Are some theists afraid of atheists?

[Brian37]

..Are some theists afraid of atheists?..

Well I'm afraid of women and the police, but afraid of atheists?- Nah..
It's just that atheists have let themselves be put off Jesus by the false crackpots of Organised Religion, and true christians want to help them see that Jesus really ROCKS!
I mean, Jesus told the snooty priests that they were full of shit and that prostitutes were better than them, so what on earth is there to dislike about the guy?

Um no, sorry, women in that book were not written in to be treated equally, they were written in to make the male heros look good. 

You talk about the prostitutes but Eve was scapegoated in the first story so. 

And again, it is just a story in any case. Girls/women in all of antiquity even in polytheism were treated like property to be bartered between families. Now, not that a real Mary ever existed, but she would have been bartered like cattle to the family of Joseph and would have been between the ages of 9-14 years old, whenever the girl had her first period. 

The real reason today that we don't treat prostitutes like shit, isn't anything biblical, but because they are human beings, not property. The story back then wasn't conveying anything but "don't hurt property", just like wives and daughters back then. That story had nothing to do with female equality.

And as far as tipping over the change cart story, again, you don't need a old mythological story to say, "don't be greedy."

The bible reflects the social ideas of that time, it has no modern barring on our modern western morality.

[Dropship]

Jesus may by a lot of things to you people but he most certainty does not "rock" since I'm pretty sure sex, drugs and rock n roll are frowned upon by fictional jeebus and gawd.

1- Sex? Here's Solomon laying it on thick to his girlfriend..-
"How beautiful you are, my darling!
    Oh, how beautiful!
    Your eyes behind your veil are doves.
Your hair is like a flock of goats,
Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn,
    coming up from the washing.
Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
    your mouth is lovely.
Your breasts are like two fawns,
    like twin fawns of a gazelle
    that browse among the lilies."
(Bible: Song of Songs ch 4)

2- Drugs? check it-
"Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing" -Ezekiel 47:12

3- Booze? no prob, Jesus changed 120 gallons of water to wine..

4- Jesus and Elvis both rocked because their message to kids was- "Don't be like your boring parents, be KOOL and do your own thing!"..
"You were dead when you followed the ways of the world" (Eph 2:1/2)
Right Elv?

"Uh-huh"..






 

---

If he was the son of God and could heal the sick, why didn't he heal everybody, or everybody moral at the very least?

If Jesus had spent all his time healing people he'd have had no time to do anything else, but he did 37 miracles just as examples of what he could do.
He also said WE could do miracles too, so maybe prayer is "thought pressure" that can influence this dream we call "reality"?

---

Um no, sorry, women in that book were not written in to be treated equally, they were written in to make the male heros look good. 

You must have got the Bible mixed up with the Koran mate!
The Bible and women's rights sounds good to me..-
Jesus said to the snooty priests-"The prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you" (Matt 21:31)
And he said "I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt 5:28 )
Paul said- "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28 )

Elsewhere too the Bible speaks for women's rights -
"Control yourselves honourably, not in lust like the heathens" (1 Thess 4:4/5)
"Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love.." (Ecc 9:9)
"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will preach, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. On my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will speak." (Joel 2:28-32)

Church of England women clergy-

[vorlon13]

[Der/die AtheistIn]

You must have got the Bible mixed up with the Koran mate!
The Bible and women's rights sounds good to me..-
Jesus said to the snooty priests-"The prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you" (Matt 21:31)
And he said "I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt 5:28 )
Paul said- "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28 )

Elsewhere too the Bible speaks for women's rights -
"Control yourselves honourably, not in lust like the heathens" (1 Thess 4:4/5)
"Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love.." (Ecc 9:9)
"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will preach, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. On my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will speak." (Joel 2:28-32)

Church of England women clergy-


The Bible also states:

"And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21:9)

"When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her." (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)

"Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean." (Leviticus 12:2)

"But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days." (Leviticus 12:5)

"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." (I Corinthians 11:3)

"For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (I Corinthians 11:8-9)

"Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works." (Revelation 2:22-23)

