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

[CurtC]

@PlaceboTarget

… 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.”

This same argument of theirs applies equally whether the perceived enemy is atheist, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or any non-Muslim. Why then did you phrase your OP so that it was regarding atheists?

[PlaceboTarget]

@randompattern

You could tell them that atheists do not believe (at least none that I have ever talked to) that human life is not valuable. That would fall more into the realm of the religious than the atheist if anything.

Both I and my interlocutors know that atheists considers life valuable. Yet, both I and my interlocutors are aware of the fact that an atheist’s view on the world is a naturalist one, in which life, intelligence, culture and civilization are mere accidents with no intrinsic value or meaning at all. Moreover, an atheist tends to be a moral relativist in the sense that, for example, he is likely to think what is good for society may not be good for the individual. For a moral absolutist, right and wrong or good and bad are universally applicable. Therefore, an atheist seems to state: “I am an accidental superior form of life that needs to and should continue to live because I want to.” I find it hard to use this argument in the occasional debates I have with the people I’ve mentioned.

[PlaceboTarget]

@Latro

You could put forward the opposite of what they believe about atheists.
That atheist hold life in a higher regard. They don’t believe in an afterlife, so life in the here and now is extremely precious to them. Indeed not only human life. Where you despise the dog, they revell in the joy of interacting with another living creature.

The atheistic view on life is strongly looked down on by my interlocutors. Firstly, because an atheist whose philosophy is metaphysical naturalism tends to believe that all life is precious, that is an animal life can be as valuable as a human life, which sounds preposterous to the people I occasionally engage in debates with. Secondly, my Muslim interlocutors (whose number is not great but whose arguments sometimes seem overwhelming to me) emphasize that life (or anything for that matter) can be assigned value only through a moral process, and so different people’s lives have different values. For instance, the lives of Joseph Fritzl or Ariel Castro are less valuable because of these people’s deeds. Both Joseph Fritzl and Ariel Castro loved their lives but that did not make their lives valuable. Last but not least, the focus on here and now by atheists seems shallowly hedonistic and selfish to my interlocutors, who believe that such an attitude is harmful for the human society in general, and ultimately even for the family and the individual who holds such views.

[randompattern]

@PlaceboTarget

Both I and my interlocutors know that atheists considers life valuable. Yet, both I and my interlocutors are aware of the fact that an atheist’s view on the world is a naturalist one, in which life, intelligence, culture and civilization are mere accidents with no intrinsic value or meaning at all. Moreover, an atheist tends to be a moral relativist in the sense that, for example, he is likely to think what is good for society may not be good for the individual. For a moral absolutist, right and wrong or good and bad are universally applicable. Therefore, an atheist seems to state: “I am an accidental superior form of life that needs to and should continue to live because I want to.” I find it hard to use this argument in the occasional debates I have with the people I’ve mentioned.

Atheists have told you this? I’m an atheist and I do not think like you’ve described. This is your perception of what an atheist is and not necessarily true. You have taken this perception as true and are now convinced you are correct. Because everything wasn’t created by a god does not make it without value in my eyes. You have made huge general assumptions about atheism seemingly without ever talking to one.

[PlaceboTarget]

@Askthepizzaguy

Here is where you lost.

I’ve lost so many times I’m used to it.

@Askthepizzaguy

Incorrect. Atheists share precisely one opinion, which is that there are no gods. They otherwise bear absolutely no actual resemblance to one another.

Subjective values are held by some, objective values by others.

And nothing is more subjective than the idea that murder is wrong (as stated by the Bible and the Koran) except when the person you’re murdering has murdered, or committed theft, or is a different nationality than yourself.

That makes the morality of murder quite subjective, doesn’t it? Depending on who you are, murder is therefore correct or incorrect.

Right here, this is where you’ve failed to point out that thing which makes atheists supposedly fair game (moral relativism and subjectivity) is precisely the reason why moral absolutists with asterisks all over their absolute moral values have the same moral weakness they perceive in all atheists, which is a perception they harbor through ignorance alone, not fact.

One would think a commandment not to murder would be simple enough to obey, given its absolute nature. Yet among your religious extremists, there are all kinds of loopholes that make it suddenly okay.

