If you haven’t read the first post, you can find it here. Otherwise, I’ll assume we’re all on the same page. Here’s question 2:
2. You behave ethically. I suggest that is because you were brought up christian. Most atheists choose to behave reasonably ethically, but why? Are some things really right and wrong, if so, how come in a physicalist universe? If it is just their personal choice, how can they criticise anyone who chooses differently? For example, I just read a newspaper article about rape as a weapon of war in Mali. You and I would both find that abhorrent, yet it makes sense on evolutionary terms – impregnate the women of your opponent and maximise your own genes. So how does all that fit together?
It’s true that I was raised in Christianity, so it’s impossible for me to say that I would be just as moral if I’d been raised any other way. And when my wife and I first started discussing the possibility that Christianity was false, we worried about where our morals would come from without it. But pretty soon, we realized that there were really good reasons for living morally, regardless of God’s existence. On top of that, we knew plenty of Christians who hadn’t always lived morally either, so it’s not like remaining Christian was any kind of guarantee.
As an atheist, I tend to think that this life is all we have. While there might be something after it, I have no real reason to believe there is. And I think this might help me value life more than many religious people. When all those children were killed in Newtown, I didn’t believe that Heaven had gained a bunch of new souls — I was very upset that those young lives had been cut so short. It’s a point of view that doesn’t have as much comfort as what most religious people have. Their real life was here, not in some supernatural realm, so the tragedy is arguably more real. That helps me value all life, not just my own. We are social creatures — we naturally tend to look out for others’ well-being, not just our own. And I am personally happier when I do good things for others rather than take advantage of them.
So those are some of the reasons why I choose to live morally. As to whether or not there is a true universal morality, I don’t know. I think there are some things that come pretty close to it though. Rape, torture, murder, etc — those things are good candidates for being absolutely wrong. But I don’t think we need a deity to tell us that. Most people agree that human well-being is better than human suffering, so I think that’s a pretty good standard. We don’t need a transcendent being to tell us that, any more than most of us would need a transcendent being to tell us that cake tastes better than spinach. Throughout human history (and well before Christianity), people have been coming together to define morality as what works best for them as a society. As time has gone on, we’ve gotten better at it by protecting minority rights, etc. I don’t see why we need anything more than that.
I’ll cover the 3rd question in the next post.
Finding Truth 
“My own answer isn’t quite as simple, but either way, belief in God provides an answer, and nothing else seems to. So we are left with one of three options:”
Cleverly done, Unklee. The subtly snarky answer.
God provides an answer when one cannot face reality. It is a mode of retreat to safer, familiar ground.
Hide behind his skirt.
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Uncle E: I’m confused by something. You’ve stated that you do believe that moral truths exist apart from God. What I don’t understand is why that is not a fourth option for an atheist. Why can’t the atheist also believe that moral truths exist much like the law of non-contradiction exists? I understand that you believe that we have a need for God because our moral faculties are impaired. But I’m not following why that implies that if God doesn’t exist then those moral truths that you believe exist apart from him would be unable to exist. Can you explain that?
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Yes, you are right, I was being too brief. It is indeed a fourth option for an atheist, and I know of some atheist philosophers who opt for something like this. For example, Michael Martin has written:
“Atheists and theists both agree that prima facie this is a moral universe with objective moral values. Atheists who are moral realists attempt to show how this appearance is not deceptive and that such a universe is possible without God.”
The problem is, how can this be explained and shown to be true? How did a naturalistic universe come to have the property of having true moral values, and how can we demonstrate this?
The parallel is logic. We all believe (I suppose) that the laws of logic are really true, they exist in some abstract sense, like the set of integers. But we have rational minds that can test the laws of logic and see that they are true, something we cannot do for ethics. We cannot test ethics for truth, only for convenience or for outcomes.
So an atheist can indeed say that, but at the cost of perhaps having to give up physicalism/naturalism and having to admit that we cannot know these ethics or even know that they exist. Such a step has been the start of a slippery slope towards theism for some atheists – something that I would welcome, but others here may not!
Thanks for the opportunity to clarify.
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I’ve read the post (well done) and all the comments and wanted to add my 2 cents.
