Do Athiests have morals?

[LuisDantas]

21st century and people are still asking whether atheists have morals?

One would expect better.

 

[1robin]

Technically speaking atheists have a higher value on morals because to this very day many religious people derive their morals from their religions. Many religious people don't do this but it does not overshadow those that do. With these comes the uncivil behavior of their religion that is nothing but ancient culture tossed into the present.
Christians are filled with their immoralities such as hatred for people and Muslims with violence. Hindus have bigotry left from their caste system and Baha'is have a surprising disgust towards sexuality.

On top of this there is the fact that secular societies actually are more moral and far better than religious ones. So many studies for this but they are show the same thing.

The closest thing to an actual secular society was Stalin's Russia. Not exactly a vacation spot. Others would be Mao's China or Pol Pot's Cambodia.

You want to find the most immoral societies in history look at the great atheist Utopias of the 20th century.

However you wanted to be technical. Doing so shows that morality can't be had in an atheist world view. There are no actual moral truths without God. Only opinions and preferences. Let me ask a simple question in the way of a proof.

Prove that torturing a child for fun is actually wrong without God:

 

[McBell]

However you wanted to be technical. Doing so shows that morality can't be had in an atheist world view.

Bold empty claim

There are no actual moral truths without God.

Bold empty claim

Only opinions and preferences.

Bold empty claim

Let me ask a simple question in the way of a proof.
Prove that torturing a child for fun is actually wrong without God:

Prove that torturing a child for fun is wrong with god...
Oh yeah, you can't.
All you got is your opinion that god says it is wrong.
Interesting how your gods alleged "absolute morality" is a reflection of your own bias and prejudices.

Even more interesting is how your gods alleged "absolute morality" works exactly the same whether god is present or not.

Needless to say, your "argument" if it can be called that, is pretty much a whole lot of fancy words all dressed up with no where to go.

 

[Sha'irullah]

The closest thing to an actual secular society was Stalin's Russia. Not exactly a vacation spot. Others would be Mao's China or Pol Pot's Cambodia.

You want to find the most immoral societies in history look at the great atheist Utopias of the 20th century.

However you wanted to be technical. Doing so shows that morality can't be had in an atheist world view. There are no actual moral truths without God. Only opinions and preferences. Let me ask a simple question in the way of a proof.

Prove that torturing a child for fun is actually wrong without God:

America is by default a secular government, as I said nothing about an atheist government.

When you stop lying I will take you seriously. Knowing you that won't happen which sort of proves my point about the fundamentally religious lacking morals.

 

[Quintessence]

21st century and people are still asking whether atheists have morals?

One would expect better.

I tend to translate this in my head to "there is only one correct source of morals, and if atheists reject that source, can they have correct morals." It makes my head hurt a bit less.

 

[1robin]

America is by default a secular government, as I said nothing about an atheist government.

Communism has among it's most primary foundations the eradication of faith. That is why Stalin was chosen. He was a failed seminary student who hated God and faith. In no other state has there been such a lack of faith in the divine. America was founded by men who were 95% Christian's and founded on Christian principles. The Washington monument has a bible in it's foundation, the Capitol has scripture carved into the walls. You have everything backwards.

When you stop lying I will take you seriously. Knowing you that won't happen which sort of proves my point about the fundamentally religious lacking morals.

I will tolerate that this one time. The claim of lying requires two things. You have to know what I said was not true (which you do not) and you have to know that I knew it was wrong but stated it anyway (this one you can't know). Now that will be the last time you will accuse me of lying and a discussion continue. Cut the [personal commentary garbage and post some evidence for something.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Communism has among it's most primary foundations the eradication of faith. That is why Stalin was chosen. He was a failed seminary student who hated God and faith. In no other state has there been such a lack of faith in the divine. America was founded by men who were 95% Christian's and founded on Christian principles. The Washington monument has a bible in it's foundation, the Capitol has scripture carved into the walls. You have everything backwards.

I will tolerate that this one time. The claim of lying requires two things. You have to know what I said was not true (which you do not) and you have to know that I knew it was wrong but stated it anyway (this one you can't know). Now that will be the last time you will accuse me of lying and a discussion continue. Cut the [personal commentary garbage and post some evidence for something.

