UBB.classicTM 6.5.0
quote:From giving a shit about other people?
Originally posted by no prophet:
Where does atheist morality come from?
quote:I believe this is so , which rather begs the question -- What is the point of religion ?
Originally posted by no prophet:
If atheists can be moral without religious belief, does it mean necessarily that morality, knowledge of right/wrong, good/evil is innate? That we know by the virtue of being human these things?
quote:I'm not sure that's true. It could be argued the other way around; that the religious pick their religion because it offers the moral teachings they prefer.
Originally posted by no prophet:
Those with religious beliefs get their morality from their religion.
quote:Except I got mine, or at least the start of mine, by being born where and to whom I was.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I'm not sure that's true. It could be argued the other way around; that the religious pick their religion because it offers the moral teachings they prefer.
Originally posted by no prophet:
Those with religious beliefs get their morality from their religion.
quote:It is a fallacy to evaluate an evolutionary tendency with an isolated example.* And you are viewing this backwards. It is because altruism is part of our social and genetic makeup that you might help this stranger.
Originally posted by no prophet:
How does this occur if I am kind to a stranger? Or even save the life of one.
quote:Right. And it just happens to be coincidence that, to pick an historical example, the Segregationist South just happened to adopt religious teachings that supported White Supremacy. Religious morality is just a way to say that your own moral code is designed by a superior being and to dodge responsibility for otherwise unjustifiable acts.
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:Except I got mine, or at least the start of mine, by being born where and to whom I was.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I'm not sure that's true. It could be argued the other way around; that the religious pick their religion because it offers the moral teachings they prefer.
Originally posted by no prophet:
Those with religious beliefs get their morality from their religion.
quote:Cooperation for mutual benefit is a fairly common adaptive strategy, both within species (herd or pack animals) and between species (symbionts). It should be noted that within humans altruism is more strongly felt along kinship lines. In other words, towards those most likely carrying at least some of the genes as the hypothetical altruist. As far as helping a stranger (someone with only a slight chance of possessing some of the same genes as the altruist), evolution works by kludges. It may be that there's no easy way for humans to tell kin from non-kin through sensory input alone. I believe the most hated man in Britain wrote extensively on the hypothesis.
Originally posted by no prophet:
The altrusim idea, that it is selected for via evolution is interesting. But I'm not sure about it, within my understanding of evolution being "adaptation to local conditions" and "ensuring genes get passed along to subsequent generations". How does this occur if I am kind to a stranger? Or even save the life of one.
quote:Well no, but the question is where their morality comes from. What makes it anything other than arbitrary, apart from a historical link to a Christianity they don't believe anymore?
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I don't think the philosophy of naturalism can adequately explain morality, but that is not equivalent to saying that those who subscribe to that paradigm cannot be moral.
quote:I think it's a pretty rubbish argument tbh, even when you acknowledge that it's a straw man. One group has a coherent explanation for their morality, the other group has apparently plucked theirs out of thin air but are apparently more 'authentic'.
In fact, it could be argued that people who just follow their sense of right and wrong, which is shared by the bulk of humanity, are morally more authentic than those who need to have their morality dictated to them by an absolute authority, who relates to them by a system of rewards and punishments. That is actually quite a good argument as far as it goes.
quote:More usual? IME it's much less usual, though some atheists like to paint Christians as asking this question, in order to get out of the need to answer the much harder question of where their morality comes from.
Originally posted by Porridge:
I suppose one could argue that a question like "Where do atheists get their morality from?" is at least a step forward from the somewhat more usual query (among religious persons, anyway, at least IME) of whether atheists actually have any morality to start with. to value those closest to us), not the cause.
quote:I agree with that. I also think morality is often over-simplified, and is very complex. It might be affected by various intellectual and emotional factors, and also stuff such as loyalty, guilt, kinship, tiredness, and so on.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I'm not sure that's true. It could be argued the other way around; that the religious pick their religion because it offers the moral teachings they prefer.
Originally posted by no prophet:
Those with religious beliefs get their morality from their religion.
quote:Evolution is obviously true. Theism is obviously true.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:It is a fallacy to evaluate an evolutionary tendency with an isolated example.* And you are viewing this backwards. It is because altruism is part of our social and genetic makeup that you might help this stranger.
Originally posted by no prophet:
How does this occur if I am kind to a stranger? Or even save the life of one.
*Works for most things.
ETA:This question, when posed by a theist, is odd to me. I would think a theist would suppose an atheist receives their moral compass from a divine source, even though they do not recognise this.
quote:Theism is not obviously true. Certainly not in the way evolution is. But this is a discussion for a different thread.
Originally posted by no prophet:
Theism is obviously true.
quote:Except that species only evolve when they accumulate variation sufficient among the individuals that they can't or won't interbreed with other groups, which then serves to accumulate additional variation among the groups and to differentiate them further. But consider that the variation arises within the individual first so that it can be passed along. Thus, the first altruistic individual toward strangers is specifically not passing on altruism genetically. Because the behaviour does not enhance the passing on of that trait. If if could be shown that humans are altruistic first to those with genetic similarity then I suppose that could be evidence. Except that we live in families and groups, as you note, and only as a function of that does the altruism possibly get passed along. I think altruism then is a cultural, non-adaptive trait insofar as biological evolution is concerned. Or merely an epiphenomena, co-occurring for situational reasons.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
]Theism is not obviously true. Certainly not in the way evolution is. But this is a discussion for a different thread.
My reasoning is not circular. Evolution has selected for altruism since it is a species survival mechanism. Society trains us for this further, as it is also one mechanism for a society to thrive. It starts at the family level, moves on to tribe. But what is tribe to us modern humans? Who do we associate as us? That stranger is typically perceived as still one of us. How is this circular?
quote:Well, I'm not sure what you're asking here; but, as lilBuddha points out, societies that adopt some set of principles to govern individual human behavior are apt to endure longer than a society which operates on "Every man for himself." Societies which endure are more apt to produce individuals willing to put themselves out for one another, benefiting the species.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
A morality is adopted to further society? So what?
quote:I don't know that I claimed it was good; in many ways, the ability of humankind to make their own paths smoother, to improve living standards, to develop more longevity and greater fertility & survival rates is arguably NOT good. Other creatures go extinct as we put pressure on them and their habitats with increased human population and manipulation(s) of our environment.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Why is that good?
quote:If you're asking about some objective or absolute "good," I have no idea, though I rather doubt it. I personally don't buy the notion that there is some extant universal standard for "good." I don't think I can even understand what that means. I'm also not at all sure that such a "good" (if it is one, and if it exists) is necessarily the product of "logic," though I suppose it might be. I definitely doubt it's "logic" which propels Person A, at risk to his own safety, to drag Person B from a burning wreck out of an urgent desire to save Person B from a horrible death.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Is there such a thing as 'good' anyway, and what logical basis separates good from bad?
quote:Who says you should? I'm acquainted with people who genuinely seem unable to empathize or identify with others' pain, or to give two hoots about it; they're on my case load. Yet the fact is, these individuals are identified in this society as abnormal due to this very lack of feeling for fellow-beings. "Nomality," then, in this society, includes the ability to imagine and/or to care about what happens to others.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
If I don't feel your pain, why should I care about it at all?
quote:Not sure about other theists, but Christians also usually understand that creation as fallen or broken, a failure caused by the disobedience of the beings created in God's own image, which certainly raises the question of whether disobedience is one of the many attributes of God's character. I mean, before the official Fall, how and where could these God-reflections have obtained the idea of disobeying? Who or what created the very unGodly Thing that tempted humanity and ultimately was doomed to legless snakehood, slithering off as the serpent?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
A Christian or other theist can explain all that in terms of God creating the world after His own character, and the world therefore being meant to operate according to the characteristics of God.
quote:An atheist may have other recourses, such as learning morality from parents or teachers. An atheist may, like many theists, have recourse to whatever "innate" qualities leads one baby to cry upon hearing another do so.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
An atheist has no such recourse - and none yet has been able to give me a satisfactory answer as to how their morals are justified.
quote:It is not about objective evidence, but subjective interpretation. To paint all atheists as addressing a childish version of god is a disingenuous straw-man.
Originally posted by no prophet:
As for the obviousness of theism, it is not about scientific evidence.
quote:I'm not sure it's true either. My religion certainly affects my morality, in that there are moral rules which I accept that I don't think I would have arrived at without religious teaching ('don't have sex before marriage') and moral rules which make sense only on the factual premise that my religion is true ('you should go to church'). And my religion is a reinforcer of moral rules generally, since my beliefs about the approval or disapproval of God for my actions gives me an additional motive for obeying my moral rules*. But the vast majority of my ethics would be unchanged if I changed or lost my faith. I would want to be a nice person rather than a nasty one whether or not I believed in God.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I'm not sure that's true.
Originally posted by no prophet:
Those with religious beliefs get their morality from their religion.
quote:As a general rule, evolution cannot select for species survival.(*) A species cannot pass on its genes to the next generation except via individuals. So where long-term species survival and short-term individual survival come into conflict, short-term individual survival will almost always win out.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Evolution has selected for altruism since it is a species survival mechanism. Society trains us for this further, as it is also one mechanism for a society to thrive.
quote:Dawkins believes that reason allows humans to overcome the inevitable kludginess of evolution. Quite why this should lead us to downplay kin altruism rather than downplay stranger altruism is not clear.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
As far as helping a stranger (someone with only a slight chance of possessing some of the same genes as the altruist), evolution works by kludges. It may be that there's no easy way for humans to tell kin from non-kin through sensory input alone. I believe the most hated man in Britain wrote extensively on the hypothesis.
quote:I think not always. It is true within the model of a well-mixed breeding population. But in practice populations are always subdivided, and the unit of selection may operate at subdivisions.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
So where long-term species survival and short-term individual survival come into conflict, short-term individual survival will almost always win out.
quote:As no Christian has ever given me a satisfactory justification for how Christian morals are justified, this just makes things symmetric. "God did it" is not a satisfactory explanation - it's simply passing off the explanation onto the ineffable.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
An atheist has no such recourse - and none yet has been able to give me a satisfactory answer as to how their morals are justified.
quote:I'm fairly sure I've heard and read Dawkins say evolutionary theory is not a good basis for finding your ethics.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:Dawkins believes that reason allows humans to overcome the inevitable kludginess of evolution. Quite why this should lead us to downplay kin altruism rather than downplay stranger altruism is not clear.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
As far as helping a stranger (someone with only a slight chance of possessing some of the same genes as the altruist), evolution works by kludges. It may be that there's no easy way for humans to tell kin from non-kin through sensory input alone. I believe the most hated man in Britain wrote extensively on the hypothesis.
Dawkins has endorsed Matt Ridley's arguments that understanding the evolutionary basis of morality should lead us to slash government spending, especially redistributive programs. I'm not sure whether Dawkins actually thought about what he was endorsing - he seems to be a centrist liberal type on most issues.
quote:Well, you are entitled to your opinion. But I would have thought that someone who philosophically doesn't have to treat others kindly, but nevertheless chooses to do so, possesses a moral sense that is more genuinely volitional (therefore more authentic) than someone who only does what is right out of fear of punishment or hope of reward.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor
I think it's a pretty rubbish argument tbh, even when you acknowledge that it's a straw man. One group has a coherent explanation for their morality, the other group has apparently plucked theirs out of thin air but are apparently more 'authentic'.
quote:I wish Stephen Jay Gould had not died in a untimely manner. He was a better and more conciliatory writer and speaker than the grandstander Dawkins. He agreed with Dawkins about this, but not at all about so much else. I can only recommend Gould's collected essays across many volumes. I prefer his view of evolution than Dawkins', who is more deterministic.
Originally posted by Evensong:
I'm fairly sure I've heard and read Dawkins say evolutionary theory is not a good basis for finding your ethics.
quote:The idea that atheists are particularly immoral is one with a fairly lengthy history and was, for a while, the basis of some fairly lurid pulp fiction (or its slightly more upscale equivalent).
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I am certainly no apologist for atheism (quite the opposite!), but I do think that many Christians who use this "where do you get your morality from?" argument often imply that atheists are somehow inherently immoral.
quote:I'm actually somewhat amused that there existed atheist-themed equivalent of Penny Dreadfuls. Still, the backward logic enumerated above seems to still be with us, as this thread demonstrates. Not believing in (and therefore not fearing) Hell is seen as being a license for wickedness.
Historians did not try to be calm about it in the early, juicy days when atheism was first presented as having a history. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, pamphlets and books discussing famous atheists were a thriller genre, scandalous tales of tyrants and madmen which occupied largely the same niche as biographies of serial killers, or penny museums displaying the death masks of executed murderers. Treatises on “Infamous Atheists” served a slightly more learned audience than wax heads and the numerous early versions of the Sweeny Todd legend, but only slightly, and as they proliferated in printing shops tales of the scandalous excesses of Tiberius and Caligula under the label “atheist” were part morality play, part voyeurism, and part slander as each particular collection targeted its audience’s enemies. French collections accused Italians and Englishmen of atheism while Italian collections accused Frenchmen; Catholic collections accused Martin Luther and John Calvin of atheism, while Protestant collections accused popes and papists, and almost all European collections accused Muslims and Jews of atheism in a spirit of general racism and lack of accountability and lexical clarity.
