We “amoral” atheists

Someone should point this guy in the direction of Marc Hauser's Moral Minds. I'm getting very tired of that morality argument.

I feel bad for a lot of Christians that could get away from their religion but are convinced that the only alternative is a life of decadence.

Someone has to let them know that it's not a choice between religion and a life where you do whatever you please. That's not atheism. It is freedom from the idea of a god but not freedom from morality and rationality.

Thanks for sharing that, PZ.

Excellent PZ.

So when I read this: "...the notion that only the physical world exists..." I can actually feel my brain twitch.

That's not to say that naturalists cannot behave morally, but merely that they can have no real and consistent reason for behaving morally.

Unlike theists who all have a consistent morality. I mean, it's not like there are over 30,000 differect sects of Christianity alone, or anything.

Okay, I've decided that it is incumbent upon the next assmunch who tries to trot out this dead horse to demonstrate that there are any consistent moral standards among theists (besides bigotry, of course. They're mostly all good at that.)

The morality argument for belief is as old as the watchmaker argument for design in nature--and equally flawed. Counter examples that disprove it abound in history and today. Many self proclaimed "Christians" (pick your religion) are as immoral as they come. And many atheists (most that I know) have a stronger personal code of ethics and morality than the most pious Christians.

Haven't any of these apoligist clowns ever heard of the rationalist/voluntarist debate? Here's a little Philosophy 101. Even assuming the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, god, how should we understood the relationship between goodness and god? Is what is good, good because god commands it or does god command it because it is good? The second choice, "rationalism" is standard to Catholicism, Judiaism, and more traditional forms of Protestantism. Why? Because if the good is not defined indeptantly of god's commanding something problems ensue. For one thing it becomes incoherent to call god "good". Long story short the traditional theism of the very religion that these "atheists have no morals" idiots belong to, teaches that the good is defined and discoverable independently of god. Typical. These people can't even be bothered to learn the basic theology of there own religion, but feel free to attack atheists with a lot of name calling.

[T]he fact that the universe is godless does not dictate standards of human behavior. But then, neither would the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient god.

That, to me, is a key objection to the argument that only a supernatural being can establish standards of morality. The vast majority of humanity is actively engaged in supplicating its deities, yet we still see vicious sectarian conflicts and religious wars throughout the world and throughout history.

So, believers, how's that working out for you?

and they have particularly failed in their attempt to present a coherent system of morality that in no way rests on a belief in the supernatural.

So also have theists failed to present a moral code that rests in belief in the supernatural, as pointed out by Plato in his Euthyphro dialogue about 2400 years ago. Are actions moral because God says so, or does God tell us so because they are moral? Accepting your ethical code from an authority is not moral, it is obedient.

I have never understood how the morality argument gains any traction at all with anyone simply because you can see rudimentary and sometimes more than that in virtually all other primate groups not to mention other animals.

Morality seems a matter of opinion about natural behaviours of our species. If someone can't understand why they need behave properly to havegroup acceptance I suggest they first observe chimps and then a primary school. You can see many the same lessons being conveyed.

P.S. As a sideline, I don't think many see divorce as a moral failing. It's not a great thing although sometimes it can be. I've come to regard people who hate each other but stay together for a variety of reasons as often weaker than those who choose another path.

Ack! The Yale-tard quotes C.S. Lewis. That's a measure of how deep he isn't.

It seems readily apparent that it is morality that informs religion and not the other way around since there are so many competing and contradictory religions that have similar "moral codes."

The fact that many of these same religions have immoral codes within their doctrines is also evidence of this. Not even the most fundamentalist Christians I know are willing to stone to death a relative who commits adultery (they at least aren't willing to admit this desire since it is so immorally reprehensible). Human morality has superseded religious delusion and "religious morality" and made this practice archaic in Christianity.

But more than this, as an atheist, I see my one and only life in this universe as the only chance I get to leave a positive legacy. My off-spring need the best possible example to follow in order to give them the best chances of passing on my DNA -if they view immoral behavior as okay, then the chances increase that they might not survive to reproduce.

And, unlike Christians, atheists don't accept that they get to make up for their bad deeds simply by asking forgiveness from their "savior." In the backs of their minds, they know they can get away with all sorts of immoral deeds as long as they ask forgiveness before they kick the bucket.

From Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" to Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great,"

To steal a Dorothy Parker quip, that's like saying, "The full gamut from A to B." It's not even chronologically correct: what about Harris and Dennett?

Sigh. In their arrogance, in their self-satisfied ignorance, these pundits ignore so much worthy writing. Poor Victor Stenger is perennially forgotten, perhaps because he bothered to write about physics; Carl Sagan's book from beyond the grave, which many people might find "friendlier" than Hitchens, has been completely overlooked. I can only shudder to imagine the reception which John Allen Paulos' Irreligion will receive, come wintertime.

One thing I'd love to do sometime is whip out the fact that I'm a teetotaler on some fundie claiming I'm an atheist because it means I can have wild drinking parties.

I'd just like to see their expression of shock and denial.

If I may say again what I said in the other post:

If founding your actions on fear of a punishment or hope of a reward is morality, then trained dogs are moral beings.

Any moral system that includes burning goat flesh for the olfactory pleasure of the magic sky-man is in no position to criticize the lack of foundation or arbitrariness of any other moral systems.

The problem with all of these nonreligious explanations of morality is that while they may tell us where our sense of morality came from (e.g., our genes, psychological principles, innate human solidarity), they do not tell us why we truly ought to be moral -- why we should give any heed to our sense of morality at all.

I wish there was a way to provide feedback to the author, freshman, Bryce Taylor. I'd like to ask him if god was proven to not exist if he'd abandon all moral behavior. Why is he moral?

The eli is, in my mind, completely wrong to say that "naturalistic materialism -- the notion that only the physical world exists -- can provide no foundation for morality." While it is true that atheism, in and of itself, is a morally neutral position, it lends itself to the development of a system of morals, based on the recognition of, among other things, the fact that this is all anyone gets. Should, then, suffering be the primary experience of any sentient being?

The same thing holds true for evolution. Evolution itseslf is, of course, morally neutral, but an evolutionary view of the world can lead one to recognize the silliness of racism and "man/nature" dualism, for a start.

Some people want a simple external standard for morality, so they can avoid that problem called relativism. This is a big problem if you have rejected evolution. Those who accept evolution see a moral code basically wired into our brains by many millions of generations, and are not surprised that the same basic morality applies to all human societies, regardless of the local religious myths.

Brilliant post. The morality "argument" is so vacuous, and I despair at its prominence in these "debates".

I'd go even further, PZ. You are more moral than the religious people who lead similar bourgeois lifestyles. So am I. I can think of three main reasons which I like to think apply to me, and probably to you:

1) The obvious one, it's good to be moral because a society where people are generally moral is a nicer one to live in. Basically "do unto others...". Everybody benefits if people try to be nice (note that none of these reasons are even necessarily altruistic).
2) It's good to be known as a nice moral person. That brings its own benefits (though were everybody equally moral and nice this would become irrelevant).
3) It kind of feels good to be a nice person. Well it does, doesn't it?

I'm sure there are a few more. Though I would feel that the first one alone goes a long way to explain how morality develops in any functioning and halfway civilised society.

However, for a Christian or anyone who believes in a heavenly tyrant, the sole reason to be moral is to appease him upstairs. Without their god, they'd become murderous raping thieving psychopaths. That's hardly a kind of morality worthy of the word.

Of course what they don't realise is that (hopefully!) their reasons for being moral are precisely the same as ours. Only they don't realise it, and for some reason they wish to degrade their own sense of morality.

I wonder how he would explain the moral choices made by other social mammals.

Jesus said looking at a person with anger was as bad as murder.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, I always say.

Christians have a book which praises people for killing whole tribes of people, man, woman and child.

And they have the sheer audacity to lecture others on morality, after reading how the chosen people were ordered by God to kill babies.

Andrés, that was well worth repeating.

So ... tired ... SSDD ... no strength ...

OK, seriously, morality is not an absolute. It will always be a reflection of the societal values a given culture at a given time. Anyone that claims Godly authority on some set of moral absolutes is full of it. The Bible repeatedly changes what is moral. Anyone that claims different hasn't read the Bible.

I've often thought that most religious people never grow beyond Kohlberg's first two levels of moral development (fear my psych 101): 1) Reward and Punishment, and 2) Instrumental Exchange. In other words, they never grow beyond the "I better do X or I'm going to get into trouble" or "If I do X, I'm going to get Y for a reward." It's simple punishment avoidance and reward seeking. My dog has that level of morality.

So, should we really be so harsh on the religious? They seem to be developmentally challenged. Perhaps we can get them into a special class to help them along.

OEJ

I'm working on a more extended blogessay on this subject as part of a series on the vacuity of supernatural "explanation."

Morality is one of the most amusing of these topics. I always wonder: how exactly does God "make" something moral? I mean, if he does it, then you must be able to explain how it is done, at least in some general sense of what you mean by him "doing" so.

But if you can't even explain how this or that is made moral or immoral however, then how can you insist that only God can do it? How can you ever have non-hypocritical grounds to object if I tell you that, say, it is determined "supernaturally" via reference squid migration patterns? Sure, I can't explain how this supernatural squidality process works, but I'm not better or worse off with my "explanation" than the divine command morality theists.

Theistic supernaturalists, it seems, more than anything just lack imagination. Once you topple over any need for an explanation that makes reference to empirical observation or natural law, the sky's the limit on what we can "explain!" If they want to play that game, ok: but they often don't seem to realize that, in that case, anyone else can play it too.

A friend used to try to convince me to "go back" to the church frequently in conversations. His final attempt was thwarted when he agreed that I was a more moral person than he was, despite having a complete lack of faith. He no longer brings it up.
I'll count that as a win.

Citing two books and calling it an influx? That's crazy.

"From Mark to Paul, there sure are a lot of Christians!"

Since morality in a religious sense is taken to be how 'God' tells us to behave then so long as we are sure we know the actual desires of God then there is no problem, it is all very straightforward.
Unfortunately, since there are as many claims of what 'God' said or didn't say as there are religious groups, if we want to behave moral according to God we are left with the sole option of arbitrarily choosing one set of supposed Godly orders, written by one tribe of bronze age zealots, over the rest written or modified by others.
Is this really supposed to be more moral than using accumulated human knowledge to tell us the best way to behave amongst our fellow people?

Having said all that I guess this morality question could be described as 'scientific' since it makes a prediction that can be falsified. In a non-religious setting one could expect the levels of murder, decadence and debauchery to be so much higher than a religious one.
How about a comparison of Sweden (85% non-believers) with the US bible belt ?

PZ, those last two paragraphs are pure gold. I may have to read them at least once a week.

Yeah, it´s really hard to find a reason to be moral, like george bush or jerry fallwell or osama or some such truly inspiring moral figure, without a supreme diety and his code of morals to lean on.
Guess I´ll just continue to be depraved and not hurt anyone particulary much, despicable immoral athiest that I am.
How disgusting.

I think that the motivation to be moral can be briefly summed up as, "What goes around, comes around."

If you piss people off by stealing their property, physically or mentally abusing them, stabbing them in the back (in the metaphorical sense), trying to sleep with their wives or husbands, etc., then yeah, someone will give you your come-uppance sooner or later, not to mention being branded with the stigma a social pariah.

All this god crap is just superfluous window dressing.

In fact, religion does more harm than good in that gives people an excuse, a cloak of supposed justifiability, to act on their petty prejudices and xenophobias.

Explain that, pious Christians.

Cultural inertia.

The relevant point is not that an individual atheist can't be moral - he certainly can - but that atheism precludes any moral standard with universal claims. Dennett admits as much, even Harris only argues that such standards "could" be invented, not that they have.

As for Euthyphro, the hoary "dilemma" is a) a semantically twisted joke, and b) not applicable to any monotheistic religion, much less Christianity.

Christian morality IS obedience.

Several years ago, a friend sent me a copy of a book, very popular among Christians at the time, entitled "Wild At Heart". The book principally dealt with the fact that a tendency toward violent behavior is very common among humans, particularly young men. The author argued, among other things that a) all people are descended from Adam. b) Traits that are common among youg men today are common because we inherited them through Adam, our common ancestor. c) Adam was created by God, and d) God's plan is perfect. Therefore, we should cherish our tendency toward violence, not resist it.

A naturalist might argue, on the other hand, that because a tendency toward violence is so common in our species, it presumably had survival value at one time. One can easily imagine how it might have been adaptive to be supportive on the 'in' group and violent toward the 'out' group at a time when humans fought one another with clubs and spears, and we lived in small groups of closely related individuals surrounded by other groups of less closely related individuals, with whom we competed for resources. But those are not the conditions in which we live today, and violent behavior is no longer adaptive. A tendency toward violence is no more to be cherished than Sickle-cell Anemia, which was also adaptive in one time and place, and is very maladaptive in 21st century North America.

Atheists may not be any more moral than Christians, but at least we have our facts straight, and we don't base our moral principals on fairy tales that are demonstrably false.

Did anyone else get a snicker out of the fact he is a member of Silliman (Silly man) college? OK...it's been a crazy day and my brain is warped. But then, I'm not a Yale fan anyway.

@Hutch: I agree with you. PZ's last 2 paragraphs were great.

Christian morality IS obedience.

You might say it's the morality of a trained monkey. The creationists aren't going to like that.

Consider that in at least a limited sense, he is right: religion does provide a foundation for morality; atheism does not.

The foundation, however, is simple appeal to authority: priest, holy book, or god. One must accept first that there is some person or diety who can and should be believed unquestioningly on topics of morals, even in cases of ambiguity.

This is the corner this argument squeezes them into: that they believe that they don't actually have any reason to follow the moral code they do, that they are doing it only because they are being told to. Therefore, they have no actual expertise! The only thing they can do is refer us to their boss.. who seems to be out of the office right now, could you leave a message?

The follow-up punch, of course, is to say that no, atheism provides no foundations for morals... just like biology provides no foundation for First Aid. We turn to medicine (applied biology) for care, and we turn to secular humanism to look to practical answers about how to live.

Anybody know where in the bible it says to hug and console your child after they skin their knee?

Without such a commandment, I cannot possibly imagine why an Xian parent would do that.

"As this has been a long-standing and widespread objection to naturalism, it would seem only reasonable to expect atheists to devote careful attention to the question of morality."

*sigh* "Be excellent to each other. Party on, dudes." There, can we move on now?

I'm a pretty boring individual, but nothing makes me want to have a Wild Teen Party like some stuffy Yale freshman telling me I don't have a consistant moral base. What was it that Emerson said about a foolish consistancy?

"Any moral system that includes burning goat flesh for the olfactory pleasure of the magic sky-man is in no position to criticize the lack of foundation or arbitrariness of any other moral systems."

No no, Humbert. See, the sky-man doesn't need us to sacrifice animals anymore, because he sent his son* to be sacrificed in their stead. So your denigrating of their position to criticize is totally unfounded.

* Or himself

The least theists could do is actually read atheist books. This person would have seen that Victor Stenger's God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist has an entire section that is very nicely worded about the topic of non-theistic morality.

OK, seriously, morality is not an absolute. It will always be a reflection of the societal values a given culture at a given time. Anyone that claims Godly authority on some set of moral absolutes is full of it. The Bible repeatedly changes what is moral. Anyone that claims different hasn't read the Bible.

This is also why bible followers are forced to cherry-pick the verses in their holy tome. Bible morality has been forced to fit into the constantly changing societal values of our culture for centuries now.

As a result, almost no one quotes passages supporting slavery or miscegenation anymore not because the bible god suddenly changed his mind, but because our culture no longer tolerates these things.

All of which really sucks for them!

Uh-oh.

Another myopic, Dostoevsky-obsessed freshman.

College freshman are such know-it-alls!

Give the condescending bastard a little time.

Hopefully, he'll snap out of it.

Wake up, Bryce! See the world. Take your nose out of those books. Stop being a narrow-minded jerk.

Theists who argue that morality isn't "possible" in a Godless universe seem to use different arguments, and shift between them as if they were the same argument:

1.) "Being good" means obeying a parent. No parent, the kids are equal and anything goes. If the universe has no "parent," then there is no absolute, universal authority for what right and wrong is.
2.) Right and wrong have to do with punishment and reward. If good is not rewarded and bad is not punished, then nothing is ever right or wrong.
3.) Like comes from like. If we came from an evolutionary process which wasn't moral, and has no inbuilt sense of good and evil, then a sense of good and evil couldn't come out of it.
4.) Morality, love, and goodness are not physical things you can pick up and measure: that means they're spiritual. If you don't believe in "spiritual" things, then your world view will not make any sense of abstractions, emotions, or principles, and you have no right to use them as if they did.

As others have pointed out, those first two are a child's-eye view of morality. But those last two are probably influential in more hidden ways, in that the assumptions are harder to articulate. I suspect they influence a lot of the more "sophisticated" moral critiques coming from moderates who don't see right and wrong as a matter of obedience in an authority hierarchy, but do see them as a matter of the universe following an imbedded hierarchy of meaning, with God the moral meaning at the center.

Dylan Llyr,

Of course what they don't realise is that (hopefully!) their reasons for being moral are precisely the same as ours.

Of course we realize it--why it's theology 101. You are 100% correct. Atheists are indeed moral people who raise moral children. And atheists do indeed, as you have correctly asserted, have the same basis for their morality as Chrsitians. Although, to use your same words, "they don't realise it, and for some reason they wish to degrade their own sense of morality."

Anyway, theology even has term for it: "common grace," although that term is overloaded to mean other things as well. But the idea is simple enough: that God has given all men, believers and atheists, a moral compass. The basis for the morality of the atheist, just like for the Christian, is God.

I recently wrote a post on this topic explaining what I did when I realized there was no god: I ran right out and got married, went to Grad school and became a librarian. It's absolutely shocking how debased my life is.

But the idea is simple enough: that God has given all men, believers and atheists, a moral compass.

Er. I can think of a simpler explanation...

I'm sorry to say that when I've asked my more religious friends how it can be that I'm as moral in my behavior as they are in theirs, the response often takes the form: "It's because you believe in God, even if you think you don't."

ARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A friend used to try to convince me to "go back" to the church frequently in conversations. His final attempt was thwarted when he agreed that I was a more moral person than he was, despite having a complete lack of faith. He no longer brings it up.
I'll count that as a win.

Your friend seems to have at least *some* brain cells left. When I made essentially the same argument as PZ's to a fundamentalist ex-friend, she told me, "But there's a difference between living a clean life and living for God. If you're not living for God, your clean life won't mean much." An arrogant little twerp, to say the least.

heddle wrote:

But the idea is simple enough: that God has given all men, believers and atheists, a moral compass. The basis for the morality of the atheist, just like for the Christian, is God.

Ok, fair enough. Now here's a question:

If it happens to be the case that God does not exist -- and never has existed -- and the source of the basic, common, human "moral compass" is a combination of genes, environment, neurology, and psychology -- then do atheists and Christians STILL have the same basis for morality? Do they have different bases? Or does neither one now have any basis for their morality?

Vox Day misses the point as usual. As PZ said, atheism doesn't dictate any morality. Morality comes from people and society, regardless of how theistic the members are.

You say that atheism precludes any moral standard with universal claims. This is a good thing, because it's consistent with REALITY. Religions FALSELY claim that god is the origin of universal moral standards. There isn't even a universal moral standard within the bible, itself, not to mention comparing between religions. Morality changes constantly over time even within the same culture; eg, slavery was OK in the old testemant, but not OK for modern day Jews.

And if there are some moral statements that approach universal (eg, don't kill people), there's no evidence that they come from god. And there's lots of evidence that they come from people (ie, different cultures have them regarless of the degree to which they're theistic).

re: Heddle and "common grace."

Ad, meet hoc.

Vox Day,

If Euthyphro is a joke, then refute it. No apologist has ever refuted Euthyphro without conceding one of the two lemmata. Moreover, the classic is-ought problem in philosophy of ethics applies full well to every and all religions, so no religion can claim "absolute" or "objective" morality without first solving the problem. (Solving it will make you a famous philosopher, as well).

There is no god in my life, ...

Huh? But I thought you had a cat.

(I hope none of the XX members of your family read that either)

Bob

Sastra,

I think it's important to add to your list the following "argument":

5) It's not actually morality unless it's exactly the same for everyone. There has to be an absolutely, totally infallible and universal moral code, otherwise there is NO MORAL CODE AT ALL.

The fallaciousness of this is obvious. It's a main strand of what Vox Day is attempting to argue upthread.

An argument like that says a lot about the person making it. Most people don't go around thinking "if only I had the chance, I would [steal/lie/rape/kill]". Only someone incapable of empathy thinks like that. And I seriously wonder whether anyone would come up with this argument unless they were deficient in empathy.

People who make that argument are scary. I read that argument as an admission that the only thing that stops the person making that argument from going on a rampage is their fear of divine punishment.

Nathaniel,

You are absolutely right. However, when some of us deny that religion provides a moral foundation, it's precisely because declarative appeals to authority are not seen as "moral foundations." Other tricks theists use such as defining goodness to be their religion or god himself are also arbitrarily declarative (not to mention a reification fallacy), and so are still not "foundations."

Yeah, well, you sound all moral and stuff, but you're an atheist so you must just be faking it. Your supposed morality is built upon a house of sand, a castle of cards, sand cards on a playing beach. It's flimsy, I tells ya! All it will take is one thing - something - and you'll be off pillaging and burning and coveting and stuff. Mark my words.

And as Commander Vimes of the Watch has been known to say, "Everyone is guilty of something." Of what are you, guilty, eh? Confess!

Thank you for writing such an inspiring post, PZ. It really made my day and affirmed many of the same thoughts that go through my mind on a regular basis.
Many of my friends and family who are devout evangelicals are regularly surprised or confused when I demonstrate my values and the things I deem important to living a fulfilled life. While there is a risk of sounding like one is bragging, I think its important to stop once in a while and account for all the positive things we as non-believers contribute to society. My own personal conclusion that I am an atheist has led me to become more engaged in improving my community than I ever felt compelled to as an evangelical christian (its a nihilistic perspective, after all).
Susan Jacoby's book "Freethinkers" is wonderful in the way she demonstrates time and again how secularists have used our democracy for good and have initiated every socially progressive and positive change in the United States. It has inspired me to carry that tradition on for another generation.

Did anyone else get a snicker out of the fact he is a member of Silliman (Silly man) college?

OK, I'm all in favor of pissing on the Bulldogs whenever possible, but we should really leave Benjamin Silliman alone. He did a great deal to advance the development of geology, and mineralogy in particular as a rigorous pursuit in the New World. He was one of the good guys. In fact, it annoys me a bit that this toolbox of a student is in Silliman.

"and they have particularly failed in their attempt to present a coherent system of morality that in no way rests on a belief in the supernatural. "
I don't think they attempted it. There is no morality to be directly drawn from science, it is amoral. Morality comes from our emotions as human beings. Reason may help as part of the input, and religion is nothing but a distraction. I find global warming interesting. Here we have a looming threat - not looming tomorrow but we will see a sea level rise of three feet somtime this century even if we put on the brakes now. We as a species clearly need to develop a morality about global warming and the overpopulation that contributes to it. Some have managed, but it is very hard, just because this is a new challenge, we have not evolved to deal with it, there is nothing much in our past to help.

But if only the natural and supernatural worlds exist, what reason would supernatural entities have for behaving morally? Wouldn't they need to believe in a super-supernatural world to ground their morality?

"naturalistic materialism -- the notion that only the physical world exists"

The physical world exists? Shit.

Good grief, simple self interest is a sufficent reason to behave in a manner that benefits society and keeps those around you happy.

A not-very thorough search of mythological literature would demonstrate that frequently supernatural beings do not behave morally. Morality is just to keep the peons (us humans) in line.

Speaking as a supposedly amoral, confirmedly atheistic, Yale graduate, I can only recommend that Mr. Taylor take Philosophy 455b, Normative Ethics and Philosophy 456a, Metaethics, before he graduates. He might also be interested in Psychology 317a, The Psychology of Culture, and Psychology 428b, Social and Emotional Learning.

From his essay, though, one must suspect he has a natural immunity to education. It's sadly common, even at Yale.

"It works -- religion is irrelevant to morality."

True. (Great words, PZ!). However, I should now like to know why religion appears to be so relevant to cultivating a sense of indecency. Collective allegiance to irrationality may have something to do with it.

Sastra,

If it happens to be the case that God does not exist -- and never has existed -- and the source of the basic, common, human "moral compass" is a combination of genes, environment, neurology, and psychology -- then do atheists and Christians STILL have the same basis for morality?

Yes. The question is only whether it is the theists or the atheists who are misguided concerning their common source of morality. If God doesn't exist, that pretty much settles the question.

Ah, Vox Day: the man who thinks he's got it all figured out... because he believes that angels and demons are all over the world fighting it out.

Vox claims:
"The relevant point is not that an individual atheist can't be moral - he certainly can - but that atheism precludes any moral standard with universal claims."

Well Vox, I suppose then that it's time for you to reveal a) how atheism (i.e. no god belief) precludes universal moral statements in any way whatsoever and especially b) exactly how the existence of God would make a difference to morality.

I expect you to be specific about b) there too. No begging the question by simply forgetting to mention the step in which you arbitrarily assume that whatever God commands is moral simply because God is, like, really really awesome and controlling over everything and stuff. If you allow us the same empty, unbounded philosophical license as that sort of argument employs, we can tell all sorts of similar stories off the top of our heads too and come up with just as many arbitrarily "objective" moral standards, just as philosophically worthless as yours.

The problem is that no one has any good, satisfyingly final justifications for universal moral standards: it's one of the deepest and most interesting philosophical issues that there is. And as with all such questions, theists bluff that they have all the easy answers. I wish they did: but it's so disappointing when they ultimately try to explain their solutions: none of which ever even seem to actually get around to explaining anything at all.