I think everyone who has commented agrees that rape is morally wrong. The question is, why do we think this way? I have to agree with Portal that it is because we feel empathy for the victim, we can picture ourselves or our daughters in the victim’s shoes. We all are disgusted by the action. Just as we would be disgusted by cannibalism. I think UnkleE confuses the matter by asking why it “ought” to be this way. No one said it “ought” to be this way, we are just all agreeing that we don’t like it. Obviously there are some men in the world (Mali) that thought it was the right thing to do. Can’t we denounce them (in unison) based on our own opinions? Why do we have to invoke a higher power to tell them that we think they are disgusting?
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Hi Dave. Of course we can all tell them that we don’t like it based on our own opinions. But:
1. That isn’t what most people seem to think and want to say – they want to say its wrong.
2. Why should anyone care what our opinions are, when they have their own opinions?
3. How would it be fair to impose by way of law (whether our own country’s laws, or international law) some sanctions on behaviour if we didn’t think it wrong but only that we didn’t like it?
I have yet to see convincing answers to those difficulties.
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Hi UnkleE, thanks for the response. I’ll take a stab at answering those.
“1. That isn’t what most people seem to think and want to say – they want to say its wrong.”
I get what you’re saying, and I think it’s because most people are not satisfied with just voicing their opinions, they want to take it further and impose them on others. They say it’s universally wrong or it’s wrong because God says so, but ultimately this is just their opinion.
“2. Why should anyone care what our opinions are, when they have their own opinions?”
They don’t care, and frankly, if a helpless victim was not involved, neither would we. In the case of a helpless victim our empathy moves us to take action and help.
“3. How would it be fair to impose by way of law (whether our own country’s laws, or international law) some sanctions on behaviour if we didn’t think it wrong but only that we didn’t like it?”
It would be unfair to impose our moral opinions on someone who was only hurting themselves (like outlawing smoking). When the actions start to affect others then it becomes fair to impose some boundaries (like no smoking in restaurants). Isn’t this why people invented governments? It works to resolve these issues by setting up boundaries so we can co-exist with each other.
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Thanks Dave, I think those are reasonable responses, though I don’t think I’d like to live that way – not thinking that even HItler or a pedophile or the ethnic cleansers in Bosnia were wrong, but just that I don’t like them. And I wonder whether you can live consistently with those views, never really condemning anyone’s actions as “wrong”. But thanks for replying, and best wishes.
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Abusive action can be condemned as wrong in a very real way, because we recongnise that those people being abused are biologically no different to us in value. Thus, even in a struggle for power, children and women should be treated with respect, because we would never like those abuses to be done to us or our kin.
Those people who committed such crimes do not recongnise this. It doesn’t make it less wrong. These abuses can be considered wrong in a real way.
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Uncle E: we may want to check if we’ve entered an alternate universe, because I largely agree with the gist of what you’ve said in your last response to me. 😉 Yes, laws of logic and math do seem to hold a more objective sense to them, and I also see a difference in the belief of moral truths existing. There is some weirdness to them.
I would also even agree further that belief in them has some similarities to belief in theism. For me I see believing in conscious entities that exist without bodies as a much bigger intellectual hurdle rather than something that can be easily slipped into after believing in moral truths, but that really is just my opinion, and not even sure I could quantify that.
I think most (although not all) atheists who are unwelcoming of theistic like beliefs are probably more worried about having dogmatic rules legally shoved down their throats.
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what i find interesting is that like rape, sane people find genocide or mass murder to be immoral. No one was shocked or surprised to learn the bible said murder was sinful or wrong. Becuase of our immediate and unquestioning recognition that in fact rape and murder are immoral, it stands to reason that we didnt really need the bible to tell us they were.
Yet the bible portrays god as commanding mass murder/genocide in several instances.
So, is the act of genocide morally wrong, or is it the lack of god’s blessing in mass murder that would make it morally wrong?
or is it that god commanded immoral actions?
And could a theist condemn a mass murderer since we cant be sure whether god sanctioned or approved the mass murder or not? …unless someone speaks directly with god and is privy to all of his thoughts on a given subject…
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William, I think what you just said, might qualify as objective moral values.
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Actually, I feel awkward to read all the comment.
Why discussing morality with something that obviously immoral such rape, kill, genocide, etc. Why all thing that human do must relate with morality? In this world, there are rights, law, protection, etc.
There are something that are morality wrong, but right thing to do, example a judge who give a life sentence to a mass killer, of course you take his freedom but it right thing to do.
Killing is obviously unlawful, but if suddenly some robber put a knife at your throat, you defend yourself and accidentally killer the robber. It was a right thing to do even unlawful.
