Are Atheists Potentially Morally Superior to Theists?

[Danmark]

The proposition is that atheists have the potential of being morally superior to theists because to the extent the atheist does good works, he does them because he wants to, because she thinks it right. Whereas the theist acts out of religious necessity or compulsion; the threat of hell or deprivation of heaven.

[Danmark]

Some may be pontificating, others are arguing. I'll let others judge.

We have previously gone down this road of treating atheism as a religion and blaming atheism for what some people do. It is unfair in life and against the rules here to make blanket statements as if all atheists have the moral code of the worst mass murderers because of what one person has done.

We don't judge all Christians on the basis of one 'witch' burner.

We shouldn't say all Jews or Christians are mass murderers because in the Bible there are claims that god told them to commit mass murder.

The argument at issue is that slavery was officially supported in the Bible and was not condemned when it would be logical to do so.

Atheism itself does not speak to slavery and more than physics does. It is inapposite to expect it to. Moral people who happen to be either Christian or atheist abhor slavery and murder and torture and a host of other evils.

That is EXACTLY what you are doing.

You are taking the failure to OUTRIGHT condemn slavery as a standard that makes all Christians flawed.

No. A more careful reading of the argument is simply that since the Bible fails to condemn slavery when it would be expected to, and otherwise supports the institution, the Bible reflects the thoughts and morality of men at the time it was written. It does not reflect a perfect morality that came from God.

This does not necessarily reflect badly on the morality of Christians today. It is simply an argument against the divine inspiration of the Bible.

[stubbornone]

Some may be pontificating, others are arguing. I'll let others judge.

We have previously gone down this road of treating atheism as a religion and blaming atheism for what some people do. It is unfair in life and against the rules here to make blanket statements as if all atheists have the moral code of the worst mass murderers because of what one person has done.

We don't judge all Christians on the basis of one 'witch' burner.

We shouldn't say all Jews or Christians are mass murderers because in the Bible there are claims that god told them to commit mass murder.

The argument at issue is that slavery was officially supported in the Bible and was not condemned when it would be logical to do so.

Atheism itself does not speak to slavery and more than physics does. It is inapposite to expect it to. Moral people who happen to be either Christian or atheist abhor slavery and murder and torture and a host of other evils.

That is EXACTLY what you are doing.

You are taking the failure to OUTRIGHT condemn slavery as a standard that makes all Christians flawed.

No. A more careful reading of the argument is simply that since the Bible fails to condemn slavery when it would be expected to, and otherwise supports the institution, the Bible reflects the thoughts and morality of men at the time it was written. It does not reflect a perfect morality that came from God.

This does not necessarily reflect badly on the morality of Christians today. It is simply an argument against the divine inspiration of the Bible.

And,
as pointed out ... that has been addressed and avoided now ... in four separate threads.

Of course we now have this shoved down our throat from Artie ...

" logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my conscience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule."

Who cares in the Golden Rule is right out of the Bible? And of course, us Christians, in addition to the higher law, we have no logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my conscience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule.

And this is what happens when we allowed the unskilled, uncivil, and emotional to derail a thread with vacuous charges of slavery ... especially when those hurling it aren't even interested in hearing a response ...

... mere to preach about how screwed up someone else is based solely on a faith choice.

Again, YOU initially thought it was as potentially destructive as I did, you reversed course ... and now, having applied that same standard to atheism ... well, there is incivility everywhere ... go figure, eh?

[Artie]

And of course, us Christians, in addition to the higher law, we have no logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my conscience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule.

You said and I quote: "So, a couple of points - you have no doctrinal positions whatsoever, by your standard you have NOTHING to call slavery immoral." I am simply explaining to you what we have to call slavery immoral and since you call "logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my conscience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule." NOTHING then I can only assume you don't have those or that you think these are worth NOTHING. So all you have left is belief in a 2000 year old book supposedly inspired by a god telling you slavery is wrong.

[Bust Nak]

And,
as pointed out ... that has been addressed and avoided now ... in four separate threads.

You mean your hypothetical that Roman would have mass murdering the Jews had the Bible condemned slavery? I can think of prenty of ways of avoiding offending the Romans and still condemn slavery strongly.

Who cares in the Golden Rule is right out of the Bible?

Christians?

And of course, us Christians, in addition to the higher law, we have no logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my conscience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule.

Is there a typo there? That you have logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, good upbringing, conscience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule is why you don't need the Bible.

[dianaiad]

And of course, us Christians, in addition to the higher law, we have no logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my conscience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule.

