Posted on 01/03/2008 8:33:44 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
One of the biggest obstacles facing what’s called the “New Atheism” is the issue of morality. Writers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have to convince people that morals and values are possible in a society that does not believe in God.
It’s important to understand what is not in doubt: whether an individual atheist or agnostic can be a “good” person. Of course they can, just as a professing Christian can do bad things.
The issue is whether the secular worldview can provide a basis for a good society. Can it motivate and inspire people to be virtuous and generous?
Not surprisingly, Richard Dawkins offers a “yes”—grounded in Darwinism. According to him, natural selection has produced a moral sense that is shared by all people. While our genes may be, in his words “selfish,” there are times when cooperation with others is the selfish gene’s best interest. Thus, according to him, natural selection has produced what we call altruism.
Except, of course, that it is not altruism at all: It is, at most, enlightened self-interest. It might explain why “survival of the fittest” is not an endless war of all against all, but it offers no reason as to why someone might give up their lives or even their lifestyle for the benefit of others, especially those whom they do not even know.
Darwinist accounts of human morality bear such little resemblance to the way real people live their lives that the late philosopher David Stove, an atheist himself, called them a “slander against human beings.”
Being unable to account for human altruism is not enough for Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation. In a recent debate with Rick Warren, he complained about Christians “contaminating” their altruistic deeds in places like Africa with “religious ideas” like “the divinity of Jesus.” Instead of rejoicing at the alleviation of suffering, he frets over someone hearing the Gospel.
In response, Warren pointed out the inconvenient (for Harris, that is) truth: You won’t find many atheists feeding the hungry and ministering to the sick in places like Africa or Mother Teresa’s Calcutta. It is precisely because people believe in the divinity of Jesus that they are willing to give up their lives (sometimes literally) in service to those whom Jesus calls “His brothers.” And that’s why my colleagues and I spend our lives ministering in prisons.
In contrast, the record of avowedly atheistic regimes is, shall we say, less than inspiring. Atheist regimes like the Soviet Union, Red China, and Cambodia killed tens of millions of people in an effort to establish an atheistic alternative to the City of God. For men like Stalin and Mao, people were expendable precisely because they were not created in the image of a personal God. Instead, they were objects being manipulated by impersonal historical forces.
One atheist understood the moral consequences of his unbelief: That was Nietzsche, who argued that God is dead, but acknowledged that without God there could be no binding and objective moral order.
Of course, the “New Atheists” deny this. Instead, they unconvincingly argue that you can have the benefits of an altruistic, Christian-like morality without God.
Nietzsche would laugh—and wonder why they don’t make atheists like they used to.
Einstein didn’t believe in a Judeo Christian God that interacted with people and interfered with cause and effect. He left room open for Sinoza’s god who may have created everything and then just sat back and watched. He completely rejected heaven and hell and any life after death.
Isn't adherence to God's moral code ultimately "enlightened self-interest" as well? After all, assuming that God is real and has given us an identifiable moral code, why should we bother with obeying it?
The answers I see most commonly are:
-To avoid His punishment or receive His reward
-Because as Creator, God knows what kind of system will make us happiest or most prosperous
-Because He told us to obey Him in His rules
The first and second answers are clearly based on self-interest. The third is simply circular reasoning- "we should obey God because God tells us to obey"- and doesn't answer the question.
I've never encountered a moral reason for obeying God's rules. If such a moral reason does exist, does this not suggest that there is some system of ultimate morality existing apart from God?
You assume that there is, in fact, a "true morality." I happen to agree with that, and also agree that it is God-given.
However, I'm not the one with whom the argument is being conducted. Instead, it must be conducted with the likes of Mr. Dawkins, whose claims must be met and countered.
Otherwise, your “ethics” are nothing more than your own personal interpretation of the truth of right and wrong, leading invariably to “situational ethics”.
And I also agree with you on this. But again, your argument isn't with me, but with Mr. Dawkins et al. And here is where one really needs to dig into the nature of the arguments, on both sides.
If you're going to complain about situational ethics, you must provide some rational discussion about what, precisely, is the problem with them. I'm not sure that Dawkins would actually complain about the concept in the abstract -- after all, the process of evolution is pretty much based on a sort of "situational ethics."
And if you're going to claim that true moral principles lie above the temporal plane of situational ethics, you've got to provide some basis for saying so.
Call my post “supporting arguments” for your position. Sorry if I implied that we were in disagreement.
Einstein did not have a belief in God (capital G) but left open the posibility of a creator because it couldn’t be proven one way or the other. He absolutely DID NOT believe in anything you would recognize as the God of Moses or Jesus.
Thank you for this post.
Cultures act exactly like a god offering benefits for conformity and penalties for nonconformity. The most obvious example of this is law and law enforcement, but stigma and exaltation work just as well or even better. Cultures exalt certain behaviors (think hip-hop culture rewarding narcisism or islamofascists blowing up innocent people being revered). The rapper with the most bling gets the most women so young urbanites want to be rappers and get bling.
“I firmly believe that far less than 1% of the world is capable of truely independent rational thought.”
That’s certainly a rarified air you breath.
1%? That’s an interesting cutoff number. Does it flucuate or is it linear? It sounds like something Spock would say on Star Trek. (Never mind me though, I’m the dependant irrational type.)
“I firmly believe that far less than 1% of the world is capable of truely independent rational thought.”
I didn’t say I was one of them.
Excellent post.
kindly provide an example of one , one, successful society w "no gods".
"If you love me, you will obey what I command."--Jesus, speaking in John 14:15.
france
Hehe, good one. Seriously though, I suspect that most Christians still believe in following God's code even when it stands opposed to the laws of men. I think a Christian might excuse a lapse in morality done for self-preservation, but they still generally believe that the moral command at issue should otherwise be obeyed.
For me as a Christian, it is my desire to become one with the Creator, to become part of His reality....is it moral to desire such....that's not for me to decide.....but it is what drives my Christian faith....my actions, whether good or bad, will not have an impact as to my becoming one with my Creator...my faith and love of God will...
I'm a little confused by this. At first you suggest that you obey God's rules to become one with the Creator, but in the end you say that the goodness or badness of your actions will not have an affect on your oneness with the Creator. You suggest that it is is faith and love that bring union, not morality.
Presumably, you do try to follow God's code. Why?
today of course their society is imploding while their "guests" torch 100 cars a night. Give their secularism another decade and we'll see how they've prospered.
This is interesting. Are you really saying that you think that most people, when reading the phrase "believe in God" take that as meaning "is not a follower of Jesus Christ or Moses"? Do you think that someone reading "Einstein didn't believe in God" could reasonably wonder after reading it "Was he perhaps a Zoroastrian or an animist?"
I was joking about France. Socrates and Buddha and Confucius all managed to come up with moral and ethical systems that didn’t rely on gods.
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