Polemics

Tangling with an atheist commenter on the grounding of morality

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An atheist named Moo went after commenter Mary in the comments to this post. So I decided to step in.

Moo wrote this:

Marriage is not about God. I am personally married, with 3 children and do not believe in the existence of a personal deity. You need to broaden your view of the world as most of the world does not believe the same as you do. Tolerance is a virtue that too many people underestimate. Your views of the topic should have any impact on the lives of people and their right to marry. This is an arrogant position as you assume that you have some moral authority.

Then I wrote this:

Are you tolerant of Mary’s view? Does Mary have a right to vote for policies like traditional marriage? Why is it “intolerant” when Mary thinks she’s right, and yet not “intolerant” when you think you’re right? Is Mary wrong? If you think so, then why aren’t you “intolerant”, according to your definition of intolerance? Where does this moral obligation to be tolerant come from, on atheism? To whom is the duty owed?

More important, let’s cut to the chase. My view is that atheists cannot ground morality rationally. If you disagree, you tell me where moral rules come from on your view, what is the means of existence of moral rules and moral obligations, and why should humans treat moral obligations as meaningful and prescriptive when it goes against their self-interest. Where does the free will necessary for moral choices come from? Why should an atheist sacrifice their live to save someone else – e.g. – by hiding Jews in Nazi Germany? Why is it rational, on atheism? Why is it rational for an atheist to do anything other than to pursue pleasure in this life? What else is there other than pleasure in an accidental universe than can be the motive for action?

Atheism is the negation of meaningful morality. (That’s my contention – it’s the denial of morality)

The statement “I am an atheist” is equivalent to saying “Morality is illusory”. Dawkins should have called his book “The Morality Delusion”, because morality is a delusion if atheism is true.

Then Moo wrote this:

Yes, I am tolerant of Mary’s views when they do not infringe on the rights of others. If Mary believes that her marriage requires a commitment to god then this is fine. Nobody other than her immediate family are impacted. A gay couple, atheist couple, whatever couple should not be impacted or offended.

As for morals, you have made a common mistake of tightly coupling these with faith. Morals have been around longer that religion, is evident (to a lesser extent) in the animal kingdom.

You seem to be implying that religious people are more moral than agnostic. Is that right? There is no need going into the evolutionary reasons for morals as i am sure that you will dispute the credibility of the scientist and science. Something for another debate ;-)

Then I wrote this:

What do you mean by the word tolerate? Please define tolerance and explain why supporting traditional procreative marriage is intolerant but supporting the re-definition of marriage to include any arrangement between any number of people, animals and anything else is tolerant. Why is Mary intolerant because she holds to a different definition than you do, but you’re tolerant and you hold to a different definition (“anything goes”) than she does?

I need you to answer my questions about morality, or I will assume that you think morality is illusory and there is no such thing as right or wrong. And no such thing as human rights. If that is true, then I will delete every comment you make that mentions morality or human rights. Either ground morality and human rights in your worldview or stop using moral language. Answer the questions. Ground the notion of morality or stop asserting how Mary ought to be.Ground the notion of rights on atheism or stop telling Mary that her ideas of morality violate other people’s rights.

Then Anon wrote this: (he’s smarter than I am, so he gets to the point faster)

Again, what is your view of the kind of relationship promoted by the like of NAMBLA?

Then I asked Moo to answer the question Anon asked:

Can you give Anon a direct answer on NAMBLA. Moral or immoral? And don’t forget to answer my questions about how you ground moral values, moral duties, free will, moral accountability, motivation for self-sacrifical morality, and ultimate significance of moral decisions. I want this all explained within the worldview of atheism. How does that all work on atheism?

Where do “rights” come from on atheism. Name a right and explain to me how it exists in reality. Where does it come from, on atheism? If you can’t ground it, then what do you mean by using the word?

Concepts like rights and morality and free will have no being in atheism. They don’t exist objectively. They’re not rationally grounded by an accidental, purely material, universe. You think you are referring to something real, but you won’t be able to explain those concepts. They are theistic concepts.

