Well, show me where in atheism you can locate inherent rights. Who put those inherent rights within the people to whom they inhere, where do they come from. Then you can show me where in atheism you locate equality. And, trickiest of all, you can show me where in atheism you locate a real and consequential moral obligation to respect those rights on an equal basis, EVEN WHEN SAID ATHEISTS DON'T WANT TO RESPECT THEM AND IT COSTS THEM TO.
Go on, show me where you'll find those and then you can show me how they withstand the atheists' methods of attacks on things they don't like, like, you know, God.
kogwonton Anthony_McCarthy • 8 hours ago
If by 'inherent' you mean some magical virtue or value which is true simply as a fact of being? For example, gold having an intrinsic value apart from what a majority believes about it? I say that human rights are a product of consensus, no different than the status granted to any saint or prophet, and evidenced by the fact that all authoritarian systems have shown a need to justify themselves. Human rights are the natural product of consensus achieved through good-will and respect. Why should it be more than that? I would say that the only reason anyone would even consider a religious belief is because it establishes a respect for the rights of the individual - at least in theory. If this weren't so, the religion in question would be seen as being morally bankrupt, and the god in question would be rejected - and its threats or bribes ignored.
Anthony_McCarthy kogwonton • 2 minutes ago
"Human rights are the natural product of consensus"
Oh, does that mean in those societies where it's the consensus position that atheists should not have a right to hold office or be trusted to give testimony or serve on juries, that atheists don't have those rights in those societies and they should just suck it up and take it? You can substitute the words "black people", "GLBT folk", "Jews," whatever, in your elucidation of "rights" and the moral obligation to respect them on an equal basis. Because that is the rational result of that particular atheist dodge, replacing societal whim for God's grace. You have just made my point that atheism can't support its claim to equal rights because it denies that those rights are real and durable and that they come with a moral obligation to respect those rights even when you don't like the people, don't want to treat them justly and it costs you AND YOUR SOCIETY to do so.
You have just shown why atheists could accept the mass murders and genocides of the 20th century, most of them committed by atheist dictators and their atheist regimes, many atheists in the West supporting or excusing them. I should collect the times that prominent atheists justified or brushed aside the crimes of Stalin and Mao and even Pol Pot as they were happening on the basis of their imaginary "greater good". By which I have come to believe they really meant imposing an anti-religious regime which would wipe out religion once and for all, which is a remarkably persistent feature of atheist thought, regardless of variation in its accompanying suite of ideological positions.
Update:
kogwonton Anthony_McCarthy • 11 minutes ago
I can show evidence for the evolution of the concept of inalienable human rights is a matter of consensus, because when people are introduced to the idea it jibes with their own desires for self-determination, freedom of conscience, of allegiance, and of thought. In fact, almost every religion or government on the planet in all of history has proclaimed itself to be a defense of justice and virtue which is, itself, said to be the sole means by which any society sustains its liberty. It is inherent because it is universal, not because it is some objective thing that exists outside of belief - no less than gold has value only because so many believe it does. I have an obligation to respect those rights because judgment goes both ways. I cannot say I love freedom if I refuse to extend it to others. It is that simple. If you think that the only reason people are good to each other is out of fear or hope of reward, then the law is a cruel joke and protects nothing. And you claiming that atheists accept mass murder and genocide is horseshit. Mass murder is a human thing, not specifically an atheist thing. Genocide has been done in the name of 'god' since the dawn of recorded history. You fail to show any evidence of human rights being something given by god(s). You either believe in them or you don't. Even your sovereign choice to agree with some moral code claimed to be handed down by the Divine is still just that - a sovereign choice based upon agreement. It is that or it is a lie.
Anthony_McCarthy kogwonton • a few seconds ago
Your position means that in states where most people don't trust atheists there is no moral basis for atheists to protest when they are excluded from public office. You have just shown how the atheist dodge of replacing inherent rights with social consensus that they prove they can't even support their favorite whine "people won't vote for atheists for president".
You can't "show evidence for the evolution of the concept of inalienable human rights" but you can make up explanatory myths and fables pretending you can. And even if you could prove that the concept "evolved" that would no more remove the necessity of those rights being inherent, real and enduring on that developing understanding than the developing understanding of chemical bonds would remove the necessity of regarding those as being real and having been real even as peoples' understanding of the "evolved".
Your position would mean that anyone who society agreed had no rights had no rights. Anyone complaining of a violation of rights that society didn't create with that consensus would be deluded and they, in fact, would be because those rights would, under your framing, not exist. And if society never agrees that they have rights then those would never exist. Atheists in the United States who claim, against a societal consensus, that they had rights would be entirely delusional because, under your atheist framing, those rights would not exist.
Update 2 (slightly edited) :
Anthony_McCarthy Anthony_McCarthy • a few seconds ago −
Thinking about this more, I have to point out something really dangerous in your claim that society creates rights by consensus. If that were the case than whenever some minority group or some individual complains and campaigns for equal rights that aren't granted by an existing consensus they can freely be ignored by the members of the majority who already have those rights, in whom you put the power to create rights.
Under your framing, they would be entirely correct and within their rights to refuse to create rights for, say, atheists, or black slaves or women for whatever reason they choose to not create those rights or for no reason other than mere predilection. There is no engine that could compel an unwilling majority that chose hot to to create those rights and no legitimate case for the deprived minority to claim that their deprivation was anything other than entirely right and proper.
You demote equal treatment which is denied from a right which is morally required to be redressed into a privilege that can rationally and rightly be denied by a majority which is benefited by withholding that privilege. Or, even worse, an entirely optional favor to be granted. Which is a pretty dangerous belief to hold.
Your position would mean that anyone who society agreed had no rights had no rights. Anyone complaining of a violation of rights that society didn't create with that consensus would be deluded and they, in fact, would be because those rights would, under your framing, not exist. And if society never agrees that they have no rights then those would never exist. Atheists in the United States who claim, against a societal consensus, that they had rights would be entirely delusional because, under your atheist framing, those rights would not exist.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, the situation that existed in America, vis a vis slaves, (a condition based entirely on skin color, not on status as conquered peoples of a military conflict), at the time the Constitution was adopted.
A situation reversed, in large part, due to the Abolitionist movement which, like the Civil Rights movement of the 20th century, was centered in the Christian church.
Hmmmm........
It is such a dangerous idea to think that social consensus creates rights because it puts the power of creating rights in the hands of an entirely intersted majority with no moral inhibition of them following their self-interest. It's exactly the position that Steve "Bad Religion" Weinberg gave for why he rejected the pseudo-scientific, evo-psy based artificial substitute for morality and also utilitarianism.
ReplyDeleteI was serious when I said that position could explain why atheists were able, even as they knew they were happening, to overlook Stalin's mass murders and Mao's, they figured the rights of those people being murdered were either not real or not important in a way they were required to take seriously. And it was quite an impressive number of Western intellectuals who took those positions, all that I can think of, atheists. Not all atheists but certainly enough to 1. discredit the left, 2. suppress leftist opposition to those mass murders. The Communists in the United States were morally bankrupt during the Stalin years, as can be seen from their U-turn on Nazism during Stalin's rapprochement with Hitler. And they learned nothing from that as their continued devotion to Stalin and subsequent atheist dictators shows. If there were a fascist dictator today who started trying to exterminate Christians they'd be cheering them on. You don't hear much atheist denunciation over the Chinese government's suppression of religions.