Re: The Bombings

Steve Wilson wrote:
Jeffrey Goldberg wrote: 

I can say with certainty that they [the Inquisition] violated Christs
teachings because I have the blue-print by which to judge their
actions, and Christ did not advocate violence.

The problem with that approach is that we can all pick and choose which bits of scripture we wish to quote to support whatever view we want. For example, I could quote Luke 22:36, or even Jesus' use of violence in John 2:13-17.

To make the parallel, you will hear a lot of Marxist's claiming that Stalin was an aberration from true Marxism. They will quote their bits of Marxist scripture to support their claim. Others will quote other bits of "scripture". Then there are the people like me who argue that tyranny may not have been Marx's intent (or the intent of modern Marxists), but that it is a nearly inevitable consequence of other aspects of Marxism (such as the concentration of political and economic power, among other things).

Likewise, I wouldn't micro-analyse selected bits of scripture to see whether Christianity is to blame for the Inquisition. But I would say that the central notion of salvation (and the lack of it) made it much easier for Christians to justify (to themselves at least) murder. The "kill them all, and God will know his own" logic (which was put into practice) is something that can easily emerge from core notions of Christianity. The spiritual, loving, and charity aspect can lead in the other direction. I think both of these forces -- each pulling in the opposite direction -- are ever present. You can pick one stream and forget that the other is there, just as the enemies of Christianity can pick the other stream, forgetting that your favourite is there.

All I am asking is for atheism to do the same for the Godless movements
in Russia etc. which murdered millions of people.

But we have been doing that. No one has been able to come up with a plausible causal connection between in incidental role of atheism in Marxism and the murders.

The analogy implied by your call for atheists to do the same is

  Christianity is to the violence of the Inquisition
as
  Atheism is to the violence of Stalin

But that isn't right at all.  It should be C is to the violence of I as
*Marxism* is to the violence of S.

Above I said "no one has been able to come up with a plausible causal connection between the atheism in Marxism and the murders". You, of course, have presented an argument. I think that your argument carries no weight, but a posting by xeno reminded of something that might underlie your argument.

You state correctly that there is nothing about atheism itself which would question the morality of mass murder. As many have responded to you, that is true but we never claimed that atheism was a foundation for our morality. As I said, nothing in Newtonian physics questions the morality of mass murder, but that doesn't put the blame for mass murder at the feet of Newtonian physics.

The only way that your argument could make sense is if you assumed that religion was the only possible source for morality. That does not seem like a position you wish to defend.

In a recent post by xeno <20050715195218.Q13553@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

>  There are no intrinsic values. Values are synthetic.

I was reminded of why you might come to believe that atheism played a role. It goes like this:

Few seriously religious people are relativists. Most Marxists are relativists (see how in the west they've rebranded themselves as post-modernists). Many atheists are also relativists. Relativism enable the crimes in question. Religiosity prevents relativism, therefore the atheism of the SU played a role in the murders.

Of course many details and individual claims in the above need to be elaborated and defended against real criticism. But what I would like to address is the relationship between atheism and relativism.

I won't deny that "too many" atheists are extreme relativists. Just as you probably wouldn't deny that "too many" Christians are mean-spirited bigots. What is interesting is that these two groups feed of each other by sharing a common myth.

Myth: The only alternative to Fundamentalism is Relativism and the only alternative to Relativism is Fundamentalism.

Both fundamentalists and relativists believe that and use it to defend their position.

But let me point out three strains of moral thinking that have been developing since the Enlightenment. The first two are Kantianism and Consequentialism. Both attempt (with some success) to establish foundations for ethics, and neither makes any reference to God or the supernatural.

The third strain is the psychological. Peter Ashby referred to it. Moral thinking is an intrinsic part of human psychology, and furthermore we are developing theories of how that evolved. I am a co-author on two papers (one still unpublished) which provide, at the very least, some "irrational" moral inclinations could have plausibly evolved. I would say that this thread goes back at least to Adam Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments" (which pre-dates Darwin by many decades, yet still anticipates and attempts to address some of its issues).

There is work that is also trying to bring these three approaches together.

All I want to be shown is how the beliefs of atheism were violated by
the atrocities.


They haven't been.

If it cannot be shown then atheism is implicated.


Here you are wrong. The belief in "E=mc^2" wasn't violated by the atrocities either. But that doesn't implicate special relativity.

Above, I've sketched what I think is the best arguments you could make for implicating atheism. I've also sketched my refutations of them. But the argument as you present it simply makes no sense whatsoever. I suspect that what you are really after is the relativism argument. That is why you see a connection that the rest of us don't see.


You seem to be implying atheism is a 'thing', a set of beliefs
which, in this sense, makes it akin to Christianity.

Fine, but unlike Christianity, atheism makes no claim to providing a moral foundation.

If this is the case, could you please tell me how the atrocities
clearly violated atheism

No, I cannot do that. Just as I cannot tell you how the atrocities violated Cartesian geometry.

I think it was precisely atheisms materialist philosophy,
and its consequently low view of man, which allowed Stalin to move in
the direction he did without violating anything in atheism.  In this
respect I say atheism is very much to blame for its inability to place
a strong value on human life.

The Party's moral principles could not come from atheism for the simple reason that atheism doesn't present any.

As for claiming that Christianity would have been a check on the Party's crimes, maybe so. On the other hand, since atheists don't believe in an afterlife, it is plausible that atheists value our Earthly lives more than Christians.

It's clear that you have a strong feeling of a causal connection between atheism and the atrocities. But the arguments that you've presented make no sense whatsoever (which is very uncharacteristic of you). If I may be so presumptuous, I'd suggest that you focus on that feeling of causal connection to explore what it is really based on. I do not for a moment believe that your feelings about this matter are based on the arguments you present.



