Richard Dawkins: A world with no God would be immoral (user search)
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
April 26, 2024, 10:22:23 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Discussion
  Religion & Philosophy (Moderator: Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.)
  Richard Dawkins: A world with no God would be immoral (search mode)
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: Richard Dawkins: A world with no God would be immoral  (Read 1981 times)
True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
Moderators
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 42,156
United States


« on: November 07, 2019, 11:22:37 PM »

That actually doesn't surprise me all that much, all considered.

The kind of morality that Dawkins is talking about is the shallow utilitarian-behaviorist version of "morality" that the ~Rational Community~ has long tended to gravitate towards. If one takes that perspective, then yes, obviously the prospect of supernatural reward and punishment is going to have an impact on one's actions. Utilitarianism is all about human actions as rational responses to incentives, after all.

At least I can respect this argument coming from Dawkins, since it's consistent with his intellectual premises. On the other hand, people who claim subscribe to an orthodox Christian theology and parrot these lines of argument are making a mockery of their faith.

     That we see Christians propounding this type of argument points to a major failing in catechesis in this country, and one that has been important to the decline of religion in the United States. About three-quarters of Americans say they are Christian, but a far lower proportion has a grasp on what that means. If you have been raised into a secularized mindset, it is easy to adopt secular apologetics that seem convenient to the theist position at first blush, even though they undercut it in the long run by implying a materialist paradigm denuded of spiritual power.

Agreed.

Now I would posit that for most secular people there exists er... tension between their ethics and cosmology/anthropology, but nothing about that stops them from acting morally.

This.  People, especially those who are secular who reject an absolute and transcendent source of moral truth, are often far more influenced in behavior by their cultural environment and basic biological impulses than whatever views they have concerning how morality is grounded and whether it exists at all.  Even the most consistent moral relativist will be outraged if he heard a child was being sexually abused.  One needn't have a coherent, consistent account of why murder is wrong to know intuitively that it is evil and to refrain from it . For this reason, the God/morality debate often ends up in a logjam, since there is a difference between having true moral knowledge and acting on it vs. actually being able to ground it.  


The problem with that is "what is murder?" At it's core, murder is any homicide not sanctioned by society. But if you're part of a society that sanctions dueling, lynching, genocide, or "honor" killings, then you likely won't consider such actions to be murder unless you reject the standards of your society.
Logged
True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
Moderators
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 42,156
United States


« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2019, 12:19:47 PM »

Secular morality has no problems coming up with the final five commandments (Reformed numbering). It's the first five that are dependent upon how society and theology are viewed.

It's my view that the Fifth Commandment: "Honor thy mother and father." is not a self-evident rule of morality and hence why I group it with the previous commandments rather than the latter ones.
Logged
True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
Moderators
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 42,156
United States


« Reply #2 on: December 08, 2019, 09:52:47 PM »

He's not saying a world with no god would be immoral. He's saying that we already live in a world with no god, and if certain people start to realize that, they may begin to act in immoral ways. Big, big difference.

Frankly, this is an example of Dawkins at his most idiotic. Not only does it view religion through an exclusively Western viewpoint, but it misses the whole thrust of Abrahamic theology, which is that the fear of God is by itself insufficient to lead men towards being moral.

To be fair, quite a few theists miss that point as well.
Logged
Pages: [1]  
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.026 seconds with 12 queries.