# I have decided to become an atheist (hypothetical) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 10, 2008, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723 "2008-04-10T03:23:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/241 "2008-04-11T02:26:14Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] Pavlov’s dogs are an example of behavioral conditioning. How is salivation to a bell guided by judeo-christian principles? [/QUOTE] god = dog ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/242 "2008-04-11T02:29:13Z")
[QUOTE=Lobohan] god = dog [/QUOTE] Are you dyslexic so you hate dog too? ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/243 "2008-04-11T02:32:52Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] “IT’S A TRAP!!” /Akbar [/QUOTE] Great Og, \*\*MrDibble \*\* my friend, don’t _you_ start! [QUOTE=Pochacco] I gotta agree with \*\*mswas \*\* here. Christian principles have had a strong influence on European (and by extension, American) morality. [/QUOTE] Even assuming this is true, it doesn’t take the argument anywhere. At most it means religious people who believe in a god have derived some useful principles. They’ve also derived some appalling ones. Naturally they would now say that the good ones came from their god and the bad ones from elsewhere. There’s no evidence that they didn’t make up their principles themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/244 "2008-04-11T02:35:02Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] You pretty much nailed it. I was discussing a possible consequence of atheism. [/quote] Okay, but I see no evidence it’s a _probable_ consequence of atheism or even a _common_ consequence of atheism and once we get into million-to-one shots, well… > [@](#): > > If you must know, the question I was exploring myself was the notion of moral pedagogy as provided by religion. Most people here seem to be arguing that they came to their morals by reasoned analysis, which I tend to doubt. Most of us came by our behavior in Kindergarten. We were taught hte basic social mores, and have only refined them as we got older. Most of our morals are based off of a principal of noncoercion. Sure, no argument. It’s in our adult years that we can analyze the source of and need for our morals and many of us see no need to work a godhead in there. In fact, the many tales we’ve been told in childhood about the wellspring of morals being God or Jesus or whatever now seem pointless. That doesn’t instantly, or even gradually, turn us into amoral people, though, because by that stage we’ve pretty much adapted to social norms and no longer feel the need for religion-based reminders. > [@](#): > > One of the issues here, is the extremely offensive, “You’re a sociopath if you need authority to be moral.”, argument, but of course we let it slide, because we as theists are expected to be more tolerant than atheists. This is where I must point out that Der Trihs (I assume the source of this particular sentiment) isn’t let to slide, since he can be challenged in GD and Pit threads about him can be started, both without mod interference. Similarly, **you** can be challenged in GD and Pit threads about you can be started, both without mod interference. Exactly what “sliding” does he get that you don’t? And simple disagreement doesn’t count - if you find being challenged in GD or having a Pit thread about you started, then you’re frankly far too delicate for this board, where GD challenges and Pit threads are and always have been the norm. > [@](#): > > Any number of insults about hte magical sky pixie, flying spaghetti monster, or invisible pink unicorn are par for the course. Well, if any of those individuals take out memberships, they can complain. > [@](#): > > We are expected to justify the inquisition, or Islamic fundamentalism, as those sorts of religious expressions are the default, and we are practicing some sort of anomaly if we behave in a way that is more kind and tolerant than that. So? Ignore it. > [@](#): > > Even though the entire new testament is basically a message telling you to be kind to people, we are expected to defend against private piques and prejudices regularly. I’m fairly confident I can find passages promoting unkind behaviour in the New Testament, but again, if someone is expecting something of you you think is unfair, ignore them. > [@](#): > > Now, of course, turn around and make one thread about a possible outcome of the loss of faith, in order to illustrate the role that religion plays in some people’s lives and people scream bloody murder as though you are about to institute a pogrom. Though, I can count multiple times I have seen atheist pile-ons in the last week alone, and I cannot remember the last time I saw a religious pile-on here at this forum. Scream bloody murder? A touch exaggerated, don’t you think? In how many of those atheist pile-ons have you played an active role? And if you want a religious pile-on, feel free to try to start one. Trouble is, on this particular board, the number of posters who will use religion as a weapon is a bit limited. There is no shortage of other boards where this is not the case, though, and a religious pile-on could go for a dozen pages or more. > [@](#): > > No one came by their morals rationally. I strongly suggest you read [Lemur866’s post on the