One of the problems with young atheists, who are often socialists and are invariably utilitarian, is that neither they nor their loved ones are near death. Yes, I know that sounds ghoulish and macabre, but the reality is that one of the greatest blessings of living in a country that still clings to its biblical foundations is that it values all life, not just life with some monetary worth to the state. We viscerally feel that as we and those around us age, something young socialists can’t even imagine.
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I mention this because two things recently clarified this divide: A friend’s illness and a discussion with a young, utilitarian atheist.
First, my friend. This is an older woman with a genetic, debilitating, and ultimately fatal disease that’s akin to, but not the same as Parkinson’s (so new Parkinson’s treatments won’t work). In addition to her disease, my friend has made very poor life choices that have contributed to her body being completely unequipped to fight back against the disease’s ravages.
The combination of disease and self-created weakness meant that my friend caught a minor cold that quickly ended with her spending two days and nights in the ICU before settling in for a long stay at the hospital. By the time this whole treatment cycle is over, she’ll have spent three weeks in the hospital.
Second, my discussion with the young, utilitarian atheist. He says that a belief in God is just any other belief system, and is worried about the rise of “Christian Nationalism.” He believes that will mean a Handmaid’s Tale world, in which everyone is forced to be a Christian. He couldn’t grasp the idea that America was a foundationally Christian nation for two centuries without that happening.
More than his inability, thanks to modern education, to understand American history without a leftist filter, he also believes that the Western morality from which he admittedly benefits is possible without a Christian foundation. He thinks that murder will continue to be frowned upon if we live in a society in which each life isn’t valued because God created it.
His philosophy boils down to “practical morality” (aka “applied ethics” or “practical ethics”). The founding director of Harvard’s Ethics Center explained (or rather, bloviated about) it in a boring, complicated 1,200-word essay that boils down to this: “Practical ethics studies how people and institutions should make morally responsible decisions when abstract ethical principles collide with complicated real-world circumstances.”
In other words, what do you do if you have the power to control whether a train crashes into one baby or twelve nuns, and there are no other options? Ironically enough, I think that the nuns’ profound morality would say, “Save the baby,” while a utilitarian atheist would say none of them have inherent value and walk away, letting fate decide. (With “fate” also being a belief system, of course.)
In essence, for the young man, it all came down to the greater good. He’ll accept that a life has intrinsic value only if that value can exist without a cost to him. Once the costs start piling up, the accounting begins to weigh that life’s value against competing interests.
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This atheist could not grasp that what he described was a straight line to the Nazi’s philosophy. Nazis had taken his ideas and run them all the way down to the bottom of the slippery slope. Because they disconnected from the biblical belief that each life has value, they gave the state the power to decide what lives matter—in other words, this was his anti-religious practical ethics in action, because some strong force in society must always make that utilitarian call.
And of course, as history shows, the Nazi state was able to assign value according to its needs: And it needed to get rid of the Jews, the homosexuals, the mentally ill or physically handicapped, the old and the very young who would not be able to contribute slave labor, etc.
The same thing is happening in Canada and across Europe. What started as a movement to shorten agonizing suffering in people on the verge of imminent death has become a way to save money for socialized healthcare systems. The practical morality is that the needs of the socialized healthcare system outweigh any individual’s claim to life.
Why pay to treat an old man who draws on retirement benefits rather than pays into them? He may claim that his prior payments entitle him to those benefits, but the state is hurting for cash, so he can go. And that cancer patient? Is it really worth treating her when there’s a substantial likelihood the cancer will return? And as Chelsea Clinton famously said a few years ago, abortion keeps women working, which really helps the economy.
In the UK, Stephen Hawking was worth saving because, while the fact of his aging meant he’d probably never again replicate the insights that made him famous, killing him would look bad. (In the field of mathematics and theoretical physics, it’s mostly the young ones—younger than 40—who have the insights.)
But thankfully, we’re still functioning on that old “individual life has value” system. That’s why societal pressure at both the legislative and economic levels means that my friend, despite her age, disease, and personal choices, is getting very good care.
My friend’s life has value—to her, to her husband, and to her friends. If she had children, they would value it, too. But the young man doesn’t see that because he doesn’t know and love her. To him, she’s just a valueless husk, sucking up resources that really should go to him, because, as a practical matter, he is the greater good.
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Image created using AI.