Good news: Controversial atheism campaign to hit billboards

I agree Rob – this is good news. If the question of God can be bought to the forefront of the minds of the mushy middle agnostic crowds – then it will help open doors for Christians to converse with them.

I suspect this awareness will come about more from the controversy that will result than from the billboards themselves. Lets pray the wider church is wise and gracious in its public reaction to them…

By the way, and that said, despite lacking an objective morality this doesn’t make all actions equally moral. Morality is nothing more than a system for social cohesion.

There is a maximum amount of violence and incest and rape that a society can tolerate before going extinct. Although there are fringe elements within society (the psychopaths and sociopaths) that don’t care for society we marginalize them for our own good. We justify our moral actions in terms of minimising avoidable harm to others, and in debating how our actions would affect society.

So, like truth, we don’t have perfect knowledge but we can approximate certain morals and actions based on how we understand ourselves and society. Goodness is based on that.

In the billboard however “good” was meant in the sense of being personally agreeable. Whether or not someone was accepting of being without god.

“To say that since people differ on a subject, there’s no objective truth on that subject is a very strange logical leap.”

That wasn’t what I was saying at all. The key word was “access” and if the authority is unclear then people claiming to have different instructions from the same authority must reconcile these conflicting instructions in as objective manner as they can.

It could be the case – as you say – that one person is right and another wrong, however the question is more whether someone can access that authority objectively; can they be sure they’re separating their personal bias from what the supernatural authority says. Studies point to ‘no’ on that:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18216-dear-god-please-confirm-what-i-already-believe.html

(this is similar to the dilemma of multiple religions that all claim to be true and the adherents’ ability to separate their personal biases to identify some kind of objective truth)

“It’s like saying that since people disagree about certain facts about the universe, there’s really no universe out there.”

That’s an inappropriate analogy – you would need to start with something supernatural, not something tangible in the natural world. It’s more like if people were arguing about whether an invisible box was large or small, and while there is an objective truth about that box any individual trying to discover that would have to confront their own reasons for choosing, and to compare those justifications with others who disagree.

As you well know people can take leaps of faith in different directions, so the point is more around whether there’s a process for discovering any supernatural truths. I don’t think there is.

“Reply: A thus it logically follows that atheists cannot make any criticism of Hitler.”

It’s clear that you see no justification for right or wrong without a claim to a supernatural authority, but let’s move on to the core of your argument…

“Reply: Again, atoms and molecules have no inherent goodness, right?”

Well I’m rather fond of my atoms, as I’m sure you are of yours

I would defend my atoms from someone trying to cut bits out of me. Even the simplest lifeforms do this. After abiogenesis then in an evolutionary sense any life that wasn’t self interested wouldn’t survive, so hunger and pain and caring for offspring are natural byproducts of evolved desires to retain ones own atoms or genes

If you disagree with that then perhaps we disagree about basic sciences, and so the following that builds upon that wouldn’t make sense to you: morals are based on social cohesion… some is evolved nature, some is nuture, and nice guys finish first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6rgWzYRXiI

If you could name immoral actions, or moral actions, then you will see that they’re all about socially-minded actions that individuals can take. Hermits don’t have as much of a need for morals, other than morals around taking care of the environment

So, to answer your question…

“Whence comes goodness then? Perhaps I would prefer Hitler’s goodness, as defined by his atoms or his society.”

Sure, and that would be compatible with my claims of subjective morality that’s been evolved through nature and nuture/culture. Many people were convinced about Hitler, and others fought his armies because he tried to destroy collections of atoms known as people. As said there is a maximum amount of violence and incest and rape that a society can tolerate before going extinct. Although there are fringe elements within society (the psychopaths and sociopaths) that don’t care for society we marginalize them for our own good. We justify our moral actions in terms of minimising avoidable harm to others, and in debating how our actions would affect society.

When it comes to waring nations and deciding who is moral then it’s a matter of comparing the actions of the nations. Hitler did many things that were immoral, as per my definition.

So moral goodness is quantified by perceived individual and societal benefits resulting from actions.

“Re “screaming tomatoes” — sure, if some nutter makes such a claim, they bear the burden of proof. I hope we can agree on that [...] “Re “atheos” — sure, if you want to believe that we are “without gods”, that’s fine, but that IS a positive claim and therefore logically demands that you shoulder the burden of proof.”

