In Godless We Trust

What is more moral?: my response to the Sam Harris meme

fuckyeahatheistmemes:

I have been surprised and disappointed at the amount of unintelligent debate being generated by one of my recent memes - see here 

If it was just theists having a whinge, that would be fine, but nearly all negative responses appear to have come from secular bloggers. I think this is something worth talking about - for those without spiritual beliefs who defend religious moral relativism are, by extension, aiding the spread of scriptural barbarisms. 

atomicsocialist had this to say: “my point is, all morality is based off of the sheer urge to do good in humanity and anything else is a social construct. And New Atheists claiming an action is immoral because the religious have a different rationalization for said action is ridiculous, and laughably not self aware”

Let me clarify this immediately - the meme does not imply theists are immoral. “New” atheists do no claim moral choices fall in a neat dichotomy. The meme, an out of context snippet though it may be, raises one specific question - is it more moral to do something without expectation of reward.

Personally, I see little room for debate on that point, clearly the answer is yes. But atomicsocialist asserts that all morality is based on the mental ‘feel-good’ effect of altruism. Clearly the answer is no. Regular people do terrible, unmoral things and feel good about it, thanks to religious morality.

Is forcing women to live in cloth bags moral? I am a Mullah and I say it is. I feel good when I make my daughters and wife put on the burqa, and when I see other men do the same. I know that I should feel good because my moral code has been dictated to me, as well as that great reward of the afterlife. 

Undisputedly, people do things that make themselves feel good, but that is absolutely no basis for all morality, and feeling good because you did something is not intrinsically linked to the act itself being good. 

atomicsocialist goes on to say in another post: I think he fundamentally misunderstands why someone commits a moral action. Personal satisfaction, that rush of neurotransmitters is the foundation for it, religion, bettering the world, whatever you say it was about is most likely the rationalization. So to compare two rationalizations and say “Those who rationalize this way are not moral while those who rationalize this way are” is ridiculous and irritating.

Here atomicsocialist omits all immoral actions that are considered by others to be moral and which they feel good about doing. This omission neatly avoids the very real suffering of women and girls in the Middle East today. It sidesteps all the evils in the world that are seen as contextually moral. In many of these instances the motivation is drawn explicitly from religious morality.

A coherent write up on the situation. 

~Mooglets

Can Critics of “New Atheists” Please Read Some First?

The title: “Beyond ‘New Atheism.’”

So I knew we were in trouble right from the start.

In a recent piece in The Stone forum in the New York Times online “Opinionator” section, philosophy professor Gary Gutting takes on the so-called “New Atheism.” He argues that the so-called “new atheism” — encapsulated in his mind by Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” — relies too heavily on scientific and rational arguments against religion, and spends too much time making the case that religion isn’t, you know, true. He thinks that the so-called “new atheists” ignore how religion gives people meaning and transcendence, hope and morality, emotional comfort and social support. He thinks that we aren’t talking enough about secular alternatives for this meaning and transcendence, hope and morality, emotional comfort and social support. And he promotes the ideas of philosophy professor Philip Kitcher as a fresh alternative to this supposed tunnel vision.

Sigh.

This makes me want to facepalm so hard, it’d drive my nose into my brain.

Okay. Deep breath. I am going to my safe, peaceful place. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean….

Alright. I can talk sensibly now. So. Memo to Professor Gutting.

The so-called “new atheists” are already talking about this.

We’re talking about it a lot.

Continue to read Greta Christina’s article here.

~Mooglets

Deader than dead: people in vegetative states are viewed as deader than corpses

In 1990, Terri Schiavo suffered a heart attack that left her in a persistent vegetative state. She came out of her coma but severe brain damage left her unresponsive with no detectable brain activity. Trapped in a state of “wakeful unconsciousness”, her condition triggered a lengthy legal battle between her husband, who wanted to end her life support, and her parents, who wanted to keep her alive. The debate over Schiavo’s moral rights raged for the better part of a decade, and the arguments were filled with people who claimed that her condition was a “fate worse than death”.

The phrase reflects a curious tendency to view people in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) as being deader than dead. Kurt Gray from the University of Maryland has found that people, especially religious ones, tend to think of PVS patients as having less mental capacity than a corpse.

Together with Anne Knickman and Daniel Wegner from Harvard University, Gray asked 201 volunteers to read an account of a car accident. The protagonist – David – either lived, died or entered into a PVS. “David’s entire brain was destroyed, except for the one part that keeps him breathing,” the third description read. “So while his body is still technically alive, he will never wake up again.’’

Gray asked the volunteers to rate how strongly they agreed with six statements about David’s state of mind. The results clearly showed that people see PVS patients as being more dead than dead. The volunteers were more likely to agree that dead David, compared to his PVS counterpart, could influence the outcome of situations, know right from wrong, remember the events of his life, have emotions and feelings, be aware of his environment, and have a personality.

Gray thinks that this odd pattern stems from the old notion of mind-body dualism, the philosophy which states that the mind and body are separate things. Such beliefs are especially common among people from religious faiths that believe in souls, which live on after death. If that’s the case, a dead person is merely a disembodied mind. Indeed, Jesse Bering has found that people generally hold intuitive beliefs about the minds of dead people. If it’s not a religious afterlife, then it’s ghosts or something similar.

To test this idea, Gray repeated his experiment, but changed the vignette where David lives to another where he died. This one was written to draw attention to his corpse. It read: “David died on impact. After, being embalmed at the morgue, he was buried in the local cemetery. David now lies in a coffin underground.’’

Among people with little in the way of religious beliefs, the emphasis on David’s cadaver brought their responses in line with their views of PVS patients. That’s predictable – in previous studies, people tend to lose their intuitive beliefs about the minds of the dead if they focus on their bodies. However, this didn’t work for the highly religious volunteers. They still ascribed more of a mind to deceased David than to vegetative David.

Finally, Gray found that the “fate worse than death” trope is actually true for many people. When 55 volunteers read first-person stories of people who were involved in car accidents, they felt that entering a PVS would be worse than dying, for themselves and their families.

People in vegetative states have awoken from a coma, but remain completely unresponsive to the world around them. Lights and noises fail to stir them and there are no signs that they understand words or expressions. Adding the word “persistent” can be infuriating. It implies that the patient is highly unlikely to recover, but it doesn’t rule out the odds of such a recovery. By blurring the lines between life and death, it plays havoc with our sense of morality and our perceptions.

Gray argues that while people tend to see dead people as disembodied minds, they see people in a PVS as mindless corpses. As he writes, “These results suggest that for vegetative patients, life or death may depend more upon the mind of person making the decision than the mind of the patient.”

From Discover

I’m mostly posting this because of the section concerning the way in which religious people react in these cases. It makes for an interesting read; personally, I don’t ascribe to the ‘deader than a corpse’ way of thinking, because they obviously aren’t.

But - without a lot of evidence being put forth for it - I don’t think there’s still a mind in there, either - and I certainly don’t believe in ghosts/spirits/souls. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, that’s it. In my opinion, anyway. 

An interesting little exchange was had in the comments: 

1.   Jorge Silva Says: 

Strange, I always thought that highly religious people were also more inclined to be against ceasing life support for patients in vegetative states. Yet, this study seems to show that they perceive such patients as being “deader than dead”. Either I’m wrong on the first or from what this article says, it should follow that the religious should be more supportive of ending life support in these situations.

The reply from the author: 

 Ed Yong  Says: 

Nope, both are true. Religious people are more likely to view PVS patients as deader than dead, AND more likely to be against ending life support. The authors described this as “ironic”.

An interesting little insight into how they think, yes? 

~Mooglets