Common Sense Atheism

I actually do think Mother Teresa was a pretty harmful person, but Dan Barker didn't explain it very well. I wonder if he made any good points that were edited.

But really, shall we fight about stamps?

The ethical theory I currently defend is desirism. But I mostly write about moraltheory, so I rarely discuss the implications of desirism for everyday moral questions about global warming, free speech, politics, and so on. Today’s guest post applies desirism to one such everyday moral question. It is written by desirism’s first defender, Alonzo Fyfe of Atheist Ethicist. (Keep in mind that questions of applied ethics are complicated and I do not necessarily agree with Fyfe’s moral calculations.)

In my last post, I answered the question of whether torturing a child can be considered good merely because enough people liked (desired) to torture children. I granted that if people had a desire to torture children then they have reason to act so as to realize a state in which, "I am torturing a child" is true. However, morality is not primarily concerned with whether there is reason to act given a particular set of desires, but whether there is any reason to have those desires to begin with. There is no good reason to have a desire to torture children. And there are a lot of reasons not to have such a desire.

Those points are directly applicable to the issue of homosexuality - or, a desire to have sex with somebody who is the same gender as oneself.

There seem to be a great many people in this world who have an aversion to the desire to have sex with somebody who is the same gender as oneself. This aversion to homosexuality, in desire utilitarian terms, would provide reason to act so as to make it the case that homosexuality did not exist.

On the issue of torturing children, I looked briefly at what the effect would be if there were a desire for the desire to torture children. To the degree that people have a desire for the desire to torture children, then to that degree they have reason to act so as to realize a state in which, "People have a desire to torture children" is true. This would make the desire to torture children a virtue, would it not?

(more...)

This is rather entertaining. And informative, for those Christians who don't know much about their own Ten Commandments.

Hitchens thinks that 'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor' is the most impressive commandment, in particular for its subtlety. For example, it does not say 'Thou shalt not lie.' It says you should not lie against your neighbor. So if you're hiding Jews, this law permits you to lie to inquiring Nazis.

At the end, Hitchens proposes some better commandments:

1. Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or their color.
2. Do not ever even think of using people as private property.
3. Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations.
4. Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child.
5. Do not condemn people for their inborn nature. ("Why would God create so many homosexuals, only to torture and destroy them?")
6. Be aware that you, too, are an animal, and dependent on the web of nature. Try to think and act accordingly.
7. Do not imagine you can avoid judgment if you rob people [by lying to them] rather than with a knife.
8. Turn off that fucking cell phone.
9. Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions and terrible sexual repression.
10. Reject any faith if their commandments contradict any of the above.

Of course Hitchens is being funny, but a two of these commandments are particularly interesting.

Hitchens' Commandment #2 condemns thoughtcrime even though Hitchens hates Hebrew Commandment #10 precisely because it condemns thoughtcrime.

Hitchens' Commandment #5 entails that we should not condemn clinical psychopaths and pedophiles.

I like Adam Lee's Ten Commandments better.

(Listen to other episodes of Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot here.)

Today I interview philosopher Stephen Maitzen. Among other things, we discuss:

• how many theistic defenses don't make sense given the demographics of theism
• how Christian theism leads to twisted morality
• the problems with free will theodicies
• the incoherence of 'Ultimate Purpose'
• The Shack, a Christian inspirational novel

Download CPBD episode 025 with Stephen Maitzen. Total time is 48:44.

Stephen Maitzen links:

• Stephen Maitzen at Acadia University

Links for things we discussed:

• Adèle Mercier, "Religious Belief and Self-Deception" appears in 50 Voices of Disbelief
• Georges Rey, "Meta-Atheism: Religious Avowal as Self-Deception"
• John Calvin on the sensus divinitatis
• U of M study finds atheists are least trusted
• Maitzen, "Anselmian Atheism" (Anselmian theism implies radical mysticism)
• Maitzen, "Divine Hiddenness and the Demographics of Theism"
• Maitzen, "Ordinary Morality Implies Atheism"
• Jeff Jordan surveys those who seem to accept that God permits undeserved, involuntary suffering only if such suffering produces a net benefit for the sufferer in "Divine Love and Human Suffering": William Rowe, Marilyn Adams, William Alston, Eleonore Stump, and Michael Tooley.
• Swinburne, "Theodicy, our well-being, and God's rights"
• Exodus 14:8
• Romans 9:18
• M'Naghten Rules
• Lewis, "Evil for Freedom's Sake"
• Harvey Cox, The Secular City
• Nagel, "The Absurd"
• The Shack (and responses to criticism)

Note: in addition to the regular blog feed, there is also a podcast-only feed. You can also subscribe on iTunes.

Near minute 16 in the above video, William Lane Craig hints toward an argument for God's existence that is new to me, an 'argument from quantum measurement.' Basically, he says God may be the best solution to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics.

Unsurprisingly, this would be yet another God of the gaps argument. I'm still waiting to hear theists say that 'God did it' is the 'best explanation' for the Bloop. I call it the Argument from the Bloop.