This must be the new go to argument against atheism. Twice in two days. I just learned from A bit of Orange that because I don’t eat my young I have already rejected atheism and I’m ready to be saved. Don’t bother checking his site as he blocks any comments he can’t answer. Here ya go.
“I don’t doubt that you and your family love each other. I merely point out that atheism offers no basis to give value to love or priority to your duties as a parent or spouse. On atheism, there is no good and evil, so the difference between loving your children or killing and eating them differs only in the normative evolutionary path our species has taken thus far, and the moral code AGAINST killing one’s children forced on western culture by the Biblical worldview. Other animals eat their young, why should YOU not do so if we are merely animals as Atheism claims?
Also, your love for each other is merely chemical brain states, such as being hungry. When you tell your children you love them, then if they were REALLY atheists, they ought to respond, “Oh, you are?”
Here’s my point- if you love your family and know that loving them is BETTER than killing and eating them, then you have already rejected Atheism. I believe you do love your family. I just want you to see that you are already rejecting atheism. After that, you may see that you have a heavenly father who loves you, and is waiting for you to come home”.
#JesusLovesYou
And JB poses this beauty only in order to sidetrack the conversation as he does. “Where do you get the idea that Christians shouldn’t kill natives”? Because of evolution and atheism we we would actually justify the stronger spaniards in killing pacifist natives that don’t comprehend killing. It wasn’t natural for them, and he can’t see that it is unnatural to use a law/bible to justify slaughter.
He doesn’t really know that it is mostly natural to not kill. Only a law splitting Christian can master that.
Why would anyone reject a humanist view that protects life and promotes freedom better than religion?
i would like to explore a solid answer to these thoughts though.
TheCommonAtheist 
“Why would anyone reject a humanist view that protects life and promotes freedom better than religion?”
No rational person rejects protecting life and promoting freedom.
If you’re serious about exploring “solid answers to these thoughts” I’d be happy to dialogue.
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I have a full day working today. Maybe someone else wants to ride your merry go round.
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No problem. My mistake in thinking you were seriously asking for answers….
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We’ll get to it sir. You never met me half way with a possible answer that would make sense from an atheist viewpoint. It’s part of the scientific approach. Prove yourself wrong–falsifiability. Even the Bible says that. “Prove all things” even my things John
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Are you asking me a question?
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Maybe you missed it the other day. Yes. You tell me how my model could work.
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I don’t know what “your model” is.
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Do you remember what “your model” is?
It will be impossible for me to comment if you can’t tell me what we’re talking about.
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Is it possible for you to conceive a scenario where natural evolution provides an explanation for morality? Can you try to prove me right? After all it is an accepted method of inquiry. And the Bible says “Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good. Just want to see if you are capable of seeing outside the framework of religion. Is it possible for good to exist outside religion and how?
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I hope you appreciate the irony of quoting the Bible at me in order to persuade me to agree with you that religion is unnecessary.
“Is it possible for you to conceive a scenario where natural evolution provides an explanation for morality?”
No.
I can’t conceive a scenario where mathematics provides an explanation for morality.
I can’t conceive a scenario where physics provides an explanation for morality.
Morality is not a scientific idea. It is a religious idea. I cannot “prove you right” because your model, as I understand it, is irrational.
But I’m certainly open to being persuaded! Help me understand how evolution explains morality.
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It is a natural phenomenon that occurs. Most species care for their young and live civilly in their respective environment. Some do not. Most humans would live just fine without religion, although a select few have tried their best to exact their ideas on others, which has caused lines to be drawn and force to be applied, when the natural consequence of action promotes a common civility all in its own. We don’t do things that cause harm to others, if you do there are repercussions and moral code derives from such. I.e. , if your parents never taught you the Ten Commandments, I’m pretty sure you would not be killing people. Although the opposite is true, religion puts the idea in your head. Tells you not to do it, and the prisons are full of Christians.
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I’m sorry. I don’t see any evolutionary theory in your reply. I didn’t see any science at all.
I thought you were going to explain how morality can exist without religion?
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If you can’t see the simplicity of the reasoning we have no where to start John. You can’t see how anything outside the Bible could work, when having no christianity has worked in civilizations past.
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I didn’t say anything about Christianity.
I’m quite capable of understanding reasoning. I’m still waiting for you to provide some.
Again…you are supposed to explain your model. You are to explain how Natural evolution provides an explanation for morality.
If you want to abandon that thesis then feel free to offer another explanation for the existence of morality. I’m easy!
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You’re dodging again to avoid the obvious
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LOL!
You don’t answer the question and somehow I’m the one dodging!
