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From: (http://www.atheistlloyd.com/debunking/agnostica.html)
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AGNOSTICA
Atheist and Agnostic Morality and
Natural Ethics
by Lloyd Harrison Whitling
SML 201
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>- Rec'd: Thursday, January 05, 2007 1:34 PM
>- I speak only of primate behavior. What
is morality anyway? Just a set of rules regulations that occurs in a
social order, in most cases, set down by whomever is in control. The theme
exists in all social orders human/animal, "let me control you and I will
take care of you".
>- >- >- Question: If a society existed
where atheists had total power, would it be "immoral" to believe in god/s?
Let's look at those questions one by one: "What
is morality anyway? Just a set of rules regulations that occurs
in a social order, in most cases, set down by whomever is in control.
The theme exists in all social orders human/animal, "let me control you
and I will take care of you".
Scientists and religious cults have been wrestling with
that question since social orders began, so whatever I would pose would be
just one man's arguable understanding. Few will agree with it, and even
fewer have bothered to try gaining an understanding. What seems certain is
that it is a subject about behavior, that religion has already provided
answers for us that nobody can agree about or live according to, that
dictionaries define it differently, and that science has, so far, refused
to touch the subject.
Philosophers have, from the time of
Aristippus of Cyrene and the
early Jews, and probably before that, engaged this problem and attempted
to resolve it. The most promising answer, to my mind, is found in the way
animals respond to pleasure stimulation and pain, when in combination with
the natural tendency to achieve and maintain a state of physical and
mental balance.
Question: "If a society existed where atheists had
total power, would it be "immoral" to believe in god/s?"
If you read widely among atheists' literature, you will
not find morality given much space in their writing. The entire matter is
more often referred to as 'ethics'. The general atheistic consensus
is that human behavior is a human concern, and that we are taught to be
ethical or unethical by our parents, elders and peers, and that it has
been well defined by our secular system of laws.
Still, secular people need to fully understand
morality and ethics, not so much
so we'll know how to behave for ourselves, but because these poorly
defined concepts are so often usurped to use against us, as the ideas
expressed above show one person's concerns. Once that happens, and it too
often does, then it becomes a tool for manipulation and control and that
becomes the only experience of it that people get to have. Humanity has
never existed under a truly free moral and ethical system because we have
never possessed knowledge of what that would require in order to endure,
and we have never been totally free of the fascistic influences of
religious cults.
It is hard to factually know how atheists would fare at
being fair because we seldom know each other. We do not come with a big
'A' stamped on our foreheads so we can recognize each other and make very
many honest observations. The only atheists people know about are those
described by their religious establishments, and those who rise up from
among us to become publicly vocal. I can add that atheists and agnostics
all would wear that 'A', as both would be religiously certified as
"unbelievers". Knowing that, I shall henceforth categorize agnostics as
atheists. We can, however, and should ask questions.
In my mind a lot depends on individual atheists and their backgrounds.
I have, for an example, noticed incongruity between people raised as
atheists (or who were aware of their atheism at an early age and so
avoided indoctrination), and those who are more properly identified as
apostates. I am not on sure enough ground with this to do more than
mention it and acknowledge the extreme amount of conjecture any statements
would require.
I would guess, however, the introductory assessments about morality
might be correct if lifetime atheists were involved, but doubt it. It
would take a way larger sampling than the few people I know to verify
that, and a lot would depend on how they were raised as atheists:
Were they taught respect for humanity and human rights in general?— about
cause and effect relationships (or, more correctly, action and
consequence)?— or the predator/prey relationships that are always a
consequential part of life in all its forms? Were they trained to adopt
determinism as a philosophy?— or hedonism as Epicurus and the like taught
it?— or do conduct edicts of the reigning religious body in their area
decide right and wrong for them?
Apostates carry a lot of baggage on their journey into atheism. Atheism
is defined as (in one form or another) being without a god belief (some
insist "being without belief" covers it all without the word 'god'
included. I find this untrue). To adopt atheism as an apostate requires
more than learning about a nonexistent creed, it entails the shucking off
of creeds and habitual thoughts and actions associated with the abandoned
systems. Few of us completely accomplish that; I would venture to say,
none of us.
