What’s Wrong with the World

I expect that most persons have encountered one and the same 'atheist' advancing each of these 'memes' at different times (and even simultaneously), depending upon which is rhetorically advantageous at the time. I know I have seen this many time.

Now, performing this little dance is intellectually dishonest … and one should not be surprised when an ‘atheist’ does this, for *all* ‘atheists’ (and ‘agnostics’) are liars, simply in (anti-)virtue of being ‘atheists’ (and ‘agnostics’). What I mean is this: a man may be honestly mistaken about whether Jesus Christ is God, the Creator, but no man can be honestly mistaken that there *is* a Creator.

The decision in specific cases should be made on the basis of utilitarian considerations without any notion that human life per se is valuable.

This statement can be used in a couple different flavors, I think. There is

Meme 2A: Ojective, materialistic utilitarianism is the basis, a forthright goal that can be identified and understood by all. This materialistic utilitarianism is regards pain by animals as one of the evils to be avoided, and pleasure by humans is not on a different scale than pleasure by animals. Thus an atheist might be even MORE moral than theists who refuse to recognize the objective moral claims of other sorts of natural agents.

Meme 2B: The standard is a subjective utilitarianism, in which each agent must ascertain "the good" and therefore "right action" in reference to his own values. There is no such thing as objectively moral behavior or objectively immoral behavior. Abortion, infanticide, bank robbery, etc are good or bad for specific individuals under given circumstances, not good or bad in themselves. Certainly atheists can uprightly observe morals by correctly behaving in ways that carry forward their value systems.

Needless to say, both of these turn on their head any standard sense of right and wrong, and will leave all discussion of concrete right and wrong bewilderingly pointless. And neither one of them is greatly to be preferred over the post-modern meme that there is no such thing as morality, there is only doing. The Nike meme.

I'm pretty sure you've pointed this out before, but one reason athiests to date have been able to claim, with some measure of credibility, that they can be "just as moral" as theists, is because the society in which they live and operate has always upheld Christian morality to the extent that the logical end of atheism - immoral behaviors such as those you've pointed out above - have not been permitted. But, of course, as our society has moved away from Christian ethics and morality, so too have we begun to see that atheist meme #1 is false, and always has been false in reality; that if it were ever in some sense true, it was only because society didn't permit the logical end of atheism.

Terry, so you are saying that atheists are living off the borrowed social and moral capital of a formerly Christian society, right?

I am sure atheists would dispute the point, but I certainly don't. As a simple example: I have seen, repeatedly, the emotional, psychological, and social damage produced when a family breaks up in divorce due to the sexual shenanigans of one of the parents. Leaving aside the ridiculous time and money spent on lawyers and courts sorting out who gets custody and to what extent and who has to get doctor's orders for X, Y, and Z, I have seen the kids that are turned into misfits, unable to function, bisexual and transgendered, psychologically dependent human beings who are unable to form healthy relationships, who are and will be their entire lives a drain on society. That goes double for kids born out of wedlock. People who rave (and who are raving lunatic) about "new" family structures are completely unrealistic in thinking that the "mixed" and distorted "families" created by fiat in the minds of psychotic atheists are going to somehow overcome all the obstacles to raising good kids that the natural family did for 5000 years, and will turn out adults ready for adult life. They are buying a bankrupt future as an experiment.

You make an important point Lydia.

Still, I would prefer to say that being moral makes it very difficult to be a consistent atheist. The avowed relativist, atheist, or materials will always find it very difficult to talk and act according to those ideas, because their consequences are intolerable. As you say, the light of natural reason is to be thanked for that.

As often as not, the resort to this argument by atheists is made with an indignant tone, and is an attempt to personalize the debate by daring non-atheists to call the speaker a bad person on account of his beliefs. Interestingly, many atheists do not shrink at all from making the opposite accusation, that religion makes people more unreasonable and society in general less moral. As you and Tony point out, though, this depends on a slippery misuse of what we normally mean by "moral"--Sam Harris' ridiculous "whatever promotes human flourishing" standard, or what have you.

Sam Harris' ridiculous "whatever promotes human flourishing" standard, or what have you.

Which is wonderfully easy to troll. For example, one could argue (Jonathan Swift style) that allowing men with IQs over 110 to have multiple wives and paying women with IQs over 110 $20k/year/child would have an incredibly positive impact on the future genetic makeup of society. Within 100 years, what we call 130 IQs would be the new 100. Don't blame me, I'm just promoting human flourishing...

