Subject:
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Re: Heads up, atheists
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 19 Sep 2005 03:49:56 GMT
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Viewed:
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1121 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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Okay, so you’d tend to disagree with his supposition:-) What interested me
about the piece is the fact that the author claims to be an atheist, so the
typical “preaching to the choir” accusation doesn’t quite fit as it would
were the writer a Christian, for example, making the case.
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That’s why I coined this stunningly witty phrase: preaching to the choir, even
if the preacher isn’t part of the congregation. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
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So I guess, given your analysis, that non-believers can make bad arguments
as well as believers? :-)
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No. All arguments by non-believers are inherently perfect and sumptuously
articulated.
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Here is, if I may, boil down what I believe is the essence of what he is
talking about-- does one believe that he/she is their brother’s keeper? I
believe the responses to this question will cut down along faith lines.
Christians (and I will only speak for and about that particular faith group
because it is the one to which I am a member) are charged by God to care for
their neighbor-- it is the tangible way for us to manifest our commitment.
Non-believers, OTOH, do good for any number of reasons, all of which I don’t
understand (except the ones for self-satisfaction). But I do know that their
motivation isn’t because of any sense of obligation.
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Arguably there’s an evolutionary imperative that inclines us to help each other
because we’re all members of the same species, but that weak compulsion is
readily over-ridden by greed, fear, hate, etc.
I tend to help others because I am able to empathize with them, and because
the worldview I’ve developed over these many decades places a higher value on
alleviating others’ suffering that upon allowing that suffering to persist. My
empathy enables me, to some extent, to recognize what their suffering would be
like if it were happening to me; if I were suffering then I would like someone
to aid me, if possible.
Honestly, I’ve just given an over-articulation of something that happens more or
less automatically. That is, I don’t run through an equation every time I see
someone drop his groceries--I just pick them up!
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And that leads me to my best argument for believing in and acknowledging
God-- it puts one in a proper attitude when socializing with others. Life
is not about MEMEME, but about caring for and about others. Even if God
doesn’t exist, living by an imperative to “love thy neighbor” is still the
best way to live one’s life IMO.
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You’ve hit on the central question of ethics, for what that’s worth. Suppose
that a real jerk begins to do good works only because he truly believes that
someone will kill him if he doesn’t perform such deeds. And suppose that he
would stop his works if he realized that no one will kill him. Are his good
deeds still good?
If the average believer who performs good works, found out tomorrow with 100%
proof that no deity exists, would that now-former-believer abandon his good
works? If so, then we must ask again--are his previous good deeds still good?
(By the way--the comma after “performs good works” in the above paragraph wasn’t
strictly proper, but the parsing was clunky without it. Call it poetic
license.)
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An atheist could easily take upon his or herself that same imperative, but it
seems to me that it would lack a motivating force (except for
self-satisfaction, which argueably isn’t altruism anyway).
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I’m afraid that this gets more deeply into BF Skinner’s notions of operant
conditioning than I’m able to discuss with any authority.
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So, doing good is more of priority for a Christian, and may or may not be for
a non-believer, depending on I don’t know what. I still have a hard time
understanding what would motivate a non-believer to do good anyway, if not
for personal gain.
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“More of a priority” might be tough to gauge, but I would tend to agree that,
within the Christian’s notion of the universe, the motivation to perform good
works is more concretely spelled-out than is an atheist’s. In practice,
however, the average atheist (whatever that means) is probably about as likely
to perform a good deed as the average Christian (whatever that means).
Of course, all of this depends on the definition of “good deed” that’s generally
embraced by our modern, North American culture...
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Heads up, atheists
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| (...) Thanks for the response, Dave! Okay, so you'd tend to disagree with his supposition:-) What interested me about the piece is the fact that the author claims to be an atheist, so the typical "preaching to the choir" accusation doesn't quite fit (...) (19 years ago, 18-Sep-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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