Didn't Spinoza debunk the better portion of this argument way back when?

I have often wondered, why xtians feel the need to tell me i'm going to hell etc, witness gos miracles etc.

In my job, I see quite a lot of bad things happen. Not in any ofthem have I thought to look for a supernatural explanation. People tell me after they survive " thank god" but it really wasn't god at all was it? No, it was an atheist firefighter who enojys helping his fellow man and takes great pride in his work. God and jebus don't flow through me. While the author of the artidle implies that we atheists are careening down a path towards amorality, I am ( as many of you are ) and example for quite the opposite.

And ya know what? We're getting along just fine without religion in our lives.

When he can name more atheist terrorists, dictators, and serial killers than I can name religious people of the same occupation, then we can talk about whether or not atheism can have a moral foundation without a supernatural basis. Until then, I think we can safely assume that it does, in fact, lend itself at least as well to a moral structure.

I'm tired of these godtards. They're seriously wearing me out with their seemingly inexhaustible supply of stupidity.

It seems to me that all of these arguments (both for and against) are mere hand-waving unless one can provide evidence that atheists are significantly less (or more) moral than theists.

If the evidence for a difference isn't there, then all of this is nothing but intellectual masturbation. And if I remember my Catholic upbringing correctly, masturbation is a sin (at least, that's what my Grade 7 science teacher said. FYI, it's not a good idea to pit God against a twelve-year-old's prurient urges. God'll lose out nine times out of ten.)

"Vox Day, If Euthyphro is a joke, then refute it..... (Solving it will make you a famous philosopher, as well)."

But why would Vox need to become a famous philosopher when his tax-dodging daddy can get him a sweet job nattering on at WorldNetDaily, the publication that seems to think that the US government is worse than the government which killed Jesus.

I've heard this argument somewhere before:

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ... we need believing people.

Ah yes, Adolf Hitler. Of course.

God has given all men, believers and atheists, a moral compass.

Was he doing that before *tianity was invented? Or was Baal or Zoroaster passing out the compasses? Or did they come from the tooth fairy? How does a moral compass work? Is it magnetic? Where in the body is it located? How come nobody has found it, yet? Or is it in the brain? If it's in the brain, does it get damaged in stroke victims? What about the retarded? Did the great sky woo fairy give them defective compasses? What a dick. The sky fairy, not you. You sound too stupid to be a proper dick.

You religiotards are so funny. Thanks for brightening my day!

Piling on...

Back in the day, I worked for Dept of the Navy. Why are there so many moral, love thy neighbor christers in (what was once properly called) the Department of War?

Killing for love?

but that atheism precludes any moral standard with universal claims

Why should there be a moral standard with universal claims? It seems all morality is simply an opinion on normal behaviours within our species. Many of these same behaviours may be judged moral or not depending on a variety of circumstances.

People want to see black and white when in reality it's only grey.

The problem with claiming religion promotes morality is that empirically it seems to be the opposite. The data doesn't support the assertion.

Obvious case in point. The present theocratic administration is the most corrupt and amoral we have had in living memory. The war in Iraq based on lies that has killed 3,700 US soldiers and tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Gonzales and his no right on habeas corpus in the constitution when it is there in black and white. Torture has been institutionalized. It goes on and on.

In fact, the data would say that if anything, Xians and Xianity are less moral than atheists. The fundies in particular are notorious for lying and occasionally murdering people. Just look at their constant lying to attempt to shove their square peg of bronze age mythology into the round hole of objective reality. They are also very good at hating.

Got to frame the argument correctly. Is it possible to be a Xian without being a lying, murdering, hating, greed obsessed, antiscience, ignorant, wingnut? Hmmm, probably it is, but it is rarer than it should be.

I feel bad for a lot of Christians that could get away from their religion but are convinced that the only alternative is a life of decadence.

Ryan (@ 2) - . . . which is why this line of argument is a real gift, IMO.

The question that should be asked on these occasions is: What is this terrible new behavior that you think you would suddenly take on if you weren't worried about pleasing God? How would your life change?

The answer for almost everyone is None; scarcely at all, even if they won't say it aloud (or in print) to the likes of us.

However, the moment of realizing that you, all by yourself, really are a decent and moral person, that you don't need some supernatural threat to do what's right, is extremely pleasurable, empowering, heady--and a bit scary. It's the intellectual equivalent of your first orgasm. And for a lot of those guilt-ridden Christians, it's their first step to Team A.

Nobody here has brought up religious, God-fearing IMmorality. My husband's first wife announced she wouldn't be coming back from a vacation-- that their marriage was over-- with, "I've prayed on it, and I know I'm where I belong."
No other explanation. No, I'm sorry but I've been unhappy. Nothing. Divorce isn't necessarily a wrong thing. But to be told you're about to have your marriage destroyed, with no other explanation than, "God said it's okay...!"
When I met him several months later, he was still pretty shattered.
And then there was the extortion scheme that nearly got her thrown in jail. But it was okay, because GOD TOLD HER IT WAS ALL RIGHT.
And that, my friends, is Christian morality at its finest. Whatever you want to do, pray on it, and a loving, benevolent God will say, "Sure, whatever. Go ahead."

Josh - thanks for the explanation. It honestly didn't occur to me that the college was named for someone. It should have, I suppose, but that is where my midwestern ignorance shows itself. Univ. of Michigan had BUILDINGS named after people but not colleges, at least as far as I knew, when I was there 20+ years ago.

I'll correct his little sentence to a form that is more accurate, but likely not to his pleasing:

"That's not to say that naturalists cannot behave morally, but merely that they can have no real and consistent reason for behaving in ways that contradict all reason."

hoary puccoon - As many have noted, when you pray to the Almighty for guidance, He will--by some amazing coincidence--invariably tell you exactly what you want to hear.

I'm still waiting for someone to win Christopher Hitchens wager that there isn't a moral action that a believer can perform that an atheist can't. So far I think he still has his million dollars!

If christians truely believe that you can only be moral if you believe in god, they must then explain the evolution of current morals compared to the past. The moral standards we have today werent the same as those 200 years ago. If god = morals then morals shouldnt change from one generation to the next. Granted core morals (no stealing, or killing) have been around for thousands of years, We can view the freeing of slaves, the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement as examples of the changing of morals.

The reason this "argument" gets used so often in debates between theists and non-theists is that it sounds like a reasonable question to ask "What are the foundations of your morality and ethics if you don't believe it's right to do whatever God told you to?" But to give it an actual answer is to review, I don't know, what, the last 2500 years of the philosophy of ethics, give or take? It's patently ridiculous to expect this in a debate.

The exact equivalent would be saying "What is your basis for how people get sick if you don't believe that its the wrath of god or demons?" In an audience with no familiarity whatever with modern medicine. Even this isn't an exact analogy, because as woefully ignorant as most Americans are about science, at least they know that there is science, which (at least sometimes) has something to say. With philosophy and ethics, people don't even grant that.

#73: I think you also touch on why so many of the religious folk hate biology: if you know the truth about evolution,you have to ask at what stage between ape common ancestor and human did we get that moral compass. Or that thing called a soul.
That must have caused some family stress when pa and ma were souless or without moral compass but junior had one.

Of course religion gives you a moral standard.

Just not a very good one...

The god-given moral compass is just like CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow's - it points at what you want.

OT (but kinda related):
I'm watching the Ahmadinejad speech at Columbia right now. His approach to Holocaust denial is straight from the ID playbook.

Every time he is confronted with evidence and asked how he can continue to question the Holocaust he responds "Important topics deserve study. You are trying to stifle knowledge by refusing to address the controversey."

Ick... birds of a feather and all that I suppose.

Silly atheists think they can support the evolution of a moral code from nothing to altruism to a group social contract to the sofisticated morals we have today, where we know which side of the plate to put the knife on and can avoid making farting noises in public. This could not have evolved in a simple stepwise fashion. It must have been intelligently designed. The odds are simply astronomical, like e to the nth degree raised to the 100th power time the sinous function. A tornado is more likely to blow through a junkyard and built an elaborate cathedral than for such a moral code to exist without a divine, oops I mean unknown intelligent designer. Just as soon as we get a generation of students who are taught this in schools we'll be able to begin some scientifical study. We are so persecuted. Silly atheists.

Ecpyrosis,

You've hit one nail very firmly on the head. I have had many "exciting" debates and discussions with moral absolutists almost all of whom are totally ignorant that moral philosophy even exists (even those who are aware of its existance deny its validity utterly). One fool of recent discussion has even provided me with the wondeful claim that not only do morals exist in the ether as objects (as does love etc) but that these...shall we call them Platonic...entities are in principle undetectable and yet influence the physical universe. Better than that he claims that because some people think they exist, they exist and that I mean for asking for evidence.

It's so frustrating it makes you want to scream!

Oh well.

Louis

You know, in addition to these excellent points, it should be pointed out that a number of people throughout history have poignantly articulated the sense of compassion that is a noble motivating force for moral behaviour. Some of those people managed not to be hypocrites, too. And some of those people became major religious figures.

It's constructive to study what history's moral philosophers have said. And you don't need to believe in the supernatural to cherrypick some great stuff from, say, Jesus and Buddha.

Posted by: Vox Day | September 24, 2007 12:54 PM

On the idea of the comprehensiveness of atheistic morality, Vox Day, you're way off base. There have been many proposed moral and ethical systems that specifically reject (as a matter of their own inner logic) any idea of a deity. To name just the most recent that I can think of, try reading Richard Carrier's Sense and Goodness without God, which presents a specifically naturalistic and materialistic basis for morality that is as comprehensive as any such system can be. It is not, of course, an absolute system in any way since it depends on circumstantial judgment, but of course that is true of any other moral or ethical system you'd care to name (including Christianity, or have you forgotten that stoning someone to death would qualify as "killing?") Both you and our little Yalie need to try and actually research atheistic moral and ethical ideas before you try to tell us what they are and dismiss them as not having a comprehensive scope.

Bronze Dog:

One thing I'd love to do sometime is whip out the fact that I'm a teetotaler on some fundie claiming I'm an atheist because it means I can have wild drinking parties.

Oh my. Is it more than coincidence that two teetotalers received Molly awards in the same month?

Here is the letter I sent to the editor:

In a recent Guest Column, Bryce Taylor argued that atheists cannot explain "why we truly ought to be moral." His implicit point is that wide-spread atheism would lead to moral decay and social chaos; therefore, we should be Christian. He is wrong.

First, he ignores the example of peaceful societies that are majority atheist. Sweden, Denmark, Japan, France, and many other countries undermine Taylor 's ultimate argument. This shows that people understand morality despite faith. As Christopher Hitchens put it, it's just insulting to imply that the Jews didn't know that murder was wrong until Moses told them so.

Next, Taylor fails to notice the log in his own eye because he is too busy pointing out the splinter in mine. He argues that atheists cannot convince people to be moral because atheists have no starting premise that everyone must accept. But Christianity has the same problem. A Christian cannot explain why I should be Christian instead of Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist. Christians start with an assumption (the Christian God exists) and then derive their morals, but Taylor tells atheists that they can't have any assumptions.

Anti-theist writers "dismiss this issue" because we know we are moral and we don't need to defend ourselves. How dare Taylor imply that atheists would have trouble explaining "why a rapist ought not to rape." For the sake of women everywhere, I hope that Taylor never loses his faith. It is apparently the only thing keeping him from committing heinous crimes. Perhaps we should all keep our distance from such a person. However, if he complains that he would never do those things, then he has destroyed his own point because he has admitted that he would be moral without faith.

And now, the brainquake :

There are really "people" out of there that really think evolution =&gt no frewill* and no morality Check there for example,

I thought that such creatures exist ony fundamentalist's sick daydreams, so, ow the BEEEP! can i explain that this postmodern ghast found a way in our reality, and crawls around right now ?!?!?!

-----
* what ever it means...

The Link to the abomination got eaten : http://www.morris.umn.edu/academic/philosophy/Sommers/dni.pdf

"Vox Day, If Euthyphro is a joke, then refute it..... (Solving it will make you a famous philosopher, as well)."

Been there, done that in two parts.

The short summary is:

1. The Euthyphro "dilemma" is defeated by shifting the focus from "the pious" to "obedience", therefore it is an inappropriate criticism of Christian morality, among others.

2. The dilemma relies upon the false assumption that a fixed variable cannot be arbitrarily fixed.

3. Even without shifting the focus to obedience, the section about disagreement between gods regarding the pious and impious does not apply to a morality derived from a monotheistic religion.

If one would actually read Euthyphro instead of simply assuming that barking "dilemma" like a trained seal when morality is mentioned, one would know that part of the dilemma is based in part upon there being multiple gods, each with different and conflicting opinions.

Furthermore, Socrates cheats on two occasions, one of which he even admits in the dialogue.

There have been many proposed moral and ethical systems that specifically reject (as a matter of their own inner logic) any idea of a deity.

"I do not intend this to be a shocking indictment, just a reminder of something quite obvious: no remotely compelling system of ethics has ever been made computationally tractable, even indirectly, for real world moral problems. So, even though there has been no dearth of utilitarian (and Kantian,
and contrarian, etc.) arguments in favor of particular policies, institutions, practices, and acts, these have all been heavily hedged with ceteris paribus clauses and plausibility claims about their idealizing assumptions."

Perhaps Daniel C. Dennett, the Yalie and I can all take a class from you. Or, more likely, we can assume that Carrier is simply offering yet another heavily hedged argument in the place of existing, functional ethical systems.

Killing isn't intrinsicly immoral in the Christian ethical system, by the way, so your example is irrelevant.

meh, SOS.

what I'm wondering is why the rantings of a Yale FRESHMAN merit discussion of any type?

just a babe in the woods.

so many exponentially more well know personages have uttered the same drivel over hundreds of years.

of course, that question is best directed at the Yale media that decided to publish this claptrap.

so, to Yale Daily News:

Why?

Killing isn't intrinsicly immoral in the Christian ethical system, by the way, so your example is irrelevant

No it isn't which is why it's a damn fine example of religion not being a superior moral guide than no religion. Morals are simply opinions about behaviour. Sometimes this behaviour is frowned upon by society sometimes not. But the behaviour remains the constant.

Religions simply are a mass of these ideas compiled into a nice structure. The good ones change as society does to remain revelant to the group, others don't and fade away over time. Some like don't murder are generally as good now as 500 years ago others not so revelant.

As another poster mentioned it's not like humans had no moral code before the alleged 10 commandments where given. It's juvenile to think otherwise.

Killing isn't intrinsicly immoral in the Christian ethical system, by the way, so your example is irrelevant.

Who is this Vox Day person, and why does she think she knows what is or isn't part of Christian morality?

Brownian:

"Vox Day" is the pseudonym of someone who has argued that slaughtering toddlers is defensible if Jesus says so.

I like to think that some of the roots of my ethics lies at the idea that we humans are social animals. We are dependent upon each other to survive. Therefore, if I want people to trust me and like me, I have to be a person that other people can trust and like. (I know, I am slipping into Golden Rule territory here.) Murder, lying and stealing are actions that would alienate me from friends and family. It is in my best interest to act ethically. The fear of being eterally tormented does not enter into the picture.

As for the ethics of Jews, Christians and Muslims: how many of them are as sickened by the story of Abraham and Isaac as I am. At least in Greek mythology, Agamemnon was tormented for murdering his daughter, Iphigenia. God rewards Abraham for attempting to murder Isaac. This kind of morality is one that I reject.

Brownian: Vox is a walking, talking tub of hubris. The pseudonym alone says it all. But there's good in everyone. I'd never call him boring.

The hair-splitting is annoying, though. It's numbingly obvious that when Christian morality is the topic, any reference to a prohibition against killing is understood to be a prohibition against unjustifiable killing and murder. Both Scott (#48) and Stwriley (#92) point out the near-universiality of that prohibition AND the context-dependent exemptions to that prohibition that Christian morality (among others) clearly utilizes, but Vox dodges the issue entirely by tacitly invoking the translation gap between the commonly-known version ot the Commandment and what is widely considered to be its intent. Why?

Well I sure am coming late to the party. you guys are hilarious though. I like the snarkiness.

Vox Day (and any religious zealot) I have a question for you...

Why haven't atheists managed to crumble society?

There are about a million criminals we have locked up, most of them are religious (yeah, I know...they are not true Christians, right? They identify themselves as such though). That leaves at least 15 million of us immoral atheists running the streets! What to stop us from killing, raping, sleeping with other peoples spouses, working on sunday, wearing two kinds of cloth, and eating shrimp! Oh the agony!

The answer is: nothing! Moral codes are ingrained in us. killing and raping are generally prevented not because of god, but because of laws which are designed to decrease suffering. Eating shrimp, shaving, working on sunday and believing in a cow god (or no god) are not immoral (if they are please justify your thinking without invoking "god said...").

The overwhelming majority of us (people, not just atheists) are good to each other
The overwhelming majority of us do not hurt or kill
the overwhelming majority of us look to love and cherish our kids
the overwhelming majority of us try to work to provide a decent life for our family no matter what the circumstances are
the overwhelming majority of us are saddened by hatred and violence

I could go forever. what you think is "christian" is really just human.

The fact of the matter is that religion is totally unnecessary for a moral code, we have one built in. I can summarize it in one sentence:

Live with the goal of decreasing suffering and increasing happiness while keeping free will.

Can you do it in one sentence? Or will you conjure ten commandments (3 of which are all about your egotistical god, and only 2 of which we actually legislate against), Or will you bring up the other 600+ (like not shaving or eating shrimp). Or will you just show me the whole fairy tale book itself?

The reason you can find morals in the bible is because you have morals first. Otherwise its just a jumble of stuff with some good stuff and tons of immorality.

think of atheism as an open source morality with its foundation in the sentence I gave before. All personal actions, legislation, political actions, including violent ones would be debated against that one sentence. It requires an open society to work. It requires data and critical thinking. It tries to root our fallacious arguments in favor of strong ones.

Religion does the exact opposite. It requires a closed society, one where religious leaders make up stuff and pretend it because they know what god wants (and then turn around and answer hard questions by saying "we cant possibly know what god wants"). but the point is, its a system that require blind faith obedience to work. It will always be repressive.

I long for the day when we can actually function in an atheist society based in critical thinking. I wont see it, I can only hope my daughter will.

I reiterate: Why does this Vox Day think she knows what is and isn't part of Christian morality?

they have particularly failed in their attempt to present a coherent system of morality

Methinks someone has confused observed morals with proposed ethical systems.

There is plenty of both not associated with religious dogma.

heddle

The basis for the morality of the atheist, just like for the Christian, is God.

Let me guess: because your religious text says so.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we see that a basis for morality can be found in animal behavior.

The Daily Texan (UT Austin) published a similar opinion a week or so ago. It must be the season for equating irreligion with immorality:

Spiritual void and a West Campus murder

http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2007/…

or

http://preview.tinyurl.com/2d62zl

Killing isn't intrinsicly immoral in the Christian ethical system, by the way, so your example is irrelevant.

For someone who handwaves the Fifth Commandment away so blithely, you seem to have a lot of objections to those who handwave away the First.

Also, for anyone (else) who's not familiar with Vox Day, it's the Internet handle of Theodore Beale. He's a video-game designer, science-fiction author, libertarian, and the most aggressive Christian apologist I've ever encountered. In addition to the baby-killing comment referenced above, he's also famous in some lefty circles for an article that argued that women should, among other rights, give up suffrage.

I've had several conversations on this topic with Christians that have gone somewhat like this (much abbreviated, of course):

Me: "Slavery"

Christian: "Oh, but slavery in the bible was not what we think of as slavery today. A slave was more like being a butler then." (Honestly -- someone actually said BUTLER!)

Me: "Oh, if it wasn't so bad then, why was Moses so keen on getting his people out of slavery in Egypt?"

or this one:

Me: "Slavery"

Christian: "Well, those were different times, and it was acceptable then."

Me: "Cultural Relativism much?"

It seems to me that the subtle trick here is to get you talking about "morals", granting their premise that morals are meaningful and essential. But what are morals? And why do we believe they are essential?

Other animals live without them, and I don't see why we shouldn't be able to live without them too. Societies could still have legal frameworks to deter murder and theft, and really, who the hell needs laws encoding morality?

So personally, I'd push back right at the start, demanding first a definition of morality, and secondly logical proof or empirical evidence that morality is necessary for humanity.

The basis for the morality of the atheist, just like for the Christian, is God.

Just so.

I don't see pot smoking as a moral failure either. Alcohol causes far more problems in our society than pot. I'm not against drinking, far from it, as I enjoy the occasional(!) wee dram of single malt just like Hitch. Just sayin'

Morals and Humanity - a 'just so' story.

Humans are super-social primates that have evolved to live successfully (i.e. having children to pass on your genes) in rather large troops of up to 150 individuals. Living successfully involves some basic reflexes and instincts from waaay back in time (detecting pattern and agency, hunger, thirst, mating, sleep) plus some more elaborate emotions to motivate behaviour which supports troop cohesion (so that you benefit from belonging to such a group).

These emotions include (1) awareness of social status within the troop (don't fall out with the alpha male), (2) a sense of what behaviours are good for group cohesion, (3) feelings of disgust for spoiled food, bad sex, and potentially harmful substances such as blood and faeces. These 3 emotions are enough to support 'moral' behaviour. Those individuals that do not behave (enough) this way are subject to adverse natural selection.

As a consequence of our brains expanding to cater for the intricacies of living in larger groups we evolved to use reason, language, and culture. When we do something 'moral' (i.e. our emotions suppress our immediate actions in the interests of the wider group or our longer term breeding success) we often generate a reasoned explanation to justify what our emotions 'made us do unconsciously'.

Now I suggest that people with strong emotions about fear of the alpha male and strong emotions about 'disgusting' activities may well choose to elaborate their reasons for such emotions into some all powerful sky god or other religion.

The troop has now got much bigger, and our behaviours and cultures much more elaborate, but some of us don't need the illusion of a sky god to justify what we do in the interests of our troop.

Yes, I know it's a simplified 'just so' story, but it does show at least one way in which morals (for us super-social primates) could have evolved before religions.

How could we test this idea? If it is true we should be able to see moral behaviour, such as altruism, in other social mammals. You would expect the degree of moral behaviour to vary with mating strategies, and the size and permanence of social group. You would expect to see different moral behaviour between that of a sea lion and his harem and that of a herd of wildebeest.

All it needs is a lot of time, evolution. No gods required.

"Note that no one, either here or on any other blog, has taken exception to any of these conclusions."

Well, in addition to a mere reading of your comments showing that to be false, perhaps that's ultimately because your particular conclusions are based on apparently not understanding the force of the dilemna in the first place: you ramble on and on about the specific language and case that Socrates proposes without actually dealing with the modern and generalized application.

It's simply this: if you define "good" as simply whatever your god commands, then it becomes effectively meaningless to say that god is "good" (since anything commanded would be good by mere definition rather by some standard) and it is meaningless to even really speak of there being such a thing as "good" in a moral sense, since all you really mean by "good" is an synonym for obedience to whatever god commands. This is, at the very least, a woefully indirect kind of morality: it still doesn't explain anything about WHY it is moral to obey God: there's no meta-ethic (not that you couldn't invent one, but so could anyone about anything: none would be logically compelling without begging the question, which is the core problem of moral justification in philosophy).

And so, that selection of "obedience to God" is wholly arbitrary, which is to say, wholly uninteresting in the question of WHY, say, rape is wrong. It doesn't explain anything relevant to the act of, say, rape. Anyone can make up some other standard. One could simply declare that disobedience from God is what's truly moral. Or obedience to the outcome of a coin flip. All are equally uninformative and philosophically empty.

The only real out is to say that there is some MORAL REASON why God would tell us that rape is wrong. But in that case, the reason superceeds God, and God is not necessary in the first place (though perhaps God could be cited as particula.

But oh wait: your God never really told us that rape is wrong in the first place. Marry a girl and rape to your heart's delight, I guess. Maybe in your awesome car.

vox day,

The relevant point is not that an individual atheist can't be moral - he certainly can - but that atheism precludes any moral standard with universal claims.

Okay, I'll bite. How does atheism preclude any moral standard with universal claims, and even if it does, how is that an argument against atheism?

As for Euthyphro, the hoary "dilemma" is a) a semantically twisted joke, and b) not applicable to any monotheistic religion, much less Christianity.

More vacuous drivel. Calling Euthyphro a joke is not an argument. Neither is an unargued assertion that it's not applicable to Christianity. Do you have an actual argument to make in support of your position?

Sorry, I left out the end of my last parathetical. It should read:

"(though perhaps God could be cited as particularly knowledgeable authority on the subject of morality and thus worth listening to... right after we establish that he exists, is trustworthy, and so on)"

For someone who handwaves the Fifth Commandment away so blithely, you seem to have a lot of objections to those who handwave away the First.

Logical fallacy. The author of the 10 Commandments, can "handwave" at will. Hence the Law of Israel. Were there similar addendums to the First as to the Fifth, then you would have a good point, but this doesn't even begin to delve into the various Hebrew verbs for "to kill".

But there's no more point in discussing theology with an atheist than logic with a dog since he doesn't have the capacity to believe it exists in the first place.

In addition to the baby-killing comment referenced above, he's also famous in some lefty circles for an article that argued that women should, among other rights, give up suffrage.

That's an interesting defense of Euthyphro and/or atheist ethics. I can't say I find it terribly convincing, though. And I'm always amused to see pro-abortionists pretend to be horrified by the prospect of baby-killing, although I suppose Robert M. could be that rare species of pro-life Pharyngulan.

Why haven't atheists managed to crumble society?

There's not enough of them. More importantly, not enough in positions of power. They are, however, statistically overrepresented in prisons compared to the general population; while self-identifying High Church atheists are very law-abiding, Low Church atheists who subscribe to no religion are highly criminal. Remember, atheism is merely the absence of god belief....

