“We can safely say that the teachings of Richard Dawkins have never inspired anybody to move their family to sub-Saharan Africa to dig wells.” – Christianity Today
Can Atheists Dig A Hole for Themselves?
Reflections on Christianity, Art, Nature, and Culture
Curious Christian
This raises good questions.
Are the people of primary importance for the future of humanity the intellectual elite? Probably, yes, insofar as progress in knowledge of nature (and thus medicine, to pick the most humanitarian angle) is concerned. Is objective progress the most important kind for subjective human beings?
Does objective utilitarian value this make the elite more important? On utilitarian terms, of course, yes. Are most of humanity, most of the time, surplus to requirements, at best in competition with the elite for resources, and at worst an active threat to their well-being? Again, seemingly yes.
Are people working on community projects in sub-Saharan Africa therefore ignoring their obligation to the infinite number of humans who may live in the future?
Is quantity of life banal without quality, so that a short live of love is better than a long life of accomplishment. and the appeal to posterity a betrayal of those now living? That would seem to entail that working with the intellectually disabled is just as valuable as finding new vaccines.
Should equality, once morally ‘discovered’, then be recognizable (if not derivable) for all moral people, atheists included, and thus as validly atheistic a conviction as it is Christian? Does that make it morally right, so that dissenters are morally wrong?
Does equality scale up into a imperative love ethic?
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Well of course Nietzsche challenged the whole basis of egalitarianism, and I reckon he was much more self consistant than Dawkins, so you raise some interesting questions.
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