Though expecting to be rather irked by it, I was surprised to find myself almost enjoying (and agreeing) with a lot of what Sam Harris had to say in his TED Talk entitled "Science can Answer Moral Questions." His thinking regarding the balance that needs to be struck between the Taliban's "cloth prison" approach to women's bodies and the over the top exhibitionism of the average corner kiosk seems right on the money to me. I would also agree with him that the statutes of political correctness that prevent us from critiquing these matters do indeed need to be challenged. And though it was not part of his talk, I was pleased to learn that he has been an ardent supporter of the state of Israel and tough critic of its opponents. So far so good.
What I do not yet understand is why he (or any atheist for that matter) makes so many moral proclamations. The average atheist makes certain basic assumptions about reality: that we all exist as a result of blind and purposeless happenstance, that free will is illusory, that there is no conscious "self" and that there is no objective right or wrong. As Dr. Will Provine has said, "[as an atheist] you give up hope that there is an imminent morality ... you can't hope for there being any free will [and there is] ... no ultimate foundation for ethics."
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