Live with the goal of decreasing suffering and increasing happiness while keeping free will.

While it's an admirable personal goal, it's not a functional ethical system. It's not exactly a new concept.

The matter if God exist or not is irrelevant in a moral sense.Is relevant only because you have the liberty to accept other reality outside human reason.And this a faith issue.You are free to choose and live in one of both options.Atheism is some sense is a model of life like Christiany or Muslem faith.In this case the model is atheism.

I always thought the reason that a supposed god would not want his supposed creations to eat from a supposed tree of knowledge would be simply because such god would no longer be necessary.

if one has obtained an independent knowledge of good and evil, there is no longer a need for even postulating that any god is necessary in order to inform us as to what is good and bad.

so, by the judeo/xian tradition, the eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge defacto removed the very need for god being postulated by yon Yale frosh (or the hack known as heddle in this thread).

oops.

vox day,

The Euthyphro "dilemma" is defeated by shifting the focus from "the pious" to "obedience", therefore it is an inappropriate criticism of Christian morality, among others.

Gibberish. Shifts the focus of what? Where does it do this "shift?" And how does this "shift" render the dilemma inapplicable to Christian morality? The other two parts of your critique of the dilemma are equally opaque.

You're talking in riddles, of course, because you have no clear, logical argument to make, and are hoping you can pass off obscurantism as wisdom.

For years now - feels like hundreds of them - I have been saying "I have no morals. I do, however, have a very high ethic."

I also borrow (I think) a line from one of Ayn Rand's books. perhaps a bit paraphrased (Fountainhead??) - "I am an Atheist, and one of the most religious people you will meet."

My history nearly reads like PZs - though we seperate a teensie bit in the family department.

Now, to go order my "A" pins so I can start becoming an agitator.

JC

It's mostly Christians that I find who have no moral center, this is why we do not have universal health care in this country while every other industrialized nation does. We are cursed with a Christian population who does not believe in helping those less fortunate but helping those with lots of money. If people die along the way, well, they were just weak and foolish anyway or they would have survived.

Vox Day,

Since you're here, care to give us your solution to the problem of evil? If God created the world, and God is good, and God is omnipotent, why is there evil?

Oddly he seems only to direct attention to an argument of why atheists cannot have a basis for morality. While questions of why theists are moral are ignored.

So is his logic is that by following a religion morality ensues, without a question to existence?
Should we lie to ourselves in order to benefit from following a religious practice that we cannot intellectually justify? No thanks, I will struggle with moral/ethical questions as has been the lot of all men since there has been society.

Perhaps both sets have the same underlying basis for morality, with religious texts reflecting some underlying innate aspect, & not the reverse.

Perhaps all stems from a hardwired preference for fairness for both sets of folk.

Twits like this, and the previous "naive atheists" one, prompt me to ask: are they completely unaware that there is a voluminous literature with a long history on the subjects of freewill vs. determinism, and moral philosophy? And that the debates in those fields frequently do not divide along religious/atheist lines?

They are, however, statistically overrepresented in prisons compared to the general population;

That's funny, Vox; I've heard, repeatedly and without exception, the exact opposite. With what information are you able to support this claim?

Vox Day,

Since you're here, care to give us your solution to the problem of evil? If God created the world, and God is good, and God is omnipotent, why is there evil?

Posted by: Jason | September 24, 2007 5:11 PM

This is where The Demiurge comes in. God's away on business. Just to point out for the sake of some people. This is a joke. I am no more a gnostic than I am a christian.)

But there's no more point in discussing theology with an atheist than logic with a dog since he doesn't have the capacity to believe it exists in the first place.

They are, however, statistically overrepresented in prisons compared to the general population

Ah, so Vox Day is one of those that believe rhetorical assertions trump evidence-based reasoning, huh? And a Christian apologist, too?

[sarcasm]It's not like we've never seen those two traits paired before.[/sarcasm]

Boring. Come back when you've got some steak behind your sizzle.

Norms. Aren't. Ghosts.

Adding ghosts and other supernatural fancies to your *ontology* doesn't bring you any closer to moral *normativity*. That would be just a different kind of fact about the universe, with *exactly* the same philosophical difficulties for rendering a system of morality coherent.

Alternatively, just because moral norms are very very unlike normal, empirical, natural facts does not mean they are predicated on something else (a big ghost in the sky) that is also very very unlike normal, empirical, natural facts.

To paraphrase David Hume: IS plus really weird IS does not equal OUGHT.

They are, however, statistically overrepresented in prisons compared to the general population.

What's that smell? Ewww... somebody pulled something out of their ass!

"But there's no more point in discussing theology with an atheist than logic with a dog since he doesn't have the capacity to believe it exists in the first place."

I don't doubt that theology exists. Or are you talking about gods and angels and hobgoblins and such? We have the capacity for delusion, we just see it as a virtue not to use it.

"while self-identifying High Church atheists are very law-abiding, Low Church atheists who subscribe to no religion are highly criminal. "

I wasn't aware I belonged to any church. Anyone here go to High Church? Or Low Church? Anyone even heard of those terms until today?

I'm a Lar; I want my wine, and I'm fucking pissed off.

"Gibberish."

Well, that is the downside of basically being daily entertainment for a bunch of cranks instead of being a famous philosopher. On the upside, most famous philosophers don't drive incredible sportscars from which they fervently believe they are helping invisible angels wage war with invisible demons.

"You're talking in riddles, of course, because you have no clear, logical argument to make, and are hoping you can pass off obscurantism as wisdom."

That's it in a nutshell. Well read enough to ramble on about Socrates for a plethora of paragraphs, but muddled enough to forget to actually make a coherent argument.

Quoth Vox Day:

Cultural inertia.

Interesting idea. Is it testable?

The relevant point is not that an individual atheist can't be moral - he certainly can - but that atheism precludes any moral standard with universal claims. Dennett admits as much, even Harris only argues that such standards "could" be invented, not that they have.

If so, Dennett and Harris should read comment 19. To me, it's pretty obvious that comment 19 is right. Comment 102 repeats part of it in a perhaps even more easily accessible way, and so does comment 112 with another part that it greatly expands.

Christian morality IS obedience.

That means that you consider very few Christian denominations "Christian", doesn't it?

-------------------

I doubt that Divine Command theorists exist. I think they are people who haven't thought much about why it is that they do good.

-------------------

However, the moment of realizing that you, all by yourself, really are a decent and moral person, that you don't need some supernatural threat to do what's right, is extremely pleasurable, empowering, heady--and a bit scary. It's the intellectual equivalent of your first orgasm.

As you can guess from the above, I've never had such an experience.

--------------------

(including Christianity, or have you forgotten that stoning someone to death would qualify as "killing?")

Don't forget that "thou shalt not kill" is a mistranslation. "Thou shalt not murder" is much, much more accurate.

-------------------

And here's the self-proclaimed Voice of God again:

Why haven't atheists managed to crumble society?

There's not enough of them. More importantly, not enough in positions of power. They are, however, statistically overrepresented in prisons compared to the general population;

Ah? Numbers, please.

(It would of course be helpful to get worldwide as opposed to just US numbers, but the former will be much more difficult to get.)

Now now, PZ, you're good at polemics, but there's no need to slander Yale here. Just like other universities, whole sub-populations are religious, and occasionally exert control over their newspapers. As has been said though, why are the ramblings of a freshman so weighty? You can bet he'll be singing a different tune senior year (although, what I wouldn't give for the sort of open criticism that's more common in the UK. Maybe I will do my part some day).

Like I believe someone said on unfogged I think, a freshman Christian talking about philosophy is about as sad as a "bunch of lawyers who think science is what they sat around talking about when they were drunk"

I'll bet 10 dollars he's never had a martini. 20 that he's never been in a closed and locked room with a girl.

I wasn't aware I belonged to any church. Anyone here go to High Church? Or Low Church? Anyone even heard of those terms until today?

it's a senseless adaptation of a senseless catholic tradition (High Mass vs. Low Mass).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_(liturgy)

key word there being senseless.

just like vox, n'est-ce pas?

Brownian to VD:
Boring. Come back when you've got some steak behind your sizzle.

That's not sizzle. That's the stench of slaughtered infants offered up to please the object of VD's worship. VD wants to be considered moral, and so he is: in the "not" mode. He worships what would be a monster, which, fortunately enough, doesn't exist. If it did, it would be a moral act to oppose it.

20 that he's never been in a closed and locked room with a girl.

I wouldn't make that bet if I were you, Chi. Don't forget, women are chattel and the property of their husbands or fathers under most Christian theologies. Locking the door is exactly what one does when one is afraid one's property may escape or be stolen.

It's mostly Christians that I find who have no moral center, this is why we do not have universal health care in this country while every other industrialized nation does.

To be fair, I can't blame Christianity for this. At most, I could blame that peculiar kind of American Christianity, you know, the one without "love thy neighbor" and without John 3:16.

Not to stalk, but from facebook: Prestonwood Christian Academy '07, and Favorite Books: The Holy Bible. Officer of Evidence for Christianity group (based at the academy--the bb is pretty laughable).

Figures.

VD wants to be considered moral, and so he is: in the "not" mode.

He has simply redefined the word "moral" as a synonym of "obedient". Under this definition he suddenly is moral.

It reminds me of how Hennig eliminated, as opposed to solved, the "problem" of "speciation"*: he simply took cladogenesis and called it speciation, and every internode he called a species. What causes speciation? Whatever causes a lineage to split. How does it work? In any way that is sufficient to cause a lineage to split. Easy!

* Yes, two pairs of scare quotes.

More vacuous drivel. Calling Euthyphro a joke is not an argument.

No, but you can do that after you've refuted it. If you have a criticism of my critique linked above, feel free to email me.

Gibberish. Shifts the focus of what? Where does it do this "shift?" And how does this "shift" render the dilemma inapplicable to Christian morality? The other two parts of your critique of the dilemma are equally opaque.

The fact that it's beyond you doesn't make it gibberish. You didn't even pose your question correctly, because it is necessary to shift one of the two horns of the dilemma just to make it APPLICABLE to Christian morality, otherwise it makes no sense to even bring up Euthyphro in the first place.

The ape can read Nietzsche....

Anyhow, if you'd understood the dilemma, or even read the linked critiques I provided, you'd understand that the way Socrates sets up his dilemma requires multiple gods who disagree about what is pious. No multiple gods, no dilemma, Euthyphro is refuted.

So does the concept of the variable arbitrary, in fact, these problems are so obvious that even Wikipedia takes some note of them.

Ah, so Vox Day is one of those that believe rhetorical assertions trump evidence-based reasoning, huh? And a Christian apologist, too?

I compared a 2000 survey of the British prison population with the 2001 national census. This clearly showed that individuals claiming atheism or no religion make up 15.5 percent of the British population and comprise 31.9 percent of those serving time in British prisons. Unfortunately American prison surveys aren't nearly as comprehensive or really even possible, given that the separation of church and state issue involved.

Since you're here, care to give us your solution to the problem of evil? If God created the world, and God is good, and God is omnipotent, why is there evil?

My solution is that God is not omnipotent in this world. Certainly Paul and Jesus both referred to an evil ruler of the world; Jesus did not dispute Satan's right to offer him all the kingdoms of the world when tempted. That's why evangelicals refer to the world as "occupied territory" and explains why Jesus told his followers that they were "in the world but not of it" and CS Lewis wrote about a "Silent Planet".

If you're an atheist, there's no reason to make the common Christian mistake of confusing an omnipotent God with an omniderigent one. There is also a sound Biblical case for rejecting the concept of an omniscient God.

Of course, if you reject all of it as nonsense, there's no need to worry about evil in the first place. It's all just rearranging atoms anyhow. There's no logical reason to asssign emotive value to any particular state of material assemblages that are inherently unstable.

No, but you can do that after you've refuted it. If you have a criticism of my critique linked above, feel free to email me.

how can one refute nonsense? uh, hey, idiot: the ball was in YOUR court to begin with, and instead of refuting the logic, you simply called it a "joke" and moved on.

just like the other idiotic apologists, rather than debate points you don't understand, you prefer to handwaive them away.

so, waive bye-bye, little boy, and go suck on your blanky.

The fact that it's beyond you doesn't make it gibberish.

no, the fact that it's gibberish makes it gibberish.

gibberish is beyond everyone but the purveyor of the gibberish.

(hint: that's YOU)

Why haven't atheists managed to crumble society?

There's not enough of them. More importantly, not enough in positions of power. They are, however, statistically overrepresented in prisons compared to the general population; while self-identifying High Church atheists are very law-abiding, Low Church atheists who subscribe to no religion are highly criminal. Remember, atheism is merely the absence of god belief....

Are you lying, or merely speaking with confidence from ignorance? The first hit google returns gives these results (though somewhat out of date, includes federal prisons only, and lists approximately 20% as "unknown." The results are so staggering as to be useful even with those large caveats):

Judeo-Christian: ~84%
Athiest: 0.2%

For the population at large, the US census lists atheists as ~15%.

Atheists are under represented in federal prisons by a factor of nearly one hundred.

if you reject all of it as nonsense, there's no need to worry about evil in the first place.

VD is a beta chimp, sucking up to the an imaginary but reputedly murderous alpha chimp, tarting up might makes right and calling it virtue. That sort of behavior is the very definition of evil, and well worth worrying about.

hey vox...

if a sense of good and evil is provided for us by your religion, and wouldn't exist without it, what was the function of the tree of knowledge in your judeo/xian mythology?

What we call 'good'or'evil' are simply opinions of behaviours innate to our species. 911 seems evil to Americans but not to others in the world. Likewise the war in Iraq, well bad example most people think it is evil.

I like how Teddy basically comes right out and says that his arguments are meaningless unless you accept his presumptions.

Personally, I have way more respect for atoms than any silly god who would try to recruit me to his football team for the Big Game against Satan U.

vox day,

You're being obtuse and evasive to avoid addressing the issue. The dilemma may be applied to both monotheism and polytheism. Here's the question that exposes the dilemma, in clear English: Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?

Do you have a response? A clear, concise, relevant response, that is. If you do, present it.

I still want to know your proposed solution to the problem of evil, too.

vox day,

My solution is that God is not omnipotent in this world.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. If God is not omnipotent "in this world," then he is not omnipotent, period. That is not the teaching of standard Christian theology.

Are you suggesting that there is another world in which God is omnipotent? If so, what is the difference between that world and this one that accounts for this difference in God's power?

Jason,

I'm not VD, but I'll take a stab:

Here's the question that exposes the dilemma, in clear English: Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?

But this has been answered by Christianity for some time. The former is the correct answer, because what is moral is a reflection of God's character. In simple terms, God is truthful, therefore lying is immoral, and God so commands truthfulness because it reflects his character (is moral.) The latter violates God's immutability. It suggests that God could outlaw, say, covetousness on Monday, rendering it immoral, and approve it on Tuesday, redefining it as moral.

So your so-called dilemma is not really a dilemma at all.

Now the origin of evil, that's a real problem--in fact the great unsolved problem of Christian theology. Nobody has a satisfactory answer.

I am firmly in the category of godless pot-smokers. Take that!

vox day,

Of course, if you reject all of it as nonsense, there's no need to worry about evil in the first place. It's all just rearranging atoms anyhow. There's no logical reason to asssign emotive value to any particular state of material assemblages that are inherently unstable.

You seem to have a very poor understanding of a naturalistic account of morality. Morals are preferences, or beliefs derived from those preferences. I think torturing children is wrong because it offends my sense of compassion and decency, because I find it cruel and inhumane, not because I "assign emotive value" to anything (I'm not sure what "assign emotive value" is even supposed to mean).

But if morality, on your account, is about "assigning emotive value," why do you assign emotive value to what God commands (or, rather, what you believe he commands)? You may choose to do that, but why make that choice rather than a different choice? Why is your choice the moral choice, and not some other choice?

totally printing this out...

VD:
There's no logical reason to asssign emotive value to any particular state of material assemblages that are inherently unstable.

I'm inherently unstable, and logically or no, I assign emotive value to my state and to the state of the fragile lives of my family and extended family. Our lives are a gift in a universe demonstrably hostile to life. Our lives are threatened more by those who obey the supposed whims of imaginary monsters than by those who have rejected such a callow lie.
In the State of California, the inherently unstable are referred to by the police as 5150, a danger to themselves and others. That's a more inclusive description than "evil," a problem which the monster VD worships is powerless to address.

Sorry heddle, but that's a no go: you've just conflated the two horns of the dilemma into one vague mess! Specifically, this makes no sense: "God is truthful, therefore lying is immoral." Uh... how does that follow? How does any of that establish why any of this is moral?

And how do you know that God is truthful in any case? How can you possibly know the character of a being beyond your understanding? It could ALWAYS be tricking you, because you are nothing to it.

And Christians, in fact, do sort of believe that God changes around morality. It can't be moral to stone your unruly children one day and immoral overkill the next, after all. But that seems like exactly what happened.

"But if morality, on your account, is about "assigning emotive value," why do you assign emotive value to what God commands (or, rather, what you believe he commands)? You may choose to do that, but why make that choice rather than a different choice? Why is your choice the moral choice, and not some other choice?"

Ah Jason, you've hit the nail on the head, the same nail I've been pounding on for some time. But the skull is thick, and we've having a hard time penetrating so far.

Simply put, theists like to skip over the step where they arbitrarily assign value no different than any naturalistic account of morality, and then just pretend it showed up on its own. Ta da! It's merely sleight of hand, but unfortunately for Vox, we can see up his sleeve.

heddle,

The former is the correct answer, because what is moral is a reflection of God's character. In simple terms, God is truthful, therefore lying is immoral, and God so commands truthfulness because it reflects his character (is moral.)

Hmmm....So, could God choose to command something that goes against his character? If not, how can God have free will? If God's commands are simply expressions of his character that he is powerless to change, he's not a moral agent at all, just a slave to his nature (which you say is immutable). And why should we regard that nature as moral rather than immoral?

Now the origin of evil, that's a real problem--in fact the great unsolved problem of Christian theology. Nobody has a satisfactory answer.

Then why are you a Christian, if you cannot reconcile the claims of Christianity with the existence of evil?

Bad,

No, I'm telling you that what is defined as right and moral for Christians is that which reflects God's character. It is a basic assumption for Christians that God is truthful. Whether or not that is factual is a secondary question. Christians presuppose it to be true and therefore on that basis I address the dilemma. That is: being truthful is moral (because God is truthful), and therefore God commands it because it is moral. It is not moral because God commands it. If God commanded us to lie, it would not be moral, given that God is not a liar. No conflation. A simple explanation from within the presuppositions of Christianity for this so-called dilemma--but no we can't have that! So let's go to the tried and true method of charging a fallacy!

As for what seems to be biblically moral one day and not the next: not true, but I don't feel like arguing it here. You are making a mistake Christians often make, which is to assume, incorrectly, that situational ethics are antithetical to absolute morality.

Jason,

I have no idea about God's free will, I assume it operates much like our own, which would not cause any of the conflicts you alluded too. But that is just an assumption.

Then why are you a Christian, if you cannot reconcile the claims of Christianity with the existence of evil?

I don't have to know the origin of evil to recognize that it exists. Being a Christian does not require that I solve the origin of evil problem, or the QCD confinement problem, or abiogenesis, or why people seem to like Neil Diamond's music.

how can one refute nonsense? uh, hey, idiot: the ball was in YOUR court to begin with, and instead of refuting the logic, you simply called it a "joke" and moved on. just like the other idiotic apologists, rather than debate points you don't understand, you prefer to handwaive them away.

My dear little fishy friend, when the color of the word is blue, I am told you can click on it and the sorcery of the fairies inside your magic box will take you to a faraway place, in the case of comment #97, to a enchanting place where Euthyphro is refuted in no little detail. This is called a "hyperlink".

I do so wish I could effectively communicate just how much amuses me to be called an "idiot" by the likes of you.

Are you lying, or merely speaking with confidence from ignorance? The first hit google returns gives these results (though somewhat out of date, includes federal prisons only, and lists approximately 20% as "unknown."

Ooh, a Google search with outdated and incomplete results versus comprehensive government statistics... obviously I must be lying! You are clearly a Bene Gesserit witch, I should have known better than to play my devious word games in your presence.

You're being obtuse and evasive to avoid addressing the issue. The dilemma may be applied to both monotheism and polytheism.

Only if you ignore the actual argument presented by Socrates in the dialogue. I recommend reading the original text instead of the Wikipedia summaries.

Here's the question that exposes the dilemma, in clear English: Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?

It is moral because it is commanded by God. God's game, God's rules.

If God is not omnipotent "in this world," then he is not omnipotent, period.

Category error. Capability is not action. That's the omniderigent error to which I referred earlier.

That is not the teaching of standard Christian theology.

There are many interesting conflicts between Scripture and ascriptural dogma. I'm not keen on indulgences either.

I like how Teddy basically comes right out and says that his arguments are meaningless unless you accept his presumptions.

Ah, an old favorite, the weasel word attempting to cover a failure of reading comprehension. I actually said that the initial commenter's argument was meaningless unless you accept my modification. A dilemma depending on multiple conflicting divine definitions of "the pious" or "morality" inherently can't apply to any monotheistic religion.

That sort of behavior is the very definition of evil, and well worth worrying about.

What an interesting basis for a theodicy! It's a good thing you don't believe you're a primate subject to primate behavioral patterns yourself. You would clearly never fling feces, even metaphorically, at anyone.

What an interesting basis for a theodicy! It's a good thing you don't believe you're a primate subject to primate behavioral patterns yourself. You would clearly never fling feces, even metaphorically, at anyone.

A flinger of theodicy projecting theodicy onto what it cannot comprehend.

I am a primate subject to primate behavioral patterns. It's one of the reasons I value reason, which VD so sorely abuses. The more interesting question is why VD should deny he's a primate, when his behavior is so transparently primitive.

Vox Day said: "Only if you ignore the actual argument presented by Socrates in the dialogs."

Wait, wait: are you STILL not getting that no one but yourself is or has been talking about the exact Socratic form, but rather the more conventional and generalized form (i.e. the one virtually all philosophers and atheists today actually mean and state pretty plainly when discussing this issue), which has been mentioned and stated to you over and over again, all apparently without recognition, let alone a coherent response?

You're being as obtuse as someone who refuses to admit that there are any formulations of the ontological argument other than Anselm's.

But don't you understand, PZ? It doesn't matter if your actions are purely good, if it ain't coz 'o Jeebus, then it's just wrong!! See? It sez right here:

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/5/afa/22003mc.asp

...and that's what the fundie argument boils down to when you get past all the window dressing: to paraphrase a Mike Meyers bit, "If it's not Jesus, it's crap!" All they are left with in the end is that if you do a good work, even with purely good intentions, without Jesus in your heart, then you're as bad as Hitler; but if you do the identical good work, even if it's out of abject fear of going to hell, but you do have Jesus in your heart, then you are a moral person.

It says so, right here on the label.

I ask you, in all seriousness: how can you argue with logic like that?

More evidence from Heddle that religion is nonsense.

The dilemma relies upon the false assumption that a fixed variable cannot be arbitrarily fixed.

So your "refutation" of the E. dilemma is to say that morality may be arbitrarily chosen by God... That's the damn point of the thing!

heddle:

"No, I'm telling you that what is defined as right and moral for Christians is that which reflects God's character."

Then you aren't even getting the point of the dilemma in the first place. I can "define" that what is right is whatever answer a coin flip gives me when I ask it a question. That, and your definition do not answer the question posed, which is WHY is that moral.

"That is: being truthful is moral (because God is truthful)"

You've just skipped over the key step. Why is God being truthful a reason for being truthful to be moral? (and course, you just assuming that God is truthful makes the whole exercise even more empty, but as you said, let's let that go for now)

"A simple explanation from within the presuppositions of Christianity for this so-called dilemma--but no we can't have that!"

You evidently define "explanation" in a way different that I do, which is roughly synonymous with "no explanation at all, I just assert I'm right, say one thing follows another when it is a complete Non sequitur, and you aren't supposed to notice."

"As for what seems to be biblically moral one day and not the next: not true, but I don't feel like arguing it here. You are making a mistake Christians often make, which is to assume, incorrectly, that situational ethics are antithetical to absolute morality."

Tell that to the poor kid who got stoned one hour before the magical deadline in which it became wrong to stone him.

VD:

Don't bother trying to argue just exactly how the Kozmik Alpha Chimp under whose skirts you cower differs from a monster. Even you are smart enough to know it cannot be done.

heddle, with VD,

Many of us here will gladly risk being wished into the cornfield, despite the fact that both of you need us to believe that it's double-plus ungood not to suck Kozmik Ass and call it nectar.

My behavior may very well turn out to be immoral, but at least it won't be craven.

Here's the question that exposes the dilemma, in clear English: Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?

According to Heddle it's the former, according to VD it's the latter... this consistent moral system provided by theism is great! Something for everyone!

Please don't mistake this for a defense of Vox Day's ridiculous and dogmatic belief that atheism leads to immorality and criminality, but claims about representation of atheists in prison populations are specious on both sides, and the intellectual honesty we claim in these discussions demands disclosure of the complicating factors involved.

People who explicitly claim to be atheist are drastically underrepresented in prisons, but there are a number of motivations to lie in prison. First, atheism is no more popular in the joint than it is among the free, but being unpopular in prison is far more risky. Second, prisoners have long known the effect that "finding Jesus" has on parole boards. Frankly, if it were me, given the choice between parole and principle, fuck principle. I can wallow in the irony of it on the outside.

