How an Atheist Convict Defines Morality, Part Three

What morality means to me – what I strive for – is that I can never rank the value of my life above that of anyone else’s life.  As a humanist, I think this is easy to do.  (Indeed, I think it’s the logical conclusion of rational mind.)  As a convicted murderer, I will forever be looking up.  I do believe that there are people out there who’re much worse than I am, and therefore their lives are less valuable than mine.  But this is only because they themselves have lowered the value of their lives through the victimization of others, not because I have elevated mine above theirs.  As someone who strives to be moral, I refuse to do that.

If I think that everyone’s life has equal (or more) value than my own, I cannot possibly justify victimizing anyone, ever, for any reason.  I will not claim to be selfless human being – but I willclaim as my moral goal to never base the value of another’s life on my own interests.

This does not, however, mean that I will abdicate moral responsibility and judgement.  I can’t do that and expect to be a moral person.  No moral human being can reserve judgement, or they would walk on by as a child gets beaten to death.  Anyone with the tiniest kernel of moral sense can make definitive judgements such as, “I’m better than that person.  I’ll fight him to put a stop to it.”

As a humanist who doesn’t think there is any divine moral standard, I’m still capable of absolute judgements about the value of human life.  For example, though I accept the evidence for the theory of evolution, this doesn’t mean I think there is anything moral about it.  We can’t look to natural selection for gauge of life’s value, because the only thing of value to natural selection is passing on one’s genes.  In this case, the mot valuable people would be the ones with the most children.  Sexual slavery and no birth control or abortion would be the hallmarks of a “moral” society (similar to life under Old Testament laws, ironically.)

The age-old and extremely common methods of valuation such as ethnicity, nationality, and skin color are simple prejudices.  They do not determine anything meaningful about the value of a human being’s life.  Indeed, they are the height of irrationality, since these concepts become meaningless if you trace humanity back far enough into it’s past.  Gender doesn’t work either.  One doesn’t have to be a radical feminist to understand that whether a person has a Y chromosome or not says nothing about their intrinsic value as a human being.

Productivity (how much a person produces in their life, in the form of goods or services for others) is also out.  It makes for a neat little synthesis of laissez-faire capitalism and evolutionary theory, but it obviously cannot be accepted as a moral standard.  A serial killer might be an extremely productive individual.  Indeed, perhaps his victims are people who refuse to produce anything.  Not only would he be a great producer himself, but he would be helping general productivity by removing those who only consume the work of others.  Besides, you can’t objectively measure someone’s potential productivity – a person might be unproductive their entire life, yet later produce a great product or service that eclipses many others.

None of these methods for measuring the moral value of human life are any good.  In fact, you can be pretty sure that if someone is using one of these methods, that person is a good example of what is not moral.

Why Convicts Should Lose Jesus, Part Three

The questions I continue to ask every day is:  Why do prisoners need Jesus?  I think this is an important question because of the commonly accepted idea that prisoners need to find Jesus to learn about morality and become better people.  It’s a cliche.  You see it on news interviews with prisoners, and it’s what any smart prisoner says to the parole board.  I heard even Paris Hilton found Jesus during her lengthy stay in County Jail.

I’ve said before that I see it as a needless crutch.  Making yourself a better person is about using reason.  It’s about getting rid of faulty thinking methods.  You don’t need the Bible to know that victimizing a human being is wrong.  Every single one of us sitting in prison knows the difference between right and wrong.  We were one-hundred-percent aware that the crime we committed to get here was wrong; the problem was that we were thinking irrationally enough to ignore that fact.

The Bible has some good moral lessons for prisoners, but it can teach you absolutely nothing about thinking rationally.  Indeed, blind faith in mythology and moral obedience is contrary to rationality.  It’s just one more faulty thinking method for inmates to add to their already impressive catalogue.

I’m not lashing out against Christianity here.  I honestly want to help.  If someone like me can completely turn my life (that is to say, my thought processes; the way I view the world and the people in it) around simply by learning how to think more rationally, then any of my peers in here can do it.  Every single day, without fail, several times a day even, I hear them falling victim to irrational thinking methods.  You name it, we got it: conspiracy theories, denial of responsibility, prejudice, stereotyping, perpetual victimhood, and so on.

