It’s a shame that he chose one of his silliest – and there are a lot to choose from – remarks to do it: “We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
This may appear cute at first glance, but beyond that it makes no sense. Atheism is the belief that no god exists; a person who believes in one god – or God – is not an atheist any more than a person who only eats pork is a vegetarian when it comes to cows.
It’s cute and honest and if you’re feeling charitable accommodating of theists. It’s the definitions of gods atheists reject. If a god hasn’t been proposed, on what basis would its existence be judged? Dawkins is saying all of us reject a majority of currently defined gods. If anything theists should take heart that Dawkins even allows the possibility of a yet-to-be defined god. Of course there are atheists who hold any god concept is irrational and meaningless by definition.
FYI: Vegetarianism for New Englanders and Brits often includes seafood.
If it’s the definition of “gods” that atheists reject, then they have a problem with language that is even larger than the one they have with logic.
Of course it’s the definitions atheists have problems with–they’re incoherent and contradictory. Now if your desire was to be understood you would submit your own awesome, bullet-proof definition. That you didn’t implies you’re incompetent on the matter.
Not to belabour a point that is destined to go nowhere, but Dawkins was, in this particular case, the one guilty of using what, according to you, is a word that lacks adequate definition. Complain to him.
If, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, you are interested in a definition of God, you could start here.
Nice. Linking to encyclopedias as a cover for intellectual laziness.
There is no single god concept, which was the point Dawkins was making, which clearly went right over your head.
Here’s another way of looking at it: As a theist (is that a safe assumption?) do you think your lack of belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Zeus or Chronos differs in any meaningful way from that of a self-described atheist?
Follow-up query: what’s your rationale for not believing in these mythical creatures?
I mentioned in the original post that the Dawkins quote was one of the silliest things he has said.
His likening of belief in the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” to belief in God, though, is an even more stupid statement; it may well be among the stupidest things ever said by anyone and is an excellent illustration of the detritus that falls with depressing regularity from the narrow parochial little world that atheists have chosen for the intellectually barren wasteland they call home.
There are numerous arguments for believing in God; Christianity has been the cornerstone of 2000 years of Western civilisation; belief in God has inspired some of the greatest minds of every enduring civilisation; many of the greatest scientists, philosophers, mathematicians and artists have been Christians.
The only people interested in the existence or non-existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, on the other hand, is Dawkins and his sycophants.
For more on Zeus, go here.
You’ve demonstrated, through a lack of basic reasoning skills and objectivity, a failure to comprehend the very simple point Dawkins made: justification for god belief.
That an idea or concept is historically influential is completely irrelevant to whether it is valid or virtuous. Slavery is not virtuous but historically influential. Alchemy and Astrology are not valid but historically influential.
There are numerous arguments for believing in God. So what? They’re all bad arguments.
Declaring something not “virtuous” is a curious thing for an atheist to do. On what purely rational grounds would you make that claim? Whatever grounds you choose, would you assert their objective reality? What if I said “slavery is virtuous” – how would you, as an atheist, maintain that your morality is better than mine and prove that it isn’t virtuous?
I don’t mind answering your queries but you’ve made a habit of dodging or ignoring everything I’ve said.
I find the implication highly offensive and ignorant. You’re a real piece of work.
Now go study your Greek and Roman history. Morality and virtue were well-established concepts before Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac to your desert sky fairy.
I would say your in good company with your Christian predecessors of excusing evil in the name of your god.
You seem to want to have your cake and eat it.
On the one hand, you are intent on discarding the transcendent, on the other, clinging on to concepts of good and evil, concepts which have no objective meaning without the transcendent.
David – as a relative newcomer to this site I’m beginning to see certain tropes in your replies, such as
where you use the adjective ‘objective’ as a form of Trojan horse, the way you did in another post when you said atheists claimed to be ‘entirely’ rational.
Leave the word ‘objective’ out and there’s no strawman getting in the way of a debate. Put this way, I doubt most people would see how using the terms good and evil, as applied to human behaviour, invoke the transcendent.
I can’t see why making the distinction between subjective and objective morality is a introducing a straw man.
If there is no reference point for morality that exists independently from humanity, then morality is a human construct. To then claim that one person’s morality is “better” than other person’s is meaningless since “better” implies closer conformity to an autarchical standard.
The problem of the meaning of morality without God is one that has always bothered philosophers. Sartre and Camus addressed it by proposing that humanity make up a morality and act as if it were real; Dostoevsky made the famous remark, “if God doesn’t exist, everything is permitted” – he came to grips with the problem honestly.