You may note that neither Martin Luther nor Caligula is on record as ever having philosophically attacked the existence of God, but the logic chain of these collections is, from our perspective, backwards: (1) Fear of Hell drives men to good behavior. (2) These men were bad. (3) These men did not fear Hell. (4) These men were atheists. In the Renaissance, sinful living in overt defiance of divine law was considered evidence of atheism, to the degree that we have records of many atheism trials from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries in which the evidence brought by the prosecution involves no statement of unbelief on the part of the accused. Rather the evidence will be sinful living, promiscuity, homosexuality, gluttony, irreverence of civic and religious authority, anything from a monk taking in a mistress to a drunkard running around in public with no pants on (See Nicholas Davidson, “Atheism in Italy 1500-1700,” in Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, ed. Michael Hunter & David Wootton (Oxford, 1992), 55-86, esp. 56-7).
quote:The existence of God is not a moral question, so relying on his existence in order to answer a moral question is well within the rules. God is the basis for my morality but I believed in God before I ever considered his existence as a moral question, so it is isn't special pleading to rely on him to give meaning to my moral universe.
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:As no Christian has ever given me a satisfactory justification for how Christian morals are justified, this just makes things symmetric. "God did it" is not a satisfactory explanation - it's simply passing off the explanation onto the ineffable.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
An atheist has no such recourse - and none yet has been able to give me a satisfactory answer as to how their morals are justified.
A list of many of the ways have been given by others on this thread.
quote:Doesn't theistic morality fall down at the same point? For example, if someone claimed that God told him "to break into your house, torture you and steal your money" (either specifically or as a generically approved form of behavior), doesn't that make such actions "moral"?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
The atheist explanations that have so far been given for morality are explanations of the how rather than the why. We got our morality from our parents, or found it innate within us? Great, but that doesn't make it mean anything. If morality is a byproduct of evolution, nothing can accurately be described as bad, only as abnormal. It might not be what most people would condone if I were to break into your house, torture you and steal your money, but there would be nothing objectively wrong about it - it would just be a minority preference.
quote:I doubt that personwill have much by way of logical reasoning behind his message from his god. If that god is supposedly my god, I can show the thief plenty of stuff from the bible about stealing being wrong - the ten commandments being a start. That's the point: we have a coherent logical system and a standard by which actions can be judged.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Doesn't theistic morality fall down at the same point? For example, if someone claimed that God told him "to break into your house, torture you and steal your money" (either specifically or as a generically approved form of behavior), doesn't that make such actions "moral"?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
The atheist explanations that have so far been given for morality are explanations of the how rather than the why. We got our morality from our parents, or found it innate within us? Great, but that doesn't make it mean anything. If morality is a byproduct of evolution, nothing can accurately be described as bad, only as abnormal. It might not be what most people would condone if I were to break into your house, torture you and steal your money, but there would be nothing objectively wrong about it - it would just be a minority preference.
quote:If that were true, the civilizations of China, ancient Egypt, etc. would be inexplicable.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Atheists in the UK get their morality from the Christian culture they have been born into.
Laws, culture, ethics, etc are all based on Christianity.
quote:He's decided you're an Amalekite. The rules are pretty clear on that. You got off easy just being tortured.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
quote:I doubt that person will have much by way of logical reasoning behind his message from his god.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Doesn't theistic morality fall down at the same point? For example, if someone claimed that God told him "to break into your house, torture you and steal your money" (either specifically or as a generically approved form of behavior), doesn't that make such actions "moral"?
quote:And if his god isn't your god? There doesn't seem any way to resolve an impasse involving competing deities.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
If that god is supposedly my god, . . .
quote:Really? Christians don't disagree on any kind of moral question? Or at least not the big ones, like slavery or whether women should have legal rights? That's truly remarkable and doesn't at all resemble the history of Christianity. If your system is truly "coherent" you'd expect a lot more unanimity over time.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
. . . I can show the thief plenty of stuff from the bible about stealing being wrong - the ten commandments being a start. That's the point: we have a coherent logical system and a standard by which actions can be judged.
quote:What disturbs me about theistic morality is the pretense that it's not the product of human invention; that it's an external system that's programmed into you rather than something you've made a conscious decision to adopt. It's the ultimate appeal to authority and rejection of accountability.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
What worries me more than the odd lunatic nutjob is that by the reasoning of many on here, morality is a majority decision. Things are right because most people (excluding Hannibal Lecter) think they're right. That's not a situation I am comfortable with because it leaves no room for standing against the majority, speaking truth to power. If you have an unfashionable moral view, get with the program!
quote:Starting with Option 2, one of the things that really puzzles me about non-theist morality, is that the rational position must be to persuade everyone else to treat one another with respect etc so as to provide oneself with the strategic opportunity to take advantage of their scruples when it suits one's own naked ambition to do so - provided one does't do it too often and that they don't notice.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
There are options. I don't think any of them are fully satisfactory, but there are options.
Option one: enlightened self-interest / game theory / contractarianism. If everybody agrees to follow some code even when it's not in their immediate interest everybody will be happier overall.
Option two: Reason (with a capital R). Rationality turns out to require that I treat all human beings with equal respect, including myself.
Option three: Natural sympathy / innate benevolence: humans just do care enough for family / friends / other members of their species to act from that emotion, and to disapprove of and censure other humans who don't.
Option four: Secular eudaimonia / flourishing: the most admirable and fulfilling life for human beings requires them to cultivate justice and benevolence as virtues.
Most of the above options are incompatible with the other options to a greater or lesser extent. I wouldn't say religious sources of morality are inherently more questionable than any of them.
quote:Humans have historically been about as well-mixed as any real-world breeding population gets. As I said, this might change if we ever set up colonies on other planets. In the here and now, I think population subdivisions among humans are negligible.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:I think not always. It is true within the model of a well-mixed breeding population. But in practice populations are always subdivided, and the unit of selection may operate at subdivisions.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
So where long-term species survival and short-term individual survival come into conflict, short-term individual survival will almost always win out.
quote:It's not every day you get to see a self-described Christian denouncing the Golden Rule as immoral and manipulative.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:Starting with Option 2, one of the things that really puzzles me about non-theist morality, is that the rational position must be to persuade everyone else to treat one another with respect etc so as to provide oneself with the strategic opportunity to take advantage of their scruples when it suits one's own naked ambition to do so - provided one does't do it too often and that they don't notice.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Option two: Reason (with a capital R). Rationality turns out to require that I treat all human beings with equal respect, including myself.
quote:That's not option 2 you're reaction to but option 1. That's what I was trying to signal by giving Reason a capital R. Option 2 covers positions in the Kantian tradition (e.g. Rawls) - the idea that abstract logical considerations can mean I have obligations it would be irrational to ignore, regardless of my personal wants and desires. Reason for option 2 is its own separate faculty. It's a very different conception of what reason is and what rationality means from option 1. For option 1, reason is just effective implementation of my wants or desires. The conflict between option 1 conception of reasons and option 2 conception of reasons used to be a big controversy in moral philosophy and philosophy of mind twenty or so years ago - I'm not sure how the field has moved on.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:Starting with Option 2, one of the things that really puzzles me about non-theist morality, is that the rational position must be to persuade everyone else to treat one another with respect etc so as to provide oneself with the strategic opportunity to take advantage of their scruples when it suits one's own naked ambition to do so - provided one does't do it too often and that they don't notice.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Option one: enlightened self-interest / game theory / contractarianism. If everybody agrees to follow some code even when it's not in their immediate interest everybody will be happier overall.
Option two: Reason (with a capital R). Rationality turns out to require that I treat all human beings with equal respect, including myself.
quote:Are you suggesting that those cultures have the same high morality as Christian laws and ethics? I wasn't aware that ancient Egypt had the 10 commandments.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:If that were true, the civilizations of China, ancient Egypt, etc. would be inexplicable.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Atheists in the UK get their morality from the Christian culture they have been born into.
Laws, culture, ethics, etc are all based on Christianity.
quote:Croesus, you've completely misunderstood what I've just said.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It's not every day you get to see a self-described Christian denouncing the Golden Rule as immoral and manipulative.
quote:I had not picked up that 'reason' and 'Reason' were intended to be different. However, to allow that they could be, I'd have to be persuaded first that it would actually be possible for Reason to have an objective existence in an atheistic universe.
Originally posted by Dafyd;
That's not option 2 you're reaction to but option 1. That's what I was trying to signal by giving Reason a capital R. Option 2 covers positions in the Kantian tradition (e.g. Rawls) - the idea that abstract logical considerations can mean I have obligations it would be irrational to ignore, regardless of my personal wants and desires. Reason for option 2 is its own separate faculty. It's a very different conception of what reason is and what rationality means from option 1. For option 1, reason is just effective implementation of my wants or desires. The conflict between option 1 conception of reasons and option 2 conception of reasons used to be a big controversy in moral philosophy and philosophy of mind twenty or so years ago - I'm not sure how the field has moved on.
quote:But Mesopotamia had Hammurabi's Laws which predate the 10 commandments and the others which accompany them. Which were not based on anything Christian, at the time, as I recall.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:Are you suggesting that those cultures have the same high morality as Christian laws and ethics? I wasn't aware that ancient Egypt had the 10 commandments.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:If that were true, the civilizations of China, ancient Egypt, etc. would be inexplicable.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Atheists in the UK get their morality from the Christian culture they have been born into.
Laws, culture, ethics, etc are all based on Christianity.
quote:I see you're backing off your claim that law, culture and ethics are all based on Christianity. Thank you. To reiterate, you are now admitting:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:Are you suggesting that those cultures have the same high morality as Christian laws and ethics? I wasn't aware that ancient Egypt had the 10 commandments.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:If that were true, the civilizations of China, ancient Egypt, etc. would be inexplicable.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Atheists in the UK get their morality from the Christian culture they have been born into.
Laws, culture, ethics, etc are all based on Christianity.
quote:What is all this insistence on "logic" about, and what does logic have to do with Christian, or any other, morality?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
I doubt that personwill have much by way of logical reasoning behind his message from his god. If that god is supposedly my god, I can show the thief plenty of stuff from the bible about stealing being wrong - the ten commandments being a start. That's the point: we have a coherent logical system and a standard by which actions can be judged.
quote:I think it is undeniable that evolution has its base in the survival instinct. It is acted upon in facial and behavioral recognition of "the other" who might be a threat. I also think the next evolutionary step was the acceptance of deferred gratification or the ability to wait for the two marshmallows instead of the single one that is first proffered; an experiment with toddlers and monkeys. The step from this to codifying the behavior (tribal or religious) is the next step.
Originally posted by LilBuddha
My reasoning is not circular. Evolution has selected for altruism since it is a species survival mechanism.
quote:Advice from where? The Bible? Other christians?
Originally posted by no prophet:
Those with religious beliefs get their morality from their religion. Follow the direction, the example, the advice.
quote:On the contrary. Atheists don't do horrid things to other people and blame it on their god.
Originally posted by rolyn:
Is there a difference to how Christians and atheists behave when it comes to morality ? I don't happen to think there is any real discernible difference.
quote:So now you're decrying logic, on a discussion board? Two alternatives occur to me:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:What is all this insistence on "logic" about, and what does logic have to do with Christian, or any other, morality?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
I doubt that person will have much by way of logical reasoning behind his message from his god. If that god is supposedly my god, I can show the thief plenty of stuff from the bible about stealing being wrong - the ten commandments being a start. That's the point: we have a coherent logical system and a standard by which actions can be judged.
quote:Fixed that.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:On the contrary. Atheists don't do horrid things to other people and give credit to their god.
Originally posted by rolyn:
Is there a difference to how Christians and atheists behave when it comes to morality ? I don't happen to think there is any real discernible difference.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
quote:Come on now, this is just ridiculous. No one carries enough coins to pay for the bullets. Horrible ROI
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
some, on past threads, have gone so far as to imply that if it were not for the fear of Hell, they would be fucking everything that moves and shooting random strangers for pocket change).
quote:Really? Who said that? I haven't seen it.
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
What I find most curious about this thread (and past threads on the same theme) is how some Christians seem deeply offended that atheists have morals.
quote:I for one am very glad that most atheists are inconsistent enough to hold a set of moral beliefs they can't justify - I'd be very afraid for my life if not. That doesn't change the fact that their morals are (according to their own beliefs) a meaningless convention without basis in anything real, though.
The latter seems to expand into the claim that if you can't give a logical account of your moral beliefs, you shouldn't have morals. That seems problematic on several levels...
quote:I'm sorry, your opinion about people's morals according to their beliefs is of extremely limited value when you either don't understand their beliefs or don't engage with them.
I for one am very glad that most atheists are inconsistent enough to hold a set of moral beliefs they can't justify - I'd be very afraid for my life if not. That doesn't change the fact that their morals are (according to their own beliefs) a meaningless convention without basis in anything real, though.
quote:Assume God exists. Then what? What does this have to do with morality? If we have God exists and created the world therefore we should follow God's commands, I agree we have a basis for morality - but that morality is neither more nor less than Might Makes Right.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
The existence of God is not a moral question, so relying on his existence in order to answer a moral question is well within the rules.
quote:Neither does an invisible sky-daddy.
The atheist explanations that have so far been given for morality are explanations of the how rather than the why. We got our morality from our parents, or found it innate within us? Great, but that doesn't make it mean anything.
quote:Um... no. If morality is a byproduct of evolution, large scale immorality can be described as bad in that it is suicidal and as such self-defeating.
If morality is a byproduct of evolution, nothing can accurately be described as bad, only as abnormal.
quote:Please! I live in a largely secular society based in the values of the Enlightenment. And a lot of my morality involves analysing and explicitly rejecting the Christian roots of the culture I live in in favour of the ones we've developed since, with Christianity being mere scaffolding on the way there.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Atheists in the UK get their morality from the Christian culture they have been born into.
Laws, culture, ethics, etc are all based on Christianity.
quote:Why is species extinction a bad thing? If morality is something we created then when we're gone, our moral standards will be gone too so there will be no possibility to judge our going as bad - even were there anyone left to do the judging - because there will be no such thing as 'bad' anymore.
