"Why Believe in God" ad campaign

[David E]

Originally Posted by Alex

As for why, without referencing god, I think murder is wrong:

I place almost no inherent value on your individual life. This is true. If we learned later today that you were dead all it would be is an interesting factoid.

But I care if you were murdered for the same reason I don't really care if 600 villagers in Africa die but do care if they all die of ebola: I don't want it to happen to me. So I'd really appreciate it if society rallied round to make sure the ebola epidemic did not spread.

This is because I very much do place an inherent value on my life. I'd really prefer it not end until I choose that it does. So, by society gathering round to condemn killing people like me, to the extent that this pressure prevents me specifically from being killed I am in favor. Selfishness is why murder is bad; if I were guaranteed to be exempted from any murdering, my opposition to it would fall precipitously (but not completely since there are other lives that I hold in some value). Continuing this to other conclusion is why drunk driving is bad (you driving drunk could hurt me) but Jim Jones convincing hundreds to kill themselves is not (if Jim Jones successfully convinces me then see the second sentence of this paragraph).

So you are saying murder is wrong because the person being killed does not want that to happen? Just because you don't want it to happen doesn't necessarily create a moral barrier to others. For example, because thieves don't want to be arrested doesn't make arresting them an immoral act.

Then you gave selfishness as a second reason. Now you are into the business of saying an act is wrong because of the thinking or motivation of the perpetrator. So it would not be wrong if the killer had an altruistic motive? The 9/11 murderers did, even giving their lives for the cause.

Another post in this thread claims that everything is selfish (9/11 perpetrators wanted to go to heaven). I don’t agree myself, but if it were true, and we applied your logic of selfish=wrong, then everything would be wrong.

Still wondering what is wrong about murdering.

Originally Posted by Alex

And yes, there are people who want to continue their religious culture even in the absence of god. I just think they're even more irrational than the people who actually believe the god is there and therefore think they're doing what he commanded. Avoiding bacon-wrapped asparagus because your deluded (as you now think they were if you don't believe their god exists) ancestors did is just silly*.

Maybe not so silly if you learn the background and wisdom behind some of the practices. Having a Sabbath or day of rest once a week from TV and computers could lead to a happier, more mentally healthy life and people be more inclined on that day to bond and empathize with friends, for example. This day was one of the first animal rights laws in history, as it required that domesticated beasts rest also. Judaism had other more detailed strictures protecting animals such as prohibiting the amputation and consumption of single limbs which was practiced before then. Now, I am not saying that secular value systems can’t come up with similar norms, and sometimes they do; but for the most part, THEY DIDN’T, whereas the religious traditions as they have evolved have a pretty good system that should not be discarded lightly. A lot of the figuring out has been done.

When I say secular systems have not generally produced good results, let me give you my evidence: In four centuries, the Catholic Inquisition is estimated to have murdered about 30,000 people. (I am making a case for contemporary religious values anyway). The secular ideologies that replaced religious ones in the 20th century, most notably under Mao and Stalin, murdered 100 million, besides massive forced relocation and theft of property. Without the notion that something transcends our physical existence, this human tragedy more easily becomes an acceptable cost of attaining your utopian vision for society on earth, because there is nothing else but that.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by David E

Still wondering what is wrong about murdering.

I'm glad I don't live near you, then.

I wish I had time to participate in this chat, but I'm extra busy for the next few days. Very quickly, I'd mention that Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot are always brought up by religious apologists to rub in the faces of the secular. But they were hardly bastions of rational secular philosophy. They essentially created godless pseudo-religions with themselves as supreme entities - kind of like the Caesars of yore. In other words, nothing new at all. Political ideology elevated to the status of unquestionable truth can be just as devastating as religion, no doubt about it. But this is irrelevant to the question of whether we derive our morality from a supernatural source. These abusive regimes are a long way away from secular liberal democracies, which currently seem to be exterminating hardly anyone in Scandinavian countries, for instance.

Altruism has been observed in other animal species. Does this mean that our own sense of altruism evolved, or is some supernatural agency granting an awakening morality to a few other primates? I'd say more likely the former.

