I found an Interesting discussion on the blog Puritan’s Sword. Rather than an inane, emotional discussion “from the heart”, the Christian owner of the blog has engaged a couple of atheist guests in a debate that at least attempts to be reasoned. My favorite atheist guest there so far is “Jody” with her charming short story on using the bible to consider child murder. The original post was in January, but it’s not obvious to me how old the comments are, so the discussion thread may be quite cold now.
Nonetheless, the blog owner “Bob” at one point responds to Jody that while the Golden Rule may have predated Christianity (and presumably he means Judeo-Christian theology), it was arbitrary and had no grounding until recognition of an absolute moral foundation such that an existent God brings. I thought that was at least a newer rebuttal to the ethics-must-originate-from-God-no-they-predated-it argument.
As an intellectual argument, atheism is at a disadvantage here. Strictly speaking, atheism is the lack of belief in a deity: a-theism. So an atheist isn’t, per se, a belief but only a rejection of a set of beliefs. Indeed, once you’re past the we-reject-supernatural-hocus-pocus aspect, atheism ends. It is not an ideology or ethical foundation. As an atheist you are free to build up from a blank slate to form whatever ethical structure works. Most modern atheists focus on science and rigorous philosophical study to establish a set of beliefs, but a secular ethical foundation is fairly scattered across various atheists. So, from the other side, the theists point of view, atheists lack an ethical structure. We don’t necessarily, but we aren’t mandated one either. There is a book I haven’t read for some time called Ethics Without God by Kai Nielsen, but I don’t recall a direct rebuttal to this point, though he allows possibilities for various belief systems.
Ergo, atheists are, at first, amoral. That is, since atheist is only AGAINST something, it remains to be said what an atheist is FOR. This is complicated in that it is anarchy. Since atheism is a blank slate, by definition, we individually are free to choose independent moral codes, should we even choose one. Atheistic groups such as Secular Humanists do attempt to build up a new belief system from the belief void of atheism, but we are labeled as atheists not as humanists.
Now I have a fairly strong sense of right and wrong. Whether I argue them from habit and custom, from intellectual consideration, or simple social contract, I wouldn’t describe myself as amoral nor would most people I think that know me. Yet, I have no basis on which to say another atheist does have a moral code. I am not troubled by this because I expect that, like me, other atheists are not JUST atheists: we bring other dimensions and conclusions to the table.
In short, is the notion of a golden rule arbitrary and without intellectual basis if it doesn’t have an axiomatic basis such as theistic belief?
RDN and DOF, there’s a difference between picking your battles and defeatism.
The way I see it, you get more done by being visibly out of the closet amongst believers than by butting heads with True Believers™…
Just skimming through so far when I ran into this:
Bullshit. I know of no study that documents this. You are simply wanting to give anectdotal evidence and regurgitate some well-known history. None of that meets the requirement for making the above statement fact.
I’ve raised the issue before. The reason it is important is not because I care one iota about whether you share my beliefs. The issue becomes important in looking at how to evaluate what you argue for in the way of moral behavior. The bottom line is, as has been said,
And one of the possible implications that flows from that is that you all get to make up the rules as you go along and change them as you fit.
First off, there’s a great book that examines morality outside the realms of any “-ist” perspective – The Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer.
I’d add my own thoughts, but I’m a bit tired. Besides, I’d probably just repeat what I read in the previously mentioned book anyhow.
I don’t agree that there’s a necessity to subscribe to a religion or philosophy for moral codes and I think that philosophy and religion do more harm to morality and ethics than the absence of such. Perhaps if I have time and energy later I’ll support that statement.
I have a bit of a parsing problem here. Do you place the emphasis on what one considers moral behavior or is the emphasis on the moral philosophy? What or why?
Danger! Danger! Moral! Relativism!
I maintain that we all make up rules as we gain life experience. Even the vaunted absolute morals of religion are not immutable, they just change at a much slower rate than the Zeitgeist.
