Quote of the week!

[Wildeblood]

So where do atheists get their morality from?

I can't answer that (in public), because the answer is not politically correct.

Because they sure as hell have morals.. and from what I've seen, they generally live by them far more than most deists live by the moral code they profess to.

I think you meant theists? Deism by its nature is morally ambiguous, so you'd be stating the obvious if that is what you meant.

[SteveKing]

There was probably a sense of 'moral' long before the cognitive derivation of god(s).

Traditional atheism* is the rejection of religion, if morality existed before religion, as you say, then it existed before atheism. So that morality cannot come from atheism. Humanism =/= atheism.

I'll repeat, you cannot derive any worthwhile morality from atheism. Take the very first moral principle that any & every society needs to get started: thou shalt not slit thy neighbours throat while he sleeps. What logical process can get you from the premise "there is no god" to the conclusion "thou shalt not kill"?

* I'm assuming that's what Day meant, when he said he lived in an atheist society; or is France full of crusading Dawkinsists nowadays?

I had another look at this last night. My understanding of Atheism is 'a non-belief in god(s)' - a (without) theos (god) - defined by our learned English speakers from Oxford I suppose in the strictest sense I should have used the term 'pre-theism', but I don't think that is a word as such, 'atheism' is the closest I could come to it. The only difference is an Atheist understands the concept of God. The hypothetical experiment would be to isolate two (or more) humans from society before they have been introduced to the concept of theism and (all other things being equal) see if they develop a sense of moral.

Anyway I believe my logic stands - morality came before god. And to expand on that, Theism probably came before pretty much anything else (except perhaps language).

The universe is at no point obligated to conform to human desires or expectations

I agree, but even if we (humans) can never fully understand the universe, we should appreciate that everything about it is explainable even if that point is infinitely far away...

...But like the proverbial 'infinite number of monkeys', one of them is bound to be the Monkey God

[Diziet Sma]

I can't answer that (in public), because the answer is not politically correct.

To hell with political correctness.. if you can say it without being obnoxious, that will suffice. Answer away...

I think you meant theists? Deism by its nature is morally ambiguous, so you'd be stating the obvious if that is what you meant.

Yes, I meant theists..

[Wildeblood]

There was probably a sense of 'moral' long before the cognitive derivation of god(s).

Traditional atheism is the rejection of religion, if morality existed before religion, as you say, then it existed before atheism. So that morality cannot come from atheism. Humanism =/= atheism.

I'll repeat, you cannot derive any worthwhile morality from atheism. Take the very first moral principle that any & every society needs to get started: thou shalt not slit thy neighbours throat while he sleeps. What logical process can get you from the premise "there is no god" to the conclusion "thou shalt not kill"?

I had another look at this last night. My understanding of Atheism is 'a non-belief in god(s)' - a (without) theos (god) - defined by our learned English speakers from Oxford I suppose in the strictest sense I should have used the term 'pre-theism', but I don't think that is a word as such, 'atheism' is the closest I could come to it. The only difference is an Atheist understands the concept of God.

Far from the only difference, it's a crucial difference (at least in the Christian context), since innocence and rejection are qualitatively different states.* Also "concept of God" is rather more abstract and mysterious than e.g. "concept of banana". Anyway...

To me, atheism is a useless thing. My challenge stands: start from the premise "there is no god" and show how you get to the conclusion "thou shalt not kill". Alternative challenge: describe a fictional society with no prohibition against murder. For any social group to persist longer than one night, one has to be able to fall asleep safe in the knowledge that the other wolves in your pack aren't going to kill you while you sleep.

If atheism can't even provide this very first necessary rule, let alone reach rules like, "If thou have a vote, thou must not exclude the womenfolk," then it can't form the basis of social control. So the idea of "an atheist society" - Day's phrase which first caught my eye - makes no sense.

Having decided that atheism is useless, and obviously so, I'm mystified why its adherents can't stop talking about it. They're like vegetarians: it's never, "I'll have the vegetarian vegetable salad, thanks," it's always, "I'm a vegetarian, so I'll have the vegetarian vegetable salad." There's a whopping great dollop of condescension and/or look-at-me-ism involved. The new, militant atheists led by Dawkins are strident in their assertions that everyone should shut up about religion, except them, and wow, just wow, that's not okay.

