Dan Barker and some fundie pastor squared off over whether atheists can be good without God. It’s such a ridiculous thing to argue against, but don’t underestimate the lure of bigotry:
Students and community members filled the Woodburn Hall auditorium Monday for a debate about the controversial Bloomington Transit bus advertisement, which says “You can be good without God.”
The debate featured Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who discussed the merits of the atheist ad campaign with Dan Waugh, pastor of Adult Ministries at the Evangelical Community Church in Bloomington.
“There is no absolute moral guideline in the Bible,” Barker said in his opening remarks. “If you are motivated to be a good person because of the promise of heaven, that shows how little you think of others.”
The debate was highlighted by varying moments of humor and tension. Barker drew surprised gasps from some audience members when he called out Waugh for practicing faith in vain, calling his God a “petty, vain, insecure, egotistical being.”
Barker’s arguments centered around the idea that morality is a human trait, defined by the goal of minimizing harm. He said that there is no purpose of life, only purpose in life.
Waugh responded by saying “good is a function of purpose. If there is no God, then all that is left is nature, and nature cannot communicate meaning or purpose.”
Which is why we make our own purpose and meaning. Why is that so hard for some people to understand?
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62 Comments
No; in fact its 4:33 in the morning right now and I am violently fornicating, while yelling a wide variety of expletives.
If you are fornicating, how are you typing this comment. LOL
Don’t make me post pics Bacon……
Pics don’t really work online since you can find so many. LOL It would have to be video with some sign like for unreasonable faith. LOL
With one hand.
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=04302003
he’s boffing a robot
Now a serious comment. It doesn’t take religion to be good but it does take being raised to believe in being good to be good. I figure that most people who believe some god is required to be good have never looked outside of that view.
“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion”
Steven Weinberg
Evil people doing good things can easily be the result of religion too. I wouldn’t necessarily call this a good thing.
If ‘evil’ people are doing good things, then what is it that makes them ‘evil’?
And why would a good thing be any less good if done by an otherwise evil person? Even Ted Bundy could have theoretically done something good for someone at some point in his miserable worthless life. If the act is to be considered tainted by unrelated acts performed by the same individual, then the result itself would have to be considered tainted as well.
But since there’s no way of knowing if Ted ever did any such thing, or to whom he might have done it, or for that matter, the complete background and history of anyone performing a selfless act, should we then consider all good actions suspect by default until said people are proven to be unimpeachably good?
It’s easier to just not pose the question, or to even worry about it, unless your desire is to TRUST NO ONE. A good thing is a good thing, regardless, so take it for what it is. Subject to some universal standard of agreement on what constitutes “good”, of course.
@Bender
I don’t think that religion is the only thing that can make good people do evil things. Any cause can do the exact same thing. Religions are more persuasive than some causes because of their universal claims; however, “for king and country” has caused plenty of good people to commit terrible atrocities, too.
The Bible instructs how to deal with an atheist or anyone who rejects God . . . Kill them.
Includes chapter and verse.
I was agreeing with the post up until your concluding comment:
“Which is why we make our own purpose and meaning. Why is that so hard for some people to understand?
If we are moral at all, in some sort of intuitive way, it is because we look fondly at cooperation, trust, compassion, team work and the like. But the only reason those skills are in our repertoire is because they evolved next to destruction, independence, violence and the like to further our survival.
These are not tools of our making, no more than most of our “purpose and meaning” are of our making. To end your post on the ideal hope of self-control, self-determination, total freedom and the life is a bit too optimistic, I feel.
Hate to pull an Atheist Experience here, but first you need to define what both “good” and “God” are before we can answer the question. Just what does good mean? Is this a personal God, an all-hating God, an all-loving God, or what?
That’s what I’m starting to wonder. What definition of good are the anti-billboard people using? I can’t see any reason to be up in arms over them, unless they think the only way to achieve the Good is through pious devotion to god. That putting god first is what creates the good?
Which is why we make our own purpose and meaning. Why is that so hard for some people to understand?
