Why do atheists spend so much time arguing about the existence of God?

No, it's to say that the OP of that thread, who calls himself the "Minister of Propaganda", put together a question-begging, "heads I win, tails you lose" hypthetical as a trap for anyone taking it seriously. If you have further questions about it, you might go back to my last post on that thread and read it. It was a very long, detailed analysis of what was wrong with the question.

People may hear the voice of god, and act accordingly, but if god is telling them to kill kids, it's probably not God, and we have good reason to put such believers away where they aren't a danger to themselves or others. Comedienne Lily Tomlin once said: "If you talk to God, its prayer; if God talks to you, its schizophrenia". I don't use that line in Oklahaoma, because God seems to be talking to so many people these days. Some of my best friends seem to have a kind of built-in GPS unit in which God tells them whether or not to turn left at the next intersection. Maybe we should put Thorazine in the water. Sometimes, when you pin them down, they'll admit that when they said "God spoke to me" they were speaking metaphorically and really just had a strong feeling or thought inside their heads that they attributed to God. When televangelist Oral Roberts saw a twenty-foot tall Jesus telling him to engage in a construction project on the university campus, he later admitted it was in his mind--but it did get him lots of publicity and donations. I'm concerned though that normal, sensible people I know are interpreting or phrasing their religious experiences this way, because I think it can get them into trouble. I had a life-changing experience several years ago that completely altered the way I view reality (I think for the better). Basically, it involved certain passages of scripture popping into my head and taking on new meaning. According to psychologist William James, this is a common form of "relgious experience". At the time, I'll admit, I viewed it as a message from God, but it's completely consistent with a naturalistic explanation--a "moment of clarity". I would never flat out deny that God speaks to people, just as I wouldn't flat out deny that aliens have abducted people and performed revloting experiments on them. I'm just skeptical, that's all.

I still have problems with your use of the terms "ignorance" and "rational" as all purpose explanations for good and evil in the world. You seem to have the notion that people do evil only because they're ignorant (uneducated, uninformed,unaware,unintelligent, etc.) I think that people can be highly intelligent, informed, aware and educated and still be inclined toward evil or totally self-serving behavior at the expense of others. To get from rationality to benevolence requires the addition of atruism to the equation, and lack of altruism is not just a matter of "ignorance".

 

Because he could kick your arse every single second of every single day for the rest of your life if you didn't? Call me cynical, but I'm pretty sure a conscience is just the voice that reminds you of what make you feel good/bad later rather than right now. I'm pretty sure that an entity that was omnipotent and with a high degree of motivation could over-ride most people's consciences.

 

You don't seem to understand what a conscience is.

 

that is because you are still trying to adapt them to "good" and "evil" when their is no such thing

people do not DO evil, they perform action that can be seen one way or another, they decide whether it is desirable or not by way of reason, people disagree with their assertions because of reason

the word evil is too dismissive

of coarse this is true....this is the very nature of the world today.....

but it is not what they are doing that is "bad", it is why they are doing it

it is in why we have these institutions that make them irrelevant or give them a misdirecting manner

to get from rationality to benevolence?

since when is recognizing discrepancy a charitable act

i have to admit, i am a bit confused with this

 

fear seems to be a popular mechanism these days....

someones ability to persuade and evoke doesn't alter validity

even hitler could give a beautiful speech

 

You said it! I think we have fundamentally different judgments about the nature of human reality. I concede that "good" and "evil" are not metaphysical ideas in Plato's heaven, but are instead labels we give to certain behaviors and attitudes in the real world. There are plenty of people who put their own self advancement above everything else and are willing to step on others to achieve it. I call this kind of behavior "evil". It's not mistaken or ignorant, because that would imply that if they were better informed they'd give it up. You may believe that, but if you do I think you're naive. If you're proceeding on the assumption that if you could just eliminate ignorance and rationality in the world, such behavior would disappear, I think you'll be barking up the wrong tree. "Why" they are doing it is that they're greedy and want it all for themselves. How else do we explain the Madoff phenomenon? Either that or they're just mean (think Dick Cheney). If you want a deeper explanation that goes closer to the roots of the problem, you need to consider how they were raised--not so much what religious beliefs they were exposed to but how they were treated by parents and peers early in life. That's what separates the poodles from the pit bulls.

