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Hitchens' Challenge
Is there any moral action that can't be done by an atheist?

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Hitchens' Challenge
Wosret
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Posted 05/04/08 - 07:58 AM:
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#26
coolazice wrote:


You're not reading my posts carefully enough, or being very charitable. Firstly, I am not talking out of both sides of my mouth, since I explicitly mentioned that the argument works both ways. Secondly, I am not being disingenuous by hiding behind uncertainty. The issue is not uncertainty, or that you could be wrong - the issue is that you cannot give a logical reason for being right. Let me put the question to you: If I did not sing 'hit me with your best shot' last night, what logical or empirical reason do you have for thinking I could have? If you don't like this line of thinking, that's fine, it's not mine, it's Hume's. Again, I will emphasize that the issue is not uncertainty, but the illogic of applying causes to effects - in this case, particularly potent since we are not even talking about actual causes and effects, but hypothetical causes to effects. I can understand where you are coming from in not liking the argument, but you haven't really refuted it, and I would be interested in hearing someone else's opinion on the matter.


I've said numerous times, the fact that I know that it is humanly possible, and the actions that it would require you to preform are not difficult, and could be performed by any healthy person based on my past experience is damn good reason to think that you can. I also already said that Hume did not show that we have no reason to infer the future from the past, he merely showed that it would not be certain, it would merely be probabolistic.

Fine with me if you want me to leave you alone, I will. I apologize if I've bothered you.

coolazice wrote:

OK, if what you're saying is true, I don't see the point of Hitchens' argument, since again this works both ways. It means there must be logical pathways to moral actions as well that are specific to theists. But that is surely not an argument that is useful to someone who is trying to show something about the differences between religion and atheism.






I don't see it either, it's pandering, and says nothing to people that believe morality comes from their religion.


Edited by Wosret on 05/04/08 - 09:21 AM

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Posted 05/04/08 - 08:31 AM:
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#27
jdrw wrote:

I neither believe nor said that religion holds a monopoly on reasons to commit moral actions. Religion does, however, influence many people to behave morally. Neither was my point that inhibiting immoral actions necessarily requires religous morality. It’s simply that the observable fact is that religious morality has inhibited uncountable immoral behaviors, and in a calculus of the impact of religion on human behavior, all this would count as a positive contribution.


Not if it doesn't inhibit immoral actions any better than non-belief, and I see nothing that suggests it does. Polls taken of religiosity of inmates in prison shows about the same ratio of religion to non-religion as in the general public. I don't see any reason to assume this. You say yourself that a culculus of this sort seems impossible to perform, so how can you claim it to be a positive contribution without knowing whether it actual does inhibit moral actions better than non-belief?

jdrw wrote:

Whereever did you get the idea that I said there is a logical pathway to an immoral action from non-belief? What I did say, though, is that belief puts some stricter inhibitions in the way for believers that are not there for non-believers (as in the gambling, drunkeness, sexual activity, that I mentioned.) Recall that my point is that it’s entirely possible for anybody irrespective of belief or non-belief to perform or to refrain from performing these behaviors—but the fact of the matter is that the stricter inhibitions of some religious people have the effect of reducing the incidence of these behaviors amomg those believers. Additionally, religious belief promotes and inspires positive moral behavior in many people.


You misunderstand. I was not saying that you said that, I can be unintelligible at times, and I apologize for that. Being how you felt that I miscontrued your position at first also likely made it easier for you to take it as me doing the same thing again. I was trying to say that there are no logical pathways to moral or immoral actions from either atheism or theism, it requires what is built on top of those foundations to get those.

There are no secular reasons or personal reasons to not gamble get drunk or be permiscuous? I should inform you that AA has no more success rate than people that get clean on their own, secular rehabilitation groups have far better results, and religious sexual education is a joke, which also has far worse results than secular sexual education. Also, in recent polls it showed that the deeply religious had a far higher rate of divorce than the non-religious. I'm not saying that this is reason to think that therefore non-religion surely is better in all of those areas, but I think it makes the idea that religion inhibites those actions at least reasonable to doubt.


jdrw wrote:

The observable fact of the matter is that some people’s religious belief influences them to behave in certain ways that even non-believers would count as moral, and to refrain from some behaviors that even non-believers would count as immoral. I am not claiming that their religious beliefs are the only way to achieve this, nor even the best way to achieve this, I am claiming merely that their beliefs in fact do achieve this, and that it counts as a positive contribution to humanity. People who are not believers certainly can and some actually do behave morally and can and some do refrain from behaving immorally, therefore religiously informed morality is not necessary. But it clearly is sufficient enough to influence many people to behave morally and to refrain from behaving immorally.


Unless it can be demonstrated that they would act less morally if they were not religious, then I don't agree that this is true, and since no data I am aware of suggests that non-believers act less morally, I see no reason to think that their religion really had anything to do with it. Also, if you think that people find absurd rationalisations to do immoral actions that they were going to do anyway (as you say below) then why is it not just as likely that they find absurd rationalisations to do moral actions that they were going to do anyway?

jdrw wrote:

I have not said a thing about belief in God. I have been talking about morality that is espoused and practiced by religious people because they see that morality as an integral aspect of their religious belief.


Well then we have been talking past each other, and I find that odd. How can you use such a ambiguous and wide term to fit a moral outlook? Moral outlooks within the same religion varies by a lot, and is often extremely different between religions. As I said, not all religious people think that their morality comes from their religion, so that again I think makes you using religion in that way odd. I don't think you can blame me for misunderstanding.

jdrw wrote:

So what? Why are you telling me this? My point was only that if the issue is about the influence religious belief or lack thereof has on people’s behavior, then this “without God all things are permitted” notion reveals the influence that some religious believers think religion or lack thereof has on people’s behavior. These believersl interpretation of the consequence of removing God from the picture reveals that they themselves believe that the morality of their religion is a restraining force on behavior, that at least they themselves behave better as believers than they would if they didn't believe that morality was commanded and enforced by God.


See above.

jdrw wrote:

That is exactly my meaning when I said:
Hitchens’ anti-religious point of view would then have to establish whether or not religiously motivated actions increased moral behavior or decreased it. I for one cannot conceive of a calculus by which this could be determined even in principle, let alone in actual empirical operation.


He wasn't though, as I said earlier, he was attempting to say that their are certain logical pathways to immoral actions through religion that are closed to the non-religious, while there are no logical pathways to moral action through religion that are closed to the non-religion. He was not trying to demonstrate that being religious makes you more likely to commit immoral actions. At least I don't think he was, I could be wrong.

My point for raising that was trying to say that no logical pathways to anything follows from theism or atheism (though I don't think that anything can be built ontop of atheism, since it isn't really anything at all) alone, it requires something built upto, though it seems, as I noted above, that we have not been talking about the same thing.

jdrw wrote:

Humans have been killing each other forever, individually, in small hunter-gatherer troupes, in tribes, clans, states, and in multinational coalitions—with or without religious rationalizations for doing so. The irrationality and absurd beliefs are just lame excuses for what we were going to do anyway.


cheers.
jd


I find this veiw defeatist and bleek. It may very well be true, but I don't like it. It could be that people use absurd rationalisations to do what they just want to do, and the rationalisations were built on their desires to commit atrocities, and not their atrocities motivated by their absurd beliefs, that is quite possible. Though I think if we can get a more rational general public, at the very least we can stop just people at the gate, and challenge absurdities whenever we see them, and perhaps view them as an excuse to do immoral actions.

I hope that you will at least agree that such people are rare, and if it wasn't for a gulible general public, it would have been a lot harder for them to gain support.

Edited by Wosret on 05/04/08 - 08:41 AM

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Posted 05/04/08 - 05:29 PM:
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#28
Wosret wrote:

Not if it doesn't inhibit immoral actions any better than non-belief, and I see nothing that suggests it does. Polls taken of religiosity of inmates in prison shows about the same ratio of religion to non-religion as in the general public. I don't see any reason to assume this. You say yourself that a culculus of this sort seems impossible to perform, so how can you claim it to be a positive contribution without knowing whether it actual does inhibit moral actions better than non-belief?


Among the tens of millions of fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians and followers of Islam, for instance, there is dramatically less consumption of alcohol, therefore far less incidence of all the many, many negative consequences of alcohol. This is an undisputed fact. And it clearly is a consequence of their religious belief. Therefore, this particular behavior and the wide array of negative consequences avoided would count as a positive contribution to humanity. That’s all I’m claiming.

These people comprise a distinct subset of the whole population in which subset the many negative consequences of alcohol are virtually absent in comparison with the rest of the society. Talk to your local law enforcement people and ask them for their estimate of the percentage of trouble they are called to deal with that involves alcohol.



