I am a strict materialist and, of course then, an atheist. My view is that all philosophy is, in the end, morality, but that morality is strictly a human invention, designed, better or worse, to serve human ends. And that any personal morality worth the trouble is the result of a re-evaluation of all (learned) values.
Awe, interesting. Perhaps you can answer some questions I’ve had about secular views on morality.
First off, what makes any one more moral value “better” or “worse” than the other. What difference does it make if I loved my parents, or chopped them into bits? If what you believe in is true, it really wouldn’t matter, would it?
I would think my answer would be painfully obvious by now. Have you read through my previous posts?
In point of fact, I do not care how you feel about your parents. It’s none of my business. I am concerned with actions only - this is the proper purview of morality. It’s this kind of confused question that makes it difficult to answer a specific question that reflects said confusion.
Moral sanctions against the actual chopping to bits of one’s parents have a general value to society. Need I explain what this might be? I would like to know that you realise that I do not need to, nor would I want to, consider your actual feelings. Moral sentiments are the result of a moral system, and do not cause moral systems. This is a confusion that many, including the logical positivists, make.
faust
faust,
Does an atheist really know that there is no God? Or atheism is just another belief? No basis at all?
So why would you care if I chopped them into bits? You wouldn’t know them anyways, and we are going to die sometime, some sooner than others. So whys is it that you care about actions? And why do you accept certain actions over others?
Raul - that is an epistemic question, of course. I believe that the word “belief” is rightfully used in matters of, for instance, science - that there can be a basis for a belief. It is up to each of us to decide what constitutes sufficient evidence to support a belief, but I think that some (supposed) conceptions of what is sufficient are just gibberish. I do not think there is any such thing as knowledge - or rather that certainty is a feeling we have, and nothing more. I can promise you this, however. I will not get into any debate about the existence of any god, nor will I indulge in any logical paradoxes. I can think of nothing stupider than that. I am sure there is plenty of that sort of foolishness on the Religion board.
faust
Apologia - Firstly, I do not “care”. Call me picky, but I must choose my words, and not have them chosen by others. “Caring” is an emotion. There is no emotion in what I consider to be a proper moral system. My concern is purely instrumental - it is concern as in “as for as it is a concern of mine” - as far as it is a significant issue for me to consider. Some actions are detremental to the security and order that is required (and I am no fan of any excess security or order) for people to pursue common goals. To live together and pursue the common goals that are the reason we live together. Taking the life of another is an activity that must be regulated in order for us to pursue those goals. I have no general objection to all killing, by the way, nor does any moral system that I know of. There may be circumstances in which your action would be perfectly okay with me. Many murder trials focus on the issue of justifiable homcide as a possible characterisation of the act for which the accused is brought to trial. I am not proposing some wacky, wayout thing here. These are issues that we face all the time.
Morality imposes order, safety, security, reliability, trust, etc. These are not ideas that most would fear or find “evil”. They have a purpose. The specific rules we adopt do, sometimes well and sometimes not, accomplish the furtherance of these goals. I am not sure why I cannot communicate this to you. Does this help at all?
Faust
I see that we’re not allowed to use the list to do our " home work" still these sort of debates are often more informative and far more enjoyable then any book on moral philosophy and might help me in exams on the 16th!!
Well religious beliefs are presumably beliefs resting on little or no basis.
I’m a convinced atheist but purely on the basis that I hate and despise the idea of all powerful God. Proof is not an issue - even if he could be proven to exist (a la Descartes or who ever) I would still fight “the idea” of him - to, roughly, quote Bakunin "if God existed - it would be necessary to destroy him" -if only for our mental health.
So I would be only delighted to say my atheism is “religious” I wish other atheists would put their beliefs on these “passionate” grounds. Most atheists just seem to lack the imagination to believe in anything - including themselves.
I know take it to the religion forum - you re probably right!!
- any way enjoying the debate on morals itself
Krossie 
krossie - I can assure you that I do not lack belief in myself. And that I can muster emotion where others do not. I may hate the idea that I am not going on a date with a supermodel tonight, but I do not see why that is a good basis to disbelieve that I will not be on such a date.
The all-too-common “debates” between theists and atheists are really never about God at all. They are about the individuals who are doing the debating. Each invariably wishes to hold the other to a higher standard of evidence than they hold themselves to. Each considers the other as an idiot. Mostly, I object to these shouting matches on the grounds that they display a lack of “class”, certainly a lack of imagination, a lack of nobility in the Nietzschean sense (the great atheist Nietzsche never tried to disprove God - he simply assumed He did not exist) - but, most of all, they suffer from the most serious defect a philosopphical conversation can have - they are pointless. Boring.
Somewhere here on this board, someone was wondering what the difference is between a practical philosophy and an impractical one. What is not practical is haranguing about whether someone else’s god exists. Either he is your god or he is not. Yes, we have to live in a Christian society - there are other elements that we must endure that would exists with or without this particular flavor of religion. And even without religion at all. The herd will always be the herd.
