This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
by Malenkov in Exile, creative commons license
It has become a bit of a stereotype–the fedora-wearing atheist trotting into an online discussion and lecturing seasoned scientists about why science is the only hope for humanity. Can science answer all of life’s questions? If I could force one of these skeptics into a chair and make them open their mind for one hour to a single issue, it would be the question of where morality comes from. I see this question always floating in the background of their rhetoric, but people don’t want to confront it. People want a headache medicine, quick-term relief and comfort to help them sleep at night. I believe this is why Sam Harris is cheered like a revivalist preacher when he boldly declares that “science can answer moral questions.” He tells us how science can investigate and describe moral issues–which is true–but he doesn’t actually answer where morality comes from. He offers piquant tears at the thought of women wearing burqas, but does he consider why people might think burqas are good? How do we really find out if burqas are good or bad? Well, you just know it’s bad! It’s bad! Empty answers and appeal to emotion is just a bandaid for the demoralized. It’s the equivalent of gathering in the science classroom, throwing your hands in the air, and screaming, “Hallelujah, I’m saved!” An investigation of where moral answers come from is the first step to solving the collective demoralization of Western societies.
You can hardly blame people for jumping to easy answers like this, because answers are becoming ever more elusive, and that’s frustrating. We crave preachers who can just tell us what morality is so we do not have to think about it, whether they be atheist preachers or religious preachers. Even for those who do really tackle the issue, they find that the more they investigate the more hopelessly complicated it becomes. Answers become more elusive, making a moral structure less realistic. And so, we live in an age obsessed with information, but little strategy for how to piece it together. UC Berkeley’s “Science 101” resource tells us that while science “can help us learn about” moral issues, science does not provide any kind of final answer. Ultimately, “people must make moral judgments” for themselves. We can measure how much the global climate is changing, how much income ‘gender’ inequality exists, and how much religious people are happier than atheists, but does this tell us if automobiles should be banned, if gender inequality is bad, or if God exists?
In an excellent rebuttal of Sam Harris, Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist specializing in quantum mechanics, pointed out that that mere objectivity does not make a solution correct. Just having a scientific process that applies to everybody equally does not mean that it is effective for helping people find happiness.
Now… I have just lost half of my readers. They just clicked away. It’s too late–they are gone. Several paragraphs in and still no emotional story! Still no humorous gimmicks or clever twists! They want a guy in a black suit whispering poignantly into a microphone with flashy TED slogans in the background. That’s because people are truly demoralized. It becomes harder to think when you are demoralized. People are like depressed teenagers who “don’t want to talk about it” but are happy listening to emo music until 2 am. But Sam Harris’ rhetoric is very dangerous, because people in history who have deluded themselves into thinking that cold hard science has the answers to morality have committed some truly awful atrocities. Eugenics was a science for how the human race can be advanced through selective breeding, a practice that every farmer does to improve his herd of cows. What could be more scientific? But it led to some of the most immoral behavior in history.
A scientist can test ancient herbal medicine and tell us what kind of healing properties it may hold. Maybe that pot of boiled rhino horn doesn’t actually boost your fertility? Sometimes science can even overturn religious thought. Some people say science has overturned the Latter-Day Saint policy against drinking alcohol. A glass of red wine is good for the heart, right? Well, the problem is there other issues at play–pernicious corporate advertising that promotes alcoholism, the likelihood that people will drink more than a glass of wine a day, some people naturally more prone to alcoholism than others, social culture that is tied with alcohol, possible effects of alcohol on a person’s “spirit”, etc. Science can help us determine what a good dietary policy could be by measuring what is physically healthy for the body, but it takes some degree of judgement based on a number of other issues, including social issues which science has a hard time measuring.
Science Must Stay Out Of Justice
There are many things you just can’t put under a microscope: the legality of abortion, discriminatory business practices, capital gains tax, capital punishment, etc. We can use scientific testing to inform our decisions, but ultimately it is up to human conscience. Logic would seem to dictate that heinous criminals should be swiftly executed, yet everyone agrees that at the very least there should be a clear limit. How can science tell us where to draw the line and say a person is worthy of living? It’s a matter of justice, and justice is the issue which we must not place in the realm of science.
