Nearly two years ago, a photojournalist by the name of Chris Johnson asked me if I would participate in his new book featuring 100 atheists on how they lead joyful, meaningful lives without religion. I immediately said yes.

I am happy to report that the book, A Better Life: 100 Atheists Speak Out on Joy & Meaning in a World Without God, has finally been released and is now available for purchase.

As you might be able to tell from the following photos of my two-page spread, the book is absolutely beautiful. Chris is a top-notch photographer who caught his participants not just in places where they find joy and meaning, but in actual moments of joy and meaning. For instance, my photos were taken at the Lincoln Memorial, where I often go to reflect and recalibrate during key or challenging periods in my life.

To add substance and context, Chris paired the photos with essays by, and interviews with, the participants — which include everyone from widely known intellectuals (Dan Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Patricia Churchland), magicians (Penn & Teller, Derren Brown, James Randi), actors and actresses (Adam Pascal, Robert Llewellyn, Julia Sweeney), to even world-class climbers (Alex Honnold).

I seriously urge you to buy a copy and flip through the spreads for all 100 people featured in this marvelous book. In the meantime, you can enjoy my spread and entry here:

Like most people in the world, I was raised to believe in a God. I was born into in a Roman Catholic family, so the God I grew up to believe in was all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. He took care of those faithful to him and his values, both protecting them on Earth and providing them eternal bliss after death.

I firmly believed in this God until I went college, at which point I was confronted with a surprisingly wide range of views on religion. Intrigued by this, I began to read more about the world’s religions. Soon enough, I had doubts regarding the merits of own faith. By the time I graduated from college and entered the workforce, I had discarded my religious beliefs as unsupportable, and accepted that I was an atheist.

On the surface, my life is not very different from when I was religious. For instance, despite some initial difficulties, I have remained in a loving relationship with my family. I have remained close with many of the same great friends I’ve been lucky enough to have since childhood. And I still enjoy hobbies such as baseball, music, reading, writing, and exploring nature.

However, soon after becoming an atheist I did notice a significant change in my perspective and motivations. I used to believe that God would take care of everything; that this life was simply a pre-cursor to eternity. I no longer believed those things. My new perspective was that humans are responsible for taking care of each other; that this life is all that matters.

This new perspective sparked within me a new and intense dedication to living my best life now, and helping others to do the same. I believe it also increased my satisfaction in existing pursuits and experiences, and pushed me into new areas of interest.

Putting religious explanations aside, I began to develop a deep curiosity in science and philosophy. I now actively seek out scientific evidence and theories on how life on earth began and evolved, how and why life operates as it does, and even how this universe came to exist in this fashion in the first place. In turn, I have developed a new appreciation for nature. Recently I was at the Grand Canyon – how incredible to stand before a miles-wide, and miles-deep valley and think that was formed by natural processes, over billions of years! Scientific explanations do not remove the wonder from the world – if anything, they add to it. They reveal how beautifully complex creatures or natural structures were formed over billions of years, and will continue to be formed long after I die. They put into context and, I think, make more stunning my existence – which will last maybe 100 years on a planet that has been here for 4.5 billion years in a universe that has been here for 13.7 billion years.

I also have become interested in exploring and reflecting on morality – beliefs about what is right and wrong – and its relationship to government and society – how those beliefs shape the world around us. If there is no one dictating our behavior, we have to take it upon ourselves to be virtuous persons. If God doesn’t exist or hasn’t made guidelines, then we have a lot of our own work to do, and – given the impact these guidelines have on everyone – we better come up with good ones. This is challenging. In fact, many people believe it is impossible. I believe it is possible, and I find the challenge empowering. What we do with our lives is not up to some unknowable God – it is up to us!

I also now find more meaning in companionship. I think I used to take advantage of my relationships with friends, loved ones, and significant others, because I didn’t realize how lucky I am to have all these people around me who care about me. Now I try my hardest to value and realize the importance of each moment I get with all these wonderful people in my life. Some of the best days of my life have consisted of nothing more than sitting in a backyard with my relatives, strolling around a local park on a sunny day with a friend, or lying in bed on a rainy day with my significant other. These people care deeply about my well-being, as I care deeply about theirs. It is incredible, and I am truly lucky, to be able to experience life with them.

Lastly, my desire to help others has greatly increased. In particular, I have developed a serious personal and professional commitment to helping other humans to enjoy the freedoms to belief and expressions that I am able to enjoy living in the United States, but they cannot by accident of where they live. It pains me that people face persecution or legal punishment simply for doubting the prevailing cultural or religious beliefs in which they were raised. One example of this can be seen in the plight of Alexander Aan, the Indonesian civil servant who in June 2012 was sentenced to 30 months in prison for posting about atheism on Facebook. I have tried to assist Alex, and despite all of the challenges he has have faced, he has stayed strong, positive, and thankful. It is an incredible testament to the human will.

