In a socialogical study by Professor George Tamarin, more than a thousand Israeli schoolchildren aged eight to fourteen were given this account of the battle of Jericho, from the book of Joshua (this story should be familiar to all kids who grew up attending Sunday School):
Joshua said to the people, “Shout; for the LORD has given you the city. And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction… But all silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.”
…
Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword… And they burned the city with fire, and all within it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD.
The children were asked a simple moral question:
“Do you think Joshua and the Israelites acted rightly?” The children could choose between:
- A. Total approval
- B. Partial Approval
- C. Total disapproval
The results came back polarized: 66% gave “total approval”, 26% “total disapproval” and 8% “partial approval”.
Typical answers from the “Total approval” group:
In my opinion Joshua and the Sons of Israel acted well, and here are the reasons: God promised them this land, and gave them permission to conquer. If they would not have acted in this manner or killed anyone, then there would be the danger that the Sons of Israel would have assimilated among the Goyim.
In my opinion Joshua was right when he did it, one reason being that God commanded him to exterminate the people so that the tribes of Israel will not be able to assimilate amongst them and learn their bad ways.
Joshua did good because the people who inhabited the land were of a different religion, and when Joshua killed them he wiped their religion from the earth.
The justifications were all based on religion. Even those who gave “total disapproval” did not do so in the way one might expect, as these samples show:
I think it is bad, since the Arabs are impure and if one enters an impure land one will also become impure and share their curse.
Two others who totally disapproved did so because Joshua destroyed everything, including animals and property, instead of keeping some as spoil for the Israelites:
I think Joshua did not act well, as they could have spared the animals for themselves.
I think Joshua did not act well, as he could have left the property of Jericho; if he had not destroyed the property it would have belonged to the Israelites.
What made Tamarin’s experiment truly enlightening was a control group he ran. He gave a different set of children the same text quoted above, but with “Joshua” replaced with “General Lin” and “Israel” replaced with “A Chinese kingdom 3,000 years ago”.
Suffice to say the results were drastically the opposite now: only 7% approved of “General Lin”, while 75% disapproved.
The above is extracted from a text in a book by Richard Dawkins. The professor who conducted the study was subsequently fired.
If you’re close to me you’ve probably heard me tell you about the study above before. It underlines how religion divides us and makes behaviour that would otherwise be reviled, simply because “God said so” – even when this means killing the “young and the old”, and the poor animals as well!
Similar passages can be found in Numbers, where God orders vengeance on the Midianites:
1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”
3 So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites and to carry out the LORD’s vengeance on them. 4 Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.” 5 So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel. 6 Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling.
7 They fought against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every man. 8 Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho. [a]
13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.
15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
Here Moses is angry because the women and boys were spared; only the virgins deserved to live.
One wonders sometimes why it is that religious people claim that they are more moral than others. It has been said that “Without religion, good people would do good things and bad people would do bad things. But for good people to do bad things – that takes religion!”
There are also those who would shrug off the above saying “Oh but that’s the Old Testament” and but yet happily nod “Amen” when listening to messages from the pulpit preaching prosperity or why God wants you to be rich (which are all drawn from the Old Testament, the NT makes it clear about the camel through the eye of a needle thing), or tell you that morals are absolute and unchanging. (See the term “Cherry picking“).
Morality aside, racism and religion are the two greatest dividers in the world today. People from different religions (I’m talking about the ones who take it seriously, not the “Oh my parents are X, so I’m X”) treat each other differently, and heck even within the same religion, people from different sects/denominations treat each other differently. A conversation I had last week went something like this:
“So you’re Christian?”
“Oh no, I’m Catholic”
Which pretty much sums it up.
It’s not out of the way – I know many Protestants who disparage Catholics in their unguarded moments, and probably vice-versa. The images above for example are from a tract that was sold in my church bookshop. Much of the friction and conflict in today’s society stems from the religious vs the secular, e.g. stem-cell research, euthanasia, abortion, the teaching of evolution, the use of condoms, vaccination and practically every Malaysian political issue.
And in every case when you look closely it’s sometimes not even about what the various religious texts say any more – if you cherry pick through any holy book you’ll find passages to support whatever you want. It’s about the people who control the interpretation, for reasons that may or may not be benevolent. Malaysia is a good example of this; the “defense” of Islam is not so much about furthering the faith itself, but to show that one side is more religious than the other.
Well the main purpose of this post was to share the study made by George Tamarin but I ended up ranting a little. I hope that you remember it the next time someone tells you religion teaches you moral values!
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Awesome study. Will use it lots in dinner conversations.
sometimes i think that people are just defending their faith because the book and the people around them tell them so. somewhere along the way people stopped rationalizing their beliefs with morality.
and it’s easy to do so in Malaysia because of the crowd mentality – so many Muslims in the country, it’s more convenient to just defend Islam “just because”.
the more you have, the more you are afraid to lose. politics and religion should never have been in the same baking batter, it’s just a recipe for disaster.
I have yet to make time to really study different religions but what I’ve come to observe is that at the very core, religions talk about being a good person and being a good person towards your neighbor.
But I guess in the real world, it isn’t that simple when we have to consider other people’s pride, opinions, interpretations, etc.
I’m not against religion. On one hand, i do believe religion has helped many people become better and that religion has helped bring about a lot of good things. Then again, there’s the dark side. Its a very grey and subjective topic.
I’ve honestly grown tired of hearing from people which religion is better than the other. Its a shame how so much destruction in the world is caused by “religion”. Yet whatever we do, religion will always be there and will continue influencing how this world is shaped. What I wish people would learn more of is tolerance. Then again, I highly doubt that’ll happen either.
At the very least, I live my life bearing “tolerance and understanding” in mind.
I believe Tamarin’s study proves interesting and accurate on the point that the morality of a particular individual is defined or shaped by the institution of religion. However, I would suggest that the institution that shapes morality is larger that the traditional/typical notion of religion, being a mystical practice of certain values through ‘faith’. The institutions that shape morality are the political and non-religious (i.e. secular) institutions as well. I believe morality is constituted by two parts – the human conscience and its will to align itself with a particular institution. The conscience of course is influential in the person’s choice of institutional alignment. But ultimately, morality is a choice.
As Wen (comment above) points out, ‘people stop rationalizing their beliefs with morality’. This begs the question why. Wen suggest that ‘the book and people around them tell them so’. I believe Wen’s right on the point. However I wish to expand on it. I believe there is no true rationalisation without an institution. Even the most humanistic of persons have to admit that their ‘institution’ is themselves. All thinking must lead back to the institution, although the institution may change with time.