Does science relate to justice? Well, sure. A camera on the side of the road can give us a much better proof whether someone was speeding than just the word of a police officer. Science can give us evidence for how to apply justice. Can science tell us what the speed limit should be? Well, science can tell us at what speed tires start slipping and human reaction times are insufficient, but ultimately it is a matter of human judgement. Science cannot tell us whether it is right to give everyone an Autobahn or to impose limit speeds. Who should make that judgement call? Should rights be up to a broad civic vote or the dictates of a well-informed judge? The problem with a broad vote is most people are ill informed, and the problem with leaving it up to a judge is it’s harder to get a decision in the interest of everyone with just one person. A cantankerous old judge may lower the speed limit to 30 because that’s the speed he drives at. Yet the civic population as a whole knows very little about physics and may raise the speed limit to a number hopelessly implausible. Is anyone actually happy with the vote of the majority? I know I am frustrated every few years when the state and national vote results come in and turns out to be exactly the opposite of how I voted. “Surely there can’t be one person in the state who would willingly vote to pay higher taxes for projects that have been recently demonstrated to be total boondoggles,” I had thought. “Surely not.” Well, what if we left everything up to a team of scientists: Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye the Science Guy will determine what the speed limit should be? The problem with that is, first of all, have you heard Bill Nye lately? He sounds like a total lunatic now. Secondly, scientific interest is often contrary to human interest and violates justice, as we saw earlier with the eugenics example. Thirdly, scientists are as prone to corruption, and much of today’s popular “science” is just what serves the interests of big corporations.
Social Justice – Today’s iteration of the effort to scientize justice is called “social justice.” Equality becomes the highest virtue, and everything we do becomes an effort to make the individual an equal participant in the collective. Where is that taking us? Our obsession with egalitarianism is tearing culture apart. Who sets the moral virtues in our brave social justice culture? Theoretically it is a collective decision, but I certainly didn’t get to vote about which commercials would be shown during the Super Bowl. They didn’t ask me if Sam Harris should give a talk at the TED conference. Why didn’t I get asked to speak at the TED conference? So, there a system at play where some voices get amplified more than others and moral values are determined by some elitist power. Who makes the decisions?
Whoever has the money. That’s it. Moral virtue is determined by the rich. Money. Does that mean moral virtue is whatever is profitable? Well, not necessarily. What is profitable for the man at the top is not often what is profitable for everybody else. The powerful will do whatever they can get away with, and their behavior is often contrary to the sense of justice held by the other 99%. The social-justice effort to eliminate injustice by equalizing economics appears to be a pipe dream, as the wealth disparity grows worse the more social justice takes over. In the end, justice is either dictated by a king or by God. Even if we do somehow all get an equal voice, will the voice of the majority dictate laws that are actually good? A lot of people shouldn’t be setting moral law. They don’t really know which behavior leads to happiness, and no amount of college education will make them realize it. Ultimately, to dictate another individual’s happiness is to dictate their purpose, and that is something no person has a right to do.
Right now, what we end up with is no moral structure at all, and thus a highly demoralized public. Nobody has any right to judge anybody. Nobody has a right to say this is the way it should be. Whenever anyone begins to construct a moral framework, the mob comes out and pulls out the scaffolding from underneath them. The best we can do is appeal to very broad moral rules, like freedom of speech and being nice to others, but even that is collapsing quickly. A civilization can’t thrive this way, because we need an unphysical form to idealize if we hope to innovate. There needs to be the vision before we can construct a new reality. Our sense of justice is this unseen scaffolding upon which we stand to construct a better physical reality.
