Dispelling Five Myths About Atheists

Christopher Hitchens, one of the foremost atheists (who died in 2011), had no patience for Xtian idiots who attempted to portray atheists in a false or distorted light.

As more and more of the younger generation engages in critical thinking to do with religions and migrates to the group known as "Nones" (no religious affiliation) , it is essential we skewer the myths to do with atheism.  To that end I provide the top five myths below and the reasons for saying so.

1. Atheists Deny God

This is perhaps the most popular myth, because on the surface it appears to make sense. Careful thought, however, might disclose how absurd it is. For example, one generally refrains from "denying" anything for which belief is withheld. Let’s take the example of alien colonies on the Chesapeake. Someone or group makes the claim, they exist, and are planning to siphon water to take to their planet.

Fair enough. I hear the claim, but in the next breath ignore it. It's of no concern to me because it is simply too preposterous to waste investing intellectual resources. The reason is that evidence-free claims can be regarded as false or spurious until such time a modicum of evidentiary basis is provided. If this is so, it follows there is even less reason to invest precious intellectual resources to deny the claim! Why the need?

Indeed, if one “denies” a specious claim, he’s already given it a plausible (if unconscious) underpinning. Any active expenditure of mental energy in denial presumes there is at least “smoke” (if not “fire”) to deny! On the other hand, if the claim is totally nonsensical, simple withholding of belief quite fits the bill and is more than adequate. As I noted in an article published in the Mensa Bulletin, March 1994:

"Let's be clear about what constitutes Atheism and what doesn't. The Atheist - to put it succinctly, absolutely withholds investing intellectual/emotional resources in any supernatural claim. Indeed the word Atheism itself embodies this definition: a-theos, or without god.”

What is happening here is not active disbelief, i.e. in making a statement “There is no god,” but rather simply passively withholding belief in a statement already made. Hence, the deity believer has made the positive claim. The ontological atheist’s is the simple absence of belief in it. No more and no less. It does not and never has implied aggressive rancor or a vehement and militant opposition to the beliefs. (Though yes, some militant atheists – or what we call “strong atheists” – do have such attitudes!)

Let me quickly add here that this withholding of belief is the more natural position, as opposed to advocating belief, which is unnatural. Consider a different context: a neighbor runs over and informs me that aliens have landed in his yard in a spacecraft. Until I actually go over and try to verify his claim I am under no obligation to accept it as a statement of fact. Thus, the default intellectual position is always skepticism, irrespective of the claim made. This again is because the onus is always on the claimant to make good, not the skeptic to “disprove” it.

2. Atheists reject morality

This is one of my favorites because it’s preposterous on its face. It’s also important because many otherwise sober people believe that atheists live by the rule “anything goes,” since we don't acknowledge any god. On many occasions in Barbados, I've been telephoned by religious types who ask: "If you don't believe in God what's stopping you from going out and raping, robbing, murdering or doing anything else? If you don't believe in God, then you don't believe in God's laws."

Invariably, I respond that decent, civilized behavior doesn’t depend on god belief or adhering to 'laws' of a god. Rather, it depends on rational and objective analysis of a situation, and sound decisions maximally promoting the welfare of all concerned.

As William Provine notes, people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force, but to protect their own long-term self-interest[1].

In line with this, any persistent observer of human social interaction will note that the vast majority of people are law-abiding and decent folk who naturally practice a common-sense, utilitarian ethics similar to what has been described. No supernatural law or commandment ordains this behavior. Instead it is the conscious and deliberate recognition that the promotion of the welfare of others is directly linked to the one's own welfare. Compromise others' security, and you in effect compromise your own. Undermine their welfare and you also undermine your own. No god is necessary.

By contrast, religious morality is predicated on some formal codification of expected human behavior in terms of absolutist propositions, not subject to debate. The typical moral code of a religionist, whether Muslim, Pentecostal, Catholic or Jewish, isn’t subject to evolution or variation based on contingencies, or externalities. Thus, from this one beholds the Vatican still mandating its flock continue to reproduce - despite the planet being overpopulated. Now, under the name of their absolutist "natural law" they are pressuring exploding human populations to live in more and more desperate, unnatural conditions!

