God, Morality and Atheism!!

A few days ago I had a discussion with my father. While conversing we came upon the subject of morality. He mentioned that he believed that the majority of people, who are atheist, are so because they don’t want to live morally. I was offended and shocked that my father could make such a thoughtless statement. The statement assumes many fallacies. One, morals are exclusive to Christians and created by God; Two, atheist lack morality; Three, atheism and morals are correlated. I am not attempting to express scorn towards my father; I love and owe him too much to do so. My conversation with my father is only what motivated me to write this blog. The statement my father made is all too common and while I don’t consider my father a bigot, his statement expresses the sentimental prelude to it.

First and foremost, morals do not exist because God dictates them. In fact, it can be concluded by the bible that the Christian God does not abide by the moral codes he is given credit for creating. Thus, it can be inferred that God is not even an example of a moral being. Many of Gods laws and commands are immoral. Now take in mind that this god is supposedly perfect and incapable of committing errors. For example, Slavery, God condones slavery and abuse of slaves:

· When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are.  If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again.  But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her.  And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter.  If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife.  If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

· When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished.  If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

· Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

· Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed.  If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful.  You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts.  Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

· The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it.  “But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly.  Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given.” (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)

You can bring the lame duck ancient Asian culture argument, but if God is perfect and is who dictates what is moral, then morality is absolute, transcends culture and is universal. Slavery is immoral but God condones it. God also condones and has ordered the killing innocent children and babies in the Old Testament:

· Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword.  Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes.  Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes.  For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off.  The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows.  They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children. (Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT)

· “Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked.  Show no mercy; have no pity!  Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children.  But do not touch anyone with the mark.  Begin your task right here at the Temple.”  So they began by killing the seventy leaders.  “Defile the Temple!” the LORD commanded.  ”Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill!  Go!”  So they went throughout the city and did as they were told.” (Ezekiel 9:5-7 NLT)

· When the people heard the sound of the horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight into the city from every side and captured it.  They completely destroyed everything in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, donkeys – everything. (Joshua 6:20-21 NLT)

What moral ground would God stand on to argue against abortion? The answer is none what so ever. This is a devastating blow to the argument that morals are godly. It is obvious that if God is capable of immoral actions he is as morally flawed as a human. Taking your moral queue from a person who apathetically kills innocent children and is an advocate of slavery is at the very least disdainful. So how could being a Christian make you a good person? It doesn’t and quite the opposite can be said.

If Christians follow God’s example and his commands then they are not by default moral people. Morality is not only, not exclusive to Christianity, it is not derived from God. Being a Christian can only make you as virtuously as the god you adore. The Christian god not only lacks ethical virtue but can be said to be wicked.

That being said, Atheists are as capable of being as moral as any righteous person. Statistically Atheist can be said to be more moral that the religious. In general, people are usually arrested and convicted of violating moral codes (rape, abuse, murder, stealing, fraud, .etc). A 1997 study by the Federal Bureau of Prisons showed that 0.21% of the prison population was atheist. This in is in contrast to 35% Protestant, 39% Catholic, and 7% Muslim. Now, take in mind that according to the 2001 ARIS study by The City University of New York, the non- religious make up 14.1% of the U.S. population, while Protestants make up 52%, Catholics 24.5%, and Muslims 0.5%.

If morality was in any way correlated with religious beliefs the statistics above would at least hint to a relationship. However, the numbers spit in the face of the religious mans moral ego. Godlessness does not produce wicked people and, statistically speaking, the non-religious are virtuous. However, if righteousness is not correlated with religious views, then atheists cannot claim ownership either. This brings me to argue against the next fallacy.

Atheism is in no way correlated with any particular preconceived moral perspective. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. An Atheist has found no reason or evidence that compels him/her to believe in the existence of deities. That is all there is to say about atheism. Any other attribute forcefully adhered into the definition of what an Atheist is, is mere bigotry or flattery. Atheist can be just as ignorant as some Christians (though studies have correlated mediocre levels of education and lower I.Q.’s to the likelihood of religious belief) and just as moral or immoral.

