On afterlife consequences

Abrahamic religions often hold that there is some sort of reward or punishment in the afterlife. These are, of course, heaven and hell. They hold that if you do or don’t do certain things, you’ll go to hell and burn in sulphurous hellfire for eternity. Similarly, they hold that if you do do or do not do certain things different things, you’ll be in paradise forever.

In a similar vein, other religions believe in karma. They hold that if you do or don’t do certain things, you’ll come back as pond scum or the like. Similarly, if you do do or don’t do certain different things, you’ll stop reincarnating and achieve Nirvana.

Recall how many of those religions emphasize the desirability of in–conversion. They often try to get you to convert by emphasizing what will happen to you if you don’t convert; that is, bad things will happen to you. To you. Notice who the emphasis is on. You. This is therefore immoral.

Why?

Because it’s selfish, that’s why. Belief in afterlife punishment or reward causes people to be motivated by a selfish desire to avoid something bad happening to them (such as burning in hellfire forever) and to get something good to happen to them (such as living in heaven). It causes people to directly consider what happens to them. Although it might indirectly influence someone’s interactions with others (for example, you’ll burn in hell if you aren’t nice to other people) it still ultimately motivates based on what happens to the actor. A truly good person would be good purely for the sake of being good; they would need no other motivation. When asked, “What is in it for you?” they would reply “Nothing, but I’m being moral anyway.”

I have thought of a few possible objections to my conclusions. Hence, I’ve taken the liberty of preemptively debunking them. And that is after the jump.

A dilemma that shouldn’t be

Creationist organization Answers in Genesis makes a “moral dilemma” where one shouldn’t be (via Pharyngula). The “dilemma” is whether it is permissible to lie in certain situations. The specific example used is lying to Nazi soldiers who are asking where a family of Jews is hiding.

I think the resolution is obvious: lie or if you can, say nothing. I’m pretty sure that almost everyone would agree that in this situation, it is better to lie than to allow people to die (whether you justify this through deontology, utilitarianism, or virtue ethics is up to you.)

However, in a stunning example of why moral absolutism is not the way to go, Answers in Genesis says you should be truthful. They even back it up with Bible verses. I doubt there is a better recent example than this of why the Bible should not be used to resolve moral dilemmas.

Not at all successful

In the wake of the assassination of American President Lincoln, a rather crude joke was told: “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?” This joke is committing the fallacy known as the overwhelming exception, where definitely relevant factors (in this example, her husband’s assassination) are ignored.

This sort of thing happened recently (via Feministing):

On Saturday, October 24, at a school dance in California, a fifteen-year old student was brutally beaten, robbed, and gang raped for two and a half hours. At least twenty people were involved, and some were joined in and encouraged it to continue. A few filmed the event with their cell phones. All this happened about half an hour after the security guards were released.

A spokesman for the school district, world-class asshole Marin Trujillo, said afterwards (emphasis added): “[The d]ance was successful event and safe for the students that were there. This dance itself was a successful event.”

Marin Trujillo, FUCK YOU.

Also, I think that the bystanders had a moral obligation to intervene. Doing nothing shows the negative character traits of cowardice (because they could have put themselves in  to help someone but didn’t), maleficence (because they were allowing something bad to happen), and others. Had some bystander called for help they would have shown beneficence (because they were taking steps to end an evil act) and had they intervened personally they would also have shown valour (since they were putting themselves at risk to help someone else). Since it is unquestionably better to be brave and beneficent than cowardly and maleficent, by not intervening the bystanders did an immoral act.

Might nothing be “real”?

A brain in a vat

While bumping my way around the internet, a found an online excerpt from a book by a philosopher named Hilary Putnam. It attempts to show that the brain in a vat thought experiment is self–refuting, and implicitly disproves the real world. I am posting about it, not because I agree with it, but because I think it is interesting.

The argument starts by considering what a brain in a vat is. We can all imagine it, an evil mad scientist kidnaps us, cuts open our heads, puts our brains in a tub of fluid, and hooks them up to a supercomputer. The supercomputer feeds our brains with impulses, and it creates a complete illusion of reality. In principle, this means that nothing is “real” as there is no way for the brain to tell where it is.

Now, consider the case of a brain “born” in a vat. In such a case it would never experience anything of the “real” world, but rather only the supercomputer’s virtual world.

Suppose that the brain in a vat has a certain object in its world. Having a term for that certain object is a reasonable assumption, as it fulfills a need to talk about and think about that certain object. Let’s say that that certain object is called a flig. When the BIV refers to a flig, it is clearly referring to a virtual object, even if by coincidence a flig looks exactly like a brain in the real world.

Based on the previous, a BIV can only think about and talk about virtual things that have been fed to it by the supercomputer. This stays the same even if the word ‘flig’ is changed to ‘brain.’ Hence, if a brain in a vat in the real word says, “I am a brain in a vat,” what it is really saying is “I am a virtual brain in a virtual vat,” even though it clearly isn’t. Since the BIV is always stating a falsehood, the thought experiment is self-refuting. Basically, if all you know are virtual things and virtual facts, you cannot know anything about real things and real facts.

