Bad Theology in Support of Bad Science

_{Barry Arrington

May 11, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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Fransciso Ayala says intelligent design is an “atrocity” and “disastrous for religion” because it makes God directly responsible for all of the evil in the world. Ayala apparently believes he can get God “off the hook” for all of the evil in the world by setting him up as a remote deity – along the lines of the wind-up-the-clock deity believed in by, say, a seventeenth century deist – who, while He may have set the initial conditions in the universe, has not tended to it since and therefore cannot be blamed if the evolutionary train has gone off the rails in his absence. Rubbish. Ayala is pushing bad theology to support his bad science.

Let us examine Ayala’s claim that evolution gets God off the hook. His logic apparently runs something like this: As a Christian he concedes that God is the primary cause of the universe. Nevertheless, he says, God established numerous secondary causes, including Darwinian evolution, which is responsible for the vast complexity and diversity of life. But evolution is a creative force that is far from perfect, and such things as genetic defects, the cruelty in nature, and the defective human birth canal result from this imperfect process.

Now here is where Ayala’s argument gets interesting. Ayala seems to believe that by laying the imperfections in living things and the obvious cruelty in the world at the feet of a secondary cause (i.e., evolution), the primary cause (i.e., God) is relieved from “responsibility” for the aberrations resulting from the imperfect secondary cause.

Ayala’s argument runs squarely counter to elementary logic. Christians believe that God is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and omnibenevolent (unlimited in goodness). The universe is contingent. God did not have to create it. He chose to create it. Not only that; He chose to create a universe in which evil is possible. And not only that; in His omniscience God knew perfectly (not probabilistically) exactly what the consequences would be of His decision to create a universe where evil is possible. God knew evil would exist in the universe He created at the moment He created it. Therefore, in a certain sense (call it an “ontological sense”) God is responsible for the existence of evil. Please do not get me wrong. I am not for a moment suggesting that God is morally responsible for the evil in the universe. But it seems inescapable that He is responsible in the sense of establishing the conditions in which it is possible for evil to exist.

Even if this were not the case, one would still have to contend with the combination of God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence. Suppose I am standing on a sidewalk. I see a car is about to come up on the sidewalk and strike the person in front of me, and all I have to do to save her is reach out and give her a gentle tug backwards. If I allow that person to be struck and killed by the car when it was well within my power to save her, two things are true. My conduct has not conformed to the good, and in a very real sense I am responsible for her death. In his omnipotence God is well able to stop all evil if He chooses to do so. If God does not stop the evil He is well able to stop, is He not responsible for it?

Where does this leave Ayala’s argument? His logic does not bear up under the slightest scrutiny. Exiling God to the “primary cause” hinterlands does not get God “off the hook” for the existence of evil in the world. Intelligent design does not “make God responsible for evil.” In the ontological sense we have discussed, God is responsible for existence of evil before intelligent design theory speaks. Therefore, Ayala’s argument fails utterly.

What about the theodicy? How can we reconcile the existence of evil with an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God? The answer revolves around the existence of free will. Just as He had a choice regarding whether to create the universe, God also had a choice concerning the kind of universe to create. He could create a universe in which love and also evil are possible, or He could create a universe in which love and also evil are not possible. But He could not create a universe in which love, but not evil, was possible. Why? Because both love and evil are the results of choosing. In an important sense they are the opposite sides of the same coin. When a person loves, he chooses the good for the other, and when a person commits evil he chooses that which is not the good for the other. And just as you cannot have a one-sided coin, you cannot have a universe in which it is possible to love (to choose the other) but not possible to commit evil (to not choose the other).

God chose to give us the capacity to love. He gave us the ability to choose (or not) the other. In short, He gave us a terrible, awful, wondrous gift – free will. But when He gave us the capacity to love, he also gave us the capacity to commit evil. And scripture teaches us that all evil, both moral evil and natural evil, is the result of man’s choice to commit evil, which resulted in the fall.

Ayala displays an appalling ignorance of the scriptures when he suggests that “intelligent design” makes God responsible for evil. The scriptures teach quite clearly that evil is the result of man’s choice. This is an elementary doctrine, a doctrine with which Ayala, a former priest, must be familiar. So it is a mystery why he slanders ID the way he does.

Comments

StephenB and KF, Some ideas for you to consider. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp96wOMtfjw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PErtoHCEytYriddick_{May 16, 2010
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Well I am still none the wiser about where morals come from if we don't create them ourselves. StephenB, why have you chosen those five standards as the source of your morals? Surely there are other moral teachings in the bible you could have included but decided not to? And why have you elected not to include some of the harsh prescriptions from the old testament?zeroseven_{May 16, 2010
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kairosfocus @ 46
Sadly, evidently Seversky does not appreciate the absurdity of in one breath declaring . . . .
Sev, 42: No matter how much KF wishes it were otherwise, there is no logical way to bridge the divide between ‘is’ and ‘ought’. There is no way to ground moral prescriptions except in our common interests as human beings.
. . . . then in the next one trying to indict God as a moral monster; thus plainly appealing to the binding nature of transcendent morality.
You see an absurdity you want to see, not one that is there. At no point do I appeal to some binding, transcendent morality. I have repeatedly argued that morality can only be grounded in our collective interests as human beings and it is on that basis that we can judge the morality of acts described in the Old Testament. My claim is that if you took some of those OT acts, transposed them to a modern context and attributed them to human agency, most people would condemn them as heinous crimes, atrocities and offenses against humanity and demand the the offenders be punished accordingly. The collective opinion of the majority of people today would be that those acts are immoral on their face.
Similarly, he does not appreciate that commonality of interests is an interesting ideal, but as the descendant of slaves [and spiritual heir of those Gospel-driven reformers who fought for fifty years to break its stranglehold in the British Empire], I know full well how willfully blinded power-wielders often are to their violation of the legitimate interests of others who are marginalised.
