I'm a young-earth Christian theist. For a long time I've been trying to wrap my mind around certain things atheists say, and I wonder if people here can help me out.
Supposing that God does not exist, and I want to live an upstanding, moral life in such an environment, I can see only 2 options before me. Either I must decide morality for myself or I must learn it from somewhere else. Now there are obvious ethical and social issues that individual morality brings, so I'm assuming that most atheists would say morals are a combination of learned behavior and instinct. In other words, human society decides.
Now if this is the case, then we have to ask what part of society decides morality. Some people in human society believe homosexuality is wrong and others don't. How do I choose?
I believe the logical answer is to say that society at large decides. In other words, the majority. This brings problems though, because the majority of people are theists, and would argue that not believing in God is a punishable offense. In which case atheists, to be consistent, should admit that their views are immoral. On top of this, there is almost always universal outrage when a majority decides to kill off a minority group. This indicates that we do not fully trust a majority of society to teach us morality.
Perhaps instead we do learn it from society, but we discern true good with our evolution-bestowed instincts. In which case we are faced with the question of which instincts to follow. According to evolution, we have both the instincts to rape and dominate as well as the instinct to help one another. And we are not closer to reasoning our way to why one is better.
This leads to the final conundrum. If the universe is entirely material, then everything that exists, every choice, thought, and word, is all just chemistry. The universe is a giant flux of molecules behaving as the physical laws dictate. In which case neither atheists nor theists technically believe anything. We and our thoughts are simply chemicals, and it's impossible to judge whether one particular string of reactions is any more reasonable or moral than another. We can't say that the universe is behaving irrationally there and not here. Every belief and action is a product of natural law. And besides all this, it's impossible for us to evaluate any ideas for the same reasons a computer programmed to say that 2+2=5 cannot evaluate the validity of the program. One thought is as natural and chemical as the next. In this case, any debate can be stopped by one party saying "Well I don't see it that way," since his reasoning is as valid as anyone else's.
However, to believe these things flies in the face of all the total of human experience, both sensually and intellectually observed. We do use moral boundaries and we can evaluate ideas. Every book written is a testament to human rationale. To believe in a closed-system universe is to bear the weight of all the data ever amassed. And isn't that a sign of a poor worldview?
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Instinct to rape? That's silliness. There is an instinct the breed. They are very different things. If you actually think you are holding some instinct to rape at bay only by employing some set of rules granted to you by some god, then you are frightening indeed.
Some of your points are interesting. Morality is derived from our culture, what our parents teach us, and personal perception. Given that your bible was written by people, for people, many of the things in it are not moral at all from an atheist stand point. It truly is about perception and empathy, and not much else.
In regards to the first comment, everything we do has to have root in some instinct if we are purely material products of evolution. We are driven by our evolution and our chemistry, whether we are raping someone or helping them. Unless you are advocating free will, in which case you believe in an agent that is not wholly material. That opens interesting doors that I think you would rather keep shut. Also, I nowhere stated that I need a God to restrain me from doing something bad. My question was: given a materialistic worldview, how can you say what bad even is? If morals and reason are different from person to person, as they must be in a purely material, chemical universe, how can you make any statements and expect to be understood or evaluated? Your beliefs are merely a chemical reaction as are mine. How can you say one is "better"? It's all just the universe interacting.
To the second comment, you are still not seeing the implications of your premise. If morality is up to an individual's environment and empathy levels, over which we have no control in a chemical universe, then why do you stand for any causes at all? It's not like we have any choice in our actions. In order to be consistent, you must believe that there are no problems in the world, since the flux of chemical reactions that make up the universe can't be judged morally, rationally, or even on a line of progress. Especially not by the chemicals themselves.
So I'm still trying to figure it out: how do we reconcile these necessary implications of atheism with reality, where we do say things and evaluate ideas objectively?
Your first sentence is off as is your second one. There are people who do not rape...who would never rape. There are fewer (thank goodness!) who do rape. Both of these people are the product of the same biological evolution. Based on that, we might extrapolate that the rapists do so, not out of instinct (else they would not be a minority), but out of either how they were nurtured or a abnormal biological condition.
