“A mother who gave birth to a twin girl following an incomplete termination is suing the hospital where she had the procedure for £250,000 to help with the cost of raising the child.”
“I still don’t know if, or what, I am going to tell Jayde when the time comes,” she added. “Maybe when she is nine or 10 I will sit her down and explain it to her. I just hope that she understands what happened and why I did it. Of course it will be much harder to explain to her that she had a twin.”
Yes. Right. Let’s imagine how that conversation might go, shall we?
“Jayde?”
“Yes, Mum?”
“I’ve got something to tell you.”
“OK…”
“Well, when you were very little, and still in Mummy’s tummy, there were two of you – you, and your sister. When I found out that you were both there, I tried to have you both killed.
Your sister was successfully killed, but you survived. I didn’t know, otherwise I’d have told them to have another go at it. When I found out, the law said that it was too late to try again. I was really angry, so I sued the people who were supposed to have killed you because they didn’t do their job properly.”
<long silence>
“Mummy… why did you try and kill me?”
That’s just inexpressibly tragic.
I’m not completely sure what to say.
I was hoping you could help me. My computer has been apparently taken over by devils and the only way out is to pay more money or believe in a fixed cost. Think of something other than dope that would addict the world more than cars and the beatles. At least they were fun to dance to. Maybe dope aint so bad either.
I think I have heard enough. It has become as stupid as greed. Spy versus spy, etc. Keep up with the Jonses. I can hardly think of a time when interconnected computing was necessary. It was only one time. When I had it as my own tool, I liked it so much more. I could make an Apple II light up the lab with Merry Christmas while still keeping track of many valves and other telemetry. It used to be fun.
“if they take us they will burn us,” I guess.
What a waste of good technology.
Gerv,
It is so very tragic that she can sue someone for not completing the murder of her unborn child. My prayer is that God will use this situation to draw that woman to himself.
God bless and keep on proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ,
Kevin
That depends whether you call the termination of the other foetus ‘killing’.
I’m not denying that there are difficult moral issues surrounding the case but the woman in question asked the hospital to do a job for her and they messed it up, casuing her grief. That’s medical negligence.
rant
Gerv, stop brushing your teeth. You’re killing all those bacteria.
Or put differently: I hope you have sex with every non-pregnant woman you meet. It would be such a shame if that *living* sperm and that *living* egg would go wasted. They have the potential to develop into human beings.
/rant
But if you actually want less abortions: Fight for sexual education. No matter how hard the laws against abortions in a country are, women will abort pregnancies. If they can’t get medical assistance they will often die going to a quack or trying to remove the fetus themselves. On the other hand: No matter how liberal a country is regarding to abortions, if it has good sexual education (meaning that *children* get to learn the facts), the numbers of abortions are lower.
aa:
Awesome point of view.. I never thought about the “living sperm”, “living egg” thing, but that’s great..
> I never thought about the “living sperm”, “living egg” thing, but that’s great..
Then you probably haven’t seen ‘The meaning of life’, a Monty Python movie with the hilarious song ‘Every sperm is sacred’…
Why not ask Jayde that question? If the action had succeeded completely, she wouldn’t be here.
aa: I think it’s sad that you equate this poor child with a bacteria. But I guess that’s an inevitable consequence of an atheistic worldview. After all, we were all bacteria once, right?
While your point about the sperm and egg is amusing, the straw man argument you put into my mouth isn’t self-supporting; natural reproductive processes mean that hundreds of eggs and millions of sperm die (separately). If two people make a decision to do something which could result in a child, they should be prepared to accept the possible consequences.
Why not apply your “We shouldn’t make it illegal because people will still do it” argument to speeding, burglary and assault? What people will do if something is banned should have very little impact on a discussion of whether it’s right to ban it or not.
I think it’s sad that you equate this poor child with a bacteria. But I guess that’s an inevitable consequence of an atheistic worldview. After all, we were all bacteria once, right?
