Stealing Morality Back from a Fence

A rebuttal of Mark Shea's:

Shoplifting from the Supernaturalism 

In another attempt at obfuscation for the benefit of his godhead (which, for obvious reasons, can't clear everything up for itself) this Catholic now claims that, Christopher Hitchens is misreading the Judaeo-Christian tradition by saying,

“the Jewish people did not get all the way to Mount Sinai under the impression that murder and theft and perjury were okay.”

But the claim that we were created in the image and likeness of God, doesn't for a moment suggest that murder, or for that matter—many other immoral acts, are wrong. For this mythological god, incites their practice, as well as, commits many, including murder, repeatedly himself, as its portrait is recorded in the Bible. So, people would not recognize it as sacred from revelation, by reading the holy book or innately, "from the get go," as this Catholic asserts. Again, morality comes neither by this mythological patriarch's example or dictate. Then our quarrelsome Catholic writes,

"Oblivious to the Church’s entire tradition of the natural law..."

while not clarifying what that "law" is, exactly. And, yet again, incorrectly characterizing Christopher's evaluation of the comment as, "a crushing debate point," he is consistent. It is indeed, verified fact, not just a debate point. It doesn't even make sense in the narrative itself, because the society they falsely claimed to have escaped from was a very advanced society with incredible feats of cooperation, so yes, the commandments were at least unnecessary. Societies were cooperating, coexisting, and collaborating with neighboring societies for some 10,000 years, prior to the time this mosaic narrative claims a mass exodus occurred. All cultures have a moral base that vary widely in some details but are very similar in others, and it's obvious which ones are from an evolutionary history that we share with other social creatures, especially primates.

The implausibility of even some spurious historical roots to this myth, the absurdity of the details, especially those connected to the commandments— show it to be patriarchal mythology. Constructed to malign belief in an older matriarchal mythology, related to a fertility goddess. The commandments of this tale were, in fact, redundant at the time of their creation. There is nothing historical about the Exodus narrative. The Jews are, in fact, descendants of Canaanites and were never slaves of the Egyptians. Moses is no more historical than Adam, Enoch, Jesus, Hercules, Apollo, Tom Sawyer, or Superman. The explanation for the general acceptance of the truthfulness of these religious myths is very simple. They didn't have an educational system to curb the myth to fact evolution that critical analysis of the evidence will curtail, then usually eliminate. Even Thomas Aquinas had the education of the average 7 year old today, and the philosophical prowess of a typical Inspirational Channel infomercial talking head, some 1400 years after the mosaic oral tradition took root.

Then this Catholic is once again, I was previously introduced to his various strawman fallacies, drawn to still more deplorable ad hominem arguments. But this pundit has such weak arguments, like any religious argument would be otherwise, that his main tactic is debasement of the opposition, poisoning the well, or the typical false premise. I give you, dear reader, as an example:

"Indeed Hitchens, like all the New Atheists (who are, in fact, creakily decrepit Old Atheists of a school that nearly died out), is ..."

Which is both wrong and irrelevant for many reasons, the first of which is  that atheism is not a "school." It is the absents of a belief in god(s), only. While at the same time based on scientific evidence that is being up dated daily. Therefore, while the concept of skepticism is as old as thought itself, the atheist view is based on philosophies and scientific discoveries that are current. And while I am honored to be numbered among the likes of Democritus, Epicurus, Robert G. Ingersoll, Andrew Carnegie, Katherine Hepburn, Francis Crick, Bertrand Russell, Bruce Lee it is obvious that Mark Shea is intent on poisoning his readership's opinion of atheists, but we are not "creakily decrepit" nor has atheism ever "nearly died out" as is shown by the Pew poll that shows the "no religious affiliation" is the only demographic to grow in all fifty states, not to mention the rest of the civilized world. Civilized world, that's another interesting point, ever notice that where ever the Pope reigns so does poverty and deplorable human "third world" conditions, talk about decrepit.

Every despotic totalitarian dictatorship; indeed every claim to superiority, every genocide, every war, even slavery; homicides committed on the basis of someone's individuality, or opinion; claims of collaboration with mythical creatures or powers over the elements of nature, have had the revelatory backing of some mythical god. For this reason, especially, but not exclusively, I entreat everyone to question claims of authority, especially claims of authority based on religious entities, superstitious beliefs or revelation. This is why;
Ideas, beliefs or opinions are never to be held as sacred, ever, the most heinous acts ever committed by man were the result of self serving ideas, unsubstantiated beliefs, and the opinions of bigoted ignoramuses. The whole concept of the free market of ideas is that intellectual liberty is the ability to scrutinize any belief, every idea, regardless of their holder's opinions or appeals to authority. Like your own personal bigotry toward atheists, is more than likely based on unsubstantiated generalities, opinions that you hold toward our world view without justification. Also, your opinion that Richard Rorty was a "real" atheist is based more on your opinion that he disliked science than on the basis of his understanding of theology and its absurdities. Or his understanding of ethology, the study of evolutionary animal behavior, which would have cleared up the misconception evident in the quote, which is actually concerning his philosophy of epistemology, you have used many times that I know of.

