Common decency

[Lydiot]

Hello Lydiot,

Atheists may not have a scripture, but they as well often claim high morality. No idea where they get it from. Maybe reason.

I don't think there's such a thing as "high morality". The only time I hear such terminology is when people object to the concept of right and wrong, which in turn often seems to come from a place of not liking to have one's views questioned. Instead I'd say that the very fundamental concept of morality includes the notion that some are right and others are wrong. I mean, you don't have to think that you have "high morality", you only have to think that your (moral) view on issue X is right, which I think implicitly means that someone with a hypothetically opposite view on that same issue is wrong. You can't both be right.

I JWocky thinks I'm an idiot for having a certain view on a certain issue, a view on its morality, I'm certainly not going to criticize him for thinking he has the moral "high ground" or that he claims "high morality". That is in and by itself fine by me. I think it's more interesting to find out just what his feelings are and what his though process is which makes him have the view he has.

But anyway, I agree with you that some or all atheists claim "high morality", but it's not because they're atheists, it's because they're human, and most humans do, either explicitly or inadvertently.

You asked about some example for nonsense discussions. Well there are many, and abortion does very well. I would gladly discuss the *subject* abortion. But people on both sides often claim to be on high moral grounds. So the discussion ends into not being about the subject, but about the discussants themselves in the form of "My common decency is better than yours". Therefore i pleaded in the OP to try to stay away from claiming high moral grounds for yourself. Then the chances are better that the discussion stays on the subject.

Ok, I think I might partially agree with that. I mean, on the one hand there's the moral argument, which I think is valid if the morality of whatever is discussed is a fair discussion. In other words I think we can say - and let me change the topic here to something less controversial - that premeditated murder of an innocent person is immoral. So regardless of the practical implications most people will agree with that statement; it's immoral to murder someone. Period. Then we can say that we who hold that position are moral people.

What I would agree with however is that some people argue that something is right because they are moral people. So it isn't what is done, it is who does it. That, to me, is moral relativism. There is thus no even standard, but instead it's all about who does what. So murder is ok when I do it, but it's immoral if you do it - all else being equal. I think a lot of people fall into this "trap" and if that's what you're objecting to then I agree 100%.

For abortion there is an often forgotten extra option. Post natal abortion. If you can prove that newly borns have insignificant conscience, then there may be a case for that.

You mean "consciousness", not "conscience", right? I think that's a very controversial and much more universally dismissed proposition. I know there are some "philosophers" that argue that it's not entirely immoral, and I can follow their arguments, but it's far from as 'accepted' as pre-natal abortion. I mean, it's not even "abortion" at that point, it's just "killing", or whatever you want to call it.

But I think it's probably beside the point of this thread, right?

[KL-666]

Hi Lydiot,

It should have been "consciousness". I fixed it in the post. And let's indeed keep examples examples in this thread.

We do indeed disagree about whether one can argue "because it is immoral". To me that is not an argument, but more like "because i say so". And it is forcing the opponent in the debate to examine what exactly are the morals of the one saying it. Resulting in getting the debate off the subject and into the persona that used the "because it is immoral".

I'd much rather have someone say something like: "i find a rule against premeditated murder of an innocent person convenient, because then i can expect the chances to be low that my neighbour murders me tomorrow". Then that person has brought in his background of saying "because it is immoral", so his morals do not need to be examined and the debate can continue on the subject.

Kind regards, Vincent

[jwocky]

Okay, you guys are up way earlier than me. Time zones and too much swamping around during the nights, I might like to claim as excuses. But thus, a lot piled up, so let me go through it, not necessarily in chronological or alphabetical order though:

Lydiot wrote:
JWocky thinks I'm an idiot for having a certain view on a certain issue, a view on its morality, I'm certainly not going to criticize him for thinking he has the moral "high ground" or that he claims "high morality". That is in and by itself fine by me. I think it's more interesting to find out just what his feelings are and what his though process is which makes him have the view he has.

