Anti-anti-theists: Hypocrites - Atheism vs Christianity

Message from discussion Anti-anti-theists: Hypocrites

Dev

More options Jun 28 2008, 5:13 pm

From: Dev <thedevil...@fastmail.fm>

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:13:03 -0700 (PDT)

Local: Sat, Jun 28 2008 5:13 pm

Subject: Re: Anti-anti-theists: Hypocrites

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Thank you, rappy. I've been saying this for a while here. If
"intolerance" in and of itself is bad, then being "intolerant of
intolerance" is of course hypocritical. I've seen this attitude pop up
here and there, right now bob600 and Walt seem particularly guilty of
it (although theists constantly whine about "intolerance" despite the
"intolerance" that is built into their respective faiths), and I
really can't have any respect for people whose core "values" are
completely based on holding standards to others that they don't hold
to themselves. I think not living up to your own standards is failing
the most basic test of ethics.

On Jun 27, 9:46 pm, rappoccio <rappoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It has recently been argued that anti-theists are being unfair to
> theists. The argument boils down to this:

> -If theists believe something that does not contradict secular
> morality, then anti-theists have no justification to say it's
> irrational and immoral.
> -This is because they "just believe" in something based on "irrational
> intuition", and if it does not contradict secular morality, then it is
> permissible.

> Let's apply this to the stance of the anti-theist... that religion, in
> and of itself, is immoral. Let's pretend that anti-theists have
> arrived at this conclusion via the same "irrational intuition" that
> theists are allegedly using for their conclusions. Of course this
> isn't actually true and anti-theists do a lot better with their
> arguments, but pretend that it is based on nothing aside from
> "irrational intuition". Now change "theists" in the above sentence to
> "anti-theists".

> -If anti-theists believe something that does not contradict secular
> morality, then anti-anti-theists have no justification to say it's
> irrational and immoral.
> -This is because they "just believe" in something based on "irrational
> intuition", and if it does not contradict secular morality, then it is
> permissible.

> Now, the question remains, does anti-theism contradict secular
> morality?

> Clearly anti-theism does not contradict secular morality more than
> theism (and of course, I believe it contradicts secular morality a
> great deal less, but that's besides the point to this discussion at
> hand). Therefore, based exclusively on this, there is no justification
> that someone should be "anti-anti-theist" for the reasons above. An
> anti-anti-theist can not consistently criticize anti-theists for the
> very thing the anti-theists are criticizing theists for.

> That makes anti-anti-theists hypocritical.

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