Why Are Atheists so Arrogant?

There is a frequently leveled accusation that atheists are arrogant because we don’t believe there is anything “greater than ourselves.” The mindset apparently takes the position that, in the absence of belief in gods, we must be setting ourselves up as gods. This kind of misses the fact that an atheistic view of the universe is fundamentally different from a theistic view in many ways.

Have you ever gone outside and looked at the sky on a really clear night away from any big cities? You’d see a lot of stars up there. So many that people have been in awe of the sheer number of them since time immemorial, and they have been used as a metaphor for “too many to count,” for as long as humans have been using metaphors. But one of the things we’ve learned from astronomy is that there are more galaxies out there than there are stars visible to the naked eye. And each of those galaxies contains billions of stars. Each of those stars is, in fact, a sun with a solar system pretty much like our own. Now consider the fact that just our one solar system alone is so mind-bogglingly huge that the number of cubic miles it encompasses is impossible to assign intuitive meaning.

You just can’t look at that honestly and conclude that we’re anything but insignificant. Where is the arrogance in accepting that view of the universe?

Or, let’s look at it from another perspective.

What, exactly, do we mean by something “greater,” than ourselves? It’s not as though we’re all that great, really. Sure, we (meaning humans) are the cleverest beings on the planet (that we know of). But so what? Can we really claim that makes us “great?” We choose to see intelligence as a measure of greatness, and gee whiz it just happens to be the trait we’re better at than every other animal. Of course, many animals are faster, stronger, more durable, have better senses… heck, pick any trait you like other than intelligence, and I guarantee you we know of at least one living thing that beats us at it so badly that we might as well not claim to have the ability at all. Heck, some creatures can survive unharmed in the hard vacuum of space! Why can’t we say they’re “greater” than us?

In that sense, we’re not even “greater” than bacteria.

Now, in another sense, it’s pretty easy to see how one might look at the universe and see lots of things that are greater than ourselves. Is not the sum of humanity greater than any one person? Is not the sum of all life on our planet greater than any one species (humans included)? Is not the entire history of that life greater than just what is alive today? Isn’t the entirety of the earth greater than just the life that’s on it? And so on and so on; there are so many things that can be seen as greater than us that the mind boggles just at trying to list them.

The beautiful thing about evolution, by the way, is that it tells us that we are part of these things that are arguably greater than all of us. We may just be one among many, and perhaps even not all that significant a part, but that connection part of the beauty of it all.

I’m sorry, but I just can’t see the arrogance in that. The universe is not a hierarchy of lesser and greater things. A fact-based view of the universe tells us that we’re really an insignificant part of a whole that is so much greater than ourselves that we can’t possibly comprehend it. At least… not yet.

Or are we arrogant if we claim responsibility for our own successes? I don’t see that either. After all, if I accomplish something it is demonstrably evident that I accomplished it. There would be no evidence of some invisible being doing it for me. So my taking credit (or blame) for what I’ve done isn’t arrogance, it’s simply acknowledging what is quite evident to any observer.

But let’s compare that to the worldview of the most frequent levelers of this accusation of atheistic arrogance: Christians. In that world view, we are made in the very image of the all-powerful creator of the universe. He gave us the right to rule the entire world, and we are the most important thing in it. We are so significant that a single decision by a single man and woman fundamentally altered the very nature of the universe. Every natural disaster, for all that it may kill millions of living things and forever alter the landscape of the planet, is intended as a lesson solely for our benefit. God speaks directly to humans, and takes a personal interest in advancing their lives and goals. The omnipotent creator desires our love so badly that he volunteered to suffer and die in the hopes of winning it, and his greatest enemy bends all of his efforts solely to depriving him of our love because it’s the thing that would harm him most.

You’re going to tell me that that’s not arrogant? Humans, in this view, are the most important thing in the entire physical universe. Sure, they’re also evil, hateful, and vile and really ought to despise themselves, but they’re literally the most significant thing in all of God’s creation (with God himself being outside creation, and therefore the only thing that can occupy a higher rung of importance).

And this is part of why I think Christians call us arrogant. Because if you view the world as a hierarchy with God at the top, humans second, and everything else beneath, and think that all that atheists have done is take this view and chop God off the top, then that must leave humans as the most important thing ever. But this fails to understand that this just isn’t how an atheist sees the world. We see ourselves as part of the world, not above it. We didn’t make the universe, and it wasn’t made for our benefit – we’re just struggling to understand it. From an atheist perspective that top-down hierarchy, in which humans could potentially elevate themselves to the status of “most important thing” if we just get rid of the only being above us, does not exist!