Additionally, we who explicitly claim to be atheist are generally more ethical than average, but the fact is we get harassed about our supposedly lacking morality so much that we tend to think a fair amount about what makes someone a good person in secular terms. It likely is not the atheism itself but the time spent thinking about how to be a good person that makes us good people. Atheists and believers alike benefit from such contemplation. If you're looking for a strong relationship, my guess would be that people who come to their religious orientation by default are overwhelmingly overrepresented compared to people who have taken a considered position, regardless of whether that position is atheism or belief.

Vox is in a sense correct that people who have never thought about religion (atheists by default) may up the numbers a lot, and we can't really "No True Scotsman" our way out of that without contradicting our position that atheism is not a positive claim but absence of one. It is unreasonably uncharitable of him to stick us with the entire 20% of "unknown" in order to call us overrepresented, however. "Unknown" would include people who are so insane as to not present a recognizable religion (Manson, for example), who are unresponsive, or who believe something not represented by a checkbox on whatever form they used. Lots of people are not religious, but hold kooky beliefs we would definitely say exclude them from being called atheist. For that matter, lots of people simply say, "I'm not religious, but I believe in God." That's "unknown."

My conclusion is that the prison numbers just aren't very informative in either direction. There are just too many confounds to make a good argument for either side.

heddle,

I have no idea about God's free will, I assume it operates much like our own, which would not cause any of the conflicts you alluded too. But that is just an assumption.

But you said God's commands reflect his immutable nature. Did God choose his immutable nature? If not, and if God cannot choose to issue commands that go against his nature, his commands are not chosen. He's just an automaton, a slave to his unchosen nature.

No, I'm telling you that what is defined as right and moral for Christians is that which reflects God's character. It is a basic assumption for Christians that God is truthful. Whether or not that is factual is a secondary question. Christians presuppose it to be true and therefore on that basis I address the dilemma.

Then how is Christian morality any less arbitrary and subjective than you claim atheist morality is? It's just based on one set of "assumptions" and "presuppositions" rather than another.

I don't have to know the origin of evil to recognize that it exists. Being a Christian does not require that I solve the origin of evil problem, or the QCD confinement problem, or abiogenesis, or why people seem to like Neil Diamond's music.

You didn't answer the question. You agree that there is evil. You cannot reconcile the existence of evil with the claims of Christianity. So why do you accept the claims of Christianity? It's like accepting a scientific theory that you cannot reconcile with the results of your observations and experiments. It's irrational.

Sastra (#47):

If it happens to be the case that God does not exist -- and never has existed -- and the source of the basic, common, human "moral compass" is a combination of genes, environment, neurology, and psychology -- then do atheists and Christians STILL have the same basis for morality? Do they have different bases? Or does neither one now have any basis for their morality?

Heddle (#65):

Yes (the first). The question is only whether it is the theists or the atheists who are misguided concerning their common source of morality. If God doesn't exist, that pretty much settles the question.

Thanks for the reply (and sorry this is so far back). I take it then that

1.)You don't really agree with the Yale freshman's arguments on atheism and morality.
2.)You believe that the basis for moral behavior can be discerned through understanding of nature, human relationships, and the nature of human relationships (which may, or may not, be grounded in God -- though you believe it is).
3.)You would not argue from the existence of morality, towards the existence of God (you believe there are better arguments).

I notice that your response to the Euthyphro Dilemma seems to bear this out. By saying that morality is a "reflection of God's character," the existence of God becomes less important than the character of God. In other words, one could add in another "o" and make "God" into "Good," and the argument works the same.

Or do I misunderstand you?

I thought I'd point out that Vox Day apparently disagrees with the Yalie about the capacity of religion to provide a "foundation" for morality. Quoth the original author:

"The problem with all of these nonreligious explanations of morality is that while they may tell us where our sense of morality came from (e.g., our genes, psychological principles, innate human solidarity), they do not tell us why we truly ought to be moral -- why we should give any heed to our sense of morality at all."

The idea that the author of the original article is apparently after is that religion can somehow afford a reason why we ought to behave morally. This is, moreover, something that naturalistic explanations of morality are not supposed to afford: they just tell us where our moral compass comes from, not why we follow it. Instead, according to the moral naturalist (as the Yalie understands him), the ethical principles we adhere to are arbitrary: they're just the principles we (by our nature) can't help but favor. Fundamentally, according to the critique of moral naturalism, we don't have a *good reason* to behave morally. Our morals are arbitrary.

Several commenters have pointed out that religion doesn't seem to be in any better position to say, authoritatively, why 'good' actions are good and 'bad' ones bad. Here, the Euthyphro fallacy seems relevant. If a belief in theism is the critical turn, then it must be God who determines which actions are good and which bad, and who concurrently gives us the reason for acting good as opposed to acting badly. But [Enter Socrates] how does God do that? Is an action good because God says so? Or does God say so because it is good?

Notice something about the above analogue to the Euthyphro dilemma. Both the original dilemma and the analogue assume that the goal of our inquiry is one way another to come up with a reason, a justification for saying that something is pious. What piety is, in the original dialogue, cannot be arbitrary: in particular, it cannot be arbitrary because Euthyphro (the character) claims to know something about it. The dialogue demonstrates that Euthyphro doesn't know the first thing about piety, because he can't come up with a good reason for saying why one thing is pious and another isn't. And merely alluding to the Gods' (or a God's) will doesn't do the trick-- because it doesn't provide a justification for the distinction between piety and impiety, but merely shifts the burden of justification from Euthyphro to the Gods. Euthyphro is a fraud.

Now consider Vox Day's critique of the Euthyphro dilemma. Vox claims the dilemma does not apply to Christian morality because Christian morality is concerned only with obedience to God's will. "Obedience," unlike "piety," is not subject to the ambiguity that gets Euthyphro in trouble, so the dilemma is resolved. But the difference between the morally good action (doing what God commands) and the morally bad action (acting against God's command) is-- admittedly--arbitrary. The good action is whatever God tells you to do. But this just means that the Vox Day-ian Christian has given up the game that Euthyphro (and our Yalie) was trying to play: he has given up the game of trying to give a reasoned justification for moral behavior. We are told that we ought to do certain things because God tells us to, but we are not supposed to be concerned with why God tells us to do them (i.e. what reasons there are that support the action's being good/moral).

But this just puts the theist in exactly the same boat that the naturalist is supposed to be in. According to the naturalist, certain actions are moral because its in our genes to be disposed toward them. The moral action is the action our genes command. And this is arbitrary: there is ultimately no reason why we ought to do one thing rather than another-- we just act on the imperatives our genes saddle us with. Like wise, according to Vox Day, the moral action is the action that God commands. But this-- as Vox himself admits-- likewise makes morality arbitrary. If I have understood the intentions of the original article correctly, this puts Vox at odds with the Yalie's thesis, because Vox apparently does not believe that morality can be given a rational foundation.

(It should be noted that in the above I discuss "naturalism" as the Yalie seems to understand it-- so to the extent that I make reference to "naturalism" above I'm referencing a straw position, but this actually aids my point)

Here's the question that exposes the dilemma, in clear English: Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?

heddle(#152)

The former is the correct answer, because what is moral is a reflection of God's character.

Vox (#162)

It is moral because it is commanded by God. God's game, God's rules.

Commenters who are lumping heddle and Vox together on this should note that they appear to have given opposite responses to the question.

vox day,

It is moral because it is commanded by God. God's game, God's rules.

Then you've impaled yourself on the horn of the dilemma that renders your morality arbitrary. You're simply defining morality to be that which is commanded by God, rather than explaining why anyone should believe that God's commands are moral rather than immoral. Why not define morality in some other way instead, like "that which maximizes happiness" or "that which is consistent with the following set of rules....?" You're simply expressing an arbitrary commitment to a particular definition of morality, not explaining why anyone (including yourself) should accept that definition rather than some other one.

Category error. Capability is not action. That's the omniderigent error to which I referred earlier.

Obscurantism again. I'm not sure what you think the statement "capability is not action" has to do with the statement of mine you're responding to. "Omnipotent" means "all powerful." "Unlimited power." If God is not omnipotent in "this world" (as you asserted), then God's power is limited. Therefore, by definition, God is not omnipotent.

You didn't address my question. Given your "this world" qualification, are you suggesting that there is another world in which God is omnipotent? If so, what is the difference between that world and this one that accounts for this difference in God's power?

Commenters who are lumping heddle and Vox together on this should note that they appear to have given opposite responses to the question.

But God has commanded behaviors that no human should (although those that do countenance such behaviors have, or covet, nuclear devices and targets, claiming divine counsel for their aims). Whether such behavior is praised by the faithful because God is good, or because God declares it to be good, is pedantry beyond the consideration of the dead who will remain so.

The difference between heddle and VD is a distinction without a difference.

The corollary to the "only theists are moral" fallacy is the claim that atheists who act morally do so because we really, but secretly, believe. I get that a lot. Her Roman Catholic priest reassures my religiose aunt all the time that I will be going to Heaven after all, because as we all know, atheists all run around lying and killing and stealing, but as I don't do that, I must secretly believe in god, and am merely throwing a teenage strop when I say I don't.
A strop that's lasted into middle age.

Vox and others like to play word games.He is the kind that would say the people@ Talk Origins just assert rather than acknowledge that they rely on the work of honest,competent scientists.
We refine what our genes tell us.We cannot follow them all times as they can be mistaken.
Mine were mistaken in making me paranoid and terminally shy. With thereapy and medicine, I changed.[My causes changed in line with soft determinism-compatabilism.]At all times I had empathy to counterattack the paranoia.
Vox has the mere feeling that behind and beyond Existence lies a super mind that had us in mind[ the design arguments that thus beg the question].It is the mere feeling that lurks behind seeing Yeshua in a tortilla- pareidolia.The mere feeling consoles with divine purpose and love and a future state, "mustabatory" wants,not real needs, part of the universal neurosis.
The mere feeling is a replaceable placebo.
Yes, the notion that one can avert the dilemma with the notion that it is God's nature does no good as that nature still means just because H
e says so and He might have a bad nature.
Logic is the bane of theists. Fr.Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism. He might be wrong! His cognitive defects might harm his posting.

"It is moral because it is commanded by God. God's game, God's rules."

Games aren't a morality.

This is what I man about how embarrassing supernaturalism is when it finally shows its cards.

I do so wish I could effectively communicate just how much amuses me to be called an "idiot" by the likes of you.

but you should have finished your thought there:

"However, since I am unable to communicate even the simplest of ideas myself, except in the form of gibberish, I am unable to do so."

maybe you could find a link that expresses your amusement?

Idiot.

The corollary to the "only theists are moral" fallacy is the claim that atheists who act morally do so because we really, but secretly, believe. I get that a lot. Her Roman Catholic priest reassures my religiose aunt all the time that I will be going to Heaven after all, because as we all know, atheists all run around lying and killing and stealing, but as I don't do that, I must secretly believe in god, and am merely throwing a teenage strop when I say I don't.A strop that's lasted into middle age.

A variation of this, favored by liberal Christians who are often reluctant to accuse atheists of flatly lying about their beliefs, is the "Oh, you really are a believer, but you just don't know it!"

I've seen this most often when I confront Christians with the scripture in which Jesus is quoted as saying that the most important commandment of all is to love God. The clear implication being, of course, that atheists, agnostics, deists, and every kind of theist who may believe in but does not love God is committing the worst sin of all.

I am flummoxed. I am trying to gauge Vox Day's Christian hubris in implying the morality is the hegemony of theists and believers of the supernatural. Just how far does his/her definition of theists extend? Christians? Divisions of Christianity, Coptics, Protestants, Catholics? Followers of Abrahamic religions, Jews and Muslims? Believers of other major and minor religions in the world, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrianists, neo-pagan nature worshippers?

Since Christianity cannot deny Judaism, grudgingly accepts Islam as a faith, and recognizes nothing else as true religion, doesn't that automatically exclude followers of any other religion from having any morality or ethical system? Yet, the fact that world over, across geographical barriers, people from diverse cultures still adhere to systems of morality and ethical living. So, in saying that

There's not enough of them (atheists - clarification mine). More importantly, not enough in positions of power. They are, however, statistically overrepresented in prisons compared to the general population...

VD is lying outrageously.

This is actually quite a common practice among self-appointed guardians of morality, a standard issue from believers of any religion. And all of them lie through their teeth on a regular basis, and feel encouraged to propagate those lies.

Vox Day, open your eyes to the world, if you are capable of doing so. Religion - of any kind - commits the most violations of so-called morality and ethics; most transgressions are being perpetrated by the believers of ludicrous myths, around the world, against all reason and sanity. This is as true in today's world as it has been in history. How can someone not see that?

I am, as I said, flummoxed.

In part, I agree: the simple statement that the world exists does not state how we should act within it, and the fact that the universe is godless does not dictate standards of human behavior. But then, neither would the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient god.

How would anybody even be able to tell if something is an omnipotent, omniscient god. Even if they actually saw this god, how would they know there is only one of them and that it is omnipotent and omniscient? What can they possibly be thinking? They're only guessing, and they know it. What the hey?

I have been happily faithful to my one and only wife for 27 years

correction: to your one and only Trophy wife for 27 years.

Are you lying, or merely speaking with confidence from ignorance? The first hit google returns gives these results (though somewhat out of date, includes federal prisons only, and lists approximately 20% as "unknown."

Ooh, a Google search with outdated and incomplete results versus comprehensive government statistics... obviously I must be lying! You are clearly a Bene Gesserit witch, I should have known better than to play my devious word games in your presence.

Actually, it's a Google search vs. . . . your word. The government studies back what I said. If you have "comprehensive government studies" that support your statement, please link them.

From the desk of Vox Day:

I do so wish I could effectively communicate just how much amuses me to be called an "idiot" by the likes of you.

Your inability hasn't stopped you before. Whatsa matter? Run out of apologetics to misrepresent?

Try praying. We're waiting with bated breath.

Norms. Aren't. Ghosts.

Adding ghosts and other supernatural fancies to your *ontology* doesn't bring you any closer to moral *normativity*. That would be just a different kind of fact about the universe, with *exactly* the same philosophical difficulties for rendering a system of morality coherent.

Alternatively, just because moral norms are very very unlike normal, empirical, natural facts does not mean they are predicated on something else (a big ghost in the sky) that is also very very unlike normal, empirical, natural facts.

To paraphrase David Hume: IS plus really weird IS does not equal OUGHT.

Wow, you've put this far better than I could have. I actually recently tried pointing out to a theist that descriptive facts about his god do not at all imply normative oughts about what we should be doing in response, and he just didn't get it. It's so frustrating when they deny the obvious. Like putting a thumbtack on Waldo's location in a Where's Waldo? book and having someone go "I don't see Waldo -- all I see is this thumbtack."

Theism and supernaturalism do not solve the is-ought problem, period. (Although, I don't consider it a problem, really.)

It would really suck ass if Vox Day wins the 500,000 comment contest.

Obscurantism? In the extreme. The omnivanous Vox has served up a word he coined himself: omniderigent. Google it, and explore all seven (7) hits.

It's an interesting concept, omniderigence. God as the ultimate micromanaging puppet-master. I agree with Vox's claim that omnipotence + omniscience is often (mis)taken to mean all-meddling. Hey, it's possible to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and still decide just to kick back and watch all your little creations (who've been endowed with free will) do their thing, and then step in at the end and kick the sorry butts of the ones who screwed up. (One might even suspect that it's mandatory.)

There is also a sound Biblical case for rejecting the concept of an omniscient God.

Again, I agree with Vox. I'd like to add that there's also a sound Lucasian case for rejecting the concept of a panponerous Vader.

Of course, if you reject all of it as nonsense, there's no need to worry about evil in the first place. It's all just rearranging atoms anyhow. There's no logical reason to asssign emotive value to any particular state of material assemblages that are inherently unstable.

Why is it that so many theists promise to be amoral nihilists in the absence of their god?

I've been thinking about gene-morality vs. god-morality, and I think we've underestimated what might be called memetic morality. Humans aren't born moral any more than they're born Red Sox fans. I haven't seen too many infants or young toddlers display altruism, empathy, or much of anything beyond a drive have their immediate selfish needs met. This is natural. Children learn by modeling the behaviors of their role models and by means of natural consequences. If altruism and empathy are innate, or are somehow beamed in from god, why are these traits and behaviors so conspicuously absent in the very young and in the socially isolated?

What I think is truly funny, is that VD's arguments are the same ones he put forth 4 years ago. Austin Cline gutted those strawmen way back when. I guess VD resurrected them...

What is true morality?

'Kill all the men and keep the virgins for yourselves'. (Numbers 31)

A dilemma depending on multiple conflicting divine definitions of "the pious" or "morality" inherently can't apply to any monotheistic religion.

Nonsense.

You seem to be willingly ignorant of the fact that the reference to polytheism here is in no way central to the argument. Its an issue that Socrates brings up, not because it is necessary to his point, but because the appeal to a consensus position among the gods was possibly be considered a sufficient counter to his main main point, and one which he felt a need to address, living in a polytheistic society.

In the absence of a polytheistic theology, his position is strengthened, not weakened, since one is unable to point to this idea of a divine consensus to counter the argument that piety is ultimately either arbitrary or has nothing to do with God. So all this harping on this issue is really little more than a very intentional slight of hand.

As for this:

It is moral because it is commanded by God. God's game, God's rules.

It's sill amazing to me that Xtians still bring this up again and again when it completely contradicts what is one of the most central passages in the story of the fall:

"Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil"

If we are to believe this, (I don't, but for the sake of argument,) then god is clearly stating that man, through the mechanism of eating the fruit, has become God's equal in at least one dimension: He is able to determine what is good and evil independent of God's advice/orders on the topic. In fact, it means that man, by his nature, has standing to question the morality of any act- even the acts of God- on an equal footing to that of God himself. An ability which so spooked God that he kicked us out of Eden and condemned us to hell for the simple act of being born.

So, frankly, your "God's rules" position is self-abortive nonsense.

Either man has equal footing with god to determine what is righteous, which is the reason for our fall, but which also means we clearly _do_ have authority in questioning God's rules. Or, quite frankly, the Bible lies, and as such is _not_ an authoritative deceleration of what is and is not moral. Which means that condemning anyone for falling short of the proscriptions presented in it is wildly unfair, and any appeal to it as morally authoritative is intellectually dishonest.

Either way, this entire "I was only following orders" thing you're appealing to here is moot. Ultimately, the basis of your whole system of ethics boils down to "I'm too craven to stand on my own two feet."

Hardly admirable, at best...

position among the gods was possibly be considered

And just to clarify- this should read "position among the gods _could_ possibly"

Also, "main main" should read "main."

I'm sure there are other errors, but I pretty tired at this point, so I'm calling it a night.

Extremely well said, PZ. This morality thing really pisses me off. I think it is very offensive.

As an aside-

I'd like to note that, according to the story of the fall, the knowledge of good and evil is pretty fundamentaly divorced from the concept of "following orders."

Adam fails in the arena of "following orders." But, prior to that lapse, he has no conception of "good and evil." It's only after that that he is granted such knowledge.

So, presumably, he is condemned to hell not for a 'evil' or 'immorality', but mere ignorant disobedience, since prior to eating the fruit he has no rubric for judging the morality behind the act.

Nice God you got going there.

Morality exists. Morality comes from God. Therefore God exists.

Christmas presents exist. Christmas presents come from Santa Claus. Therefore Santa Claus exists.

Am I missing something here?

Ah, the young freshman explaining his deep thoughts to the world makes me think of one of my favorite Oscar Wilde quotations:

"I am no longer young enough to know everything."

I want to point anyone who's made it this far in the comments, to go back and click the link in the very first post. This goes for heddle and our lovely other apologist who in his hubris failed to recogonize that his chosen handle also reads as V.D.

If you want an perfectly natural, scientific, testable, explanation for our moral evolution: Read Moral Minds.

Otherwise this game of "I dictate what god thinks about morals" is terribly silly. Either present evidence for your founding assumptions or stay silent. Everything else will be ridiculed.

First: Euthyphro. No more need be said on that point.

Second: They can stick their morality of misery, guilt, and "sin". I prefer the life of freedom and reason, thank you very much.

Kseniya:

I haven't seen too many infants or young toddlers display altruism, empathy, or much of anything beyond a drive have their immediate selfish needs met.

Babies do display spontaneous helping behaviour. I don't think 18-mo.-olds have yet been conditioned to help around the house much, so at least some of it may be innate.

Stephen Wells, #197, says, "Morality exists. Morality comes from God. Therefore God exists.

Christmas presents exist. Christmas presents come from Santa Claus. Therefore Santa Claus exists.

Am I missing something here?"

Not at all. That's about the whole of it. (The "logic" involved).

Beautifully put with devastating economy, sir!

As for this thread in general: i love a good massacre in the early morning. This blog is top-notch spectator sport.

"I compared a 2000 survey of the British prison population with the 2001 national census. This clearly showed that individuals claiming atheism or no religion make up 15.5 percent of the British population and comprise 31.9 percent of those serving time in British prisons. "

Vox, most of the numbers I'm finding online would put the percentage of British atheists/agnostics/non-believers somewhere in the 30s (which would mean they were either slightly under-represented or right on target. At the same time, you're not wrong about the 2001 census. I'm not sure how these different findings should be reconciled.

First: Euthyphro. No more need be said on that point.

Didn't you hear? Vox refuted it...

Or maybe not. Although I like Vox's version of the dialogue, in which Socrates appears to be trying to pick him up. (Mary Sue, historical, slash?)

Logical fallacy. The author of the 10 Commandments, can "handwave" at will. Hence the Law of Israel. Were there similar addendums to the First as to the Fifth, then you would have a good point, but this doesn't even begin to delve into the various Hebrew verbs for "to kill".

You're bringing up two separate issues here. First, it's not a logical fallacy, it's a rhetorical device. It's not a particularly complex analysis, but it does serve to expose your belief that absolute obedience to God is the only moral imperative.

Second, the issue of potential mistranslations in the Bible is not one you particularly want to open up. "Thou shalt not kill" is the Roman Catholic version, and the version with which many English speakers are most familiar.

That's an interesting defense of Euthyphro and/or atheist ethics. I can't say I find it terribly convincing, though. And I'm always amused to see pro-abortionists pretend to be horrified by the prospect of baby-killing, although I suppose Robert M. could be that rare species of pro-life Pharyngulan.

It's not intended to be a defense of atheist ethics; it's intended to familiarize other commenters with your style of argument--particularly your willingness to defend even absurd positions.

And no, I'm not pro-life. You cleverly slipped in the false dichotomy, though (which is cute, considering that you accused me of fallacious arguments): just because I'm not pro-life doesn't make me a "pro-abortionist".

Michael:

Either present evidence for your founding assumptions or stay silent. Everything else will be ridiculed.

Well, I responded because Jason posed a "dilemma," and I thought he honestly wanted to know how Christians resolve the dilemma. As for the threat of ridicule--oh gosh, that's so scary! I mean, just look at Ken Cope's ridicule. Commenting on the fact that Sastra pointed out that I and V.D. had given opposite resolutions to the dilemma (V.D. is wrong, my response is mainstream hish school level theology 101 across all denominations) Ken's response was basically:

1) Oh, so they give different answers to a question with only two possible answers?

2) [Insert nearly impenetrable pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook,] and conclude with

3) The difference is a distinction without a difference.

You have to appreciate a post-modern analysis that concludes that one reply of A and another reply of not-A are a distinction without a difference. I mean, you can't pay for that kind of ridicule. But you can get it here, for free, on a site where I was learned on another thread had the "most consistently intelligent commentary of any blog." Indeed.

I agree with a couple comments above about the guy being a freshman. When I was a freshman in college, I had some bizarre beliefs and convictions I brought with me from home and high school--though religion wasn't one of them.

For a short time I was a Republican, and even a libertarian. But I shortly learned some things and learned to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Give the guy a break. He probably will not be the same in four years, unless he is related to Bush. At least he is getting practice writing. How many others in college can't do that correctly?

This is the bit of my post that heddle chooses to characterize as nearly impenetrable pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook:

But God has commanded behaviors that no human should (although those that do countenance such behaviors have, or covet, nuclear devices and targets, claiming divine counsel for their aims). Whether such behavior is praised by the faithful because God is good, or because God declares it to be good, is pedantry beyond the consideration of the dead who will remain so.

I'll rephrase my point so that even heddle may understand. Whether a monster worshiper like heddle worships the imaginary supernatural mass murderer in question because it's good to be a mass murderer (mass murder must be moral or heddle's god wouldn't have committed it) or because a monster worshiper like VD believes that whatever the monster he worships does is good because his god did it, the distinction doesn't matter to the victims of mass-murder.

They're both a pair of monster worshipers.

Ken,

Whether a monster worshiper like heddle worships the imaginary supernatural mass murderer...

Oh, that helps bunches.

See why the ridicule is worth it? Where can you get such analysis (The God of the bible is an evil monster--so bold, so revolutionary even) except on Pharyngula, which has the "most consistently intelligent commentary of any blog."

Heddle, it might be that people continue to assert the view that the xian god is a monster because it appears to be true. And it is no less true now than the first time it was proposed. Not every assertion need be revolutionary. We also keep insisting that 1 + 1 = 2, and would continuously do so if a religious group disagreed.

There are a lot of people who need to be told the long-obvious and have it explained in detail.

That the Earth is round and mobile is one of them. That the typical deities worshipped by fundies are tyrannical, sadistic monsters is another.

Obviously not controversial. OT god is a vengeful little shit who gets religion in the NT after sating his bloodlust with the mock death of his "son" but will be back in a sequel for Armageddon, when he'll smite everybody but heddle and his buds. But heddle says god wouldn't do it if it wasn't moral, and VD says whatever god does is moral. Important difference. Noted.

God, moral? Yeah, right...

My favorite is 1 Samuel 15:

Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. 2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' "

So, to get you up to speed: some 400 years before, during the Exodus, the Israelites stumbled through the land of the Amalekites, who did what tribes back then were wont to do: attacked them. Not very nice, that is for sure.

