Comments on: Atheist Ethics Revisited

By: James Bell

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:46:11 +0000

You list me as another “misconstrued variant” but in fact I meant exactly what you said (though I may not have explained it well enough). If the law of God is not true, then evolution is the law (I do not believe it to be a law, I only call it a law in this context, as it must be law if there is no God). As such, the law of evolution dictates that whatever is best for survival (in this case, morals) are the traits that survive. And for the cultures in the crusades, they used their religions to justify a war to dominate over the other gene pools (as evolution would have them do, even though they acted against the bible).
So, evolutionarily, if you win a war, then it wasn’t wrong because it made your genes better off (less competition). Furthermore, even if your conscience says that what you did was wrong, it was still right, because the conscience was just an evolutionary tool to further your genes in the past. Once it doesn’t help, it’s best to discard it. So maybe Bush is right in using religion to justify conquering other nations. It’s just a tool to help the American genes to dominate.

Adit said:
“good for the sake of being good (and only that would be true goodness).”
This is the essence of Christianity, though many who claim to be Christian do not live by it and, often, do not even know it. It’s a little more complicated that that, but the key is that I do good because I love God, not because I fear hell.

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By: Aditya

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:47:47 +0000

This is an issue that I have thought about a lot and for which I plan on doing some writing. Firstly, you say “ethical cleansing,” I believe you mean “ethnic cleansing.”

Secondly, there are various theories as to where we get our sense of morals. You seem to be referring to evolutionary psychology, which indeed posits that some behaviour that proves advantageous (not necessarily to the host, but to the gene that causes it) will be beneficial; altruism arises because in the end, it benefits the host. The same can be said even for things like humility.

Personally, I believe these kinds of ethics to be instinctive, and I don’t think that that is a valid source of morals. Even more invalid is religion, in my view, for numerous reasons; one is that it is even more arbitrary than instinctive morals, and another is that it always offers an incentive to be good; seldom is it said to be good for the sake of being good (and only that would be true goodness).

Instead, I choose to follow the path of thought and reflection; the only valid source of morals, I believe, is those that we come up with, each on our own, by ourselves using only our minds and faculties of logic and reasoning. (This can be confounded, however, by the fact that people sometimes “want” to be good and hence notions that they do not necessarily believe may float into their moral system; these notions – and the “wanting” to be good – evidently come from society.)

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By: Why is God ethical? « Terahertz - From Physics to Life

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:45:31 +0000

[…] – From Physics to Life Rantings and ravings from physics and life in general. « Atheist Ethics Revisited Why is God ethical? July 19th, 2007 In response to why are atheists ethical I had the […]

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