Secular Humanist Morality and Forgiveness

[Roderick_Femm]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

I mean general forgiveness by society in the sense of at least acknowledging that a person is sorry for his crimes and doing what he can do make up for it.

The focus of societal forgiveness in a secular setting should be reparation as part of atonement. If you have committed an evil act, you must do your best to make it good. If you have done something irreparable, such as murder, you can spend the rest of your life working to support that person’s family. If you have committed rape, you can pay for therapy for the victim, as needed, and then work to prevent other rapes.

If you have done a victimless act, such as spending your own grocery money on drugs, then you can stop doing that, and that should be enough.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the current penal system, but lots of people who have committed evil acts get out of jail and at least have the opportunity to make some reparation. I see this as similar to one of the steps in AA, where you have to acknowledge the bad things you have done, which is not something that many ex-cons do, in my opinion. I think we set the bar way too low in this area. If some gang-banger (for example) who is responsible for some amount of violence gets out of jail, we think he’s doing good (not well, but good) by having his tattoos removed and getting a regular job. His former victims? We don’t like to think about them, and neither does he.

I don’t see how anyone in that former gang-banger’s position can have any real self-respect again, absent any attempt to make reparation to those he has harmed. What does he see when he looks in the mirror? “I caused harm to people, I went to prison, I ‘paid my debt to society’ but those people are still just as harmed as if I had never been caught.” I can’t imagine ever being whole and happy again if that were me.
Roddy

[crowmanyclouds]

… It is moral—okay, and I can only do Christianity this evening—is it moral to believe that your sins, yours and mine, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, can be forgiven by the punishment of another person? Is it ethical to believe that? I would submit that the doctrine of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice is utterly immoral. I might, if I wished, if I knew any of you, you were my friends or even if I didn’t know you but I just loved the idea of you (compulsory love is another sickly element of Christianity, by the way), but suppose I could say, “Look, you’re in debt, I’ve just made a lot of money out of a God-bashing book, I’ll pay your debts for you. Maybe you’ll pay me back some day, but for now I can get you out of trouble.” I could say if I really loved someone who had been sentenced to prison if I can find a way of saying I’d serve your sentence, I’d try and do it. I could do what Sydney Carton does in a Tale of Two Cities, if you like—I’m very unlikely to do this unless you’ve been incredibly sweet to me—I’ll take your place on the scaffold, but I can’t take away your responsibilities.

I can’t forgive what you did, I can’t say you didn’t do it, I can’t make you washed clean. The name for that in primitive middle eastern society was “scapegoating.” You pile the sins of the tribe on a goat, you drive that goat into the desert to die of thirst and hunger. And you think you’ve taken away the sins of the tribe. This is a positively immoral doctrine that abolishes the concept of personal responsibility on which all ethics and all morality must depend. It has a further implication. I’m told that I have to have a share in this human sacrifice even though it took place long before I was born. I have no say in it happening, I wasn’t consulted about it. Had I been present I would have been bound to do my best to stop the public torture and execution of an eccentric preacher. I would do the same even now. No, no, I’m implicated in it, I, myself, drove in the nails, I was present at Calvary, it confirms the original filthy sin in which I was conceived and born, the sin of Adam in Genesis. Again, this may sound a mad belief, but it is the Christian belief.

Well it’s here that we find something very sinister about monotheism and about religious practice in general: It is incipiently at least, and I think often explicitly, totalitarian. I have no say in this. I am born under a celestial dictatorship which I could not have had any hand in choosing. I don’t put myself under its government. I am told that it can watch me while I sleep. I’m told that it can convict me of—here’s the definition of totalitarianism—thought crime, for what I think I may be convicted and condemned. And that if I commit a right action, it’s only to evade this punishment and if I commit a wrong action, I’m going to be caught up not just with punishment in life for what I’ve done which often follows axiomatically, but, no, even after I’m dead. In the Old Testament, gruesome as it is, recommending as it is of genocide, racism, tribalism, slavery, genital mutilation, in the displacement and destruction of others, terrible as the Old Testament gods are, they don’t promise to punish the dead. There’s no talk of torturing you after the earth has closed over the Amalekites. Only toward when gentle Jesus, meek and mild, makes his appearance are those who won’t accept the message told they must depart into everlasting fire.

