Natural Selection = Competition AND....

[Keep The Reason]

Then I think about the human desire to have a moral system and our strange practice of questioning whether or not moral laws make sense and the odd sense of pride that we all share in thinking our societal moral values have gotten better and better over time. It used to be that we were barbarians who did barbaric things, but now we are civilized and only act rationally. Where is it that we derive the standard by which we judge the changes in our societal moral values as improvements?

If our key developmental feature that propels us to be a successful organism is our sapience (and it is), then there is literally nothing mysterious about it. Any more than it's "mysterious" for a bird to fly. Consider-- a bird is born and needs a degree of care, and as it matures it then comes into its own as a flying animal. There is nothing particularly mysterious about this-- in fact most of us would consider it business as usual.

The same applies to human beings doing what it is they have evolved to do-- think and consider and develop perspectives. Indeed, you as a Christian rely on this in order to interpret the bible (or any belief system) that has led you to your conclusion of Christianity. Without it, you would not have any hope to conjure any theistic or ideological worldview at all, no more or less than do dogs, cows or horses (Orwell's "Animal Farm" notwithstanding).

Now, you can assert this comes from some mysterious realm, but in doing so, you now have to solve three problems. First, you have to make some effort to demonstrate this realm you assert. Secondly, you have to solve the problem of how that realm functions as well, since you are trying to explain this realm in the first place. you have created a hierarchy that we do not simply grant you simply because you claim it. And thirdly, you have to demonstrate your mysterious realm is the correct one, and a competitive assertion of a mysterious realm is not.

Pretty sweeping burden you shoulder for that "explanation" that actually explains nothing (other than the dead-end "goddidit"... which is... explaining nothing).

Then I think about our ability to reason. How strange that something so beautiful and so fundamental to our humanity would arise out of mindless processes. It is with this reason we can judge between truth and lies. We quite nearly owe everything we are to our reason.

Yes. And it's interesting how we can chart previous "versions" of ourselves and a distinct provenance of how our reasoning has gotten more and more sophisticated as we mature-- like a bird that starts off unable to fly... and then flutters it wings... then can fly short distances... and then can aerodynamically take wing.

A purely naturalistic demonstration of increased complexity and mastery of a skill as the entity matures. As opposed to the specious version of Christian development where man was plunked down as a direct "reflection" of an omniscient god, but, as history clearly shows, was far less sophisticated about his universe-- and in fact was deeply stifled by a predilection towards superstition which blinded him to his reality (much like a child conjures monsters and Santas to explain things they are not yet sophisticated enough to understand).

And equally interesting is this self-same reasoning has led so many people to conjure the non-Christian model--- isn't that peculiar? I mean, Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism, and Paganism and Mayan and Aztec and Norse and Greek and hundreds and thousands of tribal belief systems--- all of them wrong (according to Christians). Every last one of them-- a total misunderstanding based upon what the theist argues is our "god given" reason.

which totally makes sense when you take the naturalist viewpoint that theistic models are human constructs based not on facts but on desires, and have no specific claim to any actual objective truth. Indeed -- what the naturalist can do is clearly demonstrate these processes, and fully explain how they might be founded on a purely materialist grounding. The theist can only point to an old book and say, "Uhm, this, not that." But they cannot demonstrate any of these claims.

It is during this observation that I personally find naturalism to be most incompatible with the world as it appears to be.

And I take the position is not only is it compatible, but demonstrable, and analogies are easily found throughout nature, even in contradiction to ancient texts which claim humans are somehow special creations, and have dominion over all things. So, rather than saying "naturalism is incompatible" -- can you please demonstrate -- with actual examples -- how theistic models address what is already quite easily naturally explained?

And then, you'll need to follow that up with why is it that Christianity is the "right theism" of all the theistic models that have been offered throughout human history.

It is also during this observation that I find Christianity to fit better and better. I finally begin to understand myself and the reason why I am on the earth. I finally see that along with the rest of creation I was made to glorify God. I finally see that only then, only when I am fully devoted to doing the will of God will I be totally and wonderfully fulfilled. I finally see that this is the fuel that I was designed to run on. Just as it was said, man does not live on bread alone…

Well, the above is really just preaching, and not only not an argument, but an easily countered non-argument. I find a greater fulfillment now that I have dropped the superstitions of religion, and instead view the universe as a wonderful and amazing environment where I have some degree of free will (as opposed to the solipsistic existence an authored-by-deity existence compels), and I have the tools to accurately assess truths and facts, rather than simply because a very old book has said X, Y or Z. And further, I have the added enjoyment of those tools actually working. For instance, if I need my appendix out, I can leave it to god, or I can leave it to science. Leaving it to science allows me to post again. Leaving it to god puts me into the dirt.

Indeed, I have the further (and admittedly partly wicked) pleasure of watching those who claim they believe in miracles, god, and so on just as fervently NOT rely on god in any real sense, but instead rely quite obviously on science, which in the case of medical issues relies completely on evolution, which by turn completely refutes the Christian claims of how existence came about with complex life.

So while I see Christians offer lip service to their god model, at the end of the day, they really rely more on science and technology and their own reason in order to live to preach another day. by the way, no one is free from some cognitive dissonance in life, but cognitive dissonance to the degree where you actually reject the day-to-day requirements of what you say you believe is really more of an authenticity and integrity concern. which, as a materialist and Reasonist, I do not have as a burden. I say I believe in a material realm, and that realm is naturally derived, and I operate that way day to day, with both its risks are rewards. I don't make claims about some mysterious realm or Divinity that I invest with all sorts of special powers, and then turn around and really rely on the science of materialism and naturalism.

Indeed it is hard for me to believe the naturalistic model describes with any sort of accuracy the world as it actually is…

Well, in that case I am glad then to have been instrumental in furthering -- by direct example and demonstration -- not only how it is so, but also how the theistic approach is self-collapsing and speciously asserted.

[Aaron]

In short, NS makes no specific (conscious) choice that "survival is at the top of the hierarchy"; rather, survival is a priori with NS because anything that doesn't survive has no say in the outcome.

I agree with this, NS does not make conscious choices.

We are in agreement that survival, in the end, is the only outcome that matters in the NS model, but I don't agree that there is a degree of importance or less importance in how that survival is achieved-- it's all important, for every successful species.

