Morality without God?

[PRmerger]

I think that this Kolbe example is clouding the waters. It seems to be to come down to: fulfil the requirements that PR has outlined and we will accept that an atheist can sacrifice himself for others. That is, one can be moral without a recourse to a deity. Except that the requirements (as laid out in such detail by PR) are such that they preclude anyone who actually is an atheist from being able to do so. Apparently courage, heroism, altruism are not enough. Or even the act itself.

Not at all.

I have made my assertion. It is the atheistic equivalent of “I don’t believe in a god because there is insufficient evidence of its existence.”

That is: I don’t believe in the existence of the PAK because there is insufficient evidence of his/her existence.

Now, Christians counter the atheistic assertion with proofs for God’s existence, with evidence and arguments that we find compelling.

You* remain unconvinced. Your threshold, it appears, is exquisitely high here.

I am asking you to take the Christian position, so to speak, and attempt to counter my atheistic position and offer your evidence for the PAK’s existence.

And I trust that you will not object if I have the same demanding threshold that atheists have for the proofs we proffer for God’s existence.

I am open to the arguments for the PAKs existence, just as you all assert that you are open to the arguments for God’s existence…but I will take no less than the threshold of evidence that you demand for God’s existence.

And I will, of course, offer refutations to your evidence (provided that you give me the evidence–please, please, please!) that follow the atheistic paradigm.

Sound fair?

*You = non-believers

 

[Eleve]

I brought up prima facie evidence for the existence of self-sacrificing atheists because people were disputing whether they existed. I think that this prima facie evidence is good enough because nobody has given anything beyond an unargued theory about “supernatural love” to contradict it. And that’s what prima facie evidence means: that it’s sufficient reason to believe in something unless it’s rebutted.

I’m not sure what sense you think I’ve “ignored” prima facie evidence for the existence of God. It’s true that I haven’t discussed it in detail, because the existence of God is not a topic of this thread, while the moral behavior of atheists (and thus their capacity for self-sacrifice) is. On the other hand, I have said explicitly that there is prima facie evidence for the existence of God, but that this evidence is rebutted by other evidence. Unless “ignoring” your evidence means not agreeing with your conclusions, I can’t see how I’ve ignored it.

 

[wittgenstein]

Kant’s catagorical imperative is a good way to understand a naturalistic explanation of morality. Stealing is bad because if everyone stole everyone’s chances of survival would diminish. Therefore, there is less chance of genetically passing on a trait, even tho on an individual level stealing may be beneficial. Evolution (the selfish gene) is not based entirely on what is good for the individual animal.

 

[meltzerboy]

Nonsense. No religion is respectful toward other religions. All are based upon the concept that “my god is bigger than your god”, and “we are right and you are wrong”. The muslims used to be “horrible heathens to be put to the sword”, the Jews used to be the “killers of Jesus”. So wake up, buddy - just look at the recent conflict in Ireland where catholics and protestants were slaughtering each other. Not to mention that the concept expressed by the golden rule(s) is MUCH more ancient than christianity.

I do find it - in the Scandinavian countries. which are as irreligious as they come. You have this bad habit of equating atheism with totalitarian systems, as if there would be a causation that atheism leads logically to despotism. And you (in the generic sense!) always throw a hissy fit when someone points out the atrocities of the inquisition. You keep on asserting that it was just a “few” bad apples, and it had nothing to do with christianity. Yet, it was the logical corollary of those times. So better stop throwing around those bricks… you live in a glass house.

There is nothing “obligatory” about it. If you knew game theory then it would be obvious that there are many ways and means of conflict resolution, and the best one is based upon the concept of reciprocity. This is a mathematical theorem, which is PROVEN. There is no authority which needs to be consulted.

I have to repeat that YOU asked for a thought experiment, and I provided you with one. You keep on talking about other things, which have nothing to do with my reply.

How about the Baha’i faith? Doesn’t it believe in the “correctness” of all religions?

 

[Eleve]

Kant’s catagorical imperative is a good way to understand a naturalistic explanation of morality. Stealing is bad because if everyone stole everyone’s chances of survival would diminish. Therefore, there is less chance of genetically passing on a trait, even tho on an individual level stealing may be beneficial. Evolution (the selfish gene) is not based entirely on what is good for the individual animal.

This has almost nothing to do with why Kant thinks stealing is wrong.

 

[mymamamary]

Kant’s catagorical imperative is a good way to understand a naturalistic explanation of morality. Stealing is bad because if everyone stole everyone’s chances of survival would diminish. Therefore, there is less chance of genetically passing on a trait, even tho on an individual level stealing may be beneficial. Evolution (the selfish gene) is not based entirely on what is good for the individual animal.

