Secularism versus the Demonization of Atheists

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

(Belinda)This illustrates that God does not calculate but that His generosity is boundless.
(Immanuel Can)This is not so. For you have forgotten that all were workmen hired by the "master" in the story. There is no part of this story in which the master distributes money to people who were not his, far less to people who hated him. If you see that there, you're making it up...it's not in the text.

(Belinda)We are all his. You too. You seem not to see that everyone has a measure of goodwill however they call themselves, Jew, atheist, Muslim Christian. Pagan etc.
(Belinda)So , Immanuel, your vengeful God is not the Christian God.
(Immanuel)No, He's the God of justice, who will eventually settle all questions of injustice. He's also the God of free will, who will not force anybody to come to Him. Most of all, He's the God of relationship, who calls us all to choose to be his friends and servants now.

But clearly, it's not an offer everyone takes. It's certainly not an offer He forces on the unwilling. And certainly, if you read the passages I listed, you know that's also what both Christ and the apostles said. So whoever said the contrary to you, he didn't know what he was saying.
(Belinda) True, the God of justice was better than the old pagan tribal god who was jealous of his property and in active combat with other tribal gods in the region.Have you not looked at how The Bible can be read chronologically so that you can see the development of the monogod from small beginnnings to a more universal idea?
(Belinda)You don't even credit Islam where credit is due, so you are also narrow minded.
(Immanuel)Please enlighten me: where do you think "credit" is due to Islam? I have at least taken them seriously enough to actually read the whole Koran and some of the Haddiths, to learn what they actually believe. I've also talked with Islamic persons about how they understand their beliefs.

Have you?

(Belinda) You had suggested that we discuss all the parables of Jesus and I pointed out this is too large an undertaking for these pages. Now you suggest that the entire Koran and Hadith must be read before one Hadith is understood. These pages are not made for long dissertations.The hadith I mentioned does indeed tell the story of the labourers in the vineyard much as Jesus told it. You seem to be avoiding the issue that Islam's god is a god of generosity and mercy same as the Christian version.You mention God's justice; but you confuse God's absolute justice which is tempered with mercy and generosity with human justice and human notions of fairness.
True, we do have to deal with fairness and justice on the human scale, but do you not see that God's justice is larger and always tempered and purified with kindness and mercy?

We are accustomed to occasional Islamic narrowness of vision when Allah's command is taken to be the delivery of human justice, revenge, and so on. Do try to see that your imputing stern human justice to God is the same as that occasional Islamic narrowness.

To appreciate the ethics that Jesus proclaimed and illustrated with parables there is no need first to believe in any supernatural theory of existence. To put into practice the humanitarian ethics there is no need first to believe in any supernatural existence. By affirming a supernatural existence you are reifying the object of men's aspirations and ideals.

Finally, if you want to discuss how Jesus used scenarios from the common farming, herding , fishing,housekeeping etc. experiences of his listeners, do so by all means as this would be interesting and illuminating. But don't confuse the scenarios of the parables with their ethical themes. See the uses of hermeneutics.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

(Belinda)This illustrates that God does not calculate but that His generosity is boundless.
(Immanuel Can)This is not so. For you have forgotten that all were workmen hired by the "master" in the story. There is no part of this story in which the master distributes money to people who were not his, far less to people who hated him. If you see that there, you're making it up...it's not in the text.

(Belinda)We are all his. You too. You seem not to see that everyone has a measure of goodwill however they call themselves, Jew, atheist, Muslim Christian. Pagan etc.

(Belinda)So , Immanuel, your vengeful God is not the Christian God.
(Immanuel)No, He's the God of justice, who will eventually settle all questions of injustice. He's also the God of free will, who will not force anybody to come to Him. Most of all, He's the God of relationship, who calls us all to choose to be his friends and servants now.

But clearly, it's not an offer everyone takes. It's certainly not an offer He forces on the unwilling. And certainly, if you read the passages I listed, you know that's also what both Christ and the apostles said. So whoever said the contrary to you, he didn't know what he was saying.
(Belinda) True, the God of justice was better than the old pagan tribal god who was jealous of his property and in active combat with other tribal gods in the region.Have you not looked at how The Bible can be read chronologically so that you can see the development of the monogod from small beginnnings to a more universal idea?