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:Um... no. If morality is a byproduct of evolution, large scale immorality can be described as bad in that it is suicidal and as such self-defeating.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
If morality is a byproduct of evolution, nothing can accurately be described as bad, only as abnormal.
quote:It will be bad for us. a.k.a. "It matters to that starfish". Next question?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Why is species extinction a bad thing? If morality is something we created then when we're gone, our moral standards will be gone too so there will be no possibility to judge our going as bad - even were there anyone left to do the judging - because there will be no such thing as 'bad' anymore.
quote:In which case point 1 means you should utterly discard anything based on the bible - and point 2 does not work in this imperfect world.
I really don't care for any ethical system that is made up. Absolute morality requires an absolute standard.
quote:It is only meaningless if humans ourselves are meaningless. I believe this not to be the case, and what we do in the here and now to matter.
2) Morality is not absolute, it is something we ourselves have defined for convenience. When we're gone, it too will be gone. It is, IMO, meaningless
quote:We should be able to test point 3. The simple test for point 3 is that if there is a universal moral standard and multiple groups claim to be following it their outcomes should be approximately the same. And, to put it simply, they aren't. Even when they claim that it's because the bible is inerrant and they are following that they still disagree.
3)There is some standard external to the universe by which the universe may be judged. That last option doesn't necessarily mean that God exists, but it does mean that physical reality is not the only thing that exists. Atheism then loses its USP, which is that we only believe in the physical world we see - because if we believe in an absolute moral standard, we believe in something else too.
quote:I don't decry logic at all; logic is extremely valuable in a variety of situations. What I decry is the claim that logic is what underlies morality. (Though it now occurs to me that what you're terming "logic" might actually be "consistency" or "conformity to some principle recognized by you.")
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
quote:So now you're decrying logic, on a discussion board? Two alternatives occur to me:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:What is all this insistence on "logic" about, and what does logic have to do with Christian, or any other, morality?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
I doubt that person will have much by way of logical reasoning behind his message from his god. If that god is supposedly my god, I can show the thief plenty of stuff from the bible about stealing being wrong - the ten commandments being a start. That's the point: we have a coherent logical system and a standard by which actions can be judged.
1) This is a wind up
2) You're tacitly admitting defeat
quote:This statement is not only ridiculous, but offensive. And frightening as it comes close to the statement claimed in TtO's sbove post.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
I for one am very glad that most atheists are inconsistent enough to hold a set of moral beliefs they can't justify - I'd be very afraid for my life if not. That doesn't change the fact that their morals are (according to their own beliefs) a meaningless convention without basis in anything real, though.
quote:This is a part/whole fallacy. Atoms don't have a lot of properties that things made of them do. You might as well argue that there cannot be coniferous trees because atoms aren't coniferous.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Therefore, one of three options must be true:
1) Atoms themselves have morals
quote:But if atheists' morality is a meaningless convention, then there is no more reason for them to commit acts which theists would consider to be immoral, than for them to perform moral actions. But you are implying that if atheists were consistent with their philosophy, then they would act in an immoral way. In other words, you are implying that their philosophy actually does affirm a definite moral position, which is actually contrary to your idea of morality. Otherwise there is no logic to what you are saying. Why would you be afraid for your life, if this were not the case?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
I for one am very glad that most atheists are inconsistent enough to hold a set of moral beliefs they can't justify - I'd be very afraid for my life if not. That doesn't change the fact that their morals are (according to their own beliefs) a meaningless convention without basis in anything real, though.
quote:There must be very few serious theists, yet alone Christians, who would categorise 'the existence of God' as a 'philosophical question' whether open or closed. God either is, or is not. That is not a philosophical question. It's a factual one.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
... Hey ho, your logical justification relies on the existence of God, which is still an open philosophical question, the heroic efforts of IngoB notwithstanding.
quote:Not really. It's more 'right is functional'.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Besides, claiming that morality is evolved so that societies that aren't moral die out is equally 'might is right' if you think about it.
quote:which relies on God's existence - namely the standard by which actions can be judged. All I'm saying is that as this has not been successfully justified philosophically to everyone's satisfaction (I am assuming he doesn't think it has been established scientifically, and if he is relying on the more usual reasons people have for being Christian - culture, personal experience, scripture etc then he is mistaken in referring to a "logical system"), we don't have to take his shit about atheist morality seriously.
That's the point: we have a coherent logical system and a standard by which actions can be judged.
quote:Was your community's convention basic, or was it based on some deeper moral law? If your community had decided to replace their omerta convention with one that said it was a good thing to torture babies, then would that have been okay in your view? If not then the latter option applies: the omerta was based on something deeper - I posit something absolute.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't follow the logic that if morality is not absolute, it is meaningless. How does that follow?
If a particular society decides to adopt certain ethical measures, they are meaningful for that society, surely?
Here's a small example: I grew up in a community that said that grassing to the cops was way off line. Don't do it. In that community, that was very meaningful!
quote:No, I'm saying that most atheists are moral people, in spite of their morality not being grounded on anything meaningful. That's the point. If I thought atheists were all kiddie-killers or something, that would be ridiculous.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Your comment reveals what I suspected: that Christians who ask atheists where they get their morality from, are often really suggesting that, because they apparently pluck their morality out of thin air, it follows that they must be immoral.
You claim to value logic. Well logic has driven me to discern the subtext of your position. Do feel free to retract it...
quote:Why, exactly, are we supposed to consider you an expert on what all atheists consider "meaningful"?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
No, I'm saying that most atheists are moral people, in spite of their morality not being grounded on anything meaningful.
quote:Odd given this absolute is universally shared across the groups which share the same source.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
I posit something absolute.
quote:So, Christians holding a lower moral standard than their philosophy demands, this is adequate?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
What I do think is that if atheists (almost?) universally desire to hold to higher standards than their philosophy demands, that is an indicator that their philosophy is inadequate.
quote:There are two logical conclusions I can draw from this.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
]No, I'm saying that most atheists are moral people, in spite of their morality not being grounded on anything meaningful.
quote:Give us an example of a morality that is grounded on something meaningful. Explain the necessary connection between the "meaningfulness" and the morality.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
No, I'm saying that most atheists are moral people, in spite of their morality not being grounded on anything meaningful.
quote:If thinking that all atheists are kiddie-killers is ridiculous, what is thinking that all atheists have the same philosophy -- that is, the philosophy which you claim is inadequate to the demands of said atheists' moral standards (whatever the hell that means)?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
If I thought atheists were all kiddie-killers or something, that would be ridiculous.
quote:Saying that atheists' morality is not based on anything real doesn't amount to an appeal to logic so much as an appeal to authority. You're essentially making the claim that morals are empty conventions unless you can cite a big bossman who has declared "Because I said so." I don't see much logic in that.
I for one am very glad that most atheists are inconsistent enough to hold a set of moral beliefs they can't justify - I'd be very afraid for my life if not. That doesn't change the fact that their morals are (according to their own beliefs) a meaningless convention without basis in anything real, though.
quote:One problem I have with this is that the words you use, such as 'deeper', 'absolute', 'meaningful', 'higher', appear very fuzzy. In fact, it all strikes me as gobbledygook.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
quote:Was your community's convention basic, or was it based on some deeper moral law? If your community had decided to replace their omerta convention with one that said it was a good thing to torture babies, then would that have been okay in your view? If not then the latter option applies: the omerta was based on something deeper - I posit something absolute.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't follow the logic that if morality is not absolute, it is meaningless. How does that follow?
If a particular society decides to adopt certain ethical measures, they are meaningful for that society, surely?
Here's a small example: I grew up in a community that said that grassing to the cops was way off line. Don't do it. In that community, that was very meaningful!
quote:No, I'm saying that most atheists are moral people, in spite of their morality not being grounded on anything meaningful. That's the point. If I thought atheists were all kiddie-killers or something, that would be ridiculous.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Your comment reveals what I suspected: that Christians who ask atheists where they get their morality from, are often really suggesting that, because they apparently pluck their morality out of thin air, it follows that they must be immoral.
You claim to value logic. Well logic has driven me to discern the subtext of your position. Do feel free to retract it...
What I do think is that if atheists (almost?) universally desire to hold to higher standards than their philosophy demands, that is an indicator that their philosophy is inadequate.
quote:Same difference.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Not really. It's more 'right is functional'.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Besides, claiming that morality is evolved so that societies that aren't moral die out is equally 'might is right' if you think about it.
quote:If and only if you discount people as being valuable.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:Same difference.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Not really. It's more 'right is functional'.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Besides, claiming that morality is evolved so that societies that aren't moral die out is equally 'might is right' if you think about it.
quote:There's a word for treating people as valuable: 'slave trading'.
Originally posted by Justinian:
If and only if you discount people as being valuable.
quote:No. "Might makes right" = "Do what I/we say or get beaten up or exiled (or whatever)."
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:Same difference.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Not really. It's more 'right is functional'.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Besides, claiming that morality is evolved so that societies that aren't moral die out is equally 'might is right' if you think about it.
quote:You know, I'm simply fascinated, in an annoyed sort of way, about the expertise displayed by confessed theists on this thread about "atheist philosophy" and "atheist morality."
Originally posted by seekingsister:
So in my view atheist morality seems to be more judgemental and less forgiving of those who make mistakes.
quote:That's two words.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:There's a word for treating people as valuable: 'slave trading'.
Originally posted by Justinian:
If and only if you discount people as being valuable.
quote:It is impossible to speak about this subject in anything but general and opinionated terms. I'm not sure what you'd prefer. I did mention specific people in my life from whom I've drawn the conclusion presented.
Originally posted by Porridge:
You know, I'm simply fascinated, in an annoyed sort of way, about the expertise displayed by confessed theists on this thread about "atheist philosophy" and "atheist morality."
quote:All humans (and many animals) have some sort of moral code and that arises from the primitive fight or flight reaction but tempered with tribal or community values. So any code OF morality is better than none but must be tested by experience and accommodation.
from the Random House Dictionary;
a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity
quote:Tell me, do you enjoy making straw man arguments? Can you just not help it? Or are you simply trying to be funny and failing?
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:There's a word for treating people as valuable: 'slave trading'.
Originally posted by Justinian:
If and only if you discount people as being valuable.
quote:Yes, I must say, I've found this thread rather staggering in the uninformed remarks being made about atheism. I am used to getting annoyed at atheists who are uninformed about theism, but now I can see, that there is an equal and opposite reaction!
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:You know, I'm simply fascinated, in an annoyed sort of way, about the expertise displayed by confessed theists on this thread about "atheist philosophy" and "atheist morality."
Originally posted by seekingsister:
So in my view atheist morality seems to be more judgemental and less forgiving of those who make mistakes.
Has it not occurred to anyone that atheists might be individuals? That they might form their views without subscribing to materialism, or Dawkins, or any of the other current loudmouths who claim the title "atheist?"
I do wish people would stop telling me what I believe, particularly in areas where I simply don't know yet. Am I not allowed to be at least as ignorant of the end results of a life-long process as Christians and other theists frequently are?
Being an atheist is rather like being a Protestant: you could belong to any one of -- what are we up to now, 256 denominations? -- or none of them, and still consider yourself Protestant, while vehemently disagreeing with all the other Protestants.
The fact that a particular atheist doesn't believe in God tells you only one thing: s/he doesn't believe in God. I defy you to deduce from that anything at all about any one individual atheist's ability to forgive him/herself or others, or how judgmental s/he might be.
quote:While one can be an atheist Buddhist, I would disagree that Buddhism is an atheist philosophy. As do apparently Buddhists.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I know some Buddhists who are atheists, who are staggeringly giving and forgiving. Not at liberty really to release any conversations with them, but I will look for published stuff.
Atheism is not monolithic - that is the point. They share only thing - not having a belief in God.
quote:So your answer to "from where do atheists derive morality" is "religion."
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Try this from a distinguished Buddhist teacher, Ajahn Sumedho, on loving kindness. No hint of God around!
http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books3/Ajahn_Sumedho_Universal_Loving_Kindness.htm
quote:But this is more confusion about atheism. Atheism does not entail materialism at all. People get muddled up about the New Atheists, as if they represent the sum total of atheism, past, present and future.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:While one can be an atheist Buddhist, I would disagree that Buddhism is an atheist philosophy. As do apparently Buddhists.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I know some Buddhists who are atheists, who are staggeringly giving and forgiving. Not at liberty really to release any conversations with them, but I will look for published stuff.
Atheism is not monolithic - that is the point. They share only thing - not having a belief in God.
BuddhaNet
"Only in one sense can Buddhism be described as atheistic, namely, in so far as it denies the existence of an eternal omnipotent God or God-head who is the creator and ordainer of the world. The word 'atheism', however, frequently carries a number of disparaging overtones or implications which are in no way applicable to the Buddha's Teaching. Those who use the word 'atheism', often associate it with a materialistic doctrine that knows nothing higher than this world of the senses and the slight happiness it can bestow. Buddhism advocate nothing of that sort."
quote:Words change meaning, regardless of their etymology.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Atheism means not having a belief in God - that's it.
quote:No, that is not my answer to 'where do atheists derive morality'.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:So your answer to "from where do atheists derive morality" is "religion."
