Atheism and Morality

[Hokomai]

harding;9667774]

Not even close to true. Please see the Wikipedia list of wars between democracies: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_between_democracies

This article seems to consider revolutionary USA and England/Britain at the time to be democracies. I do not. I am talking about countries with stable forms of universal adult franchise and appropriate protections against corruption, including an independent judiciary, and the absence of theocratic influence.

I suspect we discuss sex more than war because each of us can choose to have sex, but only governments can choose to make war.

You gotta work on this idea of democracy!

 

[AdamP88]

There are lots of atheists and lots of different views. I don’t have any trouble in a morality based on ‘what is good for people’ and democracy and freedom as a process, long-term, or working that out. I note that while countries espousing a specific religion have often warred with one another, this has never happened between democracies. While religious people argue the morality of oral sex, non-religious people, seem to get on and do things about war. I am pretty sure I could find more posts on CAF about masturbation than about the morality of war. if that is the difference beteen objective and subjective morality, I think I’ll take subjective.

I would contend that religion has never, in the history of mankind, been directly responsible for any conflict. If you read into any war in history, there is generally a dispute over land or some other material wealth at the heart. Religion is often just another difference which the two sides have over each other.

I find arguments that are made about the horrific acts committed by religious believers in the past merely lack a basic understanding of history and historical context.

 

[lerapt78]

There are lots of atheists and lots of different views. I don’t have any trouble in a morality based on ‘what is good for people’ and democracy and freedom as a process, long-term, or working that out. I note that while countries espousing a specific religion have often warred with one another, this has never happened between democracies. While religious people argue the morality of oral sex, non-religious people, seem to get on and do things about war. I am pretty sure I could find more posts on CAF about masturbation than about the morality of war. if that is the difference beteen objective and subjective morality, I think I’ll take subjective.

Eh? To which countries are you referring?

 

[Hokomai]

Eh? To which countries are you referring?

Good examples of wars between countries espousing a particular religion include the European wars of religion in the 1600s and 1700s, the Anglo-Irish conflict in its various forms, the war of the Catholic puppet Nazi states of Slovakia and Croatia against their neighbours in world war two, and probably the India-Pakistan war. The speifically Catholic nature of the Spanish wars against the kingdoms and empires of Mexico, central and south America, which were themselves religious could be included also. The comment about democracies applies to any full democracies.

 

[mab23]

creation.com/atheism#atheism-and-ethics

A GREAT SOURCE on Athiesm and their nonsensical arguments

grab some some coffee, and a snack before you click this link - you may be on that page for a while

 

[Hokomai]

creation.com/atheism#atheism-and-ethics

A GREAT SOURCE on Athiesm and their nonsensical arguments

grab some some coffee, and a snack before you click this link - you may be on that page for a while

Is it really necessary for you to characterise others’ opinions in this way?

 

[harding]

Is it really necessary for you to characterise others’ opinions [as “nonsensical”?]

I agree mab23 should avoid publishing personal judgments, but you’ve made them too:

…] the Catholic position ‘unravels as it weaves’ …]

I confronted you then:

I find polite discussion benefits when everyone keeps their personal judgments to themselves.

And you replied:

…] what you are responding to here is me explaining the conclusion I have come to, after explaining the basis on which I have come to it.

It seems to me that mab23 has explained the conclusion he came to after explaining the basis on which he came to it by posting a link to an in-depth article.

I prefer we all keep our personal judgments to ourselves, but if you’re going to grant yourself an exception, perhaps you should grant others the same exception.

-Dave

 

[Regular_Atheist]

An atheist doesn’t get their morality from their disbelief in a god. It’s just their own opinion on things. It’s also not true that a belief in a god gives you morality. Take deists or pantheists, for example. You actually get your morality from the dogma that comes with your religion, not your belief in God.

 

[Bill_Martin]

There’s also a common view among many Christians that anything is morally acceptable because God loves us. It uses “We shouldn’t judge” as a reason for accepting all kinds of incredibly immoral behavior as perfectly okay and never condemning any action as morally wrong. It’s as equally false, but probably more prevalent.

 

[Hokomai]

I agree mab23 should avoid publishing personal judgments, but you’ve made them too. It seems to me that mab23 has explained the conclusion he came to after explaining the basis on which he came to it by posting a link to an in-depth article.

Dave

I appreciate your viewpoint Dave, but there is a difference between me quoting T.S. Elliot, and someone characterising atheists’ (in general) opinions (all of them) as ‘nonsensical’.