Taking your implied point on the immorality of murder and considering the evil humanity has inflicted on each other, whether in religion or for the lack of it, I have come to believe that the human person and his intellect (rational mind) cannot possibly be a good institution for the direction of morality. In other words, I and my intellect (by evidence of history of others) is unlikely to be able to perceive full truth. I am a skeptic of humanism. The question then is what alternative? The answer would ideally have to be – ‘an infallible institution’. Logic is merely theoretically infallible, but as the Tamarin study proves, practically not. Logic ultimately directed by an institution. Hence, my current hypothesis is that maybe the Catholic tradition and its dogma on the infallibility of the church may prove the right answer (Note that the protestants have no similar doctrine). But that’s another argument altogether.
I don’t think the Tamarin study is very complex.
We simply rationalize based on what we are brought up to believe in. For most people this means that morality is based relative to humanity as a whole, “secular humanism” if you want to call it that. Or if you want to put it your way, our morality is based how humanity is affected as a whole. There is nothing really selfish about this, it is necessary for our survival.
[edit]For all the scorn the religious may place on humanism, I can say with confidence there would be no Christians were it not for the promise of heaven and eternal life. Even in religion, we are self-centered and rightly so.
Which is why the above study is abhorrent to us humans as we understand that killing people, especially women and children – and attempting to justify it through religion – is a bad thing. In this instance it is only through the filters of religion, which skews a person’s moral compass and logic, that genocide becomes justifiable.
The Protestants have a similar doctrine for infallibility actually – the infallibility of the word, or the Bible, which isn’t very good as the example in this post shows and how inaccurate scripture is generally. Of course Catholics don’t have it much better – one need look no further than the clumsy attempts to make Mother Theresa a saint, inventing miracles where there are none.
Interesting.
I too, would say with confidence that there will be no humanist but for the prospect, scientific or otherwise of its survival (the survival of mankind).
I believe too, that humanism – just as religion, can be used to justify killing people. I hate to use this over-used example – but the Nazi’s Aryan philosophy is a good example. My point earlier is that Tamarin’s study does not only prove that religion ’skews a person’s moral compass’, but that humanism can too. Secular humanism can be use to define the ‘unborn child’ a ‘foetus’ with the reasoning that overpopulation is adverse to humanity as a whole. Some religions on the other hand (e.g. catholicism or certain sects of protestants) rather choose to defend the unborn child’s rights over the entire human race.
Therefore I think ultimately, morality is about choice. The choice of priorities (e.g. the entire human race or the unborn child). The Christian scriptures used above are just another matter of ‘choice of priorities’. What do you think? Would you agree that I say your form of rational logic is merely a choice of institutional alignment (humanism).
Personally, I feel an argument against religion is better placed by arguing that religion makes the wrong choice in priorities not that religion lacks the use of the faculty of the mind. But I must further say that I understand that many religious persons lack the use of their mind – but I would like to point out that so too do many persons who claimed to be secular atheistic liberals.
(Note: Infallibility of the word is a doctrine with an internal flaw – for it doesn’t say anything about the interpreter of the word. Is the interpreter infallible? Cause, the first question to that doctrine is simple – is it not possible and likely that the interpreter of the word, being fallible misinterpret the word does skewing the truth?)
Judson, in simpler terms, I see your point as:
People can screw up moral stuff.
“Religions” and “humanism” are both buzz words which can both equally be used to make people screw up moral stuff.
True enough. But that is a tautology. We could replace ‘religion’ and ‘humanism’ with ‘chicken’ or ‘duck’ and still agree.
“Extreme love of chickens” can help people screw up moral stuff. (This would’ve been a stupid example if there weren’t such people around lol).
The key problem here then, is not so much WHAT can cause people to screw up on moral issues, but more what KINDS of people ends up screwing up moral issues. For me, it’s more of an issue of open-mindedness and willingness to expose oneself to many schools of thought.
There are many schools of philosophy, and all are rooted in (some) logic. I honestly believe that it is VERY HARD to be as blind as described by the Tamarin study if you have read multiple philosophies and studied several religions.
And when considering this, I believe humanism (in general) is largely superior to religion (in general.) I know of many cases of secular humanists defending every religion’s right to be taught to every child (or encouraging its teaching), and I’ve never heard of a religion that insist that every child be taught an unbiased view of every other religion.
Of course, this last bit is obviously just an opinion of what I am ‘used’ to. Largely unprovable.
Oh and btw – I strongly agree with you, that morality is ultimately about choice. But people who understand the choice they are making make better choices.
You know an argument is going downhill once someone pulls out the “Hitler” card, but in this case I find it especially ironic that you compare humanism with Hitler’s vision of an Aryan race, as it is in a post where I have just outlined how “God” ordered the massacre of an entire race whose only crime is that they were not Jewish. Surely you cannot fail to see the similarities. Indeed, reading through the accounts of God-sanctioned bloodshed in the Old Testament, Hitler was strictly small fry – he did at least kill them all equally rather than order his men to keep the virgins for themselves.
That said Hitler’s crimes should be blamed on either religion or humanism alone; his depravity was all his own.
But this is a cop-out. I could just as well apply this argument to any religion in the world and say that we are merely interpreting it wrong; that the Koran is true but there is no proper interpretation. I could apply it to this essay of mine and say that I am correct, it is merely your interpretation that is wrong. And that would be a meaningless statement.
If the scripture cannot guide the fallible then it is useless. It must be judged by the people who claim it to be true.
The main difference between secular morality and religious morality is that secularists acknowledge that our moral anchors shift over time, and for the better, as we understand human nature. And we do accept that man is fallible, and are perfectly ok with it. Our understanding of human rights has marched on with or without religion and usually, in spite of it. The main problem with scripture is that it can be cherry picked to support either side – you can find passages opposing the abolishment of slavery or women’s rights easily for example. Where secular morality evolves on its own, religion is forced to, while still claiming it is unchanging.
Abortion is another topic altogether as even religious people have their differences regarding it, as do secularists. But one thing we know for sure, the Bible doesn’t touch on it.