At this point I feel compelled to state the standard disclaimer that I am not, and cannot be, speaking for all atheists. After all, the only thing the label “atheist” entails is not believing in gods, and a vast variety of world views can still be found within that broad category. I’m sure there are atheists who are quite arrogant (as such people can be found in pretty much any population of humans you care to name), and atheists who espouse philosophies in which humans really are the most important things in the universe. But I think that I’m not too far off from the mainstream of scientifically literate atheist thought in this matter.

But I do hope that this helps give some perspective on how it can be that atheism is not an inherently arrogant position.

What About that Death Thing?

Here’s an uncomfortable fact: I’m going to die.

Don’t worry (or celebrate, depending); I haven’t just come into some knowledge that my death is imminent, like that I have cancer or a heart condition or something. It’s just a fact that someday, probably far sooner than I would like, I am going to cease to be a going concern among the living.

And so are you. Along with everyone you know and love, and everyone you don’t know or don’t love. With the possible exception of the immortal jellyfish, every living thing comes to its inevitable conclusion eventually. And I suppose even the immortal jellyfish is going to bite the bullet when the sun eventually engulfs the earth, so scratch that exception. Death comes to us all.

So, being an atheist as I am, what do I think will happen then?

For me? Nothing. I (and in this case I’m using “I” to represent my personality, thoughts, ideas, and memories – the sort of stuff people generally consider to be a person) will cease to exist. And that will be kind of a bummer, I suppose, since I’m still rather fond of existing. On the other hand, since I won’t exist, I won’t be bummed at all. In fact, I simply won’t be. Which is kind of a hard concept to fully grasp.

The body I leave behind (which is odd phrasing, since it implies I’ll be going somewhere), I think I would like to have donated to medical science. Just because I won’t be using it anymore doesn’t mean nobody should, and I think it would give me some comfort in my last moments to think that it could still be used to do some good for other people. I’m an organ donor.

Some people (probably fewer than I think) will be genuinely sad when I’m gone, and probably even mourn me for a bit. I have few requests for them; mourning is for the living, not for the dead, and so I ask only that they do so in whatever way is healthiest for them. If that involves solemn ritual or dressing my corpse up in a clown costume for a night on the town, I really don’t care so long as it helps them.

Others will make appropriately sad noises and gestures of support, without really feeling all that much for my passing. And that’s ok, too. Nobody, really, owes it to me to be torn up over my death, and I wouldn’t want anyone trying to make themselves sad on my behalf out of some sense of obligation.

Of course, the vast majority of people in the world won’t know or care that I’ve died, just as they don’t know or care that I’ve lived. And within a single brief generation, that number will include everyone alive, because everyone who knew and loved me will also be dead.

Does that sound sad? It may surprise you to learn that I don’t think it does. Getting into the why’s and wherefores of that could be its own blog post altogether.

What will it mean for you? Well, for one thing it pretty much guarantees this blog will be over with (assuming it hasn’t ended long before I reach that point). And if you knew me, here’s an implication about my death that you should grasp: you will never see me again. Never. We won’t be hanging out in some “better place” for all eternity, nor will you have the opportunity to watch me tortured by demons for that timeframe either (you know, just in case you’re thinking that’s where I’m headed). We won’t even be trading jokes on the rack in between tightenings of the screws (just in case you happen to think you’re going there too). This time, now, while I’m alive and you’re alive, is the only time we will ever get to spend together.

But that’s kind of what makes this time special. We have only this all-to-brief a time to laugh and to cry, to hold each other or to hold each other at bay, to figure out what’s important to us or not, and to do it or not. We have only this brief time to make the world better, or to make it worse (or to make no impact at all). We have only this brief time in which to live.

It’s so easy to let that time slip by. I’m pretty great at it, myself. Partly because the idea that we’re going to end someday really is hard to fully accept. But I’m trying to get better. Trying to figure out what’s really important to me, and how I can make the world a little better for my having been here. I hope I have the time, and that I can use it wisely.

But if I don’t… if I end without having figured it out… don’t be sad for me. Because even my mistakes will be something you can learn from, and maybe you can leave the world a little better on my behalf.

Why Isn’t Criticizing Your Religious Beliefs Persecution?

