On Secular and Sectarian Societies

One of the recurring themes in this blog has been the relationship between meaning and marketing. I wrote about it most recently in discussing Sam Harris’ proposal to do away with the term ‘atheist’. I argued against it because, as it stands now, the term ‘atheist’ – burden as it is with strong public disapproval – is a useful marketing tool. Marketers know that if they want to enhance public disapproval of some policy or program, all they need to do is tie whatever it is they do not like to ‘atheism’, and they can ratchet up the public disapproval.

One case study illustrating this policy has to do with the term ‘secular’. People who do not like the idea of a secular society have come to realize that if they make enough noise linking the term ‘secular’ to ‘atheist’ in the public mind, they can ratchet up public disapproval for ‘secular’ policies, leading people to the only logical alternative to such a society, which is a ‘sectarian’ society (a.k.a. ‘theocracy’).

Not long ago even an extremely religious person could be ‘secular’. This simply meant that, whatever his religious beliefs happen to be, when it comes to government actions, those actions had to be grounded on real-world evidence. They could not be grounded on scripture. In other words, one option that was strictly prohibited was for the members of any religion to use the government to make it illegal for somebody to break commandments that had a strictly religious foundation, without a corresponding secular argument in its defense.

In this way of thinking, the government can pass laws against murder, rape, theft, fraud, counterfeiting, and the like because these laws had a secular justification. We may assume that even atheists would want protection from being murdered, raped, robbed, defrauded, and the like. However, the state could not be used to tell the people when to pray, where to pray, what to say during prayer, when to fast or whether to fast, what to eat, what to wear, and the like, because these had a strictly religious foundation.

The most devout Protestant could use the principle of a secular society to condemn any use of the government to force allegiance to the Catholic Pope. Similarly, even a strong Catholic could appeal to these principles of secularism to protest any attempt to inflict additional taxes or burdens on Catholics, or prohibiting their rituals.

There was no conflict between being religious and being secular. In fact, many of the most secular individuals in society were religious, simply because they were worried about the state imposing restrictions on their practice of religion.

However, for somebody who wants to create a theocracy – to institute Sharia law or the Christian equivalent or orthodox Jewish equivalent – secularism is a major obstacle. Before this can happen, people have to be made to hate secularism – to reject it – to deny any person who appeals to the concept of a ‘secular’ government any place of political or social influence.

We know that atheists are the least trusted group in America. They are the group that people identify the most as ‘people who do not share our values’. Somebody with a talent for marketing can easily draw the connection that if they can link the concept of ‘secular’ with the concept of ‘atheist’, that ‘secularism’ itself will become something that people dislike – something that is seen as being at odds with American values.

What it takes to make a language change like this is a willingness to spend enough time and enough money making sure that enough people hear the term in this new context enough times that they adopt the new usage.

This is why I find Harris’ claim that we should rid the language of the term ‘atheist’ to be so naïve – because the people that Harris was talking to are not in the habit of making substantial contributions for the purpose of selling his idea to all English speakers. The people who are willing to spend the most money to talk to the most people and to speak the loudest are those who will dictate how a term be used. It is not within the power of the weak and timid to change the language.

On the other hand, the religious right have the power of conservative talk-shows and other evangelical organizations which will be immediately receptive to this new usage.

Ultimately, this does not require anything like a huge, secret conspiracy theory where people whisper behind closed doors, “Here is a part of our grand plan to defeat secularism.” There are a number of ‘invisible hand’ forces at play supporting such a strategy. Once the idea appears in the policy of any one group, others can immediately see the power of it, and pick it up themselves. All it takes is a sufficient number of people who can see a way to increase their own power and influence (by denigrating and degrading alternatives) by adopting the new way of speaking.

Some evolutionists would explain its growth in terms of ‘meme’ theory, requiring little conscious direction or intelligent design. We look only at whether the environment is one in which a particular meme has what it needs to replicate and spread and, in a highly religious society united against a common and widely despised enemy (atheism), this type of environment exists.

Now, I even read passages in which atheists equate ‘secular’ with ‘atheist’. In all likelihood, they have seen the equation so many times in their young lives that they could not imagine it having a different meaning. They are simply adopting the convention that those who are willing to spend the time and money in control of the media are encouraging them to adopt.

There are still some places in which the term ‘secular’ retains its original meaning. Specifically, whenever Christians talk about keeping a government free of Muslim influence among a population that is heavily Muslim, they will use the term ‘secular’ in its traditional sense. So, the fact that Turkey has a ‘secular’ government, and attempts to establish a ‘secular’ government in Iraq and Afghanistan, are (weakly) praised. To a Christian, it can easily be understood as the lesser of two evils. Of course, a sectarian-Christian society is best. However, if the option is between a secular society and a sectarian-Muslim society, it is better to argue for sectarian society. At least in such a society the Christians will be free to grow their religion without imposition from the state.

Yet, it is quite reasonable to expect that if those Christians should become the new majority, that ‘sectarianism’ will become the new enemy, with sectarian-Christian (theocracy) becoming the preferred form of government. That is when ‘sectarian’ will change its meaning from, ‘A form of government where religious minorities are not oppressed’ to ‘An atheist form of government that tries to rid the state of all reference to God.”

So, what is the moral of this story? What should good people do to defend against this strategy for bringing about the shift from a secular America to a sectarian America?

It will require making noise. It will require people who care enough about the theocratization of America that they are willing to devote resources – time and money – to reach people who do not visit atheist web sites and blogs. It will require funding organizations that oppose the theocratization of America at least as well as the megachurches and forces advocating theocratization are funded.

People may lament the degree to which marketing and campaigning influences people’s opinion, but the world has a lamentable way of being indifferent to what we want the world to be. The answer is to make sure that the people know when an abuse of language is taking place, the type of people who would abuse language in this way, and that such people deserve condemnation because they are nothing more than people obtaining their own benefit (political, social, and economic power) by convincing others to act in ways harmful to themselves.

The Armenian Genocide

Congress is seeking to pass a non-binding resolution that identifies events in the former Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) in 1915-1917 a ‘genocide’. In those three years, the Ottoman Empire forcefully relocated the Armenians. In the process, somewhere between several hundred thousand and 1.5 million Armenians (out of an estimated 2 million) died.

The Turkish government is upset about this resolution and has promised to punish the United States if the resolution should pass. The most likely form of punishment would be to prohibit the United States from supplying its forces in Iraq through Turkey – mostly by flying through Turkish air space.

One of the things that the Turkish government does not like is the idea of calling this a ‘genocide’. Yet, the one quality that all of the victims of this massacre shared – the quality that was used to single them out for this special treatment – is the quality of being members of a particular group of people. So, ‘genocide’ seems to be a quite appropriate term.

President Bush and his administration are opposing this resolution. Once again, they are demonstrating to the world their Christian morality by saying, “If you have something of value that you can offer us, then we can certainly ignore the slaughter of up to 1.5 million people. What’s the slaughter of large numbers of innocent people among friends?

The Turkish government itself is behaving in a contemptible manner in opposing this resolution. One of the things that their action tells us is that they are not willing to condemn those who committed these crimes. If they do not think that these crimes are worthy of condemnation, then we must worry that they might do something like this again in the future. At the very least, they cannot effectively join the rest of the international community in condemning others who might engage in similar actions.

If the United States sides with the Turkish government on this dispute, then it too will lose the authority to condemn similar slaughters elsewhere. The rest of the world will see that the difference between being condemned and not being condemned has little to do with the wrongness of one’s actions, but with the degree to which one can make oneself useful to the United States.

I need to clear up one issue regarding these types of measures – the issue of apologizing for past generations. I hold that the only person whose actions I am responsible for are my own. I am no more obligated to apologize for acts that a family member committed a hundred years ago, than for the acts of a stranger that lives 100 miles down the road. If somebody wants me to apologize, they will need to provide evidence that I did something that warrants an apology.

However, even though I will not apologize for the acts of other people, I do think that it is important to acknowledge when they have done something wrong. If I refuse to classify their actions as wrong, then I am saying that their actions are permissible (or obligatory). If I am saying that their acts are permissible, then I am putting people at risk of others who would perform similar actions. Indeed, I am saying that I would consider it permissible to perform such actions myself. Others in society have every reason to view those who will not condemn such actions as a threat – as somebody they have reason to condemn, in order to promote a hatred of the types of acts I refuse to condemn.

So it is the case that, if some government were to consider a resolution considering the actions against the Native Americans a genocide, or condemning slavery, I would condemn any American who stood in the way – who did not, in fact, join in the condemnation of those policies. It is necessary to convey the message, “Those actions will wrong. In condemning them I give warning that I will also condemn any contemporary who would perform similar crimes.”

One particular crime that I think that Americans have an obligation to own up to has to do with the Revolutionary War. One of the events that we tend to gloss over is the controversy over the Line of Demarcation in 1763. This was one of the reasons for going to war with the English crown, and is included in the Declaration of Independence.

This controversy concerned England’s decision that all land west of the Appalachian Mountains belonged to the Indians (Native Americans), and prohibited the American colonists from settling the land there. The Americans rejected this idea. They saw vast tracts of land ripe for the taking, and did not at all approve of the Parliament’s enforcement of the moral prohibitions on murder and theft.

On this matter, the founding fathers were the moral monsters. Any morally decent American would condemn the founding fathers for this (as well as the stand that they took on the issue of slavery).

This does not diminish the fact that they were right on a number of other issues. In fact, one of their greatest moral failings was their utter hypocrisy. They did an excellent job of expressing a set of moral principles that should govern relationships between people and their government – if only they had the moral fortitude to actually live according to those principles.

