{"id":5966,"date":"2011-08-16T13:49:50","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T18:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=5966"},"modified":"2015-03-29T15:02:53","modified_gmt":"2015-03-29T15:02:53","slug":"on-why-slate-gets-atheism-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=5966","title":{"rendered":"On Why Slate Gets Atheism Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Slate today asks a provocative question — Which is worse for evangelicals like Rick Perry — being an atheist or a Muslim?<\/a><\/p>\n

Writer Brian Palmer answers “atheism.” And while I agree with his answer, I disagree with his reasoning.<\/p>\n

Writes Palmer: “The ancient and medieval Christians wouldn’t have had much to say about pure atheism, which is an 18th-century concept. Their closest analog would have been Epicureanism — the belief that worldly pleasure matters above all. In Christian-themed literature, at least, Epicureans were held in special contempt.”<\/p>\n

Even if Palmer is correct, which I doubt as there’s little in common between atheism (a non-belief in deities) and epicureanism (an elevation of human pleasure as the highest moral principle), he misses the bigger picture. There’s a far more basic, a much simpler reason why an evangelical Christian would be more accepting of a Muslim than an atheist.<\/p>\n

Atheists, contrary to Palmer, are not hedonists. Nor are atheists nihilists (believers in nothing). Atheists lack a god. That’s it and that’s all.<\/p>\n

Muslims worship the same Abrahamic god that Jews and Christians worship.<\/p>\n

Atheists think that the Abrahamic god is bunk.<\/p>\n

A Muslim is in the same spiritual neighborhood as a Christian. An atheist isn’t even on the same continent.<\/p>\n

To a Christian, a Muslim is mistaken in a lot of the theological differences, but at the end of the day they accept the same deity at the center of their spiritual life. An atheist, however, represents a complete and total rejection of that spiritual core. It’s not a mistaken theological difference like a Muslim or, even further out, a Buddhist or Hindu. For an evangelical Christian like Rick Perry, an atheist is something worse<\/b> — an atheist is an outright denial of something absolutely fundamental to a Christian’s identity. An atheist is simply wrong<\/i> in ways that godly non-Christians are not.<\/p>\n

I agree with Palmer — an evangelical Christian would be more accepting of a Muslim than an atheist. I simply disagree with Palmer’s reasoning; not only does Palmer’s reasoning not make sense (and is beside the point, to boot), but he misses the critical reason why a Christian would be bothered by an atheist.<\/p>\n

Of course, now I’m bound to go home and reread Sam Kieth’s Epicurus the Sage<\/a><\/i>. Brilliant, brilliant stuff. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Slate today asks a provocative question — Which is worse for evangelicals like Rick Perry — being an atheist or a Muslim? Writer Brian Palmer answers “atheism.” And while I agree with his answer, I disagree with his reasoning. Writes Palmer: “The ancient and medieval Christians wouldn’t have had much to say about pure atheism,Continue reading “On Why Slate Gets Atheism Wrong”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[4104,63,4118,4108],"class_list":["post-5966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","tag-atheism","tag-christianity","tag-philosophy","tag-politics","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}