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Philosophical Points

Why you gotta dis the big ‘G’?

As secular culture is increasingly reviled by its enemies at home and abroad, an intellectual revolution has steadily

emerged.  Religions have clung to their dogmas in a failure to come to terms with the advancements in scientific

knowledge and the changes in contemporary culture, and increasingly scientists and philosophers have endorsed

atheism as a response to this failure. Minds such as Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and

Christopher Hitchens have unleashed critiques on the sacred precepts of faith in defense of a secular worldview based

on reason alone. Christianity, which has long ruled the moral domain in the West, has dug in its heels to protect

cherished traditions threatened by these purveyors of doubt.

Although there is a rich diversity of individual faith perspectives, there is a key factor that tends to dichotomize the

religous from the non-religious: a belief in the supernatural. Is there a God? Believers of various faiths may disagree on

very important claims; however, they are all unanimously aligned against those who call the existence of a God into

question.

These chaotic amalgamations of believers and skeptics must either collide or migrate to separate realms. There are

those in each camp who desire each niche to follow what notion pleases them and respect whatever crazy shit their

opponent accepts, and there are those who desire to demonstrate the superiority of their perspective over their

opponent. While the option of peaceful coexistence seems the more serenely inviting of the two (separate domains

such as with Gould’s notion of non-overlapping magisteria), the ideal of human moral improvement demands that we

explore the options rationally and openly and choose the correct path using those thought mechanisms known to

provide results over those that claim to impart results in a realm to which we have no real access.

In order to even approach the possibility of succeeding with the goal of engaging in constructive debate, the two parties

must agree to embrace the rules of logic and reason or, quite frankly, anything goes. When anything goes, power bullies

its way over right or wrong in the corruptible journey to serve itself.  As a result, this debate becomes more than just

interesting - it becomes important.