One atheist understood the moral consequences of his unbelief: That was Nietzsche, who argued that God is dead, but acknowledged that without God there could be no binding and objective moral order.Read the rest from Chuck Colson.
Of course, the “New Atheists” deny this. Instead, they unconvincingly argue that you can have the benefits of an altruistic, Christian-like morality without God.
Nietzsche would laugh—and wonder why they don’t make atheists like they used to.
via Happy Catholic
3 comments:
Jen, I would really love a wider discussion on this issue. Do you have any writings you can point me to that discuss WHY atheists can't have a moral compass? Surely the golden rule, the inherent dignity of the human person and the good of society can serve as bases for an objective and binding morality. I just don't understand why atheism necessarily precludes morality.
Tienne - You'll be glad to hear I emailed Steve G. with your question. He should be able to provide a better explanation than I can. :)
I am extremely sleep deprived right now so I'm not sure how articulate I'll be, but here are some thoughts off the top of my head:
If it is true that we humans are merely a collection of random chemical reactions, created by chance, then we're different from fungi, snails, and other lower life forms only in the sense that we have more chemical reactions going on. We have no right to claim that we're "better" or have more "dignity" just because we're bigger and more complicated. So, is it immoral that the mold on my shower somehow migrated from the tile floor to the door? Silly question -- the actions of mold can't be moral or immoral. They're simply moving and growing according to the meaningless chemical reactions that guide them. In the atheist worldview, so are we.
I don't just say this from a Christian perspective -- this is also what I thought when I was an atheist. I guess I was more of a Nietzsche brand of atheist. :)
Before I fall asleep at my keyboard, here's a quick example:
When I was in college I read in our newspaper that some professor had made a statement that killing a newborn baby or a severely retarded person would be less wrong than killing an adult pig since an adult pig is more intelligent than the former.
I was absolutely shocked by what I read. I was thinking of writing a letter to the editor, but then I realized that I was having a hard time defending my arguments from my (atheist) worldview. It's true: pigs are really smart. They're pretty aware of their surroundings. I actually wasn't a fan of eating them anyway (I was a vegetarian), but it seemed utterly absurd to say that killing a pig is worse than killing a newborn baby or a severely mentally retarded adult. But why? I had this idea in my head that humans have dignity, but had no idea where I got that. Why do people have dignity? The answer I usually came up with to that question had to do with the fact that we're the most intelligent of the animals, most aware, etc. But if intelligence and awareness are the metrics through which we derive dignity, then why would it be worse to kill an infant or a severely mentally retarded person than a pig?
That was one of the first moments that I realized that I had some understanding of the way things "ought" to be that came from outside the material world.
OK, enough rambling from me. Here's an article at DarwinCatholic that addresses this that you might enjoy reading.
Have a nice Wednesday! :)
Hi Tienne,
Jennifer and Darwin have already hit on some of this, but I'll try my hand a bit via a little leading questioning based on your comment....
From where does the idea of human dignity spring?
How do we define the 'good' of society?
Why is it even preferable that society should survive?
Why is it even preferable that the human species should survive?
As Christians we both have coherent answers to those questions based on the fact that God exists, that he created all things, and that his creation is good.
For the atheist, any answer to those question will be a mere substitution of another assumed good that they have no foundation for.
Invariably the assumption always comes down to 'It is 'good' for the survival of the species.'
But as I've already hinted, without God, there is no real foundation upon which to rest that assumption.
In a deterministic, random Universe, it can not be claimed as preferable for humanity to survive.
The Universe cares not a whit. We of course care (even the atheist), but to make the claim that it is good, is purely subjective without a foundation of God upon which to build it.
Does this help at all?
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