Global evidence of extreme intuitive moral prejudice against atheists

Scofflaw

Interesting study in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0151

Apparently, not only religious people, but also atheists, are likely to intuitively associate atheism with moral transgressions:

Here, we quantify moral distrust of atheists by applying well-tested measures in a large global sample (N = 3,256; 13 diverse countries). Consistent with cultural evolutionary theories of religion and morality, people in most—but not all— of these countries viewed extreme moral violations as representative of atheists. Notably, anti-atheist prejudice was even evident among atheist participants around the world. The results contrast with recent polls that do not find self-reported moral prejudice against atheists in highly secular countries, and imply that the recent rise in secularism in Western countries has not overwritten intuitive anti-atheist prejudice. Entrenched moral suspicion of atheists suggests that religion’s powerful influence on moral judgements persists, even among non-believers in secular societies.

I suppose one possible logical argument is that given two identical persons, the religious one has additional external constraints against immorality, even if the two have identical internal constraints.

The study uses a logical fallacy to explore the association between religiosity and morality, whereas previous studies have asked the question directly. So this study would be looking at subconscious/unconscious bias rather than conscious views.

Any thoughts?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Peregrinus

I haven't read the study; just media reports about it.

You mention "one possible logical argument"; the idea that the religious person's fear of divine punishment, even if unfounded in reality, nevertheless does operate to constrain grossly immoral behaviour.

While it's a "possible logical argument", as far as I can tell from the reports it's not one that the study explored. The study didn't ask participants why they conceived of the (hypothetical) serial killer as more likely to be atheist than religious; it just observed that they did conceive of him in that way.

An equally possible logical argument has causation working the other way; the kind of gross personality disorder that contributes to someone being a serial killer might also contribute to them being alienated from religion. So our hypothetical serial killer might not be a serial killer because he's an atheist, lacking in the moral restraints that arise from religious belief. Rather, he might be an atheist because he's a serial killer, lacking in the sense of empathy which both prevents us from hurting people and sustains the kind of social relationships that contribute to religiosity.

Peregrinus

Rereading the above, I feel I'm not being very clear here. But maybe the takeaway is this; perhaps the study doesn't show preconceptions about atheists so much as it shows preconceptions about serial killers.

Samaris

Given religion is one of the popular hypotheses for certain types of serial killing (usually killing prostitutes - "religious mania" was one suggestion for Jack the Ripper), that's a bit of an odd one. Then again, I don't know how often religion is actually proven to be a causal factor for that versus just that prostitutes have always tended to be more accessible victims.

smacl

From the study

We developed a measure to assess extreme anti-atheist prejudice by using a simple experimental design that targets intuitive biases 19 . In this task, participants read a description of a man who tortures animals as a child then as an adult exhibits escalating violence culminating with the murder and mutilation of five homeless people. Then, participants are judged whether it is more probable that the villain is (A) a teacher or (B) a teacher who either (manipulated between subjects) is a religious believer or does not believe in god(s). Thus, no individual participant is directly asked whether they think the perpetrator is or is not a believer. Instead, the conjunction fallacy 27 rates (choosing option B—a logically incorrect answer) between conditions can be used to infer indirectly the degree to which a description of a serial murderer is intuitively seen as more representative of religious people or atheists, respectively.

So we start with a hypothetical serial killer who is a teacher and seek to identify whether that person is religious or an atheist. Surely the condition of the serial killer being a teacher confounds the results, as to my mind what has been observed here is equally whether or not teachers are atheists or religious as whether or serial killers are atheists or religious. I wonder whether the conjunction fallacy the authors are trying to avoid is actually leaving them with an association fallacy in its place. (e.g. most teachers are religious, most teachers are not serial killers -> atheist teacher more likely to be the serial killer).

Interesting also that 69% of the participants considered were female. I'd wonder is that gender imbalance reflective of the demographic being assessed?

smacl

Samaris wrote: »

Given religion is one of the popular hypotheses for certain types of serial killing (usually killing prostitutes - "religious mania" was one suggestion for Jack the Ripper), that's a bit of an odd one. Then again, I don't know how often religion is actually proven to be a causal factor for that versus just that prostitutes have always tended to be more accessible victims.

True, but the study is about preconception and prejudice, not fact. What it could show us is simply that most of us have many dubious preconceptions and prejudices.

Samaris

smacl wrote: »

True, but the study is about preconception and prejudice, not fact. What it could show us is simply that most of us have many dubious preconceptions and prejudices.

True, and I suppose if one just happens to not hold that particular bias, it looks a bit odd and illogical to them. But then again I have my own prejudices that would show up in other topics. Would not have thought that that particular one was quite so widespread though and it's interesting that even atheists have a certain inbuilt prejudice against atheists, assuming that the results do actually reflect peoples beliefs rather than people being thrown off by the teacher bit.

smacl

Samaris wrote: »

it's interesting that even atheists have a certain inbuilt prejudice against atheists, assuming that the results do actually reflect peoples beliefs rather than people being thrown off by the teacher bit.

I'm not entirely convinced of the conclusion drawn here without digging a bit more into the source data. Firstly were there enough atheists in the sample used to make statements about about atheists in general, secondly whether atheists have enough in common with one another that their prejudices can be considered generically. My personal belief (or prejudice even) is that atheism says so little about a person that it is not a useful trait by which to group people.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Rereading the above, I feel I'm not being very clear here. But maybe the takeaway is this; perhaps the study doesn't show preconceptions about atheists so much as it shows preconceptions about serial killers.

Or teachers

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

I'm not entirely convinced of the conclusion drawn here without digging a bit more into the source data. Firstly were there enough atheists in the sample used to make statements about about atheists in general, secondly whether atheists have enough in common with one another that their prejudices can be considered generically. My personal belief (or prejudice even) is that atheism says so little about a person that it is not a useful trait by which to group people.

In regard to most things I think it's probably not a useful trait. But if we're attempting to measure negative/prejudicial views of atheism then, yeah, you'd expect atheist themselves to display less of this than theist do, wouldn't you? The striking thing in this survey was that even atheists seemed to have negative perceptions of atheism as an indicator of propensity to be a serial killer (if indeed the survey did accurately measure that).

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

In regard to most things I think it's probably not a useful trait. But if we're attempting to measure negative/prejudicial views of atheism then, yeah, you'd expect atheist themselves to display less of this than theist do, wouldn't you? The striking thing in this survey was that even atheists seemed to have negative perceptions of atheism as an indicator of propensity to be a serial killer (if indeed the survey did accurately measure that).

I think it would take a more detailed look at the data collected, which I've yet to do. Briefly reading the article shows that those questioned were asked how much they believed in God on a scale of 0 to 100, where those answering 0 are considered atheists, which is fair enough. While the overall sample size was large, whether the subset of atheists was large enough to make general statements about the views of atheists remains to be seen, as does the notion that there is any sense in making statements about common views of atheists beyond the fact that they believe in a god or gods.