3. Atheism is a Religion

This claim is absurd on its face. The misplaced strategy, however, is always to attempt to place atheism within the same logical context as religion and then attack it on the basis of occupying an analogous “belief” spectrum. In the end, this is a fool’s errand.

For one thing it turns the very meaning and basis of religion on its head. We know all religions embody centralized beliefs or dogmas that issue from some sacred scripture or a body of theology based on scriptural interpretations.. Atheism has none of these, since there are no central propositions or beliefs with which all atheists agree.

First, atheists withhold belief, they do not invest it. This alone separates atheists from religionists or people of faith. Second, atheists make no positive claims for any transcendent existent that requires their worship or obeisance. They simply acknowledge no god or entity with which to build a religion in other words. Third, atheists maintain no sacred works, scriptures, or ancient artifacts, from which their “truths” are extracted.

They have no analog to a Bible, Qu’ran, Talmud or anything remotely similar. Instead, atheists pursue objective truth via open inquiry predicated on current science, which may provide fewer certainties or answers than if they merely placed their faith in a book. However, this doesn't mean they treat "science" as their god, because any hypothesis is always given falsification tests.

Fourth, atheists convene no regular rituals, services or ceremonies to honor, or propitiate any entity. By contrast, the centerpiece of 99 percent of religions is precisely some social ritual, for the purpose of assembling together like-minded believers toward a common goal. Moreover, their churches, synagogues, temples etc. dot the landscape, taking up room that could be used to house the homeless in each respective area or locale.

Perhaps most importantly, there is no "acceptance" of atheist principles from any “congregation” since there’s no homogeneous congregation to bestow it. Atheists often disagree on as many things as they agree on, precisely because no formal coda exists to fix beliefs within a uniform dogma. This means one is just as likely to encounter a wholly Materialist-Naturalist atheist as a non-material one.

4. Hitler was an Atheist.

This myth is intended to achieve exactly what it appears to do: slander atheism by association with the most monstrous human imaginable. If, therefore, Hitler can be painted as an “atheist” and if Hitler’s deeds were so cumulatively vile, it follows (in a bizarre sort of logic) that atheism can only produce vile deeds. However, technically Hitler was a Roman Catholic.   Historian Robert Payne notes [1]:

“Adolf Hitler's birth certificate records that he was born at six o'clock in the evening on April 20, 1889, and goes on to record that two days later, at a quarter past three in the afternoon, in the presence of Father Ignaz Probst, the boy was baptized in the local Catholic Church”

As is known from standard Roman Catholic doctrine, once one is baptized a Catholic, he or she technically remains a Catholic unless excommunicated, or until death. Payne later documents Catholic Church attendance by a number of Hitler's luminaries, including Gregor Strasser, Erich von Ludendorff and others (2).

While it is true that Hitler was probably no more than a nominal Catholic by the time of the invasion of Poland in 1939, this doesn’t mean he was an “atheist” any more than the two Columbine killers (who professed being “atheists”) as they threatened any peers that refused to budge from their faith during the 1999 Colorado killing spree. Obviously these killers merely postured unbelief, invoking the red-flag word “atheist”, as a vehicle for their anti-social acts or to garner more media attention.

5. Atheists Despise all religions

This simply isn't true. Atheists have great respect for those religions which are life-affirming, and which tolerate others rather than condemning them, or trying to employ spiritual apartheid or one-upmanship. In this way, Buddhism is perhaps the closest religion to atheism, especially as its goal of "Nirvana" is just nothingness, or what end the atheist also anticipates.

Elements of Christianity are also acceptable such as embodied in Science of Mind and Religious Science, and made popular in a number of books, e.g. Ernest Holmes Science of Mind. These sects have in common the unifying theme that evil is an illusion and each human can become a “Christ” unto himself (and indeed is an embodiment of divinity like Christ) and also that every material abundance becomes available once one acknowledges that he too, is God. 

