Secularism versus the Demonization of Atheists

[Immanuel Can]

There's a new book by Paul Bloom, "Against Empathy:The Case for Rational Compassion"

When Paul Bloom shows an interest in my opinions on empathy I'll return the compliment and read what he has to say.

Funny.

Richard Dawkins never payed any attention to my opinion, and I considered his. Friedrich Nietzsche never asked me anything, nor did Freud, Marx or Darwin. And yet, I gained much from considering their positions, even if ultimately I find reason to disagree with them. But I know you're just trying to be flippant, so I'll leave it there. If you're interested in empathy as a possible contributor to morality, you could probably get a lot from a reading of Bloom, even if ultimately you disagree with him.

[Greta]

More squirming. Your red herring label is inappropriately applied

Not at all. Whether or not you believe in an impersonal or a personal force behind the adjective "evil" changes nothing. We agree that some things are '"evil". I imagine, for example, we agree that rape or child abuse fit that label.

So since we are agree that evil exists, to cavil over what portion of it is deliberate and what part is merely a sort of impersonal "force" is of no moment. if we don't believe in demons, we certainly believe in the existence of "demonic" people and "demonic" actions -- take it literally or metaphorically, and we're at the same point.

Immanuel, the fact that you believe in a nonsensical superstitions such as demons and exorcisms is the crux of the issue.

If your paradigms have such enormous obvious flaws, then your criticisms of the secular are not credible - imaginary constructions built on invalid foundations. Certainly a book of myths written by ancient people that often contradicts what people have learned in the following two thousand years is far from a reliable foundation for a worldview (without the support of many similarly deluded people).

Also note that superstitious beliefs in themselves cause harm, eg. a sick child is given an exorcism instead of treatment.

It's better to build upon an ever-growing body of knowledge than to draw a line in the sand two thousand years ago and claim that they were the only people in history anywhere who understood reality.

[Arising_uk]

...
I have spent a great deal of time living and travelling in what are called "developing" countries. And I note that wherever I go, I find Christian agencies helping the poor -- food, medicine, shelter, business aid, schooling, and so on. But I have yet to find any such agency spreading the good news of Atheism, or sharing food medicine and other aid in the name of No-God. There needs to be some reasonable explanation found for that fact. ...

There is, it's not a fact.

https://hubpages.com/politics/Atheist-Charities-2

The difference is that your 'charities' do it, as you point out, to spread the word of your 'God' whereas the atheist ones just do it.

Still, islamic fundamentalists must be truly christian then as they also do much in the way of charity and education with the poor of the world, must be why they are growing so fast.

It's also pretty funny how rich the church's appear to be in those poor countries?

Moreover, I have personally met people freed from all sort of things -- addictions, sexual exploitation, enslavement, crime -- by becoming Christians. However, I have yet to meet the man who says, "I beat my wife and drank, until I discovered Atheism: and now, praise Nobody, I'm free."

Maybe atheists don't beat their wives as much as theists, which is understandable given the position of women in most churches.

[davidm]

Yes. If I'm wrong, then it's very easy to prove it's wrong. Just give me one moral precept that an Atheist, because of his Atheism, must follow.

None. That was easy.

How many years have you been doing this shtick? Do you still not get that atheism is nothing more than a lack of belief in God? That's it. It's not a moral guidebook. Plenty of atheists are titanic assholes (just like plenty of theists). Many of them are misogynist, racist dipshits, for example. They have a huge online presence, too.

Atheists (and all people, actually, including theists) get their moral precepts from other sources. I've already talked about some of this.

Getting your moral precepts from a non-existent God is a waste of time, I suppose, unless you pretend that God exists and pretend he grounds your morality. I suppose in that sense God belief might be instrumentally useful, even if a false belief. But then -- since you raised the issue -- deriving an "I ought to do this" because "God is" runs afoul of our friend Hume, doesn't it?

But even if it were true that atheism entails moral nihilism (some philosophers who are atheists think this), so what? If that's how things are, then that's how they are. I prefer truth over fantasy.

But interestingly, even though there are moral nihilists in the world, I don't see the morning paper filled with news of them flying airplanes into buildings, beheading infidels, attacking abortion clinics, demanding the "right" to discriminate against gays and the transgendered, and so on. Somehow such morally reprehensible behaviors seem to be the province of theists, not nihilists or atheists.

Dostoevsky: If God is dead, all is permitted.

Zizek: If God exists, all is permitted.

I think Zizek is right and Dostoevsky wrong (to be fair, one of D's characters said that.)

