I have been wondering a long time about the morality of atheists (there is actually no such thing as a collective atheist morality, but still).

What would you (an atheist) do in the following cases?

• Someone threatens to kill you, unless you convert to his religion.
• Someone will give you a million dollar, if you convert to his religion, and adhere to the principles of his religion etc.

How important is atheism for you, as the truth? Would you accept something which is a lie (to you) because you can get a reward?

What do you think of martyrs (the Christian definition of martyrs, not the Islamic)? Are they 'respectable' for dying for something which is (according to them) the truth? Or are they stupid for giving their life for morality?

There is no such thing as the "atheist truth". Atheists aren't making a positive statement about the universe. They are only saying that there is no evidence for any of the thousands of religions' truth. It's like asking "would you start playing basketball if somebody threatens you he'll kick your ass if you don't?"

To answer your specific questions:

If a religious fanatic points a gun at my face and says "if you don't accept Christ as your savior, I'll kill you now!", I'll probably say what he wants me to say. Would I have actually converted? Obviously not, I still don't believe in his religion. I'd just call the police and report the guy, and once he's arrested I wouldn't be thinking about him again for the rest of my life.

There are different kinds of atheists. Some simply don't give a damn about religion and aren't thinking about it in their lives. If somebody offers them $1M, they might well say "Fine, whatever, I'll pretend I'm religious, now give me the money". Other atheists are actually active ones who think that religion is harmful to our planet and it's not going to be that easy to buy them. This is like asking a green peace activist "would you stop making campaigns to raise awareness for global warming if I gave you money?" This would obviously depend on many factors:

1. What is his financial situation?
2. Does the money being offered mean a lot for him?
3. How seriously is he invested in the campaign?
4. How much does he value money in general?

FYP.

I would certainly admit that they are pretty courageous, but that doesn't make them more respectable in my eyes. There are people who would die for their football club. Does that make them respectable?

The opposite of being brave isn't necessarily being a coward. It could also be being reckless and foolish.

I have more respect for the religion if there are a high proportion of martyrs or people making very significant sacrifices for their religion. The fact that the overwhelmingly vast majority of followers of major world religions live lives mostly indistinguishable from atheists other than minor cultural changes is pretty damning for religion in general. A few people dying for a cause might be deluded, millions would make a case worth listening to.

As an example millions of people go to church every Sunday but how many of those live in near poverty having given the majority of their money to charity? If you had 100% belief in the Christian God (which many of those millions would profess) there is no reason why this should be the case.

In response to the specific questions in the OP, I would pretend to be a Christian but it would be impossible to actually change my beliefs under duress. In the second case, it would depend on what following the tenets of the religion actually meant - I would go to church every Sunday for £1m but I would not kill, die or preach for my "new beliefs".

Snap convert, unless the religion in question is really ridiculous (so that living according to it's principles seems worse to me than dying)
Same as above, just change dying with a million dollar.

I would, as long as the reward is big enough.

To me, they're neither. I wouldn't call them respectable, but I can understand them. If I would truly believe in afterlife I wouldn't be stupid to sacrifice earth life as long as the sacrifice wouldnt go against the teachings of whatever holy book I believed in (I wouldn't want to end up in hell because of suicide)

I don't derive any morals from my atheism. That would be ridiculous.

A self-contradiction that makes the point well, methinks.

I agree that it is a contradiction, but what point did it make?

Are you claiming that the ethics of atheists are shown to be irrational by the claims of certain atheists that there no evidence for religion X?

That leaves so many gaps, I fear to say your boat is sinking is an understatement; It more than likely was never a boat in the first place.

I never understood the point of this particular sort of hypothetical. So you say you believe X. orly? What if someone threatens to destroy the solar system unless you denounce X, WOULDN'T YOU DO IT?

I'd say whatever it takes to survive. I'd do many things to survive and quite a few things to get a million dollars. I probably couldn't suddenly believe something I previously considered to be false but I'd try if it were necessary to survive or if there were a significant reward for doing so.

As for martyrs, I don't respect them for dying for their beliefs. I just hope for their sake that their actions are consistent with their beliefs and desires. Which is another way of saying that I hope they're happy with what they're doing.

The self-contradiction IS the point.

Erm, even if he contradicted himself it doesn't imply that atheists do...nor does it imply that they make positive statements X about the universe.

Atheism as such does not make that positive statement, though many who present themselves as atheists do.

Sure, I will agree with that. I certainly make such statements for one. However, many who present themselves as theists also make very similar statements....so I don't think this is a big shocker.

I make the positive statement that there is no evidence for any religion. But my position itself is not of a positive atheist (I don't claim that it is proven God does not exist).

What is the contradiction exactly?

Let's divide your statement into two parts:
A. X aren't making a positive statement about the universe.
B. X are only saying that there is no evidence for any of the thousands of religions' truth.

If X aren't making a positive statement about the universe, then the protest in B is contradictory and/or paradoxal, because it would be a statement without evidence.

I am just trying to point out that I am an agnostic atheist, not a gnostic one. The gnostic atheist would make a positive statement about the universe by saying "there is definitely no God", whereas the agnostic atheist would say "there is no evidence that there is God".

For me the term gnostic as applied to atheism sounds very weird, considering the original meaning of the term implies a god. I think the common word is "strong?".

