.... Well, where's the atheist assertion of the moral truth that it is a sin to lie, something that carries consequences for the liar even if they manage to get away with it among other people? I've never seen any explanation of why it's wrong to lie based in materialism, why you could care about the consequences of lying if you can work it so you don't pay the consequences. I don't think it's possible to find that in materialism. if even 30% of people who claim to believe in religions act as if they believe it is a sin to tell a lie and that they will face the consequences of doing that, it would still be about 30% more effective in preventing lying than materialism, which is 100% unable to articulate a reason that you shouldn't do it even if you can work it for your advantage.
Trippin McZoink Anthony_McCarthy I'm sure Louie Gohmert actually believes it's OK to burn up the planet because Jesus will be coming to separate out the true believers, leaving all those enviro-nazis to suffer the consequences of climate disaster. I'm sure he doesn't consider it a lie when he uses that "reasoning" to implement policy. Would you count him among that 30%?
Anthony_McCarthy Trippin McZoink I'd like to know where in Louie Gohmert's political stands you find the teachings of Jesus demonstrated in any way. His stands are far more in keeping with what Dawkins said,In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.Gohmert's actions are totally consistent with a Dawkinsian view of the universe not with that of Jesus.Trippin McZoink Anthony_McCarthy Well, you'll just have to take that up with Louie, because he thinks he's being Christ-like, not Dawkins-like. So, is he among your 30% of non-liars or not?I should point out: all the self-righteous Jesus-justifying Christo-fascists have the same attitude. They have the unassailable truth, and those who disagree aren't qualified to manage their own affairs. So unbeknownst to you, you've stumbled upon the core -- the essence -- of why religion cannot be equated with morality.Leave Dawkins alone please. I don't worship Dawkins any more than I worship any other cult, and I really could care less what he said. Dawkins doesn't represent me.Anthony_McCarthy Trippin McZoink "Leave Dawkins alone" No, that passage perfectly sums up the only possible conclusion of materialism, the most commonly held faith holding of atheists. It perfectly shows why atheism is incapable of producing a real left, one that can take political power and make things at all better. To do that it takes more than materialism can produce.Gohmert is a liar, for all anyone knows he is a materialist of the kind who believes what Dawkins articulated, his actions are consistent with that. They are not consistent with the gospel of Jesus, it's more probable that he is lying about believing in what he so obviously doesn't follow because it will get him something he wants. Show me where in materialist dogma that he's wrong to do that if he can get away with doing it.
So, can we leave Gohmert alone because I don't worship him, he doesn't represent me (literally and figuratively), and I don't care what he says?
ReplyDeleteThe fundamental problem for me in this kind of discussion is the concept of "lie." We've narrowed that down, in public discourse, to intentional fraud: the tort of telling someone something you know is false with the intent they rely on it. There is also the fraud of telling something you should know is false, or you don't examine it's veracity, you just pass it on anyway. That, too, is fraud; but so seldom do we call it a "lie."
So: Chris Christie will be "okay" if he didn't lie about Bridgeghazi, i.e., know what he was saying was false. Yet he's already made clear he intentionally set up "plausible deniability" by not asking too many questions of his staff, so if they didn't tell him, he's clean! Except, of course, he's the boss: he hired them, he gave them directions, he's responsible for what they do (they act on behalf of the governor, not under their own mastery; they are agents, and agency law says the master is responsible for their actions). But unless we have him on tape saying the exact opposite of what he said in public, he didn't "lie," and he is vindicated. Thus does our public discourse make beggars of our notions of morality.
Is Gohmert a liar, or a fool? Does it matter? What he says is damaging to others. Is that enough to make his statements problematic and to enforce some mechanism of social opprobrium against them? Because most of the laws of Israel come down to how best to treat each other, not now best to keep God from smiting you. On what basis do you treat each other fairly is another issue; and materialism (you are quite right) can't answer it. Israel, in other words, accepted a transcendence of the individual (or even the tribe, in that pre-Augustinian world) based on allegiance to God. It didn't base it's morality and society on the idea God would smack 'em if they didn't get it just right.
This was always my problem with John Rawl's theory of justice; it accepted from the beginning the materialist basis of utilitarianism, accepted it as inarguable, and then set out to modify it's fundamental cruelty (the basement of Omelas, upon which it rests). He couldn't do it, however, without walking away from Omelas, and he couldn't do that, either. He was gonna get smacked by materialism, in other words, so he had to honor it even as he tried to ameliorate it. In the end, he accomplished neither.
It doesn't have to be a bald-faced lie to be damaging; and you do have to recognize something transcendent, something other than the universe as described in your quote from Dawkins: otherwise you are left with the bitter dregs of the literary movement of realism: the cynical pessimism of Mark Twain in "The Mysterious Stranger" or "The War Prayer," or the naturalism of Ambrose Bierce and Jack London (to name two).
The problem with Dawkins and others is that they don't recognize that history, don't realize we've been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, run and sold the franchise, retired on the proceeds. They're fighting a fight we've already covered, and think they've discovered something new. Ye gods, get Dawkins a set of Beckett's complete works and leave him to read it, then get back to us on the "wisdom" of the universe as he depicts it.
The rest of us have lives to live and a society of disparate people to live with.... (I could rewrite this a dozen more times, but at some point you just have to stop.)