Atheists....

[Redzeppelin]

Without something or someone divine to hand you a moral law, any theory of morality will logically amount to might makes right.

I more or less agree here, but I also get the impression that you feel this theoretical moral ambiguity is a relatively new phenomenon. If we simplify things and just focus on the Christianized West, it sounds like you feel a new moral ambiguity is rising because the West has abandoned it's traditional belief in God-given authority. This may well be true, but (IMO) I don't think it is much different than the previously existing moral ambiguity resulting from the difficulty of determining what the divine moral law is. Should the laymen simply accept what the clergy says is right and wrong? Do the Papists have it right, or are the Schismatics the true followers of God? Rome or Constantinople? Practically speaking, the world has always operated according to the principle of might makes right (IMO, again).

I offer these thoughts in the hope that some of them can fuel a more productive discussion.

Thank you for a balanced response - such a refreshing thing around this thread. It's not that I think moral ambiguity is "new" but I do believe that the effects of postmodernism has taken the moral ambiguity present in the world and accelerated it to a new and scary height. Whereas in the past we might have some qualms about moral conflicts between culture, now we are virtually paralyzed because postmoderism "flattens" all belief systems into a false equality, where all cultural views are accepted as equally valid, despite their moral problems. That is a fairly recent (20thC) view - a view that has been exacerbated in American culture by the immense well-spring of guilt we collectively possess as a by-product of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. Our postmodern culture posits the idea that we are to "accept" all views, cultures, religions and views as equally valid and equally worthy of respect (except Christianity, it seems). So, yes, moral ambiguity is not new, but the severe "levelling" of all systems of belief is.

[bluevictim]

It's not that I think moral ambiguity is "new" but I do believe that the effects of postmodernism has taken the moral ambiguity present in the world and accelerated it to a new and scary height. Whereas in the past we might have some qualms about moral conflicts between culture, now we are virtually paralyzed because postmoderism "flattens" all belief systems into a false equality, where all cultural views are accepted as equally valid, despite their moral problems. That is a fairly recent (20thC) view - a view that has been exacerbated in American culture by the immense well-spring of guilt we collectively possess as a by-product of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. Our postmodern culture posits the idea that we are to "accept" all views, cultures, religions and views as equally valid and equally worthy of respect (except Christianity, it seems). So, yes, moral ambiguity is not new, but the severe "levelling" of all systems of belief is.

What's interesting, of course, is that the political side of postmodernism is fueled in no small part by attitudes like my own, that 'the world has always operated on the principle of might makes right'.

One of the things that sometimes frustrates me about diatribes against postmodernism is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in addressing the issues that postmodernism is a reaction to. I think that perhaps this frustration is, in part, behind comments like, "Oh - you mean like it would be a great benefit to me if I were presented with a check for one billion dollars by Bill Gates?" Postmodernism is a reaction to a lot of difficulties that arose out of modernism. Yes, a belief in our own divine correctness made it easier for us to justify our actions, some of which are hurtful to other people. Unfortunately, we have run against some major difficulties in trying to prove our own divine correctness. Even according to our own traditional belief system, we have to account for the possibility that our beliefs are mistaken.

This brings up the idea of proof. In fact, I think postmodernism is strongly related to 20th century developments in logic which exposed major problems with the Enlightenment trust in the power of reason. This probably isn't the place to discuss that, though.

Anyways, you may be right to find the postmodern culture scary. If history is any indication, it may indicate the beginnings of the fall of our empire. However, I'm not sure it's possible to go back.

[kilted exile]

Ok, firstly I do not believe there has much disrespect towards christianity (or anyone elses beliefs) over the last few pages. Perhaps my comment about not being able to prove I can not make myself invisible was out of order, however it was in direct relation to a previous comment about not being able to prove god does not exist: Proof of the existence or otherwise of any supernatural being is impossible, I'll find out when I die - it is solely a matter of belief, I do not believe such a thing exists this surely shouldn't impact anyone else's faith in the same way that people believing in a god figure has no impact on mine. It has no place in this debate, but if people post about not being able to prove non-existence they must accept that there will be a response.