This is one of the reasons why I love the National Mall. I often come here weeknights – perhaps after a tough day on the job or in life – and reflect on the figures enshrined in history all around me. Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr. … these people all sacrificed so much – Lincoln and MLK, their lives – to help others. I feel I will have wasted my life if I do not strive to meet their standards.

Categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: a better life, atheism, book, god, joy, love, meaning, religion

On celebrating and justifying abortion

Michael De Dora

Posted on January 22, 2014

Today is 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in the 1973 case Roe v. Wade, in which the Court decided that the right to privacy, under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, extended to a woman’s decision to have an abortion. Today is also the 41st March for Life in Washington, D.C., a direct response to Roe v. Wade that gathers thousands of religious Americans to march around the National Mall, ending at the Supreme Court, to call for the end of a woman’s right to have abortion.

In response to these two events, there have been many pro-choice Tweets and Facebook posts today celebrating the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the importance of a woman having the right and ability to choose to have an abortion.

But should people celebrate abortion? Consider the following passage from this article by “progressive Evangelical” Rachel Held Evans (which I found here):

I squirmed on the couch when, during the 2012 Democratic National Convention, cheers erupted upon every mention of a woman’s “right to choose.” A lot of pro-choice folks like to say that “no one is pro-abortion,” but when celebratory concert series and festivals are organized around the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, I can’t help but question the degree to which we have desensitized ourselves to the reality that abortion means the termination of, at the very least, a potential life, something that should never be celebrated with balloons and rock concerts.

I can understand her point. Given the nature of an abortion, and the circumstances in which most women have one, the procedure is probably not something to be celebrated with “balloons and rock concerts,” but simply accepted as an necessary, if not unfortunate, reality.

Yet, consider for a moment the woman who is raped by a stranger, or by her father. Consider the woman who might die without an abortion. Consider the woman who would be forced to carry to term a dead or dying fetus. Consider the woman who is simply not ready for a child. Or consider any other circumstance in which a woman might feel as if the setting is not right to bring a child into the world. As traumatic as some of these events are, should these women not be glad — and perhaps even celebrate at some point — that they were able to have an abortion?

More broadly, for most of human history women have not had the right or the means to control their reproductive systems. Only in the past 100 years, and especially since Roe v. Wade, has this changed. Religious conservatives have worked their hardest to ban and even criminalize abortion. Many people have devoted their lives to fending off these attacks and, so far, they have succeeded: abortion remains legal, if still largely unavailable. By consequence, the modern woman has a great many more life options before her than women of the past 10,000 years. Is this not something to celebrate?

Which brings me to the subject of justifying the right to have an abortion. Here is Held Evans again:

What frustrates me about the pro-choice movement is the lengths to which advocates go to de-humanize unborn children and sanitize the abortion procedure, reducing life to nothing more than a cluster of cells and the implications of pregnancy to little more than a choice. The word “fetus” is used instead of “child.” Efforts to encourage women to receive counseling prior to an abortion are stubbornly opposed. The argument is framed around the woman’s body exclusively, as if the fetus is inconsequential, and pro-life advocates are characterized as being “against” women’s rights.

I found this interesting because several years ago, when I was writing for Massimo Pigliucci’s excellent blog Rationally Speaking, I made a similar point:

… for political liberals at least, it seems abortion is already a women’s rights issue. We rarely hear our lawmakers or other public officials defending the legality of abortion based on the concepts of the soul or fetal personhood; instead, we hear them argue that a woman should have the right to choose. Yet … roughly half of Americans think abortion should be usually or always illegal, objecting to the practice because it is the destruction of something worth our moral concerns and/or rights. Many liberals are hesitant on this matter because of their faith, or their fear of upsetting social norms. Polling data suggests public opinion has been unchanged over the years on this issue. What can we do, then, to solve our problem?

(Note: I’ve edited some of the text from my post for brevity and clarity.)

This is a problem I continue to see: many pro-choice advocates rely almost entirely on the women’s rights argument for abortion, and never explain why abortion is a woman’s right. To be clear, I believe women should be able to make reproductive choices without interference from religious believers and politicians. But ignoring why the women’s rights argument holds merit does not help to move our log-jammed debate on abortion:

For the political right, abortion is almost always wrong because it is murder. Liberals respond that women have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies. But, then, liberals are effectively defending a woman’s right to commit murder, and thus the debate wrongly focuses on how much power we give women over their body and the fetus. Instead, what liberals must first do is defend why abortion should be a woman’s choice. I suspect liberals avoid this move for at least two reasons: first, liberals don’t often like to dig too deeply into religiously influenced issues, as debate can get contentious; and second, liberals have already won the moral case in their own minds. But open, honest debate is necessary in our open democracy. And even if you have won a debate in your own mind, you still need to convince the public you are right. So, how can a supporter of choice do that?

