Fear of Atheism

[ZenMode]

You parse as well as a pharisee. You should be proud, you have a long-standing tradition.

So in your world "indentured servitude" is OK but "slavery" is Bad, right?

How do you tell the difference? Is it just the "term" like 7 years? So 7 years of slavery ahem, I mean "indentured servitude" is not bad?

Indentured servitude is generally voluntary, of course. True slavery isn't.

The better question is why an all-knowing God, when creating a list of the 10 most important rules to live by, failed to disallow true slavery, but listed at least 3 rules focusing on himself.

 

[Cypress]

Atheists don't need a book that codifies what's morally, ethically, right and wrong. There is an objective core to humanity which (much as I'm loath to defend humans as a species) in itself has an objective morality that says, "no, if I do this, someone else will do THAT".

Nope. Anyone with a rudimentary grasp of history know that many humans and civilizations have frequently flourished on the basis of a "might makes right" ethos.

Your supposition that humans just naturally follow the ten commandments, the five vows, the eight noble paths is simply and utterly betrayed by the most cursory examination of human history.

It's admirable that you decided to adopt long standing religious moral values, but that doesn't mean those values are coded into DNA. And even if they were, that does nothing to prove or disprove how a moral conscience was imprinted on us.

There is no such thing as altruism. There is NOTHING that motivates a human to help others that isn't, at some level, self-serving.

Then it's not morality. Self interest and mutual self advantage are not a basis of morality. Even prairie dogs cooperate for the mutual benefit of the colony.

Selfless sacrifice is the basis of morality.

It all really does boil down to the "Golden Rule": "I would very much like to not be murdered, so I won't murder". That doesn't take some kind of deity to figure out. It's simply instinctual.

The Golden Rule is a concept from Judaism, Christianity, Confucianism.

You will not find it written anywhere in human literature prior to that. The epics of Homer and Gilgamesh do not even remotely touch of the subjects of social justice, pacifism, friendly cooperation between strangers or rivals.

Murder is very much a part of human civilizations, and ritual child sacrifice, human sacrifice, infanticide were widely considered necessary and important for human flourishing.

A "might makes right" ethos has pervaded human history from everyone from the Spartans to Putin's Russia.

Your claim that peaceful cooperation and nonviolence are just common sense and ingrained in humans is utterly inconsistent with human history.

 

[Cypress]

Science/scientists tend to avoid making moral judgements at nearly any cost. They want to explain why things are how they are, but won't tell you how things should be.

That doesn't mean that science CAN'T answer questions about human values and morality, it just means that scientists don't WANT to address the topic.

No, it means they can't address the topic, because the meaning of life, the purpose of a human life, the inherent value of life can't be answered by scientific experiments.

The mistake secular materialists make is to believe in a scientific fundamentalism, that science is the only source of truth and knowledge.

 

[ZenMode]

No, it means they can't address the topic, because the meaning of life, the purpose of a human life, the inherent value of life can't be answered by scientific experiments.

Meaning and purpose are different than morality. I'm talking about morality.

The mistake secular materialists make is to believe in a scientific fundamentalism, that science is the only source of truth and knowledge.

I'm not saying science is the only source of truth and knowledge. I'm saying that science CAN give moral direction, but scientists choose not to do so.

 

[WinterBorn]

I'm not here to "win" an argument I'm merely pointing out that there is nothing in the atheistic world view that says slavery is wrong.

I think you are dead wrong about that.

Being an atheist does not mean you immoral. In fact, for centuries Christians supported slavery, and even justified it by quoting the Bible.

 

[gmark77]

I think you are dead wrong about that.

Being an atheist does not mean you immoral. In fact, for centuries Christians supported slavery, and even justified it by quoting the Bible.

Unfortunately the poster has decreed that "slavery" in the Bible wasn't the "bad" kind, it was more like "indentured servitude".

That's the important thing about the Bible: it never says what it says unless it has to say something to support the believers personal philosophy.

The language of the Bible renders it completely unreadable by non-believers. The words mean nothing unless one reads them with "faith" at which point one can make them say anything one needs it to say.

 

[Cypress]

Meaning and purpose are different than morality. I'm talking about morality.

I'm not saying science is the only source of truth and knowledge. I'm saying that science CAN give moral direction, but scientists choose not to do so.

