Re: [asa] Francis Collins shows mild signs of dementia, NA snark

Heya all,

I have to agree with George here.

First in his distinction between atheists in the style of Dawkins, Stenger
and company, and "atheist" religions so-called because a creator God is
either not present in, or not central to their faith. I put atheist in
quotes here because I don't think the distinction is quite so cut and dry as
is typically assumed - the Tao is a force/principle, for example, rather
than a personal being. At the same time, whenever I've read up on the Tao,
I've noticed some marked similarities to some understandings of God in
Christianity - who, remember, some prominent theologians/philosophers note
is identical with His goodness, identical with truth, etc. Buddhism
similarly has some concepts of reality that has analogues with pantheism or
panentheism. Either way, these "non-theistic" faiths/worldviews do share in
common the idea that there is some kind of objective moral code and purpose
to existence that exists whether we like it or not - and I'll note that even
if none claim to be perfectly informed about either this morality or this
purpose, they would still agree that it exists out there to discover and
pursue.

Second, I think it's tremendously important to understand that "an ethical
system" isn't the concern here. Ethical systems are easy for anyone, even
nihilists, to come by - throw out some rules, insist they should be
followed, and congratulations: You now have an ethical system. The Party in
1984 had an ethical system. The Spartans had an ethical system. Esteemed
political and moral philosopher Walter Sobchak once observed, " I mean, say
what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an
ethos." A central question is whether or not there's a purpose and a moral
code that exists independently of what we subjectively believe and judge to
be right - in other words, can I truly and objectively be wrong about the
idea "There's nothing wrong with one man enslaving another man if he has the
strength and will to do it"? I think answering "no" to that question has
some important implications, certainly ones that would or should be horrific
to most Christians, and most religious believers in general. And I think
"no" is also the answer those who reject religion, or who hold to a
naturalist-materialist philosophy, must give.

So when the question is asked, "Can an atheist [stressing here a
materialist-naturalist] be a nice guy?", I'd suggest asking a similar,
perhaps very similar, question: "Can a nihilist be a nice guy?" In the
latter case, ask yourself if answering "yes" puts you at ease about
nihilism. And if not, ask yourself if answering the former question with
"yes" should put you at ease.

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 4:41 PM, George Murphy <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com> wrote:

> I qualified "atheists" with "many" in my earlier post, a qualification I
> emphasized in my reply to Bernie. I had in mind - & if I had been writing
> an essay would have said this explicitly - Buddhists in particular as
> exceptions. The atheists I was thinking of were the sogennante "New
> Atheists" like Dawkins, Stenger et al who think that one could get rid of
> all religion & any religious basis for conventional ethics & yet go happily
> on with some kind of ethic typical of the Enlightenment (if you'll pardon
> the shorthand). That is quite different (as Jack Haught has pointed out
> well) from the atheism of Marx or Freud, who realized the implications of
> their non-belief. Certainly the "New Atheists" could go on to attempt the
> construction of an ethical system from the ground up but to my knowledge
> they haven't. They often point to the evolutionary roots of ethics &
> morality but, having shown (e.g.) that evolution will favor some types of
> altruism, give no reason why we should continue to behave in that way once
> we have understood the evolutionary history.
>
> Plato & Aristotle were not atheists, though they certainly weren't as close
> to Christian theism as the Christian tradition has sometimes thought. More
> to the point, the worldview of Plato, e.g., would be rejected by Dawkins et
> al as vehemently as would Christianity or Islam. For that matter most
> versions of Buddhism would be as well: Even without a supreme God, a
> multitude of bodhisattvas hardly fit in with the thought world of the New
> Atheists.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://home.roadrunner.com/~scitheologyglm<http://home.roadrunner.com/%7Escitheologyglm>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Thomas Pearson <pearson@utpa.edu>
> *To:* ASA <asa@calvin.edu> ; Dave Wallace <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com> ; Gregory
> Arago <gregoryarago@yahoo.ca>
> *Cc:* David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, October 19, 2009 2:49 PM
> *Subject:* RE: [asa] Francis Collins shows mild signs of dementia, NA
> snark
>
> On Monday, October 19, 2009, George Murphy wrote:
>
>
>
> >>>& one weakness of the position of many atheists is that they have no
> clear basis for their ethics. Of course that doesn't mean that they can't
> be nice people but their worldview provides no reason why they should be
> nice.<<<
>
>
>
> I’ve found that this is a very difficult position to sustain. It would
> require that neither Plato nor Aristotle had a clear basis for their ethics,
> or that the Stoics, Epicureans and Neoplatonists possessed worldviews that
> provided no reason why they should be nice. That claim is simply absurd.
> There is a philosophical basis for ethics that is perfectly legitimate,
> perfectly sound and perfectly available to Christians.
>
>
>
> I suppose much of this disagreement might turn out to depend first on how
> the term “atheist” is being deployed (would that term include non-theists,
> like Buddhists or Taoists? Would it include skeptics and agnostics? Does
> it simply refer to anyone who is not a Christian?), and second on what the
> word “basis” entails (does a “basis” for ethics require a source that is a
> personal intelligence and will that promulgates a moral law?).
>
>
>
> Depending on how those questions are answered, perhaps the prior question
> might be: what is ethics? Wrestling with that question might separate the
> sheep from the goats, as it were.
>
>
>
> Tom Pearson
>
> _____________________________________
>
> _____________________________________
>
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>
> Thomas D. Pearson
>
> Department of History & Philosophy
>
> The University of Texas-Pan American
>
> Edinburg, Texas
>
> e-mail: pearson@utpa.edu
>
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Received on Mon Oct 19 18:06:22 2009