Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerfball
Atheists typically insist that they are as “moral” as anyone else and bristle at any suggestion that they lack “morality.” However, almost never is anyone really accusing atheists as a group of being objectively less “good” than Christians or Hindus.
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Sure, they're not *really* accusing atheists of being less moral. No, they're just heavily implying it.
Thing is, in order for Christians to feel smugly superior in their holy sanctimony -- and to propigate the value of believing in God -- it would stand as a matter of course that atheist morality is both inferior to and far less moral than Christian morality.
Because at the end of the day, that's really what these discussions are all about
: Christians trying to claim that their morality is objectively better because they have an objective law-giver. Of course, one glaring problem with that, one that few people think of, is that authoritarian law-givers, be they human or divine, are never just, fair, objective, impartial, compassionate, and certainly not, in any least way, loving.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerfball
The real issue is, what is the reference point – the standard – for an atheist’s supposed morality?
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And boom. Thanks for proving the point I made above.
"
... for an atheist's SUPPOSED morality," Nerfball? I mean, that's about as heavy handed an implication one can write without coming out and saying that atheists don't have morality at all.
Tsk tsk, it's all too easy when my opponent runs the ball in the wrong direction and scores a point for my team.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerfball
Almost always we find that the morality claimed by atheists is really derived from some religious moral code (the Ten Commandments, for example) or combination of moral codes the atheists have simply appropriated for themselves.
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No, sorry, but ... no.
The vast, vast, vast majority of the morality atheists possess cannot be found anywhere in the Bible, and I doubt you'll find our morality in any of the other holy books, either.
In fact, most of our morality exists in contravention of the Bible. The truly funny thing is -- so does yours.
I'm willing to bet almost anything that most of what you find moral diametrically opposes the religion you believe in -- because every atheist knows that to be truly moral one MUST disobey God.
And yet, the bottom line to your argument is that religion has claimed credit for what evolution has done, and continues to do, for billions of years. Religion is notorious for stealing concepts from both each other and from the natural world and duping people into believing that their belief system, their god, thought of it before everyone else -- even if their religion appeared on the scene some 4,000 after the Sumerian religion much less before even that.
Christianity trying to steal marriage is a wonderful case in point. As if no one ever got married before Yahweh strolled onto the stage without any warning and started laying down the law -- to the Hebrews. It's patently absurd if one gives it any thought, but that doesn't stop people from believing that religion holds all the keys to morality.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
“I don’t rape or murder,” an atheist may say. OK, fine, but what is the atheist’s standard for thinking that rape and murder are immoral?
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Because there are certain things that are universal across time, across cultures, across religions, across governments, and across civilizations -- and two of them are that no one wants to be raped or murdered. These two facets of our very powerful survival instinct has ensured that very few people actually commit either one irrespective of their religious beliefs -- or lack thereof.
If you truly need a God or a holy book of silly instructions to TELL you that murder and rape is wrong, then you're not really being moral. As I've said before, it means you're merely following orders. In order to be truly moral, one has to actually *think* about why something is wrong, understand the consequences, and believe that appropriate punishments should be meted out to those who break the societal contract.
Saying that murder and rape is wrong simply because God told you they were means that rape and murder are actually open for interpretation -- which is why it's so easy for Christians to claim that the Hebrews committing genocide against two dozen cities is perfectly okay. Why? Because God told them to do it.
Hence, if God told you right now to go forth and kill gays, would you still find murder to be immoral? Or would you gladly pick up your gun and go hunting?
If morality counts as being moral only because a law-giver says so, then there's no true morality because that which is moral and immoral can change faster than light speed -- and usually no explanation is needed. We see that all over the place in the Bible. After all, Abraham, for instance, never questioned God's demand for Isaac's death or asked why it was necessary. In that instance, murder was no longer immoral in the eyes of Abraham because God changed the moral code. Nor was it immoral to murder children and babies, the elderly and the disabled, when the Hebrews were ordered to slaughter the Canaanites or the Medianites (among many others) down to the last living thing.
If an atheist were to receive an order like that from some earthly authority, you can bet we'd be screaming about illegal orders. Oh, but that's different, you'll say. I'm talking about an "earthly" authority. Right? Nope, wrong. Because the thousands of soldiers who did the killing were not told by God to go forth and kill everyone ... an earthly authority, i.e. Joshua, I believe, relayed God's orders to his army.
