Spotted this video over at Hot Air, posted by AllahPundit, who is an atheist. He is beginning to question whether atheism leads to great heights of moral behavior. You’ll recall that this is one of the factors that convinced A.N. Wilson, as well as the Wintery Knight himself.
Atheism maintains that the universe is an accident, that there is no objective moral standard, no free will, no accountability when you die, no ultimate significance to our actions, no after-life, and no one to whom moral duty is owed. Bill Maher is a committed atheist. Let’s see what counts as morality on atheism.
And here is an excerpt from AllahPundit’s comments:
A quickie from last night’s show displaying all the charm and subtlety we’ve come to expect, and surely the first time in his life that he’s had an unkind word to say about breast implants. There’s something cosmically apt about him attacking her: No one in American media better embodies the lefty paradox of libertinism paired with judgmentalism, therefore no one’s better qualified to prosecute her for the left’s capital crime of hypocrisy.
Why are atheists making moral judgments in an accidental universe, where their moral standards are just their own personal preferences, or at best the arbitrary conventions of their society? Why even attribute blame to Carrie Prejean if she doesn’t even have free will, which is an impossibility on atheism, since we are just mindless matter?
There are some things that other people do that I don’t like based on personal preferences. For example, I do not like people who spend a lot of time following sports or watching popular movies in the theater. But I don’t insult them for not complying with my preferences. And that’s all morality is, on atheism. Individual preferences and cultural conventions.
You can only judge others if there is an objective standard that is binding on this other person. What sense does it make to mock and deride people who have different preferences than you do? It seems as if atheists do believe in objective morality, however inconsistently. But only when judging others, never when judging themselves.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Bill Maher – what an objectively disgusting individual.
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It’s good to see that makarios has read the bible at least once – love thy neighbor…his/her object moral standard must be love they neighbor unless they make you mad, which definitely shows a more subjective nature to morality.
Unlike atheism, Christian morality is based neither on reason, nature, nor empathy, but on the arbitrary notion that an invisible, all knowing, magic being dictates what should be obeyed unquestioningly.
If you read the old testament, you get the view of an angry, vengeful, and wrathful god – so how can you be sure that his objective morality is not do what I do – if someone makes you mad, smite them; destroy their family (think Job), etc.
I put forth that Maher is just angry at the cali-lady and using the old testament objective morality and smiting her as best he can.
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My, what red claws you have! My, what long antennae you have! My, what a long snout you have!
Makarios can make judgments based on an objective standard. He can point out hypocrisy as morally wrong.
Now, you say that Christians are bad, the Bible is bad, this is bad, that is bad. All meaningless, on atheism. You have no standard on which to judge, on atheism. If you had read any of the debates I sent you, like Wilson vs Hitchens, you would know that. But, you are too busy reading people who agree with you, instead of evaluating how these ideas fare in debates.
What standard is there to make moral judgments with, on atheism? Personal preferences? Arbitrary culture customs? Coin-flipping?
Don’t write another comment until you are ready to answer where the atheist moral standard comes from, and why it should be considered useful for judging others and other cultures as bad. Unless and until you can do that, I can hang every evil in the book on you, from slavery, to witch-burning, to mass murder, to abortion. You have no way of saying ANYTHING is wrong, on atheism, and so you are complicit in every act you “feel” is evil. You have no way to condemn anything, and so you agree with all atrocities.
Here are some quotes from your atheist heroes to help you think.
Wow, this sounds exactly like William Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And by “exactly”, I mean “not in the least”.
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You assume I haven’t read them because I’m not in agreement. I have read them (mostly), I just have a hard time believing them. Other than the stuff you send me, I do very little reading on the topic – you assume these arguments are hard to come up with…being a man of science I believe if god existed he would interact with our universe, if he interacts (physically or not) with it, we should be able to detect him. If he doesn’t interact with our universe (we of course can’t detect him), what does it matter? (there’s an argument I’m pretty sure you won’t find on the net – I should publish that one).