Honor is ethical act, but if you are honor the tyrant you are unethical.
Why all thing that human do must limited to 2 categories as “morality” or “immoral”? There are many others criteria that need to be consider.
The philosophy of life are screw all over the place.
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Hifzan, I think you’re right. And I think this ties in to what William, Portal (Ryan), and Dave have been saying.
It’s okay for a society to dictate its own rules about what’s right and wrong. And society can typically do it in a way that allows for the kinds of nuances that you’re talking about.
Typically, unless there’s a problem in a person’s development, we seem to have an intuitive sense of what’s right and wrong. Maybe this is ingrained through evolution, or maybe we learn this so early in our childhood that it seems ingrained. Usually, when people deviate from these moral standards, like in the subjugation of certain minorities, and still call it “morality,” it’s due to indoctrination of some kind or another. Without all the dogma, I think most of us would naturally see all people as equals.
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Unklee wrote….
“It is very freeing to be able to admit strengths in one’s opponent’s argument and it helps us better evaluate truth.”
I would not admit to any strengths in a theists argument. Theism actually has no strengths simply because its foundation is based upon a lie that has been inculcated in humanity.
It is,therefore, immoral, and thus any argument for it is fallacious.
It is as ridiculous as espousing the immorality of stealing sweets while you are eating stolen sweets and refuse to recognize the fact.
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Howie, I think peace has broken out! Let’s enjoy it. Thanks.
This is an interesting comment – I wonder how much of the shoving you see being done by God and how much by churches?
I am a christian who is very critical of most brands of church, and who holds a brand of christianity somewhere between evangelical and liberal. As such, I find most atheists are disbelieving a form of christianity I don’t believe either, and in many cases many/most christians don’t either.
Probably someone needs to come up with a checklist of christian beliefs so we can all know where each other stands before we argue!
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Unklee, I like you.
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This is one of the most disturbing things about the Bible, and probably the thing most often raised by atheists (and rightly so). But you need to consider that:
1. Christians generally believe that Jesus is a much fuller revelation of God than we find in the OT. So, when the discussion is about christianity, we should start with that as the view of God we are believing or disbelieving. Then we can discuss the OT view as a problem, not the claimed basic belief.
2. Christians grapple with the OT difficulties in various ways. I would guess most hold to the view that they were commands of God appropriate in the very difficult circumstances, but others (like me) are troubled by that view, and believe that it was in some way a misunderstanding of God.
If we are going to discuss these commands,we need to be a little more nuanced in our statements or the discussion quickly becomes polarised.
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Why, thank you William. I think Nate sets a good tone on this blog, and this attracts people who want to discuss courteously, and I appreciate all of you who contribute in that way.
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Well, I may not always be as courteous as i should be or that you and nate are, but i’ll try to do better.
I think it is hard to separate the bible and Christianity. I understand there are different brands, each with their distict set of beliefs, so for argument sake I am fine addressing the bible over christianity.
And maybe we’re doing the same dance as before, but when i see flaws, errors and questionable morality on the part of the book’s deity; i cannot then see where any additional example of truth or good morality erase these the negative examples we have. I find it hard to understand why, in light of the problems anyone is willing to accept the book a divine.
So history agrees that Jesus was probably real and that he was known as a healer or miracle worker? He isn’t the only religious figure who can claim that sort of historical support.
I dont know, Unklee. the more I look at all of this, the more clear it becomes. Can you say the same? Granted, i’ve never experienced a miracle or god talking to me; I’m convinced that would make a difference.
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While I agree that evolutionary adaptive strategy led us from non-sentient beings to sentient beings and with this gradual adaptive process came reason, which allowed the creation of civilized institutions like morality and law, that adaptive process was indifferent to our species progression towards betterment or goodness. It reminds me of something Stephen Crane once said about how humans can’t love the Universe as much as they loved God because the Universe doesn’t love us back. In a sense, I agree with him because the adaptations that allowed our species to survive and thrive, in fact, could have led to our extinction. Much like a trait that is advantageous to the individual (being an efficient predator) could become more and more frequent and wind up driving the whole population or species into extinction. Natural selection has no ‘bettering’ intentions. It simply selects among individuals in a population, favoring traits that enable individuals to survive and reproduce, yielding more copies of those individuals’ genes in the next generation. Not to mention that natural selection acts on genetic variation which is generated by random mutation–a process that could care less if that variation is beneficial to the organism. Sometimes it will be beneficial–like most European humans ability to drink milk after a certain age, at least those of us who aren’t lactose intolerant–and in other instances it may drive the population into extinction. But in no case will evolution, with great foresight, offer a progressive trait. The natural evolutionary process, as Tennyson pointed out, “is red in tooth and claw.” Nature made us aggressive and that trait benefited our ancestors’ in hunting and defending themselves, but that trait also complicates social interaction, especially in cases of conflict of interest, where it tends to be maladaptive, causing suffering, injury, and death.
