Unless atheists can give an account of why naturalism is true, their arguments against God all fail, and they are left with agnosticism at best.
My essay "How to Respond to a Supercilious Atheist" generated many responses from atheists and agnostics. Some were courteous, some were hostile, and a few were even supercilious. But none even came near to adequately answering the fundamental challenge to the atheistic establishment that I articulated in "Supercilious Atheist."
Indeed, the public arguments of the so-called "New Atheists," and their admirers and imitators, are based on a fundamental error of thinking: As I showed in "Supercilious Atheist" (and summarize below) they assume atheism, but do not prove it. And given that the worldview by which they judge God to be nonexistent is illogical, and therefore necessarily false, I propose that the New Atheists be given a more accurate label: New Sophists.
And let's be clear what's at stake. This is not just a matter of what individuals believe, as important as that is. As I argued in "Liberalism 101," the system of thought commonly called "liberalism," by which I mean the entire worldview of the Left, has de facto control over America. Liberalism is not just an irritant; it expresses the deepest convictions by which our leaders make decisions and form our society. And liberalism is based, philosophically at least, on the nonexistence of God.
For according to liberalism, even if God exists, nothing certain can be known about Him, and therefore He might as well not exist. Call it functional atheism. And with no God to guide us, mankind becomes the supreme being, i.e. the supreme authority on truth and morality, in which case liberalism's campaign to remake society is legitimate.
In other words, if there is no God, then liberalism makes sense. And if God does exist, then much of liberalism is invalid. This is why most of our public policies are based, indirectly at least, on atheism. For example:
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The increasingly successful campaign to legitimize homosexuality. After all if, under atheism, we think homosexuality is ok, then it is ok.
- The near-total absence of any restraints on abortion. After all, under atheism, man is just a physical body, in which case the barely-formed fetus cannot possibly be a person deserving the protection of the law.
- Mass immigration. After all, if it is not true that, as the Bible says, God deliberately formed mankind into separate nations, then it's perfectly ok to flood our nation with non-assimilable foreigners, if we think that there is some immediate advantage to be had.
In general, liberalism holds that because there is no creator God, things do not have fixed natures and there is no God who has authority over us. Therefore mankind is radically free, and any social change the majority wants is ok. To be sure, atheists are free to support traditional ideas and ways of life if they choose, but they are also equally free to implement radical change. And the one who is radically free usually does not gravitate toward traditional ways, but instead toward the sort of revolutionary change that liberalism aims for.
Atheism, then, (functional or actual) is the intellectual foundation of liberalism, and so publicly discrediting atheism is, philosophically at least, the first step in publicly discrediting the liberalism that is, in fact, dissolving Western Civilization, including America.
To be sure, theism does remain strong among some individuals and private groups, and vague "God talk" is still popular among politicians. Furthermore, public policy decisions that accord with theism are occasionally put in place, at least until the ACLU swings into action. But overall, atheism-based liberalism rules society. The ACLU is not fighting uphill against an entrenched enemy; they are suppressing rebellion against the ruling order. Furthermore, the policy decisions that accord with theism are made because of a residual allegiance to a mostly-gone theistic tradition, not because of a principled adherence to a living and consciously-believed theistic worldview. True conservatism, therefore, must challenge atheism.
In "Supercilious Atheist," the challenge to the atheism that is (indirectly) the dominant way of thinking in America was, in summary, as follows:
Aggressive atheists claim there is no evidence for God. Therefore, they say, an intelligent person has no choice but to withhold belief in God. Note the wording: "withhold belief." Many atheists define their position not as being certain that there is no God, but as simply not believing, even as they concede that a God may, in some sense, really exist. They may be more accurately called "non-theists," but I will use traditional language, and call them atheists.
However, the atheists' position is obtained not by evaluating properly the evidence, but instead by interpreting the evidence according to a philosophical system that is guaranteed to produce atheistic results. Viewing life through atheist-colored glasses, they see atheism.
Of course, atheists don't see it that way. For the aggressive atheist, the philosophical system he uses to interpret the evidence he observes, his "worldview" for short, is not just one among many possible worldviews. No, his worldview is the way things obviously are, and theists, who refuse to acknowledge reality, appear to him to be either stupid or wicked.
In fact, the most common type of response to my essay from atheists was to say, in effect, "This guy is an idiot; everyone knows there is no evidence for God, because only evidence provided by the five senses is valid." Ah yes! The old "everybody knows" argument!
Many atheists also complained that I had not provided an actual argument for God. But it was obviously not my intent to give a proof of God's existence. The entire point of my essay was that the typical atheist cannot properly assimilate the evidence for God because of his false worldview, in which case there would be no point in presenting this evidence. First, we must remove his atheist-colored glasses, and then we can show him the evidence.
In the West, at least, most atheists have a worldview that is some variation of a philosophical system commonly called "naturalism." Naturalism literally means the belief that "nature" is all there is, and this basically means materialism (the belief that only matter and its properties really exist) and empiricism (the belief that all knowledge must be based on sense perception). For a naturalist, God cannot exist, because only the physical exists. Also according to naturalism, even if God existed, we could not know it, because we cannot know anything that is not based on what we perceive with our senses.
