Collegiate Times

The establishment and free exercise clauses prevent the federal congress (and by extension of the 14th amendment, state congresses) from enacting laws abridging expression of religion or speech. Nobody's rights were abridged in the writing of that column. Further, given our propensity for arguing in favor of free speech, it seems odd to assert that the column in question ought not be tolerated - while nobody is compelled to enjoy or agree with Ms. Aldrich's commentary, she is entitled to write and print it, and readers of a pro-free-speech persuasion are obligated necessarily to tolerate its printing.

It's unfortunate that you jumped to conclusions, I would have expected better than that from an instructor (especially one obviously aware of scientific method). What I was alluding to in my article, and the part you were so offended by, was that our rights under our founding documents were granted by a higher power, not man. ("All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.") If man were to have granted us those rights, than the majority could just as easily take them away. While I have no problem voting for an atheist (provided they had similar political beliefs as me) I was warning that if our nation ever moves to the point where the majority believes our rights were endowed by man, that is not a country I'd feel comfortable living in. If humans are the highest power on Earth, than it follows (evolutionary-wise) that the laws would evolve with the beliefs of the majority. What you interpreted as intolerance was rather my fear of an intolerant majority who could just as easily decide to take rights away as to grant them.

Therein lies the dilemma. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ms. Aldrich thinks man is not capable of creating a code of ethics comparable to that established by a monotheistic religion. This opposes the cornerstone of atheist thought, in that atheists believe evolution and socialization have instilled all that man needs to define decent standards of interaction. In atheist thought, our rights are not whimsically endowed by the ideals of the current generation (as she seems to fear), but rather instilled in us by millions of years of survival. To the contrary, she says "our rights under our founding documents were granted by a higher power". Surely it is possible to logically formulate that same list of inalienable rights without inclusion of a higher power.

God(s) come and go at the whim of man. If you can not believe in man, you can not believe in god.

CRL, it is true that I am reluctant to see the majority of people believing their individual rights are endowed by man. While I do not doubt the current ability of atheists to come up with a code of ethics (In my article I merely wondered how they do), I do not want my individual rights dependent on whatever direction evolution (or any other set of standards atheists find their moral guidance from) might take. As an example, what if it becomes evolutionary beneficial to kill off certain types of people because there isn't enough food or space for people to live? What if society eventually became accepting of this practice because of their understanding of the situation? I would like to know that my right to life is not dependent on a group of people who put all of their faith in a code of evolutionary-beneficial ethics. Instead, as our Founding Fathers stated, I would like to know that my rights are unalienable and granted to me by a higher power than man.

Allison, your argument that morals from atheists are derivative of evolutionary-beneficial ethics is a false dichotomy and a red herring. This fallacy implies that one is linked to the other in a purely deterministic fashion. That is not true. Evolution is only part of the equation of morality. The other part has more to do with human nature, which is derived primary by social forces such as socialization. We know these forces exist because science has observed them many times. That's where the ideas come from and where morality is shaped. It's also worth noting that the founding father weren't Christians. Most were Deists. These processes are are affected by belief in god, but it just isn't the source. It's only the source if you believe it is. That, however, doesn't change the truth.

It should be noted that Franklin crossed out "sacred" and wrote "self-evident" when editing the 2nd paragraph of Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Interesting, Allison, that you bring up specifically the eugenics movement. In fact, this early 20th century movement provided the basis for a whole series of moral questions, many of which continue today. There are those in socitey who, for instance, advocate for the termination of pregnancies when the mother is aware that her child will have a birth defect. Is this advice morally reprehensible? I personally believe that it is, and others likely believe that it is not. We haven't evolved enough to answer all of these moral questions, but there are moral principles which seem to transcend time and generally seem like 'the right thing to do.' Are these principles instilled in us by a creator, or are they simply developed traits that we have been trained to accept as universal truth? Metaphysics and metaethics are pretty interesting fields of study.

...right before it says they are are *endowed by their Creator* with certain unalienable Rights... so the CC weren't sure, either.