So God tells Saul (through his annointed messenger, Samuel): Remember how the Amalekites attacked the Israelites during the Exodus? Well, in payback you need to go and wipe them out. Utterly destroy everything, and kill every man, woman, child, and animal.

Yes, that's right. God orders Saul to kill all the Amalekites, including the women, children, and babies (not to mention the livestock) because their ancestors, some 400 years earlier, had dared to attack the Israelites as they tried to escape Egypt. That would be the equivalent (or even worse than) the US going in and wiping out England because they fought us in the Revolutionary War (they should have just let us be independent). Not even the most mongering war monger could suggest killing the babies and sheep of England for that reason, yet apparently God had no problem with it.

Not only that, but he was serious about it. In fact, in the end, Saul got canned as king (verse 26), because he had the audacity to spare the life of the Amalekite chief and some of his livestock!

The sad thing is that 1 Samuel 15 is typically touted as an important lesson, that we are supposed to follow all of God's commands to the letter. I see it as a lesson, as well. We learn that God is a barbaric bastard who is the utmost evil.

In verse 18, God calls the Amalekites "wicked." Apparently, they are ALL wicked, including the babies. Why are the babies wicked? Because 400 years before, their great-great-great-great-etc grandparents had the audacity to attack the Israelites. Now, I don't necessarily excuse the actions of their grandparents (although I would be curious to hear the story from the Amalekites perspective), but I am damned sure that the babies slaughtered by Saul had nothing to do with it.

Pablo, that just can't be right..

Let's see...1 Samuel...hmm...that's in the Old Testament, right?...Oh never mind I'll just use the table of contents since I don't have those little tab thingys...page 492..chapter 15...

OMG you're right! I never knew that was in the bible! I don't know what to say! Knock me over with a feather!

Once again, where can you get such stunning intellectual revelation except on the site with the "most consistently intelligent commentary of any blog?"

Hedd - I learned it on alt.atheism many years ago :)

I used it recently in a discussion about the morality of the bible. It was a usual apologetic cry about how the 5th (or 6th, as I was taught in catholic school) commandment is "actually" Thou Shalt Not Murder.

Even if I grant that (which I don't, because such a commandment is vacuus in content (murder is, by definition, "killing when it is wrong to kill" so why do you need a commandment against doing something that is wrong by definition?)), 1 Samuel 15 causes serious problems because it is, by any reasonable assessment, God ordering the murder of the innocent. If the Amalekites are "wicked" and deserved to be wiped off the fact of the earth based on the actions of their long lost ancestors, then I dare suggest that we all suffer the same punishment. Of course, we do not hold such standards today.

Which leads to a problem. If you insist that the slaughter of the Amalekites was acceptable because society was different back then, then you are admitting that the morality proscribed in the bible is not absolute, and depends on societal norms. OTOH, if the murder of babies is wrong regardless, then God has just violated his own commandment (even if we allow the "Thou shalt not murder" dodge attempt).

In the end, you cannot conclude that the Bible is an absolute source of morality.

OMG you're right! I never knew that was in the bible! I don't know what to say! Knock me over with a feather!

Simple. Say you were wrong for ridiculing us for calling your god a monster, since you admit the evidence is there (right in the True Word of God™, no less) and thus the description is apt.

C'mon, it's not hard. You're already well-versed in apologetics, now try an apology.

I guarantee your conscience will feel that much lighter for it.

Heddle, am I to understand that your response to citations of unconscionably vile divine behavior in the Bible is to roll your eyes and sarcastically say, "never heard that one before," totally ignore the genuinely disturbing contents of the cited passage and suggest that people shouldn't mention things like that because they're trite?

A Godwin analogy would be so easy, but I trust it's so obvious as to not need elaboration, so I shall refrain. I shall only wonder aloud why, based on the above-described reaction to what can only be regarded as atrocity, we should consider you any kind of authority on what is and is not moral.

You seem to be failing to apprehend something important here. We atheists can mockingly dismiss the allegations of innate atheist immorality because that is a vicious and unsubstantiated lie perpetuated by people such as yourself to maintain the position of self-anointed social superiority held by your particular cult. You cannot, however, use such a tactic to defuse citation of the words which are copied directly from your own magic book. The trick just doesn't work because, unlike your claims against us, it isn't a slander. The words are right there for all to read, the fact that you dismiss them with a wave of your hand notwithstanding. The being you claim to worship is authored to have done things that any rational person would consider a moral horror. That you excuse him of that simply because he is God makes you nearly as immoral as he. That's what morality means. I could not worship or even respect such a being if he did exist.

I remember a newly converted Muslim pointing out that at one point, Jewish women wore headscarves.

Before I replied, I did a little research on how the Jews got rid of that - through a long process of determining that a woman covering one's hair was like getting dressed, as men of the ancient times found long hair erotic, apparently, was not a law handed down by heaven, but a law brought about by custom and culture. It progressed to Jewish women wearing wigs (and having very very short hair because it was hot), where for a while there was a debate that a wig was not (the woman's) real hair, thus satisfied the tradition that a woman's hair be covered and seen only by family, and when the fashion changed again and Jewish women (and the men, finally) discarded headcovering because society had changed to the point that the uncovered hair of a woman was no longer considered erotic or something best privately enjoyed only by her husband.

I'm still waiting for the "Coz the Bible says so" people to bring back stoning to death. Oh wait, they can't... they don't agree with the death penalty, despite the fact that God has struck down many a person to death...

Damn Gelf, but that shit be tight!

"The words are right there for all to read, the fact that you dismiss them with a wave of your hand notwithstanding."

Is there something to be said about the fact that Heddle (at least claims that he) was unaware of the story in the first place?

How can we take someone seriously who claims to be following the bible when it is clear he isn't actually aware of what's even IN the bible? Of course, it's hard because 1 Samuel 15 is not one of those stories that get studied in Bible Study classes, except, perhaps, recite the moral of the story (vs 23)

23 Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft,
and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols.
So because you have rejected the command of the Lord,
he has rejected you as king."

The human capacity for empathy is pretty much all that is required to build morality, no need for superstition.

"But the idea is simple enough: that God has given all men, believers and atheists, a moral compass."

Any evidence of that? Didn't think so.

There's lots of evidence for other factors, though.

Vox Day, comment 142, emphasis mine:

Since you're here, care to give us your solution to the problem of evil? If God created the world, and God is good, and God is omnipotent, why is there evil?

My solution is that God is not omnipotent in this world. Certainly Paul and Jesus both referred to an evil ruler of the world; Jesus did not dispute Satan's right to offer him all the kingdoms of the world when tempted. That's why evangelicals refer to the world as "occupied territory" and explains why Jesus told his followers that they were "in the world but not of it" and CS Lewis wrote about a "Silent Planet".

Can I believe my eyes?

You're a Manichaean: you obviously maintain there are two gods, one good, one evil. I don't think it matters much whether the good one happens to be triune.

Not some "free will" argument; not some argument from ineffability; no, God's own voice tells us "God is not omnipotent in this world".

I'm not accusing you of being a heretic or apostate or something; that's not an accusation in my book. I accuse you of being a hypocrite. I accuse you of following the old atheist joke about theodicy: "omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent -- pick two".

Oh, that part:

Jesus did not dispute Satan's right to offer him all the kingdoms of the world when tempted.

I guess the predictable apologia would be that "go away" was a fully sufficient answer.

There is also a sound Biblical case for rejecting the concept of an omniscient God.

Fine -- but why do you then call yourself a Christian? Or have you defined "Christian" as "the correct interpretation of the Bible", like you did with "morality" and Hennig did with "species" and "speciation"?

-----------------

No, I'm telling you that what is defined as right and moral for Christians is that which reflects God's character. It is a basic assumption for Christians that God is truthful. Whether or not that is factual is a secondary question. Christians presuppose it to be true and therefore on that basis I address the dilemma.

So you are telling us the whole thing is built on air?

That is: being truthful is moral (because God is truthful),

This is the second horn.

and therefore God commands it because it is moral.

This is the first horn. See? There's the conflation: you say the first horn follows from the second one, even though it doesn't.

I don't have to know the origin of evil to recognize that it exists. Being a Christian does not require that I solve the origin of evil problem, or the QCD confinement problem, or abiogenesis, or why people seem to like Neil Diamond's music.

I can't help myself. This sounds an IDiot refusing to make any claims about the Designer, even though several such claims follow directly and inevitably from ID "theory".

----------------------------

Obscurantism? In the extreme. The omnivanous Vox has served up a word he coined himself: omniderigent. Google it, and explore all seven (7) hits.

Of course, we must take into account that it's a misspelling. The correct spelling is "omnidirigent". And that gets... drum roll... one ghit. That one, too, is on Vox Day's Blog. That's what we should expect from someone who misspells vox populi, too...

------------------------

If altruism and empathy are innate, or are somehow beamed in from god, why are these traits and behaviors so conspicuously absent in the very young and in the socially isolated?

Are they? Or are they only absent in those who fail to recognize anything as similar to themselves, which is obviously a prerequisite for empathy?

I do think it's innate to react when a baby cries, to take the most obvious example.

"But there's no more point in discussing theology with an atheist than logic with a dog since he doesn't have the capacity to believe it exists in the first place." VD

Too funny! VD is apparently a pseudo-intellectual so full of hubris his eyes are brown. But we must show compassion for those who live their lives based on silly mythologies... as John Lennon once sang: "One thing you can't hide, is when you're crippled inside."

It would appear this blog needs a good strong dose of penicillin to cure a stubborn case of VD.

Pablo:

Is there something to be said about the fact that Heddle (at least claims that he) was unaware of the story in the first place?

Heddle was being sarcastic.

Heddle,

As Gelf has so astutely pointed out, you're being ridiculed for painfully obvious reasons that cannot be dismissed with a pithy comment. Either bring an evidentry counter assertion that your god is not the monster he appears to be, or suck it up and get made fun of for your incoherent belief system.

Morever, when religious believers make the claim that they are tapped into an absolute moral belief system, and come to that conclusion by mututally contradictory premises, one of you has to be wrong. Either that or god is a cosmic jokester who, leads you to believe things that he doesn't actually care about, allowing you and Vox to hold such opposing, yet divinely bequeathed premises. Of course we here at this 'consistently intelligent commentary' have pointed that out.

If your god gives absolute morality, one of you MUST be wrong, or it doesn't actually matter. Yet, I believe that neither of you are correct, as you still have provided no evidence for your claim.

David Marjanović

P1: God is truthful
P2: God's attributes define what is moral
P3: God commands what is moral
C: God commands us to be truthful

C'mon guys, it's not that difficult. There is no conflation, strawman, true scotsman fallacy, etc. It is just the elementary answer to the alleged dilemma from a Christian perspective. You can argue that the presuppositions are false, but you cannot (or should not) argue that the conclusion does not follow.

I can't help myself. This sounds an IDiot refusing to make any claims about the Designer, even though several such claims follow directly and inevitably from ID "theory".

Does it sound like that? I wouldn't know. What I know is this: no theologian that I have read has come up with a satisfactory explanation of the origin of evil. It's that simple. I can recap many attempts to solve this problem, but none of them seems satisfactory to me, so I (and mostly everyone else) consider it an unsolved problem. Not the most important one--the fact that God chooses to save some people and not everyone is a much more unpleasant theological mystery.

Gelf

Heddle, am I to understand that your response to citations of unconscionably vile divine behavior in the Bible is to roll your eyes and sarcastically say, "never heard that one before," totally ignore the genuinely disturbing contents of the cited passage and suggest that people shouldn't mention things like that because they're trite?

No, the eye-rolling and mocking is because of the abject stupidity of any argument from ignorance. In this case the expectation that the mere reciting of such passages constitutes a proof to anyone but your fellow choir members. As if no Christian is aware of those passages, and as if no Christian theologian has ever addressed them. It is the intellectual equivalent of a YEC asking PZ: What good is half an eye? and then backslapping his fellow YECs and bragging about how easy it is to defeat the atheist evilutionists.

I could not worship or even respect such a being if he did exist.

Now that is a 100% true statement, and contained therein is the solution to the free-will/predestination antinomy.

Michael,

No I won't because the best answer to the "problem" lies in a deep understanding of the doctrines of 1) the holiness of God and 2) Justification and 3) the total depravity of man (original sin.) So there is no point--it would just shift the argument to the alleged stupidity/immorality of those doctrines. As for one of us being wrong, V.D. who concluded that "God commands it, therefore it is moral" is wrong. And as for being made fun of--who cares?

No, the eye-rolling and mocking is because of the abject stupidity of any argument from ignorance. In this case the expectation that the mere reciting of such passages constitutes a proof to anyone but your fellow choir members. As if no Christian is aware of those passages, and as if no Christian theologian has ever addressed them. It is the intellectual equivalent of a YEC asking PZ: What good is half an eye? and then backslapping his fellow YECs and bragging about how easy it is to defeat the atheist evilutionists.

Sorry Heddle, but there's a big difference. What good is half an eye? has been addressed by a multiplicity of scientists who examine and evaluate evidence to slowly reach a consensus over time.

Theological apologetics do not even come close to reaching such a consensus, most likely because there is no evidence (other than arcane and ancient texts, of which the interpretation of is rarely agreed on by more than two historians), and thus any handwaving bullshit based on some half-assed reasoning is as good as any other.

In short, you theogians wish, in your wildest of dreams, that your conclusions would even scratch the surface of rigour that forms the basis of science.

It is the intellectual equivalent....

You've got to be fucking joking.

Pablo:

Is there something to be said about the fact that Heddle (at least claims that he) was unaware of the story in the first place?

I believe Heddle was expressing mock surprise for sarcastic effect. See Gelf's fine response (#216).

David:

The correct spelling is "omnidirigent"

You know, I thought so, too, but I read Vox's pocket etymology, checked the etymology of the word "direct" and concluded that he may have been justified in spelling it the way he did. I've since looked at it a little more closely, and I think you're right.

However, the horse may already be out of the barn. Google returns only 7 hits for "omniderigent", but it returns 101 for "omniderigence". The term hasn't exactly caught on like wildfire (it was coined three and one-half years ago) but I do like the concept and the coinage - it seems like an idea that needs a word to describe it.

I do think it's innate to react when a baby cries, to take the most obvious example.

Yes, of course I agree, but I intentionally focused on the higher, social, beyond-kin aspects of morality rather than self-evident instinctively "selfless" behaviors such as that. That is, I think the tendency not to kill your neighbor (or his offspring) is largely innate, but the tendency not to steal his banana is learned. Likewise, the tendency to want to get it on with his wife is innate, but the tendency not to is learned. I could be wrong.

the fact that God chooses to save some people and not everyone is a much more unpleasant theological mystery.

I'm sure it is, for a given value of "fact".

As for one of us being wrong, V.D. who concluded that "God commands it, therefore it is moral" is wrong.

What? Two apologists, using nothing but their own blinding intellect (and, of course, cutesy nods to previous apologetics written by previous theologians using nothing but their own blinding intellect--and what else could they use, since no evidence exists?) fundamentally disagree?

Say it ain't fucking so. My world is so turned upside down.

Maybe Heddle and Vox Day could recruit a third guy, who's also just making stuff up based on wishful thinking*, to settle this most stimulating debate.

*i.e., I wish what I'm about to say were true, but since there's no evidence to suggest one way or another no-one will ever know, so it doesn't really matter now does it?

Oh, Brownian, but it's so cool that Vox is making up his own flavor of Christian theology! And why not? He's the guy who questions whether the state of evolutionary science can "trump raw intellect" (his own), so why not apply the same skepticism to two millenia of Christian theology? I admire a fellow who reaches for the sky while doing his best Danny LaRusso crane kick from the seat of a unicycle, blindfolded no less. I mean that sincerely!

It's amazing how complex the explanations of "god" and its motives are.
Funny thing is, it's complete nonsense. Who bloody cares what the fictional deity's motivations and purity are?

It's all sooooo... goofy.

World of Warcraft is more interesting and at least FUN.

P1: God is truthful

First horn (morals exist independently) -- except if you have defined "truthful" as "whatever God is".

P2: God's attributes define what is moral

Second horn (Divine Command "theory"): you are saying that "moral" is "whatever God is".

P3: God commands what is moral

First horn, or circular.

I agree you haven't used a strawman or a True Scotsman, but you do seem to try arguing that both horns are true, even though they contradict each other.

Now, if you declared this an ineffable mystery, I couldn't prove you wrong, but you haven't done that -- you have said it's "simple".

Does it sound like that? I wouldn't know.

Sorry, I had forgotten the option of declaring it a mystery. This does make it possible to be a Christian without having solved theodicy. I must have been more tired in the afternoon than now in the evening... ~:-|

the fact that God chooses to save some people and not everyone is a much more unpleasant theological mystery.

Kseniya has answered that one (I'm still laughing). More seriously -- what about the hope, regularly expressed by (post-Vaticanum-II) Catholics, that Hell is empty?

You know, I thought so, too, but I read Vox's pocket etymology, checked the etymology of the word "direct" and concluded that he may have been justified in spelling it the way he did.

No way. I've had 6 years of Latin in school. Dirigo, dirigis, dirigere, direxi, directus 3. Or for that matter director.

Only in English are e and i pronounced the same under halfway normal circumstances.

That is, I think the tendency not to kill your neighbor (or his offspring) is largely innate, but the tendency not to steal his banana is learned. Likewise, the tendency to want to get it on with his wife is innate, but the tendency not to is learned.

You probably have a point here.

He's the guy who questions whether the state of evolutionary science can "trump raw intellect" (his own),

So he's not a member of the reality-based community (big surprise). Reality is that in which argumenta ad lapidem work.

Brownian, I suspect bringing in a third person to settle the debate would yield a third and orthogonal response to the problem in question. As we all know, this is the folly of claiming to know things that we cannot possibly know.

Why are people bothering to cite biblical text? It's based on an inherently improbable premise that pulls the plug on any need to proceed. In the mean time, psychologists and neuroscientists are uncovering the innate mechanisms for morality. These discoveries make the "debate" about whether our morality comes from the bible more and more nonsensical as the minutes tick away.

Steve_C:

World of Warcraft is more interesting and at least FUN.

I don't think Vox would disagree with you.

David re: Omnidirigent. Yup, as I said, I've since looked at it a little more closely, and I think you're right. Besides - I would never doubt you. *flutter* ;-)

Why are people bothering to cite biblical text?

Because that's the only source of information about God, Oxy, except of course for when the infomation in the bible conflicts with what one wishes were true, in which case, the only source of information about God is whatever the hell one decides to make up on the spot (or after a good dose of laudanum, twenty years of fasting, self-flagellation, or whatever helps one 'totally get' god).

Now where did Heddle and Vox Day get to? I'm really dying to learn what other meaningful and useful contributions to humanity's knowledge base all of those thoughtful and insightful theologists have cooked up.

Or am I not displaying adequate deference and reverance for Such A Noble Sciense As Is Theologie And Its Importance Toue Man?

I don't think Vox would disagree with you.

from that link:

...son of Robert Beale, a technology executive and federal fugitive wanted on tax charges.

so Vox is the whitecollar version of "son of Hovind"?

too damn funny.

Because that's the only source of information about God,

like Homer's poetry being the best source of info. on the Greek pantheon.

(that would be the Iliad and the Odyssey, for those not familiar with who Homer was - er, might have been)

No I won't because the best answer to the "problem" lies in a deep understanding of the doctrines of 1) the holiness of God and 2) Justification and 3) the total depravity of man (original sin.) So there is no point--it would just shift the argument to the alleged stupidity/immorality of those doctrines.

Ah yes and heddle has understanding necessary. What a complex? And of course it would shift it to the stupidity/immorality of it all because that aspect has to be addressed as one would any case of the previous.

*psst*

if ya'll wanna have some fun with Heddle, ask him about his ideas on cosmological ID.

or, if you're just so bored that watching repeats of Oprah sounds exciting.

One thing I will say, though, is that Heddle is a staunch critic of the efforts of the Disco Institute, just so you don't waste time going there.

heddle:

No, the eye-rolling and mocking is because of the abject stupidity of any argument from ignorance. In this case the expectation that the mere reciting of such passages constitutes a proof to anyone but your fellow choir members. As if no Christian is aware of those passages, and as if no Christian theologian has ever addressed them. It is the intellectual equivalent of a YEC asking PZ: What good is half an eye? and then backslapping his fellow YECs and bragging about how easy it is to defeat the atheist evilutionists.

So the answer to my question was, "yes, and other Christians do the same." Gotcha.

The "half an eye" statement is based on deep factual misunderstanding of the subject at hand. The nature of the misunderstanding is demonstrable and correctable based on mutually verifiable fact. Contrast with what you are suggesting, that refusal to dismiss out of hand God's depravity is itself the misunderstanding. Someone who "understands" doesn't ask questions like that. Someone who "understands" recognizes that everything God does is good by definition, and that we mere mortals may not speak against him. Someone who "understands" recognizes that anyone who has these concerns "doesn't understand," which is very convenient indeed.

Do not flatter yourself by pretending there is parity between our positions. We have ways of correcting the YEC's mistake. You have an elaborate way of saying "shut up."

Now that is a 100% true statement, and contained therein is the solution to the free-will/predestination antinomy.

If I may observe, you have a strong penchant for resorting to empty statements intended to be condescending when you don't have an argument.

Let me help you by actually offering a brief theory of free will: As I already described in another thread, the notion of "free will" makes no more sense under a religious framework than it does under a naturalistic one. From a third person perspective, "free will" demands a being to have simultaneous vulnerability to causal influence (for such is perception) and immunity from causal influence (for such is freedom). Choice in the absence of influence is merely randomness, which is not what we mean by choice. Therefore we are either deterministic or nondeterministic, or measures of each, but we are not both at once, and neither of those is "free." Because the notion of free will embodies a logical contradiction, the problem of free will would apply even to a god, for the same reason that even a god could not create a circle with corners.

With this established, however, the fact remains that first-person experience is pragmatically indistinguishable from free will. One of the little ironies of life is that although we do not really have free will, we are not free to act as if we do not have it. Our brains are shaped by extensive histories of past interactions with our environment, both ours directly and those of our ancestors. Any reaction to any stimulus draws upon so many disparate and competing influences that "choice," even if not an objectively real thing in the strictest sense, is the only sensible model to use when discussing what happens.

Really, it makes no sense to ask whether there "is" or "isn't" free will. It only makes sense to discuss what we mean by it. The confusion about free will exists because we equivocate among interrelated but distinct ontologies. It's like discussing the physics of a cathode ray tube in the context of trying to figure out what the hell is happening on LOST.

Gelf,

Well in that case I'll offer you a counter zeroth-order view on free will. Free will means that at any instant you will choose exactly according to your strongest inclinations. You chose to write the previous comment because at that moment your strongest inclination was to write the comment. How does this work with predestination? Well this view of free will is that our will is not determined by God the puppet master (the caricature most people paint of Calvinism), but totally controlled by our desires. We are slaves to our desires. Our will is self determined. We always choose what we want most at any given instant. Always.

Now you wrote that you could not worship such a God and I agreed. That is because fallen man has no desire whatsoever for God--this is the supreme consequence of the fall. Since you cannot choose that for which you have no desire--you are in fact morally incapable of choosing/worshipping God. You were spot-on when you admitted that, and I commend you.

Now if you are regenerated your desires are changed and then you choose God--with the very same free will that was previously incapable of choosing him.

See, your comment really did contain the resolution of the free-will/predestination paradox. Good show!

So our desires lead us down an unpredetermined path to our predetermined destination?

Heddle, in addressing my challenge to present evidence for your claims you said:

"No I won't because the best answer to the "problem" lies in a deep understanding of the doctrines of 1) the holiness of God and 2) Justification and 3) the total depravity of man (original sin.)"

But again you seem to have missed my point. These are simple assertions backed by no evidence. This is the same mistake you've been making the entire time you've been here. What evidence can you even show that the root of the problem lies in a deep undertanding of your particular sects doctrine, much less what evidence can you give that your particular sect owns the correct stance on morality? You've given none so far that any other sect couldn't give as well.

You seem impervious to the challenge of "showing evidence." And to that, there's little left to say.

That is because fallen man has no desire whatsoever for God--this is the supreme consequence of the fall.

Please provide some evidence for your assertion, Heddle.
At this point, I'd even take a bible quote over nothing, which is what you've so far provided. Otherwise we'll have no choice but to rename you 'Twaddle'.

Free will means that at any instant you will choose exactly according to your strongest inclinations.

But what if your strongest inclinations are predetermined (which is what you suggest, at least to an extent)? Does it make sense to call the result "free will"?

"that would be the Iliad and the Odyssey, for those not familiar with who Homer was - er, might have been)"

Mmm . . . cyclops.

To be fair, I suspect it's not really accurate to say that heddle worships a monster-god, even if we would probably view the process by which they avoid doing so as a lot of fancy footwork and deft dodging. Vox, on the other hand . . .

Really, people just make gods in their own particular image: good and generous believers will try to worship a good and generous god; angry social-dominance types who dwell on their supposed superiority - well . . .

Please provide some evidence for your assertion, Heddle.

At that opportunity, I'd be grateful if he addressed my question in comment 224 if he's really telling us the whole edifice is built on air.

To be fair, I suspect it's not really accurate to say that heddle worships a monster-god

What's not monstrous about a god who fills his heaven with heddled masses, their noses filled with the aroma of Mark Twain flambé because he chose hell for the company?

Brownian,

Please provide some evidence for your assertion, Heddle.
At this point, I'd even take a bible quote over nothing, which is what you've so far provided. Otherwise we'll have no choice but to rename you 'Twaddle'.

I understand that threatening to call me "twaddle" (no one ever thought of that one before---not) befits Pharygnula, which has the "most consistently intelligent commentary of any blog," but why do you think I'd care?

