Can The Atheist Be Moral?
I found this article on one of the Examiner.com’s pages, written by their Phoenix Protestant Examiner, Shane Meehan. Shane Meehan may be qualified to talk about Protestantism, but when it comes to Atheism, he is severely lacking.
Having the benefit of the Bible and the ten commandments as a guide, I stuggle to see where the atheist might get his morality from because it is not externally revealed to him in any way. The bible? So, he must think that stoning for violating the sabbath is moral. And the Ten Commandments? So, he must abide by the no graven images commandment, right? No crosses, statues of Jesus or angels in his home?
The code of ethics that the atheist believes in is internal meaning he draws it from his own self, his knowledge and experience, to create a rule of behavior that is universally applicable to all mankind. This is called humanism and it is the most widely accepted philosophy on ethics among atheists. Sweet zombie Jesus, he got something right! Not the humanism part, but still.
And if we are to consider that the atheist does not believe in humanism, that man determines his own morality, that what other options are there? If God does not make the rules and man does not make the rules then the only other option is to say that there are no rules to begin with. And this is the very absence of morality that I believe is consistent with atheism. So if an Atheist does not perscribe to a moral philosophy then he must be immoral? And Atheism itself is immoral? Lets see his reasoning.
Well, I should have read further before I started writing this. This isn’t an article about Atheism, its about humanism. Damnit, now I look like a douche. Oh well. Time to refute his position on humanism (and yes, at this point I HAVE read the entire article).
Humanism does not dictate to us a specific set of laws but more of a guideline by which such laws might be made. Principles of humanism involve doing what is best for the individual and the collective group and to avoid doing harm to others. Humanists are also concerned with treating all life with dignity, the responsible use of natural resources, and an ethical treatment of animals. It promotes the well-being of humankind and the planet as a whole. Not entirely true; like most philosophies, there are different schools of thought, the collective school being a more recent and rising group. Not all humanists adhere to that school; I for instance am a humanist but do not agree with collective humanism, though I will admit to being under informed on the subject. Sounds good, doesn’t it? This is one of those lame bs tactics used by people preparing to launch into a lengthy refutation of what they just “praised”. I do it all the time. In fact many prominent intellectuals over the last century have become members of the AHA, American Humanist Association, including Isaac Assimov and Kurt Vonnegut who were both presidents of the organization and a number of Nobel prize winners. Nice appeal to authority here.
But as compelling as humanism may sound on the surface, objections are bound to arise. Are there not conceivable moral dilemmas that humanism might not be able to solve? Quick flashback; this statement is coming from someone who started this article by declaring his morality to come from the Bible. What about something as simple as telling a lie? What if someone tells a lie that doesnt result in the harm of another in order to avoid punishment for one’s self? Does that situation not fit the code of humanism? After all, humanists dont believe in abstract concepts such as justice that need to be upheld for their own sake. Right. We believe that justice is a process, but that if someone who is obviously guilty escapes punishment during the trial, then they escape punishment. The humanist believes that justice is only as valuable as its execution; failure to execute justice with the proper procedures, conduct, charges, prosecution, trial, and punishment renders the entire process a farce. Justice is not defined by success in prosecution but by fidelity to the law. Only what is good for the individual and what is good for the whole exist. Some might argue its good to uphold justice for the benefit of all. But justice in this case would simply be the law, not an abstract concept. Humanists certainly advocate upholding laws. But if you can lie and get away with it and not hurt anybody and it doesnt break a law, why not do it? Wouldn’t this lie be morally permissable or “right” according to humanism? Reading his second to last sentence, I realized that he broke with his earlier example, and instead asks “if someone lies about something legal, and it doesn’t hurt anybody, why not do it?” Tell me again what’s wrong with lying? Of course lying is undesirable, but if it doesn’t have a negative impact on someone, why should there be a punishment associated with it? We call that thoughtcrime, and thoughtcrime is one of those few things almost universally reviled outside of religion.
