This is why I declare myself agnostic and not atheist. Atheists far too often (though certainly not all the time, nor all of them) just say, “Look at how stupid you are. You are stupid. Stupid. I’m smart because I see you are stupid.” And completely overlook or just touch on the great gems like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It may not be exactly “hateful”, but it’s at least condescending.
Exactly! Agreed, and well put.
Did you know there has been over 200 revisions to the book of mormon in its measly existence? That is the one thing for which I give credit to Islam: they’ve stayed the course pretty damn well. Pun intended.
No religion is going to advertise their weirdesses. They will attempt too hide them to get better recruiting. They are businesses competing for members after all. But in my lifetime there have been many suits and blowups over the suppression of women in the Mormon Church. They have been guilty of the idea that women are subservient to men. They are shying away from that now .Why. If god through his prophet told them that that is gods will, who are they to change it.? It does not compute. They change their stances due to political pressure. Why would a true faith do such a thing?They are a business and seek your tithes.
It’s not a demonstrable reason for acting? I don’t steal from or assault my neighbor because the short-term gain isn’t worth the long-term hassle of him plotting ways to steal from or assault me. It’s a workable ethical standard that benefits both of us. I’m afraid I don’t understand your equating it to slogan-shouting.
In cases where the neighbor does steal from or assault me, my first response would likely be to call the police, who represent another secular ethical standard created by society; the enforcers of civil (as opposed to religious) law. These two ethical layers address pretty much all the negative interactions I’m likely to have with my neighbor. As I understand it, you would really prefer that God be given the credit for neighbors not killing each other. I’m afraid this isn’t the case. My neighbor and I don’t have to invoke God at all if we choose to act like civilized human beings.
Quite a few people leave the LDS church. It’s just plain dishonest to say “they never let you out.”
Bush was applauded for his evangelical beliefs. He certainly didn’t get any slack from the right. If it takes Christian conservatives to win an election, the Republican Party will gladly take their vote. I do think Bush actually believes he was chosen by the almighty to be president.
Romney knows how important the evangelical Christian vote is in today’s election, so he tried to assure those voters that he will continue President Bush’s crusade to fund Christian organizations and holy war on Islam while downsizing government to non existence. The evangelical Christian community seems to be the only religious group determined to hijack the Constitution. Religion in government, specifically fundamental Christianity, fosters hypocrisy. Republicans need the evangelical Christian vote, so now they better adhere to Christian doctrine or suffer public humiliation. I think it is time for gay republicans to defect to the other side. Romney’s beliefs are not the same as evangelical Christians, so he is groveling for forgiveness and their vote. I would feel sorry for him if it wasn’t all so hypocritical and nutty.
I would consider “derived logically from first principles” to be a pretty good example of rationality. You’re correct, as far as the base moral system goes, the same problems remain. And you’re also correct in that we can’t say “this is a totally valid system” just because we’ve fixed one problem. But more valid? Requiring of less faith? Sure. I don’t claim it means there’s no faith needed at all, nor that you can show that the source of morality is any better. But the results don’t need to be guessed at.
But he IS in “some kind of cult”
The only difference between a religion and a cult is that a religion has political clout and acceptance. An army helps, too.
Why do you assume that, if happiness is “nothing more than electro-chemical patterns” that it is not valuable or desirable? Why do you exclude the possibility that the state of having electro-chemical patterns is more desirable than the state of not having them? Can’t ECP’s be more pleasing, or have inherent worth?
A steak is just a package of biochemicals with emphasis on protein and fats. So is a tub of “textured vegetable protein” smeared with grease. I still prefer the steak, thank you very much.
I disagree - one could make logical arguments against killing people, such as a breakdown of the law and order needed to make a stable society, and stable societies further the continued existence of the human species. It is illogical to kill one’s own offspring. It is dangerous to kill others because of potential retaliation by their kin. It is in the selfish, self-interest of anyone to put limits on killing.
Not until you demonstrate that it is more valid than “kill the Jews” or pretty much anything else.
