2 Tenets of Atheism

[Bravus]

No substantive point to make, just a note that I'm always delighted to see my good mate Mark participating in the discussion here.

[cardw]

But if you look at this site: http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html there is a key point: "A disproportionately high number of prisoners were not in any way practicing religionists prior to incarceration. That is, they exhibited none of the standard sociological measures of religiosity, such as regular prayer, scripture study, and attendance at worship services."

So, a lot of people will identify themselves with some denomination, but not be into the real christian walk.

[John317]

Don't you think that there are a lot of people who have jettisoned the Bible but who still cling to the high ethical ideals and teachings of the prophets and the NT? It seems to me what they don't realize is that the high ideals and teachings are founded on the God who taught them those ideals. Where does one find a foundation for those ideals in materialism and in evolutionary theory?

Nietzsche agreed with this and was the basis of much of his writings. He attempted to find the values of people who really believe there is no God and are willing to base their lives and thinking on atheism. He saw Christian values and ideals as slave morality.

[doug yowell]

I think Thomas Paine said it well when he said

Quote:

Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

After reading these Paine quotes I find myself reluctant to recognize reason as one of his more positive attributes.Such a distorted understanding of what the Bible teaches could easily explain his animosity towards Christianity.Do you know how Jefferson felt about him?

[doug yowell]

Love your neighbor as yourself can be demonstrated to be a superior ethic from both reason and experience. It draws from one's self and one's ability to empathize. It doesn't need a law to make sense. It reaches each person where they are and their understanding of themselves. It also implies that the more one loves their self, the more one can love others. It also implies the more more one loves others, the more one can have love for one's self. And from this you can see how to judge others is to judge one's self.

Absolutely true that love needs no law to make sense. So why then does humanity not naturally practice this common sense approach when it is so evidently beneficial? In that respect shouldn't the Bible,and/or Christianity at least be given credit for impact it's had in disseminating that ethic?

[doug yowell]

Don't you think that there are a lot of people who have jettisoned the Bible but who still cling to the high ethical ideals and teachings of the prophets and the NT? It seems to me what they don't realize is that the high ideals and teachings are founded on the God who taught them those ideals. Where does one find a foundation for those ideals in materialism and in evolutionary theory?

Nietzsche agreed with this and was the basis of much of his writings. He attempted to find the values of people who really believe there is no God and are willing to base their lives and thinking on atheism. He saw Christian values and ideals as slave morality.

Did he ever note the influence that Christian values exercised in the abolition of the real life slave practice?

[John317]

So far as I know, Nietzsche never referred to the abolition of slavery in the United States. But he didn't see slavery per se as anything necessarily evil.

If you were to ask him about his thoughts about this, Nietzsche would doubtless have said (consistent with his writings) that this abolition did not really do away with slavery but only ended official slavery. Real slavery continues because it is the nature of some people to be a slave and of others to be masters.

He wrote: "Pity on the whole thwarts the law of evolution, which is the law of selection. It preserves what is ripe for destruction; it defends life's disinherited and condemned."

He despised people who threw away God and the Bible but held on to the ethical and moral values that derive from those sources. Known as "the father of modern atheism," Nietzsche was a true atheist. He didn't mince words but was willing to face life honestly without God or gods.

In his book, Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche wrote:

Quote:

Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of the strange and weaker, suppression, severity, imposition of one's own forms . . .

Exploitation does not pertain to a corrupt or imperfect or primitive society: it pertains to the essence of the living thing as a fundamental organic function, it is a consequence of the intrinsic will to power which is precisely the will of life. Granted this is a novelty as a theory - as a reality it is the primordial fact of all history: let us be at least that honest with ourselves!

[cardw]

Don't you think that there are a lot of people who have jettisoned the Bible but who still cling to the high ethical ideals and teachings of the prophets and the NT? It seems to me what they don't realize is that the high ideals and teachings are founded on the God who taught them those ideals. Where does one find a foundation for those ideals in materialism and in evolutionary theory?

[cardw]

Absolutely true that love needs no law to make sense. So why then does humanity not naturally practice this common sense approach when it is so evidently beneficial? In that respect shouldn't the Bible,and/or Christianity at least be given credit for impact it's had in disseminating that ethic?

When we look at governments and institutions that hand down sets of rules we find that no organization can write rules to handle every situation. Today we have a society that is being choked by all kinds of paper work and regulation that produces no product and is becoming less and less effective in actually making life better.

Fundamentalism is essentially based on the idea of a top down, obey your master, type of moral totalitarianism. This is what Christianity today is trying to do through government. It is what Christianity teaches that god will do through the eventual destruction of the earth. This top down approach is not morality.

When I look at individuals I generally find the people want to do the right thing. When they don't it's often because of fear not because they are evil. Fear of not obeying their company or their church or not having enough, etc. are all motivations that come from outside.

When people understand that they can have the freedom to choose what they really desire with their heart they choose what I believe to be the most rational. And that is to choose love.

