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No Atheists (Still) Need Apply
Washington Post ^ | Susan Jacoby

Posted on 12/28/2006 4:15:11 PM PST by quesney

In nearly every interview about my book, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism,I am asked whether I am an atheist or an agnostic. The bias--a profoundly American bias--implicit in this question is that only an "unbeliever" would want to write a historical work about the secular influences on the founding and development of our nation.

[...]

What we ought to be talking about are decent human values that can be subscribed to by Americans of any faith or no faith. I could not care less whether any elected official believes in God: I care about what he or she does on earth. As an atheist, I believe precisely what the Bible says on this subject: "By their fruits ye shall know them."

(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: agnostics; atheism; atheists; deists; discrimination; theists
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To: ShadowDancer
I have a big problem with any public official who says that our rights are not God given.

Or even hints they might not be God given.

101 posted on 12/29/2006 2:28:01 PM PST by Tribune7 (Conservatives hold bad behavior against their leaders. Dims don't.)
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To: Gay State Conservative

What about someone who is a self-proclaimed agnostic but has a voting record and personal morals that match up with yours?


102 posted on 12/29/2006 2:31:03 PM PST by RockinRight (To compare Congress to drunken sailors is an insult to drunken sailors. - Ronald W. Reagan)
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To: stands2reason
What keeps him from the temptation? Social programing?

Note that prior I didn't say such a person would, I said he lacks certain beliefs that would make him more likely able to rationalize his act.

103 posted on 12/29/2006 3:13:39 PM PST by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: LibertarianSchmoe

The very concept of rights is founded in religion.

Since the enlightened person is freed from any superstitions about some "God," they are free from having to worry about "rights." Only raw power counts and humans are just meat puppets for the powerful.

Look at this puppet on a string...

http://pandachute.com/videos/leaked_saddam_being_hung_video


104 posted on 12/30/2006 5:12:09 PM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (LET'S ROLL!)
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To: RockinRight

The very concept of rights is founded in religion.

Since the enlightened person is freed from any superstitions about some "God," they are free from having to worry about "rights." Only raw power counts and humans are just meat puppets for the powerful.

Look at this puppet on a string...

http://pandachute.com/videos/leaked_saddam_being_hung_video


105 posted on 12/30/2006 5:13:42 PM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (LET'S ROLL!)
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To: ShadowDancer
What boggles my mind right now is that so many people here would and do blindly follow some fool just because they say they believe in God or Jesus.

I knew it! You really are a commie!

As for me, well...

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

106 posted on 12/30/2006 7:23:25 PM PST by NoCurrentFreeperByThatName (You lie, cheat and steal.)
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
The very concept of rights is founded in religion.

Historically that may be true. But rights are not logically dependent on religion in the least. Rights are dependent on the requirements of human nature. Humans require individual rights in order to thrive. And setting up a world where we can thrive is the whole point of having a system of morality in the first place.

Since the enlightened person is freed from any superstitions about some "God," they are free from having to worry about "rights." Only raw power counts and humans are just meat puppets for the powerful.

No, all we need to be moral is to understand the difference between short term and long term consequences of our actions. One needs to be able to think in terms of principles, and not just in ad-hoc, spur of the moment horizons. This has nothing to do with whether there's a supernatural father-figure out there with a supernatural switch ready to take us to the supernatural woodshed if we disobey whatever rules he happened to think up.

Look at this puppet on a string... http://pandachute.com/videos/leaked_saddam_being_hung_video

What - are you saying you think the execution of Saddam was a BAD thing??? That the Iraqis were treating Saddam like a meat puppet??? Please, do walk us through your logic here. I expect it will be... delightfully esoteric. ;-)

107 posted on 12/31/2006 1:07:45 AM PST by jennyp (Just a one-day suspension? That's bait & switch!)
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To: 1000 silverlings
Just today I read that the word was invented by Aldous Huxley.

Nope.
It was Thomas Henry Huxley, Aldous' grandfather.

108 posted on 12/31/2006 2:18:05 AM PST by dread78645 (Evolution. A doomed theory since 1859.)
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To: jennyp
No, all we need to be moral is to understand the difference between short term and long term consequences of our actions.

Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct in human behavior.

The very idea that human beings have individual rights not subject to the whims of an earthly monarch, but subject to the laws of Yahweh, is directly from Moses.

In Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates advanced the argument that piety to the gods is impossible if the gods all want different things. Morality is impossible, because all humans have different morals and they are idols of human design.

Claims of morality is sophistry without some singular higher power defining what it is.

