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I have a question.
Do true aetheists - and I mean those of a strongly skeptical mind - have a sense of right and wrong, and if so, why?
Now, by "true aetheist with a stronly skeptical mind", I mean someone who has truly considered the existence of God - a true, living God - and decided that he does not exist. I know of aethiests who simply don' t have any religious background and never really considered it in the first place... that's "aetheism by default", but comes more from a lack of thought than the result of it. See the difference?
Are there any aetheists that fit that category?
I'm decidedly theistic - I know what I believe and why I believe it - but I'm not posing this question to discuss the merits of aetheism. I'm not trying to "show them the light", and I won't allow the conversation to drift too far on this subject. It's simply a question I'm truly curious about, and I'm tired of wondering and thinking about it.
There are a number of points that I'd like to touch on, but I've found that big open - ended questions like the one above generally leads to better discussion, so I'll save my discussion points until I find out if anyone is even willing to discuss this with me.
So, have anything to say on the subject? You don't have to be an aetheist yourself - though I am certainly hoping for some first-hand information - anybody with thoughts or opinions on this subject are encouraged to speak up.
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Do true atheists - and I mean those of a strongly skeptical mind - have a sense of right and wrong, and if so, why?
Almost everyone I've ever met, except for the mentally disturbed, had internalized some sort of sense of right and wrong. Even people who claim they have no sense of right and wrong (such as moral relativists) find it extremely difficult to not act on their moral intuitions.
The bigger question is do atheists have any good reason for their sense of right and wrong. One of the long-standing criticisms of atheism is that it undercuts moral foundations. In this sense I guess God is supposed to act as a sort of ultimate adjudicator in difference of opinion about morality. Without God, there is no such adjudicator and then, moral theory is just a difference opinions.
Establishing foundations for morality is extremely difficult for the atheist, but also for the theist as well. Even the theist quickly bogs down in problems that relate to what we can know about God and whether it makes sense to make moral judgments about God's actions (i.e. questions such as, "Do laws of morality exist independently of God?" or "How do we know God is good?")
Personally I think something like the Golden Rule is a self-evident basis for morality regardless of whether or not God exists.
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On Monday, April 2, 2001 at 1:22 PM, Brian Carnell wrote:
>Almost everyone I've ever met, except for the mentally disturbed, had
>internalized some sort of sense of right and wrong. Even people who claim
>they have no sense of right and wrong (such as moral relativists) find it
>extremely difficult to not act on their moral intuitions.
But don't you think that moral intuition (or internalized sense of right and wrong) are inherited from a society which was originally based in Christianity? This country's sense of right and wrong is changing - for example, consider the new 'Medical Ethics' - so the next generation of Aetheists are likely to have a different set of morals, right?
>The bigger question is do atheists have any good reason for their sense of
>right and wrong.
Sure, I agree, and that's really part of the larger question I'm trying to have answered.
>Personally I think something like the Golden Rule is a self-evident basis
>for morality regardless of whether or not God exists.
But if the world was full of intelligent aetheists, wouldn't there be a need to have everyone agree that this rule was self-evident?
(Aside: I don't think the Golden Rule is self-evident. Most people have a very hard time remembering it, whereas the opposite of the rule IS self-evident: "Don't do unto others as you wouldn't have them do unto you". That one's easier to remember, because if I punch you, you'll probably punch me back.)
Frankly, it's easy to remember this "rule" when you're with your own friends and family, because you have to deal with them on a regular basis and as long as they all recognize the benefits to themselves of "being nice", it works fine.
OK, that might be too extreme, I'll back off of that for a minute. How about this... If an Aetheist doesn't have the type of life (work, hobbies) where he produces copyrighted material, does he have any reason to accept the rights of others with their copyrighted materials? After all, the "golden rule" is, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," but there's no way that the "others" in this case could respect his copyrights, because he doesn't have any.
On your sites you've discussed Peter Singer's views on beastiality and Human Euthanasia, and you've made it clear that you think some things are simply wrong (killing unwanted infants, sex with animals, euthanizing Alzheimer's patients), and that Singer is basically a very popular wacko. (I happen to agree, though my opinion has nothing to do with this discussion.) On the other hand, you support abortion rights. Why is it wrong to kill a child which has been born, but not one which hasn't been born? (I'm not going to defend either side of the abortion issue, I'm simply interested in the critical aethiest's answer.)
If there is no God with the authority to say, "Thou shalt not," then why are these things wrong? If the "Golden Rule" is the reason it's wrong, then isn't that really just saying, "it's wrong because of the potential consquences"? Asked another way, is right and wrong for the aetheist based on what he feels he can get away with (murdering someone on a desert island is OK), or on some sort of comparison between the rewards and consequences of any particular action?
One last note: please understand that I'm not denying that Aetheists have morals, I'm simply asking why, and where they come from, and I'm trying to understand what a "pure Aetheist" (someone not raised under the influence of people that believe in a God) would be like.
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>For the most part I'd say that we're changing the details rather than the
>underlying moral values.
Huh. I guess it's a difficult point to debate, but from my point of view so many details have changed that we're looking at a completely different picture than existed 200 years ago.
