Comments on: Was Martin Luther King, Jr. Right About the Arc of the Moral Universe?

By: Max

Max — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 09:00:51 +0000

So the “Arab Spring” led to the rise of ISIS, ongoing chaos in Libya, and Shiite rebels taking over Yemen. The Muslim Brotherhood took over Egypt for a year until a backlash reinstated military rule. Russia annexed Crimea and brought war back to Europe, and Communist China effectively took over Senkaku islands from Japan and is now a bigger economy than the U.S.

By: Max

Max — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 08:49:55 +0000

In reply to Burton Brunsoon.

What law protects Semites from insult? There’s a law that prohibits denying genocide, including the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide.
And the law prohibiting genocide denial should prohibit drawing cartoons of Mohammed? If anything, it should prohibit denial of genocides carried out BY Mohammed and his followers.
Oh, and Muslims are Semites? Especially the Indonesian ones, right?
SMH. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 22:25:09 +0000

You admittingly compare something abstract to mathematics. which is a false equivalency. You do better without the poor analogies. There is no need to apply your false logic. Marriage is a verb and a noun. Same sex couples are aloud to marry(verb) in the majority of the United States after which they are in a legal marriage(noun). If this takes away from your warm and fuzziness, you are probably not alone. But like mathematics, the answer is not worried about the way it makes you feel.

By: Burton Brunson

Burton Brunson — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 02:37:20 +0000

Why do you think I’m upset? My comment contained a touch of humor (something alien to a certain type of mentality) but there was no false equivalency. Both covered an important and long-established social practice (the nature of marriage, and the basis for measuring), and the situations under which those practices might change. I don’t recall advocating perpetual finite definitions, but admit that I think there are some words that should be effectively permanent — such as mathematical terms. (Should mathematically challenged people be supported in saying pi is exactly 3, because they have a right to compute areas, too?)
Evolution involves changes that are, from our point of view, random. The first fishes came on land not because a fish council decided they had the right to do so, but because they did it. The first humanoids to stand erect did it because their ability and desire to do so just happened, not because a chorus of Alley Oops agitated for the act. To change the words gay and marriage by use of media overkill and even federal law — that can happen, but it’s the opposite of evolution. Coercion would be a better term.
The word marriage is an abstraction. An abstraction doesn’t have moods. But the partners in my marriage are very gay. What about the millions of people who still use the word marriage to describe a partnership of a man and woman? Do you “go against” them? Why?
It’s a matter of simple logic. Two men (or women) have no “right” to be in a partnership that by definition involves one man and one woman. People who think with their feelings might disagree, but it’s a matter of logic. If two men or women are involved, then it doesn’t meet the requirement of the definition. To have same-sex marriages, it’s absolutely necessary to change the definition of the word marriage. I could get along with the word evolving to include same-sex. But I don’t passively accept the change being compelled by federal courts acting as agents of those who manipulate the herd that maintains that logic is anything that makes someone feel warm and fuzzy.

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:11:00 +0000

Burton,

Try again, your argument is looking especially weak after that confusing vignette that is nothing more than a perfect example of a false equivalency. Be honest about why you are upset. Is it really because of the evolution of the meaning of the word? Are you some sort of advocate for perpetual finite definitions? Would you describe your marriage as being gay? Or do you go against the millions of people who used to use the word to describe “happy” and instead use it in its modern context? Time to stop playing games and just say what you mean.

By: Bad Boy Scientist

Bad Boy Scientist — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 00:59:34 +0000

Speaking as a scientist who uses empirical evidence to study physical phenomena, I am skeptical – Dr Schermer’s seems to link morality with freedom, justice & truth. All four of those terms are intangibles and very hard to pin down (ask a Philosopher) so how in the world do we find empirical evidence regarding any of them? I cannot tell if he speaks wisdom or non-sense.

Take one of those intangibles: freedom. When one asserts to me, “We have more freedoms today than we did 100 years ago.” I reply “How do you measure that? Is there some sort of ‘Freedometer’ that objectively measures freedom or is this another case of ‘I know it when I see it’? ”

Certainly some Americans have more freedom but all have lost some freedom over the same interval of time. Today we have universal suffrage and the Civil Rights Act but we also have the War of Drugs (and the erosion of the Bill of Rights it brought with it). How can we show, empirically, that our aggregate freedom is greater today than it was back then?

It is fine for Reverends to talk of Freedom, Justice and Moral Arcs – that is their domain – but we empiricists need to invent Freedometers, Justice-scopes, and Moral detectors before we can speak seriously on the topic.

By: Burton Brunson

Burton Brunson — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 23:50:00 +0000

I’m a fair athlete, not a great one, or even a really good one. But, maybe I could make it in the NFL, if I were 7 feet tall. I have a legal and moral right to be seven feet tall. By current standards, I’m 72 inches tall. If we redefine a foot as being 10 inches long, I;d be 7’2″ — maybe I could make it in the NFL. Suppose I were in a position of great power, where I could redefine a foot as 10 inches. Think what that would do to engineering, architecture, almost everything. Would I be wrong in issuing such a decree? But I have a right to be seven feet tall.
A skeptic might note “Sit down, Burt, you’re barely six feet.” I’m barely six feet because the world lives in the past, defining a foot in obsolete terms. I have a right to be seven feet. The world should be changed to suit me.
To some people, including me, this comment is not nearly as silly as the proposition that hundreds of millions of people must revise their vocabularies to suit a relatively small group that has easy other options to achieve their reasonable goals.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 21:46:56 +0000

@retired. In most of my graduate-level classes moral reasoning is based on feelings. Professors often encourage students to develop feelings-based arguments in class debates. I even had one student want to hit me because I scoffed when he said “all data is made up by rich white men and therefore meaningless”. Serious. I wonder if it’s just my institution or academia in general.

By: retired urologist

retired urologist — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 14:52:59 +0000

“It is no longer acceptable to simply assert your moral beliefs; you have to provide reasons for them, and those reasons had better be grounded in rational arguments and empirical evidence or else they will likely be ignored or rejected.”

I wish this were true. Perhaps you are surrounded primarily by intellectuals and academics.

By: Joseph J. Clay

Joseph J. Clay — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 04:08:11 +0000

Martin Luther King was a Mason, and he is an example for all the people who fight for the Human Rights