For example, theists point to miracles as evidence for God. And the atheist responds that no miracles have happened, or at least, there is no reason to think that they have. But how does the atheist know that all accounts of miracles are unbelievable even before he examines them all? Because of his naturalistic worldview, according to which no supernatural exists, in which case miracles cannot happen. In brief, the atheist knows miracles are no evidence for God because he knows no God exists to do them. This is circular reasoning, i.e., illogical thinking.
And it all hinges on naturalism. But my challenge is that naturalism is not true just because it seems true to the atheist. Naturalism has to be examined and justified before it can be believed, because other worldviews are possible. Therefore one cannot just dismiss the evidence for God because it seems weak when interpreted naturalistically. After giving a brief summary of an argument that naturalism is false, "Supercilious Atheist" provided a link to an essay giving a more complete argument.
(The problem with naturalism, in a nutshell, is that it is fundamentally a negative doctrine, holding that there are no supernatural things and no non-sensory-based knowledge. But you cannot just assume that something does not exist, because an unknown could be anything, including existent. You need some sort of evidence that X does not exist before you can dismiss it. Furthermore, it is illogical to believe that all knowledge must be sensory-based, because sensory data can never prove that all knowledge must be sensory-based.)
With naturalism under a specific indictment, one would assume that thinking atheists would attempt a logical validation of the naturalism that is the foundation for their confidence that God does not exist. To date, though, there have only been weak responses to this challenge. Atheists assert, often in very colorful language, that naturalism is obviously true, but in my experience they rarely make a significant argument for why it is true.
And this is only to be expected. In order to validate naturalism, one would have to consider the possibility that naturalism might be false, and then show that even with this possibility, the best interpretation of the various facts of reality is that naturalism is true.
In other words, one must take off the atheist-colored glasses if one is to verify that they provide an accurate picture. But naturalistic atheists have little practice thinking in a way that makes the supernatural an actual possibility, so they generally cannot do it.
Kelly O'Connor of the atheistic apologetics organization "Rational Responders" provides a representative response to my essay. Her essay "How to Respond to a Supercilious Christian" attempted to give a relatively comprehensive rebuttal of my argument, and I encourage you to read it before reading my response to her below. When you read it, note that O'Connor devoted most of her essay to rebutting my alleged arguments for God, even though I had given no such arguments. Also note that she made no attempt to validate naturalism. She simply assumed that only evidence based ultimately on sight, sound, smell, taste and touch can possible be valid.
Here are excerpts of a comment I posted at her website in response to O'Connor's essay:
Dear Kelly:
[My] essay's main point, to which you did not respond adequately, is this: Any [knowledge] you know, you know because you have validated it in some way, and all validation takes place within a definite worldview, i.e., comprehensive philosophical system based on certain axioms. But since more than one worldview is possible, and since man is capable of being mistaken even about his premises, one must have some sort of justification for his worldview.
(In retrospect, I would modify the above claim in one way: it seems that we can know a few things without formally "validating" them. For example, we can know what we ate for breakfast without having to validate it within a specific system of axioms. But knowledge about God does not fall into this category.)
You said:
The only evidence that exists is physical, material, verifiable, and falsifiable.
And also
…the use of scientific methodology to determine the validity of anything is necessarily going to have some starting point and then system of experimentation. That is all we have with which to work…[Italics added]
I use the word "naturalism" to describe the worldview you call "scientific materialism," and these comments are naturalistic beliefs. And the arguments you give all presuppose naturalism, so I'll assume you are a naturalist. But how do you know that naturalism is true?
You also said:
…an axiom is just something that is self-evident.
But something is not self-evidently true just because you believe it is. I have given an argument why naturalism is not true, and therefore you cannot just say "it's obviously true, and that's all there is to it."
You also said:
…most people that I know would respond with the criteria [for knowing if there is a God] being objectively verifiable evidence, and that we know this method of validation to be the most accurate due to hundreds of years of making advancements as a society thanks to the scientific method.
Of course, "objectively" means truly, but how do you know that "objectively verifiable evidence" must be naturalistic evidence? If there existed a non-physical God, his existence would not be detected with the senses, and yet He would nevertheless really exist. The argument that "society has advanced due to science" is not a compelling one. Aside from the fact that social change is not advancement just because you say it is, most of science does not assume that there is no God. It only assumes that the physical universe operates according to natural law the vast majority of the time. For most (if not all) of science, naturalism need not be posited. You have not justified naturalism.
And the point of [my] blind man analogy was simply this: Just as the blind man would not be justified in disbelieving in color because he cannot perceive it, the fact that God is not detectable scientifically does not prove that He is not there. There may be other means of detecting Him.
In fact, you take the position "the supernatural may exist, but until we see scientific evidence for it, we can safely ignore it." [To begin with], you said:
We don't know for sure that [a supernatural explanation] couldn't be the correct explanation…
And in other places, you clearly specified that you will only accept naturalistic evidence. So you require naturalistic evidence before you will believe in the supernatural, in exact analogy with the illogical blind man of my analogy. You need to stop being inconsistent, and either disbelieve in the supernatural, or else admit that it may exist, in which case you cannot dismiss its existence based only on naturalistic science.
