Re: [asa] Can biology do better than faith?

I want to point out the rhetorical maneuver that Wilson is using in this essay.?

Ordinarily in arguing between the merits of atheism versus monotheism, it is pointed out that atheism has no basis to say something is right or wrong, and that people who are morally liberated by atheism can choose whatever morality they want (or none at all).? It has also been pointed out that this unfettering from morality, when translated into philosophies of state, has been correlated to the state-sponsored bloodbaths of the 20th century.? Thus, atheism has a horrible track record wherever it has been tried.

What Wilson is trying to do in this essay is turn it into a 3-way disagreement, allowing there to be only one brand of monotheism (and it's bad, bad, bad), but two brands of atheism (and of course one of them is as pure as the driven snow).? He does this because he wants to have some a version of atheism absolved from its past crimes, while requiring even the better versions of monotheism to carry the crimes of the more repugnant varieties.?

And so to make it a three way argument, he tells us that?the real moral problem is not the morality (hunh?), but (Shock!) the way we simply understand the human condition.? In other words, it's a problem of _understanding_ the humans, not a problem of _loving_ the humans.? If we just get his more advanced atheistic understanding, then everybody will stop doing bad things to one another and despots won't arise and states won't suppress people any more.

Phil

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Received on Mon Nov 26 18:25:00 2007