Why I Am Not An Atheist - Part Two
The outworking of Nietzsche's perspective, which I have made reference to before, is that because God is dead then the new superman will go on to become autonomous and determine his own right and wrong. Much like the antagonist in Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, who, as the author wrote, had "shaken himself free from the dust of the earth." In so doing, attempting to assume an objective framework that is somehow beyond good and evil.
Hitler took this idea and militarized it. His supermen determined that it was right to collect and massacre Jews and if Nietzsche was right, than Hitler was right also because humanity will then be "free" to determine what is good and what is evil.
We have stumbled into a rabid search for an ethic in our time because we are feeling the after-effects of God's philosophical death. Nietzsche went on to say that because God was dead, that the twentieth century would become the bloodiest one yet - and he was right. But Philosopher of Ethics Robert Fitch said this concerning his field,
"Ours is an age where ethics has become obsolete. It is superceded by science, deleted by psychology, dismissed as emotive by philosophy. It is drowned in compassion, evaporates into asthetics and retreats before relativism. The simple distinction between good and bad is somehow drowned in a waterfall of emotion in which we feel more sympathy for the murderer than for the murdered, for the adulterer rather than for the betrayed, and in which we have actually come to think that the real guilty party, the person who somehow started it all, is the victim and not the perpetrator of the time."
During the Enlightenment however, Kant made a mistake that served as a turning point. He said that "ethics has to be arrived at purely from the vantage point of reason without the introduction of the concept of God and without using happiness as its goal." And to quote Ravi Zacharias, isn't ironic today that we have lost all three, the concept of God, the concept of ethics, and the concept of happiness too. Because of the loss of God in ethics, the objective anchor to keep us pinned down on a moral compass, ethics crumbled away into existentialism and moral relativism, in which whatever is good or bad is merely what I prefer or what I happen to think is right, and not what actually is. And to quite Mr. Zacharias once again, on the heels of the Enlightenment, Existentialism was waiting to be born and on the heels of Existentialism, alienation was waiting to be born. Why alienation? Because there is no common good or bad, right or wrong, anymore. There is no common, objective ethic to turn to.
As McCentire put it, "You cannot design an ought unless you know what is." And you cannot create an ethic without a purpose without God, because there is no purpose because life only has whatever meaning I choose (or choose not to) give to it. Morality without a purpose is useless, because there is no reason or leverage to choose one type of morality over and above another. And that is the problem that Kant, Camut, and the other enlightenment and existential philosophers because they could not, and cannot, justify their position over and against the Nietzsche-type of position.
Indeed, even Kai Nielson, noted atheist scholar and philosopher, says this concerning the question why be moral - "We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view or that all really rational persons, unhoodwinked by mths or ideology, not be individual egoists or classic amoralists. Reason doesn't decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depressed me... The point is this: Pure, practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality."
Without God, there is no objective moral law to turn to and anything that you call good or bad is merely useful for you to call it such, or merely a statement of opinion. Let us assume I am a murderer. Thus, if I murder your family, when your heart is screaming that what has occured is a horrendous evil, you are wrong to think that - rather you just don't like it. But there is nothing that has been violated in that act of murder. Indeed, for you to say that such an action is wrong is imposing your morality upon my own; I happen to find it useful to kill random people so as to steal money and random victims makes it more difficult for the police to find me. And if there is no objective morality, than we are left with relativism, and in saying that I ought not to push my beliefs on other people, you are pushing yours on me. Utter contradiction.
Hitler took this idea and militarized it. His supermen determined that it was right to collect and massacre Jews and if Nietzsche was right, than Hitler was right also because humanity will then be "free" to determine what is good and what is evil.
We have stumbled into a rabid search for an ethic in our time because we are feeling the after-effects of God's philosophical death. Nietzsche went on to say that because God was dead, that the twentieth century would become the bloodiest one yet - and he was right. But Philosopher of Ethics Robert Fitch said this concerning his field,
"Ours is an age where ethics has become obsolete. It is superceded by science, deleted by psychology, dismissed as emotive by philosophy. It is drowned in compassion, evaporates into asthetics and retreats before relativism. The simple distinction between good and bad is somehow drowned in a waterfall of emotion in which we feel more sympathy for the murderer than for the murdered, for the adulterer rather than for the betrayed, and in which we have actually come to think that the real guilty party, the person who somehow started it all, is the victim and not the perpetrator of the time."
During the Enlightenment however, Kant made a mistake that served as a turning point. He said that "ethics has to be arrived at purely from the vantage point of reason without the introduction of the concept of God and without using happiness as its goal." And to quote Ravi Zacharias, isn't ironic today that we have lost all three, the concept of God, the concept of ethics, and the concept of happiness too. Because of the loss of God in ethics, the objective anchor to keep us pinned down on a moral compass, ethics crumbled away into existentialism and moral relativism, in which whatever is good or bad is merely what I prefer or what I happen to think is right, and not what actually is. And to quite Mr. Zacharias once again, on the heels of the Enlightenment, Existentialism was waiting to be born and on the heels of Existentialism, alienation was waiting to be born. Why alienation? Because there is no common good or bad, right or wrong, anymore. There is no common, objective ethic to turn to.
As McCentire put it, "You cannot design an ought unless you know what is." And you cannot create an ethic without a purpose without God, because there is no purpose because life only has whatever meaning I choose (or choose not to) give to it. Morality without a purpose is useless, because there is no reason or leverage to choose one type of morality over and above another. And that is the problem that Kant, Camut, and the other enlightenment and existential philosophers because they could not, and cannot, justify their position over and against the Nietzsche-type of position.
Indeed, even Kai Nielson, noted atheist scholar and philosopher, says this concerning the question why be moral - "We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view or that all really rational persons, unhoodwinked by mths or ideology, not be individual egoists or classic amoralists. Reason doesn't decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depressed me... The point is this: Pure, practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality."
Without God, there is no objective moral law to turn to and anything that you call good or bad is merely useful for you to call it such, or merely a statement of opinion. Let us assume I am a murderer. Thus, if I murder your family, when your heart is screaming that what has occured is a horrendous evil, you are wrong to think that - rather you just don't like it. But there is nothing that has been violated in that act of murder. Indeed, for you to say that such an action is wrong is imposing your morality upon my own; I happen to find it useful to kill random people so as to steal money and random victims makes it more difficult for the police to find me. And if there is no objective morality, than we are left with relativism, and in saying that I ought not to push my beliefs on other people, you are pushing yours on me. Utter contradiction.
posted by Brian at 3:17 PM
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