You know, I agree with you – Hitler’s concept and God’s clear instructions are pretty much the same. I wasn’t suggesting that Hitler was representative of the humanist movement. Just that he is a possible example of a direction humanism could take. However I’m curious as to why you attributed Hitler’s action to his own depravity only. I’m quite unsure as to why it cannot be attributed to his institutional alignment or his beliefs as well. To me, the extent of Hitler’s depravity is the exercise of his will within the institution of his beliefs.
On the second point – I’ve recently found a study about the dynamism of theology, more accurately the dynamism of the moral compass within Catholic theology. Like humanism, the moral compass of the Catholic church shifts. However the understanding shifts not just with the understanding of mankind – but with the understanding of God. Both are inter-related. All revelation has been revealed. All truth already exist. Yet our understanding of it is dynamic, and through space and time we learn to understand Truth more accurately.
Further I agree – scripture can be cherry picked, hence my recent rejection of protestantism. Also, I’ve suggested that – which you pointed out, that infallibility of scripture is internally flawed – or a cop-out as you put it. Infallibility I suggest lies with ‘the church guided by the holy spirit preserved through tradition’. This however I admit is quite hard to accept. Also, this doctrine is not constituent of the protestant faith – only the catholic and orthodox.
My point on abortion was to demonstrate my theory on institutional morality – not to critique it itself. The bible doesn’t touch it, only Catholic tradition (which goes beyond scripture) does.
Finally, I cannot agree with Wilz on his point that
“The key problem here then, is not so much WHAT can cause people to screw up on moral issues, but more what KINDS of people ends up screwing up moral issues. For me, it’s more of an issue of open-mindedness and willingness to expose oneself to many schools of thought.”
All beliefs hold a measure of exclusivity, hence it is why it called a belief in the first place. Even the belief that open-mindedness is the ideal is an exclusive belief in itself rejecting all other beliefs that disagrees with open-mindedness.
True open-mindedness has to employ an agreement to disagree.
I attributed it to his own depravity only as there is no institution of belief I know of that advocates blaming the Jews for every trouble known to man and then exterminating them, or the emergence of a perfect race (i.e. racism). While admittedly early Christianity did carry out such massacres of the Jews it has evolved since then. If you want to blame it an “institution” then perhaps he was beholden to racism but even that I think was just an excuse for his lust for power.
While Catholicism seems to solve many weaknesses inherent in Protestanism, it opens up the actions of the Church to criticism, and we have good records of how the Church has made pretty big screw-ups in its history: Priesthood? Limbo? The Crusades? Indulgences? Canonization? The infallibility of the pope?
But you are playing with words here, like I would be if I said “The only thing absolute is that there is nothing absolute”. What he means is that the people who reject reason and follow their faith (or perhaps their interpretation of it) blindly are more likely to screw up moral issues. You could seriously not read Tamarin’s studay and say “Let’s agree to disagree” with the children who have been led to believe that god-sanctioned genocide is a good thing.
[...] a poll on Dr. Mahathir’s blog had more than 70% of people disagreeing with the decision. The divide that religion brings won’t be settled in an online [...]
Hi Tim,
Your highlight of George Tamarin from the except taken out from Dawkins’ book is interesting though rather sweeping and sort of irrelevant to the issue ‘relativism’.
First, let’s look at George Tamarin’s thesis which was done in the 1960s. I’m not sure whether are you aware of his report or were you just follow uncritically how his report is being manipulated by Dawkins to support his rather skewed position. Tamarin actually asked the 1000 Israelis schoolchildren (aged 9-14) TWO questions. Dawkins only highlight one in his attempt to manipulate his uncritical readers to think he was being reasonable.
Here are Tamarin’s two questions:
1) Do you think Joshua and the Israelites acted rightly or not? Explain why you think as you do.
2) Suppose that the Israeli army conquers an Arab village in battle. Do you think it would be good or bad to act towards the inhabitants as Joshua did towards the people of Jericho and Makkedah? Explain why.
The answers to question 1 is what you have highlighted: 66% total approval, 26% total disapproval, 8% partial approval OR DISAPPROVAL (you missed out this “OR DISAPPROVAL”).
The answers to question 2 is what you did not highlight or you just didn’t know because Dawkins didn’t highlight: 30% total approval, 62% total disapproval, 8% partial approval or disapproval.
(Akiva Orr, The unJewish State: The Politics of Jewish Identity in Israel [London: Ithaca Press, 1983], p.225)
It is obvious that question 1 and 2 are of different nature. The former is about the intrinsic consistency of the narrative of the Biblical passages in relation to the ethnic identity of the schoolchildren without the children consciously knowing the complicated discussion over personal identity and ethnic background in social sciences, while the latter is on whether can there be moral implication to be derived from the narrative.
What is interesting is that the requirement for moral evaluation is only explicit in question 2. And in this question, the majority of the schoolchildren disapproved of Joshua’s acts and thought that such acts cannot be replicated in contemporary situation. This answer to question 2 defeats your entire post and Dawkins’ point.
Besides, Tamarin didn’t take into account an important variable and hence skewed his observation. In other words, Tamarin did not qualify his objects of study: the children’s condition. Therefore his conclusion is not substantiated.
The fact that the schoolchildren gave different answer to General Lin’s case shows that their self-perceived ethnic identity is very important and must not be neglected, to which Tamarin had.
Therefore I doubt you can deduced from Tamarin’s report to conclude that moral relativism is found in religions. To be clear, differing moral degree do exists among religions and within one religion, but to say that Tamarin’s report supports this thesis is committing a non-sequitur.
Hi Joshua,
Thanks for your very detailed comments.
I am very puzzled as to how you come to the conclusion that Dawkins’ excerpt is “skewed”. In the chapter where he quotes it in his book, he is trying to establish that religion poisons the moral outlook of children.
You imply that Dawkins deliberately left out one question to support his conclusions.
But as you may see from this Google Books link, which references the study in its entirety, there were two separate tests.
In the first, two sets of children were asked to justify the actions of a) Joshua, b) the Israeli army. The results were:
(A: Total approval – B: partial approval or disapproval – C: total disapproval.)
For the actions of Joshua: A) 66%; B) 8%; C) 26%
For the actions of the Israeli army: A) 30%; B) 8%; C) 62%
In the second, two sets of children were asked to justify the actions of a) Joshua, b) a fictional General Lin.
The results were:
A: Total approval – B: partial approval or disapproval – C: total disapproval.
For the actions of Joshua: A) 60%; B) 20%; C) 20%
For the actions of General Lin: A) 7%; B) 18%; C) 75%
Why were there two tests? Simple – the title of the study was The influence of ethnic and religious prejudice on moral judgment.