(This, by the way, is the biggest problem with the type of ‘originalism’ practiced by Supreme Court Justice Scalia. Scalia’s method of interpreting the Constitution is to apply the principle ‘Do as I do, not as I say.’ As a result, every example of hypocrisy committed by the founding fathers is taken by Scalia to negate the principles that they wrote into the Constitution.)

A moral person need not apologize for the criminal acts of their ancestors, but they do have an obligation to admit that those were criminal acts. Failure to do so means failure to contribute to setting up a culture that will help to prevent similar crimes from acting in the future. Failure to do so tells the world, “You, too, can slaughter a million people, as long as you have something that you can then sell to those who would condemn you for it.”

That is not a very good message to be spreading throughout the world.

In saying this, there is some room for practicality when somebody is doing something immoral. If a thief pulls a gun on you in a dark alley and demands your money, it may be the case that he deserves condemnation, and refusal to condemn him simply makes the world a more dangerous place. However, at that particular place and time, it may well be best to remain silent, or even show some sympathy for the man with the gun. At the same time, you can be taking a description of your assailant in order to provide a better description of him to the authorities, and better condemn him later.

It is quite possible that the Bush Administration is negotiating with Turkey as I write this, with Turkey making real threats about what may happen if its demands are not met.

If the threat is to deny American airplanes the use of Turkish airspace, this threat is not good enough. We are weighing the cost of diverting flights against the principle that it is wrong to kill hundreds of thousands (over a million) innocent people. The United States should have the moral fortitude to be willing to pay such a small price for defense of such an important principle.

Or, Turkey may be threatening to attack the Kurds in northern Iraq and, in so doing, take even more innocent lives. This, then, could count as a hostage situation, with the hostage taker threatening to take lives unless his demands are not met. This bargain should go a considerable distance to proving that Turkey remains the same morally contemptible place that it was when it brought about the death of those Armenians. The fact that they have not improved their moral character in nearly a century provides a hint of what happens when others do not take a stand for moral decency.

Sincerely, it is difficult to find a threat that is significant enough, for somebody who is truly interested in promoting good and fighting evil, to warrant claiming that mass murder on this scale is acceptable. I am not snot saying that it can’thappen, but only that it would be morally difficult for a good person to turn his back and ignore up to 1.5 million deaths.

Except, the Bush Administration seems quite comfortable with turning its back on 1.5 million deaths.

Contributing to the Conversation

I have spent the past week discussing some of the ideas that Sam Harris raised in his controversial speech before the Atheist Alliance International. These have included:

(1) The thesis that atheists should surrender the term ‘atheist’ to the theist. (Opposed.)

(2) The thesis that atheists should recognize that not all religious beliefs are equally bad and should respond by taking on the worst of those beliefs first. (Defended, and augmented by the proposition that some of the worst beliefs and attitudes are not religious.)

(3) That atheists should simply give up on trying to counter such things as the Hitler and Stalin cliché – the tendency to hold all atheists in contempt because Hitler and Stalin were atheists (Opposed, with the response that atheists should respond to moral outrage that also applies to the national motto and pledge of allegiance).

I have one last topic from that discussion that I want to discuss – the fact that theists have very effectively changed the subject – away from the subject of whether their faith-based harms are justified, and onto the subject of the ‘tone’ of the atheist writers and the foundation of atheist beliefs.

They have been able to do these things because theists control the microphone in this country. They have been able to do these things because they are willing to shout louder and longer than their opponents, and drown their opponents out. The volume of their writings, the fact that they have a ready audience, and the fact that people who want to sell products realize that there are more Christian customers in the market place than atheist customers, all substantially leads to the silencing of the atheist voice when compared to the Christian voice.

In the public mind, it is not the case that the claim made with the strongest defense will be claim that the public accepts. People, instead, are more inclined to accept (blindly) the claim that they hear the most often, and which is spoken with the greatest authority, regardless of the quality of the evidence for that statement. This hypothesis is easily confirmed by observation – by the wide array of nonsense that people believe where no evidence can be found for believing it.

Even when it comes to the contents of Dawkins’ and Harris’ books – few people will read them. Most people will believe that the books say what those who speak with the loudest voice and greatest authority report. If that report is a vicious misrepresentation of the contents, then for the bulk of the population this vicious misrepresentation of the contents will become the de facto belief about the contents of those books.

All of this hinges on a willingness to speak up – on a willingness to spend time and money increasing the volume of one’s own voice in the public media. It depends on the willingness to spend money, time, and effort saying the things that one thinks it is important for people to hear.

As I have written above, since the proposition, “At least one god exists,” contains no moral implications in itself, I do not see it as being particularly worthwhile to refute this statement. I am more keen to advocate opposing those statements that do the greatest harm. We cannot base 21st century society on the scientific and moral ignorance of people dead for thousands of years without inflicting great harm on a great number of people. So, the idea that all scripture is to be treated literally is one of those ideas that does contribute to harm, and one that I would be keen to hear refuted.

Another dangerous idea is the idea that faith can justify harm to others. If people want to accept foolish, harmless beliefs on the basis of faith, then they are only harming themselves by doing so. The problem is when one decides to advocate doing harm to others (particularly harm to people who do not belong to their church) and doing so on the basis of faith. When it comes to the proposition, “Those people should be made to suffer,” the speaker needs more than faith to justify his statement. He needs evidence. Those being harmed have the right to demand evidence.

These (types of) messages – that scripture is consists of the prejudices of people as ignorant of morality as they were of science, and that faith cannot justify doing harm to others – are messages that will be drowned out unless and until people are willing to invest time and money and effort into making them heard.

The virtue of this activity is that this is time and money that is actually devoted to protecting people from harms they would otherwise suffer. There is no difference between making contributions that will protect people from disease and treat their injuries, and contributions that will protect people from harms inflicted by those who would base modern society on a primitive moral foundation. Contributing to a cause of fighting the false beliefs that stand in the way of preventing and curing disease is no different than fighting the disease itself.

It does not count as a contribution to fighting these types of dangerous false beliefs to talk only among ourselves. These activities are classic examples of ‘preaching to the choir’. The real task is to get these messages out among those who most need to hear it. This means contributing enough money to fund a marketing campaign, to create advertisements (billboards, radio and television commercials, and the like) that get the message out to people who do not browse atheist blogs and discussion groups.

It means, when one is in a public forum with any of these people, simply refusing them to change the subject. The subject is, “You have become a group of people who do harm to others and base your harm on ‘faith.’ You provide no evidence that the harms you would inflict are well grounded, yet you insist on a right to ground them, and claim that those who protest the harm are attacking your religion. How does blind faith justify harm, and how do you prevent blind faith from justifying any harm that an individual might want to inflict?”

“I would assert that your religion’s prohibition on homosexual acts is like your prohibition on eating shellfish. You have no more right to use your religion to ban homosexual acts than you do to ban the eating of shellfish or the executing of a citizen that works on the Sabbath. They are all equally cases of harm inflicted on the basis of faith alone and, as such, unjustified harm. It is an example of faith making you a threat to the well-being of others.”

Most importantly, it means making contributions to organizations capable of producing advertisements that then make it out to the general public - to people who would not visit an atheist site such as this one on their own. It would be an organization that is involved in making an delivering a message that shows up in shows that the general population watches. This is an expensive project that requires the contributions of a lot of people. However, without it, few people will ever actually get to hear what the atheists are trying to say. They will only hear the interpretations that the theists provide through the media that they control and are more than happy to use.

Moral Outrage II: In God We Trust

I have recently written about how moral outrage is the appropriate response to what I have called The Hitler and Stalin Cliche. This involves associating Hitler and Stalin with atheism in order to market fear and hatred of atheists. This is done by people who would certainly recognize the absurdity of claiming that believers in a round earth are dangerous because Hitler and Stalin both believed in a round earth. But, as I wrote in that earlier post, making sense does not matter to these people. They want to manufacture and sell hate for profit, and making sense just gets in the way.

Another set of circumstances that deserves a level of moral outrage that it is not receiving are incidents like Chad Vegas' push to put "In God We Trust" in all school classrooms.

In the news articles that I have read about this, I have found the standard objections of 'separation of church and state' and 'unconstitutionality' of the proposal. However, both of these arguments fall on a lot of deaf ears. Recall, we are talking about people who want to set up a theocracy and, thereby, have no think that separation of church and state is a moral sin responsible for terrorist attacks and hurricanes. In addition, they are particularly adept (from centuries of experience) in making texts say whatever they want those texts to say.

However, my objection to these arguments is not that they do not work. My objection is that those who use these arguments are missing an important step. We would be better off if those who appealed to 'separation of church and state' would not only explain that this is a violation, but also explain why a good government separates church and state - and why bad governments (and bad people) threaten that separation.

It's easy to do. Simply point to Iran, Afghanistan, and the Dark Ages as examples when nobody would dream of even questioning the separation of church and state - where it was a crime (punishable by death) to question religion.

More importantly, however, is that this is another instance where I see a more appropriate response of moral outrage to be missing.

In the articles that I have read on this case (or any case of posting 'In God We Trust' in public buildings - or on the money), I have not heard the argument that this proposal deserves moral outrage.

You have two options. Either that statement is meant to marginalize and exclude those who do not share your religious beliefs, or it is a lie. It has to be one of the two. If it includes those American citizens who do not share your religious beliefs, it is a lie, because it is not the case that we - if 'we' means all good Americans - trust in God. If it is not a lie, than it marginalizes and excludes those Americans who do not believe in God.

