More on Christianity, Atheism, and Ethics

Interesting…your opinion is certainly valid, but I would suggest you might re-think on a couple issues:

I don’t know of any other system of ethics for personal behavior that is superior to:
1. the Golden rule (which is also the ground for human dignity)
2. Love (which is the ground for human relationships)
3. Forgiveness (which is the ground for living in relationships and in peace)

One and three I believe are unique in spread to Christian belief systems. Certainly given that the Bible and the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren were some of the highest selling books in history that would mean that it might also. Bruce Sheiman provides a pretty good refutation from an Atheist point of view (perhaps more agnostic in some respects) or even Alister McGrath (Oxford) or more at a meta-level also NT Wright in Simply Christian (formerly of Oxford). Finally, The Dawkins Letters makes similar arguments to McGrath.

Second, that you are an atheist doesn’t make you responsible for everything all atheists do. Similarly, as a religous person I’m not responsible for the abuse of those values. Specifically, because I’m a specific instance of that value system.

That atheists are so critical of the New Atheists for the lack of a targeted, logical, and non-essentialist argument is truly telling.

Forgiveness and grace is a weird thing. Its fundamentally about a change of heart. A change of ones heart in someway is a fundamental change in ones way of viewing the world and being in the world. Relationships without forgiveness are subject to equal problems of ever racheting up cycles and violence and revenge. Certainly, we could get into a discussion of what constitutes forgiveness and when we should forgive–I’m not sure I’m in a position to provide easy answers on those questions.