OP/ED.........
Often online I run into this attitude. Those long term members here know how I feel about all religions and god claims. But even with that I do not give atheists a pass either. There is no virtue of the oppressed. It is easy to get caught in the moment as a minority and think you would never do that yourself. That misses the point that power shifts and you will not be around in the future regardless, and those future generations will not be subject to the same conditions that may lead a current minority to say things like this.
Our evolution as a species has always set up social pecking orders and power has shifted as well in that time. But what has not changed is our species ability to be cruel or compassionate. That ratio would still be there no matter who the majority is. I do rail against the comic book morality and magical claims of religions and the horrible divisions it creates in the world. But even atheists cannot sit there and claim that we are above what humans have always displayed and will always display.
Yes I do rail against the magical claims and superstitions of religion. I do rail against all claims of immovable beings who are Orwellian in nature. But that is a matter of claims, not human rights. Atheists are still part of an imperfect reality and we cannot think ourselves that because we are on the right side of education and science, that we are always going to automatically be moral ourselves.
Scientific reality is that life and the universe is not perfect. In a very litteral sense energy transfer demonstrates this. You will never have 100% input create 100% output. Religious ideology political ideology, national ideology and even business models can be worshiped on a very dogmatic scale. There has never been anything such as a utopia and when atheists do this it shows a failure to see that we can be just as flawed in our perceptions. When we say well intended things like this that is our evolutionary empathy talking, but it is not a given in the future, especially after we are gone and cannot be arround to remind our fellow humans of the past.
In agreeing with Hitchens railing against religion and calling it poison, that still does not put any human being regardless of the same behaviors our species have always displayed. Our species ability to be cruel or compassion are in our evolution, not our labels.
The only way humans in general can treat each other better is to accept the imperfect reality we all live in.
Often online I run into this attitude. Those long term members here know how I feel about all religions and god claims. But even with that I do not give atheists a pass either. There is no virtue of the oppressed. It is easy to get caught in the moment as a minority and think you would never do that yourself. That misses the point that power shifts and you will not be around in the future regardless, and those future generations will not be subject to the same conditions that may lead a current minority to say things like this.
Our evolution as a species has always set up social pecking orders and power has shifted as well in that time. But what has not changed is our species ability to be cruel or compassionate. That ratio would still be there no matter who the majority is. I do rail against the comic book morality and magical claims of religions and the horrible divisions it creates in the world. But even atheists cannot sit there and claim that we are above what humans have always displayed and will always display.
Yes I do rail against the magical claims and superstitions of religion. I do rail against all claims of immovable beings who are Orwellian in nature. But that is a matter of claims, not human rights. Atheists are still part of an imperfect reality and we cannot think ourselves that because we are on the right side of education and science, that we are always going to automatically be moral ourselves.
Scientific reality is that life and the universe is not perfect. In a very litteral sense energy transfer demonstrates this. You will never have 100% input create 100% output. Religious ideology political ideology, national ideology and even business models can be worshiped on a very dogmatic scale. There has never been anything such as a utopia and when atheists do this it shows a failure to see that we can be just as flawed in our perceptions. When we say well intended things like this that is our evolutionary empathy talking, but it is not a given in the future, especially after we are gone and cannot be arround to remind our fellow humans of the past.
In agreeing with Hitchens railing against religion and calling it poison, that still does not put any human being regardless of the same behaviors our species have always displayed. Our species ability to be cruel or compassion are in our evolution, not our labels.
The only way humans in general can treat each other better is to accept the imperfect reality we all live in.
