on 6/9/01 1:05 AM, Dan Minette at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I'm sure that many would start off with family and friends. But, when
> pushed, the atheists that I admire go on to talk about regard for other
> human beings. As with the faith statement "the humanist manifesto", many go
> on to discuss the importance of other human beings. The atheists I don't
> respect talk about "looking out for number 1" and "I care for my immediate
> family, but I have no obligation at all to the rest of the world. Altruism
> is either evil or at best misguided."
Here you go muddling things up again. Atheism is about the question of
whether claims about the *supernatural* are literally true or not. An
atheist doesn't believe in ghosts, spirits, gods, angels, afterlives or
other supernatural things. Atheism has no more to say about ethics than
geometry has to say about ethics because the subjects are *not related.*
To borrow (without endorsing) your terminology, atheism has nothing to say
about the transcendent.
Of course it is a contingent historical fact that a society's ethics have
been bundled into a package with its religion, but this is an accidental not
a logical connection. A religion is a mixture of history, parable, mythology
and codes and rules, some of which are ethical and some of which (dietary
restrictions etc) are purely arbitrary.
Does the fact that the majority of modern Christians reject the literal
truth of the Biblical creation myth mean that they reject ethics? No,
because these are two quite separate issues, just as atheism and ethics are
quite separate issues.
>
> I would postulate that at some point in most people's lives the question
> "what's it all about." comes up. Religion adresses that question, as do
> other belief systems. Science does not.
>
> There are those that argue that the empirical is all there is. If its not
> proven by evidence of the senses, it is not real. My argument is that I
> cannot disprove that, but anyone who states that needs to agree to chuck a
> lot of stuff most atheists seem unwilling to chuck. Then, the question
> becomes, why this understanding and faith instead of that.
I think faith is inadequate. Faith after all is 'belief without evidence'.
Obviously one has to avoid the naturalistic fallacy as well, but a middle
ground is better than mere faith. Any debate about ethics that uses logic
and evidence about the consequences of actions has *already* moved beyond
mere faith. It is possible to do a great deal of ethical thinking without
relying on faith - look at something like Rawls' (sp) "Theory of Justice'
for example.
--
William T Goodall
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