 

[AdamP88]

The question I was getting at in my original post is basically where do Atheists get their moral codes from. It seems to me that most atheists morals are a mixture of personal opinion and Judeo-Christian Morality.

Most people will say Murder is wrong. However an atheist may accept this and go on to say - but not in the event that a person is very sick or disabled. Or in the case of abortion, because the right to choose trumps the childs right to life.

Why? Where is the moral basis for this reasoning? Or for any morality in atheism.

 

[ANewWorld]

You’re right, morality (in a loose sense of the word) is not black and white to everyone. Fortunately, those of us with faith have a lot of the “gray area” cleared up for us.

What’s interesting is that Sam Harris’ objective morality is really only objective to him, ie: in his opinion, and therefore it is not truly objective at all.

I did not intend to imply that moral questions are necessarily a “gray area,” nor do I infer that from what Sam Harris says. My assertion is on the ontological basis of morality; i.e. it is not a binary choice as whether it’s either God or it’s relativistic nihilism. While you may choose to disagree with Harris’s position, it is his premise that you’re labeling subjective. Based that premise, he does not then spell out a relativistic, biased, or subjective view of moral actions. He says there are objectively immoral actions regardless of one’s personal opinion, which is exactly what the Catholic Church also asserts.

Now, the premise in Divine Command Theory is that the word of God is the truth. But, one cannot hold the view that this premise is any less subjective than Harris’s. Faith, being a central tenet of Catholicism, is intrinsically subjective.

One can feel free to disagree with either of these premises, but the original post here was that atheism cannot have objective moral truths not subject to human bias. A moral relativist would apologize for atrocities committed in the context of a tribal religion, for example, Harris would not.

 

[lerapt78]

Good examples of wars between countries espousing a particular religion include the European wars of religion in the 1600s and 1700s, the Anglo-Irish conflict in its various forms, the war of the Catholic puppet Nazi states of Slovakia and Croatia against their neighbours in world war two, and probably the India-Pakistan war. The speifically Catholic nature of the Spanish wars against the kingdoms and empires of Mexico, central and south America, which were themselves religious could be included also. The comment about democracies applies to any full democracies.

Thank you for expounding upon your statement. I asked for clarification because it is a popular claim made by many anti-religious (not necessarily specifying you in particular) that religion is the cause of war. While you did not state this directly, this seems to be the implication (and please correct me if I’m wrong). The idea that the espousal of a particular religion is an underlying cause of war is in my opinion not true, although it is possible to see religious conviction as one component belonging to people who, for various reasons, decide to engage in war.

In my opinion, war is almost always caused for the following reasons:

1. Greed: Monetary greed, greed for resources, greed for land
2. Political Control: Control of population, control of a productive workforce (which will directly lead to the filling of financial coffers)
3. The establishment of a new ruling class who will in turn make laws and policies that will benefit the original aggressors
4. Self-Protection: Against foreign invaders (who usually attempt to take over a province and population for the reasons mentioned in #1.

Faith will sometimes provide a *justification *for war, but it is rarely the cause of it.
In the examples you provided, religion was not the cause of conflict, though it often became a burning issue once the conflict had already begun. The Anglo-Irish wars for example, were more about the right of a distinct people (the Irish) to self-governance (much like the Revolutionary War). If by Spanish wars against Mexico you were referring to the colonialization period in its entirety, again, this was caused by greed for wealth (gold which was constantly shipped back to Spain) and land; the conversion of the pagans was simply a byproduct of the conflicts, and it was the Catholic Church who deliberately mandated that the natives be treated with dignity. (Also note that the specifically NON-Catholic tribes of native Americans had been warring with each other long before the Europeans came along, so conflict was never a new development in that region – there is nothing specifically “Catholic” about war). With regards to the Slovak government and Croatia. . . I would have to understand first what your opposition is before I could comment on it, as I hold a different view than probably most other people regarding WWII. But even with regards to the war, I posit that the conflict had to do with nationalism and self-defense on the part of the Nazi Party, rather than religion. I don’t know nearly enough to comment on the India-Pakistan war.

A democracy is simply a form of government that can be adopted by both the religious and non-religious alike – it does not replace religion, and therefore I don’t find it necessary to separate the two. I would have to understand what you mean about “full” democracies. Do you mean a democratic government under which the majority of constituents hold no religious inclination whatsoever? Or a democratic governmental system in which citizens can only democratically vote for representatives, who in turn can decide themselves upon policy? I guess I need a specific example of what you mean by a full or “pure” democracy. I’ll also add that I don’t believe the system of democracy to be an intrinsic deterrent to war.

