I once saw a double bill of Bergman's The Seventh Seal and Persona. I do not think I saw any thing in color for for a week after that

I just watched Winter Light--almost got in the car and put on the Five Heartbeats tape.

OJ, how do you make the link between overweening self-love and atheism?

Atheism replaces God with the self.

That's how you make a link that doesn't link anything.

Atheism replaces God with nothing.

Except yourself.

If one doesn't believe in God, the self remains, but that's not the same as "I am God". It could be just doing the best one can with what one believes is available.

Michael:

Having denied the possibility of any authority but reason, the subsequent need to derive creation myths, ethics, etc., from their own minds--as well as the lack of obligation to anyone or anything but themselves-- is what makes them "gods".

OJ, athiests replace God with people. We are not left only with ourself, we are part of a community of people. We have obligations to these people. Some people are capable of making social connections and commitments without having to be commanded to by God.

If only...

Who then is the person whose authority you trust when it comes to dictating your morality or explaining the world? Do you accept Darwin and Einstein on authority?

OJ, those are two separate questions. Explaining the world isn't necessary for determining morality. As far as morality, I am influenced by my family and society, but in the end it is my conscience that has final say. I don't abdicate responsibility for my moral decisions.

And questions of science? Do you simply accept what you are told by the learned?

I accept it conditionally. Knowing that scientists are often wrong, I don't bet my philosophical farm on what scientists say at any point in time. The workings of science are, theoretically, confirmable or falsifiable by anyone, we need not rely on anyone's personal authority. So, based on the evidence presented and the amount of agreement among diverse groups of scientists, I put conditional faith in the answers that science provides.

The problem with religious authority based on revelation is that it isn't open to the kind of confirmability or falsifiability that science is. On what does it's authority rest? Hearsay.

Robert:

So, we have a rejection of the authority of God on these issues and a substitution of your own conscience and reason?

How is this different than: Atheism replaces God with the self.?

You are saying that athiests replace the love of God with love of the self. I am saying that athiests replace the moral authority of God with the authority of their conscience. Actually all people base moral decisions on their conscience, believers make the claim that what their conscience requires is what God commands.

Whose conscience do you follow? Yours. You've replaced God with yourself. Where do you derive your view of Creation? Your own reason. You've replaced God with yourself. You are your own god.

I don't claim omnipotence or omniscience or eternal life, so I can't be a god. If I'm replacing God, it is by default, since his word and will are unknown to me. I'm not going to take anyone's word for it except his.

Robert:

OJ is happy to take the words of men so long as they are in the correct book, and are interpreted by other men in a way he finds agreeable. Unless, of course, God has spoken to him personally. Which may well have happened, and all joy to him for it.

But for those who aren't so fortunate, what to do? Blind obedience on account of someone else's say so, apparently.

That OJ is unable to conceive of replacing God with nothing is a far more telling indication of limited imagination than the impossibility of the task.

Robert:

Not God, just a god.

Jeff:

Who then is the person whose authority you trust when it comes to dictating your morality or explaining the world? Do you accept Darwin and Einstein on authority?

OJ:

The first para of my post was a little more tongue in cheek than it should have been to make a serious point. You may very well have a personal relationship with God--if so, all joy to you. I meant that seriously.

But just as seriously, what of those who don't have that relationship? We are left with two options. One is blind obedience to other men of one sect or another. Presuming you recommend that option, there is left the minor riddle of picking a sect. All of them make claims to absolute truth, after all.

I spent years with Christianity, first as choirboy, then as acolyte. I didn't leave because of some overegged Vitzian theory, but because it became clear that, for me, it was an utterly empty exercise.

So, in that complete absence, what is the alternative?

There are certain patterns of conduct that provide the best odds of living a decent life. Deviate much from them, and outcomes are likely to be worse. For everyone. Observation and concluding the obvious means picking external reality as the authority, not me.

The Why isn't God, and it isn't me. As it turns out, the vast majority of rules leading to a decent life are independent of religion.

So you are, despite many past protestations, amoral and you don't believe in Darwinism? Since you neither take anything on authority nor derive it yourself.

Yes, everyone is a "god", including believers of "God". Except for those lucky/unlucky enough to have direct contact with the divine, we all choose to believe. The concept and feeling of "self" requires that we accept all of reality on faith, including "God".

Thus, everyone creates their own universe, which, if I'm not mistaken, was what Buddha was trying to get across. The illusion of "self".

But you either choose an authority external or internal to yourself. You don't even drive 55 because you've "chosen" to, but because you accept authority.

The simple question is do Robert and Jeff accept the authority of others to make their moral decisions for them and to explain the world? No, they resort to their own minds--their reason. Thus are they their own authorities, mini-gods.

Michael -- "Thou art God"? Really?

Robert has managed to articulate, as concisely as I've seen, what -- from a purely functional point of view -- I find so dangerous about American atheism:

As far as morality, I am influenced by my family and society, but in the end it is my conscience that has final say. I don't abdicate responsibility for my moral decisions.

In other words, and I think this is a fair summation, "I follow conventional morality, unless I don't like it." I understand that the atheists among us will object that I am trivializing the deeply affecting struggle with their own conscience, in which they draw from their own inner strength, without recourse to false gods, in order to triumph over temptation. They are entirely right -- I am trivializing it.

The reason I spoke of American atheism is that, when combined with our misunderstanding of democracy and classlessness, we quickly decide that we can't be judgmental. Even further, that the fact that some position is consistent with conventional religious morality makes it suspect.

Think about the gay marriage debate from the point of view of any time up to about the year 1997. The establishment Right's position is "Do whatever you want, live together, raise children together, come to what ever contractual arrangement you want; here, have civil union's, just don't call it 'marriage'." The Left's response? "Oh, you vile, oppressive bigots."

The point is that, human beings being what we are, we need an unchanging (well, very slowly changing) arbitrary code of behavior in order to stop us from doing what we want.

David:

Yes, really.
Not THE God, or seperate from God... Part of God.

"So you are, despite many past protestations, amoral and you don't believe in Darwinism? Since you neither take anything on authority nor derive it yourself."

You must have missed my last sentence. The rules are independent of religion, but are common to humanity. Adam Smith was probably the first to discover self organization. I'll bet one could make a very strong case that morality is similarly self-organized complexity.

Michael hit an important point: materialists aren't doing anything different than you, other than failing to put a Wizard of Oz cloak on things.

Jeff:

Okay, you unquestioningly take what Adam Smith says on authority. As I'm sure you're aware he made religious faith an integral part of his economic philosophy too, so presumably you accept his authority there too.