Morality: Stirring up the Catholic News

Apparently I've graduated into the ranks of real bloggers. We start off talking to ourselves, then we slowly build an audience, then we get a modest readership, a few people answer us. But we keep slogging away, wondering if the day will ever come that we have an actual impact on anything. Well, last Tuesday was apparently my day.

I responded to a Catholic blogger, Matt Archbold, who wrote a snide and condescending blog about atheists in the nation's oldest Catholic newspaper. He criticized atheists for forming their own Haitian charity, claiming atheists have no real morals and are just trying to emulate Christians.

Normally Mr. Archbold gets a dozen or so comments, and almost all are from Catholics and other Christians. But last Tuesday, he was inundated by comments from other atheist readers as outraged as I was, and it appears these were mostly my readers.

I was also very pleased at the lively debate that broke out between the few Christians who normally respond to Mr. Archbold's blogs and the atheists. There was some great stuff there, from the origins of morality to the circularity of arguments for God's existence. And it wasn't the flame war, name-calling fest that you sometimes see – these were good, solid debates.

I doubt we converted any Christians last week, but you never know. For every Christian who wrote, there were probably 100 who were just readers. A lot of Christians are normally insulated from honest debate, only exposed to the dogma of their own religion. But last week, they got a dose of real debate, a glimpse of honest, rational thinking rather than appeals to their faith, fears and desires.

Maybe it made no difference, but maybe it did. Maybe there's one more person out there today who is reading non-Christian philosophy for the first time.

And that's why I'm here. Not necessarily to convert religious people, but to at least ask them to think about religion, to ask questions, and to understand that there are two sides to every question.

Catholics Nasty about Atheist Haitian Charity

Update: (1:17 PM Pacific Time) After a firestorm of criticism, Mr. Archbold has cut off comments to his blog and deleted most of the replies, including my first comment, which you can still find below.

Update 2 I received an email from the NCR's editor explaining that the comments were cut off automatically because there were too many, as an automatic anti-spam block. They adjusted their database and restored the deleted comments.

Matthew Archbold over at the New Catholic Register wrote a snide and offensive blog this morning, criticizing Richard Dawkins and all atheists for setting up a atheist/humanist charity to help Haitian earthquake victims. If this were some random blogger, I'd pay it no mind. But this is the oldest Catholic newspaper in the United States. In a nutshell, Archbold claims:

• Dawkins is ... intent on proving that atheists can be as good as Christians.
• [Atheists are] desperate to prove that they’re as good (and usually better) than us religious types.
• Dawkins is only proving that he can be good without acknowledging God.
• Atheists can't define good and evil, and are only borrowing from Christianity.

And Archbold closes with this:

But we’re glad for the help anyway. Thanks.

Got that? We're glad for the help. We. The Catholics and Christians are in charge here! I guess God, after causing this earthquake that may have killed upwards of 200,000 people, has assigned the Roman Catholic Church to fix the mess that He created. And we atheists are welcome to help out a little if we like. This is offensive in the extreme.

Here's what I wrote on Archbold's blog comments:

First, each and every one of your claims has been resoundingly refuted long ago, by Mr. Dawkins himself and many others. You should take the time to research the target of your essays before you publish them. Second, in this crisis, I applaud EVERY organization, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, atheist or any other faith, that helps. The last thing we should be doing is criticizing one another’s charities. And third, would you give your donation through a Muslim organization if none other were available? I doubt it. Why do you think an atheist would want to sponsor the Catholic Church’s efforts? We could go into all of the problems suffered by the Church over the last few decades, and illustrate why an atheist might not want to donate, but that would be counterproductive to the real cause: Getting help to Haiti. Shame on you for posting this snide essay. You should instead be encouraging any and all of your fellow humans who want to help.

Mr. Archbold owes everyone, not just atheists, an apology. This is a time to pull together. This is a time when atheists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, everyone, should work to save Haitian lives, not criticize each other. If there's competition, it should be friendly and good spirited.