Is this morality, is this ethics? I submit not only is it not, not only does it come with the false promise of vicarious redemption, but it is the origin of the totalitarian principle which has been such a burden and shame to our species for so long. I further think that it undermines us in our most essential integrity. It dissolves our obligation to live and witness in truth. …

Christopher Hitchens[RIGHT](Said many times, in many debates, but copied from this one.)[/RIGHT]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

… If a serial killer or a child rapist or a war criminal was genuinely remorseful for his actions, what should he do to atone for it according to secular humanist morality? …

What words or deeds could possibly, ever, in any way atone for those acts?

They should accept that society will send you to prison, and the person(s) you have harmed will send you packing and be thankful that we’ve evolved something, that’s usually, better than the reptilian brain that says that those who chose to violate the social order should have their skulls smashed into pink goo.

Secular human morality? Yeah, we’re still perfecting it. The Christan God’s morality,

… On our integrity, our basic integrity, knowing right from wrong and being able to choose a right action over a wrong one, I think one must repudiate the claim that one doesn’t have this moral discrimination innately, that, no, it must come only from the agency of a celestial dictatorship which one must love and simultaneously fear. What is it like, I’ve never tried it, I’ve never been a cleric, what is it like to lie to children for a living and tell them that they have an authority, that they must love—compulsory love, what a grotesque idea—and be terrified of it at the same time. What’s that like? I want to know. And that we don’t have an innate sense of right and wrong, children don’t have an innate sense of fairness and decency, which of course they do. What is it like? I can personalize it to this extent, my mother’s Jewish ancestors are told that until they got to Sinai, they’d been dragging themselves around the desert under the impression that adultery, murder, theft and perjury were all fine, and they get to Mount Sinai only to be told it’s not kosher after all. I’m sorry, excuse me, you must have more self-respect than that for ourselves and for others. Of course the stories are fiction. It’s a fabrication exposed conclusively by Israeli archaeology. Nothing of the sort ever took place, but suppose we take the metaphor? It’s an insult, it’s an insult to us, it’s an insult to our deepest integrity.

… I’ve taken the best advice I can on how long Homo sapiens has been on the planet. Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, many others, and many discrepant views from theirs, reckon it’s not more than 250,000 years, a quarter of a million years. It’s not less, either. … 100,000 is the lowest I’ve heard and actually I was about to say, again not to sound too Jewish, I’ll take 100,000. I only need 100,000, call it one hundred. For 100,000 years Homo sapiens was born, usually, well not usually, very often dying in the process or killing its mother in the process; life expectancy probably not much more than 20, 25 years, dying probably of the teeth very agonizingly, nearer to the brain as they are, or of hunger or of micro-organisms that they didn’t know existed or of events such as volcanic or tsunami or earthquake types that would have been wholly terrifying and mysterious as well as some turf wars over women, land, property, food, other matters. You can fill in—imagine it for yourself what the first few tens of thousands of years were like.

… According to the Christian faith, heaven watches this with folded arms for 98,000 years and then decides it’s time to intervene and the best way of doing that would be a human sacrifice in primitive Palestine, where the news would take so long to spread that it still hasn’t penetrated very large parts of the world and that would be our redemption of human species. Now I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that that is, what I’ve just said, which you must believe to believe the Christian revelation, is not possible to believe, as well as not decent to believe. Why is it not possible? Because a virgin birth is more likely than that. A resurrection is more likely than that and because if it was true, it would have two further implications: It would have to mean that the designer of this plan was unbelievably lazy and inept or unbelievably callous and cruel and indifferent and capricious, and that is the case with every argument for design and every argument for revelation and intervention that has ever been made. But it’s now conclusively so because of the superior knowledge that we’ve won for ourselves by an endless struggle to assert our reason, our science, our humanity, our extension of knowledge …

Christopher Hitchens[RIGHT](Said many times, in many debates, but copied from this one.)[/RIGHT]

I’m sure God will send us a draft slavery commandment any day now.

CMC

[Fear_Itself]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

However in secular humanist morality is forgiveness possible for certain classes of individuals and if so how can it be achieved?

They can forgive themselves. If they believe that is sufficient to atone for sin, it will have the same effect as a supreme being granting forgiveness.

While most people here will presumably agree that a thief or a similarly petty miscreant can be forgiven after a genuine expression of regret and an attempt at restitution, what about worse classes of people? If a serial killer or a child rapist or a war criminal was genuinely remorseful for his actions, what should he do to atone for it according to secular humanist morality? Can he do so simply by words and deeds without being condemned as a hypocrite?

This assumes that deathbed conversions to Christianity do not provoke condemnations of hypocrisy.

[Sitnam]

I’m comfortable with certain instances where forgiveness is not possible.

