Dawkins vs Lennox; The God Delusion

[Caroljeen]

Can you come up with a single action that can be taken solely because a person does not believe in a god/s?

Where non-belief is the motive?

They persecute, jail, and kill religious believers. - Stalin. Because they consider themselves right and whoever doesn't agree with them is wrong and possibly dangerous.

 

[Eightcrackers]

They persecute, jail, and kill religious believers.

Not all atheists do this.

I am looking for an action motivated solely by the lack of belief in god/s; persecution of religions is motivated by hatred of religions, which is incidental to atheism.

 

[Caroljeen]

Not all atheists do this.


I am looking for an action motivated solely by the lack of belief in god/s; persecution of religions is motivated by hatred of religions, which is incidental to atheism.

I know that not all atheists do this.
Stalin persecuted religious believers because they believed in God and his group didn't. That's just the way hatred works if you have power.

 

[Eightcrackers]

Stalin persecuted religious believers because they believed in God and his group didn't. That's just the way hatred works if you have power.

So hatred was the motivation, not atheism.
What action can be impelled solely and completely by a lack of belief in a god?

"I do not believe in a god/s, therefore, I will..." what? Complete the sentence without adding extras.

 

[Caroljeen]

So hatred was the motivation, not atheism.
What action can be impelled solely and completely by a lack of belief in a god?

"I do not believe in a god/s, therefore, I will..." what? Complete the sentence without adding extras.

...persecute those who do. Stalin

 

[Eightcrackers]

...persecute those who do. Stalin

You have already stipulated that not all atheists do this - this means that something extra is needed (namely, hatred of the religious).

I will cut to the chase: this was a trick question.

There is no action that can possibly be impelled by an absence of a belief in a god/s. If you disagree, have a think about the last thing you did because you don't believe in Bigfoot, or alien abductions.

 

[Caroljeen]

You have already stipulated that not all atheists do this - this means that something extra is needed (namely, hatred of the religious).

I will cut to the chase: this was a trick question.

There is no action that can possibly be impelled by an absence of a belief in a god/s. If you disagree, have a think about the last thing you did because you don't believe in Bigfoot, or alien abductions.

Stalin, an atheist, was enforcing in Russia an atheistic state by persecuting believers.
There can be a hatred or predjudice against believers that would cause an atheist to do evil things to believers as in the case with Stalin.

 

[Eightcrackers]

Stalin, an atheist, was enforcing in Russia an atheistic state by persecuting believers.

I have already agreed to this.
There are motivations in play besides "I don't believe in a god/s".

"I don't believe..." cannot be a motivation; only positive beliefs can motivate.

There can be a hatred or predjudice against believers that would cause an atheist to do evil things to believers as in the case with Stalin.

Again, agreed.
But the hatred/prejudice would be the motivations, not the atheism. I want an action that is motivated solely by atheism, without the incidental hatreds you have continually shoehorned in.

When was the last time you did anything merely because you lacked a particular belief?

Have you ever?

 

[5wize]

Stalin, an atheist, was enforcing in Russia an atheistic state by persecuting believers.
There can be a hatred or predjudice against believers that would cause an atheist to do evil things to believers as in the case with Stalin.

To enforce @Eightcrackers point, look at the OT stories of the golden calf and Canaan juxtaposed to Stalin's purge of religion. Moses/Joshua were enforcing a belief that they were the possessors of the truth about what the ONLY legitimate power and proper life is. Stalin was doing the same thing.

(Exodus 32:6) God told Moses what the Israelites were up to back in camp, that they had turned aside quickly out of the way which God commanded them and he was going to destroy them and start a new people from Moses.

Joshua 11:21 likewise says that Joshua wiped out the Anakim in the hill country, Hebron, Debir, Anab and all the hill country of Judah, “utterly destroying” both them and their cities.

If anything, this shows that Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Moses and Joshua were actually practicing forms of absolute authority where there is NO room for heresy. In either model of authority, religious or secular, people did not matter unless they were fully aligned with either the godhead or the state-head.

It was much later in human social development were the rights of the people mattered as the root and trunk of the authority of those that govern and what those themes of governance will be. As much as Christians like to think it was initiated by Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount, it wasn't. Christian doctrine right up through the enlightenment held to its strict views of absolute truth vs. heresy and burned, stoned, warred, executed, imprisoned, conquered, enslaved, and persecuted against it - just like Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler. It wasn't just a few bad Christian actors. It was the entire authoritative governing regime of Christendom that demanded it.