Well, we can do two things: find out what science tells us about the capacities of embryos and fetuses, and see if it matches our traditional philosophical understandings of what it means to be a “person” deserving of moral respect and legal rights. As I write:

Perhaps the most important matter for us to clear up is the difference between first and second-term abortions, and late-term abortions. We need to do this for two reasons. First, research shows that fetuses are unlikely to suffer pain until around 26 or 27 weeks (morehere) into the pregnancy (also around the time of viability, though we should note even viable fetuses need tremendous care). Second, only 1.4 percent of all abortions in the United States annually, occur after 21 weeks. Yes, you read correctly: roughly 99 percent of all abortions in the U.S. take place before a fetus is equipped to suffer. In fact, 90 percent of all abortions in the U.S. occur in the first 13 weeks, nowhere near the controversial 26th or 27th weeks. So while we still lack conclusive evidence about what late-term fetuses can experience, it seems we reach a point here where abortion is hardly a moral issue, as nearly all abortions performed in the U.S. happen when the fetus cannot be expected to suffer.

A person, or human being, at the very least has interests, and is usually conscious or sentient, aware of its surroundings. In turn, this person wants to be protected by rights from the state so that it can live out its life free of oppression from the state or from neighbors. But in just about every abortion performed in the U.S., the fetus isn’t conscious or sentient. So how can a fetus want freedom or rights? Even if we wanted to grant the fetus rights, why would we do so for an object which we have no reason to believe is part of our moral circle? In this vein, considering we have more moral obligation to the fully human mother than the fetus, there is no basis for society to preemptively grant the fetus rights in wanting to protect its freedom over the freedom of the mother.

The fetus has an interest in staying alive, though, right? Surely, but many things have an interest in staying alive that we do not grant moral consideration or rights. In this case, a fetus cannot even have an interest in living to its potential, for it does not even know it is living currently. But doesn’t the mother have an interest in keeping the fetus alive? Maybe – but the decision is hers at this point. When a human being loses the ability to be aware of his or her own interests, we pass responsibility over to the significant other or next of kin – to the person who has an interest in the situation. Given that the mother has rights, and that there is little to no moral tie to the fetus, the mother is then allowed to decide if the fetus has interests. The interests of the fetus are the interests of the mother.

The only, or most common, way to escape this data and analysis is to escape the grasp of science and reason-based thinking by claiming embryos and fetuses have souls — a metaphysical claim none of us are required to recognize or respect, especially as a basis for public policy. I should note, however, that even many theists who believe in the existence of souls are pro-choice for practical reasons. After all, will banning abortion truly help reduce abortion rates, or will it simply make abortion more dangerous? And what sense does it make to force a woman to bring to term a baby she doesn’t want and/or cannot support? T

Our debates on abortion will no doubt continue, as they should. Despite the fact that we are 41 years on from Roe v. Wade, there are still areas of our public policy on abortion that need to be figured out, on the basis of advances in science and applied critical thinking to our moral standards.

But, as we have these debates, we should not forget that women should have the right and ability to choose to have an abortion not simply because they are women who should have control over their own bodies, but because the potential interests of the embryo or fetus inside their bodies do not trump the interests of a fully grown, fully aware person. Nor should we forget that having the the right and the ability to choose is sometimes worth celebrating.

Happy 41st anniversary, abortion rights.

Categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: abortion, choice, ethics, life, morality, religion, rights, science, women

Today we remember Martin Luther King, Jr.

Michael De Dora

Posted on January 20, 2014

Like many other Americans, I am fortunate enough to have off for Martin Luther King Day — and I plan to spend most of it far away from a computer screen. However, I did want to share links to three things I accessed on the web this morning that helped me, and might help you, to think about the views, work, and legacy of the civil rights champion.

1. The New York State Museum has uncovered and released audio of Martin Luther King, Jr. addressing the New York State Civil War Centennial Commission on September 12, 1962. The 26-minute speech, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of the issuance of Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, was delivered roughly one year before MLK was assassinated.

2. Rev. Dr. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP and founder of the Moral Mondays protests, has written an opinion piece for Al Jazeera America on how MLK’s religiously shaped moral values influenced and inspired his social and political activism, as well as the activism of countless others who bravely rallied for civil rights. It’s an interesting read which I might have more to say about later this week.

