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Ah, but if the primary interest of the state is in self-preservation, would there not be anything left if it continually forced abortions on its jackboot-imprinted populace?
Therefore, it would be far more interesting for the state to impose the bearing of children upon its citizens. After all, it needs those taxpayer dollars for "public funds". And as the highest authority, it's fully within the government's right to force women to bear children (possibly fathered by the male of the government's choice), and even mandate how many.
Right?
I read that article at Pandagon after spying the link and mention at Nate's.
I came away from reading feeling like my brain had been slimed. All the high sounding talk of the wellbeing of themselves. No mention of the wellbeing of anyone *but* themselves. The wishes of no-one else but themselves. It has nothing to do with being moral, that's for sure. Their only 'morality' is me, me, me.
I would have to agree with Morris.
If government is the highest authority, then government essentially owns us.
This IS what they believe over at the Panda palace. Take a look at their recent discussion of the Estate Tax. It is just as scary as their views on abortion.
It is just as scary but fortunately, it's not as deadly.
All of their arguments do end up contradicting one another. For example, they can argue that their is no positive, natural order/law granting certain legitimacy to the state, but that ends up destroying the rule of law by making human rights too extreme.
As for the forced abortion thing, I think it would not be a tragedy for the parents or that judge to fall victim to some unsavory, criminal behavior.
They've merely trade their Creator for a false god they believe they can control. Oh the irony when one day they fail to please their new "god" and hear the footsteps at the door...
Hey, one of the commenters compared a fetus to a parasite. No wonder they can reason that abortion is a moral good.
Whoa.
Now I know why I don't go digging into dungpiles.
Thanks for doing it for me, Difster.
"To an atheist, the only possible place that rights can come from is the government. They can try to argue for some "natural rights" all they want but they cannot possibly acknowledge any authority higher than government. If government is the highest authority, then government essentially owns us."
This is inconsistent with the claim that atheism implies moral relativism. Under moral relativism, the state has no more claim to be good or true than anyone or anything else.
The moral of the Italian case is that parents should have no control of the wombs of their children.
I just want to say thank you! As an atheist I've always been troubled by the lack of authority figures to blindly obey. Its been so hard trying to construct a rational framework from first principles to guide how I live my life and how to justify my own actions and convictions to myself, but with the authority figure you've provided for me now I don't have to do that anymore! I'll just do whatever the government says! I'm gonna go shopping right now!
Way to go providing a solid rebuttal to my theory MooMoo! While I appreciate an occasional snarky comment as much as the next guy, I'd like to see you try to defend a source for having a moral framework. GIve it a shot, don't be shy.
Try this one--enlightened self-interest. I want society to treat the weak with justice because one day I will probably be sick or weak. I employ whatever means are available to me--discoure, protest, voting, obedience, disobedience, and if necessary violence (it's rarely necessary), protect the society that one day will protect me. It's in my rational self-interest--something even moral relativists believe in.
When I grow sick and weak, others will take up arms to protect me, because they know that one day they will be sick and weak (death and decay being inevitable) and they will want to be protected.
You can quibble over whether rational self-interest is truly "moral" if I'm only doing it for my selfish benefit, but the end result will be largely the same.
Self-interest does not equate to morality. If it is in your self-interest to kill someone then do it. If it's in your self-interest to rob, rape or whatever, do it. With no higher accountability than yourself (or the state) there is no limit to what your self-interest can mean.
Look, I really couldn’t care less whether or not you think I’m “moral”. I’m sure that hundreds of millions of Hindus think I’m immoral because I am insufficiently respectful of cows (not that I have anything against cows--after all my screen name here is MooMoo) and I’m sure that your reasons for thinking so are equally compelling.
If you are actually interested in religion free perspectives on what is commonly referred to as morality, Kant’s discussion of the categorical imperative is a good place to start. You might also want to look into some of the recent anthropological work concerning the evolution of social behavior. The study of game theory also has some very intriguing insights into the logic and expected outcomes of altruism. No burning bushes, voodoo chants, or human sacrifice involved in any of this, though, so I’m probably going to hell anyway.
At any rate, what I find most revealing about your post is your inability to imagine perspectives outside of your own authoritarian world view. You posit that atheists, without God to tell them what to do, must simply move one rung down the ladder of authority and rely on the state instead. I think you would be hard pressed, however, to locate any atheists who, having rejected the existence of God, nevertheless cling to the hierarchical structure of the universe, so endlessly depicted in medieval art, with God at the top, the pope or the king below him and so on down to the peons scratching in the dirt at the bottom, only with the God part airbrushed out. Your inability to imagine motives other than state worship or amoral self interest on the part of atheists says more about the poverty of your imagination than it does about the “morality” of atheists.
Let me just state for the record that I find the concept of forced abortion odious. I am, however, fairly certain that it will be deemed (by some) immoral of me to find the force part vastly more troubling than the abortion part.
