Why be good?

[Randy Carson]

Last response of the night, folks. More tomorrow.

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You've identified cooperation and the social contract and the reasons for being good. However, as important as these things are for peaceful and harmonious human interaction, they are still utterly inconsistent with the a worldview that only natural, material things exist. To be consistent with this claim, we'd be forced to admit that "being good" is really just a matter of personal conviction or group consensus, not an ideal that God desires for all of us to strive for.

Randy, you've made a big claim here, but you've given not a single reason why it is so. You've just asserted by fiat that a totally naturalistic worldview- which isn't atheism, incidentally, it's something else entirely that we may not believe- is inconsistent with the premises of cooperation and social contract... why do you think that? Until you actually provide an answer to that question, until you give me some reason to believe that that is true, that contains within it referents to the position I actually hold, rather than the one you imagine I do, then I have no reason to even entertain this claim. That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

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If you've read all of the posts up to this point, you should have noted that the vast majority of the respondents to my OP have confirmed what I wrote. So, is that really such a big claim for me to make? If God does not exist (as everyone else but me accepts as true), then what IS the source of our understandings about "good" and "bad" and "right" and "wrong" if not "personal conviction and group consensus"? It seems to me that I've been overwhelmingly supported in this. Even by you here:

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The really weird thing is, you provide the answer that proves you wrong in the very paragraph where you make the claim, because you're totally right: cooperation and the social contract are very important for peace and harmony. That's exactly the sort of world I'd want to live in, because it's demonstrably better for us all, as I said, and more importantly showed, in my first post. It's a simple matter of rationality; in a world where we all agree to certain rules regarding conduct, and recognize the value in cooperation, we are able to build enormous, sprawling societies filled with technologies and comforts that would have been unfathomable to the tribalistic cultures that preceded us, in addition to allowing us all to specialize in our knowledge and share that expertise with others. I am able to hold a job in a non-essential field, that I absolutely love, because the social contract allows me to rely on other people to produce my food, clothes, housing and so on; none of that would be true if the social contract were not present. The best possible world, for me as an individual and for my society as a whole, is one where we cooperate.

Your mistake in thinking is terribly obvious, but since you allude to it more specifically below, I'll deal with it there.

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Oh...I was about to comment, but let's continue on...

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Can atheists justify, according to atheist principles, why they believe it is "wrong" to pollute oceans, cut down rain forests, or hack into someone’s bank account and steal their life savings? If the stronger members of the human species engage in such behaviors in their pursuit of dominating the weaker members, and if there is no God and therefore no transcendent, prescriptive moral law given by God to guide us into knowing what is right and what is wrong, then on what grounds can atheists legitimately oppose such behaviors?

Literally every part of this paragraph is factually wrong. Congrats, on that.

For starters, there are no atheist principles beyond a lack of belief in god; it's a position, not a worldview. So your first question is entirely malformed, but it's also answered in my first post, so hey.

As for the rest... I didn't realize that morality was all about me. Because it's not; morality is about the best possible guidelines for the entire group. Special pleading is what you're thinking of, where one is determining morality for themselves, but everyone else has to leave me alone and not do the same to me as I'm doing to them. It's by definition an irrational stance to take; you don't get one set of rules for yourself and another for everyone else, because there's no justifiable reason to do that.

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I'm not buying it. When a lion kills a cub or runs off an older male in order to take over the pride, he is not thinking of what's better for the group...even though, ironically, his actions ARE what's best for the group. How is a third-world dictator acting any differently? Well, his actions may not be in the best interests of his country for starters, but he is still dominating the group in the same way the new alpha male lion is...by forceful takeover.

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Incidentally, when you talk about the strong dominating the weak, you're describing Mad Max world again. Hell, you're describing every piece of dystopic or post-apocalyptic fiction we've ever created, in broad strokes. Oppression by a stronger force, unjustly, is a hallmark of the genre, and I kinda don't want to live in a world like that. Do you want to live in a dystopia, Randy? What makes you so sure that you'd be the strongest, rather than one of the ones being dominated? Pure assumption? The odds are against you, against any individual, just by numbers alone, you know. And hey, I work in media, I write books for a living, do you think I'd have any reason to continue doing that if people could just steal my earnings or product from me whenever they wanted? Do you think, say, pharmaceutical companies would continue making life-saving drugs, if people could just steal them whenever they wanted? You think farmers would farm, under those conditions? You think doctors would operate? Hell, you think you'd be able to get something as simple as a cup of coffee, if the barista couldn't be reasonably certain that he wouldn't be robbed of that coffee instead of paid for it?

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And yet, plagiarisim, corporate espionage, patent infringement, and even theft of cups of coffee, etc. happen all the time. Beyond that, I would agree with the balance of your paragraph.

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Gee, it's almost as if the entire edifice of our society relies upon the social contract, and that society is more valuable for every single individual member than the short term gain one might get in predating other people until they too get predated upon...

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Is that what's happening in Baltimore? Or what happened in Ferguson? People stayed home and played parlor games because they knew that was better than going out into the streets and rioting?

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Oh, and also? I just plain don't want to dominate other people... well, except maybe consensually, in the bedroom. I tend to like other people, I see their value as discrete entities and I'd prefer that bad things not happen to them because of that. Why? Are you saying that you do want to dominate and hurt other people? Why do you want that?

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I'm not specifying anything about you or me; however, if there is an opening when your boss retires...you do hope that YOU get the job and not one of your co-workers, right?

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if there is no God and therefore no transcendent, prescriptive moral law given by God to guide us into knowing what is right and what is wrong, then on what grounds can atheists legitimately oppose such behaviors?

Okay, let's talk about transcendent, prescriptive moral laws, shall we? Where do they come from? You say they're given by god, but does god give them to us because they are good? Or do they become good, because god gave them to us? What is the reason god gave us these moral laws, in your view, essentially?

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God's laws are good because He is good. He gives us laws so that we become like Him.

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If the moral laws come to us via god because they conform to what is good, then moral goodness exists separate from god, and it both does not require him, and can be determined without him, via rational inquiry.

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Nope. See above.

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If the moral laws are good because god has given them to us, then they are fiat command alone, and the actual content of the laws is irrelevant, when compared to the authority of the commander; in that situation there's nothing transcendent or morally good about the specific set of moral laws we've been given at all, just in obeying whatever the law giver decides to give us. If that were true you would have no reason to oppose any given behavior at all, because if god changed the moral laws tomorrow then that behavior could be moral. God could make it so that dominating the weak, murder, all kinds of things, would be moral, and you'd just have to go along with it.

So which is it, Randy? Is god irrelevant to morality, or is morality irrelevant to god?

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A flawed premise leads to this false conclusion.

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Doing so would be intolerant and would have the net result of the atheist forcing his morality on others -- the very thing atheists object to in the first place.

I don't think you actually understand what we're objecting to, regarding religious morality, Randy. I really, really don't.

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You may be right.

Or    it may be that atheists simply don't see 1) the incompatibility of holding evolution as the mechanism by which we have arrived on the world stage while 2) simultaneously denying that putting others' interests above your own is in direct conflict with the evolutionary process that got us here in the first place.

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I'll be happy to address it...as long as you aren't merely asserting these things.

Holy fucking shit, my irony meter!

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Calm down.

When I've been a member of the forum for 30 days, I'm allowed to begin linking to reference material.

And you can believe I will.

Randy, if you are going to quote this much, please learn how to do it so you are not misquoting and mis-attributing posts. Also, please use hide tags so we don't have to scroll through 10 screens of post.