I might even go so far as to say that the issue is not so much a moral one, but an intellectual one.  In other words, to rehabilitate prisoners, the focus should be more on teaching them how to think than teaching them how to be good.  I believe this starts with childhood; children should be taught how to think logically from their earliest years in school.  It is without a doubt the most important skill human beings can ever learn, how to think, an dyou won’t find any instruction for it in the Bible.

Why the Fifth Commandment is Inadequate

“Honor thy father and thy mother: that they days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

I think the most obvious problem with this commandment is that it’s exclusionary.  That is, the stone tablets didn’t include the logical and very moral inverse: Honor thy children.

There are parents out there in need of that lesson, parents who could have benefitedfrom such a commandment.  I’m not just talking about the parents who are guilty of neglect, abuse, and gross negligence.  More common yet are the parents who fail to teach their child responsibility, who ignore their child, who consistently put their own needs above their child’s, who treat their child as a disciplinary project, who indoctrinate their child into faulty or hateful beliefs, who deny their child opportunity and education, who belittle and insult their child, who discourage their child’s dreams, who teach their child to rely on authority rather than critical thought.

None of this honors a child; it likely harms him or her.  Kids with terrible parents must have the tools to recognize when their parents are terrible.  Blind obedience to a biblical law robs them of this tool.  How about we add a qualifying statement to the fifth commandment: “Honor thy father and mother as long as they honor you.” 

What’s more, the biblical lessons should have further defined what it means to honor a person.  Honor your parents because they love you, because they raised you from when you were helpless, because they care about your well-being, because they want to see you happy and successful, because they have invested their lives and resources into you, because they are trustworthy, because they will defend and love you even when youscrew up, because they will always listen to you, because they’re molding you into a responsible individual, because they’re teaching you valuable lessons about life and morality, because they’re teaching you to be strong and independent, because they believe in you and trust you.  Honor your parents because they are good people and all good people deserve to be honored.

That’s how parents honor their child, and how a child is likewise taught to honor a parent.  I haven’t found any of that in biblical verse, at least laid out with any specificity.  Instead, I invariably find adherence to rules and parental figures simply for the sake of patriarchy, as if having a traditional Christian household is all that is required for happiness and morality.

Where is the biblical lesson that teaches children what “honor” means?  Or exactly whythey should honor their parents at all?  Shouldn’t there be another commandment advising parents to not only honor their child – but also to instruct them how to do so?    Shouldn’t there be a lesson for children to understand when they are being victimized or abused by their parents (or any authority figure) and what they can do about it?  Children often lack these skills and so are helpless in this matter, particularly when the one doing the abusing is the one who is supposed to be protecting them from it.  Can’t the Bible – the supposed standard of morality – at least mention something to this end?

Humanists Spoiling Christmas

The other night on The O’Reilly Factor, he had the president of a humanist organization that had paid for a Washington DC billboard ad.  It said: “Why Believe in a god?  Just Be Good for Goodness Sake” and displayed a picture of Santa Claus.  Though O’Reilly had no problem with the second part of the message, he accused the guy of being provocative on purpose to try to insult Christians “just in time for Christmas.”

Okay, fine: The ad is definitely provocative, and I’m sure the humanist organization knew that it would be.  So what?  It’s hardly insulting to ask a profound question like, “Why believe in a god?”  The whole point of the humanist view is that you don’t need a deity (and definitely not organized religion) to be a good moral person.  How can they express that point without asking a tough question like that?

People, this is without a doubt one of the most important questions in existence, one of the fundamental aspects of our lives.  A question like this has so many different layers and cuts across so many lines.  It’s central to what it means to be a human being.  And we’re not supposed to ask it for fear of insulting someone who believes?

What a joke.  I’m so tired of hearing this position that “my faith deserves special respect.”  I’m sorry, but it doesn’t.  This is America.  Your faith gets no special treatment whatsoever.  All you get is the right to worship however you wan – but that means you have to live alongside others who disagree, and even others who think your faith is wrong, ridiculous, or even immoral.

