Comparing religious and scientific worldviews

How does Vegan fit in? Vegan is…scientific?

Reply to Truth Seeker Science only works with what we can detect with instruments. Its conclusions are limited to that. It is mute about the basis of existence and key philosophical questions.

Quoting DingoJones

How does Vegan fit in? Vegan is…scientific?

Veganism is based on evidence, reason and empathy. Evidence shows that other organisms are sentient, e.g. cows, dogs, cats, fish, octopuses, elephants, lions, meerkats, zebras, horses, monkeys, chimps, chickens, whales, dolphins, goats, ducks, lambs, turkeys, lobsters, etc. They all respond to pain, the way we respond to pain. They have sophisticated nervous systems. I empathise with the pain and distress of all sentient beings. That's why I am a vegan. Non-vegans cause suffering and death to 80 billion sentient land organisms and 1 to 3 trillion sentient aquatic organisms per year. Veganism is also better for the environment and for human health. Here is more information about reasons to go vegan: https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan

Quoting Punshhh

Science only works with what we can detect with instruments. Its conclusions are limited to that. It is mute about the basis of existence and key philosophical questions.

Beautifully said - and I completely agree. Science excels at mapping what happens and how it happens, but not why anything matters. Instruments can register particles, forces, and correlations, but not value, significance, or moral responsibility. Those arise in the first-person field of experience that science must presuppose but cannot exhaust.

For me, that’s exactly where philosophy begins - not in competition with science but as its horizon of intelligibility. Science describes the measurable; philosophy interprets the meaning of measurement. When I speak of Compassionism as a metaphysical condition, I’m not proposing an alternative physics but pointing to the fact that inquiry itself presupposes care: the desire to know, to reduce error, to communicate truth, are all ethical acts. Even science rests on a covenant of trust and cooperation - the minimal compassion of minds working together in a shared world.

So yes, science is mute about the basis of existence, but its very success depends on that silent ground: the lived, ethical, and relational world that gives data its sense. In that light, compassion isn’t opposed to reason - it’s the precondition of reason’s continuity. Without care for truth, evidence, or one another, even science would collapse into noise.

Reply to Truth Seeker :up: :up:
Quoting Truth Seeker

Summary

Every major religion offers mutually exclusive [non]explanations of the universe’s origin, purpose, and future.

Science, using observation, testing, and revision, provides a consistent and independently [s]verifiable[/s] [testable] picture:

Universe: 13.8 billion years old

Earth: 4.54 billion years old

Life evolved gradually through natural processes

Consciousness arises from neurological activities, not supernatural souls.

Therefore, while religious faiths differ irreconcilably in beliefs, scientific cosmology and biology converge on a single evidence-based worldview - one that continues to expand through discovery rather than divine decree.

Hence, my [s]worldview[/s] is scientific, secular and vegan.

:100:

What is your [s]worldview[/s]?

"My [s]worldview[/s]" consists of (A) anti-supernatural, (B) anti-authoritarian/sectarian/utopian, and (C) anti-dogmatic commitments (i.e. constraints) ...

(2022)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/798898

How do you justify your [s]worldview[/s]?

I think 'pragmatic absurdism' (re: Laozi ... Zapffe, Camus, Rosset) best describes my day to day existential stance.

Reply to 180 Proof Thank you very much for answering my question. It's always fascinating to learn how others see reality.

Quoting DingoJones

How does Vegan fit in? Vegan is…scientific?

Hypocrite. Human being is an omnivore. We aren't herbivores.

But if you have a better consciousness and feel better about yourself, why not?

Quoting Truth Seeker

What is your worldview? How do you justify your worldview?

That I don't know everything interesting I would want to know and hence are open to new ideas and fact. Hopefully, at least, that's my "hypocrite" way I think of myself.

Quoting ssu

Hypocrite. Human being is an omnivore. We aren't herbivores.

Huh? II’m a hypocrite or a vegan is?

Quoting ssu

But if you have a better consciousness and feel better about yourself, why not?

Not sure what point you're making.

Reply to DingoJones Humans are omnivores, not herbivores.

Reply to ssu Humans evolved as omnivores, but we are not obligate omnivores. There are many vegetarians and vegans among humans. I am a vegan. Who are you calling a hypocrite? Here are some resources if you want to learn more: https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan
https://veganuary.com
https://www.carnismdebunked.com

Quoting Truth Seeker

Who are you calling a hypocrite?

Veganism is an option as you said, but it's not based on science, but moral choices. But then perhaps I misunderstood your OP in that veganism is basically your values. Values aren't based on science as in science things are true/exist or false/don't exist, not right or wrong. That's why the reference to having a better consciousness and feel better about yourself when choosing veganism, when vegetarianism seems not to be enough for you.

Reply to ssu Thank you for explaining what you mean. Veganism is based on scientific evidence, reason and empathy. Evidence shows that other organisms are sentient, e.g. cows, dogs, cats, fish, octopuses, elephants, lions, meerkats, zebras, horses, monkeys, chimps, chickens, whales, dolphins, goats, ducks, lambs, turkeys, lobsters, etc. They all respond to pain, the way we respond to pain. They have sophisticated nervous systems. I empathise with the pain and distress of all sentient beings.

Why vegetarian isn't enough
The suffering caused by the dairy and egg industry is possibly less well publicised than the plight of factory farmed animals. The production of dairy products necessitates the death of countless male calves that are of no use to the dairy farmer, as well as the premature death of cows slaughtered when their milk production decreases. Similarly, in egg production, even 'ethical' or 'free range' eggs involve the killing of the 'unnecessary' male chicks when just a day old.

That's why I am a vegan.

Quoting ssu

Humans are omnivores, not herbivores.

Uh huh, i didnt claim other wise you are confused. Not a vegan.

Reply to Truth Seeker As a choice of an individual, veganism works fine. I myself think that a balanced diet is totally fine too. Perhaps 1-3% of people are vegans. So it is quite understandable, that as a tiny minority, the world isn't going to play by vegan rules. In my world view humans are just very intelligent animals thanks to an advanced language, writing etc. Still, we are a part of ecology of this world part of the animal kingdom, not separate from it. That's also based on scientific evidence, but I understand that others will make a divide between humans and everything else. Yet obviously we have to take care of the planet when we control it. Likely as we will see in the future a peak in human population and the a decrease in the population, we aren't such a danger to the world as some think we are.

But let's think about this for a while.

What value you give to let's say to the life and existence of Ayshire and Holstein cows in the world?

They do exist and live (or are raised), for example, near my summer place. There aren't so many of them around anymore, as there's only one farm with dairy cattle. In my youth decades ago two close neighbors had cattle and I myself sometimes helped to herd the cows from the field to the cowshed with the neighbors family. Every one had a name, btw, but naturally the cowshed wasn't as "luxurious" as let's say the modern cowshed of the University of Helsinki with large open spaces and automatic milking stations. When my great grandmother lived, there were horses, cows and chicken in their home too (now my summerplace), because the roots of Finnish agriculture were still mainly subsistence farming (well into the 20th Century). Now those cowsheds and fields around my summerplace are empty (but the fields are at least still cultivated), basically because of globalization. The neighbors mother (now a grandmother) is sad that her grandchildren never had animals around them in their childhood.

Just to put things into perspective, here's just how cows in general compare to us humans and for example to wild mammals:



Now if some global dictator would define that everybody has to be vegan, the "Maoist" version would cause a mass extinction event not only in mammals, but also in birds and fish (let's not forget that half of the fish we eat in the planet are farmed too) and a hectic time for slaughterhouses and a lot of biomass to be burned for energy to make electricity, I guess. As American get about 30% of their calories from animal-based food, that's a huge change which drastically changes the economy. Naturally the more "humane" transformation would be to replace the domesticated animals we have had for over 10 000 years with lab-grown meat, which I presume vegans wouldn't eat, but tolerate, and let all the billions of living being just end their life without growing a new generations. Yet that too would end up in a mass extinction event.

If you argue that Holstein or Ayshire cows shouldn't exist because of their plight or their short life, usually 5 years compared to 20 years they would live, the question is if that short life is still worth to exist? Animal cruelty I object also and the "living standards" of farm animals have improved a lot, which is good. Yet is there any inherent value in the life of our domesticated animals?

Only about 1% of the 8.25 billion humans currently alive are vegan even though the word vegan was coined 81 years ago. 80 billion sentient land organisms and 1 to 3 trillion sentient aquatic organisms are killed by non-vegans per year. Despite this, I don't think people should be forced to go vegan. I think conversion to veganism should be voluntary.

There are sanctuaries for animals where rescued animals live out their natural lives. Holstein and Ayshire cows could be moved to such sanctuaries.

If all people gradually become vegan, farmers won't breed animals for slaughter or milk or egg, etc. I think gradual change is easier to manage.

Quoting Truth Seeker

There are sanctuaries for animals where rescued animals live out their natural lives. Holstein and Ayshire cows could be moved to such sanctuaries.

You didn't answer my question.

OK, just look at these Holsteins and Ayshire cows. They have been bread to produce milk and basically are as dependent on us humans as all the pets we have and basically aren't there for surviving in the wild. What sanctuary are you thinking of?

Then, as the graph above depicts clearly, there's multiple times more livestock than there are wild mammals and thus "creating a sanctuary" for all that livestock is quite an ordeal. So if you assume that then there's these sanctuaries (likely the farms that they already are in, for practical purposes) that "they live out their natural lives", then you really have to answer the question: how many do you assume to reproduce? None? That's a mass extinction event. A few? There's something like 22 million Holstein cows now in 160 countries. So would the number be 5 000 Holsteins kept in a museum-sanctuary describing that pre-vegan era human farmed animals? Or just 500?

So let me as the question again. What is the value of the life of livestock including the 22 million Holstein cows for you? Do these animals, according to you, suffer in their life so much they don't even earn those five years of life at all? That they shouldn't exist because of your values?

Reply to ssu I thought I did answer your question. My answer is to put them in sanctuaries such as this one: https://www.farmanimalrescuesanctuary.co.uk All sentient beings matter equally.

You’re raising a fair logistical question, but it’s built on a mistaken premise. Veganism isn’t about retroactively erasing all domesticated animals - it’s about ending the breeding, exploitation, and killing of sentient beings for profit or palate.

Holsteins and Ayrshires, like dogs or cats, were selectively bred by humans to serve human ends. That doesn’t mean their dependence makes their exploitation ethically acceptable. Dependence isn’t consent. We created that dependence through artificial selection; we can end it responsibly through gradual, compassionate transition.

Sanctuaries are not meant to house all existing livestock. If the demand for dairy and meat declines, so does forced breeding. Populations shrink naturally over time, as fewer animals are brought into existence for human use. That’s not “mass extinction” - it’s the end of an industrial breeding cycle that exists only because humans perpetuate it.

And yes, the lives of most livestock are filled with suffering - separation from their young, physical mutilations, confinement, and slaughter at a fraction of their natural lifespan. The fact that humans created these conditions doesn’t make them justified. If beings are bred into existence primarily to be used and killed, their suffering outweighs the value of their artificially imposed existence.

Vegan ethics doesn’t deny that these animals have value; it insists that their value isn’t dependent on their usefulness to us. The goal is not zero cows - it’s zero exploitation.

In nature, cows can live around twenty to twenty-five years, but in farming, beef cows are typically killed between one and three years old, and dairy cows between four and six, once their milk yield declines. Veal calves are slaughtered at only four to six months old. Pigs can live fifteen to twenty years, yet “meat pigs” are killed at five to six months, and breeding sows after just three to five years when their fertility drops. Sheep and lambs have natural lifespans of ten to twelve years, but most lambs are slaughtered between four and twelve months, while adult sheep used for wool or breeding are killed around six to eight years. Chickens naturally live eight to ten years, but broiler chickens are slaughtered at only five to seven weeks, and egg-laying hens are killed after about twelve to eighteen months when their egg production declines. Male chicks, considered useless for egg production, are usually killed on the day they hatch. Turkeys can live around ten years, yet most are killed between four and six months. Goats can live fifteen to eighteen years, but dairy goats are killed after about four to six years, and meat goats - often called “kids” - between three and twelve months. Buffalo and oxen can live around twenty to twenty-five years, but they are usually slaughtered between three and six years old.

In every case, these animals die long before reaching even a small fraction of their natural lifespan. Veganism questions whether shortening and exploiting sentient lives for taste, tradition, or convenience can ever be morally justified. The issue is not the number of animals alive, but whether beings capable of suffering should exist only to be used and killed.

Quoting Truth Seeker

We created that dependence through artificial selection; we can end it responsibly through gradual, compassionate transition.

So your answer is to end them. With a "gradual, compassionate transition". You want these breeds to be erased, but are "compassionate" about it.

In this view you seem to put a lower value on animals that have been bread by humans than to other wildlife. Why the hostility and the categorical inequality between sentient animals? Or how about reindeer? They were domesticated from Mountain reindeer in the 13th Century in Norway and since them have roamed around freely in the tundra here in the Nordic Lapland. But since we have domesticated them and eat their meat (which is one of the most healthiest meats around as reindeer have a hugely varied diet with hundreds of different plants), I guess according to you the 200 000 or reindeer have to go too.

Quoting Truth Seeker

In every case, these animals die long before reaching even a small fraction of their natural lifespan.

Five years out of 20 years isn't a small fraction. And do note that not all live up to 20 years in the wild, just as not all humans reach 75 years.

I think your point is something that is very popular with many people: they make this huge and all-encompassing separation with humans and the wildlife/biosphere being totally different from us. Seems like everything we have touched is contaminated and has to deposed of. With vegans it's about animals, but with others it's foreign species introduced to new environments by humans. Of course this can be destabilizing, when you introduce some species that doesn't have anything eating it or limiting it's expanse. But in many cases the introduction isn't so bad, especially when the plant or animal is basically cultivated or farmed. Yet I don't share this view of humans being different from everything else as I think we are part of the biosphere and just a dominant species among others and what we do is similar to other species that mold their environment. That doesn't mean that we don't have a responsibility, naturally.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Hence, my worldview is scientific, secular and vegan. What is your worldview? How do you justify your worldview?

I live by my intuition and don't really justify my views. I am an atheist and tend to hold simple minded pragmatic positions on most subjects. For now I hold that reality isn’t fixed or fully knowable. Our experience of the world is shaped by the ways we interpret and describe it, and probably not by any underlying objective structure. We can never capture the “whole truth” because reality is always more complex than any explanation. I try to focus instead on understanding the limits of my knowledge and the frameworks I use to make sense of the world.

Reply to ssu

"So your answer is to end them. With a "gradual, compassionate transition". You want these breeds to be erased, but are "compassionate" about it."

No - not “erased,” but retired. Compassionate transition means no longer breeding animals into dependence, suffering, and slaughter. The individuals alive today would be cared for in sanctuaries. What ends is the cycle of artificial breeding for exploitation, not the existence of animals themselves.

If we stop forcing billions of animals into existence only to kill them young, that is not hostility - it’s the cessation of harm. A being who never suffers or dies because we never bred them into bondage isn’t a victim; it’s a harm prevented.

"In this view you seem to put a lower value on animals that have been bred by humans than to other wildlife. Why the hostility and the categorical inequality between sentient animals? Or how about reindeer?"

There’s no hostility toward any sentient being - only opposition to exploitation. I already said in my previous post: all sentient beings matter equally. The ethical distinction isn’t between “wild” and “domesticated,” but between free existence and forced breeding for human exploitation.

Reindeer who roam freely in tundra ecosystems and maintain natural behaviors are not comparable to cows or chickens bred into total dependency, mutilation, and slaughter. The moral issue arises when we breed sentient beings solely as resources to be exploited. If reindeer were no longer bred for consumption but allowed to live and die naturally, that would align perfectly with veganism and ecological balance.

"Five years out of 20 years isn't a small fraction. And do note that not all live up to 20 years in the wild, just as not all humans reach 75 years."

A lifespan cut short by deliberate violence at the hands of humans is fundamentally different from a natural lifespan limited by disease or predation. Factory-farmed cows typically live 4–6 years; their natural lifespan averages 18–25. Chickens are killed at 6 weeks, not 6–10 years. Pigs at 6 months, not 15–20 years. The ethical objection isn’t numerical - it’s that we prematurely and deliberately end sentient lives for unnecessary reasons, when alternatives exist. It's not just the issue of reduced lifespan - the quality of life the farm animals have is horrific. You can search for videos online if you want to see the appalling conditions the chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows, etc. are kept in.

"I don’t share this view of humans being different from everything else as I think we are part of the biosphere and just a dominant species among others and what we do is similar to other species that mold their environment."

We are part of the biosphere, and precisely because of that, our moral awareness gives us greater responsibility, not exemption. Wolves don’t have slaughterhouses, nor do tigers selectively breed prey species for maximal suffering and yield. Ethical agency differentiates might from right.

Saying “we’re just another species” is true biologically but not morally. Other animals act from instinct; humans act with foresight, reflection, and the capacity to choose compassion over cruelty. Recognizing our participation in nature should lead us to minimize unnecessary harm, not rationalize it.

Reply to Tom Storm Thank you very much for sharing your position. It's always interesting to learn how others view reality.

Quoting Truth Seeker

I already said in my previous post: all sentient beings matter equally. The ethical distinction isn’t between “wild” and “domesticated,” but between free existence and forced breeding for human exploitation.

My point is that when we are responsible for the species and the ecology, we have to make decisions that you seem not to think that don't have to be made. Veganism as a choice of an individual surely doesn't have to answer to these issues, but others have to do it.

Quoting Truth Seeker

There’s no hostility toward any sentient being - only opposition to exploitation. I already said in my previous post: all sentient beings matter equally.

You're not making sense. How can you even say that you are treating animals equally when you are hell bent on eradicating all livestock and farm animals? That's billions of animals. That "they would die of old age" isn't as humane as you think it is, just like it wouldn't have made less diabolical the genocidal objectives of the Nazi if they would just had separated every male and female [/i]Untermensch[i] there exists and let them die of old age. We would naturally call it a genocide and that the people would be treated more humanely than being slaughtered doesn't make the end result morally better.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Reindeer who roam freely in tundra ecosystems and maintain natural behaviors are not comparable to cows or chickens bred into total dependency, mutilation, and slaughter.

Well, they are killed in the end. So what's different? You think every cow or chicken that has ever lived has been treated cruelly? And because of this they, as animals, shouldn't exist? You truly are drawing dramatic lines on just what species is worthy of living based on their treatment and their connection to humans and then denying this, which is very confusing.

Quoting Truth Seeker

If reindeer were no longer bred for consumption but allowed to live and die naturally, that would align perfectly with veganism and ecological balance.

OK, let's think this through.

We know how an "ecological balance" comes about. So your argument would be simply to "let nature take care of the reindeer". Knowing how fragile the Nordic tundra is, that is a recipe for disaster. Now when the reindeer would be left wander on without any supervision and let them freely have offspring, then the amount of them would likely multiply because there simply aren't enough predators around to eat them. For example, just in Finland there are 200 000 reindeer. In one year, they multiply to 300 000 and hence roughly 100 000 are slaughtered annually and the population is kept at a steady 200 000. Predators eat roughly 2000 of them annually and about 3000 of them die in traffic accidents (because they are smart animals, they use the few roads in Lapland as it's more easy to move on them than in the marshy forests and the reindeer lick the salt used to de-ice the roads). Yet that's a small dent in the 100 000 newborn population annually.

Reality for drivers in Finnish Lapland. No need for English translation, the other Finn is pissed off and cursing about the traffic jam, the other one takes it humorously:


So you can easily see how in just a few years, reindeers would be a huge problem when reindeer increase substantially. Of course, the "ecological balance" would be found with the millions reindeer eating the tundra bare land and then dying in numbers in a famine in the millions. In the end, some kind of "balance" could perhaps be the outcome, but the fragile tundra would have gotten a severe beating with likely many plants species becoming extinct.

The introduction of rabbits into Australia shows what happens when there aren't enough predators around.



Simply put it, when we have molded the biosphere as we, we have to take care of it. And taking care means that we have to anticipate what results our actions have. The simplistic ideology of do not harm animals and let them be isn't going to work here, because the "hands off" approach is a horrible decision and to "have some of them die of old age" has also huge consequences. The ideology is simply not taking at all into consideration what it would mean when taken as an universal law.

Reply to ssu

My point is that when we are responsible for the species and the ecology, we have to make decisions that you seem not to think that don't have to be made. Veganism as a choice of an individual surely doesn't have to answer to these issues, but others have to do it.

I agree that humans have responsibilities toward species and ecosystems - but responsibility does not mean perpetual exploitation. It means stewardship guided by compassion, sustainability, and reduction of harm. Ending industrial breeding doesn’t mean abandoning animals; it means stopping the practice of creating billions of dependents for slaughter while maintaining ecological management through non-lethal and science-based methods.

Ecological management already exists without animal agriculture - through habitat restoration, rewilding, and fertility control programs. These are evidence-based tools used in conservation biology to prevent both overpopulation and collapse.

You're not making sense. How can you even say that you are treating animals equally when you are hell bent on eradicating all livestock and farm animals? That's billions of animals. That "they would die of old age" isn't as humane as you think it is... like genocide...

That analogy collapses immediately. Genocide is the intentional destruction of existing sentient beings who wish to live. Ending breeding is the prevention of future suffering through non-creation of victims. There is no killing, coercion, or hatred involved - only a refusal to keep breeding sentient beings for exploitation.

To be precise: veganism seeks non-existence of forced reproduction, not extermination of living animals. The animals alive today would continue to exist, cared for until natural death. What stops is the endless pipeline of artificial insemination, confinement, and slaughter.

Well, they are killed in the end. So what's different? You think every cow or chicken that has ever lived has been treated cruelly? And because of this they, as animals, shouldn't exist?

The difference is moral agency. Killing sentient beings for unnecessary reasons when we have alternatives is harm we choose. A lion killing a gazelle acts from survival necessity; humans killing cows for taste and tradition do not.

The issue is not whether every individual animal has been mistreated, but that their entire existence is designed around premature death and deprivation of freedom. Creating beings solely to kill them is incompatible with the claim that their lives “matter equally.”

If we truly value them equally, we stop breeding them into systems that guarantee suffering and death. That’s the moral consistency veganism seeks.

So your argument would be simply to "let nature take care of the reindeer"... In just a few years, reindeers would be a huge problem... famine... fragile tundra... rabbits in Australia...

You’ve built a strawman version of the position. “Let nature take care of it” does not mean “abandon all ecological management.” Vegan ethics does not entail passivity - it calls for active, non-exploitative stewardship.

In the case of reindeer, population control through non-lethal immunocontraception, controlled rewilding, and habitat management can maintain balance without slaughter. Such programs are already used worldwide - for example, in managing wild horse and deer populations humanely.

Moreover, invoking the rabbit invasion in Australia is misleading. Rabbits were an invasive species in a non-native ecosystem with no natural predators. Reindeer in Nordic regions are native herbivores that have co-evolved with their environment; their numbers can be ethically stabilized without turning them into products.

The deeper point: ecological complexity requires thoughtful transition, not resignation to the status quo of killing. Saying “the only way to keep balance is to slaughter” is an admission of moral imagination failure. We can do better - and we must.

The simplistic ideology of do not harm animals and let them be isn't going to work here...

It’s not simplistic - it’s principled. “Do not harm unnecessarily” is the foundation of every serious moral system, from medicine to law. The fact that transitioning to non-violence requires planning doesn’t invalidate the principle; it simply means the transition must be intelligent, phased, and context-sensitive.

Veganism is not a naive “hands-off” ideology; it’s an ethical framework that prioritizes minimizing preventable harm while adapting human systems - agriculture, conservation, and culture - to reflect that goal.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Genocide is the intentional destruction of existing sentient beings who wish to live. Ending breeding is the prevention of future suffering through non-creation of victims. There is no killing, coercion, or hatred involved - only a refusal to keep breeding sentient beings for exploitation.

Reproduction and breeding aren't synonyms. Ending the ability for an animal species or plant species to reproduce does mean extinction, which you seem to be in denial on how cruel that is. And what you are basically saying that exploitation of a domesticated species is a just cause for extinction and eradication of that species. And yet you declare you draw no differences on animals and then argue for extinction of large animal populations ...all in the name of preventing suffering, when your are at the same instant making dramatically huge lines on just what animals deserve to exist what don't deserve to.

Again, I would totally agree on the improvement on the life quality of farm animals, yet the insistence on on the extinction of all farm animals seems like a sinister ideology in sheeps clothing.

Quoting Truth Seeker

You’ve built a strawman version of the position. “Let nature take care of it” does not mean “abandon all ecological management.” Vegan ethics does not entail passivity - it calls for active, non-exploitative stewardship. - In the case of reindeer, population control through non-lethal immunocontraception, controlled rewilding, and habitat management can maintain balance without slaughter.

