What Are Your Impressions of Atheism

[BeeJay]

I live in Georgia and I came out of the closet as an atheist long ago. Where I'm from, there are a lot of Christian folks, so every day I here a lot of 'god bless you's and such. When I tell people that I am an atheist, I usually get weird looks and sometimes people are even openly hostile or try to convert me on the spot. I welcome the conversion because it is an excuse to explain things like the superiority of secular morality and the logical high ground that atheists occupy. This thread is an attempt to gauge the feelings of the community about atheism and atheists.

I am usually find myself in the position of the contrarian, so I don't mind contrary opinions from any of you. I want to here what you think about atheism and why you think it, and discuss all the issues surrounding atheism and religion in society. My fondest wish with this thread is to strike up a rousing discussion, stretch my intellectual muscles and learn some things. My goal isn't to chastise the religious, so if you are a religious person who is iffy about posting, just know that I won't be mean or call you names. I might tell you that I think you're wrong, but I won't be mean about it.

[consortium11]

Considering how well previous threads along these lines on E tend to go (note; I'm not sure I've seen one that's had more than five replies that hasn't been locked eventually) and the fact there was one fairly recently that ended up being locked I can't say I'm entirely optimistic about this.

Regardless, here we go.

I'm pretty much ambivalent about atheists and atheism; the vast majority of my friends and acquaintances are non-religious ranging across the scale from just non-caring to somewhat militant atheists. My own personal beliefs are vaguely deist (albeit in a God of the Gaps sense which isn't really an argument most genuinely religious people like to advance) but I live my life in a way that few would be able to distinguish from atheism.

That said... 

I welcome the conversion because it is an excuse to explain things like the superiority of secular morality

This topic was touched on in the previous thread linked to above so it might be worth having a quick read through that, but there's is nothing inherently superior on either a "normal" or metaethical sense about secular morality to non-secular morality. It may be that certain systems of secular ethics are superior to certain systems of non-secular ethics but that doesn't prove the superiority of all secular ethics to all non-secular ethics any more then the fact that I'd argue certain non-secular ethics systems are superior to certain secular ethics systems means that all non-secular ethics are superior to secular ethics.

[Aiden]

I put them in the same category as religious people who annoy the shit out of me.

"No I don't care about your religion and no, I don't care that you think religion is fake." - Is my stance

Most atheist I have met, are annoying fuckwads sitting on their high horse of "enlightenment". I am so impartial to both sides I just tend to stay away from those discussions.

[Mathim]

Considering how well previous threads along these lines on E tend to go (note; I'm not sure I've seen one that's had more than five replies that hasn't been locked eventually) and the fact there was one fairly recently that ended up being locked I can't say I'm entirely optimistic about this.

Regardless, here we go.

I'm pretty much ambivalent about atheists and atheism; the vast majority of my friends and acquaintances are non-religious ranging across the scale from just non-caring to somewhat militant atheists. My own personal beliefs are vaguely deist (albeit in a God of the Gaps sense which isn't really an argument most genuinely religious people like to advance) but I live my life in a way that few would be able to distinguish from atheism.

That said... 

This topic was touched on in the previous thread linked to above so it might be worth having a quick read through that, but there's is nothing inherently superior on either a "normal" or metaethical sense about secular morality to non-secular morality. It may be that certain systems of secular ethics are superior to certain systems of non-secular ethics but that doesn't prove the superiority of all secular ethics to all non-secular ethics any more then the fact that I'd argue certain non-secular ethics systems are superior to certain secular ethics systems means that all non-secular ethics are superior to secular ethics.

I think if you merely consider that secular morality is derived from a series of logical and empirical studies to determine the best outcomes as opposed to a dogmatic 'because I said so' style of deciding right from wrong, that would be how a secular morality would be inherently superior, in that single sense. Obviously the popular secularist attitude of being pro-choice is going to seem inferior to the pro-life racket but their reasons for backing each side are entirely differently approached.

Atheism is fine with me but I really can't relate to the 'live and let live' kind of mentality really passive atheists have. I consider myself more what Bill Maher has described himself and others as, an anti-theist. There's just way too much wrong with the world that could be helped or prevented by enlightening the world and turning people away from their religious beliefs. Obviously there's not a lot of hope of that but if we are able to be vocal and provide education about a lot of religious falsehoods and myths to people who are ignorant of these facts, we can at least say we've done our duty even if all it does is piss them off and make them retreat further into blind faith. That's the high ground I think BeeJay was referring to, intellectual honesty if nothing else.

[Iniquitous]

I put them in the same category as religious people who annoy the shit out of me.

"No I don't care about your religion and no, I don't care that you think religion is fake." - Is my stance

Most atheist I have met, are annoying fuckwads sitting on their high horse of "enlightenment". I am so impartial to both sides I just tend to stay away from those discussions.

I cant agree with this more. +1000000000000

[Retribution]

I cant agree with this more. +1000000000000

Add another *smiles* I tend to think most contrary people just try to show their behinds trying to raise up their own lagging self esteem. I call it over compensating.

[Beorning]

Speaking as one of the fuckwads... ;)

I'd say that there are different kinds of atheists and generalizations are quite unfair. I, for once, do not preach that being an atheist makes me superior etc. I actually respect religious people and I'm quite annoyed by those atheists that try to force their secular views down other people's throats....

[Beguile's Mistress]

I don't really care what people are along the lines of atheists or believers.  That is a personal choice and no business of mine.  I don't preach or want to be preached to.  Since we are all more than just atheist or believer I take no more exception to being offered the trite and generic wish to have a good day than I do to being told God/god bless you.  When I am in need and am offered best wishes for a favorable outcome to my situation I don't stop to think about the affiliation the person might have but only that they are sharing themselves with me in the hopes my personal burden will be lightened. 

I don't like listening to anyone preach outside of meetings and church services.  I've had people in the secular world tell me I'm going to burn in hell for not agreeing with them and those in positions of power or authority speak to me in abusive ways and call me names presuming they have the right to judge me without exercising the responsibility to understand me.  I had one boss call me god damn fucking stupid and another person tell me I was deliberately hurtful.  Each of those encounters taught me something about myself because I am no stranger to self examination and I can walk away looking for more information (which is never offered by the name caller) and hoping the other person doesn't have a negative influence on someone else.

I don't think anyone, no matter how elevated their office or position, has the right to assume their opinions or dictates are the most or only valid ones even if they are willing to continually seek new information and examine all points of view and treat each person they deal with as a unique individual.  I don't even think the Pope is infallible as a person.  I think infallibility is a quality applied to the position and not the person in order to bolster the importance of what the current representative promulgates.

Atheist or believer:  It doesn't matter to me.  That is only a part of the equation, part of the person.  What matters to me is the impression the other person leaves behind and whether they have had a positive or negative impact on me or, on observation, anyone they are interacting with.

That is a bit more elaborate than Aiden's more succinctly stated opinion but I wholeheartedly agree with him.  Go be what you want to be and let everyone else alone.

[Valthazar]

I am so impartial to both sides I just tend to stay away from those discussions.

Me too.  Almost every discussion about religion turns into an atheism vs. monotheism clash of egos. 

As a Hindu, my faith encourages the expression of other religions and philosophies, including atheism.  These are all thoughts and emotions we are all sharing about the unknown, and thus, we share more in common than we think.

[BeeJay]

There seems to be some confusion about my "superiority" comment and I want to clear that up. When I claimed that secular morality is superior, I wasn't making the claim that people who practice secular morality are superior to those who don't. That argument might be able to be made, but I am not making it.

I'm not sure i even know what a 'fuckwad' is, but I never intended to shove my beliefs down anyone's throat. I just want to talk about it. I take issue with the unecessary insult and the presumtion that I am some kind of evangelical atheist.

[JLinz77]

I, too am from the south and it seems to be that church and believing in God is literally shoved down our throats growing up. I'm not an atheist nor am I one of those bible-thumping Christians but because of what I've seen as far as religion, I don't blame many for turning to atheism.

My impression? Just like I stated in the last paragraph; I understand why people would become an atheist. But, just like in Christianity, there are more than one type of atheists. There are the ones who try to back up their belief in the "if you can't see or touch it, it isn't real" argument. There are the ones who had something really bad happen to them and therefore stopped believing in a being who would let something like that happen to them. Then there are those who take a more logical and deeper look into everything. I know that there may be more but I see these as the main three categories. I'm the type of person to sit and listen to what you have to say, as far as the reason why you chose to become an atheist or chose to believe in any other religion. I don't argue with any of it because there are certain things that I have a problem with blindly following when it comes to Christianity; and I don't have the full knowledge to have an actual debate with anyone about it: I simply listen, let you know that I won't judge because of what you believe in and try to change the subject to something that I have a better understanding of!

There are two things that I am against: forcing a religion/belief on someone and hypocrites. Those two are the reasons why I wouldn't try to argue with someone about religion. For me to debate, I would have to be able to back my beliefs up with stated facts; if I don't go to church or read the bible faithfully, I have nothing to truly say. Me stating "Well, I believe in God so you're wrong about your beliefs" is blatantly childish and not backed up by anything aside from what I feel is right.

I took a few college courses a while back. Two of my favorite classes were Politics and Religion. I learned quite a lot from both, some things made me understand the world better and others actually enlightened me. After taking in what I learned, it gave me a better perspective as far as when I saw someone ranting and raving about how the government is this and that or (insert religion) is the only way. I don't know; just wanted to share that... sometimes I feel that a lot of people would benefit from taking those classes instead of being blind believers.

My personal belief? We won't know who is right until we die

[Lux12]

I put them in the same category as religious people who annoy the shit out of me.

Most atheist I have met, are annoying fuckwads sitting on their high horse of "enlightenment".

Amen.

To be honest I do not like them. They seem worse than the evangelicals they criticize in some regards and it seems more often than not if you mention any Divinity at all in passing they get up in arms. Often times they've come off as suspiciously conservative. So my feelings toward them are not amicable. In general they have an equally literalist interpretation of all things spiritual and don't seem to actually care about the message by various allegories and spiritual philosophy. I've gotten better advice (in a far less condescending fashion at that) and help from my distant Deities than them. Even if I'm not getting into my Spiritual philosophy conversations end with nothing beneficial coming of them.  To be honest I'd be happier if they said nothing of it at all. At least when the evangelists preach at me they have some reason to even if I dislike the right wing rhetoric they make tortured attempts to shove onto it. This idea that reality is simple and only skin deep is ludicrous to me. Also denial of the Divine's existence makes no logical sense to me. They do not see that the convictions of the religious is based in reason. Problems arise when they fail to truly listen to the cosmic reason within their paths.

To paraphrase the first Conan film... I ask that they grant me one request. Leave me and everyone else in peace and if they do not listen, then to hell with them. I wish to speak to the Divine without evangelists of either kind getting on my nerves.

I also don't think there needs to be a single answer. All religions at their core are true in their own ways.

Cosmic reality is one, but the wise perceive it in many ways-The Rig Veda

I apologize if I came off sounding a bit vindictive, but my experiences with them have not been pleasant.

[Blythe]

I don't think of atheists any differently than anyone else. I am an atheist, but it's not the only defining aspect of me.

So long as a person treats me with respect and does not try to change me/force me to believe something I don't, I will respect that person in return, regardless of a person's religion or lack of a religion.

[Euron Greyjoy]

Seeing how I used to be one,  they are okay. However, to say all Atheists are either X or Y is wrong. There are good Atheists and there bad ones, just like everyone else. They can be just as annoying as some Christians, by trying to show how "logical" and "rational" they are compared to the religious.

[BeeJay]

I just got home from work, so my previous post wasn't a really proper response. I will construct one now, in reverse posting order.

Amen.

To be honest I do not like them. They seem worse than the evangelicals they criticize in some regards and it seems more often than not if you mention any Divinity at all in passing they get up in arms. Often times they've come off as suspiciously conservative. So my feelings toward them are not amicable. In general they have an equally literalist interpretation of all things spiritual and don't seem to actually care about the message by various allegories and spiritual philosophy. I've gotten better advice (in a far less condescending fashion at that) and help from my distant Deities than them. Even if I'm not getting into my Spiritual philosophy conversations end with nothing beneficial coming of them.  To be honest I'd be happier if they said nothing of it at all. At least when the evangelists preach at me they have some reason to even if I dislike the right wing rhetoric they make tortured attempts to shove onto it.

(Edit to separate the point out.)
This idea that reality is simple and only skin deep is ludicrous to me. Also denial of the Divine's existence makes no logical sense to me. They do not see that the convictions of the religious is based in reason. Problems arise when they fail to truly listen to the cosmic reason within their paths.

To paraphrase the first Conan film... I ask that they grant me one request. Leave me and everyone else in peace and if they do not listen, then to hell with them. I wish to speak to the Divine without evangelists of either kind getting on my nerves.

I also don't think there needs to be a single answer. All religions at their core are true in their own ways.

Cosmic reality is one, but the wise perceive it in many ways-The Rig Veda

I apologize if I came off sounding a bit vindictive, but my experiences with them have not been pleasant.

I respect your right to not like atheists. I think that opinion is rather ill-founded, but I have no problem respecting it. I know that there are some crass and disrespectful atheists out there, just like there are of any group of people. This phenomenon isn't unique to atheism or religion. You're allowed to think that evangelicals are less obnoxious than atheists as well, I think that statement is a generalization and isn't very helpful to discourse. The issue is much more complicated than you are making it seem, because you are lumping both atheists and evangelicals into two neat groups, when that just isn't the case at all. Atheism is the rejection of the claim that there is/are God/gods. Evangelizing means spreading the word of God with the intent to convert. Neither of these things can make up the whole of a person, so when you speak of 'atheists', you can only really speak of them in a capacity relevant to atheism. If the person is pushy and annoying, that isn't necessarily because they are an atheist. Evangelists are literally tasked with convincing people, so they sometimes are a little pushy as a matter of course, and a lot of them are downright annoying or fatuous, just like some atheists. That isn't the entire character of an evangelical though, either, and to sum them as 'less annoying overall than atheists' is fallacious.

Look up the "Argument from Ignorance Fallacy". The fact that you can't conceive of something doesn't mean that something is false or impossible. And to say that the convictions of believers is based in reason is a little bold. Most rational discussion with a theist comes down to, "Can you prove your god exists, because if you can't, then your aren't being reasonable". We can hash out that discussion now if you'd like to rebut that, but if you would rather not I respect your decision.

Well there aren't atheists evangelizing to you, because atheism is simply the rejection that a god or gods exist, as I stated earlier. Thus, they aren't trying to convert you to a belief. They may challenge your belief, but they aren't trying to move you anywhere except away from belief. Anti-theists might try to convince you though. They (myself included, but I am not working under that capacity in this thread) believe that all the evidence points to the fact that there aren't god or gods (Like atheists believe), and they just take the next step and claim positively that there aren't any such entities. I'm sorry you don't like social discourse, and it gets on your nerves, but it's a necessary process for societal progress and it won't be stopping anytime soon. I truly am sorry if anti-theists are getting in your face about the issue. I sympathize, because believers do it to me all the time.

To make a claim that any religion is true is to have evidence that isn't available to me. Would you mind making me aware of it?

Can you elaborate on what 'cosmic reality' means please?

It's not a problem. You seem sincere in your position, and I won't take it personally. I am sorry you have had bad experiences with non-theists (atheists, anti-theists).

I, too am from the south and it seems to be that church and believing in God is literally shoved down our throats growing up. I'm not an atheist nor am I one of those bible-thumping Christians but because of what I've seen as far as religion, I don't blame many for turning to atheism.

My impression? Just like I stated in the last paragraph; I understand why people would become an atheist. But, just like in Christianity, there are more than one type of atheists. There are the ones who try to back up their belief in the "if you can't see or touch it, it isn't real" argument. There are the ones who had something really bad happen to them and therefore stopped believing in a being who would let something like that happen to them. Then there are those who take a more logical and deeper look into everything. I know that there may be more but I see these as the main three categories. I'm the type of person to sit and listen to what you have to say, as far as the reason why you chose to become an atheist or chose to believe in any other religion. I don't argue with any of it because there are certain things that I have a problem with blindly following when it comes to Christianity; and I don't have the full knowledge to have an actual debate with anyone about it: I simply listen, let you know that I won't judge because of what you believe in and try to change the subject to something that I have a better understanding of!

There are two things that I am against: forcing a religion/belief on someone and hypocrites. Those two are the reasons why I wouldn't try to argue with someone about religion. For me to debate, I would have to be able to back my beliefs up with stated facts; if I don't go to church or read the bible faithfully, I have nothing to truly say. Me stating "Well, I believe in God so you're wrong about your beliefs" is blatantly childish and not backed up by anything aside from what I feel is right.

I took a few college courses a while back. Two of my favorite classes were Politics and Religion. I learned quite a lot from both, some things made me understand the world better and others actually enlightened me. After taking in what I learned, it gave me a better perspective as far as when I saw someone ranting and raving about how the government is this and that or (insert religion) is the only way. I don't know; just wanted to share that... sometimes I feel that a lot of people would benefit from taking those classes instead of being blind believers.

My personal belief? We won't know who is right until we die

I don’t take issue with anything you’ve said, really. Just wanted to say I respect your decision to not jump headfirst into a discussion without having done a lot of research, and that I respect your position about not knowing who is right. I don’t know who is right, per se. Of course I think I’m right or I wouldn’t be an atheist, but knowing and thinking aren’t the same. There isn’t anything wrong with saying that you don’t know, and it is strictly wrong to say you do know when you don’t. Thank you for your imput.

Me too.  Almost every discussion about religion turns into an atheism vs. monotheism clash of egos. 

As a Hindu, my faith encourages the expression of other religions and philosophies, including atheism.  These are all thoughts and emotions we are all sharing about the unknown, and thus, we share more in common than we think.

I can assure you that I will not be rubbing egos with anyone. I am a seeker of truth, not a lobbyist. I can’t say the same for all atheists, but you won’t get it from me.

My issue with this point is that not everyone else’s religions and philosophies are conducive to a healthy society. The reason to have the debate is that religion and philosophy profoundly affects political policy and can start and sustain wars. Figuring out which religious or non-religious position we should build our societies on is not only beneficial to humanity, but necessary to ward off anarchy and tyranny.

Considering how well previous threads along these lines on E tend to go (note; I'm not sure I've seen one that's had more than five replies that hasn't been locked eventually) and the fact there was one fairly recently that ended up being locked I can't say I'm entirely optimistic about this.

Regardless, here we go.

I'm pretty much ambivalent about atheists and atheism; the vast majority of my friends and acquaintances are non-religious ranging across the scale from just non-caring to somewhat militant atheists. My own personal beliefs are vaguely deist (albeit in a God of the Gaps sense which isn't really an argument most genuinely religious people like to advance) but I live my life in a way that few would be able to distinguish from atheism.

That said... 

This topic was touched on in the previous thread linked to above so it might be worth having a quick read through that, but there's is nothing inherently superior on either a "normal" or metaethical sense about secular morality to non-secular morality. It may be that certain systems of secular ethics are superior to certain systems of non-secular ethics but that doesn't prove the superiority of all secular ethics to all non-secular ethics any more then the fact that I'd argue certain non-secular ethics systems are superior to certain secular ethics systems means that all non-secular ethics are superior to secular ethics.

I am addressing your points in the last paragraph. When I talk about the superiority of secular morality, I am referring mostly to the nature of modern secular morality that allows it to adapt to changing public opinion and socio-economic factors in general. When dogma is added to ethics, things tend to hold to the status quo for much longer, and thus progress to resolving conflicts of morality is made to stagnate. For example, the Roman Catholic Church’s policy on contraception and their missions in Africa are directly responsible for the lack of HIV prevention there. If there weren’t religious dogma and irrational belief about contraception involved, HIV prevention wouldn’t be actively negated. In 2008, a secular Roman Catholic Church would have taken into account the nearly 2 million deaths from AIDS, as well as the 33.4 million people living with HIV, and made necessary adjustments to mission policy. Of course the idea of a secular church sending out missions is kind of absurd, but my point stands regardless. My source of statistics is http://www.globalissues.org/article/90/aids-in-africa.

[Dice]

Public opinion is not always the best way to morally view the world. When not hampered by dogma yes you can adapt your view point faster, but not all changes made are always the best ones that can be made. In this, I do not want to preach or move in on my own views too much, I know people will agree and disagree with me. But I am an atheist and some of what has been done by secular governments has left me standing with the theists ideologically.

I think if you want to point at what is the difference between "Us and them", if you take out the fundamentalists on both sides, and look at the common faces, there is not a whole lot that is different. In the end we are all just trying to live our lives the best we can and help our those around us. While each side will view aspects of the others lives with suspicion and confusion, at the end of the day we are all human and when you move off the topic of faith, get along just fine.

Preach to me though and that view of mine gets swept away by a indignatious fury that ends only when you either shut up, or start to understand I have read more of the book you hold faith in than you have. Because if you read that dam book cover to cover, you will not believe in it. You just can't, there is too much in there that is just not possible to justify by a reasonable person and if you want to pick out the best parts and live your life by a code, that's fine. But you can not hold up the bible and say "This is the true word of God" without me showing to you that it was written by mortal hands from a viewpoint that no longer exists today.

[BeeJay]

Public opinion is not always the best way to morally view the world. When not hampered by dogma yes you can adapt your view point faster, but not all changes made are always the best ones that can be made. In this, I do not want to preach or move in on my own views too much, I know people will agree and disagree with me. But I am an atheist and some of what has been done by secular governments has left me standing with the theists ideologically.

I think if you want to point at what is the difference between "Us and them", if you take out the fundamentalists on both sides, and look at the common faces, there is not a whole lot that is different. In the end we are all just trying to live our lives the best we can and help our those around us. While each side will view aspects of the others lives with suspicion and confusion, at the end of the day we are all human and when you move off the topic of faith, get along just fine.

Preach to me though and that view of mine gets swept away by a indignatious fury that ends only when you either shut up, or start to understand I have read more of the book you hold faith in than you have. Because if you read that dam book cover to cover, you will not believe in it. You just can't, there is too much in there that is just not possible to justify by a reasonable person and if you want to pick out the best parts and live your life by a code, that's fine. But you can not hold up the bible and say "This is the true word of God" without me showing to you that it was written by mortal hands from a viewpoint that no longer exists today.

I never said that public opinion was always the best indicator of morality, nor did I say it was the only factor. It is easy, however, to point to instances where changes in public opinion affected morality, for better or worse. It is possible to progress either toward a moral or an immoral society, but dogma hampers positive progression as well as negative and a great deal of harm has been done by this effect. I can only assume the secular movements you are referring to are the Stalinist and Nazi regimes, among others. If I am incorrect, please do let me know. My position as it pertains to secular tyranny, is that those regimes had dogma as well. While being secular itself doesn't preclude dogma, the worlds largest religions actually impose dogma as a matter of course. That means that there are secular societies with or without dogma, but there are only a scant few non-secular societies without dogma. When the fuhrer laid down a law, it was incontrovertible. That halts progress. The same applies to religious governance, but it is more frequent almost by definition. The difference is that when these atheist regimes indoctrinated their people and perpetrated atrocities, the world put its collective foot down and stopped them, albeit by a small margin. The same cannot be said of the Roman Catholic Church. The organization is directly responsible for harboring and protecting rapists and for millions of deaths yearly in Africa. Why shouldn't someone want to fight to change that?

I am not invoking 'us vs. them'. I am objectively evaluating methods and results and trying to determine what is right. I have a position that I claim is true, but I am not an enemy of those who disagree. There is nothing to be gained by fighting. The only thing that will help us make gains is by figuring out who is right and applying what we know. I agree that the faces aren't a whole lot different. For the most part, humans are decent and want to live their lives being as good as possible. I am just in disagreement as to how to do that. I take issue with the statement about humans getting along just fine, however. There hasn't been a time that I am aware of in human history where there hasn't been some kind of war going. Humans fight over many things, and they will find reasons to fight with each other, but religion is a huge elephant in the room. Religion is unquestioningly a strong reason for peoples to wage war. Secular peoples would not have religious grounds to fight in the first place, so they would have to find more substantial reasons.

I cannot take any issue with your last point. Well done.

Thank you for responding civilly. I hope to keep this thread as respectful as possible for as long as possible by sheer force of will (Due to my lack of moderating privileges :P ). I want to reiterate that my responses are not to be taken as snarky or mean. Read them like you would a text book or an encyclopedia. I want to keep as much inflection from showing in my words as possible.

[TaintedAndDelish]

Assuming that by "Atheism", you mean a belief that there is no god, my current stance is that there is not enough credible evidence to support the notion that a god ( however you might define one ) exists or that the gods of religious lore are real.

As for just letting people believe and proselytize as they will, I choose to point out the truth in public discussions about gods and religions. Not because I'm a "fuckwad" with a small penis and no self esteem, but because I have every right to contribute my point of view - just as the religion person does. If religious people are going to spread their religious propaganda, then I'm going to point out the flaws in their logic. Hopefully, the truth ( whatever that might be ) survives.

On the other hand.... I've been wondering lately, if religion has some sort of value and importance in the same way that art does. Art is not bound to fact, neither is religion. Art is good in that its an expression of our humanity, hope and struggles. I wonder if religion too - even if presented as if it was factual, has a similar abstract sort of value?

From a logical/rational point of view, religion seems cancerous, but so too does art if judged by the same standards.

[Saidi]

I say live and let live.


What I don't like are Atheists that think that because someone believes in a spiritual entity, it is suddenly acceptable to mock those individuals and to try and make them "see reason" through insults and comments ranging from "hallucinations" to blatant attacks on a person's intellect,  then claim to hold a higher moral ground.

I have met people like this and the hypocrisy makes me laugh. These types of individuals are annoying, and in my opinion as bad as the extreme Christian fundamentalists.

I have also met many that understand that because I believe in God, it doesn't make me any less intelligent or more delusional than them.  They simply understand in my life, I need and like the presence of God. 

Anyone may disagree with me, that's fine.  However, I don't take kindly to to any attempt to belittle my beliefs or person. I don't do it to them, and expect the same common courtesy.   

[consortium11]

I think if you merely consider that secular morality is derived from a series of logical and empirical studies to determine the best outcomes as opposed to a dogmatic 'because I said so' style of deciding right from wrong, that would be how a secular morality would be inherently superior, in that single sense. Obviously the popular secularist attitude of being pro-choice is going to seem inferior to the pro-life racket but their reasons for backing each side are entirely differently approached.

1) The 'because I said so' style of deciding right from wrong isn't a criticism of all non-secular morality, just those which follow that method (primarily those with a deity who on some level proscribes right from wrong). It may be raised as a criticism of specific non-secular moralities but not as a whole.

2) Define "best outcomes" and how these can be logically and empirically reached... and how if these conclusions are reached logically and through empirical study that so many non-secular moral theories disagree with each other on a pretty fundamental level.

3) Touching on the first point with regard to a specific religion, there's a strong school of Christian thought which holds that God didn't make up or invent moral values, they are instead an intrinsic part of his nature and character; as God is supposedly the ultimate expression of moral values (kindness, love etc etc) and the universe is a expression of himself, those moral values thus apply to the world and it is/was up to humans to discover them. Aquinas, who is pretty much the definition and perfect example of a non-secular ethical theorist, holds that it is through what he describes as "practical reasonableness" that we discover these moral values and thus ought to live our lives through them. It's actually interesting to compare Aquinas' ethical approach and Kant's (arguably the leading secular ethicist) and note how similar they are not just in the end result but in the methods they choose to follow to get there.

4) Most natural law (and many moral realist) theories, whether secular or non-secular, have to rely on a "because I say so" element; it is a struggle for both to adequately explain where moral facts come from.

I am addressing your points in the last paragraph. When I talk about the superiority of secular morality, I am referring mostly to the nature of modern secular morality that allows it to adapt to changing public opinion and socio-economic factors in general. When dogma is added to ethics, things tend to hold to the status quo for much longer, and thus progress to resolving conflicts of morality is made to stagnate. For example, the Roman Catholic Church’s policy on contraception and their missions in Africa are directly responsible for the lack of HIV prevention there. If there weren’t religious dogma and irrational belief about contraception involved, HIV prevention wouldn’t be actively negated. In 2008, a secular Roman Catholic Church would have taken into account the nearly 2 million deaths from AIDS, as well as the 33.4 million people living with HIV, and made necessary adjustments to mission policy. Of course the idea of a secular church sending out missions is kind of absurd, but my point stands regardless. My source of statistics is http://www.globalissues.org/article/90/aids-in-africa.

That's a rather limited view of what constitutes secular ethics; under such a system any natural law or moral realist theory is thrown out, most notably Kant (and anyone who has in turn built on Kantian ethics).

To give a specific counter-example Norman Borlaug is generally credited as a man who saved a billion lives, generally through the Green Revolution. Yet he faced opposition throughout the process, notably when he tried to expand the program into Africa, from environmentalist groups generally of the secular variety, largely due to the fact that he used GM crops.

[Ephiral]

Most atheist I have met, are annoying fuckwads sitting on their high horse of "enlightenment". I am so impartial to both sides I just tend to stay away from those discussions.

These two sentences following each other is hilarious. Almost as hilarious as the number of people who have agreed wholeheartedly with this, and the number who have complained that atheists are insulting and condescending in a thread where this is the only overt insult.

I think if you merely consider that secular morality is derived from a series of logical and empirical studies to determine the best outcomes

Let's stop right there. So what you're saying is that, for example, there are no atheist misogynists or racists, since such positions are clearly not based in logic or sound empirical studies?

Or is secular morality just as likely to go off the rails depending on the biases of the person implementing it?

[Retribution]

My last post on this as it deteriorates in the predictable manner  :-)

The gist is Atheists complaining about preaching while preaching just from another angle is patently ludicrous. I would vote that some of the long winded vents in this very thread are doing just that. All of course while preaching in another form. It is every bit as vexing as the religious types who knock on my door and wake me from an afternoon nap. If you do not see that then argue against it till you are blue in the face it is nothing to me even if it simply illustrates my point.

[edit] May the force be with you or live long and prosper whatever does not offend you while I am trying to be polite.

~R~

[Ephiral]

...except "atheists are preachy" is almost as broad, and every bit as false, as "religious people are preachy". It's a stereotype we get saddled with, but that doesn't make it true. Further, for me at least the issue isn't "preaching" - it's more "religion is given a privileged role that is not justified in a pluralistic society". So... you're 0 for 2 there.

[BeeJay]

My last post on this as it deteriorates in the predictable manner  :-)

The gist is Atheists complaining about preaching while preaching just from another angle is patently ludicrous. I would vote that some of the long winded vents in this very thread are doing just that. All of course while preaching in another form. It is every bit as vexing as the religious types who knock on my door and wake me from an afternoon nap. If you do not see that then argue against it till you are blue in the face it is nothing to me even if it simply illustrates my point.

[edit] May the force be with you or live long and prosper whatever does not offend you while I am trying to be polite.

~R~

Your point is erroneous. The OP, me, hasn't been preaching at all. And as far as I can tell, everyone in this thread has politely given their opinions and rebuttals with one minor exception, which was handled with respect by those it was directed at. It would seem to me that you aren't analyzing the pace of the thread properly. No one is preaching. We are having civil discourse, and no one is knocking on your door. You offered your opinion and entered the debate hall of your own free will. I won't be arguing blue in the face, because this isn't an emotional issue. It's a methodological and a logical one. No one is saying that all of the theists and agnostics should be rounded up and castrated. Stop inciting ire, please and thank you.

And of course I don't take offense at your opinion or tone. Thank you for that clarification.

Let's stop right there. So what you're saying is that, for example, there are no atheist misogynists or racists, since such positions are clearly not based in logic or sound empirical studies?

Or is secular morality just as likely to go off the rails depending on the biases of the person implementing it?

There are clearly atheists who have poor moral character. I think Mathim was saying that secular morality is derived from logical and empiric conclusions, but not that everyone considers the same things logical, nor does everyone think of 'the best outcome' the same way. Secular morality can be wrong, but I would argue that it is less wrong more often than nonsecular morality, not in principle necessarily, but in practice. Am I representing you correctly Mathim?

