(Strong) Atheism's Burden of Proof

[Vishvavajra]

That's about right. The problem is that is cannot be solely created by us. For there to be moral truths, it must be objective to us. Because those truth are objective it is a basis for a consensus about what is moral. There has to be a way to say that something is right and wrong beyond personal preference in order for it to be shared.

I agree with you completely. The problem, as I've mentioned, is the assumption that ethical systems must either be objective and deontological, or relative and pragmatic. A lot of theists peddle that nonsense, but it's never been true. You can have a system of ethics that is both objective and pragmatic, as Buddhism for example does. It doesn't line up with Western philosophical categories exactly, but by and large it's consequentialist in orientation, only with a more sophisticated understanding of the internal and external consequences of actions than you get with utilitarianism, as well as a reduced focus on the individual.

Buddhism deconstructs the individual person sufficiently to remove it as the default point of reference, while still acknowledging that there is such a thing as benefit and harm and that actions' effects on individuals matter. It's not a total removal of people from the equation, so much as an acknowledgement that selfhood is a relative concept and that ultimately there's no difference between self and other, so pursuing benefit for oneself at the cost of others is delusional.

The whole system is based on empirical observation of reality and further inference therefrom and requires no appeal to a supernatural agent. If there's a weak point to the system, it's that it relies on insight into the nature of things and the concept of selfhood that seems counterintuitive at first, and you can't really remove the ethical system from that theoretical framework without removing the rationale behind everything. However, it does stand as an example that the thing you're talking about has been done—a very long time ago, in fact.

 

[LuisDantas]

Of course, if there was no god- it means there had never been a god in the first place, so we've been figuring out our moral code based on trial and error and just misattributing the source.

Does it, though? It seems to me that morality is actually an act of reason.

 

[Typist]

@red, yet another option to ponder perhaps...

What if all the challenges which humans wrestle with don't really arise so much from the content of thought (this ideology vs. that ideology etc) but from the nature of thought? What if the issues are deeper than philosophy?

An example to illustrate. As far as I know, every ideology ever created inevitably divides in to factions, which puts the ideology at war with itself to some degree or another.

If a particular ideology did this, we could reasonably theorize the problem was with the content of the ideology. But what if they all do it? Wouldn't that point to something deeper than unique content, something that all ideologies have in common? Like maybe, what they're all made of?

If true, then maybe all moral systems will inevitably face the same kinds of challenges as they are all made of the same stuff, thought. Do we over estimate the influence of ideology, thought content?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

If true, then maybe all moral systems will inevitably face the same kinds of challenges as they are all made of the same stuff, thought. Do we over estimate the influence of ideology, thought content?

Thought is often an expression of feeling, so it goes deeper than that.

 

[Typist]

The logical conclusion of divine command theory is that might makes right, which is about as nihilistic and relativistic as you can possibly get.

On the other hand, might makes right is how reality works, even without a god. While religion introduces a perhaps unnecessary and unreal character in the form of God, that character does a pretty good job of representing nature.

Nature is a gloriously beautiful all powerful ruthless killer of the innocent, the giver of life, the taker of life. If we are going to be shaking our angry fist at a God, we should be shaking it at nature as well.

What theists seem to get is that it's irrational to shake one's angry fist at any all powerful force. Surrender and celebration is the only rational response, because this is not a negotiation.

This is true whether one sees the foundation of nature to be a form of intelligence, or the collision of random mechanical forces. In either case, it's too big to argue with, there's no point to it.

 

[Typist]

Buddhism deconstructs the individual person sufficiently to remove it as the default point of reference, while still acknowledging that there is such a thing as benefit and harm and that actions' effects on individuals matter. It's not a total removal of people from the equation, so much as an acknowledgement that selfhood is a relative concept and that ultimately there's no difference between self and other, so pursuing benefit for oneself at the cost of others is delusional.

While I am very sympathetic to that perspective, it's probably also delusional to think that very many people will truly get it beyond just a collection of ideas to agree or disagree with.

Thus, I also have some sympathy for less sophisticated perspectives, which deal with the reality of apparent division by implementing strict moral codes based upon proposed higher authorities. Like for instance, the ten commandments. Here are the rules, 1, 2, 3, 4, violate them and you'll be in a bunch of trouble!

What works for a rare selection of monks and for entire cultures is likely to be quite different.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Nature is a gloriously beautiful all powerful ruthless killer of the innocent, the giver of life, the taker of life. If we are going to be shaking our angry fist at a God, we should be shaking it at nature as well.

