Christianity did teach that god causes natural disasters. The bishop of Honolulu was so teaching in 1900, and he wasn't the last.

Many Christians, today, like Stenhouse, would like to deny it, but this would have been heresy during 98% of Christianity' sojourn, and it only began to break down under the attack of naturalistic explanations of things like earthquakes.

That these can be explained naturalistically does not, of course, mean god did not impose them for reasons known only to himself. An honest Christian would not roll over so easy for the secularists.

Harry:

I think we are going to hve to give you the title: "Defender of the Faith". You seem to get very upset if anyone expouses a religious view that varies from the literalist, ultramontane doctrine you so love to hate. You make a good Jeremiah.

What you say is silly, but I suppose it is necessary to fit into your view of history as a straightline progression from religious darkness to secular light. If 98% of the population believed natural disasters, disease, etc. were whims of the deity there would have been no medieval medicine, the Dutch wouldn't have built dikes and the explorers would have turned back after the first storm. Your pre-Enlightenment man seems completely devoid of consciousness, never mind common sense. I recommend a good rest, two aspirins and a double dose of Shakespeare.

Anyone who thanks God for the escape of a survivor, or who prays that someone will be found safe, or who prays that no more lives will be lost to a disaster, must also be blaming God for causing the disaster and the deaths.

Brit:

Happy New Year.

No, unlike you pompous, secular scientific types, religious folks readily admit that there are things they do not and cannot know. I suppose you would also argue that religious people are hypocritical to wash their hands, as they must believe the flu is divine punishment.

Peter:

Was that ad hominem attack warranted?

When I lived in Oklahoma, a tornado flattened, among other things, an "adult" "book" "store."

Churchmen in the area universally termed that an Act of God.

Four or so years later, another tornado in Oklahoma flattened a church during a service, killing, among other people, the pastor's 3 children.

Churchmen in the area universally termed that an act of nature.

Certain widespread descriptions of God clash rather jarringly with tsunamis, earthquakes, plague, ectopic pregnancy, childhood diarrhea, maternal mortality, ad infinitum.

Is it automatically out of bounds to question that disconnect?

We were always taught by the sisters that war and natural disasters are God's punishment for mankind's sins. That was the Catholic line I learned as a kid at any rate.

As eager as I usually am to pick over the dried bones of dead arguments, the 3000 year-old argument about why bad things happen to good people is just too ... oh, what the heck.

There are five possible reasons that bad things happen to good people:

1. There is no G-d;
2. Having set existence in motion, G-d takes no active role in the world;
3. G-d doesn't care about us;
4. Life on earth is, regardless, nasty, brutish and short and death brings the good among us to eternal bliss;
5. The fate of man is not G-d's main purpose in creation, other than (perhaps) heuristically; and
6. Our perception of reality is so limited compared to that of an omniscient Being who comprehends all of existence as a single fact to be known entirely that we have no understanding of what is really going on, including the true meaning of "good" or "bad."

Or some combination thereof.

None of this has much to do with the common anodyne invocation of G-d in these situations, meant merely to comfort the audience with the thought that their loved ones didn't suffer over much and are in a better place, or that those strangers had it coming and thus this congregation is safe.

Peter:

Happy New Year to you.

I wasn't attacking anyone specifically. Just pointing out an obvious inconsistency commonly held by most (not all) religious types.

Over the holiday period a (Roman Catholic) relation informed me that God did not cause the tsunami or any of the deaths. She later informed me that she thanked God for the miraculous sparing of the lives of certain Britons in the disaster, and that she would be praying to God to save more lives.

I didn't say anything, as I prefer to save my best pompous, secular scientific observations for argumentative blog commentors.

Owen and Beru Lars were good people, yet George Lucas allowed them to be killed by Imperial stormtroopers. Curse Lucas and all his works!

David:

Well said, even if you can't count to six.

Jeff:

Hardly ad hominem. I see Brit as no worse than millions of pompous scientific secularists. In fact, he's better than most, which I'm sure he will take as high praise.

But, ok, let's play. You are mixing up the earthquake and the resulting deaths. If this eathquake had occurred in central Greenland or the South Atlantic, we would all look a little silly arguing this question, especially if we suggested He kept it away from populated areas because He was particularly pleased with us that day. If it had occurred off the California coast, the warning system might have saved everyone. So, are you telling me I have to believe God is punishing not only the Indonesian victims, but also the generations of bureaucrats that didn't install the system? Or maybe He is so ticked off with licentiousness in the West that he is using this to foster rage and instabilty in South Asia so they will rise up in revolt and deliver us our just rewards.

