Riverwind

What objective reason do you have for being empathetic toward anyone who cannot return the favor to you at some point?

What is 'good'? No, really?

From what I've read, if I don't think you are 'good', then what book of morals can you present me with and with what reasons to tell me what is 'good'?

I guess you think we need no police force?

You don't know me.

However, atheists and agnostics have the potential to be quite scary. I can't determine what they believe. I have no reason to believe that they are telling me the truth and won't stab me in the back if it gains them something. After all, is anyone going to punish you for anything you happen to do here on earth? You may think you're 'good', but I can almost guarantee you that I could find someone from your past who would not say they thought you were 'good'. Should you be punished for living your life contrary to their interests or 'morals'?

I've never met an atheist or agnostic who could satisfactorily explain what they, themselves, believe about why we exist here on earth or why it appears that as long as I've got strength on my side, I can do as I please without fear of any punishment in the hereafter.

Riverwind

That's not the case I'm talking about. Thinking from an atheistic/agnostic view, I cannot understand why anyone would do something for someone or care about anyone who could not benefit me in some way. For instance, as an atheist/agnostic, it is in my best interest to continue to live at a high level of comfort and drive my big Hummer. Well, dang, I need a lot of gas. Using the prevailing mis-information, it is beneficial to me that the US invaded Iraq to keep me supplied with relatively low-cost fuel. What should I care about 500,000, heck make it 1,000,000 dead Iraqi babies? From an atheistic/agnostic viewpoint, their deaths do not affect me. They live half way around the world and their deaths will make no impact on my life. Sound 'bad'? Well, from the perspective of those close to those Iraqi children, I guess it would be 'bad', but from my perspective, I would be indifferent. It makes little difference what those people would think because my country's army is much stronger and they will never be a problem or a real threat to me. And further, there is no God to hear their petitions or to punish me for not taking a stand against the killing of those children.

So...as an atheist/agnostic...I just don't care. Explain to me why I should, please? Do you point to a book of 'morals'? What is it based on? Is it based on the traditions of your parents or grandparents?

Again, please...I am not saying that atheists or agnostics all think this way or behave as if they have morals (this is for those who just can't seem to get that through their thick skulls). What I'm saying is that this is the ugly reality of what is possible. Take away the police and you will have anarchy. Take away God and you will have anarchy.

Since I think you came to this discussion late, I will just say that a certain poster was attempting to impose his morality on Christians. I simply stepped in to say "What 'morality'"? These posts are an attempt to get him to understand exactly what you said in your paragraph...that he has no "right" to condemn my religious 'morals' (which he doesn't seem to understand anyway) and impose his own form of 'morality' on me.

That's not quite it. Read Kirkegaard. It will get you started in the right direction, but I have my differences with him.

Otherwise, why? I mean, you and almost every other atheist/agnostic I've ever conversed with seems to believe in 'morals' because they don't like the lack of them. Where do they get them? Many places, but most times from the society around them.

Cheerful Charlie

The evil of these tall tales goes deeper. God had been so long for gotten he had to reintroduce himself via Moses. God origionally chooses one peoples, descedents of Abram to dote on and leaves all others alone. Why does this God make no attempt to introduce himself to his other creations, Canaanites, Egyptians and others? This then, is a rather ugly concept of a god.

This is not something a good, perfectly good, totally good god would do.
Not something a just, loving and merciful god would do.

Its just bizarre that Christians do not see these contradictions for what they are.

Cheerful Charlie

Cheerful Charlie

Yes, Dr. Marvin Olasky who invented the phrase compassionate conservatism, left the Bush adminstration and has written a book on his experiences. I have read a few reports of the scorn the Bush insiders have for those evangelicals they use.

I see now a few new evangelical groups are indeed forming to fight these sorts of things. May they have good luck in their endeavors. I see also the liberal denominations are trying to get organized to counter the effect of the well organized religious right. About time. We have always had a religious minority on the right side of things, the Quakers, Mennonites, Mary Knoll nuns and others, usually sneered at as "liberal churches" by the RR.

So its not all bleak. We have had the World Council of Churches, (Hissssss! Liberals!) but mere press releases have not been enough.

May these have luck leading their wretched religious right bretheren into the light.

CC

Ephemerid

How about this: "It is an unvirtuous world that needs virtue. Look at the world. Do you see suffering? Then you do not wish to add to it. In this sense lucidity is a condition of morality." ~ Leon Wieseltier

I don't need metaphysics or a god to command me to love my neighbor.

And in fact I'd say the real reason ANYONE gives any real genuine concern for their fellow humans is because they empathise, not because of any metaphysics, any god, or any philosophy whatsoever (religious or secular).

You might think a god is needed, but, when you act out of compassion, is it because you are COMMANDED to love, or is it because you just love?