Isn't that what pantheists do?

 

[Vishvavajra]

While I am very sympathetic to that perspective, it's probably also delusional to think that very many people will truly get it beyond just a collection of ideas to agree or disagree with.

Thus, I also have some sympathy for less sophisticated perspectives, which deal with the reality of apparent division by implementing strict moral codes based upon proposed higher authorities. Like for instance, the ten commandments. Here are the rules, 1, 2, 3, 4, violate them and you'll be in a bunch of trouble!

What works for a rare selection of monks and for entire cultures is likely to be quite different.

Buddhists aren't just monks. The lay community outnumbers the monastic one many times over. And unlike the 10 Commandments, basic Buddhist precepts apply to everyone equally. Nor are they particularly difficult to understand, and they can be seen to work even without fully understanding the philosophical basis, as people find themselves becoming happier and their relations with others becoming smoother.

It's not an all-or-nothing situation; I was just saying that you can't completely divorce Buddhist ethics from Buddhist philosophy (and, say, plug it directly into Marxism) without losing the rationale behind it, which does become important when you want to understand the system on a deeper level beyond just having faith in what seemingly wise people tell you.

 

[Vishvavajra]

On the other hand, might makes right is how reality works, even without a god.

I don't agree. "Nature" is an abstraction, just like "God." Nor is successfully killing something the same thing as being right. A person can rule over others with an iron fist and die surrounded by riches, but that doesn't make their actions right, nor will it make that person truly happy.

 

[Typist]

Buddhists aren't just monks.

I stand corrected in my reference to monks, sloppy writing here.

I'm really not rebelling against Buddhism, which I have much respect for, to the limited degree I understand it.

I think I am rebelling against sophisticated understandings, even if fully true, of whatever flavor, including any I may try to share. Such sophistication can be very satisfying for we wannabe (me) or real (apparently you) philosophers. But most people simply aren't philosopher types.

Thus, I was attempting to argue that simplistic moral codes, even if they are built upon a foundation of fantasy, may have more value in large populations.

It's really a question, posed as an assertion for um, dramatic effect.

 

[viole]

He/she doesn't, if he/she doesn't make a positive claim. The difference is between saying "I know gods don't exist" and "I don't believe gods exist". It's a statement of fact (requiring evidence) or a statement of opinion (not requiring evidence).

I know God does not exist, for I am a gnostic atheist.

Do I have to prove it? I am not sure. I think there is an equivocation between absolute certainty and knowledge. If knowledge would equal absolute certainty, then we would know nothing, or very little indeed. To be honest, I am not dead sure about anything. Not even about me typing these words, for I could be a brain in a vet imagining that I am writing words on a forum.

Consider any other claim of knowledge. For instance,the speed of light in vacuum is constant.

Can I prove that it is the case with absolute certainty? No. It could be that in some lost parts of the Universe, the speed of light is not constant. Or, there are cases, not known until now, where the speed of light in vacuum changes.

But even if I am not dead sure that the speed of light never changes, that it is not a sufficient condition that prevents me from declaring knowledge about the speed of light. For what we know, there is no evidence that the speed of light changes, therefore I know that it does not.

The same with God, absence of evidence allows me to conclude that this is evidence of absence and that is all I need to claim knowledge about Gods not existence.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Laika]

@red, yet another option to ponder perhaps...

What if all the challenges which humans wrestle with don't really arise so much from the content of thought (this ideology vs. that ideology etc) but from the nature of thought? What if the issues are deeper than philosophy?

An example to illustrate. As far as I know, every ideology ever created inevitably divides in to factions, which puts the ideology at war with itself to some degree or another.

If a particular ideology did this, we could reasonably theorize the problem was with the content of the ideology. But what if they all do it? Wouldn't that point to something deeper than unique content, something that all ideologies have in common? Like maybe, what they're all made of?

If true, then maybe all moral systems will inevitably face the same kinds of challenges as they are all made of the same stuff, thought. Do we over estimate the influence of ideology, thought content?

That's actually something that I've thought about for quite some time. Our ideas are not a perfect reflection of reality- no ideology is. They are always incomplete approximation, a work in progress if you will to be developed and changed overtime. Ideologies are governed by the need to be logical and to reflect the real world; often that can be conflicting and taken to their logical extreme, most ideas descend into absurdity. The question I'm not quite ready to answer is whether this is a conflict of ideas or people with different interests, e.g. social classes. it is really who is using an ideology that matters as an ideology is a system of reasoning so it doesn't always produce the same results.