People invoke God when they are faced with horrific disaster because it is a natural thing to do--like crying at funerals even if you found the departed to be a pain in the butt. It is a very real and important thing, but it is not a logical cause-and-effect thing. To believe in the possibility of miracles, and to beseech divine intervention on your behalf, is not the same thing as saying He is running a computer program and is occupied fulltime handing out rewards and punishments. You keep insisting religion prove itself to be a logically consistent and rational affair that can be proven scientifically. It can't be done.

Catholics traditionally believed you could work your way into paradise, or at least give it a good shot. Protestants traditionally didn't. Neither ever came up with an airtight system that could explain everything in terms comprehensible to humans. Neither has atheistic science. Go figure.

Governor:

They may have said that. They might also have said the Jews killed Christ and all Protestants were going to Hell. They don't believe that anymore. I will go to my grave puzzled as to why certain secularists feel it is cheating to use history, science or experience to develop religious understanding.

Peter: Let's just consider that "found profundity."

Peter:

I am not mixing up the earthquake and its consequences. In fact, focusing on it as indicating that God is in list David{1-6} indicates on ongoing failure to notice all the other random, meaningless, suffering dwarfing anything earthquakes dish out. Maternal and infant mortality absent modern medicine serves as just one of a horrendous number of examples.

David's list is pretty representative, but it left out a few: unconcious, impotent, and oblivious come to mind.

But more tellingly for those who insist God is required for ethics--if #6 is true, then using God to substantiate ethics is nothing more than a self deceiving exercise.

I will go to my grave wondering why sectarians get so upset at people using history, science, and experience to understand God.

Just because the answer is unwelcome doesn't make it wrong.

Finally, it is surpassing odd that a God which, according to some here, is capable of infinitely fine tuning a universe is unable to tweak things just enough to favor the believers over the rest.

Peter:

I am not mixing up the earthquake and its consequences. In fact, focusing on it as indicating that God is in list David{1-6} indicates on ongoing failure to notice all the other random, meaningless, suffering dwarfing anything earthquakes dish out. Maternal and infant mortality absent modern medicine serves as just one of a horrendous number of examples.

David's list is pretty representative, but it left out a few: unconcious, impotent, and oblivious come to mind.

But more tellingly for those who insist God is required for ethics--if #6 is true, then using God to substantiate ethics is nothing more than a self deceiving exercise.

I will go to my grave wondering why sectarians get so upset at people using history, science, and experience to understand God.

Just because the answer is unwelcome doesn't make it wrong.

Finally, it is surpassing odd that a God which, according to some here, is capable of infinitely fine tuning a universe is unable to tweak things just enough to favor the believers over the rest.

David:

It seems to me that your 6 alternative answers are valid, but could easily be simplified yet further:

1. There is no God.
Or:
2. There is a God, but we, and all of the major religions, understand nothing about him and how he works.

I don't have a problem with Dunnoists. Dunnoists are eminently sensible.

Brit:

I don't think they are. If there is a god, we certainly understand a lot about how he works, otherwise we wouldn't be able to predict reasonably the outcomes of our actions, guide our children, treat our partners well, etc. We wouldn't know what the sublime is and how best to achieve it. Our love and sacrifices for others would make no sense and bring no rewards.

Better stick with: "there is no god."

Jeff;

"Just because the answer is unwelcome doesn't make it wrong."

That seems to be one of your favourite lines. As I recall, you use it to defend 100% natural evolution when it is pointed out how destructive to both individuals and societies a literal belief in it is. Do you not see how only a doctrinaire extremist could hold such a view? You have so convinced yourself of the narrow confines of what can be reliably called knowledge that you can not even say whether life itself is good or not.

Peter:

I do stick with 'there is no God', because until I am presented with a sufficient reason to believe otherwise, it seems the simplest answer.

There is, it occurs to me, a 6A that I add due to its Juddian elegance:

6A: There are no good people.

David:

If we're adding, we could do so indefinitely. I don't think the list is comprehensive:

7. God does care about us, but behaves inconsistently or is forgetful
8. There are two or more Gods, who act in conflict, some to help or reward humans, some to hinder or punish.
9. There was a God, but he is dead now.
10. There was a God, but has gone away, and only comes back to visit us intermittently
10. We are meant to do as God says, not as he does.

and so on. All of which are equally unknowable, which is why I prefer the two-way distinction.

Brit: First, it was nice of you to screw up your count just to make me feel better.

Second, those all come under the heading of "no G-d", which still allows for the existence of gods, or mad trans-dimensional scientists.