Please don’t continue with BS like that. There are atheists who don’t approve of abortion and people of faith who do. There’s a real disagreemant about what constitutes a life behind this debate, and if you can’t argue honestly about it you’re just wasting time. Saying that “we shouldn’t allow abortion because it’s murder” will do absolutely nothing to convince those who don’t think that it is murder.
“But I guess that’s an inevitable consequence of an atheistic worldview.”
Gerv, would you like it if I claimed mass murder, persecution and scientific ignorance were an inevitable consequence of a religious worldview?
Oh, absolutely. But I’d argue that atheists who don’t approve of abortion are being inconsistent. If a woman says to an atheist “I plan to have an abortion”, on what moral grounds could he disapprove? If you don’t believe in a higher power, all morality has to be personal and relative.
Actually, mass-murder and persecution can be logically direct consequences of an atheistic worldview. Two of the largest murderers in the history of the world (Hitler and Stalin) did what they did precisely because they believed some human life was far more valuable than other human life – an idea which Christianity rejects in the strongest possible terms, but which pure atheism has no counter to.
Why do all non-atheists seem to think that morality cannot be codified by man alone?
Pragmatically, I’ll state that most human beings are simply not self-disciplined enough to follow a moral code without fear of punishment. Many of us in the minority, however, are perfectly capable of following morals for no other reason than believing they are for the greater good of mankind.
As an atheist, I believe religion’s origin is from man giving his hard-to-control peers a fearable punishment for not following the moral code. I think there are quite a few atheists who could use a good dose of religion to keep themselves morally in-check.
I totally agree with you Greg. Morality can very well be non-relative even without a higher power. You should stop making such blanket statements, Gerv.
“If you don’t believe in a higher power, all morality has to be personal and relative.”
That’s if you believe in a finite self to begin with. There are plenty of religions that *don’t*. If the “self” doesn’t exist as an intrinsic entity, or for that matter, if the boundaries of what one considers the “self” can be expanded or blurred or removed through religious practice, then your point about “personal” and “relative” morality is frankly moot.
To put it another way, your point depends on there being discrete elements separating “me” from “you” — the hinge word being “discrete”. If this discreteness is proven faulty, or maybe more appropriately can be shown to not be a fundamental truth as our senses would lead us to believe, then it is possible to have a morality that is not “personal” and “relative” — if you believe that it is possible to have a direct experience of lack of the “intrinsic” nature of things. Many religions ascribe to this philosophy (in fact, I believe this could be called an aspect of contemplative Christian practices as well).
Your point seems to be that the only possible consequence of not believing in God is moral relativism. But this is based on logical assumptions that the religious philosophies of a significant part of the world’s population (Hindu, Buddhist) find lacking.
BTW, Hitler wasn’t atheist (Do a Google search on Hitler and Christianity.) He was fucked up.
How incredibly compassionate of you to pick on the woman. I hope that you have a better time sleeping that she does.
Your scientific statement that the logical consequence of belief that mankind is solely in charge of its own destiny is Hitler was great as well. Round of applause.
– Chris
starwed said: There’s a real disagreement about what constitutes a life behind this debate… Saying that “we shouldn’t allow abortion because it’s murder” will do absolutely nothing to convince those who don’t think that it is murder.
Oh yes, absolutely, there has been disagreement about life for a long time.
*** For instance, there’s the issue about whether kikes and niggers should be considered life. I, for one, don’t consider it to be murder if you exterminate such two-legged vermin, and I wish people would stop calling it murder, because it’s not going to convince those who don’t think that it is murder. *cough*
*** The above is a tongue-in-cheek comment ***
Just because some people have aborted their consciences doesn’t mean we should stop speaking the truth. Justice demands that we call this inhumanity what it is.
“No matter how hard the laws against abortions in a country are, women will abort pregnancies.
Why not apply your “We shouldn’t make it illegal because people will still do it” argument to speeding, burglary and assault? What people will do if something is banned should have very little impact on a discussion of whether it’s right to ban it or not.”
