Atheism and Moral Values

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Phage0070

I think we are actually on the same page. I don’t think that the ancient world was a Mad Max world of looting and death either. I also don’t think that civilization is that revolutionary an idea; many animals have picked up the concept of sticking together for mutual benefit. Stopping moving, setting up shop in one location, and specializing is the revolutionary concept.

We are on the same page here except our definition of civilization.

A civilization is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in cities. Compared with other cultures, members of a civilization are organized into a diverse division of labor and an intricate social hierarchy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization

A complex society, writing, agriculture, division of labor all are parts of a civilization and the entirely complexity of it is revolutionary even though it most likely happened quite naturally.

Originally Posted by Phage0070

My only point was that disagreeing that without the boundaries of society people would be inclined to loot and pillage, and basing that conclusion on observation of a society is a non sequitur. The best way of telling what people would tend to do without the bounds of society is to look at situations where the bounds of society are starting to break down. Look at some of the world’s worst examples of riots and you can see that people definitely have the looting and pillaging aspect within them. Then realize that those people were raised in a society from birth and were only without society for a few days, and imagine how someone raised without the concept of society might act.

This is what I am trying to make my point about. Look back to the posts where moral and religion were discussed. The conclusions came that morals are sociological and created by the environment someone was raised in. Therefore, the logic that someone raised in a civilization would have the same set of morals and mindset as someone not raised in a civilization goes directly against our prior conclusion.

So, my point is that someone raised in an environment without a civilization would have a mindset that is greatly different than someone who was raised in a civilization so no theoretical comparisons can be made. And, since we base our logic that hunter gatherers were barbaric based on the observations of our current society, I am saying that logic is flawed because we cannot tell exactly how any hunter gatherer society worked without directly looking at an isolated hunter gatherer group, which is impossible in this day and age.


I furthered the discussion by making the statement that hunter gatherer societies had low levels of violence. First, keep in mind that morals and mindset would be highly decentralized. That means one group may be almost perfectly peaceful while another might be very violent. But in spite of that, I still keep my claim of relative low violence because of the following factors.


Violent imperialistic campaigns come from a centralization of power and resources. In order to have a centralization of power and resources we need to have a civilization. So violent imperialistic campaigns could not have happened in hunter gatherer societies. This would not stop raids of a neighboring tribe but that is basically what it would be limited too. No hunter gatherer society (expect in maybe extremely rare events) would move place to place killing off eachother.

Land populated by hunter gatherer groups had a low population densities because a large land area was needed to be sustainable off hunting and gathering.With low population densities, war would be very hurtful to all groups involved because a lost of one member of the group would be more hurtful than in a civilization of high population density. Even though resources might have been taken over, the risk of losing half your tribe would prevent all out war between groups unless already faced with death.

As I said earlier, we cannot be certain of how hunter gatherer societies acted without actually looking at one, which is impossible, but using this knowledge we can at least eliminate any unsustainable or impossible ideas about their way of living.

[Phage0070]

piercehawkeye45, thank you for the clarification, I agree.

[Ruminator]

Quote:
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
I'm betting morality is a societal construct, with variables for different societies, but the common themes in these constructs (like no killing), were codified by the major religions, as a way of anointing Mama's frying pan with moral authority.

I agree, and this seems like he most logical, likely scenario. And from this, I can't understand the position that morality "comes from God" or "isn't possible without God" or that "you can't be a moral person if you don't believe in God" etc. as has been suggested by some.

Flint, I don't believe that "you can't be a moral person if you don't believe in God".

My stated purpose in creating this thread was to gain an understanding of what atheists use to develop a moral value system because I couldn't think of any absolute on which one could be built.

There have been some really excellent answers posted here that have given me an awareness and appreciation for how that process occurs for an atheist.

That purpose for my thread has been met and I truly appreciate all of this discussion. Especially since its gone considerably farther than it was first intended.

Thanks everyone.

Now where were we ...

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Ruminator

My stated purpose in creating this thread was to gain an understanding of what atheists use to develop a moral value system because I couldn't think of any absolute on which one could be built.

Could you think of an absolute on which the correct religion could be picked?

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Could you think of an absolute on which the correct religion could be picked?

David Cross (Mr. Show etc.) observes that there is one absolute... "Let me ask you this: Was your mother's vagina Jewish?"