Why I am not a Christian

[Last Conformist]

How was that Zakharov quote? Because God hasn't been proved to exist, it therefore must exist? Damn, I lost my SMAC disks long ago ...

[Whaleboy]

Why wouldn't you believe in God if you acknowledge God's existence?

Spiffor answered the question well, LC, Occams razor applies nicely there, not to mention the fact that that logic can be used to justify *anything*.

Another answer to bfg's question is that if you presuppose that God exists, that does not necessarily imply belief, faith or obedience. Indeed, you could argue that a powerful force over us (if it can communicate it must be finite) must be defeated in order for humanity to have self-determination.

[Last Conformist]

@Whaleboy: In case you didn't play SMAC, Zakharov's point wasn't that God acutally exists, but that that's how theists tend to think.

[Whaleboy]

Ah point taken (and no I didn't play). In general, I really dislike some of the defences of theism though, there's a lot of sloppy, inconsistent logic .

[Elok]

Well, if other people exist, so what? "Logically," I mean. If other people exist on the same level you do, from a cold-bloodedly rational point of view, depending on the empirically observable, without compassion, sociopathy is still the most effective form of behavior, provided you are good at pretending in order to get others' guards down. Even if you're not, there are circumstances where you will almost certainly never be caught for your actions, so morals are at best situationally dependent.

I've been trying to phrase my personal philosophy succinctly for this argument, and I think the cornerstone of it is: Morals, and the urge to be moral, are innately irrational. There's no sensible purpose in altruism unless you assume something supernatural. "Create a better world for our children?" Why should I care? I'll be dead. "Other people are a lot like you?" Then they might be thinking about screwing me over for their own benefit, like I am. Better to get them first.

From there you face a choice: be irrational in your actions WRT morals, or internally inconsistent, or amoral. Amoral behavior is unpalatable to me, and my hatred of it far outweighs my love of reason. So even if it makes me irrational, I will not deliberately ignore my conscience. And the conscience is irrational. There's no individual benefit in moral behavior, so the conscience is a set of defective urges that hold me back as far as survival is concerned.

Internal inconsistency appears to be the most common choice among atheists. There's no apparent reason to be good, but be good anyway, but refuse other irrational/non-empirical ideas for some reason not specified. My desire for truth eliminates that for me. Breaking rules to avoid confronting unpleasant ideas is unacceptable. It makes me go nuts. (Yes, I know that the Bible is not scientifically accurate, but I view that as merely a consequence of its purpose as a tool of moral instruction, rather than as a science textbook. There's no telling how literal the thing is meant to be on scientific precision.)

That leaves irrationality, or at least ignoring the empirical-you hope/guess/assume that there is something inexplicable and unseen to drive your moral urges. I chose that. And the religion I was born into makes more sense to me than any alternative I have encountered. So I stuck with it.

I didn't really think this out as such; I tend to act on gut instinct, because my sense of intuition has a remarkably high success rate. Some sleeping part of my brain tends to grasp the truth long before the waking and considerate part, and I've learned to trust it because of that. This is just the best I can understand of the choices I made in hindsight. But those were my choices. Present any alternatives you think of.

The only exception I've heard, from Whaleboy, is the idea of interdependence on reason and emotion. Thing is, emotion is, for humans, quite frequently irrational, much more so than religious faith. Religious belief is based on assumption of the unprovable, but beginning from that initial assumption your behavior makes sense. Emotion generally ignores obvious disparities for the sake of protecting itself, and is directly or indirectly at fault in all cases of "evil in the name of God." It will often directly attack reason, whereas religion requires one "breach of faith" in that respect. Choosing "emotion" but not religion would appear to be based on a simple dislike of the latter. To me, that is.

[Whaleboy]

Well, if other people exist, so what? "Logically," I mean. If other people exist on the same level you do, from a cold-bloodedly rational point of view, depending on the empirically observable, without compassion, sociopathy is still the most effective form of behavior, provided you are good at pretending in order to get others' guards down.

Even if you're not, there are circumstances where you will almost certainly never be caught for your actions, so morals are at best situationally dependent.

