Where do atheists get their morals from?

[The Brain]

Myself, I've always had a doubt God exists, so I can't say I'd find His existence proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

But balance of probabilities?  Well like I said you have lots of witnesses who say they've seen Him and talked to Him.  You have the historical records showing His words (the Bible).  And you'll find plenty of Experts who say looking at the world and its beauty means there is a God.

So yes - I think His existence could be proven on a balance of probabilities.

Wow.

[Martinus]

Myself, I've always had a doubt God exists, so I can't say I'd find His existence proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

But balance of probabilities?  Well like I said you have lots of witnesses who say they've seen Him and talked to Him.  You have the historical records showing His words (the Bible).  And you'll find plenty of Experts who say looking at the world and its beauty means there is a God.

So yes - I think His existence could be proven on a balance of probabilities.

Wow.

The fact that the Canadian tax payer is paying this guy to evaluate facts and make judgement calls about a balance of probabilities makes it extra funny. Or scary. 

[Viking]

Myself, I've always had a doubt God exists, so I can't say I'd find His existence proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

But balance of probabilities?  Well like I said you have lots of witnesses who say they've seen Him and talked to Him.  You have the historical records showing His words (the Bible).  And you'll find plenty of Experts who say looking at the world and its beauty means there is a God.

So yes - I think His existence could be proven on a balance of probabilities.

Wow.

The fact that the Canadian tax payer is paying this guy to evaluate facts and make judgement calls about a balance of probabilities makes it extra funny. Or scary. 

like most other believers he sets different standards for how he evaluates claims for the existence of god and other claims. 6 days out of 7 he demands proof for incredible assertions and on sunday he doesn't. What annoys me is his avoidance of this issue. That is why he brought up the hijab and why ignored my question about the truth of the rapist's statement and talked about how it was still rape even if she really meant yes when she said no.

Regarding the truth of the Jesus claim on the balance of probabilities.

1 - who are these witnesses who say they have seen Him and talked to Him? And would you accept that testimony as evidence for his existence in court?

2 - how do you know what is ascribed to him in the bible are his words? And would you accept the explanations you just gave to this question in court?

3 - who are these experts and what are their bona fides? And why would you give them more credence than the biologists, geologists, physicists, chemists and astro-physicists that not only testify that it is all a result of mindless natural forces but can prove it.

[Neil]

Oh look.  Now Martinus has joined Viking.  Now his Axis of Hate will be invincible, right?

[Viking]

Oh look.  Now Martinus has joined Viking.  Now his Axis of Hate will be invincible, right?

We are renaming it Axis of Dreadnaught, join us and we can rule the galaxy together as eh.. atheist and landlocked dreadnaught pilot.

[Valmy]

And I would hope the people who don't read what I write and then declare it bigoted don't post in threads I start. Unfortunately they don't.

This is Languish.  That makes us more likely to post in the thread not less.

[Valmy]

3 - who are these experts and what are their bona fides? And why would you give them more credence than the biologists, geologists, physicists, chemists and astro-physicists that not only testify that it is all a result of mindless natural forces but can prove it.

Ok how can you prove anything about the personal qualities of natural forces?  This seems to me like saying they can prove it is a result of 'good' or 'bad' or 'tap-dancing' natural forces.

[Viking]

And I would hope the people who don't read what I write and then declare it bigoted don't post in threads I start. Unfortunately they don't.

This is Languish.  That makes us more likely to post in the thread not less.

Well played, touché

[Viking]

3 - who are these experts and what are their bona fides? And why would you give them more credence than the biologists, geologists, physicists, chemists and astro-physicists that not only testify that it is all a result of mindless natural forces but can prove it.

Ok how can you prove anything about the personal qualities of natural forces?  This seems to me like saying they can prove it is a result of 'good' or 'bad' or 'tap-dancing' natural forces.

That's what I want BB to tell me, he is making that assertion not me. I'm arguing that the state of the natural world is what it is as a result of mindless natural forces. My scientists don't try to prove that the world is good, bad or tapdancing or that those adjectives can be sensibly be used to describe any natural forces. BB is arguing that there are experts who can testify that the beauty and goodness of the world can be used to add to the probability of gods existence.

Gravity, Evolution and Wave motion are not good or bad, these adjectives do not apply to these natural forces.

[garbon]

Your scientists?

[Viking]

Your scientists?

Yes, I keep a biologist, chemist, physicist and geologist in my pocket at all times. I don't let the stinky astrophysicists near my wiener.

What the fuck do you think I meant? Yes, my scientists are the actual scientists I would call to witness in my hypothetical trial trying to determine the existence of god on the balance of probabilities.

I suggest you are being deliberately obtuse here.

[garbon]

[grumbler]

I don't see how there could be a trial, let alone a verdict, on the issue of "the existence of god on the balance of probabilities."

The trial would have to balance the probability of X and the probability of Y, where neither can be quantified or even defined.

