Atheism - Shadows of Doubt

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
I - An untestable hypothesis is false

Hypothesis A: There is a God
Hypothesis B: There is no God
If A then not B, if B then not A
But if untestable hypotheses are false, then not A and not B, therefore A and B

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Elok
I am of the opinion that secular morals only "work" because of their competition with religious morals, combined with human beings' own moral inclinations (whether instinctive or socially imposed doesn't much matter, as humans are social animals). It's much the same phenomenon that allows opposition parties to enjoy wild popularity even when they don't have anything original to offer; there's little need to stand *for* anything provided you can stand against something else.

I've gone into this theory of mine before. Just to head off the usual flames, I don't mean to suggest that, if there were no religions around, humanity would revert to savagery. The more I think about it, I suspect something more of the reverse. Religious belief cannot cease to exist entirely, just because without it morality would have no genuine root. The cognitive dissonance involved in so consistently acting against our own best interests would be maddening, even if it were emotionally imperative. Without a supernatural telos, morality is just a shared form of OCD (I said "to head off the usual flames." New flames I expect and can probably handle).

Not that I'm interested in a flame war (although I'll do my best if it's required ), but I think I remember those earlier debates, and I simply do not understand why you think that.

I mean a society without religion would face more or less the same problems as a religous society, and so would have the same need for rules and norms that regulate social life. Whats the difference between those rules and norms and morals (based on religion).

Maybe it's because I dunno what OCD means (what is it)?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by BeBro
Maybe it's because I dunno what OCD means (what is it)? WTF is OCD?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I have it. It makes me want to straighten all the paintings hanging on my walls

[loinburger]

Obsessive compulsive disorder. I think the claim is that secular humanism is nothing more than an irrational compulsion to be a decent human being.

[BeBMan]

Oh-ha, thx. Seems I have to rethink my pov regarding flame wars.

[Elok]

That's oversimplifying it a bit, Loin. It'd be more accurate to say that we all have the compulsion, but only religious explanations of it can make the compulsion rational. How do I phrase this?

Well, there are very few actions we perform with no end in mind. Usually we do things for a purpose--this is straight out of Aristotle, nothing new. But Aristotle had a very different conception of morality than we do in modern times. He believed in virtue ethics; his particular formulation doesn't make much sense to me (he thought that if you tried hard enough you could stop even wanting to do bad things, for example), but it avoided this puzzle by phrasing ethics as a well-balanced life in general.

But morality has no end or telos that is visible in the natural world. I don't want to go over all the objections I've countered before, but the most prominent are "morality is a code of survival in a social environment" and "morality is a means to our survival as a species, rather than as individuals." The former is killed off by the observation that there are many specific situations wherein it is advantageous (based on natural evidence) to act immorally. And as for the latter, you can't generalize from the individual to the universal good. There's no good reason to think of the whole species.

Now, the compulsion to be "a decent human being," as loin said, is there. But it needs an end to point to, or it is by definition irrational, especially given the power of the moral impulse in most humans. Either it has an end which is not readily apparent (i.e., a supernatural end), or it is meaningless and our inclination to think of others is little different from a guy with OCD having to flick the light switch twelve times before finally turning it off.

[BeBMan]

Why do you speak of humans being social animals and then reject otoh any implications for social behaviour and keep thinking purely from the individualistic POV?

[Elok]

I meant that insofar as humans are social animals, it makes little difference whether morality is innate or taught. Since all societies up to this point (that I know of) have taught some form of morality, and human beings need socialization to grow up healthy, morality can be considered innate regardless of circumstances.

However, it's quite plain that we can and do act for our own individual good first and foremost in many respects, and it's not clear why we shouldn't as a practical matter. The fate of the species does not equal the fate of the individual. Sure, driving a car everywhere and using spectacular amounts of electricity contributes to global warming, wastes fuels which are in limited supply, and often involves the exploitation of third-world countries like Nigeria (look up "Ken Saro-Wiwa," IIRC). In much the same way, we rely on sweatshop labor for cheap goods and supplies. Or, for a less politically divisive example, look at bribery and corruption. You can live a pretty sweet life betraying your duties, and plenty of people get away with it.

