Just Tired of the Bullshit
September 6, 2008 by TJM Admin
You’ve seen it all over the net; the Christian’s definition of what an atheist is. I’ve read it in Christian literature, even the newest books put out to prop up the failing religious dogma in an attempt to “energize the base.” You’ve got us all wrong, but you don’t care because your depiction of us makes you feel better about yourselves.
1) “Atheists do not believe in a god that gives us a moral law. Therefor, atheists are immoral.” You couldn’t be more off point if you tried, you blundering conformist. Atheist simply do not believe in your (or any) god. Morality has nothing to do with your god. In fact, I can find several examples of various “laws” that your so called “loving god” gave his followers that are anything but moral. And don’t give me that crap about how, “That is in the Old Testament. We live under the New Testament now.” You also say that your “god” is the same yesterday, today and forever. So, if stoning a disobedient child was good then, then it should be now. And I should still be able to sell my daughter into slavery. I should be able to have multiple wives. When one of my wives has her period, I should make her leave the city ’cause, after all, she isn’t clean. I should be able to kill those that do not believe in my god too.
The fact of the matter is that atheists who act in a moral and ethical manner, philosophically speaking, are far more moral than you pretentious Christians. We practice altruism. Basically, we try to act morally and ethically due to the fact that it is the right thing to do. We have no belief in an ultimate punishment or reward. We are not “good people” simply because some unseen “sky daddy” told us to be. To be a good person simply because it is required of you is not morality and neither is it moral to do good simply for hope of a reward or fear of punishment. You are simply a suck up at that point. Now, wipe the “holy” brown smudge off your nose and do something expecting NO return. Do it because it is the right thing to do, not because you are commanded to or want to add a wing onto your celestial mansion.
2) “Atheists believe that they can disprove the existence of god.” Wrong again. Atheists simply do not believe in your god. But, if you wish to use that argument, fin. I should be able to safely assert that, by definition, “Christians believe that they can PROVE that god exists.” So…I am still waiting. While it may be fun to spout of this line, it has no merit. We do not believe that we ca disprove your god. We simply do not believe that your side has presented any verifiable proof for your gods’ existence. We no more believe that we can disprove your gods’ existence anymore than you can disprove the existence of FSM or the Invisible Pink Unicorn. After all, the burden of proof lies on the one making the claim. You asserted the claim that god does exist well before someone said, “No, it doesn’t.” You have made an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. We have yet to see that evidence and we have been waiting for thousands of years.
3) “Atheists are deceived by the devil.” Please, show me this “devil.” Again, where’s the proof? But, hey, it makes you feel good to say this, doesn’t it? After all, it is just one more out you have to not think for yourselves.
4) “Atheists just brush away and overlook the body of historical evidence that supports the Bible/Koran/Torah.” What historical evidence? Just because a novel has it’s setting in Baltimore, Maryland, a non-fictional place, during the civil war (an actual war) doesn not mean that the novel is completely true. After all, I picked it up in the fiction section at Barnes and Noble. And it had vampires in it. And a leprechaun. And fairies. Many fictional books use historical events to engage the reader further. The fact that many of the events that happen in the Bible, for example, are ONLY found in the Bible is sort of a dead giveaway.
I could go on and on, but what’s the point? You will believe what you want to believe. As for me and MY house, we will serve the GREATER GOOD.
I empathize totally with this response to Christians, but my over forty years of being an atheist\ has convinced me we need to stop “speaking Christian” (an admonition from David Eller, author of “Natural Atheism” and “Atheism Advanced”).
We need to stop debating Christians (or any other religious representation), and simply and patiently and thoroughly state our case. We represent reason, science, logic, and a rational morality. Let’s try just advocating those positions with logic and evidence and ignore irrational claims.
Anyone who makes an assertion of truth with words like “god” or “faith” as evidence should simply be met with “Your terms have no basis in reality and do not belong in any discussion about the nature of reality.” Period.
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I agree with Arthur. I just wouldn’t be so eloquent about it.
