The War On Bullshit

I was recently told by a Christian that I, being an atheist, am intrinsically immoral, having nothing on which to base my morality. I think with the Pope’s recent visit to our fair shores, this is a great statement for me to sink my teeth into. For all you Christians who think atheists lack a moral compass, I’ve got the real good news: belief in an imaginary father-figure is not necessary to define your morals, and, in fact, religious moral authority often prevents tolerance of other systems of morality.

This theory hinges on a few concepts I’ll discuss: moral relativism, the subjective nature of human life, and the flawed philosophy of Plato.

The Problem with Plato
Let’s start with the groundwork. For those of you unfamiliar with Platonic idealism, here’s the real short version: Plato believed that there was an objective reality out there, and truth is an accurate representation of this objective reality. Now, this sounds good – it’s easy to digest, and wraps everything up in a happy black and white picture. If reality is objective, then good is good, bad is bad, and ugly is ugly.

There are, however, some serious problems with Plato. Richard Rorty, a postmodern philosopher, argues in Contingency, Irony and Solidarity that big-T Truth is a problem because man interprets everything through language. Don’t buy it? How are your thoughts organized? BINGO! Language. Language is seen by Rorty as nothing but a series of metaphors; the word tree is not, in fact, a tree, but merely a verbal image representing a tree. He thus comes to the conclusion that language must be subjective, since we all have slightly differing interpretations of these metaphors. You may see an oak tree, while I envision a pine tree, for instance. Rorty and other postmodernists believe, rather than in Truth, in truths. To the postmodern philosophers, there is no objective reality – or, rather, mankind can never find objective reality because we are limited by the subjectivity of the language with which we interpret the world. This leads to some interesting concepts regarding morality…

Moral Relativism
Moral relativism is a concept espoused by existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, who believed a human being’s morals are subjective and based on cultural and societal norms rather than some objective morality given to us by God. This hinges on the above-expressed idea that reality itself is subjective, of course. Moral relativists often argue that someone’s morality is only applicable within their own culture, and can’t be applied to other, conflicting cultures. There are some problems with this theory as well; moral relativism implies that we can each create our own morals, and since we each create our own moral code, no one is immoral. I tend to subscribe to a more practical view: morals are socially constructed. Individual cultures come to a consensus of what is considered immoral.

Conclusion
“So what the heck is your point, Riley?” you might be asking. My point is, atheists are perfectly able to be moral, righteous individuals. If morals are relative to the culture, my morality is based on the same Western ideals as the morality of any Christian. The idea that an atheist cannot be moral is based on a concept I just don’t buy into: that we have some Truth handed down to us by a nonexistent God.

Kavan pointed out in an earlier article that the Ten Commandments are missing some very important rules; for instance, rape is wrong, despite not being in the Ten Commandments. I think we can all agree that a rapist is not a moral individual; where does this come from, if the Bible does not command it as part of your moral foundation? It’s because rape is damaging to society, and thus goes against our collective, cultural moral foundation.

Now here’s the leap: atheism and moral relativism actually breed more tolerance than mainstream, Christian ideology. Christians’ belief that morals and Truth are handed down by God (not any god, but their God), has led many (not all) Christians to believe those of other belief systems are wrong, going to hell, and generally bad and immoral people. Because I do not follow the Word of God, I must be an immoral person. Worse than individual persecution, religious morality breeds systemic intolerance.

Ex.:The Bible says in Leviticus 20:13, “And if a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” There are vast armies of Christians who argue that this is the way we actually ought to treat homosexuality. Because their religion is a system of rules given to them by a divine, infallible Creator, His words make it okay to persecute and even put to death those who go against His divine morality.

Moral relativism and a belief that the world itself is subjective allows one to gain a better appreciation for why other cultures do the things they do, and allows for a more tolerant view of them. That being said, this problem is not unique to Christianity – this kind of superiority complex is pervasive in almost all organized religions. Each one thinks they have the Ultimate Truth, and the others are all wrong.

Not to sound too much like a Beatles song, but imagine if people worldwide accepted the notion that morality is a societal invention. Since it is no longer something given to us by some infallible source, and is, in fact, a creation of mankind, the other religions of the world are no longer immoral and wrong. They’ve just got a different view of the truth. After all, they’re all shooting for the same target, right? “Do unto others…”

In a previous post, I identified a dialectic reasoning pattern I call the “new stupid” pattern. Here is another example.