From my perspective, the fact that most people don’t ponder these things and accept that good and evil are objectively real, is explained by the fact that they are real because God does exist. Atheists behave the same way, of course, but they have no rational reason for doing so.
Oh dear, the strawmen are piling up.
We now know a lot more about the evolutionary antecedents of what you refer to as morality: the way apes or (in other experiments) dogs perceive basic unfairness, for example, both prefigures and in part explains the development of morality in humans. No gods are involved (unless maybe a chimpanzee god is posited to explain away such results!).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050212191635.htm
Your straw men remind me of the flying spaghetti monsters: there aren’t any.
If you truly believe that the human moral paradigm is nothing more than a by-product of evolution, then you aren’t in much of a position to claim superiority for the morality that is the result of your evolutionary history than the morality that was the result of Pol Pot’s.
As I noted above: morality is a problem for atheists.
Actually, David, it’s not at all a problem.
It doesn’t matter whether I believe it or not, what matters is whether there’s convincing evidence it is so.
While we don’t have the whole picture – we don’t yet know what group behaviour was like in the Australopithicenes or other of our more distant ancestors – it’s clear that selfless behaviour is widespread in most mammal species. This runs from simple gestures of empathy to quite striking group co-operation.
It takes a ‘belief’ – however you define it – to erase sympathies that millions of years of evolution have built up.
What you are describing are social conventions that might make societies work more effectively.
They say nothing of good and evil: why is it better to be kind than vicious? – if you say it helps societies to survive, why is it better for a society to survive than not survive? Why is it better for the whole human race to survive than not survive?
You still have the problem.
Morality is transcendent of Christianity.
If morality is a problem for atheists then answer Hitchens’ challenge: name a moral act a christian can do that an atheist cannot.
I’m sorry, but that is the silliest thing ever, whether from Hitchens or from you. The answer is, of course, there is none. In fact many atheists are perhaps more moral than some theists. the thing is not hteir actions, but the bottom line reason for them; the ultimate philosophical foundation for them. Athiests perform moral acts why? I suppose because they think them right. But the question becomes, “Why are they right?” And I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer. If you do try to provide an answer, my next question will be a very simple, “Why?”
So, in the interest of saving time and bandwidth, try to get past all the “why’s” to the bottom line.
I’m sorry but the Xian answer to that question boils down to “Because the magic man in the sky said so.” This is neither philosophical nor profound. What hypocrisy to demand higher standards from atheists!
It’s laughable when the religious pretend that their answer to that question is somehow sophisticated; it’s literally childish.
Now with such low standards it should come as no surprise that atheists have better alternatives on which to base their moral judgments. And yet Jonh K remains confused on the matter.
That’s because you’re unschooled in logic, which even theologians admit is a derived human faculty, not divine. From logic stem ethics, humanism and secularism. That’s your “ultimate philosophical foundation.” I’m not wasting my time on basic things that a google search can teach you.
Seriously? Are you really admitting the only thing holding you back from cannibalizing children, buggering chickens and killing kittens on a daily basis is your holy book? If that’s the case then I think John K should be administered clozapine, stat.
Now it blows my mind that you are apparently unaware that there was at least 8,000 years of civilization before the Christian god came on the scene.
Rather than address John K’s point, you have chosen to discredit atheism’s alleged big selling feature – rationality – by blathering incoherently.
I’m still scratching my head over the leap of logic that’s involved in
Let’s assuming – for a second – that god exists (rather than the actual position of not being able to disprove him beyond an infinitesimal and highly theoretical doubt). How does that leads us to the Christian god, who denounces examples of ‘evil’ such as making a carved image, or swearing, or serving Baal?
You’ve avoided the point. I was explaining why I think most people behave as if good and evil are objective realities: it is because, if God exists – and I believe he does – they are.
As for going from theism to Christianity: we haven’t explored why 2 x 2 = 4 because you haven’t yet grasped that 1 + 1 = 2.
First of all, God has been there from the beginning. He has only been known as the “Christian God,” if you want to refer to Him as that, for the last 2000 years.
Second, I still haven’t heard an answer, only a rant, full of straw men, unsupported blanket statements and red herrings. If you have to rely on my performing a Google search to express your opinion, at least point me to a site. In the meantime, see if you can answer my question. Why is what you consider right, right, as opposed to the opinion of anyone else in the entire world who might disagree with you?
