Madison, home of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, starts off loving the surly atheist they've brought in, but then — who could have imagined? —
he gives them a hard time:
Responding to a question from an audience member on what he said was the futility of killing Muslims in Iraq to end extremism, Hitchens parodied:
“‘How does killing them lessen their numbers?’ You must have meant something more intelligent. … We worry too much in America about our ‘right’ to be in Iraq.
“Make them worry. Make them run scared. … I’m going to fight these people and every other theocrat all the way. All the way. You should be ashamed sneering at the people guarding you as you sleep.”
But stop laughing at the Madisonians for getting theirs. Here's what Hitchens thinks of your Heaven:
He also told the crowd that heaven would be comparable to North Korea, as they both embody a totalitarianism of eternal gratitude.
Hitchens pointed to the “horrific pointlessness and misery” of having to thank a leader for everything when the leader was never asked for in the first place — which he said is intrinsic to both the concept of heaven and in North Korea.
“At least you can fucking die and get out of North Korea,” Hitchens added.
Posts
329 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 329 of 329Rev -- These are good points. Clearly, I am overstating the case. Your second point is especially demoralizing to my argument.
Is Japan really capitalist? I would call it more of an oligopoly. Is India's democracy really thriving?
I would also argue that, to the extent that these places are thriving, it is because they are borrowing ideas from the West, and I wonder how long it will all last without the moral underpinnings.
Overall, though, points taken.
Is Japan really capitalist? I would call it more of an oligopoly.
It is ranked 18th on the Index of Economic Freedom, which puts it ahead of most of the EU. Of the G7 group of industrialized democracies it ranks fourth, behind the USA, UK, and Canada and ahead of Italy, Germany, and France.
Is India's democracy really thriving?
Well, they keep having elections -- and while the same party usually wins, it doesn't *always* win, and the ruling coalition shifts quite a bit. At the regional level things are even more diverse.
Plus, on the scientific front they're kicking ass -- a lot of great physicists and mathematicians have come out of India.
I would also argue that, to the extent that these places are thriving, it is because they are borrowing ideas from the West
Well, Europe basically conquered and/or colonized the entire PLANET at once time or another, so there is no part of the world which has entirely escaped Western influence. But the underlying principles of the "three forces" I mentioned aren't very Christian in nature.
The basis of democracy and human rights in general date back to at least pre-Christian Greece, and there is good reason to think that Jesus and Paul got their ideas FROM the Greeks (who had, after all, conquered the Jews, and who were as of 0AD still considered the leading moral philosophers of the world).
The underlying principles of science are inherently materialistic, based in the assumption that there ISN'T some incomprehensible intelligence that will twiddle with the world to its own ends. Yes, today most Christians accept the idea that God doesn't personally intervene in every aspect of the world, but that is a relatively new and post-scientific-revolution viewpoint; scientific endeavors were routinely criticized as attempting to limit God's power by establishing rules for how the universe functioned.
Finally, capitalism is based on the idea that both people can profit from a free exchange. This concept is quite alien to the Bible, which is very much rooted in the natural human mindset that the material world is a zero-sum game. There's a reason why the Jesus Method for dealing with the poor is "give them all your money", which in capitalistic terms is an idiotic way to fight poverty.
It appears that there IS a God, and he seems to be a Colorado Rockies fan. I can't explain their winning 21 of 22 games and sweeping their way to the World Series by anything other than divine intervention.
Replace two words in all of this discussion.
replace Religion with Astrology
replace Atheism with Astronomy
This is how silly the argument sounds when it's about "morality".
One is a belief in the supernatural, the other a belief in the natural order of science and the the workings therof.
To call either one moral is wrong...to call one of them a correct view of the state of the universe? That's something.
Every christian is an atheist in regard to the hindu gods (let alone the greeks).
You believe in god because you're scared to die. Well, we all are, grow up already.
You don't get to live forever.
UWS -- Sweet straw man, dude. Yeah, everybody who is religious is religious because they are afraid to die. Except for the Jews, the Hindus (who never die), the Buddhists, etc., etc,
This isn't even counting all the Christians who are Christian for reasons other than heaven.
When you are all growned up, maybe you'll have learned how to argue adequately. Until then, I'm sure there's a junior high school near where you live. Those kids, man, they fall for that straw man stuff every time.
The whole point of Christianity is heaven...
accept Jesus and live forever. Hindus don't want to die either...so they believe that they (wait for it) live forever via reincarnation.
This discussion is cracking me up.
In the religious ed class I teach (fifth graders), we're reviewing the 10 Commandments in depth, and one of the ones we covered tonight was "Thou shalt not steal." What's the big idea behind it? The right to own personal property, which sounds like a basic principal of capitalism to me, and is far from universally available on this planet.
I may be wrong because I haven't studied any religions besides Judaism and Catholicism, but isn't it true that Christianity introduced the concept that all people are to be respected as individuals, not just your friends and family, but everyone, whether you're from Samaria or Galilee? That was a radical idea at the time and remains one in many places. Greek and Roman societies had no such concept of universal individual worth, never mind liberty.
And what about the way Judeo-Christian values regarding sexuality freed women from being perpetual chattel, and elevated their status in marriage? The idea of sexual morality, and the insistence that men and women learn to govern their passions was, and remains, very good for societal evolution.
Joan-
Yup, The Jews got all the way to mount and didn't know that stealing was wrong.
Listen, if you want to discuss the old religious texts the way we discuss say, Beowolf or greek mythology fine.
The problem arises when people think christianity is responsible for the idea of "thou shalt not steal".
I'm sure the chinese had been executing "thieves" long before they got ahold of the old testament.
Do some of you really think philosophy began with arab goat herders 6k years ago?
"Thou shalt not steal." What's the big idea behind it? The right to own personal property, which sounds like a basic principal of capitalism to me, and is far from universally available on this planet
Three points:
(1): "Thou shalt not steal" is a concept that is universal to human society, predating both Judaism and Christianity by thousands of years.
(2): Private property is necessary for capitalism, but it is not *sufficient* for capitalism. The key feature of capitalism is that value is determined by supply and demand, rather than by some objective standard of worth. That concept is completely alien to Biblical Christianity and Judaism.
(3): Humans are by no means the only animals with a concept of private property -- or a concept of theft. Try taking a steak bone away from a dog sometime.
isn't it true that Christianity introduced the concept that all people are to be respected as individuals, not just your friends and family, but everyone, whether you're from Samaria or Galilee
No, it isn't true. The Greek Stoics developed and popularized the idea several hundred years before the time of Christ. By the time 0 AD rolled around, pretty much every formally educated person in the Roman empire was familiar with (if not necessarily convinced of the truth of) the idea that people should be judged by the content of their character rather than by their birth or nationality.
Greek and Roman societies had no such concept of universal individual worth, never mind liberty
That's a popular belief among Christians, but quite false. In all likelihood the early Christians got the idea FROM the Greeks and Romans.
And what about the way Judeo-Christian values regarding sexuality freed women from being perpetual chattel, and elevated their status in marriage?
Given that the Church forbade divorce and women were generally given neither a choice in whom they married nor authority within the marriage, the difference between "chattel" and "wife" was largely nonexistent for most of Christian history. Furthermore, the status of a wife within a Christian marriage was not significantly different from the status of a wife within the pagan marriages of Greece or Rome.
The idea of sexual morality, and the insistence that men and women learn to govern their passions was, and remains, very good for societal evolution.
"The idea of sexual morality" was hardly specific to Christians! Rome wasn't one big orgy, you know, and the Greeks were pretty stuffy about sexual propriety. Greek and Roman philosophers alike frequently railed against the evils of lust.
By the time 0 AD rolled around, pretty much every formally educated person in the Roman empire was familiar with (if not necessarily convinced of the truth of) the idea that people should be judged by the content of their character rather than by their birth or nationality.
Well, that's a pretty small set of the population you're specifying, isn't it? Christ's message wasn't just for the formally educated, it was for everyone, and that's the difference. It's fine to say that the elite realized that everyone had individual worth, but wouldn't these be the same people keeping slaves? I'll grant that in some intellectual circles the idea was granted to have some merit, but the practical application of the idea was non-existent at the time that Christ was preaching.
the status of a wife within a Christian marriage was not significantly different from the status of a wife within the pagan marriages of Greece or Rome.
Pagan wives would expect their husbands to have sex with anyone they wanted to; Christian wives would not. The ideal of Christian marriage, a sacrament, gives the woman equality with her husband in the marriage. The reality was of course very different, as you say, throughout much of history. Such things are resistant to change, but the ideal remained, and prevailed, over time. Without that ideal, would Western marriages have developed that notion of equality? Why would they have? Can you name any country that does not have a Judeo-Christian heritage in which the ideal of marriage is a relationship between equal partners? (Recognizing we don't often achieve that ideal, even now.) I know that's certainly not the case in Japan, which has Westernized extensively but still expects wives to sit at home and wait for and on their husbands.
Greek and Roman philosophers alike frequently railed against the evils of lust.
Sure, but as above, who listened to them? They were so many talking heads having little affect on the general population. Temples to various gods and goddess kept prostitutes as revenue generators, sex was part of certain ritual observances, and secular prostitution was rampant and condoned, as was sex with servants or slaves of either gender. Judaism and Christianity limit the place for sexual expression to the marriage bed. That's a much bigger deal than just "railing against the evils of lust." Judaism and Christianity say that sex is not just a physical act, but that it has spiritual and emotional components as well. It's not just for gratifying yourself. Sex is for bringing you closer to your spouse, strengthening the marriage. It's also, of course, for making babies, but both Judaism and Christianity recognize that the unitive aspect of the sexual relationship is equally important as the procreative. (This is another area where individuals are constantly falling short, and yet the ideal remains, and has profound influence.)
I admit my near-total-ignorance of Greek and Roman philosophy, so I will defer to you. Has there been any other religion or culture that held similar ideas about sexuality? I'm fairly confident that neither Greek nor Roman culture did, but that impression is based on scant reading concentrated on specific periods.
Hitler was a socialist. Liek Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky he rejected God. DUH
Ovations!? I hate to think Hitchens got his impression of Madison's restaurants from that hotel restaurant. That's not known as one of the good restaurants in town. I guess he was staying in the hotel and didn't bother to do one thing to try to figure out what's a good restaurant in town. He can't care much about food. He was 3 blocks away from L'Etoile.
Early Christianity emphasized self-government, as did our founding fathers. No one expected the Spanish Inquisition.
God said thou shalt not steal, which is different from sharia or the Emperor lobbing off hands.
My grandmother said drinkers like spicy food, perhaps he was just lazy. She poured salt on hers because she couldn't smell much. Still lived to 94.
I ate at L'Etoilet once. The food was crap.
Re: "The key feature of capitalism is that value is determined by supply and demand, rather than by some objective standard of worth. That concept is completely alien to Biblical Christianity and Judaism."
George Weigel disagrees, in his "Building the Free Society: Democracy; Capitalism, and Catholic Social Teaching".
Thomas Woods disagrees, in "Church and the Market, The: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy ".
Michael Novak gave a useful take on this as well, in his "The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism".
Amazon has a rather large fund of books on the topic. If that statement were true, Capitalism likely would never have arisen in the first place.
"Ovations!?"
It's easier to get back to your room from the hotel bar than from down the street, for alot of reasons. The food is just there, like bar peanuts.
Revenant: "because atheism itself HAS no beliefs beyond "there are no gods", and has no inherent *moral* beliefs at all."
1. Then how can there be any standards for behavior (e.g. 'violence is wrong')? What is it based on?
2. As I mentioned earlier, the fact that 100 million died under the thumb of atheists doesn't mean that it arose from atheism qua atheism, but it hardly exonerates atheism from the 'morals' violence you discuss. And it makes the use of atheists as a poster-boys for nonviolence rather suspect.
Good morning, Pogo.
Then how can there be any standards for behavior?
Please Skyler's "number two most annoying argument" (3:47 pm).
Mike, that was simply a declaration, a la 'This is so because I have said it.'.
But where does it come from? And why?
How can one propose there is a standard without reference?
Pogo, I know it's wrong to rob somebody, because it hurts that person. I don't want to hurt that person and I will feel bad if I do. So I don't rob them. To my mind, it's pretty simple.
Seven said: Most of the people I know who are atheists are leftists.
You know me, Seven.
To my mind, it's pretty simple.
I disagree. How you came to this conclusion and on what standard it is based is actually the culmination of centuries of moral teaching, and not simply an inborn or self-derived conclusion.