I agree that it is an ideal and one that we are far from realizing but that does not mean we should not try. The US Declaration of Independence and Constitution embody ideals which have been, on occasion, more honored in the breach than the observance. For all the espoused freedoms for all, some of the Founding Fathers owned slaves and the treatment of them and Native American peoples is an unexpunged stain on the national character. But that is still no reason not to try and do better.
Coming back to Seversky’s claim that the is-ought gap is unbridgeable in logic, let us provide a bit of context: EXCEPT IF THE GROUND OF BEING IS INHERENTLY MORALLY GOOD, SO THAT GOOD IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF REALITY.
For that argument to have any force you would have to define good as a property of objective reality. You would have to show that, like gravity or light, it can be observed, demonstrated and measured by anyone who chooses to look and that it will appear the same to all, regardless of race, culture or creed. Otherwise you are left with the position that it is a subjective judgement like beauty.
A further key clue to what is going on is the fact that on being presented directly with the major texts that directly state the core of Biblical morality, Sev cannot find it in himself to pause for a sentence or two to acknowledge its value or validity or contribution to ever so many vital reformations over the long centuries.
Not true. I am quite happy to acknowledge to contributions of Christianity to European and world culture, that many have done good in its name and that there are passages in the Old Testament which espouse a morality more akin to what we would accept today. None of that, however, detracts from the fact there are also stories in the OT which are, by today's standards, quite blatantly immoral but which, according to the stories, were carried out or endorsed by God and his followers. Even today, they are excused and defended by the faithful.
Nowhere do we find an acknowledgement that the moral status of a Judge or an officer of the civil authority is different from that of a private citizen.
In a free and democratic society judges and governors do not appoint themselves, neither do they draft and enact laws all by themselves. You have complained, rightly, about the high-handed and oppressive treatment of peoples brought to the Caribbean by the British Empire. But in what way was their treatment much different from that of the less-favored peoples in the Old Testament. In what way did the OT God behave different from that of your British Imperial masters?
1 –> The fact of morality is plain, the issue is whether ought is genuinely binding beyond the prudent consideration of what one can get away with. (And, having seen what a community of amoral laws unto themselves trying to get away with as much as they can looks like, the answer is plain: ought is binding and we ignore it at our peril.)
Alright, just for the sake of argument, let's accept the above, so whose morality is binding? Is it Baptist or Pentecostal? Because you will have trouble convincing Catholics or Episcopalians, let alone the rest of the world, to accept it. What about Muslim morality? Good luck trying to get that accepted in the US or most other non-Muslim parts of the world. No, what most onlookers will interpret you to be promoting is that version of morality espoused by your particular faith. But to those of different faiths, or no faith at all, that looks like a form of sectarian or religious imperialism.
2 –> Redemptive Theism has a logically adequate adequate ground for ought in the Holy, good Creator God. For, moral right or wrong are neither arbitrary whims of a capricious god, nor independent of such a god.
Which, to an outsider, sounds like 'my God is right because He says so'.
And, we need to reckon carefully indeed with the issue that we are accountable as nations before God as governor of the world and its Judge.
If your God is indeed Governor and Judge of the world then I have a long list of complaints about the way it is being run for Him to deal with when he's not too busy.Seversky_{May 16, 2010
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Allanius @ 22: As the resident Platonist here (or one of them), I must protest your remarks. First, Plato does not teach that "nature is evil" or that "all existence is evil". Certain Christian heretics, e.g., Marcion and Mani, may have drawn on Platonic themes and vocabulary (taken out of their context in Plato's writings) to paint a portrait of nature or human existence as evil, but that certainly is not Plato's teaching. Plato does at points speak about the imperfection of nature, its inability to wholly realize rational ordering, but that is not the same as saying that nature is evil or that existence is evil. Something is not evil merely because it is imperfect. As for Ayala's foolish views, I utterly repudiate them, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with Plato. And Darwin's anti-teleological mode of explanation is the very opposite of Plato's. You're looking for a villain in the story, but, like Francis Schaeffer, you've got the wrong suspect. I suggest you have a look at Lucretius, who's one of the genuine spiritual progenitors of both Darwin and Ayala. Your notion of Plato's thought is taken partly from the Phaedo, and partly from the dialogue which bears my name. Each of Plato's dialogues is written for limited pedagogical purposes, and none can be read simply as a treatise expounding a metaphysical position. The teaching of the Phaedo is qualified in some respects by the teaching of the Timaeus, and the teaching of both is qualified by the teaching of the Republic, and so on. The Republic is very significant in that it represents the Good as the source of both understanding and being. All that is, owes its reality to the Good, which the Christian Platonist tradition identifies with God. The relationship of the world to God is not "dualistic" but rather one of participation in the divine goodness and being. The statements in the Phaedo which appear to imply distaste for matter are situated dramatically at the point where Socrates is about to die and his soul is going on to a higher destiny, justifying the local emphasis on the superiority of soul to body; and the statements in the Timaeus -- which Plato warns us is from the outset is to be understood only as a "likely story" or "befitting tale" -- must be read in the light of the whole Platonic corpus, and the Republic is certainly one of the cornerstones of that edifice. T.Timaeus_{May 16, 2010
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Clive Hayden@ 45
I didn’t say anything about measurements. I’ve noticed a tendency of yours to change the subject. I said mathematics. Is mathematics subjective because it doesn’t exist physically?
Metrology can be viewed as a part of mathematics but it doesn't matter here. I was only using it as an illustration. We use mathematics to model and manipulate quantities and relationships we observe in the real world. But the model is not the same as the thing being modeled. The model is an arbitrary creation in the minds of the observers, namely, us. It is arbitrary because it need not be the way it is. As I noted before, we need not use the symbol '3' to represent the quantity of three, it could just as easily be 'V' or '11' But, to be useful rather than just entertainment, the symbols and their rules of operation need to be consistent across all users and reflect the salient properties of what is being modeled. Why the model, in this case mathematics is subjective, however, is quite simply that if we were expunged from the Universe so would our mathematics. The properties of the Universe which our mathematics models would still be there but our math would not.