So self-interest and egoism still applies and ones morals are a matter of personal expediency and benefit? I concur but that's ignoring the whole of the presumption of other people's existence. To assume other people exist and to be selfish assumes that you place yourself of higher importance (needs of the many/needs of the few) so effectively you still haven't escaped solipcism, as indeed none of us do. However in terms of a moral system of "should" or "ought", it can ignore that and then a P reference Utilitarian might say "well we ought not consider" solipcism, or in familial terms be selfish. Of course, that's part of the presumption or induction that other people exist, in purely deductive terms solipcism holds, but socially speaking you can't do a whole lot with it. I think if we're dealing with society, that other people exist and that selfishness and atheistic morality are incompatible would be assumed, so the presumption isn't a problem. A thought occurs... that presumption has many of the characteristics of faith! So perhaps it is not possible to create an objective moral system (as opposed to subjective) without faith. Food for thought eh? You could argue an intermediary emotion that makes that "faith" possible, and the obvious candidate would be love, and would indeed help to clarify the nature, power and problems of faith, as well as the bounds between the subjective and categorical objective. Neat stuff!

I've been trying to phrase my personal philosophy succinctly for this argument, and I think the cornerstone of it is: Morals, and the urge to be moral, are innately irrational. There's no sensible purpose in altruism unless you assume something supernatural. "Create a better world for our children?" Why should I care? I'll be dead. "Other people are a lot like you?" Then they might be thinking about screwing me over for their own benefit, like I am. Better to get them first.

The issue I have with that is of emotivism. I reject Kant's view of morality being universalisable and on a categorical imperative, instead I concur with emotivism, which is that morality is, or is an extension of depending on how far you take it, an emotional reaction. So that leaves us with the emotions themselves. You hold that morality (and emotions by extension of my argument) are innately irrational and without purpose unless we assume faith (in God I presume). I don't agree because of simple neuroscience. The brain is a computer, operating on the laws of physics and principles of logic (though we may not understand them yet the brain does not defy the laws of mathematics).

Now while I hold that consciousness is something unverifiable and the experience of emotions and time is subjective, that we can produce and communicate emotions and morality shows that they too are logical. What I am saying is that emotions at a fundamental level are comprised of logic. You could then go on about evolutionary psychology, psychosexuality, egoism and all the rest of it, but I trust that the concept itself is self-evident. That begs the question of the typical altruist example, a man rushes into a burning car at great personal risk to save a stranger of whom he knows nothing (which means he knows of no perceptible benefit to his actions). Why does he do it? I see no need to call it an irrational action, excepting of course the obvious evolutionary benefits, rather that he is fulfilling some internal logical "programming" you could call it. Whether or not that is conscious is largely irrelevant, since it can only be done out of self-interest... a self-contained logical being can only deduce it's own existence remember. So the working through of that internal programming is an act of self-interest, though I'd quite happily bet that the man he rescues won't see it that way! .

Amoral behavior is unpalatable to me, and my hatred of it far outweighs my love of reason.

Awww it's not so bad! Just make sure you have a good supply of healthy renal systems and emergency transplant teams nearby . But in all seriousness, in the context of society (remember the presumption?) amoral behavior doesn't work. On one's own, it is the only conclusion, remember that objectively I hold moral nihilism, and that the only morality that exists is of the same value as, and borne of, an emotion.

There's no individual benefit in moral behavior, so the conscience is a set of defective urges that hold me back as far as survival is concerned.

I think it's important to note that evolution also plays a part in self-interest, since if you boil it down the urge to procreate is that self-interest, and it's arguable that everything we do as individuals is to that end. Nonetheless, this article http://salmonriver.com/commentary/ca...nourgenes.html provides a useful argument of my position here.

Choosing "emotion" but not religion would appear to be based on a simple dislike of the latter. To me, that is.

I assume you mean faith? I think we've covered my differentiation between faith and religion (religion = re ligio = return to bondage = not the good kind of bondage).

And the religion I was born into makes more sense to me than any alternative I have encountered. So I stuck with it.

Ah I see! . Surely the most consistent monotheistic religion would be Judaism?

EDIT: Damned wordwrap on notepad

[DinoDoc]

Have we said anything new from the 1000's of other religious troll threads?

[Last Conformist]

I've come to conclude that I'll never understand the view that ethical egoism is the "logical" choice.