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Whoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death. He that sacrificeth unto any god, save to the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed." (Exodus 22:18-20)

"Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go." (Judges 19:24-25)

"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14)

"If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;" (Deuteronomy 22:22)

"Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you." (Deuteronomy 22:24)

"If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silvers, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days." (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." (Ephesians 5:22-24)

"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." (I Corinthians 14:34-35)

"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (Genesis 3:16)

"Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." (Hosea 13:16)

"Give me any plague, but the plague of the heart: and any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman." (Eccles. 25:13)

"Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." (Eccles. 25:22)

"If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh, and give her a bill of divorce, and let her go." (Eccles. 25: 26)

"The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eyelids. If thy daughter be shameless, keep her in straitly, lest she abuse herself through overmuch liberty." (Eccles. 26:9-10)

"A silent and loving woman is a gift of the Lord: and there is nothing so much worth as a mind well instructed. A shamefaced and faithful woman is a double grace, and her continent mind cannot be valued." (Eccles. 26:14-15)

"A shameless woman shall be counted as a dog; but she that is shamefaced will fear the Lord." (Eccles.26:25)

"For from garments cometh a moth, and from women wickedness. Better is the churlishness of a man than a courteous woman, a woman, I say, which bringeth shame and reproach." (Eccles. 42:13-14)

[Cecelia]

Empathy can serve as a useful guide. However, it is not a truly rational ground since it is based entirely on feelings and intuitions about the feelings of others. Maybe a logical demonstration will help clarify my position:

It's a far more rational ground than a 2000 year old book that nobody truly knows who wrote what parts of it.

[Astonished]

Empathy can serve as a useful guide. However, it is not a truly rational ground since it is based entirely on feelings and intuitions about the feelings of others. Maybe a logical demonstration will help clarify my position:

It's a far more rational ground than a 2000 year old book that nobody truly knows who wrote what parts of it.

And certainly not written (or inspired by) anyone of any significant intelligence, let alone divine.

[emjay]

What's wrong with having empathy as the rational grounds for the notion of human rights from an atheistic perspective? It's perfectly logical and it requires no appeal to anything beyond what we experience directly in our own minds...

Empathy can serve as a useful guide. However, it is not a truly rational ground since it is based entirely on feelings and intuitions about the feelings of others. Maybe a logical demonstration will help clarify my position:

1. Human beings have innate emotional responses that include but are not limited to delight, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, compassion, contempt, envy, jealousy, etc.
   
2. Humans innately favor and seek to preserve the lives and well-being of themselves and their kin more than the lives and well-being of strangers and unrelated tribes.
   
3. Humans evolved to have innate emotional responses and prefer the benefit of their kin because they enhance fitness and confer reproductive advantages . Otherwise, those traits remain vestigial or have not yet been purged by natural selection.
   
4. The innate emotional responses and evolutionarily instilled preferences for fitness or reproductive advantage are instrumental goods.
   
5. The concept of human dignity means that every individual life is of absolute value in-and-of-itself, and not contingent on its instrumental value to any other individual or group.
   
6. Instrumental goods cannot ground absolute and non-contingent values.
   
7. None of the innate emotional responses or evolutionary preferences can ground human dignity.
   

In addition to the above:

1. Each of the innate emotional responses (that include but are not limited to delight, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, compassion, contempt, envy, jealousy, etc.) either enhance fitness, confer reproductive advantages, remain vestigial, or have not yet been purged by natural selection.
   
2. Determining which emotional response should serve as the ground for human dignity requires a means by which evaluate the value of each.
   
3. None of the emotional responses can be used as the means for evaluating emotional responses without engaging in circular reasoning.
   
4. Therefore, some standard other than innate emotional responses, like empathy, must serve as a rational foundation for human dignity.
   

Sorry for the delay... I've been a bit busy.

Hmm... I'm not sure we're talking about quite the same thing when we're talking about empathy. The type of empathy I mean is not limited to friends and family... kin groups and in and out groups... but instead with consciousness itself. And it's largely an active process that goes beyond innate responses; innate responses may be all that you have said, favouring certain groups more than others, but active empathy goes beyond it.