Finally some hints that you are getting to my point with "non-exploitative stewardship". So we both understand and accept that there must be that stewardship that humans do with the environment and the various species. Yet that isn't a strawman argument. Letting nature take care of it means that humans don't interfere at all with the process. Stewardship means that you are taking an active role in the supervision and care taking of something.

Yet what is the real difference between "non-exploitative stewardship" and exploitative stewardship or just ordinary stewardship? And again, just to make it clear, sterilization isn't so morally humane as you promote it to be.

And anyway, veganism is, as you said, something that 1% of the population adhers to. You might think that you are part of the bold vanguard of people, but then we don't have a stomach like herbivores and a balance healthy diet contains a small part of meat, which accepted by the vast majority of people. If you want to change that, it's very difficult in a democracy. That we don't do manual work as much as before, we don't seem to have a reason for a high calorie diet.

Quoting Truth Seeker

What is your worldview? How do you justify your worldview?

Assuming the following to be true, "Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives.” ? Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.

My worldview seeks to address that primary motivation. How is a microscope a better tool for that than religion?

Reply to Hanover
Wasn't Frankl's point that you have to provide yourself with purpose?

Reply to ssu You are still conflating extinction by killing with extinction by non-creation, and that confusion is doing most of the work in your critique.

Genocide is the destruction of existing sentient beings who wish to live. Ending breeding does not destroy anyone. It prevents new individuals from being deliberately brought into systems where exploitation, confinement, mutilation, and premature death are structurally guaranteed. No victims are created, therefore none are harmed.

Calling that “cruel” empties the word of meaning. Cruelty requires a subject who is made to suffer. Non-creation has no subject.

“You are basically saying exploitation of a domesticated species is a just cause for extinction.”

No. Exploitation is a reason to stop producing victims. Domesticated farm animals are not natural species with independent ecological roles; they are human-engineered populations bred into dependence for human use. Ending their forced reproduction is not eradication - it is refusing to continue a harm-creating practice.

You also accuse me of “drawing lines about which animals deserve to exist.” That is false. No animal is judged unworthy of existence. The claim is simpler and more precise: no sentient being is owed creation, and no human has the right to manufacture lives for instrumental ends.

That is not sinister. What is sinister is treating perpetual breeding, confinement, and slaughter as morally neutral while recoiling at the idea of letting exploitative lineages peacefully phase out.

On stewardship: you are right that “letting nature take care of it” and stewardship are not identical - and I never claimed they were.

The distinction you’re missing is this:

* Exploitative stewardship manages beings for human benefit (meat, profit, labor, control).
* Non-exploitative stewardship manages systems to reduce suffering and respect interests, without ownership, commodification, or killing.

Sterilization and immunocontraception are not presented as “pleasant” - they are presented as morally preferable to mass killing, starvation, or ecological collapse. If you think painless fertility control is worse than slaughter, that needs defending - not assumed.

As for the “1% of the population” argument: moral truth is not a popularity contest. Slavery, child labor, marital rape, and animal cruelty were once majority-approved, too. Democracy determines law in democratic countries; it does not determine ethics.

And the biology claim is simply outdated. Humans are nutritional generalists, not obligate carnivores. Every major dietetic body agrees that well-planned plant-based diets are adequate for all stages of life. “We’ve always eaten meat” explains a habit - not a justification.

So let’s be clear:

* Ending breeding ? genocide
* Non-creation ? harm
* Stewardship ? exploitation
* Majority belief ? moral correctness

If the goal is to minimize suffering without creating new victims, then refusing to keep breeding sentient beings into guaranteed harm is not extremist - it is morally consistent.

If you want to challenge that, the challenge has to engage those claims directly, not replace them with darker versions they never asserted.

Reply to Hanover You’re invoking Viktor Frankl correctly - but then you quietly switch questions.

Frankl argued that humans seek meaning. He did not argue that meaning must come from religion, nor that religion has epistemic priority over other tools for understanding reality or guiding ethics.

A microscope is not a competitor to religion. It answers different questions.

A microscope tells us what is the case about the world. Meaning-making systems (religious or secular) address how we ought to live given what is the case.

Confusing those domains is a category error.

What is my worldview?

In plain terms: naturalistic, sentient-centered, compassion-based.

* Reality operates according to discoverable physical processes.
* Sentient beings experience suffering and flourishing.
* Reducing unnecessary suffering and enabling flourishing is morally primary.
* Meaning is constructed through values, commitments, and action - not discovered as a cosmic decree by allegedly omniscient and omnipotent God or Gods who don't show up for a discussion despite being allegedly real. I am not convinced that God or Gods exist. If they ever show up, I will be happy to speak with them about truth and ethics. All omniscient and omnipotent beings (if they exist) are omniculpable thanks to their omniscience and omnipotence. I am convinced that every sentient being (biological, technological and hybrid) has an unconditional right to exist, flourish, and not be coerced.

That already answers Frankl’s insight: meaning arises from responsibility, care, and chosen purpose, not from metaphysical guarantees.

How is my worldview justified?

By coherence, evidence, and moral accountability.

Religion makes three claims that my worldview does not need:

1. That meaning must be externally imposed.
2. That moral authority requires the supernatural.
3. That existential comfort justifies epistemic shortcuts.

Those claims are not self-validating. They require justification - and historically, they’ve been used as often to excuse harm as to inspire care.

Frankl himself survived a death camp and still rejected the idea that meaning depends on belief in God. Meaning, for him, was found in how one responds to suffering, not in theological explanations for it.

Why not religion?

Because religion answers the meaning question by exempting itself from scrutiny.

* It explains suffering by reframing it as “purposeful.”
* It grounds ethics in authority rather than consequences.
* It demands assent before evidence.

That may feel comforting, but comfort is not the same as truth - and moral seriousness requires facing suffering without mythological insulation.

Humans need meaning.
Meaning does not need religion.
And no worldview earns credibility merely by soothing existential anxiety.

If your worldview gives meaning without requiring false beliefs, without excusing harm, and without placing any beings beyond moral concern, then it is not only sufficient - it is ethically stronger.

If you think religion does better than that, the burden is on religion to show it - not on microscopes to become sermons.

Reply to Truth Seeker Your critique of religion seems a bit superficial. First, you seem to be treating religion as a monolith, but contemplative traditions within each religion and various process theologies don't seem to fit the characterization of "demanding assent before evidence" or "exempting themselves from scrutiny." Plenty of religious thinkers have engaged rigorously with exactly the challenges raised here.

Your claim that religion "grounds ethics in authority rather than consequences" simply assumes consequentialism is the correct metaethical framework—which is itself contested. Virtue ethics, deontology, and care ethics all have secular and religious variants.

You also seem be implying that secular worldviews don't involve unexamined assumptions or provide "mythological insulation." Not only does that seem to be contrary to fact, but also seems to overlook the reality that any moral/metaphysical framework, including secular ones, rests on foundational commitments that can't be justified from outside the system. The claim that "meaning does not need religion" is probably true, but the claim that "meaning doesn't require [I]some[/I] unjustified foundational assumptions" is much harder to defend.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Domesticated farm animals are not natural species with independent ecological roles; they are human-engineered populations bred into dependence for human use. Ending their forced reproduction is not eradication - it is refusing to continue a harm-creating practice.

What about plants them? The plants we eat have been bred for thousands of years. We (or many urban dwellers) hardly eat any wild plants, actually.

In the end I will say this. If you have your ideology and stick to veganism, that's great, you surely have the right to do that and likely you have a healthy diet knowing the supplements you have to take. Yet if you push this, something that 1% of the population adheres to, as for everyone to adapt as a great transformation of the society and assume that everything would go just fine this bombastic plan of retirement homes for all of the Worlds livestock where in the end we waiting which will it be, Maude the cow from Thetford UK or Haru from Japan, that will be the last cow on Earth to die of old age, I beg to differ. I don't we'll reach here any agreement, because it's an utopian idea and basically as devastating as some Pol Pots idea of eradicating urban life, money and making everybody collective farmers.

* * *

Yet I think there's a possible future that might at first seem as answer to your hopes, but actually it isn't. And that's meat processed artificially in a lab.

Now, if that lab meat starts to be dirt cheap, you will know that the no hamburgers at McDonalds and others will come from a living cow...ever. If the production lab meat is one tenth of what a traditional livestock meat, then many people will prefer then the cheaper one. And knowing how corrupt the US food regulation is, health hazards will surely be downplayed. Yet this is the only way that traditional livestock will wither away partly, because of decreased demand, and hence it will become in the long run more costly or simply become the delicatessen of those that can spend it.

Just as with wild plants and plants produced in greenhouses, there's the flavor problem. That there's many for example mushrooms that we simply cannot grow ourselves shows just how limited our understanding of the biosphere is. Something that you cannot know being yourself as vegan, but there's a radical change in taste and in the healthiness when animals are fed with the monotone food of soy and grain or if they eat the variable diet in the wild of many different plants. In fact someone that hasn't any time eaten wild game, the taste will feel likely too strong. You might notice it in the difference in taste of wild berries in the forest near you and berries that you can buy at the Supermarket grown from Egypt/California/somewhere that are larger but less tasty.

Yet unfortunately if that lab meat will be so cheap and easy, perhaps advancing to make even the muscles of sirloin and tenderloin that we know, there is no reason why we wouldn't also get lab plants too. Likely these will be even worse tasting than our greenhouse based plants, but if a bag of artificially manufactured potatoes cost 5 dollars and potatoes grown in soil outside on a farm cost 10 dollars, then which one people will little money to spend will take?

Reply to Esse Quam Videri Esse, thank you for your thoughtful reply. I think you’re blurring distinctions that actually matter.

First, on religion as a monolith:
I agree that religions are internally diverse. Contemplative traditions, process theology, and liberal theology often do engage rigorously with criticism. But that concession cuts both ways. Those traditions tend to depart precisely from the authority-based, dogma-first structure that defines religion as socially practiced. When a religious framework becomes genuinely evidence-responsive, revisable, and non-authoritarian, it increasingly resembles philosophy or spirituality rather than religion in the institutional sense. My critique is aimed at religion as a normative system with protected doctrines, not at every individual thinker who happens to use religious language.

Second, on ethics and consequentialism:
I am not assuming consequentialism is the correct framework. In fact, my own position is closer to a pluralist view that includes care ethics, constraints, and virtues. The issue is not “consequences vs authority” in a narrow utilitarian sense. It’s whether ethical claims are answerable to the lived welfare of sentient beings or insulated by appeal to divine command, revelation, or sacred status. Deontology and virtue ethics can be fully secular and fully accountable to human (and non-human) flourishing. Divine-command versions cannot - because they terminate justification at “God wills it.”

Third, on secular worldviews and foundational assumptions:
You’re right that no framework is assumption-free. But not all assumptions are epistemically equal. There’s a difference between provisional commitments that remain open to revision (e.g. realism about suffering, intersubjective values, empirical facts), and religious beliefs that are exempt from falsification by design.

Calling both “mythological insulation” flattens an important distinction. Secular frameworks typically expect internal critique and external challenge. Religious systems often treat such challenge as moral or spiritual failure.

Finally, on meaning:
I’m not claiming meaning requires zero foundational commitments. I’m claiming it does not require supernatural authority or revealed metaphysics. Meaning can be grounded in relationships, care, creativity, solidarity, and reduction of suffering without positing entities or commands that override moral reasoning when they conflict with compassion.

So, yes, religion can contain sophisticated moral reflection. But when it does, it succeeds despite its appeal to authority, not because of it. And when religious claims collide with the well-being of sentient beings, I see no reason they should receive special immunity from scrutiny.

That, to me, is the crux.

Reply to ssu I think your reply mixes several different issues together, and that’s where the disagreement actually sits.

First: plants vs animals
Yes, plants we eat are also bred by humans. But that is not a parallel case in the morally relevant sense. The ethical concern I’m raising is about sentient beings with subjective experience - beings that can feel pain, fear, deprivation, and frustration of interests. Breeding plants does not create lives capable of suffering. Breeding animals does. That difference isn’t rhetorical; it’s foundational. If we erase that distinction, then all ethics collapses into mere preference. A cow is a sentient being - a plant is not.

Second: “eradication” vs ending a practice
Ending the forced reproduction of domesticated animals is not analogous to Pol Pot or social engineering catastrophes. That comparison is doing emotional work, not ethical work. No one is proposing killing existing animals. The proposal is to stop deliberately creating sentient beings for the purpose of exploiting and killing them. If a harmful practice ends and the population that depends on that practice naturally declines, that is not eradication - it is moral discontinuation.

Third: the “retirement home” caricature
No serious vegan ethicist thinks every cow, chicken, or sheep must be maintained indefinitely. That framing assumes a binary: either exploit them and murder them or preserve them forever. That’s a false dilemma. Animals in sanctuaries will naturally die when their lifespan has come to an end. Transitional care for existing animals followed by non-reproduction is ethically coherent and practically manageable over time, especially compared to the ongoing global cost of industrial animal agriculture.

Fourth: lab-grown meat
Here we largely agree on the trajectory, but not the interpretation. Cultivated meat is not a refutation of vegan ethics - it is evidence that society is already trying to escape the moral and environmental costs of animal farming without confronting them explicitly. If meat can be produced without breeding, confining, and killing sentient beings, then the ethical objection to meat-as-such largely dissolves. What remains is a question of resource use, health, and access - not animal harm.

And yes, corporations will downplay risks. That’s a regulatory problem which can be solved. It's not a moral defense of animal exploitation.

Fifth: taste, wildness, and “biospheric loss”
You’re absolutely right that industrialization flattens flavor, diversity, and ecological richness. But that critique cuts against animal agriculture, not in its favor. Monocropped soy and grain feeding billions of confined animals is one of the most ecologically impoverishing systems humans have ever created. Wild game tastes different precisely because it is not produced by that system - but scaling “wildness” to billions of humans is a physical impossibility, not a moral option.

Finally: poverty and cheap artificial food
You’re naming a real concern: cost pressures will push people toward cheaper, more artificial foods - plant or animal. But again, that’s not an argument for continuing a practice that systematically inflicts suffering. It’s an argument for better food systems, better regulation, and justice-focused transitions, not for maintaining harm because alternatives are imperfect. I recommend that we implement a Universal Basic Income and Facilities (e.g. free accommodation, healthcare, education, etc.) for all humans. This will end poverty globally.

This isn’t utopianism. It’s harm minimization under constraints. We already accept that we should stop doing things once we realize they cause massive, avoidable harm, even if the transition is messy. Ending slavery didn’t require a perfect alternative economy first. Ending child labor didn’t wait for ideal conditions. Ending animal exploitation doesn’t either.

We may not reach agreement - that’s fine. But dismissing the position as “utopian” sidesteps the central question rather than answering it:
If we can meet human needs without systematically harming sentient beings, why should harm remain the default? That’s the question I’m putting on the table.

Reply to Truth Seeker Thank you for the thoughtful reply, but I feel like there are a few things that you're still not properly reckoning with.

First, I feel that you haven't come to terms with the fact that all institutions, both secular and religious, develop orthodoxies, protect core doctrines, and treat certain challenges as illegitimate. Universities have foundational commitments they don't put up for debate and scientific institutions operate within paradigms that resist revision until crisis forces its hand (per Kuhn). Secular political movements and societies have sacred values that function identically to religious dogma in terms of how heresy is treated (I.e. as moral failure). This is a rather obvious sociological/historical point that I think you'll find difficult to dispute.

Furthermore, I think you're under-appreciating the degree to which religious institutions evolve and revise their fundamental commitments over time. Even the Catholic Church, which is often held up as a paragon of rigid adherence to doctrine, has changed so much that it's ultra-conservative members feel that it has all but abandoned some of its fundamental commitments. You might argue that this evolution often results in the splintering of the community, but this is true of all institutions, not just religious. Inevitably there will always be some who are unwilling to compromise and move in a new direction. Again, this is not unique to religious communities.

Second, I'm guessing that if push-came-to-shove many of your own foundational commitments would prove themselves to be less open to revision and falsification than you pretend them to be. Consider your commitment to "openness to revision" itself - are you open to revising this principle? What kind of evidence could someone offer to change your mind on this point? What about the claim that all ethics should be "answerable to the lived welfare of sentient beings", or that "reduction of suffering" is a foundational good? These are not empirical claims that are subject to falsification. Furthermore, I highly suspect that if you were to found an institution rooted in these values that you'd not have much tolerance for those who substantially question or deviate from them. Most probably you would eject such people from the group rather quickly, or leave to start another group.

Overall it seems that you are just turning a blind-eye to the fact that much of what you criticize within religion is not, in fact, unique to religion but seems to be inherent to the human condition.

Reply to Truth Seeker By the way, what happened to your OP? Why doesn't it show up on the forum's main page?

Quoting Truth Seeker

Animals in sanctuaries will naturally die when their lifespan has come to an end.

No, they will reproduce. You have to intervene for them to do what is the most natural thing for living things doing.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Cultivated meat is not a refutation of vegan ethics - it is evidence that society is already trying to escape the moral and environmental costs of animal farming without confronting them explicitly.

Hypocrite bullshit: Commercial enterprises aren't interested in moral ethics about eating meat, they are doing this for profit. But feel free to go with the advertising.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Monocropped soy and grain feeding billions of confined animals is one of the most ecologically impoverishing systems humans have ever created. Wild game tastes different precisely because it is not produced by that system - but scaling “wildness” to billions of humans is a physical impossibility, not a moral option.

I agree. Yet the simple fact is that we don't know all the things what provide the different taste and the healthiness of "wild" food. And that makes myself critical of just how "healthy" artificial food will be.

Again you are totally forgetting what drives our societies and economies: the market mechanism. Yes, you could just eat everything wild, plants and game, and live in a city. Your food budget just would be enormous, likely multiple times of an ordinary family.

Quoting Truth Seeker

It’s an argument for better food systems, better regulation, and justice-focused transitions, not for maintaining harm because alternatives are imperfect.

And I think those are quite important issues, just as is not to be cruel towards animals and part of the biosphere. Just smart animals, but that's it.

Quoting Truth Seeker

I recommend that we implement a Universal Basic Income and Facilities (e.g. free accommodation, healthcare, education, etc.) for all humans. This will end poverty globally.

Again here you go with your incredible hubris. Just who do you think will do this? Just how? Belief in a World government solving everything is extremely naive. The World doesn't work this way. Far better is to think about improvements that actually could be implemented and would get closer to the ideals.

Quoting Truth Seeker

We may not reach agreement - that’s fine. But dismissing the position as “utopian” sidesteps the central question rather than answering it:
If we can meet human needs without systematically harming sentient beings, why should harm remain the default? That’s the question I’m putting on the table.

In life living entities eating other living entities is totally normal and in my view, we are animals.

For you, there is no value in the life of a cow, because you have decided it's existence isn't worth wile, because it suffers. Well, even wildlife suffer, and do have usually a short and nasty life of hunger and disease. But that's OK for you. That's your basic problem and we won't reach an agreement.

But coming back to the actual subject of this thread, your world view is far more religious than scientific, even if you deny it.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri Esse, this is a stronger pushback, and it deserves a stronger reply. I’m going to grant what’s true in it, then draw the distinction I think you’re still blurring.

1) Yes, humans build orthodoxies everywhere. No, that does not make all orthodoxies epistemically or morally equivalent.

You’re right about the sociology: institutions fossilize. Universities have gatekeeping norms; scientific communities have incentives and status hierarchies; political movements develop taboo and heresy; “sacred values” show up in secular life, too. That’s not just plausible - it’s obvious.

But that point, by itself, doesn’t do the work you want it to do. It risks a category flattening:

* “Humans defend group identity” (true)
does not entail
* “Therefore, religious dogma is not distinctively problematic” (not established).

The relevant distinction isn’t “does an institution have orthodoxy?” but what kind of claims form the orthodoxy, and how the orthodoxy is justified and policed.

A scientific paradigm is not immune by design: it’s provisional, prediction-linked, and it faces a built-in external tribunal (reproducible reality) even when humans drag their feet. Kuhn was describing inertia and social dynamics, not endorsing “anything goes.” A paradigm can be sticky without being sacralized. When it finally breaks, it breaks because it stops working.

Religious dogma, in its classic forms, often has a different structure: it is anchored to revelation, sacred texts, sanctified authority, and salvation stakes. That creates a distinctive insulation mechanism:

* disagreement becomes not merely “mistaken,” but sinful, spiritually dangerous, or disloyal;
* core claims are not merely defended, but made holy;
* revision is reframed as “deeper interpretation,” while the protected status remains.

You can find secular analogues, yes. But the existence of analogues doesn’t erase distinctive mechanisms and stakes. It’s like saying, “People can be violent for many reasons, therefore, ideological violence isn’t a distinct pattern.” It’s still a distinct pattern.

So: I grant your sociological point. I deny your implied conclusion that this dissolves the special problem of religious insulation.

2) “Religions evolve too.” Yes. But the key question is how and at what cost.

You’re also right that religious institutions evolve - sometimes dramatically. Even the Catholic Church changes; internal conservatives sometimes feel betrayed; schisms happen; moral progress gets incorporated. I don’t deny any of that.

But again: what follows?

Religions often change because of external moral and epistemic pressure - social movements, scientific knowledge, human-rights norms, historical trauma, political necessity - not because revelation suddenly became evidence-sensitive.

And crucially, in many cases the mechanism looks like this:

1. Society’s moral circle expands.
2. Religious institutions resist.
3. Resistance becomes untenable.
4. Doctrine is reinterpreted to catch up.
5. The tradition claims continuity.

That’s not “religion is incapable of progress.” It’s “religion is not a reliable engine of progress,” because the moral compass is frequently outsourced to the wider culture. Sometimes religion is in front; sometimes behind; but when it’s behind, the sacralization of commitments raises the price of correction.

If your system makes error-correction structurally harder, “it sometimes changes anyway” doesn’t vindicate it. It shows human beings can drag even rigid systems toward decency.

3) The “gotcha” about my foundational commitments misses what I actually claimed.

You ask: am I open to revising “openness to revision”? What evidence could change my mind about suffering being bad, or welfare mattering?

Two points.

(a) Not everything is empirical, but not everything is dogma either.

I never claimed every foundational commitment is empirically falsifiable. That would be naïve. Some commitments are normative (value-claims), and they aren’t “falsified” by data the way a measurement is.

But that doesn’t make them equivalent to revelation-based dogma.

There’s a difference between:

* axioms adopted because they best cohere with shared experience and reduce contradiction (e.g., “suffering counts morally”), and
* axioms adopted because an authority declares them sacred and disobedience is a moral stain (e.g., “X is wrong because God forbids it”).

Normativity isn’t the issue. The issue is whether your normative bedrock is defended by reasons accessible to other minds, or by special authority.

(b) “Open to revision” doesn’t mean “I will abandon any principle on demand.”

Fallibilism is not liquid relativism.

I’m not “pretending” to be revisable while secretly being dogmatic; I’m describing a real distinction:

* Some commitments are revisable in the sense of refinement, scope, and tradeoffs.
* Some are so central that abandoning them collapses the entire project (like “truth matters” in inquiry).

Science itself has this feature. The commitment to evidence is not “falsifiable” by evidence without self-undermining. Yet it’s not religious dogma; it’s a constitutive norm of inquiry. Similarly, “unnecessary suffering is prima facie bad” isn’t an empirical hypothesis, but it is a constitutive moral starting point for any ethics that takes other minds seriously.

If someone says “suffering is good” or “other beings don’t matter,” we can’t refute them with a lab experiment. But we can expose the implication: they’re rejecting the very basis of moral reciprocity. At that point, debate isn’t about “who has the right evidence,” but about whether they are still doing ethics at all (in the sense of offering reasons that could bind anyone beyond their tribe).

4) Would I eject dissenters from a welfare-based institution?

Probably - depending on what “dissent” means. And this is where your argument almost reaches the real point, but stops short.

Every institution has membership criteria. If you join an organization dedicated to disability rights, and you advocate excluding disabled people from public life, you’ll be shown the door. That’s not dogmatism; that’s integrity of purpose.

The deeper difference is what justifies exclusion:

* In dogmatic systems, exclusion often protects identity, authority, or sacred status.
* In welfare-based systems, exclusion protects vulnerable people from harm and preserves a mission justified in publicly shareable reasons.

Yes, both can label dissent as “moral failure.” But the content matters. “You’re morally wrong to harm people” is not the same kind of claim as “you’re morally wrong to doubt our revelation.”

If you collapse those, you end up unable to distinguish abolitionism from inquisitions except as “both are groups with strong beliefs.” That’s too thin to be useful.

5) The human condition point is true - and it supports my critique rather than cancels it.

Your last line is right: much of this is human. Humans seek certainty, belonging, status, and moral cleanliness. We build institutions that protect those needs.

That’s exactly why systems that sacralize authority are dangerous. They take normal human tribal psychology and add:

* cosmic stakes (salvation/damnation),
* sacred texts (hard-to-revise anchors),
* moralized epistemology (doubt as vice),
* and legitimized coercion (historically common).

