If you look at the core teachings of Jesus, you have things such as

• Love God.
• Love your neighbor and enemies.
• Treat others the way you want to be treated.
• Forgive others who have wronged you.
• Don’t judge others.

Now these things may not resonate with you, but these teachings appeal to many people even outside of Christianity. Furthermore, there are many parallels to Jesus's teachings and the teachings of Buddha and other religions. Many scholars argue (secular) Humanism is simply a "rebranding" of Christian ethics/Christianity.

When I say Christianity speaks to the human experience, I mean that whenever people appeal to a "common humanity," they are usually doing so under the influence of Christianity, especially in western society. When (even atheist) philosophers end up believing objective moral values that "conveniently" align with Christian values, the argument seems to be these philosophers are either a) still under the cultural influence/indoctrination of Christianity, or b) Christian values and most secular versions of moral realism both have common ground that speaks to the human experience. Either way, the fact that these ideas are still around are either a testament to the influence of Christianity or a testament to how Jesus's insight/the teachings of Jesus do resonate with many, perhaps most, people on a fundamental level.

I think the two main reasons Christianity spread was 1) because of Jesus and 2) (whether or not Christianity is “true” in the sense that Jesus rose from the dead) it speaks to the human condition/experience. I say this as a Christian.

Going a bit deeper, I think Christianity isn’t super restrictive or necessarily too vague, it’s somewhat in the middle. This means it has a core figure with basic principles, but it is easily adapted to different cultures and philosophical systems. Think of early church fathers like St Augustine, who were able to synthesize Christianity with Neo-Plantism. If he hadn’t done so successfully, there’s a chance (in my opinion) Christianity may not have survived. Then you have Thomas Aquinas, who was able to mostly reconcile Christianity and Aristotelianism.

If it was too vague, I think it would have died out. If it was too restrictive, it never would have spread or caught on. Also, it seems to me that most successful movements have a single “person” or figurehead at their center. For Christianity, this is Jesus. I believe this is because we as humans respond to other people/humans more than ideas/ideologies. Hence why countries have leaders/presidents, movements like the civil rights movement have people like MLK at the center, etc.

...there are indeed ethical fallacies. (Fallacies are errors in thinking.) "These are
confusions that human beings often commit: fallacies such as racism, sexism, rankism, ageism, speciesism, male chauvinism. Another fallacy is to regard persons as mere things -- and thus it's okay to abuse them, or discard them -- or, even worse, treating them as numbers -- and thus
it's okay to erase them.
Persons are not just things or numbers. They are much more complex."

I think this approach to ethics presupposes a metaethical view. In particular, it assumes the value of life and perhaps the value of complexity as your last sentence indicates. However, in order for things such as racism, sexism, etc to be an ethical fallacy (i.e. ethical error), you must assume that there is a universal ethical correctness or standard to judge deviance as errant. What is this standard and where does it come from? Why does life have any moral worth or deserve moral consideration?

I see what you mean. My concern is that (at least in the US), K-12 education isn’t exactly preparing students with the tools to live in a somewhat democratic society. For instance, teaching people to question sources and hopefully ascertain truth. Furthermore, while in the past being productive meant just following along as a factory worker, nowadays with automation, being productive now means and looks different, and therefore education should and likely will adapt to this.


Good take. Although I also think there are other subjects beyond math, reading, and writing that should be taught in school but aren’t. Things like avoiding fallacies, logic, “critical thinking” or whatever buzzword that indicates people aren’t likely to believe false information handed to them with a sinister agenda, etc.

Train the peasants to conform and obey; educate the leaders to plan and command. That you hear two conflicting ideas an indication that you live in a stratified society -a class system.

Sure, and I don’t think this is even a bad thing. Plenty of people are (or claim they are) happier not stepping outside of their own box.

In my experience at a small private university, student "comfort" is prioritized (though I had professors, especially in the humanities, really try to teach "critical thinking" recently). This isn't a huge surprise, with the rising costs of tuition and administration, private schools that care about their rankings don't fail as many students, both because it would hurt their rankings and that they think it would be unfair for the students involved. Smaller class sizes mean more personal interaction with faculty, and thus a more personalized experience. My buddies who went on to large state-funded schools (especially the UC system) describe a very different experience than my own. Maybe I'm generalizing this too much, but it really does seem like an entirely different world.