Reading “change (the rules) as you see fit” in context, comes across as derogatory—you’re just more circumspect about it than the typical True Believer™. I don’t see a problem with re-evaluating moral convictions based on new experiences and insights, but your phrasing insinuates something else that you’ve made more explicit here on SEB or on my site a long time ago and that I won’t revisit.
“Bullshit. I know of no study that documents this. You are simply wanting to give anectdotal evidence and regurgitate some well-known history. None of that meets the requirement for making the above statement fact.”
My fault there, I wrote “In fact” in the incorrect sense; I didn’t mean to imply that “In fact (EVERY SINGLE WORD I SAY AFTER THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE FACT, BY THE WAY, AND I DARE YOU TO DEFY IT)…”. I typed it without saying it, because I assumed that everybody ELSE assumed that theistic morality can lead to horrendous acts that atheists usually don’t commit, because they have separate moralities. Next time, I’ll be very careful what I type.
I don’t have the literal study in hand (I guess that counts as anecdotal, and thus, can be dismissed out-of-hand), but I’m sure you’ve seen reports about the disproportionate amount of atheists in prison when compared to other people of faith?
And what do you mean by “regurgitating some well-known history”? Are you saying that that my point is well supported in history, and thus conceding it? Then why is it bullshit?
This just in: Consi is here to save “us” from moral relativism.
You really want to go there, Consi? Biblical morality’s got a lot of strange stuff in it – shellfish and guys with crushed testicles and all that. And everybody’s got a little moral relativism in them. You’d lie (I hope) to save a child from a terrible injustice, wouldn’t you?
Near as I can tell, people do what they can justify in their own minds, and religion has little to do with it one way or the other.
I can’t believe you said that, Consi.
I know you said ‘one of the possible implications’ but you make it sound more possible than if we were Theists; what a cunt of thing to intimate.
By that statement you absolve every action of every theist because at least their intention was to follow the bauble.
But anyone NOT following the buybull, eg atheists, are judged differently and if any atheist asks for a fair go you say we can’t be trusted because we may not obey the rules.
Are you pushing for atheists to be expelled from the army, police and hospital doctors and nurses, politics … do you agree with daddy Shrub that Atheists shouldn’t be classified citizens?
Come on Consi, how far does your conservative theistic insanity flow?
How far back to you want to turn the clocks?
The twenties when you wouldn’t be allowed to drink?
You also intimate that the rules we ‘make up’ as we go are evil and destructive to the security and fabric society.
Please, you despicable little man, you know a lot about us here; what rules would you like us to obey that we aren’t currently obeying?
Don’t invite me to do that cannibalism stuff with the wine and wafers trick … creepy … shiver.
As far as I know, no one here does the rape and pillage thing seriously outside of pirate days.
As far as I can tell I’d trust anyone from this board before I’d trust anyone from a jesus board; but that’s just me. I rather interact with someone who interacts with the same sort of reality that I do.
Delusionalists frighten me a bit cos I know if they’d been born in Saudi they’d be mindless muslims instead of mindless xians.
Well I got that outa my system and Consi lost a coupla points in the area of Intellect/Sanity.
I put that down to a good night’s work.
No links and smileys; Brock will be pleased.
DOF, it’s not about saving “us” from moral relativism—it’s about “them” being uncomfortable or worse around “us”. After all, you can trust a Christian to never lie, steal, or murder anybody. But atheists make up rules as they go and you just can’t turn your back on them.
What? The fact that I think that fundies will never listen to reason if it contradicts their beliefs implies that atheists get to make up the rules as we go along? What does the intransigence of godders have to do with the moral relativism of atheists?
You’re implying way too much here indeed. “change them as you fit” implies that there is no foundation, while in fact it’s just not the same foundation. You’re implying that your foundation is way better because it’s written in some book and millions of people believe in it. You also imply that other moral systems necessarily have to be relativist, which they don’t. There are quite a few non-relativist moral theories that have nothing at all to do with theism.