By the way, this post was prompted by someone's posting on Facebook about a recent conference on "axiology and theism" or some phrase like that. The participants included an atheist philosopher who specializes in arguing that atheism doesn't make you less moral. They also included Michael Tooley, who is famous as a path breaker several decades ago for the morality of infanticide. The Facebook acquaintance posted about eating dinner with a collection of fairly famous atheist philosophers that included both of these. I couldn't help thinking that Tooley's presence was some evidence against the other guy's thesis and thinking how much fun it would be (in a trollish sense of "fun") to point this out to the assembled philosophers. That gave rise to this post.

I couldn't help thinking that Tooley's presence was some evidence against the other guy's thesis and thinking how much fun it would be (in a trollish sense of "fun") to point this out to the assembled philosophers.

Fun is where you find it, right?

The Pope is visiting Washington and is invited to the White House for an event. The White House also invited dissident Catholics and a whole cast of characters on the American stage who stand publicly and definitively against the Catholic Church's teachings. For example, Obama invited Anglican "bishop" Gene Robinson, and Sister Simone Campbell.

I would love it if the Pope, instead of just pretending these people weren't invited to twist his tail, did some twisting of his own. Imagine the following:

"I am pleased that President Obama invited me here today. President Obama here is happy to work with me on climate goals, on shared environmental issues. He is unwilling to set aside our differences on other matters, like so-called gay "marriage" (the Pope here gestures with scare quotes in the air), "even for a little event like this. President Obama, I don't care what your silly little 5-member subset of a group of men and women in black robes says, a priest reciting words over two gays or lesbians is no more a wedding than a president saying the words over 2 cows. All you have done is create the need for millions of people to depart from so-called law to follow their consciences, and I applaud them when they do so."

"And I am please to see Gene Robinson here today with us. Gene, you know that bishops don't do what you have been doing. I invite you to come to Christianity in its full experience, you'll be able to get out of the rut of repeated fake marriage and divorce. We'll dialogue some more - come to Rome and we'll talk."

"I give an especial welcome to Sister Simone Campbell. Sister, I would like to you to be in full communion with the Church of Christ. Leave off the heresy and schism, and come back to your original faith. We'll always be ready for you, day or night, any time you decide, like the father waiting for the prodigal son. It's up to you to turn away from the pigpen and return to the Father. We have nothing but love for you."

OK, it doesn't have to be as blatant as this to play the game, but one can hope, right?

A moral "standard" that it always present in questionable acts (at least questionable to the religious mind) is this: As long as two or more consenting adults agree upon a given situation and action, and as long as no one is physically hurt (now it has extended to psychological 'hurt' and feelings aka matters of the heart e.g. same-sex acts & deviants acts of sex for the most part) then it's okay. It is an amoral act and unless you are involved it is none of your business.

That and as long as you don't kill anyone.

The standards are high. I'm just sweating with anxiety if I can ever achieve such a thing one day.

That and as long as you don't kill anyone.

Except inconvenient babies, really old people, and people with a poor quality of life who should want to die anyway. It's okay to kill them, preferably humanely and without mess, though we will waive the humaneness requirement (and even the non-messiness requirement) in the case of a) abortion and b) death by dehydration for the sick and elderly when this is the only legally permitted method of killing.

Still, I would prefer to say that being moral makes it very difficult to be a consistent atheist. The avowed relativist, atheist, or materials will always find it very difficult to talk and act according to those ideas, because their consequences are intolerable. As you say, the light of natural reason is to be thanked for that.

I agree with you, Sage, and I believe God uses these remnants of the imago dei and gleams of the natural light to call people back to the truth and ultimately to himself. How they respond then lies within their own free will. As a good Lewisian in my soteriology, I believe the call continues to go out until they have definitively refused it and locked themselves away from God forever.

As often as not, the resort to this argument by atheists is made with an indignant tone, and is an attempt to personalize the debate by daring non-atheists to call the speaker a bad person on account of his beliefs.

That certainly does happen, but, philosophers being what they are, there's a cottage industry out there consisting of dry, academic discussion about whether the existence of God is or isn't necessary for morality, whether God's existence would make life more meaningful, and so forth.

Atheists also love to argue that atheism isn't a belief but rather the absence of belief. Of course saying such a thing is philosophically imbecilic--if atheism is merely a lack of belief in God then men who hold to atheism are being no more rational than rocks and paint cans which also lack any belief in God. But in another sense atheism actually is purely negative--it doesn't provide its adherents any moral, social, or cultural bounds that religions do.

In the West secular humanism fills the void atheists have for moral, social, and cultural boundaries and meaning. And while they will often confess that on their atheism there is no real moral standard they still act as if one exists. Thus they feel morally righteous (particularly when it comes to having the right social values) and hold to meme 1 on the basis of their secular humanism while stepping back into the atheistic presuppositions of meme 2. Basically cognative dissonance.