I did address your question by telling you to Google very basic concepts such as secularism and humanism to find a godless philosophy of morality and ethics. There’s a long rich tradition dating back to Epicurus. Show you have at least some understanding of these basic concepts and we’ll talk.
You, a-historically, tried to link Christianity to morality when morality and ethics existed long before people started worshiping the Christian god, and morality and ethics are historically subjective (e.g., 14th Century Christian idea of morality and 21st century Christian morality are different) as you’ll find out when you read up on the subject. This is a gaping hole in your argument you haven’t addressed.
I’m still waiting for you to explain why taking your argument at face-value (i.e., the only excuse for you not going on a killing spree right now is your holy book and nothing else) and giving it the respect it deserves constitutes a blanket statement or red herring. If it looks stupid or disingenuous it’s because your argument is both.
gillt,
Perhaps you should Google the basic concepts needed to construct a coherent argument.
Like it or not, you and Pol Pot and Hitler and Stalin and Judas and all the fanatical Muslims your feel superior to share the same evolutionary history.
gillt,
Regarding your April 4 comment above, you keep referring to “my argument.” Well, I haven’t made one. All I have done is ask you to explain the logic of your position, and let the record show, you have not yet done so. If I have to pose the question again, I will do so, and I will try to do so plainly: Why is what you consider right, right, as opposed to anyone else’s opinion on the subject?
Incorrect, you asserted that your god is axiomatically eternal and then asked a silly question about where the godless get their morality, implying that you either don’t know (ignorance) or you think they and everyone else get it from your holy book (arrogance). I’m guessing you believe the latter, which I obviously reject and for obvious reasons (really, a trivial google search will enlighten you here) I asked a very simple question that you seem incapable or unwilling to even acknowledge.
Why is that?
Why are you afraid to answer the question?
I said it was a childish, a-historical question. How did you interpret that as me being afraid? Apparently since all of the god-botherers here are content in their willful historical ignorance, I’ll not belabor the point further.
Now, all empirical evidence (cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, sociology, etc.) points to there being no moral law. Our morality is a cultural phenomenon adapted over tens of thousands of years of development as social animals–along with some genetic hard-wiring in the case of altruism–and not the ethical impulses from a conveniently undetectable sky fairy.
Surely John K’s cannibalism is less immoral under some circumstances than it would be under other circumstances–like most moral decisions it’s situation dependent. It becomes obvious then that there are no moral laws in the sense that there are natural laws, such as Plank Law. Natural laws are pre-existing, independent of humans, and constant while morality is temporal and circumstantial.
Additionally, there’s plenty of evidence that humans have evolved so-called immoral behavior, such as the ability to cheat to gain short-term advantage. This contraindicates absolute moral authority derived from a rule-loving, bronze-age desert deity.
There’s no reply button below, so I’ll answer here:
I think you are afaid because you dismiss the question as silly rather than actually answering it.
…then asked a silly question about where the godless get their morality
Actually I asked no such thing. I don’t care at all WHERE atheists get their morality from. My question, which I and others can plainly see that you have not answered, is WHY do they consider certain acts moral as opposed to any others? It is a fairly simple question, but apparently a difficult, and may I posit, impossible one to answer.
Just to clarify, what I really want to know is what is the atheist’s authority, other than someones opinion?
The answer has been addressed and answered by so many before you I can only assume some extreme religious indoctrination prevented you from learning about it.
Secular philosophical decisions for making moral decisions:
Hume: morality intuitive, unconscious, emotional (evidence sides with Hume over Kant)
Kant: rational, conscious, justified principles
Rawls: intuitive, unconscious, grammar of action: not emotional, built on principles
Jonathan Haidt: “Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, practices, institutions, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible.”
Guess what they all have in common? Godlessness.
Kant was a theist, but no matter, your other quotes don’t do much to bolster your case – not that you have a clear grip on what your case is.
You have simply confirmed that atheists admit that objective morality doesn’t exist. For an atheist, insofar as any morality exists, it is a human construct, subjective and susceptible to the problem you have been evading all along: no one person’s morality is any more valid than any other’s.
That we live in a godless universe does not dictate standards of morality, so equating atheism to morality and demanding I show you where I get my moral authority is wrong-headed. Atheism is a consequence of opening your eyes.
My morality is a consequence of my historical contingency and completely free of a tyrannical dictator in the sky handing down “laws” such as “Worship Me above all else” nonsense. It blows my mind that Christians consider this a paragon of morality.
I was taught morality by example–parents, siblings, peers, and community–rather than with fear or threats of eternal damnation or silly promises of eternal bliss or Disney Land for adults. Consequently I consider these things immoral to teach children.
