Please give me examples in history where major cultures have said that dishonesty is a virtue, torturing innocent children is the good, being a traitor is desirable, stealing is the norm.

There is a fantastic moment in the Kite Runner where the boys father is trying to teach him about sin. Rather that what he has been told by his religious teachers, his father tells him that there is only one sin; stealing.

Stealing is the norm in modern society. Especially when you follow this fictional fathers advice; when you tell a lie, you are stealing the truth.

Is there anyone here who hasn’t sinned according to this logic?

The evolutionary explanation of morality i.e. “monkey morality” falls way short and is inadequate in capturing the complete meaning and definition of morality. A full articulation of the reasons evolution fails is a hour discussion.

a brief summary would be good then? like i also mentioned, i don’t consider just the evolutionary argument sufficient in itself, but you need to point out the flaws in ‘monkey morality’ (jeez, who came up with that term?!) combined with “concepts such as socially acceptable, status affirming and legally viable” for me to debate them. frankly, it’s a far better explanation than “Since recorded history all cultures and individuals have an inner sense about good and bad, right and wrong.”, and the inference that this somehow automatically leads to god-imposed morality. you do know that according to the bible, god was well up for slavery (as long as you treated them ok [!]), don’t you? seems a bit odd that there should have been such a huge moral shift if morals are imparted by an abrahamic-style deity, surely?

Please give me examples in history where major cultures have said that dishonesty is a virtue, torturing innocent children is the good, being a traitor is desirable, stealing is the norm.

dishonesty – politics (!), ‘white lies’ are also considered acceptable, and often desirable in most cultures.
torturing innocent children – until recent history in western countries, and ongoing in some third-world countries, child labour was/is viewed as anywhere from acceptable to virtuous.
being a traitor – any traitor, in any political system, is seen as virtuous from the perspective of an insider from an opposing political system. there are also examples where ‘traitors’ have improved a system and become exemplified for their behaviour.
stealing is the norm – can’t think of an example, but i also can’t think of a circumstance where widespread stealing wouldn’t go against my arguments, so i’m ok with that!

I think you will find throughout recorded histroy moral similarity between cultures and individuals is by far the norm.

similarity maybe, continuity, yes, consistency, no. evolutionary morality and the other concepts i mentioned would explain this and your statement in a way that god-based morality would not.

Ash, when and if science explains the mind’s capacities on nautralistic basis,then I will say I was wrong and the mind can be explained purely on cause/effect, physical laws and chemical and electric reactions. Until then science has very little to add to our understanding of such things as what a thought is, what is choice, what is intention, desires, creativity, agency, etc. etc. I would recommend J.P. Moreland’s SCALING THE SECULAR CITY and his sections on the mind.

cheers for the book recommendation, i shall add it to my ever expanding reading list. however, you have made claims about modern scientific understandings of the mind + brain, and i noticed that this book is 20 years old…and written by a philosopher/theologian, not a scientist. i’m not trying to suggest that science has got much farther than theorising, i’m not saying you have no good reason to feel as you do, but could you share why you feel science is inadequately equipped to ever broach the subject of mind and brain?

The main point I was making is this: It is an error in thinking that all knowledge and facts are based on science or the scientific method. This is a philosophical viewpoint and not a scientific fact. The notion that all that exists and the events of existence can be eventually explained by science is nonsense.

can you give me some examples of knowledge or facts that are not based on science or the scientific method? can something be described as fact (rather than, say, assertion) without referring to science or the scientific method? is there any evidence to suggest that ‘all that exists and the events of existence’ cannot be addressed by science and the scientific method? if something exists in a realm outside of reality and cannot be measured, examined, tested etc. in a physical manner, is there any reason or precedent to consider that such would be even remotely relevant to us?

tim said,

A Worldview is much more comprehensive than that. Everyone has a worldview (religion, if you will) whether we realize it or not. It is what makes us tick. Oftentimes what makes us tick is much deeper and automatic than we consciously realize.

I agree with that completely. I wrote something called “Why I call everything a religion” a while back. Some of my views may have changed slightly since then (as my thoughts are always evolving); but I do think that everyone, even the non-theists, follow a form of religion whether they admit it or not.

Yep.

Linda said,

December 28, 2007 at 4:21 am

How do you define mental illness, anyway?

Mental illness is an extreme of the norm. I said this to a prof when I was working my bachelors in Psychology and they agreed. If you look at the DSM-IV or even the revised one, you will see a lot of it is an extreme. I won’t got into details on how and why it’s extreme, but basically it is the extreme of the norm.

As someone once pointed out to me, what is mental illness to one person may be just creativity to another. People think Van Gogh was mentally ill, but I think he was just misunderstood.

Darryl may have overused the word “mental,” but I know what he means. And it is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I don’t know if we should completely dismiss it, even if it makes us uncomfortable to take a look. I find it fascinating.

So longing for life and the world to be better than it currently is is signs of a mental illness?

No it is not. Humanists want the world to be better and they strive for it to be better. They also want the good life and they strive for that too.

I know of people who are admittedly mentally-ill and use their religion to get through life.

Darryl, this is true and some with Schizophrenia have religious delusions of granduer, but what Mike is talking about is NOT a mental illness.

I agree with Karen. I think I’ve noticed that certain psychological profiles are apt to be empathetic/concerned/spiritual or whatever you might call it, as opposed to those that find it more natural to take a rational/critical approach to life. I’ve never yet read a serious study of the role of mental illness in religious experience. I know of people who are admittedly mentally-ill and use their religion to get through life. The possibilities are virtually limitless, e.g., from people who are mostly okay, but have some mental troubles that are manageable with prayer and rituals, tp people who require some life-organizing scheme to cope, to those that cling to faith because they are seriously ill, or cannot bring themselves to deal with underlying issues.

So longing for life and the world to be better than it currently is is signs of a mental illness?

Good things atheists are never patronizing or condescending towards religious people or I might be inclined to take this the wrong way.