* There are Christian sects, e.g. Christadelphians, who reject this distinction, and say there ain't no pre-verbal children in heaven.

Anyway I believe my logic stands - morality came before god. And to expand on that, Theism probably came before pretty much anything else (except perhaps language).

Regarding the first, I thought we were all in furious agreement. But some contributors to this thread were too busy being furious to notice the agreement.

Regarding the second, I'm unconvinced. Is there an archaeologist in the house? I rather had the impression that religion was a recent development, no more than a few thousand years old.

[Ranthe]

I'll repeat, you cannot derive any worthwhile morality from atheism. Take the very first moral principle that any & every society needs to get started: thou shalt not slit thy neighbours throat while he sleeps. What logical process can get you from the premise "there is no god" to the conclusion "thou shalt not kill"?
[...]
My challenge stands: start from the premise "there is no god" and show how you get to the conclusion "thou shalt not kill".

I would have thought that "Do to others as you would have them do to you" would be more than sufficient reason, coupled with co-operation with others being far more beneficial to the individual than lashing out at one's own kind just for kicks. Heck, you have animals that form social groups for mutual benefit who get along (mostly) without killing each other - and I highly doubt they have religion.

But let's turn your argument around the other way: do you really need $DEITY to tell you not to kill, and if there was no $DEITY you'd be off on a homicidal killing spree "just because you could"?

[Wildeblood]

I'll repeat, you cannot derive any worthwhile morality from atheism. Take the very first moral principle that any & every society needs to get started: thou shalt not slit thy neighbours throat while he sleeps. What logical process can get you from the premise "there is no god" to the conclusion "thou shalt not kill"?
[...]
My challenge stands: start from the premise "there is no god" and show how you get to the conclusion "thou shalt not kill".

I would have thought that "Do to others as you would have them do to you" would be more than sufficient reason...

Sure. And that's a rule you might have learned from Christianity or Buddhism or Wicca or Humanism. But it's not a rule you can derive by any logical deduction starting from "There is no God(dess)".

You see, I'm not trying to persuade any of you that atheism is naughty. Nor that you should accept Jesus or Goddess or anything else. I'm just telling you that atheism is useless as a basis for morality, so if you are an atheist and you're not a sociopath, there's obviously something else going on in your reasoning besides disbelief in deities. So... shut up about "atheism" and tell us about your beliefs, because what you do believe might be interesting, what you disbelieve is irrelevant.

You see too, the current "atheism because obvious" fad is a thought-stopping cliché. It's not just used to bully Christians. It's also used to manipulate atheists into not thinking about what they do believe.

[Layne]

My challenge stands: start from the premise "there is no god" and show how you get to the conclusion "thou shalt not kill".

Done handily in my post above, but just to break the premise already pointed out by several others here into simpler terms, we diagram it so:

There is a natural universe out there, without supernatural beings I cannot see. ---> There is no-one else out there to look after my family/tribe/social unit, except those who are also in my family/tribe/social unit. ---> We must, therefore, look out for one another in my family/tribe/social unit, and do our best to care for one another.

Done. Do I expect you to change an ossified world view based on this? I do not. Debates on the internet are pointless. This canard, this utterly false idea that morality requires religious underpinnings, has been debunked literally thousands of times. Any atheism forum. Any free-thinker site. Any religion chat-board. We play rhetorical whack-a-mole with it, in endless, wearying progression.

If we become strident upon it, forgive us, because being insulted on a regular basis galls. Here in America, we also have the very real worry that very real political officials base very real decisions on the premise that we atheists are immoral and cannot be trusted as citizens of our own country.

And incidentally, just so you're despising me for all the right reasons, I'm a vegetarian too. Feel free to glare.

[Wildeblood]

This canard, this utterly false idea that morality requires religious underpinnings, has been debunked literally thousands of times.

You have a remarkable ability to see things that aren't there.