Interesting question: If all the data you have shows you that more people get killed the more draconian the law is. What are you going to do? Let some murderers free because it ultimately will save life? And this question isn’t even that far away from reality. The US has a very high homocide rate even though they have among the most harshest punishments worldwide. I don’t say that murderers should be let loose. But I do think that we should get nearer to the point where crimes get minimized and not more to the punishment for the sake of punishment side.
You by the way misrepresent the argument aa made by comparing it to things like speeding. Show me the data that shows that people drive more slowly when no speed limits are enforced. With abortions that kind of data is readily available.
And Gerv: Would you be against abortion even in case of rape?
I’m not claiming you can’t codify morality; I’m saying you have no right to claim your codification is better than anyone else’s, and so no right to make moral judgements on other people with a different codification.
For those religions where man becomes acceptable to God by following a moral code, you may well have a point.
Chris: that’s an interesting viewpoint. I think I have to consider it some more.
I’m not sure of your point here. Are you saying that if abortion were illegal there would be more abortions than there are now?
Good question. The first point to make is that hard cases make for bad law, and abortion laws should not be oriented around the (thankfully, pretty rare) rape cases.
Having said that, I did carefully say earlier that I believe that if two people choose to do something, they should be responsible for the consequences. If the tragedy of rape happens, I think that a woman should be given all the counselling and support possible, and encouraged to keep the child and perhaps put it up for adoption if she can’t face bringing it up. But, if she’d adamant that she doesn’t want to carry the pregnancy to term, then you are in the situation of weighing two lives against one another, and I would reluctantly have to support a law which allowed for termination in that case. There is no ‘right’ answer in such a tragic situation. Perhaps one day, there will be sufficient medical technology to move the child to another womb or an artificial one.
“I’m not sure of your point here. Are you saying that if abortion were illegal there would be more abortions than there are now?”
That’s what most statistical data suggests, yes. And it’s what aa wanted to point out I think. The important thing is the part about sexual education. Countries with good sexual education tend to have the lowest abortion rates. Interestingly those are also the countries with the most liberal abortion laws. Being informed and having a choice seems to be the best way to prevent abortions. In countries with draconian abortion laws sexual contacts outside of marriage are often frowned upon, building up huge barriers for women to seek council in case of a pregnancy.
The part about sexual education is also important when you say that if two people consent into having sex that they should be willing to accept the consequences. That only holds true if you are informed enough. People are enough gullible to believe whatever their beloved partner says about not getting pregnant when it’s not raining outside or whatever. And no amount of religion has made or will make people chaste. There are so many people walking this earth who are children of humans who have sworn to god to be celibate that it is simply ridiculous.
Since Christians aren’t required to follow a moral code to be acceptable to God, what reason does any Christian have to follow such a moral code?
How is that reason different from my reason, as an atheist, for following a moral code?
Just because some people have aborted their consciences doesn’t mean we should stop speaking the truth. Justice demands that we call this inhumanity what it is.
If you believe abortion to be murder than yes, you should actively try and stop it. But at the same time you should talk to those on “the other side”, you should hope that if they really understood your value system they would share it. To do less is to dehumanise them.
Society is filled with angry rhetoric about every subject imaginable; no more is needed. Even as you act in opposition, there is still room for honest dialogue.
(curse the lack of post editing. ^_^ )
I’m not claiming you can’t codify morality; I’m saying you have no right to claim your codification is better than anyone else’s, and so no right to make moral judgements on other people with a different codification.
That’s not how many atheists think. I know atheists who believe that certain acts are good while others bad, and that they are so intrinsicly so that we can discern the one from the other through the use of our intellect. This is not faith in a higher power or deity, it is a belief that
An atheist who believes this can claim that their understanding of this moral code is superior. You might disagree with them, but you can’t deny it is a belief system that allows moral judegements to be made.
Hmm, I mis-spoke in my last comment. I said “An atheist who believes this can claim that their understanding of this moral code is superior.” But that’s not really what I meant. Rather, “An atheist who believes this can claim that someone elses actions go against this code, even though they have the ability to understand it. Thus, the person can be judged to have committed an immoral act.”
