Dick says, "Enjoy your life"

I recently saw this picture online. After reading the ad on the double-decker I started to wonder about a few things. Is this the first ever ad campaign for a philosophical position? Who's paying for these ads and how widespread are they? How successful can they possibly be? What couldn't that brunette sell me? Is she cold? Is Dawkins' left hand as far down the older woman's backside as his right hand is on hers? This lead naturally to the most obvious question—as believer in God, what worries inhibit my enjoyment of life? The answer was just as obvious. I was worried that I displeased God with my fleeting desire to be Richard's right-hand man. I felt ashamed that I had never confessed and sought forgiveness for my infatuation with thin chicks of Mediterranean heritage. All became clear. God was interfering in my sex life. If I would only lay aside my belief in God and His meddling ways, that brunette—or another like her, or not like her at all, anybody who struck my fancy—would be mine for the taking. Of course she (or he, for who knows where this freedom would lead?) would have to be like-minded and willing; at least initially, until I adjusted to moral autonomy.

Then I tried to think of other ways God hindered my enjoyment of life. None came readily to mind, but then Miss Atheist UK was still floating around my cortex. Could it be that a primary impetus to discard belief in God was sexual freedom? Could famed author Aldous Huxley have hit the nail on the head when he said, "For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaningless was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom..." Does famed drunk Christopher Hitchens speak soberly in saying, "Clearly, the human species is designed to experiment with sex."

The sponsors of this advertisement think that belief in God stands in the way of one's enjoyment of life. That raises three questions for my atheist friends:
1. If not unrestricted sexual pleasure, what enjoyment do they mean?
2. Does atheism offer any "benefit" besides sexual freedom?
3. Is sexual freedom the real reason you chose atheism?

20 shirts, 20 comments

Originally posted at Vox Popoli. I created a few more links.

The 20 coolest atheist t-shirts according to the Daily Telegraph:

1) Zeus to Reason

Because the Cult of Reason turned out so well the last time.

2) Distrusted minority

When raising consciousness backfires.

3) What would Dawkins do?

If The God Delusion is a reliable indicator, string a few irrelevant anecdotes together and call it science.

4) Atheist wine club

Correction: whine club.

5) Which day did God make all the fossils?

It depends. Are you talking about Eoanthropus dawsoni or Hesperopithecus haroldcookii?

6) No one has been stoned to death by atheists

Because atheists prefer starving people to death, shooting people to death, gassing people to death, and beating people to death with shovels.

7) God works in mysterious ways

This is how Christians know you have not read the Bible.

8) Dawkins&Dennett&Harris&Hitchens

Snippy&Phony&Screwy&Silly. The four intellectual dwarves of atheism.

9) Born OK The First Time

A successful entry does not dictate a successful exit.

10) Atheists do it unsupervised

And unmarried and childless. And not very often.

11) Atheists have morals too

A morality of one is not a functional moral system.

12) Don't pray in my school, and I won't think in your church

It's not your school. And who the Hell are you to tell anyone else what to do or where to do it?

13) Imaginary friend

Now explain the other 93 percent.

14) Sleep with an atheist

Add to your STD collection.

15) Science, Dawkins, Rock&Roll

Social life as sausage fest.

16) iFraud

Because irritating Christians, Jews, and Muslims just isn't enough.

17) Roman Lions

Arguably not the best way to demonstrate that atheists do not harbor the desire to kill vast quantities of innocent people.

18) Separation of church and state

Amen.

19) Wait, what?

Dinosaur rodeo rocks!

20) Darwin is my homeboy

Charles Darwin is dead. In another 150 years, Darwinism will be too. [I think half that time is sufficient.]

Euthyphro's Dilemma Revisited

Socrates and Euthyphro meet outside the food court. As they wait in line for gyros they strike up the following conversation.

Socrates: Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral?

Euthyphro: This is certainly the case.

S: And we are obligated to obey God because He truly relates to us the moral law?

E: You have put your finger precisely on it.

S: If God merely intermediates between man and the moral law, could we not discern the law for ourselves, bypassing, as it were, the middle man?

E: Heaven forbid! These things are too lofty for us!

S: Too lofty for us to receive directly, but not too lofty when passed from hand-to-hand? If God truly relates these things to us surely they are not tarnished in transmission.

E: I would hope not. [PE contemplates] Perhaps God is required to comprehend the source. If we were to approach it directly we would not perceive it rightly, or we would be consumed by its holiness.

S: You may have something there, but two things worry me if this state of affairs obtain.

E: And they are...?