Their import for the atheist is that they’re benign forms of Christianity that renounce the odious Heaven-Hell doctrine in favor of either cosmic unification or sequential, progressive reincarnation. They are also realistic in foursquare rejecting such latter day Fundamentalist inventions as "the rapture" - which, of course, denotes spiritual apartheid carried to an extreme. Thus, the righteous and "saved" get magically lifted up into their Lord's arms - while five billion Hindis, Buddhists, Muslims and non-saved Christians as well as all agnostics, infidels....get to be tormented by the "Anti-christ" (another fiction, but convenient to try to drumbeat the gullible and weak into the fold)

In addition, they embody esoteric forms that have much in common with Eastern religions such as Buddhism.  

Intelligent Americans, who also need to bone up on political ideologies (socialism, Marxism, fascism, capitalism etc.), need to also grasp what atheism is - and what it isn't.  This as opposed to knee-jerk assumptions and imbibing false information from non-atheists.



[1] William Provine, ‘Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics’ (MLB Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1988, p. 25)

[2] Robert Payne: 1973, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, Praeger Publishers, p. 15 

RC's McCarrick Scandal Will Provide Another Opening For Materialist Ethics To Trump Religious Absolutism

In the image above, we see the ardent religious absolutists at work - carrying out Holy Mother Church's "sacred" Inquisitional tortures -  on a putative "witch" (suspended  at far right, after being disembowelled), a heretic with a red hot iron applied to his pudenda, and a generic unbeliever about to have his tongue ripped out,  then his eyes.  The picture, from 'A History Of Torture Through The Ages',  shows what happens when people - believers-   are convinced they have absolute moral truth on their side.

This introduces the recent WSJ op-ed ('When The Cardinal Sins')  by William McGurn from yesterday (p. A15)  in which we are treated to 4 columns (truncated fortunately) of religious caterwauling on account of the pederasty of one Archbishop Theodore McCarrick being exposed.  As we know the pope demoted the filthy maggot, but now all the likes of McGurn can do is wring his mitts at how it will be another blight on the Church's moral credibility.  He writes, for example:

"Think of it as akin to the (Protestant) Reformation, except here it will not be Protestant Christianity but some materialist orthodoxy that will likely move in after the Church takes this latest hit."

I have news for McGurn: that materialist orthodoxy has already "moved in". It was well on its way long before McCarrick's crimes, flaring after the first priest sex abuse crimes made headlines. Once repeated transgressions were made known, as well as how John Paul II and Benedict XVI played roles in concealing the deeds of many priestly pedophiles - and enabling their easy movement from parish to parish- while diverting calls for accountability- it was all over but the dirges.  Anyone with more than air between the airs knew the RC Church had lost whatever remaining vestige of moral authority it possessed.

But you wouldn't know that from reading McGurn's twaddle, e.g.:

"In our day the battle is no longer between competing versions of Christianity.  It's not even  about God, though it's often characterized that way. The real fight has to do with who's right about the reality of the human person- those who posit him as a physical combination of matter and energy or those who believe him - as the Eighth Psalm put it, "a little lower than the angels"'

Himmm...how about a LOT lower than the angels, as in risen apes? E,.g.


See, any species that is capable of the violence unleashed in "ethnic cleansings", mass rape,  atomic bombings,  developing gas chambers for annihilating a whole race,  ripping infants from parents and caging them - is no angel, not even close to it. Hell, in the case of the latter behavior (as demonstrated by the Trumpite vermin) one could argue humans aren't even as decent as apes.   But this is the la-la land McGurn appears trapped in, so he can't fathom that fantasy train has already left the station, except for the odd cases of  "sin" preached about by "frustrated old men in robes".  (I suspect "robed fossils"  is more apropos.)

He also whines that the Church's teachings, like about sex and such - e.g.. masturbation, use of artificial contraception ("mutual masturbation" according to one ethics prof I once had)  are "incomprehensible to increasing numbers of people".

Well, why should they be comprehensible when sensible, intelligent people were told over and over again by the Church's prelates and popes that they had the moral answers and authority - but in the next breath were busy either raping children or hiding the rapists? Doesn't McGurn give the skeptics any credit for having brains at all? Evidently not!

