Text 44172, 63 rader
Skriven 2006-12-17 16:38:43 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
  Kommentar till text 44133 av shannon talley (1:275/311)
Ärende: The Truth    part 2 of 2
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17 Dec 06 06:27, shannon talley wrote to Roy Witt:

 st> Hi Roy,

 >> You can't say that much for an atheist, because he has no god to hide
 >> behind and has no moral source to live up to. Therefore, how can an
 >> atheist define good or evil to one who has a source not their own?

 st> We had this conversation in the office just last week.  There is an
 st> outspoken atheist in the office and I asked him this very same
 st> question and his response was that he believes in inherent morality
 st> as defined by society; honor, courage, those intrinsic values that
 st> humans are born with but sometimes society changes, washes away, but
 st> most certainly influences.

I don't suppose he's taken into account that, this society is composed of
a majority of religiously minded people who are the source of his
morality. Without that base, he has no morality.

 st> He enjoys the fruits of his labors and to devalue them by immorality
 st> (as defined by society) would diminish their value.

 st> My philosophy professor (not so ironically the most left winged
 st> person I'd ever met in my life who I pushed buttons on just to get a
 st> response [another story]) made us read many old texts which
 st> contemplated the same issues discussed above.

 st> There is a good general consensus from scholars throughout the ages
 st> that people are born inherently good (with few exceptions) and it's
 st> society that screws them up.  When meeting a Christian, a Jew, a
 st> Muslim, a knowledgeable person "knows" what their center of gravity
 st> is (or should be based on their religion).  When one meets an
 st> atheist, it becomes more difficult because their morality is defined
 st> by their society.

 st> A good example of this is Bjorn Felton; an atheist who was raised
 st> (unless I'm mistaken) in Sweden.  A fairly decent school system, a
 st> fairly free society that isn't behind an iron curtain, and he grew up
 st> a decade before me (baby boomer).  So this gives me some idea about
 st> his moral foundation. He obviously believes that proliferating
 st> pirated software, movies, media in general is ok while we view this
 st> as a grievance against society.  If he were Christian, Muslim, or
 st> Jewish, then the issue could be pointed out as a sin; but because he
 st> is an atheist, his morals are based on his lessons from his society.
 st> Therefore his actions tell us a story about his society, although
 st> this is just one incident and one can't base an opinion on an entire
 st> society, one must also evaluate all possible variables to form an
 st> educated opinion (obviously).

 st> I suppose the point of this is that I'm in agreement with you.  "How
 st> can an atheist define good or evil....?"  They don't believe in good
 st> or evil
 st>  because those are entities, instead they believe in their own
 st> morality as it is defined by their teachings from their own society.


               R\%/itt




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