You can hardly go a week these days without some sort of dustup over religious issues making the news. Whether it’s that duck guy making homophobic comments, or some high school coach getting reprimanded for making his players pray, or some public official putting up a Ten Commandments monument at the county courthouse, or state legislatures going out of their way to give legal encouragement to discrimination against homosexuals, these issues come up in a steady drumbeat. And whenever society, or the law, moves away from what evangelical fundamentalists want, or criticizes the fundamentalist position, religious leaders seem to love to scream “persecution!”

But that’s not what it is.

You see, on a certain level religions are collections of ideas. They tend to be collections gathered together under a single label and assigned a supernatural source, but basically they’re just ideas. Some of the ideas are good, and some of them are bad. And when someone evaluates one of the ideas contained in your religion, and decides it’s a bad idea and ought to be prevented from being put into general practice among people who don’t share the belief, that doesn’t mean they’re persecuting you. It just means that they don’t consider some ideas to have some special claim to immunity from evaluation simply because they’re religious.

If I think, for example, that persecuting homosexuals is a bad idea, I don’t particularly care if the reason you do it is because gay makes you feel icky, or because you have the ignorant notion that everybody will otherwise turn gay and doom the species, or because your religion tells you to. Going out of your way to make other people miserable when they’re not doing anything that actually hurts anyone is just a bad idea. I will oppose it; not because I’m opposed to religious people, but because I’m opposed to persecuting people.

Likewise, I regard treating other people with kindness and respect as a good idea. If your religion tells you to do that, you won’t find me opposing you in the exercise of that idea. Because whether you believe your god of choice wants you to do it, or because you just happen to share empathy with your fellow human beings, treating others well is kind of a good idea.

There are many examples I could give. I think demonizing sex and sex education, opposing science education, putting the government in the bedrooms of consenting adults, slavery, using government authority to pressure people into accepting a particular religion, and teaching people that they are inherently vile are all bad ideas. I think generosity, kindness, promoting education, and promoting community are all good ideas. All of those have been put forward by some religious denomination or another in recent memory, and I really don’t care: each idea is good or it’s bad based on its own merits, not whether it came out of a religion.

I see real problems with the practice of packaging vast swaths of ideas together and treating them like a monolithic whole. It creates a situation where two people can agree on 99% of their values, but become wholly incapable of discussing the 1% where they disagree without each feeling like the other is attacking their entire world view. There’s no logical connection between “love thy neighbor,” and “evolution doesn’t happen.” But because both those ideas got packaged into the same religion, you have people honestly making the argument that people who don’t believe the former somehow can’t follow the latter either because they’re immoral. The religion creates an artificial and divisive link between the ideas.

I understand, really, that if you accept a religion then it’s hard to see criticism of a particular idea that it espouses as not being an attack on the religion itself. Most religions seem to encourage that view. But those of us on the outside, we really don’t see it that way. We see the individual ideas, and believe they ought to stand or fall on their own. Many antireligious arguments are aimed at getting people to see past the artificial linking of those ideas, so that the ones we see as harmful can cease to be propped up by the ones we see as beneficial.

This isn’t done to persecute religious believers. It’s done because in a society based on religious freedom, an idea that is propped up only by a particular religion cannot be forced on those in society who do not share that religion.

Why Are There Still Monkeys?

It seems almost inevitable that in any debate over evolution versus creation, some creationist will trot out the old chestnut “If we’re evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?” In fact, in the wake of the recent Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate, the very next day there were commentators throwing out this very question. It’s almost always presented, not as a genuine request for explanation, but with the smug delivery of someone who thinks they’ve come up with the sort of unanswerable conundrum that represents ironclad proof that their opponent cannot possibly be right.

It’s a painful question for people who accept evolution to hear. Not because there’s no answer – in fact, the bulk of this article will be devoted to answering that question. No, it’s painful because of the startling ignorance it displays. If you can ask this question, and especially if you can ask it with that condescending confidence that it somehow disproves evolution, then you need to accept one simple fact: you do not understand the Theory of Evolution well enough to have a position on its plausibility.

Let’s see if we can correct that, at least on this particular part of the puzzle.

First of all, evolution (and here I’m going to use “evolution” as a shorthand for the Theory of Evolution), does not say that our ancestors were any currently existing species of monkey. It says that at some distant remove in the past, we shared a common ancestor with modern monkeys. Now if you looked at that ancestor you’d probably call it a monkey, but it would not be a chimpanzee or a macaque or a capuchin, or an orangutan or any other species we see currently running around the planet. Remember, after all, that “monkey” is a broad category covering many different species.

