Experiments in Philosophy

Surely it's far too much of a leap to conclude that atheism causes a relativist view of morality just because more atheists hold relativist views.

It seems more likely that both positions are "caused" by the higher intelligence and greater education that also correlate with atheism.

Even though Prinz mentions in passing that the conclusions driven by the Pew Report are based on SURVEYS, and even admits to the dubious implication of this approach, he does not reject the report (as he should) but rather STILL makes his own conclusions as if the report were factual. He even takes the opportunity to dish advice for atheists that they should fear their image ["Atheists need to work at creating an infrastructure that is conducive to charity. One good thing about the Brooks book is that it may make atheists conclude that they need to do more in order to overcome the accusation of being moral monsters.]

Hmmmm....no thank you. Atheists are not responsible for the superstitions and prejudices of theists. Let the atheiophobes change THEIR attitude. Isn't understanding/tolerance a Christian virtue?

Not to mention this article has already reached an unwarranted position before the first word was penned: that 'charity' and 'unselfishness' are the highest moral qualities for humans. That presumption also requires summary rejection.

And as for the Pew study and all others that rely on what people SAY they believe or do: please remember that for 50 years researchers have proven over and over again that people lie through their teeth about religion. When actual behavior (real church attendance) was measured against surveys that show people SAY they attend church regularly, the difference (24% actual, 60% claimed) makes the case that any questionnaire about religion is useless and worse than useless.

John Donohue
Pasadena, CA

Technically, Buddhists are atheists, as they do not believe in God or a Godhead, but, rather the inherent divinity in man with which we have, in our ignorance, lost touch.

That said, the strictures and scriptures of the Buddhist canon lay out a pretty high standard for morality and codes of conduct.

With 25% of Americans claiming some affiliation with Buddhism, either as practioners or tourists, I'd say that leaves us in pretty good shape.

Blessings,
Michael

I think true morality comes from the willingness to challenge one's own impulses and prejudices. Morality doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be, pure asceticism, but it does involve a measure of adjusting one's actions so that they benefit a larger good, whether this good be absolute or utilitarian.

As an atheist, I believe that the conceptions of morality prescribed by religious traditions don't always do this. I think that right and wrong is not set in (Ten Commandment tablet) stone but must be flexible to accomodate changing circumstances and cultural developments that the writers of early religious traditions could not have considered. This might be the atheist tendency towards "relativism" that Prinz discussed in his post, but a more relativistic position on morality is exactly what I value.

But atheists need to recognize that rigidity and narrow-mindedness is by no means monopolized by religious people. Many people believe, for example, regardless of their religious tradition, that the most important goal in life is to be economically successful. As work hours drive families apart, economic wastefulness erodes the environment, and international corporate practices perpetuate social inequality, this may need to be reconsidered. I'm not arguing that economic ambition is necessarily immoral. But I think that every individual, especially one who is freed from the potentially tyrannical infrastructure of religious institutions, needs to consider what alternative infrastructures enslave them. In order to be moral, an individual must be willing to at least question, if not challenge, their own tendency toward ambition.

Accordingly, an atheist must question his tendency to reject insights from religious sources. In response to Mr. Donahue's post above, religious people's greater involvement in charity and their esteem of "unselfishness," is something to be valued and emulated by the nonreligious, especially in a society that tends toward the personal ambition I mentioned above. Too often I see atheists who completely dismiss religion because they believe it is senseless and blind. In doing this, atheists are displaying a rigidity which, as atheists, it is their responsibility to reject.

People keep posting surveys which are patently absurd (25% of Americans Buddhists) but reacting to them as if they mean something!

Well okay I guess that Buddhist daydream might mean something: Christians may have fallen out of first place in the race to be most self delusional.

Also, rather than respond to Gillian's entire post I'll just counter the last idea: "Too often I see atheists who completely dismiss religion because they believe it is senseless and blind. In doing this, atheists are displaying a rigidity which, as atheists, it is their responsibility to reject."

Hmm... does it make any difference one way or the other if religion IS senseless and blind? What if it IS senseless and blind? Would you still characterize someone as rigid for dismissing it and continue to say that they should dutifully reject their impulse to dismiss?