Contrary to your suggestion, it's very easy for me to say what is bad...as it is a personal perspective, for all of us...including you. Fortunately, we have evolved to be social creatures and that requires a fairly consistent view of what is required to survive as a social species.
There are no two people who have a carbon copy of the other's thoughts. That is because of the way synapses are built, maintained, changed, and torn down in the brain. My thoughts are electro-chemical. It's not 'mere' either. It's a-fucking-mazing!
You mention morals. What are they? A code of conduct? Every species has a code of conduct...wolves, chimps, ants. It is one of the things that keeps a species going.
Are you talking about measuring our morality? It's a concept, not measurable by physical means obviously. It's all in our perception, our culture. Maybe, in an alien world, murder is perfectly acceptable. Justifiable even. Maybe they see it as positively keeping the balance of their world, while jailing others is absolutely immoral, and punishing them for such actions is even more so. Our world is small, our minds even more so.
Hmm, You get your morals from an understanding of reality and not an assertion of authority.
This might be hard for you to understand.
To make it simple, just imagine one of the worst possible things, then compare it to the rest.
EG:
Eternal torture for everybody.
Then build a table and compare which is worst.
Death is better then 'eternal torture'
'Holiday on the beach' is better then 'Eternal torture'
'Holiday on the beach' is much better then death is to Eternal torture'.
And so on and so forth.
This way you can build your morality from an understanding of reality and not because some book says so.
This way we arrived at getting rid of slavery much before any book said so.
So it works.
I'm talking about understanding the world. Atheists seem to believe they can make objectively reasonable statements about the world, when the very worldview they advocate necessitates the subjectivity of reason. In fact, beliefs and ideas are chemicals which are not measurably "reasonable." Why is one person more unreasonable than another in anything he says or does? Everything is equal and immeasurable. The term "reason" itself becomes meaningless. Why do you insist on using a world where objectivity is possible while you maintain a position that necessitates subjective reason? Why do you think we can know anything? You are part of a giant ongoing reaction. There is no outside the system from which to know things about the system. We're bits in the computer. Our minds are worse than just small. They are closed reactions driven by laws that we are doomed from understanding objectively.
Now as I said, we could just pool our collective understanding of the universe to find common patterns of thinking and just decide that the majority decides reason, but we'd quickly find that the majority are theists. I'm just not sure what your basis is for trusting what you think of as reason over what someone else seems to be reasonable.
you are making absurd statements on purpose?
Objectivity is something in your head.
drill it out before your name becomes Objectivity.
We are subjective beings, we adapt and learn more with time. That is why we had slaver before and it was fine for god(the person who invented god) and now it is not fine anymore.
We are subjective to new knowledge.
The majority rules has nothing to do with morality.
I might be morally correct alone in this world and everybody thinks wrongly.
Morality has to do with an understanding of reality, in some cases only few might have that understanding.
You are insisting on the majority because it suits your argument not because you want to learn and it pisses people off.
.Morality does not objectively exits, it is a human construct we use to subjectively describe actions.
It all comes down to whether you believe there is objective truth or not. If there is, then morality is not just a human construct, if there isnt, then yes, morality is just a human construct.
Precisely, Ellie.
You are still completely missing the point. I'm not talking about morality. I'm saying that if one person understands reality one way, and another understands it a different way, because all of our thoughts are just chemicals, we can't say which is more reasonable or true. That's like saying that oxidation is more reasonable than photosynthesis. My chemical reactions lead me to believe in God. Yours lead you to be an atheist. On what basis do you judge which is better or more correct?
On the basis of understanding reality.
The current knowledge is the same so morality should be approximately the same unless one choose to shut down a part of his brain that enables him to "judge which is better or more correct"(morality)
If you let someone else do the thinking for you(a book) your moral standards are not updated(2000 years old), your chemicals are just expired.
You are the one not missing the point.
because all of our thoughts are just chemicals, we can't say which is more reasonable or true-
So, your presupposition is that our neurology is made of chemicals we cannot make decisions on what's the most beneficial choice.
Edit: Missing the point*
"On the basis of understanding reality"? That's the problem. There are as many understandings of reality as there are people. One person believes that a God exists with certain moral standards, and another believes in no God and has different moral standards. Even with morals aside, there is no way to judge which understanding is more in alignment with reality. Whatever you think you know about reality is programmed into your brain by a random, predetermined process if chemical reactions. Same as me. How is anybody's understanding of reality worse than someone else's when it's all just natural chemistry?
