Perhaps the phenomenon Solus Cado refers to is a reflection of how the "salesmen" (atheists) view the "consumers" (people in general).
Of course. And I'll admit that - even as I shy away from self-identifying as an "atheist" for the reasons mentioned - I view religious belief as a character flaw. I see it as a form of weakness, a refusal to accept and cope with the basic, terryfing
mystery of existence. And that is an unequivocably condescending view of the religious, which I have zero expectation of endearing me or my views to any of them. Which would be why I so rarely attempt to "convert" anyone (at least, since high school).
Yet in my experience, by comparison, many atheists resent being asked to "show their work" in the sense of explaining how they worked it out.
Well, two things: in the first place I think we're already committing the cardinal sin of appointing the easiest to argue against as spokesmen for the whole here. There is no shortage of thoughtful, atheist philosophers with substantial things to say on these points, but they seem to be assiduously avoided in places like this (or, at most, mentioned only long enough to villify them on the basis of some minor, tangential statement taken out of context). And, yeah, would-be ahteist advocates have some responsibility to advertize this stuff.
In the second, I'd respond that (to me) the whole point of atheism is the rejection of the premise that this stuff can be worked out in some knowable, finite way. The atheist "answer" isn't held to be superior
as an answer, but as a rejection of the validity of the question. By admitting "I really don't know - how could anyone?" you are actually taking more responsibility for your stances than by insisting "hey, the Perfect Man in the Sky said it was okay, so it's not
my problem."
I wouldn't contest this perspective, but one thing I find curious is that, given the original inquiry of this thread, the discussion degraded, somewhat quickly, into a reiteration of the standard "atheist talking points" about what's wrong with religion. In a way, the general discussion proves a certain point. For all the knowledge and enlightenment the atheists have, there is still a very basic hostility not only toward religion, but toward the very ideas of explanation and objectivity that atheists often celebrate.
I'm not sure that we can really impute much onto atheists (or whoever) from an instantiation of the pervasive internet debate phenomenon of appointing the cheapest opponents as spokesmen for the other side and talking past one another. And certainly not here at SciForums where that sort of thing is so rampant as to be characteristic. Note that such is equally rampant amongst theists (and everyone else) around here.
I would counter that there is, possibly, an objective purpose or meaning of life that would render morality according to identifiable terms—e.g., we don't just say murder is wrong because God says so, but because there is an benefit defined in our evolution that proscribes the arbitrary killing of one another.
A social evolutionary benefit is not the same thing as an ultimate "meaning." In what sense is it "good" that the human race advances and prospers, for anyone other than the human race? Would the universe be a worse place if we'd warred ourselves into extinction a thousand years ago? Would it even be noticeably
different? Maybe the Earth would be repopulated by enlightened vegan fawn people that would enjoy levels of social harmony, peace and justice unimaginable to us, while producing heartbreaking works of staggering artistic genius.
Although I'll comment on the irony here: any atheist that would attempt to define "good purpose" in social evolutionary terms would be immediately forced to recognize that the impressive social evolutionary advantages offered by religion (the very driver of its worldwide proliferation) qualify it as "good." In which case, said atheist ought to throw down his arms and become religious.
That we are unable to perceive or calculate that outcome does not necessarily mean it does not exist;
But it does mean that it is not knowable, and so is no use as a replacement for religious ideals (whose main advantage is precisely that). Not making important practical things (like morality and conduct) contingent on answering unanswerable metaphysical questions is a key
advantage of atheism (and doing the opposite is the key to entrenching religious morality).
The problem in such a context is that people allow those they disagree with to be a convenient authority. Allow me to exclude any number of good people I know who happen to believe in God and focus on the televangelists and other morons for a moment: They're fucking morons. Period. For what reason would I possibly accept that these morons represent the religion or its foundation? Of course their particular brand of faith is bullshit, but is that bullshit the exclusive definition of what the faith is or brings?
No, it's not. So why would these rational, objective atheists allow the morons to define the argument?
Again, we're defining atheism down to its worst proponents here. Did Bernard Williams never live? Was
The Atheism Tapes never produced and released?
Perhaps it should be an Internet maxim that those who dumb the other side down to their worst proponents are themselves the worst proponents of their side?
But, again, I
do think there is something to the premise that "atheism" has itself been dumbed down to that level (and heavily conflated with anti-theism), largely by a process of real free-thinkers shunning reductive labels. So by now the only people who call themselves "atheists" (especially in popular fora such as here) are really just anti-theists looking for a fight.
The attack against the premise of absolute morality is reasonable, but it isn't absolute in itself. If you or I are smarter than the next guy, does that mean we know everything in the Universe?
The "smartness" in this case is better characterized by a refusal to pretend that one knows everything, or that everything is even knowable to begin with. It's the theists (or, really, the fundamentalists) that are making the undue claims of sweeping cosmic knowledge here.
And anything "useful" as a "Twinkie" would be junk food; that doesn't mean there aren't apples and carrots to eat.
