morality

[MarquezsDg]

So Im speaking with an ahtiest friend of mine and I asked him if he feels science can account for morality. He responds like this. How would you guys respind to this and also what in his statment is something i can study to see any incosistantency in his statment. thanks!

Hussein, here is some food for thought. On morality; from Diaries of Dissension, Chapter 5: "Human morality, though sophisticated and complex relative to other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive ...individualism and foster human cooperation. In terms of social evolution, many social animals share some of these common characteristics. Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining selfishness in order to make group living worthwhile."

 

[Mathetes]

A few things, off the top of my head...

1. The big one is that it's a fallacy to try to derive an "ought" or a "should" from an "is". Put another way, just because the world is a certain way, does not mean that we ought to act in a certain way. Just because animals are unselfish, does that therefore mean that we should be unselfish? The Christian is justified in saying that we ought to be unselfish, because our Creator has commanded us to do so. But the atheist doesn't have any basis for saying we "ought" or "should" act in a given way. The best that they can say is that they feel strongly towards certain actions, but that's not really compelling.

2. What about selfish animals? If you've ever owned a cat, well...

3. Should we always do what we see in the animal kingdom? Some crustaceans can be cannibalistic...does that mean your atheist friend plans on having you for lunch some day? Crows have been observed to steal and lie...does that mean it's ok to lie and steal from your atheist friend?

4. It also doesn't answer the more complex moral questions. Even if your friend can establish that he should be unselfish, do you draw the line somewhere? After all, every morsel of food you eat could instead be provided for a starving child somewhere. Especially given how the animal world seems to favour continuation of the species at the (sometimes) expense of the individual. How do you decide what to do with modern biological issues like cloning or stem cells?

 

[GulfCoast Presbyterian]

What is being described is conformation to an expected behavior for communal acceptance and survival, NOT what we would term "morality." For an instance, Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, etc., modified thier behaviors in order to outwardly conform to societal expectations, but they are certainly not "moral" in any sense of the word. I hope that helps.

 

[Loopie]

Hussein,

I have had many interesting discussions with atheists about morality, and from what I have learned from them (and read in books) it seems that ANY system of morality that is not derived from God is a system of morality that results in irrationality, and inconsistency. This is definitely something that I learned from reading books on presuppositional apologetics (especially Van Til).

For example, every time that I talk to an atheist about morality, I always look for key words such as: happiness, good, evil, bad, pleasure, pain, hurt, harm. ALL of these terms are relative terms, and their exact definitions change according to who you are talking to. Aristotle spoke of happiness as being the Ultimate Good. Hume considered things to be good if they were useful ('useful' being yet another relative term). John Stuart Mill advocated Utilitarianism, which asserts that we should seek out the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people (and I would add, for the greatest amount of time).

In all of these cases, a non-Christian philosopher is attempting to define a system or morality. The problem is that they end up just using relative/ambiguous terms to define other relative/ambiguous terms. The cycle never ends.

When you press them on these issues, they will eventually retreat to terms such as 'common sense' or 'common good'. These terms also need to be defined, and it ultimately results in the atheist declaring that morality is determined by majority vote (society decides what is right and wrong). Of course, this is an Ad Populum argument, and is illogical, since we would all agree (and every atheist I have spoken to agrees) that the majority does not always do what is right.

Furthermore, you have to ask them which society they adhere to. There are hundreds of societies in the world today, so how do we know which society is right and which is wrong? When we look at history, how can we say that the Nazis were wrong? The Nazis didn't think that they were evil. Simply because the Western Democracies declared the Nazis to be evil does not mean that they were.

An atheist will immediately respond that the Nazis were evil because they were murderers, killing millions of people. Yet the atheist does not realize that he is still trapped in his own circle of relativism. The Nazis themselves did not consider killing Jews to be murder (since they viewed Jews as subhuman, and enemies of Western Civilization). In Hitler's eyes, going to war against the Jews was self-defense. So who gets to decide whether Hitler was right or wrong? The atheist inadvertantly uses a specific human society as his final authority on matters of morality. Yet even in this he is inconsistent, because as soon as that society deviates from what HE considers to be right, he will disregard and condemn that society for being immoral.

