I am not assuming that atheists TODAY are amoral -they are reared in a world where morality already exists. I am saying that if atheism had been the human norm and man never had religious beliefs and the belief that life had greater purpose than this earthly existence -man could not and would not have EVER developed morality. A species that is ALWAYS atheistic cannot possibly develop a sense of right and wrong since no such thing exists. If life has no meaning and is purposeless, then there is no such thing as a "wrong" act committed by any life form -including man. Just as there is no "right and wrong" about it when a male lion kills the young of all females when it takes over the pride. Just like there is no "right or wrong" about it when a female black widow spider kills its mate right after mating. It just IS.
You are wrong to think morality is merely the product of reason. There are several species with the ability to reason and on a very complex level that rivals that of humans. Yet have never developed a sense of morality and never will. Reason did not result in morality because while the ability to reason does contribute to the survival and propagation of the species -morality does not.
Count on an atheist to try and cut out the role religious belief actually played in yet one more part of human history - when in fact it had everything to do with it.
Did you actually read what you wrote? You are saying exactly what I've said before. Humans are hardwired with the need to worship something greater than themselves. Unlike all other species on earth -and in spite of the fact that there are other species that rival humans for both intelligence and reasoning abilities, man is the only species so hardwired. They are because it makes it easier for man to ultimately find God who did not intend it to be difficult. Choosing to be an atheist isn't a "progression" -except to the atheist who deludes himself it endows him with some kind of intellectual superiority.
Since the overwhelming vast majority of humans believe in some kind of Supreme Being -atheism is actually an aberration. Evidence has been found that even among the most rudimentary bands of humans struggling daily for mere survival and without the luxury of sitting around and "contemplating their place in the universe" felt that need to find God just as much as a more advanced culture that had far more free time on their hands.
I have to laugh at that one. For atheists -there is no real meaning to life beyond a sense of self and nothing more. To listen to an atheist try and explain the "meaning" of life to me when the fact they are an atheist already means they believe it has no real meaning at all is a joke. It doesn't mean an atheist cannot live a good and prosperous life, or doesn't desire to leave behind well-adjusted, productive children and to be remembered by at least the following generation as well. But an atheist is essentially saying that no matter how he lived his own life, even if he left behind happy descendants -in the end it had no greater meaning than if his mother had aborted him shortly before birth. For an atheist, its "you are born, you live and you die" -whatever you fill up that in-between time doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Whether a person filled it up with really good and moral behavior or that of a violent criminal instead -in the end it doesn't matter.
First of all -no one was claiming moral superiority in this discussion. At no time did I even suggest that all atheists have worse morals than someone with religious beliefs.
But you mistakenly assume that those who believe in God think they HAVE to as if it couldn't possibly be a rational decision or do for weird reasons like they just couldn't deal with life without that "crutch" or are afraid of dying, etc. All while the atheist pats himself on the back pretending their decision to be an atheist was this well thought out process and decision requiring all sorts of rational decision-making and critical thinking skills of the highest level and represents a "progression"! LOL Not true. I was an atheist from the time I was a teenager until my mid-30s. It didn't take me long at all to decide I was an atheist and I didn't spend any time thinking about how I even made that decision for the next 20 years. Whereas I spent far more time using far more critical thinking skills than I ever employed in my initial decision to be an atheist before becoming a Christian.
But as an atheist, I did spend plenty of time doing the exact same kind of mocking and insulting so many atheists do here about those with religious beliefs. I held the same incredibly smug, self-righteous and arrogant belief that because I didn't believe in God, it somehow made me FAR more intelligent and rational than those idiot God-believing fools. I referred to it as a "fairy tale" and even said on numerous occasions that the Virgin birth was the "world's greatest hoax". So there isn't anything any atheist can say here now that I hadn't already said to someone else when I was one. I will tell you the mocking and insulting isn't going to sway someone from their faith. The only thing I feel whenever one of you does it, is shame that I once said similar things with that same arrogance and smugness.
But having experienced both atheism and Christianity as a full grown, highly educated and very intelligent adult -I know something now that I didn't know when I decided to "progress" to atheism. Atheism is just a form of narcissism. And is never a measure of intelligence and rational thinking whatsoever.
Atheism as the norm – humans would never have developed morality (paraphrased).
Let me deal with that claim first.
Morality – and I suppose we need to agree terminology – is about what’s right, what’s good, what’s just. That takes a social context. If I am a lone individual in nature then nothing is inherently right or wrong, it just is. Whatever is best for me is what I want. Since I’m a lone individual in nature I’m not accountable in any way to anyone else. I don’t need to think about morality. I only need to do what’s best for me.
But if IÂ’m not a lone individual in nature and I am living with other humans then we need to work out a code of conduct between us. So, after trial and error and communication between individuals we work out a code of conduct.
Let me take one aspect.
LetÂ’s say that the first rule is that we agree not to try and kill each other. Where does that come from? It comes from reason. It makes sense to have a code that says that the members of my in-group will not kill each other. Every individual benefits from that and the in-group itself is strengthened. We did that by reason, we didnÂ’t get it from a deity.