"Expected better" Allison? Give me a break. While all of these discussions have been great and fruitful, it seems that many of the misunderstandings and nastiness have resulted from a poorly written opinion piece that apparently didn't convey what the author intended. When you put your opinion out there for public scrutiny, expect it. If my interpretation wasn't the actual intent, perhaps it's not my fault but the author's. As I said in my comments yesterday, anyone can have any opinion, and I don't want to discredit them. Remember that biological explanations for "morals" do NOT say that each individual decides them at the beginning of life. Instead millenia of evolution have ingrained certain behavior patterns that were and still may be advantageous.

Further, who says humans are the highest power on Earth? We are merely one piece (and a very recent one) of a much larger world.

Allison, you say that you do not want your rights to be endowed by man or evolution. I am assuming that this means you believe your rights have been endowed by a higher being. Taking into account the sources that many major religions use to interpret god's will (Bible, Torah, Qur'an) I think we see that many of the rights we hold dear in our society such as freedom of speech, equality for women and minorities, etc are not advocated and even discouraged. Now this does not prove that there isn't a higher being that instills us with basic rights, it just shows that if there is the major religions of today certainly have not done well interpreting the will of this being assuming that the rights we hold today are the intent of that being.

You believe that our natural rights were given to us by a divine being, but which one? You just assume that it's a nice guy who gives us good rights. We just as easily could have been created by an "evil" god who wants us to kill each other, and so we have no rights to life. The only objective reason why we believe that we have the rights we do is through evolution. Working together works best, and thus the Golden Rule (which was no created by Jesus). If I believe that Joe should be killed, then what if someone thinks that I should be killed? If we all work together, everything is great. It just makes the most sense. We don't need any sort of higher being to relay such common sense to us. Finally, our rights in this country WERE given to us by men. God didn't hand us the Constitution -- a collection of primarily deists and atheists wrote it.

I am an atheist, with 12 years of college in moral philosophy motivated by my desire to leave the world a better place than it would have otherwise been. There is no God, and the morality that people say comes from God actually came from people who have been dead for quite some time and who were substantially ignorant of the world around them. Using the Bible as the ultimate source of morality is like using Hypocrates as the ultimate source in medicine - we are ignoring a great deal that we have learned since then, to our great detriment.

By the way, the idea that morality comes from biology has just as many problems as the idea that morality comes from God. "Is X just because it is loved by our genes, or is it loved by our genes because it is just?" If the former, then anything loved by our genes would be just. For example, male lions kill all of their step children, and nature invented the predator and the parasite - it is not all altruism and cooperation. If, on the other hand X is loved by our genes because it is just, then what is justice, and what is it about justice that has caused it to be loved by our genes?

There is no objective morality. It is defined by society. What is good for one society is not acceptable in another. Also, morality changes over time within a society.

Allison Aldrich wrote, "Our rights under our founding documents were granted by a higher power, not man. (“All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”) If man were to have granted us those rights, than the majority could just as easily take them away." Allison, are you saying that slaves in the early USA had the same rights as whites? Or are you saying that slaves did not qualify as "men"?

Andrew: Beliefs about morality change from society to society and change over time. This does not prove that morality itself changes. Indeed, scientific beliefs also change from society to society and change over time. It does not prove that the laws of nature also change. In fact, if morality is not objective then it makes no sense to have any moral beliefs at all. A belief is a propositional attitude - attitude that a proposition is true. It makes no sense to have a belief that P is immoral unless it makes sense for the proposition 'P is immoral' to be true.

Alonzo, where in your training have you met conclusive proof that there exists no God? The fact that there isn't any proof that God exists doesn't lend itself to the conclusion that he does not exist - just like the lack of conclusive proof that the world was round didn't justify a conclusion that it was flat.

