Do the Atheists have it right: Just Be Good for Goodness' Sake?

[williamric]

Indeed, an atheist can be a very good person.

Yeah, but that doesn’t really mean anything…The whole statement, “Be good for goodness sake”…I’ll like them to explain what “goodness” they’re refering to?

 

[grannymh]

Oh, right…sorry, it’s late. I think I’ll be going to bed now.

Please someone think logically about what I’ve said.

Here’s to hoping for some kind of intelligent reply by morning.

Good morning, MegaTherion,

I like morning for thinking and evening for day dreaming. Nonetheless, Mondays are must-do days.

I’ve found some interersting, valid statements in your posts.
While I did respond to one, would you mind if I wait until later today to respond to others? Thank you.

Blessings,
grannymh

 

[williamric]

1. Do you agree that from this a person can rationally determine that in just about every possible situation, for everyone, murder would be bad?

If yes,

No, I don’t agree with this. Being rational has nothing to do with morality…

You are trying to imply that the “golden rule” if taken to its logical conclusion will lead to everyone (who is logical) agreeing that murder is bad, or genocide is bad or whatever… However, this argument is completely missing the point… Just because I don’t want to be hurt doesn’t mean that it is “wrong” for someone to hurt me…

Just because we can use logic to find that the best way to act involves not murdering, doesn’t mean that we are obligated to not murder… Rational does not = right, you are imposing an arbitrary standard by saying that rationality leads to morality. At the end, of the day someone can kill you and you still have no moral basis to tell them they are wrong. You can say, “That’s illogical”, but you can’t say, “That is not right” unless you make the absurd assumption that a rational action = a morally right action.

All the atheists that have taken atheism to its logical conclusion have realised that there is no absolute morality in an Atheistic world…

Regards,
William

 

[williamric]

Question: Do you concede that a person can use reason to determine that Hitler was evil?

Yes. I can concede that a person can use reason to determine that Hitler was evil.

I assume we are excluding religious morality for the sake of debate, in which case I disagree with this granny

Why?

Because reason as you used it in your question, is a tool, a method, a way that can be used to analyze, evaluate, conclude. Analysis, evaluation, concluding can be both verbs as in using tools as well as nouns used in a variety of ways.

Please note that I am not a “mutually exclusive or” type of person. Thus, I view many possible answers to questions, problems, life in general. In that regard, would you please respond later if you can accept that reason is also a tool or another word meaning the same? Thank you.

I don’t understand how this means reason can be used to determine Hitler was evil?

Regards,
William

 

[PRmerger]

For me, “killing is bad” is a moral imperative. It comes out of the situation and our rational evaluation of our choices in the situation. It is as close to absolute as we can get.

*All *killing? What about in self-defense? Would you kill someone who was attacking your family?

What about killing an animal? Do you think that is morally wrong? If yes, why? If not, what superiority do humans have that animals don’t have? Is it reason that separates us from animals and gives us value?

 

[PRmerger]

If someone turned his back on me, I would be angry with him. I would not torture him – and I certainly would never torture him for eternity!

That means you would never force this person to be with you for eternity, which would be torture. That’s what God does. He does not want to torture someone eternally with His Presence.

Christopher Hitchens articulates the doctrine of hell so well–he proclaims that he finds Heaven and being with God revolting. God will honor the wishes of those who find His Presence revolting and NOT TORTURE THEM FOR ETERNITY WITH HIS “REVOLTING” PRESENCE to those who find it so.

 

[grannymh]

I assume we are excluding religious morality for the sake of debate, in which case I disagree with this granny

I don’t understand how this means reason can be used to determine Hitler was evil?

Dear William,

Good points for discussion. I do hope other posters will respond to your first comment because it really is a key to this thread.
Right now, I’m going to beg off due to a time limit I have for getting some must-do things done. Then I want to reply to MegaTherion who also has some good points for discussion.

Here is a reply to your second comment. If you were in an educational or even psychological field, you would know that there are many ways people learn or determine–audio, visually, olfactory, tactile, taste, experiential, and so on. In other words, if there were an elephant in the room, you could use different ways of determining what it was. Hopefully, you would not need to use taste.

The use of reason is also a way to learn and determine. Verifiable experiments and the use of logic as a system are other ways to learn. My hubby often says I’m using woman’s logic when he’s about to lose an argument. Very important – Faith, when it is part of the Catholic belief system (that is when Faith is considered a virtue as a gift from God) should not be excluded from the ways to learn.