[davidm]

I have spent a great deal of time living and travelling in what are called "developing" countries. And I note that wherever I go, I find Christian agencies helping the poor -- food, medicine, shelter, business aid, schooling, and so on. But I have yet to find any such agency spreading the good news of Atheism, or sharing food medicine and other aid in the name of No-God. There needs to be some reasonable explanation found for that fact.

I guess you didn't look very hard, or didn't travel abroad as you claim.

Many non-religious charities help people abroad and here at home, too. But they don't spread "the good news" of atheism or share "food, medicine and other aid in the name of No-God." In that, you are right. Why would rational people help others in the name of No-God, or spread the good news of atheism? That would be pretty stupid, and why it's not done.

Moreover, I have personally met people freed from all sort of things -- addictions, sexual exploitation, enslavement, crime -- by becoming Christians. However, I have yet to meet the man who says, "I beat my wife and drank, until I discovered Atheism: and now, praise Nobody, I'm free."

This is so pathetic on so many levels.

[Londoner]

Yes. If I'm wrong, then it's very easy to prove it's wrong. Just give me one moral precept that an Atheist, because of his Atheism, must follow. Give me anything -- murder, rape, slavery (the easy cases of "wrong," I would think) all the way down to lying, cheating and stealing (perhaps a little harder to show).

One counter-case will defeat my claim.

That should be easy, shouldn't it? At least, it should, if what I'm saying just isn't true.

The atheist might start by questioning the way the question is framed; you give a list of acts that are 'wrong'. To put it that way relates to religion in that it resembles a set of commandments; 'Thou shalt not...' But the atheist might consider that the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' is not contained in the acts but in the mind of the actor.

That view can also be part of religion but, when it is, it creates a certain strain. On one side we have free will, something God has given us, but we also have commandments that we must obey (or face eternal punishment). God has created us as we are, but may also punish us for being what we are. Do we please God through good works? Or are we already saved through Grace? Taking any side on such issues creates problems, but if we try to mix the two then we no longer have clarity about what Theism entails.

As others have observed, you do get Theists who have done the 'wrongs' you list but thought them right - or to be the lesser of two evils. For example, if I believe that obeying the rules of religion is the most important thing for gaining eternal salvation, then inflicting the tortures of the Inquisition on a heretic becomes a kindness.

So, for either the theist or the atheist to be clear why the things you list are 'wrong' they have to fix on just one standard. They are either against God's laws - or they are contrary to human nature - but not both. The 'human nature' argument has been developed in many ways; for example that man's nature has been perverted by taking him out of nature, or that goodness is only possible in an equitable economic system, or that man's essence is his freedom so that we judge actions by how they express that essence...and so on.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

I have spent a great deal of time living and travelling in what are called "developing" countries. And I note that wherever I go, I find Christian agencies helping the poor -- food, medicine, shelter, business aid, schooling, and so on. But I have yet to find any such agency spreading the good news of Atheism, or sharing food medicine and other aid in the name of No-God. There needs to be some reasonable explanation found for that fact.

Very true. Please don't cast aspersions upon 'atheists' and secular charities who also do a lot to help people in poor countries. It's also not unknown for 'atheist' individuals to help a Christian charity which is known to be honest and efficient.

I hope that you also noted that Islamic charities help the poor.

In one West African country until recently anyway the native practicality is such that people will happily accept any religion that provides a school or clinic.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes. If I'm wrong, then it's very easy to prove it's wrong. Just give me one moral precept that an Atheist, because of his Atheism, must follow.

None. That was easy.

How many years have you been doing this shtick? Do you still not get that atheism is nothing more than a lack of belief in God? That's it. It's not a moral guidebook. Plenty of atheists are titanic assholes (just like plenty of theists). Many of them are misogynist, racist dipshits, for example. They have a huge online presence, too.

Atheists (and all people, actually, including theists) get their moral precepts from other sources. I've already talked about some of this.

You've solved nothing, though. You couldn't say more plainly that Atheism is amoral, and that therefore an Atheist is compelled to adopt an ersatz morality from another source. For given Materialism, there's none he can claim on any rational basis.

That makes every moralizing Atheist an indoctrinator. He knows all morality is merely a sociological fiction or a personal preference, and yet he advocates and practices it, and expects others to behave with the same sorts of precepts.

An honest Atheist has to be a Nihilist about morality. You've said as much. So I can't see that you've "addressed" the problem at all. Rather, you've drunk the poison.

But even if it were true that atheism entails moral nihilism (some philosophers who are atheists think this), so what? If that's how things are, then that's how they are. I prefer truth over fantasy....Dostoevsky: If God is dead, all is permitted.

