Atheism more moral?

[Charlemagne_II]

Here is a passage from the Marquis de Sade’s “Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man.”

Renounce the idea of another world; there is none, but do not renounce the pleasure of being happy and of making for happiness in this. Nature offers you no other way of doubling your existence, of extending it. - My friend, lewd pleasures were ever dearer to me than anything else, I have idolized them all my life and my wish has been to end it in their bosom; my end draws near, six women lovelier than the light of day are waiting in the chamber adjoining, I have reserved them for this moment, partake of the feast with me, following my example embrace them instead of the vain sophistries of superstition, under their caresses strive for a little while to forget your hypocritical beliefs.

As you can see, de Sade’s atheism enables and justifies lewdness, just one of de Sade’s many sins.

 

[Leela]

For Jesus, the only law is love–not “the first and the greatest” but the only. Obedience is only important in so far as it makes us more loving. It is always appropriate to ask, “does the law serve the people or do the people serve the law?” It seems more than clear to me that the purity laws have made Christians on the whole (though with lots and lots of exceptions) less loving and more bigoted. An example is your belief that atheists must all be somehow morally inferior on the basis of their atheism alone. That’s just bigotry.

Leela, please show me where I said all atheists are morally inferior.

You can’t do it because I never said it.

It wasn’t intended as a direct quote I’d like to be wrong here about your attitude toward nonbelievers, but I expect you will continue to confirm my impression of anti-atheist bigotry.

Jesus does not ask us to love. He commands us to love. We obey his command to love, or we perish. Sometimes it isn’t easy to love … especially people we don’t even know or people we find offensive. But Jesus commands us to love everyone. You’re right … love is at the heart of all law, but all law is a command, even the command to love. Jesus gave us two commandments, not requests. And if we do not obey, if we choose not to love everyone, even people whose behavior we find disgusting, we are at risk of losing our immortal souls.

Is love is a matter of obedience for you out of fear for punishment and desire for reward, I think you have entirely the wrong idea, but I don’t think I can help you. I don’t think there is any way to discuss morality with someone who needs a reason to love. Arguments will never convince.

Best,
Leela

 

[Betterave]

No. I’m according more importance to things that he published and said officially in public than to things that he supposedly said in private conversation – partially because people tend to think through the things that they publish and publicly declare moreso than the things that they just say casually.

A guy who consciously publishes words like these comes off as a believer:“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

I think it’s a distinct possibility, based on his words, that Hitler thought, at the very least, that he was some kind of appointed chosen one of a divine force.

So you’re assuming that, given the high moral character of Herr Hitler, the more he thought through something before publicly declaring it, the greater the probability that it will be free of propagandistic distortion? I’m not so sure about that!

But it’s not really relevant to the argument here either way, though.

Amen to that!

 

[Betterave]

Based on the above and pretty much all of Jesus’s teachings, love is much more important than obedience, and certainly atheists are as capable of love as believers are. Jesus said that we are to recognize Christians by their love not by their obedience. Personally, I can only tell the difference based on their proclamations and obedience to certain purity regulations.

Best,
Leela

Wrong, Leela: false dichotomy. Love is expressed through obedience throughout the teachings of Jesus. It does not compete with obedience.

E.g., John 14:
15 If you love me, keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father: and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever: 17 The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, nor knows him. But you shall know him; because he shall abide with you and shall be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world sees me no more. But you see me: because I live, and you shall live. 20 In that day you shall know that I am in my Father: and you in me, and I in you. 21 He that has my commandments and keeps them; he it is that loves me. And he that loves me shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. 22 Judas says to him, not the Iscariot: Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world? 23 Jesus answered and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make our abode with him. 24 He that loves me not keeps not my words. And the word which you have heard is not mine; but the Father’s who sent me. 25 These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you. 26 But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.

 

[Betterave]

Yeah, but you miss the point. The issue–what behavior is cursed–is not lack of obedience but lack of love.