Altruism aside, self-interest is still a perfectly reasonable place from which to say murder is wrong, or at least extremely inconvenient. And getting from "I don't want to be killed" to "I shouldn't kill others" is perfectly logical. If you live in any kind of in-group at all, and you engage in murder, you can jolly well expect the group to want you out of the picture, and you can easily understand why. ("They don't want to die, just like me.") From here, it isn't that far a jump to say, "Okay, there are other beings with self-interest, just like me. We can work together for our mutual protection." It isn't necessarily the complete picture, but I fail to see any inherent flaws in this explanation. In even the smallest tribe, proscribing murder is a no-brainer. (Of course, the same protecting of self-interest will likely mean that killing folks in the other tribes will be allowed or even encouraged if and when they become a threat. That hasn't changed, alas.)

That's all I have time for. I'm always interested in this topic, so y'all have a ball with it. I'll check back later. <swims away>

[David E]

Happy New Year to everyone.

To summarize, I am an agnostic and I am using using logic to argue for faith, and that the concept of good God is necessary for a predictable morality with good results. By good results I mean now, as exemplified by the US, not the middle ages! I tried to put the evil religion has done in perspective by pointing out that the number of people murdered in the inquisition in 4 centuries was in the tens of thousands, whereas secular ideology has murdered about 100 million in the 20th century alone. Also, I am not saying it’s great in all cases, just better than the alternative.

What is the alternative? In the quote below, FlippyShark made a pretty good case for it: Enlightened Self Interest (ESI) as exemplified by Scandinavian countries who have not attacked others as he has pointed out. He is right, really all of Western Europe (WE) has become secular. Most LOT folks and about half of the US sees that as a better and more evolved value system than the JudeoChristian (JC) one our country was founded upon.

Originally Posted by flippyshark

...Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot are always brought up by religious apologists to rub in the faces of the secular... These abusive regimes are a long way away from secular liberal democracies, which currently seem to be exterminating hardly anyone in Scandinavian countries, for instance.

My response is this: looking at a map of the world, I see a lot more Cambodias than Swedens, and when one goes up against the other the Cambodias will prevail because the Swedens have neither the ability nor the will to defend their value system, partly because they don’t have a strong sense of what it is.

They don't need to keep an army to defend themselves because they are part of NATO which means they will be defended by the US military, whose armies defended them against Nazism, and whose missiles defended them against Communism, yet they did not speak out against either. In fact, Sweden and Switzerland made a big point of being neutral instead of helping to defeat these threats. A more recent example is German soldiers' rules of engagement in Afganistan: only fire at the enemy in self defense. I have heard it said that Germany took the wrong lesson from WWII: Instead of learning to fight evil, they learned it was evil to fight.

Now partly due to this very attitude and their commitment to ZPG (in fact, their population continues to decrease), a third threat is emerging to this secular culture - the growing Islamic population, who is very committed to their own culture and values, and willing to fight for them. I am not saying they are a necessarily a physical threat (although more than a hundred thousand cars were burned in France by Muslim protestors in 2006). But if current trends continue, they certainly will supplant a culture whose primary value is tolerance of other cultures.

Although WE are not a threat to other good societies, the problem is they are not a threat to bad ones either. WE has the same pacifism problem as Buddhism, where secular forces (who have apparently disregarded ESI) have slaughtered and consumed Myanmar and Tibet, who were never a threat to them.

While ESI seems to make sense theoretically, it doesn’t seem to play out reliably in the real world from either a biological or logical sense. Both people and societies benefit often from stealing and murdering. Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe benefitted by murdering their opponents and Arafat stole more than $1 billion to personal accounts in France and was revered as a hero by many. We hear about people who steal in corporations because they get arrogant careless and get caught, but how many more will we never know about?

We know from WWII accounts that Jews in danger would first go to the house of a priest or nun as they were more likely to be hidden than if they knocked on the door of a lawyer or professor. The neutral secular countries don’t have the same record of putting themselves at risk, and it seems that there are sound logical and biological reasons for it.

I leave you with a graphic of the US stamp honoring the 4 chaplains (2 ministers, a priest and a rabbi) who drowned because they gave their life vests to sailors when the SS Dorchester was sunk. Seems like their JC ideology trumped their biological imperative for survival or the logical one which would argue that 4 sailors out of hundreds would be more expendable than the few chaplains who were there to give sustenance to many.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by David E

To summarize, I am an agnostic and I am using using logic to argue for faith, and that the concept of good God is necessary for a predictable morality with good results.

So you're saying that, without personally holding a belief in an omniscient, omnipotent entity, you desire morality. You have an internally motivated desire to act morally, and you have a desire that the people around you act morally. Would you agree with that assessment?

Assuming you do, I'd have one more set of questions. Do you consider yourself abnormal? Do you consider yourself significantly different than a large percentage of the population? Is that internally motivated moral desire something that you think is largely unique to you?