I do not think that those who approved this motto in Congress or those who are fighting for it here are liars. What they are, instead, is religious bigots, and they have made religious bigotry the national motto.

No citizen . . . no good, honest citizen should have to tolerate signs anywhwere, let alone in a government building, that say that they do not belong. No good, honest citizen should ever walk into a building a see a sign on the wall that says, 'You do not count. You are not one of us.

And, far worse than this, far worse by far, is to have laws that require that parents send their children to school, and to see, every day, a sign on the wall that denigrates them and their family.

You - representatives of a government of the people - and not just Christian people, but all people who are citizens of this country - have no right to subject good American citizens to a message of exclusion.

In an article on KGET.COM, National motto posters debated at KNZR form, reports:

We're not trying to establish the nation's motto, we're not trying to make the nation's motto 'In God We Trust' ... The nation's motto is, in fact, 'In God We Trust' ... Period," Vegas said.

Was there anybody in the audience who said, "If the motto was, "We trust in no God," what would you say to somebody who used your argument as a reason for posting that sign in the classrooms?"

Mister Vegas, if you are not using the same arguments that you would use if the motto said, 'We Trust In No God,' then you are being a moral hypocrite. You are proving that you care nothing about treating others as you would wish to be treated by them. If you are using arguments that you would claim constitute injustice if others applied them to you, then you must admit that they constitute the same injustice when you use those arguments against them.

You would literally scream at the injustice if somebody were to do to you what you seem happy to do to others. So, I have to ask you, is this what your Christian morality tells you to do – to treat others in ways that you would call unjust if they were done to you?

Mister Vegas, you know that if the roles were reversed, and you were out here, and somebody was sitting up there insisting that a national motto that said 'We Trust In No God' be posted in all the schools, you would know that he was doing it in order to force his religious views on you and your children. For that very reason, we know that the reason you support this proposal is because you want to force parents who do not share your religious beliefs to encounter this message of exclusion every time they sit in a classroom.

Another claim often made in this context is the claim that proposals such as these are necessary to improve the moral character of our students – that since the ‘liberals’ took God out of the schools everything in this country has gone downhill.

No, sir. No, you have no right to say that. You have no right to sit there in that chair and denigrate the moral character of a lot of very fine people who have made significant contributions to this country. You have no right to use your position to announce to the world that we are your moral inferiors – that we are lesser people and lesser citizens because we do not share your religious beliefs.

How dare you sit there and insult me, and say that I am a lesser person than you? How dare you sit there and say that I am your moral inferior? How dare you not treat me with the dignity and respect that every human being deserves unless and until he has been proved to have committed some crime against the people of this community? I stand before you as an equal member of this community . . . an equal member by right, and you cannot call yourself a moral person if you cannot acknowledge and respect that fact.

As I have been saying through most of this week, this is the types of response that these types of cases demand.

And while I am here, I wish to add that the same thing applies any time anybody recites the current pledge of allegiance.

How dare you stand there and say that I am as bad as those who would oppose union, liberty, and justice. You have no right to stand there and say that those who are not ‘under God’ are like those who would support rebellion, tyranny, and injustice. You particularly have no right to force my child to sit through a daily ritual where you tell his or her peers, ‘those who are not ‘under God’ are inferior to those who are.’ No decent person would support such a policy.

If you do not think that these situations deserve moral outrage, then I would argue that you do not understand what the people who advocate these proposals are truly saying.

Censoring Hate Speech

Yesterday’s posting on the appropriateness of moral outrage as a response to the Hitler and Stalin Cliché brought up the question of censorship. Specifically, is it the case that expressing moral outrage at those who use the Hitler and Stalin Cliché an act that deserves condemnation in the name of opposing censorship?

Briefly, the Hitler and Stalin Cliché is an argument used to condemn atheists by claiming that the atheist regimes of Hitler and Stalin have killed several times as many people as Christianity. The argument is provably invalid; we would not argue that those who believe in a flat earth are morally superior to a round earth on the basis that the latter have killed are more people than the former. The difference between using this argument against atheists, but not against round-earth believers, is because there are social factions who seek to promote hatred of atheists, but not against round-earth believers. In other words, the Hitler and Stalin cliché is a hate crime.

However, if one goes around condemning the Hitler and Stalin Cliché as a hate crime, then is this not censorship, and is this not then worthy of condemnation?

No, it is not. Furthermore, the fact that there is no ‘censorship’ worthy of condemnation in calling the use of cliché a hate crime that the cry of ‘censorship’ can easily be shown to be just another tool in the hate-mongers’ toolbag.

If it is censorship to condemn those who use the Hitler and Stalin Cliché, then it would also be censorship to condemn those who condemn the Hitler and Stalin Cliché. After all, condemning the Hitler and Stalin Cliché counts as speech. Therefore, condemning those who condemn the Hitler and Stalin Cliché counts as condemning speech.

Effectively, the person who uses this censorship argument is saying, “Because censorship is bad, we must prohibit people from saying that the use of the Hitler and Stalin cliché is motivated primarily by a love of hate, even if they can demonstrate this is the case.” In other words, we are going to censor speech in the name of preventing the censorship of speech.

This is nonsense. Yet, this type of idiocy is business-as-usual for those who have decided to make their living manufacturing and selling hatred.

Two Types of Prohibition

In order to more easily understand the moral case, we must distinguish between two levels of moral prohibition in these types of cases. Level 1 Prohibition: Your act is morally contemptible, meaning that it is appropriate to respond to the act with condemnation and private acts such as boycotts, but it is not the type of act that deserves a violent response in the form of fines, imprisonment, or worse.

Level 2 Prohibition: Your act falls in the same moral category as murder, rape, theft, and fraud in that is deserves a violent response in the form of criminal penalties.

What these hate-mongers do, when it is convenient for them to do so, is to ignore these two levels of moral condemnation and to pretend that the only choice that one can make is a choice between complete moral permission on the one end (no punishment, no penalty, no condemnation, no harsh words at all used against the speaker), and a Level 2 Prohibition (a violent response in the form of criminal penalties). They condemn all Level 1 responses to their speech-act as ‘censorship’ as worthy of condemnation as acts of individual or state violence against the speeker.

Of course, the reason that they do this is to silence their critics – to get them to shut up, so that they can continue to utter their contemptible hate-speech without anybody actually saying, “Yours is contemptible hate-speech.”

However, the statement that “yours is contemptible hate-speech” is, itself, speech. If it is always wrong to condemn the words of another, then it is wrong to condemn those who say, “Your words are worthy of condemnation.” Like I said above, this position is inherently self-defeating.

The fact of the matter is that the claim of ‘censorship’ is invalid when people use it against those who employ Level 1 condemnation. The right to freedom of speech is not a right to be immune from condemnation when one says something contemptible. It is a right against the use of state or private violence – against “Level 2 condemnation” – of what one says; not a right against the use of Level 1 condemnation.

There are attempts being made in some parts of the world to say that some biblical passages – particularly those that call for the execution of homosexuals – are hate speech. They want to make the reciting of these biblical passages a crime. In effect, this means outlawing those religions that hold that these anti-homosexual passages are God’s word and literally true.

The distinction above says that these laws are immoral. Those laws would count as a Level 2 response to speech acts, where only Level 1 responses are legitimate. They count as doing harm to those who commit the crime of saying things that one does not like. However, if it is permissible to pass legislation against those who say things that one does not like, then those who advocate these laws should also have the opportunity to seek the arrest of those who condemn them. After all, they too would merely be passing laws against those who say things they do not like.

We avoid this vicious cycle of violence by stating that, even though some speech is wrong and certainly deserves the harshest moral condemnation, that we will not permit people to respond to words with violence. This means that the person advocating laws criminalizing homosexual acts, and the person condemning those who advocate such laws, are both free to have their say, and to try to convince society to adopt their view.

Yes, it means that these people get to keep quoting their Bible versus.

But it also means that we get to keep pointing out how primative, vicious, and harmful these particular religious beliefs are and how they will tend to be favored by primitive, vicious, and harmful people. One group has a desire to have sex with others of the same gender. Others have a desire to do harm. It is not difficult to argue which, in fact, are the better people, so long as we are permitted to say such things.

Moral Outrage

I regret that this posting is turning up on a Saturday, since Saturdays tend to be light traffic days. This is a post that I particularly strongly hope will have an impact among readers, but it is also a post that fits into the current context of this blog at this point.

I am continuing to discuss Sam Harris’ speech before the Atheist Alliance International – the speech in which he said that we should abandon the term ‘atheist’ and that we should be focusing on more than simply whether and to what degree others accept the proposition, “At least one god exists.”

One of the reasons Harris gave in favor of abandoning the fight for atheism per se is the futility of giving arguments that nobody listens to.

So too with the "greatest crimes of the 20th century" argument. How many times are we going to have to counter the charge that Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot represent the endgame of atheism? I've got news for you, this meme is not going away. I argued against it in The End of Faith, and it was immediately thrown back at me in reviews of the book as though I had never mentioned it. So I tackled it again in the afterword to the paperback edition of The End of Faith; but this had no effect whatsoever; so at the risk of boring everyone, I brought it up again in Letter to a Christian Nation; and Richard did the same in The God Delusion; and Christopher took a mighty swing at it in God is Not Great. I can assure you that this bogus argument will be with us for as long as people label themselves "atheists." And it really convinces religious people. It convinces moderates and liberals. It even convinces the occasional atheist.

Why should we fall into this trap? Why should we stand obediently in the space provided, in the space carved out by the conceptual scheme of theistic religion? It's as though, before the debate even begins, our opponents draw the chalk-outline of a dead man on the sidewalk, and we just walk up and lie down in it.