In the end, the atheist cannot avoid using relative terminology to redefine other relative terms. As for the so-called 'final authority' on matters of morality, the atheist often uses a specific human society as the majority vote (ie. 21st Century America). Yet the atheist is not consistent, in that if society does not agree with him, he will criticize society. In this way the atheist reveals that HE himself is his own final authority on morality (he makes himself his own god). That is why any system of morality that does not derive itself from God is always going to lead to moral relativism, irrationality, and inconsistency. In order to defend the existence of objective morality, the atheist MUST borrow from a theistic worldview. All we as Christians have to do is catch them in the act.

I would love to say more on the subject, but I feel that this should be enough to give you an idea of how to discuss morality with atheists. I hope that this helps!

 

[MarquezsDg]

thanks for the respinse guys .is he arguing whats called "social contract" theory?

 

[Hilasmos]

Hussein, here is some food for thought. On morality; from Diaries of Dissension, Chapter 5: "Human morality, though sophisticated and complex relative to other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive ...individualism and foster human cooperation. In terms of social evolution, many social animals share some of these common characteristics. Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining selfishness in order to make group living worthwhile."

I would just let him ride this train and see where it gets him. There is a link between morality and epistemology; behaviors are controlled by beliefs, and morality is a set of beliefs about how one will operate. Morality is not an objective universal truth of "ought" (that extends beyond its present evolutionary usefulness), but a phenomenon that aids in surviving the natural selection process (for those that have this cognitive development); therefore, our beliefs are no different, they are just the by product of natural selection since they correspond to survival.

Likewise, something as simple as adhering to the laws of logic is a morality issue. By everyone actually believing that they could relate to each other in a uniform way is utterly essential; yet again, these beliefs in logic would just be a phenomenon that has no correspondence to anything that is actually true, but just to what socially aids in group survival. Thus, from there his only argument would be to show how naturalistic philosophy contributes to group living in a better way. It may in his case, but since you are in a Christian community, by his own naturalism it would be better for you to believe in God as that would comport to group living best.

 

[Tim]

I would just let him ride this train and see where it gets him.

Yes. And this is a biblical technique.

Pro 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

 

[Unoriginalname]

thanks for the respinse guys .is he arguing whats called "social contract" theory?

His view sounds much more inline with the new atheists. Social contract is much older and more complex and I would suggest that you not concern yourself with it for now. One of the best courses of actions to take, would be to let him fully flush out his views then look for the inconsistencies. Ask him how he knows things ought to be a certain way or ask him why to defend why his views of social norms are better than tribesman on an island somewhere. If he is trying to describe right and wrong in a paradigm that is void of the true God he will be doomed to be inconstant.

 

[MarquezsDg]

really helpful guys thanks a bunch

 

[crimsonleaf]

Nothing to add here but to say great answers chaps and helpful to me as an ex-atheist (I knew I was going wrong somewhere...)

 

[jwright82]

So Im speaking with an ahtiest friend of mine and I asked him if he feels science can account for morality. He responds like this. How would you guys respind to this and also what in his statment is something i can study to see any incosistantency in his statment. thanks!

Hussein, here is some food for thought. On morality; from Diaries of Dissension, Chapter 5: "Human morality, though sophisticated and complex relative to other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive ...individualism and foster human cooperation. In terms of social evolution, many social animals share some of these common characteristics. Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining selfishness in order to make group living worthwhile."

I remember one of the funniest shows I have ever seen was even a comedy but a documentary on the History Channel about "The Seven Deadly Sins". This one in particuler on adultery started out by making fun of christians for beleiving that was wrong saying the it was only Freudian repression of the worst sort. Than they brought in the evolutionary gurus to excitedly tell us how evolution may finely be able to tell us why adultery is wrong. They tell how we possibly adopted this behavior to maximize our chance of passing on our genetic line. After it was over I started laughing very hard and my brother who watched it with me asked why I was laughing. I said that that show had been all about why adultery was bad and they gave not one reason why you shouldn't commit adultery.

Just because monogamy is a possibly better way to pass on my genetic line does not in any way, shape, or form mean that I should be faithful. You cannot put morality under a microscope hence science will never be able to solve our moral problems. That show also did not deal with any philosophical theories of this subject, which in one way is the proper feild of study into this. But never the less some scientists think that science should answer every question of human life. This is basically a standered example of the is/ought fallacy, you cannot logically move from is (what science says) to ought (what we should or should not do). Just because murder is the taking of human life does not automatically mean that I ought not to commit it.