>Medical ethics is an exception where, for a variety of reasons, a lot of
>ethicists think new medical technology means society needs new moral
>values. Very weird.
>
>On the other hand, isn't this a problem with theistic morality as well? I
>mean the text of the Bible hasn't changed, and yet Christian
>interpretations of morality has definitely changed in just the last 200
>years, much less the last 2000 years, even on fundamental issues.
I'd love to get into the topic of modern Christianity's sandy foundations, but that's another topic entirely because that's a change in the willful interpretation (or mis-interpretation) of written words ***which haven't themselves changed***, versus an interpretation of "universal truths" (or something along those lines) that aren't written down anywhere because it would require someone in authority to define those truths and the basic tenet of Atheism is that there's nobody to do that!
The critical Christian, then, is at his most honest when his moral principles are based on his personal comprehension of what the Bible actually says, rather than how his church or society chooses to interpret, apply, *and teach* what's written.
Would one (or all, whatever) of the atheists please say something similar about the "critical atheist"?
>Slavery in the United States is a good example where you had Christian
>theologians on all sides. I see much the same thing on an issue such as
>homosexuality today.
Sure, but theologians are just as likely to be full of "it" as Peter Singer is. As Flip said in his mostly off-topic post just a minute ago ;-), they're too often interested in simply telling people what or how to think, and I would say that very rarely - if ever - does the moral Christian code change simply because somebody realized the Bible, "doesn't really say that, we misunderstood it!"
See, these are two separate issues. We can discuss the slipping morals of Christianity separately, but I'm interested right now in how Atheistic morals are developed in the first place.
>I really meant the negative version that you mention (as the Talmud puts
>it, "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow men. That is the entire
>Law; all the rest is commentary.")
>
>This is about as universally accepted moral principle that has ever
>existed. Ancient Greeks, Romans, Confucianists, Hindus, Buddhists,
>Zoroastrians, Islam, Yoruba -- almost everybody has a version of the Golden
>Rule.
Honestly, that's just barely a moral code. It's so obvious as to be almost worthless. As I said, "I shouldn't punch him, becuase he's likely to punch me back." That's not a moral, it's not a decision of Right and Wrong, it's simply, "I don't want to be punched." It's being smart enough to consider at least the short term consequences of your actions.
I guess that's what makes it a "self-evident, universal truth", like gravity, taxes, and death... but it goes a lot further in telling you what you shouldn't be doing, than in what you should be doing.
>Ambrose Bierce once hilariously defined "self-evident" as "evident to one's
>self," but to the extent that any moral principle is agreed on universally,
>the Goldne Rule is the only candidate I can think of.
Things "fall" in the direction that gravity is pulling them. Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion. Those are on the same level as the negative version of the golden rule, I'd say.
That's very enlightening, actually, and would imply (though this seems obvious now that I'm saying it) that to the atheist only natural laws of "cause and effect" matter.
That has strong implications toward both Darwinism and the end-justifying-the-means, doesn't it?
>Animals are much more problematic, but suffice it to say I think that since
>they are somewhere in between being full fledged persons and being
>inanimate objects they are owed some moral duties but not the full
>complement. We may have a right to use animals for certain things, but not
>the right to do so gratuitously. Bestiality seems to me to be in the same
>class of activities as cockfighting -- I really have difficulty seeing any
>moral justification for it at all.
But if your morals are based on the negative version of the Golden Rule, then NO BEHAVIOR is ever justified at all, becuase it only tells you what you should not do.
>That is one possibility. There is another possibility. There is a school of
>moral philosophy that holds that moral propositions have the same sort of
>status that mathematical propositions have. For example, some people
>believe that mathematical statements are existing properties of the
>universe -- they are not just things that human beings have made up but
>rather exist independently of human beings (i.e. mathematical principles
>are true and existed before human beings arrived and will exist so long as
>the universe does, even if human beings disappear). Some moral philosophers
>believe that moral statements adhere in the universe in much the same way.
From my point of view, that statement was perfectly true! ;-) Unfortunately my POV doesn't matter right now. (I'm weak, I couldn't resist that.)
I can't imaging how an atheist could come to those conclusions, unless they're talking about the obvious stuff (that I don't think deserves to be called "morals") like "don't do something harmful to someone else, or they're likely to do something harmful to you in return."
>OTOH, ultimately it does seem that secular morality inevitably comes down
>to being related to potential consequences. It almost always seems to take
>the form of "If you want these consequences, then you have to follow these
>moral principles."
Yes, I see that, thank you. I suppose that was the only possible answer.
Atheism, then, when boiled down far enough, can either mean that there is nothing more important than the individual (since there is no higher power), or that there is nothing more important than society (though I think that's a less honest form of atheism).
Hmm. Still thinking.
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On the other hand, isn't this a problem with theistic morality as well? IThis is certainly a problem in determining what things are or are not moral from a theistic point of view, but it doesn't present any difficulty with pointing to the divine as the source and touchstone for moral truth. Just because we aren't always clear on a static moral law doesn't mean that there isn't one.
mean the text of the Bible hasn't changed, and yet Christian
interpretations of morality has definitely changed in just the last 200
years, much less the last 2000 years, even on fundamental issues.