It does require assumptions, yes, but no more than we all realistically and naturally make in order to function in the world; namely that there are other beings with consciousness, ie that others are not p-zombies, and that they can suffer as we suffer. Subjectively we cannot know for sure that they do, but if we morally treat other beings... in the sense of trying to prevent harm to them...  as if they do, then no harm done if they don't, and harm prevented if they do. For instance if I contemplate hitting you, I cannot know for you sure that you would respond to pain as I do... and suffer; you could be a masochist or you could have some neural condition where you do not feel pain... but if I treat you as if you would feel pain in that situation, as I directly know from my own experience that I  would, then by refraining from hitting you, no harm done/no change if you would have reacted differently, and harm actively prevented if you would have reacted as expected. As such it requires no assumptions about what you would actually feel, but instead works preemptively based on what you would probably/potentially feel from my perspective. The same thing with animals; the less they resemble us, the harder it is to make reasonable assumptions about what their consciousness is like, if they even have it, but nonetheless, if we treat them as if they experience something like human pain, then if I refrain from stepping on an ant, no harm done/no change if they don't experience pain, but harm actively prevented if they do.

Where you talk about the value in and of itself of human life, I would place that in consciousness itself... so would also apply to any other form of life that has consciousness. You know my position... as a 'functionalist epiphenomenalist'... which I'm not looking to get into here... but which basically holds that we should be p-zombies but the mystery is why we are not. From that perspective, consciousness adds one important thing to the world, that from my view, doesn't need to be there... and that is suffering. Obviously there are good aspects to consciousness as well but, the existence of suffering IMO completely offsets that... I think we should be p-zombies and if we all were there would be no such thing as (phenomenal) consciousness and suffering... there'd be the brain states and all the same physical reactions, but not the experience. So I care about you because you have consciousness, and I do not want any being with consciousness to suffer; that transcends in groups and out groups. I guess you could say it's more abstract. Obviously I have my innate ways of thinking as well... in groups, out groups, anger, etc... all the evolutionary stuff you talked about... so this sort of thing is not always at the forefront of my mind, but nonetheless, it is how I see the world; that if we're lumbered with consciousness, and it does have this horrible capacity to create suffering, then the most important thing, morally, for me, is, to the best of my ability, not to add to the misery of the world, and prevent it wherever I can. And where each and every consciousness, as distinct/isolated, parallel, and unrelated streams, throughout history, is equally capable of all this suffering, it just magnifies the effect... the damage that the existence of consciousness does. So anything I can do to stop even one 'stream of consciousness' suffering is all important, because each has equal worth, and suffering is the same thing to all.

I don't know how all that fits in to the 'rational' scheme of things, but that's how I see it.

Whether you believe in God or not, if you can take the leap that human morals derive from empathy, then whether written by man... as atheism contends... or by God... as theists contend... either way the commandments in the Bible represent the extent of one person (God included) or group's empathetic thinking, in the form of moral laws; ie those laws exist to reduce suffering in the world.

There are both good and bad approaches to grounding human rights regardless of whether those approaches are theistic or not. For some theistic positions you may be right and I would not advocate them. I would like to give you a better understanding of the approach I think is most promising, but what I have already said is all I have time for at the moment.

Don't worry, I don't have much time either at the moment. I'm generally much happier on here with less frequent posting.

[vorlon13]

BTW, Eve is totally exonerated in Scripture. She was unaware she was committing an error until she ate the fruit. So, any decision made prior to that, including the decision to eat the fruit, does not condemn her (or her descendants BTW).

So, the whole 'original sin' thing is totally unsupported by the Holy Scriptures themselves.

[Catholic_Lady]

What's wrong with having empathy as the rational grounds for the notion of human rights from an atheistic perspective? It's perfectly logical and it requires no appeal to anything beyond what we experience directly in our own minds...

Empathy can serve as a useful guide. However, it is not a truly rational ground since it is based entirely on feelings and intuitions about the feelings of others. Maybe a logical demonstration will help clarify my position:

1. Human beings have innate emotional responses that include but are not limited to delight, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, compassion, contempt, envy, jealousy, etc.
   