See I think that’s where your statements seem to be in conflict. Christianity bears the burden of proof, as does Hinduism and people who think Yeti’s exist.

To not believe in Zeus isn’t a positive claim, or are you claiming that it is?

So as you can imagine I disagree that atheism is a positive claim, it’s a default that we say things don’t exist until they’re proven. They may well exist, but there are a million things that might exist, and yet we have no reason to think they’re true.

Cheers

I do recommend learning about Scientology and Cargo Cults as they’re canonical examples of manufactured religions. L. Ron Hubbard was a science fiction author who came up with intergalactic warlords named Xenu/Xemu, invisible demons called Thetans, and beliefs that asbestos isn’t harmful to the lungs. It’s fascinating, and as you can imagine learning about other religions can affect how your come to view your own (I’m not saying at all that it would shake your faith, but that the design of the religion and the reasons people have for belief are all very interesting).

Anyway,

“You begin with unprovable naturalistic presuppositions and I begin with unprovable supernaturalistic presuppositions.”

Which parts do you think are unprovable? I’ve named mental disorders that have genetic components to them and these people do have a lack of understanding about social cohesion. This results in acts that we might call immoral and we marginalise these people if there’s a perceived harm to society. Our empathy (do onto others as you would have them do onto you).

To repeat, if you were to name me any moral or immoral action you will see that it’s based around social cohesion and, as linked in the Youtube video above, there is much evidence for this behaviour. It is falsifiable: simply name me a moral action that’s not based on self-interest, empathy or social cohesion, and then show how in evolution an (im)moral system could flourish.

Your criticism of a naturalistic explanation is still a little unclear to me. Do we agree on the natural causes of morals (made by nature/evolution and nurture/society), but we disagree on the supernatural inspiration for it?

“Ultimately your beliefs on morality are trapped at the level of atoms and molecules”

No, that’s far too low level. As I said morals need life-forms that are able to experience some form of self-preservation and society.

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together. Humans are comprised of about one sack of coal (carbon), some hydrogen and oxygen, and other common atoms that wouldn’t be worth $50. Their evolved arrangement is what makes them take on morals in order to better retain their life.

“and therefore depend upon where a society is at.”

Yes, but that doesn’t mean everything is up for grabs. There is a certain amount of violence that a society can tolerate before going extinct, as outlined in the ‘nice guys finish first’ video.

“Torture, rape, genital mutilation, or anything else may not be cherished within an atheistic worldview of society, but to call them wrong is a non-sequitor.”

Well you’ve reserved the words “wrong” and “good” as well as “moral” and “immoral” for only supernatural justifications. Now that you’re rigged the game, you win

I would call them immoral and wrong based on my previous definitions (selfish interests in the survival of society). Those things that you name have measurable harm to individuals and they disrupt society, and so I judge others based on that.

“All they ultimately are is one set of chemicals interacting with another set of chemicals.”

Again, there’s nothing necessarily demeaning about the truth; a naturalistic world-view is a beautiful and subtle one.

Many people have have engaged in wishful thinking about humanity, arguing about whether Earth is in the centre of the universe. Changes to that view shattered their notions of being special, but later generations would surely laugh at the arrogance and fragile egos that depended on being at the centre of the universe.

Saying that “A wizard did it!”, or “A god did it!” is a sufficient explanation for anything but there’s no objective evidence in that attempt to understand the world.

Incidentally here’s a blog post I wrote about idea of souls: http://holloway.co.nz/blog/2010/05/slaves-to-an-essential-personality/

“Lastly, failure to believe in Zeus is not about absence of belief — it is about positively denying that any such being exists.”

As you can imagine I do disagree. It is at the very least an absence of belief. It may also involve taking a leap of faith and pretending to know more than one possibly could about the supernatural by saying that Zeus doesn’t exist. I’d do the former, but not the later, hence atheism.

I don’t think we’ll convince each other on this point however so perhaps we should move on.

“Are you open to the possibility of the much more reasonable claims made in the Bible?”

You’d need to name them for me to answer that.

As we’re asking questions: Do you have any issues with Evolution?