Atheism more moral?

[AntiTheist]

I don’t think the passage you quoted means what you appear to think it means.

The passage in question (Deuteronomy 20:10-14) depicts your god endorsing slavery, the murder of all men in the town, and the claiming of women in the town (rape).

According to this myth – which you apparently have to accept as being, if not literally true, reflective of the values of this god – at least at one time in history, your god was cool with his chosen people doing all those things to other human beings who weren’t his chosen people. It’s completely and totally irrelevant to cite any supposed “crimes” of the people whom your god commanded his foot soldiers to brutally slaughter or to try to offer mealy-mouthed objections that the kind of slavery practiced back then was “not so bad.”

The point is that your god was ok with advocating one human being to kill another who had done nothing to harm the first human being; your god was ok with one human being owning another human being; your god was ok with soldiers keeping the women for themselves.

It’s very much a valid point in a discussion of this kind. If that god is your source of “objective morality,” then you can keep it, and I’ll take my chances with my own values.

Incidentally, all this talk of morality is misguided. Human beings act – and judge actions – on the basis of their values, some of which are encoded genetically and some of which are learned by societal training.

 

[Langdell]

… According to this myth – which you apparently have to accept as being, if not literally true, reflective of the values of this god …

Catholics do not have to – and many Catholic authorities going back centuries have advised against – accepting all of scripture as literally true. It is permissible for Catholics to take into account the social and historical context in which various books were written, and it is required for Catholics to view scripture as a whole, particularly in the light of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels.

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[Langdell]

Not at all, i am asking you if god told you to murder an innocent would you do it, would it then be good.

As I’ve already explained, the question makes no sense. A being that would tell me to do that would not be God, as demonstrated by the very fact that it was asking me to do that.

I’m not going to bother responding to any further repetition of the same question in this thread.

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[Betterave]

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 this something you know? How would you explain it to a bunch of theists, as opposed to a bunch 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??

That may be right, but why assume that you can/should prove this? That’s hardly the first thing you want to be doing. Focus on understanding rather than defending or attacking positions you don’t understand. If you want to be a credible witness of the Gospel, it’s just as important to not claim to know things that you don’t know as it is to defend your knowledge of what you do know.

As for ‘scholarly,’ your classroom discussion will not have been scholarly, first, because it was a classroom discussion, second, because it was based on Zizek’s very unscholarly article. Anyway, I think what you need is reasonable, not scholarly, and reasonable means you don’t make a bunch of wild assertions, or even assertions that will seem wild to your audience (as people are fond of doing here).

 

[Hooding_Trees]

As I’ve already explained, the question makes no sense. A being that would tell me to do that would not be God, as demonstrated by the very fact that it was asking me to do that.

I’m not going to bother responding to any further repetition of the same question in this thread.

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And as i have explained the question makes perfect sense, i even cited your bible. I advise you go and read the thing some time. Go and read the story of Jephtha.

You claimed that things are only good because your god says so, i therefore asked if god said rape is good would rape now be good. By your reasoning you must say yes, rape is now good.

You do not want to answer, for you know the answer is no. The second you admit that you then must also admit the god has nothing to do with morals. I understand it is easier for you to run from the question and grasp at the straws of belief.

 

[AntiTheist]

Catholics do not have to – and many Catholic authorities going back centuries have advised against – accepting all of scripture as literally true.

Right. That’s the point I acknowledged when I wrote “which you apparently have to accept as being, if not literally true, reflective of the values of this god.”

Read it again. I’m saying that if you don’t accept it as literally true – which I acknowledge that not all Catholics do – you at least have to accept it as reflective of the values that this god holds (or at least held at one particular time).

For me, personally, no context can excuse supporting slavery, murder, and rape. But that’s exactly what the story depicts.

 

[Hooding_Trees]

Right. That’s the point I acknowledged when I wrote “which you apparently have to accept as being, if not literally true, reflective of the values of this god.”

Read it again. I’m saying that if you don’t accept it as literally true – which I acknowledge that not all Catholics do – you at least have to accept it as reflective of the values that this god holds (or at least held at one particular time).

For me, personally, no context can excuse supporting slavery, murder, and rape. But that’s exactly what the story depicts.

