"Stephen E. Jones" writes
in message <200007032243.GAA24414@filk.iinet.net.au>:
<snip>
> An atheist, especially one brought up in a Christian home (as many were),
> might already be aware (as I wasn't) that some things are immoral and
> avoid doing them by virtue of his/her upbringing. But the atheist would
> have no reason *within his/her atheism*, for not being immoral.
> Any reasons he/she had for not being immoral would be found
> *outside* his/her atheism.
Of course, it is also true of theistic principles. That is, to paraphrase
Jones:
> A theist,
> might already be aware that some things are immoral and
> avoid doing them by virtue of his/her upbringing. But the theist would
> have no reason *within theism*, for not being immoral.
> Any reasons he/she had for not being immoral would be found
> *outside* theism (or only within *some* variants of theism).
That is, theism, *as such*, has no moral implications, because the God one
believes in might be a Deist God, or some other God who takes no interest
in human behavior, who neither rewards what He considers good (if anything)
nor punishes what he considers bad (if anything). And, of course, history
demonstrates that theism is not even a partial hindrance to immorality in
practice and in general.
In short, the Jones is making a false distinction here between theism and
atheism with respect to morality. Stalin was immoral, but not *because* of
his atheism, since, as has been pointed out on this list before, atheism
does not, in itself imply any positive principles.
Objective morality, in any case, is not based on God, regardless of the God
in question. Suppose there really is a God and that He really does offer
rules for us to live by. What then?
Well, we have to evaluate whether doing so is a good thing or not. To do
this, we already have to *have* a morality, of sorts, if only implicitly.
Any morality we adopt on the basis of that morality becomes an extension of
it, or application of it.
Objective morality rests on objective human *needs*, what we need to live
satisfying lives as human beings. Stalin believed that he could lie and
murder with impunity, but he probably never bothered to be self-interested
nor self-reflective enough to bother asking himself: "What kind of being am
I, and what, based on my nature, do I really need to do in order to
maximize my satisfaction in life?" The quotation that Jones supplied us
suggests that Stalin was not exactly a philosophical sophisticate, or he'd
have known that the crude conclusions he drew from reading Darwin were
driven as much by *other* ideas he already held as they were by those of
Darwin. Had he read Aristotle with the some degree of honesty, he'd have
understood that naturalism does not imply that lying and murder are
necessarily free of negative consequences.
Stalin was an example of what sometimes happens when people accept
myth-based moral systems and then one day realize that the myth *is* a
myth. With no *rational* alternative to turn to, some people naively assume
that "anything goes" is a viable alternative. This is like learning that
astrology is worthless for determining how to build a skyscraper and then
turning to the random nailing together of randomly-selected materials as if
this were the only alternative to astrologically-based "engineering"
principles.
It is worth noting that Jones apparently *agrees* with Stalin with respect
to Stalin's view of human nature and human life. This suggests that Jones'
own moral principles are only "Christianity deep." I would be very
interested to see what he would regard as being in his interests were he to
come to the conclusion that there is no God.
And, I will note that it is a *major* error to attempt to get one's
morality from outside of the requirements for satisfying human living,
because it sets up a kind of split between what one needs as a human being
(a rational moral system) and the arbitrariness of the externally-supplied
moral system -- a split that leads to conflicts and often to deep
psychological problems, which in turn can lead to seriously destructive
behavior.
Yes, if one has to get one's moral principles from something external and
one does not know why *those* particular moral principles are the ones one
is supposed to accept, they *are* arbitrary. There is little room in
morality for this kind of disconnection between mind and reality, between
how one is supposed to act and understanding *why* one is supposed to act
that way.
The Christian God offers no explanations as to *why* Christian moral rules
are good (assuming for the moment that they are). They are simply
out-of-context *edicts* handed down from on high, *without* the rationally
required explanations to justify them. The Bible is full of this crap, and
the lack of such rationally *required* justification for the rules is one
of the reasons there are nearly as many different interpretations as to
what they "really" mean as there are people doing the interpreting.
Such rules, stated without explanation and validation, become a kind of
moral "Rorschach," allowing the reader a wide range of different
interpretations according to personal taste. Thus, "Thou shalt not kill"
becomes anything from, "Thou shalt not kill *ever*, even to save your
family from a mass murderer," "Thou shalt not kill, *except* if the person
disagrees with you, is of a different race, talks funny, or is seen holding
hands with a person of the same gender." Because the rule is little more
than a string of words, without objective factual rational basis, there is
little limit on how people may see it.
Objectively, what people should do with such rules from such sources is
regard them as nothing more than what the (human) authors thought about
morality, and then go on to establish a *rational* morality, one fit for
human life. If such a morality happens to have some overlap with packages
of rules such as the Ten Commandments, that's fine, but neither the Ten
Commandments or any other sets of unexplained and unvalidated rules should
be accepted as true simply because of their (*alleged*) source.
Chris Cogan
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