When the “goats” protest and say, “but I went to church every Sunday, and I ate fish on Fridays, and I didn’t stick my pee pee where it is not supposed to go, and I said a Hail Mary and an Our Father before bed every night, and I never took the Lord’s name in vain, and I stayed away from anyone who might tempt me to sin, and I held the correct political views on so-called life issues, and I was one of those so-called ‘values voters’” Jesus says, sure, but so what? You didn’t love, “…for I was hungry, and you didn’t give me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and you didn’t take me in; naked, and you didn’t clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.”

Clearly Jesus’s idea of morality has less to do with what we resist and deny ourselves and who we exclude from our notions of piety than about what we embrace and who we let in to our circle of concern. It isn’t about what we condemn but about what we create.

For Jesus, the only law is love–not “the first and the greatest” but the only. Obedience is only important in so far as it makes us more loving. It is always appropriate to ask, “does the law serve the people or do the people serve the law?” It seems more than clear to me that the purity laws have made Christians on the whole (though with lots and lots of exceptions) less loving and more bigoted. An example is your belief that atheists must all be somehow morally inferior on the basis of their atheism alone. That’s just bigotry.

Best,
Leela

Some of your points are well taken, but suppose you ask me: “Are atheists morally inferior in your view?”
I’d have to answer honestly and say: “Yes, in my experience they generally are. Also, atheists who become theists tend to improve morally (their search for God usually and naturally coincides with a general search for true goodness) and theists who become atheists tend to do so because they have moral problems and their atheism confirms and exacerbates these moral problems.”

Now are you going to tell me I’m a bigot, because that is what my experience has taught me? Or are you going to distort my view (like a bigot would do! - see the irony?) so as to falsely attribute a view to me that actually is bigoted (the way you did to Ch.II above)?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela

Betterave has given you the best answer in post # 203.

*If you love me, keep my commandments. *

In other words, obey my commandments.

It wasn’t intended as a direct quote I’d like to be wrong here about your attitude toward nonbelievers, but I expect you will continue to confirm my impression of anti-atheist bigotry.

Well, I guess you equate strong difference of opinion with bigotry. In that case, since you strongly disagree with me, are you a bigot? I would not say so, but your logic seems to say so.

 

[AntiTheist]

AntiTheist

For example, atheism doesn’t prevent someone from finding atrocity horrifying and bad and worthy of avoiding. It is unconnected to the way people form judgments on matters like that.

It also doesn’t prevent someone from glorifying atrocity as pleasurable, such as the Marquis de Sade who was an atheist and who encouraged others to find in atheism a release from the need to obey Christ.

You are correct in observing that atheism – being, as it is, unconnected to moral systems – is not in the business of supporting or opposing actions; it has nothing to say on the subject. It “allows” glorifying atrocity in the same exact way that wearing a yellow shirt allows glorifying atrocity.

And just as atheism is unconnected to one’s choice of moral systems, it is unconnected to one’s choice of diet. Would anyone seriously say to a fat atheist, “atheism allows you to get fat!”?

The problem here is the attributing of causality. You can’t identify someone’s atheism as the cause of his obesity, and you can’t identify someone’s atheism as the cause of his behavior – you have to look at things he actually believes to derive actions from.

 

[anode]

AntiTheist

For example, atheism doesn’t prevent someone from finding atrocity horrifying and bad and worthy of avoiding. It is unconnected to the way people form judgments on matters like that.

It also doesn’t prevent someone from glorifying atrocity as pleasurable, such as the Marquis de Sade who was an atheist and who encouraged others to find in atheism a release from the need to obey Christ.

Catholicism does not allow any such morality … the exercise of inflicting pain for the sheer pleasure of it.

I have often been horrified at the way the RCC both chooses its saints and glorifies them. Especially in the case of young virgins who died in the 20th century, such as Therese Martin, Teresa ‘of the Andes’ and Maria Goretti, the church is glorifying young women who died horrific deaths, often the victims of a severe (Carmelite) rule, which they followed to the letter, one stabbed to death because she resisted rape. the implication is that you, young girl, can (should?) also die of tuberculosis in a completely enclosed convent and/or die rather than being raped.