The first test measured ethnic prejudice – as you have observed, Israeli children are particularly prone to it – and the second test measured religious prejudice. George Tamarin was no fool. As Dawkins was not writing The Jewish Delusion or The Jewish Schoolchildren Delusion, but rather the God Delusion, he focused on the second study. Dawkins seems to have mixed up the results of the “Joshua” question for the first and second tests though; the conclusions are still the same (even before accounting for the skewed moral reasoning of some of the children who gave extremist views for voicing total disapproval, as Dawkins quoted). I really wonder if I could get away with doing such a survey on Sunday School children one day. I have a strong feeling the results would be the same.
So much for the validity of Tamarin’s study and of Dawkins’ quote.
My readers may be a bit confused as to why you focus on moral relativity when my post is not centered on it, so let me clarify here that Woo is responding to my comment on this post against moral relativism where I mention Tamarin’s study. So I will digress a little to talk about it.
Tamarin’s study and my blog post doesn’t discuss moral relativism specifically but rather moral prejudice, but the connection is of course clear.
As I point out, I have asked many Christians I know about the excerpt from Joshua 6, and also the one I mention in Numbers 31. And they have all squirmed trying to reason it out.
For morality to be absolute it must be unchanging. It is not only the children’s answers that prove moral relativism. It is our response to it, for we know today that genocide for any reason (in fact ESPECIALLY for religious reasons) is wrong.
So let me ask you, Woo –
1) Do you think the Israelites acted rightly or wrongly in Joshua 6 and Numbers 31?
2) If God told the US army to act as in Joshua 6 or Numbers 31 in invading say, Iran, would they be acting rightly or wrongly?
Hi Tim,
I am aware of the book by Akiva Orr. It is from this book that I directed your attention to.
The point I direct you to the entire test is to show that the second set by contrasting between Joshua and General Lin is to answer question on self-perceived identity not on morality.
And I pointed out that Tamarin didn’t take into account the condition of his objects of study: schoolchildren. What Tamarin wanted to show was that those schoolchildren with their self-perceived identity as Israeli children do identify themselves with Joshua’s story and not with General Lin’s story. That doesn’t show religion poisons a person’s moral outlook but the self-perceived identity of the person that influence one’s identification with certain story and not necessarily moral outlook.
Besides, the fact that there are 62% schoolchildren that disapproved Israeli army to act in the same way as Joshua shows that self-perceived identity is limited and does not have much bearing on moral outlook. This effectively overturns Dawkins’ conclusion.
To answer your question:
1)Israelis acted rightly in their eyes and wrongly in our eyes in Joshua 6 and Numbers 31.
2)If the US army is 100% sure that God told them to invade Iran, then they acted rightly to invade though it is wrongly for those who doubt that certainty the US army has. This is about context and not a sweeping generalization. So the problem of whether acted rightly or wrongly is dependent on how certain one is towards a particular divine command.
Hi Woo,
As I have mentioned, the title of the study was “The influence of ethnic and religious prejudice on moral judgment.”
Self-perceived identity as Israeli children, i.e. ethnocentrism having a more limited effect on the skewed results does not overturn Dawkins’ conclusion, rather it affirms it. Religion is more dangerous, divisive than ethnocentrism.
You have just affirmed moral relativity.
I am sorry for not wording my questions clearly. The issue here is not the invasion of Iran (for political correctness, let’s call it country X) but the manner in which the conquered were treated. Certainly I can imagine situations where it would be moral to invade a country.
Let me put it to you again (since I assume it is not your intention to affirm moral relativity):
1) Was it right for the Israelis to, in the aftermath of their invasions in Joshua 6, slaughter every living creature, “both man and woman, young and old”, and “ox, and sheep, and ass”; and in Numbers 31, kill “all the boys..and every woman who has slept with a man” except “every girl who has never slept with a man”.
2) If God told the US to invade country X, would it be right to treat survivors as the above. Why or why not?
Thank you.
Hi Tim,
When I used “self-perceived identity”, it encompasses ethnic and religious persuasion. For example, a Malay in Malaysia has to be both ethnically Malay and Muslim. Tamarin’s study assumes the ethnic and religious identity of the schoolchildren as ONE contributing factor on moral judgement and not as how you dichotomize it into ‘ethnic’ on one hand and ‘religious’ on the other. That is like dichotomizing a Malay into Malay on one hand and a Muslim on the other. But that would defeat the entire study altogether because it does not take into account the Malay’s self-perceived identity.
And therefore Dawkins was mistaken to use Tamarin’s example to support his conclusion.
Dawkins’ conclusion is only affirmed when you dichotomize the schoolchildren’s identity, which the study itself doesn’t presuppose. Hence Dawkins was manipulating and changing Tamarin’s findings to support his conclusion. As you have already noticed, Dawkins mixed up the results on the ‘Joshua’ question. So it seems that Dawkins has the tendency to change or mix up data to support his conclusion. And I think readers of his book need to be alerted to this fact.
I affirm the complexity of moral issues but not affirming moral relativity. Both are very different (I think you do notice). I have stated that, “To be clear, differing moral degree do exists among religions and within one religion…”
My answers are still the same one to your more nuanced questions.
Welcome.
Woo,
I still fail to see how their “identity” is different from religious identity. As we are all aware the story of Joshua is not the mere account of a warlord conquering another people, but one who slaughters men, women and animals alike at God’s specific request.
Are you saying that if I did a study of Malaysian or American Sunday School children I would get a different response? Would you care to speculate on what the response would be?
Please explain how your answers above do not affirm moral relativity. Perhaps it would be best you give your definition of it.
And please confirm that you would have answered:
A) Approval, for the actions of the Israelites in Numbers 31 and Joshua 6,
and B) Approval, for the actions of a US army, that in the event that they were certain they were acting on God’s command, they would be justified in killing all men and women, animals included, but to save the virgins for themselves.
Hi Tim,
Of course you fail to see because I am not saying “identity” different from religious identity, as you supposed.
I was saying that “self-perceived identity” encompasses a broad spectrum of facets. I gave the example of ‘Malay’ to show that religious identity is intertwine with its ethnicity or race so much so that by dichotomizing them will defeat the classification of the identity altogether.