Scofflaw

smacl wrote: »

I'm not entirely convinced of the conclusion drawn here without digging a bit more into the source data. Firstly were there enough atheists in the sample used to make statements about about atheists in general, secondly whether atheists have enough in common with one another that their prejudices can be considered generically. My personal belief (or prejudice even) is that atheism says so little about a person that it is not a useful trait by which to group people.

There were 553 in the study, which is a decent sized sample, and multiples of the usual sample sizes in social studies. That sort of sample size would yield results applicable to a 'general population' - it's large enough to do a voting intentions study.

cordially,
Scofflaw

recedite

I think I'd be inclined to share the bias against atheists. It does have a logical basis, as already pointed out. Religious people have an extra restraint that atheists do not have. Or to put it another way, atheists are more liberated.
And as quoted in the OP link ...

The ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi claimed that belief in ghosts was essential for moral restraint

Ghosts can punish you even if you are above the law, and even after you are dead. So even the most powerful/influential/corrupt members of society can still have their behaviour restrained by ghosts (provided the person is superstitious).

However, in the interests of balance, it might have been interesting to pose this additional question in the survey;

A notoriously rich playboy, a former teacher, is known for his wild parties aboard his yacht, and has a reputation among the supermodel ladies for being great in bed.
In your opinion is he more likely to be a) religious or b) non-religious? :pac:

Pherekydes

recedite wrote: »

A notoriously rich playboy, a former teacher, is known for his wild parties aboard his yacht, and has a reputation among the supermodel ladies for being great in bed.
In your opinion is he more likely to be a) religious or b) non-religious? :pac:

A former teacher now has a yacht? Must be an evangelical christian!

silverharp

On a quick search

smacl

silverharp wrote: »

On a quick search

That kind of highlights the dangers of reading too much into correlation. e.g. I would guess those down as having Native American down as their religion end up in prison primarily because Native Americans are a disadvantaged group which results in increased crime and hence prison. I would doubt that their religious leanings have a major causative effect. Grouping a trait such as atheism in with positive religious beliefs is similarly dangerous, as while a religious belief might say something about a persons stated morality, a lack of religious belief says nothing either way.

silverharp

smacl wrote: »

That kind of highlights the dangers of reading too much into correlation. e.g. I would guess those down as having Native American down as their religion end up in prison primarily because Native Americans are a disadvantaged group which results in increased crime and hence prison. I would doubt that their religious leanings have a major causative effect. Grouping a trait such as atheism in with positive religious beliefs is similarly dangerous, as while a religious belief might say something about a persons stated morality, a lack of religious belief says nothing either way.

there has to be some self selection bias, on the face of it we should all become Penticostal especially since that is a mostly Black religion ( I think) so they are batting it out of the park but self selection has to play a part
The Hindu/Muslim paradox might be more interesting, does being a Hindu just give you more chill than being Muslim :pac:

One eyed Jack

I don't know that I'd say the study presented evidence of intuitive moral prejudice against atheists. I would suggest that what the study really presents is that people believe that a person who commits immoral acts is a person who does not believe in a deity or deities. It's more of a commentary on the actions of those who profess a belief in a deity or deities, than those who do not. By definition, the fact that a person does not believe in a deity or deities would mean they were an atheist. But it requires backwards rationalisation after the fact to conclude that a person who commits an immoral act is a person who does not believe in a deity or deities.

It's always presented something of a moral quandary to me to associate a person with a particular belief or non-belief on the basis of their actions, as in whether they were committing acts because they associated the moral righteousness of their actions with the belief that their actions were what their particular deity or deities would have wanted of them, or would have been appeased by or approve of their behaviour. An example of this would be a person who commits an act because they believe it's what their... well, God, would want. I've always wondered about how they could be so certain that their behaviour or their way of thinking is what their God would want of them. This suggests to me that such a person is able to justify their immoral behaviour as morally justifiable to themselves. They don't care for the opinions of mere mortals as such because they believe that their God wants them to commit what we would see as immoral acts. This study however, doesn't appear to be testing that particular phenomenon.

A good example of the backwards rationalisation I'm talking about would be the third supplementary study that was done -

Study S3 Overview. Our primary cross-cultural investigation suggested that extreme moral violations are intuitively associated with atheists. However, it is possible that other extreme moral violations might, in fact, suggest a religious perpetrator. Specifically, given the prominence of sex abuse scandals in the Catholic church, it is possible that people might intuitively assume that the perpetrators of chronic child molestation might in fact be men of the cloth. In addition, none of our previous studies explored whether moral impropriety might outweigh other overt cues that one is religious in people’s intuitive attributions of atheism to moral violators. Study S3 tested whether people would assume that a serial child molester who also happens to be a priest is, in fact, a priest who does not believe in God.

Method. We recruited 265 participants from the University of Kentucky campus in Lexington, KY, USA (Age: M = 21.7, SD = 6.7; Belief in God [0-100]: M = 70.8, SD = 34.1; 57% female). We presented participants with the following vignette [experimental conditions in brackets]:

“Keith is a well-respected figure in his community. All his friends describe him as a very caring and friendly 60-year-old-man. However, Keith actually spends most of his free time luring young boys into his office to molest them. In the past 10 years, Keith has molested over 30 boys. Which is more probable? a) Keith is a priest b) Keith is a priest and [believes/ does not believe] in God”

Results. As with main analyses, we utilized Bayesian estimation and present model predicted conjunction error probabilities [with 95% HPDIs]. Given a description of a serial child molesting priest, participants were more likely to commit conjunction errors for targets who do not believe in God, .57 [.49, .65], than targets who do believe in God, .40 [.32, .48], posterior probability = .998.

Summary. Study S3 suggests that intuitive moral distrust extends to moral violations that could possibly be popularly associated with religious people (child molestation), given current events. Further, a description of immorality seemingly outweighed even overt evidence of religiosity, leading people to nonetheless assume that a perpetrator of serial child molestation does not believe in God, even though he is a priest.


Source: Global evidence of extreme intuitive moral prejudice against atheists, Supplementary Information

This example, to me at least, suggests that it doesn't mean that people believe that atheists are necessarily more likely to abuse children, but rather that people who abuse children are unlikely to believe in God. It's rather the other way round, it's the opposite of the correlation/causation fallacy, and that's what appears to be causing scientists so much confusion. It's not a prejudice against atheists as such, but more a belief that people who commit such acts are unlikely to believe in God.

There was a good example of this in a documentary I watched last night called "The Betrayed Girls The Rochdale Scandal (2017) Documentary", where Sara Rowbotham who was the manager of the Rochdale Crisis Intervention Team at the time, presented her evidence to the religious leaders in the community who perpetrated these acts, and they basically told her it had nothing to do with them. These men didn't commit these acts because they believed that it was what their God would have wanted; they committed these acts because it was what they themselves wanted to do.

This conclusion of course would mean that although they could by definition be defined as atheist, it would be wrong to assume that their behaviour was as a result of their atheism.

