As context for this post I read an excellent history of atheism called The Twilight of Atheism recently (while I was in Sydney) and I have been mulling it over ever since.

One of the main things that really stands out to me is the the absurdity of the view that there is no meaning in the universe. Dawkins is a strident atheist and makes a fairly loud (though) logically flawed argument for it in The God Delusion essentially claiming that the universe is simply a brute fact. It just is and that's it. For example: "There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference...".

Okay, so it's pretty clear from this that he sees that the universe just is. There is no higher purpose, no morality external to it, to us. I'd be able to accept this is he was just consistent with it, but he is not. In the God Delusion he considers that one of the most vile things a person can do is give their child a religious upbringing. Do you see the problem here? This is a profoundly moral statement. He is expressing a deeply moral view and yet, if he actually adhered to his spoken worldview, what he is saying is actually meaningless.

It's meaningless because there is nothing upon which to base his view. The universe just is, there is "no evil". It literally makes no sense to call something vile if there is no good and evil. It's not even some kind of relativism, he is not simply expressing a personal opinion. According to his stated worldview there is literally no meaning in his moral statements, not in any of them.

He is in an obsurd position, where he denies anything that can give real meaning to his words, and yet he still makes them, loudly and stridently. And, in fact, any worldview that makes the claim that the universe is all there is, is left in the same position.

I read the paper and I see articles loudly proclaiming Israel's moral deficiency in their assault on Gaza; articles written by atheists (I know in a couple of examples that this is true, and guess it in other cases), by secular humanists. How can they declare that Israel is morally bankrupt in it's actions. There can be no morality, not moral statements here.

To quote Kai Nelson, an atheist philsopher: "We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons, unhoodwinked by myth or ideology, need not be individual egosist or classical amoralists. Reason doesn't decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasent one. Reflection on it depresses me...Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality."

Nietzsche saw this, as did Satre, Camus, Monod and others, and grappled with it in different, equally contradictory ways. The reality is that if kill God any kind of ethic that allows you to make moral statements about others, to make meaningful moral statements, even about yourself, dies with him/her/it.

As Nietzsche said in The Gay Science:
"God is Dead...And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves?"

To take the universe as brute fact, that we are born, we live and then we die, literally makes it all pointless; absurd. If there is no God, then objective right and wrong cannot exist. As Dostoyevsky said, "All things are permitted."

It's a free for all, there is no compelling reason not to simply do as you wish. In fact, the most compelling ethic may well be to be completely selfish. If all you get is your four score and 10, why waste it in altruism? This is not a world I'd like to live in.

It reminds me of a story I heard once, that highlights the central inconsistency of this kind of morally relativistic position. I doubt this is actually true, but it's a good story. It goes that a philosophy professor was teaching a course in ethics. During the course of the year he demonstrated the flaws in moral relativism and all but one of his students rejected it. The guy who didn't remained stridently relativistic. When it came to marking the final essays the student wrote a brilliant defense of relativism, and the professor marked it with an "F". The student, upon getting his essay back, demanded to meet with the professor. He insisted the professor tell him why his essay had been marked so, as he thought it was a good essay. The professor replied: "Did you think it was a good essay? Well, one of the criteria I have for a good essay is that they are not written in red ink (as the essay was) so I gave you an F". The student replied "That's not fair" and the professor said; "Really, but it's my opinion, I think essays written in red are not as good as ones written in black. You are entitled to you opinion, this is mine." And in so doing demonstrated that the student was a moral relatvist, until such point as it impinged negatively on him.

Like I say, I doubt the story is true, but it highlights the central inconsistency that seems to plague writers who claim to hold a to a view that there is no deeper meaning to anything.

I don't think appeals to basic human rights really hild water when given some thought. Basically they suffer from the same problem.

None of this is an argument for the existence of God, just thoughts on the implications of worldviews that deny a transcendant morality (i.e. theism, platonism etc). I am still mulling it all over...