What has happened is that reason has taken on the aspects of an ideology. Currently, it is being coupled with relativism. In some quarters relativism rules and reason has been demoted.
The consequence is that absolute truth is being trampled.

In my humble opinion, in order to do justice to this thread’s topic, absolute truth must be discussed. And reason should be used just like any other way of learning and determining. Personally, at this point in a long life, I like using reason. However, I live by Faith.

By the way, are you really retired?

Blessings,
granny

 

[grannymh]

Yeah, but that doesn’t really mean anything…The whole statement, “Be good for goodness sake”…I’ll like them to explain what “goodness” they’re refering to?

Dear William,

Ask and you shall receive … at least when granny has links straight from the horse’s mouth

My suggestion is to read between the lines, around the bottom of the page, and toward the end of the following news releases, speeches, and especially the fact sheets found on these web sites. Check the list of related organizations.

www.americanhumanist.org www.whybelieveinagod.org
www.whybelieveinagod.org/pressrelease.html
www.whybelieveinagod.org/whatis.html
www.whybelieveinagod.org/didyouknow.html

Then think…

Blessings,
granny

 

[williamric]

What has happened is that reason has taken on the aspects of an ideology. Currently, it is being coupled with relativism. In some quarters relativism rules and reason has been demoted.
The consequence is that absolute truth is being trampled.

Yes, exactly! And this is precisely where the problems in Mega’s arguments begin. Because in this thread Mega has been using reason, not as a relativist standard but, as an absolute moral standard. Reason can be used to find truth, but there is a difference between factually right (true) and wrong (false), and morally right and wrong… In this thread the line has become blurred, and we have forgotten the difference between moral truth and actual(factual) truth…

As I said, for the sake of this argument, we are assuming a secular viewpoint. Morally this means the “golden rule” is king, but this is manufactured (not real) morality… A person has absolutely no moral reason to follow the golden rule. Which brings us back to the question about Hitler… Can reason (alone) be used to condemn Hitler from a secular viewpoint? Mega thinks it can, but he is making one basic error. He is assuming that a person like Hitler gives a stuff about the “golden rule”, or other similiar moral systems.

The truth (the real truth that is ) is that Hitler had no reason to follow Mega’s moral standard. We can sit here nearly a century in the future and talk about the morality of reason, but all Hitler has to say is, “Stuff you, William” and guess what? There’s nothing I can do about it… You can argue the “reasonableness” of an action till the cows come home, but any individual in the world has the right to dismiss this moral system. Why? Because there is no absolute obligation to follow that system, and without G-d there never will be…

In my humble opinion, in order to do justice to this thread’s topic, absolute truth must be discussed. And reason should be used just like any other way of learning and determining. Personally, at this point in a long life, I like using reason. However, I live by Faith.

Definitely, however as above, reason can never impart an implicit morality onto an act…

By the way, are you really retired?

Yup, retired as my own personal pope and took up banking…It was a bad career move since apparently the Catholic Church has buckets of gold lying around somewhere

Regards,
William

 

[williamric]

Dear William,

Ask and you shall receive … at least when granny has links straight from the horse’s mouth

My suggestion is to read between the lines, around the bottom of the page, and toward the end of the following news releases, speeches, and especially the fact sheets found on these web sites. Check the list of related organizations.

www.americanhumanist.org www.whybelieveinagod.org
www.whybelieveinagod.org/pressrelease.html
www.whybelieveinagod.org/whatis.html
www.whybelieveinagod.org/didyouknow.html

Then think…

Blessings,
granny

Hi Granny,

I know you don’t have time for replies, so don’t feel obligated to reply

These links and arguments are a typical example of sociological morality… Morality because everyone does it, because its legal, and numerous other slippery slopes…

There is no absolute there! They are assuming that because humanity is generally moral that this shows morals are natural to humans… Firstly, this is compatible with Christianity because the Bible tell us that the law of the L-rd is written on the hearts of men. Secondly, this doesn’t imply that an action is actually right or wrong at all… The moral standard of a sociological moral system is that “right” is what everyone does, or everyone is happy with etc… This is an arbitrary standard, just as arbitrary as using reason as a moral standard. At the end of the day they haven’t gotten close to answering the basic moral question, What (other then just a personal preference/standard) makes their system right… I can tell you, nothing!

 

[Leela]

Originally Posted by MegaTherion t
"Most atheists appeal to reason as the source of moral judgments. In any given situation, it is possible to look at the spectrum of actions available to us and decide which of those actions are more likely to produce positive results and which are less likely.