But the soldiers themselves had no way of knowing whether God *really* gave those orders or if it was just Joshua going power-mad and issuing illegal and immoral orders. But, did they question the orders? Apparently not since they all went and happily skewered, impaled, eviscerated, disembowled, dismembered, beheaded, butchered, slaughtered, and exanguinated little girls and boys, babies, infants, toddlers ... pregnant woman (what was that about abortion being wrong?!?), old men and women ... and you get the idea.
WHERE was their objective, absolute standard of morality then?
Because today, given the absurd and insane political climate in this country, it wouldn't take much AT ALL for large segments of Christianity to believe someone (like Trump, for instance) who said, "God said to march in force against every bastion of liberalism, homosexuality, and progressivism we can find -- and leave NO ONE left alive!"
Would a lot of Christians do it, believing their orders regarding morality has changed? Murder is no longer immoral? You're damn straight they would.
Which is why religious morality is a truly awful place to receive one's notions of right and wrong -- it certainly hasn't helped the Muslims much, has it. Look how many of them have decided that murder isn't immoral as long as you're murdering the right people, the ones GOD wants dead. Christians would do the same thing if properly led.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
Not raping or murdering may be a rational decision. You won’t have to hide from the police or face life in prison if you don’t rape or murder.
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If you're already even THINKING about murdering -- and especially raping -- someone, you've already crossed the line.
The reason why I say "especially" raping is that anyone can be driven to murder given the right catalysts and stimuli -- but rape almost never carries a goal other than feeling good about your own power. So, if you're thinking of raping someone, you better get your ass to a shrink ASAP ...
And you have to think about doing those things before you reach the conclusion that, meh, maybe I shouldn't because of what the police might do.
Sorry, but Christians aren't any better than atheists in regards to the secret fantasies some people have in their heads. Neither your Bible or your God grants you immunity to those thoughts of murdering your boss, perhaps, or raping your wife's hottie best friend.
The way you make it sound as if atheists only worry about the consequences to themselves and that's what stops us -- while Christians have some loftier, more enlightened and spiritual reason not to murder and rape. Except they don't. If they're not stopped by empathy in the same way atheists are, then as I said, they're merely following orders and not being a moral agent.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
But this has nothing to do with morality. The law prohibits and punishes rape and murder, but the law prohibits and punishes lots of things that no one considers immoral. Whether something is illegal, even criminal, is a different matter from whether it’s immoral.
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This is one big strawman argument since I doubt any atheist has citied "fear of the police" as the moral reason why they stopped themselves from committing an immoral act.
As we've said countless times, atheists believe we are accountable to each other, meaning that the wrongs we inflict upon others should be apologized for and granted forgiveness directly from the person we've wronged. We don't insert a middleman like Jesus to carry the burden of our sins -- so we can therefore ignore the person we've wronged because it's Jesus' judgment we should fear, not the victim of our transgressions.
Hell, my own father is a great example of that. Despite utterly destroying my childhood, he never once, to this day, actually apologized for it, tried to make amends, or ever EVER asked for my forgiveness. Oh, but he went to an altar call one Sunday and unloaded all of his pent up guilt he'd been carrying around with him all of his life. Yeah, he made damn sure God and Jesus forgave him -- and once he was satisfied they did, the guilt disappeared -- without having ever said one word to me about it, never once looking me in the eyes (or anywhere else, for that matter) and even murmuring an "I'm sorry" for lousing up the first 18 years of my life.
Bottom line, he didn't have to. He didn't have to risk facing me, didn't have to worry about whether I would forgive him and hug him ... or smack him in the head and tell him to get lost. He took the easy way out ... the safe way out by unloading his guilt on a fictitious deity who automatically forgives no matter how heinous the crime.
And that's what Christian morality and doctrine does. It relieves people of our accountability to each other and makes us ONLY accountable to God. So we simply ignore each other and cast our eyes skyward looking for forgiveness and absolution there ... instead of from within the person next to you. In many respects, this aspect of Christianity is woefully dehumanizing.