The point of the ad’s “provocative” question was that being moral because God wants you to is kind of an oxymoron.  Morality is not obedience.  You should be moral because it’s the right thing to do, not because God tells you it’s the right thing to do.  Me, I’m a bit callous.  I would put it another way that I’m sure would be incredibly insulting to some, but that I think is completely valid: “Why should I worship a god who kills babies and sanctions rape?”

I’m not trying to insult Christians with a question like that; it’s the truth.  It’s right there in the Old Testament.  I’d like an answer.  The old standby of “those things are okay if God does them” is – in my view – pathetically inadequate.

In my experience, most religious people are quite proud to admit why they believe in their god.  If you can’t even answer a basic question like that about your faith, perhaps the problem is yours.  Maybe Christians should stop being insulted by a provocative question like “Why believe in a god?” and instead try to answer it.

Immoral Christians, Part Two

Lately I’ve been running into several Christians who defend God’s questionable (a nice way to put it) acts in the Old Testament.  It’s interesting that some Christians (the ones who are more reasonable, in my opinion), state that a good loving God wouldn’t do things like murder babies and order the rape of women captured in war, so obviously those things are just inaccurate interpretations made by ignorant tribesmen.

But then we have the Christians who, when asked whether God could make the rape of little girls a moral act, say: “Could God have made the murder of Job’s family a moral act?”  And when I claim that there is no good justification for raping a little girl or murdering babies, they say: “That’s according to YOUR mind.”

Yes, according to my mind.  I have no problem with sticking to that position.  The Christians are going to say what God did to Job was morally okay, that killing David’s infant son was morally okay, that telling His followers to take the virgin girls of a slaughtered tribe as wives is morally okay – but I’m the one with the moral problem.  They look at me funny because I don’t have a standard or authority upon which to base my moral beliefs.  They think it’s silly that “my” version of morality is based solely on my opinion.  If that’s the charge, then that’s fine with me.  As I’ve said, I’ll stand on the side of infanticide and rape being evil, and you Christians go right on justifying it.

But that’s beside the point.  My version of morality (victimization is always wrong) is not based on my personal opinion.  It’s not mine.  But the Christians are correct in that I don’t need an authority as a moral standard.  The standard, the measure, is based on simple observation.  Being good (i.e., not victimizing others) benefits all of us.  Cooperation and mutual respect is what’s best for everyone.  It’s the best version of morality we have because it works the best.

Further, the things that I claim as moral (not victimizing others, preventing others from being victimized) are essentially the same things that most of you out there call “Judeo-Christian” values.  In other words, I’m on the same moral page as most Christians, I just arrived at the conclusion via a different path – and I demand that Abraham’s God not make a hypocrite of Himself by requiring us to be moral while committing heinous acts.  (On a side note, before Christians out there say that God instilled this moral sense in all of us, from Christians to atheists to Buddhists, they should do some research and learn that primates and even lower mammals have an innate sense of fairness that leads to reciprocal altruism.)

Here’s our dichotomy: A particular behavior can be moral either because it’s the most beneficial for those involved in the exchange, or because God says that it’s moral.  The latter is a manifestation of the Might Makes Right philosophy.  If it’s true, then God could make the rape of children a moral act.  I say that anyone who can’t see the ridiculousness of that contradiction perhaps should not be trusted around children.

Why Convicts Should Lose Jesus, Part II

I always wondered why there is any market whatsoever for personal trainers.  I don’t mean to insult their profession, but there’s really no need for them.  Every literate human being can learn everything they need to construct and carry out an exercise and diet plan simply by checking out a few books at the library.  It will only cost you a little time.  There’s certainly nothing esoteric about working out; the concepts are simple to grasp.  You can easily formulate a routine that doesn’t require a spotter.  Diet is simple, also – the laws of physics apply (calories consumed versus calories expended).  Why waste money on a personal trainer?

Of course, many people say they need a personal trainer to keep them motivate, to keep them returning to the gym over and over.  Fair enough.  But part of the benefits of working out is the discipline and self-control it builds.  In other words, if you need a personal trainer, you’re selling yourself short.  You’re never going to learn how to harness your potential, motivate yourself, and bring about change if you continue to require someone else to do it.

