Authority | The Armchair Antichrist

Deluded Atheists

On October 7, 2009, In Atheism, Misconceptions About Atheism, University, By The Armchair Antichrist

It has come to my attention that the once “free” free thought alliance of which I was once a proud member of at my university has come under weak leadership. If you haven’t already read the dialogue in my previous post, it documents the complete lack of leadership qualities in the Vice President who recently resigned (thankfully). Though we have few members it is important the group wasn’t corrupted with such primitive thinking.

He had a completely incorrect concept of what free thought was. In his opinion, we needed to respect religious beliefs and basically allow theists the privilege of having their beliefs put onto a pedestal above criticism. You can clearly see the contradiction between his thinking and what free thought really is. But, regardless of his position on the topic of free thought he had an obvious anger problem which was evident in his replies to me if you take the time to read his long, angry tirades.

Dictionary.com explains free thought very concisely:

free thought
–noun
thought unrestrained by deference to authority, tradition, or established belief, esp. in matters of religion.

And the definition of deference for further clarification.

def⋅er⋅ence
–noun
1. respectful submission or yielding to the judgment, opinion, will, etc., of another.
2. respectful or courteous regard: in deference to his wishes.

Anybody who calls themselves an atheist, but wants to censor the ridicule or mockery of religious beliefs is an embarrassment to free thought.

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Does Objectivity in Morality Require God?

On October 1, 2009, In Arguments Against Religion, Morality, Philosophy, Religious Arguments, By The Armchair Antichrist

Recently, a commenter made it clear to me that he believes that I cannot say something is objectively wrong without God. This claim makes many assumptions. It is one of those arguments like the Ontological argument which requires you to believe in God in order to convince you to believe in God. It is also known as begging the question. And as you can see this is not logical at all.

One of the assumptions it makes is that the objectivity of any moral statement derives from God. This means that it assumes that God has the authority over all of morality. However, if you accept that God has authority over morality it is a necessary condition that you already believe in his existence. Your belief in God is necessary in order for you to be convinced into believing in God. So, this is just a circular argument.

To further explain my point let’s grant that it is a fact that God exists. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, infinite and the creator of the universe. That’s all great stuff, but it does not mean I am obliged to accept his authority. He may threaten me with death or even eternal suffering in hell, but I do not need to accept his authority. In no way is saying “genocide is wrong” made objective by God giving me the thumbs up. Conversely, saying “genocide is right” is not made objective by God giving me the thumbs down. His input makes no difference because coercion has nothing to do with morality.

In contrast, making God the arbiter of morality degrades its value. I wouldn’t even call it morality anymore if it was derived from God. This is because you are only following commands because you want to avoid eternal suffering and gain salvation. The morality that I know and value is practiced without coercion and is practiced because people are moral in themselves. People know why certain things are wrong because those things hurt others, deceive others, take advantage of others and so on.

What makes morality objective is that it can be determined from simple ethical rationalism. For example, there are principles like the Golden Rule or Ethic of reciprocity which we can understand rationally and by the way wasn’t first invented, discovered, or taught by the bible. We may not all come up with exactly the same moral statements, but we will generally be in the same range. The small flexibility that morality allows does not make it useless, however, it just demonstrates that we have independent minds. We are able to interpret things to be either good or bad because we all have our own moral compass within our minds. Outsourcing this moral compass to God does not solve anything, rather it ends up demoralizing morality.

I also wrote about morality in an earlier post titled The Question of Morality.

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Tagged with: argument • authority • circular • creator • ethical • genocide • golden rule • Morality • ontological • rationalism • salvation

The Question of Morality

On August 23, 2009, In Atheism, Christianity, Morality, Philosophy, By The Armchair Antichrist

Christians say that their morality comes from God, but there are some problems with that. Is something good because God commands it, or does God command what is good? The typical Christian response is that goodness is in God’s nature. However, since God is eternal his nature is also eternal and he would have no control over it. Therefore, his nature would be arbitrary. So, we must have things which are good in and of themselves and not solely because God commands them.

I prefer morality that is of natural origin rather than supernatural. Since, humans are products of evolution it is not hard to understand that morality is also partially a product of evolution. When humans lived in small groups which were more or less composed of their own kin it was beneficial to be good to each other in evolutionary terms. This type of biological morality has survived and is the basis for our morality today.

But, our brains have evolved and we can rationally understand why some things are moral and other things are not. For example, the Golden Rule, do not do to others which you would not like done to yourself, is not hard to come by rationally. Many cultures around the globe have developed this ethic of reciprocity independently, much earlier than Christianity claimed to have first introduced it.

Furthermore, Kant tells us that we should never treat people only as a means but always as ends. He also said that we should imagine a world in which everybody did something and if it would be a world we like to live in. For example, if we lived in a world where everybody lied, then promises and contracts would be meaningless.

Morality above all else is inside us and not imposed from above by authority. If God is the only thing stopping you from theft, murder and rape are you really a moral person? You are just following the commands of an authority figure to escape punishment. There is no morality in that at all.

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