If there is a higher standard of behavior, who says so? Why should I follow it? On what basis can you condemen the behavior of another at all?
It's actually quite complex.
How you came to this conclusion and on what standard it is based is actually the culmination of centuries of moral teaching, and not simply an inborn or self-derived conclusion.
I don't know how you can claim to know it is not inborn, but where it comes from is not central to my point. I'll concede this for the sake of argument. "Centuries of moral teaching", however, does not equate to the existance of God. Those who taught may have believed in the existance of God, but nothing in this argument proves they were right.
Pogo, the standard is quite simple.
I live. I have an interest in remaining alive. To remain alive I must eat. In order to eat, I must have property.
In order for me to maintain my life, I must recognize that others also have a right to maintain their lives or else I should have no expectation that others will recognize my rights.
Thus, we can see the natural origin of morality.
For a fuller, less cartoonish explanation, read "Atlas Shrugged."
The ideal of Christian marriage, a sacrament, gives the woman equality with her husband in the marriage. The reality was of course very different, as you say, throughout much of history. Such things are resistant to change, but the ideal remained, and prevailed, over time. Without that ideal, would Western marriages have developed that notion of equality? Why would they have? Can you name any country that does not have a Judeo-Christian heritage in which the ideal of marriage is a relationship between equal partners? (Recognizing we don't often achieve that ideal, even now.) I know that's certainly not the case in Japan, which has Westernized extensively but still expects wives to sit at home and wait for and on their husbands.
When was this ever (except in post World War II and then among the hated "liberal" Christian denominations) the ideal of Christian marriage. In a "traditional" Christian marriage women are supposed to submit to their husbands. Where on earth do you get the idea, other than from those liberal weenie Episcopaleans and Prebyterians that a Christian marriage is an equal partnership. Wives are supposed stay home and raise children.
As for the idea that Christianity recognized the individual worth of people. Remember, slavery was legal in Christian nations until the late 1800s and even until 1965 it was legal to discriminate on the basis of race in this country (and such laws were most prevalent in the so called bible belt).
Without that ideal, would Western marriages have developed that notion of equality?
You have a twisted view of feminism. The equality of women has almost entirely come battling the church, not with the aid of it. It is the most conservative denominations that refuse to ordain women, relegate women to "traditional roles", and see women in the workplace as a threat to "family values" and the "traditional family" and blame the breakdown of the "traditional family" (like those of Japan) for all of society's woes.
Can you name any country that does not have a Judeo-Christian heritage in which the ideal of marriage is a relationship between equal partners?
Sikhism. Look it up.
Pogo, let me expand on my comment:
"Centuries of moral teaching", however, does not equate to the existance of God. Those who taught may have believed in the existance of God, but nothing in this argument proves they were right.
It may indeed be that we, in the 21st century, have a moral code developed by people who thought they were following the teachings of a supreme being. It may even be that this moral code would not have developed without the religious underpinings. However, we do have it now. Most people "know the difference between right and wrong" without resorting to the "it's wrong because God said so" line of reasoning. Wrong is hurting another human being. We've evolved.
i think althouse likes hitchens.
i don't blame her.
he's an interesting guy
if you like drink-soaked trotskyites for war.
that's being unfair i know
but hey hitch himself used it for the name of his blog.
anyway, garage mahal, aren't you sorry you told that restaurant story on him...
hitch was being a boor in a bad hotel restaurant
when there was a good restaurant 3 blocks away.
his excuse for being there was he didn't know the city
and it was convenient.
what's yours...
actually i like hotel restaurants.
there's one a short crawl from where i live.
the staff turnover is 60 percent a month
and they're always in trouble with the board of health.
yum.
We've evolved.
There are indeed Judeo-Chrisitan underpinnings, among others, to our moral thought. Curious, that.
In light of what Hitchens blames religion for, essentially everything bad, that origin would seem to recommend its rejection as a basis for ethics or morality.
Neither does it explain the standard on which morals are based in atheism. Skyler seems to think an economics-Randian approach is sufficient, but someone who wants his own stuff and yours can simply take it and never ever feel bad. And why shouldn't he?
How is "might makes right" wrong in atheism?
5:50 pm yesterday: "Pogo, I disagree, and here's why: virtually all religions teach not just "you should live this way", but "those who do NOT live this way are morally wrong to do so". Even namby-pamby branches of Christianity like the Episcopal Church do this. Religion is, in most cases, yet another way of saying..." (...)
"So no, I don't think that if we got rid of all the religion people would just find new excuses to kill each other. I think we'd see an overall reduction in killing."
But we haven't.
From an anthropological standpoint (religion as a purely human creation for human purposes) religion is an effective and ubiquitous way of enforcing social order. Get rid of religion and the need to enforce social order will remain.
It might not be atheism that is the driving force behind saying "it is morally wrong to live this way" but the societal *need* to enforce social norms exists under atheism every bit as much as under a religion. The rules might be different but they still exist because a society cannot function without cooperation from it's members.
All that is necessary is for people to decide that some constraint on human behavior is *very important* and people *will* do for the greater good what they'd never approve done for other reasons. It doesn't really matter if the greater good is eternal salvation or if the greater good is a more inclusive, tolerant, society here and now (if we want to talk oppressive rules, look at the rules for "tolerance")... or if the greater good is making communism *work* (which can only work if *everyone* cooperates.)
The evils done for the good of others doesn't need a God behind it to be really bad news if someone gets motivated enough to *fix* things. Not that it has to happen, but it doesn't have to happen with a religion or religions around either.
The process of socialization, where individuals learn the *rules* of operating within their society, usually happens in childhood and we don't really think about it. We've lived the rules since before we were aware of them and we never have to *be* aware of them. These things are not acquired in a conscious way. They are acquired the way our first language is acquired. It puts everyone, even with some significant differences, on the same rule page and gives order to community and society in place of chaos.
Religion, be it some widespread one or some little one-village animist one, takes on this role.
Without religion the role still *must* be fulfilled. There will still be, MUST be, rules saying "you must live this way" and "it is morally wrong for you not to live this way."
How is "might makes right" wrong in atheism?
It is ridiculous to talk about atheism as some kind of philosophy. Bertrand Russel and Ayn Rand were both atheists yet their philosphies could not have been more different. One was a selfish crazy bitch, the other was a great humanist. All atheism means is a person does not believe in God. It is the opposite of theism. No one can defend or explain all philosophies that reject the existence of a diety or dieties any more than anyone can defend all philosophies or religions that believe in a higher power. Heck, even satanists believe in God. Are you going to defend them, Pogo?
Freder, you're mistaking "equality in marriage" for something else entirely. I'm not talking about feminism, I'm talking about wives being considered more than property or baby-making machines. "Husbands, love your wives," is what it comes down to, and the expectation that the husband and wife each give themselves entirely over to the other.
This isn't about social equality or equal employment opportunity. This is about the fundamental relationship between husband and wife. Is it one of love, a complementary union, or is it just an arrangement of convenience for everyone involved?
Sikhism's definition of marriage, from this very cursory reading, sounds close to the Catholic ideal. But Sikhism is a relative newcomer, having been founded in the 16th century, and had literally no impact on the development of Western culture. 90% of Sikhs (according to the wiki) live in Punjab, but even there, they make up only 65% of the population, and they are only 2% of the population of India overall. Has their moral philosophy had any impact on general Indian culture or development? The question was "can you name any country" not can you name any religion. My point is that our culture today would not exist if it weren't for the Judeo-Christian traditions stretching back thousands of years. You can point to any number of worthy and honorable philosophies and religions, but it remains that Judaic and Christian principals have had the most profound impact on cultural development.
Re the legality of slavery in Christian nations: do not confuse the government with the individual. A nation can be Christian in that the majority of its citizens are Christian, but the members of the Body of Christ are people, not countries. Throughout history Christians have been betraying Christian principals left and right, but that doesn't change the principals themselves. Should we lower our sites to something more attainable, or should we continue to hold lofty ideals and work for a better world? Our failures argue for renewed efforts, not abandonment of our ideals.
it's always fun to try out stuff late at night
when some of the left coast people are in here.
and believe me some of them are in left field
if you know what i mean.
last night i flubbed the spanish inquisition python quote.
oh well.
i want to know how trooper york does it.
i can't even get a 5-word sentence right
and he can quote any obscure song instantly at will.
oh well.
anyway, i did mention spinoza in passing.
i think all you guys arguing morality and god
ought to give spinoza a spin.
not that he's easy
and pogo being a catholic and all probably won't like him.
but check him out before you spend your days and nights
reinventing the wheel so to speak.
i've got to say
i'm all in favor of the catholic religion.
they have the best cake doughnuts at st. eulalia's
week in and week out.
there are always lots of crumbs.
and the half-dried wine drips are a real treat.
they may have more interesting croissants and things
over at the unitarians.
but you can never rely on it
and they clean up too well.
the anglicans have rice cakes and mineral water.
yecch
but you can always count on the catholics every week
to feed you and be messy.
a bit of heaven on earth
Joan please.
Prostitution is Legal in the unitied states and most of "christian" Europe.
Roman senators wives were meant to be chaste, proper, and wholesome, and if they weren't they had a hard time getting elected.
prechristian women did not expect their husbands to cheat on them.
watch a documentary on still functioning tribes in New Guinia or in the Amazon.
From watching those tribes just on the national geographic channel, I can tell you that the women don't expect their husbands to have sex with other women (it's human nature!).
You keep saying you haven't studied the "greeks and romans" It reads to me that you have, but that all your information came from christians with an agenda to make anything not "christ-like" look bad.
I'm talking about wives being considered more than property or baby-making machines.
Again, yours is a very modern reading of the Bible that was considered ridiculous, except for very radical sects of Christianity, prior to the twentieth century. To claim that Christianity has not historically treated women as chattel, especially the Catholic Church, for most of its history is a laughable proposition. Even today the Catholic Church, and many other conservative denominations, does not believe in the equality of women. So don't try and sell this nonsense about the equality about the principles of the Christian Church. It may be in the Bible. But at least since the Nicene Conference until the last century, the idea of the equality of the sexes was an anathema to vast majority of the Christian Church.
And until very recently (within the last two hundred years or so), many, if not most, "Christian" marriages, especially among the upper classes, were for reasons other than love.
And yes, Sikhism is a minority religion in India and Sikhs do not have their own country. But your challenge was to present a non-western country that treated sexes equally. Sikhs did long before the Christians did. And your argument that Sikhs had nothing to do with the development of western society was exactly the point of your argument.
Pogo said: There are indeed Judeo-Chrisitan underpinnings, among others, to our moral thought. Curious, that.
I have absolutely no problem with that.
In light of what Hitchens blames religion for, essentially everything bad, that origin would seem to recommend its rejection as a basis for ethics or morality.
I do not support Hitchen's rants against religion. This quote from Methadras sums up my attitude "shouldn’t a real atheist simply not care about those that do believe in God or are religious? Shouldn’t an atheist simply and blissfully walk alone in his own personal knowledge that no God(s) exist and simply leave it at that?" To Methadras I answer "yes", at least for me. I don't know what motivates crusading atheists like Hitchens.
but someone who wants his own stuff and yours can simply take it and never ever feel bad. And why shouldn't he? ... How is "might makes right" wrong in atheism?
THIS attitude puzzles me no end. In fact, I really don't believe, Pogo, that you believe that the only thing wrong with injurying someone is that God says it wrong. That in the absence of God, you'd be OK with hurting other people. In all sincerity, I don't understand this position.
i often think about life being better in the past.
there just doesn't seem to be the scope for a cockroach that there used to be.
the modern world isn't all it's cracked up to be.
after all they invented the i-word, didn't they...
look what science has done for me.
on the other hand, if i were a cockroach in ancient rome
i'd get to wear a cool little toga
and think of all the food lying around
with no refrigeration or saran wrap
and, most importantly, no i-word.
there was that fire in 64, though
and i'm sure many many cockroaches perished.
they had these wooden tenements
...my family loved tenements...
and they all burnt up along with the forum romanum, etc.
nero blamed the christians
although some people said he fiddled when rome burned.
he couldn't have fiddled because fiddles weren't invented yet.
you see not all inventions are really necessary.
anyway, nero blamed the christians
which shows how fast that religion spread, seeing as christ
was still walking around 30-odd years before.
st. paul and st. peter both probably bought the farm so to speak
because of that fire and because nero took no prisoners so to speak.
yes those romans didn't fool around.
christians learned to lay low for a couple of hundred years
which did wonders for their outlook.
nothing like being underfoot to teach you humility
community, self-sacrifice, etc.
i can relate to the underfoot part
but i often think about why i really don't want to be
humble, get along well with others, sacrifice myself, etc.
i want to rule the universe.
oh well after you humans get through we may have our chance again.
if you'll pardon one more comment
that issue of whether people will go wild
if there is no god, priests, doughnuts, etc.
was exactly what was bugging spinoza so to speak.
he wrote a very nice-tasting book about it.
it's called 'ethics' and you can read it for yourself.
sorry about the places i've chewed.