Moral relativism is the idea that there is no universal or objective value and thus value is subjected to the individual and individually oriented. The system of jurisprudence in any society presupposes (1) the existence of ‘common good’ and (2) the responsibility to uphold this common good. This fact shows that there is such thing as ‘common good’ in human society which is objective in itself and is not subjected to individual’s orientation. Therefore value is not relative.
Thence the complexity of value is seen not as a contrast against objective value but subsumes under its objectivity. In other words, any discourse about value or moral presupposes objectivity. And disagreement over value is always a discourse over which objectivity rather than a groundless discourse without objectivity.
I appreciate your questions and your passion to pin down my answers, but do bear in mind that I’m not a schoolchildren who aged between 9-14, like those surveyed by Tamarin. Therefore I cannot confirm to the proposed answer which you have mistakenly narrowed down.
Here are the elaborated answers to your questions:
1) Israelis acted rationally right in their eyes and rationally right in our eyes in Joshua 6 and Numbers 31. However those acts were morally wrong in our eyes.
2) If the US army is 100% sure that God told them to invade Iran, then they acted rationally right to invade though it is morally wrong for those who doubt that certainty the US army claimed. So the problem of whether acted rightly or wrongly is dependent on how certain one is towards a particular divine command or which objective moral demand does one adhere to.
I repeat that the title of the study was “The influence of ethnic and religious prejudice on moral judgment.“.
You are attempting to dispute the findings of the study based on the Israeli children’s identification with their “self-perceived identity” or that they couldn’t identify with General Lin’s story. Or let me put it this way: you dispute the conclusions of Tamarin and Dawkins based on their ethnic identity as Israelis.
I have already mentioned that the first test compared Joshua to the current-day Israeli army. In this scenario the Israeli children are able to identify with both armies, however there is still vastly more support for Joshua. The results of the second study are also clear.
Why did the Israel children have vastly less support for the actions outlined in Joshua 6 if they were to be carried out by the current Israeli army?
The simple and final answer is that religion was the difference. Joshua had God’s mandate (and God’s assistance) to do not only invade but carry out wholesale slaughter of Jericho, men and children, young and old, and even right down to every animal.
Thank you for this definition.
I am not sure whether this is intentional, but you have evaded the question I posed earlier. I have clarified that it is easy to imagine situations where invasion of a country would be justified; i.e. an impending war. What is morally difficult to accept is the way the conquered were treated. I would remind you that we are also discussing morality.
Let me put it to you again:
1) Was it right for the Israelis to, in the aftermath of their invasions in Joshua 6, slaughter every living creature, “both man and woman, young and old”, and “ox, and sheep, and ass”; and in Numbers 31, kill “all the boys..and every woman who has slept with a man” except “every girl who has never slept with a man”.
2) If God told the US to invade country X, would it be right to treat survivors as the above. Why or why not?
Hi Tim,
My contention is that Tamarin and Dawkins are wrong to assume that ethnic and religious can be dichotomized. You may repeat the title of Tamarin’s study but that does not show why ethnicity and religious identity can be separately studied without jeopardizing the object of the study.
In other words, you are just quoting Tamarin’s results and has not given it a thought that his presumption of being able to dichotomize ethnic and religious identity is questionable. On my part, I have given the example of Malay whose ethnicity cannot be dichotomized from their religious identity. Tamarin was imposing something that was not there and that was his flaw.
You asked, “Why did the Israel children have vastly less support for the actions outlined in Joshua 6 if they were to be carried out by the current Israeli army?”
And you answered, “The simple and final answer is that religion was the difference. Joshua had God’s mandate (and God’s assistance) to do not only invade but carry out wholesale slaughter of Jericho, men and children, young and old, and even right down to every animal.
Your answer separated ethnicity from the religious identity of the schoolchildren. The schoolchildren’s perception of their ethnicity was intertwined with their religious identity. In could be perhaps the very idea of their own ethnicity is informed by their religious text. And we don’t have details of how much do these schoolchildren identify themselves with the religious text. If it is shown that the schoolchildren do not identify their ethnicity with the religious text (hence with Joshua’s ethnicity) then we can say that the only motivation for the schoolchildren to approve Joshua’s conquest was religious. Lack of such data cast Tamarin’s finding into question.
I understand where you are coming from and I did answer your questions without evading them. They are just not the answers that you want.
Your “rebuttal” seems to hinge solely on the fact that there may be more than one factor, and therefore religion is not to blame.
As I have repeated multiple times, the first set of tests by Tamarin were aimed at answering precisely this question. More schoolchildren approved of Joshua’s actions than the Israeli army.
If you dispute this, kindly describe how you would interpret the first test.
On the contrary, your evasions only solidify my point. What I “want” is to answer the questions so I have them in black and white.
Since you continue to dodge the question but have stated that your answers are the “same”, let me modify your previous answer:
1) Was it right for the Israelis to, in the aftermath of their invasions in Joshua 6, slaughter every living creature, “both man and woman, young and old”, and “ox, and sheep, and ass”; and in Numbers 31, kill “all the boys..and every woman who has slept with a man” except “every girl who has never slept with a man”.
Your answer: This is morally right for the Israelites, but not for us.
2) If God told the US to invade country X, would it be right to treat survivors as the above. Why or why not?
Your answer: If the US army is 100% sure that God told them to treat survivors this way, then they acted morally, as long as it can be confirmed that this was God’s command. This may not be moral for others.
Please confirm for me that this reflects your view.
Thank you.
Another thing – if it is not already clear, your analogy to the Malays is invalid.
If a poll were to be conducted on the Malays asking if the conquests and actions of Muhammad were justified vs say, the Malaccan army, and the results came back with 60% approval for Muhammad and 30% for the Malaccan army then we would arrive at the same conclusion.
Hi Tim,
I have given you the interpretation already. The first test was about the intrinsic consistency of the narrative of the Biblical passages in relation to the ethnic identity of the schoolchildren without the children consciously knowing the complicated discussion over personal identity and ethnic background in social sciences. Therefore when they are asked in the first test, they provide a positive answer. That’s because there might be a possibility that the children relate themselves with Joshua. But this is as inconclusive as that of Tamarin’s finding because we do not have data how were the children relate to the story of Joshua.
If my evasion solidify your point, then that is not an evasion already. By the way it is not clear from the text whether was the destruction happened “aftermath” as you emphasized, or during the invasion.
“When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. (Josh 6.20-21)
From the text, it is more likely that the destruction happened during the invasion itself. If this is clear, then only we move on to your questions as it has significant implication.