 

[Laika]

Does it, though? It seems to me that morality is actually an act of reason.

it was reason, but if god's non-existence is a fact, then it made a considerable error and it occurred over centuries and across many cultures. morality has to correspond to truth of some sort. if we derive truth from the objective world, and we make a mistake as big as assuming the existence of a diety who does not exist, it is unlikely there isn't some underlying process at work.

 

[Marisa]

I know God does not exist, for I am a gnostic atheist.

Do I have to prove it? I am not sure. I think there is an equivocation between absolute certainty and knowledge. If knowledge would equal absolute certainty, then we would know nothing, or very little indeed. To be honest, I am not dead sure about anything. Not even about me typing these words, for I could be a brain in a vet imagining that I am writing words on a forum.

Consider any other claim of knowledge. For instance,the speed of light in vacuum is constant.

Can I prove that it is the case with absolute certainty? No. It could be that in some lost parts of the Universe, the speed of light is not constant. Or, there are cases, not known until now, where the speed of light in vacuum changes.

But even if I am not dead sure that the speed of light never changes, that it is not a sufficient condition that prevents me from declaring knowledge about the speed of light. For what we know, there is no evidence that the speed of light changes, therefore I know that it does not.

The same with God, absence of evidence allows me to conclude that this is evidence of absence and that is all I need to claim knowledge about Gods not existence.

Ciao

- viole

I get what you're saying, but I personally find philosophy incredibly annoying. I also think that right before we all start comparing world views and evaluating our neighbor's perspective, we probably come pretty close to agreeing on most things.

 

[Typist]

I don't agree. "Nature" is an abstraction, just like "God." Nor is successfully killing something the same thing as being right. A person can rule over others with an iron fist and die surrounded by riches, but that doesn't make their actions right, nor will it make that person truly happy.

Ok, the issue of "right" is a tricky one that has me on the run at the moment.

Perhaps I was trying to say, however crudely, that the laws of all powerful authorities (whatever their type) would seem to contain almost by definition a quality of "rightness", because those rules are not up for debate and if we don't obey them the consequences can be final. As example, what would be the point of shaking our moral indignation fist at gravity or the speed of light?

If we believe in the Jehovah character, he says killing is wrong. Well, for us.

If we look to nature as the all powerful authority, it seems to say the strong should dominate the weak.

Perhaps the Jehovah character was created to give authority to a new moral system which works for humans as a social species, but otherwise seems to be a big argument with the much larger laws of nature?

 

[Typist]

[SIZE=4][B][URL='http://www.religiousforums.com/members/red-economist.56081/']@Red Economist[/URL][/B][/SIZE], I've not explained myself well, we may be talking past each other at the moment. I will struggle to offer improvements.

There is a conflict between people. This gives rise to a need for morality, a rule book to govern the conflict.

What if the source of this conflict really has little to do with the content of thought, this idea or that idea? Conflict exists pretty much everywhere in every time and place, no matter what the local ideology may be. The conflict seems a universal of the human condition.

What else is a universal condition? What else do all people share whatever their philosophy? Thought.

What if thought itself is the source of the conflict? And then we try to fix the conflict by adding more thought to the stew in the form of morality, ideology, etc?

Dunno. Attempting to dive to the bottom of the pile here.

 

[Laika]

[SIZE=4][B][URL='http://www.religiousforums.com/members/red-economist.56081/']@Red Economist[/URL][/B][/SIZE], I've not explained myself well, we may be talking past each other at the moment. I will struggle to offer improvements.

There is a conflict between people. This gives rise to a need for morality, a rule book to govern the conflict.

What if the source of this conflict really has little to do with the content of thought, this idea or that idea? Conflict exists pretty much everywhere in every time and place, no matter what the local ideology may be. The conflict seems a universal of the human condition.

What else is a universal condition? What else do all people share whatever their philosophy? Thought.

What if thought itself is the source of the conflict? And then we try to fix the conflict by adding more thought to the stew in the form of morality, ideology, etc?

Dunno. Attempting to dive to the bottom of the pile here.

Marxists would argue that the conflict of ideas is a symptom of class conflict. class conflict exists independently of whether people recognize it or not. Recognizing this makes waging the conflict "moral". This is also true for those who think race or religion is an objective source of conflict. it's not good news honestly.

 

[LuisDantas]

it was reason, but if god's non-existence is a fact, then it made a considerable error and it occurred over centuries and across many cultures.