 

yes, all im trying to say is that you have to take into account the subjectivity of an action, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder

since actions cannot be compared (as one instance of killing can be just and another instance of killing can be immoral) the terms "good" and "bad" do not, and cannot encompass intrinsic ethical value....

i would think that both sides of WW2 thought they were correct in their values

im only being considerate......

but.....when reason is examined, a much more broad view of a situation can be seen. suddenly the capacity for compromise through collaboration emerges, "good" is no longer an institutional object but a point of view, bad becomes something more elaborate and obvious when examined through someone elses eyes, but how do the two agree on who is correct?

war? law?

people are not just born "evil".....and i think we can both agree that condemning someone to preforming heinous acts their entire life as soon as conception is rather extreme

i would agree that evil is a manifestation of an undesirable condition or state of mind or parents that don't know how to raise their children, like you said.....but that is all im trying to say

evil is evil because it does not coincide with what is good
good is good because it is desirable

just explain to me, who was evil and who was good in WW2, and why

 

"These days"? Pretty sure it's one of the oldest mechanisms there's ever been. Fight or flight, anall'at, anall'at.

And how is "validity" any more real than "good" or "evil"? Surely you either believe in it or you don't, to one degree or another, and by doing either you seem more stubborn to those on The Other Side as a result.

What makes an idea "valid" if not the ability to make it taken seriously? Validity seems to be the name for what your ideas are taken seriously, far more so than because they are right or have been proved.

Why is that such a surprise? We might like the idea that "evil" is so far from "good" that an evil man would be repellent to us, easily identifiable as evil by some sign or other. But certainly, in the case of world leaders, I would imagine that any world leader, "good" or "evil", would have certain traits in common, and probably far more traits in common than different. Most obviously, both will seek power, and in the case of Germany, Hitler sought and gained power democratically (early on, anyway).

Very often the things that seem like opposites only seem so different because so much about them is similar that their differences become more noticeable. Good and evil have more in common than good and cheesecake; we think of them as opposites perhaps to make them seem more different.

 

another snappy interjection flops....

it isnt....

i agree

i cant disagree with this...and it did make me realize an error i made....but what i was getting at was that a beings ability to persuade and dispute is limited by the actual content of what is trying to be conveyed

i realize now that the ability of persuasion stems from the capacity that is governed by the content of the opposing and defending idea....

what i dont understand is the idea that i should agree with an idea because it was conceived by someone bigger than me

i do respect the notion that i could be persuaded by fear by a being that knows exactly how to do it, but i still dont know why in an unaltered state of mind, i would agree with it, as if gods version of intrinsic ethical value has the capacity to be more reasonable.....i mean what could he say?

but people still disagreed with him......he was not out to inform the world about a superior condition and support his assertions with evidence......he was trying to take over the world and using guns as a means of persuasion

i would not call hitler an evil man

but i would say much of his known action was guided by ignorance

this can be said about alot of people in alot of places.....very possibly myself

i got a paranoid chill reading this bit....but i do agree

 

I don't think it is, to be honest. Some pretty-much-absolute truths have been conveyed in very unpersuasive ways, and conversely, those who opposed those truths have been very persuasive in rallying others against them. Gallileo springs to mind.

Self-preservation?

I think we're persuaded by fear most of the time. Maybe not fear for your life, but fear of being wrong, or being seen to be wrong, seems to be what leads us to embrace as gospel theories that are a long way from being proved, let alone proved to us, just because they're presented to us in a way that makes us believe those negative consequences of apparent ignorance will be forthcoming.