However, I would say there is conflict between teaching students to conform to the status quo and encouraging them to challenge the status quo. For instance, how often do people say "educate yourself" really meaning mean for the person to become indoctrinated into a belief system as opposed to come to their own conclusion. If we take education as a means to enlightenment, then as Kant says the motto of enlightenment is

Have the courage to use your own understanding

The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development describes the purpose of American education as

to provide for the fullest possible development of each learner for living morally, creatively, and productively in a democratic society.

In other words, critical, independent thinking and questioning authority are encouraged only as far as it allows people to live productively in a democratic society. We want innovation and groundbreaking "new" ideas, but only to a certain extent. And perhaps for society to function productively, we need both those who innovate and those who promote the status quo.

Very good point. As a matter of fact, what about any conspiracy theories or fringe theories, like the Christ myth theory?

If we take the criterion of falsifiability, then flat earth theory is a very easy one to debunk for most people-satellite images, boat routes, etc. I don’t know if any prominent, highly cited scientists in any field who accept that the earth is flat, perhaps as a result of this and the amount of evidence for a spherical earth that a flat-earther would need to explain (no offense to any flat earthers here).

I tend to stick to Popper’s falsifiability criterion to demarcate science, but I am aware there are other interpretations and definitions. Otherwise, without it, “pseudoscience” isn’t even a useful word.

I actually think the main objection to anything supernatural occurring is actually a statistical argument. There's an implicit assumption that whatever happens must be repeatable or happen often enough to be believable. Hume's argument against miracles comes to mind

[When a miracle is claimed] I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened.... If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion

However, to what extent should we be skeptical if someone tells us they've had a supernatural experience, seen a ghost, etc? What if multiple people claim they have seen ghosts across time; this should factor in as well?

A better title for this thread might have been 'Intelligent design - a reasonable hypothesis?'

I think about that too, but in my experience hypothesis is used to refer to things that are falsifiable (this could be regional usage). It really comes down to definitions here, but I agree that the wording wasn't the best. What I meant to ask was whether people thought ID was a philosophically viable position.

As you mentioned, I think saying "I don't know" is pretty much the only reasonable position to have, as neither strict naturalism (and any historical accounts for abiogenesis from this starting point) nor intelligent design can be falsified. Of course, one can lean one way or another given arguments in either direction, and try to assign fuzzy probabilities either way, but at the end of the day, we can't really be sure.

One of the more interesting ideas is 'fine tuning' of physical constants, but that runs into the anthropic principle - namely, if the universe weren't just so, we wouldn't be here to notice that it's just so. So again, that's not evidence.

I do think John Leslie's firing squad brings up an interesting point about, despite this being the only universe we can observe, we would (and maybe should) still be surprised that we are alive. Then again, what does it mean to try and assign probabilities to things like universal constants, or spacetime itself? We want to have certainty about all these things, but I don't think there's anything wrong with saying "I don't know" or "I believe this but I could and may be wrong"


I think the assumption is that the "creator" of the universe must exist outside of time (as from what I understand time as we know it started from the big bang). And this creator, according to some of what I've read, exists necessarily and eternally (at least in the abrahamic religions, where God is often held as the sole agenētos (unoriginated being)). As you said, it doesn't seem like we can regress infinitely (although maybe with universes or god(s) we can).

I don't think it's in the cards that intelligent design can (ever) derive, say, the 10 commandments, that one should pray to the Sun for inspiration and atonement, that Muhammad was the (final) messenger of Allah, or whatever

I agree. In fact, my guess is the ID movement specifically avoids explicitly referring to a God (capital “G,” as in the Abrahamic sense) so it could be allowed to be taught in schools as not advocating for a particular religion.
Maybe in some ways it comes from more from Natural Theology perspective than presupposing any claims of divine revelation, or having an explicit religious affiliation
Of course, once you make the argument for there being an intelligent designer or God, then it becomes much easier IMO to advocate for the possibility of miracles, divine intervention, etc.
If ID tried to go any further and justify any religious or supernatural claims, I think it would be explicitly religious (depending on how one defines religious, it may already be). But I don’t know or think it would want to, given that this would fracture the relatively small base it already has and how much commonality different religious groups could use the core of ID to ground their beliefs.

