Wednesday 13 February 2008

“Imagine no religion” - dream on. The Old Athiests











“And when we speak of “abandonment” – a favorite word of Heidegger – we only mean to say that God does not exist, and that it is necessary to draw the consequences of his absence right to the end. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain type of secular moralism which seeks to suppress God at the least possible expense. Towards 1880, when the French professors endeavoured to formulate a secular morality, they said something like this: God is a useless and costly hypothesis, so we will do without it. However, if we are to have morality, a society and a law-abiding world, it is essential that certain values should be taken seriously; they must have an a priori existence ascribed to them. It must be considered obligatory a priori to be honest, not to lie, not to beat one’s wife, to bring up children and so forth; so we are going to do a little work on this subject, which will enable us to show that these values exist all the same, inscribed in an intelligible heaven although, of course, there is no God.”

“Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself.”

Jean Paul Sartre – Existentialism is a Humanism

Christopher Hitchen's debating his brother Peter Hitchens. The debate can be found here www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMkf2Cuk20A

Peter Hitchens when he speaks of an “absolute good which atheism denies” he is of course right. To use this is an argument (as it often is) against atheism is like objecting to gravity's existence because no gravity would be more fun. The realisation of the way the world is should precede the implications not visa versa.

Christopher Hitchens when asked where atheists can derive an idea of absolute right and wrong said “human solidarity.” To say that ethics are made objective by the fact that an almighty creature powerful has told you what to do patently infantile, like following big brother because he can put you in room 101 if you don't do as he says... the idea that “human solidarity” is the root of objective ethics is to base “absolute good” upon the behaviour of sheep.

Satrian existentialism does not evade the question of “as arbitrary collections of atoms is there an objective way in which atoms should rightly formulate?” Scientific Materialists as the “new atheists” are they surely they would accept this conception of our existence as a “thing that thinks” but have not accepted its full implications. Dostoevsky wrote “without God anything is permitted” and as Sartre put it “man is condemned to freedom.”

To help your fellow man is a choice not an obligation, Peter Hitchens says

“there is no basis for things such as selfless courage, which have absolutely no objective self interested justification”

Peter Hitchen's argument seems to be condensible to “there is no basis for selflessness as there is no selfish reason selflessness.” The idea that threat of punishment or reward from the “celestial dictator “ as Christopher Hitchens calls him is the only reason one could have for selflessness (if we ignore this paradoxical relationship) is punishment of hell or heaven seems highly cynical. Bob Geldoff is an outspoken atheist and yet one of the third world greatest advocates of charity an altruism on its part.

Thousands of years of athiests fighting their philosophical corner and for what? Interlectual mastabation?, “Imagine no religion” That's all it will ever be a hypothetical world for intellectuals to debate the rights and wrongs of. My Facebook religious views column used to say “Richard Dawkin's I'm your biggest fan but if I say I'm an atheist I can't wangle out of it if God exists” I was a member of the group “if I wasn't an atheist I would think Richard Dawkins was God.” If Russell, Freud and Darwin weren't going to convince the world to give up religion then I'm sorry Mr Dawkin's I don't think you will either but you will probably sell allot of books.

Meanwhile in the real world of suffering, war, starvation, terrorism and environmental devastation there are both atheists and theists willing to step up and stop it or ignore it and perpetuate it. One must ask whether to judge on what people believe or what they do? This isn't to say there is no link but you will find atheists and theists on both sides of almost every important political question of our time, questions concerning the the very continuation of the species. Whether you value the continuation of the species and of the world itself is your choice and yours alone.




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