Posted on 01/03/2008 8:33:44 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
One of the biggest obstacles facing what’s called the “New Atheism” is the issue of morality. Writers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have to convince people that morals and values are possible in a society that does not believe in God.
It’s important to understand what is not in doubt: whether an individual atheist or agnostic can be a “good” person. Of course they can, just as a professing Christian can do bad things.
The issue is whether the secular worldview can provide a basis for a good society. Can it motivate and inspire people to be virtuous and generous?
Not surprisingly, Richard Dawkins offers a “yes”—grounded in Darwinism. According to him, natural selection has produced a moral sense that is shared by all people. While our genes may be, in his words “selfish,” there are times when cooperation with others is the selfish gene’s best interest. Thus, according to him, natural selection has produced what we call altruism.
Except, of course, that it is not altruism at all: It is, at most, enlightened self-interest. It might explain why “survival of the fittest” is not an endless war of all against all, but it offers no reason as to why someone might give up their lives or even their lifestyle for the benefit of others, especially those whom they do not even know.
Darwinist accounts of human morality bear such little resemblance to the way real people live their lives that the late philosopher David Stove, an atheist himself, called them a “slander against human beings.”
Being unable to account for human altruism is not enough for Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation. In a recent debate with Rick Warren, he complained about Christians “contaminating” their altruistic deeds in places like Africa with “religious ideas” like “the divinity of Jesus.” Instead of rejoicing at the alleviation of suffering, he frets over someone hearing the Gospel.
In response, Warren pointed out the inconvenient (for Harris, that is) truth: You won’t find many atheists feeding the hungry and ministering to the sick in places like Africa or Mother Teresa’s Calcutta. It is precisely because people believe in the divinity of Jesus that they are willing to give up their lives (sometimes literally) in service to those whom Jesus calls “His brothers.” And that’s why my colleagues and I spend our lives ministering in prisons.
In contrast, the record of avowedly atheistic regimes is, shall we say, less than inspiring. Atheist regimes like the Soviet Union, Red China, and Cambodia killed tens of millions of people in an effort to establish an atheistic alternative to the City of God. For men like Stalin and Mao, people were expendable precisely because they were not created in the image of a personal God. Instead, they were objects being manipulated by impersonal historical forces.
One atheist understood the moral consequences of his unbelief: That was Nietzsche, who argued that God is dead, but acknowledged that without God there could be no binding and objective moral order.
Of course, the “New Atheists” deny this. Instead, they unconvincingly argue that you can have the benefits of an altruistic, Christian-like morality without God.
Nietzsche would laugh—and wonder why they don’t make atheists like they used to.
No, I'm not saying Hammurabi's gods were real. I'm saying that a moral system derived by men means nothing, because there is no foundation for it. As I said, who is to say that stealing is wrong? For example, Richard Dawkins recently said included "wicked" as one of the possible characteristics of a person who doesn't believe in evolution. Well, Dawkins arrived at that moral judgement without believing in God, but by what moral standard does he judge a person to be "wicked"? Wouldn't such a person just be choosing to do something they feel is an appropriate lifestyle?
Even if a person really can figure out a moral system without a belief in a higher power, that only proves something about their mental process, not about the nature of morality. It could be that they're recognizing a basic moral order that exists in the Universe because of a Creator, not despite one.
Let's take that out of the realm of religion and see how it holds up.
Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani both say they will be excellent foreign policy presidents. They both say that they know how things work on the international stage, and have the strategies that will defeat the Islamists and other enemies. Obama wants to bug out of any place where we might kill someone in Al Qaida and also have tea with Chavez and Ahmadinejad; Rudy wants to kill terrorists right and left and be tough with Chavez and Ahmadinejad. Both equally invoke patriotism and say they will be great in the job, so doesn't that mean I should listen to them equally?
I know you can bring up another religion besides Islam and try to make the same argument, but I think it's worth noting that the guy who said "God wants you to love your neighbors as yourself" allowed a bunch of Roman PFCs to torture Him to death as part of those ideals, and the guy who said "God wants you to kill the infidels" committed petty genocides, assassinated a poet who made fun of him (while she was a nursing mother), used late-breaking bulletins from Allah to "win" arguments with his wives, and consumated a marriage with a nine year old as part of his ideals. To say that these two faiths bring similar evidence to the table is kind of silly.
Oh, and as for why I should listen to Jesus instead of Muhammad (or Buddha, etc.)...let me know when they come up with a guy who rose from the dead.
“You heard right!”
OK, follow me through this: An animal behaviorist goes into the field and finds chimpanzees engaging in a behavior that hasn't been observed before. She will immediately try to determine what evolutionary mechanism explains the behavior. That's no different from believing everything is explained by "God did it."
So to the extent that religious people are more virtuous in their behavior, it could be argued that they do so more out of fear than out of love. N'est pas?
Some do, but I have no doubt that the main motivation is love for most. For instance, no one would be silly enough to suggest that Marines do their duty only to stay out of the brig, but they will say that same thing quite glibly about Christians, that they only do their duty to stay out of Hell.
if you don't he will not kill you but will torture you in a fiery hell for all eternity.
God doesn't send people to Hell. They choose to go.
You got closer, but I'm still not guilty of that fallacy. It's as if one said "That man is not a true Scotsman" not because he is engaging in behavior they don't like, but because the guy is from Paris, carries French citizenship, will only speak French and refuses to eat anything but French cuisine.