There has however, been response made to posts, questioning the exact meaning/origin of the idea, together with putting forward our own beliefs on the subject (which have been treated by the believers in the same manner as we have treated theirs). This has been done for the most part in a respectful manner.

Now, that is out of the way on to my main reason for posting (bullet posted for quickness):

- I believe being a fellow human being this gives me the right to criticise what I find to be unethical and proffers me the voice to do it.


- This is not to say however that if I criticise the culture of another culture/country that they are required to change their practices to suit my beliefs as to what is right or wrong. An example would be gay marriage, I believe it is unethical to deny homosexuals the right to marry - however I respect that the church & I are ideologically opposed on this issue and if they do not wish to recognise/carry out these ceremonies that is their decision and they are free to not comply if they wish not to.

- Where this relates to practices where it brings harm(of any kind) to another unwilling person, the perpetrator forgoes their right to participate within the society - where this relates to foreign countries, I believe that international organisations are the place to decide these cases.

- I actually believe that moral relativism is a good thing, as I have said on another thread I am glad we no longer accept some of the things which were thought to be Ok in the past.

[Logos]

Now, I'm NOT an atheist, but I've always wondered what exactly an atheist thinks or believes (now there's a contradiction if you've ever seen one! athesist and believe might as well see if you have a believer who disbelieves. )

Now what exactly does an atheist believe?? What is the definition you would give to describe an atheist?

I don't know if this is going to a popular thread or not, but I'll give it a try...

Wow, talk about topic drift. Nothing wrong with it but.. this is friendly mod note to all that just because someone doesn't agree with you or believe the same thing(s) doesn't mean they're being disrespectful or not allowed to express their perspective/opinion etc.

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[JGL57]

I guess my only point was that you believe something. Assuming that belief implies certainty, a belief that something exists is not much different from believing that it doesn't. If belief does not equal certainty, then I retract my statement. 8-)

No, belief does not equal certainty - unless it is supernatural (theistic) belief associated with organized religion. That is, one hardly hears of the existence of an agnostic Christian or an agnostic Muslim. Followers of theistic organized religion are dogmatists generally by definition (though, admittedly the rare agnostic theist does exist, similar to the white rhinoceros).

Atheists, on the other hand, are much more diverse. My proof? - well, besides meeting and talking to several dozen over the years, and interacting with many, many atheists on line over the years, I posted two polls regarding atheism last year on the Internet Infidels website forum and both times about 80 per cent turned out agnostic atheists and about 20 per cent dogmatists (those willing to assert "there IS no god.").

[JGL57]

JGL57: The metaphor you have used is flawed. You have already assumed God to be non-existent.

You cannot prove that God is non-existent.

And you cant prove that I am unable to turn invisible when ever I feel like it. It doesnt mean that I can

As kilted exile replied, one can never prove a universal negative - which doesn't matter because the burden of proof is on the one asserting a positive belief.

Have theists met their burden? I haven't noticed. Thus, my assumption must be 1. god is imaginary or 2. if god exists his existence is unproven, apparently non-provable, has no affect on my life, and thus "there is a god" is a trivial claim at best and a irrelevant or nonsensical claim at worst.

Another metaphor: the ball is in the theist's court.

[mo_dingo]

Wow, talk about topic drift. Nothing wrong with it but.. this is friendly mod note to all that just because someone doesn't agree with you or believe the same thing(s) doesn't mean they're being disrespectful or not allowed to express their perspective/opinion etc.

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:rlaugh: I was reading page after page of this and was amazed at the tangents. As often happens with threads of this nature, I suppose.

As a 99.9% atheist I do consider myself near fundamentalism at times, because I am narrow minded. I am waiting for proof of existence; and until that happens, and argument is frivolous IMO.

