The Religion and Philosophy Room
As promised, a second thread on the logical consequences of a commitment to atheism.
Atheists have been around for quite a while, predating Socrates by centuries at least. So, atheism is also a goat-herding, pre-industrial age belief as are its religious counterparts. But what of it? What is atheism and does it entail anything other than an affirmation that gods do not exist?
First, the definition. An atheist affirms the belief that no gods exist. This is not a "lack of belief", which would be ignosticism. It is not agnosticism, which is the belief that the existence of a deity or deities cannot in principle be known for certain.
Materialistic Atheism:
So, atheism, in its most common form, denies the existence of gods, spirits, or other entities that cannot be proven via the scientific method.
1) This entails that all that exists can be accessed by examining the material, physical objects in the universe that can be tested, measured, seen, smelled, or otherwise detected.
2) This precludes not only the existence of gods, but of a human soul that survives death.
3) This DOES NOT preclude the existence of abstract objects that are artifacts of the human brain, like mathematical concepts or morals, or logic. It does entail that these only exist insofar as humans invented them.
4) Number 3) entails, logically, that humans invented morality and that morality is subjective, either based on an individual's beliefs, or the consensus of a group of individuals' beliefs, based solely on their own values or desires.
Subjective morality:
1) If morality is subjective, there are no moral "facts" - no "right or wrong" moral statements. Under atheism, claiming to be "right" about a moral assertion has literally no meaning.
2) As a side note, please differentiate between moral objectivity and moral absolutism (the latter of which I reject, and states something like "lying is always and forever wrong in every situation". Moral objectivity is fact dependant.
3) Since morality is subjective, it is necessarily subject to the whims of humans and their subjective value systems. Ergo, a dictator that values his own well being is just as justified in his laws designed to benefit himself as a group of people are justified in forming their own rules to benefit the group against such whims. It boils down to desires and individual values, and the power to enforce one's will over that of others, and nothing else. In other words, materialistic atheism entails that "might makes right" and that is the only logical form of morality that can logically flow from materialistic atheism.
4) Note, human values may result in a system of morals that resembles in many aspects those of religious based morals. To paraphrase another philosopher, "some people love their neighbors, some people eat them. What is your personal preference?"
5) As such, it is NOT an assertion that atheists cannot be moral. Nor is it an assertion that atheists cannot value a system of morals that in many cases, mirrors those of their religious counterparts. The difference is, atheists cannot logically ground such a system of morality in an objective way, and cannot be "right" about their system of morals, if they want to be internally consistent.
Material atheism must ignore metaphysics and axioms, the "rationality" that atheists claim to use to arrive at their rejection of gods.
1) Science, and even mathematics, are based on metaphysics and axioms. Science entirely depends on deductive and inductive reasoning, which cannot itself be proven via the scientific method. Yet without these tools, science is impotent.
2) Mathematics relies on mathematical axioms, which are unprovable assumptions, which are taken as truth, but which cannot be proven by mathematic proofs. They are, by definition, unprovable, but accepted.
3) Therefore, atheism completely implodes, condemning the very foundational bases for the systems they claim prove many of their assertions for atheism itself.
Just a start for discussion. Again, we're not debating god here, just looking at the implications of claiming that there are no gods on the grounds of there being no scientific evidence, as is most commonly the claim. There are, indeed, non-materialistic versions of atheism, such as some forms of pantheism, which I'm not addressing here. But they are equally as incoherent.
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Originally Posted by Cletus