Yes, and that's another thing that seems to point toward something outside of man as an anchor point for morality. Could be a Platonic idea, some odd working out of quantum mechanics that we haven't yet plumbed, or it could well be the mind of the Creator who has impressed himself upon the hearts of his people. Lewis uses the common human morality as the linchpin for his argument for God's existence in Mere Christianity.
This is about as universally accepted moral principle that has ever
existed. Ancient Greeks, Romans, Confucianists, Hindus, Buddhists,
Zoroastrians, Islam, Yoruba -- almost everybody has a version of the Golden
Rule.
That is one possibility. There is another possibility. There is a school of
moral philosophy that holds that moral propositions have the same sort of
status that mathematical propositions have. For example, some people
believe that mathematical statements are existing properties of the
universe -- they are not just things that human beings have made up but
rather exist independently of human beings (i.e. mathematical principles
are true and existed before human beings arrived and will exist so long as
the universe does, even if human beings disappear). Some moral philosophers
believe that moral statements adhere in the universe in much the same way.
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On Monday, April 2, 2001 at 3:55 PM, Brian Carnell wrote:
>BTW, when Seth talked about atheists views of morality over time I
>couldn't help but think of pragmatists such as William James and others
>who essentially argued that moral statements were meaningless. Pragmatism
>really denies that there is any ultimate truth at all and thinks a
>question like "is it right to euthanize Alzheimer's patients?" is
>meaningless. Rather the pragmatist would ask something like "is society
>better off, on balance, benefit society?"
>
>I think that's clearly where Singer is headed with his version of
>utilitarianism (whereas something like the Golden Rule clearly requires
>people engaging in behavior that people like Singer and the pragmatists
>would regard as suboptimal for maximizing benefits to society).
I've been considering this also, and I clearly see a line dividing the Atheists: one one side, you have the Independent Party (those who favor the rights/betterment of the individual over the community), and on the other you have the Statist Party or Societal Party (those who favor the betterment of society over the individual).
Are there any well known "philosophers" like Singer, on your side of Atheistic space, Brian?
Seth
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But yes, I have a sense of right and wrong, and like Greg, many of my friends consider me the most ethical person they know.
Unlike most everyone I know (including self-described "moral Christians") I don't steal software or music, I register shareware (I have 3 licences of WinZip, even one for my VPC on my PowerBook!), etc etc.
So are you thinking, if one doesn't believe in the afterlife they have no motivation to behave? I don't believe that, or anything close to that. I think a person has to come up with their own reason to be good people, whether it be because they're god-fearing or because they want to be remembered as being good.
Personally, I think being good and caring is the best road, and gives me the best chance of accomplishing what I want out of life. (The path of least resistance) I just can't imagine myself deciding to be "bad" even if I did think it would be easier. I'm too inherently lazy to go to the effort of being troublesome.
My grandpa was an aetheist and was the best person I've ever known. Right and wrong was massively important to him. So, based on my experience with aetheists, I'd have to say god-based faiths have nothing to do with being ethical.
Jim
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It seems that a few people need to rethink their position on atheism. According to the dictionaries I've looked in, you can't be an atheist and still be willing to admit that there could be a God out there. Saying that the religions of the world don't know anything about God is not the same as saying there is no God at all.
atheism - noun - Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
A couple of the people that responded to this topic appear to be more agnostic than atheistic.
agnosticism - noun -
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Brian said:
>This is off-topic but from a strictly Darwinian point of view, if you are
>going to choose a religious outlook based on natural selection you should
>choose the religious outlook that would maximize your reproductive potential.
Actually, other than trying to resurrect the fertility rites of the ancient pagan religions (and I mean beyond the Easter Bunny, but that's WAY off topic), atheism seems like a pretty big step in that direction, doesn't it? Certainly there's nothing in atheism to enforce monogamy, and as we already agreed, atheism is essentially about what's best for yourself after you've eliminated any consideration of an afterlife or moral responsibility to a higher power.
After all, Christianity frowns on "fornication", so from a simplistic Darwinian perspective it is to be avoided at all costs.
Right?
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Oh, you'd certainly want to throw polygamy in there to maximize one's reproductive potential, and maybe some sort of combat that would allow one to win wives away from other people. Human Darwinism quickly stops looking like Catholicism when you take it to its conclusion.
Sean
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On Wednesday, April 18, 2001 at 3:24 PM, Sean McMains wrote:
>Oh, you'd certainly want to throw polygamy in there to maximize one's
>reproductive potential, and maybe some sort of combat that would allow
>one to win wives away from other people. Human Darwinism quickly stops
>looking like Catholicism when you take it to its conclusion.
Cool, we said almost the same thing at the same time, all just to show that we managed to think of something that Brian didn't! ;-)
Brian, I may not agree with some of the things you say, but you've always been darn good at making me think by presenting other viewpoints, and I really appreciate that.
Seth
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Brian Carnell said:
>Actually, the irony I was trying to get at was that if our correspondent
>was serious in wanting to have a philosophy that was very Darwinian his
>best bet would probably be one of the main lines of Christianity, and
>specifically Catholicism. Catholicism is excellent from an oversimplified
>natural selection point of view.