Brilliant!
We can conclude that your conviction about evolution being the source of morality is “religious” and not “scientific”.
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No. The exercise was for you to Make an effort to look outside of your fiction. You’ve never attempted to meet me part way. There is nothing that could possibly be said that add to dialog that would make you make sense. The burden is always in your court as the book you rely on claims to provide all the framework for morality.
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“The exercise was for you to Make an effort to look outside of your fiction.”
I didn’t offer any “fiction”, Jim.
The burden is always in the court of the person making the claim.
Apparently, you’re unwilling to meet me part way.
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Lol
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Then I’ll give you my answer.
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You got me, I can not figure these christians out at all. I try but they reject all information, they twist words, they prent to answer a question by going on a sermon about something else. I just gave up talking to one on Mak’s blog. Good luck. Hugs
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It is hard when a non answer is considered a loss, but just because there are not perfect answers for one specific point, the burden of proof is on religion. They claim there is something. Prove it! They can’t do it and haven’t been able to for years.
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I agree. But it is like grabbing a greased pig or a slippery eel when trying to pin some of them down in a conversation. Hugs
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If you ever want to eat an eel you have to cut off the head. “Eel head is delicious” -the ugly duckling
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JB is Branyan?
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Yes. He’s here now
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Oh how I hate arguments like this because of how ridiculous they truly are, it’s one of those arguments that ignores any evidence counter to it and thus thinks it’s correct.
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I also love how few theist blogs allow comments of dissenting opinions. They then promote the idea that the lack of arguments in their comment section as evidence pointing to the articles strength.
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Lol. Bit’o Moron, eh?
Craig is right. On Western monotheism, it all devolves to divine command, which is kind of an anti-realist position. No moral properties (or physical ones, actually) only divine will.
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Any one want to ride JB’s merry go round have fun!
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I got a response from the abitoforange guy the other day. Went and tried to listen to one of his videos, a fast talking Gish Gallop:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
… with some visual aids. Did a full page write up on the whole thing, and thought I published it. Turns out WP ate it. I was too pissed to go through it all again.
But I can tell you this, that dude is a wall of batshit craziness. Not worth the trouble. Banyon would probably like him.
I am doing my best at learning when to walk away. It isn’t easy. But I’m trying. There are certain individuals who are only in it for the satisfaction of the arguement and the absolute need to be right, but can’t seem to get past the problem that assertions with nothing to back them are meaningless. Nevermind the fact they never really say anything the entire time they are trying to make a point. The circular dance of nothingness.
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What? You don’t want to ride the merry go round? But it gets so old and the intellect is dizzying. Lol
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I have a hammer in the shop. When I feel the need I just whack myself in the head with it. Less pain involved 😉
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I was thinking Maybe a hand job from a belt sander would be better. The hammer works too
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…but sometimes I still think with my pecker!
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Since I’m new here, why do you try to converse with someone who’s more interested in one upmanship than a rational discussion?
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Poignant bulls-eye point Mary!!! 👏🏼
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Most of us try to go into a discussion with a readiness for some meaningful debate. After all the us vs. them is a wide divide (theism/atheism.) We tend to go in with the naive notion that people really want a rational discourse only to, more often than not, find the mind of an impenetrable religious bigot.
Then we have choices. Argue with a brick wall unwilling to concede facts vs. fiction? Do the religious Tango we have witnessed here? There is no logical or positional gain in that. Or walk away? Thus giving the person the impression they have won, which is their sole goal, and no one really wants a person that rarely, if ever, understands both sides of an argument to have that attitude when they have demonstrated absolutely nothing of merit. So it is difficult to put that aside…
I think I have decided it better to let them have the cheap win, I’ve lost nothing really, and they have gained nothing but the el cheapo win in their heads. No amount of links, science, fact, or rational discourse would have changed that anyway.
So, let’s have a good shot of whiskey then! And talk amongst ourselves 🙂
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Aah whiskey 🥃. Problem solved!
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I picked up a small bottle of Makers Mark today. After getting over the flu, I have yet to kick the cough. I have eaten cough drops to the point if I have another my mouth will jump out of my head and run down the street screaming, my stomach is sore from coughing. Ever had a sinus headache and a persistent cough?
I remembered that a shot of whiskey helps tamp down a cough pretty good, and the little bit of moonshine I had is almost gone. (A gift, I wouldn’t buy it, but damn it was the smoothest shine I’ve ever tried, so I haven’t bought any “yet”) Had a moonshine hot toddy the other evening, used caffeinated tea, it kept me up half the night. So I’ve resorted to taking around a half a shot straight 3-4-5 times a day resulting in the best success I’ve had so far. of course the wife insists I should go back to the Dr. I amy take her up onat Mon.