What a person happens to "prefer" is simply a curiosity. It isn't, in any moral sense, according to Materialism, "better" or "more right." But there it is: exactly what I said you've done.

But then -- since you raised the issue -- deriving an "I ought to do this" because "God is" runs afoul of our friend Hume, doesn't it?

No. You've got a category error in that supposition.

The reason that "is" comes with no "ought" entailed is the lack of teleological purpose in the universe, the necessary supposition of Materialism.

But interestingly, even though there are moral nihilists in the world, I don't see the morning paper filled with news of them flying airplanes into buildings, beheading infidels, attacking abortion clinics, demanding the "right" to discriminate against gays and the transgendered, and so on. Somehow such morally reprehensible behaviors seem to be the province of theists, not nihilists or atheists.

Actually, 148 million died in the last century in wholly secular wars. The vast majority were by self-declared leftist-Atheist regimes. If you want to quote statistics, the homicidal actions of Atheists are absurdly greater than the worst Muslim atrocities, indeed, far greater than all the deaths of that sort in history before the 20th Century.

Look at the old USSR, China, or North Korea, and you'll see the fine work of those who have banished God from their universe.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes. If I'm wrong, then it's very easy to prove it's wrong. Just give me one moral precept that an Atheist, because of his Atheism, must follow. Give me anything -- murder, rape, slavery (the easy cases of "wrong," I would think) all the way down to lying, cheating and stealing (perhaps a little harder to show).

One counter-case will defeat my claim.

That should be easy, shouldn't it? At least, it should, if what I'm saying just isn't true.

The atheist might start by questioning the way the question is framed; you give a list of acts that are 'wrong'.

Check again...I didn't ask that.

I asked for one. Just one. Any one. And there's none.

To put it that way relates to religion in that it resembles a set of commandments; 'Thou shalt not...' But the atheist might consider that the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' is not contained in the acts but in the mind of the actor.

The problem with that supposition is that then there's simply no such thing. For a thing that is only "contained in the mind of the actor" is a nice synonym for "delusion" or "hallucination."

If reality itself does not demand more, at the very minimum, somebody else has to share that perception "contained within the mind", and agree with it. But how should any person agree with what is merely "contained in the mind" of a particular actor, not actualized or generalizable or compulsory by reality itself? There's no reason he should. Worse, there's no probability he even can do that.

So no, it can't be merely "contained in the mind of the actor." It must be accessible to "actors," and hence some common basis must be adduced for it in reality itself.

To say something is morally "right," but is only so for one person (because "contained in his mind"), is essentially a contradiction, therefore.

That view can also be part of religion but, when it is, it creates a certain strain. On one side we have free will, something God has given us, but we also have commandments that we must obey (or face eternal punishment).

This view is called "legalism." It views the sum of good and evil as being particular commandments.

God has created us as we are, but may also punish us for being what we are.

Not quite. You've forgotten free will. God has created us to be one thing, and we choose to be another. It is not for what we "are" that we are culpable: nobody can help what they "are." It is because of what we choose to do, and what we choose to be, that we are culpable.

Do we please God through good works?

The Bible says plainly, absolutely not. Titus 3:5, Eph. 2:8-9, for a start.

Or are we already saved through Grace?

Not "already." Remember free will? We have a choice to make.

Taking any side on such issues creates problems, but if we try to mix the two then we no longer have clarity about what Theism entails.

It's simpler than that. Both are wrong.

As others have observed, you do get Theists who have done the 'wrongs' you list but thought them right - or to be the lesser of two evils. For example, if I believe that obeying the rules of religion is the most important thing for gaining eternal salvation, then inflicting the tortures of the Inquisition on a heretic becomes a kindness.

I can't defend all Theists, because all Theists are not believers in the same things about God, or even in the same God. The Muslim God is not mine. Nor is the Hindu "god" conception. The Inquisition is a Catholic apologetic problem, but I'm not a Catholic. I'll have to let them defend their understanding of God, if they can.

So, for either the theist or the atheist to be clear why the things you list are 'wrong' they have to fix on just one standard. They are either against God's laws - or they are contrary to human nature - but not both.

The error here is to think of "human nature" as necessarily being antithetical to God. In Christian theology, human nature is not the problem -- fallen human nature is the problem. That's a very important distinction. There's nothing inherently bad in being human...but there is in the kind of human beings we have become, and in the things we have set ourselves to seek and do.

In Christianity, all things have a right "telos", or end, outcome. The human race is simply not aiming at their true telos right now. That's what "fallen" essentially entails. The Christian word "sin" means "falling short," or "missing the mark" as in archery: i.e. not reaching that for which one was designed and intended, not attaining one's true goal or blessedness.