How about the Mormons, specifically the sect that still allows polygamy? Multiple wives, strong discouragement of divorce, no contraception or abortion. Maximum genetic output!!
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Joel said:
>When disussing the moral reasons why or not one becomes (or already is)
>an aetheist, one will also need to discuss why the individual left behind
>his or her previous religion.
This isn't what we were discussing, actually. We were discussing the moral resources of an already atheistic character, not the moral issues involved in "choosing atheism".
In spite that fact that this is way off topic, I'll "allow it" (said the judge).
>I believe it to simply be an act of becoming aware.
Of course you do. Anyone who claims a new belief system would say the same about it. What's the alternative? You've chosen it because you believe it gives you a better awareness, or better describes your model of the universe. It's what you believe... how could it be anything but "more aware" than what you had before?
>Charles Darwin said that for a species (any species) to survive it must
>be capable of evolving. This includes abandoning ways of thinking and
>acting that are not practical. This is what my decision to becomea
>non-believer boiled down to.
You decided to become a non-believer? That's an impressive talent. You first believed something to be true, then (apparently) read a misquote of Darwin somewhere, and finally simply decided to stop believing that thing you had believed?
You really are an advanced example of mankind.
Most people, I think, don't have the luxury of choosing to believe something or not. They first must understand it, and then accept it or reject it based on that understanding. You might say that (for most people) believing is involuntary... you can voluntarily take someone's word for something (or NOT take someone's word for something), but that's not the same as believing.
>There are numerous cases through history that show a culture abandoning
>past superstitions and beliefs in pursuit of another (hopefully better)
>way. Unfortunatly that usually ment Christianity but, at least it proved
>that those individuals were ready to admit that there way was not enough
>to keep them happy and they needed more.
More often than not the reason the "other way" didn't keep them happy was because they were being converted at the pointy end of a sword. It's a sad fact that there have been far too many really BAD missionaries.
That hos nothing to do with Christianity itself, of course.
>This is where I feel Atheism is going to come to play in the
>future. As humans continue to evolve there will always be those in search
>of enlightenment, and this is only achieveable through awareness, and
>awareness is only achieveable through education. I believe that
>eventually this education will be available without predjudice but, until
>then, unfortunatly, the ignorant and "True Believers" will continue to
>fight and suppress this data. I all comes down to mind over matter, use
>your mind or it just doesn't matter.
There's a slightly better-than-Christians attitude here that, thankfully, has been generally avoided in the rest of this discussion. That might be just because they knew I was trying to AVOID comparison of Christian and atheist, that I was asking questions about atheists ONLY.
Seth
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I should not have said:
>You really are an advanced example of mankind.
That was extremely rude, and I apologize. I stand by the rest of my comments, but that was a bit over the top.
Seth
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I don't think it's a difficult thing to stop beleiving something. People stopped believing the earth was flat, that the Sun was the centre of the universe, all sorts of things. Heck, I stopped believing OS/2 was going to be a market-leading operating system. ;-)
It takes people to make these changes in beliefs, and I don't think it's a stretch whatsoever, even if one has been conditioned from birth to believe in something. I don't know what makes a person believe or not believe but I don't see why a person can't change their mind.
I was never strongly conditioned to be Christian or religious at all, for me it was never a strong belief, so perhaps I don't know what it's like to really believe in a god and religion, but if I should happen to change my mind some day and become Buddhist or Muslim or Christian, and really believe that, I don't think that should be considered hypocritical.
Jim
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On Wednesday, April 18, 2001 at 1:46 PM, Jim Roepcke wrote:
>I'm relieved you apologized Seth, because I found that comment offensive
>and it really bothered me last night that you would speak like that here,
>you're usually so 'above the fray' and I really respect that about you.
Yeah, I found it offensive too, after I read it. I was tired from all the driving yesterday, but that's not a very good excuse for being so rude.
>I don't think it's a difficult thing to stop beleiving something. People
>stopped believing the earth was flat, that the Sun was the centre of the
>universe, all sorts of things. Heck, I stopped believing OS/2 was going
>to be a market-leading operating system. ;-)
But could you choose to believe that your mother doesn't exist, or that your house is actually a sentient organism from another galaxy, or that the sky over Victoria is polka-dotted on Thursdays?
No, because you have no evidence for those beliefs. Barring the use of psychadelics or a severe mental disturbance, you couldn't believe those things because they don't fit your model of the world.
People stopped believing the earth was flat because they were offered something which made more sense to them. However, all it took was someone in a boat out in the deep sea to discover that on the horizon they could see the tops of mountains... then more of the mountains... then the foothills, then finally the shoreline. "Hey! The earth must be round!" That's something you can explain to someone so that they'll understand it, and suddenly lots of other things they've observed about nature fit more perfectly with their models.
They didn't just decide one day to stop believing that the earth was flat. They had evidence for it, and the story told by that new evidence made more sense than what they already thought they knew.
You stopped believing OS/2 was going to be the preeminent OS. Fine. Did you decide that when OS/2 was at the height of its glory, when nearly 95% of all computers had it installed? Probably not. ;-) More likely, your original model was based on the fact that you used OS/2, and thought it was an excellent OS, but eventually other evidence convinced you - made you believe - that it wouldn't be the market leader you once thought.