Hitchens: At least you can fucking die and get out of North Korea
But then, dear boy, you go to Heaven.
Chesterton: If there were no God, there would be no Atheists.
George: Your post about the SEALs only points out the stupidity of trying to fight a war with kid gloves on, against hungry tigers. If we're going to fight a war, we use Patton's Maxim (".. make the other guy die for his country.."), or we don't fight at all.
Dresden was probably a little over the top (I'd have to ask Victor D Hanson about that), but don't forget that it wasn't just us, the RAF were there in equal numbers, and went in first. It was their idea.
Bombing of Dresden: Feb 1945
Nazi surrender: May 1945
Dresden may have had an effect, but even Churchill decided that such tactics (in those days called "terror bombing") would not continue.
Across from Dresden:
Hiroshima: Aug 1945
Japanese surrender: Sep 1945
Hiroshima and Nagasaki certainly affected the decision to surrender.
That in the absence of God, you'd be OK with hurting other people.
I cannot envision such a world where atheism is predominant, except as has occurred in the USSR and Communist China. I have no other examples of atheism as the dominant backdrop, so I am less than impressed by the track record. But even if atheism was not the animating force, the only acculturation and socialization possible about how to be a good comrade came down to exactly that, survival of the fittest, and trust no one, not even your family.
It's hard for me to see another conclusion.
I am not arguing that I myself or anyone here believes that taking from others what you want without guilt is correct.
Rather, I am unable to figure out how an atheist is able to explain to another atheist who is so entirely selfish what they base their standard of behavior on that permits them to judge anyone else. Why is that the standard? What does it matter if I should choose otherwise? Why should I feel bad about it? I think one thing, you think another. Why is that wrong? Does the word 'wrong' have any meaning at all?
It is the core of my disagreement with atheism, and I have never encountered a good answer, or even one that doesn't rely on centuries of religious belief informing it. Further, once those effects of those centuries past wane and disappear, as surely it must once the churches are abandoned (as is occurring all across the EU), on what basis will the moral structure be constructed?
pogo,
spinoza tried a really dense book-length
answer to your question 360 years or so ago.
it's all there.
now there are lots of technical and
philosophical objections
but einstein thought he was cool.
i'm hopping up and down
shouting 'spinoza...spinoza'
and no one is paying the least attention.
see what i mean about being underfoot.
Yes, so you said. I'll have to retrace my college steps with his work, now all but a faded impression.
It is the core of my disagreement with atheism, and I have never encountered a good answer, or even one that doesn't rely on centuries of religious belief informing it.
Well then you are completely ignorant of an entire century of great agnostic and atheist philosophy and thought. It is not my fault nor do I have the time or space here to teach you about all the great humanistic thinkers of the 20th century. But just because you are ignorant doesn't mean that many minds much greater than mine or yours have thought about and expounded at length on it.
Here's an idea. Read a book. Try Bertrand Russell, Jean Paul Sartre, even Albert Einstein (although I guess tecnically he wasn't strictly an atheist). Just don't read Ayn Rand.
"nor do I have the time or space here to teach you about all the great humanistic thinkers of the 20th century"
Or ability, apparent;l apparently.. How hard could it be to to state a simple and straightforward answer to my question? I have read some of the works you mention, though clearly not all, mainly because I found them wanting.
So your answer to my simple question By what standard do you say it's wrong is merely LOS's oft-repeated statement read a book?
What kind of belief system is that, if it cannot be explained to a 3rd grader or high schooler or man on the street?
fredder, no need be so nasty.
i just jump up and down and shout 'spinoza,' and maybe someone will notice.
insulting people is just bad karma.
anyway, of the writers you cite, einstein was a spinozist, so you can read
our lens-grinding friend and cut to the chase so to speak.
sartre is ok, but, speaking of glass
you don't want to be around sharp objects after reading him.
I am not arguing that I myself or anyone here believes that taking from others what you want without guilt is correct.
Then we seem to agree on this fundamental point. We don't need God to define right and wrong. You and I both know what is wrong. I bet if we compared lists, they'd agree pretty well. And both you and I feel bad when we do wrong.
It seems to me that you are arguing, not that there is no morality in the absence of God, but rather that, in the absence of God we have no justification for imposing our morality on others ("I am unable to figure out how an atheist is able to explain to another atheist who is so entirely selfish what they base their standard of behavior on that permits them to judge anyone else.") to which I say, that's why we have prisons. I'm perfectly comfortable locking murderers up without explaining to them why what they did was wrong. Civil order compels it.
By what standard do you say it's wrong
Well, "Because God (or god or gods or the Flying Spaghetti Monster) says so" is hardly a satisfactory answer either especially when there is hardly one definition of god among theists. Heck, Christians can't even settle on a coherent definition of God or a consistent set of rules. Even individual denominations are constantly bickering among themselves about what the rules are once you get past the basics (basically don't steal or murder are the only universal truths--and there are even exceptions to those rules).
"It's wrong because civil order compels it" seems rather circular to me.
No different than "It's wrong because I said so", where the laws have no basis other than force, consensus, cult of the individual, or popularity. Hard to get "Compassion" or "Honor" or "Truth" out of that.
And defining something as wrong because it is punished is among the lower forms of ethics, somewhere around first or second grade. Maybe even toddler stuff.
And cockroach, what say Einstein? I mean, in a tasty nutshell?
Hard to get "Compassion" or "Honor" or "Truth" out of that.
Two can play that game. Why do any of those three things presuppose the existence of God.
No different than "It's wrong because I said so"
Not quite. It's wrong because the law says so.
And you're no better off with the God Hypothesis. You would be if God actually came down here and told us what was wrong. But instead, you're left the the weaker position: It's wrong because I say God says so.
Evasion, Freder?.
Any standard of human behavior presupposes an ideal. Absent God, the ideal becomes mere opinion. Force becomes the only arbiter. The State becomes God.
So what's the difference?
Re: "Not quite. It's wrong because the law says so."
The law merely being what so many "I say so"'s dictate. Based on what, though? Perference? A too-hard seat in the Senate? Thong-flashing interns? What ideal can atheism possibly point to?
"the weaker position: It's wrong because I say God says so."
That is an atheist's interpretation.
Well, that's a pretty small set of the population you're specifying, isn't it?
But not nearly so small as "a few crowds of Jews in a backwater province", I should say.
Christ's message wasn't just for the formally educated, it was for everyone, and that's the difference.
The Stoics' "message" wasn't "just for the formally educated" either. They were just the only ones who could read. They were also the only ones who got to see Christ's message firsthand. The illiterate masses had to hear the information second-hand, from the same formally educated ruling class -- who had no interest in sharing it.
It is telling that concepts like democracy and human rights made essentially zero progress in the first fifteen hundreds years of Christian dominance. When did gains finally start to be made? Answer: during the Renaissance... when the ancient philosophy of the Greeks and Romans started to be studied once more.
It's fine to say that the elite realized that everyone had individual worth, but wouldn't these be the same people keeping slaves?
They'd also be the same people who KEPT keeping slaves after converting to Christianity. Christianity accepted slavery as an institution -- read Paul's letter to Philemon, for example. What both Christianity and Stoicism argued for was better *treatment* of slaves -- and, indeed, Stoic philosophy had led to better treatment of slaves and to a series of laws limiting their owners' ability to punish or harm them.
Pagan wives would expect their husbands to have sex with anyone they wanted to; Christian wives would not.
Greek and Roman society didn't approve of adultery either, although of course the rich and powerful got to do it anyway. But that was (and is) true of Christian society as well. The notion that the dawn of Christianity represented a great stride in husbands not fooling around on their wives is naive.
The ideal of Christian marriage, a sacrament, gives the woman equality with her husband in the marriage.
That is utter nonsense. Prior to the 20th century and the addvent of the (secular) women's rights movement, Christian wives were expected to be subservient to their husbands. In some churches still ARE expected to be subservient. There's a reason why the traditional wedding vows ask brides to obey their husbands but not vice-versa, you know.
"Greek and Roman philosophers alike frequently railed against the evils of lust."
Sure, but as above, who listened to them?
If you're going to judge a philosophy based on how many people actually follow its precepts, the inescapable conclusion is that Christianity was, and is, a failure -- because few indeed are the Christians who actually live as Jesus instructed them to.
pogo,
well, here it is, as best as i can transcribe...
in 1929, einstein was asked in a telegram by rabbi herbert s. goldstein
whether he believed in god. einstein responded by telegram
'i believe in spinoza's god who reveals himself in the orderly harmony
of what exists, not in a god who concerns himself
with the fates and actions of human beings.'
so you can see spinoza was the guy who invented deism
only he was very thorough and logical about it.
he also said that good and evil relate to whether
doing bad things causes pain and what the implications are.
this is interesting if you have a euclidian turn of mind and like logical proofs.
i've got to scurry right now
but maybe tonight i can find a few moments
and tell you about cousin mortimer's thoughts on the subject.
p.s.--i don't like spinoza's ideas about cockroaches.
1. Then how can there be any standards for behavior (e.g. 'violence is wrong')? What is it based on?
For the third time, Pogo, atheists generally adopt one of the countless different moral and philosophical systems that humans have developed over the thousands of years of human history.
the fact that 100 million died under the thumb of atheists
I already went over the silliness of attributing deaths caused by atheists to atheism. You are quite obviously not reading anything beyond the first sentence of two of my posts before responding. Let me know when you've read them and are ready to discuss this like an adult.
That is an atheist's interpretation.
Of course. But it's also a Muslim's interpretation ("My God says it's not wrong.") You see, you're perspective is not unique. And since it's not unique, how can you explain to a non-Christian why we need to use your list of what's wrong? Why is it any better than mine?
There are indeed Judeo-Chrisitan underpinnings, among others, to our moral thought. Curious, that.
The sole reason underlying all of Christian morality is "because God said so". If God, tomorrow, said "kill all the Muslims", killing all the Muslims would become the morally right thing to do. There's Biblical precedent for that sort of divine behavior, too.
The underpinnings of our modern conception of humans rights are a lot more complicated, and date back to pre-Christian Greece. Yes, there is a lot of similarity between Christianity and Greek philosophy, because the Christianity was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy and spread via the takeover of a culture whose leaders were also familiar with the Greeks. But that doesn't magically make the underlying concepts "Christian". You share a lot of DNA with your brother, but that doesn't make him your son.
1) "For the third time, Pogo, atheists generally adopt..."
I understood that is what they do, but not why. The moral and philosophical systems that humans have developed in the prior centuries have little to recommend them if they were based on religion which is the cause of violence. You answered what was done, not the philosophical basis for so choosing that over something else entirely.
2) the silliness of attributing deaths caused by atheists to atheism.
But I am not doing that. I am only pointing out that the only human systems that have been primarily atheist in orientation were also largely muderous, which speaks as evidence against your "atheists are anti-violent" stance even if the killings were not done for atheism, or even in spite of it.
That is, atheism didn't do what you thought it would at all.
3) "how can you explain to a non-Christian why we need to use your list of what's wrong? Why is it any better than mine?"
My system has eternal consequences for bad behavior, while yours are only those available to the law. Escape that, and everything is permissible. Make the laws, and murder is free of guilt. See Castro, Mao, Pol Pot
4) Pre-Christian Greeks weren't exactly atheists.
What ideal can atheism possibly point to?
I've proposed one. Crudely, "It's wrong to hurt people". And we've established that your list of wrongs is likely the same as mine. And that both you and I feel bad when we do wrong. What higher ideal than empathy do you need? Why gussy it up with a supreme being? For me, it bring's nothing new to the table. In fact, I think it kind of devalues morality to say it imposed externally.
My system has eternal consequences for bad behavior, while yours are only those available to the law.
Actually, your external consequences don't really exist while the law demonstrably does, but you are missing the point. Forget the law. My system is I do wrong and the consequence is I feel rotten. Because I've hurt others. Yours, you do wrong and you are punished. Sorry, I do not cede the mantle of moral superiority to your system.
