Tradition betrayed

[DavidRoss]

I am aware of that; let me rephrase: What value is there still in Religion if what it can give us as guidance and discussed at length previously in this topic is better framed as ethics and principles? In other words, you don't need Religion to convince any reasonable person to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

Reason is highly overrated: garbage in, garbage out.  And the number of people capable of reason (despite the law's delicious fiction) is miniscule.  For instance, a person who was reasonable would understand that you've introduced a category error by conflating your hypothetical with the topic of discussion, which is historical -- a concern with what actually is rather than with what might have been.

[petrarch]

What you get with "Religion" is a structure that helps ensure you actually practice what is preached.

If the morality you practice is seen by you as a rational product of your own mind (however much input from the thinking of others you may have in getting to it), then you can easily become the victim of rationalization and evasion.  There's nothing outside of you to keep you acting morally, and humans being humans, most end up taking advantage of that to act , according to their general standards, immorally--they persuade themselves of some reason that allows this particular action to be considered not immoral.

Thanks for the concise explanation. So, it is a peer-pressure, dissuasive framework? I'm sure there is more to it.

[petrarch]

That's tendentious and actually borderline insulting, of course.

Look at it this way:  if some of your neighbors find value in Religion, who are you to compel them to desist?  Don't others deserve the freedom you would claim for yourself?

And if you do not have the character or moral fortitude to tolerate them in this, too bad for you.  Perhaps Religion would teach you better.

I will forgive the insult in your retort as I see now that I should have better framed the phrase you quoted as a continuation of the question I was asking; it was not an assertion, but a hypothesis generated by the question. I was not compelling anyone to desist, or to be relieved of their freedom. The virtue (and I use this word deliberately) of tolerance is not exclusive to the religious, you know?

[petrarch]

Reason is highly overrated: garbage in, garbage out.  And the number of people capable of reason (despite the law's delicious fiction) is miniscule.  For instance, a person who was reasonable would understand that you've introduced a category error by conflating your hypothetical with the topic of discussion, which is historical -- a concern with what actually is rather than with what might have been.

Please see my other reply; it was not an assertion, but a hypothesis for further discussion. And only now did I see that I used the word "reasonable" by accident--I meant a normal, temperate person.

[71 dB]

Look at it this way:  if some of your neighbors find value in Religion, who are you to compel them to desist?  Don't others deserve the freedom you would claim for yourself?

Yet religious people ask how atheists can have any moral codes in life without God.

The question is why people find value in religion. My opinion is that the reason for that is religious indoctrination. Thats why the children of Muslim parents tend to find their values in Islam, children of Christian parents tend to find their values in Christianity and so on.

I attack religions, not religious people who are victims. All people are born atheists and then most are indoctrinated into the same religion their parents where indoctrinated without asking whether that child wants it or not. It should be so that children are not indoctrinated and they would have 100 % freedom to choose their own belief system when they grow up.

[knight66]

Yet religious people ask how atheists can have any moral codes in life without God.

That is nonsense; and has been refuted already within this thread. Some religious people may ask that idiotic question, but not the ones I have ever mixed with, Catholic, Protestant non conformist, charismatic, Jewish, etc, etc.

Your extreme antipithy comes with a good, solid set of blinkers.

Mike

[71 dB]

That is nonsense; and has been refuted already within this thread. Some religious people may ask that idiotic question, but not the ones I have ever mixed with, Catholic, Protestant non conformist, charismatic, Jewish, etc, etc.

Your extreme antipithy comes with a good, solid set of blinkers.

Mike

Yes, only some religious people. You are right about that. Sorry for the inaccuracy. However, I have been asked it online so these idiots are not even rare.

[knight66]

Yes, only some religious people. You are right about that. Sorry for the inaccuracy. However, I have been asked it online so these idiots are not even rare.

I have read your canard on-line more often than I have come across such people as you describe. But as we know, the on-line world attracts all sorts of nutcases, provides them with a platform and their white noise can seeming blot out common sense.

Mike

[71 dB]

But as we know, the on-line world attracts all sorts of nutcases, provides them with a platform and their white noise can seeming blot out common sense.

That's why I try to bring sanity back to these debates. It is extremely difficult and leads to abject. I am happier offline but that doesn't take away the need to participate. 

[Karl Henning]

Please see my other reply; it was not an assertion, but a hypothesis for further discussion. And only now did I see that I used the word "reasonable" by accident--I meant a normal, temperate person.

Still, you know, you have this peculiar prejudice that a religious mindset is neither normal nor temperate.  That, neighbor, is not reasonable.

[petrarch]

Still, you know, you have this peculiar prejudice that a religious mindset is neither normal nor temperate.  That, neighbor, is not reasonable.