Recall that we are brains born in bodies. The role of our bodies and senses are hence directly analogous to the vat and the supercomputer respectively. We are therefore only thinking about things sent to us by our senses and not “real” things. Hence, if you say “I am a brain in a body,” what you are really saying is that “I am a virtual brain in a virtual body.” In this sense, nothing you see, think about, or experience, is real; the “real world” is all in your head.

Image via the Wikimedia Commons.

They’re equally bad?

Shorter Jill Stanek: Premarital sex is as bad as murder.

Steven Waldman of Beliefnet e-mailed Jill Stanek and asked her about why people like her were opposed to using contraception as a means to reduce the need for abortion. She mentioned that she was against it because she thought it led to sinfulness. Waldman then asked her for clarification, arguing that even if contraception led to the sins of hypocrisy and premarital sex, wouldn’t these be less bad than abortion?

Stanek then responded, arguing that there is no scriptural basis for allowing “lesser sins” to prevent “greater sins”. She then said (emphasis added), “That premise aside, it is no “lesser sin”to commit extramarital [sic] sex — both before marriage and during marriage.” Since Stanek thinks that abortion is murder, and since she thinks premarital sex is as bad as abortion, she thinks that premarital sex is as bad as murder! Since 95% percent of Americans have premarital sex, she clearly thinks that 95% of Americans are the moral equivalent of murderers. Since we punish murder with lengthy prison terms or the death penalty, I’d like to indicate that doing the same to 95% of the US population would be pretty brutal.

Stanek is entitled to her beliefs, and it may well be possible to argue that premarital sex is wrong, but is it as bad as murder? (Hint: no.)

Via RH Reality Check.

So much for atheists having no morals

From Unreasonable Faith: Pastor Gets Caught Lying for Jesus.

Argumentum ad Sangerum

At CNN, Ruben Navarrette Jr. has a commentary on the stimulus package recently passed by the United States House of Representatives. He makes two arguments, both of which are bad.

One of them is the fact that funding family planning is unnecessary for stimulating the economy. He somehow thinks that advocates of including contraception in the stimulus package think that “babies who would otherwise have been born were destined to become dependent on welfare and other public services”. I wonder what makes him think that every baby born will not end up that way, (that is, the assertion that all children born during a recession will end up dependent on welfare is as baseless as the assertion that none of them will). Also, including contraception in the stimulus package would have saved money, $200 million over five years to be precise. He also says that, in a paragraph of its own, ”[t]here is nothing more private — that is, none of the government’s business — than the personal decision that a family makes about how many children to have. Besides, [Nancy] Pelosi’s comments had an ugly ring to them.” Rather ironic considering that contraception allows people to control the when and number of children, and that making access to it more difficult means the government is interfering in the childbearing decisions people have. By denying it to poor people, the government is making it harder for them to do that. The net result is that sex becomes an expensive luxury for the rich and dangerous for the poor.

In addition, he makes a fallacious argument by tying birth control funding to Margaret Sanger and eugenics. Margaret Sanger did indeed advocate eugenics, an evil thing, for which she is rightfully condemned. She also advocated the use of birth control. However, the fact that she advocated one evil thing has no bearing whatsoever on whether the other things she advocated were also evil because of her. To do so is to commit what is called the association fallacy. Since Sanger, her advocacy of eugenics, and the organization she founded, Planned Parenthood, are often involved in the abortion debate, and the fact that she advocated eugenics is often mentioned in an attempted to discredit the others, I feel that this act of playing the Sanger card happens often enough for me to dub it argumentum (or reductio) ad Sangerum. This faulty reasoning can also go in reverse, by arguing that since Sanger was opposed to something, that something must be good. As according to Wikipedia, Sanger was opposed to (some) abortion (for at least part of her life), this means that since Sanger was “evil”, and she was opposed to some abortions, this means that abortions must be “good”, right social consies? Playing the Sanger card this way can sure turn the abortion debate on its head.

As I explained the argumentum ad Sangerum is a special form of the association fallacy. The following example demonstrates why the association fallacy, and hence the argumentum ad Sangerum is fallacious: Adolf Hitler (I know about Godwin’s Law, but please bear with me) advocated and committed various hellish acts, such as anti-Semitism, genocide, mass murder, war crimes, and so on, and is rightfully considered an evil man. Hitler did not make those things evil; genocide and the others are evil in of themselves. Basically, Hitler is evil because of the things he did and advocated. To assert that something is bad just because Hitler advocated it commits what is known as the argumentum (or reductio) ad Hitlerum, which is a special form of the association fallacy. As explained above, Hitler is evil because of his actions; his actions are not evil because of him. In other words, Hitler did not make genocide and the others evil; genocide and the others were evil before him, and they are still evil now that he is dead. To assert that Hitler made his actions evil leads to ridiculous conclusions; after all, since Hitler was a vegetarian and was evil, based on this line of reasoning, other vegetarians, like Gandhi, were also evil. The absurdity of this conclusion shows that the argumentum ad Hitlerum is fallacious. The same reasoning applies to the argumentum ad Sangerum.

Of course, just because someone is committing the argumentum ad Sangerum fallacy does not mean in of itself that their conclusion is wrong; to do is to commit another fallacy, the fallacy fallacy. What they need instead is a new argument. The same logic applies to everyone else.