Atheists Overreach ... Why do they do that?

[zippy2006]

Modestly good? Stupendously good?

Weasel words.

Feel free to actually watch the video.

 

[Nithavela]

Feel free to actually watch the video.

I think I'll just bow out. I don't argue with youtube. It never listens.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I don't think that unversally binding morality exists.

I think that one can hold to a sense of morality and philosophy that is well thought-out and reasoned and that can be logically defended and take that as a basis for his decisions and the defense of moral rights without involving any dieties.

But that's not part of atheism, and even theists can think of reasons why holding to certain morals is a good idea without resorting to a supernatural reason.

That may not be an official part of atheism, but a number of atheists will haggle with you over the legitimacy of their moral intuitions, and some will essentially even start by saying that their individual subjective moral inclinations collectively turn into a form of moral objectivity when their rational processes are applied.

What do you think Shermer would say to you? (Maybe hop and skip through the video to find some useful tidbits in their regard, Nithavela? I'd love to hear how you'd respond to Shermer, whether in agreement or disagreement.)

 

[zippy2006]

Yet, from what Christian Smith seems to think, atheists don't have a sufficiently robust infrastructure by which to support their own commonly held morally inclined intuitions, intuitions similar to many Christians, about a desire to enable human flourishing. I agree with Smith that it seems atheists do overreach in that sense. More can and should be said ... and I'm sure you have some other thoughts on all of this as well.

Yeah, I haven't really formed my thoughts on the topic well enough to give a lot of extra information. I'm sure listening to the video would be more productive than listening to me.

I will say that Smith's approach is refreshingly Catholic. Catholics do believe that the non-religious can be virtuous, but we also believe that there is a ceiling on virtue that cannot be overcome without grace. For that reason many of these debates about whether atheists can be moral are not very interesting to me. They are too black-and-white. Smith's approach, on the other hand, seems to allow for the proper nuance needed for a Catholic discussion of the issue. Good thread!

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yeah, I haven't really formed my thoughts on the topic well enough to give a lot of extra information. I'm sure listening to the video would be more productive than listening to me.

I will say that Smith's approach is refreshingly Catholic. Catholics do believe that the non-religious can be virtuous, but we also believe that there is a ceiling on virtue that cannot be overcome without grace. For that reason many of these debates about whether atheists can be moral are not very interesting to me. They are too black-and-white. Smith's approach, on the other hand, seems to allow for the proper nuance needed for a Catholic discussion of the issue. Good thread!

I think you're right that listening to and bringing in more of the video's contents would be useful. I was just trying to make it easier for the usual 'hold-outs' who don't want to engage at that level. But, on my part, I'm on board with what you're saying and I'm going to pull back just a bit to allow other folks the opportunity and time to come into this.

Thanks for your immediate and cogent comments, Zippy!

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Seriously though, the baseline idea of Atheism built on a system of Naturalistic Materialism implies that what is good is what I deem best for me, or has to argue for the species as a whole. When adding ideas like Selfish Genes and Prisoner Dilemma concepts and Game theory, we end up with a morality that is anything but. Essentially it argues for self-interest as the ultimate value, which I always see as clearly far more totally depraved than any religion has ever come up with. That is an overreach by the atheists though, when they affirm action and volition to solely depend on gene function or physiology - an unproven, and unprovable and poorly supported, assertion.

Further, the idea that people aren't in some sense innately religious is laughable. Every single society has basically some form of religion historically. Experiments like the Princess Anne ones show humans aren't natural empiricists - it needs to be taught, essentially indoctrinated. That is why primitive societies or ancient peoples seldom doubted some form of spirituality, as that is more how we are set up. I've even seen a study that children naturally assume that a Beneficience is the rule in the world, which is not really a hop, skip and a jump to believing in a Good God. In fact, on the one hand they want to argue that humans invent gods from agenticity and evolution, then turn around and think it isn't something far more natural to have - and thus think people indoctrinate it, when Empiricism is the thing that really requires the indoctrination to hold as absolute value. The position is fairly incoherent, and yes, marked overreach.

 

[Tone]

Ok. Yes, yes, I know! Everyone hates long, elaborate media representations, and in recognizing this, I realize that the following video is well over an hour long. You can just ignore most of the video if you want to since all that probably needs to be heard is what (Christian) sociologist Christian Smith states to (Atheist) Michael Shermer within the first 10-15 minutes. This leaves things open for further discussion and exploration ...

Cheers!

...and below is the "short" of it. The very short of it.

Nonfiction Book Review: Atheist Overreach: What Atheism Can’t Deliver, by Christian Smith.

