Behavioral Ecology Blog

I guess I should not expect much from the Conservative Voice and in particular the nuts over at The Creators Syndicate, but this article is really really silly- even for them….

An excerpt:

Where’s God in the liberal moral equation? Nowhere to be found — and with good reason. The American left now stands for the wholesale displacement of traditional religious morality and the utter rejection of the Divine. “We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion,” atheistic commentator Christopher Hitchens writes in his new best seller, “God Is Not Great.” Hitchens, consciously or unconsciously, speaks for the liberal movement.

A recent Gallup poll showed overwhelming liberal support for homosexual activity (83 percent), premarital sex (89 percent), illegitimacy (83 percent), abortion (67 percent) and doctor-assisted suicide (73 percent). Liberals support polygamy, adultery and cloning humans at an exponentially higher rate than conservatives. The top moral issue on the liberal agenda seems to be global warming. (”It is a moral issue, it is an ethical issue,” spouts Al Gore.) Liberals seem far less comfortable discussing the moral implications of a precipitate withdrawal from Iraq.

This, then, is the “ethical life” proposed by the liberals who echo Hitchens: the unethical life of moral lassitude. It is a collective program of moral abdication on the international and domestic fronts. It is the substitution of libertinism for liberty, accompanied by the substitution of enforced fairness for individual freedom.

Liberalism’s morality is philosophically bankrupt. Its atheism precludes the human capability for free will — without a soul, we are nothing but mechanistic products of genetics and environment — yet it simultaneously insists on an infinite capability for individual and societal perfection. It asserts the potentiality for a triumph of the will, while obliterating the basis for willpower. It champions the “natural,” while maintaining that nature need not dictate social relations. It weds deterministic Darwinism to Marxist utopianism.

Despite liberal ethics’ internal contradictions, they have largely triumphed in America over the past 40 years. The same Gallup poll showed that Americans now believe in the moral acceptability of premarital sex (59 percent to 38 percent), illegitimacy (54 to 42) and doctor-assisted suicide (49 to 44). Large minorities believe in the moral acceptability of homosexuality (47 percent) and abortion (40 percent).

A morality promoting licentiousness is a powerful temptation. As a societal morality, however, it is doomed to failure. The consequences of legitimating illegitimacy and abortion have been dire — the plague of fatherlessness combined with the vast killing of the unborn is crippling America economically and demographically. Excusing homosexuality and premarital sex has bred cynicism, jadedness, illness and broken homes.

I guess he is trying to say that atheism causes these particular moral positions- that atheists are pro-abortion, pro-adultery, and pro-illegitimacy (BTW: what does that mean anyway??)… But I’d say that atheism is defined only in terms of the absence of psychological dependence on mythical creatures- and not in terms of moral values…. I tend to think that atheists are likely more moral that religious fundamentalists- only because their views are not clouded by the perceived desires of a “higher being”. Point is: there are many religious beliefs that are highly immoral..

For instance- homosexuality. Most Christians would consider homosexual behavior to be highly immoral, primarily because the bible or Poop says so.. In contrast- most atheists, unbridled by religion feel that homosexuality is strictly moral- 2 individuals can do to each other whatever they like..

Now about abortion- the religious see abortion as strictly taboo- it’s is considered a priori as immoral. Now many atheists see abortion as an issue of choice- women have the control over their own bodies and can do with them what they please. Obviously, this means that there will be a greater proportion of atheists that support abortion-rights.

I just blogged about the confusion between correlation and causation, and once again it is confused. Atheism does not cause people to act morally or immorally, but might be correlated with a particular belief..