You mean to say, an atheist does not have the gall to put a price on human life (as found within the Bible, particularly the parts about what a fair price is for your virgin daughter, or your slaves) nor do they presume that some lives are worth more than others, as your murder-supporting friends have done.

They have suggested that Muslims are better than Christians are better than atheists. Right there, they are the ones suggesting human life doesn’t have one absolute value, but a variable set of values. Some people are more human than others.

Fundamentally, yes. My interlocutors view the world as a hierarchy, something like a pyramid on which I have never elaborated, but ultimately the value of a person’s life depends on who he is and what he does. It is a rigid set of rules and principles and by applying them, people can be assigned different values. It is taking individual circumstances into consideration (and not assigning different values to things) that makes a system relative.

[PlaceboTarget]

@randompattern

Atheists have told you this? I’m an atheist and I do not think like you’ve described. This is your perception of what an atheist is and not necessarily true. You have taken this perception as true and are now convinced you are correct. Because everything wasn’t created by a god does not make it without value in my eyes. You have made huge general assumptions about atheism seemingly without ever talking to one.

Atheist do tend to be naturalists and the description above falls into the limits of naturalism. Do you have a specific counter claim?

[Kobal2]

@PlaceboTarget

an atheist’s view on the world is a naturalist one, in which life, intelligence, culture and civilization are mere accidents with no intrinsic value or meaning at all.

That is wrong, and more than a little bit of projection.

Moreover, an atheist tends to be a moral relativist in the sense that, for example, he is likely to think what is good for society may not be good for the individual. For a moral absolutist, right and wrong or good and bad are universally applicable.

You can be an atheist AND a moral absolutist. A grand majority of the people are to some extent, really - ultimately, every ethical system is founded on absolutes and axioms. Well, I lie - ultimately every individual’s behaviour is founded upon gut feelings, raw impulses and empathy, which are then rationalized post-facto into an ethical system founded on absolutes and axioms :).
And all of them are fundamentally absurd of course, but the human condition involves tricking oneself into believing in them nonetheless in order to be able to function.

Therefore, an atheist seems to state: “I am an accidental superior form of life that needs to and should continue to live because I want to.” I find it hard to use this argument in the occasional debates I have with the people I’ve mentioned.

Please don’t try and speak for atheists then, since you evidently aren’t one and apparently can’t quite fathom what strange and peculiar lifeforms these alien beings are.

[Measure_for_Measure]

I suspect that most American atheists would say that all humans have an equal right to life. If I understand UY Scuti it is his Muslim friends who are placing lives on a relative scale. Whether such perceptions are consistent with orthodox Islam is something I don’t know: they certainly are not consistent with my understanding of Christianity. Equality before God is pretty fundamental to it.

ETA: If your Muslim friends characterize atheists in a certain way, an appropriate question might be, “How many atheists have you spoken to? Have they expressed such beliefs?”

[randompattern]

@PlaceboTarget

Atheist do tend to be naturalists and the description above falls into the limits of naturalism. Do you have a specific counter claim?

I don’t think there’s any claim I can make that you would be able to comprehend without insisting you’re right. I just told you I’m an Atheist and I don’t behave the way you claim ALL Atheists behave, yet you want me to somehow come up with a better claim.

[PlaceboTarget]

@randompattern

This doesn’t sound rational at all. Also, where do you get this idea that atheists actually think the way you described?

@Czarcasm

Where did you get this crap? I must insist on a cite for this load of lunacy.

The Muslims I sometimes debate with are educated, informed people. They have Facebook accounts, are active on the Internet and have studied and/or traveled abroad. They know atheists as well as you and I. There different types of atheists, and they type that my interlocutors look down on is described as follows:

1. He does not hold firm principles on what is good and bad or right and wrong, which can be applied universally (for example, both to the individual and the society). He is therefore axiologically unreliable because his values are weak.

2. He refuses the authority of the society and its cultural standards on moral issues. He is therefore morally unreliable because he cares more about himself and his own opinions.

3. He doesn’t think that life in general and his own life in particular have an intrinsic value or meaning. His ontology is shallow and detrimental to society.