Then Mary wrote this:

Moo, on what basis do you say that impacting the rights of others (e.g. children) is immoral?

Then Moo wrote this:

The largest basis would be my upbringing. The values that were instilled in me by my parents, life experience, such as travelling extensively and living in other countries with a variety of cultural norms. I think that this is true for most people no matter what their beliefs are. You might want to acquaint yourself with “The Evolution of Morality” by Richard Joyce as it describes that the morals/values that we have are not contrary to other evolutionary factors. They are not a negative, in fact they are the things that have allows the human species to populate this world and flourish more than any other creature.

The specific issue I have with NAMBLA and generally people who could be deemed as “predators” is that they are impacting on the lives of others without their consent. There is a grey area around “what is the age of consent”, however I do not have firm position on that as I would have to do more personal research if this was of interest.

And I wrote this:

1) If the moral standards are valid depending on “how I was raised” then in what sense is racism wrong if that’s how the racist was raised. Or, to put it more bluntly, isn’t it true that on your view NOTHING is right or wrong, people are just fed a bunch of customs depending on the culture of the time and place they were born into – which is ARBITRARY. And on atheism, morality is just ARBITRARY CUSTOMS, like driving on the left or right side of the road. “How I was raised”.

2) Why is the population of this world by humans good, on your view? What makes humans so special, on your view, compared to any other creature who should “populate the world”? Explain where humans get their objective moral value compared to trees and snakes and maggots. And make sure that when you pick your criteria, that it isn’t just your opinion. It has to be objective – i.e. real.

3) Why is it wrong to impact the lives of others without their consent, objectively? Is that just your opinion? Is it how you were raised? How about the opinions of another atheist, like STALIN, who killed 100 million innocent people because it was his opinion and how he was raised. Why are you right and why is he wrong, on atheism?

And this is why I believe atheists think that morality is illusory on atheism. If they act nice, it’s because they are “aping” Christian morals that dominate the culture in this time and place. To find out what atheists are really like, go to North Korea and other communist nations, and look at what goes on there. That’s atheist morality. Nothing is really wrong or right – it’s just how you were raised. And that’s why Christians like William Wilberforce tried to stop slavery while atheists today kill unborn children and advocate for same-sex marriage to avoid being inconvenienced in the pursuit of sexual pleasure. They only think they think is “wrong” is that you’re making them feel bad for their selfish hedonism.

There is no self-sacrificial morality on atheism – just selfish hedonism. They are trying to have a good time before they die and to avoid feeling bad about their immoral actions. And that’s why they go along with any evil rather than fight it – because there is no right and wrong objectively on atheism. They want to use the force of law to stop you from making them feel bad as they redefine marriage in a way that denies children either a mother or a father. That’s atheist “morality”. Seek pleasure, and to hell with children’s right to life and children’s right to a mother AND a father. All that matters to atheists is that the strong are happy – who cares about the weak. It’s survival of the fittest – that’s atheist morality.

More about atheistic concepts of morality

Some debates on God and morality

39 thoughts on “Tangling with an atheist commenter on the grounding of morality”

  1. I found Mao Zedong’s quotes very revealing on the topic of Atheism.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/all_the_presidents_mao.html

    he didn’t leave will to his son. he didn’t think twice about killing innocent human beings. In fact in one case, he killed many to remove his political rivals.

    If you think about it, why would/should he? he believed when his dead that’s the absolute end for him. to him, history, future generation, etc meant nothing to him after he died.

    Everything he did during his life was to satisfied his desires and was maximized for his enjoyment during his lifetime.

    “People like me want to … satisfy our hearts to the full, and in doing so we automatically have the most valuable moral codes. Of course there are people and objects in the world, but they are all there only for me.” – Mao

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  2. I am glad that I am getting so much attention and hope that some of your reader will start reading views that contradict their “faith based” views. I personally like to read this blog as it at least makes me think about why I believe what I believe.

