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The atheist and morality

Not as familiar with Stalins religious background but anyone who claims that Hitler was godless never read Mein Kampf. He talks extensively about the fighting of the jews being the lords work.

A perfect example of religious beliefs gone bad...
 
Quick google search for an example of Hitlers religious writings returned:

Although Hitler did not practice religion in a churchly sense, he certainly believed in the Bible's God. Raised as Catholic he went to a monastery school and, interestingly, walked everyday past a stone arch which was carved the monastery's coat of arms which included a swastika. As a young boy, Hitler's most ardent goal was to become a priest. Much of his philosophy came from the Bible, and more influentially, from the Christian Social movement. (The German Christian Social movement, remarkably, resembles the Christian Right movement in America today.) Many have questioned Hitler's stand on Christianity. Although he fought against certain Catholic priests who opposed him for political reasons, his belief in God and country never left him. Many Christians throughout history have opposed Christian priests for various reasons; this does not necessarily make one against one's own Christian beliefs. Nor did the Vatican's Pope & bishops ever disown him; in fact they blessed him! As evidence to his claimed Christianity, he said:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf
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http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm
 
azazal said:
Scottie99, forgot had this one in my "backpocket" - http://www.creationtheory.org/Morality/

Nice little page that counters atheism = immorality
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Great link

I will be doing a lot of reading from the site.

and at first glance it even has a whole section countering the Hitler was an Atheist stance including this gem

None of them knew that Nazi soldiers wore belt buckles inscribed with "Gott mit uns" (God is with us).
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Scottie99 said:
I posted my thoughts with awareness of complaining about others. Wanted to vent and felt safe venting here and sparking discussion with those that had more insight.

First I am in my mid thirties so I do feel I am leaving the exuberance of youth quickly and becoming more of the grumpy middle aged type.

Dogdoctor

While I criticize and may disagree with others beliefs I was venting on the frustration of the being cut off at the knees process.

Me: I have a problem with the Iraq war

Religious Zealot: The war is God's will

Me: I do not believe in god

Zealot: you are a immoral person whose opinion is invalid.

I think debate and difference of opinion drives this country my issue is my opinion being discounted and dismissed because I simply can have no moral compass without god.
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Well I am merely pointing out that regardless of what you beleive people will criticise you, so perhaps learning to respond without frustration might be a good thing to do. You cannot control the thoughts of other people, so either you can let it bother you or get on with your life and look for constructive ways to spend your time.
 
Scottie99 said:
Not as familiar with Stalins religious background but anyone who claims that Hitler was godless never read Mein Kampf. He talks extensively about the fighting of the jews being the lords work.

A perfect example of religious beliefs gone bad...
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Stalin was the godless commie (all good commies believe that religion is an opiate and should be eliminated) that the US almost went to war with after WWII (there were Generals that advocated it). In the big "communism is evil and the big enemy" push from the '40's to the collapse of the USSR, communism and atheism were definetly lumped together as "bad, bad, bad".
 
CrossHair said:
Stalin was the godless commie (all good commies believe that religion is an opiate and should be eliminated) that the US almost went to war with after WWII (there were Generals that advocated it). In the big "communism is evil and the big enemy" push from the '40's to the collapse of the USSR, communism and atheism were definetly lumped together as "bad, bad, bad".
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Communism IS a religion...

Well sort of.
 
ChristineR said:
Atheistic morals can be absolute. For example, "the greatest good for the greatest number" leaves out a lot of the details, but in theory one can could calculate formulas involving death, pain, suffering, and probabilities and come up with a numeric basis for all action.

In practice, morals based on the "will of God" are anything but absolute. God has not chosen to tell us what is his will. Ask any two fundamentalists what God is telling them, and you'll get unrelated answers. The various sacred books are wildly contradictory. And worst of all, God often is claimed to give advice that is utterly abhorent to any decent human being, such as the Bible's views on slavery.
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Since there really is no objective evidence for the existence of God, then the belief that God is the source of morality is no less subjective than my belief that morality stems from Bill and Ted.

Love thy neighbor as theyself is no more an objective morality than is Be Excellent to Each Other.

Both are equally absolute. Which means, of course, that they absolutely mean whatever the person who wants to do something asserts that they do.
 