No matter. It is very hard to choose just one passage since there are many that speak to this issue, but if you just want one I gues I'd take Romans 3:

10 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."

David Marjanović

I don't know--this view of free will is precisely that "you choose whatever you want"--I'd call that free will, but if you want to call it something else, I wouldn't argue.

heddle:

Now you wrote that you could not worship such a God and I agreed. That is because fallen man has no desire whatsoever for God--this is the supreme consequence of the fall. Since you cannot choose that for which you have no desire--you are in fact morally incapable of choosing/worshipping God. You were spot-on when you admitted that, and I commend you. [...] Now if you are regenerated your desires are changed and then you choose God--with the very same free will that was previously incapable of choosing him.

Oh, kind of like how in a vampire movie you would never kill people and drink their blood or approve of other people doing similarly, but once you've been bitten you "transform" such that you are still you, only now you're evil, labor under the delusion that you are superior to "ordinary" humans, have been imbued with the desire to prey upon people and drink blood, and decide of your own free will that this is not only acceptable but a great lifestyle choice.

but why do you think I'd care

because you're pretty lonely over on your own blog?

Heddle, Since you seem obsessed with referring to the comments about the intelligent nature of this website, perhaps you could tell us which websites blow your hair back? I, for one, would be interested to compare the quality of your suggestions to the present site.

I guess if you repeat it enough, you can brainwash yourself to believe that theists are more moral... it's too bad that for any actual measure of morality, they do worse overall. It's secular societies that show the least social dysfunction. But who needs silly things like evidence and facts, when you have "faith".

I'm hardly surprised at the continuing lack of evidence given. Brownian, you asked for a verse and you got one. Yet, oddly none of us are convinced by it. Hmm, must be that glaring lack of an actual evidence.

As for the really rather silly and repeated attempted knocks on the intellectual quality of this web site, all I have to offer is that projection is a bitch.

Evidence Heddle. Evidence.

While you are an *exemplar* of atheist morality, PZ, anecdotes prove nothing. You have to demonstrate that, statistically, secular societies have low crime rates and so forth. I think that is easily demonstrable, btw, so jotting out one person to illustrate atheist morality is unnecessary.

Heddle,

We are slaves to our desires.

"Freedom is Slavery!"

this view of free will is precisely that "you choose whatever you want"--I'd call that free will, but if you want to call it something else

I don't call it free will. I admit, though, that it depends on our definition of "want". The choices I make often do not correspond to what it is that I want. Life often demands that I make those choices. If you'd like to move the goalposts now, I will help. How about this: We are free to choose what we think is best. If "what we think is best" still corresponds - by definition? - to "what we want the most", then I think I can agree with your description of free will. Otherwise, I call it blind hedonism, a process no more deliberative than the feeding habits of a shark.

Anyway, my question, "So our desires lead us down an unpredetermined path to our predetermined destination?" was serious, and asked in good faith. I am asking if that's the summary of your resolution of the so-called freewill/predestination paradox.

Otherwise, I call it blind hedonism, a process no more deliberative than the feeding habits of a shark.

I understand your point, but really, the idea that sharks in general are non-selective feeders is a myth. It probably comes from old books that list the stomach contents of sharks that have eaten things like license plates, without noting that such things are not all that common.

In fact, most species are quite selective, even within a population of prey species. For example, when hunting elephant seals, white sharks will typically take the younger seals, with a higher percentage of fat/overall weight ration (like high energy shark treats).

it's along the same lines of that oft repeated misnomer:

"she eats like a bird"

considering that birds, for their weight, eat far more than your average pig does.

just doing my duty as someone who has spent many years studying sharks.

Now back to your reguarly schedule programming.

:)

oxytocin

Heddle, Since you seem obsessed with referring to the comments about the intelligent nature of this website, perhaps you could tell us which websites blow your hair back? I, for one, would be interested to compare the quality of your suggestions to the present site.

I don't think this site is worse than most others, I am just mocking that it thinks of itself as the place with the "most consistently intelligent commentary of any blog."

To answer you question, I guess one site I really like is AtBC.

Michael,

Yet, oddly none of us are convinced by it.

Now there's a surprise.

Ksenyia,

Anyway, my question, "So our desires lead us down an unpredetermined path to our predetermined destination?" was serious, and asked in good faith. I am asking if that's the summary of your resolution of the so-called freewill/predestination paradox.

No it is not. At least I don't think so, if I understand you correctly.

Icthyic:

it's along the same lines of that oft repeated misnomer: "she eats like a bird" considering that birds, for their weight, eat far more than your average pig does.

Indeed. A metabolic rate high enough to permit flight demands a lot of food. I keep birds, though, and I'm here to tell you that "she eats like a bird" would be properly understood to mean eating half of whatever she's served (selected at random), throwing a third into the floor, playing "how far across the room can I throw this" with the rest, then wiping her face on every solid object in the room.

Now there's a surprise.

not really, considering you got the exact same response to your pseudo-theology at ATBC. I figure the only reason you listed ATBC was it was one of the few places where we rightly pointed out your decent fisking of Dembski and the Disco Institute (which, BTW, is why i made a point of noting that earlier).

However, you might regret pointing people there, when they search on the older threads only to find your ideas of cosmological ID getting shredded (or, hell, maybe you've matured psychologically and no longer mind?).

*shrug*

overall, I don't find the commentary here or there to be less or more "intelligent" on any given issue, though because it is smaller, we could often flesh out issues more thoroughly there. Moreover, people get to edit their own posts for mistakes, or to add more information, and start their own threads.

myself, I got tired of the constant milking of crazy folk for little more than a laugh there (there was even serious discussion of inviting John Davison back there *shudder*), which would often derail attempts at serious discussion.

oh, wait, was this a serious discussion?

"she eats like a bird" would be properly understood to mean eating half of whatever she's served (selected at random), throwing a third into the floor, playing "how far across the room can I throw this" with the rest, then wiping her face on every solid object in the room.

LOL

point taken.

:P

Now that heddle has resolved so many crises in theodiocy for us with his deft deployment of the courtier's reply, perhaps he'll settle for us once and for all some other outstanding questions, such as the location of the land of Oz, whether or not Balrogs have wings, and whether Harry Potter spoke to his parents' ghosts or was only cruelly manipulated into believing he had. I expect heddle to use as much evidence to support his conclusions as he has for all his other claims about magical figures from literature.

"most consistently intelligent commentary of any blog."

Actually I think this was a comment made by a reader of this blog not what the blog ownerthinks himself. The commenter apparently finds the commentary here well done in comparison to most blogs. I would tend to agree with him and include other science blogs as well. Whats the big deal about that and why attempt to use it as a swipe? Smacks of shallow character.

This blog attracts a big audience because of the posts and an ever growing community of quality commenters.

I think it's of much higher quality than the site you listed personally.

Ichthyic

It is nice (and easy) to declare that someone's arguments were shredded. FWIW my view on cosmological ID is exactly the same as those of (atheist, anti-IDer, Stanford theoretical physicist and author of The Cosmic Landscape) Leonard Susskind who when asked:

If we do not accept the landscape idea are we stuck with intelligent design?

answered

I doubt that physicists will see it that way. If, for some unforeseen reason, the landscape turns out to be inconsistent - maybe for mathematical reasons, or because it disagrees with observation - I am pretty sure that physicists will go on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say that if that happens, as things stand now we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature's fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics. One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID.

Precisely what I have been saying since the first time I trundled into PT: if multiverses are correct, the cosmological ID argument is dead. If not, it will be hard to argue against it.

So if you have shredded my arguments, you have shredded Susskind's.

It is nice (and easy) to declare that someone's arguments were shredded.

no need for me to be obtuse about it, anyone who so chooses can see for themselves. not hard to search the archives there for your name.

and if you think that the "arguments" you presented there were EXACTLY the same as Susskind's, you really ARE nuts.

but then, you've really just been making that more than clear in this thread anyway.

I rather thought you might take the opportunity to point out some of the far better arguments you made against the operations of the DI, since those were the only coherent rants you ever make public.

but, if you want to continue to show your "wild" side, far be it from me to stop your from shooting yourself in the head.

c'est la mode.

And you shouldn't be surprised at our lack of conviction Heddle. You have provided NO EVIDENCE.

oh, and besides the issue of your arguments not really resembling Susskind's when pressed...

what you just presented was no more and no less than an argument from authority, and again, like everything else in your "arguments" is not evidence.

example:

francis collins headed the human genome project, and does an excellent job showing how the final results only supported the exact predictions made by the ToE.

but then, he goes on IN THE SAME BOOK, to tell us all that we are all ruled by a shared, innate "moral law" that couldn't possibly have evolved, but rather God must have put there instead.

I trust even you might get the point of that without me having to go into any more detail.

bottom line:

why do you insist on trying to find support for your crackpottery on science blogs, when you could have just as easily called attention to your well-reasoned presentations on the misfunction of the ID movement as presented by Dembski and co.?

just boggles the mind.

"Christian morality IS obedience." - Makes it sound a lot like Islam - "submission", doesn't it?

G: Spinoza? Hell, Plato, the sneer from another poster notwithstanding.

Ichthyic

what you just presented was no more and no less than an argument from authority,

It is not an argument by authority. Quoting an authority is not a logical fallacy. I didn't say or imply "and Susskind is always right!" Nor is it a quote mine, for I accurately reflected Susskind's position--that he is anti cosmological ID and laments the fact that there is little alternative to it if the multiverse doesn't pan out. Anyone who read his material should agree that such is his view.

No matter how you slice and dice it, my position is the same as Susskind's. The main differences appear in the fact that he will be horrified if the multiverse fails whereas I'll be delighted.

why do you insist on trying to find support for your crackpottery on science blogs,

Actually you brought it up in an attempt to embarrass me, I didn't insist on bringing it up to look for support. You also conveniently forgot to mention that even in the case of cosmological ID I go out of my way to emphasize it is not science--it is a metaphysical interpretation of the fine tuning--one that could be demolished if another universe is observed or if the fine tuning is shown to be an illusion.

In addition to pablo's report on the OT, there are some interesting things in the NT. xians sometimes claim that it somehow changed things. But in Revelations 2 you get,

"18And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass;

19I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.

20Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.

21And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.

22Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

23And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the minds and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works."

So Jesus is going to kill Jezebel's children because he doesn't like her life-style. Jesus is a warmonger,

26And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:

27And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.

Bible thumpers also have a problem with their belief in "free will". By rejecting it, Calvinists are closer to scripture. Ecclesiastes 3,

14I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.

15That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.

16And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.

17I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

Not only is "free will" rejected, but god requires there to be "wickedness". Then this god is going to judge the wicked and the righteous even though it required them. Strange idea of justice. At the end, god puts man in his place.

18I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

19For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

20All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

21Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

22Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?

That might be taken as support for evilution. BTW, this chapter is better known as the source of Pete Seeger's song "Turn Turn Turn".

How come the "gumby" blockquote style is now in Comic Sans? Come on, PZ! Are you trying to make them look stup...

Oh.

I don't know--this view of free will is precisely that "you choose whatever you want"--I'd call that free will, but if you want to call it something else, I wouldn't argue.

If you have no influence on what you might want, I'm not sure if "free will" is a good description... if you're addicted and crave the next shot, is that free will?

In any case, you still haven't answered my question from comment 224. I repeat, this time with emphasis added:

No, I'm telling you that what is defined as right and moral for Christians is that which reflects God's character. It is a basic assumption for Christians that God is truthful. Whether or not that is factual is a secondary question. Christians presuppose it to be true and therefore on that basis I address the dilemma.

So you are telling us the whole thing is built on air?

I'm asking why you presuppose it to be true. If you don't have a reason for this, or only one that isn't better than "I'd like it if it were true", everything that follows from that premise is hanging in the air.

To change the topic once more, what do you think of cosmological natural selection?

Okay, that's all well and good, so long as you live in a situation where you're rewarded for your traditionally moral behavior.
Now let's assume that an opportunity presents itself whereby you and your family can greatly benefit, (let's say you'll score a few million dollars, but you can make it whatever motivation would be particularly appealing to you) simply by killing an innocent human being. Let's also assume that you can be completely assured that you will never have to answer for this murder for the rest of your life.
Why wouldn't you do it?
Give me one good reason not to murder an innocent person in this situation.
The only thing close to a good reason I could think of is that it would make you feel bad emotionally and or physically. If you have another and/or better reason, please tell me.
But now, haven't you been given those very feelings by natural selection as a means to usher you towards those behaviors that would be most beneficial to the survival of you and your offspring?
So wouldn't it be logical to ignore your queasiness in this particualr situation and commit cold blooded murder to better insure the future transmission of your genes? It's simple cost benefit analysis: The potential benefits outweigh the potential costs (feeling unpleasant emotions versus assurance of continued survival).
So again, why not?
As far as you're entire take on the article in question, you've only addressed the minor argument, completely ignoring the question of why you should be moral in situations where it doesn't benefit you.
You're absolutely right, starting at morality and arguing backwards to god is a stretch. So why spend so much time rebutting the weakest point of the article and completely ignoring it's major point. The argument you should be addressing is the logical reasons to hold to traditional morals in situations where they are not beneficial to continued survival.
And as for the remark that a god (Let's assume a creator god for the moment) does not provide a basis for morality is just ludicrous. He made the universe from his own material, therefore he owns it, therefore he gets to dictate the rules. I'm sure you've heard the term "My house, my rules." Well, guess what? God's universe, God's rules. Makes sense to me.
By the way, this also happens to be the reason why I wouldn't kill you for several million dollars if the perfect opportunity presented itself. I happen to believe I am going to have to answer for things like that one day.
So if you can forgive my playfulness for a moment, might I say that you should still consider thanking Jesus (or other's belief in him) for saving you, not from damnation, but from people like me.
I can assure you that if I had no belief in a God whom I'll have to answer to for my actions, well, I'd have a lot of dead bodies in my wake.
Have atheists ever stopped to consider that it's the very religion they attack that is the only thing keeping a lot of other people from killing them and taking their stuff? Not everyone is as naturally moral as you guys, o enlightened ones. I guess some of us needed someone to write it down for us.

David Marjanović

I don't know why I suppose it (that God is truthful, or any other of God's supposed attributes) to be true. When I was growing up I didn't, and now I do. Becoming a believer is not a rational exercise; it is a supernatural experience. "Built on air" as you put it is a reasonable metaphor. Apologetics, however, is a rational exercise within the closed system where you accept certain presuppositions. That was my point--that the answer to the dilemma is easy from within the Christian worldview--and attacking that worldview is a different matter. You can do that, obviously, but it doesn't negate the fact that Christians have a self-consistent answer to the dilemma, even if V.D. managed to get it wrong.

p.s. when PZ shows up, goes apoplectic, and tells me to get lost--will you guys at least own up to the fact that you keep asking me questions?

ReasonKiller:

Lots of believers (and non-believers too) kill other innocent people, for only a regular wage. They are called soldiers.

Now it is true that the people being killed are the 'enemy', and such actions can be religiously or culturally or evolutionarily endorsed, but the motivation is defend the in-group against the out-group with no fear of in-group criticism. Fear of god is an optional extra.

Now let's assume that an opportunity presents itself whereby you and your family can greatly benefit, (let's say you'll score a few million dollars, but you can make it whatever motivation would be particularly appealing to you) simply by killing an innocent human being. Let's also assume that you can be completely assured that you will never have to answer for this murder for the rest of your life. Why wouldn't you do it? Give me one good reason not to murder an innocent person in this situation.
The only thing close to a good reason I could think of is that it would make you feel bad emotionally and or physically. If you have another and/or better reason, please tell me.

Remembering how that particular Twilight Zone episode ends?

And/or being able to think more than five minutes ahead. Would a society where the action you describe was routine be a good place to live?

But now, haven't you been given those very feelings by natural selection as a means to usher you towards those behaviors that would be most beneficial to the survival of you and your offspring?
So wouldn't it be logical to ignore your queasiness in this particualr situation and commit cold blooded murder to better insure the future transmission of your genes? It's simple cost benefit analysis: The potential benefits outweigh the potential costs (feeling unpleasant emotions versus assurance of continued survival).
So again, why not?

Perhaps because we didn't evolve in a universe where substantial rewards are routinely received by killing innocent human beings at a distance with no risk whatsoever to the killer?

Have atheists ever stopped to consider that it's the very religion they attack that is the only thing keeping a lot of other people from killing them and taking their stuff? Not everyone is as naturally moral as you guys, o enlightened ones. I guess some of us needed someone to write it down for us.

Why did God create so many sociopaths?

Reasonkiller - but if God tells you to kill an innocent Amalekite, for no other reason than generations-old revenge, with no reward other than a pat on the head from God, that's ok, moral, and a stellar enough example of how to act that it was included in the Big Book?

Nice morals you've got there. God's rules look pretty shitty if you ask me.

"I can assure you that if I had no belief in a God whom I'll have to answer to for my actions, well, I'd have a lot of dead bodies in my wake."

I can assure you that I have no belief in a God to whom I'll have to answer for my actions, and I have no dead bodies in my wake at all, thank you. What on earth is wrong with you?

Have atheists ever stopped to consider that it's the very religion they attack that is the only thing keeping a lot of other people from killing them and taking their stuff?

It's refreshing to have one of them admit it, isn't it, Windy?

ReasonKiller (what a fine handle you have there) the answer is "Yes." It is often mentioned, right here on this board and elsewhere, that some (perhaps many) theists regularly speak and reason as if what you've said is actually the case. Knowing that these theists are so profoundly immoral is little comfort, and neither is seeing that they project that amorality on everybody else regardless of personal history or character.

In addition to people pointing out the inherent criminality of ReasonKiller's mindset, I'll offer this bit that caught my attention:

He made the universe from his own material, therefore he owns it, therefore he gets to dictate the rules. I'm sure you've heard the term "My house, my rules." Well, guess what? God's universe, God's rules. Makes sense to me.

Do you sell your children into slavery, ReasonKiller?
Do you honestly think that might makes right? That's the only assumption I can think of that would fix the non-sequitur.

I can assure everyone that if I somehow ascend to deific status, I won't be ruling any sentient creations. I believe that sentient beings deserve a bit of dignity.

Couldn't skim the rest of ReasonKiller's stuff in detail, since he provoked a bit too much disgust for me to dwell on him.

Heddle, are you telling us that if we found evidence for the multiverse that you would abandon your xian beliefs?

I personally cannot understand why our simple lack of knowledge propels rational and intelligent people into believing in the supernatural. The whole problem of the "finely tuned universe" is thought of in human-centric terms...it may be "improbable" that our universe is tuned as it is and that it supports life. On the other hand, any other universe that might have formed would have been equally "improbable" even if it did not support life of any type. The state of the universe has permitted us to develop, not the other way around. Scientists keep knocking humans from the center of existence and yet people still find new and interesting ways to put us back on the pedestal.

ReasonKiller, I think we should put you in prison as a pre-emptive measure in case Heddle's cosmological arguments don't pan out. It terrifies me that many xians believe that if the celestial fairy didn't exist that they would automatically go on killing and raping rampages. I think you need to read the research that shows the relative reduction in violence and crime in blue States as compared to red States, and in more secular regions, such as Scandinavia. Also of relevance is the research showing the increased rates of childhood sexual abuse, spousal abuse, and psychological disorders in people who hold conservative xian beliefs. As Christopher Hitchens points out, it is ridiculous to believe that, prior to Moses bringing down the 10 Commandments, humans believed that criminal activity was just fine. For most of us, the little scenario you presented is a no-brainer...we would feel disgusted by the notion of killing for money. There are people out there who do this. We call them psychopaths/antisocial personality, and you may want to consider whether your barely suppressed drives qualify you for this diagnosis.

It's refreshing to have one of them admit it, isn't it, Windy?

I might have used another word than refreshing, but I guess that's a half-glass-full way of looking at it ;)

Ps. Did you have a chance to look at the article of "altruism" in babies? It got buried upthread, but the link's in #202.

oxytocin

Heddle, are you telling us that if we found evidence for the multiverse that you would abandon your xian beliefs?

No, I would not abandon my Christian beliefs (as if such a thing were possible!) I would cease and desist in making the metaphysical argument that the fine tunings are prima facie evidence of intelligent design.

As for you solution to the problem of fine tuning, here is Susskind's address:

susskind@stanford.edu

write him and tell him he is concerned over nothing--even if there is no multiverse, you have the explanation for all the apparent fine tunings.

Or better yet, write a paper and submit it to Physical Review Letters since virtually all physicists acknowledge there is a fine tuning problem that demands a solution. They must not have thunk of your solution, and I reckon they'd be grateful.

The real reason reasonkiller doesn't kill is that he is too stupid to get away with it and he actually fears getting caught and spending his life in jail or getting the needle. He likes his sad little existence the way it is now.

In other words, he's a liar.

I would cease and desist in making the metaphysical argument that the fine tunings are prima facie evidence of intelligent design.

Out of interest, would you claim that ID is a better explanation for fine-tuning than the multiverse, or simply a valid possibility?

Re: Refreshing. I was being droll, and yet, honest. ;-)

Re: baby altruists. No, I didn't see that! Thanks for pointing me back to it. I will check it out.

MartinM,

Out of interest, would you claim that ID is a better explanation for fine-tuning than the multiverse, or simply a valid possibility?

In the present state of affairs, I think the multiverse (landscape) is a better metaphysical explanation, because it argues that there is no fundamental explanation for the constants--they are effectively a random draw. Since we have no explanation for the constants--they do indeed look as if they were selected randomly. If a fundamental theory is developed that explains the constants, then I think the metaphysical balance would shift heavily in favor of CID, because then the "we are just in one of the lucky universes in the multiverse" argument would break down. We would then have, in effect, habitability built into the fabric of spacetime.
But in any case, it appears that both are equally bad scientific explanations, since neither is experimentally verifiable.

heddle, I think our definitions of "evidence" are at odds. We have another case of a non-falsifiable belief system.

Secondly, I wasn't "suggesting" a solution to the fine tuning of the universe. This is essentially what physicist Victor Stenger has stated. Naturally, I yield to the superior knowledge and evidence of the physicists in this field. However, I do think we've seen many cases where incredibly accomplished people have resorted to the supernatural when their intellects has been stumped. Just because someone cannot think their way out of a problem, it doesn't automatically mean that the opposite must be true. All this might mean is that our brains are too miniscule to come up with the solution to the problem.

Here's Stenger's argument:

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/FineTune.pdf#search=%…

Oxytocin
I am aware of Stenger's argument. His approach is a very reasonable one--essentially there is no need for multiverses to explain the fine tunings if the fine tunings are an illusion. He has not succeeded in demonstrating that they are, but it is a sound, scientific approach to take. It is the only approach other than the multiverse that can handle the ID critics. Without the multiverse, or without the success of a program such as Stenger advocates, the only remaining natural explanation is that we are lucky beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

However, I do think we've seen many cases where incredibly accomplished people have resorted to the supernatural when their intellects has been stumped.

Don't be so sure. If the multiverse approach is unfalsifiable, how do you scientifically distinguish it from an appeal to the supernatural?

Heddle said:

But the idea is simple enough: that God has given all men, believers and atheists, a moral compass. The basis for the morality of the atheist, just like for the Christian, is God.

Here we go again, that logical fallacy ubiquitous among theists: begging the question.

Look, Heddle, on this site we're generally atheists. That means that the people reading your comment don't believe any gods exist, let alone yours. Unless you can convince us otherwise by sound argument and solid evidence, then you might as well say that morality comes from mb'Treeg.

Heddle, as scientists, we would try to avoid making the fatal error of stating something to be "true" without reasonable sets of converging evidence. Until then, the best we could say about any postulate is that it is a hypothesis we have generated based on the data gathered thus far. In any case, failure to adhere to the scientific method will yield irrational beliefs, faith, and appeals to the supernatural.

No matter. It is very hard to choose just one passage since there are many that speak to this issue, but if you just want one I gues I'd take Romans 3:

10 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."

Twaddle, is that the best you can do? I asked you to support the assertion that "fallen man has no desire whatsoever for God--this is the supreme consequence of the fall."

If this is true, then why do you Xians lie and say you seek God? More importantly, why do you bother the rest of us with talk of him? By definition, your own book says that you are not what you say you are.

What a bunch of bullshit.

But the idea is simple enough: that Triglav has given all men, believers and atheists, a moral compass. The basis for the morality of the atheist, just like for the Christian, is Triglav.

Twaddle et al., demonstrate that the above is not true. Show your work.

I agree with Brownian. Evidence suggests that humans, using the scientific method, constantly fight the urge to give in to our inaccurate perceptions of the world. Indeed, many have postulated myriad evolutionary advantages for people who acquire faith based belief systems [e.g., such as solidifying tribalism, improving health, etc.]. Rather than running away from any deity, I think people are inexplicably drawn towards the idea. The next great victory of our species may be ridding ourselves of the need for faith. How that happens, I have no idea.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bloom07/bloom07_index.html

Brownian,

Twaddle, is that the best you can do? I asked you to support the assertion that "fallen man has no desire whatsoever for God--this is the supreme consequence of the fall."

Twaddle! So clever--you must have gone to the John Davison school of picking snappy nicknames! I love it so!

Yes, silly me. I thought "no one seeks God" was more or less the equivalent of "no one desires God." You must be speaking of a nuanced difference that I cannot detect. Uh oh--you caught us in the big lie because Christians say they seek God (true)? What am I going to do to get out of this conundrum?

Twaddle, the quote you provided says nothing about 'fallen' man versus any other 'kind' of man, nor does it make any reference to the fall, so no, it really doesn't support your assertion.

It does say that "no one seeks God", and sure if you want, we can loosen that up to be "no one desires God" (though I don't know why you apologists have such an affinity for equivocation, though I can make a pretty educated guess.)

