I like the metaphor.
The Christian would say that money does have value and it is set by the Central Bank. If there was no central Bank it would not have any objective value.
The atheist says he’s not sure if there is such a thing as the Central Bank. But that money has value in any case. It’s the value we personally put on it. It’s relative, not objective.
The Christian then asks: What if someone values the dollar differently to you? What do you say to him?
I’d say he can value it as he sees fit. But if he wants to operate in the real world, then he has to reach agreement with others as to what value is acceptable.
That’s my 2 cents anyway.
I think I understand the way in which you’re pursuing this metaphor; you’re not saying that Christians – or anyone else – believe that money is intrinsically valuable in the metaphysical sense –
materially valuable, that is – but that they, or anyone else, would understand that the statement “money has no intrinsic value” is besides the point, pragmatically speaking. In the realm of concrete human experience, you will a brick wall if you do acknowledge that the value of money is a social reality, with concrete physical consequences" (money gets you food). William James wrote that, “reality is that which pushes back,” and money – in this sense – is a rock solid reality.
Morality could then be described as the
spiritual currency – or, indeed, the moral currency – of a society, another social reality that is –
in a different respect – a “rock solid reality.”
But morality’s significance is, in fact, even deeper than that, because – while money is not “natural”, is
wholly a social convention – morality has both a social dimension
and an innate, biological dimension (just as most of us having two arms has an innate biological dimension). As we’ve discussed before, if we did not belong to a species whose desire for life – as a rule – was
incredibly strong and intense, a “brick wall” of human motivation – none of us probably be here (i.e., our forefathers would not have survived long enough to procreate). For reason to override the will to live – saying, “there’s no reason to
have a will to live”–is something that many of us theorize about, but few succeed in actually accomplishing, or acting upon. The will to live is more fundamental, and it’s on display in spades during an emergency. We even, of course, measure what is “rational behavior” by whether it preserves life, or destroys it – thus, eating paint chips is dubbed “irrational” behavior. Those who do so are either very “stupid” – or suffer from an excess of intelligence (why
not eat paints chips, metaphysically speaking?)
Morality – that Declarations of the Rights of Man, that you are speaking of – is a discovered means for human beings to peacefully co-exist, and to survive peacefully (without killing each other), with their material needs (comfort, security) and their emotional needs (love, friendship, productive work) met. It’s an ideal, but a document like that is a step in the right directions, towards that which humans being
cannot help but want.
Reason is not strong enough to overcome that, because this desire is more fundamental than reason. It would be like using willpower to try to change one’s genetic code. In fact, it’s been posited that reason itself exists because it proved worthy of
serving that fundamental will to live in a hostile environment.
An important distinction that is often overlooked in our materialistic society.