{"id":256,"date":"2011-01-10T01:57:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T01:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/01\/ethics-without-other-people-are-empty\/"},"modified":"2012-09-11T16:57:35","modified_gmt":"2012-09-11T20:57:35","slug":"ethics-without-other-people-are-empty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/01\/ethics-without-other-people-are-empty.html","title":{"rendered":"Ethics Without Other People are Empty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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I don\u2019t understand ethical systems or teleology meant for humans that doesn\u2019t talk about our relationships to other humans.<\/p>\n

That, in a nutshell, is why I hated Steve Antinoff\u2019s Spiritual Atheism<\/a><\/em>. Antinoff tries to find a way for atheists to live without God. He writes<\/p>\n

\u201dSpiritual atheism begins with a triple realization: that our experience of ourselves and our world leaves us ultimately dissatisfied, that our dissatisfaction is intolerable and must be broken through, and that there is no God.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Antinoff, in his quest to find a way to cope with this dissatisfaction, doesn\u2019t find fulfillment in interaction with others. He\u2019s a disciple of Zen Buddhism<\/a>, and he finds attachment to other people a distraction from his search for truth and oneness with the universe. Antinoff\u2019s quest for transcendence is usually focused through meditation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most exquisite experiences of my life have been in meditation. While hiking up a mountain in Switzerland several years ago, the pain in my sinus area caused by exertion n high altitude gave way to an intense surge of pleasurable energy; since that day I often am able to approach the state achieved during sitting meditation while I\u2019m walking\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing else I know so transforms the pain of loneliness into the glory of solitude\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reading\u00a0Spiritual Atheism<\/a>, I never got a clear sense of why this kind of \u2018pleasurable energy\u2019 was enlightening and worth seeking while human\u00a0entanglements\u00a0and romantic love were labelled as a cowardly retreat from the stark truths of the world.<\/p>\n

If other people aren\u2019t intrinsically valuable, if they\u2019re a mere distraction from the contemplation of the infinite, what marks Antinoff as worthwhile or worthy of transcendence? I do not understand how people can think of themselves as valuable without seeing others as valuable and trying to serve them.<\/p>\n

Antinoff goes on to write:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe saving power of God or of a deified Buddha, even if it existed, would be an unacceptable violation and forfeiture of human freedom.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Human freedom is only valuable insofar as it is able to be directed to some good or virtue. \u00a0Freedom for the sake of freedom is mere\u00a0licence. \u00a0When Antinoff praises atheistic freedom, I have no idea what end he thinks that freedom should be directed to. \u00a0Talking about ethics and how we should treat others is a way of talking about virtue and what we should\u00a0sacrifice\u00a0freedom and choice for. \u00a0When authors sidestep this question, I can\u2019t understand their value system.<\/p>\n

One further piece of evidence that, aside from our atheism, Antinoff and I agree on nothing: \u00a0He dismisses traditional ideas of heaven and an afterlife as disconnected from the concerns of modern life, saying:<\/p>\n

\u201cA heaven of virtue alone, without beauty, without splendor, would likely be hell\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reading this, I grabbed the nearest person I could find, read them the relevant passage, and then exclaimed, \u201cWhy would you assume that virtue and beauty\/splendor are a dichotomy!?!\u201d<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t understand ethical systems or teleology meant for humans that doesn\u2019t talk about our relationships to other humans. That, in a nutshell, is why I hated Steve Antinoff\u2019s Spiritual Atheism. Antinoff tries to find a way for atheists to live without God. He writes \u201dSpiritual atheism begins with a triple realization: that our experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,68,48,8],"tags":[54,39],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","category-epistemologyphilosophy","category-morality-in-practice","category-reviewsrecommendations","tag-atheism-is-boring","tag-freedom-means-choosing-a-master"],"yoast_head":"\nEthics Without Other People are Empty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I don\u2019t understand ethical systems or teleology meant for humans that doesn\u2019t talk about our relationships to other humans. 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