This is why it’s hard to understand: Christians believe in an intrinsic, inherent, and objective purpose to existence. When you remove that objectivity, “purpose and meaning” simply feel hollowed out.
“There is no absolute moral guideline in the Bible,” Barker said in his opening remarks. “If you are motivated to be a good person because of the promise of heaven, that shows how little you think of others.”
This is a very strange critique that seems to be made over and over again by some of the “new atheists.” It’s a strange reduction of what Christian morality is, and it’s little more than a straw man (especially when leveled against Protestants, frankly). Sure, there are some Christians (and not just Christians) who do good deeds because they think they’re stockpiling goods, etc., in the afterlife. IMO, Christian morality isn’t grounded there but is instead grounded in the Great Commandment — love your neighbor as yourself, because your neighbor is just as valuable as you are.
Except when your neighbor is an abortionist or gay or black or works on the sabbath, then it’s okay to kill them, ’cause God wants you to.
Thank you for your rendition of how most Christians are not “true” Christians, and only your particular version has got it right. I will file your version with all the others.
Didn’t you know that brgulker is a true Christian not like all those others who have got it wrong?
Re: “‘There is no absolute moral guideline in the Bible,” Barker said …’ This is a very strange critique that seems to be made over and over again by some of the “new atheists.” It’s a strange reduction of what Christian morality is, and it’s little more than a straw man (especially when leveled against Protestants, frankly).
I can’t speak for all the “new atheists,” but I can point out that, while Christians believe the Biblical message carries a uniform moral message, the truth is that it does not. For example … it contains examples of God inflicting violence himself, frequently in the Old Testament (e.g. when he killed Er and then Onan, Gen 38:7, 10; killed two sons of Aaron, mentioned 3 times, in Lev 10:1-2; Num 3:4; Num 26:61; not to mention Noah’s flood, the plagues of Egypt, etc.) as well as in the New (e.g. Jesus in the Temple, told in Mt 21:12, Mk 11:15, Lk 19:45-46, & Jn 2:14-15). The Bible also shows God explicitly lying, again in both the Old (2 Ch 18:22) and New Testaments (2 Th 2:11). On the other hand, we have passages such as the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) in which Jesus expressed love and pacifism as godly ideals. The message of morality in Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, then, is inherently conflicted and in no way unified or absolute.
Re: “IMO, Christian morality isn’t grounded there but is instead grounded in the Great Commandment — love your neighbor as yourself, because your neighbor is just as valuable as you are.”
Actually the Great Commandment’s instruction to people to “love one another,” is significantly diluted by the Commandment’s first half, which says “to love God above all else.” What this means is that, if you believe God has condemned someone … say, gays, or people of other races or religions, etc. … then one’s love for, and duty to, God places that condemnation ahead of the latter half of the Commandment. In other words, it obviates the instruction “to love one another,” in such cases.
There are a great many moral lessons in the pages of the Bible which very few, if any, Christians actually hold. Among these are absolute pacifism (Mt 5:39) and apathy toward government (Mt 22:21, Mk 12:17, and Lk 20:25). Quakers are pacifists, and some Christians avoid dabbling in government, but the vast majority of them are willing to engage in violence and to commandeer the government to suit their own purposes. If the moral message of the Bible were truly as unambiguous, uniform and absolute as Christians think, this would not be the case. That they have found ways around these moral instructions (e.g. in the concept of “just war” as well as the rise of things like dominionism), shows how muddled Biblical morality truly is.
What does brgulker have to say to this post of PsiCop’s? I’m interested.
What is a new atheist?
A ridiculous, retarded appellation tacked on by imbeciles (usually in the “media”) who act as though America has been a 100% uber-Christian nation since 1776. Typically, when these morons are asked who the “old” atheists were, they might be able to name Bertrand Russell.
A ridiculous, retarded appellation tacked on by imbeciles…
Hm. I tend to think there is sharp and fairly identifiable shift in the argumentative stances and tactics between the current crop of Atheist popular writers and the immediately prior generations.