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Try this from a distinguished Buddhist teacher, Ajahn Sumedho, on loving kindness. No hint of God around!
http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books3/Ajahn_Sumedho_Universal_Loving_Kindness.htm
I don't see how this differs from an atheist raised in Christianity or Judaism who rejects the religious beliefs but maintains the moral values of the religion. While the person is an atheist, their morality is religiously-derived.
quote:But here is the thing, this very philosophy can be negative. I've known Christians to repeat the behaviour, each time to "be forgiven". Even should the behaviour stop, the consequences of an act can resonate long after initiated. If no effort is made to address the wrong, what value self-forgiveness? Has God truly forgiven one a sin constantly repeated?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I have done things in the past that as a Christian I know are forgiven. I don't beat myself up about those things, they were done when I was not a Christian. God's grace has washed those things all away.
quote:Out of curiosity, what about the people you have done these things to?
seekingsister: I have done things in the past that as a Christian I know are forgiven.
quote:Well neither is Christianity. You can see from posts around here, that many will claim to derive their morality from Christianity but end up with different views on what that means in practice.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
My point is that there isn't a single answer to that question, because atheism is not a monolithic field.
Anyway, this is becoming pointless really.
quote:This is true. But this can lead to the lack of functionality if carried too far. If the philosophies projected onto atheism are all equally valid, then the word has no meaning. An example is the word ironic, for which the biggest irony is that it rarely means what the user thinks it does. So in the end, instead of a changed meaning, communicates nothing.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Words change meaning, regardless of their etymology.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Atheism means not having a belief in God - that's it.
quote:According to SS no change in behavior, or even acknowledgement that the behavior was wrong, is necessary. Those are conditions, and her understanding of Christian forgiveness is unconditional.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But here is the thing, this very philosophy can be negative. I've known Christians to repeat the behaviour, each time to "be forgiven". Even should the behaviour stop, the consequences of an act can resonate long after initiated. If no effort is made to address the wrong, what value self-forgiveness? Has God truly forgiven one a sin constantly repeated?
quote:We're talking about two separate things here.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
]But here is the thing, this very philosophy can be negative. I've known Christians to repeat the behaviour, each time to "be forgiven". Even should the behaviour stop, the consequences of an act can resonate long after initiated. If no effort is made to address the wrong, what value self-forgiveness? Has God truly forgiven one a sin constantly repeated?
quote:Unconditional forgiveness upon accepting Christ as Lord, repenting, and being baptized.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:According to SS no change in behavior, or even acknowledgement that the behavior was wrong, is necessary. Those are conditions, and her understanding of Christian forgiveness is unconditional.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But here is the thing, this very philosophy can be negative. I've known Christians to repeat the behaviour, each time to "be forgiven". Even should the behaviour stop, the consequences of an act can resonate long after initiated. If no effort is made to address the wrong, what value self-forgiveness? Has God truly forgiven one a sin constantly repeated?
quote:Erm, I'm pretty sure that "unconditional once you meet the specified conditions" is a contradiction in terms.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Unconditional forgiveness upon accepting Christ as Lord, repenting, and being baptized.
I thought the method of becoming a Christian was fairly standard so I didn't elaborate.
quote:My issues were more of a self-destructive nature, so really apologies are to my family for putting up with me.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Out of curiosity, what about the people you have done these things to?
seekingsister: I have done things in the past that as a Christian I know are forgiven.
quote:But why bother with apologies if forgiveness is automatic no matter what you do?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:My issues were more of a self-destructive nature, so really apologies are to my family for putting up with me.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:Out of curiosity, what about the people you have done these things to?
seekingsister: I have done things in the past that as a Christian I know are forgiven.
quote:I apologize for using the word "unconditional" in that case.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Erm, I'm pretty sure that "unconditional once you meet the specified conditions" is a contradiction in terms.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Unconditional forgiveness upon accepting Christ as Lord, repenting, and being baptized.
I thought the method of becoming a Christian was fairly standard so I didn't elaborate.
quote:To keep this reply brief, name a psychological mindset and I can draw example from any faith system, provide I know more than a few members. I known Christians to perseverate and atheists to move on.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
As a non-Christian (as the people I know), I feel like a failure, and that I can't make up for the bad things I did in the past. I'm not worthy of the relationship I have now, because I am a bad person.
quote:Yes. I was describing the abuse of "I'm forgiven."
Originally posted by seekingsister:
You seem to be talking about something like an addition, cheating on a partner - habitual sins.
quote:I'm sure you understand I was talking about forgiveness from God, and not from other people.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
But why bother with apologies if forgiveness is automatic no matter what you do?
quote:Yes, anecdotology gets us nowhere. I know psychotic Christians, and very loving atheists. So what?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:To keep this reply brief, name a psychological mindset and I can draw example from any faith system, provide I know more than a few members. I known Christians to perseverate and atheists to move on.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
As a non-Christian (as the people I know), I feel like a failure, and that I can't make up for the bad things I did in the past. I'm not worthy of the relationship I have now, because I am a bad person.
quote:Yes. I was describing the abuse of "I'm forgiven."
Originally posted by seekingsister:
You seem to be talking about something like an addition, cheating on a partner - habitual sins.
quote:But that mindset does not derive from Christianity. Christianity does not teach that one should hold on to guilt and shame for past wrongdoing. It teaches the opposite. That Christians with that mindset exist, can be put down to many reasons, but it's difficult to say that Christianity is the cause or source of that position.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
To keep this reply brief, name a psychological mindset and I can draw example from any faith system, provide I know more than a few members. I known Christians to perseverate and atheists to move on.
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Without Christianity there is no reason to forgive either yourself or people who have wronged you. It is rational to protect yourself from any potential future offense. It is not rational to forgive your brother 7 times or 77 times. So in my view atheist morality seems to be more judgemental and less forgiving of those who make mistakes.
quote:I'm having trouble reconciling those two positions. The first suggests Christians should automatically forgive every offense against them, but the second explicitly rejects that position. If Christians aren't under the obligation of unlimited and automatic forgiveness of everyone else, in what sense are atheists "more judgemental and less forgiving"?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:I'm sure you understand I was talking about forgiveness from God, and not from other people.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
But why bother with apologies if forgiveness is automatic no matter what you do?
I've never met a Christian who believed that faith in God means that everyone around them automatically has to forgive everything that they do as a result. You may wish to portray me as such a Mary Sunshine but certainly I am not.
quote:But surely asking forgiveness from God includes trying to make amends with the people you've hurt?
seekingsister: I've never met a Christian who believed that faith in God means that everyone around them automatically has to forgive everything that they do as a result.
quote:What our debate comes down to is that you don't accept how I'm defining atheism.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Which atheists are committed to 100% rationality? I've never met any. It seems obvious for one thing, that experience itself is not rationally arrived at.
quote:I've already answered this, and since thread is not about my personal life I hope you'll accept the answer that's been given.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:But surely asking forgiveness from God includes trying to make amends with the people you've hurt?
seekingsister: I've never met a Christian who believed that faith in God means that everyone around them automatically has to forgive everything that they do as a result.
quote:Well, you seem to be defining atheism as a rational philosophy, which contains no God. Well, I grew up in a working class area, which was about 90% atheists; very few of them ever thought about rationalism or philosophy, or materialism. They just didn't have a belief in God, and a lot of them were fairly irrational people! What would you call them?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:What our debate comes down to is that you don't accept how I'm defining atheism.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Which atheists are committed to 100% rationality? I've never met any. It seems obvious for one thing, that experience itself is not rationally arrived at.
Let's agree to disagree because no one is going anywhere on this subject.
quote:Depends on whether you consider such forgiveness "unconditional" or not. Trying to make amends is a condition.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:But surely asking forgiveness from God includes trying to make amends with the people you've hurt?
seekingsister: I've never met a Christian who believed that faith in God means that everyone around them automatically has to forgive everything that they do as a result.
quote:You obviously don't. I'm just trying to make sense of your somewhat muddled reasoning as to why the latter is superior to the former. You seem to be switching off between describing relations between people and the actions of your deity without apparent distinction. Your initial position was that Christians are more likely to forgive other people and themselves and that this was more moral than a less forgiving mindset. You went so far as to posit that such forgiveness should be "unconditional", implying that victims of ongoing abuse should just smile and take it. Then you said that you weren't really talking about people forgiving each other, but rather about God forgiving people and that there were, in fact, conditions that had to be met. I'm just trying to figure out what you mean. You keep shifting.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Croesos:
Why would I expect a non-Christian to adhere to Christian values regarding forgiveness? That's unreasonable.
quote:Please show me an atheist/rationalist philosophy that emphasises a system of justice in which people are burned eternally and calls it good. Atheism is almost never as forgiving as the most forgiving strains of Christianity - on the other hand those are massive outliers and not even the Randian forms of Atheism are anything like as cruel as many of the more dominant forms of Christianity.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
For those accusing me of smearing atheists, please show me an atheist/rationalist philosophy that emphasizes unconditional forgiveness.
quote:Let me be clear.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You obviously don't. I'm just trying to make sense of your somewhat muddled reasoning as to why the latter is superior to the former. You seem to be switching off between describing relations between people and the actions of your deity without apparent distinction. Your initial position was that Christians are more likely to forgive other people and themselves and that this was more moral than a less forgiving mindset. You went so far as to posit that such forgiveness should be "unconditional", implying that victims of ongoing abuse should just smile and take it. Then you said that you weren't really talking about people forgiving each other, but rather about God forgiving people and that there were, in fact, conditions that had to be met. I'm just trying to figure out what you mean. You keep shifting.
quote:It is not survival of the individual which is selected for, but the species.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
In the rationalist materialist world of the atheist, there is no reason for anyone to forgive another person for wrongdoing, beyond what is utilitarian for the individual.
quote:On the contrary, one can easily demonstrate the rationality of morality. Both in terms of species survival and societal survival. If anything, theism is less rational and more self serving.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
That atheists DO believe in forgiveness and compassion, I would say that view is not one that is justified through rationality.
So moral atheists, of which there are very many, are in my view slightly deluded. They espouse a belief in the value of a human being that cannot be justified through science or rationality. It is as religious of a belief as mine are, in my opinion.
quote:Yes, this is all upside down. There are perfectly adequate scientific and philosophical arguments for treating people well. Theism is a guess, or a bunch of guesses. And I'm not an atheist.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:It is not survival of the individual which is selected for, but the species.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
In the rationalist materialist world of the atheist, there is no reason for anyone to forgive another person for wrongdoing, beyond what is utilitarian for the individual.
quote:On the contrary, one can easily demonstrate the rationality of morality. Both in terms of species survival and societal survival. If anything, theism is less rational and more self serving.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
That atheists DO believe in forgiveness and compassion, I would say that view is not one that is justified through rationality.
So moral atheists, of which there are very many, are in my view slightly deluded. They espouse a belief in the value of a human being that cannot be justified through science or rationality. It is as religious of a belief as mine are, in my opinion.
quote:I'm not sure if God's forgiveness would mean much to me in this case.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Depends on whether you consider such forgiveness "unconditional" or not. Trying to make amends is a condition.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
But surely asking forgiveness from God includes trying to make amends with the people you've hurt?
quote:I'm not talking about treating people well.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, this is all upside down. There are perfectly adequate scientific and philosophical arguments for treating people well. Theism is a guess, or a bunch of guesses. And I'm not an atheist.
quote:Empathy?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:I'm not talking about treating people well.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, this is all upside down. There are perfectly adequate scientific and philosophical arguments for treating people well. Theism is a guess, or a bunch of guesses. And I'm not an atheist.
I'm talking about the inherent worth of all human beings.
There was a 1994 book called "The Bell Curve" that said people of African descent are intellectually inferior, using statistics and IQ analysis. I'm wondering why you would say that someone who reads and is convinced by the evidence in that book, would not think that African-origin people perhaps are not equal to whites or Asians and therefore do not deserve the same opportunities or rights.
A professor at the LSE, Satoshi Kanazawa, a few years ago blamed underdevelopment in Africa on low intelligence. Again - why give aid to Africa when they are just "too stupid" to use it properly?
The reason we don't act that way, is that we (the West) have a belief that all humans are equally deserving of rights and respect. But that's not something we get from science or evidence. It's something we believe. So where does the belief come from?
quote:Admittedly, some of them need a couple of whiskeys first.
quetzalcoatl: Many atheists fall in love, raise kids, have friends, get irritated, enjoy nature, have spiritual moments.
quote:Your point #1 sounds remarkably like one of the stages of the cycle of abuse so it was an obvious inference. I'm not sure exactly where you're drawing the line for "the past". By definition just about any action being forgiven occurred in "the past". It's not hard to conclude that if Christians are supposed to always forgive (as per your point #1), then something unforgiving like reporting your abuser to the authorities would be consider "immoral" under such a system.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
1. Christians are called to be forgiving. When Peter asks how many times are we to forgive our brother, Jesus' answer is, as many time as he wrongs you. That doesn't mean Christians can achieve it, but that's what is taught.
<snip>
3. I never said a word about abuse. Where has that come from? I spoke rather specifically about people who have done wrong in the past and feel unable to overcome it today. And that my Christian view on how to get over the past is different from one in which there is no God that can forgive.
quote:I've already said that what Christians do, and what Christianity teaches, differ for many reasons.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, following on from Justinian, since we are being anecdotal, in my work experience, both lapsed Catholics and extant Catholics were crippled by guilt. With atheists, it depended on their history - ex-Christians - pretty guilty; people who had never been religious - less so.
Oh but now, seekingsister will say that they are Not True Atheists.
quote:Give it a rest Croesos. I neither believe nor said what you claim.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Your point #1 sounds remarkably like one of the stages of the cycle of abuse so it was an obvious inference. I'm not sure exactly where you're drawing the line for "the past". By definition just about any action being forgiven occurred in "the past". It's not hard to conclude that if Christians are supposed to always forgive (as per your point #1), then something unforgiving like reporting your abuser to the authorities would be consider "immoral" under such a system.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
1. Christians are called to be forgiving. When Peter asks how many times are we to forgive our brother, Jesus' answer is, as many time as he wrongs you. That doesn't mean Christians can achieve it, but that's what is taught.