(Belinda)You don't even credit Islam where credit is due, so you are also narrow minded.
(Immanuel)Please enlighten me: where do you think "credit" is due to Islam? I have at least taken them seriously enough to actually read the whole Koran and some of the Haddiths, to learn what they actually believe. I've also talked with Islamic persons about how they understand their beliefs.

Have you?

(Belinda) You had suggested that we discuss all the parables of Jesus and I pointed out this is too large an undertaking for these pages. Now you suggest that the entire Koran and Hadith must be read before one Hadith is understood. These pages are not made for long dissertations.The hadith I mentioned does indeed tell the story of the labourers in the vineyard much as Jesus told it. You seem to be avoiding the issue that Islam's god is a god of generosity and mercy same as the Christian version.You mention God's justice; but you confuse God's absolute justice which is tempered with mercy and generosity with human justice and human notions of fairness.
True, we do have to deal with fairness and justice on the human scale, but do you not see that God's justice is larger and always tempered and purified with kindness and mercy? It is because God's justice is better love than human ideas of justice that we can aspire to better things, it's like an ikon constantly moving ahead. It's up to us , up to our free will if you like, to make sure to the best of our scientific, empirical, ability that the ikon is true to reality.


We are accustomed to occasional Islamic narrowness of vision when Allah's command is taken to be the delivery of human justice, revenge, and so on. Do try to see that your imputing stern human justice to God is the same as that occasional Islamic narrowness.

To appreciate the ethics that Jesus proclaimed and illustrated with parables there is no need first to believe in any supernatural theory of existence. To put into practice the humanitarian ethics there is no need first to believe in any supernatural existence. By affirming a supernatural existence you are reifying men's aspirations and ideals.

Finally, if you want to discuss how Jesus used scenarios from the common farming, herding , fishing,housekeeping etc. experiences of his listeners, do so by all means as this would be interesting and illuminating. But don't confuse the scenarios of the parables with their ethical themes. See the uses of hermeneutics.

[Londoner]

Then ask them what moral precept they think they, as Atheists, have a moral obligation to follow. They'll tell you they have no such obligation, because Atheism has no moral view.

And they're being honest.

But don't take my word for it. Ask them.

I have, they do.

Me: So far, the proof (in God) is lacking. It is therefore not available, not compelling. Not even prababilistically.

You're not getting it. I'm speaking of your own self-contradiction. If you ask for "proof," then the rational assumption that goes along with that is that people have a shared world (from which "proof" for both can be drawn). So you've already conceded the point, just by the way you asked.

Yes, in asking for a proof there is an assumption that we share certain basic ideas, for example any proof in geometry is based on an acceptance of certain axioms. If you would give what you consider to be a proof of the existence of God we could see on what ideas/axioms that was based. But you haven't.

Yes. I've listed some good inductive arguments for you, and I've suggested the experiential option. But if you won't look at the proof, then no, there's no proof for someone who won't look.

No, you have said that there are inductive arguements, but you have not given any.

You have also referred to your experience. I asked before if when you talk of 'objective proof' that for you it means 'personal experience' and you said it didn't, so why keep re-introducing it?.

False. The statement, "Santa Claus is real" does not lack meaning. It's simply not true. So even if you believe God to be no more than a "Santa Claus" case, you don't have a meaningless claim.

But you are discussing logic. You need to understand that logic is not about meaning; logic has nothing to say about whether Santa Claus exists. The value 'false' or 'not' in logic is not an empirical claim.

Law of Non-Contradiction. Unless moral terms are meaningless.....Actually, they are. "Right" and "wrong," if they mean anything at all, are mutually exclusive options in all cases in which the relevant particulars are the same.

Again, logic is not concerned with meaning. The reason we use abstract symbols like 'P' and 'Q' in logic is that we are not concerned with what 'P' etc. might mean but only the logical relationships between them,

Wow. You really don't know anything about logic. You're only talking about symbolic logic, and even there, you haven't understood the relationship between validity and truthfulness.

