Have You Abandoned Faith but Kept Christian Morality?

[Scottmkiv]

In the past two decades, the rejection of religion has been on the rise. Atheists now account for 15% of our country.

As our country becomes more rational and scientific, more and more people find faith lacking. Gone are the days when superstition ruled men's minds unchallenged. We demand evidence before we will believe in things.

As a result, atheism is becoming more common. It's still a minority, but even those who still profess faith don't cling to it as fervently as they did in yesteryear.

In the dark and medieval ages, religion not only dominated men's thoughts and beliefs, but it also controlled kings and nations. At first, "free thinkers" were able to flee to a few countries to escape persecution. Over time these radicals began to influence thought, philosophy, science, and culture. In large part the enlightenment of the Renaissance flourished as society stopped looking to faith to answer every question.

The culmination of this philosophical shift came when the US constitution was written. It explicitly dethroned religion and said that congress could "make no laws respecting an establishment of religion". The overwhelming majority of the country was still religious, but the founders nonetheless saw the brutality that state sponsored religion could bring.

Since then, people have tended to take their faith less seriously, or reject it altogether. This rejection raises several questions for the new atheist. He realizes faith makes no rational sense, but still holds on to the moral indoctrination of his childhood unquestioningly. Man needs a philosophy, an ethical framework for life. No matter how distasteful it may be, religion does provide such a framework.

Have You Abandoned Faith but Kept Christian Morality?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Scott,

Welcome to OL.

Here's another question for you.

Are you allowing some authority other than your honest independent mind dictate your morals?

I looked at the article you linked to, but I don't feel the love. It is way too loaded with presuppositions and predigested commands for my way of being. They sound like rules you have to obey just because someone said so.

To me, the difference between that and religion is just semantics and the stuff you do. I smell sanction of the victim in that approach.

My morality starts with my honest use of my mind--and I check all premises, including Rand's. Not just once, either. As my knowledge grows, I find I have to keep checking, especially with the current advances in neuroscience. I have a habit of encouraging everyone to do the same.

I find that far more productive for my life than believing I have to be this and I must to that and I should think this and I should avoid that so on. If the ideas are good and correct, I trust my mind to adopt them without someone telling me I have to. And I trust my mind to reject the ones that don't make any sense to me.

And I trust yours to do the same.

I don't do well with authority, especially the kind of bossiness I perceived in that article. I also tend to be very inconvenient to preachers of the gospel of Jesus, preachers of the gospel of Allah, and preachers of the gospel of Rand. I'm fine governing my own mind. The good news is that I will not try to govern yours.

Michael

[Rich Engle]

Take a look at www.thankgodforevolution.com as well as the work of many others who are integrating science and religion.

Atheism is highly misunderstood, it always has been, even by atheists. A lot of them are agnostics.

Atheism does not preclude having a deep feeling about how sacred and beautiful the universe is--a nested, emergent universe. Reason, reverence, and tolerance work quite well together.

Look at what the scientists are saying.

There's plenty of room for everyone.

r

Resident, uh . . ."religionist." <---puke

Edited May 15, 2011 by Rich Engle

[psychoanaleesis]

If you're talking about faith in a God of Christianity and have thus abandoned the concept in favor of atheism, then you must necessarily reject Christian morality i.e. you are not bound by it's teachings anymore. You struck down the metaphysics of the issue, so why not its ethics?

If you have to look at it simply:

Metaphysics = I am

Epistemology = I'll think/understand the world through my faculties i.e. reason

Ethics = I'll do that which are within my rights i.e. Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness

Politics = My rights end where the rights of others begin i.e. Non-initiation of force or Principle of trade.

Now, it might sound similar to a lot of Christian values/virtues but when you change your view of metaphysics, you have to change everything else that follows.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Wouldn't life be more manageable if there actually were things you can "strike down" metaphysically?

And there were such whole mono-thematically evil bodies of thought like "Christian morality"?