    Back to the point. You seem to not get the concept that athirst is what I don’t believe in, not what I do believe in. Mao did not believe in a god, however he did believe in mass murder. Hilter was a catholic (with some atheist tendencies) and he believed in mass murder. You don’t seem to be able to separate politics from religion. Spanish inquision, english crusade, colonization of many countries in the name of religion are all the same. Atheism does not drive this.

    Do catholic priests have sex with young boys because they are catholic or because they are pedeophiles? I say because they are deviants, not because they are catholic. By your logic above you would have to say because they catholic.

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    1. food for thought:

      “… if we adopt the principle of universality : if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others — more stringent ones, in fact — plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil.
      In fact, one of the, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles is that of universality, that is, If something’s right for me, it’s right for you; if it’s wrong for you, it’s wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow.” – Noam Chomsky

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    2. Moo said, “The Evolution of Morality” by Richard Joyce as it describes that the morals/values that we have are not contrary to other evolutionary factors. They are not a negative, in fact they are the things that have allows the human species to populate this world and flourish more than any other creature.

      Then why is Moo so enamored with the idea of same-sex marriage if the goal is to populate this world?

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    3. Well, I couldn’t get passed Moo’s first comment here. To begin, Hitler was definitely NOT a Catholic. He killed far too many priests for that to be true, and nothing else he did supports the charge. That he was born of Catholic parents might have been true, but he rejected Christianity completely, using it only to advance his agenda. But that’s OK, most people trying to argue against religion (or FOR atheism) make this mistake.

      This statement I found odd:

      “Atheism does not drive this.”

      There are falacious statements made regarding the Crusades, but unChristian behavior by Christians is not the same as actions “driven by” Christianity. But the truly odd part about the statement is that atheism never drove much of anything EXCEPT selfish behavior of varying degrees BECAUSE there is no higher power or concept to which an atheist need follow if he doesn’t want to. What’s more, Christianity has driven most of what is good about the world, pushing science and discovery along by people who acted with the glory of God in mind.

      Another question is a distortion of reality:

      “Do catholic priests have sex with young boys because they are catholic or because they are pedeophiles?”

      It’s because they are homosexuals and their alleged faith and belief in God does not guarantee that they are immune from temptation or steeled against the human failure of falling to it.

      Therefor, I see no way one can say that your last statement is logical at all.

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      1. I think he thinks that the Bible contains some statement where premarital sex is condoned. He seems to be totally incapable of understanding that in order to blame Christianity for something, he has to find it in the Bible. But the Bible teaches chastity prior to marriage and fidelity to one’s spouse after marriage. But it does show what goes on in the heads of atheists. My links showing where atheism and evolution lead (people are animals, survival of the fittest, etc.) is enough to disprove him. If the universe is an accident, there is no way we ought to be – so their ethic is “do what feels good, don’t get judged, don’t get caught”. This is where totalitarian comes from – their right not to be judged is real, but your right to conscience and free speech has no relity in an atheistic universe. Just go to North Korea and talk about free speech and right to life and see how that flies. In North Korea, people are shot for distributing Bibles. That’s atheism – it’s not forbidden except by “I was raised not to do that”. And how people are raised changes by time and place. It’s an illusion.

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  3. “there is no right and wrong objectively on atheism.”

    Yes, that’s what atheists like me believe. Now, the choice is, do you face up to that reality as atheists do, or do you make up something you would like to be true, declare that it is true, attach the word “objective” to it with no justification whatsoever, and reject all evidence to the contrary simply because you don’t like it?

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    1. My reasons for being a Christian theist are here, as well as responses to typical arguments that atheists make.

      Why don’t you make a list of all the arguments for Christian theism that you’ve read about and then explain what is wrong with each. Name the names of the scholars who propose these arguments as well as the title of the book or debate where the argument was presented. Point form is fine.

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  4. Under atheism, morality is either the mere product of a purposeless, mindless, amoral, evolutionary process, or the mere subjective feelings or thoughts of creatures created by the aforementioned process. Morality — actual right and wrong, actual good and evil cannot be said to actually exist.

    “If they act nice, it’s because they are “aping” Christian morals that dominate the culture in this time and place.”