David, you are right, of course, about people using 'god's will' as a sort of meaningless comfort talk -- or, as Hitler did, as an endorsement of political policy.

But that is not what I'm talking about. Peter misses the point: religion, as organized, substitutes repentance for action.

In the Lisbon quake of 1755, the Jesuits tried to prevent assistance from being rendered to the survivors. They insisted, instead, that everyone spend the next 6 days in the churches, begging forgiveness.

Luckily, the quake happened in an area of no Jesuits, so the problem has been getting aid in, not fighting off the religious nutcases.

As for religion evolving under the discoveries of history, science or experience, Orrin denies that it should happen, and I deny that it does.

What has happened is that under the impact of secularism, western religion has been made more decent and humane than it ever was on its own.

David and Brit:

Both of your dyslexic lists are missing what is, to me, the crucial possibility:

A) God exists, but he often lets bad things happen to good people, because if he were to meddle too blatantly or too often in our affairs (beyond setting down the constraints that please Him), He would deny us our free will.

Harry:

On its own? When was this golden age when religion was on its own and before secularism was born to save us all?

"religion, as organized, substitutes repentance for action."

You mean like with the Crusades or witch hunts or the fight against slavery? Geez Harry, you complain when we act and then whine when we don't.

The Jesuits were basically powerless in Lisbon in 1755. They were out of favor with the King and Court, principally the Marquess of Pambal who wanted to promote a mercantile nationalism. The Jesuits were one year into the war of the seven reductions, pitting Portugal and Spain against the Jesuits and their Indian allies. They were three years away from being dispossessed in Portugal and its colonies and before to long would be suppressed by the Pope.

Pambol, who supervised the relief effort, came out of the earthquake with near dictatorial powers, ruling in the King's name for the next 20 years.

M: I have to confess that I don't understand the connection between free will and being killed by a tsunami.

M: I don't see the connection between Free Will and being killed by a tsunami either. I think you are misapplying the doctrine.

the doctrine of free will relates to the choices people make in life regarding God and his laws. Suppose I drive into town @45 mph and maintain that speed past the point where the speed limit becomes 30 mph, slowing down just in time to see the waiting sheriff deputy's car pull out from a side street behind me. Now, after stopping and handing over my license and registration, what do I do? I say, "officer, I'm late for a meeting and I was thinking about the presentation I have to make in 15 minutes. I had to zip into town. I had no choice but to speed (and you know how had it is to drive @ low speeds anyway)." Is that the truth? No, it's not. I chose to speed. I broke the law by my own free will. There is no divine law saying, "thou shalt not live or vacation along an ocean or sea coast." No divine law was broken.

Jeff: you wrote, "it is supprisingly odd that a God ... is unable to tweak things just enough to favor the believer over the rest."

While we are in this life, God loves believers and unbelievers equally. He chooses to love all because he created all people. It is after this life is over (and I know that you will not agree) that God will graciously favor those who believe in him and follow him over those who don't.

David:

At the risk of becoming unnecessarily pedantic, some of those things, if true, would all come under the second part of my two-part distinction - there is a God, but we can know nothing about him.

To try to include all of our possibilities, I'll rephrase thus:

1. There is no God or Higher Intelligence with any influence or interest in what happens to humans.
43. There is some kind of God or Higher Intelligence with an influence or interest, but we know nothing about it.

It seems to me that these are the only defensible answers to the question 'where was God when bad things happened to good people?'

I don't rule out the second answer, but I don't see any particular reason to believe it, and it has nothing to do with any organised religion that I know of.

M. Bulger:

Of course, it was Epicurus who put it best:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

In over 2000 years, nobody has come up with a convincing answer, so far as I can tell. The free will one has certainly never worked for me.

Brit:

Well said.

Dave W.

You speak of a literal high ground, but the tsunami is only one instance of meaningless, random suffering. Taking them all into account, from ectopic pregnancy through plague to floods, avalanches and earthquakes, there is no metaphorical high ground.

Well, except for that provided by rational inquiry. Faith in God is no shield against getting crushed by a tsunami. But rational inquiry has led to measures which frequently are. Similarly for plague and infant/maternal mortality.

Peter:

As I recall, you use it to defend 100% natural evolution when it is pointed out how destructive to both individuals and societies a literal belief in it is. Do you not see how only a doctrinaire extremist could hold such a view?

I just can't come to grips with your entering argument--how is it destructive to individuals or societies to believe in natural evolution? After all, if there was ever a case of a society changing over time absent any plan worthy of the name, the US has to be it.

The results speak for themselves.