At least scientific Materialism recognizes humans for what they are:  evolved apes with many ape characteristics, and behaviors. It doesn't glorify Man as some demigod or an angel in the works. At the same time this perspective enables us to dispense with the virus of moral absolutism.    Indeed, the archaic notion of "sin" can be seen in a new perspective.

Consider the Church's historic obsession with sins of the flesh that McGurn references, e.g. "Throughout history Christian teachings about the history and purposes of sex have often proved a hard sell.".    But if one steps back and examines Church history one can grasp why.  Thus, many of the Church sexual prohibitions date from Augustine's time.  Less known is that Augustine was originally a Manichean. The ancient Manicheans (founder Mani, b. 219 BCE) absolutely believed that the human was essentially a spark of deistic light locked within a body of flesh fashioned by 'Satan'. Of course, semen was the satanic fluid that kept the cycles of evil going.

Birth was the manifestation or culmination of the evil when the devilish flesh finally sprouted. Hence, enabling birth, was in effect tantamount to multiplying the total of diabolically imprisoned 'sparks' in the world. Since there was never any assurance these sparks could be liberated, it was paramount that the diabolical flesh be prevented from reproducing itself.

Interestingly, when Augustine converted to Christianity in 387 CE, the only Manichean tenet he ditched was the contraception. He retained all the other flesh/pleasure =demonic connotations and interjected them into his various teachings including his 'letters'. (For more on this, see the excellent monograph 'Eunuchs For the Kingdom of Heaven' by Ute Ranke-Heinemann, Doubleday, 1990). 

Augustine's Manichean teachings (after his conversion) held that any sexual pleasure whatsoever was "diabolical" in origin. However, it could be countenanced IF a baby was the end product. Otherwise, the offending parties were trafficking with demons. (He cites at one point, for "proof", the demon Asmodeus, who "slew seven men in 7 beds with seven women, but not when they were sitting at a table".)

 Augustine's harsh and sterile dogmas also probably spurred the Church Father Origen (of Adamantius) to cut off his own sexual organs - because he was unable to control them. Since each 'stimulus' enabled a particular demon to gain a foothold, it was better to get rid of them entirely.

Ramping up the ante much further are the essays in the book, 'In Defense of Sin', edited by John Portmann.  Thus, we find stirring contributions under the chapter headers: 'In Defense of Idolatry'( One), 'In Defense of Lying'(Six), 'In Defense of Adultery'(Five), and 'In Defense of Lust' (Twelve).

In regard to Augustine's up tight views on sexual sins, Portmann writes (p. 223):

"Missing from Augustine is the idea that lust completes us (however temporarily), fills us with a vivid sense of being alive, propels us along the way to self-fulfillment...Lust like the playfulness of children or the treasures of the Louvre, lights up a rainy day."

The author also makes a good case for enhancing creativity before listing (including with reasons) all those things we think qualify as "sex" but which really aren't, including: Phone sex(lack of touching so can't be sex), ogling porno photos or videos (voyeurism, but not sex, doesn't make the touching or intimacy cut), oh and flirting is not sex.

He also (rightly) rips into masturbation as sinful (p. 229) since it is based on a phantasm engineered by the early Church Fathers: to wit,  that each sperm was a "homunculus" or "little man" - hence each and every sperm had to be protected. Extended the same rights as the big man in whom it lived, else akin to mass murder on a miniature scale. Thus, spilling it was a no-no (often confused with Onanism ....which was actually a different category of "sin" since it was an offense against the Hebrew law of succession. In this, the nearest male relative of the deceased husband is obligated to fertilize the wife. If he refused, and spilled his seed, he was guilty of onanism. This is different from the early Catholic view that each seedling is a little man with life of his own. (This position didn't change until after better optical resolution in microscopes was achieved and individual sperm could be as similar to single celled flagellate creatures.)

Once the actual sperm could be observed in high powered microscopes, as well as photographed, the Church's antiquated position was dispelled, and there was no more reason to oppose masturbation other than on an irrational basis. (Thus, the Church had to come up with its absurd "natural law" doctrine, which holds no weight - given it was also invoked to defend slavery.)