[cardw]

After reading these Paine quotes I find myself reluctant to recognize reason as one of his more positive attributes.Such a distorted understanding of what the Bible teaches could easily explain his animosity towards Christianity.Do you know how Jefferson felt about him?

[cardw]

Did he ever note the influence that Christian values exercised in the abolition of the real life slave practice?

When the anti slavery movement began in the US it came from the Quakers. At the time Quakers weren't considered Christians by most other major denominations. Many denominations split into Northern and Southern churches. The Southern churches took a more literal interpretation of the Bible and the North looked more at principles. This is one reason we have the Southern Baptist Church.

This demonstrates the ability to pull just about any position from the Bible. If you read the Bible literally it is very difficult to find an anti-slavery position since the Bible either promotes slavery or orders believers to accommodate slavery. To develop a anti-slavery message from the Bible you have to focus on selective passages the set up principles of human equality. It is not there naturally in the text.

[John317]

....Nietzsche does not speak for me, but his view of Christianity as slave morality is a description of many forms of fundamentalism. In my interaction with people I have found a natural desire in almost every person to be a good person. And when most people I know don't act in an ethical manner it's because of fear. Often that fear is expressed in the form of addiction.....If I were to describe what most atheists consider to be the basis of their morality it would be the value of the human person, the reduction of suffering, and the enhancement of joy. Empathy informs us of these values and reason is the vehicle to develop the specific methods of accomplishing these ends.

I don't believe Nietzsche thought he was speaking for anyone and I agree with you that he doesn't speak for you. You may or may not agree with him, of course. Yet Nietzsche has thought through many of the issues and questions that modern man struggles with, such as morality without God, and he's written about those questions and their answers in a way that has made him the most (or at least one of the most) influential thinker(s)/philospher(s) of the last 100 years. Therefore, it seems reasonable to take into account what he's written about the affect of atheism and evolutionary theory on human values.

How does one arrive at the values you describe simply on the basis of atheism and evolutionary theory, completey divorced from religion or the idea of God?

You may have those values that are in fundamental agreement with Christianity-- justice, fairness, love, mutual respect, etc.-- but how do you conclude that everyone ought to agree with those same values and that people are "wrong" if they don't and "right" if they do?

[John317]

When the anti slavery movement began in the US it came from the Quakers. At the time Quakers weren't considered Christians by most other major denominations.

There many Christians who were abolitionists and not merely Quakers. For instance, Joseph Bates was very active as an abolitionst, as were many other early Adventists.

It is true that a lot of denominations disagreed with Quakers and even rejected them as part of the Christian church, but the fact is that Quakers got their basic values and world-view from the Bible. That many Christian groups rejected Quakers as fellow Christians is no valid argument against the Bible as the major source of Quaker convictions about the immorality of slavery.

The message of the Bible opposing slavery is found all through the Bible, from Gen. 1 to Rev. 22, and particularly in the Hebrew prophets, the Gospels, and in books such as Paul's letter to Philemon.

If people genuinely accept (from Gen. 1&2 and the Gospels) the truth that everyone is related to them and is made originally in the image of God, and that Christ loves each individual enough to come and die for them, they will not want to enslave their fellow humans.

[Bravus]

Quote:

You may have those values that are in fundamental agreement with Christianity-- justice, fairness, love, mutual respect, etc.-- but how do you conclude that everyone ought to agree with those same values and that people are "wrong" if they don't and "right" if they do?

I suspect it's not so much about 'wrong' and 'right' as about 'maladaptive' and 'adaptive'. From a social evolutionary perspective, there are values that are likely to make a society stronger and more likely to survive and values that weaken a society.

(Note that 'evolution' is really used as a metaphor here, and this has almost nothing to do with processes of biological evolution.)

It's not so much 'atheism and evolution' as 'humanism', too: as Rich has been pointing out for ages, atheism has nothing to say about values, and values are not derived from it. Neither does evolution: evolution just happens. Humanism is belief in the potential of human beings and in enhancing society through living the good (in many senses) life.

Love appears not to be a value so much as something that is innate to human beings. No-one but very damaged human beings is anti-love. It's not something that is related to Christianity, the Bible or the God of the Bible, since it is universal among humanity including in places where none of those things has ever been heard of.

Mutual respect just works: a society without it fragments, and humans are safer and better and more fulfilled when in social groups than when alone. Similarly for justice and fairness: a society without them fragments.

There really are very strong humanistic and naturalistic means of accounting for all of the major values of humanity. Claiming that there are not is an argument from ignorance.

(again, disclaimering furiously: 'ignorance' is used descriptively, and is about the argument not the arguer)

[John317]

...It's not so much 'atheism and evolution' as 'humanism', too: as Rich has been pointing out for ages, atheism has nothing to say about values, and values are not derived from it. Neither does evolution: evolution just happens.

I believe it's an error to say that atheism has nothing to say about values. If it has nothing to say about values, then neither does Christianity or any other religion or world-view.