So what happened to this ancient monkey that we and all those other monkey species can be descended from it? Well, let me give you the broad strokes.

Picture, if you will, that ancient ancestor (we’ll call her Mona the Monkey) as part of a band of monkeys happily living in their trees millions of years ago. Maybe that band gets too big for the local environment and part of it splits off to find food elsewhere. Or there’s some sort of local disaster (a flood,  fire, earthquake, whatever) that splits the band. Whatever it is, some of that monkey’s children end up living and reproducing separately from the others.

So now we have Band A, the original, and Band B, the group that split off. Band A is still living in the same place doing the same things, so it doesn’t really change much. Band B, however, ends up in a place where the trees are more sparse, making it harder to move between them and forcing the monkeys to spend more time on the ground. That means that in Band B, the monkeys who are able to move better on the ground are more likely to survive and pass the traits that let them do so on to their offspring.

Before too many generations pass, the monkeys in Band B have noticeably longer legs than those in Band A simply due to the fact that the longer-legged monkeys in Band B are more likely to survive in the environment where they live.

Now, say a member of Band B is born with a mutation that increases the amount of muscle mass it puts on as it grows. This makes it better at protecting itself from predators in a physical confrontation, which enables it to spend even more time on the ground. And here’s the important thing: only those members of Band B who are descended from the money with that mutation will carry it themselves. That means that so long as Band B and Band A remain separate, no member of Band A will ever have that mutation.

You following me so far? We now have two bands of monkeys. Band A still strongly resembles Mona the Monkey and are a group of small, agile tree-dwellers. Band B, though, is composed largely of monkeys who, because of a combination of their environment selecting for taller monkeys with longer legs, and a beneficial mutation (yes, they happen) that increases their strength, are now larger and more comfortable on the ground. Both groups are descended from Mona the Monkey. But you notice what didn’t happen to Band A? It didn’t die out. It also didn’t change in the same way Band B did.

In other words, Band B is descended from Band A, yet Band A still exists.

The only difference between the story of the monkey bands I just told and the relationship between us and monkeys is one of scale. The band of monkeys that would eventually become us split off millions of years ago from the band that would go on to become modern monkeys, and both bands have split and/or mutated hundreds if not thousands of times in the intervening millennia. Some of those bands died, some of them survived, some even recombined at a later date. The details vary, but it’s always the same basic story repeated over and over and over. That’s what makes it so elegant – that by these simple steps repeated often enough over enough time you can arrive at such a diverse explosion of living forms.

That is why we can be descended from monkeys, and yet there are still monkeys.

Or, to steal a saying I’ve heard and found amusingly appropriate: the reason that we can be descended from monkeys, and yet there are still monkeys, is exactly the same reason most American can be descended from Europeans, and yet there are still Europeans.

This is, of course, only the most basic sort of layman’s explanation. I’m not a biologist, after all, nor are the people I’m targeting by writing this. I just hope this shows people that there is an answer to this question, and that it’s not so far-fetched as you might have been led to believe. And if this little glimpse has at all piqued your interest in what the Theory of Evolution actually has to say, I hope that you will pursue further reading on the subject from material written by actual evolutionary biologists.

How Does Being Straight Tell Me that Being Gay is Normal?

Strictly speaking, the question of whether or not being gay is normal, or should be treated as normal, isn’t an atheist issue. There are, for example, many atheists who believe that it’s not normal and ought to be banned for reasons that have nothing to do with the dictates of a god. I happen to disagree with them as well.

But the reason I bring it up here is that the vast majority of objections to homosexuality seem to be religious in nature. And it’s one of those areas where having no belief in a god allows you to examine the issue on its own merits rather than simply defaulting to obeying a dictate or by assuming that it must be wrong simply because you were brought up to believe that it is. It’s also one of those areas where you can see that the arguments religious objectors make are so hilariously at odds with reality that you wonder how they can possibly cling to them.

And then you realize that the arguments are meant to be taken seriously, and it becomes simultaneously sad and anger-inducing. Hence this article.

Of course, the primary argument is that one’s god considers homosexuality to be an abomination or something like that. This one automatically falls flat for everyone who doesn’t believe in the existence of that god, or for those who believe the god exists but don’t believe that it really thanks that. So then the argument is forced to go in the direction of things that might make actual sense in the real world. Many of these arguments kind of boil down to claiming that it’s not normal because it doesn’t occur “in nature,” or because if everyone were gay then the human species would die out.