If human beings are prone to orthodoxy, then we should prefer moral and epistemic frameworks that minimize the damage of that tendency - frameworks that build in error-correction and reduce the incentives to treat dissent as spiritual contamination.

So, I’m not denying human nature. I’m arguing we should design around it.

If we agree that institutions inevitably develop orthodoxies, then the central question becomes:

Which kinds of orthodoxies are least likely to entrench error and least likely to authorize harm when they do?

My claim is: orthodoxies grounded in authority and sacralization are systematically riskier than orthodoxies grounded in public reasons, fallibilism, and accountability to sentient welfare.

If you think that’s wrong, the strongest move isn’t “secular groups do it too.” The strongest move is to show that revelation-anchored, sacralized authority is not more prone to harmful insulation than reason-anchored, publicly contestable frameworks.

That’s the real disagreement.

Quoting Esse Quam Videri

By the way, what happened to your OP? Why doesn't it show up on the forum's main page?

I don't know. My OP is the first post on this page: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/16247/comparing-religious-and-scientific-worldviews/p1

Reply to ssu
1) “Sanctuary animals will reproduce.”

You’re right about the biology: if you put intact males and females together, they can reproduce. My “naturally die” line only holds if sanctuaries are run as actual sanctuaries rather than unmanaged mixed herds.

But here’s the key point: preventing forced reproduction is not some unnatural horror. We already manage reproduction constantly - in pets, in wildlife conservation, in farming itself (artificial insemination, selective breeding, culling, etc.). The whole domesticated-animal system exists because humans intervene in reproduction more than almost any other domain of life.

A vegan transition doesn’t require “retirement homes forever” or letting populations explode. It requires ending deliberate breeding and using humane population management for the remainder:

* separating sexes (common),
* contraception,
* sterilization where appropriate (routine in animal welfare).

Call that “intervention” if you like - it’s intervention to stop making victims, not intervention to keep exploiting them.

So: yes, reproduction must be managed. That doesn’t undermine the ethical argument; it’s part of the practical plan.

2) “Cultivated meat is hypocrite bullshit because it’s profit-driven.”

This is a category mistake. Something can be morally beneficial without being motivated by moral virtue.

Most moral progress in the real world is implemented through mixed motives:

* Businesses switch because it’s cheaper or legal risk changes.
* Politicians act because voters or incentives change.
* Technologies spread because they’re convenient.

That doesn’t make the outcome “advertising.” It makes it how societies actually move.

My point wasn’t “companies are ethical.” My point was: if the market delivers a meat-like product without breeding, confinement, and slaughter, that’s a structural exit ramp from a harm-based system. We can acknowledge corporate cynicism while still valuing harm reduction.

If you want to call that “hypocrisy,” fine, but it’s still a reduction in victims.

3) “We don’t know what makes wild food healthier/taste different; artificial food might be unhealthy.”

Two separate claims here: taste and health.

Taste

Sure. Wild foods taste different because of diet diversity, exercise patterns, stress hormones, muscle structure, species differences, soil microbiomes, harvesting time, post-harvest handling, and so on. We don’t fully model all of it. Agree.

But taste is not a moral defense of harm. “I prefer the flavour” has limits as a justification when the process involves suffering.

Health

You’re right to be cautious about ultra-processed food - whether plant-based or lab-grown. But “we don’t know everything” is not an argument against changing practices; it’s an argument for proper testing, regulation, surveillance, and transparency.

Also, we’re not choosing between “wild, perfect, natural food” vs “lab goo.”

Most people already live on industrialized food systems, including industrial animal products with antibiotics, zoonotic risk, contaminants, and chronic-disease correlations. So the honest comparison is:

* current industrial animal agriculture (with known harms)
vs
* alternative systems we can test and regulate.

Being cautious about new tech is a good idea. Using uncertainty as a blanket permission slip for keeping the status quo isn’t.

4) “You forget the market mechanism.”

I’m not forgetting it. I’m explicitly relying on it where it helps (price, convenience), and calling for regulation where it fails (externalities, worker exploitation, monopoly, misleading health claims).

Markets are powerful at distributing goods, terrible at pricing suffering, ecosystems, and long-term health costs unless forced to.

So yes: people will buy what’s cheap. That’s exactly why a transition strategy should target:

* true cost accounting,
* subsidies shifting away from harm,
* safety regulation,
* making the low-harm option the easiest option.

That isn’t utopian. That’s basic policy reality.

5) “Only smart animals matter… just don’t be cruel.”

If moral status depends on being “smart,” then you’ve built an ethic that can justify harming:

* human infants,
* people with severe cognitive disabilities,
* advanced dementia patients.

You probably don’t want that implication, but it’s there.

A cleaner line is sentience, not intelligence: the capacity to suffer and to have experiences that can go better or worse. That includes cows, pigs, lambs, chickens, fish, octopuses, and many others.

And “don’t be cruel” doesn’t get you out of exploitation. You can be “not cruel” in your tone while still:

* forcibly breeding,
* confining,
* separating mother and offspring,
* killing at a fraction of the natural lifespan.

The harm is structural, not just a matter of cruelty.

6) “UBI and free services globally are hubris; who will do it?”

Global UBI and free accommodation, healthcare and education are politically hard, but I didn't recommend a World government.

But two important clarifications:

1. An idea can be ethically correct and politically difficult.
Calling it “naive” doesn’t show it’s wrong - it shows it’s hard.

2. There’s a non-utopian pathway: incremental, modular, multi-level implementation.
You don’t need a single World government to move toward the principle: “Everyone receives according to needs, and contributes according to abilities.” You can do:

* national UBI pilots ? expansion,
* targeted child benefits,
* universal basic services in specific domains,
* climate/wealth levies,
* regional compacts,
* debt relief and anti-corruption enforcement,
* automatic stabilizers.

If you want “implementable improvements,” fine - that’s a tactical discussion, not a refutation of the moral aim. I’m happy to debate strategy. But calling the goal “hubris” is wrong.

7) “Eating other living entities is normal; we’re animals.”

Lots of “normal” things are not morally acceptable. Violence, rape, infanticide, and dominance hierarchies are also “natural” in many animals. Nature is not ethical. We can't look to nature for ethical lessons.

Humans have one distinguishing feature: we can choose systems. We can ask whether a practice is necessary, and whether it is defensible given the harm.

So the real question isn’t “do animals eat animals?”
It’s: Do we need to, given alternatives? If the harm is avoidable, “it’s natural” stops being a justification.

8) “You think there’s no value in a cow’s life because it suffers; wildlife suffering is OK for you.”

This is simply a misrepresentation of what I said.

I didn’t say a cow’s life has no value. I said creating cows for exploitation and slaughter is not justified when we can meet needs otherwise.

And I don’t think wild suffering is “OK” in a celebratory sense. I think it’s tragic, but there’s a moral difference between:

* harms we cause deliberately and can stop, and
* harms built into nature that we currently can’t prevent without causing worse harms.

If we reach a future where we can reduce wild-animal suffering responsibly without ecological collapse, that’s worth discussing. But using “nature is harsh” to excuse industrial harm is like saying, “People die of disease anyway, so murdering them is fine.”

9) “Your worldview is more religious than scientific.”

This is just a rhetorical label, and it doesn’t land.

Science is a method for describing reality. Veganism (or any ethic) is a moral claim informed by scientific facts such as cows, lambs, chickens and octopuses, etc. feel pain. Calling moral commitments “religious” because they’re moral is incorrect.

I appeal to publicly shareable reasons about sentience and harm.
Religion often appeals to revelation and divine authority.

That distinction matters.

You seem to be saying:

* suffering is part of life,
* humans are animals,
* so exploiting and murdering animals is normal,
* and moral ambition beyond “don’t be cruel” is quasi-religious.

I’m saying:

* suffering is part of life,
* but avoidable suffering caused by our institutions is our responsibility,
* and if we can meet needs without breeding and killing sentient beings,
* then “normal” isn’t a moral defense.

Since no religious scriptures (e.g. the Bible, the Quran, the Vedas, the Tripitaka) prescribe veganism, it is absurd to call veganism religious. All of my vegan friends are secular.

Quoting Truth Seeker

My claim is: orthodoxies grounded in authority and sacralization are systematically riskier than orthodoxies grounded in public reasons, fallibilism, and accountability to sentient welfare.

You've conceded quite a bit here. Notice that your claim has shifted significantly to being one about the comparative risks of orthodoxies grounded in authority, etc. vs. those grounded in public reasons, etc., whereas your original axis cut across the religious/secular divide. It should now be fairly straight-forward for you recognize that there are plenty of secular orthodoxies that can (and do) meet the former criteria (e.g. Stalinism, Maoism, etc.), and there are plenty religious orthodoxies that can (and do) meet the latter criteria (Quakerism, Universalist Unitarianism, etc.). Now you could respond by saying that former "are actually just religions" and the latter "are not real religions", but then you're just defining religion in a way that makes your critique true by definition.

Quoting Truth Seeker

If you think that’s wrong, the strongest move isn’t “secular groups do it too.” The strongest move is to show that revelation-anchored, sacralized authority is not more prone to harmful insulation than reason-anchored, publicly contestable frameworks.

Again, this wasn't really your original claim, which you seem to have now more-or-less abandoned.

Let's go ahead and put the nail in the coffin with regard to your original claim. While it's always difficult to quantify harm, I think you'll be hard pressed to say that religious institutions have caused more harm than dysfunctional secular orthodoxies such as Stalinism, Maoism or Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime.

The bottom line is that the true fault-line here is not between secular and religious orthodoxies, but between functional and dysfunctional orthodoxies, of which we have religious and secular examples of both.

Reply to Truth Seeker Maybe you didn't add a category to the thread when you originally posted it? I'm not sure, I've never started a new thread on this site before. It is strange that it's not showing up on the forum's home page, though. At least, it isn't for me.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri I don't know why this is so. Sorry.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri Esse, I think you’re right that my formulation sharpened the axis, but you’re wrong that this is a retreat or a definitional trick. It’s just me being precise about what the critique actually targets.

1) I didn’t abandon the religious/secular distinction - I made it structural rather than tribal.

My original point was never “everything secular is good, everything religious is bad.” It was: religion has characteristic insulation mechanisms that tend to raise the risk of error persisting and harm being sanctified. Those mechanisms can appear in secular movements too - and when they do, I criticize them for the same reasons.

So yes: Stalinism, Maoism, and Khmer Rouge are secular orthodoxies that exhibit sacralization, authority-worship, moralized heresy, and coercive enforcement. I’m not surprised by that; I explicitly said human beings build these patterns. The conclusion isn’t “therefore religion is innocent.” It’s: religion is one historically common and socially robust vehicle for those patterns.

In other words: the target is not “religious people.” The target is sacralized authority + illegitimate-critique rules + coercive enforcement + cosmic/ideological stakes - whether the banner is God, History, Nation, Race, Party, or Leader.

2) Your Quaker / UU point actually supports my argument, not undermines it.

Quakerism and UU are good examples precisely because they reduce or refuse the classic insulation features (coercive dogma, infallible revelation, salvation threats). They do religion in a way that is closer to “public reasons and fallibilism.”

That’s not me redefining religion to win. It’s acknowledging that religious traditions contain multiple sub-traditions, some of which behave more like open moral communities than sacralized authority structures.

If you want to call those “still religious,” fine. My claim survives: the more a tradition relies on revelation-as-authority and sacralization-as-immunity, the more it risks harmful insulation. The more it moves toward fallibilism and publicly shareable reasons, the safer it tends to be.

That’s not a semantic trick; it’s a causal hypothesis about institutional design.

3) “You’ve conceded quite a bit” - no, I’ve clarified what “the problem” is.

You’re treating “religion” as a binary category and asking for a binary indictment (“religion causes more harm than secularism”). That’s not a good test of the argument.

A better test is: when harm is defended, what are the justificatory circuits?
Religions have historically had some very distinctive ones:

* “God commands it.”
* “Scripture is infallible.”
* “Doubt is sin.”
* “Salvation depends on obedience.”
* “Sacred order overrides human welfare.”

Secular totalitarian movements can replicate those circuits using different nouns: “History demands it,” “The Party is infallible,” “Counterrevolution is evil,” etc. When they do, I criticize them for the same reason: they make correction morally forbidden.

So again: I’m not abandoning the religious/secular divide. I’m saying the real danger is a structural package, and religion has historically been a major carrier of it - not the only one.

4) The “harm scoreboard” doesn’t settle the question you think it does.

You say it’s hard to argue religion has caused more harm than Stalinism/Maoism/Khmer Rouge. That may be true depending on metrics, time windows, and attribution. But even if I granted it, it wouldn’t “put a nail in the coffin” because the argument was never “religion is uniquely harmful” or “religion is the biggest harm-doer.”

Two problems with the harm scoreboard approach:

1. Scale and state power matter massively.
Modern totalitarian secular ideologies had access to 20th-century industrial states, mass surveillance, modern weapons, and centralized control. That supercharges harm. It doesn’t show the ideology is uniquely worse in essence; it shows that ideology + industrial state power is lethal.

2. Religion’s harms are often diffuse and long-duration, not always captured in body counts:

* legitimizing hierarchy (subservient women in Islam and Christianity, caste in Hinduism, etc.),
* blocking medical care (Jehova's Witnesses refuse blood transfusion) or education (Taliban in Afghanistan stopped the higher education of girls),
* sanctifying violence or exclusion (Crusades and Jihads),
* normalizing guilt, fear, and obedience,
* resisting reforms for centuries.

You can argue about magnitudes, but “body count” is not the only axis of moral damage. (And even on body count, across centuries and empires, religion’s ledger is not obviously light - though quantification is messy.) European Christians conquered, killed, forcibly converted, and enslaved millions of people worldwide across centuries - calculating the exact number of victims is impossible - estimates range from 101 to 259 million victims worldwide, depending on the sources being used.

Please see: https://www.evilbible.com and https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/categories.html if you have the time to explore both websites in detail. If you don't have that much time, here are some of the reasons the Biblical God, if he/she/it/they exist(s), has done/is doing/will do more evil than good.

God didn't keep his words to Adam and Eve

In Genesis 2:16 and 17 the Bible (New International Version) says:
And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."

If after eating the forbidden fruits, Adam and Eve died just as God had said, then that would have been just and consistent with God's Words. However, after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruits, instead of just Adam and Eve just dying:
1. God evicted them from Eden.
2. God punished Eve and all her daughters (an estimated 54 billion and counting) with painful childbirths.
3. God evicted all the other species from Eden, too, and makes herbivores, parasites, carnivores and omnivores instead of making all the species non-consumers.
4. God punished humans with having to toil to survive.
5. God commanded humans to reproduce which leads to more suffering and death. Ruling over other creatures causes suffering and death to those creatures, too. "God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."" - Genesis 1:28, The Bible (NIV)

These acts are cruel and unjust and totally inconsistent with what God had said to Adam and Eve which was they would just die if they ate the forbidden fruits. God didn't keep his words to Adam and Eve.

If God had made Adam, Eve, the angels, all the other species all-knowing and all-powerful, then they would all be making perfect choices. It is 100% God's fault that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge. If they were all-knowing and all-powerful, they would not have the desire to gain knowledge, as they would already have known everything there is to know.

I didn't ask to come into existence. No living thing does. I would have preferred it if I had never existed. If God is real and actually did the things the Bible claims, then these cruel, unjust and inconsistent actions make the Biblical God evil.

Global genocide - The Global Flood

Genesis 6:13, 7:21-23 (ESV)

“And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.’ … And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.”
Summary: God kills virtually every living creature on Earth, sparing only Noah's family and the selected animals in Noah's Ark.

Genocide of Sodom and Gomorrah

Genesis 19:24-25 (ESV)

“Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.”
Summary: Two entire cities are burned alive - men, women, and children - for collective sin.

The Ten Plagues of Egypt (mass suffering and death)

Exodus 12:29-30 (ESV)

“At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night … and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.”
Summary: Every Egyptian firstborn - including infants, sentient animals and prisoners - is killed by God.

Genocides ordered in Canaan

Deuteronomy 20:16-17 (ESV)

“But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded.”
Summary: Explicit divine command to exterminate entire populations.

1 Samuel 15:2-3 (ESV)

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel … Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”
Summary: A total genocide command including infants and animals.

Slavery sanctioned and regulated, instead of banned

Leviticus 25:44-46 (ESV)

“As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. … You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers … you shall not rule one over another ruthlessly.”
Summary: Permanent enslavement of foreigners is explicitly permitted.

Human child sacrifice ordered (later revoked)

Genesis 22:2, 12 (ESV)

“He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering…’”
“He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy…’”
Summary: God tests Abraham by commanding the killing of his child - a psychological act of cruelty, even if halted. Why would an all-knowing and all-powerful being need to test anyone? It makes no sense.

Mass slaughter of boys, men and non-virgin women and sexual slavery of virgin girls

Numbers 31:17-18 (ESV)

“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.”
Summary: Command to kill boys and non-virgin women; keep virgin girls as sex slaves.

Sevenfold punishment and cannibalism (threat)

Leviticus 26:27-29 (ESV)

“But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.”
Summary: God threatens to make His people resort to cannibalism as punishment.

Eternal torment in Hell

Matthew 25:46 (ESV)

“And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Revelation 14:10-11 (ESV)

“He also will drink the wine of God’s wrath … and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.”

Mark 9:43-48 (ESV)

“It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire … where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
Summary: Eternal conscious torment for unbelievers - infinite punishment for finite crimes.

Matthew 25:41 (ESV)

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’”

Revelation 20:10 (ESV)

“...and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

Luke 13:27-28 (ESV)

“But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.”

Matthew 13:49-50 (ESV)

“So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Divine deception and hardening of hearts

Exodus 9:12 (ESV)

“But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.”
Summary: God prevents Pharaoh from repenting, then punishes him for it.

2 Thessalonians 2:11 (ESV)

“Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false.”
Summary: God intentionally deceives some people.

Killing for minor offenses

Numbers 15:32-36 (ESV)

“While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day… And the LORD said to Moses, ‘The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.’”

2 Kings 2:23-24 (ESV)

“He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.”
Summary: Death penalty for collecting firewood on the wrong day, and 42 small boys murdered by bears because they made fun of a prophet's baldness.

Collective punishment across generations

Exodus 20:5 (ESV)

“For I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.”
Summary: Descendants are punished for ancestors’ actions - contrary to the Bible’s own later law: “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” - Ezekiel 18:20 (ESV).

Predestination

Ephesians 1:4-5 (ESV)

“Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,”

John 6:44 (ESV)

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”
Summary: God predestined who would be saved and who would be damned forever. It is absurd and utterly cruel and unjust.

Conclusion

These verses show that the Biblical God, by the Bible’s own words, kills entire populations, including children and animals, endorses slavery, inflicts suffering, threatens eternal torture in hell, hardens hearts or deceives minds, and predestinates who would be saved and who would be damned, removing moral responsibility.

When the acts attributed to God are judged by the same moral standards the Bible applies to humans - such as “You shall not kill,” “Love your neighbour,” and “Love your enemies” - they fit the description of moral evil far more often than benevolence. The Biblical God is a hypocrite who has killed and has failed to love his neighbours and enemies.

That’s why I conclude that, if the Biblical God exists and the Biblical text is true, His recorded actions are predominantly evil rather than good.

There are also extra-Biblical reasons. At least 99.9% of all the species that have existed so far on Earth are already extinct. Every year, non-vegans cause suffering and death to 80 billion sentient land organisms (e.g. cattle, chickens, pigs, lambs, goats, ducks, turkeys, etc.) and 1 to 3 trillion sentient aquatic organisms (e.g. fish, lobsters, octopuses, crabs, etc.). Life is full of suffering, injustice, and death. An allegedly all-knowing and all-powerful being, such as the Biblical God, could have prevented all suffering, injustice, and death, but failed to do so. He could have made all organisms made of energy that don't need to consume anything to live forever, but he didn't do that. So, all suffering, injustice, and death are 100% his fault. If he had not created anything, no one would have the burden of existence or the risk of making mistakes. If he had made everyone he has allegedly made, all-knowing and all-powerful, then everyone would always make perfect choices, and no one would have made any mistakes due to ignorance, incompetence or trickery.

I am an agnostic regarding the existence of God(s) because it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God(s). However, I am convinced that the Biblical God is imaginary and evil. He is imaginary because there is no evidence for the claims made in the Bible. He is evil because of his many evil words and actions in the Bible.

5) “Functional vs dysfunctional orthodoxies” - agreed. Now we can actually get somewhere.

Yes: the real fault-line is between orthodoxies with good error-correction and humane constraints and orthodoxies that sacralize authority and suppress correction.

Where I think you still haven’t fully engaged is this:

* Religions that center revelation and sacralized authority are structurally prone to treating certain questions as illegitimate in a way that is harder to unwind.
* Religions that reduce those features become more functional.
* Secular movements that adopt those features become more dysfunctional.

So the conclusion is not “religion bad, secular good.”
It’s: design matters - and sacralization is a known design risk.

6) The one question that decides the debate

If you want to falsify my thesis, you need to show one of these:

* that revelation-anchored sacralization is not a risk factor for harmful insulation, or
* that publicly contestable, fallibilist norms are no better at correcting error once power is involved.

If you can show that, I’ll revise my view.

But if we agree that “functional” systems are those with robust error-correction and humane constraints, then we’re basically agreeing with my core point: the more you sanctify authority, the more you gamble with human fallibility.

That’s not an attack on spirituality. It’s an engineering warning about institutions made of primates.

Quoting Truth Seeker

So the conclusion is not “religion bad, secular good.”

I'm skeptical. After all, your thread is entitled "Comparing Religious and Scientific Worldviews". You literally spend the entirety of the OP showing how religions contradict each other and how secularism offers a way out. In contrast, you spent [I]no time at all[/I] reviewing the ways in which secular ideologies contradict each other. In your reply to Reply to Hanover you even have a section entitled "Why not religion?" in which you list out the characteristics that are supposedly unique to all religions that make them unsuitable for adoption as worldviews, again, without any analysis of how similar dynamics play out in secular ideologies. I'm sorry, but despite what you now claim, it's very hard to take you seriously when you say that you never intended for the conclusion to be "religion bad, secular good."

That said, if you claim this was not your intention, then so be it. Thanks for the lively discussion.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri I have compared many religious and secular worldviews and lifestyles, and I prefer my Agnostic Compassionist Vegan worldview and lifestyle to all the other religious and secular worldviews and lifestyles. You didn't resolve the issues I raised in my previous post. Nor did you falsify my theses by showing one of these:

* that revelation-anchored sacralization is not a risk factor for harmful insulation, or
* that publicly contestable, fallibilist norms are no better at correcting error once power is involved. Thank you for your participation. I hope you will address all the issues I raised.

Reply to Truth Seeker :100: :up:

Thanks, Seeker, for your excellent defense of (A) sufficiently corrigible, evidence-constrained, public reasoning (i.e. moral agency + dialectics, free inquiry, critical rationality) contra (B) insufficiently corrigible, faith-based, revealed dogmas (i.e. moral servility + mythology, theology and/or ideology).

Reply to 180 Proof Thank you very much for your appreciation. I am most grateful to you.

Quoting Esse Quam Videri

how religions contradict each other and how secularism offers a way out. In contrast, you spent no time at all reviewing the ways in which secular ideologies contradict each other.

Because its utterly irrelevant. Secular world views do not claim metaphysical primacy. Religions do. Their inconsistency is damning to them all. Not so with secular views.

Reply to AmadeusD I agree.

Reply to Truth Seeker

Wow, didn't expect this discussion to get reopened. Here are my thoughts on your last post;

Your OP was explicitly structured as "religions contradict; science converges; therefore secular worldview". You did not offer a parallel analysis of contradictions, dogma, or failure modes among secular ideologies. So it’s not unreasonable to read the intended contrast as “religion bad, secular good,” regardless of how you now characterize it.

Only later did you sharpen your claim into a different one: that sacralized authority is a design risk, and that fallibilist, publicly contestable norms are safer. That’s a much narrower—and much more defensible—thesis. But it’s not the one your OP argued for.

On the substance: I’m happy to grant that sacralizing authority and moralizing doubt is a risk factor for harmful insulation. What I don’t accept is that this marks a clean religious/secular fault-line. Secular orthodoxies (Stalinism, Maoism, etc.) plainly instantiate the same structural package, while some religious traditions plainly mitigate it. That supports my claim that the real divide is functional vs dysfunctional orthodoxies, not religious vs secular worldviews.

As for your “falsification” challenge: this isn’t an empirical hypothesis with a lab-style falsifier. It’s a comparative institutional claim. And on that terrain, “public reasons + fallibilism” are not a guarantee once power and moral crusade dynamics enter the picture. They can help, but they do not reliably prevent insulation, coercion, or taboo formation.

Finally, your long section on Biblical atrocities shifts the discussion again—this time to Biblical literalism and the moral character of a specific conception of God. That’s a different debate entirely, and it doesn’t address my central point about comparative framing and institutional symmetry.

