-The claim of a man walking on water when the force of gravity is
proven- - The claim that the same man fed thousands of
people with a few loaves and fishes (a clear violation of the conservation of
mass-energy).
- - The claim that a young Jewish teen experienced an ‘immaculate conception’ and a
‘virgin birth’ (a biological impossibility at least for humans)
T -The claim that a few mumbled
words can magically transform ordinary bread into the body of a man (the same one who walked on water) that’s been
dead for 2,000 years.
Another absurdity in the eyes of many, (not ‘de facto atheists’, merely sentient, logical folk)? Christians, for their part, profess a “God of love”, but never hesitate to invoke the specter of eternal torment to have their morality adhered to. Logically, this suggests that the morality is insupportable without the additional imposition of some type of “divine” retribution. A punitive morality, then, is at the very core of the Christian religion, and worse, it manifests as an absurd contradiction. So no surprise intelligent people will flatly reject it irrespective of their country, or background.
Pope Leo, according to the WSJ piece, went on to assert:
"This is true not only among nonbelievers but also many baptized Christians who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism. A lack of faith often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, crises of family and many other wounds that afflict our society."
But Leo goes way way overboard in these protestations and claims, especially given he's hostage here to the slippery slope logical fallacy. The base thread in all slippery slope arguments is the
assumption, or perhaps more accurately the false assumption, that some practice,
behavior, belief (or lack of it), will lead inexorably to vastly worse situations,
conditions or behavior. Although these tactics are insipid on their face, since
no concrete evidence is ever presented to support them (or if it is, it’s
specious), they’re invoked because people can be so easily misled by appeals to
fear. Especially those already susceptible to supernatural or superstitious bunkum.
All that’s required is a preconceived negative image (e.g.
atheist = bad guy), and the recipient of the disinformation will be ready to
accept just about any claim made, especially by a pontiff or padre. History
shows, time and time again, that appeals to slippery slope reasoning often do
much more harm to innocent people than they do to advance a case for some
agenda.
Certainly then, the sound rejection of fanciful, superstitious foolishness by a plurality of sentient humans does not necessarily beget loss of meaning in life, neglect of mercy or violations of human dignity. I believe it was Paul Kurtz, the Editor of The Humanist, who first pointed out the starting point for a coherent humanism
is by providing a response to the question:
What is the meaning of
life?
Kurtz' answer (and mine in several books) is there is no overarching meaning of life. Each person must forge meaning to his own life, in his own way. This can be difficult but is certainly not impossible and opens the way for greater freedom of thought. Feminist writer Marilyn French perhaps said it best, regarding the dangers in embracing a higher extraneous purpose:
“It is a loss of dignity to define humanity as a race defined to please a higher Being, rather than as a race whose only end is to please itself. The ‘gift’ of purpose to the human race is thus very expensive: one can fulfill one’s God-given purpose only by sacrificing felicity while one is alive.”\
Meanwhile, as Paul Kurtz also observed the orthodox Christian is mired in the salvation myth by
which he gives the sole or core meaning to his life. But then his entire mortal existence is defined by something
purported to occur in the distant future. He then sacrifices his life and
contributions to a future myth and the belief he will someday
sit at the right hand of his lord. Given this blindness, he will never
comprehend how others can find meaning without subscribing to his fantasy.
ln
my book, Atheism: A Beginner's Handbook, I noted that non-theists
are separate from atheists, and more or less on the same definitional
basis as Deists. In the Deist view an innominate, impersonal Intelligence
created the cosmos then detached from it. The Deist deity is then analogous to an intelligent child who makes
a toy with a gear wheel and sets it in motion. The toy has the ability to move
indefinitely after being wound up and released. Thus, the intelligent child made
the toy, wound it up, released it, then abandoned it, never to glance at it or
its final destination. We know nearly
all the Founders - the actual authors of the Constitution - were hard core Deists, not Christians.
I also took pains to separate anti-theists from atheists. The fact is that what Pope Leo is calling "de facto atheists" are in reality non-theists. They simple do not subscribe - for one reason or another - to the tenets of theism. There are likely millions of humans across the world in this category and most probably can't tell the difference between an atheist and a secular humanist.
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