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Author Topic:   What is the point of this forum?
Rahvin
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Posts: 4024
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 8.8


Message 63 of 139 (535847)
11-18-2009 11:48 AM
Reply to: Message 52 by slevesque
11-17-2009 5:01 PM


Now maybe I misexpressed myself. I'm not saying to take the scientists out of the labs and into debate circles. I'm talking about the Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers, those who listened to Gould's advice to not discuss the creation issue on the front stage, and so creationism would eventually die out lack of credibility. I think we can safely say that after 20 years, Gould was wrong, and the place left by the public debate was taken by the internet forums. I'm thinking about them, if, as many here claimed, creationism is easy as shizzle to knock to the ground and laugh, why don't they do it in the open ? Wouldn't this be everyone's dream to see a debate, organised by a neutral third party, where Dawkins has the chance to give the creation movement the knockout blows ?
Gould was not wrong.
Public debates are irrelevant.
The reason public debates in front of an audience are so rare is because such debates rely far more on showmanship than on facts and logic. Particularly with scientific topics, where audience members can quickly become overwhelmed by terminology and the complexities of an accurate description of a scientific model.
Remember, in the general public, appeals to popularity, appeals to authority, arguments from incredulity, strawmen, and red herrings are regarded as excellent arguments. There are people, for example, who wholeheartedly believe Kirk Cameron when he goes on TV with his Crocoduck transitional, no matter how many times those people are told that evolution predicts nothing of the sort and in fact expressly forbids such bizarre chimeras.
Online, written debates are vastly superior. There is a written record of every word said, allowing for easy responses to an opponent's actual words without relying on a quick memory. You can take your time with your responses and actually gather information and references to back up your words with actual facts. You don't need to adhere to an arbitrary time constraint that seriously undermines any ability to explain anything of complexity. You don't have to worry about showmanship or crowd-pleasing.
In an online debate, it's far easier to allow an argument to rest on facts and logic, with meaningful rebuttals to an opponent.
As for why I'm here - I never had any formal training in logic, and the critical thinking skills taught in school these days is absurd. I'm here to give my brain a workout, debating with and against people of intelligence about topics I find interesting. I hone my debate skills so that I am better in real-world arguments, and I learn a lot about the subjects of debate.
In fact, the debates here are a large factor in what de-converted me from a Christian into an Atheist - so this site has actually been of significant personal importance in my life.
In addition, like others have said, I debate here for the lurkers, the people on the fence. I'm not likely to ever convince Buzsaw or ICANT of anything. But in debating them I can affect the opinions of those who read our threads.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 52 by slevesque, posted 11-17-2009 5:01 PM slevesque has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by New Cat's Eye, posted 11-18-2009 12:01 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4024
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 8.8


(1)
Message 128 of 139 (536226)
11-20-2009 2:09 PM
Reply to: Message 100 by Arphy
11-19-2009 9:19 PM


The ethics and morality of Atheism
quote:
what gives them any meaning at all is that we, by our own choosing, select them as good social skills.
So you have no problem with another group of people choosing a set of morals that might be in conflict with your morals?
As others have said, this is the situation in the real world. Many people make differing moral assessments. What one person finds morally reprehensible, another person can find to be morally neutral. What one person finds morally praiseworthy, another can find to be a moral imperative.
But let's expand on that a bit, because you're close to a valid point. I imagine that you envision a world with no objective moral standard (ie, a deity telling you what's good and bad) to be one beyond relativism, where "good" and "bad" don't exist, and people just do whatever they want all the time, to hell with the consequences. Invariably people will have different moral values that come into conflict (one person doesn't recognize property rights, another person does, resulting in accusations of theft and so on). How can you resolve such ethical differences without an objective standard?
The answer is actually fairly simple. A true anarchic society is not self-sustainable. It simply doesn't work. The resolution, then, has been the social contract. Human beings implicitly agree by participating in society to obey by the rules set by that society. This is furthered by cultural conditioning - we tend to have similar moral values to those who have also lived in the same or a similar culture. The rules themselves are binding on every member of society, but they're still not immutable objective tablets handed down from a deity - they're made by us, for us. It's always been that way, even when people have claimed to be receiving their rules from elsewhere, and even when various forms of government have done a poor job of it.
