Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Hmm …

… Ross Douthat is Wrong About Secularism and Ethics | New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)


Cosmology doesn’t give one iota of evidence for a purpose (it could!) or for God. Most of the universe is cold, bleak, airless, and uninhabitable. In fact, such a cosmology harmonizes far better with a secular moral picture than a religious one. Secularists see a universe without apparent purpose and realize that we must forge our own purposes and ethics, not derive them from a God for which there’s no evidence.

How exactly does the second sentence in any way demonstrate the point of the first, as I presume it is meant to? Coldness, bleakness, airlessness, and uninhabitability do not account for themselves and might well be the characteristics of a created universe, or the greater part of one. They certainly do not demonstrate purposelessness (or purposefulness, for that matter). And exactly on what basis are we to forge purpose in a universe presumed to lack any?

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