I respectfully disagree.
I think it is wonderful that we are able to still read posts like this one.
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We’re talking past each other, which often happens in such matters. 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.
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. If you can provide the syllogism by which meaningless translates into meaning, I want to see it.
You imply that I am acting as the vengeful judge here. Wrong: 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.
Nor do I claim “unique” powers to provide solace. I merely point out that the atheist view — life is arbitrary, without inherent meaning, and ends with one’s expiry — leads one toward moral anarchy on one hand, and personal despair on the other.
To repeat: The purpose of the piece was to review a good book — I commend it to you — and outline some of the major arguments in the debates raging about whether God exists. The basic thesis was that atheism is mired in contradictions that it cannot reconcile. That’s it. No kids crackling in hell; no vengeance or judgment. You have supplied those touches.
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.
Final point: My “secular” description of consolation was less secular than you might imagine. The simple impulses to practice compassion make absolutely no sense in a world shorn of meaning, guided by mere caprice, and eventuating in a dusty casket. There would be no reason to feel empathy, sympathy or love. But we do, whether we consider ourselves believers or not. And the 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?
45 posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 9:52:21 PM by Tony Snow
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This is a mirror into his heart and soul, and goes into depths that the MSM could not begin to understand.
Yet - here it is, right here at our fingertips.
It also demonstrates that he was a very capable writer and Freeper - and more than held his own here.
He obviously put a great deal of thought and passion into writing that response here. Why did he do that? I believe it was because he felt that the subject was something he truly believed in, and something he wanted to defend.
His God.
Moreover, the words he used are evidence (to me at least) that he is with the God he loved so much.