A  common misconception, repeated as a subtext in McGurn's piece, is that Materialists have no ethical standards to offer. That we are fans of "survival of the fittest" thinking and "do as you please".  Nothing could be further from fact. The reason is that precisely because the Materialist invests in no 'hereafter' or supernatural realm, he values the material world in all its attributes and dimensions.

Not surprisingly, the Materialist is much more likely than the supernaturalist to place a premium on revering the Earth and demanding the rational disposition of its resources. As a Materialist, after all, I can examine the evidence and determine that our planet is possibly the only inhabited one, at least in our galaxy. I can also ascertain that this life is most likely the only one and that I must strive to enhance it in any way possible. I should emphatically not squander what I have now, while awaiting a mythical afterlife.

As a Materialist I refrain from looking to any hypothesized deity for deliverance, or lay blame for human ills on some mythical demonic entity. On the contrary, Man alone is responsible for his actions and is the ultimate master of his fate. As a Materialist I maintain that Man need not suffer extinction as a species if he has the courage and vision to assume control of his destiny through the use of reason.

It isn’t necessary to wave a bible or the ten commandments at a Materialist, nor quote the "golden rule". The true Materialist, by definition, respects his fellow men and reveres all life, since he recognizes (through his philosophy) that they share a planet that may be unique in the cosmos. Thus, the true Materialist treasures and conserves the Earth's finite store of resources, since he comprehends that Earth also has one life to live - and there is no more after the existing resources are consumed.

With these things in mind, the true Materialist does not give his offspring any and every thing that grabs attention. He certainly does not wish to encourage the sort of wanton greed and over-consumption that has brought our world to its present sorry state. The Materialist knows well enough that the planet can ill-afford more such uncaring people.

Embodied within the above examples are a practical ethics, which have been forged out of the Materialist's reason and his priorities. This has one overriding aim: to cherish the Earth and all life upon it. Consequently, the true Materialist disdains all forms of violence, since ultimately these are inimical to the community and to species' survival. Since violent acts undermine a community's cohesion and threaten its very existence, the true Materialist must regard them as irrational. The Materialist is compelled to co-operate with his fellows and promote a common good, not out of fear for the wrath of a deity, but to held insure a thriving, harmonious community with high survival value.

As William Provine noted in his article Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics [1], young people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force's wrath, but to protect their own long-term self-interest.

If a person asked me for a specific ethical code that Materialists can follow, I could do no better than to cite : "moral provisionalism" or what I would call: "ethical incrementalism".  This ethical standard is superbly covered by author Michael Shermer in his monograph, The Science of Good and Evil. We are informed, for example (p. 168):

"Provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground between absolute and moral relative systems. Provisional moral principles are applicable to most people, for most circumstances, for most of the time - yet flexible enough to account for the wide diversity of human behavior"

As an example, let us recall how back in 2010, the Catholic Church  excommunicated  an American nun  in Arizona  for saving a 27 year old mother’s life at the expense of her fetus’. The physician nun's moral choice was either to let the birth occur and see both mother and infant die, or prevent the birth (because of the mother’s blood pressure complications) and save the mother.  Meanwhile, absolutist ethics would have argued that an effort to save both ought to have been made, despite the fact that medically both would have died.

In yet another example of the triumph of Materialist provisional ethics over RC Church absolutism, Brittany Maynard chose to end her suffering from brain cancer 4 years ago.  The Vatican's pseudo-moralistic fossils wasted no time in yelping from their high horse, condemning her decision as "reprehensible" .  Evidently, the Vatican's relics would rather she had been reduced to a drooling vegetable, with no bowel or bladder control, and not even cognizant of those around her. But this is typical of the Vatican's scornful approach to morality, and also McGurn's endorsement of it.

To the Materialist moral provisionalist what is reprehensible is allowing a sentient being to descend into a totally vegetative state lacking any life quality - with excruciating pain to go with it. Hence, Brittany's choice to end her life was a greater good over merely existing in a debased vegetative condition,  based on the specious presumption of "sanctity of life" demanded indiscriminately for any and all conditions.  Hence, the greater good here is ending the suffering and degradation of life quality rather than allowing it to progress to the stage one can make no authentic choice.