Certainly, without any fancy word tricks (sorry!) 'no one' would include all Christians, non-Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Triglavians, fat people, people who spend too much money on Keno, kids with outdated clothes that their parents picked up at an outlet store in Tacoma, people with tattoos, people with holes in their socks, people with no socks at all, and people who may or may not fit into any of the above.

No one seeks God.

No one.

Not even you.

Unless you're lying or delusional.

Unless the quotation you provided is not true.

The way out of the conundrum? Stop hauling out meaningless phrases from you book and shoehorning them to fit whatever the hell you want them to fit.

In short, show some intellectual integrity, or be satisfied that you have none.

I would not abandon my Christian beliefs (as if such a thing were possible!)

So, Heddle, you're saying that there isn't any evidence in the world that could possibly convince you that you're wrong. That explains why it isn't any use trying to engage you in evidence, because you don't think it's at all useful - you will ignore any evidence that doesn't suit your preconceptions. How awfully anti-scientific of you.

If anybody is convinced that heddle has the slightest shred of intellectual integrity, now's your chance to speak right up.

No sock puppets, please.

BTW, heddle? When you eschew rational exercise in favor of supernatural experience, twaddle is too polite a term. The only reason I can imagine for your not having faded away with VD (despite the fact that you regard him as No True Christian) is because sharing your demented, omnidirigent fuckwittery here is an effort to get booted off in what you expect to be a fit of apoplexy from PZ. What's to get apoplectic about? It's kind of a weird sensation, to be laughing at you one minute, and feeling revulsion for you and even some pity the next. After a while, though, it's apparent that there really isn't a whole lot going on with you worth addressing.

PZ won't boot you out of apoplexy, it'll be out of boredom.

Oh Ken, you're such an ass.

Anyway I am done with this thread before PZ can yell at me--being something of a sensitive soul, I just couldn't take it!

So, heddle, you are a fideist? Unfalsifiable and proud of it... :-S

Cosmological natural selection, on the other hand, is falsifiable. Find one neutron star that's twice as heavy as the Sun -- just one --, and the whole glorious hypothesis comes crashing down.

ReasonKiller, c'mon, you've all but explicitly declared you'd be a serial killer for hire if not for your fear of divine retribution...what do you think we're going to make of that?

Your challenge that it's rational to take a human life for a million dollars rests on the presumption that we value the million dollars more than the life we're taking. If the opposite is the case, then it's not rational to kill, it is irrational. Don't presume our values for us -- we decide. Some of us are philanthropes because that's the way we are. Others are misanthropes because that's they way they are. And some people are misanthropes to the core, but only behave like philanthropes because they're scared of a fictitious sky-daddy. That's the way you are.

Cosmological fine-tuning is only interesting from the perspective of whether or not the parameters of the universe are just as they are or are the result of something more fundamental. This is a legitimate inquiry that is well worth investigating.

It is not interesting from the perspective of whether or not the parameters were "deliberately" or "teleologically" set up to allow observers to exist. This latter line of inquiry is straightforwardly silly when one recognizes the obvious observer bias inherent in it: observers can never observe a universe which didn't have the parameters which allowed for their existence. The only reason we take interest in this issue is because we think we are somehow "special," when it is just as reasonable to argue that the universe was fine-tuned specifically by the designer to produce granite rocks, and we just happened to be a byproduct.

David Marjanović

I think the cosmological natural selection is the coolest of the multiverse models. It has problems though. One is that there are only hand-waving arguments as to why the physics of the child universe should be close to but not exactly the same as the parent. And what you mentioned is not much of a falsification threat, since current physics tends to place a theoretical limit on the mass of neutron stars below two solar masses. So demanding that we find something that prevailing theories argue doesn't exist is not very sporting. The real falsification of cosmic evolution is more of a nebulous challenge: Demonstrate how, to some unspecified level of satisfaction, our universe is less than optimal at producing black holes. Not something you can go to NSF for with a grant proposal.

OK, now I am really outta here. The sports thread is way more fun.

OK, now I am really outta here. The sports thread is way more fun.

Yeah, but the rest of us are enjoying watching you and David slug it out over cosmology (at least, those of us that know next-to-nothing about the field but still find it fascinating).

Aw. Just when I was learning.

heddle wrote:

If the multiverse approach is unfalsifiable, how do you scientifically distinguish it from an appeal to the supernatural?

Here are two multiverse theories which we will assume to be untestable and unfalsifiable, Multiverse A and Multiverse B. I think only one of them is an appeal to the supernatural. Can you guess which one -- and why?

1.) Multiverse A is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including our universe) that together comprise all of physical reality. Multiverse refers to a set of disconnected space-times, and multi-domain universe refers to a model of the whole of a single connected space-time in the sense of chaotic inflation models. Although it is suggested by mathematical models of the universe derived from observations, it is unfalsifiable.

2.) Multiverse B is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including our universe) that together comprise all of Physical Reality, Mind, Will, Hope, Love, and Goodness. Multiverse refers to the nested heirarchy of realms of higher and lower realities ranging from unenlightened to enlightened, and multi-domain universe refers to a model of a single connective energy which knits consciousness with its physical manifestations into a holistic unit of Perfection. Although it is suggested by direct mystical experience, it is unfalsifiable.

When dealing with areas "beyond the familiar universe," what sorts of things do you need to invoke -- beyond being untestable or unfalsifiable -- in order to be classed as 'supernatural?'

And another question: the Fine Tuning Argument says that God tweaked the physical parameters of the universe in a certain way in order to permit life. Why was He working within difficult limitations, and where did these limitations come from?

So he basically runs his mouth and extends the thread to 300+ plus comments, and never gives a shred of evidence for his assertions other than a tweaked take on Susskind, resulting in a lame fine tuning argument?

Oh Twaddle. You make me fear that rational people really are rare, and that no amount of reason will ever change the mind of one so dogmatically entrenched.

heddle wrote:

p.s. when PZ shows up, goes apoplectic, and tells me to get lost--will you guys at least own up to the fact that you keep asking me questions?

PZ's not back yet, but yes. It's a little hard to have maybe 7 or 8 people piling on one person and demanding answers to questions on 4 or 5 subjects and then complaining that that one guy is running up the thread.

Nobody was complaining that Twaddle was running up the thread, nobody was stopping him or urging him not to answer questions, he just evaded all of them with dishonest, obfuscatory drivel. He made a pretty convincing case that it would take a miracle of supernatural proportions for anybody to believe what he does.

300+ comments of informed, honest, dialogue is one thing. 300+ comments of simply trying to get an honest, evidence based answer is quite another.

Twaddle gets no amnesty from me.

I go out of my way to emphasize it is not science--it is a metaphysical interpretation of the fine tuning--one that could be demolished if another universe is observed or if the fine tuning is shown to be an illusion.

exactly. Just like I said, oh great dense one, you seem to prefer to go on SCIENCE blogs to argue about CLAPTRAP.

thanks for agreeing with me, and yet again shooting yourself in the head.

sucks to be you, eh?

oh, and since you mentioned it, shall we show the good viewers of Pharyngula how often you DO quotemine, especially on your own blog?

hell, you even quotemined something I said (something from this very blog, IIRC) a ways back, though even when it was pointed out to me, I rather just thought it not worthy of comment.

intellectual dishonesty is becoming your trademark, and I simply don't see why you want to do that to yourself, but, as I said, if that's what you consider fashionable...

I go out of my way to emphasize it is not science--it is a metaphysical interpretation of the fine tuning--one that could be demolished if another universe is observed or if the fine tuning is shown to be an illusion.(heddle)

Not to quibble, but if a "metaphysical interpretation" can be "demolished" given new observations, doesn't that make it a science hypothesis?

ReasonKiller,

So wouldn't it be logical to ignore your queasiness in this particualr situation and commit cold blooded murder to better insure the future transmission of your genes? It's simple cost benefit analysis: The potential benefits outweigh the potential costs (feeling unpleasant emotions versus assurance of continued survival).

So again, why not?

Because the future transmission of my genes is not of paramount importance to me. Evolution may have shaped me so that, on average, in the ancestral human environment, I would work to propagate my genes. But it didn't make that the conscious motivation for all my actions, any more than a dog or a geranium or a gorilla is actively trying to figure out how it can make the most babies. I'm under no obligation to do what natural selection "wants" me to do.

As far as you're entire take on the article in question, you've only addressed the minor argument, completely ignoring the question of why you should be moral in situations where it doesn't benefit you.

That's a ill-posed question; what do you mean by "should?" Usually "you should do X" means either "it's moral for you to do X," "it would be best for you to do x," or "I want you to do X." Accordingly, the answer to your question will range from "You should be moral in such situations, by definition" to "You shouldn't be moral in such situations, by definition."

But I can tell you that you will act morally in many situations where you gain no material benefit, because--due to instinct, socialization and rational reflection--you want to act that way. Perhaps that should be thought of as acting to gain yourself an emotional benefit. "Material benefit" itself is irrelevant to your actions unless it comes with an emotional benefit attached.

And in other situations, of course, you won't act morally, because you find it more gratifying/compelling to act in some other way. Welcome to the human race.

And as for the remark that a god (Let's assume a creator god for the moment) does not provide a basis for morality is just ludicrous. He made the universe from his own material, therefore he owns it, therefore he gets to dictate the rules. I'm sure you've heard the term "My house, my rules." Well, guess what? God's universe, God's rules. Makes sense to me.

I doubt it does; I don't think you'd accept the "my house, my rules" rationale if you lived in an apartment and your landlord wanted to kill and eat you. Even if your landlord built the building and grew the trees which provided its wood himself.

But even if you honestly accepted the idea that ownership=moral authority, it would prove that God doesn't provide the basis for your morality. Your fundamental moral principle would be "my house, my rules," and God would just happen to be a guy to whose house you applied that principle.

I can assure you that if I had no belief in a God whom I'll have to answer to for my actions, well, I'd have a lot of dead bodies in my wake.

I don't believe you. Not just because I have a much higher opinion of human nature than you do, but also because I know a couple dozen former believers (mostly Christians), and I've seen a few deconvert before my eyes. Not one of them went on a murder/robbery/rape spree afterwards, nor even became noticeably less compassionate or fair-minded.

Your religion works very hard to hide this from you, but you're a much better person than you think you are. And you're far, far better than the faith you follow.

Not to quibble, but if a "metaphysical interpretation" can be "demolished" given new observations, doesn't that make it a science hypothesis?

not at all. in the same sense that it would be quibbling to argue it would/not be a "scientific hypothesis" to suppose what would happen if we found a rabbit in the precambrian.

So if you can forgive my playfulness for a moment, might I say that you should still consider thanking Jesus (or other's belief in him) for saving you, not from damnation, but from people like me.
I can assure you that if I had no belief in a God whom I'll have to answer to for my actions, well, I'd have a lot of dead bodies in my wake.

ReasonKiller, is that your vague attempt at being threatening? Cute.

Since you're such a piffling little coward, let me instruct you on the finer arts of clarity:

Go fuck yourself, you stinking pillar of shit.

Heddle,

It is the only approach other than the multiverse that can handle the ID critics. Without the multiverse, or without the success of a program such as Stenger advocates, the only remaining natural explanation is that we are lucky beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

Of course not. There are any number of natural explanations for which no luck would be required, because they would make the relevant observed values extremely likely.

You'll of course respond that then we need an explanation for the explanation, and so forth. But this is true in any case. If we're just extremely lucky, then why does the probability distribution exist that required us to be lucky? If a divine being set the parameters for our benefit, why were we so lucky as to have such a being present and inclined to engineer our creation? And so forth. An infinite regress of explanations is unavoidable, so far as I can see.

Incidentally, I think you've heard this before, but it's meaningless to say we're "very lucky" to have a fundamental parameter take a certain value. Without a more fundamental theory that gives us a probability distribution, we can't say whether we're lucky or unlucky. People like to say, "But if this parameter was off by just .1%, we wouldn't be here!" But who knows how much of the probability distribution lies in that +/- .1% window? Nobody.

Penrose, to his credit, actually computed such probabilities using a theoretically-developed prior distribution. But if the universe appears to be "surprising" under his model, then perhaps his distribution is simply wrong, or incomplete.

Well, I am an atheist and I am also against "morality"; I think that the people who are most moralistic do the most abhorrent deeds. Moral commands like "you shall not covet your neighbour's wife" will make you deny and suppress your feelings and project them into others, seeing them as evil.

or incomplete.

yup.

just like the rest of the IDiots, heddle falls into the same "life/universe is improbable, because I think so" trap.

amazing how he's oblivious to this as he lays into the IDers, but then based on how UD treated him, his motivations for doing so in the first place are suspect anyway.

there really IS a reason PZ is tired of him, it's just not readily apparent to anyone who hasn't seen his arguments a thousand times before.

Sastra

Not to quibble, but if a "metaphysical interpretation" can be "demolished" given new observations, doesn't that make it a science hypothesis?

I don't know what the right word is. I used to use "falsified" but have been convinced that is the wrong word. You tell me what is the right word: if another universe with different constants is detected, or if the fine tunings are shown to be an illusion, then I would never argue CID again, because one of the counter explanations for fine tuning would have be demonstrated. Yet CID is not science, it makes no predictions, so how is that described. I said it would have, at least for me, been demolished. But I am open to a better word.

Ichthycic,

Your comments are absolutely frigging stupid for a number of reasons.

1) You brought up the cosmological ID in this thread, and then claim it is reasonable for PZ to be tired of me because it is the same argument I have made 1000 times. You brought up cosmological ID on this thread and then criticize me for bringing non scientific CLAPTRAP onto a science blog. (Of course you neglected to mention that the only threads I ever participate on this science blog are the non-science threads--such as this one and its cousin, and the sports thread. I was here, reasonably on topic, discussing Christian aspects of the morality question, when you brought up cosmological ID.

2) You (without evidence) imply my attacks against Dembski et. al. are because they mistreated me. That makes so much sense--I was happily following the DI party line when for no reason Dembski banned me first from the secret ID list serv and then from his blog. Only then I turned against them! This in spite of the fact that I have produced a paper trail documentation of the reasons I was banned, and the short version is that I was banned for saying the same things I continue to say. I know that you know this, so bottom line is that you are a run of the mill vulgar liar. People who insult me--I don't care. Liars I despise.

3) By all means demonstrate my quote-mining.

4) You are also a liar because I know that you know that my argument on cosmological ID is absolutely the opposite of the "improbability" argument you accuse me of. I have said, in most of those 1000's of times I have repeated the argument, including on this thread, that the best case scenario for cosmological ID is the "high-probability" case, that of a single universe and fundamental theory explaining the constants (in which case they have the maximal probability of unity, the very opposite of lucky.)

5) At any rate, you also conveniently ignore the fact (which is your modus operandi) that virtually all physicists claim "surprise" at the values of the constants--actually at the sensitivity of habitability to those values-- without knowing the a priori probability distributions--to the point that virtually all would agree that (a) absent a multiverse or some variant and (b) absent a successful Stenger-like proof that fine tuning is an illusion, that we are unimaginably lucky. They say things like the fact that the 120 order of magnitude reduction in the CC would be, absent an explanation, "embarrassingly lucky." They say such things without knowing the a priori probability distributions, if such a thing is even sensible to talk about. You presumably don't go about pretending you know enough math to correct them, but you feel free to use you math illiteracy to pretend to trivially dismiss me when I make the same exact (and among physicists, non-controversial point), to wit: the fine tunings demand a better explanation than the default: we are lucky.

Michael,

Your comments are also brain dead. If you know a Christian who claims he can give you evidence of God or whatever you keep asking evidence for, then go ask him. Go ask Lee Strobel. In case you didn't notice I have stated that I became a Christian not through a rational exercise but through a supernatural act. I don't have evidence, never claimed to have evidence, and have no interest in pretending to have evidence.

Twaddle,

I became a Christian not through a rational exercise but through a supernatural act.

You misspelled unnatural.

Demonstrate how, to some unspecified level of satisfaction, our universe is less than optimal at producing black holes. Not something you can go to NSF for with a grant proposal.

Why not? It's got to be cheap. The maximum mass of neutron stars is just the one example I happen to know.

Finding out whether the fine-tuning better fits the Anthropic Principle or the Lithic Principle is probably more difficult... no, actually, I don't know.

Here are two multiverse theories which we will assume to be untestable and unfalsifiable, Multiverse A and Multiverse B. I think only one of them is an appeal to the supernatural. Can you guess which one -- and why?

Strictly speaking, that's not the relevant question. The relevant question is which one is more parsimonious. That is A.

And cosmological natural selection is even more parsimonious, because it explains fine-tuning without needing to postulate either an intelligence or a tornado in a junkyard.

Not to quibble, but if a "metaphysical interpretation" can be "demolished" given new observations, doesn't that make it a science hypothesis?

Actually, yes.

Astrologers are not scientists because they cling to astrology even though it has been disproven again and again and again.

Yet CID is not science, it makes no predictions, so how is that described.

If you keep the principle of parsimony in mind, you'll find that it does make a prediction: that fine-tuning is not an illusion and therefore needs an explanation. If fine-tuning is shown to be an illusion, CID will be unnecessarily munificent -- like phlogiston was after oxygen was discovered and before it was possible to directly observe atoms.

So then Twaddle do please inform me of what godforsaken reason you've decided to come onto scienceblogs and argue your point, if none of it is backed by evidence of any kind?

On another hilarious note, to call repeatedly asking for evidence to back a claim after, having gotten none,"braindead," seems to be a whole new level of contradiction.

As far as never having an interest in evidence, well, now that you've come out and said it yourself, I finally don't have to bother with you. Thanks.

And to mirror Ken, by what method did you come to believe that you're converstion was actually of "supernatural" origin and not simply the product of an addled mind?

You continue to beg the question...

Don't answer that last one by the way. I know you have no better answer than any Muslim Mormon, or follower of the FSM, and so I meant it rhetorically.

What a load of useless heddle...necrophilia can be amusing, but not in this case.

Christopher: "Granted core morals (no stealing, or killing) have been around for thousands of years"

Not granted. Read your Deutoronomy. Killing of and stealing from gentiles is explicitly granted as "moral" numerous times. Remember Big J's "give unto Caesar?" Same principle -- the morality between community members does not apply in relation to "gentiles". The idea that killing and stealing are generally wrong, and not just wrong when done to relatives, is a fairly recent (post-Roman) idea. God has changed his mind even about those! He's a fairly morally elastic fellow - I wouldn't want him over for a dinner party, or even as a neighbor.

Heddle: "No, I would not abandon my Christian beliefs (as if such a thing were possible!) I would cease and desist in making the metaphysical argument that the fine tunings are prima facie evidence of intelligent design."

File that under "Definition of Bad Faith Argument".

Since in my book arguing in bad faith is immoral (another form of lying or fraud), Christians (at least apologists of this caliber) are by the very definition of their faith immoral. QED.

God has changed his mind even about those! He's a fairly morally elastic fellow - I wouldn't want him over for a dinner party, or even as a neighbor.

Well, knowing his penchant for burnt offerings, I sure as hell wouldn't waste a good cut of meat on him. Why cooking prime rib any more than medium rare isn't one of the ten commandments, I'll never know.

Besides, he'd tell boring stories and be all bossy: "And then I created the stars, and then I crea--hey! Thou Shalt Not Serve Liebfraumilch with a Curry Dish!"

Although, maybe it'd be worth it just to let him know after the fact that there were bacon bits in the potato salad and crab meat in the lasagna!

Commandment 7: "Do not mix sacrificial blood with leavened bread."

You've just gotta char your ribs if you plan on eating it with some nice French bread. Just no sense of taste at all, and since morality is ultimately an aesthetic sense, we can say that old Tetragrammaton is sorely lacking.

Never trust someone who gets their meat "well-done," or will only eat pita with their blood sausage.

I'm guessing that Maasai blood milk would be right out then.

Well, there's no accounting for taste.

Heddle,

5) At any rate, you also conveniently ignore the fact (which is your modus operandi) that virtually all physicists claim "surprise" at the values of the constants--actually at the sensitivity of habitability to those values-- without knowing the a priori probability distributions--to the point that virtually all would agree that (a) absent a multiverse or some variant and (b) absent a successful Stenger-like proof that fine tuning is an illusion, that we are unimaginably lucky.

Do you have evidence for such a universal stance amongst physicists? I've never seen a survey on the subject. (And note that "X surprises me" is not nearly the same thing as "X is an unimaginable stroke of luck.)

They say things like the fact that the 120 order of magnitude reduction in the CC would be, absent an explanation, "embarrassingly lucky." They say such things without knowing the a priori probability distributions, if such a thing is even sensible to talk about.

Then they're talking nonsense, regardless of their credentials. Are you really that dedicated to arguments from authority?

(Again, Penrose at least does not do this.)

You presumably don't go about pretending you know enough math to correct them,

You don't need to know very much math to correct that. It's Measure Theory 101--before you can compute probabilities, you need to define your space and put a probability measure on it.

For anyone that's still even remotely interested in the thread of debate we had with Vox as to whether theists really do have the market on meaning and morality cornered, I've written a nice clean rebuttal to the whole idea.

Oh, and while we're still here, let me just say that any and all Fine Tuning arguments can, if they are held to demand a "supernatural" explanation, be explained simply by Brute Fact just as well as by a Fine Tuner God: neither is more or less likely than the other.

Scientists are amazed by fie tuning only insofar as they are scientists looking at things within a natural world. Go outside that natural world, outside any rules or context, and the very problem simply vanishes altogether. Fine tuning and anthropic principles are, in fact, really only of workable interest to scientists: for theologians they simply don't work or apply.

You brought up the cosmological ID in this thread, and then claim it is reasonable for PZ to be tired of me because it is the same argument I have made 1000 times. You brought up cosmological ID on this thread and then criticize me for bringing non scientific CLAPTRAP onto a science blog.

uh, right, so your favorite pet claptrap that you spout EVERYWHERE YOU FUCKING GO, and is slathered all over your own blog...

You claim it's my fault everybody who knows you HAS heard it a thousand times before, and can see through your arguments like tissue paper? That it's my fault you decided to come here and start spouting off your idiotic notions of theology, your stance on Cosmo ID being just one?

damn, what a moron.

and a sensitive one tooooo.

remind me of this conversation the next time the ATBCers decide to praise your for your stance on ID.

LOL

You (without evidence) imply my attacks against Dembski et. al. are because they mistreated me.

all one has to do is look at the dates when you started posting your diatribes against UD, and mark those against when they started giving you the shiv.

the evidence is there.

I can't help it if you are either:

lying to everyone on this board

or

lying to yourself.

or

both.

You are also a liar because I know that you know that my argument on cosmological ID is absolutely the opposite of the "improbability" argument you accuse me of.

again, all one has to do is see how you responded when pressed in the old threads on ATBC.

EOS

go freak out on someone who gives a damn. I'm done trying to get you to figure out that you keep shooting yourself in the head over and over again.

there's a reason your blog has tumbleweeds blowing through it.

. . . only to point out that I'm pretty much a perfect match to the image of the Christian paragon of family values ... except for the god-worshipping, sabbath-keeping, tithing-to-the-church part.

Of course, Charles Darwin kept to the god-worshipping, sabbath-keeping, tithing to the church part, too -- and still they call him atheist, regularly, and promote such bizarre claims as those of Weikart and Vox Day that somehow Darwin is the root of the evil of Hitler and Stalin. They kept at it until Darwin wondered about the god-worshipping part, which must make Darwin one of the most faithful people since the story of Job was first written down, and they still reject Darwin.

Clearly, it's not the "being moral" part that they are seeking.

Sastra: As I've said repeatedly, sufficiently general hypotheses deserve the name "metaphysical", whether scientifically refutable, confirmable, or neither. Some are in line with science, some aren't. We ought to develop metaphysics that is for the sake of a consistent world view, if nothing else. Also, like any basic research, it has unpredicted spin offs. E.g. Bunge's metaphysics has led to the "web ontologies" movement.

Wow, sorry I missed all the fun. I've been absent for a few days, and it seems my post has stirred up a lot of replies.

I didn't have time to read them all, but I can touch on some of the major points.

First of all, some of you have rightly pointed out that I am a sociopath. To a certain extent, yes.

Now, the problem that I've posed here is for somebody to give me one objective reason not to kill people and take their stuff. It's not a threat of any kind; I'm a religious pacifist; it's a legitimate philosophical question.

Some people have argued that we have evolved in such a way that group-based survival is a natural part of our make-up, and so it is rarely in our best interest to commit offenses of this nature. That would make me the evolutionary oddity. Not withstanding the fact that sociopaths always seem to be among us, so we seem to be surviving pretty well. So either we've carved out our evolutionary niche, or we're simply one of many different general personality types that arise from the genes of Adam and Eve. Either way, that's not the point.

Does it not occur to some of you that people get away with horrible crimes all the time? Look around you, that's the world we live in. In a world without dictated morals, I need at least one sound philosophical reason not to commit murder in a situation where it clearly benefits me.

Do you seriously believe we live in a world where people always or even often answer for their crimes? People get away with murder all the time and benefit from it. What I am arguing is that this is the natural state of the world. What civilizing force does atheism offer that provides it's moral basis?

I would argue exactly the opposite. It is the new atheists who do not understand atheism itself and it's implications. If nobody is keeping score, then nothing matters beyond how strongly you feel about it that particular day until you die and nothing happens. Therefore there is no inherent morality built into the universe; it's survival of the fittest, literally. Therefore, if you are to be logical, you must be either a nihilist or a dictatorialist.

Now, the problem that I've posed here is for somebody to give me one objective reason not to kill people and take their stuff. It's not a threat of any kind; I'm a religious pacifist; it's a legitimate philosophical question.

