Next on the list of People Who Earn Points

[highlyeccentric]

A few weeks ago, Archaeostronomy won a special package of Bonus Points from me (not that I imagine he wanted them nor noticed their aquisition), for noting that creationism is an offence to sane christianity just as it is to him.

Today's Bonus Points go to Greta Christina, for pointing out something I hadn't even started to forumulate myself. When people- ok, goblinpaladin- start on the rant about Christianity, and Christian morality, etc being founded on the 'cowardly' basis of either a) fear of God or b) desire to PLEASE God or c) both, I tend to just shut up and frown. Because it seems wrong, but how is one to argue without declaring one's morality to be nonreligious?¹

However, Greta pokes holes in the argument on her own, staunchly athiestic terms.

"The logical conclusion of atheism is amorality/ nihilism/ meaninglessness."

If you've been hanging around the atheism debates for long, you've almost certainly run into this argument....

It's an annoying argument. Largely because it flatly ignores the actual reality on the ground: the fact that most atheists are moral people, aren't nihilistic, and do find great meaning in their lives and the lives of others. It's an argument that prioritizes the believer's own beliefs and prejudices over the actual reality that's sitting three feet in front of them staring them in the face....

I want to talk about a parallel argument that I've seen some atheists make -- an argument that I think is every bit as flawed, every bit as troubling, every bit as willing to ignore evidence in favor of one's own prejudices.

It's the argument that theistic morality is inferior to atheist morality....
The argument goes roughly like this: Theistic morality -- and the idea that theism is necessary to morality, the idea that without a belief in God people will have no reason to be good -- is a childish morality. It's a morality that's based on fear of punishment and the desire for reward... and therefore it's an immature morality. The atheist morality is based on genuine feelings of compassion and empathy and fairness, a deep consciousness that other people have just as much right to live in this world as you yourself do... and therefore, it's a more mature, more truly moral morality than the childish theistic morality that "good" is what you get rewarded for and "bad" is what you get punished for.

And there are two reasons I think this is a bad argument.

Firstly, she argues for the neurological hardwiring of human morality, which sounds very scientific and smart, but probably doesn't make much difference in terms of value judgements like 'cowardly'... the argument is about the terms we FRAME morality in, anyway.

She goes on:

here's my second argument against this idea:

It contradicts reality.

I know a fair number of theists and other religious/ spiritual believers. And they clearly have the same basis for their morality as I do for mine. The believers I know don't do good because they're afraid of Hell. Many of them don't even believe in Hell. They do good for the exact same reasons I do: because they feel compassion and empathy for others, because they believe in justice and fairness, because they understand that other people are people just like they are, because they want to see the world be a better place for everybody.

They may believe that these morals were planted in us by God, while I believe they were planted in us by the evolution of our genetic hard-wiring. But the basic morals, and the basic motivations for those morals, are essentially the same as mine.

And if I don't like it when bigoted theists deny the reality of my morality, then it's not right for me to turn around and be just as big a reality-denying bigot as they are.

So, again: bonus points for including sane religites as a key point of the argument, rather than as a disclaimer clause.

~

1. And I do persist in the, ah, delusion that i do have some religious foundation in my moral system. I'm allowed to be deluded, so ner.

Comments

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

as for the story of the canaanite woman that you mention, yes, christ did initially fail to treat her better than anyone else in his time would have (maybe we can expect more of him, maybe not, i'm not sure); the striking thing is that he changes his mind after listening to what she says back to him.

What does that mean? Folk who say that usually mean something like: "I believe and adore a nice God, who loves me and His people. So when I look at the Bible, I ignore or heavily re-interpret the horrible things and read the lovely things that I already agree with. This means that I can believe in my lovely God and still say that his morality is in the Bible, even though I am using my own -independent- morality to decide what is moral in the book, what is not, and what needs to be twisted to fit."

actually, i think that's closer to what you want me to believe than anything else. you are happy to endorse my christianity as long as it is essentially mediated by an independent, rational morality of my own - if i do this, then i am suitably non-religious and you put me in the category of "exceptional, non-loony christians".

what does it mean that the bible is god-breathed? that is a complex question that does need to be left open. it's very difficult to deal with the horrors in the bible; we always need to remember that, and not worship the bible itself. but neither do i ignore the whole thing; in faith i continue to read it and pray with it and try to listen to god through it. that's not a simple, deterministic, literal process by any means, and is just something you have to do as a person of faith, not as an intellectual project.