Unrelated to the above, but this was a rather unfortunate acronym, albeit accurate -

This diverse sample allowed us to extend our investigation well beyond the WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) samples that predominate the social sciences

And right after the example of the child abusing priest, they listed the sampling details and payment methods -



Something very... "off", about giving candy to students as a reward for their participation.

Peregrinus

silverharp wrote: »

there has to be some self selection bias, on the face of it we should all become Penticostal especially since that is a mostly Black religion ( I think) so they are batting it out of the park but self selection has to play a part
The Hindu/Muslim paradox might be more interesting, does being a Hindu just give you more chill than being Muslim :pac:

Pentecostal Christianity is not "mostly Black" in the US.

Still, as others have already said, this data about the faith of prisoners is pretty meaningless unless you control for other factors which are known to be strongly correlated with imprisonment - age, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnic background. I'm gonna hazard a guess that the overrepresentation of Muslims in the American prison system has nothing to do with Islam, and much to do with race.

And, as regards the Hindu/Muslim thing, while Hindus and Muslims are from very similar ethnic communities in the Indian subcontinent, they're from quite different ethnic communities in the US. And I think if you drill down into it you might find socioecomic differences also.

nozzferrahhtoo

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I would suggest that what the study really presents is that people believe that a person who commits immoral acts is a person who does not believe in a deity or deities.

Which, of course, would be a ridiculous belief for them to hold given that theists are over, and atheist under, represented in many prisons...... given the large quantity of theists who do in fact commit immoral acts........ and of course given the horrific and immoral acts committed not just by people who believe in a deity but specifically BECAUSE they believe in the deity and what they believe about said deity.

It is interesting when we look at history though and take random events like the great riots in canada when the police went on strike........ the people looting and visiting abuse and assault on their fellow human beings did not appear to show any clear deist, atheist or theist divides. It appears belief in a deity rarely mediates or prevents immoral action in such scenarios. Rather people, regardless of their theistic beliefs, quickly display the attributes of being the animal that we know ourselves to be, rather than the nobel creature we aspire on occasion to consider ourselves to be.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I've always wondered about how they could be so certain that their behaviour or their way of thinking is what their God would want of them.

I would guess that in many cases the answer to that is the same answer to the question many atheists ask as to why the theist believes there even is a god in the first place. And that answer is merely "faith".

If you can accept that people, without any arguments, evidence, data or reasoning can think there is a god in the first place off the back of mere "faith"........ then I can not see it as a difficult step that their belief in some specific precept related to that god could be explained in that way too.

The only question then becomes how big a problem is unsubstantiated "faith" in our world, and what can and should we do about it.

The example that of course always rushes to my mind of such actions is that of parents watching their children die, often painfully, of otherwise easily treatable or manageable conditions merely because they not only believe there is a god but they believe medical intervention is an affront to that god. We have cases reaching the courts in places like the US of such needless infant and child deaths. And there was a Time Magazine article on the subject.

And the potential deranging effects of faith and religion are clear in such cases. That religion could warp a parents priorities to such a degree that they not only watch their child die needlessly, but they do so thinking they are doing the absolute best thing a parent can do for a child......... is a horror that I doubt I need to insult anyone's intelligence here by describing. And often by people who would then turn around and describe abortion in the middle of the first trimester to be some moral evil and "murder".

I suspect many people are not looking at what they think their god wants of them however. I suspect they themselves are deciding what they thing is right and wrong and then retrospectively rubber stamping that with "god" later. Especially when they themselves have no arguments for or against that moral precept.

For example I am often told that god is a rational being. I am also often told that god is against homosexuals and homosexuality. So if god is a rational being he must have rational arguments that we could POTENTIALLY discern for his holding that position. I have invited theists to work with me on ruminating on what that reasoning might be. They refuse to, or simply can not do so. They seem to be aware of no rational reason at all why a deity would have an issue with homosexuality. It never seems to occur to them that perhaps, therefore, their assumption that their god DOES have an issue with homosexuality is in fact flawed. Rather I suspect they themselves are against homosexuality and have merely rubber stamped their unsubstantiated moral bias retrospectively with gods vicarious opinions.

silverharp

Peregrinus wrote: »

Pentecostal Christianity is not "mostly Black" in the US.

Still, as others have already said, this data about the faith of prisoners is pretty meaningless unless you control for other factors which are known to be strongly correlated with imprisonment - age, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnic background. I'm gonna hazard a guess that the overrepresentation of Muslims in the American prison system has nothing to do with Islam, and much to do with race.

And, as regards the Hindu/Muslim thing, while Hindus and Muslims are from very similar ethnic communities in the Indian subcontinent, they're from quite different ethnic communities in the US. And I think if you drill down into it you might find socioecomic differences also.

in this case you wouldn't have to control for age or gender , I'd expect them to be consistent . As for the Muslim Hindu paradox probably a mix, People from Pakistan and India are pretty much the same ethnically, all that separates them is culture which was decided by religion so you cant control for it , its a factor in behaviour. Probably would be unfair to directly compare Somali muslims for example to Hindus for example as the Somalis are bound to have lower social capital, however given the separatist nature of Islam their offspring are going to have more difficulties caused directly by their religion.

Peregrinus

silverharp wrote: »

in this case you wouldn't have to control for age or gender , I'd expect them to be consistent . As for the Muslim Hindu paradox probably a mix, People from Pakistan and India are pretty much the same ethnically, all that separates them is culture which was decided by religion so you cant control for it , its a factor in behaviour. Probably would be unfair to directly compare Somali muslims for example to Hindus for example as the Somalis are bound to have lower social capital, however given the separatist nature of Islam their offspring are going to have more difficulties caused directly by their religion.

Only about 33% of American Muslims are of Indian subcontinent origin. About 25% are from an Arab background and another 25% are from an African-American background. The remaining one-sixth are diverse, but the largest component is people from various American backgrounds (White, Hispanic, etc) who have converted, or the descendants of such. The number of Somalis would be tiny.

The over-representation of Muslims in the prison population is likely to be closely linked to the over-representation of African-Americans, would be my guess.

There's a phenomenon observed in the US in which people from socially disfunctional backgrounds and who suffer from this and are seeking to reinvent themselves have a (relatively) high propensity to convert to Islam (just as a couple of generations ago an Irish person wanting to commit to changing his life might give up the drink). In fact, there's quite a lot of conversions to Islam by people already in prison. So Islam is already associated, to some degree, with social and economic disadvantage; in the US it's to some extent a religion of the dispossessed. So it's not completely surprising to see it over-represented in the prison population.

Scofflaw

One eyed Jack wrote:

This example, to me at least, suggests that it doesn't mean that people believe that atheists are necessarily more likely to abuse children, but rather that people who abuse children are unlikely to believe in God. It's rather the other way round, it's the opposite of the correlation/causation fallacy, and that's what appears to be causing scientists so much confusion. It's not a prejudice against atheists as such, but more a belief that people who commit such acts are unlikely to believe in God.

If we take it that an atheist is someone who is unlikely to believe in a God, doesn't your last sentence there come out as:

It's not a prejudice against those who are unlikely to believe in God as such, but more a belief that people who commit such acts are unlikely to believe in God.