I take it on faith that the dictatorship of the proletariat is a basis for moral decisions. Thus, I can demonstrate that engineering famines in Ukraine is done in furtherance of that morality. My morality is equally “demonstrable”, IOW.
Same objection - you are assuming on faith that avoiding hassle is more valid than anything else.
You can choose that if you like. What you can’t do is show that this choice is any more valid than someone who chooses to kill you.
Feel free to demonstrate that it is, apart from some appeal to faith-based axioms.
X is an electro-chemical pattern that represents happiness. Y is a different pattern representing an itch on my leg, or the Bible. Show that X is better than Y in some way other than asserting it.
Nor does the religious conviction “thou shalt not commit murder”. I can see that I don’t kill people, just as an atheist can see that he doesn’t. The fact that I do it out of a conviction that it is God’s will does not make it any less clear whether or not I am meeting my goal.
What is taken on faith in both cases is whether or not avoiding murder is a good thing. It has to be taken on faith, either that it is the will of God or just because.
Regards,
Shodan
A few thousand years of history providing evidence that if you piss off people they tend to want to piss you off is the same thing as faith??
But the committing or not comitting of murder isn’t the goal. The goal is the following of God’s will, the desire to please him, which is met by the method of murder/not murder. That’s the reason for following that ideal (or at least, a significant one). It’s like if I try to buy a present for a friend; it can be measured in terms of success on two points. First, did I succeed in getting it and giving it? And second, did that method, while going as I wanted, succeed in my goal of cheering up my friend? There’s a difference between successful execution and reaching a goal, and religious people must take on faith that at least one of their goals is reached.
Yes. I’ve already agreed to this. I’ve already said that atheists must also take things on faith. All i’m saying is that considerably less faith is required, that amount changing depending on moral system (since “atheism” alone gives no system that obviously varies).
No, we’ve covered this before. “Not pissing people off” as the basis for morality takes faith in axiomatic statements.
I’ll have to assume at this point that you are trying to piss me off. You are therefore acting immorally by your own standards. Of course, I can’t show that your standards are either valid or invalid…
At this point, we have wandered into semantics, but isn’t the goal for atheists not committing murder the desire to act morally?
And assuming that you cannot determine God’s will - it is also impossible to prove that atheistic morality furthers a valid morality. This is the part you have to take on faith.
Regards,
Shodan
Yep, and that’s why i’ve been saying “some atheists” throughout this. It depends on what that morality is. If it’s “do these things because it’s good” then you’re correct, the goal must still be taken on faith, because you have to guess both whether or not your not-murdering is a good thing and whether it sucessfully gives you a check-mark against the universal standard (or whatever). But i’m a utilitarian. My moral system suggests that happiness is the “best” thing. I still need to take on faith that it is in fact the best thing, the good thing. But I can see whether or not my actions actually do cause happiness.
Essentially it’s just a shift down; religious people want God to be happy with them, I just want other people to be. One of these things doesn’t have to be taken on faith. The same could be said for other systems where the goal is a seeable quantity.
Yes, we can’t tell whether it furthers a valid morality. But in some cases, we can tell whether it furthers a morality. That’s the difference.
I see your distinction, which I think is a semantic one. Religious people can see that they are making other people happy, just as utilitarians can. But utilitarians stop there, and assume that therefore their actions are justified (because other people are made happy). Religious people then go on to take it on faith that their actions are justified because they please God.
Actually this goes back to an extensive debate, and perhaps my position on the debate is affecting my perception.
Is X right because it is God’s will, or is X God’s will because it is right? Many theologians say the second; I say the first. Morality is created by God just like arithmetic or the laws of physics. The question “could God have ordered some other thing to be moral besides what He did” is, I think, unanswerable. It’s like the old “could God make a stone so big He couldn’t lift it?”, which is answerable only by asserting that God, who is all-powerful, can do anything, including lifting stones that He can’t lift. The best answer available to a contradictory question is a contradictory answer. Does it make any sense? If the question does, so does the answer; if the question doesn’t, neither does the answer.
