And Slaters Go Plop

These are fairly old but I only just stumbled upon them. Some good insights from David Attenborough, Richard Dawkins, Richard Leakey and Jane Goodall on the environment and the future of our planet.

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A few months ago I did a bit of a write-up about Vitamin C and for some reason it must be popular with Google because I’ve had an insane amount of search engine hits this month on the topic. Here are the search phrases my analytics software detected were recently used by people who ended up on the site:

what happens if we don’t get enough vitamin c
why do we need vitamin c
why do we need vitamin c?
can chimps produce vitamin c
does too much vitamin c make your nose turn orange?
three reasons we need vitamin c
too much vitamin c lunch
vitamin c in sea water
what did sailors get when they didn’t have fruits and vegetables
what happen if we didn’t have vitamin c
what happen if we do not go enough of vitamin c
what happen if you have to must vitamin c
what happens if we don’t have enough vitamin c
what happens if we dont have vitamin c?
what happens if we get to much vitamin c in our body?
what happens when we don’t get vitamin c
what things have vitamin c
what will happen if we don’t have enough vitamin c
what would happen if we didn’t have enough vitamin c
what would happen if we didn’t have vitamin c
what would happen if you didn’t eat vitamin c
what would happen if you didn’t have enough vitamin c
when do we get scurvy?
when you don’t have enough vitamin a and c
which common fruit has the most vitamin c
why can sailors go to the shop to get fruit and veg so they don,t get scurvy
why can’t we make our own vitamin c
why do we have vitamins
why do we need vitamin c and where do we get it from
why do we need vitamin c in our bodies?
why do we need vitamon c
why we need vitamin c

Hey kids, don’t trust everything you read on the Internet! I’m just a web developer. If you want dietary advice or are worried about your nose turning orange please go see a doctor.

I’ve observed conversations between theists and non-theists in which the theist will state that the non-theist doesn’t have a leg to stand on with regard to morality because if you don’t believe in a God then you can have no objective basis for your morals and so no moral belief can be better or worse than the other.

And I’ve watch many non-theists scramble to try to show that they do, in fact, have a basis for objective morality but I have to admit that I get a bit lost in the arguments. It’s likely that I don’t understand the finer details of what people mean by “objective” and “subjective”.

Every time I see such a conversation I think to myself that I’m quite happy to believe that there is no great measuring rod in the sky and that all such morals are evolved and subjective. To me, it seems to make sense that stealing can be both beneficial and detrimental depending on the circumstances (i.e. subjective) and that child rape is 99.9999999% detrimental (I always allow for those make-believe scenarios where you have to choose between, say, child rape and killing 1,000,000 people with a lawnmower).

I also think that when people use “wrong” and “right” as opposed to “detrimental” and “beneficial” it actually creates a circular argument for a kind of objective morality because the word “wrong” can be used in both an objective and a subjective sense (i.e. I hit the wrong key on the keyboard vs. abortion is wrong) whereas the word “detrimental” demands that you at least define a goal or framework that is being worked against.

So, theists and non-theists, is there really such a thing as objective morality? And what’s your definition of it? I’ve got no answers, only questions.

Dwan Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.
He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe — ninety-six billion planets — into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.
Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment’s silence he said, “Now, Dwar Ev.”
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.
Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. “The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn.”
“Thank you,” said Dwar Reyn. “It shall be a question which no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer.”
He turned to face the machine. “Is there a God?”
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single relay.
“Yes, now there is a God.”
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.