Actually, your external consequences don't really exist while the law demonstrably does
Whether the Christian consequences really exist or not doesn't actually matter, given that they don't *demonstrably* exist.
Millions of Christians regularly commit acts which *should* land them in hell. Are they all complete idiots? Of course not. The problem is that they don't really believe they'll land in hell -- in their hearts, they simply can't believe that God would do that to them. Christianity encourages this skepticism by promoting God as synonymous with "love". The notion of (a) a God who truly loves you (b) punishing you for all eternity causes cognitive dissonance in the Christian brain (as well it should), and most Christians settle on the obvious solution: God's not REALLY going to punish me. Not that much. I'm not really THAT bad. The fact that they never actually SEE anyone punished worsens the problem.
This is why almost no Christians actually follow the divine mandate that punishment of sinners be left up to God. In their heart of hearts, they know an evildoer who gets to die a natural death as a free man has gotten away with something.
Say what you will about secular punishment, but life in prison is life in prison. A guy might be able to convince himself that God won't *really* send him to hell just for shooting his cheatin' wife, but he's got no illusions about how the court will treat him!
A guy might be able to convince himself that God won't *really* send him to hell just for shooting his cheatin' wife, but he's got no illusions about how the court will treat him!
Unless the guys name is OJ, Robert Blake, ...
Being able to arrive at the conclusion "It's wrong to hurt people" is a huge step, and contains within it precepts too numerous to mention.
Claiming it as if it were merely an inborn human reflex is insufficient.
My system is I do wrong and the consequence is I feel rotten.
Circular. You feel rotten because ... why?
It presupposes a real natural Law of
Behaviour. But where did that come from?
he's got no illusions about how the court will treat him
Unless he is the court. Or if his behavior cuts short of lawbreaking, or, like many crimes, is never discovered or ever solved. What can be said to be wrong then?
i'm hopping up and down.
you guys are finally getting somewhere...
now if anyone can demonstrate just how
it is wrong to hurt people based only on
the observable physical world
well, that person wins the spinoza award of the week.
Claiming it as if it were merely an inborn human reflex is insufficient.
I'm not sure why it's insufficient, but as I've said upthread, I don't make this claim. I'm less well versed in ethical philosophy than other's here, but if it is, in fact, the case that's it's handed down by other's who thought they were divinely inspired, it doesn't mean that it loses it's value following the realization that there was no divinity involved.
Circular. You feel rotten because ... why? It presupposes a real natural Law of Behaviour. But where did that come from?
The reasoning may be circular, but no less than yours. Or are you telling me I feel bad because God actively makes me feel bad? I'm not sure what you're arguing here.
Unless he is the court.
That's why this country's system is better than, say, Castro, Mao, Pol Pot... The genuis of our Founding Fathers.
Pogo. Can you accept that an individual, say me, for example, can know the difference between right and wrong and attempt to live one's life in accordance with those believes without recourse to the God Hypothesis? Not a whole society, but an individual?
In the factual world, electrons and elevators behave in a certain way, and certain results predictably follow.
But how human beings ought to behave is not what they actually do. Men ought to be unselfish, and ought to be fair. Recognizing that this belief is not arbitrary and indeed widespread suggests that there is definitely a real law behind it.
I would argue that this is simply not observable from the physical world. And if ultimately the world has no meaning, there is no point at all in having a real law of good human behavior. The difference between right and wrong is entirely arbitrary absent meaning.
Being able to arrive at the conclusion "It's wrong to hurt people" is a huge step, and contains within it precepts too numerous to mention. Claiming it as if it were merely an inborn human reflex is insufficient.
That would be true if and only if a moral belief required an underlying logical proof, which of course it doesn't. Most of the people who believe that hurting others is wrong believe that simply because it seems obvious to them.
Besides, it doesn't ultimately matter if the idea is prevalent in our culture because of Christianity or not. Even if Christianity transmitted the notion to us, it didn't invent it, and isn't necessary to us now that we've received it. To use an example -- we learn our morals from our parents, but that doesn't mean that our parents are the ultimate moral authority. They transmit our morals to us, but they our not the source of our morals.
On the whole who killed more than whom issue I think it is clear who is the winner hands down. It's those damn aleprechaunists and their odious philosophy that has lead to the most deaths.
If you look it up you will find that well over 700 million deaths through out history can be laid upon the feet of people who don't believe in leprechauns.
Obviously, based on these numbers, civil society cannot operate without a belief in leprechauns. ;)
[For those to thick to get it I am making a precisely analogous argument to those who have been railing against atheism here. This is precise because not believing in leprechauns is precisely analogous to not believing in gods when it comes to assigning blame for deaths. It’s quite clear that the deaths attributable to communism are due to the tenets of Marxism and not a lack of belief in gods (or leprechauns for that matter).]
Joan seems to want to switch between nations and religions when it is convenient to her argument.
In the factual world, electrons and elevators behave in a certain way, and certain results predictably follow. But how human beings ought to behave is not what they actually do. Men ought to be unselfish, and ought to be fair.
You're mixing too different concepts -- how physical reality is, versus how it SHOULD be in an ideal universe.
Yes, in an ideal universe humans would be selfless and nice. Of course, in an ideal universe electrical currents wouldn't shock people to death, poisons wouldn't kill people, etc.
But here in the real universe, physical laws lead to things like electrocution, and poisonings... and selfish creatures called "human beings". A human being built the way you or I are is built to be selfish. It is wired into us, which is why we need to be trained, over the course of a lengthy childhood, NOT to act that way.
Which is why groups of humans develop systems of laws, ethics, and morals to limit each other's behavior.
The difference between right and wrong is entirely arbitrary absent meaning.
"Because I say so" is pretty much the ultimate in arbitrary reasons for declaring something right or wrong, Pogo -- and it is the basis of all Christian morality, with additional negative that the "I" in question doesn't actually reveal himself to resolve moral disputes between us.
"This is precise because not believing in leprechauns is precisely analogous to not believing in gods when it comes to assigning blame for deaths."
No, it simply is not analogous, precise or imprecise. Unless you are in high school, then it's a laff riot to say in class.
To answer the cockroaches challenge I'll paraphrase Dawkins.
Evolutionarily, the humans who treated other humans well and fairly survived thereby begetting a next generation of humans who inherited this gene.
Monkeys, dogs, even ants, are hardwired to protect and help their fellows.
Take dogs. Dogs that mauled and attacked their masters were put down. Add this up over 25k years of breeding and you have a species of canine that would take monumental effort to get one to attack and hurt their owners children (or their owner).
This is why we have an innate "good" gene and know what evil is without needing a god.
though I think the cockroach new this answer already :D.
Revenant,
Interesting last point. I always learn alot form your posts.
Men ought to be unselfish, and ought to be fair. Recognizing that this belief is not arbitrary and indeed widespread suggests that there is definitely a real law behind it.
Sorry, but I'm completely unpersuaded by this argument.
And if ultimately the world has no meaning,
Which, I don't think is does (and I don't like that fact, but my desires have no impact on reality)
there is no point at all in having a real law of good human behavior. The difference between right and wrong is entirely arbitrary absent meaning.
Well, I disagree. That fact that I feel in my bones that it's wrong to harm the person sitting across the table from me is enough for me. Put another way, that I don't believe in an externally imposed code of right and wrong does not absolve me of the responsibility of acting in the way I believe is right.
Got to run. I'll be back later. Thanks for the stimulating discussion, Pogo, though I don't feel like I'm any closer to understanding my initial question: the believers claim that without God there is no way to justify not being evil.
Pogo,
Revenant: "because atheism itself HAS no beliefs beyond "there are no gods", and has no inherent *moral* beliefs at all."
Pogo:"Then how can there be any standards for behavior"
Very simple you have standards for behavior but it has nothing to do with the fact you don't believe in gods, or unicorns.
What you don't understand at this point is that theism is also amoral. There is nothing about believing in a god that allows you to argue for any particular standards of behavior either.
What do you say to the believer who says "My god says do as you please" or worse "My god says to slaughter them all"?
I can derive standards of behavior from reason, which has nothing to do with my lack of belief in imaginary beings.
Pogo,
I made that same exact argument in a college class and nobody laughed. The fact that you are ignorant of the reasons why the Communists ended up killing so many is not my problem. It certainly wasn't because of their lack of belief in Odin, or Ra, or Mithras.
You think the Vikings were particularly ethical due to their belief in god? What about all those genocides perpetrated by believers in your own deity at his command according to your own scriptures?
The analogy is precise. Atheists share nothing but their lack in belief in gods. One cannot predict a person’s behavior merely on their lack of belief in an imaginary being no matter what sort.
There is nothing about lacking belief in your one particular god among many thousands that in any way is a positive predictor of what a person actually believes.
Go ahead. I don't believe in your Christian god. Do I believe in stealing? Do I believe in murder? Do I believe in socialism?
I also find it laughable how ignorant of history many of the posters are here. They actually believe that Christianity is the basis for capitalism on the flimsiest of arguments. Aren't any of you aware of the thriving trading communities that existed throughout the old world? Don’t you know about the use of money and the charging of monetary interest? What did Christianity bring new that was an improvement on any of this? Te answer is nothing. In fact, Christian hatred of both monetary interest and suspicion of merchants and money was one of the root causes of the dark ages. Don’t you know why Jews ended up in the positions they got in banking and commerce? They did so because Christianity outlawed Christians pursuing such careers.
Just like scientific progress any progress in economics was in spite of and not because of Christianity. There is nothing inherent in Christianity that teaches one how to handle joint ownership of business enterprises. There is plenty in Christianity that teaches against capitalism and that’s why you get the Pope espousing against it even in modern times.
There were so many ignorant comments by the theists on this comment thread that it is hard to know where to start correcting them.
For instance, socialism is not a atheist ideology. The Quakers were into socialist notions big time and created the board game Monopoly in order to teach about the evils of capitalism.
Communism also is not a atheist ideology. The Hutterites were communists, and the Pilgrims at first tried a form of socialism and they almost starved to death.
The Nazis were not atheists and they were socialists.
Perhaps the poster was thinking of Marxism, which is an atheist ideology, not socialism.
"That would be true if and only if a moral belief required an underlying logical proof, which of course it doesn't."
I agree but would also like to point out that "logical proof" of any claim about the real world is in fact unavailable. So if it is required to be moral then morality cannot exist.
This rule applies to the theist as well as the atheist.
Barbarian: "Me want to murder."
Theist: "God doesn't want you to murder. He will punish you in the afterlife"
Barbarian: "No. You wrong. Odin loves the strong. He requires the blood of those who do not believe in him like you Christian atheists."
Theist: "Your Odin doesn't exist the one true god is Yahweh."
Barbarian: "Where is your logical proof of this?"
The Christain of course does not have a logical proof.
Note that logical proofs and reason are two entirely different concepts. Reason does not proceed by providing logical proofs about the world.
"But how human beings ought to behave is not what they actually do. Men ought to be unselfish, and ought to be fair. Recognizing that this belief is not arbitrary and indeed widespread suggests that there is definitely a real law behind it."
There is "law" behind it just not the kind you think. A commandment from a god isn't a law in the sense of a physical law but in the sense of a edict. This is easily seen by the fact that your God sent certain Hebrews the commandment to commit genocide on certain tribes.
So what precisely is the "law" on charging interest, or eating pork, or slaughtering infidels? Does the Christian god want us to or does he not want us to practice animal sacrifice? If you read Leviticus it’s pretty clear he loves sacrifice. The story of Cain and Able makes it clear he prefers animal sacrifice over vegetable. Then in other places he contradicts this. It's not clear what to do because not only does your god make mere edicts but he gives contradictory ones.
"Christopher Hitchens in Madison — giving the atheists hell."
Well some atheists.
Cedarford,
I think you are mistaken about the rational for bombing Dresden. It was considered a military target for good reason. Not sure the same reasoning applies to Fallujah. I find your notions of collective punishment appalling
Cedarford,
Also ...
Your long comment was twisted just enough away from the truth to turn it into a heinous rationalization for mass murder. I say that when I am sympathetic to some of the issues you bring up. I too believe that much rests on reciprocity but I also believe in proportionality and other principles that you appear to have thrown out the window.
"This is why we have an innate "good" gene and know what evil is without needing a god."
Not true. You mean there is a gene that tells me whether charging interest is good or evil?
We certainly have evolved a whole host of genetics that builds our brains which have an inbuilt moral calculator, but it is pretty primitive equipment. It also requires programming by social replicators.
