Atheism more moral?

[hatsoff]

Don’t you believe the right to life is universal?

There are plenty of situations in which killing is considered to be justified—even praiseworthy. For example, if a murderer threatens your family, should you use lethal force to stop him? Would you be thanked and called brave for doing so?

But you must have some idea of its purpose…

Different moral codes have different purposes, if they have purposes at all.

 

[xoise]

Maybe this isn’t exactly on topic, but I landed at this forum and couldn’t resist the temptation to try and understand better the way people think the things they do.

From what I’m reading here, I get the impression that many Catholics seem to feel that it’s immoral to NOT be a Catholic (or at least a christian). This thought baffles me - I was raised to be a good person (duely noted that what defines that is of course debatable). Are you saying that I’m not moral just because I don’t attend church or that I question the existence of a higher being?

This enters a whole other debate, but I just don’t understand how anyone can act like they’re so sure of everything. Religious people seem to me to have no doubt whatsoever that a god exists and can’t rationalize…or even consider…anything else. What real proof does anyone have? How can anyone be so sure when there is no sound evidence? I’m quite sure the replies to this will have to do with it all being about faith (which I respect, so long as it’s not taken too far) or people who will try to pass of the Bible or other beliefs as evidence.

Now I would just like to say that I was baptized Lutheran, later confirmed as a Catholic (to respect my parents wishes). I have always had a very scientific background and am always interested in figuring out how things work and learning new things. This is probably why as long as I can remember I have questioned the idea of religion. I’ve tried to understand it, but I just don’t agree with so many teachings that it just isn’t a fit for me. God, as I see him (and I like to think he or some sort of afterlife exists, otherwise what’s the point?), would be a very tolerant, loving, and understandable being. The concept that you are “sinning” for things like not going to church are utterly ridiculous to me. My god knows that I am a good person and don’t need to prove it to a bunch of people by regurgitating old literature every Sunday. Ok, maybe that’s a little harsh, but I’m trying to make a point - not trying to offend.

I am a hard worker, a loving person, a friendly person…I hold doors for people, I am (for the most part) kind to strangers, I don’t cheat, I love my parents, my fiance, my friends, my brother.

Are you telling me I’m a bad person?

 

[anode]

First off, you could point out that this isn’t simply an academic exercise - there have been actual atheistic societies we can look at to see how they made moral decisions. Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Hitler’s Germany - these were societies where millions of people were slaughtered, every basic human right was trampled on - BECAUSE they were atheistic societies.

The rulers of these societies believed they were doing good. But they were atheists, so they had no reference to God or His commandments to know what “good” was - they defined “good” in some other way - social progress, racial cleansing, class struggle - and we can see the result of that. Dostoevsky was right - where there is no God, everything is permitted.

It’s not just the fear of heaven and hell, as the author of the article indicates, that make up Christian morality. It is founded on the belief that all men were created by God, that we all have an immortal soul, and that Jesus came to save all men and that salvation is always a possibility for anyone. Flowing from that, there is the belief in the sanctity of human life, the basic framework of the 10 Commandments, etc. If you believe that God created all men and sent His only Son to redeem them, you won’t set up death camps trying to exterminate millions of people.

If you believe man is basically an intelligent monkey who exists only by accident, and has no immortal soul - you can justify killing millions of them in the service of whatever end you have in mind at that time. Stalin did it, Mao did it, Pol Pot did it, Hitler did it. We’re not just talking theoretically.

The four leaders you list were heads of huge totalitarian states. That’s really what they had in common. The heads of large totalitarian states in the Middle Ages and later were Christians, mainly Catholics, who tortured and burned dissidents, mainly Jews and Protestants, and got into terrible religious wars, such as the Thirty Years War in Germany, between Catholics and Protestants, where there was wholesale slaughter on
both sides. Catholics slaughtering non-Catholics and non-Christians. Protestants slaughtering Catholics. Being a Christian doesn’t protect you from being a murderer.