You misunderstand. I was not saying that you said that, I can be unintelligible at times, and I apologize for that. Being how you felt that I miscontrued your position at first also likely made it easier for you to take it as me doing the same thing again.


No problem. Actually It nagged at me that perhaps I’d misconstrued this. My mistake.



I was trying to say that there are no logical pathways to moral or immoral actions from either atheism or theism, it requires what is built on top of those foundations to get those.


Actually, I should’ve confessed before that I have no idea what a “logical pathway to a moral or immoral action” even means.



There are no secular reasons or personal reasons to not gamble get drunk or be permiscuous?


Recall that I said: “Neither was my point that inhibiting immoral actions necessarily requires religous morality.”

And I also repeat:
It’s simply that the observable fact is that religious morality has inhibited uncountable immoral behaviors, and in a calculus of the impact of religion on human behavior, all this would count as a positive contribution.




I should inform you that AA has no more success rate than people that get clean on their own, secular rehabilitation groups have far better results, and religious sexual education is a joke, which also has far worse results than secular sexual education.


Also, in recent polls it showed that the deeply religious had a far higher rate of divorce than the non-religious. I'm not saying that this is reason to think that therefore non-religion surely is better in all of those areas, but I think it makes the idea that religion inhibites those actions at least reasonable to doubt.


This is entirely irrelevant to my point that people committed to certain religious moralities in fact refrain from certain behaviors (alcohol, gambling, hideaway pickup bars) that are evidenced in the rest of the population.




Unless it can be demonstrated that they would act less morally if they were not religious, then I don't agree that this is true, and since no data I am aware of suggests that non-believers act less morally, I see no reason to think that their religion really had anything to do with it.


Wouldn’t the control group for the comparison be the rest of society? Because of the religious beliefs, the numerous negative consequences of alcohol consuption and gambling are virtually absent in the fundamentalist and Evangelical Christian and Islamic religious subgroups.



Also, if you think that people find absurd rationalisations to do immoral actions that they were going to do anyway (as you say below) then why is it not just as likely that they find absurd rationalisations to do moral actions that they were going to do anyway?


Do you really think that out of the world’s population all the followers of Islam and fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity happen to be the same people who would’ve been non-drinkers and non-gamblers? Also, it is standard operating procedure for converts to drop those behaviors.

I have not said a thing about belief in God. I have been talking about morality that is espoused and practiced by religious people because they see that morality as an integral aspect of their religious belief.


Well then we have been talking past each other, and I find that odd. How can you use such a ambiguous and wide term to fit a moral outlook? Moral outlooks within the same religion varies by a lot, and is often extremely different between religions. As I said, not all religious people think that their morality comes from their religion, so that again I think makes you using religion in that way odd. I don't think you can blame me for misunderstanding.


If you allow that some religious belief influences certain bahaviors in a negative way, what is the problem with allowing that some religious belief influences certain behaviors in a positive way—which is all I’ve claimed. As I said, I know of no way to calculate whether some “net effect” is positive or negative.



He wasn't though, as I said earlier, he was attempting to say that their are certain some religious belief influences certain behaviors in a positive way s through religion that are closed to the non-religious, while there are no logical pathways to moral action through religion that are closed to the non-religion. He was not trying to demonstrate that being religious makes you more likely to commit immoral actions. At least I don't think he was, I could be wrong.


As I’ve said, I have no idea what “logical pathways to moral (or to immoral) action” even means. Religious belief clearly influences believers’ behavior. The rest of us judge some of that behavior to be negative or immoral, and I am claiming that some of that behavior is positive or moral.


As I admitted to itry2brational back a couple of posts:
All the foregoing, though, is entirely beside the point that Hitchens is addressing. His question: “Is there any moral action that a believer has ever performed that could not have been performed by a non-believer?” actually is in response to claims by religious people that without religion there is no reason for people to behave morally, that without God people cannot be moral. The observable fact of the matter, of course, is that millions of people can and do behave morally without God. The social norms that religious people would characterize as morality influence the behavior of non-believers with a high degree of effectiveness. And it is also the case that the prevailing norms of our society are remarkably compatible on the whole with the morality espoused by religious believers.



Cheers.
jd

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Posted 05/04/08 - 07:03 PM:
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#29
jdrw wrote:

I do not see the connection. I have no opinion about whether one of those positions is “more moral” than the other.

Uh, what? Then what are you saying when you say this:
jdrw wrote:
..subscription to a religious morality...tends to influence believers’ behavior such that they behave more morally...

Sounds to me like you DO have an opinion on what is more moral. In fact, this in the crux of your entire argument: that believers act more morally than the nonbelievers.

Alcohol
We, and Hitchens, are not comparing one religious denomination to another nor the religiosity and strictness of one denomination over another or the nonreligious. We are comparing 'believers' to non-believers. Since alcohol use is very prominent within certain religious groups(Catholics for instance) they are included in the comparison. In order to substantiate your claim that instances of alcohol use(and more importantly, abuse) is 'significantly lower' among believers you have to include those who use alcohol within their own religious rituals, let alone outside of them. Since a significant proportion(85%) of the population claims a religious affiliation(believers), you would have to show that the non-religious(15%) are buying a greater proportion(>15%) of the alcohol in the nation. Catholics alone represent 26% of the population.

Demographics of the United States - Religious Affiliation

U.S. Census Bureau - Population

The same proportional argument should be applied to your other claims about gambling and adulterous sex. I will take note that you have chosen 'fundamentalists' and Muslims as your example groups, both of which are more strict and extreme "than the rest of general society" including the other religious groups.
jdrw wrote:
Do you deny that the incidence of these behaviors is far less among the believers than in the rest of the population at large?

Yes, I do. I don't think the proportion is any greater or lower among either group. And again, I will take note that you are trying to single out the most strict among the believers for your comparisons. This gives a skewed view of the larger picture which is a comparison between believers and nonbelievers...as a whole. Just for the U.S. this is a comparison between 85% of the population vs 15%.
jdrw wrote:
Do you deny that religious prohibition of alcohol consumption, gambling, patronizing places where aldulterous sexual liasons are quite likely is stricter than the prevailing secular morality which permits these bahaviors?

Yes, I do. You are making a false assumption and accusation that alcoholism, gambling, and adultery are morally permissible among the non-believers. You are falling for the "without God, all things are permitted" trap. Without morals and ethics, all things are permitted. You must, therefore, make the claim that ALL nonbelievers do not have morals and ethics in order to substantiate your claim. I think that is obviously impossible.
I am an atheist, I am married and adultery is NOT permitted. Not because some doctrine prohibits it but because it violates my moral and ethical code. My 'secular morality' does not permit these behaviors, therefore your claim is false.

Also, again, where are these "prevailing secular" morals you speak of? How are you coming up with them? Who has defined them? More on this later.

jdrw wrote:
Do you dispute the claim that tens of millions of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and followers of Islam are non-drinkers?

That depends. If you are referring to the United States, yes, I dispute your claim. When looking at the census data I presented earlier, Evangelicals and Muslims combined composed only 1.1% of the population. The population of the U.S. is around 300,000,000. So that figure amounts to ~3.3 million, which is at least an order of magnitude off. Its difficult to quantify 'fundamentalist(s)' because they are not a particular denomination. However, I think its clear that you are trying to single out the most strict groups with regard to the prohibitions you are referring to, and with that in mind its safe to say that the 'fundamentalists' are indeed a small group as well.

Now, as far as denominations which could be considered a form of Evangelical Christianity(which includes Protestant) but are not strictly defined as 'Evangelicals' your group number grows significantly. Your problem then becomes proving that all of those are "non-drinkers" which, I think, is false. I say this because alcohol use among Protestants has been split(moderationism, abstentionism, prohibitionism) for quite some time. Some still think it is OK, others don't.

jdrw wrote:
I do not have the sources at hand and am not willing even to Google this.

Burden of proof is placed squarely upon the shoulders of the one who makes the claim. So please refrain from making claims which you are not willing to provide the evidence/proof for.

Also, even if you were to provide sufficient proof, it should be balanced by the deaths which religious beliefs have caused, as I gave an example of previously(AIDS and prohibited condom use in Africa).

jdrw wrote:
That the mass murders were not done “in the name of atheism” is irrelevant to the point I made, which is that the perpetrators were not inhibited by a religious morality that would have forbade such behavior. If you can dismiss the atheism of the perpetrators as irrelevant and reframe them as PEOPLE who committed the murders, then the theism of those who’ve killed people in religious wars and persecutions also can be dismissed as irrelevant, and they too can be reframed as PEOPLE who ignored moral restraints. The influence of belief can be contrasted meaningfully with non-belief only if it works both ways.