You should know that Rorty's philosophy was dealt with in absentia, in the 19th century in light of idealist philosophy with which his pragmatic ironism has many similarities. And that Karl Popper dealt with the validity of observation in the 50's it's called the scientific method. Maybe the similarity to our evolved morality observed in many social animals might suggest that what ought to be, is based on the evolutionary history of our species. In the sense that cooperation, care and compassion are the traits that were successful in our evolutionary past, Prof. Rorty would be wrong to conclude that it is "theft from a covert belief in something that transcends" when we have evidence of altruism in many different species. But Rorty's rejection of science would preclude his gleaning that knowledge. And his rejection of truth in general would preclude your claim to morality just as easily.

The point is this, morality 'Is' and it is not due to religion or anything supernatural, for there is no validity, no evidence, no reality to that claim, so I think Rorty's choice of the words "well-grounded theoretical answers" may be being over emphasized out of context. Science has made great strides in almost every field of endeavor in verifiable ways. And Prof. Richard Rorty may have been the one holding to a Platonic ideology that the imagined is as real as the corporeal, and even more perfect. But anything can be imagined, doesn't make it real. While Karl Popper's philosophy would suggest that all the failed attempts at falsification of the theory of evolution, substantiates our decision to continue to use it in further inquiry into questions posed by behavioral science and the theory of mind.

How someone can logically correlate "god is not great" and "everyone thinks for themselves," with "Nothing Must Be Held Sacred," boggles the mind. Many different things are sacred to many different people, only it is in most cases, like respect, earned not given. Wherein my mother is more sacred to me, than to you for obvious reasons. Life is, arguably, more sacred to me than to you for I live as though this is the only life there is, for everyone. When I was in the service, I was asked many times, what I thought about dying. To which I replied, "it will be the end of pain." And those that think there is life after death are giving theirs under false pretences. Which is another horrendous property of religions, the motivating force employed by the General that yells, "Charge that wall men, who cares if god is on their side this time!" Oh, wait. Anyway, atrociousness... the problem is:  an atrocity begins when anyone tries to convince you that something they hold sacred is somehow more sacred than what you hold sacred. Which is exactly what religion does. You can either pretend that you agree and subjugate your importance to that of supernatural claims or stand and be counted as holding—as sacred, claims that are just as important as any asserted by those claiming supernatural authority. It's up to each of us to defend our liberty.

And yes, atheists have killed people, so have Buddhists, football fans, painters and Christians, but of this list, only Christians have killed because of their faith.  And again, Hitler was a fundamentalist Catholic (actually go there, Mark, read Mein Kompf, the Nazi program especially #24 do the work). Stalin learned much of his totalitarian Platonist philosophies from seminary school. Marx was sure that religion would falter, and fall out of favor, due to disuse in an egalitarian society.  Mao and Pol Pot killed for the same reason all power mongers kill and never has it been for that "atheistic beliefs" canard, there aren't any. And besides, none of these tyrants actually killed, en masse, the pious peons that worked for them, that followed them, that believed in them—did the dirty work.

So basically this is yet again another misguided, mis-characterization of a world view that only wishes to save people from their own irrationality, thereby helping humanity at large avoid recurring historical atrocities, while hoping they don't become victims of their own ignorance. I personally feel that the recurring atrocities were best summed up by Albert Einstein, when he stated:

" Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

The Abrahamic religions have had more than 2000 years replete with misery, and culpability in many—far to many atrocities. The religiose should know, it is now inescapably obvious that this superstition has absolutely nothing in common with "peace on Earth" or "Good will toward humanity," can we stop with the insanity already. Let us give rationality a chance, and superstition the boot. In the spirit of the Founders of this nation, who knew all too well the deplorable state of humanity brought about by the unabated indoctrination, the certainty of the dogmatic and the arrogance of ignorance, in a word piety, we should give humanity back to "We the People," for as Thomas Jefferson said:

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

Thomas Jefferson knew then what many know now, it is education that guards the mind from infection through the superstitious mind virus. And this is a critical point because once the mind virus gets in, rationalizations may be all that's left to the host. It is evidence that breaks the circular reasoning the Platonic ontology and the apologetic rationalizations that are everywhere displayed. I do honestly hope that people realize one day that the accusations raise against atheism, are the very crimes religions have spawned for millennia. Atheism is the cure not the culprit, regardless of what propaganda people have been told.
~Brian