How is atheist morality not Social Darwinism?

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Humanism, generally.

I don't think morality is subjective.

It was shown earlier on the wikipedia page that human secularism does not connote any particular morality - just the application of reason. For example, a human secularist might believe in Social Darwinism of :

It is better to teach a man to fish than give him fish.
It is better to let him starve, than feed him, so he is motivated to become self-reliant.

Obviously we have to evaluate whether the outcome is actually beneficial. No one that's starving is truly motivated to learn something, they are desperate. Current patterns indicated that some help is indeed beneficial, and that we also need to look at the social conditions that led to such original inequality.

The conditions that exist in nature are no guide to how one should conduct human affairs.

I still don't see any reason why lack of belief in gods would neccessarily lead to belief in evolution, which then would lead to belief in Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is unscientific, there is no reason to believe that belief in evolution would lead to a dog eat dog society. In fact, the opposite is happening: in many nations where religion is disappearing there are social programs to take care of people. Social Darwinism completely ignores altruism and the benefits of group cooperation. It's just something cooked up by people who misunderstood evolution and distorted it to promote their own every-man-for-himself ideology.

Sure.

I said earlier, that it is "debatable" and the video says "the math community favors the 'math is real' side".




QM applies to the macro-world too, so it not just "a point in which Newtonian physics does not apply". We just don't see it. The professor explains this in part II.

The professor says the reason that we don't see it, and the reason Newtonian physics is applicable at the macro level is that because macro-objects are not closed off from the world. So, as I understand it, QM theory tells us that QM is the fundamental principal of all matter, and Newtonian physics is applicable after the wave function collapse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse



Yes, I don't think math is real.

I agree with the anti-realists ("mathematical fictionalists") that math is made-up based on the human brain. I mentioned earlier that it is debatable, so I am not claiming to be right.

I would argue that "1" is only '1", because you have a preference to think of it that way. If you could see matter the way it really is, or perhaps how other species see matter, then better/different mathematics may be more preferential for you to describe "1". Perhaps the whole concept of "1" would disappear.

'Quantum Entanglement" suggests that all matter is connected [see source below], so the supposed non-connectedness of "1+1=2" may not exist.

"In our reality the universe is the entangled system, and everything in it is interconnected".
http://www.collective-evolution.com/201 ... -relevant/

Threads do wander, don't they? I can't help noticing that everything said in this discussion supports my original point. Even you, the theist, are not arguing from a basis of divine revelation and holy scripture. You are citing actual theoreticians, people who observe reality, perform tests, attempt to apply logic to the results.

Natural laws are only accepted as such following a great deal of observation, testing, and logic. When they are challenged, refined, or indeed overturned entirely, it is only following further observation, tests, and logic. At no point is it acceptable for Newton, Schrödinger, or you to walk in waving a new formula and saying, "Right, I got this straight from a deity, so let's all accept it without question." That would be absurd.

That is all ? do carry on ?.

Not entirely true, some well known atheists such as Sam Harris try and argue for objective morality based upon altruism, I have seen him try and defend his position in debate,unsurprisingly he falls flat on his ass. I do not agree that Objective morality exists, and to this day no one has shown me anything that comes even close to changing my mind on the issue. If you wish to try please be my guest, but I implore you not to bother stating the Ten Commandments as I find some of them highly objectionable and not in the least bit moral, let alone the order in which they are given (which suggests a hierarchy of importance).

To my mind it is demonstrably clear that morality changes with changes in the social zeitgeist

See here is an abuse of language, objectivity in this context is defined by the English Oxford dictionary as :1(Of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts:

You simply cannot link the term Objective with "supposedly" especially when the supposed declarer of the commandments is entirely subjective ie 1Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions

It is you who needs to prove objective morals not us, we are not making any such claim. The constant demand from the religious for us to prove a negative is tedious at best and shows that you folk really do not have a leg to stand on.

With regard to "Social Darwinism" it has nothing to do with evolutionary biology, rather the advent of evolutionary biology was used by some, to explain what has occurred in just about every society throughout human history, That is, sections of society are dominated by other sections of the same society. That some people abuse Evolutionary Biology as an excuse for their subjugation and exploitation of others has nothing to do with a lack of religious belief, in fact your assertion that this is the case is either remarkably stupid or simply naive. Look to your history books, look at the (by today's standards) immoral behavior of deeply religious powerful people, look at capitalism and how it subjugates and exploits, yet the champion of this economic system is the USA, where being atheist is seen as being akin to Satan worship.

You are on a fools errand, your arguments are not even well thought out logical fallacies, they are simply cherry picked, out of context snippets from in depth articles on Wikipedia and elsewhere.

