Painful. Closing our religion coverage for the week (a bit late, as it is the Labour Day weekend) from Rabbi Moshe Averick, in his Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused World of Modern Atheism:
Atheists are prepared to deny our very grasp on reality
Atheists are prepared to burrow very deep down the materialist rabbit hole in order to avoid any possible confrontation with the spiritual. How deep? Deep enough to cast doubt on our very connection with reality. The skeptic claims that a scientific investigation of the brain leads us to the conclusion that there resides within us a separate “executive self” is an illusion. Leaving totally aside the issue of whether or not that assessment of the data is accurate, there is a much more fundamental question that must be addressed: By what unique entitlement, privilege, or faculty does the skeptic confidently disavow as illusory the all-pervasive notion of a separate “self,” yet simultaneously justify hi absolute trust in his own perceptions and analysis regarding the “scientific” examination of the brain that led him to reach that conclusion in the first place? (p. 189) Good question. Unfortunately, the best answer I ever heard was from mid-twentieth-century Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis, in Abolition of Man:
But what never claimed objectivity cannot be destroyed by subjectivism. The impulse to scratch when I itch or to pull to pieces when I am inquisitive is immune from the solvent which is fatal to my justice, or honour, or care for posterity. When all that says “It is good” has been debunked, what says “I want” remains. It cannot be exploded or “seen through” because it never had any pretentions. The Conditioners*, therefore, must come to be motivated simply by their own pleasure.
I am not here speaking of the corrupting influence of power nor expressing the fear that under it our Conditioners will degenerate. The very words corrupt and degenerate imply a doctrine of value and are therefore meaningless in this context. My point is that those who stand outside all judgements of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse.
* Today, we would call them progressives. They have been learning this for decades at U’s and putting it into practice. It helps us understand, for example, the war on falsifiability in science, in favor of the unfalsifiable multiverse, and the endless attacks on the concept of free will. See also: Easy to be an atheist if you ignore science and Yet another “myth of free will” claim: These claims come in many varieties but their outcome, if not their purpose, is transparent: No one, including the naturalist atheist, is responsible for what he does. Consider what that means for issues like intellectual freedom and responsible government. Follow UD News at Twitter!