    Atheism is parasitic. Always.™

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    1. Just because you don’t like the implications of there being no tangible evidence of there being a deity, it does not make the facts change. It might be pointless, mindless, amoral, etc, but that might just be the case.

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      1. I linked to a half-dozen scientific arguments that are best explained by a creative intelligence. I challenged you to make a list of the arguments for Christian theism that you were familiar with and to name the titles and authors. You declined to do so. So “no tangible evidence” is not really something you’re in a position to assert. You need to put more effort into the hunt, if you really want to know the truth and to conform your will to that truth.

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  6. It amazes me how many atheists fail to understand this. In some ways, it’s probably a very good thing that they don’t.

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    1. Not anymore. I’ve met an hard core atheist at a forum and his answer was this:

      “Morality is a challenging area. I find it difficult discussing this when the theistic mind immediately turns to raping women and other extreme and weird behaviours. Raping women is socially unacceptable. It’s also an act that undermines the social fabric drummed into us boys from the moment we are told not to hit our sisters. I don’t believe there is a cosmic law that says rape is wrong but I do believe rape harms another person and thanks to my fluffy upbringing and yours this is abhorrent to us. I don’t like hurting people in any way – women in particular. We can thank empathy and inherited social morality for that.”

      You see there is nothing wrong with raping. He only thanks is education for not doing it… he is not very logical…he thanks empathy which he knows to be an illusion…

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  7. It also amazes me that you fail to see that morality can objectively exist without God. As in Kalam cosmological argument, morality is in the same category as numbers. Morality is an abstract object independent from space time. There is a metaphysical precursor of moral because moral is a sub product of life. Morality only exist because there is life. We simply don’t know what this precursor is, it could be God or the spaghetti monster… we simply don’t know…..

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    1. Good answer.

      OK, what independent evidence do you have that this realm of moral values exists? Where did they come from? Why do they apply to humans and not any other organism? Why should you obey them if there is no final judgment and after-life? How do you have free will to make moral choices in a materialist universe? What is the means of existence of these abstract objects? (I.e. – for abstract objects, theists might ground them as being thoughts in the mind of God – how do you ontologically ground your Platonic forms?)

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      1. None.

        Only indirect evidence that ethics is relative (depends on human condition, suffering and emotions) and Universal (applies to any sentient being). If it is Universal then it must have some metaphysical ground. However my friend metaphysics is a thought swamp! You can never get out of it with the Truth. So you can never prove its real origin. One things is for sure: There’s no ethics without life.
        Ontologically I cannot answer about Plato’s forms because humans, as long as they live in this body, are condemned to only perceive the shadows of metaphysics and never see them as they are.
        – Free will is a sub product of conscience. Nothing in the Universe has free will outside conscience.
        – Moral values come from the existence of life.
        – I should obey them because if I don’t I’m contributing to my own suffering (directly or indirectly) and endangering human species survival.
        – They apply to sentient beings, so one could argue they also apply to dolphins…

        In ethics I’m for ethical subjectivist and Ideal observer theory proposed by David Hume and Roderick Firth.

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        1. OK so if morality is relative, then nothing is really right or wrong and there is no way we ought to be objectively. Then we agree – that’s what you are left with on atheism: atheist morality is that there is no morality. Mere descriptions of what people are doing says nothing to any individual about what they ought to do – you cannot derive an ought from an is.

          Can you please explain to me how free will, a requirement for moral choices and moral accountability, can exist if humans are purely material. How do collocations of atoms get the ability to freely choose to do right or wrong?

          Please explain how the prohibition on slavery emerges from the existence of life, especially from survival of the fittest (Darwinism). Where do you get compassion from the observation of universal survival of the fittest in nature?

          On atheism, you’re not really obeying anything. You are just looking around at what everyone else is doing and doing that too. Why should you do what other people are doing when it goes against your self-interest. For example, why should you oppose slavery if your society supports slavery? If you lived in a time and place where slavery was permitted, explain how your atheism would ground opposition to slavery? Where does the content of the moral law come from, on atheism – the prescription “thou shall not own slaves”.

