Letting the side down

“If people who are highly educated are going to turn anti-social behaviour into a kind of joke, and make of antisocial people heroes for the entire country, you can hardly be surprised when public behaviour deteriorates.”

- Theodore Dalrymple

Again I preface an article with a quotation from Theodore Dalrymple – because the man speaks such sense.

This article is about the place, the company, in which I find myself being an atheist. Recently I attended a secularist social evening. I should first of all say that people cannot really be defined by a negative, but their not believing in God – that is true. I agree with Sam Harris’ concerns about the very term “atheist”. Nonetheless one often notices an apparent moral apathy among non-believers. This is not a necessary connection of course, but a noticeable one nonetheless.

Religious people at least have a book from which they cherry pick the good bits as a moral guide. At least this is typical of Type 1 Christians. Non-believers have no such book. The fact they do not believe says nothing about their morality. Very often they are the kind of atheist who just doesn’t care about anything very much, and is not against religion on intellectual grounds or moral grounds. Its just all too much trouble. Other times, and this is what I think I have noticed in some, especially younger, people in the secular movement, they are against religion mainly because it is seen by them to impose rules. Just to impose rules, which may or may not restrict them.

Liberals, leftists, radicals, these people, it seems to me, are often against religion not because it contains certain inconsistencies or is metaphysically unsound, but actually because it might limit the complete abandon and laissez faire morality so beloved by many liberals. This is unfortunate.

Here is a definition of Humanism found on the British Humanist Association’s website:

“Humanism is an approach to life based on humanity and reason – humanists recognise that moral values are properly founded on human nature and experience alone and that the aims of morality should be human welfare, happiness and fulfillment.”

This is all very well, excellent.. there is more like it on the same page. The funny thing is, one can often observe high profile humanists drinking liberally and smoking habitually. Smoking is of course extremely anti-social and harmful to the individual. I need surely not produce studies to show this. Likewise excessive use of alcohol is very damaging, the UK currently being the binge drinking capital of Europe. Not such good examples to be setting, perhaps.

Not to miss out, leading “Humanists” can also be found getting themselves tattooed. Even asking for sponsorship to do so. But aside from the fact that tattoos are arguably vulgar:

“A study of “at-risk” (as defined by school absenteeism and truancy) adolescent girls showed a positive correlation between body-modification and negative feelings towards the body and self-esteem.”

Source

There can be health risks associated with getting tattoos and of course they hardly teach the lesson of thinking in the long term and not acting only for the present moment – one of the problems of our age.

I might add it is not in fact “radical” to be tattooed now. It is following the herd. In Britain, by contrast, it has now only become truly radical to assert any views which are not liberal.

Anyway, these things, especially the smoking, surprise me in many high profile Humanists, and they remind me that nothing necessarily unites non-believers. I believe such behaviour though provides an open goal to religious people who can then point to “atheist” decadence.

Meanwhile, this decadence is laughed about by the “Humanists” themselves. At the aforementioned social event, the argument was even propounded by a comedian that Islam could never succeed in a country where the official response to a terrorist threat was to drink beer. Funny, sure, but only perhaps in an embarrassing way – because, in fact, the precise opposite is the truth. If we were serious, we would admit that.

We’re fiddling, with our multicultural naivete, our moral relativism and our decadence, while Rome burns. Meanwhile, many Muslim women who are not being converted to modern, fashionable, nihilism, are at home having children. Islam has its values very clear, and respect for us doesn’t feature in them. Sometimes you can see why.

One of the greatest Humanist lectures I have ever heard took place, actually, here. At the Grace Fellowship church in Brevard County, Florida. It was a year or so ago now. The “preacher” made good point after good point, it has to be said. He spoke for example about the importance of being a good husband and father, the importance of the family unit, the importance of self control. He said “When someone asks you what you do, tell them your interests. Don’t allow yourself to be defined only by your job”. He made many very sound, Humanist points. He was confident of his values, and they were good values, which make a mockery of the nihilism, or the “protest for protest’s sake” commonly found here in the UK. He tacked Jesus on at the end now and then, of course, but this actually wasn’t necssary – the points stood up on their own.

Often religious people seem, at least overtly, to value decent behaviour more then non-religious people do. Some (even non-believers) therefore argue that religion is indeed desirable in society, on balance, the reason being that it is necessary as a guide for those who otherwise would be unable to live morally. Of course, not all of the advice in religious books is moral, but believers tend to turn a blind eye to the bad parts. Perhaps some do indeed need the threat of a God. I am undecided about this argument, the “Argument from Utility”. I know I do not need religion, but perhaps I should not judge everybody as I judge myself.

In any case, I find that sadly I do not often share the values of my fellow “Humanists”. I am more likely to share the values of Type 1 Christians, even though I do not share their metaphysical beliefs. A sad state of affairs indeed.