[David E]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

So you're saying that, without personally holding a belief in an omniscient, omnipotent entity, you desire morality. You have an internally motivated desire to act morally, and you have a desire that the people around you act morally. Would you agree with that assessment?

Yes, my desire for morality may be biological (or maybe some more enduring metaphysical part of me? Can't prove or disprove that), but the specific morality that I desire is cultural as I mentioned several times.

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Assuming you do, I'd have one more set of questions. Do you consider yourself abnormal? Do you consider yourself significantly different than a large percentage of the population? Is that internally motivated moral desire something that you think is largely unique to you?

While the desire for morality may be common, that part is invisible and therefore irrelevant; the results or choice of moral systems are radically different, so yes, I do think there are fundamental differences in people and groups. I don't understand Oprah Winfrey's assertion that "We are all the same inside". Was Hitler the same as Mother Teresa? Is a torturer the same as you or me? Is the mother of a suicide bomber who says she wishes her other sons would do it too the same as the moms you know?

Actually, looking at history and the rest of the world, our way of thinking is probably more of a minority. Which is why I hope we can appreciate and preserve it.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by David E

I don't understand Oprah Winfrey's assertion that "We are all the same inside". Was Hitler the same as Mother Teresa? Is a torturer the same as you or me? Is the mother of a suicide bomber who says she wishes her other sons would do it too the same as the moms you know?

We are definitely not all the same inside. (I don't think anyone here claimed as much.) I suspect Oprah hasn't thought that one through very hard. (Of course, she's no heavy thinker. She's more about making her viewers feel warm and fuzzy.)

My goodness it's late.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by David E

So you are saying murder is wrong because the person being killed does not want that to happen?

No, I didn't say that.

Then you gave selfishness as a second reason. Now you are into the business of saying an act is wrong because of the thinking or motivation of the perpetrator.

No, I didn't say that.

So it would not be wrong if the killer had an altruistic motive? The 9/11 murderers did, even giving their lives for the cause.

That would be up to the societies involved to collectively decide. There are many examples where killing for altruistic (or other) reasons is considered acceptable. The views of individuals aren't individually relevant.

selfish=wrong, then everything would be wrong.

You don't seem to have read what I wrote very well because I never suggested such logic as "selfish=wrong".

Still wondering what is wrong about murdering.

Inherently? Nothing. Subjectively? It's only wrong when you're murdering me. Pragmatically? I'm willing to pretend it is wrong if you're murdered for the side benefit of everybody else pretending they think it is wrong for me to be murdered.

Maybe not so silly if you learn the background and wisdom behind some of the practices.

If you, in order to continue the traditions pretend that the god no longer believes to exist actually exists then yes, perfectly silly. Regardless of the merit of the practice.

As I've said I make no beef with many aspects of religion, I just think that generally religion co-opted them rather than creating them and the same positions can be achieved without religion.

Without the notion that something transcends our physical existence, this human tragedy more easily becomes an acceptable cost of attaining your utopian vision for society on earth, because there is nothing else but that.

I'd rather that than lying to ourselves (not that I am accepting your larger argument). If the only reason we are generally good to each other is because of a giant invisible mommy in the next room who'll ground us, then I'd rather we accept that and work on it and just get rid of the invisible mommy.

But as has been asked several times in this thread, if religious morality is what we need then which religious morality are you advocating? It seems to be judeo-christian, but in that case which judeo-christian morality, and how forcefully to we impose it on the non judeo-christians? And, almost as importantly, what do we do about the fact that the judeo-christian mommy is, as described in available texts, a major dickhead subject to incredible mood swings?

[David E]

Originally Posted by Alex

But as has been asked several times in this thread, if religious morality is what we need then which religious morality are you advocating? It seems to be judeo-christian, but in that case which judeo-christian morality, and how forcefully to we impose it on the non judeo-christians?

I understand your questions. What I need to clear up about my argument is that I'm talking about the value system, not the theology. Theology can be a personal choice, but it's values that determine behavior, and that morality has to be universal and therefore not a personal choice.

For example, you can believe in the Holy Trinity and I can believe that the Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of the first Buddha. But we both share the common value that stealing is wrong. There is actually a lot of overlap of values between the Buddhist value system and the JudeoChristian (JC) one, and that's fine.

The reason I don't advocate for Buddhism is that it doesn't value fighting wrongdoing like the JC one does, and therefore will eventually be destroyed or subjugated to regimes that perpetrate more evil, as we are seeing already. The result is a worse world. To many, physical violence even in self defense is wrong. This is a major difference with JC and in fact is a more and more a shared value with the Western European Secular system (WE).