But it does mean that a person raised from birth on a regular diet of Twinkies is unlikely to be satisfied by a diet of apples and carrots. Or even to view such as valid "food." And that sort of property is key to the successful marketting of Twinkies.
The absolute centerpiece does not need to be replaced with another absolute centerpiece any more than a cheese puff needs to be replaced with a cheese curl.
Of course. But try telling that to somebody who's spent their entire life working in the context of an absolute centerpiece, to the point where they can't even concieve of how to operate without one.
Weaning them from an absolutist view is one thing, but that does not satisfy the human need to classify right and wrong. So the question becomes what one builds in the empty space.
More to the point, the question becomes
how one builds
on empty space. The real answer is that you don't remove the moral framework itself, but it's "foundation," by demonstrating that no such foundation is needed (or even, really, possible). The moral framework itself remains - one is not supposed to treat one's fellow man any differently for having become an atheist. And it should be said that one of the methods religion uses to entrench itself is the inculcation of the belief that the metaphysical foundation is inseparable from the moral framework.
So the issue is much larger than eschewing absolutism (that only gets you from fundamentalism into mainstream religion, not all the way to atheism), but eschewing the premise that a knowable metaphysical foundation is even required for constructing a moral system in the first place (or that changing or removing the metaphysical foundation need substantially degrade the moral framework). The problem is not that the moral systems so constructed fail to satisfy as such (indeed, they typically only differ from the religious ones in minor details), but the deeper question of what weight a moral construction not buttressed by a knowable, concrete foundation has. The religious share a need for such a foundation (fundamentalists with suppoed direct knowledge of God, regular religious folks employ faith). Atheists don't require such.
One of the reasons atheists are poor evangelists is that they are imitating the patterns of the soft targets they obsess on. If they undertook harder targets, their arguments would be likewise more complex.
Again, you're soft-targetted atheists in making this assertion. And not entirely unfairly, given the abandonment of the identifier to such types. But substitute any of the fashionable replacement terms ("free-thinker" seems popular nowadays) or address the serious academic types, and the error becomes clear.
Surely you're not suggesting that morality is the sole province of religion.
Not morality as such, but the premise of a knowable, concrete foundation for it. It's pretty much the definition of religion.
But, yeah, religions tend to go on to claim that morality requires such a foundation, and so that atheists are immoral. I reject the premise. That doesn't cede morality to theists; only false surety and overwrought justification for the innate.
If the hole is purely religion-shaped, that is only because we require it to be. In terms of basic human function, religion is shaped according to the need that creates it. Thus, a religion-shaped hole is also shaped like the fundamental need religion attends.
Right, which I (arrogantly) characterize as timidity in the face of mystery. Hence my disinterest in trying to convert anyone - it takes a certain measure of internal strength and conviction to operate in a universe where morality floats in the air, and in the face of religious societies. The kind of person with the disposition for that will likely come to it on his own, or not at all.
I mean, sure, one might knock up his daughter, or wreck her psyche and ability to function in the world, but who cares? What, really, does it matter? Still, though, most atheists guard against that sort of nihilism. And therein lies the question: How? What are the components of that shield?
The crucial observation is that we've had the shield since long before we had religion. Heck, it's been around since before there were humans at all. It seems a clear-cut case of social evolution: groups that did not produce such inclinations did not compete well with groups that did. Wait a few million years, and you end up with entire species wired (both biologically and sociologically) for such a perspective.
So the insight is that this stuff doesn't even require effort, as such. It's innate. The interesting question is why we feel some need for an overarching philosophical justification for this, or that our innate abilities will fail without that. We don't seem to feel any such need to justify other aspects of evolution (social or biological), such as the urge to procreate or consume fatty foods. Indeed, we often have little trouble recognizing the perversities of certain of them (again, fatty foods), but have a lot of trouble with the idea that our moral inclinations could be similarly stilted (we might drive countless species to extinction and wipe out entire ecosystems in the process of advancing humanity - is that "good?" I haven't heard many atheists make that claim, but I
have heard mainstream American Christians say as much, openly and proudly, while pointing to Biblical verse.
And for some reason, at least among the atheists I've known in life and the virtual world, it's a question they seem to resent.
And perhaps they ought to resent it, since it's essentially asking for a replacement for an unnecessary artifice. How do you act like a moral person without believing that the all-loving God will mercilessly punish you for all eternity otherwise? The exact same way that all of the people who've never heard of such a ridiculous proposition always have. People have a moral
sense that guides them - the intellectualization of it is post-facto hand-wringing, and refusing to regard it as crucial turns out not to affect the operation much at all.
The presence or lack of a supernatural element remains a superficial consideration. What, then, makes an atheistic moral scheme any different than its theistic counterpart?
It admits that its superficial answers and cookie-cutter principles are just that, and not divinely-inspired wisdom. Atheism is the acceptance that these are, if not good enough, anyway the best that we're going to get, and accepts responsibility for that. Religion pretends to know otherwise, and in doing so offers myriad excuses for laziness and selfishness.
