I’ve been reading, perhaps ad nauseum which could be my issue, the debate of theist and atheist apologetics regarding the source of ethics. The debate can be summarized as follows:
Theist: Atheists cannot be ethical without resorting to theist arguments. Therefore, God.
Atheist: Theists don’t understand the Euthyphro dilemma. God and morality cannot both exist. Therefore, not god.
Theist: Commie!
Atheist: Inquisitor!
[scuffle breaks out]
Let’s just all agree that people are good and people are bad. Independent of religion, philosophy, or atheistic beliefs, some people will be Mother Theresa and some people will be Hitler. Aren’t there better arguments that we could be proposing? Not arguments in the sense of conflict, but in the sense of debate. Surely the fact that branches of atheistic (or at least nontheistic) philosophy exist is proof that atheists have ethics without resorting to a theistic worldview. Lets move on to more interesting arguments.
5 responses so far ↓
1 nee // Jul 24, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Godwin’s Law… that was quick!
2 Jonathan // Jul 24, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Miko -
Ironically, the Bible supports your view - Paul says that all people have a conscience - an innate sense of ethics - whether they believe in God or not.
3 John // Jul 25, 2007 at 5:24 am
Nee, you beat me to it!
This may be purely anecdotal, but I encounter more theists who can’t understand how someone who doesn’t believe in God can be ethical than atheists who argue that belief in God precludes ethical behavior.
In fact, the “God => morality” argument is one of the most common ones I encounter for theism.
4 Miko // Jul 25, 2007 at 6:24 am
hehe, the actual debate I was reading degenerated into “Nazi!” rather than “Commie!”, but I wanted to save Hitler for my not-Mother-Theresa argument.
I guess John’s point is the reason I keep seeing this: there are more theists who think that atheists can’t possibly be ethical without god that they all end up starting the discussion. I’ve run into a lot of atheist rebuttals in the last few days and it just seems like such an obviously thin argument. Not a straw man per se, but definitely an argument based upon lack of adequate knowledge.
5 nee // Jul 25, 2007 at 9:18 pm
One of my ex’s later had a child with a woman who was arguing with him about taking the child to church and religious instruction. The ex is an atheist. The mother’s argument? “But how will our son be moral without church?” You can imagine his response.
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