Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater: why don't atheists typically reject secular values derived from religion?

[ADouglass]

St Thomas’ proofs work * if you already believe, and wish to accept them despite their shortcomings.* I am a theist and don’t accept them. And the “God” that most atheist reject is the anthropomorphic invention of religions, not necessarily the actual God.

You will find that Catholics don’t believe in an antropomorphic God. It would be foolish to think that because of the limits of the human language we are thus attributing human attributes onto God. newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm For what Catholics believe.

 

[sprite59]

Since the question is not clear (no examples, no definition of terms, etc.), one can only
take a stab at what is meant and attempt to shed some light - most probably indirectly -
thereon:

Any reasonable person will agree that T. Aquinas reasons well. The five proofs stand.
Atheists make a conscious decision to reject them out of pride. They can do this because they are free. Just as Lucifer and his followers - at the moment of trial - decided to worship
no one outside themselves and thus were cast into a hell of their own making. There, they
experience a sorrow for their punishment and not one of contrition. Because of their an-
gelic nature, this decision is eternally irrevocable. Atheists, on the other hand, can re-
verse their decision and opt for loving and worshiping God. They’ve limited time to do this.
The bell tolls at the moment of death. Time’s up guys 'n gals. Then, God, respecting their
free will, sends them out of His presence and Love forever. Damn it! as it were.

On another note, I believe atheists must be scrupulously moral people if they are to attain
‘respectability and seeming credibility’. A lot of them respect and observe the natural law better than many, many believers. I respect those atheists, but they aren’t credible. I pray
for you and, should you convert, please pray for me.

I stop here. Prayers all around.

sprite59

 

[AntiTheist]

The OP has been answered already by several early posts: “secular values” aren’t derived from religion. Since the enlightenment, “secular values” including opposition to slavery, women’s rights, civil rights, democracy, freedom of religion, and other values completely contrary to those esposed by Western religions have grown up.

The fact of the matter is that Christianity was essentially dragged out of the dark ages by the secular morality developing around it.

No reasonable person can deny that T. Aquinas reasons well. His five proofs stand.

No. As the theist below you can confirm, the so-called “proofs” are not convincing to anyone who doesn’t already believe.

Ranklyfrank:

the “God” that most atheist reject is the anthropomorphic invention of religions, not necessarily the actual God.

Well, I don’t accept any gods – anthropomorphic or not – that I’ve ever heard of because there’s no evidence that any of those gods exist. I think you may be off base in your assumption there.

 

[RobbyS]

I agree with Inocente and Hokomai. And you, Eric Peter, back to the history books!

The false assumption in the thread title is that morality derives from religion. It does not. Religion, and here we have to leave the usual assumption on here that “religion” means Catholicism or Christianity, appears to coincide with morality because it materially codifies a meme which in fact stems from human nature. Now that human nature can be attributed to God or a god, but that implies a commonality of Source which in our Christian case points to being created in the image and likeness of God. So consider the Source and that the idea of the “fall” of man is as well a sadly misinterpreted idea. And if you are an atheist, there are perfectly serviceable moral paradigms that can lead to very high ethics and “moral” behavior.

But in any case, morality is based on the twin legs of survival and commonality. And that is why one sees morality applying concentrically out from the family, to the tribe, or city, ans so on to larger and larger inclusions until the level of the saint/philosopher is reached where man is Man and is inclusive of all and of Nature and of God if the person is a theist. So in that way we can have everything from blaming it on God to honor amongst thieves.

The difference with Christianity is that it takes it our of the context of you and me NOW into me after death. It does that in a way that bifurcates consequence and the mind of the one being “moral.” It is a kind of a high level consideration forced by the sanction of eternal consequence codified in a way that may not and likely isn’t even nearly accurate. In other words morality is totally covered without the necessity of attribution to a systemic paradigm by the simple ideas of reciprocity and identity.

That is why the Golden Rule precedes Christianity and is cross cultural, as is “Know Thyself.” The fact is, if you know yourself, you cease to identify the “other” as separate from your own Nature. And no one harms themselves unless they are ignorant, which is why “Gnothi Seauton” is such a critical injunction regardless of any adherence to any accident of religious affiliation. It is also the key to ecumenism of a profound kind not admissible by adamantine adherence to intellectualized dogmas.

That is rehashed Durkheim. The problem with his sociological approach to religion is that,like Huxley in the case of evolution, or Lord Russell later on he thought he could stand above and beyond his own upbringing and society. Nietsche at least had the insight that conventional morality in the 19th century stood on no firm ground at all, and he was desperately searching for an alternative to the existing morality that would not collapse civilization.

 

[ADouglass]

The fact of the matter is that Christianity was essentially dragged out of the dark ages by the secular morality developing around it.

Show me one piece of secular ethics that real Christians accept that is not based on the love of God. You know: love God, love others, love yourself, love your enemies.

Names? Dates? People? Events?

