RE: Where do atheists get their morality from?
September 1, 2012 at 2:38 am
(This post was last modified: September 1, 2012 at 2:39 am by Vincenzo Vinny G..)
(September 1, 2012 at 2:26 am)padraic Wrote:Quote:Every atheists should be concerned about this.
Bollocks; there are no 'shoulds' in atheism.
What is it about an 'atheist is a only a person person who does not believe in god(s)' you have so much trouble grasping?
Atheism is NOT: an ideology,world view,moral code,philosophy, political movement, club or association. There is no' we'.
Nor do I allow others decide I should think,say or do about anything,in any moral sense.
Yours is not a rational position, it is a semantic one. A rational position is one where one considers the proposition "A God doesn't exist", and accordingly all the rational consequences of the position, be they epistemic, ethical, skeptical, whatever.
Your position is not rational, it's strictly semantic. Or definitional. "Atheism means no belief in God and that's that!" It's a convenient position to hold, burden-of-proof-wise. But flip the situation and consider the theist: "I'm a Christian theist. All I believe is that Jesus is God. Don't tell me about any problems in my worldview. I don't care nor am I interested. I'm a Christian and that's that." If a Christian said that, you wouldn't smile and nod and neither would I.
So when you say something of the sort, I bring my paddle out to give you a right spanking too.
A rational consideration of atheism takes into account not only the propositional truth of atheism, but also the outcomes that such a belief has on other, related beliefs. There is no other way to go about it. We're not debating dictionary definitions, we are debating worldviews. And atheism, being a position on the existence of God, is a worldview. And rational atheism, taking into consideration the worldview that is derived from it, has a serious moral problem.
And if you don't like rape, murder and child abuse, you should be concerned that atheism allows for the legitimization of these crimes. Sam Harris was concerned enough. Dawkins himself now feels the same way. So why are you trying to escape the problem by playing word-games?