4. He regards the human being as some sort of natural mechanism endowed with the same intelligence that can be found in other living things and unable to make voluntary choices. Many atheists deny the existence of free will. Some of them go as far as to claim that the concept as “I” doesn’t cover any coherent and palpable reality either. The atheist’s description of human nature and human value is a degrading one.

[PlaceboTarget]

@Kobal2

Please don’t try and speak for atheists then, since you evidently aren’t one and apparently can’t quite fathom what strange and peculiar lifeforms these alien beings are.

No, not evidently at all. Let us leave my beliefs out of this. Debating on the subject based on the interlocutor’s beliefs is detrimental to the debate itself. I may or may not be an atheist. It is not of importance. I think it wrong to believe that one should not care that certain lives have been lost in a terrorist attack if those lives belonged to atheists, but I find it hard to come up with strong rational arguments in my casual debates with the people I’ve mentioned.

[PlaceboTarget]

@Laowai

Could it possibly be that if someone avoids expressing the belief that terrorist attacks are somewhat justifiable then it may be nothing more than a belief with which they do not hold?

@Kobal2

First of all whether you have met the same Middle Easterners one has, who in one’s experience tend to curse the motherfuckers for making everybody’s life difficult and generally being bloody savages (even though one won’t dispute the fact that Middle Easterners tend to believe the West has been fucking with them. But then so do I, and it’s a fact, so there’s that :p) ; but more importantly how you or anyone would be able to identify beliefs that are not expressed :dubious:.

There are sometimes shocking news about people like Joseph Fritzl or Ariel Castro, and everybody goes: “Oh, my god, these people don’t deserve to live,” or something like that. Then the US may attack a nation based on the information that they develop weapons of mass destruction and a lot of Muslims are killed in the process, but no weapons of mass destruction are found, or Israel launches another attack targeting alleged terrorists but civilians are killed in the process as well. And everybody, both Christians and Muslims go: “Oh, my god, this is outrageous,” and so on. But then there is a terrorist attack in Africa, or England, or Russia, with Christian casualties and the Christians will go: “Oh, my god, this is so cruel,” while the Muslims keep quite, apparently concentrating on what they have to do. And if the conversation continues, a Muslim superior will drop in and try to divert people’s attention from what they’ve been commenting on or (if the issue arises again) say: “Haven’t we agreed to keep political issues out of the office?”

[Princhester]

@The_Hamster_King

Here’s how I, as an atheist, construct my morality:

The rules that we collectively choose to live by determine the sort of world we live in. I would prefer not to live in a world where I am subject to the random predations of others, so I would prefer if everyone around me would adopt a set of moral rules that forbid that sort of behavior. I encourage the adoption of such rules by adopting them myself. This creates a system of reciprocity – I’m nice to you so that you’ll be nice to me. However, contained within this system of reciprocity is an implicit threat – If you’re NOT nice to me, I’ll STOP being nice to you. It’s simple tit-for-tat.

Basically, the long-term benefit I get from living in a civil society greatly outweighs any short-term benefit I might get from stealing or killing. So I refrain from stealing and killing to retain my place in civil society.

This. Basic morality is a codification of a rational stance. When people wrote the fairy tales that are their religions they had their deity-characters issue pre-existing rational rules as edicts.

The utility of this arrangement is relatively plain: simple people are perhaps more likely to follow edicts than understand the complex rational reasons why the behaviours codified in those edicts are a good idea.

It is of course beyond ridiculous for someone to claim they have a good reason for complying with basic morals because they are following the edicts of a non-existent sky pixie, while claiming I am unable to come up with a good reason for complying with basic morals because I merely think that basic morals are rationally justifiable in my own interests.

[randompattern]

@PlaceboTarget

The Muslims I sometimes debate with are educated, informed people. They have Facebook accounts, are active on the Internet and have studied and/or traveled abroad. They know atheists as well as you and I. There different types of atheists, and they type that my interlocutors look down on is described as follows:

1. He does not hold firm principles on what is good and bad or right and wrong, which can be applied universally (for example, both to the individual and the society). He is therefore axiologically unreliable because his values are weak.

2. He refuses the authority of the society and its cultural standards on moral issues. He is therefore morally unreliable because he cares more about himself and his own opinions.