 

[Leela]

In one of my classes on religion and violence we read an article by slavoj zizek if you want to read it here it is…

nytimes.com/2006/03/12/opinion/12zizek.html?pagewanted=print

any ways in the article he talks about how if you are an atheist you do things because they are the right thing to do and not because a god is telling you that you should, he claims that the only way that we can have a society that everyone is free to believe what they want is if it is an atheistic society…our class then started discussing where morality comes from and if you can have a moral code if you do not have a god telling you what to do…I wasn’t really sure what to say because I know that there is a God and that He is the one who sets the standard for morality and such but I didn’t know how to explain this to a class full of atheists and agnostics…

is it right to say that everyone has some sort of moral code because God has written His law on our hearts? but how do you explain this in a scholarly way??

any help is appreciated

also I do not want to argue with people about where morality comes from I just want the Catholic teaching on this, so please only Catholic answers…thanks:thumbsup:

I think one problem will be that you and your classmates may have a completely different notion of what the word moral means. For nonbelievers, morality is not the concern for pleasing or not angering sensitive or jealous deities but rather a concern for other human beings. The task of trying to find out how best to please God and the task of trying how best to treat other humans out of concern for theirs and your own well-being thankfully can overlap considerably. However, unfortunately you and your non-believing conversational partners will have a hard time discussing what it is to be moral when you have different notions of what the term moral means.

For example, the immorality of blasphemy or eating from the forbidden fruit tree or picking up sticks on the Sabbath or wearing two different sorts of cloth at the same time or getting tattoos or believing in the wrong gods are all ones we nonbelievers can’t make any sense of (though many have died for such imaginary crimes). Such a view of morality is (to us) completely off point since it has nothing to do with the concern for the well being of conscious beings.

Best,
Leela

 

[xoise]

I think one problem will be that you and your classmates may have a completely different notion of what the word moral means. For nonbelievers, morality is not the concern for pleasing or not angering sensitive or jealous deities but rather a concern for other human beings. The task of trying to find out how best to please God and the task of trying how best to treat other humans out of concern for theirs and your own well-being thankfully can overlap considerably. However, unfortunately you and your non-believing conversational partners will have a hard time discussing what it is to be moral when you have different notions of what the term moral means.

For example, the immorality of blasphemy or eating from the forbidden fruit tree or picking up sticks on the Sabbath or wearing two different sorts of cloth at the same time or getting tattoos or believing in the wrong gods are all ones we nonbelievers can’t make any sense of (though many have died for such imaginary crimes). Such a view of morality is (to us) completely off point since it has nothing to do with the concern for the well being of conscious beings.

Best,
Leela

Incredibly well put. In general, the “golden rule” is really the one to live by. “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” It’s all about making life as enjoyable as possible. The happier people around you are, (in general) the happier you’ll be. People won’t be happy if you treat them like ****!

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Can you actually name an “atheistic society”? I can’t. Every time I have checked the statistics, I’ve been unable to find a population with a majority of non-religious people, much less bona fide atheists. For example, Pol Pot’s regime is often cited as atheist, but according to wikipedia, 95% of the Cambodian people are Buddhist. Now, that is a modern statistic, but I find it hard to believe that the population was predominantly atheist only 35 years ago, during the rule of the Khmer Rouge

On the other hand, we might wish to describe certain communist states as atheistic, since anti-religious sentiments are tied up with Marx’s communist philosophy. So, we might be justified to say that Pol Pot’s regime was atheist, as long as we do not mean to imply that the people of Cambodia under Pol Pot were mostly atheists. But as I pointed out earlier, we’re concerned with people, not governments. In other words, we wish to determine whether becoming or remaining an atheist tends to result in some kind of moral breakdown. And as I have stated previously, looking at a handful of dictators—or at Marx’s philosophy, if you like—isn’t going to answer questions about large-scale tendencies.

no no, i should ,of course limit it to the regime itself and not the general populace. but the correlation between an atheistic regimes and a genocides, is massive. now an argument can be made that the correlation should be made to marxist regimes, but im not sure there is a difference given the close relation to marxism and atheistic regimes:shrug:

 

[hatsoff]

no no, i should ,of course limit it to the regime itself and not the general populace. but the correlation between an atheistic regimes and a genocides, is massive. now an argument can be made that the correlation should be made to marxist regimes, but im not sure there is a difference given the close relation to marxism and atheistic regimes:shrug:

Can you give an example of a non-Marxist state which promoted atheism?

 

[Langdell]

Maybe this isn’t exactly on topic, but I landed at this forum and couldn’t resist the temptation to try and understand better the way people think the things they do.