<snip>
3. I never said a word about abuse. Where has that come from? I spoke rather specifically about people who have done wrong in the past and feel unable to overcome it today. And that my Christian view on how to get over the past is different from one in which there is no God that can forgive.
quote:If the best argument you can make relies on a racist pile of rubbish then I'm going to start digging up the Curse of Ham and the racism of American preachers round the American Civil War. And use that to "prove" that Christianity is incredibly racist.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:I'm not talking about treating people well.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, this is all upside down. There are perfectly adequate scientific and philosophical arguments for treating people well. Theism is a guess, or a bunch of guesses. And I'm not an atheist.
I'm talking about the inherent worth of all human beings.
There was a 1994 book called "The Bell Curve" that said people of African descent are intellectually inferior, using statistics and IQ analysis. I'm wondering why you would say that someone who reads and is convinced by the evidence in that book, would not think that African-origin people perhaps are not equal to whites or Asians and therefore do not deserve the same opportunities or rights.
A professor at the LSE, Satoshi Kanazawa, a few years ago blamed underdevelopment in Africa on low intelligence. Again - why give aid to Africa when they are just "too stupid" to use it properly?
The reason we don't act that way, is that we (the West) have a belief that all humans are equally deserving of rights and respect. But that's not something we get from science or evidence. It's something we believe. So where does the belief come from?
quote:Possibly. But if you want to know what Christianity is then you look at Christians, not at the ivory tower version of Christianity that only deals with what some people believe that Christianity teaches.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I've already said that what Christians do, and what Christianity teaches, differ for many reasons.
quote:See, it's vague clichés like that that make it hard to actually understand what you're arguing. I can understand, somewhat, the value of no longer hating your abuser (once you're safe), but I see no value whatsoever in deciding you no longer hate the abuse ("what they did"). That may not be what you believe, but it's what you wrote and that's the only thing I have to go on here.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
And forgiveness doesn't mean, move into the house of your abuser and let him attack you. It means not holding hatred in your heart against what they did in the past.
quote:That doesn't sound very forgiving. It's also not a universally agreed position among Christians. A good number of fairly influential Christian leaders consider it an abused spouse's Christian duty to extend the kind of forgiveness you advocate to their abusers.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
And if you're smart stay a safe distance away.
quote:I think they've confused "atheists" with "Vulcans".
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
This is a culture shock for me, as I've spent years ranting and raving at (some) atheists for their caricatures of theism, but today I can see how atheism is also caricatured in the most bizarre ways. Almost as if atheists are seen by some theists as not really human, without emotion or compassion or empathy. Or, as if they have to work everything out logically and with scientific evidence. Or, as if they are never irrational.
quote:Exactly. I suppose some people are generalizing from the New Atheists, but surely nobody is going to say that they are people without emotions or compassion or irrational thoughts?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I think they've confused "atheists" with "Vulcans".
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
This is a culture shock for me, as I've spent years ranting and raving at (some) atheists for their caricatures of theism, but today I can see how atheism is also caricatured in the most bizarre ways. Almost as if atheists are seen by some theists as not really human, without emotion or compassion or empathy. Or, as if they have to work everything out logically and with scientific evidence. Or, as if they are never irrational.
quote:We humans tend to categorise, compartmentalise. The less we understand something, the more general these catagories.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I think they've confused "atheists" with "Vulcans".
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
This is a culture shock for me, as I've spent years ranting and raving at (some) atheists for their caricatures of theism, but today I can see how atheism is also caricatured in the most bizarre ways. Almost as if atheists are seen by some theists as not really human, without emotion or compassion or empathy. Or, as if they have to work everything out logically and with scientific evidence. Or, as if they are never irrational.
quote:Yes, it's a kind of distancing or avoidance. 'I have these theoretical categories about this group of people, and it's quite satisfying really, to pontificate about them, although my direct knowledge of them is limited'.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:We humans tend to categorise, compartmentalise. The less we understand something, the more general these catagories.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I think they've confused "atheists" with "Vulcans".
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
This is a culture shock for me, as I've spent years ranting and raving at (some) atheists for their caricatures of theism, but today I can see how atheism is also caricatured in the most bizarre ways. Almost as if atheists are seen by some theists as not really human, without emotion or compassion or empathy. Or, as if they have to work everything out logically and with scientific evidence. Or, as if they are never irrational.
We certainly have the ability to understand in greater detail, but often do not. Especially for those things we do not value.
quote:Yep. Every time we use a noun.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
We humans tend to categorise, compartmentalise.
quote:I take it you think 'people as being valuable' is sufficiently clear and unproblematic that just using the phrase establishes the difference between 'might is right' and 'right is functional'.
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:Tell me, do you enjoy making straw man arguments? Can you just not help it? Or are you simply trying to be funny and failing?
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:There's a word for treating people as valuable: 'slave trading'.
Originally posted by Justinian:
If and only if you discount people as being valuable.
quote:This is the kind of thing that can only be said unironically by someone who has never missed a meal, nor is ever likely to be in that position.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Food is valuable to supermarkets and traders who buy it to sell it on; it's not valuable to people who buy it for its own sake as food.
quote:If somebody comes over the hill with a big enough sharp pointy thing and declares that might is right, then doing what they say is what keeps the peace best for most people.
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:No. "Might makes right" = "Do what I/we say or get beaten up or exiled (or whatever)."
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:Same difference.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Not really. It's more 'right is functional'.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Besides, claiming that morality is evolved so that societies that aren't moral die out is equally 'might is right' if you think about it.
"Right is functional" = "What moral system keeps the peace best for most of us? Let's stick with that."
As to valuing people, c'mon. You know perfectly well we're talking about being considerate of others and their feelings and priorities.
quote:It's a possible assumption, but not necessarily the only one, or even the most reasonable one. Sometimes societies die out by changing (e.g. the Roman Republic ceased to exist because it became the Roman Empire) or because they merge with other societies (e.g. the Medes becoming indistinguishable from the Persian, the Cossack tribes intermarrying with and eventually becoming indistinguishable from other Russians).
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Right is functional has here been defined as societies that aren't moral die out. It's a reasonable assumption that societies that died out were in conflict with societies that survived.
quote:Interestingly, even your chosen example is a relative rarity. Biological species most often go extinct either by evolving into new species or due to habitat loss. Extinction due to over-predation is fairly uncommon.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
(South American megafauna survived well until it came into conflict with predators from North America and Africa.) So the proposition boils down to saying that right is the ability to survive conflict with other societies.
quote:Call me crazy, but isn't human history well-littered with the remains of such regimes? A large body of resentful people tends not so much to "peace" over time as it does to plotting the overthrow of those wielding sharp pointy things in ways the resentful disapprove of.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
If somebody comes over the hill with a big enough sharp pointy thing and declares that might is right, then doing what they say is what keeps the peace best for most people.
quote:As far as I know, all societies eventually die out. I believe we arrived at a conclusion more like this: societies organized around cooperation tend to last longer than societies organized around being nasty to each other.
Right is functional has here been defined as societies that aren't moral die out.
quote:First, societies can die out from internal conflict.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It's a reasonable assumption that societies that died out were in conflict with societies that survived.
quote:I did this somewhere upthread, and Dafyd has done a more thorough job than I have. I tend to go for divine command theory: Good is good because it is the universe functioning in the way its creator meant it to function. If you want to go for more of a virtue ethic, where a good action is one that prepares us for Heaven, that's up to you.
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:Give us an example of a morality that is grounded on something meaningful. Explain the necessary connection between the "meaningfulness" and the morality.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
No, I'm saying that most atheists are moral people, in spite of their morality not being grounded on anything meaningful.
quote:I've yet to see a theistic definition that doesn't contain qualifiers, therefore more truly a developed set of conventions as well.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Nobody else on here has yet given an atheistic definition of good and bad that is more than a set of developed conventions.
quote:The problem here, as I see it, is that if atheistic morality functions much the same way that theistic / Christian morality functions, then atheistic morality is "good . . because it is the universe functioning in the way its [alleged] creator meant it to function."
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
I tend to go for divine command theory: Good is good because it is the universe functioning in the way its creator meant it to function.
quote:The problem is that this approach fails on its own supposed merits. If there truly is an external standard there shouldn't be any disagreement "about the moral status of an individual action", you can just check against the external standard, much the same way you'd check to see if Pierre or Sioux Falls is the capital of South Dakota. To take your own example:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
What these approaches have in common is that they define morality a priori according to an external standard, so any action can be checked against the standard and found to be either good or bad. We can disagree about the moral status of an individual action, but we agree that good and bad exist and are basic properties, rather than descriptions that emerge of how we do stuff.
quote:So the person who broke into your house (let's call him "John Yoo") says he's checked with the external moral standard of the universe, the standard says it's A-OK to torture your children. That makes it moral, right? Is there any way to resolve the impasse beyond an infinite cycle of "Does not! Does too!"?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
If OTOH good and bad are purely descriptive and come from no higher source than ourselves, that's bad news, because if I wanted to break into your house and torture your children, my idea of morality is just as valid as yours so who's to say that I shouldn't do it?
quote:Which is why all believers in God, regardless of religion, follow the exact same moral code! Because not only is there "a static reference point", it can be measured in an objective manner with a moralometer.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
If we define morality communally, that's mob rule and that way lies Godwin. No, I want to be able to say that morality is something absolute - that a bad thing is absolutely bad, all of the time. To do that I need a static reference point outside of humanity, against which humanity can be measured. God provides that.
quote:The thing is, Dinghy Sailor, I suspect there's a subtext here. I kind of suspect that if the question were "Where does Quakers' morality come from," and I said, "The Inward Light, that is given by God to all people," you wouldn't be a lot more comfortable with that--even after I explained how Friends exercise discernment as a community, etc. Even though it's divine command authority at its most basic. Some of my previous posts have been a bit hyperbolic, I admit. But I do believe there's a psychological element in this: the people who claim that atheists have no business believing in morality just don't feel comfortable unless there is a human telling them what to do, and then adding "Thus saieth the Lord." At bottom, it's about authority.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
I tend to go for divine command theory: Good is good because it is the universe functioning in the way its creator meant it to function.
quote:Atheism is one thing - a lack of belief in any gods; it hasn't got a philosophy. The Humanist Association has some statements which its members generally accept, but from a personal point of view, I wonder why 'unconditional forgiveness' is absolutely, and always, the right thing?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
For those accusing me of smearing atheists, please show me an atheist/rationalist philosophy that emphasizes unconditional forgiveness.
quote:It's much easier to find put downs if you take remarks out of context isn't it?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:This is the kind of thing that can only be said unironically by someone who has never missed a meal, nor is ever likely to be in that position.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Food is valuable to supermarkets and traders who buy it to sell it on; it's not valuable to people who buy it for its own sake as food.
quote:At the risk of almost repeating my question from earlier, how do you do this? Where is the check list? Can you send me a copy?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
What these approaches have in common is that they define morality a priori according to an external standard, so any action can be checked against the standard and found to be either good or bad.
quote:What I was saying is that atheist morality that goes beyond what is rational and useful to the individual, is in itself a belief system.
Originally posted by Porridge:
Let me add here, though seekingsister has departed the thread, that she (along with others) seem to assume that atheism somehow precludes spirituality.
quote:Wikipedia on The Cossacks:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:It's a possible assumption, but not necessarily the only one, or even the most reasonable one. Sometimes societies die out by changing (e.g. the Roman Republic ceased to exist because it became the Roman Empire) or because they merge with other societies (e.g. the Medes becoming indistinguishable from the Persian, the Cossack tribes intermarrying with and eventually becoming indistinguishable from other Russians).
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Right is functional has here been defined as societies that aren't moral die out. It's a reasonable assumption that societies that died out were in conflict with societies that survived.
quote:That sounds rather like saying the American Indian nations merged into the United States.
The Empire responded by ruthless executions and tortures, the destruction of the western part of the Don Cossack Host during the Bulavin Rebellion in 1707–1708, the destruction of Baturyn after Mazepa's rebellion in 1708,[11] and the formal dissolution of the Lower Dnieper Zaporozhian Host in 1775, after Pugachev's Rebellion.
quote:One of the most significant mass extinctions in the history of life on this planet is almost entirely the work of one predator from Africa with a few follower species such as rats and cats.
quote:Interestingly, even your chosen example is a relative rarity. Biological species most often go extinct either by evolving into new species or due to habitat loss. Extinction due to over-predation is fairly uncommon.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
(South American megafauna survived well until it came into conflict with predators from North America and Africa.) So the proposition boils down to saying that right is the ability to survive conflict with other societies.
quote:There are atheist CHURCHES for God's sake. Well, they're not for God's sake, I guess. Why does this absence of belief lead people to form clubs or societies? You'd have to ask those people. But it quite clearly does.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I find this idea of atheists banding together, to do good, quite bizarre, since atheism is simply an absence of a certain belief.
Why would an absence of a belief lead people to form clubs or societies? Well, they might do, in order to debate stuff, as there are in fact, internet forums with lots of atheists, usually labelled 'skeptical' or the like.
quote:If everything that was a bizarre idea didn't exist, the world would be a very different place.
But other than that, it just seems a bizarre idea to me.
quote:And yet it exists, so those atheists are either saying their fellow atheists are really stupid, or the analogy is just wrong.
