Secularism versus the Demonization of Atheists

[Science Fan]

IC: Just to drive home my point about why it is your argument failed to address Plato's argument, let's say that Joe Smith walks up to me and tells me, "I am a good person." I don't know Joe, and know nothing about him. Under those circumstances would I be justified in believing his claim? Not at all. For all I know, he's a dishonest and immoral person lying to me. You have the exact same problem with your alleged God when you claim God is good. If you are not judging God by an external moral standard, then you must be relying on a claim from God that "I am good." But, logic tells us that God could be lying to us. So, you cannot ground morality in a belief that God exists and God is good because God says so. Absent the application of an external standard, where you could judge God to be good, all you would have to go on is an allegation from God, with absolutely no reason to believe it. So, either you admit that you have no basis for knowing God is good, or you have to admit that one can merely refer to an external standard, apart from God, to determine what is moral.

[Immanuel Can]

IC: That's a complete failure to address the point raised by Plato. You claim specifically that God gives a command and the command must be followed.

I did not. It's true, of course...but that was not my description of Christian morality and ethics. I spoke of precept and principle, and of how to deal with extended cases too.

If god is good, then this would require god to follow a morally good code...

No, it wouldn't. It would mean that "the Good" and "God" were the same thing. To be God is to be the "North Pole" of what it means to be good. And the only truly and completely good Entity in the universe is God. They are the same Entity.

...which means we can ignore god and simply refer to the moral standard.

False conclusion. You can't both ignore and refer to the same Entity. If you refer to God, you refer to the Good. If you refer accurately to the Good, you refer to God.

Your mistake is to think that "good" is a kind of thing-in-itself, a free-floating reality of some kind, capable of existing apart from reference to any specific entity -- rather than an adjective. Adjectives require nouns, and in fact, can only make sense when attached to specific nouns. "Good" derives its meaning from God. Proximity to the character of God is exactly what is meant by "He-who-is-consummately-good," and also "the Conception-point from which all right human ideas of goodness are derived."

[Immanuel Can]

IC: Just to drive home my point about why it is your argument failed to address Plato's argument, let's say that Joe Smith walks up to me and tells me, "I am a good person." I don't know Joe, and know nothing about him. Under those circumstances would I be justified in believing his claim?

You've tripped yourself with a false analogy. Joe is not the North Pole of goodness, which is why his goodness can be discussed in a merely relative way: as in, he's a good friend, a good fisherman, a good student...or whatever. But he's not totally "good" at all. Nobody but God is.

But, logic tells us that God could be lying to us.

The Bible claims quite bluntly that God does not lie. So no, by definition, no, He "could" not be.

So, you cannot ground morality in a belief that God exists and God is good because God says so.

Sure we can. If God says, "I am good," and it turns out that He is good, then He's simply speaking the truth. There wouldn't be anything odd about that at all. People speak the truth all the time.

In fact, I would argue that you wouldn't even have the conception of the idea of good if God did not exist. For in a purely Material universe, where is there even a frame of reference for the generation of such an idea? Hume saw very clearly that there was none.

Funny that you're having such trouble with that. Maybe it's because you're still thinking of "good" as something existing apart from God. But as an Atheist, I don't know how you can think of "good" at all! After all, Atheism has no terms for "good" or "evil." It only assumes that what is, is. Having no higher origin and hence, no purpose, there is no way to say what good and evil are, and no basis on which to pass a moral assessment on God -- or Ghandi, or Ghengis Khan.

But I shouldn't say I don't know. I have a pretty good idea. Like all human beings, I would suggest that you have a God-given moral conscience that keeps telling you there are such things as right and wrong, even though your ideology leaves you with absolutely no rational basis for believing it. You know in your heart that what you say with your mouth isn't actually true: good and evil do exist, and you feel it every day. And on some level, you know that God exists too, I would bet. That's why you have to spend so much time fighting that realization. For why should an Atheist care what anybody else believes?

Maybe what ethicist Dr. Budziszewski of Texas U. says is true, then: "There are no moral skeptics; those who say they are moral skeptics are playing make believe, and doing it badly."