If the book is God-breathed, why didn't God breathe a little bit less genocide and torture and proclamations against women, homosexuals, non-Jews and unbelievers?

well, i agree that it would be nice if the bible was even more ahead of its time than it is in many ways; but it would be stretching it a bit to ask god to put in a few verses about how great it is to be gay in a section written thousands of years ago well before gay came to mean something other than happy...

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Yes, he listened to her after she said that she was a dog and could have the scraps from the table of her betters. Jesus Christ: racist pig.

What about the bit where Christ gets his feet washed rather than helping out the poor? After all, the poor are always going to be poor, right? Jesus Christ: Liberal voter.

you are happy to endorse my christianity as long as it is essentially mediated by an independent, rational morality of my own...

Pretty much, yes. Only because the morality of Christianity is so fucking awful, you understand.

Which you seem to understand, given that you used the phrase (which I really like!) 'horrors of the bible.'

...it would be stretching it a bit to ask god to put in a few verses about how great it is to be gay...

Really? Is it really asking to much of a 'perfect, loving God' to not include quotes which will lead to thousands of deaths and a continuing pogrom of hatred and murder? Would it really have been too much to ask God to just say what he meant rather than hinting at things? Would it really have been too much for Jesus to have a quiet word with his disciples and say "No, brothers, love is the most important thing. Yea, whether it be between a man and a man, a woman and a woman or a man and a woman. Do not let thy personal distaste affect thy words; preach not the evils of love between men."

Because if he'd said that -just once- then maybe people wouldn't be able to quote from that nasty letter to justify homophobia.

Maybe he could have said, "Oh people! Let it be known that God thinks women are neat; yea, let them be teachers amongst you: even of the holy Scripture!" Because then we could have women priests.

Etcetera.

I do not think it would have been too much to ask, no. Sure, no-one would have listened. His messenger-son would have been crucified...OH WAIT. THAT HAPPENED ANYWAY. Indeed, that was the point! And then people would have had the messages already there when the morality got around to looking at them.

I'd still have issues with religion -I have so many!- but it would be one less argument that could be made.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

in general, here you are making the same mistakes as EU types who refuse to understand that the bible was written in SPECIFIC HISTORICAL CONTEXTS. like you, they tend to assume that everything in the bible was really, mostly, written for people today - hence they think it's wrong to be gay, because otherwise surely god would've put something in there for us to know.

can you stop putting words into my mouth? you are completely misrepresenting what i believe about god. i do not think that god works outside of history. god does not zip down and tell us some crazy shit that doesn't even make sense to us, but will make sense to people over 2000 years in the future. she doesn't do that now, and she didn't do it then.

i know you're joking about jesus as a liberal voter, but the fundamental problem there is the same one you are making in this whole comment - that somehow jesus' words and life (or any part of the bible) can be extracted and put in today's context and judged by today's standards.

that's exactly what i'd expect from an EU person, but not an educated, critically-thinking historian.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

and yes! there are horrors in the bible; horrors in christian history and tradition; ongoing horrors today. do you think i'm not aware of that and fighting it constantly?

i am certainly not claiming that the bible is perfect, i don't know where you got such an idea from.

in fact i think it's crucial to hold onto those horrors, to never forget that no matter how much we think we are close to god etc, we are still at least (if not more) capable of horrors as everyone else. to remind us that the bible IS product of its times, of the people and communities who wrote it and compiled it, and therefore represents our own brokenness as much as anything else.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

See, the brokenness is a good answer. If that was the only reason for studying the Bible, it would be more acceptable. It's not, so it's a moot point. But it's a good answer.

Do we really need the Bible to see that, though? Pick up any treatise on 20th century history and we can see human folly. Pick up any treatise on the medieval period to see religious folly. Go to Ireland to see modern human religious folly.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

If the Bible was written in specific historical context -it was- then what possible relevance does it have today save -as I have said repeatedly- an historical, anthropological and mythographical tool? It is not FOR us, so why is such a massive percentage of the world's population (including you and Highly) studying it as a guide to daily life?

If the Bible is for people two thousand and three thousand years ago (New and Old, respectively), why study it now at all? It doesn't have your God in it, it doesn't have rules for you in it... Why study it in a religious context at all, then?