If a Mafia Don says he's a mushroom, is one required to include him in the set "mushrooms" when discussing them? The Mafia Don says he's a Christian, but he is no more a Christian than he is a mushroom. Calling him one is like calling a guy an atheist who prays the rosary every day and openly discusses the fact that he believes that there is a Creator listening when he does it.
With this post, you have succinctly stated the truth about Einstein’s views, which changed somewhat during his life, but essentially could be characterized as Spinoza-Lite. The religious people hear who want to claim Einstein as one of their own obviously have not read his writings. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what Einstein thought about religion. Some brilliant people have believed in the supernatural, and some have not. The more honest believers admitted their belief was not rational (a la Kierkegaard). The intellectually dishonest ones pretend to “know” that a god exists, or even that a god’s existence can be proven. Those who feel compelled to believe in the unprovable like to cling to the notion that someone like Einstein knew something others don’t. As an agnostic, I appreciate that Einstein felt humbled by the magnificence of the universe but that he saw no need to explain it by referring to mythological ancient literature.
You wrote: “But I realized I don’t care. I do it because I have O+ blood and people in trouble need my blood. What gene is there that makes me do that? There’s no reinforcement, there’s no certainty that my cooperation will make society stronger and make it more likely that I (along with the recipient) will be more likely to pass on my awesome genetic material. I do it because I follow a Lord who is the ultimate in altruism, but without doubt there are many atheists and agnostics who donate blood. Can there really be a gene sequence that makes them do that? How would such a gene work, since it would basically require that certain very abstract thought patterns trigger a very concrete and specific behavior? To me, that takes more faith to believe than believing in God.”
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My response: Actually, there is plenty of science out there to explain why animals (including humans) show compassion for others, or altruism, or whatever you want to call it, and it has nothing to do with “morality” or religion. There is in the brains of many animals a “mirror-neuron system” that many scientists now believe explains why and how animals develop empathy for other animals. It is in essence the manner in which animals, again, including humans, come to understand the suffering, comforting, pleasure, and other “feelings” of others.
We don’t need no stinking Bible to feel empathy for our fellow man. Altruism is a behavior we can develop from watching other animals. Buy a dog. It will teach you unconditional love.
You wrote: “No, I’m not saying Hammurabi’s gods were real. I’m saying that a moral system derived by men means nothing, because there is no foundation for it. As I said, who is to say that stealing is wrong?”
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My response: If I am right that there is no evidence of, or rational reason to believe in, a supernatural god, and you are right that there is no “morality” without a god, then there is no basis for claiming that stealing is “wrong,” or at least that it is immoral. As an agnostic, why then, would I not steal? How about these reasons: First, because there is a “social contract” that in our society resulted in my state’s legislature enacting a law prohibiting stealing, I know that I may go to jail if I steal. Second, my parents indoctrinated me in the belief that stealing is wrong, and as a child, that got programmed into my belief system (as did religion, although I overcame that later in life as I grew wiser). And finally, as I grew up, the mirror-neuron system in my brain enabled me to develop empathy for my fellow man, and relevant to this illustration, it made me realize that stealing something from someone can cause great psychic, as well as financial, pain to the person from whom I might steal. Also, I personally experienced the feeling of loss that results from having something stolen. All these things have persuaded me that it is behavior I should avoid, even though I don’t believe I would be punished for it in an afterlife.
Isaac Asimov was also a compassionate atheist. He changed from calling himself an agnostic to an atheist late in life and admitted that it was an act of faith to claim without proof that god did not exist. He, however had great respect for thebeliefs of others and awe at the wonder of the univers. He also wrote one of the best guides to the Bible any preacher could ever use.
My problem with the original post was that it says atheists are lousy debaters. It is patently a lie. It is simply impossible to win a debate on religion, because the religious won’t follow the rules of debate. Even D’souza only claims a draw. Assimov would have torn D’souza to pieces in a debate, but he would have seen it as pointless. Let them believe in ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night.
The problem with the Code of Hammurabi is that child sacrifice was OK as a religious expression, and it lacked other “moral’ codes.
Hard to pin down exactly.
His beliefs were evolving and changing, but I would say that he went Pantheism, and Brahman is a form of GOD to some.
A Creator god.
Actually, there are quite a number of stories about someone who is claimed to have risen from the dead. Why believe the Christian one, and reject the other ones?
Again, you are ultimately falling back on human reason. As Thomas Paine noted, if human reason isn't an essential basis for accepting and rejecting moral claims, reading the Bible to a horse would be just as effective as reading it to a man.
More fundamentally, it’s because people recognize that belonging to a society that proscribes theft, murder, etc, is personally beneficial, and that the benefits greatly outweigh the cost of not being free to steal stuff that appeals to you or murder people who annoy you.
I have provided a few subtle clues to indicate the fundamental difference. If you're still puzzled, talk to JimRob about enabling the "blink" tag and I'll give you another clue.
Sure, but that in iteself doesn't make him an atheist. Deists also reject the Judeo-Christian conception of God. ...as do Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Shintos, etc. But that doesn't make them atheists. (Einstein was a Deist).
Me too. For example, helping a Jew escape from the Nazis and helping an al-Qaeda operative escape from the CIA are equally altruistic acts, but I'd certainly feel better personally about the former.
That was my point. Thanks for restating it
Deists (like Einstein) do indeed believe in God, just not the Judeo-Christian conception of God.
There was a time in his life when he embraced Spinoza and pantheism. Toward the end of his life, however, he approached pure agnosticism. Even his early pantheism was rooted in agnosticism. He considered pantheism because the universe followed "laws". He never considered a Creator with a personality, just a force that created the laws. His god could be called the big bang.
I've been making your point forever on this thread. Welcome to the party.
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