Sorry, but I don't know what you mean here exactly. Are you implying that morality was or often is derived from beliefs about deities? I don't think that is very accurate at all, nor should it ever be.

morality has to correspond to truth of some sort. if we derive truth from the objective world, and we make a mistake as big as assuming the existence of a diety who does not exist, it is unlikely there isn't some underlying process at work.

Not sure about what you mean here either. Of course we assume the existence of non-existent deities. That much is certain, since there are so many mutually exclusive conceptions about the deities.

But how, if at all, would that connect with truth or morality?

 

[Vishvavajra]

I think I am rebelling against sophisticated understandings, even if fully true, of whatever flavor, including any I may try to share. Such sophistication can be very satisfying for we wannabe (me) or real (apparently you) philosophers. But most people simply aren't philosopher types.

Thus, I was attempting to argue that simplistic moral codes, even if they are built upon a foundation of fantasy, may have more value in large populations.

I agree with you that there has to be a simple, easily digestible version of the moral precepts for people who aren't ready for the deep philosophical underpinnings. At any rate, understanding sophisticated philosophical underpinnings can't be a prerequisite for moral behavior. I think they do need to be there, however, or else the whole system falls apart the moment people like us question its basis. If it all hinges on belief in a supernatural being, for example, the whole system collapses the moment you deny the existence of that supernatural being. Much better to rest it on something sound and then distill the basic, beginner-level precepts down from there.

I'd also be very wary of the idea that a workable moral system can be predicated on a fantasy. Ultimately what makes a moral system work is that it provides guidelines for correct practice, which means that on some level it's true, not purely fictitious. We do have to rest on conceptual models and so forth that aren't identical to reality-as-such, and it's worth acknowledging that, but I still believe there's a vast and meaningful difference between that and outright fabrication. To me, there's no benefit to basing a moral code on fictions because what works in a pragmatic sense does so precisely because it conforms to reality. In that way, morality flows directly from a correct understanding of the world; it's not something that we have imposed from outside (as if we could be "outside" to begin with).

Perhaps I was trying to say, however crudely, that the laws of all powerful authorities (whatever their type) would seem to contain almost by definition a quality of "rightness", because those rules are not up for debate and if we don't obey them the consequences can be final. As example, what would be the point of shaking our moral indignation fist at gravity or the speed of light?

If we believe in the Jehovah character, he says killing is wrong. Well, for us.

If we look to nature as the all powerful authority, it seems to say the strong should dominate the weak.

Perhaps the Jehovah character was created to give authority to a new moral system which works for humans as a social species, but otherwise seems to be a big argument with the much larger laws of nature?

Maybe, but I'd say the whole thing is too tied up with projecting ancient human social systems onto the cosmos to be terribly useful. The is-ought problem is a perennial one when people start to try to derive natural law from observing the world, as is system justification and every conceivable variety of confirmation bias. It boils down to an attempt to understand the natural world in terms of the structures of human politics, by presupposing them. For example, cooperation is at at least as important to survival in nature as the strong's domination of the weak, but people miss that because it's not what they're looking for.

But really, the question isn't whether the powerful can dominate the weak, but what leads to true happiness and harmony--what cultivates beneficial habits and states of mind, and what cultivates negative ones. A lot of people think greed is good because their standards for what constitutes "good" are in need of recalibration. They do terrible things to each other and to themselves and then wonder why they're still not happy. That's a pretty good indicator that a lot of people are mistaken about what is really good and bad, so that they end up causing a lot of misery in pursuit of the wrong things.

 

[Laika]

Sorry, but I don't know what you mean here exactly. Are you implying that morality was or often is derived from beliefs about deities? I don't think that is very accurate at all, nor should it ever be.

Not sure about what you mean here either. Of course we assume the existence of non-existent deities. That much is certain, since there are so many mutually exclusive conceptions about the deities.

But how, if at all, would that connect with truth or morality?

Yes, I am in a very messy way. I think that for religious people a long time ago, they believed god existed objectively as a real person/thing. God was "real" for them. if you look at animists, they explained the way the world worked by saying that some spiritual essence 'animated' everything. in the same way they derived there sense of right and wrong from the same conception of reality as one in which god was an essential part of explaining it.

there are traces of it in liberalism because of it's legacy fro judeo-christian ethics (and as has been pointed out the ancient Greeks). Our conception of human rights originates from human nature (which is roughly the 'soul' or a property of the mind). we base on sense of what is right and wrong, and for what we are responsible for based on free will, which was something attributed to god.