From a “logical argument” point of view, Vaniver has the right point of view. Reductionism is the key.
From a Dark Arts point of view, reading Leah’s post suggests the reason she fell toward Catholicism when she got confused on morality was that she had a bunch of Catholic friends around. Thus being a conspicuously moral (and high-status) atheist will give her an example to fall back to. This isn’t too Dark Arts-ish, since you presumably try to be high-status and moral anyway.
Thus being a conspicuously moral [...] atheist will give her an example to fall back to.
No. Having a defensible, coherent framework from which to ground morality and being a moral person are...hopefully not totally unrelated, but still not the same thing. This is a far too common rhetorical mistake, same as when we atheists act offended because religious people must think us all horribly immoral people.
From a “logical argument” point of view, Vaniver has the right point of view. Reductionism is the key.
From a Dark Arts point of view, reading Leah’s post suggests the reason she fell toward Catholicism when she got confused on morality was that she had a bunch of Catholic friends around. Thus being a conspicuously moral (and high-status) atheist will give her an example to fall back to. This isn’t too Dark Arts-ish, since you presumably try to be high-status and moral anyway.
No. Having a defensible, coherent framework from which to ground morality and being a moral person are...hopefully not totally unrelated, but still not the same thing. This is a far too common rhetorical mistake, same as when we atheists act offended because religious people must think us all horribly immoral people.