Furthermore if one goes through the bible and picks and chooses what parts to accept, not only does this render the bible as an uncredible source, but it destroys the notion that the bible is a basis for morals. For instead of the bible guiding your morals, your morals are in fact guiding your interpretation of the bible.

It begs the question… If the bible is not even a good representation of the creature it is not only supposed to be inspired by, but actually written about, then what exactly is it good for?

What we have here is the age old case of every christian being pope of their own religion.

 

[Betterave]

Furthermore if one goes through the bible and picks and chooses what parts to accept, not only does this render the bible as an uncredible source, but it destroys the notion that the bible is a basis for morals. For instead of the bible guiding your morals, your morals are in fact guiding your interpretation of the bible.

It begs the question… If the bible is not even a good representation of the creature it is not only supposed to be inspired by, but actually written about, then what exactly is it good for?

What we have here is the age old case of every christian being pope of their own religion.

These topics get rehashed a lot, don’t they? I’ll quote from another thread (“Were [sic] does morality come from?”):

"What Strawberry [Hooding Trees, in this case] is worried about … are the kinds of actions attributed to God in the Old Testament. Do we really believe God told the Israelites to slaughter whole towns, men, women, and children? It’s a perfectly legitimate concern. What we want to say about that, I think, is that God is not the sole author of Sacred Scripture. The human authors of sacred scripture are very much contributing to the content and what we have presented in the Bible is the story of people gradually learning to know God. So when they write about God, they are writing about themselves and their own understanding of God, which we can see is often very tainted by their particular historical-cultural situation.

So we don’t want special pleading for God *. If there is any special pleading, it is for the human authors. But that is not really ‘special’ either - human moral understanding is always bound to a particular historical situation and this is part of what Scripture can teach us (we post-Enlightenment types tend to forget this).

But we do recognize that our moral understanding is directed towards more than just affirming whatever our culture tells us. We want to do what is genuinely just, not just whatever is accepted as just. We do seek for perfection, even if we don’t see how to get there. We interpret this longing - ‘the voice of conscience’ - as God’s image within us making itself known. When we pay attention to this longing, we notice that we are not God and that we are separated from God and that this separation is not good."

I’ll also point out, God is not supposed to be a creature; God is the creator. And your comment about every Christian being pope is simply nonsense. You know very well that our pope, for us Catholics, that is, is Benedict XVI.*

 

[Leela]

Furthermore if one goes through the bible and picks and chooses what parts to accept, not only does this render the bible as an uncredible source, but it destroys the notion that the bible is a basis for morals. For instead of the bible guiding your morals, your morals are in fact guiding your interpretation of the bible.

It begs the question… If the bible is not even a good representation of the creature it is not only supposed to be inspired by, but actually written about, then what exactly is it good for?

What we have here is the age old case of every christian being pope of their own religion.

The issue is not whether or not there is to be any picking and choosing going on. The Christian Fundamentalists will accuse Catholics of doing just the same thing. The issue is only your personal choice of who ought to be doing the picking and choosing. You have personally decided to allow the Church hierarchy to do that picking and choosing and interpretingt for you.

Best,
Leela

 

[Hooding_Trees]

The issue is not whether or not there is to be any picking and choosing going on. The Christian Fundamentalists will accuse Catholics of doing just the same thing. The issue is only your personal choice of who ought to be doing the picking and choosing. You have personally decided to allow the Church hierarchy to do that picking and choosing and interpretingt for you.

Best,
Leela

I think you have misunderstood me.

I have not allowed anyone to pick and choose anything for me, i believe morals have developed due to the fact we are a social species that has evolved in cooperative societies. I do not accept that which can not be verified/demonstrated, this includes gods and bibles.

 

[AntiTheist]

What we want to say about that, I think, is that God is not the sole author of Sacred Scripture. The human authors of sacred scripture are very much contributing to the content and what we have presented in the Bible is the story of people gradually learning to know God. So when they write about God, they are writing about themselves and their own understanding of God, which we can see is often very tainted by their particular historical-cultural situation.

And this is just about the only reasonable position for a person to take if that person wants to believe in the book and also wants to reject some of the atrocities contained in it.

The problem is – as suggested by Hooding – that this position reduces the Bible to a book of multiple choice. When you read something that you approve, you interpret it as the word of god; when you read something that you don’t approve, you interpret it as a place where humans screwed up god’s word.