Again, in none of these cases did anyone voluntarily choose to believe something.
>I was never strongly conditioned to be Christian or religious at all, for
>me it was never a strong belief, so perhaps I don't know what it's like
>to really believe in a god and religion, but if I should happen to change
>my mind some day and become Buddhist or Muslim or Christian, and really
>believe that, I don't think that should be considered hypocritical.
I have two comments on this.
First, this makes your atheism appear to be a little shallow (forgive me, I don't mean that to be offensive), because your previous model was incomplete. If you knew some Christian doctrine, and the reasons behind that doctrine, and then chose to reject it because of some conflicts you found in it... well, that would be a completely different story.
As it is, without really knowing what it is that you've rejected, how can you be sure it doesn't offer a model which is better than what you have now? For that matter, how can you be sure that it wouldn't simply improve your current model, rather than requiring that you build a new one?
Second, you used the word "conditioned", which is unfortunately accurate. Much of Christianity is little more than brainwashing (conditioning), because people are taught what to believe and are never given any other options or even a means to understand WHY they should believe it. They hear the same things from the day they're born, and most never get past that "early conditioning".
The fact that so much of Christianity is built on sand doesn't mean that there isn't a God. That's a funny thing about this universe... our beliefs don't change anything. The earth was round even when some believed it flat, OS/2 was doomed even when some thought it would rule. The existence of a god is equally independent of our belief and understanding, or lack thereof.
Seth
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When disussing the moral reasons why or not one becomes (or already is) an aetheist, one will also need to discuss why the individual left behind his or her previous religion. I believe it to simply be an act of becoming aware. Charles Darwin said that for a species (any species) to survive it must be capable of evolving. This includes abandoning ways of thinking and acting that are not practical. This is what my decision to becomea non-believer boiled down to. There are numerous cases through history that show a culture abandoning past superstitions and beliefs in pursuit of another (hopefully better) way.
The subject line really says this more than the message itself, but this message seems to say that we should base our morality on evolution. If that is the case, this is not atheism but rather animism.
We saw a lot of this earlier in the 20th century where states ran around sterilizing retarded kids because they were "unfit" from a Darwinian perspective.
Trying to appease evolution in this way is every bit as animistic as somebody who says after a thunderstorm that it is time to appease the storm god or peoples who worshipped the sun as a god.
Evolution is simply an impersonal force of nature that is really a human abstraction about the way in which organisms and species change over time. Evolution might explain why some moral systems have been more successful than others, just as zoology or earth sciences might be able to explain why some cultures were more successful than others, but we should no more look to evolution for moral guidance than we should look to zoology or earth sciences for moral guidance.
After all, from a purely evolutionary point of view, any number of abhorrent practices -- infanticide comes to mind -- make sense and have in fact been tacitly approved of by not a few human societies.
Ditching Christianity's moral message in favor of natural selection's seems to me a decided step backwards rather than forward.
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So the question always devolves down to what--if it is clearly not supernatural--is religion, really?
The best recent take I have seen on this subject is Arthur Woolsley's essay "What is Religion?" at http://www.velocitypress.com/pages/Religion.php .
Since I published it and have gotten nothing but hate mail, it would be helpful to get some comments wfrom the other side, i.e., this side.
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My morality comes from Western civilization. Part of that is Judeo-Christian morality, but also the work of Socrates, Spinoza, Nietzsche, and other philosophers, writers, and artists.
To this atheist, if this world is the only world, then morality is infinitely more important than if there's an afterlife. In other words, it's vital and urgent that we do good here and now since there's nothing else, no deity to take care of us (or punish us) later.
So I'm constantly thinking about and re-examining my understanding of right and wrong.
My basis for morality is humanity -- what's good for people, individuals and groups.
There's no safety net (this atheist thinks), so if I kill someone I've done them a terrible wrong, I've taken everything away from that person. They don't go to Heaven. Death is a true extinguishing.
And if I hurt someone, I've made their sole existence worse than it has to be.
The basis of my morality is the belief that life is good and pain is bad. Where does this come from? I don't know. But if you ask me, or almost anybody, they'll tell you life is good and pain is bad.
Another belief I hold is that other people are actually people and not illusions, and that they believe like me that life is good and pain is bad.
One has empathy. I think it's hard-wired in all of us (except for sociopaths).
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I can understand your frustration when you run into people who claim a certain position but have no background to back it up.
I would love to hear the different points you have to present on this subject. To be honest with you, I am not to excited about being an aetheist. Think about it. If I am right, and there is no god then after we die, we just die and that's it. I would love to find out somehow that there really is a god. That would be a happy ending, but the truth of the matter is... there isn't.
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On 6/1/02, Laura Brennan said:
>Does it really matter if there is or isn't a God? We'll all find out >when we die anyway. Personally I don't believe in a God, I think He's a >myth people created to try and explain the world. As for moral values, I >think they're based on a survival instinct which tells us that pain >leads to death and death is bad, so therefore we shouldn't cause pain. >Which is fine by me.
So you think that good is anything which feels good, and bad is anything which feels bad?
