As long as it isn't rape

[TOG]

New theory: Richard Dawkins is a hardcore evangelical Christian masquerading as an atheist to give non-believers a bad name. It's going well, because he recently said that "mild pedophilia" isn't too bad and we should all accept it as a natural part of growing up, like "mild rape" or "mild limb severance."
(source)

Apparently, Richard Dawkins thinks pedophelia is't such a big deal, as long as it's not actual rape, but only what he calls "mild pedophelia". He says that when he was in school, one of his teachers took him on his lap and put his hands down Dawkins' shorts. He said other students were molested by the same teacher, but added: “I don’t think he did any of us lasting harm.†He said the most notorious cases of pedophilia involve rape and even murder and should not be bracketed with what he called “just mild touching up.â€

Full story

Not long ago, I was discussing morality with an agnostic/atheist (not sure which he considers himself) friend of mine. I said something many people would think was very bold and others would say was insane. I said that all religions have some moral code and you can (from a purely secular point of view) debate about which is best, but they are all based on the idea that there is a God and that He has told us what is right and what is wrong. If you rule out God completely, you are rejecting the very foundation on which all morality is based, and you end up with no morality at all.

What do the rest of you think? Do these comments from a militant atheist surprise you? Is there such a thing as morality without religion? Will society accept "mild pedophilia" as normal?

The TOG
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[farouk]

...yet if someone in a public school were to suggest that we were created, people like him would want the authorities to come down hard on the person with a severity unparalleled.

Psalm 2.1 comes to mind.

 

[Claudya]

Wonder if Dawkins would think differently about it if he'd been molested by a clergy person.

If he finds himself unharmed and not traumatised by what happened to him that's fine. Finding himself "unable to condemn that person" is fine too, as far as his own incident is concerned. I'd also agree with him that people who lived in a different day and age cannot be condemned by today's moral values. Anyway, the unsettling part is that Dawkins assumes that none of the other kids took lasting harm from that "mild pedophilia". That's an assumption he shouldn't make. People differ greatly in how they react to incidents of that kind. Some children get deeply disturbed even by "minor" incidents. Dawkins probably didn't follow the lives of all other kids that attended his school. So he doesn't have the information to make a conclusion of that kind. But by saying none of them has taking lasting harm he sort of proposes an universal law that being "mildly" touched in a pedophilic way is harmless for kids in general.
Like I said, it's okay and even somewhat wise if he doesn't want to condemn his perpetrator. But as a moral and intellectual role model for many people he should have the discretion to know that he shouldn't derive any kind of generality from his own experience.
Dammit. I used to think highly of Dawkins.

As for the foundation of our morality. Even as christians you can't get around a certain relativity. A godless person (atheist or agnostic) needs to make moral choices (unless they just plainly follow what they are taught by media and family and are incapable of thinking for themselves) based on values of some kind. Since there's no higher instance for them than the law of their country and their own conscience their moral values can be rather subjective. Christians base their values and their morals on the Bible, so our choices should usually be guided by the Bible. But basing a choice (or all choices of our lifes) on the Bible is a human choice in itself.

Morality doesn't require religion. You can base it on universal human experiences like suffering, love, compassion, our physiological and mental needs; or on contemporary humanist ideas like human rights and human dignity.
Morality can change, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Claudya]

The entire quote in context, from Dawkins' memoirs.

One day — I must have been about 11 — there was a master in the gallery with me. He pulled me onto his knee and put his hand inside my shorts. He did no more than have a little feel, but it was extremely disagreeable (the cremasteric reflex is not painful, but in a skin-crawling, creepy way it is almost worse than painful) as well as embarrassing. As soon as I could wriggle off his lap, I ran to tell my friends, many of whom had had the same experience with him. I don’t think he did any of us any lasting damage, but some years later he killed himself.

Doesn't sound like he's defending pedophilia. He describes how awful it was, but also says neither he nor his peers took any lasting damage from their experience with that guy.
In connection with that other quote about the notorious cases of rape and murder it seems that when he said neither of them took lasting damage he's actually acknowledging that other kids have to suffer things much worse than what he went through.
Still not an okay statement of Dawkins. He could have been much more carefull with a tough topic like that.

 

[ardchoille]

I feel that lust, which is the basis for the acts described in the OP, is damaging to all parties involved.. whether or not they want to admit it. Physical damage? Maybe not, but our physical bodies are only a small part of who we are.

 

[TOG]

Morality doesn't require religion. You can base it on universal human experiences like suffering, love, compassion, our physiological and mental needs; or on contemporary humanist ideas like human rights and human dignity. Morality can change, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

If you rule out God, then you have to base your morality on something else. The only possibilities I see are:

• What you feel is right
• What the law says is right
• What society as a whole accepts as right

All of these can and do change often. When they do, does that mean that right and wrong change? Different societies and different laws allow different things. Does that mean that what is moral in one country is immoral in another? For example, prostitution is legal in Germany, but illegal in the US (except for Nevada). Does that mean it is immoral to go to a prostitute in New York, but there's nothing morally wrong with it in Germany or Nevada? Either it's right or it's wrong. Relative morality isn't morality at all, but just "if it feels good, do it", possibly with a little moderation from society.

The TOG

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[Claudya]

Morality doesn't require religion. You can base it on universal human experiences like suffering, love, compassion, our physiological and mental needs; or on contemporary humanist ideas like human rights and human dignity. Morality can change, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

If you rule out God, then you have to base your morality on something else. The only possibilities I see are:

• What you feel is right
• What the law says is right
• What society as a whole accepts as right

... or, like I said, on universal human needs that are realtively stable over generations. And our ability to understand other humans' needs and feelings (compassion is a good moral compass, that's why there's a version of the Golden Rule in so many cultures and religions. It's an appeal to compassion/empathy and reciprocity.)

All of these can and do change often. When they do, does that mean that right and wrong change? Different societies and different laws allow different things. Does that mean that what is moral in one country is immoral in another? For example, prostitution is legal in Germany, but illegal in the US (except for Nevada). Does that mean it is immoral to go to a prostitute in New York, but there's nothing morally wrong with it in Germany or Nevada? Either it's right or it's wrong. Relative morality isn't morality at all, but just "if it feels good, do it", possibly with a little moderation from society.

The TOG

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Yeah right and wrong can be hard to decide. And our ideas of right and wrong do change. As a kid I thought it right and desirable to eat meat. But when I figured out that meat is a slaughtered animal and that most animals we eat have lived under horrible conditions in order to allow mass production for our consumerism eating meat became wrong. Now after 10 years of being vegetarian or (temporarily) vegan when I look back at my younger meat eating self I don't think it was right then, but I can't condemn myself for it, because I didn't know any better and didn't think it through. So eating animals seemed right and acceptable, and I was acting according to my own morals.
Despite being christian and believing in an eternal God I am convinced all human experience and thinking is limited, it's subjective and relative. That's human nature, and that's how we are seperated from God. That's why moral absolutes are impossible to find. We can only set those things that most of us agree on (and thus are somewhat objective) as foundation of our moral system. And that's why our ideas of right and wrong change, and some kinds of behaviour will appear correct to some people and disgustingly wrong to others. Whether there is an absolute and unchanging moral code we cannot know, because in the end even our knowledge about the absolute truth is relative.