Like every ethical system I've ever ran across, it's founded on an ad hoc assumption; specifcally, that I should strive for my own benefit, and only that. Now, this does have a certain plausibility to the human mind, but that doesn't change the fact that it's pulled out of thin air. It's an axiom. If I reject it and replace it with some other axiom that doesn't contradict whatever other axioms I'm operating with, I end up with an equally valid system.

[Whaleboy]

Have we said anything new from the 1000's of other religious troll threads?

Who's trolling? And yes, reading back this has been a very productive debate, a credit to all who have taken part

Like every ethical system I've ever ran across, it's founded on an ad hoc assumption; specifcally, that I should strive for my own benefit, and only that. Now, this does have a certain plausibility to the human mind, but that doesn't change the fact that it's pulled out of thin air. It's an axiom. If I reject it and replace it with some other axiom that doesn't contradict whatever other axioms I'm operating with, I end up with an equally valid system.

Deductively, relativism applies yes but imo that's an empty assertion; you can't really do a lot with it. However, I have not, and consciously ensured that I would not, say one "should" or one "ought" to strive for their own benefit... that's prescriptive and completely different. It's a descriptive statement, which is an entirely different argument.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
I've come to conclude that I'll never understand the view that ethical egoism is the "logical" choice.

Like every ethical system I've ever ran across, it's founded on an ad hoc assumption; specifcally, that I should strive for my own benefit, and only that. Now, this does have a certain plausibility to the human mind, but that doesn't change the fact that it's pulled out of thin air.

Natural selection is pulled out of thin air?

[bayraven]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Have we said anything new from the 1000's of other religious troll threads?

This is my first time, but in learning that this topic has been done ad nauseum, I've wondered that too. One thing I've inferred is that this time the ad hominem's have been restricted to a credential pissing match.

To further DinoDoc's question, is the discussion usually limited to the gradiations between atheism and agnosticism, or do people of any particular faith ever show up to debate? Being comfortable in my faith and wholly incapable of making a cogent argument for same, I'm content to listen and learn as much as possible about opposing views and wonder where the intellectual (Christians — or religious-fill-in-the-blank’s) are.

[Whaleboy]

Well the topic has been done ad nausium but what usually happens is that someone posts something and we all go off at a tangent, usually as a result of nitpicking. I think that's the direction this thread went but we seem to be getting back on track, indeed it's all been interesting.

I think the discussion re atheism and agnosticism was relevant to the view of God, ambiguity and what that means in relationship to theism. The difficulty with this topic is that it's been done over and over in intellectual circles, many of the challenges are stock challenges, many of the responses are stock responses. When you add some original thinking to that, or people coming at it from different fields, then it becomes interesting, like a game of chess. Do you think that there's been a mismatch in atheists and theists here?

What I'm trying to say is that while the topic has been done many times before, it's never been done to this quality in my time with Apolyton.

[bayraven]

yes a mismatch. if this thread is any reflection of previous tries on the subject, people of faith don't bother posting.

[bayraven]

My last statement is not completely fair, i know, but the extent of 'Faith Posting' has been the admission from some that God is a possibility. hardly representative of a Christian.

[Whaleboy]

Hmmm I'm not sure, it's more likely that if someone sees an argument that disagrees with him strongly and he is able to counter it, he will usually do so here... at least I think that's the general experience around here (thoughts anyone?).

Certainly some very capable pro-theist posters have been present, I know BK hasn't, but then that's probably why we've had a productive debate jk. The difficulty for the theist position here is that we didn't start with an open question, I posted a piece where Russell refutes the best arguments for God's existence, and I do not believe there have been any new arguments since 1927 when the lecture was given. If I asked the simple question "does God exist?", "Is Christianity worthwhile?" then we would have been able to explore Russells arguments without repeating it. I suppose that means that this thread is just a discussion of Russells article... I for one am aware of no valid refutation to date though I may be wrong there... but assuming none exists, that would leave any theist at a disadvantage here. However, if we had started with an open question, it would have likely degenerated very quickly into a pedantic typing competition.

But then, this isn't solely about winning or losing, as you said we have been able to explore arguments, I've been able to clarify some of my thoughts as I'm sure many others have (that's the reason I engage in debates in the first place... trial by fire as it were).