John Donohue

anonymous initiated discussion of elements of my websites, not me. I will respond briefly although continued debate on my content is not appropriate here. I will also not hit back in kind against his personal remarks about me.

Saying I claim "Global Warming is a Myth" is a sloppy characterization of my site on that subject, a typical bait and switch error. Sorry he/she fell into that trap. I invite any others to challenge my "Myths of Global Warming" however. But not on this page, that is not appropriate.

http://earthintime.com

As for Joseph Ellis, my characterization is mild for what he did. I'm thinking of amp-ing it up, especially since he has gotten away clean as a whistle.

Anonymous offers zero rebuttal to any of my claims on my site, yet simply declares "Your truth does not even begin to stand up to the rigor of the very standards that you set." This is anonymous begging an audience to 'go by faith' that he/she can factually refute anything I wrote. That approach holds no water.

My excoriation of Al Gore on the Kenya situation at the bottom of the movie review is my angriest statement. I stand by it. Once one knows the facts of Mr. Gore's perfidy, how could anyone justify being anything less than outrageously furious?

John Donohue
jrdonohue.com

Michael, I did not misread you, but I did re-interpret you. However, you misread YOURSELF since you

1) now claim you said "and/or, what would likely be construed as Buddhist practices, such as meditation." which is not in your original post; and
2) left out that you concluded "I'd say that leaves us in pretty good shape."

Let me try again:

If a survey reports that "25% of Americans claiming some affiliation with Buddhism, either as practioners or tourists" [i don't understand that 'tourist' thing, by the way] then that only proves one thing: That 25% of Americans claim to have some affiliation with Buddhism, either as practioners or tourists. It proves nothing about their inner life, religious practices, living by the principles of Buddhism, being moral, etc. Nothing.

But then you add "I'd say that leaves us in pretty good shape". Who is the "us"? Buddhists? The American people? I would make the case that if it were determined that 25% of the population were indeed Buddhists or highly like Buddhists, that that would 'leave us in sad shape' since I have a negative opinion about religious practice and thinking. You could then argue that with me.

But first, my question to you is: are you saying "...that leaves us in pretty good shape" is because a) you consider the survey claim DOES substantiate behavior and you are happy 25% of us are Buddhists/Buddha-like; or b) something on the order of "well, it is enough that 25% SAY they are Buddhists/Buddhist-like. That is a good thing in itself and it does not matter if they actually ARE."

John Donohue

People can give so as to be interpreted as givers or good people. People can do good things and be bad people.People can do bad things for a greater good.People can be good and turn bad via depression.People can be bad and turn good after being treated for their depression. Sincerely, David Petropoulos

In response to the article, the author forgot to do some research. Aside from Buddhism, there are other groups that encompass moral and social values (including charity) without worshipping the Flying Spaghetti Monster. There’s the Ethical Humanist Society that is just down the street from my work. According to their website “The Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago is a democratic fellowship and spiritual home for those who seek a rational, compassionate philosophy of life without regard to belief or nonbelief in a supreme being.” From what I read, they welcome all people from all different religions. I haven’t been there myself, but I’m not opposed to broadening my horizons despite being atheist. ;)

This is bull! god is the light in our rechargeable flashlight. We should be happy that there are people in our world belive in him. i think that anyone who doesn't belive in Jesus isn't worthy of his scripture. If we qall band together we can create a spiritual army that can rule the heavens and the earth. god bless you all with all trhe love and freedom of my beating heart.

Go Panthers!

Is it not very surprising that only 78% of Catholics (and about that for most theists) believe there is an objective morality out there? What could the other 22% be thinking? I must be misunderstanding traditional religion, but surely if they believe in some version of a deity they should also think that the deity would know what one ought to do.

If one is worried about the 42% of atheists being wrong about their meta-ethics, I think they should be more worried about those 22% (which as a number in the population is far greater).