The whole conversation about physicalism and metaphysical naturalism is a very interesting one, and as mentioned is very much ingrained in our culture. I'd love to continue this line of thinking more, either in this topic or in another.

the distinction that has to be made is between methodological naturalism, and metaphysical naturalism

Agreed. One of the assumptions that is made by methodological naturalism is that nothing "supernatural" will happen during the time in which an experiment is conducted. However, I think even most people who believe in the supernatural would find this to be a fair assumption. The issue becomes whether this assumption can be applied to everything within the world, for all time. At the end of the day, metaphysical naturalism involves an assumption of ergodicity about the state of the world, which to me is difficult to philosophically justify. That's not to say I think metaphysical naturalism is an indefensible position, or shoudn't be held, or anything like that-instead that the claim "nothing supernatural has ever happened" is unfalsifiable and probably shouldn't be held with complete certainty.

Science spends a lot of time generating (falsifiable) models that describe the natural world. As George E. P. Box said

All models are wrong, but some are useful

. A useful model is one that not only describes the events of an experiment, but can extend to other observations about the world too. But to me, these models are always an approximation of reality to a useful degree, not a claim to describe it exactly as it is (the latter is the job of philosophy).

For intelligent design to become of much use, it would have to (stabilize and) make reliable predictions.

I think the same could be said for naturalistic accounts for abiogenesis, the multiverse, an account for the natural laws, etc. However I also think if intelligent design explains certain aspects of reality better than purely naturalistic accounts, regardless if it makes reliable predictions or not, then it should be taken seriously. Once again, I don't claim to know anything about ID theory or biology. However, from what I've heard, the modern formations of the teleological argument for the existence of God take a probabilistic approach (I believe it was Swinborne, who I admit I haven't read, along with others), that argue the existence of intelligent life is better explained through a design argument than pure naturalistic accounts.

As far as fossil evidence is concerned, there is abundant fossil evidence to validate in broad outlines evolutionary history

For sure, and I apologize for not being clear if I implied that evolution or evolutionary history was somehow not reflective of reality.

What I meant to say is that if we require science to require all theories to be empirically testable, then philosophical naturalism is not a scientific view, and further under the same arguments for why ID should be kept out of the classroom apply to naturalism as well.

Furthermore, the claim that all life came about by unguided evolution is therefore not scientific either, as it cannot be falsified. Assertions of teleology, and similarly, lack of teleology, would fall under this umbrella.

Thank you, I really appreciate your insight. I agree with what you’re saying about the militant neo-darwinians like Harris, Dawkins, etc. To me, their view is quasi religious or at least fundamentalist in a similar way to the biblical literalists. Unfortunately, it seems both extreme sides tend to get a majority of the attention in media, public debate, etc. It begs the question why (at least to me) there is an implied assertion that “religious views are irreconcilable with science.” Biblical literalism, sure. But arguing that science and biblical literalism are in conflict does not mean (mainstream) religious views are irreconcilable with science.

From what I understand, intelligent design isn't considered a scientific theory because it can't be refuted.

This was my thought too. But along with saying

Why should science be refutable?

We arrive with an issue at how to define “science.” If science only concerns itself with making testable hypothesis, then plenty of theories put forth by scientists are not “science.” I tend to think this more restrictive definition of science is a good thing for the field, because it forces theories to undergo tests-everything else is philosophy. The issue here is that “science” is a loaded word, and plenty of people take that to mean “knowledge” or even “truth.”

If we relegate only empirically verifiable things to science, then we also need to acknowledge that any attempts to extrapolate these studies to what happened in the past involves (by this definition, non-scientific) justification. And as a result, we further must admit that the best explanation for data may indeed be a non-scientific, non-testable one. Perhaps this is what we should be teaching children about science-it’s a reliable way of understanding the natural world for these reasons, but by construction will exclude possible explanations that could be the most philosophically justified. And at first glance, this feels somehow “wrong” to me because I want science to “be” this way we arrive at truth.

Yeah thats what I think as well. Whether it’s natural interest or some combination of that and social conditioning it’s unsure. But also like you said there isn’t as much of a push to get women in philosophy because it doesn’t often fit the country’s/national governments “STEM” agenda.


Most of the Christians I’ve talked to recently have pointed out that living in a patriarchal society, it would make sense why God would be referred to as a “He”, being all strong, all powerful, etc. But Christianity also emphasizes the “feminine” characteristics of God too, namely being all loving, creating children.

No I’m saying I feel like I’ve been indoctrinated into this idea of the separation of church and state being a “good” thing because I live in the US. And maybe it is. But it is hard to separate the "secular" from the "religious" in any case.

Separation of church and state is intended primarily to protect religion from government influence rather than the other way around. One obvious way that could happen is that government will restrict religious practice.

This is a very good point, and I do agree. This is precisely why churches aren't taxed, etc. Also great quote from St. Augustine, I had forgotten about that (he can sometimes be hard to understand because the writing is over 1500 years old, but that quote is pretty clear).

Surprisingly, to me at least, many Christians also believe that churches' involvement in politics leads to a corruption of faith

This has been my experience too. I think Christians often take these sayings as evidence that church and state can (and maybe should) be separated, especially after the protestant reformation

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's

and

My kingdom is not of this world

From one popular Christian website, on the separation of Church and State:

Those who wish to combine church and state usually do so thinking that Christianity can help stamp out evil, if the church is in charge. But history shows that the melding of church and state gives rise to corruption, totalitarianism, and oppression. Christians can and should be involved in the political process, just as anyone else.

You most probably refer to the term "secular". Otherwise, "secularism" is far from that. It is the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions.

Hmmm you may be right, and I didn't think about the distinction between these two terms. Although my original post did use the word "secular," not "secularism." A quick google search brought up the following definitions. For "secular:"

denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis

or

not overtly or specifically religious

while "secularism" is defined as

indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations

.
Secularism may claim to be untied from religion, but I still find it hard to see how anything can be free from religious influence. To me, it would be like saying some movement is "free" from philosophical or philosophical consideration.

I'm curious what the difference between a Theocracy is and a country that has a "national church" such as Finland or Denmark. Because some of the happiest countries in the world are, interestingly, some of the most secular but also have an official church. To be fair, I think their "happiness" comes from having a good trust in their government and a pretty homogenous population.

I think an important part of a country is having religious freedom (which of course, is often supported by religious and nonreligious people). State atheism doesn't exactly have a great history, and certainly after dudes like Mao and Stalin left a bad taste in peoples' mouths.

This is actually why I'm for teaching about religion or using religious texts in public schools. It is important for people to understand what others believe. Furthermore, the Bible in particular has had more influence on Western culture than any other book; immigrants who come to the US and are not told or encouraged to read it will be at a severe cultural disadvantage. I think reading the Quran, Confucius, Buddhist texts etc would have been really useful to me in public school.

That's why I said "our," as in each person's interpretation of what is right and wrong.


The interesting thing about that that situation is it could go either way. If people think creationism is religious in nature, then teaching it in public schools would be unconstitutional as it would be advocating for a specific religion and thus violating church and state. However, ruling that you cannot teach creationism in particular could be seen as an unfair attack on creationists, thus also violating the separation of church and state.

The interesting thing is, the way we currently have it, some religious and non-religious people feel slighted. Some religious people are afraid that religious values are deteriorating, and see arguments like the taking of "God" out of the pledge of allegiance as evidence as such, or feel discriminated against/attacked by their beliefs. While some non-religious people feel like, despite there being separation of church and state there is still prejudice against them

(A 2019 poll asking Americans who they were willing to vote for in a hypothetical presidential election found that 96% would vote for a candidate who is Black, 94% for a woman, 95% for a Hispanic candidate, 93% for a Jew, 76% for a gay or lesbian candidate and 66% for a Muslim – but atheists fall below all of these, down at 60%. That is a sizable chunk who would not vote for a candidate simply on the basis of their nonreligion.)

