Today, a challenge from Beliefnet, challenging atheists and agnostics over where they derive meaning and morals. It's an amusing read because of how blind the guy is, but I suppose he's far from unique. I recently pointed out to a Christian that his belief system was far from an objective truth, but actually relativism in action. Why is this so hard for them to see?
All believers choose to believe what they believe, and in so doing, make a choice of what will be their absolute moral authority. That's right, far from there being an absolute authority which is self evident, believers pick and choose one. Now granted, most inherit a religion from their folks, but they still pick and choose interpretations of it. So I'm puzzled why believers seem so troubled by the idea that atheists pick and choose their own meaning to life and own set of morals, because so do they.
If your intellect or your philosophy tells you that a certain action is right or wrong, what makes that moral judgment authoritative? What compels you to obey it?
Perhaps the same thing which tells you you're right about your choice of faith, and further, your choice of interpretations of the texts of your faith. In other words, perhaps instinct, feelings, or applied intellect.
It's a mistake to think atheists alone have no absolute authority. None of us do. We all choose who or what to assign as our authority. Just as we assign the label "cat" to a cat, "meaning" to what we consider meaningful, we, of all faiths as well as no faith, assign authority as well. A religious person has chosen to believe and thus, has chosen an absolute authority. The idea that there actually is an absolute authority, independent of us, is only an idea, an idea you can choose to believe.
That's perhaps the first thing I'd like to separate from this challenge, the assertion that there is an absolute authority and the idea that there is an absolute authority. Should someone make an effective argument that basing a moral code on an absolute authority is superior than not doing so, that still doesn't address whether there actually is an absolute authority or not. The religious position seems to be to attack a system which has no absolute authority and should they be triumphant in that endeavor, then that magically makes their absolute authority real. No, no, no, that would do nothing of the kind. Validating the effects of belief does not make the belief true. (Personally, I see no value in a belief based on an invention.)
I should also point out that there are atheists who do believe there's an absolute authority of sorts, for many believe in an objective morality. They may be right, and humanity's moral variances across time, distance and culture may be one massive experiment through which one day we uncover what that objective morality is. Personally, I have trouble accepting that, but it's possible. It could potentially explain how many philosophies and religions share a great deal of common morals.
I've addressed mostly morals, but the challenge included meaning in life as well. I'd say, even more so than morals, meaning truly is an individual choice. Are two religious people identical? Do all believers have the same careers, the same loves, hobbies, families, etc? Of course not. EACH has unique things which they feel gives meaning to their lives. How, then, can there be an absolute authority for that? That's the epitome of individual, not some exterior, absolute authority.
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25 comments:
"...far from there being an absolute authority which is self evident, believers pick and choose one.".
Pertaining to the Christian faith, I think of Abraham choosing to obey God and sacrifice his son Isaac. Christians draw various conclusions about trusting God, or whatever, from the story. But no Christian today would commend another Christian for doing this with their own son, and no Christian today would do this charade unless they were certifiably insane.
All believers choose to believe what they believeI'm not sure the word "all" is accurate. Many believers are indoctrinated into a belief system from birth. Some (perhaps many?) of those people may never give any thought to why they believe what they believe - it's just something they've always done.
Having said that, it may be the case that many believers, even those who were indoctrinated into the faith from birth, do make a conscious choice to believe in God, their particular brand of Christianity, etc.
Looking at my own history, I certainly made a conscious choice, at age 16, to stop rebelling against God (as I believed I was doing at the time) and to start living according to the faith tenets I had been taught - I "got saved." I didn't, however, choose whether or not to believe - I already did that; I simply chose to conform to the beliefs that I'd inherited. Choosing to conform is not the same, in my view, as choosing to believe, let alone choosing what to believe.
"I didn't, however, choose whether or not to believe - I already did that; I simply chose to conform to the beliefs that I'd inherited."
That is an important distinction. Many Christians believe they chose to believe in God, when it really was that they chose to follow what they already believed without a cognitive process about belief going on. And they are quite blind to that.