Hmm I see what you're saying. But if you interchanged competition with survival which is the direction I was aiming to go (but now I'm not sure that would be correct) I believe my statement still makes sense: The bees cooperate to survive, they do not survive to cooperate. So I guess like you said we agree (maybe), the end game is survival, not cooperation, although cooperation may certainly be used as a tool to achieve survival.

Since no successful living entity is wholly unto itself, we must conclude that competition and cooperation are equally (though not consciously) important. Remove either, and the organism fails.

Mmm yes. I have often found this to be a stumbling block when considering how evolution from single celled organisms led to the world as we find it today, that is it seems like to many things had to happen parallel to each other in order to achieve our present state. If evolution were able to take a more serial approach it would be easy to believe (at least for me). BUT this is a discussion for another day; I probably shouldn't have brought it up.

We can think beyond our evolutionary programming at a number of levels, though not at the ultimate "core survival" level (and this applies even if we are willing to self-sacrifice for a higher purpose, as illustrated above). What is unique about humanity is that we clearly demonstrate the ability to make choices above instinctual behavior, which is evident from our reworking of our environment, our discipline of thought, our art, our cultures, religions, civilizations, etc.

I disagree. We can think beyond our core survival level. I'm doing it right now. I did it when I wrote my posts. I suspect people who no longer find living worth their time think beyond it also. This is something I've been trying to hammer out. When we get right down to it we have to ask ourselves why living is actually good. This might seem trivial to you and you might list off a number of reasons why you want to live (wife, kids, fun to drive cars, hiking and fishing, excitement, learning...). But I don't want to get too much into it just yet, I think it would be better to address it later in this post.

But we already know that creatures without reason cooperate in ways that are altruistic, and this dismantles the theists case for a god-ordered morality (well, it makes it unnecessary). Dolphins, apes, dogs, even species of antelopes have been seen holding at bay predators while others make an escape.

Yes, and I'm not saying at this point that our morality has to come from God, just to make that clear. What I am saying is that NS cannot be the source of our morality once we have reason. I agree that animals can have a sort of morality and that this can be explained based on the argument that it is more beneficial for them to have this morality than it is not to and thus from a NS point of view this makes sense. But we cannot apply the same sort of logic to human morality and it is because we have reason.

This is what I am suggesting. All life has a desire or will to live. Now I am no biologist but I feel confident in saying even the single celled organisms have what I have called a desire or will to live. I’m not suggesting that the single celled organisms desire to live is as complicated or as intricate as say a squirrels will to live and in the same way I doubt that a squirrels will to live is as complicated as a gorillas will to live and then on down to us humans. But at some level everything that is alive continues to make sure they stay alive. This is easily explained by NS. When single celled organisms were being randomly generated only the ones that were, I guess we could say, “programmed” to “want to live” survived (obviously). And thus the process of NS began. These organisms passed on these “instructions” in their DNA to keep living and to keep reproducing and over the course of time this desire or will to live became more and more complicated in the new species that evolved.

But when humans achieved reason something changed. With reason we are able to step back and consider the reasons we don’t steal. As I have said before the logic might flow something like this: stealing is not beneficial to our survival and we want to survive because living is…define as good by civilization? If I’ve understood correctly you say an artifice called civilization has come into play and that’s why we want to keep our society from destruction (i.e. the reason we don’t steal), not necessarily because living is good, but because over thousands of years of social consciousness-raising we’ve been trained to recoil from a behavior that leads to the removal of civilization. This might be the case for a lot of people who never stop to consider the reasons why they believe what they are doing is right, as you mentioned we can be easily swayed by a movement of nationalism or patriotism. But I’m afraid you haven’t gotten anywhere except add more words and another layer which you called civilization onto NS.

Just as NS cannot be the source of our morality neither can civilization. Just as evolution outsmarted itself so has civilization. Once a person discovers that the source of their morality is “thousands of years of social consciousness raising” they are forced to decide if they agree with where that morality has led them. Once a person discovers that the reason they want to survive is only because we have been trained that way by civilization, civilization can no longer be the source of their desire to live. They must decide for themselves why they want to live and it is that right there that I’m interested in. Where will they get their standard so to speak? How will they decide if civilization has produced a valid definition explaining why living is good? If you are a naturalist you must concede that there is no such thing as absolute good and therefore living can only be good if a person defines it that way.

In short, much like humans harnessed evolutionary techniques to breed dogs and fatter cows and better yields of wheat, we have also harnessed those self-same levers in our social constructs. What leads to greatest opportunities of survival? A balance of competition and cooperation -- thus, we adopt those behaviors and flourish. When we abandon them-- that's when chaos, suffering, and ruin rule the day, and we rightly recoil from it.

Hmm you seem to have made your decision about what is good. You seem to agree with where civilization has brought us. How did you make that decision? What standard did you use when you asked whether or not civilization has created a valid definition for what is good?

So have I made sense? If I have been confusing please let me know. This little piece of my post is what I believe to be the central core of my whole argument and I would really like to get it hashed out as well as possible.

Nor does such moral imperatives need to be applied to a simple function of reality

Oh but they do. If living was neither good nor bad then we should have no problems with the things that are precursors to destruction: chaos, suffering, and ruin. But these are all things you suggest we are right to recoil from and I agree with you by the way. Either living is good or bad or it is neutral and we just as well might be dead, because then there is no difference.

Evolution isn't "random". That which adds to the complexity and helps the organism to survive is kept, that which does not will cause the organism to fail and self-filter out of the equation. that's not randomness; that is incremental compiling of information.

Yes but the mutations that allow organisms to gain an advantage are random. It is not as though an organism only mutates in the direction of “progress”. In fact in my small amount of knowledge I would guess that most mutations are non-beneficial or even harmful. So therefore evolution is random in that it is entirely open ended. Who is to say that there is only one direction of “progress”?

Why not? Of course there are things we consider good or bad now -- but just because they are human constructs doesn't diminish them. Building are human constructs as well-- they are complex, serve a wonderful purpose, and help us to survive. Do we need to argue or posit a god to build buildings then? No we do not. Human constructs have purpose simply because we say they do. So "good" and "bad" things are ours to define.

No, buildings do not have a purpose simply because we say they do. They have a purpose because they can in fact keep us warm and out of the weather. They do not do these things because we say they do, they do these things because they have that inherent ability which is not dependent upon our thoughts or words. In the same way in a Christian world something is good or bad because it actually is good or bad, and it is not dependent upon our thoughts or words. But I do agree with were you are going with the good and bad. In naturalism good and bad are ours to define.