Self-interest does not equate to morality. If it is in your self-interest to kill someone then do it.
But it's in my self-interest to make sure it's not in your self-interest to kill me. I see what I assume is your handsome mug with a pistol aimed at the camera--so I'm guessing you're one of those "armed society is a polite society" types.
(If you're actually a gun control loving Hobbesian and that picture is just ironic, I apologize.)
Put it this way. Whether or not you believe that morality can exist without God (I don't think you're open to reason on that point) you have to at least concede that *politeness* is possible without God.
And to expand a little upon Consumatopia's discussion of self interest, "moral" behavior predicated upon the desire to get into Heaven or to avoid going to Hell is not exactly undburdened by self-interest. It seems to me that a strong argument can be made that an atheist acting in an ethical or "moral" way, with no expectations of eternal reward or punishment, is more moral than those motivated by dogmatic dictates or a desire to suck up to the deity of their choice. It's the difference between intrinsic moral motivators versus extrinsic motivators.
You don't have to take my word for it though. There is a long tradition of moral philosophers (Aquinas, Augustine, etc.), with theological/dogmatic/Christian bona fides that you would presumably find adequate, who discuss these questions in mind numbing detail, usually in the context of the theological problems associated with free will.
And to expand a little upon Consumatopia's discussion of self interest, "moral" behavior predicated upon the desire to get into Heaven or to avoid going to Hell is not exactly undburdened by self-interest.
It absolutely IS self-interest. I don't think anyone would argue that it isn't. What you don't seem to understand about Christianity though is that beyond the point of one's confession of faith in Jesus, salvation no longer depends on moral or immoral actions. My salvation is dependent on my faith. "Doing good" will not get one in to Heaven, the Bible is perfectly clear about that. Obedience to God's morality is based on our love for Him since we don't have to work for our salvation. ...more later.
...beyond the point of one's confession of faith in Jesus, salvation no longer depends on moral or immoral actions. My salvation is dependent on my faith. This discussion, like most theological arguments, is beginning to resemble a house of mirrors. Your premise that atheism provides no guide to moral behavior has led to the inescapable conclusion that in fact Christianity offers no such guide. I can kill or steal or engage in oral sex or disrespect my elders with as much abandon as any atheist so long as I maintain my faith in Jesus (or God the father, or the Holy thingamy, or whatever), because faith is the most important thing. Salvation through faith is guaranteed. How do I know this? Because my faith tells me so! This is irrefutable so it must be true!
Why, then, is the fact that you (presumably) don't run around behaving immorally, in spite of your guaranteed salvation, because you love God morally superior to the fact that I behave similarly because I love reason and empiricism?
I'm pretty sure that your answer to that question will come down to, once again, an assertion of your faith. I think the whole question of faith is what makes it impossible to have a reasonable discussion about religion with believers. The answer to the question "why do you believe that?" is always some earnest/proud/indignant variation of "because that's what I believe". It's like trying to discuss the difference between red and green with someone who's color blind.
However, in the case of this discussion with a color blind person, independently verifiable data concerning the different wavelengths of photons that correspond to "red" and "green" (in other words, empirical evidence) would be available and tremendously useful in bridging the conceptual gap. There is, however, no empirical evidence for the existence of God, and proof of a negative (i.e., God's non-existence) is a logical impossibility.
My expectations for this discussion are therefore justifiably low, but I’m willing to be surprised.
What you don't seem to understand about Christianity though is that beyond the point of one's confession of faith in Jesus, salvation no longer depends on moral or immoral actions. My salvation is dependent on my faith.
I think this is actually kind of novel--most of the time Christians who say God is necessary for morality come down on the other side of the faith vs. works argument.
Adam Smith, when he suggested that an Invisible Hand caused people's self-interest to move them towards moral behavior, believed that this was evidence for God's existence--the Invisible Hand was God's. In which case God pushes all--even atheists, pagans, heretics, and other infidels--towards moral behavior.
That's just food for thought.
Obedience to God's morality is based on our love for Him since we don't have to work for our salvation. ...more later.
I second Moo Moo's point about love. You act morally because of your love of God. If love moves you to be moral, why can it not move others to be moral?
I don't believe I've heard a Christian claim an absolute monopoly on love before. Perhaps that their love or Jesus's love is greater than that of others. (And even as a non-Christian I'm willing to concede that Jesus was likely more full of love than the average person.)
Everyone is capable of love. Severely handicapped people who cannot grasp the concept of Jesus can still love.
("I believe in love, but how can men who've never seen light be enlightened?")
If you want to claim that Christianity is a better form of morality than any other, well, I'd disagree, but that's a reasonable claim. The Sermon on the Mount is pretty damn good, even if few Christians (or anyone else) actually follow it.
But if you want to claim that Christianity or theism in general is the only possible system of morality, that's just silly. God would not be so foolish is to make love only possible when logically based on an abstract concept like...God.
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