Further, a doctrinaire extremist is defined by holding a point of view wholly regardless of evidence to the contrary. Someone who says that the Theory of Evolution is the most internally consistent available explanation of the material manifestations of natural history is not a doctrinaire extremist until another explanation comes along that better fits the available information. Is there one?

If I take your entering argument correctly, you mean to establish that belief in Evolutionary theory is so destructive that it must be suppressed regardless of its validity.

Are you consequently in favor of absolutely suppressing such explanations? What damage to individuals and society would follow such a thing?

The history of Communism should be instructive in this regard.

Oh, I happen to reuse "Just because it is unwelcome does not mean it is wrong" to highlight that many aspects of Religious belief are simply anodyne explanations. It seems to me the objective value of such explanations is nil; perhaps the psychological worth is far greater.

My guess is that if religion is sufficiently fragmented in a society, the havoc religion can wreak is so reduced that the psychological value of it predominates.

See US, an example of evolution, above.

Jeff:

"if there was ever a case of a society changing over time absent any plan worthy of the name, the US has to be it."

Oh boy. I have learned a lot here about the religious sources of American exceptionalism. Now you are telling me it is derived from natural evolution. Please enlighten me, in what way can you use evolution to explain US history that doesn't apply to other countries?

Brit: Before we can give a convincing answer, we need a coherent question.

Evil exists, and that is easily explained with M. Bulger's emphasis on free will. G-d, for reasons of His own, wishes us to have the choice of good or evil. Does that make him malevolent? I see the argument, though I disagree with it absent a belief that evil must triumph, but I don't understand why malevolence is thought to be per se inconsistant with G-d's existence. I can easily conceive of a malevolent G-d. (Actually, you reassure me, because I had though it a peculiarly American failing to argue, in effect, "if G-d exists, I would dissapprove of Him, so he doesn't exist.")

More to the point, tsunamis are not evil. Waves are the transmission of energy through water and tsunamis are the transmission of lots of energy. (Pretty efficient transmission, too.) It seems oddly anthropomorphic to accuse the transmission of energy through water of being evil.

Now, if you have a planet with oceans, a hot molten core and thus colliding continental plates, you will have tsunamis. They are inherent in the design. Does that make the Designer evil? I can't even begin to judge.

Finally, it does seem to me more likely than not, given what little we know about existence, that there was a creator, but not every conceivable creator is G-d. OJ, for example, has suggested that existence itself implies creation and that creation implies a creator, a stronger statement than I'm willing to make. He also seems to believe, and forgive me if I'm mistaken, that just as our existence implies that we have a creator, our creator's existence implies that he has a creator. Apparently, it's gods, all the way down.

I believe that, regardless of who created our universe, at the end of the chain their is G-d, eternal, everlasting, omniscient, omnipotent and capable of comprehending all of His creation as one fact, wholly known.

We don’t disagree.

I’ll phrase the question as: why would God allow the tsunami to kill innocent people?

I suggest that the only possible coherent answers are:

1) There is no God or Higher Intelligence with any influence or interest in what happens to humans. So the question is irrelevant.
Or:
2) There is some kind of God or Higher Intelligence with an influence or interest, but we know nothing about it or how it works (eg. it might even be malevolent some or all of the time). So the question is relevant, but unanswerable.

You seem to favour (2).

I don’t rule out (2), but favour (1), so explaining the people killed by the tsunami is easy for me: The earth's plates moved a few metres. Some hundreds of cubic km of water were displaced. The resulting wave caused destruction to land near the sea. Among the things destroyed were any buildings, plants, dogs, cats, insects or humans unlucky enough to be in its way.

I don’t favour (1) because of the argument: "if G-d exists, I would dissapprove of Him, so he doesn't exist”, but simply because I don’t see any compelling reason to believe in a God of any hue.

The Epicuran argument is really part of a slightly separate debate, which is why it was aimed at Mr Bulger. But you could just as well substitute ‘the suffering of innocent people’ for ‘evil’.

Ah, but the term "innocent" doesn't have any meaning with reference to a tsunami, except if G-d exists. Therefore, simply to pose the question of why people not otherwise deserving of death die in natural disasters presupposes the existence of a particular G-d. To suggest that the answer to that question has any relevance to the question of G-d's existence (which I think is not what you are doing, but is the context in which most people have this conversation) is to argue that G-d's existence depends on how closely He conforms to our image of Him.

As for your choices 1 and 2, there is a middle ground in which we know some things, but not every thing. We need to bear in mind, though, that we know only those things we've been told, or which we arrive at through faith. Reason has no role here.