What is it that guides your approval or disapproval of things in the book? Obviously, it can’t be the book itself. You can claim that you have some supernatural guide to interpretation, but that’s exactly what other people say who interpret the book differently than you, so it’s not exactly a persuasive claim.

The only answer that makes any sense is that your values are guiding you in determining which parts of the story you find good and which parts you find objectionable. And values – as far as we can tell – are totally natural, products of biology, reason, and culture. Imagine if we lived in an extremely war-like primitive culture; people in that culture would look very differently upon the atrocities in the Bible and might be very much inclined to attribute it to the literal word of god. Someone from a less barbaric society, like ours, is more inclined to disregard passages like those as the interpolations of human authors.

So if we can look at the book and figure out that “this part is good” and “this part is bad” by the standard of our own values, then the book is utterly and completely superfluous to the question of morality. We can skip it and just go straight to our values.

And then we can have serious conversations about values without reference to superstitions.

 

[Betterave]

The problem is – as suggested by Hooding – that this position reduces the Bible to a book of multiple choice. When you read something that you approve, you interpret it as the word of god; when you read something that you don’t approve, you interpret it as a place where humans screwed up god’s word.

Thanks for the arm-chair theorizing, it’s very inventive (not really), but even more so, just lazy. Where do you get the notion that this reduction follows from what I said? Do you have an argument for this? I will assure you now: your claim does not follow. I’m interested to hear your argument for it, however (if you have one).

 

[AntiTheist]

Where do you get the notion that this reduction follows from what I said?

I didn’t present it as something that follows from what you said – I presented it as a paraphrase of what you said (i.e. and explanation of what’s really going on when you interpret your holy book).

You apparently think that some parts of the book are from god and some are from man. I’m saying that the criteria for determining which parts are which comes from the values of the person doing the interpretation (your values, in this case).

It’s very straightforward. If you disagree with the above paragraph, then you clearly think that you have some other means of making the distinction between parts authored by god and parts authored by man. As I explained already, appeals to supernatural aid won’t help because other people also claim supernatural aid and interpret the text differently than you do.

So what is that other means of making the distinction?

 

[Betterave]

I didn’t present it as something that follows from what you said – I presented it as a paraphrase of what you said (i.e. and explanation of what’s really going on when you interpret your holy book).

First thing: if it’s a *paraphrase *(?!) of what I said, how can you deny that it *follows *from what I said???

 

[Hooding_Trees]

First thing: if it’s a *paraphrase *(?!) of what I said, how can you deny that it *follows *from what I said???

Or you can just answer the real question…

*"It’s very straightforward. If you disagree with the above paragraph, then you clearly think that you have some other means of making the distinction between parts authored by god and parts authored by man. As I explained already, appeals to supernatural aid won’t help because other people also claim supernatural aid and interpret the text differently than you do.

So what is that other means of making the distinction?"*

 

[Langdell]

… It’s very straightforward. If you disagree with the above paragraph, then you clearly think that you have some other means of making the distinction between parts authored by god and parts authored by man. As I explained already, appeals to supernatural aid won’t help because other people also claim supernatural aid and interpret the text differently than you do.

So what is that other means of making the distinction?

I think “authored by god” and “authored by man” is a little misleading as a summary of the Catholic view of scripture, but I don’t want to get bogged down in that. I’ll take it as a workable summary for present purposes.

Thus, we Catholics believe that the parts by God and the parts by man are distinguishable based on three sources outside of scripture and our own subjectivity. Those sources are (1) the natural law implanted in us by God, (2) the “Sacred Tradition” of the Church (which we believe ultimately goes back to the apostles and to inspiration by God), and (3) ongoing guidance of the Church by God. If you assume that (1) through (3) are real (as Catholics do), then it follows that we have a basis for cross-checking scripture against other outside sources from which we can understand God’s will.

With respect to battling supernatural aids, we believe as a matter of faith that our aids are truly inspired and others’ are not (at least insofar as they come up with interpretations that differ from ours), or that others are massaging what their aids tell them in order to come up with more acceptable interpretations.

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[AntiTheist]

Thus, we Catholics believe that the parts by God and the parts by man are distinguishable based on three sources outside of scripture and our own subjectivity. Those sources are (1) the natural law implanted in us by God, (2) the “Sacred Tradition” of the Church (which we believe ultimately goes back to the apostles and to inspiration by God), and (3) ongoing guidance of the Church by God. If you assume that (1) through (3) are real (as Catholics do), then it follows that we have a basis for cross-checking scripture against other outside sources from which we can understand God’s will.

