Can Atheists Be Good Citizens?

godless dave said:
I'm skimming it now, and Locke seems to be basing his thesis on one of the Adam creation stories in Genesis.
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Is that what he's doing?

Why is he doing that?

What question is he trying to answer?

What caused him to ask that question?

Read carefully.
 
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Stone Island said:
Is that what he's doing?
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Yep.

Stone Island said:
Why is he doing that?
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He apparently thinks the Christian Bible is the word of God.

Stone Island said:
What question is he trying to answer?
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Whether the Christian God intended for kings to have absolute authority.

Stone Island said:
What caused him to ask that question?
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Some other guy's essay.

So what? How is any of this relevant? It all presupposes that the Christian Bible is the word of God and that Locke is interpreting it correctly. If one buys Locke's interpretation, one might conclude that the Christian God intended for humans to have certain rights (Locke did some pretty convoluted reasoning to come up with that, let me tell you).

But if the Christian Bible is not the word of God, then we can't appeal to God to justify our rights. So it's really as meaningless as the claims of kings that the Christian God had given them absolute authority.

You can't conclude from Locke's essay that Locke was right and Filmer was wrong. All you can conclude is that Locke interpreted one particular book of one particular religion one way, and Filmer interpreted it another. That tells you nothing about what God actually wants for humans.
 
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So Stone Island, godless dave answered all your questions. Perhaps you could answer KingMerv's. In case you might have missed it "Stone Island do you think an atheist can be a good citizen?"
 
I find the idea that atheists can't be good citizens to be bigoted, ignorant, offensive and totally without merit.

Just as I find the idea that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or Scientologists can't be good citizens to be bigoted, ignorant, offensive and totally without merit.

That's really all I have to say on the subject.
 
Stone Island said:
I don't think Neuhaus is speaking about the establishment of a national religion or about the dictates of any particular God or gods. Rather, we're talking about whether an atheist can adequately defend a faith in the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
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I thought that we were talking about whether atheists could be good citizens.

By the way, what's your view on that?

And if Jefferson reckoned that some atheists were "among the most virtuous of men", then it would follow that they would make good citizens. And if Madison thought that disbelief could at most be an offense against God but not men, it would follow that atheism does not cause breaches of the social contract.

And if any of the authors of the Constitution had thought that theism was necessary for good citizenship, they could have made it compulsory. But they didn't. They established a wall of separation.

I conclude that they thought that citizenship was compatible with atheism, but I should be interested to hear your own views on this question.
 
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thaiboxerken said:
Wasn't Warren Buffet Atheist?
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He's not dead, is he? I'd hope to ask "isn't Warren Buffet (an?) Atheist" were he still alive.

This goes to the question above, and part of the fun with batting Neuhaus' article about like a shuttlecock, regarding how one defines a "good" citizen and a "bad" citizen and whatever lies in between.

Based on a cursory look via Google, he may have been raised in a church going family, but I do not find any particular evidence that he practices a religion. Whether he is agnostic, atheist, or something else is unclear.

What he is, according to what I could find, is both frugal and practical, and a truly strategic thinker. His decision to bequeath the bulk of his fortune is a fine example of altruism in practice, a rare quality.

DR
 
Stone Island said:
Well, if you wanted to prove Neuhaus wrong, or, at least, to show that his argument isn't an conclusive as he might have thought, the first thing I suggest you do is to define, very carefully and very charitably, the strongest possible formulation of his argument.


...snip...
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No you don't you just have to point out that reality doesn't match his argument therefore his argument is baloney.
 
Stone Island said:
Well, if you wanted to prove Neuhaus wrong, or, at least, to show that his argument isn't an conclusive as he might have thought, the first thing I suggest you do is to define, very carefully and very charitably, the strongest possible formulation of his argument. You would have to define exactly what he meant by a good citizen, what he meant by an atheist, and why it is that he thinks that atheists can't meet that criteria. You could then show how his terms are wrong, trivial, tautological, don't take into account other relevant facts, have perverse consequences that he might wish to avoid, etc...
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What a strange suggestion.

Why would you suggest that?

Does it amuse you to suggest fatuous activities for other people?

Do you think have a hope in hell of persuading anyone to follow this entirely futile and pointless suggestion?

Your motivation here is something of a puzzle.
 
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Stone Island said:
Well, if you wanted to prove Neuhaus wrong, or, at least, to show that his argument isn't an conclusive as he might have thought, the first thing I suggest you do is to define, very carefully and very charitably, the strongest possible formulation of his argument. You would have to define exactly what he meant by a good citizen, what he meant by an atheist, and why it is that he thinks that atheists can't meet that criteria. You could then show how his terms are wrong, trivial, tautological, don't take into account other relevant facts, have perverse consequences that he might wish to avoid, etc.
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Why would I have to start by making his argument for him(and your argument for you), again, only less stupidly?

