Show Notes::What Dune Reads - Why I Am Not A Christian by Bertrand Russell

Today's reading came to mind as I was sifting through various thoughts concerning the Duggar Debacle.  In fact it was a reaction to what  Eric aka "Dinoman Jr" Hovind had said in support of Joshieboy, "Atheists therefore cannot condemn any immoral act, as their worldview posits that morality is nonsense."  In other words, atheists have no moral foundation.

What is apropos concerning my selection for today's mini episode of "What Dune Reads" is our overall topic for today's show - what was that turning point in regards to belief versus unbelief.  Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian" was one of those tipping points.  Also, embedded within Russell's work is a second point I also considered, the Euthyphro dilemma:

The following is taken from the subsection "The moral arguments for deity":

Now we reach one stage further in what I shall call the intellectual descent that the Theists have made in their argumentations, and we come to what are called the moral arguments for the existence of God. You all know, of course, that there used to be in the old days three intellectual arguments for the existence of God, all of which were disposed of by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason; but no sooner had he disposed of those arguments than he invented a new one, a moral argument, and that quite convinced him. He was like many people: in intellectual matters he was skeptical, but in moral matters he believed implicitly in the maxims that he had imbibed at his mother's knee. That illustrates what the psychoanalysts so much emphasize -- the immensely stronger hold upon us that our very early associations have than those of later times.

Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say there would be no right or wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are in this situation: Is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God. You could, of course, if you liked, say that there was a superior deity who gave orders to the God that made this world, or could take up the line that some of the gnostics took up -- a line which I often thought was a very plausible one -- that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.

Sources:

Why I Am Not A Christian by Bertrand Russell
Introductory note: Russell delivered this lecture on March 6, 1927 to the National Secular Society, South London Branch, at Battersea Town Hall. Published in pamphlet form in that same year, the essay subsequently achieved new fame with Paul Edwards' edition of Russell's book, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays ... (1957).




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Mass Shootings Occur Because the Killers Don’t Believe in the Afterlife, Says Writer Who Makes Shit Up

… our culture has abandoned a collective belief in ultimate accountability — the belief that one’s actions on Earth are somehow tied to one’s experience after physical death.

That’s quite the hunch for someone who makes no attempt to explain the religious beliefs of killers. Obviously, atheists (who don’t believe in the afterlife) aren’t known for their violent beliefs. The only numbers we have (and they’re admittedly far from perfect) show that the percentage of atheists is much lower in federal prison than it is in the general population.

It’s very tempting to blame violence on a lack of supernatural accountability — what a simple answer! — but most atheists will tell you they have their own method of accountability that has nothing to do with a fear of hell. They believe in the Golden Rule, they respect their fellow humans, etc. I’m not saying atheists can’t be criminals, but our ethics are no less meaningful or solid than the arbitrary morality of many religions.

Hell, we’ve seen plenty of examples of terrorists or cult leaders who have committed horrific acts of violence (or led mass suicides) precisely because they thought they would be rewarded in the afterlife.

Mass Shootings Occur Because the Killers Don’t Believe in the Afterlife, Says Writer Who Makes Shit Up

See: Do mass shooters believe in the afterlife?

The destructive myth about religion that Americans disproportionately believe - Salon.com

This week, Pew Research Center published the results of a survey conducted among 40,080 people in 40 countries between 2011 and 2013. The survey asked a simple question: Is belief in God essential to morality? While clear majorities say it is necessary, the U.S. continues to be an outlier.

In 22 of the 40 countries surveyed, the majority says it is necessary to believe in God in order to be a moral person. “This position is highly prevalent, if not universal, in Africa and the Middle East,” says the report. No surprise there, but Asian and Latin countries such as Indonesia (99 percent), Malaysia (89 percent), the Philippines (99 percent), El Salvador (93 percent), and Brazil (86 percent) all fell in the highest percentile of respondents believing belief in a god (small G) is central to having good values.

Interestingly, clear majorities in all highly developed countries do not think belief in god to be necessary for morality, with one exception only: the USA.

[,,,]
So what of the U.S.? A comparatively eye-popping 53 percent of Americans essentially believe atheists and agnostics are living in sin. Despite the fact that a research analyst at the Federal Bureau of Prisons determined that atheists are thoroughly underrepresented in the places where rapists, thieves and murderers invariably end up: prisons. While atheists make upward of 15 percent of the U.S. population, they only make up 0.2 percent of the prison population.

The destructive myth about religion that Americans disproportionately believe - Salon.com

But What About Your Daughter | Leaving Your Religion

Years ago, when I was a youth pastor, I read an article in a youth ministry magazine that claimed 85% of all Christians accepted Christ before the age of eighteen. Based on these statistics, it encouraged youth workers to redouble their efforts to save youth and children. Once they went off to college or began exploring the world, the odds of young adults becoming religious were greatly diminished. Back then, I thought that outcome a tragedy.

