Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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Hoosiernorm
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Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Hoosiernorm »

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyy ... ortal.html
This is my last post for the Patheos Atheist Portal
June 18, 2012

For several years, a lot of my friends have been telling me I had an inconsistent and unsustainable philosophy. ”A virtue ethicist atheist whose transhumanism seems to be rooted in dualism? Who won’t shut up about moral lapses as wounds to the soul and keeps trying to convince us it’s better to be sinned against than sinning? Who has started talking about mortifying her pride and keeps pulling out Lewis and Chesterton quotes? C’mon, convert already.”
I could see where they were coming from, but I stayed put. I was ready to admit that there were parts of Christianity and Catholicism that seemed like a pretty good match for the bits of my moral system that I was most sure of, while meanwhile my own philosophy was pretty kludged together and not particularly satisfactory. But I couldn’t pick consistency over my construction project as long as I didn’t believe it was true.
While I kept working, I tried to keep my eyes open for ways I could test which world I was in, but a lot of the evidence for Christianity was only compelling to me if I at least presupposed Deism. Meanwhile, on the other side, I kept running into moral philosophers who seemed really helpful, until I discovered that their study of virtue ethics has led them to take a tumble into the Tiber. (I’m looking at you, MacIntyre!).
Then, the night before Palm Sunday (I have excellent liturgical timing), I was up at my alma mater for an alumni debate. I had another round of translating a lot of principles out of Catholic in order to use them in my speech, which prompted the now traditional heckling from my friends. After the debate, I buttonholed a Christian friend for another argument. During the discussion, he prodded me on where I thought moral law came from in my metaphysics. I talked about morality as though it were some kind of Platonic form, remote from the plane that humans existed on. He wanted to know where the connection was.
I could hypothesize how a Forms-material world link would work in the case of mathematics (a little long and off topic for this post, but pretty much the canonical idea of recognizing Two-ness as the quality that’s shared by two chairs and two houses, etc. Once you get the natural numbers, the rest of mathematics is in your grasp). But I didn’t have an analogue for how humans got bootstrap up to get even a partial understanding of objective moral law.
I’ve heard some explanations that try to bake morality into the natural world by reaching for evolutionary psychology. They argue that moral dispositions are evolutionarily triumphant over selfishness, or they talk about group selection, or something else. Usually, these proposed solutions radically misunderstand a) evolution b) moral philosophy or c) both. I didn’t think the answer was there. My friend pressed me to stop beating up on other people’s explanations and offer one of my own.
“I don’t know,” I said. ”I’ve got bupkis.”
“Your best guess.”
“I haven’t got one.”
“You must have some idea.”
“I don’t know. I’ve got nothing. I guess Morality just loves me or something.”
“…”
“Ok, ok, yes, I heard what I just said. Give me a second and let me decide if I believe it.”
It turns out I did.
I believed that the Moral Law wasn’t just a Platonic truth, abstract and distant. It turns out I actually believed it was some kind of Person, as well as Truth. And there was one religion that seemed like the most promising way to reach back to that living Truth. I asked my friend what he suggest we do now, and we prayed the night office of the Liturgy of the Hours together (I’ve kept up with that since). Then I suggested hugs and playing Mumford and Sons really, really loudly.
After I changed my mind, I decided to take a little time to make sure I really believed what I thought I believed, before telling my friends, family, and, now, all of you. That left me with the question of what to do about my atheism blog. My solution was to just not write anything I disagreed with. Enough of my friends had accused me of writing in a crypto-Catholic style that I figured no one would notice if I were actually crypto-Catholic for a month and a half (i.e. everything from “Upon this ROC…” on) . That means you already have a bit of a preview of what has and hasn’t changed. I’m still confused about the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, I still need to do a lot of work to accept gifts graciously, and I still love steam engines.
Starting tomorrow, this blog is moving to the the Patheos Catholic channel (the url and RSS will remain unchanged). Meanwhile, I’m in RCIA classes at a DC parish, so you can look forward to more Parsing Catholicism tags (and after the discussion of universalism we had last week, I think it will be prudent to add a “Possibly Heretical” category).
This post isn’t the final word on my conversion. I’m sure there’s a lot more explaining and arguing to do, so be a little charitable in your read of this post and try to give me a little time to expand my ideas over the next few weeks. (Based on my in-person arguments to date, it seems like most of my atheist friends disagree two or three steps back from my deciding Morality is actually God. They usually diverge back around the bit where I assert morality, like math, is objective and independent of humans. As one of my friends said, “Well, I guess if I were a weird quasi-Platonist virtue ethicist, this would probably convince me”).
And how am I doing? Well, I’m baking now (cracking eggs is pretty much the least gnostic thing I can do, since it’s so, so disgusting to touch, and putting effort into food as more than the ransom my body demands for continued function is the second least gnostic). I’ve been using the Liturgy of the Hours and St. Patrick’s Breastplate for most of my prayer attempts. and, over all, I feel a bit like Valentine in this speech from Arcadia.
Been busy doing stuff
Ibrahim
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Ibrahim »

People convert from something to something every day. It's a regular theological stockyard out there.
Hoosiernorm
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Hoosiernorm »

Ibrahim wrote:People convert from something to something every day. It's a regular theological stockyard out there.
It's definitely a great way to increase your readership. How well is the atheist press read? I mean they don't get to comment on much of anything except religion. No one asks an atheist about politics, or art unless there is something for them to speak against. It's got to be rewarding to have an immediate readership and to be able to speak on a much wider platform.
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Ibrahim
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Ibrahim »

Hoosiernorm wrote:How well is the atheist press read? I mean they don't get to comment on much of anything except religion. No one asks an atheist about politics, or art unless there is something for them to speak against. It's got to be rewarding to have an immediate readership and to be able to speak on a much wider platform.
There are numerous vitriolic atheist authors who routinely produced bestsellers on the subject, most of them are science writers as well.