"There were so many ignorant comments by the theists on this comment thread that it is hard to know where to start correcting them."
Then you proceed to match ignorance for ignorance in your deliberate representation of theistic beliefs and lame sophomoric humor.
You present some interesting points, but in the end, why should I bother to respond to such bad faith arguments?
I can derive standards of behavior from reason, which has nothing to do with my lack of belief in imaginary beings.
No you can't. Below I've linked to a marvelous and exhiliarating essay by Damon Linker that summarizes the philosophy of Fredrich Nietzsche, who once and for all destroyed the basic premise of your argument. Here is Nietzsche in The Joyful Science discussing the consequences of the death of God:
But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?
Linker goes on to say:
If God is dead, then man has completely lost his orientation. There is no human dignity, no equality, no rights, no democracy, no liberalism, and no good and evil. In the light of Nietzsche’s insight, a thinker such as Marx looks extraordinarily superficial, railing against religion on the one hand while remaining firmly attached to ideals of justice and equality on the other. He has failed to grasp the simple truth that if God is dead, then nothing at all can be taken for granted—and absolutely everything is permitted. [my emphasis]
Please take the time to read this truly inspiring piece:
Nietzsche's Truth, by Damon Linker
I'm not sure how Dresden and Fallujah are involved in this discussion but let's examine a few clarifying facts here:
Dresden was a large metropolis where untold numbers of civilians were killed by indiscriminate bombing. This had little impact on the war.
Fallujah was a small city (a very small town by US standards) where all the civilians were encouraged to leave, and almost all did, leaving no one behind that wasn't intent on waging war. With very few exceptions, only combatants were killed in infantry actions. In First Fallujah the Marines were pulled out before completing the mission. In Second Fallujah, even more fortified by enemy soldiers, the town was rid of the enemy and successfully built by the peaceful people who returned.
Yeah, some people can't even get current events right, how can they possibly understand philosophical issues?
Gedaliya,
Number four most annoying argument by people believing in magical beings is when they quote Nietzsche as though he were even vaguely intelligent.
God is not dead. Something that never existed cannot be dead. And your quote from Nietzsche is absolutely dreadful.
God is not dead. Something that never existed cannot be dead. And your quote from Nietzsche is absolutely dreadful.
I suggest you read Linker's piece. Nietzsche's discussion about the death of God is neither trivial nor is it a contradiction-in-itself (something that never existed can't die).
It is clear you misunderstand the meaning the Nietzsche's "God is dead" formulation. If you read the piece I am certain you'll learn something about the subject that will enrich your understanding of this most ancient of disputations.
Skyler,
It's obvious my comment was in response to another. Perhaps you might indulge yourself and read the other one.
Fallujah in no way was a military target in and of itself. Bombing it and all it's citizens into oblivion would truly be collective punishment.
The same argument cannot be made about Dresden. It was disproportionate but the rationale for doing it was that it was a military target not that we should slaughter down to the family level or some such nonsense.
He has failed to grasp the simple truth that if God is dead, then nothing at all can be taken for granted—and absolutely everything is permitted.
I've encountered that argument before and it always struck me as nonsensical.
First of all, let's say God exists. Fine. So... why isn't "everything permitted" then, too? Answer: because God will punish you. Well, humans can punish each other. In fact, we've been doing that with much better results than God has over the past few thousand years. In the absence of God we simply shift from "God says what is permitted" to "society says what is permitted".
That sounds like a significant shift, until you consider that "God says what is permitted" actually means "What society says God says is permitted, is permitted". There's never been a lasting, stable society, Christian or otherwise, where individuals were free to follow their own personal understanding of what God said was right without answering to society.
If a Christian wakes up tomorrow convinced that God is telling him to go out and kill people, and goes and gets a gun and starts shooting prostitutes in the street, we don't say "well, perhaps that was the will of God -- he has struck down sinners in the past, after all". No. We say "the consensus is that God doesn't appoint people to do his killing anymore. You're not listening to God, you're just nuts".
Whenever you are confronted with a philosophical argument over the will of God, substitute "the voice in my head, stuff I've read in old books, and things other people told me" for "God". That's what you're really talking about. That's the only way "God" makes his will known.
Gedaliya,
You respond "No you can't" and then quote Nietzsche at me? Some argument. Funny thing is you couldn't even find a relevant quote from your article to "refute" me with.
Macker,
You missed the point that the city of Fallujah was leveled, but all the civilians were allowed, and did, leave prior to the battle. The only people left in the city were combatants. If there were no combatants there would have been no battle. In war, this is the most basic form of lawful war there is.
Bombing cities filled with noncombatants is not, strictly speaking, lawful war. But then, we won so that's that.
Skyler,
No it's you who missed the point. He was advocating what didn't occur. He was advocating the leveling of Fallujah with all the residents present. He was advocating a repeat of Dresden at Fallujah. Read the post and stop commenting on a conversation you are not following.
Here's his comment:
"If we had said the residents of Fallujah were in insurrection that had to be stopped at all costs and done a Dresden, we might have had Euroweenies pissing their panties, the Left in paroxisms of grief for the "hero oppressed resistors of evil America", and the enraged Arab street enraged for a week."
Oh, and you are wrong on the history. We did not "level" Fallujah. Dresden did have military significance.
You can read about it here:http://www.hdot.org/learning/myth-fact/dresden1//body/1022
Fallujah hardly had the same military significance. Not by a longshot. No railyards, no torpedo factories, no poison gas factories, no railyards transporting troops, etc.
The fact that Dresden was a military target does not excuse the means used to eliminate it's military effectiveness. As I said it was not proportional.
Funny thing is you couldn't even find a relevant quote from your article to "refute" me with.
Did you even read my comment? I am sure you didn't read the piece. If, as Linker says, "[t]here is no human dignity, no equality, no rights, no democracy, no liberalism, and no good and evil," than how can you, a blog commenter, "derive standards of behavior from reason"?
That was the point of the piece, and the focal point of my comment. If morality doesn't exist without God, which was Nietzsche's thesis in The Joyful Science and other works, then you certainly can't create it out of your puny human imagination.
First of all, let's say God exists. Fine. So... why isn't "everything permitted" then, too? Answer: because God will punish you.
No. That isn't the point. "Everything is permitted" means that there is no center of moral gravity, no foundation of moral truth, and no standards of moral behavior. Nietzsche asks, "how can we drink up the sea?...What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?" He sings these phrases as a lament, and one that should give atheists great pause when they blithly assume that they can fashion entire moral systems out of the weak and limited putt-putt engine of human reason.
Why would I read an article when you couldn't even pull enough quotes out of it to make your argument?
Your argument is not relevant. There is nothing about those statments that shows that standards of behavior cannot be arrived at by reason.
Your comments were not an argument but merely a assertion. A false assertion. Therefore irrelevant to demonstrating your claim.
You have to actually make an argument.
Goodnight.
No. That isn't the point. "Everything is permitted" means that there is no center of moral gravity, no foundation of moral truth, and no standards of moral behavior.
But Gedaliya, it isn't actually demonstrable that God, if he exists, is a "center of moral gravity" either. You can assume he is, of course (as all Christians do), but one could just as easily assume that any other being, real or imaginary, is the center of moral gravity and get just as much mileage out of it.
Furthermore, even if we assume for the sake of argument that there is a God and he really is the ultimate arbiter of morality, we're faced with the problem that he is beyond human comprehension and his will is filtered to us indirectly, usually through the words of people long since dead. You wouldn't be any more lost, morally speaking, if you said "this book is the source of all morality"... and the book was in a language nobody could read.
What this all amounts to is that whether you decide to declare "God" the center of your morality or just figure stuff out on your own... you're still just figuring stuff out on your own. Using, as you would put it, "the weak and limited putt-putt engine of human reason".
In other words, if you're going to say "you must murder, because God says that is wrong", my next question is going to be "Can you prove that"? You can't, of course, although you could certainly offer up plenty of evidence that various humans over the years have stated that God holds that opinion. But if that's your proof then you're right back in "humans say it is wrong" territory with the atheists.
that should give atheists great pause when they blithly assume that they can fashion entire moral systems out of the weak and limited putt-putt engine of human reason.
There's no "assumption", Gedaliya. It has already been accomplished.
You speak as if the concept of morality without gods was some new and dangerous uncharted territory. That might be true if we were living several thousand years ago, but you're kind of late to that party.
You wouldn't be any more lost, morally speaking, if you said "this book is the source of all morality"... and the book was in a language nobody could read.
But here is where human reason comes into play. We use our limited tools in a lifelong struggle to comprehend God's will, knowing that reason is the lens He provided for for us to gaze out at the limitless horizon of his creation. Our reason allows us to comprehend the limits of our comprehension, seeing all that is permanently beyond our grasp...infinitude, the understanding of physical laws with no beginning nor end, the mysteries of love, and the meaning of death.
It is our very reason that signals us that we are not the apotheosis of this creation, but instead that part of creation given the gift of bringing to the universe its self-awareness.
You speak as if the concept of morality without gods was some new and dangerous uncharted territory. That might be true if we were living several thousand years ago, but you're kind of late to that party.
Again, the point here is that if morality derives solely from reason, then "good" and "evil" are purely constructs of power...the Law Of The Jungle predominates. This has been aptly demonstrated throughout the history of mankind, and is on display as we speak in all corners of the world.
"You wouldn't be any more lost, morally speaking, if ...the book was in a language nobody could read."
Of course you would. How silly. You seem to be arguing against the ability of theists to reason, much as Brian Macker repeatedly does. As if believers are so stupid that they would as soon believe in elves or an indecipherable book.
Some of the greatest minds of all time believed in God, St. Augustine, for example. He would have put Macker to shame. He used reason to arrive at his beliefs (from unbelief based in the natural sciences), and yet you deny him the fruit of that reason, calling your own superior. Why? On what basis?
I could just as easily say:
* Atheism is a projection, the desire to kill God and be free of a higher power, projecting one's hate onto the universe, an Oedipus complex of the soul.
* Atheism is the opiate of the conscience, rationalizing away moral guilt.
* Atheism is simple wish fulfillment, wishing away final responsibility for behavior, declaring our sins gone with the dust of our bodies.
* Atheism is mere repression, an act of denial of the urge to believe, denial being the most primitive defense mechanism.
Seems like the arguments against God cut well both ways. (cf Lindsley)
"For the third time, Pogo, atheists generally adopt one of the countless different moral and philosophical systems that humans have developed over the thousands of years of human history."
Many of which are considered religions and which may or may not involve a deity, minor gods and goddesses, or spirits.
You know... theology and doctrine are more complicated than this. The Bible is more nuanced. (If I may use that word.) Consider sexual sins. It's not just a list of "don't do this" but also an explanation of *why*... that sexual sins are sins against your own body. They *hurt* you or have the potential to hurt you.
It's true that many cultures have similar restrictions and taboos. The most simple element is, of course, to provide for children to adulthood. That's biological. Another biological element is the spread of disease, which these days can kill you. (Also the reason for most of the food rules, medical rules, sanitation rules, etc.,)
Don't murder, don't steal, don't cheat on your spouse, don't long for what your neighbor has, don't take advantage.
Very few of the rules have anything to do with God at all. They are rules about how to behave in order not to hurt yourself and how to behave not to hurt your neighbors.
"God said so" is a overly simplistic way of supporting those rules. On the other hand, demanding to only follow rules after knowing how they relate to life entirely misses any possible preventative benefit from following them when you're young and stupid.
If understanding was a prerequisite we'd go ahead and do the stupid self destructive and anti-social stuff until we had lived long enough to figure it out without help. And people do. There are any number of ways to come up with essentially the same or similar rules for how to be physically and emotionally well and to have a community that was healthy for its members. The reason is because those rules *and* God's rules are made for *us*. They aren't made for God.
Not that all systems are equal. Certainly they aren't. And many of our modern improvements are revealing weaknesses to come back and bite us in the butt. (Early Christians *tried* living "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need"... it didn't work... the New Testament hadn't even been completed before they figured that one out.)
Someone who has their NT down much better than I do these days (but who is undoubtedly not here) could possibly identify the chapter and verse.
All is permitted. But not all is profitable.
Simple concept. Should we sin that grace may abound more?
The epistles discuss some interesting things concerning the defeat of death and sin. What now? If the law is gone, is there no law? Can I do whatever I want to do?
And again and again... if you realize that God doesn't care at all if you eat food sacrificed to idols... eat it. But don't screw up your brother and stomp his faith to gooy mush by insisting that he's wrong to follow that rule to avoid what he considers sinful.