S: First, is it conceivable that what we call God is subject to a superior holiness? Second, does this holiness approve of our offering worship to its messenger rather than itself?

E: This cannot be! God, by definition, is the Supreme Being and what is supreme serves no master.

S: But we have arrived here by mutual agreement, and we have found that God is not God.

[Standing just behind them is William who has overheard the conversation. He interjects...]

William: Excuse me. May I add a thought of my own at this point?

E & S: Please do.

W: What is this superior holiness that God intermediates for us, to which He is beholden?

S: The Good.

W: What is it's nature?

S: As far as I can tell it is an eternal and universal set of moral relations.

W: Is it a thing or an abstraction?

S: An abstraction, a principle.

W: And this abstract set moral relations bind us as well as God?

S: I would think so.

W: It follows then that all things are obliged to adhere to this eternal and universal set of moral relations. Is that your understanding?

S: It is.

W: Do you see this ant crawling up the table leg?

S: I see it.

W: If all things are obliged, is this ant obliged?

S: I don't know much about ants, but I doubt if ants are under any obligation.

W: How about the table itself?

S: Certainly not.

W: So not all things are bound by this superior holiness?

S: No, not all things, but all sentient beings.

W: A helpful clarification, but it raises a question. If there were no sentient beings, if the world were populated only by ants, would there be anything under obligation?

S: I suppose not.

W: And if there were no sentient beings, a set of moral relations would be meaningless, perhaps impossible?

S: I'd have to think that through, but is sounds plausible.

W: Likewise, would not Good itself would be meaningless or impossible?

S: [exhibiting consternation] Mmmmm...

W: Can we conclude that an abstract set of moral relations cannot exist in a vacuum; that at least one sentient being is required for goodness and obligation to have any meaning whatsoever? Can we further conclude that these abstractions cannot precede a being, but must emanate from a being that sets them and imposes obligation upon all beings including himself? Can we ultimately conclude that such a being cannot be distinct from Good but is the source of Good, or, simply stated, is Good Itself. You ask, "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral?" But now surely you see that what is moral can only be what God commands.

S: [continued consternation] You have given me food for thought.

E: Thank you William, but I must tell you that I was just about to make this same point myself.

W: Sorry for stepping on your toes Euthyphro. [The conversation hits a lull, the three men are looking around. Williams continues after a sigh.] Is the service here always so exceedingly slow?

S: Euthyphro, coming here was your idea. What gives?

E: Hey, I've always used the drive-thru!

Euthyphro for Dummies

"Consider this: Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?"

When Euthyphro's dilemma is discussed by people like Julian Baggini (by way of Cyberkitten) or even TruthSeeker (by way of Kevin Parry) are they expounding or confounding Plato? Have they discovered a fatal flaw in a God-based system of ethics? Have they pulled the rug out from under traditional religious beliefs?

Baggini says,

"To my mind, the Euthypryo dilemma is a very powerful argument against the idea that God is required for morality. Indeed, it goes further and shows that God cannot be the source of morality without morality becoming something arbitrary."

To my mind, Baggini, from this auspicious start proceeds in circles and gets nowhere, but stirs up a lot of dust doing so. We can come back to Baggini, but for now I want to turn our focus on TruthSeeker. TruthSeeker poses the dilemma to Heather on the pretext of engaging in some intellectual discussion (albeit unrelated to the topic at hand), so I'm not sure what TruthSeeker thinks other than that Heather showed "a total lack of understanding of Euthyphro's dilemma". So I ask TruthSeeker to enlighten us about that here in a forum dedicated to the topic. After that I'd like to know if there has been any advance in philosophy in the intervening 2,400 years on the nature of the good or did Plato write the last word on it?

Near the end of the dialogue, Socrates has become frustrated in his attempt to learn from Euthyphro the nature of the pious and impious and in despair says, "So we must investigate again from the beginning what piety is, as I shall not willingly give up before I learn this." (15c)

I'm with Socrates. TruthSeeker (and everyone else), the floor is yours.

Proofs of God's Non-Existence

Are there disproofs of God's existence? I shutter to think. (Maybe that's my problem.) Tell me how I can know that God does not exist.

Cartoon: Modified

Modified from the version posted by Kevin. My sincere apologies to the fine original artist at atheistcartoons.com

The Progression of Democracy

From Bondage to Spiritual Faith
From Spiritual Faith to Great Courage
From Great Courage to Liberty
From Liberty to Abundance
From Abundance to Complacency
From Complacency to Apathy
From Apathy to Dependency
From Dependency back to Bondage

-Anon.

[Guess that means we're about due for another period of Spiritual Faith.]