Alonzo: You can prove scientific facts. I can prove to you that we live in a heliocentric solar system. Prove to me, however, that murder is "evil." It violates some guy's rights? Prove to me that he deserves those rights in the first place (and not with a subjective lawmaker's sanctions). You can't. That's why morality is subjective. And it does make sense to have "moral beliefs." Like I said in my letter, cooperation works best in a society. When everyone is happy and working together, life is much easier and fun. That's why we have our moral beliefs -- evolution says, "If you two work together, then you'll both survive."

Kyle: I have not met conclusive proof that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy, but I quit believing that they were real a long time ago. There is an infinite list of things (literally) of which I have no conclusive proof of their non-existence, but which have no practical value. In fact, I there are an infinite number of possible gods whose existence all equally lack evidence. Given equal amounts of evidence (zero) for any one of a set of infinite possible gods justifies equal amounts of belief in any one of an infinite list of possible gods. If you want me to give any one God a higher belief status than any other, then I need evidence that points to that one god and no other.

Because there wasn't enough evidence to justify a spherical earth, it doesn't automatically mean that we should assume the earth is flat, as Kyle said. But claiming that the world is flat requires evidence, just like claiming that God exists requires evidence. We claim that many things do not exist until we have proof otherwise: guilt in a court-of-law, Santa Claus, Atlantis, etc. The burden of proof is on the believer of God.

Prove to me that a proof of that murder is evil is not possible. If all you can tell me is that you do not know how to prove it, then you have an argument from ignorance. "I do not know how to do X; therefore, it is not possible to do X." The best you have given me is evidence that one cannot say one way or the other whether morality is subjective or objective. Your statements about what 'works best', or 'is easier' or 'fun' all have to do with practical rationality. It has nothing to do with morality. If the best way to go from Denver to Cheyenne Wyoming is to drive north on I-25, this hardly proves that one has a moral duty to drive north on I-25.

But, Alonzo, there is a significant difference between claiming that a God *probably* doesn't exist (which, evidently, your experience and intuition indicate) and claiming that there is conclusive proof that no such God exists. Your assessment that a belief in God has no practical value is a personal opinion, not an objective fact - and needs to be considered as such. That isn't to say that your opinion is necessarily wrong or unfounded - there isn't any evidence either way. But where you base your opinions on the scientific laws of probability, I base mine, at least in part, on faith. That doesn't invalidate either opinion - so it is worthwhile to pursue the remainder of this discussion in a more abstract sense. The goal here isn't to convince people that God does or does not exist - most people who read and comment here are already pretty well convinced one way or the other on that topic anyway. But then, the point of discussion is never to convince - it is only to inform.

As I said, I give every element of an infinite list of entities for which there is zero evidence of existence equal consideration. The only equality possible for such a large and mutually contradictory set is zero. This is not a 'personal opinion', it is as solid as any mathematical fact. If somebody wishes to take one of those entities and give it a higher consideration on the basis of 'faith', I do not care - unless they have 'faith' that it is permissible for them to act in ways harmful to others. The person who has 'faith' that killing apostates, denying women the freedom to drive or to travel without the company of a man, praying without seeking medical care while their 11 year old daughter dies of an easily treatable disease, they have taken faith too far. When it comes to behavior that is harmful to others, those who will do harm need something more substantive than faith that the harm they do is justified.

All, certainly, valid opinions - none of which amount to a universal truth that God does not exist. I'm not challenging your belief - that isn't the point - I'm simply stating that such broad-brush assertions as "There is no God," while perhaps valid as observations, don't really have a lot of objective proof to back them up aside from the desire of the human mind to reject that which it cannot see. I don't disagree with you that faith can be taken too far - but the fact that it is taken too far in some instances doesn't lend additional credence to the assertion that theism as a whole is necessarily dangerous. Bottom line - your opinions and arguments are well-taken, I just want to make sure that they are qualified as such (as I attempt to qualify my opinions as such).