For centuries, Christians (Catholics) brutally massacred people who weren’t Christian, wiped out entire populations in the south of France (Albigensians, etc), burned Jews in Spain. If you say, well, Protestants also did this in the Thirty Years’ War, I’ll say, amen to that. Muslims slaughtered hundreds of thousands (?millions?) of Buddhists when Islam spread to the east. Religion has caused many wars and produced the slaughter of millions. In the 20th century, it was political ideology that did the slaughtering. Atheism was secondary. Despots wanted their political ideology to be pre-eminent and no opposition by* any *ideology was to be tolerated.

 

[anode]

Some of your points are well taken, but suppose you ask me: “Are atheists morally inferior in your view?”
I’d have to answer honestly and say: “Yes, in my experience they generally are. Also, atheists who become theists tend to improve morally (their search for God usually and naturally coincides with a general search for true goodness) and theists who become atheists tend to do so because they have moral problems and their atheism confirms and exacerbates these moral problems.”

Now are you going to tell me I’m a bigot, because that is what my experience has taught me? Or are you going to distort my view (like a bigot would do! - see the irony?) so as to falsely attribute a view to me that actually is bigoted (the way you did to Ch.II above)?

It has not been my experience that atheists are morally inferior. Most of the ones I know are kind and generous to a fault. They have developed their moral systems without reference to reward or punishment. Most of the atheists I know are volunteers, pay taxes without complaint, and donate heavily to charities. The Catholics I know on this forum anyway, are often vicious, left-wing bashers who hide their right-wing ideologies behind their Catholicism. They hate Obama, call him a Muslim, a non-US citizen, despite all evidence to the contrary, hate health care reform* in any form,
*, and appear generally to deal in lies. Outside of this forum,the only Catholics I know are “cafeteria” Catholics. Even then, they are not necessarily good or even nice.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Not just those but yes the facts are the as education the sciences increases religious believes decrease…

Furthermore studies have found a direct correlation between IQ and religion, though i appreciate there are other factors involved. E.G. Upbringing.

There is little doubt that nowadays the cleverer and more educated one is, the less likely you are to be religious.

There are no “facts” in hard science. There is no proof. All your “research” shows is that in the study you (partially) described, a correlation (and you don’t mention it as being significant but I’ll assume it is) between mean IQ and religiosity (not religion), by country, was found.

How could a study show any sort of correlation between IQ and religion? That would be like showing a correlation between IQ and purple manatees!

I agree with what you have stated about other factors. I am sure there are other factors involved! A lot of them. And this confounds the study and weakens any conclusion that should be drawn from it.

Yet you go right ahead and draw that conclusion, and not only that, you add “clever” to your conclusion.

Not really very clever at all IMHO. IMH “IQ of 145, with a BA (Psychology), a BS (Biology), and an MA (Psychology Research Methodology and Advanced Statistics)” O.

*Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe tonight.

St. Francis, please pray for all unwanted and hurt animals.

Jesus, I love you. Please bestow upon me the gift of faith.*

 

[Hooding_Trees]

There are no “facts” in hard science. There is no proof. All your “research” shows is that in the study you (partially) described, a correlation (and you don’t mention it as being significant but I’ll assume it is) between mean IQ and religiosity (not religion), by country, was found.

How could a study show any sort of correlation between IQ and religion? That would be like showing a correlation between IQ and purple manatees!

I agree with what you have stated about other factors. I am sure there are other factors involved! A lot of them. And this confounds the study and weakens any conclusion that should be drawn from it.

Yet you go right ahead and draw that conclusion, and not only that, you add “clever” to your conclusion.

Not really very clever at all IMHO. IMH “IQ of 145, with a BA (Psychology), a BS (Biology), and an MA (Psychology Research Methodology and Advanced Statistics)” O.

*Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe tonight.

St. Francis, please pray for all unwanted and hurt animals.

Jesus, I love you. Please bestow upon me the gift of faith.*

Well you can play semantical games but i think we both know there are facts in science. Anyway…

Not only is there a correlation between IQ and religiosity, but there is an even stronger correlation between scientific education and religiosity. This does not mean there are no clever scientists that are religious (Ken Miller, George Coyne) but these people are most defiantly in the minority. In fact only 7% of the members of the National Academy believe in a god, with over 70% being atheists, the rest agnostic (which is in fact an atheist).

