tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post2529399524415953591..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: The Good that Atheists Would Not DoAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-43052702431555120612007-05-28T13:05:00.000-06:002007-05-28T13:05:00.000-06:00That was brilliant Alonzo. It helps if you read i...That was brilliant Alonzo. It helps if you read it to yourself in a Christopher Hitchins voice.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-78725640120982880732007-05-22T09:03:00.000-06:002007-05-22T09:03:00.000-06:00Well, talk about the capacity to misunderstand! I ...Well, talk about the capacity to misunderstand! I certainly wasn't calling the religious drunks, nor was I even representing other atheists. It is pure conversational shorthand (you might want to keep in mind that I was talking to a friend). The point that I was making, as I was at some pains to explain, is that the matter of non-faith is quite simply as mind-boggling to those who believe than any particular article of faith is. To my friend, it is simply unthinkable. So I wanted to give her a sense of the distance between her reality and mine, and given that distance, the cognitive dissonance it involves.<BR/>Happily, my intensely religious friend is perfectly able to understand what I meant especially as she herself does not drink, and so could hardly be under the impression that I was accusing the religious of alcoholism, in addition to everything else. To the extent that my friend has the experience of seeing the effects of drink on people, and how strange that looks to everyone else, she was then able to see how strange she herself must seem to me when she is in religion mode. This certainly helped us to understand our relative positions and worldviews. Combined with the fact that she hears her opinions confirmed everywhere all the time, is secure in her belief that it is good to believe (she hears this every Sunday), there simply are not many reasons or opportunities for her to consider what the alternatives are. That was a quick way for me to make her understand.<BR/> <BR/>So here's a new analogy for you, and you can jump all over this one too, if you like: <BR/><BR/>The whole atheist/believer argument seems to me to stem around an opposition quite like the gun rights issue on something like the premise: "guns don't shoot people, people shoot people" If guns are inherently dangerous, then we shouldn't have them around. If there are those who can use them responsibly, then we should make that distinction and focus on those who abuse them. If we feel that just having a gun around leads to the potential for harm in ways that are socially significant, then that suggests another outlook. However, it is clear that either everyone has a right to have a gun, or that no one should have a right to a gun, since those of us who do not own guns do not have any way of individually evaluating the character of those who do (and even then, so what and who are we to be evaluating anyone at all?) Hence licence requirements and background checks, and all the other quite sensible solutions that people have been able to come up with, after some back and forth.<BR/><BR/>Thus, being atheist for me is a purely defensive stance. I don't go about being atheist, I just live my life. I become an atheist only when I am forced to because someone else is insisting on telling me what "proper" thing my mind should be doing instead. I do not accept the thought police. Period.<BR/><BR/>On this basis, I think people are free to think what they want. This obviously includes belief in whatever they want to believe in. I just don't want to share that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-55356121332145311272007-05-16T18:32:00.000-06:002007-05-16T18:32:00.000-06:00I turned to her and I said "to atheists, the relig...I turned to her and I said "to atheists, the religious look like drunk people talking to themselves." <BR/><BR/>You were being rather presumptuous speaking on behalf of "atheists" weren't you? Rather arrogantly? I know atheists who aren't so presumptuous and rude about it, they just say they don't believe it and leave it at that. Which approach do you think is more likely to lead to good feelings on the part of the large majority of people who are religious? Maybe it would have been better for other atheists if you'd just spoken for yourself and not for them.olvlzlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15329638018157415801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-81610807175724544352007-05-16T17:44:00.000-06:002007-05-16T17:44:00.000-06:00I was having a conversation with a friend of mine,...I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, who is deeply religious, to the point where she simply cannot understand why it is that I do not believe in God. She has an uncle who has an alcohol problem. I turned to her and I said "to atheists, the religious look like drunk people talking to themselves." For some reason, this made sense to her on some deeply visceral level. Her mouth opened to a large "O" and she stared at me in shock. I think she only just that moment even grasped what she might look like to me. <BR/><BR/>I only mention it because it might work for someone else.<BR/>(Of course, it might offend a whole lot others)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-18633710994273008232007-05-16T15:13:00.000-06:002007-05-16T15:13:00.000-06:00mark - what was wrong with it? I thought it was d...mark - what was wrong with it? I thought it was dang good.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-61169394501136945872007-05-16T13:16:00.000-06:002007-05-16T13:16:00.000-06:00You should have listened to your wife. You're a m...You should have listened to your wife. You're a much better thinker than what this post indicates.Thesauroshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13305052511095551483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-78998065970764753242007-05-16T03:14:00.000-06:002007-05-16T03:14:00.000-06:00The problem with this kind of argument begins wher...The problem with this kind of argument begins where most discussion of human behavior does, it creates false categories and goes on through imprecise terminology. Worse, it lumps people together to try to come up with a tally of who is more of a nice guy and who is more of a jerk. In that the results are guaranteed to be useless for any good purpose but tailor made for furthering bigotry. <BR/><BR/>"Atheists" or "Christians" or any other group of people don't "do good" they aren't "great philanthropists". Individual people do those things and individual people are amazingly varied, too varied to be honestly categorized. Nothing real can be found out about the artificial categories of "Christians" or "Atheists". Begin with the fact that those “groups” are are not homogenous things about which some larger truth can be discerned, they're convenient fictions. You can’t collect data on these fictions and try to come up with the typical behavior for members of either “set” either because it would be impossible to do so. There is no way to come up with a standard model of either kind to judge which were the “greatest philanthropists”. If you attempted the statistical analysis wouldn’t you have to throw out the “greatest philanthropists” as outliers? <BR/><BR/>Just as an example of one of the difficulties. The term “greatest philanthropist” is ambiguous at best. Is a billionaire who gives .02 percent of their annual income to charity a “greater philanthropist” than someone who makes two hundred dollars a year and gives a beggar three meals? Which one actually put their comfort at risk? Which one of them might have put their own or their children’s survival at risk? You’re more likely to hear enough about a big donor who might have to forgo nothing they care about than an impoverished no body but does glamor really count in this kind of thing? <BR/><BR/>This exercise is useless if you want to find out something useful, it’s only real use is to prop up bigotry. Considering that it’s Hannity and Hitchens, both of them with records of proven PERSONAL records of amorality and bigotry, what can you expect? I’ll warn atheists, if they take on Hitchens as a cause because he identifies himself as an atheist they should look at his history of backstabbing and hypocrisy. Look at his activities at The Nation. He lives long enough, I predict you’ll regret it. <BR/><BR/>People should be judged by their individual actions in their full variation and full ambiguity, if they’re going to be judged as people, at all. They shouldn’t be judged by what they say they think. Certainly other people who claim to think the same thing shouldn’t be judged for good or bad by other people, not even by other peoples’ actions.olvlzlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15329638018157415801noreply@blogger.com