Can Atheists Be Good Citizens?

godless dave said:
Irrelevant. Marxism doesn't have to offer a defense of natural rights to be compatible with it.
Click to expand...
Karl Marx said:
On the Jewish Question[/I]]Hence, man was not freed from religion, he received religious freedom. He was not freed from property, he received freedom to own property. He was not freed from the egoism of business, he received freedom to engage in business.

The establishment of the political state and the dissolution of civil society into independent individuals -- whose relation with one another on _law_, just as the relations of men in the system of estates and guilds depended on _privilege_ -- is accomplished by one and the same act. Man as a member of civil society, unpolitical man, inevitably appears, however, as the _natural_ man. The "rights of man" appears as "natural rights", because conscious activity is concentrated on the _political_ act. Egoistic man is the passive result of the dissolved society, a result that is simply found in existence, an object of immediate certainty, therefore a _natural_ object. The political revolution resolves civil life into its component parts, without revolutionizing these components themselves or subjecting them to criticism. It regards civil society, the world of needs, labor, private interests, civil law, as the basis of its existence, as a precondition not requiring further substantiation and therefore as its _natural_ basis. Finally, man as a member of civil society is held to be man in his sensuous, individual, _immediate_ existence, whereas _political_ man is only abstract, artificial man, man as an allegorical, juridical person. The real man is recognized only in the shape of the egoistic individual, the true man is recognized only in the shape of the abstract citizen...
Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his "own powers" as -social_ powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of _political_ power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.
Click to expand...

Oh, you might also want to see The German Ideology.
 
Stone Island said:

On the Jewish Question[/i]]Hence, man was not freed from religion, he received religious freedom. He was not freed from property, he received freedom to own property. He was not freed from the egoism of business, he received freedom to engage in business.

The establishment of the political state and the dissolution of civil society into independent individuals -- whose relation with one another on _law_, just as the relations of men in the system of estates and guilds depended on _privilege_ -- is accomplished by one and the same act. Man as a member of civil society, unpolitical man, inevitably appears, however, as the _natural_ man. The "rights of man" appears as "natural rights", because conscious activity is concentrated on the _political_ act. Egoistic man is the passive result of the dissolved society, a result that is simply found in existence, an object of immediate certainty, therefore a _natural_ object. The political revolution resolves civil life into its component parts, without revolutionizing these components themselves or subjecting them to criticism. It regards civil society, the world of needs, labor, private interests, civil law, as the basis of its existence, as a precondition not requiring further substantiation and therefore as its _natural_ basis. Finally, man as a member of civil society is held to be man in his sensuous, individual, _immediate_ existence, whereas _political_ man is only abstract, artificial man, man as an allegorical, juridical person. The real man is recognized only in the shape of the egoistic individual, the true man is recognized only in the shape of the abstract citizen...
Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his "own powers" as -social_ powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of _political_ power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.

Click to expand...

Wordy and obtuse, as was typical for Marx, but it doesn't prevent any compatibility with human rights or even natural rights.
 
JoeEllison said:
Isn't this a case of special pleading? He's asserting that all other viewpoints should be rejected as arbitrary, except his own. At the same time, he gives no particular justification for his own viewpoint that isn't, when you get down to brass tacks, just as arbitrary as any other.
Click to expand...

Well, not really, because, unlike Neuhaus, I've accepted the possibility that there is no possible non-arbitrary morally compelling defense of my nation, and that my support of it is merely political, i.e., will to power.
 
Stone Island said:
Well, not really, because, unlike Neuhaus, I've accepted the possibility that there is no possible non-arbitrary morally compelling defense of my nation, and that my support of it is merely political, i.e., will to power.
Click to expand...

Ah, so you admit that Neuhaus is wrong and stupidly so, while continuing forward with logical fallacies of your own. Sweet.
 
godless dave said:
Wordy and obtuse, as was typical for Marx, but it doesn't prevent any compatibility with human rights or even natural rights.
Click to expand...