Social Darwinism isn't any more a catchphrase to atheists than it is to a christian, am I right?

It depends mostly on your economical standing I'd wager in life. It's not a black/white issue.

So let me say this again:
Just because people argue about things does not mean that there is credible evidence on both sides.



I have taken more upper level physics classes than the average college graduate has taken in total classes. I am a physicist by trade. Watching a few videos (which you have only a limited ability to grasp) does not make you an expert or provide you with much in the way of supportive argument.

The wave function collapse definitely does not apply to the macro world, so I am not entirely certain why you try to bring this into the discussion. QM is much more complicated than a simple Wikipedia page.

I can try to break it into bite size pieces that make sense to someone who hasn't done much in the way of differential calculus or modern physics, but I tend to have problems, as even simple concepts require a pretty huge knowledge base to be understood correctly. Maybe YouTube Feynman's Horizon interview (BBC) from a while back. He does a much better job at explaining things than I ever could. Although there are some of the things in there that he said we don't know that we have since discovered.

And if you want to bring Schrodinger's cat into this, be aware that the cat most certainly is alive OR dead (not both) before you check the box and almost no one who has taken any quantum physics classes would say otherwise.



So if you have 2 hands, you don't really have two hands, even if you and anyone else in the world can see them?



It is only as debatable as saying that you are the only human in existence and the rest of us are just illusions made up for your personal mental entertainment.

So let me say this again:
Just because people argue about things does not mean that there is credible evidence on both sides.



What a load of garbage. There are plenty of species that we know exactly how they "see" things. Animals who see infrared, use magnetic fields to navigate, use sound waves outside of the human audible range. Science is a wonderfully informative thing if you take the time to learn it.



Yes, a website made by some people who have used philosophical and hypothetical exercises only to determine what is fact and then try to prove it by taking tiny pieces of science completely out of context to prove what they already "know." Of course all things are interconnected. Everything exerts an influence on everything else, even if it is so minute that it connect be measured or even calculated accurately. That is why physics works. That no way shape or form negates the fact that you are trying to use physics to essentially disprove physics. You can't say math doesn't exist and then use any single aspect of physics to justify the argument any more than you can use your awareness of existence as proof that you don't really exist.

These may be fun little exercises kind of like "do you see red when I see red or do you see green and have only been taught that it is red," but in reality, we can measure quite accurately whether you are seeing red or green based on specific wavelengths and the construction of your fairly inefficient eyes. Yet you will still find plenty of people who would argue that this is not the case.

Christians do believe the Ten Commandments came from GOD, for them there is no "supposedly". Your above comments do no address that if morality came from GOD - whether it is objective morality or not.




I never tied it to evolutionary biology ?

However, you are wrong, if you watch debates you will see it comes up a lot. Christians argue that GOD is objective morality, and evolutionary people argue for sociological morality. So, beliefs in evolution due influence one's basis for morality.




I asked a question about philosophical justification - if you can't answer, then I understand. However, the fool is not me; it is the person who can't answer.

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 12 Aug 2014, 8:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, it is often used on WP in the context of policies that diminish welfare. It is stated that person X is practicing "Social Darwinism", because X's policies are meant to reduce social benefits for people.

The only objective thing about it is that it's written down.

It's also fixed, only addressing moral issues that existed at the time. It's useless for modern decisions that relate to situations they could not have predicted.

You keep knocking me down like I cannot grasp things. I completed 350 credits at my University before they graduated me without me even asking or attending the ceremony.

I showed you a video of a Yale physics professor teaching that QM mechanics applies to the macroworld (which makes sense with the nature of QM of particles colliding - we would expect it to happen at the macro-level too), and the famous physicist Steven Hawking uses it in his theory "multiverses" .. .. apparently these are no good ... how about this ...

Scientific America: Living in a Quantum World
Although quantum effects may be harder to see in the macroworld, the reason has nothing to do with size per se but with the way that quantum systems interact with one another. Until the past decade, experimentalists had not confirmed that quantum behavior persists on a macroscopic scale. Today, however, they routinely do.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... tum-world/

I would argue that QM is the truer nature of matter, and Newtonian mechanics works after the 'wavefunction collapse" (called the "measurement problem") on the above wiki page. This is consistent with the Yale professor and I can provide you a time index to the video part II where he discusses this if you are interested.




This is about math, not science.



Sure.

And if so I would assume that social Darwinism would be a pertinent choice of words for living in a first-world country in economic decline, where the usage of such benefaction for the underprivileged helps to create such a decline.