When I was teaching religious doctrine to children, I never thought of it as indoctrination. As a religious person, I had the responsibility of raising them in the faith. While orthodox theology allowed for an age of accountability before which children weren’t morally responsible, every Christian parent was overjoyed when their son or daughter accepted Christ. The pressure was off. Their eternal destiny was assured.

Back then, if someone had suggested children weren’t developmentally capable of making an informed decision about religious belief, I would have missed the point. You indoctrinated children when they were most malleable, assuring their adherence to your religion’s beliefs and practices, because you loved them. This indoctrination, though inappropriate from a non-religious perspective, was the religious equivalent of a vaccination. You were protecting your children from ideas and experiences that might destroy them, from choices and actions that might damn them to hell. To do otherwise was irresponsible.

Now that I’m non-religious, I try to remember the religious motive. I remember the mother, who when I publicly abandoned a belief in hell, chastised me for threatening one of her tools for raising her children. She said, “Without the threat of hell, how do you expect me to raise a moral child?” This woman was not a negligent, abusive parent. Indeed, within her religious framework, she was an exemplary mother. Though she worried about hell, her primary concern was raising a moral child.

[,,,]
Again, I try to remember my indoctrination. I was taught that without religious training moral development was problematic, if not impossible. This prejudice was difficult for me to abandon. Since my moral training happened within a religious context, it was hard to imagine raising children without that undergirding. What could possibly replace the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule and the parables of Jesus? This anxiety may explain why many parents, though they no longer have much interest in religion, often return to their childhood religious communities when they become parents. They don’t know where else to go.

But What About Your Daughter | Leaving Your Religion

Where does our sense of right and wrong come from?

We watch chimps at a primate research center sharing blackberries, observe 3-year-olds fighting over toys, and tour Eastern State Penitentiary -- the country's first penitentiary. Plus, a story of land grabbing, indentured servitude, and slumlording in the fourth grade.


Just some random thoughts that came to mind as I listened.  The question of morality and where it "comes" from and how something is determined to be a moral action has caused me to ponder. 

Random thought #1:
Every time I think about the trolley problem two scenes from  Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan come to mind.

Saavik: Admiral, may I ask you a question?
Kirk: What's on your mind, Lieutenant?
Saavik: The Kobayashi Maru, sir.
Kirk: Are you asking me if we're playing out that scenario now?
Saavik: On the test, sir... will you tell me what you did? I would really like to know.
McCoy: Lieutenant, you are looking at the only Starfleet cadet who ever beat the no-win scenario.
Saavik: How?
Kirk: I reprogrammed the simulation so it was possible to rescue the ship.
Saavik: What?
David Marcus: He cheated.
Kirk: I changed the conditions of the test; got a commendation for original thinking. I don't like to lose.
Saavik: Then you never faced that situation... faced death.
Kirk: I don't believe in the no-win scenario.

And:

Kirk: Spock!
Spock: The ship... out of danger?
Kirk: Yes.
Spock: Don't grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh...
Kirk: ...the needs of the few...
Spock: ...Or the one. I never took the Kobayashi Maru test until now. What do you think of my solution?
Spock: I have been and always shall be your friend.
[Holds up his hand in the Vulcan salute]
Spock: Live long and prosper.

Random thought #2
Now in regards to the Kobayashi Maru, for the first scenario I have come up with a solution (or should I say I think I have) -- throw the lever half-way and derail the trolley (since there is no mention of a trolley driver or passengers, no injury or deaths). I haven't quite figured out a solution to the second scenario tho short of self sacrifice which brings in Spock's reference to Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong."

Random thought #3
As mentioned, the dialogue in the death scene of Spock can be "traced" to the utilitarianism of Bentham and John Stuart Mill. But just how old is this sentiment? Where did it originate?

• Aristotle in "Nicomachean Ethics" says that everyone agrees that eudaimonia is the highest good for human beings, but that there is substantial disagreement on what sort of life counts as doing and living well.
• There is Augustine and Aquinas, both who explored happiness.
• Machiavelli believed that the actions of a state, however cruel or ruthless they may be, must contribute towards the common good of a society.
• Hume also touches on morality in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals: "In all determinations of morality, this circumstance of public utility is ever principally in view; and wherever disputes arise, either in philosophy or common life, concerning the bounds of duty, the question cannot, by any means, be decided with greater certainty, than by ascertaining, on any side, the true interests of mankind." (Sounds a bit like Socrates in regards to Euthyphro's second definition of piety.)

From a biblical perspective, we have:

• John 11:49-50::But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish."
• Romans 2:14-15::For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.

Just some thoughts to ponder and explore!!