The non-believing perpetrators were not inhibited by ANY morality. The believing perpetrators had support from their "religious morality". A huge difference.

This is what I meant by 'more on this later'. Atheism is not an ideology. Atheism is merely lack or absence of belief in gods. It has no body of doctrine to be taught. It has no political or social plan. It has no system of beliefs. It makes no claims about the universe(like creation). It professes no ownership of truth. Religions do all of those things. You could just as well blame Pol Pot's actions on his lack of belief in the tooth fairy as his lack of belief in the divine.

In both cases of believers and non-believers performing atrocities against humanity, they were done based on the pursuit or fulfillment of some ideology, doctrine or dogma. Lack or absence of belief in something is not the source, reason, or motivation for those acts. Since atheism is not composed of those things(in the previous paragraph) it cannot be held responsible. Since religious beliefs ARE founded on all of those principles, and acts against humanity can specifically be attributed to them, it CAN be held accountable. That is where they differ.

Steven Weinberg's quote makes it more clear. The people who were party to atrocities against humanity in the name of their religion honestly felt they were being moral! They were able to use their doctrine or ideology as the basis for their immoral acts. To them it was perfectly moral to destroy all perceived witches, heretics, infidels, apostates, inferiors, dissenters, nonbelievers etc ad nauseum.

What your position essentially does is make the claim that believers have a controlling interest on morality. And I'm honestly inspired to throw your examples of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao into the group of 'believers' because they were staunch believers in their own ideology. And Hitler hardly qualifies as a non-believer anyways. And to substantiate your claim, you are making moral comparisons(though somehow you have no opinion on them). The way you do it is by stating that believers/theists have this or that claim to morality which non-believers do not. But as I have asked several times, how do you know the non-believers lack them? How are you able to make your claims? In the theist's(and religion's) case we have their doctrines to turn to. Where are the doctrines of the atheist for comparison? And what about the amoral and immoral which religious doctrines have to offer? Beating your wife, stoning your children for misbehaving, killing non-believers, genocide, slavery, labor on Sunday, punishment for coveting(thought crime), castes...this could get tiresome. How do all of those supposedly 'moral' offerings weigh against the others which you are using for comparison? They don't drink(which is 'good' for society - unsubstantiated claim) but they do feel its OK to beat your wife. hmmmm They forbid adultery(which is not exclusive to believers) but they also believe that some people are simply lower lifeforms. hmmmm Gambling is a sin but slavery is permissible. How convenient! Where are the precepts in the (non-existent) atheist dogma/doctrine which state:
Murder and genocide is allowed,
Adultery is OK,
Gambling is authorized,
Alcohol abuse is permissible?

If you cannot find these things, then you cannot directly attribute atheism to those atrocities or misdemeanors. You must prove conclusively that atheism, which does not have a doctrine or dogma, specifically allows heinous crimes against humanity and misdemeanors. Religions and ideologies with their doctrines and dogma specifically and conclusively do. You must also conclusively show that atheism does not have prohibitions against those things. But since atheism is merely the lack of belief in gods, I'm afraid you might be at a loss. *shrug*

jdrw wrote:
...atheist behavior is free from the moral constraints of the theists. All believers are constrained by the religious morality, but not all atheists feel constrained by a corresponding morality.

Again, you are essentially saying that atheists do not have prohibitions on adultery, alcohol abuse, gambling and crimes against humanity. This is conclusively false. Also, the "religious morality" you speak of would encompass those immoral precepts which I discussed earlier. I will concede that most atheists do no have morals which correspond to those.

jdrw wrote:
I have never seen a figure anywhere near 600+ million. The population of the whole world didn’t reach a billion until the 19th ccntury.

This is an argument from ignorance. Your second statement really has no point.
itry2brational wrote:
There is no single thing in the world that has divided humanity more than religion.

jdrw wrote:
Actually political ideology is numero uno--by a huge margin.

If this were true then why do we have Democrats of differing religious beliefs? Why do we have Republicans the same? Why do we have entire democratic societies divided along religious lines? Even within NON-democratic societies we find religious division. To give you an idea:
There are:
2,224,964,298 Christians
1,402,956,179 Muslims
885,444,975 Hindus
389,969,732 Buddhists
233,714,737 Sikhs
153,583,970 Jews
80,130,767 Baha'is
786,617,029 Other religions
The rest are non-religious.

Also, many of the 'political ideologies' you refer to are based on religions or have religions as major constructs to their belief systems. And this is just the beginning of the divide! 2.2 billion Christians are divided even further among their various denominations. Not to mention the other religions divided similarly. Political ideologies can change, but religious dogma and doctrine are meant to be eternal and hold claim to being absolutely true. Political ideologies can have religious divisions within them. Which is why I hold to my opinion.
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Posted 05/04/08 - 10:06 PM:
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#30
jdrw wrote:

Among the tens of millions of fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians and followers of Islam, for instance, there is dramatically less consumption of alcohol, therefore far less incidence of all the many, many negative consequences of alcohol. This is an undisputed fact. And it clearly is a consequence of their religious belief. Therefore, this particular behavior and the wide array of negative consequences avoided would count as a positive contribution to humanity. That’s all I’m claiming.

These people comprise a distinct subset of the whole population in which subset the many negative consequences of alcohol are virtually absent in comparison with the rest of the society. Talk to your local law enforcement people and ask them for their estimate of the percentage of trouble they are called to deal with that involves alcohol.


Although this may seem like back peddling, I should just saying that I argued that point because I thought you were wrong, not necessarily because I thought it would be valid if you were right.

Well I don't actually consider being a gambling drunken slut to be immoral, as long as you aren't hurting anyone except yourself. I don't think those are at all large problems, especially compared with the price that is paid. I'd rather a lot of drunk gambling sluts to a group of misogynyses with half the species enslaved. We could have differing opinions on this however. I for one think it is quite a huge trade-off myself.

jdrw wrote:

Actually, I should’ve confessed before that I have no idea what a “logical pathway to a moral or immoral action” even means.


As in if you think that your neighbor could say something to your child that risk their eternal soul forever. Just a few words, then it is reasonable to take extreme measures to stop such a thing. My point in saying that there are no logical pathways strictly from god-belief or disbelief was that no such pathways can be drawn. You have to make a lot more assumptions in order to do that. About metaphysics, what god wants of you, and things of that nature. So I don't think there are logical pathways to immoral actions strictly from a theistic belief, but I think that there clearly are from many religious beliefs.

jdrw wrote:

If you allow that some religious belief influences certain bahaviors in a negative way, what is the problem with allowing that some religious belief influences certain behaviors in a positive way—which is all I’ve claimed. As I said, I know of no way to calculate whether some “net effect” is positive or negative.


I didn't deny this, I only denied that religious belief is more influential than non-religious belief in those causes. I don't think that such things like the prohobition of alcohol can be seperated from the bigotry toward homosexuals, or the misogynye to demonstrate it either. I consider the latter two a hell of a lot worse.


jdrw wrote:


As I admitted to itry2brational back a couple of posts:
All the foregoing, though, is entirely beside the point that Hitchens is addressing. His question: “Is there any moral action that a believer has ever performed that could not have been performed by a non-believer?” actually is in response to claims by religious people that without religion there is no reason for people to behave morally, that without God people cannot be moral. The observable fact of the matter, of course, is that millions of people can and do behave morally without God. The social norms that religious people would characterize as morality influence the behavior of non-believers with a high degree of effectiveness. And it is also the case that the prevailing norms of our society are remarkably compatible on the whole with the morality espoused by religious believers.



Cheers.
jd


Yes, but his second question "can you think of a immoral action performed by a believer, because of their religion?" is an attempt to demonstrate logical pathways (which are reasonable inferences based on absurd premises or assumptions. Like "if everything god says is the right thing to do, and I have reason to believe that god wants me to kill and take out as many people in the process as possible, then that is the right thing to do" substitute absurd premise or assumption as you see fit.) to immoral actions that are closed to non-believers.

This is kind of unfair, because "atheism" has nothing built ontop of it, it isn't equal to religion. It is why the religious attempt to draw such inferences from ideologies and philosophies that didn't involve god. It is perfectly valid to attack them, and say their absurd beliefs logically led to their immoral actions. Though this is useless when arguing against almost all atheists, because we aren't Nazis or followers of a Stalinist ideology. While they actually are christians, or muslims, or whatever religion you are attacking. It leaves them at a huge disadvantage in this regard. They have no idea what you may or may not actually believe, or what you veiws might be as an atheist. So they attack anything and everything that they see atheists believing, or that don't involve god.

