Again, bear with me as I attempt to reform, clarify and properly express my position.

Thanks.

I found both of your comments in Akismet’s spam catcher and restored them both. If there’s one that is more relevant, I can delete the other one at your direction.

You can delete the first one, thanks.

You wrote,

I rebutted your claim in comments stating that as far as murder goes there is more murder in the secular areas than in non secular areas.

This was not my claim…What I said was “What’s more, if we look at where murder and divorce rates are highest in America, we find them predominantly in areas of deeper religiosity.” I’ve seen no refutation on this.

I also added that there is a 4 to 1 difference in the amount of money given to charities. I’ve also posited that if we take 1900s as more religious and 2000 as more secular, then we can also say there has been more divorce over that period of time.

Irrelevant.

Your statement about the rate of murders as a whole over the time period is also erroneous, since your own data says that the murder rate in 2006 is greater than 1960, with a high point in 1980.

No. Your claim was that murder rates have been increasing, when the data clearly show they’ve been declining. Are you now claiming that the country has become more and more Christian since 1980?

I will agree that neither of us has actually applied any metrics of how God-fearing or God-less America has been over that period. that would be the statistic missing to correctly interpret the data, I would think.

Then you have no basis to claim that an increase in non-religion has led to an erosion of moral values. Recant the claim until you actually produce the metrics.

However, the problem even here is that in order to prove that Atheism is a positive move, you’d have to decouple it from the influence of Christianity and religion.

I make no claims as to whether “atheism is a positive move”. I only note that where religiosity is declining, many negative social dysfunctions are also declining.

Back to the philosophical arguments, there is no reasonable or rational reason to have any moral unless it specifically benefits a person.

No reasonable or rational reason that you know of, but this only demonstrates your lack of knowledge of philosophical ethics. In my reply to Mary above, I linked to some articles on such secular ethics.

Right now, I would contend that many atheists uphold Christian morals because it’s in their best interests.

How does upholding Christian morals benefit an atheist? Why not Muslim morals? Or Jewish morals?

Please list examples of specifically Christian morals which atheists uphold.

You said,
“You worship a deity who’s committed mass genocide and who sends the majority of humanity to eternal torture.”

He doesn’t send the majority of humanity to eternal torture. He’s very clear in the Bible, in the New Testament, (thought I better clarify that since you seem most familiar with the Old Testament)that the only unforgivable sin is the sin of unbelief. He also says that He is not willing that ANY should perish. If any of us, for instance, were to end up in hell, that would be our choice, a result of our unbelief in God.

Mary’s last blog post..Defining Godless Morality

So, if the couple does pledge “until death do us part” or only one of the two want a divorce, then it’s possible that it can be wrong? Are we quibbling over the grounds for the morality, and who says what the marriage contract consists of. If the standard definition is a bond for life, is it right to terminate it before the time is up?

I wrote about blue counties in red states as a reply to your comment

No, it is not. As Christianity’s influence has waned, so has the murder rate. What’s more, if we look at where murder and divorce rates are highest in America, we find them predominantly in areas of deeper religiosity.

You then provided a link to a site that listed things by states. So, you didn’t produce anything that would differentiate who is predominately godless or who is god-fearing.

If you look at the site you quoted you see the following data: Bush won Evangelical Christians 79 to 21, Other Christians 67 to 33, Latino Protestants 60 to 40, Non-Latino 57 to 43, Mainline Protestants 54 to 46. Of the categories of Christianity listed in your poll, Bush won the majority of all the bigger groups of Christians, where Kerry won the smaller groups. The numbers are even more interesting when you look at those who attend services regularly vs. those that do not. Bush carried a huge majority of those that attended.

But all that any of this points to is that (1) it’s ineffective to use polling data to generalize a given area’s “religion quotient” and (2) that we have yet to devise a standard with which to prove the validity of the statement of yours that I’ve quoted above. Indeed, we’re back where we started in terms of that line of thought.

And that means we’re back to the question of a moral standard, and that one needs to be determined in order to calculate whether or not secularism is eroding away at moral standards. Indeed, as we said in the first two comments, if the moral standard is the Christian one then the answer is obvious.

As for whether Atheist doctors are more willing to care for the poor than religious ones, this does not explain the rationality behind this endeavor. Certainly, I could see a “this is all we’ve got” but it doesn’t explain why we should “waste” what we’ve got serving the poor, when survival of the fittest suggests that the weakest among us must make way for the strongest. Simply put, this is great, but can you find the same passion for helping the poor in countries that don’t carry a Western/Judeo-Christian moral compass? Can you find this in Russia? China?

Same thing with torture. In order to prove your case you need to prove that this flows from an intrinsic, philosophical Atheist base. Right now, you’re confirming a previous post that Atheists are more influenced by herd mentality and following the society than they are in holding a standard or constructing a moral framework.

You’ve already stated some of things that you believe are moral or immoral, but have provided no backing to them.

What sort of backing do you need?
You wrote,

Divorce is immoral in that it is the breaking of a contract.