Well, sometimes we do agree on things without realizing it. I find it remarkable that so many scientists agree on dark matter, which only exists as a theoretical lynchpin so that their astronomic theories could match their observations of the universe. Why not just change their theories to match what they observe? Why rely on a theory that something exists which hasn’t been detected? Isn’t that kinda like believing in God? And even if dark matter were detected, that’s just relying on the word of the scientist sitting in front of his telescope on top of the mountain. What if he is lying about his observations? Yet most atheists agree dark matter exists and refuse to believe in a God that they have not detected. Why? Well, dark matter is small potatoes, I suppose. The existence of dark matter does not alter my daily life. “Sure, let’s agree on it and move on.” But what about things that do alter daily life? The question of whether a fetus is a person before birth: scientists have not discovered “spirit” so they can’t tell. We can find qualities that indicate life, but taking any kind of stance at all requires belief. It is a matter of justice. Gay marriage: there are a number of very important issues involved, most of which go ignored, and the answers popularly agreed upon by our Western culture leaders stand upon nonsensical scaffolding.
Celestial Justice – In its effort to commandeer morality, scientism pushes religion away from justice, which does no favors to either justice or religion. Now, when I say “justice” I’m not talking about the courtroom. I’m talking about the individual’s inner sense of right and wrong. The scriptures teach us that God has a standard of perfection, and that we are cut off from the presence of God by an awful gulf whose flame ascendings into the heavens. Right away, this is making a judgement: that God’s standard of perfection is what we want to be. Well, what if it isn’t? I see Ex-Mormon memes all the time saying “if heaven is a place where I can’t do so-and-so, then I don’t want to go there.” Well fine, perhaps a better label for this is “celestial justice.” Everyone has their own level of ideal person who they want to be. We believe that the first step to construct a moral framework is to discover our Maker’s sense of perfection and set that as our standard of justice.
Unlike social justice, this causes division. This establishes a gulf which separates those who do wickedness from the potential for exaltation, and it is a gulf that cannot be crossed once you stray from the straight and narrow path. We rely on the merits of Jesus to make intercession and redeem those sins. We could sit in Sam Harris’s TED audience and convince ourselves that the gulf doesn’t matter all we want–ignore imperfect behavior to which we are all prone–but this divine justice will still be there and the gulf will always separate us from exaltation. Or we can recognize imperfect behavior and then despair because there is no way to achieve perfection. If there is no deity to make intercession how can we hope to overcome human fallibility? This is the big problem with atheism. God is whatever is the supreme force in nature. By denying the existence of a god we are saying that there is no higher power than ourselves. If we do not believe in a higher power than ourselves, this severely limits the ability to see a higher vision. That is why denial of divine intercession causes damnation. Stagnation. What role-model is there for us to work towards?
Faith Vs. Science
The other problem is the refusal to believe in anything unseen. Before scientists could construct the MRI machine, they had to devise a theoretical framework which went beyond physical observation, because quantum properties alter with any observation. Therefore, if scientists were stuck only with what they could see, quantum theory would never have developed and we wouldn’t have MRI machines which make it much easier to detect and heal diseases.
Both science and religion begin with a theory and then come up with a process to demonstrate that theory as either correct or incorrect. MRI machines demonstrate quantum theory to be a useful model of reality. Faith likewise demonstrates unseen reality to be a useful model of reality. Faith and science are very similar processes. The difference is science begins with physical observations and religion does not. Faith does not begin with the observation that an apple falls from the tree down to the earth. Science does, and then devises and tests theories to explain it. If we were to come up with a religion based on an apple falling out of a tree, that would be superstition. Quantum theory began with a couple odd observations about light, and then blew up into a profound and complicated explanation for it. What I find interesting is that so much of this explanation is impossible to test. They are very bold claims yet rely so much on theory. Religion likewise makes some bold claims, but it is just as testable as science. Each behavior we exercise with faith in is demonstrated to either be reliable or unreliable reality. “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” (D&C 130:20-21) This means we can take any commandment, the smallest commandment–abstaining from alcohol, paying tithing, etc.–and see if the promised blessing comes from following it. This is how to determine whether a moral standard is just or unjust.