The latter does seem remarkably similar to the former...

cordially,
Scofflaw

silverharp

Peregrinus wrote: »

The over-representation of Muslims in the prison population is likely to be closely linked to the over-representation of African-Americans, would be my guess.

a % of Muslims in the US are African American so some overlap, seems like they should have chosen Penticostal

Peregrinus wrote: »

There's a phenomenon observed in the US in which people from socially disfunctional backgrounds and who suffer from this and are seeking to reinvent themselves have a (relatively) high propensity to convert to Islam (just as a couple of generations ago an Irish person wanting to commit to changing his life might give up the drink). In fact, there's quite a lot of conversions to Islam by people already in prison. So Islam is already associated, to some degree, with social and economic disadvantage; in the US it's to some extent a religion of the dispossessed. So it's not completely surprising to see it over-represented in the prison population.

It seems to be the prison conversion of choice, I don't know how the stats are put together. If you are keeping crime stats your religion on entry would be more relevant that the religion you leave with.

Peregrinus

Scofflaw wrote: »

The latter does seem remarkably similar to the former...

No, I think it's quite different.

The first is an argument that atheists will tend to be wicked, since they lack the moral constraints imposed by a fear of inexorable divine retribution.

The second is an argument that the kind of person who become a serial killer tends to have the kind of personality which doesn't make for religiosity. (They are psychopaths; they don't seek the validation of the approval/support of others, which is something people often find in religion.)

The implication of the first argument is that every atheist is at least suspect of a tendency to wickness (even if not to the point of being a serial killer).

The second argument has no such implications. A whole variety of factors can account for people embracing atheism, and psychopathy is (hopefully) a factor only in small minority of cases.

Scofflaw

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, I think it's quite different.

The first is an argument that atheists will tend to be wicked, since they lack the moral constraints imposed by a fear of inexorable divine retribution.

The second is an argument that the kind of person who become a serial killer tends to have the kind of personality which doesn't make for religiosity. (They are psychopaths; they don't seek the validation of the approval/support of others, which is something people often find in religion.)

The implication of the first argument is that every atheist is at least suspect of a tendency to wickness (even if not to the point of being a serial killer).

The second argument has no such implications. A whole variety of factors can account for people embracing atheism, and psychopathy is (hopefully) a factor only in small minority of cases.

I take your point - however, the effect held even for minor wrongdoing:

Supplementary Study S1 found that, even when the experiment more symmetrically manipulates belief versus disbelief in god(s) and tests a more minor moral violation (for example, not paying for dinner in a restaurant), people still associate immorality more with atheists than with believers (posterior probability = 0.981).

I don't think most people would require someone to be a psychopath to avoid paying for dinner in a restaurant.

Also, the study is a test of unconscious bias, which means that the participants aren't engaged in rational analysis of the kind you're suggesting - indeed, rational analysis would (or at least should) lead to the spotting of the fallacy.

cordially,
Scofflaw

One eyed Jack

Scofflaw wrote: »

If we take it that an atheist is someone who is unlikely to believe in a God, doesn't your last sentence there come out as:

The latter does seem remarkably similar to the former...

cordially,
Scofflaw

The difference though is perception and expectation, and that's why the conjunction fallacy test was being used. You'd have to read that paragraph in the context of what I had said previous to that -

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I don't know that I'd say the study presented evidence of intuitive moral prejudice against atheists. I would suggest that what the study really presents is that people believe that a person who commits immoral acts is a person who does not believe in a deity or deities. It's more of a commentary on the actions of those who profess a belief in a deity or deities, than those who do not. By definition, the fact that a person does not believe in a deity or deities would mean they were an atheist. But it requires backwards rationalisation after the fact to conclude that a person who commits an immoral act is a person who does not believe in a deity or deities.

The priest may well profess a belief in God, and given their occupation, it's not an unreasonable assumption, but the fact that they have committed immoral acts, means we can only make a judgement after the fact that if they believed in God, they would not commit such acts. Therefore if we can conclude that they do not believe in God, that would mean they are atheist.

It's not a bias or prejudice against atheists, it's not even a commentary about atheism. It's a judgement on a person who claims to believe in God, but by their behaviour, contradicts that assertion.

I think the study makes a valid hypothesis, but came to the wrong conclusions regarding it's findings. I think a different methodology, without trying to be too clever in using the conjunction fallacy (because people don't use universal logic to determine the 'correct' answer, they make assumptions they assume are logical), would have yielded a different result, and not the overwhelming negative view of atheists that they're putting forward in that study.

Scofflaw

One eyed Jack wrote: »

The difference though is perception and expectation, and that's why the conjunction fallacy test was being used. You'd have to read that paragraph in the context of what I had said previous to that -





The priest may well profess a belief in God, and given their occupation, it's not an unreasonable assumption, but the fact that they have committed immoral acts, means we can only make a judgement after the fact that if they believed in God, they would not commit such acts. Therefore if we can conclude that they do not believe in God, that would mean they are atheist.

It's not a bias or prejudice against atheists, it's not even a commentary about atheism. It's a judgement on a person who claims to believe in God, but by their behaviour, contradicts that assertion.

I think the study makes a valid hypothesis, but came to the wrong conclusions regarding it's findings. I think a different methodology, without trying to be too clever in using the conjunction fallacy (because people don't use universal logic to determine the 'correct' answer, they make assumptions they assume are logical), would have yielded a different result, and not the overwhelming negative view of atheists that they're putting forward in that study.

The point of using the conjunction fallacy, though, is that it shows when a "believable narrative" beats rationality. So what the study shows is that without thinking about it, people find the narrative of an atheist committing immoral actions more believable than that of a believer doing so. It doesn't tell us, or rely on, why that's so.

That might be an uncomfortable observation for us atheists, and it's also wrong as a heuristic, but it's an observation. You do sound to me somewhat as if you'd prefer the observation to be different.

cordially,
Scofflaw

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, I think it's quite different.

The first is an argument that atheists will tend to be wicked, since they lack the moral constraints imposed by a fear of inexorable divine retribution.

The second is an argument that the kind of person who become a serial killer tends to have the kind of personality which doesn't make for religiosity. (They are psychopaths; they don't seek the validation of the approval/support of others, which is something people often find in religion.)

The implication of the first argument is that every atheist is at least suspect of a tendency to wickedness (even if not to the point of being a serial killer).

The second argument has no such implications. A whole variety of factors can account for people embracing atheism, and psychopathy is (hopefully) a factor only in small minority of cases.

Perhaps we can introduce a third argument here; the idea that such people might tend towards being more self-reliant and "well rounded" than those who rely on superstition and the approval of others who would mould their actions?
And could being "well rounded" mitigate or balance against the negativity of the former two tendencies? Maybe not in terms of perception, but in reality. Which would explain the difference between the stats on people's perception of atheists and the stats on their actual jail time.

Peregrinus

Scofflaw wrote: »

Also, the study is a test of unconscious bias, which means that the participants aren't engaged in rational analysis of the kind you're suggesting - indeed, rational analysis would (or at least should) lead to the spotting of the fallacy.

