In the process of explaining why there can be good atheists, Peter Berger argues that to say different is, among other things, to commit the genetic fallacy. Thus:
Conservative Christians… typically argue that the morality at the core of Western civilization, specifically the values of human rights and liberties, is dependent on the Judeo-Christian tradition. Secularization is then assumed to dismantle that tradition, thus bringing about a pervasive relativism and eventually destroying the moral consensus required for the survival of every society.
I think that this argument suffers from what logicians call the genetic fallacy – that is, the view that the validity of any definition of reality depends on the history of the definition. To be sure, the Christian religion, grounded in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, was a very important source of Western civilization. There were other sources – Greek thought and political practice, Roman law, possibly aspects of Germanic traditions, and, crucially, the enormous effects of the rationality of Renaissance and Enlightenment. A distinctive moral discourse resulted from the confluence of all these historical developments. But it is not necessary to keep retracing this history in order to participate in the moral discourse. Once the discourse is formed and available, it can be accessed and embraced by people from different directions, including people from different religious and cultural backgrounds. (Italics in the original.)
Berger goes on to offer supporting material. It includes this homely tale:
Let me give a mundane example that has nothing to do with religion or culture: Some years ago, while in London, I was told of a bookstore in Bloomsbury that specialized in English-language books from India. I wanted the English translation of a recent novel originally published in an Indian language. I had difficulty finding the bookstore, and wandered around looking for it. Suddenly I came on the impressive old building of the British Museum (the one before it moved to its new quarters); I had not been there before. I then discovered that the book store I was looking for was virtually around the corner. Not long afterward I was with someone who wanted to see the old British Museum, with its reading room where Karl Marx labored to write his hugely misleading and hugely influential Das Kapital. I now knew where it was. I could go there directly, without retracing my journey in search of the bookstore.
So clear it could almost confuse you. Peter Berger wouldn’t be an academic by any chance, would he? (Thanks: LG.)