Atheism, and how it relates to amorality.

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AG, do you regard divine command theory and moral nihilism as the only viable ethical theories? From your various posts on the subject, that is my impression.

I don't see how you can apply the Golden Rule to butt-piracy unless everyone were homosexual and therefore anal sex would be soemthing everyone wants. But that's not the case. Not everyone is a butt-pirate.

What if you lack Theory of Mind and don't realize that not everyone is a butt-pirate?

Gay guys get beaten up and killed for exactly that reason.

The failing was yours, not atheism's. It's your fault that the lack of believing in gods had a negative effect on you, because atheism says nothing about anything except gods. This is a weakness in you.

The point to living, friend, is to live. Because you live, why not enjoy it to the fullest extent that you can? I just ask that, in the process, you don't hamper the enjoyment other people experience in their lives.

The simplest and most effective moral code is as follows: Do as much good and as least harm as possible. If you need a god to tell you that, you are a weak and pathetic being.

well, I was being sarcastic about your example of buttsex, which doesn't look like a valid argument to do when it comes to making a case against the so called Golden Rule.

As AG, puts it:



On the other hand, the golden rule looks to me to be mainly based on empathy, as the way it is described it can be seen like that, so I wonder, asking the question myself, looking at it at this perspective, if there could be some problem for someone who lacks 'theory of mind' as Orwell puts it, to get from the concept some meaning, nevertheless, what AG states does make sense.

Only on Wrongplanet would that buttsex example have actually been taken seriously and critically analyzed the way it just was. There is something seriously abnormal about all of us posting here.

This is why I like it here

F***k you, Legato, for criticizing someone like that. Don't get the AIDS, now.

The last statement was generalized, and purposefully did not directly call him weak and pathetic. However, I will not withdraw the last statement as I find it to be wholly true. Make note that I do not believe in gods, so I obviously think that gods cannot communicate. Ergo, said weak and pathetic people are those that do not try to follow the precept of "Do as much good and as least harm as possible".

My first two paragraphs are not untrue.

(For the record, I am straight and personally find buttsex to be disgusting and appalling, especially when condoms are not used)



Hehehe. To be honest, the argument seems completely legitimate, albeit dramatized, to me - but what good would this discussion be without such examples to point to?

Last edited by Legato on 10 Jan 2009, 12:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

Really, AG said there pretty much what I said, when I said "'Do unto others as they would have you do unto them' is more moral than 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'"

Oh... I see, I read that wrong for some reason, I thought you said to do others what they would do to you which gets pretty funny when I see my error now, I do apologyze.
As I enjoy being here I have to make a certain amount of effort when reading, following (especially when posts are fairly long ) and replying posts and in some cases I may end up making no sense.

Anyway, in that case, indeed it seems to make more sense, put in it in that way, even though, the way it is originally written seems to be based on empathy, in which, perhaps may have been the only way people at the time could understand it, but that's a guess.

No problem yo, I make mistakes all the time, too

I must say though, I think my version is much much more empathetic. Empathy is often said to be trying to feel what it's like in the other person's shoes - so doing what they would have you do unto them is more along those lines. Doing to others what you would have them do to you seems more selfish.

Pretty much, I hate moral realism and you should too, but I consider subjective theories to be invalid. The only other theory that I might give some weight is to Ideal Observer theory, but there are so few people who ascribe to this idea, and it is usually considered similar to Divine Command theory.

Why should I hate moral realism? Why are subjective theories necessarily invalid? Could we not hold to a subjective culturally-based view of morality, where the enforced morality would be a consensus one? With Ideal Observer you have to define attributes and attitudes of this Observer, so it's easier just to make God the Observer.

I think you already addressed that post earlier, and I think I already made a counter-response to this, by claiming that the groups that usually identify as atheist tend to have similar problems with metaethics.