This sounds frustrating. This is frustrating. I have discussed this argument before, under the title, "The Hitler and Stalin Cliche" and I am familiar with the frustration. However, it is frustrating because the way that Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchins (and I, in the context of this blog) respond to this is not the appropriate response for the general audience.

Why do people continue to use this argument, even though it is a fallacious argument (one might as well argue that heliocentrists – those who believe that the sun is at the center of the solar system – are more evil than geocentrists because heliocentrists have killed more people), and how do we get them to stop?

They use this argument because they love to use it. It gives them pleasure. These are people who have grown so fond of blind, bigoted hate that they are not going to let a reasonable argument preclude them from getting their next fix. The problem, here, is not a problem with their beliefs . . . well, it is a problem with their beliefs. However, the problem has its root in their desires – their addiction to hate.

Harris wants to respond to this addiction to hate by hiding. I deny that this is a good strategy – the addict will continue to find some way of fulfilling this desire.

The rational way to respond is to recognize the actual root of the problem and respond in a way that addresses that problem. The correct response in this case is not calm logical discourse, but moral outrage.

That person who used the Hitler and Stalin Cliché has effectively called you a violent, dangerous, murderer. You want to sit there and say, “Excuse me, sir. I hope you don’t mind if I point out that your argument contains something of a fallacy.” They are going to take one look at that response, note that nobody is listening, and go ahead and repeat their argument because their love of hate and all of the things that hate brings them – political and economic power, among others – is stronger than any desire for truth.

Nothing is going to work until you decide to respond to this love of hate and hatred of truth. And the way to do that is to express the moral outrage that these types of claims deserve.

Moral outrage does not need to be void of reason. In fact, moral outrage should be backed up by reason. An expression of moral outrage should not only convey outrage – in tone and body language in addition to choice of words. It should contain an argument that demonstrates that outrage is an appropriate response to this type of claim.

Is this your example of your superior morality – lying hate-mongering bigotry? First, Hitler was raised a Catholic, learned his values from the Catholic church, and certainly did not have any trouble convincing a nation of Lutherans to go along with him. Second, you might as well say that everybody who denies that the Earth is flat is a potential Stalin because I can assure you that almost every tyrant that’s ruled the planet has believed the world to be round. You won’t accept that argument because you know it’s doesn’t make any sense. You SHOULD know that the same argument used against the belief that no God exists doesn’t work either. You would know it, if you had any sense of morality and decency. Unfortunately, you do not seem to have found more love of unreasoned hate in your Bible than respect for truth..

Or, if you want a version fit for the evening news and morning paper, “Why aren’t they going after people who believe the earth is round? Round-earthers have killed countless more than flat earthers. It’s because they don’t care about making sense. They love to hate, and will grab onto any piece of nonsense that feeds that desire.”

This type of statement should be uttered, not in a calm voice, but through clenched teeth and clench fists, with anger and indignation behind it, because this is the type of response that the Hitler and Stalin cliché deserves. This is the appropriate way of dealing with the love of hate and the disrespect for truth and justice that a person who uses this cliché proves himself to possess.

There are some things that cannot be communicated through words alone. The tone in which they are expressed – the context in terms of body language and force of voice in which they are embedded – become a part of their meaning. If the idea that one needs to communicate is that, “Your behavior is morally outrageous,” then the only honest way to communicate one’s belief of this fact is through an expression of moral outrage.

An objection may be raised that an emotional response, backed by a calm and unimpassioned argument, is fake – that this involves acting. However, we routinely expect reason to show that somebody else’s anger is unjustified and, once these reasons are provided, we expect these people to rid themselves of their anger. An employee who is angry that an award went to somebody else, when told that the other person’s actions saved a whole division in Louisiana and kept 100 people employed, is expected not to be angry any more. We do hold that there is such a thing as illegitimate anger. Yet, this goes along with the idea that there is something to the concept of legitimate anger. The anger that a person feels – when he is presented with an argument that shows that he should be angry is not (or should not be) fake.

The person who is not outraged over the use of the Hitler and Stalin cliché is like the person who is not outraged at the student who gives a Jewish classmate a Nazi salute as they pass in the hall, or the person who is not outraged at the person who hung a noose on the doorknob of a black college professor. The Hitler and Stalin Cliché is used to communicate hate. There is no reason backing it up, only a pure desire to hate and to encourage others to hate. It will continue to be acceptable until it is met with the same type of moral outrage as its kinfolk, the Nazi salute and the racist’s noose.

There should be an organized campaign to track and log the use of the Hitler and Stalin Cliché, and to brand its use as a hate crime (because it is a hate crime).

There should be a central repository that explains why it is a hate crime, and that lists the hate-mongers that make use of it.

Every atheist blogger (or any blogger of any persuasion who is opposed to expressions of hate such as these) should then dedicate at least one posting to pointing readers to this resource and explaining the idea behind it.

Those who have influence in non-atheist political sites should put what pressure they can on those sites to acknowledge that the Hitler and Stalin Cliché is a hate crime and to endorse the message at this site.

People should work to make sure that this campaign is sufficiently well funded to include an advertising campaign that will bring the message to every American, regardless of whether they have a habit of visiting atheist or politically liberal web sites.

Those who have access to the press should quit responding to the cliché as if it is a claim that makes deserves to be met by reason, and start responding to it as a Jew would respond to a Nazi salute.

Of course, somebody is inevitably going to scream 'censorship'. It is an easy accusation to answer.

So, because censorship is wrong, we are not permitted to say that the Hitler and Stalin cliche counts as hate speech. Even though it is quite obvious that those who use this cliche are motivated more by a desire to promote hate than by reason, we are not permitted to say so, because saying so counts as censorship."

In addition, I will add my standard caveat. The only legitimate response to words are words and private actions - and that is all that I am advocating here. The right to freedom of speech includes the right to condemn those who say things that are contemptible. It includes a right to moral outrage expressed through words and private actions. I advocate nothing here that is inconsistent with those principles.

When people like Harris and Dawkins and whomever has the microphone at the moment quits arguing against the Hitler and Stalin Cliché, and condemning those who practice it, and when we systematically target this idea with the type of moral outrage it deserves, then, and only then, will we be making an effective response.

A Range of Bad Beliefs

Two days ago I criticized an aspect of Sam Harris’ speech before the Atheist Alliance International conference as being naïve – the idea that atheists can decide how society will refer to us. However, Harris made another set of claims that are not only defensible but important.

Much of Harris’ speech was directed against the idea that all religious claims are equally bad and equally deserving of our attention. As a matter of fact, some religious beliefs are worse than others and that a person who favors reason should see that it is more prudent to spend the greatest effort going after the worse of those beliefs.

Harris gave two main reasons for acknowledging the differences in religious beliefs. One was the fact that pointing this out brought to the surface the fact that religious beliefs are contingent and arbitrary. The second, however, is the focus of this post.

The second reason to be attentive to the differences among the world's religions is that these differences are actually a matter of life and death. There are very few of us who lie awake at night worrying about the Amish. This is not an accident. While I have no doubt that the Amish are mistreating their children, by not educating them adequately, they are not likely to hijack aircraft and fly them into buildings.

In short, some religious beliefs are worse than other.

I have argued in this blog that belief in the proposition, “At least one god exists,” is a harmless proposition because it does not carry with it any moral implications. It has no implications at all about how one should act. Those implications come from the other false beliefs that some people add to the belief, “At least one god exists.”

For example, you cannot get directly from, “At least one god exists” to “homosexual acts shall be punishable by death.” You can’t get here without adding additional claims – claims that some people who believe, “At least one god exists” can consistently and coherently deny.

On the other hand, the belief that people who lived 2,000 years ago lived in a system of perfect moral and scientific knowledge, and that everything in modern society can be evaluated by what those primitive and ignorant tribesmen would say about it is not only wrong, it is gets innocent people killed and destroys the quality of life for countless others. We are wallowing in misery and raising one generation after another who are devoting their energies to doing real-world harm to real-world people because of these particular false beliefs.

As a matter of fact, we have limited resources. As a matter of prudence, when you have limited resources, you should devote your energies to those activities that promise to produce the greatest effect with the least effort. This means devoting more energies to those beliefs that do the greatest harm (belief in the perfect knowledge of primitive and ignorant tribesmen), and less energy to those beliefs that are harmless (at least one God exists).

One objection to this is that it advocates tolerance and acceptance of those beliefs that one does not challenge. This nonsense – and a particularly obnoxious and brutal piece of nonsense.

Imagine that you are a police officer. You are about to pull over somebody that you suspect of driving drunk. Then, a call comes over the radio that somebody is going down the hall of a nearby school shooting everybody he sees. You decide that devoting time and energy to the shooter is more important than stopping this drunk driver. You call in the suspected drunk driver, while you turn around and rush to the school.

Then some nut comes along and says that, by your actions, you have effectively claimed that drunk driving is not and ought not to be a crime, that drunk driving should be tolerated and drunk drivers should not be prosecuted for their actions. You are condemned as somebody who is ‘soft’ on drunk driving and ignoring the real-world harm that drunk drivers are doing to people.

As I said, this line of reasoning is not only fallacious, it is maliciously false. The decision to devote one’s energy the most serious problems is not a statement that the less serious problems are not important. It is a statement that the less serious problems are, in fact, less serious problems – likely to inflict much less real-world harm on real-world people than the problems that one has decided to tackle.

Does this imply that no person should spend time refuting the proposition that at least one God exists – at least until the more serious problems are taken care of?

