Do The People Have The Moral Authority To Outlaw Atheism?

On Atheism there is no God.
So God and gods have no part in this OP's question.
Questions;
Are The People the Final ,Authority?
If The People are not The Final Authority, then Who or What is The Final Authority?
Is there a Truth Reality out there that is above The People and has more authority than
The People?
If your say Yes to that question, then Who knows what or where that Truth Reality is?
Who knows what it is? {if it exists}
Who knows where it is located? {if it exists}
Who has the authority to interpret what that Truth Reality says? {if it exists}
What are their names?
Are you "one of them."?


A Thought Experiment , , ,

Let us say that 98% of The People Of Earth have outlawed Murder
and said "Thou Shall Not Murder"
Question: Do you have a moral obligation to obey The People
when they collectively issue a proclamation that murder is outlawed?
___________

Do The People have a Moral Right to outlaw chewing gum?
If you are a gum chewer, and 98% of The People of Earth voted to outlaw
chewing gum, would you be morally obligated to stop chewing gum?
___________

Let us also say that 98% of The People Of Earth issued a Moral Proclamation
that said:
"Henceforth The Teaching Of Secular Humanism Is Outlawed Upon Penalty Of Death"
Would you then be morally obligated to cease teaching the principles of Secular Humanism?

__________

Here is another version of the same thing leaving off the penalty.
Let us say that 98% of The People Of Earth issued a Moral Proclamation
that said:
"Henceforth The Teaching Of Secular Humanism Is Outlawed."
Would you then be morally obligated to cease teaching the principles of Secular Humanism?
____________

Do 98% of The People of the Earth have the authority to precisely define what
is, or is not, moral and immoral?
If you say No, then what Authority is there, that has the Power or the Authority
to void the will of 98% of The People of the Earth?
Is there a Truth Reality out there that has the Authority and the Power to void
the will of 98% of The People of the earth?
If yes, who has the Power and the Authority to interpret what that Truth reality says?
Where are they located?
What are their names?


_________


Some Miscellaneous Thoughts Relating To This Question:

On Atheism there is no God.
The People are the Highest Authority.
The People are The Highest Supreme Being.
The People can speak through the political vehicle of Democracy?
Suppose The People want to Democratically outlaw your beliefs?
To what Authority would you appeal that would be higher than The People?
You could not appeal to God.
On Atheism there is no God.
It would be You vs. The People --and in a Democracy The People make the laws
and are The Supreme Being.
Do 98% The People of Earth have a Moral Right to outlaw the public expression
of your beliefs?
Do 98% of The People of the Earth have a Moral Right to outlaw Secularism Humanism?
Do 98% of The People of the Earth have a Moral Right to outlaw Christianity?
Is there a Truth Reality out there that has the Moral Authority to prevent
98% of The People collectively outlawing the public expression of
Atheism, or Secular Humanism or Christianity?

JAG


``

 

You are free to make any "moral decision" you want to make. Whether you survive that decision has ALWAYS
been up to those with physical means to enforce their will.

Gods have never been physically involved in anything.

Both secularism and Christianity have been outlawed at different times in history. Morality is not a constant.

 

Short answer: No.

 

Agree with Daniel Light. Morality is fluid.

Edited to ask: Why are you so obsessed with atheists/atheism?

 

The answer is that morality doesn't actually exist.

It's a human concept designed by humans and defined by those who wield the power to enforce their idea of it.

This is usually the majority of a population in a society but not always.

 

From the Opening Post, JAG Wrote:
"Do 98% of The People of the Earth have a Moral Right to outlaw Christianity?
Is there a Truth Reality out there that has the Moral Authority to prevent
98% of The People collectively outlawing the public expression of
Atheism, or Secular Humanism or Christianity?"

The Opening Post is a philosophical Thought Experiment that asks
if there is a Truth Reality out there, that is a Higher Moral Authority than
say 98% of The People when they issue a proclamation on a moral
subject -- and the OP hoped to explore that subject intelligently.

JAG

 

The OP's OBSESSION with DENIGRATING atheism NEGATES that ability of the OP to do anything OTHER than PREACH his theist DOGMA while IGNORING all rational, intelligent, logical and reasonable responses that EXPOSE the FALLACIES that the OP is postulating.

Sad!

 

I cannot speak for all atheists but I know quite a few that are former Christians and your kind of approach is what sent them away from organized religion. With all due respect, it's very off-putting.