As it happens, I agree with your explication of how the tsunami occurred. It might have some relevance in explicating the nature of G-d (i.e., it proves, for the billionth time, that G-d won't prevent natural disasters from occurring), but has no implications for His existence.

Recently, I read an article arguing that being anti-abortion (or maybe it was anti-stem cell research) was silly, as up to 80% of fertilized eggs never result in a live birth. From that point of view, the tsunami was a none event. No one died who wasn't eventually going to die in any event.

Peter:

Oh boy. I have learned a lot here about the religious sources of American exceptionalism. Now you are telling me it is derived from natural evolution. Please enlighten me, in what way can you use evolution to explain US history that doesn't apply to other countries?

Sure. By counter examples.

Communism. The pure anti-evolution, the aim of which was to replace planless society with Intelligent Design.

England. Until well into the 20th century so ossified by class structure as to become nearly frozen in time.

Religion. Compare the religious vitality on any country with a centrally planned religion against that of the US. Unless you can point to some specific plan, and planner, that led to the result the US enjoys, than what other mechanism do you have in mind?

Economy. Japan's MITI vs. the US's whatever works, works.

David and Dave W.:

Both of you seem to think I am misapplying the doctrine of free will. I think I'm only stretching it a bit.

Regarding the 12/26 tsunami, there seems to be an ongoing thread that this was a purely natural catastrophe and that the loss of life and property can be attributed to God alone. I'm not so sure. As you must have read by now, had an early-warning system, along with established evacuation procedures, been in place around the Indian Ocean, as it is along the Pacific rim, the loss of life would have been far, far less than it was. If the province of Banda Aceh were not so poor and torn by separatist violence, institutional safeguards could have been in place to minimize the effects of both the earthquake and the tsunami there. In every case, while human action could not have decreased the magnitude of the temblor or the height of the waves, it could have minimized the human losses. Instead, human actions, however indirect, contributed to them. As with most so-called "natural" disasters, the poor and destitute suffered (and continue to suffer) to a far greater degree than those of means, save a proportion of relatively rich Western tourists combing the beaches that morning. Are the social preconditions of poverty a "natural" phenomenon, or do they arise from human affairs? Is it not possible to term the poor decisions and social malfunctions in the third world a consequence of evil?

On a tangential note, David gave as one of his logical possibilities " 6. Our perception of reality is so limited compared to that of an omniscient Being who comprehends all of existence as a single fact to be known entirely that we have no understanding of what is really going on, including the true meaning of "good" or 'bad.'" I don't think that it's all that difficult to tease out the purpose of a tsunami. Bear with me, now. Tsunami primarily arise from earthquakes, which are in turn a natural consequence of plate tectonics. Plate tectonics - that is, the movement of segments of the earth's crust over time - arises due to the energy released by the decay of radioactive isotopes in the earth's mantle and core. Moreover, without plate tectonics and the resulting volcanism and displacements of magma, there would be no rich veins of metallic ores for us to mine. So, no metals, no minerals, no technological progress beyond the stone age. No civilization.

As plans go, you could do worse than sacrifice a few thousand lives here and there in order to foster the conditions that allow the creation and maintenance of several billion.

There is also the little matter of why any God would have a deep interest in ensuring that every man and woman live a full and disaster-free life into senior citizenship. If that thread is taken to its logical conclusion, I think we'd find that your problem is not with disaster, but with mortality, and with the subjection of humanity to natural forces of any sort. Most theologies have already dealt with those issues.

M, the only way human action could have mitigated the deaths and damage is if the South Asians had adopted the secular, scientific methods that have worked pretty well (so far) in the Pacific.

If the tsunami was a natural event, then it could not have been 'evil.' The evil arises from the religious (originally Hebrew) interpretation of natural events as moral warnings, combined with the decision to respond morally by denying aid to the survivors.

It is the religion that is evil, not the earthquake.

Pombal, not Pambal, and he didn't get that title until after 1755, David.

Whether the Jesuits were able to implement their inhuman desires is not the issue, is it? The issue is, given suffering, you can act to reduce it or increase it.

Religion acted to increase it.

Pombal managed to evict the Jesuits, but King Joao died 5 years later and his sister brought them back.

He died in disgrace and the inhuman and indecent Church stymied any further melioration of the situation of the Portuguese.

Harry:

1. You can't be suprised at this late date that my spelling, mmmm, suffers from heterodoxy.

2. It occurs to me that you're referring to Gabriel Malagrida. While it is true that he did preach that the earthquake was punishment for the sins of Lisbon, and that the Portuguese would be better served by concentrating on rebuilding their souls, he was also executed by Pombal (the secular authority) for heresy in an auto de fe that lasted all day.