Truth in logic is simply a value, like 'plus' in maths. If we write 'plus two' we are not saying 'two is true' or 'two apples are on my plate'. Similarly, 'not P' does not mean 'P is a lie' or 'it is wrong to tell lies'. All logic is symbolic in that (like maths) it deals with abstractions. I am happy to leave it to others to judge which one of us knows anything about logic.

(Once again, this is all good distraction activity from the objective proofs that your own variety of theism is correct. I quite enjoy them, but from now on I'll stick to the point.)

Me: I have spent a very great deal of time on 'Proofs of God'. I have not found any.
That doesn't even make any sense. It's like saying, "I've spent a great deal of time in France, but never found France."

Sorry if you were genuinely confused. I mean that I have looked at many arguments that claim to be proofs of God, but it turned out that they do not work.

Meanwhile, go to http://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer, and have a look around. You're going to see a lot about these issues...though you've "never found" anything, despite "a great deal" of effort to locate them, allegedly.

You are making strenuous efforts not to understand. Craig and the various versions of the cosmological argument are well known to me. I do not think they make sense.

But these cannot be what you are referring to by your own 'objective proof', since you need something far more exact than some vague 'causal principal'. Remember, even theism will not do, since you admit some theists can be mistaken. Your 'objective proof' has got to take you all the way to the particular version of the particular religion you say is the only correct one.

So, is a version of the Cosmological Argument a step that just proves the need for some sort of 'first cause' - and there are separate objective arguments that prove the truth of Christianity in particular, and of scripture, and so on? Or do you think the Cosmological Argument gets you all the way there on its own?

[Gary Childress]

A Christian whom I am debating with then stated in one of his comments that atheists cannot even make moral claims; that is, atheists are people walking around who have no sense of morality whatsoever.

The Christian in question did say that Atheists cannot justify any of their moral claims. But that they have "no sense of morality whatsoever," he did not say that. In fact, he denied that explicitly and repeatedly. It ought to occur to any thoughtful observer that the second claim is not entailed in the first. An Atheist can live however he/she pleases, whether moral or not. So it's far from impossible for an Atheist to behave morally.

In fact, I would suggest that the moral situation of an Atheist is actually worse than that: he DOES know there is such a thing as morality. He just doesn't know how to justify any. So he or she can live in a way which people who believe in objective morality can find "moral." And a great many do that. But, of course, some don't. Some have been greatly evil. And how can one show from Atheism that an evil person is actually is evil?

Either way, the Atheist cannot prove -- either to himself or to anyone else -- that the morality he perhaps DOES believe in has any justification. So in those areas in which he or she departs from what he or she believes to be "moral," he or she can experience every bit as much guilt and self-recrimination as the most ardent moral objectivist can...but with this difference...In Atheism, there is no remedy.

Nothing can be done about those unjustified, free-floating feelings of guilt. Nor can he or she prove to him or herself whether or not he or she is being a "good" person...so for him or her, there can be no certainty of moral achievement either.

The upshot is this: if an Atheist has a conscience, he can't tell you why he/she must listen to it. Maybe he/she does, and maybe he/she doesn't. But either way, from an Atheist perspective, the choice is merely arbitrary. He/she may have moral feelings...just not moral legitimation to prove to himself/herself that those feelings amount to anything real or binding.

I’m actually agnostic with regard to spirituality and/or religion. But I can see some of where you are coming from. An atheist can have a moral sense, instinct (or whatever one wishes to call it), however, he may not believe in an all witnessing “supreme being” dealing out perfectly just and righteous punishment or reward for good or bad moral choices either in this world or in some sort of supposed world to follow it. The claim being made seems to be that without a supreme being, morality cannot be “justified”. I haven’t read the remaining 20 some pages of this thread but has anyone defined what is meant by “justified” yet? It’s a vague and ambiguous concept (as most concepts really are).