subject](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9675774&postcount=117). I know you dismissed it out of hand, but I think you’d find it worthwhile. Or you’d just dismiss it again, I dunno. > [@](#): > > I wasn’t saying that all atheists are sociopaths, I was just taking atheism to a total extreme, where it nullifies everything that one thought previously to be true. Do you not see a potential problem in taking something “to a total extreme”, and > [@](#): > > The issue at hand here is that atheists quite often do not have any toleration of faith at all, it’s just politically correct make-nice words. The very idea that it is a ‘mere crutch’, is a dismissal that it possibly has any validity at all. It isn’t a valid part of someone’s life, it’s a binky for the stupid and the weak, therefore if someone illustrates a scenario where someone has their life turned inside out by the loss of faith, then they must be trolling. Yeah, pretty much. How do you feel about people who are devastated by the moving of a sports team or the death of a celebrity? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/245 "2008-04-11T02:52:34Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Are you dyslexic so you hate dog too? [/QUOTE] I don’t hate god. Hating god is like hating Spiderman. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/246 "2008-04-11T02:54:32Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] Okay, but I see no evidence it’s a _probable_ consequence of atheism or even a _common_ consequence of atheism and once we get into million-to-one shots, well… [/quote] So million-to-one shots aren’t valuable conversation pieces? Only average topics are valuable? > [@](#): > > Sure, no argument. It’s in our adult years that we can analyze the source of and need for our morals and many of us see no need to work a godhead in there. In fact, the many tales we’ve been told in childhood about the wellspring of morals being God or Jesus or whatever now seem pointless. That doesn’t instantly, or even gradually, turn us into amoral people, though, because by that stage we’ve pretty much adapted to social norms and no longer feel the need for religion-based reminders. Well I guess I don’t see automatized behavior as really being a moral individual. Morality tends to imply a bit of choice in the matter. Defaulting to conditioning doesn’t really seem moral to me. > [@](#): > > This is where I must point out that Der Trihs (I assume the source of this particular sentiment) isn’t let to slide, since he can be challenged in GD and Pit threads about him can be started, both without mod interference. Similarly, **you** can be challenged in GD and Pit threads about you can be started, both without mod interference. Exactly what “sliding” does he get that you don’t? And simple disagreement doesn’t count - if you find being challenged in GD or having a Pit thread about you started, then you’re frankly far too delicate for this board, where GD challenges and Pit threads are and always have been the norm. **Der Trihs** doesn’t make a pile-on by himself, and I ignore 90% of his posts on every topic. The thing about a pile-on is that people manipulate you giving credibility to their position by responding into a chance to jump up and down on you. If I ignored all the people who were baiting and just responded to those that were debating, I suppose it would go more smoothly, but then I would be accused of side-stepping the issue until I finally gave in and gave that person attention, at which point they would proceed with the pile-on. > [@](#): > > I’m fairly confident I can find passages promoting unkind behaviour in the New Testament, but again, if someone is expecting something of you you think is unfair, ignore them. Yes, I find Paul to be rather irritating. > [@](#): > > Scream bloody murder? A touch exaggerated, don’t you think? In how many of those atheist pile-ons have you played an active role? And if you want a religious pile-on, feel free to try to start one. Trouble is, on this particular board, the number of posters who will use religion as a weapon is a bit limited. There is no shortage of other boards where this is not the case, though, and a religious pile-on could go for a dozen pages or more. Hey just the other day, **MrDibble** was going on about death squads or some such. > [@](#): > > I strongly suggest you read [Lemur866’s post on the subject](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9675774&postcount=117). I know you dismissed it out of hand, but I think you’d find it worthwhile. Ok, I read it. Seemed pretty nihilistic to me, just nihilistic in a way that preferred the comfort of conformity. By the fact that a number of atheists alluded to that post as something worth looking at, I now surmise that maybe there is an inherently nihilistic thread in atheism. The idea that the universe is meaningless. I prefer to think that the universe is meaning in and of itself. Going along to get along just to suit other people’s emotional sentimentality is pretty sociopathic. Look at Dexter as an example. One need not be compelled to kill to be a sociopath. Sociopaths mimic the emotions of the society at large in order to fit into a world that they are alienated from. He may or may not be a sociopath, but that post seemed pretty sociopathic to me. > [@](#): > > Do you not see a potential problem in taking something “to a total extreme”, and > Yeah, pretty much. How do you feel about people who are devastated by the moving of a sports team or the death of a celebrity? Sure, maybe some people don’t see the need to question everything when they lose faith in God. Maybe someone didn’t really lose faith in God, or never questioned it, they just woke up one day and decided that God was a worn out old shirt, unecessary. That maybe they never really had faith anyway. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/247 "2008-04-11T02:55:48Z")