There is nothing negative to developing one's own purpose and meaning in life. In fact, we all do it. Theists develop a god-head to worship to give their lives meaning and purpose. I don't see the concern here.

On a side note I noticed something here. There are two ways a naturalist can discuss Christianity and similarly there are two ways a Christian can discuss naturalism. A naturalist can explain Christianity through the lens of naturalism or he can temporarily jump the fence and explain Christianity through the lens of Christianity. In the same way I can explain naturalism through the lens of naturalism and I can explain naturalism through the lens of Christianity.

Personally I find it much more constructive to discuss naturalism through the lens of naturalism than it is to discuss it through the lens of Christianity. For example I could say that the reason you want to believe in naturalism is not because it best corresponds to reality but because in naturalism you are able to define your own good and bad and you don’t have to listen to God and that would be describing naturalism through the lens of Christianity. But in my experience (and I can see why) it is not very constructive for discussions sake to say stuff like that. Instead I believe I can get much farther by trying to show the inconsistencies that I believe are in naturalism without ever leaving the naturalistic world, if that makes any sense.

Basically I am noticing that nearly every time you talk about Christianity it is from the naturalistic world, which is fine, my feeling are not hurt and I can see why it would be necessary to do so, because some explanation is needed for Christianity in naturalism. So, what do you think about this thought of mine?

I disagree with your premise and conclusion. In fact, there is a good, bad, better, worse, etc. for and from humans. It's just that we define it for ourselves, and evolution has been the mechanism by which we attained it. Survival instincts remain, blended with sapience and culture/civilization levers. It's a very well-ordered, completely functional model, and it doesn't require us to postulate extra unnecessary explanations that actually create more mystery, like "the supernatural".

Okay, that is exactly what I said too. So why do you disagree with my premise and conclusion? I was only pointing out that in naturalism there is no such things as good or bad outside of humanity. Many times however I came to the conclusion that good and bad are possible, but only through the subjective will of humans, which is what you’re saying too. So why do you disagree again?

I can easily demonstrate benefits and costs to humans within various models (read: good vs bad; or, naturalistic morality) whereas no theist can even remotely hope to demonstrate a supernatural realm much less a god realm that drives it.

You can easily demonstrate them after you have decided that you agree with what civilization taught you, that is that living is good. What the theist is interested in is the standard you used to make your decision on whether or not you agree with what civilization has trained you to think. The theist might be led to think that there is more going on here than meets the eye. The theist might be led to think that good and bad might exist outside of human whim or will.

And ironically, not only do they not solve and mysteries (about why there is a good or evil) they actually complicate the entire model by asserting a whole new realm of mysteries they couldn't possibly hope to solve (the supernatural, etc.).

The reason a theist would want to add a supernatural is because they realize the naturalistic view is too simple. Good seems to have all the qualities of an absolute or universal characteristic and they realize that such a thing doesn’t fit in naturalism. So by admitting there is a supernatural they are in effect solving mysteries and not creating more (at least that is how I see it).

Yes, it's obvious that you have come to a conclusion you feel (but cannot demonstrate) is "true" and your entire premise is founded upon it.

I’m not sure if you’re talking about the conclusions I’ve reached about naturalism or the conclusions I’ve reached that lead me to think Christianity is true. As for my conclusions on naturalism I feel that I’ve gone through them logically and quite systematically and I would not say I have based them on my feelings. The conclusions I’ve reached on why I believe Christinity is true are many, some I believe are quite logical and some are mere intuitions. But again I’m not exactly sure what you are addressing here.
As for demonstrations I’m not sure what you’re asking for. I don’t think that Christianity can be proved in the way that you seem to be asking for (likewise neither can naturalism, but this is not a reason to believe that Christianity is therefore true). But I do think the world as we find it is stacked heavily in favor of Christianity, but me saying that isn’t going to satisfy you.

You know here’s the equation as I see it. If a person wanted to believe in Christianity there is nothing they will find that will prove that Christianity is false and (I believe) there are many things that will support the idea that Christianity is true (that’s the kind of thing that I try to do here, present things that support Christianity). The question then becomes why would a person want to believe Christianity is true? and that would without contest be because a guy knows he is a sinner and he has learned that Jesus is offering a way to become clean and to lead a pure righteous life through Him. But unfortunately (at least as I see it) most people don’t seem to want or need that gift of grace. But anyways that’s the equation as I see it.

Now, you can assert this comes from some mysterious realm, but in doing so, you now have to solve three problems.

The reason I would suggest a person should assert that the actual source of morality is outside of nature is because it makes sense to do so. In other words it fits better with how we find the world to be.

First, you have to make some effort to demonstrate this realm you assert.

Well I thought that’s what I’ve been doing. But again I think you may be asking for the kind of proof that isn’t there.

Secondly, you have to solve the problem of how that realm functions as well, since you are trying to explain this realm in the first place. you have created a hierarchy that we do not simply grant you simply because you claim it.

Well all I would like to do at this point is to show that it makes sense (at least to me) when considering morality to have another “realm” which interjects a sort of universal morality into our own realm. I don’t really have any plans to explain how exactly it functions only that it is necessary based on the state of morality as we find it.

And thirdly, you have to demonstrate your mysterious realm is the correct one, and a competitive assertion of a mysterious realm is not.

Well I would if I was bent on proving Christianity is true I would have to demonstate that it is indeed true. But I can’t, at least in the way that I think you desire. But it follows logically that if I can’t prove Christianity is false it might be true and if it might be true then naturalism might be false, so if I was in the mood to boss people around I might ask the same thing of you.

[mitchellmckain]

Natural selection (NS) is simple, it is merely a form of the principle of least resistance. For example, X is more powerful, more efficient, and more durable than Y therefore over the course of time population X will increase and population Y will decrease if not disappear altogether. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

But it is not a path of least resistance at all. This makes a fundamental mistake that many evolutionists make and that is thinking of evolution as a deterministic process. It isn't. Natrual selection could also be called the law of success and it is applicable to far more than the arena of biological development. Heck they even use this as a computer algorithm to solve complex math problems. Whatever you may want, when faced with some sort of selective process that give you what you want conditionally, you abandon things that do not work or you fail. In the case of students in a classroom it may be failing and having to repeat the class, while in evolution its survival of the species or extinction. The point is that this process quite often comes up with all kinds of solutions to the same problems and sometimes they are the most unlikely and unimaginable solutions at that. It is practically the opposite of a straight forward way of achieving ones ends, whatever they may be.