From OP: "Now granted, most inherit a religion from their folks, but they still pick and choose interpretations of it.".
The choice in a religion might not be much of a choice at all, due to both indoctrination and the shear majority dominance of one religion in a region, but here in the US we have stats showing how large numbers shift between brands of Christianity frequently and effortlessly. Just because these people shift from one Christianity to another doesn't represent brand loyalty like staying faithful to Coke or Pepsi. It's more like staying faithful to cola, and making a choice between Coke, Pepsi, RC, whatever. Maybe some more adventurous types will drift to Dr. Pepper or even 7-up.
Quibble over the degree of choice, but choice is still involved, which makes their objective truth claims bunk.
"Now granted, most inherit a religion from their folks, but they still pick and choose interpretations of it."....
Now, that I agree with completely. My realization that I was doing this was one of the major factors that made me question everything about my religious beliefs.
You're also right that this practice - in which all except, perhaps, the most simpleminded, sheeplike believers engage - is evidence that claims of objectivity are bullshit.
PhillyChief,
I've written (in editing phase right now) a whole blog post about the huge differences between Christian views of right and wrong.
I have a hard time believing that Christians claim to obey an absolute authority, when almost every church thinks the "absolute" is telling them different things.
Long skirts, short skirts, spank kids, don't spank kids, wear makeup, don't wear make up, alcohol's OK, alcohol's wrong, can dance, can't dance, speak in tongues, don't speak in tongues ....
Their "absolute" is absolutely inconsistent.
That's because there is no "their absolute" because there is no their. Call them all Christians, but they are not exactly a collective with an absolute. They're more like a cluster of thousands of different groups and individuals whose absolutes overlap more than they don't; therefore there is no singular absolute. No singular absolute, no issue of consistency.
How about putting God to the test of a known absolute....here's some logic for you:
(1) If: The Bible says it, Then: According to the believers, it must be true
(2) The Bible says in Matthew 7 in the King James Version:
"7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you 8For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"
(3) Therefore the religious believers hold that: a) God is like santa clause, b) God operates like a search engine, c) God operates like a dictionary, and d) God operates like a calculator too.
(4) Hence, in order to test the religious believer's hypothesis: If God operates like a calculator (that is an object which is widely known to give perfect answers), then God can give people an answer to a math problem without the necessity of the religous using a calculator (well, unless you count Jesus as a calculator)
(5) Therefore: The religious believer should be able to answer math questions, such as "? What is the 3rd cubed root of 17 to the 8th decimal place ? What is the logarythm of 37 to the 5th decimal place ? " without the help of any other aid besides the 'voice of God' inside their own heads.
"But no Christian today would commend another Christian for doing this with their own son, and no Christian today would do this charade unless they were certifiably insane."No, they wouldn't, because they don't have to. Abraham knew all about God's plan to supply His own Substitute, but, God allowed the patriarch leeway to allow his own doubt to sway him in his faith. In other words, it was a test to see if Abe really had the stones to be trusted with the responsibilities to follow.
Any believer worth his salt would have understood God's plan for man's redemption. Infidels commonly point to this particular episode as an example of Christians being unhinged... being willing to sacrifice a child to appease some imaginary deity. No, God stayed the hand of Abraham, who, in fact, knew that only Christ could offer up any legitimate substitution for man's sin. Isaac understood, as well. Do you really think an old man could have forced a strong youth to do something he didn't want to do?
Yes, we all choose who and what we want to believe... good thing, eh? There's one difference, though, in this scenario... you better be right in your choice to believe in the mummery of disgruntled, self-justifying rebels determined to make society pay for any perceived injustices done to them as youths by their overbearing Christian parents, as many infidels were happy to testify to as the reason they rejected Christianity. See, if we (Christians) are wrong, well, we haven't lost anything. We'll die and eventually rot, just like you say we will.