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I knew a little on Marx and his beliefs on religion but was not sure of the communist practice of them especially under Stalin. It seems from casual reading of his stance he used religion as a form of mind control squashing at one point to force loyalty to the party re-instating it another to become a machine of the state.

Will have to do more research but it seems the Atheist tag was tied to Stalin from outsiders while he really used religion as a means of power control
 
azazal said:
hmm, this popped into my mind - How many people have been killed in the name of god, vs. then number that have been killed in the name of atheism?
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Will you count Stalin? The Khmer Rouge?

Will this account for religion being merely used as a smokescreen for a land-grab?

One thing I believe that the religious have correct: human beings are sinners (in the sense of man's inhumanity to man). I just don't think the religious are any more precious or moral than atheists, is all. To say that all religious people are brutal killers is as much an error as to say all atheists are...
 
Scottie99 said:
Not as familiar with Stalins religious background but anyone who claims that Hitler was godless never read Mein Kampf. He talks extensively about the fighting of the jews being the lords work.

...
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Didn't you hear? Hitler, the guy who said, "In doing this [exterminating the jews], I am doing God's work" was an atheist, but Einstein, who said, "I do not believe in a personal God, and have stated so very clearly" was actually a theist.
 
I think Scottie99 is hitting the nail on the head here. Religion, in one form or another, is used by leaders for power control. Who needs mindless robots when you have a cohesive religious society? Societies have evolved to this form because atheistic ones are easily crushed and converted.
 
Jimbo07 said:
Will you count Stalin? The Khmer Rouge?

Will this account for religion being merely used as a smokescreen for a land-grab?

One thing I believe that the religious have correct: human beings are sinners (in the sense of man's inhumanity to man). I just don't think the religious are any more precious or moral than atheists, is all. To say that all religious people are brutal killers is as much an error as to say all atheists are...
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I'm not saying every person that is religious is a killer. The thought that came to mind, is how often is religion cited as an excuse to kill others vs atheism cited as the reason.

I've heard "God told me to kill them", but I haven't heard, "The non-god told me to kill them."
 
Michael Shermer has written about this in his "Science of Good & Evil", plus I've read many other books and essays on the subject. Try asking the believer
* Is something good because God says it's good, or does God say something's good because it's good?
If they answer that something's good because God says it's good, then they must believe that murder and rape would be OK if God says they are. The Atheists says they're wrong, no matter what.
If they answer that God say's something's good because it's good, then there is an external morality, that doesn't depend on their God. God isn't necessary.

You can also ask them "If you learned that there was no God, would you start killing, raping, stealing and torturing?" Chances are they will not answer "yes".

I'll go through my library tonight and post some references here.
 
Atheists as a group could do something to combat the "you are an immoral atheist" argument. They could come up with a moral code they all agree on that is comparable to or better than anything religious people have. This would completely take the air out of those sails. Individually atheists have morals but as a group they tend to play down the importance of morality so it hasn't already happened.
 
Dogdoctor, thats ridiculous. Atheists can't come to a consensus, because they aren't a religion, they're just the absence of one. The only "morals" that atheists as a group tend to play down are things like premarital sex is a sin (even though Christians as a group are not AT ALL better at following through with that, they just talk a good game) or smoking pot is evil (though again you'd be hard pressed to find a real correlation there, its mostly just talk). You're not going to get people to change their minds on things like that just to prove a point.

When Christians say atheists are immoral, the only things they can really point to are false sins like hubris and impiety and sacriligiousness which really have zero meaning outside their own belief system. But when it comes to things that really matter, there isn't a link, just look at all the nominal beliefs in our prison population.
 
I beg your pardon but atheists can do anything they want to do. You are playing down morality by trying to excuse atheists from having a set of agreed upon moral guidelines.
Errata said:
Dogdoctor, thats ridiculous. Atheists can't come to a consensus, because they aren't a religion, they're just the absence of one. The only "morals" that atheists as a group tend to play down are things like premarital sex is a sin (even though Christians as a group are not AT ALL better at following through with that, they just talk a good game) or smoking pot is evil (though again you'd be hard pressed to find a real correlation there, its mostly just talk). You're not going to get people to change their minds on things like that just to prove a point.

