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Notes -
I also have sympathy for that view, and it's refreshing to see the discussion around religion evolve from 'religion is stupid and holding us back from rational utopia' to 'religion does have some real social utility'. However, it's hard for me to take this claim of wanting to believe seriously from some people who make this claim when I see a dismissal of all metaphysics out of hand from those same people, from what I believe is not from a serious consideration of metaphysics but a reflexive dismissal of anything that isn't materialist (scientism).
At the same time, I see a lot of what I'll perhaps uncharitably describe as 'playing' at atheism. That is, a refusal to engage with the actual consequences or logic conclusion of atheism, as outlined by philosophers like Nietzsche and Sartre - perhaps because the conclusion is so undesirable. Instead, we see this glossy and superficial atheism professed by the New Atheists, whose critics I think quite rightly point out are attacking Christianity while relying on an underlying implicit Christian morality in practice. They profess a rationalistic/scientific approach to moral issues which I think is a fool's errand - the scientism I was criticising in my original post.
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