I read people say this stuff. When I look at what their targets actually do, I don't see such an oversimplified correspondence.

I'll go with my eyes and own mind over what others say.

I highly recommend the practice. But it's a choice.

Michael

[Peter]

I think the percent I saw was sixteen percent who were atheist, agnostic, or secular humanist, which is pretty good but a lot of folks are also church going agnostics not ready to reject their religion in an outright fashion, nor do they want to lose the comraderie and social life associated with organized Christianity. Or that Sunday school culture for their kids or that wonderful Christmas music, and Christmas school plays.

I would not doubt the percent of "in name only Christians" would be another twenty or thirty percent They go to church frequently to infrequently but still classify themselves as believers. I see plenty of obvious hypocrites who I despise, but many just can't see a way to break with tradition.

Peter Taylor

[Rich Engle]

Now, it might sound similar to a lot of Christian values/virtues but when you change your view of metaphysics, you have to change everything else that follows.

Yes!

rde

[psychoanaleesis]

Wouldn't life be more manageable if there actually were things you can "strike down" metaphysically?

And there were such whole mono-thematically evil bodies of thought like "Christian morality"?

I read people say this stuff. When I look at what their targets actually do, I don't see such an oversimplified correspondence.

I'll go with my eyes and own mind over what others say.

I highly recommend the practice. But it's a choice.

Michael

Woah. Quite a mouthful for me there Michael. How do you propose to tackle this question?

I believe the guy was simply asking if you can keep the ethics when you abandon/reject the metaphysics.

I think the question could be clearer when you put it this way:

Can one still believe in the teachings of "Jesus Christ, son of God" when you believe that there is no God at all?

-Now, ain't that a contradiction?

I also think that when you use the methods as "prescribed", you merely use the process of deduction. More child-like in manner rather than inductive reasoning. Religion's purpose has already expired and the institutions that uphold it will merely resort to force like in the renaissance period right before the dark ages.

I was only laying the parameters of this issue. The technicalities can be dealt with later. Unless there are some essentials that I overlooked.

PS

I just read the article. Haha. Just barged in based on the question. We have similar points but the author's style is rather blunt.

Edited May 16, 2011 by David Lee

[anthony]

I believe the guy was simply asking if you can keep the ethics when you abandon/reject the metaphysics.

I think the question could be clearer when you put it this way:

Can one still believe in the teachings of "Jesus Christ, son of God" when you believe that there is no God at all?

David,

My first response is - yes, one can.

It would be very simple for an ex-believer to claim that even if Jesus were not the Son of God,(since there is no God) his teachings were still the height of morality. This is not really contradictory, although rationalistic.

I think the mistake arrives in assuming that religious ethics are derived from its metaphysics. Like they are with a rational philosphy.

The ethics of Christianity are a 'package deal', in my view; first, one believes in God/Yahweh, next one accepts He had a Son, and then one must obviously accept the teachings of the Son who spoke for Him.

In rational terms, they are floating abstractions, wouldn't you agree?

Arbitrarily, one may pick any one, or combination, one likes - the ethics, the Son, or God alone. Or, reject them all, (except for the existence of a man called Jesus), as would a rational egoist/atheist.

Tony

Edited May 16, 2011 by whYNOT

[Rich Engle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXHn7Fn97Ss

[psychoanaleesis]

David,

My first response is - yes, one can.

It would be very simple for an ex-believer to claim that even if Jesus were not the Son of God,(since there is no God) his teachings were still the height of morality. This is not really contradictory, although rationalistic.

I think the mistake arrives in assuming that religious ethics are derived from its metaphysics. Like they are with a rational philosphy.

The ethics of Christianity are a 'package deal', in my view; first, one believes in God/Yahweh, next one accepts He had a Son, and then one must obviously accept the teachings of the Son who spoke for Him.

In rational terms, all floating abstractions, wouldn't you agree?