2. Humans innately favor and seek to preserve the lives and well-being of themselves and their kin more than the lives and well-being of strangers and unrelated tribes.
   
3. Humans evolved to have innate emotional responses and prefer the benefit of their kin because they enhance fitness and confer reproductive advantages . Otherwise, those traits remain vestigial or have not yet been purged by natural selection.
   
4. The innate emotional responses and evolutionarily instilled preferences for fitness or reproductive advantage are instrumental goods.
   
5. The concept of human dignity means that every individual life is of absolute value in-and-of-itself, and not contingent on its instrumental value to any other individual or group.
   
6. Instrumental goods cannot ground absolute and non-contingent values.
   
7. None of the innate emotional responses or evolutionary preferences can ground human dignity.
   

In addition to the above:

1. Each of the innate emotional responses (that include but are not limited to delight, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, compassion, contempt, envy, jealousy, etc.) either enhance fitness, confer reproductive advantages, remain vestigial, or have not yet been purged by natural selection.
   
2. Determining which emotional response should serve as the ground for human dignity requires a means by which evaluate the value of each.
   
3. None of the emotional responses can be used as the means for evaluating emotional responses without engaging in circular reasoning.
   
4. Therefore, some standard other than innate emotional responses, like empathy, must serve as a rational foundation for human dignity.
   

Whether you believe in God or not, if you can take the leap that human morals derive from empathy, then whether written by man... as atheism contends... or by God... as theists contend... either way the commandments in the Bible represent the extent of one person (God included) or group's empathetic thinking, in the form of moral laws; ie those laws exist to reduce suffering in the world.

There are both good and bad approaches to grounding human rights regardless of whether those approaches are theistic or not. For some theistic positions you may be right and I would not advocate them. I would like to give you a better understanding of the approach I think is most promising, but what I have already said is all I have time for at the moment.

Ive always felt that the empathy argument as the "end all be all" of morality seems incomplete and flawed. Though i could never quite put into words how or why. This post is great and you lay it all out so eloquently and thoroughly. Well done, Chad.

[The Grand Nudger]

The use of empathy as a moral barometer is often combined (either implicitly or explicitly) with a concept known as rational self interest, and with a process known as moral reasoning, Neo. 

Your criticisms of that concept or the tools we employ to leverage it do not speak to the validity of the concept as a moral schema or the unsuitability of the tools, but, rather, your dissatisfaction in how it was we arrived both with the concept, and at possessing apparatus capable of making use of it, in addition to our failure to uniformly leverage it.  

Yes, we evolved to have an empathetic apparatus (and a rational apparatus..or, at least, an apparatus capable of reason, lol) in order to better our odds at survival and reproduction - add empathy and it's associated apparatus as well as our rational apparatus to the long list of things that evolved for one thing, but are now made better use of at another.  To the contention that our empathy does not extend uniformly, you're only saying, in this; "sometimes it doesn't work!".  Yeah, no shit.  You won't be able to find any moral schema which precludes the possibility of moral failure.  If there's a way to get something wrong, you can always trust a human being to find it, amiright?

As to human dignity, from the foundation of rational self interest and in my own assessment, employing that empathetic ability.... the value of your life is -not- contingent upon your instrumental value to me.  You -have- no instrumental value to me.  It is, however, contingent upon at least one person thinking that at least one life has value (chiefly, me, thinking of my own) - and then rationally extending that valuation to any individual or organism which fits whatever criteria I use for that valuation.  If the criteria were as a simple as "it;s a human life!" then, voila, and hey presto... despite your utter lack of utility to me, you also possess a human life - and so, human dignity.

The ability to put ourselves in the place of another is an informative tool, that provides us insight with which we make moral considerations. We ask ourslves, "How would I feel if someone did that to me?" as a sort of hueristic for determining it's moral status....however, you;d be hard pressed to find a person who stops there - who couldn't offer an explanation of why such and such is wrong apart from how it gives them the bad feels.