Hear, hear!!!
Nick…I may have missed it, but there didn’t seem to be a response to your post about the Time cover. What that was all about was a set of four radical theologians (self description, not editorial comment by me) who espoused a viewpoint very roughly summarized as “God has no effect on human affairs, and hence is (as good as} dead.” Or at least they argued from a premise similar to this. <Note: I’m trying to squeeze a fairly complex philosophical concept into a paragraph-size post, so please don’t take issue with what I missed in that summary.>
Aack…I lost a whole line of that post!
Ending was supposed to be, “Note: I’m trying to squeeze a fairly complex philosophical concept into a paragraph-sized post, so please don’t take issue…”
I never said that atheists are immoral, and neither did Nietzsche. I merely point out, as Nietzsche did, that atheists haven’t got a leg to stand on when they speak of morality.
Most of the atheists I know personally are actually rather nice people. None are foam-at-the-mouth Madalyn Murray O’Hair types. Most grew up in tepidly religious households, and most never had a huge, dramatic “moment of relaization.” Most either ignored religion or practiced it sporadically… and then one day decided they just didn’t buy into any of it, and never thought about it again.
Did they suddenly become sadistic, greedy swine upon abandoning their old religions? Nope. They generally held onto the essential moral teachings of Christianity (at least, the ones that weren’t too demanding or bothersome), while ditching Christ himself. Why? I suspect it was more a matter of habit than anything else. ALL of us, believers and non-believers alike, tend to be rather intellectually lazy. We find it easier to justify the way we’ve always thought and always behaved than to think in new ways.
What it comes down to is, most “nice” atheists are living off the moral capital of a previous era’s belief system. In essence, they’ve thrown out the baby but kept the bathwater.
Nietzsche understood this perfectly well- to Nietzsche, saying that you can abandon God but attempt to keep moral codes is like… well, saying that “I don’t believe in the tooth fairy, and I don’t believe he’ll leave me a quarter, but I can STILL leave a tooth under my pillow.” Sure you can, Nietzsche would answer, but why would you want to? The “death” of God is an event of earth-shattering importance. Einstein once said that “the atomic bomb has changed everything but our way of thinking.” Substitute “the death of God” for the atom bomb, and you’ll have a fair understanding of what Nietzsche was getting at.
Numerous brilliant (and I don’t use this word lightly) atheists, most notably David Hume, have tried to spell out a code of morals based on nothing more than logic, reason and utilitarianism. They have failed miserably, because (as even Hume saw) morality can NEVER be based on reason. Reason is worthless in determining what is good or bad, or what we should want- at best, reason is a tool for figuring out how to get what ILLOGIC (be that whims, emotions, sentiment, or whatever) tells us is good or bad.
To use a pop culture reference, Mr. Spock said, when sacrificing himself in “Star Trek 2,” that, logically, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Logically? Ha! “Logically,” my own needs and wants outweigh everything and everybody else.
I am an atheist, and I will say that my morals are subjective (I know I do not speak for all atheists in this). Nevertheless, I do not feel this makes them less valid, nor do I agree that that means that I cannot say an atrocity is wrong. My morals are based on what is best for human society. If you can convince yourself that the wanton murder of thousands could have ever been possibly considered “best for society” you are a far better persuader than I. We call people who can convince themselves that wanton murder is Ok to be psychopaths; and no, I don’t consider someone who can believe this is moral behaviour to be immoral; they’re insane.
For an example, right now society and religion both agree that beating little children is wrong. Even with subjective morals, for such a thing to become moral it would require a phenomenally radical change in human physiology and culture. But, say, all little children suddenly would die horribly if they were not beaten; then beating little kids would be moral. Or if people could suddenly were sterile with their spouses but not with others; then adultery would be moral. Since these examples are horribly unlikely, unless there is a similar wild change in humanity, my morals parallel what we have spent thousands of years determining what is best for society.
