Tercel

I suppose that's what I'm saying...
What's the alternative though? To arbitrarily select a religion that disagrees with my beliefs?

diana

Hahaha. Not really.

I asked because I so many theists argue that their morals come from God. Your way seems the reverse of that.

d

Tercel

I suppose so.
I was brought up in a Christian home - so you've got to remember that much of my moral outlook is going to be shaped by Christian views anyway.
But certainly one of the things I really admire about Christianity is it's call to a high morality with the ideas of loving thy neighbour, doing good to others, being a good ("Christ-like") person etc being considered of paramount importance.

On the flip side of the coin I think God's existence is necessary for objective morality and I think the idea of atheistic morality inevitably runs into contradictions and/or lacks any sensible foundation principles: The idea that people are of intrinsic value IMO (a necessary foundation for most moral systems) finds no place outside a Dualistic (which pretty strongly implies non-Naturalism, and IMO implies orthodox Theism as I mentioned in a previous post) worldview.

The fact that I believe God's necessary to have objective morality and I'd like objective morality to exist is another reason I'm very happy to believe in God.

Goliath

Tercel,

There is no such thing as atheistic morality. Athiesm is a lack of belief in the existence of gods. It is no more a moral system than it is a half-used box of laundry detergent.

Sincerely,

Goliath

(Edited to fix UBB code...)

[ December 19, 2002: Message edited by: Goliath ]</p>

philechat

Atheism can incorperate many different and even incompatible philosophies, and therefore there's no one single "atheistic philosophy". Under the umbrella of atheism there are Marxists, scientific rationalists, nihilists, solipsists, objectivists, humanists, neo-platonists, existentialists, Buddhists, and many more. And none agree with each others' moral systems anyways.

I am quite convinced that there is not one purely objective moral system to begin with. Morality is necessarily a product of culture, which attempts to "engineer" its social system using pragmatic (not truth-based) means. It's something akin to Plato's "holy lies" I think.

[ December 19, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

Tercel

Yes I'd noticed that...
However, some atheists, who generally call themselves Humanists (although given that no two athiests ever give the same definition of atheism, I'm not going to be presumptuous and try to stick any label on a sub-category of them) or similar, accept objective morality or believe that humans have intrinsic value. -Which is what I was referring to. By "athiestic morality" I did not mean one specific system, but rather any system which proposed to be both atheistic and objectively moral/includes the idea of life having intrinsic worth.

Family Man

Heck, your evidence of a desk that we can actually feel over a hypothetical planet Xasd already meets the criteria you put forth. The desk is evidence. There is no rational evidence for the planet Xasd. Hence, you've refuted your own argument.

Not really. Since there is a strong pressure -- at least in American society -- to conform to religious belief (hence my cultural indoctrination hypothesis) and the fact that the burden of proof lies the positive claim that God exists, the hypothesises that SecularFuture and I put out are very reasonable, while yours was primarily meant as a insult. Not the same thing at all.

After all, you seriously put out a challenge that your Hypothesis B (planet XASD) has as much evidence for it as the hypothesis that this world is real. To make such a conclusion is clearly irrational. SecularFuture's position, on the other hand, strikes me quite rational.

Because I wasn't taught from birth that atheism is a good thing and there is a great deal of pressure in my society to be religious.

My father would say otherwise.

Yeah, a god for which there is no evidence?

You mean like the genius Metacrock?

I'm sure you need to find something. I'm sure there's a stereotype out there that will fit me. Just keep trying.

Perhaps in your country, not in mine.

Really, your family never encouraged you to become a Christian. You were never told that Christianity was good and that atheist were evil, terrible creatures? Excuse my skepticism.

No, I'm saying that where the universe comes from unknown and probably isn't knowable, which is why that argument is so popular with theists. (Gosh, it must be God because we don't have an alternative explanation!) That "something from nothing" bit assumes that atheists actually believe that. In fact, I'll bet that most of us would answer "don't know" if actually asked the question.

Family Man

True, but when Tercel insists on posting his silly hypotheticals what choice do I have but to point out the obvious?

Oxymoron

Yes, if it purports to be The One True Religion.

diana

Good morning, Tercel!

Oh yeah. I grant you that, hands down.

But come to think of it, have Xns agreen on what constitutes a True Xn yet?

All add that the atheists I know who believe in subjective morality believe life has intrisic worth, too.

Concerning this discussion:
Family Man said: I want to comment on this. The desire to believe is reason to doubt. I can't even remember where I got that line, but it pretty fairly sums up the psychological factors involved in trying to prove one's hypothesis true.

Generally speaking, I think you're right: it does work both ways. Once a person has accepted his own non-belief, say, he tends to be adverse to anything that purports to prove him wrong, just as the believer reacts when confronted with arguments for the non-existence of a god.

It's the point at which one of them actually changes his mind that interests me here. How do non-believers know that their continual disbelief in a god is not psychologically disturbing their rational judgment?

I think you'll find hordes of us who desperately wanted to believe, but could find no reason or evidence to support belief. In short, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't believe. I have found that I am incapable of confusing my desire to believe with belief itself. I think most people lack the ability to make this distinction.

If my rational judgment were capable of being so disturbed by my emotional drives, I'd be a believer now. As Family Man pointed out, there's a powerful cultural influence at stake. In my case, there's also my family.

Considering all the cards stacked against non-belief, I'd say the phychological disturbance scales weigh far heavier on the theist side.

When I realized I didn't believe, and that I'd been led for years to blindly accept something for which there was no evidence and no valid argument, I began to question all my assumptions. You can root out "indoctrination" by holding every assumption you can find up to the light. Those that have no support you can toss into the "propaganda" bin.

You yourself have admitted to believing out of choice, and because it brings you comfort. This would imply that you've examined your beliefs and found them lacking in actual support, but decided to keep them, anyway.

You have all your questions, in a desperate attempt to explain our disbelief. Here's a counter-question for you: why are you looking so hard? Does our ability to face the unknown without clinging to an ancient belief in an all-powerful god threaten your belief in some way?

d

[ December 20, 2002: Message edited by: diana ]</p>