Michael Novak And The Imaginary Argument

First of all I'd like to point out that I really do appreciate Michael Novak's attempt to bridge the gap, as it were. He is unfailingly polite in his writing about atheists and atheism.

However, the problem for me is that he uses 1000 words when one will do, and creates an argument where - by his own admission - there should not be one.

In a recent article Mr. Novak responded to atheist writer Heather Mac Donald. Miss Mac Donald made the very good point that from the outside looking-in, from an objective standpoint, it was very difficult to tell whether or not a person was an atheist or a believer.

[Heather Mac Donald] I wonder whether religious conservatives can spot the atheists among them by their deeds or, for that matter, by their political positions. I very much doubt it. Skeptical conservatives do not look into the abyss when they make ethical choices. Their moral sense is as secure as a believer’s. They do not need God or the Christian Bible to discover the golden rule and see themselves in others.

More below the fold...

Mr. Novak, in responding to her point, tries to explain that there really, really, truly is a difference - but no one can see it, and he can't explain what the difference is.

I guess we'll just have to take his word for it.

[Michael Novak] Although neither the atheist nor the believer actually “sees” God, not with the naked eyes nor even with the eyes of the mind, the believer has felt the earth shift under her feet. The axis of her identity is no longer what it was. One cannot see other things in the same light as before. Everything is somehow altered--while in another way, nothing has changed. If the believer did not reveal it in so many words, one might never perceive that the believer is really a believer. (A really good friend who is an atheist may from time to time probe a little: “Do you really believe that…? What do believers really mean by…?”) Unless the atheist had learned from earlier conversations about one’s own faith, and the manner in which to discuss it, he probably would not know for sure, nor care, what we believed. From the outside, we are all just human beings doing our best.

The above quote is very well-written, but can be boiled down into two sentences: "I agree with Heather Mac Donald. There is really no difference between a believer and an atheist."

Which begs the question; If an outside, objective observer cannot tell the difference between an ethical believer and an ethical atheist, why does this imaginary difference matter at all?

Are we arguing just to be arguing?

Crap. That that'd just ruin UTI. Heh.