Eh? Oh really?

Listen, I suppose that I could believe in God and moral talk and natural rights and Ayer's verification theory of meaning. That doesn't make them any less incompatible, philosophically speaking.

Marx's Communism, based as it is on the theory of dialectical materialism, is incompatible with the American Founder's theory of natural rights.
 
Stone Island said:
Eh? Oh really?
Click to expand...

If I'm wrong, please point out where in the passage you quoted such an incompatibility exists.

Stone Island said:
Marx's Communism, based as it is on the theory of dialectical materialism, is incompatible with the American Founder's theory of natural rights.
Click to expand...

You just changed the subject again. Above you said Communism was incompatible with natural rights. Now you're saying it's incompatible with one particular version of natural rights.
 
Last edited:
Stone Island said:
Well, not really, because, unlike Neuhaus, I've accepted the possibility that there is no possible non-arbitrary morally compelling defense of my nation, and that my support of it is merely political, i.e., will to power.
Click to expand...


You're still confusing "arbitary" with "subjective".

You would agree, I assume, that there is no transcendent, eternal thing corresponding to the concept of chivalry. Chivalry is just a concept invented by humans regarding how humans can behave. And yet, somehow, the ruling classes in Europe based their social interactions on this concept for centuries. In that sense chivalry was "real".

So it is with human rights. They are not a transcendent, eternal thing. They are a concept invented by humans regarding how humans can behave. Some governments operate according to this concept, and many of us prefer to live in countries with those kinds of governments.
 
godless dave said:
You just changed the subject again. Above you said Communism was incompatible with natural rights. Now you're saying it's incompatible with one particular version of natural rights.
Click to expand...

I'm just trying to clean it up, and make sure we're all talking about the same thing. While how he like's his porridge is an accidental characteristic of your Scottish gentleman, I suppose there must be some essential characteristic of his Scottishness. It's that one particular view we've been talking about here, since the very beginning.

I would like to see a natural rights theory that is compatible with Marx's materialism.
 
godless dave said:
You would agree, I assume, that there is no transcendent, eternal thing corresponding to the concept of chivalry. Chivalry is just a concept invented by humans regarding how humans can behave. And yet, somehow, the ruling classes in Europe based their social interactions on this concept for centuries. In that sense chivalry was "real".
Click to expand...

Yes, real and arbitrary.
 
I don't care to continue down this track of communism. It's clear that communism can agree with natural law, considering that many forms of communism are religiously oriented.
So, to go back to a previous point that Stone Island made.
Stone Island said:
This is, of course, the nub.

I posted it elsewhere, but there is something that Dr. Harry Neumann, an avowed nihilist, wrote that I liked very much:
Click to expand...
where the article highlights the fact that views are arbitary. Which means that all we have is the use of axiomatic reasoning to support our views. Atheists can do this, so atheists can be good citizens... Which is why I said:
joobz said:
So you agree, then, that atheists can be good citizens?
Click to expand...
Then Stone Iland replies with a bizarre claim of:

Stone Island said:
Who are the atheists who aren't skeptics?
Click to expand...
Which seems to be that he is implying that skeptics are incapable of using axiomatic reasoning. which is why I asked:
joobz said:
???
Are you saying skeptics can't be good citizens?
I'm having a hard time keeping up with your shifting argument.
Click to expand...

You have avoided this entirely.

It seems to be that you think skeptical atheists can be good citizens. Why? Does it mean that any skeptic can't be a good citizen?
 
Stone Island said:
No, of course not.
Click to expand...

So what's arbitrary about the human concepts of morality, fairness, justice, and human rights?

Stone Island said:
Natural rights, however, purport to be normative, imperative, and transcendent.
Click to expand...

I think you mean to say that people purport natural rights to be normative, imperative, and transcendent. The rights themselves cannot purport anything.

But people can purport that all they want. No one has offered any evidence that natural rights are normative, imperative, and transcendent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom