Reasonism Versus Areasonism

I’m watching Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0, and after Sam Harris’s talk there was a comment from the audience (at 48:20) that perhaps a good replacement for atheist would be reasonist, because the prefix a- is usually applied by those who are in the position of power within a given paradigm, to identify those who reject that paradigm. So we should turn the tables and call theists areasonists.

The comment somewhat misunderstands the etymology of atheist, which is not actually a derivation of theist, but in fact comes to us more or less intact from the ancient Greek atheos. Anyway that’s quibbling over a minor detail and is beside the point.

I love the idea. It’s really just a reworking of rationalism versus irrationalism, but the a- prefix has the added benefit of drawing a connection to atheism, with the hope (at least for me) that the point would not be lost on the recipient of the areasonist label.

Atheists: Please Stop Talking About Morality In Absolutist Terms

There are no universal morals or ethics. It sickens me when atheists speak as though there were. It is a total cop-out. I understand that it can be difficult to discuss societal ideals without the context of right and wrong, but if you want to live in reality you simply must learn to do so. Morality is a human construct; it shifts like the winds. This need not be a problem unless you are a dogmatic, doctrinal demagogue. Whatever the percentage of theists who fit that description, the percentage of atheists is at least as high.

As for you theists, do not think that you have just picked up some free points. The basis for your system of morality is even shakier. Just because you have an ancient book that spells it out for you doesn’t make it any more real. At least (some) atheists take the time to explain the evolutionary utility of a system of right and wrong. You simply invoke God, as you do for everything else. So hush.

Back to the atheists: stop it. No, seriously, fucking stop doing it, please. It is exceedingly embarrassing to those of us who understand that the concept of morality was invented out of whole cloth and, moreover, who feel no need to invoke morality to explain why we hold various political positions. When you show theists that you need morals as much as they do, you make yourselves look like abject fools and, sadly, this is projected onto the rest of us, by those even bigger fools who believe that atheism is a cohesive “worldview.”

If you think it is inconsistent for me to ask you to view morality as I do, even as I deny such a cohesion, imagine how inconsistent you appear as you count off the planks of secular naturalism on nine fingers, then poke into the ether with the tenth, pretending to point to “morality.”