So what is McGurn's Catholic rejoinder to the advance of Materialist ethics? He scribbles near the end - in the wake of the McCarrick travesty:

"The Church certainly has the sacramental tools for healing and forgiveness."

Hmmm....then why haven't they yet been successful in halting the predations of many current padres on their young charges?   And this followup classic:

"The classic rejoinder is that we are all sinners and the Catholic Church will survive the McCarrick scandal as it has survived so many scandals over its 2000 years."

Brave words for a Church, a religion, on the ropes.

Will the Catholic Church go on? I have no doubt at all. Will it gain more converts? Sure, mainly of the poor, the ignorant and dispossessed in the more backward nations of the planet, as well as immigrants. However, its days as the moral arbiter and voice for the advanced nations in Europe, North America and Australia are forever gone. Those nations are becoming ever more secular, and even in the U.S. now the "Nones"  (no religion professed) are increasing at a rate faster than new Catholics.  Meanwhile, in the most advanced secular nations the Vatican’s voice has been reduced to barely above a raspy whisper.

The Roman Catholic Church will persist but also become a literal shell and shadow of its former self, paving the way for Materialist ethics (or secular humanist ethics) to make major inroads for millions to adopt a saner alternative.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/05/moral-absolutism-is-trumped-by-moral.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/06/nun-articulates-sexual-ethics-for.html

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[1] MBL Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 25, 1988

Of Mangers and Materialism: What Ross Douthat Doesn't Get

NY Times Neolib-cum-Christianoid mouthpiece Ross Douthat in his latest clarion call ('Ideas from a Manger', Dec. 22,  Sunday Review) bids us to "pause for a moment" on our holiday shopping to "glance at one of the manger scenes". Therein, Douthat informs us, we ought to "see the scene not just as a pious set piece but as a complete world picture- intimate and comprehensive".

What, pray tell, is this complete world picture the manger scene offers? Douthat again:

"It's an entire world view in a compact narrative, a depiction of how human beings relate to the universe and to one another. It's about the vertical link between God and man- the angels, the stars, the creator stooping to enter his creation. It's also about the horizontal relationships in our society, because it locates transcendence in the ordinary, the commonplace, the low."

After presenting this, Douthat bemoans that this view is "increasingly losing market share to what you might call the spiritual world picture-   the divine is active in human affairs, every person is precious in God's sight- but doesn't sweat the details."

He describes this view as:

 "Christian-ish but syncretistic, adaptable, easy going and egalitarian. It doesn't care whether the angel really appeared to Mary- the important thing is that a spiritual version of that visitation can happen to anyone - including you."

This "spiritual syncretism"  would, of course, also comport with the worldview of my sister-in-law, Krimhilde, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/08/continued-conversation-with-krimhilde.html

How would Krimhilde respond to Douthat's take on her, and not being invested in literalist biblical traditions? I quote her from the above link:

"Reading those ancient books or bibles is like a college student groveling around in a nursery and still talking baby talk. Worse, the degraded level of the book writers, especially where they depict this “god” killing humans out of vengeance, is a reflection of their own base nature and desire for vengeance. Their degraded, low vibration souls hate so they write to make their god hate, like them. This bible god is no god of love.

The obsession with the 'good book' is based  on the anxiety to be right…..right, right, right….This impulse and need penetrates and suffuses everything. That’s why they clutch their bibles so closely, as if to worship the book itself."


Wow! Quite an eye-opener! But Krimhilde is much more correct in her take than Douthat is on his. Indeed, there is no evidence that any of the narrative reported in the New Testament gospels concerning the nativity is "true" or in any way historical.   Exegetical and historical document researchers have, in fact, confirmed that:  present day Nazareth couldn’t be the biblical city referred to say, in the fourth chapter of Luke. 

