Morality and ethics
As to the question of whether atheists can make absolute moral statements, this is tantamount to the first year theology student who, when asked, “Do you believe in infant baptism?” responded, “Sure I do; I’ve seen it done.” Yes, atheists can make any statements about anything at all--the question is: are the statements viable? [emphasis in original
this is pretty stupid. anyone can make statements about anything, and the same question has to be asked.
Atheists make epistemic statements about morality but do not provide an ontological premise for ethics. [Footnote: Epistemology refers to the study of the nature of knowledge; what it is, and its scope/limitations., etc. Ontology refers to the study of the nature of being, existence, or reality in general. (emphasis in original)] That is to say that they can muse upon issues of morality and come to any conclusion that they please. However, these turn out to be arbitrary personal preferences that are expressed as dogmatic assertions.
I'm not quite sure about the epistemological/ontological whatnot, but since we do not look to a higher power for a source of morality, we perhaps do make arbitrary statements on morality. but who's to say religious people don't do the same? if it turns out that deities don't really exist, then their morality also simply comprises "arbitrary personal preferences."
“Q.E.D.” is the Latin term quod erat demonstrandum which means “that which was to be demonstrated,” in other words; tautology or circular logic. [Concerning Darwinian evolution of morality.]
just plain bull! that is the literal Latin meaning, but it is supposed to mean that the original statement that was set out to be proven has been proven. for example, to prove the Pythagorean theorem, you would first have to state what exactly you must prove, that the square of the length of the hypotenuse (longest side) hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of each of the lengths of the other two sides. you would them set out to prove it, and once you reach the conclusion identical to the first, you write "Q.E.D."
Another supposed basis for ethics is that “an action is unethical/immoral if it causes harm to others.” Thus, it is the nature of the consequence caused by the action that determines whether an action is ethical or unethical. The fundamental problem with this definition of ethical behavior is that an action ceases to be unethical if no adverse consequences are experienced. As such, nothing is inherently wrong; an action is only wrong if it causes harm to another.
Consider the example of adulterous behavior: under the “do no harm” definition of ethical behavior, adultery is wrong because it harms the other party in the marriage (i.e., the faithful spouse). This harm can include mental anguish, the spread of disease to the faithful party and the loss of affection from the adulterous party. An additional adverse consequence includes unwanted pregnancies outside of the marriage. However, what if an adulterous act did not lead to those outcomes (e.g., a husband, who has had a vasectomy, occasionally has sexual relations with women free from sexually transmitted diseases while on trips to foreign cities)? In such an instance would adultery cease being unethical? Would the husband’s behavior turn from ethically neutral to unethical only if he were to confess his adultery to his wife, or if he was otherwise caught, thus causing her mental anguish?
again, bull. this is like saying petty theft isn't illegal or wrong until somebody finds out! still, harm is done since the business or what-have-you that got its property stolen loses money. with the adultery example, the outside sex could lead to a less satisfying relationship with the faithful spouse, which would lead to "mental anguish," just the same.
Furthermore, the atheist has no basis for saying that it is wrong to harm others anyway. Why should it be wrong to harm others? This supposed basis for ethics fails at this very point.
intuition! once again, if it turns out that deities don't really exist, then religion's base of ethics fails as well
Atheists such as Richard Dawkins have trouble finding logical reasons to denounce rape as unacceptable behavior.
how about this? I think we can agree that rape harms the person being raped, usually a woman. how and why, though? this comes down to the process of courtship and mating in humans as well as other animals. females tend choose mates carefully, since they can bear fewer offspring in their lifetime. to disturb this careful selection would be harming her. therefore rape is wrong.
Uncreated creator?
to quickly sum up, the atheist argument presented is that God must have been created by something, if religious people say that everything has a cause or creator. the response is that God is eternal, and thus does not need a creator or cause. they also point out that atheists assert that matter and energy are eternal, and thus do not need causes, which is the same as religion's argument
fine by me! I personally do not bring up this argument, as I acknowledge that some things are eternal and do not need causes, such as the theoretical multiverse proposed by physicists, of which out universe is only a part.
Arguments for God's existence
the cosmological argument asserts that the universe must have a creator. again, I point to the multiverse.
[the teleological argument, aka the argument from design]
- All designs imply a designer
- There is great design in the universe
- Therefore, there must be a Great Designer of the universe
[the ontological argument]
- God is defined as a being than which no greater can be conceived.
- Such a being can be conceived.
- If there were no such being in reality, then a greater being--namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists--can be conceived.
- Yet nothing can be greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived.
- Therefore a being than which no greater can be conceived--i.e., God--must exist.
- God is the entity of which nothing greater can be thought.
- It is greater to be necessary than not.
- Hence, God exists necessarily.
this, frankly, is a steaming pile of bull excrement, masquerading as a chocolate cake. please refer to my other post concerning this argument. in short, conceiving of a being that actually exists does not make it actually exist! also, "greatness" is subjective
[Dostoevsky’s argument from the consequences of positive Atheism]
- If atheism is true then man is “the chief of the earth.”
