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Well, yes.
Now then, what is right and wrong? I mean, you and I can agree on a whole host of issues about right and wrong, but why are these issues right and wrong? Is it merely self-interest that drives you to advocate human rights for women? In truth, I'm quite certain the answer is no.
True, but at least he's allegedly "rationally" misogynistic.
And that is all well and fine, but if the purpose is to persuade and convert from religious to rational, then it doesn't really help anyone to simply detach everything from everything else.
To the other, if the purpose is just to feel better for complaining about horrible people, then, frankly, it's a pointless exercise.
Why is it important to understand how atheists formulate morals? Because that will help potential converts understand what they're getting into and how to tread the paths opening before them.
But if this isn't a concern in the persuasion and conversion outlook, then it really does seem arrogant to tell people what to do.
Think of it this way: I once worked at an insurance company, and got into a dispute with one of my bosses over a botched project. Botched how? Well, it wasn't done properly according to the law, apparently.
What is that law? They don't know.
But my instructions were to follow the template; what they demanded was not in the manual—apparently, they hadn't updated the thing in a decade, so it didn't reflect current law, which is rather quite important when you're pulling an entire policy line from five states.
Their outlook? Their administrative services team was apparently expected to know the finer details of insurance law in all of the states; as far as the company was concerned, they wanted a task done according to specifications, and it's a whole separate issue that their specifcations were wrong.
It is not surprising that the entire division was eventually eliminated; nor is it surprising that a rising national insurance company was bought out by a larger corporation and returned to its status as a local insurance stalwart.
But think about that for a moment: We want this done. How should it be done? That's not our problem. Okay, here, it's done. But it's done wrong!
The analogy sort of ends there because the company could have invested in its legal team updating the standards to reflect current law, or perhaps they could have hired lawyers to work admin services. Either way, they didn't want to spend the time or money. But they wanted it done, done in a specific way, and felt no obligation toward actually laying out that specific way. The need to get the job done was a wholly separate issue from how the job should be done.
And that's not much rationality. The average religious person can be rational from time to time, just like a broken watch is right twice a day, or a blind man can throw enough darts until he gets a bullseye.
But that's the thing. If this is the extent of rationality—that "comes from simply not believing in a deity that we believe is make believe and false"—it really does seem like complaining about the irrationality of religion is kind of a swindle.
For these atheists you've noted, the problem isn't really religion.
The movement is steadily progressing toward orthodoxy and institutional ossification. There comes a point where such a hardline outlook actually hurts atheists. This sort of evangelism isn't converting any but those looking for a rebellion, though I suppose it's a better rebellion than Satanism, which is pretty much a rational relgion except for having a deity. Mind you, it's a selfish religion, but so is the New Atheism rather quite selfish as evidenced by any number of our neighbors who apparently would like us to forget that religious people are people.
Consider Spidergoat's argument about "trying to convert the religious over to reason":
Note the switch from "religious" [people] to "religious morality" [abstraction].
To restate his point as, "By not giving religious people respect we don't think they deserve", would more accurately describe the arguments he's putting forward. As I noted, his argument omits consideration of actual people. And, as he noted, the concept of actual people confuses him.
The argument is as vapid as any put forth by Bryan Fischer, Rod Parsley, John Hagee, Ted Haggard, Tony Perkins, Rick Santorum ... really, the list goes on.
It is one thing to simply disdain all irrationality and willful hatred as what it is. To that end, I would simply ask if attaching the adjective "atheistic" to irrationality, hatred, and dehumanization makes it any less repugnant?
And perhaps you and I can agree on an answer, or a range in which the answer exists. But I also know that my answer, that no it's not any less repugnant, is a minority outlook, and one that sins against the growing orthodoxy of New Atheism.
I would also note that morals based on reason and not divine decree falls well outside the purview of what many of our atheist neighbors have described—even insisted—to be atheism.
It's an interesting rhetorical circle, as we come back to consider, according to atheistic argument, what atheistic argument has already rejected. Well, sort of. Morals based on reason? Okay, now how does that work? Well, they ain't tellin', 'cause that's a whole 'nother subject.
Bells said:
Well, yes.