A quick google of the definition yielded; “show or prove to be right or reasonable”. If we are going by that meaning then, in my own personal experience, there seem to be some, perhaps debatable, ways of at least “showing” morality (in the sense of a codified set of “dos” and “don’ts”) to be reasonable, right, true, noble or whatever. There’s no way for an atheist to “prove” it of course, but theists don’t seem to have a way of “proving” much either, from what I’ve personally witnessed. Therefore in my experience I think the statement that an atheist cannot “justify” morality has (at the very least) room for debate to whatever extent. I can give some examples of what I mean at a later time. For now I’m about to leave for a meeting I have to attend this evening.

[Harbal]

I have at least taken them seriously enough to actually read the whole Koran

Is there a King James version? You really need to be more careful you know. I've heard that to be aware of the contents of a "holy book" and not accept it as being authoritative has dire consequences.

[Immanuel Can]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, Gary. I've been away from home, not indifferent to your very thoughtful reply.

I’m actually agnostic with regard to spirituality and/or religion. But I can see some of where you are coming from. An atheist can have a moral sense, instinct (or whatever one wishes to call it), however, he may not believe in an all witnessing “supreme being” dealing out perfectly just and righteous punishment or reward for good or bad moral choices either in this world or in some sort of supposed world to follow it.

That is correct. It is what I was saying. A rational ideology is not the deciding factor as to whether or not a person happens to choose to do the right thing. But it is the deciding factor in whether or not he or she can explain in rational terms why he, and others, are morally obligated to do the right thing. Moreover, a person who doesn't even believe in such a thing as a "conscience" will not be less likely to experience the pangs of conscience, if conscience exists.

The claim being made seems to be that without a supreme being, morality cannot be “justified”. I haven’t read the remaining 20 some pages of this thread but has anyone defined what is meant by “justified” yet? It’s a vague and ambiguous concept (as most concepts really are).

Well, philosophers (Habermas, for example) speak of "legitimation," meaning "a line of rational explanation for the existence or affirmation of a thing. So, for example, to "legitimize" the commandment, "Thou shalt not commit murder" would be to show why a rational person must, in fact, not murder. This task can be easily achieved from some perspectives, but not at all from an Atheist one. For example, if God exists and says, "Thou shalt not murder," then a rational person is obligated not to murder because a Supreme Authority has interdicted that particular behaviour. QED. (Now, we can go on to debate what "murder" is, and that's a valid secondary question: but the fact remains that whatever it actually turns out to be, the obligation not to murder has been "rationally legitimated" if God exists.)

But now, how do we do the same legitimative work, but using only Atheist premises? If a very kind-hearted Atheist decides murder is wrong for him, then how does he know his antipathy to it is rational and necessary? And if a less moral Atheist comes along and says, "I really feel like killing a few people," then how can the conscientious Atheist explain to the amoral Atheist that he is "wrong" to commit that kind of murder?

A quick google of the definition yielded; “show or prove to be right or reasonable”. If we are going by that meaning then, in my own personal experience, there seem to be some, perhaps debatable, ways of at least “showing” morality (in the sense of a codified set of “dos” and “don’ts”) to be reasonable, right, true, noble or whatever.

I'd be interested in seeing that done, Gary. I have never seen it achieved. How does that "showing" go?

There’s no way for an atheist to “prove” it of course,

Ah. There it is. That's the "legitimation problem" of which Habermas speaks.

...but theists don’t seem to have a way of “proving” much either, from what I’ve personally witnessed.

I'm not sure what you mean by "don't have a way of proving much." Much what? In the context of the present postulate, they certainly can "prove" in a way that no Atheist can. They certainly have, as you see above, a means of rationally legiimating a precept like "Thou shalt not murder" if God exists. But that's the key: if God does not exist, then there is no possibility of either the Atheists or the Theists legitimating any morality. But that presupposition -- i.e. that we live in a Godless universe -- is the very heart of the problem, and the reason why legitimation LOOKS impossible from the perspective of any rationally-consistent Atheist.

As for "proving," I don't want to jump to conclusions about what you mean, so that claim needs fleshing out before I know how to respond.

Therefore in my experience I think the statement that an atheist cannot “justify” morality has (at the very least) room for debate to whatever extent. I can give some examples of what I mean at a later time.

I'm intrigued. Please feel to do so when time permits.

[Harbal]

A rational ideology is not the deciding factor as to whether or not a person happens to choose to do the right thing.