Excellent, well said. I think there can be a good balance between allowing the discussion of religious ideas (even explicitly) without having a theocracy. Of course, living in the US, which was founded in part from colonists who wanted religious freedom and wanted to escape religious persecution probably shapes my own idea of why church and state should be separated (or at least given enough distance to allow religious freedom and keep the government from intervening in religious matters). But I also wonder if I grew up in a theocracy if that would be the system of government I support.

Sorry I was probably unclear. I think any moral system that claims life has any cosmic value is making a claim about what is worthy of reverence, sacred, divine, etc. The question is how do we metaphysically justify this (other than just saying "I like it" or "I don't like it")?

I totally agree. But people wanting their morality to be objective (or claiming it is objective) does not necessarily make it true. To me, this is a huge problem with any naturalistic, secular ethics. You cannot claim objective moral values and duties do not exist and yet expect people to follow your ethical code, or assert your ethical code is "better" than any other. And while a lot of people do seem to agree on moral stuff to get a "fuzzy" picture of ethical values, there is plenty of disagreement about who or what should receive ethical consideration.

Of course, none of this proves that objective moral values don't exist. But I've come to the conclusion that if they do, you have to appeal to the supernatural to have any satisfactory account for their existence (thanks to Mackie).

If we stayed on the logic train, the next observation is that not only the universe in total, but also things in the universe—like heart disease, Covid, hurricanes and tornado that kill, malaria, earthquakes, babies dying of cancer, etc., etc., etc.—must also have been designed.

I think you are misrepresenting the design argument. The design argument simply states that the universe seems to be governed by simple consistent laws and rules, with the idea often saying "God" is the universal "law giver" or in some cases "law upholder." For instance, consider how the effective mathematics is at predicting the natural world. For many, there is an elegance to this that doesn't seem random or uncreated/undesigned at all.

the creator is evil, malevolent, willing to see babies suffer from cancer and die.
Here you are assuming this creator has a will, and must somehow care particularly about human affairs and have a desire to change things. These are assumptions that are not necessary or central to the design argument.

Proof of God is very interesting thing. I don't think we will ever find it except in the case of something like defining "God" like the Kalam Cosmological argument or St. Anselm's argument (I don't find St. Anselm's argument all that convincing, to be fair, despite being an agnostic theist). You do find arguments one way or another that seem convincing to people on both sides of the debate (theists and atheists).

But you're right, there are plenty of things philosophy can't "prove" anyways. How would you prove God doesn't exist? How would you prove other minds exist, or the physical world exists, or that objective moral values/duties exist? Why should we hold belief in God to the same standard?

Morality is objective. But it depends on who you ask what that objective morality is

To me, this would imply morality is subjective. If we take objective to mean it does not depend on the mind for existence, then if it depends on who you ask (and there is no outside standard to measure such statements by) then it is indeed subjective, despite individuals claiming it is objective.

Great topic. One particular challenge when it comes to morality is establishing a basis for which to judge moral codes and statements. For instance, when we say

The Sun has planets, including the planet, Earth

It is generally agreed, despite our definitions of things, they would exist even if humans did not. Mathematics is a tricky one, but a majority of mathematicians are platonists. I’ve heard different surveys but the number tends to be 60-80% (I am as well, for the record).

The issue with morality is what standard we have to build an objective morality on (unless moral realism is true and these principles are out there). In this case, the theist has a huge advantage-they can argue that God created the world and also gave us a set of moral principles as well as an internal moral sense that is generally pretty accurate.

From a purely naturalistic perspective, it is difficult to see why humans, sentient life, etc have any cosmic moral worth (Note that I am not a naturalist). For instance, J.L. Mackie said in his “Argument from Queerness” (Paraphrased)

If there were objective values, they would be things of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe. Yet, we have no philosophically satisfying account either of the existence of such things or of how we could come to know about them. Therefore, we should not believe in objective values.

