Monday, January 23, 2012

Article: Theism, Atheism, and Blame


If you take "athe­ism" and its counter-part "the­ism" NEI­THER of these are a source of vio­lence or evil. You can­not draw any moral impli­ca­tions from the state­ment, "It is not the case that at least one God exists" just as you can­not draw any moral impli­ca­tion from the state­ment, "It is the case that at least one God exists." They are both behav­ioral­ly, moral­ly, and prac­ti­cal­ly impo­tent.

In order to get to any moral con­clu­sion – any type at all – you have to add some­thing to your fun­da­men­tal premise, regard­less of whether it is athe­ist or the­ist.

In order to get vio­lence against homo­sex­u­als, you have to com­bine, "At least one God exists" with "That god com­mands that homo­sex­u­als be put to death" and "We all have to duty to do that which God commands." Then, you can get behav­ior wor­thy of con­dem­na­tion.

How­ev­er, on this level, the same rea­son­ing applies to athe­ism. In order to get any form of behav­ior – any type at all – out of athe­ism you have to add some­thing to your fun­da­men­tal premise. We might add, "Man is a ratio­nal ani­mal, and it is irra­tional to pro­vide help to oth­ers unless one expects a suf­fi­cient prof­it in return that more than com­pen­sates the cost of the help. There­fore, man ought not to help oth­ers. Self­ish­ness is a virtue."


---SPSmith

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