Of course not. One should recognize that refuting this proposition in itself is not the most productive use of one’s time. However, it is hard to defend the proposition that we should spend every waking moment in the most productive use of one’s time. Refuting the existence of a god might well be something that somebody does for entertainment value. As such, it is certainly a better use of time than watching sports or sitcoms on television or playing computer games. Yet, it is not wrong to spend at least some of one’s time watching sports or sitcoms on television or playing computer games - in addition to spending some time dealing with situations that are getting innocent people maimed and killed.

You can refute the claim that scripture is literally true without refuting the proposition that at least one god exists. In fact, if you take any given scripture, only a small fraction of the population believes that the scripture in question is literally true and even they cannot agree on what it says. It takes very little effort to take somebody who believes that scripture is literally true and start quoting scripture at him, asking at each breaking point, “That is literally true?” The person who finally breaks and says, “No,” does not need to draw the conclusion that no god exists (though, ultimately, it would be better if he would do so).

Please recall, two days ago I objected to Harris’ claim that we should do this while ‘under the radar’ – that is, while we hide our atheism. Instead, I wrote a post much earlier where I advocated that we should go after the range of wrongs (grounded on false beliefs) in the world while, at the same time, very obviously wearing our atheism, as I do in writing this blog. We should tell those suffering of spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease (and their family members) that they suffer as a result of religiously-grounded ignorance. We should tell homosexuals that religious myth is responsible for their suffering. We should point to charts and graphs that reveal the spread of disease – the death and the suffering – and not be at all afraid to point out (where it is true) that those deaths and those suffering are attributable at least in part to those religious beliefs, and condemn the beliefs as a way of preventing death and suffering.

Contrary to Harris, I argue that atheists should state loudly, “There is no god. We live in a universe that is indifferent to our well-being and even our survival, so we must take care of these issues ourselves. Furthermore, we must deal with them rationally and intelligently. Solutions grounded on myth and superstition are not only likely to make things worse rather than better – they have historically done so.”

There is a corollary to this idea that not all religious beliefs are equally bad, and that is the proposition that not all bad beliefs are religious. Harris alluded to this in the statement, “Religion has its share of bad ideas.” Religion’s “share of bad ideas” does not imply a monopoly. One possible area of concern is the problem of fixation where, while our attention is fixed on religion as a source of evil, we are outflanked and overrun by non-religious evils.

Please keep in mind that two of the deadliest and most destructive campaigns in America did not come from religious institutions – they came from business. Industries spending money to promote false beliefs about the safety of tobacco and to get people addicted to this product, and a campaign of misinformation on global warming, have already killed more people and destroyed more property than terrorists, and they were religious campaigns. As much of a threat as fundamentalist religion is to the quality of human life, it may not be the most significant threat by a long shot.

These are the principles that I have written this blog under for over two years. Though I include the name ‘atheist’ in the title, I have devoted only one posting to the question of God’s existence. This is not the first time that I have pointed out that the proposition, “There exists a god,” has absolutely no moral implications or implications on how to behave, so it is not worth time discussing in a blog that is concerned with ethics )or ‘what should be done’) The target of concern is not whether a proposition is religious or not, but whether a proposition makes an individual a threat to the life, health, and well-being of hisneighbors, and that a dangerous non-religious belief is more of a concern than a harmless religious belief.

The goal is to protect the quality of human life, and even human survival (individually and collectively. The goal is to combat the bad ideas that threaten these things. Some of these bad ideas are religious, others are not. Among religious ideas, some are worst than others, and some are more deserving of our attention than others. These are all real-world facts. If anything, atheists should have a particularly keen respect for the importance of real-world facts

Defending the Constitution

The Constitution of the United States cannot defend itself. It exists only so long as there are enough people to stand up for it.

I wonder how many people that would be.

I would like to find out how many people are willing to raise a voice in protest of such actions as torture, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, unchecked executive power, cruel and unusual punishment. I would like to ask for a “Resist Tyranny Day” in which bloggers devote the day to discussing a common topic – a statement of protest against the arbitrary and capricious rule that has come to govern this country.

November 6, 2007 – the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November – I would like to see how many blog writers, discussion-group posters, and others who use this new medium of communication called the Internet, are willing to write with two demands.

(1) A serious investigation in the House of Representative on the possibility of impeaching Vice President Cheney - the person who has done more to destroy the Constitution than any other man in history.

(2) The establishment of a court system with powers that the Executive Branch cannot hide from.

Two articles are relevant to day's post.

I found one at Think Progress, a posting titled Charlie Savage: Cheney Plotted Bush's Imperial Presidency 'Thirty Years Ago'. This posting contains a clip of a CSPAN interview where Charlie Savage presented a case that Vice President Cheney came up with a blue print for a monarchical Presidency 30 years ago.

The second, as reported in a New York Times article, Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Torture Appeal, the US Supreme Court decision not to hear the case of man who alleges to have been kidnapped, hauled off to a prison in Afghanistan, and tortured, and then released four months later when his captors (the United States) realized they had the wrong person.

As the New York Times article points out, the Executive Branch has blocked judicial review of this policy by claiming that such a trial will expose important state secrets.

Before Cheney came into power, the “state secrets’ defense had been used only six times. In one case, it was used to block a lawsuit from the spouses of military officials who died in an Air Force air plane crash. The government claimed that the plane was on a secret mission and the trial would reveal state secrets. The government, apparently, lied – the mission became declassified recently and there was no ‘secret mission’ – only a failure on the part of the Air Force to sufficiently maintain its airplanes. That was the ‘state secret’ that the government could not let be revealed in trial.

Cheney’s administration (and, yes, it is more Cheney's administration than Bush's) has used the State Secrets act 36 times so far, as a part of a campaign to create a Presidency that is more like a monarchy than a Constitutional Republic. It has used this as one of several weapons to destroy the system of checks and balances established in the Constitution, by severing the power of the courts to check and balance the power of the executive.

Charlie Savage presented a case that Cheney began this process of destroying the Constitution the instant the Bush Administration took over power. On the first meeting of the White House Legal Team following the Inauguration, Cheney gave the team their marching orders – that whenever any opportunity presented itself to destroy the system of checks and balances that the founding fathers had established, that they (his team) were to cease the opportunity to do so.

Of course, Cheney would not phrase it in exactly these terms. He claims that the Constitution itself was written to create an unchecked executive branch – an elected monarchy. Of course, interpreting the Constitution as establishing an elected monarchy makes as much sense as interpreting the Declaration of Independence was a letter of apology to King George for the rude and obnoxious behavior of the American colonists.

At the same time, we do not see any movement on the part of the Democrats to resist tyranny. I wonder if there is not a reason for that. I wonder how many Democratic Senators, running for President, are salivating at the thought of what they can do with unchecked executive power – the newfound ability to ignore the legislative and judicial branches of government and to do whatever they please to whomever they please.

One of the biggest threats of the next administration is the threat that we will endure a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress. History has shown that whenever both branches of government are under the control of the same party, that their top priority will be to cooperate to give themselves to grab more power for themselves. A Democratic Congress will almost certainly fail to provide the level of oversight and control over a Democratic president as a Republican Congress did for Cheney. This means another 4 years (or, at best, another 2 years) to further entrench the idea that the Executive Branch is a true monarchy, whose occupant can do whatever she pleases to whomever she pleases.

However, we still have a democracy. We still live in a state where we have the right and the power to dictate to those who serve in Government how they will behave, and to take peaceful, political action to affect change. It would be far better to do so while we still have the power to do so, then to discover that we have created a situation where we no longer have that option.

Please be aware that the greatest threat to your child’s or grandchild’s future is not some Al-Queida agent with a bomb. The biggest threat is a Hitleresque President with unchecked authority, using the power to act without judicial or legislative oversight to do whatever he pleases to whomever he pleases, invading countries at will and creating a state of national emergency that is simply too unstable for national elections.

If we have a government where the Executive Branch has unlimited powers in times of war, “Well, I guess we’re just going to have a war, won’t we?”

So, it is time to say that we will not tolerate a form of government that is such a threat to our future safety and happiness. It is time to say that we will not tolerate people in public office who make it a top priority to destroy the system of checks and balances that has kept us free for over 200 years.

In any institution, there are rules that people obey, not because they are formally written into the bylaws, but because they have a sense of right and wrong that prevent them from abuse. However, sooner or later somebody comes along and abuses those rules, and then everybody has to suffer the consequences.

One of the unwritten rules that Cheney has decided to abuse is the ‘state secrets’ exemption. And so it is now necessary to provide some way of better securing lives and liberty from this abuse. Otherwise, we risk laying the foundation for a tyrannical executive that is far more of a threat than the revelation of any state secrets – particularly the ‘state secret’ that those who occupy the White House are seeking to establish tyranny.

There is, of course, a legitimate concern against having state secrets revealed in a public court room where it is possible to do so. In this case, those reasons for action suggest the establishment of a court of judges capable of seeing those secrets, empowered to determine whether the government is actually protecting state secrets or merely lying to defend criminal conduct or an unconstitutional abuse of power. Where state secrets are in play, even this does not preclude the possibility of the government being found guilty of wrongdoing and providing the victims with some measure of compensation.

Otherwise, we live in a country where any one of us can be snatched up, hauled off to a foreign prison, tortured for months, without any opportunity to protest these violations. None of us can truly be free as long as we must live in the fear that the government has this type of power over us.

Let us not forget, tyrants do not maintain power by doing harm to the people. They maintain power by exercising the threat to do harm. That threat is properly defeated only where one lives in a society that is willing to remove from any potential tyrant the power to exercise such a threat.