Faith does not begin with physical observation, because when it does that makes it superstition. One thing I have recently realized is that for all their ranting about superstition, angry atheists appear to be more superstitious than anyone. It’s hard to live your life truly empty of faith or morality, so they try to make deductions about unseen reality–which is fine–but the problem is when they begin the process with physical observations. You can’t base spiritual conclusions on a physical premise. You can’t base moral ideas on a physical premise. If quantum theory weren’t demonstrated reliably to be true, I would say it is superstition as well. But when it comes to purely moral questions like abortion, gay marriage, gender equality, etc., you cannot begin the process with a physical premise like you do with science. Physical evidence can only help inform you to make a decision of what is right or wrong.
One classic example of scientism superstition is Noah’s ark. CES Letter claimed that “science has proven that there was no worldwide flood 4,500 years ago.” Proven? That’s strong language, “proven.” How do you prove history, anything in history? You can’t step into a time machine and observe for sure what exactly happened. You have to rely on physical evidence that is still around, and maybe there is some very good evidence for something. Maybe it looks like an open and shut case, but you still can’t say it is “proven” because there is always the possibility for some other explanation. Antimormons are always claiming something in history has been “proven.” Joseph Smith use a seer stone–it’s been proven, right? Well no, actually when I investigate each of the quotes upon which the narrative is built they turn out to be unreliable. You can’t know for sure when it comes to history, and the Antimormons who claim science “proves” something wind up believing a narrative that can objectively be judged to be shaky at best. This is the case with Noah’s ark as well.
Firstly, the scriptures don’t actually say it was a worldwide flood. The Hebrew word for “earth,” erets, applies to a specific piece of land. This is also how the word “earth” is used in the Book of Mormon. Maybe the entire globe wasn’t covered at the same moment with water, but over time with large local flood events. Secondly, the scriptures do not say that Noah took two or seven of every species. It says they took “of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind.” Two of every sort. The Hebrew here is umikkal ta?î š?nayim mikkol ha?ay, literally: “And of whole two of whole living thing.” Mikkol gets translated in verse 20 as “of every kind,” and people imagine two of every single species, but this is not correct. “Every kind” simply means two from the whole group of something. Genesis 3:1 also uses mikkol, with the Hebrew literally translating as: “no eat of whole tree in garden.” We know God didn’t command Adam to abstain from every single tree, just one of them. God clearly said eat of the rest of the trees but not that one particular tree. So there weren’t that many animals on the ark. There could have been as few as six. What we learn from the scriptures is Noah took representative male and female animals from each “kind” of animal.
So the atheists who attack the Noah’s ark story fail to research the story itself. But even if they were right about the story, there is always the possibility that it happened and the evidence for it passed away. Lack of evidence is never proof that a historical claim didn’t happen. Antimormons point to their rhetoric about Noah’s ark and Joseph Smith’s seer stone to ridicule religion and call it obviously false. But to call these things “proof” is basing a spiritual theory on a physical premise, and therefore superstition. It is the same as pointing to Noah’s ark and Joseph Smith’s seer stone stories as absolute proof that religious must be correct. Either way, superstition. One reason Antimormon rhetoric, such as that found in CES Letter, is so effective is because it persuades people to be superstitious. A common misconception is that superstition holds religion to be superior to science. Actually, it’s the other way around. A superstitious person reads some quotes on MormonThink about Joseph Smith’s seer stone, comes to a spiritual conclusion that he must not have been a prophet, and then preaches about “science” as the superior way to find truth. I don’t see many people preaching on Reddit about Noah’s ark as absolute proof that Christianity is true, but I do see atheists pointing to it in scoffing tones as proof it is false.