No matter how often we keep saying this -- Christians *still* keep asking the same question as if expecting that our answer will change for some unknown reason.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
“Everyone just knows rape and murder are immoral,” the atheist may respond. But this begs the question. How and why does everyone know this?
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Because, as I said earlier, no one wants to be murdered or raped. If we apply empathy to that understanding, then we become aware that murdering and raping someone else is as wrong as if it had happened to us.
Which is why atheist morality has ourselves being accountable to each other -- not to some god. Atheist morality forces us to deal directly with the people we've wronged, should we wish to get rid of the guilt we carry around for our actions. We don't get to avoid those we've wronged by kneeling next to our bedsides and blathering platitudes and apologies to the ceiling, the air, the walls, and perhaps your dog watching you quizzically -- and expecting automatic forgiveness.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
A Christian has an easy answer: Our reference point is God, who has revealed himself in the Bible and the person of Jesus.
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If we atheists thought the Bible revealed anything other than the mystical ignorance of Bronze Age nomads, well, we wouldn't be atheists. Never mind that the number one cited reason for former Christians becoming atheistic is reading the Bible.
We know your reference point is God -- but therein lies the problem. God is an authoritarian. He does what he wants for himself and doesn't give a fig about anything we humans may want. As such, there is no discussion, no debate, no discourse between God and Man. It is merely, "Do this, do that, because I said so." And the human, whoever it may be, scurries off and does God's bidding.
So are you *really* being moral when your morality is told to you by an authority figure -- and then you do as you're told?
As asked previously -- if God ordered you to do something you know is immoral, would you do it? (And don't tell me, either, that God would never order such a thing considering the Bible is filled with God issuing such immoral orders).
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
God determines our morality.
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My point exactly. You are TOLD by God (or, actually, members of an ancient cult are telling you) what is moral and what isn't. You haven't reasoned it for yourself nor is your morality necessarily based on empathic caring for other human beings. Which is why, I suppose, so many Christians in this country are rather apathetic toward the plight of the downtrodden and some even literally go out of their way to make the lives of the downtrodden even more miserable than they already are. All in the name of God, of course.
YOU don't know WHY something is immoral -- and usually if asked, you, and other Christians like you, will simply respond with, "Because God said it's wrong." Yet again, when your morality comes from an authoritarian who hands you a moral code, not only do you not have to use your brain OR your heart to determine what is right and wrong, your orders are also subject to change.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
Moreover, we believe (as Romans 2:14-15 teaches) that the basic laws of God are written on the hearts of even nonbelievers (“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them”).
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Except it's not.
Atheist morality is often quite a bit different from Christian morality -- ESPECIALLY here in America. If your God's morality was written on our hearts, as you say, then our moral system would be identical.
All one has to do is look at the treatment of homosexuals and whammo, most atheists and many Christians instantly diverge from a parallel moral system. If God infused us with a Christian morality, well, we would ALL hate the gay person -- especially gay men because of, you know ... butt sex -- because we would all be running around shouting verses from Deuteronomy.
But we're not.
Because your morality and our morality come from two entirely different places. Your book gives you a predefined list of immoral acts, homosexuality being one of them, so you are bound by orders to attack gays no matter what you may personally feel.
Atheists, many of whom tend to lean toward the liberal aspects of civics, often support the rights of gays and the LGBT community at large. Why? Well, for one thing, we don't give a damn what the Bible says. For another, we believe in everyone having the freedom to choose their own path in life without undue hindrances from people who don't like the path they've chosen. And finally, banning gay marriage was the biggest over-reach of religion since putting prayer in public schools.
The gay issue is just one example of how our moral compasses often conflict. Oh, I know it's so very easy to claim our morality is wrong because you have the Bible on your side. Then again, it's oh so easy to debunk the Bible as being nothing but a collection of fairy stories from ancient desert tribesmen. Which is to say -- the Bible has no power over us. In fact, you can't even adequately explain why being gay is immoral aside from God merely telling you it is.
Which, of course, brings us, once again, back around to why basing your moral code on authoritarian orders handed to you by an authority figure is a lousy foundation for doing good in this world.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
(A popular questi1on is whether something is moral only because God prohibits it. If God had said “Thou shalt rape,” would rape then be moral? The point that is missed by those who play this game is that God is perfect goodness – there is no morality apart from God, but the God whose very nature is perfect goodness would never have said “Thou shalt rape.”)