1) The 'because I said so' style of deciding right from wrong isn't a criticism of all non-secular morality, just those which follow that method (primarily those with a deity who on some level proscribes right from wrong). It may be raised as a criticism of specific non-secular moralities but not as a whole.

2) Define "best outcomes" and how these can be logically and empirically reached... and how if these conclusions are reached logically and through empirical study that so many non-secular moral theories disagree with each other on a pretty fundamental level.

3) Touching on the first point with regard to a specific religion, there's a strong school of Christian thought which holds that God didn't make up or invent moral values, they are instead an intrinsic part of his nature and character; as God is supposedly the ultimate expression of moral values (kindness, love etc etc) and the universe is a expression of himself, those moral values thus apply to the world and it is/was up to humans to discover them. Aquinas, who is pretty much the definition and perfect example of a non-secular ethical theorist, holds that it is through what he describes as "practical reasonableness" that we discover these moral values and thus ought to live our lives through them. It's actually interesting to compare Aquinas' ethical approach and Kant's (arguably the leading secular ethicist) and note how similar they are not just in the end result but in the methods they choose to follow to get there.

4) Most natural law (and many moral realist) theories, whether secular or non-secular, have to rely on a "because I say so" element; it is a struggle for both to adequately explain where moral facts come from.

That's a rather limited view of what constitutes secular ethics; under such a system any natural law or moral realist theory is thrown out, most notably Kant (and anyone who has in turn built on Kantian ethics).

To give a specific counter-example Norman Borlaug is generally credited as a man who saved a billion lives, generally through the Green Revolution. Yet he faced opposition throughout the process, notably when he tried to expand the program into Africa, from environmentalist groups generally of the secular variety, largely due to the fact that he used GM crops.

1. True, it can. The difference is that it often doesn’t and there are many arguments against such things in secular philosophies, while many religious philosophies actively espouse it. Methods are important, but so are results.

2. The ‘best outcome’, according to some, is the reduction to the greatest reasonable degree of suffering for peoples of a specific society. Different people have different opinions about cost/benefit when it comes to logical and empirical conclusions. Here is a hypothetical example: A study shows that citizens who work for minimum wage are far more likely to commit violent crimes than citizens who do not. Some members of the legislative body of the community don’t think that raising the minimum wage in order to decrease violent crime would be worth the hit to productivity in the society. Some others think that the financial hit would be worth it for the reduction of crime. That is an example of logical and empirical evidence leading sound-minded people to different conclusions. Disagreement isn’t a stop sign to progress.

3. Let’s say for a moment that every Christian believed what you outline, that God’s nature and character are intrinsically moral. Let’s also say, though I am not claiming all Christians believe this, that this god is also all knowing (omniscient) and all powerful (omnipotent), and intervenes in the world, as many Christian’s believe. Now we are faced with Epicurus’ dilemma. This is a post from http://ericback.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/the-epicurean-dilemma/. Read the first few lines and you have my rebuttal to the claim that God is moral, all powerful and all knowing. Now, if he is moral, but not omni-anything, or even manifest in reality at all, why even have the concept of God? And in regards to Aquinas’ statement about practical reasonableness, if secular and nonsecular societies practiced his views on the matter, there wouldn’t need to be a discussion about it. My claim is the more often, secular societies are more prone to practical reasonableness. For example, abortion is practically reasonable with all that we know about science, but religious dogma is wasting taxpayer dollars clogging up the process with iron age ethics. That isn’t practical reasonableness.

4. Secular society doesn’t rely on ‘because I said so’. Secular societies and nonsecular societies that act exactly like secular ones, like England, have legislative and judicial discourse about issues, hashing out the issues and coming down on once side or another. Authority for enforcing laws comes down to ‘I said so’, but that is by proxy of the legal processes that decided the laws in the first place.

The example I gave was just a single example of a policy difference, not my entire view of secular ethics. Of course red tape and politics and cause some noble cause to be rejected, but my example is actually an example of religious ethics causing harm to people. There is a rather wide difference in our examples, don’t you think?

I say live and let live.


What I don't like are Atheists that think that because someone believes in a spiritual entity, it is suddenly acceptable to mock those individuals and to try and make them "see reason" through insults and comments ranging from "hallucinations" to blatant attacks on a person's intellect,  then claim to hold a higher moral ground.

I have met people like this and the hypocrisy makes me laugh. These types of individuals are annoying, and in my opinion as bad as the extreme Christian fundamentalists.

I have also met many that understand that because I believe in God, it doesn't make me any less intelligent or more delusional than them.  They simply understand in my life, I need and like the presence of God. 

Anyone may disagree with me, that's fine.  However, I don't take kindly to to any attempt to belittle my beliefs or person. I don't do it to them, and expect the same common courtesy.   

I agree that atheists shouldn’t mock the religious so much, though I think religious beliefs are laughable in private. But the ridicule does run both ways, I assure you. I would argue that, in our current world, secularists do hold the moral high ground. I think that the dogmas of the Abrahamic religious texts are immoral and harmful to society, and that secularists are fighting against abuse by the religious every day. One of my examples from earlier is the child abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church that are still unresolved.

You believing in God doesn’t make you less intelligent. Intelligent people are allowed to be wrong, after all. I might make you more delusional than a non-theist, but that isn’t a scar on your entire character. Have you ever lost something and you swear you put it somewhere? You become convinced that someone else must have moved it? Then when you find out you’re sitting on it, you feel bad. That is how easy it is for a healthy human mind to be delusional. And when billions of people share your delusion and you have no obvious way to find that you’re sitting on what you’re looking for, it become nearly impossible to shake the delusion. I don’t mean offense by my comments, so please do not read my statements as mean. :) Also bare in mind that non-theists can be delusional about the supernatural as well. Many non-theists believe in alien abduction and ghosts, and they are equally ridiculed by atheists.

I respect your wishes to not have your beliefs belittled. I won’t be trying to belittle them, but I will challenge them. If you do not wish to participate in that discussion with me, I will not be offended. Thank you for your imput.

Assuming that by "Atheism", you mean a belief that there is no god, my current stance is that there is not enough credible evidence to support the notion that a god ( however you might define one ) exists or that the gods of religious lore are real.

As for just letting people believe and proselytize as they will, I choose to point out the truth in public discussions about gods and religions. Not because I'm a "fuckwad" with a small penis and no self esteem, but because I have every right to contribute my point of view - just as the religion person does. If religious people are going to spread their religious propaganda, then I'm going to point out the flaws in their logic. Hopefully, the truth ( whatever that might be ) survives.

On the other hand.... I've been wondering lately, if religion has some sort of value and importance in the same way that art does. Art is not bound to fact, neither is religion. Art is good in that its an expression of our humanity, hope and struggles. I wonder if religion too - even if presented as if it was factual, has a similar abstract sort of value?

From a logical/rational point of view, religion seems cancerous, but so too does art if judged by the same standards.

Your assumption that atheism is the belief that a god or gods do not exist is false. Atheism is the rejection of religious claims that a god or gods exist. This means that we don’t believe in supernatural claims until there is good evidence of them, not that we positively claim that there are no gods. Anti-theists make that claim, and anti-theists are also atheists, but not all atheists are anti-theists. As it happens, I am anit-theist, but I understand that the claim ‘there is no God’ isn’t substanciated, only extremely likely. I will not rebut your other points until you have the chance to adjust them.

[Oniya]

I'm going to weigh in with only two things:

One - as noted, threads of this nature do tend to get very heated, whether or not the OP wishes them to.  Everyone is reminded to behave with civility, regardless of your personal beliefs or lack thereof.

Two - If someone sincerely wishes you a Happy or Merry or Joyous anything, and you feel anger, the anger comes from inside you.  This, I believe, is a greater problem.

[TaintedAndDelish]

Your assumption that atheism is the belief that a god or gods do not exist is false. Atheism is the rejection of religious claims that a god or gods exist. This means that we don’t believe in supernatural claims until there is good evidence of them, not that we positively claim that there are no gods. Anti-theists make that claim, and anti-theists are also atheists, but not all atheists are anti-theists. As it happens, I am anit-theist, but I understand that the claim ‘there is no God’ isn’t substanciated, only extremely likely. I will not rebut your other points until you have the chance to adjust them.

I think I made this pretty clear in my first sentence. 'My current stance is that there is not enough credible evidence to support the notion that a god ( however you might define one ) exists or that the gods of religious lore are real.'

Not everyone who uses the words "atheist" or "agnostic" are referring to the same exact thing, which is I why I did not make assumptions about what you meant by "atheism."  If you want to get into hair splitting details about its definition, there's several pages worth here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

[Saidi]

I'm going to weigh in with only two things:

One - as noted, threads of this nature do tend to get very heated, whether or not the OP wishes them to.  Everyone is reminded to behave with civility, regardless of your personal beliefs or lack thereof.

Two - If someone sincerely wishes you a Happy or Merry or Joyous anything, and you feel anger, the anger comes from inside you.  This, I believe, is a greater problem.

<3

I agree that atheists shouldn’t mock the religious so much, though I think religious beliefs are laughable in private. But the ridicule does run both ways, I assure you. I would argue that, in our current world, secularists do hold the moral high ground. I think that the dogmas of the Abrahamic religious texts are immoral and harmful to society, and that secularists are fighting against abuse by the religious every day. One of my examples from earlier is the child abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church that are still unresolved.

You believing in God doesn’t make you less intelligent. Intelligent people are allowed to be wrong, after all. I might make you more delusional than a non-theist, but that isn’t a scar on your entire character. Have you ever lost something and you swear you put it somewhere? You become convinced that someone else must have moved it? Then when you find out you’re sitting on it, you feel bad. That is how easy it is for a healthy human mind to be delusional. And when billions of people share your delusion and you have no obvious way to find that you’re sitting on what you’re looking for, it become nearly impossible to shake the delusion. I don’t mean offense by my comments, so please do not read my statements as mean. :) Also bare in mind that non-theists can be delusional about the supernatural as well. Many non-theists believe in alien abduction and ghosts, and they are equally ridiculed by atheists.

I respect your wishes to not have your beliefs belittled. I won’t be trying to belittle them, but I will challenge them. If you do not wish to participate in that discussion with me, I will not be offended. Thank you for your imput.

Also, about all that... *facepalm* ...

Just remember, if a person wants to challenge an idea, then they should challenge the idea.  Using terminology that the listener may perceive as a personal attack is not helpful.  It's best to stick to the subject being discussed and avoid using words like "you" because then the discussion is made personal and no longer objective.  Using words like "delusional" in a conversation can be perceived as an attack by the listener.  If a person wants to make a point, it usually works best to avoid being condescending (regardless of what side of the issue they uphold) and closing their audience's mind before ever making a valid point. 

Statements like "I don't mean to be/do (insert word here) but (insert what they said they weren't meant to be doing/saying)" doesn't take away the sting, and again the listener closes off to any further ideas the speaker may have.  It is considered a backhanded insult.  "I'm not calling you dumb, but..."  or "I don't mean to be rude but..."   

Good luck.

[Beorning]

Also, about all that... *facepalm* ...

Just remember, if a person wants to challenge an idea, then they should challenge the idea.  Using terminology that the listener may perceive as a personal attack is not helpful.  It's best to stick to the subject being discussed and avoid using words like "you" because then the discussion is made personal and no longer objective.  Using words like "delusional" in a conversation can be perceived as an attack by the listener.  If a person wants to make a point, it usually works best to avoid being condescending (regardless of what side of the issue they uphold) and closing their audience's mind before ever making a valid point. 

Statements like "I don't mean to be/do (insert word here) but (insert what they said they weren't meant to be doing/saying)" doesn't take away the sting, and again the listener closes off to any further ideas the speaker may have.  It is considered a backhanded insult.  "I'm not calling you dumb, but..."  or "I don't mean to be rude but..."   

I totally agree with that. BeeJay, I'm an atheist and even I can help feeling that your words come off as insulting, whether you want them to or not... ;)

[Ephiral]

There are clearly atheists who have poor moral character. I think Mathim was saying that secular morality is derived from logical and empiric conclusions, but not that everyone considers the same things logical, nor does everyone think of 'the best outcome' the same way. Secular morality can be wrong, but I would argue that it is less wrong more often than nonsecular morality, not in principle necessarily, but in practice. Am I representing you correctly Mathim?

Here's the thing, though: These people are following a secular moral code that ends in "...therefore, this group of people is inferior and should be treated as such." "Secular" != "well-reasoned", and most moral systems that fail do so not because of priors, but because of motivated reasoning.

[BeeJay]

Here's the thing, though: These people are following a secular moral code that ends in "...therefore, this group of people is inferior and should be treated as such." "Secular" != "well-reasoned", and most moral systems that fail do so not because of priors, but because of motivated reasoning.

I'm at work and don't have time to respond to every point in the thread, but I can't let this one go unchallenged. Who on earth suggested that someone is inferior? Is this just a straw man, or am I missing something? Clarify what you mean by 'these people'.

[JLinz77]

Two - If someone sincerely wishes you a Happy or Merry or Joyous anything, and you feel anger, the anger comes from inside you.  This, I believe, is a greater problem.

I don't know if this is clearly off subject but that statement made me think about all the times where I have worked during the holidays. Some companies are careful not to offend anyone so during that time, they try to stress to their employees to wish consumers "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". It makes a ton of sense to me even though I would personally like to be told "Merry Christmas". What bothered me was that even saying that, doing what I was told to do by my job, I would get people who got offended. "It's Merry Christmas to me"! Like, ma'am... how would I know that? I can't tell if you're Christian, Buddhist or Atheist just by looking at you...

And BeeJay: I wasn't trying to say that you were right or wrong; I hope you didn't get that vibe from my post. I was just stating that no one should make this into a right or wrong thread because we seriously don't know who is, not until we die and see what happens. Everyone has their own beliefs; that's great. I guess I didn't want to see you or anyone else on here attacked for it.

One thing that I've thought about for about two weeks now: why is it that the gods and goddesses of Greek, Roman, Norse and even Mayan culture are considered myths but the Christian God isn't? This thought is the reason for what I said earlier about not knowing who's right and who's wrong

[Ephiral]

I'm at work and don't have time to respond to every point in the thread, but I can't let this one go unchallenged. Who on earth suggested that someone is inferior? Is this just a straw man, or am I missing something? Clarify what you mean by 'these people'.

The rather vocal subsets of atheists I mentioned earlier, who are overtly misogynistic and/or racist. (For clarity, this is not a general accusation - I'm a hard atheist myself.)

[BeeJay]

The rather vocal subsets of atheists I mentioned earlier, who are overtly misogynistic and/or racist. (For clarity, this is not a general accusation - I'm a hard atheist myself.)

Thank you for the clarification. I agree that there are those that do what you refer to. That is all the more reason we should work towards positive progress. Social problems like bigotry and irrational dogma are both threats to ethical society. Atheism doesn't mean one can't be a moron or a bigot, but belief in God isn't going to make someone less disposed to those kinds of behavior. The way they were raised, with or without God, has the most to do with that. There is some false equivocation going on, but it is minor. The lack in a belief in a god does not lead to bigotry itself, though it can open people up to social groups that do promote bigotry, like eugenicists, anti-feminists or social Darwinists.

I don't know if this is clearly off subject but that statement made me think about all the times where I have worked during the holidays. Some companies are careful not to offend anyone so during that time, they try to stress to their employees to wish consumers "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". It makes a ton of sense to me even though I would personally like to be told "Merry Christmas". What bothered me was that even saying that, doing what I was told to do by my job, I would get people who got offended. "It's Merry Christmas to me"! Like, ma'am... how would I know that? I can't tell if you're Christian, Buddhist or Atheist just by looking at you...

And BeeJay: I wasn't trying to say that you were right or wrong; I hope you didn't get that vibe from my post. I was just stating that no one should make this into a right or wrong thread because we seriously don't know who is, not until we die and see what happens. Everyone has their own beliefs; that's great. I guess I didn't want to see you or anyone else on here attacked for it.

One thing that I've thought about for about two weeks now: why is it that the gods and goddesses of Greek, Roman, Norse and even Mayan culture are considered myths but the Christian God isn't? This thought is the reason for what I said earlier about not knowing who's right and who's wrong

On your first point, the position you hold is a practical one. I usually just don’t say anything to people about any kind of holiday. I just stick to ‘have a nice day’ or other niceties. That keeps people from getting upset, and doesn’t make them bat an eye. Some atheists like to offend theists, but not me. If I did say something ‘atheisty’ instead of merry Christmas, it would be, “Have a rational day!”

I’m sorry for jumping the gun. I still think we can come close to the right answer, and that we should for the sake of society, but I agree that I don’t know for sure. My problem is with dogmatic systems that claim they do when they can’t. That’s why I think atheism should be everyone’s default position.

The difference is that Christendom is still a thriving culture. Do you know anyone besides the odd wiccan who worships Thor or Athena? Those gods and legends are myth because no one takes them seriously. To me and many other atheists, the god of Abrahamic religion is a myth also. So are faeries, bigfoot and alien abductions, until empirical evidence is found to support the claims.

Also, about all that... *facepalm* ...

Just remember, if a person wants to challenge an idea, then they should challenge the idea.  Using terminology that the listener may perceive as a personal attack is not helpful.  It's best to stick to the subject being discussed and avoid using words like "you" because then the discussion is made personal and no longer objective.  Using words like "delusional" in a conversation can be perceived as an attack by the listener.  If a person wants to make a point, it usually works best to avoid being condescending (regardless of what side of the issue they uphold) and closing their audience's mind before ever making a valid point. 

Statements like "I don't mean to be/do (insert word here) but (insert what they said they weren't meant to be doing/saying)" doesn't take away the sting, and again the listener closes off to any further ideas the speaker may have.  It is considered a backhanded insult.  "I'm not calling you dumb, but..."  or "I don't mean to be rude but..."   

Good luck.

I have two positions on this viewpoint.

1. When you suggest that I stick to the subject and be objective, what makes you think I am not doing so? If there were a less insulting way to describe my position on religious claims, I would use it. There just isn't any way to get around it. There are a few options when it comes to belief in God: You’re correct, and there is a creator god who is benevolent, powerful, all knowing, and intervenes in the world; there is no such being, and you are creating that god with full awareness that it is false; or there is no god, but you are under the impression that there is. If the last option is so, that is delusion. My view is that delusion is more likely than Christians are lying, or that they are correct. So, as a matter of necessity, I have to make that claim or yield the argument. That means that the delusion issue is well within subject of the discussion, as well as being objective.

2. Although I think my position is correct, and being offended at the way I have to say it doesn’t change that, I do believe in polite discourse. I agree that my language may have been too personal. While I don’t like mincing words or stepping around peoples feelings, I don’t like alienating potential friends more. I joined Elliquiy in order to be friendly, not to insult people.

So, I will take the middle path. I will say what I feel, but I will actively try to make it less insulting. Thank you for helping me realize that. I won't yield this point, even if someone is offended by it. :P

And I want to clarify/restate that I don’t think believers are stupid, just wrong. If someone is offended by being called wrong, they shouldn’t post in the politics and religion discussion forum.

I think I made this pretty clear in my first sentence. 'My current stance is that there is not enough credible evidence to support the notion that a god ( however you might define one ) exists or that the gods of religious lore are real.'

Not everyone who uses the words "atheist" or "agnostic" are referring to the same exact thing, which is I why I did not make assumptions about what you meant by "atheism."  If you want to get into hair splitting details about its definition, there's several pages worth here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

You literally did make an assumption. I simply told you that your assumption is wrong in this case and gave you a chance to change it. I agree that not all atheists define the word the same way, but many of the authorities on atheism use the definition I have given you, including most of the prominent popularizers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss and the late Christopher Hitchens. Now that we are clear on our definitions, we can have a meaningful discussion. Watashi wa sore no tame ni omachi shite imasu. I’m waiting for it! :)

I'm going to weigh in with only two things:

One - as noted, threads of this nature do tend to get very heated, whether or not the OP wishes them to.  Everyone is reminded to behave with civility, regardless of your personal beliefs or lack thereof.

Two - If someone sincerely wishes you a Happy or Merry or Joyous anything, and you feel anger, the anger comes from inside you.  This, I believe, is a greater problem.

I want to clarify that I never expressly said that I feel anger at people who wish me merry Christmas. I take the small talk and the good wishes as I would a ‘have a nice day’. It does get me thinking though. Mentioning it in the OP was incidental. I’d say at worst, ‘merry Christmas’ is insensitive. It’s not mean-spirited though, so I let it roll off.

[BeeJay]

I can't edit anything, so I want to say that a revision error caused me to put a sentence in the wrong place. In section below the quote from Saidi, the sentence: "I won't yield this point, even if someone is offended by it. :P" should be at the end of the last paragraph, and not where it ended up. Sorry for the confusion. If a moderator can edit that in, I would be very grateful.

[consortium11]

1. True, it can. The difference is that it often doesn’t and there are many arguments against such things in secular philosophies, while many religious philosophies actively espouse it. Methods are important, but so are results.

Which leaves us again with the central point... it might be a valid criticism for some non-secular ethical systems compared to some secular ethical systems but it is not intrinsic to secular ethical systems compared to non-secular ethical systems. Remember, the claim that was made was that secular ethics (without qualification, so all secular ethics) are superior to non-secular ethics (again without qualification, so all non-secular ethics).

2. The ‘best outcome’, according to some, is the reduction to the greatest reasonable degree of suffering for peoples of a specific society. Different people have different opinions about cost/benefit when it comes to logical and empirical conclusions.

I don't particularly like the "according to some" best caveat here. As above, the discussion was on the basis that secular ethics are superior to non-secular ethics, not that some secular ethics are superior to some non-secular ethics. The caveat seems like a way to walk away from that.

Regardless, the view taken above would seemingly exclude all deontological or virtue theorists from being viewed as secular ethics and even certain consequentialists. Moreover, there is a certain utilitarian flavour to several religious ethical systems... notably William Paley when it comes to Christian utilitarianism... which would seemingly fit into the above point.

In addition, the standard criticisms of consequentialist/utilitarian ethics would likewise appear here; is-ought, open-questions, the utility monster etc etc.

3. Let’s say for a moment that every Christian believed what you outline, that God’s nature and character are intrinsically moral. Let’s also say, though I am not claiming all Christians believe this, that this god is also all knowing (omniscient) and all powerful (omnipotent), and intervenes in the world, as many Christian’s believe. Now we are faced with Epicurus’ dilemma. This is a post from http://ericback.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/the-epicurean-dilemma/. Read the first few lines and you have my rebuttal to the claim that God is moral, all powerful and all knowing. Now, if he is moral, but not omni-anything, or even manifest in reality at all, why even have the concept of God?

I'm well aware of Epicurus dilemma and could happily cite the common counter-arguments given ("dark is the absence of light", "free will" etc etc) but that gets away from the point in question. As previously, there is a school of non-secular thought that doesn't hold that certain acts or things are moral "because God said so" but because they're an intrinsic part of God and the universe was created as an expression of God. As such their approach to deontological ethics is not a "divine command" theory but instead about discovering these moral facts; an approach that many secular ethics approaches likewise take.

And in regards to Aquinas’ statement about practical reasonableness, if secular and nonsecular societies practiced his views on the matter, there wouldn’t need to be a discussion about it. My claim is the more often, secular societies are more prone to practical reasonableness. For example, abortion is practically reasonable with all that we know about science, but religious dogma is wasting taxpayer dollars clogging up the process with iron age ethics. That isn’t practical reasonableness.

Then again we return to the first point; there is nothing intrinsically better about all secular ethical systems compared to all non-secular ethical systems. Once more, I do not dispute that some systems of secular ethics are superior to some systems of non-secular ethics; my objection is to the idea that secular ethics are intrinsically superior to non-secular ones.

Can I also just note that the way the discussion is jumping between metaethics, normative ethics, jurisprudence and sociology (and back again) makes it somewhat difficult to follow.

4. Secular society doesn’t rely on ‘because I said so’. Secular societies and nonsecular societies that act exactly like secular ones, like England, have legislative and judicial discourse about issues, hashing out the issues and coming down on once side or another. Authority for enforcing laws comes down to ‘I said so’, but that is by proxy of the legal processes that decided the laws in the first place.

This seems somewhat incoherent; you're putting forward a legal positivist theory (in broad terms that the authority of law derives from its legal source, not its content) in the context of non-secular ethics when one of the key points of legal positivism is that ethics and the law are separate, if connected, things and to discuss the authority of law in the context of ethics or morality is a folly and failure of language. 

Shall we try to codify this into a more useful structure for the debate rather than leaping all over the shop? In the context of secular ethics:

1) What, in the context of morality/ethics, do terms like "wrong", "right", "good" and "bad" actually mean?

2) How do we discover this?

3) What is the nature of a moral judgement?

4) How do we move from discussing a factual statements about what is to ethical statements about what we ought to do?

5) Why should one be moral?

With those points noted we could start moving into normative ethics and looking at the standards of a right or wrong action.

[HairyHeretic]

So long as a person treats me with respect and does not try to change me/force me to believe something I don't, I will respect that person in return, regardless of a person's religion or lack of a religion.

Yep, that about sums up my feelings as well. People can believe whatever they like. As long as they're not assholes about it, or try forcing me to believe, then go with what works for you.

[Ephiral]

Thank you for the clarification. I agree that there are those that do what you refer to. That is all the more reason we should work towards positive progress. Social problems like bigotry and irrational dogma are both threats to ethical society. Atheism doesn't mean one can't be a moron or a bigot, but belief in God isn't going to make someone less disposed to those kinds of behavior. The way they were raised, with or without God, has the most to do with that. There is some false equivocation going on, but it is minor. The lack in a belief in a god does not lead to bigotry itself, though it can open people up to social groups that do promote bigotry, like eugenicists, anti-feminists or social Darwinists.

Well, that's kinda my point - belief or lack of belief in a deity does not correlate in any meaningful way with the quality of one's character or moral reasoning. In short, "Secular moral systems are superior!" is an extremely broad and fundamentally indefensible statement. I do think secular reasoning provides a better toolkit for approaching morality, so it's certainly possible to build a better system, but to assume system X is superior to system Y just because X is secular and Y is theistic is blatantly succumbing to the halo effect.
 

There are a few options when it comes to belief in God: You’re correct, and there is a creator god who is benevolent, powerful, all knowing, and intervenes in the world; there is no such being, and you are creating that god with full awareness that it is false; or there is no god, but you are under the impression that there is. If the last option is so, that is delusion. My view is that delusion is more likely than Christians are lying, or that they are correct. So, as a matter of necessity, I have to make that claim or yield the argument. That means that the delusion issue is well within subject of the discussion, as well as being objective.

You're forgetting belief-in-belief. And there are still more civil and less provocative ways to say that than 'delusion'.

I want to clarify that I never expressly said that I feel anger at people who wish me merry Christmas. I take the small talk and the good wishes as I would a ‘have a nice day’. It does get me thinking though. Mentioning it in the OP was incidental. I’d say at worst, ‘merry Christmas’ is insensitive. It’s not mean-spirited though, so I let it roll off.

Is Christmas even primarily religious any more? Yes, it originated as such, but I suspect that the overwhelming majority of people who celebrate it do so entirely without a church of any sort - it's an excuse to get together with your family, exchange presents, and have some warm fuzzy feelings. At least, this is the case in my area - is it that different elsewhere? (Yes, I know there are people who cite its religiosity as an excuse to get offended. No, I don't think they constitute anything approaching a majority. They're fighting a battle that was lost years ago.) And, well, if it's primarily secular... where's the offense?

For that matter, even if it is religious... I'm still with Oniya. Would you get offended if I wished you a happy Canada Day, or would you recognize that, though my culture is not yours, I'm hoping you have a good time?

[BeeJay]

Which leaves us again with the central point... it might be a valid criticism for some non-secular ethical systems compared to some secular ethical systems but it is not intrinsic to secular ethical systems compared to non-secular ethical systems. Remember, the claim that was made was that secular ethics (without qualification, so all secular ethics) are superior to non-secular ethics (again without qualification, so all non-secular ethics).

Let me clarify what I mean. I am not saying that every instance of secular morality is better than every instance of non-secular morality. I agree that claim is fatuous, and thus I am not making it. My claim is that secular morality is systemically better, in that secular morality has everything that non-secular morality has, except for many limitations, like the outside imposed moral standard. Here is a link to a lecture that I think people should watch all the way through, but the good stuff starts in part 2/6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKdDFCJKBrs&index=2&list=PL4119AEC250E7777E

I don't particularly like the "according to some" best caveat here. As above, the discussion was on the basis that secular ethics are superior to non-secular ethics, not that some secular ethics are superior to some non-secular ethics. The caveat seems like a way to walk away from that.

I addressed this with my clarification of my claim. And ‘according to some’ is the way we set a standard. If people don’t agree on it, we can’t have a standard for anything. That means the ‘some’ have to agree, usually a majority.

Regardless, the view taken above would seemingly exclude all deontological or virtue theorists from being viewed as secular ethics and even certain consequentialists. Moreover, there is a certain utilitarian flavour to several religious ethical systems... notably William Paley when it comes to Christian utilitarianism... which would seemingly fit into the above point.

Any view that claims to get its morals from a deity or revered mortal (in the case of Buddhism) is not secular. That clears it up. If those moral theorists have a holy outside standard, they can’t be viewed as secular.
   

In addition, the standard criticisms of consequentialist/utilitarian ethics would likewise appear here; is-ought, open-questions, the utility monster etc etc.

How about you state those criticisms in this thread. I’m not arguing with Wikipedia.

I'm well aware of Epicurus dilemma and could happily cite the common counter-arguments given ("dark is the absence of light", "free will" etc etc) but that gets away from the point in question. As previously, there is a school of non-secular thought that doesn't hold that certain acts or things are moral "because God said so" but because they're an intrinsic part of God and the universe was created as an expression of God. As such their approach to deontological ethics is not a "divine command" theory but instead about discovering these moral facts; an approach that many secular ethics approaches likewise take.

Again, post those arguments here. And as far as your arguments about divine command theory: You first have to demonstrate the existence of God and his intrinsic nature to forward this view. Even if this were all true, there is no practical difference between God literally saying what is moral and God’s very nature denoting what is moral. The followers of this god would still be taking their morals from an outside force instead of working them out on their own. Of course, evidence shows that men, and not God, wrote all of the religious texts in the world, so these systems you speak of simply take their moral guidance from a group of bronze and iron age mortals. Your claim that there are secular ethics approaches that even consider the ‘intrinsic nature of God’ is definitionally false.
   

Then again we return to the first point; there is nothing intrinsically better about all secular ethical systems compared to all non-secular ethical systems. Once more, I do not dispute that some systems of secular ethics are superior to some systems of non-secular ethics; my objection is to the idea that secular ethics are intrinsically superior to non-secular ones.

The clarification handles this point.

Can I also just note that the way the discussion is jumping between metaethics, normative ethics, jurisprudence and sociology (and back again) makes it somewhat difficult to follow.

All of those things are germane to the subject and are intertwined with the subject matter. They all matter to moral systems and thus cannot be excluded from the discussion. I don’t understand how you can claim to separate them or that I am jumping around. Please elaborate.

This seems somewhat incoherent; you're putting forward a legal positivist theory (in broad terms that the authority of law derives from its legal source, not its content) in the context of non-secular ethics when one of the key points of legal positivism is that ethics and the law are separate, if connected, things and to discuss the authority of law in the context of ethics or morality is a folly and failure of language.

Can you explain where I claimed that ethics and the law aren’t separate? We base some of our laws on ethical standards, but they aren’t intrinsically tied to one another. And I wasn’t discussing laws as they pertain to ethics, but to society. I’m sorry if that was unclear.

Shall we try to codify this into a more useful structure for the debate rather than leaping all over the shop? In the context of secular ethics:

1) What, in the context of morality/ethics, do terms like "wrong", "right", "good" and "bad" actually mean?