          Why did you pick sentience as the criteria for moral behavior? How do you explain sentience on materialist grounds? (Can groups of atoms have a sense of “self”? There is no “self” if we are pure matter – just a collection of atoms.I can cite atheists for you who have argued that the self is an illusion, just like morality is an illusion)

          If you are an ethical subjectivist, it means that “what is good” is equivalent to “what is good FOR ME”. How is that morality? Is self-interested hedonism morality? Why not just say that your morality is that you ought to do whatever makes you feel good. But then, that’s not MORALITY. Morality is doing what is right, regardless of what makes you feel good.

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          1. Hey dude, I don’t have the time… so I rest my case here.
            Go read Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer by Roderick Firth so you don’t miss understand me… It’s a good book!
            I picked life as the criteria for ethic existence not sentience, sentience I picked for free will.
            Moral is relative but exists, and although its subjective is also Universal. Thus is independent from cultural laws.

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        2. I agree with you for the most part. Except for one very important thing. If there isn’t some sort of final judgment and after-life. Really anything goes…
          What could stop you from robbing in a situation that you know for sure you wont get caught?! Screw the human species! You must live the best you can know by any means necessary! Since you’re going to oblivion when you die what’s the point of not “bending” ethics in your favor?

          Conscience also makes individuality, and individuality without some sense of transcendent brotherhood given by the after life, some morals really don’t make any sense… that’s my opinion

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          1. Yup! That’s already happening! Most people are throwing ethics beyond their backs because they think they will come out alright in the end! Corruption is running amok in the world! Why?! Because most people are not philosophers! LOL
            It’s not religion that is missing. Because religion had its chance and screwed it too! Religion is bigotry.
            Even religious people are corrupted, because most of them don’t really believe in God and the others think their God will forgive them no matter what they do.
            What is missing is a better understanding of secularism, of “we the people”, and the notion that we should have that brotherhood here on Earth rather than waiting for some God to put things alright. What we need is more education and less hypocrisy.

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          2. Baal out,

            You have a very poor understanding of both religion and religious people. Religion (by this I’m assuming you mean theism) hasn’t screwed anything. People do that. People who are too human to follow what they know to be proper rules of living. That’s an indictment of people, not religion that you’re making. People who REALLY believe are the least corrupted because they seek to live uncorrupted lives at all times. They DON’T “do what they want” believing God will forgive all. That’s not how it works and I think you’re quite aware of that. If not, you’ve little business making such comments about morality at all. You’ve only a partial picture by which to understand.

            As to understanding “we the people”, those who first used the term were well aware of man’s fallen nature and the need for a moral people in order to make America work. As people have rejected morality, we’ve declined as a nation and you can believe that a strong knowledge of “we the people” would eventually demand less and less freedom. Real people of faith AREN’T waiting “for God to put things alright”. It is YOU who needs to read, and read something that matters.

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  8. Doesn’t morality, to be genuinely authentic, have to be in some sense personal? Is it even coherent as an impersonal abstract like e.g., a number? So, is the atheist saying, we know there’s a person somewhere as the ground of moral thought, but we cannot know anything about him?

    Or, does an atheist who asserts this suggest that when a rock falls on a hiker and kills her, the rock is performing an evil act, but is just too rock-stupid to know?

    Agnosticism is just atheism in drag, hiding in the reeds claiming ignorance. Pull back the reeds — you’ll find the atheist, like Adam, cowering in the presence of the Holy One, caught-out in their (intellectual) nakedness.

    Come out of those reeds, O atheist!

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    2. Although Kagan in his debate with Craig makes some argument about morality only applying to humans as they have the rationality to understand it or something? What do you think of that argument?

      I was thinking of a response along the lines of – well the laws of physics apply whether you understand them or not.

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      2. Also, if someone mentally disabled committed a crime, e.g.: torture and murder. Although the person might not be held accountable because he/she did not understand due to mental condition, the act would still be immoral act, regardless whether the person understands it or not.

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  9. Also, for morality to enjoy pre-existence as an abstract, it must anticipate agency, for, without agency, is not morality once again, incoherent?

