Happy Birthday to Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln! Both born on this date in 1809
“I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.”
~ Charles Darwin
“Mr. Lincoln was never a member of any Church, nor did he believe in the divinity of Christ, or the inspiration of the Scriptures in the sense understood by evangelical Christians.
When a boy, he showed no sign of that piety which his many biographers ascribe to his manhood. When he went to church at all, he went to mock, and came away to mimic.
When he came to New Salem, he consorted with Freethinkers, joined with them in deriding the gospel story of Jesus, read Volney and Paine, and then wrote a deliberate and labored essay, wherein he reached conclusions similar to theirs.”
~ Colonel Ward H. Lamon (a religionist and Lincoln’s longtime friend)
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It's amazing how many people believe that the United States is based on christianity. When the christians had control, they (ie the puritans) did things like whip and fine people for not attending church. The United States constitution was based on reason and rule of law, which is the polar OPPOSITE of theocracy. I believe Obama may be a christian, but at least he does not claim to hear voices or take instruction (hey, let's go bomb Iraq!) directly from god. He is a firm believer in the rule of law. And just in time too. I was beginning to believe I should go and purchase a burka.
On a different note, I found a fantastic website called the "Skeptic's Annotated Bible". It analyzes most of the bible, verse by verse, and the silliness of it becomes crystal clear. It's quite hilarious too...
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/abs/long.htm
Two of my favorite people in history!
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly formed by numerous, successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
- Charles Darwin
"Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.
And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed."
-President Lincoln
Excellent response Homesick. OK, we have two contradictory stories on Lincoln. One possibility - that he was talking about religion because that's what a very religious electorate expected from a president? Could it be that he was a closet atheist or agnostic? I don't know the answer; maybe wiser minds than mine can analyze this further!
Here is some info on the Lincoln proclamation from Positive Atheism Magazine:
• Firstly, this is not a prayer but a Proclamation!
• Secondly, Congress forced Lincoln to create (but not to deliver) this Proclamation.
• Finally, Lincoln did not write (author) this Proclamation. All but the most dishonest of propagandists would admit that the sentiments contained herein were uncharacteristic of President Lincoln.
This Proclamation was wholly an act of Congress.
Downplayed in every presentation we examined [on Christian websites] was the fact of this having been penned by William Seward, a pious Christian and Lincoln’s Secretary of State, known for using his role as Lincoln's secretary (speechwriter; letter writer) to inject religious sentiments to the point where Lincoln, at one point, felt the need to review Seward’s creations for religiosity before sending them out.
This combination of dishonest alterations was designed to leave readers with the inescapable impression that the whole thing was Lincoln's idea.
Here is what Lincoln said about Seward:
“Oh, that [his Thanksgiving Message] is some of Seward's nonsense, and it pleases the fools.”
~ Abraham Lincoln, to Judge James M Nelson, in response to a question from Nelson: "I once asked him about his fervent Thanksgiving Message and twitted him with being an unbeliever in what was published." Quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, p. 138
As to your Darwin quote, what is your point?
Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed.
You are right John. A bit irresponsible on my part to lead on as though Lincoln actually wrote or said it.
I certainly am glad he signed it though.
John, I found an "atheist" article entitled "Is God a Criminal?" which addresses the issue of objective morality without a god. Since we had touched on this issue in previous comments, I thought I would bring it up (my view is that there IS objective morality based on human consciousness/suffering:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_schultz/criminal-god.html#JAG
Janet, Thanks for the link. Good article. I definitely am struggling with the idea of objective morality. I think it may be a simply issue of semantics.
I think our sense of morality evolved so it is part of who we are. In that sense there are a number of things most all well adjusted people would agree on in regard to morality. But that does not go all the way to “objective” for me.
First, we have to realize that morality does not exist in the universe (as far as we know) apart from humans. So even if you decided that objective morality existed it would only exist in our minds and is that really any different from subjective morality?