2) How do we discover this?

3) What is the nature of a moral judgement?

4) How do we move from discussing a factual statements about what is to ethical statements about what we ought to do?

5) Why should one be moral?

With those points noted we could start moving into normative ethics and looking at the standards of a right or wrong action.

Listen, I’ve just been responding to arguments. I am not creating the structure of the arguments being posed to me, so I can’t easily impose order on the conversation. So claiming that I am ‘leaping all over the shop’ is disingenuous. I’d be glad have a more structured debate, but the purpose of this thread was to get peoples opinions and start a discussion. Naturally, people aren’t going to get together and spontaneously have a 18-way structured debate with a moderator. I’m happy to respond to your numbered list, but you can’t expect the discussion to stay numbered and you can’t accuse me of switching subjects, because the nature of this discussion will cause the subject to change often.

1) Things that are ‘right’ and ‘good’ are things that benefit people and society. ‘Wrong’ or ‘bad’ things harm people and society.

2) We decide individually and in societal groups, based on the effects of various action. If an action generally beneficial, we decide that it is good. If an action is generally harmful, be decide that it is bad.

3) A moral judgement is when an individual or a group decides whether an action or group of actions is good or bad, beneficial or harmful.

4) We can move from what is to what ought to be by deciding ourselves what ought to be. There is no other way to decide what we ought to do than to figure it out ourselves.

5) Because being moral benefits everyone around you. If everyone is moral, you will receive approximately the amount of moral behavior that you put out. That means, that if society is generally moral, people will be constantly taking actions that benefit the group.

Of course, as I qualified before, you and I might be able to have structured back-and-forth, but that won’t translate to the entire discussion.

Well, that's kinda my point - belief or lack of belief in a deity does not correlate in any meaningful way with the quality of one's character or moral reasoning. In short, "Secular moral systems are superior!" is an extremely broad and fundamentally indefensible statement. I do think secular reasoning provides a better toolkit for approaching morality, so it's certainly possible to build a better system, but to assume system X is superior to system Y just because X is secular and Y is theistic is blatantly succumbing to the halo effect.
 
You're forgetting belief-in-belief. And there are still more civil and less provocative ways to say that than 'delusion'.
Is Christmas even primarily religious any more? Yes, it originated as such, but I suspect that the overwhelming majority of people who celebrate it do so entirely without a church of any sort - it's an excuse to get together with your family, exchange presents, and have some warm fuzzy feelings. At least, this is the case in my area - is it that different elsewhere? (Yes, I know there are people who cite its religiosity as an excuse to get offended. No, I don't think they constitute anything approaching a majority. They're fighting a battle that was lost years ago.) And, well, if it's primarily secular... where's the offense?

For that matter, even if it is religious... I'm still with Oniya. Would you get offended if I wished you a happy Canada Day, or would you recognize that, though my culture is not yours, I'm hoping you have a good time?

You nailed it, while contradicting yourself a little. Secular morality has a better toolkit for approaching morality. To clarify again, I am claiming that secular morality is systemically superior, and not that all secular societies are superior to all non-secular ones. A better toolkit (system) is the only thing secular morality needs to be superior if belief or lack of belief play no necessary role in character and moral reasoning. If both secular and non-secular people have the same character and moral reasoning (They don’t always, but for the sake of argument, we will say they do), the person with the better toolkit for deciding questions of morality will end up with a better chance to be moral.

First of all, I don’t think delusion is really offensive. Delusion is a natural part of having a human brain, and to claim that you can’t be delusional is to be arrogant. Second of all, as far as the truth of the discussion goes, someone being offended by a statement doesn’t make it false. Of course if someone I want to befriend is offended by what I say to them, I have to stop saying that thing to them, right?

If I say that your belief in belief is unfounded, is that really less offensive than saying the you are delusional? If your position is unfounded, that means that you came to the wrong conclusion, which is a jab your intellect. Saying someone is delusional doesn't make that claim. I think it’s a little oversensitive to hold the view that if something is offensive, it shouldn't be said, but like I said, I will be adjusting my language in the future. If someone on this forum doesn't want me to say they are delusional, I won’t. But I will kindly not argue with someone who isn't prepared to have their views, specifically the view of “I am not delusion”, challenged.

It doesn’t matter if Christmas is primarily religious anymore, although I would claim that is most certainly is, at least in the US and especially where I live. It can be taken or delivered as a positive religious message, and that is insensitive. I thought you were interested in curbing offensive language?

Canada day isn’t a religious holiday, so the comparison is apples vs. oranges. Wishing me merry Christmas is assuming that I am Christian or not caring whether I am or not. Wishing me happy Canada Day isn’t assuming anything about me. 

[Oniya]

I think the point that Consortium11 was trying to make is that 'according to some' is incredibly vague and imprecise.  Even Wikipedia articles will get flagged with a [citation needed] tag when that phrase is used without further clarification.

[Serephino]

Like others who have posted here, I'm fine with whatever a person believes as long as they're respectful of me and what I believe.  Can you really fault me for seriously disliking anyone who calls me stupid or delusional?  I believe what I do for a reason, and it isn't because I'm too stupid to see reason.  I take equal offense at Christians preaching at me for being Pagan.  But as long as you don't feel the need to show me why I'm wrong, we'll get along just fine.  I believe religion is a personal thing, and everyone has their own path, and the right to believe as they see fit.   

[BeeJay]

I think the point that Consortium11 was trying to make is that 'according to some' is incredibly vague and imprecise.  Even Wikipedia articles will get flagged with a [citation needed] tag when that phrase is used without further clarification.

This is a fair point. I wasn't terribly clear. 'According to some' doesn't explain how societies use majority opinion as a means by which to make collective decisions. Generally, the majority opinion is expedited with some sort of representative legislature. When we construct definitions, it is understood that not 100% of humans agree on every entry. And thus, 'according to some' is a shorthand way of saying, "People use this definition". Thank you for your input.

[BeeJay]

Like others who have posted here, I'm fine with whatever a person believes as long as they're respectful of me and what I believe.  Can you really fault me for seriously disliking anyone who calls me stupid or delusional?  I believe what I do for a reason, and it isn't because I'm too stupid to see reason.  I take equal offense at Christians preaching at me for being Pagan.  But as long as you don't feel the need to show me why I'm wrong, we'll get along just fine.  I believe religion is a personal thing, and everyone has their own path, and the right to believe as they see fit.   

I have some views that run counter to yours, and I would like to discuss them, but it doesn't seem like you are terribly interested. If you do want to have the discussion, be aware that some of my arguments might offend you by their very nature, so if you aren't down I understand. I'm not interested in stepping on toes or seeming like a jerk (OR delaying my approval process on grounds that I am perceived as hostile :P).

[Ephiral]

You nailed it, while contradicting yourself a little. Secular morality has a better toolkit for approaching morality. To clarify again, I am claiming that secular morality is systemically superior, and not that all secular societies are superior to all non-secular ones. A better toolkit (system) is the only thing secular morality needs to be superior if belief or lack of belief play no necessary role in character and moral reasoning. If both secular and non-secular people have the same character and moral reasoning (They don’t always, but for the sake of argument, we will say they do), the person with the better toolkit for deciding questions of morality will end up with a better chance to be moral.

This is not a clarification, this is an explicit retreat from the point I originally objected to. It's also still wrong. A better toolkit is a great thing if you care about outcomes... but the most important thing is still the outcome. I absolutely agree that getting that toolkit into general circulation is a vital and important step - but teaching people to use it is arguably more important.

First of all, I don’t think delusion is really offensive. Delusion is a natural part of having a human brain, and to claim that you can’t be delusional is to be arrogant. Second of all, as far as the truth of the discussion goes, someone being offended by a statement doesn’t make it false. Of course if someone I want to befriend is offended by what I say to them, I have to stop saying that thing to them, right?

Truth is irrelevant to civility - and civility is kinda an important point around here. It's also far more likely to keep the discussion productive if you consider how what you're saying is likely to be received.

If I say that your belief in belief is unfounded, is that really less offensive than saying the you are delusional? If your position is unfounded, that means that you came to the wrong conclusion, which is a jab your intellect. Saying someone is delusional doesn't make that claim. I think it’s a little oversensitive to hold the view that if something is offensive, it shouldn't be said, but like I said, I will be adjusting my language in the future. If someone on this forum doesn't want me to say they are delusional, I won’t. But I will kindly not argue with someone who isn't prepared to have their views, specifically the view of “I am not delusion”, challenged.

No matter how much you try to dance around it, "delusional" has judgemental connotations in most societies - connotations not shared by "faulty priors" or "bad conclusions" or "unfounded beliefs". It is entirely possible to phrase these things in a way that doesn't come across as condescending or insulting.

It doesn’t matter if Christmas is primarily religious anymore, although I would claim that is most certainly is, at least in the US and especially where I live. It can be taken or delivered as a positive religious message, and that is insensitive. I thought you were interested in curbing offensive language?

Canada day isn’t a religious holiday, so the comparison is apples vs. oranges. Wishing me merry Christmas is assuming that I am Christian or not caring whether I am or not. Wishing me happy Canada Day isn’t assuming anything about me.

I... really can't believe I'm explaining this, but:

1. Elliquiy is not society at large, and not every single interaction in society at large is intended to be a deep and productive discussion.
2. There is no inherent or intentional insult in a Christian assuming someone else to be Christian. Given the common view of mental illness, this is not true of "delusional".
3. If "Merry Christmas" assumes that you are Christian, then "Happy Canada Day" assumes you are Canadian. Reexamine your assumptions; as it stands right now, it looks like you're searching out reasons to be offended at any sign of potential religion.
[/quote]

[BeeJay]

This is not a clarification, this is an explicit retreat from the point I originally objected to. It's also still wrong. A better toolkit is a great thing if you care about outcomes... but the most important thing is still the outcome. I absolutely agree that getting that toolkit into general circulation is a vital and important step - but teaching people to use it is arguably more important.

Like I said, I’m not saying that all of our current societies implicitly use said toolkit. I’m saying that, were it to be used perfectly (I’m aware that perfection isn’t possible here), it would always yield better results than the perfectly-wielded toolkits of non-secular societies. Please read my premise. It’s an argument for the superiority of the system, not the current state of the world and current ‘outcomes’. We can have a discussion about the state of moral systems in the world if you like, but I wasn’t making a claim about that.

Truth is irrelevant to civility - and civility is kinda an important point around here. It's also far more likely to keep the discussion productive if you consider how what you're saying is likely to be received.

I understand and agree with you. I have already yielded to civility and stated that I was too brash before. I disagree with the standard of civility, but I will adhere to it regardless.

No matter how much you try to dance around it, "delusional" has judgemental connotations in most societies - connotations not shared by "faulty priors" or "bad conclusions" or "unfounded beliefs". It is entirely possible to phrase these things in a way that doesn't come across as condescending or insulting.

The point I was making is that ‘unfounded belief’ isn’t even what I was accusing believers of, though I do think they are guilty of that. I think they are guilty of delusion, and whether I’m right or not, it is germane to the discussion. It may be offensive to say, “You are delusional,” but it doesn’t change the truth of the matter. Like I said, I’m not yielding the argument because someone is offended, because it is frankly irrelevant. I will, however, try to be less personal in my language and apologize if I do offend someone, then I will refrain from arguing with that person. Let me reiterate: Regardless of connotation, delusion *may* be the proper descriptor, which means we necessarily need to use it when it applies. That means, if you want to have a meaningful discussion about belief, you have to be prepared to be accused of it, just like I’m prepared to be accused of being a moral relativist, which I am not. Also, bare in mind that you don’t have to be mentally unstable to have a delusion. See my example about losing the remote. I am going to repeat myself one last time: I am going to try to be more civil. There. The dead horse is beaten.

I... really can't believe I'm explaining this, but:

1. Elliquiy is not society at large, and not every single interaction in society at large is intended to be a deep and productive discussion.
2. There is no inherent or intentional insult in a Christian assuming someone else to be Christian. Given the common view of mental illness, this is not true of "delusional".
3. If "Merry Christmas" assumes that you are Christian, then "Happy Canada Day" assumes you are Canadian. Reexamine your assumptions; as it stands right now, it looks like you're searching out reasons to be offended at any sign of potential religion.

1. I’m aware of small talk and petty conversation in society.
2. While it isn’t harmful in itself to make an untrue assumption about someone, it is insensitive and can lead to harmful societal changes and clashes. It’s in bad taste to assume that I am a Christian or a Hindu. Just don’t make the assumption in the first place.
3. Happy Canada day just assumes that I might celebrate Canada Day, not that I’m necessarily Canadian. It’s a petty assumption. It’s still wrong to make that assumption, so I must change my evaluation: You shouldn’t assume someone might celebrate Canada Day, either. And to be clear, I am offended by religion. I’m sure that Canada Day celebrations have never lead to the genocide or the suffering of women around the world. Somehow cracking down on Canada Day doesn’t seem as important as cracking down on religion.

In conclusion, I don’t think that every person that wishes me ‘happy Hanukkah’ is feeding me hatred. I also don’t think that they mean anything other than what they are saying, or that those greetings each deserve a meaningful discussion. I just think that making the assumption is a bad habit, and can facilitate worse habits. Thank you for your input.

[Silk]

The only thing that bugs me about this whole argument on ethics is the whole "I'm ethical because I'm religious, it's god that tells me that it's wrong to kill people" It just leaves me as feeling sorry for the person, they're so convinced that they need that power figure to tell them that it is wrong to kill people and they wouldn't be able to work it out for themselves. Its just... Wow give yourself some credit here guy. But then this is part of the reason why I'm so fascinated with Psychology. The Milgram shock experiment and the prison experiments are prime example of this sort of mentality in action and why the idea of general morality and civility are very flimsy concepts. Ultimately it all comes down to one ultimate factor.

The Authority figure.

[Sabby]

Yeah, I don't think it's a good idea to take moral cues from a being that decides to kill every living creature on the planet because He's disappointed with the conduct of just one of them. I can learn to love my neighbor and such without going to someone who committed the greatest act of genocide ever conceived :P

[Serephino]

I have some views that run counter to yours, and I would like to discuss them, but it doesn't seem like you are terribly interested. If you do want to have the discussion, be aware that some of my arguments might offend you by their very nature, so if you aren't down I understand. I'm not interested in stepping on toes or seeming like a jerk (OR delaying my approval process on grounds that I am perceived as hostile :P).

Yeah, a discussion may not be such a good idea.  My faith is a big part of my life, so trying to use logic to show me I'm wrong is offensive, yes.

[Sabby]

Yeah, a discussion may not be such a good idea.  My faith is a big part of my life, so trying to use logic to show me I'm wrong is offensive, yes.

Doesn't that demonstrate that you're not entirely certain you're correct? I mean, my understanding of the world is heavily based on certain assumptions, like that the family I remember is actually my family, or that the face I see in the mirror is actually my face. I'm not afraid of being challenged on those, even knowing that being proved wrong would be a massive upheaval of my entire existence. I am that convinced I am correct that I am me and my parents are my parents and my brother is my brother and I truly did experience the childhood I remember that I have absolutely no fear of being challenged on it.

If I was scared that I am wrong, and thus a significant portion of my life is proven to be wrong, I might be very afraid of someone 'trying to use logic to show me I'm wrong'.

[Sethala]

Personally, I'm atheist, but not necessarily anti-theist.  I'm fine with other religions existing, but not with them getting special privileges or extra pull with state bodies (such as the somewhat-recent kerfuffle at a few schools involving changing how evolution is taught and muddying the subject with trying to teach students creationism).  Believing in a deity is fine, but trying to force that belief onto others when they don't want it is not, and it seems religious groups get a lot more leeway with that forcing than non-religious groups.

[Serephino]

This is why I don't like to participate in conversations like these, and was tentative about doing so this time.  Do I have doubts I'm right?  I'll admit, on occasion, I do.  But it's not often, and it's very fleeting.  I think it's human to not be 100% certain 100% of the time.  It's more like 99.9999% of the time.  But am I afraid to be proven wrong?  No, I'm not.  Let me make that part clear.  I just don't like anyone attacking my dearly held belief system, especially if they're going to call me delusional or stupid because I don't subscribe to their logic. 

I always hear that there is no scientific proof God exists, and if he's so powerful, why doesn't he just prove himself.  The God I know won't do that because that would interfere with free will.  He has a thing about that.  So no, there will never be any scientific proof God exists.  I'm okay with that.  I'm secure enough in my faith that I'm not afraid of death.  My faith is strong enough that even when I felt I couldn't take any more, I didn't take my own life because I knew what would happen on the other side. 

Comments like that are also why Atheists get labeled as fuckwads.  Accusing me of being afraid is an attack, or at least it feels like one.  You just couldn't accept that I didn't want to get into a discussion that even the poster himself admitted would probably be offensive to me.  I've heard it before, and it didn't end well.  I'd rather just agree to disagree.  The only way to know for sure who is right is to die.  I'm 99.9999% sure I am, and I can live with you not agreeing.  You'll find out when the time comes.  I don't feel the need to 'save your soul', or anything like that.  I know it'll just be a waste of breath.  I have about as much chance convincing you you're wrong than you do of convincing me I'm wrong.  All that lies down that path is anger and hurt feelings.

Now, if a person wishes to share why they believe as they do, but they can accept and respect the fact that I have a much different world view, I am willing to have a civil discussion and compare notes.   

[Serephino]

Personally, I'm atheist, but not necessarily anti-theist.  I'm fine with other religions existing, but not with them getting special privileges or extra pull with state bodies (such as the somewhat-recent kerfuffle at a few schools involving changing how evolution is taught and muddying the subject with trying to teach students creationism).  Believing in a deity is fine, but trying to force that belief onto others when they don't want it is not, and it seems religious groups get a lot more leeway with that forcing than non-religious groups.

I definitely agree with you about the extra pull thing.  I'm against Creationism being taught in schools, and the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision really irked me.  I absolutely hate it when anyone tries to shove their beliefs down the throat of another.

[Sethala]

I always hear that there is no scientific proof God exists, and if he's so powerful, why doesn't he just prove himself.  The God I know won't do that because that would interfere with free will.  He has a thing about that.  So no, there will never be any scientific proof God exists.  I'm okay with that.  I'm secure enough in my faith that I'm not afraid of death.  My faith is strong enough that even when I felt I couldn't take any more, I didn't take my own life because I knew what would happen on the other side. 

You know, I've heard this argument before, and also heard a decent rebuttal to it...

Does Lucifer have free will?
Does Lucifer know, with 100% certainty, that God exists?

I assume the answer to both of these will be yes (and if not, I'd love to hear your reasoning).  However, unless you're going to surprise me with a "no" answer, that right there is enough for me to say "Therefore, we can say that knowledge of whether God exists or not does not prevent one from having free will."

[Sabby]

I always hear that there is no scientific proof God exists, and if he's so powerful, why doesn't he just prove himself.  The God I know won't do that because that would interfere with free will.

How exactly would revealing himself be interfering with free will? I always hear this but it's never been explained to my satisfaction.

[consortium11]

Let me clarify what I mean. I am not saying that every instance of secular morality is better than every instance of non-secular morality. I agree that claim is fatuous, and thus I am not making it. My claim is that secular morality is systemically better, in that secular morality has everything that non-secular morality has, except for many limitations, like the outside imposed moral standard. Here is a link to a lecture that I think people should watch all the way through, but the good stuff starts in part 2/6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKdDFCJKBrs&index=2&list=PL4119AEC250E7777E

I watched the lecture although I'm afraid I didn't find it particularly helpful. Perhaps it's because I was missing context... from some of the remarks within it it appeared that it was part of a series of events and as such may have been following up from earlier discussions but there was an infuriating habit of the lecturer either seemingly being about to or at times starting to delve into a point but then not doing so in any real depth. That may be a product of only have a limited time to speak but it left multiple points unexplored or unanswered... and several that appeared to contradict each other. To go with the ones that leapt out at me:

• The first question he was asked by the audience touched on this point; he starts by taking a seemingly intention based point of view (if one child doesn't misbehave because he understands it is wrong to do so and another simply because he fears the punishment for doing so then the first is morally superior) but then follows up in a later remark by noting that it is the action, not the intention, to which he attaches moral value. I don't think he ever really answered that point in his response to the audience question.


• While he never really discussed the point, it appears that his view of what is ethical is that what helps create a "healthy and productive society". But he never goes into any detail of what a healthy and productive society is or why it is ethical. Likewise while he mentioned that morals should and would be evaluated with regard to whether they did lead to a healthy and productive society he made little mention of how one is supposed to do so.


• There's little to no discussion of what he actually means by "system". I went in assuming that by "system" he meant a system to examine, consider, define and determine points relating to morality/ethics but it appears by system he means something that is not individual but instead collective and appears to be less about determining ones own positions relating to morality and instead working out what other people's views on morality are and finding a middle ground. Linked to the above point there is little throughout the lecture about how one would determine what is moral in his non-secular ethical system.


• His view that non-secular ethics would be decided by reasoned debate and conclusions seems to fly in the face of hundreds of years of ethical debate; Kant and JS Mill's ethical theories are both completely secular and yet they are no closer to agreeing now or finding a middle ground then they were when Mill first went about criticising Kant's approach to ethics in 1863 (in regards to both metaethics and normative ethics). In a society or system where a third of the people followed deontological ethics, a third consequentialist ethics and a third virtue ethics it is hard to see how there could be a middle ground all would agree to... there certainly hasn't been in philosophical discourse. Likewise how do a cognitivist and a non-cognitivist find a middle ground when they can't agree whether sentences about morality relate to something that is true or not?


• Because he doesn't got into any detail about what it actually means to be ethical or what a "healthy and productive society" actually means there's some ambiguity here but from the context it appears that he views secular ethical systems as being consequentialist where outcome of an action is what matters. But that would exclude Kant, a Kantian or any other non-consequentialist theories, be the deontology or virtue based from being non-secular even if they make no mention of deities, supernatural phenomenon or outside sources (or in Kant's case even a posteriori knowledge which I struggle to accept. Surely any ethical theory that doesn't rely on God (or god or gods or any other transcendental being or religion) is non-secular? I know I bang on about Kant a lot but he's one of, if not the, most important ethical philosophers who put forward one of the most important and influential ethical theories and did so in what I'd see as an entirely secular manner.


• Pet bug of mine but he repeated the "thou shall not kill" mistake as opposed to "though shall not murder". The original term used translates to "murder" and when looked at in context it becomes even clearer. It's not a huge issue in and of itself but because it's used to demonstrate the supposed lack of nuance or flexibility in non-secular morality it produces a rather bum note


• Related to both the above points and to go back to our old friend Kant again, his system was distinctly (and intentionally) lacking in nuance or flexibility. Kant infamously defended the idea that if a known murderer asked someone the location of his next prey one must tell them the truth even if one was virtually certain this would lead to the prey's death. That's about as inflexible and un-nuanced as an ethical system can be... but also entirely secular

I addressed this with my clarification of my claim. And ‘according to some’ is the way we set a standard. If people don’t agree on it, we can’t have a standard for anything. That means the ‘some’ have to agree, usually a majority.

This is a fair point. I wasn't terribly clear. 'According to some' doesn't explain how societies use majority opinion as a means by which to make collective decisions. Generally, the majority opinion is expedited with some sort of representative legislature. When we construct definitions, it is understood that not 100% of humans agree on every entry. And thus, 'according to some' is a shorthand way of saying, "People use this definition". Thank you for your input.

Thank you for the further clarification; I'd assumed that it was being used (innocently or not) in the weasel word manner that such phrases normally arise.

That said, I'm not sure the clarification actually escapes that point. Which people use this definition? Secular ethicists? All secular ethicists? Some secular ethicists? The majority of secular ethicists? Do non-secular ethecits use it as well? Some of them? All of them?

Any view that claims to get its morals from a deity or revered mortal (in the case of Buddhism) is not secular. That clears it up. If those moral theorists have a holy outside standard, they can’t be viewed as secular.

The point here is that there seems to be a two pronged definition of secular ethics applied... that it doesn't make reference to God, religion and transcendent beings etc etc and that it follows a specific form of consequentialism. I don't see why the second aspect is necessary; while a system of ethics that excludes God, religion and transcendent beings etc etc is self-evidently and intrinsically secular there is nothing self-evident or intrinsic about a theory that includes consequentialism or utilitarianism being secular (which is why I mentioned the Christian utilitarianism school of thought). The second part of this definition of secular ethics seems to me to do nothing but exclude deontological and value theorists and theories which make no reference to God, religion and transcendent beings etc etc (to use him yet again, Kant for example) which on the face of it are seemingly clearly secular.
   

How about you state those criticisms in this thread. I’m not arguing with Wikipedia.

My apologies; the three points are regular and well known criticisms of consequentialist and utilitarian theory so I assumed they'd be common knowledge for someone versed in the topic. To set them out fairly briefly:

Utility Monster: In a system based around the reduction to the greatest reasonable degree of suffering and/or the increase in good (used in a general sense), rather than get bogged down in what exactly constitutes suffering and good let us use a catch all term "utility" to describe everything that is "good". The more utility a person has the better, the less the worse; someone who is rich, healthy, not discriminated against, happy etc etc has a lot of utility, someone who is poor, ill, discriminated against, unhappy etc etc has very little. The goal of utilitarian or consequentialist systems is to increase utility.

Now, assume we have perfect knowledge of utility; we can see exactly how much utility a person has and will know exactly how much utility they derive from something. Let us also assume we live in a world where resources, however bountiful, are limited; there is only so much out there. The logical (and most efficient) way to distribute resources and utility is to use them most efficiently; if someone would derive less utility from something than someone else it is logical to give it to the other person; to use a real world example giving a billionaire £10,000 is unlikely to have as much utility as giving it to a starving person with serious debts and thus the utilitarian or consequentialist approach would be to give it to the starving person. I don't think this is controversial or particularly disputed; it's the basis for most normative utilitarian or consequentialist theories.

But assume there is someone who always derives more utility from what is given to them then anyone else? If we are to be logical and efficient with our allocation of resources surely this "utility monster" should be given all of the resources as it will derive the most utility? What if the monster gains more utility from being given something then others do from not only not having it but actively having it taken away? In such a position the logical and reasonable thing to do is to feed the monster for the fact it derives more utility means it is the most efficient way to use resources.

Then consider the "negative" utility monster, one who derives a virtually miniscule amount of utility from anything given to him and thus will always require exponentially more resources to see the same gain in utility as a "normal" person. It's hard to formulate a consequentialist or utilitarian theory that doesn't fall victim to one of the monster or have serious flaws on its own; a system based around maximising mathematical mean utility would struggle with the exponential gains the "happy" utility monster who gets more utility than anyone else from resources being the logical way to bring the mean up, a system based around minimising the range between those with the most and least utility would fall victim to the "unhappy" utility monster inevitably ending up at the one with the least utility and needing to have vast amounts of resources poured into him. A system which tried to increase the mode may avoid the monsters but has its own issue as the logical way to do it would be to give all but two individuals the lowest utility possible (while all being slightly different) and then splitting the remaining utility so the last two had an equal amount as high as possible. A median system struggles for similar reasons; the logical approach is to keep <50% of the group on as low utility as possible and then give the remaining utility to the 50%< so the middle number is as high as possible.

Is-Ought: Similar to the is-ought fallacy in general parlance ("he is tall, he ought to play basketball", "crime is rife so punishments must be made harsher"), no set of claims about plain matters of fact (‘is’ claims) seem to entail any evaluative claims (‘ought’ claims); one cannot move logically from saying a fact about something to a moral principle for there is no connection. For example:

a) X is in pain

Therefore
b) I ought to prevent X being in pain

There is no logical way to move from a) to b) due to what is known as conservation in logic. X being in pain alone is not enough to logically move to what someone ought to do without further points... but however many points you add you cannot move from the "is" statements to the "ought" statements relying to logic and observation. One may try for example to go:

A) X is in pain
B) If someone is in pain, we should alleviate that pain

Therefore
C) I ought to prevent X being in pain.

But now "B" is the evaluative claim (using "should" instead of "ought") and how do we get from A) to B)? B) is not deducible from A) and logically can never be. You cannot move from an "is" stating facts to a "ought" stating evaluations merely through logic and observation, however many points you put in.

Open-Question: That moral statements about what is good confuse the property goodness with some other property that good things might happen to have. To illustrate this (and from where the objection gets its name), let us use the example from below of goodness and that things that benefit people and society are good.

a) If "benefiting people and society" means the same as "good", then the question "Is it true that benefiting people and society is good?" is meaningless.

b) The question "Is it true that benefiting people and society is good?" is not meaningless (i.e. it is an open question).

Therefore
c) "Benefiting people and society" is not the same as "good".

If "benefiting people and society" meant the same as "good" then the question would be unintelligible; it would be asking "is it true that good is good?" There must be something beyond "benefiting people and society" that means "good" otherwise the question wouldn't make sense. I should note this isn't a specific with with "benefiting people and society"; it was originally raised as a counter to the philosophical hedonism approach which viewed pleasure as being the good.

Again, post those arguments here.

They're not really relevant to this discussion but regardless:

1) Darkness doesn't exist; it is merely an absence of light. Likewise evil doesn't really exist, it is merely an absence of good. One cannot be said to have "created" something that doesn't exist, therefore God cannot be said to have created evil.

2) Similar to above, there is no such things as "evil" but merely different levels of good. When we describe something as evil it is merely a short hand form of saying something has very little good.

3) God gave agents free will but there must be meaningful choices for free will to be meaningful. There is no way for God to make all actions and event "good" without trampling free will.

Those are very brief breakdowns of approaches that are rather beyond the realms of this discussion.

And as far as your arguments about divine command theory: You first have to demonstrate the existence of God and his intrinsic nature to forward this view.

I'm not really putting forward an argument in favour of divine command theory, merely contrasting it with other non-secular theories of ethics, even within the Christian ethical condition. In addition I'd refer you back to the video you linked us to, notably 5:15 of part two where the speaker explicitly notes that for the purposes of these types of reviews it doesn't matter if God exists.

Even if this were all true, there is no practical difference between God literally saying what is moral and God’s very nature denoting what is moral. The followers of this god would still be taking their morals from an outside force instead of working them out on their own.

Well, it depends exactly what you mean by "work them out on your own". Any moral realist, secular or non-secular, holds that there are mind-independent moral facts out there and thus wouldn't "work them out on their own" in the sense of creating the moral facts themselves but there are many moral realist positions... from Kant to Aquinas to GE Moore to Richard Boyd... which hold that one has to work out what those moral facts are, normally through the use of reason. In essence they view ethics as one would a physical science

Of course, evidence shows that men, and not God, wrote all of the religious texts in the world, so these systems you speak of simply take their moral guidance from a group of bronze and iron age mortals.

If these approaches followed divine command theory and stuck exactly to what was within a religious text then this argument has merit but we're not discussing divine command theory or those who stick exactly to what is within a religious text. There is nothing that ties a theory that there is a God, that morals/ethics are part of his nature and character, that God is the ultimate expression of moral values (kindness, love etc etc) and the universe is a expression of himself, those moral values thus apply to the world and it is/was up to humans to discover them through applied reason to Christianity, Judaism, Islam or any other religion with a historic source or holy books... I could apply the same argument to the just invented "Consortium11'ism" which has no holy books at all (or history beyond about 30 seconds ago). Yet it would remain a firmly non-secular theory as it includes a God.

Your claim that there are secular ethics approaches that even consider the ‘intrinsic nature of God’ is definitionally false.

I may not have been clear here; I'm was saying there are secular moral realists who argue there are mind-independent moral facts and that humans have to discover them (generally through reason), which is virtually an identical approach to those taken by non-secular moral realists who follow the approach I outlined above. The process both go through to determine what is moral is basically the same.
   

All of those things are germane to the subject and are intertwined with the subject matter. They all matter to moral systems and thus cannot be excluded from the discussion. I don’t understand how you can claim to separate them or that I am jumping around. Please elaborate.