One way to verify that is to go back and examine the Old Testament, the Talmud and related documents that precede the NT and determine if an extant Nazareth existed. One will find that  “Nazareth” is not mentioned once in the entire Old Testament, nor do any ancient historians or geographers mention it before the beginning of the 4th century.  The Talmud though it names 63 Galilean towns, names Nazareth not one time.  Not once. More telling, though Josephus does cite Japha - a town about a mile from present day Nazareth, he doesn't mention Nazareth. So much for Douthat's manger scene, because if Nazareth didn't exist then we can conclude none of the other aspects did either, including the manger, the guiding star, the Magi and even that Yeshua was born an actual "God-Man", i.e. God incarnated as human. It is all an elaborate myth intended to communicate a spiritual message - but not to be taken literally.

So, here we have an answer for Douthat on why spiritualist folk like Krimhilde aren't inclined to pay too much attention to "details" that only exist in a mythical sense.

But Douthat isn't content to merely take the spiritual people and groups (like Eckanckar) to task. He goes after secularists as well. He bloviates (ibid.):

"The secular picture, meanwhile, seems to have the rigor of the scientific method behind it. But it actually suffers from a deeper intellectual incoherence than either of its rivals because its cosmology does not harmonize at all with its moral picture."

Actually, no "intellectual incoherence" is suffered because cosmology in the specific definition of the term does not entail any moral "picture". Cosmology refers to the study of the large scale universe or cosmos, its dynamics, behavior and composition - including dark matter, dark energy.  Thus, cosmology is a physical discipline that attends to and investigates physical factors of our cosmos. It does not treat morality so that secularists cannot be said to uphold a "cosmology that does not harmonize with its moral picture."

But, this is not to say that secularists embrace NO moral view. Indeed, in an article published in The Barbados Sunday Advocate in 1991, ('Materialism and Moral Values') I took pains to show how and why the philosophy of scientific materialism is compatible with moral values at their most fundamental level without having to interject mythic entities or gods. I noted:

"It isn’t necessary to wave a bible or the ten commandments at a Materialist, nor quote the "golden rule". The true Materialist, by definition, respects his fellow men and reveres all life, since he recognizes (through his philosophy) that they share a planet that may be unique in the cosmos. Thus, the true Materialist treasures and conserves the Earth's finite store of resources, since he comprehends that Earth also has one life to live - and there is no more after the existing resources are consumed.

With these things in mind, the true Materialist does not give his offspring any and every thing that grabs attention. He certainly does not wish to encourage the sort of wanton greed and over-consumption that has brought our world to its present sorry state. The Materialist knows well enough that the planet can ill-afford more such uncaring people.

Embodied within the above examples is a practical ethics, which has been forged out of the Materialist's reason and his priorities. This has one overriding aim: to cherish the Earth and all life upon it. Consequently, the true Materialist disdains all forms of violence, since ultimately these are inimical to the community and to species' survival. Since violent acts undermine a community's cohesion and threaten its very existence, the true Materialist must regard them as irrational. The Materialist is compelled to co-operate with his fellows and promote a common good, not out of fear for the wrath of a deity, but to held insure a thriving, harmonious community with high survival value.

As William Provine notes in his article Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics [1], young people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force's wrath, but to protect their own long-term self-interest.

Any persistent observer of human social interaction will note that the vast majority of people are law-abiding and decent folk who naturally practice a common-sense, utilitarian ethics similar to what has been described. For proof, one need only look as far as the upstanding Atheist or agnostic who inhabits every community and who - though he disdains a deity, nevertheless treats his fellows with compassion and respect. No supernatural law or commandment ordains this behavior. Instead it is the conscious and deliberate recognition that the promotion of the welfare of others is directly linked to the one's own welfare.

Unfortunately, what the religionists have done is to take the natural code of ethics most people follow and embellish it with a blizzard of superstitious precepts and injunctions. These are superstitious since, inevitably, they are linked to the supposed dictates of a supernatural "being" who will not hesitate to "punish" those who disobey "him". This includes injunctions to participate in - or attend, primitive rituals which celebrate a de facto cannibalism.

