Atheist ethics, atheist values

A joint announcement on June 26, 2000 by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain—that a worldwide consortium of scientists had successfully mapped the entire human genome—provided a fitting tribute to what is admittedly an amazing milestone in human (and scientific!) history. When Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., who chairs the U.S. Government’s vast Human Genome Project, said that:

“we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God,”

he certainly did not overstate the case.

We are in the midst of heady times indeed.
What do these events mean for mankind? What are the potential benefits and/or perils associated with this type of research? What are the ethical and moral implications?

Scientists are not like mountain climbers who, when asked why they are intent upon scaling a dangerous, life-threatening mountain, reply simply: “Just because it’s there.” Researchers are not interested in mapping and sequencing the human genome “just because it’s there.” Quite the contrary, in fact. These dedicated men and women—some of whom have spent almost a decade toiling in their laboratories in an attempt to unravel what Dr. Collins himself labeled one of the greatest “mysteries of human biology”—are on a search for knowledge that will be of tremendous benefit to the human race. Most scientists are not malicious, oligarchical elitists who are out for personal fame, fortune, or power. Rather, they have a genuine desire to alleviate human suffering and to make life better. Noble goals, these.


But progress sometimes comes with a steep price tag. And technology—which in and of itself generally is neither good nor bad—sometimes can be used in unethical ways. Science can produce the technology. But it cannot provide the moral impetus to guide us in the use of that technology. There is nothing inherent in the scientific method that can dictate, for example, whether nuclear energy should be used to destroy cancer cells—or entire cities. Quite honestly, that is a judgment far beyond the pale of science to make.
We must look to the Word of God for the knowledge that will help us know how to handle modern technology so that its use for (or on!) humans remains within the boundaries set out by our Creator, which is why I have written The Christian and Medical Ethics—to explore genetic technologies . . .

Apologetics Press - The Human Genome Project, the Christian, and Medical Ethics

And yet, atheists commit less crime than Christians.

I would personally put my ethics and morality up against those of anyone of faith.

There's plenty to lose. The ability to think rationally, for one.

Genome =/= Quantum Physics.

Don't move the goalposts.

As far back as 1973 Ed Tryon suggested that a quantum mechanical fluctuation
in "the vacuum" created the universe.12 Later he was joined by several other
American and Russian theoreticians,13-17 all of whom have posited that by the
laws of physics "nothing is unstable." While one of this group's members, the inventor
of the inflationary big bang model, Man Guth, concedes that "such ideas are
speculation squared," all of their models do circumvent the big bang singularity.
They do not, however, circumvent the beginning of space-time-matter-energy.
Thus, agreement with the Biblical doctrine of creation still stands.

One of the most elegant vacuum fluctuation models was published in 1984 when
Steven Hawking teamed up with American physicist James Hartle.18, 19 Their notion
is that just as a hydrogen atom can be described by a quantum mechanical wave
function, so can the universe be described. Thus, the singularity disappears,
and yet the entire universe still pops into existence at the beginning of time.
Here is Pagels response:

This unthinkable void converts itself into the plenum of existence-a necessary
consequence of physical laws. Where are these laws written into that void? What
"tells" the void that it is pregnant with a possible universe? It would seem
that even the void is subject to law, a logic that exists prior to space and
time.20

Once again, the Biblical doctrine of creation is deduced.


- QUANTUM MECHANICS, A MODERN GOLIATH by Hugh Ross, Ph.D. Dr. Hugh Ross earned a BS in physics from the University of British Columbia
and an MS and PhD in astronomy from the University of Toronto.? For several
years he continued his research on quasars and galaxies as a post-doctoral fellow
at the California Institute of Technology.

https://www.evidenceforchristianity.org/index.php?option=com_custom_content&task=view&id=3607

I kindly ask you to understand that I´ll leave the rest of your post unaddressed, since it only leads further off topic and by and large amounts to proselytizing.

Oh? You have statistics to show that?