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Foolish to you, but not to everyone. I'm often struck by how ferverently people that call themselves non-believers have never read into or researched that which they so thoroughly deride.
This failure to understand others perspectives is rampant in many things. Culture, religion, politics, etc. More often than not a study of that which is claimed to be so despised often reveals quite a bit in common. But hostility borne out of ignorance is just so much easier for most people. So they get out their broadbrush of generalizations and champion their misunderstandings.
As Brian notes, recorded history shows quite a bit more in favor of faith-oriented cultures than not. Sure, sure, history is written by the victorious and all, but archeological records are telling.
But even as someone that considers himself to believe, I continue to find the statement "God, save me from your followers" to be appropriate. Just as those ignorant of any knowlege are problematic, those with their own twisted form of understanding are perhaps even worse.
In short, study up on faith, you might find it's rich range of paradoxes are wrapped around a pleasant set of quite sensible beliefs. It's this packaging that has made them palatable to the masses. Do not underestimate the value of how faith has helped 'channel' the otherwise problematic tendencies of people. Think of how a sine wave winds it's way back and forth across the baseline. There are highs and lows, wide swings, and yet the line of human culture continues to advance. Faith, for better or worse, has helped provide that momentum in a great many situations.
Likewise, those that claim to 'interpret' the Word to such ridiculous extremes should probably get a grip.
As for 'written by God' get a clue. This is just as ridiculous as how one friend calling himself a Unitarian gets all twisted up into knots about Christianity and the 'body and blood' symbolism as being some form of cannibalism. Take out the claims of authorship in most faiths and, surprisingly, the doctrine continues to have value.
I'm sure people more erudite than I can expound upon the larger issues of value behind faith and belief. I'm just going on the idea that the masses seem to find considerable sense of purpose and greatly value participanting in something largely identified as faith. Which one is of considerably less importance to me than that they follow something that gives them a sense of dignity, purpose and decent behavior. If it needs to be called 'religion' then fine.
-Bill Kearney
"STEVEN LOUIS ROSS" <sross@su.edu> wrote in message news:Conversant-70296@truerwords.net... > I am what you called an "aetheist by default" i have never believed and i never will. Religion is something that is programed into your head as soon as your born and is as foolish as santa claus. Its more or less a custom of the american way than there is truth behind it. If everyone would open their eyes and see that they are following a book that sure as hell was not written by "god", then there would be more people like me. I dont think its fair for you to say that my decision is due to a lack of thought. My favorite quote goes against that idea very stongly........"Knowledge is the enemy of faith."
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On 9/9/2003, Brian Carnell said:
>There's also something a bit odd about someone calling themselves >"an atheist by default" complaining that believers views are >simply "more or less a custom."
And he didn't think it was fair to say that his "decision" was due to a lack of thought, and yet he called himself an atheist by default.
There were so many problems with that post that ignoring it was my best option.
Seth
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Which, more often than not, is what religion helps facilitate. If just from the perspective of people being too simpleminded to handle themselves without having something calling itself 'religion' as their guide. This is not to say that followers are simpleminded, however.
If it keeps them from killing and harming each other and it needs to call itself religion then fine. It's when they try scaling it up from a guide of decent behavior and into something bent on forcing itself upon others that the trouble starts. More often that not at the hands of the privileged few calling upon the faithful to act in despicable manner. All under the guise of 'religious leadership'.
Trouble is, those without faith are just as likely to engage in similarly despicable manner. Corporate greed comes to mind.
As I've said many a time, "God, save me from your followers."
-Bill Kearney
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People,
No need to twist and distort the simple meaning of my statement.
It simply implies that whenever one confronts the religious right with science
and one reaches the limits of our understanding at this point in time.
"God" is always the explanation.
As far as how do I know right from wrong? It is of course, learned behaviour.
If you grow up alone and never had contact with any other human. Would you know right from wrong?
Would you think there was a god?
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The way I see it, if you believe God can be a moral guide, you believe one or more of :
1) God can tell you right from wrong. You then listen to the voices in your head for moral advice, or you pray expecting some kind of answer or mystic signs to determine how you should act.
2) God can talk to some people if not everyone and some prophets or enlightened people have been sent to tell people how God thinks we should act. You then listen to some source (which you get to pick arbitrarily, or take from granted from an authority source (parents, community, state, etc.)
3) God created us with an innate sense of morality and/or means to determine morality by ourselves, and thus we need to figure out ourselves what it is that God wants us to do.
If you believe (only) the third, then belief in God shouldn't matter because both theists and non-theists should come to the same conclusion about morality. At least concerning our relations with our fellow humans, mammals and other living beings, environment, etc. Maybe you think not worshiping God is immoral because not giving it an ego trip make it sad, but apart from that I don't see why it should matter.
If you believe the first or second... well may God help you (yeah that's irony.) I skipped some parts of the thread which appeared to be redundant, but while you seem to have said you don't believe in the second (wasn't too clear though... you believe the Bible shouldn't be taken as the word of God because it was modified, interpreted, or because God doesn't have anything to do with it?), I'd like to hear your take on the first. I'm not bothering with 1-2 since I find them so absurd, but if someone here believes in that I'm willing to.