By the way, I just noticed that you switched from the Jesuits to the Church in your last comment. The Church worked closely with Pombal coordinating the relief from the earthquake.

The Jesuits, on the other hand, were suppressed by the Pope from, what, 1773-1814 (going from memory). They found sanctuary in Russia, of all places, and were allowed by local authorities to run some schools and retreats, but it's a little difficult to argue that they represented mainstream Catholic thought.

David:

"Ah, but the term "innocent" doesn't have any meaning with reference to a tsunami, except if G-d exists. Therefore, simply to pose the question of why people not otherwise deserving of death die in natural disasters presupposes the existence of a particular G-d."

I don't think so. If you think the term 'innocent' is loaded, let's swap it for 'non-guilty'.

The tsunami was pretty indiscriminate, so there were plenty of young children and infants killed or orphaned. It doesn't need a presumption of God to call infants 'non-guilty'.

But it does take a religion to call infants 'guilty' - specifically, it takes the repellent story of original sin, of which OJ is so fond.

The advantage of being unreligious is that you can claim either of my (1) or (2) in answer to these questions.

The problem for the religious is that they have to either go for (2) and accept they don't know anything about the mind of God, or they have to come up with such tortuous and counter-intuitive arguments as that espoused by M. Bulger above.

Brit:

What's worse, if David's #2 or #6 (if I remember his taxonomy correctly) are taken as true, is it possible for religion to be the arbiter of ethics?

Regarding M.Bulger's comment--it wouldn't seem to vitiate God's design in the least to have permitted humans enough sensitivity to the environment to notice a tsunami was on the way.

After all, it seems God holds animals in high enough regard to provide them the ability...

Brit: My point was that, in a purely naturalistic world, it makes no sense to contrast the two concepts "tsunami" and "innocent." It's as if we wondered why tsunamis killed both the tired and the rested, the tall and the short, the hungry and those who just ate. To wonder about the connection between deadly natural phenomena and the state of the victim's sole assumes a just universe, which presupposes not only G-d, but a G-d constrained to act in certain ways. Go ask the Canaanites about that.

Jeff: G-d is unknowable, and if the way he acts doesn't comport with my expectations, then the fault is mine. Fortunately, He has given me to understand certain of His requirements.

It may, though, be better to think about the question of whether religion is the only source of morality in the following way. At this point in human development, Judeo-Christian morality is so interwoven into our culture that it can not be removed. The idea, for example, that virtue is rewarded and vice punished is so basic that we can't think about the most natural of disasters -- easily explained by well-understood natural processes -- without considering whether the victims "deserved" their fate. The most hardened atheist justifies his self-deduced moral code by how it compares to G-d's commandments. Judeo-Christian morality is part of who we are and the very language itself requires us to speak in religious terms.

Having said all that, even if there were no G-d, we have here a code that has survived and flourished for thousands of years, has swept all before it and has insinuated itself into our very thoughts. It works well and, most importantly, by sheer weight of belief it is not susceptible to easy amendment to accomodate the intellectual fads of the moment.

David:

"My point was that, in a purely naturalistic world, it makes no sense to contrast the two concepts "tsunami" and "innocent." It's as if we wondered why tsunamis killed both the tired and the rested, the tall and the short..."

Yes, that's right. Which is why it's not a problem for me, for you, or for anyone who plumps for my 1 or 2.

It's only a problem for those who claim an insight into the moral rules upon which an omnipotent and omnipresent God operates.

David:

God is both knowable and not?

I think it is worth noting that, in general, vice carries with it a material price, which is how we materially distinguish it from virtue.

Can you think of any vice that does not, in general, extract a significant cost from the practitioners?

Jeff: G-d is unknowable. G-d's expectations are the best selling book of all time.

As to whether vice is inherently harmful, I'm of two minds. I think it is, but for what seem to me to be inherently religious reasons. I'm not sure how to answer that question secularly, except as a tautology. Indeed, you hint at the tautology when you say, "vice carries with it a material price, which is how we materially distinguish it from virtue". And I don't think that the price is necessarily material.

On the one hand, there are sins that don't seem to be tautological vices. I have no idea why Jews aren't to eat pork and I don't seem to have suffered from my vice in that regard. On the other hand, we distinguish psychopaths from sinners for good reason: the latter understand that they are doing something wrong and suffer (if only from cognitive dissonance) as a result. It is telling that one of the most human of traits is to explain our vice by building elaborate fairy-castles of justification (the game is rigged, everyone does it, some cheating is expected, etc.).

