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Atheists thought immoral, even by fellow atheists

Religion and Philosophy
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we are introducing this on a trial basis and that respect for other's views is important e.g. phrases like "your imaginary friend" or "you will go to hell" are not appropriate
GJHarney
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Atheists thought immoral, even by fellow atheists

#73083

Postby GJHarney » August 8th, 2017, 7:56 pm

Atheists thought immoral, even by fellow atheists - https://phys.org/news/2017-08-atheists-thought-immoral-fellow.html

Study here - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0151

Its conclusion states:
Religions underpin large-scale intragroup cooperation 3 , but they also promote distrust of non-believers 13,19 who are excluded from such religious moral communities 3,24 . Does rising secularism 14,31 moderate effects as atheist norms become stronger within societies? The present findings suggest that intuitive moral suspicion of atheists is culturally widespread, though not universal. Given that intuitive anti-atheist biases may transfer across moral domains 19 (Supplementary Studies S1 and S3), the resilience of moral prejudice against atheists reveals a potential barrier to the full acceptance of this growing segment 31 of the global population. Consistent with predictions derived from cultural evolutionary theories of religion and morality 5 , extreme intuitive moral distrust of atheists is evident globally, among believers and atheists in both religious and secular societies. Even as secularism reduces overt religiosity in many places 14 , religion has apparently still left a deep and abiding mark on human moral intuitions.


I've not thought of things like 'moral suspicion of athiests' before, although it must underpin the regular accusations of 'militant atheism' by various organised religious groups against secularism and secularists.

Thoughts?

jackdaww
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Re: Atheists thought immoral, even by fellow atheists

#73113

Postby jackdaww » August 8th, 2017, 10:07 pm

i can hardly understand a word of it .

it has to be much simpler for me , and the many who are much dimmer than i am.

i ask the question " whats it all about?".

simple answer - i dont know .

nor does anyone else.

Stonge
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Re: Atheists thought immoral, even by fellow atheists

#73115

Postby Stonge » August 8th, 2017, 10:10 pm

Certain posters on here would allege that atheists would be less likely to have voted to leave the EU. Whether that makes them more or less immoral hasn't been discussed.

GJHarney
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Re: Atheists thought immoral, even by fellow atheists

#73215

Postby GJHarney » August 9th, 2017, 10:50 am

jackdaww wrote:i can hardly understand a word of it .

it has to be much simpler for me , and the many who are much dimmer than i am.

i ask the question " whats it all about?".

simple answer - i dont know .

nor does anyone else.



Well I think the basis of the arguments are fairly obvious and well understood. That is, those with a religious belief ascribe their own view of their morality or 'goodness' to the religious theology that they identify with. It is the god, text, organisation that makes them behave in a 'good' way, therefore it follows that those without a belief in the god, text, organisation must by default not be 'good', or at least as good and moral in the way they live their lives. It is the basis for the widespread belief that the first teachings or laws against murder arose out of religion (Moses and the commandments), whereas in reality the first recorded laws against such things we so far know about were the Sumarian detailed Code of Ur-Nammu which talks about ''equality and truth' but barely mentions religion at all (save for a quick nod to the sun god Utu).

But what is new in this survey and study is not the view by the religious that the godless are more likely to be bad people, but that atheists in a number of countries also are influenced by that type of thinking, hence the view that a murderer is more likely to be non-religious is one shared by many atheists themselves (according to the study). That is shocking, but also interesting as to why that would be the case.

And that in turn leads to some thoughts around those that do bad things and their religious or non-religious beliefs. The Islamic jihadists and lynching Christian KKK are at one end, the Nazi gas chambers and Communist gulags are at the other. Any ideology can be adapted to justify murder (as shown in Myanmar currently where violent pogroms against Muslims have been led by Buddhist monks), and that would indicate to me that religious belief is not a safeguard against bad behavior, and yet the study indicates that large numbers of people believe that it is.

And yet there are things that would reinforce the belief of the positive role of religion. For example, when a violent criminal, murderer, gang member etc., reforms it is often in the name of religion (they have found god, been born again, converted to Islam etc.). I don't remember ever hearing similar reform of behavior stories where the ex-criminal in question ascribes their change to discovering Richard Dawkins!

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Re: Atheists thought immoral, even by fellow atheists

#73226

Postby Itsallaguess » August 9th, 2017, 11:01 am

GJHarney wrote:
Well I think the basis of the arguments are fairly obvious and well understood.

That is, those with a religious belief ascribe their own view of their morality or 'goodness' to the religious theology that they identify with. It is the god, text, organisation that makes them behave in a 'good' way, therefore it follows that those without a belief in the god, text, organisation must by default not be 'good', or at least as good and moral in the way they live their lives.


As an atheist, I'd be more concerned for the religious if that were the case then, rather than have them being 'concerned' for me....

I'm quite capable of being 'good' because I personally want to be good, rather than having an external reason to do so, especially one that we're not really sure exists...

I'd be worried that a 'not-good' person simply 'being-good' because of their 'religion' might remove that religion from their lives, and where would that then leave them?

History seems to suggest that religion doesn't necessarily lead to 'good', or 'moral' end results in many cases.....

Itsallaguess

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Re: Atheists thought immoral, even by fellow atheists

#73288

Postby beeswax » August 9th, 2017, 1:06 pm

Itsallaguess wrote:
GJHarney wrote:
Well I think the basis of the arguments are fairly obvious and well understood.


History seems to suggest that religion doesn't necessarily lead to 'good', or 'moral' end results in many cases.....

Itsallaguess


That is what I was going to say that history shows that religion has been a force for very bad moral decisions too and its probably true that bad people will do bad things and good people will do good things with or without religion. Its odd that my own experience over many decades going to church is that the members are not essentially bad people or essentially good people, they are just hypocrites who love to point the finger at others...

I would say that on balance, religion is a force for bad rather than good and faith schools are an abomination to the freedom of the mind of young children. Its like the circumcision of babies that is done ONLY for religious reasons by those who believe in their ancient text or culture. Of course its done for other medical reasons too but that is just an example. Animal sacrifice is still carried out by Muslims worldwide and some other religious backward tribes.

The problem the abrahamic religions have is that of slavery which was clearly accepted by Jews, Christians and Muslims and even beating them to death was accepted too...Now try and get ANY religious person to try and justify that today alongside their religious belief that the bible was God's word and God's inerrant message to the world?

As someone said, before the Ten Commandments were written, did they think it was acceptable to murder, steal, lie, cheat and commit adultery?

The other big mistake Christians make when they say that western civilisation is based on the morality of the bible, is they need to ask how did 'other' civilisations manage to have their own moral guidance systems and have emerged in a similar way to theirs? Do they not think that is how humans have evolved in order to survive and have less conflict with each other?

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Re: Atheists thought immoral, even by fellow atheists

#77008

Postby quelquod » August 25th, 2017, 12:34 pm

be worried that a 'not-good' person simply 'being-good' because of their 'religion' might remove that religion from their lives, and where would that then leave them?

I would too I suppose if it were some sort of superposition of an external influence upon one's (my?) nature. I'd suggest that religious influences, and more broadly life's influences in general, have a lasting effect in building that nature. It's interesting nonetheless that religion seems to be fairly universally seen as having a positive effect, just not a complete overwhelming of the effects of the world around us.


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