We can say moral values are subjective, but this is unsatisfying to me. Without an objective moral standard, we can’t say that moral “progress” can be made (i.e. that abolishing slavery was somehow a good thing)

Very good point, I think logic would have been a better way to say it. For instance, I was taking the 2nd definition of reason (not the noun one) that says

the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic

I will update.
In order to use logic to understand our world, we in some way have to assume our world is logically intelligible and predictable.

Reason is a process for finding the truth. That's a definition. That's what reason is intended for.

I don't think so. The definitions of reason in the google dictionary are

1) a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.
2) the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.

Note that this has nothing to do with truth necessarily. For instance, mathematics is often described as an application of pure reason. But unless you're a mathematical platonist, mathematical truths aren't tied to some ultimate reality.
If we define "truth" as "that in accordance with fact or reality," then we have to make the metaphysical claim that fact and reality an be ascertained with logic and reason in order to expect our application of reason and logic to provide us with truth.
Uggghh and I found the definition of "true" to be "in accordance with fact or reality."

If we take "reality" as "the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them," then science, reason, and mathematics actually don't tell us much about reality at all. They do tell us idealistic, notational ideas of reality, which are incredibly useful and perhaps "good enough" in most cases.

What do you consider reason? Its a broad word that is often interpreted differently by different people

In this case, the idea of “reason” I had in mind were things like modus ponens, avoiding what are defined as local fallacies, drawing conclusions from new or existing information, etc. But it is a sort of fuzzy concept IMO.

In particular, I would argue that certain logical fallacies are not necessarily self-evident, and we even see some of these being deconstructed under postmodern influence. Things like the genetic fallacy, as hominem, etc are regularly employed in “arguments” nowadays.

Reason, as it is discussed in the opening post, is a process for finding the truth

This is where it seems like we have to make a circular argument. We say reason is the process of finding truth, because we believe that we can arrive at truth using reason. Now, perhaps reason was developed because it described our conception of reality. However, to claim that we have arrived at truth because we used reason is a metaphysical claim about the world saying that truth follows due to our use of reason (probably pretty justified, it seems to do better than other methods, etc).

Reason is a tricky subject-people hundreds of years ago thought the sun revolved around the earth (makes sense-we seem to be stationary but the sun seems to move). This conclusion would be an application of reason from the premises. But now, we know this is not the case.

Very interesting point; I never thought about this before. I actually think it does, but to a different extent.
You say

There's nothing toxic about being too submissive, agreeable,

but I’d disagree. If a woman is on a date with a man, and goes along with sexual activities she is not comfortable with to appease her partner without speaking her mind, this would be an example of submissiveness and agreeableness to a “toxic” level. Hence toxic femininity. One could also argue the obsession over looks, how fit one is, how slim one is, etc is another angle of toxic femininity.

that’s actually an interesting concept, I’ve been reading a few articles on it now that you brought it up. Often when we use “reason” to find an answer there’s an emotional piece to it too, like the satisfaction of resolving a contradiction or the feeling that a certain answer “isn’t just right.”

That doesn't, however, solve the ethical problem does it

That’s a good point. Imagine if people could kill their children after they were born, and then claim it was their right to choose. Maybe there are options for 3rd trimester abortions that preserve the child’s life. In some ways, it isn’t just a “right” to choose when it involves another life. The question, of course, is when it becomes another life, and to me, it certainly isn’t during natural birth. Under this logic, one could also argue a fetus/baby is also a slave if the government rules that the mother can choose a procedure design to take their life.
To get technical, I talked to a pro-life biologist who was particularly against Dilation and Evacuation because it doesn’t even give the fetus a chance of survival.
It brings up an interesting question-if there were medical procedures that gave the fetus/baby a chance of survival, what probability would be acceptable? Would this solve the whole pro-life/pro-choice thing? Like put it in a test tube or something and let it grow the rest of the way organically.
I try to be careful, because I sometimes think certain pro-choice arguments could be used to justify things like allowing people who want their spinal cord severed or who want assisted suicide due to existential pain (not in the case of a terminal illness).