I do acknowledge religion’s role in this, and I applaud it for codifing these rules. At the time they were developed, religious morals were probably as good or better than the secular system of justice. “An eye for an eye” was more merciful the contemporary codes of justice. However, religion’s inability to analyze and reason out its moral codes does not appear beneficial. Of course you can reason out religious moral codes, but not if you believe as you said that reason and logic cannot be used for morals. Then you are stuck with the Word of God alone. I agree religious morals certainly have the great majority of it correct: “don’t murder”,”don’t lie”, etc. But some of the religious moral codes, i.e. “homosexuality should be punished by death” seem FAR inferior to the secular code. You may say it is part of God’s Mysterious Plan, and that he knows what is best; that is valid logic. But I see such beliefs as doing great harm.
For a good going-over of this topic (before we get tossed into GD) go to [."]http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000145.html](http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000145.html[/url). Pldennison, Powers and APB9999 explain an atheistic view of morals. It is logical to want to live in a moral world, and to do what you can to bring that about.
BTW, I thought Nietzsche was not all that highly regarded anymore. “Brilliant, but misguided” sort of thing. And it’s hard to say how Hume, Kant, et al. failed in their attempts; I thought they were pretty good. If you are certain that morals cannot come from reason, then I can see why you would believe that, though.
“Eppur, si muove!” - Galileo Galilei
Or you could look into the work of John von Neumann and his game theory. He demonstarted on a mathematical level, that it is impossible to maximize your benefit on a single transaction unless you behave as if everyone involved will behave in the greediest fashion and plan accordingly. Most people who are familiar with this assume this proves that only greed is “logical”. But if you go beyond the simplest example of single transactions, von Nuemann mathematically demonstrated that there are many situations where you will increase your personal overall benefit on a series of transactions by acting altruistically on individual transactions. To extend this beyond the abstract realm, this proves that is possible to base a moral society on reason alone.
Good point, Mike. The prisoner’s dilemma comes to mind.
Another possiblity that has not yet been discussed is that altruism and certain moral principles are simply embedded in our genes because they were beneficial to the survival of the species. In effect, evolution would have “applied” the logic that you cite. In that case, humans could keep these properties until natural selection (or the lack thereof) swings the other way.
How about that?
astorian, you’re still making the mistake of assuming that morality as we know it is unequivocally and permanently attached generally to religion and specifically to Christianity. I’m sorry, but that assertion is simply preposterous.
There were successful human societies prior to Christianity; there were successful human socities contemporaneous with Christ but elsewhere in the world; and there are successful human socities to this very day who are not Jews, Christians or Muslims. If anything, Christianity is “living off the moral capital of a previous era” as much as any other system is.
You don’t honestly believe those ideas on how to treat each other were created out of whole cloth between 4 BC and 35 AD or so, do you? Of course you don’t. As I said before, they have been integral to the success of groups of humans since, well, since there have been humans.
Christianity, or Judeo-Christian tradition, or religion period, has never had the market on moral ideas cornered, it doesn’t now, and it never will. Anyone who thinks otherwise, and that includes you and Neitzche, is purposefully deluding themselves.
If the only thing keeping one indulging his or her whims at the expense of others is religion, I submit her or she is simply a naturally bad person. It would be nice to believe that “God” or some moral precepts exclusive to religion are the only thing keeping anarchy and chaos at bay. Unfortunately, it’s also silly.
David B has talked about the meme theory (by Dawkins and Blackmore), which says approximately the same thing (although not tied to genes, as I understand it). I haven’t read the book or critiques of it, but it makes sense to me that beneficial behaviours would be passed on. I’ll have to look into it later.
“Eppur, si muove!” - Galileo Galilei
Damn, I realized much later the other point I wanted to make: The argument that astorian is making, or at least describing, presupposes that God actually exists or did at one time. If God never did exist, then those moral rules were derived completely by humans anyway, and are no less arbitrary than rules derived by reason simply because they were placed inside a mythological or superstitious framework.