[Trinopus]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

. . . If a serial killer or a child rapist or a war criminal was genuinely remorseful for his actions, what should he do to atone for it according to secular humanist morality? Can he do so simply by words and deeds without being condemned as a hypocrite?

S.H. morality accepts redemption, atonement, restitution, and forgiveness. It’s all up to the individual to decide how much remorse is enough. No two people will have the same exact values.

Many rape victims have, in fact, forgiven their rapists. But many others haven’t. Same for most other classes of crime. There have even been murder victims who (with their dying breath) have forgiven their murderers.

You might as well ask us how much salt and pepper we like on our hamburgers: you’ll get at least as many different answers as people you ask. Maybe more.

[LibrarySpy]

@Christopher Hitchens

Well it’s here that we find something very sinister about monotheism and about religious practice in general: It is incipiently at least, and I think often explicitly, totalitarian. I have no say in this. I am born under a celestial dictatorship which I could not have had any hand in choosing. I don’t put myself under its government. I am told that it can watch me while I sleep. I’m told that it can convict me of—here’s the definition of totalitarianism—thought crime, for what I think I may be convicted and condemned. And that if I commit a right action, it’s only to evade this punishment and if I commit a wrong action, I’m going to be caught up not just with punishment in life for what I’ve done which often follows axiomatically, but, no, even after I’m dead.

This is accurate.

In the Christian sense as I understand it, people cannot forgive. Only God can forgive. Therefore people ask God for forgiveness for themselves, or people ask God to forgive others on their behalf. I pray for God’s grace to forgive a murderer, for example. I don’t forgive them because I’m a Christian myself.

For secularism, I think Roderick Femm has a good idea. Crimes, atonement, punishment have to be codified into the social contract. A moral secular society can agree on no cruel or unusual punishment (vs Hammurabi’s code, say). Making amends benefits society, while crimes harm society.

Now, people can be shown mercy, but I think that’s altogether different than forgiveness. Right?

[kanicbird]

One aspect is surenderance, or acceptance, that they admit that they are powerless against the thing(commuting the crime) and they desire to stop. It is the desire to stop, not the ability to stop, that matters, thus death bed reformations accepted by God.

[Little_Nemo]

@Der_Trihs

Right up until he decides that God wants him to blow up a building full of people instead. The problem with such an attitude is that it’s both completely amoral, a variant of “I’m just following orders”; and it’s based on something imaginary that is by nature subject to arbitrary change.* “I help the poor because my god says so”* and “I kill unbelievers because my god says so” have the exact same reasoning behind them.

You apparently have trouble grasping how a hypothetical works.

To rebut your post, I’ll point out that any ideology - including both religion and atheism - can be used as an excuse to commit crimes. Some people just need to tell themselves that their beliefs are Truth and they need to defend that Truth by destroying everything that is false - including people who don’t believe the Truth. The beliefs involved are really irrelevant. It’s the fanaticism that produces the bodycounts.

[Robert163]

if the victims want to forgive for their own peace of mind, fine. other than that, the idea of forgiveness is a joke. it seeks to comfort the criminal which is an absurd idea. i do think a criminal should express remorse or regret but to expect forgiveness is just a comfort to him. the whole idea of being forgiven is so incredibly self centered. that is obviously why it is such a popular religious idea.

[Trinopus]

@Robert163

if the victims want to forgive for their own peace of mind, fine. other than that, the idea of forgiveness is a joke. it seeks to comfort the criminal which is an absurd idea . . .

Comforting anyone who is in pain is a good idea.

Some people maintain a grudge longer than others would.

The South African “Truth and Reconciliation” process was wise, and probably relieved a lot of pain, some of it even on the part of victims. This is one of the reasons civilized systems of laws have limitations of expiration for the prosecution of crimes.

Forgiveness is no joke. It’s good, solid, enlightened-self-interest, and the basis for sensible morality. It permits atonement, remorse, and restitution. If you deny any possibility of forgiveness, you cut off the path toward repayment.

People argue against plea-bargaining on roughly the same basis, and they’re wrong for roughly the same reason.

[Princhester]

@Little_Nemo

To rebut your post, I’ll point out that any ideology - including both religion and atheism - can be used as an excuse to commit crimes. Some people just need to tell themselves that their beliefs are Truth and they need to defend that Truth by destroying everything that is false - including people who don’t believe the Truth. The beliefs involved are really irrelevant. It’s the fanaticism that produces the bodycounts.

It’s lazy (and for some people, convenient) to pretend that atheism and religion are two different sorts of the same thing but it’s not true. There is simply no real comparison between -

• a deep system of beliefs in deities, morality systems, values, history, cultural practices etc (which is what most religions comprise) and

• not having a belief in any deities (which is all atheism comprises).