Neither is a rational ideology the deciding factor as to whether or not a person believes in God, unless one employs a completely different type of rationality to the type one usually lives one's life by. Besides, morality isn't based on rationality, even though it is actually a rational strategy. If everyone behaved morally it would benefit all of us, whereas if we all believed in God, particularly the same God, it would benefit no one except the leaders of that particular belief system, on whom we would all be dependant to interpret for us the wishes of God, which history teaches us is a state of affairs that leads to the control of the many by the elite few. It's not really God that's the problem, it's the fraudsters that claim to know his will and seek to dominate the rest of us with their privileged knowledge.

[artisticsolution]

In my view of morality, an individual must have a natural moral compass to do good. He muzt have purity of heart...which is why all the fuss over a man named Jesus.

Jesus was moral not because he read it in a book or had a fear of his father. He was good because he was born that way.

In fact, Jesus had the perfect circumstance to lie...i mean, the dude could perform miracles...he was one with God and The holy spirit. No separation. If he wanted...he could have told people he was God...instead of the son of God. Pretty impressive he didn't capitalize on his gift of miracle making.

Now that is morality. The ultimate no spin zone. Whether or not Jesus had been born the son of God or an atheist, he would have morality oozing from his pores. He couldn't help it.

If I'm wrong...then how come there are as many or more immoral Christians as there are moral ones? In my view of things, if you have to be told what's right and what's wrong, then you are not naturally moral. But good thing you at least work on being moral.

Anyway...atheists are human just like Christians. There's good and bad in human nature.

[Immanuel Can]

A rational ideology is not the deciding factor as to whether or not a person happens to choose to do the right thing.

Neither is a rational ideology the deciding factor as to whether or not a person believes in God, unless one employs a completely different type of rationality to the type one usually lives one's life by.

By "rationality," I don't mean merely "how one usually lives life," or "empiricism," or "common sense," though people do "live by many things. What I mean is that just as mathematical equations have to "add up" to a particular conclusion and not other conclusions (or they are erroneous equations), so too one's moral precepts can either rationalize with what one believes about things like ontology and metaphysics, or they can be in conflict with one's beliefs in those areas.

And as philosophers, our assumption is that beliefs that are well-rationalized, in that they form a reasonable equation with the premises one holds about ontology and metaphysics, are better than beliefs that are not well-rationalized. As for beliefs that conflict with one's suppositions about ontology and metaphysics, such are manifestly irrational, and thus not well thought-through.

Besides, morality isn't based on rationality, even though it is actually a rational strategy.

In a sense, that's right: pure rationality does not give us morality (sorry, Kant). But as I say above, our ontological and metaphysical beliefs rationalize a certain kind of ethics. So rationality is still involved as "strategy," as you say.

If everyone behaved morally it would benefit all of us, whereas if we all believed in God, particularly the same God, it would benefit no one except the leaders of that particular belief system, on whom we would all be dependant to interpret for us the wishes of God, which history teaches us is a state of affairs that leads to the control of the many by the elite few.

I'm not sure that's obvious to everyone. There's no straight line from "moral" to "benefit us all," since we have some different views of what is good or beneficial. "Benefit" is always an instrumental thing...in other words, it's "benefit FOR" X or Y. Until the X and Y are specified, it's not clear what is benefitted.

Some belief systems rely on intermediary elites: priests, witch-doctors, the Illuminati, the Enlightened Ones, the clergy, and so on. I don't recommend any of them. It seems to me that if God holds us responsible for our consciences and what we do with them, then we have a sacred obligation not to surrender that conscience to some "authority," as if that "authority" will be on hand to give account for us on the Day of Judgment. That's how Locke thought things sorted out...and I think he had it right.

It's not really God that's the problem, it's the fraudsters that claim to know his will and seek to dominate the rest of us with their privileged knowledge.

I can agree with that, for sure.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

But now, how do we do the same legitimative work, but using only Atheist premises? If a very kind-hearted Atheist decides murder is wrong for him, then how does he know his antipathy to it is rational and necessary? And if a less moral Atheist comes along and says, "I really feel like killing a few people," then how can the conscientious Atheist explain to the amoral Atheist that he is "wrong" to commit that kind of murder?

