(I reserve the right to delete this one, too)
There is…a cliche? a conversational pattern?–described in the atheist blogosphere, at least as of the late 00′s/early 10′s.
As the atheists describe it, it goes something like this:
Christian: But clearly you do still believe in God, deep down, because morality comes from God. People do what’s right because God wills it, because they know God will judge them. The fact that you aren’t on a killing spree right now means you know God will judge you, too.
Atheist: …no? My morality stems fro– wait. Are you saying you would go on a killing spree if you thought God wasn’t watching?
—
The atheists speak of the chilling realisation of how close someone is to snapping. The realisation that you were actively pushing someone towards snapping. They hope that the Christians who fit into this pattern are merely bad at introspection, that their moralities would still function if God were removed from the equation, but fear that those Christians are portraying themselves accurately.
What no one talks about, at least not in my experience, is that it’s also terrifying from the other side. Oh, maybe some of those Christians are really confident it’s because atheists still have enough belief in God to act morally, but the ones who aren’t so confident?
It is a terrible thing to look at someone and realise that you do not know why they aren’t torturing you right now. You hope they have reasons of their own, but even if they do…because you don’t understand those reasons, you don’t know what would convince them to change their mind about the no-torture thing. You wouldn’t be able to tell in advance that they’re changing their mind, and you have no clue how you’d go about persuading them not to.
(Some parts of you–the part that assumes the worst, the part that was never any good at theory of mind–fear that they have no reasons, that they’re not torturing you only because they’re not in the mood right now, or–worse–because it simply hasn’t occurred to them yet that there’s nothing stopping them. You’re reluctant to ask them too probingly about the underpinnings of their morality, for fear that you will be the thing that causes them to realise they don’t have any.)
Tags:
#last night I was reading a blog #and realised that the blogger’s morality was so foreign to me I couldn’t even tell whether he had one #it was…unnerving #oh look an original post #arguably a follow-up to the previous reserve-the-right-to-delete post #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #our roads may be golden or broken or lost #(I tried to find this post by looking in that tag so I guess that means I should add it)
Brinens and Things 
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