As for me, I believe in a mild form of the third. First it's not necessarily God's doing, but morality is a fundamental part of our being. But only the will to morality; if a particular act is moral or not is entirely ours to determine (which does not mean that there is no universal morality, only that it is not self-evident.) I'm an agnostic who believes it's more likely that God doesn't exist. In fact, I would prefer for it not to exist. And like being blasphemous about it since if I turn out to be wrong, I want to know if I will be judged for my actions in this world or my lack of respect for a narcissist God. If the later, my place is definitely in Hell (organizing a revolution against both God and Satan, of course.)
A few reasons I believe atheism provides a stronger motivation toward morality:
- It makes it clear it is my responsibility, and mine alone, to act morally. If I fail to do so, it is my failure, and there is no God to forgive me and appease my conscience. Catholicism is particularly ridiculous in this since you can be as evil as you want to all your life, repent at the end of your life and you are fine (just make sure to avoid unexpected death, eh.) - As someone else said it makes it clear that there is such a thing as permanent consequences and the result of an immoral action is much worse in such a framework. For example, I became a vegan for over 2 years while studying the question of weather it is moral to eat meat. I reached mostly relativist conclusions on the issue... I realize it is immoral to eat meat coming from the breeding industry, but will sometimes eat wild meat (mostly rabbit and other mammals which are over abundant here since their predators where mostly exterminated (because they predate us too... we are not the top of the food chain, just good at avoiding being eaten... sorry for being OT.)) - It makes it clear that this life is all that matters and provides a stronger motivation for positive morality (i.e. not just abstaining from doing wrong, but actually doing good), since if something better than what we now have is to be achieved, we must create it.)
In fact it doesn't make sense to me to start from perfection, then retrograde and start evolution just for the heck of it. If such a thing as God can exist, it should be the end result of evolution, not the starting point. I like to believe that the goal of life (all life, not mine) is to achieve perfection, create God if you will. Perhaps the transformation of a materialist universe into an idealist one via singularity.
Of course, I don't take this last part too seriously and realize (accept and, indeed, appreciate) that this is definitely not something that I will see for myself.
Also, I fail to see how the moral universalism/relativism question is directly linked to the theist/atheist one. Just as I fail to see how universal laws of physics would require the existence of a God.
"there's a reason that religious faiths command the attention of billions, while philosophers command the attention of significantly fewer people"
Indeed. Oversimplifying a bit, philosophers ask questions and religious folks provide answers. Reasoning is harder than believing, and philosophy implies a level of uncertainty which, it seems, many cannot (or are unwilling to) handle. But I'm certain that's not what you had in mind... I'm interested.
Which gets us to the cultural argument for religion, which I find is the most interesting : religion is almost a constant in human societies, and has indeed played an important role in the development of civilization. What does this tell us? I think it tells us the same thing as the universal presence of schools, even in post Enlightenment societies: teaching by authority is the most efficient way of spreading information. Which doesn't change the fact that it is NOT a means of discovering information. Even though it is not necessary for every biologist to perform every experiment that allowed us to slowly build our current theories, understand them and have a reasonable level of certainty about their veracity, they had to be conducted (multiple times and by different people) at some point, or we might as well teach our kids Intelligent Design (oops...) And they need to be reviewed regularly since they are always subject to interpretation and over-generalization of otherwise sound conclusions.
In a similar way, philosophers conduct mental experiments and construct complex theories, and then religious folks take their conclusions and simplify them to be palatable for the masses. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since reflexion is a time consuming activity and if everyone was a philosopher, who would grow veggies and build houses? And if the people who are not interested or good at solving ethical dilemmas weren't provided with simples guidelines, they might behave immorally more often (not necessarily by malice, often by ignorance.) For example, it is not self-evident that incest is a bad thing, but it's clear after studying history that it's a good idea to teach people that it is. If everyone had to realize it through personal experience, the realization wouldn't be very useful.
Just because religion has been useful doesn't mean that it's not a scam.
Damn it, I just destroyed the primary moral obstacle against my get-rich-quick plan of creating a religion. Oh well, maybe I will, maybe I will... heh. But seriously, a problem with teaching by authority is that it doesn't help develop the ability to think critically, and the more you take the guidelines as absolutes, the less likely you are to figure out an acceptable course of action when you confronted with a situation which your guide hadn't anticipated. Another is that sociopaths do exist and it is very easy to use religious structures for personal gains/ego trips, especially since worshiping idols is an important part of most religions, and redirecting the recipient of that worship is not that hard. Another problem is that the more widely an immoral belief is spread, the more it will have negative impacts. Would the Incas still be around if the Catholic church hadn't assured the Spanish that they are not really human and that God was perfectly fine with them being massacred? I like to think that humans are not that evil and that only an such an obscene belief as being "God's people" can provide a sufficient rationalization for genocide. This, in itself, is all the justification needed for me to reach the conclusion that religion is more dangerous than it is useful. Also, with technological advances people (should) need to work less and have more time to spend on the real thing: philosophy.
Another point is that I believe the Will to Meaning is the most powerful evolutionary force driving us, and fooling ourselves into thinking we have found (immutable) meaning kills it.