Just watch Sam Harris on Joe Rogan’s podcast talk about the Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints. He obviously has no idea what he’s talking about. It sounds like he just read some Antimormon website or watched a Broadway musical and accepted that as truth. Is that scientific? Well, to be fair, an highly-important intelligent man like Sam Harris doesn’t have the time to really investigate every religion out there. I’m sure he has much more important things to do… but then why is he going onto a show and talking about it like he is an expert? Will Joe Rogan have me on his podcast to fact-check Sam Harris, or any expert? I’m not holding my breath. But ultimately, Sam Harris has no right to say all religions are wrong based on science unless he has deeply investigated each one scientifically, which he obviously hasn’t. He is basing a sweeping spiritual conclusion on shaky, totally unreliable physical evidence.by Boss Tweed, creative commons license
Sacrificing For Future Happiness – This brings us back to the mentality where women wearing burqas is wrong because it’s wrong. What makes it wrong? I’m not saying it is right or it isn’t right, but I don’t see how science can make that ethics call. Is it because a photo of women wearing burqas elicits a negative emotional reaction from you? Is that what makes it wrong? Science can give us indicators of the women’s self-esteem, measuring happiness indicators and behaviors that we associate with success. We can measure the same on a societal levels for nations where this practice is widespread or compulsory. This greatly helps inform our decision. But ultimately it is a judgement call of what is an indicator of success and happiness and the assumption that these measurements are our goal. These are all a priori assumptions that come from somewhere, and so far atheists haven’t told me where. What determines our sense of justice which ultimately determines whether it is right or wrong? A celestial standard of perfection, that’s where. It certainly does not come from some imaginary social contract which binds the individual to collective egalitarianism.
There is also the notion of sacrifice and happiness in the next life to consider. Social justice places limits on individual happiness for the sake of the collective. The social contract is founded on the principle that individual sacrifice for the whole benefits each individual to a greater degree than if they had been alone. The tribe that shares elephant meat with the other tribe will get a favor back in some future time of need. But celestial justice is different. Celestial justice limits individual happiness for the sake of future individual happiness. This sacrifice often happens to reinforce collective happiness… but sometimes it doesn’t. The ancient practice of burnt offerings, for example–how does requiring everyone to burn up a significant portion of their property make them happier? Well, you could argue, they convince themselves that this atones for their sins and leads to peace of mind. But a little peace of mind hardly seems worth it. A social justice proponent might say this sacrificed property is much better served in the pocket of the tax collector than being burned up on an altar. An important element of divine justice is the idea that many things aren’t going to be made right until the afterlife. The guy who cheats and steals and seems to get away with everything, no karma to be seen–he will face punishment for it in some distant future date. It is this ability to see long into the distant future, beyond death, that makes divine justice superior. This distant vision allows people to make decisions for the benefit of ten generations into the future. Atheism and science cannot look that far and do not provide incentive for people to work for future generations. When we take an eternal perspective, we are enabled to behave in a way that more greatly benefits the collective. We are able to forgive and practice true charity, true love. We adopt loving behavior which establishes commutative justice, which is entirely wiped out under social justice. How likely is a guy who bases his religious opinions on some fake quotes he reads on a website somewhere to care about the earth’s environment 200 years from now?
Today, Webster’s dictionary defines “moral” as, “of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior.” That’s it. No explanation of what makes something right or wrong. When you look up “right” you find, “being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper.” So it takes us in circles. But Webster’s dictionary in 1828 provided a much better definition for “moral”: “The word moral is applicable to actions that are good or evil, virtuous or vicious, and has reference to the law of God as the standard by which their character is to be determined. The word however may be applied to actions which affect only, or primarily and principally, a person’s own happiness.”(Websters Dictionary, 1828)
Excellent definition. Morality exists on an individual level–what affects a person’s individual happiness–and measures the individual against God’s law. Moral law is a law of nature written in the books alongside the equation for gravity, only it is an invisible law and therefore reliant on spirituality to be explored. This invisible reality can and must be explored if we are to progress as a civilization, and spirituality is the way to do it. To erase spirituality erases the divine ideal against which we judge, and therefore erases any vision for innovation, erases motivation of charitable love, and erases any means for rising above human fallibility.