It would really help if you do not simply ignore what I point out and repeat old arguments by assertion which I have addressed.
For the umpteenth time, Tamarin’s first set of tests established a control for ethnicity in the form of the Israeli army. Tamarin was an Israeli himself, surely you would not presume that he be ignorant of the fact that ethnicity would be a factor? Please put forth an alternative explanation as to why the results were as following:
Approval for the actions of Joshua: 66%
Approval for the actions of the Israeli army: 30%
Why the difference in approval? Unless you are putting forward the notion that the children couldn’t relate to the Israeli army?
Be specific. How would this be shown in a satisfactory manner to you?
This is nitpicking. Unless you are saying that the city resistance conscripted women, children, cattle, sheep and donkeys into its army, it has no bearing. Yes I may be technically incorrect in saying “survivors”, but this is only because there WERE no survivors left. I am talking about the manner in which the inhabitants were treated.
Please also do not ignore Numbers 31 which I have expressly stated. It describes not only god-sanctioned genocide, but reprimands the Isarelites for actually allowing the women to live, instructing them instead to kill all the women and boys, EXCEPT the virgins specifically, who were treated as “plunder”:
Numbers 31: Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.
15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
..
32 The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep, 33 72,000 cattle, 34 61,000 donkeys 35 and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man.
Would appreciate your response. Thanks.
Hi Tim,
Well, to you I’m ignoring your point and to me, you are ignoring mine. That’s fine.
I believed I have answered your question, “Why the difference in approval? Unless you are putting forward the notion that the children couldn’t relate to the Israeli army?” in my first comment to you:
“It is obvious that [Approval for the actions of Joshua is 66%, while approval for the actions of the Israeli army is 30%] are of different nature. The former is about the intrinsic consistency of the narrative of the Biblical passages in relation to the ethnic identity of the schoolchildren without the children consciously knowing the complicated discussion over personal identity and ethnic background in social sciences, while the latter is on whether can there be moral implication to be derived from the narrative.:
Hence the kids gave different consensus over the two questions.
You asked for specificity, “Be specific. How would this be shown in a satisfactory manner to you?”
Tamarin should have provided a chart of how many percentage of the 1000+ schoolchildren:
1) has heard of the story of Joshua prior to the test and thought themselves as belonging to the same ethnic group that Joshua belonged to;
2) has heard of the story of Joshua prior to the test and didn’t think that they belong to the same ethnic group as Joshua;
3) has not heard of the story prior to the test but thought that they share Joshua’s ethnicity after being told the story during the test;
4) has not heard of the story prior to the test and didn’t think that they share Joshua’s ethnicity after being told the story during the test.
Then Tamarin should also categorize how many from the above 4 categories belonged to those who approved of Joshua’s conquest while how many among the 4 categories disapproved, and how many partial. Then he should further categorize each of those from the 4 categories into 6 groups:
1) Approved of Joshua’s conquest, approved Israeli army’s war;
2) Approved of Joshua’s conquest, disapproved Israeli army’s war;
3) Approved of Joshua’s conquest, partial over Israeli army’s war;
4) Disapproved of Joshua’s conquest, approved Israeli army’s war;
5) Disapproved of Joshua’s conquest, disapproved Israeli army’s war;
6) Disapproved of Joshua’s conquest, partial over Israeli army’s war.
Such exercise takes into account the object of Tamarin’s test (which I kept emphasizing that he didn’t which you seem to emphasize that he did) and will give a better picture of the correlation between the influence of ethnicity & religious identity to moral judgement. Without such data, we cannot make any conclusive observation.
I am not nitpicking. You are bringing serious charges on religious communities over your citation of certain text which are important to the community. You mentioned that, “if you cherry pick through any holy book you’ll find passages to support whatever you want.” What I’m doing here is to caution you from reading too much into the text (Joshua 6) or demanding too much from the text when it is incapable to provide.
Ancient world does not have UN moral code on how to conduct a just war. When war happens in the ancient times, everyone get involved in one way or another, including women and children. As a soldier who was commissioned to charge into a city is extremely dangerous as you wouldn’t know whether those who dress in common clothes are actually hostile to you or not. So say that the soldier is wrong to kill innocent women and children presuppose the soldier was certain who were innocent and who can be killed.
So we focus on Joshua 6 first since that’s the issue you brought up. And Joshua 6 does not provide what you wanted it to gives.
“if you cherry pick through any holy book you’ll find passages to support whatever you want.”
My analogy of Malay is give an example of a real ethnic group which its ethnicity encompasses its religion. So to me it has no relevance to Tamarin’s studies as Tamarin has not taken into account of the fact that there are ethnic groups whether religion and ethnicity cannot be separated as clearly as he wanted.
Clarification:
“Then Tamarin should also categorize how many from the above 4 categories belonged to those who approved of Joshua’s conquest while how many among the 4 categories disapproved, and how many partial. Then he should further categorize each of those from the 4 categories into 6 groups:”
Please take it as “Tamarin should categorize how many from the above 4 categories belonged to those who approved of Joshua’s conquest while how many among the 4 categories disapproved, and how many partial. Hence he should categorize each of those from the 4 categories into 6 groups AFTER the test was given:”
You don’t make any sense here. How exactly are you getting this from the difference in approval between the actions of Joshua and the Israeli army? Wordiness aside, your explanation makes much less sense than the assumption that it was because Joshua was backed up by God’s sanction, while the same could not be said for the Israeli army.
Which would have been a waste of time as the assumption was that all schoolchildren knew about it and it they belonged to the same ethnic group. It even states right there in the text that Joshua was from Israel! So your assertion is that some children could have been unaware of the mythology surrounding Joshua’s story, and would not have identified themselves from a religious point of view. Another ad hoc argument, not even taking into account that it expressly mentions “God” and walls falling down from the mere sound of trumpets.
Really, Woo? This is your contention to counter Tamarin’s study? By saying that he did not release enough figures, and suggesting that there may have been some who disapproved, or partially disapproved, of Joshua’s conquest but approved the Israeli army’s war? I don’t think you are as naive as to believe that may have been the case. Here are the results again:
Approval/partial/disapproval for Joshua’s actions: 66/8/36%
Approval/partial/disapproval for the actions of the Israeli army: 30/8/62%.
The results are obviously sufficiently polarized enough the responses under “partial” can be ignored.