“I tend to think there is sharp and fairly identifiable shift in the argumentative stances and tactics between the current crop of Atheist popular writers and the immediately prior generations.”
“New Atheists” is a term used to describe the current generation of atheist writers and thinkers (Dawkins, Hitchins, et al). There is a different argumentative stance, and a somewhat different philosophy between the atheists of this generation and the one before. Most notable to me is the idea that religion is incredibly harmful and needs to be removed from society; this is a new idea, and how seriously it is taken by the atheist community is new as well. I think this has created a lot more hostility than it has solved problems.
I think this has created a lot more hostility than it has solved problems.
I’m not entirely sure that’s true. It definitely has coarsened the discourse, to the extent there ever was one, but that has been occurring on both sides. The perniciousness of some expressions of religiosity have become clearer in recent years, with the rise of religiously-motivated terrorism, attempts to directly hijack political institutions, and so forth. I tend to think the phenomenon is really a more general escalation on both sides, and I think it unfair to blame the “New Atheists” for that alone.
On the other hand, I would not count myself as among them.
I kind of have to disagree with you on the view that religion needs to be removed from society as a new argument. I think it has been around for most of history just it has mainly been pushed by other religions. Since I am not really to familiar with the history of atheism, I can’t say that they looked at religion as necessary but I can’t believe all of them had that view. I would figure that those that considered themselves atheist before the internet were censored by theist. I figure without the internet the numbers would be a lot smaller then they are now.
As far as I can tell the moniker “New Atheist” refers to a crop of atheists who are popping up in something of a “front” to speak up for their atheism, in a way that’s unprecedented and daunting to theists, who’ve basically run the show for most of human history.
In other words, they’re “uppity atheists” who don’t know their place enough to keep their atheism to themselves.
Granted, “vocal” atheists are not new. People like Madalyn Murray O’Hair leap to mind as outspoken atheists of the past. But what’s “new” about the “new atheists” is that they appear to be moving in a wave, and perhaps by accident according to the dates of books they’ve published, appear to represent a “movement” which is unprecedented in scope — again, compared to the past, wherein atheists have been perceived as anomalous or non-coordinated.
The label “new atheist,” therefore, is completely subjective in nature. The reality is that atheism, even vocal atheism, has been around a long time. There is, however, an appearance that it is somehow “new” or that atheism is being forced on occidental society in a “new” way.
Basically anyone who uses the label “new atheist” reveals more about him/herself than s/he does about the people s/he’s talking about.
…compared to the past, wherein atheists have been perceived as anomalous or non-coordinated.
Reminds me of old jokes about anarchists. “But, how do they even have meetings?”
Luke over at Common Sense Atheism mentions a book condemning the “New Atheists,” published in 1986.
Apparently, this whole “New Atheist” thing is cyclic. Maybe if I hold on long enough, I can be part of the next New Atheists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_atheist#21st_century
Weird, the link works, but that should be “History_of_atheism#21st_century”…
“love your neighbor as yourself, because your neighbor is just as valuable as you are.”
It is impossible to love your neighbor as yourself. It is a sinister commandment in that it not only will set you up for inevitable failure but also make you feel guilty and morally inferior.
Because they’re emmotionaly retarded and intellectually stunted.
We are all emotionally retarded, intellectually stunted and bad spellers ! Come on, get off the self-righteousness.
I’m not being self righteous, just honest about what I think of theists. And dyslexic.
Aaaaah Guilt-Free sex…. the Nemesis of Krixstain Philosophy. ”Don’t you know”, said the smart old theologians…. 1500 years ago. ” If we can make them feel guilty for being human beings, then we have them under our control” ” IF We make them think that sex is ‘DIRTY’ for them, a necessarily secret & forbidden indulgence, and then we make it necessary for them to have to ask us for permission to perform this most normal human endeavor, SEX: And then….. we make them think, afterwards, that they comitted a “SIN” a sin against an imaginary, invisible god, who will send them to Hell to burn for an eternity, because they had INTERCOURSE, because they ‘Fornicated!!!’ Without permission! And…. we make them come to us for forgiveness….then we control the minds of those FOOLS too!” “ABSOLUTELY” ” Any more questions, Brothers???”
