I debate this topic as often as I see it. I keep telling these people that the current existing atheists are polluted with Christian doctrine and Ideas because they grew up in a Christianity based society.
What they think is enlightened based altruism is in fact just habits sown by ubiquitous Christian teachings and ideas. That they think the one can exist without the other is a false notion.
Modern Atheists only exist because Christian society is the only sort of society which will tolerate them. If they tried advocating Atheism in a Muslim society, they would quickly be killed. Others would then decide it wasn't healthy to entertain such thoughts or discuss such ideas.
We have some history of Atheist societies. Soviet Russia murdered ~50 million people, and Communist China may have murdered as many as 100 million people. The Khmer Rouge only managed to get a paltry two million, and the fact that none of these atheist societies seem overly concerned with this enlightened altruism business ought to be sufficient proof that these ideas are utter nonsense.
These people are dangerous fools tampering with social structures that they do not understand, and they will break down another "Chesterton Fence" all to discover that they have loosed much destruction on themselves and society.
They are very much like drug legalizers in this regard.
They are very much like drug legalizers in this regard.
"Chesterton's fence is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood."
The 'reasoning' behind the existing pot criminalization is that unemployed Prohibitionists whipped up a frenzy about crazy Mexicans and white-woman-seducing Negro jazz listeners - a 'problem' every bit as bogus as globull warming, and manufactured for the same reason: more power.