Why do we feel guilty when we steal? Not for survival, I mean stealing something that we can survive without (Iphone, Extra money etc.)

 

[wittgenstein]

Response to post 244
I am not saying that Kant was talking about evolution. Obviously Kant precedes Darwin. What I am saying is that the principle behind the catagorical imperitive also applies to evolution.

 

[PRmerger]

Except that the requirements (as laid out in such detail by PR) are such that they preclude anyone who actually is an atheist from being able to do so.

Refute me, then.

Give me the name of the atheist who volunteered to stand in the death of another.

Then we will dialogue!

If I am incorrect in my assertion: atheists are incapable of sacrificial love

then show me the evidence.

Until you do, and it is dissected and considered, I won’t believe he exists.

(Oh, how I am enjoying playing the atheist to atheists! )

 

[wittgenstein]

I think that evolution can be reconciled with theism. Actually, I think that (if one knows otherwise tell me) the Catholic church does not reject evolution.
For example, evolution is a dialectic (preditor vs prey). Dialectic is a rational process. Evolution can be seen as revealing the mind of God in operation. God is immanent and transcendent. Physics can resolve this paradox thru multi dimensions. For example, a 3 dimensional object transcends a 2 dimensional slice of it,while being totally present in that slice.Evolution seen from a more realistic perspective (space-time) loses its bloody in tooth and claw image (which was never the primary message of evolution. Evolution emphasizes cooperation ) and reveals itself as more mind like then matter like.

 

[PRmerger]

So we’re being asked to give an example of someone who, by definition, does not believe in the supernatural, but can still show an example of supernatural love.

If sacrificial love is capable of being manifested by atheists (and I don’t believe it can be), then prove me wrong.

Name, please, of this atheist.

Offer citations for this event.

And then we can chat.

Otherwise, I take the atheistic position: he does not exist.

So if we give an example of an atheist who gives his life for someone (and as has been pointed out, there is no doubt that it has happened),

Really? You believe this without any witnesses?

“Ye of little faith”–that’s me. I don’t have the faith you guys do that “there is no doubt that it has happened.”

Oh, you better believe there is doubt that this has happened.

Ain’t gonna believe it till you give me some names. Events. Witnesses. Writings.

then it doesn’t count because …he is not a Christian. Joseph Heller would hug himself with delight at that.

Oh, absolutely it would count.

This PAK cannot, of course, be a Christian. He must be an atheist.

But it would certainly count. :yup:

And to stretch the point, it’s then being used as a comparison with belief in God. That is, if we can’t prove that an atheist who believes in the supernatural exists, then we must accept a theists belief in God

No, Bradski.

What you will be forced to acknowledge is that you have great faith in something, with no more evidence than this argument:

Atheists exist. (True)
Atheists do nice things. (True)

Therefore, the equivalent of an atheistic Kolbe, who has volunteered in the stead of a stranger to die a slow, horrific death, with joy and praise on his lips, exists. (Not so much :nope
**
You will have to re-consider your point of view that you are an evidence-only proponent.**

 

[PRmerger]

Before I respond further, could you clarify what you mean by “here”?

Do you mean on this thread? Or on the CAFs? Or in general, as in here on this planet?

Nevermind this question, Bradski.

 

[Bradski]

Is anybody here aware of any atheist organization that has ever…etc etc

If you are asking why people don’t set up organisations that help others that are not specifically religious, then that’s not a problem. Medicins sans Frontieres is one that immediately springs to mind. As is the Red Cross. And the Hollows Foundation. People don’t need a religious reason for helping others. Claiming that there are no specifically atheist organisations seems a little odd. Like asking where are all the humanitarian organisations made up of people who don’t believe in UFOs.

Sure. Empathy is a human characteristic. But when there is a moral choice to be made between what society says is moral and what a father may decide, then it is to his conscience that he is deferring. And the moral man ought never disobey his conscience. That is something we may agree upon, yes?

Just like Jimminy Cricket said: Let your concience be your guide. If you suffer from a guilty concience after doing something it is because the act has caused some injury to another. That’s assuming that you feel empathy towards that person. In the case of the soldier, he felt no empathy up until he was reminded of his love for his own child. When that happened, he suffered a guilty concience.

The vast majority of people throughout world history have held a common belief in a divine being. What’s more likely - that the vast majority of people from all walks of life throughout world history are wrong, or that atheists are right?

Well, if you are right and God exists, then the vast majority of people have indeed been wrong (which in itself doesn’t make you right, incidentally).

Almost all cultures and societies in human history have been based upon the premise that human existence is not an island, that it is part of a larger and more universal scheme of meaning.

I’d suggest that you mean all religious cultures.

An aspect of the question that has not been adequately addressed is not whether an atheist can be moral but whether any kind of moral system can be adequately and reasonably derived from atheistic principles grounded in a purely materialistic world view.