So what are morals and where are they derived from? Morals are rules of conduct that groups of people agree to live by for the general well being of the individuals that coexist in the group. It has been though deep thought (philosophy) and experience that humans have developed ethical codes of conduct. However, since religion and culture have been inseparable throughout human history and since deities were ignorantly attributed with controlling and creating everything in the universe, morality and piety were confused as one. This has created the illusion that religious belief and morality are related.

The truth is the origin of morality in social creatures is based on the ability to empathize with other individuals. This is the ability to put oneself in another’s place and imagine how an action or event affects him/her. The result of this thought process is ethical reciprocity, better known as the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”. You treat others as you wish to be treated in hopes that others in your group reciprocate your behavior. If everyone in the group reciprocates each other’s ethical behavior then the group increases its chances of living pleasantly. Ethical reciprocity also strengthens the group’s cohesiveness and cooperation with one another allowing it to function efficiently as a unit. Morals are a convenience, and from an evolutionary perspective a survival niche.

However, morals are observed when they benefit our survival or at the very least do not jeopardize it. The following metaphoric dilemma was given by ecologist Garrett Hardin. Suppose there is a life boat, in the middle of the ocean, with 50 people on board, with room for 10 more souls but only enough food and water for 50. There are hundreds of swimmers surrounding the boat pleading to be rescued. If you take on ten more souls everyone will die, and no one stand a chance of surviving. What is the ethical thing to do?

In this circumstance, empathetic behavior will put everyone’s survival at risk. The normal moral standard shares the same fate as the struggling swimmers in this scenario, because no one benefits from attempting to save swimmers. My point here is that morals are circumstantial. Morality has to be judged in context with the situation, keeping in mind all that are affected, and the severity and scope of the suffering or evil done.

In conclusion, morals are arbitrary ethical codes of conduct determined by human discretion, and observed by people in societies for its beneficial qualities. There is no correlation to gods or piety, especially when the god worshiped has a poor sense of what is ethical. Statistically, religion and morality are not in any way related. Atheism by definition indicates no moral perspective. Therefore saying that “an atheist chooses not to believe in gods in order to live immorally” is akin to saying “baseball players choose not to be football players in order to kill kittens”. It is absurdly illogical and false.

A Very Brief Rebuttal of Socialism and Gun Prohibition

I wrote the following as a response to a fellow My-Spacer’s blog on why he is a Democratic Socialist and against guns. I added and edited little bit from the original.

I wish you allowed for comments, oppressing free speech already? lol. First off, the idea of socialism is not a natural one. Nature’s law is survival of the fittest. Natural selection provided the method by which humans evolved as a species to what we are now. Life was never meant to be fair. Why do humans seek equilibrium when nothing about our universe is static? Our earth is not a static environment; it is in constant motion and perpetually changing. We live in a dynamic universe. Socialism strives to make everyone equal. We are not all equal, species are not all equal, and the forces that drive our universe are not all equal. Some of us are smarter than others, some of us are stronger than others, some faster, some shorter, taller, fatter, agile, astute. To pretend everyone is in the same class is ridiculous. We are not all in the same class. I believe in the fair treatment of people, but fair does always mean equal treatment.

Like different species of animals who have found their evolutionary survival niche, so have the rich. They have chosen to use their wits versus a workers brawn. People make the rich as fat and lazy snobs. Well most that I have encountered are not fat, and lazy they are not. To stay on top you can’t be stagnant, you have to be progressive. The working class hates on the rich because they envy them. They wish they didn’t have to toil in the soil and sweat unlike the rich. They wish they enjoyed the same prosperity. Since they don’t, socialism, like crabs in a can when one reaches the lip of the can another yanks it down, is an attempt to strip the wealthy from their harvest, as to relieve themselves from the sense of inadequacy by artificially making everyone equally adequate. This is something to the likes of killing your opponent if you can’t compete with him.