 

[Caroljeen]

I have already agreed to this.
There are motivations in play besides "I don't believe in a god/s".

"I don't believe..." cannot be a motivation; only positive beliefs can motivate.

Again, agreed.
But the hatred/prejudice would be the motivations, not the atheism. I want an action that is motivated solely by atheism, without the incidental hatreds you have continually shoehorned in.

When was the last time you did anything merely because you lacked a particular belief?

Have you ever?

All one has to say is that I don't believe in God/gods and because of that I hate those that do because they don't believe or not believe in God/gods like I do.

 

[Eightcrackers]

All one has to say is that I don't believe in God/gods and because of that I hate those that do

Sorry - no atheist hates theists merely because they, they atheist, lack a belief in gods.

Have you ever hated anybody merely because you lacked a certain belief?

 

[Tiburon]

All one has to say is that I don't believe in God/gods and because of that I hate those that do because they don't believe or not believe in God/gods like I do.

The "because of that" is extra and a personal choice. It is like saying that because someone likes the Chicago Bulls they have to hate the fans of every other team. They may do, but it's not a natural extension of Chicago Bulls fandom.

 

[Caroljeen]

The "because of that" is extra and a personal choice. It is like saying that because someone likes the Chicago Bulls they have to hate the fans of every other team. They may do, but it's not a natural extension of Chicago Bulls fandom.

I'm speaking about Stalin who persecuted Christians for believing in God and not accepting atheism.
An atheist can do bad things in the name of atheism. I'm not saying that every atheist does this, only that it is possible.

 

[Caroljeen]

If anything, this shows that Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Moses and Joshua were actually practicing forms of absolute authority where there is NO room for heresy. In either model of authority, religious or secular, people did not matter unless they were fully aligned with either the godhead or the state-head.

I am only applying my argument to modern atheistic leaders. They were eliminating those that disagreed with them.

It was much later in human social development were the rights of the people mattered as the root and trunk of the authority of those that govern and what those themes of governance will be. As much as Christians like to think it was initiated by Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount, it wasn't. Christian doctrine right up through the enlightenment held to its strict views of absolute truth vs. heresy and burned, stoned, warred, executed, imprisoned, conquered, enslaved, and persecuted against it - just like Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler. It wasn't just a few bad Christian actors. It was the entire authoritative governing regime of Christendom that demanded it.

The so-called Christians who did these things were disobeying Jesus.
Titus 1:16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions; they are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

 

[Tiburon]

I'm speaking about Stalin who persecuted Christians for believing in God and not accepting atheism.
An atheist can do bad things in the name of atheism. I'm not saying that every atheist does this, only that it is possible.

It's possible for "Christians" to do bad things in the name of Jesus. You may say that those people are not really Christians but they believe they are and that they act for God.

 

[Whatsisface]

It's just like Christianity, if men have power they do evil things in the name of their beliefs or nonbeliefs.
Christianity most certainly doesn't entail evil and neither does atheism. But each can have fanatics who use either christianity or atheism to do evil.

So why emphasise atheism as the causal factor to do evil?

 

[Eightcrackers]

An atheist can do bad things in the name of atheism.

I don't know what "in the name of atheism" means - can you rephrase it?

 

[5wize]

I am only applying my argument to modern atheistic leaders. They were eliminating those that disagreed with them.

Correct. And disagreement along with the potential of the state having to deal with an unknown authority threatened the stability and goals of the state - whether it was Israel the Soviet Union or the Church of Rome or Ancient Rome itself. That was all the leaders were concerned with. It wouldn't matter what specific belief was targeted as heresy be it Christianity or fascism or communism or Islam, and it wouldn't matter what belief system instigated the witch-hunt be it Christianity or fascism or communism or Islam.

The so-called Christians who did these things were disobeying Jesus.
Titus 1:16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions; they are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

Correct again... So it would seem that those that profess atheism and those that profess theism share the same propensities regardless of their beliefs. Atheism can just as well pin itself to a humanistic philosophy liken to Jesus which allows atheist to point to other atheists like Stalin and Hitler and claim "they are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work."

All you are doing is imagining a shift in authority from the natural to the supernatural, and neither it seems has a real affect on human behavior overall. Good people will resonate to good actions and bad people will resonate to bad actions. The difference however between natural authority and supernatural authority is that you can actually see justice meted out with natural authority. Supernatural authority is guesswork as to what happens and a heavenly justice in the afterlife was a late Judaic invention when they questioned why the righteous would suffer and the wicked would thrive in this world. They imagined a new world, a kingdom to come, where god was in charge.