Is it obvious where I’m going with this yet?  I’ve said before that I don’t have any problem with prisoners who make themselves better people through religious faith.  I think in this regard, the destination is more important than the path.  But why should any prisoner need Jesus?  Isn’t he like a personal trainer?  Aren’t you simply using a crutch?  I think it’s vital that prisoners learn the tools to better themselves.  Why put a limit on your own mind and ignore the powerful ability to reason that we all can harness?

What if your faith wanes one day?  Most people’s does at some point in their life.  What will you do then?  You’ll be left without the ability to stand on your own two feet.  As with exercising, part of the benefit of making yourself a better person is that along the way, you acquire the tools that will help you in all aspects of your life.  To me, needing Christianity (or any faith) to better yourself is the equivalent of using a personal trainer or even getting cosmetic surgery.  It’s almost cheating.  It’s definitely a shortcut.  Why rob yourself?  Don’t you think you’re capable of doing it on your own?  And if not, why?

Why Convicts Should Lose Jesus

One of the stock answers Christians give when someone asks for evidence of their God goes something like this: “You can’t find evidence of God; you just have to experience it yourself.  You have to look for it and discover what His love feels like personally.”

Carl Sagan gave my favorite response to this.  To paraphrase, he said, “I’m not going to go out and try to prove your belief for you – that’s your responsibility.”

Likewise, I have been accused of “never doing the experiment” myself.  I think this accusation means that I’ve never given faith in Jesus a chance, and that I’ve closed myself off from anything that might “prove” His existence.  It’s kind of funny just how wrong it is.

I was raised in an utterly secular environment; I don’t remember either of my parents ever saying a word about God to me.  About the only childhood experience in this vein was a grandmother who took me and my sister to church a few times.  But most of my family, while certainly not atheist crusaders, had little use for religion.

However, I eventually did.  I was part of a church youth group with a couple kids from my neighborhood.  I walked around knocking on doors handing out pamphlets.  I chose to be baptized.  I believed that Jesus Christ had died for my sins, that He loved me, that the Bible was at least mostly true, and that I’d go to heaven one day if I did right by it and Him.  This active participation in organized religion didn’t last very long, but I held these beliefs for several years.

When I was eighteen and lying on my first bunk in my first prison cell, I was still a believer.  I remember the day distinctly when I felt – I “knew” it with the utmost certainty – that God had put me in prison for a reason.  My faith was completely renewed, I had my old Bible sent in to me, and I decided that was to be my path.

It didn’t last long.  My first question was about the “reason” I was in prison.  I know why I’m here, and God certainly had nothing to do with it.  I’m here because I decided to rob a man and he died.  This was completely my choice and my responsibility.  And if God had truly put me here for a reason, that doesn’t say much about God.  After all, a man was killed in the process.  How could I be so arrogant to think that my life and purpose meant more than his?  What kind of God would allow an innocent person to die, simply so He could put me where I was “meant” to be?

I started to think that I couldn’t possibly “know” that God had put me in prison for a reason, anyway.  I started to think that it was almost certainly my mind’s way of dealing with the situation, of finding purpose and reason – and perhaps even a shameful denial of responsibility – for a stupid kid who had no idea who he was.  I had just destroyed someone else’s life and my own: it makes a great deal of sense that I would want to believe that it didn’t happen in vain, that I had some greater purpose.

That was the beginning of my questions, my rejection of revealed knowledge, and my path to accepting reason.  It also led to my moral evolution.  Yes, I am going so far as to say that rejecting Christianity made me a better man.  If nothing else, it made me understand that being a moral person means a great deal more than obedience.

How an Atheist Convict Defines Morality, Part II

I never understood why religious people say that morality can’t exist without a god.  If we live in an existential universe, isn’t it the logical conclusion that every single human is not only equal in value, but also incredible precious and fragile?  Indeed, can it not be said that the notion of an existence with Abraham’s God takes away the value of human life and bases it solely upon how obedient each person is?