[QUOTE=Lobohan] I don’t hate god. Hating god is like hating Spiderman. [/QUOTE] It was a reference to [this](http://youtube.com/watch?v=eaGgpGLxLQw). I hate Aquaman. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/248 "2008-04-11T03:25:37Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] I do not agree that Christianity ‘defines’ my morality. [/QUOTE] Biology and practicality define morality. Religion merely frames and rationalizes it. This can be said about any religion; the only significant real-world difference between Christianity and other religions is stuff like what kind of meat you’re allowed to eat. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/249 "2008-04-11T03:35:21Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] So million-to-one shots aren’t valuable conversation pieces? Only average topics are valuable? [/quote] Well, gosh, if you talk about the one-on-a-million atheist who turns into a sociopath and imply this is a typical or likely outcome, I simply can’t imagine how anyone would object. > [@](#): > > Defaulting to conditioning doesn’t really seem moral to me. Out of curiosity, how many theists are theists because their parents are theists? Is it just an astonishing coincidence that the one often shares the religious beliefs of one’s parents, or is there conditioning in effect? Is there a genetic difference between a Muslim and a Christian, one we might have observed had the infants been switched at birth? > [@](#): > > Yes, I find Paul to be rather irritating. Can I assume your earlier sweeping statement about the New Testament is subject to revision? > [@](#): > > Ok, I read it. Seemed pretty nihilistic to me, just nihilistic in a way that preferred the comfort of conformity. By the fact that a number of atheists alluded to that post as something worth looking at, I now surmise that maybe there is an inherently nihilistic thread in atheism. The idea that the universe is meaningless. I prefer to think that the universe is meaning in and of itself. Going along to get along just to suit other people’s emotional sentimentality is pretty sociopathic. Actually, it’s no nihilistic at all. It’s quite wonderful and inspiring. The universe has lots of hydrogen, but heavier elements like Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus are only formed in collapsing stars, in whose deaths these elements are scattered, to coalesce after an immensely long time into planets and the molecules we call “organic”, to randomly mix and compete and struggle and crawl from the muck and, after a billion years, we who are made of the stuff of the universe begin to contemplate the universe itself. That’s not nihilistic at all. I find it beautiful; infinitely more so than any creation myth I’ve ever heard. ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/250 "2008-04-11T05:40:22Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] **LilShieste** Great response. [/quote] Thanks, I spent a good portion of my lunch break writing it. 🙂 > [@mswas](#): > > Love: Not everyone defines it as an emotion, some seem to define it as an experience of something external to one’s emotions. I’d never heard that type of description before; I’ve always thought of it as an emotion. Could you elaborate on what you mean? > [@mswas](#): > > It would be interesting to see a Linguistic analysis of the origin of the word. I am under the impression that it is a Christian concept, and from a Christian perspective it it something far more than an emotion. I’m not sure I follow what you mean by “Christian concept”. Of course it plays a major role in the teachings of Christ, but it’s not something that belongs solely to Christianity. Imagine a 5 year old boy who lives in a place that has never been exposed to the concept of Christianity. You don’t think this impairs his ability to love his friends and family, right? > [@mswas](#): > > Mental Illness: Psychology can be observed using scientific principles, but proper functioning is often a result of societal norms. I think this is a common misconception about mental illnesses. A mental illness isn’t defined as a “deviation from the norm” - it’s essentially defined as thoughts or behaviors that impair a person’s ability to function in their everyday life. Emphasis should be placed on “_their_ everyday life”, rather than “a _normal_ everyday life”. > [@mswas](#): > > It seems to me that there is a mental illness to accomodate for the full range of human emotion, in order to sell medication. The notion of illness is entirely subjective. But the problem isn’t on the “science side” of psychology - it’s on the “human side”. The problem isn’t that tons of superfluous mental illnesses are defined, but rather that a lot of people are misdiagnosed with them. > [@mswas](#): > > Laziness: ADHD > Sad: Depression > Get Excited and Sad: Bipolar > Can think with different methods of thought: Schizophrenia > Get angry: Anger management issues > > Whether or not it is an illness seems to be directly proportional to the level of social acceptability. I want to re-emphasize what I said earlier, WRT the impairment of functioning in someone’s everyday life. All of the mental illnesses you mention above are not synonymous with the “normal” behaviors that you associated them with. Of course, a _lot_ of people are misdiagnosed, but that’s a completely separate issue. > [@mswas](#): > > [QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] > This is of course completely at odds with the empirical evidence, which strongly indicates that the DSM definitions of mental disorders hold across cultures and countries. I see. So how do you explain the child that has ADHD in one environment but is fine in another? [/quote] There can be many explanations - the foremost probably being “human error”. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/251 "2008-04-11T07:06:41Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco] Well, contemporary cultures as so jumbled together its difficult to tease out the threads of who learned what from where. But many traditional European ideals, such as the dignity of the individual, evolved from Christian values. A statement like “all men are created equal” is not an overtly Christian statement, but it is the secular offshoot of line of long line of Christian theological reasoning stretching back over a thousand years. [/QUOTE] If you think the Christian thought _wasn’t_ derived in turn from essentially secular Hellenistic philosophy, you’re very much mistaken. There’s nothing spontaneous or unique about Christian thought - see below. [QUOTE=Pochacco] This is not to say that Asia might not have arrived at many of the same moral positions via a different route. [/QUOTE] Or even [the _same_ route.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism) Hell, Buddha is a Christian saint, you know. [QUOTE=Pochacco] But the predominant influence in the United States has been European, and the predominant influences in European culture have been Christian and Greek. [/QUOTE] This collapses down to just Greek (with a sprinkling of Babylonian), IMO. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/252 "2008-04-11T07:21:11Z")
[QUOTE=Anomalous Reading] I don’t think any of those impressions are wrong. And I think he’s leaving a sliver of room open for the argument he wants to hear. It’s like he’s trying to get us to give the answer he already knows - just to see if we can. [/QUOTE] IMO, Socratic Method only works if the student is a sock puppet of the master. Otherwise it’s just an annoying debate tactic - The “you have to agree with my premises” tack of **mswas** is clearly not something we’re willing to play along with. That’s not how SM works. The key to using the method of ἔλεγχος effectively is to assert premises you interlocutor _can’t_ refute, not simply i_nsist_ that your premises be accepted for argument’s sake. Plus they made Socrates drink poison for being an atheist and a rebel. **mswas** is no Socrates. He’s just a naughty boy. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/253 "2008-04-11T07:43:25Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] I will change it to, “It’s rare that someone comes by their morals rationally.”, most may in retrospect examine their morals rationally, but by and large morals are inculcated at an early age. [/QUOTE] I’d argue that, for me at least, the _possibilities_ for my own morality were inculcated at an early age (and I was raised in an atheist household in a multicultural town) , added to by later mystical experience, and expanded on when I started reading Existentialists. And at various points, I made either rational or emotional choices on what to discard (God, homophobia, Deutoronomy, 5 Pillars) and what to acquire (pacifism, anticapitalism, atheism, 5 Precepts) from that whole grab-bag of possibilities. Most of that process happening in my 20s and 30s, but it’s ongoing. Definitely not set at an early age - I only discovered pacifism in my teens, Buddhism in my 20s and rediscovered atheism at 25. So that’s at least two atheists out of the small number in this thread who came to their morals mostly rationally (with some emotion) later in life. Are you still going to insist it’s rare? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/254 "2008-04-11T08:19:22Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] There may be no morality, right or wrong, objective or not, but there cannot be a relative morality beyond any person’s whim. [/QUOTE] There can, in fact, be a group consensus morality. We call it Society. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] It negates its own argument in the specific. Any given argument you make to someone would be countered simply by them holding the same concept (Moral Relativism) you do! That is, they would simply say that your argument is your opinion, and they happen to hold a different one. [/QUOTE] Of course. But there are other tacks to take - showing their stated premises for feeling as they do are erroneous is one way. Like showing **mswas** that he’s wrong about the religious basis for morality. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] And if you do believe that consequences make a thing wrong, you must still have another, objective moral scale to determine what a “bad” consequence even is! [/QUOTE] A moral scale, yes, but why does it have to be objective? [QUOTE=smiling bandit] I get into this below with Der Trihs. Empathy is a prfoundly useful tool, but absent human reason it amounts to nothing. It may motivate an individual, but someone who lacks empathy cannot be said to be wrong based merely on the fact that the speaker (who says the person who lacks empathy) does have empathy. [/QUOTE] HAven’t made that argument, I don’t think. But with you on empathy coupled with reason, so no argument there. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] The problem with the idea that society is right because it is more powerful is that first, it’s self-negating, and second, it makes no sense. It’s self negating in that it asks people to selflessly defend something which does not exist and which they would value only for their own selfish reasons. Defending society, or carrying out its dictates, is meaningless absent a standard of value which tell us what form of society to have, much less what to do about it. [/QUOTE] You say this as if Society is a monolithic entity rather than an emergent dynamic. We don’t choose Society, we create it. There is no “before Society” when we could choose. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] It really does make no sense. Society cannot be the judge here: it is one of the things under judgement, if any judgements can be made. [/QUOTE] Moral judgments aren’t subject to a completeness theorem, IMO. It can be both judge and judged. Why not? [QUOTE=smiling bandit] If they cannot be, then society is a tool to be discared when it becomes inconvenient. [/QUOTE] The only way to discard Society is to live all alone on a desert island. Wherever there are two people, there is Society. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] No, I wanted to raise it because I think it is an important argument. In the real world, raising an argument that has not been mentioned, describing it, and offering a critique is considered good form. [/QUOTE] Not in the middle of another continuing argument, it isn’t. All it is, is confusing who you’re addressing. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] A strawman is when I make a false argument put into the mouth of my opponent. I know no one made the argument yet, but I think it’s actually a good argument and deserves a hearing. [/QUOTE] Then address it in a different post, or after you’re done talking with me. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] In fact, I think you actually made the strawman -\> that I made a strawman! 😃 [/QUOTE] That’s not a strawman, that’s a mistake. I apologise. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] Simply put, if you are guided solely by emotion your arguments can never acutally mean anything to anyone outside of you. Which makes arguments irrelevant. You would have no way to actually convince anyone else except by asserting your own arbitrary authority. [/QUOTE] Good thing I never said one had to be guided solely by emotion then. My point was more why rationality was the be-all and end-all of it, sorry if that was confusing. And there’s always “appeal to emotion” - it may be fallacious, but it’s often convincing! [QUOTE=smiling bandit] Now that’s an interesting assertion. You’ve just made a moral judgemnt that society’s interests outweigh our individual wishes. [/QUOTE] No, I was being descriptive. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] It wasn’t, specifically. it was a reflection of those who, at the end of the day, believe in nothing, except, possibly, power. That is their God, and their sole source of “good”. [/QUOTE] Still seeing theists here. Bad theists, but theists none the less. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] I probably should note here that the Gods in DnD are pretty elemental. [/QUOTE] I’ve been playing D’nD going on 30 years now. I don’t need it explained to me. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] The point is that, stripped of any objective moral truths (Lolth has none, only th command, “Go and take whatever you can get!”), they actually constructed… a raional society. [/QUOTE] No, the writers constructed a Mary Sue society. Internal consistency and robustness weren’t really there, not even in _Vault of the Drow._ Erelhei-Cinlu had all the believability of Gor. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/255 "2008-04-11T08:31:24Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Hey just the other day, **MrDibble** was going on about death squads or some such. [/QUOTE] Cite? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/256 "2008-04-11T11:41:31Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Behavioral Why do I need to justify what they say, but it’s beyond the pale for me to ask you to justify Mao or Stalin? [/quote] Because your OP did not make any sort of case for Mao or Stalin being representative of your purported position and you have no legitimate reason to drag them into the discussion. [QUOTE=mswas] No, because they show a sincere lack of good faith on the interlocutor. The examples show that he doesn’t care about actually debating, his interest is in abusing me. The fact that you call it a ‘Babylonian Storm God’, which is a rank mischaracterization of the Judeo-Christian God, shows that you are an intolerant bigot with no interest in anything other than being mean. . . . See, this proves my point. You aren’t interested in debating, you are interested in berating. . . . No I haven’t asserted any such thing. If you were arguing in good faith, you’d actually read what I write. I am not going to reiterate it again. [/quote] I see no evidence that you have argued anything tin this thread in good faith and only the presence of a very few sidebar disdcussions (in which you have not joined) have kept me from closing this thread. I have no idea what you thought you were doing, here, with your strawman OP and your dismissal of nearly every poster–usually in an insulting manner–who has pointed out the serious flaws in your tissue-thin arguments, but if I do not see a serious effort on your point to construct a thoughtful, logical argument, this thread will soon be toast. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/257 "2008-04-11T13:28:33Z")
If any of the theists in this thoughtless mess of mischaracterisation are interested in learning possible mechanisms for the emergence of morality from nature, I’ll repeat the recommendation I made on the first page, which I assure you is worth [$3 and a mouse click](http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0140264450/ref=dp_olp_2). As for whether morality is “objective”, well, how _can_ it be if some people _subjectively disagree_ on whether a given action is right or wrong? (And since _theists_ seem to disagree just as subjectively between each other, religion therefore provides no more objective a morality. Even if gods exosted, their wishes would only ever be interpreted _subjectively_.) That is not to say that morality cannot be _studied_ objectively, of course, nor that if enough subjects set forth the consequences of their subjective morality, that this could not easily be confused with “objectivism”. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/258 "2008-04-11T13:41:57Z")
[QUOTE=SentientMeat] As for whether morality is “objective”, well, how _can_ it be if some people _subjectively disagree_ on whether a given action is right or wrong? [/quote] People are wrong all the time. This is like saying, ‘if it is objectively true that the earth is round, how could anyone ever think it was flat?’ > [@](#): > > (And since _theists_ seem to disagree just as subjectively between each other, religion therefore provides no more objective a morality. Even if gods exosted, their wishes would only ever be interpreted _subjectively_.) I think we covered this in fair detail. The question is not concerning religious bases for morality. The question is, is there any real basis for morality in an atheistic world? Because, as you no doubt realize, the argument you present above is easily flipped, and is equally valid - if religiously based morality is invalid because it is subjective, then atheist morality is equally invalid because it is equally subjective. And if atheist morality can be valid (in any sense) even though it is based on arbitrary principles, then religious morality can be equally valid, even though it is based on equally arbitrary principles. Atheists cannot establish that their principles are any better than religion. All attempts to do so bog down almost at once in begging the question, ad hominems, and simply asserting their first principles over and over. Regards, Shodan PS - Congratulations again on the new little one. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/259 "2008-04-11T13:49:16Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] You pretty much nailed it. I was discussing a possible consequence of atheism. If you must know, the question I was exploring myself was the notion of moral pedagogy as provided by religion. Most people here seem to be arguing that they came to their morals by reasoned analysis, which I tend to doubt. Most of us came by our behavior in Kindergarten. We were taught hte basic social mores, and have only refined them as we got older. Most of our morals are based off of a principal of noncoercion. [/quote] Behavior, yes, but not morals. I’ll elaborate more in a sec. > [@](#): > > No one came by their morals rationally. You weren’t born with a copy of “The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals.”, in your hand. You were instructed by trial and error by adults whose fundamental morality had changed very little from the previous generations. Every once in a while, a big philosophical movement comes along that changes the culture and it’s mores in a significant way. We saw this in the 60s as well as during the Enlightenment. Both had massive repercussions, violent social upheaval across the board. As **Pochacco** so eloquently illustrated, one does not come by their morals individually, they come by their morals based upon what society expects of them. The current culture’s morals are based on widespread agreement. As I pointed out in regards to the 60s and the enlightenment, that widespread agreement does not change particularly often. You learned to behave in social situations through years of carrot and stick politicking on the part of your parents and school teachers. Here’s the thing: you appear in this paragraph to be laboring