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.
The meme evolved from many variations over time. It is imperfectly acquired from teacher to student, parent to child. It is in a sense inherited and definitely learned.
God is Dead, Nietzsche 1882.
Nietzsche is Dead, God 1900.
——I always get a chuckle out of that one, even if most people do not see the humor.
Good point!
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (the “o” is written with a slash “/” through it) is considered the father of the philosophical movement called existentialism.
With a doubt, Nietzsche read Kierkegaard, but was he inspired?
Did he learn anything about the Christian faith from Same?
Of course, both Nietzsche’s Father and Grandfathers were Christian Pastors!
Ahem:
There is so much said now about people being offended at Christianity because it is so dark and gloomy. But the real reason why man is offended at Christianity is that it would make of a man something so extraordinary that he is unable to get it into his head.
Kierkegaard addressed this fear:
Imagine the mightiest Emperor that ever lived; and imagine some poor peasant, who would think himself fortunate if he could but once catch a glimpse of the Emperor, and would tell his children and grandchildren of this as the most important event of his life. Suppose that the Emperor were to send for this man, who had not supposed that the Emperor knew of his existence, and informed him that he wished to have him as a son-in-law. In all probability, the peasant, instead of being delighted, would be offended, since he would suppose that this could mean only that the Emperor wanted to make a fool of him!
And now for Christianity!
Christianity teaches that every man, say an ordinary man who would be quite proud of having once in his life talked with the King of Denmark, can talk with God any moment he wishes, and is sure to be heard by Him, that for this man’s sake God came into the world to suffer and die. If anything would stun a man, surely it is this. Whoever has not the humble courage to believe it, must surely be offended by it.
> (abridged from SICKNESS UNTO DEATH)
(Quoted by Peter Kiefer - ask for the hotlink)
It creates, or at least informs, a conscience. But any religious person believes that he.she lives under the unseen eye. The atheist may also posit such a “guardian” in the form of the good opinion of others, who serve as a kind of “church” for the unchurches. Once one is out of their sight, and knows it, the morality tends not to have an effect on behavior. The religious person will do good or ill in order to find favor in the sight of his god and the godly. The unreligious only looks to his neighbor for judgement.
So, you have another quote - out-of-context?
Meaning?
Purpose?
Maybe he changed his mind by 1954, or was addressing another topic in time?
BTW, I could bash the RCC, and i could recite the English Prot’ propganda about the RCC’s - you know the same old stuff: Inquistions, Witches, Crusades.
Be careful, the TRUTH is stranger than fiction, but the Brit’s were at war(s) with Catholic nations, operating in Nationalistic interests, as were the Brit’s.
;-)
Sure, them atheists just sponge off our Free Christian Society!
;-)
Actually, indeed, I have a Swedish friend, and an atheist, he told me he wants the 10 Commandments posted and taught.
He told me, he likes a Society with VALUES! And, wants his children taught as well.
Gilson is a favorite, but I have read nothing by him for many years.
Sure, and now we should consider the consequences of Nietzsche and his Philosophical offspring!
Bertrand Russell:
There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere; only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.”
(Bertrand Russell, Autobiography, vol. 2 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968) p. 159.)
:sad:
Philosophical Nihilism is a B!tch!
Re: Darwin & Dawkins
Consider, Carl G. Jung - a Nazi until 1945 and another Nietzsche fan - consider his assertion that “everything human is relative.”
But, wait!
Is this statement relative too, since it was uttered by a human?
If it is *NOT* relative, then the statement is not true.
But if the statement itself IS relative, that would mean there are times when it is not true!
Some things human are not relative, and are hence absolute. But this would contradict Jung’s original statement. Thus, it is both false and self-defeating.
Moreover:
The European Worldview:
We are randomly assembled protoplasm living in a contract culture. (A consequence of Nietzsche, Darwin, Marx)
Classical American Worldview:
We are created beings endowed with certain inalienable rights (Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Moses, Jesus, etc.)
The Law of Non-Contradiction
One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time.“ - Aristotle
“There is no absolute truth”
Is that absolutely true?
“morality= conformity to the rules of right conduct”
I’ve seen definitions of morality that are thousands of words long.
“Now how can anyone argue with that. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, but it expresses a courage little seen in this day and age.”
Matthew 8I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
I’ll stick with this “morality” thank you:
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”-1 Corinthians 3:19-20
Atheism is just more “wisdom” from those who reject the truth and the evidence of God. Morality is not of man’s making but a divine ordinance that even a pagan is compelled to follow, because man is made in God’s image and He is the source of all morality. This is true whether man acknowledges it or not.
What do you see as the upside in disabusing people of their religion ? It seems one who is so enlightened would leave the poor things their comfort. Or maybe there really is evil and it can’t help inflicting its pain on others.
The only true morality MUST be based on a set of external and objective rules.
Otherwise, your “ethics” are nothing more than your own personal interpretation of the truth of right and wrong, leading invariably to “situational ethics”.
“If there is no God, then everything is permitted.”
The basis of liberal ideology.
Not only must everything be permitted, everything must be permitted without judgement,
and if there are natural consequences for your behavior, someone innocent must pay for those consequences.
There is no upside or downside. I firmly believe that far less than 1% of the world is capable of truely independent rational thought. Most people are content with internally inconsistant belief systems. Many others think that all opinion is equal. For these people, religion is absolutely necessary. They need to have someone tell them what to think and how to act or they feel lost emotionally....even if requires them to believe in invisible people, ghosts and magic.
I wouldn’t link morals or ethics and biological evolution. It is linked to something else entirely, something of our own creation—the state. In the moral state we would all do the moral things and have some hope of achieving whatever happiness is possible as a result. There is a ways to go.
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