109 posted on 12/31/2006 5:09:29 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (LET'S ROLL!)
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To: dread78645

Yes, you're right. That's what relying on a faulty memory gets you. Thanks


110 posted on 12/31/2006 10:25:23 AM PST by 1000 silverlings (stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the Cross)
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
Claims of morality is sophistry without some singular higher power defining what it is.

Sure, but the "higher power" is not a person. It's the objective truth of human nature and what kinds of behavior thriving in that environment requires.

Uh-oh, I can see your fingers itching to press the cut & paste button, but please do try to respond to that in your own words this time.

111 posted on 12/31/2006 12:06:28 PM PST by jennyp (Just a one-day suspension? That's bait & switch!)
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To: jennyp
...please do try to respond to that in your own words this time.

Everything I write, with the exception of attributed quotes, is my own copywritten material.


It's the objective truth of human nature and what kinds of behavior thriving in that environment requires.

That is sophistry, or do you want to concede that MIGHT MAKES RIGHT ???

Claims of morality is sophistry without some singular higher power defining what it is.

Again, returning to Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates advanced the argument that piety to the gods who all want different things is impossible. Socrates exposed the pagan esoteric sophistry.

The mythical rights of men and women are meaningless.

The very concept of rights is also founded in religion.

Since the enlightened person is freed from any superstitions about some "God," they are free from having to worry about "rights." Only raw power counts and humans are just meat puppets for the powerful...

MIGHT MAKES RIGHT is your argument, not mine.

112 posted on 12/31/2006 5:04:22 PM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (LET'S ROLL!)
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
Why do you believe that might makes right? "Might makes right" is simply a restating of "all victors throughout history were in the right. Never has a wronged party to an armed dispute ever lost. Their defeats prove they were in the wrong to begin with."

Needless to say, that's absurd.

I think you are indeed an atheist - a recent convert, in fact. But as you have stated here, you agree with theists that the only way one can justify a morality is by positing a supernatural dictator who can arbitrarily impose a moral code on everyone.

I think that, deep down, you are terrified that you've lost your intellectual trust in the concept of morality as such. You're desperately clinging to this simplistic might-makes-right construction because it's the only one you think you can logically justify, but that's going to fall apart for you pretty soon as you gain some wisdom in your real life. Besides, I'm sure you realize on some level, even this moment, that "might makes right" is absurd. And you don't believe in that deus ex machina God who could supply something that kinda-sorta looks like a stand-in for objective morality. And you can't extricate yourself from this contradiction.

And yet... you believe in morality. Against everything you think you know. Morality just... refuses... to... be... reasoned... away. Or perhaps it's that you just... viscerally... cannot... give... up... on... some... any... belief... in... morality.

I do hope that when the philosophical terror gets too much, you remember what we Objectivists have been trying to explain to you: Human nature, and the behaviors & principles that it implies are necessary in order to thrive as humans, is that objective "higher power" you're searching for that prevents enlightened self-interest from devolving into nihilistic subjectivism.

113 posted on 12/31/2006 11:52:16 PM PST by jennyp (Just a one-day suspension? That's bait & switch!)
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To: jennyp
Why do you believe that might makes right?

It is what you believe. I am not a "believer."


I think you are indeed an atheist -

I am not an ecumenical atheist. I am not an orthodox atheist. There are no such things.


You're desperately clinging to this simplistic might-makes-right construction because it's the only one you think you can logically justify,...

I have proven with LOGIC, as did Socrates before me; that without some singular higher power defining what is correct for human behavior, morality is an arbitrary esoteric hobgoblin, an idol of human design.


And yet... you believe in morality.

Where have I said that?

An atheist who says I am immoral is no different than a preacher or rabbi saying I am a sinner.

Morality and all of it associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.


I'm sure you realize on some level, even this moment, that "might makes right" is absurd.

Dear, your Freudian slip is showing...


I do hope that when the philosophical terror gets too much, you remember what we Objectivists...

You are not gods, you just like to play them. The cult of personality that has grown up around Ayn Rand (one of my favorite writers) has become exactly like the sophists Socrates was fighting against in ancient Athens.


Human nature, and the behaviors & principles that it implies...

Proves that humans are devolving into nihilistic subjectivism.

114 posted on 01/01/2007 2:11:14 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (LET'S ROLL!)
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
"That is sophistry, or do you want to concede that MIGHT MAKES RIGHT ???"

Ahh. There it is. Never mind the previous post, at least your consistent.
115 posted on 01/13/2007 8:38:08 AM PST by ndt
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To: ndt
Never mind the previous post, at least your consistent.

Never mind me, logic is consistent on its own merit...

116 posted on 01/13/2007 12:44:46 PM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (LET'S ROLL!)
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