Atheists Tend to have Poor Understanding of Ethics: Another Example of Science and Circular Reasoning

Atheists tend not to understand ethical theory. They are trying to make ethical judgments but by imposing their own ethical theories and then back reading those same theories into Christian ethics. Here is a discussion on a message board with an atheist:





 scottsaddiscionboard on Christiansrus

Of course, there seem to be many acts that appear to be selfless, but modern scientists have good explanations for why this is only appearance.  They replace the word individual with gene pool and what Darwin said is still relevant.  If there is no such thing as altruism, I would think this would strongly effect the moral realm.  In fact, I think it would completely nullify our ideas of morality.

Scott wrote:

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Metacrock wrote:

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Darwin has no impending presence in the moral realm. To conclude that moral thinking is somehow invalid because of evolution or that evolution is all it needs is fallacious either way.

Darwin wrote:

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If ever it could be shown that individuals repeatedly and reliably sacrifice their own fitness to increase the fitness of others, the theory of natural selection would be refuted.

Of course, there seem to be many acts that appear to be selfless, but modern scientists have good explanations for why this is only appearance.  They replace the word individual with gene pool and what Darwin said is still relevant.  If there is no such thing as altruism, I would think this would strongly effect the moral realm.  In fact, I think it would completely nullify our ideas of morality. 


  

the majority of science does not accept any of that as fact. Dawkins is not a major scientist he is not received by the scientific world as a major guy with major discoveries. The attempt to take over ethics with biology is laughed at by ethicist. The majority of science does not go along with Dawkins.

Forgive me for being skeptical; it's just that I prefer to take the word of Ivy League professors over some guy on the internet.  The fact that I have seen you make outrageous claims, like being able to prove God exists, doesn't really inspire trust either.  Claiming to know everything makes me wonder if you know anything. 

first you missed the point of my response. the guy could be right in what he says and that does not disprove my argument. Because I said there's a different between saying that selfishness is a behavior that is genetically based, and saying that selfishness is or is not moral.

Trying to deduce morality based upon nature is a fallacy. It's "Hume's fork," the fallacy of deriving an ought from an is. You can't establish morality, or take it away, just by showing a behavior is genetic.

    I did prove God exists. sorry you can't follow the lgoic of a good argument, but ti's there. I've proved it and you cant' disprove it. you can't destroy my augmenter. just beaus you think it says something you don't like doesn't make it false. Most atheists argue from a principle of "incredulity." you say "I don't believe that therefore it's false." then you hear that enough so you become convinced that as long as you disbelieve it's the same disproof. It is not! That's just your little opinion! not proof and you can't stand up to the logic of my arguments! Calling arguments names does not disprove them. Go get one of those arguments from futher down on the board and put it up and I'll show you can't stand before it.

You say you prefer to believe an Ivy League professor, well my ethics professor was Ivy league and he's a hell of a lot more respected and more famous than that guy, why doesn't that make him right? do you not realize that across the board in all disciplines the proportion of God believing processors is the sam as the general population. Means 90% of professors believe in God. What you are saying is truly an argument from unnecessary authority, that's a fallacy.



exchange with "Dr. Pepper" on carm

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Originally Posted by Metacrock no we do not act like biological organisms. you have defined what you think that means and you impose it over the way we act, you ignore what you don't want to be part of endemic human activity and ignore it as unimportant. belief in God is something we do that a mere organism doesn't do. Having higher ideals, morality, art. you but decide those are unimportant because you don't' value them. those are just as much a part of who and what we are as the things that you think define us, but you decide they don't matter and ignore them. I ignore the other.

 Pepper

You are talking about what we think. I am talking about what we do. We eat, sleep, excrete, and reproduce. As far as what we believe that varies from person to person. If you think we are unique. All species are. You do not know what my dog thinks. You may think so but then that's what you as an individual thinks. You do not define humans either. My opinion is equal to yours. In my opinion. I bet you think yous is better. Is that an indication you are not a biological organism. I do not think so.

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Unfortunately I lost the URL for that one. The point is in addressing the issue of moral thinking atheists don't understand the basics of what makes for ethical theory, thus they attribute morality to some form of behavior or to feelings. I said first of all that he is just looking selectively at aspect of humanity that fits his theory and then ignoring other things. He says "it's not about what we think but what we do." Well what is that but ignoring what we think to focus on what we do, that's an example of the selective nature of how they define human being.


What he seems to think is that morality is just a matter of behavior and we don't the basis in thought of various organisms but we can see what they do. But morality is not just a matter of behavior, it's a matter of logic and of values. just focusing on behavior cannot ever produce morality. Morality is not merely feelings and its not merely what you do. It's how society understands values and how those values interact when they compete.


The first guy doesn't seem to undersatnd that ethics is not science it's its' won theory. He wants to take scientists has authority figures and reduce ethics out of existence and just pretend it doesn't exist. Of course the obvious counter would be "but I believe in being ethical" he would say "your feelings are not important, all that matters is that we have no proof from biology that genetics give us ethics so it can't be real." So that's just the reductionist trick of losing phenomena.


They define the phenomena in some way other than moral philosophy does then demand that it be proved by their own standards, if not then the phenomena becomes unimportant and get's written out of the process then the argument is made that there's no proof for it becuase we dismissed it form reality becuase it doesn't fit our aims.



This all goes back to the atheist trick of circular reasoning that is the contradiction at the heart of atheism. This is just another version of it. This is the circular reasoning trick that enables them to deny proof of miracles. There are no miracles because there's no proof, and no proof because any alleged has to be dismissed out hand since there can't be proof. there can't be proof because there is none and there is becasue we wont let it be accepted.


This trick works like this, ethics is not a matter of nature but of values. It doesn't matter if behaviors are genetics, they are not vested with moral virtue until they are values in value system. The naturalistic reductions only values what he can reduce nature too that supports his ideology, so he just refuses to accept that values as important part of the equation even though the whole equation, so he reduces ethics to behavior and then says it's genetic.