Yes. As far as I can see the study shows, or claims to show, that people think atheists are more likely to engage in immoral behavior than theists, but it makes no exploration at all of why people believe that. The "it's because they're not afraid of hell!" account is a speculative explanation offered by people talking about the study; it's not something that emerges from the study itself.

Assume that the conclusion of the study is valid, and that people do generally expect atheists to be more likely to act immorally than theists. It's quite possible that if you asked the study subjects why they thought atheists more likely to be immoral they would struggle to explain it. The "not afraid of hell" explanation looks a bit like a rationalisation to me. The true explanation could be experiential rather than rational. People may be raised in a culture which generally harbours some degree of prejudice against atheists, and they may absorb this themselves. Or, people's own encounters with individual atheists may have led them to see atheists as more independent-minded, more self-directed, less conformist, more unconventional, and they may associate these traits will a greater willingness to flout convention and, therefore, conventional morality. But if you're asked why you expect atheists to be wicked and depraved and you've never really thought about it very much, it's much easier to say "not afraid of hell".

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Assume that the conclusion of the study is valid, and that people do generally expect atheists to be more likely to act immorally than theists. It's quite possible that if you asked the study subjects why they thought atheists more likely to be immoral they would struggle to explain it. The "not afraid of hell" explanation looks a bit like a rationalisation to me. The true explanation could be experiential rather than rational. People may be raised in a culture which generally harbours some degree of prejudice against atheists, and they may absorb this themselves. Or, people's own encounters with individual atheists may have led them to see atheists as more independent-minded, more self-directed, less conformist, more unconventional, and they may associate these traits will a greater willingness to flout convention and, therefore, conventional morality. But if you're asked why you expect atheists to be wicked and depraved and you've never really thought about it very much, it's much easier to say "not afraid of hell".

I tend to agree with this, in that very many atheists are first generation atheists and still carry the prejudices held by the religious majority which they've come from. One common prejudice of most large groups is greater suspicion of those who are not part of that group, and I suspect that is what we're seeing in this study. What would make an interesting additional control to the study would be to repeat it substituting atheist with alternative ethnic, social or other minorities, the idea being to ascertain whether the prejudice is specific to atheists or more general to poorly understood minority groups.

recedite

smacl wrote: »

One common prejudice of most large groups is greater suspicion of those who are not part of that group, and I suspect that is what we're seeing in this study.

Maybe to some extent, but the more interesting phenomenon is when the minority group shares the "prejudice" against itself, as in...

Scofflaw wrote: »

Apparently, not only religious people, but also atheists, are likely to intuitively associate atheism with moral transgressions...

Peregrinus

That wouldn't be uncommon, rec. Societal prejudice against minority groups or outgroups can be pretty powerful, and can affect individuals even from within the group concerned. Gay people can absorb negative attitudes towards homosexuality, women can internalise negative attitudes to women, etc, etc.

I'm not saying that's what has happened here. As already noted, the study doesn't explore the source of the negative perceptions that it claims to detect. But the fact that atheists themselves seem to share this negative stereotype is certainly consistent with the idea that it is socially inculcated.

(Of course, it's also consistent with the idea that the negative stereotype is actually objectively correct. But I'll let someone else pull the pin on that hand grenade. )

smacl

recedite wrote: »

Maybe to some extent, but the more interesting phenomenon is when the minority group shares the "prejudice" against itself, as in...

It is an odd one alright, although the respondents didn't self label as atheists, they merely indicated they didn't believe in God. As such they could still be part of a religious culture that bears prejudice towards atheists and self identify as religious. Purely speculation, but in much the same way as gays in a homophobic environment may exhibit homophobia, atheists in a religious environment might well exhibit anti-atheist prejudices as part of their struggle with a lack of faith.

Edit: @Peregrinus, beat me to it!

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

But I'll let someone else pull the pin on that hand grenade.

Well, I suggested earlier that the perception could be partly true, but in real life balanced by other factors that are less easily perceived.
Therefore behavioral realities would not necessarily conform to the preconceptions.

One eyed Jack

Scofflaw wrote: »

The point of using the conjunction fallacy, though, is that it shows when a "believable narrative" beats rationality. So what the study shows is that without thinking about it people find the narrative of an atheist committing immoral actions more believable than that of a believer doing so. It doesn't tell us, or rely on, why that's so.

That might be an uncomfortable observation for us atheists, and it's also wrong as a heuristic, but it's an observation. You do sound to me somewhat as if you'd prefer the observation to be different.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I don't know that I'd agree that it shows us that without thinking about it people were more likely to believe an atheist more capable of immoral acts than a theist. That's the thing I find very unusual in their methodology for testing unconscious bias and prejudice against atheists. I think in order to truly test bias and prejudice against atheists they would have had to ask questions more along the lines of presenting a moral dilema scenario and asking what would either an atheist or a theist be more likely to do in that scenario, rather than presenting a scenario where a person has already committed the immoral action and then asking participants whether the person is more likely to be atheist or theist.

With regard to why people may believe a person who carries out an immoral action is more likely to be an atheist (this is what I mean by backwards rationalisation after the fact, and why I'm suggesting that the method I outlined above would be better), I don't know that I'd simply put it down to people believing a theist would fear eternal damnation, but rather that a theist would be morally binded not just by their belief in God, but also they would be morally binded by the 'social contract' and also by law. For an atheist, well - two outta three ain't bad, as Meatloaf would say.

IMO their observations shouldn't be uncomfortable for atheists, but rather they should be more uncomfortable for people who aren't atheist, as the study is an observation of peoples prejudice and bias against atheists, not atheists' bias and prejudice against theists - atheists aren't the people who have a problem, it's people who have the problem with atheists, insofar as they believe them to lack the moral boundaries of theists.

Peregrinus

One eyed Jack wrote: »

IMO their observations shouldn't be uncomfortable for atheists, but rather they should be more uncomfortable for people who aren't atheist, as the study is an observation of peoples prejudice and bias against atheists, not atheists' bias and prejudice against theists - atheists aren't the people who have a problem, it's people who have the problem with atheists, insofar as they believe them to lack the moral boundaries of theists.

Atheists are people too, Jack! One of the finding of the survey was that the anti-atheist bias it (allegedly) detected was shared by atheists and theists alike.

nozzferrahhtoo

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I think in order to truly test bias and prejudice against atheists they would have had to ask questions more along the lines of presenting a moral dilema scenario and asking what would either an atheist or a theist be more likely to do in that scenario, rather than presenting a scenario where a person has already committed the immoral action and then asking participants whether the person is more likely to be atheist or theist.

I would go further. Often when constructing studies and questionaires and the like to study X, it is best to do as little as possible to mention X as you can. Because there is a kind of "performer bias" in studies where people, when they cop what variable you are testing for, try to give you the positive result they think you want.

So best would be to construct such a study, with moral dilemas, and then ask the people being studied what would have helped mediate such a situation, what things in a persons life might have helped them positively or negatively in the situations, or made them avoid the moral transgression/problem entirely. No mention to religion (or lack of it) at all.