If morality and mathematics are to be discarded because the universe doesn’t care for them, then so should your argument about caring whether or not it cares. Because it doesn’t care about your argument.
I have never argued that morality - or mathematics - should be discarded. What I deny is that they are objective entities that are entitled to some sort of privileged status because of it. Both of them exist within human culture because, in their different ways, they serve very useful purposes which have, probably, improved our chances of survival as a species. As for the Universe not caring about my views, I think that is true. I think that, terrifying as the prospect might be, we are on our own here and, as the saying goes, we need to just suck it up and get on with it.
Seversky_{May 16, 2010
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Typo: d/dxkairosfocus_{May 16, 2010
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Ilion: An interesting debate on chance. You will see I spoke of forces of chance, which is a bit broader, recognising that for instance a normal scatter on say length of a bolt is from a summation of a large number of small, bidirectional errors with a random scatter and fluctuations. (And wear will begin to push in a bias; thence statistical process control and three sigma bands.) Gkairosfocus_{May 16, 2010
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Aleta Thanks for the catch. Antiderivative: d.dx[x^n] = n* x^n-1, so integral is indeed the reverse. (I am plainly in need of some refresher integration exercises set by good old Mr Smith, who used to dole them out by the several dozen. Ouch!) GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 16, 2010
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KairosFocus: "Here, you will note that materialistic determinism undermines the concept of freedom. But, without true freedom, our thoughts, reasoning and conclusions would be wholly caused and determined by forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to logic, truth, right/wrong and purpose, ..." Though, it must be pointed out, "chance" is not (and cannot be) the cause of anything. To say that some state or event was caused by chance is literally to state nonsense -- it is to state that the cause of the effect was not the effect's cause; for to attribute causality to "chance" is exactly to state that there is no correlation between the cause and the effect. But, other than that point, yes: to assert materialism is to assert that we do not reason; for we cannot, if materialism is the truth about the nature of reality. Yet, here we are doing it ... even if some of us are insistent upon doing it incorrectly.Ilion_{May 16, 2010
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---riddick: "Returning somewhat to the original post, that all evil is the result of the Fall, can you please tell us which law, commandment, or rule Adam and Eve broke?" First Comandment: They engaged in idolatry, followed a false God, and presumed the right to define right and wrong for themselves. Seventh Commandment: They stole something that did not belong to them. The tree was God's property and there was to be "no trespassing." Tenth Commandment: They lusted after worldly goods and privileges that belong to someone else, including the right to be like God.StephenB_{May 16, 2010
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Pardon onlookers, but I am sure kairosfocus will want it pointed out that the integral of x^2 is 1/3*x^3 + c, not 2*x^3 + c as he stated, and that "the area under a curve y = x^2 from zero and moving right" is likewise 1/3 * x^3, not 1/2 * x^3 as he stated.Aleta_{May 16, 2010
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KF, Well done at #50 -- a very enjoyable read.Apollos_{May 16, 2010
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@Kairosfocus As always, a pleasure reading your response. Thanks!above_{May 16, 2010
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Riddick: You may profit by reading Genesis 1 - 3, if you wish to understand what command Adam and Eve broke; and you will also understand on the biblical narrative, that evil and its destructive consequences were in the wider cosmos long before Adam and Eve -- i.e. there was a deceitful tempter at work. (Hint: you cannot adequately love God by ascribing base motives to him and using that to "justify" disobedience. Hint 2: this also shows how on the biblical worldview, natural evils can be seen as the consequence of moral evils; i.e. the successful Free Will Defense properly applies to both classes of evils and so also not only the deductive but the inductive form of the attempted -- and logically [as opposed to rhetorically] unsuccessful -- argument to atheism from evils.) But, your problem is deeper than that, as we may see from Rom 2 and 13:
Rom 2:1You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. . . . . 5 . . . because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6God "will give to each person according to what he has done."[a] 7To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger . . . . 2: 14(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) . . . . 8 . . . he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet,"[a] and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."[b] 10Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
In short, the biblical view is that core morality is written on our hearts, and manifests itself in the principle of not harming neighbour, i.e one's essential equal. In that context, it is impenitence and rejection of the right and the truth that one full well knows or should know, that are culpable before God. This is especially manifest in self-serving inconsistency on asserting "you unfair to me,: when one is in the same boat of being similarly unfair to others. G'day GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 16, 2010
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Above: Evolutionary materialism's problems with mathematics, logic and reasoning, as well as morality, actually start long before we get to actual mathematical objects and relations. For instance, others and I have excerpted professor of the history of biology, William Provine's remarks in his Darwin Day comments at U of Tenn, 1998:
Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent. . .
Here, you will note that materialistic determinism undermines the concept of freedom. But, without true freedom, our thoughts, reasoning and conclusions would be wholly caused and determined by forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to logic, truth, right/wrong and purpose, i.e. the inherent irrationality of evolutionary materialism undermines the rationality that is the premise of mathematics. In an evolutionary materialist world, all is driven by genes, relative power in harsh environments and survival in the face of not having enough to go around; so since on this view we are jumped up apes [and beyond that jumped up pond slime], in Dawkins' words:
We are jumped-up apes, and our brains were only designed to understand the mundane details of how to survive in the stone-age African savannah . . .
Concepts and entities like set membership, mappings, functions and relations, thence twoness or threeness as a matter of the property of one to one correspondence with certain specified sets, infinitesimals, complex numbers, and the like are far beyond such mundane details. Thus, materialism globally undermines the life of the mind, as well as morality. My fundamental objection therefore holds long before mathematical entities come into play. Namely, that such evolutionary materialism is inescapably self-referential, and self-contradictory thus patently absurd and false. As the above linked notes:
. . . [evolutionary] materialism [a worldview that often likes to wear the mantle of "science"] . . . argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature. Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of chance. But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this picture. Thus, what we subjectively experience as "thoughts" and "conclusions" can only be understood materialistically as unintended by-products of the natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains. (These forces are viewed as ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance ["nature"] and psycho-social conditioning ["nurture"], within the framework of human culture [i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism].) Therefore, if materialism is true, the "thoughts" we have and the "conclusions" we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity. Of course, the conclusions of such arguments may still happen to be true, by lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” them. And, if our materialist friends then say: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must note that to demonstrate that such tests provide empirical support to their theories requires the use of the very process of reasoning which they have discredited! Thus, evolutionary materialism reduces reason itself to the status of illusion. But, immediately, that includes “Materialism.” For instance, Marxists commonly deride opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismiss qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? And, should we not simply ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is simply another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? In the end, materialism is based on self-defeating logic . . . .