At the risk of appearing unendearing to my peers, I will say that such debates are like children fighting over a toy that neither wants, only that they want the other not to have it. Embarassing. That’s about as worked up as I can get about it.
fausty
nobility in a Nietzchian sense. hm.
Though Nietzsche’s philosophy had a lot of basis on the idea of nobility as part of the overall striving for ‘overman’ Nietzsche was not, in any form, a man who shyed away from the controversy of religious debate.
Nietzsche’s The Antichrist has always reminded me of the shoutings of a fanatical athiest. Though the counter argument is not present, Nietzsche’s statements are often contrived specifically to offend.
Therefore, statements such as “There has been only one Christian and he died on the cross” can said to be pointless because they are solely said to inspire controversy and offense however much i like such statements they are the shoutings of fanaticism directed, one could say, at fanaticism.
also, i do not think that your contention that each believes the other to be an idiot to be correct. Whenever i have been in a discussion with a theist, though i got the impression they were trying to convert me, at the same time i got the feeling that only reason for this is they wished me to possess the same fulfillment in their God that they have. And when i counter argue it is out of the wish that they accept truth, rather then superstition.
this respect is often devoid, however, and most theist/athiest arguments are futile shouting matches. But certainly not all
unfortunately, i think i participate in a lot of the pointless shouting matches. Emotion; such an irrational thing.
i-spake - You got me there - I must have been out of my mind when I said “all”. There are probably dozens (two dozen, maybe) that do not fit my characterisation.
As for Nietzsche - another pointless task is to debate the precise meaning of one sentence that he wrote - or even one book, outside the context of his entire work. I know of no instance, however, when Nietzsche was talking to anyone but other atheists. I stand by my point.
Nietzsche’s known for much “offensive” talk - in the very same way that Eminem is. The offensiveness itself of the expressions are irrelevant to their author’s intent - a mere byproduct. Many people focus on what is merely offensive - this is also childsplay, and not worthy of serious philosophers. Offensive? Nietzsche? I must contain myself that I do not feel offended that you have read him and that is all you take away from the experience. Get serious, dude.
faust
i’ve taken more out of the experience then offense.
im not offended by his words. on the contrary; i find much of it quite interesting and he makes incredible philisophical contentions that make sense to me. he’s, in general, helped my thought; especially in regards to Christianity and religion.
though his denial of Darwinism is frustrating to me, though the reason why he denies it is intelligent, i think much of the denial is emotionally laden.
anyone too opinionated, even Nietzsche, comes across as extremely irrational.
it was rash of me, in hind-sight, to call him offensive when i take no offense to his work.
but im not sure if his work was written merely for athiests. when given the context of The Anti-Christ and Thus Spake Zarathustra it seems like he is preaching truth to those that have denied it.
But yet, looking at his idea of ‘the overman’ gives the assumption that their is, and seemingly always will be a herd, a mediocrity that exists within the majority of human beings.
the shame of being wrong. 
i-spake - just busting your chops. Nietzsche is what I call “post-atheist” - no longer concerned with the grand debate about the existence of the Christian God, but focussing on His history from birth until death and beyond, and the ramifications thereof, in the psychosocial universe of mankind. He was, in my view, the personification of rationality, which is not the opposite of emotion. He was an excitable boy, but his emotion was not an ingredient per se of his recipe, but the fire beneath the pot.
fausty
one paragraph of Nietzsche could give you days of debate he’s that subtle! Also it depends on “which Nietzsche” you like - I mean the Deleuze “version” is mine at present but there’s a lot of room for opinion with him - the aphorisms are always teaming with potential meaning, little dry jokes, observations etc (when you think of the systematic dullness that generally passes for philosophy…)
I can see that!
No I wasn’t having a go at you or anyone on this thread – just at “drift atheists†of my acquaintance – who are born into religion but fall out of it through indifference or laziness or a half hearted commitment to the idea that science or progress has “replaced†God. They have no real beliefs just houses, cars, families and laziness.
I’m with Kierkegaard in that belief must rest in subjective passion and that atheism can be a “belief†in that way.
ABSOLUTELY! – Both the shrill shouting matches AND the idea that these sort of beliefs fundamentally can rest on evidence. (How could one take sides Dawkins v the pope – they’re both (interesting in some senses - learned in narrow ways -I’ll grant) fanatics!!
I doubt if God can be proved or disproved – but I know that the very idea, the very slavish need for him (always a him) repels me and insults my conception of myself as free.
Btw go Werklempter I’d take him over Plato any day!
Is he working on anything at the moment…
I spake
Damn straight!
Should not an atheist also be looking for converts?
I dunno if he actually does. I mean he sees science like dialectics and most things as being based primarily on ressentiment and fear and not affirmation but he doesn’t strike me as anti-science per sae – just for it to have a little bit of table manners at the supper of human affairs?