I’d be very interested to see data that showed that abortions rose in a country after it made abortion illegal (or, conversely, that abortions fell once it made them legal). It seems utterly counter-intuitive.
The first year abortion was made legal in the UK, there were 14,300. Let’s assume, generously, that there were 20,000 back-street illegal abortions in the year before that. Last year, there were 185,000 legal abortions in the UK. I don’t think making it legal reduced the rate…
Interestingly, the number of live births plus the number of abortions has stayed rougly constant over the period at between 800,000 and 900,000. This implies a conversion of one to the other.
No, that’s not the important part at all – in that arguments about how more or less sex education affects the teenage pregnancy rate are entirely irrelevant to a discussion about the morality of abortion. (Yes, before you ask, sex education is important. I’m sure we could debate exactly what the educators should say but again, it’s not relevant.) You can’t go from “countries with better sex education have lower abortion rates” to “legal abortion results in lower abortion rates”. It’s a non sequitur.
People asked the apostle Paul the very same question 2000 years ago. They were saying to him “So if we are saved by grace (the undeserved favour of God) rather than by works (i.e. what we do), surely that means we can do anything we like? After all, it makes God look good if we are terrible but he saves us anyway.” His rebuttal of this view can be found in Romans 3, starting at verse 8, and Romans 6, from verse 1.
His point is: “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” It’s utterly inconsistent to continue to disobey God if you’ve truly understood his mercy in saving you.
If a woman says to an atheist “I plan to have an abortion”, on what moral grounds could he disapprove?
One of the interesting things about life is that it’s not binary. Basically, the entire anti-abortion argument is “abortion is murder.” Where the foetus becomes human enough that killing it is considered murder is, as is proven nearly every day, debatable. I have no doubt that many atheists err on the side of caution and take the attitude that conception is the point where the foetus becomes a human and thus killing it would be killing an innocent human. In other words, murder.
Atheism doesn’t preclude morals, which is what you seem to be implying. Indeed, I’d wager that I’ve lived a life more in-line with Christian ideals than a number of so-called Christians (I’ve never abused a child, for example).
Actually, mass-murder and persecution can be logically direct consequences of an atheistic worldview.
Really? Tell me, what is murder? Is all killing murder? What if, by killing one person, you could save ten? Is that still murder? Tell me, when has an atheist ever thrown a “witch” in the lake to see if she floats? When has an atheist ever ordered mass murder? As far as I’m aware, killings in the name of atheism are far fewer than killings in any recognised religion. The entire argument against gay rights is religious. Tell me, what persecutions have ever been committed by a significant number of atheists in the name of atheism?
I don’t see how your silly, mocking anecdote is relevant to the story, let alone Mozilla or Firefox. And it’s certainly not what a Christian ought to say. You know, … “love thy neighbor as thyself”, “forgive me as I have forgiven others before me” and the rest of that. Let’s not go balls-out trying to point out the sins of some poor stranger on the other side of the computer screen while pretending to be somehow more righteous. Plank, speck, etc.
“There are atheists who don’t approve of abortion and people of faith who do.”
a person of TRUE faith CANNOT support abortion…however a so called “religous” person may
kinda like gay marriages
Gerv,
I think its pretty complicated issue, to have a right understanding you have to give birth to 2 or 3 kids. Oh you can’t as you are a man? I don’t trust these male dominated organizations like church when they decide about women. The protection of the unborn live should naturally involve the protection of the allready born live. Does the anglikan church name your PM as a war monger every day? They don’t I guess.
Its a social economic problem first. All evidence from the east european countries shows a sharp decrease in birthrate due to the changes in the economical system. People are afraid of their future. In Germany having more than 2 childs is the largest poverty risk especially in single parents families. The fertility in east germany dropped after the unification from > 2 to around 1. Ah and east germany had a pretty liberal abortion law before.
“Get the Facts”, you know. You will never learn some of them (see the beginning) but doing decent research has never hurted.
