Quote# 56488
Yes, but the difference is that atheists can't logically support morals, beyond morality being merely a personal preference,
and thus something a thief can vaildly reject for himself, because when he says that stealing isn't "wrong for him",
any atheist's argument against that sentiment is not based on anything that is even logically compatible with atheism.
With atheism, you are left with believing in evolution, which teaches survival of the fittest as the one and only way that progress (evolution) occurs, whether we like it or not.
I.e., when you and your friend are starving in the desert, it's best to kill him and take his food and water. An atheist cannot call that even slightly wrong, and back up his statement with reason. After all, you're doing this to survive, so it's fully defensible to those who put a premium on survival, and to anyone who accepts survival of the fittest as the reigning concept of life. In fact, attacking your potential competition ruthlessly is what you should do based on the evolutionary theory of how progress is made: you're simply advancing the species by taking every cruel advantage you can of other people, by the evolutionary model. Who can sat you are in the wrong except a religious person? No one. The quote, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" is what we're left with: pure moral relativism, when stealing isn't wrong, but is rather just someone else's version of what is right.
Stealing is survival of the fittest:
It's the smarter and/or more powerful annexing the property of the less intelligent and/or weaker for one's own furtherance.
That's simply the way life works, under the evolutionary model: Attack them before they attack you.
There is no rational defense of morality within an atheistic framework. Anything deemed "morality" must come from outside atheism, and indeed from outside the physical world itself. For physical survival (which is the only kind atheists believe in), simple expediency is best: morality when it benefits you materially, and immorality when it benefits you materially.
Ragtime,
WrongPlanet 40 Comments [1/18/2009 11:28:39 PM]
Fundie Index: 3
Submitted By: Grassy Knowledge