 

[Ranklyfrank]

That is rehashed Durkheim. The problem with his sociological approach to religion is that,like Huxley in the case of evolution, or Lord Russell later on he thought he could stand above and beyond his own upbringing and society. Nietsche at least had the insight that conventional morality in the 19th century stood on no firm ground at all, and he was desperately searching for an alternative to the existing morality that would not collapse civilization.

Sorry, I’ve heard of Nietzsche, and read a Huxley novel, but the others are lost on me. And I didn’t advance a sociological idea.

 

[ADouglass]

Sorry, I’ve heard of Nietzsche, and read a Huxley novel, but the others are lost on me. And I didn’t advance a sociological idea.

You advanced the sociological idea that we took our morality from a previous secular morality. Or am I missing something?

 

[Kaninchen]

You advanced the sociological idea that we took our morality from a previous secular morality. Or am I missing something?

Why is it ‘sociological’?

 

[ADouglass]

Why is it ‘sociological’?

Sociology is the study of society. One can study parts of society, that includes sub-groups such as a religious group of people. You don’t have to have a degree in sociology to study society. Consider: “The sociology of religion concerns the role of religion in society: practices, historical backgrounds, developments and universal themes” emphasis is mine

 

[inocente]

The issue, therefore, is not “can we construct a moral system without reference to God.” Of course we can. The point is that such a system, if God does not exist, would be simply a matter of social convention (like driving on the right or left side of the road). It would have no objective basis. A society might as soon decide that proper morality involved the extermination of the Jews. And if memory serves me correctly, one society recently did that.

Alternatively people could decide God wanted a little ethnic cleansing. Numbers 31 for example: burn all the Midianite towns and camps, plunder, kill all the men and boys, kill every woman except virgins which we should “save for yourselves”. Moses being objective and proper?

Thing is, it could just be we select from the Bible whichever morality happens to coincide with our current social conventions.

 

[inocente]

Any reasonable person will agree that T. Aquinas reasons well. The five proofs stand.
Atheists make a conscious decision to reject them out of pride.

I used to be an atheist. Just didn’t happen to believe in any gods, nor saw any reason to want to believe. Nothing to do with pride. And still don’t accept any of Aquinas’ proofs point blank. Just happen to believe now is all.

 

[Kaninchen]

Sociology is the study of society. One can study parts of society, that includes sub-groups such as a religious group of people. You don’t have to have a degree in sociology to study society. Consider: “The sociology of religion concerns the role of religion in society: practices, historical backgrounds, developments and universal themes” emphasis is mine

Which is saying that sociology is the study of everything because the study of even physical processes is a human activity and thus open to sociological investigation and all statements about anything are ‘sociological’ (like if the Pope mentioned broccoli, all discussion of broccoli could be considered ‘theological’) - guess who shared a flat with a couple of sociologists when she was younger .

 

[danserr]

Alternatively people could decide God wanted a little ethnic cleansing. Numbers 31 for example: burn all the Midianite towns and camps, plunder, kill all the men and boys, kill every woman except virgins which we should “save for yourselves”. Moses being objective and proper?

Thing is, it could just be we select from the Bible whichever morality happens to coincide with our current social conventions.

What do you think this proves? I never claimed that Mosses was morally perfect, nor do I insist that the Israelites were necessarily right in attributing those commands to God.
You are confusing the existence of objective moral values with people’s perception or knowledge of those values. The fact that Mosses may have been wrong in thinking that such actions were moral is not evidence that objective morality does not exist, only that he may have been mistaken in his perception of it.

Without God, then morality simply is a matter of social convention, but the OP has asked, given this obvious fact, why do skeptics behave as if their morality is something more than that, when they have no rational, objective basis for it?

 

[Kaninchen]

Without God, then morality simply is a matter of social convention, but the OP has asked, given this obvious fact, why do skeptics behave as if their morality is something more than that, when they have no rational, objective basis for it?

Wouldn’t that rather depend on what one meant by ‘social convention’ and what does ‘behave as if their morality is something more’ mean?

 

[danserr]

Wouldn’t that rather depend on what one meant by ‘social convention’ and what does ‘behave as if their morality is something more’ mean?

By social convention we means norms created and based in society, such as driving on the right hand or left hand side of the road. This is simply a matter of social convention, we could have easily decided otherwise.

By something more, I mean something objective and binding. Social convention can be rejected; we might just as easily agree tomorrow to begin driving on the left side of the road instead. Why? Because there is no objective basis for thinking we are required to drive on the right side. But skeptics behave as if their morality is something more than mere convention; they refuse to just throw it out and behave as if things like child abuse, rape, etc. are really wrong. But if morality is just a matter of social convention, they have no basis for this.

If morality is solely a matter of social convention or personal preference, then if society decides that rape is really ok, then rape really becomes ok. One can’t condemn rape because their is no objective basis to do so. Criticizing another society (the Incans for human sacrifice, he Hindu’s for burning wives on their husbands funeral pyre) becomes impossible and more, culturally chauvinistic. The skeptic has no basis for criticizing these things as really wrong, but does anyway, because he is better than his principles.