But... if we are RIGHT in our assertions... you infidels will have lost out on something that you really needn't have lost out on! See where I'm coming from? I don't base my faith on simply the dread of being lost and losing out, don't get me wrong, but, since I'm dealing with folk that think it as something retarded and retrograde to believe in something so 'intangible' as a deity, and claim to value logic and observation as a determining factor in any choice... why, then, do you not see the logic in accepting the truth that there IS a God, basing this belief on the myriad of evidences there are that support such an assertion, and, therefore, avoid what you have all so blithely accepted as fact and your ultimate fate... eternal death!
If I'm wrong, I lose nothing. If YOU are wrong, you lose EVERYTHING!
Still think Christians are idiots?
You are making up what you think Abraham thought. The bible doesn't say that, so even if you believe it to be a literally true story, you are still making stuff up. There is no reason to believe from the story that Abraham knew about the story of redemption prior to that episode. He is portrayed as simply trusting God, period.
And you missed my point entirely, it wasn't that Abraham was an idiot for following God's orders. I would agree with you that the point of that story was a test of God's faith, except for disagreeing with you about the parts you made up.
My point is, "what if?" What if God spoke to you that way today? Or what if it was something different than the Abraham story. What if God said, "Go kill atimetorend, he's an infidel." You might think, "Well, the bible says do not kill, so that can't really be God." But then you might think, "Well, who am I to question almighty God? His ways are not my ways..." Or something like that. And I'm not saying you would do that, I'm saying you would know perfectly well not to, and it wouldn't be because you know the bible.
The gamble about losing everything, I'm not so sure. What is this myriad of evidences that we will spend eternity in a fiery hell if we don't believe? I see the fiery hell as something pretty evidenced, don't you?
Oh, and I don't think all Christians are idiots. Everyone, Christian or not, has the opportunity to prove or disprove that on a case by case basis.
whoops, I meant the fiery hell as unevidenced, not evidenced...
Pascal's wager? Seriously? LOL! You make me wish that Hinduism is real, just so that you could have the realization of how stupid Pascal's wager is when you wake up in Hindu hell, but at least Hindu hell is temporary, a time to reflect and hopefully learn something before you get reincarnated. Of course I'm being kind. The Muslims might be right.
The possibility that you're right, Gideon, (assuming that one religion actually is right) is P=1/n where n is the number of religions. n grows even larger when you add in the separate sects of each religion.
atimetorend, if you'd spent a TENTH of the time I have in actual Bible study, you'd see that the entire book is about God's plan for the redemption of man, and the two testaments are interrelated.
According to Christ's revelation to the Pharisees in Matthew, He is and was the God of the Old Testament. Yes, the arbitrary, vengeful, baby-killing God of the OT was Christ, pre-incarnate. The believers in the OT were, by all intents and purposes, Christians, because they all knew, from the time of Adam, that there would be a coming Redeemer. (Genesis 3:15) That is a given, in any elementary Bible school class. I don't make up anything, I always stick with the revealed Word.
It is natural to assume that a pious individual like Abe would trust God to provide the Substitute He had always promised... and that He would not expect him to actually kill Isaac. Human nature does tend to waver, at times, especially in the spiritual realm, and God frequently tested His subjects in this regard. He still does, but, that kind of test is redundant now that Christ incarnate has provided the necessary expiation.
So, you been asleep for all of your life? You see no evidence at all that there is a divine will to everything? I dunno... this seems like the hardest sell to any infidel who feels that everything has to be bound up in an equation of some sort. If you can't see God's hand in the intricacies of the natural world and humanity, then there is nothing I can tell you, or nothing that you'd accept. God is so far above the things that you deem relevant for proof, it's ludicrous!
I will admit that spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Without the Spirit's intercession, none of us could appreciate God or anything pertaining to Him. Mankind has fallen below what is necessary for any comprehension of God without His help in understanding. However, there is no excuse for saying that God hasn't provided evidence of Himself in nature.
I guess what you're saying is that myself and millions of others aren't capable of properly interpreting the world around us, unless we subscribe to your particular view on reality, is that right?