I say I am 99.9% because 100% would make me a complete fool. It wasn't so long ago that we thought the world was flat. Why should we think that anything MUST be true, even in presence of great evidence. I will never cave into any absolute; even someone saying that the sun will rise tomorrow, without a doubt.

A fool thinks he is wise; a wise man knows he is a fool. - not me.

The basis of my belief is that there is not one single thing in this world today that is conclusively supernatural. Just because we cannot explain something completely doesn't automatically make it supernatural (i.e. how the earth was created). A quote I really took to heart was "Any sufficiently advanced technology will appear supernatural". I take that one further in saying "anything sufficiently advanced will appear supernatural".

Because in the beginning of our existence, we could not explain many things in this world, we deemed them supernatural. This spawned the idea of God, witches, etc. A final and absolute idea to explain everything in our universe. Kind of nice not needing to wonder about the world around us when you have an idea like God to explain everything, eh?

The popularity of God is due to it's widespread belief in history; The idea of an atheist back then would have got you hung. It still continues now, as no open atheist would ever have a chance to get elected president.

I believe it was Bertrand Russel who conjectured the "floating teapot". If you are not familiar, it postulates that there was a teapot orbiting the sun, so small that you could not see it with the most powerful telescope. What if everyone, in history, gave it the same attention, reverence and relentless respect that was given God? Would we still believe it? Personally, I truly think so. Just as with God, you can never disprove it, especially if you gave it the omnipotent/omniscient characteristics that God has.

And the argument that "you cannot disprove God" holds the same weight as "you cannot disprove the floating teapot". Lack of proof leads to no logical conclusion.

A paraphrased sherlock holmes line. "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true." Obviously, since you can neither eliminate the idea of god's existence or lack thereof, this logic cannot apply.

I have more, but I will conclude my epic in hope that you all enjoy what I have written, and I cannot wait for your retorts.
Scott

[yingqiee]

Have theists met their burden? I haven't noticed. Thus, my assumption must be 1. god is imaginary or 2. if god exists his existence is unproven, apparently non-provable, has no affect on my life, and thus "there is a god" is a trivial claim at best and a irrelevant or nonsensical claim at worst.

IMO, I believe that argument to be flawed; it can be applied both ways:

Have atheists met with their burden of asserting God does not exist? If I applied your argument, then I get this proposition which appears flawed:

"The non-existence of God is apparently non-provable, has no effect on my life, and thus "there is no God" is a trivial claim at best or nonsensical at worst."

This presents a contradiction in such an argument. Just because something cannot be proved does not mean that it is trivial or that it has no effect on our lives. I'd like to use the hackneyed analogy:

I have never in my entire life seen, felt, tasted or heard my brain. Does that mean it does not exist and that it cannot affect me? I would not like to think so.

Thus the atheist is as much a believer as the theist is; one has faith in the existence of God, the other in the non-existence of God.

[yingqiee]

P.S. I apologize if my previous comment about not being able to prove that God does not exist offended someone. I'm rather blunt in my writing.

And you cant prove that I am unable to turn invisible when ever I feel like it. It doesnt mean that I can

With respect to the argument about turning invisible, you raise a valid point that I also am unable to prove that God exists. However, my argument was not about proving God but rather against the argument that:

1) God cannot be proven
2)God does not exist

I think we have misunderstood each other because we are basically arguing over the same thing from a different perspective. My bad; should have been more clear.

[Redzeppelin]

Ok, firstly I do not believe there has much disrespect towards christianity (or anyone elses beliefs) over the last few pages.

If this is a response to something I said, I wasn't clear. My comments were not about this thread so much as society in general in reference to postmodernism. If you take even a quick look at the news or media publications, you'll see that there seems to be a push to tolerate all systems of belief - whether that be Islam, Buddhism, etc - but bashing Christianity seems to be OK. Nobody seems that worried about offending Christians - but boy, watch out if you do something that seems to disrespect another belief system. That was what I was referring to.