ReasonKiller, I don't have time to post a more cogent response to this (I'll try a little later), but the basis of the answer to this is that material gain is not first and foremost in the hominid brain. Social capital is much more important anthropologically, and the concern for material wealth is a fairly recent social acquisition (recent here meaning within the last 8,000 years.)

Sociopaths tend not to care about social capital, and - I'm pretty sure they truly don't care about the hereafter either.

Wow, sorry I missed all the fun. I've been absent for a few days, and it seems my post has stirred up a lot of replies.

I didn't have time to read them all, but I can touch on some of the major points.

First of all, some of you have rightly pointed out that I am a sociopath. To a certain extent, yes.

Now, the problem that I've posed here is for somebody to give me one objective reason not to kill people and take their stuff. It's not a threat of any kind; I'm a religious pacifist; it's a legitimate philosophical question.

Some people have argued that we have evolved in such a way that group-based survival is a natural part of our make-up, and so it is rarely in our best interest to commit offenses of this nature. That would make me the evolutionary oddity. Not withstanding the fact that sociopaths always seem to be among us, so we seem to be surviving pretty well. So either we've carved out our evolutionary niche, or we're simply one of many different general personality types that arise from the genes of Adam and Eve. Either way, that's not the point.

Does it not occur to some of you that people get away with horrible crimes all the time? Look around you, that's the world we live in. In a world without dictated morals, I need at least one sound philosophical reason not to commit murder in a situation where it clearly benefits me.

Do you seriously believe we live in a world where people always or even often answer for their crimes? People get away with murder all the time and benefit from it. What I am arguing is that this is the natural state of the world. What civilizing force does atheism offer that provides it's moral basis?

I would argue exactly the opposite. It is the new atheists who do not understand atheism itself and it's implications. If nobody is keeping score, then nothing matters beyond how strongly you feel about it that particular day until you die and nothing happens. Therefore there is no inherent morality built into the universe; it's survival of the fittest, literally. Therefore, if you are to be logical, you must be either a nihilist or a dictatorialist.

Reason has a serious problem with logic and the obvious... reality.

Over 10% of Americans are agnostic and or atheist. Is that population responsible for MORE than their share of crime in the U.S.?

NO. Most crimes are committed by Christians. They pick and choose what "morals" to follow in the bible, if they've even read it.

The bible is irrelevant when it comes to society and acceptable behaviour.
Humans were functioning quite well before the written word even existed.

To pretend that the only reason you're not out robbing, raping and pillaging is because your fear god's judgement is absurd.

ReasonKiller:

If nobody is keeping score, then nothing matters beyond how strongly you feel about it that particular day until you die and nothing happens.

So you say. IF-THEN, perhaps, but you are wrong. There is always somebody keeping score.

Therefore there is no inherent morality built into the universe; it's survival of the fittest, literally.

You are correct! There is no inherent morality built into the universe, but you misunderstand what that implies, just as you misunderstand (as so many social darwinists and closet nihilsts just as yourself so often do) the meaning of the word "fittest".

Therefore, if you are to be logical, you must be either a nihilist or a dictatorialist.

Speak for yourself. Like so many of your kind, you believe yourself to be, at the core, exactly what you fear most. That, my friend, is the great "gift" you've received from your faith. A lie.

Does it not occur to some of you that people get away with horrible crimes all the time? Look around you, that's the world we live in. In a world without dictated morals, [what's that? "dictated" morals? you contadict yourself] I need at least one sound philosophical reason not to commit murder in a situation where it clearly benefits me.

Ah. As if you are the only person with the wisdom to recognize that people do bad things! Well guess what: We DO live in a world with "dictated morals" - this is YOUR world, a world riddled with crime and inhumane acts, so many of them perpetrated in the name of the local favorite god or messiah, a world populated with people of faith, so many of whom seem to have NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER with breaking any number of these absolute and inherent moral precepts you insist are embedded in the fabric of reality itself.

The problem with this model is that people are indoctrinated into the philsophy that morality is a set of rules to be either followed or broken, not that morality is a set of behaviors that benefit not only the individual but the family and the community. There IS inherent morality - it's in our genes and in the social structures we inherit. The imperative is not based on fear of god and eternal punishment, but on both instinct and the learned knowledge of what is right. It is not absolute - many components of morality are dynamic and relative - but it is real. The fact that mainstream Christian morality has always mirrored the moral standards of its time, rather than the absolute moral and behavioral strictures of the Bible, is powerful evidence in favor of this view.

What civilizing force does atheism offer that provides it's moral basis?

See above.

Instead of cooking up rationalizations for the necessary existence of (and need for) universal moral authority, why don't you spend some time thinking why you haven't been robbed and killed by an atheist (or by anybody else)? If you're so very, very right, then why aren't most atheists sociopaths, nihilists, or dictatorialists? Available evidence does not support your thesis.

But please, if you are what you say you are, then for the sake of everyone around you, CONTINUE to believe in your god and its absolute moral authority. Be a good citizen, though, and keep your mouth shut about it. The reality-based community finds it... irritating.

Do you seriously believe we live in a world where people always or even often answer for their crimes? People get away with murder all the time and benefit from it.

people get caught all the time too.

do you think there is value in capital punishment as a deterrent, or life imprisonment, for that matter?

I highly suggest you visit a working state prison (anywhere), and find out what a fun place it is to spend time behind bars.

truly a vacation camp.

why, since it's just like Disneyland, surely going to prison isn't a deterrent to crime in the slightest bit, and we should just have an open door policy, right?

Moreover, all that aside, most people (even sociopaths, but not psychopaths) tend to at least posess some form of empathy (indeed, the lack of empathy often is diagnostic of certain types of psychopathy). So, it most certainly is not a fear of some supernatural hogwash that keeps most people from murdering their neighbors for laundry money, but an innate (which learning hones) sense of empathy. all you have to do is compare the many societies that have nothing to do with the judeo/xian tradition to see that they also have a sense of empathy for their fellows.

Reasonkiller indeed. If you aren't merely trolling for kicks, I rather think you managed to kill your reasoning abilities long before you came here.

be proud that there is no hope for you, and also know that you are really wasting your time talking to intelligent people, even though, as a sociopath, I realize you simply can't help it.

...oh, and to answer your question:

the only objective reason to avoid murdering your neighbor for laundry money is simply to maintain a semblance of an ordered society.

results in a higher quality of life for all, etc.

other than that, there is no objective reason for not having total anarchy. It is a rather large reason, though.

Ever see the HBO series "Deadwood"? order forms in the chaos by necessity. God had nothing to do with it, and even empathy plays a lesser role to simple pragmatism.

First of all, some of you have rightly pointed out that I am a sociopath. To a certain extent, yes.

No, I don't think so. You've implied that to hurt people would make you feel bad emotionally and physically. That's not the case for sociopaths. I think your religion, however, has taught you that those feelings are meaningless without a divine prohibition to back them up. It's made you think you're a sociopath, in order to solidify its power over you.

Unless you personally don't feel bad emotionally or physically when you hurt people. Do you?

Now, the problem that I've posed here is for somebody to give me one objective reason not to kill people and take their stuff.

There are no objective reasons to do anything--all reasons trace back to your personal desires and preferences, although those may be objectively explicable.

Do you seriously believe we live in a world where people always or even often answer for their crimes? People get away with murder all the time and benefit from it. What I am arguing is that this is the natural state of the world. What civilizing force does atheism offer that provides it's moral basis?

As others have pointed out, the natural state of the world seems to be religion-dominated, and the vast majority of unethical acts are committed by believers, so this is hardly an argument for religion's being a "civilizing force."

Even if sociopaths made up a significant fraction of the population, very few faiths--in fact, none that I can think of--tie morality to pragmatic consequences in a way that would induce them to behave. Most flavors of Christianity, for instance, permit you to commit all sorts of atrocious acts, provided you confess or repent afterwards. Or provided you do them in the service of punishing or converting the heathen. Or provided you're predestined for salvation. There's always a loophole. And there's no guarantee that the sins the religion does come down hard on are the ones which matter to you--it does me no good if Jewish sociopaths are faithfully abstaining from pork.

Moreover, even though many people get away with murder, many other people don't--and we can see their punishment. We've never seen anyone end up in hell. Even if a sociopath nonetheless believes in hell and prison with equal strength, hell's a long way away at the end of their life, and humans are lousy at factoring in long-term risks to their daily behavior. Look at how many Catholics imperil their souls with various sexual sins deemed mortal by their church. I don't buy that hell's a better deterrent than prison even for your most amoral egotist.

If nobody is keeping score, then nothing matters beyond how strongly you feel about it that particular day until you die and nothing happens.

Yes.

Therefore there is no inherent morality built into the universe; it's survival of the fittest, literally. Therefore, if you are to be logical, you must be either a nihilist or a dictatorialist.

But don't you see the contradiction in your position? "Survival of the fittest" doesn't matter either beyond how strongly you feel about it that particular day. Jumping from "is" to "ought" is the height of illogic.

Life and death don't matter unless I care about them. Wealth and poverty don't matter unless I care about them. Power and weakness don't matter unless I care about them. Heaven and Hell don't matter unless I care about them. Reflecting upon my own psyche, I find that when I have a chance to badly hurt someone for material gain, I usually care about not hurting them more than I care about gaining wealth. Therefore, logically, I should treat them well.

Now, if the hurt is minor and the material gain is huge, I may feel differently. And I expect others to do the same. If I become fabulously wealthy and then drop a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk, I understand that a poor person probably won't run after me and tell me I dropped it. I can live with this. I don't expect humans to be angels.

But most people won't stab me for a couple hundred bucks, because the combination of empathy and fear of social disapproval and punishment is sufficient to dissuade them. I don't think I'd gain very much additional safety by teaching them that an imaginary being will kick the crap out of them if they stab me--especially given the number of people who will then decide that their imaginary being wants me stabbed for one reason or another.

Anton, nice post.

A few responses to a few reasonable questions:

From BronzeDog:

In addition to people pointing out the inherent criminality of ReasonKiller's mindset, I'll offer this bit that caught my attention:

He made the universe from his own material, therefore he owns it, therefore he gets to dictate the rules. I'm sure you've heard the term "My house, my rules." Well, guess what? God's universe, God's rules. Makes sense to me.

Do you sell your children into slavery, ReasonKiller?
Do you honestly think that might makes right? That's the only assumption I can think of that would fix the non-sequitur.

I can assure everyone that if I somehow ascend to deific status, I won't be ruling any sentient creations. I believe that sentient beings deserve a bit of dignity.

Couldn't skim the rest of ReasonKiller's stuff in detail, since he provoked a bit too much disgust for me to dwell on him.

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First, how would I have a legitimate legal claim to sell my children if I don't own the material they were made from? The Christian God gives us ownership over are bodies only in the sense that he doesn't zap us with lighting if we don't do what he wants with them. The entire universe still belongs to him (assuming hypothetically that he exists and created it.)

In a world without any objective standard, yes, obviously might makes right. Why wouldn't it? Because you think so? By what objective standards are your personal feelings more valid than mine on the matter? The obvious problem here is that there without an outside force that has the whole picture to judge from, there is no objective truth.

That dilemma has obviously been around longer than any of us.

But I still have yet to hear what I would classify as a truly "objective" reason not to rob, pillage and murder other than "it seems beneficial at this juncture."

Squirming away from the issue by making it a subjective matter is no help to me. We are suppose to be talking about objective reason here, so let's hear an objective reason.

Some have tried to make the point that morals of this type have evolved simply because living in a structured group is more beneficial than living on one's own. This makes plenty of sense. But then, these very same groups go on to rob, pillage and murder each other. And from the looks of some of the biggest historical pillagers, Europe and the United States, this seems to be a pretty beneficial way to conduct business, at least in terms of staying afloat.

Clearly group immorality is no different than individual immorality, only the scale differs. If they're behavior is beneficial to the group (at least at this particular juncture) why shouldn't it be continued?

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From Anton Mates:

I don't think you'd accept the "my house, my rules" rationale if you lived in an apartment and your landlord wanted to kill and eat you. Even if your landlord built the building and grew the trees which provided its wood himself.

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Of course I would. If I didn't like his rules I would simply choose not to live there. If you believe in God and don't like his rules you have the same option: kill yourself. You'll cease to exist and God will be free to use that material to make something else useful. Contrary to modern big church interpretations, there is no real foundation in the Bible to support the idea of an "eternal soul" or "eternal damnation in hellfire." The most literal interpretation of the related texts is that when you die you simply...die. Your thoughts perish. Let there be no doubt about that: dead people are dead. I have no illusions otherwise. From the Biblical standpoint, the dead must be resurrected in a physical body to live again. They are not floating around on clouds playing harps. They're dead. The soul and body are inseparable.

The problem comes from the fact that every single one of us has misused God's property while we are here. If I wanted to leave my insane landlord's apartment, I would be perfectly free to do so. If, however, I had busted up the walls and clogged up all the drains, I could be reasonably expected to pay for these in some way before I'm free and clear.

In the same way, God must stop you on your way out and make you suffer in some form and for some duration equal to the amount of injustice you yourself have caused during your borrowed time in this world. Therefore there are two resurrections: one for those made righteous by the intercession of Jesus, one for those who must be made to pay for their injustices. And then they will be no more. Even the devil himself will be ashes under the soles of our feet.

Whether you agree with God's choice of a lake of fire which burns some longer than others before destroying them completely as the ideal form of punishment, I think we can agree that if he created the universe, he does have the right to make you pay on your way out. And he obviously can't accept mastercard.

I think a lot of the confusion around my reasoning is that I haven't made it sufficiently clear where I stand on the matter of political philosophy, which inevitably colors the debate.

I'm a charitable anarcho-capitalist. But let me preface that by saying that I only hold to this particular position because my God also seems to hold to it. (obviously this will be vehemently debated, but let me say God is only this way when he dictates men's dealings among themselves. When it comes time for him to throw his own hat in the ring, he is a jealous monarchist, and so I revere him as such when dealing with him. This would be the first four commandments. Conversely, I adhere to anarcho-capitalism in my dealings with fellow humans. That would be the other six.)

You would be correct in assuming that without this basis I would in fact be a nihilist (more likely a totalitarian who thinks I should be the one in charge).

Unlike many people who float through life latching on to this or that political concept with no firm foundation to support their belief in anything, I must have some objective reason to hold to a particular political philosophy other than "it feels right to me."

The truth is exactly the opposite. Not killing people and taking their stuff doesn't feel right to me. As a hermit who has no desire to be part of a society, it potentially benefits me and it doesn't make me feel bad.

Not baring false witness to gain advantage over my neighbors doesn't feel right to me.

And I should probably stop right here and point out the fact that there have been numerous times in the (distant) past where I have stolen from others and gotten away with it. Without objective morals handed down from a source of sufficient intelligence and authority to judge the world, why, pray tell, shouldn't I have stolen those things? Will someone answer that question, please?

If Hitler won the war, got away with it, and continued on as the all powerful ruler of the world, why would there be anything objectively wrong with that? In this scenario he's proven he's the most fit animal, has he not?

That's not to say I and millions of people don't have perfectly legitimate reasons to believe in the big guy in the sky other than it restrains me from hurting other people. As a sociopath I have no emotional qualms about hurting other people if it benefits me. Again, I didn't get in trouble for stealing, and I can assure you I'm not going to in any legal sense.

The fact is, I don't like authority. I'm the last person who would be attracted to Christianity for emotional reasons. I'm a Doubting Thomas, I have to see it to believe it. From my subjective point of view, I have seen enough in life to reasonably assume that there is an intelligent force pulling strings behind the scenes.

I am not drawn to the Christian religion because it appeals to my inner need to be a sheep. I'm drawn to it because it is the current result of a lifelong struggle to understand the true nature of the universe. Whether you think I came to the wrong conclusion, or came to it by faulty logic, is another debate.

So let's change the question. Why shouldn't a sociopathic atheist harm others when it benefits him? Joseph Stalin seems to have completely gotten away with his horrible crimes, other than the fact that people now know about them in detail. (What does he care? He's dead.)

What magic words would you have whispered in old Uncle Joe's ear to make him change his ways?

If I may say again what I said in the other post:

If founding your actions on fear of a punishment or hope of a reward is morality, then trained dogs are moral beings.

they have particularly failed in their attempt to present a coherent system of morality

Methinks someone has confused observed morals with proposed ethical systems.

There is plenty of both not associated with religious dogma.

heddle

The basis for the morality of the atheist, just like for the Christian, is God.

Let me guess: because your religious text says so.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we see that a basis for morality can be found in animal behavior.

Quoth Vox Day:

Cultural inertia.

Interesting idea. Is it testable?

The relevant point is not that an individual atheist can't be moral - he certainly can - but that atheism precludes any moral standard with universal claims. Dennett admits as much, even Harris only argues that such standards "could" be invented, not that they have.

If so, Dennett and Harris should read comment 19. To me, it's pretty obvious that comment 19 is right. Comment 102 repeats part of it in a perhaps even more easily accessible way, and so does comment 112 with another part that it greatly expands.

Christian morality IS obedience.

That means that you consider very few Christian denominations "Christian", doesn't it?

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I doubt that Divine Command theorists exist. I think they are people who haven't thought much about why it is that they do good.

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However, the moment of realizing that you, all by yourself, really are a decent and moral person, that you don't need some supernatural threat to do what's right, is extremely pleasurable, empowering, heady--and a bit scary. It's the intellectual equivalent of your first orgasm.

As you can guess from the above, I've never had such an experience.

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(including Christianity, or have you forgotten that stoning someone to death would qualify as "killing?")

Don't forget that "thou shalt not kill" is a mistranslation. "Thou shalt not murder" is much, much more accurate.

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And here's the self-proclaimed Voice of God again:

Why haven't atheists managed to crumble society?

There's not enough of them. More importantly, not enough in positions of power. They are, however, statistically overrepresented in prisons compared to the general population;

Ah? Numbers, please.

(It would of course be helpful to get worldwide as opposed to just US numbers, but the former will be much more difficult to get.)

It's mostly Christians that I find who have no moral center, this is why we do not have universal health care in this country while every other industrialized nation does.

To be fair, I can't blame Christianity for this. At most, I could blame that peculiar kind of American Christianity, you know, the one without "love thy neighbor" and without John 3:16.

VD wants to be considered moral, and so he is: in the "not" mode.

He has simply redefined the word "moral" as a synonym of "obedient". Under this definition he suddenly is moral.

It reminds me of how Hennig eliminated, as opposed to solved, the "problem" of "speciation"*: he simply took cladogenesis and called it speciation, and every internode he called a species. What causes speciation? Whatever causes a lineage to split. How does it work? In any way that is sufficient to cause a lineage to split. Easy!

* Yes, two pairs of scare quotes.

Vox Day, comment 142, emphasis mine:

Since you're here, care to give us your solution to the problem of evil? If God created the world, and God is good, and God is omnipotent, why is there evil?

My solution is that God is not omnipotent in this world. Certainly Paul and Jesus both referred to an evil ruler of the world; Jesus did not dispute Satan's right to offer him all the kingdoms of the world when tempted. That's why evangelicals refer to the world as "occupied territory" and explains why Jesus told his followers that they were "in the world but not of it" and CS Lewis wrote about a "Silent Planet".

Can I believe my eyes?

You're a Manichaean: you obviously maintain there are two gods, one good, one evil. I don't think it matters much whether the good one happens to be triune.

Not some "free will" argument; not some argument from ineffability; no, God's own voice tells us "God is not omnipotent in this world".

I'm not accusing you of being a heretic or apostate or something; that's not an accusation in my book. I accuse you of being a hypocrite. I accuse you of following the old atheist joke about theodicy: "omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent -- pick two".

Oh, that part:

Jesus did not dispute Satan's right to offer him all the kingdoms of the world when tempted.

I guess the predictable apologia would be that "go away" was a fully sufficient answer.

There is also a sound Biblical case for rejecting the concept of an omniscient God.

Fine -- but why do you then call yourself a Christian? Or have you defined "Christian" as "the correct interpretation of the Bible", like you did with "morality" and Hennig did with "species" and "speciation"?

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No, I'm telling you that what is defined as right and moral for Christians is that which reflects God's character. It is a basic assumption for Christians that God is truthful. Whether or not that is factual is a secondary question. Christians presuppose it to be true and therefore on that basis I address the dilemma.

So you are telling us the whole thing is built on air?

That is: being truthful is moral (because God is truthful),

This is the second horn.

and therefore God commands it because it is moral.

This is the first horn. See? There's the conflation: you say the first horn follows from the second one, even though it doesn't.

I don't have to know the origin of evil to recognize that it exists. Being a Christian does not require that I solve the origin of evil problem, or the QCD confinement problem, or abiogenesis, or why people seem to like Neil Diamond's music.

I can't help myself. This sounds an IDiot refusing to make any claims about the Designer, even though several such claims follow directly and inevitably from ID "theory".

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Obscurantism? In the extreme. The omnivanous Vox has served up a word he coined himself: omniderigent. Google it, and explore all seven (7) hits.

Of course, we must take into account that it's a misspelling. The correct spelling is "omnidirigent". And that gets... drum roll... one ghit. That one, too, is on Vox Day's Blog. That's what we should expect from someone who misspells vox populi, too...

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If altruism and empathy are innate, or are somehow beamed in from god, why are these traits and behaviors so conspicuously absent in the very young and in the socially isolated?

Are they? Or are they only absent in those who fail to recognize anything as similar to themselves, which is obviously a prerequisite for empathy?

I do think it's innate to react when a baby cries, to take the most obvious example.

P1: God is truthful

First horn (morals exist independently) -- except if you have defined "truthful" as "whatever God is".

P2: God's attributes define what is moral

Second horn (Divine Command "theory"): you are saying that "moral" is "whatever God is".

P3: God commands what is moral

First horn, or circular.

I agree you haven't used a strawman or a True Scotsman, but you do seem to try arguing that both horns are true, even though they contradict each other.

Now, if you declared this an ineffable mystery, I couldn't prove you wrong, but you haven't done that -- you have said it's "simple".

Does it sound like that? I wouldn't know.

Sorry, I had forgotten the option of declaring it a mystery. This does make it possible to be a Christian without having solved theodicy. I must have been more tired in the afternoon than now in the evening... ~:-|

the fact that God chooses to save some people and not everyone is a much more unpleasant theological mystery.

Kseniya has answered that one (I'm still laughing). More seriously -- what about the hope, regularly expressed by (post-Vaticanum-II) Catholics, that Hell is empty?

You know, I thought so, too, but I read Vox's pocket etymology, checked the etymology of the word "direct" and concluded that he may have been justified in spelling it the way he did.

No way. I've had 6 years of Latin in school. Dirigo, dirigis, dirigere, direxi, directus 3. Or for that matter director.

Only in English are e and i pronounced the same under halfway normal circumstances.

That is, I think the tendency not to kill your neighbor (or his offspring) is largely innate, but the tendency not to steal his banana is learned. Likewise, the tendency to want to get it on with his wife is innate, but the tendency not to is learned.

You probably have a point here.

He's the guy who questions whether the state of evolutionary science can "trump raw intellect" (his own),

So he's not a member of the reality-based community (big surprise). Reality is that in which argumenta ad lapidem work.

Free will means that at any instant you will choose exactly according to your strongest inclinations.

But what if your strongest inclinations are predetermined (which is what you suggest, at least to an extent)? Does it make sense to call the result "free will"?

Please provide some evidence for your assertion, Heddle.

At that opportunity, I'd be grateful if he addressed my question in comment 224 if he's really telling us the whole edifice is built on air.

I don't know--this view of free will is precisely that "you choose whatever you want"--I'd call that free will, but if you want to call it something else, I wouldn't argue.

If you have no influence on what you might want, I'm not sure if "free will" is a good description... if you're addicted and crave the next shot, is that free will?

In any case, you still haven't answered my question from comment 224. I repeat, this time with emphasis added:

No, I'm telling you that what is defined as right and moral for Christians is that which reflects God's character. It is a basic assumption for Christians that God is truthful. Whether or not that is factual is a secondary question. Christians presuppose it to be true and therefore on that basis I address the dilemma.

So you are telling us the whole thing is built on air?

I'm asking why you presuppose it to be true. If you don't have a reason for this, or only one that isn't better than "I'd like it if it were true", everything that follows from that premise is hanging in the air.

To change the topic once more, what do you think of cosmological natural selection?

So, heddle, you are a fideist? Unfalsifiable and proud of it... :-S

Cosmological natural selection, on the other hand, is falsifiable. Find one neutron star that's twice as heavy as the Sun -- just one --, and the whole glorious hypothesis comes crashing down.

Demonstrate how, to some unspecified level of satisfaction, our universe is less than optimal at producing black holes. Not something you can go to NSF for with a grant proposal.

Why not? It's got to be cheap. The maximum mass of neutron stars is just the one example I happen to know.

Finding out whether the fine-tuning better fits the Anthropic Principle or the Lithic Principle is probably more difficult... no, actually, I don't know.

Here are two multiverse theories which we will assume to be untestable and unfalsifiable, Multiverse A and Multiverse B. I think only one of them is an appeal to the supernatural. Can you guess which one -- and why?

Strictly speaking, that's not the relevant question. The relevant question is which one is more parsimonious. That is A.

And cosmological natural selection is even more parsimonious, because it explains fine-tuning without needing to postulate either an intelligence or a tornado in a junkyard.

Not to quibble, but if a "metaphysical interpretation" can be "demolished" given new observations, doesn't that make it a science hypothesis?

Actually, yes.

Astrologers are not scientists because they cling to astrology even though it has been disproven again and again and again.

Yet CID is not science, it makes no predictions, so how is that described.

If you keep the principle of parsimony in mind, you'll find that it does make a prediction: that fine-tuning is not an illusion and therefore needs an explanation. If fine-tuning is shown to be an illusion, CID will be unnecessarily munificent -- like phlogiston was after oxygen was discovered and before it was possible to directly observe atoms.