I will say as with any set of academic fields, they tend to be delineated based on the research that people who self-identify in the field (or who are hired in these departments) publish as opposed to any hard boundaries between the two. It can be hard to delineate between chemistry and chemical engineering (same subject matter, plenty of research could be published in a journal from either one, etc), theology and philosophy of religion have plenty of overlap as well.
Just as I like to say that musical genres exist to categorize produced music as opposed to produce categorized music, the same could be said about philosophy of religion and theology.

I read in an economics textbook that the average predicted value of a human life in the US is around $50,000, despite the fact that we like to think of life as unquantifiable. Obviously depending on the region, cost of living, etc this number may change. Governments actually calculate this and use it to make decisions like "should I put in an expensive traffic light here that could save more lives or just some stop signs."
It's an interesting question to ask. Would you press a button, causing a random person to die, but receive some sum of money (See Button Button)? Should a younger person have more value than an older one? What about the value of unborn or potential life?
I think it is important for companies and governments to do this, despite it seeming unsettling. If someone cannot afford a medical treatment, is society/everyone willing to pay for it? What if it isn't a life saving treatment, but one that will enhance their life or make it happier, or potentially extend it?
I think it was Adam Smith who made the analogy that our moral concern over avoiding a paper cut is often more than suffering occurring in far away places.

This is something that bothers me about the stance of (some) conservatives. It doesn’t make sense to me to campaign for anti-abortion/pro-life and also teach abstinence only and make it difficult to access contraceptives. In my view, people are going to have sex no matter what. And if you want to avoid abortions, then one easy way is to provide/teach about birth control.

Then again, most Protestants are fine with birth control (interestingly, I think Catholicism is against it).

I guess one counterargument could be that supporters of abstinence-only education do so out of the belief that comprehensive guides to sex or information about contraceptives will ultimately result in teens actively pursuing and engaging in sexual activities. Although I believe the evidence shows it is ineffective at this-research in the US showed abstinence-only education is related to increases in teen pregnancy and teen birth rates. Comprehensive sexual education on the other hand leads to a reduction in teenage birthrates. Thus, I think pro-life should not be teaching abstinence only.

if some Americans firmly believe abortion is murder, that matters. Their opinion shouldn't be brushed aside in the name of someone's privacy

This is why I am sympathetic to the conviction of pro life. These people literally believe the government allowing access to abortion is them legally protecting murder. I understand their motivation, even if I disagree with when they define a baby as being the moment the sperm enters the egg.

In my opinion, both pro-lifers and pro-choices have a point. It would be ridiculous to allow abortions the day before delivery while considering it murder the day after. So at what point does the fetus stop becoming part of the woman’s body and start becoming a “baby” (sorites paradox)? At what point does it deserve moral consideration? Scalar morality could help here.

One very interesting analogy here is slavery. In the 1800s some states found it morally reprehensible while others wanted to allow it. If the southern states hadn’t succeeded from the union, it may never have been possible to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery (because the ratification of the 13th amendment was necessary to rejoin the union IIRC). Without a situation like this, can the federal government pass laws to limits states’ abilities to pass laws? Very interesting situation.

I actually see this as a good thing. From what I understand, the legality of Roe v Wade was always a bit sketchy. Even RBG said “the court ventured too far in the change it ordered.”
I’m all for abortion rights but do it the right way.
In my (completely disinterested, it doesn’t affect me) opinion, the legal cut-off should be at the “point of viability.”
If it gets overturned it will be up to the states. What do you think?

Hmmm maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean when you say

A house, for example, is all the things that make the house, taken together. Without the parts, there would be no house. But even if all the different parts share a characteric, let's say "have the same value regardless of location", that characteristic is not true for the house.