Ok, fine, there is no conclusive proof that God does not exist. But God has as much evidence as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy do. There, happy? Now, for Alonzo: You can't prove morality because it relies on the assumptions that people have inherent rights given to them. Where do they get these rights from? You said so yourself that there is no God, so where do people get inherent rights from? For being alive? Then how come we kill living things? Do we have rights because we're humans and believe that we're better than others? How do we justify this? Because we happen to be human? Then why don't we become more specific and start justifying more specific classes of humans as being superior, and afforded more rights? Until you can prove that people were given rights, you can't prove that there is any sort of objective morality concerning them.

First tell me what a god is, and I'll tell you how it can't be.

Andrew: I hold that moral claims are propositions and some moral claims are objectively true. However, I agree with you that there is no such thing as 'inherent rights' - those claims are not the claims that are objectively true. Your argument here commits the fallacy of false dichotomy. You are asserting; "Either inherent rights, or subjective morality." There are, in this case a few dozen alternative moral systems that do not depend on the existence of 'inherent rights.' In fact, rights theories did not even come into existence until the 1600s. Your ability to find fault with a 400-year-old theory does not prove that no theory can work, any more than an ability to find fault with a 400-year-old theory of disease (e.g., the 'bad air' theory) proves that modern medicine must be rejected.

By the way, Andrew, I do hold that rights exist and moral statements that talk about rights can be objectively true. However, 'rights' in objectively true moral statements are not inherent properties. They are relational properties. Yet, relational properties can be objective. "The Earth is 93 million miles from the sun" is a relational property, but also an objectively true statement.

MkHokie: More people have been killed in the name of religion than atheism. And more murderers are religious than atheist. Alonzo: What morals are objective? And how would you prove that they are?

And more people have been killed in the name of politics than in the name of theism and atheism combined. And you return once again to utilizing a comparison based on a correlation rather than a causality. At least in the United States, more people are classified as religious than atheist - so it comes as no (statistical) surprise that more murderers are religious than atheist.

Kyle, I don't at all believe that religion *causes* violence... usually. Even the Crusades I would argue weren't so much religious-based. Obviously things in the Bible and whatnot are religious-based, but, overall, I agree with you. I was just telling MkHokie that he's a moron, really. He wants to quote statistics about political actions of people who happened to be atheist, so I quoted statistics about crimes committed by people who happened to be religious.

Oh, I'm well aware of your points, Mr. Shutterly. I simply think its a dangerous path to walk down to start inferring causality from correlation - especially in regards to what 'religious people' do. Often, historically, individuals have used religion as a justification for a purely non-religious end - consider, say, Al-Quaeda. I don't believe for a second that Muslins the world over think that suicide bombings and the deaths of Americans directly further the goal of peace and unity their religion espouses - and yet, Bin Laden continually impresses upon these people the importance to commit such atrocities. Is Bin Laden a devout Muslim? I have no idea - but it really isn't the point one way or another. There are plenty of religious people who are duped daily into believing that their religion says something it very well may not, just as there are hundreds of old people every day who get duped into sending their money to Kenya because their email told them to do so. Gullibility isn't a crime, nor is it immoral - and historically, the most powerful (and evil) leaders have had a habit of preying on the beliefs of their own people to increase their power. That doesn't make religion itself bad - I'd argue that it makes the people who knowingly abuse religion (theists and atheists alike) wholly evil.

I said that I agreed that religion is usually not the cause of atrocities. MkHokie seems to believe that atheism is, though.

(JBH) Comment for Allison... The belief that rights were granted by God does not make rights any more secure than the belief that they were granted by Man, because beliefs about IF, WHEN, WHAT, and TO WHOM rights were given by this God can change, and have changed. If a religious believer wishes to make war or keep slaves or oppress women, all they have to do is persuade themselves that God approves. This seems not to be hard, and no god has ever popped up to tell believers that they were wrong. May I ask, if the god you believe in is Yahveh, the god of the Bible, WHERE and WHEN, in the scriptures, did he grant us these rights? For example, the right to freedom of religion? The right not to be held as a slave? The right to life? The god of the Bible frequently kills, and commands his followers to kill, large numbers of people for things they did not do- see the story of the Exodus, for example, and all the wars of Joshua.