I must interrupt my comments addressed to O'Connor in order to make sure you don't miss what's happening here. There are two key ideas to know if you want to have a proper understanding of the argument between atheism and theism. Most important is the main point of my "Supercilious Atheist" essay: you cannot just assume that naturalism (or any other worldview) is the correct way to think. You must test your worldview.
But the other key point is this: Most atheists will eventually say the following: "Sure, a supernatural realm might, in some sense, exist. But since we have no direct, naturalistic experience of it, we cannot know anything about it. And therefore we might as well assume naturalism, and therefore atheism."
This is probably the strongest case that can be made for atheism. The atheist is saying, "Theism goes beyond the tangible and the mundane, so it is fraught with danger, intellectual and otherwise. Let's see if we can get by without it."
I sympathize to a certain extent with this view. If the supernatural is unknowable, then it's a threat, because if we cannot know it, we cannot protect ourselves against its dangerous elements. Furthermore, there is a great deal of charlatanism associated with religion and the supernatural. Why not see if we can, rhetorically speaking, eliminate the supernatural?
But is it really true that we cannot know anything about the supernatural? How, in general, do you know that something cannot be known? It would appear that you cannot know that something cannot be known unless you consider it to be a real possibility, and then investigate it.
And actually we do have a sense of the supernatural, because we have a sense of the natural, and of its limitations. We observe that purely material processes do not generate the information required to turn mere chemicals into life, so why should we assume this did happen in the remote past, as the Darwinian evolutionists insist? We know that we are conscious, and that matter does not spontaneously generate consciousness. Why should we assume such generation occurred in the remote past? Scientists tell us that the universe has not always existed, and we know that this effect requires a cause that would have to be prior to the universe, that is, prior to the existence of matter. Something literally super-(i.e., beyond the) natural is needed to explain these things.
The atheist says: "All of these things can be accounted for naturalistically." But how does the atheist know it can? Only by assuming that all causes must be naturalistic, not by proving it. It is impossible to prove that all causes must be naturalistic.
Not only that, but naturalism (as indicated above), is logically contradictory, and therefore false. Not only is it impossible to prove naturalism true, it is possible to prove it false!
I quoted O'Connor as saying that a supernatural realm, which would be a realm not detectable with the senses, might exist. But then she immediately said ". . . but unless we see scientific evidence for it [i.e., evidence provided ultimately by our senses], we can safely ignore it." She is literally saying, "The invisible man may exist, but until I see him, I won't believe!"
The typical American atheist is so unaware of her naturalism that it is difficult for her to avoid this sort of illogical thinking even when it is clearly pointed out to her. If you are undecided between atheism and theism, I urge you to study this issue carefully, and ask yourself "Who's being irrational here?"
My post continues:
The basic argument for God is this: with a naturalistic worldview, we cannot adequately account for all that we know to be true, for example, consciousness, objective morality, [and] the creation of the cosmos. We can certainly know that these things exist, because their existence is pretty much self-evident. Or, to put it another way, we know intuitively that we really are conscious, that some things would be wrong even if the authorities said otherwise, and that something other than the cosmos would have to have brought the cosmos into being. [Here,] "intuition" means: "Our ability to know some things directly, without having to engage in some sort of proof by gathering and analyzing evidence."
We know that these things are there, but what can adequately account for why such things are there? Until you can give a persuasive account of why naturalism gives a better explanation of all known phenomena, not just some, naturalism is suspect.
And I would add to the last sentence, "Especially when a more consistent and rational worldview, i.e., Christian theism, is available."
My post continues:
The naturalist responds, "Yes we can adequately account for these things naturalistically." Or at least, he says, we can explain most of them, and anything not explained will either be explained later, when science has progressed, or else is not explainable even in principle.
In this connection, you said:
…at this time, there is no evidence for … a [supernatural] being and no need to appeal to one.
Well sure, a naturalistic explanation that sounds plausible to the naturalist can usually be found, but how does the naturalist know it is the correct explanation?
Only by examining his worldview. And unless you can give an account of why naturalism is true, your arguments against God all fail (all of your arguments I've seen are based on naturalism), and you are left with agnosticism at best. Real agnosticism, that is, not the agnosticism that is just a disguise for atheism.
I have given elsewhere more detailed arguments against naturalism. There, I argue that naturalism is contradictory, and that it cannot account for some of the basic facts of reality. So you need to give a better answer to the following question: why do you believe naturalism to be true? Don't refer to success, or to other authorities: What is your evidence?
I have yet to receive an answer from O'Connor to my main question: How do you know that your naturalistic worldview is true? At her website, some of O'Connor's fans, but not O'Connor herself, responded to the comment I posted by simply asserting, without attempting a proof, that naturalism is the proper way of interpreting all phenomena.