No, you are reading too much into it. I meant normal and temperate as in being able to make a balanced judgment, regardless of being religious or not.

[DavidRoss]

Please see my other reply; it was not an assertion, but a hypothesis for further discussion. And only now did I see that I used the word "reasonable" by accident--I meant a normal, temperate person.

I am aware of that; let me rephrase: What value is there still in Religion if what it can give us as guidance and discussed at length previously in this topic is better framed as ethics and principles? In other words, you don't need Religion to convince any reasonable person to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

Okay. I doubt that substituting "normal, temperate" for "reasonable" buys you anything but more trouble.  (Just think about it for a moment.)  

Whether hypothetical or not, there is no way to test the assertion.  The world in which we live is one in which our ethics and principles have all been shaped by religion -- including Kant's categorical imperative.  There's no escaping its influence.  Speculation about what might be the case in some alternate universe has no application (that I can see) in the world we actually inhabit.

Personally, I'm with you in believing that what I call "enlightened self-interest" should be a sufficient basis for a reasonable person to act (insofar as his actions really are governed by reason) consistently with Christian or Buddhist ethics. In fact, that was my thesis a few decades ago when I was contemplating an academic career in Philosophy.

I regarded myself as an atheist back then, and supremely rational, and also believed that human beings were fundamentally rational, self-governing creatures who would behave sanely (that is, in support of their own genuine self-interest) if only they were to think clearly about the consequences of their behavior.  Subsequent life experience has convinced me that I was mistaken about human nature. And further reflection demonstrated the inherent irrationality of atheism.

Once we open the door to our own unknowing, wonders will be found within.

[drogulus]

I'm all for this. I won't push my bullshit onto them, and they won't push their bullshit onto me.

     I'm sorry to see you say that. You should want to "push your bullshit". I only ask that you give reasons, and be willing to discuss them. Nor do I think that such discussions involve comparative bullshit, or that no one can change their opinion. What comes out of such discussions, when they are conducted in a reasonable manner, is that not all opinion is equally unfounded. We should not be led by the bad example believers follow, or the argument that challenging their views amounts to compulsion.

    The believers want to defend their belief by the expedient of their right to hold it. Why would anyone credit such a move? My right to hold beliefs does not make them true. Freedom of belief protects false beliefs, nonsensical beliefs, and true beliefs, and though the defense of the truth may be the first and best justification, I'm inclined to think that freedom of belief is an intrinsic good that must be upheld for its own sake. But that doesn't make beliefs true. For that you need an argument about evidence and standards, not just the freedom to have it.

[kishnevi]

Thanks for the concise explanation. So, it is a peer-pressure, dissuasive framework? I'm sure there is more to it.

It's not that at all.  To borrow something from scientific procedure, think of it as peer review--or, if you want to borrow a metaphor from the business world, an outside audit.

The point is, that we tend to fool ourselves about our actions being ethical and moral when they are not;  and we usually need other people to point out our evasions and omissions in those areas.  Non religious morality has not yet developed anything to deal with this, and because it is based on the individual use of reason as the final authority, such a process may not be available to it.

You are not being pressured into being good in a religion;  but you have an outside evaluation as to whether or not you are being good.  (Of course, there are plenty of cases where the outside evaluation has descended into mere peer pressure, but that is not inherent in religious institutions.)

[kishnevi]

Yet religious people ask how atheists can have any moral codes in life without God.

Then I will throw out the following for your consideration: that any atheist who has a moral code is indulging in a very fundamental self contradiction. An atheist may have a very good moral code developed for himself, but he's being irrational in having one.  To explain that:

Either you believe that God (and that term for my purpose can subsume almost any conception of the Deity) is the Creator responsible for the Universe, or you believe the Universe is fundamentally random and chaotic, and the apparent order that we perceive and allows us to exist as human beings on a planet subject to the laws of physics, etc, is simply a transient pocket of order that will ultimately collapse.  After all, a truly random universe will yield sections of order at discrete points in time-space because it is truly random.  If the Universe is truly random/chaotic, than any order we develop for ourselves is simply  our imposition on the surfuace of reality: if you believe in the value of Art, for instance, then you are merely imposing your own value choice, and not something actually deriveable from the nature of the Universe.  You may act morally because you like acting morally--but the only value in that comes from the fact that you like to act morally, and nothing more.  There's nothing beyond yourself to validate that morality, not even reason.

All people are born atheists and then most are indoctrinated into the same religion their parents where indoctrinated without asking whether that child wants it or not.

