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Walt  
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 More options Jun 28 2008, 8:06 pm
From: Walt <wka...@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:06:14 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Sat, Jun 28 2008 8:06 pm
Subject: Re: Anti-anti-theists: Hypocrites
I don't think that anti-theism is immoral, as
long as you never allow it to influence choices
other than those you have arbitrary discretion
over, such as who to be friends with.

But if you feed your spite on people, that
can rationally be said to present a danger that
you at some point will harm those people.

And mocking does count as harming.  Many
people, especially school children, commit
suicide because they can no longer endure
the pain of being mocked.

On Jun 27, 11:46 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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