Of course, it depends on how the contract was written. The way you stated it is not how all marriage vows are uttered. Also, if two parties agree to end the contract, then how is that immoral? Are you suggesting that contracts, even marriage contracts, are binding for life even though no such provision is in the contract?

You wrote,

According to studies done into your data, the blue areas of red states are where the crimes are taking place.Actually, the author you cite used only Florida as an example, and did not do a comprehensive review of all blue and red states, as you suggest.

Also, the author conflates “a John Kerry voter” with “godless,” but offers no support for this supposition. Unfortunately for him, we do know how the religious and non-religious voted in the 2004 election. While those unaffiliated with any religion (these can include atheists, but they can also include theists of some stripe) chose Kerry by 4 to 1 over Bush, Latino Catholics, Jews, Black Protestants, and “other faiths” overwhelmingly voted for Kerry. So we can see that voting patterns are a poor indicator of religious belief.

When researchers examine actual religious belief and immoral behavior, they find a correlation, as the study I linked to demonstrated.

You wrote,

And we’re not even going to go into the fact that the Christians giving to charity, or should well?

Well, we can play this game endlessly:

“Atheist doctors more likely to care for the poor than religious ones”

Secularists least like to approve of torture

How right you are. Women began to be seen as equals to men. Blacks began to be seen as equals to whites. Witches and “heretics” began to be no longer burned at the stake. And democracy began to be seen as superior to theocracy as a system of government.

Girls were allowed into school systems, integration happened, and witches ceased to be burned at the stake long before prayer and Bible reading was kicked out of schools.

The problem with the morality question, Robert, is how you choose to define it. Is it an absolute or isn’t it? If it’s not, I don’t know how you ever do any trend analysis because its definition can change.

The Bible does hold a moral standard, but like you quoted, there are also a set of laws created for the Israelite people. And there are multiple tangents we could go from here. We could go down the “is God just to demand life for any specific act” or “why respect the Ten Commandments” or even “how does the moral code in the Bible jive with morality for today”. All of these worthwhile pursuits that are currently off topic.

But back to the point, Christians have not changed what’s right and wrong even according to your quotes… Just the punishments. Grace and mercy have wrapped in them the idea that we all know that we sin all the time, and yet we can be forgiven– the entire Christian message. It says that although God commanded the Israelites to rest on the Saabath, if their ox was in the ditch, or they messed up, we can now have that forgiven. If a child disrespects their parents, they don’t have to stone them, even if it is still wrong.

The moral code does not dictate punishments– all sin deserves death. The moral code simply says what is right or wrong. It’s a moral standard. When you start to use a sliding standard of morality, everything becomes right given the time or place.

For an illustration, with a sliding standard of morality, genital mutilation could be morally right in one place, but morally wrong in another. Which is it? What is the Atheist moral standard here, and can it change?

I would argue that Hitler was not a Christian either, in the normal sense of the word. In fact, for purposes of this argument he is very similar to modern Atheism, he just chose to add and subtract different things from the moral system. He added the idea of the perfect race by erasing the idea of equality under God.

As for your last statement, we worship a Diety who is the Creator and Owner of all things, and who is just. All people must die, but that does not have to be the end. Since Jesus rose from the dead, so we all may be able to do likewise. We all deserve the death sentence for our sin, but praise be to God for giving us a way that we can have grace and mercy shown on us!

all you have to do is look to the public school system to see how the *mandated* absence of God has affected morality.

How right you are. Women began to be seen as equals to men. Blacks began to be seen as equals to whites. Witches and “heretics” began to be no longer burned at the stake. And democracy began to be seen as superior to theocracy as a system of government.

You may lament that “morality is being redefined every second,” but I see those as positive moral steps whose redefinition–originally opposed by Christians–created a better, more just society for all.

You wrote,

If we don’t keep to a golden standard, let’s use the Biblical one for example, who’s to say what is acceptable and what’s not?

As should be clear, the Bible is no golden standard for morality. When you see someone working on the Sabbath, do you kill them? (Exodus 31:12-15) Have you stoned your children lately for disobedience or disrespect? (Deuteronomy 21:18-21; Leviticus 20:9) If you’re answer is that we’re in “grace” now and such laws no longer apply, then why respect the Ten Commandments? The fact is, Christians have been redefining morality for as long as the religion has been around.

In any case, your question is an age-old one of philosophers and ethicists. Some have posited an objective morality, while others suggest a morality based on “common decencies“.

You wrote,

If evolution is correct, and we’re all some highly-evolved species of animal, then that same life devaluates pretty quickly according to whoever happens to be calling the shots (Hitler? Stalin? Both atheists and look how their regimes fell).

Hitler was not an atheist, and Stalin’s regime was based on communist ideology, not atheism.

In any case, the irony of your statement is stunning. You worship a deity who’s committed mass genocide and who sends the majority of humanity to eternal torture. The OT is replete with capital punishment for the most innocuous offenses. Yes, when God is calling the shots, life devalues “pretty quickly.”