Hitchen's Challange

[joe1776]

The problem is this: https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
"...
Science doesn't draw conclusions about supernatural explanations
Do gods exist? Do supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These questions may be important, but science won't help you answer them. Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition, beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what can be studied by science. For many, such questions are matters of personal faith and spirituality."

In other words Hitchen couldn't have decided that challenge, because to him the world is natural and thus all morality is natural. But if there is supernatural morality, he couldn't have known, because to him everything was natural.
The challenge is invalid based on its assumptions on how to solve it.

Supernatural morality? Expand on that please. If it exists, how would any human, believer or non-believer, be guided by it?

 

[joe1776]

It's not reasonable to think no religion was involved in developing and promoting those values in or society. Or that religions are not now involved in doing so.

Religions were not involved in the abolition of slavery or in advancing equal rights for women and homosexuals. Their sacred texts do not support those moral advances. However, the faithful are also human, and we humans have consciences.

 

[Daniel Nicholson]

Could not or would not

What was the purpose of his challenge? What was he seeking to show by this?

I thought it was pretty obvious, but judging by the posts so far it is not.

It is much easier to think of a wicked thing said or act done because of faith than to name a good or moral thing said or done by a person of faith that could not be said or done by an atheist.

 

[lukethethird]

Is that all you think religion has ever had to say about social values? Or is that just the easiest thing you can think of to promote your bias?

Here's another one; Thou shalt have no other gods before Me, how many tens of millions have been slaughtered for believing in the wrong god? Surely we can do without religious values.

 

[Augustus]

secular humanism has been around since the ancient Greek philosophers,

Which Greek philosophers were remotely 'secular humanistic' in any meaningful sense?

Even someone like Epicurus was a slave owning ascetic quietist who thought falling in love was a bad thing.

 

[Orbit]

Which Greek philosophers were remotely 'secular humanistic' in any meaningful sense?

Even someone like Epicurus was a slave owning ascetic quietist who thought falling in love was a bad thing.

I was thinking about elements of Stoic thought, and some writings of Marcus Aurelius.

 

[Augustus]

I was thinking about elements of Stoic thought, and some writings of Marcus Aurelius.

Stoics such as Seneca?

"We put down mad dogs; we kill the wild, untamed ox; we use the knife on sick sheep to stop their infecting the flock; we destroy abnormal offspring at birth; children, too, if they are born weak or deformed, we drown. Yet this is not the work of anger, but of reason - to separate the sound from the worthless"

They were neither secular nor humanists and believed in the fundamental inequality of humans and Roman supremacy.

If they were around today they'd be called fascists.

They may have been more ethical than many of their contemporaries, and I don't think we should judge them with contemporary moral standards, but it's hard to see them as proto-humanists.

 

[Orbit]

Stoics such as Seneca?

"We put down mad dogs; we kill the wild, untamed ox; we use the knife on sick sheep to stop their infecting the flock; we destroy abnormal offspring at birth; children, too, if they are born weak or deformed, we drown. Yet this is not the work of anger, but of reason - to separate the sound from the worthless"

They were neither secular nor humanists and believed in the fundamental inequality of humans and Roman supremacy.

If they were around today they'd be called fascists.

They may have been more ethical than many of their contemporaries, and I don't think we should judge them with contemporary moral standards, but it's hard to see them as proto-humanists.

Cherry picking is always such fun.

 

[sun rise]

" love" is a human value, tegardless of which religions want to try to hijack it

I agree.

 

[Augustus]

Cherry picking is always such fun.

You mean cherry picking the odd quote and saying it kind of looks like it could have been said by a secular humanist if you squint a bit while ignoring their actual views and actions?

They were ancient Roman elites in a religious, patriarchal, warmongering, supremacist society built on conquest and slavery. Even if you cherry pick, where does the secular or the humanistic come from?

 

[Brickjectivity]

Seems you are saying secularists may declare a holy war, and that some Hitchens thinks a
atheist might turn into a ( real) god?

Dunno when " secular humanism" started. Or where it applies.
But i think extremely limited.
Hence, as you say, has no track record.

Religions, of the middle eastern sky god variety
have an atrocious record So do / did some or most others. All? Exceptions are welcome.

The switch from whatever religion to Kim-god worship has zero to do with secular humanism.

For clarity, you did not actually mean any of the things i asked about?