Ethics, of course, are separate from laws, but laws tend to be based at least loosely on ethics. In some societies (ie, the Western world), society's rules tend to be constructed in such a way as to allow for maximum varyation in ethical values pertaining to personal choices, while preventing those personal values from negatively affecting others (ie, it's legal to think it's okay to murder people, but if you actually do it society will impose consequences; it's legal to have different sexual values, but you are not allowed to force sex on the unwilling or on children; it's legal to have different religious beliefs, but it's not legal to force others to adhere to your religious tenets, etc). As you can see from my examples, there are many circumstances where what one person considers to be ethically acceptable, others can consider morally praiseworthy, imperative, or disallowed - and the simple rules of pragmatism allow societies to adapt to handle various ethical differences and disputes.
All without divine laws. Or laws from several conflicting deities. It doesn't matter - in the end, it is human beings who determine how we will treat each other, whether some of us believe that we will eventually answer to a non-human entity after death or not. Your fantasy of moral anarchy simply doesn't pass through natural selection, and so we don't see many societies with such a breakdown.
We do see a few - and we almost universally refer to them as "shitholes." Somalia would be an example - ethics and morality are irrelevant. Dispute resolution is handled by whoever is better suited to force the other to comply. "Property" is defined as whatever you have sufficient force to hold on to.
Most of the world agrees that that is not the way we want to love...and so our societies tend to be different.
quote:
Humans are social, and societies work best when there is order.
Great, what is wrong with anarchy?
Objectively? That depends on your goals. Anarchies don't tend to last well, and tend to have an extremely poor quality and average length of life. If you consider living a long time and having an easier life to be worthwhile goals, or if you simply feel empathy for your fellow man and resent others taking what's your and hurting those you care about while recognizing that others will feel the same about you if you were the one with the big stick, then there is a great deal wrong with anarchy.
One doesn't need a deity to look at the results and determine whether those results are desirable compared to alternatives.
Does it really matter that civilization and the earth remain for another 100 years? After you are dead you supposedly won't care anyway, because, well, you supposedly no longer exist. Why does society need to continue to exist even after you have died?
Human beings tend to care for their children. But of course the deceptively simple answer is that most people live for today with little thought for the futures of their children or the continuation of society. They pay lip-service to "save the children"and genuinely care about their kids, but act only on the small, personal or possibly family scale. "Preserving society" never really comes into the equasion for actual actions of the average person.
Society persists because there is a constant supply of people who each work to better their own lives, and because unsuccessful societies do die out or change.
You might think that it would be "neat", especially when thinking of all technological advances that humans could make in the future. But hey, you won't experience them anyway, if you're dead. There will probably be someone on the planet who thinks it would be "neat" if the world destroyed itself in a nuclear war tomorrow. Humans continue to try to keep an orderly society, but if atheism is true, then what is the point? Because it is "nice"?
Because I have no desire to see the world end in nuclear war, or see climate change ravage coastal cities and destroy island and poor communities. Because I empathize with other human beings, and participating in a society that tries to give the maximum benefit to everyone else gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. Quite simply, I like being a decent person, and I don't need a celestial father figure to give me approval or threaten me with a spanking to do it. I like being decent because of the social consequences - other people like me and will continue to interact with me, and together we can improve each others' lives and be happier than if we chose alternatives.
I would be who I am today ethically regardless of the existence of a deity. If God appeared tomorrow and told me to slaughter a bunch of children in His name, I'd tell Him to go stuff it.
Please note that I'm not suggesting that all atheists are anarchists or that if you are an atheist that you should consider becoming an anarchist, I'm just stating that there is nothing in atheism that would make it wrong for a person to do harm. There are no rules except the ones that you personally choose to make!!!
Atheism is not an ethical system. It's simply a statement of a lack of belief in a deity.
There are many ethical systems. Theists like yourself tend to be Authoritarian and Absolutist, drawing ethical dilemmas into stark right/wrong, black/white contrasts and taking instruction from an authority figure. What God commands is good, and what God says not to do is bad, period.
