The Christian mind
I’ve spoken around this before, but here are words directly from a Christian in regards to how accepting the theory of evolution could affect the way people live their lives:
“If we have, indeed, evolved from early hominids, and were not the special creations of a loving God, then a few things follow from that. Most evolutionists don’t see that, but here I am talking to the Christians and to the seekers. First, if we are nothing more than higly evolved animals, then there is truly no reason to be better than them. If I am not called for a purpose by a higher power, then why bother with morality or living right? I’m only responsible to myself, so I may as well horde all the wealth I can and have threesomes every night with beautiful models. Death means annihilation, so I may as well have all the fun I can while I’m alive since it won’t matter once I die. Nice guys finish last, right?
Of course, if I am the special creation of God and called according to His purpose, it now follows that I have a responsibility to Him. It is improper to say that I am moral and live right because I fear punishment from God. If a Creator exists, then it stands to reason that He would know what “living right” means, and that I would do well to follow His precepts.”
This is seriously how they think. It’s warped, I know. It’s also insulting. But this is how they think of atheists, as amoral, selfish people because they either can’t fathom how someone could behave in a moral fashion without some supernatural being holding them accountable, or they want people to think they can’t fathom this.
To these people I say, there’s nothing supernatural about the Golden Rule: treat others as you wish to be treated. Almost every atheist I’ve ever met has held this close to his or her heart as a model way to live. It doesn’t just apply to Christians. It applies to us all. I don’t need an invisible being to tell me so either. I can figure this one out for myself, thank you.
Yep. It really indicates a lot when certain people say something along the lines of ‘If god wasn’t there, we could all be bastards.’
That,to me, is real immorality - just behaving because if you don’t, a magic sky father will spank you when you die.
I don’t entirely disagree with the thought that there would be SOME portion of the populous that would, without the fear of a god, act quite differently than they do now. Not everyone has the desire to prolong their life as long as possible. Nor does everyone subscribe to the same ideals, religion notwithstanding, that form the general basic tenants of a society.
However, I’m of the opinion that you can’t pigeonhole either group - be it the most religious or the most avowed atheist - people are going to subscribe to their own level of society and laws. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have Christians committing murders, adultery, etc.
But I also think quoting something as being “directly from a Christian” is using a little too much puffery. It’s not like this was the Pope or Billy Graham speaking. So, I don’t think one persons somewhat myopic view of what a godless world would look like should be imputed to all Christians. I’d imagine you could get 100 different opinions of atheist from Christians just in the same way you’d get 100 different opinions of Christians from atheist.
Oh, and I failed to mention:
If any of us could - we’d all be having threesomes with models every night. The Pope and Mr. Graham included.
That’s a good point, Jon. I could be lending too much weight to this particular Christian by singling him out with the phrasing you mention (”directly from a Christian”). But I do that because I’ve heard and read this mindset so many times that it makes me think it’s a pretty prevalent thought process among Christians. Not all Christians, mind you, but a good number.
And you’re right about threesomes with models. You don’t even want to know what you’ll come up with if you Google “Billy Graham” orgy. Bad things, man. Bad things.
Every atheist I’ve known has led much more sexually immoral lives than Christians. That’s not to say that Christians are more moral on issues of ethics. I don’t think fundamentalists, as a group, are more ethical. But, they are more chaste.
I’m not sure about that, harvey. First, I think you have to determine what amounts to “sexually immoral.” I honestly don’t know. Having sex outside of marriage? Infidelity? Unprotected sex? Massive orgies? Beastiality? I don’t think it’s fair to judge non-Christians by Christian definitions of “immoral,” i.e. sex before marriage. So we’ve got to talk about the big ones: pedophilia, beastiality, necrophilia and a few others. Is there really any evidence to support the idea that Atheists conduct these activities more than Christians? Do I need to get into the Catholic Church scandal? If you count infidelity, I fail to see where Atheists are worse offenders there either.
As a Christian who was, for many years, an atheist, I think I can articulate a point that isn’t often made clear in these arguments. The claim is “Without God, there’s no reason to be ethical,” which, interpreted one way, doesn’t hold up well because there are plenty of ethical atheists and unethical monotheists.
I think this is a kind of symmetry-breaking argument— at least it was for me when I thought a lot about these things during my conversion. The quote (which I don’t completely condone) suggests this in the second paragraph, about God’s mere existence polarizing actions into good and bad, unrelated to the prospect of reward or punishment.