Back to the bees. Perhaps by becoming more community oriented (less selfish, perhaps) bees were able to increase their net efficiency. Therefore it would seem that NS might indeed be a balance between competition and cooperation as you've put it. By cooperating together the bees have increased their competitive edge. But here the truth is revealed. NS is not a horizontal entity with competition on one end of the spectrum and cooperation on the other. It is a vertical entity. Competition is at the top, and everything else is below it (if there even is anything else).

On the one hand, this process is neither vertical nor horizontal but infinitely branching in every conceivable direction, with occasional pruning of some of the branches by NS and other events which may be either random or by the intension of some external agent. In other words, not only is NS not determinative but it does not even have an exclusive dominion. Sometimes that which is most supremely fit to survive nevertheless dies because of other events. After all one good sized asteroid at a decent clip can end it all on this planet and where is natural selection then?

On the other hand, you do have something here, but not the way you have been thinking. Cooperation is not like other developments. It is a whole new stage of evolution that changes all the rules on the individual level. Cooperation is a critical part of the whole process of biological development without which I don't think there would be any life on this planet at all. Our bodies are vast communities of cells working in cooperation and there is evidence that our cells themselves evolved from cooperation of more primitive units like bacteria and algie. But I think the process continues all the way down the line in the process of abiogenesis where cyclical biochemical processes began to interact and form more complex biochemical processes.

Survival is the highest priority. Cooperation is often a tool used to achieve survival, there is no doubt. But cooperation cannot be placed on the same level as competition. The bees cooperate to compete; they do not compete to cooperate.

Survival really isn't inherently a priority in the process at all, although a survival instinct may evolve that creates such a priority. That ascribes too much teleology or intension to the process. Survival is simply the ultimate fact of life. That which does not survive simply doesn't participate anymore. Furthermore in evolution it is only the survival of the species that matters not the survival of the organism. Thus we see the evolution of the black widow that eats its mates and these bees you have been talking about have evolved so that the majority of individuals are sterile dead ends with no offspring.

By trying to make out NS to be a sort of horizontal spectrum, with competition on one side and cooperation on the other I'm afraid we've allowed our humanity to seek in where it does not belong, if you know what I mean. It sounds nice to have evolutionary theory balancing between competition and cooperation. We could have a healthy amount of competition to stimulate growth and progress complemented by a side order of beneficial cooperation. That sounds nice to me. But that is not NS. NS does not care whether cooperation or competition is used to gain the advantage only that an advantage is gained and that that advantage is allowed to pass on to the next generation. So that's what I meant when I said I thought you had slipped in a sort of personality into NS.

So you are correct that balancing has nothing to do with anything in this. Competition is more a fact of life than a matter of design or strategy, and cooperation IS a successful strategy. Perhaps you are thinking of economics where competition is an important part of a healthy economy. That is simply a realization that we need this process of life (or evolution) to work for us in economics and that letting some group dominate and wipe out everyone else can too easily lead to complete extinction. There is nothing in evolution to prevent such a thing from ocurring except that anything halfway will leave survivors that will go on. Some, in fact, may wonder if our species is the one that will bring the total annihilation of life in this way.

You seem to have appealed to evolution for the reason you do not steal and do not murder, the source of your morality if you will. You made a case that evolution was a balance of competition and cooperation and out of the cooperation comes our desire to do good, if you will, the desire to resist stealing, to resist murdering, and I will go further: to resist taking a women at a moment’s whim, to resist our fear of standing up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Hopefully I have shown that evolution is first and foremost of competitive nature, BUT as we clearly observe in nature there are many instances when cooperation is the path by which a species becomes maximally competitive. Therefore your statement is not unreasonable. It seems quite possible that your morality has arisen through the process of NS.

But this begs the question really. If evolution selects against stealing and murder then this simply could because there are logical reasons why these things do not ultimately work. I think that is the point. The point is that things are right and wrong for a reason, and whether you have a deity commanding it or evolution selecting it, those reasons remain. Because there are such reasons, the argument from moratity for the existence of God just does not work.

Hopefully I have shown that evolution is first and foremost of competitive nature, BUT as we clearly observe in nature there are many instances when cooperation is the path by which a species becomes maximally competitive. Therefore your statement is not unreasonable. It seems quite possible that your morality has arisen through the process of NS.

You certainly haven't shown to me that evolution is first and formost of a competive nature. I think it is very clear that cooperation is a key element in the whole process, without which it does not go anywhere. Sure competition plays a role in the evolution of individuals, but ultimately the great advances in evolution come through cooperation that does away with that competition on an individual level. You can in fact say that cooperation is the ultimate acheivement of the competition in the process of individual evolution.

So what about that evolutionary morality? This is where it really becomes fascinating to me. Suppose during the course of NS the human race found it beneficial, so to speak, to cooperate with one another in order to increase the vitality of the species, as you mentioned this would mean we don’t steal and we don’t murder each other, just like the bees. But now suppose humans suddenly fall upon the ability to reason (because obviously we haven’t always been rational, somewhere along the way we began to pick up the ability to reason). What do we do now? All this time we’ve supposedly kept ourselves from stealing and murdering because it was beneficial to the survival of our species but now we are suddenly aware of the source of our morality: mindless evolution!

We now have a choice, will we continue to steer our morality down this path of least resistance or will we decide to do something else? This is fascinating. Evolution seems to have outsmarted itself.

People said the same thing about cooperation which seems to eliminate the process of evolution by doing away with competition. But all this really points to is a misunderstanding of the whole process. What is really going on is the advancement to the next stage of evolution with something that is quantitatively more alive (more adaptable and more capable of evolving/learning) than what went before and thus the process has to start all over again with the new parameters. With the freedom of the mind and its radical new ability of passing on aquired information to the next generation, evolution proceeds at a much faster pace in the new arena and we have the blindingly fast evolution of the human community rather than the extremely slow process by which the species evolves.


Anyway, I am not sure if there is much point in continuing because so many of the premises of your argument have been uprooted. But if there is anything in that which followed that you would like me to pay attention to, then let me know.

[PrometheusWins]

And I would claim that he did no such thing. I would ask you to point out where he states this. I suspect that there is some qualifier somewhere that "selfishness" represents a useful (figurative) way of representing a gene-centered perspective.

I have no problem with that, because I frankly don't see any difference whatsoever. The absurdity is in reductionism of the gene-centered perspective itself.