Tony

Yeah, but at the very least Jesus could have made it clearer by declaring that there is no God and that it was his philosophy he was teaching. He would have been killed either way.

If at all, I see this guy as a philosopher who has solid ethics but shaky metaphysics and didn't explain his epistemology (in parables perhaps?)

Same argument can be done for he pope, dalai lama and other religious leaders who enslave rather than liberate the human spirit by subjugating it under the presumption of a God. How did Rand call this in ITOE? sui generis/a class of its own. That's a problem that I find when confronting a priest, you can't challenge their foundation because they do not know/can't explain what they are standing on either.

Going back, you're right. You can keep it. That is, assuming that you turn a blind eye and be a walking contradiction.

PS

Good point Tony. Thanks.

Edited May 16, 2011 by David Lee

[Peter]

Thanks Rich!

Pasqualino settebellezze - Seven Beauties - I have been looking for that.

That refrain, "Oh, Yeah," is the stuff of which nightmares are made.

I will save it this time.

Peter

[9thdoctor]

By Christian morality do you mean behaving altruistically on earth, in order to receive rewards in heaven? So call it an afterlife investment plan, or fire insurance; is this Christian morality? If so, how can you maintain it without faith? Particularly faith in the afterlife? It’s too essential a feature. Of course, you can be altruistic without believing in the afterlife, that’s Comte, Marx etc. but its no longer Christian.

Or were you thinking of some other feature of Christian teachings, like the apocalyptic aspect, the lilies in the field stuff, and take no care for the morrow? If you don’t think the world’s presently coming to an end, that’s surely out the window.

[Scottmkiv]

By Christian morality do you mean behaving altruistically on earth, in order to receive rewards in heaven? So call it an afterlife investment plan, or fire insurance; is this Christian morality? If so, how can you maintain it without faith? Particularly faith in the afterlife? It’s too essential a feature.

Yes, I think that's the heart of Christian morality.

Of course, you can be altruistic without believing in the afterlife, that’s Comte, Marx etc. but its no longer Christian.

That's certainly true. Very little about Christianity is original. I'm trying to get Atheists to evaluate if they still have a reason to believe in altruism now that they have abandoned faith. I think that is exactly what Marxists have failed to do. They dropped god, but kept right on going with the rest of Christianity.

[Peter]

Christ and Rand? I found this.

Peter

From: Chris Matthew Sciabarra <chris.sciabarra@nyu.edu>

To: Atlantis* <atlantis@wetheliving.com>

Subject: ATL: Rand and Christ

Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 15:01:07 -0500

I happen to look at the current threads on Christianity and just wanted to offer these interesting quotes from Ayn Rand herself.

In two superb articles for THE INTELLECTUAL ACTIVIST, "Artist at Work: Ayn Rand's Drafts for THE FOUNTAINHEAD" (August, September 2001), Shoshana Milgram explains that in Rand's early drafts, she "originally had Roark provide a list of creators and an inventory of their suffering." (The drafts are currently held in the Madison Building of The Library of Congress.) Rand writes:

"Socrates, poisoned by order of the democracy of Athens. Jesus Christ against the majority of [indecipherable] crucified. Joan D'Arc, who was burned at the stake. Galileo, made to renounce his soul. Spinoza, excommunicated. Luther, hounded. Victor Hugo, exiled for twenty years. Richard Wagner, writing musical comedies for a living, denounced by the musicians of his time, hissed, opposed, pronounced unmusical. Tchaikovsky, struggling through years of loneliness without recognition. Nietzsche, dying in an insane asylum, friendless and unheard. Ibsen [indecipherable] his own country. Dostoevsky, facing an execution squad and pardoned to a Siberian prison. The list is endless."

