I am moving around trying to get some seating arranged as people came it.

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He gave a talk at TEDS where he tried to answer the question, can science determine morality? Below is the talk.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9oB4zpHww

Harris states that:

Values are a certain kind of fact. They are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures… If we’re more concerned about our fellow primates than we are about insects, as indeed we are, it’s because we think they are exposed to a greater range of potential happiness and suffering. The crucial thing to notice here is that this is a factual claim.

Sean Carrol, a cosmologist who has a blog at Discover Magazine, wrote a piece that rebuts Harris’ assertion. He does a good job, though many commentors disagree with him. Reading the comments, I ran across what I think to be the most valid argument for Harris’ view (24. Cody):

the differences we have in morals are largely influenced by our environments, but from an evolutionary point of view there ought to be causal reasons why we tend to have the moral values that we have, and with that understanding we can make scientific statements about what morals people have (and why).

This is an important point to make, I think. I have stated before that I believe in micro-evolution, or evolution of species, but not macro-evolution, or evolution between species. I don’t think we all came from a frog-like being, for instance. Let’s assume for a moment that macro-evolution is correct. There would indeed need to be causal reasons why everyone would tend to have similar values. The brain is wired a certain way or genetically we are coded a certain way.

Here is the rub: the what is determinable. The why isn’t. We can, through emerging neuroscience be able to determine what actions, in general, all humans determine moralistic. We can know because certain parts of the brain are generally aroused from certain activities. For instance, pleasure and pain both activate the same brain areas and the neurochemical dopamine is involved in both. But can we really answer why murder is an (almost) universally held moral? Determining this means that the brain makes a value judgment that life has meaning. But while meaning may activate a specific area of the brain that creates an emotional experience through which we make decisions, that emotional experience is still experientially framed -- and that is subjective, not something that science can empirically and objectively understand. Is it so difficult to believe that a creator, a universal judge, can wire something into the brain that brings a universal moral concept?

Science has uncovered that genetically, all cellular organisms have an inherent aspect of altruism and cooperation. Charles Darwin’s theory of how evolution works is explicitly competitive. Species are pitted against species for shared resources, similar species with similar needs and niches even more so, and individuals within species most of all. All this comes down to one factor: out-competing all rivals and predators in producing progeny. Darwin’s explanation of how preferential survival of the slightest benefits can lead to advanced forms is the most important explanatory principle in biology, and extremely powerful in many other fields. Such success has reinforced notions that life is in all respects a war of each against all, where every individual has to look out for himself, that your gain is my loss.

In such a struggle for existence altruism (voluntarily yielding a benefit to a non-relative) and even cooperation (working with another for a mutual benefit) are antithetical to self-interest as to be the very kind of behavior that should be selected against. Yet cooperation and seemingly even altruism have evolved and persist, and evolutionists have been hard pressed to explain why. [1] In fact, they can’t.

I like science. I really do. But science can’t explain everything. Our identity is determined by our experiences, our understanding of ourselves, and those we live in community with. That identity forms our actions. Underlying all this is a bigger question of identity. Are we simply a biologic, with no value or meaning in life? Or do we have an intrinsic meaning, one fueled by being created in the image of God.

Science says if it can’t be proven, it can’t be true. But just because it can’t be proven, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

NOTES:

[1]

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOQZ4qrk7s4

10 minutes long…

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2. What are you doing to fulfill your calling?

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How would we as Christians feel about this?

Now consider the opportunities for caring for the people whose religion would be suffering as a result of the climate issue. How do we love them through these issues?

Note: if you are viewing this in a feed reader, you may need to come to the site to see the actual video.

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“What you do for a living is not be creative, what you do is ship,” says bestselling author Seth Godin, arguing that we must quiet our fearful “lizard brains” to avoid sabotaging projects just before we finally finish them.

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All I ask is one thing, and I’m asking this particularly of young people who watch. Please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism -- for the record it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you -- it’s just true. -- Conan

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(HT: Pop Culture Activist)

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Take a read

With a little help from OT Scholar John Walton, I look at creation from a functional perspective, not a material. In other words, does Genesis 1 describe the physical, material nature of creation or the purpose of creation. The issue is how the author would have written it and the people understood it, not our attempt to read modern science back into Gen. 1.

Take a listen and make some comments. I would love to interact with you on this topic.

Here’s a link to the book I reference in case your interested: The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy85yVJ_Nzc

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