Ethics, Atheism, and Anarchism

Posted on November 1, 2008

I’ve written a bit on atheism & ethics on this blog (1, 2, 3, 4), it’s a topic that’s come up in the past because soem theists (christians, muslims, and others) like to argue that morality originates with religion and so it’s impossible for an atheist to live a moral life or even have a moral code, which is bullshit just on the face of it but keeps coming up so I took the time to respond to it.  Limits on my time though kept my response from being developed as fully as I would have liked.   Fortunately, I’m not exactly the first person to write on this topic so when I found the full text to Peter Kropotkin’s book “Ethics: Origins & Development” online I knew I had to share it with ya’ll.

Ethics: Origin and Development
By Peter Kropotkin

CHAPTER I

The Present Need of Determining the Bases of Morality

When we cast a glance upon the immense progress realized by the natural sciences in the course of the nineteenth century, and when we perceive the promises they contain for the future, we can not but feel deeply impressed by the idea that mankind is entering upon a new era of progress It has, at any rate, before it all the elements for preparing such a new era. In the course of the last one hundred years, new branches of knowledge, opening entirely new vistas upon the laws of the development of human society, have grown up under the names of anthropology prehistoric ethnology (science of the primitive social institutions), the history of religions, and so on. New conceptions about the whole life of the universe were developed by pursuing such lines of research as molecular physics, the chemical structure of matter, and the chemical composition of distant worlds. And the traditional views about the position of man in the universe, the origin of life, and the nature of reason were entirely upset by the rapid development of biology, the appearance of the theory of evolution, and the progress made in the study of human and animal psychology.

Merely to say that the progress of science in each of its branches, excepting perhaps astronomy, has been greater during the last century than during any three or four centuries of the ages preceding, would not be enough. We must turn back 2000 years, to the glorious times of the philosophical revival in Ancient Greece, in order to find another such period of the awakening of the human intellect. And yet, even this comparison would not be correct, because at that early period of human history, man did not enter into possession of all those wonders of industrial technique which have been lately arrayed in our service. The development of this technique at last gives man the opportunity to free himself from slavish toil.

At the same time modern humanity developed a youthful, daring spirit of invention, stimulated by the recent discoveries of science; and the inventions that followed in rapid succession have to such an extent increased the productive capacity of human labor as to make at last possible for modern civilized peoples such a general well-being as could not be dreamt of in antiquity, or in the Middle Ages, or even in the earlier portion of the nineteenth century. For the first time in the history of civilization, mankind has reached a point where the means of satisfying its needs are in excess of the needs themselves. To impose therefore, as has hitherto been done, the curse of misery and degradation upon vast divisions of mankind, in order to secure well being and further mental development for the few is needed no more: well being can be secured for all. without placing on anyone the burden of oppressive, degrading toil, and humanity can at last rebuild its entire social life on the bases of justice. Whether the modern civilized nations will find in their midst the social constructive capacities, the creative powers and the daring required for utilizing the conquests of the human intellect in the interest of all,-it is difficult to say beforehand.

Whether our present civilization is vigorous and youthful enough to undertake so great a task, and to bring it to the desired end, we cannot foretell. But this is certain:-that the recent revival of science has created the intellectual atmosphere required for calling such forces into existence, and it has already given us the knowledge necessary for the realization of this great task.

Reverting to the sound philosophy of Nature which remained in neglect from the time of Ancient Greece until Bacon woke scientific research from its long slumber, modern science has now worked out the elements of a philosophy of the universe, free of supernatural hypotheses and the metaphysical “mythology of ideas,” and at the same time so grand, so poetical and inspiring, and so expressive of freedom, that it certainly is capable of calling into existence the new forces. Man no longer needs to clothe his ideals of more beauty, and of a society based on justice, with the garb of superstition: he does not have to wait for the Supreme Wisdom to remodel society. He can derive his ideals from Nature and he can draw the necessary strength from the study of its life.

Check out the full text online @ Pitzer College’s Anarchy Archives.  enjoy!

Catholic Morality

Posted on May 2, 2008

A news clip on a 40 year old document that’s just surfaced showing that the Vatican overtly and explicitly ordered Bishops to cover up sexual abuse by priests. Way to spread God’s love. fuckers.

and these are the bastards who claim that they have the right to pass moral judgments on the rest of us and that we should look to them for moral guidance! ha!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – belief without evidence in supernatural beings does not condone moral authority. If anything it should be a huge warning sign that the person/institution in question has forsaken reason in favor of superstition. Religion isn’t the source of morality, it’s the antithesis of morality. Morality requires a conscious effort to determine what’s right and wrong for yourself from one day to the next. I’m absolutely sure there are millions of catholics (and other religious people) who make a conscious effort to do that from day to day despite the influence of their church’s and are throughly moral people in every sense of the word, but it’s pretty clear that the people actually running the show in the Vatican are much less concerned with searching for Truth and doing what’s right then they are with protecting their own power and influence. Some might say that’s an outrageous claim, but the fact that this document was sent to every single bishop in the entire Roman Catholic church and it still took 40 years – and hundreds of thousands if not millions of abused children – to surface is pretty convincing evidence that as an institution the Catholic Church is pathologically incapable of telling right from wrong.

Religion, gods, and the moral imperitive in evolution

Posted on December 21, 2006

wrote this as a reply to an article i read by some Christian about how only true-believers in Christ can ever be moral because true morality comes from god and ONLY from god; so Muslims and other non-Christian religious people can never be as ‘moral’ as Christians, and atheists and agnostics can never be moral at all. Fun times….

so basically, this is an intellectual exercise, just to prove there are other potential sources for morality. In real life i can’t claim to go through anything this complex when deciding what to do, mostly i just do what feels right.

Read more