One cannot answer a metaethical question with a normative answer. To give an example, I asked what we mean when we say "wrong", "right", "good" and "bad"... which is a metaethical question about the nature of moral claims but your answer was a normative one about determining a choice of action. Likewise the question about the nature of moral judgements is a metaethical question about whether the nature of a moral judgement is universal, relative or possibly even nihilist but your answer was again normative. When I first raised the point of "best outcomes" and disagreement it was essentially a normative point but your answer related to applied ethics where it seemed agents had already agreed the norms. A Kantian for example wouldn't have cared about a cost/benefit analysis of moral actions or decisions... he'd care about how they related to his duties such as a categorical imperative. If something can be universalised using a priori knowledge to a perfect duty then it doesn't matter what the consequences of it are beyond that; it is always morally good to do it and always morally bad not to regardless of the circumstances, costs or benefits of doing or not doing it.

Likewise one can look at a point I'll expand below about how I mentioned that a natural law/moral realism theorist has to rely on an element of "because I say so" to explain the existence of moral facts to begin with which is again largely a metaethical point but your answer related to "legislative and judicial discourse" and essentially ended up as a jurisprudential point relating to legal positivism.

Can you explain where I claimed that ethics and the law aren’t separate? We base some of our laws on ethical standards, but they aren’t intrinsically tied to one another. And I wasn’t discussing laws as they pertain to ethics, but to society. I’m sorry if that was unclear.

As mentioned above I made the point that a secular natural law or moral realist approach still needs to rely on an element of "because I say so" about the very existence of natural law or moral facts to begin with. Your answer to that was somewhere between jurisprudential and sociological, seemingly leaning towards legal positivism which seems a strange way to take a discussion relating to ethics. Likewise with the clarification; how laws and society interact and from where law gains its authority is an interesting topic but seems a strange addition to any debate focused around ethics, let alone secular vs non-secular ethics.

1) Things that are ‘right’ and ‘good’ are things that benefit people and society. ‘Wrong’ or ‘bad’ things harm people and society.

2) We decide individually and in societal groups, based on the effects of various action. If an action generally beneficial, we decide that it is good. If an action is generally harmful, be decide that it is bad.

3) A moral judgement is when an individual or a group decides whether an action or group of actions is good or bad, beneficial or harmful.

4) We can move from what is to what ought to be by deciding ourselves what ought to be. There is no other way to decide what we ought to do than to figure it out ourselves.

5) Because being moral benefits everyone around you. If everyone is moral, you will receive approximately the amount of moral behavior that you put out. That means, that if society is generally moral, people will be constantly taking actions that benefit the group.

Of course, as I qualified before, you and I might be able to have structured back-and-forth, but that won’t translate to the entire discussion.

Listen, I’ve just been responding to arguments. I am not creating the structure of the arguments being posed to me, so I can’t easily impose order on the conversation. So claiming that I am ‘leaping all over the shop’ is disingenuous. I’d be glad have a more structured debate, but the purpose of this thread was to get peoples opinions and start a discussion. Naturally, people aren’t going to get together and spontaneously have a 18-way structured debate with a moderator. I’m happy to respond to your numbered list, but you can’t expect the discussion to stay numbered and you can’t accuse me of switching subjects, because the nature of this discussion will cause the subject to change often.

I've reversed the order of these quotes as the first quote is a good illustration of my point in response to the second.

As mentioned previously I don't think it helps the discussion to attempt to answer metaethical questions with normative answers; whether intentionally or not it comes across as avoiding the question and even at best it means that no relevant answer has been given. I asked a number of metaethical questions and expressly noted that with those answered we could move on to normative issues... but your answers are pretty much all normative. That's what I mean by saying you're jumping all over the shop; for whatever reason (and I certainly don't allege a negative one) you've avoided the metaethical discussion and moved to a normative one. It leaves me in the awkward position of having to decide whether to respond to the normative points and thus leave the metaethics untouched or come across as rude by demanding answers to the metaethical ones and ignoring your normative points.

To make some specific points;

1) Things that are ‘right’ and ‘good’ are things that benefit people and society. ‘Wrong’ or ‘bad’ things harm people and society.

How does this avoid the open question argument mentioned above? And where does this leave normative theories which don't rely on a God figure, religion, transcendental being etc etc and so on the face of it are clearly secular but don't have a similar view on what "good" is?

4) We can move from what is to what ought to be by deciding ourselves what ought to be. There is no other way to decide what we ought to do than to figure it out ourselves.

This faces the is-ought problem. As you mentioned previously secular theories are based on logic and I'm unaware of any way to logically move from an "is" statement to an "ought" statement (due to conservation).

[BeeJay]

This is why I don't like to participate in conversations like these, and was tentative about doing so this time.  Do I have doubts I'm right?  I'll admit, on occasion, I do.  But it's not often, and it's very fleeting.  I think it's human to not be 100% certain 100% of the time.  It's more like 99.9999% of the time.  But am I afraid to be proven wrong?  No, I'm not.  Let me make that part clear.  I just don't like anyone attacking my dearly held belief system, especially if they're going to call me delusional or stupid because I don't subscribe to their logic. 

I always hear that there is no scientific proof God exists, and if he's so powerful, why doesn't he just prove himself.  The God I know won't do that because that would interfere with free will.  He has a thing about that.  So no, there will never be any scientific proof God exists.  I'm okay with that.  I'm secure enough in my faith that I'm not afraid of death.  My faith is strong enough that even when I felt I couldn't take any more, I didn't take my own life because I knew what would happen on the other side. 

Comments like that are also why Atheists get labeled as fuckwads.  Accusing me of being afraid is an attack, or at least it feels like one.  You just couldn't accept that I didn't want to get into a discussion that even the poster himself admitted would probably be offensive to me.  I've heard it before, and it didn't end well.  I'd rather just agree to disagree.  The only way to know for sure who is right is to die.  I'm 99.9999% sure I am, and I can live with you not agreeing.  You'll find out when the time comes.  I don't feel the need to 'save your soul', or anything like that.  I know it'll just be a waste of breath.  I have about as much chance convincing you you're wrong than you do of convincing me I'm wrong.  All that lies down that path is anger and hurt feelings.

Now, if a person wishes to share why they believe as they do, but they can accept and respect the fact that I have a much different world view, I am willing to have a civil discussion and compare notes.   

Let me just ask this: Do you or don't you want to have the discussion? I know Sabby challenged you, but I have said that I won't pursue arguments that people don't want to have. Let me say one thing, though. Asking if you are afraid of being proven wrong, or implying that you might be same, isn't an attack. It is a question that you answered. It's a challenge, and you met it. I don't see the problem. I think the 'fuckwads' is an attack, and an unfounded one in the case of Sabby and myself. Challenging beliefs is part of discussion like this. If someone challenges you and you don’t want to be, bow out of the discussion or refuse to answer. I respect that you don’t want to be challenged, so I will reiterate: Do you or don’t you want to talk about it (If you say you do, I will challenge your beliefs)?

Consortium11: I am going to have to go to bed, and spend some time concocting my rebuttals tomorrow. Matane. Until then.

[Oniya]

Accusing someone of being 'stupid' or 'delusional' is also an ad hominem attack.  It would be best to stop that.

[Chaosfox]

Personally, I'm atheist, but not necessarily anti-theist.  I'm fine with other religions existing, but not with them getting special privileges or extra pull with state bodies (such as the somewhat-recent kerfuffle at a few schools involving changing how evolution is taught and muddying the subject with trying to teach students creationism).  Believing in a deity is fine, but trying to force that belief onto others when they don't want it is not, and it seems religious groups get a lot more leeway with that forcing than non-religious groups.

Just to play devil advocate on this point because Its something I wanted to see what  someone would say. On the same token isn't Forcing someone with religious beliefs to learn only about Evolution the same thing?  I mean isn't trying to keep religion out of your kids life in a way doing the same thing that your afraid a christian might do if they teach your kid about the bible?   
(Of course this is assuming that someone on here has a kid and I am sure someone on here does and its something I just  wanted to get an answer to for a while)

As to the main point of this thread yes I'm a christian. I have GOOD Friends that were Pagan, Atheist and all sorts of other religious or moral thoughts. So what do I think about Atheism to be honest I will say sometimes the arguments make sense but my beliefs stem from the fact that I like to think that there is something more to death then just dying and I like to think that I will be able to get the better part of that. Not to mention than it was definitely not my faith in humanity that got me through my depression when I was in college. In the  end an Atheist can no more prove  God does not exist to a Christian than a Christian can really prove that he does exist to an Atheist.  In the end I am just happy when someone can stick to their beliefs no matter what they are because if you cant stick to what you believe in no matter what it is whats the point of holding those beliefs?

[Sabby]

Accusing someone of being 'stupid' or 'delusional' is also an ad hominem attack.  It would be best to stop that.

No it's not. "You're stupid" is not an ad hominem attack. An ad hominem attack would be "You're stupid, so your argument is invalid".

[Sethala]

Just to play devil advocate on this point because Its something I wanted to see what  someone would say. On the same token isn't Forcing someone with religious beliefs to learn only about Evolution the same thing?  I mean isn't trying to keep religion out of your kids life in a way doing the same thing that your afraid a christian might do if they teach your kid about the bible?   
(Of course this is assuming that someone on here has a kid and I am sure someone on here does and its something I just  wanted to get an answer to for a while)

No kids, but I do care about the overall knowledge and ability of our country's youth, so even though I don't have any descendants to be affected by it, I still care about other people's kids.

The difference is that evolution does not make any religious claims, it only clashes with claims made by religions (specifically, it clashes with a creationist worldview).  There are, after all, plenty of religious biologists studying evolution, and they have no problem reconciling their faith with the knowledge that we evolved.  So no, me saying that evolution should be taught in schools is not the same as someone saying religion should be taught in schools.  (As an aside, I'm only against religion being taught as something true; religious studies classes that look at various religions through history - including Christianity - from a historian's perspective instead of a theist's is perfectly fine.)

However, the main reason I want evolution to be taught and not creationism is simply that evolution is backed up by evidence, creationism isn't.  Now I fully admit that I'm not a scientist and that what I know could be wrong, but I have not seen anything credible suggesting that creationism would be valid science.  If that changes, if there is some new discovery that makes its likelihood of being true even a fraction of what evolution's is, then I would have no problem with them both being taught.  So far, to the best of my knowledge, that hasn't happened.

In the  end an Atheist can no more prove  God does not exist to a Christian than a Christian can really prove that he does exist to an Atheist.  In the end I am just happy when someone can stick to their beliefs no matter what they are because if you cant stick to what you believe in no matter what it is whats the point of holding those beliefs?

Two things I'd like to correct here.  First, the onus isn't on the atheist to prove god doesn't exist, it's on the Christian to prove he does exist.  Similarly, I could never provide proof that dragons or unicorns don't exist, but because there's no proof that they do exist, there's no reason to believe that "they must be real until you prove that they aren't real".  Granted, our standards of proof may be different from each other, and your own personal faith may be enough for you; I won't fault you for that, but it won't keep me from thinking that you're simply wrong in your beliefs.

However, I am perfectly willing to listen to proof that a god does exist; I just haven't found anything that could be considered evidence for his existence.  I am perfectly willing to reexamine and reshape my beliefs based on new evidence being presented, so long as the evidence is convincing enough.  I also believe that holding beliefs just to hold a belief is self delusion, that if you can't critically examine why you believe what you believe and change your beliefs accordingly, you're only lying to yourself.  So yes, you could easily convert me to being a Christian, if you have evidence.  I just haven't seen any.

[Oniya]

If you want to engage in casuistry, 'You're stupid' or 'You're delusional' is also uncivil.

[Chaosfox]

Two things I'd like to correct here.  First, the onus isn't on the atheist to prove god doesn't exist, it's on the Christian to prove he does exist.  Similarly, I could never provide proof that dragons or unicorns don't exist, but because there's no proof that they do exist, there's no reason to believe that "they must be real until you prove that they aren't real".  Granted, our standards of proof may be different from each other, and your own personal faith may be enough for you; I won't fault you for that, but it won't keep me from thinking that you're simply wrong in your beliefs.

I did not say you cold not think I was wrong but if you want to prove that i am wrong you would still have to prove that God does not exist.  I did not say you could not think I was wrong you just cant flat out tell me I am wrong with out proof and I can not say that you are wrong with out proof that was the whole point of my statement.

But thank you for your answer I have always wanted to see what someone would say to that and you make a very valid point.

[Sethala]

I did not say you cold not think I was wrong but if you want to prove that i am wrong you would still have to prove that God does not exist.  I did not say you could not think I was wrong you just cant flat out tell me I am wrong with out proof and I can not say that you are wrong with out proof that was the whole point of my statement.

But thank you for your answer I have always wanted to see what someone would say to that and you make a very valid point.

No, I can't prove that you're wrong and that I'm right, since I'm taking the null hypothesis - in other words, I'm not saying that there is no god, but rather that there is no reason to believe there is a god.  This is the default position, and in absence of any evidence, it's the correct one by definition.  The null hypothesis is impossible to prove, since you can't prove a negative, only show that it is the most likely explanation by discrediting any evidence brought forth to explain alternate explanations.

Take unicorns, for example.  I can say "There is no such thing as a unicorn".  But I can't prove it, because it's possible that there's an underground cave no one's ever found that has a tribe of unicorns in it.  There's no way for me to prove that this cave doesn't exist.  However, the possibility of such a cave existing is not anywhere close to sufficient evidence to believe that they do exist, without proof - hence, the null hypothesis (which, technically, is "there is no proof of unicorns", not "unicorns don't exist", but for the sake of berevity and using layman's terms I'll often use the latter).  If someone provided evidence of unicorns, then one of two things would happen - the null hypothesis would no longer be correct, or the evidence would somehow be discredited as either insufficient or incorrect, placing the null hypothesis back as the correct answer.

Again however, what is sufficient proof varies from person to person, and each person has their own experiences.  If you have a personal experience with your deity, then that may be enough evidence for you, but simply telling me of that experience is nothing more than hearsay to me, and not enough for my standards.  That doesn't mean I'm correct on a universal scale, but it does still mean that based on the evidence I have available, the null hypothesis is still the most likely explanation.

[Chaosfox]

No, I can't prove that you're wrong and that I'm right, since I'm taking the null hypothesis - in other words, I'm not saying that there is no god, but rather that there is no reason to believe there is a god.  This is the default position, and in absence of any evidence, it's the correct one by definition.  The null hypothesis is impossible to prove, since you can't prove a negative, only show that it is the most likely explanation by discrediting any evidence brought forth to explain alternate explanations.

Take unicorns, for example.  I can say "There is no such thing as a unicorn".  But I can't prove it, because it's possible that there's an underground cave no one's ever found that has a tribe of unicorns in it.  There's no way for me to prove that this cave doesn't exist.  However, the possibility of such a cave existing is not anywhere close to sufficient evidence to believe that they do exist, without proof - hence, the null hypothesis (which, technically, is "there is no proof of unicorns", not "unicorns don't exist", but for the sake of berevity and using layman's terms I'll often use the latter).  If someone provided evidence of unicorns, then one of two things would happen - the null hypothesis would no longer be correct, or the evidence would somehow be discredited as either insufficient or incorrect, placing the null hypothesis back as the correct answer.

Again however, what is sufficient proof varies from person to person, and each person has their own experiences.  If you have a personal experience with your deity, then that may be enough evidence for you, but simply telling me of that experience is nothing more than hearsay to me, and not enough for my standards.  That doesn't mean I'm correct on a universal scale, but it does still mean that based on the evidence I have available, the null hypothesis is still the most likely explanation.

You finally got what I was trying to point out (Hindsight tells me I should have just worded it differently)  I can not say I am right and your wrong and vice versa. That is the whole point about believing in something that can not be factually proven or disprove you either believe in it or you do not. The null hypothesis may be the most likely explanation to you and that is great but for me I chose to have faith in God. And you are right that it is based on my own personnel experiences. Yes part of it is how I was raised but I did my own questioning  of things several years ago and have since have come to believe there is a God.  As I stated in my first post I have no problem with people who believe other wise  but that does not mean that I have to agree with them on it or admit to them that they are right. (Which that last statement I am not saying that is what you are trying to do just throwing that out there because I have had people of different idles try to get me to do that till they were blue in the face.)

[Sethala]

You finally got what I was trying to point out (Hindsight tells me I should have just worded it differently)  I can not say I am right and your wrong and vice versa. That is the whole point about believing in something that can not be factually proven or disprove you either believe in it or you do not. The null hypothesis may be the most likely explanation to you and that is great but for me I chose to have faith in God. And you are right that it is based on my own personnel experiences. Yes part of it is how I was raised but I did my own questioning  of things several years ago and have since have come to believe there is a God.  As I stated in my first post I have no problem with people who believe other wise  but that does not mean that I have to agree with them on it or admit to them that they are right. (Which that last statement I am not saying that is what you are trying to do just throwing that out there because I have had people of different idles try to get me to do that till they were blue in the face.)

Well, sort of.  Let me try to explain the last thing I said better: when I say that for me, based on my evidence, the null hypothesis is the most likely correct explanation, I'm only taking into account what I can consider evidence, which unfortunately would not include any of your personal experiences.  Those experiences change the available evidence between the two of us, so a different explanation my be correct for you.

Where I have to correct you, however, is your first few sentences.  Yes, it is conceivable for a deity to be factually proven (for instance, look at the role that deities play in many fantasy worlds, particularly the D&D worlds - trying to be an atheist there and claim they don't exist would be rather silly!), it just hasn't been done yet.  You can't simply say "I'm right" and convince me, but if you say something like "My deity has given me the winning numbers for the next three lotteries", and proceed to win them all, I would be far more convinced.  I may think that you having psychic future-seeing powers would be more likely than a deity, and I'd insist on other testing before fully converting my beliefs, but that would be a significant step towards it.  Similarly, if I were able to disprove whatever evidence you have for your faith, so that the only evidence left is faith itself, then I would expect that someone being fully rational and taking an honest look at their beliefs would realize that there's no reason to believe in a god.

[BeeJay]

No, I can't prove that you're wrong and that I'm right, since I'm taking the null hypothesis - in other words, I'm not saying that there is no god, but rather that there is no reason to believe there is a god.  This is the default position, and in absence of any evidence, it's the correct one by definition.  The null hypothesis is impossible to prove, since you can't prove a negative, only show that it is the most likely explanation by discrediting any evidence brought forth to explain alternate explanations.

Take unicorns, for example.  I can say "There is no such thing as a unicorn".  But I can't prove it, because it's possible that there's an underground cave no one's ever found that has a tribe of unicorns in it.  There's no way for me to prove that this cave doesn't exist.  However, the possibility of such a cave existing is not anywhere close to sufficient evidence to believe that they do exist, without proof - hence, the null hypothesis (which, technically, is "there is no proof of unicorns", not "unicorns don't exist", but for the sake of berevity and using layman's terms I'll often use the latter).  If someone provided evidence of unicorns, then one of two things would happen - the null hypothesis would no longer be correct, or the evidence would somehow be discredited as either insufficient or incorrect, placing the null hypothesis back as the correct answer.

Again however, what is sufficient proof varies from person to person, and each person has their own experiences.  If you have a personal experience with your deity, then that may be enough evidence for you, but simply telling me of that experience is nothing more than hearsay to me, and not enough for my standards.  That doesn't mean I'm correct on a universal scale, but it does still mean that based on the evidence I have available, the null hypothesis is still the most likely explanation.

This point is often very hard to get across to theists. You have stated it clearly and concisely. Thank you for your input.

If you want to engage in casuistry, 'You're stupid' or 'You're delusional' is also uncivil.

If said that way, sure. I can see how someone could be offended by that kind of statement, and in order to be nice, you shouldn稚 hurl insults around. I don't think that anyone, myself included, has said something like that. It isn't conducive to real discussion to point fingers and lay labels on people, because they just shut down. However, it might be necessary to the discussion to say that someone is delusional, if they are claiming not to be as a part of their argument. Now, if someone comes in here and says, like Saidi did, that she just doesn稚 like being called delusional and doesn稚 make any kind of argument, calling that person delusional is uncivil. I have apologized for that and I hope it doesn稚 happen in this thread. In conclusion, someone claiming to be offended by my rebuttal to their argument doesn稚 get a free pass because I hurt their feelings. If you have an argument based around your non-delusional-ness, I will not hesitate to tell you that the fact that you池e offended is completely irrelevant. Though social strictures demand civility sometimes, one does not have the right to not be offended.

I watched the lecture although I'm afraid I didn't find it particularly helpful. Perhaps it's because I was missing context... from some of the remarks within it it appeared that it was part of a series of events and as such may have been following up from earlier discussions but there was an infuriating habit of the lecturer either seemingly being about to or at times starting to delve into a point but then not doing so in any real depth. That may be a product of only have a limited time to speak but it left multiple points unexplored or unanswered... and several that appeared to contradict each other. To go with the ones that leapt out at me:

• The first question he was asked by the audience touched on this point; he starts by taking a seemingly intention based point of view (if one child doesn't misbehave because he understands it is wrong to do so and another simply because he fears the punishment for doing so then the first is morally superior) but then follows up in a later remark by noting that it is the action, not the intention, to which he attaches moral value. I don't think he ever really answered that point in his response to the audience question.


• While he never really discussed the point, it appears that his view of what is ethical is that what helps create a "healthy and productive society". But he never goes into any detail of what a healthy and productive society is or why it is ethical. Likewise while he mentioned that morals should and would be evaluated with regard to whether they did lead to a healthy and productive society he made little mention of how one is supposed to do so.


• There's little to no discussion of what he actually means by "system". I went in assuming that by "system" he meant a system to examine, consider, define and determine points relating to morality/ethics but it appears by system he means something that is not individual but instead collective and appears to be less about determining ones own positions relating to morality and instead working out what other people's views on morality are and finding a middle ground. Linked to the above point there is little throughout the lecture about how one would determine what is moral in his non-secular ethical system.


• His view that non-secular ethics would be decided by reasoned debate and conclusions seems to fly in the face of hundreds of years of ethical debate; Kant and JS Mill's ethical theories are both completely secular and yet they are no closer to agreeing now or finding a middle ground then they were when Mill first went about criticising Kant's approach to ethics in 1863 (in regards to both metaethics and normative ethics). In a society or system where a third of the people followed deontological ethics, a third consequentialist ethics and a third virtue ethics it is hard to see how there could be a middle ground all would agree to... there certainly hasn't been in philosophical discourse. Likewise how do a cognitivist and a non-cognitivist find a middle ground when they can't agree whether sentences about morality relate to something that is true or not?


• Because he doesn't got into any detail about what it actually means to be ethical or what a "healthy and productive society" actually means there's some ambiguity here but from the context it appears that he views secular ethical systems as being consequentialist where outcome of an action is what matters. But that would exclude Kant, a Kantian or any other non-consequentialist theories, be the deontology or virtue based from being non-secular even if they make no mention of deities, supernatural phenomenon or outside sources (or in Kant's case even a posteriori knowledge which I struggle to accept. Surely any ethical theory that doesn't rely on God (or god or gods or any other transcendental being or religion) is non-secular? I know I bang on about Kant a lot but he's one of, if not the, most important ethical philosophers who put forward one of the most important and influential ethical theories and did so in what I'd see as an entirely secular manner.


• Pet bug of mine but he repeated the "thou shall not kill" mistake as opposed to "though shall not murder". The original term used translates to "murder" and when looked at in context it becomes even clearer. It's not a huge issue in and of itself but because it's used to demonstrate the supposed lack of nuance or flexibility in non-secular morality it produces a rather bum note


• Related to both the above points and to go back to our old friend Kant again, his system was distinctly (and intentionally) lacking in nuance or flexibility. Kant infamously defended the idea that if a known murderer asked someone the location of his next prey one must tell them the truth even if one was virtually certain this would lead to the prey's death. That's about as inflexible and un-nuanced as an ethical system can be... but also entirely secular

I’m just not going to respond to these points. Sorry for ducking this stuff, but my only intention with that video was to make my point a bit more clear. I知 just not interested in defending Matt痴 lecture as its own piece, because I didn稚 write it. Part 2/6 contained the very basics of the argument, which lays the groundwork for my points. Most of your criticisms seem to be about the definitions of words and presentation, which of course it would take hours to go into all of the definitions of each concept mentioned in the lecture. I think you池e right, that time constraints got in the way of a fuller exposition of points. If you池e interested, email Matt Dillahunty at tv@atheist-community.org. I知 sure he would be better at rebutting your points.

Thank you for the further clarification; I'd assumed that it was being used (innocently or not) in the weasel word manner that such phrases normally arise.

That said, I'm not sure the clarification actually escapes that point. Which people use this definition? Secular ethicists? All secular ethicists? Some secular ethicists? The majority of secular ethicists? Do non-secular ethecits use it as well? Some of them? All of them?

This point is a little unnecessary. I haven稚 crunched the numbers on who uses what definition, but I can assume that enough people use it to be useful to this discussion. If you disagree, feel free to explain why, but the semantics don稚 really further the discussion in this case.

The point here is that there seems to be a two pronged definition of secular ethics applied... that it doesn't make reference to God, religion and transcendent beings etc etc and that it follows a specific form of consequentialism. I don't see why the second aspect is necessary; while a system of ethics that excludes God, religion and transcendent beings etc etc is self-evidently and intrinsically secular there is nothing self-evident or intrinsic about a theory that includes consequentialism or utilitarianism being secular (which is why I mentioned the Christian utilitarianism school of thought). The second part of this definition of secular ethics seems to me to do nothing but exclude deontological and value theorists and theories which make no reference to God, religion and transcendent beings etc etc (to use him yet again, Kant for example) which on the face of it are seemingly clearly secular.

I never claimed that secular morality is defined by consequentialism. Consequentialism is just the most obvious way to apply morality when there are not outside mandates. I am aware that there is potential for secular societies to have inside mandates, and thus consequentialism isn稚 always practiced, but non-secular systems are required to have them. That means, by simple deduction, that secular societies will less often have mandates and more often follow consequentialism. This makes it easy for the connection between secular systems and consequentialism to be made.

My apologies; the three points are regular and well known criticisms of consequentialist and utilitarian theory so I assumed they'd be common knowledge for someone versed in the topic. To set them out fairly briefly:

Utility Monster: In a system based around the reduction to the greatest reasonable degree of suffering and/or the increase in good (used in a general sense), rather than get bogged down in what exactly constitutes suffering and good let us use a catch all term "utility" to describe everything that is "good". The more utility a person has the better, the less the worse; someone who is rich, healthy, not discriminated against, happy etc etc has a lot of utility, someone who is poor, ill, discriminated against, unhappy etc etc has very little. The goal of utilitarian or consequentialist systems is to increase utility.

Now, assume we have perfect knowledge of utility; we can see exactly how much utility a person has and will know exactly how much utility they derive from something. Let us also assume we live in a world where resources, however bountiful, are limited; there is only so much out there. The logical (and most efficient) way to distribute resources and utility is to use them most efficiently; if someone would derive less utility from something than someone else it is logical to give it to the other person; to use a real world example giving a billionaire ?10,000 is unlikely to have as much utility as giving it to a starving person with serious debts and thus the utilitarian or consequentialist approach would be to give it to the starving person. I don't think this is controversial or particularly disputed; it's the basis for most normative utilitarian or consequentialist theories.

But assume there is someone who always derives more utility from what is given to them then anyone else? If we are to be logical and efficient with our allocation of resources surely this "utility monster" should be given all of the resources as it will derive the most utility? What if the monster gains more utility from being given something then others do from not only not having it but actively having it taken away? In such a position the logical and reasonable thing to do is to feed the monster for the fact it derives more utility means it is the most efficient way to use resources.

Then consider the "negative" utility monster, one who derives a virtually miniscule amount of utility from anything given to him and thus will always require exponentially more resources to see the same gain in utility as a "normal" person. It's hard to formulate a consequentialist or utilitarian theory that doesn't fall victim to one of the monster or have serious flaws on its own; a system based around maximising mathematical mean utility would struggle with the exponential gains the "happy" utility monster who gets more utility than anyone else from resources being the logical way to bring the mean up, a system based around minimising the range between those with the most and least utility would fall victim to the "unhappy" utility monster inevitably ending up at the one with the least utility and needing to have vast amounts of resources poured into him. A system which tried to increase the mode may avoid the monsters but has its own issue as the logical way to do it would be to give all but two individuals the lowest utility possible (while all being slightly different) and then splitting the remaining utility so the last two had an equal amount as high as possible. A median system struggles for similar reasons; the logical approach is to keep <50% of the group on as low utility as possible and then give the remaining utility to the 50%< so the middle number is as high as possible.

I want to make it clear that I am not an advocate for consequentialism. I think it is useful in real life, but I don稚 claim it to be any kind of perfect system. This point is a bit of a defeater for consequentialism as you have laid it down. The simple answer is that in the real world, that is to say outside of theoretical ethics, this sort of problem wouldn稚 happen as stated. If a system fails in society, it is modified so that it won稚 fail. If you threw out the whole system when one part failed, we wouldn稚 have any kind of system. Just tweak the system until this error doesn稚 happen, so put in an 訴f-then clause to specifically halt the issue. 的f we are presented with a utility monster, a limit of X will be placed on them. This argument seems to ignore common sense. If something doesn稚 work properly, you don稚 always just throw it away. Sometimes you just fix it.

Is-Ought: Similar to the is-ought fallacy in general parlance ("he is tall, he ought to play basketball", "crime is rife so punishments must be made harsher"), no set of claims about plain matters of fact (?s claims) seem to entail any evaluative claims (?ught claims); one cannot move logically from saying a fact about something to a moral principle for there is no connection. For example:

a) X is in pain

Therefore
b) I ought to prevent X being in pain

There is no logical way to move from a) to b) due to what is known as conservation in logic. X being in pain alone is not enough to logically move to what someone ought to do without further points... but however many points you add you cannot move from the "is" statements to the "ought" statements relying to logic and observation. One may try for example to go:

A) X is in pain
B) If someone is in pain, we should alleviate that pain

Therefore
C) I ought to prevent X being in pain.

But now "B" is the evaluative claim (using "should" instead of "ought") and how do we get from A) to B)? B) is not deducible from A) and logically can never be. You cannot move from an "is" stating facts to a "ought" stating evaluations merely through logic and observation, however many points you put in.

I致e never seen the point of this argument. Maybe I知 just ignorant, but here痴 my rebuttal. We decide what we ought to do. That痴 it. If I decide that a) the best way to keep someone from being on fire is to douse them with water, b) that being on fire is painful, and c) people should not be on fire as often as possible with some exceptions, I can then make the claim that if someone is on fire, I ought to douse them with water until they aren稚 on fire anymore. If most people agree with me for long enough, we have a standard of morality as it pertains to people being on fire. That is how we get from is to ought. Just because there isn稚 a rigid system for doing so, doesn稚 mean it can稚 be done, evidenced by the fact that it is done every day. And before you claim that I am a moral relativist, I would like to say that what a culture decides is a good standard of ethics doesn稚 make them right. If we combine our abilities to create a moral standard and modified consequentialism, we don稚 have to think female circumcision is 創either right nor wrong

Open-Question: That moral statements about what is good confuse the property goodness with some other property that good things might happen to have. To illustrate this (and from where the objection gets its name), let us use the example from below of goodness and that things that benefit people and society are good.

a) If "benefiting people and society" means the same as "good", then the question "Is it true that benefiting people and society is good?" is meaningless.

b) The question "Is it true that benefiting people and society is good?" is not meaningless (i.e. it is an open question).

Therefore
c) "Benefiting people and society" is not the same as "good".

If "benefiting people and society" meant the same as "good" then the question would be unintelligible; it would be asking "is it true that good is good?" There must be something beyond "benefiting people and society" that means "good" otherwise the question wouldn't make sense. I should note this isn't a specific with with "benefiting people and society"; it was originally raised as a counter to the philosophical hedonism approach which viewed pleasure as being the good.

