What is more, we don't need to fear the tantrums of a despotic deity to motivate us to do either of the above. Today I am pleased to respond to Wintery Knight's recent piece on morality.
I have no doubt that theists reading my title and first sentence will shake their heads in sanctimonious condescension and say something like, "Oh dear, another atheist who just doesn't get it. It's not fear of god that's the issue. It's the fact at there would BE no right and wrong if God didn't exist."
I am aware of that non-argument. I don't know why theists still bother with it as it was thrown overboard by Plato a couple of millennia ago. I have dealt with it before too.
Morality comes from our ability to empathise with other conscious entities. We can imagine their pain and distress when offered violence or cruelty, and we can make a choice based upon that. No atheist known to me would wish to inflict pain or cause suffering without a very good reason. We do not need a set of arbitrary guidelines to help us decide.
The assertions that (a) a supernatural deity is necessary for right and wrong to exist (debunked by Plato) and (b) it is one group of theists' chosen god that did it, must be backed up by evidence if they are to be taken seriously. By evidence I mean incontrovertible empirical data or observations, available to us all, and capable of withstanding sceptical review. I do not mean ancient cherrypicked texts subject to wish-driven interpretations, and I do not mean unverifiable personal revelations. Simply to say, "Right and wrong exist because my favourite god made them," is to speak with unbridled arrogance.
Now to the detail of Mr Knight's post. He asserts that moral choices are simply preferences, like one's favourite flavour of ice-cream. He appears to be making this ridiculous claim in all seriousness. However, if we were to ask a dozen random people about their preferred ice-cream, we might get a dozen different answers. How many of those people are likely to enjoy losing their liberty and being forced to work as slaves? How many would refuse anaesthesia for a dental extraction, and how many would deny anaesthesia to others in the same situation? We can all feel pain and we can all imagine pain, and our decision to protect others from pain (as far as we can) is based on that empathy. No one needs to decree that empathy is right rather than wrong (no, seriously, I have heard theists try to argue the opposite). Empathy is an evolved skill that enables us to function in social groups. Without that skill our ancestors would have gone extinct on the African plains of the Pleistocene. That is not a baseless assertion; it is supported by oodles of evidence. Until Mr Knight can show us a significant number of atheists with a liking for imprisonment or agony, we do not need to consider his ludicrous 'personal preference' claim further.
Morality comes from our ability to empathise with other conscious entities. We can imagine their pain and distress when offered violence or cruelty, and we can make a choice based upon that. No atheist known to me would wish to inflict pain or cause suffering without a very good reason. We do not need a set of arbitrary guidelines to help us decide.
The assertions that (a) a supernatural deity is necessary for right and wrong to exist (debunked by Plato) and (b) it is one group of theists' chosen god that did it, must be backed up by evidence if they are to be taken seriously. By evidence I mean incontrovertible empirical data or observations, available to us all, and capable of withstanding sceptical review. I do not mean ancient cherrypicked texts subject to wish-driven interpretations, and I do not mean unverifiable personal revelations. Simply to say, "Right and wrong exist because my favourite god made them," is to speak with unbridled arrogance.
Now to the detail of Mr Knight's post. He asserts that moral choices are simply preferences, like one's favourite flavour of ice-cream. He appears to be making this ridiculous claim in all seriousness. However, if we were to ask a dozen random people about their preferred ice-cream, we might get a dozen different answers. How many of those people are likely to enjoy losing their liberty and being forced to work as slaves? How many would refuse anaesthesia for a dental extraction, and how many would deny anaesthesia to others in the same situation? We can all feel pain and we can all imagine pain, and our decision to protect others from pain (as far as we can) is based on that empathy. No one needs to decree that empathy is right rather than wrong (no, seriously, I have heard theists try to argue the opposite). Empathy is an evolved skill that enables us to function in social groups. Without that skill our ancestors would have gone extinct on the African plains of the Pleistocene. That is not a baseless assertion; it is supported by oodles of evidence. Until Mr Knight can show us a significant number of atheists with a liking for imprisonment or agony, we do not need to consider his ludicrous 'personal preference' claim further.
Next comes the old false dichotomy: either Mr Knight's favourite god created us all along with objective moral standards, or we are just bundles of atoms. Do theists really believe in this stuff or are they just accepting it because the rest of them say they do? We are bundles of atoms only in the same way that your smartphone and a rock are bundles of atoms. Everything is made of atoms (don't worry, chemists, I know about molecules and ions too) but if you try to tweet on a pebble you'll get none too many retweets. Your phone is an organised bundle of atoms that's very different from a rock. Sorry, creationists, living organisms are different again. We too are organised in a way that a rock isn't, but we didn't get our organisation from FoxConn or Samsung. We got it from evolution by natural selection. And that is true whether it suits one's chosen belief system or not.
No objective human rights on atheism? There are no natural objective rights, regardless of one's religious affiliation or lack of it. Rights are products of civilization, which is a product of minds, which come from brains, which are themselves products of evolution by natural selection. Slavery and racism were perpetuated by religion for centuries. Atheism has no more to say about slavery than has vegetarianism. Any thinking human being other than a psychopath is overwhelmingly likely to be opposed to slavery, unless their mind has been conditioned by religious indoctrination. Conduct a high street survey on forced labour in London and then repeat it in Riyadh and you will see my point. To connect atheism with morality you have to think that gods have some connection with morality, which means you are probably a theist. Atheists are more likely to know what atheists think than are theists.
As for abortion, any thinking, caring human recognizes that each individual case merits attention and there can be no blanket rule covering all. Absolutism comes from the misplaced confidence that religion instils in its adherents. The one viewpoint that must be of zero value is the notion that abortion must not be carried out under any circumstances. What about ectopic pregnancy, when a doomed foetus with no chance of survival poses an urgent threat to the life of the mother? Closed-minded absolutism condemns both to certain death, whereas atheistic compassion at least saves one.
Click twice on the video clip of Richard Dawkins apparently advocating infanticide and you are linked to the full 43-minute dialogue. Dawkins is in conversation with philosopher Peter Singer on various moral issues. Round about minute 23, from which the out-of-context short clip is taken, the two explore the slippery-slope argument, and Dawkins shows that unless birth is allowed to be an emotionally-erected intuitive barrier to termination of foetal life, it becomes difficult to argue against infanticide in cases where continued survival would inevitably result in slow, painful death. He is defending certain cases of the slippery-slope argument, not advertising infanticide per se. Once again, absolutism is of no help at all. Richard Dawkins most definitely does not support killing infants.
Adult pigs can certainly feel pain and distress. Small bundles of human cells undoubtedly cannot. Inhumanely slaughtering the former causes infinitely more suffering than does aborting the latter. Only the absolutist mind, blinded and stunted by religious bigotry, could possibly conclude otherwise. If you think Dawkins's pig/human tweet shows a lack of morality, you are part of the problem he is illustrating.
I hope no-one derives their morality from the Bible, whether from the shamelessly and jealously self-interested murder and other violence perpetrated by Yahweh and his henchmen in the Old Testament, or the disgusting, reprehensible scapegoating followed by torture and human sacrifice depicted in the New Testament. Also let's not forget that the notion of eternal torment after death is advertised in the New Testament. Far from compensating for the moral bankruptcy of the OT, the NT actually makes things worse.
Those best qualified to make moral judgments are those who, their minds free from religious shackles, are prepared to consider every living thing involved in the matters they seek to judge. Those least qualified are those who would impose an ancient set of Babylonian myths on us all because it makes them feel good.
