As I see it, most supernaturalists believe everything naturalists believe, plus a lot more. In my view, there's no leap of faith involved to being a naturalist.
Paul is completely wrong that materialists must make a leap of faith to conclude that pedophillia is wrong. Nor does one have treat morallity as an illusion.
Evolutionary theory provides adequate reasoning for this, although I don't think it constitutes "proof." For example, pedophillia, and virtually all sex crimes create an unhealthy environment. Sexually transmitted diseases become rampant, and many of those that are infected are no longer able to reproduce. That's before we even start to mention the related social affects, and how those can affect reproductive viability. Therefore, it's easy to conclude that this behavior is quite evil without ever resorting to faith.
As for his assertion that art, and free will must be treated as an illusion. That's a complete non-sequitor. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, there is no objective measure of such a thing and it's intellectually dishonest to imply there is. And free will is an issue that not even religious conservatives have figured out to any satisfaction. It's ludicrous of Paul to even mention it.
3 comments:
As I see it, most supernaturalists believe everything naturalists believe, plus a lot more. In my view, there's no leap of faith involved to being a naturalist.
Jim: How so. If supernaturalists believe everything naturalists believe, why is there a diagreement between the two?
Paul is completely wrong that materialists must make a leap of faith to conclude that pedophillia is wrong. Nor does one have treat morallity as an illusion.
Evolutionary theory provides adequate reasoning for this, although I don't think it constitutes "proof." For example, pedophillia, and virtually all sex crimes create an unhealthy environment. Sexually transmitted diseases become rampant, and many of those that are infected are no longer able to reproduce. That's before we even start to mention the related social affects, and how those can affect reproductive viability. Therefore, it's easy to conclude that this behavior is quite evil without ever resorting to faith.
As for his assertion that art, and free will must be treated as an illusion. That's a complete non-sequitor. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, there is no objective measure of such a thing and it's intellectually dishonest to imply there is. And free will is an issue that not even religious conservatives have figured out to any satisfaction. It's ludicrous of Paul to even mention it.
Post a Comment