Going to the particular issue of the reality of mathematical abstractions, you will note HC's observation on radical subjectivism, that it cuts across the reality of twoness, threeness, and the objectivity of operations such as addition. In a world of fundamental irrationality that is driven by genetic and socio-psychological conditioning, everything is relative to power, and everything is up for grabs. Thus, adherents of such views will not acknowledge first principles of reasoning, nor objectivity of truths that are abstract (nor the actuality of unwelcome facts such as the information-rich code and algorithmically functional complexity in DNA and other molecules that carry out the key operations of the cell). Don't even bother to mention morality. I disagree that when we speak of mathematics we generally mean "its correlation to the physical world." When we say 2 + 3 = 5, or the integral of x^2, on dx is 2*x^3 + c, we generally mean that these things are and MUST be true,once certain axioms are accepted or implied as reasonable first principles; often because they are self evidently true. (but these days, there is a struggle with self-evident truth, as it does not sit too easily with the academy's favoured evolutionary materialism. But, that says more about evo mat than about the warranted credible truths that should be key anchor points of fact for any reasonable worldview; on pain of reductio ad absurdum. Which is of course -- what a "coincidence"! -- also a central proof technique of mathematics: assume X, show it leads to inconsistencies, reject X and accept the denial of X as thus shown true.) So, we often ILLUSTRATE mathematical truths by concrete cases that help us form the abstract understanding. (I am after all a self confessed moderate, Richard Skempian constructivist as an educator.) But we do not mean that the manipulation of certain arbitrary symbols by certain rules we just happened to come up with, hey presto, just happen to magically correspond to the observable physical world. So, yes, three guavas in a ring, and put in one from each hand more, and we get one, two, three, four, FIVE is physically manifest, but that is because the physical world corresponds to reality too. Similarly, the area under a curve [and note the difference between a function and a graphical plot!] y = x^2 from zero and moving right will be A = 1/2 * x^3, but that is because the physical world manifests the underlying abstract and logical reality that drives the math, not because the math is derived from the physical world. That is why working out the math is so often powerfully able to predict t e future situation: the world is logically ordered and reflects underlying realities that are prior to physical instantiation. And, when we see the logic of the cosmic order, as we partly know from the laws of physics etc, and when we see that that logical order is fine tuned to support a world in which intelligent creatures exhibiting cell based life using carbon chemistry like us are possible, w4e see that we have a cosmos that is credibly the product of mind. Or, going back to the book that so many are ever so eager never to hear:
Rom 1:19 . . . what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
______________ G'day GEM of TKI PS: Onlookers, Vox Day's The Irrational Atheist is a useful place to begin understanding the crucial logical and factual gaps in the rhetoric of the so-called new atheists.kairosfocus_{May 16, 2010
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@kairosfocus When we speak of the reality of mathematics we generally speak of its correlation to the physical world and what Wenger called “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics”. Now that is difficult to deny for the materialist without throwing much of the scientific enterprise under the bus. My question to you is – in an attempt to simply play the devil’s advocate – can’t the materialist claim that mathematics is merely an abstraction of the physical world thus subjecting mathematic “under” materialism? In other words, claim that mathematics is a derivative of matter in some way? Do you think that's a valid objection?above_{May 15, 2010
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StephenB, Returning somewhat to the original post, that all evil is the result of the Fall, can you please tell us which law, commandment, or rule Adam and Eve broke? Listed below are the five standards as given by you. Perhaps you can locate their infraction from one (or more) of those standards. The Sermon on the Mount The Beautitudes The Ten Commandments The natural moral law The Golden Ruleriddick_{May 15, 2010
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PS: Hawthorne's analysis of the ethics of evolutionary materialist atheism will bear sobering reflection: ________________ >> Assume (per impossibile) that atheistic naturalism [= evolutionary materialism] is true. Assume, furthermore, that one can't infer an 'ought' from an 'is' [the 'is' being in this context physicalist: matter-energy, space- time, chance and mechanical forces]. (Richard Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these assumptions.) Given our second assumption, there is no description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer an 'ought'. And given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is. It follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there's no description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer that one ought to refrain from performing that action. Add a further uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if it's not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that action. (This is just the standard inferential scheme for formal deontic logic.) We've conformed to standard principles and inference rules of logic and we've started out with assumptions that atheists have conceded in print. And yet we reach the absurd conclusion: therefore, for any action you care to pick, it's permissible to perform that action. If you'd like, you can take this as the meat behind the slogan 'if atheism is true, all things are permitted'. For example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was permissible. Many atheists don't like this consequence of their worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being logical at the same time. Now, we all know that at least some actions are really not permissible (for example, racist actions). Since the conclusion of the argument denies this, there must be a problem somewhere in the argument. Could the argument be invalid? No. The argument has not violated a single rule of logic and all inferences were made explicit. Thus we are forced to deny the truth of one of the assumptions we started out with. That means we either deny atheistic naturalism or (the more intuitively appealing) principle that one can't infer 'ought' from 'is'. >> _________________ PPS: And, of course the acknowledgement of evil as an objectionable but undeniable reality as CH has pointed out with a special emphasis on the reality of mathematics, highlights that there is a world of reality beyond matter-energy in space time interacting under the four forces: strong and weak nuclear, electromagnetism, gravitation, acting blindly in light of chance initial circumstances for the cosmos and solar system and the earth. So, either one lets go of materialism or one lets go of both morality and mathematics. PPPS: Dear onlooker, please take time to think about the implications of the life, death and resurrection of the greatest moral teacher ever.kairosfocus_{May 15, 2010
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Onlookers (and Seversky): Sadly, evidently Seversky does not appreciate the absurdity of in one breath declaring . . . .