“change them as you fit” also implies “change them when they don’t fit your goals”, and while the former implications went way too far, this one is completely ridiculous, and I won’t even start telling you how wrong it is.
Omigosh! I never realized I was such a dangerous person! Clear the way, everybody, atheist coming through…
I found a fitting metaphor.
There is this guy, he ate at McDonalds all his life. He even has a name, McDonalder, for him and his fellow McDonalds-goers. He knows, McDonalders generally are nice enough people, he knows they eat (after all he’s seen them, and they have this big table showing them what you can eat – McChicken, BigMac, whatever, the ten commandments of food).
Then he goes out onto the street and preaches, “Come into McDonalds! There’s only food in McDonalds, other people don’t eat!”
On one hand, the contradiction is obvious. People who don’t eat at McDonalds, the AMcDonalders, they don’t starve nor do they look hungry all the time – in fact, they discovered other restaurants than McDonalds some time ago, and some of them even enjoy cooking in their own homes. Still, the McDonalder preaches “you don’t eat proper food, you make food up as you go, only the commandments of food are real food!
When you see a fellow McDonalder, you know what he eats, you know what you’re at. McDonalders are chill. Now the AMcDonalders, they’re scary. They eat those exotic foods you never even tasted, or then you took a bite and nearly threw up, not being used to it and all. The very basics of food are, two slices of bread, and meat inbetween, and those other foods, they don’t even follow those basics! How can they be real, proper foods?
Now let’s take a step back. McDonalds food is nutritious and works, it may not be the best food, but you get it everywhere, and you know what you’ll get. Same with religion, and theist ethics – you know what you’re at (well, to some extent, since nobody properly follows the bible anymore – the apparent lack of stonings lately is a good indication of that). Other ethic codes are scary, and you’d have to find out what they’re about first. Funny enough though, some of those other foods are more nutritious, some taste better, and some do both – however, never trying them, the McDonalder will never know.
shnakepup:
Okay. As long as you acknowledged that what was said is an opinion statement based off your assumptions.
Elwed:
What I was trying to get at was the situation in which there is discussion about whether a particular behavior is moral. That is typically the starting point. Usually the larger context is public policy of some sort. Sometimes it starts as a public policy discussion and breaks down the other way. My point was that when those discussions take place, it is difficult to discern how the atheist ended up at the conclusion about behavior that is moral.
Consider my emphasis as with both though. It’s akin to evaluating a geometry proof. What matters is not only the final answer, but the work that documents how it was obtained.
You make it sound like I’m a TB monkey that has been spit washed and taught a few manners. In my defense, I washed my face and hands I did!
Yes, like battling moral turpitude by splotching the Ten Commandments in courts and other government buildings.
Nice try at shifting the goal posts, though
No, the implication is that my rules must come from something a bit more logical than your book of fairy stories and might actually make a little bit of sense.
I would conced that the inference you want to draw could, conceivably, be added to a list of theoretical possibilities, ableit one that lacks any evidence for its logical superiority.
Anyone else notice how enamored many of the posters here are with references to fairy tales and Pink Unicorns? I’m starting to wonder if you all have to take the stuffed animals off your bed before you go to sleep at night.
Yes, our kids make us. I draw the line at the four foot long Nemo, though.
Frequently. It’s debatable how effective such references are as persuasive rhetoric, but the implication is that adult religious beliefs should be relegated to the realm of fantasy and children’s stories. To varying degrees I would agree.
All righty then, how about aliens? The god of muslims/christians is clearly an alien. So their morality is grounded in an alien if not a fairy or Pink Unicorn.
Backing up a bit to a question Elwed asked me earlier…
The folks at EllisLab are being very tight lipped about what we can expect to see in EE 2.0, but word has it the system is being re-written from the ground up and that feature has been a long requested one so I would be surprised if it didn’t make it into 2.0.