I don't know Gideon, I've spent a lot of time in bible study. Tell me how much time you've spent and I'll tell you if I've spent a tenth as much as you have. Maybe you haven't spent a tenth as much as I have, we'll have to see. You're full of misguided assumptions.
I don't know as it matters anyway though. "Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." (Michael Shermer). Very, very smart people can believe things that are completely wrong. Being Christian has nothing to do with that.
What you're saying is that millions and millions aren't smart enough to see things the way you see them. You're the one making claims, not me.
"I guess what you're saying is that myself and millions of others aren't capable of properly interpreting the world around us, unless we subscribe to your particular view on reality, is that right?".
Far from it. What we're saying is that you're deluding yourselves about it, which may or may not be seriously hazardous, depending on how far you choose to take the delusion.
"What you're saying is that millions and millions aren't smart enough to see things the way you see them. You're the one making claims, not me."What I'm saying is that is what we always seem to say to each other. That's why I mentioned it. So, how does one get to the bottom of anything, with everyone laying moral implications on everyone else?
I've been studying the Bible for over thirty years, and maybe you've been doing it longer, but, I don't see how, when you go making the assertions that you do. There is some room for contextual speculation outside of a specific "thus sayeth the Lord", and it is perfectly logical, but, again, things must be taken in their context.
And Chief... I could say to you that you're deluding YOURself, and where would we be, then? Square one, right?
Maybe it's come down to where each of us has become so dogmatic in our assertions and opinions, that we have become irrelevant, ourselves? As Spock told Kirk in The Undiscovered Country... would that constitute a joke?
If it is, we're all in trouble.
Dogmatic? There's nothing dogmatic about my position, and contrasting positions don't make for a push, necessarily. It effectively might IF you leave the dogma out. For instance, a simple belief in a god creating everything is relatively harmless. Believing he commands everyone to do X,Y,Z or else is another matter.
I agree that dogma leads to trouble.
Btw, don't you find it odd bickering over who has studied the Christian bible more and/or for a longer time? Even if you grant that longer time invested = better understanding, that really doesn't say much for the Christian bible, does it? How much fucking time and effort should it take? How silly.
I think that few of us Atheist have systematically thought out our meta-ethical positions. On the contrary, most Christians could indeed tell you exactly what their position is: Divine Command Theory (A subjectivist theory meaning "because God said so"). Of course, Divine Command Theory is wrong. But I still contend that most atheists haven't thought through their positions and would be flustered if they got in a conversation with an ethicist on the issue.
But then, I don't think it is necessary to think through one's position on all this -- not necessary at all. One can live the good life without such reflection.
I think that's a great point. Humanity has somehow muddled through over time. Think about how long humanity got by before ANY of today's major religions were founded. Amazing, huh?
"The idea that there actually is an absolute authority, independent of us, is only an idea, an idea you can choose to believe."This is actually just unfounded atheist preaching, as much as the converse claim is unfounded theist preaching. Who made you the arbiter of reality?
Who made you the arbiter of reality? .
Sounds like you just did. I'm honored, thanks.
Btw, your god is welcomed to upgrade his status from conceptual to physical at any time.
Philly, get serious. Justify your claim that absolute authority is only an idea, or else stop making it.
I already have. Everyone erects their own absolute authority. The evidence exists in each individual interpretation of holy texts, beliefs, events, and even laws.
An absolute authority should be evident, yet no such thing is. Regardless, humanity has survived alright without one, so even if there were one, it wouldn't be necessary.
Your argument fails the tests of logic. That people decide their ultimate authority in life does not preclude an ultimate authority in life. Disagreement doesn't entail non-existence. To say an absolute authority should be evident is a just-so claim, and if there were an absolute authority, it may or may not be necessary. How would we know?
You should just admit this stuff is your opinion and stop pretending like it's fact.
You should just admit this stuff is your opinion and stop pretending like it's fact..
I reject your false dichotomy.
...if there were an absolute authority, it may or may not be necessary. How would we know?Look around you. Countless humans, past and present, all with separate absolute authorities.
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