To me the real question is whether the atheist can point to what happened in Russia, human gut reactions aside, and say it was categorically wrong on the basis of atheism alone. I think he cannot.

As someone said better than I could, "Can say that it was categorically wrong on the basis of a disbelief in Santa Claus alone?"

Of course not. But that is hardly a condemnation of a disbelief in Santa Claus.

Your argument appears to have changed and it seems you are now saying that atheism is based on a 'lack of belief in theism' a position of lack ornothingness.

I will be seriously flamed by other atheists here (it's been a smouldering debate since this group was founded), but for me atheism means a belief that there are no gods (with a suitable definition of god).

Likewise, I will call "a-clausism" a belief that there is no Santa Claus
(suitably defined to exclude the tremendous number of Santa's we see each December).

I have not shifted my position. For me, atheism is a belief, not merely a lack of belief. But I don't claim that that belief has much to say about how people ought to behave.


I think atheism is philosophically weak in this area. I think it is weak because it is unable to place an intrinsic value on
human life. Because of this, when violence occurs it has no philosophical basis to say anything against it, let alone stop it.
At the philosophical level the atheist is unable to say violence is wrong. Of course the atheist will protest strongly and say violence is wrong, but he says this as a human being with feeling and a sense of justice, not because his atheism provides the strong reason.



Please reread that paragraph but replace the word "atheism" with "a-Clausism" or "Newtonian physics". It remains perfectly true and perfectly irrelevant.

As above, based on a false view of atheism.

How is atheism different from Newtonian Physics? Atheism could be only if it pretended to be the foundation for a moral system. Atheism, to me, is a set of beliefs (not merely the lack of beliefs). But its beliefs do not extend to a moral system. Atheism is not competing with Christianity for preaching morals. Atheists take different views, some are relativists (and relativism may take some blame), some atheists are Kantians, some atheists are Consequentialists, others just follow their native moral intuitions like most people.

Atheism does, of course compete with religions on moral issues, but only in that atheism undermines the religious explanation of morals. But atheists don't say "the atheistic moral system is better" simply because there is no atheistic moral system. There are a number of non-theistic moral systems, among which atheists can choose. Personally, I pick "rule Consequentialism" along with (evolutionary) psychology to provide a descriptive account of moral sentiments.

Are you saying that our ethical feelings comes exclusively from religion? By the way, I think it is the other way 'round. One reason why people are so ready to accept religion is to help them explain their own native feelings of right and wrong. 

Atheistic evolution does exactly the same.  We seem agreed that all
have this moral awareness as part of our humanity and in practice we
apply it universally to all people in every society and at all times.

Yes. Neither of us are relativists. Though I will acknowledge that many atheists are (or at least claim to be: I don't think it is psychologically possible to really be a relativist).

The
question is which explanation better fits the phenomenon; Christianity
or atheistic evolution?

You have shifted from "atheism" to "atheistic evolution" which just muddles things. Atheism, itself provides no explanation. But there are, as I've said above, a number of non-theistic theories of moral behaviour, each of which (with the exception of relativism) provide at least as good an explanation as Christianity.

I think that you are in a battle against relativism, not atheism.

It is my point that atheism fails to account fully for the human
being ...


....because it was never meant to?

... precisely because it denies a Creator God and because of this
actually reduces humanity to biochemical machines as an aimless
result of unguided evolution.

Speaking as one aimless result of unguided evolution, I still say that we can look toward non-theistic foundations for morality without being forced into nihilism or relativism.

But I do acknowledge that it is much easier for an atheist than a theist to be a nihilist or relativist. At the same time, I hope that you would acknowledge that it is much easier for a Christian to think of murder not so much as ending a life, but as sending someone on to their everlasting life.


To me this explains why the violence and deaths in Communism could begin and increase, it's atheistic philosophical basis had nothing powerful to speak against it.

Atheism itself didn't, but Marxism did. (The dignity of the individual worker was part of Marxism.) Somehow that didn't stop the violence either.

However materialist atheism formed the foundational worldview of
Marxism.

But it didn't. Marxism is first and foremost a utopian economic and political theory. Materialism is a crucial part of its philosophical system, but like most philosophical systems it only really matters to other philosophers. Furthermore, materialism doesn't really sit that well with the other philosophical underpinning of Marxism: The dialectic. Today you will find that Hegelians and materialists simply do not get along.

With atheism's view of a human being as only a complex biochemical machine with emergent consciousness, even the dignity of the worker is ultimately undermined. 

I just don't see it that way.

In murdering millions of people Stalin did nothing which I can see
violated atheisms materialistic view of man.

Nor did he do anything that violates Newton's theory of gravity. (But you knew I was going to say that, didn't you?)

I'm pointing to a weakness of atheism which
no one is willing to acknowledge on this group.

Atheism is not a theory about human value. I do not consider that a weakness of it.

Some in atheism want to believe humans have an intrinsic or special
value, but with the denial of God it is very hard for atheism to
provide such a value.

You are right that some questions are harder for materialists to address. But you are wrong to suggest that on the whole religion "explains" morality better than non-religious views.

Thus this is the reason why some atheists resort to Christian
morality and sneak theism into their atheism.

Basic moral sentiments don't really differ from person to person or from culture to culture (this is not to say that their aren't interesting differences). So when an atheist expresses a moral sentiment which happens to coincide with Christian moral sentiments, it is wrong to claim that the atheist is sneaking in Christian morality. It would be just as true to claim that Jahwal snuck in Kantianism into His rules.

-j
.

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