{"id":3954,"date":"2014-03-24T20:46:49","date_gmt":"2014-03-25T01:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/?p=3954"},"modified":"2014-03-25T06:01:53","modified_gmt":"2014-03-25T11:01:53","slug":"an-appeal-to-conservative-atheists-cmon-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/2014\/03\/24\/morality\/an-appeal-to-conservative-atheists-cmon-man\/","title":{"rendered":"An Appeal to Conservative Atheists: “C’mon, Man!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

No doubt sports fans are aware of the “C’mon Man” collections of the sports week’s worst bloopers and blown calls on ESPN.\u00a0 That was my reaction on reading a piece entitled\u00a0Yes, Atheism and Conservatism Are Compatible\u00a0<\/em><\/a>by fellow conservative atheist Charles C. W. Cooke<\/a> at National Review Online<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 The article was a reaction to the recent unceremonious eviction of\u00a0the atheist group American Atheists<\/a> from a booth at CPAC<\/a> after they had been invited to attend by current Chair of the American Conservative Union<\/a>, Al Cardenas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cooke started out well enough, quoting the Interdict<\/a> by\u00a0fire-breathing Christian zealot Brent Bozell\u00a0<\/a>that led to the eviction:<\/p>\n

The invitation extended by the ACU, Al Cardenas and CPAC to American Atheists to have a booth is more than an attack on conservative principles.\u00a0 It is an attack on God Himself.\u00a0 American Atheists is an organization devoted to the hatred of God.\u00a0 How on earth could CPAC, or the ACU and its board of directors, and Al Cardenas condone such an atrocity?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

to which Cooke quite reasonably responds,<\/p>\n

The particular merits of the American Atheists group to one side, this is a rather astounding thing for Bozell to have said. In just 63 words, he confuses disbelief in God for \u201chatred\u201d for God \u2014 a mistake that not only begs the question but is inherently absurd (one cannot very well hate what one does not believe is there); he condemns an entire conference on the basis of one participant \u2014 not a good look for a struggling movement, I\u2019m afraid; and, most alarmingly perhaps, he insinuates that one cannot simultaneously be a conservative and an atheist. I reject this idea \u2014 and with force.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

If atheism and conservatism are incompatible, then I am not a conservative. And nor, I am given to understand, are George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Anthony Daniels, Walter Olson, Heather Mac Donald, James Taranto, Allahpundit, or S. E. Cupp.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He continues with the same point that I made in a recent post:<\/p>\n

One of the problems we have when thinking about atheism in the modern era is that the word has been hijacked and turned into a political position when it is no such thing. The Oxford English Dictionary defines an \u201catheist\u201d as someone who exhibits \u201cdisbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a god.\u201d That\u2019s me right there \u2014 and that really is the extent of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cooke continues with an assessment of the Christian legacy in world history which is rather more benevolent than anything I would venture.\u00a0 And then he goes completely off the tracks.\u00a0 As readers of this blog might guess, it happens in the context of an issue that speaks to our moral emotions – the question of Rights.\u00a0 Again quoting Cooke,<\/p>\n

A great deal of the friction between atheists and conservatives seems to derive from a reasonable question.\u00a0 “If you don’t consider that human beings are entitled to ‘God given’ liberties,” I am often asked, “don’t you believe that the unalienable rights that you spend your days defending are merely the product of ancient legal accidents or of the one-time whims of transient majorities?”\u00a0 Well, no, not really.\u00a0 As far as I can see, the American settlement can thrive perfectly well within my worldview.\u00a0 God or no God, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence are all built upon centuries of English law, human experience, and British and European philosophy, and the natural-law case for them stands nicely on its own.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not really.\u00a0 Sorry, but without a God, the “natural-law case for them” collapses as a non sequitur<\/em>.\u00a0 Without a God, “natural law” can’t grab a single Right, Good, or Evil out of anyone’s subjective consciousness and magically transmute it into a thing-in-itself.\u00a0 And in spite of the fervent wringing of hands of every conservative on the face of the planet, the fact that it can’t won’t cause a God to miraculously spring into existence.\u00a0 The subjective perception of rights in the human consciousness will continue to function just as it always has.\u00a0 That perception isn’t going anywhere, and neither requires, nor\u00a0will it\u00a0pay\u00a0any attention to the Christians who are disappointed because there’s no God to transmute the perception into an independent Thing,\u00a0nor to\u00a0atheists, conservative and otherwise, are disappointed because they can’t transmute it into a Thing by invoking equally\u00a0imaginary “natural laws.”\u00a0\u00a0 Adding insult to injury, Cooke continues,<\/p>\n

“Of the nature of this being (God),” Jefferson wrote to John Adams in 1817, “we know nothing,”\u00a0 Neither do I.\u00a0 Indeed, I do not believe that there is a “being” at all.\u00a0 And yet one can reasonably take Jefferson’s example and, without having to have an answer as to what created the world, merely rely upon the same sources as he did – upon Locke and Newton and Cicero and Bacon and, ultimately, upon one’s own human reason.\u00a0 From this, one can argue that the properties of the universe suggest self-ownership, that this self-ownership yields certain rights that should be held to be unalienable, and that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.\u00a0 After all, that’s what we’re all righting for, Right?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Pause for loud forehead slap.)\u00a0 Locke, Newton, Cicero and Bacon?\u00a0 Smart men, no doubt, but what on earth could they conceivably have known about the evolutionary origins\u00a0of such concepts as Rights?\u00a0 Good grief, Locke was a Blank Slater, albeit one of a much different color than the likes of John Stuart Mill or Ashley Montagu.\u00a0 Are we really to believe that one can\u00a0become enlightened concerning “Rights” by reading Locke, Newton, Cicero, and Bacon until one reaches a state of\u00a0Don Quixote-like stupefaction?\u00a0\u00a0“Human reason?”\u00a0 Hey, I’m game, as long as the chain of rational arguments doesn’t include the “miracle happens” step\u00a0introduced in one of Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” cartoons.\u00a0 \u00a0And the leap from “human reason” to “self-ownership” as a property of the universe?\u00a0 All I can say is, Cooke should have stopped while he was ahead.\u00a0 C’mon, man!<\/p>\n