Okay, so that, in itself, makes an apostate a different kind of atheist
than one who has never experienced religious indoctrination. That,
however, is only a beginning. An apostate whose anger caused him/her to
reject religion's claims becomes an entirely different kind of atheist
than one who (like myself) just plain could not swallow religious
apologetics and dogma. The more I tried to find something about it to
believe, the more convinced I became there's no way I could remain
religious except as a hypocrite. I believe the majority of apostates are
like that. I would proclaim myself to be agnostic because of a 1 out of
15000 (a guesstimate someone else made) chance that a god of some kind
could exist, and to be an atheist because that ratio looks too lean to
worry me.
If that is true, then a government run by that kind of atheist would be
benevolent and concerned, but would not back down from theistical attempts
to regain their current (in our present time) domination of affairs. I,
though, truly doubt that many of this kind of apostate would feel driven
to participate in governance. I surely don't, except in response to what
it does that threatens me.
Angered apostates, however, might feel driven to gain as much
power as they could to rid themselves of the irritating effect religion
has upon them. I am just guessing, here, but I am aware that emotional
feelings impel people toward actions that logic and reason cannot. I also
wonder if apostasy as a result of anger will drive people into adopting a
studious stance toward all of the philosophizing and hypothesizing that
atheists engage in, so that they eventually become aware of a
sense of morality far
different from the one with which they had started out. Or, are they the
ones who turn their backs on ideas like morality and end up adopting one
of the religion-like secular creeds wherein they can find all kinds of
inscrutable responses that allow them to easily put off proselytizers they
would rather overwhelm than understand?
Among those raised as atheists, a laissez faire upbringing appears to
produce an entirely different kind of person than those whose parents
nurtured them toward adulthood. Among all atheists, you may find
sub-groupings of people whose inherent attitudes and outlook may inspire
aggressiveness, dominance, totalitarian or authoritarian impulses, or the
reverse of that. You would probably be far more aware than am I about the
differences in which those two kinds of approaches toward child-rearing
would result.
But, here's the rub: During all the time I have spent writing this, I
have been struggling to think of a self-professed atheist who had risen to
a dominating position in any historical world government. I can only come
up with a couple of people (maybe three) who were not truly atheists but
were nevertheless definitely not adherents of any of the Arabic or eastern
religions, who had risen to governmental prominence. If the actions taken
by Jefferson/Paine/Madison can speak for atheism, then I must believe you
have nothing to fear from us, even though they actually were Deists.
About morality, what do we mean when we say that word? A
dictionary describes it as accordance with standards of right or good
conduct, from which develop a system of ideas of right and wrong conduct.
Religious morality should be understood to be different from that, and so
we will refer to that as cultural morality because it will differ from one
group to another and from one cult to another. Behavior resultant from
awareness of a relationship between action and consequence, we can refer
to as natural (secular)
morality. I believe you will find this only among human beings, and never
in its purest possible forms because of the influence religion imposes.
Apes will never concern themselves with such problems because they all
know who beat the crap out of the strongest ones among them and became the
boss.
Primate behavior speaks to a secular kind of morality
among humans, wherein the dictionary morality differs from that defined by
the religious whimsy that inculcates the compulsive-but-arrogant
self-loathing inherent to Xianity and Islam. In nature, things settle down
to a rather placid balance unless something (like religion or scarcity)
comes along to keep them stirred up. A social grouping will naturally
settle into those roles and relationships most suitable to the
participants within most groups, just the way a handful of sand thrown
into the air will settle to its own natural state if left to the
inclinations of the individual grains themselves. I have worked enough
construction sites to know that from experience.
Now: If that is true, and morality comes inherent to the homeostasis
resultant from that, and someone came along to stir it up and throw it out
of balance, I think you can find the answer to your own question. Perhaps
grains of sand have no concern about it, but among primate humans with an
interest in compassionate cooperation within their group, think of the
relative effects of various scenarios: (1) Someone starts stealing and
hording precious items others treasure. (2) Someone aggressively kills
some others over a period of time. (3) Someone craps and urinates in the
food supply. (4) Someone intentionally causes an explosion that kills and
injures almost everyone. (5) Someone chops down a large tree so that it
will crush a neighbor's house.