If you need God to do good,
Do you need Devil to do evil?
Or does that just come naturally?
Palindromes anyone?
God lived on no devil dog.
heh.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
moths
this is my new favorite palindrome
I think that a better question is “HOW THE HELL CAN CHRISTIANS BE GOOD WITH gOD?” ;)
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/fundamentals/bible_moral_guide.html
Frightening to say the least.
At a reading of The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins concluded his answer to an audience question about atheist morality with, “We lust after good like we lust after sex.”
Can Christians be good without a god?
Is there any place in the Bible that says whether it’s moral to fire-bomb thousands of innocent civilians…even if you’re fighting a genocidal psychopath?
Is there any place in the Bible that says whether the best speed limit should be 55 or 70 miles per hour?
Is there any place in the Bible that says whether Congress should enact regulation to limit the trading of complex financial derivatives?
There are literally millions of moral dilemmas that are not answerable by a “holy” text that is hundreds or thousands of years old. How do Christians know what to do in complex moral quagmires if there is not an explicit Biblical or traditional Christian teaching? Wouldn’t Christians in those cases just do what everyone else is doing? Isn’t that what most Christians tend to do every day anyway?
“Is there any place in the Bible that says whether Congress should enact regulation to limit the trading of complex financial derivatives?”
Actually yes, kind of! Usary (the lending of money and charging of interest) is a sin according the the Bible. That’s why the First Crusade was essentially funded by Jewish money-lenders, who loaned English Christian knights huge amounts of money to go off and kill Saladin’s Muslims, who had taken large swathes of the Jewish holy land including Jerusulem, murdering many Jews in the process. It then led to a pogrom in England against Jews by Christians, who were murdered or banished, when the ruling elite couldn’t pay their debts back.
But of course, they weren’t real Christians. Or Jews. Or Muslims.
If you read this blog about China you wouldn’t be so glib about atheism. There is something missing in China when it comes to right and wrong,
Chris P
Today, China. Tomorrow, Sweden.
Yes, but Sweden’s murder rate is much, much higher than the US’s …
Wrong
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tAJzrYuGxXOGbU_HO2s_PrQ
http://thebloughs.net/blog/page/5/
Seeing as that got left out slash slash thebloughs dot net slash blog slash page slash 5 slash
Oh, I tought the problem with china was that it is a pseudo-communist country, and undeveloped -so far.
But definitely, their problem is that they are atheists.
Or maybe, as we can see in the blog you propose, the problem is that they lack of any fashion sense “Not The Hose-Sockies!”
there are no xian foundations of morality whatsoever
The de-deification of western culture (including the sciences) is our task for next 100 years.
• the basics
You have only to step outside monotheistic thought to understand how much western atheism and theism alike operate on the narrowest bandwidth of knowledge.
If your model of religion is based on the big-3 near eastern monster-theisms, you won’t even understand non-theistic philosophical theories and practices so vigorously quashed by the hope-faith-charity crowd for the last 2,000 years:
1. Xian (Jesus’ or Pauline) “ethics” is not ethical at all.
2. Non-western example: the ethic of Confucius is superior.
3. There is no inherent relationship between religion and morals.
4. all god proxies are frauds
• the details
Jesus’ ethic is irrational, otherworldly, and impractical. It promises much, and delivers nothing. Jesus’ “interim ethic” couldn’t outlast one generation of true believers. After all, the world was about to end. “Behold the lilies of the field . . . . ” (Search term: interim ethic)
The fideistic irrationality of Paul of Tarsus with its anti-intellectualism, misogyny, and revenge seeking has poisoned the West for 2,000 years. After all, the world was about to end and Christ would soon return to elevate believers and damn everyone else — but he didn’t show. (Read 1Cor1:20-30 NIV See N. Cohn. Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come 2nd ed Yale)
Chinese culture was far luckier. Based on that very rational, this worldly, and practical book, The Analects [Conversations], attributed to Confucius. Five hundred years before a fictional Jesus and hysterical Paul, Confucius was eons ahead of contemporary xian (jewish/islamist) thinking:
6:20 Fan Ch’ih asked what constituted wisdom. The Master said, “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.”