So I think the upshot is this:

• If your thesis is “sacralized authority structures are risky wherever they appear,” we mostly agree.
• If your thesis is “religion as such is the problem and secularism is the way out,” then the original comparison remains one-sided and unconvincing.

Either way, thanks for the exchange.

Reply to AmadeusD — This just asserts what’s at issue rather than arguing for it.

Many secular worldviews do claim metaphysical primacy: materialism, physicalism, eliminativism, moral realism vs anti-realism, utilitarianism vs deontology, liberal individualism vs communitarianism, etc. These aren’t mere “policy preferences”; they make incompatible claims about what exists, what matters, and what ultimately justifies norms. Their contradictions are no less real for lacking gods.

More importantly, even if we grant (for the sake of argument) that secular views make fewer or thinner metaphysical claims, that doesn’t make internal inconsistency “irrelevant.” It just means the metaphysics is being smuggled in under different labels (e.g. “naturalism,” “sentient welfare,” “public reason”) and treated as background rather than explicit.

So the issue isn’t that religions contradict and secular views don’t. It’s that all comprehensive worldviews involve foundational commitments, and contradictions among them only “damn” religion if you assume—without argument—that secular commitments are somehow exempt from the same standard.

That assumption is precisely what’s being contested here.

Reply to 180 Proof — this framing just begs the question.

You’re mapping “secular” onto “corrigible, evidence-constrained public reasoning” and “religion” onto “faith-based, insufficiently corrigible dogma,” but that’s precisely the claim under dispute. You’re not defending it; you’re assuming it.

Historically and sociologically, both A and B appear on both sides of the religious/secular divide. Secular ideologies routinely become faith-like, myth-laden, morally servile, and resistant to correction once power and moral urgency enter the picture. And religious traditions can, and sometimes do, operate with genuine dialectics, fallibilism, and moral agency.

So the real contrast isn’t “religion vs secular reasoning.”
It’s functional vs dysfunctional orthodoxy, wherever it appears.

Labeling one side “critical rationality” and the other “mythology” doesn’t establish that distinction — it just restates your preference as a conclusion.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri Strawman. No argument by me was made, just [I]descriptively[/I] summing-up @Truth Seeker's sound argument.

Reply to 180 Proof

If your comment was merely “descriptive,” then it inherits the assumptions of the argument it summarizes. And that summary does presuppose what’s at issue: that corrigibility, evidence-constraint, and critical rationality map cleanly onto “secular,” while faith, mythology, and servility map cleanly onto “religion.”

Pointing out that this framing begs the question isn’t a strawman; it’s identifying an unargued premise built into the description itself. If that premise isn’t doing any argumentative work, then the summary adds nothing substantive. If it is doing work, then it needs defending rather than being treated as a neutral restatement.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri You are not adequately coming into contact with the competing views.

Plenty of materialists are religious. Plenty of idealists are religious. But no Christians are Muslim.

You are missing the delineation entirely, in service of keeping a dead question alive.

Reply to AmadeusD

“No Christians are Muslim” is a trivial observation, not an argument.

Mutual exclusivity of creeds isn't unique to religion. Secular worldviews also make incompatible metaphysical and moral claims.

The relevant distinction is how core commitments are justified and revised, not whether they fly under religious labels. On that axis, both religious and secular worldviews span the spectrum from dogmatic to corrigible.

Pointing out that religions disagree doesn’t settle the issue — it just names it.

Quoting Esse Quam Videri

“No Christians are Muslim” is a trivial observation, not an argument.

The argument included the first half of the concept. Please do not ignore half of hte point and then zoom in on something.

Quoting Esse Quam Videri

Secular worldviews also make incompatible metaphysical and moral claims.

We're not comparing them. We're comparing religious and scientific worldviews (notice that's not "secular" either). You're drawing way outside the lines.

Your substantive there against misses the delineation. Religious world views being incompatible damns them all. Not so with secular views. That is the point and it is not moved by what you've (relatively accurately, just misplaced imo) pointed out.

Reply to AmadeusD

No, I’m not ignoring your point; I’m rejecting the inference.

You’re saying:

• Religious worldviews are incompatible.
• Therefore they’re all damned.

That only follows if you add a hidden premise: that religious claims purport to be uniquely global, exclusive, and metaphysically final in a way that “scientific worldview” does not. But a scientific worldview also makes “metaphysically final” claims in practice (e.g., naturalism/physicalism; no souls; no miracles; etc.), and those commitments are contested and mutually incompatible with other “science-friendly” metaphysics.

So unless you argue why incompatibility is damning only for religion (and not for comprehensive naturalistic worldviews), you’re just stipulating the conclusion.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri No.

I am doing what you've asked: comparing religious and scientific worldviews (you've named mainly philosophical views, btw).

The comparison I've made is clear. The dressing you're putting on this is fine, but it isn't relevant to the OP. There are no "scientific" worldviews which run into each other. There are theories which compete. That is not true for the religious world. They are directly incompatible.

Taking on any given secular view, other than hard atheism, does not do this. Choosing a religious worldview which runs up against scientific method or experimental results is damning as by comparison.

Reply to AmadeusD — this is a category error.

“Science” isn’t a worldview; it’s a method. Methods don’t contradict doctrines.

The moment you turn science into a worldview (naturalism, physicalism, etc.), incompatibilities reappear.

So your claim that “only religious worldviews run into each other” holds only by stripping “scientific worldview” of all worldview content.

That’s not a comparison. It’s an equivocation.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri Yes, that's kind of what I was saying. The scientific method contradicts all (that I know of) religious commitments. Science only contradicts itself insofar as it gets pretty quickly updated by new information. That's a basic tenet of that method. I'm sure you'll agree.

Religions contradict each other and are not amenable to update in that way. That's the issue in comparison. The fact that various philosophical commitments run into each other is mediated by assessment of the results of the scientific method (Excluding outliers(i have been explicit about this)). Religious thinking is not (excluding outliers). So even if you want to move on to 'secular' rather than 'scientific' that's cool, I understand but the above stands.

It feels to me like you're purposefully not quite contacting the point you initially wanted to talk about. If the issue is that secular views are incompatible, sure. But I don't know anyone who would kill someone over their belief in Direct Realism or Incompatibilism (hehehe). This is what I mean by metaphysical primacy. If you think Islam and physicalism are on the same level in this way, I smell a whiff of dishonesty.

Reply to AmadeusD — this clarifies things, and it also exposes the remaining mistake.

First, I agree with you about the scientific method: it is corrigible, self-updating, and does not claim metaphysical primacy. No dispute there.

But that concession actually concedes my point. The moment you say “the scientific method contradicts religious commitments,” you are no longer comparing worldviews; you are comparing a method to a doctrinal system. Methods don’t contradict each other or anything else — they constrain belief-formation. That’s not the same category.

Second, the claim that religions are “not amenable to update at all” is simply false. They update slowly, unevenly, often contentiously — but so do institutions built around science once power, identity, and moral stakes are involved. The difference is degree and mechanism, not kind. Calling religious reformers “outliers” just builds the conclusion into the premise.

Third, the violence point doesn’t track the issue you think it does. People don’t kill each other over direct realism because it isn’t socially sacralized. When secular commitments are sacralized — nation, race, history, party, progress — people absolutely do kill over them. That’s exactly the structural point I’ve been making.

So the disagreement isn’t whether science-as-method is superior (it is). It’s whether religion uniquely introduces metaphysical primacy and insulation, or whether those features emerge whenever any worldview — religious or secular — is absolutized and socially enforced.

On that question, I still think the clean line is: the danger lies in sacralization, not in religion per se.

And no, pointing that out isn’t dishonesty — it’s refusing to conflate method, worldview, and institution in order to make the comparison come out one way by definition.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri Thank you for your reply. I never claimed in any of my posts: "religion bad, secular good". In fact, I clarified in one of my posts that I am NOT saying: "religion bad, secular good". Both religious and secular people have caused suffering and death in massive amounts. My thesis is that sacralized authority structures are risky wherever they appear.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Both religious and secular people have caused suffering and death in massive amounts. My thesis is that sacralized authority structures are risky wherever they appear.

Sounds like we're on the same page then. Cheers.

What is a "scientific worldview"? A "worldview" is "a way of thinking about the world." If we think about the world "scientifically", we ignore (or at least undervalue) history, philosophy and all the other Humanities. In fact, we are moving in that direction. In court, DNA evidence has supplanted eye-witness testimony. Indeed, some of the "scientific" evidence used in court has been questioned: lie detectors and fingerprints have the aura of "scientific" but often produce dubious results. DNA evidence is the sin qua non, but the inferences derived from it are often unjustified (or at least unproven).

Truth Seeker's analysis of the ("evil") fable of Eden ignores the symbolic and metaphoric value of the story. Is "knowledge" and the quest for knowledge worth suffering for? Was Eve's eating of the apple a "sin" or a noble refusal to abide by arbitrary rules, and a desire to know and understand? I've been reading "Paradise Lost", and in that epic, that appears to be her motive. Does she "seduce" Adam into sin? Yes, in a way. Adam (in the poem) knows he will die if he eats the apple but remembers how lonely he was before Eve was created. He chooses to suffer and die in order to be with her, because he loves her. Without suffering, such nobility would be impossible. Also, arbitrary (non-scientific) rules and regulations abound in myths and fairy tales. Blow this horn, and the castle walls will topple. Ring this bell and disaster will ensue. Perhaps this socializes people into obedience, or perhaps it highlights the arbitrary nature of the scientific "laws of nature", which lead inevitably to suffering and death.

Of course humans suffer and die. That is the reality of the human condition. All animals share that fate. The "scientific worldview" can explain this but cannot tell us how to deal with it. In the Christian worldview, we are redeemed by love; in "Paradise Lost", Adam is redeemed by love. Perhaps there is a transcendence in love that can make even suffering and death seem pale shadows, even for us agnostics and atheists.

Quoting Truth Seeker

God didn't keep his words to Adam and Eve

See my post above.

Reply to Ecurb Thank you for your thoughtful reply, Ecurb.

1. “Scientific worldview” ? scientism ? hostility to the humanities.

A scientific worldview is not the claim that only science matters. It is the claim that when we are making factual claims about reality, causes, consequences, and constraints, we should privilege methods that are publicly testable, corrigible, and non-authoritarian.

History, philosophy, ethics, and literature are indispensable — but they do different work.

Science answers: What is happening? Why does it happen? What follows if we act this way?
Philosophy and ethics answer: What should we value? What is fair? What is compassionate?
Literature explores: What does this feel like? How do humans narrate meaning under constraint?

The problem arises when myth is allowed to dictate ontology or moral authority, rather than being interpreted in light of what we know about sentient beings and suffering.

Your courtroom example actually supports this point:

DNA evidence is favored not because it is “scientific-sounding,” but because it is less dependent on memory distortion, coercion, bias, and power asymmetries.
When “scientific” tools (polygraphs, fingerprints) fail, the solution is better epistemology, not a retreat into symbolism.

That’s not scientism. That’s epistemic humility.

2. Symbolism does not immunize a story from moral evaluation.

Yes, the Eden story has symbolic richness. That does not exempt it from ethical analysis.

Even symbolically, Eden encodes a troubling structure:

Knowledge is forbidden.
Curiosity is punished.
Obedience is valued over understanding.
Suffering is introduced not as a natural tragedy, but as a penalty imposed by authority.

You ask whether Eve’s act was sinful or noble. That ambiguity is precisely the problem: the text treats epistemic awakening as transgression.

Appealing to Paradise Lost does not rescue the framework — it revises it. John Milton humanizes the myth by softening divine justice through romantic sacrifice. But notice what has happened:

The moral center quietly shifts away from God and toward human love.
Adam’s “redemption” is not obedience — it is attachment.

That is a poetic achievement, not a theological vindication.

3. Suffering is not ennobled by being unavoidable.

This is the most dangerous romantic move in the reply.

“Without suffering, such nobility would be impossible.”

This confuses resilience in response to harm with the moral necessity of harm itself.

Yes, humans can display courage, love, and solidarity in spite of suffering.
No, that does not make suffering instrumentally good, necessary, or justified.

If suffering were required for moral depth, then:

Preventing pain would be morally suspect.
Reducing disease, violence, and deprivation would diminish virtue.
Compassion would paradoxically undermine nobility.

That conclusion is absurd — and quietly contradicted by every humane impulse we have.

From a Compassionist perspective:

Virtue is not measured by how much pain one endures, but by how much suffering one prevents or alleviates.
Love that accepts suffering may be tragic and moving.
Love that creates or rationalizes suffering is morally indefensible.

4. “Arbitrary rules” in myth do not illuminate the laws of nature.

Comparing fairy-tale taboos (“blow the horn and disaster ensues”) to physical laws is a category error.

Physical laws do not punish.
They do not issue commands.
They do not assign blame.

Gravity does not condemn you for falling.
Cancer does not punish you for curiosity.

Myths personify contingency as authority. Science does the opposite: it depersonalizes necessity so we can respond with compassion rather than guilt.

That distinction matters — ethically and psychologically.

5. Science doesn’t tell us how to cope — ethics and compassion do.

It’s true: science alone cannot tell us how to live with mortality.
But neither can theology, unless we are willing to accept unjust suffering as divinely meaningful.

As an agnostic atheist, I reject that bargain.

As a Compassionist, I affirm this instead:

Meaning is not discovered in cosmic punishment.
Meaning is created in how we respond to vulnerability.
Redemption is not obedience to mystery, but care for sentient beings who can be harmed.

Love can be transcendent — yes.
But its transcendence lies in reducing suffering, not aestheticizing it.

As a vegan, I extend that logic consistently:

If suffering is bad for humans, it is bad for other sentient beings.
If love redeems, it redeems by protecting the vulnerable, not sanctifying their pain.

Myth and poetry can illuminate human experience.
They cannot override moral responsibility.

A scientific worldview does not flatten meaning — it refuses to outsource ethics to ancient authority.

And compassion, if it is real, does not ask:

“Is suffering meaningful?”

It asks:

“Can this suffering be prevented — and if so, why haven’t we done it?”

That question remains unanswered by Eden, by Milton, and by any worldview that treats pain as a moral prerequisite rather than a moral emergency.

Quoting Esse Quam Videri

Methods don’t contradict each other or anything else — they constrain belief-formation. That’s not the same category.

haha. It's funny you think this runs for your point - It runs exactly for mine: They aren't hte same category. So comparison between them is of form. Scientific findings which don't cohere aren't problematic.
Religious views that do are
Scientific findings don't excite metaphysical commitments in people.
Religious discovery tends to
etc....

This is the exact point I am making. Secular view points aren't "incoherent" because they don't all claim metaphysical primacy. Religious views do.

If we agree on this, then I am having a hard time understand how you've come to disagree with any of what i've said.

Quoting Esse Quam Videri

Calling religious reformers “outliers” just builds the conclusion into the premise.

They are. That isn't my opinion. They are outliers. Religions are definitionally (most of them) unopen to revision because they are revelatory. This isn't controversial.

Super interesting that we're seeing essentially hte same set of facts, the same way,and getting a diff. conclusion. I mean interesting truly here - not some veiled derogatory remark!

Quoting Truth Seeker

Consciousness arises from neurological activities, not supernatural souls.

Therefore, while religious faiths differ irreconcilably in beliefs, scientific cosmology and biology converge on a single evidence-based worldview - one that continues to expand through discovery rather than divine decree. Hence, my worldview is scientific, secular and vegan. What is your worldview? How do you justify your worldview?

This is from your OP. Science is a technique, not a philosophy. It does not constitute a "worldview". Nor can science inform us about those matters which are most important to us: whom should I befriend? Whom should I love? What constitutes love? Should I seek beauty in the world? What constitutes beauty? What are good and evil? Should I (were I given the choice) eschew eternal life in Eden to partake of the fruit of knowledge?

Plenty of scientists -- interested as they are in knowledge -- would probably choose to eat the apple, as did Eve. Also, many scientists are religious, and many religious people "believe in" science. The entire thread is based on a false dichotomy.

Quoting Truth Seeker

The problem arises when myth is allowed to dictate ontology or moral authority, rather than being interpreted in light of what we know about sentient beings and suffering.

Huh? Can science "dictate moral authority"? Philosophy has the same problem. According to G.K. Chesterton, "One can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it." This is obvious. Logic merely restates the postulates, and if you have discovered them you have "already found truth".

That leaves us myth and fiction and history. We learn about morals by learning about heroes. WE admire fictional characters, or mythic figures, and try to emulate them. Our admiration is not "biological": -- it is learned, and cultural. God can be seen as a metaphor for culture. Culture, after all, is supernatural. That is, "beyond nature". No one person invented it, it evolved, sort of like species evolve. So perhaps consciousness DOES "arise from supernatural (something)". To avoid seeing the world (at least on occasion) through the lens of religion is to lack understanding about yourself, because you (and all of us) are products not only of our biology, but of our cultures. We can learn about people (a subject in which most of us are interested) by studying biology -- but we can learn even more about them by studying culture: history, mythology, poetry, fiction, and (yes) religion. WE may not be "believers", but we have been shaped by our cultural histories, and religion (Christianity for most of us Westerners) has helped "create" us. IN a sense, the Creationists are right: "man" (as we define him) was created by both biological evolution, and by "God" (God being a metaphor for culture).

Wittgenstein (I think it was Wittgenstein) said, "He who lives in the present, lives forever." Our culture (language) enables us to conceptualize the past and the future. When we eat from the tree of knowledge, we "will surely die." That is, we become aware of our mortality. That is the human tragedy. We don't know if other animals share this knowledge, or if, living in the present, they are immortal (in Wittgenstein's' sense).

But perhaps truth is tragic. Does that mean we should avoid it, or ignore it? Perhaps truth causes suffering (as it did for Adam and Eve). Maybe, just maybe, the quest for truth, like other heroic quests, will involve suffering. Does that mean it should be abandoned? Or does it mean it should be limited to those truths about the physical world with which science is able to deal?

Valorizing a "scientific worldview" emphasizes the physical over the emotional, the prosaic over the fanciful. and the logical over the analogical. Are we really sure we want to do that? "In my Father's house there are many rooms."

p.s. Your sneers at "ancient authority" reveal one problem with the so-called "scientific worldview". It assumes that the modern is "better" than the ancient. Indeed, in the case of science, this is largely correct. But is it true for moral authority? Have art and literature "progressed"; or are Homer, Dante and Shakespeare still unequalled?

Reply to Ecurb

1. Science is a technique — but a scientific worldview is a coherent philosophical stance.

It is true that science is a method. But it does not follow that a scientific worldview is incoherent.

A worldview answers questions like:

What kinds of things exist?
How do we know what is true?
What constrains our beliefs?

A scientific worldview holds that:

Claims about reality must be answerable to evidence.
Explanations should be non-arbitrary, publicly testable, and revisable.
Appeals to authority, tradition, or revelation do not override evidence.

That is not scientism. It is epistemic responsibility.

No one is claiming science answers every question. But when claims intersect with:

suffering,
harm,
flourishing,
death,
or the conditions under which sentient beings live,

then science becomes morally relevant, whether we like it or not.

We lack the capacity to test all of the variations of God/Gods Hypothesis e.g. Pantheism is true, Panentheism is true, Islam is true, Hinduism is true, Christianity is true, Judaism is true, Theism is true, Sikhism is true, Bahaism is true, Tenrikyo is true, Wicca is true, Zoroastrianism is true, Shintoism is true, Daoism is true, Jainism is true, Buddhism is true, Animism is true, Deism is true, Atheism is true, etc. They can't all be true, even though the believers believe their beliefs are true. I am an agnostic because we can't test the God/Gods Hypothesis. Besides, religions are self-contradictory and mutually contradictory. They also contradict what we know from the scientific method, e.g. some religions claim that God created all living things, while we know from science that evolution occurred and is still occurring. We can't rely on religion to accurately tell us the truth about reality and morality.

2. Can science inform morality? Yes — not by decree, but by constraint.

You asked whether science can “dictate moral authority.” No one sensible claims that it issues commandments. But this objection misrepresents the argument.

As Sam Harris has argued forcefully in The Moral Landscape:

If moral questions are questions about the well-being of conscious creatures, then facts about the world — including facts discovered by science — necessarily constrain moral answers.

Science cannot tell you what you must value in a vacuum.
But once you care about suffering and flourishing, science tells you:

which actions increase harm,
which reduce it,
which beliefs reliably misfire,
which social systems systematically damage lives.

Morality is not arbitrary poetry. It is action under constraints.

If someone claims:

“Causing unnecessary suffering is wrong,”

then that claim immediately becomes empirically accountable.

3. “Logic presupposes truth” — yes, and so does myth.

The Chesterton quote is correct but trivial. All systems presuppose something.

The difference is this:

Science and philosophy make their presuppositions explicit and revisable based on evidence and logic.
Myth and religion insulate theirs as sacred.

Appealing to heroes and admiration does not escape this problem — it deepens it.

We do learn morals from stories. But stories:

encode values that evolved under specific power structures,
normalize hierarchies,
sanctify suffering,
and often glorify obedience, sacrifice, or domination.

The fact that admiration is cultural does not mean it is beyond critique.
It means it urgently requires critique.

4. Culture is not “supernatural” — and calling it that smuggles theology back in.

Calling culture “supernatural” because it is emergent is a category error.

Culture is non-reducible, not non-natural.
Emergence ? transcendence.
No appeal to gods is required.

Language, norms, and institutions arise from biological agents interacting over time. That is complex — not mystical.

When “God” is redefined as “culture,” theology has quietly been emptied of content while still retaining rhetorical authority. That move explains nothing and protects everything from criticism.

If God is merely a metaphor, then:

God has no moral authority.
Culture can be wrong.
Tradition can be unjust.
Progress is possible — and necessary.

5. Yes, we are shaped by religions — and that is precisely why critique matters.

I agree entirely that we are shaped by religions, myth, and tradition.
That does not imply reverence. It implies responsibility.

We are also shaped by:

patriarchy,
slavery,
colonialism,
speciesism.

Influence does not equal justification.

To say “religion created us” is like saying:

“Violence created civilization.”

True — and irrelevant to whether violence should continue.

6. Wittgenstein, mortality, and the Eden story.

The paraphrase attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein captures something real: awareness of time and death is uniquely human.

But again, the Eden myth frames knowledge as forbidden.

Awareness of mortality can be saddening — but this sadness does not require:

divine punishment,
inherited guilt in the form of Original Sin,
cosmic surveillance,
or obedience as salvation.

The tragedy is enough on its own.

Science does not cause this tragedy.
It refuses to anesthetize us with false consolation.

7. Does truth cause suffering? Sometimes. Does that indict truth? No.

Yes:

Truth can hurt.
Disillusionment can wound.
Growth can be painful.

But the alternative is worse:

ignorance that perpetuates harm,
myths that excuse suffering,
narratives that protect power at the expense of victims.

The question is not:

“Does truth cause suffering?”

The question is:

“Does falsehood reduce it?”

History’s answer is overwhelmingly no.

8. The false opposition: science vs emotion, logic vs beauty.

This is a straw man.

A scientific worldview does not eliminate:

love,
beauty,
art,
metaphor,
or meaning.

It eliminates unaccountable authority in the form of God(s).

Nothing about neuroscience prevents loving someone.
Nothing about biology abolishes poetry.
Nothing about cosmology erases awe.

What it does erase is the idea that suffering is necessary, redemptive, or divinely ordained.

9. Progress in science vs progress in morality and art.

Are Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare still powerful? Of course.

But moral insight has progressed:

slavery is no longer legal, even though the Bible supports it (As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. - Leviticus 25:44 - 46, English Standard Version of the Bible. "Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. - 1 Peter 2:18, English Standard Version of the Bible),

torture is no longer common practice,

women are no longer property,

being homosexual is no longer illegal in Western countries even though the Bible commands killing homosexual men (If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. - Leviticus 20:13 English Standard Version of the Bible),

animals are not slaughtered or exploited by vegans, even though no religion commands veganism.

We did not gain those insights by revering the past.
We gained them by criticizing it.

Ancient books deserves study and scrutiny — not submission.

10. The Compassionist bottom line.

Compassion comes from empathy. As a vegan, I insist that moral concern extend to all sentient beings.

A scientific worldview explains the biological basis for empathy and compassion, and it tells us how we can care better.

That is not a cold worldview. It is the only one that refuses to make peace with unnecessary suffering — whether sanctified by myth, tradition, or literature. And that, ultimately, is the moral fault line in this debate.

Quoting AmadeusD

haha. It's funny you think this runs for your point - It runs exactly for mine

I'd say the same — in reverse — for the same reason. :smile:

Quoting AmadeusD

Secular view points aren't "incoherent" because they don't all claim metaphysical primacy.

This is false. Many secular viewpoints explicitly claim metaphysical and normative primacy.