Old stupid argument: violent video games make children more dangerous and lead to fighting, gang violence, school shootings, etc.

New stupid argument: its absurd that atomizing monsters with the BFG and sniping aliens would translate too are more violent temperament. This is just fear mongering by out of touch senior citizens.

What’s actually going on: in The Republic, Plato emphasized the importance of the stories told children and how people’s minds are affected by the stories to which they are exposed. Our culture glorifies violence. The ubiquitous exaltation of violence is prominent in video games, board games, movies, television, advertisements, news, the wars being fought, medals given to soldiers, classic and contemporary literature, and religious texts.

Are violent video games contributing to violence in society? Certainly, but no more so than any other medium.

Should society limit children’s access to violent games? Perhaps, but only if we’re willing to limit access to other violent media, including the Bible.

Recently, Barrack Obama argued that homophobia was unchristian. This is another one of these “New Stupid” things I’ve been talking about.

Here’s an analysis of anti-gay bible verses from the old and new testaments. It gives both pro- and anti-gay interpretations of each controversial verse. I think the anti-gay interpretations are clearly closer to the original meaning. A pro-gay interpretation of “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination” is a bit of a stretch.

Homophobia is very Christian. Does that mean that homosexuality is immoral? NO. Christianity is immoral! Don’t believe me? Have you ever read the bible? Oh yeah, Jesus wanted everyone to love each other, but the old-testament God was a genocidal psychopath. Don’t believe me? Go READ the shit. And don’t give me any counter-arguments about those parts being wrong but the “basic teachings” being right. The basic teachings are just as crazy as the rest. To summarize:

Old Stupid Idea: Homosexuality is unnatural and ungodly because it says so in the bible
New Stupid Idea: Homophobia is unchristian
Intelligent Idea: Perhaps if the bible glorifies rape and murder, cheerleads for genocide, accepts slavery and demonizes women and homosexuals it’s a stupid book representing an immoral religion.

While I’m on the subject, I just finished reading Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope. One thing he brings up is the separation between supporting the troops and criticizing policy. I’ve dealt with this before. But let’s take it to a new level:

Old Stupid Idea: Criticizing the war is not supporting the troops, hence unpatriotic
New Stupid Idea: Criticizing war policies has nothing to do with the troops, hence not unpatriotic (Obama)
Intelligent Idea: What’s wrong with criticizing the military??? The military attracts all kinds of misfits and fuckheads!

Begin Tangential Rant.

And whether or not your darling son was one of the fuckheads before he got shot is irrelevant. I used to work at McDonald’s. You won’t hear my mother defending some idiot who works there just because I used to. Furthermore, if your son died while working for McDonald’s because General Ronald sent him to do something stupid and dangerous for no good goddamn reason, would you defend McDonald’s? NO! So why do you defend the military??? GET A CLUE.

End Tangential Rant.

Let’s review what we have on the US military to date. We’ve got rape and possibly murder of female soldiers by their male counterparts. We’ve got totally uncalled for cruelty to animals. We’ve got generally terrorizing kids and more specifically gang rape/murder of a 14-year old girl. Oh, and there’s been plenty of killing innocent people.

I could go on, but there’s already a comprehensive, well-cited list of atrocities and war crimes by american soldiers here.

So can we please drop this ban on criticizing the troops? And don’t give me any bullshit about them giving their lives for “our freedoms.” Message to Americans: in case you haven’t noticed, the people taking away your freedoms are not in Iraq, they’re in the White House.

In Obama’s defense, he may understand these points very well. He may simply be downplaying such controversial arguments for the very good reason that making them would not go over well with the (undereducated, brainwashed and delusional) voting public. It’s not like any of the other remaining candidates have this stuff figured out. I’m just saying, I hope it’s an act. The current US president is clearly part of the “Old Stupid” class. If the next president is part of the “New Stupid” class, he or she will just find new and exciting ways to fuck everything up.

Edit: I can’t help but throw in one more great reason to criticize the army: discrimination against atheists.