I admittedly think, some of your opinions are wrong. But if you paid close attention, I never argued purely out of any "moral high ground" but I argued from different priorities. We had this clash about terrorism and profiling, if you remember. I had my priority on the lives of victims and potential victims in the future, you had yours on some abstract idea of racism and to be honest a lot of misunderstandings about what profilers do and how you can use profiles and how not.
So I never claimed "high morality". I claimed,. in areas in which I have some expertise "high knowledge". Biiiig difference. In my opinion, a lot of things aren't even a question of "moral" or "ethics" but simply logic. But then, admittedly, some critics accused me already in the past to be too emotionally constipated to know the difference between doing right things because they are right or because they are the logical thing to do. So ... well, bottom line, while I admittedly think, some of your opinions are in the way of logical solutions and therefore could be labeled "idiotic", I don't think, you are an idiot.

Atheism and Atheists
Well, not every Atheist is the same. They come in all colors, sizes and alas all levels of fanatism. Some say "I am an Atheist" and when I say "okay, I am not", they just shrig and we can have a beer together. Others on the other hand explode, tell me the story of the flying green spaghetti monster, try to give me a history lesson about the Crusades and to avoid touching Napoleon's Religion of Reason or the Communist Atheism. Usually garn9ished with logical blows like "I prove God doesn't exsit" by "If God exists, he shall strike me with lighting", followed by a ten second break and then the claim "I wasn't struck by lighting, see, God doesn't exist". That's really the logic that gives me a headache, Speaking to that kind of Atheists is like ten episodes of "Three and half man" in a row ...

Now, Atheists have no scripture ... that is actually not entirely true. A lot of Atheist philosophers and thinkers have written a lot, so there is at least a non-canonized body of Atheist scripture and because it is all based on the same tenements of "non-fath", it is quite coherent and most Atheists subscribe to it either by knowing this body of scripture or by simply adhering to what others told them without realizing that this is something, that was, x hundred versions before they heard it, based on this kind of scripture. For an Atheist, Feuerbach for example, has a sacrosanct meaning.
So, the only difference between an Atheist and a Christian or a Muslim in this aspect is, the Christian or the Muslim know usually the title of the book.

The second misconception is that Atheism is not a religion. Religion is belief in an unprovable concept. Atheists can't prove the non-existence of higher beings per se the same as for example Christians can't prove the existence of God or Muslim can't prove the existence of Allah. Actually, Christians could at least deliver some evidence for the historical existence of Jesus and there is a lot of historical evidence for the existence of Mohammed, so, the religious people are in terms of evidence a lot nearer to prove anything which leads to the funny situation that the Atheist needs more faith in his concept than for example a Christian because he has to overcome the absolute of any evidence and forge his own.

In other aspects, Atheism has actually a lot of the hallmarks of early forms of other organized religions. Cellular organization attempts, the tendency to mission others by making the unproven claim to be the only ones who offer a real concept (every religion basically claims to be the only right one, Atheism is no exception from that rule), a spectrum of followers from moderate deep into the fanatic realm with sometimes even violent tendencies against followers of any other religion.

So, in many aspects, Atheism is nothing but just another religion from what I see in the symptoms. But since some ideologies also have a tendency to take on religion like symptoms and since some of them even tend to ally with religions in some parts of the spectrum, it would lead now too far to go in all the details. Especially since I am honestly not what you would consider Christian 101. The one thing that never fails to upset me in religious discussion is, that many faithful (including very faithful Atheists) obviously never read the books they talk about ...

So,, bottom line on this subject: I don't subscribe to judgement on other people's beliefs as long as they don't go and think they have to kill or maim people for their faith. I believe in what I believe in, you believe in what you believe in, don't go and claim your belief is better than mine because I will come back and ask you for evidence and then ... how stupid would you look if you can't bring it?

Atheism and law history
In longer terms of history, Atheism is absolutely irrelevant. Atheism is a relatively new religion, it didn't exsit in Hammurabi's times. You can't judge the actions of persons in history by using things, that didn't exist back then. Things happened always in the social, cultural and yes, also religious context of the time. When for example the Babylonian Talmus was written, it was still 600 years till a guy even later know as Jesus walked through the landscape. Or 1100 till Mohammed wrote the Quaran and roughly 3500 years till Feuerbach would write "Religion is opium for the people". Nothing of it had happened when Hammurabi lived, so he obviously couldn't refer to it.
This means, his religious reference at the beginning of his law codex is formalized by the religious beliefs of his time. Whether he personally believed in it or not, he had to do it, it was his legitimization and as thus, not only religion but also the law of his time. We can see similar mechanisms of legitimization for centuries, even millennia. That people usually don't think about the meaning of such words doesn't erase the words. People just think about them ... here is a part of the proclamation of Queen Elizabeth II in February 1952 as Queen ...