Whoa, that was a textbook example of moving the goalpost. But why do you object to a reductionistic approach to understanding the role of genes in evolutionary processes? Reductionism is a vital component in the scientific understanding of almost any natural phenomenon. What's your problem here?
Plus: From a causal (naturalistic) perspective, genes do have a central role as "prime movers" in our understanding of biological evolution and the forming of individual organisms.
1) As pointed out by Dawkins and others: If life has arisen by purely naturalistic processes (abiogenesis), there was most likely some system of replication of information in place long before we start to recognize life. The perspective that organisms are just the vehicles for genes to make more copies of themselves thus has some merit - at least as a rhethorical technique to shake us from an intuitive human-centered perspective. Evidently this will not work with everybody. I'm still pondering how to apply a rhethorical megaton charge powerful enough to shake Aaron from his self-centered perspective...
2) In the development of individual biological organisms, the genetic information constitutes the primary determinant in shaping who we are. Not excluding an environmental component, of course.

In conclusion, a gene-centered perspective is an essential component in our understanding of the most central aspects of biology. So what's your problem with that?

[mitchellmckain]

As pointed out by Dawkins and others: If life has arisen by purely naturalistic processes (abiogenesis), there was most likely some system of replication of information in place long before we start to recognize life.

I certainly think so.

The perspective that organisms are just the vehicles for genes to make more copies of themselves thus has some merit

That is a non-sequiteur and is as imbecilic as saying there is merit in the idea that computers, people and industry are just vehicles for DVD's to make more copies of themselve, because we know that there were previous systems like cd's and floppys to store and propagate information.

- at least as a rhethorical technique to shake us from an intuitive human-centered perspective.

I see absolutely no value in replacing a human centered perspective with some fantasy of an anthropomorphized perspective of some inanimate object. And furthermore I see only harm and delusion in pretenses to a perspective that is not human. Life is an essentially subjective enterprise and an attempt to remake the totality of life into the objective abstraction that we call scientific inquiry is a distortion that is dangerous to the essential activities of life itself.

Evidently this will not work with everybody. I'm still pondering how to apply a rhethorical megaton charge powerful enough to shake Aaron from his self-centered perspective...

Hmmmm... perhaps I need to look for something that will have a similar power to shake certain other people from the delusion of objectivity.

2) In the development of individual biological organisms, the genetic information constitutes the primary determinant in shaping who we are. Not excluding an environmental component, of course.

Whereas I think that it has practically nothing to do with who we are. It is no different that reducing people to their race or sex and saying that these are the things that define who they are. They are simply circumstance and nothing more. Who we are has to do with how we choose to respond to those circumstances and not the circumstances themselves.

In conclusion, a gene-centered perspective is an essential component in our understanding of the most central aspects of biology. So what's your problem with that?

Even if that were true, science is not life. Science is simply one specialized activity in some people's lives, no matter how important those people (including me) might think that activity is.

[PrometheusWins]

Mitch, you do a great job in countering some of the nonsense displayed here, but you still misunderstand some basic principles of natural selection and the nature of gene transfer between generations (along with most non-biologists/ecologists/evolutionary biologists who have not had these principles drilled into them).

Furthermore in evolution it is only the survival of the species that matters not the survival of the organism. Thus we see the evolution of the black widow that eats its mates and these bees you have been talking about have evolved so that the majority of individuals are sterile dead ends with no offspring.

This is a common misunderstanding of the evolutionary process, precisely because people fail to apply a gene-centered perspective. Natural selection works on genes (or whole genotypes), and not species. The survival of the species is completely irrelevant from the perspective of natural selection; it is a side-effect of the selection for survival of specific genotypes in the gene pool. Neither the male black widow nor the sterile worker bees make a sacrifice for the benefit of the species. Don't you see??: any gene that evolved a self-sacrificial phenotype that increased the survival of the species while lowering its own chances of transmission to the next generation would simply be eliminated from the gene pool.

The genes governing self-sterility in worker bees are selected for because they are passed on through the siblings of the sterile worker bees, namely the queens of the next generation (through a process we call kin selection). Through a quirk in the genetic sex determination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploid_sex-determination_system of hymenopterans (bees, wasps, ants etc.), female hymenopterans share more genes with their sisters than with their own offspring. Thus it can sometimes be more beneficial for them to support sisters rather than produce their own offspring. It is probably no coincidence that social nests with sterile workers are especially prevalent among hymenopterans.

Regarding the male black widow (or the male praying mantis): I'm not sure about the reason for why these behaviours evolve, but likely the males are trapped in a situation that they cannot avoid. All behaviours are not necessarily adaptive for both sexes, and Nature is full of cases wher one sex exploits the other. This is actually one area where Nature quite closely follows predictions based on gene-centered evolution.

The perspective that organisms are just the vehicles for genes to make more copies of themselves thus has some merit

That is a non-sequiteur and is as imbecilic as saying there is merit in the idea that computers, people and industry are just vehicles for DVD's to make more copies of themselve, because we know that there were previous systems like cd's and floppys to store and propagate information.

No it is not imbecilic; it is a way of modelling reality that allows us to make accurate predictions about the likely pathways that evolution may take under specific circumstances. I suggest you go back and read "The selfish gene" again without your emotional knee-jerk reactions.
Besides, your analogy with the CD:s or DVD:s is way off. There is no line of descent between information stored on different generations of CD:s and their corresponding readers and machinery used to make more CDs. In fact, it is hard to find any good analogy to the propagation of genetic information; it seems to be unique in many ways.

[Keep The Reason]

I suspect people who no longer find living worth their time think beyond it also. This is something I've been trying to hammer out. When we get right down to it we have to ask ourselves why living is actually good. This might seem trivial to you and you might list off a number of reasons why you want to live (wife, kids, fun to drive cars, hiking and fishing, excitement, learning...). But I don't want to get too much into it just yet, I think it would be better to address it later in this post.

Well, we can let it go for now until you wish to flesh it out more, but I think "good" as a moral definition is probably irrelevant-- it's not specifically "good" to be alive, as opposed to it being "evil". Life is neutral on this; it's neither good nor bad, though as you note one can easily list the enjoyable things about being alive.

But when humans achieved reason something changed. With reason we are able to step back and consider the reasons we don’t steal. As I have said before the logic might flow something like this: stealing is not beneficial to our survival and we want to survive because living is…define as good by civilization?