There are two issues in the above from Immanuel. One issue regards what is to be considered to be murder, and who are to be considered to be murderers. Legal systems, while they are often founded upon traditional religious codes such as the Ten Commandments, must deal with present problems of social control which include what is to be considered justified killing of fellow humans, e.g. wars, self defence, capital punishment, attrition of slaves and other oppressed people.

The other issue is the justification of the moral code . Habermas is only partly right, as Harbal(above) pointed out. While what we consider to be right includes a lot of reasoning it also includes the subjective feelings of individuals. Indeed the subjective feelings of individual are necessary for any value judgements to happen. Consider if a man had no sense of being a subject of experience: he would have no ground from which to compare his sense of rights and wrongs with someone else's sense of rights and wrongs.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can wrote:

But now, how do we do the same legitimative work, but using only Atheist premises? If a very kind-hearted Atheist decides murder is wrong for him, then how does he know his antipathy to it is rational and necessary? And if a less moral Atheist comes along and says, "I really feel like killing a few people," then how can the conscientious Atheist explain to the amoral Atheist that he is "wrong" to commit that kind of murder?

There are two issues in the above from Immanuel. One issue regards what is to be considered to be murder, and who are to be considered to be murderers.

This, if you note, I mentioned. But it's secondary. Only if we can establish that SOMETHING is wrong can an Atheist interdict murder. Call it "killing," call it "terminating with extreme prejudice," call it "homicide," -- or change the word "murder" to "rape," "slavery" or "lying," and he'll still be faced with exactly the same problem: that Atheism is incapable of interdicting X, whatever X may be said to be.

The other issue is the justification of the moral code .

More accurately, it's the justification of ANYTHING being morally impermissible. It won't matter whether or not it's in some particular society's code or not. After all, EVERY society tries to impose moral interdictions against some things. The basic question is, "On what basis do they have any right to do so?"

While what we consider to be right includes a lot of reasoning it also includes the subjective feelings of individuals.

Actually, what we "feel" could not be less relevant. And the subjectivity of individuals could not be less relevant. And you don't even have to take a side on this issue to see that that is true. Morality is never simply "What we happen to want." If that were it, we would need no morals at all...we'd just ask, "What do I want right now?" It's about why we ought to do certain things we DON'T at all feel inclined to do, or why we should NOT do things even when we have a very strong "feeling" we want to do them.

Consider if a man had no sense of being a subject of experience: he would have no ground from which to compare his sense of rights and wrongs with someone else's sense of rights and wrongs.

Of course. If a man doesn't have X, he can't compare his X to anybody else's X. That's merely obvious, and trivial here. For it's a secondary, and a completely different question from the one that asks, "Does ANYBODY have a justification (or legitimation) for their X?" That comes first; and until it is answered, there is no possibility of talking of comparing anything.

[Greta]

(to Belinda)
But now, how do we do the same legitimative work, but using only Atheist premises? If a very kind-hearted Atheist decides murder is wrong for him, then how does he know his antipathy to it is rational and necessary?

It's simple. Order is much more rare than chaos. We, as eusocial beings, tend to favour order.

Humans are the most ordered things, pound for pound, for trillions of kms. Don't break them because they are more rare than you think! There's a gradation in our usual values to other sentient animals and then to large old trees, environments and valuable or revered objects. This is behind the principle of "treading lightly" in life, because ordered entities are generally better to be allowed to remain intact than to be pointlessly lost. Of course, we must kill and destroy to live, so we tend to subconsciously perform sums about relative value that are tallied in our emotions. Usually the things that touch our emotions are highly ordered.

Humans evolved to be cooperators and we evolved to be killers. We tally the goodness and damage we do, attempting to stay on the positive side of the ledger unless we are damaged. Those who are highly damaged may prefer chaos and mayhem - lashing out against that which they believe hurt them. They would be amongst those who'd most benefit from the simple, strict and uncompromising mores of mainstream religions. Most people tend to be largely civilised acting as free agents without the need for such "programming" to keep their behaviours within acceptable limits.