I said before that I think morality is the position that your life is at most equal in value to the lives of others.  The “at most” part is very important.  No moral person can claim that his or her life is greater in value to the life of another.  They wouldn’t be moral anymore, would they?  Imagine if even a pillar of selflessness such as Mother Theresa got on TV and started shrieking that she is worth more than any ten human beings, that her life has much more value than the lives of others because she has done so much humanitarian work, that her life should be saved even if the cost is ten innocent lives.  Could she still be said to be a moral person?  Absolutely not!  A moral person would invariably do the exact opposite: willingly sacrifice him- or herself to save ten lives.

On the other hand, Mother Theresa’s life is certainly worth more than the life of, say, Adolf Hitler.  No one could possibly argue with that.  But it’s not Mother Theresa who raised the value of her life above his.  Remember, if you’re moral, you can’t do that.

A person can, however, lower the value of their own life.  That’s what Hitler did.  He did it by becoming a victimizer (a rather prodigious one).  When you make a choice to victimize someone, you’re claiming that your life is more valuable than theirs.  You’re using your opportunity to take away their opportunity.  This is unjust because your need to victimize cannot possibly outweigh another’s need to be left alone.  Serving your own self-interest is not immoral, but doing it at the expense of another’s self-interest is.

Raising the value of another’s life is what truly selfless people do.  For example, if forced to save the life of either a ninety-year-old with cancer who has lived a full life or an eighteen-year-old on his way to college, I believe that all of us would choose to save the kid.  Indeed, if the elder volunteered to sacrifice himself to save the teenager, he would be a hero – like a mother who sacrifices herself so that her child can live.

On the other hand, try to imagine that child demanding his higher status, demanding that his mother willingly give her life to save his, demanding that his life is worth more than hers and her duty is to protect it even at ultimate cost.  It leaves a bitter taste, does it not?  Perhaps the child is even right, but does it make him moral to claim such a thing?  Is it possible for a son to be a moral human being if he believes that his life has more value than his mother’s life?

My anser would be a resounding “No.”  It is, however, possible for the mother to be moral if she believes that.  Double standards are not always bad things.

Immoral Christians

I’ve sat in prison for almost twelve years and tried to make myself a better person.  I began as a Christian (with faith that Jesus had died for my sins) but evolved into a rationalist.  I think that obedience – even to a God who is supposed to be benevolent – is not morality.  To me, it is the equivalent of brown-nosing.  True morality is about choice; not about how devoted we are to revealed knowledge.  True morality can be defended with reason.  For example, I don’t think that murder is wrong because God (or society, or any authority) says so; I think it’s wrong because it is blatant victimization of another human being who has just as much right to be left alone as the victimizer does.  It is irrational to victimize someone else.

I should make it clear that I don’t endeavor to make myself a better person because I think I deserve it.  It is simply not for me to decide what I deserve.  Perhaps I deserve a cell for the rest of my life; I could not call it unjust if that had been my sentence.  If nothing else, I see it as a responsibility to my fellow human beings that I make myself a better person so that no one will ever be victimized by me again.

I’ve been accused of making up my own form of morality.  So be it.  I’ll take my ad hoc version of morality and run with it.  It declares that victimizing another human being, in any way, for whatever reason, is always wrong.  That’s the moral code I will try to live up to.  I would be interested in hearing what’s wrong with that fundamental tenet.  I don’t claim to have all the answers, and morality is about as complex an issue as any, so I honestly desire input.

So far, my most vehement critic is Mr. Incredible, who holds Abraham’s God as his moral authority.  I argued that God and morality are not the same thing, and to show that, I asked the question the philosopher Michale Ruse has posed: “Could God make the rape of little girls a moral act?”

Here is what Mr. Incredible said in response to the question.  I quote: “Who’d be doin’ the raping?  Anyways, it all depends on his purpose?”

I found that answer extremely incredible, as his name suggests.  I then pointed out that most Christians answer no to that question.  However, if you do so, if you say that God would never do something so horrible, then you’ve just admitted that God follows a moral law outside Himself.  I asked, why then is it horrible to rape little girls?

Mr. Incredible’s one-word response to that question was: “Depends.”