I know that atheists compare this to people who don't collect stamps forming a club - aphilatelists of the world, unite, and don't collect stamps!
quote:Perhaps it's because they're a despised minority in a way aphilatelists aren't. In other words, if the wider society stigmatizes atheists as inherently immoral outsiders, it gives them a reason to band together.
Originally posted by mousethief:
There are atheist CHURCHES for God's sake. Well, they're not for God's sake, I guess. Why does this absence of belief lead people to form clubs or societies? You'd have to ask those people. But it quite clearly does.
quote:I'm sure some of my fellow atheists are stupid (and they have the same opinion of me). Among them are people of all types including some who want some kind of church - as I believe some people who call themselves Christians claim to have no need of a church.
Originally posted by mousethief:
There are atheist CHURCHES for God's sake. Well, they're not for God's sake, I guess. Why does this absence of belief lead people to form clubs or societies? You'd have to ask those people. But it quite clearly does.
.....
And yet it exists, so those atheists are either saying their fellow atheists are really stupid, or the analogy is just wrong.
quote:My impression is that these are some local initiatives, and not an awful lot of atheists are involved in them. But maybe I'm wrong.
mousethief: There are atheist CHURCHES for God's sake.
quote:Divine Command Theory is, as many have pointed out, a Might Makes Right theory. It also boils down to "What is good?" "Whatever God says." "Why is God Good?" "Because God is God." That's not a moral foundation, that's a moral evasion.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
I did this somewhere upthread, and Dafyd has done a more thorough job than I have. I tend to go for divine command theory: Good is good because it is the universe functioning in the way its creator meant it to function.
quote:As I have demonstrated on this thread, if this were anything more than pure undiluted wishful thinking then the people who claimed to have an objective theory of morality with the same basis would actually agree. If they don't (as they don't) while claiming the objective basis then we can see that the objective basis is at best only theoretical and probably just a mirage.
What these approaches have in common is that they define morality a priori according to an external standard, so any action can be checked against the standard and found to be either good or bad.
quote:As almost every moral system has built into it some measure of reciprocity you could only morally do that if you accepted that me breaking into your house to torture your kids was good. It's both or neither.
If OTOH good and bad are purely descriptive and come from no higher source than ourselves, that's bad news, because if I wanted to break into your house and torture your children, my idea of morality is just as valid as yours so who's to say that I shouldn't do it?
quote:And I want world peace and a pony. The pony is the only one likely to happen unless you simply don't care whether anyone agrees with you.
No, I want to be able to say that morality is something absolute - that a bad thing is absolutely bad, all of the time.
quote:Nice rhetoric. Completely counter-factual when we look at how humans who believe in God behave. If almost every single person of the book can agree on the theoretical morality of every action then you could make the argument that God provides the static reference point. However they do not. The supposedly static reference point is demonstrably a complete and utter failure. But the arrogant claim that you do have a static reference point can be used to justify anything.
To do that I need a static reference point outside of humanity, against which humanity can be measured. God provides that.
quote:Can you find a link which leads to an atheist morality?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
What I was saying is that atheist morality that goes beyond what is rational and useful to the individual, is in itself a belief system.
quote:Says the person who attempted to pervert my words to claim that I was making a pro-slavery argument.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It's much easier to find put downs if you take remarks out of context isn't it?
quote:True but not relevant to what I said. I wasn't impugning atheists at all, merely refuting the idea that atheists don't band together to do things.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Perhaps it's because they're a despised minority in a way aphilatelists aren't. In other words, if the wider society stigmatizes atheists as inherently immoral outsiders, it gives them a reason to band together.
quote:I don't see at all how this refutes what I said. Neither I nor Quetzalcoatl claimed that it was the atheism of atheists that did or didn't cause them to band together. The claim was that atheists never band together to do things. That is refuted by the existence of atheist churches. That they advertise as ATHEIST churches, making the atheism their selling point rather than under some other banner, I think refutes your point.
Originally posted by que sais-je:
I doubt it's the atheism of atheists that 'lead's them to form churches - it's just they get a kick out of being with like-minded people. Personally I like hearing what people with different ideas think. So I come here.
quote:Not seeing the relevance to my point. I wasn't positing a worldwide movement among atheists. Merely that atheists get together and do things jointly qua atheists.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:My impression is that these are some local initiatives, and not an awful lot of atheists are involved in them. But maybe I'm wrong.
mousethief: There are atheist CHURCHES for God's sake.
quote:One. There are not as many atheists in organisations as they are not grouped like Christians. Therefore efficiency is an issue.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
There is, of course, the morality that doesn't do evil because of the standard that is accepted, the code that is lived by.
But there is also the positive morality that actively lives out its morality. Christians spend an awful lot of time, effort and money in organised expressions of their morality - I couldn't begin to list everything that is done locally - I'd miss loads of it out.
I was just wondering what do atheists actually do? ...
I mean, what good are they to society?
What are they for...?
If the churches shut down for a month and all the Chruistians who work and volunteer stayed hiklme and watched the television, the world would go to pot!
If all the atheist organisations closed down and all the humanists shut up, would the community miss them?
quote:One, it leads to better treatment of others.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It's no good being moral if it doesn't lead to anything.
quote:That may be true of Atheism.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It influences nothing in a positive way but merely protests about a faith it doesn't pretend to or want to understand.
quote:As I wrote yesterday, and repeat today:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:That may be true of Atheism.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It influences nothing in a positive way but merely protests about a faith it doesn't pretend to or want to understand.
But atheist people influence countless areas in positive ways. Every one of us knows atheists who have influenced us/events/society/reactions for the better - don't we?
I know I do.
quote:But regardless of personal morality - which I still assert is merely a reflection of the morality of their surrounding culture - which in the UK is Judeao-Christian - atheism as a concept has no morality of its own.
I wasn't particularly meaning individuals - because I am all too aware of some lovely, caring and hard-working people who are atheists. There's one in my congregation who would do anything to help. There is another self-confessed 'not-religious-in-the-slightest' person working in a local refugee service - and of course many people are non-religious without being overtly and active atheists. I do suggest that this is because they are within Christian environments and culture.
quote:And this sounds like a moral position to me:
“You say that you people don’t burn folk and sacrifice people anymore, but that’s what true faith would mean, y’see? Sacrificin’ your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin’ the truth of it, workin’ for it, breathin’ the soul of it. That’s religion. Anything else is just . . . is just bein’ nice. And a way of keepin’ in touch with the neighbors.”
― Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
quote:Just because religions got there first with moral codes doesn't mean atheists are necessarily without well-thought morality.
“Do you see how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls, the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth an light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole.
But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore
quote:And presumably if you ever came across an atheist doing good you could say they don't count because they were being unknowingly influenced by God's spirit.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
...and before anyone wants to accuse the Church of displaying some of those same negative attitudes, I say that I have to agree. When the Church behaves as if there was no God then it displays the atheist spirit by ignoring his Spirit and denigrating, ignoring or twisting his character and word.
quote:Actually yes, I would indeed say that
Originally posted by que sais-je:
quote:And presumably if you ever came across an atheist doing good you could say they don't count because they were being unknowingly influenced by God's spirit.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
...and before anyone wants to accuse the Church of displaying some of those same negative attitudes, I say that I have to agree. When the Church behaves as if there was no God then it displays the atheist spirit by ignoring his Spirit and denigrating, ignoring or twisting his character and word.
I see no way out. In this world I am like a frog in a dry well.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
quote:
And every virtue we possess,
And every victory won,
And every thought of holiness,
Are his alone.
(From 'Our blest redeemer, ere he breathed'
quote:I agree. Though not so sure of the significance. It will always be true that we grow up with the ideas of our societies around us and either absorb or reject them. Or sometimes transform them into something new. Is that what you are saying? If so I don't think anyone can disagree with you.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I remain convinced that the culture of the day, in which atheistic authors were brought up with, will either be actively rejected or unconsciously absorbed into their own personal worldview. They will not have been a blank canvas upon which they painted their own, original and equally valid morality.
quote:Well, yeah, isn't that true of everything? Would Einstein have been "Einstein" without Isaac Newton or even Pythagoras? No. But does that make him less of a genius? Again, I think not. Morality works for humanity whether you view it as part of God's creation or as part of the pattern of natural selection. It tends to produce a world where there is stability enough for peace, prosperity, and creativity. That isn't hard to see. As a theist, I believe God built it into the system. A person who doesn't believe in God can still see the pattern and promote it.
I remain convinced that the culture of the day, in which atheistic authors were brought up with, will either be actively rejected or unconsciously absorbed into their own personal worldview. They will not have been a blank canvas upon which they painted their own, original and equally valid morality.
quote:And neither do our churches live on desert islands without any secular influence. In some cases churches have been forced to behave in more moral ways because of the secular law that governs them.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The point being that neither of these authors live on a desert island without any Christian culture or 'backstory' as it were.
quote:That is the point I'm making Susan. I'm not sure what you are struggling to understand.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Atheism is not a belief system.
quote:Yes, somebody earlier in the thread, possibly Justinian, said that the churches have been playing catch-up morals in recent years, on issues such as equality for women and gays.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:And neither do our churches live on desert islands without any secular influence. In some cases churches have been forced to behave in more moral ways because of the secular law that governs them.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The point being that neither of these authors live on a desert island without any Christian culture or 'backstory' as it were.
quote:I agree with a lot of what you say but it may be more natural than you suppose. After all we are a social animal and can see some traits in other animals which might be be precursors of human ethical views.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
It's not a "natural" way of being to think that caring for the poor or needy or the ethnic minority is the right thing to do.
quote:seriously?
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:Yes, somebody earlier in the thread, possibly Justinian, said that the churches have been playing catch-up morals in recent years, on issues such as equality for women and gays.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:And neither do our churches live on desert islands without any secular influence. In some cases churches have been forced to behave in more moral ways because of the secular law that governs them.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The point being that neither of these authors live on a desert island without any Christian culture or 'backstory' as it were.
quote:Which one of these does not essentially claim that evolution or human development or "reason" is the source of human morality - as defined broadly as Western secular values?
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, sorry to double up, but that question to seekingsister made me think about atheist thinkers who have contributed interesting ideas on morality.
Here are a few that I can think of:
Slavoj Zizek, Bernard Williams, Schopenhauer, Sartre, Santayana, B. Russell, Rorty, Rawls, Nietzsche, Mill, Colin McGinn, Mackie, Foucault, Paul Edwards, Dewey, Deleuze, Simon Blackburn, de Beauvoir, Badiou, A. J. Ayer.
Please add others!
quote:Yes - though on the other hand, it would be incorrect to argue that on that basis that there can't be a purely philosophical basis for morality or even humanism of some kind.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Most Western atheists are either post-Judeo/Christian or humanist in their philosophies, and they tend to assume that all atheists in all environments and in all contexts would come to the same conclusions about moral behavior, rights, etc. They are wrong.
quote:Note that the societies quoted are, firstly, that, societies, not individuals. Secondly, they all arose during a particular period.
That atheists claim their morality comes from some internal sense of right and wrong - I believe they are deluding themselves. Look how the atheists in North Korea behave, or the ones in China. There are plenty of societies that have organized around atheism that have no exhibited anything remotely approaching a moral character - USSR, Cambodia. (NOTE: religious societies have also done bad things, save yourself the effort of mentioning the Crusades or Inquisition here). It's not a "natural" way of being to think that caring for the poor or needy or the ethnic minority is the right thing to do.
quote:Although I am still waiting to hear from seekingsister who these 'they' are, who assert that all atheists would come to the same conclusions about morals.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:Yes - though on the other hand, it would be incorrect to argue that on that basis that there can't be a purely philosophical basis for morality or even humanism of some kind.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Most Western atheists are either post-Judeo/Christian or humanist in their philosophies, and they tend to assume that all atheists in all environments and in all contexts would come to the same conclusions about moral behavior, rights, etc. They are wrong.
quote:So if women had been in charge, these societies would have been less evil, yes?
Originally posted by Penny S
(And the ruling groups in these societies have more in common with other ruling groups, whether religious or atheist, than with any ordinary member of any society. Usually male, aggressive, without empathy, concerned with personal status and dominance...)
quote:Not sure why you are waiting. Scroll up.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Although I am still waiting to hear from seekingsister who these 'they' are, who assert that all atheists would come to the same conclusions about morals.
quote:I didn't intend the remark to be taken at face value. I apologise.
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:Says the person who attempted to pervert my words to claim that I was making a pro-slavery argument.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It's much easier to find put downs if you take remarks out of context isn't it?
quote:In other words, we ALL get our morality from God, it's just some acknowledge it (religious people) others don't (humanists/atheists).
Originally posted by mousethief:
CS Lewis in The Abolition of Man not only takes it for granted that we're all born with a moral sense, but he goes out of his way through a lengthy appendix to find similarities between disparate ethical systems around the planet. If I recall his argument was that God planted these moral impulses in us. But he would think the title of this thread was trivial. Where does the morality of atheists come from? Same place all our morality comes from. We're born with it. It's part of the human inheritance.
quote:Dawkins is a humanist. Hitchens is an antitheist. Harris is a skeptic. What makes these people "leading atheists?" They write books. Some, even many, people buy these books. Have these buyers read the books? Dunno. I have lots of books myself, and have often joked that the best reason for not reading a book is owning it, so I can always read it "later."
Originally posted by seekingsister:
The leading atheists of the day - Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens - are all Eurocentrists.
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
quote:I haven't the faintest idea - merely describing what is observable. I did say usually. There is always Elisabeth Bathory - but I'm not sure she led a society in the same way. I did try to think of some women cult leaders of that type, but couldn't. I don't think Mary Baker Eddy or Ellen White were quite like that, but arguments accepted. So, either the women have been, like early astronomers, largely airbrushed from history, or they didn't found cults, or if they did, they weren't of the destructive sort. Which is interesting, given the conversation I was having with the window fitter this morning about girl bullies, and how difficult they are to deal with.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:So if women had been in charge, these societies would have been less evil, yes?