"A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking."
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ET, I'm sorry, but you're responding to a VERY old thread (five years).
The truth is, I've moved on. I'm simply not particularly interested in the original question anymore.
Even less interesting, to me, is the idea of debating an agnostic or atheist on the existence of God, or why he should be the definer of right and wrong.
Your assumptions are many (too many to bother with), your assertions mostly empty, and your arguments and sarcasm seem rather immature. I just don't have time for this anymore. It's nothing against you, as your post was not offensive (though it might be to people who haven't heard some of your ideas a thousand times before) and I don't know you.
There are just better things I can do with my time and my brain than debate someone whose main belief is that he "doesn't know" or "can't know". (Others might think that last sentence was insulting, but I assume you won't.)
Seth
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I realize the topic is 5 years old, but I wanted to write this for myself anyways and the discussion spans 4 years so I figured I might as well post this. I didn't really expect a reply, but was genuinely interested in whether your godly justifications for morality prompted the question or if stick / carrot (Hell / Heaven) is all the justifications for morality you need ? Thanks for replying anyways, and I take no offense at all. I would stress that lack of certainty doesn't imply absence of knowledge and my estimate of the probability of the existence of a God has changed over time. But as I think I made clear I find the God question in itself pretty irrelevant and thought it wasn't the (main) topic of this thread, I touched it briefly since I wanted to reply to a few raised points. My interest is more in philosophy, morality and religion as a cultural phenomenon. And I definatly didn't claim to be the definer of morality, I just replied to your question of what defines my morality and threw it back. I realize the sarcasms doesn't help rational discourse, but it's just to make it a bit less dry (but perhaps only to myself...), not to offend (although the content is serious (except the hell revolution part which is out of place cynicism, sorry) and will of course offend the overly religious.) Found the site looking for xul templates info and I have to agree this has been a waste of time, although midly entertaining :P
Brian :
Well I'll agree that the statement is not absolute, but the reasons you provide are wrong.
You simply cannot examine all existing things. There is no such thing as a representative sample of everything and I find the idea that you can prove a negative with statistics highly amusing. Inductive reasoning can only provides hypothesis which must be proved via deductive reasoning. And your double negative argument I would argue with Wittgenstein is only a confusion caused by a misunderstanding of language. Both A and ~(~A) have the same use in this context and while you can of course prove ~(~A) by finding A, doing so disproves ~A, which doesn't do too well toward proving ~A...
One way to prove a negative is proof by the absurd. E.g. one can very well argue that an infinite set of macroscopic things cannot exist, for it would fill the whole universe by definition, and we wouldn't be here. Or that color is function of light reflexion and thus something that is both pink and invisible cannot exist. But that is fairly weak proof since it contains many assumptions... And while the Christian God can be disproved this way, the concept of God cannot for we lack a logical framework in which to do so.
P.S.: The statement below is true.
> The statement below is false [...]
> It is quite easy to prove that something doesn't exist.
Heh.
-ET
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I fully suspect that if you met an Atheist with a muslim or jewish background they may well hold some of those values as theirs.
That is why I consider your question to be so intriguing. If you had a room full of Atheist what values would rise to the surface.
Personally I do not consider atheism to have a belief system but to have a disbelief system. That is to say why has there never been a female Pope. Why does the image of the Prophet exact such protest and violence.
My own values cannot reconcile some of this behaviour. A typical Christian response to an Atheist is that whilst you do not beleive in god he believes in you. Considering this from my own stand point I often want to state that "whilst you beleive in God I must beleive in me".
I hope this give your question a good kick start. From an Atheist to a Theist....I beleive you, keep up the good work
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I was raised in the south under the iron fist of a baptist upbringing. I was taught that any thought that is not inspired by, giving praise to, or generally not accepted as truth in the eyes of God would be cause and reason enough for my eternal soul to burn in hell. I, like so many before me, have read the scripture and could not figure out how this God could lay down so many rules for me and then break them all in the same book i am supposed to consider "Holy". i have my own beliefs, now. i have a sense of right and wrong as it applies to my basic moral values system, and i use it to great effect in every choice i make.I will only kill in defense of my life or that of my family. Taking a man's life means that his family must then make their way without him. I will not steal, because I do not want others to pay for what i should earn the money for myself. If it seems I am drawing these rules from a familiar source then just take a minute to consider the source. The "Bible" was not written by the hand of a god. it was written by a man who, for whatever reason, felt it neccessary to lay down a few guidelines by which man should live in order to have a peaceful existence. unfortunately, he attempted to cement these rules in a way that would frighten the mass populace to obey, or forever be damned to the fiery pit in company with a dragon who was already ticked off at being cast out of paradise. a bunch of bull but it does make for a good read.
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Now, that is not to say that I became entirely heathenistic. I was engrained from a very young age with a sense of right and wrong, but not in a religious way. My parents instilled in me a strong conscience, and I never needed to be threatened with brimstone and hellfire to make me behave appropriately. I merely was taught that there were right and wrong, and that I should follow my heart and not be led astray by peers or enemies.
I think, personally, that this is a greater acheivement; to behave well of my own choice instead of being forced to by some higher power.
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