thaiboxerken
Penultimate Amazing
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- Sep 17, 2001
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- 35,072
Materialism is a morally empty system, correct. So is physics.
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So you're an atheist. Ok, what next?
- Thread starter plumjam
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I could do that, but it would be effectively making a personal attack at some people; so I won't.. particularly as the thread itself was not aimed personally at any particular individual.
The posts are there, for you to read, if you like.
thaiboxerken
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2001
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- 35,072
You'd prefer to attack atheists in general, right?
Hurrah, someone else sees it.
Yes, materialism is morally empty, which is why it is powerless in the 'ought, should' area of life. All materialists should realise this.
The problems start when they fail to realise this.
Given that the way people live their lives, their morality, their inspiration etc.. are all 'should, ought' phenomena they need to realise that none of it comes from their materialism.
So where does it come from?
What I'm 'attacking' is a particular misconceived approach.
If people choose to take that personally, that's rather a shame, but that's no reason to narrow debate.
Human behaviour.
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No. Morality comes prior to human behaviour. In as far as that behaviour is conscious and intentional, morality is what happens in determining what that behaviour should be.
H'ethetheth
fishy rocket scientist
Ancestral behaviour.
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Patently untrue.
So you're saying that the actions of my great great great great great grandfather determine whether I choose to hand in, or keep, a wallet I've found?
How does that work?
at least you've convinced yourself.
Of what?
read back
Read back what?
H'ethetheth
fishy rocket scientist
Yes. Because your great great ... great great grandparents were able to function in a group better than others at the time who weren't your ancestors. Social and cooperative behaviour works well to pass on your genes if you're living as a group.
devnull
Philosopher
exactly. The key word here is 'evolution'. Morals are an evolved trait, with deep roots in survival.
Georg
Graduate Poster
Derail...
For goodness sake let your boy join the Scouts. Maybe things are different in the UK but I had no problem being an atheist scout. Yes I object to their on paper rejection of atheism but in my experience as a member and instuctor it has no practical influence.
Besides which would you equally deny your son the right to become a member of a religion. Personally I object to the regious indoctrination of children by the religious and to be even handed I'm a little uncomfortable inferring that the boy might be an atheist soley because you've told him so. For me that's a decisison he has to make for himself at a much later date.
Or perhaps it's just me that worries your son's feelings might be being used as a political football
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Nogbad
Master Poster
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- Dec 13, 2007
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So if an atheist behaves morally, as you would have it, then is it because he is inately good? Surely then no problem - bound to get a tick in the box from the chap upstairs...or are there now going to be obstacles put in the way? Is behaving morally therefore largely irrelevant? Can one can be moral and be damned and immoral and saved? If so where then morality?
My own view is that as social animals there are clearly behaviour patterns that are anti-social and seemingly altruistic behaviours that re-inforce strong social behaviour - one can call these moral if one likes. These can and do change as circumstances change. One can say that such a "Godless" interpretation can lead to cruelty at an individual level but I would counter that it was ever thus. We consider wholesale slaughter wrong (especially if happens to us) but the Papal legate Arnaud-Amaury writing to the Pope after the suppression of the Cathars in 1209 said "Today your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex." He clearly did not have a moral issue with this and thought he was doing a good thing (I am sure the Cathars begged to differ).
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You ask some pretty big questions
.An act remains as good or as bad as it actually is regardless of whether it's an atheist or a theist performing it. My take on it is that morality interacts with the individual at a much deeper level than the level on which our beliefs about reality exist. Although it's not easy to change a world view, everyday beliefs change all the time. It's actually quite a superficial level of the individual.
So, for example, when I was 16, on the level of belief, I had a broadly atheistic set of beliefs about reality. When I was 16, on the moral level I knew that it is wrong to rape then murder a child.
The latter is not going to change for the rest of my life. The former did change. It could well change back.
My argument has never been that someone having atheist beliefs will necessarily make them less moral.
My argument regarding atheism vis-a-vis morality is that when the exclusive materialist world view behind most atheism expresses itself socially in the form of new moral systems the result is disastrous, because it represents a drift away from the objective moral truth.
This may seem paradoxical. Why is atheism more immoral on a social than an individual level?
Well, this is because atheists almost always (except when powerful social pressures are brought to bear upon them, such as under Stalin, Pol Pot etc..) may have atheistic beliefs, but they live (in the moral dimension) as theists.
This is because morality is deeper than belief.
Well they were clearly wrong to do this.
The reality is that through the history of religion this kind of thing has been the rare exception. However, under systems of morality based on atheistic materialism, this kind of thing was pretty much the rule.
Theistic morality, furthermore, because it ties itself closer to objective morality is more enduring than other systems. Materialist morality held the seeds of its own destruction due to it being at odds with moral objective truth as discerned via the individual conscience.
This is why they were relatively short lived. Yet Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity..etc..as moral systems, have endured for thousands of years. Because, morally, they are much more in tune with the truth.
This is because reality itself is not exclusively material. It is much more than that.