But an assertion is not a proof. Since I have provided an actual argument that naturalism is not automatically true just because it seems so, and since I have also given specific arguments against naturalism, I would say to an atheist: An actual argument always trumps a mere assertion. So the ball is in your court. Can you vindicate your naturalism? If you cannot, you should continue to be rational, which will require you to admit that some sort of super-naturalistic worldview must be true. That being the case you will finally be capable of thinking rationally about God.
Oh, and American society need not be dominated by atheistic liberalism, either.
IVAN IVANOVICH:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>Consensus is a weak device for determining morality. Hitler was supported by consensus as were the flat earth proponents 500 years ago. No one is saying this stuff is easy, otherwise we would not have 6,000 years of writing and debate on these subjects.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>That is where we get in trouble when we say things like “Many of Hitler’s actions were perfectly logical, although they proceeded from distorted and sick assumptions.” Nothing moral, or true, can proceed from false assumptions<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
I don’t understand. Of course, if your assumption is that ‘might makes right’, then nothing very moral is likely to come of that. But if your assumption is ‘might makes right’ you can proceed in a very logical fashion to implement plans and schemes that will work very effectively (for you). You are logical, though bad and wrong in your fundamental orientation towards others.
As an example, there’s an old story about criminal logic…a guy goes to a funeral, meets a woman he really likes, but doesn’t get her name or phone number. The next day he goes out and kills the brother of the original dead guy. Why? Because he knows the same woman will probably show up at the brother’s funeral. That’s LOGICAL. It is of course morally bankrupt, and proceeding from repulsive assumptions, but it is totally logical.
Oz
>>>>>>>>The fact is humanity doesn’t routinely nurture and protect the young. Too often it rationalizes different ways to kill them, from elective abortion to genocide.>>>>>>
Dr. Jackson, that sounds completely erroneous. There are 6 billion people in our world, and the vast, overwhelming majority of them WERE nurtured and protected by adults, primarily their parents (assuming the society had the means to do so – not starving, etc). Isn’t that the very definition of ‘routinely’? When you say abortion is done ‘too often’ (I sense that even ONE would be too often in your view), that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of the young are and always have been nurtured and protected by their parents and their communities. Routinely.
I never said that any moral code prevents bad behavior. It’s beyond obvious that it doesn’t, because there’s plenty of bad behavior everywhere, even though we seem to have innate tendencies against some of it, and even though many profess to powerfully believe in a particular moral code. Nothing, really, prevents bad behavior.
You say that 100% agreement on a moral code (full consensus) doesn’t make it ‘moral’. Of course. Whole societies can go dangerously insane. Usually they don’t because such insanities often lead to unstable societies that don’t survive, or societies that must change to survive. What’s to disagree about there?
Consensus morality is imperfect. But we all do seem to reach roughly similar conclusions over time, as Dr. Jackson’s essay states. I just don’t see any reason to invoke anything supernatural to explain that fact. It seems to me that better, more parsimonious hypotheses abound.
I keep hearing how we CAN’T form moral judgments, and we CAN’T have a functional society, without a supernaturally-provided, eternal, universal, objective moral code. But as far as I can tell, that’s what we’ve BEEN doing, all along. And it seems to work reasonably well, in many cases. If the religious overtones of the moral code were removed, maybe they wouldn’t be as effective, but that’s just a pragmatic argument, not an ontological one (if I’ve used that word correctly).
Oz
Just an idea: Why don’t we take this sort of conversation over to the IC Social Network rather than taking up all this bandwidth on Alan’s entry?
I had to laugh when Ozzie said “you sound like a lawyer” because I dislike lawyers very much but I did learn from them and acted as my own lawyer in court a few times. I didn’t know if I should feel insulted or complemented. I’m also not a doctor, but I play one on TV.
I’m not insulted by your presence, but I disagree with you often. I don’t understand what you don’t understand. I was certainly NOT defending Hitler, although I do think that “Might makes Right” is basically the same as consensus and neither one is moral.
DR. JACKSON:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>Regarding “theft”, in Cuba it’s defined as owning private property. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
See, but you are confusing me here. I don’t see how that argues for your point. It seems to support mine. I was giving this ‘universal’ moral code thing the benefit of the doubt, by observing that at least a couple of moral judgments see pretty universal. Yes, child rape and murder is one. Then I said, probably theft as well.
You respond that No, theft is not part of the universal moral code. Okay, so that’s just one less thing that is universal. It supports my contention that this seemingly universal,inborn moral code that you posit apparently has very limited content. You point out that there is a universal revulsion against child rape/murder, and it seems that you then conclude there exists something stable, fundamental, God-given, and universal in our morality. But there doesn’t seem to be much in this code, and I suspect what IS there, may well have entirely naturalistic origins. Until I see otherwise.
Oz
IVAN, there’s been a further miscommunication:
I didn’t make the comment about sounding like a lawyer, that was someone else.
I understand completely that you were not defending Hitler. Of course not. I’m just saying that Hitler could employ excellent logic. Previously it was asserted that logic is somehow based on morality, and I said they were just different things. That’s all I mean.
