Atheist generally hate dogma and claims of divinity but I wanted to pose the question, what about people like Gandhi that were religious but their actions display morality not requiring dogma?
I see people that act in a way and attribute it to God as very different than those claiming divinity gives them authority to tell you how to act. So almost any prophet that says "I'm divine so you better listen" I can write off. But when you have someone that lives their life in a spiritual way that seems worthy of respect, does it really detract from their ideas if it was attributed to God? Gandhi is one of the best examples because he showed humility and seemed very religious without marketing himself as special. I like Buddha for similar reasons (although I throw out dogma there too). In Buddha's case I respect that he never claimed divinity but spoke towards a human component for deriving compassion. These types seem very rare in the world because most are self-serving. But since many atheist feel that religion is all bad, how do you reconcile when someone does act well via religion?
I also consider words from Nietzsche where he said many Darwinian type ideas could lead to a very selfish and abusive outlook therefore it is probably more moral to act like there is a God watching even if there isn't. I'm not saying you need God to be moral. I think we pull moral ideas from many sources. How do other atheist filter out sources for morality? Do you toss out anyone referencing God or do you consider their ideas valid until the God attachment creates bigger flaws?
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Don, you wrote, “Do you toss out anyone referencing God or do you consider their ideas valid until the God attachment creates bigger flaws?”
I don’t consider anyone’s ideas valid until I examine them.
I like what Thomas Jefferson said when asked what religion he was. He replied that he was an apiarien...flying from religion to religion, sucking the honey out of each.
I try to apply this to as much as I can. It seems to me that to outright reject everything based solely on one aspect of the source is to rob oneself of possibility. That sort of rejection reeks of bigotry. There are times this listening mode approach doesn’t work but that it does frequently enough, for me, makes it worth it.
Ghandi was far from a great guy.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/...
We'll we've had a couple thousand years (give or take) where most of the people in the West have believed a God was watching them. Looking at the results of that "experiment", I can't say I recommend that for the next 2 thousand years.
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Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But worse still, our views of what is moral and what is not is heavily influenced by religion, so the notion that it prompts "acting well" seems somewhat recursive.
Nietzsche's idea sprang from an atheist type approach but was saying that to act like you are being watched seems the only way to improve morals of the masses. As far as the "experiment" I think the watching part isn't the issue as much as the judging of bedroom activities, indoctrination, dogma, etc.
Granted, I get the downside of religion and speak to it often. I'm just saying I've also known good believers that act morally and ones that don't. I think we all get our morals from various sources (society, study, etc) so many things can impact it. If we take the stance that all belief is bad then we might as well be saying that no education or no thinking is the only moral action. I think if someone embraces good and moral ideas and holds them as a belief, that doesn't have to be God based but even if it is...some do it well while others do not.
Thanks for your answer.
"Don Wall - But since many atheist feel that religion is all bad, how do you reconcile when someone does act well via religion?"
>>>The idea that religion is always bad, does not negate the possibility that some religious people may on occasion do good.
>>>The fact that some theists are good despite the teachings of their religion doesn't change the corrosive effect religions undoubtedly have.
>>>Stephen Weinberg sums it up neatly here.
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
The Pius are not virtuous. They are hypocrites. Gandhi was a rapist and a misogynist. No one is perfect. Everyone has prejudices. It's how they deal with their own faults that is important. Just because a belief system has some good traits doesn't make it good. Hitler had some good traits. Basically, anything based on a "higher power" is not honest with those it intends to influence.
The spelling is pious, You are wrong again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Morality comes from GOD we all have that innately, The desire to do good. I just can`t see that coming out of entropy system. From disorder and chaos to where we want to live and act altruistic. To do Good to our family members and neighbors.
Just because you can not see or understand the desire to do good coming from evolution, does not mean it comes from your god.
Ofcourse you are welcome to your opinion where you can ignore all the facts and data you want. It is certainly within your rights to wallow in ignorance of facts and data and scientific consensus.
You are using, and enjoying scientific consensus findings and results right now, to be able to message on these boards in communication with people all over the globe near instantly. The monitor you read this on, they keyboard or screen you type on. The power that powers your device, etc, etc etc.
