"Without belief in God you lose XXXXXXXX"
Offline Here's another moral question theists like to spring sometimes.
They'll take a concept like 'altruism' or 'freedom' or 'human rights' and say that it is a theistically derived concept and without theism we lose it.
A suggested Socratic approach is as follows:
Theist: Without belief in God we lose <insert humanistic principle here>
Atheist: And why would that be a bad thing?
Theist might give reasons, else you can give them a hand!
Atheist: Well, with good reasons like that, we hardly need superstition in order to support <humanistic principle>
I think it's a good approach as it makes them realise that their own morality is based on reasoning of sort. The other reason is that when we think up an argument, we test it in our heads against common objections. If a theist considered this objection each time they thought of an argument linking a humanistic principle to theism then they'd refute themselves.
On the other hand, there's always the chance you might possibly get this response:
Theist: Without belief in God we lose <insert humanistic principle here>
Atheist: And why would that be a bad thing?
Theist: You mean to say that you don't understand why losing <humanistic principle> would be a bad thing? You atheists are immoral animals with no understanding of humanity!
Perhaps one could retort with:
"I know why I think it would be a bad thing. I want to know your reasons!"
Thoughts?
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I like this approach you've been taking. I particularly like this Socratic dialogue. I'll try this a few times and see how it works for me.
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Yes, this is an incredibly effective arguement. It disarms the theist. I'll definately keep this one around
The Enlightenment wounded the beast, but the killing blow has yet to land...
Nice. This reminds me of the ultimate argument and defense for pragmatism, which follows pretty much the same format:
Joe: Pragmatism doesn't work! If you only look at things in terms of usefulness, then you'll miss out on [Some warm fuzzy thing].
Pragmatist: Why is [some warm fuzzy thing] important?
Joe: Because I like to feel warm and fuzzy.
Pragmatist: So then feeling warm and fuzzy would be useful to you, making [some warm fuzzy thing] useful. So, it is justified by pragmatism.
Basically, when people try to object to pragmatism they bring up reasons why their philosophy is better. But if their philosophy is better than [their straw-man view of] pragmatism, then it is justified by pragmatism and so becomes just another derivative of pragmatism itself.
That's an appropriate response and the one I would use. You could rephrase your second question to: "Why do you think that's a bad thing?" Then if they reply, "Why? Don't you?" You just restate it and emphasize it: "I asked, why do YOU think that's a bad thing?"
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Ah. I'd not come across this before although Wittgenstein and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence" brought up the theme when looking at the root of rationality, asking why we reason in the first place.
Yeah. There was a psychological reason why I chose the first one. If you trick them into thinking they have to defend he principle in question then the last line; "that's a good reason there - who needs superstition?" would really sweep them off their feet!
You'd have tricked them into passionately refuting themselves!