Second, morality is not fixed but continues to evolve with us. Even if you were to get a consensus about a moral issue today (for example, that eating the family pet or female genital mutilation is objectively immoral) it may be thought of differently tomorrow, so what was thought “objective” was not.
Now, from my perspective, any act that causes needless suffering is immoral. I would say you were likely immoral today for eating an animal.
Why is it “objectively” immoral to kill and eat a human but “objectively” moral to do the same to another species? Isn’t that rather self-centered of humans?
Thankfully, we don’t have to be concerned about whether morality is objective or subjective for us all to live in peace. We just have to be empathetic and consider the ramifications of our decisions.
A few thoughts - more thinking aloud than answering your last post!
Actually, I woke up last night realizing that I had said "human consciousness/suffering" but I didn't mean that. As a person who generally prefers animals to humans :) I would NEVER say that!!!!In fact, I was still thinking of this walking into work. I remember being told by christians that only humans have souls (although my dad, the animal lover, was not adamant about that - when a pet that he loved died, he thought that particular pet had a soul). I guess it's clear that what they mean by "soul" is maybe self-awareness, or a subconscious (?) That is the one difference between us an all the animals. It's funny to think that this lofty thing we thought of as a "soul" separate from the body may only be brain neurons firing; nothing more. Although I do not want to be dogmatic about that; I can't say I really know.
As for the rest of your points, I think this discussion may be mostly semantics I do have a few comments.
I think morality does exist in the animal population, particularly the more "evolve" animals. Probably amoebas don't have a strong moral foundation. I guess it depends on the meaning of the word. I see how my one cat Tazzie(the alpha who is really half the size of my other cat) lets the big cat, Snowball (I didn't name him this - I would have never done that) eat first. Always, no matter how hungry they are. I think maybe as the alpha he thinks it's his job to ensure that the "kids are fed" before eats. Couldn't that be classed under "morals"? If not, is it because morals can only be the result of consciousness? If that's the case, then that is why humans are the only "moral" beings on the planet.
As for morality continuing to evolve with us, that does seem to be true; it's hard to believe that slavery was tolerated such a short time ago. Our evolution seems to be accelerating too. Things like treating women as chattels, slavery, and beating children & animals are frowned upon now even thought they were perfectly ok last century. But it's hard for me to believe that people did not have a little voice inside (the conscionce?) that told them it was wrong!!! Unless empathy is a recent evolutionary attribute, how is it possible that a person would not feel for people or animals who were suffering? Could empathy be a recent phenomenon?
I'm thinking minimizing suffering always had to be the best moral path. Just because people chose to ignore that "still small voice" and go with the zeitgeist of the day (ie witch burning) does not mean that it wasn't there within humans. Maybe we have just been listening more carefully.
Janet,
I think you make an excellent point about morality existing among other animals. It does seem animals can be very empathetic and it’s empathy that is the foundation of morality.
This is a very interesting topic and one I would like to continue discussing.
Empathy is a good, but is not the foundation of ethics. Where does empathy come from? The answer to that question leads to the foundation of ethics.
Hey Anthony, Nice to hear from you! Hope all is well.
I think if you look at the history of religions throughout the world you see laws given by gods. Just like the biblical account, people told stories about their leader getting these laws from their god on top of a mountain. They were sometimes carved in stone for all to see just like the Israelites. So clearly morality/laws/ethics did not originate in the middle east with one small tribe of people.
People throughout the world have the same natural empathy for suffering (some more, some less but generally the same). This sense of empathy/willingness to help one another evolved to help us survive. Laws came along as a natural consequence of living together in larger and larger groups. (10,000 years ago we lived in small family units of a handful to a few dozen and no formal laws were needed as it was easy to scold, shun, beat, or kill whoever was causing trouble.) This system of behavior control became more unwieldy as societies grew. The idea of an all-seeing policeman in the sky with set rules and a firm punishing personality became the new standard for behavior control. We are now outgrowing the “God” model and rather than referring to a set of divine rules to guide us can base our decisions on simply what causes suffering, what nurtures well-being.
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