Sev, 42: No matter how much KF wishes it were otherwise, there is no logical way to bridge the divide between ‘is’ and ‘ought’. There is no way to ground moral prescriptions except in our common interests as human beings.
. . . . then in the next one trying to indict God as a moral monster; thus plainly appealing to the binding nature of transcendent morality. For, if ought is no more than agreement among humans about in-common interests, then there is no real ought -- beyond the cynically calculating judgement of an heir of Alcibiades and/or Machiavelli that (based on the prevailing balance of power and control on the spread of potentially embarrassing information) "I" cannot get away with more than this. Similarly, he does not appreciate that commonality of interests is an interesting ideal, but as the descendant of slaves [and spiritual heir of those Gospel-driven reformers who fought for fifty years to break its stranglehold in the British Empire], I know full well how willfully blinded power-wielders often are to their violation of the legitimate interests of others who are marginalised. Coming back to Seversky's claim that the is-ought gap is unbridgeable in logic, let us provide a bit of context: EXCEPT IF THE GROUND OF BEING IS INHERENTLY MORALLY GOOD, SO THAT GOOD IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF REALITY. In short, Sev has inadvertently underscored the utter amorality and relativism of evolutionary materialistic atheism and similar worldviews that do not premise their understanding of reality on such an ultimate being. When he then returns to his favourite talking points to try to indict the God of the OT as a moral monster, he is therefore doing one of two things:
(a) utterly contradicting himself by implicitly accepting the fact of the binding nature of morality while averring a worldvew on which ought reduces to politics and rhetoric, and/or (b) trying to rhetorically manipulate our emotions and perceptions of what is right and wrong.
A further key clue to what is going on is the fact that on being presented directly with the major texts that directly state the core of Biblical morality, Sev cannot find it in himself to pause for a sentence or two to acknowledge its value or validity or contribution to ever so many vital reformations over the long centuries. So, while he says that "[w]e plainly live by the assumption of a shared or collective morality, one whose broad commonality is determined by a general recognition of the fact that we are all human beings [oops, as we see in Descent of man ch 6, Darwin and his moral heirs thought in terms of superior and inferior races of differing worth and fitness to survive, the australian aborigine and the negro being at the bottom of the totem pole, as usual] . . . " it is all too plain that he cannot acknowledge the force of actual principles that give specific leverage to such generic platitudes. And, all too sadly soon, Sev is back at his village atheist rhetoric of trying to indict God as a moral monster and his people as "accomplices" in such monstrosity. Nowhere do we find an acknowledgement that the moral status of a Judge or an officer of the civil authority is different from that of a private citizen. Nor, recognition that we have in hand in the case of Jonah a very concrete example that shows the actual attitude of God as Governor of the whole earth about national sins, even on the brink of judgement. That is, if there is a way out God will grant it, and the underlying call to repentance is a way out for the individual and the nation -- oh, Jamaica, oh America. (By the way, in the particular case of the Assyrians, archaeology has provided abundant vindication of the claim that they became a plague upon the earth. Guess why Jonah wanted them destroyed and uprooted? [And Miller gives a far more balanced, concerned and well researched summary and analysis of especially the case of the Amorites than Sev will acknowledge.]) So, now we come to the issue of the balance on comparative difficulties: 1 --> The fact of morality is plain, the issue is whether ought is genuinely binding beyond the prudent consideration of what one can get away with. (And, having seen what a community of amoral laws unto themselves trying to get away with as much as they can looks like, the answer is plain: ought is binding and we ignore it at our peril.) 2 --> Redemptive Theism has a logically adequate adequate ground for ought in the Holy, good Creator God. For, moral right or wrong are neither arbitrary whims of a capricious god, nor independent of such a god. 3 --> By contrast, evolutionary materialistic atheism has no is that can ground ought beyond what one must do because one cannot get away with more than that. (And societies or institutions that try to build on such cynical machiavellianism self-destruct.) 4 --> Biblical morality lays out a core of precepts that have an intuitively good fit to the voice of conscience [no surprise, cf Rom 2:5 - 16], and do define principles that though we will struggle to live by them, help to build a just and decent community. 5 --> There are troubling cases of judgements of nations in the Bible [including, repeatedly, that of Israel itself], but that does not ground casting off the grounds of morality as the solution. And, we need to reckon carefully indeed with the issue that we are accountable as nations before God as governor of the world and its Judge. (In that context, we must also reckon with the love and redemption of God as self-sacrificing Saviour.) _________________ So, onlookers, we have a serious set of decisions to make on comparative difficulties. G'day GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 15, 2010
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Seversky, I didn't say anything about measurements. I've noticed a tendency of yours to change the subject. I said mathematics. Is mathematics subjective because it doesn't exist physically? Can we say anything we want to say about math based on whatever our subjective feelings are about it? Can we say that 2 + 2=97? I can say with conviction that I do not like cheese, and that cheese tastes bad, so.... according to you I can also say that since math is subjective that 0 + 5 = 153? How enlightened. In order to avoid objective morality you make mathematics subjective. Well, regardless of whether the Universe "cares" about mathematics, we care, as humans, about it, just as we do about morality. By your rationality of comparing everything of objectivity to whether the Universe "cares" about it or not, you shouldn't care about whether it cares or not, for it doesn't care, so neither should you care about what it cares about. If morality and mathematics are to be discarded because the universe doesn't care for them, then so should your argument about caring whether or not it cares. Because it doesn't care about your argument. It doesn't reason, it doesn't care about anything, it is inert. If you were to model yourself after it, you would also be inert. You're welcome to think yourself on the level with it, but you cannot then care about what anything else cares about, nor can you argue, for it doesn't argue. All of this to avoid the obvious that metaphysical things are objective. What more can be said? Clive Hayden_{May 15, 2010
