Can atheists provide rational arguments that terrorists should spare their lives?

Great Debates
61

Consider this conversation
Atheist: What happens to you when you die?
Terrorist: I will go to heaven.
Atheist: And I think that when I die, I am dead. Do you look forward to going to heaven?
Terrorist: Of course.
Atheist: But I don’t look forward to dying and ending it all. So you see, it is better for all of us if you die and I live. Now hand me the gun.

Life is precious if it is all you got.
Now I can fake it by telling him I’m not atheist but revealing my previous religion - Jewish. But I somehow don’t think that will help.

Reminds me of my grandfather, who did plumbing work in Georgia during WW I. His last name was Sherman, which could cause a problem. In 1918 saying that it was okay, he was Jewish and so not related to the general didn’t help a lot.

62

But why is this “society” worth protecting? That’s a pretty big assumption you’re making here. Most people like society, sure, but popularity does not make something rational.

63

Society as in people generally, not society as in the institutions that govern their relationships. The idea that they might be murdered at any second tends to retard productivity and make people unhappy.

64

Maybe not, but your own beliefs are clearly coloring your question and outlook.

Your characterization of atheists is closer to caricature than accurate portrayal, and even your characterization of Middle East Muslims leaves something to be desired.

So, even if you want to hold an agnostic (pardon the pun) point of view for purposes of the discussion, you’ve already tainted the well from the start. Better to figure out what atheists actually are, first, than to proceed from profoundly incorrect assumptions.

65

Come on, I didn’t say there were lots of them. And don’t expect them to state such things bluntly. If I ask “How can you not accuse the terrorist attack in the city X of being insane, inhumane and gratuitous?”, one answer may be that the attackers regard themselves as guerrilla fighters at war with governments supported by the Jewish or Christian citizens who have voted for them. If I ask: “What if they’re neither Jewish or Christian?”, I often get this rigmarole about how absurd Hinduism is. So once I asked: “What if the victims are atheists who don’t even participate in the elections?” And that’s how I came to be lectured on the views stated in the OP about the atheist stance and those who hold them.

66

I have enjoyed your post, although you still advise me on how to address a terrorist. I’m not planning to.

I have had long conversations with Muslims for over two decades. I’m always careful not to appear judgmental. I know life is precious if it is all you got and they know it too. And often point at the situations when the West is the aggressor and the Muslim is the victim. The implication is that terrorist attacks are the only possible response of an inferior military force, whose cause is a just one.

67

Most of the atheists I know, who started out as theists, and would have said that, once they lose their faith in ‘God keeping me in check’ discover that it was themselves, all along, that was making them act morally.

68

I don’t think I have stated any of my beliefs.

The characterization of atheists is not mine either. I have simply summarized the points that interlocutors have made in our discussions.

The perspective on the atheists I mention in the OP comes from conversations I’ve had with some of the Muslims I’ve worked with, not the entire Middle East.

69

Whatever. The people you’ve talked to have weird, straw-man beliefs, then. The problem is still that you’re asking about imaginary view points rather than real ones.

70

I would argue with your characterization of your own position, but that’s immaterial to this thread.

You still run into a different problem.

You can’t logically argue most people out of a position they did not logically argue themselves into. But that’s precisely what you request. That atheists provide a rational argument in the face of irrationality (not necessarily faith, but certain misconceptions about atheists and what atheists actually believe and do).

71

I have no idea whether or not Muslims think every individual has been created in God’s image, but I’ve noticed that they don’t place the same value on every human. There is a hierarchy, typical of a patriarchal state I think, where men are more important than women, healthy men are more important than cripple ones and so on. From this perspective, a person who voluntarily choses not to contribute to the prosperity of the Muslim state by holding an atheist view or to undermine it by militating against Islam or religion in general seem to have little or no value.

72

Interesting. And you say atheists are the moral relativists here?

73

I’m hoping this makes the absurdity of their views that much more obvious. Really now: how much time do I have to spend arguing against insanity? If someone is looking for an excuse to kill me, it’s not my responsibility to find a reason they shouldn’t. They believe it’s OK to murder me based on someone else’s actions, so it’s not like they care what I think! It’s true that their interpretations of Islamic scripture seem dodgy at best and that there are some very basic and logical reasons that it’s bad for society if people go around killing each other in cold blood. And really, the people who think terrorism is justified can’t be very satisfied with the results at this point.

74

Terrorists kill people largely at random. Though definitions may vary, depending upon who you put forth as a potential terrorist and who you are talking to, the random nature of lethal force taking place in a large target area with the intent to cause fear for political purposes is pretty much the key characteristic of “terrorism” vs. “conventional warfare”.

Now the question of whether this is more or less moral than conventional warfare is a separate issue. The populace of Dresden or Hiroshima died as a result of a declared war at the hands of personnel enlisted or commissioned in national armed forces. Ergo, not terrorist attacks. But, they were also almost all civilians, many aged, female, juvenile, etc., i.e. not typically sanctioned targets in conventional warfare.

One may argue that the strategic or political goals achieved by such attacks ended the war and despite their killing of hundreds of thousands of people, potentially saved the lives of the millions that would perish in ensuing years of full-scale hostility. But, couldn’t the same argument be made for the IRA?

One might go even further and question why it is moral to kill young, able-bodied men who are similarly armed as yourself and under the direct orders of another national army. They are still human beings. There are obvious political reasons terrorism is illegal and war is not. But, what is the MORAL reasoning behind it?