You said and I quote: "So, a couple of points - you have no doctrinal positions whatsoever, by your standard you have NOTHING to call slavery immoral." I am simply explaining to you what we have to call slavery immoral and since you call "logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my conscience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule." NOTHING then I can only assume you don't have those or that you think these are worth NOTHING. So all you have left is belief in a 2000 year old book supposedly inspired by a god telling you slavery is wrong.

I have major problems with both sides of this issue. However, I would like to point something out to you; atheists almost invariably (and make that invariably when their debate opponent tries to attribute negative qualities to 'atheism') fall back on the old "atheism is a disbelief in a deity or deities, and that's all it is" argument.

Equally invariably, when atheists want to tout their own moral superiority, they start talking about their 'logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my consience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule" as WHY they are superior to all others, as if these qualities are both intrinsic and unique to atheism.

You can't have this both ways.

So, as odd as I find some of stubbonone's positions, I have to agree with him on one thing; there is nothing in athiesm that provides a standard for calling slavery immoral. In fact, atheists have owned slaves in the past...there is absolutely nothing in atheism itself to prevent it, to regulate it, to soften it...or, yes, to practice it. The word is 'nothing.'

NONE of the qualities you state, above, are because of your atheism. Theists can and do have them all. They are all the result of philosophical standards allowed by your atheism, but they are not, in and of themselves, atheist.

Danmark made a great point about the bible, in saying that since the bible (OT) did not condemn slavery when it would be logical (in our view) to do so, that it reflects the men who wrote it and the times they lived in.

He's absolutely right.

So is the argument that there were two levels of law here; the Mosaic Law and the 'Higher Law" of Christ.

Free will is a very big problem--and when you are teaching someone something important, you start from where they are, not from where you think they should be; I don't care HOW much math a ninth grader SHOULD know, if he can't add four and four and come up with eight, you begin with arithmetic. I don't care HOW much a culture SHOULD know and understand about morality and culture....you lead them to enlightenment in small steps.

As for slavery, first...you tell them who they can, and cannot, enslave, and oh, by the way, you don't have the right to just out and out kill 'em. Then you give the rules by which slaves may gain their freedom. Yes, the OT Israelites kept slaves. Their slaves were treated considerably better than everybody ELSE'S slaves were, and they had to live in a world where slavery was, well....everywhere accepted and simply 'the way things were done."

So...lead 'em out gently. By the time Christ came along, the Jews were not major slave owners, even though everybody ELSE around them relied on them.

It took a very long time to defeat slavery...and btw, it was the Christians who worked the hardest to eliminate it, just so you know.

Anyway, that's what I think.

[Artie]

Equally invariably, when atheists want to tout their own moral superiority, they start talking about their 'logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my consience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule" as WHY they are superior to all others, as if these qualities are both intrinsic and unique to atheism.

No they are not intrinsic and unique to atheism and there are a lot of Christians or for that matter people of all religions with those qualities too. My problem is with those who say that these qualities are worth nothing and that they have some "higher moral standard" because they believe a god with supposedly high standards just because he was a god supposedly inspired some people to write down his standards some 2000 years ago.

So, as odd as I find some of stubbonone's positions, I have to agree with him on one thing; there is nothing in athiesm that provides a standard for calling slavery immoral. In fact, atheists have owned slaves in the past...there is absolutely nothing in atheism itself to prevent it, to regulate it, to soften it...or, yes, to practice it. The word is 'nothing.'

NONE of the qualities you state, above, are because of your atheism. Theists can and do have them all. They are all the result of philosophical standards allowed by your atheism, but they are not, in and of themselves, atheist.

True. But as I see it they are a result of evolution. And justice systems and religions evolved to enforce those evolutionary morals. A moral person is a person who understands how and why morality evolved and why it is important for himself and everybody to live morally and have these qualities I mentioned. A person who only behaves morally because he believes a god has told him in a 2000 year old book that he should behave like this god says so as to get to Heaven is not a moral person no matter how much he claims to believe in this god and his morals and no matter how "superior" he claims these morals are to the qualities I mentioned.

[dianaiad]

Equally invariably, when atheists want to tout their own moral superiority, they start talking about their 'logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my consience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule" as WHY they are superior to all others, as if these qualities are both intrinsic and unique to atheism.

No they are not intrinsic and unique to atheism and there are a lot of Christians or for that matter people of all religions with those qualities too. My problem is with those who say that these qualities are worth nothing and that they have some "higher moral standard" because they believe a god with supposedly high standards just because he was a god supposedly inspired some people to write down his standards some 2000 years ago.

