I find all human life intrinsically valuable, which is why I can’t decide even people like Joseph Fritzl or Ariel Castro should be killed. Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists are all humans and no individual death is justifiable in the name of either retribution or abstract principles.
I will always use rational arguments to support my views and I hope that I will find some on this board. My Muslim interlocutors usually look down on the atheist but respect the Christian (unless the latter has committed any aggression against Muslims or Islam). They accept people of other religion because they know cultural beliefs are a matter of tradition and social interaction, which the atheist chooses to disregard, challenge or undermine. For this, the atheist should not be mourned over.
That is your perception. It may be based on my inability to present the situation, but I humbly assure you that you might change your opinion if you paid a visit to the Middle East and really met these people. They’re not terrorist or bigots. Yet some of them strongly feel they’re discriminated against and treated unfairly by expansionist Christians and infidels in the West.
This thread is supposed to sharpen the very sword you refer to. I really hope to find out at least one new argument for me to rationally argue that “even” atheists should be mourned over when the next terrorist attack occurs.
And you’ll be hard pressed to find any human society where murder isn’t considered a bad thing, and illegal. Doesn’t matter the god they follow(ed), if any.
Granted, if you go back far enough you’ll find plenty of societies where murdering people from the outgroup (i.e. not “real people”) was acceptable, even encouraged in some cases. But even in those harsher times you simply did not get to kill kin, kith or clan outside of very specific, law-sanctioned contexts.
People simply never had to wait for the great beard in the sky to tell them they shalln’t murder each other. The same is true of theft, rape, assault, adultery and Justin Bieber. The golden rule ain’t that advanced a notion.
For the sake of conversation, I put forth the possibility that an atheist’s wish to preserve and life and prevent suffering may stem from fears as well - from the fear of pain and fear of non-existence.
My opinion is that the important choices people make are not rationally founded, just as Kobal2 states here:
However, I do believe people can make rational moral choices too. For example, I may be afraid of what a WWIII may look like, but that doesn’t mean I can’t rationally opt to militate for peace.
I profess peace. If I enter a debate and prevent people from advancing their arguments because they’re based on the existence of fake idols and imaginary gods either no one will talk to me anymore or we’ll come to blows.
As I have already stated, the people I have been debating with know the West and are familiar with atheism. The atheists they have met are naturalists who believe life and the human beings are cosmic accidents that do not have an intrinsic value, but a value that is assigned to them by the subjectivity of the assessor. My interlocutors look down upon this view and the people who hold it.
I prefer to de-personalize the discussion. So there’s this atheist who thinks his life is more important than that of a theist. The atheist’s opinion is based on his perception that his belief (that there is no afterlife) is superior to the theist’s belief (that there is afterlife where the believer will be rewarded for his belief).
However, the atheist does believe a sentient being should not endure suffering of any nature (such as physical suffering in his own case, for example, and moral in the case of his friends and family.
I see two problems:
the atheist’s morality is based on the opinions and feelings of a small sample of individuals (he himself and those close to him) and
the atheist shows no hesitation in shattering a theist’s religious belief, regardless of the moral suffering the attack on the theist’s religion may cause at an individual and/or social level.
That would be nice. To begin with, can you stop insisting to atheists that your beliefs about atheists have any merit? People keep telling you you are wrong, and your response is to reflexively restate the same nonsense.
Can you at the very least acknowledge that your understanding of atheism might be childishly wrong?
I’m not sure this logic could be used in the debates I’ve mentioned. Here is the logic presented above, assuming the “I” in the text is an atheist.
This atheist wants to live because he believes there is no afterlife.
This atheist will respond to attacks our of self-preservation.
This atheist empathizes with his fellow humans out of congenericity.
The first point makes sense but it is subjective.
The second one is rational in the sense that it describes things logically but ultimately the atheist’s reaction is an irrational one (i.e. based on emotions, instincts and the like).
The third point seems to ignore the fact that humans are social beings whose humanity results from participation and absorption of elements of culture and civilization. Elements of culture and civilization makes a human baby become a human - otherwise he will be a feral child, whose humanity is not accomplished. Invoking congenerity as a fundamental ground for empathy among human beings does not seem rational of a being whose very distinct place in existence resides on the fact that he is able to assign meanings, and to create cultures and civilizations that are passed on to his offspring (and in the absence of which these offspring may fall out of their human condition).
I am waiting for specific ideas and examples, something more than “No, that’s not it.”
What is it that an atheist holds and I have failed to mention?
And more importantly, what is it based on? Rationally.
The only thing all atheists have in common is the lack of belief in a god or gods. Aside from that, the moral framework of individual atheists is as diverse as it is among non-atheists.
Atheists don’t believe in any gods. That’s it. Otherwise, atheists have incredibly diverse moral beliefs. There are several atheists in this thread (including myself) who would be happy to tell you about their individual moral framework, but no one can tell you the moral framework of all atheists, because there isn’t just one (or just a dozen, or just a hundred).
That is not an accurate rendering of what he wrote.
It is theists who has less regard for his own life, because he thinks there is a next one coming after this one. It is he that could be killed with less regret.
Isn’t that the whole bloody point in suicide attacks? They don’t care about this life.