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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   25724 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023

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I'm just going to say that I do not believe you are a "former leftist and atheist who's cringing at other atheists." This looks like the umpteenth iteration of a particular persona who keeps returning here.

As an atheist myself, I could never help but cringe when atheists responded to the “without God how are you moral” of the Christian evangelicals with the “Are you saying the only thing stopping you from murder is God’s judgment”?

The rejoinder you are complaining about is indeed a certain kind of smug gotcha line that's kind of cringe, but it's a rejoinder to an equally smug and cringeworthy argument. When theists try to play gotcha like that, they invite gotchas in return. This is why atheists who've gotten over their "arguing with evangelicals" phase usually aren't interested in that kind of debate. I'm fine actually talking about why I do or do not believe in God. But the sort of Christian who uses the "How can you be moral without God?" argument (usually followed by some variant of "You don't actually believe there is no God, you're just pretending") isn't interested in genuine discussion, but in seeing who can win the gotcha contest.

I think your Lizzo/Muslim analogy is kind of ridiculous. I don't personally care whether or not Ayan Hirsi Ali really believes in Christianity, but I can see why actual believers would care if someone is just wearing Christianity as a skin suit. You are overthinking the attraction to Islam; it's been pointed out here plenty of times that the left's infatuation with Islam isn't because of any intrinsic qualities of Islam (if it were practiced mostly by white people, they'd be condemning it as a Bronze age death cult). It's purely and solely because Islam is mostly practiced by brown third-worlders.

The rejoinder you are complaining about is indeed a certain kind of smug gotcha line that's kind of cringe, but it's a rejoinder to an equally smug and cringeworthy argument. When theists try to play gotcha like that, they invite gotchas in return.

Well, I am interested in what basis do atheists build their moral foundations, if any. Generally it turns out to be some form of utilitarianism, if they have one, and I go "Oh, okay" because I'm not that convinced by utilitarianism. The ones that don't have any really considered basis just seem to tend to assume that it's in the water or the air that we'll be nice to each other, or concerned about the marginalised, or whatever, and they very vehemently deny that they are living off the remainder of the cultural Christian capital that formed such sentiments originally.

Well, I am interested in what basis do atheists build their moral foundations, if any.

It's not an unfair question in itself. I was responding to the OP's complaint about the classic dialog:

Theist: "If you don't believe in God, what keeps you from murdering people?" Atheist: "Are you saying that it's only your belief in God that keeps you from murdering people?"

Obviously, that dialog does not result from either side having a genuine interest in the underpinnings of the other's morality.

I'd argue that retort serves a very useful purpose: Most theists haven't thought much about their moral foundations beyond "because god said so" and it might be the first time they've ever had to consider that. My dad can't even model what it would hypothetically be like to not believe in god. He just can't grok how an atheistic mind works re: morals or gratitude (and it's not because he isn't genuinely interested).

Most self-described atheists I know are the type of person who has actually considered some moral philosophy.

And I gotta say it's hilarious when Christians pull out the "[nontheists] are living off the remainder of the cultural Christian capital that formed such sentiments originally" line when so much of Western Culture, like say freedom of conscience, came about directly from Christians having to figure out how to stop killing each other. Secularism was a compromise.

There's no question Christianity has influenced Western Culture, but I rarely see Christians willing to talk about how much of "Traditional Christianity" had to be shaved off to get to where we are the last few centuries.

Same as Christians, more or less.

There are good things and bad things. I prefer more of the former and less of the latter, both for me and for others.

At some point you have to accept an axiom. Atheists don’t get an extrinsic answer to the question of “why should I prefer good things?” Christians do, because Jesus is Lord, and by definition His preferences are correct. From the outside, though, this begs the same question: “why should I prefer what the Lord prefers?”

There's also that pesky problem of: "how do we know what The Lord prefers?" Many Christians have killed other Christians over this question, and I don't think it's been resolved.

The ultimate basis of morality is our evolved brain structure. We have empathy that causes us to feel others' pain as our own and logic that allows us to deduce the consequences of our actions. everything else - from theology to utilitarianism - is just tinkering at the edges. In the final analysis I am a good person because when I do bad things I feel bad.

Yes I will agree that modern western culture is evolved from Christianity. This is evident in how compatible the Christian religion is with the modern Secular state. but it clearly isn't Christianity (alone) which brought us to where we are. For example, Nietzsche characterized Christianity as 'slave morality' but even that didn't stop Christian cultures keeping slaves for centuries - if anything slavery by Christian cultures was nastier than the slavery practiced by classical cultures that had no theological reason to spurn the practice. I think a genuine belief in a deity has a fairly marginal effect on how 'good' someone is.

I'm a religious agnostic who thinks that utilitarianism doesn't make sense as a moral principle.

I give credit to Christianity for having helped to form modern morality, including my own, I just don't think that belief in Christianity is necessary for that morality to continue.

I don't have any basis for my morality other than that I am accustomed to it since childhood, I sometimes feel guilt when I hurt others, and I have had a few mystic experiences, drug-fueled and otherwise, in which I felt that other sentient beings were the same thing as me, just looking at the universe from a different angle.

But I don't think that Christians actually have a good basis for their morality either. "God said that we should do it this way" does not actually get rid of the question of what to found morality on, since for me the natural reply even if I believed that God existed would be "Why should I care what God wants? Why is God's morality more important than any other?".

"Why should I care what God wants? Why is God's morality more important than any other?"

If an omnipotent, omniscient being thinks that A is good and B is bad, it would be an act of insane hubris to imagine that you could know better than him. The more so when this being has the power to sentence you to eternal suffering or bliss.

it would be an act of insane hubris to imagine that you could know better than him.

Would you still feel this way if you discovered that God said raping and murdering strangers for fun is always good?

There are already people who do that for a given definition of "stranger"

You can't read minds, so you don't know what the being thinks. You might know what he claims to think, but you don't know if he's telling you the truth.

True, but Goodguy seemed to assume he knew what God meant but still didn’t see why God’s view should be privileged over any other. Your objection I understand; his I didn’t.

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