I personally don't care to see religion all die, or everyone become an atheist. I fully accept that not all religions are equal, and not all have to be bad. I do think that it is important to not accept the bad with the good, and to keep on them with criticism, and everything we have until all of the bad is gone, or at least all that we can get out of it. History attests that religion's ability to conform, and reform.

I don't think we should be willing to trade some immoral behaviour for some moral behaviour, when we can have both. If religion is anything it is adaptable, and I think we need to keep on it to adapt.

You last sentence I find a small bit comical, isn't it clearly the case that the reason that "the prevailing norms of our society are remarkably compatible on the whole with the morality espoused by religious believers" is that the vast majority of the people in our society are the ones esponsing that morality?

They certaintly don't agree with mine, though my views on morality is not exactly a prevailing view. That in no way makes mine worse and theirs better.


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jdrw
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Usergroup: Moderators
Joined: Apr 11, 2004
Location: Pennsylvania
Total Topics: 11
Total Posts: 1490
Posted 05/05/08 - 04:41 PM:
quote post
#31
itry2brational wrote:

jdrw wrote:

I do not see the connection. I have no opinion about whether one of those positions is “more moral” than the other.


Uh, what? Then what are you saying when you say this:
jdrw wrote:
..subscription to a religious morality...tends to influence believers’ behavior such that they behave more morally...

Sounds to me like you DO have an opinion on what is more moral. In fact, this in the crux of your entire argument: that believers act more morally than the nonbelievers.


As I very clearly said: I have no opinion about whether one of those positions that you presented is “more moral” that the other. I do have the opinion, however, that behavior (such as abstinence from alcohol, gambling, and trolling in hideaway pickup bars) that avoids causing pain and suffering is more moral than behavior that causes pain and suffering (such as indulgence in alcohol, gambling, and trolling in hideaway pickup bars).

And all I have claimed is that some people’s religious belief results in certain behaviors that decrease pain and suffering and death, and that decreasing pain and suffering and death counts as a positive consequence for humanity.


itry2brational wrote:

Since alcohol use is very prominent within certain religious groups(Catholics for instance) they are included in the comparison. In order to substantiate your claim that instances of alcohol use(and more importantly, abuse) is 'significantly lower' among believers you have to include those who use alcohol within their own religious rituals, let alone outside of them.

Since a significant proportion(85%) of the population claims a religious affiliation(believers), you would have to show that the non-religious(15%) are buying a greater proportion(>15%) of the alcohol in the nation. Catholics alone represent 26% of the population.


I’d clearly said certain believers who were teetotalers and non-gamblers, clearly said fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians and followers of Islam, and I clearly said this several times. Everything I said about believers’ behavior was specific to this subset of people. Since I was making no claim about the whole population of religious believers, I don’t “have to include” anybody but the people I was making claims about.

By what line of reasoning did you draw the mistaken inference that I was talking about anybody except those I clearly and repeatedly said I was talking about?


itry2brational wrote:

The same proportional argument should be applied to your other claims about gambling and adulterous sex. I will take note that you have chosen 'fundamentalists' and Muslims as your example groups, both of which are more strict and extreme "than the rest of general society" including the other religious groups.


Yes, I was talking about fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and Muslims, both of which are more strict than the rest of society including other religious groups. I clearly said all this more than once. I’m glad you get it.

What you don’t seem to get is that I was talking about fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians and Muslims--and not about other religious groups. The religious beliefs of fundamentalists, evangelicals, and Muslims influence them as a subset to behave more morally regarding alcohol consumption, gambling and trolling hideaway spots for adulterous affairs than the remaining subset of all the rest of society. I offered this only as an example demonstrating that some religious beliefs can and do actually influence some people to behave morally. That’s all I’ve claimed. It was merely what I took to be an obvious and uncontroversial example of a particular religious belief having a particular positive effect on the whole society.


itry2brational wrote:

jdrw wrote:

Do you deny that the incidence of these behaviors is far less among the believers than in the rest of the population at large?


Yes, I do. I don't think the proportion is any greater or lower among either group. And again, I will take note that you are trying to single out the most strict among the believers for your comparisons. This gives a skewed view of the larger picture which is a comparison between believers and nonbelievers...as a whole. Just for the U.S. this is a comparison between 85% of the population vs 15%.


The believers I was talking about in that context and just about every time I’ve talked about believers are the fundamentalist and Evangelical and Muslim believers I specified.

The proportion is irrelevant.

You have mistakenly inferred that I am claiming something about religious believers as a whole. My selection of fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians and Muslims was not a misrepresentative sample of the whole group of religious believers, because I made no claims about the whole group of religious believers. The only claim I’ve made, and which I was very clear about, is that certain religious beliefs influence people to behave more morally regarding certain behaviors. Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians and Muslims behavior regarding alcohol, gambling, and trolling hideaway bars for adulterous affairs provide an obvious example of this.


itry2brational wrote:

jdrw wrote:

Do you deny that religious prohibition of alcohol consumption, gambling, patronizing places where adulterous sexual liaisons are quite likely is stricter than the prevailing secular morality which permits these behaviors?


Yes, I do. You are making a false assumption and accusation that alcoholism, gambling, and adultery are morally permissible among the non-believers.


Not at all. I claim only that there is far more tolerance for those behaviors and therefore far more occurrence of them in the general society than in the particular religious groups I specified.


itry2brational wrote:

You are falling for the "without God, all things are permitted" trap. Without morals and ethics, all things are permitted. You must, therefore, make the claim that ALL nonbelievers do not have morals and ethics in order to substantiate your claim. I think that is obviously impossible.


My claim is that there is far more excessive drinking, gambling and trolling for adulterous affairs in hideaway bars among the general population than among the particular religious groups I specified.

My claim is that because the particular religious groups that I specified believe in and actually adhere to their behavior guidelines about these particular activities, there is far less incidence of these activities than among the general society.


itry2brational wrote:

I am an atheist, I am married and adultery is NOT permitted. Not because some doctrine prohibits it but because it violates my moral and ethical code. My 'secular morality' does not permit these behaviors, therefore your claim is false.


Which of my claims do you think you’ve falsified by the fact that your secular morality does not permit those behaviors?


itry2brational wrote:

Also, again, where are these "prevailing secular" morals you speak of? How are you coming up with them? Who has defined them? More on this later.


You really can’t tell whether or not the fundamentalist and evangelical Christian and Muslim moral guidelines regarding alcohol consumption and gambling are stricter than the prevailing norms of American society?

You yourself have recognized that the fundamentalists and Muslims (in your words) “are more strict and extreme than the rest of general society including the other religious group” and even used this to imply that this group is a misrepresentative sample of society because they “are more strict than the rest of society and other religious groups.” More strict compared to what? What was your meaning if not more strict than the prevailing norms of the general society?


itry2brational wrote:

jdrw wrote:

Do you dispute the claim that tens of millions of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and followers of Islam are non-drinkers?


That depends. If you are referring to the United States, yes, I dispute your claim. When looking at the census data I presented earlier, Evangelicals and Muslims combined composed only 1.1% of the population. The population of the U.S. is around 300,000,000. So that figure amounts to ~3.3 million, which is at least an order of magnitude off. Its difficult to quantify 'fundamentalist(s)' because they are not a particular denomination. However, I think its clear that you are trying to single out the most strict groups with regard to the prohibitions you are referring to, and with that in mind its safe to say that the 'fundamentalists' are indeed a small group as well.


Since I have not been claiming that the fundamentalists and Evangelicals and Muslims who’s beliefs and behavior I’ve been addressing are a representative sample of a larger population to which my claims also apply, the percentage those groups comprise of the total population is entirely irrelevant.

But for what it’s worth, once again your numbers are remarkably different than those I am familiar with.

“Depending on how the question is asked, some 25-45 percent of the population report that they see themselves as either Born-Again Christians, or, in the broadest sense of the word, Christian "Evangelicals."
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v17n2/evangelic...

And an ABC poll in 2002 put Christians at some 83% of the U.S. population, and the Evangelical figure at 37% of those Christians. By these calculations that would put the number of U.S. Evangelicals at something like 90 million.

Note also, that there is no reason whatsoever that the claims I’ve made need to be limited to only the U. S. Muslins account for some 21% of the world population. (Over a billion Muslims.) That’s a lot of people whose behavior regarding alcohol, gambling, and trolling pickup bars is influenced by their beliefs. And that’s a lot of pain and suffering avoided because of those religious beliefs.