Oddly, the “not normal” argument seems to use a different definition of the word “normal” than is used in pretty much every other facet of life. Only when it comes to homosexuality do I ever see people use “normal” as if it means “universally practiced,” and expect to be taken seriously.

Let me see if I can provide a few illustrations to get at what I mean. It is normal for a person to have blue eyes. We can all agree on that, right? Does that mean that everyone has blue eyes? Of course not. It’d be ludicrous to make that claim. It’s just as normal for people to have brown eyes, or green eyes. And even though grey eyes are unusual, they are still normal. Likewise, it is normal to like sports, but not everybody likes sports (and that is also normal). It is normal for a person to read books, but it’s also normal for other people to hate reading. It is normal to shower in the morning, but other completely normal people are still going to shower in the evening. Even though these things can be quite opposite from each other, accepting one as normal does not render its opposite abnormal. You know this.

Likewise, it’s normal to be sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex, but it is also normal for some people to be attracted to members of the same sex. Accepting homosexuality as part of the normal range of human sexual expression does not mean abandoning heterosexuality. If you think about this with any honesty, you know this is also true.

How do I know this? Because I’m straight.

I have a pretty fair number of gay friends. I like them. I think they’re good people, which is why they’re my friends. Some of the men have even hit on me at various times. And while I was flattered (who doesn’t like knowing that people they like think they’re attractive?), I was never even remotely tempted. And believe me, it’s not because I’m not a lustful person. It’s wholly and entirely because I’m straight. It simply doesn’t matter how accepting I am of my gay friends, or how many opportunities other men may give me to have sex with them, the simple fact of the matter is that I’m attracted to women. I am not just waiting for society to give me permission to give them up, as some people seem to want us to think.

Now, I know that’s just anecdotal. It’s only talking about my own experience, and I can’t speak for anyone else. I suppose that it’s just possible that I’m the only person on the face of the earth who isn’t burning with a repressed desire for others of the same gender that is only held in check by the disapproval of society and the fear of an angry storybook character. But does that seem at all likely? Does it really? It seems to me that the existence of seven billion people on this planet is pretty strong evidence that a healthy number of men really want to get together with women, and vice versa.

That’s why, when I hear people making ridiculously overblown claims such as that accepting homosexuality as normal will lead to the end of human families and procreation, it’s laugh-out-loud ridiculous. But when I see people accepting that argument, it turns to you-make-me-want-to-cry sad. Because there are really only two ways I can see someone honestly making or accepting that argument. The first is because they themselves are genuinely tempted by homosexuality and emotionally damaged over that desire. The second is that they aren’t tempted, but have completely abandoned reason and self-reflection on this subject. Neither of those are good things (and to be clear, it’s the emotional damage I’m claiming is sad, and not the sexual desire).

Of course, it’s possible to dishonestly make that claim. And I’m sure there are some people who do, in order to drum up fear and drive people in their preferred political direction. But if you honestly think about your own sexual desires (yes, it’s OK to think about what you might want), it should be pretty easy to see them for the ridiculous fear-mongering they are.

People love who they love. That doesn’t really change based on what other people tell them is normal. All that changes is whether we make them suffer because of it.

What Do You Worship?

So Representative Rick Saccone is trying to pass a bill in Pennsylvania requiring “In God We Trust,” to be posted in every school in the state. He claims it’s “inclusive,” because everyone who reads it can interpret “God” to mean whatever the god of their own religion is. Even if you ignore the existence of non-monotheistic beliefs, there is the obvious exception of us atheists.

In a recent interview, he was asked about this issue. His response was “Atheists, you know, they look at things their own way also. They can either interpret that as whatever god that they worship, in the form of, maybe it’s materialism, or something else in life that they look at.”

He also lied about receiving encouragement for the bill from the head of an atheist organization that doesn’t actually exist, but that’s not the point I’m angling at today.

There’s a very simple concept in play here that seems to have escaped him. It’s a concept, actually, that seems to escape many theists, since he’s not the first one I’ve heard say something similar. And that concept is that atheists by definition do not worship any gods. None. Zero. We do not believe they exist. By the way, that also means that we do not believe that we are gods either, just in case you were wondering.

Also, more than that, we haven’t gone and just replaced gods with something else to worship. I can’t even imagine what we would. The idea just seems ridiculous to me. It’s not as if I just have this weird urge to worship, such that in the absence of a god I’d have no choice but to direct that urge at something else. We don’t worship “materialism,” as the Representative Saccone seems to suggest, or ourselves, or science or anything at all. What would even be the point?