Earlier of this year(or last year) I made a specific statement saying I would never respond to your posts. That still stands. What about that do you not get?
Back to ignore you go.

 

[1robin]

Earlier of this year(or last year) I made a specific statement saying I would never respond to your posts. That still stands. What about that do you not get?
Back to ignore you go.

You violated your own statement so why would I take you seriously. Actually I don't keep up with people who make posts like this or what they say because it is not memorable.
Please keep me on ignore this time.

 

[McBell]

The claim of lying requires two things. You have to know what I said was not true (which you do not) and you have to know that I knew it was wrong but stated it anyway (this one you can't know)

bull ****.
Lying is the intent to deceive.

Now I personally do not put your bold empty claims as lying.
However, i can understand why some people would.

 

[Cephus]

No, that is pretty much a given and has been for thousands of years. Now if you only mean that positing that my God is the source is to aggressive then that is fine but it must be a God very similar to mine. The certain thing is that nature is not an explanation for objective morality. BTW objective in this context means free of the opinions of it's adherents. However morality it's self is also free of God's opinions but no the applications or commands that are issued on it.

You have to realize that "God" is a proper name for a particular deity, just like "Zeus". It's not my fault that your side was so uncreative in naming it's imaginary friend. Referring to any other deity is "god". No capitalization. Otherwise, you just confuse the issue and if you can't be understandable to others, having any kind of discussion is pointless.

That is not necessary for my claim nor would it be necessary for any claim. No claim of this type requires universal agreement on all details. It only requires that the issue be universal enough to establish a high probability of it being true. The same way that most of us agree that the earth is round based on visual experience even though there are still flat earther's around. Even things like 2+2=4 have those that do not agree. However the earths roundness and 2 + 2 = 4 are so well established as to be virtual certainties.

Earth isn't round, it's an oblate spheroid. 2+2 only equals 4 because we have invented the mathematical system that says so. Reality doesn't rely on our understanding of it to be so. There are people who deny demonstrable reality and in all cases where they leap to ideas which are unsupported by evidence or make claims which are on conflict with demonstrated reality, they are simply wrong. That includes people who believe in gods.

Anytime I find a layman in a forum who scoffs at principles established for thousand of years I suspect arrogance and bias. Maybe you can be the first to find an actual flaw in these premise but no one will ever find a single reason to think them laughable other that preference. Unless your credentials exceed Kant, Aristotle, and Lewis that statement is laughable.

You are aware that you are engaged in a fallacy, right? The argument from tradition is a logical fallacy that says that because something has been considered true for a long time, it has a better possibility of actually being true. This is a wrong view.

Your going to have to do more than post denials to contend with the age old argument:

1. A human experience of morality is observed.
2. God is the best or only explanation for this moral experience.
3. Therefore, God exists.[4]

Yet that's a faulty argument, all of your premises are simply wrong. You cannot define what this "human experience of morality" actually is and since we can find tons of exceptions and can't even objectively define what constitutes morality. God is far from the only experience for moral experience, in fact, there isn't any demonstration that God is real, you can claim that leprechauns are responsible equally well. Belief has no bearing on truth.

Seems you need to do some reading on basic logic and how to avoid fallacies because that's about all you ever engage in.

 

[1robin]

You have to realize that "God" is a proper name for a particular deity, just like "Zeus". It's not my fault that your side was so uncreative in naming it's imaginary friend. Referring to any other deity is "god". No capitalization. Otherwise, you just confuse the issue and if you can't be understandable to others, having any kind of discussion is pointless.

I know all of this but that was such a weird point of contention I could not decide if that was the one your were making. So you agree that objective morality requires a transcendent source but you only balk at my claiming that my God is that source? Fine lets move on.

Earth isn't round, it's an oblate spheroid. 2+2 only equals 4 because we have invented the mathematical system that says so. Reality doesn't rely on our understanding of it to be so. There are people who deny demonstrable reality and in all cases where they leap to ideas which are unsupported by evidence or make claims which are on conflict with demonstrated reality, they are simply wrong. That includes people who believe in gods.