I've often wondered about this too...on here even. Certainly evolutionary thinking will not lead up to universal human rights. How do you get from survival of the fittest to "...a moral obligation to care for everyone on the planet no matter where they live or how reprehensible they behave.", as Smith put it? But, my question is, do atheists really believe this...or would they rather let the evolutionary process take its course? I'm only 10 minutes into the vid., so I may be back with some more!

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

An interest case, to expand what I was saying above, is the Piraha tribe of the Amazon. They had no concept of a supreme God according to the anthropologist that initially studied them, and only hold to things in direct experience reportedly. They lack clear concepts of future for instance - but even here, they have an idea of Spirits, even unseen spiritual beings that they experience in some sense. They still have beings in the sky and unseen spirits acting on their lives. While they are sometimes trotted out by Atheists as an argument for innate empiricism, they are neither really empiric, and it is a strongly cultural concept here - one isolated Amazonian tribe hardly equates to universal human experience, more an exception that proves the rule; if anything, it supports the cultural nature of what constitutes experience and how it is perceived.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Ok. Yes, yes, I know! Everyone hates long, elaborate media representations, and in recognizing this, I realize that the following video is well over an hour long. You can just ignore most of the video if you want to since all that probably needs to be heard is what (Christian) sociologist Christian Smith states to (Atheist) Michael Shermer within the first 10-15 minutes. This leaves things open for further discussion and exploration ...

Cheers!

...and below is the "short" of it. The very short of it.

Nonfiction Book Review: Atheist Overreach: What Atheism Can’t Deliver, by Christian Smith.

So "ethical limitations", the limits of science, and mankind's proclivity toward superstition.

He should have titled his book "How to Attack Atheism Without Ever Addressing Atheism".

 

[Tone]

"Metaphysical source" for "expanding circles"...I know I know...MONEY! (greed)

*Many love the money more than preserving their own progeny.

 

[Tone]

"Do people really know what they want...what's the best way to flourish?" --Shermer

So, he happens to embrace what western philosophers have come to understand as being "truth" (truth that would be found just as certainly as Newton found gravity), but how and why do they then divorce this thought from the Bible? So, now we know how they overreach...by chopping off their right arm and extending it with their left...

 

[Tone]

Okay, so you do a worldwide survey and ask the people what they would prefer and Shermer thinks this is a scientific conclusion? He already made the point that doing what one wants is not freedom, because "people don't know what they are doing" and "people don't really know what they want."...and then he also acknowledges that none of this is really objective...it's just the way it is right now as humanity has developed...but, what happens when this humane consensus shifts and we find ourselves in an atheistic society? This is the main point Smith makes.

 

[Tone]

Did you catch Shermer's slip at 52:49..."If I believe the lie..."?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Christians believe that they have found the answers to every question ever asked, including the origin of the universe and the fate awaiting it, but yeah, atheists are the ones who are overreaching. Lol. What's next, the Catholic Church is going to lecture the Boy Scouts about how bad child rape is?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

So "ethical limitations", the limits of science, and mankind's proclivity toward superstition.

He should have titled his book "How to Attack Atheism Without Ever Addressing Atheism".

So, you've read Smith's book?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

"Do people really know what they want...what's the best way to flourish?" --Shermer

So, he happens to embrace what western philosophers have come to understand as being "truth" (truth that would be found just as certainly as Newton found gravity), but how and why do they then divorce this thought from the Bible? So, now we know how they overreach...by chopping off their right arm and extending it with their left...

... sadly, it is often something like that.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Christians believe that they have found the answers to every question ever asked, including the origin of the universe and the fate awaiting it, but yeah, atheists are the ones who are overreaching. Lol. What's next, the Catholic Church is going to lecture the Boy Scouts about how bad child rape is?

I think I mentioned above to another person who has posted (i.e. Zippy in this case) that Christians can be guilty of similar overly extended conceptual reaching. But, this OP and thread is for focusing on the often ignored fact of overreach which pertains to atheists ...

And it doesn't take a Pope to lecture on how bad ("horrendous" being a better word, really) child rape is.

 

[Ana the Ist]

So, you've read Smith's book?

I read the link...

Surely you're not suggesting that someone needs to read an entire book to post on this thread? I think that would disqualify every post here....

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I think I mentioned above to another person who has posted (i.e. Zippy in this case) that Christians can be guilty of similar overly extended conceptual reaching. But, this OP and thread is for focusing on the often ignored fact of overreach which pertains to atheists ...

And it doesn't take a Pope to lecture on how bad ("horrendous" being a better word, really) child rape is.

But Christians have creeds, or required beliefs, which are overreaches. No counterpart exists in atheism.

 

[Tone]

But Christians have creeds, or required beliefs, which are overreaches. No counterpart exists in atheism.

What about creedless theists?