So, I am wondering if there are people left in America who are willing to state that we are not willing to tolerate the likes of Dick Cheney in government, that we exercise our right to remove from power those who abuse their station, and that any future leader who should try any similar stunts should expect the same result. Or is it the case that Americans are people who really do not care what type of government they live under, where all of the boasting to the contrary turns out to be nothing more than so much hot air.

On Calling Oneself 'Atheist'

Though apparently not the most warmly received talk at the Atheist Alliance conference, Sam Harris’ speech suggesting that we do away with the term ‘atheist’ is almost certainly the most talked about. I find the proposal to be extremely naive. To explain why, I want to silently sneak into a conservative/fundamentalist political strategy session.

In this session, a group of religious fundamentalists are seeking to promote a policy P. P could be a law, a nomination to the Supreme Court, a slate of political candidates, a change in television programming, the shutting down of an abortion clinic, opposition to including a gay-pride float in a city parade. Whatever it is, they want to get the public to support P, and to oppose not-P.

One of the things that they know is that two-thirds of the population associate ‘atheism’ with ‘bad’. (The do this, I contend, substantially because they are taught in school that those who are not ‘under God’ are ‘un-American’, and those who do not trust in God belong in the excluded group of ‘they’ or ‘them’ as opposed to the included group of ‘we’ or ‘us’.) So, anybody with even the slightest marketing sense will note, “If we can associate not-P with atheism, then we can turn a majority of the people against not-P.”

So, how are we going to associate atheism with not-P?

Well, we need to get the word out. We talk to our preachers about giving sermons associating atheism with not-P. We are friends with all sorts of columnists and religious writers – we get them to write a piece associating not-P with atheism. We present the idea to radio talk-show hosts, we talk the people over at Fox News and any other member of the media who we can trust to present our view, we buy advertising, and we saturate the region with the message that not-P is associated with atheism. If we do this, then our pollsters tell us that we can promote public approval of P (public disapproval of not-P) by (for example) 6 percentage points. Which just might carry the day.

Now, in order to augment our attack, we need to make sure that we preserve or, if possible, bolster the idea in the public mind that atheism is bad. So, in addition to making these claims that associate not-P with atheism, we need to make sure that we use this media to bolster the association of atheism with badness. So, we need to continue to present the idea that atheists are opposed to religious freedom. We must at all costs continue to fight to keep the pledge of allegiance in our schools and ‘In God We Trust” on our money, we must hold on to every success we have won that associates atheism with badness in the public mind, and to find new associations where we can.

Here’s an idea. Almost nobody in our audience will actually read Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris. They will read us, as they always do. So, they will almost certainly believe us regardless of what we say about Dawkins and Harris. It is not at all difficult to associate Dawkins and Harris with atheism – they have done this ourselves. Now, all we need to do is associate Dawkins and Harris with badness (even if we have to invent this association). Then, presto, we have made another association between atheism and badness in the minds of the bulk of the population.

The one crucial fact to take away from this strategy session is . . . and, please, listen carefully . . . they are not asking for our permission. The people who get to decide how the term ‘atheist’ is used are the people who decide to invest the most time and money in using it that way – the people who can get their use into the press and into the public mind the most often.

What rational people need to do is to recognize that this is one of the facts about the natural world – about how things in the real world work – and figure out what to do in the real world given these facts. Harris wants to get rid of the word ‘atheist’. Sorry, that will not happen – not so long as opinion polls show that the term ‘atheism’ can be used in an effective marketing campaign, it will continue to be used in those ways in which it is most effective.

What needs to be done is to change the fact that the term ‘atheism’ can be used in this type of campaign – to change the fact that when the religious right associates not-P with atheism, that they can generate an additional 6 points of public disapproval of not-P (or approval of P).

This can only be done by making a huge – and I mean substantial – investment in countering the association between atheism and badness that the religious right has cultivated in this country.

The very reason that I chose the term ‘Atheist Ethicist’ as the title for this blog is because, one of the ways the religious right associates atheism with badness, is by associating atheism with immorality. It would be useful, I felt, to help counter this by writing something that associates atheism with morality. With a significant amount of education in moral philosophy behind me, this is an association that I felt qualified to make. And I make a significant contribution to drawing that connection every day through this blog.

It is essential, I would argue, to get ‘under God’ out of the Pledge and ‘In God We Trust’ removed as the national motto – not because of some abstract principle of ‘separation of church and state’ – but precisely because these acts were passed and approved as a part of a program to denigrate those who do not believe in God, and it is unjust for the government to adopt the position that those who do not believe in God are not true Americans. When people make the claim that these acts are not intended to denigrate atheists, the response should be a very angry and terse, “Yeah, right. The pledge was not altered to denigrate non-believers in the same way that Auschwitz was not altered to murder Jews.”

Now, imagine a professional boxer who has decided to adopt a strategy that, in the ring, he will always defend and never attack. He will spend one hundred percent of his efforts tryong to block the blows that other opponent tries to land, and never spend a moment trying to land a blow of his own. The best that such a boxer can hope for is a draw, and he has to be absolutely perfect in his defense to do that well.

So it is in the ‘marketing’ of atheism, it is not sufficient to simply defend atheism from the attacks landed against it. It is necessary to land some blows against religion as well.

One point of moral fact that needs to be mentioned – the purpose is not to deliver blows against religion for the sake of scoring some otherwise pointless victory. The point is to address the very real harms that some religious beliefs bring to the lives of very real people. The proposition, “A god exists,” contains no moral implications and is irrelevant to any policy question under debate today. The proposition, “Primative, superstitious people who died thousands of years ago had perfect scientific and moral knowledge and we should follow their dictates without question,” is an absurdity that makes people do things that seriously impair not only their own quality of life but the lives of their neighbors. The target, then, should be on delivering blows that aim to prevent the damage that such people do.

Blows like, “People say that religion gives their life meaning. There is no way that a myth can give a life meaning. The only thing that a myth can do is to give a life the illusion of meaning. That meaning may appear real, but it is as imaginary as the God from whose that meaning springs. The only way that a life can have real meaning is if it is engaged in the real world. There are, in fact, real-world diseases, real-world poverty, real-world ignorance, and real-world conflict, all of which need our real-world attention. If we want to do something about these things, then it is time for us to get real.”

Blows like, “The morality that we get from scripture is the morality of a bunch of primitive tribesmen who knew as little about the moral world as they did about the scientific world. Sure, they got some of the more obvious facts right, but they were wrong on almost everything that was not obvious. Running societies as if Scripture contains perfect moral truth is as foolish as running our hospitals as if the works of Hypocrates were the last word in medicine. Any time moral fictions – or science fictions – make their way into policy through scripture real people are going to suffer real harms as a result.”

Scripture does, in fact, contain as many moral fictions as science fictions – and anybody who actually looks at the moral claims made in scripture can see this.

These deal with two of the wrongly believed ‘advantages’ of religion – that it provides a life with meaning and that it provides us with morality. It’s ‘meaning’ is no more real than the God they worship, and its ‘morality’ are the blind prejudices and superstitions of people long dead.

Ultimately, it will not be possible to retire the term ‘atheist’ until it can no longer be used by those who seek a political weapon. This means that it will not be possible to abandon the term ‘atheist’ until it no longer matters whether one is called an ‘atheist’ or not. As long as the term ‘atheist’ contains all of the negative baggage that it does in our society, people will try to exploit that negative baggage to promote their agenda, and they will not be asking anybody’s permission to do so. The choice is not ours to make. The question then is, how are we going to deal with this real-world fact. How relevant is it to the choices we can make?

The Virtue of Modest Conclusions

Bruce Taylor wrote an article titled, “Anti-Theists Avoid Morality Question” that contains the old argument that an atheist (like me) cannot find a reasonable way of grounding moral claims (like I attempt to do in this blog). [I was made aware of this through An Atheist's Answer to the Morality Question at Letters from Le Vrai.]

In this posting I do not want to waste time repeating the standard responses to this tired claim. Instead, I find something interesting in the form of argument that Taylor uses to defend his claim. It bears a strong relation to the style of argument that these “anti-Theists” that Taylor mentions are accused to have been making. So, ultimately, I want to say something about that form of argument.

The way that Taylor attempts to establish his objection to the anti-Theists is to argue that they have failed to come up with a decent foundation for morality. From this he seeks to draw the conclusion that God exists. As it turns out, I agree that the claims about morality that these anti-theists make have significant problems. Yet, I do not come to the conclusion that God exists. There is a significant weakness in Taylor’s argument that allows his premises to be true, but his conclusion to be false. If Taylor’s argument is, in fact, the same type of argument as that which the anti-theists used, then those anti-theists have the same problem as Taylor.

For example, Taylor substantially repeats the arguments that I have made against a genetic source of ethics – even using the same counter-example that I have used.

The claim being refuted here is that morality is somehow determined by our genetic makeup – our history. It has somehow tuned the brain to certain moral attitudes. The claim is that we have an evolved disposition to behave altruistically; therefore, we have an evolved disposition to behave morally.

There are two ways to interpret this inference. One way is to interpret it as claiming that altruism is moral because we have evolved a disposition to view altruism as moral. If we accept this interpretation, then it follows that if we had evolved a disposition to be cruel, then being cruel will be moral.

Taylor uses the example of rape, which is an example that I have used in the past. If morality depends on our evolved dispositions then, if we have acquired an evolved disposition to commit rape, then rape would be moral. If we have an evolved disposition to favor those who look like us and to distrust or even harm those who look different, than racism would be moral. These absurdities tell us that we should reject the idea that morality depends on what we are genetically disposed to perceive as moral.

