Atheists: What do you think of this statement?

Question

It's a direct quote from a regular, won't name names.


"You'll get all these "because it causes harm" or "it damages society" BS answers. Yet, most pure atheists must conclude that Adolf Hitler's society was "moral" because the atrocities being committed were "acceptable" to the society committing them.

Nice set of morals there, eh?"

Answer 1

My response?

Moron.

*Edit - that he got this from some bit of actual philosophy is not what makes him a moron. What makes him a moron is that he assumes that atheists must, for some reason, hold that philosophy.

My response stands... moron.

Answer 2

Many within Hitler's military knew of the atrocities but when you state that the German society as a whole knew of them, I would disagree. Were they acceptable to the high German command? Probably for the most part. Were they acceptable to the German population as a whole? I have never seen numbers about this but would guess maybe 50 or 60% would have agreed but you must realize that most never knew such things were going on until after the war. So to state that the atrocities were 'moral' because they had the acceptance of society is a false summary based on false assumptions.

Answer 3

First, I don't think morals is the appropriate word there at all. Mores perhaps, or customs. If they had said that, they would have been slightly closer to the truth.

On the other hand, they would still have been completely wrong because the entire country didn't agree with Hitler; they were (I believe) simply cowed by him and his peeps.

And even if they had used the correct term, why would Atheists be sporting wood over it? For crissakes, we're not unfeeling robots!

EDIT: It took some doing but I managed to track this down. Is it too late to change MY answer to "Moron!" lol I hate to attribute any thought processes where they're not likely to have occurred.

Answer 4

There is a difference that you're not getting here.

The people of Germany at that time did not consider it morally right. They weren't thinking about morals and most of them didn't know that Jews were getting burned in ovens.

It wasn't about acceptable, or morally right. If they had known what was going on, what rational person do you think would actually think it was ok to do the things Hitler did?

One Atheist doesn't speak for all of us, you know.

Answer 5

True, I would not agree with Hitler's morals or espouse them as one to strive for. What you must (should) realize is that while moral may apply to commonly accepted social morales (In the USA close to Christian morals) it does not exclusively mean that. For example Hedonism is a moral or ethical system, perhaps not a laudable one in it's base form, but still a system of morals.

This usage of morals is similar to calling all copiers Xerox, or all facial tissues a Kleenex or all carbonated beverages a Coke.

Answer 6

As an atheist (and a German) I can assure you that Hitler's society was immoral and inhuman beyond all bounds. There are, after all, standards of morality and humanity, or should be. These standards are not resulting from religion, they can be easily achieved by mere reasoning. (Apart from that, the atrocities committed did not only harm millions of innocent victims, they also severely harmed our society of that time, we are feeling the results until today)

Answer 7

Yes, but what does a facist dictator and his penchant for genocide have to do with atheism?

And, who are you to determine what an atheist, or anyone for that matter, must or must not conclude.

And, this one of the more pathetic attempts to make Hitler look atheist in the name of "disproving atheism". Did you live near power lines as a kid?

It does not really matter what religion Hitler claimed to be a member of. His religion was worshipping himself. He was a lunatic. He didn't really practice any religion of than facism. And, he was good at that.

Answer 8

Considering the tendency that religious people have to be conservative and insensitive to what other people feel or need, I would say that the percentual of religious people supporting Hitler was much greater than the percentual of atheists.

Do not forget the amount of pain and death caused by religious people in the Crusades, Holy Inquisition, Holy Wars, Burning of the books in the Library of Alexandria...

Answer 9

Hey...I don't make this stuff up. It's too crazy for me to come up with on my own! :-)

What are morals?

"a relative thing, for example even Hitler thought he has done a moral thing by "cleaning" his country of Jews... Moral for someone is immoral for others... it`s just something relative.."

"Whatever the society establishes it to be. In a Christian society it is the teachings of God."

"Whatever society decides it is."

"We are social creatures. "Moral" is simply being a part of the social group. "Immoral" is going against that social group."

Answer 10

The atrocities were NOT acceptable to the society committing them. They were foisted onto the populace by a deliberate effort of the nazi party to demonize the jews, homosexuals, etc. The fact that many people risked death to hide jewish families proves this.

Answer 11

I've never been a Christian, but I meet people who used to be Christians all the time and if the only thing keeping people from killing people is their Christianity, it seems we should have WAY MORE murderers.

I, of course, worked for DOC for a while, and helped get people human services. It seems all the murderers who were on the papers I saw wanted things like Bibles and considered themselves Christians.