So, as odd as I find some of stubbonone's positions, I have to agree with him on one thing; there is nothing in athiesm that provides a standard for calling slavery immoral. In fact, atheists have owned slaves in the past...there is absolutely nothing in atheism itself to prevent it, to regulate it, to soften it...or, yes, to practice it. The word is 'nothing.'

NONE of the qualities you state, above, are because of your atheism. Theists can and do have them all. They are all the result of philosophical standards allowed by your atheism, but they are not, in and of themselves, atheist.

True. But as I see it they are a result of evolution. And justice systems and religions evolved to enforce those evolutionary morals. A moral person is a person who understands how and why morality evolved and why it is important for himself and everybody to live morally and have these qualities I mentioned. A person who only behaves morally because he believes a god has told him in a 2000 year old book that he should behave like this god says so as to get to Heaven is not a moral person no matter how much he claims to believe in this god and his morals and no matter how "superior" he claims these morals are to the qualities I mentioned.

Here's a question...because you seem to be at least willing to LOOK at it...

Is it not possible for a theist to say "II have this set of moral standards because of the information in the bible" AND understand the reasons behind the writing down of those moral standards?

Artie, nobody figures all this stuff out by himself; we are all taught. That 'good upbringing' you speak about. We ALL get our moral standards from somewhere, or someone else. Figuring out why those morals are good things, and how they work, is a "bennie," yes....but what makes you think that all atheists understand this...and no theists do?

[Artie]

Here's a question...because you seem to be at least willing to LOOK at it...

Is it not possible for a theist to say "II have this set of moral standards because of the information in the bible" AND understand the reasons behind the writing down of those moral standards?

If a theist understands the reasons why these moral standards evolved and understands why we should live according to the qualities I mentioned he is a moral person. If he also finds some of these moral standards in the Bible or Koran or the Hindu scriptures for that matter and uses these to supplement his inbuilt morality fine. But if he doesn't understand how morality evolved and why he should live his life according to these qualities I mentioned, then it doesn't matter if he reads some holy scriptures and tries to live as the religious teacher says. It doesn't make him a moral person, he just pretends to be one.

Artie, nobody figures all this stuff out by himself; we are all taught. That 'good upbringing' you speak about. We ALL get our moral standards from somewhere, or someone else. Figuring out why those morals are good things, and how they work, is a "bennie," yes....but what makes you think that all atheists understand this...and no theists do?

Because theists believe per definition in gods, and god given morality. As long as they ascribe morality to whichever god they believe in and don't understand how and why morality evolved they can only pretend to be moral by doing whatever they believe their god says is moral.

[stubbornone]

And of course, us Christians, in addition to the higher law, we have no logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my conscience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule.

You said and I quote: "So, a couple of points - you have no doctrinal positions whatsoever, by your standard you have NOTHING to call slavery immoral." I am simply explaining to you what we have to call slavery immoral and since you call "logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my conscience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule." NOTHING then I can only assume you don't have those or that you think these are worth NOTHING. So all you have left is belief in a 2000 year old book supposedly inspired by a god telling you slavery is wrong.

No art, that is what Nickname said about the Bible. I simply applied it too the atheist position, and we find that atheism has the same problem ... even worse, as you have no doctrine of principle based morality do you?

Yet if we apply all the things you posted, its a fairly obvious conclusion. The questions then are, why do you think atheists should NOT apply those things to other faiths as Nickman did, and then why did it take applying that standard to atheism for you to care at all?

Now I believe the larger point is that individual morality is prone to exactly those double standards correct. Every atheist denied it, and yet here we have a practical demonstration of exactly the point being made.

Being atheist doesn't magically male you moral, and if your morality consists of finding slavery in people based solely on a faith choice and by denying them simple human ethical conditions ... that is a definitive negative to your side.

[Danmark]

Equally invariably, when atheists want to tout their own moral superiority, they start talking about their 'logic, reason and common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, love, my good upbringing, my consience, morals, ethics, respect for others, the Golden Rule" as WHY they are superior to all others, as if these qualities are both intrinsic and unique to atheism.

You can't have this both ways.

So, as odd as I find some of stubbonone's positions, I have to agree with him on one thing; there is nothing in athiesm that provides a standard for calling slavery immoral. In fact, atheists have owned slaves in the past...there is absolutely nothing in atheism itself to prevent it, to regulate it, to soften it...or, yes, to practice it. The word is 'nothing.'

Agreed. I think the problem comes when one hears 'atheist' s/he sometimes assumes that is the only belief system the PERSON adheres to. This is one of the reasons I started the subtopic about the possible debt atheists and others may owe to Christianity, despite the belief there is no god as defined by christians