We, therefore, Sir William John McKell, The Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief in and over the Commonwealth of Australia and members of the Federal Executive Council do now hereby, with one voice and consent of tongue and heart, publish and proclaim that the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of this realm and of all her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, Supreme Liege Lady in and over the Commonwealth of Australia, to whom her lieges do acknowledge all faith and constant obedience, with hearty and humble affection: Beseeching God, by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal Princess Elizabeth the Second with long and happy years to reign over us.

Also Queen Elizabeth's legitimization is not merely based on blood line but on the fact, that God called on her blood line to rule, which in case of English Kings is pretty simple since Henry VIII because they are also "Defenders of the Faith" by title, means, they can confirm themselves as God's mouth pieces and don't need for example the pope.

So, while it looks all religious, it has also legal implications and had for thousands of years when it came to rulers of royalty (opposite to rulers by election). Which means, rulers are, when making laws, bound to the context of their legitimization. A king to the Gods of his land, a president to the beliefs of his constituents. Which consequently imposes some kind of "second-hand decency" on them.

[Lydiot]

Hi Lydiot,

It should have been "consciousness". I fixed it in the post. And let's indeed keep examples examples in this thread.

We do indeed disagree about whether one can argue "because it is immoral". To me that is not an argument, but more like "because i say so". And it is forcing the opponent in the debate to examine what exactly are the morals of the one saying it. Resulting in getting the debate off the subject and into the persona that used the "because it is immoral".

I'd much rather have someone say something like: "i find a rule against premeditated murder of an innocent person convenient, because then i can expect the chances to be low that my neighbour murders me tomorrow". Then that person has brought in his background of saying "because it is immoral", so his morals do not need to be examined and the debate can continue on the subject.

Kind regards, Vincent

I'm a bit confused about the last sentence. He brought in his background of saying it's immoral so his morals do not need to be examined? And where did he talk about morality in your quoted hypothetical sentence?

The way I read that hypothetical sentence it's just egocentric. I understand why someone would say that, and I would accept that as its own limited argument, but if I used the same reasoning I would actually not care at all about him being murdered, just me. So it opens the door for arguing for legislation that is "wrong" as long as it's "right" for me. Let me give you a different example to illustrate the difference ("all else being equal" applies):

- In your example above all premeditated murder of innocent people is illegal. The argument put forth is that that's convenient because that would lower the risk of me suffering that crime. But there's nothing in that argument about some generalization. There's nothing universal about it.

- So suppose we're talking about murdering white people (innocent or not). Now imaginary person Joe can say "I think murdering white people should be illegal because it's convenient, because I'm white", whereas Jessica can say "I don't think that law is necessary, because I'm Asian". See? The principle is the same as in your hypothetical argument, because both Jessica and Joe are arguing just like your hypothetical person; from the standpoint of their own situation only. There is no universality in their reasoning, only egocentricity.

Of course, the problem using these examples is that we all agree that we shouldn't qualify a law like this according to what skin color a person has, we all agree on that. But that also points the finger to exactly what I've been talking about: It's something we agree upon because we share a moral view. And so it is about morality a lot of times, and that's why it needs to be discussed in that context.

In other words, I don't think murdering innocent people should be illegal only because I would feel safer, I think it should be illegal because it's good for other people as well, because it's immoral to murder innocent people.

So by taking the discussion to that level we can "cover a greater ground".

You can take something like slavery in the US for example. If you were purely arguing from your own perceived benefit then why argue for the abolition of slavery if you were white? How do you gain from that? But it's super easy to argue it from a moral standpoint (at least now) in that it's just immoral to enslave people, period. So the underlying thought process could be "well how would I feel if it happened to me" and that would lead to the conclusion that it must surely be wrong, but if people then haven't gone through that thought process then that "wrong" (immorality) may need to be brought up in a discussion to make them understand - even if they themselves would never suffer from it in real life.

