I would describe the values of the altruistic modern atheism of people I know, which has a lot in common with Christianity and Judaism at the big picture level, as "be good, do good." One needn't believe in God or gods to believe in good.
Sure there are atheists who are altruistic. But fundamentally there is little common ground, because an atheist does not believe in a divine being who is the source of all morality.
The question I would ask an atheist is: what is good and who defines it?
Morals, on the other hand, are constructs. Given by $GOD, constructed to understand why ethics exist, why there are certain trends that are shared - these were cited forming govts, etc.
Not saying these are grounded in the definitions of language or sociology, merely that these kinds of discussions were everpresent when people get together with time to think. In this case, it was uni. In Ancient Greece, it was the marketplace. To try again, consider ethics things which are done and morality is an attempt to explain WHY they are done. Fear of consequence, desire to gain, justification, ...
This is the lie we are all told to preserve the walls between "us" and "them," to divide and conquer our society. We are told to focus on the superficial differences between groups.
We are told to flip our shared humanity on its head and treat the superficial as fundamental, and the fundamental as irrelevant, to the point where we react viscerally to even the suggestion that someone who doesn't share tribal value X can still be a good person. But there is a lot of common ground between all human groups, if only we would focus on what we share instead of what we don't.
What defines good is our shared picture of empathy, consent, maximizing joy, minimizing suffering, reciprocity, etc. Basic golden rule stuff that's built into most of us and within reach of all of us.
> to the point where we react viscerally to even the suggestion that someone who doesn't share tribal value X can still be a good person.
I'm not arguing that anyone is a good person. The New Testament teaches that there are exactly zero good people apart from Jesus. It's not that I or other religious people are 'good'. However, Abrahamic faiths have enough in common that a shared government where the religious privileges of each group are protected is theoretically possible. I don't see that as a possibility with atheists, agnostics, or polytheistic. Most first world nations are operating under the idea that we can all get along but the reality is that we cannot because our worldviews are diametrically opposed in several areas.
> What defines good is our shared picture of empathy, consent, maximizing joy, minimizing suffering, reciprocity, etc. Basic golden rule stuff that's built into most of us and within reach of all of us.
First, I do not agree that this is built into most of us. That's one of the core tenets of Christianity (Orthodox Judaism as well...but I'm not as well versed there) and I think this is obvious. It seems you and I disagree here, but I think the evidence, especially looking back at various civilizations proves that mankind does not generally follow 'the golden rule'.
Second, most of the values you've listed are not our shared values but are simple utilitarianism.
I certainly do not regard 'consent' as a shared value. Consent is the framework that replaced the marital framework after the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Certainly, the idea of consent existed before that, but using it as a legal framework is a relatively modern development.
I also don't place value of minimizing suffering. People occasionally need to suffer. Using suffering reduction as a framework for moral action would lead to the destruction of the rich so that their wealth can be liquidated and redistributed in the form of food and housing. This is a 'for the greater good' type of thinking, and while I can see why someone might choose to subscribe to such an ideal, it certainly isn't part of how I define morality or good.
In summary: Abrahamic faiths have more in common with each other, despite their disagreements than they do with any primarily materialist position including atheism and utilitarianism.
Now, you can quite easily construct a practical morality system: I think murder is bad because I don't want to be murdered. I want stealing outlawed because I don't want things stolen from me. It's really that simple.
This is natural behavior that has proven evolutionarily advantageous for our species, but religion strangely came along after the fact and tried to take credit for it.
The space of values within the Abrahamic faiths (which are more than Jews, Muslims, and Christians, though those are the largest groups), or even within any one of those three large Abrahamic faiths, is not significantly narrower than the space of values within all of humanity.
Personally, I find that many of the people farthest from me in values are not only within the big Abrahamic tent with me, but also within the smaller tent of Western Christianity with me.
(And I find that us vs. them appeals with “us” being Christianity, “Judeo-Christianity“, or Abrahamic religion [almost always intended to exclusively refer to the big 3], is a pretty good sign that someone is on that other side.)
It held itself up as the "true" alternative to Christian religion in particular. No need for a God - we can do it all ourselves. Perhaps because it saw Christians who were loyal first to God and then to the state as a threat to its plans for totalitarianism.
Materialist don't get to make a smug escape from the stigma of "killing in the name of god". Anything you place at the top of your value hierarchy is, for all intents and purposes, your god.