What I am getting at, is that, in evolutionary terms, a positive trait is usually accompanied by a negative one or ones, eventually. Morality is great, but it also causes guilt, shame, litigation, and frustration. Does the shark wonder if he should kill his prey? No, it is just instinctual.
My point is that if our morality is to be guided by evolution that could make for a very dangerous society because evolution does not care about us. Certainly, evolution explains our journey up to this point, and it offers a reasonable explanation for why morality exists, but it doesn’t become a morality. Our empathy is natural but that is not morality. We may feel physical pain, but that is just a warning mechanism; not morality. Human morality is the result of a long evolutionary process, but that process is not morality.
Morality must, in a way, transcend human nature for it to make any sense. Morality must be more than how humans feel for one another because humans don’t always feel for one another. Rape is wrong and love is right, but why? Why are these things ‘wrong’ and ‘right’? Morality is an attempt to move beyond our mere natural circumstances and inclinations to a higher realm of being that can answer these questions, satisfactorily. I don’t mean god, of course. I mean the discussion about morality. The ability to talk about these things, while a consequence of the evolutionary process, moves humanity above merely ‘noble savagery’ to a place of existence that is not morally determined by those natural processes. Just because nature created me with insatiable desires and wants in a world with limited resources and sympathies doesn’t mean I have to give in to those natural inclinations. That is what Dawkins was getting at when he said humanity must rebel “against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.” Just because the natural world made us to behave in such a way does not mean that we should behave in that way and it does not provide a reason for why we shouldn’t. Morality is about separating humanity from savagery; not throwing us into it, which is what naturalism does, even if naturalists don’t see it. That is why the discussion about morality is not about adaptive traits, but rising above those traits, which is even what Harris is arguing for.
Regards
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I disagree. You make it out as if people evolved to be selfish. I would allow that is only true, otherwise people wouldn’t have ever begun to live communally. That adaptive trait would lead to a set of moral laws that would enable man to do this. That’s why we’re not like loner fish who live their entire lives alone, with the sole purpose of fulfilling their desires. that is not man. Sure, some are that way, but those are anomalies, and would be outcasts, which would be evolution’s attempt at weeding out those loner traits.
And I can imagine the universe loving me just as much as i ever imagined god loving me. Their hugs feel the same anyways.
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ugh, “only partly true…” sorry.
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“That is why the discussion about morality is not about adaptive traits, but rising above those traits, which is even what Harris is arguing for”.
Persto,
Please forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but doesn’t empathy allow us to rise above these less desirable traits?
After all, would we be able to even come up with any other standards of living, that go beyond what we observe in other mammals, without our capacity for empathy?
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I think that is clear. (1) It tells us about Jesus, who many of us believe was the most important person who ever lived. (2) Many, many people have found hope in it, which changed their lives.
Presumably you mean you are becoming clearer that christianity isn’t true? I don’t think I feel any clearer, or any less clear, about my own beliefs, but I am understanding the issues better and how people like you and others here approach them. Which is good for me to know.
I think this is key. Most christians probably believe because of their own, or shared, experiences. I am slowly collecting stories that come from reliable sources about people being healed after prayer, seeing visions of Jesus that changed their lives, or having emotional healing from God which changed their lives. (You can see some of them in True life stories.)
Now we all know that even if these stories come from reliable stories (because I have omitted obvious urban myths, etc), we cannot verify them. But that is no reason to stop there – we can take a statistical approach. Even if we put a small probability on each story being true, the cumulative probability of so many of them adds up to a pretty decent probability that there is truth in some of them. Which is all we need to believe God has probably been at work
That evidence is there to be investigated, we don’t need to wait for something to happen to us.
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Persto, do you think morality is a bit like love (the self-sacrificing sort)? Something that evolved but that is difficult to justify through reason alone?
Great comment, by the way. A lot to think about.
And William, this made me laugh out loud 🙂
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