But how does this square with your position on homosexuality, which you seem to consider a self-harmful non-vice?

Brit:

I think you are skimming over David's point too quickly. If you agree that it makes no sense in a naturalist world to talk about guilt and innocence with respect to the tsunami, where do you say the concern, compassion and desire to save and help does or should come from? What impels us to feel horror and send billions around the world to save these people? You can maybe attribute concern for family or tribe to atavistic instinct, but several million Indonesians? Surely it is the sense that they are innocent and undeserving in some way, which brings you back to square one. If you read Harry's diatribes you certainly get the feeling he is more angry with God and determined to ignore Him than actually disbelieving in Him.

Ok, so if you tell me materialists can feel empathy and be as ethical as religious folk, I'll buy that, but what do you say to those who don't feel that way? What answer do you give to the guy who says: "Great news, poverty and the pressure on Indonesian resources has just gone down significantly, which will benefit us all." You can't really say: "You hard-hearted, immoral b-----d!". All you can say is: "I'm sorry, but your empirical, rational assessment of what is of benefit to mankind is uninformed and illogical and not born out by the objective evidence." Great fund-raising line.

David:

I can always count on you for a thoughtful response--thanks.

When I first typed "...vice carries with it a material price, which is how we materially distinguish it from virtue" the first thing I thought of was a tautology, then decided it wasn't.

The more on engages in, say, promiscuous sex, the more likely one is to contract an STD. That is a material price to the promiscuous, and that price is how we distinguish the promiscuous from the faithful, and define the latter a virtuous because being disease free is preferable to the alternative.

Perhaps I'm insufficiently insightful, but I can't think of anything termed as a vice (as well as most, but not all, sins)that does not carry with it the increased likelihood of a cost the practitioner would rather not pay.

Most sins are like this; some, however, are not. Pork is one instance; failing to observe the Sabbath (for me, anyway) has so far failed to exact any cost at all in this life. Apparently I am willing to take the risk of some cost in the next, though...

The elaborate rationalizations you mention only serve to hide the costs, because it is all to human to disguise what is difficult to avoid. (including things that aren't sins, such as death, which is disguised by what are perhaps elaborate fairy-tale castles).

How do I square this with my position on homosexuality?

This way: For the notion of vice to have any meaning at all, there has to be some element of choice. Untreated cleft-palate carries with it significant material costs, but we don't view the sufferers as engaging in vice--what choice do they have?

Similarly, it is my firm opinion most, if not all, homosexuals have no choice. They can't live as heterosexuals without bearing false witness, itself a sin with its own costs to the psyche; choosing celibacy also, for most, carries its own significant costs.

So, ultimately, the best choice available to them is to act as they are. There is no minimizing the material costs that entails, but Hobbes choices are like that. But viewing homosexuality as inherently immoral betrays, to me anyway, a singularly thoughtless view on what constitutes morality.

Peter:

Probably like Brit, I would have to go with empathy. Most normal humans have enough it regardless of religious persuasion. Some lack it, regardless of religious persuasion.

You posed a strawman.

How about I pose one in return. What do you say to the priest who says "God is punishing those who stray from His commands."

Except that isn't a strawman. It was an Imam who called in to Talk of the Nation yesterday, and he used Allah instead of God.

I would say I don't agree. Now, how about you respond to mine?

Peter:

I am saying that innocent or guilty are irrelevant terms regarding the tsunami. And therefore, I am saying that those who suffered didn't positively deserve it.

The reason I re-phrased 'innocent' as 'non-guilty' was to clarify that I'm not ascribing a positive quality of 'innocence' to any particular people killed by the tsunami (as opposed to others who might be 'guilty').

So I'm just pointing out an absence of positive 'guilt' in any of the victims.

You might disagree, but it seems non-controversial to say this about infants, at least (unless you believe in original sin, which I don't).

That's why I find M. Bulger's Godly 'justification' for the deaths so repulsive. Any religious person who came up with an argument to tell me that those who died or suffered, including infants, deserved to do so, is, in my opinion, distinctly lacking in basic human compassion.

As to why materialists should want to help: even those, such as myself, who do not have an anthropocentric view of the universe can have a humanitarian ethical outlook, which is why we dig into our pockets as much as any other person inclined to empathy.

Brit:

Yes, I accept that you can and have said so several times. My question was what arguments do you use on people who hold your beliefs but don't.

Peter:

I would appeal to his better nature and suggest that he imagines himself in their position.

If somebody is so misanthropist/sociopathic that they are utterly devoid of human empathy, it probably won't work. You can't force people to be altruistic - it then ceases to be charity and becomes tax.

