Can Atheists Be Good Citizens?

SI, am _I_ a bad citizen?

Please answer plainly and directly as I'm not nearly as educated or erudite as you ...
 
six7s said:
Indeed... especially if you have an objective focus on democracy, human rights, press freedom, corruption and the rule of law, as opposed to subjective criteria of "moral justification", with flimsy, shallow and irrelevant appeals to emotion like "every mother loves her son, no matter how wayward"
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Aren't you raising the question of what standard we employ that allows us to say that press freedom, low corruption, and democracy are good things? Not all people agree with this. Why are we right and they wrong? A Communist, for example, would make the moral case that press freedom and democracy are superseded in importance by the coming Revolution.

The question is why are democracy, press freedom, and low corruption are objective moral criteria? Why is that a justified position to take? It seems to me that to make that case you would have to appeal to a standard that is no more empirically justified than an appeal to God or gods.

The "every mother loves her son..." bit is to remind you that (almost) everyone loves their country, even profoundly screwed up countries. Is their love justified or is it merely the result of arbitrary birth location?
 
cgordon said:
SI, am _I_ a bad citizen?

Please answer plainly and directly as I'm not nearly as educated or erudite as you ...
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I don't know. In any case, to say that you're either a bad citizen or a good citizen is a false dilemma.
 
I'm in your schools, educating your children, so I haven't been reading this thread as carefully as I would like. There are a few posts from the last few days that I've been meaning to take a more careful look at.
 
"Is their love justified or is it merely the result of arbitrary birth location?"

One could be tempted to interject a certain irony; concerning which god's rulebook should be used, to the same criteria.

Long - time work lurker,

Hi.
 
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Stone Island said:
I don't know. In any case, to say that you're either a bad citizen or a good citizen is a false dilemma.
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If judging someone to be "either a good or a bad citizen is a false dilemma," then you've just demolished Neuhaus' (and your own) argument!
 
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Stone Island said:
I'm in your schools, educating your children, so I haven't been reading this thread as carefully as I would like.
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That's a rather odd statement and I do not know what it has to do with neuhaus and his illogical argument. Are you a student doing substitute teaching?
 
Stone Island said:
Is this civil and polite, an argument against the argument and not the arguer, or just an attempt to vent some spleen and poison the well?
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Stone Island's expression of indignation seems rather disingenuous to me considering he wrote the following:
Stone Island said:
Call me a troll, but you know what other group [other than atheists] at least 39.5% of the population would say doesn't share their vision of society and at least 47.6% wouldn't want their children to marry?

That's right. Child molesters.

Make of that what you will.
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Stone Island said:
I'm in your schools, educating your children
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Most of the education has happened at home. You have provided some amusing anecdotes at the dinner table, and a living illustration of the truism that not everyone in a position of authority is right, so your presence in our school has had some educational value. I've assured my child that most teachers are better, and that your influence need not extend past the end of the school year.
 
Stone Island said:
Is this civil and polite, an argument against the argument and not the arguer, or just an attempt to vent some spleen and poison the well?
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Yes it was civil and polite and no it was not an attempt to poison the well.

Stone Island said:
Maybe if you say bigoted, illogical, and unsupported enough times without ever actually making a counterargument that evidences any attempt to actually understand the argument you'll convince someone. Of course, that would be rhetoric, not philosophy.
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It was a comment directly regarding the arguments/claims and so on that Neuhaus puts forward. There are already many counter arguments and facts in this thread that demonstrate that Neuhaus's arguments are incoherent, feel free to counter the counter arguments and show how the facts are wrong if you wish.

What I was pointing out is that Neuhaus did not arrive at his conclusions starting with evidence and reason but by way of what is commonly referred to as "revealed knowledge" and discussion of revealed knowledge certainly is within the realms of philosophy. I find it mildly interesting to see how someone with revealed knowledge will use sophistry to try to avoid engaging in actual discussion and avoidance of facts that negate the premise they claim their arguments starts from. (It's about the only interesting thing about Neuhaus's article.)
 
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Stone Island said:
I'm in your schools, educating your children,
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No, you're taking a paycheck. And you're also confirmation of my firm knowledge that while education is poorer by far without me, I am definitely better off not being in education. Not if I have to work near you.

My children are adults, so you're nowhere near them. I could not be more grateful.


Plonk away, you big old grown-up.
 
Stone Island said:
I'm in your schools, educating your children
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You're not in my schools either... with views like yours (or, rather, those you espouse), you'd find it difficult to get an interview for a job in this country

And I very much doubt if you're educating any children

Education is the art of leading

You may well bully kids into submission

I would be very surprised if any students would be capable of consciously wanting to follow your lead... simply because it is patently obvious to anyone with half a brain that you, with your absurdly half-baked, regurgitated nonsense have:
  • no idea where you have been
  • no idea where you are
and
  • no idea where you are going

Who can follow that lead?

Please keep in mind the Membership Agreement and do not use personalize the debate.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Lisa Simpson
 
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Stone Island said:
I'm in your schools, educating your children, ....
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Not the slightest chance you could ever be in "my" schools. Where I live, you would be barred from teaching for daring to suggest there is more to be a good citizen than to respect the laws of the land.

To link professing a belief to being a good citizen is the apanage of tyrannical theocracies, not of modern civilised democracies.
 
Mark A. Siefert said:
If judging someone to be "either a good or a bad citizen is a false dilemma," then you've just demolished Neuhaus' (and your own) argument!
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Maybe he's just a citizen, neither good nor bad. Neuhaus never said that a atheist couldn't be a citizen and he didn't say they were necessarily a bad citizen, just that they couldn't be a good citizen. Perhaps our language has become debased enough that good has come to mean the mere minimum.
 
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