Darren: Atheism doesn’t preclude morals, which is what you seem to be implying.
Gerv has been pretty careful to explain that he is not saying that. What he said is that morality which originates with humans can be codified — and hence atheists can have morals — but that atheism does not offer an absolute morality against which to compare competing set of morals to say which is better.
This is presumably also the point of the above tongue-in-cheek comment which someone posted and signed “Eichmann”: if your morals say that you shouldn’t torture and kill people, but the Nazis’ morality said that it’s okay to torture and kill people of particular races or persuasions, what basis does an atheist viewpoint offer to say that your morals are better than theirs? (Why talk about the Nazis? Because considering the extremes often gives a clearer way to think about a point than getting bogged down in grey areas.)
Christians, on the other hand, offer what they claim is the revealed will of God, and that this is an absolute yardstick against which other moral codes (such as the above examples) can be compared.
Now of course, others can make competing claims about what constitutes the revealed will of God, e.g. some may say it is found in the Koran. To resolve these, it is necessary to examine the historical evidence for the various claims. And there is extremely good evidence for God having revealed himself specifically through the person of Jesus and the associated scriptures, but that is the topic for another discussion. The issue right here is that theism offers a source of moral absolutes, and atheism doesn’t.
Darren: Indeed, I’d wager that I’ve lived a life more in-line with Christian ideals than a number of so-called Christians (I’ve never abused a child, for example).
Okay, on re-reading your post, Darren, and particularly the bit I’ve now quoted here, maybe you’re saying that Gerv is implying not so much that atheism precludes defining morals, but that it precludes actually living by them.
No, he is not implying that either, at least not in the sense that this is specific to atheism. We all act immorally, whether theist or atheist. And Christians particularly should recognise this, as the Bible says: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” (1 John 1:8-10, NIV)
Nonetheless, there is at least an expectation that Christians will try to act according to the will of the God who forgives and purifies them. The same passage which I just quoted goes on to say: “The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” (1 John 2:4). Even those outside the church acknowledge this, as you do when you refer to “so-called Christians”, i.e. calling into question how genuine such people are who call themselves Christians but seem to make no effort to live by Christ’s teachings.
Fair points Alan, I can see where you (and Gerv, I presume) are coming from better. No, atheism doesn’t have a fixed moral structure, because it’s not really a religion. Anyhow, part of my point is “what is murder?” Murder has a definition which includes an implication that it’s the morally wrong killing of a person. Thus, claiming mass-murder can be a logical consequence of an atheistic worldview is rather dubious.
The sixth commandment, IIRC, reads “thou shalt not murder” (roughly). It does not read “thou shalt not kill.” Thus, people can justify their killing by claiming that it’s not murder, it was self-defense, or a sacrifice for the greater good or whatever. These things really aren’t as black-and-white.
But that doesn’t get you any further forward. What happens if I use my intellect, and come up with a moral code which is different from the one you came up with when you used your intellect? Surely that disproves the assertion, because if it were true, everyone would come up with the same answer?
Argh: it’s not clear – was your comment addressed to me original blogpost? If so, I don’t see what I said as mocking, nor was the point to highlight the sin of this woman. And it certainly wasn’t to claim that I am better than her. I’ve murdered many people in my heart, which Jesus says is just as bad.
The reason I posted the item is because it seems to me that it adds a great deal of clarity to the abortion debate. Those who say “abortion isn’t murder” should have to go and say that to the face of that little girl who doesn’t have a sister she would have had, and who wouldn’t be here if the procedure had succeeded.
Darren: Even if you say that atheists cannot “murder” because murder is a morally-defined term, they can still kill. And saying that “mass-killing-of-humans” is a logical consequence of atheism doesn’t really make it any different in effect from saying “mass-murder” – except that, as killing is a morally-neutral term, it’s a perfectly reasonable thing for an atheist to do, on a level with brushing their teeth or eating an orange. Do you really believe that?
If not, I’d suggest that the reason your heart rebels against that idea is because of your God-given internal moral sense which, while marred by sin (like all of us) still functions to a degree.
