Alonzo Fyfe of Atheist Ethicist wrote, more than once, that
The proposition, “At least one god exists” and the proposition “It is not the case that at least one god exists” are both morally neutral.
Taken at face value, they certainly are, and nowhere in this post will I imply something like “you can’t be a good person if you believe in God” (many believers, on the other hand, love to frequently insult atheists by claiming the opposite…). However…
Imagine the following scenario (I think I read a similar example somewhere, maybe in The End of Faith, but I’m not at home right now and can’t confirm it): there’s a school bus driver whose bus’s tires are long past inspection time. People at his school have warned him of that, but he believes that his tires are “blessed” and will be just fine, that they don’t need changing. His belief is pleasing to him, even comforts him. The facts that they don’t grip the road so well, or that they look old, or that so many people have warned him about it (but can’t force his hand since that would be “disrespecting his belief”) don’t make a difference; he has “faith” in his ability, in his bus, and in its tires.
Then, one day, a tire blows up. There is a big accident, and dozens of children die. Is that driver responsible for it? Was he guilty of the deaths of so many schoolchildren? Was he morally wrong? Even though he loved children and didn’t wish them any harm?
Of course he was. In fact, he would have been morally wrong (and culpable) even if, somehow, he was lucky and no serious accident ever happened until his retirement.
He was guilty of ignoring evidence and clinging to an unsubstantiated belief, just because it made him “feel good”. He was guilty of being absolutely certain, when there was no reason for it. He was guilty of putting a cherished belief above reality. He was guilty of being irrational, of being irresponsible, of being intellectually dishonest, both with himself and with reality.
Honesty is not just not lying to other people, or not cheating on your taxes, or something that needs to involve other people. Honesty also includes being honest with yourself, and trying to be aware of reality to the best of your ability, instead of deliberately ignoring it, ignoring evidence and facts, just because they are somehow “displeasing” or would force you to abandon a cherished belief.
The point of that story is that the driver was irresponsible, and morally culpable, because he chose to dishonestly ignore reality. He had no right to close his eyes to a fact he didn’t like, to be intentionally blind, and to put others in danger because of it. This is regardless of whether an accident actually happened.
Faith — defined as having one or more beliefs that are unsubstantiated by evidence, and, often, despite contradicting evidence — is morally wrong, because it is intellectually dishonest… and potentially dangerous. After all, if you don’t require a shred of evidence to be 100% certain of a belief, then you can potentially believe anything. And many people do.
And, if faith is morally wrong, then belief in a god — which can’t happen without faith — is also morally wrong. Even if the bus driver happens not to have an accident, or if the believer happens not to harm anyone.
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Greetings:
While I hold that the proposition “At least one god exists” and “It is not the case that at least one god exists” are morally neutral, I do not think that this is true of all beliefs.
In fact, while I have repeatedly made the claim that you quote above, I have also asserted that “epistemic negligence” and “epistemic recklessness” are among the worst moral crimes.
I compare these crimes to the crime of drunk driving. If a person wants to drive drunk on his own 10,000 acre ranch with nobody else around, then he is not doing anything wrong. Wrongness comes into it (moral neutrality is lost) when his recklessness puts others at risk.
Even if the drunk driver makes it home safely, he still puts others at risk, and that shows a lack of regard for the well-being of others that is morally contemptible.
The belief “The gun is not loaded” on the part of a person who points a gun at somebody and pulls the trigger is not morally neutral precisely because it has implications for the well-being of others.
However, the belief “The gun is not loaded” on the part of a person who points it at a safe target on a firing range and pulls the trigger is, in fact, morally neutral. The fact that it is not morally neutral in the first case does not disprove its moral neutrality in the second.
“At least one god exists” is morally neutral because it carries absolutely no implications for how to act. We have to add other propositions to this (e.g., “God wants us to kill all of the homosexuals”) before we actually get any real-world implications. Those additional propositions (or belief in those propositions) are not morally neutral. But belief in the proposition “At least one God exists” is morally neutral.
Yes, I think being intellectually dishonest and cowardly are not immoral, they are akin to self mutilation. Things only become immoral when you harm (or risk harming) innocent others when you should have known better. If a person wants to go home and believe whatever they want it is of no moral value, but as soon as they vote for a candidate based on their religion (or don’t vote for one because of their lack thereof), raise their children with these beliefs, pass their beliefs off to others as fact, etc. then it becomes immoral. And I do not think Christians could really avoid doing these things (and if they did, then they would be betraying their religion and, as far as they knew, letting their children likely descend into hell…not a moral choice either).
Hey, at least we agree on something. Unfortunately we still disagree on who is being intellectually dishonest and cowardly ;> Seriously, those words are nothing but inflamatory and would tend to make one believe that you have no regard for other people.
So, if you vote, do you vote on the basis of who you think the best candidate will be? How do you judge that? Your beliefs, imagine that. If you ever raise children are you going to do it with your belief structure?
If you believe passing your beliefs to others as fact is immoral I should assume you don’t do it. That being the case, you would have to be agnostic at best. Because there is no more proof for the non-existence of God than there is proof of his existence.
You should not take it as an insult. If they understand what they are saying it applies to them also. Here are two points they are trying to make, albeit usually poorly:
1. Human nature is not good (especially compared to godly nature). All humans are fundamentally sinful and “not good”.
2. All good is from God. Any good a believer does is not “their” good, it was brought by God. The believer is fundamentally “not good” also. (talk about an ego check ;<)