Atheistic principles? What could those be? You seem to think that someone who doesn’t believe in a god (or maybe your particular god) is has no connection with the world.

I haven’t read all the posts, but based on what you just just posted it seems self-sacrifice would require something supernatural:

1. 
   *]It is natural for one to preserve one’s health and survival.
   *]To sacrifice one’s self for another would mean acting against one’s natural response toward self-preservation.
   *]Therefore, self-sacrifice must involve something beyond what is found in nature.

1. 
   It is natural to preserve one’s health and survival assuming that by doing so you would suffer less than you would otherwise. There is a balance. And in some cases, living with the realisation that you had let someone die when you could have saved him – even at the probable cost of your own life, can be, in some circumstances, worse than saving yourself. That is entirely a natural feeling. Even people who have survived a natural disaster can feel guilty because they survived and others didn’t. It’s far from unatural.
   
   And there are pragmatic decisions to be made. If I gave up almost all of my salary to good causes, then a lot of people might be saved by me doing that. But neither you or I do that because there’s a disconnect between ourselves and the people, possibly in other country, that we’d save. And we have obligations to those who are closer to us.
   
   The pragmatic decisions are there constantly. No-one, and I mean no-one, gives up their life for another (as opposed to attempting to save them) without some sort of thought process going on. Even in our good friend Kolbe’s case, the question could be asked: would he have done the same if the person who’s place he took was a convicted child rapist due to be executed at some future time? Would he have done the same if the person was an old man, not long for this world, who would welcome what he felt was the opportunity to end his own suffering?
   
   ‘Greater love hath no man etc’ comes with small print that we’d do well to consider.
   

   The bottom line is that Christianity preaches altruism. Atheism preaches nothing of the sort.

   Quite right. It preaches nothing.
   

   Before I respond further, could you clarify what you mean by “here”? Do you mean on this thread? Or on the CAFs? Or in general, as in here on this planet?

   I was thinking this thread in particular when I wrote it. But it could stand generally for most atheists on the forum and probably for most in the general population.

 

[PRmerger]

Eleve, you were the one who brought up prima facie evidence (for the existence of self-sacrificing atheists). The point is, you conveniently ignored the prima facie evidence for the existence of God. No one but you is claiming that prima facie evidence is enough to confidently believe something exists, except when you decide its not enough to confidently believe something exists.

Yeah, what he^^ said.

 

[wittgenstein]

First let me say that we are talking about altruism. We are not talking about the validity of the cause one sacrifices one’s life for. We are only asking if an atheist ever sacrificed his own life for something not his life. Millions of Communists sacrificed their lives fighting the Nazis.

 

[wittgenstein]

Here is a very good example of an atheist risking (and an extreme risk) her life for others.
Dr. Tina Strobos.

 

[PRmerger]

Here is a very good example of an atheist risking (and an extreme risk) her life for others.
Dr. Tina Strobos.

Citations, please.

I would like evidence of her atheism, first. Something she has written.

 

[PRmerger]

Just like Jimminy Cricket said: Let your concience be your guide. If you suffer from a guilty concience after doing something it is because the act has caused some injury to another. That’s assuming that you feel empathy towards that person. In the case of the soldier, he felt no empathy up until he was reminded of his love for his own child. When that happened, he suffered a guilty concience.

Interesting, this. I think you have inadvertently stumbled upon an argument for the existence of God. “Conscience has absolute authority over me” = proof for God’s existence.

The Argument from Conscience.

 

[wittgenstein]

Response to post 255
I am using a tablet and cannot post sites. You will have to google Dr. Tina Strobos.
Also, do you deny that many Communists sacrificed their lives? Before answering that read post 253

 

[Peter_Plato]

First let me say that we are talking about altruism. We are not talking about the validity of the cause one sacrifices one’s life for. We are only asking if an atheist ever sacrificed his own life for something not his life. Millions of Communists sacrificed their lives fighting the Nazis.

This presumes that the millions of Russians who fought against the Nazis were actually communist atheists who did so freely rather than merely being citizens who were conscripted or volunteered to defend against a perceived greater evil in the Nazis than they had been saddled with in the party that controlled their country. Simply having a pragmatic sense concerning who or what power it would make the most prudent sense to side with for your own security does not necessarily demonstrate altruism. That is not to say there weren’t altruists fighting the Nazis, only that presuming there were and that they were both communist and atheist is not evidence of their existence.

 

[PRmerger]

Response to post 255
I am using a tablet and cannot post sites. You will have to google Dr. Tina Strobos.

Yeah–nothing at all that she has written regarding her atheism came up.

I can’t believe she was an atheist until I see evidence of her first person narrative.