On the contrary, I'd argue that everyone is borne religious.  The real basic impulse to religion is a very simple one: the recognition that the universe is much greater than oneself.  And the only people who don't seem to have that feeling seem to be psychological cases. 

[petrarch]

Okay. I doubt that substituting "normal, temperate" for "reasonable" buys you anything but more trouble.  (Just think about it for a moment.)  

I don't care about the trouble it gets me in; as evidenced by some of the replies, there is some baggage that led to unwarranted inferences, despite my slip with the word "reasonable". The correct interpretation of "normal, temperate" is no more and no less than "able to make a balanced judgment".

Whether hypothetical or not, there is no way to test the assertion.  The world in which we live is one in which our ethics and principles have all been shaped by religion -- including Kant's categorical imperative.  There's no escaping its influence.  Speculation about what might be the case in some alternate universe has no application (that I can see) in the world we actually inhabit.

I'm not trying to escape or deny the influence of religion. It's more a matter of noting the principles and values mentioned perhaps no longer need religion to advocate and disseminate them, unless the intent is to enforce them, as Jeffrey indicated (if I understood him correctly).

[petrarch]

You are not being pressured into being good in a religion;  but you have an outside evaluation as to whether or not you are being good.  (Of course, there are plenty of cases where the outside evaluation has descended into mere peer pressure, but that is not inherent in religious institutions.)

Agreed, it technically isn't inherent, but people being people... (to make use of your argument)--I was raised a catholic, and must say "not being pressured into being good/outside evaluation" is too generous and doesn't fit with my experience of the inculcation of that particular religion.

[kishnevi]

I'm not trying to escape or deny the influence of religion. It's more a matter of noting the principles and values mentioned perhaps no longer need religion to advocate and disseminate them, unless the intent is to enforce them, as Jeffrey indicated (if I understood him correctly).

Enforce is not quite the word I would use, since it suggest an outside authority co-ercing the individual to "act morally".   What I meant is more of an objective guide that makes you realize when you are not acting morally.  The human tendency to evade, omit, distort, makes such a thing necessary to anyone practicing the moral life, and I think an atheist based morality would make such an outside objective guide impossible.

As for the need values and morality have for religion,  I refer you to what I said in Reply 422.

Agreed, it technically isn't inherent, but people being people... (to make use of your argument)--I was raised a catholic, and must say "not being pressured into being good/outside evaluation" is too generous and doesn't fit with my experience of the inculcation of that particular religion.

In regards to Roman Catholicism, I am in complete agreement with you there.  In my experience (which includes a period in which I was an RC communicant*), the Roman Catholic Church accords too much authority to the clergy.  I find the same problem with Orthodox Judaism--one reason why, although I am Jewish, I refuse to consider myself Orthodox. 

(I left in part because of that, and in part because Catholic practices regarding the veneration of relics and the Eucharist went too far over the line into idol worship for my born and bred Jewish attitudes.    I understood the intellectual background which allows Catholics to say these things were not idol worship, but the non intellectual part of my mind was by turns boggled and disgusted.)

[petrarch]

Either you believe that God (and that term for my purpose can subsume almost any conception of the Deity) is the Creator responsible for the Universe, or you believe the Universe is fundamentally random and chaotic, and the apparent order that we perceive and allows us to exist as human beings on a planet subject to the laws of physics, etc, is simply a transient pocket of order that will ultimately collapse. After all, a truly random universe will yield sections of order at discrete points in time-space because it is truly random.  If the Universe is truly random/chaotic, than any order we develop for ourselves is simply  our imposition on the surfuace of reality: if you believe in the value of Art, for instance, then you are merely imposing your own value choice, and not something actually deriveable from the nature of the Universe.

Suppose we are, indeed, in a "transient pocket of order". Isn't any concept of God transitively also an "imposition on the surface of reality"?

[kishnevi]

Suppose we are, indeed, in a "transient pocket of order". Isn't any concept of God transitively also an "imposition on the surface of reality"?

It would be.  But it would not be an illogical imposition, since it doesn't contradict itself.  Atheistic morality is illogical.  "The universe is totally random, and because of that I think there is a universal moral order" is what any atheistic morality boils down, unless the atheist is frank enough with himself and others to acknowledge that he is basing himself on a subjective value choice, and not on anything inherent in the nature of reality.

ETA: it's also possible to bring in Pascal's Wager here, in a more generous form than Pascal gave.

If I am wrong, and God does not exist--God is just my subjective imposition on reality--then I lose nothing by believing in him; whereas if you are wrong, and God does exist and is not a subjective imposition on reality, you could potentially lose everything. 

IOW, there is no potential downside to believing in God, but there is a potential downside to not believing in God, so the bettor who analyzes risk would choose to believe in God.