The preacher, PZ Myers, also saith,
You aren’t you because of some grand design, but because of chance, contingency, and selection. Your genome is a mess of detritus with a tiny fraction of well-honed functionality, and your body is cobbled together from the framework of a tetrapod — you bear the scars of chance throughout…
This thoroughly stinks of biology that is outdated by, at least, decades as he seems to be referencing junk DNA, vestigial organs, etc. Yet, as science progresses such pseudo-scientific mythology regresses. We have found that there is no junk DNA (also see Backwardly wired retina “an optimal structure”: New eye discovery further demolishes Dawkins) and that there are no useless vestigial organs (also see Vestigial Organs Are Fully Functional: A History and Evaluation of the Vestigial Organ Origins Concept). PZ Myers is going from preaching about a mythological creature by which we share common decent to concluding that we are accidents of natural laws—it is all one big it just is…it just happened… claim. If you can believe in natural accidents stumbling into life—life from non-life, consciousness from non-consciousness, morality from amorality, etc—then, he appears to hope, you can believe that God does not exist and all based on a dogmatheistic quaint Victorian Era story.
Now, apparently to his satisfaction, having disproved the Christian worldview—by asking up to accept his assertions by authority—he reveals the new revelation the new and better way: behold, hear yea, thus saith Myers:
This is our new heresy. We have killed our heavenly father, demolished that cozy personal (but imaginary!) relationship with a great and caring being. We are alone, orphans in an indifferent universe. We atheists must be a cold and broken people, without hope, without love. But of course, we’re not, and I think this change in our vision of our relationship to the universe is humankind’s great good hope…
new and better ways to visualize our relationship with the universe. Father and child is inadequate; we have to think in terms of populations and species interacting (not dominating), of being part of an environment… here’s the wonderful revelation. If you’re a well-adjusted person, once you’ve discarded the unhealthy fictitious relationship with a phantasm, you can look around and notice all those other people who are likewise alone, and you’ll realize that we’re all alone together. And that means you aren’t alone at all — you’re among friends… with no gods and no masters, only autonomous agents free to think and act.
Firstly, note again the all encompassing nature of his statement, “This is our new heresy” unless he is using the plural of majesty; which may be another issue altogether.
He proclaims the death of God just as Friedrich Nietzsche did 128 years ago. Let us pray that this time the proclamation that “We have killed our heavenly father” will not be followed by that which followed Nietzsche’s proclamation; the most secular and bloodiest century in human history wherein atheists slaughtered hundreds of millions of people—see my section on Adolf Hitler / Nazism / Communism That he wants species to interact and not dominate is interesting in, at least, two ways: one is how does he suppose we will keep a species such as bacteria, for example, from dominating us without us dominating them? Secondly, he may be playing off of a talking-point about Genesis 1:28 that states, “…fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Yet, the whole issue of oppressing the environment which comes from a misunderstanding of this issue is specifically detailed by Philip Sampson in his book 6 Modern Myths About Christianity and Western Civilization
Now, what is to stop the next most secular and bloodiest century in human history? After all, PZ Myers is preaching a neo-relationship with the universe and the universe is “indifferent” which is why “atheists must be a cold and broken people, without hope, without love.” Well, because he claims that they are not. But why not? Because his wonderful revelation is to foster a relationship with the indifferent universe which expresses itself via “species interacting.” Yet, since the premise is the relationship with the indifferent universe; species can logically interact by loving each other or eating each other and it does not matter which. But it does matter because once you accept that you are alone, there if no God, and the universe is indifferent you can find other doomed souls and pretend that there is subjective meaning in an objectively meaningless existence. Only then will you realize that you have “no masters” and that we are all “autonomous agents free to think and act” which can mean that we are free to love each other or eat each other since the universe is indifferent, there is no God, we have no master, we are autonomous and free to act.
I realize that PZ Myers’ envisages a utopian world in which the conclusion is humanity singing kumbaya but it can just as easily and logically conclude the way I have proposed. And that is just the point; by destroying an absolute point of reference, such as our God given morality he destroys and one conclusion and opens the door, as did Friedrich Nietzsche, who at least recognized it, to anything at all.