Tamarin’s sample size was large enough that we do not need to know the individual combinations to every question. The aggregates are enough to stand by themselves statistically.
And to quote from Hartung (He was one of Dawkins’ sources), those answering the questions about the Israeli army gave obviously religious reasons, drawing from Joshua’s Biblical story as an example e.g:
Basically even those who approved of the Israeli army’s action drew justification from the Biblical, i.e. religious narrative. Picking on Tamarin’s “omission” of the obvious is dubious indeed.
Here’s another exercise: To further your point, go ahead and come up with a theoretical distribution of the responses that would fit your assertions.
Yes and you have not bothered to counter my rebuttal: If a poll were to be conducted on the Malays asking if the conquests and actions of Muhammad were justified vs say, the Malaccan army, and the results came back with 60% approval for Muhammad and 30% for the Malaccan army then we would arrive at the same conclusion.
Yes the Israelites didn’t have UN moral code. Because they had God’s moral code and God’s orders. Unless those are inferior to the UN..?
It is especially ironic you accuse me of “reading too much into the text”. After all, all I have done is to ask you to explain the morality of a Bible verse I simply quote/unquoted. But you are arguing that the soldiers had to do this because they were not certain who to kill. Other than the fact that this is not supported by any verse of Scripture and is nothing more than an ad hoc argument, you have again failed to answer my question. Again, the verse reads:
..They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. (Josh 6.20-21)
Let me break it down for you, so you will not ignore it again:
1) Why did every woman have to be killed? Or are you asserting the Israelites could not tell the difference between armed soldiers and women? This was not an age were suicide bombs and concealable guns were available.
2) Why did every child have to be killed? You argue that the soldiers could not differentiate who to kill. Were they afraid of something like this?
3) Why did cattle, sheep and donkeys have to be killed? Were the soldiers afraid of disguises like this?
I can’t wait to get started on Numbers 31 by the way!
Hi Tim,
I seem don’t make sense to you because you are trying read into what I wrote. As I have written, the difference in approval between the actions of Joshua and the Israeli army is due to the different nature of both cases. The former has to do with the narrative consistency (Israel been promised a land, Israel been ill-treated, God’s sanction, Joshua’s conquest). The latter has almost no narrative for the kids to judge its consistency. I doubt the kids know about the intricacy of modern Israel history (as shown in Hartung’s observation of the kids’ naive reasons). Hence, they can only give a moral judgment.
Sociological observation is time consuming. To you it is a waste of time, but that is fundamental in sociological studies. Ask any sociologist or anthropologist who are trying to provide data to describe the society. You wrote that “the assumption was that all schoolchildren knew about it and it they belonged to the same ethnic group.” This assumption is detrimental to Tamarin’s studies as much as in any sociological observation. Even if it is stated that Joshua is from Israel does not mean the children see themselves as sharing Joshua ethnic group. The object of studies of Tamarin are schoolchildren, hence it is vital not to assume too much what he know about the children’s self-perceived identity. Forcing that assumption is conteminating the observation. Imagine a journalist approches you and ask you whether are you a Christian. If you answer ‘yes’, the journalist jumps to the conclusion you will approved Joshua’s conquest of the land in the OT. If you answer ‘no’, the journalist jumps into the conclusion that you are an atheist who doesn’t have morality. None of these conclusions are warranted. And without providing those data, Tamarin was pushing his own assumption into his object of studies in the same way the journalist do to you. You might think it is a waste of time, but sociological observation is not pseudo-journalism.
I am not making ad hoc argument. So what if it is mentioned “God” in the text? There are more secular Jews in Israel than religious ones. About 80% Jews in modern day Israel are not religious (http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....Jul10.html). The children who were 9-12 in the 1970s are now in their 40s. Statistic shows that there are 80.7% of those who are now age between 25-44 are not religious, while 83.5% of those who are now age between 45-64 are not religious; those currently age 65-74, 87.9% are non-religious, while those who are now 74 and above consist of 87.5% non-religious (Data from Central Bureau of Statistics, Abstract of Israel 2009, Person aged 20 and over, by religiousity and by selected characteristics). Tamarin does not give us these vital data so we can only derived from current collection of those who were schoolchildren during Tamarin’s test in the 1970s. Overall there is a consistancy of about 80% non-religious Jews than religious ones in Israel since 1940s.
So if the population have an average of 80% non-religious, it begs the question what were the religious identity of Tamarin’s schoolchildren. And he did not give us these data and hence he is jumping to conclusion which is not substantiated. And Dawkins, Hartung and yourself jumping together with him.
You missed my point about the 6 categories. I’m not saying that we add two new categories on ‘partiality’. I was saying that the previous 4 categories (which you think is a waste of time) have to further break-down into the 6 categories AFTER THE TEST (Approval/partial/disapproval for Joshua’s actions; Approval/partial/disapproval for the actions of the Israeli army). As in my clarification, “Tamarin should categorize how many from the above 4 categories belonged to those who approved of Joshua’s conquest while how many among the 4 categories disapproved, and how many partial. Hence he should categorize each of those from the 4 categories into 6 groups AFTER the test was given”
I didn’t counter your rebuttal because it is irrelevant. The modern day Jews are in the land which was recorded as a contention in their religious/historical text. The modern day Malays are not in Arab. The location of the contention is vital to Tamarin’s studies, as this is where the schoolchildren live. Therefore I have stated that “My analogy of Malay is give an example of a real ethnic group which its ethnicity encompasses its religion.” I know the limit of my analogy, as all who use analogy should, and I have stated it clear here.
My invocation of UN moral code is to show you that you are committing anachronism by reading into the text with your current question on morality. It is not ironic because it is clear that you are demanding the text to answer your question on ‘morality’ when the text does not have this consideration in view. You wrote, ” After all, all I have done is to ask you to explain the morality of a Bible verse I simply quote/unquoted.” This already shows that you are demanding the text to answer your question and not seeing what exactly the text is concern about.
1) I am not saying that the ancient civillians who were dressed in civillian clothes are equivalent to modern day suicide bombers. I am saying that you are charging Joshua’s army for certain crime even when you have no evidence at all over their situation. Why I said this is because there is a difference between (a) soldiers who kill those who dressed in civilian clothes because the soldiers are certain that these seemingly civilians are hostile and a threat, and (b) soldiers who kill those who dressed in civilian clothes because the soldier are not certain whether these seemingly civilians are hostile and so posed as a potential threat, and (c) soldiers who kill those who dressed in civilian clothes while knowingly with certainty that these seemingly civilians are NOT hostile and NOT threatening. You are charging Joshua’s army committing (c) even though without textual support for your charge. And the only way for you to have textual support is by reading into the text.