The question quite rightly asked by Neil deGrasse Tyson is why is this number not zero? What makes these 7% hold on? I would suggest a number of possible reasons. Childhood indoctrination, fear of death, the humans need for answers (even if they are wrong). If 7% of the smartest more educated people on earth still hold on to religious belief, even if it contradicts everything they know about the accumulation of knowledge, then it is not surprising that the general public (most of which are indoctrinated at a time in the life when they will believe such stories as Santa and the tooth fairy) will hold on to such beliefs. For most people never achieve any level of scientific education which is needed to understand the cosmos and our origins, and most people never develop critical analysis skills, which are needed to properly address the unfounded claims of religions.

 

[Leela]

Some of your points are well taken, but suppose you ask me: “Are atheists morally inferior in your view?”
I’d have to answer honestly and say: “Yes, in my experience they generally are. Also, atheists who become theists tend to improve morally (their search for God usually and naturally coincides with a general search for true goodness) and theists who become atheists tend to do so because they have moral problems and their atheism confirms and exacerbates these moral problems.”

Now are you going to tell me I’m a bigot, because that is what my experience has taught me? Or are you going to distort my view (like a bigot would do! - see the irony?) so as to falsely attribute a view to me that actually is bigoted (the way you did to Ch.II above)?

Oh yes. Bigotry is nothing to be concerned about because concern for bigotry is just a form of bigotry, right? Promoting tolerance is nothing but a form of intolerance. We should never try to see past our provincial persectives, and we should always assume that we are superior in all ways because we are Us and not Them.

 

[Leela]

Betterave has given you the best answer in post # 203.

In that case, if I were you I would consider his assertion “some of your points are well taken.” Have you identified which those are and taken them well?

*If you love me, keep my commandments. *

In other words, obey my commandments.

And what comes first here for Jesus, love or obedience?

Well, I guess you equate strong difference of opinion with bigotry. In that case, since you strongly disagree with me, are you a bigot? I would not say so, but your logic seems to say so.

We can disagree strongly without demonizing one another. Bigotry is nothing at all like disagreement.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

AntiTheist

The problem here is the attributing of causality. You can’t identify someone’s atheism as the cause of his obesity, and you can’t identify someone’s atheism as the cause of his behavior – you have to look at things he actually believes to derive actions from.

We have been over this ground … you just don’t get it, or don’t want to get it. We have never said that atheism** causes** immorality. We have said that atheism enables immorality, or invites it, by removing commandments of the Almighty against immorality. You can’t seem to get the difference in your head. :banghead:

Immorality without God is immensely more probable than with God. See the horrors of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, all in one century. The Marquis de Sade (the model for lewd and cruel sinners) likewise recommended atheism as a way to smooth the path toward all kinds of sinfulness.

Why is this so difficult for you to grasp?

While it is true that atheism does not cause sin, it is still a sin in itself, a sin against the Holy Spirit.

This doesn’t mean immorality will not happen among religious people, but such immorality certainly is not encouraged by God, as immorality is encouraged by Satan, the ultimate atheist (one who is “without God” – a-theos).

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela

*We can disagree strongly without demonizing one another. Bigotry is nothing at all like disagreement. *

When you call someone a bigot, why is that not a form of demonizing?

 

[Betterave]

Oh yes. Bigotry is nothing to be concerned about because concern for bigotry is just a form of bigotry, right? Promoting tolerance is nothing but a form of intolerance. We should never try to see past our provincial persectives, and we should always assume that we are superior in all ways because we are Us and not Them.

Wiki:
“A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.
The correct use of the term requires the elements of obstinacy, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing devotion.”

Can you not see how your irrational straw man attacks qualify as bigotry, Leela?

Also, “bigotry is nothing at all like disagreement”?? Obviously not true; bigotry is a form that disagreement can take.