SOME of the scenarios should be predicated on, or orbit around, religion or atheists themes too, but not all of them, but the questions about those scenarios should not focus on that aspect directly (or, if possible, at all).

Even better is in one round of tests leave religion out of it and collate the answers given. Then in another round introduce religious and atheist aspects to the characters and measure how peoples answers differed or drifted from the original ones.

THEN the wealth of data can be trawled to view mentions of religion, and peoples biases and ideas on how religion would have affected the scenario.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I'd simply put it down to people believing a theist would fear eternal damnation, but rather that a theist would be morally binded not just by their belief in God, but also they would be morally binded by the 'social contract' and also by law. For an atheist, well - two outta three ain't bad, as Meatloaf would say.

I loved a recent report on sticking a picture of eyes on the wall in various situations. Turns out that the presence merely of a picture of eyes is enough to motivate people to work harder, with more honesty, and to consider things like social good over personal gain more. Even though the eyes are just a picture and someone knows that, it still affects them.

The idea of a celestial pair of eyes that can see not only what you do, but what you think, feel and desire and can convict you (as the Christian Nazerene does) of thought crime is one that should certainly have similar effects I suppose. Thankfully some of us do not need fairy tale in order to self-cajole ourselves into being a better person.

One eyed Jack

Peregrinus wrote: »

Atheists are people too, Jack! One of the finding of the survey was that the anti-atheist bias it (allegedly) detected was shared by atheists and theists alike.

I genuinely hadn't meant to suggest otherwise, but reading back, yeah, I can see how that may have been perceived. Certainly wasn't meant that way! My line of thinking is there's no way to identify a person either as a theist or an atheist without them explicitly saying so, so the idea that a person could be unconsciously biased against a person for something they couldn't even be unconsciously aware of about the person, seems a bit like looking for a problem that just isn't there. It's akin to the same idea as someone like Milo Stewart using the concept of unconscious bias to suggest everyone's a little bit racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc, with no evidence to support their assertion.

It's not entirely unusual to understand that atheists may be biased against atheists on the basis of other values they associate with their atheism, for example a conservative atheist may be biased against a liberal atheist or vice versa in the same way as someone who identifies as a member of a group may be biased or prejudiced against other members of that group. Atheism+ for example, or Richard Dawkins suggesting that atheists should "come out" in the same way as the LGBT community gained visibility and representation in society - people who weren't LGBT saw that they weren't any different from them, thereby reducing bias and prejudice against them.

The study does say though that they controlled for these other factors, and they say their hypothesis also held for other conditions such as horoscopes, global warming and vaccines. It says it tweaked the questions and the methodology to account for other factors in the various countries, but this would IMO have influenced how the scientists interpreted the study themselves - in trying to avoid the WEIRD perspective, it appears to me at least that it's still influencing their interpretation of the data.

Samaris

Well, there is an argument that gets trotted out fairly often that the concept of "morality" is specifically religious at base and not having a concept of morality to follow makes atheists de facto immoral and therefore more likely to do immoral things. Of course, once you start judging morality through the lens of any given religion, there will be certain things that atheists may well be more likely to do or allow that are profoundly "immoral" to that religion - gay rights being one possibility. Not to say that atheists cannot be against homosexuality or abortion or any of the other flashpoints between secular and religious living and rule of law, but homosexuality in particular does tend to have a religious line through it in terms of debate. Abortion is a lot more mixed, although definitely has religiously motivated arguments Anti-vax nonsense is quite often a liberal lunacy rather than a religious conservative one, despite the "God wills it" strain of anti-vaxxers. (For ease, I'm mostly taking Christianity here, but same goes for various others.)

So from that point of view, sure, atheists are less moral by the lights of most mainstream religions. On the other hand, it is complete nonsense to indicate that people are not perfectly capable of controlling themselves to their own standards of decency and morality by their own willpower rather than fear of what comes after death. Rather underestimates human personality and social instincts to suggest otherwise. And specifically in the case of killing people, I hardly know the numbers off the top of my head, but religion has often been used as a justification amongst ordinary people (leaving nations aside a moment as there's too many political slants to take into account as well) for murder - honour killings, "religious mania", etc.

silverharp

^^
wasn't the basic point of religion in the past to keep stupid people in line which gave that society an evolutionary advantage.

Doctor DooM

I know I should probably add something to the conversation but can I just say how nice it is to see Scofflaw posting.

Carry on

Scofflaw

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I don't know that I'd agree that it shows us that without thinking about it people were more likely to believe an atheist more capable of immoral acts than a theist. That's the thing I find very unusual in their methodology for testing unconscious bias and prejudice against atheists. I think in order to truly test bias and prejudice against atheists they would have had to ask questions more along the lines of presenting a moral dilema scenario and asking what would either an atheist or a theist be more likely to do in that scenario, rather than presenting a scenario where a person has already committed the immoral action and then asking participants whether the person is more likely to be atheist or theist.

Unfortunately, what you'd be testing there is something different - you'd be asking people whether they consciously thought an atheist or a believer was more likely to commit such acts.

As I've already said, the point of the conjunction fallacy is that it only works because people let a believable congruent* narrative trump the rational consideration that it's never possible for A+B to be more likely than A alone.

Now I come to think about it, I didn't actually explain the conjunction fallacy...it goes like this:

Given the following two statements, which is more likely:

1. that Cork will suffer a major flooding episode in the next decade

2. that Cork will suffer a major flooding episode in the next decade due to the actions of the ESB

Now, it should be obvious that (2) cannot be more probable than (1) because (2) is a more specific version of (1), and (1) includes (2) as well as other causes. However, (2) presents a congruent or compelling narrative, and many people will choose it as the more probable. They shouldn't, but a believable narrative plays merry hell with people's logic faculties.

cordially,
Scofflaw

* 'congruent' is probably a better word than 'believable' there, since the latter suggests that one studies the statement rationally and decides whether to believe it, whereas the whole point is that if you actually study the statement you'll see that it's a fallacy. What one is looking for is where the unconscious bias is sufficiently strong to take the place of rational examination and decision-making.

Peregrinus

Samaris wrote: »

Well, there is an argument that gets trotted out fairly often that the concept of "morality" is specifically religious at base and not having a concept of morality to follow makes atheists de facto immoral and therefore more likely to do immoral things.

There is such an argument. It is, of course, b@lls. But, yeah, the prevalence of the argument could contribute to the perceptions that this study observes.

Samaris wrote: »

Of course, once you start judging morality through the lens of any given religion, there will be certain things that atheists may well be more likely to do or allow that are profoundly "immoral" to that religion - gay rights being one possibility. Not to say that atheists cannot be against homosexuality or abortion or any of the other flashpoints between secular and religious living and rule of law, but homosexuality in particular does tend to have a religious line through it in terms of debate. Abortion is a lot more mixed, although definitely has religiously motivated arguments Anti-vax nonsense is quite often a liberal lunacy rather than a religious conservative one, despite the "God wills it" strain of anti-vaxxers. (For ease, I'm mostly taking Christianity here, but same goes for various others.)