It's all immoral, but we still do it some of the time. Why? Because we judge that our comfort and convenience trumps the pain of people we will never know, a pain we rarely if ever encounter; and global warming and fuel shortages will only really hit the fan after we're dead. There's no evidence that we suffer for any of it when our remains are rotting in the earth, or scattered in ashes across whatever poignant patch of ground we named in our wills.

But we still have some moral inclinations, despite the fact that our own actions indicate we have other priorities--there is a certain utility to evil, or to put it in the more proverbial form, crime does pay. It's a very strange contradiction, isn't it? BTW, has anyone here ever read Marlowe's "Tamburlaine?" It's a lot more eloquent than I am, though I believe its point is significantly different.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
You know, a few hundred years ago you would have said that most of current knowledge (of physics) was false, since we had no way to test (what is know thought to be) the best hypothesis.

Just because a statement is untestable doesn't mean it is false.

JM

You keep banging on this as if it was a good argument. It's not.

The reason we know that modern physics is true is because eventually it made statements that were rational, coherent, and verifiable.
If you claimed 300 years ago things that were not verifiable (about atoms for instance), then what you said was pulled out of your ass. Just like Democrites' atomism is completely pulled from his ass, and has nothing to do with the later experiments that produced evidence.
OK, atomism was the right theory - but in the absence of evidence, was there anything better to do than to treat it as a cute little theory? Is it rational to believe in Santa Claus and pink unicorns just because someone might find them in an other galaxy? What you're really doing is keeping up with the cultural prejudice around God and using arguments to justify your belief that you would not let someone use to justify his belief in quantum size salsa dancing blue spiders.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Elok
But morality has no end or telos that is visible in the natural world. I don't want to go over all the objections I've countered before, but the most prominent are "morality is a code of survival in a social environment" and "morality is a means to our survival as a species, rather than as individuals." The former is killed off by the observation that there are many specific situations wherein it is advantageous (based on natural evidence) to act immorally. And as for the latter, you can't generalize from the individual to the universal good. There's no good reason to think of the whole species.

You dismiss these two rationalizations here, and I don't disagree with that; but would you continue this argument by attempting to prop up the rationalization of religion above these and other less spiritual ones?

How do you justify following your moral inclinations wrt to religion?

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


You keep banging on this as if it was a good argument. It's not.

The reason we know that modern physics is true is because eventually it made statements that were rational, coherent, and verifiable.
If you claimed 300 years ago things that were not verifiable (about atoms for instance), then what you said was pulled out of your ass. Just like Democrites' atomism is completely pulled from his ass, and has nothing to do with the later experiments that produced evidence.
OK, atomism was the right theory - but in the absence of evidence, was there anything better to do than to treat it as a cute little theory? Is it rational to believe in Santa Claus and pink unicorns just because someone might find them in an other galaxy? What you're really doing is keeping up with the cultural prejudice around God and using arguments to justify your belief that you would not let someone use to justify his belief in quantum size salsa dancing blue spiders.

Did you read Impaler's posts?

If not, please do. I was refering to that.

This was not in argument for God's existence. This was a point that a stupid atheist argument was stupid.

Jon Miller

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by loinburger

Hypothesis A: There is a God
Hypothesis B: There is no God
If A then not B, if B then not A
But if untestable hypotheses are false, then not A and not B, therefore A and B

This may be closer to the truth, in a mystical way. There is a G-d, and There is no G-d are both truths, in different senses. G-d sometimes becomes not G-d, and then returns to being G-d, at different times in history, at different times in our lives.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Elok
However, it's quite plain that we can and do act for our own individual good first and foremost in many respects, and it's not clear why we shouldn't as a practical matter. The fate of the species does not equal the fate of the individual. Sure, driving a car everywhere and using spectacular amounts of electricity contributes to global warming, wastes fuels which are in limited supply, and often involves the exploitation of third-world countries like Nigeria (look up "Ken Saro-Wiwa," IIRC). In much the same way, we rely on sweatshop labor for cheap goods and supplies. Or, for a less politically divisive example, look at bribery and corruption. You can live a pretty sweet life betraying your duties, and plenty of people get away with it.

It's all immoral, but we still do it some of the time. Why? Because we judge that our comfort and convenience trumps the pain of people we will never know, a pain we rarely if ever encounter; and global warming and fuel shortages will only really hit the fan after we're dead. There's no evidence that we suffer for any of it when our remains are rotting in the earth, or scattered in ashes across whatever poignant patch of ground we named in our wills.