[jwocky]

Hummm, but here is the funny thing. If someone comes along and says "I think, murdering people is wrong in general" then everybody will jump him to retain the theoretical possibility to murder others if he doesn't like them. We have right at this moment at least one movement that declares

- whites killing blacks is wrong
- blacks killing whites (and cops of all skin colors) is at least kind of promoted
- blacks killing blacks ... we don't care
- whites killing white ... we don't care

So it is a little bit hard to find any concept of "decency" behind this. The simple solution to declare murder as wrong doesn't work because there are always whole groups of people who want to murder other groups, they only want to declare murder of members of their own group as wrong. Which kind of gives us a not so nice picture of "the human condition", does it?

Or, as a nearer and less explosive example, look at our own little trench war. I created this forum, but I didn't do it for me. I open the doors to everyone who feels oppressed by Hammersmurf and his little helpers, basically to everyone, and while I sometimes argue a little bit harsh, I don't ban people who do the same on me.
Now, in this forum, basically, I made the rules, I was the first initial law giver here, to say it in a really extreme placative form. I think, the laws of this forum are good ones qand since others joined the law giving business, I have nowadays also the option to put my admin hat far away when I'm party in a heated discussion, which is kind of another right thing to do - in MY opinion. If you aks a Stuart, a Bugman, a Hooray and for heaven's sake, don't forget Thorsten and Curtis, they have of course a total different opinion about the laws here. I remember something about "a misunderstood way of free speech" or something like that from there. Well yeah, as if I would care whether they love or hate me over there.

So, here is the question: Does what I did give me a "moral high ground"? Are you even sure, I had any special "ethical" considerations when I did that?

[Lydiot]

Okay, you guys are up way earlier than me. Time zones and too much swamping around during the nights, I might like to claim as excuses. But thus, a lot piled up, so let me go through it, not necessarily in chronological or alphabetical order though:

Lydiot wrote:
JWocky thinks I'm an idiot for having a certain view on a certain issue, a view on its morality, I'm certainly not going to criticize him for thinking he has the moral "high ground" or that he claims "high morality". That is in and by itself fine by me. I think it's more interesting to find out just what his feelings are and what his though process is which makes him have the view he has.

I admittedly think, some of your opinions are wrong. But if you paid close attention, I never argued purely out of any "moral high ground" but I argued from different priorities.

Actually, if you look at the beginning of that paragraph there's the "I", and it should have said "If", meaning it was just a purely hypothetical example. I did not mean to say that you argued against my views based on that. So, sorry for that missing "f". I blame my 20-year old keyboard.

I obviously won't comment on the rest that pertained to that because there's no need for you to explain.

Now, Atheists have no scripture ... that is actually not entirely true. A lot of Atheist philosophers and thinkers have written a lot, so there is at least a non-canonized body of Atheist scripture and because it is all based on the same tenements of "non-fath", it is quite coherent and most Atheists subscribe to it either by knowing this body of scripture or by simply adhering to what others told them without realizing that this is something, that was, x hundred versions before they heard it, based on this kind of scripture. For an Atheist, Feuerbach for example, has a sacrosanct meaning.
So, the only difference between an Atheist and a Christian or a Muslim in this aspect is, the Christian or the Muslim know usually the title of the book.

I completely disagree. I've never heard of Feuerbach and I'm willing to bet that none of my Atheist friends have either. By virtue of not being canonized you actually end up with a lack of tenets. Atheism at its core is just the lack of theism. Interestingly just like you have between immorality and morality amorality. A rock is amoral. It doesn't belong to either camp. An Atheist does not have to believe god does not exist, just not believe that god exists, and those two things aren't the same.

Does a child in a tribe in the deepest of Africa have a view on the tooth fairy? Probably not. It is an "atheist" with regards to it.

The second misconception is that Atheism is not a religion. Religion is belief in an unprovable concept.

Religion is the belief in a specific concept, that of a supernatural entity (or several). Atheism is just not having that belief. Atheism is by definition not a religion.

Atheists can't prove the non-existence of higher beings per se the same as for example Christians can't prove the existence of God or Muslim can't prove the existence of Allah. Actually, Christians could at least deliver some evidence for the historical existence of Jesus and there is a lot of historical evidence for the existence of Mohammed, so, the religious people are in terms of evidence a lot nearer to prove anything which leads to the funny situation that the Atheist needs more faith in his concept than for example a Christian because he has to overcome the absolute of any evidence and forge his own.