Moral relativism is incoherent, but relatively benign. Moral fanatics have done thousands of times more damage than moral relativists throughout human history. The idea that people who believe that there are “absolute standards of right and wrong” act more ethically than people who don't - without evaluating those standards - is in itself a relativist position. ("As long as you have some absolute standard, whatever it is, you're good.") But many religious "ethical" beliefs are morally hideous.

Would i be right in saying the atheistic morality is the baseline for morality as they have the least amount of outside influences (such as societal and familial morality) to their morality/decisions. This will be true human morality within a given culture.

If this is the case then a deists assumption that there morality is right and everyone elses is a perversion is just plain arrogance.

I could start a list of truly horrible examples of deistic morality but that's a tired argument.

I Have Only Shot an Atheist Today.

I have done no crime.
I shall do no time.
I have only shot an atheist today.

An atheist believes not in God nor in his law.
Our country was founded on the word of God
And "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is his Sixth law.

If as the atheist says,
There is no God,
There is no law,
There is no crime.

Judge me in accordance with the beliefs
Of this lifeless and lawless atheist.
He hath no God
And he hath no law.

My punishment would only
Revere my God and my law.
In this atheist's death,
You wish to do neither.

I have done no crime.
I shall do no time.
I have only shot an atheist today.

Nathaniel Branden is a psychotherapist and writer, best known today for his work in the psychology of self-esteem, and a one-time associate of novelist Ayn Rand. Rand rejected all forms of faith or mysticism, terms that she used synonymously. She defined faith as "the acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against the evidence of one's senses and reason. "...Mysticism is the claim to some non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable, non-identifiable means of knowledge, such as 'instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or any form of 'just knowing.'" Reliance on revelation is like reliance on a Ouija board; it bypasses the need to show how it connects its results to reality. Faith, for Rand, is not a "short-cut" to knowledge, but a "short-circuit" destroying it. According to Rand, mind or consciousness possesses a specific, limited identity, just like everything else that exists; therefore, it must operate by a specific method of validation. An item of knowledge cannot be "disqualified" by being arrived at by a specific process in a particular form.[26][27]

Branden, in his essay Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice, in the book, Ayn Rand - The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism, writes about the harm religion causes to individuals. He adduces that the maintenance of his life and the achievement of self-esteem require of man the fullest exercise of his reason but he asserts that morality, men are taught, rests on and requires faith. Faith, he asserts, is the commitment of one’s consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. When a man rejects reason as his standard of judgment, only one alternative standard remains to him: his feelings. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feeling with knowledge. Neither mysticism nor the creed of self-sacrifice is compatible with mental health or self-esteem. These doctrines are destructive existentially and psychologically. Intellectual pride is not—as the mystics preposterously imply it to be—a pretense at omniscience or infallibility. On the contrary, precisely because man must struggle for knowledge, precisely because the pursuit of knowledge requires an effort, the men who assume this responsibility properly feel pride. He ponders whether mystics declare that all they demand of man is that he sacrifice his happiness, but to sacrifice one’s happiness, he says, is to sacrifice one’s desires; to sacrifice one’s desires is to sacrifice one’s values; to sacrifice one’s values is to sacrifice one’s judgment; to sacrifice one’s judgment is to sacrifice one’s mind—and it is nothing less than this that the creed of self-sacrifice aims at and demands. And he concludes by claiming that if sacrifice is a virtue, it is not the neurotic but the rational man who must be "cured".[28]

[26] See: Epistemology: reason, Objectivism (Ayn_Rand).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)#Epistemology:_reason
[27] Binswanger, H. (2004) The Ten Commandments vs. America. Retrieved January 28, 2010.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?&id=10889
[28] Branden, N. (1963), "Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice," Ayn Rand - The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virtue_of_Selfishness

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Virtues of Ayn Rand's philosophy: Objectivism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue#Virtues_of_Ayn_Rand.27s_philosophy:_...

