PZ Myers, professor of atheism at the University of Minnesota, took umbrage at statements made by Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana, whom Myers refers to as, “profoundly stupid” and “a mindless ratbag” (PZ Myers, “I’m so sorry for you, Indiana,” Pharyngula, December 27, 2009)
Since Mitch Daniels had recommended the book “No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers” by Michael Novak, “which Daniels characterized as responding to ‘aggressive atheism’ with Christian charity” he was promoted to make a statement about atheism.
Sadly, but as per usual, PZ Myers appears to have reacted emotionally and thus not only missed Daniel’s point but peppered his response with an assortment of fallacies. Governor Daniels stated, in part:
People who reject the idea of a God -who think that we’re just accidental protoplasm- have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications -which not all such folks have thought through- because really, if we are just accidental, if this life is all there is, if there is no eternal standard of right and wrong, then all that matters is power.
And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists -Stalin and Hitler and Mao and so forth- because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no judgment and there is nothing other than the brief time we spend on this Earth.
Clearly missing the point, Myers wrote:
…my ideal society would not be led by an autocrat who thought power was a sufficient justification for his actions…nor do I think that a culture built around obedience to tradition, as interpreted by a tribunal of priests, is my idea of a desirable society. And I’m an atheist. Why would a mindless ratbag politician like Daniels think that my dream world would be led by a dictator? I get so tired of being told by the ignorant that my goal is to put a Stalin in power, when they dream of a Palin.
Mitch Daniels did not claim that an atheist’s “dream world would be led by a dictator” nor that their goal “is to put a Stalin in power.” The point is that, whether they want it or not, there are logical conclusions of atheism and the history of the 20th century are evidence of this as it was the most secular and bloodies century in human history due, almost exclusively, to atheist regimes. The fact that he likens Joseph Stalin, the atheist Communist murderer of some 20,000,000 people, to Sarah Palin is disappointingly indicative of the manner in which PZ Myers concocts his arguments.
One particularly fallacious assertion of Myers’ was that “Equality was an ideal of the Enlightenment…not Christianity.” Let us consider the overarching concept that God created both males and females in His image (Genesis 1:27). Next, consider the following statements:
…the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all (Colossians 3:11).
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).
In Christ we are all equal as there are no—gender, national or racial—ontological distinctions.
Now, why juxtapose Myers as a priest versus Daniel as a politician?
Firstly, Myers is an adherent of the sect of atheism which positively affirms the non-existence of god(s) and does so by “faith”—without evidence or proof of any sort. In his response to Mitch Daniels he wrote that “There are no gods” and thus, any appeals to “god-given absolute morality” or “theocratic morality” are “false” and something that “we ought to reject” (note the moral imperative, “we ought to”)—and we must reject them as false based upon PZ Myers’ unfounded atheist assertion, upon Myers’ authority.
Moreover, note Myers’ characterization of Daniel’s morality, “how hollow his morality is at the core; he cannot imagine a good life without a priest telling him what is right and wrong.” Yet, in the very next paragraph morality is bequeathed via the Myersian priesthood as PZ tells us what is right and wrong:
In the absence of a, all that matters is how we treat one another in this one life we have. What flows naturally to me is not brutality, which requires an absence of awareness of the suffering of others, but recognition of the fact that my fellow human beings really are my equals: we’re all going to die, we only have these few brief decades of life, and who am I to deny someone else the same opportunities I’ve been given?
However nice this may sound, the fact is that in a God-free universe there is no moral imperative, no “god-given absolute morality.” In fact, Myers’ further asserts that “There is no eternal standard of right and wrong.”
Thus, the priest is excommunicated as a moral guide, Myers takes his place and yet, even whilst promulgating his moral imperatives he admits that there is no eternal standard of right and wrong. Thus, Myers’ morality is merely the fleeting bio-chemically induced assertions of a bio-organism spinning on a little rock in the universe’s backwaters.
They may be appealing moral assertions, they make perfect epistemic sense, he may find other bio-organisms who agree and attempt to put them into place yet, how will they administrate these moral? Either by envisaging an utopian world in which we all “just get along” or by force.
Thus, PZ Myers besmirches Mitch Daniel’s morality whilst promulgating his own, which he admits is not absolute. GK Chesterton’s words ring ever true (from a chapter of his 1908 AD book “Orthodoxy” entitled “The Suicide of Thought”), “…the new rebel is a Sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything…the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it.”
Certainly, PZ Myers is emotive, exiting and knows how to push all of those little buttons that cause his reader’s adrenaline to spike but his words must be considered and dissected so as to consider his actual content and this is precisely where he is weakest.
A much more detailed dissection of his various fallacies in responding to Mitch Daniels at this link.
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