Whether there is a "mind" behind natural forces is one of those unknowable questions, for which Occam's Razor seems the only tool to guide us:  do we need to assume an entity behind natural forces in order to explain them?  No.  OR tells us, then, not to assume them.

OR isn't a legal concept, I don't believe, but then, this isn't a legal question.

[Neil]

Oh look.  Now Martinus has joined Viking.  Now his Axis of Hate will be invincible, right?

We are renaming it Axis of Dreadnaught, join us and we can rule the galaxy together as eh.. atheist and landlocked dreadnaught pilot.

I'm already part of the Axis of Dreadnought with the ghost of Jackie Fisher and Zombie Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Besides, once Martinus joined, it became uncool.  He'll have Apple products and high-heeled shoes all over the clubhouse.  And I'm no less an atheist than you.  I'm just intolerant in different ways.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well yes. I find it hard to understand how you can be anything other than a fundamentalist literalist if you actually belive in god and accept what the various religions say about what god wants from you. How can you ignore the creator of the universe when he calls?

Because religions don't necassarily present themselves in the way you seem to think.
As an example, in Christianity, Jesus' typical mode of communication is through parable or similar metaphorical presentation.  That should be a big clue that a strictly literal approach is neither intended or appropriate.

Well, given that the content of the OP is all about how most normal people decide for themselves what is moral and pick and choose from whatever book is the local holy book for the justification they need, ignoring what contradicts their natural morality I venture to suggest that I do. They choose to accept the dogmas they are willing to accept. They get neither their faith, religion or their morals from their religious texts, they merely twist and manipulate their existing texts to fit into the faith, religion and morality they already hold.

They are making this stuff up for themselves while they insist that others take the book as truth. This is what makes them lying amoral scumbags. They claim this comes from god, telling this to children, while ignoring what doesn't suit them. What I do not understand is how you can actually believe there is a god while striking out the bits of his message to you that doesn't suite you?   

You are again presuming there is a "natural morality" that is universal and innate, which is a very dubious proposition.  To the extent you are relying on some evolutionary mechanism to explain morality, the claim borders on the non-falsiable: there is no "fossil record" of mental constructs.  It also contradicts what I would posit as a common sense view of how ethical behavior manifests - namely, most people adopt various simple heuristics and maxims as they are exposed to them.  That is, most people "pick and choose" from an array of potential ethical rules and heuristics, typically influenced by parents, peer groups, teachers or mentors.  In this respect, ethical concept and moral rule formation pretty much involves the same process regardless of religious sect, and regardless of whether one is theist or atheist.  The only difference is that the theist is more likely to have their "picks" influnced by clergy, whereas the atheist is more likely to adopt maxims or principles that, while identical in substance to certain religious maxims and principles, have the word "God" taken out.

The rest of this post is attaking strawmen.  Who are these unknown adversaries that insist that others adopt a strict literalist interpretation of a text and yet don't do so themselves? 

My case is that it is genetic and memetic. Our moral sentiments are composed of instinctive, evolved and learned morality. We have identified instinctive behaviours to like all children, men actually have an instinctive behaviour to belive any baby he thinks might be his looks like him. Playing musical chairs with newborns in hospitals can be done legally and ethically and has been done. Our attachment to puppies and kittens is much the same since they share the infantile attributes we often ascribe to babies and feel protective of. This is merely one example of many.

What I possibly did not make clear (I thought it was obvious) is that I am talking about a descriptive morality and ethics, not a normative one (at this point your use of the word "rationalistic" becomes uncomfortable to me given is meaning opposed to "empiricistic" rather than the often confusing use meaning using reason). 

It's not descriptive -- a descriptive account would involve a taxonomy of ethical phenomena and an analysis of principles that might underlie them - you are advancing something different, which is theory of origins.  And it is a very dubious theory because the axiomatic claims are contestable (e.g. the claim of instinctive sympathy towards children and small animals as a foundational basis of ethics immediately encounters the uncomfortable reality of highly variant attitudes towards father-child relationships and treatment of small animals across scoeities) and the difficulties of extrapolating the richness and depth of systems of moral reasoning from such simple biological axioms in a manner that doesn't reduce to question begging.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_ethics

This is a quick overview, but the thing is that this is a developed field, Huxley was working on this in the 19th century. The problem is testing the hypothesis since no conceivable experiment that is both ethical, legal and likely to be completed within the lifetime of anybody alive is possible. This field only becomes controversial when religion is allowed to opine on it. 

The problem is that the hypothesis is not testable at all becuase any empirical social phenomemon can be "explained" by being hammered into an evolutionary explanation.  Thus evolution can be used to explain selfishness but also altruism.   ANY social constuct or behavior can be argued to have an evolutionary advantage in some context, because "fitness" or selectivity for evolutionary purposes is not invariant, but highly context-based.  Which is a particular problem where the relevant context - human social interaction - is subject to extreme variability and change, and variability that is endogenous in terms of interaction of the human faculty of reason and speculation with that contextual change.

This is why Hume's point about divorcing the empirical from normative ethical reasoning is well taken.