Are you going to rely on splitting hairs as the only tactic. First of al the Earth being round is common language use and so it is justifiable in a debate. Second the earth is not specifically any shape. It has bulges, bumps, valleys, and is not a perfect anything. Why are you being technical only to an arbitrary point? Either be purely technical or allow for normal language use. Anything else is contrived and a tactic. I have a degree in math and we have not invented a single mathematic fact in our entire history. We did not invent 2 entities plus two entities equals 4 entities. We simply came up with a language to describe this brute fact. God is supported by evidence which is why so many of the greatest minds in the fields of testimony and evidence, history, mathematics, philosophy, etc.... are men of faith. Christianity literally invented modern science including many of it's very fields. 78% of Nobel's are Christians and any list of great scientific minds is dominated by Christians and Jews.

You are aware that you are engaged in a fallacy, right? The argument from tradition is a logical fallacy that says that because something has been considered true for a long time, it has a better possibility of actually being true. This is a wrong view.

That is not what I said. I said you might actually be the first to find out that it is wrong, but the concept is so sophisticated and has stood up to so much scrutiny for so long that saying it is laughable says way more about you than it.

Yet that's a faulty argument, all of your premises are simply wrong. You cannot define what this "human experience of morality" actually is and since we can find tons of exceptions and can't even objectively define what constitutes morality. God is far from the only experience for moral experience, in fact, there isn't any demonstration that God is real, you can claim that leprechauns are responsible equally well. Belief has no bearing on truth.

Nothings existence depends on my being able to define it especially since my definition will be critiqued by arbitrary standards. I can't properly define most objects that exist in space yet they do not go away because I cannot define them in exactness. We still do not know what is in 95% of the seas yet we know all the seas exist, the backside of the moon existed before we got to it, and quantum physics was doing it's thing billions of years before anyone knew it existed. Morality means the apprehension of a realm of actual right and wrong. No one need know how it works for virtually all of us to know it exists.

Seems you need to do some reading on basic logic and how to avoid fallacies because that's about all you ever engage in.

I have no need of personal commentaries. Concentrate on evidence instead of declarations, arguments instead or proclamation, and use consistent criteria to judge what you accept.

 

[McBell]

I know all of this but that was such a weird point of contention I could not decide if that was the one your were making. So you agree that objective morality requires a transcendent source but you only balk at my claiming that my God is that source? Fine lets move on.

Classic Pigeon Chess move.
Twist what is said to fit your agenda, claim the most shallowest of victories and try to divert the the focus by "moving on".

God is supported by evidence which is why so many of the greatest minds in the fields of testimony and evidence, history, mathematics, philosophy, etc.... are men of faith. Christianity literally invented modern science including many of it's very fields. 78% of Nobel's are Christians and any list of great scientific minds is dominated by Christians and Jews.

Bold empty claim mill running full force...

That is not what I said. I said you might actually be the first to find out that it is wrong, but the concept is so sophisticated and has stood up to so much scrutiny for so long that saying it is laughable says way more about you than it.

You made an appeal to tradition then tried backing it up with an appeal to authority.
Now you are trying to Pigeon Chess your way out of it.

Nothings existence depends on my being able to define it especially since my definition will be critiqued by arbitrary standards. I can't properly define most objects that exist in space yet they do not go away because I cannot define them in exactness. We still do not know what is in 95% of the seas yet we know all the seas exist, the backside of the moon existed before we got to it, and quantum physics was doing it's thing billions of years before anyone knew it existed. Morality means the apprehension of a realm of actual right and wrong. No one need know how it works for virtually all of us to know it exists

Making it up as you go along simply because you cannot be proven wrong does not help support your bold empty claims.

 

[icehorse]

I tend to translate this in my head to "there is only one correct source of morals, and if atheists reject that source, can they have correct morals." It makes my head hurt a bit less.

I gather from this post that your opinion is that the source of morals is god? If so, how does god convey his morals to you, personally?

 

[viole]

That is like asking what is round if only round can exist if circles do. Is see no conflict here at all.

You can have an irrational God I suppose. However the bible posits a rational creator and so great men of science set out to see if they found rationality in the creation. They did and in the process created modern science.

None are. They are all tests for that god's existence that are confirmed by rational deduction. They are all (that I can think) of the form if Y then X. We find X so then believe Y.