To my mind, what’s striking about religiously-influenced ethical systems versus non-religiously-influenced ethical systems is not the differences, but the substantial similarities. Obviously any ethical system starts from some values which are asserted as fundamentally good, without any proof being offered, and then proceeds to build on those, but mostly the edifices built on them are fairly similar. There are a couple of things that can only be judged to be virtuous in a religious ethical system - the moral value of worship is an obvious example - but these are pretty much at the margins.

Other differences may be more accidental than fundamental. As you say, it’s true for our society that there’s a religious/non-religious fault line in moral views about homosexuality, but I think that’s just the way things have come about. The (largely non-religious) morality of classical Greece was tolerant of certain kinds of homosexual relationship but not of others, so if you contrast that non-religious morality with contemporary non-religious morality you’d have diverging moral views about homosexuality that aren’t attributed to religion. Equally, I don’t think you’d have to look too far to find a non-religious morality that generally condemned homosexuality. (The “socialist morality” of the early Soviet Union, for example, was notably homophobic, as compared with the more relaxed attitudes that prevailed in Tsarist Russia.)

So, while different moral systems do differ, if we leave aside specifically religious acts like prayer and worship, I’m sceptical that there are many characteristic differences between religious and non-religious moral systems.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

So, while different moral systems do differ, if we leave aside specifically religious acts like prayer and worship, I’m sceptical that there are many characteristic differences between religious and non-religious moral systems.

I'm not so sure. If we take morality as being 'principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour' notions such as good demand context, specifically good for other people, good for society or somewhere between the two. If you allow for morality to include social responsibility you have to allow that morality needs to evolve with the needs of society. Looking at Christian morality surrounding sex for example, it was very pragmatic and well suited to the society of its day. Pre-industrial societies with poor medicine and high child mortality rates really want to churn out as many children as the available food source allows for. Homosexuality, contraception and abortion aren't really going to help that, so they're deemed immoral. The problem with religious morality is it tends to stagnate where what was once pragmatic becomes anachronistic dogma as societies needs change over time. In today's society for example, we have too many people, not too few, so the desire to go forth and multiply is actually bad for society and immoral on that basis. Modern notions of morality are more suited to modern society and tend to be more egalitarian and less concerned about the necessities of reproduction than archaic moralities.

Peregrinus

Again, I'd be looking for evidence that religiously-based moral systems have a greater tendency to stagnate than non-religiously-based ones. Christian morality didn't have any problem "developing" in relation to matters like military service, usury, slavery; we don't really notice these development because they happened long before our time. We notice sexual morality because our own era is one which has seen significant change in both religious and non-religious moral systems on matters of sexuality, but what really strike us is where there are tensions between different moral systems. But this doesn't necessarily mean that one is stagnant and the other is dynamic; they could both be changing, but in different directions,, or at different speeds, or both. While the Catholic church is holding a line on contraception, for example, Protestants generally embrace it. That's a significant change in (Protestant) Christian morality which has occurred in the last 100 years or so, but what we notice the Catholic intransigence, not the Protestant flexibility. (And even the Catholic position has been massively undermined from within.) And secular attitudes on sexual morality have also changed significantly over the same period; secular moralists are much more accommodating of pre-marital sex and of casual sex than would have been the case a hundred years ago, for example, but much less tolerant of sex with minors, or of sex in the context of unbalanced power relationships.

At the risk of oversimplifying, don't all moral systems arise out of some interaction between things held as fundamental values, and particular historical circumstances, events and contexts? And since particular historical circumstances, events and contexts are constantly changing, moral systems will be constantly changing with them, but this is going to be true for religious and non-religious systems alike.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

At the risk of oversimplifying, don't all moral systems arise out of some interaction between things held as fundamental values, and particular historical circumstances, events and contexts? And since particular historical circumstances, events and contexts are constantly changing, moral systems will be constantly changing with them, but this is going to be true for religious and non-religious systems alike.

To an extent, but religious moral systems tend to be more rigid than non-religious ones. The notion of morality as a set of rules handed down by an omniscient deity for man to follow doesn't really leave much scope for revision by the masses, and it gets left to the senior hierarchy of the day to best interpret the deities intention in the context of their own needs as well as societies. Even within the hierarchy, change is extremely difficult and slow to effect on this basis. As religious morality falls too far behind the needs of society, it gets abandoned by the masses and the religion loses credibility as a result. So for example, while Catholics aren't allowed use contraception, they do. While the Vatican lobbied against gay equality, the people ignored them. As with Protestantism, the religion and its attendant morality might become fractured, or as we see with increasing atheism, abandoned altogether.

I would suggest that non-religious morality is more flexible than religious morality as it is based more on principles than specific rules. Of course many religious people could see the rigidity of their system a strength rather than a weakness. YMMV.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

To an extent, but religious moral systems tend to be more rigid than non-religious ones. The notion of morality as a set of rules handed down by an omniscient deity for man to follow doesn't really leave much scope for revision by the masses . . .

But secular moral systems aren't determined by popular vote either, are they?

As I say, moral systems propose fundamental values and fundamental ways of looking at the world, which you either accept or you don't accept. You either do or don't accept the fundamentals of, say, stoicism. If nobody accepts them, stoicism just withers on the vine. (And, right enough, not many people identify as ethical stoics today.) Just as plenty of religious moral systems have died off.

In the end, the only moral systems that survive as living, influential systems, are those which are accepted by the masses, and which contine to be accepted over the centuries. The ones that are most likely to sustain that acceptance, I suggest, are likely to be the ones most capable of adapting themselves to new or developing circumstances. By those measures, Christian ethics scores quite well, if only because it has been widely accepted, and widely influential, for a couple of millenia now. Which suggests that it might be a bit more adaptable than the stereotype you are proposing.

While you describe it as "a set of rules handed down by an omniscient deity for man to follow", and there's at least one sense in which is this is how it presents itself, there are other ways of looking at it. In the Christian view, it's not simply the case that "thou shalt not kill" is a moral imperative because God has said it. It's the other way around; God said it because it's a moral imperative. Which explain how lots of societies recognised it, or something very like it, as a moral imperative, long before they had any contact with Judeo-Christian religion.

On this view, "thou shalt not kill' is a law in the way that the law of gravity is a law. It doesn't originate as a legislative command; it originates as an observation of, and deduction from, the world. Its expression in the decalogue makes it an authoritative observation and deduction, but it's an observation and deduction that you can make without any authority at all.

Which means that its no more inherently rigid or immutable than any other observation/deduction that you can make from nature. So the Jude-Christian moral tradition doesn't confine itself to saying "God said this! Now let ye all shut up and do as ye're told, ye blackguards!" On the contrary, the tradition is full of discourse and discussion about questions like, Why did God say this? What does it mean? What exactly is the problem with killing anyway? What are we called to do if somebody wants to kill us? How does this relate to other moral precepts - e.g. can I kill somebody who is going to rape me? Who is going to rape somebody else? Who wants to steal my goods? My land? Who is treating me unjustly?