Nonetheless, the percentage of the whole that the particular religious groups that I’ve specified comprise is entirely irrelevant, since I have not been claiming that the fundamentalist and Evangelical and Muslims are a representative sample. I have been talking only about them. And it is the case that the behavior of these vast numbers of people is influenced by their religious beliefs—which is all I’ve claimed, and which for some reason that I cannot fathom, you dispute.


itry2brational wrote:

Now, as far as denominations which could be considered a form of Evangelical Christianity(which includes Protestant) but are not strictly defined as 'Evangelicals' your group number grows significantly. Your problem then becomes proving that all of those are "non-drinkers" which, I think, is false. I say this because alcohol use among Protestants has been split(moderationism, abstentionism, prohibitionism) for quite some time. Some still think it is OK, others don't.


By what reasoning process exactly have you come to conclude that my claim that some people’s religious belief influences their behavior not to drink requires me to prove that anybody else also is a non-drinker?

Do you dispute my claim that some people’s religious beliefs influence them not to drink? Like the hundreds of millions of Muslims I referred to for instance? Do you dispute my claim that non-drinkers don’t have alcohol impaired car accidents that maim and kill people? Do you dispute my claim that not having alcohol impaired car accidents that maim and kill people is better than having alcohol impaired car accidents that maim and kill people?


itry2brational wrote:

Burden of proof is placed squarely upon the shoulders of the one who makes the claim. So please refrain from making claims which you are not willing to provide the evidence/proof for.


Thank you for informing me about where the burden of proof lies in a disputed claim. I’ve always wondered about that and at last, thanks to you, I now know.

Sorry for assuming you are better informed about charitable giving than you actually are. I won’t make any more such claims without footnotes, even when such claims are common knowledge among informed people.

The claim you are disputing is a well known sociological fact reported in the general press every once in a while. It is not worth the trouble for me to search this out to prove the particular point. My argument does not hinge on that issue anyway. You can inform yourself that my claim is true if you really are interested in the fact of the matter. I do not retract it. I simply don’t need it.


itry2brational wrote:

Also, even if you were to provide sufficient proof, it should be balanced by the deaths which religious beliefs have caused, as I gave an example of previously(AIDS and prohibited condom use in Africa).


You’ve repeatedly implied that you think that the consequences of moral and immoral behavior can somehow be balanced out or that it can be shown that on the whole the bad outweighs the good. I have said more than once that I know of no calculus by which this could be determined even in principle let alone in actual empirical practice. I’d be very interested in how you’ve done this in your judgment that religion on the whole has caused more harm than good for humanity.

What I do find it possible to address are particular behaviors. Indeed religious beliefs about condoms have resulted in death and suffering. More of the same behavior would be worse by my values, and less would be better. Likewise reduction in the incidence of alcohol impaired driving that results in pain, suffering, and death counts as a good thing by my values. But I can conceive of no way to compare the good resulting form one behavior with the bad resulting from a different behavior to determine some kind of net difference. What is the unit of measurement for pain and suffering? And even if you counted lives lost or saved, are all lives of equal value? Says who? Anyway I cannot imagine how you can do such a comparison.


itry2brational wrote:

The non-believing perpetrators were not inhibited by ANY morality. The believing perpetrators had support from their "religious morality". A huge difference.

This is what I meant by 'more on this later'. Atheism is not an ideology. Atheism is merely lack or absence of belief in gods. It has no body of doctrine to be taught. It has no political or social plan. It has no system of beliefs. It makes no claims about the universe(like creation). It professes no ownership of truth. Religions do all of those things. You could just as well blame Pol Pot's actions on his lack of belief in the tooth fairy as his lack of belief in the divine.

In both cases of believers and non-believers performing atrocities against humanity, they were done based on the pursuit or fulfillment of some ideology, doctrine or dogma. Lack or absence of belief in something is not the source, reason, or motivation for those acts. Since atheism is not composed of those things(in the previous paragraph) it cannot be held responsible. Since religious beliefs ARE founded on all of those principles, and acts against humanity can specifically be attributed to them, it CAN be held accountable. That is where they differ.


That so-called religious conflicts such as the Crusades and the Thirty Years War and the like really were about religious concerns is not a claim that I for one am convinced of. Nor are very many historians or sociologists.

That the great massacres of the 20th Century were largely driven by political ideologies is widely accepted.


itry2brational wrote:

Steven Weinberg's quote makes it more clear. The people who were party to atrocities against humanity in the name of their religion honestly felt they were being moral! They were able to use their doctrine or ideology as the basis for their immoral acts. To them it was perfectly moral to destroy all perceived witches, heretics, infidels, apostates, inferiors, dissenters, nonbelievers etc ad nauseum.


And it was perfectly moral for Stalin and Mao to eliminate opponents and starve and kill any number of people because they construed it as necessary to achieve their political ends. What’s your point? People can justify the alleged morality of their actions however they want to. A million Iraqis killed in our present war there. And the American president claims it’s necessary result of a just war first to protect the U.S. from terrorists and secondly to rid the world of a terrible dictator, thirdly to spread democracy, blah, blah, blah.

My guess is that people use their ideologies, whether religious or political or whatever, as rationalizations, and that they in fact are impelled by ancient drives evolved to differentiate outsiders from “us” and kill them off. Killing off outsiders on the whole throughout the ages has been more effective than not killing them off since outsiders are potential competition and threat, and killing them off eliminates that potential competition and threat with certainty. Whereas if you don’t kill them off and they turn out to be a threat, perhaps even just by out-competing you--if not actually attacking you-- then you’re done for. It’s an adaptive behavior. Killing others off works. And we have lots of ways to construe others as “others.” Religion is just one way. We also have skin color, physical features, especially facial features, ethnic background. family or tribe affiliation, socio-economic class, language (including dialects and regional and class variants), food preferences, education, geographic location, values, norms, morals, which side of the head you wear your parrot feathers on, which ear you hook your seashell onto … . In thousands of years we haven’t run out of ways to construe others as “others” nor have we run out of rationalizations for killing those bastards. All it takes is for us to convince ourselves that “they” are a threat to us somehow, and we’re ready to kill them. War in Iraq? All it took was convincing ourselves that those bastards were a threat to us. We don’t use religious rationalization so blatantly as we used to, but it was no accident that Bush did in fact use several religious metaphors in selling the war to the ‘mercan people. We don’t need theological differences to inspire us to kill each other, they’re just a convenient excuse.


itry2brational wrote:

What your position essentially does is make the claim that believers have a controlling interest on morality.


Actually, I don’t even know what you mean. You will have to explain what you mean and then how you arrived at this conclusion from what I’ve actually claimed.


itry2brational wrote:

And I'm honestly inspired to throw your examples of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao into the group of 'believers' because they were staunch believers in their own ideology. And Hitler hardly qualifies as a non-believer anyways.


This is fallacious reasoning. It is blatantly equivocal use of the term “believers” which in everything I said, as well as in all that Hitchens is talking about, refers unequivocally to religious belief. To “throw your examples of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao into the group of believers because they were staunch believers in their own ideology” is blatant equivocation.


itry2brational wrote:

And to substantiate your claim, you are making moral comparisons(though somehow you have no opinion on them). The way you do it is by stating that believers/theists have this or that claim to morality which non-believers do not. But as I have asked several times, how do you know the non-believers lack them?


The specific issues I referred to are about the negative consequences of alcohol, gambling and trolling for adulterous affairs. The negative consequences of these behaviors are mutually agreed on between the particular religious groups I specified and by the general society. Driving drunk and injuring or killing people is mutually agreed on to be a negative consequence of drinking excessively. Similarly for any number of negative consequences of gambling and adulterous affairs. The fact is that some people (such as millions and millions of fundamentalists, Evangelicals, and Muslims) are influenced by their religious beliefs to refrain from alcohol, gambling and trolling for adulterous affairs. The consequence of their refraining from these behaviors is a dramatic absence of the negative consequences of those behaviors. This elimination of pain suffering and death strikes me as a positive consequence for humanity. Thousands of people are killed and even more thousands are injured in car accidents involving alcohol impaired drivers, not to mention millions of dollars in property damage and lost income and productivity. You don’t even have to actually do the math to realize what would happen if tens of millions of people who presently abstain from alcohol stopped abstaining and instead proportionally drank and drove at the same levels as the rest of society. Because these tens of millions of people do not drink and drive proportionally at the same levels as the rest of society, thousands of lives and tens of thousands of injuries and tens of millions of dollars of property damage and loss of income and productivity are entirely avoided. This is a consequence of their religious belief, and I would think counts as a positive contribution.


itry2brational wrote:

How are you able to make your claims? In the theist's(and religion's) case we have their doctrines to turn to. Where are the doctrines of the atheist for comparison? And what about the amoral and immoral which religious doctrines have to offer? Beating your wife, stoning your children for misbehaving, killing non-believers, genocide, slavery, labor on Sunday, punishment for coveting(thought crime), castes...this could get tiresome. How do all of those supposedly 'moral' offerings weigh against the others which you are using for comparison?

They don't drink(which is 'good' for society - unsubstantiated claim) but they do feel its OK to beat your wife. hmmmm They forbid adultery(which is not exclusive to believers) but they also believe that some people are simply lower lifeforms. hmmmm Gambling is a sin but slavery is permissible. How convenient!


Apparently you missed the two or three times that I said that I for one cannot conceive of a calculus by which it could be determined even in principle whether or not religiously motivated actions increased moral behavior or decreased it on the whole. At best we can determine that subscription to prescriptions and proscriptions about certain fairly specific behaviors increases or decreases the incidence of those behaviors, but I can’t conceive of a way to assign some sort of moral unit by which to compare different behaviors. For example, we can determine whether the incidence of car accidents cause by alcohol impairment is more prevalent or less prevalent among Muslims compared with the rest of the society, but we cannot measure the net moral effect of various moral or immoral behaviors. How much pain and suffering avoided by not causing drunk driving fatalities and injuries cancels out a suicide bombing? How many orphans saved from the streets are equal to the pain and suffering caused by discouraging the use of condoms?


itry2brational wrote:

They don't drink(which is 'good' for society - unsubstantiated claim) but they do feel its OK to beat your wife. hmmmm They forbid adultery(which is not exclusive to believers) but they also believe that some people are simply lower lifeforms. hmmmm Gambling is a sin but slavery is permissible. How convenient!


If you agree that causing the pain and suffering and even deaths from alcohol consumption are undesirable, or “bad” for society, then would not the avoidance of causing pain and suffering and death from alcohol consumption count as a “good” thing? Millions and millions of people abstaining from alcohol consumption surely has the effect of reducing the pain and suffering and deaths caused by alcohol consumption.

I have not claimed that the good cancels out the bad. I have explicitly stated several times that I know of no way to compare different goods or different bads. I know of no way to determine some net good or net bad of the whole thing.


itry2brational wrote:

Where are the precepts in the (non-existent) atheist dogma/doctrine which state:
Murder and genocide is allowed,
Adultery is OK,
Gambling is authorized,
Alcohol abuse is permissible?


I cannot fathom by what illogic you infer that these are entailed by the claims I made.


itry2brational wrote:

If you cannot find these things, then you cannot directly attribute atheism to those atrocities or misdemeanors. You must prove conclusively that atheism, which does not have a doctrine or dogma, specifically allows heinous crimes against humanity and misdemeanors. Religions and ideologies with their doctrines and dogma specifically and conclusively do. You must also conclusively show that atheism does not have prohibitions against those things. But since atheism is merely the lack of belief in gods, I'm afraid you might be at a loss. *shrug*


By what illogic do you infer that I attribute those atrocities to atheism?

Alcohol consumption (even to a certain degree of excess) is well-tolerated by the prevailing norms of the general society. So is quite a bit of gambling, and even some adultery is tolerated by some people. All I said was that these are acceptable in the general society at levels that are far less restrictive than are allowed in certain more restrictive religious groups.

Mass murder and genocide are behaviors that in the 20th century have been driven by atheistic political--not religious--ideologies.


itry2brational wrote:

jdrw wrote:
...atheist behavior is free from the moral constraints of the theists. All believers are constrained by the religious morality, but not all atheists feel constrained by a corresponding morality.

Again, you are essentially saying that atheists do not have prohibitions on adultery, alcohol abuse, gambling and crimes against humanity. This is conclusively false. Also, the "religious morality" you speak of would encompass those immoral precepts which I discussed earlier. I will concede that most atheists do no have morals which correspond to those.


Your misreadings and non-sequiturs just keep flowing.

What I said in the quote you pasted is that from some theists’ point of view “atheist behavior is free from the moral constraints of the theists.” From the theist point of view, the atheists do not feel constrained by a revealed morality, therefore they are free to abide by or to disregard or to tolerate or to prohibit whatever they happen to feel like abiding by or disregarding or tolerating or prohibiting.

I said:\
One of the ongoing fears expressed by some religious people about atheism is expressed in such lines as “If there is no God, then everything is permitted” which they fear would mean total lack of constraints on people’s behavior.


As some theists see it, without some final moral authority handed down from and enforced by God, there is no authority to answer to, therefore all is permissible. People can adhere to moral principles or not with no consequences beyond the reactions of other people and natural physical laws. As I said, however, what these theists seem wholly unaware of is that the morality of the general society is remarkably congruent with their religious morality. (Our laws attest to this, of course.) Many aspects of the norms of the larger general society are far more tolerant and flexible than the morals of certain religious groups, but there is a vast area of mutual agreement.


itry2brational wrote:

jdrw wrote:

I have never seen a figure anywhere near 600+ million. The population of the whole world didn’t reach a billion until the 19th century.


This is an argument from ignorance. Your second statement really has no point.


Perhaps you can live by your own advice regarding who’s responsibility the burden of proof it is.

If you consider that the entire world population at the time of the crusades, for instance, was only about 300 million, and at the time of the so-called “religious wars” of the 17th century the entire world population was only about 700 million, your 600+ million figure looks pretty specious. When and where exactly was it that all these hundreds of millions of people were killed in religious conflicts? The relevance of the population figures I gave is that you can see that these hundreds of millions surely must have represented a really significant percentage of their population, even if spread out over many different incidents over the years.

How exactly do you determine that the alleged killing of these 600+ million people was religiously motivated? How exactly do you definitively differentiate a religious motivation from a political motivation posturing as being about religious issues?


itry2brational wrote:

There is no single thing in the world that has divided humanity more than religion.


What do you mean by “divided”? Is divided undesirable?

If divided is undesirable, then one incredibly successful solution would be to get people to sign on to some religion, since it also could be said that no single thing in the world has united humanity more than religion. Any divisions you could refer to are divisions of huge groups of people who are united in those huge groups by their religious beliefs.


itry2brational wrote:

jdrw wrote:

Actually political ideology is numero uno--by a huge margin.


If this were true then why do we have Democrats of differing religious beliefs? Why do we have Republicans the same? Why do we have entire democratic societies divided along religious lines? Even within NON-democratic societies we find religious division.

The claim was that political—not religious--ideology is responsible for the massacres of the 20th century. I have no idea of how your thought processes got you to launch from this claim to a question such as “If this were true then why do we have Democrats of differing religious beliefs?”


itry2brational wrote:

Also, many of the 'political ideologies' you refer to are based on religions or have religions as major constructs to their belief systems.


Oh, please. What religion do you claim that the political ideology of Stalin, or Mao, or Hitler, or Pol Pot are based on? Where and when in all of history have more people suffered and died than at the hands of these guys?


itry2brational wrote:

And this is just the beginning of the divide! 2.2 billion Christians are divided even further among their various denominations. Not to mention the other religions divided similarly. Political ideologies can change, but religious dogma and doctrine are meant to be eternal and hold claim to being absolutely true. Political ideologies can have religious divisions within them. Which is why I hold to my opinion


Do you really believe that the theological content of these innumerable divisions are what cause trouble? Why do you think that people are hair-trigger ready to mark out their particular group and characterize everyone else as “other”? The content of the particular beliefs of each group is wild card, fill in the blank nonsense. The evolved tendency to find some way to form a safe in-group and construe everyone else as potentially threatening “outsiders” is what’s operating in these situations. It’s not really about religious belief. Religious belief is just the wild card, the fill in the blank nonsense.

Besides, 2.2 billion Christians are united as Christians, and a billion and a half Muslims are united etc. What’s your point? How big a group hug do you want?



Cheers.
jd



_____________________
OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.
itry2brational
Initiate

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Total Posts: 17
Posted 05/07/08 - 10:42 PM:
quote post
#32
jdrw wrote:
And all I have claimed is that some people’s religious belief results in certain behaviors that decrease pain and suffering and death, and that decreasing pain and suffering and death counts as a positive consequence for humanity.

Then this should be equally applied to the nonbelievers as well. Some of their beliefs have the exact same positive result on humanity. For example, my own belief that adultery is wrong. Also, to say 'some' is to stray away from Hitchens' challenge, which refers to 'believers' and 'nonbelievers' and not 'some'. Fair enough?
jdrw wrote:
By what line of reasoning did you draw the mistaken inference that I was talking about anybody except those I clearly and repeatedly said I was talking about?