However, let's get on the thing that matters. Saying "there is no evidence there is god" is not a positive statement implies that you er...either have no or need no evidence for it.

That either makes it contradictory (if you think this means the religion can't be reliably said to be true), paradoxal (if you think this can be taken to mean the religion is wrong) or rather pointless (if you think the religion is just making identical statements in regards to truth value as yourself).

However, I'm not doubting that your statement might be different from what you wanted to say, but in debate it's the communicated words that matter.

Convert, obviously (or maybe not obviously). Given the alternative, it costs me very little to go through the motions, and I do not believe I lose anything by publicly abandoning atheism.

Depends on the religion. But probably not. It has nothing to do with being loyal to atheism so much as I would feel like a tool for having that unearned money for a lie. I suppose I could donate it to charity, but then again, I do think I ought to be compensated if I'm going to adhere to the principles of something I at least tacitly don't believe.

Not at all. I don't see it as an important "truth." I'm an atheist because I don't see any reason to believe in deities. That's it. It makes no personal difference to me "as the truth" whether there are none, one, or a thousand unless I have some epistemology for them.

It depends. "Giving their life for morality" is pretty broad. I admire Martin Luther King for dying for civil rights. I don't particularly admire Thomas More for dying for a profoundly corrupt institution and bankrupting his family in the process.

This, pretty much. I mean, I had to develop my own moral system because I don't believe in a supreme moral arbiter, but I'm not convinced that the majority of religious people act morally just because "God says so," either. I don't think my morality is all that different from the majority of religious people, with some obvious differences on specific issues. But big-ticket items like "don't rape/steal/murder," I'm on board with, and I don't understand this idea that atheists are completely amoral.

Which term implies a God???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism

It's not weird. Atheism and agnosticism are two (almost) orthogonal dimensions. One applies to belief, the other applies to knowledge.

Why is it contradictory if I say religion can't be reliably said to be true? My claim is that there is no evidence for a religion to be true, therefore it can't be reliably said to be true. I see no contradiction here.

I said gnostic, not agnostic. I too count myself as an agnostic atheist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism


As I said earlier, it is contradictory to claim this if you claim you aren't making any positive statements - which you did (or rather you claimed atheists didn't, but I'm guessing that implies you).

Assuming this person has the power to kill me, and I can't defend myself or run away. Then I would try my best to convince them that I had converted to their religion. But that's not the same as actually converting because I still wouldn't believe the tenets of the religion, I'd just be putting on an act to avoid getting killed.

If I really needed the money I'd put on an act and pretend to convert (but again, no amount of money could make me a true believer so the conversion wouldn't be genuine). But actually I don't need the money that badly and I'd feel ashamed of myself for doing this, so I wouldn't even pretend to convert. I'd have to be in great financial need before I'd be willing to play the fake conversion game.

If it's a lie (to me), I haven't accepted it at all. Even if I didn't want to be an atheist, I'm still an atheist unless I actually believe in God/gods. There's no choice there, I'm an atheist whether I like it or not and compelling evidence (to me) would be required to change that.

If I was a Christian, my number one priority would be to make sure I'm going to heaven. If dying a martyr is a prerequisite for that, it's worthwhile, regardless of how much earthly suffering this entails. I would think that for a true believer who is convinced that God has called on them to take the martyr's path, there really is no choice. It would be extremely foolish to refuse. I would also say that a believer who isn't willing to suffer for their faith probably doesn't really believe. Earthly suffering should be completely irrelevant if you believe you'll be collecting an infinite reward in the afterlife, and no amount of suffering should be too great. Of course it might be difficult to follow through, pain hurts.

Gnosticism is the name of a philosophical/religious movement. It's different from the term 'gnostic', that is, the latter should not necessarily be associated with the movement. A gnostic atheist would be somebody who makes the positive statement that there is no god.

We can have a fine discussion and a long one regarding what a gnostic is or what the term should mean, but you fail to address that fact that you claimed I made a commentary about agnostics and then proceeded to correct me, when my post quite clearly said gnostic.

Nor have what you have written in this post in any way showed that what I wrote about usage of the term gnostic was wrong - but maybe I should point out that all I said was that I felt it is often wrongly used because of its original meaning.

Let's get back to focusing on your errors instead of inventing ones I haven't made.

I didn't say you made an error, it's just a semantic misunderstanding. Gnostic can mean two things:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Gnostic

The second meaning is what you're referring to, the first meaning is what I'm referring to.

As for the contradiction: now that I think about it, I think it comes from the following misunderstanding:

When I said atheists (including myself) are not making positive statements about the universe, I was implying "...in relation to the existence of God". However, I am making a positive statement in relation to the nonexistence of arguments for the existence of God. These are two different things.

The million dollar question is interesting. If I had to convince all my friends that I had actually converted and live a big lie, it might be kind of tough. If I only had to convince some church group and show up to Bible study every week, then I would definitely take the money.

As an agnostic atheist, there is not much of a "strong belief" on which to base my morality. Therefore, I would usually be willing to pretend if the reward was large enough.

That doesn't make sense. There is nothing in agnostic atheism to base your morality on. Thus your lack of strong beliefs to base your morality on must surely stem from other parts of your persona/attitudes.

I have a very strong sense of morals and they have nothing to do with me being an agnostic atheist.