He didn't just use guns though. If he hadn't had the sense and the stomach to lace the crowds at his rallies with people who would vocally agree with what he said (thereby manipulating those who were wavering into cheering along - and check out Gustav LeBon's writing on crowd psychology if you think this could never work on you!), he wouldn't have had access to those guns. Hitler was a driven man and a compelling orator who showed up in the right place at the right time and didn't back down from a dumb idea. That's what makes him different from us. You or I could be ten times as anti-Jewish as him, but if we never do anything about it, we're never seen as anywhere near as "evil".

By most widely accepted definitions of evil that I've encountered, Hitler is evil. I mean, it does seem like, if one has a definition of evil, it would be unusual for him not to fit into it. He was manipulative of his electorate at a time when they were particularly vulnerable, exploiting prevalent fear and xenophobia to his own ends. He presided over death and destruction while rarely putting himself in any real danger, permitted through inaction great atrocities in the name of progress, and quickly offed himself when it looked like he might be called to account for his actions. Like I said, I can't think of many definitions of evil that wouldn't at least resemble some of that behaviour.

On the other hand, few things are 100% bad, and ironically Hitler's persecution of minorities provides a convenient reference point to those who oppose what were at the time far more socially acceptable aversions to those minorities. Anti-semitism in particular was widespread and common among the Allied nations before the war, but became dramatically less acceptable afterwards. Hitler's war offered a strong negative reinforcement against the practice of eugenics, something which does not inherently suggest itself when arguing "in a vacuum" on the topic.

Ha, good to know I'm doing my job. But really, it's nothing to be frightened of. It's hard to explain why we notice the differences between similar things than dissimilar ones, but it's pretty normal for us to do it. The cheesecake and the celibate monk probably share a lot of qualities (neither of them are having sex, for one thing) that the celibate monk and the rapist do not, so I wonder if the qualities that make things similar are as important as the qualities that make things different in determining what we see as being opposites rather than merely different. (In that example, a monk and a rapist are both human, and thus seen as sexual beings, whereas a cheesecake is not. So even though the monk is not having sex either, it would seem we regard sex as a significant enough part of humanity, but not of cheesecakeicity, to notice the monk's abstinence, and to be able to compare it to the non-abstinence of the rapist).

In the end though, two people can see Hitler or Blair or Chavez as good or evil depending on their viewpoint (although it often seems to come down to which "side" you're on; you don't see many rallying around people they consider evil). I do wonder how much we are in control of our own minds in these instances; if two people cause as much death, do we decide that one is less "evil" than the other because of an analysis of actions relating to that, something that makes those deaths forgivable or not? Or do we actually just make a subconscious decision early on as to who we like and don't like, and then subconsciously ignore or take note of one action or another depending on whether it supports that pre-existing decision?

 

Hitler was evil in World War II, whether or not he thought he was good or meant well. He was reponsible for the deaths of six million Jews plus millions more killed in wars of aggression, and it was all a result of his personal pathology and twisted racist views. Basically, I'm a consequentialist in my approach to ethics. Although I will make deontological concessions for good intentions, there comes a point where ideology and pathology are so integrally entwined that treating them as separate makes no sense. Ethical relativism that tries to imply moral equivalence between Hitler and his opponents weakens our ability to deal effectively with monsters.

 

Do people ever do anything without "good intentions"? I mean, no-one does anything without a reason. Isn't the whole notion of "good" intentions about finding a way to justify bad consequences?

 

I suspect there are plenty of sociopaths walking around who don't give "right" and "wrong" a second thought. There are lots of other folks who can rationalize just about anything they want to do. No one does anything without a reason, but the reason may just be"I think this will feel good." Or "I think this will get me ahead." And there are some who are guided by altruism and the agape principle, or who seriously strive to follow a course of conduct that they think will lead to the greatest net happiness for the greatest number of people

 

See, that fact that you don't consider these to be "right" motives suggests a specific notion of "rightness" based primarily on self-sacrifice. I don't think it's necessarily sociopathic for someone to do something purely for themselves. Maybe you actually do deserve a treat? Maybe you can be selfish sometimes (like, less than 50% of the time?) without having to feel guilty about it.

