More on (moron) Dinesh D'Souza
D'Souza uses the Virginia Tech tragedy to blame secularists, will burn in imaginary hell after he dies for being a total fuckhole
good and evil are irrelevant, or at least subjective. it could be said that the goodness of something is evaluated in terms of first self, then family, then nation, and so on. in this context, morality is simply a social road-map to navigating ones personal desires framed against operating successfully in a larger context of civilized society.
therefore, while genocide may seem like a good short-term solution to a specific, localized problem ("if only we could get rid of zee jews.."), it is frowned on in the larger context of the survival of the species because our greedy genes want to preserve a larger gene pool and mass killing your members of your own species doesn't help that end.
dinesh may think atheism has nothing to say with regard to bereavement, and he may be partly right. grievers will contemplate the posthumous fate of their loved-ones as part of the denial phase of grieving. atheism does not claim to know about or accept as an article of fate the existence of any kind of afterlife (other than perhaps larval or microbial, but that's another story), but the religious engage in fantasy and projection (the killer is in hell, the innocent victim is in heaven).
however, d'souza is wrong about what atheism offers the bereaved because a system of belief lacking an afterlife necessarily holds life to be, quite literally, precious and fragile, and as such, it is of an even higher imperative to the socially conscious atheist to hold life in high esteem and protect it.
the belief in second chances allows one down a dangerous moral slippery slope that allows one to rationalize all order of foolish ideas from suicide to matyrdom to mass murder to "righteous warfare."
ETA -
I found this response to D'Souza on Kos, from an atheist professor at Virginia Tech. Please read it.
good and evil are irrelevant, or at least subjective. it could be said that the goodness of something is evaluated in terms of first self, then family, then nation, and so on. in this context, morality is simply a social road-map to navigating ones personal desires framed against operating successfully in a larger context of civilized society.
therefore, while genocide may seem like a good short-term solution to a specific, localized problem ("if only we could get rid of zee jews.."), it is frowned on in the larger context of the survival of the species because our greedy genes want to preserve a larger gene pool and mass killing your members of your own species doesn't help that end.
dinesh may think atheism has nothing to say with regard to bereavement, and he may be partly right. grievers will contemplate the posthumous fate of their loved-ones as part of the denial phase of grieving. atheism does not claim to know about or accept as an article of fate the existence of any kind of afterlife (other than perhaps larval or microbial, but that's another story), but the religious engage in fantasy and projection (the killer is in hell, the innocent victim is in heaven).
however, d'souza is wrong about what atheism offers the bereaved because a system of belief lacking an afterlife necessarily holds life to be, quite literally, precious and fragile, and as such, it is of an even higher imperative to the socially conscious atheist to hold life in high esteem and protect it.
the belief in second chances allows one down a dangerous moral slippery slope that allows one to rationalize all order of foolish ideas from suicide to matyrdom to mass murder to "righteous warfare."
ETA -
I found this response to D'Souza on Kos, from an atheist professor at Virginia Tech. Please read it.
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