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The Forum > Article Comments > Some (awkward?) questions that should be asked, but rarely are > Comments

Some (awkward?) questions that should be asked, but rarely are : Comments

By Graham Preston, published 6/8/2014

Why are we here? Is it just to devour each other?

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david f – let’s agree that atheism is true and let’s further assume that every human being comes to fully agree that atheism is true. I am just interested to know how you believe that a completely atheistic society would go about sorting out moral disagreements. It would surely be naďve to assume that there wouldn’t be such disagreements.

So, for example, when some atheists claim that abortion is morally acceptable and other atheists say that abortion is immoral, how would it be determined who is right?

If someone commits a murder in such a society, what should be done, if anything, and why? After all, they would have only acted according to their own preference in committing the murder and is there any reason why someone else’s preferences should trump theirs?
Posted by JP, Sunday, 10 August 2014 3:38:59 PM
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Dear JP,

Atheism merely maintains there is no evidence that there is a God, and therefore it is pointless to believe in one. Provide me with evidence that there is a God, and I will acknowledge that such an entity exists. Your belief, no matter how strong, is not evidence for the existence of God.

Abortion is not a relevant issue to our discussion. Some abortion providers are Christian, and some of those who murder abortion providers are Christian. An abortion doctor in Kansas was murdered while attending a church service by a Christian who objected to his activities.

You wrote: "So, for example, when some atheists claim that abortion is morally acceptable and other atheists say that abortion is immoral, how would it be determined who is right?"

You can substitute the word Christian for atheist and ask exactly the same question. In our society and any society bound by law we only ask that people obey the law. Morality is a personal matter and not the business of law in a democratic society. In the case in Kansas the Christian doctor was acting in accordance with the law. The Christian murderer was violating the law. You are wrong since you have violated the law in harassing woman who want to get an abortion.

One's morals are one's own business. However, violating the law makes one an enemy of the society we live in. In an oppressive society that is justified. However, I don't think it is oppressive to give a woman the right to decide what goes on in her body. You do, and therefore violate the law. In my opinion you are profoundly wrong. My opinion in that matter coincides with the opinion of most of society and is expressed in the law. You want your opinion to override the opinion of most of current society. That is all your vaunted morality is.

I came to Australia in 1987. Outside of a speeding ticket, I have not violated the law. You are a lawbreaker. I am not. By that criterion I am a better citizen than you.
Posted by david f, Sunday, 10 August 2014 8:35:46 PM
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JP,

Since you seem up to discussing this topic once again - a topic we’ve covered many times before - perhaps you could answer several questions that you had failed answer in our previous discussions just before disappearing:

1. By what means are you able to determine that God is the good guy and Satan is the baddie?

2. How do you overcome the insurmountable problem for Christians in this debate, presented by the euthyphro dilemma, when no other Christian has managed to do thins? Presumably you have, given the chutzpah with which you speak on this topic.

I look forward to your answers.
Posted by AJ Philips, Sunday, 10 August 2014 8:46:06 PM
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AJ Phillips - I thought I had suggested these articles to you before regarding the Euthyphro Dilemma but if not, here they are again: http://creation.com/what-is-good-answering-euthyphro-dilemma and http://www.str.org/articles/euthyphro-s-dilemma#.U-dY7GNZj1U

Regarding God and Satan, the Bible teaches that God is love and this love is shown most clearly in Jesus' sacrificial death which makes it possible for people to be made right again with God. In contrast the Bible teaches that Satan is a liar and a murderer. Of course for those who regard the Bible as fiction then all of the above is irrelevant.

david f - I don't understand why you didn't answer my question relating to the scenario where atheism is true and everyone is an atheist: how would atheists in those circumstances sort out disagreements about what is morally right and wrong?
Posted by JP, Sunday, 10 August 2014 10:22:42 PM
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JP,

As david f points out, one should distinguish between moral and legal attributes. The second term is easily defined and is given by a state’s a legal system. Ethics, i.e. what is and what is not moral, is more complicated. There are theist as well as atheist philosophers who have written on the subject, some seeing some not, God as being behind absolute moral norms. The same as there are theist as well as atheist scientists (and philosophers of science), some seeing, some not, their work as being about God’s creation.

Some atheists see the moral aspects of one’s actions reduced to personal aesthetics (“I would not murder for the same reason I would not eat excrements” as one of them told me), some to rational, what is good for the society (a sense of which is a product of evolution), most of them probably a combination of both. For instance, what - roughly speaking - Catholics call Natural Law is what atheists probably see as moral norms hard-wired in our brains (similar to a sense for logic, rational thinking) acquired through evolution without God in the background.

Absolute moral norms make sense only in a religious context, the same as “absolute truth” that science is striving for but does not speak of explicitly as being within its reach.

So we have to coexist with atheists without insisting on absolutes (concerning morals and truth) that only religious faith - on the wide scale from very naive to philosophically rather sophisticated - deals with. There are moral issues - e.g. abortion on demand (“reproductive rights”) - where we might clearly see God’s command but when arguing the point with an atheist one has to start on a level where we can agree, e.g. what is beneficial or detrimental to this or that individual or the society as such, without invoking God whom they cannot see for whatever reasons.
Posted by George, Sunday, 10 August 2014 11:34:03 PM
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No, you hadn’t suggested those web pages JP. You didn’t really get the chance to because I pre-empted the predictable answer they provide: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11320#191986.

So my question remains unanswered.

<<… the Bible teaches that God is love and this love is shown most clearly in Jesus' sacrificial death which makes it possible for people to be made right again with God. In contrast the Bible teaches that Satan is a liar and a murderer.>>

I didn’t ask what the Bible taught, and nor does one's opinion on the truth of its claims matter to my question either. You’re side-stepping here.

What I asked was by what means are you able to determine that God is the good guy and that Satan is the bad guy? Because, JP, before you read the Bible, and learn about this god you believe in, you need to interpret what the Bible is telling you. You are effectively living in the atheistic universe that you so berate until you do.

My point is that you employ the same methods to determine what you think is right and what you think is wrong, in order to determine what is right and what is wrong in the Bible, as atheists do in their day-to-day lives, only you have the additional and unnecessary step of sifting through hundreds of contradictions in ambiguous texts, written by ignorant savages, in order to get to the point that atheists arrive at before you do.

Worse still, the additional complication you suffer in your attempt to understand what is right and what is wrong makes you vulnerable to misinterpretation and puts you at risk of getting it wrong. This is why secular morality is superior.

It’s as I’ve said twice before: if you think that lying and murder are wrong simply because of an edict attributed to another being, then you have scarified your humanity in deference to your god.

Your standards of morality, that you hold as superior to those of atheists', actually make you less of a person. I hope it's worth the sacrifice.
Posted by AJ Philips, Sunday, 10 August 2014 11:41:15 PM
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