We know that one of the criteria for knowing what is morally right according to humanism is the absence of harm done to another. What happens when there is a conflict between doing good for the individual and what is perceived as harmful to the collective group? Again, he is using an appeal to uncertainty to criticize humanist philosophy, when he himself promotes a text that is hipocritical, unjust, sadistic, immoral, inconsistent, and unclear on most issues, at best. Certainly, what is harmful can be subjective, right? No. We have a clear definition of harm. There are many types of harm. Physical harm, emotional harm, perceived harm, etc. Percieved harm? Ie bullshit. If it isn’t physical (including property) and it isn’t psychological (including insult and bigotry) then what other harm could there be? Since hurt feelings are so subjective, is it okay to hurt someone emotionally to get what one wants? Hurting someone’s feelings is not an illegal act. Calling a black man a nigger does no physical harm to him, and some may simply ignore you, but most blacks would take great offense. And doing so is considered harassment, plus when done in public it could be considered creating a public disturbance. While we do not have a law addressing every single occurrence, we have a sufficient legal structure in place to cover just about any form of emotional abuse. It might refer to a perception of emotional pain resulting from a breach of trust or verbal abuse or some perceived offense. Certain degress of verbal abuse are illegal. For instance you can not threaten to kill someone or insult a police officer. But there is no law against such things as violation of trust and that is exactly why adultery is perfectly legal in this country. As it should be. And again, the Bible promotes rape, incest, sexual exploitation of women over men, and family over a guest, and condones the sacrifice of one’s own children, just to mention a few. The concept of morality is a murky one, but promoting a vile system found in the Bible should not be preferable to a sometimes murky one advocated by humanism. The Bible may seem to be certain at times, but it is almost always wrong.
Marriages are legal and binding by law but adultery, that which breaks a marriage, is not illegal. Now, I almost agree with him that there should be a consequence for infidelity to one’s spouse. I don’t, because infidelity itself is so difficult to define, and falls under the category of thoughtcrime. Also, there is a legal ramification for it; in most divorce proceedings, the spouse who cheated tends to receive far less than the spouse who did not. It doesn’t always work out this way, but in the real world damn near nothing is so simple as if x, then y. So, how might the humanist view adultery? If we are not breaking the law, we have to examine if it does harm to another. Again, this comes down to perceived emotional harm based on breach of trust. Since the harm done is merely hurt feelings it is difficult to establish as true harm. Does not adultery harm the sanctity of marriage itself? A very interesting choice of words he employed there. Merely hurt feelings, as opposed to violating the sanctity of marriage. Am I to presume that he considers the institution of marriage to be more important than the emotional well being of either party involved in it? Ah, but again the atheist does not believe in marriage as a sacred institution. Because it isn’t; we consider marriage to be so much more than god’s lame attempt to keep people from fucking. From the humanist view adultery can only be wrong if it dissolves a marriage if a stable marriage contributes to a stable society. But doesn’t divorce accomplish the same thing? Divorce is perfectly legal and perfectly accepted by humanists. Let’s take a slightly different approach on this same issue. Quite a leap here. And I have not ever met a humanist who considers non-monogamy to be both moral and a part of the humanist philosophy. Also, divorce is supported by humanists because we recognize that people, being fallible, should always have the option to dissolve a union that becomes abusive, oppressive, unsustainable, or that they have the option to end a marriage that they come to accept was formed in error. We do not believe in punishing people for eternity, you could say.
If atheism leads us to humanism, then humanism also traces its roots to evolution. Hello? What the fuck does evolution have to do with this? On The Origin Of Species was published in 1859; Atheism has existed as long as humans have. A belief in evolution is even listed as one of the six points of humanism under the current version of the Humanist Manifesto, so this should be undisputed. Undisputed that evolution exists, yes. The Humanist Manifesto makes it clear that all supernatural claims are rejected, and scientific investigation, like evolution, is the only way to properly explain the physical world around us. If we look at evolutionary theory we find that one of the closest kin to human beings is the monkey. Monkeys are notoriously promiscuous creatures, preferring multiple mating partners and mostly showing no signs of monogamy. If rampant, undiscerning procreation furthers the goals of evolution and this behavior is modeled in our closest evolutionary ancestor, then why is adultery wrong for human beings? Wrong. Apes are our closest relatives, not monkeys. And for every Bonobo that is promiscuous, there is a Gorilla that rarely copulates. Further more, Bible! Lot fucked his own daughters! How many characters in the book take 2, 4, 7 wives or more? And evolution is what this guy thinks promotes rampant sexual promiscuity?
I imagine this argument would pose a significant challenge for the humanist, atheist or evolutionist. And instead of me putting words in their mouth I invite them to share their answers here, in the comments section. The only significant challenge I had reading this was doing so without yelling at my computer, as I am in a library. Could Christians who write critiques of Atheism please stop referring to their writings as difficult for Atheists to address; you’re an ill-informed faithhead, and you’re going to be wrong about more than you are right about. Why do you think so many Atheists used to be believers? Because they realized that you don’t know what you are talking about, and that your arguments simply do not hold up to scrutiny.
Michael
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