Let痴 assume that this argument is true. So what? Maybe good does mean something other than 礎eneficial  Nothing follows.  However, if this argument is supporting the idea that 澱ecause good can稚 = its own definition, then good must equal God then I can just respond plugging in 礎enefiting people and society with 賎od  thus:

Premise 1: If God is (analytically equivalent to) good, then the question "Is it true that God is good?" is meaningless.
Premise 2: The question "Is it true that God is good?" is not meaningless (i.e. it is an open question).
Conclusion: God is not (analytically equivalent to) good.

Does that argument satisfy any kind of claim? No, of course it doesn稚. It just argues fallaciously that if you define a word, it cannot equal its own definition. Please let me know if I am missing something here.

They're not really relevant to this discussion but regardless:

1) Darkness doesn't exist; it is merely an absence of light. Likewise evil doesn't really exist, it is merely an absence of good. One cannot be said to have "created" something that doesn't exist, therefore God cannot be said to have created evil.

2) Similar to above, there is no such things as "evil" but merely different levels of good. When we describe something as evil it is merely a short hand form of saying something has very little good.

3) God gave agents free will but there must be meaningful choices for free will to be meaningful. There is no way for God to make all actions and event "good" without trampling free will.

Those are very brief breakdowns of approaches that are rather beyond the realms of this discussion.

If they aren稚 relevant to the discussion, why bring them up in the first place?

I'm not really putting forward an argument in favour of divine command theory, merely contrasting it with other non-secular theories of ethics, even within the Christian ethical condition. In addition I'd refer you back to the video you linked us to, notably 5:15 of part two where the speaker explicitly notes that for the purposes of these types of reviews it doesn't matter if God exists.

I never said that you forwarded the view, but that those who do need to prove these truths before they can make the argument for them. You was used in the general sense. I should have used 双ne  My apologies. And on your second point here: I don稚 see your point. Dillahunty is claiming that the existence of a god痴 views don稚 matter. He doesn稚 address the claimed 訴nherent nature of God that imposes-but-somehow-doesn稚-impose morality on the universe point you made. I did. We don稚 know what Matt would say to that. But one does need to prove those inherent values of the universe before one can make a case for them.

Well, it depends exactly what you mean by "work them out on your own". Any moral realist, secular or non-secular, holds that there are mind-independent moral facts out there and thus wouldn't "work them out on their own" in the sense of creating the moral facts themselves but there are many moral realist positions... from Kant to Aquinas to GE Moore to Richard Boyd... which hold that one has to work out what those moral facts are, normally through the use of reason. In essence they view ethics as one would a physical science

You didn稚 make a counter-claim here. What痴 the use of this paragraph?

If these approaches followed divine command theory and stuck exactly to what was within a religious text then this argument has merit but we're not discussing divine command theory or those who stick exactly to what is within a religious text. There is nothing that ties a theory that there is a God, that morals/ethics are part of his nature and character, that God is the ultimate expression of moral values (kindness, love etc etc) and the universe is a expression of himself, those moral values thus apply to the world and it is/was up to humans to discover them through applied reason to Christianity, Judaism, Islam or any other religion with a historic source or holy books... I could apply the same argument to the just invented "Consortium11'ism" which has no holy books at all (or history beyond about 30 seconds ago). Yet it would remain a firmly non-secular theory as it includes a God.

What痴 your point here? I can’t seem to find it, sincerely.

I may not have been clear here; I'm was saying there are secular moral realists who argue there are mind-independent moral facts and that humans have to discover them (generally through reason), which is virtually an identical approach to those taken by non-secular moral realists who follow the approach I outlined above. The process both go through to determine what is moral is basically the same.

I知 sure there are the kind of secular moral realists you claim there are. I think those guys are wrong. Morals don稚 exist without minds.

One cannot answer a metaethical question with a normative answer. To give an example, I asked what we mean when we say "wrong", "right", "good" and "bad"... which is a metaethical question about the nature of moral claims but your answer was a normative one about determining a choice of action. Likewise the question about the nature of moral judgements is a metaethical question about whether the nature of a moral judgement is universal, relative or possibly even nihilist but your answer was again normative. When I first raised the point of "best outcomes" and disagreement it was essentially a normative point but your answer related to applied ethics where it seemed agents had already agreed the norms. A Kantian for example wouldn't have cared about a cost/benefit analysis of moral actions or decisions... he'd care about how they related to his duties such as a categorical imperative. If something can be universalised using a priori knowledge to a perfect duty then it doesn't matter what the consequences of it are beyond that; it is always morally good to do it and always morally bad not to regardless of the circumstances, costs or benefits of doing or not doing it.

I don稚 agree that you can稚 answer with a normative answer. What else is there? We use ethics in the world because there isn稚 anywhere else to use them. Theories don稚 matter except as tools for arriving at normative answers. They aren稚 useful for anything else, because as far as we know, nothing functions outside of the physical world. All the ethical theories I have read try to nail ethics down to complete right and wrong, and that isn稚 possible in the real world, so why care about it? Use the information in a metaethical quandry, but don稚 let it rule your ethical systems without heavy modifications in order to make it fit to reality. There are not categorical imperatives, because ethics aren稚 set in stone. There aren稚 definitive right and wrong outcomes, only general consensus to what the standard should be, and then application of the standard.

Likewise one can look at a point I'll expand below about how I mentioned that a natural law/moral realism theorist has to rely on an element of "because I say so" to explain the existence of moral facts to begin with which is again largely a metaethical point but your answer related to "legislative and judicial discourse" and essentially ended up as a jurisprudential point relating to legal positivism.

There aren稚 moral facts to apply 澱ecause I say so to. I used a practical example of something that does rely on 澱ecause I said so  which is law, after claiming that, generally, secular moral systems don稚 rely on 澱ecause I said so  I never claimed that jurisprudence and ethics are the same. It wasn稚 a comparison of those two ideas, just an exposition of a place that our society uses 澱ecause I said so 

As mentioned above I made the point that a secular natural law or moral realist approach still needs to rely on an element of "because I say so" about the very existence of natural law or moral facts to begin with. Your answer to that was somewhere between jurisprudential and sociological, seemingly leaning towards legal positivism which seems a strange way to take a discussion relating to ethics. Likewise with the clarification; how laws and society interact and from where law gains its authority is an interesting topic but seems a strange addition to any debate focused around ethics, let alone secular vs non-secular ethics.

I simply gave an example in society of 澱ecause I said so  I never equivicated law and ethics, only used law as an example of a place society uses 澱ecause I said so that wasn稚 moral judgments.

I've reversed the order of these quotes as the first quote is a good illustration of my point in response to the second.

As mentioned previously I don't think it helps the discussion to attempt to answer metaethical questions with normative answers; whether intentionally or not it comes across as avoiding the question and even at best it means that no relevant answer has been given. I asked a number of metaethical questions and expressly noted that with those answered we could move on to normative issues... but your answers are pretty much all normative. That's what I mean by saying you're jumping all over the shop; for whatever reason (and I certainly don't allege a negative one) you've avoided the metaethical discussion and moved to a normative one. It leaves me in the awkward position of having to decide whether to respond to the normative points and thus leave the metaethics untouched or come across as rude by demanding answers to the metaethical ones and ignoring your normative points.

To make some specific points;

How does this avoid the open question argument mentioned above? And where does this leave normative theories which don't rely on a God figure, religion, transcendental being etc etc and so on the face of it are clearly secular but don't have a similar view on what "good" is?

This faces the is-ought problem. As you mentioned previously secular theories are based on logic and I'm unaware of any way to logically move from an "is" statement to an "ought" statement (due to conservation).

I have address all of these points above. Thanks for your input.

EDIT: For some reason, all of my "n't" became Japanese characters somewhere in the copy-pasting process. Not changing it, because it is still clear what I mean. I will try to figure out the root of the problem next time I post.

[Ephiral]

Just to play devil advocate on this point because Its something I wanted to see what  someone would say. On the same token isn't Forcing someone with religious beliefs to learn only about Evolution the same thing?  I mean isn't trying to keep religion out of your kids life in a way doing the same thing that your afraid a christian might do if they teach your kid about the bible?   
(Of course this is assuming that someone on here has a kid and I am sure someone on here does and its something I just  wanted to get an answer to for a while)

...no, because evolution is a) not a religious position, let alone one out of hundreds of equally valid ones, b) true and empirically demonstrated, and c) utterly foundational to a significant chunk of academia (basically anything with "bio-" in it). So this is a pretty obvious false equivalence.

In the end I am just happy when someone can stick to their beliefs no matter what they are because if you cant stick to what you believe in no matter what it is whats the point of holding those beliefs?

This is something I genuinely don't get: Why should sticking to an idea in the face of contradictory evidence be considered a virtue?

[Sethala]

Just as a quick aside, only the first quote in BeeJay's post should be attributed to me, I didn't write anything else he quoted.

[BeeJay]

Sorry, I copied the wrong quote tag. Fixing it.

[Chaosfox]

This is something I genuinely don't get: Why should sticking to an idea in the face of contradictory evidence be considered a virtue?
[/quote]

So you are saying that there is evidence that God does not exist? Last time I checked there was not. No I cant  prove that he does but that does not  mean that I am sticking to my belief in God in the face of contradictory evidence.  And so if and Atheist  chose to be an Atheist  and sticks to that then I am all the more happy for them. I cant force people to believe in something and part of that is because I think that a person should do there own searching and decide on there own what they want to believe. That's the way I came to my own conclusions.

[Ephiral]

So you are saying that there is evidence that God does not exist? Last time I checked there was not. No I cant  prove that he does but that does not  mean that I am sticking to my belief in God in the face of contradictory evidence.  And so if and Atheist  chose to be an Atheist  and sticks to that then I am all the more happy for them. I cant force people to believe in something and part of that is because I think that a person should do there own searching and decide on there own what they want to believe. That's the way I came to my own conclusions.

I'm not going to touch that question in-thread; there is no world in which that goes well. Feel free to take it to PM.

My point of confusion: You spoke admiringly of those who stick to their beliefs - going so far as to question the value of beliefs which can change. Why? Why is a mutable belief pointless? Why is a static one good? And how do you reconcile "altering your beliefs is bad" with "I need to be able to act in the real world"?

[Inkidu]

Two - If someone sincerely wishes you a Happy or Merry or Joyous anything, and you feel anger, the anger comes from inside you.  This, I believe, is a greater problem.

Best thing said in the entirety of this thread. :)

[Sethala]

This is something I genuinely don't get: Why should sticking to an idea in the face of contradictory evidence be considered a virtue?


So you are saying that there is evidence that God does not exist? Last time I checked there was not. No I cant  prove that he does but that does not  mean that I am sticking to my belief in God in the face of contradictory evidence.  And so if and Atheist  chose to be an Atheist  and sticks to that then I am all the more happy for them. I cant force people to believe in something and part of that is because I think that a person should do there own searching and decide on there own what they want to believe. That's the way I came to my own conclusions.

Well for one, it would be wise to re-read my explanation of the null hypothesis to see why there is no "evidence" that a god does not exist, and anyone that asks that question either does not understand the concept, or is willfully dismissing it (and if you're doing the latter, I would like to know why).

That being said, that still doesn't answer the question of why sticking to one's beliefs in the face of contrary evidence would be a virtue.  I'm not using you as an example here, mind, since attempting to change your beliefs with this discussion would only push it off to a completely different tangent.

[Chaosfox]

Well for one, it would be wise to re-read my explanation of the null hypothesis to see why there is no "evidence" that a god does not exist, and anyone that asks that question either does not understand the concept, or is willfully dismissing it (and if you're doing the latter, I would like to know why).

That being said, that still doesn't answer the question of why sticking to one's beliefs in the face of contrary evidence would be a virtue.  I'm not using you as an example here, mind, since attempting to change your beliefs with this discussion would only push it off to a completely different tangent.

First I would like to say I may be misreading your first statement and I might have miss read you Null hypothesis thing as well. I can do that sometimes when I have to much going on at once.  So I will have to reared that and Read over the above statement before answering there.

As for the the latter statement and I already sent a pm to clear up what I meant to some else. But Yes you are right in the face of Contrary evidence it would be foolish to believe something IF it can be proven wrong.  But there is nothing wrong with someone that sticks to there beliefs if that is not the case.

[Sethala]

As for the the latter statement and I already sent a pm to clear up what I meant to some else. But Yes you are right in the face of Contrary evidence it would be foolish to believe something IF it can be proven wrong.  But there is nothing wrong with someone that sticks to there beliefs if that is not the case.

Yeah, I figured you would have sent it via PM, but it was something I was curious about too.

However, I do want you to re-read what I said on the null hypothesis.  To put it as succinctly as possible: In the absence of any evidence, disbelief is the default correct choice.  Something's nonexistence is impossible to prove, as there's always a way for anyone who wants to say it can exist to go "But wait, what if..." and such line of reasoning can be continued ad infinitum, as eventually the person claiming something exists can find a place for that something to "hide" where the person claiming it doesn't exist has no way to disprove it.

[Chaosfox]

Yeah, I figured you would have sent it via PM, but it was something I was curious about too.

However, I do want you to re-read what I said on the null hypothesis.  To put it as succinctly as possible: In the absence of any evidence, disbelief is the default correct choice.  Something's nonexistence is impossible to prove, as there's always a way for anyone who wants to say it can exist to go "But wait, what if..." and such line of reasoning can be continued ad infinitum, as eventually the person claiming something exists can find a place for that something to "hide" where the person claiming it doesn't exist has no way to disprove it.

I do see your point but that does not mean that disbelief is correct choice. You might think I am being illogical but that is your choice. It was as you said earlier I have had my own experiences in my life that to me say that there is something out there I a God and you are right  I can not use that to prove that he exist to someone else.  But tie this to what the thread is about I have no problem with Atheist. In fact I usually enjoy talking with Atheist more then I do other Christians because of I see my belief in God a a spiritual thing and less a religious thing. I actually don't like most churches I have been to in my life though that is also due to the fact most churches would probably throw me out if they knew who I was (IE I am pansexule and have been in relationships with both men and women in my life).  As I did say though I do see your point and I feel a bit stupid for not seeing it earlier (I Really need to read things more thoroughly),

[Sethala]

I do see your point but that does not mean that disbelief is correct choice. You might think I am being illogical but that is your choice.

Disbelief is the correct choice in the absence of evidence.  If you had no evidence of something, then still believing it anyway would be foolish.  However...

It was as you said earlier I have had my own experiences in my life that to me say that there is something out there I a God and you are right  I can not use that to prove that he exist to someone else.

This statement here would count as evidence, at least to you.  If you can look at that and honestly say that a spiritual deity is more likely an explanation of this than mere coincidence, then yes, that's enough reason for you to believe in that deity's existence.  All I ask, then, is that if someone manages to take that evidence and disprove it, so that you no longer take it as evidence, that you reexamine your beliefs and change them accordingly.

[Chaosfox]

Disbelief is the correct choice in the absence of evidence.  If you had no evidence of something, then still believing it anyway would be foolish.  However...

This statement here would count as evidence, at least to you.  If you can look at that and honestly say that a spiritual deity is more likely an explanation of this than mere coincidence, then yes, that's enough reason for you to believe in that deity's existence.  All I ask, then, is that if someone manages to take that evidence and disprove it, so that you no longer take it as evidence, that you reexamine your beliefs and change them accordingly.

If someone one could then most likely I probably would but they would have to disprove them and that is not what this discussion is about

[BeeJay]

Best thing said in the entirety of this thread. :)

I'm going to disagree on the grounds that this statement doesn't actually connect to the discussion at all. No one in the thread claimed that someone wishing you 'merry Christmas' was anger-inspiring. It was an assumption that was later refuted.

[Ironwolf85]

I've had a number of positive religious experiences in my life.

My biggest impression of athiesim is what I'm often confronted with. Just as Christian fundies make the big impression for doing stupid shit, so to Atheist fundies. The guys who paint graffiti, sue hundreds of towns for the ten commandments being on public property or nearly bankrupting a school for having a picture of jesus in the hall belonging to the religious club. The guys who trash nativity scenes. and so forth.

These don't represent athiests anymore than ISIS represents muslims or Westbroro represents Christians.

But be aware nothing exists in a vacume, and the next time you dismiss a Christian or Muslim as an idiot for believing, you are being part of the problem.

Agnostics... well nobody hates Agnostics, and it's hard to be fanatically undecided so the don't do bad things very often.

[BeeJay]

I've had a number of positive religious experiences in my life.

My biggest impression of athiesim is what I'm often confronted with. Just as Christian fundies make the big impression for doing stupid shit, so to Atheist fundies. The guys who paint graffiti, sue hundreds of towns for the ten commandments being on public property or nearly bankrupting a school for having a picture of jesus in the hall belonging to the religious club. The guys who trash nativity scenes. and so forth.

These don't represent athiests anymore than ISIS represents muslims or Westbroro represents Christians.

But be aware nothing exists in a vacume, and the next time you dismiss a Christian or Muslim as an idiot for believing, you are being part of the problem.

Agnostics... well nobody hates Agnostics, and it's hard to be fanatically undecided so the don't do bad things very often.

Care to explain those experiences and what they mean to you? If you aren't prepared to be offended, then don't.

It seems to me you recognize that those kinds of atheists are rare and not the norm, so why is that your impression of atheism? Please explain your reasoning.

To my reckoning, dismissing idiots rarely happens because they are religious. Atheists want to convince people that belief isn't rational, so calling every religious person an idiot is a great way to make sure you don't convince them. When someone is dismissed, it's because they are an idiot and them being religious is a coincidence. You can't convince an idiot of anything using rationality, so atheists just give up on those folks. I hope my meaning here is clear.

I wouldn't go so far as hate, but I know atheists think poorly of agnostics. Agnostics are just atheists that haven't done their damn research. They claim to hold the intellectual high ground, even though their beliefs are just as wrong as theists, albeit less fantastic. We believe they have come to the wrong conclusion just like theists have, and they are just as, if not more, pompous about it.

[Oniya]

Care to explain those experiences and what they mean to you? If you aren't prepared to be offended, then don't.

Our civility policy is not a topic to be debated.  It is contingent on you to at least try to avoid offending people.  Starting a statement with 'No offense, but...' (or any logical equivalents) is a thin disguise for 'I'm going to say something offensive here.'

Advice from Staff:  Don't.

[BeeJay]

Our civility policy is not a topic to be debated.  It is contingent on you to at least try to avoid offending people.  Starting a statement with 'No offense, but...' (or any logical equivalents) is a thin disguise for 'I'm going to say something offensive here.'

Advice from Staff:  Don't.

During a debate or somewhat structured argument, it's hard to tell if something someone says is going to offend. That's why I lay the disclaimer down. Like I have said before, if someone agrees to the discussion where things like delusions, ignorance and bad judgement are the topic of discussion, they need to be prepared for someone to offend them. I am not going to yield arguments or not address them at all just because I might hurt someone's feelings. I will refrain from comment if I think a flame war is about to start (because my thread would be in danger of being locked), because if someone is at the point of flaming, they have already lost and I don't need to address their arguments. If "I am not delusional" is someone's argument, and I disagree, I will say so. If that offends them, and they agreed to this discussion, that's too bad. That person should bow out if they are just too offended to continue, but they don't get to make arguments that just can't be challenged because to challenge them would be to offend. If advice from staff is, "Don't have controversial discussions," I will abide, but why have this forum in the first place? In a divisive issue, opposing sides are likely to have opinions that offend the other's senses. Again I say, too bad.

And I want to clarify, that I will not being invoking "No offense". Even if my comments are going to be offensive, I mean them, offense included. For civility's sake I give people fair warning, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. No one has the right to not be offended.

[Formless]

During a debate or somewhat structured argument, it's hard to tell if something someone says is going to offend. That's why I lay the disclaimer down. Like I have said before, if someone agrees to the discussion where things like delusions, ignorance and bad judgement are the topic of discussion, they need to be prepared for someone to offend them. I am not going to yield arguments or not address them at all just because I might hurt someone's feelings. I will refrain from comment if I think a flame war is about to start (because my thread would be in danger of being locked), because if someone is at the point of flaming, they have already lost and I don't need to address their arguments. If "I am not delusional" is someone's argument, and I disagree, I will say so. If that offends them, and they agreed to this discussion, that's too bad. That person should bow out if they are just too offended to continue, but they don't get to make arguments that just can't be challenged because to challenge them would be to offend. If advice from staff is, "Don't have controversial discussions," I will abide, but why have this forum in the first place? In a divisive issue, opposing sides are likely to have opinions that offend the other's senses. Again I say, too bad.

And I want to clarify, that I will not being invoking "No offense". Even if my comments are going to be offensive, I mean them, offense included. For civility's sake I give people fair warning, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. No one has the right to not be offended.

Perhaps it is wise to remember not to consider one's faith and belief as ' delusional '.

If you choose to not believe in a certain religion or belief , that does not make you any better than someone who does , intellectually. It only means you have a different view of life.

Religion does not affect math , physics , chemistry , geology ... etc. Whoever think it does , be it religious or not , has forfeit their right to make a valid judgment upon science and religion.

As long as you remember that , you will not offend a rational , reasonable person , regardless of their take on religion.

[Avis habilis]

Even if my comments are going to be offensive, I mean them, offense included.

If you intentionally give offense you're breaking the civility rule.

Don't do that.

[BeeJay]

If you intentionally give offense you're breaking the civility rule.

Don't do that.

What I said is that if I say something that is offensive to someone, I still mean what I said. I never said my intention was to offend. I can't control what people are offended by, nor can I control what they argue in favor of. To reiterate, if someone claims something, and I disagree, I will say so. My language choices will be made in order to lend civility, but I'm not yielding arguments. If the civility rules ask me to do so, they are flawed and not conducive to true debate.

[Mathim]

There are clearly atheists who have poor moral character. I think Mathim was saying that secular morality is derived from logical and empiric conclusions, but not that everyone considers the same things logical, nor does everyone think of 'the best outcome' the same way. Secular morality can be wrong, but I would argue that it is less wrong more often than nonsecular morality, not in principle necessarily, but in practice. Am I representing you correctly Mathim?

I think it's interesting someone connected racism and misogyny to atheists when it's practically unheard of to practice those outside of a religious context (in response to the statement you had quoted, BeeJay). In fact only science has proven the ludicrousness of discrimination based on skin color because we're all human no matter how you slice it. But let me get back to responding to your comment.

In secular morality, as I understand it, a discussion can be had where pros and cons are determined and weighed and people can continue to add or change things and at the very least, a large majority can agree on a standard that is more or less acceptable to the general population. This can always be subject to change for reasons of new discovery, experimentation, etc. whereas something based on a rigid doctrine can either not change, or frivolous exceptions will be made to benefit whoever is in charge at the time. Secular ethics is flexible so as not to be dogmatic and intransigent (which would just be asking for trouble otherwise), freely questioned and discussed at length with logic and without exclusion of emotions, and is more likely to look at each person's opinion on it equally before making a decision on what the overall society would consider to be the ultimate decision.

In this sense, doing something because you think it's right based on a system derived from secular morality is less likely to lead to something like the institution of slavery than something where people blindly obey precepts carved into stone by some invisible man in the sky. If this is kind of what you thought I was saying, then yeah, you were representing me correctly.

[BeeJay]

Pretty much. Glad I didn't misrepresent you.

[Ironwolf85]

Care to explain those experiences and what they mean to you? If you aren't prepared to be offended, then don't.

It seems to me you recognize that those kinds of atheists are rare and not the norm, so why is that your impression of atheism? Please explain your reasoning.

To my reckoning, dismissing idiots rarely happens because they are religious. Atheists want to convince people that belief isn't rational, so calling every religious person an idiot is a great way to make sure you don't convince them. When someone is dismissed, it's because they are an idiot and them being religious is a coincidence. You can't convince an idiot of anything using rationality, so atheists just give up on those folks. I hope my meaning here is clear.

I wouldn't go so far as hate, but I know atheists think poorly of agnostics. Agnostics are just atheists that haven't done their damn research. They claim to hold the intellectual high ground, even though their beliefs are just as wrong as theists, albeit less fantastic. We believe they have come to the wrong conclusion just like theists have, and they are just as, if not more, pompous about it.

The problem is that these people make one hell of an insulting impression.
The biggest thing is rather than addressing the issue, they receive tacit support of mainstream athiests. In large part because there is a cultural disconnect. To an Athiest it's just a glass doll, so what's the big issue? So when the local Christian community gets pissed that someone took a baseball bat to the manger the night before Christmas, pro-Atheist political groups respond with the political equivalent of "So what?" rather than addressing the issue.
One of the biggest problems is they talk down, and when you discuss matters of faith with most of the self declared atheists, they respond almost entirely, with a smug sense of superiority and an unwillingness to discuss anything except how wrong religious folk are and how "All religion is bad."

I swear almost every self declared atheist I've talked to acted with the same self righteous "I am enlightened, all others are savages" tone that I see in some religious folk. It's left a bad impression,


It's not the fanatics, it's the inaction and unwilling to even discuss how they insult religious folk doing these things.

[Ephiral]

My biggest impression of athiesim is what I'm often confronted with. Just as Christian fundies make the big impression for doing stupid shit, so to Atheist fundies. The guys who paint graffiti, sue hundreds of towns for the ten commandments being on public property or nearly bankrupting a school for having a picture of jesus in the hall belonging to the religious club. The guys who trash nativity scenes. and so forth.

Of your three examples: One is actually far more widespread against atheists (and the police often won't take it seriously), one is fighting violations of the Constitution of the United States (and the treatment of atheists and religious minorities as second-class citizens), and one... well, citation needed, because the only sources I can find are right-wing publications that run on fear.

Maybe you should choose your examples more carefully.

The biggest thing is rather than addressing the issue, they receive tacit support of mainstream athiests. In large part because there is a cultural disconnect. To an Athiest it's just a glass doll, so what's the big issue? So when the local Christian community gets pissed that someone took a baseball bat to the manger the night before Christmas, pro-Atheist political groups respond with the political equivalent of "So what?" rather than addressing the issue.

Citation doubly needed. Please show me one of these "so what" responses.

One of the biggest problems is they talk down, and when you discuss matters of faith with most of the self declared atheists, they respond almost entirely, with a smug sense of superiority and an unwillingness to discuss anything except how wrong religious folk are and how "All religion is bad."

Um, you realise there are atheists right here, right? In this discussion of matters of faith? Ones who have been very careful to explicitly avoid anything that could be remotely construed as anything like what you're talking about?

Perhaps you need to choose your broad, highly insulting generalizations more carefully as well.

It's not the fanatics, it's the inaction and unwilling to even discuss how they insult religious folk doing these things.

So... there are a number of atheists in or facing jail in numerous places around the world right now just for being atheists. Should I be upset with all religious people for their "inaction" on and "tacit support" of blasphemy laws? Or should I recognize that they're a diverse group that has diverse interests and balances them in a variety of ways, all different from my own?

As for the "insulting" thing... frankly, you read pretty strongly like you assume all atheists are insulting by default. When your opening move is to demand an apology for punching you in the face while you're hitting the other person, it's small wonder you haven't had a productive discussion.

I think it's interesting someone connected racism and misogyny to atheists when it's practically unheard of to practice those outside of a religious context (in response to the statement you had quoted, BeeJay). In fact only science has proven the ludicrousness of discrimination based on skin color because we're all human no matter how you slice it.

That... would be me, except for the gross misrepresentation part. I merely noted that racist and misogynist atheists exist, which they inarguably do. I even went on to explicitly state that a) this was not a blanket condemnation, and b) I am an atheist myself.

As for "practically unheard of"... well, I don't want to derail the thread, but... it's really not. Google "human biodiversity" sometime, if you have a strong tolerance for vile bullshit tailor-made to fit preconceived notions.

[BeeJay]

Thank you Ephiral. I don't think I could have made those points better. Also thanks for lending a moderating hand to the atheists in the argument too. There are misogynists and racists on both sides, as you said, inarguably. A case may be able to be made for the institutionalization of misogyny and racism by religions, but claiming or implying that there are no atheists of questionable moral character is dishonest.

And Ironwolf85: It seems to me you haven't spent any time at all in the presence of atheists. It sounds like your experience with atheists is that of hearsay and negatively slanted news articles. If you'd like, you and I can discuss atheism in PM and I can help you understand our position better, and the offer is sincere. Let me know if you'd be interested in that.

[Alsheriam]

I'll speak as an atheist who used to be a Baptist youth pastor.

In not too many words, when I was a believer I was often described by peers as "one of the strongest Christians I know." My faith also gave me carte blanche to be a hideous racist and to kick over the religious altars of my neighbors', because I sincerely believed God wanted me to destroy all false idols. Everything I did, I did in the name of God and damn the consequences because the mortal world and its worldy things were temporary. Eternal life and the Kingdom of Heaven which Jesus promised was far more important than hurt feelings or offending other people.

It wasn't till I hit 20 when I began to realize that my past deeds were nothing short of evil, and additionally I began to undergo the realization that God isn't real. Despite being rebuked for reading what my fellow Christians considered to be "evil" and "deception of Satan", my forays into science and philosophy yielded far more plausible, convincing and ethical solutions and explanations for my daily life. That served to steadily erode my belief in God until I arrived at the conclusion that:

a) there is no God
b) I'd rather have my acts made accountable to myself and be embarrassed at myself than to be under the constant supervision of an invisible and omnipotent being. I want to be good because I care about other people; not because I will be thrown into the lake of fire by God.

I'm one of those "fuckwads" who speaks out against religion because I have personally experienced what it's like to be an evil person while convincing myself into thinking I'm a holy person. This doesn't mean that every religious person is evil because they use God as justification, but religion can drive well-meaning people into heinous acts of evil because they didn't know better.

[BeeJay]

I'll speak as an atheist who used to be a Baptist youth pastor.

In not too many words, when I was a believer I was often described by peers as "one of the strongest Christians I know." My faith also gave me carte blanche to be a hideous racist and to kick over the religious altars of my neighbors', because I sincerely believed God wanted me to destroy all false idols. Everything I did, I did in the name of God and damn the consequences because the mortal world and its worldy things were temporary. Eternal life and the Kingdom of Heaven which Jesus promised was far more important than hurt feelings or offending other people.

It wasn't till I hit 20 when I began to realize that my past deeds were nothing short of evil, and additionally I began to undergo the realization that God isn't real. Despite being rebuked for reading what my fellow Christians considered to be "evil" and "deception of Satan", my forays into science and philosophy yielded far more plausible, convincing and ethical solutions and explanations for my daily life. That served to steadily erode my belief in God until I arrived at the conclusion that:

a) there is no God
b) I'd rather have my acts made accountable to myself and be embarrassed at myself than to be under the constant supervision of an invisible and omnipotent being. I want to be good because I care about other people; not because I will be thrown into the lake of fire by God.

I'm one of those "fuckwads" who speaks out against religion because I have personally experienced what it's like to be an evil person while convincing myself to be a holy person. This doesn't mean that every religious person is evil because they use God as justification, but religion can drive well-meaning people into heinous acts of evil because they didn't know better.

Thank you for sharing. I don't know what it's like to be a serious believer, so your input is very valuable. I grew up in a house where 'God' was a vague concept no one really talked about. We never went to church or prayed, but I was aware of the idea of God early. I believed the way many young kids did; that is to say I used God in daily speech without even really knowing what I was talking about. Did coming out as atheist have any major effects on your life? If you care to talk about them, I'd love to hear it.

As Steven Weinberg once said: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

[Alsheriam]

Of course there were consequences. My entire family was displeased with my decision but thankfully enough, they chose not to disown me and throw me out of the house because I fell in with bad company at the time, and my shift in attitudes and mindsets RE: my personal morals and how I live my life resulted where I became a much more pleasant human being to live with, got my shit together, enlisted with the military and all that. I suspect that my parents had a humanistic streak in them because they were happy to see me pull myself out of the hole I dug myself into.

That's not all, though. Most, if not all of my childhood friends, I grew up with them in church. I was on the receiving end of Operation Guilt Trip from them where they'd visit my house (with the blessing of my parents) in order to persuade me to return to Jesus.

