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Sunday, November 25, 2012

'‘... a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf.'

... or, Stupid Atheist Tricks, Part 'N'

Michael Egnor has a recent post called "... a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf." concerning "[a]n atheist group at Dartmouth College [which] is planning an event aimed at skewering the reputation of the late Mother Teresa." This strange title comes from the late Christopher Hitchens' "description" and moral condemnation of that saintly woman.

Disregarding, for the sake of argument, whether or not it is true that she was "a lying, thieving" person, Mr Hitchens' asserted "description" of her certainly seems to be asserting a moral judgment about her, in particular, and about liars and thieves, in general. To wit: that one ought not be either a liar or a thief.

Now, keep in mind, Christopher Hitchens was a militant atheist. He was one of the patron saints, so to speak, of the silly and obnoxious fools known as 'New Atheists'.

The point is that -- as every rational being knows, and as every honest rational being admits -- IF atheism were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, THEN there neither is, nor could be, any such truths as "one ought" and "one ought not". IF atheism were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, THEN to assert that Mother Teresa was a liar and a thief is no more informative than to assert that she was an Albanian or a dwarf (*).

With the above logically inescapable truth in mind, I said: "Wait a cotton-picking minute, here! Since when was there anything, you know, wrong with being "... a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf"? Do 'atheists' have some rational ground by which to object to Albanians and/or dwarves?
"

This comment, of course, became the cue for one of the lying, thieving, moral midgets who infest Mr Egnor's blog to pipe up and demonstrate his intellectual dishonesty: "Wait, we're in 2012 and there still are morons who think "how can you be moral if you are an atheist?" is not a ridiculously stupid question?"

Mr Egnor tried to treat that particular intellectually hishonest Anonymouse as though he were merely mistaken, as though he simply misunderstood the point at issue, rather than as that the Anonymouse is an intelectually dishonest man -- a liar, and worse than a liar -- who will not understand the point at issue.

In response to Mr Egnor's comment to the Anonymouse, the intellectually dishonest God-hater who posts there as 'bachfiend' chose to demonstrate both his intellectual dishonesty and his disinclination to reason soundly (the two traits are differerent sides of the same coin, after all): "No you're wrong again. Morality is objective. It's not decided by the individual. It's decided by the community, the society, in which the person lives. ..."

Responding to the initial Anonymouse in his own style, I said: "Wait, we're in 2012 and there still are God-damned morons who try to pretend that the question "on what objective ground are you basing the moral assertion you just asserted?" equals the assertion that "God-haters do not know, and cannot conform themselves to, the objective moral law!""

Now, do no imagine that I was simply being profane in calling the Anonymouse 'God-damned' -- when I assert that someone is 'God-damned', I am being deadly serious. I asserted that the Anonymouse is damned-of-God because he shows himself to be an hypocrite with respect to reason and truth. Of course, that damned-of-God Anonymouse is not *really* a moron -- my use of that word was simply to echo his style -- if he really were a moron, then he'd (likely) not be able understand that what he'd said was false, in which case he couldn't be intellectually dishonest in saying it.

My point, as always, is not that these people cannot reason, but rather that they will not reason. My point is not that they are 'morons' or 'stupid', but that they are fools, that they are intellectually dishonest: for they purposely lie about the very nature of truth itself.

(*) And, by the by, Mother Teresa wasn't a dwarf, much less a lying, thieving dwarf. Though, apparently sadly, she was an Albanian. So: Hitchens got one assertion out of four correct ... which was far better than his usual average.


3 comments:

bachfiend said...

No, you're wrong too. Michael Egnor defines 'objective' as 'God given', as opposed to 'subjective' as 'defined by the individual'

I'm not a 'God hater'. I just think that there's no evidence that God exists. You can't hate a nonexistent entity.

And since there's no God, objective morality comes from society. There's no one objective morality. Some societies have a morality different to ours. Some parts of society have a morality different to the common morality of the society as a whole.

Simple logic.

Hmm. This website hoster seems user friendlier than the one Michael uses. Easier to edit.

Bedarz Iliaci said...

Per CS Lewis, a person views God (i.e. forms his notion of Good) through national lens. That is, the nations are communities with a shared notion of Good.

Thus, the Good is objective in itself i.e. independent of nations and societies but an individual's access to this Good is formed or biased by his nation.

Per CS Lewis, the national lens could be good or bad and horrid nations have bad lens (his words-horrid nations).

This, in my opinion, a correct way to resolve the perennial question of "socially conditioned morality".

Ilíon said...

"This, in my opinion, a correct way to resolve the perennial question of "socially conditioned morality"."

There is a perennial question only because:
1) intellectually dishonest persons -- such as 'bachfiend', as note in his above post -- lie about the truth of the matter;
2) and "nice" people strenuously decline to call them on their dishonesty, but instead attack those who do.

"Thus, the Good is objective in itself i.e. independent of nations and societies but an individual's [understanding of] this Good is formed or biased by his nation."

Surely. And we all -- including the intellectually dishonest 'bachfiend' -- know this.