Montana Freethinkers

Exploring ideas outside the norm, specifically contemporary Christianity and pure market capitalism.

The Greater Virtues of the Atheist:

by Justin Whitaker

Kindness
Understanding
Patience
Respect

Kindness is treating others as you would wish to be treated. Often known as "The Golden Rule," it is a standard of most religions, and should be the standard for which all humanity is based. We are forbidden to murder or cause suffering to other humans, in any circumstance. In many religions and philosophies this extends out to other sentient beings (those able to perceive suffering).

Understanding is left out in most religions. This is the act of listening and learning before judging, and leaving judgment open to change as more learning can always be done. Once you have determined that you know anything, you have cut yourself off from understanding. All we have to base our understanding on is our perceptions. These are extremely stable, but could also be questioned. Is there really a computer screen in front of you now? How do you know? You could ask someone nearby, but do they really exist? This may seem like a strange stream of questions, unless you've had one of those dreams; the ones that seem absolutely real, right down to the texture of the paint on the walls. By this time in your life you should be fairly confident in your perceptions though, and not need to ask those around you if they really exist, but our perceptions, while stable, are subject to interpretation by the brain, which at times is not so stable.

Patience is a tying together of kindness and understanding. With these, patience is the only possible result. Kindness is the external expression of understanding. Patience, like kindness must be learned and practiced through interaction with fellow humans.

Respect also comes from kindness and understanding, but without respect, patience is not as real. Understanding can be achieved through books and studies, and kindness can be applied without respect for those to which it is applied. Respect can be cold, and unlearned though. It can be a more like subordination than respect if it comes from incorrect sources. One should not feel that they must respect another because of their relative positions in life, nor should one need to earn another's respect. Respect should be given and received as understanding of those involved grows. Of course, respect can and will have various levels, depending on the existence of the greater virtues in those one respects. One will naturally find it difficult to find respect for one who does not posses, nor seeks to posses the greater virtues. One can only respect them as a fellow human being, struggling as we all are at times, suffering as we all are at times, and joyful as we all are at times.

All virtues are tied together, reliant on one another. It is best to write down your own virtues; maybe the five that you feel you exhibit the best, in order from your strongest to your weakest. Then determine how you can build upon the weaker ones, using the properties of the stronger ones. If your strongest virtue is compassion, you can clearly link this to understanding and kindness, and from there patience and so on. Determine the virtues that you would like to develop, and give a short description of how these virtues will help you in life. Those that I wish to develop now are patience and leadership. Patience is a difficult one for me, I tend to ridicule at times when patience is most called for. Patience in these times will help me deepen the relationships I have and prevent me from being unkind. Leadership is a virtue that I am unsure as to how to go about learning. I think it is probably best to simply put myself in leadership rolls and learn from them. It is important to have a sturdy grasp on the greater virtues before attempting this one.

The virtues of the Atheist are in most ways that of the Theist. Although they come from love of humankind, not of a God. The Canon of the Atheist is the words and lives of great human beings, not stories of supernatural happenings written ages ago. While one should emulate the lives of great humans such as the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa, one need not take on the religious beliefs of these people.

Shortfalls of Theistic Ethics:

Interpretation. It has often been said that religion does not make the person, but people do make the religion. This is exemplified in the diversity of American life and the resulting diversity of American Christianity. Rarely will two Christians ever agree on what degree the bible must be taken as the literal word of God. Even more rarely will these two practice what is taught and expected from the bible. So it is in every religion. The Bible, a document of over 1300 pages (depending on which version you have) is filled with contradictions (if taken literally). So the Christian is left either to the authoritarian regime of Catholicism or to the often-fanatical Protestant strands of the religion. There are, nevertheless, much more moderate versions of both Catholicism and Protestantism, but it could clearly be argued that the degree to which they are 'toned down' is the exact degree to which they fall away from fundamental aspects of the Bible.

False security. Endemic in many religions is the notion that one who simply follows a prescribed set of rituals or believes a prescribe set of beliefs will be well off after death and therefore needn't worry about anything much in this life. This is most blatant in the Christian assertion that it is by faith alone, solas fidelis, that one goes to heaven. Apparently any actions in this life are permitted if this is believed. Arguably very few Christians believe this (I hope!) but the failure to overtly reject it is an aspect of bad conscience that the atheist must find troubling.

There is likewise the common notion of 'God's chosen...' as a justification of racism, imperialism, war, and murder. The examples are too numerous to list, but certainly Jews, Nazis, and American settlers all have a history of calling on religious sanction as they cut down an innocent foe. There is a sense in people that each time it happens will be the last time, as if somehow society will remember the mistakes of its past. But even as I write this (November 2004) a war rages in Iraq, started by a man who believes that God has urged him to bring democracy to both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Division. With intense religious identification comes intense division. While the Atheist ethics must focus on humanity (at the least) or sentience as a basis for inclusion, religious ethics often establishes classes of humanity in which ethics simply do not apply. We can think of Hitler's categorization of Jews, Gypsies, and Russians, the early American's categorization of Blacks, or the Hindu caste system as cases of intense division on religiously sanctioned grounds. With the belief in a personal creator, it is quite plausible to believe that this creator made some people better than others, some as servants and some as kings. An atheistic account, which as it happens occurs in Buddhism as well, utter rejects the personal creator theory, stating that what makes a man high or low is his actions, not his race.

Conclusion:

While this is in no way a complete description of Atheist or theistic ethics, it is a few points to ponder for both the religious and the secular. It is quite possible for a theist to hold to very high ethical standards in my view, but then how much are they sliding away from theism in the view of more fundamental theists? On the other hand you may find atheists who have no sense of ethics whatsoever.

The image you should not form is a spectrum with unethical, fundamental theists on one end and saintly (pardon the pun) atheists on the other. Instead the purpose of this work is to show that one: ethics and ethical concepts can be completely stripped of any religious identity and maintain their strength and coherence and two: religious concepts in the discussion of ethics cloud over the central issues of humanity, sentience, and unity to the point at times of complete disregard for ethics.

In the end, it is up to each of us to develop and uphold the greatest standards of ethics possible. Some believing theists and hedonist atheists argue that ethics is unimportant because faith is what is important in the case of the first and accumlating pleasure before death is the key to life for the second, but it must become increasingly clear that without living by a high standard of ethics we cannot live our lives to their fullest. In the case of the theist, he may restrict himself from worthy pursuits based on dogma, or blame transcendent forces for the plight of others as an excuse not to act. In the case of the hedonist atheist, by taking and taking greedily, he may damage relationships with others and alienate himself from the world, making pleasures all the more impossible to gain.

We must take on social responsibilities, as the well-being of others around us has a direct and pointed affect on us. A suffering German people gave increasing power to a gifted dictator in the 1930s, the suffering people of Afghanistan supported fundamentalist terrorists in recent years and so it must be clear to everyone that no matter how far the suffering is from you today, it could literally be at your doorstep tomorrow. I think that this must be the central message of any ethics, and I hope that as I seek to more fully implement it in my life, you take stock of your own ethical qualities and orientation.

Thanks for reading. Justin Whitaker

What a shame it is, in this world filled with starvation, disease, and natural disaster, that a human being could be the cause of suffering for another human being.

"I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, - a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, - and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection…. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst." - Frederic Douglass, American Slave and God Fearing Christian