Best Living Spokesman for Atheism

[Delicate]

If the standard of justice is as I say it is (99 is not equal to 100), then I'm right, it is practically impossible, isn't it? And whether or not you would accept $99 back or not, it's still true that you deserve $100, and anything less would not make you whole, correct?

What does this have to do with anything? What is your actual objection to Dawkins' point? The more you say, the less clear your initial contention becomes.

You seem to raise three different issues in your post:

1) Why attempt justice if it's impossible, you ask. 

For one, we all implicitly assent to perfect justice- whether or not it's achievable, we all believe this is what people deserve and ought to receive. This is a standard we ought to strive to conform to. Second, there are some exceedingly rare individual cases where we can, in fact achieve perfect justice. And third, while perfect justice cannot be achieved, approximate justice allows victims and sufferers to better cope with the injustice, by reducing the extent of the injustice they bear.

Which is essentially Dawkins' point, and explicitly contradicted by the tenets of the christian religion: Dawkins' assertion was that one should take responsibility and attempt to make amends for your own wrongdoings, approximating perfect justice as much as you can. Meanwhile, the christian religion states that one need not care about perfect justice at all, since the whole system has been bypassed by Jesus and his sacrifice. The interesting thing about your argumentation is that it implicitly acknowledges this truth: your examples all concern people being wronged getting equal recompense as perfect justice, and yet Jesus enables the believer to ignore this entirely and gain the reward anyway. No responsibility to the victims need be paid under christianity, since the ostensible payment has already been made, without any mind being paid to the victims or to the perpetrator; everything you've listed as an example of perfect justice gets completely ignored and bypassed by the big sacrifice for christianity, yet somehow you think it's Dawkins who has the wrong end of the stick regarding justice.

How on earth do you even do that?

2) You say the justice system is predicated on me being wrong. However, the above is perfectly compatible with our justice system. Even when we cannot achieve perfect justice, we try to approximate it for the above reasons. If it's not, where does it contradict the justice system?

So if you find an approximation of perfect justice acceptable under human endeavor, why did you object to that exact sentiment when Dawkins made it?

3) The argument against Dawkins is like the following:
a) True justice is an all-or-nothing affair (see the reasons I provided above)
b) Simply taking responsibility never achieves true justice
c) Therefore Dawkins leaves us with a hollow, dissatisfying, conception of justice, a poor knock-off of a complete notion of justice whose existence as an ideal we not only affirm, but we desire, and we strive for. But we have no hope of achieving.

Taking responsibility is a poor knock-off.

Do you even know what was meant by "taking responsibility," or are you simply arbitrarily choosing the least charitable interpretation because you just don't like them dern atheists much? Because when I hear "taking responsibility," in that context, it entails making amends for the wrongdoing, not simply acknowledging that it happened.

If you have a more charitable interpretation of "taking responsibility" that magically gives Dawkins some credibility, let's hear it.

As it is, you're empirically, factually wrong on all three of your characterizations of Christianity: 

1) You're confused about Christianity, in that the tenets do involve striving to be just, (Romans 6:15) 
2) and by extension, you're confused in not knowing that the tenets of Christianity do involve caring about perfect justice (Matthew 5:23-24, 1 Corinthians 6:8, 1 Thessalonians 4:6)
3) Third, you're confused in that Jesus doesn't enable the believer to ignore perfect justice and gain the reward anyway (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Here's the Apostle Paul in Romans:

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!

What you don't understand about Christianity is that because the Christian religion places a premium on perfect justice, it entails that mankind is imperfect and needs a savior. Someone who can bridge the justice-gap. Knowledge of this justice gap is necessary. Without it, there is no awareness of one's own moral shortcomings, and no awareness of one's need for Christ's sacrifice. By definition, Christians cannot be ignorant of perfect justice.

And finally, you won't be forgiven of your sin if you aren't earnest about being wrong. And you can't be earnest about being wrong if you don't do what you can to right your wrongs. There's a ton of evidence for this too.

So suffice to say, you're deeply confused about what Christianity actually says. For those who care about what Christianity actually says, the objection you raise doesn't hold water.

But this still doesn't explain what exactly is wrong with Dawkins' responsibility.

The difference between taking Christian responsibility, and the hollow Dawkins responsibility is that on Christianity, taking responsibility and acting justly is necessary, but not sufficient for perfect justice. It's needed, but it's not enough. The sufficiency is taken care of by God and Christ's sacrifice, which closes the justice gap where sincere Christians, despite striving to be just (as is needed), well and truly cannot close it.

So the sufficient conditions for Dawkins aren't met. Ever. We're in a perpetual state of injustice in Dawkins' world. Dawkins just wants us to strive to close the justice gap that will never be closed. 

Dawkins' responsibility is like telling someone to pay off a debt they can never repay. 

Whether they pay off $1 or $100,000, what hope do they have of getting out of debt? It's hollow and empty.