Alan Germani, in his article
"The Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists" (from the upcoming edition of
The Objective Standard), confirms for me what I suspected about the recent books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. I have not read their books and I do not plan to, based on remarks by the authors and reviews of the books elsewhere: I expected them to purvey the same old altruism, and I was disappointed by their mystical leanings. I do not see how anyone who relies on any kind of mysticism in any way can call himself an atheist.
Germani also reminded me that
In order to persuade religionists to abandon their dangerous beliefs, one must do more than show what is wrong with religion—one must provide something positive to fill the moral void.
It is obvious to me that it is also necessary to pursuade atheists to abandon their altruism.
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It's a shame that the same people who yell the loudest about free thought and bold question of widely held dogmas are so old-fashioned and folksy when it comes to ethics. They essentially have the same view of man and of morality as the religionists.
ReplyDelete*questioning
ReplyDeleteSamuel Skinner
ReplyDeleteOh no- part of it is purely selfish. You see, they want to live in a place where the population isn't credulous idiots falling for the next big thing (coughhomopathycough). Not to mention they don't want to live in a theocracy. But go ahead- ignore the entire point and attack them for trying to change others.
What mysticism are you talking about? Except for Harris, they are all rationalists.
Also
"In order to persuade religionists to abandon their dangerous beliefs, one must do more than show what is wrong with religion—one must provide something positive to fill the moral void."
He is wrong. We didn't need to show racists a better alternative- we simply needed to show them they were wrong. Truth is ALL that matters.
For the record, I follow the view that there is no such thing as altruism- the altruistic merely feel the pain of others as their own and act to protect themselves. We value that because we value others helping us.
Mr Skinner - Have you read Germani's article?
ReplyDeleteI bet not. He did the same thing on my blog.
ReplyDelete