Shapiro & Harris

[Joshpantera]

I've been going through these interactions between Shapiro and Harris on religion - theism verses atheism: 

 

 

[Joshpantera]

Among intellectuals today, the theistic arguments that I have been watching recently keep insisting that atheists are simply living off of the moral codes established by judeo-christianity, and with Shapiro, back to the Greeks. Shapiro doesn't take the claims as far as Peterson, though. Shapiro seems fine with the notion that an atheist can lead a perfectly moral life. Peterson, a differing voice from the intellectual dark web (IDW), holds to a strange belief or world view that atheists aren't really atheists, or aren't really godless at the base of it all. And I assume, from what I've been able to gather from these discussions, having a basic moral sense is what Peterson means by not actually "godless," or simply not atheist. He's conflated morality with theism. And that's not the best direction for an intellectual to take, for these very reasons. 

 

I have problems with both Shapiro and Peterson's assertions, however. 

 

They want to go back to religion and claim that everyone is riding the coat tails of morality established by these institutions. But that's not where it started. It's biological, psychological and sociological. The basic sense of morality that began to arise in tribal groups is what survived through time and eventually became organized into world religions. It made sense to conduct oneself according to what was deemed acceptable within the group, or else loose favor and possible death or banishment. Morality and self interest, in this respect, went hand in hand. And morality has always changed with the times. So too has the self interest associated with conducting oneself according to a moral sense of a given society. So I don't buy Peterson's claim that self interest would lead to all variety of rape and murder, which actually runs contrary to self interest if you look further than 6" in front of your own face. Those will most certainly get you jailed, beaten or killed yourself, none of which are logical, reasoned, or rational. 

 

No, atheists are not simply riding the coat tails of a morality that Greeks and judeo-christians brought the West. We're simply utilizing the very same elements of nature - biological, psychology and sociological - that originally went into the evolution of such a thing as morality between human beings which exists right now, just as it did way back then. Why wouldn't it exist into the future in the same way, regardless of the involvement religion has imposed of itself on naturalistic based human morality?

 

The western world religions are simply "middle men" in the grand scheme of things which themselves were riding the coat tails of human evolution through the primitive mythology periods as they developed into more organized versions of religion. Why should we look back to the middle man period of human history and stop there and say, 'aha, we've found the origin of human, or even Western morality?' 

 

Bias and special pleading are the only good answers I see on the table. 

 

What say you? 

[disillusioned]

I haven't watched that debate yet. I'm hoping to have time to have a look at it later today.

 

Your points about trends in moral arguments made by theists are reflective of my experience as well. It's special pleading.

 

Hitchens used to make a related point regarding revelations from God, and claims that morality is based on them. His argument was basically that humanity would never have made it to Sinai to receive the tablets if they hadn't already figured out that they shouldn't just go about raping, pillaging, plundering, and killing indiscriminately. He was of the view that morality is innate within us, and that religious morality draws from this, not the other way around.

 

I take a somewhat similar view. I think morality is neither absolute nor objective, but that it is based in biology and our capacity for empathy. I agree with you that Peterson's claim that a selfish view necessarily leads to chaos is short sighted. One of the things that makes us human is that we have the capacity to take the long view.

 

This is tangentially relevant, particularly the conclusion:

 

[Joshpantera]

1 hour ago, disillusioned said:

I take a somewhat similar view. I think morality is neither absolute nor objective, but that it is based in biology and our capacity for empathy. I agree with you that Peterson's claim that a selfish view necessarily leads to chaos is short sighted. One of the things that makes us human is that we have the capacity to take the long view.

 

Another point that I didn't lay out previously in clear terms is that the 10 commandments are taken in large part from borrowing older mythological law codes, even taking things directly from the Egypt book of the dead with the wording changed around. Moses, being a copy of King Sargon I and other mythological figures. That's some of what goes into my "middle man" claim.

 

And the same goes for the NT period. Most, if not all of the sayings of Jesus are completely unoriginal to Jesus. We're told that these were ground breaking new ideas, giving the world a moral sense which had not existed previously. But in reality they all belong to the categories of borrowed sayings and moral guidelines which had already existed in surrounding cultures for some time. "Do unto others," for instance, was a saying echoes across other cultures prior to christianity, worded 'don't do unto others in ways you wouldn't done to yourself,' and so on. Christians and new deconverts ought to have to face this issue as often as morality comes up, until it finally starts sinking in on large scale. And until no one can very well continue making these tired claims about morality in the West originating from Judeo-Christianity and atheists riding these specific coat tails even in the absence, or illusion of absence of god belief. 

 

Pure nonsense, and essentially untenable positions to establish and maintain, regardless of who the intellectuals are who take this type of position against atheists. It's completely unfounded in a variety of ways which should all be well known by highly credentialed intellectuals. This is an example of how religious belief can rot your brain. How it can reduce an otherwise very smart person into a bumbling idiot. And that's unfortunate, really. I suppose the only way to try and help people out of this hole is to challenge what they're saying by citing the relevant evidence and hope that eventually they'll give up on trying to paint atheists this way, because the battle will have been obviously lost. 

[TABA]

Human beings in East Asia  and elsewhere developed moral and legal codes wholly without input from Judaism or Christianity.  I suppose Christians would say that these basic moral rules were 'planted in their hearts' by the God of the Bible, even if the civilizations had neither knowledge of or interest in Yahweh or Jesus.  It seems more likely that it was done by the evolving human brain, which developed solutions to a wide range of challenges: how to feed and clothe ourselves, and how to live together for mutual benefit.  Everything we need is within us.

[Storm]

Why is it that religions are often considered the source of morality? What if religions simply hijacked something that already existed?

 

Religions are primarily reactionary in terms of what society deems ok and what it doesn't. Slavery used to be a part of normal society, until it wasn't, and religion (in this case Christianity) was slow to react. Killing people for trivial things such as disobeying their parents, working on the sabbath, etc. lost its place in society a long time ago. Women have always been subjugated to second class in the Abrahamic religions, but only in the last 100 or so years, have they enjoyed increased equality in Christianity and in the US, however, they still have a ways to go (Islam and Christianity's obsession with Patriarchy). Racial interbreeding and interracial marriage was frowned on for a long time, now its ok. Divorce was frowned on, but now its just a part of life. On and on we can find examples of how religion adapts its morality to whatever society deems to be acceptable or unacceptable. Why then, does religion have the audacity to claim it has the upper hand on morality when it is primarily reactionary?

[Aries256]

Religions, particularily xtianity and islam are usually immoral, develop their presence, and maintain their presence immorally.