Reflectorites
On Thu, 29 Jun 2000 23:39:55 +0100, Richard Wein wrote:
>>>SJ>Why shouldn't an atheist, *on atheistic principles*, simply look after
>>>>Number 1, as far as possible without provoking a counter reaction?
RW>Because he/she has a conscience and senses of justice, compassion, dignity,
>etc.
Richard misses the point, even though I highlighted it in asterisks. The
question is not whether atheists are themselves highly moral people.
Many, if not most, of them are. The question is why they *should* be, *on
their own atheistic principles*.
RW>Why do *you* act in a moral way? Is it just fear of God's punishment and/or
>desire for God's reward?
I act in a moral way because I love God and I want to live in a way that
pleases Him.
But even if it was "just fear of God's punishment and/or desire for God's
reward" (which it isn't), it would still be based on Christian principles.
An atheist does not believe there is a God, so he/she could decide to do
evil on his/her atheistic principles that there is no God so there was no "fear
of God's punishment" and no "reward" for doing good.
See the extract from the biography of Stalin which I posted in response to
one of Susan's posts, where he actually came to this decision deliberately.
He challenged God to strike him dead, and when God didn't do it, Stalin
concluded there was no God. This was further confirmed to him after
reading Darwin:
"So now my greatest wish was that there be no God. To look up into
empty sky. I had declared war on God and I waited for Him to strike me
down as any enemy should be struck down. But He did not strike me
down. And the more of His power over me I shed, the better I felt, the
lighter, the freer. My new faith in myself was growing, but God was my
doubt. .... One afternoon I went for a long walk alone in the mountains, up
past the ruined castle. ... I looked up and, using the high-flown language I'd
learned from the priests and my mother, I said to God: Right now, right
here, I offer up myself to You and if You are there to take me as I've been
taught, then You will take a soul sincerely offered. If You exist, it isn't
worth being myself, and so I will die in You and be what my mother has
always wanted me to be, Your servant and Your priest. Take me, Lord!
And I was untaken by the Lord. Just as I had hoped. I had tricked God.
Into revealing his nothingness. Yet there was something lacking.
Compelling corroboration. And I found it. In my third great book. Darwin
... Everything was clear. People weren't created by God. They came from
the apes. Science said that God wasn't necessary. And what could be more
unnecessary than an unnecessary God? ... Reading Darwin had an
enormous impact on me. It corroborated my defiance of God and inspired
me to systematically break all the Ten Commandments, which I now
realized were only chains. Though I had stolen and lied before, I now stole
and lied with a higher purpose-freedom of self. ... You do not become
Joseph Stalin without first settling accounts with God." (Lourie R., "The
Autobiography of Joseph Stalin," Counterpoint, 1999, pp. 34-37)
So, Stalin realised that there was nothing that could stop him from getting
what he wanted, no matter who stood in his way, and he embarked on a
career of doing evil, which led to the murder of over 60 million people.
Now almost all atheists would condemn Stalin, but they could not do it *on
atheistic principles*. What Stalin did was consistent (or at least not
inconsistent) with his atheistic principles.
RW>If it was proven to you that God did not exist, do
>you think you would become totally immoral? Or do you have your own senses
>of justice and compassion? If the latter, then why do you think atheists
>can't have such senses?
Richard still misses the point which is not about whether atheists as
individuals are " totally immoral" (no one said they were), but what is there
in their *atheistic principles* that would prevent them from being immoral
if they wanted to be?
I don't have to speculate hypothetical about if what if I became an atheist. I
*was* an atheist, and I thought nothing of doing immoral things. Most of
these were minor, but some of them could have been fairly major in their
consequences if I was successful and caught.
It was the fear of being caught that kept me from most of them and from
more serious immoralities. But the point is that at the time I did not really
think they were immoral. I was brought up in a non-Christian home and the
main lesson I learned was the 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not get
caught!"
After I became a Christian all that changed. I gradually became aware that
things I had previously thought were OK, were in fact immoral, and what's
more I now had a *reason* for not doing them, namely my Christian
principles, spelled out in the New Testament.
An atheist, especially one brought up in a Christian home (as many were),
might already be aware (as I wasn't) that some things are immoral and
avoid doing them by virtue of his/her upbringing. But the atheist would
have no reason *within his/her atheism*, for not being immoral. Any
reasons he/she had for not being immoral would be found *outside* his/her
atheism.
Steve
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"The museum [British Museum of Natural History] is the primary source or
authority for the general theory of evolution by natural selection, the theory
that is taught in schools and universities the world over. Like millions of
people in Britain, I have visited the museum many times to stare in wonder
at its contents. But I have been unable to see with my own eyes the
decisive evidence for the synthetic theory of evolution. I have been able to
see many marvels and to study mountains of evidence: the Geological
Column that reconstructs the geological and biological history of the Earth;
the dinosaur skeletons and myriad other fossils; marvels like the skeleton of
Archaeopteryx, seemingly half bird, half reptile; the reconstructed evolution
of the horse family. But unlike its counterpart at Teddington [National
Physical Laboratory], the museum is unable to exhibit the unchallengeable
authority that conclusively demonstrates that evolution by natural selection
has taken place and is established as fact. This is very far from saying that
scientists have failed to make the case for neo-Darwinist evolution. On the
contrary, no rational person can visit the Natural History Museum and not
be deeply impressed by the evidence that has been painstakingly assembled.
Evidence of historical development over geological time; of similarity of
anatomical structure in many different species; of change and adaptation to
changing environments. But, frustratingly, even with all this evidence, it is
impossible for the genuinely objective person to say, 'Here is the conclusive
scientific proof that I have been looking for.'" (Milton R., "The Facts of
Life: Shattering the Myth of Darwinism", Fourth Estate, London, 1992, p.2)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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