I have no idea why your saying what you are here. I didn't give any tautologies, no circular reasoning, no begging the question arguments.

I hope you indulge me if I do not take the Bible as being evidence of anything in this area.

I don't think that the fact they we perceive the Universe as rational is surprising. It is actually what I would expect if naturalism is true.

I think it is self evident that living beings import, in their phenotypes, information about their environment. If I observe a stick insect in a natural museum, I can infer a lot about its native environment. This is what natural selection does, among other things. It filters out information that has environmental significance.

In the same way, our mind must contain information about the mechanisms of the world in order to make sense of them. No matter what they are like, if they can evolve duplicating entities, then any such being, once it reached a certain intellectual complexity, is bound to perceive them as agreeing with its forma mentis.

But even that "rationality" will be limited by what is necessary and sufficient in order to survive in said environment. Some of our most successful theories seem to escape this innate "rationality" when we move beyond our limited ecosystem. Quantum Mechanics comes to mind. As R.Feynman would say, QM appears to be a correct description of the microscopic world, even though nobody understands it.


So, saying that nature is rational is as meaningful as saying that forests and bushes are stick-insect-like.


Now, back to your claim that logic, or mathematics, presuppone the existence of God in order to work reliably. This is a pretty big claim, that would require proportionally big evidence. The question is how you intend to provide such evidence without begging the question.

Any logical argument you can present to show its plausibility is doomed to assume the thesis in the premises in order to be considered valid.

So, no matter what variant you choose, it is invalid:

1) If the laws of logic are reliable only because of God, then this assumption would make any argument in its favor circular. And circularity would be a (reliable) logical reason against it.

2) If the laws of logic are reliable independently of God, then any argument that wants to show otherwise would be self defeating.

3)If the laws of logic are not reliable then, well, any argument is obviously useless. Including yours and mine.

Ciao

- viole

 

[icehorse]

Communism has among it's most primary foundations the eradication of faith. That is why Stalin was chosen. He was a failed seminary student who hated God and faith. In no other state has there been such a lack of faith in the divine. America was founded by men who were 95% Christian's and founded on Christian principles. The Washington monument has a bible in it's foundation, the Capitol has scripture carved into the walls. You have everything backwards.

I will tolerate that this one time. The claim of lying requires two things. You have to know what I said was not true (which you do not) and you have to know that I knew it was wrong but stated it anyway (this one you can't know). Now that will be the last time you will accuse me of lying and a discussion continue. Cut the [personal commentary garbage and post some evidence for something.

I can't speak for all atheists, but *most* of them that I know are fans of the enlightenment. The "Stalin, Pol Pot, and so on", argument misses the point that these despots were NOT students of the enlightenment, they were instead trying to create their own new dogma. They had more in common with religion than with the enlightenment.

As Hitchens said: "Show me a society based on Spinoza and the enlightenment that's run amok, and then you'll have my attention."

 

[Quintessence]

I gather from this post that your opinion is that the source of morals is god? If so, how does god convey his morals to you, personally?

Oh, HELL no! That's how the people who say "atheists don't have morals" come at it, though. Or at least that's what I tell myself to avoid having headaches.

 

[Harikrish]

Religious believers are more depressed than atheists. So what they believe are higher morality is really higher moral anguish.
Religious believers more depressed than atheists: study
Religious believers more depressed than atheists: study | Richard Dawkins Foundation

 

[icehorse]

Oh, HELL no! That's how the people who say "atheists don't have morals" come at it, though. Or at least that's what I tell myself to avoid having headaches.

Got it, sorry for the confusion.

 

[Nakosis]

Religious believers are more depressed than atheists. So what they believe are higher morality is really higher moral anguish.
Religious believers more depressed than atheists: study
Religious believers more depressed than atheists: study | Richard Dawkins Foundation

Why wouldn't they be? They not only have to worry about this life but the next life too.

Atheists can die with no worry. Religious folks have to go meet their maker hoping they made all the right choices to get into Heaven.

 

[McBell]

Why wouldn't they be? They not only have to worry about this life but the next life too.

Atheists can die with no worry. Religious folks have to go meet their maker hoping they made all the right choices to get into Heaven.

Not to mention they hope they kissed the butt of the right "creator"...