I'm highly dubious of any claims that science gives us morality.

Science doesn't even have an standard independent of human opinion to identify objective moral behavior and human flourishing.

The Nazi scientists thought eugenics, culling the weak, and devising ways to to eliminate the genetically inferior would be a great benefit to human flourishing.

German scientists thought developing and deploying chemical weapons in the trenches was a moral obligation to ensure the war supposedly ended quicker.

A scientist I admire for his moral clarity is Andre Sakharov.

But the bottom line is that scientists do not even agree on an objective moral standard which is independent of human opinion and culture, so using science as a moral compass makes no sense.

 

[ZenMode]

I'm highly dubious of any claims that science gives us morality.

Science doesn't even have an standard independent of human opinion to identify objective moral behavior and human flourishing.

The Nazi scientists thought eugenics, culling the weak, and devising ways to to eliminate the genetically inferior would be a great benefit to human flourishing.

German scientists thought developing and deploying chemical weapons in the trenches was a moral obligation to ensure the war supposedly ended quicker.

A scientist I admire for his moral clarity is Andre Sakharov.

But the bottom line is that scientists do not even agree on an objective moral standard which is independent of human opinion and culture, so using science as a moral compass makes no sense.

I think that scientists agree on a lot of things. I also think that very few have ever even approach the idea of considering a scientific approach to morality. That doesn't mean that they can't and doesn't mean that they won't agree on many things.

Look at it this way... When do we care about morality when it involves rocks? Do we care about morality when it comes to trees, stop signs, sidewalks, etc?

We don't, right? We care about morality when It comes to animals, but especially humans. What separates humans, dogs and cats from stones and trees? It's the fact that they have consciousness and can experience events, right?

 

[Ross Dolan]

Do you agree that there exists a general difference between a "good" life and a "bad" life?

If you're a woman in a fundamentalist Muslim country, who has had your clitoris cut out, is viewed as, at best, a second class citizen in your own society, is forced to live in a burlap sack, is disallowed from getting an education, has had has acid thrown on your face for trying to learn to read and are regularly beaten by your husband, would you say that is a worse life than (without going into comparable detail), being the wife of Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates?

You are attempting to reason with someone who hasn't the slightest notion of what "reason" is.

Kudos for the attempt, but it is like arguing with a brick.

 

[Cypress]

I think that scientists agree on a lot of things. I also think that very few have ever even approach the idea of considering a scientific approach to morality. That doesn't mean that they can't and doesn't mean that they won't agree on many things.

Look at it this way... When do we care about morality when it involves rocks? Do we care about morality when it comes to trees, stop signs, sidewalks, etc?

We don't, right? We care about morality when It comes to animals, but especially humans. What separates humans, dogs and cats from stones and trees? It's the fact that they have consciousness and can experience events, right?

If the universe is nothing but mindless physical forces and if we are nothing but collections of quarks and electrons, why do we care about mortality, or even assume it exists?

Sure it sucks to be a slave.
But it might be really great for the people who own slaves.

It sucks to be the disabled baby who is discarded as a burden to the society.
But it might be really great for the society who cannot afford the resources to sustain disabled people.

There is no literature in ancient Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Mayan which even remotely suggests those civilizations had the slightest qualms with slavery, human sacrifice, or infanticide.

'Might makes right' was the ethos widely practiced by humans for thousands of years.

 

[gmark77]

I think human morality is critically linked with our "theory of mind". Humans seem to be kind of unique in having a theory of mind in that we are able to understand that the OTHER PERSON has a brain and probably experiences life much the same way we do.

At that point things like "slavery" and "murder" become OBVIOUS "immoral acts" for anyone who doesn't, themselves, want to be enslaved or murdered.

I think this is probably why the "Golden Rule" is so consistent across societies and throughout history.

 

[ZenMode]

I'm highly dubious of any claims that science gives us morality.

Science doesn't even have an standard independent of human opinion to identify objective moral behavior and human flourishing.

The Nazi scientists thought eugenics, culling the weak, and devising ways to to eliminate the genetically inferior would be a great benefit to human flourishing.

German scientists thought developing and deploying chemical weapons in the trenches was a moral obligation to ensure the war supposedly ended quicker.

A scientist I admire for his moral clarity is Andre Sakharov.