WeÂ’re primitive, we have no means of healing illness or disease or injury behind the extremely rudimentary. We live at a subsistence level, we are nomadic hunter-gatherers. If someone gets sick and they canÂ’t travel with us then will leave them to die. Is that amoral or is it moral? ItÂ’s a form of primitive utilitarianism. It has not been handed to us by a deity, we worked it out using reason
We’ve worked out that killing someone from our in-group is not beneficial to individual or group. We prohibit it. Let’s call it “wrong”.
But allowing a member of our in-group to die so that the group can improve its chances of survival – as a group and as an aggregate of individuals – is not prohibited because that custom ensures survival of the greater number. We can do it. Let’s call it “right”.
IÂ’m wrong that morality is the product of reason (paraphrased).
Your reference to the behaviour of lions or black widow spiders is a reference to instinct. Instinct exists in all sentient beings. Instinct has no connection with morality. Animals without the brainpower of humans (as a species) donÂ’t reason, they act out of instinct. Humans reason because of the large cerebral cortex.
You mentioned that there are several species with the ability to reason in manner that rivals humans. IÂ’m not convinced by that claim and I ask you to produce evidence for it.
Humans are not an “atheist” species (paraphrased)
I know what I wrote because I thought about it before I wrote it.
I said there was a religious impulse in humans. That religious impulse is a product of that big cerebral cortex again. Do you think any other animal goes through the sort of existential angst of which humans are capable? Have you ever seen a primate other than homo sapiens wondering about its place in the universe?
That ability to wonder about the universe is a mental ability unique to humans. Religious belief is a hypothesis created by humans as a result of that unique mental ability. Other animals havenÂ’t produced signs of having a religious impulse. Other animals donÂ’t have the cerebral cortex that humans have. See the possible connection there?
“Why am I here?” “What/who created all this?” These are questions produced from reason. It must be because of a deity, is a hypothesis produced from reason.
The belief that there are deities who created everything is a hypothesis widely shared across time and space by humans. All humans have a large cerebral cortex. That large cerebral cortex allows thinking in abstract forms. We, unlike other species, have the power of wonder. We also have the power to provide answers to quell that wonder.
In Australian Aboriginal dreaming stories there are hypotheses for everything observable and some things which arenÂ’t observable. That mountain range was created when a huge snake came down from the heavens and wriggled around in the mud and threw up huge tracts of earth which hardened and became mountains. We might treat that explanation as implausible because we have our own hypotheses about how those mountains were created (we derived those hypotheses from observation using the scientific method). But in both cases the hypotheses have been created because of the human ability to think.
Atheism as an aberration (paraphrased)
There have always been those who didnÂ’t believe whatever the dominant culture told them was their religion. There has been an improvement. These days atheists arenÂ’t executed for their non-belief.
For atheists there is no real meaning to life.
You’ve had a whine about atheists being arrogant or feeling superior to religious people. In that paragraph you revealed much about yourself. None of it was pleasant. You may defend that attitude on the basis that you are a reformed atheist. It doesn’t wash. You have treated atheists with the same contempt you allege they treat religious people. That breaches one of the oldest moral laws among humans which precedes Christianity’s stricture to “do unto others”. It’s called the ethic of reciprocity – the golden rule. See my reference to the in-group making a rule about not killing each other. I think the oldest religious reference I can find to this in Hinduism. It’s apparent that this possibly oldest of examples of human morality was derived from non-religious reason and absorbed into a whole series of religions. It supports my argument that morality is produced from reason.
Atheism is just a form of narcissism
Atheism is an absence of religion. Narcissism is a minor personality disorder. YouÂ’ll need to explain the connection.
You also claim that atheism, “is never a measure of intelligence and rational thinking…”. I’d agree with that. Atheism is not believing in a deity.
When I made the point about human progression I was making a generalised statement. YouÂ’ve had a post where you pretty much smeared atheists so in keeping with the ethic of reciprocity let me hand some back.
Humans have produced the hypothesis of religion in response to the sense of awe felt when they were able to think about themselves as something more than an animal functioning on instinct.
Religion grew out of superstition. There was thunder and lightning. That must have meant a superior being in the sky was angry (superstitious hypothesis), better stay out of the way of that lightning (rational response).
If the crops failed then the local gods must be cranky (superstitious hypothesis) so it was necessary to kill a few maidens to appease them so next year there would be crops (irrational response). But then science comes along and says, “hmmmm – you had an insect blight in your harvest, sacrificing maidens won’t do much to prevent that but you could develop an insecticide” (superstitious hypothesis dismantled, scientific hypothesis in its place which leads to a rational and effective response).
ItÂ’s called human progress. IÂ’m not arguing that an individual atheist is superior to a religious person. Having spoken to a few Jesuits I would never, ever hold that position.
But IÂ’m arguing that as humans understand more about the universe then religion will be seen to be an inhibiting factor in the quest for the truth and will, of necessity, wither away as we discover more and more truth about our universe.
In a way the deity hypothesis is far too simple. It’s a hypothesis that stretches back many thousands of years. “This is all here because a deity (pick a deity, any deity) put it here.” The truth is probably very different and the answer might be much, much more than “a deity did it”. Humans are looking for those amazing answers. Elephants are looking for food and water. But if we’d never found the ability to question the deity hypothesis then we would be content to agree that “a deity did it” and be happy with that. For better or worse, our ability to reason, our rationality, has enabled us both to invent morality and to seek to know the universe.