- If man is “the chief of the earth” then he can abandon absolute standards (i.e., morality)
- If man can abandon the absolute standards then “everything is permissible.”
- Therefore, if atheism is true, everything is permissible.
[the argument from joy]
- Every natural innate desire has a real object that can fulfill it.
- Human beings have a natural, innate desire for immortality.
- Therefore, there must be an immortal life after death
[Ronald Nash's argument from numbers] An argument proposed by Ronald Nash is known as the argument from numbers [emphasis in original]. This is how Ronald Nash explained it:
“...when I used to teach philosophy to undergraduate college students, I would sometimes ask them to tell me what the number one is. They would usually reply by writing some of the many symbols we use such as ‘1’ or ‘I’. I would then explain that such symbols are not really the number we are seeking but are only convenient ways we use to refer to the real number one. No wise person should ever confuse a symbol for something with the thing itself.
So what then is the number one? The first step is to recognize that the number one is a concept.
What is a concept? The short answer is that it is an idea.
The next step is to ask where the concept of oneness exists. The idea of oneness, like all ideas, exists in minds.
The third step is to note that the number one is eternal. If someone has trouble with this claim, ask when the number one began to exist.
Not only has the number one always existed, it is impossible for the number one ever to change. If the number one were ever changed, it would cease to be the number one. After all, if the idea of oneness changed, let us say, into the number two, then it would no longer be the number one.
So where are we? I believe we can show many people that the concept of oneness is an eternal and unchanging idea that exists in some mind. And, the only kind of mind in which this kind of eternal and unchanging idea could exist must be an eternal and unchanging mind. When I reach this point in my little example, some student in the back of the classroom usually raises his hand and asks if I am talking about God.”
This argument is very interesting in that it can be employed in the service of various considerations. For example, you may replace the term “the number one” with “the laws of logic” and produce a similar argument.
the concept of the number one is not "eternal," but rather developed by humans at some point in the past. the Wikipedia article on "natural numbers" has an introduction to formalizations of the natural numbers (0, 1, 2, etc.), which show that there are actually different realizations of this concept, meaning that the concept of the number one is, in fact, mutable (i.e. changeable).
Science
Although the scientific endeavor has nothing to offer atheism, atheists have co-opted it and employed it as a façade which they wrap around atheism in order to make it appear as if it is deserving of the merits of scientific respectability.
The contradiction in the atheist’s attempt to employ science towards their end is:
- They claim that science only deals with the material and therefore, has nothing to say about the immaterial or supernatural.
- They claim that science has disproved the immaterial or supernatural.
personally I do not say that science "disproves" theism, but simply that it renders it unnecessary.
Society
it seems that atheists are generally less charitable than religious people, as liberals than conservatives. well, that sucks! but, hey, people aren't perfect. atheists should give more to charity, and I applaud those who already do.
it also seems that atheists have more health problems and rates of suicide attempts, due to less happiness, supposedly. but this is not a reason to convert. personally I am quite happy as an atheist, and if others aren't, and seek religion as the answer, that's fine by me.
In “...an effort to determine changes occurring between 1968 and 1978 in the percentage who approved of legal abortion in Canada under 6 possible conditions of pregnancy” agnostic/atheist students were amongst the least likely to draw a distinction between the following conditions under which abortion would be considered, “1st set of conditions (harm to mother’s health, possible child deformity, pregnancy from rape)...2nd set of conditions (out-of-wedlock pregnancy, economic inability to support child, unwanted child).”
so what? it just depends on one's view of abortion, and when developing human life actually becomes a person, between conception and birth. it doesn't have to do with the reason. take this example: an insect is not a person, so it shouldn't matter if I'm killing it because it's harming me in some way or simply because I want to.
another claim is that atheists say that societies without religion will be more scientific, intelligent, and maybe civilized, but atheists tend to be more superstitious. again, that sucks! but what is the cause? plus, I personally don't believe in such superstitions.
Atheism has no moral imperative for honesty so it is not surprising that atheists figure prominently in fraud and deception, although it is difficult to find statistics on this issue.
There are many examples just in the history of the promotion of evolution. A particularly notorious example is that of Ernst Haeckel, a “free thinker” (atheist) who fraudulently doctored drawings of embryos of various creatures to make them look almost identical and then claimed that this was evidence for evolution. He made at least two other fraudulent claims regarding the origin of life and a non-existent ape-man. He helped lay the foundations for Nazism in Germany.
again, please read about morality without religion, above, for nontheistic sources of morals such as honesty. and yes, Haeckel was a fraud, but that does not discredit atheists as a whole, not to mention the rest of the huge pile of evidence for evolution!
well, that's it for now! but note that this is only a bit more than half of the whole article, so I might have more in the future.