under the mistaken impression that we obtain “morals” as children. As you noted above, we learn “behavior” as children, but actual morals come much later. In short, children who haven’t learned to reason fully are not moral beings. We can shape their behavior, but learning to do the right thing _because it is the right thing_ takes time and introspection. A young child is no more a moral being than a wild tiger. Trainable, yes, but not a moral being. I never claimed that I came out of the womb with a fully formed moral code, nor even that I graduated from high school as a moral being. I did and do claim, however, that if your only claim to moral rightness is divine decree, then your morality is still at the level of a trained child. Society can shape our behavior, but morality comes from within. And there are indeed moral systems that consider, from different perspectives, the wishes of society; that is why I suggested that you do some reading on the fundamentals. Familiarize yourself with that which seems to offend you. Hell, I took 2 1/2 years of religion classes and read the Bible front to back; why don’t you at least take a peek into what the “other side” is thinking? > [@](#): > > So besides being offensive, arguing that gaining morals from authority is in any way dishonorable, is just plain wrong. We are all subject to the authority that binds us together whether that be religion, kinship groups, or the state. We all come by our morals from some sort of higher authority. It is solipsistic to believe otherwise. If your morality is such that the only thing restraining you from wicked behavior is the threat of punishment, then you are a sociopath. In other words, if the threat of punishment is removed, how do you act? If your answer is, “Go nuts and do whatever I want,” you are in dire need of moral growth. Or, as it was so eloquently put on a restaurant placemat I read once, “Morality is what you do when no one’s looking.” > [@](#): > > Any sort of moral learning that we achieve later in life merely builds upon the imprinting and conditioning of early childhood. Sometimes on rare occasions we come to a paradigm shifting event that gives us the opportunity to take stock of just what we believe. This is what I was describing here. I wasn’t saying that all atheists are sociopaths, I was just taking atheism to a total extreme, where it nullifies everything that one thought previously to be true. For the theist, God is the absolute truth. If you lose the absolute truth, what trust may you put in the lesser truths? This isn’t a reflection upon all atheists at all, it is a reflection upon how significant an event loss of faith really is. Now, likely most people don’t just up and lose their faith one day, it probably trickles out to a point where they wonder if they ever really had it in the first place, or in some cases they just pretended to have it so they could fit in with the crowd, and then one day decide it’s no longer relevant, and they don’t care what comes by it. However, for people with strong faith, it isn’t simply a crutch to lean on, it is a strong and palpable force in their lives informing upon every decision. The issue at hand here is that atheists quite often do not have any toleration of faith at all, it’s just politically correct make-nice words. The very idea that it is a ‘mere crutch’, is a dismissal that it possibly has any validity at all. It isn’t a valid part of someone’s life, it’s a binky for the stupid and the weak, therefore if someone illustrates a scenario where someone has their life turned inside out by the loss of faith, then they must be trolling. Having faith is something I ordinarily don’t mind a bit in a person. What I do object to is _blind_ faith. I can respect someone’s decision if they’ve put some thought into their religion, maybe even doubted a bit, and worked out in their mind that this makes sense for them. Now, if a person just goes through the motions because their parents did, blindly accepts what they’re told, and goes along with anything that’s “in the book” (or even worse, what someone else just _tells them_ is "in the book), I find that pathetic and sad. Do some introspection, and then if you arrive at your faith, good for you. I looked, and for me faith wasn’t the answer. I feel that deserves some modicum of respect. And it irks me greatly when God’s Warriors insult my decision, as though they are in some way superior simply because they have a lower threshold of gullibility and the firm belief that if they do not question, they are saved. I ask questions, and I try to figure out what’s real and what’s right. And any God who would punish me for that doesn’t deserve my respect. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2008, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723/260 "2008-04-11T13:49:18Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] Atheists cannot establish that their principles are any better than religion. All attempts to do so bog down almost at once in begging the question, ad hominems, and simply asserting their first principles over and over. [/QUOTE] And equally, religionists cannot establish that their principles are any better than the principles of atheists. Sounds fair to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-decided-to-become-an-atheist-hypothetical/444723.md?page=14)