Through A Blog Darkly Responds, Again

Over at Through A blog Darkly, one of them, I don’t know which, attempts to correct what I said:

"It's true atheism contains no moral theory but it does not follow that atheists as individuals have no moral theory. This may surprise the author but atheists are actually human beings born into a family and a community and who inherit cultural histories, languages and traditions. We are not empty dehumanized vessels but taught by our parents, friends and teachers; we are not defined purely by atheism."

This is a naïve explanation, at best. If an atheist is born into an atheist environment, then he will either adhere to the nearly random principles of his parents, or he will not. And these principles are not fixed moralities, are they? They are, on the basis of atheism, merely “cultural histories, languages and traditions”, a description which fits anything, whatsoever. There is no Atheist Morality. And that is what I said:

“... First, atheism tells us at least two things; (a) under atheism, there is no moral theory whatsoever attached to this basis for worldviews, so the morality void is definite until backfilled with something agreeable to the atheist;”

His protest must be against something other than what I said, because he has agreed with what I said.

And he agrees that atheism tends to drive atheists to the political left:

“It does seem true that atheists lean towards the Left on social issues but we hold diverse views on economic and other political matters. Of course both sides of spectrum have their extremists including these who are religiously motivated. Honestly, reading these posts makes me appreciate how Christians must feel when New Atheists call religion the root of all evil.”

And here’s what I actually said:

“(b) the trend of atheist political progression is overwhelmingly to the political Left, and many migrate to the outer extremes of political Leftism. This is because there also is an overwhelming trend amongst Atheists to consider themselves intellectually superior: elites who can determine morality better than any Other and thus are morally enabled to save the Other, who is classified as Victim unless he is classified as an Oppressor. The atheist elites are thus the natural Messiah class. This was the case in the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, turn of the century Progressives in the west, and the modern progressives of today.”

Atheists, including Progressives, humanists, and general radicals, are not highly populated with people who are not elitist, and therefore the majority are leftist pseudo-revolutionaries who consider the soft destruction of the Other by economics, by ridicule, by legislation by lefist judges, by government attacks on its critics, all of the tactics of soft conquest and control of the “herd”, however illegal, unconstitutional or amoral, to be just fine... unless there is a secret "silent majority" of conservative atheists which can be invoked, empirically. It's doubtful.

And the Tu Quoque pointing to religious extremists, is no excuse; it is a Red Herring to dissuade the reader of the seriousness of atheist consequences. And the subject at hand is atheism and its consequences, not "religion".

Next,

“Elsewhere, I notice Atheism Analyzed has used my post on Epicureanism to discuss the famous problem of evil :”

Then,

“The atheist communist regimes he so deplores justified their slaughter through utilitarian ethics as necessary scarifies for the greater good. So I find it strange he attributes the same utilitarian ethics to his deity. Was Yahweh's numerous genocides for the greater good really any worse than Stalin's atrocities?”

TABD does not in any sense refute the obvious understanding that the second deduction is logically incorrect, and the revised second deduction is logically correct. Instead, he tries out another Tu Quoque.

What he does (I think) do is to claim that if atheism is evil, then what about God, as if the two are on the same footing, existentially and morally. This is another Red Herring, where he attempts either to ignore the horrific morality of the atheists, or possibly legitimize it with a comparison to God purging the world. So if it is OK for God to assert the discipline which he promises, then it must be OK for atheist elitist revolutionary killers to do the same thing, right?

And the utilitarian, consequentialist ethics which the atheists employ and employed certainly support the concept of atheists possessing and deploying anti-moral behaviors based on anti-moral worldviews is an existing feature of atheism, and has been so in a big way which affected hundreds of millions of people.

I don’t think this is actually what he meant, even though it flows smoothly from his premise; I think he was merely looking for a deflection, without even thinking toward any consequences of what he was saying.

But it’s not certain what he means, because he also implies heavily that he, himself, does not deplore the atheist mass murdering regimes, that it is just me who does so.

OK, then.