Thanks for an actual response. I appreciate the effort to sustain conversation.

All three of these sources – which explicitly mention god – fall under the supernatural aid category, and I’ll explain again why supernatural aid isn’t at all convincing. Other groups equally claim supernatural aid in interpreting texts and use their supposed supernatural aid to reach entirely different conclusions (there are, for example, evangelicals whose “divine inspiration” leads them to conclude that all of the Bible is literally true, including the atrocious parts).

The very existence of this discrepancy calls the reliability of divine inspiration into serious question. You are asserting that it’s possible for a sincere believer to be wrong about divine inspiration, and as such, there is no basis whatsoever for considering inspiration to be reliable.

On what grounds could you possibly claim that you’ve got the “right” divine inspiration and that others have got the “wrong” divine inspiration? If it’s possible for deeply sincere believers to be duped into thinking that they’ve got the “right” inspiration when they in fact don’t, how can you be so sure that you’ve got the “right” inspiration?

I know that you’re just going to say, “It’s faith,” but surely you understand why that defense is utterly unconvincing, as people who believe in different interpretations of scripture will also say the same exact thing, which leaves us right back in the same place.

Heck, let’s make the example even more extreme than a literalist interpretation: let’s say that some guy tomorrow has divine inspiration that leads him to conclude that the violent and atrocious parts of the text are the parts authored by god and that all of the peace and love stuff are the areas where human authors got it wrong.

On what basis could you possibly disagree with an interpretation like that? Remember, you can’t appeal to “faith” or to the supernatural because that’s his basis too. And, while numbers of believers are irrelevant to the truth value of a proposition, let’s say, in order to head off an irrelevant objection, that this one guy’s beliefs spread and that over the next few centuries a billion people on the planet believe in this interpretation.

On what possible basis could you reject that interpretation in favor of yours?

These are very serious questions because once you open up the possibility that parts of the book are corrupted by humans, the question then becomes how exactly you draw the line. I assert that the line is usually drawn by the values of the person doing the interpretation, and that appeals to “divine inspiration” and “natural law” are a cover for a person’s own values being the basis for this discrimination.

As I said earlier, this being the case, The Bible is therefore utterly and completely irrelevant in terms of morality, as we can just skip the text and go directly to the values of the people interpreting it. We can then discuss values without supernatural assumptions.

 

[Swan]

Thanks for an actual response. I appreciate the effort to sustain conversation.

All three of these sources – which explicitly mention god – fall under the supernatural aid category, and I’ll explain again why supernatural aid isn’t at all convincing. Other groups equally claim supernatural aid in interpreting texts and use their supposed supernatural aid to reach entirely different conclusions (there are, for example, evangelicals whose “divine inspiration” leads them to conclude that all of the Bible is literally true, including the atrocious parts).

The very existence of this discrepancy calls the reliability of divine inspiration into serious question. You are asserting that it’s possible for a sincere believer to be wrong about divine inspiration, and as such, there is no basis whatsoever for considering inspiration to be reliable.

On what grounds could you possibly claim that you’ve got the “right” divine inspiration and that others have got the “wrong” divine inspiration? If it’s possible for deeply sincere believers to be duped into thinking that they’ve got the “right” inspiration when they in fact don’t, how can you be so sure that you’ve got the “right” inspiration?

I know that you’re just going to say, “It’s faith,” but surely you understand why that defense is utterly unconvincing, as people who believe in different interpretations of scripture will also say the same exact thing, which leaves us right back in the same place.

Heck, let’s make the example even more extreme than a literalist interpretation: let’s say that some guy tomorrow has divine inspiration that leads him to conclude that the violent and atrocious parts of the text are the parts authored by god and that all of the peace and love stuff are the areas where human authors got it wrong.

On what basis could you possibly disagree with an interpretation like that? Remember, you can’t appeal to “faith” or to the supernatural because that’s his basis too. And, while numbers of believers are irrelevant to the truth value of a proposition, let’s say, in order to head off an irrelevant objection, that this one guy’s beliefs spread and that over the next few centuries a billion people on the planet believe in this interpretation.