3. Every MLK Day for several years now I have taken the time to re-read his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, which was penned on April 16, 1963, while MLK was imprisoned for disobeying an injunction against “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing” in Birmingham, Alabama. In the letter, King argues that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws and calls for increased nonviolent resistance to racism.

So, to those with the day off, enjoy it. But don’t forget that this day provides a good opportunity to reflect on not just the life of MLK, but also what you have done, or what you could be doing, to further King’s dream, which remains unfulfilled in many ways.

Categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: civil rights, MLK, morality, religion

Does it matter why people perform good acts?

Michael De Dora

Posted on January 17, 2014

A young man, seeking to impress a young woman, decides to volunteer one Sunday at a homeless shelter where the young woman volunteers. On the same day, a young man, seeking to do something productive and meaningful on his day off, decides to volunteer at the same homeless shelter. They both help dozens of people in need of food and a warm place to rest, and bring a slight bit of comfort and joy to the lives of the downtrodden.

Is one of these two men acting more ethically than the other? A new study in the journal Psychological Science suggests that most people would probably say yes, the second man is acting more ethically than the first.

“We were interested in how people evaluate these pro-social efforts in situations where the person stands to benefit personally,” said lead author George Newman, assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management in New Haven, Conn. “What we found through a number of different experiments is that people seem to regard those actions pretty negatively, and in fact view them worse than if someone is just self-interested and not trying to do any good at all.”

In one of the four experiments, 169 participants were asked to rate the morality of a man’s actions on a scale of one to nine, with nine being the most moral. One group of participants were told that the man volunteered at his crush’s place of employment – a homeless shelter – and gave him an average morality rate of 4.75. That was lower than the 5.62 average another group of participants rated the man for volunteering at a coffee shop to get close to his love interest.

That people would judge volunteering at a coffee shop as more moral than volunteering at a homeless shelter for outside reasons strikes me as, well, crazy. But that’s what happened when participants were presented the options separately. Look what happened when participants were presented these options together:

A third group exposed to both scenarios reported an average morality rating of 6.33 in the homeless shelter story and 4.9 for the coffee shop version. Newman suggested that when confronted with both scenarios, those participants recognized that performing a charitable act was better than not performing one.

Which raises the question: does it truly matter why people perform good acts? Well, that depends on the type of ethical framework to which you subscribe.

Consider this statement by Brian Broccolo, volunteer coordinator at Chicago nonprofit Horizons for Youth:

“As long as they are giving their time and energy and as long as they care about the growth of their students, I think their own personal motivation should be a secondary thought.”

Broccolo’s statement expresses, in part, the utilitarian or consequentialist view, which places moral importance on the finality of acts, not the motives or causes of those performing the acts. Within this framework, why people perform good acts — such as volunteering at a homeless shelter — matters little, if at all, compared to whether people perform good acts, whatever their reasons may be.

However, there is a competing ethical framework not focused on consequences, but on the character of the person involved: virtue ethics. In comparison to the utilitarian or consequentialist, the virtue ethicist would say it’s fair, if not necessary, to judge a person’s motives. To the virtue ethicist, morality is not so much about “what constitutes a good act?” but “what constitutes a good person?” A good person, it is thought, will perform good acts. Within this framework, the second man almost certainly acted more ethically than the first.

Is either one of these frameworks “correct”? It’s hard to say. They both have limitations.

Regarding virtue ethics, we are complex creatures with many different, sometimes competing, desires and passions. Often it is impossible to know exactly why we perform an act. Many people who claim they are doing good for the sake of it are actually doing good for some other gain. Perhaps it simply feels good to do good, or to be seen doing good. Or perhaps they want to pad their resume with volunteer experience. Who knows. The point is, our search for the completely pure ethical creature, who always does good simply for the sake of it, will never end. So, even if a person’s motives are questionable, is it not morally better to have that person helping the homeless rather than helping to serve $4 cups of coffee at Starbucks?

In the same way, the consequences of our actions are often out of line with our motives. We might seek to do good, but the world gets in the way, and things do not turn out as planned. Should we be thought less of for this sort of thing? Obviously some ends are foreseeable, but not all. Again, the point is, we cannot view consequences separate from motives.

Which leaves us in a bind. Fortunately I think there is a way out: work our best to ensure our acts are not done for simple personal gain, but for fair gains in flourishing for all persons — including even ourselves — while at the same time value contributions made by people who might be acting on motives we deem less ethical than ours. This might strike you as almost too pragmatic, but what other choice is there?

I don’t think any of us want homeless shelters to stop volunteers at the entrance and grill them on their motives. But we should at least reflect on — if not center our ethical thinking on — the moral decency of our motives rather than their consequences.

Categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: charity, consequentialism, ethics, morality, motives, utilitarianism, virtue

Our narrow definition of “philosophy”

Michael De Dora

Posted on January 15, 2014

Each year, the website Edge poses a single thought-provoking question to hundreds of different intellectuals — scientists, philosophers, authors, journalists, poets — then collects and posts their replies online for the general public to read. Past questions include “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?”, “What are you optimistic about?” “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?” Past contributors include Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Alison Gopnik, Lawrence Krauss, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Richard Dawkins, Carolyn Porco, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Jared Diamond, and many others.

This year’s question was “What scientific idea is ready for retirement?” There are 174 responses and, while I have no illusion of reading them all any time soon, a couple have either caught my eye or been brought to my attention. For instance, fantastic entries by Laurie Santos and Tamar Gendler, and Paul Bloom, raise deep and interesting questions about accepted scientific consensus.

Then I came across Sam Harris’ entry, in which Harris decries what he refers to as “Our narrow definition of ‘science.'” Here is a snippet:

Search your mind, or pay attention to the conversations you have with other people, and you will discover that there are no real boundaries between science and philosophy—or between those disciplines and any other that attempts to make valid claims about the world on the basis of evidence and logic. When such claims and their methods of verification admit of experiment and/or mathematical description, we tend to say that our concerns are “scientific”; when they relate to matters more abstract, or to the consistency of our thinking itself, we often say that we are being “philosophical”; when we merely want to know how people behaved in the past, we dub our interests “historical” or “journalistic”; and when a person’s commitment to evidence and logic grows dangerously thin or simply snaps under the burden of fear, wishful thinking, tribalism, or ecstasy, we recognize that he is being “religious.”

The boundaries between true intellectual disciplines are currently enforced by little more than university budgets and architecture. Is the Shroud of Turin a medieval forgery? This is a question of history, of course, and of archaeology, but the techniques of radiocarbon dating make it a question of chemistry and physics as well. The real distinction we should care about—the observation of which is the sine qua non of the scientific attitude—is between demanding good reasons for what one believes and being satisfied with bad ones.

I found Harris’ entry strange for several reasons. First, the idea that science has a limited purview is not a scientific idea; it is a philosophical one. There are no experiments one could run, or empirical evidence one could bring to the table, that could determine the true scope of scientific inquiry. This is not to say that scientists have nothing of value to say regarding what science can and cannot study. Indeed, they have plenty to say. It only means that ideas regarding the purview of science are, at root, philosophical.

But what’s even stranger is that Harris has to know this. He studied philosophy as an undergraduate at Stanford and, as a public figure, has engaged with a number of respected philosophers (Massimo Pigliucci, Simon Blackburn, Patricia Churchland, Jesse Prinz). Indeed, Harris writes, directly after the blurb posted above, that “The scientific attitude can handle whatever happens to be the case.” Notice the move from “science” to “the scientific attitude.” The scientific attitude, though, is not science, or a scientific idea. It is an underlying philosophical idea, or rather, an approach to knowledge. I think Harris is aware of this.

Harris closes his essay by stating, “We must abandon the idea that science is distinct from the rest of human rationality. When you are adhering to the highest standards of logic and evidence, you are thinking scientifically. And when you’re not, you’re not.”

To be clear: I agree with Harris that science should not be “distinct from the rest of human rationality.” Science should inform all areas of human thought to whatever extent it can. I also agree with Harris that science is an incredibly important field of study with increasingly relevant things to say about human nature and our condition on Earth. It should not be cordoned off in labs and museums; it should be consumed and digested by the general public. And I agree with Harris that “the scientific attitude” — that of relying on reason, logic, and evidence as guides to knowledge — is not just valuable, but necessary, in our modern society.

However, to achieve these goals, we need not broaden “science” to encapsulate all attempts at human rationality. That might sound easy, but it would actually destroy science. Boundaries exist for a reason, and while some are arbitrary, the boundaries around science are precisely what make science so special and unique compared to other areas of human study. And while I would concede that some people take a problematically narrow view of science, giving it no power to suggest certain ideas might need to change or be discarded, I submit that a more serious problem is this: too many people take a narrow view of philosophy.

Indeed, the unifying rationality Harris seeks is not found in science, but in philosophy. Science is, historically speaking, a branch of philosophy, and represents a strictly designed, targeted, and practical use of the tools of philosophy, which pre-date science. Where philosophy is generally concerned with the critical analysis of ideas, values, and beliefs in the service of accuracy, science employs predictions and tests, and relies on repeatedly scrutinized empirical evidence, to determine what is true about the physical world. Ideally the two work together, with our best knowledge regarding the natural world influencing our broader conceptual analysis regarding everything in the world around us, including the full range of human experience.