For a variety of reasons, Rand eliminated this list from Roark's speech, but the list is interesting in any event. Rand also says, quite provocatively, in her early drafts that "Christ proclaimed the untouchable integrity of Man's spirit [stating] the first rights of the Ego. He placed the salvation of one's own soul above all other concerns. But men distorted it into altruism." She expands on this in her LETTERS (July 9, 1946), where she tells a fan (Sylvia Austin) that "Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of individualism---the inviolate sanctity of man's soul, and the salvation of one's soul as one's first concern and highest goal; this means---one's ego and the integrity of one's ego." She states, however, that "Jesus (or perhaps His [Rand capitalizes "His"] interpreters) gave men a code of altruism, that is, a code which told them that in order to save one's soul, one must love or help or ~live for~ others."

So, yes, Rand recognizes an internal contradiction here (even if she's not ready to place all the responsibility on Jesus himself)---but this does not come at the expense of an historical appreciation of the importance of early Christian thought in advancing the individualist message.

Happy holidays, a healthy and happy new year to all,

Chris

===================================

Chris Matthew Sciabarra

Visiting Scholar, NYU Department of Politics

Edited May 17, 2011 by Peter Taylor

[anthony]

That's certainly true. Very little about Christianity is original. I'm trying to get Atheists to evaluate if they still have a reason to believe in altruism now that they have abandoned faith. I think that is exactly what Marxists have failed to do. They dropped god, but kept right on going with the rest of Christianity.

Scott,

Yes, sure. And not only Marxists, evidently.

(Although I argue that it's obvious Marxists arrive at altruism differently, going after Man's material effort, and therefore his mind. Christian altruism is concerned with Man's soul, and his mind must follow. Both ways hold a man to ransom. Put very simply.)

I say not only Marxists, because atheists I have known personally, seem to believe that in getting rid of the theist morality, they either have no need of a substitute, and become quite amoral; or, they fall back unquestioningly on a vague altruism. Both groups are defaulters, I reckon.

That's why I often get on better with fairly religious people, than with 'nowhere atheists'. At least they demonstrate integrity in their convictions.

Tony

[anthony]

Christ and Rand? I found this.

Rand writes:

"Socrates, poisoned by order of the democracy of Athens. Jesus Christ against the majority of [indecipherable] crucified. Joan D'Arc, who was burned at the stake. Galileo, made to renounce his soul. Spinoza, excommunicated. Luther, hounded. Victor Hugo, exiled for twenty years. Richard Wagner, writing musical comedies for a living, denounced by the musicians of his time, hissed, opposed, pronounced unmusical. Tchaikovsky, struggling through years of loneliness without recognition. Nietzsche, dying in an insane asylum, friendless and unheard. Ibsen [indecipherable] his own country. Dostoevsky, facing an execution squad and pardoned to a Siberian prison. The list is endless."

For a variety of reasons, Rand eliminated this list from Roark's speech, but the list is interesting in any event. Rand also says, quite provocatively, in her early drafts that "Christ proclaimed the untouchable integrity of Man's spirit [stating] the first rights of the Ego. He placed the salvation of one's own soul above all other concerns. But men distorted it into altruism." She expands on this in her LETTERS (July 9, 1946), where she tells a fan (Sylvia Austin) that "Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of individualism---the inviolate sanctity of man's soul, and the salvation of one's soul as one's first concern and highest goal; this means---one's ego and the integrity of one's ego." She states, however, that "Jesus (or perhaps His [Rand capitalizes "His"] interpreters) gave men a code of altruism, that is, a code which told them that in order to save one's soul, one must love or help or ~live for~ others."

So, yes, Rand recognizes an internal contradiction here (even if she's not ready to place all the responsibility on Jesus himself)---but this does not come at the expense of an historical appreciation of the importance of early Christian thought in advancing the individualist message.

Peter,

A fascinating insight.

Confirmation that Rand had respect for Christ as intellectual, if not for the (contorted?) teaching of His followers.

This would appear to indicate where she'd stand on past and present US political debates.

(The lesser of two 'evils'.)

Tony