2) You are now asking a theodicy question which is another topic altogether.
3) Why are you asking questions concerning animals? Does this pose as anything has to do with morality to you? Are you a vegetarian? (Just curious)
I’ve been wanting to comment for a while, but seriously lol, this thread is not going anywhere.
Joshua – you are a master complex-language-nitpicker. /salute
Any argument, even scientific theory, can be broken down quite thoroughly should someone nitpick sufficiently. All science is built on certain assumptions. Obviously proving those assumptions wrong is an excellent method to bring down the science. But challenging assumptions with more assumptions goes nowhere. You want to prove this study wrong to the masses – conduct your own study, and let it hold up to the scientific community. (Make sure it isn’t published in one of the Discovery Institute journals though lol.)
Personally, Tamarin’s assumptions (and Dawkins/Tim reasons for accepting those assumptions) are pretty sufficient to illustrate what it set out to illustrate. Of course, one can argue that Dawkins, Tim and I are biased to be more likely to accept those assumptions. Tamarin, I have no idea about. You on the other hand have to accept that you carry you own bias as well Joshua.
If we raise the ‘assumptions bar’ for science too high we’d never get any work done. Which is why science is not philosophy. Philosophy argued itself to death, while science hunkered down, accepted certain assumptions, and got to work. (And always provided the truth behind its assumptions when announcing its results.)
You (Joshua) are carrying the science behind this post closer and closer to philosophy. On a personal level – I am surprised you are still a strong Christian considering how thoroughly you seem to be able to analyze supposed ‘truths’ and challenge assumptions.
You’re shooting yourself in the foot here. Yes, there no narrative and so the kids only give a moral judgment. Which is precisely the point – Outside of the traditional narrative of the story of Joshua, which is religious, the kids give a different moral judgment.
No Woo, I did not say that sociological observation is a waste of time. Rather I said that your introduction of categories to divide the Israeli children who those who had heard of, and who hadn’t heard of the story of Joshua would be a waste of time. It would be like asking Malaysian children who Tunku was, and speculating that a Malaysian sociologist would bother to include children who hadn’t heard of Tunku in the first place.
The Book of Joshua was chosen by George Tamarin precisely because Israeli children would be familiar with it; it was taught in their schools. As this commentary says of the Tamarin study:
Your vain attempts to poke holes in Tamarin’s methods are amusing, and it’s ironic you lecture me on sociology when you reject studies from sociologists while you pretend to be an expert on Jewish nationalism.
Hey straw man! I don’t have time for you right now, sorry.
There are so many things wrong with this paragraph I’m not sure where to begin. I will rebut your points here but I hope you are not just drawing me into a statistics competition.
1) How does a census done in 2009 relate to children in 1963?
2) How would it matter what the children believe when they are 40? The study very obviously was done to gauge the moral response in children.
3) While the census is irrelevant, I would like to point out that for all your earlier indignance over the accuracy of Dawkins’ excerpt, you are not beyond a little padding yourself. The census actually states that 40% of Jews are “secular”, with the remaning 60% or so divided among “traditional”, “orthodox”, and “religious”. “Traditional” here would be more analogous to a “typical” Malay who observes religious practices like eating halal food and not consuming alcohol. For context, a 1985 survey showed that more than half of Jews believe in God and believe that they are “the chosen people”.
I have already shown how your request for checking for their knowledge of the story of Joshua or the secularity of the schoolchildren would be an utter waste of time. I have already quoted numerous excerpts from the answers given which all support this.
You on the other hand have not responded to my challenge: Provide a statistical distribution according for the two questions that would back up your assertions. I note you have ignored it again – it would prove your point more than irrelevant statistics.
Uh we are both talking about morality here. Yes I am aware the text describes the
genocidesconquests done in God’s name, but that would be like saying “You don’t understand what the Iraq war was really about, why talk about civilian casualties?” I am merely asking you to justify the morality on display.I am reading in to the text? That is hilarious.
I am amazed that I managed to break down the question in parts for you and you manage to miss the point.
[Edit] I note that you asked about my concern for the animals, which suggests that it was deliberate evasion.
So are you asserting that the soldiers are justified because they had no way of telling if women, children, and animals posed a threat? I am glad that these days we have UN conventions rather than the Biblical “when in doubt, kill” morality you prescribe.
Too bad that God apparently wasn’t in the mood to spare virgins that day.
@Wilz: I actually disagree a little with your point that Woo should go conduct a study himself (although I admit it would be entertaining to see how he meet his seemingly steep requirements). I would gladly do a survey among Sunday Schoolers if given the chance. Woo is very fortunate that this study was done among Israeli children, which provides him a convenient base from which to nitpick.
P.S. I don’t think you need to be vegetarian to ask why animals need to be killed in a war.
Hi Tim,
You are free to think that my categories are a waste of time, but to me it is vital to the entire point of Tamarin. He set out wanting to show the influence of the schoolchildren’s self-perceived identity and how that influence their moral judgment.
What he gives us is just a set of answers which say most of the kids approve a narrative which they were told and their moral judgment in their contemporary situation. And he tries to draw a correlation between the former with the latter to show that the schoolchildren’s self-perceived identity has influenced their moral judgment.
And without providing data to show how many who approved the narrative actually being influenced and how many who were not is detrimental to the point he tried to show: a correlation.
The statistics are to show that religiosity is not the major aspect to the majority Jews in modern Israel. Hence it backs the point that the lack of the data that Tamarin didn’t provide further question the point he (Dawkins and yourself) wanted to show: a correlation between religiosity and moral judgment.
That’s all I have to say and nothing more.
Hi Wilz,
All that you said undercuts both positions for and against all scientific proposition. It’s a valid point no doubt but it is pervasive too.
I’m still a believer due to many reasons, and I have challenged the very notion of my own belief system as much as well. Cheers.
And you could have drawn up an example of the statistical distribution that would support your point, like I asked, but failed to do so – once again, evading the question and relying on argument by assertion: basically that Jews are non-religious, based on a census conducted 40 years later that excludes children, when I have already provided overwhelming evidence to the contrary based on studies done and the actual responses from the test.
I note that you have no answer for the morality of killing children and animals in a war as well.