Originally posted by Penny S
(And the ruling groups in these societies have more in common with other ruling groups, whether religious or atheist, than with any ordinary member of any society. Usually male, aggressive, without empathy, concerned with personal status and dominance...)
quote:Firstly, I think you're underestimating the role of people with big pointy sticks in maintaining the present economic and political order.
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:Call me crazy, but isn't human history well-littered with the remains of such regimes? A large body of resentful people tends not so much to "peace" over time as it does to plotting the overthrow of those wielding sharp pointy things in ways the resentful disapprove of.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
If somebody comes over the hill with a big enough sharp pointy thing and declares that might is right, then doing what they say is what keeps the peace best for most people.
quote:And some, even many, don't.
Originally posted by Porridge:
...Dawkins is a humanist. Hitchens is an antitheist. Harris is a skeptic. What makes these people "leading atheists?" They write books. Some, even many, people buy these books...
quote:You're clearly missing Porridge's points.
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:And some, even many, don't.
Originally posted by Porridge:
...Dawkins is a humanist. Hitchens is an antitheist. Harris is a skeptic. What makes these people "leading atheists?" They write books. Some, even many, people buy these books...
quote:I read (i.e. listen to) posts and respond to the contents, so apologies if I missed a point.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:That is the point I'm making Susan. I'm not sure what you are struggling to understand.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Atheism is not a belief system.
quote:Are you referring to altruistic behaviour, to adherence to the rule of law and the 'golden rule', to thoughts of God/god/s, to appreciation of the arts, to hopes and dreams, both for oneself and others? These might not lead to direct material (in terms of money or goods) gain, but they materially, even in the smallest way, affect our minds ... and probably, or should I say 'therefore', our moral behaviour.
Atheists who have a morality that goes beyond that which is of material use to the individual, MUST (in my view) have ANOTHER belief system. Buddhism, humanism. Pick what you like.
quote:Who claims this? The atheists I know and many believers too, accept that the case is an evolutionary process. Do the leaders of the countries you mention do what they do because of their atheism?
That atheists claim their morality comes from some internal sense of right and wrong - I believe they are deluding themselves.
quote:Again I ask, where is it said that atheism is moral? The people who are atheists will be either moral or not, or somewhere in between,
Atheism without another philosophy or belief system that ascribes value to humanity cannot be moral.
quote:It does not make the most sense for survival to think of oneself only and 'who cares about the rest'. That would have meant an early extinction for the human species, I think.
... Because what makes the most rational sense is to protect oneself and one's family/community/nation at the expense of others if necessary. One life to live so maximize it. There's no afterlife or reincarnation so why bother with moral questions, just focus on survival. In the West this may seem extreme but go to a poor developing country with limited resources and it will make quite a bit more sense.
quote:I agree with both of you.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Porridge wrote:
quote:Now this I like.
.... Most of us operate, most of the time, on the basis of our emotions, which we then cleverly (or not) rationalize after the fact.
quote:From the Christian point of view, yes. I don't expect an atheist to see it this way, but I'm saying that a Christian who doesn't is wrong. So the question, "where do atheists get their morals from?" is unnecessary and presupposes a falsehood, namely, that Christian morality is different in some basic respect from everybody else's morality.
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
In other words, we ALL get our morality from God, it's just some acknowledge it (religious people) others don't (humanists/atheists).
I seem to remember the former AB of C, Rowan Williams, asking something similar - that atheists can do good, but where does it come from?
quote:Of course not. But what is being argued here (and every time this bloody subject comes up) is that atheists have no morality. But they do. They have basically the same morality as all of us, whether because God implanted it or because evolution made them that way as it makes us that way. Christian ethics isn't significantly different from everybody else's ethics, except for (depending on your reading of Christianity) threat of punishment.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
atheism as a concept has no morality of its own.
quote:That's gorgeous, and that sort of thing is one reason LeGuin is one of my favorite scifi/fantasy authors.
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
[a long quote from Ursula K. LeGuin]
quote:True but our culture evolved out of the Judaic culture, the ancient Roman and Greek cultures, northern European cultures -- it's overly simplistic to say it's "Christian Culture" as if Christian culture was born fully formed from the forehead of Constantine the Great.
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I remain convinced that the culture of the day, in which atheistic authors were brought up with, will either be actively rejected or unconsciously absorbed into their own personal worldview. They will not have been a blank canvas upon which they painted their own, original and equally valid morality.
quote:Camus.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, sorry to double up, but that question to seekingsister made me think about atheist thinkers who have contributed interesting ideas on morality.
Here are a few that I can think of: <snip> Please add others!
quote:Only if morality must perforce come from a belief system.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Atheists who have a morality that goes beyond that which is of material use to the individual, MUST (in my view) have ANOTHER belief system. Buddhism, humanism. Pick what you like.
quote:I think that's in the Enquiries but it says much the same. The Treatise makes the point that you can show the same evidence to two people and one may accept it but the other not. It happens quite a lot on the Ship. Given an argument for the existence of God, I'll probably either look for a flaw or assume that someone cleverer than me can find one. Confusingly I have the same reaction to arguments against the existence of God.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
What about 'reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions' (Hume)?
quote:Of course so were (and still are) many of the 'Kaffirs'.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That reminds me of a famous passage by Trotsky, where he cites a British newspaper article which was lambasting the 'Kaffirs' of South Africa, and Trotsky says that he much prefers the nobility and dignity of the 'Kaffirs' to the foul morals and behaviour of their British oppressors, who were no doubt to a man, devout Christians!
quote:Yes, of course.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:Of course so were (and still are) many of the 'Kaffirs'.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That reminds me of a famous passage by Trotsky, where he cites a British newspaper article which was lambasting the 'Kaffirs' of South Africa, and Trotsky says that he much prefers the nobility and dignity of the 'Kaffirs' to the foul morals and behaviour of their British oppressors, who were no doubt to a man, devout Christians!
quote:It would be nice, or at least consistent, if (some) atheists didn't denigrate religion on that basis in other contexts.
Originally posted by Porridge:
Lastly, while I have no quibble either with reason or with logic, I wish people would stop assuming that's one of the places atheists try to derive their morality from.
It's nonsense. The whole of human history demonstrates as clearly as possible that human beings do not operate primarily on the basis of logic or reason. Most of us operate, most of the time, on the basis of our emotions, which we then cleverly (or not) rationalize after the fact.
quote:Afraid not old chap. I don't have a copy.
Originally posted by George Spigot:
quote:At the risk of almost repeating my question from earlier, how do you do this? Where is the check list? Can you send me a copy?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
What these approaches have in common is that they define morality a priori according to an external standard, so any action can be checked against the standard and found to be either good or bad.
quote:That and two quid will get you a cup of coffee. Seriously, if there is an objective moral standard to which neither you nor any other sapient being within the universe has access to, and there is no direct way from within this universe of holding an action up against the objective moral standard and seeing how it measures up then to all beings within this universe it is indistinguishable from one that does not exist.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Several people (e.g. Justinian, Timothy the Obscure, Creosos, anyone else I've missed ... ) have said something similar: that believing in an absolute, objective moral standard is to believe that we have easy access to this standard. We don't, because all our perspectives are subjective. The existence of the objective standard means that when I do something, it is either absolutely right or absolutely wrong.
quote:Bullshit. When we come up with a model for the laws governing the universe we then can and must test it. We see the gap between that model and what actually happens in the universe. Without actually being able to test your models of the universe against some sort of standard they wouldn't be worth the paper they were printed on. The very best you would be able to do would be mathematics in such a way that we did not know whether the universe was governed normally under the rules of standard arithmetic, modular arithmetic, or even transfinite arithmetic.
This is analogous to science. We don't know the complete set of the laws of the universe. We do however believe that at root these laws are universal and invariant - properties which allow us to investigate what they are. If we thought there were no universal laws governing the universe, or that they fluctuated unpredictably, scientists would just give up and go home.
quote:I rather think he did, combining it with a Christian version of Mr Everything comes from India
Did Mudfrog utter the Mother of All One True Scotsman arguments?
quote:Which, of course, invalidates Porridge's point.
It would be nice, or at least consistent, if (some) atheists didn't denigrate religion on that basis in other contexts.
quote:So how do you use a standard you don't have access to? How do you know it actually exists and is not just a bunch of subjective standards from a bygone age?
We don't, because all our perspectives are subjective. The existence of the objective standard means that when I do something, it is either absolutely right or absolutely wrong. The non-existence of that standard (i.e. if only subjective standards existed) would mean that my action could only be subjectively right or wrong, i.e. morality was up for grabs depending on who you were.
quote:At this point you're pretty much just assuming a can opener. In other words, since you would prefer such an objective standard to exist, you assume that it does exist. Is there anything here other than wishful thinking?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
The use of an objective standard is that it allows objective morality to exist.
quote:You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. If, as you previously stated, there's no way to really know what this objective morality is, in what sense is it "objective"? In what sense can it be said to exist at all?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
If there's no objective standard, there's nothing objectively bad about the actions of someone who thinks it's fun to stab you while throwing acid in your eyes. I believe that such actions are objectively wrong so I believe in the existence of objective morality.
quote:Perhaps, as others have suggested, it's just that groups without the usual civilized rules against murder, theft, and impertinence tend to dissolve in anarchy. Or it could be that a lot of people find such an idea just as convenient as you do. You have to admit the idea that your own judgements are built into the fabric of the universe, making you right and everyone who disagrees with you objectively wrong, is a pretty enticing one.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
While it's not a cut'n'shut proof, I also think that the similarity of the moral compasses inside the vast majority of humanity adds weight to my belief.
quote:. . . or an atheist. Or a Jew. Or any other person who disagrees with you. That seems to be the real attraction here; the notion that your moral code is superior to all others in a way that is demonstrably, objectively woven into the fabric of the universe. Is there anything here other than ego?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Either there is something other than the physical world but by which the physical world may be judged, or else you are not objectively better than a serial killer.
quote:The difference here is that with science we have a way of getting closer and closer to a right understanding of what is going on: testing our hypotheses against data from the real world.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
This is analogous to science. We don't know the complete set of the laws of the universe. We do however believe that at root these laws are universal and invariant - properties which allow us to investigate what they are. If we thought there were no universal laws governing the universe, or that they fluctuated unpredictably, scientists would just give up and go home.
quote:That all seems accurate. It's just assuming your conclusion, really. Or assuming your preferred conclusion, without all the messy stuff of providing arguments or evidence for it, because, I suppose, there aren't any.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:At this point you're pretty much just assuming a can opener. In other words, since you would prefer such an objective standard to exist, you assume that it does exist. Is there anything here other than wishful thinking?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
The use of an objective standard is that it allows objective morality to exist.
quote:You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. If, as you previously stated, there's no way to really know what this objective morality is, in what sense is it "objective"? In what sense can it be said to exist at all?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
If there's no objective standard, there's nothing objectively bad about the actions of someone who thinks it's fun to stab you while throwing acid in your eyes. I believe that such actions are objectively wrong so I believe in the existence of objective morality.
quote:Perhaps, as others have suggested, it's just that groups without the usual civilized rules against murder, theft, and impertinence tend to dissolve in anarchy. Or it could be that a lot of people find such an idea just as convenient as you do. You have to admit the idea that your own judgements are built into the fabric of the universe, making you right and everyone who disagrees with you objectively wrong, is a pretty enticing one.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
While it's not a cut'n'shut proof, I also think that the similarity of the moral compasses inside the vast majority of humanity adds weight to my belief.
quote:. . . or an atheist. Or a Jew. Or any other person who disagrees with you. That seems to be the real attraction here; the notion that your moral code is superior to all others in a way that is demonstrably, objectively woven into the fabric of the universe. Is there anything here other than ego?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Either there is something other than the physical world but by which the physical world may be judged, or else you are not objectively better than a serial killer.
quote:The level of identity I gave was quite a bit higher than "oneself" - I mentioned community and nation.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
It does not make the most sense for survival to think of oneself only and 'who cares about the rest'. That would have meant an early extinction for the human species, I think.
quote:And in almost every culture in the world, the reasons given for the benefits of altruism have been through the lens of religion. Suggesting that altruism as means for survival of the species is not self-evident outside of the framework of a religious philosophy.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Atheists might also cite the possibility that evolution has favoured altruism; thus, self-interest alone may not be favoured by natural selection.
quote:To which the response should be - and so what?
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Atheists might also cite the possibility that evolution has favoured altruism; thus, self-interest alone may not be favoured by natural selection.
quote:I don't think that evolutionary advantages are generally self-evident, are they? In fact, in general, natural processes operate in a rather covert manner - for example, I don't think that physicists really understand what gravity is, do they? Of course, they can still make calculations, using its effects.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:And in almost every culture in the world, the reasons given for the benefits of altruism have been through the lens of religion. Suggesting that altruism as means for survival of the species is not self-evident outside of the framework of a religious philosophy.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Atheists might also cite the possibility that evolution has favoured altruism; thus, self-interest alone may not be favoured by natural selection.
quote:Surely, we are not talking about justifying altruism, but explaining it? I think it can be explained in religious terms, but it can also be explained in evolutionary terms, (although initially, I think it was seen as a problem). In fact, there is no reason why we can't do both!
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:To which the response should be - and so what?
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Atheists might also cite the possibility that evolution has favoured altruism; thus, self-interest alone may not be favoured by natural selection.