And no, we can't choose the most beneficial choice because we have no grounds to ascertain what is beneficial. Beneficial implies a goal we're working towards, but if we disagree on the goal, there is again no way to judge between them since all ideas are equally natural processes. If evolution has programmed me to believe in God and has programmed you to not believe, how can we judge which is more right? There is only what is.
Nothing has programmed you except the brainwashing of your religion when you were a kid.
Understanding reality is a process that grows with you, it learns, it adapts based on new knowledge.
Religion is a process that remains the same, dogmatic since you must follow what a 2000 year old book is saying.
If you cannot see the difference that one is pushing you to learn for yourself and the other is hindering your natural brain function by stopping you from even accepting that more knowledge is beneficial for you, then there is nothing to talk about.
You are just too far gone to be able to understand basic logic.
Religion main objective is to create mindless slaves to its theology. You would only show that you are just an other victim of this child mental abuse cult.
Jeff you seem to harbor some real animosity toward Christianity. May i know what you believe in then? And dont give me a smart alecky answer like, i dont believe in God. Stand up and be counted, if you put down one one claim or belief then by extension you are defending its antithesis.
I do not hide that I am an anti theists.
Anti-theists is a person that not only lacks belief like an atheist but also thinks that theism is harmful for society.
Just like drug abuse.
I can appreciate your sentiment but i think you're confusing things. Theism is not harmful for society, what IS harmful is when organized religion abuses its power in exherting influence on the peoples. Be it radical muslims or fanatical pharisee like christians, all of them are a misrepresentation of what following God is really like.
I know that the church, as an institution since its inception, has done horrible things, unspeakable things even. But Gods true people have throughout history done great things for humanity. Stretching back to the great scientists of the past like Bruno, Keplar, Galileo, and Newton, who all contributed so greatly to the steady march of science for the betterment of mankind; to Albert Einstein, who contrary to popular belief was not atheist, and Francis Collins the head of the human genome project that first mapped out human DNA, all these scientists admitted their admiration and wonder at the Creator and his creation and cited that as an inspiration in many cases for their work.
Not only that but Gods people who really do his will and have done so throughout history have brought untold good to the world as well. Hospitals, charities, missionaries, schools, all over the world reaching millions upon millions of people.
You see Jeff, a creator exists. This much i know and can logically and philosophically prove to you at the very least. And he's left us instructions on what he wants us to do. You see he put EEEEVVVERYthing we needed to know about him and how to follow him in this book called the bible, im sure you've heard of it. Now heres the crux of my argument so pay close attention.
All of the negative things that you can think of to blame on theism, come as a result of basically not following the Creator the way one is supposed to. When one misinterprets the Bible, or worse, doesnt really even study it let alone know it, any manner of results can occur. Thats why things like the inquisition and the crusades happened. Thats why you get sorry excuses for Christians who do nothing but step all over our Lords name. But when one lets himself truly be guided by the spirit and really begins to seek truth, it will surely be revealed to him.
Jeremiah 29:13 KJV
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
This all leads not to harm for society but good.
It all boils down to this really. The harm for society that you attribute to theism, is really a result of not following the Creator, the way He wants.
"what IS harmful is when organized religion abuses its power in exherting influence on the peoples. Be it radical muslims or fanatical pharisee like christians, all of them are a misrepresentation of what following God is really like."
"radical muslims or fanatical pharisee" say the same about people like you, that you have "a misrepresentation of what following God is really like"
I know that the churchNazi, as an institution since its inception, has done horrible things, unspeakable things even. But Gods Nazi true people have throughout history done great things for humanity.
They have united some countries to work together, showed the world the power of the nukes and not to use them, they had improved our military and technology.
War brings advances in technology that in the end we all profit from.
Yes, i am doing exactly what you are doing, ignoring all the evil a theistic religion does and looking at the good parts.
Trust me the Nazi were way better then the church in their time, way better.
At least we did not see entire burning alive of entire villages, children, babies and animals because a few of the villagers had a different opinion about the same Nazi version.