From what I’m reading here, I get the impression that many Catholics seem to feel that it’s immoral to NOT be a Catholic (or at least a christian). This thought baffles me - I was raised to be a good person (duely noted that what defines that is of course debatable). Are you saying that I’m not moral just because I don’t attend church or that I question the existence of a higher being?

This enters a whole other debate, but I just don’t understand how anyone can act like they’re so sure of everything. Religious people seem to me to have no doubt whatsoever that a god exists and can’t rationalize…or even consider…anything else. What real proof does anyone have? How can anyone be so sure when there is no sound evidence? I’m quite sure the replies to this will have to do with it all being about faith (which I respect, so long as it’s not taken too far) or people who will try to pass of the Bible or other beliefs as evidence.

Now I would just like to say that I was baptized Lutheran, later confirmed as a Catholic (to respect my parents wishes). I have always had a very scientific background and am always interested in figuring out how things work and learning new things. This is probably why as long as I can remember I have questioned the idea of religion. I’ve tried to understand it, but I just don’t agree with so many teachings that it just isn’t a fit for me. God, as I see him (and I like to think he or some sort of afterlife exists, otherwise what’s the point?), would be a very tolerant, loving, and understandable being. The concept that you are “sinning” for things like not going to church are utterly ridiculous to me. My god knows that I am a good person and don’t need to prove it to a bunch of people by regurgitating old literature every Sunday. Ok, maybe that’s a little harsh, but I’m trying to make a point - not trying to offend.

I am a hard worker, a loving person, a friendly person…I hold doors for people, I am (for the most part) kind to strangers, I don’t cheat, I love my parents, my fiance, my friends, my brother.

Are you telling me I’m a bad person?

Catholicism doesn’t teach that anyone is a bad person. It is sin that is bad. Even the most egregious sinner imaginable (Hitler, Mao, whoever) could be in Heaven if he believed in God and was genuinely penitent for his sins. In addition, none of us can or should say who will or won’t get into Heaven.

Not believing in God is a sin if you have the opportunity to know God. The fact that that is a sin, however, does not vitiate all the good things you do.

.

 

[Zatzat]

to my understanding, they arent an officially atheistic regime yet.

Nor are they religious ( let alone Christian) in anyway, shape or form…which begs the question. Just what is your point?

 

[Zatzat]

but the correlation between an atheistic regimes and a genocides, is massive.

hnn.us/articles/7302.html

'…the reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a** vast genocide** . . . native Americans had undergone the "worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed, roaring across two continents non-stop for four centuries and consuming the lives of countless tens of millions of people." ’

This is American history. Certainly history that is ignored by most Americans, but historical fact all the same.

 

[Leela]

no no, i should ,of course limit it to the regime itself and not the general populace. but the correlation between an atheistic regimes and a genocides, is massive. now an argument can be made that the correlation should be made to marxist regimes, but im not sure there is a difference given the close relation to marxism and atheistic regimes:shrug:

What have communist regimes ever done to religious groups that religious groups have not done to one another?

Theocratic regimes don’t have such a great record on human rights either, WPS. Perhaps we can agree that human well being is best served when governments don’t seek to enforce any particular view about religion at the point of a gun.

We have no reason to believe that as more and more people turn away from religion that people will be any worse behaved. In fact, the more religious parts of the US have higher abortion and crime rates than the less religious parts of the US, so it seems that less religion is at least compatible with good behavior (we can’t draw any cause and effect conclusion from such data). Consider also the comparison of religiosity among nations…

Sam Harris:
"The level of atheism throughout the rest of the developed world refutes any argument that religion is somehow a moral necessity. Countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on Earth. According to the United Nations’ Human Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality. Conversely, the 50 nations now ranked lowest in terms of human development are unwaveringly religious. Other analyses paint the same picture: The United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of religious literalism and opposition to evolutionary theory; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, STD infection and infant mortality. The same comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious superstition and hostility to evolutionary theory, are especially plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms. Of course, correlational data of this sort do not resolve questions of causality–belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal dysfunction may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the other; or both may spring from some deeper source of mischief. Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, these facts prove that atheism is perfectly compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also prove, conclusively, that religious faith does nothing to ensure a society’s health.

Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in terms of giving foreign aid to the developing world. The dubious link between Christian literalism and Christian values is also belied by other indices of charity. Consider the ratio in salaries between top-tier CEOs and their average employee: in Britain it is 24 to 1; France 15 to 1; Sweden 13 to 1; in the United States, where 83% of the population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead, it is 475 to 1. Many a camel, it would seem, expects to squeeze easily through the eye of a needle."

When statistics are presented demonstrating that religious people are less moral than atheists (and such evidence seems to be abundant), the appropriate response for he believer is that the Church is a hospital for sinners rather than a museum for saints.

When statistics are presented to suggest that atheists are less moral than believers (though such evidence does not seem to be available or it would be constantly touted to high heaven), the appropriate reponse for the atheist is that whether or not believers are better or worse behaved may be evidence that belief is good for society but it is in no way evidence that God exists.

Best,
Leela

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Can you give an example of a non-Marxist state which promoted atheism?

i suppose we can make a pretense of france, as the wiki mentions. though thats not much of an example.

can you give me an example of an atheist regime tthat didnt violate human rights, commit genocide, or otherwise unduly suppress human rights?

marxism euphemistically called ‘scientific socialism’ seems inextricably linked in practice to atheism. if we removed the atheism fom the marxism, that might provide a clearer picture.

do you know of an example of marxism apart from atheism that hasnt done the same.?

 

[hatsoff]

i suppose we can make a pretense of france, as the wiki mentions. though thats not much of an example.

Indeed not.

can you give me an example of an atheist regime tthat didnt violate human rights, commit genocide, or otherwise unduly suppress human rights?

No, I cannot. Certain communist governments have acquired the label “atheist states” via their promotion of atheism and link to Marxism. Yet just as they distort the ideals of Marx, so too do they distort the rationalism and naturalism from which atheism properly derives. These enlightenment principles are best embodied not by communist state atheism, which as Sam Harris is fond of pointing out is too much like religion, but rather by the state secularism, successful examples of which are abundant and obvious.

I cannot stress enough, however, that if we are interested in the moral impact of atheism, then governments are the wrong place to look. Rather, we ought to study social trends and typical behavior among atheists.

marxism euphemistically called ‘scientific socialism’ seems inextricably linked in practice to atheism. if we removed the atheism fom the marxism, that might provide a clearer picture.

do you know of an example of marxism apart from atheism that hasnt done the same.?

I do not know of any communist state which is not also considered an atheist state.

 

[tonyrey]

Don’t you believe the right to life is universal?

Indeed but the murderer has not lost his right to life. If you can safely protect your family without killing him you should not kill him. Even if you are obliged to kill him it does not alter the fact that everyone is born with the right to life. To kill him is the lesser of two evils.

Different moral codes have different purposes, if they have purposes at all.

Your uncertainty seems to reveal cynicism - as if the right to life is no more than a human convention. Is that what you believe? If so why bother to respect it?

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I cannot stress enough, however, that if we are interested in the moral impact of atheism, then governments are the wrong place to look. Rather, we ought to study social trends and typical behavior among atheists.

it should go with out saying, but merely being an atheist, is immoral, at least in the eyes of religious people. even in those who arent particularly religious themselves. i have friend who is complaining that girls keep dumping him for Jesus. ive tried to explain why that is, but he doesnt understand that for most people the default is to some sense of spirituality, even if not outright religious faith. people who lack that seem suspect to those who dont.

that said. i know a great many atheists, some moral in a common sense way, some not. but none of them are in the way that we are called to be, as Catholics.

im pretty much a proponent of Divine Command Theory. for me morality flows from Divine command. for me it is senseless to speak of morality apart from G-d. because it becomes othing more than personal opinion. for instance people often tell me the Golden rule should be a secular standard. but with out G-d, see no reason to worry about other people. i should simply do what maximizes my pleasure. at least to the extent i can get away with it, i.e. not go to prison, or not to be mobbed by angry husbands, shot by storekeeperss, etc.

what ground can anyone really claim to be or try to be moral apart from G-d?

 

[hatsoff]

Indeed but the murderer has not lost his right to life. If you can safely protect your family without killing him you should not kill him. Even if you are obliged to kill him it does not alter the fact that everyone is born with the right to life. To kill him is the lesser of two evils.

I don’t know what it means to say that the murderer has the right to life if you are obliged to kill him. That is not consistent with my understanding of rights—legal, moral or otherwise codified guarantees on freedom.