For the time being – I’m still thinking this whole topic out in my mind, but I don’t believe there is an object moral standard. Humans evolved to be weak and social – a 70 pound dog can easily kill a 6’4″ 280 pound muscular man with ease. We’re slow and our bodies are much more fragile than other mammals. It’s obvious we evolved to be social creatures – we need to cooperate and work together in order to survive. Those that are anti-social have had their genes culled from the herd. It’s this very reason why we feel empathy. Our morals have evolved as such – from our simple herd morals from eons ago to our greatest philisophical works that we use today (and the bible would probably fall in that area).
Don’t you find it strange that civilizations like the Roman empire had a very civilized and cooperative nature about them long before anyone knew about the bible? So how did they develop such an advanced society without knowing that a magical being would punish them for their immorality (and kind of strange too that the decline of the roman empire takes place around the start of christianity). Humans have been very moral (and not) long before the idea of the afterlife and an all knowing being.
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@jerry
OK, I am just trying to get you to think about what you are giving up if moral values (what counts as good) and moral duties (you ought to do X) do not really exist. Specifically, I am trying to get you to see that this is not what Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer believed. And therefore great acts of self-sacrifice were rational for them.
And always, I am talking about morality in the sense of one question:
“Suppose there is an action X that is morally wrong. Why should I not do X when it is in my self-interest to do X and when I can escape the social consequences of doing X?”
OK, so you admitted that there is no moral standard that exists independently of what humans think, either individually or in social groups. So, whenever you make moral statements about how bad the Church is, how bad God is, etc., and how people should act in a different way, I expect you to preface it with one of the following:
“Well, it’s just my personal preference, but I believe…”
“Well, in the arbitrary customs of my current society at this time, we believe…”
So then Christians will know not to feel bad about the things you say about Christianity. Try living like that for a while.
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I think Jerry made a good point. There is no need to belittle him personally.
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@heather
Well, you should talk, with your crazy looking wiggly arms!
I know Jerry personally. I buy him lunch, and he drives my roadster when we go. His personal morality towers above what is rationally justified by his stated worldview. Of all the atheists I know, he would have the fewest “personal” adjustments to make if he became a Christian. I am trying to get him to see that if God does not exist, the following things must be given up:
– free will
– an objective moral standard about what is good and evil
– objective moral duties
– moral accountability after death
– moral significance (what does it matter in the long run what I do)
These are the things that make robust, self-sacrificial, prescriptive morality rational. And when push comes to shove, people do what is rational, which is why you see a lot of self-sacrificial moral behavior in Christian history, even when the personal costs are high. In particular, I am talking about people who stick by their moral obligations, even when their happiness is severely diminished.
I will be posting about this much more later this week, in fact I am writing them all up today.
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“Suppose there is an action X that is morally wrong. Why should I not do X when it is in my self-interest to do X and when I can escape the social consequences of doing X?”
A good question to ask many of the catholic and baptist preists…or even pope innocence III (I hope I spelled innocence correctly).
As of right now, I do have a hard time swallowing morality without the objectiveness. But, the other problem I have is I look back through human history and see a morality that has been evolving. I don’t see any hint of an objective standard. I see great philosophers pushing their ideas of morality, Jesus being one of those philosophers.
On the topic of Wilberforce though, I have sent you an email (or was it a post?) about the bible’s view on slavery, so I don’t know that you can say there is an objective moral against slavery.?
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So, what you really meant was this:
“It is my personal preference that what many religious people do is wrong, but they just have different preferences than I do, and I have no way of arguing against their wrong views rationally.”
And you couldn’t even say “wrong” so really it would be this:
“What many religious people do is not what I like to do. I have no way of arguing against what they do on rational grounds.”
Yes, I agree that what humans know about the objective moral standard changes, but that is a question of epistemology – how they know the standard. I agree that they will have differences about that. What I am concerned about is ontology – the ground or being or means of existence of the standard. Where does it exist? Is it real?
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I think the video is pretty funny, and are you sure you’re not enjoying the saliciousness by posting it?
I do feel sorry for all the attacks on her, in that she’s just a regular person and did not intend to become a political spokesperson. But this is just manna from heaven for a comedian.
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