See previous paragraph. The discussion at hand is about 'believers' and morality and 'nonbelievers' and morality. There were no subsets implied by Hitchens.

This follows to the next point. You are saying that your specifically chosen 'subset' is one group, and 'all the rest of society' is the other group. How is this a good way to make a comparison? ALL OF SOCIETY is the superset. The only two 'subsets' that are relevant to the discussion are 'believers' and 'nonbelievers'. What you are doing is creating a further subset of one of those two, which is not fair for comparison. Your further claim is that the subset(Fundys, Muslims etc) of the subset(believers) act "more morally" but you have presented nothing from a comparable subset of the other subset(nonbelievers) to balance your position. I just think what you are doing is not a fair comparison.

I actually have not "mistakenly inferred that [you] [are] claiming something about religious believers as a whole." Rather, I have explicitly pointed out(which you quoted) that you are being purposefully, and unfairly selective in making your point. I further stated that this skews the view you presented.

jdrw wrote:
Which of my claims do you think you’ve falsified by the fact that your secular morality does not permit those behaviors?

This one:
jdrw wrote:
...prevailing secular morality which permits these behaviors: alcohol consumption, gambling, infidelity*

*edited for clarity*

Why? Because you are comparing your tiny group and its moral values(which are definable) to 'the rest of society' and its moral values(which you can't define). Yet you are saying that 'the rest of society' and their 'prevailing secular morality permits' those behaviors. For one thing, you cannot prove that ALL of your tiny subset does not drink, gamble, or engage in adulterous activity. Likewise you cannot prove that ALL of 'the rest of society' engages in them either! IN FACT, LEADERS of your tiny subset are often in the news for DOING those very things. If the leaders of those groups are capable of breaking their own moral standards which you are trying to make an example of, then its safe to say that others within that group do it too. Secondly, if in your twisted view of the 'rest of society' you are saying that because those activities take place they are permitted then you might as well be saying that because MURDER takes place IT TOO is permitted. So your position is unsound from both of those angles.
jdrw wrote:
You yourself have recognized that the fundamentalists and Muslims (in your words) “are more strict and extreme than the rest of general society including the other religious group” and even used this to imply that this group is a misrepresentative sample of society because they “are more strict than the rest of society and other religious groups.” More strict compared to what? What was your meaning if not more strict than the prevailing norms of the general society?

The point is that the discussion is a comparison between 'believers' and 'nonbelievers' NOT subsets of subsets to the superset! To answer you question, you quoted my answer already("and other religious groups.")! Since we DO know the stance on alcohol consumption as compared to one religious group to another, we can make that comparison. Some even use it in their rituals! Since we DON'T have any doctrine or rituals or this mysterious list of 'prevailing secular morals' to compare with, how can you make the comparison? We shouldn't anyway because its irrelevant!

I gave you the links to my information. I figured the U.S. Census Bureau was a good place to start. Get familiar. Or stick to ABC polls, whichever.

jdrw wrote:
...the percentage of the whole that the particular religious groups that I’ve specified comprise is entirely irrelevant...

I completely agree! Now you are getting it! Relevant discussion is about comparing 'believers' to 'nonbelievers' and not comparing a subset of a subset to the whole.
jdrw wrote:
Do you dispute my claim that some people’s religious beliefs influence them not to drink? Like the hundreds of millions of Muslims I referred to for instance?

While its irrelevant to the discussion, yes I do. For one thing, their beliefs influence them from being what to what? Less moral to more moral, right?. But this begs the question, do they all really start off less moral? Influence assumes one state of affairs then an intervention produces a new state of affairs. At the core of your assumption is that the people of your specially chosen group are inherently less moral with regard to drinking, gambling and adultery. Then, religious beliefs intervene and "influence" them to be more moral. You are saying that all those Evangelicals were born immoral with regard to drinking, gambling and adultery and it was religious belief which 'saved' them from their innate immoral tendencies.

Besides, how the heck do you prove your hypothetical situation? In order for your position to be valid you are assuming that those very same people WOULD do those behaviors in the absence of their religious doctrines. A further assumption is that some other belief(nonreligious) would not take the place of the religious beliefs and give the same result: ie not gambling, drinking or adultery. You are essentially making two assumptions:
People are born immoral/less moral.
Absence of religious belief = acting less morally.

Your argument stems from and hinges on some hypothetical previous state of being less moral. But you cannot prove that.

I can see the counter argument already: then the same also applies to atrocities which people have performed against humanity in the name of their ideology. My position makes the assumption that people would not normally perform those acts(murder/genocide) unless influenced by some external agent. But its overwhelmingly conclusive that people ARE born with innate moral attributes. People ARE born with an innate sense of fairness and decency. Evolution developed them. We are born with the ability to understand that killing those of your own kind is wrong. But in steps the influencing agents(religion and political ideology) which rationalizes killing.

One of my points is that in order to have a balanced discussion you must also consider 'religious beliefs' which the 'prevailing secular morality' DO NOT include which are HARMFUL to humanity. For your Muslim group, the prevailing secular morality does not include:
beheading those who insult their religion with cartoons or
suicide bombing(martyrdom) or
beating your wives etc.

The religions you are considering to make your point come with baggage. That baggage is all the negative and immoral beliefs attached with them. You can't make your point by eating the wrapper and throwing away the candy.

I will try to take the high ground and skip your ad hominems.

jdrw wrote:
But I can conceive of no way to compare the good resulting form one behavior with the bad resulting from a different behavior to determine some kind of net difference. What is the unit of measurement for pain and suffering? And even if you counted lives lost or saved, are all lives of equal value? Says who? Anyway I cannot imagine how you can do such a comparison.

Uh, WTF? You tell ME what YOUR 'unit' of pain and suffering is for alcohol consumption! Your position is that abstinence from the behaviors you have selected(as a result of specific religious beliefs) is "MORE moral"(ie NET DIFFERENCE) than the alternative. How is it MORE if you are not making some calculation or comparison???? The criteria YOU are using are: pain, suffering and death. The less of these, the better. If beliefs(religious or not) cause pain, suffering and death we agree that they are harmful to humanity. The more harmful the more negative our evaluation of them is. How are you NOT doing this moral arithmetic to come to your conclusions?(in fact, you explicitly are)

Is it fair for you to pick out a group, within a group, within the whole, and a couple very particular behaviors which they abstain from and say that they are "more moral" based on just those criteria? Hitchens didn't ask: are Muslims more moral because they don't drink compared to the rest of the population? He compared 'believers' to 'nonbelievers'. Believers, AS A WHOLE, which includes ALL their beliefs. Compared to nonbelievers, AS A WHOLE, and ALL their beliefs. If you can't compare the pain, suffering and death which beliefs are a direct result of, then, by your own admission, you are not capable of making an argument for higher morality! And all that crap about atheists being the greatest source of pain, suffering and death is irrelevant because you 'can't conceive' of a way to compare them!

Hypothetical statement: 'Hitler killed Jews but at least he didn't gamble so that makes him "more moral" than those nonbelievers who DO gamble!' You gotta be kidding me! How the f*#k(excuse me) do we(YOU) even know Hitler was a bad person if you can't make that net calculation? He probably had plenty of beliefs/behaviors which were 'moral' but we have to compare and weigh those against his 'different behaviors'(genocide) in order to come to a conclusion.

Proposition: Killing people is MORE immoral than gambling. Likewise, killing people is more IMMORAL than abstinence from gambling is MORAL. If you don't understand or can't conceive of a reason why these two completely different behaviors have a net negative effect on the overall moral evaluation then you either have no moral foundation/code or you are utterly ignorant. But I think you have both, so you don't have to worry, I'm not insulting you. smiling face

jdrw wrote:
That so-called religious conflicts such as the Crusades and the Thirty Years War and the like really were about religious concerns is not a claim that I for one am convinced of. Nor are very many historians or sociologists.

The Crusades were not about religion? They were not based on religious differences and religiously motivated desires? I will seriously need help finding these 'many historians and sociologists'. Wow, do you also deny the Holocaust?

For once, I agree with your position that we have developed, through evolution, the natural tendency to fear 'outsiders'. BUT, we have also evolved greater intelligence. We now know that many of those reasons for fearing others which you gave as examples are not good reasons! So why do we hold on to them?
jdrw wrote:
And it was perfectly moral for Stalin and Mao to eliminate opponents and starve and kill any number of people because they construed it as necessary to achieve their political ends. What’s your point? People can justify the alleged morality of their actions however they want to.