The idea that I’m trying to express is that the set of high-level actions: human behavior, thoughts, and interactions (as opposed to low-level actions such as particle motions and mechanical responses in organisms) can only be meaningfully differentiated if they can be thought about. Without thinking organisms and without God, there’s no contrast between good actions and bad actions: slugs can’t be evil, they just do sluggy things. Since humans exist, we can meaningfully talk about what I think is good or what you think is good, but there can be no objective standard because there isn’t anything to break the symmetry between one person’s ethics and another person’s ethics. This is literally the question, “What made *you* emperor?”
There is a natural distinction among low-level actions: some physical actions are possible and others are impossible. This is an objective standard that everyone can agree upon, so there’s at least a “God” of low-level things, usually known as The Laws of Physics. The question is whether or not God can be a God of high-level things, like being nice or being mean. These things aren’t divided up into possible and impossible, but the much subtler and less clearly-advertised categories of good and bad. We usually act as though this is true, and I concluded a from my observations a long time ago that it appears to be true, but, naturally, I don’t have a solid argument for that.
Very often, I hear Christians say things like, “the existence of God implies a standard of conduct,” which gets miscommunicated as, “believers in God act better than non-believers.” However, when they conflate it with evolution, like the above quote, I think they’re missing the point.
jpiv-
Good stuff. I see where you’re going with this.
I’m certain that one of the reasons religions came about to begin with was to control the (largely uneducated) populace. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn that it was the No. 1 driving force behind religion’s creation in the beginning. Leaders wanted to be able to set a consistent moral standard for their followers, and this seemed to be the best way to do that.
And while you’re right that it gets miscommunicated as “believers in God act better than non-believers,” it’s not just that. It’s also, “non-believers have no reason to behave morally,” which is wrong. It’s just, while Christians’ consequences come in a theoretical “afterlife,” our consequences come in this one. There are major problems involved in basing your moral compass on what might happen to you after your death, chief among them that no one really knows what is involved in the afterlife, and even many Christians say “Heaven is whatever you want it to be.” If you believe you’ll receive 72 virgins for killing infidels, so be it. No one can prove you wrong.
While effective for many, in the end, this is a terrible way to motivate people to conform and to establish moral guidelines. Being a good person is a reward in and of itself, as should having good friends and living a full life. Creating some imaginary second life for yourself is just wishful thinking.
This moment is all we’re guaranteed. Nothing more. Live it to its fullest.
Hello! (Yes, I’m still online.
Religions might have been started by people trying to answer the question, “What made *you* emperor?”— the origins of the earliest religions is hidden in pre-history. But the causal relationship drawn between actions on earth and actions in an afterlife is strictly new (c. 1000 B.C.).
It’s even unclear whether ancient Mesopotamians believed in any afterlife at all; sometimes they said that the dead were nothing but dust, sometimes they said that the dead are hungry for libations, sometimes in the same sentence. They mostly didn’t say much about it: we read our own preoccupations into history when we look for it. This lack of concern for the afterlife is even imprinted onto the Bible— the ealiest chapters don’t say much about any afterlife, and don’t draw a connection between actions on Earth and rewards in heaven. You start to see a lot of that in the Macabees and surrounding chapters; there’s a good chance that this was a Zoroastrian influence (not that that is a bad thing in itself).
You can probably guess that I don’t much care for this “be good for Heaven’s sake” thing. For most of the Christians I know (conservative and liberal), it is not a major influence in their lives, but I know that there are extremists who take it very seriously. I dislike it because it diminishes the idea of morality as a personal relationship and it makes it into a bargin. Christians especially should avoid thinking of their behavior as tit-for-tat; if Jesus had any central theme, that was it!
When I was an atheist, my favorite author was Albert Camus. I especially liked the warm, if irrational, attitude he took in _The Plague_, where condemned men ministered to the sick “for no damn reason at all.” (My paraphrase might be loose.) As a motivator of behavior, this applies every bit as much now that I am a Christian, an attitude shared by most of the Christians that I know. What I was saying in my last comment is that we can also, in some objective sense, say that it is “good,” because “it’s the sort of thing God likes,” stopping short of, “and therefore he’ll like me.” God likes whom he wilt.
And so, yes, the moment is all we’re guaranteed. I feel like the difference between theism and atheism can be very subtle, but no one likes to say that.
Those are good points, jwhaws. By sexual morality I mean they are more promiscuous than their Christian counterparts. I haven’t seen any evidence on sexual behavior, I can only recount my experiences of knowing atheists and comparing their behavior with that of Christians. That’s not to say that all atheists are on the hunt, as if no Christian is. Far from it. I think the majority of atheists are quiet folk who spend their time doing normal activities. However, I think there is a sizable percent of atheists who lead promiscuous lifestyles. I might be wrong. It would be interesting to see data on this…
I always point at chimps when it comes to morality. They don’t need a God to behave morally (even by human standards) most of the time.
Here is a post I recently wrote about morality.
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