Those are bad, right? Those could be satisfactorily declared immoral
without too much argument, right? And yet, we do not find any aggressive
characters striving to instill that assessment into the atheists' group.
Another set: (1) People tend to be helpful to each other, and to
recognize the benefits inherent to that way of being. (2) Someone has
baked loaves of bread and added them to the food supply, apparently from
her own abundant reserves. (3) Someone has to fix his roof, and someone
else offers to help, and then stays at it until the job is complete. (4)
Someone takes aside a child, and shows him a way to accomplish a task that
had been frustrating him. (5) Someone has had a revelation, and begins
preaching to the group about their sins and evil ways, which lead them on
the path to condemnation.
Are all five of those alike? Do they all elicit the same kind of image
in your mind? Does one or more seem out of place? Of all ten of them,
which is most apt to have an aggressive and classic psychotic or
schizophrenic type A personality performing it? You may find that true of
more than one: Are they all from the same group?— or would you consider
that one of the ten should be moved into the other group? Of all of them,
which most agrees with the idea behind morality being "let me
control you and I will take care of you"? Would you say that example
displays an obviously atheistic image in your mind?
It most likely depends upon your own training and indoctrination, does
it not? |
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Agnostics and atheists will handle moral questions in very
much the same way, in most cases. Where differences of approach occur,
those differences will show up on both sides of that imaginary divide.
What gets overlooked when people try to define a difference
between agnosticism and atheism, is that they are responses to different
questions.
The atheist will respond very like the agnostic if asked,
"Is there a god?" If asked, on a scale of zero to one hundred, to state
their certainty, an atheist will more likely assert a low estimate ("On a
scale of zero to one hundred, I would say the likelihood of an existent
god is so minimal, I would have to round it off at .001"). An agnostic
will typically waffle, or say "fifty/fifty", or say "an answer cannot be
given" in the most unassertive way possible. Agnostics are not out to earn
anybody's respect to deal with this question.
If asked the very different "Do you believe in God?" honest
agnostics, atheists, and many dishonest theists (answering with their
actions and not their words) must all answer the question the same way:
"No." Again, the agnostic will waffle; the theist may lie, glower to show
anger, or try to change the subject; only the atheist will be assertive.
Agnostics (and many theists) are atheists, pure and simple, but try to
evade the issue with a strawman by answering a question nobody asked.
Agnostics who do not like what that says should take a good look at the
responses typical of their group.
Now, to get back to the statements this got written in
response to, what are the moral implications behind this dodgery? If
morality is what human beings and other sentient primates understand to
uphold those kinds of intentional actions regarded to be 'good'
(beneficial, constructive, positive, pleasurably beneficial), and if
immorality is what gets understood to be 'bad' (harmful, destructive,
negative, conducive to painful results), what then is the moral nature of
divisive religion?
Actions regarded to be good are generally those which
enhance group cohesiveness: They promote the general welfare of the group
and tend toward binding it together in a social manner. They do not
introduce pain into the group, and may increase the level of the joy of
living group members experience. Bad actions are those intentional
acts which tend toward divisiveness: They set some members against others;
they introduce discord, pain, anxiety, suspicion, increased levels of
stress and negative emotions; they cause distrust and hatreds that prevent
cohesiveness and social binding; they cause activities that lead to
physical or emotional harm.