But I don't understand what you mean about them not getting to comment on art or politics. What would it matter?
Hoosiernorm
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Hoosiernorm »

Ibrahim wrote:
Hoosiernorm wrote:How well is the atheist press read? I mean they don't get to comment on much of anything except religion. No one asks an atheist about politics, or art unless there is something for them to speak against. It's got to be rewarding to have an immediate readership and to be able to speak on a much wider platform.
There are numerous vitriolic atheist authors who routinely produced bestsellers on the subject, most of them are science writers as well.

But I don't understand what you mean about them not getting to comment on art or politics. What would it matter?
Well if you wanted a perspective that was either completely objective then you would have to figure out which model you would use to speak through. Most marxist criticisms work well on that point but gives only a political perspective and a limited one at that. Religious commentators and writers can usually speak to a wider issue and give a critique of politics and ethics in a way that is usually more of a cultural convention. Atheists are usually just stuck with explaining why religion is either wrong but never on if it is incorrect. One faith tradition can speak to another on whether it is correct or incorrect when it comes to doctrine or doxy but atheism is not very useful except as an alternative to religion. Even Hitchens had a limited audience in America and he was a writer and thinker that comes along only every so often. Most folks would here an interview with him and say how can such a bright man be so incredibly wrong about God.
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Ibrahim
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Ibrahim »

Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and the rest of the gang all wrote bestsellers, that's all I'm saying. How many people agreed with them is beside the point.



I still don't understand why an atheist can't write on the same range of topic as anyone else.
Hoosiernorm
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Hoosiernorm »

Ibrahim wrote:Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and the rest of the gang all wrote bestsellers, that's all I'm saying. How many people agreed with them is beside the point.



I still don't understand why an atheist can't write on the same range of topic as anyone else.
I don't know why aren't there any teleatheists
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Ibrahim
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Ibrahim »

Hoosiernorm wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and the rest of the gang all wrote bestsellers, that's all I'm saying. How many people agreed with them is beside the point.



I still don't understand why an atheist can't write on the same range of topic as anyone else.
I don't know why aren't there any teleatheists
Actually that would be a good term to describe Bill Maher's career.
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Enki
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Enki »

Bill Maher has spent his entire career trying to demonstrate that an atheist can be as much of a loud-mouthed douchebag as any evangelist.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
Hoosiernorm
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Hoosiernorm »

Ibrahim wrote:
Hoosiernorm wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and the rest of the gang all wrote bestsellers, that's all I'm saying. How many people agreed with them is beside the point.



I still don't understand why an atheist can't write on the same range of topic as anyone else.
I don't know why aren't there any teleatheists
Actually that would be a good term to describe Bill Maher's career.
I never thought of him that way. You know that makes more sense now that you say it.
Been busy doing stuff
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Taboo
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Taboo »

”A virtue ethicist atheist whose transhumanism seems to be rooted in dualism? Who won’t shut up about moral lapses as wounds to the soul and keeps trying to convince us it’s better to be sinned against than sinning? Who has started talking about mortifying her pride and keeps pulling out Lewis and Chesterton quotes? C’mon, convert already.”
Indeed.
Ibrahim
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Ibrahim »

Taboo wrote:
”A virtue ethicist atheist whose transhumanism seems to be rooted in dualism? Who won’t shut up about moral lapses as wounds to the soul and keeps trying to convince us it’s better to be sinned against than sinning? Who has started talking about mortifying her pride and keeps pulling out Lewis and Chesterton quotes? C’mon, convert already.”
Indeed.

Actually this is a pretty poor argument. It's not inherent in any belief system (or lack thereof) that anything said or written by other systems is automatically discounted. Not that I have or would quote Lewis or Chesterton, even at gunpoint.
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Taboo
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Re: Leah Libresco's Coming Out Party

Post by Taboo »

Ibrahim wrote:
Taboo wrote:
”A virtue ethicist atheist whose transhumanism seems to be rooted in dualism? Who won’t shut up about moral lapses as wounds to the soul and keeps trying to convince us it’s better to be sinned against than sinning? Who has started talking about mortifying her pride and keeps pulling out Lewis and Chesterton quotes? C’mon, convert already.”
Indeed.

Actually this is a pretty poor argument. It's not inherent in any belief system (or lack thereof) that anything said or written by other systems is automatically discounted. Not that I have or would quote Lewis or Chesterton, even at gunpoint.
It's not the quoting of worthless pap from Lewis, it's the dualism that has me confused.
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