3. He doesn’t think that life in general and his own life in particular have an intrinsic value or meaning. His ontology is shallow and detrimental to society.

4. He regards the human being as some sort of natural mechanism endowed with the same intelligence that can be found in other living things and unable to make voluntary choices. Many atheists deny the existence of free will. Some of them go as far as to claim that the concept as “I” doesn’t cover any coherent and palpable reality either. The atheist’s description of human nature and human value is a degrading one.

From what I can tell, the description of atheists you have posted is not even your own opinion but the opinion of others?

1. You make huge assumptions of all Muslims beliefs based on the few you have talked to.

2. You make huge assumptions of all Atheists beliefs based on the beliefs of the few Muslims you have asked about Atheism.

Is this correct?

[PlaceboTarget]

@JKellyMap

Some Doper (can’t remember who) put it this way: If you need some book or some clerical figure to tell you that murder is wrong – if you can’t figure this out for yourself – then you have major problems.

Well, I’m not an expert in cultural anthropology but I’ve read enough to know that murder has always been a common occurrence in human societies.

[PlaceboTarget]

@randompattern

From what I can tell, the description of atheists you have posted is not even your own opinion but the opinion of others?

1. You make huge assumptions of all Muslims beliefs based on the few you have talked to.

2. You make huge assumptions of all Atheists beliefs based on the beliefs of the few Muslims you have asked about Atheism.

Is this correct?

1. He does not hold firm principles on what is good and bad or right and wrong, which can be applied universally (for example, both to the individual and the society). He is therefore axiologically unreliable because his values are weak.

2. He refuses the authority of the society and its cultural standards on moral issues.** He is therefore morally unreliable because he cares more about himself and his own opinions.**

3. He doesn’t think that life in general and his own life in particular have an intrinsic value or meaning. His ontology is shallow and detrimental to society.

4. He regards the human being as some sort of natural mechanism endowed with the same intelligence that can be found in other living things and unable to make voluntary choices. Many atheists deny the existence of free will. Some of them go as far as to claim that the concept as “I” doesn’t cover any coherent and palpable reality either. The atheist’s description of human nature and human value is a degrading one.

The first part of the description (the one I haven’t emphasized with the bold font) is something that both my interlocutors and I have roughly agreed on. The part in bold letters is their conclusion, not mine.

[PlaceboTarget]

@Marley23

My view is that if you demand I come up with a rational reason you shouldn’t kill me - because you can’t think of one - you are some kind of psychopath or homicidal maniac.

First of all, if had any suspicion that I may talking to an actual terrorist I would end the conversation as smoothly as I could and simply get out of there.

I find it really shocking that certain otherwise decent people may think it’s no big deal that some humans died as long as (inaccurate quote): “there were many casualties on our side too and your victims were likely to be atheists anyway.”

[randompattern]

It looks like I will not be able to convince them to spare my life simply because their perceptions of me are incorrect. There seems to be no willingness to even entertain the idea they might be wrong about me.

[PlaceboTarget]

@Human_Action

That’s pretty bizarre: when is one’s moral obligation to others ever dependent on the other guy’s morality, as opposed to your own? That neatly defeats the purpose and meaning of morality.

Of course this argument doesn’t hold rationally, but people use a lot in day to day life. I remember a balloon debate. (The concept of a balloon debate is that a hot air balloon is coming down and in order to save any of the passengers, others will need to be thrown overboard. Different students represent the people in the balloon and argue in turn to the group why they should be saved. If they are thrown overboard their contribution to humanity goes with them. The audience evaluate the relative cases and vote the people off the balloon one by one.) A particular player regarded her life of little importance and she was the first one voted off.

[PlaceboTarget]

@Great_Antibob

Looks like we should ask UY Scuti for a restatement of the question.

If A, then B.

Unfortunately, “A” is pretty ridiculous. The OPs characterization of atheists is stereotypically bad.

So how about it? A restatement that’s actually better than “Can a leprechaun provide rational arguments that unicorns should spare their lives?”.

I have rephrased that characterization in a four-point description above that happens to include some of my views as well. (Except the part I subsequently placed in bold letters.) This description has already been deemed as inaccurate, without sound arguments yet, I think.