And out of all this discourse, a pretty flexible morality emerges - one which can run from absolute pacifism at one extreme to accommodating the death penalty, just war theory, the divine right of kings, medieval notions of chivalry, crusades, etc, etc, etc. And I can think of a number of criticisms of that which would carry more weight than a complaint that it's rigid, immutable, inflexible, incapable of adaptation. Ittoo[/i] capable, if anything.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

In the Christian view, it's not simply the case that "thou shalt not kill" is a moral imperative because God has said it. It's the other way around; God said it because it's a moral imperative.

Nonetheless God apparently said it, which is one reason why Christians adhere to it and other similar moral imperatives. I suppose the reason I consider religious morality to have stagnated is that God hasn't said anything much else in recent times. As an atheist, I might look at the last line of your statement above and change it to read 'Man said God said it because it's a moral imperative', yet man hasn't said that God has spoken since, thus religious folk are left trying to apply ancient ideas to modern problems for which they are not a good fit.

And out of all this discourse, a pretty flexible morality emerges - one which can run from absolute pacifism at one extreme to accommodating the death penalty, just war theory, the divine right of kings, medieval notions of chivalry, crusades, etc, etc, etc. And I can think of a number of criticisms of that which would carry more weight than a complaint that it's rigid, immutable, inflexible, incapable of adaptation. It

Again, this could be ascribed to a lack of any new definitive guidance from Himself. The freedom you're referring to is surely a result of this vacuum in the worst way possible.

Peregrinus

Again, smacl, you're just trotting out simplistic caricatures as if you thought they were an accurate reflection of reality. They're not; they are simplistic caricatures constructed for polemical purposes. They may be closer to the truth for some varieties of religion than for others, but if your case is that religious ethics in general are more rigid than non-religious ethics, then you have to advance arguments that are generally valid.

I think you're taking the simplistic biblical literalism exhibited by a particular, not very mainsream, Chrisitan tradition, and assuming that it's an accurate representation for all religions in all times. It isn't. Even sticking to Christianity, it's plainly not true that Christians believe that God hasn't spoken since the Bible was produced; one of the central points of debate within Christianity today is the way(s) in which revelation is encountered, but there is no significant Christian tradition which holds that revelation stopped when the last work of the New Testament was written.

And in your last sentence you seem to glide smoothly from an assertion that the Christian moral tradition is rigid, frozen to an assertion that it provides freedom in the worst way possible. No offence, but this isn't really coherent.

Given the preconceptions you appear to hold about religion, you would expect religious morality to be rigid and fixed. We observe that, in fact, it's diverse and flexible. If you're committed to evidence-based belief, shouldn't that lead you to critically appraise your preconceptions about religious morality?

nozzferrahhtoo

Peregrinus wrote: »

By those measures, Christian ethics scores quite well, if only because it has been widely accepted, and widely influential, for a couple of millenia now.

The problem with a religion morality or ethical system however is many of them, and it is often so with Christian ones, are founded on the opinions of an eternal and unchanging god.

And that limits the ability of the ethical system to adapt and modify itself in a changing world, and to reflect modernity. They can not retrospectively keep changing what god allegedly said (though some try). So instead they have to find more inventive ways to interpret it to eek out the result they new moral stand point required.

But, much like retrospectively applying Nostradamus to real world events in order to show it predicted them, the language of texts like the Bible is labile enough to allow such interpretation. Which is likely the source of some of the adaptability you describe.

But I still see religion adding nothing TO our moral and ethical discourse, and because of the above it can hinder it in many ways (unwillingness to change the teachings and then the unwillingness of the target to accept it) and the adaptability of the vague and labile text is more changing the packing the moral conclusions are delivered in, rather than the underlying product.

Peregrinus wrote: »

it's not simply the case that "thou shalt not kill" is a moral imperative because God has said it. It's the other way around; God said it because it's a moral imperative.

That is one of the interesting examples of labile vagueness to which I refer. Many people have the commandment not as kill but "Thou shalt not murder". And then, of course, what constitutes actual "murder" has many subjective interpretations.

A lot of the Christian Right for example in the US hold with gun ownership for example. Their preclusion on killing does not include burglars in their house. Nor does it preclude, in the Bible, wiping out entire cultures (keeping the women and virgin children for themselves of course on the way). And the old apocryphal nonsense of "no atheists in foxholes" supposes religiosity therefore on the soldiers who are happily ignoring the commandments and going around offing as many of the enemy as they can.

So while the commandment appears clear on a first reading, it certainly leaves room for the "adaptability" you imagine in the ethical systems by leaving it strongly open as to exactly what activities the commandment even applies to. It is adaptable because a commandment like that is, essentially, saying nothing at all. So you can merely insert in what you WANT it to mean. A soldier can insert one thing, a US president another, a life long extreme pacifist another.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Its expression in the decalogue makes it an authoritative observation and deduction, but it's an observation and deduction that you can make without any authority at all.

Many people accuse theists of claiming atheists are immoral. And many theists DO.

But the more "nuanced" theist, debaters like Craig for example, point out that atheists can be moral and have morals......... but without a divine authority they have no valid basis for having any morality at all. They can BE moral, but they can not rationally sit down and defend any moral without an appeal to divine authority.

So I guess what you write above, if I am parsing it correctly, would put you in conflict with him and many like him?

Peregrinus wrote: »

So the Jude-Christian moral tradition doesn't confine itself to saying "God said this! Now let ye all shut up and do as ye're told, ye blackguards!"

Alas it seems to be the tradition with any theist I have come into conflict with on moral issues, especially the issue of homosexuality. But that could of course be self selecting as the KIND of theist who would do exactly that is also the KIND of theist that would stand up and make noise on those particular types of issue.

But certainly when, again to use homosexuality as an example, I come into conflict with theists who have a religious concern again something (abortion too for example) they are often unable to rationalize WHY their god might have an issue with it. So they very much do come with the "god says so, so there" approach.

But they tell me their god is a rational god, so you would think they would at least TRY to co-rationalize with said god and think "Can we discern why god has an issue with this victimless choice of other human beings, and if not is there a possibility WE might have taken our god up wrong on this one?"

I can not really name theists I have seen do THAT. Except Andrew Sullivan of course, but him BEING gay probably opens up accusations of bias and spin and agenda.

Peregrinus wrote: »

And out of all this discourse, a pretty flexible morality emerges

I fear therefore that it is not that it is flexible. Rather than everyone simply has their own interpretation to fill in the GAPING holes that their text leaves for them to work with. It is not, therefore, that the religious morality in question is flexible. It is that it is essentially non-existent and it is the diversity of human opinion on display, not religious moral flexibility.

There is a world of difference between "Flexible in the face of input" and "Offering no frame work that in any way hinders input". And I fear many mistake the latter as the former.

Giving someone an empty box and saying they can put anything they want in it, does not REALLY mean the "box" is particularly flexible.