I'm not sure if you're deliberately baiting me into a discussion about the actual evidence for god or not, but that's where it's heading above. Either way I'll keep it short: Many Atheists willingly admit that they do not now if god exists or not, but that they do not have the belief a theist has (that god exists). Again, this does not mean they believe god does not exist, because that's an actual statement of fact ("god does not exist"). In other words a lot of Atheists are Agnostics, clearly and willingly admitting that they do not know whether god exists or not, and often even that they cannot know if he does. So proving gods non-existense is really a red herring in this context.

In other aspects, Atheism has actually a lot of the hallmarks of early forms of other organized religions. Cellular organization attempts, the tendency to mission others by making the unproven claim to be the only ones who offer a real concept (every religion basically claims to be the only right one, Atheism is no exception from that rule), a spectrum of followers from moderate deep into the fanatic realm with sometimes even violent tendencies against followers of any other religion.

So, in many aspects, Atheism is nothing but just another religion from what I see in the symptoms. But since some ideologies also have a tendency to take on religion like symptoms and since some of them even tend to ally with religions in some parts of the spectrum, it would lead now too far to go in all the details. Especially since I am honestly not what you would consider Christian 101. The one thing that never fails to upset me in religious discussion is, that many faithful (including very faithful Atheists) obviously never read the books they talk about ...

There are no books for Atheists to read from that form a canon and that mandates their beliefs or actions. It'd be like saying that there's a set of tenets for the "faithful non-belief" in Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy, or the boogieman or whatever. There is no common set of beliefs mandated by any Atheist authority, no common procedures, no common holy grounds or holy buildings, no holy images, no songs we share, no scripture......

Atheism is not a religion. By calling it a religion the word "religion" is basically diluted into meaning close to nothing.

So,, bottom line on this subject: I don't subscribe to judgement on other people's beliefs as long as they don't go and think they have to kill or maim people for their faith. I believe in what I believe in, you believe in what you believe in, don't go and claim your belief is better than mine because I will come back and ask you for evidence and then ... how stupid would you look if you can't bring it?

But to me you would be right in saying that a Muslim who truly believes Muhammed flew to heaven on a horse with wings has a stupid belief which is inferior to your belief (that he did not). I'm sure you could come up with very simple evidence that is convincing that he is wrong, and that he would come up with zero evidence. I would have no problem with you issuing a judgment on his belief if it's that dumb.

Atheism and law history
In longer terms of history, Atheism is absolutely irrelevant. Atheism is a relatively new religion, it didn't exsit in Hammurabi's times. You can't judge the actions of persons in history by using things, that didn't exist back then. Things happened always in the social, cultural and yes, also religious context of the time. When for example the Babylonian Talmus was written, it was still 600 years till a guy even later know as Jesus walked through the landscape. Or 1100 till Mohammed wrote the Quaran and roughly 3500 years till Feuerbach would write "Religion is opium for the people". Nothing of it had happened when Hammurabi lived, so he obviously couldn't refer to it.
This means, his religious reference at the beginning of his law codex is formalized by the religious beliefs of his time. Whether he personally believed in it or not, he had to do it, it was his legitimization and as thus, not only religion but also the law of his time. We can see similar mechanisms of legitimization for centuries, even millennia. That people usually don't think about the meaning of such words doesn't erase the words. People just think about them ... here is a part of the proclamation of Queen Elizabeth II in February 1952 as Queen ...

Atheism isn't a religion and it has always existed. There always have been people who did not believe god existed. Sometimes there were more of them, sometimes fewer. The above description is I think indicative of you thinking about Atheism as if it is something organized, which it is not, which is the entire point I've been making which makes it a non-religion.

[Lydiot]

Hummm, but here is the funny thing. If someone comes along and says "I think, murdering people is wrong in general" then everybody will jump him to retain the theoretical possibility to murder others if he doesn't like them.

You can speak for yourself, but don't assume that everyone thinks that way.

We have right at this moment at least one movement that declares

- whites killing blacks is wrong
- blacks killing whites (and cops of all skin colors) is at least kind of promoted
- blacks killing blacks ... we don't care
- whites killing white ... we don't care

What movement is that? Please let us know the name of it and where we can find statements that assert the above.