Clearly an example to be applied in other situations. Liberty exists, but don't use it to hurt your brother or sister who's faith may not be as strong. Failing to care for your brother and sister *is* a sin. Don't cause someone else to stumble even if they are trying to follow rules you find silly or obsolete.
The contradictions and discussion of paradox say to me that what I'm supposed to get from it is something else.
All things are permitted. Not all things are profitable.
What you *can* do isn't the same as what is wise, useful, or good for you.
And again, it's not about God, it's about humans living together. God isn't going to get you for that. It's *permitted*. But smart? Nah-uh. Not even close.
But here is where human reason comes into play.
That would be the "weak and limited putt-putt engine" you derided earlier, I take it? The one which you strongly implied was not up to the task of comprehending a valid moral system?
We use our limited tools in a lifelong struggle to comprehend God's will, knowing that reason is the lens He provided for for us to gaze out at the limitless horizon of his creation.
With all due respect, what good is a moral system whose rules you can't even figure out during your lifetime? The whole *point* of a moral system is to give you rules to live by -- to tell you what the right thing to do is. If you spend your life essentially clueless as to whether you're really doing the right thing or not, you haven't GOT a moral system.
Here's an illustrative example of why that system doesn't work: both you an a Muslim suicide bomber are applying your reason to what is ostensibly the exact same "center of moral gravity" -- God -- and coming up with precisely opposite answers to the question "is it ok to blow myself up and kill a busload of Jewish schoolkids". Nor is that the only problem -- indeed, the only thing that all of the various sects of Judaism, Islam and Christianity all agree on is "you should worship God". They technically agree on stuff like "don't steal" and "don't murder", too, but only because they use different definitions of what constitutes stealing and murdering. This basically illustrates why God doesn't work as a moral center of the universe. Even if he does exist, humans are utterly incompetent at figuring out what he wants us to do.
then "good" and "evil" are purely constructs of power...the Law Of The Jungle predominates
I hope you see the irony in a person who believes God's supremacy makes him the moral center of the universe criticizing the notion of "might makes right".
But setting that aside, power determines how successful good and evil are in struggling against one another. It does not necessarily determine what good and evil are. For example, if you break into my house and steal my stuff, you have committed an evil act under the moral system I follow -- even if I'm powerless to stop you, and even if the other six billion people in the world all pat you on the back and say "good job, man".
This has been aptly demonstrated throughout the history of mankind, and is on display as we speak in all corners of the world.
Would it be petty of me to observe that pretty much all of the aforementioned corners are primarily populated by theists?
Pogo,
You seem to be arguing against the ability of theists to reason, much as Brian Macker repeatedly does.
That's not what I'm saying at all, Pogo. If the mind of God is beyond human comprehension -- and it is a tenet of all three of the Abrahamic religions that it is -- then you can't figure it out using reason. That's the purpose of the metaphor of the untranslatable book. If you can't comprehend something, you can't make any inferences or deductions from it, which means you can't apply reason to it. Its got nothing to do with intelligence. No matter how smart you are, you can't usefully apply your reason when you can't have any confidence in either your premises or the conclusions you draw from them.
Some of the greatest minds of all time believed in God, St. Augustine, for example.
I don't really want to get into a discussion of whether the smart people are in the "atheist" column or the "God" column -- and I *definitely* don't want to get into an argument over the intellectual merits of St. Augustine. But suffice it to say that since the Western world was and is overwhelmingly Christian -- and since open atheism was punishable by imprisonment, torture or death for almost all of that time -- it would hardly be surprising to find that many of the great minds in history expressed belief in God.
Very few of the rules have anything to do with God at all. They are rules about how to behave in order not to hurt yourself and how to behave not to hurt your neighbors. "God said so" is a overly simplistic way of supporting those rules.
Synova, if you want to argue that most of Christian morality is based in practical biological necessity, go right ahead. But I've been arguing with people who are claiming that all morality derives from God, which is an entirely different claim from what you're making here.
I would like to point out, though, that most of the examples you cite boil down to "don't do that because you'll hurt yourself" or "don't do that because you'll hurt someone else". That's fine -- but left unexplained is why hurting yourself, or someone else, is *morally* wrong. THAT question is answered with a "God said so", which means that "God said so" is effectively the reason for all the other stuff, too.
As an answer it works.
As others have pointed out, an alternative answer to that question hasn't been offered.
*Why* is it morally wrong? "God says so" isn't any worse than saying it's because "we decided it was."
I'm fine with "God says so" because I'm fine with the circular and eternal nature of God. If he exists outside of time the linear constraints of cause and effect make questions like that rather interesting. Is it wrong because God said so or is it wrong because God's commands reflect human needs, which he created... and we could go round and round from there.
I am, however, entirely uncomfortable with the idea that instinctive or gut feelings of revulsion are relevant to morality. I don't recall who mentioned that.
There's the fact that many of the things we consider bad (or sinful) are the most *appealing* things. There's also the fact that my brother holds this up as an argument against homosexuality... that the mere idea physically repulses him. Obviously God has put that law in our very selves, no?
It's bad reasoning. The arguments for morality must be rational ones rather than emotional ones. What causes revulsion one day is accepted the next. What is accepted one day causes revulsion the next. (Someone earlier mentioned the conflict between Red Thor and the White Christ. Also... marriage to 9 year olds, anyone?)
But they can't rely on law, either. Morality drives law, law does not define morality. Heh... what I feel a fundamental revulsion about are those who live or speak as though anything lawful is good. It would be truer to say that morality and law are in tension.
Some Christians and some churches are as much into twisty lawyering than anyone dealing with secular law can be. I want to shake them and say, "Don't you see that the law is an imperfect description of right and wrong?"
Limited by language and human understanding it can't help but be limited. I'd rather give a little bit more weight to the built up understanding of Centuries and a little less weight to human understanding until I've got time to see... and if I still don't see the reason for something I'm willing to 1) assume the lack of understanding is my own, and 2) follow the rule out of respect for those who needed it, even if that's not me, not now.
In other words, I'm willing to say "because God said so" even if I consider it a poor answer. Having met a few of the "God told me to quit my job and leave my family" sorts, I am functionally skeptical of even *my* understanding of what "God said". There has to be logic checks, common sense checks, and cross-checks of Biblical principles. (ie., it's unlikely God would tell anyone to abandon their family.)
ALL of this, of course, has nothing to do with our essential imperfection and need for salvation beyond "none is perfect." Eternal salvation is a free gift from God. Rules to live by make life better now. Or they should.
"With all due respect, what good is a moral system whose rules you can't even figure out during your lifetime? The whole *point* of a moral system is to give you rules to live by -- to tell you what the right thing to do is. If you spend your life essentially clueless as to whether you're really doing the right thing or not, you haven't GOT a moral system."
It's the best kind.
We don't *need* more laws, even though laws are defined for us.
We need morality, which isn't laws. We need ideas supporting right and wrong that are flexible enough to work with. Real decisions involve weighing innumerable different elements of harm vs. benefit.
I distrust those who are too sure about what the Bible says. (I don't doubt the Bible at all, just the sure understanding of it.) Being unsure might not be comforting but it does lead to a practice of examination of principles and application.
I don't think we're *meant* to be sure.
Sure of Salvation, yes. That's in the Bible frequently. These things are written that you may be sure... but that's about it, really. Paul waffles in a single paragraph about what he should do but doesn't and shouldn't do but does.
This should be a clue.
It's not about getting it all right.
As an answer it works. As others have pointed out, an alternative answer to that question hasn't been offered.
Er, others may have "pointed that out", but if so then they were wrong to do so.
To give a trivial example of an alternate moral foundation: "Because *I* say so". My moral supremacy is just as objectively demonstrable as God's, with the added bonus that you can talk with me over the internet to resolve any disputes as to what is right or wrong.
I am, however, entirely uncomfortable with the idea that instinctive or gut feelings of revulsion are relevant to morality. I don't recall who mentioned that.
Well, I suppose it could just be a freak coincidence that so much of our morality neatly lines up with stuff we and numerous other animals instintively find distasteful or offensive -- incest, adultery, theft, cannibalism, death, etc. There is reason to believe that most of the human moral systems grew up as rationalizations for our "moral instincts" and grew more embroidered from there. For example, it is no big trick to think up reasons why murder is wrong, given that most of us don't want to die and all of us are dramatically outnumbered by our fellow human beings.
There has to be logic checks, common sense checks, and cross-checks of Biblical principles. (ie., it's unlikely God would tell anyone to abandon their family.)
See, this is what I don't get. On the one hand you're saying that you can't really understand God. On the other hand you're saying that a guy who created a world where children die in screaming agony from cancer or shit themselves to death from dysentery is "unlikely" to tell someone to commit the comparatively trivial harm of leaving his family. I don't see the connection. Sure, you wouldn't leave your family, and I wouldn't leave my family -- but frankly, if I built a world I wouldn't half-ass it the way that God seemingly did either, so obviously either God's an asshole, or we're all missing out on his reasoning, or he doesn't exist in the first place. In none of those cases, save the third, can it be said with any confidence that God's unlikely to tell a person to leave his family. Heck, he killed Job's whole family just to prove a point.
I don't think we're *meant* to be sure.
That defeats the purpose of HAVING morals, Syn. Should I rape this woman? Yes/no, not "maybe" or "well let's try it and see how we feel about it afterwards".
That would be the "weak and limited putt-putt engine" you derided earlier, I take it? The one which you strongly implied was not up to the task of comprehending a valid moral system?
I never used the word "comprehend." I used the word "fashion." We can certainly comprehend morality. But man-made moral systems, as I've said before in this discussion, are predicated on a will to power, and not on something that transcends the vicissitudes of man's whims and fancies.
With all due respect, what good is a moral system whose rules you can't even figure out during your lifetime?
The rules are easy enough to figure out...their implementation is the challenge. What we cannot comprehend using our puny reasoning powers is the underlying purpose of the first cause...such a comprehension is only achievable through a visceral and abiding faith in that first cause and a belief that the truths embodied in that first cause have been revealed to mankind via the mechanism of revelation.
Here's an illustrative example of why that system doesn't work: both you an a Muslim suicide bomber are applying your reason to what is ostensibly the exact same "center of moral gravity" -- God -- and coming up with precisely opposite answers to the question "is it ok to blow myself up and kill a busload of Jewish schoolkids".
This isn't a difficult question. The suicide murderer is evil...he rejects God's morality and God's will. The fact that he and I come up with the opposite answer to the same question is precisely because he acts immorally and I do not (at least in this case). You can't have it both ways. If someone believes that the fanatic murderer and I are on the same moral plane, then Nietzsche's dictum that the death of God has removed morality from the world is, in fact, true. The result of this moral framework is that if my power does not overcome that of the Muslim fanatic his morality is what is true. If the opposite outcome occurs, the opposite result is effectuated.
That is not morality, that is nihilism.
I hope you see the irony in a person who believes God's supremacy makes him the moral center of the universe criticizing the notion of "might makes right".
I never said, nor implied, that a person who believes in God is "the moral center of the universe." How you came up with that interpretation of my remarks is a complete mystery.
Would it be petty of me to observe that pretty much all of the aforementioned corners are primarily populated by theists?
So what? Ultimately, they are fashioning their own morality using a religious vocabulary...and attempting to do so with a raw exercise in power. This makes them immoral, not moral, and better illustrates my point than it does yours.
Gedaliya:
I believe Revenant was referring to God as the moral center because of his (Gods) supremacy as ironically the same system as "might makes right"
Yes, it looks like you're right. It was unclear to me what the antecedent of "him" was, and since Revenant did not capitalize it to Him, I assumed "him" was referring to the "person."
In any case, given that you're correct, I don't see the irony at all, since the concept of "might makes right" is meaningless when speaking about the first cause. We don't compare God to man as one compares man to man. God is all pervasive, all-knowing and omnipresent rather than "mighty." As the Jews believe, God told Moses ""I Am That I Am, which we are taught means that God's essence, form or scope is completely beyond our capacity to comprehend. The Shema, the single most important prayer in Judaism, says it all: "Hear Oh Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One."
This keeps coming up again and again:
Again, the point here is that if morality derives solely from reason, then "good" and "evil" are purely constructs of power...the Law Of The Jungle predominates.
Frankly, it puzzles me no end and I'm appalled at the idea that some think that without God, it would be OK to screw your neighbor, but it clearly has been drummed into the faithful. So I've learned something. I hope the believers have learned that not all atheists believe that, "since there is no God, I think it's OK to screw my neighbor.