No, I don't think this last part is quite right because civilization (or better, society) doesn't just define life as good. There are other drivers that would override society. There was a film in the 1970's called "Logan's Run" which was about a society that killed everyone once they reached 30 years of age (stupid movie by the way). Now, while the movie was bad, the premise works as illustrative of this discussion. Society defines anyone over the age of 30 as "bad" -- and what does this result in? well, (unbelievably) most people in the film go to their untimely deaths, but Logan decides to (guess what?) run. He wants to live despite society's definition that life after 30 is "bad". What is that drive? It's the desire we each have for life and to enjoy being alive. And that is purely the evolved state of our survival instinct.

If I’ve understood correctly you say an artifice called civilization has come into play and that’s why we want to keep our society from destruction (i.e. the reason we don’t steal), not necessarily because living is good, but because over thousands of years of social consciousness-raising we’ve been trained to recoil from a behavior that leads to the removal of civilization. This might be the case for a lot of people who never stop to consider the reasons why they believe what they are doing is right, as you mentioned we can be easily swayed by a movement of nationalism or patriotism. But I’m afraid you haven’t gotten anywhere except add more words and another layer which you called civilization onto NS.

It's not just that we've learned to recoil from a behavior that would lead to the removal of civilization (our civilization seems to being doing ok with a lot of different types of stealing, which it seems to do all the time). It doesn't mean the species would collapse, but it would mean the species would spend most of its time fighting for food and doing little else. consider seagulls., Have you ever fed them? They each compete for every breadcrumb and will easily steal it from their brothers and sisters without a second thought. and extinction is certainly not a concern for seagulls (though we may wish it). But fighting for food then is just about all they do, all day long.

We are among the animals that have the capacity to understand that stealing , far from leading us to a life of less work, leads to a lot more work in that you must remain ever vigilant and constantly battle for every morsel you are able to get your hands or beak on.

The resistance to stealing comes from an understanding that should it be condoned, it would negatively affect everyone at each level of society. There would be hardly time for anything else. It's a different niche that allows us to expand our actions away from just fighting for any morsel, but it's got nothing to do with NS in terms of it being better or worse in efficacy. Stealing is a survivable way to make a living and ensure the species will continue. But it's not the best way to do it, particularly for the sapient animals.

Just as NS cannot be the source of our morality neither can civilization. Just as evolution outsmarted itself so has civilization. Once a person discovers that the source of their morality is “thousands of years of social consciousness raising” they are forced to decide if they agree with where that morality has led them. Once a person discovers that the reason they want to survive is only because we have been trained that way by civilization, civilization can no longer be the source of their desire to live. They must decide for themselves why they want to live and it is that right there that I’m interested in. Where will they get their standard so to speak? How will they decide if civilization has produced a valid definition explaining why living is good? If you are a naturalist you must concede that there is no such thing as absolute good and therefore living can only be good if a person defines it that way.

I disagree with your entire chain of premises here. NS has inputed the survival instinct within the balance of cooperation and competition. Even the seagulls cooperate when stolen from in that they do not go about exacting revenge for the deed. They get stolen from, they steal in kind. It's fairly cooperative even in its competitiveness.

This isn't a simple black and white on/off paradigm. Society isn't the sole source of morality necessarily but the arbiter of it. And there are different moral levels as well. Are we talking about the morality of love for instance? Our society decrees that sexual contact before the age of 16-17 or so is criminal. Is it ? Because other societies say no. As recently as 100 years ago, 15 year olds would be married and having children in various cultures.

Murder, rape, stealing-- these are what concern us today. There was a time when rape wasn't a crime, and stealing a loaf of bread would be punishable by death. Murdering old women based on accusations they were "witches" was once accepted as well. Really, our moral compass is pretty narrow from a survival point of view. It's as we have developed a sense of human rights, that has made questions of morality and ethics more complex. Vastly so because often rights will create clashes between the wants/needs of one versus another-- both of whom can lay claim to those inalienable human rights.

Hmm you seem to have made your decision about what is good. You seem to agree with where civilization has brought us. How did you make that decision? What standard did you use when you asked whether or not civilization has created a valid definition for what is good?

My decisions on what is "good" depends. That's the problem with these types of discussions-- they tend to try to oversimplify how complex issues of rights really are. So, here's a good fir instance: I'm pretty much anti-death penalty. But I'm not against it because I am against killing certain types of people (like Hitler, or Osama bin Laden, etc). I'm against it because we cannot hope to deliver it without error. We have, and will continue, to execute people who are not guilty of the crime they are being executed for. From a NS / Darwinian perspective, executing killers makes perfect sense. But from a liberal / human rights perspective, it does not. As a Darwinian world would be vastly more brutal and would result in more people killing one another when their competition drive took precedence, the better option is to reduce the Darwinian NS methods in favor of the liberal / right methods. This makes the world better for all of us. Society itself doesn't really teach this concept so much. But not because society is somehow evil or out of touch -- it's just much more simplistic in its cause and effect model.

Oh but they do. If living was neither good nor bad then we should have no problems with the things that are precursors to destruction: chaos, suffering, and ruin. But these are all things you suggest we are right to recoil from and I agree with you by the way. Either living is good or bad or it is neutral and we just as well might be dead, because then there is no difference.

From our perspective it's good because we enjoy it and our survival instinct propels us to it, but in reality it's neutral. If every human dies tomorrow-- if all of Earth is consumed in a fireball and scorched to a cinder-- and if only life has a foothold in all of the universe, the universe will not end.

What's interesting about this to me is the issue of how the theist has elevated life to a degree of importance that they yearn for it to be eternal in nature. This is just as extreme a position as is nihilism, but it doesn't have the bad press that nihilism receives.

Furthermore, the Christian's god has this peculiar idea of a literal living death in the form of Hell. I'm not inclined to adopt the position of extremists or hypocrites when it comes to defining life as enjoyable or not. And I don't accept the premise that life can be something that is "good" or "bad" because it's simply not "good" or "bad" -- life simply is.

Yes but the mutations that allow organisms to gain an advantage are random. It is not as though an organism only mutates in the direction of “progress”. In fact in my small amount of knowledge I would guess that most mutations are non-beneficial or even harmful. So therefore evolution is random in that it is entirely open ended. Who is to say that there is only one direction of “progress”?

Evolution may seem random in the end result but natural selection is not. Only changes that allow for survival are maintained; all others die off. That is the direct opposite of random. Neither are directed-- so if you mean random as in "chance" I disagree, but if you mean random in direction, then that's more acceptable.