Gerv
why is this polemic on the Planet Mozilla RSS feed?
unless it’s a similarity to the attempted termination of the Mozilla Suite?
Christian salvation doesn’t require one to be consistent (on matters other than salvation by grace, of course), so Paul’s statements seem to be little more than a pleading to Christians to do ‘the right thing.’
Answer the second part of my question: How is [a Christian’s] reason different from my reason, as an atheist, for following a moral code?
Even if you say that atheists cannot “murder” because murder is a morally-defined term, they can still kill.
Whoa there, I’m not saying atheists can’t murder, I’m saying that not all killing is murder. Even most Christians agree with that. My moral code is somewhat comprised of a combination of how I would like others to treat me and what I think would most benefit society and hence my life. I’ve little doubt there’s some lingering indoctrination from when I was a child (it was amazing the number of times the simple question “why?” went unanswered), but I do my best.
The quick and easy answer, Greg — because it’s God’s will. Moral athiests, it could be argued, are moral for wholly selfish reasons. Either they just don’t want to look like jerks, or they’re justifying their finite existance in this world; the concept of karma tends to transcend religious justification. Christians are good and moral because God commanded it so, not because it seems like a good idea at the time. It may seem a slight distinction (man serves man by serving God), but there’s a great deal of Christian morality that doesn’t serve man, only God, because it could be argued that bending those particular bits of God’s law doesn’t harm anyone but yourself and your relationship with Him. It’s a bit like being married and going to a strip club; no damage was really done in the grand scheme of things, but your wife is still probably going to be mad as hell.
I know it’s a pretty abstract concept for an athiest to swallow, but they wouldn’t call it “faith” otherwise.
And, yes, I’m one of those wacky Christians who believe in a woman’s legal right to choose. I personally don’t look upon abortion favourably, but I also don’t plan on falling pregnant anytime soon. I firmly believe that He wants us to bring people to Him by following His example, not by putting up barriers stopping people from exercising their free will — which I think is God’s greatest gift to us all. There are a few evangelicals out there who want to claim that secularism is a blight on society, but I feel it is essential in serving Him in the way He calls upon you to do, not how a legislature dictates for you. I’m as imperfect as anyone, and temptation is going to seek me out whether it’s legal or not.
Nice post Gnu, and I’d just like to point out that under Christianity, it’s not man’s place to judge a person’s actions. It’s entirely possible that you (that’s the general “you,” not Gnu specifically) have it completely wrong, so attempting to shape the law to your view of your religion is fraught with pit-falls.
I probably haven’t explained this very well :-( If a person is saved, they are a completely new being – “the old has gone, the new has come”. The Holy Spirit is living in them, and changing them to be more like Jesus. As He works, the Christian finds it easier to resist sin and to live the way God commands. At the same time, the Christian learns more about Jesus, and the amazing sacrifice he made for us on the cross. They get a greater sense of conviction of guilt regarding their sin, accompanied by a greater understanding of how much they’ve been forgiven, which leads to thanksgiving and obedience.
So the situation is not “OK, I’ve been saved. Great. What should I do now? I could do what God wants or something else.” It’s “Wow! I’ve been saved! Isn’t God fantastic? He’s my Father in heaven for ever. Now, what can I do to please him?”
Does that explain it better? I’m still not sure if I’ve quite hit the nail on the head here.
Would you agree (and please try and read the words neutrally; they are meant that way) that this summary encapsulates a self-ish view of morality – “my moral code is to do what benefits me”?
If so, doesn’t that have some fairly unfortunate consequences? As a mild example, welfare payments become a bribe to buy off the poor so they don’t come round and burgle your house. (If you are only doing what benefits you, that’s about the only justification for them.)
“No damage is done in the grand scheme of things”? Given the Bible’s teaching about the spiritual component of sex – “the two become one flesh”, “lust is equivalent to adultery” – going to a strip club and lusting after other women is going to have a terrible effect on a marital relationship!
