Secularists: We’re Fine Without God, Thanks
Re “Building Better Secularists” (column, Feb. 3):
David Brooks says secular individuals have to build their own moral philosophies, while religious people inherit creeds that have evolved over centuries. Autonomous secular people are called upon to settle on their own individual sacred convictions.
Secularists don’t have to “build” anything; we can choose moral philosophies from what’s already well tested. If religious people think that their “faith” excuses them from evaluating the duties and taboos handed down to them, they are morally obtuse.
Does Mr. Brooks think that religious people are not “called upon to settle on their own individual sacred convictions”? Children may be excused for taking it on authority, but not adults.
Mr. Brooks writes, “Religious people are motivated by their love for God and their fervent desire to please Him.”
We secularists have no need for love of any imaginary being
, since there is a bounty of real things in the world to love, and to motivate us: peace, justice, freedom, learning, music, art, science, nature, love and health, for instance.
Our advice: Eliminate the middleman, and love the good stuff that we know is real.
DANIEL C. DENNETT
Medford, Mass.
The writer, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, is co-author of “Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/opinion/secularists-were-fine-without-god-thanks.html?_r=0
How presumptuous of David Brooks to instruct us “secularists” on how to live the moral life. We have to build our own moral philosophies? Nonsense. I learned mine from my atheistic parents and from teachers throughout my education (not to mention Aristotle, Kant, Mill and the many other moral philosophers I studied).
We have to reflect on spiritual matters? No, I reflect on the injustices in this world, why so many children in the United States go hungry, and why centuries of violence continue to persist in the name of religion.
In place of the religious spiritual life, we atheists may be enraptured by a Beethoven symphony, moved by the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, enchanted by a Rembrandt portrait.
We have to build our own Sabbaths? No, thanks; I’ll spend my secular weekends at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, attending a New York Philharmonic concert or rereading “A Theory of Justice,” by John Rawls.
RUTH MACKLIN
Bronx
The writer is a professor of bioethics in the department of epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/opinion/secularists-were-fine-without-god-thanks.html?_r=0
I wonder when these so called intelligent men will own mankinds own shyte instead of trying to make out God doesn't exist by making out he doesn't intervene in mankinds stupidity and force a good outcome. If He did that life would not be worth living and we would not have a free will. We would just be mindless robots forced to act a certain way.
Either way you cut it Athiest rants about God are moot as they have no way of proving one doesn't exist at all.
Forum
Pages: 
God Does Not Exist. End of Story.... (Read 84269 times)