 

What "sent them away" was they never truly believed in the first place.
See 1 John 2:19 ~ ~ ~ I will go with 1 John 2:19 ---and not with your
opinions on "former Christians" and why they left the faith.
_______

The Opening Post is a philosophical Thought Experiment that asks
if there is a Truth Reality out there, that is a Higher Moral Authority than
say 98% of The People when they issue a proclamation on a moral
subject. The OP is no more against atheism than it is against
Christianity.
From the Opening Post, JAG Wrote:
"Do 98% of The People of the Earth have a Moral Right to outlaw Christianity?
Is there a Truth Reality out there that has the Moral Authority to prevent
98% of The People collectively outlawing the public expression of
Atheism, or Secular Humanism or Christianity?"
__________

The OP asks questions like this:

Are The People the Final ,Authority?
If The People are not The Final Authority, then Who or What is The Final Authority?
Is there a Truth Reality out there that is above The People and has more authority than
The People?
If your say Yes to that question, then Who knows what or where that Truth Reality is?
Who knows what it is? {if it exists}
Who knows where it is located? {if it exists}
Who has the authority to interpret what that Truth Reality says? {if it exists}
What are their names?
Are you "one of them."?


JAG


``

 

Objective morality doesn't exist so there is no such thing as a moral authority. People act out of their self-interest or do what their emotions tell them to do. People can cooperate together for their own self-interest. They can also act morally because evolution has encoded emotions into them that makes them feel good when they act morally. People can act morally out of fear of retaliation or desire for mutual benefit. Or they act morally because they have been fooled by their emotions or religions that objective morality exists.

 

Thanks for your comments. Interesting.
Question for you:
{1} When you say that "Objective morality doesn't exist so there is no such thing as
a moral authority" do you mean to say that, for example, cold-blooded murder for money
gain is not based upon an objective morality and that say, John, could decide to murder
Bill and take his money, and all moral objections against what John did would be subjective
opinions and not based upon objective moral facts?

{2} I don't think you can prove that evolution has "encoded emotions" into humans.
You may, or may not, have a case for evolution, but that's one thing. Its another thing to
claim that evolution has been working for, say, the last 4000 years -- that's a faith belief.

My view is that you could not prove that evolution coded anything in a single person that
has lived, say, in the last 4000 years. Evolution could have stopped working on humans
4000 years ago. Prove it didn't.

You cannot prove that evolution has been working on anybody now alive on Earth.


Best.

JAG

PS
Thanks again for a thoughtful response to the OP.


``

 

That is exactly what I'm saying. We take billions of animals and stuff them together in small cages in horrible conditions for their short pitiable lives. We then strap them on a conveyor belt and coldly murder them with mechanical knives one by one. We then send them off to McDonalds so that obese people can eat their flesh, when they already eat far more food than they need to survive, and are actually eating so many dead animals they are slowly killing themselves. They do this so that billions of animals can die while billions of humans live without sufficient food. Morality is a thin facade we drape over a cruel ruthless world.

We have studied the brain and have a list of chemicals responsible for the emotions we have and understand how these chemicals are released in the brain. These chemicals are proteins that are encoded by DNA, which natural selection and mutations evolve. We have strong evidence that all life and their features and DNA evolved from a common ancestor with natural selection and mutations. Therefore the brain and its emotion chemicals evolved.

Evolution is mutations and natural selection. Every person alive has about 100 mutations at birth. So we can see with our own eyes evolution in the DNA of every person and organism alive simply by the fact that they have mutations.

Evolution can't stop working. Natural selection is just survival of the fittest and is just logical fact. Mutations we just mistakes in DNA encoding and happen because of radiation from the sun. The only way that evolution stops is if life dies out.

Thanks. It does sound like you are a creationist. If so, we will probably end up debating evolution rather than morality. If you don't want to do this, then you might have to accept that I believe in evolution and that won't be easily refuted in just a couple posts, and maybe debate evolution in another thread and accept my basis in evolution in stride.

 

It is important to realise that fundamentalist Christians are inherently discriminatory. They used to be able to pick on the Jews but after killing six million most do not proclaim there anti-Semitism loudly any longer. So they have adopted atheists as their pet hate and attack them instead. I shall be starting a thread on the subject but at the moment it's summer and I am enjoying my short and ultimately pointless life too much to debate sad fundies!

 

Since it fits a bit better here, I will repeat some points from the other thread.

The humanism part of secular humanism is an ideology that proposes our humanity as the source of moral worth.

As I've mentioned before, secularism grew out of a majority religious society, so obviously, the nature of the difference between reality and democratic majority is very clear and well established within any close-to-atheistic idea.