Looking at all that as the natural, hedonic
(primate-inherent) standard for morality, is the atheist immoral for his
assertive honesty? Is the agnostic more moral by avoiding the issue with
his insistence to answer an illicit question instead of the one he was
asked? Is the theist most moral by insisting a god exists who cannot be
brought into evidence? Let's look again at our ten examples, using moral
to signify what benefits the group, and immoral to signify that which
detracts from the group. The choices are yours to make:
(1) Someone starts stealing and
hording precious items others treasure.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(2) Someone aggressively kills some
others over a period of time.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(3) Someone craps and urinates in the
food supply.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(4) Someone intentionally causes an
explosion that kills and injures almost everyone.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(5) Someone chops down a large tree
so that it will crush a neighbor's house.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(6) People tend to be helpful to each
other, and to recognize the benefits inherent to that way of being.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(7) Someone has baked loaves of bread
and added them to the food supply, apparently from her own abundant
reserves.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(8) Someone has to fix his roof, and
someone else offers to help, and then stays at it until the job is
complete.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(9) Someone takes aside a child, and
shows him a way to accomplish a task that had been frustrating him.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(10) Someone has had a revelation,
and begins preaching to the group about their sins and evil ways, which
lead them on the path to condemnation. The group divides and fights
break out as a result.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
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Just as an interesting aside, if you are convinced the
United States was founded on Xianity, and that all morality comes from
God, try to also give the Bible verse that supports your answers.
An aspect of morality that seldom gets considered still
needs representation here. Many of us define morality in terms of causing
harm or hurt, but that is an incomplete definition that overlooks the
matter of intent. Take a look at five new examples with obviously harmful
results:
(11) While romping with his son on
his shoulders, a man pretends to gallop like a horse. While they pass
through a doorway to answer a telephone, the son's head strikes the
frame hard enough to break and bruise his skin and make him cry.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(12) A woman, while busy cooking in her
kitchen, pauses to answer her phone. She becomes so engrossed in an
animated conversation that her food boils dry, catches fire, and her
house burns to the ground.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(13) A man loses control of his new car while
driving it on an icy road, and slides into a car stuck at the edge. One
of the occupants gets killed and everybody ends up in a hospital.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(14) A police officer shoots a man who tries
to escape capture during a robbery attempt.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(15) An entire town is destroyed by a tornado
that occurs hot on the heels of an earthquake. That which has not
collapsed gets destroyed by fire. Few people survive, and those who
manage to are left homeless.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
We can generally agree that because we cannot directly know
the contents of another human being's mind, we can only infer intent based
on our own experiences. (Will those who accuse atheists of mean-spirited
behavior please try to understand that?) We also perceive Nature as being
mindless and that intent is therefore an impossible condition of that
state of being, no matter how much harm a disaster may have caused. To
declare a disaster "an act of God" takes nature out of the picture and
makes it God's responsibility.
Granting that responsibility to Nature, however, allows us
to perceive an absence of moral content in any natural event, be it
beneficial (the sun shone, rain fell, crops grew to abundance) or harmful.
We would not, therefore, deem the events cited in example fifteen
"immoral". We must, however, if we attribute them to the god named God,
and so regard it to have been intentional.
We can also use that example as a precedent while
evaluating the other fourteen examples, and use our own experiences to
infer whatever moral nature we may find in them. Keep in mind that many of
those who are willing to believe in invisible beings and supernatural
powers may be willing to assign a form of mentality to natural events. It
is here that we will discover a distinct difference in flavor of secular
morality when compared to Xian and other Arabic religions' assessments.
Look at example ten, and see that an opposite view might be expressed by
each. |
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Now, with all of that behind us, look at the kind of
conditions to which you attributed the term 'morality':
"…What is morality anyway? Just a set
of rules regulations that occurs in a social order, in most cases, set
down by whomever is in control." Do you
now perceive why rules and regulations develop in a social group? Can you
perceive how arbitrary rules and regulations could have a harmful
effect in spite of the best intentions? Can you see how rules and
regulations that benefit a few individuals at the expense of others could
actually be immoral? Can you see how introducing false premises that
instill fear, distrust and discord could actually be immoral? Can you see
how the development of justifiable rules and regulations could enhance the
group and so be, in itself, a moral undertaking in any group?
Can you now answer your own question: "If
a society existed where atheists had total power, would it be "immoral" to
believe in god/s?" If your answer is "yes" then
I, an atheist, have to disagree with you: Belief or disbelief is not an
action taken that will, in any manner, affect the group for so long as it
remains private and innocuous. Your thoughts cannot be known until your
actions give them voice. Look once more at item ten: Will those actions
affect the group? Will they be moral or immoral in an atheist-dominated
group? Most importantly, if there be no god, will they be moral or immoral
in and of themselves?