Instead, why don't you remove the stupid from your argument, clearly define the terms, and otherwise clean up your bigoted position?
 
I think that Stone Island is so funny to get peeved because we harrass him about contradicting himself and refusing to answer a simple question... when he has made it clear that he thinks atheists are on par with child molesters.

Does theism cause hypocrisy, or just make people blind to their own?
 
Darat said:
No you don't you just have to point out that reality doesn't match his argument therefore his argument is baloney.
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You don't even have to do that much. See post #9 of this thread.

@joobs: to pick at a nit.

While the divinity of Jesus, or its chimerical character, is worthy of its own derail, it is the guiding principles of the centuries long practices of Christianity that merit a discussion of what contribution those guiding principles offer to moral behavior, morality, and so on. My take on the Jefferson issue you rightly raise is that Stone is not completely wrong. Jefferson recognized value to societal cohesion within the social structure that Christian culture and philosophy had provided to date (in his time). That he observed and considered this, and commented on it, is well covered in that DOC thread.

As we risk a derail, that will suffice.

DR
 
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JoeEllison said:
Instead, why don't you remove the stupid from your argument, clearly define the terms, and otherwise clean up your bigoted position?
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Given that he won't answer a relatively simple question based in his own OP, don't you think you are asking a bit much, at this point? ;)

DR
 
Darth Rotor said:
While the divinity of Jesus, or its chimerical character, is worthy of its own derail, it is the guiding principles of the centuries long practices of Christianity that merit a discussion of what contribution those guiding principles offer to moral behavior, morality, and so on. My take on the Jefferson issue you rightly raise is that Stone is not completely wrong. Jefferson recognized value to societal cohesion within the social structure that Christian culture and philosophy had provided to date (in his time). That he observed and considered this, and commented on it, is well covered in that DOC thread.
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My issue with this is the fact that the same, or at least very similar, guiding principles can have other sources. The way I interpreted the OP, he was claiming that since atheism cannot provide such a source, an atheist cannot be a good citizen. This is fairly stupid on its face as a principle such as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." features in many cultures and ethical structures that do not have any ties to theism, much less Christianity. Just because Christian culture and philosophy contributed to the original framing of these documents (although I would argue that there were contributions from other sources as well), does not mean that one's philosophy must come from the same source to enable one to adhere to our governmental guidelines.
 
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Stone Island said:
Well, if you wanted to prove Neuhaus wrong, or, at least, to show that his argument isn't an conclusive as he might have thought, the first thing I suggest you do is to define, very carefully and very charitably, the strongest possible formulation of his argument. You would have to define exactly what he meant by a good citizen, what he meant by an atheist, and why it is that he thinks that atheists can't meet that criteria. You could then show how his terms are wrong, trivial, tautological, don't take into account other relevant facts, have perverse consequences that he might wish to avoid, etc...
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that's a lot of effort for something that easily disproven by example.

If someone was to write a treatise on "all Balls are round", I do not need to write a rebuttal on how the author define ball, what the author means by roundness and what is required to not meet the specifications of being round.

I can simply put a football on the table and say, "This ball isn't round." Or drop a Rugby ball on the table and say, "This ball isn't round" Or drop a testicle on the table and say, "This ball isn't round."

If the Author was to say, Well those balls are round and by round I simply meant smooth.

then I can drop a golf ball on the surface and say, "this ball isn't round."

Which could result in a continual back and forth until the definition of round becomes so broad as to be meaningless or so narrowly shifted that the common definition is no longer being applied.

In other words, this is simply a form of Loki's Wager. When does the head begin and the neck end? Overspecification can continue ad infinitum and that continual back and forth doesn't do anything to support the original argument.

Examples of atheists (of various flavors) have been given who can all be defined as good citizens for various reasons. That is enough to disprove the statement, "Atheists can't be good citizens."

Any attempt to redefine the terms atheist and citizen to such a degree that it would make the statement "Atheists can't be good citizens" true would be so different from common usage as to render the statement unitelligible in english. These new definitions (which make that sentence true) do not by proxy make the original definitions hold true in that sentence. Yet, it appears that this is the whole goal of this exercise. That is the reason for the continual question, Do you believe that atheists can't be good citizens?

This proof by proxy is intellectually dishonest and meaningless.
 
Stone Island said:
Your question leads me to believe that you haven't read it. Am I wrong?

Read it carefully. It can't be that hard because apparently Gord_in_Toronto read the whole thing in 10 minutes.
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Didn't do that. Never claimed that. But I did read enough of it to reach my conclusion. I ask you again -- where does Looke specifically prove anything? He just has a long re-interpretation of the Bible to justify his conclusion. If you don't believe me, it's on Google. :D
 
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