    And, doesn’t this of necessity indicate a universe which “saw us coming”?

    Change your mind and heart, O atheist!

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      1. I read about that stereo stealing exercise in J.P. Moreland’s 1997 book “Love Your God With All Your Mind”, or LYGWYM, as my team and I like to call it. I recommend LYGWYM to all.

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  10. The specific issue I have with NAMBLA and generally people who could be deemed as “predators” is that they are impacting on the lives of others without their consent.

    WK pointed this out, but how does an atheist make “consent” the ontological basis of moral behavior? How does anyone make “consent” and “the good” interchangeable terms?

    Hilter (sic) was a catholic (with some atheist tendencies) and he believed in mass murder.

    This is the biggest atheist fabrication of all time. When Hitler “believed” in mass murder, he was not Catholic in any sense except the historical.

    As early as the publication of Mein Kampf in 1925, Hitler was holding up the example of Martin Luther as a kind of Germanic hero. In sharply divided confessional Germany, this was a clear sign that Hitler was distancing himself from his Catholic roots in an appeal to a broader Protestant base. Catholics in Pre-War Germany were not in the habit of saying anything nice about Martin Luther.

    There is the famous example of Hitler acting as best man to Joseph Goebbels’ marriage to the divorced Magda in 1931. Although atheists like Christopher Hitchens want to say that Goebbels’ excommunication was because she was a Protestant, the important point is that she was divorced, which even shallow and ignorant atheists ought to know precludes a Catholic from marrying without an anullment. The fact that Goebbels married Magda meant that he married her outside the Catholic Church in a marriage that was the equivalent of bigamy in Catholic eyes, and Hitler acted as best man.

    These two were not Catholics in any meaningful sense.

    In Holy Reich by Richard Steigman-Gall – who is a real historian of the subject – Gall observes that by their assumption of power, Hitler and Goebbels were nominal Catholics, which was true of essentially all Catholic Nazis by approximately 1935.

    The Nazi party’s initial policy on taking power was to strengthen Protestantism vis a vis Catholicism. It takes little thought to realize that Nazism, being a nationalistic movement, would have an antipathy for a religion whose leader was not German and which claimed a real or possible allegience outside of Germany. Nazi policy thereafter developed into an outright oppression of Catholicism during the ’30s. By the ’40s, when it was clear that Protestantism was not going to become voluntarily “coordinated” with the Nazi power, Hitler and his associates were no longer fantasizing about their dream of an Aryan version of Christianity that taught that Christ was an Aryan and stripped the old testament out of the Bible. See Holy Reich; Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism, Derek Hastings.

    It is noteworthy that Nazism became more bloodthirsty as it moved more strongly in its anti-christian direction. Were the Nazis mass murderers in their early days when they played upon the nationalism of left-wing Christianity? Clearly, they weren’t; they didn’t have the opportunity. Were they potential mass-murderers? It seems likely, but that is speculation. One thing that is not speculation that the Nazis actually became mass murderers after Hitler and Goebbels and Heydrich and Himmler left the Catholic Church, which they began to oppress as part of their project.

    So, Moo needs to spend some time reading something other than atheist fanboy stuff if he wants to make these kinds of arguments.

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    1. Related links:

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  11. In my opinion, moral subjectivist is starting to become as dead as logical positivism. Atheistic philosophers, at least from what I have seen, are increasingly adopting objectivist theories of ethics and are attempting to justify them within a naturalistic framework. A good example is Russ Shafer-Landau. His books “Moral Realism: A Defense” and “Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?” offer a superb defense of moral realism, yet he argues toward the end that they do not need theistic grounding.

    While I think such attempts ultimately fail, it’s interesting to note this shift.

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    1. Tim – did you see the mp3 by Peter S. Williams that Apologetics 315 posted this week — PSW has a brilliant argument where he says that the atheists who admit that objective morals would point to God, but deny they exist, and the atheists who admit objective morals, but deny they point to God, are each “half right”. Stitch them together, and you have atheists saying that objective morals exist and they point to God!

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