Yet an increasing number of people believe philosophy is useless or obsolete, and that all our efforts should be focused on science. This is deeply problematic, mainly because whether we realize it or not, we all must engage in philosophy before we engage in any kind of science. As Daniel Dennett has said, “There is no such thing as philosophy-free science, just science that has been conducted without any consideration of its underlying philosophical assumptions.” To deny this is to oversimplify.

We do not need a broader view of science. We need proper understanding of the role that science plays in helping us to figure out what is true — within the context of philosophy’s broader role in helping make sense not just of the work and findings of scientists, but of the entirety of the world around us, and within us.

Categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: ethics, philosophy, science

Christianity, atheism, and LGBTQ rights activism

Michael De Dora

Posted on January 13, 2014

The organization American Atheists (AA), perhaps best known for its provocative advocacy in favor of atheism and against religion, has once again stirred heated debate. Yet this time its critics are not religious believers, but atheists*.

This most recent controversy started on Friday evening when AA posted on its Twitter account (that’s called “Tweeting” for the non-Twitter crowd) a photo of protesters for marriage equality in Utah with the hashtag #religionispoison. Walker Bristol (full disclosure: my friend) quickly pointed out that the religious activists in the crowd would almost certainly object to the hashtag.

AA’s response, in part: “It doesn’t make sense to say that religion inspired them to advocate for LGBTQ equality.”

(For those unaware: LGBTQ = lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer persons).

A lengthy exchange between AA’s Twitter account — or, more precisely, whoever was running AA’s account at the time — and several other commenters ensued, during which AA argued that, “if you’re a Christian and an LGBTQ supporter, you’re doing one of them wrong.” Later AA would amend statement to: “An LGBTQ Christian is not being true to Christian doctrine.”

Does AA have a point? Well, not really.

In regards to AA’s initial remark, it makes almost no sense for atheists on Twitter to claim they know better the motivations of Christian LGBTQ activists than the Christian LGBTQ activists themselves. It is a fact that many LGBTQ activists are Christians. It is also a fact that many of these activists are driven to action by their Christian values. AA must be familiar with these facts; they are widely known.

Which raises the question: what was the person running AA’s account trying to say? In reading through the entire Twitter exchange, and knowing atheists and their positions rather well, I suspect AA’s argument actually goes something like this: what Christians do is irrelevant to what Christians ought to do.

Consider a parallel argument often made by atheists: many scientists are religious, but that doesn’t mean scientists should be religious. In the same way, AA might argue that while many Christians support LGBTQ rights, Christians should not support LGBTQ rights.

This argument does hold weight, but if and only if you think the entirety of Christianity must be based, in some significant way, on one line of scripture in a 2,000-page book.

To be sure, Christian institutions, such as the Catholic Church, have played a significant and harmful role in holding back the advance of LGBTQ equality throughout history. But, as is true for most religions, Christianity is not a monolith. Each Christian sect, and each Christian, treats LGBTQ rights differently; some are ardently opposed, others ardently in favor. And there’s no reason, factual or philosophical, to say Christians must choose between fundamentalism and atheism. Why should living according to a specific passage of the Bible function as the the sole indicator of a person’s merit as a Christian? Is not Christianity much more than a single line in a 2,000-page book?

This is important not just because it’s worth knowing what’s true and what’s not true, but also because there is practical impact to this debate. Christian involvement with the LGBTQ rights movement has been a major reason for the rapid advance in LGBTQ equality. If Christians were convinced they could not support LGBTQ rights, and the LGBTQ rights movement was comprised solely of atheists and LGBTQ persons, the movement would almost certainly not be where it is today.

To their credit, AA admits that it does not work with Christians and Christian groups. And that’s fine. AA does not exist to build and work with broad coalitions on a range of social issues. It exists to promote and build the ranks of atheism, and that can be a good thing.

But while AA is entitled to its own organizational goals, it is not entitled to its own views on the relationship between Christianity, atheism, and LGBTQ rights. And forcing Christians to choose between fundamentalism and atheism is going to help no one in the long-term push for political and legal equality — except, that is, Christian fundamentalists.

To me, the bottom line is this: if you’re a Christian and an LGBTQ supporter, great. If you’re an atheist and an LGBTQ supporter, great. What matters is not which church you do or do not attend on Sundays. What matters is whether you support LGBTQ rights.

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*Unfortunately I must note this is not the first time AA has drawn criticism from atheists for its public statements on this issue.

Categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: atheism, bible, christianity, LGBTQ, marriage

The moral problem with artificial moral enhancement

Michael De Dora

Posted on January 10, 2014

In their new book, Unfit for the Future, philosophers Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson argue that “the future of our species depends on our urgently finding ways to bring about radical enhancement of the moral aspects of our own human nature.”

While I have not yet read their book, according to reviews the authors’ basic argument goes something like this: Our morality is a product of evolution and its basic components were formed when we were hunter-gatherers living in small communities. We now live in a global society, in which our actions increasingly influence the lives of countless people around the world, as well as future generations. Yet we are still equipped with this narrow, limited, often harmful hunter-gatherer morality. So, must radically enhance our morality — and this enhancement must be scientific, because traditional efforts, such as moral education, have failed to make the changes (the authors believe are) necessary for long-term survival.

It doesn’t appear Savulescu and Persson call for specific types of moral bio-enhancement. Rather, they are highlighting a problem and suggesting an invigorated and determined exploration of science and medicine to address it.

You’ve probably had someone tell you “Here, take this medicine/treatment, it will make you feel better.” What the authors envision is something more like this: “Here, take this medicine/treatment, it will make you a better person.”

Sounds straightforward, right? Well, there are myriad problems, from scientific (can this actually happen?) to economic (how much will it cost?) to metaphysical (can we agree on what is ethically desirable?). But, these aside, there are also serious moral concerns with artificial moral enhancement. I’ve posted about some of these previously, but in a new interview with the Irish Times, Bert Gordijn, a professor and director of the Institute of Ethics at Dublin City College, highlights at least one I had not previously considered:

“…if people are morally deficient in the first place why would they be interested in biological ways of influencing their morality?”

In other words: if people don’t care very much about improving their morality right now, why would the invention of some new morality medicine suddenly change their feelings? In which case the proposed artificial moral enhancement would likely help only those who don’t actually need much help — the people who are already generally moral and feel the desire to be more moral.

Of course, we could force people to take morality medicine. But then, as Gordijn points out, “it would be highly problematic because it would infringe on respect for autonomy, and in a more general way on human dignity.” I suppose that’s quite the dilemma for a true utilitarian: force people to take morality medicine and have a flourishing society, or leave it to people to decide but have less decent society — possibly even a wretched one. Good thing I’m not a true utilitarian.

So, if morality medicine isn’t the promising possibility it’s cracked up to be, if it truly suffers from serious moral concerns, what can we do to improve our morality?

For one, we can stick with what we’ve got: education and legislative nudges. As Gordijn also points out: “Traditionally there have been other means of influencing our morality: education and also legislation. If you have a good legislative framework and a good social environment, people will develop the right habits and it will become the natural thing for them to do, the right thing to do.”

But obviously the status quo, even a dedicated push within the same framework, will not please Savulescu and Persson, who seek urgent, radical moral enhancement.

So here’s a radical suggestion: teach ethics in high school. In fact, I say teach ethics in middle school and elementary school. And if that isn’t helping in a decade or two, perhaps by then scientists and philosophers will have figured out how to address all the problems with morality medicine. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Categories: Uncategorized

Does being for traditional marriage mean you are against gays and lesbians? Yes and no.

Michael De Dora

Posted on January 8, 2014

In their latest column for the religion-friendly Deseret News, Michael and Jenet Erickson — an attorney and former assistant professor at Brigham Young University, respectively — argued that being for “traditional marriage” does not mean being against gays and lesbians:

Contrary to popular portrayals, supporters of traditional marriage are not the angry, hate-filled bigots they have been stereotyped to be. Utahns have shown in word and deed that you do not have to be against anyone to affirm the purpose of marriage — to unite children with the man and woman who made them. As one Utahn told the LA Times, “we have a message to the gay and lesbian people who live among us — we don’t hate you, it’s nothing like that. But we believe what we believe. And our conviction is strong.”

I’m sure you’ve heard this argument before: Christians don’t necessarily hate gays and lesbians, they just take a different view on love and marriage.

In one sense, this argument has merit. Christians are not required to hate gays and lesbians. Indeed, a sizable number of Christians, perhaps even most, do not hate gays and lesbians.

Furthermore, there is no reason why Christians cannot adhere to their worldview personally without seeking to force it on others in society. This happens all the time, on a range of issues. For example, consider Vice President Joe Biden’s position on abortion. Applied to the marriage debate, the Ericksons might then believe in traditional marriage in their own lives, but accept gays and lesbians as equal humans before the law, and reject that their religion should rule others’ live. Of course, this is not terribly supportive of gays and lesbians, but it’s a middle ground position I think many supporters of marriage equality are willing to accept at this point in human history.