 

[inocente]

What do you think this proves? I never claimed that Mosses was morally perfect, nor do I insist that the Israelites were necessarily right in attributing those commands to God.

Then you can’t insist anyone else is necessarily right in attributing their commands to God either.

You are confusing the existence of objective moral values with people’s perception or knowledge of those values. The fact that Mosses may have been wrong in thinking that such actions were moral is not evidence that objective morality does not exist, only that he may have been mistaken in his perception of it.

Objectivity is “based on real facts and not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings”. A real fact is something which is known and can be proven, not something imaginary or about which there’s no information.

So I’m not confusing anything – we can’t claim the existence of objective moral values while saying they are unknown or unknowable, not without torturing the language anyway. We can’t claim Moses had a mistaken perception and we have total clarity by reference to anything other than our own perception.

Without God, then morality simply is a matter of social convention, but the OP has asked, given this obvious fact, why do skeptics behave as if their morality is something more than that, when they have no rational, objective basis for it?

Most people never have any formal training in any of the numerous systems of ethics out there, and anyway all systems start from unproven assumptions. They’re all rational but none can be claimed as objectively true or there wouldn’t be so many of them.

But which god do we get these high-class morals from? The god in the book of Numbers, from another OT book, the NT, or the god of Hindus, Muslims, etc.? Isn’t it just a whole lot better to admit none of us know the mind of God?

 

[Timothy17]

I guess the same reason why Christians, on the whole, no longer reject values which have come from secular society since the enlightenment:

I think you need a new history book, my friend :

opposition to slavery,

Christians have been inimical to slavery from the first. In the Scriptures already there is a debate about the status of slaves in the context of Christianity, and the rule was laid down that slaves are to be treated not as private property but as the children of God, Who is the Master of both the master and the slave. This emancipation was a boon for Christian slaves who also had Christian masters, for it meant they were to be treated not only as co-religionists, but as persons created and loved by God, and it insured fair and ethical treatment in the relationship. They were no longer property in the strict sense of the word, but persons with rights before God.

Furthermore, as early as the 16th century the Church ; namely, the Pope, became critical of the developing slave trade and asserted that all peoples were human and none were to be thought of as mere property. Again the Pope stressed for the correct, fair and - above all - just treatment of persons, and binded this on the conscience of all Christians masters to treat their slaves appropriately, especially if they were also Christians, which all persons were eligible to become, regardless of race or nationality.

support for democracy,

Democracy did and does not to this day have a consensus support even among secularists. Most people accept a limited, republican and constitutional form of government. Communists, for example, rejected democracy and they were utterly secular.

the franchise for women,

Please produce evidence that Christians fought against this.

abolition of legal protection for men who rape their wives,

Please find, once more, Christian opposition to such a heinous and unthinkable thing as rape.

the right for workers to organise and combine,

The Church supports this. Before unions there were workman’s guilds and the Church, once again, entirely sanctioned this.

religious freedom,

Vague and useless unless defined. No person would ever be forced to be baptized or engage in any Rite of the Church against their will. The Church fought to ensure this.

allowing immigration of people from non-Christian cultures,

No idea what you are even thinking of here.

abolition of established religion etc.

You are kidding, right ? Few secularists, save for communists (which is still an inherently treasonous philosophy) advocate for the abolition of religion ; furthermore, of course we are going to resist such a brazenly evil agenda.

Tim

 

[ADouglass]

Which is saying that sociology is the study of everything because the study of even physical processes is a human activity and thus open to sociological investigation and all statements about anything are ‘sociological’ (like if the Pope mentioned broccoli, all discussion of broccoli could be considered ‘theological’) - guess who shared a flat with a couple of sociologists when she was younger .

It has to be shown how it relates to the way people interact with each other. Likewise, one wouldn’t consider all discussions of broccoli theological, because in the discussion one would have to be explicit in how it relates to God. Go tell a physicist that he is studying the interactions of humans and see what response you get. Your not one of those people who think there is no objective reality are you?

 

[inocente]

If morality is solely a matter of social convention or personal preference, then if society decides that rape is really ok, then rape really becomes ok. One can’t condemn rape because their is no objective basis to do so.

You don’t think people might think rape is immoral just because they don’t want to be violently abused then?

Criticizing another society (the Incans for human sacrifice, he Hindu’s for burning wives on their husbands funeral pyre) becomes impossible and more, culturally chauvinistic. The skeptic has no basis for criticizing these things as really wrong, but does anyway, because he is better than his principles.

Ooops?

*Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” - Gen 22:2 NIV

By the word of the LORD he cried out against the altar: “Altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’” - 1 Kings 13:1-2*

 

[Timothy17]

I’d have thought that, if one doesn’t believe in God, one would suppose that ‘religious morality’ was a projection/particular form of codification of the social behaviours that evolved with the species - with an admixture of the kinds of rules that made bronze age farming cultures (particularly in the Middle East) work.

“the species” ? We aren’t talking about the morality of insects and animals, which have no morality to speak of. We are talking about human beings. Not sure how you missed that.