For instance, if we said that all parts of the house were made of wood, or that all parts of the house came into existence at some point, then I believe it would follow that the house was made of wood (i.e. made of parts that were made of wood) or also came into existence at some point. I admit its been a while since I've seen Craig's Kalam argument, but I think he makes the point that if matter or energy don't just "pop" into existence, then universes don't just "pop" into existence either. Especially if these universes are collections of matter. I believe he uses the analogy such as things like horses and other objects not just coming into existence unprovoked. Maybe someone else who is more familiar with the argument can chime in here.

I think the distinction between this and the fallacy of composition is that the fallacy of composition is applied when someone generalizes from a part of something to the whole of something (similar to hasty generalization). For instance, the fallacy of composition would be "This tire is made of rubber, therefore the vehicle of which it is a part is also made of rubber." Inductive reasoning would instead say (a rather crude example) "Tires are made of rubber. Therefore this pile of many tires, is also made of rubber". Note the difference between generalizing from part of something to a whole vs. generalizing from the properties of a collection of constituent items.

Of course, it may not always be that simple, as we have things such as emergence and the Modo hoc fallacy. So a fallacy of composition would also be

No atoms are alive. Therefore, nothing made of atoms is alive

However, once again, the distinction is "alive" can apply to a collection of atoms despite not applying to each one individually. Kalam's argument, on the other hand is more like saying "matter and energy do not just spontaneously come into existence. The universe is a collection of matter and energy. Therefore, the universe could not spontaneously come into existence."

As for the multiverse

The Kalam argument says nothing about multiverses and I agree with you, how could you possibly know? If there is a God, maybe this is just one of many universes he made. Or maybe there are many gods and they all made their own universes. :)

I totally agree. If God exists he could make many universes/multiverses. Each one could either have the same or a different God (who knows), if a god or gods exist. In my experience, some of the theists I've talked to are hesitant about the multiverse not because it does away with the idea of God but simply because it is a non-falsifiable theory (how would it be empirically verified?). As a result, according to some, why would multiverse be considered a scientific theory while theism would not?

Bringing this back to the OPs original point, in my city there’s a secular humanist “church” that I’ve been meaning to go to and check out. They meet every week on Sunday, have music and coffee, and do events like volunteering and collecting money like a normal church.

The question is, would this be considered a religion? On the surface, secular humanism doesn’t seem to have any supernatural beliefs, but as some philosopher said, it does hold human life as “divine.” Personally, I’d consider it a religion. Mariam-Webster defines a religion as

a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices

. The attitude that human life is somehow worthy of moral consideration is an institutionalized moral belief. Furthermore, I’ve read sociologists who argue humanism is simply a continuation of the Christian tradition, rooted in Christian ideas like the parable of the Good Samaritan where empathy is universalized.

As Greg Epstein said,

modern, organized Humanism began, in the minds of its founders, as nothing more nor less than a religion without a God

Unfortunately, he should have specified this to be secular humanism, because one can of course be a humanist and also a theist.

One potential challenge to your objection is that you differentiate

If X is true for everything within the universe, then X is also true for the universe itself"

However, the "universe" is defined as

all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos

Meaning if you accept that matter and energy cannot come from "nothing," then I think you are implicitly assuming that "universes" (defined as collections of matter and energy) cannot come from nothing either.

Furthermore, you state

So let's start at the end, with three statements that theists make.
1. God did not begin to exist.
2. There is only one god and that is God.
3. There is only one universe.

1. I think most theists would agree with this statement.
2. This is a bit tricky. Outside of our physical world, does the idea of "one" vs "many" actually exist? And thus does this idea exist outside of God?
3. I don't know how many theists are attached to this claim. How could we possibly know if another universe (or universes) exist? I guess if you define the universe as the collection all matter and energy, then by definition there can only be "one." But you could also invoke an idea such as the multiverse (which, I should admit, some physicists say is not a legitimate topic of scientific inquiry) where different combinations of physical laws could give rise to different collections of matter entirely.

AFAIK, there is no argument showing God impossible

Agreed. I think what convinced me of this was a version of Plantinga’s free will defense, which follows in the lines of Augustine and Aquinas.

In fact, I think atheists and theists alike would do well reading Mackie and Plantinga.