Moral relativism is a bit different - they can still be Authoritarian (and the authority can be the law, a deity, or just a role model), but they tend to see more gray than black/white. They may consider theft to be a lesser crime than murder, even if the authority says that both are bad (in Christianity, all sin is equal, qualifying it as Absolutist - bearing false witness is as bad as murder is as bad as coveting is as bad as not loving God etc, and all require God's forgiveness).
Personally, I am more of a moral utilitarian. I view ethical dilemmas as a contrast of harm vs. benefit. I see killing one person to save a thousand as less negative than letting them all die. I see improving the lives of myself and others as morally praiseworthy, and intentionally harming others' lives or restricting their ability to make their own choices as morally negative. I am also strongly empathetic - I say that killing one to save a thoisand is less negative than letting all one thousand die, but I would almost certainly be unable to actually carry out the deed, even if I were to be among the thousand at risk. My empathy plays a strong part in my determination of "harm" vs. "benefit." I would like my quality and length of life to improve, and so I view those as strong benefits. I don't like being stolen from or lied to, so I count those as "harm." I tend to apply my own determinations onto others, unless they inform me of having different values, in which case I qualify any action I would take that would affect such a person as benefit or harm according to their values as I understand them (ie, a person from another culture may be strongly offended at a handshake, and so I would not shake that person's hand).
What you describe for atheists is a nihilist - a person who believes that nothing matters.
Some atheists are nihilists. Most are not.
These may be different and even conflicting from atheist to atheist. So what is wrong with an atheist choosing a rule that lying is ok if you don't get caught and it benefits you? Is it hypocritcal?
Since atheism says absolutely nothing about ethics in and of itself, your question lacks relevance. One may as well ask whether believing in Santa makes cars good or bad.
But as an empathetic utilitarian who happens to be an Atheist, I can tell you that I do not like to lie because I do not like being lied to, and because dishonesty tends to cause harm in the form of hurt feelings, inaccurate information that leads to bad decisions, false imprisonment, and other possible repercussions. That's not to say that all lies are alike - I may tell a child that Santa does exist in order to comply with the wishes of the child's parents, and I would view such a lie as a very small amount of harm compared to the greater harm of undermining a parent or the emotional damage of destroying a child's belief (personally, should I ever have kids, I won't tell them Santa exists precisely to avoid their eventual discovery that he does not).
quote:
You need to in the same way you need to eat ... because there are consequences. Try not respecting people that you meet every day and see if you get along well; see if you don't need to be respectful to get along.
Firstly, you could always fake it when need be. You don't need to get along well with everyone. If you have some influence or power over a weaker opponent, you can become quite successful.
Most people do "fake it." I force pleasantness when I dislike someone all the time. I have to take great care in my job to avoid sounding condescending or insulting to both my intellectual inferiors and those who are blamelessly ignorant.
Back when I worked retail PC repair, I once had a man get his credit card stuck in his floppy drive because he was trying to pay his bills online. I'm not kidding. Anyone, regardless of the source of the imperative (be it morally from a deity or from empathy, or simply from a desire to keep one's job) would have to "fake it" in such a circumstance simply to avoid laughing in the poor fool's face.
Nobody gets along well with everyone else. Human beings are simply too different and varied. This is true regardless of belief in a deity.
Coming back to my original post, I don't think it is possible to make the claim that atheists are "restricted" to telling the truth.
Atheists are no more or less "restricted" from any action than any other person, and that's what I think you're failing to understand.
What restricts an action is one's moral framework, which is not necessarily tied completely to one's religious beliefs. There are many Christian Utilitarians, for example, who would agree with my moral assessments far more than the Literalist Absolutist Authoritarian would.
Atheism, specifically, is not a moral framework, much as the simple statement "I believe in a deity" is not a moral framework.
Atheists are bound to follow their moral codes to exactly the same extent that theists are to theirs, no more and no less, regardless of the source (real or imagined) of the ethical framework.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by Arphy, posted 11-19-2009 9:19 PM Arphy has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 129 by bluegenes, posted 11-20-2009 5:11 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
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