[Science Fan]

IC: Your claim is that if God says it's good and it turns out that god is good then you can ground morality in god. No. In fact, you once again fell into Plato's trap, plus you have a major epistemological problem.

Once you stated that "if it turns out god is good," you at that point are referencing an external standard by which one would judge your alleged god. Otherwise, you would not have to qualify whether god is good. But, if god is determined to be good by an external standard, then god is not the standard for morality, rather, god is being judged by a moral standard.

You also ignore the issue of ever being able to know whether god is actually good. You seem to agree with me that no one can simply take god's word for it. That's because god may be lying. But, the problem is there is no external way to tell whether god is purely good. Even if god existed, and even if god was observed 24/7 for 4 billion years being a nice, kindly god, helping elderly women cross the street, the blind to see, and giving waiters enormous tips, for all anyone knows, during the next year, God will turn into a complete asshole and start being a fiend. While I may be able to tell if a person is generally good by observing his behavior, no person is claiming to serve as a moral standard. Your claim is that god must be perfectly good to serve as such a standard, but, then this raises an epistemological issue you cannot answer --- neither you nor anyone else could ever have sufficient knowledge from which one could rationally conclude any alleged god was all good. Even if we leave out the issue of one having to measure god's performance by reference to an external standard of morality, the time factor alone rules out anyway for anyone to really know whether god is morally good. In fact, for all you know, god spent billions of years causing all sorts of random BS before deciding to allegedly reveal itself to humans.

[Skip]

The only important point is:
Those who disobey the god-given precepts to which they are obliged to adhere are moral.
Those who obey their own moral principles, even though nobody forces them to, are amoral.

[Immanuel Can]

Once you stated that "if it turns out god is good," you at that point are referencing an external standard by which one would judge your alleged god.

You're not getting it. There's no difference.

Socrates thought different "gods" could have different conceptions of the Good. For example, Poseidon hates Odysseus and Athena loves him, while Zeus takes little interest either way. So that puts "good" as something prior to the gods. And it means that "god" and "good" are not coextensive terms. So he could pose the question, and it made sense from his worldview.

But where there is no plurality of gods, neither is there a plurality of conceptions of the Good. Good and God are the same. So you can't ask, "Is God good, or is good God?" It's the same question, just reversed. Socrates would have seen that, had he been a monotheist. The only reason he didn't is that he wasn't.

So the Euthyphro Dilemma is a dead horse, when it comes to monotheism. It's the question that's incoherent.

Try thinking outside of the conventional Atheist narrative, and there's a chance...just a chance...you'll get it. Stay with Atheist orthodoxy, and you probably never will. They're not exactly open-minded people, notwithstanding their protestations to the contrary. Actions tell the story, not their words.

[Immanuel Can]

The only important point is:
Those who disobey the god-given precepts to which they are obliged to adhere are moral.
Those who obey their own moral principles, even though nobody forces them to, are amoral.

That can't be logically right. For those who disobey God given precepts, the term "moral" cannot be applied, because "moral" is a God-premised term. Those who "obey their own" preferences have NO moral principles at all. They are following impulse or inclination, not principle. In fact, they don't even have access to the concept "moral," since the absence of any objective meaning or objective purpose to life renders the term meaningless. What can be "moral" in a world where, literally, everything is permissible? And such a world is the Materialist Atheist world.

[Science Fan]

IC: You should just admit to being the world's biggest bigot.

[Immanuel Can]

IC: You should just admit to being the world's biggest bigot.

So judgmental...and I thought Atheists prided themselves on being so open-minded...even while they despise everyone else, of course, especially the 92% of people who believe in some kind of Supreme Being...Nice.

But in point of fact, everything I've said about Atheism I have substantiated. And nothing that I've substantiated about Atheism have you been able to refute. It's impossible to be "bigoted" when one is simply speaking the undeniable truth. So I feel pretty safe on that account.

Atheism is irrational. Atheism is amoral. These are not insults. These are simple facts.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

So judgmental...and I thought Atheists prided themselves on being so open-minded...even while they despise everyone else, of course, especially the 92% of people who believe in some kind of Supreme Being...

Nice.

Haha. You don't see any irony in that comment?

