Why aren't you a murderer?

[only_human]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

In addition to Zeta-Flux's argument of being Christ-like, imagine for a moment that you have a parent or friend or judge or something that would forgive you no matter what you did. Would that mean you'd want to be evil and need their forgiveness? No. Knowing you have forgiveness when needed isn't a "do evil and get out of trouble free" card.

What I was trying to suggest was that an atheist and the Christian could be on closer moral footing than might otherwise appear. Someone not morally bothered by the murder itself might also not be bothered by the shopping around for some facile form of absolution. Of course such a murder would not be righteous.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by retina

I'm not a murderer because of common decency. I don't understand why some people like to automatically assume that an atheist can not be a decent person?

It seems to be a strange perceptual blind-spot that I find in people otherwise very open-minded.

bigotry: prejudice and/or discrimination against one or all members of a particular group based on negative perceptions of their beliefs and practices or on negative group stereotypes.

I just skimmed that specific definition off the internet as it closely applies.

Upon accepting that a lack of belief (in God) is a position of belief itself, the dots can be connected to see how it applies. I feel that many who did that exercise would be disturbed because in all other positions of religious belief they may be much more tolerant and would not want the term of bigotry to apply to them.

Strange to have this on a mathematical forum because that not accepting that atheism is a valid position of belief is similar to not trusting the value of 0 is a number.

[S485122]

Originally Posted by only_human

Upon accepting that a lack of belief (in God) is a position of belief itself, the dots can be connected to see how it applies.

Not believing in one or more gods or supernatural beings is not a lack. Atheism is not a belief : believers in the supernatural quite often use the argument that not believing is a belief. I can not agree. As a simple deffinition of the differences :
- Religions are constructed about some beings that have no physical existence, even if they are "supported" by something physical like the sun for instance. Then purpose and rules are attributed to those beings.
- Atheism on the other hand is based on the refusal to construct meaning on what can not be observed.
The fundamental difference is faith, religion needs faith, atheism does not need faith.

To come back to the original point of the discussion, moral rules tend to be more or less universal, regardless of religion or absence of religion. And the essence of the moral systems is to behave toward others as one expects the others to behave towards oneself. Then there are many loopholes : the most common is to deny some others the sameness that would enable them to be treated well. If necessary the holy books of faith or law are interpreted as necessary.

Altruism is not a necessary ingredient, Stirner for instance built a moral system on egoism and even doubted the existence of altruism But the end result is still the same behave toward others as you expect the others to behave towards yourself.

Jacob

[retina]

Originally Posted by only_human

Upon accepting that a lack of belief (in God) is a position of belief itself, ...

What sort of gobbledegook is that? How can you both lack something and have it at the same time?

[only_human]

Originally Posted by S485122

Not believing in one or more gods or supernatural beings is not a lack. Atheism is not a belief

If I said I have the opinion that there is no god, not many people would quibble with that being a valid opinion.

Now, if after living a few decades and still not seeing evidence perhaps I would become more and more convinced there was no god. Say I am not scientifically minded, and in fact have developed no rationale whatsoever about how I decide whether there is no god, but nevertheless believe there isn't one. Isn't that validly what I believe, even if I choose not to use logic or any particular method to reach a conviction? Isn't it fair to say that, that is what I believe?

Suppose if in believing that there is no god I find that I have been "subjected to prejudice and/or discrimination against one or all members of my group"

Deciding that there are 0 gods in existence, regardless of method of deciding ( science, logic, guessing, faith, etc.) is a valid decision. The fact that the quantity is 0 does not mean that I did not make a decision.

Now this quantity of gods that I decided upon, because that is what I decided it is, is what I believe it is. Because I decided. Maybe I only get an opinion that the quantity is 0; people might not like me to say that I believe that quantity is 0. Believing the quantity is 0 is might be inimical to the concept of belief.
So how about I decide to give up on using the word "belief" because of its conflation with the word "faith" and instead choose to limit myself to the opinion that there is no god. I can still apply this definition of bigotry:
unwillingness to recognize and respect differences in opinions or beliefs

Because I don't believe that there is much respect in the United States for the opinion that there is no god.

Originally Posted by retina

What sort of gobbledegook is that? How can you both lack something and have it at the same time?

I meant something like this:
Believing that there are 0 gods is a position of belief itself.

[S485122]

The subject of the discussion was atheism, not the position of people who have not thought about the subject. Even for those I find it difficult to speak of a belief : belief is something active, absence of a belief is not.

Jacob

[robo_mojo]

Originally Posted by rogue

The following terms probably describe why many atheists don't believe in murder:
altruism
humanism

or simply rationality

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by S485122

The subject of the discussion was atheism, not the position of people who have not thought about the subject. Even for those I find it difficult to speak of a belief : belief is something active, absence of a belief is not.

Jacob

But who has been talking about the position of never having thought about the subject? Certainly not only_human whose postings are perfectly clear to me but seem to be continually misunderstood by a several other respondents. Like only_human, I identify my own atheism as a rational belief in itself. I also share only_human's view that people who believe that there is no god have much the same set of moral values as people who do believe in a god. I would quibble only with only_human's suggestion that forgiveness (of sins or whatever you call them) is a particular attribute of followers of the christian religion - on the contrary, the ability to forgive is a human attribute and irrespective of the religion - but I appreciate that this may have been just a tongue-in-cheek way of setting up the counter-question "why aren't christians murderers?".

Moral values, which we all have and which we need to function in society, are a very different attribute to religious beliefs. The super-strong bond between them which some people attach is to my mind a contrived one.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by S485122

The subject of the discussion was atheism, not the position of people who have not thought about the subject. Even for those I find it difficult to speak of a belief : belief is something active, absence of a belief is not.

Depends on whether one defines atheism as "absence of belief" or "belief of absence." The former is what is more commonly referred to as agnosticism; the latter is the more-typical definition of atheism:

1.
......a. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
......b. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.

2. Godlessness; immorality.

Note the interesting [and all-too-common, IMO] implied association in [2].

and is indeed "something active" in terms of being an affirmative claim of belief - in this case the refutation of deity is the affirmative claim of the belief system.

[S485122]

I define myself as agnostic and atheist.

One can construct big systems of belief, but lacking a basis they are just sandcastles. Agnosticism has different meanings. For some people it means not choosing which supernatural system of beliefs one adheres to. Some atheists even classify agnosts as believers ... (unable to choose ?) I see it as the refusal to build on the unknown to construct something still more unknowable.

I like metaphysical discussions, but in the end it is just intellectual masturbation : speaking about things, lacking even the tiniest lever to tackle, measure or asses them. In formal logic "false implies true" is true, in other words one can say anything about the non existent, but almost all of the time it has very little meaning.

By the way, I do believe : I believe I will have at least one other cup of tea before finishing this post. And I did :-)

P.S. I resent the definitions using the word "lack" because one meaning ot that word is "deficiency" !

[only_human]

Originally Posted by S485122

P.S. I resent the definitions using the word "lack" because one meaning ot that word is "deficiency" !

Yeah, using "lack" in my earlier post was unintentional. I attribute it to my discomfort conveying something unpleasant. I was focusing on the conclusion and not so well on the individual words.