 

[lerapt78]

I did not intend to imply that moral questions are necessarily a “gray area,” nor do I infer that from what Sam Harris says. My assertion is on the ontological basis of morality; i.e. it is not a binary choice as whether it’s either God or it’s relativistic nihilism. While you may choose to disagree with Harris’s position, it is his premise that you’re labeling subjective. Based that premise, he does not then spell out a relativistic, biased, or subjective view of moral actions. He says there are objectively immoral actions regardless of one’s personal opinion, which is exactly what the Catholic Church also asserts.

I could not disagree with Sam Harris’s position on objective morality because he did not explain how his premise was objective. If there are objectively immoral actions regardless of one’s opinion, he would need to supply the source of that objectivism. That’s kind of the point - atheism cannot do that, because it does not derive its morality from a higher power. He provided the example of middle eastern women being subjected to death because of sexual actions, and then he implies that regardless of whether or not middle eastern men think it’s okay, it’s really not. In other words, he is saying that* their *opinions are subjective, whereas his are objective. This is not possible, otherwise there wouldn’t be such a broad spectrum of differences in morality world-wide. As he said, science is objective and opinions matter little - but he’s comparing apples to oranges because we’re discussing morality, which is not able to be tested in a laboratory. If God is removed from the picture, then morality can be fluid, and is subject to change from person to person, culture to culture.

The Catholic Church says that certain actions are immoral because they have been deemed so by God, and whosoever denies that sins against God (regardless of their culture or personal opinion). When an atheist makes that same claim however, one can say that his claim is subject to whether or not he personally finds the action offensive or detrimental to his culture. I only saw the one video that you provided, so I don’t know if he delved into this on a different video, but I’m curious as to how he would defend his position that the raunch culture (when he showed pictures of sleazy magazines) is immoral.

Now, the premise in Divine Command Theory is that the word of God is the truth. But, one cannot hold the view that this premise is any less subjective than Harris’s. Faith, being a central tenet of Catholicism, is intrinsically subjective.

No more subjective than atheism (which is faith in the non-existence of God), perhaps? Is it possible to have any objectivity at all with regards to faith/lack of?

One can feel free to disagree with either of these premises, but the original post here was that atheism cannot have objective moral truths not subject to human bias. A moral relativist would apologize for atrocities committed in the context of a tribal religion, for example, Harris would not.

I understand what the post was saying here, and I agree with it so far because I have not seen a case being made for atheistic morality stemming from anything other than personal bias. It may very well be the case that an atheist’s morality may coincide with mine (we both believe cold-blooded murder is wrong, for example), but in the instances in which our beliefs differ, it would have to be shown to me how the atheist’s position is unrelated to opinion.

Actually, I think a moral relativist would say that there is no right or wrong whatsoever, and that atrocities are labeled as such only by the ones condemning them.

 

[ANewWorld]

I could not disagree with Sam Harris’s position on objective morality because he did not explain how his premise was objective. If there are objectively immoral actions regardless of one’s opinion, he would need to supply the source of that objectivism. That’s kind of the point - atheism cannot do that, because it does not derive its morality from a higher power.

This is simply redefining objectivity to fit the premise that moral authority must come from God; i.e. begging the question. You cannot state as proof that something is hot by stating that it isn’t cold. The initial assertion was that a moral code cannot be objective if it doesn’t come from God. Now it’s turned to a moral code cannot be objective based upon a subjective premise of what it’s trying to accomplish. Yet, we have to define a premise for what the moral code is trying to accomplish and as I previous stated any such premise could be argued to be subjective. The test in the objectivity of such a code is not in whether the premise is subjective but whether the code is subject to change due to the whimsy of an individual person; i.e. the definition of objectivity. I believe you are correct and Sam Harris did not actually state his premise in the video I linked (he does in other discussions) but that is not the question here.

If God is removed from the picture, then morality can be fluid, and is subject to change from person to person, culture to culture.

Again, this is simply restating the premise that is trying to be proved, a semantic game. However, I agree on the point that the premise can matter, but because of it’s subjectivity. The premise matters when it causes the moral code to be fluid from person to person. For example a moral code in relation to the well being of all Americans would result in an objective moral code where an action against an American is construed differently than if were against a non-American. Removing the constraint and applying the same reasoning for the action for all humans is all that is needed to make it objective.

No more subjective than atheism (which is faith in the non-existence of God), perhaps?