I sense there are numerous posts and points above that I’ve not responded to, and I may not be able to. Got other stuff on my plate. Didn’t really intend that this would morph into all this. I’m starting to feel I am just repeating myself, anyway. I will still try to read Dr. Jackson’s interesting essay, and see whether I think at the end that he has strongly supported the notion that there exists an unchanging, ‘objective’ moral code *that is God-given*.
The *God-given* part is the kicker for me. Just don’t see why it would necessarily come from that source, when so many other factors that are more prosaic could explain it. It seems to reasonable position is that we must convincingly rule out the other possible origins I have proposed, before we would proceed to the conclusion that the source must be supernatural.
Oz
Ozzie, sorry, it was R. Cherry. Anyway, I laughed. I agree that logic and morality are not the same.
>There are 6 billion people in our world, and the vast, overwhelming majority of them WERE nurtured and protected by adults, primarily their parents (assuming the society had the means to do so – not starving, etc). Isn’t that the very definition of ‘routinely’?
Ozzie.
These are word games. Yes, the majority of people do not abort children or commit genocide. But abortions are not “rare” (50 million in the US, many more in China and Europe). Genocide is not rare (Stalin, Hitler, present day third world atrocities). Terrorism isn’t rare (it may not be as successful as Stalin and Hitler, but it isn’t for lack of trying).
So I say “not rare”, you say “routine”, and we’re both superficially right. But I make the further point that all these efforts have ONE thing in common. To do it, the perpetrators had to first rationalize away the innocence or humanity of the person they were harming to justify the act. That’s why a woman who is otherwise loving to her already-born child can kill a fetus in her own body. The fact that she has three living kids and one dead fetus is irrelevant, as is that “only” 42 million babies are aborted worldwide each year in a population of 6 billion http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html, or that “only” 203,000,000 people were slaughtered in war or genocide during the 20th http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat8.htm . Yes, most people don’t kill innocent human beings. BUT WHEN THEY DO, they rationalize it by expressly denying the UMC (which helps demonstrate that there IS a UMC, which is the first step in the process of answering the related question: where did it come from?).
If you truly want a discussion on this subject, rather than simply a forum to state your own opinions, I’m going to say this one last time.
I spent a long time addressing each and every point you’ve been making. I did my part. Yes, it’s a long essay, but some explanations are when you need justify what you say instead of simply telling people what you feel. I did my part. I laid out my arguments in detail.
You’ve read 10-15 pages, haven’t found an “answer” yet, stopped reading, and now repeat your opinion that “We can not know to utter certainty what the best moral code is, because like other human ideas (governmental structure, education of the young, economics, international law, rules of war, etc) these are all human concepts arising from imperfect, barely civilized, biased human minds.” You haven’t demonstrated this through a compelling argument, through historical evidence, through a thorough definition of terms, or any other method. In short, you just keep telling us what you feel.
I’ve challenged people the same way who talk about religion providing the basis for morality, so I’m not singling you out for your personal feelings on the subject. You say you want to know how there can possibly be a UMC. Well, read what I actually wrote and tell me where I’m wrong. Then we can have a discussion.
But saying “But we seem to be on our own, so we’d best do all we can to make moral codes thoughtful and fair,” is simple opinion and conjecture on your part, particularly when someone in this discussion (me) has actually addressed those issues in detail. I outline not just what I believe, but why I believe it to be true. I’ve given you and the rest of the world a perfect opportunity to showcase the stupidity of my positions. But simply repeating your opinion doesn’t answer the challenge. And in a real discussion, when one party lays it out, if the other party wants to debate rather than opine, they need to address the substance of what the other party has said.
Real discussions are advanced through intellectually honest debate, not by everyone telling us how they feel. Show me exactly where I’m wrong. But if you really want to do this and therefore have a real discussion on the subject, look at what I said first (not 10% of it) before you conclude I haven’t made my case.
As for the view put forward by others about morality and a “functional” society, you are correct if you look at the surface trapping of society. The Soviet Union was a functional society (at least for a period of time, until internal contradictions caused its collapse), as was Nazi Germany (until internal contradictions and George S. Patton and the Red Army hastened its collapse). And the USA is today, but as I think the comment was intended to convey, legitimizing things like consensus-morality and 50 million abortions is sewing the seeds of our society’s destruction. Maybe we’ll muddle through okay as a nation. But building a social compact on rationalizations instead of “God-given inalienable rights” makes me bet against it in the long run.
Ozzie: Your comment #156 showed up after I posted my last comment.
I encourage you to wade through what I wrote, then contact me and I can call you off line if you want so we don’t spend a lot of additional time typing.
Just remember that “God” is not “religion”, which is why I was disappointed in Raymond’s critique of my work http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/07/13/the-true-nature-of-human-morality-a-response-to-the-critique-%e2%80%9cuniversal-morality-and-the-morality-of-the-universe%e2%80%9d/
I don’t believe that religion creates morality, so one can’t “disprove” my thesis by showing that religion doesn’t create morality.