There are a few different ideas on exactly how that plays out, but I'm partial to a Rawlsian approach, which appeals to a hypothetical human (or set of humans), "deciding"/agreeing on what morality is. This hypothetical human is under some conditions (for instance, being rational), most interestingly the "veil of ignorance", which demands that the hypothetical human does not know what part of society they would belong to (gender, class, status, caste, race, disability, money, culture, interests, religion, etc.). This modelled after principles like the pie cutting example, where a person is prompted to cut fair pieces of cake by not knowing which piece will be theirs. The above is not an appeal to the people, but our common humanity (and in a broader sense, it's what gives Humanism its name).

No existing human being, myself included, are part of this set of hypothetical humans. It doesn't have a name (well, I guess technically, it has a name, it just doesn't know what its name is, in a sense, it has every name humans could have).

Note that what's being described here is the source of morality, not a process by which we can access knowledge about morality. There is no claim that this person holds physical existence or location, and while it would be convenient to be able to ask this person, that's not required for the view to work. In practice, we are not guaranteed access to knowledge of how this morality works, but we have a few decent approximations for different areas, such as reason, happiness and democracy.

Of course, this hypothetical human is aware that power corrupts, and is likely to favour a democratic approach in order to avoid being overridden by corrupt power-holders. However, there are ideas which can be held higher than democratic majority, for instance, ideas that tamper with democracy are not to be subject directly to democracy (this idea is reflected for instance in the US Bill of Rights, which hold tampering with freedom of expression above mere democratic majority). In the case of 98% of humans issuing a moral proclamation, that seems not to be what a person under the veil of ignorance would allow, even (especially) with regard for democracy, so no, it would not make us morally obligated.

Note also what this means for the idea of "subjective morality". The morality described above is subjective, it only applies to us because we are human. If there were no humans, this morality would be meaningless, and it does not apply to bees or rocks. However, to us humans, it is still inescapable, so it does not have the problems that "subjective morality" is often criticised for, we're not actually able to simply disregard it (since we cannot escape our humanity). At the same time, it avoids the is/ought problem by simply not pretending to be objective.

 

Do a search for 'neuroscience' morality is hardwired' or something similar. Much of the positivist parts of religion are as well, and we know from history what a vast improvement the Christian sect is over paganism and degeneracy, which is why it was so popular as a social revolution and its practitioners so much more successful than cultures without it. Now that they are in decline, we see the country go into even worse decline ans the WASP influence disappears and the assorted deviants, psychos, and sociopaths organize to move us toward a Red Chinese style police state and the mass murders that always follow when 'rational constructivists' take over countries.

 

JAG Asked:
"When you say that "Objective morality doesn't exist so there is no such
thing as a moral authority" do you mean to say that, for example,
cold-blooded murder for money gain is not based upon an
objective morality and that say, John, could decide to murder
Bill and take his money, and all moral objections against
what John did would be subjective opinions and not based
upon objective moral facts?"___JAG
Distraff Relpied:
"That is exactly what I'm saying."__Distraff

Fascinating.
Scary too.

I'd vote to make the cages bigger and eliminate the horrible conditions.
Maybe air conditioning , , , lol , , ,
Three cheers for rib-eye steaks.

My view is they are not self aware.
The hog cannot say to himself, "I am a hog and I do not want to die."
Also Prime Rib trumps their "short pitiable lives."

That beats having to "run them down" and kill them "on the run."
That's be really messy -- and dangerous too.

Its impossible to murder an animal.
To call "hog killing time" murder is a Faith position.
Long live Pork Sausage.
You say we kill them "coldly" --- you mean like Abortion doctors kill human babies?
Are you a species-ist? You set cows above ants?
Are you against killing Houseflies?
Fire ants?
How about abortion?
Are you against killing human babies?

Love those Golden Arches.
The food however, is often left in the bins to long and becomes
un-tasty.

The obese people probably ate to much sugar.
Thin people go to McDonald's too.

Where is it written that humans ought not to eat more than it takes
for them to survive?
Are you at your precise doctor-recommended body weight?
I'd bet not.

Eating live animals would be challenging.

Humans eating plants will not fix global human hunger.
Getting rid of Democrats, Commies, Socialists, Marxists
and Liberals would fix it. Check out Democrat-run cities
today -- they are wrecks.

My understanding is that you said all that up-there in order to justify
you saying this below:
JAG Asked:
"When you say that "Objective morality doesn't exist so there is no such
thing as a moral authority" do you mean to say that, for example,
cold-blooded murder for money gain is not based upon an
objective morality and that say, John, could decide to murder
Bill and take his money, and all moral objections against
what John did would be subjective opinions and not based
upon objective moral facts?"___JAG
Distraff Relpied:
"That is exactly what I'm saying."___Distraff

So if I understand you correctly, you are saying that cold-bloodied
murder for money gain is not based upon objective morality because
of the way we treat Hogs and Cows and other animals.