[Mathim]

I'll speak as an atheist who used to be a Baptist youth pastor.

In not too many words, when I was a believer I was often described by peers as "one of the strongest Christians I know." My faith also gave me carte blanche to be a hideous racist and to kick over the religious altars of my neighbors', because I sincerely believed God wanted me to destroy all false idols. Everything I did, I did in the name of God and damn the consequences because the mortal world and its worldy things were temporary. Eternal life and the Kingdom of Heaven which Jesus promised was far more important than hurt feelings or offending other people.

It wasn't till I hit 20 when I began to realize that my past deeds were nothing short of evil, and additionally I began to undergo the realization that God isn't real. Despite being rebuked for reading what my fellow Christians considered to be "evil" and "deception of Satan", my forays into science and philosophy yielded far more plausible, convincing and ethical solutions and explanations for my daily life. That served to steadily erode my belief in God until I arrived at the conclusion that:

a) there is no God
b) I'd rather have my acts made accountable to myself and be embarrassed at myself than to be under the constant supervision of an invisible and omnipotent being. I want to be good because I care about other people; not because I will be thrown into the lake of fire by God.

I'm one of those "fuckwads" who speaks out against religion because I have personally experienced what it's like to be an evil person while convincing myself into thinking I'm a holy person. This doesn't mean that every religious person is evil because they use God as justification, but religion can drive well-meaning people into heinous acts of evil because they didn't know better.

Since you've actually provided a perfect platform for my next post, I'll quote you rather than Ephiral.

I said 'practically unheard of' because the vast minority of racism and misogyny will be built from the GROUND UP by atheists. When I say atheists in this context, I'm specifically talking about rationalists and not those who are just too pissed off at religion to think critically about why they don't believe. Those who require rational justification to believe in things or behave in certain ways will be hard-pressed to defend institutions like misogyny, racism, homophobia and slavery. But as Alsheriam has just said, no such requirement for rational justification will exist in faith-based environments. In that sense, you're going to have a hell of a hard time finding an atheist who will not be putting their foot in their mouth defending such bullshit propositions, while a true believer will consider this a non-issue.

[BeeJay]

In other words, it's systemically easier to be a bigot if you live in a nonsecular society.

[Sabby]

I would have to disagree with that. I think it's more accurate to say that it's easier to justify bigotry if you live within a rigid society of any kind. So long as the society you are a part of resists rationality and discussion, they will be very slow to evaluate and change certain customs. So, any customs they hold that we would find immoral would be much harder to phase out then in a society that values rationalism and critical thinking.

The presence of a Religion doesn't make a society dogmatic and stagnant any more then a lack of one makes it progressive. I do think there is a heavy correlation between stagnation and Religion, but I don't consider this to be direct causation. It's just that such a society is much slower to get rid of the unnecessary practices and customs, so the Religions stick around in archaic forms a lot longer.

A progressive and critical society that condemns bigotry can still profess itself as a Religious place, just that Religion will typically be far more modernized then one you'd find in a more archaic area resistant to change. Religion is completely irrelevant when it comes to bigoted practices in society. Both Religion and bigotry are dictated by the peoples willingness to modernize.

[Ironwolf85]

Thank you Ephiral. I don't think I could have made those points better. Also thanks for lending a moderating hand to the atheists in the argument too. There are misogynists and racists on both sides, as you said, inarguably. A case may be able to be made for the institutionalization of misogyny and racism by religions, but claiming or implying that there are no atheists of questionable moral character is dishonest.

And Ironwolf85: It seems to me you haven't spent any time at all in the presence of atheists. It sounds like your experience with atheists is that of hearsay and negatively slanted news articles. If you'd like, you and I can discuss atheism in PM and I can help you understand our position better, and the offer is sincere. Let me know if you'd be interested in that.

Personal experiences then?
1. church getting egged as a kid.
2. baseball bat taken to all local nativity scenes, letter sent to local paper claiming it was done "to promote freedom from god"
3. being harassed by fellow university students later in life.
4. Not being taken seriously in scientific conversation about biology in collage because I wore a celtic cross.

Having to hear the stupid "manger battle" every year at Christmas with both sides playing the media for coverage, turning a 5X5 lot into some massive battleground for the soul of the nation, for 26 years, every year, having to do the city hall paper work for three years about it when I worked as a civil servant.

So yeah I'm a little sore.
I apologize if I flew off the handle and ranted.

[Sabby]

4. Not being taken seriously in scientific conversation about biology in collage because I wore a celtic cross.

Could you expound a bit on this point? I find it very difficult to believe that teacher would discriminate like that in a college and keep their job. Did you do or say anything that may have provoked that treatment? I'm not saying it would be justified, I'd just like to understand why you were outed and excluded like that.

[Ephiral]

Personal experiences then?
1. church getting egged as a kid.
2. baseball bat taken to all local nativity scenes, letter sent to local paper claiming it was done "to promote freedom from god"
3. being harassed by fellow university students later in life.
4. Not being taken seriously in scientific conversation about biology in collage because I wore a celtic cross.

Here's the problem: None of this is justification for blanket condemnation of atheists, unless you're claiming to be a vandal. (As an aside, the same five-minute Google that found those also found this . Perhaps you'd like to retract your "inaction" claim?)

Having to hear the stupid "manger battle" every year at Christmas with both sides playing the media for coverage, turning a 5X5 lot into some massive battleground for the soul of the nation, for 26 years, every year, having to do the city hall paper work for three years about it when I worked as a civil servant.

Um. Just a thought. Is it really the atheists causing the problem here, or the people who are putting up a blatantly illegal display?

[Mikem]

Agnostics are just atheists that haven't done their damn research. They claim to hold the intellectual high ground, even though their beliefs are just as wrong as theists, albeit less fantastic. We believe they have come to the wrong conclusion just like theists have, and they are just as, if not more, pompous about it.

Uhm... That's some generalizing right there. Am I pompous? I leave all of this out of my life. I just found myself as Agnostic because it makes the most logical sense and I have an answer when questioned about my stance.

And it'd be better if you didn't use words like "right" and "wrong" when talking about this. It's impossible to know any fact concerning Religion, hence, it's impossible to know who's right and who's wrong. Actually, everyone is wrong until proven right, and no one can prove anything.

[Oniya]

Uhm... That's some generalizing right there. Am I pompous? I leave all of this out of my life. I just found myself as Agnostic because it makes the most logical sense and I have an answer when questioned about my stance.

And it'd be better if you didn't use words like "right" and "wrong" when talking about this. It's impossible to know any fact concerning Religion, hence, it's impossible to know who's right and who's wrong. Actually, everyone is wrong until proven right, and no one can prove anything.

As was stated earlier, we'll only know for sure when we die - and at that point, it's pretty much too late to say anything at all.  (Although Bess and Harry Houdini tried really hard.)

[Sethala]

Uhm... That's some generalizing right there. Am I pompous? I leave all of this out of my life. I just found myself as Agnostic because it makes the most logical sense and I have an answer when questioned about my stance.

And it'd be better if you didn't use words like "right" and "wrong" when talking about this. It's impossible to know any fact concerning Religion, hence, it's impossible to know who's right and who's wrong. Actually, everyone is wrong until proven right, and no one can prove anything.

I know I'm repeating myself, but if you're talking about "wrong until proven right", that still makes the null hypothesis the "right" choice until something else is proven right.

That being said, I have no problem with someone insisting that the null hypothesis should be called "agnosticism" instead of "atheism".  I still think there's a difference between what's commonly thought of as agnostic and the atheist null hypothesis (just as there's a difference between the null hypothesis and complete disbelief in a deity), but it's all a matter of labels, and as long as you don't try to confuse the labels in order to pull up an equivocation fallacy, I'm fine just going with someone else's definitions of the labels for a discussion.

[BeeJay]

Uhm... That's some generalizing right there. Am I pompous? I leave all of this out of my life. I just found myself as Agnostic because it makes the most logical sense and I have an answer when questioned about my stance.

And it'd be better if you didn't use words like "right" and "wrong" when talking about this. It's impossible to know any fact concerning Religion, hence, it's impossible to know who's right and who's wrong. Actually, everyone is wrong until proven right, and no one can prove anything.

You're right. I was doing some generalizing there. My intention was to go into an emotional rant to illustrate my point. I should have been more clear, and I apologize.

That said, I disagree with your claim that we can't know what is right or wrong about religion. I know, for instance, that no religion has presented sufficient proof for their claims to knowledge. I also know that religion has been a force for evil in the world. I would posit that, even if we can't know absolutely, we can come to the strong conclusion that the god claim is likely false. That would be a conclusion drawn from a preponderance of evidence, and though it isn't true knowledge, it is a solid position until new evidence presents itself. To be intellectually honest, we all have to say we don't 'know', but we can still draw a conclusion.

As far as 'know', we should take the null position, as Sethala says. As far as 'believe', we can draw further conclusions.

[Ironwolf85]

Here's the problem: None of this is justification for blanket condemnation of atheists, unless you're claiming to be a vandal. (As an aside, the same five-minute Google that found those also found this . Perhaps you'd like to retract your "inaction" claim?)
Um. Just a thought. Is it really the atheists causing the problem here, or the people who are putting up a blatantly illegal display?

I don't hate or even dislike athiests.

I'm just infuriated that no action was taken by any party after the smashing of the mangers. Only the local churches seemed to be mad about it. Both a Christmas display that the local Knights of Columbus bid, and won,  the rental for. As well as a few displays on church property were damaged.
(Basically anyone can bid to put a holiday display in a little area set aside in the park. Any group can apply and bid, be it red cross, a charity group, a church, an advocate group, private bidders, ect. I was in charge of handling the paper work. we had a jewish group win last year, this year Knights of Columbus won. Year before that it was freaking Coke for some reason.)
I feel like if someone had smashed a menorah made of ice, or slapped graffiti across a atheist banner the year they won, there would have been much more of a fuss.

The second bit was that after a presentation a prof took me aside and advised me not to wear a cross when speaking on scientific matters. Because it would help my image...

It's left a bad taste in my mouth.

As a whole I find loudly vocal atheists sound like a more boring version a Missionary and intellectually condescending, and the nutters I just can't stand, but that's common for every group I meet. The majority who are just "Meh I don't believe." and don't cram my face in it. I get along just fine with.

Oh can we all please agree to stop paying attention to those stupid battles over Christmas. I mean all sides, everyone who reads this Christian, Jew, Muslim, Athiests, neo-pagans and everyone else. Let's stop it please, it only makes the stupid act stupider around that time of year.

[Sabby]

The second bit was that after a presentation a prof took me aside and advised me not to wear a cross when speaking on scientific matters. Because it would help my image...

Uh... I think he was trying to help you. I wouldn't have said that, and I personally feel that was kind of a major case of foot in mouth, but doesn't sound to me like he was trying to exclude you, just make you aware of your surroundings.

Once again, not the approach I would take, and it sucks he even felt the need to do that, but I would hardly call this justification for sweeping generalizations of Atheists.

[BeeJay]

I'm sorry you have had bad experience with atheists, but it's been pointed out that atheists aren't the only vandals. I am also sorry that the entire atheist community didn't apologize for what some vandals did. Of course, I doubt any reputable atheists were involved in the act, just like I'd doubt if any reputable theists would vandalize an atheist billboard.

So far, the only insults fired at any group here have been those aimed at atheists. No one here has been condescending here. No one has crammed anything anywhere. I will go as far as saying that atheists are insulted and maligned a great deal more than Christians are, mainly because Christians make up a great deal of the population and their holy book condones the verbal and physical assault of non-believers. Systemically more bigoted, I say.

I'm not sure what you're asking about in your last line. What are you asking us to stop doing?

[Oniya]

Stop turning a time of year that is supposed to be about family, togetherness, and giving into a time of year focused on hostility, divisiveness and acquisition.

[Sabby]

Oh can we all please agree to stop paying attention to those stupid battles over Christmas. I mean all sides, everyone who reads this Christian, Jew, Muslim, Athiests, neo-pagans and everyone else. Let's stop it please, it only makes the stupid act stupider around that time of year.

I can't believe I missed this.

Ironwolf, are you familiar with what occurred in Oklahoma earlier this year? A Christian display was approved inside the courthouse, which is a clear violation of the separation of church and state, but it was allowed. The local Satanist Church pushed for their Religious views to also be represented on Government property and pushed for a bronze statue of Satan to be mounted as well. As far as I can tell from Googling, it hasn't been erected or stopped yet, but they will withdraw their petition if the Christian display is removed.

The point of this is you have to allow all Religions to be represented or none of them. People get huffy when only one is shown, because it shows a clear promotion of that belief by the state over any it would decline the same treatment.

Stop turning a time of year that is supposed to be about family, togetherness, and giving into a time of year focused on hostility, divisiveness and acquisition.

Oniya, if it's a time for family and togetherness, then the state promoting one Religion over others has no baring on the holiday. It's still a violation of the countries founding principals, not something you want to annually turn a blind eye to just to preserve civility. That in itself is an endorsement of Christianity, and reinforces the myth that America is a 'Christian Nation'.

[Alsheriam]

[Oniya]

Except that - just as with Halloween - it has become a very secular celebration.

[Sabby]

You misunderstand, I agree with you. Like Halloween, Christmas is becoming more and more of a secular tradition. I never meant to imply that having Christmas promotes Christianity. Christian displays on public and government property during Christmas, on the other hand, do just that. Sorry, but I just don't find it wise to lay back and allow the annual mass violation of the separation of church and state just to maintain the peace. It causes too many problems down the line.

[Ironwolf85]

Uh... I think he was trying to help you. I wouldn't have said that, and I personally feel that was kind of a major case of foot in mouth, but doesn't sound to me like he was trying to exclude you, just make you aware of your surroundings.

Once again, not the approach I would take, and it sucks he even felt the need to do that, but I would hardly call this justification for sweeping generalizations of Atheists.

It is those surroundings, where you need to hide a faith in a greater power, just to look professional, which pissed me off.

What I would like more than anything would be people able to talk publicly about their dearly held beliefs, and ability to debate each other in civil discourse. WITHOUT it turning into a "My way is better than yours" media circus where everyone walks away with sore feelings. I've called fellow Christians out on this, albeit those kind of faithful aren't likely to come to Elliquiy. Thank God for that.

I admit there are some religious things that cannot be tolerated in modern society. Cannibalism, human sacrifice, and the like.
But we should be able to have a civil discussion about ethics and mankind without some media nut from FOX trying to boost his fucking ratings, or guys on four sides of an argument trying to sell their new books via public outrage.

[Mikem]

You misunderstand, I agree with you. Like Halloween, Christmas is becoming more and more of a secular tradition. I never meant to imply that having Christmas promotes Christianity.

I always enjoyed Christmas, and for the right reasons, not for the "Ooh I get free stuff today!" reason. (well...I do like the stuff) That said, I've never celebrated Christmas as a religious holiday. Just never saw the need to. It's a family and community Holiday first and foremost for me. I know the story behind the day, I just don't really care to or want to make it religious.

[Alsheriam]

It is those surroundings, where you need to hide a faith in a greater power, just to look professional, which pissed me off.

What I would like more than anything would be people able to talk publicly about their dearly held beliefs, and ability to debate each other in civil discourse. WITHOUT it turning into a "My way is better than yours" media circus where everyone walks away with sore feelings. I've called fellow Christians out on this, albeit those kind of faithful aren't likely to come to Elliquiy. Thank God for that.

I admit there are some religious things that cannot be tolerated in modern society. Cannibalism, human sacrifice, and the like.
But we should be able to have a civil discussion about ethics and mankind without some media nut from FOX trying to boost his fucking ratings, or guys on four sides of an argument trying to sell their new books via public outrage.

To tell you the truth, if I were still the Baptist minister that I used to be, I would not rebuke you for merely being on E, for after all Jesus did associate himself with lepers and whores. But he did so to save them.

Instead, I would have rebuked you for not doing your duty as a Christian for not spreading the Good News to others on E (even if it flouts the rules here, but who cares? All worldly rules are nothing to the Kingdom of Heaven), and worse still, drowning yourself in sin.

Thank goodness I'm an atheist.

[Sethala]

I can't believe I missed this.

Ironwolf, are you familiar with what occurred in Oklahoma earlier this year? A Christian display was approved inside the courthouse, which is a clear violation of the separation of church and state, but it was allowed. The local Satanist Church pushed for their Religious views to also be represented on Government property and pushed for a bronze statue of Satan to be mounted as well. As far as I can tell from Googling, it hasn't been erected or stopped yet, but they will withdraw their petition if the Christian display is removed.

The point of this is you have to allow all Religions to be represented or none of them. People get huffy when only one is shown, because it shows a clear promotion of that belief by the state over any it would decline the same treatment.

Admittedly, what Ironwolf said about the manger is fine, in my opinion, since it's an open bid for the space, and anyone who can raise enough money is free to put whatever they want there.  I don't think it's necessary to promote every group in a space, so long as every group has an equal opportunity to be represented in that space.

I'm just infuriated that no action was taken by any party after the smashing of the mangers. Only the local churches seemed to be mad about it. Both a Christmas display that the local Knights of Columbus bid, and won,  the rental for. As well as a few displays on church property were damaged.
(Basically anyone can bid to put a holiday display in a little area set aside in the park. Any group can apply and bid, be it red cross, a charity group, a church, an advocate group, private bidders, ect. I was in charge of handling the paper work. we had a jewish group win last year, this year Knights of Columbus won. Year before that it was freaking Coke for some reason.)
I feel like if someone had smashed a menorah made of ice, or slapped graffiti across a atheist banner the year they won, there would have been much more of a fuss.

The second bit was that after a presentation a prof took me aside and advised me not to wear a cross when speaking on scientific matters. Because it would help my image...

Honestly, I am appalled that someone would vandalize a display like that, and even more so if there was simple acceptance of the act.  While I am all for removing religious displays from public areas (although the display in your case gets a complete pass because it's an open bid, not just a state-sponsored display), doing it by destroying them is never the right answer.

As for the second paragraph, do you mind if I ask what the presentation was about?  Most science fields shouldn't care about what kind of religious beliefs a person has, but there's a few elements of science (particularly anything to do with evolution) where religion has made a very bad name for itself, and if that's what your presentation was about, I'd say any criticism of your faith is something that's only brought on because of how other members of your faith have acted in regards to science.

Oh can we all please agree to stop paying attention to those stupid battles over Christmas. I mean all sides, everyone who reads this Christian, Jew, Muslim, Athiests, neo-pagans and everyone else. Let's stop it please, it only makes the stupid act stupider around that time of year.

Not sure entirely what kind of battles you mean, but if you're talking about organizations trying to take down state-sponsored religious displays at Christmastime, then I'm going to say no, you don't get to promote your religion in a public space for free just because of the holiday.  (Again, if it's a display that was purchased through an open bid that any group could have paid for, that's an exception.)  A lot of the other crap that gets thrown around that time of year though, yeah, it's kinda stupid.

[vtboy]

I am also sorry that the entire atheist community didn't apologize for what some vandals did.

What is the "atheist community"?

I've long been an atheist, but have never been invited to an atheist social, picnic or rally. If there are atheist neighborhoods, I have no idea where they are. I've also yet to be asked to contribute money or time to anything identified as an atheist movement or cause.

Even if there is an atheist community, why on earth should it apologize for some obviously deranged individual whose acts it has never urged or endorsed?

[Ephiral]

I'm just infuriated that no action was taken by any party after the smashing of the mangers. Only the local churches seemed to be mad about it. Both a Christmas display that the local Knights of Columbus bid, and won,  the rental for. As well as a few displays on church property were damaged.

What have you done for the atheists around the world who have been imprisoned or worse for speaking up? To prevent the sort of vandalism I linked to earlier? To stop governmental bodies from officially praying?

This is a large part of the problem with how you're coming across. You're demanding that atheists protect your interests (whether by taking action, as above, or sitting down and shutting up, as below). Why should we, unless you're going to do the same for us?

Oh can we all please agree to stop paying attention to those stupid battles over Christmas. I mean all sides, everyone who reads this Christian, Jew, Muslim, Athiests, neo-pagans and everyone else. Let's stop it please, it only makes the stupid act stupider around that time of year.

As things currently stand, this would be an endorsement of religious privilege in a lot of places. Why would this be a good idea for atheists?

EDIT: Toned things down a bit.

[Iniquitous]

I always enjoyed Christmas, and for the right reasons, not for the "Ooh I get free stuff today!" reason. (well...I do like the stuff) That said, I've never celebrated Christmas as a religious holiday. Just never saw the need to. It's a family and community Holiday first and foremost for me. I know the story behind the day, I just don't really care to or want to make it religious.

You know the Christian story. Do you know where it came from, how it came to be called 'christmas'? The day was not originally christian at all.

[Ironwolf85]

What is the "atheist community"?

I've long been an atheist, but have never been invited to an atheist social, picnic or rally. If there are atheist neighborhoods, I have no idea where they are. I've also yet to be asked to contribute money or time to anything identified as an atheist movement or cause.

Even if there is an atheist community, why on earth should it apologize for some obviously deranged individual whose acts it has never urged or endorsed?

I should apologize, when I said community out of hand I should've been clearer. Advocacy groups.

I don't want people to "Sit down and shut up" with the whole Christmas thing. What I'd like is for things to be a bit more respectful and less circus-ish.
Maybe more cities should allow folks to bid on a public display place around the holidays. But I could see their being some screening process like we have here, so some rich guy doesn't put a giant paper mache middle finger in a central park.
One rich old guy tried to do that because city ordinances wouldn't let him put a heli-pad in his back yard, which was in the middle of middle class housing.

The paper was in biology, it was on the evolution of the respiratory system.

[Sabby]

The paper was in biology, it was on the evolution of the respiratory system.

Then you have the Creationists to blame for the environment in your classroom.

[Ironwolf85]

Then you have the Creationists to blame for the environment in your classroom.

Don't worry sabby I have a bone to pick with the people who promote creationism. In doing so they prevent kids from engaging in a constructive discussion. Besides evolution has be proven, it's not a theory.

We largely have "Brutha Billy" aka billy graham to thank for reviving it in the 70's / 80's he wasn't all bad but some have taken his conservative religious views and wrung them for a profit so hard that they've started bleeding. Pat Robertson is one of those people.
Don't worry, god will forgive him when he finally gives himself a heart attack, as will the LGBT community in heaven. Much to his horror.

[Sabby]

Evolution is a theory, just the word 'theory' is used differently in science. Theory is what a concept graduates to, really.

[Ironwolf85]

Evolution is a theory, just the word 'theory' is used differently in science. Theory is what a concept graduates to, really.

Aha
as far as I'm concerned it's a fact.

[Ephiral]

I don't want people to "Sit down and shut up" with the whole Christmas thing. What I'd like is for things to be a bit more respectful and less circus-ish.

The entire conflict revolves around the fact that this is a matter of religious privilege. Religious displays frequently violate the law? No problem unless someone sues, and then the plaintiff is viewed as a troublemaker. Atheist displays stick to the letter of the law? They garner protests and often vandalism.

Why should anyone respect that, exactly? Why shouldn't they push, through entirely legal methods in keeping with the values of a modern pluralistic society, to end this blatant double-standard? The struggle isn't offensive - its necessity in a society that claims to be better than this is.

Besides evolution has be proven, it's not a theory.

Minor technical point here: The bolded portion is incorrect. A theory, in science, is not something which is unproven - it is a model of reality that fits all known data and has predictive power. Evolution is a theory, in the same sense that heliocentricism, gravity, plate tectonics, and quantum mechanics are theories. I don't mean to come down on you, but the continued spread of this misunderstanding is a powerful weapon in the creationist arsenal.

[Oniya]

Or, as the button says, 'Gravity is also "just a theory", but you don't see anyone jumping out of buildings because of that.'

[Ironwolf85]

The entire conflict revolves around the fact that this is a matter of religious privilege. Religious displays frequently violate the law? No problem unless someone sues, and then the plaintiff is viewed as a troublemaker. Atheist displays stick to the letter of the law? They garner protests and often vandalism.

Why should anyone respect that, exactly? Why shouldn't they push, through entirely legal methods in keeping with the values of a modern pluralistic society, to end this blatant double-standard? The struggle isn't offensive - its necessity in a society that claims to be better than this is.

Minor technical point here: The bolded portion is incorrect. A theory, in science, is not something which is unproven - it is a model of reality that fits all known data and has predictive power. Evolution is a theory, in the same sense that heliocentricism, gravity, plate tectonics, and quantum mechanics are theories. I don't mean to come down on you, but the continued spread of this misunderstanding is a powerful weapon in the creationist arsenal.

I'm lucky to be able to straddle the debates. But I get frustrated with both sides around Christmas.

Here's a bit of perspective, what you are calling religious privilege in many small towns is also a matter of tradition. Ie: the "our mother of please don't fail me now Baptists" always put up a manger in the park for the past five generations. There are also other factors in it than religious groups stupidly wagging their dicks around.

This actually happened to a small town in nearby Maine, they were sued by an advocacy group over a ten commandments stone that had been around for 200 years, the legal fees, settlement, and machinery required for removal of the stone ate up the town budget for the next year. Quite literally shutting down all services except selectman, town school, and treasurer. No repairs for fire department gear. Much smaller 4th of july parade, no public fireworks. No roads being repaved. Graveyard didn't get mowed. The list goes on.
As you can expect that same town is now the most hardcore religious towns in that area.

I'm not saying there's a problem with having the debate but going in with a bulldozer in the name of righteousness has caused a lot of trouble through all of human history, I'm in favor of taking the dozer keys away from everyone.

There is one of the major problems with the whole evolution debate, the definition of "theory" in science, and the definition of "theory" to those without formal scientific training, are different.

[Sabby]

There is one of the major problems with the whole evolution debate, the definition of "theory" in science, and the definition of "theory" to those without formal scientific training, are different.

So, pretty much everyone who advocates for Creationism.

[Ironwolf85]

So, pretty much everyone who advocates for Creationism.

Pretty much.

Also you aren't arguing science as you might expect.
You are arguing about mankind's position in the order of the world.

What's more to them you are on the side of, in the most polite way of saying, "Mankind is nothing but a happy accident, nothing about you is special, you are not important."
Of course most people don't mean to say that, but that's how it comes across if you don't do your research on the people.

[vtboy]

You are arguing about mankind's position in the order of the world.

What's more to them you are on the side of, in the most polite way of saying, "Mankind is nothing but a happy accident, nothing about you is special, you are not important."
Of course most people don't mean to say that, but that's how it comes across if you don't do your research on the people.

The greatest achievement of science has been the dethroning of mankind. There is nothing very special about us, our world, our solar system, or our galaxy. Even the universe may be only one of many and its most fundamental attributes the products of chance. There is something very liberating in our utter insignificance once one embraces it. We are weightless.

[Sethala]

The greatest achievement of science has been the dethroning of mankind. There is nothing very special about us, our world, our solar system, or our galaxy. Even the universe may be only one of many and its most fundamental attributes the products of chance. There is something very liberating in our utter insignificance once one embraces it. We are weightless.

Furthermore, just because our lives may not have any significance to the cosmos as a whole, that doesn't mean our existence is meaningless to other people.  We have no intrinsic meaning or purpose built into our lives, but that only means we're free to assign whatever purpose we feel is worthy to ourselves.

[Ironwolf85]

The greatest achievement of science has been the dethroning of mankind. There is nothing very special about us, our world, our solar system, or our galaxy. Even the universe may be only one of many and its most fundamental attributes the products of chance. There is something very liberating in our utter insignificance once one embraces it. We are weightless.

You call it liberation... I call it a slow poison.

There have been many psychological studies on the impact of the feeling of being small and helpless. In the majority of cases the feeling of worthlessness leads to emotional instability, depression, and eventual suicide. I've seen stage one and two set in and had to prevent stage three in my friends. I've watched my mother turn to drink and destroy herself due to the feeling of worthlessness.

There's a reason Nihilists never really took off in ancient Greece and were often stoned then thrown out of settlements. it also did nothing to help their cause of "Everything is Meaningless" that they too always committed suicide eventually.

[Ironwolf85]

Furthermore, just because our lives may not have any significance to the cosmos as a whole, that doesn't mean our existence is meaningless to other people.  We have no intrinsic meaning or purpose built into our lives, but that only means we're free to assign whatever purpose we feel is worthy to ourselves.

See that's a less destructive and more developed way to think of it and eventually arrive at a life affirming belief.
The biggest problem is how many people would die at the thought of their own insignificance, and that their lives will never hold any meaning, and everything they accomplish is worthless?

[Sabby]

Please don't assume my position. Just because I am pro science doesn't mean I consider life to be a 'happy accident'. Or did you mean that that is how Creationists view people of my opinion? Apologies if I misheard, I was just now taken from a very uneasy sleep by fighting neighbors and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet >.<

[Ironwolf85]

Please don't assume my position. Just because I am pro science doesn't mean I consider life to be a 'happy accident'. Or did you mean that that is how Creationists view people of my opinion? Apologies if I misheard, I was just now taken from a very uneasy sleep by fighting neighbors and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet >.<

Nah man that's how many creationists see your side of the argument. If you can convince them evolution is valid theory without threatening their idea of mankind's place in existence they'd be far more open to it rather than reacting with outrage at the mere word of evolution.

[Sabby]

Ah, I understand. The old 'The most logical response to Atheism is suicide'.

[Ironwolf85]

Ah, I understand. The old 'The most logical response to Atheism is suicide'.

Not atheism (There is no god), but when mixed with Nihilisim (nothing matters) it creates one hell of a psychological clusterfuck. One I've seen devastate people and lead to suicides.

EDIT: I should amend this.

Most people rely on "God loves you, people love you, therefore you matter." in the face of the grindingly emotionless work in the modern era, the kind that leaves you feeling like a purposeless cog no matter how hard you work.
If you take god (via atheism) and people (via Nihilism) out of the equation it causes a lot of emotional problems that often do lead to suicides.

[Ephiral]

 

Pretty much.

Also you aren't arguing science as you might expect.
You are arguing about mankind's position in the order of the world.

What's more to them you are on the side of, in the most polite way of saying, "Mankind is nothing but a happy accident, nothing about you is special, you are not important."
Of course most people don't mean to say that, but that's how it comes across if you don't do your research on the people.

The key that is missing from this, in my experience, is "You are a happy accident. You are no more important to the universe than any other person, and they are no more important or special than you." This is not "worthlessness" unless you've already decided that humanity is worthless as a whole.

EDIT: Wrong quote.

[Sabby]

Yes, I've seen this happen in real life to a friend of mine who started learning about space. The fact the universe would either suffer heat death or eventually crunch into a tight ball to expand into a new universe had him feeling that all human accomplishment was worthless, as it would eventually disappear.

[Sethala]

Here's a bit of perspective, what you are calling religious privilege in many small towns is also a matter of tradition. Ie: the "our mother of please don't fail me now Baptists" always put up a manger in the park for the past five generations. There are also other factors in it than religious groups stupidly wagging their dicks around.

Tradition doesn't matter if it's something illegal - and any sort of state-sponsored endorsement of religion is illegal according to the Constitution.  Granted, as I said before, if it's not actually sponsored by the state and is open to everyone able to meet some reasonable requirements (e.g. nothing vulgar, and I'd be fine if it required some celebration of the holidays for a Christmastime display, as there's plenty of secular ways to celebrate it), it wouldn't be considered as sponsored by the state - at least it shouldn't, in my mind.

This actually happened to a small town in nearby Maine, they were sued by an advocacy group over a ten commandments stone that had been around for 200 years, the legal fees, settlement, and machinery required for removal of the stone ate up the town budget for the next year. Quite literally shutting down all services except selectman, town school, and treasurer. No repairs for fire department gear. Much smaller 4th of july parade, no public fireworks. No roads being repaved. Graveyard didn't get mowed. The list goes on.
As you can expect that same town is now the most hardcore religious towns in that area.

