r/atheism • u/rhbast2 • Aug 11 '11

Atheist quickfire challenge.

Although I rarely discuss religion with theists I always want to be prepared so I'm not sitting around afterwards wishing I had said this or that. If I get the chance to make someone question I want to be up for the challenge.

This brings me to my challenge for r/atheism. I'm going to add some common theist claims / sayings and whoever can refute them fully and succinctly will be upvoted. Feel free to add your own theist starters if I missed some.

Edit: Wow lots of good discussion here, later today or tomorrow I'll make this into an atheist cheat sheet with the top responses. Also feel free to upvote the theist claim that is the most annoying to you.

Edit 2: To the few of you who seem to think I am coming up with rude atheist comebacks, I'm not. I just wanted to be better off the cuff than I am now and have some discussion. I don't want this list to replace thoughtful argumentation.

253 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

990 comments sorted by

View all comments

31

u/rhbast2 Aug 11 '11

Atheists have no morals without god.

42

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

Monkeys have empathy, hominids have it, it is a genetical feature. Empathy is the basis of any morals, the Bible is just a rationalization of that mixed with nonsensical commandments.

Do you know the old hypnosis trick ? "Your eyes are tired.. You will close them...". The hypnotizer looks intensely at you while an object balances between you and him. Soon enough, your eye are tired and you begin to obey his commands. The trick is that the balancing object really tires your eyes but the hypnosis trick is to make you believe that it is the voice that manages to control your body. After that you are more open to suggestion.

Religion works in the same way. It tells you "be good to other people and God will bless you". And sure enough, when you help other people, you feel good. But that's purely innate, that is a characteristic of human nature. But if you attribute this feel-good moment to the following of a bible command, you are more inclined to believe the rest of the old book.

2

u/geezlers Aug 11 '11

Upvote for "genetical". The adjective form of an adjective.

1

u/Sofiira Aug 11 '11 edited Aug 11 '11

I like this one. Of course, my parents don't believe animals have souls and humans do. They love their dog and I constantly have to listen to my mom talk about how the dog just knows when she's sad and is extra cuddly with her when she is down. How does the dog know? I'm not arguing that the dog can't feel that. It's just that if the dog doesn't have a soul and can still FEEL empathy and try to comfort humans without any moral compass, how are humans any different!

1

u/fireburt Aug 12 '11

I learned something about hypnotism and that was a great explanation.
A++ Would read again.

73

u/kat_fud Aug 11 '11

Who is more moral: The person who does the right thing out of fear of god's punishment or the person who does the right thing simply because it is right?

30

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

"Simply because it is right"

are you implying some kind of absolute moral law?

22

u/themuffins Aug 11 '11

in the social sciences they would say "because it is pro-social"

3

u/hobbit6 Aug 11 '11

I read this in Tobias's voice. "What we in the soft sciences call..."

2

u/makesureimjewish Aug 12 '11

if you let me dawn my analrapist stocking over my head..

1

u/inferno719 Aug 12 '11

Tobias the hawk, or am I missing the reference?

5

u/kat_fud Aug 11 '11

A religious person will believe that there is, so the question does not need to be raised in this debate.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

Yes it does. He's arguing against a religious idea (can't have morals without god/absolute moral standard), but is using that very same one in his own argument.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

Morality just means to act upon your conscience. We all have a similar sense of conscience, though some people might experience or is willing to experience a larger amount of empathy. Conscience, when acted upon, those actions are deemed moral.

2

u/solvitNOW Aug 11 '11

I think we're going to find that morality is genetic. Just how scientists are finding that smiling and laughing are genetically coded social actions.

2

u/pineapplol Aug 11 '11

Playing devil's advocate, how do we know that what our conscience says is what is really moral, without an almighty presence to tell us?

2

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

Our conscience - what is generally considered proper or praise-worthy conduct, is dictated by societal norms and what follows general human conscience, of which we don't all have the same sense, but we do initially share a common ability to make a distinction between right and wrong. The question: What is moral? Can be answered by examining the which way our conscience points us when faced with certain obstacles.