But we still have some moral inclinations, despite the fact that our own actions indicate we have other priorities--there is a certain utility to evil, or to put it in the more proverbial form, crime does pay. It's a very strange contradiction, isn't it? BTW, has anyone here ever read Marlowe's "Tamburlaine?" It's a lot more eloquent than I am, though I believe its point is significantly different.

You seem to say the reason why many people act still morally (despite the drive to act against it you construct) is because of the impact of religion (the supernatural telos it provides)?

When you write that people act immorally often, there's no doubt about it. However, from that you can hardly conclude that in general "we have other priorities" - if you mean here that most people don't really want to behave morally or that we act always purely costs/benefits-oriented, and that for our own comfort "we" generally abandon our morals. I know it's a common explanation, but it's hardly teh fact.

Digging out examples were people behave like that doesn't prove it, of course you can find other examples, and you can as well benefit from acting morally, it depends always on the circumstances.

I could also ask about evidence suggesting that we generally/primarily/more easily/whatever go for the "utility to evil". For example, if crime is so successful why is it only a certain part of the population that acts criminal (and not necessarily a growing part btw)?

[Elok]

Lori: I thought that would be the most obvious part, so I didn't explain it. In any religion, there is a supernatural goal towards which moral behavior is oriented. In my own Orthodox Christianity, the goal is to become reunited with God as we were before the disruption of human senses caused by the Fall. In Buddhism, it's to end the cycle of Samsara, though what exactly that means varies depending on what sect you listen to. In Hinduism, it's just to stop the tedious freaking cycle of reincarnation as worms and goats and crap, or at least to come back as a higher being. Et cetera. In all cases, it's something uniting the personal with the universal, something which cannot be explained or demonstrated scientifically.

BeBro: Yes and no. As I said, people do have a moral instinct of some sort, regardless of upbringing. And it's my theory that this moral instinct will drive the majority to some sort of supernatural explanation. Atheists are not necessarily immoral, it's just that they can't offer an explanation of morality that makes a lick of sense to me. They may also commit errors due to basing morality on false premises, but that's a whole other story, and not unique to atheists anyway.

"Crime does pay" may be misleading, since I don't think of evil as restricted to criminal activity. Gossip and continual drunkenness are both technically legal, but still evil to me in their own petty way. But in response to your parting question, most people are not criminals for several reasons.

First of all, they do have that moral instinct holding them back--have you read "Crime and Punishment?" It takes a strong will to override that instinct, or else a desperate mind. Secondly, we are all inclined to immoral actions to one extent or another--they just tend to be of the kind which is so minor that the law doesn't even cover them, which to me indicates that fear of retribution is more influential in such matters than the moral sense itself. But all of us sometimes lie, cut corners, blow people off, take advantage of others, and so on. It's so common that we barely even think about it, but I don't call it moral.

Third, most people do not have the strength to get away with much. They're not clever enough to cover it all up, not influential enough to protect themselves from retaliation, not fast enough to outrun pursuit, whatever. For those who are, there is nothing holding them back but their own conscience. This is where my reference to "Tamburlaine" comes in; he is a strong, courageous, disciplined man, and he shapes the world despite being brutally indecent. The only thing that stops him is death from age and illness, which strike all men alike. He even comes off as admirable in a sick way, due to his unique faithfulness to his (utterly warped) code of honor, and Marlowe's gift for thunderous prose.

I concede that there are times where it is to our benefit to act morally. But presumptively, you do not view morality as a "sometimes" thing, to be followed when it gets us something and ignored when it does not. Morals/ethics tend to be seen as the proper course of action in ALL circumstances (with some exceptions for cases of "the lesser of two evils," and the like). If you are moral where it is advantageous, and immoral where it is advantageous, you're not acting morally; you're just looking out for number one and sometimes acting ethically by coincidence. The idea that sleaze is sometimes profitable is a challenge to morals if that "sometimes" extends to any appreciable percentage of our lives.

[Zero]

this is why its better to say im agnostic rather than atheist.

even though, i might feel atheist i save myself the trouble of pointless chatter.