I don’t think it is possible to discuss topics logically that deny logic. “If A, then not-A” means that we cannot derive any conclusions from the premise.
Regards,
Shodan
What about a situation in which you don’t do something (or do something) strictly because God said it, as opposed to because you see people becoming happy or better off because of it? i.e. the meat on Friday thing in the Catholic tradition, or taking the Lord’s name in vain (an actual commandment).
That’s not semantic- it something that one does specifically because it is commanded by God, and not for any other discernable reason.
I don’t see why it’s just a semantic difference. Both require faith that their way is the “right” way. Religious people and utilitarians both take it on faith that their way is the “right” way. But religious people don’t just need to take it on faith that their actions are justified because they please God, they need to take it on faith that they’re pleasing God on top of that.
I don’t think that you can assume that if it is the right idea, then God must be pleased (or vice-versa). The base idea can be right, but the method wrong. Take abortion clinic bombings; is the intitial idea, that God doesn’t take too kindly to the killing of unborn babies, correct? Maybe. Would he support that particular method of pleasing him? Again, maybe. But I consider faith in the ideal and faith in the method to be two quite seperate ideas, and it’s the latter a utilitarian doesn’t have to do.
I don’t think we can talk about logic and then deny it, either. The whole concept of the rock so heavy argument is pretty flawed, since the definition conflicts with the action and makes it essentially gibberish. But i’m afraid I don’t see where you’re going with that… you’re going to have to dumb it down for me, i’m afraid.
I’m still not following you, I think.
I understand the part where religious people have faith that their morality is valid because they believe God said so. In the same way, non-religious folks have faith that their morality is valid because human happiness is what determines morality. So far, so good.
I don’t see where the further act of faith (that I am pleasing God as well as acting morally) comes in. To me, it is the same thing - moral acts please God because they are in accordance with His will. If they were not in accordance, they would not please Him, thus not moral.
Do you mean the sort of moral acts that stolichnaya mentions, where they are moral because God enjoined them and not for any other reason?
Again, I am probably not understanding. But wouldn’t a utilitarian also be subject to the necessity of deciding if such-and-such an action, like clinic bombing, was justifiable? You might be wrong to refrain from such bombings, because it might benefit more people in the long run to bring an end to abortion even if some doctors died in the short term. Or you might be wrong to engage in bombings, because it wouldn’t.
A utilitarian would have to have faith that he chose correctly, IOW, or that the ends justified the means.
Or am I missing the point altogether?
It may be a side track, so maybe we should skip it. Because all I was saying was what you agree to - that the question, like the question “Could God have created a morality where murder is right?”, is gibberish.
Regards,
Shodan
So the laws of arithmetic are created by God. Got it…
But I think you’re contradicting yourself. The typical answer you usually get to questions like “could God make two plus two equal five?” or “could God make a square circle?” is that God can do anything that is not a logical contradiction.
The upshot of that is that God is bound by the laws of arithmetic and logic. But you’re saying that he is responsible for these laws.
So which is it?
Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t personally think that happiness is actually some kind of standard good. It just seems to be something people like, and so worth pursuing. So my faith is the faith that promoting something that people enjoy is a good thing.
Ah, I think you’re right in saying those two things are connected. That’s not the two seperate things i’m trying to get at, I think. The two seperate pieces of faith aren’t “I am acting morally” and “God is pleased with me acting this way”, but “God exists” and “God is pleased with me acting this way”. IOW, first there is faith that the moral standard itself exists. Then there is faith that you’re successfully reaching that standard.
Nope, seems pointy to me. 
Yes, that’s true. We can’t see all ends of an action, so there’s certainly faith there. But at the least it’s more predictable, and at most we can actually look and see some of the effects, even if it’s only the short-term ones. At the most basic level, I could see an person injured because of my actions and know that that’s one point of data saying I was wrong. A religious person can’t know even one point without faith.
Ah, I think I get you. I think the two different items in this case though aren’t the two you were suggesting, so i’m not certain if you still feel that way after this post.