Here are some basic, god-free ways on which to base your moral decisions: Consider it a secular guide for dummies.
1. Harm intended as the means to a goal is worse than harm seen as a side-effect
2. Harm caused by action is morally worse than harm caused by omission.
3. Harm caused by contact is morally worse than equivalent harm caused by non-contact
If that is the case, had you been brought up in a tribe that practised cannibalism – something you brought up earlier – by parents who were cannibals, you would, naturally, be a cannibal and that would be “good” as far as you are concerned.
Any attempt to dissuade you from continuing your dietary habits would be rebuffed on the grounds, as you put it, that you were “taught morality by example–parents, siblings, peers, and community”.
Welcome to the morality of atheism.
Raised in a Christian household by religious chicken buggering parents would likely make you a Christian chicken buggerer as well. What’s your point? That you would still find some after-the-fact rationale to justify both of your weird behaviors? Need I remind you heredity is the largest predictor of religious views and practice? This is Sociology 101.
Exactly! My morality is acknowledged by an evidence-based assessment of its origin and not some bronze-age fairy tale.
Your morality is a lie made evident by the logical extension of your argument: the only reason keeping you from cannibalism and kitten killing is your holy book. That’s why I consider you an immoral person.
Thanks for confirming my suspicion that atheism and reason are mutually exclusive.
Kate & John K –
You’re arguing like creationists. They ask biologists to describe how life began and demand a molecular equivalent of the biblical god zapping it into existence in one moment. What this reveals is a simple inability to move out of their own paradigm.
If atheists cannot quote an equivalent of your Big Book of Magic Stuff, you say our morals are grounded on nothing. If we say morals are human constructs, you say, well then, how do you know you’re right.
The trouble with this argument is that it ignores the rather large mote in your own eye when it comes to morals, i.e. that all morality is a human construct, including the bible’s.
When Christians in Afica kill women saying they’re witches, that’s biblical morality. Of course it’s not yours. But they will use the bible to justify it. After all, it’s certainly grounded in the bible, as witchkilling was in Anglican ecclesiastical courts up to the 18th Century.
So when you ask, “WHY do [atheists] consider certain acts moral as opposed to any others?” we say it’s down to the messy business of human choice. BUT YOURS IS TOO. The only difference is, we admit it.
Mike B,
You are evading the issue. If God exists, objective moral law does, too; humanity may not follow it as they should, but that does not alter the fact that it exists.
If there is no God, there is no objective moral law; it is a human invention, it changes at human whim and one person saying to another person “this is wrong” really means “I think this is wrong, you may think it’s right and there is no way to settle the matter”.
This is a fundamental problem for atheists.
So, Mike, how do you settle the matter?
Strangely, we are in the same boat.
Tell your co-religionists in Africa that the bible says “thou shalt not kill”. They will simply reply, “suffer not a witch to live” and carry on killing.
You tell me that,
but unless you’ve spotted some way to know what this ‘objective moral law’ is, there seems no Christian – or godly – way of choosing between the two irreconciliable positions.
That you choose one biblical instruction rather than another points to a moral criterion outside of your holy book: a secular one.
Now you’re thinking like an atheist. The only difference is, after you make your choice, you say it’s based on something objective and also holy.
You are making a case for this:
Two men think they see a camel. The first is looking at a real camel and describes it as well as he can.
The second sees an imaginary camel and also describes it as well as he can.
You would say that, since the first man’s description is not 100% accurate, it is no better than the second man’s description.
You believe a perception of reality is equivalent to a false perception of a delusion. And you call this rational.
Obviously if God exists he would reveal his moral law to his creation; that’s why every human has a built in sense of what is right and what is wrong.
You say “obviously” if God exists he would reveal his moral law to his creation.
Excuse me, but the contradictory injunctions of his holy book – then interpreted in different ways by believers – don’t impress with obviousness. ‘Confused’ is perhaps the kindest thing one can say about them.
You seem to be admitting that God might exist but that you find his moral exhortations in the Bible confusing, a situation for which you blame him rather than yourself.
I suppose that is progress of a sort.
I think you should sort out the confusions of fellow Christians before any of mine.
Is this Christianity’s objective moral law?
The thing that continues to elude you is that without a non-subjective moral framework, there is little reason for you, as an atheist, to splutter about witches dying in Africa. From your perspective, it would merely be an example of natural selection.