 

[Whatsisface]

I'm not sure what that has to do with Stalin and his atheism that guided him to turn churches into museums.

It shows that evil doesn't necessarily follow from atheism of course.

Just from a quick look at the internet on the subject:

From 1932 to 1937 Joseph Stalin declared the 'five-year plans of atheism' and the LMG was charged with completely eliminating all religious expression in the country. Many of these same methods and terror tactics were also imposed against others that the regime considered to be its ideological enemies.


Although Article 124 of the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union ostensibly guaranteed “[f]reedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda,” the reality both before and after 1936 belied the ideas encoded in Soviet law. Militant atheism, or the state-sanctioned assault against religious believers and institutions, including the looting and destruction of houses of worship and executions of priests, characterized Soviet antireligious policy of the 1920s and 1930s under both Lenin and Stalin.

World War Two and the Intersection of Soviet Anti-Religious and Foreign Policies in Soviet-Vatican Relations East of the Curzon Line (1941-46)

Although Article 124 of the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union ostensibly guaranteed “[f]reedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda,” the reality both before and after 1936 belied the ideas encoded in Soviet law.

www.wilsoncenter.org

Stalin didn't do the things above just because he was an atheist. He wasn't an otherwise good man driven to do evil things because of his atheism, If he was you'd have a point. He was an evil man to start off with and would do anything against that which threatened the power of the state and by extension him and his power. He didn't want any competition from the church. These were his main motivators, not atheism.

That's because his sarcasm is so dry

I didn't detect any.

I don't believe that God is for slavery. I can only speak to the teachings of Christ found in the Bible by him and his disciples.

Is morality absolute? If so then how can it change from the old testament which at the very least endorsed slavery?

That is likely true. Tell that to Dawkins. He calls it a "force". My thoughts are that he was getting past his prime when it came to debating.

It makes no sense to think Dawkins thought of zeitgeist as supernatural because he doesn't believe there is a supernatural

It is still just conjecture. How would he prove it since he wasn't there? You should hold the same standards you use for Atheists that you use for Christians.

We don't have to go back, we can see empathy in other animals.

Here is an article about the evolution of empathy, found here.

The hard part is realizing that a mindless, amoral process can bring about such creatures.

But that is somewhat changing the subject and doesn't really deal with my points.

You have to be more specific. I'm don't know what you are talking about.

Right and wrong are abstract concepts that will occur to creatures with the ability to think.

????

Lennox isn't missing a thing, imo.

This is the conclusion Lennox came to after reading Dawkins "...The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”
And he further concluded "if good and evil don’t exist, there is no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference, how can it possibly make sense to talk of the evils of religion or of the good of atheism? Now I know that you suggest elsewhere that we have to rebel against our genes, but that creates to my mind an immense problem with what you say because if we are nothing but our genes dancing to the tune of our DNA, what part of us can rebel against them?

Yeah, he's missing that the concepts of good and evil are necessary abstract concepts that will occur to creatures with the ability of abstract thought. It doesn't matter where we come from, it's the ability for thought that counts.

So I want to suggest this, that far from atheism delivering an adequate explanation for morality it dissolves it, and it’s a problem that’s been around for centuries. How can something mindless and impersonal like the universe impose a sense of morality upon us? And David Hume, a philosopher whom you quote, pointed this out very clearly. He said: “You just cannot get an ought from an is. You cannot derive morality and ethics from matter and energy. You can not go from facts to values.”

If Lennox's conclusions are true, then Dawkin's description of the world is not true. Something is missing and that something is God.

None of this deals with my point that the concepts of fairness, right and wrong are necessary abstract concepts that will occur to creatures with ability of abstract thought.

How are our minds capable of knowing good from evil, right from wrong if the mindless process that made us has no concept of these things?

It doesn't matter where our minds came from, what counts is the ability for abstract thought.

Where do those concepts come from?

They are necessary, like numbers.

I agree. Children are the same as cats when it comes to morality when they are first born.

Great.

 

[Caroljeen]

You say you get the idea that the universe was created for man from the Bible. The Bible is written by man.
So it makes sense that we would cast ourselves as the central focus for creation. It's like basing the measure of some-ones importance on their autobiography.

The Bible is about God and his interactions with mankind. It's about promises, covenants, and most of all about a story of love and forgiveness. God is the center of the whole book(s) from the first to the last page. It is not focused completely on man.