Also, look at this: In our secular country, insanity is
given as a reason to show absence of intent. Ask yourself, "Is the man
acting according to his revelation insane, and therefore not responsible
for the results of actions initiated by his hallucination?"
Most atheists with whom I have interacted deny choice in
the matter of their absence of god-beliefs, and declare their true choices
were between atheism and hypocrisy because they could not make themselves
believe what they see to be incredible. They had no intent to become
atheists, they will tell you, they tried to wear the religious dogma as
their own but it would not fit. Use that as a precedence, then decide
whether atheists could justify accusations of immorality to those who
cannot help but believe what they could not.
(16) An insane man goes on a rampage and attacks
passers-by on a downtown sidewalk. His actions cause injury to women and
children and the destruction of valuable merchandise before he can be
stopped.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(17) A poor farmer who lives alone gets into an
accident while driving his truck into town to purchase feed and supplies.
While he is in a coma his animals suffer starvation and thirst until
someone discovers their condition.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(18) A child has just discovered how to skip
stones on a river's water. He makes a particularly strong effort while
trying to see how far he can make a stone go, and his poorly aimed rock
strikes another child on the head.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(19) A nation's taste for largesse, fuel and
fine garments leads the world's farmers and merchants to concentrate on
supplying the kinds of goods that will feed this demand. This leads to
diminished food supplies because farmers are concentrating on ferment and
fibers instead of grains and produce.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(20) A grand cathedral
gets built on some of the most valuable property in the city, and taxes
must be imposed on all the residences to make up for revenues the city,
county and state have lost. Most of those who use the cathedral come from
elsewhere.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
As you can see, moral issues cannot always be easily
decided. Intent, action, result, are all present or not in any case. The
issues will not go away simply because we insist on calling them
some other name, nor if we insist on discrediting them, and nor if we
insist upon denying they have any effect on us.
Morality is often discounted as a strictly individual
concern, but you can see that, in most of the examples, it is seldom so.
Morality is also a large part of ethics, and so involves all of us even at
higher levels. They are more complicated than simple answers will cover.
Strictly religious issues will often be in conflict not only with other
religions or secular understanding, but also with reality.
Moral assignments that lead to harm may themselves be
immoral. The only way we can lead the best lives possible is to realize we
need each other in many ways, and so we cannot abandon social living with
positive results, and we cannot avoid learning what kinds of actions are
required to promote our own welfare in a social setting.
(21) A crying man regrets what he must do, but
he must kill another because he feels convinced the world will be a better
place without that person in it. Is his intention
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
(22) By using an approved method, a state kills
one of its residents because it has been generally agreed through a legal
process that the world will be a better place without that person in
it.
[ ] MORAL
[ ] IMMORAL [ ] NEITHER
A wide ranging set of examples this page presents should
convince any thinking and rational person that moral considerations are
not just the purview of a central authority or a religious enterprise, nor
are they very much subject to cultural agreements if they are to be real.
We each have a right to disagree with others' conclusions, and to press
for adoption of our own. Each human individual must be held responsible
for his and her roles in any society, for its actions and for their own,
whatever position they may occupy. Ethics and morality are no more nor
less than the formal and informal processes that apply to such
considerations. The role of a society is generally to recognize or
diagnose and to mete out punishments and rewards according to a predefined
set of rules. What is so hard about that? What part of it requires
religious belief to make it work? What part of it is made better by
religious interference? What part of it is made worse by people who are
incapable of empathy?— or fail to insist upon honesty?— or refuse to
realize there may be reasons to reconsider their stances? |
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Copyright ©2007
by Lloyd Harrison Whitling. All rights reserved.
![[Click for Larger Graphic]](../images/DMmaeka002.gif)
"To deny a right to the experience of pleasure
is immoral unless that denial can be justified by a valid presentation of
how pain will result from that experience in an amount that would render
the expected pleasure regrettable; or, if it can be shown that pain will
be induced in others innocent of any involvement. The role of science in
moral issues should be to test that, predict that, and find harmless ways
to demonstrate that."
— L. H. Whitling in the eBook,
Secular Morality — |
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This page last edited on
05/05/2008
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