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Off topic: This may be of interest to some: Coast to Coast AM - Near Death Research part 1/12 - audio http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBGzdzZkWm4 Foundation, Dr. Jeffrey Long MD shared research about NDEs, culled from over 1,600 cases. NDEs are lucid experiences that a person undergoes while unconscious or clinically dead that cannot be medically explained. While each NDE is unique, there is a remarkable amount of similarity and order to the experience, even among people from non-Western cultures, he reported. During an NDE, people can see & hear around their immediate vicinity in an out-of-body state. For instance, after they've been revived, they're often able to correctly identify objects or people in the room they would not have seen while unconscious. After going through a tunnel-like experience, they encounter deceased friends and relatives-- never people that are currently alive, Long noted. And the "life review" described in NDEs accurately portrays events from the person's life, even if those events had previously been forgotten. NDErs typically reach a boundary or wall they can't cross or see beyond, and though they don't want to go back to their earthly existence, they often agree to return for the sake of their family, Long detailed. About 15% of NDEs contain frightening material, with 2% having outright hellish imagery, he added. He also touched on a new international NDE study, called AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) in which 25 medical centers will assess cardiac arrest patients to see how many have NDEs. Specific targets will be set up with hidden images to see if the patients are able to observe them when in an out-of-body state. Dr. Jeff and Jody Long http://www.near-death.com/experiences/experts10.htmlbornagain77_{May 15, 2010
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---seversky: “Did morality exist in the Universe before any life was there? If it is objective it does not depend on our existence for its own?” Objective morality is the one to which ALL humans must adapt and conform for the sake of a well ordered society. Subjective morality is one that INDIVIDUAL humans make up as they go along for the sake of their own personal convenience, regardless of the negative impact it may have on the common good. The former binds everyone, and is, therefore, essential for adjudicating disagreements in a peaceful way; the latter binds no one, and is, therefore, useless as an instrument of peace. Indeed, subjective or relativist morality always and everywhere translates into the "problem" of a "war of all against all" followed by a "solution" of might makes right. A reasonable morality that doesn’t bind everyone is not a morality at all; it is a personal preference like the preference for ice cream or music. ---Actually, if the Old Testament illustrates Christian morality then atheists can do a lot better. Old Testament morality, which was established for a primitive people, has been perfected through New Testament morality and cannot stand on its own. Those who attempt to divorce the two are purposely seeking to misrepresent Christian morality. In any case, your contradictions persist. According to what standard can you claim that any morality is “better” than any other? You keep alluding to a standard of measurement that you also claim doesn’t exist. ---“There have been many non-Christian societies that have nonetheless observed moral codes, unless you are claiming non-Christian societies are immoral by definition.” Yes, everyone, and every society, observes a moral code of some kind. There is nothing new in that revelation. In your judgment, are all equally valid since there is no universal or objective standard by which one may be rated higher than the other. Under those circumstances, Nazism and your moral relativism are on an equal moral plane because both are sincerely held moral views. ---“Christian morality can be as valid as any other.” According to what standard of validity? On the one hand, you claim that no objective standard exists; on the other hand, you continue to argue as if one does exist. It is high time for you to grasp the incoherent nature of your position. ---“I should say that, under the circumstances, the six billion have done pretty well. There are plenty or moral codes around, granted not all of them are religious but then that may be a good thing according to some studies.” There you go again. What standard of “well” are you using? Is it the one you claim doesn’t exist? In any case, there are plenty of arbitrary moral codes in existence, but none of them have ever been “worked out,” as you put it. They were established and maintained intrusively from the top down. None of the "isms" were arrived at by consensus, rather they came out of the imagination of armchair philosophers, many of whom could not even preserve order in their own personal lives. The only time in history where a bottom up formulation was allowed was in the United States Constitution and Declaration of Independence, which was informed by the objective moral principle that humans are made in the image and likeness of God and do, therefore, deserve the privilege of governing themselves. They worked out their laws only because they began with an objectively stated moral code as a foundation. Without that foundation, nothing can be worked out. They did not work out their morality. No one has ever begun from scratch and developed a moral code through dialogue or consensus. In spite of your protests, you cannot provide one example of any society that has ever forged a morality through consensus. Indeed, you will not even attempt to work out a morality with me, evading the topic each time I reintroduce it. You and I cannot work out a morality because you reject four out of five of my standards, all of which are non-negotiable for me. I cannot work out a morality with you because I do not accept your standard bearer, John Stuart Mill as a moral authority. Quite the contrary, I hold that his utilitarianism is highly immoral and eminently dangerous. Morality cannot be worked out. Anyone who has ever made a practical attempt at it already knows this.StephenB_{May 15, 2010
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kairosfocus @ 36
1 –> We all plainly live by the implicit acknowledgement of the objectivity of morality. This we see by how we quarrel, by appealing to standards of fairness.
We plainly live by the assumption of a shared or collective morality, one whose broad commonality is determined by a general recognition of the fact that we are all human beings and have the same basic interest in survival and the enjoyment of the brief time we are allowed here.
2 –> Such objectivity can only be grounded where there is a foundational IS in the world that can base OUGHT. And, in the end, evolutionary materialism can have no such is, so CH is entirely correct to rebuke Sev by asking him for the grounds of his standards.
No matter how much KF wishes it were otherwise, there is no logical way to bridge the divide between 'is' and 'ought'. There is no way to ground moral prescriptions except in our common interests as human beings.
3 –> Cutting clean across Euthyphro, Christian philosophers and theologians have long pointed out that the only live option IS that can credibly ground OUGHT, is the inherently good and holy Creator God, who is both the ground of the world we live in and in his inherent character,the ground for OUGHT.