Well... ok? But you are just saying, "I do *indeed* follow some social conventions", and well.... conformity is pretty meaningless, and few people care how much you claim to be a conformist. Not only that, but you are just declaring your conformity to the set of conventions you do like, and thus picking and choosing, making this statement even more meaningless. I mean, the Nazis conformed to their social conventions, and southern slaveholders did the same, but that does not say much about them, and by upholding the values of your culture and nothing else, you fail to distinguish how you are different than them, other than the culture chosen. If Nazis and slaveholders can be wrong, then upholding a culture is not a priori right, and thus you are not moral as you have no connection to the phenomenon, if Nazis and slaveholders are *not* wrong, then you have denied a basic moral tenet in your society and thus could be seen as immoral or amoral by it's standards, and if you argue that Nazis and slaveholders are wrong while maintaining subjectivity, then you have denied any meaningful truth to moral claims, as the language of morality refers to universals, and thus you have negated morality, and more importantly the moral view of morality, thus making you perceivable as immoral or amoral by your culture. In any case, subjectivity, as I've already stated, is a philosophically questionable, if not invalid view of morality, and has been rejected by analytical philosophers for decades, as subjective morality usually does logically lead to some variant of moral nihilism due to it's contradictions or it's obfuscations of moral language.

Legato, you have just given an empirical falsehood, nobody values life infinitely, and this is a basic economic fact noted from the trade off between risk and return. If your life had infinite value, then anything that increased the chances of you losing your life even slightly would not be acceptable, because then the expected value of this change would be (risk*infinity)-finite good, and as we would know, anything times infinity is infinite, and thus risks would be minimized to nothing, which would hardly be a life at all. In any case, all your case seems to be making is that you are egoistic, which, well... isn't considered a virtue, and could really justify a lot of things that are generally considered evil by egoism. In any case, if you are an egoist, then you are usually not considered moral in the first place.


Well... the issue is that morality is usually considered irreducible, we do good things because they are good to do, not because they benefit us. If they are desirable, then this is a positive side-effect. In any case, by claiming a positive externality to others by your own behavior, you don't justify the validity of your behavior, thus making the production of this behavior on your part questionable given your already egoistic assumptions for acting.


Yes, but this does not rebut my claim: "atheism would seem more likely than theism to require amorality", which seems true because there are multiple atheistic viewpoints that either do not have any rational view on morality that upholds the reality of morals, or that deny morals. Theistic viewpoints are usually not the same, and they usually uphold the reality of morals and do so from a more consistent framework, a world full of anthropocentric spirit.


Actually, interestingly enough, there is evidence that areligious folks have less problems with cheating on taxes than theists do, and are more nihilistic than theists are.
http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2008/11 ... eader.html


Umm.... you have completely failed at anything. Do you even know what you are trying to prove? Do you actually know what morality means? Morality is not a quality that has anything to do with crimes, one can commit a crime and be moral for it, or obey the law and be amoral for it, thus there is a difference between the two. Moral statements are statements of universality, for instance: "stealing is wrong" does not mean "I don't like stealing", but rather it means that there is some metaphysical rule against stealing. To ignore that fact, while it has been historically done (see emotivism), it is usually considered incorrect. If you are going to say that atheism is moral, by the culture's standards though, then all you are saying is "now, our culture tolerates atheism", which is stupid and won't convince the people who do not tolerate atheism. And if you are referring to something outside of our culture's standards, then you have begun to refer to a universal, rather than a subjective quality, and thus have to back up this morally realist idea. In any case, I think your own ideas on this matter are more hopelessly confused than anything else.


Your connection between morality and critical thinking skills seems questionable.


Right, and I consider that view to be dead, incorrect, and unresurrectably wrong. In any case, the claim that areligionists have no basis for these beliefs seems completely accurate, which is why I brought up the metaethical issue. If your metaethics do not allow for beliefs to be meaningful, then you cannot logically believe. Subjectivism, for instance, would prevent you from believing in the reality of morality, and thus would prevent you from having moral beliefs, as you cannot believe in something and say it isn't real.


I don't see why the Western world makes a difference on the behaviors of a rationally thinking person, it is to assume that rationality is completely beholden to circumstance. I didn't come close to attributing advancement in morality to secular sources, nor do I think that morality can be advanced. Advancement implies improvement, morality is always good though by it's nature, it cannot improve without being immoral.


Well, the issue is that God's plans for people at different times is different, and this is well known as moral commands for people in the Bible are not constant, as can be seen in the New and Old Testament's differences, arguably in the Garden of Eden, and most strikingly with Abraham and Isaac. Because of this, there is no reason to argue that there is a logical fallacy.


I wouldn't argue that the Christian scriptures include free will, they include statements of making choices, but not libertarian free will, and some interpretations of the Bible include the notion that God overrides individual choice.