I'm not convinced of the existence of altruism. I suspect that there are things that we don't know we think. I doubt that we do anything that purely benefits others and purely detriments ourselves unless we have some reason to think that some extension of ourself will benefit from it. The standard example would be the suicide bomber, but obviously there are less extreme ones. If you throw yourself on a grenade to help your fellow soldiers, it is (I think, anyway) because you have some notion that you are protecting something else that you have sympathy for, that you either feel is a part of who you are, or that you can see yourself in. I have no real reason for thinking this, but I think I might be more likely to help someone who was in a predicament if I could relate to how they got there than if I couldn't.

 

Yes, you're basically right about my beliefs, although I wouldn't carry them to a Puritanical extreme of eliminating all self-indulgence. What a miserable life that would be! I think it's a matter of balance. I'm basically and Aristotlean, in pursuit of the "golden mean" of moderation--nothing too much. I think perfectionism is an unwholesome and unattainable ideal for humans. I'm probably self-indulgent 54.7% of the time or more (actually maybe a lot more), without feeling guilty about it. We're here to enjoy the experience, as long as it's not hurting anybody else. (Mill's "harm principle" is the important qualifier). My Mamma used to tell me I was here to love and serve God, and to be happy with Him in Heaven. Screw that! I think it's ok to be happy here and now, and God doesn't disapprove.

Altruism needs careful definition to avoid tautology. It's always arguable that a person even as altruistic as Mother Teresa is seeking a payoff in personal satisfaction. (By the time Christopher Hitchens gets through with the dear saint, she seems more like a self-serving masochist). On a scale from 0-100, with Satan as 0 and Jesus as 100, however, I'd still give Mother Teresa a 95 (A+) and Hitler, Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson a 5 (F-). Ayn Rand, the most outspoken opponent of altruism would get a 69-70 (D+, C-) or maybe better because I don't know of any great crimes she's committed.

I've said this before, but I'll use the turtle analogy again. There are basically four kinds of people in the world, based on how they'd react to a turtle crossing the road in front of them: (1) the turtle destroyers (aim for the turtle); (2) the turtle ignorers (keep on going, and if the turtle gets totalled, tough); (3) the turtle avoiders (swerve to avoid the turtle, without, of course, colliding with another vehicle); and (4) the turtle rescuers (pull off the road safely and carry the poor turtle to safety). I think I'd put myself in the turtle avoider category. And why do I care about the stupid turtle? Because of values that I've acquired though upbringing and life experiences. But I'd argue on utilitarian grounds that such values are also good for the greatest number of people (and turtles)in the long run, and on Rawlesian contractarian grounds that if all sentient beings (including turtles) were included in the primordial social contract, altruism would be one of the principles or practices established by the basic charter. Dawkins argues from an evolutionary standpoint that basic altruism, rooted in empathy and reciprocity, has survival value for humans and their societies.

 

but thats just intellectual materialism....you cant learn if your not willing

today of coarse we know he was a genius, we have statues and books about his life.....

this is because we know that whether the desire to believe the world moves or not exists, the world still moves....

an error made in unison is still an error

i agree, fear is often a guiding mechanism, but is their really a reason to be scared of an idea?.....its just an idea.....and if it cant manifest as something physical to kick your ass for not believing (and it probably cant) then where is the fear coming from?

the fear comes from ignorance....if not yours, the fear comes from the ignorance of those who would seek to perpetuate an unreasonable idea, by kicking your ass

 

Well yes, but my point was that persuasion has nothing inherently to do with whether something is true or not. Something being true doesn't necessarily make it any easier to persuade people of its truth if you can't show it to them (or even sometimes if you can).

Depends what the idea is and how it would influence the world you live in. There's good reason to be scared of the idea that your race is inferior if it's gettin' near Holocaust times.