Taylor does not mention that divine command theory suffers from the same problem – a problem that Plato identified 2500 years ago. The position invites us to ask, “Is X moral because it is loved by God (our genes), or is it loved by God (our genes) because it is moral?” If we go with the former, then anything – even the greatest cruelties – can become ‘moral’ by being loved by God (our genes). If we go with the latter, then morality must be something distinct and separate from that which is loved by God (our genes).

However, Dawkins ultimately seems to hold the position that altruism is moral whether we are disposed to approve of altruism or not. To the degree that humans evolved a disposition to behave altruistically, to that degree we have evolved a disposition to behave morally. And to the degree that we have evolved dispositions to act cruelly, to that degree we have evolved dispositions to behave immorally.

However, against this option, Taylor asks for somebody to answer the question of why altruism, or community service, or helping others is moral and cruelty is immoral. What is there, in the atheist-materialist universe, to prevent cruelty from being moral and altruism from being immoral. Or, actually, what is there that can assign moral value to either altruism or cruelty?

He claims that Hitchens’ bases his morality on the claim that we are all in this together, and that we are all better off if we cooperate than if we fight each other. Taylor points out that this is insufficient. The fact that it may be useful to be moral still leaves it upen for us to behave immorally the instant we perceive it is useful to do that. On what basis can we condemn a person who can perform an immoral act without getting caught or suffering any negative consequences? Why is it the case that he ought not to take advantage of such a situation, if one should arise?

I have not read Hitchens’ book, so I cannot judge whether Taylor presented Hitchens’ view correctly. Yet, for the sake of this posting, it does not matter. Taylor is effectively claiming that because Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris have all failed to prvide a foundation for mority, that this leaves the way clear for theism to provide the missing foundation. Yet, even if Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris all fail, this does not give the decision to theism. Not unless one can make the further claim that Dawkins, Hutchins, and Harris exhaust all possibilities for religious ethics.

Harris, by the way, appears to run a strict act-utilitarian argument. The problem with act-utilitarianism is that it seems capable of justifying a great deal of injustice. For example, if one truly feels that religion is a scourge, and that future generations can benefit from its elimination, then it might just be permissible to simply bring about the execution of those who assert that a God exists.

While most moral philosophers consider these types of conclusions to reduce act utilitarianism to an absurdity, Harris seems to embrace these types of conclusions. In his book The End of Faith Harris gives an act-utilitarian argument in favor of torture – even the torture of an innocent person – when the suffering of the one person being tortured provides a sufficient benefit for everybody else.

I agree with all of these objections. However, I do not accept Taylor’s solution that I am left with no other option but to believe in God. Dawkins, Hutchens, and Harris all do not have any significant training in moral philosophy. To take their view of morality as the best that atheists have to offer is to argue against straw men. In order to truly take on atheist morality, Taylor will need to provide arguments against the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Hume, Bentham, Mill, Sidgwick, Hare, and a large collection of contemporary moral philosophers who have all made significant contributions to this problem.

At this point, a person who was familiar with the common responses given to Dawkins and Harris will recognize this argument. Many of those people also claim that, by taking on the particular targets that Dawkins and Harris have selected, they are actually tackling straw men. Defeating these weak (but popular) positions is no proof against theism. There are other theists who make many of the same arguments, yet they still come to the conclusion that a God can and probably does exist.

The problem that I am pointing out in my response to Taylor, and others have pointed out with respect to Dawkins and Harris among others, is that the author’s conclusions have overstepped their premises. Taylor has identified problems with the moral views of Dawkins and Hitchens, but this does not give him the authority to claim that he has defeated atheism. Dawkins and Hitchens have defeated many common religious beliefs, but this does not justify the claim that they have defeated theism.

The moral of the story to this point is to keep one’s conclusions modest – within the scope of available evidence. If one has an argument against Dawkins’ view of morality, then one is justified in presenting it as an argument against Dawkins’ view of morality. It does not justify a broad conclusion against atheism. If one has an argument against a 6,000 year old earth, then it can be presented as an argument against a 6,000 year old earth. It is not an argument against the existence of God.

So far, so good. However, there is another step that we need to take here.

One of the claims that we seem to be getting from those who criticize the atheist authors seems to be, “Since these authors suggested conclusions that overstepped their evidence, we can ignore everything that they said against religion. All religious beliefs can be defended merely by showing that there is some obscure and sophisticated set of religious beliefs they have not confronted.

This would be like me arguing that since Taylor failed to refute all possible defenses of an atheist morality, he is not justified in claiming that Dawkins and Hutchins were still wrong.

That rhetorical trick is absurd. Dawkins and Hutchins are still wrong (about morality) – the existence of some obscure ethics that answers Taylor’s objections cannot save them. Similarly, the more popular and widespread (and harmful and deadly) beliefs that Dawkins, Harris, and Hutchins object to are still evil – the existence of some obscure religious beliefs they did not touch cannot save those they did touch.

However, people who want to preserve their self-respect while they devote their lives to actions harmful to others are going to clutch at straws that protect their self-image. If the invalid inference, “They did not defeat some obscure view that has certain elements in common with mine; therefore, I, whose views were soundly trounced by these writers, am still a good person.”

No, not really. This argument will not work to save Dawkins’ and Harris’ views of morality. It will not work to save common Christianity or Islam (or the common version of any religion).

In fact, it does not justify that conclusion at all.

Why Are Desires So Important?

Eenauk has presented me with another question.

Why are desires so important? On one level they are important by definition: we do, after all desire them. But on another level, there are certainly other important things in our moral lives. Kant also came up with a "closed" ethical theory that was however based on "reason alone". Why are desires more important than reason? Why reduce homo moralis to desires alone?

Before I go too far, I need to offer an apology. No, it's not what you think. See, when I write, I sometimes hear somebody else's voice in my head, and I have an annoying habit to write in that voice. My wife and I spent the weekend catching up on last year's Stargate Atlantis series and, as a result, I have Rodney McKay's voice stuck in my head. Rodney is an obnoxious know-it-all. As much as I try to get rid of it, it is stuck there, like a song one hates but cannot quit thinking about. I want to apologize if Rodney's tone leaks into this post.

The Value of Desires

Anyway, I want to devote a posting to answering this question from Eenauk because the answer is central to the moral foundation of these posts.

That answer is:

I do not need to answer why desires are important because desires are not important.

The objects of desires are important to those who have those desires. However, the desires themselves have no value.

Except . . .

Well, like I said, the objects of desires are important to those who have the desires. If the object of a desire is itself a desire, then that desire is important to those who have the desire as an object.

In addition, things can have value because of their instrumental value. A trip to the value might not be desired, but it is a useful way of avoiding things (like pain) that one desires to avoid. The trip to the dentist, in this case, has instrumental value.

Desires themselves can have instrumental value. A desire, like a trip to the dentist, can be useful in fulfilling other desires. To the degree that a desire has such a quality, then the desire is useful, like a trip to the dentist is useful. An agent can have reason to promote such a desire, just as he can have a reason to go to the dentist.

These are the two ways in which a desire can be important. The desire itself might be the object of a desire, or the desire can be a useful tool for the fulfillment of other desires. These are the only two types of value a desire can have. These are the only two types of value that anything can have.

So, why do desires play such a central role in this theory. Why can't something else play the central role - either by itself or along side desires.

The answer . . .

Because desires are the only reasons for action that exist. Desires are the only entities we have so far discovered that motivate agents to make or keep true some set of propositions.

Belief-Desire-Intention

Of course, this claim depends on the assumption that the belief-desire-intention model of intentional action actually holds up. To the degree that BDI theory breaks down - to the degree that there are reasons for action other than desires - then, to that degree, morality can be based on things other than desires. However, so long as desires are the only reasons for action that exist, then any answer to the question, "What reasons for action are there for doing X?" has to either make reference to desires, or it is false.

This is consistent with one of the things that eenauk claims; "[T]here are certainly other important things in our moral lives."

There certainly are. Every separate desire identifies something of importance. That is what desires do . . . they identify that which has importance and they motivate the agent to bring about or preserve states of affairs that realize the objects of those desires.

Beliefs do not do this. Beliefs and desires are mirror images of each other. If an agent believes that P, and P is false, then the agent needs to modify his beliefs. Beliefs - or, at least, true beliefs - map to the outside world. On the other hand, if the agent desires that P, and P is false, then the agent has a reason to act so as to create a state of affairs that realizes P.

Reason does not do this. Reason maps means to ends, but has nothing to say about the choice of ends.

Well, almost nothing.

Evaluating Ends as Means

A desire that P identifies P as an end or goal for any person who has that desire. Insofar as we are talking about P as an end, reason has nothing to say on the issue. Desires are the only reasons for action that exist, and reason cannot provide us a reason to bring about or to avoid P other than those provided by desires.

However, every desire that P, at the same time that it identifies P as an end serves as a tool for (or in opposition to) the fulfillment of other desires. So, even though reason gives us nothing to grab on to when it comes to evaluating P as an end, reason can give us something to grab on to when evaluating the desire that P as a means.

So, we can do something like what Kant argues for. Kant says that the right act is the act that one can will to be a universal law. Desire utilitarianism says that the right act is the act that would be motivated by a desire that one can consistently will to be a universal desire. However, the process of evaluating a desire has nothing to do with a Kantian ‘categorical imperative’. In order to evaluate a desire we look at simple, traditional means-ends rationality or, in Kantian terms, ‘hypothetical’ imperatives. There is no such thing as an intrinsic value, and there is no such thing as a categorical imperative.