No, it was not moral. My point is that people use BAD justifications for their immoral actions. Religious beliefs have been and ARE BAD justifications for killing people. Religious beliefs have been and ARE BAD justifications for dividing people. For us to have a balanced debate we must weigh all of those against your perceived GOOD moral benefits...because they come attached and are inseparable from the BAD. Its a package deal.
jdrw wrote:
It is blatantly equivocal use of the term “believers” which in everything I said, as well as in all that Hitchens is talking about, refers unequivocally to religious belief.

Yet you continue to use a SUBSET of believers to make your point. If you can slice and dice to make your point, then why is it wrong for me to do the same? You also conveniently left out that I prefaced my comment with this:
itry2brational wrote:
In both cases of believers and non-believers performing atrocities against humanity, they were done based on the pursuit or fulfillment of some ideology, doctrine or dogma.

Our moral discussion of believers and non-believers does not have to be limited to belief in religion. After all, it was you who brought up those examples(20th century atrocities blah blah). You seem to think that there is a huge area of this discussion which can be attributed to pursuit of 'political ideology' as the greatest source of pain, suffering and death. Whether an ideology is politically motivated or religiously motivated, we should consider them both. Which is what I am doing, and what I mean by throwing Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao into the category of 'believers'. Do you deny that these people had an ideology which they dogmatically pursued and used as justification for crimes against humanity?

jdrw wrote:
I for one cannot conceive of a calculus by which it could be determined even in principle whether or not religiously motivated actions increased moral behavior or decreased it on the whole.

But that is PRECISELY what you ARE doing. If you are NOT then how can you claim that abstinence from alcohol consumption, gambling and adultery has a net "positive consequence for humanity"!? If you really want to make your case, you have to stick to your little microcosm which you have created and state that it has a positive effect on your particular groups! But since its impossible to prove that if they didn't have these religious influences that they WOULD drink, gamble and be unfaithful, I don't see how you can make a proper case. You are saying that your little example world allows you to make claims about all of humanity. Give me a break.
jdrw wrote:
I can’t conceive of a way to assign some sort of moral unit by which to compare different behaviors.

Yet:
jdrw wrote:
thousands of lives and tens of thousands of injuries and tens of millions of dollars of property damage and loss of income and productivity are entirely avoided. This is a consequence of their religious belief, and I would think counts as a positive contribution.

Are the underlined terms NOT your "units" of measure????
This makes the absolutely unsubstantiated assumption that 'tens of millions of people' would begin drinking as soon as they stopped being a believer! How the heck do you know they would? How do you know it would be the same proportion?

jdrw wrote:
itry2brational wrote:

Where are the precepts in the (non-existent) atheist dogma/doctrine which state:
Murder and genocide is allowed,
Adultery is OK,
Gambling is authorized,
Alcohol abuse is permissible?

I cannot fathom by what illogic you infer that these are entailed by the claims I made.

Thats easy, from here:
jdrw wrote:
Do you deny that religious prohibition of alcohol consumption, gambling, patronizing places where aldulterous sexual liasons are quite likely is stricter than the prevailing secular morality which permits these bahaviors?

Deja vu. I believe I addressed this already above and edited it to make the point more clear. I threw in murder because if you are implying(which you are) that nonbelievers do not have their own prohibitions on your specific behaviors then you might as well think that they have none at all. In fact, I think you have implied something to that effect.
jdrw wrote:
Perhaps you can live by your own advice regarding who’s responsibility the burden of proof it is.

If you consider that the entire world population at the time of the crusades, for instance, was only about 300 million, and at the time of the so-called “religious wars” of the 17th century the entire world population was only about 700 million, your 600+ million figure looks pretty specious. When and where exactly was it that all these hundreds of millions of people were killed in religious conflicts? The relevance of the population figures I gave is that you can see that these hundreds of millions surely must have represented a really significant percentage of their population, even if spread out over many different incidents over the years.

How exactly do you determine that the alleged killing of these 600+ million people was religiously motivated? How exactly do you definitively differentiate a religious motivation from a political motivation posturing as being about religious issues?

Please keep in mind what I said:
itry2brational wrote:
To be a true estimation we are comparing all people killed by ALL religions and religious conflict over all the world throughout history. (I've seen estimates of those killed in the name of 'God' that are in the hundreds, 600+, of millions)And to be fair, we need to include the millions who die because of mere beliefs which are religiously based. Such as the millions who die each year of aids in Sub Saharan Africa because the Catholic Church formally prohibited condom use.

You are trying to make a case for religious conflicts ONLY. Again, you are creating a subset of the whole when the whole is part of the discussion. Its not just death due to religious conflicts, its also death due to irrational religious beliefs.

To address your population position. I will take an approach that first looks at the total population of the world, not at any one particular year but as a whole...all people that lived and died between a time period. This topic has very easily accessed numbers via a Google search. Many of the resources seem to have similar numbers so I will just pick one. I will confine my numbers to the time period which you reference: The time of the Crusades to the 17th century. This is roughly 1095 to 1699. Fair enough? Actually, the best I can do is start at 1200 and go to 1750.

Births between:
1200-1650AD 12,782,002,453
1650-1750AD 3,171,931,513
---------------------------
Total 15,953,933,966

Estimates and figures suggest that some 16 billion people lived and died between those time periods. This only represents 550 years of religious beliefs to have their effect on the population through persecution, conflict and shear irrational belief. We have estimations for the Crusades alone as high as 1.5 million. Again, this is just one event, in one place on the planet, which does not include the far East, Eurasia, or South America(Inca, Mayans) etc. How many more people can we add to the total amount if we include the time period from 1AD to 1200AD? 26,591,342,000. We have roughly 42 billion lives to work with. And we are only going from 1AD to 1750. In the last 250 years we have even more to work with. Roughly yet another 12 billion plus even more religious conflicts and beliefs to account deaths to.

Source: Population Reference Bureau: How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?

So when I said 'I've seen estimates' that is all it means. In the last 2000 years alone we have ~54 billion deaths to work with. Do you honestly think we can't attribute less than one half of one percent to religious beliefs?

Another source:
Selected Death Tolls for Wars, Massacres and Atrocities Before the 20th Century

jdrw wrote:
If divided is undesirable, then one incredibly successful solution would be to get people to sign on to some religion, since it also could be said that no single thing in the world has united humanity more than religion.

What happens when people try to force a religion or ideology upon others? Those atrocities you are so fond of referring to happen, eh? How you can say that religion is an 'incredibly successful solution' is beyond me.

IMHO, religion was the first and the worst attempt at unifying people and explaining the cosmos. But it never tried or tries to unify ALL people. It panders to the irrational fears you spoke of earlier. IMO, the things which have been the most successful at uniting humanity have NOT been attributable to religion. Interdiction of murder is a universal among laws everywhere. WHY we don't commit murder is NOT attributable to some ancient scribblings on a stone tablet. If anything science and the pursuit of knowledge and our greater understanding of the world has improved our understanding of morals and ethics. Religions INHIBIT our growth and understanding. The improvement in our morals and ethics over the millennia which we use as the basis of many our laws AND liberties, which do not include religion or even vaguely refer to religious dogmas, have been found through pursuit of knowledge, rational discourse and scientific discovery.

jdrw wrote:
By what illogic do you infer that I attribute those atrocities to atheism?

Are you serious? You gotta be joking, right? One paragraph separates this comment and where you explicitly said:
jdrw wrote:
Mass murder and genocide are behaviors that in the 20th century have been driven by atheistic political--not religious--ideologies.

You can't contradict yourself any more than that. What is atheism's policy? What is its political agenda? What is its ideology? Ideology = "A set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system." What are atheism's doctrines that form a political, economic or other system? Atheism = "a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods" Where is the 'drive' for a political ideology there? Its merely the lack of belief in something. How is it the source, impetus, "drive" or motivation for genocide and mass murder? Atheistic = "Relating or pertaining to or characteristic of atheism"

I guess my 'illogic' is based on the dictionary and a basic understanding of grammar and prose. I mean, what else could you possibly mean when you blame the genocide and mass murders of the 20th century on something which is 'atheistic' and 'atheistic' is defined by pertaining to or characteristic of 'atheism'???? What kind of grammatical and mental gymnastics are you using to conclude that after saying that you are NOT attributing them to atheism???

jdrw wrote:
Oh, please. What religion do you claim that the political ideology of Stalin, or Mao, or Hitler, or Pol Pot are based on?

Google search
More People Have Been Killed in the Name of Atheism & Secularism than Religion?
Do your own homework.
And to correct you, don't you mean the 'atheistic political ideology'? laff
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