[Skip]

For those who disobey God given precepts, the term "moral" cannot be applied,

Then there are no moral people in the world.
Even among the theists who sincerely want to obey the god-given precepts, there is no agreement about which god handed down the right set of precepts, which of the rules based on the precepts are still valid and in what circumstances, or how the rules are to be interpreted and applied. As for the ones who only pretend to believe, they pay lip-service and break whichever of the god's rules and society's rules they can get away with.
Pagans and other ungodly types have been disqualified by definition, and apparently no personal, empathetic, contractual or polite codes of conduct are deemed valid.

Since there are no moral people in the world, that just leaves secular law to keep us all in line.

[Arising_uk]

But in point of fact, everything I've said about Atheism I have substantiated. ...

Only by creating this strawman of an 'Atheist' and ignoring what atheists actually tell you upon this forum. But hey, let's not let the truth get in the way of a story.

And nothing that I've substantiated about Atheism have you been able to refute. ...

That's because your 'Atheist' doesn't exist or if it does it's actually your ex-theists who are still angry about what they were told when children.

It's impossible to be "bigoted" when one is simply speaking the undeniable truth. So I feel pretty safe on that account.

Of course you do, all dogmatists are.

Atheism is irrational. Atheism is amoral. These are not insults. These are simple facts.

Not really, not least because your 'Atheist' doesn't exist but atheism is not irrational given that there are so many 'God's' past and present - which to choose? That no theist has ever been able to show his 'God', that no 'God' or 'God's' have ever shown themselves in any objective manner, etc, etc. Being an atheist does not entail amorality, that it is just the not holding of a belief in your 'God' does mean that one's morality is not grounded upon fear of punishment after death but there are many other reasons to behave morally, not least that it makes it a nicer place to live and more than likely it's just the consequence of being this social primate. Oh! And there is the case that reciprocal co-operators do better in extended prisoners dilemmas.

Of course you are being insulting, as you've made-up your 'Atheist' and refuse to listen to those who say they are not this.

[surreptitious57]

I thought Atheists prided themselves on being so open minded

Atheism is irrational Atheism is amoral

Are all atheists proud of being open minded? What about those who are not proud? Or those
who are not open minded? Being an atheist does not automatically make one either of these

One can say atheism is amoral because it is neither moral nor immoral but irrational? How exactly is the second premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument rational when it cannot even be established as true? A sound conclusion cannot be built upon a faulty premise

[Dontaskme]

Atheism is irrational. Atheism is amoral. These are not insults. These are simple facts.

If Atheism is irrational. Then the opposite must also be true...because you cannot have one without the other, irrational is rational.

If Atheism is amoral. Then the opposite must also be true...because you cannot have one without the other, amoral is moral.

Reality is acausal, it's an uncaused cause.

Opposites exist as fact. If there had been no facts, then it would have been a fact that there were no facts. It's a divine absolute contradiction...albeit an illusory contradiction.

.

In fact I'll go one step beyond by saying there is no such thing as a believer or non-believer.

One cannot not believe because that is still a belief...That in which a belief arises is already absolute, else no belief would arise.

SELF IS ABSOLUTE BECAUSE IT CAN'T NOT BE IS ...IS IS KNOWN

What cannot be KNOWN doesn't exist. . . in other words what is known cannot know. There is only absolute knowing.

.



.

[Immanuel Can]

Since there are no moral people in the world, that just leaves secular law to keep us all in line.

Your objection is a practical problem, not a logical one. Morality might still be objective.

The practical problem is, "How do we get people who do not believe in the same morality to behave morally?" But that does not touch the question about whether one or more of those moralities IS objectively right. That's an ontological issue. And so we could rephrase your objection as, "If there is an objectively right morality, how do we get disparate communities to believe in it?" That's a problem of management for a society, perhaps; but it has no implications that there IS not such an objectively-right morality.

Meanwhile, "secular" law is merely arbitrary if it's made without reference to objective facts and objective morality, and so is just a power move by the stronger groups and majority over the weaker or less numerous groups: and there's nothing moral in that.

Nietzsche saw that clearly. He knew that when "God is dead," then we are "beyond good and evil" altogether. Anything is fair game after that.