Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 27, 2017 7:07 pm
Dubious wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2017 9:39 pm
I can't answer if I don't know what you're specifically asking ...so, what's your question?
Go back up the thread. You'll find it, if you want it. Look for the bold font, and you'll find it in statement form too. In fact, at one point, you even quoted it yourself...
It must be this one.
Atheism rationalizes amorality, and fails to rationalize any meaning to life. Thank you for pointing it out!
What you imply, as you constantly have, is that Atheism can only rationalize the amoral but powerless to justify morality according to biblical convention making its brand of theism the unquestionable arbiter of morality, the highest in the hierarchy of truth, in effect, that which gives morality its license. Atheism, in contrast, devoid of this authority, can't prove anything, except its own inability when it tries; consequently it exists only as an aberration. Have I got that right?
However its the other way around; atheism doesn't need to rationalize amorality into some objective creed of its own nor does it prevent rationalizing various types of secular based morality into existence. The sequel of your statement provides the opposite conclusion denoting a major advance against semitically based theistic morality.
The main rationalization immanent in theism is how to create acceptance of a human re-manufactured as a god who forgives sins, and offers salvation in an afterlife for those who believe in him and his moral injunctions.
I still can't imagine any rational adult yielding to anything so absurd!
Atheism in contrast is much less confined by dogma or doctrine making rationalizations which predefine the premise to match the conclusion unnecessary. In effect, atheism as a secular mode of thought defaults to amorality even though on an individual basis atheists are not required to be amoral in any way.
What makes atheism inherently amoral is that it won't objectivize itself into any monolithic moral configuration as happens with theism. By the same logic it also doesn't need to rationalize or ascribe any meaning to life. Atheism and its first cousin secularism collude to create a nearly blank slate where any number of such meanings can be asserted, the valorization of "no meaning" being equal to all the rest.
To reason out a legitimization for morality is precisely what a Theist is NOT intended to do for such would be heresy within any theistic system. Instead he is to accept the objectivized written version of it as unequivocal. Any further perspectives on the subject even those theistically applied were usually rewarded with a gruesome execution.
The hard work of rationalizing morality into secular based legitimacy happened as theism was waning in its authority against the rise of secular powers. The Enlightenment philosophers had a big part in that regardless of just how "enlightened" some may or may not have been. It was a work in progress, hence all the revolutions of the period, when many different "rationalizations" collided and strove for legitimacy and legality. Deny that and you deny history.
As a
historical process it could only proceed from the bottom up and not from the top down where legitimization is expected to follow the proclamations of some supposed uber-mensch defined as a god. It didn't even have to be the likes of Jesus; the same stamp of authority would have licensed the Pharaohs or even Alexander the Great to proclaim laws unilaterally as incarnations of a Divine or semi-divine being.
Contrary to theism, what is rationalized seldom renders an absolute value such as those you derive from the bible.
Ironically, had you reversed the references in your argument only then would it have made sense. Instead you created your own paradox!
To say that Atheism is a rational position would require rational justification; every bit as much as to be a Theist would.
Atheism could ONLY unfold by the erosion of what appears irrational in theism, in effect, giving birth to atheism by a developing rational process. How could secularism or atheism even exist if not by rational means which does not inherently denote truth, only changing perspectives? What could have brought about its historical unfolding if not by a process of thinking and rationalizing? Whether that created more problems than it solved is another question. If that is not the reason what would have been its cause? It was only then that "rational justification" of atheism began to appear as the false facade of theism began to crack.
I agree that Atheism has no value unless it creates those in its wake whether faster or slower but never concluding and not by negating the past. It's inherent uncertainties forces the powers of rational thought forward whereas theism once established would find any such "continuation" more in league with heresy.
If there is one thing which makes both theism & atheism full siblings it is that they derive from ONE source ONLY that being the uppermost tier of one's anatomy and nowhere else. After that it's only an uncivil war of opinions.