Posted by:
Richard Fox
(
)
Date: October 13, 2014 03:38AM
The point of the oft-quoted line of Gandhi--"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ"--seems to be missed by the New Atheists speaking out publicly against religion. That is, people are inveterate compartmentalizers, not fully honest with themselves and not even aware of this. Thus, when a nominal Christian (i.e., a church member) beats his kid or reviles homosexuals, discriminates against women or spouts hatred, this is not seen as an egoic compartment insulated from his religion but a true sign of it. The miscreant is always a true follower and full representative of his religion's dogmas.
If they don't allow that believers are inconsistent and often (unconsciously) hypocritical but instead insist that they are faithfully living their ideologies, should these spokespersons for the superiority of a science-backing atheism be allowed the sanctuary of compartmentalization that they deny to the theists? And to what degree? "He's a great athlete, so what if he abuses women, children, dogs...?" If on the other hand, we admit that they lack full integrity, and that's only human, we have trouble looking to atheism or science as grounds for moral philosophy. They aren't "living up to it" because it doesn't exist. This despite Harris's TED talk "Science can answer moral questions":
http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right