We have no way to assign importance to desires other than insofar as they are objects of (other) desires or useful (as a means – or a tool) for the fulfillment of other desires.

How To Refute This Theory

In order to refute this – in order to put something else into the position at the root of morality, they will need to come up with a theory of action. That theory of action needs to demonstrate that it can predict and explain intentional action better (more accurately, more simply) than the belief-desire theory that I have relied on in this blog. Once somebody has demonstrated that reasons for action other than desires exist, then one can begin to sensibly refer to those reasons for action to answer questions about what we have reasons for action for doing or for refraining from doing.

I am not even going to say that it can’t be done. In fact, I will assert the opposite. I will confidently predict that, someday in the future (if the human race lives that long) scientists will replace belief-desire theory with something better at explaining and predicting human actions. Science will make new discoveries. The science of the mind is in its infancy, with some large-scale changes in our understanding to be expected. So, I am simply not going to say that no better theory can be invented. I will only say that I am dealing with (I hope) the best we have available today.

When a new theory of the mind does come forward, those people will need to look at the reasons for action in that theory. When they ask the question, “What reasons for action exist for supporting or opposing some policy P?” the answer – at least among all rational people – will be to turn to the reasons for action that exist. Reasons for action that do not exist simply are not relevant.

Summary

So, nothing is important in the real world except insofar as it is the object of a desire, or it is useful for bringing about the realization of a state that is the object of a desire. Desires themselves are not important in the real world except insofar as they are the objects of desires or useful for bringing about the realization of other desires. The reason why everything gets evaluated in relation to desire is because desires are the only reasons for action that exist. Desires are the only real-world entities that identify possible ends and motivate the agent to realize those ends. In order to turn to something else in answering questions about how to act, we have to show that this ‘something else’ is a reason for action that exists in the real world.

A Harmony of Desires

A member of the studio audience, eenauk, made a comment recently on a subject that I was surprised to discover I had not yet talked about in this blog. I was surprised because it is a core part of the moral theory I use in writing this blog, and I have defended it often. Apparently, just not here.

Eenauk said:

Where things get difficult is when we try to decide which desires are desirable. Of course, you will probably introduce a "coherence theory of desires" to solve the problem; but you can only justify it by referring to a desire to be coherent. It might seem obvious that we _should_ desire that our desires be coherent, but that is nonetheless an obvious _moral_ truth and no longer a matter of fact. Let me know if I'm wrong.

This is a particularly precise comment. If it is the case that I have build this theory entirely on facts, then I need to come up with a way of accounting for the fact that ‘we ought to have this desire rather than that one.’. Otherwise, I am smuggling desire-independent morality distinct from fact in the back door, which would create a significant problem for my theory.

Eenauk is also correct to point out that the answer depends on some sort of ‘coherence’ – some way of evaluating desires by evaluating their agreement with each other. This is the only way to evaluate desires without bringing in some external fact – some sort of desire-independent value. The question then is, “Why should our desires be coherent?” Can I answer this question while remaining true to the other claims that I have made about this theory?

In order to show how this is done, I ask you to imagine a universe with one being. I call this being “Firs”. Firs has only one desire – a desire to gather stones together. Now, it is important to note that this is not a desire that the stones be gathered. I am not saying that he has a desire to see all of the stones in a nice big pile, and that the work he does gathering stones is ‘work’ – in the sense of being labor that is only valuable as a means of bringing about the end goal of a stack of stones. Rather, the gathering of stones is the end. Once all of the stones are gathered, this entity must then scatter the stones again before he can continue his desired activity of gathering stones.

Now, let us change Firs’s universe slightly. We are going to give Firs a partner; let’s call him ‘Sec’. We will also give Firs two pills to give to Sec. The yellow pill will cause Sec to have a desire like Firs’s desire – a desire to gather stones. The blue pill will cause Sec to have a desire to scatter stones.

Now, let us look at the reasons for action that exist – which, for the moment, is simply Fris’s desire to gather stones. There is only one reason for action in this universe, and it is a reason for action for giving Sec the blue pill.

If Fris gives Sec the yellow pill, then both Sec and Fris will have a desire to gather stones. They would be in competition for the stones that exist. Furthermore, once all the stones are gathered, either Fris or Sec or both will have to do work (undesired labor performed as a means of realizing a state that one desires) of scattering stones so that they can be gathered again.

However, if Fris gives Sec the blue pill, the Sec will immediately go to work scattering stones. Meanwhile, Fris can go back to gathering stones. Assuming that both Fris and Sec work at the same speed, Fris will be able to spend all of his time gathering stones without ever having to pause and do the work of scattering stones. The scattering is being done for him. The same is true of Sec, who will be able to spend all of his time scattering stones, as Fris provides stacks of stones for Sec to scatter.

Another way of saying the same thing is to say that Sec’s desire to scatter stones is a desire that tends to fulfill other desires (in this case, helping Fris to spend more time fulfilling his desire to gather stones).

When I speak of this state where there are different desires that work well together, I say that the desires are in ‘harmony’. It is like the coherence theory of belief. However, desires fit together differently than beliefs. A desire to gather stones fits harmoniously with another’s desire to gather stones together. Whereas a belief that gathering stones has intrinsic merit while scattering stones is a waste of life does not fit coherently with another’s belief that scattering stones has intrinsic merit and gathering stones is a waste of life.

This is one of the problems with ‘intrinsic value’ theories of value. It gets in the way of establishing harmonious desires. It says, “Either (1) you must value (desire) what I value, (2) you are evil for intentionally bringing about that which is intrinsically bad, or (3) you are sick in the sense that your desires are perverse and realize things that have no intrinsic merit.” Rejecting intrinsic values means that we have an opportunity to set up harmonious desires where different people desire different things – things that tend to fulfill the desires of others – without being denigrated for their differences.

Eenauk’s objection is that in order to recommend that Fris give Sec the blue pill, I need to introduce a (moral) principle of ‘should create a state of harmony among the desires’. This moral principle is what recommends to Fris that he give Sec the blue pill. Without this moral principle, Fris would not know what to do.

I hold that this principle is entirely unnecessary. Fris wants to gather stones. If he gives Sec the blue pill, he will be able to spend all of his time gathering stones. If, on the other hand, he gives Sec the yellow pill he will continue to be able to spend only half of his time gathering stones. He has more and stronger reasons to give Sec the blue pill than the yellow pill. A state of harmonious desires is what results from this decision. However, I do not need a moral principle of ‘thou shalt bring about a state of harmonious desires’ to bring this about.

All I need is the reasons for action that exist.

Let us imagine that this society has grown. There are now some large number of people with a desire to gather stones, and a large number of people with a desire to scatter stones. Now, we introduce yet another person in this society and we give the community the option of feeding this new person a yellow pill or a blue pill. How difficult would it be for this community with countless desires to decide which pill to feed this person?

It would not be difficult at all. All we would need to do is to look at the community and ask, “Is there more work being done gathering stones, or scattering stones?” Assume that, in this community, most of the stones are gathered together and, as soon as a stone gets scattered, there is a fight to see who can gather it. This suggests that the community needs more stone-scatterers, which means giving the newcomer the blue pill. If, instead, almost all of the stones are scattered and as soon as two stones are gathered together there is a fight to see who scatters it, then this suggests that the community needs more stone gatherers.

In the former case, the community has more and stronger reasons to give the newcomer a desire to scatter stones (feed him the blue pill). In the latter case, the community has more and stronger reasons to give the newcomer a desire to gather stones (feed him the yellow pill).

I still do not need a moral principle that says, ‘thou shalt bring about a state of harmonious desires in the community’. The members of this community do not even need to have a concept of harmony to know that there are more and stronger reasons to give the newcomer the blue pill (in the first instance) or the yellow pill (in the second). This concept of ‘harmony’ is simply some word that somebody eventually invents when he wants to talk about a state where the desires to gather stones are in balance with the strengths of the desires to scatter stones – when stones are gathered and scattered at nearly equal rates.

In fact, this system can even be applied to a group of animals. A new pup is born into this community. Assume that this pup is born into a community with more stone gatherers than stone scatterers. As the pup attempts to gather stones, he is hissed at and snarled at by others who are competing for the few rocks that there are to gather. On the other hand, when he scatters stones he gets none of this negative feedback. In fact, the stone gatherers reward and encourage him. This community is, in effect, feeding the young pup the blue pill.

Yet, this community does not even have a concept of ‘thou shalt’ – let alone the capacity to let it influence their actions.

When the question comes up, “Can there be a moral system among animals,” I answer that there can be. All it takes is a system of ‘rewarding’ those who fulfill the desires (with grooming, sex, the sharing of food, play) and the ‘condemning’ of those who thwart the desires of others (through snarls, hisses, a swipe across the nose, and other threats). Animals can very well ‘promote desires that tend to fulfill other desires, and inhibit desires that tend to thwart other desires’ in this way without having even a concept of good and evil.

In fact, I would suggest that this is where morality came from. I would suggest that humans had a concept of morality long before they were able to even dream up the concept of God because, even as animals, they were using praise and condemnation to promote desires that tended to fulfill other desires and inhibit desires that tended to thwart other desires. They converted this practice into language by adding the concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Then, much later, they added the concept of ‘god’ and mucked the whole thing up.

However the historical concept works out, it’s still the case that I do not need “a desire to be [harmonious]” or a moral principle, “thou shalt create a harmony of desires.” I only need the reasons for action that exist. Those reasons for action themselves are enough to motivate acts that tend to their fulfillment, which means that they are sufficient to generate acts that establish a harmony of desires.