Every time you use your computer you are reaping the benefits of scientific inquiry, discovery, advancement, fact finding and consensus reaching science. The same general process that reached the conclusion of evolution. That makes use of this evolution knowledge and consensus to make flu shots etc.
There have been 12 popes and 1 antipope called Pius; which is Latin for pious, the guys who invented the word.
" I just can`t see that coming out of entropy system."
Argument from incredulity, logical fallacy.
" Morality comes from GOD "
>>No it doesn't - Hitchens's razor slash.
" From disorder and chaos to where we want to live and act altruistic. "
Altruistically actually, and there is nothing altruistic about obeying dogma and religious doctrine.
"To do Good to our family members and neighbors."
Why just them? Besides we need no superstitious mumbo jumbo or delusional beliefs in the supernatural to do this as a bare minimum. I think our existence will be better if we try our best to reduce and prevent suffering. To be indifferent to suffering, or to deliberately cause it, will make life unbearable for most people, why would anyone want to live like that. I need no deity in order to see this is objectively true.
You really are a fucking pleb of the highest possible order!
Most of us have the desire to help other people, because that's what lets us build societies, which helps us survive.
@Orignal post
I dislike every religion I have examined so far as a whole, (I will readily admit some parts of religions, usually around charity work are not all bad.) But for the religions I have not yet examined, there may be a few that I could maybe like. However, any religion that has a "god" in it, that follows the usual commonly accepted definition of god, I am going to near instantly dislike it. Because I feel the religion is based on a lie.
I like Buddhism, it has some great ideas. I hate dogma so don't buy into that. To me though Buddhism is atheism or agnosticism since it rejects external Gods and instead focuses on inner-self. Jainism probably has similar ideas.
"But when you have someone that lives their life in a spiritual way that seems worthy of respect, does it really detract from their ideas if it was attributed to God?" [Original Post]
Superstition (including religion) can simply be disregarded. Mis-attributions (to god or to anything else) don't necessarily detract from ideas. For me, spirituality can be dumped too.
"I think we pull moral ideas from many sources. How do other atheist filter out sources for morality? Do you toss out anyone referencing God or do you consider their ideas valid until the God attachment creates bigger flaws?" [OP]
No "filtering out" necessary. Why toss out people because of the way they express their ideas? Ideas and people are distinct.
I like Ghandi but it obviously wasn't his religion that gave him his morality. We now know that is generally decided by someone's nature & nurture. Their ability to empathise, intelligence and intellect are key, whatever mis-attributions they may make.
Most religionists insist it is their religion that informs their morality. In fact, it is a society's collective morality that informs their religion and all other aspects of their culture, like their laws, politics and education systems for instance.
"Darwinian type ideas"
So called social Darwinism actually has nothing to do with any of Darwin's ideas. People whose world views are based on selfish ideologies that lack empathy and refuse to acknowledge concepts like universal human rights, like Fascism, cited aspects of evolution as justification for their barbaric ideologies. Evolution is an insentient process, it can seem cruel and sadistic, but it's not, because it is insentient it is indifferent to suffering as it doesn't make choices. Unlike humans who are sentient and do make choices, and therefore can be accused of being barbaric, or sadistic or even evil if they ignore or cause suffering. Humans have a choice, evolution does not, so called social Darwinism is just a dishonest excuse people like fascists use in the mistaken belief it lends gravitas to their ideas.
Darwin was a humanist as well a scientist, he'd have been utterly appalled at the nonsense of social Darwinism.
Incidentally the fact that humans can make choices is what enables human morality. The ability to choose increases with intellectual capacity, slugs do not exhibit moral distinctions but chimpanzees do.
To address your main question, I would not view something as immoral just because a person did it in the mistaken belief a deity required them to, that would be nonsensical. Though it's axiomatic the person is not being moral in sense I understand human morality. If they are simply blindly following dogma, then I think they have just become amoral automatons, and of course might just as easily do something appallingly evil that they are convinced their deity requires them to.
Blindly following rules is not a path to moral behaviour, "good" Nazis managed that much.
We're left with our own subjective reasoning, but evolution has given us a helping hand here, firstly because we have evolved as social animals and are therefore innately predisposed to be empathetic to other humans, and secondly because we have evolved brains that can analyse actions and behaviours and weigh the consequences.