 

[Betterave]

It has not been my experience that atheists are morally inferior. Most of the ones I know are kind and generous to a fault. They have developed their moral systems without reference to reward or punishment. Most of the atheists I know are volunteers, pay taxes without complaint, and donate heavily to charities. The Catholics I know on this forum anyway, are often vicious, left-wing bashers who hide their right-wing ideologies behind their Catholicism. They hate Obama, call him a Muslim, a non-US citizen, despite all evidence to the contrary, hate health care reform* in any form,
*, and appear generally to deal in lies. Outside of this forum,the only Catholics I know are “cafeteria” Catholics. Even then, they are not necessarily good or even nice.

Okay, that’s great; we have differing experiences. The moral of the story? This kind of consideration is inadequate as a means of addressing our differences. But I’m not going to call you a bigot because this has been your experience! And not because I’m not concerned about bigotry (Leela), but because accusing you of bigotry here would reveal my own provincial perspective, my own assumption that “we” are superior in all ways because we are Us and not Them.

 

[Betterave]

I have often been horrified at the way the RCC both chooses its saints and glorifies them. Especially in the case of young virgins who died in the 20th century, such as Therese Martin, Teresa ‘of the Andes’ and Maria Goretti, the church is glorifying young women who died horrific deaths, often the victims of a severe (Carmelite) rule, which they followed to the letter, one stabbed to death because she resisted rape. the implication is that you, young girl, can (should?) also die of tuberculosis in a completely enclosed convent and/or die rather than being raped.

This, on the other hand, does smack of bigotry.

For centuries, Christians (Catholics) brutally massacred people who weren’t Christian, wiped out entire populations in the south of France (Albigensians, etc), burned Jews in Spain. If you say, well, Protestants also did this in the Thirty Years’ War, I’ll say, amen to that. Muslims slaughtered hundreds of thousands (?millions?) of Buddhists when Islam spread to the east. Religion has caused many wars and produced the slaughter of millions. In the 20th century, it was political ideology that did the slaughtering. Atheism was secondary. Despots wanted their political ideology to be pre-eminent and no opposition by* any *ideology was to be tolerated.

This is so stupid. You might as well say “history is full of war.” Uh, yeah! So what? How is this relevant?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

For centuries, Christians (Catholics) brutally massacred people who weren’t Christian, wiped out entire populations in the south of France (Albigensians, etc), burned Jews in Spain.

Let’s not forget what atheist governments did in the 20th Century alone … way more horrible and despicable than any religious persecutions in the history of the world.

For some inexplicable reason, atheists always have to reach back several hundred years to find atrocities committed by supposedly religious people, whereas religious people only have to go back 70-80 years to find far more more abominable atrocities (with tens of millions of victims) committed by atheist rulers.

Is this called hypocrisy?

Again, if the world is so bad with religion, what would it be like without religion?

We are now finding out!

 

[Leela]

For centuries, Christians (Catholics) brutally massacred people who weren’t Christian, wiped out entire populations in the south of France (Albigensians, etc), burned Jews in Spain.

Let’s not forget what atheist governments did in the 20th Century alone … way more horrible and despicable than any religious persecutions in the history of the world.

For some inexplicable reason, atheists always have to reach back several hundred years to find atrocities committed by supposedly religious people, whereas religious people only have to go back 70-80 years to find far more more abominable atrocities (with tens of millions of victims) committed by atheist rulers.

Is this called hypocrisy?

Again, if the world is so bad with religion, what would it be like without religion?

We are now finding out!

I don’t think we are ever going to see what the world will be like without religion. What AntiTheist is trying to get across is that it is just as ridiculous think that atheism is essentially bad as it is to think that religion is essentially good. You know as well as anyone that there is such a thing as bad religion just as there have been bad atheistic ideologies.

On the other hand, with an ID like AntiTheist, one is tempted to think that he believes that religion is essentially a bad thing. I hope that is not the case. Religion isn’t best tought of as being essenially anything since there are more ways of being religious than we can count. Criticizing and admiring certain ways of being religious (and certain aspects of these ways) is a project that both believers and nonbelievers should be able to do. Likewise, both should be able to criticize and admire ways of being that are not religious. I am sure we can all agree that the Inquisition’s way of being religious and Stalin’s way of not being religious are not ways of behaving that any of us want to emulate.

Best,
Leela