Just to clarify in general to all four who are replying to me I agree secular humanism is its own thing and is not what's happening in N Korea. What's happening in N Korea is an example of the pattern of primitive human politics which I think typically leads to direct theocracy and the invention of gods. I think humanity has a pattern of doing this. If we regress to a chaotic stage, this is replaced with tribalism or nationalism and theocracy. We get a warlord who is also our spiritual leader and source of all justice. All this requires is chaos and military dictatorship, and I can point to many places and times throughout the world where this happens. Nobody is following a book. They just do it over and over.

What Hitchen is saying is that 1 person who is nonreligious can do whatever 1 person who is religious can do, and that is true. What they cannot do or do not do is actively resist direct theocracy or have no track record of doing so. When chaos comes and theocracy takes over, secular humanism is simply gone. The question I have asked and have challenged of Hitchens is whether secular humanism can defend itself. So far it is a mushroom in need of shade, not a tree. It wilts too easily like a pretty flower, stable like a set of dominoes. Maybe the future is one with permanent secular humanist countries, but the past is not.

I disagree. Secular humanism isn't a spin-off of monotheism. It's a reaction to it, a rejection of it, a rejection of theocracy, a rejection of faith as a virtue, a rejection of the divine right of kings, and the rejection of the idea that man is a inherently defective (sinful) helpless without God.

The idea that man is inherently defective is politically convenient for dictators and slavers. Monotheism erodes it, but the dictators and slavers keep bringing it back. Then secular humanism steps in once everything is done. The idea of harmony is the only thing that reigns in rulers in the east, God that deters them in the west and Brahman in India. Secular humanism could have done better? No, it would have been trashed by every theocracy. It is a shade plant.

Secular humanism does have a track record, and it is excellent, unsurpassed.

Unsurpassed and about 5 seconds long in the history of the world. Show the track record. Show countries with no Christian history that have been secular humanist while retaining desirable humanist traits. Slim pickings.

The idea that religion is anti-war is laughable. Look at the history of Europe and the current Middle East! Secular humanism IS anti-war, and its principles aren't undergirded by any religion. Present-day northern Europe is largely non-religious, and they seem to be doing fine. The principles of secular humanism didn't come from monotheism; secular humanism has been around since the ancient Greek philosophers, but not by that name. In the present-day US, secular humanism is not "protected" by religion, religion sees it as the enemy.

I respect that, and it is embarrassing what's happening.

The principles of secular humanism don't come out of monotheism, no. They arise in the absence of theocracy, only after everything is peachy and people are free to think and talk about ideas over coffee. They don't arise in the presence of theocracy or fight against theocracy. It is the job of monotheism to depose dictators, because humans are theocratic creatures to our own detriment. Look at this horrible round we've just had with Trump. Look what he almost became. He was shooting to become a new god. That was his goal...still is. Had he succeeded the burden would have again fallen to monotheism to undermine all the claims he would make. He would claim everything that theocrats always claim that they are the source of all justice and goodness and that without them everything will rot.

 

[Augustus]

The principles of secular humanism don't come out of monotheism, no.

Well, secular Enlightenment figures like Turgot and Condorcet didn't mind acknowledging the debt their ideas owed to Christianity, such as the core Enlightenment Idea of Progress:

In Turgot's "Universal History" we are given an account of the progress of mankind which, in comprehensiveness and ordering of materials, would not be equalled until Turgot's ardent admirer, Condorcet wrote his Outline of an Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind during the French Revolution...

Before leaving Turgot, it is important to stress once again the historical importance of Christianity in the formation of the secular modern conception of progress in Western Europe. In the first place, Turgot began his career as a reasonably devout student of theology at the Sorbonne, his aspiration then linked to a future in the Church. Second, just six months before the discourse on "The Successive Advances of the Human Mind" was given in 1750, he had presented another public discourse, this one on the crucial importance of Christianity to the progress of mankind. And third, it was Bossuet's Universal History, which I have already referred to, that Turgot acknowledged to be his inspiration for the writing, or the preparation of a plan of his own "Universal History." Bossuet, proud and convinced Christian that he was, constructed his history in terms of a succession of epochs, all designed and given effect by God. Turgot allowed God to disappear (he had lost his faith by 1751 when he wrote his "Universal History") and replaced Bossuet's "epochs" by "stages": stages of social and cultural progress, each emerging from its predecessor through human rather than divine causes. But Turgot's alterations notwithstanding, it is unlikely that his own secular work on progress would have been written apart from the inspiration derived from Bishop Bossuet and other Christian philosophers of history. He is an epitome, in this respect, of the whole history of the modern idea of progress.