I’ve not checked what the current set of hooks happens to be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you could come up with an extension to do it. The one part I’m not sure about is whether the hooks exist to put your extension’s link into the profile area in place of the current system’s link.
This is why this debate seems so damned silly to me.
I believe that moral codes are invented by man and argreed upon to the benefit of all.
Theists believe that moral codes are handed down by God, and agreed upon for the benefit of all.
The problem here, is that God doesn’t exist. He’s a construct, invented by man. Therefore moral codes are invented by man and agreed upon for the benefit of all.
Except (because God is invented by man) somewhere along the line, the theist version of the moral code is based on a lie.
To me, that means the only valid moral code is the one I ascribe to, because it’s not based on a lie.
Kind of an interesting take on the issue here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2162998/fr/flyout
elwedriddsche said:
KPatrickGlover said:
I was never trying to debate the relative value of theistic vs atheistic morals. We each have fairly strong conclusions that are at some point tied (unsurprisingly) to The Best Ethics Are The Ones I Believe In.
And I wasn’t pursing a rebuttal to Evangelist Bob to persuade a True Believer like him which is a bit like trying to convince the last 30% of President Bush’s approval rating that Bush is doing a poor job.
Rather, the discussion is worth having so that I have a response to EB and other TBs that the spectators might at least appreciate regardless of the reaction EB has. I don’t want to change white to black as much as I want the grey to listen.
Often the spectators only have the TBs to hear from since we atheists often hold to ourselves (in part out of self preservation), so there is little to lend credence to another POV. Further, spectators often aren’t really interested in the intellectual effort to work ethics out for themselves in too much detail, preferring to let social norms direct it for them. Drunk driving is an example where the majority ethics were driven as much by societal norms as anything else.
When we rant back that the TBs are idiots, we become indistinguishable from EB to most spectators. Having a clear and succinct answer to alternative bases for ethics other than theism is worthwhile. Complaining about the TBs to like minded atheists accomplishes little to create a better world. Leaving others to find alternatives to theistic ethics isn’t likely to happen for the majority of the population.
BTW, Ulfrekr, that article looks interesting.
RDN, we only disagree in our personal evaluation of the cost-benefit ratio of participation on religious forums or blogs.
If I really cared to articulate what passes as my moral philosophy, I’d do it on my own site and post links where appropriate. Rather than a thread like this, you may want to consider starting a topic in the SEB wiki and compile points and counterpoints.
As many people over the millennia have pointed out, the golden rule is a pretty workable cooperation builder. Adding theistic sticks and carrots to it may sometimes enhance its penetration in society, but doesn’t affect its intellectual basis one way or the other.
Hey, a zilch sighting!
Hasn’t he been hanging out in 7-11’s with Elvis and Bigfoot?
elwed- eine zilch besichtigung, aber keine zilch beschwichtigung…
dof- nah, just been spinning my wheels to little effect in that mythical realm outside cyberspace. It’s good to be back in the real world.
hmmm… a Zilch inspection, but no appeasment. My understanding of German is non-existent. But Google aint to shabby
Webs, here’s another one for you:
Lieber eine gesunde Verdorbenheit als eine verdorbene Gesundheit.
Good Ol’ Google Translate…
Zilch can the ‘corruption’ be also read as ‘perversion’?
Just another ‘Canada’ joke?
Well, it’s not to see you sir.
Atheism is amoral in that not thinking that something imaginary is real is a logical judgment rather than a moral one.
I wouldn’t say that atheists are amoral. Morality has its origin in empathy, an emotional reaction common among human animals regardless of what social clubs they belong to or what fantasies they believe. Only sociopaths (believed to make up less than 4% of the population) are devoid of this natural reaction.
Religion is an attempt to use a person’s natural moral leanings (which come from empathy, enlightened self-interest, and love) to control his or her behavior. I wrote a little article about the possible, natural origin of morality.
Where Morality Comes From, One Atheist’s Opinion