Even if he [God] does exist, humans are utterly incompetent at figuring out what he wants us to do.
This point has been repeated numerous times throughout this thread. I disagree. You think that because we are not all in 100% agreement on what the will of God is, we are "utterly incompetent" at determining what it is.
I say, look at the evidence in the world around us. The faithful (of some religions) believe that God loves us and wants us, ultimately, to join Him in heaven; to do that, we need to follow His will here on earth. In the Christian understanding of God, living according to His will allows us to have peaceful, productive, and happy lives, by design.
Look at the world, and compare the lives of the citizens from country to country. We can factually (more or less) establish the religion(s) the population of each country historically adhered to, and we can arbitrarily assess how well they adhered to each religion's principals. We can also factually assess, on any number of measurable qualities, the "success" of each country. Look at things as diverse as life expectancy and the number of patents applied for, freedom of speech, percentage of population living in poverty, any measures you choose to determine quality of life.
Who wins? Which countries are the most peaceful, free, and prosperous? Which countries offer the best chance that their citizens have at self-actualization? And were/are these countries adhering to a particular religion, or not?
With a such a big picture view, my opinion is that Christian nations "win". They are objectively better than non-Christian nations in providing peace, the opportunity to become prosperous, and freedom to their citizens. That is the proof that we understand God's will.
You could, of course, chalk it all up to coincidence or some other factor. Correlation is not causality, but this is not the kind of thing where we can say, "OK, let's do it again, and this time leave the religion out." We will never be able to test such theories that way. Human nature is constant, though. Different religions provide different methods of modifying or influencing that nature, and the resultant societies I think can be rightfully said to reflect those influences.
As an aside, I recommend C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain for an enlightened discussion of why bad things happen in this world.
you know, this thread has 300-odd comments
and for the last day at least
it has been remarkably free of
insults made by the usual internet dingbats.
you have rehashed a lot of the classic arguments
about god and man and good and evil, etc.
and you have been passionate and emphatic
and have dealt with some pretty core ideas that get people where they live
but somehow this has not degenerated
into the classic name-calling, flame-throwing slugfest.
you want a vortex...
well, this is, overall and with some exceptions,
the kind of vortex that althouse and most everybody else who was here should be proud of.
i'm not sure we've proven anything about god...
can you see the headlines, 'althouse blog definitively proves god does or does not exist'...
but we've proven that sometimes, just sometimes
we can have a discussion and even a hot argument
without a fight.
now after all this god talk i'm getting
hungry for doughnut crumbs.
you know, the basement at st. eulalia's after mass and all that.
guess it proves i'm just a creature of conditioning
and don't have much in the way of free will.
Gedaliya,
The rules are easy enough to figure out
The fact that the theists of the world aren't able to agree on what the rules are refutes the notion that they are "easy enough to figure out".
This isn't a difficult question. The suicide murderer is evil...he rejects God's morality and God's will.
It is not a difficult question for you, because God's will is whatever you think God's will is. It is not a difficult question for the suicide bomber, for the same reason. You both arrive at opposite answers, because neither of you has an objectively quantifiable moral center you're basing your moral reasoning around. And that, Gedaliya, is why God doesn't work as a basis of morality -- even in the unlikely event that he does exist, neither you nor any other theist actually knows what he wants. Even if you think you know what he wants YOU to do, you don't know what he wants other people to do -- nor are you privy enough to his motives to make an educated guess. That makes you unfit to judge the morality of other people's actions. Indeed, Jesus himself observed that humans were unfit to judge the morality of other humans.
If someone believes that the fanatic murderer and I are on the same moral plane, then Nietzsche's dictum that the death of God has removed morality from the world is, in fact, true.
You're not both on the same moral plane, you're just both using the same broken moral system -- "God determines morality". Because that system is broken, it does not yield predictable results, and can lead people into evil as well as good. In other words, you arrived at the right answer the wrong way, and the bomber arrived at the wrong answer the wrong way.
So what? Ultimately, they are fashioning their own morality using a religious vocabulary...and attempting to do so with a raw exercise in power. This makes them immoral, not moral, and better illustrates my point than it does yours.
It would illustrate your point if there was some reason to think that you have special insight into God's will that all those other people either lack or deliberately ignore. But there is no reason to think that -- to an outside observer, you're just another person saying "Morality is what I say it is".
I don't see the irony at all, since the concept of "might makes right" is meaningless when speaking about the first cause. We don't compare God to man as one compares man to man.
"Oh, it doesn't count when he does it" doesn't really work as an excuse, in my opinion.
God is all pervasive, all-knowing and omnipresent rather than "mighty."
"The Almighty" is just an ironic nickname for the guy, I guess? Kind of like calling a fat guy "Tiny".
Revenant, you keep going back to your central assertion: God's will is whatever you think God's will is.
But for most religious people, we are not interpreting the will of God as individuals. We accept our religion's interpretations of the will of God. In the case of Christianity, we have the early 3000-ish years of Jewish history and religious thought establishing a basis on which the 2000-ish years of Christian thought has developed. We are not pulling this stuff out of the ether.
The basis for our religion is our faith, and our faith is based on what our forefathers in the Church have passed on to us. What is that? Not just the Scriptures (the inspired word of God), but the traditions and the analysis and the discussions -- hundreds of learned men and women investigating these issues over the centuries, accumulating knowledge and insight.
If it were just me, and what I think, you'd be right to scoff. But it's not just me, it's me and all the generations that have preceded me, from whom I can learn.
Even if you think you know what he wants YOU to do, you don't know what he wants other people to do -- nor are you privy enough to his motives to make an educated guess.
That's ridiculous, of course we know what God wants other people to do. There is not one set of rules for me and another for thee; the same rules for everyone. We don't need to make an educated guess, because God in the person of Jesus Christ has told us this, and this fundamental equality of expectations is one of the reasons that Christian nations have flourished, even though there will always be cases where someone can get around the law through some influence, that's still recognized as corrupt and illegal.
"The Almighty" is just an ironic nickname for the guy, I guess? Kind of like calling a fat guy "Tiny".
This kind of nit-picking doesn't elevate the discussion. God hasn't intervened in earthly life in any spectacular fashion since the Assumption. My take on it -- since we are incapable of understanding God's motivations -- is that He gave us the tools we needed, and we need to make our own way with them. We have free will. The use of the term Almighty is still accurate but it doesn't reflect our expectations regarding what God will do.
Going way, way back to the business before, the point I made about the Stoics and the educated holding certain ideas -- what I meant was, did the typical Roman citizen or resident know and accept these ideas? The equality of man as a concept of Christianity was preached to everyone, for everyone, not just the elite.
Pogo: "You seem to be arguing against the ability of theists to reason, much as Brian Macker repeatedly does."
Revenant: "That's not what I'm saying at all, Pogo."
Funny thing is I didn't say it once either.
Pogo, reason isn't an all or none faculity. It's possible for people to use reason in one situation and not in another. People also have differing natural abilities and levels of training.
It is also possible for people to use reason without understanding what reason is. However when you start talking about reason you better know it at the meta level.
I meant the Ascension, not Assumption, in my last comment.
Wish Blogger would let us edit posted comments, but I guess that's too hard.
Revenant, you keep going back to your central assertion: God's will is whatever you think God's will is. But for most religious people, we are not interpreting the will of God as individuals. We accept our religion's interpretations of the will of God.
Um, Joan... that's exactly the same thing.
X: What you think God's will is
Y: What your religion has determined God's will is
Z: What God's will is.
There's no difference between my assertion ("X = Z") and your assertion ("X = Y, and "Y = Z").
In the case of Christianity, we have the early 3000-ish years of Jewish history and religious thought establishing a basis on which the 2000-ish years of Christian thought has developed.
First of all, Christianity was based on about 900 years of Jewish thought, not 3000.
Secondly -- and I mention this only because it amuses me to point it out -- while we only have access to around 2900 years of Judeo-Christian history on the record, the oldest Hindu texts are 3700 years old or so. I've got a sneaking suspicion, though, that you're not terribly impressed with the polytheism and endless reincarnation that the Hindus have concluded represents the true nature of the divine, despite their 800 year head start on thinking about the subject.
Anyway, the next problem with relying on your church history is the issue of information loss. I'm sure you've played the telephone game at some point? That's a good example of the classic problem of information loss. Unless your information is regularly checked against the source its quality will degrade each time it is passed along. In other words -- the more people the will of God had to go through before it got to you, the further from the will of God the message you finally get will be. In other words, the more you rely on "church teachings" versus the direct exposure to the will of God, the more wrong you'll be.
Which feeds right into the next point, which is that worship of God doesn't follow a line through history -- it follows a tree, with Christianity splitting off from Judaism and Islam splitting off from Christianity, with countless faiths and sub-faiths splitting off in turn from each of those. So while you can lay claim to 2900 (or 5000, if you prefer) years of religious tradition from the Jewish prophets to the present day, so can Muhammed the Suicide Bomber and John Andersen the polygamist Mormon. The most obvious proof that your attempts to ascertain the divine will are not working is that people become progressively less united in their understanding of God's will with each passing century!
Which brings me to my final point, which is that I, and every other follower of a secular moral code, have access to exactly the same history and learning that you do. What distinguishes you from me isn't 2900 years of philosophical thinking, but which of the countless conclusions that have been drawn during that 2900 years we believe to be correct.
That's ridiculous, of course we know what God wants other people to do. There is not one set of rules for me and another for thee; the same rules for everyone.
Yes, but the rule in question is "obey the will of God", which Christians accept DOES differ from person to person. That lengthy religious history you have been pointing to offers examples of God's will for an individual covering the full ground from "heal the sick" to "kill the heretics".
We don't need to make an educated guess, because God in the person of Jesus Christ has told us this
Yeah, except that it is just an educated guess that Jesus was God -- or at all in tune with God's will, for that matter.
This kind of nit-picking doesn't elevate the discussion.
Excuse me? I was making a point that God is also guilty of "might makes right"-style morality. Ged responded with the completely ridiculous assertion that God wasn't really "mighty". Pointing out that it is universally agreed by Christians that God is mighty isn't "nit-picking".
God hasn't intervened in earthly life in any spectacular fashion since the Assumption.
He has intervened in the past and can do so in the future whenever he feels like it. On top of that, he's got us to do with as he pleases once we die even if he maintains a strictly hands-off policy while we're on Earth. So yes, his power most certainly retains its intimidation value.
Unless your information is regularly checked against the source its quality will degrade each time it is passed along.
Do you think we haven't been checking with the source, and testing our interpretations, all along? Of course we do. Speaking for the Catholic Church: we do not just arbitrarily make stuff up. Our written traditions extend back to 3rd and 4th century, and oral traditions back to the beginning of Christ's ministry. Natural law underlies the Church's teachings.
In other words, the more you rely on "church teachings" versus the direct exposure to the will of God, the more wrong you'll be.
This is arrogance, the assumption that a single person's thought processes will yield superior analyses to the accumulated centuries of work of dedicated professionals. Do you read an article in a medical journal and then lecture your doctor about what your treatment should be?
I can read the revealed Word of God through scripture, but chances are, I'm not going to understand it as well as I could if I also read the texts and discussions that accompany it. Our cultural references are wholly different from those of Israel 2000 years ago; some things just aren't going to make sense. If I don't have the context, how can I interpret anything?
Not only that, but, lacking imagination in these things, how can I move from understanding the Word to knowing what the implications are for daily life -- how do I translate that into action? Sometimes it's very obvious, sometimes it's not. I need help.
That continuous process of examination, analysis, and enlightenment, that you say draws me further away from the will of God, I say clarifies it and makes it accessible.
worship of God doesn't follow a line through history -- it follows a tree, with Christianity splitting off from Judaism and Islam splitting off from Christianity, with countless faiths and sub-faiths splitting off in turn from each of those.
You look at the proliferation of religions and again offer it as proof of how stupid the religious are, since we can't get our acts together. Again, you're missing the point, which is that God does not demand that we worship Him in any particular way; He is not a dictator. We have free will -- as I said before, Christ showed us the Way, and left humanity to figure out the rest for itself.
The branching off has been going on forever; there were splinter Jewish groups and very early Christian heretics like the Gnostics and the Essenes -- so what? It's human nature for some people to want to join, and for some people to want to start up their own club.