Idea of Progress: A Bibliographical Essay by Robert Nisbet - Online Library of Liberty

 

[Daniel Nicholson]

WORSHIP God


And if you reject libertarian free will (like most atheist do) I would include things like

- Lying / being honest

- Decide to do something good rather than something bad

- Comitte suicide

- Murder

- Etc.

All these actions imply a libertarian choice. For example a lie implies that you had the option/ability to tell the truth but decided to lie instead.

Worshiping God is an ethical action?
Anyone could do the rest of the list

 

[ppp]

What I mean is that secular humanism hasn't got a track record, and there are plenty of examples of countries which tried to oust religion only to enshrine leaders as little gods. For all we know that could be how Egypt got its first pharoah.

Which of those "examples of countries which tried to oust religion only to enshrine leaders as little gods" was a secular humanist country?

Also, I would point out that the behaviors that we saw from countries that tried to oust religion did not happen in a vacuum. Nor were their behaviors substantively different from the prior religious regimes. Pogroms, purges, massacres and genocides were a recurring, if not constant, mainstay of religious regimes. The assorted wars of religion did not kill more people because the population was smaller.

 

[Daniel Nicholson]

Name an ethical statement made or action performed by a person of faith that could not have been made or performed by a nonbeliever.

Name a wicked statement made or action performed precisely because of religious faith?

I can't think of a single thing for the first challenge. For the second, here are two big examples:
The genital mutilation community is entirely religious based.
Suicide bombers are almost entirely religious based.

 

[Augustus]

Suicide bombers are almost entirely religious based.

Might want to fact check that one

 

[Psalm23]

I thought it was pretty obvious, but judging by the posts so far it is not.

It is much easier to think of a wicked thing said or act done because of faith than to name a good or moral thing said or done by a person of faith that could not be said or done by an atheist.

I believe there is good and bad done by both people who have religious faith and atheists. I have loving family members who are atheists. I have heard how religion can be used and twisted for evil purposes. One's morality as a person cannot be accurately judged based on looking at one's religion or lack of religion in my opinion.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Which of those "examples of countries which tried to oust religion only to enshrine leaders as little gods" was a secular humanist country?

Also, I would point out that the behaviors that we saw from countries that tried to oust religion did not happen in a vacuum. Nor were their behaviors substantively different from the prior religious regimes. Pogroms, purges, massacres and genocides were a recurring, if not constant, mainstay of religious regimes. The assorted wars of religion did not kill more people because the population was smaller.

You have a point that none of the countries I mentioned had previously been secular humanist countries, since there weren't any before then. We don't know what would happen if a dictator got control of a secular humanist country, but I think a dictator could turn any country into a theocracy. It is done through fear and bloodshed, starvation etc.

Well, secular Enlightenment figures like Turgot and Condorcet didn't mind acknowledging the debt their ideas owed to Christianity, such as the core Enlightenment Idea of Progress:

There is more to Christianity than monotheism and much that is universal to all people. Enlightenment functions like a conscience, picking and choosing. The 'Debt' for humanist ideas is owed to all people, but the church gets a towing fee for towing it. People listen to ideas that appeal to them and reject ones that don't. The kernel of the idea is already in them, but someone awakens it in them.

 

[ppp]

You have a point that none of the countries I mentioned had previously been secular humanist countries, since there weren't any before then. We don't know what would happen if a dictator got control of a secular humanist country, but I think a dictator could turn any country into a theocracy. It is done through fear and bloodshed, starvation etc.

Sure. Totalitarianism. I am not a historian, but I am under the impression that not all theocracies have been totalitarian.

There is more to Christianity than monotheism and much that is universal to all people. Enlightenment functions like a conscience, picking and choosing. The 'Debt' for humanist ideas is owed to all people, but the church gets a towing fee for towing it. People listen to ideas that appeal to them and reject ones that don't. The kernel of the idea is already in them, but someone awakens it in them.

Towing it? It seems to me that the Enlightenment is a rejection of religious authority. That the ideals of religious tolerance are a direct repudiation of the bitter and bloody religious wars of the prior centuries. And Christianity certainly cannot take credit for abolition, women's suffrage, marriage equality, trans rights, etc.

I understand the argument that the Civil Rights movement was centered around Black Christian churches. And that is true. But I also know that a lot of the people in my family from that generation privately reject much of the religion and stay in it for the cultural bonds.

 

[leroy]

Worshiping God is an ethical action?[

Yes from the point of a theist it is an ethical acction.

Anyone could do the rest of the list

Not if you are a determinist (like most atheists)

....

But anyway what is the point of the challenge? What if i agree that there is not an ethical action that atheists cant do (and theist can?)...what would that prove?