No, that’s not enough. What’s the objective moral standard, then for determining what a “positive” result is instead of a “negative” one? Reason may work for determining moral means, but certainly it’s not sufficient to determine the morality of the ends.

As I understand the difference between atheistic and theistic morality, the theists defines moral behavior in terms of what God wants people to do. The atheist on the other hand is not concerned with pleasing gods. To her morality is a human affair concerned with human flourishing.

So to answer OnlyAmbrose’s question about what “positive results” are, moral behavior is behavior which promotes human flourishing and only humans can be expected to figure out what that means and how to achieve it. Who else could figure it out for us?

Certainly we theists and atheists can agree on most of our projects like feeding the hungry, increasing literacy, widening access to education, curing diseases, etc., but we simply won’t agree on the immorality of using the lord’s name in vain and telling teenage boys not to diddle their willies–not because we are immoral or amoral people but because we atheists can’t see what that has to do with human flourishing, which is what we mean by morality.

From the pragmatic perspective that atheists take with respect to morality, there are true and false statements to be made about ethics. (There can be little doubt, for example, that love is more conducive to human happiness than cruelty, and the truth of that statement is verifiable (or not) like all scientific truths at any time by anyone.) And if such truths about the causes of human happiness and suffering exist, then those truths may be discovered in the way that we atheists find and evaluate all of our truths–through lived experience. Atheists don’t try to find such answers about what is true today in ancient books. What is true now must be discoverable now. How could it be otherwise?

We atheists also find little use for broad principles about ethics that are supposed to apply now and forever when we recognize that our projects for human flourishing are going on in an ever changing world. We are often called relativists for acknowledging that specific circumstances matter for discerning the morality of an act. But simply considering the commandment “do not kill” or “do not lie” will demonstrate that true morality really does depend on circumstances and while it would be nice if the world could be divided up in nice discrete categories of our creation, such broad principles simply do not work.

We atheists are not good for goodness sake, because we don’t believe in such essences. We recognize that the Platonic project of meditating on Truth doesn’t help us say more true things, and meditating on the Good doesn’t help us do right. Good and true are understood experientially rather than as essences which are really just more gods. Good and true are not existants for humans to conform to but are rather words we use to describe what helps us achieve our human projects. We are good because we would prefer the sort of world where people do good things. We try to foster human solidarity and create the sort of world where we can flourish together, because we know we can’t achieve it alone.

Best,
Leela

 

[williamric]

We atheists are not good for goodness sake, because we don’t believe in such essences. We recognize that the Platonic project of meditating on Truth doesn’t help us say more true things, and meditating on the Good doesn’t help us do right. Good and true are understood experientially rather than as essences which are really just more gods. Good and true are not existants for humans to conform to but are rather words we use to describe what helps us achieve our human projects. We are good because we would prefer the sort of world where people do good things. We try to foster human solidarity and create the sort of world where we can flourish together, because we know we can’t achieve it alone.

From a secular viewpoint, exactly right… Good post

Of course, this makes “good” an arbitrary concept (edit: standard)… There is no reason for a person to act in the same way, and therefore the essence of the word morality disappears

 

[warpspeedpetey]

From a secular viewpoint, exactly right… Good post

Of course, this makes “good” an arbitrary concept (edit: standard)… There is no reason for a person to act in the same way, and therefore the essence of the word morality disappears

atheists have no motivation to be good, consider their proposed systm nothing less than an economics of morality. people would simply do what would profit them most, and cost least.

we know this is the actual state of the matter because our monetary economic systems take advantage of of peoples innate greedy behavior

now apply that to morality and all you have is a machiavellian hell, where everybody is just fine with the "look out for number 1’ mentality. its bad enough now. why add to that?

 

[Logos385]

From a secular viewpoint, exactly right… Good post

Of course, this makes “good” an arbitrary concept (edit: standard)… There is no reason for a person to act in the same way, and therefore the essence of the word morality disappears

Excuse me as I jump in the middle of a conversation without having read all of the preceding arguments. I apologize if I repeat something or say something already examined : ).

What Leela (hello again!) said may make “Good” an arbitrary concept, sure. But as long as the “good” acts are being done, and the acts are what are truly beneficial to humanity and society (or, “human projects”), whether or not we call them good has no meaning: they still are beneficial.

There is most definitely a reason for a person to act in the same way: to benefit humanity and society, by extension themselves, and by extension everyone around them. Naturally, humans form societies, and naturally, the betterment of that society is a tantamount objective to the standard human within said society. Thus, all act for the benefit, and as discussed above, the beneficial act is what matters.