Christians, for their part, profess a ‘God of love’, but never hesitate to invoke fear (of eternal torment) to have their ethics adhered to. Logically, this suggests that the ethics is insupportable without the additional imposition of some type of "divine" retribution. A punitive ethics, then, is at the very core of the Christian religion, as it is many others. Sir Bertrand Russell, in his book Why I Am Not A Christian, precisely identifies ‘religion’s source of terror’ to account for the hold it has on so many. "

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The article received many kudos from letter writers, who said it was the first time they'd ever seen a coherent and logical discourse on a Materialist-based  ethics. Hitherto, they'd never realized that scientific Materialism and ethics could be compatible.

Douthat makes the same error, as when he writes (op. cit.):

"In essence (scientific Materialism) proposes a purely physical and purposeless universe, inhabited by evolutionary accidents whose sense of self is probably illusory. And yet it then continues to insist on moral and political absolutes with all the vigor of a 17th century New England preacher. And the rope bridges flung across this chasm - the scientific sounding logic of utilitarianism, the Darwinish justifications for altruism- tend to waft, gently, into a logical abyss.."

Which is total nonsense.  As any sensible person can see, on reading my articulation of ethical values based on scientific Materialism, though they are practical - and hence might be said to be "utilitarian" - that doesn't disqualify them from being more useful than Christian morality - which is based on what? Something a god did or didn't do in the Bible?   Or more relevant in Douthat's case: What the Catholic Church rules is moral or not based on its "Canon Law"?

To fix ideas, consider the nun excommunicated by the Catholic Church in Arizona 3  years ago for saving a 27 year old mother’s life at the expense of her fetus. Her moral choice was either to let the birth occur and see both mother and infant die, or prevent the birth (because of the mother’s blood pressure complications) and save the mother.

The nun made the utilitarian ethical choice over Catholic dogma. In this case, the greater relative good is always chosen over the lesser one. Hence, by practical Materialist ethics,  two deaths with two life saving efforts represents the lesser good, while one death with one life saving effort represents the greater one.  The error of the Bishop that excommunicated the nun was in upholding an absolute right to life ethic for both when in practical terms (that exercise of practical intelligence again) both could not survive. But this is the very danger of moral absolutism.

So in fact, contrary to Douthat's take, it is not within utilitarian ethics that absolutism resides, but rather in the goofy supernaturalism pushed by Christians.  If one can believe in the supernatural then, one can believe in an absolute standard which overrides practical reason and practical ethics. We call this "skyhook" thinking.

As Daniel Dennett once noted ('Darwin's Dangerous Idea')  - the hyper-religious like Douthat want to build their world and universe on "skyhooks" not cranes. Cranes, after all, have to hoist from the ground up to effect their constructions. They're prosaic, dirty material-mechanical flotsam and jetsam like cells, electric signals and chemicals. But oh those skyhooks! To toss them upwards and hook on to the ethereal, immaterial realm in the hyper yonder beyond the clouds and gross matter!

"BWAAAAAA....We don't want that! We wanna be GRANDIOSE beings! Made of sky and spirit not filthy matter! "


These delusional seekers fail to comprehend that for humanity to be one in harmony - no single subset can elevate itself as "more special" or more worthy" or more "grandiose" than any other. Irrespective of who or what they believe. And while it might be nice or appealing to believe ALL humanity is skyhook-engendered, in practice it never works! Because once the skyhook meme is admitted, one segment yearns to claim its supreme grandiosity and specialness for itself, and exclude the others! Much better to look at basic evolution out of the mire by natural selection, and how we all came to have the same basic DNA in our cells. "Brothers in DNA".

And once we get off our skyhook  addiction and concede a brotherly, material unity in biology and DNA, then the embrace of a practical ethics isn't far away.  In this world, we need more practical ethics or moral provisionalism, and less absolutism.

Douthat would do well to process that before he next bids us to stop and stare at manger scenes. True, to quote Douthat, "though a few intellectuals scan the heavens, they have yet to find their star." But maybe that's because no skyhook-based,  guiding star exists. We have to forge, as Materialists, our own "star"!
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[1] William Provine, ‘Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics’ (MLB Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1988, p. 25)