Yet this is not the case for the Ericksons and many other Christians. The Ericksons don’t simply want traditional marriage to rule their lives; they want traditional marriage to rule other peoples’ lives, too. And that’s the problem with their argument: when you say that the government should only recognize a sectarian religious version of love and marriage, you are by definition against the people who believe in a different — and more inclusive — conception of love and marriage.

It’s worth noting the Ericksons are not forced to be against anyone. They could adapt their faith to a changing culture, though that seems unlikely. Or, they could take Biden’s “my religion is for me, yours is for you” path mentioned above. Indeed, I suspect opponents of marriage equality will increasingly take this approach as society becomes more accepting of same-sex marriage.

But whatever the Ericksons do, the fact remains this: when you advocate for traditional marriage as the law of the land, you are against gays and lesbians.

Categories: Uncategorized

The Moral Perspective is back

Michael De Dora

Posted on January 7, 2014

After a nearly one-year break from blogging, I have decided to revive The Moral Perspective. Why, you might ask? Well, I wrote in my last post here:

I created this blog … with three goals in mind. First, I wanted to track the progress of my own thinking on ethics, politics, and religion. Second, I wanted to help others to think more often and clearly, and be more informed regarding these issues. Third, I wanted to make sure I was writing on a consistent basis. I am of the mindset that you ought to devote at least two hours each day to writing; that’s how you stay a decent writer, and become a better one.

These reasons are precisely why I am returning. I have missed writing creatively on matters of deep interest for at least one or two hours everyday (that’s how long it typically takes me to pen a post ). Even if this project distracts me from some work, there are undoubtedly benefits to keeping a habit of writing outside the boundaries of my professional duties — and, I’d add, plenty of time in the day to both blog and complete those professional duties. One of these benefits is having the ability to track, review, and streamline my thoughts on ethics, politics, religion, and secularism. I have attempted to do this in a variety of ways outside of blogging, but none have provided the same flexibility, nor the slight but important demand for some regularity.

I’ve also missed connecting with other people who are interested in philosophy, science, and other subjects I cover on this blog. In my two years blogging, I connected with countless people of different backgrounds who contributed valuable input and helped to shape my views. While I have become more active on other social media sites (read: Twitter) in the past year, they each have limitations (i.e., Twitter’s 140-character post limit) that do not allow the kind of interaction I seek.

So, here I am.

As you can see, I’ve switched platforms, from Tumblr to WordPress, and made some changes to the appearance of the website. I welcome any and all suggestions on how to improve the design. I also welcome hearing from any artist/s out there who might be interested in helping to design a banner/logo.

I’ve also added a new section: “Contribute.” As someone with many years of experience as an editor, who is also interested in hearing various perspectives on important issues, I would like to start running guest posts. Please see the section and let know if you are interested.

Lastly, I’m hoping this go-round will be even more personal, insightful, and productive than the previous two-year run. But I suppose time, and my readers, will be the judge of that.

Thanks for stopping in, and I hope to see you on the blog soon!

Categories: Uncategorized

Major changes to this blog

Michael De Dora

Posted on February 19, 2013

Readers,

For nearly two years, I have been updating The Moral Perspective every weekday with articles, news, and essays on issues relating to ethics, politics, and religion.

I created this blog and conducted this work with three goals in mind. First, I wanted to track the progress of my own thinking on ethics, politics, and religion. Second, I wanted to help others to think more often and clearly, and be more informed regarding these issues. Third, I wanted to make sure I was writing on a consistent basis. I am of the mindset that you ought to devote at least two hours each day to writing; that’s how you stay a decent writer, and become a better one.

In the past year, several things have changed. Most significantly, I have (happily) added several new job responsibilities, which require me to write, travel, and speak at public engagements more than I previously did. Unfortunately, this — combined with trying to operate this blog as I have — has cut into the amount of time I spent reading. This is not something I have been comfortable with.

I have also slowly but surely developed a stronger interest in pursuing a longer-term project: writing a book on secularism and morality.

Therefore, in order to maintain my own happiness, The Moral Perspective is going to change. No longer will I update this blog every day. I might not even update it every week. In fact, for the near future I am most likely going to take a break from blogging here completely.

That doesn’t mean I’m killing this blog for good. It just means a change from the past. I’ll write when I want to write; I’ll post when I want to post. After some time off, I might even change my mind and come back and change the nature of this blog. Perhaps I’ll use it to launch my book. Who knows. But, for now, this change is necessary.

I would like to give my most sincere thanks to everyone who has read this blog. I hope to see you again soon.

Ethically yours,

Michael De Dora

Categories: Uncategorized

A blog exploring morality, politics, and religion.

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The Moral Perspective is back

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Major changes to this blog

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Posted on February 19, 2013