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Well, this part is patently absurd -- as if you've never read the Bible.
God, in several places, ordered the Hebrews to wipe out this or that city *yawn*. Those people commit genocide so often that it's about as shocking as a television commercial for medication. However, a number of times, God allowed the Hebrews to literally take virgin girls as war booty and marry them.
THAT IS RAPE, and God said it was perfectly okay. How many of those virgin girls wanted to MARRY their attackers, much less have sex with them? The Hebrews, after all, were the very people who slaughtered their parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends right in front of them. So to tell me that God would never say "Thou shalt rape," well ... he did. More than once.
Besides, the Hebrews made for themselves a brilliant way to obtain any woman they want regardless of the woman's feelings on the matter. If you want a woman and she spurns your advances? Just rape her. Then, guess what! You get to MARRY her, and she has absolutely no say in the matter. Which means she gets to be raped night after night for the rest of her life.
How's THAT for God's morality? Man, you used a baaaaad example using rape.
In fact, all you're doing with your statement is absolving God of any immoral act -- which means there can be no objective morality and forcing a woman to marry her rapist is just, good, and loving. Because, you know, God is the source of morality and all that.
Except I think you know in your so-called "heart of hearts" that God's law was vicious, malicious, and just plain mean-spirited and immoral. The problem is that you've been conditioned to be unable to either question or criticize God's actions. Which, of course, leaves you in the unenviable quandary of having to defend the indefensible, to justify and rationalize actions you KNOW are both wrong and immoral.
We atheists have had to ignore the Bible to find what is truly good and evil, right and wrong. Because SO many examples of so-called morality in the Bible are nothing of the sort. They are wholly and completely evil -- even by YOUR standards of morality. After all, you're not running around advocating that women today should be forced to marry their rapists -- or witches should be put to death (whatever a witch is, who knows?) -- or non-virgin brides should be stoned to death on their wedding night -- or that rebellious children should also be stoned to death -- and on ... and on ... and on.
I know you're going to say that Jesus came to release everyone from those awful, barbaric OT laws. But then again, there are quotes from Jesus that claim just the opposite -- that he is there to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. That every jot and quibble must be obeyed and those that do not will be considered among the least in Heaven.
So which is it?
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
Christian apologists like Dr. Frank Turek accuse atheists of “stealing from God” because they say you can’t have a genuine moral code without a higher external standard – like God. You can have a personal opinion or a group consensus or even a law, but you won’t have morality.
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Christian apologists are mostly idiots -- and I would accuse Dr. Frank Turek and his ilk of "stealing from evolution" considering our morality has evolved just like living organisms do. As I said previously, religion has made an artform of claiming credit for things it had nothing to do with -- and Dr. Turek just proved my point. Thanks, Doctor!
Oh, and if you want to know why I think Christian apologists are mostly idiots, it's because of stupid beliefs like this one:
He argues in Correct, Not Politically Correct
that marriage lengthens lifespans of men and women, civilizes men, protects women, protects mothers, lowers welfare costs
All of which he would be denying to gay couples -- which is like shooting oneself in the foot. Sure, let's list the benefits of marriage as an argument as to why gays shouldn't get married. And that makes sense... how, exactly?
and encourages a replacement birth rate
So what? It's as if he thinks that if we ban gay marriage, all the gays in the country will magically become straight and enter into a traditional heterosexual marriage. Whether we allow them to marry or not, they will all still be gay and they will continue having gay relationships, making the birth rate utterly irrelevant.
and he argues that same-sex marriage does none of these.
And again, so what? There is no "reason requirement" to get married. There certainly isn't for heterosexuals so why should there be one for homosexuals? It's not as if the government requires you to have the "right reasons" to get married. "Oh, we're getting married to lower welfare costs and to help replace dead people with our babies!" *vomit noise* It's an absurd argument.
Anyhow, just thought I'd throw that out there to show you why I'd rather take the word of P.T. Barnum than any Christian apologist. I know your post isn't about gays nor am I accusing you personally of being anti-gay. I have no idea what your stance on that issue is ... but I brought it up because it is such a clear-cut example of many aspects of Christian morality that I absolutely abhor.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
I used to try to understand the atheist position by thinking that perhaps evolution rather than God might have written a basic moral code in the hearts of humans. Evolution would serve as the higher external standard, if you will. But this doesn’t work for lots of reasons, as even atheist spokesmen like Richard Dawkins recognize.