No, buildings do not have a purpose simply because we say they do. They have a purpose because they can in fact keep us warm and out of the weather. They do not do these things because we say they do, they do these things because they have that inherent ability which is not dependent upon our thoughts or words. In the same way in a Christian world something is good or bad because it actually is good or bad, and it is not dependent upon our thoughts or words. But I do agree with were you are going with the good and bad. In naturalism good and bad are ours to define.

As human constructs they do what they do because we "say" they do. We say, "If I build this shelter, it will protect me." That is why we build it ("say" is metaphorical to some degree-- you may not use the words but instead have the belief).

Basically I am noticing that nearly every time you talk about Christianity it is from the naturalistic world, which is fine, my feeling are not hurt and I can see why it would be necessary to do so, because some explanation is needed for Christianity in naturalism. So, what do you think about this thought of mine?

I think it's fine as far as it goes but some things in this model are not equal two-way streets. For instance, I cannot adopt the "define Christianity from the Christian worldview" very well because the "Christian worldview" itself is rife with major gaps. You can't fully operate from the Christian worldview yourself which is why there are so many examples of unanswerable questions in the Christian religious models.

For example, the Christian will eventually have to resort to a disclaimer of "well, that's a mystery" about key elements of their worldview-- this is not the fault or design of the Reasonist, but an inherent flaw in the Christian worldview. Now, certainly there are mysteries in a Reasonist worldview as well, but there is nothing otherworldly about these mysteries. When a theist says "It's a mystery" that is a surrender to the idea that their worldview is founded upon a realm that offers them utterly no answer and no hope for an answer. Meanwhile, when a Reasonist says "Well, that's a mystery" this only means the tools are not yet in hand to discern the answer. There is nothing inherent about the issue that precludes us from knowing it, given the right tools. Hell, maybe even time travel will be possible so we can go back and view actual events, and know what happened for sure-- providing we can invent a time machine. But the theist is hopelessly locked into a veil of ignorance because even if there is a god and a heave, only god can know everything.

So I'm not able to easily drop what I see as purely naturalistic motivators for theistic paradigms. At the same time, theists are forced to acknowledge their entire worldview does actually rest on naturalism-- life, death, reward and punishment, etc.

Okay, that is exactly what I said too. So why do you disagree with my premise and conclusion? I was only pointing out that in naturalism there is no such things as good or bad outside of humanity. Many times however I came to the conclusion that good and bad are possible, but only through the subjective will of humans, which is what you’re saying too. So why do you disagree again?

I don't recall what this was about but if we're saying the same thing then I wouldn't disagree.

You can easily demonstrate them after you have decided that you agree with what civilization taught you, that is that living is good.

Not really. I can demonstrate positive and negative impacts to survival without much caring about what society says about it one way or the other. This would be more darwinian, but we don';t need civilization to teach us that life strives to survive. That's part of our genetic make up.

What the theist is interested in is the standard you used to make your decision on whether or not you agree with what civilization has trained you to think. The theist might be led to think that there is more going on here than meets the eye. The theist might be led to think that good and bad might exist outside of human whim or will.

Well, far be it from me to be able to manage what theists are led to think. The standard is ephemeral and changes. I used to be fairly virulently anti-gay, now I work towards helping gays gain equal treatment in the USA. My standard was something that grew over time because I stopped caring about what gays did privately and started caring about what was happening to them unjustly. I empathized with them and applied it to my self-- how would I feel if I were not permitted to be with the person I loved. While the manifestation of the injustice was social, I didn't "learn from society" that being treated badly for no good reason was unjust. I simply empathized with their plight.

The reason a theist would want to add a supernatural is because they realize the naturalistic view is too simple. Good seems to have all the qualities of an absolute or universal characteristic and they realize that such a thing doesn’t fit in naturalism. So by admitting there is a supernatural they are in effect solving mysteries and not creating more (at least that is how I see it).

The operative word above is the word "seems". Good may seem to have a universal character (though I disagree with that because "good" can be different for different people), If such good does exist, and it exists in our existence, then by definition it has to be naturalistic.

As to the second half of your statement, you are just ignoring the sizable mysteries asserting a supernatural realm brings with it. Neither science nor religion can answer the Why? question.

You know here’s the equation as I see it. If a person wanted to believe in Christianity there is nothing they will find that will prove that Christianity is false and (I believe) there are many things that will support the idea that Christianity is true (that’s the kind of thing that I try to do here, present things that support Christianity). The question then becomes why would a person want to believe Christianity is true? and that would without contest be because a guy knows he is a sinner and he has learned that Jesus is offering a way to become clean and to lead a pure righteous life through Him. But unfortunately (at least as I see it) most people don’t seem to want or need that gift of grace.

And so they deserve... .what?

The reason I would suggest a person should assert that the actual source of morality is outside of nature is because it makes sense to do so. In other words it fits better with how we find the world to be.

But you haven't demonstrated this at all. It's begging the question. We can suggest just about anything-- I could suggest that morals come from 100 monkeys spinning their spider monkey tails counterclockwise on the night of a full moon-- but so what?

Well I thought that’s what I’ve been doing. But again I think you may be asking for the kind of proof that isn’t there.

no, you're merely presenting an opinion. That's not bad at all-- but it doesn't substitute for demonstration.

Well all I would like to do at this point is to show that it makes sense (at least to me) when considering morality to have another “realm” which interjects a sort of universal morality into our own realm. I don’t really have any plans to explain how exactly it functions only that it is necessary based on the state of morality as we find it.

What is this realm comprised of? How does this realm operate? Where is this realm? Do the laws of physics apply there? If not, what does apply there? Can we visit that realm? Why or why not? As you can see, these questions already apply here and we haven't answered all of them yet-- but you want people to assert yet another realm to answer something that doesn't even get answered.

Well I would if I was bent on proving Christianity is true I would have to demonstate that it is indeed true. But I can’t, at least in the way that I think you desire. But it follows logically that if I can’t prove Christianity is false it might be true and if it might be true then naturalism might be false, so if I was in the mood to boss people around I might ask the same thing of you.

This is off topic, but if you pile up the reasons for why Christianity exists, you'll find they are not much different from why any religion exists. However, when you apply science to mysteries, when you get an answer it tends to lead you to an answer or brings you the actual answer. The idea that this is "bossing people around" is a deflection. I have a standard for what I will embrace in my worldview, and if someone doesn't wish to provide me with what I require in order to invest belief in what they say, that's fine. I'm not "bossing them around" to inform them of my standards. They are not obligated to adhere to my standards, and likewise I am not obligated to believe anything they say is true. That's fair, right?