I was unable to find any studies that delve into the religious upbringing of criminals. However, I did uncover the information for a few notorious criminals. The father of John George Haigh (The Acid Bath Murderer) was described as “intensely religious”. The NY Mad Bomber and Hitler were Roman Catholic. Joseph Kallinger was adopted by sadistic Catholic parents. Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer “came from a religious family.” I found none who came from an irreligious family or who were irreligious. Edward W. Mitchell in his paper The aetiology of serial murder: towards an integrated model writes, “An analysis of the role of religion in the life of the serial murderer and its relationship to internal justification of his crimes would be of considerable interest.” Wouldn’t you think that someone of religion who believed that religion was, at the very least, a deterrent to crime would have done the research by now? Perhaps they have and decided not to publish it. Two studies of criminals done in the early 1900s found very few irreligious among them. One study of 28,351 prisoners found 57 who said they had no religion. When a sample of 12 of the 57 was interviewed more closely it turned out only 1/3 was truly irreligious. That comes to less than .03% or 99.97% were found to be religious. “Of 700 criminals examined by Ferri one alone was an atheist, one was indifferent, and seven were devout and even found religion an excuse for their crime.” “Among 200 Italian murderers Ferri did not find one who was irreligious.” The Criminal by Havelock Ellis (1910). My research is superficial, to be sure. One of the reasons research along this line has not been done is because most research into the criminal mind is to try to understand it so crime can be prevented. No one is likely to come along and try to make a case for overthrowing religion to eliminate crime, not even me. But to say that we live in a more civilized world because of religion cannot be supported. In other words, an outcome of the Bible is not less crime.

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Originally Posted by Nooj

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Robo-believers? Game over man, game over!

Not, it can work...You see, babies need attention and food, teenagesr need food and money, and guys living with their mothers need money and beer; but robots only require energon cubes. Better yet, we could construct churches that double as consciousness repositories and network everyone into a new denomination that overlooks the pitiful boundaries of flesh.

They'll call it Skynet.

The results of the Christians vs atheists in prison investigation.
Additionally, Satan Wrote the Bible - Is the Bible bad?

Victor J. Stenger

Review of The Creator and the Cosmos by Hugh Ross
Review of The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God. Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress 1995.

In Chapter 1, the author of The Creator and the Cosmos tells us of a meeting he attended in which a distinguished philosopher remarked: "Even the best physicists are lousy philosophers" (p. 11). The author, Hugh Ross, is a physicist and astronomer who, according to the cover, currently serves as the president of Reasons to Believe, a non-profit corporation that produces Christian materials and his weekly TV show.

This expanded second edition of a 1993 version provides a comprehensive look at the current incarnation of the theological argument from design. True to the name of his organization, Ross attempts to provide Christians with scientific reasons to believe in a personal creator. You don't need faith, Ross seems to say.

The God of the Bible is scientific fact.

Though Ross may be a scientist by training, and though his reasons to believe are drawn from the current scientific developments, this is not a book of science. Ross does not examine the evidence and draw
conclusions based on the evidence. He already knows his conclusions and, to his credit, states them up-front.

To Ross, an uncreated universe has no objective meaning and in such a universe, human life also has no meaning.

The argument for the existence of a personal Creator based on arguments from probability and coincidence are no more valid than William Paley's divine watchmaker. They are simply the latest coat of varnish on the long-decrepit argument from design. It is too bad that discussions of this sort cannot be done with an honest presentation of the facts unfettered by the need to conform to the traditional prejudices of one particular religious system. This book by High Ross does great damage to the need for an open, non-dogmatic discussion of the issues. As a PhD physicist and astronomer, he does not merit the benefit of the doubt that he is writing from a position of ignorance.



Victor J. Stenger is emeritus professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii and the author of Not By Design: The Origin of the Universe (Prometheus Books, 1988), Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses (Prometheus Books, 1990), and The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology (Prometheus Books, 1995).

Order. Designed order.

It's a cyclical thing.