That is not "[c]utting clean across Euthyphro", it is simply cleaving to one horn of the dilemma, the one which asserts that good is whatever God says it is. As such, it is vulnerable to the usual objections. What reason do we have for thinking that God's moral imperatives are not entirely arbitrary. He is, after all, notorious in Scripture for not giving reasons for his actions and diktats but, rather, expecting His followers to take His good intentions of faith. Given the OT accounts of, for example, the disasters inflicted on the Egyptians, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Great Flood, this takes a certain chutzpah.
[Materialists, again, on what ground can you acknowledge evil as real and objectionable -- instead of a mere manipulative rhetorical device used by adherents of an intrinsically amoral view to get their way by playing on emotions like guilt and outrage? What does that reality of a non-physical issue imply about the nature of reality?]
On the grounds of evil residing in the intent and actions of those who cause or seek to cause unjustified harm to others, either with the deliberate purpose of so doing or with a reckless and callous indifference to the unjustified harm they are causing or seeking to cause.
5 –> Similarly, it is time to put the new atheist popularised, village atheist rhetoric that tries to make the God of the OT out to be a moral monster to bed; because he — our Creator, Lord and Judge — acts in judgement of nations that have become plagues on the earth. Is a judge a moral monster because s/he puts away criminals, and may even pas death sentences on murderers? A policeman who shoots a suspect who threatens the lives of innocents? [Cf a discussion on the main troubling OT cases in point, here.]
What is disturbing about this sort of apologetic is that it implies that there is literally nothing this God could do which His followers would be unable to defend and justify. There are so many incidents reported in the Old Testament that, had they been committed by anyone other than God - and especially if they had been committed by an atheist - would have had the faithful screaming for the indictment and severest punishment of the offender. As for "nations that have become plagues on the earth" we have only the word of God and his accomplices that they were justified in doing what they did. That is like a murderer defending his crime in court by alleging that the victim deserved everything he or she got. Would you accept the unsupported word of a killer as a sufficient defense? Besides, this is the Creator of all things we are talking about. Even if what is said about the victims is true, He had no need to destroy them. He is all-powerful, he could have changed them to what He wanted with a snap of His fingers if He had wanted. I am not denying that there is much good in Christianity and Christians but nothing in this world is perfect and there are aspects of the history of the faith that, like Martin Luther's vicious anti-Semitism, are better disavowed.Seversky_{May 15, 2010
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Clive Hayden @ 35
Did mathematics exist in the Universe before any life was here? Or do we make it up as we go along? Your criterion for objectivity necessarily being something physical is baseless and no one when presented with objective morality or objective mathematics would argue that they either don’t exist or exist subjectively because they’re metaphysical. I mean, good grief, how far down the road does your materialism take you into the land of absurdity?
Mathematics, in a sense, is a formal language that has been developed over thousands of years by human scholars which enables us to quantify and model reality with great precision. For example, according to Wikipedia, the unit of length called the meter (or metre) has been variously defined as: - equal to the length of a pendulum with a half-period of one second - one ten-millionth of the length of the Earth's meridian along a quadrant through Paris - the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum with ten percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice - equal to 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the 2p10 and 5d5 quantum levels of the krypton-86 atom and currently as - equal to the distance traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1?299,792,458 of a second. The unit of time called second was originally defined as "1?86 ?400 of the average time required for the earth to complete one rotation about its axis". Now it is "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom" Combining those two metrics enables physicists to measure the speed of light in a vacuum at "precisely 299,792,458 metres per second" This is clearly a language of enormous power and precision and our science and technology could not exist without it. But whether we express it in meters-per-second or miles-per-hour the speed of light is what it is and the Universe cares nothing for how we measure it. The petals of a rose reflect light of certain wavelengths. Whether we see that light as red or blue is matter of supreme indifference to the cosmos. Properties of the universe such as the speed of light, the wavelengths reflected by a rose and all the others that make the Universe possible, as far as we know, obtained long before we appeared and will probably be the same long after we are gone. But the metrics and the languages we use to describe and model those properties - like mathematics - were invented by us and will die with us. If we go the way of the dinosaurs then so will the meter. That will be sad rather than absurd. But either way, as the saying goes, frankly, my dear, the Universe does not give a damn.Seversky_{May 15, 2010
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Nicely explicated Kairosfocus.above_{May 15, 2010
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PPPS: Plato, in The Laws, Bk X, in the voice of the Ahtenian Stranger (having first subtly distanced himself from the absurdities of Greek mythology): _________________ >> Ath. At Athens there are tales preserved in writing which the virtue of your state, as I am informed, refuses to admit. They speak of the Gods in prose as well as verse, and the oldest of them tell of the origin of the heavens and of the world, and not far from the beginning of their story they proceed to narrate the birth of the Gods, and how after they were born they behaved to one another. Whether these stories have in other ways a good or a bad influence, I should not like to be severe upon them, because they are ancient; but, looking at them with reference to the duties of children to their parents, I cannot praise them, or think that they are useful, or at all true. [[Notice Plato's own carefully stated skepticisms and moral concerns regarding classical paganism.] Of the words of the ancients I have nothing more to say; and I should wish to say of them only what is pleasing to the Gods. But as to our younger generation and their wisdom, I cannot let them off when they do mischief. For do but mark the effect of their words: when you and I argue for the existence of the Gods, and produce the sun, moon, stars, and earth, claiming for them a divine being, if we would listen to the aforesaid philosophers we should say that they are earth and stones only, which can have no care at all of human affairs, and that all religion is a cooking up of words and a make-believe . . . . [[The avant garde philosophers, teachers and artists c. 400 BC] say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of nature and of chance, the lesser of art [[ i.e. techne], which, receiving from nature the greater and primeval creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser works which are generally termed artificial . . . They say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature [ = "some inherent force according to certain affinities among them" . . . ] and chance only . . . . these people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them [i.e. radical moral relativism, premised on amorality] . . . These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might, and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions, these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [here, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . . . . .[Jowett translation. Emphases and explanatory parentheses added.] >> __________________ In short, the real issue is the amorality of evolutionary materialism, in the teeth of the patent absurdities and known destructive consequences of trying to deny the objective binding force of ought.kairosfocus_{May 15, 2010
