Atheism and morality (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, October 18, 2010, 10:23 (5128 days ago) @ xeno6696

The atheist professor of philosophy Joel Marks has made the (to him) astonishing discovery that morality has no objective basis. I have pointed out (as did George) that there is nothing new in this, and that with or without God, there is only human consensus, and so both atheism and religion are irrelevant.-MATT: No...Nietzsche described this nearly 120 years prior to my ever hearing of Marks. The ugly truth is that of "power".-The power argument is certainly valid, and comes into play particularly when you have a repressive authoritarian regime, so I agree that it's not just a matter of consensus. But even this only reinforces the general philosophical argument that there is no objective basis for morality, for which - as I argued in my original post - Marks' atheism is irrelevant since different groups have different views even of God's will. -As for the subjectivity of our norms, Shakespeare summed it all up 400 years ago, though he certainly wasn't the first! -HAMLET: [...] there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
****************************************************************************-MATT: The only thing that I can't get behind in humanism is its essential assertion of pacifism.
 
Like most "isms", humanism has evolved into various forms, starting way back with Socrates & Co. I believe Erasmus (a Renaissance humanist) was a pacifist. The modern form with which I identify ... and which did not get underway till the nineteenth century ... has as its central core the belief that morality (or what George called "ethical prerogatives") should be based on the welfare of humanity and not fulfilment of the will of God. This is the concept embraced by atheists and agnostics, but there are lots of theists who also call themselves humanists, so the term has remained rather fluid. I think many humanists are pacifists, but I for one accept that there are circumstances in which war is necessary. I have never heard of pacifism being "an essential assertion", but George actually runs a humanist association and knows far more about it than I do. I hope he will log onto this thread to set us right.