Get the point? No relationship between religion’s “spiritual beings” and ethics, “the duties due to men.” The latter cannot be understood in terms of the former. (For the western parallel, see ER Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. Cal Pr. esp pp. 31-32.)
What follows? “God is dead.” No surrogate for gods: no Pope, prelate, priest, pastor, rabbi, imam can dictate human behavior — or force submission to some state-supported officer of “God”. (State support of religion in the US comes through non-profit federal tax status and 1st amendment busting “faith-based” initiatives.)
15:23 Tsze-kung asked, saying, “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” The Master said, “Is not ‘reciprocity’ such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” [trans. S.R. McIntyre 2003]
All religions are outdated cultural artifacts. All ethics are irreducibly social. An ethic is a cultural artifact with certain necessary conditions — for example, prohibition of murder.
Deliberate killing of an in-group member (a person) cannot be tolerated (generalized); otherwise, no social group could exist.
the anti-supernaturalist
“An ethic is a cultural artifact with certain necessary conditions — for example, prohibition of murder”
why necessary?
And “otherwise, no social group could exist” is not an answer if you don’t develop it
“Deliberate killing of an in-group member”
Only those who are “in”? How should we define the members of the group? What if I don’t want to be in your group?
Re: “Jesus’ ethic is irrational, otherworldly, and impractical. It promises much, and delivers nothing.”
That’s true. However, if one assumes Jesus to have been a teacher of classical Cynicism, as a number of scholars do (e.g. J.D. Crossan, B.L. Mack, R. Funk), the irrationality and impracticality is explainable, and even becomes the point of his teaching. Cynics advocated forcing people to think in new and different ways about things. Jesus’ advice which seems impractical or even dangerous on its face (e.g. “turn the other cheek” … in the ancient world you could be asking to be pummeled to death!) makes sense to Cynics, in the form of a “thought experiment” or simply imagining how things might turn out if one does the unexpected.
So, was Jesus actually telling people not to defend themselves if they were struck? A literal interpretation would be an obvious “yes.” But classical Cynicism would not necessarily have viewed this as literal instruction, but as an idea worthy of ruminating over, if nothing else. The lesson here? Thinking too literally about things, and compounding the error of literality with additional assumptions and anachronisms, leads to erroneous conclusions about things.
(All of these remarks, of course, sets aside the fact that few Christians ever actually live by a literal interpretation of Jesus’ credo to “turn the other cheek.” Curiously, it seems to be the most literal readers of the Bible who are most likely to disobey this instruction. Hmm.)
As for Chinese morality being superior to European … sorry but I don’t see that at all. And the principle of “reciprocity” was known in the occidental world, e.g among the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. So it can hardly be called a Chinese innovation (much less a Judeo-Christian one).
With religion, people do good because they are scared of getting punished in hell and promised with heaven. A bit like training a dog.
Atheists have no promise of hell and heaven so they do good because they want it themselves and not because they have to.
“With religion, people do good because…”
Can I add a pair of quantitatifs? Then it would be:
“With religion, SOME people do good SOMETIMES because…”
likewise, “Atheists have no promise of hell and heaven so WHEN they do good it’s because…”
I think that, in general, people are “good”. A normal person will behave in a moral way most of the time, regardless of his religion/lack of. So the questions would be: It’s a so common thing as some religious people seem to believe, that religion avoids a “bad” behavior? Couldn’t a better education be more effective?
god thing Greg Epstein just wroote a book called “Good Without God” huh?
I think this says it all: http://bizarrocomic.blogspot.com/2009/09/believe-it-or-not.html
FYI the audio of the debate is available
http://wfhb.org/news/can-you-be-good-without-god