Just so ya know, I’m no heavy drinker by any means, hell I wouldn’t even be considered a light drinker by any drunks standards. That said, I have no aversion to an occaisional shot here or there just because 🙂
“cough” 🙂
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They haven’t yet evolved high enough? 😉
Seriously though, ONE (of many) reason is their belief in TWO external imaginary Proxies: Savior (e.g. God, Jesus) and Evil-Doer-of-Evilness (e.g. Satan, Lucifer). There are many ways to dissect this flawed paradigm — I have 3-4 I use — but I will just let this excellent video do it for me, if I may Jim:
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Sure boss. Anytime!
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The one thing I despise about Christianity’s claims, theology, and psychological marketing is that it promotes, advocates total disempowerment and UNaccountability for people’s words and actions. Any perceived Good or Bad in the world or in themself is “surrendered” over to these fake Proxies. The ramifications of this surrender by some 2.2 billion are categorically (and clinically) devasting for the person and society! What’s worse is that this has gone on for over 2,100 years! 😦
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This is priceless! Says it all in a nutshell!
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Thank you Mary.
The ONLY “tangible” (imaginary) proof Christians have to offer, test or examine their divine claims is their 4th century CE Canonical New Testament — and those manuscripts have NUMEROUS amounts of contradictions, folklore, approx. 200+ years of edits and blatant forgeries, and a narration that isn’t Jewish or Judeo-Christian Messianic in style whatsoever. It is Pauline-Greco-Roman in style! Hence, any “relationship” with a “God” or “Savior” is purely and extremely subjective to each individual or their particular cultural orthodoxy. Watch out for all those Christ ™ hyped sales-marketers! 😉
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Soooo.. because I have thus far failed to terminate my offspring to save on grocery shopping … I’m not beyond redemption? Did I get that right? (Though the older is certainly pushing her luck. Eating the last peanut butter cups again!)
Is this person serious, or just awkwardly trying to make a point?
Anyways.
Why would anyone reject a humanist view that protects life and promotes freedom better than religion?
I honestly don’t know.
Even if we allow for the good parts of Christianity (“Do unto otters, for they are Cute!”), the bad parts just seem to mess up the nice message over and over again.
Even if we consider some of the religious commandments that align with humanist ideas – they always come with other baggage (“ME! Only me! Don’t you dare to even look at another god or I’ll smite you senseless!”).
I’ve had this chicken/egg discussion with Christians before: Do humanists believe in not killing, not stealing, etc because religion came up with it first and we’re now all divinely inspired whether we know it or not? Or are these basic behaviors we’ve evolved to facilitate survival as a hunter/gatherer species who travels in groups, and religions appropriated the tenets and slapped a ‘holy’ sticker onto them?
As for the ‘eating your young’ part.
There are reasons animals do this. There are reasons humans used to separate the weak with few chances of survival from the pack, rather than waste already scarce resources on them (Sparta being an extreme example).
With our refrigerators and apples from New Zealand even in the middle of winter such brutal arithmetic of survival is alien and appalling to us.
As a kid, I used to watch the Acadian owls nesting behind our house.
For the owl with three chicks and barely food enough for two, it’s simple math. The weakest dies, the other two have a shot a survival. Of course the owl would prefer if all three lived – it just knows the cold, hard math of risking all three against saving two. And it doesn’t have Owl God telling it “Oh I’m there when you fall. Now try and save all three or burn in Owl Hell.”
But enter religion and suddenly the owl might have a different, more brutal math to contend with. What if her strongest chick was not sired by her lawfully wedded owlsband? It would have no chance of ever getting a decent nest! Why feed it in the first place, the poor bastard?
Oh, and that tree over there is claimed by Owl God, so you better build your nest in that raggedy old fir.
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There have been many peaceful societies that didn’t live bloodthirsty lives but then enter religion. Any religion. Aztecs used religion too. But like the ones referred to in the previous post, they had no concept of killing and got slaughtered.
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Columbus wrote that the natives,
“are so naïve and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone.”
He also wrote,
“I believe that they would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they had no religion.”
The European settlers took a free society without possessions, property, currency, hierarchy or written religion and replaced it with today’s America – the world’s shining beacon of selfish materialism, where every square inch of land/water/airspace is publicly or privately owned, taxed, and governed through a corrupt hierarchical system of laws and regulations where Mother Nature’s gifts are treated as personal possessions to be bought, sold, owned and defended.