When one misinterprets the Bible, or worse, doesn't really even study it let alone know it, any manner of results can occur.
You are the one misinterpreting it , according to the people you call radicals.
Why is your option more relevant?
I am an atheist, and my opinion has no bias since I read the book without belief in the book.
There are some parts that can be stretched to make God or Jesus a good guy(not that he is) but the OT God is clearly an evil dude.
Your bias interpretation of that book is wrong, I have read the bible and can quote which parts you want listed as showing how evil your god is.
Also most of the people you mentioned where not theists by any standards but at that time if they weren't they would not have achieved what they did because the church was cutting heads in those periods, ask Galileo.
Also it doesn't matter how many theists there were, what matters is the theology, if it is wrong , it is wrong.
"You see Jeff, a creator exists. This much i know and can logically and philosophically prove to you at the very least."
Yea, I would like to see that lol.
"All of the negative things that you can think of to blame on theism, come as a result of basically not following the Creator the way one is supposed to."
LOL If we follow what God orders without first using your bias then we would kill people that work on Sunday.
Also kill or banish homosexuals.(god ordered both in the OT)
etc...
How about Jesus supporting slavery and telling slaves, not to rebel against their masters for their rights but obey their master no matter what.
How about when jesus says:
Luke 14:26
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple."
Follow that without your bias, of wanting that Hate means something else(your bias).
can you blame radicals for interpreting this literally
If someone is to blame for all the hate, is Jesus for not preaching clearly and let people use his words as they want to get whatever message they want.
Oh maybe that was the intention after all since god knew this from the start since he is omniscient right?
Jeff is trying to bring you to your senses by convincing you to acknowledge a portion of your brain is devoid of reason due to religious indoctrination. I doubt you can be helped, but others watching the discussions may benefit from your faults. You’re going to waste your life as a sycophant to a non-existent Bronze Age deity..
Wonderstuck, do you understand how the brain works? Go to the library and check out a couple of books about neuroscience.
How is anybody's understanding of reality worse than someone else's when it's all just natural chemistry?-
If it needlessly harms you or others, if it hinders your autonomy of body, and so on. its called survival and to pretend that is hasn't help you and all of us clever primates survive is intellectually dishonest.
More importantly your premise that because of what our brains are made of means that no decision can be judge as more beneficial than another person's, if accepted, would render your thoughts on any subject useless.
"Supposing that God does not exist, and I want to live an upstanding, moral life in such an environment, I can see only 2 options before me. Either I must decide morality for myself or I must learn it from somewhere else."
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. Supposing a god does exist, you still have those same options. They do not depend on the existence or non-existence of a deity.
"Some people in human society believe homosexuality is wrong and others don't. How do I choose?"
Weigh the reasoning. Those who claim homosexuality is wrong should be able to provide rational reasons and verifiable evidence of harm. The most important factor is that the claims and reasoning should hold under scrutiny. If you want to decide who is right, you really need to understand various logical fallacies so you can evaluate arguments and dismiss unsound conclusions. Several claims you make in this thread indicate that you could benefit from additional study of propositional logic before you try to choose which is right. To do the job right, you must equip yourself with the right tools.
"According to evolution, we have both the instincts to rape and dominate as well as the instinct to help one another. And we are not closer to reasoning our way to why one is better."
So when you see people in need, are you seriously unable to reason whether it would be better to help or rape them? That palm print on my face probably will fade in a day or two. I hope you are exaggerating for effect.
"The universe is a giant flux of molecules behaving as the physical laws dictate. In which case neither atheists nor theists technically believe anything."
Again, your conclusion does not follow from your premise. All thoughts are an emergent property resulting from electrochemical activity. This doesn't mean that technically people don't think anything. Of course we do. Beliefs are just a specific category of thoughts.
"In this case, any debate can be stopped by one party saying "Well I don't see it that way," since his reasoning is as valid as anyone else's."
No, not all reasoning is equally valid. An entire branch of philosophy is dedicated to structured propositional logic. There are books and courses out there. If you are willing to look into it, this information would give you better tools to answer the questions you are raising.