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Actually, evolution is the ONLY way morality could have come into being. It certainly wasn't magic, like you seem to believe.
As much as Dawkins might be respected by some atheists, he's not the end-all of atheist opinion, and evolution does, in fact, work just fine. There are far more proponents than detractors.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
According to Dawkins, we are “survival machines created by our selfish genes,” whose only objective is survival. The goal of evolution isn’t truth or morality.
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Well, let's say that Dawkins is right and that we are "survival machines created by our selfish genes" whose only objective is survival. So ... how long do you think we'd survive if we didn't proclaim murder as being wrong? Hmm? The rest of the evolution of morality can be traced downward from that -- we want to survive so we proclaim murder as wrong. We want to keep our stuff so we proclaim stealing is wrong. And on, and on.
Because humans are gregarious and because we live in very large societies and civilizations, we had to develop an innate sense of "right and wrong" that would allow us to live together in relative peace. We've been doing this for so long now that we intuitively understand what is moral and what isn't because we understand the need for acceptance, approval, and a sense of belonging. To completely eschew morality by murdering and raping and stealing, etc., would not only wrack most people with a profound sense of guilt, they would also find themselves ostracized from society. Which, of course, is part of our survival instinct. The need for belonging to a larger whole is, if memory serves, on the third tier of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Evolution doesn't have goals -- something Darwin knows all too well. I don't always trust Dawkins because I sometimes think he walks a fine line between his atheism and succumbing to certain creationist tomfoolery. This is an example of what I mean ... because as I just showed, even if he's right, and I'm not saying he is, evolution can STILL account for our morality.
However, I don't believe our moral evolution was completely about mere survival as Dawkins seems to think. We are thinking, feeling, empathic beings -- aspects of humanity that Dawkins simply ignored. Our sentience is, perhaps, the most important variable regarding our evolution and yet Dawkins simply left it out. As I said, I don't rely on him at all to be the spokesperson of atheistic thought. And neither should you.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
It’s an unsolved puzzle as to how consciousness could arise in a survival machine in a purely materialistic universe. It’s an equally unsolved puzzle as to how a process whose only goal is survival would or could have produced minds capable of discerning truth or morality.
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Seems to me that I just solved your unsolved puzzle.
Even if we were to assume that we are merely "survival machines," there's no reason why it cannot be said that evolving a moral code is an instrument of survival in and of itself.
In fact, morality itself continuously evolves -- which is why it's much better to live in today's world than it would've been to live in the Medieval Age. In the latter age, life was cheap and practically valueless; the masses lived in grinding poverty, always on the verge of starvation, and in lifelong servitude to a feudal lord whose land you must work for free. There were no protections against cruel and unusual punishments and torture was routinely employed. Worse still, the Church ran the show, meaning criticizing or contradicting religion was a crime -- sometimes a capital crime for which you could be executed.
There was no freedom, no democracy, no middle class, no science and technology, no advancement of the human condition, and if you knew history -- and perhaps you do -- you would see the moral evolution over the last 2,000 years always getting better and better.
The irony of that improvement is, in order for it to happen, we had to STOP getting our morals and values from the Bible and we had to START actually thinking about right and wrong based on empathy, NOT based on orders handed to us from on high with no explanation for their existence.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
If a process whose only goal is survival could have generated a code of conduct and hardwired it into humans, would it look anything like the Ten Commandments? Would it look anything like the morality that most atheists claim for themselves?
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Our morality DOESN'T look like the 10 Commandments -- and nor should it. Our morality says that commandments one through four are null and void because we believe in freedom of religion. Since the first four commandments are purely Christian in nature, it would actually be immoral to foist them upon believers in other faiths and non-believers alike.
Coveting is the hallmark of capitalism, so our morality certainly doesn't take the last commandment at all seriously, and there are no laws regarding adultery and honoring your parents -- those are personal choices. In so much as adultery goes, I don't even think many Christians care about that anymore considering the evangelical and fundamentalist world adores an adulterer, womanizer, and misogynist as if he were Christ himself. I think we know who I'm talking about.