Ayn Rand held that her morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. That the rest proceeds from these. That to live, man must hold three three fundamental values that one develops and achieves in life: Reason,[11] Purpose and Self-Esteem. A value is "that which one acts to gain and/or keep ... and the virtue[s] [are] the act[ions] by which one gains and/or keeps it." The primary virtue in Objectivist ethics is rationality, as Rand meant it "the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge, one's only judge of values and one's only guide to action."[12] These values are achieved by passionate and consistent action and the virtues are the policies for achieving those fundamental values.[13] Ayn Rand describes seven virtues: rationality, productiveness, pride, independence, integrity, honesty and justice. The first three represent the three primary virtues that correspond to the three fundamental values, whereas the final four are derived from the virtue of rationality. She claims that virtue is not an end in itself, that virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil, that life is the reward of virtue—and happiness is the goal and the reward of life. Man has a single basic choice: to think or not, and that is the gauge of his virtue. Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality—not the degree of your intelligence, but the full and relentless use of your mind, not the extent of your knowledge, but the acceptance of reason as an absolute.[14]

[11] Epistemology: reason, Objectivism (Ayn Rand).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)#Epistemology:_reason
[12] Rand, Ayn The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism, p. 27
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virtue_of_Selfishness
[13] Gotthelf, Allan On Ayn Rand; p. 86
[14] Rand, Ayn (1961) For the New Intellectual Galt’s Speech, "For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand," p. 131, 178.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_New_Intellectual

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/reason.html
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/purpose.html
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/self-esteem.html

This article is ridiculous. It touches on hypothetical morality (atheists are not the ones beating their adopted children to death in the name of the Lord, for one) and measures charity only through the wallet. I can't afford to give 10% of my income to the church, so I volunteer. I've done everything from fixing up houses to being a rape advocate in the hospitals. Of course the author had an agenda.

A few reactions to the article...

First of all, religious people may claim to have a more "objective" view of ethics, but nothing could be further from the truth because their beliefs are based on either what some ancient text says, what their parents told them, what their religious leaders told them, or faith. I'm sorry but that's not objective at all. You would be laughed out of the scientific community if you claimed that those were objective criteria for proof of something.

This article also ignores the fact that atheists are the smallest percentage of people in prison. While I think that many people are in prisons in the US for unjust reasons, this is kind of an important fact when discussing this issue. Clearly, for whatever reason, the probability to commit a crime (and I don't think all things defined as criminal are immoral) is reduced by a non belief in god.

Lastly, why are ethics always about altruism? It's nice that churches give to the poor and so on, but what the fact that people have killed each other, and still do, at astonishing rates in the name of their gods? I can't remember a time when thousands have been slaughtered in the name of atheism, so maybe the religious people need to calm down with all the murders. (By the way, George Bush claims he prayed to god for help in deciding whether or not to go to war in Iraq. How many deaths have resulted from that decision?)

When it all boils down there are really only two worldviews and one provides no basis for ethics while the other provides an independent and absolute but also natural basis for ethics.

One is that materialism is all that there is. This is the scientific view but only because most scientists are materialists and not because of the evidence. A lot of evidence is being interpreted away and even flatly denied on unsupported opinions only. This worldview is that of all atheists. This worldview leaves it up to the individual to choose what they consider good and bad and even more significantly what they consider good and evil, humane and inhumane.If you want to see the dire consequences that moral relativism holds for the human race and everything else on the earth have a look at this blogsite at http://kyrani99.wordpress.com/

The other worldview supports a belief in a non-material realm, a singularity that underpins the material reality. There is plenty of evidence throughout science that supports this reality. This non-physical realm is often called the Universal Mind or the Mind of God/The Divinity/Being. It means that everything in existence is in a fundamental relationship with everything else. It means that there is a Oneness. The actions of any one element in the system affects all other elements. Only when we can appreciate the relatedness and connectivity of every element in the system can we appreciate that there exists a basis for ethics. This is an absolute and independent of every religion but appreciated by religions the world over.

I also want to make the point that it is no good looking at all atheists and all theists as uniform groups of people. There are evil people that hide among both groups. So the actions of people for instance that go on killing sprees for the sake of a God are not necessarily theistic and lovers of God. On the other hand there are those who claim clean scientific looking research -evidence based and peer reviewed and for the good of the humankind when indeed it is fraudulent and aimed to generate profits alone.So just because someone is atheist or theist does not make them good or bad or evil.