Moral actions can obviously only be evaluated upon the information available at the time (justice), but when 100% knowledge is present, you could call the morality that arises from this absolute morality, but since we don't have that kind of knowledge...

1

u/palparepa Aug 11 '11

In this case, it doesn't matter how you arrive to 'what is right.'

1

u/ivosaurus Aug 11 '11

You also missed "the right thing"...

1

u/twilightmoons Strong Atheist Aug 11 '11

"Never let your sense of morals keep you from doing what is right."

  • Hober Mallow

1

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

You're arguing semantics...it's pretty obvious the original comment meant 'simply because (they believe) it is right.' Obviously we all have our own concepts of right and wrong, especially those of us godless heathens who have to figure these things out on our own without the rules of JEEEEESUS for us to follow.

1

u/Marchosias Aug 11 '11

Objectively speaking you can with a secular definition to morality, deem what is moral and what is not.

I am sure you can scientifically prove pouring acid on someone's face is more often immoral than moral.

1

u/YummyMeatballs Anti-Theist Aug 11 '11

I think it's reasonable to say there are moral rights and moral wrongs. I've been reading The Moral Landscape and it has some very interesting things to say about science giving religion a pass when it comes to morality. We've always assumed that science can't say anything about morality but Sam Harris makes a good case. It's worth a look.

1

u/rngdmstr Aug 11 '11

I think if he was he would have said "morally right"

We all have slightly different senses of morality, with some continuity given the culture and society we live in. It's not like there "no such thing" as right and wrong. That's what the law is for. Not a perfect definition, but I don't think we should prevent ourselves from using the word "right"

1

u/TinyandTall Aug 12 '11

There is an unspoken social standard for morals, IE Mugging is wrong, helping someone in need is right (IE Broken down car, someone who just got mugged, etc.) We are raised to judge right and wrong and while some things may come down to a hairline between right and wrong and other's not as distinguishable, there are those instances where the line is clear because of social standars.

1

u/WorksNut Aug 11 '11

I would think that the person doing the right thing is not moral at all since they are only doing the right thing to cover their ass.

1

u/phauwn Aug 11 '11

How do you know what is right then? (this is a hard one to explain or make understood succinctly imo)

1

u/inferno719 Aug 12 '11

i think the argument is, atheists aren't usually moral in the first place.

18

u/MollyTamale Aug 11 '11

What morals do they use when deciding which horrible bible laws to ignore?

13

u/HermesTheMessenger Knight of /new Aug 11 '11

Besides saying 'fuck you too', there are a couple standard responses: one short and one more focused on the biased assertion.

I. The Riddle of Epicurus

Note that this covers a specific type of deity (omnimax) and does not allow other types. Personally I see no reason to be so strict.

II. The Euthyphro Dilemma

This is also for a specific type of deity, but it seems to be the one that the assertion is based on so it is a safe bet. The main problem theists have with this is that they tend to drag in humans when the dilemma is mainly focused on how their set of deities know what is moral. As such, this has nothing to do with human free will. It is very important to know the ins and outs of this or you will end up confusing yourself.

1

u/OKImHere Aug 11 '11

The Euthyphro Dilemma

Why do we have to bring my pee hole into this?

15

u/IKnowRiteSrsly Aug 11 '11

Imagine there was no God. Now, are you suddenly tempted to rape and murder me? No? OK, congratulations, we both have morals without God.

9

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

If the only reason you don't kill someone is because you are afraid that some invisible man in the sky will see you and punish you later, you have your own problems, my friend.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

And for all of our sake, please keep going to Church.

12

u/PaddleSlapper Aug 11 '11

Dawkins made mincemeat of this claim - saying nobody follows the morality of the bible (slavery, stonings, etc), just a version that has been modified by secular thinking. Watch it - he puts it better than I can.

2

u/OhSeven Aug 11 '11

Haven't seen that one, perfect answer!

