to claim that atheists are godless heathens and without a moral compass, but this is a mistake for reasons which will soon become clear.

The problem here being that most theists, and Christians, frequently have the wrong understanding of how facts relate to ontological and epistemological concerns. As Sam Harris details in his controversial new book The Moral Landscape:

...many people seem to think that because moral facts related to our experience (and are, therefore, ontologically "subjective"), all talk of morality must be "subjective" in the epistemological sense (i.e., biased, merely personal, etc.). This is simply untrue.

Harris clears this up by offering an easy to follow analogy.

After all, there are countless phenomena that are subjectively real, which we can discuss objectively (i.e., honestly and rationally), but which remain impossible to describe with precision. Consider the complete set of "birthday wishes" corresponding to every conscious hope that people have entertained silently while blowing out candles on birthday cakes. Will we ever be able to retrieve these unspoken thoughts? Of course not. Many of us would be hard-pressed to recall even one of our own birthday wishes. Does this mean that these wishes never existed or that we can't make true or false statements about them? ....Clearly, we can make true or false claims about human (and animal) subjectivity, and we can often evaluate these claims without having access to the facts in question. 

Indeed, I myself continually run into Christians who say that I have no authority to speak about moral claims because my opinions are only ontologically subjective, and that with regard to ontological claims, only an independent ontological reality could provide to the proper epistemological basis for discussing moral claims (this is a form of holism). 

This, however, is clearly problematic since you can simply disprove a holism by showing one part which can function independently separate from the rest.  In moral terms, what this means is that *if God was a moral source, and thus morality had an ontological basis, that in order to be moral you would have to rely on this understanding of morality first in order to be moral. 

Contrary to what theists may believe, there are many walks of life hailing from all areas of the globe, with various customs and differing beliefs, including atheists, who exhibit moral behavior without appealing to the Christian understanding. This defeats the holistic premise that morality has an ontological basis with how it relates to God, since even atheists can be kind, loving, moral people, therefore we can refute the idea that morality depends on an ontological holism. 


Therefore there is no independent objective morality to be gained via ontological methods. Morality, then, must exist independently. The question then becomes, what sort of morality exists in a naturalistic and atheistic world? Is it merely subjective? Or can there be an objective morality as well?


Objective Reality is Only Ever Subjective
Thus objective morality can be defined without religious metaphysical claims and without any appeal to an ontological basis for support. But more importantly, if we give the theologians and religious believers the benefit of the doubt, if for example there was an external or independent objective moral reality, then the only way we could possibly come to gleam insights from it are through our experience, skeptical inquiry, empirical reasoning, and finally coming to an understanding via epistemological methods--all of it subjective. Meanwhile modern neuroscience seems to confirm this conclusion, showing the brain to works strictly in this capacity yet yields sufficient reason to believe in morality as a neurological phenomenon and so making any ontological premise untenable (not to mention unnecessary).


Ontology can be explained as a neurological construct created by the limitations of the brain. For more on this please refer to:

1. The neural basis of human moral cognition: Nature Reviews
Neuroscience 6, 799-809 (October 2005) | doi:10.1038/nrn1768 (http://
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v6/n10/abs/nrn1768.html )

2. The neural basis of belief encoding and integration in moral
judgment: May 2008 NeuroImage 40; 4 1912-1920 (http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.01.057)

3. The amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in morality and
psychopathy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11;9 September 2007,
387-392 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2007.07.003

4. The neural basis of implicit moral attitude–an IAT study using
event-related fMRI. NeuroImage 30;4, (1 May 2006), Pages 1449-1457 -
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.11.005

5. The neural basis of the interaction between theory of mind and
moral judgment – PNAS 104;20 8235-8240 (May 15, 2007) -
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/20/8235.full.pdf+html

So if we take the metaphysical approach and then objective morality is ever only subjectively understood and hence merely relative. This may explain why so many different religions think about morality differently and what's more have strong dissenting views on how to practice this morality--which is directly reflected in their religious behavior.

Yet if we take the naturalistic approach we can use science and philosophy to help guide us to understanding the benefits of moral considerations by testing and applying those which enhance human happiness and flourishing. Any moral truth, after all, would need to involve these two things, otherwise it would not be applicable to us. 