So you would legalise (adult) murder, then? (As Alan said, considering the extremes makes for clear thinking.) After all, the laws preventing it are just barriers stopping people from exercising their free will.
Free will is a great gift of God, but with that gift comes the responsibility to use it wisely, in line with his will.
Would you agree (and please try and read the words neutrally; they are meant that way) that this summary encapsulates a self-ish view of morality – “my moral code is to do what benefits me”?
Well, yes, but I am a cynic, to a certain extent.
If so, doesn’t that have some fairly unfortunate consequences? As a mild example, welfare payments become a bribe to buy off the poor so they don’t come round and burgle your house. (If you are only doing what benefits you, that’s about the only justification for them.)
The thing is, someday, I or somebody I care about may end up in that situation (of being poor and in need of benefits) and I know I would like just being left high and dry by society. Essentially, if I had more money than I would ever need, I *could* just hoarde it for a flood of biblical proportions, or I could find some other use for it, like giving it away or investing it in something worthwhile and beneficial to society. Hopefully, by leading by example, should I ever end up in a bad situation, somebody would help me out, either because I helped them directly, or because they see an equal opportunity to lead by example, etc.
Wow, that was a bit of a long paragraph. Anyhow, in summary, I’d argue that it’s the short-sightedness that modern culture seems to breed that causes the behaviour you describe, rather than pure selfishness. I’m not going to claim my moral structure is perfect, but I like to think that by “improving” it, I improve my own life and hopefully, as a side-effect, the life of others.
No. Not at all. Just because an atheist believes that humans evolved from something like bacteria, doesn’t mean that we think of humans as bacteria now. I’m pretty sure that I was never a bacteria, even if my far distant ancestors were. Humans are very different than bacteria, and killing them is very different.
Working backwards through the quote…
Just because you don’t believe in a higher power, doesn’t mean that all morality is personal and relative. Morality based on reason is universal to any rational thinker. Just like the truth of mathematics.
So, he can disapprove based on a rationalistic moral grounds. If an atheist believes that a fertilized egg becomes fully human on day one, with all of the respect that that deserves, then there is no inconsistency with disapproving abortion as long as they’d also disapprove of killing other humans.
Wrong again. Pure atheism does not equal a lack of morality.
You seem to have two contradicting views in mind. 1) You seem think that people can’t, through rationality, agree on a set of morals, and 2) that any morals that people do agree to must have been put their by a higher power. Which is it? Do we or don’t we intrinsically understand morality? If God did give us hard wired morals, then we should be able to figure them out without being religious. Of course, God isn’t the only way to get morals. Why is it so hard to grasp the idea that evolution could embed us with both rationality and morality? I think religion makes people lazy so they don’t even try to reason about morality. People can agree. Morals are transferable.
It would only disprove it if it were true. What if you use your intellect and come us with a moral code, and I use my intellect and come up with the same moral code? Wouldn’t you expect that to happen? If not, why not?
For example, as a starting point here are a set of rules I propose for defining morals.
Morals:
1. Are useful. They tell you something about the world. They contain information.
2. Are transferable. Morals are memes. To work well, then need to work for more than just you.
3. Are non-contradictory. Within a moral system, the morals should work well together, even re-enforce each other.
4. Are “smooth.” An approximation of the moral should be better than no moral at all.
Your first instinct might be to throw them all out and change it to:
1. Whatever God tells us.
But if you think about it rationally, you’ll see that if God exists, then that really is already covered. 1) It would be useful to do what God tells us to do because he knows way more than we do, he loves us, and he’s good so he’ll only tell us the right things to do. 2) If God exists and he’s good, then we should all be able to recognize that and agree that we should do what he says. 3) God is perfect, and wouldn’t tell us contradictory things to do. 4) God understands that we’re not perfect and will forgive us even if we don’t get it quite right.