[Immanuel Can]

Very true. Please don't cast aspersions upon 'atheists' and secular charities who also do a lot to help people in poor countries. It's also not unknown for 'atheist' individuals to help a Christian charity which is known to be honest and efficient.

I have not found the ranks of the Christian charities to be overburdened with the Atheists. Perhaps there are exceptions: but, if so, they tend to hide very well.

I hope that you also noted that Islamic charities help the poor.

Poor Muslims, mostly; and them not as much as one would wish. There is very little Islamic charity toward "infidels".

On the other hand, Christian charities generally serve people of all faiths and no faith at all, without distinction. That's an interesting difference.

In one West African country until recently anyway the native practicality is such that people will happily accept any religion that provides a school or clinic.

Interestingly, (except for in the case of some mainline collectivist groups) there is no requirement on the part of Christians that any person must be a convert in order to receive help. For faith-based Christians, such coercion would render any conversion inauthentic, and thus invalidate it. So they take many measures to make sure that it is well-understood by those they serve that conversion will not produce additional benefits, and failure to convert will not result in any less benefit.

However, it's quite true that when you've been nice to people they tend to like you and consider what you say more thoughtfully.

[uwot]

You couldn't say more plainly that Atheism is amoral, and that therefore an Atheist is compelled to adopt an ersatz morality from another source. For given Materialism, there's none he can claim on any rational basis.

The advantage that atheists have over theists, is that they do not have to weigh up the wishes of whatever god they are seeking to please, for their own selfish purposes; i.e. get a ticket to heaven. Instead, they can refer to the immediate needs of the person they are dealing with. According to your model, a person can act to minimise suffering their entire life, and still burn in hell, forever, for the crime of not believing in your version of god.

That makes every moralizing Atheist an indoctrinator.

Yup. Couldn't be thought anywhere but the irony vacuum between ears like yours.

[Arising_uk]

...
Actually, 148 million died in the last century in wholly secular wars. The vast majority were by self-declared leftist-Atheist regimes. If you want to quote statistics, the homicidal actions of Atheists are absurdly greater than the worst Muslim atrocities, indeed, far greater than all the deaths of that sort in history before the 20th Century. ...

Still telling the same old fibs I see. I posted links that showed that the deaths through war in the C20th don't come near to the total of deaths in the wars of the previous centuries, won't your 'God' punish you for lying when you die?

Still awaiting from you the context that is needed for the statistical comparisons you make, so kindly list the population sizes involved for all these homicidal events.

[Arising_uk]

... The Christian word "sin" means "falling short," or "missing the mark" as in archery: i.e. not reaching that for which one was designed and intended, not attaining one's true goal or blessedness.

You certainly are.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

(Belinda)I hope that you also noted that Islamic charities help the poor.
(Immanuel)Poor Muslims, mostly; and them not as much as one would wish. There is very little Islamic charity toward "infidels".

It's a sweeping claim. I suppose you are referring to modern centrally- organised charities. Have you any references? It is quite important to back such claims, Immanuel, especially as there is anti-Islamic feeling being whipped up by propagandists in the USA.

My only Muslim friend who is now late was certainly charitable in her private life. Elderly Muslimas were particularly good contributors during my street collection for Amnesty some years ago. My father told me that the Red Crescent ambulance service was on a par with the Red Cross on the Macedonian Front circa 1915 . Your claim worries me, but I cannot rebut it as I lack the information I'd need, and all I have is anecdote.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent

The official mission of the ICRC as an impartial, neutral, and independent organization is to stand for the protection of the life and dignity of victims of international and internal armed conflicts. According to the 1997 Seville Agreement, it is the "Lead Agency" of the Movement in conflicts. The core tasks of the Committee, which are derived from the Geneva Conventions and its own statutes, are the following:

to monitor compliance of warring parties with the Geneva Conventions
to organize nursing and care for those who are wounded on the battlefield
to supervise the treatment of prisoners of war
to help with the search for missing persons in an armed conflict (tracing service)
to organize protection and care for civil populations
to arbitrate between warring parties in an armed conflict.

Please note, Immanuel, "impartial, neutral, and independent". The cross and crescent symbols are obviously descended from faith -oriented symbols.

[Belinda]

... The Christian word "sin" means "falling short," or "missing the mark" as in archery: i.e. not reaching that for which one was designed and intended, not attaining one's true goal or blessedness.

You certainly are.

Immanuel, that is Aristotelian. Aristotle's idea of Form, unlike Plato's, is that the Form of an entity is the design of it. I think Form is a conbination of final cause, and formal cause. One can see how Aquinas could modify Aristotle's idea thereby Christianising it..