But the bottom line is that scientists do not even agree on an objective moral standard which is independent of human opinion and culture, so using science as a moral compass makes no sense.

I think that scientists agree on a lot of things. I also think that very few have ever even approach the idea of considering a scientific approach to morality. That doesn't mean that they can't and doesn't mean that they won't agree on many things.

Look at it this way... When do we care about morality when it involves rocks? Do we care about morality when it comes to trees, stop signs, sidewalks, etc?

If the universe is nothing but mindless physical forces and if we are nothing but collections of quarks and electrons, why do we care about mortality, or even assume it exists?

The universe isn't mindless....hence this conversation.

Sure it sucks to be a slave.
But it might be really great for the people who own slaves.

If some gets true joy out of enslaving people, just for the sake of disallowing them freedom, that would likely fall under a mental illness of some sort.

It sucks to be the disabled baby who is discarded as a burden to the society.

Yes.

But it might be really great for the society who cannot afford the resources to sustain disabled people.

Sure. The question is whether or not there's a scientific basis for declaring that to be immoral.

There is no literature in ancient Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Mayan which even remotely suggests those civilizations had the slightest qualms with slavery, human sacrifice, or infanticide.

Right. Like many other things, including science, advancements have been made.

'Might makes right' was the ethos widely practiced by humans for thousands of years.

"Was". The question is whether or not that ethos can be shown to be objectively wrong by looking at things like the impact on those around the mighty and society in general.

 

[Cypress]

I think that scientists agree on a lot of things. I also think that very few have ever even approach the idea of considering a scientific approach to morality. That doesn't mean that they can't and doesn't mean that they won't agree on many things.

Look at it this way... When do we care about morality when it involves rocks? Do we care about morality when it comes to trees, stop signs, sidewalks, etc?

The universe isn't mindless....hence this conversation.

If some gets true joy out of enslaving people, just for the sake of disallowing them freedom, that would likely fall under a mental illness of some sort.

Yes.

Sure. The question is whether or not there's a scientific basis for declaring that to be immoral.

Right. Like many other things, including science, advancements have been made.

"Was". The question is whether or not that ethos can be shown to be objectively wrong by looking at things like the impact on those around the mighty and society in general.

The fact that you have such moral outrage about slavery is because you have adopted a Christian ethos, whether you are aware of it or not. Our culture's 2000 year experience with Christianity tends to make that completely unavoidable.

There's nothing wrong with slavery in a universe of blind physical forces and animals that are just collections of protons and electrons. It might suck to be a slave, but it might be great to be a master. You have no ultimate objective moral authority or foundation to point to justifying your moral outrage.

Nobody in the ancient Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Mayan world expressed the slightest discomfort with slavery, infanticide, human sacrifice. And that is proven by the literature and documentary evidence they left. You can't say they were all mentally ill. You can say in a pre-Christian era, 'might makes right' was the prevailing ethos, and it was never thought that all human beings had inherent value and dignity.

The first literature in human history that taught all humans have inherent value and are all worthy of dignity was the early Christian literature. It was also the first literature that advocated for the humane treatment of slaves, or freeing them. Christian theological writing also did not end after the first century. Augustine specifically wrote that slavery was a sin that was contrary to Gods intent.

The bottom line is the first literature in ancient history that could be cited by those opposed to oppression and inequity was Christian literature - not Mesopotamian, Greek, Egyptian, Assyrian, or Mayan literature.

 

[ZenMode]

The fact that you have such moral outrage about slavery is because you have adopted a Christian ethos, whether you are aware of it or not. Our culture's 2000 year experience with Christianity tends to make that completely unavoidable.

I've never associated Christianity with being anti-slavery. The Bible doesn't even take a stand against slavery and the South, which was very Christian, fought to keep slavery.

There's nothing wrong with slavery in a universe of blind physical forces and animals that are just collections of protons and electrons. It might suck to be a slave, but it might be great to be a master. You have no ultimate objective moral authority or foundation to point to justifying your moral outrage.

The collections of protons, electrons, etc somehow equate to consciousness. In a world where there is consciousness, and external events that impact conscious creatures, there's an awareness of what does or doesn't contribute to the well-being of those creatures.