So it is a little bit hard to find any concept of "decency" behind this. The simple solution to declare murder as wrong doesn't work because there are always whole groups of people who want to murder other groups, they only want to declare murder of members of their own group as wrong. Which kind of gives us a not so nice picture of "the human condition", does it?

Then if the above is true you only believe in a morality that is relative to the group, whereas I believe in a morality that is absolute and spans across all groups of people. I somehow don't think that's the case.

Or, as a nearer and less explosive example, look at our own little trench war. I created this forum, but I didn't do it for me. I open the doors to everyone who feels oppressed by Hammersmurf and his little helpers, basically to everyone, and while I sometimes argue a little bit harsh, I don't ban people who do the same on me.
Now, in this forum, basically, I made the rules, I was the first initial law giver here, to say it in a really extreme placative form. I think, the laws of this forum are good ones qand since others joined the law giving business, I have nowadays also the option to put my admin hat far away when I'm party in a heated discussion, which is kind of another right thing to do - in MY opinion. If you aks a Stuart, a Bugman, a Hooray and for heaven's sake, don't forget Thorsten and Curtis, they have of course a total different opinion about the laws here. I remember something about "a misunderstood way of free speech" or something like that from there. Well yeah, as if I would care whether they love or hate me over there.

So, here is the question: Does what I did give me a "moral high ground"? Are you even sure, I had any special "ethical" considerations when I did that?

I honestly don't really understand what that has to do with what we're discussing right now. I mean, does it really have anything to do with ethics and morality as opposed to just pragmatism?

[KL-666]

Hi Lydiot,

I realize that we may stay different in opinion, and i have no problem with that. But while we are still discussing, i dare you to look deep into the origins of your morals (this is meant friendly), just for the experiment. My prediction is you end at preconceptions and self interest.

The Dutch have recognized that and now go by a principle called something like "Well understood self interest". Everyone who subscribes to not murdering has the benefit of not being murdered himself. So there is the generalization you think is missing.

But also where the self interest is not so obvious, it is still there. White people defend black peoples rights to get a result that the black people do not feel oppressed and live a decent life, instead of creating riots out of justified dissatisfaction with being oppressed. The opportunity of living in riot free towns is the self interest of the white people in this case.

Really, the base of everything is self interest, no matter how nice you may want to make it come over and call it being moral.

Kind regards, Vincent

[Lydiot]

Hi Lydiot,

I realize that we may stay different in opinion, and i have no problem with that. But while we are still discussing, i dare you to look deep into the origins of your morals (this is meant friendly), just for the experiment. My prediction is you end at preconceptions and self interest.

The Dutch have recognized that and now go by a principle called something like "Well understood self interest". Everyone who subscribes to not murdering has the benefit of not being murdered himself. So there is the generalization you think is missing.

But also where the self interest is not so obvious, it is still there. White people defend black peoples rights to get a result that the black people do not feel oppressed and live a decent life, instead of creating riots out of justified dissatisfaction with being oppressed. The opportunity of living in riot free towns is the self interest of the white people in this case.

Really, the base of everything is self interest, no matter how nice you may want to make it come over and call it being moral.

Kind regards, Vincent

It sounds like you don't think there is such a thing as true altruism. I disagree with that.

The point I'm making is two-fold:

1) possibly inherent in the human experience are instincts that serve self-preservation, and those possibly fuel what we think of as "morality". On that we agree.

2) discussing morality is essentially "shorthand" for coming to conclusions about what is the right thing to do, and we can if we choose to discuss the basis for said morality. In a sense, this is all just an objection you have against the semantic use of the term "morality" rather than anything else. If all morality traces back to self-interest then discussing self-interest is indirectly discussing morality. We can discuss either.

But I will point out that you ignored my example and the reasoning behind criticizing what you thought was a good way of formulating an argument. I would like to see you address that head-on instead.

[KL-666]

Hi Lydiot,

Which example of the 3 or 4 you came up with? Actually i think i have covered every example you can come up with in my last post. And i do not feel like a lengthy word game discussion, like Jwocky may enjoy. I agree that i disagree with you, and respect your position of wanting to think in terms of morals.

Kind regards, Vincent