My reply is typically, “Fairy tales are for children.”
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“The fact of the matter is that atheists, philosophically speaking, are far more moral…” This paragraph starts with a gross generalization. As you say, “Atheist simply do not believe in your (or any) god. Morality has nothing to do with your god.”
Atheism has no statements on morality. Atheists can be moral or immoral (and they are). To suggest that atheists are more moral than Christians (or anyone else) is false. Be very careful about making general statements about groups of people (that sounds like racism!).
Christian morality has some wonderful parts and some distasteful parts. The biggest problem is that, because of its source (invisble, magical man who lives in an invisible, magical place) it is highly resistant to change. However, rational, philosophical, secular morality is fluid and can evolve leading to progressive moral change. Atheists are free to reject Christian morality (or accept it without fear of god!) but they can also reject secular morality.
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“Atheists do not believe in a god that gives us a moral law. Therefor, atheists are immoral.”
You know, this makes us (Christians) want to beat our heads against a wall more than anything else. I don’t know why y’all consistently misunderstand our position on this.
We do NOT say atheists are immoral. We say the word “immoral” is meaningless without a god.
It is not an attack on atheists personally; it is an attack on a philosophical position that says “look at all the evil in the world” and yet can’t explain what is meant by the word “evil.”
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TJM Admin reply on September 8th, 2008 7:34 pm:
And I would say that the act of doing that which is right simply because it is right is far more a testament of moral character than the man who does what is right simply because of fear of hell or with the expectation of heavenly rewards. As a christian, you are simply submitting to a fear or greedily taking a bribe. Neither is an acceptable reason for making a correct decision given a choice.
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** we give our rights (and duties) to each other **
Xian ethics is irrational, otherworldly, and impractical. It promises much, and delivers nothing. Jesus’ “interim ethic” couldn’t outlast one generation of true believers. The fideistic irrationality of Paul of Tarsus with its anti-intellectualism, misogyny, and revenge seeking has poisoned the West for 2,000 years.
Chinese culture was far luckier. From that very rational, this worldly, and practical book, The Analects, attributed to Confucius (500 years before a myth encrusted Jesus):
6:20 Fan Ch’ih asked what constituted wisdom. The Master said, “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.”
15:23 Tsze-kung asked, saying, “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” The Master said, “Is not ‘reciprocity’ such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” [trans. S.R. McIntyre 2003]
No god is needed to police human behavior. All ethics is irreducibly social, but not utilitarian. Harming others can not be generalized; otherwise, no culture could exist.
bipolar2 ©2008
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bipolar2 reply on September 9th, 2008 12:49 pm:
** Ignorance of the genealogy of morals is no excuse **
The truth of a wide separation of the origins of morality and religion receives a masterful summary by E. R. Dodds (The greeks and the irrational. Berkeley. 1951. pp. 31-32).
What you find impossible, Dodds finds commonplace:
“I need hardly say [sic!] that religion and morals were not initially interdependent, in Greece or elsewhere; they had their separate roots. I suppose that broadly speaking, religion grows out of man’s relationship to his total environment, morals out of his relation to his fellowmen.”
After considering the close intertwining of once separate domains in Sophocles and Eurpides — Dodds gives a generous explanation of a new ‘guilt culture’ demand for divine justice.
“But sooner or later in most cultures there comes a time of suffering when most people refuse to be content with [the separation]. Man projects into the cosmos his nascent demand for social justice; and when from the outer spaces the magnified echo of his own voice returns to him, promising punishment for the guilty, he draws from it courage and reassurance.”
** Ignorance is no excuse **
The truth of a wide separation of the origins of morality and religion receives a masterful summary by E. R. Dodds (The greeks and the irrational. Berkeley. 1951. pp. 31-32).
What you find impossible, Dodds finds commonplace:
“I need hardly say [sic!] that religion and morals were not initially interdependent, in Greece or elsewhere; they had their separate roots. I suppose that broadly speaking, religion grows out of man’s relationship to his total environment, morals out of his relation to his fellowmen.”