Again, his name is very appropriate to his beliefs about morality.  Further, when I pointed out a few of the atrocities committed by the god of the Old Testament (the murder of King David’s son, the murder of babies in Egypt, the sanctioning of rape, the Great Flood) and stated that I didn’t think these were moral acts, Mr. Incredible responded thusly: “It’s not as though God didn’t warn anybody.  Everybody had the chance to avoid trouble…”

I would be interested in hearing how infants had the chance to avoid being murdered.  I’m sure the answer is incredible. 

So there it is.  If my choice is between my manufactured moral views and this Christian version that excuses child rape and infanticide, I’ll stick to mine, thank you very much.  My position is that there is no good justification for raping a little girl or murdering babies.  Certainly the justifications given in biblical text are inadequate (David’s infant son was murdered for David’s crime, the babies of Egypt were murdered for Pharaoh’s crimes, etc.).

I’m aware that not all Christians are apologists for child rape and infanticide as Mr. Incredible appears to be, so perhaps those of you out there can turn him ways from this manifest evil.  I wonder how many parents of young daughters would be comfortable living in the same neighborhood with a religious man who believes that the morality of fucking a five-year-old girl is dependent on his god’s purpose?

Mr. Incredible and God, Part II

Another thing Mr. Incredible constantly accuses me of is putting myself above God, of judging God.  I have to say, you got me dead to rights there, Mr. Incredible.  I absolutely judge God.  I think of it as a moral imperative for every human being to make value judgements about morality.

Before I go further, I should reiterate some things about myself.  (I’ve dealt with this issue at exhausting length in other posts, so I’ll be brief.)  I’m a convicted murderer.  When I was eighteen years old, I committed a robbery and a man was accidentally killed.  I make no excuses for what I did, I take full responsibility, I deserve to be punished, and I will certainly never – ever – forgive myself.

This isn’t about me, but I just want to get it across (as I have several times before), that just because I make moral judgements doesn’t mean I put myself above anyone.  I won’t ever be as good or moral a person as everyone out there who didn’t commit murder.  That is a fact that I accept and even embrace.

Regardless, it was twelve years ago, and I’m a different person now.  At the very least, I know much better.  I know why my crime was wrong.  If today, I make a statement like “Murder is wrong and anyone who commits it is an immoral individual,” it is not hypocritical or self-contradictory, because I fully accept that what I did was wrong and that I’m an immoral individual.  I don’t think this precludes me from making moral judgements about it – in fact, to consider myself “rehabilitated,” I must make such judgements.

I think that abdicating moral responsibility to an authority – any authority; yes, even God – is a cowardly person.  It’s no different from a Might Makes Right philosophy.  If, on the other hand, you’re abdicating moral responsibility to God because you think He’s good and perfect and moral, that’s a different story.  That’s not cowardly at all; you’re making a judgement about what is moral, and deciding to worship God on that basis.  I applaud that position.

Regardless, even those who abdicate all moral authority still make judgements of their own.  Consider this, Mr. Incredible: Could God make the rape of little girls a moral act?  And if He did, would you still worship Him?

I know the question is inflammatory, but it cuts to the heart of the matter.  Most Christians respond by saying “God would never do something so horrible.”  That’s good, but why then is it horrible to rape little girls.  To claim so (and most of us certainly do, I hope!) means that you’re making a moral judgement of your own.  Obviously then, “God” and “morality” are two different things.

Now, as far as why I personally don’t think Abraham’s God is a good moral authority, it is this:  I’ve read the Old Testament.  If half of the atrocious acts He committed are true, my position is that it’s downright immoral to worship Him.  Murdering King David’s son for David’s crime, murdering the babies of Egypt, sanctioning rape (Judges 21 and Deuteronomy 22.28 are a couple examples), murdering the whole world in a Great Flood – these are not what I consider moral acts.  I don’t much care that it was God who committed them.  I don’t much care when someone tells me, “He’s God, He knows what’s best, it’s all a part of His plan.”  Again, I find such an attitude absolutely dripping with cowardice.  I’ve even heard Christians tell me, “Most of those people who God killed in the Flood are going to get a resurrection.”  Absolutely stunning.  Okay fine, God is omnipotent.  But omnipotence gives you the strength to murder, not the moral right.

Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe if God is real, He didn’t really do those things and they were just stories made up by ignorant tribesmen.  This is merely my argument condemning the acts in the Old Testament.