Would you still disagree with 1-4? Do you think anyone rational would? If you start with 1-4, then you can get to things like “don’t steal”, “don’t murder”, “don’t lie”, etc… I think this demonstrates that non-subjective, non-religious, morality is likely. So rationality does get your further forward than “believe what I believe.” I think it even gets you further than religion (another form of “believe what I believe”) because we all have the tools to test it ourselves. We don’t have to accept morals on blind faith, or based on bribes or threats.
What is the origin of my guilt from doing something I consider immoral? Did my actions hurt, or perhaps simply fail to help, myself or others in any way? If so, the actions were wrong and I should feel guilty having performed them.
What is an atheist’s source for any non-selfish emotion? Why do I have a serious interest in your health and the outcome of your surgeries? You have already granted me “editbugs,” so I don’t particularly need you for anything else. ;-) How can an athiest feel compassion?
Atheism isn’t selfish, only certain people are.
Good to hear the surgery went well; stay well, and don’t let my comments cause excessive strain on the jawbone (I’m sure they don’t).
Discussing Nogwater‘s points:
That’s not what I argued. I said that an atheist has no moral grounds on which to argue with someone who asserts “Person X’s life is more valuable than Person Y’s”. They can come up with suggestions why it might not be true, but the asserter can just say “well, that’s not the way I see it”. And if the asserter than goes off and shoots person Y, all the atheist can say is “it’s not what I would have done”.
Alan made this point well in his initial comment.
Neither. I’m not arguing 1) – obviously two atheists can agree on a set of morals. However, I assert that there’s nothing that means they will agree (and I can call forth the evidence of history to back me up on this one) and, if they do not, one has no moral right to tell the other their formulation is incorrect. I’m also not arguing 2) – as I said, two atheists may well be able to agree a set of morals.
Sadly not. Humanity’s wilful rebellion against God (“sin”) means that, even if we know deep down how we should behave, we don’t do it. Often, we reject the idea so hard that our conscience ceases to prick us about it.
Why is that an obvious truth you can use as a starting-point? Why can morals not be ones which work for just you? If you start with the assumption that “morals are things we can all agree on”, you’re begging the question.
Again, this is not true because of human sin. Your point here is the equivalent of arguing “not everyone in the world believes in and follows the same God. Therefore, God must not exist.” I’m sure you’d agree this isn’t logical.
This seems an odd thing for an atheist to state as being self-evident about God. :-) On what basis do you hold this to be true (under the initial assumption of your sentence, which was “if God exists”)?
Gerv:
Sorry about misunderstanding the argument you were making. Just to make sure I understand: you think that an atheist can have morals, and that two atheists can share a set of morals, but they have no “moral grounds” to argue that their morality is correct or better.
I’d say that if they base their morality on rationality, then there is a structure and a grounding for logical argument, just as their is with science. Just as a scientist can have grounds for arguing that one model of the universe is better than another, so can a rational person argue that their model of morality is better than another — because it’s based on reality and logic.
On the contrary, two people arguing morality based largely on faith have no grounds to argue.
As for history demonstrating that people don’t agree on morality, I’d say that’s only minimally true. Sure, people don’t agree 100%, but the agree a LOT. I’d bet that the vast majority of people throughout history, all over the world, would agree on just about everything regarding right and wrong. It’s when you get into which god to worship, and how to worship that you get most arguments.
I didn’t say morals are things that we can all agree on. Just that they can be passed from one person to another. Some people will refuse to even listen to the argument.
Yes, I agree that it would be illogical to argue that because people believe in different gods, god doesn’t exist. I don’t see how that’s related to my point. I was trying to argue that if we base our morality on doing what God wants, then God had better be good. If he is good, then he would give us the means to know that he exists and to do what he wants. For him to do otherwise would be cruel and ungood. I should have used parens after my “be able to”. You may argue that we are able to, and so maybe you don’t really disagree with point number 2 now that I’ve clarified it.
You don’t really seem to be arguing with point 4 about god forgiving us, you’re just questioning how I arrived there. It goes back cruelty. It would be cruel to hold it against someone for doing something that they couldn’t help (not being perfect).
I don’t see any argument against 1-4 (just a little misunderstanding and probing).