I think he expanded on this point a bit, talking about how atheists are generally unfulfilled people. It's a bit more than that, but that's the idea. Atheists are not fulfilled people.
Like the old saying goes, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.
Not everyone is a zealot, but everyone that's ever been exposed to the conflicts of real life winds up believing in something. Eventually, some atheists will settle into causes that they use in place of spiritual belief. For instance, the ACLU or science. Others just don't think about it.
Well rounded atheists are like famous moderate leaders in history. They just don't exist. Every atheist I have ever known, regardless of temperment, seems to lack some element of the human dynamic. I suspect this is the authors point.
I’ve found that unsupportable attacks out of left field like that usually say more about the accuser than the accused. Simply because one’s stand is not based in theology", does not mean that he “stands for nothing”.
Translation: If you don't believe that the real world is but a pawn in a battle between competing supernatural personalities who only communicate to us via mental telepathy, then you'll be bereft of moral convictions.
Makes sense to me!
Not everyone is a zealot, but everyone that's ever been exposed to the conflicts of real life winds up believing in something. Eventually, some atheists will settle into causes that they use in place of spiritual belief. For instance, the ACLU or science. Others just don't think about it.
Now that's an interesting claim: Science itself is a "spiritual belief". It would seem to me that the scientific process is the very antithesis of a spiritual belief. Science is a method of investigating the world that's designed to eliminate as much subjectivity as possible, thus leading as close to truly objective knowledge of the world as possible.
If that qualifies as a "spiritual belief" to you, then how can the term "spiritual belief" have any meaning at all?
I think you're confusing yourself because you assume that the only way we can come up with something to care about is through belief in supernatural people. But rest assured, there are many people and causes right here in the real world that are quite important enough to compel us to build & uphold secure moral principles.