No doubt anything can be twisted into anything by a sufficiently deranged and fanatical mind, but it is (and historically has proven to be) far, far easier to twist a religion into an excuse than atheism into an excuse for fanatacism.

To put it more succinctly, suggesting that “nothing” and “something” are basically equivalent is not valid.

[Trinopus]

@Princhester

It’s lazy (and for some people, convenient) to pretend that atheism and religion are two different sorts of the same thing but it’s not true. . . .

While I absolutely agree with all you said, I don’t think that what Little Nemo said rises to this level. He merely pointed out that any ideology can be an excuse to commit crimes. Religion can…and atheism can. He isn’t saying the two are the same kind of system of thought, but, rather, that any system of thought can be misapplied.

[Czarcasm]

@Trinopus

While I absolutely agree with all you said, I don’t think that what Little Nemo said rises to this level. He merely pointed out that any ideology can be an excuse to commit crimes. Religion can…and atheism can. He isn’t saying the two are the same kind of system of thought, but, rather, that any system of thought can be misapplied.

Could you give an example of how atheism, and atheism alone, could be used as an excuse to commit crimes?

[Little_Nemo]

@Czarcasm

Could you give an example of how atheism, and atheism alone, could be used as an excuse to commit crimes?

If you’re an atheist who believes religion is bad then you could use your beliefs to justify suppressing religion, including locking up religious leaders and confiscating church property.

[Cheshire_Human]

@Czarcasm

Could you give an example of how atheism, and atheism alone, could be used as an excuse to commit crimes?

“Kill all those damn Christians who are trying to keep me from buying my booze on Sunday!”

[Czarcasm]

@Little_Nemo

If you’re an atheist who believes religion is bad then you could use your beliefs to justify suppressing religion, including locking up religious leaders and confiscating church property.

That would be an “antitheist”.

[Little_Nemo]

@Princhester

No doubt anything can be twisted into anything by a sufficiently deranged and fanatical mind, but it is (and historically has proven to be) far, far easier to twist a religion into an excuse than atheism into an excuse for fanatacism.

I would disagree. To me the key factor in fanaticism is too much certainty. Some people just have no doubt in their beliefs and refuse to concede they might be wrong. Give some of these people power and they’re going to enforce their beliefs.

The fact that there have been significantly more religious based fanaticism is, in my opinion, just an accident of history. Believers have historically outnumbered non-believers so it’s not surprising believers have been able to act out fanaticism more often than non-believers.

[Princhester]

@Trinopus

While I absolutely agree with all you said, I don’t think that what Little Nemo said rises to this level. He merely pointed out that any ideology can be an excuse to commit crimes. Religion can…and atheism can. He isn’t saying the two are the same kind of system of thought, but, rather, that any system of thought can be misapplied.

No he was clearly implying that religion and atheism are about equivalent in their tendency to produce fanatacism and I don’t think that is correct.

To continue with DS’s line of thought, religions invariably posit something. This means a religion can easily lend itself to a fanatic’s belief they must do something because their religion requires it.

Atheism does not posit anything. It’s far harder to come up with some twisted reason why this means one must do something.

@Czarcasm

Could you give an example of how atheism, and atheism alone, could be used as an excuse to commit crimes?

You’re probably constraining the position overly by your “alone” requirement: nothing happens in a vacuum.

Atheism is merely an absence and can’t be used as a positive excuse for committing a crime but it can be used as a basis (however wrongly) for a view one does not have to refrain from committing a crime that you want to commit for other reasons.

I just don’t think this historically has happened very much.

[Little_Nemo]

@Czarcasm

That would be an “antitheist”.

I think you’re nitpicking. Some people would define an atheist as a person who doesn’t know if any religion is true. Others would define an atheist as a person who knows no religion is true. Most people would say the term covers both meanings.

[Princhester]

@Little_Nemo

If you’re an atheist who believes religion is bad then you could use your beliefs to justify suppressing religion, including locking up religious leaders and confiscating church property.

Your post at #34 tends to indicate you are not fully grasping the distinction between fanatacism caused by atheism and fanatacism caused by beliefs that some people may have in addition to their atheism. Do you understand why the example you gave at #34 doesn’t work?

Edited to add: and your post at #39 makes no difference. Even if I have a strong belief that no religion is true I would require to have additional beliefs beyond mere atheism to be motivated to do anything about it. Contrastingly, religion often inherently involves having beliefs that my religion requires me to do certain things.