How do we know who's right? Well, go back to my previous question, and ask who has prospered. I think it's great that the Hindus have 3,700 years of history, but I don't hear a heck of a lot about Hindu nations leading the world. According to the overview article in Wikipedia, it's hard to say what Hinduism is exactly anyway: religion, philosophy, ethnicity? Elements of all three combined, with many admirable ideals. I do always stumble on the caste system, though, and the apparently arbitrary assignment of human worth.
I was making a point that God is also guilty of "might makes right"-style morality. [snip]
On top of that, he's got us to do with as he pleases once we die [snip] So yes, his power most certainly retains its intimidation value.
Sorry, I mistook your meaning entirely, not tying it into the the 'might makes right' discussion. I'm trying to think of how to respond to this, because I've never thought about the disposition of our souls when we die as an example of "might makes right."
The eternal torments of Hell have certainly been used as a motivator forever, but what Hell actually is, is separation from God. If in life you choose to be separated from Him, that separation continues into eternity. As an example, Hitchens obviously has no interest in being one with God throughout eternity, and he should have no worries on that score, because chances are, he won't be, although we can never know what God will find when He looks into Hitch's soul. (It's not up to us to say who gets in and who doesn't.) If Hitchens is separated from God, will his soul find that a torment? Again, we have no way of knowing.
On the flip side, I do know that following God's laws here insures that I will have a productive, happy, and fulfilled life, so -- what's the downside, again?
I suppose it's just semantics but I still can't see it as "might makes right" as much as "actions have consequences" -- natural law. Because God doesn't make "right", He has given us free will, and we have to decide for ourselves how to behave.
In life, do we follow the laws only because we're afraid of being thrown in jail, or do we follow the laws because we want to be good citizens? It's not as if the everyone shoplifts when he knows he's not going to caught, right? It's the same with God's laws: we follow them because we want to be good.
Do you think we haven't been checking with the source, and testing our interpretations, all along? Of course we do.
"We"? Unless you, Joan, are personally are checking your morals with God the proper word is "they" (since you aren't a member of the group of people God makes his will known to directly).
If you personally ARE checking your morals with God then my earlier claim that your morals are "what you think God wants" was correct. If you aren't, then the problem of degradation remains, and is made worse by the fact that there's no objective way of determining which of the countless people who claim a direct line to the divine are telling the truth and which ones are liars or crazies.
This is arrogance, the assumption that a single person's thought processes will yield superior analyses to the accumulated centuries of work of dedicated professionals.
Arrogance? The Hindus had been debating the nature of the divine for just under two thousand years while the Council of Nicea was still trying to decide which of the various Gospels were real and which were fake. What arrogance on their part, to presume to know better than people who had put that much "work" into the matter -- to presume that some Jewish carpenter named "Jesus" could possibly be the one true son of God when any Hindu on the street would have chuckled at such an elementary theological error. And before you pull the "yes, but look at who was more successful" thing again, I'd like to point out that the answer at that time was "the Hindus".
But your arrogance extends even further than that. You see, there are six billion people in the world, almost all of whom are the inheritors of thousands of years of religious and philosophical thinking, whether theistic or non-theistic -- 3700 years of Hinduism, 2900 years of Judaism, 2600 years of Buddhism, 2300 years of Greco-Roman philosophy and logic, 2200 years of Tao, 2000 years of Christianity, 1400 years of Islam, 1300 years of Shinto. And guess what? Roughly five of those six billion people, after taking a look at those thousands of years of philosophy, have concluded that Christianity is wrong and that Jesus was NOT the son of God. And you call me "arrogant" for not believing in it? Joan, I'm in the vast majority here -- the overwhelming majority of both common people and scholars of religion and philosophy think Christianity is wrong. And the funny thing is that, no matter which religion or philosophy you pick, there are billions of common people (and millions of students of the various faiths) who can explain to you, with citations going back thousands of yeats, why the religion or philosophy you've picked it clearly, obviously, fundamentally wrong.
And that, Joan, is why it takes no arrogance at all for me to figure things out on my own -- because no matter how you look at it, the inescapable fact is that almost all (if not absolutely all) of those billions of people who spent all those thousands of years chasing after the ultimate answer to life's moral questions... did it wrong.
Do you read an article in a medical journal and then lecture your doctor about what your treatment should be?
The reason I trust the opinions of doctors is that medical techniques are empirically tested and demonstrably work. Claims about God aren't, and don't. That is why, like I mentioned above, most scholars think YOUR scholars are wrong, just as you think theirs are -- none of you can prove a dang thing, so you're all stuck arguing endlessly to no effect.
Again, you're missing the point, which is that God does not demand that we worship Him in any particular way
I don't know how you can say I'm missing the point when most of the people who believe in God agree with me. But in any case it is you who is missing the point -- I wasn't talking about worship, I was talking about moral laws
A short list of things followers of God can't agree on the morality or immorality of: war, homosexuality, equality of the sexes, capital punishment, non-capital punishment, the drinking of alcohol, and lending of money at interest. Plus stuff related to morality, like "can atheists get into Heaven without believing in God", "is there a Hell", "is the Bible literal or metaphorical", "is Jesus actually the son of God", and "which of God's prophets held the supreme authority".
Well, go back to my previous question, and ask who has prospered.
Three points: first of all, I feel obligated to point out that the consensus among both Protestant and Catholic Christian theologians is that it is nonsensical to judge the validity of a spiritual belief by the worldly success of its adherents. Don't you find it "arrogant" to assume all those folks are wrong?
Secondly, judging on a nation-by-nation basis is peculiar, since nations have no religious beliefs. Individual people have religious beliefs. On an individual basis, atheists are on average better educated, more steadily employed, wealthier, and less likely to participate in substance abuse, criminal activity or child molestation than Christians are. At a national level, the movement towards greater peace and prosperity has gone hand-in-hand with a loss of religious faith, to the point where today only half of the top ten nations in the world have majority populations that believe in God.
Finally, I am particularly amused by your question because the historical answer to the question of who enjoys the most success would be "Protestants", and you are apparently a Catholic. You see, while it is true that most of the successful nations of the world at least *used* to be Christian, their success tends to inversely correlate with the influence the Catholic Church had there.
I do always stumble on the caste system, though, and the apparently arbitrary assignment of human worth.
That's ironic, because the caste system is based on the exact belief that you're espousing -- that success if a mark of correct morality. Under Hinduism the reason why it is ok to treat low-caste people like dirt is that the fact that those people were born into a low caste proves that they behaved badly in a past life. Similarly, being born into a high caste proves that you were a moral exemplar in a past life.
The eternal torments of Hell have certainly been used as a motivator forever, but what Hell actually is, is separation from God.
That would be one of the aforementioned things that followers of God can't agree on. There are still hundreds of millions of people on the "its all about torturing sinners" and unbelievers bandwagon.
I suppose it's just semantics but I still can't see it as "might makes right" as much as "actions have consequences"
"Actions have consequences" doesn't work as a rationalization when we're talking about the being who created the environment, made the rules, and set everything in motion. If a rapist holds a gun to a woman's head and says "don't struggle or I'll shoot you", he doesn't get to play the "actions have consequences" card when she does struggle and he does shoot her.
He has given us free will, and we have to decide for ourselves how to behave.
Ick, the free will excuse again. Suffice it to say that I don't see how giving someone the "free will" to damn themselves for eternity is a good thing -- particularly when it is a plain fact that most people can't understand the instructions on how to avoid getting damned.
If your perception of God is as the rapist holding the gun to a woman's head, I can see why this is a futile effort on my part. Not to mention that you've obviously trod this path before, whereas I'm lacking in both the preparation and the tools to counter your arguments.
One last try, though: Faith is a decision, not a feeling. At some point, you decide what you believe, and from that point any information you accumulate automatically gets sorted into two bins: "supports my belief", in which it is embraced, and "challenges my belief" in which case, any number of things happen to it: it can be refuted point-by-point, it can be dismissed out of hand as irrelevant, it can be internalized but then submerged so as to prevent cognitive dissonance. (This happens with everything, not just religious faith.)
From my perspective, I'm answering your objections with point-by-point refutations. From your perspective, I'm talking past you so as to avoid cognitive dissonance. The bottom line is, I don't think about these things the way you do. While I'm not educated in world religions and philosophy, I'm not entirely ignorant of history, either, particularly Jewish and Christian faith history.
You keep saying, "you can't possibly know that you're right, and since so many people disagree with you, you're probably wrong." Taking the second, first: I don't care about the people who disagree with me, as the relationship between consensus and truth is tenuous as best. As to the first, after many years of serious consideration, I decided that the beliefs of the Catholic Church are right.
there's no objective way of determining which of the countless people who claim a direct line to the divine are telling the truth and which ones are liars or crazies.
Of course there is. Is what they're saying consistent with natural law? Is it consistent with the teachings of Christ? Is it consistent with Scripture? Does it apply universally, or only to benefit some individual or group? Christianity is based on the belief that God is rational and that the universe is well-ordered. Everything presented as divine revelation must be scrutinized, because it's so easy for people to be misled.
And that, Joan, is why it takes no arrogance at all for me to figure things out on my own -- because no matter how you look at it, the inescapable fact is that almost all (if not absolutely all) of those billions of people who spent all those thousands of years chasing after the ultimate answer to life's moral questions... did it wrong.
You're willing to bet your eternal soul that you have it right, after asserting that so many billions before you got it wrong? How special are you? And how discerning are you, to know with such absolute, 100% certainty, that every one of the philosophers and theologist who precede you in history, was wrong? To sit in judgment on the entire human race and declare them all wrong is not arrogance?
The reason I trust the opinions of doctors is that medical techniques are empirically tested and demonstrably work.
Your faith in the medical profession, and science, is touching. The majority of all published research is likely to be refuted. You'd be much better off saying "It's better than nothing," which is may or may not be true, depending on the topic at hand. When it comes to the prevention of heart disease, cancer, and obesity, we'd have been much better off if they'd done nothing for the last 40 years.
it is nonsensical to judge the validity of a spiritual belief by the worldly success of its adherents.
Right: it's nonsensical to judge based on wealth, the accumulation of assets. That's not what I was talking about. Which societies are the most peaceful, the most free, offer the best quality of life, opportunities for fulfillment? These are not the measures of "worldly success" that we are cautioned against using as yardsticks, at least in my understanding.
judging on a nation-by-nation basis is peculiar, since nations have no religious beliefs. Individual people have religious beliefs.
Exactly: judging by nations aggregates the effects of the attitudes of the population, and allows us to see what the cumulative effects of those beliefs and attitudes were/are. There's too much variation among individuals to use them to measure the efficacy of anything, which is why you'll never see a drug trial on only one patient.
while it is true that most of the successful nations of the world at least *used* to be Christian, their success tends to inversely correlate with the influence the Catholic Church had there.
Yes, I'm Catholic, and I'm well aware that Protestants are the ones who launched the American Experiment. The Church, being a human institution, has made some serious mistakes over the centuries. But we're not done yet. Are you declaring the experiment over, and so we have to say who's best, right now? This is an ongoing process, and there are ebbs and flows throughout history wrt both religious adherence and success. Formerly Catholic countries who have fallen away from the faith are facing demographic crises in the near future if not the present. Protestantism is faltering while the Catholic Church is not, in spite of the recent, horrible scandals. What endures?
I don't see how giving someone the "free will" to damn themselves for eternity is a good thing
So you would prefer a God who dictates your every move? There can't be a half-measure here: either we have free will, or we don't. Since it's obvious that we do have it, we have to take responsibility for ourselves.
-- particularly when it is a plain fact that most people can't understand the instructions on how to avoid getting damned.
Oh, I don't think that's true at all. "Most people"? Seriously? I think most people would agree that commandments four through eight describe acceptable social behavior; (9 and 10, or 10 alone, depending on the numbering, have to do with acceptable thought, which isn't something anyone else can police).
The bottom line is, no matter what all the religions say, we as humans have no say in who gets into Heaven and who doesn't; it's not up to us, it's up to God. God is the only one who can judge the state of the soul.
As I said before, faith is a decision. I believe that following my church's laws brings me closer to God while I'm here and increases the chances that I'll get to spend eternity with Him. From my perspective, there's no downside to that decision.
I apologize to readers of this thread for suddenly disappearing...I am traveling in southern India (Mysore in Karnataka state) on a mini-vacation from work, and there is only spotty and limited Internet access down here.
I'll be back in my Hyderabad perch on Monday, and if it isn't too late I'll respond to some of Revenant's remarks at that time.
Thanks...
Gedaliya
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