I dunno, I don't think it's ignorant to fear things that can actually do you harm, and I don't think that everything that can do you harm is necessarily a product of ignorance. Accidents happen.

 

Unattainable is fine until people start declaring that they have attained it, or otherwise setting their own, attainable goals for perfection, divinity, enlightenment, the sublime, or whatever else they care to call that little thing that means they get to tell everyone else how to improve their lives and attitudes while refusing to acknowledge that anyone could disagree with them or find them annoying without being mentally unwell somehow. I think it's better for people to aspire to perfection than to be content with whatever they are (because I think that this kind of self-satisfaction tends to inhibit us from developing positively, and because I don't think we can hope to "tread water" in terms of our development - like sharks, we must keep moving constantly or we'll die). I think most people just want to be better people without a normal framework of living. Perfectionism only seems to become dangerous when people don't have that normal framework - when they have nothing else to think about other than how to be more perfect, essentially. They tend to start thinking of eugenics when normally they'd be worrying about clothing and feeding their OWN kids.

Yes, well, I have to say that, just because I don't believe in altruism, that doesn't mean that I think doing a good deed for personal satisfaction is such a terrible thing; I just believe that there is little sense in ascribing people with motivations that is by definition un-understandable without investigating further.

I'm told Atlas Shrugged is pretty shitty.

I'm intrigued by it, to be honest. Adam Smith stated the exact opposite: that a balance of mutual selfishness and self-interest ultimately benefits everyone (presumably because it leads us all to work harder and keeps us on our toes). While he was supposedly a bit of a jerk, he kind of had a point. i think activity in general is more beneficial to humanity as a whole in some ways than the specific nature of that activity. Economically, there are times when it's worth paying people to dig holes and then fill them in again, just to get the money flowing. Even wars seem to enhance our lives by stirring up trouble. I wonder sometimes if it's all part of natural selection, perhaps a yearning to evolve that we subconsciously have and play out in these horrible death games...

I'm tired, and these thoughts may not be my own.

 

Again, I think the golden mean is useful to keep in mind. I think a degree of altruism is necessary for human survival, but I doubt that completely altruistic people could survive. They'd always be sacrificing themselves for others, and if everybody did that, we'd all be sacrificed.

Adam Smith was an economist and he was discussing "economic man", an abstraction. The notion that humans pursuing self interest will, all other things being equal, lead to more efficient economic solutions is the foundational principle of capitalism, and it has some merit in its own sphere of operation. Smith happened to notice that England, where people enjoyed a large amount of freedom to pursue their own interests, was also a prosperous society, and he put two and two together. The problem is that it's so easy to forget the parameters of these economic models, and to take them as a complete and accurate description of reality. Ceteris are not always paribus. If we rely on selfishness as the preferred value in all arenas, untempered by altruism, I think we end up with a nasty society, a world dominated by power-hungry Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots, greedy objectivists, neocons, pedophile priests and televangelists--more accurately, hell. In fact, that is literally how I conceptualize hell--a metaphorical projection of tendencies that are present in existing reality in great abundance. To quote Hobbes, we get a state of nature as a "war of all against all" in which "life is nasty, brutish and short." And there is no escape, because our minds are clouded by an ideology of false consciousness of denial or insanity which keeps prescribing the same solutions, and expecting different results.

 

well, that depends on how intelligent the person being persuaded is and whether or not they have reason to disregard rational dispute based on the grounds of nothing but what they believe

some people need proof....

or at least reasonability or probability....ect

what proof can you offer a man if you tell him their is a monster behind him when their really isnt

yes, you fear the the burning and the persecution, but what does the persecution stem from.....underdeveloped theory, tradition, possibly the notion that one aspect grants superiority.....

their is no shortage of rational dispute regarding superiority of condition

but it all depends on what the goal is, and why that goal is had

well thats what i mean, fear isnt the base of the disagreement....their is reason to be scared, you have reason to fear someone with a machete slashing at your throat

but what is the reason for the man wanting to kill you?