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Carey: Fred's recent insults have not been directed at me, but he's done it in the past. He and I had a running thread about morality and atheism that must have lasted 2 years and never moved more than a few yards . . .
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My recollection is a bit different Carey—back in September 2003 when you, Todd, and I were passionately discussing this area (and perhaps trading benign “insults” ) and whether materialist ”atheists” “lacked the balls to be honest-to-god atheists” and “to acknowledge the implications of a cosmos lacking intrinsic meaning and value,” you eventually affirmed that:
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I agree with you [Todd] and Fred that an "accidental"…universe is not compatible with evolution. Moreover, I don't think an "accidental" universe is compatible with anything at all.
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And since atheism more or less mandates an “accidental” (i.e. chance) universe, it was concluded that your and Todd’s “atheism” was not a consistent honest-to-god atheism (but more an agnosticism). So I’d say that we actually “moved more than a few yards”— TomJ’s honest-to-god atheism, OTH, is at least consistent enough to acknowledge that in the atheist’s world mass murderers can’t be “morally responsible” for their behavior and are “just following their [evolved] social instincts.”