And yes, I think evolved morality would look exactly like the morality we atheists possess (we don't "claim" it as if it's a plot of land just sitting there to take). It would look exactly like it because, well, our morality did evolve and these are the morals we have. How could it look any different?
The only reason why Christian morality is often different from our own is because you've been tainted by an ancient book written by barbarians whose morality was despicable even on the best of days.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
I think it’s pretty clear that moral codes, both religious ones and the ones that atheists claim for themselves, are aimed at controlling and restraining the selfish, survival-driven human traits that atheists believe evolution has produced (and that Christians believe sin has produced). Most moral codes don’t come close to fitting into any model of the “survival of the fittest.”
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First of all, evolution isn't about "the survival of the fittest." That's social Darwinism, not natural evolution.
Secondly, I disagree that morality is designed to control and restrain. That's more a Christian angle than an atheist one because it is religion that has always sought to control, restrain, ban, censor, and micromanage the lives of the people -- hence, again, the gay marriage issue.
Atheists who, as I've said, tend to lean far more liberal than many Christians, and OUR goal is to allow as much freedom of choice as possible. Naturally, we don't wish to give people the choice and freedom to do harm to others, but if you're going to clamp down on something, you better have a damn good reason. The Bible is not a damn good reason.
I will agree to a very lesser extent that some morality does require control and restraint for it to be effective, but those moral paradigms usually involve things like murder and rape -- actions that most people wouldn't commit anyway.
Strangely, it's always the Christians who claim that, without God, they would have no reason to behave themselves -- so hey, why NOT go out and murder, rape, steal, and all the rest of it?
It's as if they have no concept of empathy -- only their orders matter, and if the being issuing those orders were to disappear, these Christians would act like malfunctioning androids whose command ship was just destroyed. Apparently they have no minds of their own to reason through the complexities of morality and instead would just go batshyte crazy and ignore morality altogether.
So what does THAT say about Christian morality? After all, we atheists already don't believe in God and yet WE aren't running around commiting moral atrocities. Why can't Christians do the same -- should there be no God?
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
The notion of an evolutionary moral code is an oxymoron. “Thou shalt not rape” would mean nothing more than “Survival will be enhanced if you don’t rape.”
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How is that any worse than "I shall not rape" because I've been ordered not to -- but if I'm ever ordered to rape, well, I guess I'll take my own pick of the virgin women and bed her whether she likes it or not. Because I have permission from the law-giver.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
It’s not at all clear that most of the behaviors that we commonly regard as immoral would adversely affect survival.
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Some people on both sides of the religious divide have a tendency to want to ban or eliminate those things we simply do not like. Those things that do not adversely affect survival or the betterment of the human condition are neither moral or immoral. Unfortunately, if enough people dislike something, they can simply dub it as "immoral" behavior and do their best to ban it. This tactic is most often used by religion than by atheists, and it's still being used even as we speak. MOST of the laws in the Bible are religious laws and nothing more. They actually have no purpose to exist aside from the fact that God, apparently, doesn't like it.
For instance, laws about crossdressing. Now, why the hell would the Almighty Creator of the Universe give a damn about whether someone is crossdressing or not? Yet there it is, in the Bible -- Deuteronomy 22:5.
Not only does God pitch a fit over crossdressing and transvestism, he actually calls those who do it an "abomination" for crying out loud. (Much of my loss of respect for Christianity has to do with that religion's irrational obsession over genitalia, sex, and gender. From its bizarre fascination with foreskins to people flying into persecution mode at the thought of gays and transgendered people ... why do I need to fuss about with a religion like that? How is crossdressing immoral, exactly? Yeah, it's not, and it certainly has nothing to do with survival which is why most atheists aren't concerned about it. However, crossdressing IS something that can make certain people uncomfortable -- thus it was dubbed immoral for no other reason than to maintain some folk's comfort zones -- and it even found its way into the Bible. Yet if a true god-being existed, I don't believe for a nanosecond that it would care one iota about who is wearing skirts and pants.)
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
The elimination of the elderly and the physically and mentally infirm, which most people would regard as immoral, would seemingly fit nicely in a purely survival-driven moral code.