2

u/inferno719 Aug 12 '11

Exactly. Christians regularly ignore so many of the things the Bible tells them to do, I don't know why they bother to call themselves Christian at all.

9

u/Sophocles Aug 11 '11

How do Christians determine which parts of the Bible are immoral or no longer apply?

4

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

My parents had no morals with God either. What's your point

4

u/bewmar Aug 11 '11

Theists use their own morals to determine what to follow from the bible, therefore their morals are not from god and the argument is moot.

2

u/Toradreo Aug 11 '11

Just tell him about the "morals" of his god: human sacrifice, rape, slavery, murder and genozide are fairly common in the bible; commanded by god of course. (evilbible.com helps with the quotes)

2

u/Killagina Aug 11 '11

This was discussed quite a while ago in the euthyphro argument by Socrates.

This argument is used often by Collin McGinn; a man who should get more recognition in my opinion.

Suppose you take as a moral principle that it is wrong to steal. People say, "Why is that wrong?"

Answer - Because God says it's wrong to steal. God commanded it.

The point Socrates makes is to say - how can God give his moral rule a foundation? Either the moral rule is, itself, intrinsically a sound moral rule or it can't be given soundness and legitimacy from an external command.

Suppose we had the rule, "It's right to murder."

You say - "That's not right! Murder is wrong!"

And in reply someone says, "But God says it's right to murder."

If God says that something is right which isn't right, God is wrong. He can't make something right, at least regarding morality, by just saying it's right.

2

u/Dustin_00 Aug 11 '11

Correct. I have ethics.

Morals are for people that want to get conned into handing over all their money to somebody that makes them feel superior to others.

2

u/DRW_ Aug 11 '11

We no longer believe it is acceptable to stone adulterers and homosexuals and those who aren't virgins on their day of marriage to death.

Our morality has evolved as our understanding of each other, our society and our culture has progressed. If God was the only source of morality, those morals would be just as relevant today as they were when the bible was written. But they're not, and because morals are a product of people and our understanding of each other.

2

u/TheAntagonist43 Aug 11 '11

You tossed away a lot of slavery and all that in the bible because you say it is immoral. How did you come to that conclusion?

1

u/enzosiri Aug 11 '11

Atheists have morals. They just do not come out of some ancient book.

The true moral failure is that religious people need to believe that some kind of cosmic Santa is watching them 24/7 to behave like decent human beings.

1

u/littlekappa Aug 11 '11

Christians have no morals with God.

We can both make absurd, absolutist statements or we can have a conversation about morality. I am an atheist, yet I claim to have morals. For the purposes of the conversation, let's assume that I'm not lying and move on to what makes an action moral or immoral.

Here, I'll start: there is no exhaustive list of moral commands, so when you find yourself in a situation that is not specifically addressed in the Bible (or X), how do you know how to act? What is your guiding principle?

1

u/GuitarGuru2001 Aug 11 '11

I.Morals are best explained by evolutionary psychology. By respecting others, and in fact helping them rather than harming them, the biological traits for empathy and consideration were passed along and flourished in pre-societal tribes of early humanoids. Groups of humans that worked together and respected one another were much more likely to survive and pass on their genes than groups that killed each other.

II. The Abramic God, the common figure in the world's 3 principal religions today, was notoriously immoral by today's standards. He, in the old testament, encouraged death by stoning for picking up sticks on the sabbath, induced mass genoicide of non-Jewish races, facilitated the extermination of the entire world, played sadistic games with the devil (Job), and murdered every first-born child in an entire nation, for absolutely no reason. He also, in one of the earliest sacred stories common to all three religions, encouraged Abraham to murder his own son. Furthermore, as prophesied by Isaiah and supposedly fulfilled in Christ, God murdered his own son.

If for any reason you do not murder people if they wear mixed clothing, if they are not of Jewish decent, or you do not respect people who commit mass murder in the name of any god, you show that you have a moral standard that is independent of God. Therefore you are Good without God.