Bringing us back to the “In God We Trust,” thing, surely you can see that there’s no way to rationally argue that the phrase is inclusive of atheists. But the argument the Representative is making is nonsensical on another level as well. See, he’s basically arguing that the word “God” means whatever the reader wishes it to mean. Which means that he wants to spend legislative effort and public funds to plaster a nonsense phrase that essentially means “In whatever we trust.” Under that interpretation, the phrase is meaningless. It conveys no information and states no principal at all.

But of course, he doesn’t really mean it. He means the Christian god, and he wants to spend our tax money stamping our schools with it like a dog marking his territory. I hope his fellow representatives won’t fall for it, or worse, collude in it.

Why Don’t Atheists Want a Moral Basis?

In many debates I’ve seen between atheists and theists about the existence of a god, theists will frequently accuse atheists of having no moral basis. Some will even try to focus on this argument to the exclusion of all others, in spite of the fact that it actually has nothing to do with whether a god exists or not. And this is one of those arguments that just seems bizarre to me, because it’s one that no theist should want to win.

Why? Because the argument that “Without God, there is no basis for morality,” does nothing at all to prove that a god exists. At best, it’s an argument to want a god to exist. But just wanting something, no matter how much you might want it, does not make it true. The universe does not owe us an objective moral basis, and therefore the proposition that objective morality cannot exist without a god doesn’t demonstrate that a god exists.

So what happens if you convince somebody that there’s no moral basis without God, if you haven’t separately convinced him that there is a god? You take someone who had previously been moral, and turn them into someone amoral? Who actually wins in that situation? Anyone?

See, here’s the thing. By and large, atheists don’t look for ways to construct moral systems independent of God because we think they will banish him. We already don’t believe he exists. We try to construct moral systems because they are necessary to live in a society, humans by and large thrive best in societies, and nobody but humans is going to construct those societies (or the morals that guide them) for us. We don’t construct secular moral systems to deny God, we construct secular moral systems because we have no other choice.

And having to deal with the realities of living with other people seems like a pretty decent basis for a morality to me.

But ultimately I don’t think that the debate is necessarily about whether any given atheist can be a moral person. Inevitably, the debates seem to come down to this: how does an atheist justify imposing his morality on those who do not share it, since (as the theists claim) any moral system not based on a supreme authority is just as valid as any other?

From here on out, I’m speaking only for myself. Though my thoughts have been influenced by others, I cannot say that they are necessarily those of any significant number of atheists (who tend to be a diverse lot with a number of strongly conflicting opinions). But to me, it seems like the question posed in the preceding paragraph has some assumptions built into it that I do not believe are justified.

Firstly, the question seems to assume that morality is a fixed thing, and therefore when two moralities come into conflict one must be imposed unchanged on the other.

Secondly, it seems to assume that without a supreme authority, there is no basis for evaluating whether one moral choice is better than another.

I simply do not agree with either assumption.

To address the second one first, I do not believe that morality has anything to do with pleasing or obeying an authority figure in the first place. Morality is about how your behavior affects other people (and, to a certain extent, other living things). Once you understand that morality isn’t about rules, but about people, then it’s easy to see how there is a basis for judging whether certain moral choices are better than others.

To address the first assumption, when conflicts arise it may seem in some situations where it is clearly obvious that one path creates better outcomes for the affected people, then it may be necessary to impose that path. But often it’s less clear, which is why the morally responsible thing to do is be open to the possibility that your moral preference may be the one that’s wrong. Or that there’s enough ambiguity that imposing one or the other is not justified.

That’s the part I think is the hard one to convey. The idea that you can be wrong, or even that there might not be a clearly obvious right thing to do in all situations. That imposing your moral preferences, no matter how strongly felt they are, may not always be justified. And also accepting that the mere fact that you can’t know the absolute most right answer in every situation does not mean you can’t make a good decision. And more than that, it’s OK for that to be the case.

If you insist that morality is based on following the rules of some ultimate authority, then you have surrendered the ability to change those rules even when they demonstrably create awful outcomes for actual people. Following rules that create misery simply because an authority tells you to is, in my opinion, a fairly immoral stance. Particularly when that authority is one that can’t even be demonstrated to exist, or to have the best interests of any people whatsoever in mind.

We’re human. We’re fallible, but we’re also learning. We do the best with what we know now, in the hopes that in the future we’ll be able to do better based on the knowledge we’ll have then.