@Don Wall "Gandhi that were religious but their actions display morality not requiring dogma?"
You could not be more inaccurate. Gandhi was a bigot. I, for one, would not have wanted to live in Gandhi's cast system. Calling Gandhi moral is like calling Mother Theresa Moral. It just ain't true. Gandhi accomplished the liberation of India and he did it with minimal violence, that does not make him moral in any way shape or form.
"In 1893, Gandhi wrote to the Natal parliament saying that a "general belief seems to prevail in the Colony that the Indians are a little better, if at all, than savages or the Natives of Africa"."
"n 1904, he wrote to a health officer in Johannesburg that the council "must withdraw Kaffirs" from an unsanitary slum called the "Coolie Location" where a large number of Africans lived alongside Indians. "About the mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians, I must confess I feel most strongly."
"The same year he wrote that unlike the African, the Indian had no "war-dances, nor does he drink Kaffir beer". When Durban was hit by a plague in 1905, Gandhi wrote that the problem would persist as long as Indians and Africans were being "herded together indiscriminately at the hospital".
"Africans have always accused the man who led India to independence of working with the British colonial government to promote racial segregation."
This is a silly overview but you can find all the facts supported in books and in the NEWS. People who use RELIGION to move their agenda are rarely moral.. To get a good person to do something bad you need RELIGION.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTGH2nyBulk Do not mistake the Indians for the "niggers."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG2bKiRu48Y He just isn't all he is praised to be. He is a politician.
Well I have found contradictory information on Gandhi, but actually I was only using him as an example anyway with the point being...how much are you blaming someone for the belief in God if other aspects seem moral.
As far as Gandhi, I've seen data that he was very anti-caste. I've also seen where his attitude towards women was for equality. Yet I've seen others say he was pro-caste and a misogynist .
And I totally disagree with the idea that ALL religious people are immoral. Granted, we see a lot of that because we debate the jerks but I've known some fine religious people. Generally they are Deist with some kind of attachment to the social structure they were raised in.
Thanks for the info.
People I admire who were (probably) religious include Spinoza and Kant.
Yes of course, but I doubt your admiration for them is based on their religious beliefs, Spinoza at least was moving towards atheism via deism in many of his ideas, and were he alive now it's impossible to imagine he would not be an atheist. Einstein who was an atheism admired Spinoza's ideas greatly. One might say the same of Thomas Paine of course, who derided the irrationality of christianity, and the erroneous contradictory nature of the bible, but was still to a certain extent a product of the epoch in which he lived, and publicly professed deistic views. Of course we cannot know what many critics of religions might have said publicly if religions had not murdered and tortured anyone imprudent enough to express atheism openly during much of human history, but I think we can infer at least that Thomas Paine thought Christianity, and religions in general, quite absurd.
Yes, good point.
Well I am from India and I knew real history of Gandhi he is big hypocrite. for your kind information there is caste system in Hinduism and Gandhi was supporter of caste system. He also did dirty politics. so don't try to glorify Gandhi he is fake ideal. only few percent of Indian population support Gandhi. Gandhi is like those fake sadhus of hindu religions who just make moral and divine image in front of society but they have very very deep dark secrets.
I am providing some proofs to show you how Hindus created Fake ideal.
13 November 1931 Round Table Conference
London (parliament documents)
quoting of Gandhi ,
" I can understand the claims advanced by the other minorities but the claims advanced on behalf of untouchables that to me is the unkindest cut off all. I would not sell the vital interest of the untouchables even for sake of winning the freedom of India."
and there is the book written by B. R. Ambedkar (the author of Indian Constitution) 'What Gandhi And Congress Have Done To Untouchables' which exposes Gandhi.
So I think that's how religious moral Gandhi was and his supporters are also same as he. Fake Religious Morality
(well english is my third language so it's not that good)
All morality is human morality. God's are created by humans and put words into their mythical mouths. So, we can cherry pick out the good parts.
Einstein was a great moralist. Kurt Vonnegut. Jane Goodall.
I've always thought that Gandhi was an asshole. Seems I wasn't the only one.