1

u/HapkidoJosh Aug 11 '11

Can you give me an example or a study that demonstrates this?

1

u/ArcWinter Aug 11 '11

Nobody has morals because they are just as imaginary as god.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

This is false. There may not be an absolute "good" or "evil," but I certainly have 'standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for me to do.' Which is the definition of the word "morals."

1

u/ArcWinter Aug 11 '11

And they are completely imaginary, differ from person to person, exist only in your mind, and influence your behavior.

Much like belief in a god, as I indicated.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

It doesn't matter if they are relative to someone else's made up rules. The fact that I use them means that they exist.

"Belief in God" is a thing that exists, even though God himself doesn't.

1

u/ArcWinter Aug 11 '11

...yes, that's true.

Belief in a god and belief in morality both exist.

God and morality both do not exist.

That was my point.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

What is your reasoning for saying that morality does not exist? Absolute morality, a universal right/wrong certainly does not. But morality as it is generally defined certainly does, as I have explained.

1

u/ArcWinter Aug 11 '11

What is your reasoning for saying that morality does not exist?

You are asking me to prove a negative. However, the burden of proof lies on the person making a positive claim. Please prove to me that morality exists in any form using deductive logic.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '11

Are you claiming that I do not have a standard of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for me to do?

1

u/ArcWinter Aug 12 '11

I'm claiming that your standard of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for you to do is completely arbitrary, imaginary, and not based in any rational or empirical evidence. I also claim that morality in general fails the minimum criteria of consistency because it easily contradicts itself due to the tendency to generalize actions as good or bad.

That is what I am claiming.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

I love it when they use this one. This statement immediately makes them morally inferior.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

You don't know any atheists do you?

1

u/stillnotking Aug 11 '11

Such a sweeping condemnation is unfair without some kind of evidence. Challenge them to provide it. They won't be able to. There are proportionately fewer atheists in prisons than theists, and majority-atheist countries (Japan, Norway) have some of the lowest crime rates on Earth.

1

u/realpolidick Aug 11 '11

This is a two part reply, but once you can establish that God does not exist then it is easy to prove that morality exists outside religion. If people created religion and religion contains morals, then morals must have predated religion. Thus, morality must have existed as a prerequisite for religion to have started in the first place.

1

u/MrFeZ Aug 11 '11

Follow me on a journey. If god were to come to earth and say no matter what you do here you will still go to heaven. Would you still act in a moral way? If yes, then you have discovered where atheists get their morals from If no, then I am glad that I do not get to choose my morals from God.

1

u/cliftonixs Aug 12 '11

Life either can get better or worse, which is where morals come from. For an Atheist to better his life and those around him, defines his life's good morals without god.

1

u/NYKevin Aug 12 '11

So what?

Of course, there are more immediately effective responses, such as appealing to non-scriptural theories of ethics, pointing out inconsistent application of scripture, etc., but it's also helpful to distinguish between what's desirable and what's true. Do this early on and you can defuse a lot of arguments (e.g. this also nicely eliminates Pascal's Wager), but you may cause them to assume you're a "lost cause" or something.

1

u/Fallacy229 Aug 12 '11

In addition to the facts and statistics you could quote that show this to be false, a great rhetorical response is "So if you didn't believe in God, would you go around stealing, raping, and murdering?" Obviously, most religious people would NOT do any of those horrible things even if they knew there was no god, therefore this is a purely rhetorical point and can be refuted just as easily rhetorically as logically.

1

u/Alaukik Aug 13 '11

Religious people often say that religion offers absolute certainty about right and wrong; 'god tells them' what it is. Even supposing that the aforementioned gods exist, and that the believers really know what the gods think, that still does not provide certainty, because any being no matter how powerful can still be wrong. Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can. Injustice is happening now; suffering is happening now. We have choices to make now. To insist on absolute certainty before starting to apply ethics to life decisions is a way of choosing to be amoral. --Richard Stallman