Respectfully, I don't think we're talking past each other. I think you may be a bit uncomfortable with the direction your initial contention is now taking you, but I think we're communicating just fine.
You have personalized a simple argument, and larded it up with expressions of hurt and outrage that reflect your personal feelings — not the arguments I have advanced.
That's odd. I am neither hurt nor outraged, and in fact find this debate with you rather interesting. What did you specifically perceive as "expressions of hurt and outrage"?
The argument in the original piece was pretty simple: If one claims that life has no meaning, one lacks the tools to console — or even to justify such things as moral rules.
As I previously pointed out, your jumping off point in this contention is that the here and now is meaningless in the absence of the hereafter. To be more precise, the finite life of the here and now has no "meaning" unless it is viewed as a precursor, or testing ground, for an infinite life hereafter.
Indeed, for the honest adherent to the dominant, organized religions, this life has an exceedingly explicit meaning. In the here and now you must obey and worship the God of your religion, or in the hereafter you will suffer the consequences of condemnation. This particular "meaning" of life is, if anything, a stumbling block to consolation of anyone other than a fellow believer in good standing.
You seem to be at pains to avoid the condemnatory aspect of religious faith, going so far as to deride it as (apparently silly) talk of "kids crackling in hell," "vengeance" and "judgment." Perhaps this avoidance is because you personally adhere to a more liberal form of theism, pursuant to which God is all love and no judgment. I suspect that this is not the case, but you can certainly settle the issue by stating clearly:
(i) what consequences or judgment you believe atheists suffer for their disavowal (or stronger, rejection) of God, and(ii) what consequences or judgment you believe non-adherents to your particular religion (such as, say, Muslims) suffer for their disavowal or rejection of your religion.
For now, assuming that you do indeed accept the traditional religious precept that judgmental consequences exist for disbelief, rejection of belief, or wrong belief, then what specific "tools" would this religious faith provide to console a grieving atheist, apostate, heretic, or infidel?
If your "consolation tool" is some sort of compassionate ability to deceive the grief stricken by conveniently omitting the truth about the destination of the deceased, then in what way is this same misrepresentation-by-ommission "tool" uniquely unavailable to the atheist? You simply omit the "going to hell" information, and the atheist omits the "nothing after death" information. Both are deceptive, but both are also indisputably compassionate in their deception.
Surely you are not contending that the atheist is compelled by nature to honesty, but the religious adherent is freed by his faith to be dishonest. Or are you?
You imply that I am acting as the vengeful judge here.
No, I'm not. I fully concur with your decidedly secular description of appropriate consolation, where one does not interject the judgmental certainties of one's own religious (or non-religious) beliefs.
The piece deals merely with the contradictory nature of atheism — its implicit acceptance of moral truths (as opposed to ethical conventions, which shift with the tastes and times), and thus its tacit embrace of the fundamental principles of natural law. There’s no attempt to berate, belittle or condemn.
The "nature of atheism" that you describe in abstract terms here stands in stark contrast to your more blunt statement above -- that atheists lack the "tools to console — or even to justify such things as moral rules." This is rather curious.
While you acknowledge on the one hand that atheists "implicitly accept moral truths," you contend on the other that atheists lack the "tools" to implement those moral truths. This certainly appears to be a contention that atheists are at bottom sociopaths, who may abstractly know right from wrong, but lack the capacity to appropriately act on that knowledge (which, by the way, can hardly escape classification as an "attempt to berate, belittle or condemn.")
It is my understanding, however, that atheists perceive "moral truths" (including compassion and altruism) as a product of, and an inherent characteristic of, humanity's drive to co-exist and propagate in familial and societal units. Attribution of these moral truths to supernatural sources (and the corollary of supernatural retribution for acts contrary to delineated moral truths) can have cohesive and civilizing effects (as well as, obviously, divisive and destructive effects), but such attribution is not a prerequisite to the perception of, and adherence to, moral truths. The legitimacy and justification of moral truths is in the efficacy of their operation, not their source.
(And as an aside, there are obvious Biblical antecedents for the notion that man is imbued with an inherent sense of right and wrong, of good and evil, albeit an independently operative inherent sense that was initially transferred to man by God.)
I simply fail to see any connection between one's perception of the source of agreed upon moral truths (natural versus supernatural) and the availability of "tools to console."
I’m sorry religion enrages you. But it does so because you have adopted a caricature of faith — a grisly one at that — and made it into a pinata. If I thought of religion as you do, I would share your anger and disgust.
I'm not an atheist. And religion doesn't enrage me. Rather far from it. I just find your argument (and D'Souza's) to be lacking in rigor and foundation.
[T]he pertinent question to ask once we grant to one another our shared humanity is: Why do all generations of mankind share the same basic precepts, same feelings of compassion, the same altruism — especially toward the young — despite wild changes in the natures of societies themselves. Governments have evolved radically over the last two milennia. Basic moral precepts have not. And the overwhelming question — the one that led me, at least, back to faith is: Why?
A good question. It is one that leads many to a conclusion that basic moral truths are supernatural in origin, and many to a conclusion that they are natural in origin.
Kudos, fantastic post.