And, what is even funnier, is that they hold their secular humanism just as a faith-creed. They can no more prove secular humanism is "true" or "valid" than a Mormon can scientifially prove his religion, but they follow it just as faithfully, just as religiously. So they are getting their jolly "holier than thou" about having "values" that are not based on a faith, when that value is based on a faith.

Tony, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. And I agree 100% with everything else you wrote; seen it myself, more times than I care to count.

it doesn't provide its adherents any moral, social, or cultural bounds that religions do.

Without a transcendental basis for morality, what constitutes right and wrong exists only in the head of the one making the claim. It should be obvious to everyone that this means that right and wrong are then entirely held hostage to one's whims and emotions if that is how one sees morality. So it should come as no surprise that right and wrong to atheists tend to be situational even if the atheist truly wants them to not be.

I think this is one of the reasons why atheists cannot grasp our views on issues like homosexuality. We don't believe we get to make the rules. Many Christians could probably not care less about what gays do in the privacy of their own homes so long as they respect others by keeping their lifestyle discrete (and similarly, Christians tend to have no more of a desire to hear about what shenanigans heterosexuals are up to). That de facto libertarianism combined with a belief that the behavior is wicked simply makes no sense to the average atheist, in part because most atheists register on the SJW spectrum and SJWs are the closest thing we have to modern day puritans. (Maybe the historic lesson viz-a-viz SJWs and Puritans is that conservative Christians will one day have to take a page from the English monarchists and Church of England and drive our SJWs/Puritans to another continent, but I digress)

And, what is even funnier, is that they hold their secular humanism just as a faith-creed. They can no more prove secular humanism is "true" or "valid" than a Mormon can scientifially prove his religion, but they follow it just as faithfully, just as religiously. So they are getting their jolly "holier than thou" about having "values" that are not based on a faith, when that value is based on a faith.

In a similar vein, you'll notice that very often, their solution to the problem of meaning is, at bottom, that people have to create existential meaning for themselves--to live as if there is some transcendent meaning to our lives.

But they then provide no reason whatsoever to prefer their illusory meaning to what they claim is the theist's illusory meaning. Having ridiculed the religious for engaging in fantasies designed to avoid dealing with the reality that life has no real meaning, they then proceed to prescribe instead a self-consciously illusory meaning instead, for the very reason that to do otherwise makes life intolerable. Maybe they think that a false faith which does not even have the virtue of being sincerely believed is preferable to a false faith that is believed? Maybe they think that the delusion of existential meaning is a worthwhile fantasy just so long as one deceives only himself and not others? But then, why invest so much passion in advocating such a delusion?

Sage McLaughlin: "Still, I would prefer to say that being moral makes it very difficult to be a consistent atheist. The avowed relativist, atheist, or materials will always find it very difficult to talk and act according to those ideas, because their consequences are intolerable. As you say, the light of natural reason is to be thanked for that."

Or, putting it another way -- while Christians frequently do not live up to the morality they espouse, 'atheist' generally do not live down to the morality they espouse. And thank God for that.

"... Maybe they think that the delusion of existential meaning is a worthwhile fantasy just so long as one deceives only himself and not others? But then, why invest so much passion in advocating such a delusion?"

Because, at root, God-denial is The Lie ... and (as I wrote above) all 'atheists' are liars by the mere fact of denying the reality of God.

The question of whether God is or is not is not mere trivial side-show: it is the First Question, the central question about the very nature of reality, for all other questions one may ask follow from the answer one gives to that question. For example, if one answers the First Question with "God is not", then one can't really ask "What is the purpose of life?" or "What is the purpose of *my* life?", for such questions are meaningless in the world-view that one has asserted corresponds to reality.

an attempt to personalize the debate by daring non-atheists to call the speaker a bad person on account of his beliefs.

I don't view atheism as making a person bad on account of his belief in atheism, but more that his belief in atheism gives him no basis to be good (or claim to be good/moral). It simply makes categories of good, moral, or bad irrelevant or essentially unknowable. Everything just is.

The salient question for any atheist is this: How do you determine what is right and wrong. If they respond with any subjective source then it is just an opinion and Meme#2 is their governing meme. If they use an objective source then meme#1 applies. Public law may be considered an objective source for this discussion. However, the question now comes up as to Nazi Germany during the period of 1035 to 1945. Public law required that Jews be relocated to camps. Public law is inadequate at this point; public law can change. In reality atheism is incapable of an objective moral stance without anchoring their ethical position to an objective source and providing for the freewill actions of a moral entity.