Remember The Three Faces of Eve, starring Joanne Woodward? The character suffered from multiple-personality disorder.
On the one hand, there was Eve White, the mousey, fridge housewife.
On the other hand, there was Eve Black, the risqué party girl.
Under psychoanalysis, the character was able to merge her two personality in Jane.
John Loftus also suffers from an identity crisis. You see, there are two of him.
Unfortunately, he’s been considerably less successful in reintegrating his two personalities.
On the one hand, there's Johnny Six-pack Loftus.
This is the ordinary Joe who retains his intuitive belief in moral absolutes. Hence, you get his unguarded, knee-jerk reaction to examples of good and evil—at least as he views them. Hence, the brimstone fulminations of a modern Ingersoll.
On the other hand, there's John Atheologian Loftus.
When he's donning his atheologian’s top hat, he affects the austere opinion that there are no moral absolutes, since there's no elbowroom for moral absolutes in his religiously disinfected, secular outlook.
The real Loftus and his secular alter-ego vie for control, like a patient who suffers from multiple personality disorder. When one personality seizes control, the other is suppressed, and vice versa.
John Atheologian tries to deploy a chemically pure, internal argument from evil, but he can't keep Johnny Six-pack from resurfacing at socially inappropriate moments—rather like Eve Black reemerging at the church social.
The self-consciously amoral Atheologian keeps slipping back into his blue collar, default setting. Other militant unbelievers who suffer from this acute disorder include Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins.
Loftus is that curious, but perennial apostate oddity—the hellfire preacher who lost his faith in hellfire. The fire has gone out of his faith, but the fiery, homiletical rhetoric remains.
^We will not testify against you that day, this will, and you will receive your answer then.
ReplyDeleteNo, John, you'll be snuffed out like a candle. For as long as it takes the smoke from said candle to disappear, that's as long as it will take for your memory to disappear.
ReplyDeleteNo one will remember you. All your blogging and debating will be seen to have been a waste. The world will continue on just as if you had never been born.
For about 15 minutes you'll be remembered as that dude in the cowboy hat who spent the rest of his life trying to convince people that someone he thought was imaginary wasn't real.
Then people will take a deep breath, say something 'nice' about you, and then go on with their lives. It will basically be like you were never born.
"I don't like the concept of hell, therefore it's not real."
ReplyDeleteI don't like the concept of dying, therefore I have invented an imaginary world where I live forever, and everyone else that doesn't buy in to my fantasy gets toasted!
ReplyDeleteI don't like the concept of utilitarianism myself. That's one flawed system of ethics...
ReplyDelete