I'm not saying there's a problem with having the debate but going in with a bulldozer in the name of righteousness has caused a lot of trouble through all of human history, I'm in favor of taking the dozer keys away from everyone.

The problem with that is, you've still got a governmental branch blatantly breaking the law, and dismissing all religions except their own.  (And if you'd like to argue that the commandments matter to anyone other than Christians, I'd love to hear your justification for it.)  That being said, I think bankrupting a city in the process of moving the monument is on the extreme edge, and it makes me wonder just how much the city fought to keep it there and if simply agreeing to remove it would have saved them money.  (As an aside, a quick Google search didn't give me any information on that city, so if you could point me to something a bit more specific I'd love to follow up on it.)  It's a bit hard to judge, since the monument really does need to at least get moved off of city property, no matter what kind of excuse people give for keeping it.

[Sethala]

Not atheism (There is no god), but when mixed with Nihilisim (nothing matters) it creates one hell of a psychological clusterfuck. One I've seen devastate people and lead to suicides.

EDIT: I should amend this.

Most people rely on "God loves you, people love you, therefore you matter." in the face of the grindingly emotionless work in the modern era, the kind that leaves you feeling like a purposeless cog no matter how hard you work.
If you take god (via atheism) and people (via Nihilism) out of the equation it causes a lot of emotional problems that often do lead to suicides.

"People love you, therefore you matter" is enough of a reason for me.  No need to pretend there's an omnipotent deity that loves me as well.

That being said, the comfort of something beyond this life can be a powerful placebo for people.  Just so long as they don't turn that into a reason to harm others.

[Ironwolf85]

Yes, I've seen this happen in real life to a friend of mine who started learning about space. The fact the universe would either suffer heat death or eventually crunch into a tight ball to expand into a new universe had him feeling that all human accomplishment was worthless, as it would eventually disappear.

Now compound that with a rough life... and you see where it often leads down a very dark, and sometime violent, path?

The same power of self worth that counters that depressive darkness is what, at the core, you are arguing against. Not idiocy, but on a deeper level you are attacking that shield of self worth, and if you break that, It'll be fatal to some of them. So you also have that deep instinct for psychological survival.

That's why there's been like 0% headway on the issue among older folks no matter how hard you debate them. In younger Christians the idea doesn't attack their sense of self worth, and thus is a non-issue except when their elders drag them into it.

@Sethala
I'm not arguing for keeping the stone, I'm arguing for being a little more gentle around such issues as they play out. They could've offered to help pay to move the stone to a more appropriate location. It eventually wound up on the lawn of a nearby church. Instead the Council for Secular Humanism swatted a fly with a shotgun in the late 90's. I'm sure they did this more as a matter of routine than out of spite, might explain why nobody in the media turned it into a big battleground story. But a small town still spent a year on minimum budget and somebody's car broke an axel somewhere on those roads because they couldn't repair the roads that year and so on and so on.
Butterfly effect and all that... I just wanted people to keep that in mind.

Also the commandments are precious to Jews and Muslims too, but they didn't carve them on a stone in the front lawn back when the town was three farming shacks in the woods.

Second post: Exactly, it takes a combo of the two to cause the kind of devastation I've seen. It's far easier to get the gun out of their mouth with god loves you than over the course of several weeks of intervention and expensive family therapy.

EDIT: (Cuz you gotta be careful how you say what you say in a conversation like this.) the therapy would do a lot more for the guy over time, but if you need to break up the equation quickly a little faith goes a long way. That and Therapy costs money, money that a lot of people don't have. >.<

[BeeJay]

What is the "atheist community"?

I've long been an atheist, but have never been invited to an atheist social, picnic or rally. If there are atheist neighborhoods, I have no idea where they are. I've also yet to be asked to contribute money or time to anything identified as an atheist movement or cause.

Even if there is an atheist community, why on earth should it apologize for some obviously deranged individual whose acts it has never urged or endorsed?

There is an atheist community. There are atheist groups all over the country, and a lot of those groups connect to each other via email and various online forums. Of course local communities have groups fighting for atheist interest in the community. That last example was what I was referring to in my post.

[BeeJay]

Now compound that with a rough life... and you see where it often leads down a very dark, and sometime violent, path?

The same power of self worth that counters that depressive darkness is what, at the core, you are arguing against. Not idiocy, but on a deeper level you are attacking that shield of self worth, and if you break that, It'll be fatal to some of them. So you also have that deep instinct for psychological survival.

That's why there's been like 0% headway on the issue among older folks no matter how hard you debate them. In younger Christians the idea doesn't attack their sense of self worth, and thus is a non-issue except when their elders drag them into it.

@Sethala
I'm not arguing for keeping the stone, I'm arguing for being a little more gentle around such issues as they play out. They could've offered to help pay to move the stone to a more appropriate location. It eventually wound up on the lawn of a nearby church. Instead the Council for Secular Humanism swatted a fly with a shotgun in the late 90's. I'm sure they did this more as a matter of routine than out of spite, might explain why nobody in the media turned it into a big battleground story. But a small town still spent a year on minimum budget and somebody's car broke an axel somewhere on those roads because they couldn't repair the roads that year and so on and so on.
Butterfly effect and all that... I just wanted people to keep that in mind.

Also the commandments are precious to Jews and Muslims too, but they didn't carve them on a stone in the front lawn back when the town was three farming shacks in the woods.

Second post: Exactly, it takes a combo of the two to cause the kind of devastation I've seen. It's far easier to get the gun out of their mouth with god loves you than over the course of several weeks of intervention and expensive family therapy.

EDIT: (Cuz you gotta be careful how you say what you say in a conversation like this.) the therapy would do a lot more for the guy over time, but if you need to break up the equation quickly a little faith goes a long way. That and Therapy costs money, money that a lot of people don't have. >.<

I think if the zeitgeist changed to fit what we know about science, there wouldn't be any problems like that. I think people, given the opportunity, will instead marvel at the expansiveness of the universe and the complicated mess of quantum mechanics. I don't think people need the god crutch. It's false, and believing false things is bad for you. I think anyone here can agree that, generally, believing true things is beneficial and believing false things is harmful.

And when it comes to the battles between religious citizens and non-theist interest groups over church-state separation, it is actually a fight. If one group cedes any ground in debates or legal battles, the other side can leverage that into a tangible advantage. That means that neither side can be soft on the other. It's sad, and a waste of resources, but it is unavoidable as long as religious people want to violate the constitution at the expense of non-theists.

[Sabby]

There is an atheist community. There are atheist groups all over the country, and a lot of those groups connect to each other via email and various online forums. Of course local communities have groups fighting for atheist interest in the community. That last example was what I was referring to in my post.

Whether or not the population of Atheists can be considered a community in the same sense that a recognized and organized group, like a Church, is still hotly debated, but yes, there are many groups that identify themselves as Atheists. The only issue is that people like to use the term 'Atheist Community' to imply that it has a leadership or a ruling body, basically as a way to lump all Atheists together and then oppose any individual with a strawman of their actual position. For instance, dismissing my opinion by referring to Richard Dawkins, as if he were my leader.

This is why most Atheists don't like to refer to themselves as a community. It's a lot like how scientists really like to be clear on what a 'theory' is, they're just too used to the incorrect version used like a weapon against them.

[TaintedAndDelish]

Not atheism (There is no god), but when mixed with Nihilisim (nothing matters) it creates one hell of a psychological clusterfuck. One I've seen devastate people and lead to suicides.

EDIT: I should amend this.

Most people rely on "God loves you, people love you, therefore you matter." in the face of the grindingly emotionless work in the modern era, the kind that leaves you feeling like a purposeless cog no matter how hard you work.
If you take god (via atheism) and people (via Nihilism) out of the equation it causes a lot of emotional problems that often do lead to suicides.

I think this is a very Christian type of view on self worth and our place in the universe. Not everyone requires the lofty promises ( like immortality and divine purpose) offered by religions in general in order to have self esteem and to excel in life. Christianity makes man the center of the universe and the object of god's desire. Funny that men wrote their religion this way isn't it? Something smells kinda fishy here.

When I was a Catholic, I viewed life much differently than I do now. I was more willing to forgo the things that really matter in life in exchange for some promised reward in the afterlife. You see this sort of behaviour too with the Kamikazes, Heavan's Gate cultists,  Jim Jones' posse and others. While such beliefs can make a person a better soldier or more content with a boring, menial existence, I don't think its necessarily better than a lack of religious/spiritual belief. When you don't believe in a god, you get your self worth and jollies from other sources.

There are plenty of non-religious people out there who are not committing suicide because they feel all clusterfucked without the wine of religion.

[consortium11]

I’m just not going to respond to these points. Sorry for ducking this stuff, but my only intention with that video was to make my point a bit more clear. I知 just not interested in defending Matt痴 lecture as its own piece, because I didn稚 write it. Part 2/6 contained the very basics of the argument, which lays the groundwork for my points. Most of your criticisms seem to be about the definitions of words and presentation, which of course it would take hours to go into all of the definitions of each concept mentioned in the lecture. I think you池e right, that time constraints got in the way of a fuller exposition of points. If you池e interested, email Matt Dillahunty at tv@atheist-community.org. I知 sure he would be better at rebutting your points.

No offence taken; I made those points to illustrate why I didn't find the video particularly helpful as opposed to starting up a new chain of inquiry.

It strikes me that Mr Dillahunty is probably someone not particularly schooled in academic/philosophical ethics which is understandable considering his hobby/job. I imagine that the majority of the time ethics come up for him they arise in debates with primarily Christians who are equally as unschooled in that school of thought. His insights may be useful in such occasions but unfortunately they are largely unsatisfying when the deeper questions are asked.

This point is a little unnecessary. I haven稚 crunched the numbers on who uses what definition, but I can assume that enough people use it to be useful to this discussion. If you disagree, feel free to explain why, but the semantics don稚 really further the discussion in this case.

I don't think it's semantics at all. The argument is why secular ethics is better than non-secular ethics. Introducing a definition of "good" within that would therefore require it to be pretty much the universal definition of "good" for secular ethics or we return to the previous issue that we're debating one strand of secular ethics against a strand of non-secular ethics. And considering the vast amount of secular thought that holds a very different view of what the good is (from virtue ethicists from Plato onwards to deontologists such as Kant to other consequentialists and utilitarians who suggest that individual pleasure (with differing definitions of quite what pleasure meant) is the measure of "good" to objectivists like Rand I don't one can claim that the definition you offer is a majority, let alone consensus, viewpoint.

I never claimed that secular morality is defined by consequentialism. Consequentialism is just the most obvious way to apply morality when there are not outside mandates. I am aware that there is potential for secular societies to have inside mandates, and thus consequentialism isn稚 always practiced, but non-secular systems are required to have them. That means, by simple deduction, that secular societies will less often have mandates and more often follow consequentialism. This makes it easy for the connection between secular systems and consequentialism to be made.

Quick bit of trivia. The first record of consequentialism being used as a term can be found in G. E. M. Anscombe's influential 1958 essay "Modern Moral Philosophy". The reason I bring this up is that through that essay Anscombe produces a powerful argument as to why consequentialist and utilitarian approaches aren't a natural fit within secular ethics and instead virtue theory is a more logical approach. The entire essay is well worth a read but the bottom of page four till the end of page 12 are the key points with why consequentialist and utilitarian approaches aren't seemingly a natural fit to secular ethics; Anscombe writes clearly and entertainingly and as such puts her words far better than I could.

I want to make it clear that I am not an advocate for consequentialism. I think it is useful in real life, but I don稚 claim it to be any kind of perfect system. This point is a bit of a defeater for consequentialism as you have laid it down. The simple answer is that in the real world, that is to say outside of theoretical ethics, this sort of problem wouldn稚 happen as stated. If a system fails in society, it is modified so that it won稚 fail. If you threw out the whole system when one part failed, we wouldn稚 have any kind of system. Just tweak the system until this error doesn稚 happen, so put in an 訴f-then clause to specifically halt the issue. 的f we are presented with a utility monster, a limit of X will be placed on them. This argument seems to ignore common sense. If something doesn稚 work properly, you don稚 always just throw it away. Sometimes you just fix it.

But earlier you suggested that secular ethics was based on logic and empirical evidence. It is entirely logical to feed the utility monster and likewise all the empirical evidence suggests one should feed the utility monster. In truth that's basically the point of the monster. Any approach that bases itself around maximising utility for a group will either be consumed by one or both of the "happy" or "sad" monsters or have to follow another method of measuring utility that carries its own negative consequences.

You suggest "common sense"... but in this case common sense runs against the empirical evidence and logic. Once you insert common sense into the mix it is no longer a system based on logic or evidence and instead one based on prejudices. Moreover the fact that you see something wrong with a society that feeds a utility monster is prima facie evidence that consequentialism isn't a system you agree with (which I also note you agree above) because under a consequentialist or utilitarian system there is nothing wrong with feeding the monster (in fact, it is good to do so and wrong not to). And if we accept that it is wrong to feed the monster we have to consider why it is wrong to do so... and that brings out outside of consequentialism to either deontology or virtue ethics.

I致e never seen the point of this argument. Maybe I知 just ignorant, but here痴 my rebuttal. We decide what we ought to do. That痴 it. If I decide that a) the best way to keep someone from being on fire is to douse them with water, b) that being on fire is painful, and c) people should not be on fire as often as possible with some exceptions, I can then make the claim that if someone is on fire, I ought to douse them with water until they aren稚 on fire anymore. If most people agree with me for long enough, we have a standard of morality as it pertains to people being on fire. That is how we get from is to ought. Just because there isn稚 a rigid system for doing so, doesn稚 mean it can稚 be done, evidenced by the fact that it is done every day. And before you claim that I am a moral relativist, I would like to say that what a culture decides is a good standard of ethics doesn稚 make them right. If we combine our abilities to create a moral standard and modified consequentialism, we don稚 have to think female circumcision is 創either right nor wrong.

But, similar to my point above, you earlier suggested that secular ethics was based on logic. And logic is a cruel mistress. There is no logical way to get from an "is" to an "ought". The fact that you suggest we can is prima facie evidence that you don't believe that the system is logical because, however hard one tries, one cannot get from an "is" to an "ought" using logic.

Let痴 assume that this argument is true. So what? Maybe good does mean something other than 礎eneficial  Nothing follows.  However, if this argument is supporting the idea that 澱ecause good can稚 = its own definition, then good must equal God then I can just respond plugging in 礎enefiting people and society with 賎od  thus:

Premise 1: If God is (analytically equivalent to) good, then the question "Is it true that God is good?" is meaningless.
Premise 2: The question "Is it true that God is good?" is not meaningless (i.e. it is an open question).
Conclusion: God is not (analytically equivalent to) good.

Does that argument satisfy any kind of claim? No, of course it doesn稚. It just argues fallaciously that if you define a word, it cannot equal its own definition. Please let me know if I am missing something here.

Again, the logic point above. The open question argument has logical strength in rendering definitions of good meaningless. To avoid or disagree with it is to allow something other than logic to influence ones thinking.

The reason I brought up the objections and the point they make is relatively simple. All three are based on logic and/or empirical evidence and in each case your response avoids them using something other than logic and/or empirical evidence. That's not saying your objections are incorrect in and of themselves... but Mathim responded to one of my points by noting that secular ethics are based on "logical and empirical studies" and are thus superior which you in turn appeared to agree with. Your answers to these objections are not based on logical and empirical studies (which offer no answer to the utility monster or is-ought) which indicates there is something more than logical and empirical studies involved and that whatever this "something" is, it trumps logical and empirical studies (or the utility monster and is-ought would have primacy over the objections). Thus suggesting that secular morality is systematically superior because it relies on logical and empirical studies when you also have to argue that there is something which trumps logical and empirical studies within secular ethics seems to me to be a strange and something bizarre answer.

If they aren稚 relevant to the discussion, why bring them up in the first place?

Because you raised the Epicurus’ dilemma and I thought it would be rude to dismiss it without noting that I'm aware of it and aware of the common counter points.

I never said that you forwarded the view, but that those who do need to prove these truths before they can make the argument for them. You was used in the general sense. I should have used 双ne  My apologies. And on your second point here: I don稚 see your point. Dillahunty is claiming that the existence of a god痴 views don稚 matter. He doesn稚 address the claimed 訴nherent nature of God that imposes-but-somehow-doesn稚-impose morality on the universe point you made. I did. We don稚 know what Matt would say to that. But one does need to prove those inherent values of the universe before one can make a case for them.

As previously, I'm not arguing for the systematic strength of divine command theory; if the debate had merely been whether secular ethics (or even just a branch of secular ethics) was stronger than divine command theory I'd have likely agreed with you. I brought it up merely to note that not all branches of non-secular ethics follow divine command theory and thus while criticisms of divine command theory may be valid they do not extend to all non-secular ethics.

Moreover, and while I know that you disagree with this point below, a secular moral realist and a non-secular moral realist both agree that that there are moral facts out there and it is up to us to discover them. If both discover these moral facts and both agree the moral facts to be the same, does it matter what the source of those moral facts is? The secular moral realist will still have found the moral facts even if they were created by God and the non-secular moral realist will still have found the facts even if God didn't exist (or in some way did exist but had nothing to do with the moral facts). The strength of the position is not dependent on the existence of God.

You didn稚 make a counter-claim here. What痴 the use of this paragraph?

Your criticism appeared to be that non-secular ethics which followed the approach described would still be taking their morality from an outside source and not working it out on their own. But that criticism (if it is a criticism) can equally apply to secular moral realists or natural law followers who likewise accept that moral facts exist mind-independently. It's not a criticism of secular or non-secular ethics, it's a criticism of moral realism... and moral realism is not tied to either secular or non-secular ethics.

What痴 your point here? I can’t seem to find it, sincerely.

Your criticism of non-secular ethics appeared to be that even if God exists the holy books that form the basis for their ethical theory (or at least a divine command theory approach) were written by men in the bronze and iron age. And if God doesn't exist that point becomes even stronger. But that can self-evidently only apply to non-secular ethics based on religions which have holy books which were written in the bronze/iron age. It may be a criticism of Christian, Islamic or Judaist ethics but it has no strength against a non-secular ethical theory that has no holy books and was not developed in the iron or bronze age.

I知 sure there are the kind of secular moral realists you claim there are. I think those guys are wrong. Morals don稚 exist without minds.

This is a pretty huge claim and one that threatens to drag us even further away from the key topic (and somewhat strangely it's actually normally an inversion of this debate, with secular theoriests arguing they can be moral realists and non-secular theorists arguing they can't). What I would note is that there are a large number of very plausible arguments for moral realism within the atheist/secular community and one of key debates within secular vs non-secular ethics has been whether secular and athiest thought can offer a moral realist approach. I'd recommend the work of Michael Martin who I suggest is the leading proponent of secular moral realism (and has also produced some very strong counters to the "God's nature is moral" counter-argument I noted above) as well as Roderick Firth, Richard Boyd, Peter Railton and David Brink, notably Firth's Ideal Observer Theory (noting that while Firth was a Quaker, he himself set out that his theory was entirely secular).

To escape the issue of having to delve deep into each of those theories I'll instead say that there is a strong and persuasive school of thought that holds that secular ethics can be aligned with moral realism. To argue that such approaches are incorrect while debating whether secular or non-secular ethics is superior strikes me as a "no true Scotsman" approach.

I don稚 agree that you can稚 answer with a normative answer. What else is there? We use ethics in the world because there isn稚 anywhere else to use them. Theories don稚 matter except as tools for arriving at normative answers. They aren稚 useful for anything else, because as far as we know, nothing functions outside of the physical world. All the ethical theories I have read try to nail ethics down to complete right and wrong, and that isn稚 possible in the real world, so why care about it? Use the information in a metaethical quandry, but don稚 let it rule your ethical systems without heavy modifications in order to make it fit to reality. There are not categorical imperatives, because ethics aren稚 set in stone. There aren稚 definitive right and wrong outcomes, only general consensus to what the standard should be, and then application of the standard.

Because without a metaethical moral foundation, normative moral theories and statements become useless.

Let us say that everyone agrees a single normative theory, everyone agrees how we work out what is "good/right" and "bad/wrong" and everyone even agrees exactly how this applies when used in real life. Thus in every situation everyone is happy (and agrees) with what is moral and immoral, right and wrong, good and bad.

But what is some are noncognitivists who think that when we say something is wrong all we're actually doing is say we disapprove of it in the same way we may disapprove of a certain TV show or sports team? Or error theorists who hold that there are no moral features to the world and that every attempt to make a moral judgement is incorrect, however sincere or effective the normative theory? Or the pre-mentioned moral realists who hold that there are moral facts... but then may differ as to whether these facts are reducible to non-ethical things or whether they are non-reducible and a priori. Or ethical subjectivists who hold that while moral statements may be true, they are only true because of the attitudes and conventions of people. I could go on with all the differing branches of meta-ethics and all the different approaches taken.

How does a normative theory stand up when no-one agrees on the very foundations of it or what it actually means? How does it operate when one person views it conclusion that X is wrong as offering a moral statement with force behind it and another as no different to a similar argument saying that one doesn't like vanilla icecream? When one person thinks that the conclusion is universal and applies to every one at every time at every place while another thinks it is specific to these people at this time in this place?

Without a metaphysical groundwork and agreement any normative theory is simply a thought exercise in the same way that a metaphysical theory without a normative theory is. Both are required for a theory to have any strength outside of ivory tower debates.

There aren稚 moral facts to apply 澱ecause I say so to. I used a practical example of something that does rely on 澱ecause I said so  which is law, after claiming that, generally, secular moral systems don稚 rely on 澱ecause I said so  I never claimed that jurisprudence and ethics are the same. It wasn稚 a comparison of those two ideas, just an exposition of a place that our society uses 澱ecause I said so 

I simply gave an example in society of 澱ecause I said so  I never equivicated law and ethics, only used law as an example of a place society uses 澱ecause I said so that wasn稚 moral judgments.

Whether law uses a "because I say so approach" is an interesting, albeit different, question. Command theory holds that it is, with laws gaining legitimacy because a sovereign said so but even within legal positivism that's largely been discounted by the work of H.L.A Hart. And one can also touch on natural law theories (used in a different context to natural law within ethics) or Dworkin's "law as integrity" approach.

Again however, the argument you take appears to be one for why a secular theory is superior to a non-secular one as opposed to secular theories as a whole being superior. You have already stated that you disagree with moral realism, secular or non-secular, and thus if a secular ethical system based upon moral realism appeared the basis of its strength towards you would be "because I say so". Yet it is undoubtedly a secular system.

[Ironwolf85]

I think this is a very Christian type of view on self worth and our place in the universe. Not everyone requires the lofty promises ( like immortality and divine purpose) offered by religions in general in order to have self esteem and to excel in life. Christianity makes man the center of the universe and the object of god's desire. Funny that men wrote their religion this way isn't it? Something smells kinda fishy here.

When I was a Catholic, I viewed life much differently than I do now. I was more willing to forgo the things that really matter in life in exchange for some promised reward in the afterlife. You see this sort of behaviour too with the Kamikazes, Heavan's Gate cultists,  Jim Jones' posse and others. While such beliefs can make a person a better soldier or more content with a boring, menial existence, I don't think its necessarily better than a lack of religious/spiritual belief. When you don't believe in a god, you get your self worth and jollies from other sources.

There are plenty of non-religious people out there who are not committing suicide because they feel all clusterfucked without the wine of religion.

"Wine of religion" "Opiate of the masses"
It's like heathen and infidel for anti-theists atheists in that it usually proceeds lynching and book burnings. you practically handed me a stick to whoop ya in a forum debate and paint you as a fanatic.
Don't worry I'm not going to use it ;)

I never said non-religious or even casually religious folks are auto-doomed or whatever. If you read higher up you can see that it was meant as part of another debate.

My point was the reason elderly creationists push back so hard and have had 0% progress is because instead of debating scientific fact you are fighting against one of the foundations of their self worth, (Divinity of mankind) and they fight so hard because for many of the ones I've talked to it would cause a destructive psychological domino effect.

Younger Christians grew up knowing about evolution and do not see it as some big threat to their self worth or even the divinity of mankind in part because the guy leading the charge against evolution isn't Billy Graham (who had the charisma and strength of will pretty much single handedly built conservative Christian churches into something like a political organization, which in turn is now the religious wing of the republican party today.) but one of his stupidest protégés Pat Robertson. Robertson is far out of touch with younger Christians, primarily focusing on making money and swaying votes.

[Sabby]

It's like heathen and infidel for anti-theists atheists in that it usually proceeds lynching and book burnings. you practically handed me a stick to whoop ya in a forum debate and paint you as a fanatic.

Do you have sources on Atheists burning libraries down?

[vtboy]

You call it liberation... I call it a slow poison.

There have been many psychological studies on the impact of the feeling of being small and helpless. In the majority of cases the feeling of worthlessness leads to emotional instability, depression, and eventual suicide. I've seen stage one and two set in and had to prevent stage three in my friends. I've watched my mother turn to drink and destroy herself due to the feeling of worthlessness.

There's a reason Nihilists never really took off in ancient Greece and were often stoned then thrown out of settlements. it also did nothing to help their cause of "Everything is Meaningless" that they too always committed suicide eventually.

I'm not sure I understand your point.

Are you suggesting that atheism or, more broadly, the recognition that there is no transcendent purpose to the world causes emotional instability, depression and eventual suicide?

The causes of despair tend to be complicated and varied. I suspect it springs less frequently from preoccupation over man's unfavored place in creation than from such more mundane matters as social isolation, economic failure, physical illness, self disappointment, and the like. In any event, it does not seem to me that cosmologists, astrophysicists, and evolutionary biologists who have expressed profound doubt over man's cosmic significance are a less contented or well-adjusted lot than the faithful. Nor have I personally ever found belief in god or cosmic purpose a necessary prop to my will to live and to do.

[Ironwolf85]

Do you have sources on Atheists burning libraries down?

Okay sabby here's a quick bit.

Russian Revolution, and most communist revolutions outside latin America. Churches were and still are, attacked by secular communists. The most famous one was Russia where they put the entire Canonical Library of Moscow to the torch.
The other being the purging and burning of all religious texts in Mao Zedong's "cultural revolution" ya know, the one that had children beating their parents?

Of course the French revolution before those targeted nobility and clergy alike as "Tools of the oppressor" a library's worth of church historic documents were burned leaving mothholes in French history today.

I don't need to say much about the anarchists of the late 19th century and early 20th do I? Those guys bombed and burned any symbols of authority including religious stuff.



@Vt If you read on that was not my point, but it was part of a larger debate. I'm not going to go on another debate tangent.
I explained later on that when you combine Atheisim (there is no god) and Nihilism (nothing matters) it is a recipe for depression and often violence against one's self and those around them.

[Sabby]

Once again, could you provide sources for book burnings in the name of Atheism. What you've described is book burnings in the name of Communism. Communists are Atheists, but unless they undertook these actions in the name of doubting a God, then they were motivated by their Communist ideals, which is far more then Godlessness.

[Ironwolf85]

Once again, could you provide sources for book burnings in the name of Atheism. What you've described is book burnings in the name of Communism. Communists are Atheists, but unless they undertook these actions in the name of doubting a God, then they were motivated by their Communist ideals, which is far more then Godlessness.

That's why I also included the French revolution.

But if we're splitting hairs what about all the athiests imprisoned in the middle east for "Causing unrest" or some other ideological reason linked to religion?
By that logic you can't blame Islamic extremists for their imprisonment and must instead blame the government itself.
Then we get into the "No true Scotsman" scenario

[Sabby]

I missed the French Revolution part. I'm not sure how that counts as killing and burning in the name of Atheism either. It seems to me like you're just listing examples of Religious groups being taken down, which isn't the same thing as showing me organized violence by Atheists. The French Revolution was an uprising against the leadership of the time, not a bunch of the Godless taking down the Godly for being Godly.

This isn't splitting hairs, man, you're just not providing what I asked for.

If you're really wanting to show me examples of Atheists persecuting anyone, bringing up the Middle East is not the way to do it. Atheists are persecuted pretty harshly in Muslim countries. Most of the prisoners your referring to are most likely behind bars simply for being Atheists.

[Ironwolf85]

I missed the French Revolution part. I'm not sure how that counts as killing and burning in the name of Atheism either. It seems to me like you're just listing examples of Religious groups being taken down, which isn't the same thing as showing me organized violence by Atheists. The French Revolution was an uprising against the leadership of the time, not a bunch of the Godless taking down the Godly for being Godly.

This isn't splitting hairs, man, you're just not providing what I asked for.

If you're really wanting to show me examples of Atheists persecuting anyone, bringing up the Middle East is not the way to do it. Atheists are persecuted pretty harshly in Muslim countries. Most of the prisoners your referring to are most likely behind bars simply for being Atheists.

And we're back to no true Scotsman.
If a group is avowedly atheist and torches Christian libraries or burns Buddhist monks alive, in the name of their own idology, destroying religion in an area. Does it matter what flag they carry?
If a secular government carries out a campaign of organized brutality to destroy a religion it sees as "Harmful" in the name of "enlightening the peasants" as the USSR did in Mongolia. (destroyed the last remnants of the Arian branch of Christianity which pre-dated the roman church)
Or as Mao did in china (murdering Buddhist monks to destroy their knowledge, dragging their bodies through mud slicked streets and beating the corpses with sticks in the name of destroying religion.)

If I give you a pass on this you have to give me a pass on the crusades which were far more about individual ambition, and the brutal Spanish inquisition which answered only to the king of spain and not the roman church.

[consortium11]

I think one can reasonably call the French Revolution anti-Christian... a large part of the new government's policies (when they took a break from conspiring against each other) was related to dechristianisation; the destruction of churches, the confiscation of Church property, the removal of crosses (including from graveyards) and bells, the legal destruction of all monastic orders (quickly followed by the physical destruction) and a general persecution of priests and other religious figures including a number of massacres and mass executions as well as more "minor" actions (the nuns of Hôtel-Dieu de Paris were subjected to public spankings for example). One of the reasons behind the Revolutionary calender and it's removal of Sundays (instead having three 10 day weeks in a month) was to make it harder for people to go to Church or have mass.

But anti-religion in general?

Whether Jacques Hébert's "Cult of Reason" constitutes a religion or not is a well balanced question and arguably one of the few cases where it may be appropriate to present atheism as a religion but after Hébert was executed (an occupational hazard for revolutionaries in France) Robespierre's "Cult of the Supreme Being" certainly counted as one... it included God, an immortal human soul and was intended to be the state religion of France.

I don't think one can reasonably argue that the Revolution was anti-religion in general when it's most powerful and notable figure put in place a religion of his own.

[Sabby]

No, this isn't No True Scotsman. I don't think you understand what that means, as you're not using it right. I never said 'a real Atheist would never do that', I said that some of the people involved being Atheists is irrelevant. If anything, your making a false equivocation fallacy. The examples you've given me are not of Atheists rising up against and terrorizing Theists. As Consortium explains, it's of people angry at their ruling body, who are Theistic, not of Atheists seeking out and tearing down a Theistic group simply for being Theistic. The reasoning is what is important here.

[Mathim]

In other words, it's systemically easier to be a bigot if you live in a nonsecular society.

Inasmuch as it's easier to get away with not requiring a rational justification for anything, yes. You're not going to see many people be tried for witchcraft (let alone convicted) when people demand hard evidence for everything.

[Ironwolf85]

Inasmuch as it's easier to get away with not requiring a rational justification for anything, yes. You're not going to see many people be tried for witchcraft (let alone convicted) when people demand hard evidence for everything.

Interesting fact: The Hammer of Witches used to test and kill so many was banned by the papacy, the pope of the time even published a paper calling bullshit on it's testing methods, yet became a best seller anyway....

@Sabby nothing exists in a vacuum not even persecution. Likewise you could blame fear of the black death, and the failure of both civic and religious authorities to stop it. For the rise of the Flaglent movement which rabidly persecuted and tortured Jews in Germany driving many into Poland. It's much easier to just say "Oh just Christians attacking jews cuz they are like that." than complicated minutia that drove the events forward.