Now then, what is right and wrong? I mean, you and I can agree on a whole host of issues about right and wrong, but why are these issues right and wrong? Is it merely self-interest that drives you to advocate human rights for women? In truth, I'm quite certain the answer is no.
True, but at least he's allegedly "rationally" misogynistic.
And that is all well and fine, but if the purpose is to persuade and convert from religious to rational, then it doesn't really help anyone to simply detach everything from everything else.
To the other, if the purpose is just to feel better for complaining about horrible people, then, frankly, it's a pointless exercise.
Why is it important to understand how atheists formulate morals? Because that will help potential converts understand what they're getting into and how to tread the paths opening before them.
But if this isn't a concern in the persuasion and conversion outlook, then it really does seem arrogant to tell people what to do.
Think of it this way: I once worked at an insurance company, and got into a dispute with one of my bosses over a botched project. Botched how? Well, it wasn't done properly according to the law, apparently.
What is that law? They don't know.
But my instructions were to follow the template; what they demanded was not in the manual—apparently, they hadn't updated the thing in a decade, so it didn't reflect current law, which is rather quite important when you're pulling an entire policy line from five states.
Their outlook? Their administrative services team was apparently expected to know the finer details of insurance law in all of the states; as far as the company was concerned, they wanted a task done according to specifications, and it's a whole separate issue that their specifcations were wrong.
It is not surprising that the entire division was eventually eliminated; nor is it surprising that a rising national insurance company was bought out by a larger corporation and returned to its status as a local insurance stalwart.
But think about that for a moment: We want this done. How should it be done? That's not our problem. Okay, here, it's done. But it's done wrong!
The analogy sort of ends there because the company could have invested in its legal team updating the standards to reflect current law, or perhaps they could have hired lawyers to work admin services. Either way, they didn't want to spend the time or money. But they wanted it done, done in a specific way, and felt no obligation toward actually laying out that specific way. The need to get the job done was a wholly separate issue from how the job should be done.
And that's not much rationality. The average religious person can be rational from time to time, just like a broken watch is right twice a day, or a blind man can throw enough darts until he gets a bullseye.
But that's the thing. If this is the extent of rationality—that "comes from simply not believing in a deity that we believe is make believe and false"—it really does seem like complaining about the irrationality of religion is kind of a swindle.
For these atheists you've noted, the problem isn't really religion.
The movement is steadily progressing toward orthodoxy and institutional ossification. There comes a point where such a hardline outlook actually hurts atheists. This sort of evangelism isn't converting any but those looking for a rebellion, though I suppose it's a better rebellion than Satanism, which is pretty much a rational relgion except for having a deity. Mind you, it's a selfish religion, but so is the New Atheism rather quite selfish as evidenced by any number of our neighbors who apparently would like us to forget that religious people are people.
Consider Spidergoat's argument about "trying to convert the religious over to reason":
"We want morals based on reason not divine decree. How do we transition to that? By not giving religious morality respect it doesn't deserve."
Note the switch from "religious" [people] to "religious morality" [abstraction].
To restate his point as, "By not giving religious people respect we don't think they deserve", would more accurately describe the arguments he's putting forward. As I noted, his argument omits consideration of actual people. And, as he noted, the concept of actual people confuses him.
The argument is as vapid as any put forth by Bryan Fischer, Rod Parsley, John Hagee, Ted Haggard, Tony Perkins, Rick Santorum ... really, the list goes on.
It is one thing to simply disdain all irrationality and willful hatred as what it is. To that end, I would simply ask if attaching the adjective "atheistic" to irrationality, hatred, and dehumanization makes it any less repugnant?
And perhaps you and I can agree on an answer, or a range in which the answer exists. But I also know that my answer, that no it's not any less repugnant, is a minority outlook, and one that sins against the growing orthodoxy of New Atheism.
I would also note that morals based on reason and not divine decree falls well outside the purview of what many of our atheist neighbors have described—even insisted—to be atheism.
It's an interesting rhetorical circle, as we come back to consider, according to atheistic argument, what atheistic argument has already rejected. Well, sort of. Morals based on reason? Okay, now how does that work? Well, they ain't tellin', 'cause that's a whole 'nother subject.