[Immanuel Can]

It's simple. Order is much more rare than chaos. We, as eusocial beings, tend to favour order.

"Tend to favour" is not a justification. It doesn't legitimize your "favouring" one thing or another. Moreover, "rare" is not a moral quality: polio is "rare" in the West today...that doesn't make it good.

So it's not simple...at least, not in the way you suggest.

Humans evolved to be cooperators and we evolved to be killers.

See the problem? If we "evolved" to be them both, then "evolution" is favouring both. But even if "more evolved" people were less likely to kill (statistically, the opposite case can easily be made, since modern people have been far more lethal), that still would not give us one iota of indication as to whether this impersonal "evolution" process were sending us in the "right" direction, or toward effeminacy, weakness, feebleness and extinction. Certainly, having a population of complete pacifists would make us vulnerable to anybody who WASN"T that...and since they would doubtless win and kill us, what makes them "wrong"?

You've just skipped the justification problem again.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

Actually, what we "feel" could not be less relevant. And the subjectivity of individuals could not be less relevant. And you don't even have to take a side on this issue to see that that is true. Morality is never simply "What we happen to want." If that were it, we would need no morals at all...we'd just ask, "What do I want right now?" It's about why we ought to do certain things we DON'T at all feel inclined to do, or why we should NOT do things even when we have a very strong "feeling" we want to do them.

As Greta writes, "humans are evolved to be cooperators". It follows that what we want to happen is what suits the collective. What we want to happen also suits, as you Immanuel rightly remark, individuals. Those are not mutually exclusive although in the cases of antisocial individuals they may be.Therefore what a person feels is both relevant and necessary for morality, although insufficient as morality is greatly improved by the addition of reason and knowledge.

(edited after IC's reply to Greta):

(Greta)Humans evolved to be cooperators and we evolved to be killers.
(IC)See the problem? If we "evolved" to be them both, then "evolution" is favouring both. But even if "more evolved" people were less likely to kill (statistically, the opposite case can easily be made, since modern people have been far more lethal), that still would not give us one iota of indication as to whether this impersonal "evolution" process were sending us in the "right" direction, or toward effeminacy, weakness, feebleness and extinction. Certainly, having a population of complete pacifists would make us vulnerable to anybody who WASN"T that...and since they would doubtless win and kill us, what makes them "wrong"?

Cooperation, Immanuel, is cooperation with the ingroup. Ingroup presumes outgroup. One learns about cultural evolution of ingroup from the Old Testament, among other primary sources. The latest and widest ingroup is the biosphere itself.

[Immanuel Can]

As Greta writes, "humans are evolved to be cooperators". It follows that what we want to happen is what suits the collective.

Non sequitur. We don't want to "suit the collective." We want to "suit" ourselves.

But as I said to her, the "cooperators" may well be murdered by the "aggressor" set. And if that happened, and you relied on "evolution" to tell you what was "right," then you'd have to say that the murdering of the "cooperators" was "right." Happy with that?

What we want to happen also suits, as you Immanuel rightly remark, individuals.

Quite the opposite. I'm no fan of the collective: yet even a strident Marxists knows very well that the desires of the collective and the individual are often opposite. That's why the individual's desires are such a problem, especially for an ideology that worships the collective.

Those are not mutually exclusive although in the cases of antisocial individuals they may be.

Not "mutually exclusive," perhaps, but far more often in conflict than not. It's hard even to hame a single case in which what every individual wants is exactly the same as the collective interest. But it's terribly easy to give examples of the opposite.

For example, I would rather not pay taxes. It wish everyone else would, but I would not have to do so. Now, it suits the collective interest that I do pay taxes. But it doesn't suit mine. You may think that having roads, schools, law enforcement, and so on IS in my interest, and these are paid by taxes; but I can have all of those if YOU pay taxes, and if everyone else does, but I don't. So my real interest is in cheating the collective, and in making myself an exception to the "interests" by which they bind themselves.

So here's the problem for the Atheist: tell me why, even though I may not want to, and even though I have a greater strategic interest in not paying them, I am still morally obligated to pay my taxes?