Consider just a partial list of secular social and political ideologies:

• Liberalism
• Classical liberalism
• Libertarianism
• Social democracy
• Democratic socialism
• Marxism / Communism
• Anarchism / Anarcho-capitalism
• Civic republicanism
• Technocracy
• Progressivism
• Secular conservatism
• Capitalism / Socialism / Neoliberalism

These give mutually incompatible accounts of:

• what fundamentally exists (individuals, classes, structures, markets),
• what has ultimate value (liberty, equality, efficiency, power),
• what legitimates authority and coercion.

Their adherents routinely treat them as ultimate frameworks, not as tentative hypotheses, and science cannot adjudicate between them. No experiment decides between Marxism and libertarianism.

And contra the implication that this is harmless: non-religious actors commit violence in the name of such ideologies constantly — nationalism, revolutionary politics, racialized secular movements, state technocracies, etc. The difference is not religion vs secularism; it’s whether commitments are sacralized and insulated, whatever their source.

Quoting AmadeusD

Calling religious reformers “outliers” just builds the conclusion into the premise.
— Esse Quam Videri

They are. That isn't my opinion. They are outliers. Religions are definitionally (most of them) unopen to revision because they are revelatory. This isn't controversial.

This misses the point. I am not denying that they are outliers. I'm pointing out that you are overlooking the simple historical fact that religions do revise—slowly, unevenly, and often under pressure—and that secular institutions are often no less recalcitrant to revision once identity and authority harden.

Your endless rant naively promotes all of my objections to your OP. Here are some examples:

Quoting Truth Seeker

What kinds of things exist?
How do we know what is true?
What constrains our beliefs?

A scientific worldview holds that:

Claims about reality must be answerable to evidence.
Explanations should be non-arbitrary, publicly testable, and revisable.
Appeals to authority, tradition, or revelation do not override evidence.

Of course if "reality" comprises the physical world, physics is probably the best way to understand it. But reality extends beyond the physical world. Are ideas (and ideals) "unreal"? Does such a thing as fiction "exist"? Are mathematical "truths" (upon which science depends, but which are metaphysical, beyond the realm of science) trivial, or untrue?

The scientific worldview, as you describe it, is both limiting and contradictory. Science depends on math, but math is not "scientific". Hence the contradiction.

Quoting Truth Seeker

But once you care about suffering and flourishing, science tells you:

which actions increase harm,
which reduce it,
which beliefs reliably misfire,
which social systems systematically damage lives.

Your obsession with "suffering" as the only key to moral behavior displays a negative point of view. What about promoting joy, or elation? Perhaps a little suffering is the price. Mountaineering (an example I've used before) "increases harm". Top climbers routinely suffer and die. Yet others continue to climb. Are they insane? Or do they see the joy inherent in adventure as being worth the risk and the suffering? All "social systems... damage lives". None of us is getting out alive. So, perhaps, asking what social systems promote joy or freedom might be a more positive approach.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Culture is not “supernatural” — and calling it that smuggles theology back in.

Well, that's how the word "natural" is normally used. The "natural" world is distinct from cities built by humans. "Super" means "beyond". I grant that I'm using "supernatural" in a distinct way, based on my notion that God is a metaphor for culture. But my use of the word need not incite anti-theological rants.

Quoting Truth Seeker

But again, the Eden myth frames knowledge as forbidden.

I'm the one who has just read "Paradise Lost". I explained the meaning of the story in some detail, but you insist on the literalist interpretation. If those who live in the present are immortal, and those who eat from the tree of knowledge will "surely die", isn't it heroic to eat from the tree? Mightn't a God prefer those who eat from the tree and condemn themselves to the mamby-pamby souls who want to continue living in Eden, eschewing knowledge, adventure and death?


Quoting Truth Seeker

But moral insight has progressed:

Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. Of course we moderns think our morality superior to others. If we didn't, we would change our moral views. We can assume our descendants will be as horrified by our beliefs as we are by those of our ancestors. We can also assume that the regime in Iran thinks they are morally justified in squashing the protests. However, science cannot help us here. Our "moral insights" are culturally constituted -- and religiously influenced. As are those of the Mullahs.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Compassion comes from empathy. As a vegan, I insist that moral concern extend to all sentient beings.

Great! I'm glad you look down your nose at unscientific, indigenous people. Here in Oregon, before Lewis and Clark, the natives lived a good life, hunting and harvesting the native salmon. They could not have survived without that bounty. Veganism (is that a word?) is a luxury. I suppose you also think your "scientific worldview" superior to that of these benighted savages, just as you think your morals are superior. But the "scientific worldview" is limited and contradictory (math is necessary, but unscientific). Your insistence that limiting suffering is the essence of morality is negative and limiting. It is also old-fashioned. Christianity took the Ten Commandments (which are negative) and made them into "Love your neighbor as yourself" (which is positive). Adam and Eve left Eden, and:

Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:

They were free. The world was all before them. Perhaps an all-knowing God thought that paradise had been gained, not lost.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri These are not metaphysical positions my guy. My point is still as strong as ever.

Quoting Esse Quam Videri

Their adherents routinely treat them as ultimate frameworks

Perhaps we're living in different worlds. Quoting Esse Quam Videri

'm pointing out that you are overlooking the simple historical fact that religions do revise—slowly, unevenly, and often under pressure

And are almost routinely vilified for such. They are definitionally unopen to review, being revelatory. This is not contentious.

Quoting AmadeusD

These are not metaphysical positions my guy. My point is still as strong as ever.

Still missing the point, as ever. Each and every one of those positions carries mutually incompatible metaphysical and normative presuppositions that can't be adjudicated by science.

Quoting AmadeusD

And are almost routinely vilified for such. They are definitionally unopen to review, being revelatory. This is not contentious.

Again, missing the point. I'm not denying what you think I'm denying.

We're looping now and I don't think further clarification will move us forward. Thanks for the discussion.

Reply to Ecurb Your reply repeats a pattern that has now become clear: you expand the domain of “reality” until precision dissolves, then fault science for not governing what you’ve deliberately made amorphous. That is not a refutation; it is a category slide.

Let me respond carefully and in order.

1. “Reality extends beyond the physical” — agreed, and irrelevant to the objection.

No serious defender of a scientific worldview denies the existence of:

ideas,
ideals,
fiction,
mathematics.

What is denied is something very specific: that these entities have causal or moral authority independent of sentient experience and empirical constraint.

Ideas exist as patterns instantiated in minds.
Fiction exists as structured imagination.
Mathematics exists as an abstract formal system.

None of this contradicts a scientific worldview. It depends on it.

The claim was never:

“Only physical objects exist.”

The claim is:

When claims about reality, harm, or obligation are made, they must ultimately answer to evidence about how the world and its inhabitants actually function.

You keep treating “non-physical” as if it meant “beyond evaluation.” That leap does not follow.

2. “Science depends on math, therefore science is contradictory.”

This is simply mistaken.

Mathematics is formal, not empirical.
Science is empirical, not formal.

They are complementary, not contradictory.

Science does not test mathematics; it uses mathematics as a language to model the world. This is no more contradictory than literature using grammar without grammar being literature.

If this were a genuine problem, every engineered bridge would be a paradox suspended over water.

3. Suffering is not the only moral concern — it is the limiting constraint.

You repeatedly misrepresent the moral claim as:

“Minimize suffering at all costs.”

That is not the position.

The claim is:

Suffering is morally decisive when it is unnecessary, imposed, or preventable.

Mountaineering does not refute this. It confirms it.

Climbers voluntarily accept risk.
They are not coerced.
They are not sacrificed for someone else’s ideals.
Their suffering is not imposed.

That distinction matters.

By contrast:

famine,
torture,
systemic poverty,
animal agriculture,

involve non-consensual suffering imposed on sentient beings who gain no compensating goods.

Joy, freedom, adventure — all are compatible with this framework. What is excluded is the romanticization of imposed harm.

4. “All social systems damage lives” is a moral evasion, not insight.

Yes, all systems have trade-offs. That does not flatten moral evaluation.

If one system:

kills fewer,
harms less,
enables more flourishing,

then it is morally preferable, even if imperfect.

The fact that “none of us is getting out alive” is not a moral argument. It is a resignation masquerading as wisdom.

5. Culture is not “supernatural” in any philosophically useful sense.

You concede you are using “supernatural” idiosyncratically. That is precisely the problem.

Redefining “God” as “culture” does not enrich the discussion; it empties words of their discriminating power.

Culture is:

emergent,
historically contingent,
corrigible,
internally contradictory.

Calling it “God” adds nothing except immunity from critique, which you then deny wanting. You cannot have it both ways.

6. Eden, heroism, and the refusal to let go of divine framing.

You accuse me of literalism. That is false.

The critique is not that Eden is literal. It is that even symbolically, it frames knowledge as disobedience and mortality as punishment.

You now propose a reversal:

Perhaps God prefers those who eat from the tree.

But notice what you have done:

You have abandoned the biblical God.
You have abandoned divine command.
You have embraced human courage, risk, and freedom.

At that point, God has dropped out of the story entirely.

The heroism you admire is human, not theological. You are smuggling secular values back into a myth and crediting the myth for what you supplied.

7. Moral progress: skepticism does not entail paralysis.

Yes, moral judgments are culturally situated.
Yes, regimes like Iran believe themselves justified.

That does not entail that:

all moral systems are equally defensible,
critique is impossible,
science is irrelevant.

We can compare systems by their consequences:

Who suffers?
Who flourishes?
Who is silenced?
Who is protected?

That comparison does not require moral certainty — only moral seriousness.

Invoking cultural relativism at this stage is not humility; it is abdication.

8. Veganism, indigeneity, and the accusation of moral arrogance.

This is the weakest move in the reply.

No serious vegan argues that:

indigenous peoples in survival conditions were immoral.
subsistence hunting under necessity is equivalent to industrial animal agriculture.

Veganism is a response to current conditions, not a retroactive condemnation of the past.

When survival genuinely requires animal consumption, necessity applies.
When alternatives exist and suffering is gratuitous, that justification evaporates.

Calling this “luxury” does not refute it. It merely notes that moral progress depends on changed conditions — which is exactly the point. Please see: https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism

9. “Negative morality” vs. “positive morality.”

This is a false contrast.

Preventing suffering is not “negative morality.” It is the precondition for any positive morality.

Love, joy, creativity, freedom — none flourish well atop systematic harm.

Christianity’s move from prohibitions to love was not a rejection of harm-avoidance; it was a reframing of it. “Love your neighbor” implies not torturing, exploiting, or killing them.

Your own Milton quotation ends not in divine triumph, but in human freedom and uncertainty — without guarantees, without Providence as evidence, without Eden restored.

That is not a theological victory.
It is an existential one.

10. Final clarification.

I am not claiming:

that science replaces art,
that biology replaces poetry,
that metrics replace meaning.

I am claiming something far more modest and far more demanding:

No worldview is morally serious if it refuses to let facts about suffering, harm, and flourishing constrain its values.

Myth can inspire.
Culture can shape.
Art can console.

But none of them get to excuse avoidable suffering.

If paradise is “gained” by leaving Eden, it is gained without God’s permission, by human beings choosing knowledge, responsibility, and care — and that, whether you admit it or not, is a secular conclusion.

Quoting Truth Seeker

No serious defender of a scientific worldview denies the existence of:

ideas,
ideals,
fiction,
mathematics.

What is denied is something very specific: that these entities have causal or moral authority independent of sentient experience and empirical constraint.

Ideas exist as patterns instantiated in minds.
Fiction exists as structured imagination.
Mathematics exists as an abstract formal system.

None of this contradicts a scientific worldview. It depends on it.

It may not contradict a "scientific worldview", but it expands upon it. Science cannot create moral authority. WE must look to something else. In fact, what we do look to is moral tradition and culturally constituted rules. As we should (otherwise, like you, we think our original thoughts superior to and independent of our culture).

Quoting Truth Seeker

Mathematics is formal, not empirical.
Science is empirical, not formal.

They are complementary, not contradictory.

My point (which you appear to have missed) is that the "scientific worldview" is not "scientific", because it depends on non-scientific thinking. Everyone agrees that science is valuable. The disagreement is about whether that value constitutes a "worldview". If a proper and rational worldview depends on non-scientific things, and if any "scientific worldview" is incomplete and incoherent, then claiming a "scientific worldview" is superior to other worldviews is a dubious claim.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Joy, freedom, adventure — all are compatible with this framework.

No they aren't. You criticize God for creating a world in which people (and other "sentient beings") suffer. But without danger and suffering adventure, courage, etc. would be impossible.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Culture is not “supernatural” in any philosophically useful sense.

Unsurprisingly, you misrepresent my use of the word. If man-made things are not described as "natural", and culture is a man made thing, then we cannot describe culture as "natural". Super-natural means "beyond the natural".

Quoting Truth Seeker

Perhaps God prefers those who eat from the tree.

It is not I who am making the claim, but Milton, a practicing Christian who wrote the greatest epic poem in the English language. But, of course, you think you know better.

Quoting Truth Seeker

No worldview is morally serious if it refuses to let facts about suffering, harm, and flourishing constrain its values.

Myth can inspire.
Culture can shape.
Art can console.

But none of them get to excuse avoidable suffering.

Now you are returning to your negative morality. Through trouble we find strength. Through suffering we learn fortitude. Through danger we find adventure. Negative morality constrains romance, because romance can exist only with danger and uncertainty. Perhaps you would prefer the eternal life, lack of suffering, and ignorance of Eden. Eve (and I) prefer the alternative.

Reply to Ecurb You keep mistaking the source of moral insight for the justification of moral authority, and then accuse the scientific worldview of a failure that actually belongs to culture itself.

1. “Science cannot create moral authority — culture does."

Correct — science does not create moral authority.
But neither does culture by itself.

Culture transmits moral norms; it does not justify them.

That distinction matters.

Culture once transmitted slavery.
Culture transmitted patriarchy.
Culture transmitted divine-right monarchy.
Culture transmits sectarian violence right now.

If moral authority rested in culture as such, then critique would be incoherent and reform unintelligible.

What actually happens is this:

Culture proposes values.
Reason and evidence evaluate them.
Harm, suffering, and flourishing function as constraints.

A scientific worldview does not claim to generate morality ex nihilo.
It claims that moral traditions are accountable to facts about sentient beings.

That is not arrogance.
It is how moral progress occurs at all.

2. “You think your thoughts are superior to culture."

This is a mischaracterization.

No one escapes culture, this includes me.
But being shaped by culture does not entail deference to it.

If it did:

abolitionists were wrong,
suffragettes were wrong,
civil rights activists were wrong,
anti-colonial movements were wrong.

Every moral advance has required people to say:

“This tradition is harming people, and that matters more than its age.”

That is not cultural amnesia.
It is moral responsibility.

3. “The scientific worldview is not scientific because it depends on non-scientific things."

This objection fails because it conflates method with meta-framework.

A scientific worldview is not the claim:

“Only science exists.”

It is the claim:

“When beliefs make contact with reality, consequences, or harm, they must answer to evidence.”

Yes, it uses:

logic,
mathematics,
language,
ethics.

So does every worldview — including religious ones.

If depending on non-scientific tools disqualifies a worldview, then no worldview survives, including religious worldviews.

This is not a reductio of the scientific worldview; it is a reductio of your objection.

4. “Danger and suffering are necessary for courage, adventure, romance.”

This is the most emotionally powerful claim — and also the most confused.

You are again conflating chosen risk with imposed suffering.

Courage requires risk ? yes.
Adventure involves uncertainty ? yes.
Romance involves vulnerability ? yes.

None of that requires:

childhood cancer,
famine,
torture,
factory farming,
slavery,
contradicting religions where followers kill each other,
eternal torture in hell.

A world with less unnecessary suffering still contains:

risk,
uncertainty,
bravery,
love,
loss.

What disappears is gratuitous harm imposed on those who did not choose it.

That distinction does all the moral work — and you keep erasing it.

5. “Culture is supernatural because it is man-made.”

This is incorrect — and philosophically empty.

“Natural” does not mean “not human-made.”
Humans are part of nature. Their products are emergent natural phenomena.

Calling culture “supernatural” adds nothing except a rhetorical halo.

More importantly:
even if we granted your definition, which I don't, nothing follows.

Culture can still be wrong.
Culture can still harm.
Culture can still be revised.

Rebranding culture as “God” does not grant it moral immunity.

6. Milton, authority, and misplaced reverence.

You appeal to John Milton as if literary greatness settled moral questions.

It doesn’t.

Milton’s achievement is poetic, not juridical.
His interpretation of Eden is humanistic precisely because it softens theological authority.

When Milton praises Eve’s choice, he is not endorsing divine command — he is undermining it.

That is why you like the passage.

But then the credit belongs to human moral imagination, not the Biblical God.

7. “Negative morality” vs romance, fortitude, and strength.

You keep calling harm-avoidance “negative morality.”
That framing is misleading.

Preventing suffering is not the goal of morality.
It is the baseline condition for everything else you value.

Romance does not require oppression.
Fortitude does not require injustice.
Strength does not require victims.

Saying “suffering teaches fortitude” is true only because suffering already exists — not because it is morally necessary.

If suffering disappeared tomorrow, we would not mourn the loss of cruelty to give courage meaning.

We would find meaning elsewhere — because humans always do.

8. Eden, ignorance, and the false choice.

You end with a false dichotomy:

Eden = ignorance + safety
World = knowledge + suffering

That framing smuggles theology back in.

The real choice is:

ignorance enforced by authority or
knowledge pursued with responsibility.

A scientific worldview does not long for Eden.
It refuses the idea that suffering is the price of knowledge because it treats suffering as a problem to solve, not a story to aestheticize.

9. Final clarification.

I am not arguing that:

science replaces myth,
metrics replace meaning,
safety replaces adventure.

I am arguing something far simpler and firmer:

No worldview deserves moral respect if it treats avoidable suffering as a necessary aesthetic ingredient of human greatness.

Myth can inspire.
Culture can shape.
Art can console.

But none of them get to sanctify harm — not by age, not by beauty, not by poetry, not by romance.

Eve’s courage, if it means anything at all, lies in choosing responsibility without pretending suffering is sacred.

That, whether we like it or not, is not a theological conclusion. It is a human one.

Quoting Truth Seeker

But none of them get to sanctify harm — not by age, not by beauty, not by poetry, not by romance.

How about all those self-flagellating monks? They thought they were "sanctifying harm".

Actually, nobody (including some whacky monks) chooses harm, unless the alternative is worse. Mountaineers think the benefits are worth the risk. Cancer patients think the pain of chemotherapy is worth the risk. Before the days of anesthetic, injured soldiers thought getting their legs cut off while biting on a bullet was worth the risk. Eve thought eating from the tree of knowledge was worth expulsion from Eden. (Your critique of that story emulates those of your beloved Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins; by criticizing the literalist wing of Bible readers, you are, like Eve, grasping low hanging fruit. The story is obviously a metaphorical fable.)

Pain can be psychic as well as physical. The greatest loves are the most painful. They inevitably end in heartbreak -- even if it comes 50 years into the marriage. One partner leaves, or dies (I suppose a fatal car crash could dispel this problem, but it's unlikely). Does this mean we shouldn't love?

Of course suffering and death are terrible. This is true whether they involve childhood cancer or Alzheimer's disease. But they are part of the human journey. We can rail against our fate, or face it courageously.

Quoting Truth Seeker

If suffering disappeared tomorrow, we would not mourn the loss of cruelty to give courage meaning.

WE might. Read "The Worm Ouroboros". Mountaineers might think their sport tame and puerile. And what would those self-flagellating monks do for entertainment?

Quoting Truth Seeker

“When beliefs make contact with reality, consequences, or harm, they must answer to evidence.”

Not all "evidence" is scientific. History informs us. And, yes, religion informs us (although not literally). So do fables, fairy tales, poetry and novels. They teach us morality: What is heroic? What is cowardly? Whom do we want to emulate? Whose behavior do we wish to avoid?

The five major branches of philosophy are: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and aesthetics. The "scientific worldview" can address only epistemology -- and is not very good at addressing that. Surely we can "know" (or at least reasonably believe) things about history, for example. We can trust our own experiences, even if they are not vetted by peer review. The religious worldview (with which the "scientific" is being falsely compared) at least addresses all of the branches. It is misguided, and based shaky premises, but it makes a noble attempt (unlike the scientific worldview).

Your list of evils that are not required for courage, adventure and romance conflates childhood cancer (huh? What about adult cancer?), slavery, torture, and factory farming. Our Western, culturally constituted moral codes agree that the first three are bad (evil in the case of slavery and torture), but "factory farming" is your idiosyncratic, subcultural belief. Science cannot support this belief -- only a moral principle that is metaphysical can. If a belief that factory farming is evil is part of your worldview, it is not "scientific".

Reply to Ecurb

1. Self-flagellation, chemotherapy, mountaineering — and the missing distinction.

You say:

“Nobody chooses harm unless the alternative is worse.”

Exactly.
And that sentence quietly concedes my core position.

There is a decisive moral difference between:

chosen, instrumental pain (chemotherapy, surgery, mountaineering), and
imposed, non-consensual suffering (childhood cancer, torture, slavery, factory farming).

Self-flagellating monks do not refute this. They illustrate it:

They believed self-harm prevented a worse fate (sin, damnation).
Their belief may be false, but the structure is the same: pain as means, not pain as ideal.

Now notice what never appears in your examples:

Inflicting suffering on others for their supposed good.
Sacrificing unwilling beings to preserve romance, courage, or metaphysical drama.

That absence matters.

My claim was never “pain is never chosen.”
It was:

Suffering does not become morally justified merely because it can be narrated as meaningful.

You have not challenged that.

2. Love, heartbreak, and the false implication.

You write:

“The greatest loves are the most painful… Does this mean we shouldn’t love?”

No — and this is another misfire.

Pain as a by-product of vulnerability is not pain as a moral requirement.

Love entails risk because:

we are finite,
we cannot control outcomes,
we care.

That does not imply:

heartbreak is good,
loss is sacred,
or that suffering deserves reverence.

A world with less disease, less violence, and less exploitation would still contain:

attachment,
loss,
grief,
longing.

You keep treating ineliminable vulnerability as if it justified avoidable harm.
They are not the same.

3. “Suffering is part of the human journey” — descriptive, not justificatory.

You say:

“We can rail against our fate, or face it courageously.”

This is a psychological truth, not a moral one.

Yes:

suffering exists,
death is unavoidable,
courage matters.

None of that implies:

suffering should be deliberately inflicted on sentient beings e.g. torture humans,
preventable harm should not be prevented,
or inflicted suffering should be aestheticized.

Stoicism teaches endurance, not endorsement.
Compassionism accepts tragedy — it does not baptize it.

4. “We might mourn the loss of suffering” — a revealing concession.

You speculate:

“WE might [miss suffering].”

Some people might miss:

danger,
extremity,
existential drama.

But what they would miss is risk, challenge, and uncertainty — not cruelty.

Mountaineers don’t require avalanches to exist.
Writers don’t require leukemia to tell stories.
Courage does not require genocides.

If someone mourns the disappearance of suffering and injustice, that is not profundity — it is confusion between meaning and damage.

5. Evidence is broader than science — and still constrained by it.

You write:

“Not all evidence is scientific.”

Correct — and no one said otherwise.

History, testimony, introspection, and narrative are all forms of evidence.

But here is the crucial point you keep sliding past:

When beliefs concern harm, risk, and consequences, non-scientific evidence does not get to override scientific facts.

Stories can teach values.
Myths can model virtues.
But if a story says:

“Murdering people of other religions or no religion is ennobling,”
and evidence shows:
“It causes massive, unnecessary suffering,”

then the story loses authority — morally, not artistically.

That is not scientism.
It is ethical accountability.

6. Philosophy’s branches — and the straw man of the “scientific worldview.”

You list the five branches of philosophy and conclude:

“The scientific worldview can address only epistemology.”

This misunderstands the claim.

A scientific worldview is not a replacement philosophy.
It is a constraint on all branches.

Metaphysics: claims must cohere with what exists.
Epistemology: beliefs must track reliable methods.
Ethics: values must respect consequences for sentient beings.
Logic: reasoning must be valid.
Aesthetics: meaning does not trump harm.

Religion attempts to address all five — yes.
But attempting everything does not equal succeeding at anything.

A worldview that addresses everything but refuses correction is not noble — it is insulated through belief.

7. Factory farming, science, and moral “idiosyncrasy.”

You say:

“Factory farming is your idiosyncratic, subcultural belief.”

This is factually wrong.

What science establishes — uncontroversially — is that:

mammals and birds are sentient,
they experience pain, fear, stress, and deprivation,
industrial farming causes massive, systematic suffering. Going vegan is better for human health, it is better for the animals, and it is better for the environment. Please see: https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan and https://www.carnismdebunked.com

What science does not do is issue the moral conclusion.

But here is the decisive move (and this is where Sam Harris is relevant):

Once you grant that suffering matters morally, science constrains which practices are defensible.

The metaphysical premise is minimal:

Unnecessary suffering is morally bad.

If someone rejects that premise, they are not “non-scientific.”
They are anti-moral in any recognizable sense.