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The elimination of the eldery and disabled is SOCIAL Darwinism, as I stated earlier. Naturalistic evolution is not about the "survival of the fittest" otherwise there would only be one species left on the entire planet.
Oh, and strangely enough, the elimination of the eldery and disabled has always been the purvue of Christians. Well, perhaps not the open and direct elimination of those people -- but they seem to enjoy endorsing policies that will *ahem* speed up the death process, if you know what I mean. They have been against Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, SSI, Disability, and every single welfare program since the day they were conceived.
I have said this a thousand times -- that the Bible Belt states SHOULD be a beacon of hope, love, and charity for those who are eldery, sick, and disabled. Instead, it's just the opposite. They hate anyone who isn't productive -- essentially, by Bible Belt standards, we have been reduced to machines. And what do you do with a machine that no longer works and can't be fixed? Do you continue to oil it, maintain it, polish it, and keep it out of the weather? Of course not. You chuck it out with the garbage. And that's what they've done to us (I say "us" because I'm disabled myself) south of the Mason-Dixon.
So just WHERE is this vaunted Christian morality? Why did I have to move from North Carolina, a Bible Belt state, to Pennsylvania, a far more secular, liberal, and, dare I say it? A state with values more akin to atheists than Christians -- for me to finally get both Medicaid and the treatment I needed?
In North Carolina, they threw me to the wolves. Which isn't to say that there weren't individuals there who tried to help, but their hands were tied by the policies in place so they couldn't offer very much at all.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
Dawkins is at least honest in this respect. In a debate with a computer scientist who is also an evolutionist, the following exchange took place:
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LOL! I just find it interesting how suddenly you're quoting Dawkins when you think he's offering a point you agree with -- but everything else he says about God? Yeah, I bet you wouldn't be so eager to quote him then ... except to try and refute his arguments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerfball
Jaron Lanier: “There’s a large group of people who simply are uncomfortable with accepting evolution because it leads to what they perceive as a moral vacuum, in which their best impulses have no basis in nature.”
Richard Dawkins: “All I can say is, ‘That’s just tough. We have to face up to the truth.’” |
But IS it the truth? How can you prove it? The only reason why so your so eager to embrace Dawkins is because you think this proves morality had to come from a god.
Yet, as with evolution itself does not prove the existence of any gods -- much less that they're "writing morality on our hearts" as you claim.
In fact, if your claim was true, why then has morality had to evolve over the course of thousands of years? Seems to me that if God wrote morality on our hearts, it would be the same morality from beginning to end. Unless, of course, God writes things on our hearts, watches for awhile, says "Oops!" then takes out his divine eraser and erases what he wrote and then writes something different.
And why then is morality so different across various religions and cultures? For that matter, morality can be markedly different between denominations of the same religion! In that sense, God seems to be performing some kind of "free thought" or "trance" writing on our hearts and it comes out as gibberish.
In fact, whenever a civilization's dominant religion is allowed to call the shots and determine morality, one always -- *always* -- ends up with an oppressive, intolerant, xenophobic, paranoid, war-mongering authoritarian state that hates everyone who isn't bowing down to their god. Like, say, ISIS or the Taliban. Those groups are where Christianity was roughly 200 years ago with Protestants and Catholics murdering each other all across Europe -- like the Shi'as and Sunnis of Islam today.
In order to have a democratic, egalitarian, tolerant, peaceful, and welcoming civilization, it has always been necessary to, I guess, ignore the scribblings on our hearts and go a different direction.
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Originally Posted by Nerfball
Dawkins argues for a kinder and gentler world in which the best human instincts predominate, but he can’t tell you why we have those instincts or why a purely survival-driven process would allow us to switch it off so they can predominate.
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Dawkins must not be giving the matter much thought because I can explain it. I just can't do it adequately without making this post longer than it already is. Yes, a kinder and gentler world would be better, but we are often programmed to be just the opposite. Our innate desire for peace, love, and kindness can be overwritten like an old cassette tape by enculturation, brainwashing, indoctrination, and bad education. Which is essentially what has happened.
A major, perhaps the lion's share, of the problem revolves around greed, materialism, and the profit motive -- which could get too political for this particular forum. But I will say that we have been programmed to believe that greed is a virtue, that avarice is necessary for survival, and that our inherent worth as human beings is measured by the quality and quantity of our possessions.