While I don’t believe we are in the same class, I do believe everyone should have similar opportunities. This is what makes the United States so appealing to the rest of the world, there are endless opportunities. Virtually anyone here can get a higher education. But do we all? Usually the poor lack education not because they can’t but because they choose not to. It is a lot easier for most after high school (if they finish that); to get nine to five jobs rather than to work hard at a higher education related career or founding businesses. If there is no job available to them, then criminal hustles like drug dealing, prostitution, and theft is what they resort to. Some say they have no choice, but life itself is full of choices. Everyone makes choices and is accountable to themselves for the choices made.

Money is not what separates the wealthy from the impoverished, it is education and knowledge. I think what can narrow the gap between the rich and the poor is education. Socialism to me seems to be an artificial way of fixing the problem. It treats the symptom (money), versus the addressing the cause (education and opportunity). A pretty reliable stat is the uneducated have plenty more children than the educated. Children being the major priority in most parents’ lives, the opportunities to escape poverty diminish with an every child.

And frankly, some people have a lot more drive and will than others when it comes to success. The truth is these ambitious people are the movers and shakers of society. Without competition no one would have the need to do things better. This allows for a dynamic progressive society. Like animals compete in the wild, humans also compete with each other, resulting in the fittest design surviving. Likewise, competition in a society bring out the best, not just business wise, but in ourselves. Adversity separates the weak and the obsolete from the best suited for a task (life). As humans we have a need to feel good about ourselves. We feel good when we achieve. We feel good when we are the best or at least talented. Nothing refines talent like competition. It is a natural pressure that pushes us to excel like hunger.

So before we blame and chastise the rich, blaming others for our problems, let’s self-reflect on what we can do better. For one instill the importance of an education in our working class children and secondly be more active in politics and government. Societies only change if the people that constitute them want to and care to make a change.

About guns, criminals in jail don’t have guns, yet they find very creative ways to end life or injure. Before guns people still murdered each other just the same. But that’s not my point. There is a reason why our founding fathers placed that clause in our social contract. It is a “just in case” clause; just in case government becomes oppressive (which by the way its on its way to being). Guns are a means by which the people can rebel and protect themselves from oppression. Many misuse freedoms, the 911 hijackers misused many of our liberties. Do we now strip everyone from these freedoms and rights for safety reasons, like the patriot act blatantly does? As Americans we stand for liberties and rights, this is who we are, our very identity. We are a free society (supposed to be at least). Would you choose an oppressed and safe life over a free life? Life is full of dangers; we don’t live in kindergarten class where everything is child proof. Life by its very nature is dangerous and unfair, period. Survival of the fittest is the only rule that applies.

If poverty is the problem, then let’s fix poverty. If un-education is a factor of poverty, let work on that. Treating the symptoms never cures the illness.

Did a god plant the seeds for evolution?

I Myspacer asked me the following: “Do you believe it impossible for God to have planted a seed of creation for which all evolution began?”. And I responded:

I think thats a cop out argument, with the purpose of keeping ones faith without perturbing the rational side of your intellect by appeasing it. Evolution is a sloppy, unguided process in which we are a fortunate coincidence. This is consistent with the idea that there is no god, no purposeful creator or (for weak arguments sake) if there is a god he is not a personal god. You must ask yourself what evidence is there for the existence of a god? The proof for a god is tantamount to the evidence for a green three headed swan in our neighboring universe laying titanium eggs. You can’t prove there isn’t one, but there isn’t any data that implies there is. So what is the most likely scenario? The most likely scenario is that there is no god. I really wish I had a good willed invisible being looking over my shoulder. However, when I observe the apathetic universe I live in, all the human and animal suffering I observe, I would be a delusional egomaniac to think that there is a universal steward that cares about me.