The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
The Atheist Thread, Cont'd.
Shuggy:
--- Quote from: Impish on November 12, 2006, 06:13:41 pm ---Julia Sweeney, comedienne, has released a CD of her famous "Letting Go of God" talks, and this webpage offers 3 samples from it:
On "Intelligent Design" http://www.juliasweeney.com/letting_go_mini/audio4.html
--- End quote ---
That goes rather well with this, which I confess I may have posted on another thread.
Ellemeno:
--- Quote from: Impish on November 12, 2006, 06:13:41 pm ---Julia Sweeney, comedienne, has released a CD of her famous "Letting Go of God" talks, and this webpage offers 3 samples from it:
On "Intelligent Design" http://www.juliasweeney.com/letting_go_mini/audio4.html
On Deepak Chopra http://www.juliasweeney.com/letting_go_mini/audio3.html
On Santa Claus http://www.juliasweeney.com/letting_go_mini/audio2.html
You may have encountered Sweeney on "This American Life" who featured her in one of their most-popular episodes, "Godlessness in America."
--- End quote ---
I had the opportunity to see Julia perform this in LA last year (and then get to tell her how much all her monologues mean to me, yay!). I highly recommend it. I just ordered the CD, and I am certain it will be my husband's favorite Christmas present this year.
LOL - Until I wrote that, I actually didn't realize how ironic a present it is to celebrate a religious holiday.
But really, Julia is brilliant, and I want to be her when I grow up.
TexRob:
--- Quote from: Impish on October 22, 2006, 11:18:46 am ---For some reason, I can no longer access the thread "Atheists: Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are." My browser freezes if I try to post in it.
So I'm starting a new one, which I'm treating as a continuation of the first, beginning with a marvelous (and thought-provoking) Op-Ed piece from Sam Harris.
Enjoy.
--- End quote ---
I've thought about what the worse taboo is -- to be gay or to be atheist. In the United States, I've concluded that at this point in our cultural development, being atheist is far worse.
As the Sam Harris article mentions, a big part of the problem centers on the issue of morality. Many believers equate atheism with immorality, and many atheists seem to add fuel to that by implying that indeed, morality is not possible.
As a philosophical issue, the problem is one of conceptual clarity. People, both believers and atheists, tend to jump into the discussion of atheism without first trying to define what they mean when they use an abstract term such as "morality."
As a practical problem, it's sometimes helpful when dealing with believers to remind them that it's possible to be atheist and still have a set of moral values. I find that doing so often decreases the size of the soapbox people are willing to stand on in order to attack the conclusions of others.
Shuggy:
--- Quote from: TexRob on December 06, 2006, 10:23:48 pm --- Many believers equate atheism with immorality, and many atheists seem to add fuel to that by implying that indeed, morality is not possible.
--- End quote ---
There's a guy I'm constantly locking horns with here who keeps saying "But if there were no god, we'd have no way of saying that [eg Hitler] was evil." I have no problem saying that Hitler was evil without invoking any god, and in fact his whole argument implies that Hitler was evil without a god having to say so, or why would he use that example? (It looks a bit silly saying "If there were no god, we'd have no way of knowing that eating shellfish was an abomination.")
The fact is that religiousi use humanist criteria to decide which of their scriptures to take any notice of (eg Thou Shalt Not Kill vs Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live) - except where the scriptures are in line with their prejudices (eg homophobia).
If not, they have the problem of "Is this evil because God says it is, or does God say it is because it really is?" In the first case, God is purely arbitrary/whimsical, so why should we take any notice? In the second, there is a higher law that God is following: why don't we go to that and eliminate the middlegod?
TexRob:
--- Quote from: Shuggy on December 07, 2006, 04:09:02 am ---There's a guy I'm constantly locking horns with here who keeps saying "But if there were no god, we'd have no way of saying that [eg Hitler] was evil." I have no problem saying that Hitler was evil without invoking any god, and in fact his whole argument implies that Hitler was evil without a god having to say so, or why would he use that example? (It looks a bit silly saying "If there were no god, we'd have no way of knowing that eating shellfish was an abomination.")
The fact is that religiousi use humanist criteria to decide which of their scriptures to take any notice of (eg Thou Shalt Not Kill vs Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live) - except where the scriptures are in line with their prejudices (eg homophobia).
If not, they have the problem of "Is this evil because God says it is, or does God say it is because it really is?" In the first case, God is purely arbitrary/whimsical, so why should we take any notice? In the second, there is a higher law that God is following: why don't we go to that and eliminate the middlegod?
--- End quote ---
Sometimes it helps just to ask people like this what their starting point is, then make them stick to it. Your friend seems to be engaging the question of good vs. evil in the middle, not by laying out the premises or axioms he's starting from. You're within bounds to ask him what he's starting from in his reasoning. Sometimes, this has a sobering effect on such people.
Socrates's question about whether it's good because God commands it or whether God commands it because it's good is thought-provoking for people for whom religion is the basis of all morality. But believers often take so much for granted that everyone has a religion that they cannot conceive any other starting point than God, however His commands are justified.
Humanism, in the sense that human needs are the starting point for moral discourse, is a relatively new development, but elements of it can be found even in ancient religious writing, as you pointed out. As a result, it seems that believers will in one instance invoke God as the implicit basis of a moral conclusion (e.g., don't eat shellfish, faggot) and at other times implicitly invoke humanism. They may not realize they're doing that.
Logically, they cannot switch their premises as they wish. The commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill contradicts other examples in which God commanded exactly that. So using the commandment to say that Hitler was evil would be a contradiction if what they mean is "evil in the eye of God." We don't know what God's intent was, nor whether or not Hitler was fulfilling the will of God. So he cannot be condemned from a rigourously religious point of view unless the person condemning Hitler also claimed to know the mind of God. That, to me, would be the utmost arrogance, although the state of mind of such a person would have to be pretty interesting, to say the least.
To resolve the contradiction, they would have to concede that the commandment had a humanistic basis to it. What they cannot do is switch back and forth between the two moral axioms as they wish. That would be intellectual dishonesty. They have to argue from one starting point or the other.
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