I won't go any further on this point, but I'm sure you can figure out where I'm going with my thoughts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerfball
I find a world in which right and wrong are purely matters of personal opinion, power-group consensus or legislation to be a frightening thought.
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Now, I'm quite certain you weren't born yesterday -- so I can't quite figure out why it is that you don't seem to know that it has *always* been that way. It's that way now. It'll be that way for a very long time unless we somehow manage to change our core values.
Even your own religion attempts to push their version of morality as a "power group consensus" -- Christianity has always used indoctrination and military force to push its agenda -- just as Islam is doing now. Religious morality isn't any different than consensus, legislation, or personal opinion.
After all, it's only your personal opinion that God even exists much less that he enscribed morality on our hearts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerfball
But it seems to me that this is the world that honest atheists are stuck with. They simply have no legitimate claim to an “atheist morality.”
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Actually, what I should have said from the beginning is that atheists have never claimed that an "atheist morality" even exists. While it is true that our morality quite often differs from yours, there are many Chistians who see atheists as more moral than, say, evangelicals and fundamentalists. Does that mean those Christians have an "atheist morality?"
Because there is just ... morality. Period.
However, should I even take the bait, I would say that you have absolutely NO right to judge whether we have the right to claim our own morality or not. It is the height of hubris to decide for someone else what their moral code is -- and where it came from.
Because you don't know. Sure, you can throw around truckloads of speculation and personal opinion, as you've done plenty of in your post. But at the end of the day, we could be right and you could be wrong, but no one will ever know.
The evidence, however, is on our side.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerfball
Christians and other believers are, of course, capable of perverting or misapplying their moral codes. But the point I'm making here is that believers can legitimately claim to be following (or at least attempting to follow) a moral code while an atheist can't.
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Which means nothing -- except that what you're really saying is that Christians blindly follow orders while atheists piece it together themselves ... which might sometimes result in atheists having different opinions on what is moral.
So what? That doesn't invalidate our moral beliefs. One does not need marching orders from a god that you can't even show exists in order to have a moral code. And I can almost guarantee you that neither your code or mine comes from your religion. If it did, you'd probably be in prison right now after being arrested for attempting to stone to death someone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerfball
Atheist "morality" is always going to be subject to shifts in societal norms or the dictates of whichever group happens to be in power, which is really no morality at all.
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*sigh*
Please ... go read some history books. Do something to educate yourself about the history of Christendom.
Because if you had any inkling, you'd realize just how nonsensical that last statement of yours really is.
I'd argue that merely following orders is no morality at all. In fact, I've already argued it. And your morality is just as subject to change as you think ours is.
And if you understood history, you would see how even Christian morality has changed substantially over the years -- and for the same exact reasons why any atheist might change his/her own moral beliefs.
Your morality is not any better than ours -- you just want to think it is so that you have some desperate toe-hold on why there's any value in believing in an old Bronze Age war god of the Hebrews.
Our morality is what it is today not because of Christianity but in spite of it. If we had followed God's version of morality, we'd be living in a nation that would look in every conceivable way just like Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and all the rest of those theocratic nations whose morality is questionable at best, downright evil at their worst.
Religious morality has NEVER spawned a good, just, and peaceful civilization. Ever. Not in all of recorded history has that happened. One has to wonder why ...
In any event, there's just no more room for yet another history lesson. All I will say in conclusion is that, if you had been born 400 years ago, your supposedly prodigious Christian morality would be unrecognizable from what it is today. Why? Because Christian morality is just as susceptible to power consensus, personal opinion, and which pope, bishop, priest, or pastor happens to be in power. Whatever your local church pastor said .... went ... no matter how moral or immoral you thought it was.
It just galls me that people can be so lackadaisical when it comes to the facts of history -- as if the past never existed -- just to ram home that square peg into that round hole.
(And I don't want to hear any shyte from ANYONE about long posts. It takes a hell of a lot more effort to refute proclamations than it does to make them, and I like to be thorough ... and not make half-assed arguments. So I have to write a lot. For those who read this all the way through -- you have my thanks and my admiration. Especially in a country where frozen food cooking directions are considered too long to read by far too many people.)
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