It's a little on the cheesy side but I think this clip from They Live illustrates simply the idolatrous place capital can take in our day-to-day lives.
What about all the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo? Here's Oxford: 1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being. 2. (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.
Wow! Yeah! Thats's a god! But you're arguing that god is equivalent to formalism and bureaucracy?! Wow, what a disappointment!
I agree that bureaucracy and formalism makes for a disappointing god. That's the way the pharisees tended towards practicing.
You claim you were an atheist once, for a decade? Maybe you mistook being an atheist for being 'edgy' and smug. All it means is that I don't believe in you sky daddy. Never in my life have I talked about atheism except in response to religious people bringing up their religion and trying to explain to me how really I am religious. I just want to be left alone from your superstition, freedom from religion is the only religious freedom.
It would make for better discussion to call out this assumption and offer arguments against it than to resort to personal attacks.
This is the person who said "Freedom from religion is the only religious freedom", which is something I would expect to hear from a guard at a prison camp whose job is to systematically destroy an inmate's hope, community and individuality outside of basic material desires.
Freedom of religion is freedom to believe or not to believe in any religion or philosophy a person may choose. It is the freedom to express that privately or together, to speak about or practice it openly. It is the freedom to seek meaning, in spite of how you may be looked upon for the journey or its outcome. Without this definition of freedom of religion in place, there can only be the state religion/philosophy and any of the people belonging to systems of belief that the state's adherents subjugate, subvert, or chooses to tolerate for the time being.
Furthermore, it's not a freedom that can just be taken away, even if someone writes a mean comment about it or codifies a law that criminalizes beliefs. It is a freedom embedded in base reality.
I am grateful that I grew up in a world where so many people around me valued this definition of freedom of religion so much. I am grateful for the meanings, symbolism and relationships I have been able to discover on this path. Being a former atheist allows me to cherish them all the more, because I remember what life was like without them.
May God have mercy on everyone in this thread, we are all going to need it. I resolutely believe we are in these sad political times because we have forgotten about God.
What pisses me off in this discussion here is that you guys aren't able to have this discussion without either lying or goalpost moving. It is completely incomprehensible to you that something outside of your tiny believe bubble exists. Smug remarks about the 'smug materialists' show how insecure you guys are, then proving that atheists really only also are religious, but still need to be enlightened from you guys. Salvation!
What's even a Canadian? a deeply religious Hutterite in Alberta? An Inuit with their own tribal/folk religion? An atheist in coastal British Columbia or metropolitan Ontario? Catholic Quebecker? A somewhat religious Hindu immigrant? religious for appearances only Middle Eastern immigrant? a Scottish Druid?
Canada is just a hotel, with really bad weather.
As for "discussions", at the very core, belief is freedom of thought.
If one can no longer have whatever wacky beliefs anything from cargo cults to ufo religions, anything really - now we are getting into thought policing. However, Canadians appears to think policing thought is not damaging to society, who would've expected a hotel of a country with no culture of its own and history of mere 300-400 years to have any other opinion? It is profoundly important to have freedom of belief, conscience and thought. As long as others doesn't infringe on my freedoms, they can believe whatever nonsense.
To think that institutions that supported humanity for thousands of years, helped us survive until today, through all sorts of disasters, difficulties and strife, are all of a sudden damaging to society? Only a lunatic could believe this.
The better question would be to ask why is there a global resurgence in religion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desecularization
P.S. I'm not sure why you assume everyone you are talking to online is Christian? Religions vary wildly, and all have very different values. Some don't even have concepts of "salvation" or enlightenment. in others, even some similar concepts might exist - even your personal existence and well being is actually of little to no concern in some creeds, as they are inward oriented.
I think even without believing in an afterlife in your religion, you can believe some idea or value transcends your own death. For example a person could say "I am okay with dying young in an atrocious urban conflict if it means that in the future we can start a socialist regime where everyone has food, health care and shelter provided by the state as it should have been for my family."
It's not a promise of an afterlife, but it is a promise for something good existing after your life because of your willingness to take on death. And in that way, an ideology can inhabit tons of the psychological territory that religion often does.
Contrast with say ISIS, where they do their evil because of (their interpretation of) their religion.
Nowhere. Why would it? We must have different definitions of atheism. It's merely the absence of belief in the existence of deities. It's not some kind of complete life philosophy.