Why do christians all assume there was no morality before christianity. We have written records going back 15000 years many civilisations recorded rules that they lived by. Christianity is only 2000 years old so written moral laws older than 2000 years PROVE beyond a shadow of doubt christianity DID NOT invent morality.
Infact christianity devolved morality with detestable rules like leviticus.
You mentioned mans 'instinct to rape' total nonsense but brings up a point your god endorsed and even ordered rape.
Your god endorsed slavery.
Your god slaughtered millions and ordered mass murders.
Your god hates homosexuals and the disabled or deformed.
So how is it you think your barbaric morality is better than societies.
I dont lie cheat steal kill or rape because of empathy i would not like it to happen to me so i dont do it to others.
You only do moral things dictated to you by a 2000 year old book and because your scared of god. Thus you are not moral.
I have nowhere stated that morals came from Christianity. The only time I mentioned God at all was to explain that this argument is within the bounds of a godless universe. That you believe yourself to be a moral being and the fact that you behave morally does not contradict my views, but exemplifies them. For your clarification, one of the Bible's premises is that man naturally exists in a morally aware state. Anyone who says otherwise does not know the teachings of the Bible. And anyone who argues against the Bible in this way is using a straw-man argument. We are in agreement that man has always had morals. It's a tenet of my faith.
But I'm not discussing only morals at this point. I'm going to try and ask my question more simply, in the form of short statements:
1. If the universe is entirely material, then at the most fundamental level, everything can be explained chemically as dictated by natural laws.
2. There can't be such a thing as an "unreasonable" chemical reaction. Or an immoral one for that matter. One doesn't go to a lab and discuss how one mixture is unreasonable as compared to another.
3. Human thought, as part of the universe, is fundamentally chemical reactions. Therefore, there can be no "unreasonable" human thought. It's all natural. Theistic thoughts are chemistry just like atheistic ones. They are explainable and natural. In fact, the very thought that we can evaluate ideas is simply another reaction which can't be evaluated. The idea that we should preserve ourselves is merely a chemical reaction like the idea that we should fly planes into buildings. We are all dead chemicals reacting. Dead chemicals are not rational beings.
4. Summary: Thoughts are simply products of a chemical universe. How can one product of the universe be wrong while another is right? A non-sentient universe with no intentions can make no mistakes. It has produced theists and atheists. To insist that a universe ought not produce theistic beliefs is philosophically absurd. We have no say in the matter.
Wonderstruck, there are some fair points you pull up. There is still a lot of research to be done on the human brain/mind before we can understand it better. A lot needs to be uncovered before your questions can be addressed fairer. This could lead us down the merry path of god filling in the gaps argument or science not being able to explain everything but lets not bother with that tedious argument and have the humility to admit we don't understand a complex matter. Anyone in a position of religious authority never likes to say 'I don't know the answer' but I wouldn't trust someone who claims to have all the answers without any evidence. Are we just biological computers with an approximate expiration date? Who knows? No-one at the moment. So far you can debate the question in philosophical terms or within the perameters of your own religious belief rather than any solid scientific facts. I would like to think that we are slowly peeling away at the answers and we will have more info in time.
"2. There can't be such a thing as an "unreasonable" chemical reaction. Or an immoral one for that matter. One doesn't go to a lab and discuss how one mixture is unreasonable as compared to another."
Right, because we are discussing ideas, which we can subject to the rules of logic. The fact that those ideas emerged from chemical reactions is irrelevant. That's like saying you can't evaluate the hydrodynamics of metal ships because metal is a natural material.
"3. Human thought, as part of the universe, is fundamentally chemical reactions. Therefore, there can be no "unreasonable" human thought."
Non-sequitur. The reasonableness of a thought does not depend on its physical origin. If you think it does, show the dependency.
"Thoughts are simply products of a chemical universe. How can one product of the universe be wrong while another is right?"
Again, show your work. If you are going to imply that determining whether an idea is right or wrong is impossible because it is the product of a universe, you need to explain how the physical origin of an idea impacts its logical validity.
"To insist that a universe ought not produce theistic beliefs is philosophically absurd."
Nobody here insisted that a universe ought not produce theistic beliefs, so this philosophical absurdity is one you brought to the table. Even so, the way you sent all that straw flying was impressive.
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