When Christians say atheists are immoral, the only things they can really point to are false sins like hubris and impiety and sacriligiousness which really have zero meaning outside their own belief system. But when it comes to things that really matter, there isn't a link, just look at all the nominal beliefs in our prison population.
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Dogdoctor said:
Atheists as a group could do something to combat the "you are an immoral atheist" argument. They could come up with a moral code they all agree on that is comparable to or better than anything religious people have. This would completely take the air out of those sails. Individually atheists have morals but as a group they tend to play down the importance of morality so it hasn't already happened.
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What you're looking for is a thorough, logically sound morality. This seems like a very difficult thing to do, but not impossible.

Building a consensus among Atheists... now THAT would be impossible.
 
Scottie99 said:
Sorry already corrected the mistype. Christina should be Christian.

The agnostic (or the simple method of allowing the debater to assume a white male with the last name of scott is probably a christian) approach does work.

My question is why do I have to lie or leave out facts of myself to discuss moral issues?
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You don't have to do so in order to discuss such things with me, or even most people. However, some people will, as you have pointed out, have "atheist being the trigger word it seems to shut the doors tightly". If you want to discuss moral issues with someone who has that attitude, you'll either have to get past those doors after they shut when you mentioned your religious beliefs or keep them open long enough to have the discussion before mentioning your beliefs to them. But, it sounds like all you really want is to vent about it. I agree that people shouldn't be so prejudiced regarding your religious beliefs. It's just a fact of life that they are.

BTW, I wouldn't ever recommend lying about your beliefs in a discussion on morality. It's like ceding the high moral ground before you start. :) On the other hand, I don't feel obligated to immediately correct other peoples incorrect assumptions about me.
 
This whole discussion has reminded me of a situation we had last summer/fall/winter.

My wife and I like to attend the local state fair, and she, being an ex-4Her, likes to see the student exhibits and whatnot. Among these is the art show. So we are wondering around the art show, which, upstairs, is the professional show. We are like, yeah, nice paintings, but boy are they expensive (you know, $1500 or more, and nothing is ringing our bell).

Then we go to the amateur exhibit. Again, nice paintings and all (and not with price tags). And then we see a painting that both of us like a lot. Now, that doesn't happen very often, where we both like the same painting that much. Then we see another. And another. Of course, not surprisingly, they are all by the same artist. We conclude this is an artist we like. Then we look up and we discover that we are standing in the Grade 7 - 9 section. Yeah, this artist is in junior high. And the paintings are exceptional, at least in our opinion, despite the fact that the judges did not recognize them at all (the paintings were probably too realist (our style), kind of like a Thomas Kinkade nature scene with animals; my wife the vet likes the animal theme)

Well, given how much we liked his paintings, we left a note for him asking him to contact us if he wanted to sell anything. We also voted for our favorite for the "Public choice" award.

OK, so his father contacts me, and he is all excited. Apparently, the artist was pretty depressed after not getting any recognition from the judges. However, two things happened: 1) we weren't the only ones who voted for him, and, in fact, the guy WON the "public choice" award. Thus, apparently a lot of people liked his painting. 2) he was so excited that we sent him such a nice note that he cheered up completely.

Ultimately, we bought the painting that won the award, and it now hangs in our living room, along with our Thomas Kinkade (which we got a little later).

I tell you that to relate this part. The artist's father is a fairly pleasant fellow, but is a minister, and, to be honest, is a little fruity. Says praise the Lord and Alleluia, and all that. But as I said, nice guy and all, so I can deal with the weirdness.

When we were leaving their house after picking up the painting, we were talking to him in the drive. He kept talking about how nice it was for us to do this, and how it was clear that God had moved us to do this for his son. I didn't want to squash his enthusiasm, but you know, we just liked the painting and thought it would look great in our house, and while it's great his son was uplifted, we have to admit, we did it for ourselves. But I didn't say too much, and said thanks, we think he's a really great painter, and we are really getting a great piece.

Then he said something that I'll never forget: "Well, it's clear that you are fine, christian folks. I'm a minister, and I can recognize good people when I meet them."

Well, my wife and I are flattered, of course, but, dude, christian folks? Um, ok. I guess my wife goes to Catholic church every once in a while, and I'll go with the family on holidays, without believing a word of it. But I'd like to think he's right, that we are indeed good people, lack of christianess and all. OTOH, I laughed about that "good, christian folks" thing all the way home. It still makes me laugh.
 
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