[Wintermute]

If you take even a quick look at the news or media publications, you'll see that there seems to be a push to tolerate all systems of belief - whether that be Islam, Buddhism, etc - but bashing Christianity seems to be OK. Nobody seems that worried about offending Christians - but boy, watch out if you do something that seems to disrespect another belief system. That was what I was referring to.

Funny, I see exactly the opposite. Perhaps one's perspective is driven by one's preconceptions?

[kilted exile]

All right moving on from the respect/disrespect issue, it's a sidebar and will get us nowhere.

I have a question for anyone who believes in the necessity for a divine law to add weight to our criticism of what we find to be unethical:

If you were criticised for a practice which another culture found to be unethical, would you be willing to change that practice if the critics argued that it went against the teachings of their religion (however this is not a religion you follow)?

[metal134]

but bashing Christianity seems to be OK. Nobody seems that worried about offending Christians - but boy, watch out if you do something that seems to disrespect another belief system. .

I'm sorry, I just don't see it. The problem as I see it, and I have personally run into this many times, if you say something like; "I don't believe that Jesus Christ was anything more than a man", Christians take that at bashing Christianity. Since most of the overwhelmin majority of people are Christians, they don't find dismissal of other religions beliefs offensive. But I have seen many, many a Chritian become persoanlly offended by dismissal of a Chiristian belief and percieve it as oppression.

[JGL57]

IMO, I believe that argument to be flawed; it can be applied both ways:

Have atheists met with their burden of asserting God does not exist? If I applied your argument, then I get this proposition which appears flawed:

"The non-existence of God is apparently non-provable, has no effect on my life, and thus "there is no God" is a trivial claim at best or nonsensical at worst."

This presents a contradiction in such an argument. Just because something cannot be proved does not mean that it is trivial or that it has no effect on our lives. I'd like to use the hackneyed analogy:

I have never in my entire life seen, felt, tasted or heard my brain. Does that mean it does not exist and that it cannot affect me? I would not like to think so.

Thus the atheist is as much a believer as the theist is; one has faith in the existence of God, the other in the non-existence of God.

That is just screwy reasoning, by any reasonable standard. Would it help if I said I have an utter lack of belief in the existence of a god, just like I have an utter lack of belief in the existence of Santa Claus or leprechauns or fire-breathing dragons on Neptune?

I have no burden to prove the reasonableness of my disbelief. YOU, OTOH, if you aver that a god or a leprechaun or a fire-breathing dragon DO have a burden of proof. The ancient shibboleth, rather rudely put, it "put up or shut up.".

My disbelief in the three claimed supernatural entities mentioned about DOES NOT constitute a belief - disbelief is disbelief, it is not belief. I can explain and explain and even explain this to you, but I cannot understand it for you. You are going to have to do that yourself.

As for your god/brain analogy, it fails on this point: If I ask you to produce your god, or even some indirect evidence for its existence, I doubt you could do it (could you?). However, if you doubt the existence of your brain, I can remove it and show it to you before you then die - ditto your heart, liver, etc.

IOW, there is no analogy between material objects and ridiculous imaginary immaterial invisible allegedly existing supernatural entities, be they called gods, angels, ghosts, demons, fire-breathing dragons, nymphs, succubuses, incubuses, human vampires changing into bats, a race of giant ants living on Pluto, etc., etc.

IOW, yingqiee, let your imagination run wild - just don't expect me to take you seriously.

[JGL57]

I'm sorry, I just don't see it. The problem as I see it, and I have personally run into this many times, if you say something like; "I don't believe that Jesus Christ was anything more than a man", Christians take that at bashing Christianity. Since most of the overwhelmin majority of people are Christians, they don't find dismissal of other religions beliefs offensive. But I have seen many, many a Chritian become persoanlly offended by dismissal of a Chiristian belief and percieve it as oppression.

I live in Mississippi. I can verify through several decades of personal experience that you are correct, sir. With few exceptions, most people here react emotionally to any questioning of the doctrines of fundamentalist christianity as if you had just called their mother a whore.