All the theologies & philosophies are ways of articulating AFTER THE FACT the experience of love, of making sense of that. Some will interpret that love theistically, others atheistically, or whatever.

Religion can sometimes be so divisive that they can become WALL preventing oneself from being able to act in compassion (I think that's the main thrust of CC's argument).

And after all, who is to say that God's existence somehow objectifies the necessity for comapassion? One's belief in God is just as subjective as belief in humanism, belief in whatever. Its all a level playing field, only theism isn't willing to admit that-- it makes claims to a metaphysical objectivity that does not exist.

We don't theorise about love BEFORE loving. We theorise AFTER. And theories ABOUT love are not the same thing as loving itself. People don't need to rely on a command from God-- instead they need self honesty.

Mr Carcer

Loving humanity is what you do when you can't love people.

Ephemerid

Just a personal anecdote to illustrate the differences with typical Christians in the US & a more liberal country like New Zealand...

Now, I don't want to get into the pros & cons of this particular issue (please no dearails!), but during my stay in NZ, an child anti-smacking bill was being voted on by Parliament & caused a big stir all over the country. It certainly seemed the majority of kiwis thought it was a bad idea, they had the right to discipline their child as neceesary, etc. etc. There were protests and this issue brought out a lot of church groups as well.

I was reading an article about this. My first instinct as an American was, "Yep, to be expected, the Christians are gonna get in there saying its their God-given right to spank their child, 'Spare the rod & spoil the child,' etc." You know that if a bill like that came up here in the US, that is exactly how it would be.

I read further into the article and was confused. I had to re-read the article because it turns out that these religious protesters were FOR the bill! They thought using violence against a child, even a spanking, was 'unchristian.'

I don't want to bicker about whether spaking is right or wrong, or what the presumably 'correct' Christian response should be to spanking, or whether these kiwi Christians were right.

But my POINT is, the majority of Christians in NZ are very different from the majority of American Christians. You know most American Christians would be against an anti-smacking bill. This was an eye-opener for me.

It just indicates a very different mentality in cultures & how they affect religious outlooks (regardless of whether they are really consistent with whatever beliefs). I think many American Christians & many kiwi Christians would not see eye to eye.

I just wanted to relate this to you CC-- just an personal experience that illustrates what you are saying about American Christianity.

Angra Mainyu

First, I'd have to take issue with your assumption that the Iraq war has resulted in low-price gas. It clearly hasn't, and it's been overall quite detrimental for Americans (counting, of course, the number of Americans killed, maimed, etc., and the waste of money).

However, that is incidental. What you're not taking into consideration is that the killing of those children may very well affect the atheist in question, in a direct manner: the killing may make the atheist suffer, because he or she empathize with them. The atheist may well feel morally offended when contemplating those killings. The reason for that is that the atheist, as a result of some combination of genetics and environment, has such preferences.

It is possible that an atheist would be indifferent. It's also possible that a theist could be indifferent. They may understand that it's their religious duty to fight the infidels, and that if that results in the deaths of innocent people, God will decide later. In fact, if they manage to convert more people, they'll save some people from Hell – in their view -, so maybe they want the war. Then again, some other theists may interpret their duty differently.

Looking at the other side of the issue, you find those very religious Al-Qaeda types, deliberately targeting and killing Iraqis, both men and women, both children and adult.

Besides, a theist's moral feelings are also the result of her or his biology + environment, so they may feel strongly about the issue, and be opposed to the war. It doesn't matter whether the person is a theists or an atheist, from that perspective.

If you don't care, well, you don't. But then again, other atheists/agnostics may well care, because – again – as a result of both genes + environment, they have a moral intuition that rejects that. And while our genes are very similar, environmental factors can trigger different biological reactions, resulting in different moral intuitions – though with similarities as well.

Still, it's also possible that your not caring is the result of your focusing on some of the facts – the (non-real, but still) economic benefits you get, rather than the children in question. So, if you're not a sociopath, it's possible to try to appeal to your empathy, and tell you that lots of Iraqi children have died, others have suffered horrible wounds that will leave them scarred for life, others (or the same) have lost their parents, siblings, friends, etc.

Stressing those events might well appeal to your sense of empathy. If that fails, well you don't care. It's interesting to point out here that the Iraq war had more support among theists than among atheists/agnostics.

No, you will not have anarchy. Many societies actually have other views, and while they have their religions, those religions aren't necessarily theistic. There's no god in Japan or China, for instance, and yet there's no anarchy.

Sure, there are some believers in the Christian or the Muslim god in those countries too, but the majority of the population doesn't believe in them. Besides, there was no anarchy there before those deities were introduced.

If you consider European countries as well, you will see a drop in religious beliefs during the last half of the past century, and yet no anarchy. Some statistics count nominal membership to churches, so that makes it look as though the numbers of believers are higher than they are (for instance, the Roman Catholic Church would still count me as a member, but I'm as skeptic as one can be).


I know you're trying to point that out. I'm pointing out that religious people do the same. What does it mean that they have no “right” to impose their views?

From a legal perspective, if lawmakers pass laws that you dislike, they still have the right – of course, “right” is viewed from a perspective of an already given framework; but that is always the case.

It's what could be inferred from your rejection of atheism. A reference to Kierkegaard is too broad for me to know why you are a theist.

Regardless, if, based on the information available to me, entities such as Athena, Aphrodite, Jesus, Shiva, or the Muslim God, do not exist, I can't just “choose to believe” that they do. So, if I thought that a theistic framework provides any kind of foundation for imposing one's morality, then I would still not be a theist, since I can't choose to believe what I think is obviously mistaken.

To be clear, if you argue that the evidence says otherwise, that's another matter. My point is that what I think is not a choice. Your post seemed to suggest that you had “chosen to believe” because of your dislike of what you perceived as the consequences of atheism on morality. I was, then, asking how that was even possible.

Your assumptions about my beliefs are just wrong. If you'd read any of the several threads about morality, its origins, etc., active at the moment, you'd see that I don't hold those views – in fact, I'm in the middle of some debates with other infidels whose views are very different from mine.

Still, I don't hold morals come from society only. Our moral intuitions, I think, are the result of both genetic and environmental (including but not limited to cultural) factors. I don't presume to know the exact combination of those factors that result in moral intuitions.

That does not mean that there are no morals. People do have moral intuitions, regardless of any deities.

But the problem for your view is: suppose there's a powerful being who calls itself and likes to be called “god”. Why would I obey it? Ok, maybe because it will torture me otherwise, so it's a reign of terror. At least, in the non-theistic world, there's more emphasis in consensus and agreements than terror. But ultimately, if we want someone not to do X, and he wants to, the threat of punishment may well be necessary.

In the case of theism, of course there's no god imposing its will. There are people imposing some rules that they prefer. Those people just happen to mistakenly believe that some powerful being is backing them.

Red Expendable

I'm sure this has been revved in the ground already, but one example of how you can choose your morals without a book...

Do you look in the bible and agree with every moral prescription in there?
How about other books, religious and non-religious?
How about what other people tell you is moral?

If you can pick and choose what you think is moral and not moral, and it's not all about one particular book or religion, there is a BIG clue that your personal sky-daddy that you CLAIM to believe in is not guiding you at all in these matters.

Secondly, atheists do this very thing. As has been said before, there is a genetic and environmental basis for this. Nature/nurture I think is the common terms for this.

As far as I can see is that the most basic rule for morals are that any given individual does not want to be harmed or killed. From this very basic concept, all morals can be discovered. We are hardwired to survive, to WANT to survive. As are all animals.

Why would I not want to see Iraqi's be bombed into oblivion? Well, for one, I know I wouldn't want to be bombed into oblivion. I don't like pain, and I want live a happy life. And I know that bombing people into oblivion goes against that. I can empathize with them.

Additionally, there is also, I think a mental tally system in peoples brains. Where we know when someone is wrong (cheated, hurt, etc.) there is a possibility of retaliation. Same goes for when you help a friend out. You pretty much know, being friends that he or she will reciprocate.

It's mutual benefit. Maybe it's conscious or subconscious, but it certainly appears that way. And I think this is a good basis for why people do good or bad. Their morals come from this accounting system all based on what harm or good is done to the individual deciding on what is moral and what is not.

It seems to be a more honest approach or outlook. Just my opinion.

Also, I might add that I could give a flying FUCK what that bullshit fuckin bible says about jack diddly squat. Just so long as theists don't try to impose the fucked up morals and concepts on me.

AND last but definitely not least, I would say, to back up what Cheerful Charlie says - he points out that this country, being mostly Christian - both politicians and soldiers who do the fighting have done some horrible shit to other countries. Why is it that these Christians act like their morals come from what I would imagine to be the Christian Satan himself?

A lot of good their bible has done, eh? Unless of course, a closer look at the bible actually reveals that their disgusting wars and genocide are supported by the bible. (Which version BTW?)

To put it another way:
If Christians do horrible things, and the bible tells them not to, then what good is the "book", and why isn't their sky-daddy stopping them?

If the bible doesn't support the horrible things that Christians do (and even tells them NOT to do bad things) and they do them anyway, then they are getting their morals from someplace else. Got it?

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

RedEx

trendkill

Of course, if his wishes and desires include the wish and desire to see humanity prosper, as he implies they do, this claim makes no sense.