Calling this “subcultural” is not an argument. It is an evasion.

8. Literalism, metaphor, and the repeated dodge.

You accuse me (again) of attacking literalism.

But the critique has never been:

“Genesis is false because it didn’t happen.”

It is:

Even metaphorically, the Eden story frames knowledge, mortality, and suffering in morally problematic ways.

If you reinterpret the myth humanistically — as Milton did — you are already doing secular ethics.

At that point, the disagreement is no longer about the Biblical God.
It is about whether suffering is:

a tragic cost to be reduced, or
a sacred ingredient to be increased.

That is the real divide.

9. The core issue you still haven’t answered.

Strip away the examples, poetry, and rhetoric, and one unanswered question remains:

Why should avoidable suffering be tolerated — let alone respected — when it is not chosen, not necessary, and not beneficial to the one who bears it?

Not endured.
Not risked.
Not transformed.

Imposed.

Until that question is answered, appeals to courage, romance, monks, Milton, or metaphysics do not touch the argument.

I am not arguing for:

a painless world,
a risk-free humanity,
or a sterilized Eden.

I am arguing for this — and only this:

Meaning does not require victims.
Courage does not require cruelty.
And suffering does not become sacred just because humans are good at telling stories about it.

That position is not negative.
It is compassionate, coherent, and fully compatible with depth, adventure, and love.

What it refuses is the one thing you keep trying to smuggle back in:

The idea that suffering deserves reverence simply because it exists.

"Écrasez l'infâme!" ~Voltaire

Reply to Truth Seeker :100:

Reply to Truth Seeker :100:

Reply to Truth Seeker :100:

Quoting Truth Seeker

A scientific worldview is not a replacement philosophy.
It is a constraint on all branches.

Metaphysics: claims must cohere with what exists.
Epistemology: beliefs must track reliable methods.
Ethics: values must respect consequences for sentient beings.
Logic: reasoning must be valid.
Aesthetics: meaning does not trump harm.

Religion attempts to address all five — yes.
But attempting everything does not equal succeeding at anything.

A worldview that addresses everything but refuses correction is not noble — it is insulated through belief.

Again, well said! :clap:

Reply to 180 Proof Thank you ever so much.

Reply to Esse Quam Videri You're not actually listening to what's being said. I have not denied what you (erroneously, nonetheless imo) posit.

What I'm saying is: they are not metaphysical commitments. They are models which are definitionally open to update on empirical grounds.

Religions are definitionally not. You cannot move from "worldviews" to "some specific person's belief" and get a coherent conversation going.

On their face, religions contradict each other metaphysically. Scientific models contradict each other empirically.

I wont be pressing that further. Quoting Esse Quam Videri

Again, missing the point. I'm not denying what you think I'm denying.

Then your OP has been answered and your objections are about something else. That's fine.

Very much appreciate it, as always.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Meaning does not require victims.
Courage does not require cruelty.
And suffering does not become sacred just because humans are good at telling stories about it.

That position is not negative.
It is compassionate, coherent, and fully compatible with depth, adventure, and love.

What it refuses is the one thing you keep trying to smuggle back in:

The idea that suffering deserves reverence simply because it exists.

Well, that would be the religious worldview. Because God created the world, it is good.

I'm not religious myself, but I'm not prepared to believe that the world is an evil place because people suffer. That's what the Tree of Life taught Eve. People suffer and die. The human condition is that we know this. It is both a tragedy and a gift. The Gift of the One to men, Tolkien called it in Lord of the Rings. The elves were immortal and wise beyond the ken of men, but the men were more vital, less weary of eternal life. "Had we but world enough and time...." Andrew Marvel wrote to "His Coy Mistress". The temporary nature of life creates urgency and romance.

Of course in reality I look to prevent suffering, just like you do. Maybe I limit my concern to those sentient beings to whom I relate: dogs, cats, apes, monkeys, etc. But I cannot agree with the notion that God (if He existed) is evil for creating a world in which suffering and death exist. For who can know the Mind of God? Why be critical of the wonderful world He (probably didn't) created?

Suffering and death are our lot. This is true whether they result from childhood cancer, ICE murders, or old age. It is not the suffering that is evil -- it is natural. It is the ill will and lack of love that sometimes produces it that is wicked.

Quoting Truth Seeker

A scientific worldview is not a replacement philosophy.
It is a constraint on all branches.

In that case, it is not a "worldview". Science cannot tell us how to view the world; where to find beauty, where to find love, how to behave. These are the things most of us want to know, although we may also (in a minor way) want to know how far Pluto is from the sun. Of course science can inform us. What else is new? The question is, does such information constitute a comprehensive "worldview"?

Reply to Ecurb

1. “The world is good because God created it” — that premise does all the work.

You say this is the religious worldview, not yours — fair enough. But then you continue to reason as if it were morally dispositive:

“I’m not prepared to believe the world is an evil place because people suffer.”

Neither am I.
And I have never claimed that the world is evil because suffering exists.

That is a straw target.

The claim is narrower and stronger:

Suffering is not morally justified merely because it is natural, inevitable, or narratable as meaningful.

Calling existence “good” at the cosmic level does not answer the ethical question at the human level.

A hurricane is natural.
A parasite is natural.
Bone cancer in children is natural.

“Natural” is not a moral category.

2. Mortality as tragedy and gift — agreed, with limits.

You’re right that mortality gives urgency, intensity, and romance to life. That insight is beautifully explored in "The Lord of the Rings", where J. R. R. Tolkien speaks of death as “the Gift of the One to Men.”
And Andrew Marvell captures the same urgency in “To His Coy Mistress.”

On this we agree:

Finitude can intensify meaning.
Immortality might flatten urgency.
Awareness of death shapes depth.

But notice what these examples do not show:

They do not show that suffering itself is the source of meaning.
They show that time-limitation is.

Mortality ? cruelty
Finitude ? torture
Urgency ? exploitation

A world with less disease, less violence, and less imposed suffering would still be:

finite,
fragile,
romantic,
urgent.

Meaning does not require victims.

3. Preventing suffering in practice — and limiting concern in principle.

You say:

“In reality I look to prevent suffering, just like you do.”

That's great. That matters more than metaphysics.

But then you add:

“Maybe I limit my concern to those sentient beings to whom I relate: dogs, cats, apes, monkeys, etc.”

That is the real philosophical fault line — not poetry, not Eden, not God.

The question is not whether compassion exists.
It is how far it extends and why.

Once we accept that:

suffering is bad for the one who suffers,
regardless of species,
regardless of our emotional familiarity,

then the circle cannot be drawn at “those I happen to relate to” without arbitrariness.

This is not about moral superiority.
It is about consistency. This is why I am a vegan. I avoid causing preventable harm to all sentient species, e.g. dogs, cats, apes, monkeys, fish, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats, mice, whales, sharks, octopuses, squids, crabs, cattle, pigs, lambs, goats, ducks, chickens, turkeys, prawns, turtles, birds, camels, horses, donkeys, etc.

4. “God is not evil for creating a world with suffering” — a misplaced charge.

You object to the claim that God would be evil for creating such a world.

But notice: I don’t need that claim.

As an agnostic atheist, I’m not indicting God. I am not convinced any God or Gods exist, but I am open to considering any evidence.
I’m indicting a moral move — the move that treats suffering as justified because it exists.

Even if God does not exist:

suffering still harms,
victims still matter,
prevention still counts.

Even if God did exist:

“Who can know the Mind of God?” is not a moral answer.
It is a refusal to evaluate.

Moral reasoning begins where mystery ends.

5. Natural suffering vs. moral evil — an important distinction, carefully used.

You conclude:

“It is not the suffering that is evil — it is natural. It is the ill will and lack of love that sometimes produces it that is wicked.”

This is close to the truth — but incomplete.

Yes:

Not all suffering is caused by malice.
Disease and aging are not immoral acts.

But moral responsibility enters wherever suffering is:

preventable,
amplified,
ignored,
or institutionalized.

Ill will is not the only moral failure.
Negligence, indifference, and rationalization count too.

A system can cause vast suffering without hatred — and still be morally indictable.

6. The crux — what we do with suffering, not whether it exists.

So let me put the position cleanly, without rhetoric:

Suffering and death are part of the human condition.
They can deepen love, urgency, and courage.
They are not therefore sacred.
They are not therefore justified.
And they are not therefore exempt from critique or reduction.

Facing suffering courageously is admirable.
Creating, preserving, or excusing avoidable suffering is not.

That is not nihilism.
It is not world-denial.
It is not anti-romance.

It is moral adulthood.

I am not saying:

the world is evil,
life is a mistake,
or that tragedy negates beauty.

I am saying this — and only this:

Suffering is to be reduced with compassion; it's not a feature to be increased through deliberate harm.

We can honor courage without venerating pain.
We can accept mortality without worshipping murder.
And we can love this world deeply while still working on making it kinder.

That insistence is not ingratitude. It is care.

Reply to Ecurb This now comes down to a disagreement over the word “worldview,” not over the substance of the position.

If by worldview you mean:

a comprehensive source of meaning, value, love, beauty, and guidance for how to live,

then I agree with you completely: science is not that, and I’ve never claimed it was.

But that concession does not do the work you want it to do.

1. A worldview does not have to supply values to constrain them.

There are (at least) two ways a worldview can function:

1. Generative – it tells you what to value, love, admire, and obey.
2. Constraining – it tells you what cannot be true, justified, or defended.

Religion aims to be generative.
A scientific worldview is primarily constraining.

And that still counts as a worldview.

Why? Because it answers fundamental questions such as:

What kinds of explanations are acceptable?
What counts as knowledge?
What sorts of claims require evidence?
What cannot be justified by tradition, authority, or narrative alone?

Those answers radically shape how one views the world — including beauty, love, and ethics — even if they don’t generate them outright.

2. Beauty and love do not float free of reality.

You ask:

“Can science tell us where to find beauty, where to find love, how to behave?”

No — and again, that’s not the claim.

But science does tell us:

what humans are,
how minds work,
how attachment forms,
how trauma damages,
how empathy develops,
how cruelty deforms,
how well-being collapses under certain conditions.

That knowledge constrains romantic, ethical, and aesthetic fantasies.

For example:

A culture may glorify domination as strength.
A myth may aestheticize suffering as noble.
A tradition may sanctify obedience as virtue.

A scientific worldview doesn’t tell you what to love — it tells you when your story about love is lying about its effects.

That matters.

3. “Comprehensive worldview” is doing illicit work here.

You keep asking whether science provides a comprehensive worldview.

But no worldview that we actually live by is comprehensive in that sense.

Religion does not tell you which medical treatment works.
Poetry does not tell you how economies function.
Philosophy does not tell you how neurons fire.
Art does not tell you whether a belief causes harm.

Every mature worldview is pluralistic.

What distinguishes a scientific worldview is not that it answers everything — but that it refuses to let answers in one domain override reality in another.

That refusal is not minor.
It is civilizationally decisive.

4. “How far Pluto is from the sun” is not a trivial aside.

You frame scientific knowledge as a minor curiosity compared to love and beauty.

But notice what hangs on scientific understanding:

whether children die of preventable diseases,
whether famines persist,
whether cruelty is justified by myth,
whether suffering is treated as sacred or solvable.

Those are not peripheral to “how to behave.”
They are central.

A worldview that treats empirical truth as optional cannot reliably guide love or ethics — no matter how beautiful its stories.

5. The real disagreement (finally stated cleanly).

So let me state the position without slogans:

A scientific worldview does not replace art, love, myth, or philosophy.
It does set non-negotiable constraints on what any of those may credibly claim.
It rejects the idea that meaning licenses falsehood.
It rejects the idea that beauty excuses harm.
It rejects the idea that tradition outranks consequence.

If that does not count as a worldview, then the word has been defined so narrowly that it excludes every serious modern outlook except religion.

You want a worldview that tells you how to live.

I want a worldview that:

does not lie about reality,
does not romanticize harm,
and does not sanctify ignorance.

Those aims are not in conflict.

But they are not the same — and confusing them is what has kept this discussion circling instead of landing.

The scientific worldview does not give us meaning.

It tells us when our meanings have crossed the line into self-deception.

And that is not a small thing; it's a significant thing.

Quoting Truth Seeker

If by worldview you mean:

a comprehensive source of meaning, value, love, beauty, and guidance for how to live,

Actually, I take "worldview" literally: a way to view the world. Here's Walt Whitman on the "scientific worldview":

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

By Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

If we see the universe in only measurable terms -- through charts, and graphs, and diagrams -- we miss something. Like Whitman, I might grow "unaccountable.. tired and sick..." Science is a useful tool. But as a "worldview", it causes us to see the stars in terms of charts and diagrams, in terms of what can be measured. The map is not the territory, the charts are not the stars. The stars are both great balls of exploding gas, and mystical twinkles in our eyes. My worldview (like Whitman's) includes both.
------------------------------------
p.s.

Courage: 1) the ability to do something that frightens one; bravery:
"she called on all her courage to face the ordeal"
2) strength in the face of pain or grief

Since "pain and grief" involve suffering, courage is only possible given suffering. This is an obvious, logical truth. You can, of course, argue that the world would be better off without suffering, and hence without courage. You might be right. My only point was that perhaps a (mythical) benevolent God values courage, and created a world where it is possible.

Reply to Ecurb

1. Whitman is not rejecting a scientific worldview — he’s rejecting scientism.

Walt Whitman is not saying that astronomy is false, dehumanizing, or the wrong way to understand stars.

He is saying something subtler and much more important:

Charts are not the stars.
Explanations are not experiences.
Measurement is not meaning.

No defender of a scientific worldview (as I’ve described it) denies any of that.

Whitman is resisting reduction, not constraint.

A scientific worldview does not require that we:

see stars only as data,
love only in biochemical terms,
value only what can be graphed.

It requires only this:

When claims about the world conflict, the chart beats the poem about what is actually there — while the poem may still beat the chart at telling us how it feels.

Whitman leaves the lecture hall not because the astronomer is wrong, but because explanation exhausted the moment. That’s a human experiential truth — not an anti-scientific one.

2. “The map is not the territory” — agreed.

You say:

“The map is not the territory.”

Exactly.

But the mistake is thinking the scientific worldview confuses the two.

A scientific worldview says:

Maps are models.
Models are partial.
They are corrigible.
They are not substitutes for experience.

What it refuses to say is:

The map is optional.
The territory can be navigated by myth alone.
Poetry can overrule physics when consequences are real.

3. Your worldview already includes the scientific constraint.

You say:

“My worldview (like Whitman’s) includes both.”

So does mine.

The difference is not:

science vs poetry,
charts vs stars,
measurement vs wonder.

The difference is this:

You want both without hierarchy.
I want both with constraint.

That constraint is simple:

When stories, myths, or meanings justify harm, they must answer to reality.

Whitman’s poem never sanctifies suffering.
Milton’s poetry sometimes tries to.
That’s where the critique enters.

4. Courage, suffering, and the logical slip.

You define courage correctly, then draw an invalid inference.

Yes:

Courage presupposes fear, pain, or loss.

No:

Courage does not require the preservation or increase of suffering.
Courage does not require victims of genocides.
Courage does not require avoidable harm.

Courage is a response property, not a design goal.

If a disease is cured, we do not mourn the loss of bravery.
We admire those who endured it — and then move on.

If a world had:

less cruelty,
less illness,
less imposed suffering,

it would still have:

risk,
uncertainty,
vulnerability,
grief,
love.

And therefore courage.

5. “Perhaps God values courage.”

You say:

“Perhaps a benevolent God values courage, and created a world where it is possible.”

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction." - Proverbs 1:7, English Standard Version of the Bible.

As the verse shows, the Biblical God does not value courage. It wants humans to fear it.

6. The real convergence.

You are not defending suffering.

You are defending:

depth,
urgency,
vitality,
wonder,
romance.

So am I.

Where we differ is this:

You worry that reducing suffering drains the world of meaning.
I worry that romanticizing suffering drains victims of moral standing.

Whitman sides with neither myth nor measurement alone.
He sides with science plus experience.

That is exactly what a scientific worldview — properly understood — protects.

Quoting Truth Seeker

I worry that romanticizing suffering drains victims of moral standing.

The modern problem.

Quoting Truth Seeker

You worry that reducing suffering drains the world of meaning.

No I don't. Instead, I'm saying it would be reasonable for a benevolent God to value courage, fortitude, and adventure. Since pain and danger are necessary if these virtues are to exist God might have created a world in which there are pain and danger.

Im out of town for a couple of days, typing on my phone.

But surely a "scientific worldview" sees the world in measurable terms. Science measures and categorizes. The "moist night air" in Whitman's poem is not "mystical" in such a worldview.

Reply to Ecurb

1. God, courage, and the design vs response distinction

You say:

“It would be reasonable for a benevolent God to value courage, fortitude, and adventure. Since pain and danger are necessary if these virtues are to exist God might have created a world in which there are pain and danger.”

This sounds plausible — but it relies on a quiet equivocation that keeps doing the work.

There are two very different claims:

1. Courage requires the possibility of danger and loss.
2. Courage requires the existence of large-scale, involuntary, preventable suffering.

(1) is true.
(2) does not follow.

A world can contain:

risk,
uncertainty,
vulnerability,
moral difficulty,
genuine stakes,

without containing:

childhood cancer,
torture in the name of religion or ideology,
mass predation engineered into biology,
the genocide of one tribe by another,
natural disasters killing millions,
the mass extinction of 99.9% of all the species that have existed on Earth,
extreme suffering and slaughter imposed on those who didn't consent, e.g. factory farm animals.

Courage is a response virtue, not a design justification.

A benevolent designer could value courage without embedding vast quantities of non-consensual suffering into the fabric of reality. Saying “God might have done it this way” is not an explanation — it’s a permission slip.

And crucially:
You don’t need this move at all, because you’ve already said you’re not religious.

2. The “benevolent God” hypothesis adds nothing explanatory

Notice what invoking God does not do here:

It doesn’t tell us how much suffering is necessary.
It doesn’t tell us which beings must suffer.
It doesn’t explain why suffering is distributed so arbitrarily and unevenly.
It doesn’t explain why courage in one being requires agony in another.

“All this suffering exists because courage is valuable” is not an explanation — it is post hoc aestheticization.

If someone said:

“Perhaps a benevolent God values music, so He created tinnitus,”

we would immediately see the non sequitur.

Same structure. Same flaw.

3. Science, measurement, and the Whitman mistake

You write:

“Surely a ‘scientific worldview’ sees the world in measurable terms.”

No.
It sees some aspects of the world in measurable terms — when measurement is the right tool.

This is the core misunderstanding that keeps resurfacing.

A scientific worldview says:

The moisture content of air is measurable.
The mystical feeling Whitman describes is real as experience. The neural activity underlying our experiences can be observed in real time using fMRI and PET scanners. However, we don't have the capacity to experience what it is like to be another sentient being e.g. you don't know what it is like to be me, and I don't know what it is like to be you, or a bat, or a whale, or a chicken, etc.

What it rejects is this leap:

“Because an experience is meaningful, it can overrule facts about the world.”

Whitman’s “mystical moist night-air” is not threatened by science unless one commits to scientism, which neither I nor any serious philosopher of science is defending.

Whitman is reacting to explanatory saturation, not to truth.

He leaves the lecture because wonder returned, not because the astronomer was wrong.

A scientific worldview allows both:

knowing what stars are,
feeling the wonder of looking at stars.

It only insists that we not confuse the two.

4. “Mystical” does not mean “non-natural”

This is another quiet slide.

“Mystical” in Whitman means:

emotionally resonant,
subjectively expansive,
phenomenologically rich.

It does not mean:

supernatural,
metaphysically spooky,
epistemically privileged.

A scientific worldview has no problem whatsoever with:

awe,
wonder,
altered states,
depth experiences.

It only denies that these experiences:

reveal hidden truths about cosmic purpose,
justify suffering,
or license metaphysical conclusions.

5. Where we actually differ

You are not arguing that suffering is good.
You are arguing that a world containing suffering might be justified by the virtues it makes possible.

I am arguing something narrower and firmer:

Even if suffering exists, and even if courage arises in response to it, suffering itself does not gain moral standing from that fact.

Courage is admirable.
Suffering is tragic.
The first does not sanctify the second.

And once that distinction is kept clear, the pressure to defend suffering — cosmically, theologically, or poetically — disappears.

Hope you have safe travels.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Even if suffering exists, and even if courage arises in response to it, suffering itself does not gain moral standing from that fact.

Courage is admirable.
Suffering is tragic.
The first does not sanctify the second.

And once that distinction is kept clear, the pressure to defend suffering — cosmically, theologically, or poetically — disappears.

:100: :fire:

Reply to Ecurb Every theodicy only rationalizes evil / suffering (e.g. "teleological suspension of the ethical").

Reply to 180 Proof Thank you very much.

Quoting Truth Seeker

I am arguing something narrower and firmer:

Even if suffering exists, and even if courage arises in response to it, suffering itself does not gain moral standing from that fact.

Courage is admirable.
Suffering is tragic.
The first does not sanctify the second.

I'll go along with this. Sometimes, though, there are "necessary evils". If we value courage or adventure, suffering is a necessary evil, although, of course, it's reasonable to argue the positive and negative values case by case.

dictionary:Mystical: having a spiritual symbolic or allegorical significance that transcends human understanding.

I assume that's what Whitman is referring to. The stars are both a scientific fact, and a presence that engenders feelings of awe, in part because of their spiritual significance (i.e. cultural associations).

Reply to Ecurb Thank you for your reply. Have you read "Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder" by Richard Dawkins? If not, I recommend that you read it.

Quoting Ecurb

If we value courage or adventure, suffering is a necessary evil

What about those who don't want to be courageous or adventurous? Should terror, pain and death be forced on them? I think it is totally unethical to force sentient beings into situations where they suffer and die when they didn't ask to be in those situations, e.g. dying slowly in a famine, being tortured to death, being gang raped and beaten to death, being imprisoned and slaughtered in a factory farm, etc. Life imposes catastrophic costs on sentient beings without their consent. I didn't ask to be born as a human being. I wish I had never existed. Sadly, I can't kill myself without causing suffering to others. So, I am trapped in my constant suffering in a world full of suffering, injustice, and death. Life is fundamentally unethical.

Quoting Truth Seeker

What about those who don't want to be courageous or adventurous?

If courage is a virtue people can freely choose to eschew it, just as they can freely choose to avoid being kind, compassionate, law-abiding, and forgiving. Terror, pain, and death are forced on all of us. That's the human condition. Your position, at least, is finally becoming clear, although "injustice" does not properly describe the universal condition you detest.

Our disagreement: you despise the human condition, I don't. You think each birth is a tragedy, and, of course, you are right. But that tragedy is redeemed by the possibility of virtue: of courage, of fortitude, of kindness, and of love. The birth of a child -- tragic though it may be because of the human condition -- is also the occasion of love, the greatest of virtues. The Christian parable is reborn: every child is born to grant eternal life to his or her parents (through descent), and to save them from their sins (through love).

Reply to Ecurb

Ecurb:
Our disagreement: you despise the human condition, I don't. You think each birth is a tragedy, and, of course, you are right. But that tragedy is redeemed by the possibility of virtue…

This misrepresents my position, so let me correct it plainly.

I do not despise the human condition.
I despise suffering, injustice, and death — wherever they occur, in all sentient beings, human and non-human alike. That's why I am a vegan. Vegans cause much less suffering, injustice, and death to sentient beings than non-vegans.

That distinction matters.

What I reject is not humanity, but the forced imposition of terror, pain, and death on beings who did not consent to any of it. That is not a uniquely human issue. It is a condition shared by animals, children, and every sentient organism dragged into existence without choice.

Calling this “the human condition” does important rhetorical work — it normalises what is, in fact, a universal moral catastrophe.

Terror, pain, and death are forced on all of us. That's the human condition.

Exactly — they are forced.
And it is precisely because they are forced that I object to them.

To describe this as merely “the human condition” does not explain or justify it; it only renames the problem. Injustice does not cease to be injustice because it is universal. If anything, universality deepens the moral urgency.

If a system guarantees that every sentient being will suffer and die, then the correct response is not reconciliation but moral protest.

That tragedy is redeemed by the possibility of virtue: of courage, fortitude, kindness, and love.

This is where we fundamentally diverge.

Virtues that require suffering in order to exist are not redemptive — they are adaptive responses to harm. Courage presupposes danger. Fortitude presupposes adversity. Compassion presupposes suffering.

I value kindness and love deeply — but I reject the claim that they justify the conditions that make them necessary.

If a child must be exposed to terror, pain and death so that courage may later emerge, then courage has been purchased at an unacceptable price.

The birth of a child — tragic though it may be — is also the occasion of love.

Yes, love emerges — and it does so despite the conditions imposed on that child, not because of them.

Loving someone who will inevitably suffer and die is not evidence that the system is good. It is evidence that humans — like other sentient beings — are capable of profound attachment even under tragic constraints.