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I often think they had a better perspective than we ever will.
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No doubt. The European model that runs the world now is a stressful unhappy life for a lot of people. They had their squabbles too, but nothing like the constant pressure here in the uS. I see it in rural Panama. They live beautiful lives. They wish they had more money, but when I tell them about a regular work week in American success, they say no thanks.
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That about sums it up, methinks.
I could go on about how the integration of Christianity into European culture has – in my view – added fuel to the machinery of conquest and extortion, but that’d become a book.
But I do think it’s important to look at it with a dispassionate, critical eye, too – Darwin’s survival of the fittest, if you like (pardon the cynic in me).
It’s easy to blame the European conquerors for all the ills in the world (and the spread of Christianity, while we’re at it) but from a purely evolutionary standpoint, they were simply the best/most successful predators. They were also excellent at snatching technology from other cultures (see China – gunpowder and pasta!) and run with it. Who remembers Italians weren’t the ones who came up with Spaghetti first? Rome might have fallen, its lessons stuck. Acquire, improve upon, make it your own. (Where exactly is the Vatican located again….?)
If the Aztecs had developed high quality steel, navigation, transatlantic travel etc before Europe, we might well have pyramids instead of cathedrals. And they might just as well have overrun those peaceful societies and found them equally easy prey.
So the question is: Would they have eventually experienced their own Renaissance, their own Enlightenment, their own discovery of “maybe cutting the hearts out of living people to ask the gods for rain is a bit daft?”
Would they have eventually made their own meandering way towards a more secular, rational, moral society?
But to make the full circle back to your original post: It is possible to understand the evolutionary, practical reasons the Spaniards (and later other Europeans) became the dominant powers, and to at the same time object on moral grounds.
We might want to consider that we’re looking at it from a comfortably removed position, and with lots of knowledge under our belts that our ancestors did not have, before we judge them. But we can not separate the religion that was an inseparable part of their lives from their actions.
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Maybe, but simply put, one or two people discover iron abilities and easily train an entire civilization the advances of war. While on the other hand, someone living a peaceful existence had figured out the best survival method and passed that along. I don’t think evolution plays a part here but religious dominance and cruelty. But I see your point could apply in a scenario if equal comparatives. Same goes for aboriginal species that found their groove, and had it disrupted by one mans invention, not an evolutionary process. More like revolutionary process. IMO.
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That’s why I figured it could easily be a book 😉
I think (just a hypothesis!) that a part of the answer might be found in Europe’s unique history and geography. Specifically, the population density vs the available land mass/resources.
Since being stationed here it’s been impossible not to see the evidence of countess wars and scuffles and never ending rise and fall of civilizations. And that’s just Germany. Travel around a bit and the scale becomes mind-boggling.
These observations have formed the idea in my brain that Europe was/is a little pressure-cooker. Where in order to survive an entire subspecies of human had to accelerate their development in areas of war (always surrounded by competition for your resources, nowhere to go) and of technology (faster/better food production, better military gear, more efficient housing arrangements etc).
The real brouhaha began with the rise of Christianity (so we have to consider it a factor, if not the kerosene poured onto flame) but the premises were already there. Expansion for the sake of resources, highly developed military for the sake of keeping ahead of your many neighbors.
The Roman Empire started as an attempt to not have those pesky barbarians making trouble all the time. Hannibal to the South, the Gauls and Teutons to the North; it was rise or die. But of course, no matter how far you push your borders, there’s always someone else beyond that one. Boy, did that get out of hand…
The Vikings didn’t rampage in England and France because they were evil heathen bastards (or because they wanted to bring Odhinn’s word to the Saxons) – they were out of food and freezing their mighty butts off. Their closest neighbors were not worth the trouble, or armed to the teeth Vikings as well. So, invest in your navy, achieve technological superiority, and off you go (later the British Empire seems to have remembered that one, and – surprise – improved upon the idea. Rule Britannia).
I’m like a child – I keep asking “why?!” 😛
Why did China, though in so many ways more advanced at the time, not expand like Europe did? Why did Japan, which also was densely populated and war-like, not overrun the globe? Why, to come back to your observation, did someone living a peaceful existence […] figure out the best survival method and pass that along. and not others?
Call me a cynic (again), but their climate, their geography, their very location – at once hemmed in and sitting in each other’s laps as it were, yet vulnerable to assault from the vast Asian continent and the nations bordering the Mediterranean – dealt the Europeans all the cards you need to become a right sonofabitch of a subspecies. Scrappy, dangerous, damn good at survival. But peaceful ones got weeded out long ago.