I was not implying that one is more subjective than the other, only that at some point there’s a baseline that you start with. I understand this is the same premise as the First Cause/Uncaused Cause argument but it takes a big leap of faith (there’s that word again) to go from that to whatever version of a holy book is the universal truth of a deity that we cannot detect. This goes back to my original point; surely no member of any of the world’s major religions can deny that the subjective tenet of faith, belief without proof, is central to the religion.

Whether atheism is a faith is a different topic but there are many in the scientific community who say this is not the case; i.e. science is open to change with evidence, religion is not. The whole basis of science is questioning; you cannot prove a negative, thus science’s goal is not to disprove anything, but instead to add to the increasing base of knowledge for which there is proof. Religion is the only area of discourse where it is widely acceptable to have absolute beliefs in unproven concepts. (Note, this isn’t the same as a scientific hypothesis, where one may very well believe the hypothesis to be true, but is open to it being falsifiable.) Science does not deny mystery exists, it just doesn’t fill in the blanks with claims taken to be absolute truth.

Is it possible to have any objectivity at all with regards to faith/lack of?

Of course it is. There are well established knowledge sets within every subject area where people agree regardless of religion/non-religion.

Actually, I think a moral relativist would say that there is no right or wrong whatsoever, and that atrocities are labeled as such only by the ones condemning them.

I would agree this is possible. I suppose this would be the far end of the relative spectrum, but this is quite feasible in a number of ways, such as if one were to apply different premises to each culture and then even within each culture to each person, or even a single premise that has inherent disregard for other humans.

 

[AdamP88]

I could not disagree with Sam Harris’s position on objective morality because he did not explain how his premise was objective. If there are objectively immoral actions regardless of one’s opinion, he would need to supply the source of that objectivism. That’s kind of the point - atheism cannot do that, because it does not derive its morality from a higher power. He provided the example of middle eastern women being subjected to death because of sexual actions, and then he implies that regardless of whether or not middle eastern men think it’s okay, it’s really not. In other words, he is saying that* their *opinions are subjective, whereas his are objective. This is not possible, otherwise there wouldn’t be such a broad spectrum of differences in morality world-wide. As he said, science is objective and opinions matter little - but he’s comparing apples to oranges because we’re discussing morality, which is not able to be tested in a laboratory. If God is removed from the picture, then morality can be fluid, and is subject to change from person to person, culture to culture.

The Catholic Church says that certain actions are immoral because they have been deemed so by God, and whosoever denies that sins against God (regardless of their culture or personal opinion). When an atheist makes that same claim however, one can say that his claim is subject to whether or not he personally finds the action offensive or detrimental to his culture. I only saw the one video that you provided, so I don’t know if he delved into this on a different video, but I’m curious as to how he would defend his position that the raunch culture (when he showed pictures of sleazy magazines) is immoral.

No more subjective than atheism (which is faith in the non-existence of God), perhaps? Is it possible to have any objectivity at all with regards to faith/lack of?

I understand what the post was saying here, and I agree with it so far because I have not seen a case being made for atheistic morality stemming from anything other than personal bias. It may very well be the case that an atheist’s morality may coincide with mine (we both believe cold-blooded murder is wrong, for example), but in the instances in which our beliefs differ, it would have to be shown to me how the atheist’s position is unrelated to opinion.

Actually, I think a moral relativist would say that there is no right or wrong whatsoever, and that atrocities are labeled as such only by the ones condemning them.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Good examples of wars between countries espousing a particular religion include the European wars of religion in the 1600s and 1700s, the Anglo-Irish conflict in its various forms, the war of the Catholic puppet Nazi states of Slovakia and Croatia against their neighbours in world war two, and probably the India-Pakistan war. The speifically Catholic nature of the Spanish wars against the kingdoms and empires of Mexico, central and south America, which were themselves religious could be included also. The comment about democracies applies to any full democracies.

Given the wide variation in the religions held by the majorities or the ruling classes in two countries, it is likely that many wars will be between countries where different religions hold sway (although, as even atheist historians are now starting to agree, the actual number of true religious wars in history, compared to the sum total of all wars, is miniscule.) Most religious wars are actually over territory, economic conflicts, population pressure, personal disputes between rulers, etc., with a veneer of religion as lagniappe.

I wouldn’t class a war as religious in nature unless it involves conflicts based on differences in theological interpretation of doctrine, or a desire to convert members of the other nation. Most of the conflicts that fit into this category would involve the wars of conquest by Islamic nations.