Love does not retroactively justify a world structured around unavoidable harm.

So no — I do not despise the human condition.
I despise the fact that sentient beings are forced into existence, forced to endure suffering, and forced to die — and then told that the virtues developed in response somehow redeem the coercion itself.

My moral intuition is simple and consistent:

• If suffering were preventable, it should be prevented.
• If injustice were removable, it should be removed.
• If death were avoidable, it should be avoided.

If I could go back in time and prevent all suffering, injustice, and death, and make all living beings forever happy, I would do so without hesitation — not because life lacks value, but because life without imposed harm would be infinitely better.

That is not contempt for the human condition.
It is compassion extended to every sentient being, without exception.

A factual clarification on “eternal life through descent”

You write that “every child is born to grant eternal life to his or her parents (through descent).”
Taken literally, this is not biologically correct.

Having children does not make parents immortal — neither personally nor genetically.

A child inherits only half of each parent’s chromosomes. In the next generation, that contribution is halved again, and so on. After a small number of generations, any given ancestor’s genetic contribution is vanishingly small, statistically diluted, and often entirely absent due to recombination and lineage extinction.

So even on purely naturalistic terms, descent does not confer anything resembling eternal life. At most, it offers a partial, temporary, probabilistic genetic continuation, not persistence of the person, their consciousness, their experiences, or their identity.

If “eternal life” here is meant symbolically rather than biologically, then it should be acknowledged as metaphor — not presented as a literal redemption of mortality. Metaphor may offer meaning, but it does not undo death, nor does it negate the fact that each individual still suffers and dies as an individual.

In short:
• Parents die.
• Their children die.
• Genetic dilution continues.
• Nothing eternal is achieved through descent.

Whatever value love, memory, or legacy may have, they are not immortality, and they do not cancel the reality of mortality or the suffering and injustice that precede death.

You could argue that even though individual organisms die, species survive, but at least 99.9% of all the species that have existed on Earth are already extinct, and the remaining 0.1% are also at risk of extinction and will probably go extinct sooner or later.

A brief response to the Christian redemption framing

You invoke a Christian parable in which birth, suffering, and mortality are redeemed by love, descent, and salvation. I understand the existential comfort this narrative provides, and I don’t deny its emotional power. But comfort and moral justification are not the same thing.

From my perspective, redemption that occurs after imposed suffering does not morally redeem the imposition itself. A system does not become just because it later offers meaning, forgiveness, or eternal compensation to those it first exposes to terror, pain, and death without consent.

If a child must suffer in order for others to learn love, or must die in order for salvation to acquire meaning, then the moral problem has merely been reframed, not resolved.

Christianity interprets love as salvific — and I respect that internal coherence. But I reject the idea that love requires suffering as its precondition, or that suffering is morally licensed because it can later be redeemed. Love that emerges despite suffering is admirable; suffering that is justified because it produces love is not.

In short:
Redemption may console those already harmed.
It does not justify the harm itself.

My objection is not to love, meaning, or virtue — it is to a worldview that treats unavoidable suffering and death as acceptable entry fees for them.

You should remember that the Bible also provides eternal torture in hell for those predestined by the Biblical God to go there.

Quoting Truth Seeker

I do not despise the human condition.
I despise suffering, injustice, and death

Suffering and death are part of the human condition. You are contradicting yourself.

Quoting Truth Seeker

So no — I do not despise the human condition.
I despise the fact that sentient beings are forced into existence, forced to endure suffering, and forced to die — and then told that the virtues developed in response somehow redeem the coercion itself.

If you regret being born, why do you object to dying? That makes no sense. Once you are dead, all that suffering to which you object will end.

Quoting Truth Seeker

• If suffering were preventable, it should be prevented.
• If injustice were removable, it should be removed.
• If death were avoidable, it should be avoided.

However, suffering is not preventable, nor is death avoidable. This is not "unjust" by any reasonable definition of justice.

Quoting Truth Seeker

You write that “every child is born to grant eternal life to his or her parents (through descent).”
Taken literally, this is not biologically correct.

Good grief, Joe literal! The sun will burn out and every living thing will perish. Eventually. Eternity is metaphorical and relative.

You continue to tout your negative ethos. Life is horrible! Suffering is terrible! The human condition is pathetic! I disagree. For all we know, this may be (per Candide) "the best of all possible worlds." Indeed, it may be the only possible world. Why not make the best of it?

Reply to Ecurb

Ecurb:
Suffering and death are part of the human condition. You are contradicting yourself.

No contradiction is present.

Suffering and death are parts of the human condition — they are not the whole of it.
Likewise, they are parts of the sentient condition more broadly.

What I reject is the slide from:

“Suffering and death are part of the condition.”
to
“Therefore, rejecting suffering and death means rejecting the entire condition.”

That inference does not follow.

Love, joy, curiosity, creativity, attachment, play, empathy, learning, and care are also part of the human and sentient condition. My objection is selective and principled: I oppose the harmful components, not the existence of sentient life itself.

Opposing disease does not mean despising biology.
Opposing injustice does not mean despising society.
Opposing suffering and death does not mean despising sentient existence.

If you regret being born, why do you object to dying? That makes no sense.

It makes sense once coercion and harm are kept in view. According to the Bible, death is not the end - it is the beginning of eternal torture in hell for those predestined by the Biblical God to be non-Christian.

I do not “regret being born” in the sense of wishing harm upon myself or others. I object to the non-consensual imposition of suffering, injustice and death on all sentient beings — including myself.

Death ends suffering by destroying the sufferer. That is not a solution; it is a termination. Wanting suffering to end is not the same as wanting the subject of experience to be annihilated. If the subject is terminated, the subject can't be happy.

To be clear:
• I want suffering to end without ending the ones who suffer.
• I want life without coercive suffering, injustice and death.

Those are morally coherent positions.

However, suffering is not preventable, nor is death avoidable.

This confuses current limits with moral ideals.

That something is not yet fully preventable does not mean it is not partially preventable, nor does it absolve us of responsibility to reduce it wherever possible.

By this reasoning, medicine, public health, law, and disaster prevention would all be meaningless.

As a vegan Compassionist, I act on this principle consistently:
I avoid causing unnecessary suffering to sentient beings, and I work to save and improve lives — human and non-human alike. Unlike non-vegans, I do not treat avoidable harm as morally acceptable merely because it is common.

I have saved and improved many sentient lives. That fact alone refutes the claim that my position is purely “negative.” The word "vegan" was coined in 1944. 82 years later, only an estimated 1% of the 8.27 billion humans currently alive are vegan. This is deeply depressing. Veganism is better for human health, for the environment and for the animals, but despite this fact, most humans have not yet gone vegan.

This is not "unjust" by any reasonable definition of justice.

Justice concerns how harms and benefits are distributed and imposed.

When harm is avoidable by going vegan yet imposed anyway, justice becomes relevant.

Much suffering inflicted on sentient beings is not inevitable. It is a product of choices, systems, and traditions. Calling that “just the way things are” does not make it morally neutral.

Good grief… Eternity is metaphorical and relative.

If “eternal life through descent” is metaphorical, then it should be acknowledged as such. In my previous post, I addressed both literal and metaphorical interpretations of your words.

Metaphors can console. They do not alter biological reality, nor do they redeem mortality itself. Each individual still suffers and dies as an individual. Symbolic continuity does not undo that fact.

You continue to tout your negative ethos. Life is horrible!

This is a caricature.

My position is not “life is horrible.”
It is: life contains enormous, unnecessary, and avoidable suffering — and that suffering matters morally.

I affirm life strongly enough to want it without cruelty, without injustice, and without premature death.

I want all living things to be forever happy — not because I hate life, but because I value sentient experience so deeply that I refuse to romanticise its harms.

Why not make the best of it?

I do my best constantly to save and improve all sentient lives.

Making the best of the world does not require pretending it is already good enough. It requires reducing harm, expanding care, and refusing to baptise suffering as morally ennobling.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Making the best of the world does not require pretending it is already good enough. It requires reducing harm, expanding care, and refusing to baptise suffering as morally ennobling.

:up: :up:

Quoting Truth Seeker

Suffering and death are part of the human condition. You are contradicting yourself.
— Ecurb

No contradiction is present.

Suffering and death are parts of the human condition — they are not the whole of it.
Likewise, they are parts of the sentient condition more broadly.

What I reject is the slide from:

“Suffering and death are part of the condition.”
to
“Therefore, rejecting suffering and death means rejecting the entire condition.”

Well, yes it does mean rejecting the entire condition, since suffering and death are universal portions of the human condition. Your point would be like saying, "I'm not rejecting the rules of basketball, but I think traveling, fouling, and double dribble should be allowed." Those are essential rules -- suffering and death are universal conditions.

Quoting Truth Seeker

I oppose the harmful components, not the existence of sentient life itself.

Almost everyone "opposes" suffering and death. So what? They remain part of the human condition. Opposing them is meaningless and irrational. Accepting them is rational.

Quoting Truth Seeker

I have saved and improved many sentient lives.

Once again, this is negative. You have "saved sentient lives" by becoming a vegan? I've "saved sentient lives" by refraining from murdering people. So what? In addition, you haven't saved any lives. Ranchers raise animals for sale. If more people became vegans, fewer animals would be raised, and there would be fewer "sentient lives". That constitutes "saving"? It's reminiscent of your earlier claim that you wish you had never been born.

Quoting Truth Seeker

I affirm life strongly enough to want it without cruelty, without injustice, and without premature death.

Well, we can agree about cruelty and injustice, but aren't all deaths "premature"? Death is a fact of life. Nobody lives forever.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Making the best of the world does not require pretending it is already good enough. It requires reducing harm, expanding care, and refusing to baptise suffering as morally ennobling.

What if suffering begets moral ennobling? Isn't fortitude one of the seven "virtues"?

Nobody thinks the world cannot be improved. But death and suffering cannot be eliminated. It's not possible.

Reply to 180 Proof Thank you very much.

Reply to Ecurb

Ecurb:
Well, yes it does mean rejecting the entire condition, since suffering and death are universal portions of the human condition.

No — universality does not equal essentiality in the sense you are using it.

Your basketball analogy fails because rules are constitutive by definition: if you remove them, the game ceases to be basketball. Suffering and death are not rules of life; they are contingent outcomes of biological and physical constraints. They are facts about how life currently unfolds, not definitional requirements of what life is.

To reject cancer is not to reject biology.
To reject slavery is not to reject society.
To reject suffering and death is not to reject the sentient condition.

You are reclassifying limitations as normative necessities. That is a philosophical mistake.

Almost everyone "opposes" suffering and death. So what? Opposing them is meaningless and irrational. Accepting them is rational.

This conflates recognition with endorsement.

Yes, most people say they oppose suffering — yet many actively cause massive, avoidable suffering while defending it as “normal,” “natural,” or “necessary.” Acceptance becomes rationalisation the moment it excuses preventable harm.

I do not merely dislike suffering in the abstract. I structure my life around minimising the suffering I cause, including to non-human sentient beings. That practical commitment is exactly what distinguishes opposition from lip service.

Acceptance of inevitability is rational.
Acceptance of avoidable harm is not.

You have "saved sentient lives" by becoming a vegan? I've "saved sentient lives" by refraining from murdering people.

This is a false equivalence.

You are comparing refraining from an act you were never socially permitted to commit (murdering humans) with refraining from acts that society actively normalises, rewards, and industrialises (breeding, exploiting, and killing animals).

Veganism is not moral inaction. It is refusal to participate in a system explicitly designed to cause suffering and death to sentient beings.

That distinction matters.

If more people became vegans, fewer animals would be raised, and there would be fewer "sentient lives". That constitutes "saving"?

Yes — because non-creation is not harm.

Preventing a sentient being from being bred into guaranteed confinement, mutilation, psychological distress, and premature death is not “killing a life before it begins.” It is preventing a harm from ever being imposed.

A being who is never created does not suffer deprivation.
A being who is created for exploitation does.

Conflating the two collapses the moral difference between preventing harm and ending an existing life — a difference that every coherent ethical system recognises.

It's reminiscent of your earlier claim that you wish you had never been born.

If I had never been born, I would never have suffered and died, I would never have made any mistakes and I would never have caused any harm to anyone. So, there are many positive aspects to never being born. However, if I had never been born, I wouldn't have been able to save and improve all the lives I have saved and improved.

To say “a world without imposed suffering would be better” is not to say “existing beings should not exist.” It is to say that existence under coercive harm is morally worse than existence without it.

I want sentient beings to exist without being forced to suffer and die — not to kill those who already exist.

But aren't all deaths "premature"? Death is a fact of life.

Again, fact is being confused with justification.

That all deaths occur does not mean all deaths are equally acceptable, nor that preventing early or violent death is incoherent. Medicine, safety engineering, law, and public health all rest on the distinction between avoidable and unavoidable death.

If “death is a fact of life” were a sufficient moral answer, we would abandon resuscitation, surgery, vaccines, and emergency care.



The image shows how non-vegans dramatically reduce the natural lifespan of the animals they kill. This is entirely avoidable by going vegan.

I have also saved human lives by donating blood regularly since I was 17. I save human lives also by donating money and volunteering regularly.

Humans used to live on average only 30 years in the pre-1800s. Now, they live on average 80 years in the developed countries. Science and technology have also increased the human standard of living and quality of life enormously.

Immortal jellyfish can already live forever if protected from illness, injury, starvation and predation. If we genetically engineer humans and other species to do the same, all species could live forever. I know we don't have the technology to do that yet, but scientists are working on improving our technology.

What if suffering begets moral ennobling? Isn't fortitude one of the virtues?

Fortitude is admirable in response to suffering.
That does not mean suffering is justified because it sometimes produces fortitude.

This is the same error repeated throughout: mistaking adaptive virtues for moral endorsements of the conditions that necessitate them.

We admire firefighters. We do not, therefore, endorse arson.

Virtues developed under constraint do not retroactively sanctify the constraint.

But death and suffering cannot be eliminated. It's not possible.

Impossibility is not an argument against moral orientation. As the image above shows, non-vegans dramatically shorten the natural lifespan of many sentient organisms.

80 billion sentient land animals and 1 to 3 trillion sentient aquatic organisms are murdered by non-vegans per year. This is entirely avoidable by going vegan.

We cannot eliminate all injustice — yet justice remains meaningful.
We cannot eliminate all disease — yet medicine remains rational.
We cannot eliminate all suffering — yet reducing it remains obligatory.

My position is not utopian incoherence. It is harm-minimisation grounded in moral seriousness, extended consistently to all sentient beings rather than selectively to humans.

You treat suffering and death as conceptually defining, and therefore morally untouchable.
I treat them as tragic constraints, to be resisted, reduced, and never glorified.

That difference does not make my view “negative.”
It makes it compassionate, consistent, and action-guiding.

And yes — I want all living beings to be forever happy.
The fact that this is unattainable does not make it irrational.
It makes it a moral north star.

Quoting Truth Seeker

To reject suffering and death is not to reject the sentient condition.

Let's see. All living things suffer and die. That is the "sentient condition" (those of us who prefer plain English to pretentious jargon might prefer "that's life") We can avoid suffering and death only by avoiding living -- i.e., as you said earlier, not being born. This is so obvious. You simply make yourself seem foolish by arguing about it.

So the question is: how should we live? Should we obsess about avoiding suffering, or should we try to maximize joy? The two are often in conflict: falling in love is joyful, but inevitably leads to heartbreak; climbing mountains is joyful, but can lead to suffering and death. Obviously, if we can cure diseases, great. It's a short-lived stay, though. WE are all going to die.

The Puritan ethic valorizes suffering. One attains joy (in the form of worldly success) through hard "work" and suffering. Here Henry Tilney discusses the virtues of suffering with his beloved Catherine Morland, from "Northanger Abbey":

Jane Austen:(I pity historians for being at) so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck me as a hard fate; and though I know it is all very right and necessary, I have often wondered at the person’s courage that could sit down on purpose to do it.”

“That little boys and girls should be tormented,” said Henry, “is what no one at all acquainted with human nature in a civilized state can deny;

OK, Henry was cracking wise -- but, as is typical of Austen -- there is also some wisdom in his joke. Children may not want to be educated -- but it's good for them. In Eden there was no suffering -- "he who lives in the present lives forever." But to eat from the tree of knowledge is to suffer. Eve knew that -- but chose knowledge and pain over ignorance and pleasure. Are we really sure she made a bad choice?

Reply to Ecurb

Ecurb:
All living things suffer and die. That is the "sentient condition"… We can avoid suffering and death only by avoiding living.

Non-sentient organisms (e.g. plants, bacteria, etc.) do not suffer, but they do die. Only sentient organisms (e.g. humans, octopuses, antelopes, cows, etc.) suffer and die.

From

“All living things suffer and die”

you infer

“Therefore rejecting suffering and death means rejecting life itself.”

That inference is false.

Reducing suffering is not the same as eliminating all suffering.
Postponing death is not the same as denying mortality.

By your logic:

Medicine is pointless.
Safety engineering is foolish.
Public health is delusional.

Yet science and technology have already:

1. More than doubled the average human lifespan.
2. Eliminated entire categories of suffering (smallpox, polio in many regions).
3. Drastically reduced infant and maternal death.

If your argument were sound, none of this would make sense. Biological immortality already exists in organisms like the immortal jellyfish. All we need to do is engineer all organisms to be immortal. Then we can spread out to other star systems, galaxies and even universes.

So the question is: should we obsess about avoiding suffering, or should we try to maximize joy?

This is a false dichotomy.

Avoiding suffering and increasing joy are not opposites — they are usually aligned.

People enjoy life more when:

they are not in chronic pain,
they are not starving,
they are not being tortured,
they are not prematurely dying.

You present harm reduction as “obsession” only because you treat suffering as morally trivial once it is common.

Falling in love is joyful, but inevitably leads to heartbreak.

Heartbreak is not the kind of suffering under discussion.

You keep sliding between:

existential disappointment (which is unavoidable), and
severe, imposed harm (which is often avoidable).

This equivocation is doing all the work.

The suffering I oppose includes:

factory farming,
starvation,
torture,
preventable disease,
premature death.

Not “sadness because a romantic relationship ended.”

Obviously, if we can cure diseases, great. It's a short-lived stay, though. We are all going to die.

This move is rhetorically neat — and morally empty.

“Yes, we cured disease, but everyone dies anyway” is exactly the argument someone could have made before antibiotics, vaccines, or sanitation.

And it would have been wrong then, just as it is wrong now.

Lengthening life, improving health, and reducing suffering are not negated by eventual death.

Otherwise, saving a child’s life would be meaningless because the child will die someday — a conclusion no sane ethic accepts.

On veganism (the point you keep evading)

You say:

“All living things suffer and die — that’s life.”

But here is the difference you refuse to acknowledge:

Vegans do not cause avoidable suffering and death to sentient beings for pleasure or convenience.
Non-vegans do.

That is not rhetoric. It is a material fact.

Factory-farmed animals are:

bred into confinement,
mutilated,
distressed,
slaughtered young.

This suffering is not inevitable. It exists because of non-vegan choices.

When demand drops, production drops.
When production drops, suffering and death drop.

That is saving and improving lives, whether or not you find it emotionally satisfying to acknowledge.

Your claim that “fewer animals would be born” somehow negates this is incoherent.
Non-creation is not harm. Creating beings for suffering is.

On science and technology (another evasion)

You concede:

“If we can cure diseases, great.”

But you refuse to draw the obvious conclusion:

Curing disease, extending life, and reducing suffering are precisely what rejecting suffering as ‘just life’ looks like in practice.

Science does not “accept the human condition.”
It systematically examines it and improves it.

Every medical advance is an act of moral rebellion against what once seemed inevitable.

Eve chose knowledge and pain over ignorance and pleasure. Are we sure she made a bad choice?

This is fiction, not an argument. There is no evidence for the existence of Adam and Eve, or for their eating from the Tree of Knowledge.

Knowledge does not require:

factory farming,
torture,
preventable disease,
mass premature death.

You keep romanticising suffering by tying it to symbolic narratives — Eden, virtue, knowledge — while ignoring the actual, concrete suffering being imposed on sentient beings right now.

Rejecting suffering is not rejecting knowledge.
It is rejecting the idea that harm is a morally acceptable price of existence.

You keep saying:

“That’s life.”

I keep showing:

life has already been radically improved by refusing to accept suffering and death as fixed,
veganism measurably reduces suffering and premature death of sentient organisms,
science and technology have saved and improved billions of lives.

Calling this “foolish” does not refute it.

It just reveals an attachment to resignation over responsibility and compassion.

I do not deny that suffering and death currently exist.
I deny that their existence justifies causing more of them — or treating efforts to reduce them as naïve.

Wanting all living beings to be forever happy is not foolish.
It is the same moral impulse that created medicine, which saves and improves lives.

Reply to Truth Seeker

You continually ascribe "arguments" to me which I have not made. Occasionally, suffering begets joy. or courage. Not always. There's no "false dichotomy".

I have never denied that modern medicine has improved human well-being. Why do you keep harping on that? Modern plumbing, water purification, and refrigeration have probably done almost as much. None of your endless posts are to the point. I have two points: 1) The "scientific worldview" is limited. 2) It is possible that since some virtues are impossible without suffering, that an omniscient God would prefer suffering and the accompanying virtue to a lack of both.

Medical and technological advances are the result of "science" -- not the "scientific worldview". The value of science is irrelevant to this discussion.

Reply to Ecurb

You say I ascribe arguments to you that you have not made, so let me reset and respond only to the two claims you now explicitly endorse.

1. On the claim that the “scientific worldview” is limited.

Of course it is limited. I have never claimed otherwise.

Science does not answer questions of:

ultimate meaning,
moral value,
aesthetic worth.

But what science does do — and this is the point you keep trying to bracket off — is identify, explain, and reduce suffering and death in the real world. When claims are made about what is necessary, inevitable, or unavoidable in sentient life, science is directly relevant, because those are empirical claims about the world.

When someone says:

“Suffering and death are simply part of life — that’s just the sentient condition”

science answers:

“Large portions of what was once thought inevitable have already been reduced or eliminated.”

That is not worldview overreach. It is factual correction.

Calling this “harping” does not make it irrelevant.

2. On the claim that God might prefer suffering + virtue over the absence of both.

This is the real disagreement, and we should keep it here.

You suggest that:

Since some virtues are impossible without suffering, an omniscient God might rationally prefer a world with suffering and virtue to a world with neither.

That position has three problems.

(a) It assumes suffering is a necessary precondition for virtue.

That is not established.

Courage, compassion, kindness, and love may sometimes arise in response to suffering, but that does not show they are logically or metaphysically impossible without it. It only shows how we, given our constraints, tend to develop them.

An omniscient and omnipotent being is not constrained by our developmental limitations.

If a virtue requires suffering because the designer made it so, then the designer remains responsible for that requirement. What about those who just die through suffering, e.g. being tortured to death or slowly starving to death during a famine or a pig kept confined in a factory farm and slaughtered?

(b) It treats suffering as instrumentally justified.

If suffering is permitted because it produces virtue, then suffering becomes a means to an end.

That has moral consequences.

On that view:

the child who dies painfully of disease,
the animal tortured in confinement,
the person with dementia,

are not merely unfortunate — they are essential components of a value-producing system.

You may find that conclusion uncomfortable, but it follows directly from the position.

(c) It collapses omniscience and omnipotence into moral necessity.

An omniscient, omnipotent God would not face trade-offs of the form:

“Either virtue with suffering, or neither.”

That is a limitation, not a necessity.

If suffering is required for virtue, then either:

God lacks the power to create virtue without suffering, or
God values suffering itself, not merely virtue.

Either way, the appeal to omniscience and omnipotence does not rescue the claim. Besides, with omniscience and omnipotence comes omniculpability.

On “science” vs “scientific worldview”.

You say:

Medical and technological advances are the result of science — not the scientific worldview.

This is a distinction without practical force.

Science is not value-neutral in application. It is motivated by the conviction that:

suffering is bad,
death is worth postponing,
ignorance should be replaced by understanding.

Those commitments are precisely what I am defending.

You can call that a “worldview” or not — the label is irrelevant. What matters is that refusing to treat suffering as morally sacrosanct is what produces progress.

I am not arguing that:

suffering never leads to growth,
courage never arises from hardship,
the world can be made totally perfect by humans.

I am arguing that:

suffering is not justified by the virtues it sometimes occasions,
suffering is not necessary in principle for virtue,
reducing suffering is a moral good even if it can never be completely eliminated.

That position is consistent, compassionate, and fully compatible with acknowledging limits.

Quoting Truth Seeker

Courage is admirable.
Suffering is tragic.
The first does not sanctify the second.