Your uncertainty seems to reveal cynicism - as if the right to life is no more than a human convention. Is that what you believe? If so why bother to respect it?

As an atheist, I see rights as human conventions, yes. As a Catholic, I suspect that the rights granted by human entities are considerably less important to you than those rights you believe God grants to us. But surely you can agree that even if divinely-granted rights matter the most, human-granted rights still have some importance. For example, the right to own a firearm is guaranteed by the United States government, a human institution; you have the government-granted right to visit your spouse in the hospital, should she become incapacitated; we have the right to travel freely from state to state; etc. Are these rights unimportant to you? I should think not. They’re certainly important to me. Yet they are not divinely-granted rights.

Perhaps you think that the importance of human-granted rights comes ultimately from the importance of divinely-granted rights. So, for instance, we could say that governments get their authority from God, and so we should respect, possibly with exceptions, the rights granted by those governments for that reason. However, I do not require any higher authority. I respect our government because I appreciate its benefits, not just those granted to me but to all citizens. And I respect the general ethical opinions of my culture for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I wish to interact with others as a social being.

 

[hatsoff]

im pretty much a proponent of Divine Command Theory. for me morality flows from Divine command. for me it is senseless to speak of morality apart from G-d. because it becomes othing more than personal opinion. for instance people often tell me the Golden rule should be a secular standard. but with out G-d, see no reason to worry about other people. i should simply do what maximizes my pleasure. at least to the extent i can get away with it, i.e. not go to prison, or not to be mobbed by angry husbands, shot by storekeeperss, etc.

what ground can anyone really claim to be or try to be moral apart from G-d?

You claim that apart from God, you should simply do what maximizes your pleasure. But without God, what does it mean to say that you should do anything? Prescriptive terms like “should” require someone to prescribe them. Who fulfills that role in a world without God? If we wish to lay a foundation for moral prescriptions, then it does us no good to assume their existence from the outset.

So, that leaves us with the notion that without God, you will simply do what maximizes your pleasure. But is that really true? I live without belief in God, and yet I am not nearly so selfish as that. Perhaps you will say that I am being irrational, but in what way? Why is it irrational to sacrifice for the sake of others? Or maybe you will say that I am merely serving my selfish interests by reaping pleasure from helping others. But why should I be concerned that helping others often makes me happy? How is that cause for alarm?

 

[Mea_Culpa]

There is nothing moral about atheism - there can’t be, they have no framework for morality. Stalin was an atheist. He thought what he was doing was good, because he had defined good to be that which advanced the cause of his particular political party. So there was nothing wrong with killing people if it helped advance his party. In fact, it was good to kill those people. Atheism, if it is true to itself, can only have moral relativism - the idea that what’s good is what I define as good. An atheist can decide it’s good to help an old person across the street - but they can just as easily decide that it’s good to knock her down and steal her purse.

 

[hatsoff]

Atheism, if it is true to itself, can only have moral relativism - the idea that what’s good is what I define as good.

That’s not what moral relativism is. You may wish to check out this great introduction:

plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/

 

[Leela]

There is nothing moral about atheism - there can’t be, they have no framework for morality. Stalin was an atheist. He thought what he was doing was good, because he had defined good to be that which advanced the cause of his particular political party. So there was nothing wrong with killing people if it helped advance his party. In fact, it was good to kill those people. Atheism, if it is true to itself, can only have moral relativism - the idea that what’s good is what I define as good. An atheist can decide it’s good to help an old person across the street - but they can just as easily decide that it’s good to knock her down and steal her purse.

You espouse a common misconception. Atheists I know do not consider themselves moral relativists. I’m not sure that there is such a thing outside of freshman philosophy classrooms.

The misconception stems from the notion that morality requires a law giver. Atheists don’t see moral concerns as having anything to do with pleasing or displeasing deities. We think that moral concerns are concerns for the well-being of others. We love our children as much as you love yours. Like you, we want to leave the world a better place for having been in it for a brief time. No one thinks that good is just whatever we want it to be any more than the laws of physics are just whatever we want them to be.

Also, your comments about what an atheist can do to an old person ought to be compared to what a Catholic bishop can do to effect the lives of victims of sexual abuse. All humans are capable of evil. Belief or disbelief in gods doesn’t change that fact. The good news is of course that we are all also capable of loving one another.

Best,
Leela