If I were to adopt atheism, instead of Christianity, it would most certainly have a great impact on my value system and the way I view life and other people.

It makes a big difference if I believe myself and other humans are made in God's image and are of infinite value to Him or if I believe that people are the result of purely random, materialistic processes.

You are right that evolution happens, but it seems clear to me that values are derived from the belief that all of life has resulted from evolutionary processes just as surely as values are derived from belief that God exists and made humans in His image.

[LifeHiscost]

Gen 2:17 is more accurately a death decree for anyone who eats the forbidden fruit. It was carried out symbolically.

It was carried out immediately on a spiritual level, the moment the lie was acted upon by taking a bite of the fruit, succumbing to the deception. Before the act of ignoring God's advice through unbelief, no fear had existed in Adam or Eve's experience. After their disobedience, they each sought to hide from their loving Father, Whose last thought was to harm them any further, but instead a plan was immediately set to work in which they both might at last be redeemed.

When one has a manual of instruction for insuring the good working performance of an intricate piece of machinery, it is not considered a punishment when it no longer functions if the instructions are not followed. Both Adam and Eve had the instructions for a happy healthy existence. They each chose to believe other than their Maker's instruction.

"But your iniquities have separated you from your God..."Isaiah 59:2 NKJV

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”"Genesis 3:15 NKJV

God blesses!!

[cardw]

Originally Posted By: Bravus

...It's not so much 'atheism and evolution' as 'humanism', too: as Rich has been pointing out for ages, atheism has nothing to say about values, and values are not derived from it. Neither does evolution: evolution just happens.

I believe it's an error to say that atheism has nothing to say about values. If it has nothing to say about values, then neither does Christianity or any other religion or world-view.

[cardw]

I don't believe Nietzsche thought he was speaking for anyone and I agree with you that he doesn't speak for you. You may or may not agree with him, of course. Yet Nietzsche has thought through many of the issues and questions that modern man struggles with, such as morality without God, and he's written about those questions and their answers in a way that has made him the most (or at least one of the most) influential thinker(s)/philospher(s) of the last 100 years. Therefore, it seems reasonable to take into account what he's written about the affect of atheism and evolutionary theory on human values.

[phkrause]

The same way Jesus does in his statement to love my neighbor as myself.

I agree, and where did he get these values from, to made this statement? From his mother who instilled the love of God (Jesus' Father) in her son.

[cardw]

Originally Posted By: cardw

The same way Jesus does in his statement to love my neighbor as myself.

I agree, and where did he get these values from, to made this statement? From his mother who instilled the love of God (Jesus' Father) in her son.

This is a philosophical position, not a relational one. I think its a bit of a reach to use this to retain a god source for this idea.

My whole point is that even Jesus' most famous statement is self referenced, not god referenced.

[LifeHiscost]

For the person that chooses to not believe in GOD, it is more of an evolutionary process, perhaps.

Everyone has a right to believe they originated from an ape, and the law of genetics reveals the wisdom of the philosophy.

God blesses! I don't believe an ape does.

[John317]

I agree, LifeHiscost. Whoever wants to believe that apes and humans both descended from the same ape-like animal should feel free to believe it.

[cardw]

I agree, LifeHiscost. Whoever wants to believe that apes and humans both descended from the same ape-like animal should feel free to believe it.

Concluding that we have descended from apes is not a belief. It is based on a lot of evidence that creationists tend to ignore. Scientists don't read some book and then decide that it is god telling them the truth. Evolution is based on years and years of study and research. IT IS NOT A BELIEF. It is a theory that has a lot of evidence.

That means that it will change as we have new information, unlike belief.

[cardw]

Originally Posted By: CoAspen

For the person that chooses to not believe in GOD, it is more of an evolutionary process, perhaps.

Everyone has a right to believe they originated from an ape, and the law of genetics reveals the wisdom of the philosophy.

God blesses! I don't believe an ape does.

The evidence of DNA tell us that we do come from apes. I don't know what laws of genetics you are talking about that say otherwise. If you are referring to Mendellian inheritance laws, they don't exclude evolution.

In addition there are no scientific laws of genetics that have anything to do with wisdom or philosophy that I know of.

Now if you want to learn about how gene swapping and the rampant mutation that occurs in bacteria today you might read this article.

What is the Last Universal Common Ancestor? (LUCA)

[John317]

The evidence of DNA tell us that we do come from apes. .... What is the Last Universal Common Ancestor? (LUCA)

There's this line: "That the genetic code is universal to all life tells us that everything is related."

Yes, everything in life on earth is related: everything was made by God, and God used the same basic genetic code. There's no reason for God to invent a different genetic code for every living thing or animal.

Evolutionary theory wants us to believe that all life-forms are related in the sense that we all evolved from the same source, but this is false and has not been proved.

What Medel's experiments showed is that there are variations within types, but there's no breeding that produces a completely new type. For instance, you could breed a billion generations of flies, and the final result won't be anything but a fly. The same principle applies to any form of life.