Over at The Secular Outpost, Jeff Lower has been posting various things to buff up the public image of atheists. He uses terms like “bigotry,” “hypocrisy,” “unfriendly theism,” “prejudice,” and “stereotyping” to characterize Americans in general and Christians or “theists” in particular who don’t “trust” atheists.
This insinuates that ignorance is the only reason people distrust atheists. Well, let’s take a concrete reason why I distrust atheists, especially in the public policy sphere:
PT: One of the aspects of your philosophy that is most galling to some people is that you don't view human life as sacred. According to you, since a person in a vegetative coma is a being without self-awareness, he or she should be accorded fewer rights than a fully-aware chimpanzee. Needless to say, you've enraged a bunch of religious and disabled folk.
PS: But you really have to question human superiority What justifies the things we do to animals? What justifies keeping a person in a vegetative coma alive? There are two basic views that support cruelty to animals: either you accept the Aristotelian view that the universe has a purpose and the less rational are here to serve the more rational, or you believe the Judeo-Christian view that God has given us dominion over the world. But once you get away from those two worldviews, there just isn't a basis for drawing a sharp moral boundary between us and them.
Singer has drawn the lines very logically and clearly. My distrust isn’t “prejudicial” or “bigoted.” I’m not “stereotyping” atheists. Rather, I giving my informed opinion. I’m getting this straight from the horse’s mouth.
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