Ozzie: “The *God-given* part is the kicker for me. Just don’t see why it would necessarily come from that source, when so many other factors that are more prosaic could explain it. It seems to reasonable position is that we must convincingly rule out the other possible origins I have proposed, before we would proceed to the conclusion that the source must be supernatural.”
In my mind the definition of Universal Morality, or the UMC, is the same as God-given morality – a Biblically revealed supernatural source – the Ten Commandments, the golden rule, the rule to love your neighbor as yourself, etc. While these rules are very pragmatic, that pragmatism in and of its self does not argue against a supernatural source. I draw a distinction between human ethics and God-given moral code; the former is subject to human evil and error, whereas the latter is not.
This is a matter of faith – whether morality is man-made (ethics only) or God-given; it is not a matter which can be decided by the scientific method. It appears to me however that society after society has turned to tyranny as they reject God and God-given morality. Man-made ethics just isn’t good enough to maintain a just society which secures human life, liberty and creative pursuit of happiness. In this matter I am in the company of our founding fathers; so, Ozzie, I’m with the founders and not with you on this.
“Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” George Washington
“It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.” John Adams
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” Thomas Jefferson
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” Thomas Jefferson
“With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.” Abraham Lincoln
“That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Abraham Lincoln
Well, I agree on both counts. Religious traditions certainly *try* to tell us what is right and wrong, but I’m not convinced that they ‘create morality’, or if they do, they are not the only source of it. I can’t recall that I personally contended anything about that issue, but maybe you are referring to Raymond.
I don’t think God and religion are the same either, not necessarily, although I think some of your ideas related to the UMC seem to veer close to religion. Actually, I had the impression that Raymond also understood that distinction, but I could be wrong. I frankly couldn’t follow all of that stuff without printing it out and really focusing, and I’m too lazy for that.
I don’t think religion creates morality, but I’m also not convinced that God, as you describe him in relation to the UMC, creates morality. I think the UMC arises from much less exotic origins, such as natural selection and common sociocultural experiences and problems. Plus, I don’t really see any evidence that there IS an UMC, as I have so far understood it. And if there is one, I don’t see evidence that there is much of a content in it, beyond the (mostly) universal revulsion against killing the innocent.
But perhaps the essay will shed more light on it. I will read it, but I’m not sure when, exactly. I’ll let you know in some fashion after reading it what I thought.
I’m not trying to get in the last word, I just wanted to summarize :-)
Oz
Phillip: “Just remember that “God” is not “religion”
I agree completely. Our founding fathers placed God (not the church or official state religion) into American government and national life by declaring that our human equality is God-given; and by declaring that our sacred rights to life, liberty and creative pursuit of happiness are also God-given. This sacredness of human equality, i.e.: equality before the law – not the government-forced economic equality of a low order for the masses as per Karl Marx – and human rights is part of the unchangeable and universal God-given moral code; and it is the highest law of our land. The Declaration of Independence is the unchangeable moral law of the United States; and it temporally preceded and morally trumps the laws of our Constitution – something Abraham Lincoln understood very well.
“The assertion that “all men are created equal” was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.” Abraham Lincoln
Ronald:
>>>>>>>>>>While these rules are very pragmatic, that pragmatism in and of its self does not argue against a supernatural source<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Agreed, but nothing I can see argues FOR a supernatural source, either. The whole point, for agnostics, is that they don’t have to prove there ISN’T a supernatural source. The burden is on the *believer in the supernatural* to support that contention with something tangible (or at least highly persuasive). Otherwise, we would stick to default position that really nothing is really known about the contentions you make.
<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>
If a God-given moral code in fact exists, you’ve made a useful distinction. I’m just not convinced it does. The perspectives on ‘right and wrong’ that exist, for me, are closer to just rules of living that societies develop. Some are laws, some are not. Some are religiously-derived, some are not. Some are powerful and nearly universal, and some are like Jack Parrot said of the Pirates Code: “they’re more *guidelines*, actually…”
There is a whole range or continuum of beliefs concerning right and wrong, and calling them ‘morals’ may sometimes shed more heat than light, frankly. But it is a common word, oft-used, so there it is.
>>>>>>>>>>>>“Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” George Washington……>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I have nothing but respect for Mr. Washington. I agree with his ‘caution’ that morality can be maintained without religion. That is why, despite having seen no particular reason to be a believer, I’m not one of those trying to chase religion out of American life. I just think that is a vast uncontrolled experiment, and I’m not sure it will turn out for the best. But again, that’s about pragmatics and social control rather than literal belief.
That said, there is ample evidence from the social science literature that non-believers are generally just as well-behaved and well-adjusted as believers. At the societal level, I’m not sure, because it is not possible to experiment and the the number of cases is too small to draw conclusions. But I note there there are countries in the world who are both fairly secular and also fairly successful and well-behaved.
Oz
I don’t know why half that post ended up italicized. I don’t understand how the formatting works here.
>The Declaration of Independence is the unchangeable moral law of the United States; and it temporally preceded and morally trumps the laws of our Constitution – something Abraham Lincoln understood very well.
Ozzie — I frame it this way in comment 1 above, taken from http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/08/25/what-kind-of-car-would-jesus-drive-to-take-his-girlfriend-to-an-abortion-clinic/ [FYI my Ph.D. is in political science.]