That is a Faith belief.
You don't know that.

So let us continue to eat Hogs and Cows and other animals
until your Evolution makes Hogs smarter than humans
so the Hogs can start eating us. You will then see,
not Hog Trucks on the highways, but Human Trucks carrying the
humans to the conveyer belts run by Very Smart Hogs.
______

Also America dominating some of the weaker nations ought to
be celebrated , , , Evolution's "natural selection" you know.

{1} God loved the world and gave His one and only Son to save the world.
{2} The only way that evolution stops is if life dies out
Both are Faith beliefs.

There is nothing to debate.
I do not know much about Evolution.
Some say Theistic Evolution is the way it happened.
I don't think anybody actually knows.
My view is that you could not prove Evolution true if your life
depended upon you so doing.
Or if you were offered $100,000,000

, , ,lol , ,
You can believe whatever you want to believe about Evolution.

There is your "easily refuted" thingy again.
Is there a Truth Reality out there that has the Power and
the Authority to decide if something has, or has not, been
refuted? No. There is not.
If you and Alvin Plantinga had a debate for 3 hours and you both
claimed Victory -- who would get to decide if Alvin had won, or
lost? YOU? Would YOU be the one that decided that? Or me?
How about Alvin? Could Alvin decide? How about letting
the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association decide if Alvin won?
Or the Christian VP Mike Pence?

My view is that your views on Evolution are saturated with
Faith beliefs that can NOT be demonstrated true with
Empiricism.

JAG


``

 

Christendom will never die.
It may temporarily regress but it will spring back in full bloom and more
robust than before.
"I will build my Church and the Gates Of Hell will not prevail
against it."___The Lord Jesus
As the millenniums roll forward Christianity will slowly Christianize
the entire world -- the parable of the yeast that leavened the entire
lump of dough {the world} --- the whole world will one day become
a Christian World. Its gonna take awhile but it will happen.

Maybe The People in both parties will "wake up" in time to stop
such as goes on in Portland and Chicago and New York City?
The up-coming election ought to give us some idea if this present
generation of Americans are rational or if they have been blinded
by Socialism and the Commies and other Radicals and are willing
to "turn the country over" to the people who tolerate looting, and
building-burning, and murder and lawlessness --- all in the name
of Social Justice

Start quote.
First, the progressives tolerate and even celebrate civil disobedience,
because the cause is just and noble. Then, to hold onto public attention,
the protesters march and block traffic. Next comes the cursing of cops,
the throwing of trash, water bottles and rocks. Then there’s the smashing
of store windows, looting and arson, and Molotov cocktails. Finally,
there’s instigating violence with cops to get footage of police fighting
back so the law enforcement officers can be painted by the progressive
press as stormtroopers and the Gestapo.

In Portland, we reached the point where “peaceful protesters” tried
to set a building ablaze with cops barricaded inside.

This, as the mayor said, is attempted murder."
End quote.
https://buchanan.org/blog/the-real-world-reasserts-itself-141641


JAG

``

 

I think it should be a crime to seek to criminalize Atheism.

People who want to criminalize Atheism, or choosing to not believe in God, are dangerous and should be in prison.

 

In a sane legal system no absence of beliefs and no presence of beliefs can be outlawed, but certain ACTS which are violent or criminal such as murder and embezzlement should be outlawed.

If somebody worships or does not worship the flying lotus that is not a crime in a sane legal system. If they are inspired to do violence by some belief system, such as BLM, that's when the legal system should hit them as hard as possible -- for the ACT of violence.

 

I do not want to criminalize atheism.
I am 100% against criminalizing atheism.
But you don't want to criminalize free speech, I feel
certain you do not.

Agreed.
They are dangerous.
So are Commies.
And Democrats.
And Socialists and Marxists.
And Liberals, they're dangerous too. Check out Portland and Chicago.

No.
That's the very thing you are against, namely the criminalization
of ideas and free speech. You don't want to go that way. That
would mean that if the political tide turns and if people come
to political power that do not like your ideas -- then they could
put you in prison. You don't want to go this way.

JAG

 

and Christians. Look at the Inquisition and the Crusades.

very terrible things done by them.

 

Dig them up and put them on trial -- for all the good that'd do.

 

better to remember what they did, and teach the world what they did.

Never Forget

 

Leave their statues and their writings untouched, so people will never forget.