It doesn't sanctify it, but it might justify it. Fortitude (one of the seven virtues of the Medieval Church) is defined as "courage in pain or adversity." Now, most of us admire the fortitude of an athlete who trains hard (accepting some minor pain) in order to win victory. Perhaps a benevolent God sees the fortitude of someone bravely dying of cancer as unspeakably noble. Such fortitude could not exist without "pain or adversity". Adversity might be the whetstone on which a character worthy of God's love is honed. And for the Christian, the rewards to the sufferer might make it all worthwhile. Didn't Jennifer Jones win the Oscar for "The Song of Bernadette"? (OK, it's a bad movie which I watched only because I knew Jones' grandson, but still, it makes my point.)


Quoting Truth Seeker

suffering is not necessary in principle for virtue,

If fortitude is a virtue, suffering IS necessary in principle for certain virtues, as is obvious from the definition of "fortitude".

Reply to Ecurb

You’ve now sharpened your claim, which is good. Let me respond just as precisely.

Courage is admirable.
Suffering is tragic.
The first does not sanctify the second.

Where we disagree is here:

“It might justify it.”

That is the hinge — and it does not hold.

1. Fortitude does not justify suffering; it presupposes it.

You are correct about the definition: fortitude is courage in the face of pain or adversity. But that tells us something important — and often overlooked:

Fortitude is a response to suffering, not a justification for its existence.

From the fact that fortitude cannot exist without adversity, it does not follow that adversity is therefore justified, intended, or morally acceptable.

By analogy:

Firefighters are admirable.
Fires are tragic.
The existence of firefighting virtue does not justify arson, faulty wiring, or preventable fires.

Virtue arising under constraint does not morally license the constraint.

2. Athletic pain is voluntary; cancer is not.

Your athlete analogy quietly switches moral categories.

An athlete:

chooses discomfort,
controls the risk,
can stop at any time,
accepts pain instrumentally for a self-chosen goal.

A person dying of cancer:

did not choose to have cancer,
cannot opt out of having cancer,
bears pain and death imposed by biology.

These are not morally comparable situations.

Voluntary hardship can be meaningful. It's great to train and win gold at the Olympics. It's not great to suffer and die from cancer or torture or earthquake or arson or any other fatal condition.
Involuntary suffering cannot be justified by outcomes it later occasions.

That distinction is foundational to ethics.

3. “God values fortitude” does not justify imposed suffering.

For someone who claims not to be religious, you bring up God a lot in your arguments. Why is this? Were you religious in the past? Do you wish there were a God?

You suggest that:

A benevolent God might see the fortitude of someone bravely dying of cancer as unspeakably noble.

Even if that were true, it does not follow that the suffering was justified.

At best, it would show that something admirable can arise despite the suffering.

But if God could have produced virtue without requiring cancer or any other terminal condition, and
chose cancer or any other terminal condition anyway, then the suffering remains morally unexplained.

To justify suffering, it must be shown to be necessary, not merely productive.

4. “Necessary for certain virtues” is not the same as “necessary in principle.”

Here is the key distinction your argument collapses:

Given our current world, some virtues arise only under adversity.
In principle, an omnipotent creator is not bound by our developmental constraints.

If fortitude exists only because suffering exists by design, then the designer is responsible for that dependency. With omniscience and omnipotence comes omniculpability.

Appealing to definitions (“fortitude requires adversity”) merely restates the problem — it does not resolve it.

5. Rewards after suffering do not retroactively justify it.

You say:

“For the Christian, the rewards to the sufferer might make it all worthwhile.”

But compensation is not justification. Also, the Bible says that the Biblical God predestined who would be saved and who would be damned to eternal torture in hell. Predestining sentient beings to eternal torture is fundamentally the greatest evil ever. Yet, Christians still praise this utterly evil God of Christianity!

If someone were tortured and later compensated, we would not say the torture was therefore justified. We would say the compensation mitigates the harm it does not morally license the act. If suffering is justified only after the fact, it was not justified at the time it was imposed.

6. The deeper issue: instrumentalizing persons.

Your position implies this structure:

Suffering is permitted because it produces virtues that are valued by God.

That treats persons as means to the production of virtues.

But moral agents are not virtue-factories.
They are beings whose suffering matters in itself.

If virtue requires involuntary suffering to be brought into existence, then the moral cost has not been answered — only aestheticised.

I am not denying that:

people can be admirable in suffering,
courage in adversity is real,
dignity can exist even in tragedy.

I am denying that:

suffering is justified because of the virtues it occasions,
a morally perfect creator would require involuntary suffering as a precondition for moral worth,
definitions of virtues settle moral questions about harm.

Fortitude is admirable.
Suffering remains tragic.
And tragedy does not become justified because something noble can grow in its shadow.

Reply to Truth Seeker

Fortitude is logically impossible without suffering. If the positive value of fortitude is greater than the negative value of suffering, then a benevolent God who desires a positive balance would allow suffering.

IN other words, suffering + fortitude might reasonably be deemed morally superior to no suffering and no fortitude.

That was my point about love: love inevitably leads to suffering -- but the value of love may be (is) greater than the negative value of the suffering it causes. Your dismissal of heartbreak and grief as a form of suffering is not credible.

None of this excuses the arsonist: for us humans (who aren't omniscient) causing others to suffer is immoral for two reasons: we are unable to judge the positive vs. negative values accurately, and the hatred our acts result from and engender is wicked.

I come from a long line of agnostics and atheists, and it annoys me when Dawkins, Hitchens, and you make lousy arguments in its support. Also, unlike formerly religious people I have no axe to grind with religion, and my enjoyment of literature led me to study myth as a grad student. It annoys me when religion is contrasted to science (myth is a form of history, not of science). Many great scientists had both a scientific and a religious worldview. Despising God for creating a world in which suffering exists seems self-centered and naive. It's similar to Hitchens despising Mother Theresa for providing loving hospice care instead of medical treatment. She was a nun, not a doctor. I didn't see Hitchens providing medical treatment, either.

Reply to Ecurb

First, a clarification that matters.

My argument is not Dawkins’s or Hitchens’s argument.
It is not rhetorical, psychological, or rooted in contempt for religion. It is a logical incompatibility argument.

The existence of suffering, injustice, and death is incompatible with the existence of a being that is simultaneously all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful.

That claim stands or falls on logic, not temperament, biography, or literary sensibility.

1. On fortitude and logical necessity

You write:

Fortitude is logically impossible without suffering.

That is correct by definition, but the conclusion you draw from it does not follow.

You then argue:

If the positive value of fortitude is greater than the negative value of suffering, a benevolent God would allow suffering.

This introduces a moral calculus — but that calculus is already incompatible with classical theism.

Why?

Because an all-powerful being is not constrained to trade-offs.

If:

God is omnipotent ? no limitation on possible good.
God is omniscient ? no uncertainty about outcome.
God is omnibenevolent ? no willingness to impose harm.

then God is not forced to choose between:

suffering + fortitude
and
no suffering + no fortitude

That dilemma exists only under constraint.

A God who must allow involuntary suffering to obtain moral good is not omnipotent in the relevant sense.

2. “Greater good” requires necessity, not productivity

Your argument depends on this hidden premise:

Suffering is necessary for fortitude.

But necessity is doing far more work here than you’ve justified.

It is not enough to say:

“fortitude wouldn’t exist as defined without suffering”

You must show: no morally equivalent or superior good could exist without involuntary suffering.

And that is precisely what you cannot show — because an omnipotent being defines the space of possibility.

If suffering produces virtue only because the world was designed that way, then the designer is responsible for that dependency.

Productive ? necessary.
Occasioning ? justifying.

3. Love, heartbreak, and equivocation.

You say:

Love inevitably leads to suffering.

This is an empirical generalization about human psychology, not a metaphysical truth. Not all romantic relationships break up. Although everyone dies, death is not mandatory - protected immortal jellyfish don't die. God could have made all living things immortal.

Even if we grant "Love inevitably leads to suffering" for humans as we are now, it does not follow that:

love is logically inseparable from suffering, or
an omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent creator could not instantiate love without grief.

Otherwise, heaven becomes incoherent — unless you concede that:

either love in heaven is diminished, or
suffering still exists in heaven.

The Bible clearly portrays the Christian heaven as a place without any suffering and death. "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” - Revelation 21:4, the English Standard Version of the Bible. So, the Biblical God is capable of creating a place that does not have any suffering and death. Why not make Earth free from all suffering and death?

You accuse me of dismissing heartbreak and grief as suffering. I have not.

I distinguish:

existential vulnerability (sadness, loss, disappointment)
from
imposed, non-consensual, destructive suffering (disease, torture, starvation, dementia).

Collapsing that distinction is what allows the “greater good” argument to slide unnoticed from tragedy into justification.

4. The arsonist exception exposes the problem

You write:

None of this excuses the arsonist… for humans causing suffering is immoral because we lack omniscience and our acts are motivated by hatred.

But this exemption proves the opposite of what you intend.

If:

causing suffering is wrong because humans are not omniscient,

then omniscience becomes a moral solvent — suffering becomes permissible once one “knows better.”

That collapses morality into authority.

Worse, it implies that:

if a human were omniscient,
causing involuntary suffering could become morally good.

That is not a defense of divine goodness — it is a redefinition of goodness as whatever the powerful permit.

Besides, the Biblical God commands genocide and supports slavery in the Bible. I have quoted these verses in a previous post, so I won't quote them again. Genocide and slavery are not ethical.

5. Moral worth without instrumentalization

Your view implies this structure:

suffering is allowed
because it produces virtues
which God values.

That treats persons as means to the production of virtues.

But moral agents are not raw material for character-polishing.

If a being’s suffering is justified only because it produces a value for someone else (including God), then that being’s intrinsic worth has already been subordinated.

An all-loving being would not need to trade sentient suffering for virtue creation.

6. On Dawkins, Hitchens, and “axes to grind”

You have grouped me with Dawkins and Hitchens even though my argument is different from their arguments. You really need to grasp the nuance because my argument is not theirs.

Dawkins focuses on explanatory redundancy,
Hitchens focused on institutional harm,
I am making a modal incompatibility claim.

Whether or not you enjoy myth, literature, or religious symbolism is irrelevant to that claim.

7. Final clarification

I am not arguing:

that courage is bad
that love is worthless
that suffering never leads to growth.

I am arguing that:

1. Involuntary suffering is not morally justified by the virtues it sometimes occasions.
2. An omnipotent being would not require suffering to instantiate moral good.
3. Therefore, the existence of suffering, injustice, and death is logically incompatible with the existence of an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God.

That conclusion does not depend on anger, bitterness, or disdain for religion. Besides, not all religions have a creator God, e.g. Buddhism and Jainism don't have a creator God the way Christianity and Islam do. I am convinced that all religions are man-made and there is no all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful God because such a God would not create a world full of suffering, injustice, and death.

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
— Epicurus.

Reply to Truth Seeker

I understand what you are arguing. I'm afraid you don't understand me (despite the clarity of my position). One additional point: omnipotent and omniscient, and omnibenevolent may be hyperbole: suppose God is just extremely powerful, loving and good (that was my point about the all-seeing Odin needing those ravens to bring him the news).? Does that make Odin a non-god? Also, if God is all-knowing, isn't it possible that He knows better than you? Read C.S. Lewis' "The Problem of Pain" (which I don't remember well enough to make his arguments). WE humans must muddle through the best we can; God (if He exists) knows better than we do. If He is even slightly less than all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good, we should understand his actions in that context (as the Christian apologists do). Who are we to judge our moral superiors? You appear to think (incorrectly) that you have morality figured out. That's not "truth-seeking". It's hubris.

We've hashed this out too much already.

Reply to Ecurb

I do understand your position, and let me show that before explaining why I disagree.

You are not claiming that suffering is good in itself.
You are not denying that much suffering is tragic.
You are not saying humans are competent to judge the full moral calculus of reality.

What you are saying is roughly this:

1. The traditional “omni-” attributes may be idealisations rather than strict requirements.

2. A god who is extremely powerful, extremely good, and extremely wise may still permit suffering for reasons beyond human understanding.

3. Given our epistemic limits, humans are not well placed to judge the moral decisions of a vastly superior being. What you are saying matches the following from the Bible.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:8,9, The English Standard Version of the Bible.

4. Therefore, the existence of suffering does not decisively count against the existence of such a god.

I understand that position. I simply do not accept it.

Here is why.

1. Weakening the attributes weakens the claim being defended

Once omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence are treated as approximate rather than defining, the argument changes category.

At that point, the claim is no longer:

“Suffering is compatible with a maximally perfect being.”

It becomes:

“Suffering is compatible with a powerful but morally and cognitively limited being.”

I agree with that.
But that concession matters.

A being who is less than all-knowing may permit suffering through ignorance.
A being who is less than all-powerful may permit suffering through inability.
A being who is less than all-loving may permit suffering through indifference, prioritisation, or malevolence towards some and benevolence towards others.

None of those cases raises a logical problem.

The problem of suffering arises only for a being claimed to be unlimited in power, knowledge, and love. Once those are relaxed, the incompatibility dissolves, but so does the traditional claim of moral perfection.

That is not a refutation of my argument; it is a retreat from its target.

2. “God knows better than you” dissolves moral reasoning itself

You ask whether it is possible that God knows better than I do.

Of course it is.

But notice what follows if that move is accepted without constraint.

If “God knows better” is sufficient to justify any amount of involuntary suffering, then no possible state of the world could ever count against God’s goodness — including worlds of maximal cruelty.

At that point, “good” no longer has content accessible to moral reasoning. It becomes whatever God does.

That is not humility; it is moral abdication.

Reasoned moral judgment does not require certainty or infallibility. It requires only this minimal principle:

If an action would be morally unjustifiable for any being we understand, then claiming it is justified for a superior being requires reasons — not appeals to superiority.

Otherwise, goodness becomes indistinguishable from power.

3. Moral superiority cannot exempt one from moral evaluation

You ask: Who are we to judge our moral superiors?

But moral superiority does not exempt an agent from moral standards — it presupposes them.

We routinely judge:

parents who knowingly allow preventable harm to children,
leaders who permit suffering for alleged long-term benefits,
institutions that justify harm by appeal to higher purposes.

We do this because we take morality seriously, not because we think ourselves omniscient.

If the concept of “good” is meaningful at all, then it must constrain even the most powerful agent. Otherwise, it is empty praise. God must follow consistent moral principles to be moral. Might does not make right.

4. This is not hubris; it is conceptual clarity

You say I appear to think I have morality “figured out.”

I do not.

I am making a far more modest claim:

Certain kinds of involuntary suffering are morally incompatible with perfect love combined with perfect power and knowledge.

That claim does not require complete moral knowledge — only consistency in the concepts being used.

Calling that “hubris” mistakes logical analysis for arrogance.

It is not arrogant to say:

a perfectly loving being would not require involuntary suffering as a condition of worth,
a perfectly powerful being would not face tragic trade-offs,
a perfectly knowing being would not rely on pain as a pedagogical tool.

It is simply to take those attributes seriously.

5. Where we ultimately part ways

You are comfortable saying:

“We must muddle through; God knows better; the rest is mystery.”

I am not.

Not because I think I am superior to God — but because once mystery is allowed to override moral coherence, nothing meaningful remains of moral praise or blame.

If suffering, injustice, and death are all compatible with supreme goodness by definition, then goodness ceases to guide understanding. It becomes a label applied after the fact.

I respect that you find religious narratives, myths, and theological humility meaningful. I am not attacking that.

I am saying that once the attributes of God are weakened, the logical problem dissolves — but so does the claim of moral perfection. And once moral judgment is surrendered entirely to inscrutability, the word “good” loses its anchor.

That is the disagreement.
It is not resentment, not biography, not hubris.

Just incompatible starting points.

I’m content to leave it there.

Quoting Truth Seeker

I am making a far more modest claim:

Certain kinds of involuntary suffering are morally incompatible with perfect love combined with perfect power and knowledge.

That claim does not require complete moral knowledge — only consistency in the concepts being used.

Calling that “hubris” mistakes logical analysis for arrogance.

On the contrary. Since you don't know what constitutes "perfect love" or "perfect knowledge" you are applying your imperfect notions of love and morality to judge God. This goes back to my principle of literary criticism: it is unfair to criticize a book for not being a different book. If we are to accept God's omni power and knowledge, we must accept his omni love. Why the first two and not the other? Once we accept these, it is our responsibility as critics to practice apologetics, not condemnations.

In addition, your hubris consists of ignorance of centuries of Christian apologetics (of which I am largely ignorant as well, though I've probably read more of them than you have). This is the same issue I have with Dawkins. He ignores apologetics written by brilliant theists, and, like Eve, eats the low-hanging fruit. The difference is that Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge: the Tree of Ignorance bears a bitter taste.

Reply to Ecurb

I do understand your position, and I think the disagreement is now very clear.

You are saying, in effect:

1. If we accept God’s omnipotence and omniscience, we must also accept God’s omnibenevolence.
2. “Perfect love” and “perfect knowledge” may be radically unlike human love or knowledge.
3. Therefore, judging God by human moral intuitions is illegitimate.
4. The proper intellectual posture is apologetics (interpretive charity), not moral critique.

I understand that view. I reject it — not out of arrogance, but because it empties the concepts being defended of their content.

Here’s why.

1. If “perfect love” is unconstrained by moral content, it becomes meaningless.

You say I cannot judge what “perfect love” is because my notions of love are imperfect.

But then we face a dilemma:

Either “perfect love” retains some continuity with what we mean by love, or it does not.

If it does retain continuity, then concepts like care, non-instrumental concern, and aversion to unnecessary harm remain relevant. In that case, the presence of involuntary suffering is morally probative.

If it does not retain continuity — if “perfect love” may will or permit anything whatsoever — then the word love no longer distinguishes God from a tyrant or a force of nature. It becomes a label without criteria.

In other words:
If divine love cannot be morally assessed in any way recognizable to moral reasoning, then calling it “love” does no explanatory work.

That is not humility. That is semantic insulation.

2. Accepting omnipotence and omniscience does not force acceptance of omnibenevolence.

You ask:

Why accept omnipotence and omniscience but not omnibenevolence?

Because power and knowledge are descriptive capacities; love is a normative property.

We infer power and knowledge from effects.
We infer goodness from moral coherence.

If an agent’s actions systematically violate what “love” means even in its most abstract form — care for the wellbeing of others — then the inference to omnibenevolence fails, even if power and knowledge are granted.

This is not criticizing a book for being a different book.
It is questioning whether the book’s internal claims are consistent.

3. Apologetics is not neutral “criticism”; it presupposes the conclusion.

You say that once we accept the omni-attributes, our responsibility is apologetics, not condemnation.

But apologetics is not neutral interpretation. It is defensive harmonization — a method that treats contradiction as something to be explained away rather than examined.

That is a legitimate theological practice.
It is not a neutral epistemic one.

Truth-seeking allows conclusions to be revised.
Apologetics does not.

Refusing apologetics is not ignorance; it is methodological independence.

4. Appeals to centuries of apologetics do not answer the logical problem.

You suggest my position reflects ignorance of Christian apologetics.

Even if that were true (and it is not to the extent implied), it would be irrelevant unless those apologetics resolve the logical issue.

But the problem of suffering has been debated for centuries precisely because no consensus resolution exists. The diversity of theodicies — free will, soul-making, mystery, greater good, fallen world — signals unresolved tension, not settled clarity.

Appealing to the existence of many responses is not the same as showing that anyone succeeds.

I should correct a factual assumption.

I have read many Christian apologetics — including works by C. S. Lewis (The Problem of Pain, Mere Christianity, Miracles, etc.). I am not unfamiliar with the tradition, and I am not dismissing it out of hand.

I reject those arguments after engaging with them, not because I am unaware of them.

My rejection is not based on temperament, resentment, or lack of literary sensitivity. It is based on a substantive judgment that none of the standard theodicies resolve the core problem — they relabel, deflect, or appeal to mystery, but they do not remove the incompatibility I’ve identified.

To be explicit:

Appeals to mystery suspend moral reasoning rather than answer it.
Appeals to greater goods rely on unproven necessity.
Appeals to divine transcendence drain moral terms of content.
Appeals to authority replace argument with deference.

I understand why apologetics aims at reconciliation rather than critique. But truth-seeking does not obligate me to adopt apologetics as a method — especially when I judge the arguments to fail on their own terms.

So the disagreement here is not about whether I’ve “done the reading.”
It is about what counts as a satisfactory explanation.

I am willing to let cherished claims fail if they conflict with moral coherence.
You are willing to preserve them by revising how moral concepts apply.

That difference is philosophical, not personal — and reading more apologetics would not change it.


5. “God knows better” is not an argument; it is a veto.

You imply that divine superiority blocks moral critique.

But once “God knows better” is allowed to override all moral evaluation, then no possible world could ever count against divine goodness — not even a world of maximal cruelty.

At that point, goodness is no longer a property we understand; it is whatever God does.

That is not reverence — it is moral quietism.

6. Why this is not hubris.

Hubris would be claiming certainty, infallibility, or moral omniscience.

I claim none of those.

My claim is conditional and conceptual:

If a being is perfectly loving, perfectly powerful, and perfectly knowing, then certain kinds of involuntary suffering are incompatible with that combination.

That is not arrogance.
It is conceptual consistency.

Refusing to surrender moral reasoning in the face of authority is not pride; it is the minimum condition of ethical thought.

You are comfortable grounding goodness in mystery and authority.
I am not.

You are willing to let “perfect love” float free of moral constraints.
I am not.

Those are different epistemic commitments, not differences in temperament or education.

Calling logical analysis “hubris” does not resolve the issue — it simply relocates it behind reverence.

I think we’ve reached the genuine stopping point: not because the issue is exhausted, but because our standards for what counts as an explanation differ.

7. How the Bible fails.

Astronomy & Cosmology: pre-scientific mythology

The Bible reflects an ancient Near Eastern cosmology, not hidden advanced knowledge:

Flat or dome-covered Earth (the firmament)

Waters above the sky

Sun, moon, and stars placed inside the firmament

Earth established before stars

Light existing before light sources

This isn’t “metaphor misunderstood later.”
It’s exactly what you’d expect from pre-astronomical humans with no telescopes, no physics, no cosmology.

A being who created galaxies would not accidentally endorse Bronze Age sky myths.

Physics: magical causation and category errors

Biblical physics routinely violates conservation laws, thermodynamics, and basic causality:

Matter appearing without physical mechanism

Instantaneous global floods

Heat, light, and motion without sources

Supernatural suspension of physical regularities without constraints

These aren’t exceptions explained by deeper laws.
They are storytelling devices, indistinguishable from myth.

Biology: creationism and biological impossibilities

The Bible gets biology wrong in structural ways:

Fixed “kinds” instead of common descent

Humans formed separately from animals

No understanding of genetics, evolution, extinction, deep time

Global bottlenecks that would have destroyed biodiversity

This is not a matter of missing details.
It reflects zero awareness of how life actually works.

Ethics: tribal morality, not universal compassion

Biblical ethics are deeply inconsistent and often morally indefensible:

Genocide endorsed

Slavery regulated, not abolished

Women treated as property

Children punished for ancestral sins

Infinite punishment for finite “belief errors”

These are not moral heights we failed to reach.
They are moral baselines we have since outgrown.

The best ethical moments in the Bible come from humans pushing against its own framework, not from divine command.

History: legendary development, not eyewitness rigor

The Bible fails basic historical standards:

Anonymous authorship

Decades-to-centuries-late composition

Theological agendas driving narrative

Contradictory accounts

No contemporary corroboration for central miracles

What we see is exactly what we see in myth formation everywhere else:
oral tradition ? embellishment ? canonization ? dogma.

The pattern matters more than any single error

Any one mistake could be excused.

But the Bible fails:

astronomy,

physics,

biology,

ethics,

and history,

systematically, in the same direction, at the same level, with the same cultural fingerprints.

That pattern is diagnostic.

It looks exactly like what it is: a collection of human texts written by sincere but ignorant people trying to explain the world before science existed.

Why this matters morally

I care about reducing suffering and death, not about defending meaning or tradition.

That’s crucial.

Texts that:

misdescribe reality,

misassign blame,

moralize ignorance,

and sanctify error,

don’t just fail intellectually — they cause harm.

Religious certainty built on false premises has:

justified violence,

delayed medicine,

stigmatized illness,

excused cruelty,

and obstructed progress.

Rejecting that isn’t nihilism.
It’s ethical seriousness.

Ecurb, you argued for a benevolent God who values virtues and creates suffering, injustice, and death to grow virtues in sentient beings. In that case, why aren't all living things sentient to the level of humans who can be virtuous? What virtues do farm animals develop in their brief and captive lives, leading to slaughter? Also, you talked about the value of courage. If courage is the highest virtue, why aren't all sentient beings terrorised their whole lives by torturers who torture them forever? Surely, it takes much more courage to face an infinite intensity of pain for an infinite length of time than anything else? Your God concept is not matching up to the real world where we see non-sentient organisms and unequal and temporary suffering.

Quoting Truth Seeker

The existence of suffering, injustice, and death is incompatible with the existence of a being that is simultaneously all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful.

:up: :up:

Irrefutable. @Ecurb is in denial.

(2020)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/347492

Reply to 180 Proof Thank you very much for your reply and the link.