rationalskepticism.org

‘Your “meaning”, “purpose” and “value” has no significance outside of your own head. That is fine, as long as you don’t pretend it is more than that. ‘

As I said, it has significance to my friends, family, to the society in which I live, to the few people my passage through life encounters and I leave a mark on in some way (hopefully positively ). As does yours, and no more than that.

“Your “values” have no more or less significance than the “values” of Josef Stalin, Glen Beck, or Keith Olberman. Different strokes, for different folks.”

That’s such an obvious bait towards an emotional reaction. If that is so for me, it is also so for you. There’s no rational connection between your previous paragraph and this one.

“This is not anything original. It is the position of nearly every atheistic philosopher on the planet.”

Might it not be that you have failed to read ‘every atheistic philosopher on the planet’ incorrectly (sic) as you appear to project your own emotions onto others – perhaps that gets in the way of seeing other people’s position clearly. For example, I have just explained to you that little atheist me, a person of no consequence compared to these great and famous names, has in fact got purpose, value and meaning in their life. You have accepted that, but have you really let it sink in to show you that your argument was wrong, was faulty, was devoid of logic? We are all too eager to create ‘us/them’ dichotomies. Meaning, purpose and value are intrinsic characteristics of ALL humans – when you say otherwise, you dehumanise people. That surely can’t be your message?

“Michael Ruse has written explicitly that in objective reality there is no reason why we should not rape,pillage, and murder, it that is what suits us.”

Has he? I will have to take your word for that as I have never read anything by him. However, that means nothing with respect to me. I can give you a very simple reason on which ALL human societies operate that express why we don’t rape, pillage and murder…. the golden rule – do unto others as you would have done unto you. That’s the foundation stone of ‘civilization’, how we broke out of being disparate, isolated kin-groups. If we hadn’t followed this basic rule, we wouldn’t be here enjoying the amazing technology that’s the product of a civilized society which lets us communicate over such a huge distance in next to real time. When you dehumanise others, comforting yourself that ‘they’ don’t have purpose, morality, value, etc… you are fighting against this rule… that’s why you know you are wrong, and why you really should have apologised to me for having inferred that my best course of action is suicide.

As for Dawkins, Singer, Russell – I am familiar with what they’ve written, and they certainly DO NOT say that we should rape, murder and pillage: that’s a misrepresentation. For example, Dawkins would explain human cooperation as a fundamental part of mammalian evolution which has reached its pinnacle in us. Did you not read/see his ‘Nice guys finish first’? – there are very good reasons for this that do not require deference to unsubstantiated supernatural entities.

“Hitchens, true to form, is fundamentally dishonest on this issue. He says that anyone who disagrees with his moral values is by defintion a psychopath or sociopath.”

See, that to me looks like you are quoting him… but having heard Hitchens speak a lot on a wide number of issues, I have never heard him even remotely suggest this. Again, I wonder if it is a product of your underlying need to create an us/them scenario where you can blame the atheists for their failings so you can forgive yourself your own.