Let’s look at the relationship between the Declaration of Independence — which invokes God-given rights as the foundation for creating our government — and the US Constitution, which provides the direct, legal-political framework for all laws made within the United States.
What is important here is the fact that the Founding Fathers credited God with bestowing inalienable rights in all man, and these rights in turn justified rebellion against established authority. Therefore, in creating policy or passing laws from this Constitutional basis, the debate isn’t whether to have a God-based morality insert itself into our law-making process. It’s already there. The question is how to do this so that one specific religion does not gain an unfair institutional advantage over other religions. And, furthermore, how to recognize the appropriate limits of this God-based morality when making our laws.
Limiting the practical application of a God-based morality in political life is not the same thing as denying any role for it in political decisions. This confusion arises because of the relativistic justifications all sides of this debate have brought into the political arena. Atheists want to deny a role for a God-based morality at any point in the law-making process, while Christian activists want to insert God (or more specifically, their concept of religion and the tenets of their faith) into our public institutions.
… The initially confusing thing … is that these relativists are indeed right about not imposing a private morality on the public no matter how odious the issue. This even applies to situations where this private morality and universal moral code are identical (such as abortion), but the law allows this immoral activity to continue. Morality — even the “right” morality — cannot be imposed in a constitutional republic. It must be willingly embraced by the country through its institutions and practices, or the unintended consequences may far outweigh any short-term good. Efforts to promote prayer in public schools, regardless of how pure the motives of its advocates may have been, led directly to the success of moral Relativists in establishing abortion on demand as a national “right.”
What has allowed elective abortion to supplant slavery as a national indignation is a combination of factors such as self-interest, rationalization, hidden agendas — but something else too. Those who took the “moral high ground” in sparking this debate had their own set of vested interests and hidden agendas. Beginning with prayer in public schools and other public institutions, they took key provisions of the Declaration of Independence and substituted their own religious preferences for “God” so that paying homage to “Jesus,” not following a God-given moral code, became the focus of their efforts.
Because of this approach, moral Relativists were able to seize the debate and frame their core issues in a deceitful way. Since Religion A claims to speak for God, and the Constitution forbids the state to establish an official religion, then both Religion A and the God it speaks for must be completely removed from the secular world. This logic prevailed because the Constitution is not the Declaration of Independence, and drawing inspiration and support from God is not the same thing as making laws that reflect God’s rules as expressed by a particular religion. It didn’t matter if what Christians believed perfectly matched 95% of the beliefs of every other religion. The Constitution, though inspired by God-given rights, was still man’s law. And man’s law did not permit the establishment of an official state religion.
By hijacking God and linking Him to a battle to promote their values, not only did the Christian community lose their fight, it allowed the notion of “God” — the basis for their claim — to be wiped out with it. This then led to an even more determined fight to infuse “politics with religion.” Relativists became even more relative to prevent their opponent’s success, and as the Relativists carried the fight to its relativistic extreme, atrocities like abortion on demand became the law of the land.
This, ultimately, explains why a concept like abortion could take hold and flourish in a society that condemns human right abuses, and even passes laws against cruelty to animals, but it will allow a healthy 20-month old developing child to be killed without the same level of due process it demands for suspected mass murders and captured terrorists.
Again, all this flows from my essay …
This passage is not to denegrate those with strong religious beliefs, but to separate discussions of “Jesus”/religion from discussions of “God”, and to look at how rebellion was justified and the US government was structured based on this justification, placing “God” in the proper role with regard to policy making (i.e. laws should reflect fundamental, universal God-given moral values, but laws are not based on religious tenants).
And so the question arises, what exactly are these universal moral values/codes, and where do they come from?
Sorry, I meant Ronald, not Ozzie. Force of habit :)
Ozzie,
I’ve debated with atheists and agnostics before and most of them were closed-minded and often bigoted – you are not one of them. I have an inside track on atheist/agnostic thinking because I was once an atheist myself. Belief in God and belief in a supernaturally derived moral code requires faith, but non-belief in God and a God-given moral code also requires faith of the opposite quality. It boils down to choosing one faith over the other; it is not a choice between faith and non-faith. There is no such thing as non-faith.
“Where revelation comes into its own is where reason cannot reach. Where we have few or no ideas for reason to contradict or confirm, this is the proper matters for faith…that Part of the Angels rebelled against GOD, and thereby lost their first happy state: and that the dead shall rise, and live again: These and the like, being Beyond the Discovery of Reason, are purely matters of Faith; with which Reason has nothing to do.“ John Locke
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/
“The doctrine of a personal G-d interfering with natural events could never be refuted… by science, for [it] can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.” Albert Einstein
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/avi/shafran_einstein.php3
Phillip: “And so the question arises, what exactly are these universal moral values/codes, and where do they come from?”
Our American moral values/codes come from our own human reason in combination with a revealed supernatural source, i.e.: the Bible.
http://fsmarchives.org/article.php?id=1386407
Yeah well, like I said …
“I am making it up as I go along.”