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PPS: As to the reality of morality and that of the objectionableness of evil, I simply note that at root, this is self-evident. Even atheists acknowledge the binding force of ought, never mind that their worldview has in it no IS that can ground OUGHT beyond emotional manipulation and the threat of power. (That is, as a system, such atheism [especially evolutionary materialism] is amoral, and indeed that is what lies behind Sev's challenge to demonstrate the objectivity of morality; to which the most direct response is that to reject the objectivity of morality at once lands you in utter and patent absurdities of thought and behaviour.) And so, by their behaviour the same atheists who would trot out selectively hyperskeptical objections against the objectivity of OUGHT, by their behaviour and its implicit assumptions show that it is indeed binding. But, ever since Plato's the Laws, Bk X, it has been known that such atheism has no basis in its system for ought. Atheistical morality, such as it is, is parasitical on the consensus of society.kairosfocus_{May 15, 2010
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PS: As a balance to the texts so often abused by the new atheists, I call attention to the book of Jonah; a case of destructive national judgement averted just one month out, as the people of Nineveh [~ Mosul, Iraq; the Assyrians are now a Christian people] repented at the warning of the prophet. There are indeed difficult questions to address, and troubling cases and texts, but the matter is by no means the one sided strawmannish caricature of so much new atheist rhetoric. Note especially the exchange in Ch 4, which culminates in God upbraiding the prophet (who wanted the enemies of Israel destroyed) thusly:
Jonah 4 Jonah's Anger at the Lord 's Compassion 1 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." 4 But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?" 5 Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. [note the natural evil] 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live." 9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die." 10 But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. [note the implicit definition of the natural] 11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left [children and the morally naive], and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"
(Clive et al, pardon my citing Scripture in extenso in a principally scientific and philosphical blog, but the accusation made by Seversky needs a reasonable answer.)kairosfocus_{May 15, 2010
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Onlookers: A few brief notes on points: 1 --> We all plainly live by the implicit acknowledgement of the objectivity of morality. This we see by how we quarrel, by appealing to standards of fairness. (Indeed, Sev's ill-considered attempt to indict the Judaeo-Christian frame for morality reflects just this.) 2 --> Such objectivity can only be grounded where there is a foundational IS in the world that can base OUGHT. And, in the end, evolutionary materialism can have no such is, so CH is entirely correct to rebuke Sev by asking him for the grounds of his standards. 3 --> Cutting clean across Euthyphro, Christian philosophers and theologians have long pointed out that the only live option IS that can credibly ground OUGHT, is the inherently good and holy Creator God, who is both the ground of the world we live in and in his inherent character,the ground for OUGHT. 4 --> In this context, Plantinga has also given us a useful framework for putting both the deductive and inductive forms of the problem of evils into due perspective(and Job 38 ff also helps a lot). [Materialists, again, on what ground can you acknowledge evil as real and objectionable -- instead of a mere manipulative rhetorical device used by adherents of an intrinsically amoral view to get their way by playing on emotions like guilt and outrage? What does that reality of a non-physical issue imply about the nature of reality?] 5 --> Similarly, it is time to put the new atheist popularised, village atheist rhetoric that tries to make the God of the OT out to be a moral monster to bed; because he -- our Creator, Lord and Judge -- acts in judgement of nations that have become plagues on the earth. Is a judge a moral monster because s/he puts away criminals, and may even pas death sentences on murderers? A policeman who shoots a suspect who threatens the lives of innocents? [Cf a discussion on the main troubling OT cases in point, here.] 6 --> By contrast, let us call attention to the key biblical texts that in NT and OT alike, lay out the actual explicitly identified core of biblical morality, which too many current atheists studiously side-step in their eagerness to portray God as a moral monster:
(1)Matt. 7:12 . . . in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (2) Matt 22:37 - 40: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "Love your neighbour as yourself." All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (3) Rom 13:8 - 10: "8 . . . he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet,"[a] and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."[b] 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." (a) Deuteronomy 6:1 - 18: These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe . . . Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey . . . . Hear, O Israel, the LORD your God is one [Heb., echad: complex, rather than simple, unity. (This verse is the Shema, the great prayer/creed of Judaism.)]. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them . . . . When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers . . . then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery . . . Do what is right and good in the LORD's sight, so that it may go well with you . . . (b)Leviticus 19:15 - 18: Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favouritism to the great, but judge your neighbour fairly. Do not go about spreading slander among your people. Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbour frankly so you will not share in his guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD.
7 --> I find an utter and telling contrast between this set of plainly wholesome basic moral principles and the resentful, poisonous, blatantly biased and unhinged rhetoric that would indict God as a moral monster and those who fear God as dangerous, "ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked" threats to liberty and justice. 8 --> Indeed, given the problem of the inherent and utterly dangerous amorality of evolutionary materialism, which has been known since the days of Plato's The Laws, Bk X, let us note that when he set about grounding the principles of liberty and just, democratic self government of a free people, Locke went right back to this cluster of God-fearing principles; quoting Richard Hooker's 1594 Ecclesiastical Polity in Ch 2 sec 5 of his famous and foundational second essay on civil gov't:
. . . if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men . . . my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant.
9 --> So, let us understand the matches that are being played with, ever so carelessly. ____________________ G'day GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 15, 2010
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Seversky,
Did morality exist in the Universe before any life was there? If it is objective it does not depend on our existence for its own.
Did mathematics exist in the Universe before any life was here? Or do we make it up as we go along? Your criterion for objectivity necessarily being something physical is baseless and no one when presented with objective morality or objective mathematics would argue that they either don't exist or exist subjectively because they're metaphysical. I mean, good grief, how far down the road does your materialism take you into the land of absurdity?
Actually, if the Old Testament illustrates Christian morality then atheists can do a lot better.
By what standard, the atheist standard that there is no standard? Yeah, that makes sense. ;)Clive Hayden_{May 15, 2010
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