Sorry if I misunderstood your posts (as I don’t truly have the context), and if so, please correct me, or disregard this post (but if you do, just state a brief reason first). Thanks!

 

[Logos385]

atheists have no motivation to be good, consider their proposed systm nothing less than an economics of morality. people would simply do what would profit them most, and cost least.

This is incorrect, for the motivation is the betterment of society as a whole, not for only the self. Generally, machiavellian ideals don’t better society in any way, shape, or form.

 

[quasimodo]

motivation is the betterment of society as a whole

for a materialist this is an empty set

utterly meaningless

 

[Logos385]

for a materialist this is an empty set

utterly meaningless

Surely you don’t mean materialists don’t recognize the existence of a society…?

 

[grannymh]

Hi Granny,

I know you don’t have time for replies, so don’t feel obligated to reply

These links and arguments are a typical example of sociological morality… Morality because everyone does it, because its legal, and numerous other slippery slopes…

There is no absolute there! They are assuming that because humanity is generally moral that this shows morals are natural to humans… Firstly, this is compatible with Christianity because the Bible tell us that the law of the L-rd is written on the hearts of men. Secondly, this doesn’t imply that an action is actually right or wrong at all… The moral standard of a sociological moral system is that “right” is what everyone does, or everyone is happy with etc… This is an arbitrary standard, just as arbitrary as using reason as a moral standard. At the end of the day they haven’t gotten close to answering the basic moral question, What (other then just a personal preference/standard) makes their system right… I can tell you, nothing!

Thanks William for respecting my time constraints.

This is a very interesting post because it looks at the situation from the point of sociological morality… So many moralities
I’d like to echo Dameedna’s concluding comment in post 82. We just don’t live in isolated societies any longer…

General comment about thread. There has been a lot of discussion about killing–frankly, drive-by shootings and school-age killers are more popular than Hitler-- yet, no real discussion about the basic fundamental absolute truth involved.
So why are we, myself included, tiptoeing around the issue of the basic fundamental absolute truth which is: Human life is sacred or in other words, human life is worthy of profound respect. ???

Blessings,
granny

 

[Leela]

for a materialist this is an empty set

utterly meaningless

True, quasimodo. But this materialist you refer to is a straw man. It is merely what many Catholics on this site claim that they would have to be if they did not belief in God. It is not what atheists generally are.

The mistake is thinking that one must either believe in the supernatural or be a materialist while most atheists are actually pragmatists. For the pragmatist, postulating a material reality is a good idea as far as it goes, but it is just an idea, and it should be used only to the extent it is useful to do so. But such words about reality are not confused with reality itself.

You make this projection onto atheists because for Catholics your words are thought to represent the way things really are: God’s name is Jesus, the substance of the cracker has changed to the body of Christ. Pragmatists don’t believe in Substance as an essence that all properties adhere to since if we subtract the term substance from our explanations all our predictions about our experiences remain unchanged. In short, substance has no meaning in practice. Talking about it is just idle words.

Pragmatists take the Darwinian view of language and see that it evolved as a tool for pursuing human ends. We ask at what point did language cease to be a tool for coping with reality and become a representation of reality, and we answer, never.

Catholics on the other hand think that they have ultimate reality contained in their words and to the degree that we believe certain sentences as representing reality and conform to a particular set of words in our actions is the degree to which we are good. It’s all about words: I believe, I believe, I believe… while pragmatism is about life lived.

Experience is where good and bad ideas are born out. Experience is “the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories” (W James) while for the Catholic such categories as God, Truth, Reason, Reality, Heaven, Hell, Substance, etc. are categories that are not human attempts to cope with reality but reality itself. The immediate flux of life that comes before such categorizations (which is associated with mystical experience in Eastern religions) is denied as the such human categories are reified as essences.

Best,
Leela

 

[Logos385]

So why are we, myself included, tiptoeing around the issue of the basic fundamental absolute truth which is: Human life is sacred or in other words, human life is worthy of profound respect. ???

Blessings,
granny

Great point, and very interesting indeed that this has not been brought up yet. I would say that this point, human life being sacred/important, could translate from the ultimate truth to the foundational objective of humanity: to preserve human life. This, as many may know, is an evolutionary imperative… pretty much the evolutionary imperative. So, if morality, at its very base is to preserve life, what’s to say it simply isn’t a product of evolutionary processes?

Thanks for that great insight : ).