Now enter a Middle Eastern religion. A one-god religion. With an emerging structure and hierarchy, that slowly but surely unifies this cauldron of dozens of vibrant, polytheistic cultures under one aegis. Consolidates power. Makes its nest in the very heart of power, and survives the collapse of an empire. Survives the continuous, and quite normal wars and scuffles and Huns and Vikings and whoops there goes Charlemagne … you will be assimilated.
But it gets worse. This religion has missionaries. The Romans didn’t mind Osiris as long as you said Jupiter has the bigger one. This god won’t tolerate competition. That’s his secret weapon. Consolidation.
That, combined with the already mentioned pressure cooker, becomes a deadly concoction. One that, by divine mandate, now extends the pressure outwards. While still maintaining a healthy level of warfare at home, of course. Practice makes perfect.
Start with a few Crusades, and a Reconquista, see how it goes. (biggest rival? How surprising: another one-god consolidating power)
Whoopsie, church schism, 30 years of war, few minor schisms and wars afterwards, bit of a setback. Subjugation of foreign heathens proceeding apace, though.
Re-consolidate, take the advances gained in those wars … and the Ottomans who once knocked at the gates of Vienna are toast.
Meanwhile the Britons take lessons learned from Rome and Vikings, to Rule the Waves. Didn’t see that one coming. Or maybe someone should have?
Fast-forward a bit.
With Africa a threat no more but rather delivering resources (and squabbles – practice, practice…), Asia/Russia taking its cues from Europe and entering the game of squabbles and alliances, and the Middle Eastern one-god pushed back into comfortable distance …
Those wars and conquests have paid an unexpected dividend. Rapid technological advances. More food to support more people. Better medicine to prolong life spans (not for everyone just yet, but it’s starting…).
Science. What started during the Renaissance is gaining momentum.
With science comes thinking.
With thinking comes … “Yes it works but is it the Right Thing To Do?”
Slowly, oh so slowly, the one-god loses ground. Schisms turn to splinters. Non-belief still gets you shunned, but now you have a chance of not getting killed for it. People start wondering if you can be Good without one-god and his minions. The minions hold on for dear life – literally. Their power and wealth depends on their sole position as moral authorities.
But the scrappy, dangerous, war-like subspecies is no longer concerned with just surviving. They have time to think, and they do a scary lot of it.
They remember others had some ideas before. The Greeks – until they got caught in Rome’s expansion. Bummer. Then same Romans, but their choppy progress got hindered by politics of survival and eventually was aborted with one-god’s rise. Wait, what?
Weren’t there heathen Allthings, Viking common laws? A Magna Carta curtailing the Divine Rights of kings? Why did we never build on this? Or rather, take it to its logical conclusion?
Is it a massive surprise that the collapse of Europe’s hegemony is tied to one-god’s loss of influence? Or to the (re-) awakening conscience of said continent?
Is it surprising that the two wars which deserve the name World Wars still started on this continent?
Or that after that last Big one, the secularization has rolled on with quiet but increasing force?
WWI still was between monarchs deriving their power from one-god. WWII was a battle of ideologies, and in essence the first one relived because nothing had been settled. Europe just never knows when to cry uncle.
They do know how to survive.
And now here they are. Universal healthcare, higher population than ever but dealing with it through trade and science, more universities than army barracks, highest standard of living, happiest people on Earth (Denmark, don’t know how many years in a row now). The Dutch just figured out how to grow tomatoes in a desert. The Swiss dabble with Higgs. The German dairy farm 5 klicks down the road is energy autonomous thanks to solar panels and clever use of cow dung.
They still have churches. Some of the prettiest ones you’ll ever see. But one-god’s power has been mostly relegated to the privacy inside your head, and in places where people still allow him influence.
Now it was half a book after all 😉
Anyhow. I don’t think it was religion alone that set Europe on its path. That would be neglecting its rich, turbulent history before one-god’s arrival. And it would do some of its ancient deities an injustice.
I do believe monotheism was the catalyst that turned a deadly force outward.
(I shall call it “Excerpt from a Cynic’s Hypothesis)
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Incredible marksmanship!! Thank you. I find somewhere in the middle is usually the truth, but religion does carry a flame fanner every where it touches down. Fabulous comment! Bravo! And now I’m going to have to put my thinking cap back on!
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Oh wow. Thank you 🙂 I’m quite flattered my haphazard hypothesis (aka aiming in a certain direction, but unsure of the target) has hit a mark.
Do let me know where your thinking cap takes you, I love it when I can get feedback on the more wobbly and/or scattered parts of my speculations.
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