Mind you, if they're also anti-religious, a Biblical argument (threat of hellfire? Promise of heaven? - either of which motivations also disqualify an action from being altruistic) won't work either.

Peter:

Each person has some degree of empathy, just like any other talent.

To such a person, I would suggest that he treat them in their need as he would desire them to treat him should he be afflicted by such a disaster.

That is ultimately primarily an appeal to empathy, although, depending upon the situation, it can have an element of enlightened self-interest.

As Brit notes above, that is unlikely to work on the sort of person whose inherent empathy is so limited as to utter such a thing in the first place.

My parting shot would be this:

Don't confuse being born on third with hitting a triple.

Grrr. You are dissembling. My question is not what persuasive technique works, but on what authority do you urge others to be empathetic and compassionate if they aren't. Why are you any more right in urging empathy on them than they are in urging you to stifle it? Surely you can't argue that shipping billions of aid to South Asia fits with some theory of survival or objective usefulness.

On no authority. You can only appeal to his innate sense of empathy. If he hasn't got one, we're stumped.

I suppose I could threaten to punch his lights out if he doesn't cough up a few quid, but that's not really the point.

How would you go about persuading him, if he doesn't believe in your God?

I'd threaten him with eternal damnation and hellfire. Cool, eh?

Yes, good luck with that.

Individual donations to the tsunami relief are as close to pure philanthropy as we are likely to see. There is no recognition to be had and, should a tidal wave hit the US, we aren't likely to see a Sumatran carrier battle group deployed to assist in the reconstruction.

So, why do people give?

In part, due to social pressure (though that's just begging the question) or fashion, in part to ward off the evil eye, in part because the west is rich and can easily spare the money. But mostly for the reason Brit hints at: we feel compassion for creatures we recognize to be akin to ourselves and, imagining how we would feel in their circumstance, believe that they feel similarly. But that, of course, is the greatest leap of faith of all; completely unprovable and new to history. I understand how my belief allows me to take that leap. I don't understand how any nonbeliever can make that leap, by which I mean, I suppose, that I disbelieve that any person who has taken that leap is actually a nonbeliever.

So, welcome to the ranks of believers.

David:

Why, thank you.

And may I welcome you to the realisation that just because some of us think that ethical motives are innate, and derived from evolutionary traits rather than an external power, that doesn't mean that we think them therefore worthless or somehow not 'real'.

(In fact, most of us actually argue that they must be innate, and can't come from an external power otherwise they make no sense - but that's another story. See Robert's Daily Duck site for a good discussion on that).

But I don't think you think that, I believe that you believe that you believe that, but that you're wrong.

You're entitled to that belief.

David:

I have no more control over my empathy ability than my ability to hit a major league curve ball.

Thankfully, the former is substantially greater than the latter.

My belief in a Supreme being has no correlation with either of those portions of my being--their capacity is just as innate as hair color.

So I gave to the Red Cross tsunami fund for two reasons: first, I could imagine myself in that position, and realize how important enough people giving enough money could be in helping to overcome what God or nature wrought; second, I felt good doing it. In precisely the same way I feel good tipping generously: it makes me feel good about myself, and less guilty about, through no fault of mine, being born on third.

No Supreme Being, no higher authority, required. Just some degree of innate empathy. And, ironically enough, selfishness.

Brit has it right: humans have always been social animals--we simply cannot exist as we are without innate empathy and sense of reciprocity. You might as well imagine quadrapedal humans, or society absent opposable thumbs.

Peter:

Apologies, I didn't really mean to dissemble.

For this sort of thing, no appeal to higher authority is worthwhile, but rather exists as a cover story for what people would do anyway in its absence.

It is entirely possible that, as a group, believers will donate somewhat more to this tragedy than non-believers. However, that doesn't contradict my theory in the least.

I believe being part of a religious community often involves the same personality traits I mentioned above to a greater degree than required for those who don't so choose. However, since those characteristics are largely innate, belief is a proxy, not a cause.

This is the link for The Daily Duck. Two posts are likely of interest: Judeo-Christian Values for Dummies. Also, at the risk of shameless self promotion, several posts down is Ethics and God.

Innate goodness, Jeff? Seriously?

You say that you were born on third. Part of that was being born an American, and shaped by the culture in which you found yourself. That culture is religious, and has a remarkably consistent and remarkably religious idea of what makes a person "good."

Had any of us been born into one of those cultures that believes that righteousness consists of tossing children into the fire, we would have done so. Those of us who didn't believe in Ba'al would have acted just as eagerly as those of us who did, noting that child sacrifice is innate, and made us feel good.