As a Christian, I see human life as imbued with intrinsic value by God rather than something that is the unlikely culmination of a billion odd years of haphazardly interacting molecules.
Wrong again David.
You’re purposefully conflating “moral framework” with universal moral law to score arguing points.
Burning witches at the stake is a religious pastime. It should be obvious why atheist condemn such a thing.
Your grasp of history is as tenuous as your grasp of science.
Natural selection is a little more complicated than kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest is a throaway line that has caused more confusion than clarity. For instance, cooperation and altruism are both excellent examples of natural selection.
Additionally, it would be a naturalistic fallacy to derive an “ought” from an “is” here. And to further conclude that atheists base their morals on natural selection or evolution is a common creationist canard. Are you a creationist?
Living in a society based on survival of the fittest is just about the exact opposite of what I want.
There you go again.
And you, again, evade David’s point. What makes your condenmation of the murder of a person, a better or more valid position than that of the murderer?
Kate – at least gillt’s in a better position to condemn murder than that well-source of objective moral laws:
Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)
If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)
Or is your position that murder is okay when the bible says it is, as here?
Those were civil precepts, made for the nation/state of Israel to enforce and live by, and as such are not binding on Christians. Before you ask “But how do you decide that” — whole books have been written on the subject, it is quite beyond the scope of the 100 word blog comment. If you are really curious, I recomend Moore College’s Introduction to the Bible correspondence course.
And Gilt still hasn’t answered my question, and neither have you. Care to try?
It’s always fascinating to see how people who base their lives on a holy book manage to opt for the rules they like and avoid the ones they don’t.
So, you’re convinced the Old Testament rules above were just “civil precepts”?
Jesus: It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid. (Luke 16:17)
Yes, Mike, I am, along with hundreds of other theologians and scholars throughout the ages. You need to look at the broader context. You’d never assume you had discovered the meaning an author intended in any other book by reading six sentences. Look at v16 – the passage means that Jesus’ ministry was a fulfillment of the OT law.
That’ll be my last post in response to you, Mike.I’m not interested in playing the “proof text” game.
If my cynicism did not exceed my charity I would be tempted to think that you want to embark on a Bible study to explore the relationship between the Old and New Testament theology of good and evil.
It does, though, so what in Darwin’s name makes you think you have the right to impose your petty, parochial version of relativistic atheist morality on a civilisation that thrived over 3000 years before you were conceived?
David –
You accuse me of imposing my petty parochial version of morality. Yes, I suppose I am. But I don’t need to go back 3000 years to gauge whether my judgement is arrogantly wrong or possibly right.
Such biblical rules – the death penalty for impiety or adultery – are imposed in Iran and tribal Afghanistan today (and in Pakistan unofficially).
Which side are you on? Oh, you just changed sides, I see.
You are confusing the specifics of the morality that people adhere to with the grounds that they have for adhering to it.
Since your morality is relativistic, it can’t possibly be “right” because reckoning whether it is “right” or not is itself a moral judgement that must be grounded in a morality that is an arbiter for other moralities. And by your own admission, according to your philosophy that morality doesn’t exist.
“There are numerous arguments for believing in God; Christianity has been the cornerstone of 2000 years of Western civilisation; belief in God has inspired some of the greatest minds of every enduring civilisation; many of the greatest scientists, philosophers, mathematicians and artists have been Christians.”
Christianity is nonsense. So what if it’s been a disease for 20 centuries? Does that make it any less insane?
Scientists of the past made their discoveries despite their god disease, not because of it.
The truth is you don’t have one shred of evidence for any magic god fairy. You have nothing. But you believe in it any way. Why? Are you afraid of reality? Does your childish god fantasy make you feel good? Are you so cowardly you have to believe in a heaven? Are you too lazy to think? Perhaps you think god-did-it is a good way to solve scientific problems. That’s pure laziness.
There are no gods because it’s a ridiculous idea and because gods are unnecessary. Darwin showed gods are not even necessary for something as complicated as life, so it’s fair to say magical gods are not necessary for anything else.
The choice is magic or reality. Theists have chosen magic. Normal people prefer reality.
These kind of exchanges never seem to be productive. We lock into our repetivite vitriolic arguments, then into accusations, then the tone flares or turns venomous and bitter and things grow silent. The atheist/modernist side wins because their routine questions demand so much work from the believer, when they are already so fixed against anything the believer could say. It leaves little breathing space for conversation, nothing for common ground. My one comment on the original post is what the blazes does “the great unwashed” refer to? Is this some biblical reference that eludes me or is that just a sneer?