Evolution seems to have equally favoured prejudice against minorities and strangers, psychopathic risk-taking, alpha male dominance, testosterone fuelled male violence, etc etc. Any behaviour people engage in is by definition either favoured by evolution or a byproduct of behaviour favoured by evolution. (We aren't evolved to watch television; but television clearly satisfies certain behavioural dispositions that did evolve.)
In short, if we say altruism is justified because it's favoured by evolution, that amounts to saying whatever is is right.
But anyway, what's so special about being favoured by evolution? As was pointed out earlier in this thread, someone like Richard Dawkins says that reason allows us to rise above evolution. For Dawkins and anybody who holds opinions like his being favoured by evolution is irrelevant to reason.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
If, as you previously stated, there's no way to really know what this objective morality is, in what sense is it "objective"? In what sense can it be said to exist at all?
quote:First you say that an objective standard we can't easily access is useless, then in the same post you repeat the old canard that I'm trying to justify my own views by claiming objectivity. Those two statements are incompatible, so which is it to be?
You have to admit the idea that your own judgements are built into the fabric of the universe, making you right and everyone who disagrees with you objectively wrong, is a pretty enticing one.
quote:No mechanism at all? I don't think you believe that. You and I believe in revelation from God. Other people believe different things. That's a separate question though: the question of "How do we discover true knowledge". I'm talking about the question of "Is there true knowledge out there to be discovered". The methods of discovering true knowledge vary between the disciplines of science and ethics, but what's common between the two is that nobody's going to bother trying to work out a governing principle unless it's applicable elsewhere. Rules that change every day are no rules at all, and that applies just as much to moral rules as to any others.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:The difference here is that with science we have a way of getting closer and closer to a right understanding of what is going on: testing our hypotheses against data from the real world.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
This is analogous to science. We don't know the complete set of the laws of the universe. We do however believe that at root these laws are universal and invariant - properties which allow us to investigate what they are. If we thought there were no universal laws governing the universe, or that they fluctuated unpredictably, scientists would just give up and go home.
There is no such mechanism for theistic ethics.
quote:and it so happens that in almost every culture in the world there exists a religion that sees value in altruism.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
[And in almost every culture in the world, the reasons given for the benefits of altruism have been through the lens of religion.
quote:Somebody upthread was complaining about religious people telling atheists what they believe.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
A religious outlook gives comfort in having a set of rules, something also we humans like.
quote:Given that altruism in animals is doccumented even at a cross-species level religion can not be the precursor to altruism - although it is entirely possible that it takes credit for it.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
And in almost every culture in the world, the reasons given for the benefits of altruism have been through the lens of religion. Suggesting that altruism as means for survival of the species is not self-evident outside of the framework of a religious philosophy.
quote:Except that the mechanisms for testing theistic ethics and the mechanisms for testing science work in opposite directions. Theistic ethics looks at the world and says what's going on is right or wrong, based on objective moral standard. Science looks at the world, and tests whether the theory / law / model is right or wrong, based on observations. See the difference?
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
quote:No mechanism at all? I don't think you believe that. You and I believe in revelation from God. Other people believe different things. ... Rules that change every day are no rules at all, and that applies just as much to moral rules as to any others.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:The difference here is that with science we have a way of getting closer and closer to a right understanding of what is going on: testing our hypotheses against data from the real world.
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
This is analogous to science. We don't know the complete set of the laws of the universe. We do however believe that at root these laws are universal and invariant - properties which allow us to investigate what they are. If we thought there were no universal laws governing the universe, or that they fluctuated unpredictably, scientists would just give up and go home.
There is no such mechanism for theistic ethics.
quote:Scientific laws, as in the governing principles behind the interactions of particles of matter and antimatter, fields, waves and energy in the in the universe? If you have evidence they change, you'd better submit it to Nature right now - and make sure you put me as second author. Einstein can eat his heart out!
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Scientific laws do change, though not usually every day. But you know something? Even religious laws change too. They change based on what happens when they are applied in the real world. When they cause suffering for no good reason, or hurt people who aren't even part of the religion, they should be and, usually after much hollering and screaming, they do get changed.
quote:What has any of that got to do with anything? The existence and essence of an objective moral law have absolutely nothing to do with what anyone thinks about them - any more than astronomers believing in geocentrism makes the sun rotate around the earth.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
That is ridiculous. For one, Christians have a single rule book, but fail a single, or constant, interpretation.
For another, societies agree* on moral standards. These are subject to that culture, but they do change. Once again I say you are looking for the stark admidst the subtle. It doesn't exist.
*Yes, to a point and roughly.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
quote:This is presumably a false dichotomy. Access doesn't necessarily imply a fully reliable can't be mistaken access. It just needs to imply that there are things which you can do that make your judgements more reliable than they would otherwise be. (Putting yourself in the shoes of the other people concerned, for example. Trying to eliminate double standards. And so on.)
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If there is no access to this objective morality, how does one ascertain that it exists?
quote:I would have thought that evolution is objective. So the position that morality is an evolutionary trait is a position that morality is objective. If evolved morality is not objective and universal, and evolved morality is objective, it follows that evolved morality is not universal. Different groups of people have evolved different moralities. The implications of that are umm... unfortunate. We might want to rewind down the implications until we get to a premise we want to retract. For example, we might want to claim that an evolved morality is universal.
The switch away from heliocentrism was by observation. As is the position that morality is an evolutionary trait. Though, to be fair, not demonstrable to the same level as yet.
An objective, universal morality is faith alone.
quote:Well, no. Evolution is the description of the change of inherited characteristics. Characteristics such as pentadactyl limbs are different from behavioural characteristics. Think of a behavioural characteristic as a tool. The tool's use is dictated by design, but the design may not be precise. Its use may be variable. Thus, we have the characteristic to be social, but how that manifests is shaped by culture and environment. So no completely objective standard of how that social trait manifests.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I would have thought that evolution is objective. So the position that morality is an evolutionary trait is a position that morality is objective.
quote:You are confusing scientific laws with scientific theories:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
quote:Scientific laws, as in the governing principles behind the interactions of particles of matter and antimatter, fields, waves and energy in the in the universe? If you have evidence they change, you'd better submit it to Nature right now - and make sure you put me as second author. Einstein can eat his heart out! ...
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Scientific laws do change, though not usually every day. But you know something? Even religious laws change too. They change based on what happens when they are applied in the real world. When they cause suffering for no good reason, or hurt people who aren't even part of the religion, they should be and, usually after much hollering and screaming, they do get changed.
quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_laws
... A scientific law is a statement based on repeated experimental observations that describes some aspect of the world. A scientific law always applies under the same conditions, and implies that there is a causal relationship involving its elements. ... Laws differ from scientific theories in that they do not posit a mechanism or explanation of phenomena: they are merely distillations of the results of repeated observation. As such, a law is limited in applicability to circumstances resembling those already observed, and may be found false when extrapolated.
quote:
... Here's the thing: whatever approximations we make to scientific rules have no power over the universe at all - they're based on observations of the real things. We can change our approximations based on new data all we like, but the actual laws governing the physical universe won't be affected one bit. ...
quote:Sadly, I don't think this is all that amazing. The desire to be sure of things, to pick one thing and hang onto it for dear life, is pretty normal for humans. It's opening up and considering new evidence that's the hard thing. It's not amazing when people hunker down; it's amazing when people change their worldview.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
The amazing thing is not that atheists have morality but that religious people can be so amazingly certain they've picked the right one out of so many.
quote:I'm really not. The equations governing the universe do not change based on how we approximate them, and definitely don't change based on something someone wrote on Wikipedia.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
You are confusing scientific laws with scientific theories
quote:The truly amazing thing is how often that particular canard gets repeated on this thread, when it's not supported by anything anyone's posted and is anyhow irrelevant to the discussion. Could you try making an actual argument rather than chucking ad hominems based on straw men?
The amazing thing is not that atheists have morality but that religious people can be so amazingly certain they've picked the right one out of so many.
quote:The claim I was responding to is that altruism developed through evolution because it makes our species more successful.
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:Given that altruism in animals is doccumented even at a cross-species level religion can not be the precursor to altruism - although it is entirely possible that it takes credit for it.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
And in almost every culture in the world, the reasons given for the benefits of altruism have been through the lens of religion. Suggesting that altruism as means for survival of the species is not self-evident outside of the framework of a religious philosophy.
quote:http://ncse.com/evolution/education/definitions-fact-theory-law-scientific-work
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
... The equations governing the universe do not change based on how we approximate them, and definitely don't change based on something someone wrote on Wikipedia. ...
quote:Evolution offers an alternative view, God is no longer necessary. This is seen as a threat. And it should be. Not because science should inherently contradict faith,* but because transmission of faith is often rubbish.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But I don't think this kind of analysis contradicts a religious view at all. Why would it?
quote:Species are not essential biological entities. For example, many species of ducks hybridise with fertile offspring. Does that mean that there's really only one species or that there are several species that interbreed? Which entity gets strengthened when a dominant drake passes on his genes?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
To put it simply, species work to advantage the species and individuals try to strengthen their own line. But this is also a species advantage. A dominant wolf passes more of its genes along, strengthening the species. But also passes along the inherited behaviours that benefit the species.
quote:Bold mine.
A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, the difficulty of defining species is known as the species problem. Differing measures are often used, such as similarity of DNA, morphology, or ecological niche. Presence of specific locally adapted traits may further subdivide species into "infraspecific taxa" such as subspecies (and in botany other taxa are used, such as varieties, subvarieties, and formae).
quote:Your words are an abstract concept describing a real mathematical phenomenon. Your words are not the reality of the relation between equations and the universe; your words are no more real than e.g. lines of latitude and longitude. Et cetera et cetera.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
An equation is a abstract concept describing a real phenomenon. Equations are not reality; they are no more real than e.g. lines of latitude and longitude. If an equation does not correctly predict additional observations, we develop a new one. Equations don't "govern" the universe any more than a speed limit sign stops cars from going faster or a border on a map keeps people from travelling across it.
quote:That doesn't refute anything I said.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
from Wikipedia:
quote:I'd say that it would be more accurate to say not that it's artificial, but sloppily defined.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
...that just goes to show that 'species' is an artificial category that in some cases has no more reality than, to use Soror Magna's example, latitute or longitude lines. Or say, the boundary between Europe and Asia.
quote:What is striking in this thread, is that while evolutionary biology appears to show that human morality may connect with various phenomena in animals, such as altruism, cooperation, mirror neurons, and so on, some theists seem determined to disconnect them, so that only religion can tell humans about morals.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Evolution offers an alternative view, God is no longer necessary. This is seen as a threat. And it should be. Not because science should inherently contradict faith,* but because transmission of faith is often rubbish.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But I don't think this kind of analysis contradicts a religious view at all. Why would it?
*Believer or not, they are truly different questions.
quote:I think you've hit on something with the sui generis idea. Things like morality, intelligence, etc. have long been taken to be things that distinguish us from "the animals" -- and thus are part of what it means to be made in God's image. If they are not unique to our species, then, the argument runs*, then we're not really made in God's image.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
So maybe the connectedness of the animal world is a threat to some kinds of theist, since humans are taken by them to be sui generis (of their own kind)? Well, they are, but they are also connected.
I'm not sure why this should be a threat though.
quote:One hopes not, since the soul is not unique to humans. Aristotle divided soul into three parts: the vegetative soul, which all living things have, the animal soul ("animal" comes from the Greek word for soul, "anima" -- from which we also get "animate"), which all animals including humans have, and the rational soul, which only humans have.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I wonder if this is connected with the idea of soul being unique to humans.
quote:I wouldn't have a problem with the idea that animals are a little bit in God's image too. I guess I have a broad definition of 'image'. (In fact, I'm something of a Panentheist, so in a way the whole Universe is in God's image.)
quetzalcoatl: If we are not all that distinct from animals, then we are not in God's image?
quote:That's an interesting solution to the question of relations between humans and other animals. It reminds me of the Great Chain of Being, although I think that did say that animals were non-spiritual, and humans were both spiritual and animal.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:I wouldn't have a problem with the idea that animals are a little bit in God's image too. I guess I have a broad definition of 'image'. (In fact, I'm something of a Panentheist, so in a way the whole Universe is in God's image.)
quetzalcoatl: If we are not all that distinct from animals, then we are not in God's image?
quote:That's interesting, as the various accounts of altruism in evolutionary theory talk a lot about cheating.
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
Although altruism has been exhaustively debated here as to its source and meaning, I'd like to through another branch on the fire. That is, the universal dislike for the "free rider". The person who violates tribal rules and gets away with it. This person threatens the unity of the tribe because "if he got away with it then so can I". And there goes the neighborhood.
Is this the origin of altruism as virtue?
quote:Hm. Not so sure about that one. I'd say that was more to do with othering/out group issues. After all we happily let the biggest fucking cheats rule the show.
But think of 'benefit cheats' and the anger that it provokes.
quote:But the fact that you can say 'biggest fucking cheats' surely indicates that there is a kind of awareness of cheating. I don't think it's complete at all; there is probably hidden cheating in all kinds of areas.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:Hm. Not so sure about that one. I'd say that was more to do with othering/out group issues. After all we happily let the biggest fucking cheats rule the show.
But think of 'benefit cheats' and the anger that it provokes.
quote:It would be true anarchy. And we would be no more than leopard shit.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It would be interesting if everybody cheated - I can't get my head round that.
quote:Yes, it would be anarchy.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:It would be true anarchy. And we would be no more than leopard shit.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It would be interesting if everybody cheated - I can't get my head round that.
quote:I think this is illustrated well in how we treat people differently as our perception of who is us and who is them change.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
I think this is apposite to the discussions here.