[Layne]

This canard, this utterly false idea that morality requires religious underpinnings, has been debunked literally thousands of times.

You have a remarkable ability to see things that aren't there.

Perhaps that is where my very human predisposition to see imaginary beings has been channeled.

What imaginary beings is your own projecting out to the world?

[Smivs]

This canard, this utterly false idea that morality requires religious underpinnings, has been debunked literally thousands of times.

You have a remarkable ability to see things that aren't there.

But didn't you put forward the notion that 'morality requires religious underpinnings' in the first place? Or has this entire thread been derailed due to a failure to express something adequately/failure to understand a point being made?

[Ranthe]

I'll repeat, you cannot derive any worthwhile morality from atheism. Take the very first moral principle that any & every society needs to get started: thou shalt not slit thy neighbours throat while he sleeps. What logical process can get you from the premise "there is no god" to the conclusion "thou shalt not kill"?
[...]
My challenge stands: start from the premise "there is no god" and show how you get to the conclusion "thou shalt not kill".

I would have thought that "Do to others as you would have them do to you" would be more than sufficient reason...

Sure. And that's a rule you might have learned from Christianity or Buddhism or Wicca or Humanism. But it's not a rule you can derive by any logical deduction starting from "There is no God(dess)".

Oh really? What exactly is your reason behind this premise?

It's more likely that the "Do not kill" / "Do unto others..." rules were determined from simple human self-interest (as others have pointed out) and had a religious deity retconned into the mix to justify / enforce it, rather than originating from some "divine inspiration".

[cim]

What exactly is your reason behind this premise?

There's a difference between
"{there is a god} is required to conclude {do not kill}" being false
and
"{do not kill} can be concluded from {there is no god}" being true.
They could both be false - here's an argument for that:

"There is nothing supernatural -> basic self-interest -> encourage non-murdering"
is a valid chain of reasoning given the starting premise

"There is at least one supernatural entity, and no supernatural entity is inclined and able to reliably and decisively intervene in my favour in murder situations -> basic self-interest -> encourage non-murdering"
is also a valid chain of reasoning given the starting premise

"I am a supernatural entity among many -> basic self-interest -> encourage non-murdering"
is also a valid chain of reasoning given the starting premise

Therefore, as the number and form of supernatural entities is within wide bounds not relevant to the second and third stages of the argument, it can be converted to "basic self-interest -> encourage non-murdering" without loss of meaning ... and therefore "encourage non-murdering" cannot be said to meaningfully follow from "there is nothing supernatural".


(I think the concept of logically deriving a moral code makes very little sense in the first place, though: the chains of reasoning hiding under any of these arrows could be expanded to fill an entire research field of philosophy and still not be watertight)

[Wildeblood]

There's a difference between
"{there is a god} is required to conclude {do not kill}" being false
and
"{do not kill} can be concluded from {there is no god}" being true.

There's a huge difference. And I was very clear and very consistent in asking about the second. So why did the majority of respondents imagine I was asserting the first?

Trigger word! Think stop! Rage start!

I think the concept of logically deriving a moral code makes very little sense in the first place, though: the chains of reasoning hiding under any of these arrows could be expanded to fill an entire research field of philosophy and still not be watertight.

I concur. So, if you reject divine revelation and rational deduction as sources of morality, then what?

[Smivs]

... if you reject divine revelation and rational deduction as sources of morality, then what?

Self interest. Most people's self-interests are the same (certainly in terms of not wanting to be killed) and as there is a likelyhood most people think roughly the same way, they would instinctively realise that not killing others is a good way to massively reduce the risk of themselves being killed.
Other than that, popular opinion would play its part as well - peer pressure. This would vary around various cultures and times of course. What is a moral issue for one culture is not a factor for others but the majority view would be deemed to be correct and adhered to within any given culture.

[Disembodied]

So, if you reject divine revelation and rational deduction as sources of morality, then what?

You have to assume that morality has pre-rational origins. As I mentioned earlier, chimpanzees have a sense of fairness - or at least an aversion to inequity. So, it seems, do Capuchin monkeys:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 01963.html

Morality seems to be a product of the evolution of co-operation in social animals.