tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post8840560186469530121..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: Distinguishing the Guilty from the InnocentAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-75417541650022753372016-06-13T06:50:17.658-06:002016-06-13T06:50:17.658-06:00I do not discuss atheism much in this blog - there...I do not discuss atheism much in this blog - there are more than enough places where one can discuss such things if that is what one is seeking. I only mention it to confront the bigotry that exists whereby atheism is equated with immorality.<br /><br />A key event for explaining how I became an atheist concerns a time when I was in the second or third grade (7 or 8 years old) when I found and read a book of stories on the Ancient Greek gods. I came to the conclusion that all God stories are fiction and that if was entirely possible for a large group of people to believe that such fictions were true.<br /><br />Those stories also taught me that the questions, "What does God want us to do?" and "What is a good thing to do?" are two different questions - and that we need to answer the latter question first in order to know whether what God wants us to do (or, more precisely, what people are saying that God wants is to do) is good or not.<br /><br />So, really, while I doubt that any God exerts, I also hold that the question of whether a god exists is unimportant when compared to the question of what is good.<br /><br />Of course, my 8 year old self did not use this same language, but this expresses the concepts.<br /><br />As to why I want to leave the world better off than it would have been?<br /><br />Here, we must distinguish between ends and means. Means are explained in terms of ends and beliefs. Ends, on the other hand, are explained in terms of an interaction between genes and the environment.<br /><br />Why do I wish to avoid being burned? Because being burned would hurt and I wish to avoid pain.<br />Why do I wish to avoid pain? That has to do with an interaction between my genes and the environment.<br /><br />Why do I wish to leave the world a better place? I believe that is a question that requires an answer in terms of the interaction between genes and the environment.<br /><br /><br /><br />Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-55997282748903911682016-06-13T00:22:25.642-06:002016-06-13T00:22:25.642-06:00Thanks. you make a balanced argument here and in o...Thanks. you make a balanced argument here and in other places on your blog. People are more loyal to their moral clubs than they are to the stated moral aims that their club may purport and yet may follow this kind of flawed reasoning unwittingly. <br /><br />Do you answer these questions on your blog: <br />If you are an atheist, how did you become one? <br />Why do you want to leave the world better than you found it? <br /><br />I was an atheist with a similar aim to change the world. Surprisingly, that kind of free thinking led me to find God.<br />I've found a few who had similar paths: JRR Tolkien, GK Chesterton, CS Lewis, Francis Collins, Blaise Pascal, EF Schumacher, Hugh Ross, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, etc. <br /><br /> I think you'll see something about that path. Dennis McGeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09896988851542703840noreply@blogger.com