In cultures where people have (often quite rational) severe resentment at Western neo-Imperialism and military aggression, the uneducated masses may well justify assymetrical warfare by citing cultural or religious differences while the educated my reference the questions above. But, the question of dealing with Western superpowers will always be between cooperation, submission or terrorism. Conventional warfare (unless things change radically) would simply be doomed to quick failure.

75

And we’re not in the habit of debating with mysterious people that won’t hear us anyway, so why don’t you get off your fence and give us your own thoughts on the matter?

76

In my discussion I use common sense and plain arguments. I never quote any book or anybody. The people I talk to regularly quote the religious text or certain authorities. I never dare to question the authority of the text or those people. I always present a rational argument if I have one. “The life of an atheist is important to him and his family,” has some weight but seems week before the opposing argument: “The life of a Muslim is not only important to him and his family, but to the entire Muslim community and to Allah himself, may He glorified and exalted.”

I never debate with real terrorists.

77

The matter? I have already stated that I resent war and find terrorism abhorring.

I work with people and I happen to be in the company of people coming from the Middle East quite often, which is why I sometimes engage in political conversations with the more open-minded or informed. I feel I lack powerful rational arguments in casual debates with them, during which I never dare to question their religious beliefs.

78

Because I like it. It doesn’t matter to the rocks and stars and planets and universe if human beings have decent lives, or spend their miserable lives in agonizing pain. But it matters to me, because I am a human being. I don’t want to live my short miserable life in agony, I want to enjoy my life, see my kids grow up, love my family, and avoid as much pain as I reasonably can.

If tomorrow a terrorist shoots me in the face and I die in agony, well, that’s what will happen, and how I feel about it won’t change the fact that it will happen. And then I’ll be dead, and eventually everyone who knew me will be dead, and I’ll be forgotten just like all the other billions of dead and forgotten people in the world. And eventually the sun will either burn out or swell up and the Earth will either burn or freeze and all life will come to an end. And the galaxy will continue wheeling indifferently.

Just because I will eventually die and be forgotten doesn’t mean I want to die today, or tomorrow, or any time soon. And just because I don’t want to die doesn’t mean I put infinite value on my own life. I’d give my life to save my children. I’d rather be dead than be alive with the knowledge that I let my children die to save my miserable skin.

And what’s the point of all of it? Why do I want to live and not die, why do I want to love my children and wife, why do I want to eat tasty food, wear loose shoes and have a warm place to shit? Because I am an animal that evolved to like these things, my animal ancestors that didn’t care whether they lived or reproduced didn’t live and reproduce and so I am descended from a long line–billions of years old–of organisms that fought to live and reproduce, and so of course I want the same thing.

But that doesn’t mean I think it means something. If a terrorist shoots me the only bad thing that will happen is that I’ll be dead, and how you feel about that depends on whether you care if I live or die. If you don’t care, then it won’t matter, any more than it matters to me that some random guy in Nigeria got shot yesterday.

But since I like living, I prefer to live in a society where people don’t shoot each other. I mean, I suppose I might enjoy shooting people if only I gave it a chance, but I’d rather forgo that dubious pleasure in return for a law that forbids everyone from shooting anyone, except when we, like, really have to for some reason. And I like living in a society where not only I am not worried about being shot every day, but most people around me aren’t worried about being shot, because then then can get shit done rather than hiding inside their fortified hovels.

And this is all my personal preference, and since most people are like me, we enforce our personal preferences on everyone else, even people who like shooting other people. And God doesn’t care, because I don’t believe that an entity that deserves to be called “God” exists. But even if I did think that God existed, and that God had an opinion about who’s shooting and fucking who, how would that ground morality in an objective rather than subjective basis?

Who’s this God person, and why do his opinions matter? Oh, he created the Universe? Yes, and this is important why? He created the Universe such that murder and fucking your sister is objectively wrong? Well, that’s just God’s opinion about how the Universe should run, if he decided tomorrow that setting babies on fire and raping nuns was good, then that would magically turn good.

Or do God’s opinions not make good good and evil evil, but rather he’s telling us about good and evil and we should listen up because God is a smart guy? OK, then God doesn’t create good and evil, he just is trying to help us? Setting babies on fire is wrong, not because God says so, but because hurting babies is wrong whether God tells us to or not? OK, but then where does this “objective” morality come from then? If God created it then it’s like God deciding that from now on 2+2=5 and it becomes so? Or is it true that God can’t or won’t decide tomorrow that 2+2=5, or that 2+2=purple?

If God can’t change things then he’s just a schmuck like the rest of us, whether he created the world or human beings or not. Dr. Frankenstein created a creature, that doesn’t make Dr. Frankenstein the font of objective morality for his creation.

Of course I don’t believe in God, or Zeus, or whatever. But people who believe in Zeus are in the same boat I am, and so are people who believe in the God of Abraham and Moses, and so are the people who believe that God is the uncaused first cause that creates the field of being for our universe. We’re left adrift to try to organize our lives as we see fit and all that will happen is that we will succeed or fail. And just because we will be rewarded or punished for our actions in some stipulated after-world the rewards or punishments don’t make our actions right or wrong, just wise or unwise depending on whether we prefer rewards to punishments.

79

I think the question is why you’re so convinced their arguments are sound. They really aren’t.

There’s your problem. If you grant them all of the stuff about their god and how he’s fine with killing nonbelievers, how do you expect to make an argument?

80

Well, you’ve been given some rational arguments now, in this thread.
Let’s see you wield your new sword.
What will you answer next time this matter comes up?