I sometimes wonder if authors write books specifically for me. Walter Mead's Special Providence is one such book. It discusses American foreign policy under the broad washes of Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, Wilsonian and Jacksonian doctrines. It also asks why is American foreign policy blind to its own history, presuming it all started with WWII, when American politics and even the American nation was so reliant on American politicians getting the foreign policy right. (more)
Michael Gerson has an article in the WaPo which argues that atheists are unable to explain how someone is moral without their being some theistic intervention in the natural world; acknowledged by the individual or not. Gerson discredits Kantian morality and Bentham's utilitarianism in coming to the conclusion that without understanding that the moral qualities of "love, harmony and sympathy" flow through God as creator then morality becomes a cruel joke of nature and is deprived of goodness or moral quality. (more)
cam : To take this to logical conclusions: theists can objectively judge the moral conduct of others because they have made an irrational leap of faith in a god. This means that recognising morality in others is irrational - ie gut feeling - which places limits in its replicability and value.
Theists should just say, "I believe my love for god makes me a better a person and makes reflect more closely on moral actions and being." I would have no problem with that. But when you argue that atheists lack moral character because they have not made a leap of faith - it just discredits their own piety.
avocadia : My experience is that the people who make this claim, that there is no morality except divinely-inspired morality, are the same people who claim that to get into their heaven you cannot simply be a moral and just person, you must also have faith in their god. To some extent this is a rational action for their cult to take, it bolsters the authority of the priests over the herd - you have to have faith and listen to the priests, you can't just go it alone and be a good person because if you do, it'll be Hell for you.
Essentially it seem to translate to, theists believe humanity is evil and immoral as a base state - Fall of Man and all that - and that morality can only be imposed under threat. That is, if there are two humans - one a believer and one not - who act identically, the one who *isn't* under threat of eternal punishment is the one bunging it on. The one who does believe themselves to be under such threat, well, he's the one to take at face value.
I disagree. I would contend that morality under threat of eternal punishment is morality taken in bad faith. Pun gleefully intended.
The rest of them that sprout this mealy-mouthed apologia for pink, invisible unicorns? They're just trying to keep their herds under the thumb.
cam : which places limits in its replicability and value. To clarify, it becomes arbitrary.
Everitt on Augustus: "Perhaps the most instructive aspect of Augustus' approach to politics was his twin recognition that in the long run power was unsustainable without consent, and consent could best be won by associating radical constitutional change with a traditional and moralizing ideology." (more)
The most immoral law a nation-state can make is one that coerces an individual into taking another individuals life. In the issue of conscription, it is immoral for a nation-state to use their monopoly on coercion to force an individual into service and then place them in a position where they may be required to take the life of another individual.
The nation-state does this for their own perpetuation, glory and selfish interests. It can be argued that moral clarity of any issue is lost once it becomes political and falls into the vehicle of state power. The original
Defence Act of 1903
(link is to current legislative form) contained language that prohibited the government from forcing conscripts to serve outside of Australia. This was a very moral law.
(more)