Needless to say, many religious "moral" concepts conflict with human happiness and flourishing. For example suicide bombing does little to enhance either, while the Catholic practice of confessing of one's sins and saying a few hail Mary prayers may ease a guilty conscience it does nothing to prove the happiness or flourishing of the human race. In both cases each is a selfish act, which is deemed "morally" beneficial to the person of that faith, and therefore only applies to the local moral values as defined by that religious group, but in reality has nothing to do with the objective reality of morals or values.
 
Objective & Subjective Reality Minus the Metaphysical Conjecture
In order for and external or independent objective moral reality to exist as Christian theologians like to claim exists, they first have to prove a whole litany of metaphysical claims, which by their very tenuous nature require more than just an appeal to ontological reasoning, and therefore defeat the purpose of Reformed epistemology. So let's do away with the assumption, shall we? We now know that beliefs, whether about morals, values, or birthday wishes can be subjective and still contain objective truths--even as we may not fully understand the nature of these truths or be clear as how they came to be--the thing we can be clear about, however, is that these truths are not metaphysical in nature and have no ontological basis for support.


Next time:
In the next article I will show how epistemology in the form of modal logic helps us define basic truth claims.

Advocatus Atheist to the Rescue: Secular Humanism Reading List

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I have a dear friend who is stuck in the quagmire of unreason and blinkered thinking we call America's Bible Belt, and due to forces outside of her control, has been forced to become one of the numerous closet skeptics afraid to voice her doubt for fear of negative peer pressure, of being ostracized by family and friends, and receiving undue scorn should she speak her peace of mind. Forced into silence by "Christian love." Ironic, don't you think?

Regrettably, she would have to endure all sorts of ill will in her overly zealous community at the hands of insular minded and intolerant religious partisans if she should confess her "honest to God" thoughts and opinions or mention, in any way, her atheism. She still sings in the church choir, because she loves music and singing, but if she mentioned her real thoughts and feelings she's be kicked out and bullied. It's not fair -- but that's the power of group-think -- where everyone sees things in black and white and has no tolerance for anyone who thinks differently.
As such, she has asked me to offer those in want of a new perspective a list of humanist and secular morality that might seek to enlighten her where the Bible and her faith has failed.

Who would I, an advocate of reason, be to deny such a request? It would be irresponsible of me to ignore somebody's pleas of desperation and longing to seek deeper truths and insights?

So if you're looking for another viable perspective on ethics, morality, and the meaning of life, then I find that this list of reading is essential.

The Nicomachean Ethics (Penguin Classics) by Aristotle

The Analects (Oxford World's Classics) by Confucius

Tao Te Ching: The New Translation from Tao Te Ching: The Definitive Edition (Tarcher Cornerstone Editions) by Lao-Tzu

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Living the Wisdom of the Tao: The Complete Tao Te Ching and Affirmations by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer (Paperback - Mar 1, 2008)

What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas and Dhammapada by Walpola Rahula

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant

Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668 by Thomas Hobbes
  

An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (Oxford World's Classics) by David Hume

Great Traditions in Ethics by Theodore C. Denise (Author), et al.

Thomas Paine : Collected Writings : Common Sense / The Crisis / Rights of Man / The Age of Reason / Pamphlets, Articles, and Letters (Library of America) by Thomas Paine

Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life by Louise M. Antony

Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe by Greg Epstein Living Without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided by Ronald Aronson Looking in the Distance: The Human Search for Meaning by Richard Holloway Godless Morality: Keeping Religion Out of Ethics by Richard Holloway Doubts and Loves: What is Left of Christianity by Richard Holloway The Reason Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For? by Robert M. Price Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age by A. C. Grayling The Good Book: A Humanist Bible by A.C. Grayling.

The Bible According to Mark Twain: Irreverent Writings on Eden, Heaven, and the Flood by America's Master Satirist by Mark Twain

A Secular Age by Charles Taylor Writings on an Ethical Life by Peter Singer The Most Good You Can Do by Peter Singer God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by Bart D. Ehrman The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker The Moral Arc by Michael Shermer The Moral Landscape by Same Harris Braintrust: What Neuroscience tells us about morality by Patricia S. Churchland The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever by Christopher Hitchens Sense & Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism by Richard Carrier The Evolution of Morality (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology) by Richard Joyce

*Humanism (on Wikipedia)

Secularism draws its intellectual roots from Greek and Roman philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius and Epicurus, medieval Muslim polymaths such as Ibn Rushd, Enlightenment thinkers like Denis Diderot, Voltaire, John Locke, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine, and modern freethinkers, agnostics and atheists such as Bertrand Russell and Robert Ingersoll.