[Aaron]

My decisions on what is "good" depends. That's the problem with these types of discussions-- they tend to try to oversimplify how complex issues of rights really are. So, here's a good fir instance: I'm pretty much anti-death penalty. But I'm not against it because I am against killing certain types of people (like Hitler, or Osama bin Laden, etc). I'm against it because we cannot hope to deliver it without error. We have, and will continue, to execute people who are not guilty of the crime they are being executed for. From a NS / Darwinian perspective, executing killers makes perfect sense. But from a liberal / human rights perspective, it does not. As a Darwinian world would be vastly more brutal and would result in more people killing one another when their competition drive took precedence, the better option is to reduce the Darwinian NS methods in favor of the liberal / right methods. This makes the world better for all of us. Society itself doesn't really teach this concept so much. But not because society is somehow evil or out of touch -- it's just much more simplistic in its cause and effect model.

See this is exactly what I'm talking about. Its that right there that I'm interested in. I agree one-hundred percent that life isn't simple and that these conversations over simplify. But it's like my professor used to say, if you can't understand the simple stuff, how do you expect to get the more advanced stuff? And so, while I agree morality is complex I still believe it can be broken down into the binary concepts of right and wrong (better or worse), (or else maybe its just a non-issue like peanut butter sandwich with jelly or honey). You have displayed that well when you analyzed a not very simple way of looking at the death penalty and used the word better to describe one of the options. We do this all the time in our society today. Liberal people would say that our culture would improve for the better by giving gays equal rights.

When we use words like better or worse, right or wrong, the Christian world seems much more plausible to me with morality being interjected universally. I don't expect you do agree, its just something that I see heavily supporting the idea that Christianity is true.

[JustJim]

It's really interesting reading this discussion you two are having. I just want to interject for Aaron that "better or worse" and "right or wrong" are categorically different things. When you say something is better than or worse than something else, you're making a comparison of those two things with each other. But when you say something is right or wrong, you're saying it is right or it is wrong, and not that one is "more right" or "more wrong" than the other. Do you see the difference? "Better or worse" is not a moral evaluation, while "right or wrong" is.

Anyhow, please continue....

Jim

[Aaron]

I just want to interject for Aaron that "better or worse" and "right or wrong" are categorically different things. When you say something is better than or worse than something else, you're making a comparison of those two things with each other. But when you say something is right or wrong, you're saying it is right or it is wrong, and not that one is "more right" or "more wrong" than the other. Do you see the difference? "Better or worse" is not a moral evaluation, while "right or wrong" is.

Well I've thought about that and I don't think I agree. If not killing people through the death penalty is better than using the death penalty and possibly killing someone who is innocent then it would be wrong for us to continue using the death penalty. Similarly if giving gays equal rights in American society is better than not giving gays equal rights, then it would be wrong for us not to push the gay equality agenda. It would be wrong for us to stand by and watch the injustice continue. The way I see it better and worse are not only a comparison of each other, there must also be an outside standard that is used, a perfect end goal so to speak by which we can say this way is better, this way gets us closer to that perfect end goal. And here again I am simplifying things again, but like I said I think if we try we can break these things down into simple binary right and wrong, better or worse or perhaps we will find some things that really are neutral. That's what I'd like to think about for a while anyways. What do you think of this Jim, KTR?

[JustJim]

Aaron,

Maybe you should think "good or bad" and "right or wrong" instead of "better than or worse than"? I think that's what's confusing the issue here. If it's wrong to kill innocent people and the death penalty results in innocent people being killed, then using the death penalty would be "wrong" (at least on those occasions where an innocent person is executed.) That's a better way to say it, I think, than to say not using the death penalty would be "better than" using it. By the same token, it would be "wrong" to deny a human being equal rights based on sexual orientation, so then, of course, allowing gay people equal rights would be "better than" denying them equal rights.

Maybe to sum it up better, I think you're just saying that doing what is good or right is better than doing what is bad or wrong. Am I close?

Jim

[Aaron]

Maybe to sum it up better, I think you're just saying that doing what is good or right is better than doing what is bad or wrong. Am I close?

Well that's certainly a true statement. But I think there is also more to the story and it’s not as if I'm stretching the definition of better or worse for my own personal agenda. I'll try an example. Consider a man who likes women a little too much. Certainly verbal sexual harassment is better than physical sexual harassment but they are still both wrong. Or what about this. I think most people in our culture would say homosexuals have it better in present American society than in present Iranian society, although some would say both societies are full of injustice since neither gives full equal rights to homosexuals.

So I'll try and sum it up, I think the words better and worse are closely intertwined with the words right and wrong, but they cannot be interchanged, they are surely distinct. Do you see what I’m saying?

And the question I always ask is, “Well how do we know when society makes a change that it is for the better?” And don’t think that question isn’t a valid one, because that is usually the whole motivation for changing society, "because the change is a change for the better, it’s an improvement". I just want to know who’s standard we are trying to approach, for there must certainly be a standard if we are to honestly use words like better or worse, don't you agree?

[JustJim]

Aaron,

It sounds to me like you're just saying that morality is both situational (it changes over time, depends on culture, etc.) and relative (stealing is wrong, but sometimes stealing is better than not stealing; sexual harassment is wrong, but some forms of it are worse than others, and so on), and I agree wholeheartedly. When you put those considerations together with an overall belief that it is better to do what is good/right than it is to do what is bad/wrong, I think that pretty much sums up the whole of morality. But doesn't that make morality subjective, rather than objective?

Jim

[Spectrox War]

Aaron - couldn't you have used something better for your signature? C.S.Lewis is a terrible writer. "Mad, bad or God" indeed. What about the other possibility which he conveniently ignores? "Myth".

The Screwtape Letters are absolute twaddle.

And having Santa Claus turn up in Narnia was the final straw.

[mitchellmckain]

And having Santa Claus turn up in Narnia was the final straw.

???

But was that when you were a Christian or an atheist?

I can well imagine how some Christians would get upset over lending any reality to the myth of Santa Claus, daring to put it on same playing field as their God. BUT, I would think that an atheist would find that aspect of the books delightful and thus nod their heads, saying yep its the same thing. LOL