Krossie
morality originates out of a sense of responsibility for ones own actions. (this implies that our actions always have conssequences)
when we judge actions as good and bad there are, as uniccosor said, mulitple senses of what each word can mean. when moralizing an action we are not debating the effectiveness of the action or the pleasure attained by the action. we are weighing the consequences of the action in terms of what is being effected and what is doing the effecting. when one person physically fights another, this is a mutual confrontation. in this case the moral judgement applies to both parties(assuming only 2 are fighting)because both people are actively persuing a goal(namely to win the fight)
in other cases there is only one active party. for example, if a person gets robbed at gun point, assuming that their is no struggle, the person holding the gun is the onley active party, they are controlling the situation completely. when interacting with other people in a controlling way(outside of a ligitimate position of authority, aka your boss, police, government, laws) the person trying to controll another person is acting in an immoral way.
Trevor - I think you’ve got it backwards, too. A sense of responsibity is a moral sense. It is morality that assigns responsibilities, our sense of them, and our reaction when we do not fulfill them (i.e. guilt). In your examples, the two consenting grownups who are fighting are morally correct, or at least neutral, because of characteristics you have given the example (no one else is affected, they consent, etc) due to previous moral judgements you have made (that they consent and that no one else is affected, for example).
If I have misunderstood, and I may have, and you are saying that these two are morally wrong, the point still stands. Either way, a sense of responsibility comes only after we know what our responsibilies are, and we know that because of the moral values we assign to our actions. N’est-ce que pas?
f
krossie - my case is a little different than these “drift atheists”. I more or less went along with religion until I attended confirmation calss - I guess I was about 12 or 14. It just didn’t add up. I didn’t drift away - it was a deliberate and clean break.
As for atheists striving for converts - what difference could it make? How many you gonna get? If you converted thousands, would it change anything in your life? I doubt it, unless one of them was your spouse, I suppose. Even then, most atheists have done little, as far as I can tell, in examining their ethical beliefs - those that have probably didn’t need your conversion efforts. So they don’t act very different than when they were theists, if they were once theists. So what’s the difference? That they were wrong and are now right? It depends what they do with their rightness.
I dunno. I have never witnessed a message-board conversion.
By the way, I do not consider atheism, at bottom, a religion or a belief. It is simply a lack of a commonly-held belief. I do not believe in purple wombats (this image borrowed from a keen philosophical mind I know), leprechauns, unicorns or the notion that size doesn’t matter. If every nonbelief that I have is a religion, I am missing a whole lot of church. In fact, I believe in no metaphysics and very little in the way of epistemology - just don’t buy most epistemology. Werklempter’s aphorism (used to be my sig) - “I know what I know. If you keep talking, I’ll know what you know, too. Then I’ll be smarter than you” sums it up for me.
I must then be a man of immeasurable piety.
fausty
ps - I am trying to complete another translation of W’s works - a brief one. I hope to post it in my Essays thread before the weekend is out.
faust- i think that krossies point about athieism as a belief is in its vast philosophical content.
Beliefs, or the acceptance of truths, arise out of athieism.
those that come to disbelieve in God unless they are ‘drift athiest’ have reasons for their disbelief. i have met far too many ‘drift athiests’ and dumb agnostics, even in catholic school.
(Nietzsche was very correct when he stated “God is Dead”.)
but because some athiests will study their disbelief and give reasons denying the existance of God it creates athieism as almost a kind of anti-religion which is bound to the facts and reasons regarding its disbelief.
it is different from the disbelief in purple wombats, not just in the sense that God is far more widely believed then purple wombats but because being an intellectual athiest has philosophical implications and involves thought about the existance of God beyond the explaination of “I’ve never seen Him”.
therefore athieism can be said to be the ‘religion’ of being an anti-theist because, like being a theist, it requires study of God, of course in the sense the study with the purpose His nonexistance.
i-spake - I’m not sure I see your point. I simply do not know of any evidence that I accept for the existence of God. My atheism predates my practise of philosophy. As a matter of fact, as a matter of method, no philosophical beliefs have arisen from my atheism. I guess this makes me a non-intellectual atheist. But my beliefs are not measured, by me, against a belief in God. I never think about this nonexistant god, or how things would be different if I did. You know, except when I’m posting a topic like this. How could I? - he doesn’t exist.
Any other view including yours, is bet-hedging.
I never study anything about god. I do read the Bible, but not to study “god”. Yes - yes, then - I am a stupid atheist. Fine with me.
F
I don’t know if god is dead just yet. Dying perhaps, but not dead, and I doubt that even my young generation will live to see him die. But if he is indeed dead, the remains of such a massive cadaver will take centuries or millenia to fully decay. The mourning process may take nearly as long. And there remains the possibility that he will once more be resurrected in the time of his disciples’ greatest despair…