On what possible basis could you reject that interpretation in favor of yours?

These are very serious questions because once you open up the possibility that parts of the book are corrupted by humans, the question then becomes how exactly you draw the line. I assert that the line is usually drawn by the values of the person doing the interpretation, and that appeals to “divine inspiration” and “natural law” are a cover for a person’s own values being the basis for this discrimination.

As I said earlier, this being the case, The Bible is therefore utterly and completely irrelevant in terms of morality, as we can just skip the text and go directly to the values of the people interpreting it. We can then discuss values without supernatural assumptions.

IMO, you’ve summed up the entire issue very well here. And when you take into account all of the world’s other religions, religious texts, etc., the question, again IMO, becomes even more pressing. In my case these questions, and my honest response that I simply cannot answer them, played a big role in my becoming an agnostic (personal experience and observation of the world and experiences of others also played a big role).

 

[AntiTheist]

And when you take into account all of the world’s other religions, religious texts, etc., the question, again IMO, becomes even more pressing.

Yes. I didn’t mention other religions for the sake of simplicity, but obviously the other huge flaw with “divine inspiration” is that other people of other faiths sincerely believe themselves to be in possession of divine inspiration that tells them that other religions are true, beliefs that entirely contradict the things suggested by the Bible.

The upshot of this is that the experience of divine inspiration is worthless in determining the truth of claims since even if it exists, it’s something that no one can be sure that they have right.

 

[Langdell]

Thanks for an actual response. I appreciate the effort to sustain conversation.

All three of these sources – which explicitly mention god – fall under the supernatural aid category, and I’ll explain again why supernatural aid isn’t at all convincing. Other groups equally claim supernatural aid in interpreting texts and use their supposed supernatural aid to reach entirely different conclusions (there are, for example, evangelicals whose “divine inspiration” leads them to conclude that all of the Bible is literally true, including the atrocious parts).

The very existence of this discrepancy calls the reliability of divine inspiration into serious question. You are asserting that it’s possible for a sincere believer to be wrong about divine inspiration, and as such, there is no basis whatsoever for considering inspiration to be reliable.

On what grounds could you possibly claim that you’ve got the “right” divine inspiration and that others have got the “wrong” divine inspiration? If it’s possible for deeply sincere believers to be duped into thinking that they’ve got the “right” inspiration when they in fact don’t, how can you be so sure that you’ve got the “right” inspiration?

I know that you’re just going to say, “It’s faith,” but surely you understand why that defense is utterly unconvincing, as people who believe in different interpretations of scripture will also say the same exact thing, which leaves us right back in the same place.

Heck, let’s make the example even more extreme than a literalist interpretation: let’s say that some guy tomorrow has divine inspiration that leads him to conclude that the violent and atrocious parts of the text are the parts authored by god and that all of the peace and love stuff are the areas where human authors got it wrong.

On what basis could you possibly disagree with an interpretation like that? Remember, you can’t appeal to “faith” or to the supernatural because that’s his basis too. And, while numbers of believers are irrelevant to the truth value of a proposition, let’s say, in order to head off an irrelevant objection, that this one guy’s beliefs spread and that over the next few centuries a billion people on the planet believe in this interpretation.

On what possible basis could you reject that interpretation in favor of yours?

These are very serious questions because once you open up the possibility that parts of the book are corrupted by humans, the question then becomes how exactly you draw the line. I assert that the line is usually drawn by the values of the person doing the interpretation, and that appeals to “divine inspiration” and “natural law” are a cover for a person’s own values being the basis for this discrimination.

As I said earlier, this being the case, The Bible is therefore utterly and completely irrelevant in terms of morality, as we can just skip the text and go directly to the values of the people interpreting it. We can then discuss values without supernatural assumptions.

Well, as you can see from my “Religion” identifier in the upper right, I used to be an atheist – was one for years, actually – and until relatively recently I found all of these points entirely convincing.

I have nothing to say in opposition to them other than (1) I believe, and (2) I know I’m a better person than I was when I was a convinced atheist, because my faith has in fact enabled me to stop doing certain things that were despicable.

I also agree with Alvin Plantinga’s argument that belief in God is “properly basic,” although I will grant you that Plantinga’s argument doesn’t get you from belief in God to belief in the claims of a particular religion.

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