After considering the close intertwining of once separate domains in Sophocles and Eurpides — Dodds gives a generous explanation of a new ‘guilt culture’ demand for divine justice.
“But sooner or later in most cultures there comes a time of suffering when most people refuse to be content with [the separation]. Man projects into the cosmos his nascent demand for social justice; and when from the outer spaces the magnified echo of his own voice returns to him, promising punishment for the guilty, he draws from it courage and reassurance.”
Xianity, however, took its moralized universe directly from judaism which had absorbed zoroastrian notions of a war between good and evil on a cosmic scale.
Xian mythology, like other big-4 monotheisms zoroastrianism, post-exilic judaism, and islam, posits a moral world order which never existed. No more can be found in that fiction than the ancestors put into it.
Some of that *meaning* derives ultimately from Sargon I’s imperial propaganda starting about 5,500 years ago when the very first violent yoking together of disparate city-state cultures occurred in what is now Iraq. He is shown in a low relief sculpture as a god receiving a legal and moral code directly from a greater god enthroned above him. (Your myth of divine origin of morality turns out to be ancient political “spin.” Still works today, doesn’t it?)
Today’s distant heirs of long dead imperial Akkado-Sumerian political spin still espouse a hierarchical, moralized, androcentric, universe now widely perceived as empty. What nonsense! The universe is neither meaningful (natural theology) nor meaningless (existentialism). Neither just nor unjust. Neither moral nor immoral.
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Cigar reply on April 9th, 2009 12:00 pm:
“The universe is neither meaningful (natural theology) nor meaningless (existentialism). Neither just nor unjust. Neither moral nor immoral.”
I agree completely. The ideas found in Taoism are much like what you describe here, which is why I like that philosophy the best.
“Atheists are free to reject Christian morality (or accept it without fear of god!) but they can also reject secular morality.”
Exactly! Isn’t one of the great things about being an atheist or not prescribing to one single religion/ system of beliefs is that an atheist can choose to believe in whatever set of principles he sees fit? Einstein said that the religion of the future (if there is to be one) “…will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.” Coming from a man who had a better understanding of the universe than most, I think his words hold great wisdom. Wouldn’t atheists who meld philosophies and religions to have a moral code that is applicable to any situation and based purely on altruism, with no juvanile guilt trips or other worldly rewards involved, be the creators of such a cosmic ‘religion’ or philosophy of the future?
Another good point someone made is that we don’t even need religion to have morals or rules governing society. I think religions don’t really need to exist. People turn to religions from the animalistic fear and awe they have of the world around them. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The real true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self, and the measure in which they help and care for the needs of the world. While I abhor dogma, this is the reason why I don’t shut out all of christian morality… If everyone was commited to excellence, commited to the truth, and shared in a fraternal love for others then this world would be as perfect as it could get.
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Logic or Faith hmmm. I’d like to see ppl get over the left and right brain disputes and evolve a little. Heres a question, regardless of your beliefs how do you propose helping ppl unwilling or incapable of helping themselves? Furthermore when said ppl come into positions of power (Politically or Economically) what would you recommend (sp?) us as individuals do? In my opinion stabilizing the world economics and disarming the fear factors resulting in global and/or internal conflicts would be at the heart of the matter. However how does one really go about that as an individual not wanting to be taken advantage of or have their efforts misused?
Perhaps we will always be a Barbaric race, even wearing suits and ties and talking with silver tongues. Perhaps then some of us need these fairy tales because we have not faith in our fellow man. I don’t really give a shit personally. The human race is disappointing even with its many achievements throughout history I’ve seen little evidence of any perfect society, just pipe dreams and empty promises. So with no God/leader to follow ppl find themselves lost, lol, welcome to the real world.
By the way, if anyone has a wourthwhile answer to any of the questions I mentioned please email me, I would enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Believe in Nothing, Everything is Permitted.
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