How do we measure that? Many animals display behaviour that could be construed as the product of reason and logic.
It is claimed that several great apes have learned how to communicate through the use of sign language.
Would you consider that a sign of reason and logic?

I'd have to read the article. Can those apes think more than this sign means banana? Can they form a justice system? or a hospital? or a church?

You seem to think that "nature" should give out just enough to achieve a particular goal and no more. How does nature know what is enough?

Nature doesn't know anything. Nature can't give anything.

I posted this earlier in this thread, you didn't respond to it. You might have missed it:


I'm reading Lennox's book, Can Science explain every thing?. On page 47-48 he writes,

"Sometimes, when in conversation with my fellow scientists, I ask them "What do you do science with?"
"My mind," say some, and others, who hold the view that the mind is the brain, say, "My brain".
"Tell me about your brain? How does it come to exist?"
"By means of natural, mindless, unguided processes."
"Why, then, do you trust it?" I ask. "If you thought that your computer was the end product of mindless, unguided processes, would you trust it?"
"Not in a million years, " comes the reply.
"You clearly have a problem then."
"After a pregnant pause they sometimes ask me where I got this argument--- they find the answer rather surprising: Charles Darwin.
He [Darwin] wrote: "...with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy." Taking the obvious logic of this statement further, Physicist John Polkinghorne says that if you reduce mental events to physics and chemistry you destroy meaning. How?
"For thought is replaced by electrochemical neural events. Two such events cannot confront each other in rational discourse. They are neither right nor wrong---they simply happen. The world of rational discourse disappears into the absurd chatter of firing synapses. Quite frankly that can't be right and none of us believe it to be so."

There are a couple of things I've learned in walking with God: God is real and humans have a human spirit inside of them that is real and lives on after death. Whatever way that evolution works out in my beliefs, it will have to include the dualism of man.

Nature gave us a desire to investigate. Why? Because it helps us understand those things that threaten our existence and those things that promote out existence. So we have survived and reproduced. Do you think that desire will just turn off now? Nature doesn't work like that.
Nature gave us the ability to eat an excess of food when we have a surplus and store it as fat for the leaner times.
Do you think nature should have had the foresight to anticipate a world where we can consume enough to achieve morbid obesity and switch off that ability?

Nature cannot give desires, morality, and, imo, to surpass itself.

Again, One solar system is surely enough. How does anything beyond that help achieve God's goal of getting us into heaven?

I don't understand what you mean?

Or is that not God's goal.
"We can investigate God by what he has made." That sounds great but we aren't investigating God are we? Without a tangible connection between the physical Universe and a God, we can investigate away without giving God a second thought.

We can learn about the Creator by what he has created. Although there have been times when I felt like I could reach out and touch Him.

Do you like being alive? Is wanting to stay alive a biological imperative or just an opinion?

I can't imagine liking the process of dying, but once I'm past that, then I'm with the Lord.

Do you think some behaviours foster your continued survival and some do the opposite?

Definitely. Why isn't our desire to always foster those good behaviors that increase our survival?
Suicide, alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual promiscuity, for example. Why do we kill our unborn?

That is where morality comes from. Humans are a social species. Historically our ability to survive has depended on forming groups. Forming groups requires compromise. A compromise between doing what is good for you as an individual and what is good for the group. A contract of reciprocity.

True, but it's a fleeting morality that can change very quickly depending on who is in charge, who has the money, who is the strongest, etc.

Again, Morality is simply the product of group dynamics in a social species. Actions that foster cohesion and thus survival are deemed good those that breed disunity are deemed bad.
The absolute of being human is the biological imperative to survive. Morality flows from that.

That's a selfish reason. Morality doesn't flow from self-centeredness. I'm glad Jesus resisted that desire in the garden.
Humans are not absolute. They are born, live, and die. Morals are absolute because they are unchanging and are grounded in the character of God.

oxford languages: absolute

2. viewed or existing independently and not in relation to other things; not relative or comparative.
"absolute moral standards"

PHILOSOPHY

1. a value or principle which is regarded as universally valid or which may be viewed without relation to other things.
   "good and evil are presented as absolutes"

If that were the case that would also look like every human being on the exact same page.

It would if we all were guided by our consciences, but you can harden your conscience the more you resist it.

I don't believe Consciences is anything more than learned.

Why do we feel guilt and shame when we do something we know is wrong? Is that learned also? Are you sure the thousands of years of religion hasn't rubbed off on us in some way to make us more moral than we naturally would be?