[Mathim]

Interesting fact: The Hammer of Witches used to test and kill so many was banned by the papacy, the pope of the time even published a paper calling bullshit on it's testing methods, yet became a best seller anyway....

@Sabby nothing exists in a vacuum not even persecution. Likewise you could blame fear of the black death, and the failure of both civic and religious authorities to stop it. For the rise of the Flaglent movement which rabidly persecuted and tortured Jews in Germany driving many into Poland. It's much easier to just say "Oh just Christians attacking jews cuz they are like that." than complicated minutia that drove the events forward.

So in other words, too little, too late, huh? Amazing.

[Ironwolf85]

So in other words, too little, too late, huh? Amazing.

Yeah, sadly that happens a lot in history.

The guy who wrote The Hammer of Witches was a sadistic lecher, the catholic church didn't take his bullshit book seriously. Till peasants started using it to burn people that is.
The pope initially dismissed the book when the writer came to him for papal backing, then lesser bishops rejected it as "terrifying, inaccurate, and full of pagan superstitions used to detect witches". Some Bishiop in northern France signed a copy, then demanded his signature be taken off it when he actually read the thing.
Before Borgia official catholic doctrine proclaimed witches did not exist. Fanatics often overlooked that fact, and in more than one case were brought up on charges of heresy for holding witch trials.

[Cryptic Anomaly]

It's already been said but it really just depends on the individual Atheist, some are fine and just like some religious/spiritual people never talk about their opinions on the topic at all and then you have some who are just as zealous as some religious people are and hold all the same narrow minded beliefs about people who have different beliefs to themselves.

On a side note just as there is not way of proving if God exists, there is also no proving God doesn't exist either, something which Atheists don't always think about. 

[Sethala]

On a side note just as there is not way of proving if God exists, there is also no proving God doesn't exist either, something which Atheists don't always think about.

Can we please stop shifting the burden of proof?  Atheists don't need to prove anything, theists do.  If you don't understand why that is, feel free to read my post on the null hypothesis.  And of course, feel free to point out any holes there might be in my argument.

[Sabby]

On a side note just as there is not way of proving if God exists, there is also no proving God doesn't exist either, something which Atheists don't always think about.

We don't think of that line of reasoning for the same reason we don't think of the "Nah uh!" line of reasoning.

[Hemingway]

On a side note just as there is not way of proving if God exists, there is also no proving God doesn't exist either, something which Atheists don't always think about.

The problem with that is that the possibility of something being true alone isn't very useful. If you're not familiar with it, you should look up the analogy of Russell's teapot.

[Mathim]

It's the stupidest, most childish argument out there. It's not even an argument, or a defense, really, just a statement so obvious that it needn't be said but when you run out of things to say, it's a pitiful last refuge. People should be embarrassed to be caught using that in any kind of defense of faith or other unsubstantiated claims. You can apply that faulty logic to anything out there, hence the birth of the flying spaghetti monster. If anything it just harms the argument because it raises the number of things the whole argument applies to and creates conflict between not just theists and unbelievers, but the different theists who claim theirs is the one true god, or whatever the case may be. Arguing that something can't be disproved just opens a can of worms they'd have been better off leaving unmolested.

[Cryptic Anomaly]

Can we please stop shifting the burden of proof?  Atheists don't need to prove anything, theists do.  If you don't understand why that is, feel free to read my post on the null hypothesis.  And of course, feel free to point out any holes there might be in my argument.

Sounds like Bullshit to me and rather immature, not to mention that you have stacked the whole thing to suit your argument.

We don't think of that line of reasoning for the same reason we don't think of the "Nah uh!" line of reasoning.

The problem with that is that the possibility of something being true alone isn't very useful. If you're not familiar with it, you should look up the analogy of Russell's teapot.

And yet your reasoning to me is just that -  "Nah uh".  I guess you aren't as perfect as you think you are.

It's the stupidest, most childish argument out there. It's not even an argument, or a defense, really, just a statement so obvious that it needn't be said but when you run out of things to say, it's a pitiful last refuge. People should be embarrassed to be caught using that in any kind of defense of faith or other unsubstantiated claims. You can apply that faulty logic to anything out there, hence the birth of the flying spaghetti monster. If anything it just harms the argument because it raises the number of things the whole argument applies to and creates conflict between not just theists and unbelievers, but the different theists who claim theirs is the one true god, or whatever the case may be. Arguing that something can't be disproved just opens a can of worms they'd have been better off leaving unmolested.

And yet it is the argument that Atheists use all the time.

Anyway, thank you for proving my point, some Atheists are indeed just as zealous and aggressively defensive about their beliefs as some religious people are.

I was just attempting to be open minded about the whole topic but I guess that is not wanted here.

[TaintedAndDelish]

Cryptic,

Have a look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Russell's teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims rather than shifting the burden of proof to others, specifically in the case of religion. Russell wrote that if he claims that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, it is nonsensical for him to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they cannot prove him wrong. Russell's teapot is still referred to in discussions concerning the existence of God.


The point is, if you are going to state that something is true, you need to be able to back up what you are saying, otherwise your statement lacks merit. ( Just like Russell's claim about some tea pot floating out in space )

Stating that something is true, not backing it up, and then defending it with "Oh well, you can't prove it's not true" is what gets people all pissy around here. Its not a very productive way to make your point.

[Cryptic Anomaly]

Cryptic,

Have a look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Russell's teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims rather than shifting the burden of proof to others, specifically in the case of religion. Russell wrote that if he claims that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, it is nonsensical for him to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they cannot prove him wrong. Russell's teapot is still referred to in discussions concerning the existence of God.


The point is, if you are going to state that something is true, you need to be able to back up what you are saying, otherwise your statement lacks merit. ( Just like Russell's claim about some tea pot floating out in space )

Stating that something is true, not backing it up, and then defending it with "Oh well, you can't prove it's not true" is what gets people all pissy around here. Its not a very productive way to make your point.

What gets me pissy to use your term, is it seems to be one sided, prove that God doesn't exist. Seriously, you cannot prove that there is no God anymore than you can prove there is one. It seems to me that Atheists like to claim "Burden of Proof" to suit themselves and yet ignore it when it is presented to them.

Scientific rules and thinking really don't apply here as it is a question of "Faith" whether you believe there is a God or you believe there isn't it requires Faith either way.

And really this is not what the thread is about anyway, I just mentioned it as a side note expecting a little more maturity but I seemed to have struck a nerve from Atheists who like to challenge but do not like to be challenged in return.

And I didn't state anything was true either by the way, that was just something people jumped on because they chose to be offended by my comment.

[TaintedAndDelish]

What is faith?

[Cryptic Anomaly]

What is faith?

I am clearly speaking to someone who just likes to argue rather than discuss. Goodbye.

[Sabby]

He asked you a valid question, and you're deflecting it, as you have everyone elses attempts to engage you. You're free to refuse that engagement, but don't do so while also proclaiming yourself the only one willing to have the discussion you've refused. It's incredibly childish.

[Blythe]

Time for a break. This thread will be locked for 24 hours.

Unlocked.

[Cryptic Anomaly]

He asked you a valid question, and you're deflecting it, as you have everyone elses attempts to engage you. You're free to refuse that engagement, but don't do so while also proclaiming yourself the only one willing to have the discussion you've refused. It's incredibly childish.

I was in the process of responding to this when the thread was locked.

Valid question? - No, he did not ask a valid question he was being a wise ass and therefore deserves to be ignored.

Deflecting? - This is why I am walking away, for some reason you can't see that you all have been deflecting my comment (It can't be proven that God does not exist, anymore than it can be proven that God does exist) basically because you can't answer it and that makes you all feel rather unhappy with yourselves. So you attack, you vilify, you condescend and use as much pseudo intellectual bullshit as you can all think of to try and make someone who made a simple comment feel intimidated. Well you failed and made yourselves look like absolute prats.

Childish? - Again we have very ideas of what that means. In short I could see that this discussion was going nowhere fast, the comments and attitude were becoming increasingly hostile and hypocritical, all of you were applying a set of rules against me that you yourselves were not willing to follow. Rather than put up with that, I walked away and will still walk away. If you consider this childish then so be it.

I like to converse with people about all manner of topics and I am ok if people disagree with me but I am not ok with being spoken down to or being disrespected, I feel that you lot are not ok with people who have different opinions and I am definite in my belief that you guys are also not ok with people posing questions that you cannot come up with answers to.

The odd thing is

a/ I didn't care if no one answered.

b/ I would have been totally ok if people had of just put forward their opinions on the matter.

Anyway, I think the amount of religious/atheist threads that get closed down here more than supports what I have just said.

Have fun getting threads locked and Goodbye, this board is not for me.

[Beguile's Mistress]

A quote from a book I'm reading:

"Good things happen.  Evil things happen and in neither physics nor religion is there an explanation."

I'm not expressing an opinion here, merely repeating something interesting I read.

[consortium11]

A quote from a book I'm reading:

"Good things happen.  Evil things happen and in neither physics nor religion is there an explanation."

I'm not expressing an opinion here, merely repeating something interesting I read.

At the risk of derailing the thread and taking us back into territory covered by the last religion thread here, physics may be able to offer an explanation (through determinism) but at the consequence of a complete loss of the very concept of free will.

Religion offers multiple explanations depending on which religion and even which sect of a religion one follows. Whether any of them are convincing is a different matter entirely.

[Mathim]

A quote from a book I'm reading:

"Good things happen.  Evil things happen and in neither physics nor religion is there an explanation."

I'm not expressing an opinion here, merely repeating something interesting I read.

The problem with that is, a lot of people expect an answer to that problem from religion, the lack of which causes many to turn away from their faith (that certainly helped me make my decision about it). Secular ethics doesn't really have the same conception of good and evil as religious ethics so phrasing it in that way is also misleading.

[TaintedAndDelish]

I was in the process of responding to this when the thread was locked.

Valid question? - No, he did not ask a valid question he was being a wise ass and therefore deserves to be ignored.

Deflecting? - This is why I am walking away, for some reason you can't see that you all have been deflecting my comment (It can't be proven that God does not exist, anymore than it can be proven that God does exist) basically because you can't answer it and that makes you all feel rather unhappy with yourselves. So you attack, you vilify, you condescend and use as much pseudo intellectual bullshit as you can all think of to try and make someone who made a simple comment feel intimidated. Well you failed and made yourselves look like absolute prats.

Childish? - Again we have very ideas of what that means. In short I could see that this discussion was going nowhere fast, the comments and attitude were becoming increasingly hostile and hypocritical, all of you were applying a set of rules against me that you yourselves were not willing to follow. Rather than put up with that, I walked away and will still walk away. If you consider this childish then so be it.

I like to converse with people about all manner of topics and I am ok if people disagree with me but I am not ok with being spoken down to or being disrespected, I feel that you lot are not ok with people who have different opinions and I am definite in my belief that you guys are also not ok with people posing questions that you cannot come up with answers to.

The odd thing is

a/ I didn't care if no one answered.

b/ I would have been totally ok if people had of just put forward their opinions on the matter.

Anyway, I think the amount of religious/atheist threads that get closed down here more than supports what I have just said.

Have fun getting threads locked and Goodbye, this board is not for me.

I asked what "faith" was, since you said it was a matter of faith.  I was not being a "smart ass", I just wanted to bring a definition for "faith" into the discussion.

I explained very clearly the point about Russel's teapot and even summarized it in one or two lines. You got pissed and made two angry comments about this and the faith question.

Try to understand, the threads in the section are for "DEBATING" topics. In order to debate productively, we need to be able to ask questions and challenge ideas and beliefs. Look at the stickies at the top of this section.

[Sethala]

Sounds like Bullshit to me and rather immature, not to mention that you have stacked the whole thing to suit your argument.

I'm going to go against my better judgment and hope that you came here for some form of reasonable discussion.  If you are, then I'm perfectly willing to debate with you on why there is a null hypothesis and why I believe it to be correct.  If you have no interest in forming arguments beyond "that sounds like bullshit" however, then please, don't bother.

[BeeJay]

I haven't been involved in a few days, but I want to make it mnown that I don't want any flaming to go on. I'm not pointing fingers. I will lock the thread myself if it does happen. I can't respond to anything now because I'm at work, so I'll post when I get off.

[Cryptic Anomaly]

I'm going to go against my better judgment and hope that you came here for some form of reasonable discussion.  If you are, then I'm perfectly willing to debate with you on why there is a null hypothesis and why I believe it to be correct.  If you have no interest in forming arguments beyond "that sounds like bullshit" however, then please, don't bother.

As I mentioned above, don't bother, I was very interested in having a discussion but people don't seem capable of that and I won't subject myself to their abuse, so yes "Sounds like bullshit" is all they are entitled to.

And stop the flaming already, what more do you want? I said "Goodbye" I stated my reasons, the board is yours to lock down threads as you wish and abuse people as you wish. I won't stand in your way.

This has really made me question this site to be honest.

[Cryptic Anomaly]

I even tried deleting my posts to avoid further conflict from the people who can't handle a difference of opinion and the mods came down on me for that.

I will say it again, GOODBYE, A REASONABLE DISCUSSION CANNOT BE HAD WITH YOU GUYS.

The more passive I try and be the more aggressive you guys get, what do you want?

If you want to take part in these discussions learn to accept that some people will not think or feel the same as you do.

Again - Goodbye and please refrain from addressing me again.

[Sabby]

This is, what, the third time you've proclaimed complete innocence, accused everyone else of being bullies and then dusted your hands of the conversation? Sorry, you don't get to act like a child and then demand to be treated like a reasonable adult.

[Blythe]

Let's get this thread back on track with civil discussion, please.

I saw mention of the null hypothesis in the thread? Could someone link me to a source with an example + explanation of the null hypothesis, something that is approachable for someone that's not read about it before and is a little new to it? I'd be grateful; I'm actually surprised I have not read about the null hypothesis before.  :-)

[consortium11]

Let's get this thread back on track with civil discussion, please.

I saw mention of the null hypothesis in the thread? Could someone link me to a source with an example + explanation of the null hypothesis, something that is approachable for someone that's not read about it before and is a little new to it? I'd be grateful; I'm actually surprised I have not read about the null hypothesis before.  :-)

The wiki article is a decent overview although it dives into some somewhat technical statistics.

In essence the null hypothesis is something that someone is trying to disprove; it's a negative rather than positive approach where someone succeeds by proving something is wrong as opposed to proving that something is right. As a general rule it's set up opposite of what is known as the "alternative hypothesis", which is what someone is trying to prove.

The approach taken when conducting a study is normally this; I have an opinion or theory that I want to prove, for example that the reason I keep losing socks is that a cat sneaks into my room and takes them. I set up a high-tech cat detection system and record the data, seeing if a cat sneaking in corresponds with the rate of sock loss. But, whatever information I record and whatever it seems to indicate, it may be simple chance that I keep losing socks whenever the cat sneaks in. I have to prove that this isn't the case and thus I set up a null hypothesis;

Null hypothesis: the loss of my socks is nothing to do with a cat sneaking in and taking them.

Alternative hypothesis: the loss of my socks is due to the cat sneaking in and taking them.

I can support and prove the alternative hypothesis once I have disproven the null hypothesis... once I have shown that there is some relation between the cat sneaking in and taking socks and my socks disappearing.

[Blythe]

That cat example was absolutely perfect and what I was looking for, Consortium, thank you! I'd looked at the Wikipedia article, but I got a little lost in the technical statistics bits.

[Sethala]

As I mentioned above, don't bother, I was very interested in having a discussion but people don't seem capable of that and I won't subject myself to their abuse, so yes "Sounds like bullshit" is all they are entitled to.

And stop the flaming already, what more do you want? I said "Goodbye" I stated my reasons, the board is yours to lock down threads as you wish and abuse people as you wish. I won't stand in your way.

This has really made me question this site to be honest.

You say you're here to have "a discussion", yet your first post repeats a common fallacy that has already been pointed out as a fallacy, and when called on it, your second post is to simply reply "Sounds like bullshit"?  I admit my first reply to you may have been more exasperated than I'd like, and a flippant response from you may have been reserved, but to then go back and say this, it makes me doubt how much of a "discussion" you really want.

That being said, if you'd like to take this to a one-on-one discussion in the dialogs forum, I'd be happy to oblige.  If you don't want a discussion, that's fine.  But don't try to claim that you want a discussion and then deflect any attempt to do just that.

[Ironwolf85]

I even tried deleting my posts to avoid further conflict from the people who can't handle a difference of opinion and the mods came down on me for that.

I will say it again, GOODBYE, A REASONABLE DISCUSSION CANNOT BE HAD WITH YOU GUYS.

The more passive I try and be the more aggressive you guys get, what do you want?

If you want to take part in these discussions learn to accept that some people will not think or feel the same as you do.

Again - Goodbye and please refrain from addressing me again.

*gibs slap*
that's how you start flame wars my friend.
*the robot drags him off into a dark room with an electro paddle*  O:)

In all seriousness some of these guys are stubborn and opinionated, but they aren't bad people, they didn't harass you, and it's the internet so what else did you expect?
Dial back the forum rage and take a breather my friend.

[Avis habilis]

If anyone has a problem with what another member has posted, use the report link, don't take it upon yourself to chastise them here. Let's stick to discussing the subject at hand in the thread.

Also "Gibbs", I think, but that's neither here nor there.

[Ironwolf85]

If anyone has a problem with what another member has posted, use the report link, don't take it upon yourself to chastise them here. Let's stick to discussing the subject at hand in the thread.

Also "Gibbs", I think, but that's neither here nor there.

Okay ^w^

[Mathim]

I had resisted speaking up about my opinion on it, guess I missed my opportunity to chime in. What-evah.

Regardless of my feelings on the whole matter, I don't actually get many opportunities to really converse, even in the short-term, with serious believers. I'd like to know what their reactions would be to me challenging them now that I've armed myself with bookloads of knowledge that compile evidence to the contrary. It's rather hard to gauge a person's reaction online since anonymity allows them to say things they wouldn't in person and whatnot. I think the worst part of arguing the point is for passive or liberal believers who don't see any harm being done in the way they practice their own beliefs. Even in all my research, it's kind of hard to really get the point across that it's still worse than having no belief at all.

[BeeJay]

I had resisted speaking up about my opinion on it, guess I missed my opportunity to chime in. What-evah.

Regardless of my feelings on the whole matter, I don't actually get many opportunities to really converse, even in the short-term, with serious believers. I'd like to know what their reactions would be to me challenging them now that I've armed myself with bookloads of knowledge that compile evidence to the contrary. It's rather hard to gauge a person's reaction online since anonymity allows them to say things they wouldn't in person and whatnot. I think the worst part of arguing the point is for passive or liberal believers who don't see any harm being done in the way they practice their own beliefs. Even in all my research, it's kind of hard to really get the point across that it's still worse than having no belief at all.

You can catch some of the banter you are looking for by checking out https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAtheistExperience. It's a live call in show where people are encouraged to say what they believe and why. It's pretty good, although some of the hosts are of the "Ridiculous claims deserve ridicule" camp, though they usually tamp that down quite a bit. They have some really great theist callers interspersed between the atheist and prank callers.

EDIT: Didn't mean to post an empty video.

[Beguile's Mistress]

I get to spend time with atheists in one of my volunteer situations and seldom find the need to defend believing but then we find many other things to discuss and debate simply because believing or not believing is only one aspect of each of us.  We all find the dogmatic atheist as repulsive as the dogmatic believer more often than not.  They are like a one-note song lacking any ability to harmonize.

[Mathim]

You can catch some of the banter you are looking for by checking out https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAtheistExperience. It's a live call in show where people are encouraged to say what they believe and why. It's pretty good, although some of the hosts are of the "Ridiculous claims deserve ridicule" camp, though they usually tamp that down quite a bit. They have some really great theist callers interspersed between the atheist and prank callers.

See, that's the thing: That's exactly my attitude about it but atheists are encouraged to be respectful of it only because they're the minority, and meanwhile there are little if any serious objections to people telling atheists they're evil and going to burn for eternity or be murdered for their blasphemy. We may look at lunatics like Fred Phelps and such with disgust but nobody ever goes right up to them and tells them to shut the fuck up and drop dead on behalf of intelligent and mentally healthy intellectual unbelievers. Seriously, if a person can't see things from what I call the 'outside looking in' then there's no point in arguing. If people are unwilling to look at faith and religion objectively and acknowledge that, to anyone not sharing that unfounded belief, it really is essentially and inescapably all of those negative things that get ascribed to it. It's a completely unfair and unbalanced argument and the only things that have allowed our species to advance to this level, reason and science, are being treated as if they're the biggest detriments to humanity. How can an atheist not feel their sanity threatened on a daily basis living in this kind of society, or just on this planet in general?

[Oniya]

Actually, the major reason that people don't go up to lunatics like the Phelps clan and tell them to shut the fuck up is because that's exactly the kind of attention that they want.  They want you to get angry with them, lose your cool, and maybe even throw a punch.  Then their crew of blood-related lawyers soak you on assault charges.

[Beguile's Mistress]

They bait you and when you physically attack them they become the martyrs and use you actions to prove the right of their opinions.

[Mathim]

That's not what I meant. It's hard to describe in words but it's like, I could probably find more common ground and less to argue about if tamer theists actually came to the defense of atheists in protest against these radical pricks. When stuff like that doesn't happen, all it does is make it look like even the liberals and moderates are against us too, which lends doubt to the idea of being liberal or moderate. It's like, "Well, we don't believe in quite what they believe, but we're still more like them than like the unbelievers." That makes it hard to separate my opinion of liberals from that of fundamentalists. When you believe in the same (but not all of) things that they do and for the same reasons, expecting me to respect you more than them, or fear you less than them, is just asking too much.

[BeeJay]

I don't think being polite and respectful is a bad thing for atheism. I think we get to more borderline believers that way, and that's who we should be helping anyway. They are the ones that will help the US drag the religious kicking and screaming into reasoning society when they turn over in great enough numbers.

[Iniquitous]

I don't think being polite and respectful is a bad thing for atheism. I think we get to more borderline believers that way, and that's who we should be helping anyway. They are the ones that will help the US drag the religious kicking and screaming into reasoning society when they turn over in great enough numbers.

I have stayed out of this till now.. but that boldes statement? It pisses me off. What right do you have to tell me I have to believe as you? I am one of those that doesnt give a shit what others believe. Aint my business. And it isnt any of your business what I believe. So to make such a blatantly rude statement shows just how disrespectful you are to those that believe different than you.

[Yukina]

I have stayed out of this till now.. but that boldes statement? It pisses me off. What right do you have to tell me I have to believe as you? I am one of those that doesnt give a shit what others believe. Aint my business. And it isnt any of your business what I believe. So to make such a blatantly rude statement shows just how disrespectful you are to those that believe different than you.

I second your emotions, IO. I may be an atheist, but I find that quote horribly intolerant of others.

[BeeJay]

I have stayed out of this till now.. but that boldes statement? It pisses me off. What right do you have to tell me I have to believe as you? I am one of those that doesnt give a shit what others believe. Aint my business. And it isnt any of your business what I believe. So to make such a blatantly rude statement shows just how disrespectful you are to those that believe different than you.

I second your emotions, IO. I may be an atheist, but I find that quote horribly intolerant of others.

Obviously my statement wasn't directed at either of you. However, I feel the need to defend it anyway. Belief in religion is a force for evil in the world, and it is the obligation of a citizen of a society to further progress toward bettering said society. I am only doing my civic duty by standing up to religion and helping people see reason. How is my statement rude in the slightest? What's rude is only helping people in Haiti if those people convert to Catholicism. What's rude is bombarding a sick or dying unbeliever with offers of salvation while they lay in pain on their hospital bed. What's rude is saying that someone should burn in Hell for disbelieving in a god. From beyond rude, from evil comes stoning apostates in the street and mutilating the genitals of infants. I'm sorry you find my flippant statement about showing borderline believers that their celestial dictator was made up to scare them into submission rude. These examples are extreme, sure, but they aren't even rare. These are acts that stem directly from religion, and from nowhere else. Human's without religion can do horrible things, but religion consistently gives them real incentive to do so, and gives them a creative guide on how to do it. Even if religion wasn't evil, believe is completely unfounded. People should believe as many true things and as few false things as possible. Belief in religion gums up the machinery of society by rejecting science and reason in favor of blind obedience to an imaginary friend. Compare the bolded statement to that of an evangelizing Christian in a mega church. Nothing is different, except that I have reality on my side.

[BeeJay]

And I have respect for believers, I just think that they need to get right with reality. Nothing I said was insulting until my response post. Of course, that is only offensive because the imagery that is invoked is unpleasant. The acts are the real insult.

[Oniya]

Nothing is different, except that I have reality on my side.

And I have respect for believers, I just think that they need to get right with reality.

And this is supposed to give me a favorable impression of atheism?

[Iniquitous]

And again. You insult believers. Ever think that attitude is why you get no respect? It certainly is the reason I have lost respect for you.

[Yukina]

I will be stepping out of this conversation for now. I don't feel like stressing myself out arguing with one that hypocritically bashes and generalizes a group of people in the manner of the fundamentalists he so dislikes.

[BeeJay]

Sorry for the emotional response. I'm just frustrated at the double standard in discussions like this. The religious are made to seem so reasonable because the nasty atheists want to challenge their beliefs. My rant was a bit of lashing out, but nothing I said is wrong. I didn't generalize at all. I gave examples of things that religion has done. Every religious person isn't directly responsible for those abominations, but they provide perfect cover for those that are. Why don't more religious people call out the Catholic Church for the criminal organization it is? Why do some religious voting blocks almost unilaterally support the banning of stem cell research? These are the points I tried to make. I admit I got a little emotional, but my points stand. Claiming that my statements are rude is petty in comparison to the things my statement stand against. That's the meat of my defense of the bolded statement.

And I would like to clarify that I didn't insult anyone. I simply stated that the beliefs of the religious are out of sync with reality. Whether my statement is true or not, this isn't an insult at all, but an argument. And this is the place for argument.

[Iniquitous]

I'll address this one thing first. You do not get to tell me whether I can feel insulted by your "emotional lashing out" or not. I take offense at your claim that I, because I have a belief system, do not reside in reality. YOU made the statement, I am allowed to have my emotional reaction to it.

Second, yes. A lot of harm has been done in the name of religion. But guess what. So has a hell of a lot of good. Universities, charities, homeless shelters, hospitals, free clinics, food banks. In your overwhelming hatred of religion you choose to ignore the good that comes from religion - and that makes you look ignorant.

Third - what the hell do you care what anyone else believes? Why does it matter to you that someone else holds a religious belief? The fact that you think you are superior and smarter because you have decided that there is nothing out there? The fact that they do not share your belief? What is the thorn in your side about others having their own brain to make their own choice? It's called free will - we all choose what works best for us. You do not get to tell every single person on this planet what to believe. No one does. To each his or her own. It's that damn simple.

[BeeJay]

I'll address this one thing first. You do not get to tell me whether I can feel insulted by your "emotional lashing out" or not. I take offense at your claim that I, because I have a belief system, do not reside in reality. YOU made the statement, I am allowed to have my emotional reaction to it.

Second, yes. A lot of harm has been done in the name of religion. But guess what. So has a hell of a lot of good. Universities, charities, homeless shelters, hospitals, free clinics, food banks. In your overwhelming hatred of religion you choose to ignore the good that comes from religion - and that makes you look ignorant.

Third - what the hell do you care what anyone else believes? Why does it matter to you that someone else holds a religious belief? The fact that you think you are superior and smarter because you have decided that there is nothing out there? The fact that they do not share your belief? What is the thorn in your side about others having their own brain to make their own choice? It's called free will - we all choose what works best for us. You do not get to tell every single person on this planet what to believe. No one does. To each his or her own. It's that damn simple.

You're allowed to be offended by me saying anything. You're allowed to be offended by being called and upstanding citizen, for all I care. What you're not allowed to do is use you offense as an argument. Just getting that out of the way, because it makes this entire portion of the discussion moot. I'll address your points anyway.

I haven't ignored the people that have done good, and the religion that influenced them to do so. Not mentioning something isn't ruling it out. The difference is that people are capable of the same charity without believing in harmful dogma that is the single cause of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Making assumptions about my character and calling me ignorant is a bit brash, don't you think?

I'd like to ask you not to put words in my mouth, please. I never said anyone was stupider than me for believing differently. Intelligent people are allowed to come to the wrong conclusion. Intelligent people can be indoctrinated into not seeking answers. My statement that you are so adamantly peeved at made no attempt to stifle anyone's free will. That claim is just fatuous. You are trying to shame me out of trying to convince believers not to believe and imposing your will of 'live and let live' on me. Instead of living and letting live, I'd rather make something of human society. The status quo is rarely a healthy place to be for long. Progress of humanity is important to me. Sorry if that offends you, truly I am, but I'm not going to pipe down when I think I can do good for humanity.

[Iniquitous]

You're allowed to be offended by me saying anything. You're allowed to be offended by being called and upstanding citizen, for all I care. What you're not allowed to do is use you offense as an argument. Just getting that out of the way, because it makes this entire portion of the discussion moot. I'll address your points anyway.

I haven't ignored the people that have done good, and the religion that influenced them to do so. Not mentioning something isn't ruling it out. The difference is that people are capable of the same charity without believing in harmful dogma that is the single cause of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Making assumptions about my character and calling me ignorant is a bit brash, don't you think?

I'd like to ask you not to put words in my mouth, please. I never said anyone was stupider than me for believing differently. Intelligent people are allowed to come to the wrong conclusion. Intelligent people can be indoctrinated into not seeking answers. My statement that you are so adamantly peeved at made no attempt to stifle anyone's free will. That claim is just fatuous. You are trying to shame me out of trying to convince believers not to believe and imposing your will of 'live and let live' on me. Instead of living and letting live, I'd rather make something of human society. The status quo is rarely a healthy place to be for long. Progress of humanity is important to me. Sorry if that offends you, truly I am, but I'm not going to pipe down when I think I can do good for humanity.

Let me call a liar a liar here. You do not believe in live and let live simply because you want to change those around you. THAT is not live and let live. Let me define what it means to live and let live for you since you obviously have it confused. It means you don't give a shit what anyone else believes or does. You don't give a shit how they live their lives because, and I will say this again, it is none of your damn business what they do, what they believe, how they do things, why they do things, who they do things with. The moment you stop trying to force your belief on everyone around you then you can claim you live and let live.

Just because you believe you are right does not MAKE you right. You'll never convince me you are right. Matter of fact, at this point and time, I'd be more likely to laugh in your face, call you an ignorant idiot and ridicule you simply because you are a blatant hypocrite and I have absolutely no respect or like for you. You are rude, you lie and you try to cover your lies with your bullshit instead of stepping back and looking at your own words. Maybe when you grow up and actually learn what it means to truly respect the beliefs of others I'll decide you are worth my time.

Till then, I'll put you in the same box I put the frothing at the mouth Christians. The one labeled "Hypocrite".

[HairyHeretic]

Things are getting a tad heated in here. What say we all step away from the keyboard for a little while before posting anything else, hmm?

[BeeJay]

I never said I ascribe to live and let live. I said the opposite in fact. I do want to change the world, because I care about it. You don't get to decide what is my business. We're done here. I don't want this thread to close. Feel free to respond, but I won't be reading it.

[Beguile's Mistress]

Any of us who care about the world want to change it but those of us who also care about the people in the world know that we need to allow them the freedom to be themselves.  Believe or not.  The choice is yours.  Yet, no matter what we choose none of us has the right to force anything on another.  Live your life the best you can and leave everyone else alone.  Don't presume you have the right or status to judge others.  Also, remember that before you can attempt to fix the world you need to fix yourself.  For those of us who are less than perfect, and I have yet to meet a perfect person, that is a life-long process that should keep us busy until the end of our days.

[Blythe]

Rule #2 on Elliquiy is "be polite, be civil, and be respectful."

This thread was locked once previously. It is now being locked again. It will not be re-opened.