In this regard, the WE system is worse, because many don't even believe in a universal concept of wrong to begin with; it's a personal choice. They seem to have a problem identifying evil and even doubt its existence. This is emblemized by Sweden, who could not see any moral difference between the Allied and Axis powers in WWII, nor between the US and Soviets in the Cold War, or the Israelis and Palestinians today. I think this is because they have put the value of equality above all else, to the point that humans are all the same inside (regardless of their outside behavior apparently), terrorists are freedom fighters or justified because those who they attack enabled them, animals have the same worth as people, etc.

Now, I understand that not everyone falls neatly into the WE or JC category and we all have a certain combination of these beliefs. This is because the WE people's grandfathers who built their cities and societies came from the JC tradition, and it has evolved and morphed from there into WE secularism. I point to the Scandinavian examples because the process is more advanced in Europe and the US is far more religious still.

In the JC system, fighting both in self defense and in aid of others who arevictims of wrongdoing is not only permissible, it is an obligation, which is one of the reasons the US has always had an interventionist foreign policy. I am not saying it's perfect and doesn't often make mistakes. My point is that the benign, "enlightened" secular world has done harm by enabling the harmful forces, both secular and radical religious.

Just because I am not religious myself, doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge the real world consequences of important differences in these ideologies.

[David E]

Strangler, I enjoyed reading your post. With regard to your examples of Hillel and the Constitution (which I also hold in high esteem), it seems to me that you are going out of your way to extract the God part and leave everything else. (Maybe you are not personally adverse to it, but you are doing it to respond to my arguments to test if God is necessary to them, which I hope is the case). Whether or not these depend on God for validity, it just happens to be historically true. Picasso’s sketches were criticized by those who said that an eight year old child could have drawn them. His response was: “Maybe, but the eight year old didn’t.” I am trying to build my case on results, not theory.

But now that you bring them up, it seems that God is rather integral to them:

Hillel didn’t attribute the golden rule to himself, but rather the God of Abraham and the introduction of monotheism to the world. And the founding fathers did not say that Washington or Madison were conferring rights on those they governed; they had the vision that they themselves were blessed by that same God and they wanted to affirm that for everyone. (An earlier version of the US Seal they designed depicted Moses leading the Jews to Freedom, and the Liberty Bell in Philly has an inscription from the Torah on it). I’m not sure if the idea of specific rights can even exist without someone conferring them to someone else – can molecules or matter or give us rights?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by David E

\ Whether or not these depend on God for validity, it just happens to be historically true. Picasso’s sketches were criticized by those who said that an eight year old child could have drawn them. His response was: “Maybe, but the eight year old didn’t.” I am trying to build my case on results, not theory.

The fact that religion is the framework under which the current workable moral social contract was built is not proof that it's the only one that works.

I’m not sure if the idea of specific rights can even exist without someone conferring them to someone else – can molecules or matter or give us rights?

Can electrons and phosphorus make a TV show? The concepts of "rights" and "morality" exist solely on the level of interpreting brain activity. So the answer to your question is that molecules and matter give rise to the ability of humans to think about the concept of rights.

And, as a matter of fact, there is good evidence that there IS a universal morality. Responses to hypothetical moral dilemmas like these are very similar across cultures. That includes JC, tribal cultures, atheists, etc. Even when respondants are unable to articulate WHY they make the moral choice that they do, they seem to come to the same conclusion as most other people a large percentage of the time.

In the end, though, skimming some earlier posts, I think we all agree on some level. You made mention of the important part of religion being the stable, teachable framweork of morality that instills the particulars to the next generation (my paraphrasing). I believe in the same. I simply disagree that religion is the only possible source of that framework. It is irrelevant that religion happens to be the one that's been used recently to such a large degree. That doesn't make it right or the best option. I think the fact that we can have a public education system that teaches civics and ethics without resorting to "God said so", but rather, "Because the United States said so" should be proof enough.

No one is suggesting just dumping any attempt to define a group morality that may restrict some random individual's personal morality that might not agree with yours. All we're saying is that the desire for such is pretty universal and it would happen with or without religion. Religion is a result of that desire, not the cause. And in the end, those of us arguing against it feel that the benefits of religion as you defined them (a way of formalizing societal morallity) are available without it and thus without the drawbacks of religion (promotion of blind observance without critical thought).