Nobody in the ancient Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Mayan world expressed the slightest discomfort with slavery, infanticide, human sacrifice. And that is proven by the literature and documentary evidence they left. You can't say they were all mentally ill. You can say in a pre-Christian era, 'might makes right' was the prevailing ethos, and it was never thought that all human beings had inherent value and dignity.

The first literature in human history that taught all humans have inherent value and are all worthy of dignity was the early Christian literature. It was also the first literature that advocated for the humane treatment of slaves, or freeing them. Christian theological writing also did not end after the first century. Augustine specifically wrote that slavery was a sin that was contrary to Gods intent.

The bottom line is the first literature in ancient history that could be cited by those opposed to oppression and inequity was Christian literature - not Mesopotamian, Greek, Egyptian, Assyrian, or Mayan literature.

Right. Ancient civilization did a lot of things that are unacceptable by today's standards. Early Christians used to hold trials for animals and execute them in some cases. The existence of past bad ideas isn't really relevant to the question of science and morality.

 

[gmark77]

The fact that you have such moral outrage about slavery is because you have adopted a Christian ethos

That is interesting because the Bible, the source of Christian thought and teaching, is actually reasonably "ok" with slavery. There's virtually nothing within the Gospels that would indicate slavery is a moral evil. Even in the Old Testament slavery seems to be acceptable (except for the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt which is a grave insult to God).

I think what is shows is that no religious philosophy can necessarily be counted on to be a "moral guide" anymore than just random people's thoughts.

, whether you are aware of it or not. Our culture's 2000 year experience with Christianity tends to make that completely unavoidable.

This is true. It becomes very hard to parse out the impact of two millennia of a philosophy being presented as our common moral truth and that which we would naturally revert to without the Bible or religious texts/traditions.

But even then our "Christian tradition" is largely "made up" and not present in the BIble as it regards things like "slavery". Slavery is accepted in the Bible and even carries with it obligations for the enslaved.

Our moral disgust at slavery actually comes from a deeper place within us: that part where we realize that the person we are enslaving is a person just like us and we wouldn't enjoy being enslaved.

I think a lot of our moral inclinations come from a deeper part of our experience as humans rather than some arbitrary "holy book" which is so unclear on many points that it requires additional exegesis to formulate a workable rubric.

There's nothing wrong with slavery in a universe of blind physical forces and animals that are just collections of protons and electrons. It might suck to be a slave, but it might be great to be a master. You have no ultimate objective moral authority or foundation to point to justifying your moral outrage.

And that's really the kind of morality humans have. One's religion NEVER stops one from doing whatever evil is truly in their heart. They simply make up a justification.

Take America's current problem with "guns". We are dying by classroom full because we value "living by the sword". The Bible actually has a very good reference to Jesus himself telling people to put up again thy sword into its sheath because those who live by the sword will die by the sword. That's pretty clear language and would make a truly "Christian" nation abandoning anything even remotely like the massive gun ownership we currently have.

But the same Bible also has the same guy, Jesus, saying he did not come to bring peace but to bring a sword (obviously metaphorical) so the justification exists for those who wish to honor Jesus' preaching of love and peace but also keeping strapped.

Nobody in the ancient Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Mayan world expressed the slightest discomfort with slavery,

And very few in the Antebellum South would either.

infanticide, human sacrifice.

Yet, ironically, Christianity is founded based on human sacrifice. The final "scapegoat" was required to atone man to God.

The first literature in human history that taught all humans have inherent value and are all worthy of dignity was the early Christian literature. It was also the first literature that advocated for the humane treatment of slaves, or freeing them.

That makes it sound like the BIble is clearly anti-slavery. And as has been shown many times now, that is simply not true.

Christian theological writing also did not end after the first century. Augustine specifically wrote that slavery was a sin that was contrary to Gods intent.

Latter exegesis on the writings in the Bible is a perfect example of the human-nature of religion. It is the later writers and thinkers like Paul or the Church Fathers who actually "created" the faith from the scraps of often disjointed and contradictory philosophies.

In some aspects one could ask: why did Augustine need to write anything about the evil of slavery? It should have been manifestly clear in the "original" (ie the holy texts).

Subsequent theology and exegesis is just that: subsequent.

We all agree today that slavery is bad, but a first century Christian would not necessarily have thought that. As is evidenced by the writings of the time and directly from the primary holy books themselves.