No one with any integrity would say such a thing and then assert that he has seen nothing here that would change his mind. That is vapid. That’s why I’m insulted.
You come to this site to spout uniformed bilge and we are supposed to engage you rationally and intellectually? Whatever pops into your mind is fine for you, but then you’re unconvinced?
What are you, a seventh grader?
Please don’t feel singled out, Mountain Man. I spout uninformed bilge everywhere I go, not just here. :-)
Oz
I just found this at IMAO and thought it was relevant to this article:
“If you’re belief is that there is “probably no God”, then that’s probably not something to obsess over and buy ad space on buses. If you’re sure there is no God, I can see you getting worked up over it, but if you’re uncertain about it it doesn’t seem like a subject to spend much time on. That’s like reading lots of books on cryptozoology because you’re convinced there probably isn’t a Loch Ness monster.
I agree with the religious leaders in Britain who consider the ads a net positive since it will get God discussed in a country where there isn’t much discussion about religion anymore. If you’re trying to offend people (which it sounds like Dawkins wanted to do — that guy is not a model for the cheerful atheist), they probably should have picked a more religious nation. Or make sure the buses go through the Muslim parts of town. That would be fun.”
It’s been quite awhile since I’ve perused these pages, and truth, I only came here today to see in which ways PEJ was going to distort and mis-represent the issue of the Climatologists’ emails. But it was your essay that caught my attention, so here I am posting a comment eleven months late. I’m sure no-one will read it, but here goes anyway.
For me, the issue is always the way theists present the atheist side of things, and how wrong they always get them. Mr. Roebuck spends torrents of words over two essays explaining that atheists have a blind spot towards the existence of God because they/we “assume” everything from a naturalist perspective… all the while misrepresenting the views and methods of atheists through his lens of theism.
Clearly, this presents a logical problem which Mr. Roebuck skirts. To take his 3-point example:
• The increasingly successful campaign to legitimize homosexuality. After all if, under atheism, we think homosexuality is ok, then it is ok.
• The near-total absence of any restraints on abortion. After all, under atheism, man is just a physical body, in which case the barely-formed fetus cannot possibly be a person deserving the protection of the law.
• Mass immigration. After all, if it is not true that, as the Bible says, God deliberately formed mankind into separate nations, then it’s perfectly ok to flood our nation with non-assimilable foreigners, if we think that there is some immediate advantage to be had.
Mr. Roebuck assumes, because he looks at life through a theist lens, that liberals think that “homosexuality is ok” as a matter of doctrine. This is simply not true, as any Christian who supports gay rights (and there are plenty) will tell you. It’s not that “homosexuality” is OK, it’s that “homosexuals” are OK. They are people, just like everyone else. They are our friends, our co-workers and our neighbors. Yours too. Generally, we liberals take the Constitution very seriously…. It is perhaps one of the most important governing documents of all time. The Constitution says that all men (and eventually women, blacks, etc) are equal under the law, and logically this means that homosexuals are equal under the law. To me, that means that they shouldn’t be discriminated against or persecuted under law as a class, and that this includes all civil rights including marriage. None of this reasoning is attributable to “atheists” or “naturalists” as a singular point of data. People who respect and love other people will respect and love homosexuals. This should be a Christian thing, but instead is simply a compassionate human thing.
Regarding abortion, how come it is that you guys never use the actual arguments that pro-choice people use to formulate their opinion, but instead ALWAYS substitute this “man is just a body” claptrap? Have you ever in real life heard a liberal say “There is no God, therefore I am free to abort all my babies?” No, of course you haven’t. This is a reverse-twist of logic: YOU think that because God determined that life was sacred, that WE must be using our denial of a deity as justification for murder. None of this is true, or logical. I have no problem determining that SOME abortions may be committed under morally questionable circumstances, and were my sister to abort a child because she had better things to do, I might even show my displeasure at her decision. However, I am also quite clear about the nature and complexity of the society we live and know that there are plenty of exceptions to the rule. For instance, what would you say to a woman who lives her life, due to physical defects, in excruciating pain and who takes multiple different medications to control that pain so she can at least deal with the day, but who becomes accidentally pregnant? Doctors tell her that to carry the baby to term would mean stopping all medications for the duration. In other words, to have the baby, she’d have to live for nine months in level 10 pain, causing all kinds of stress on her body and the baby, quite possibly (30%) resulting in the death of both. Would you make her litigate her abortion? Should she be forced to hire a lawyer and go to court and present medical evidence to a judge before she could be allowed to terminate? It’s quite easy to say “except to save the life of the mother” but another thing completely to enforce it. If abortion were illegal, no doctor or hospital would ever perform one for any reason whatsoever absent the consent of a court – that’s the way things work in our litigious society. To handle the caseload, states would have to form “Abortions Courts” just to hear them all.
Bottom line: If you believe abortion to be immoral and against God’s wishes, than take faith that God will sort it out and send these women to hell. If you can’t handle that, than you clearly don’t have enough faith in your chosen God.
Third point: if it WERE true that God separated the nations for a reason, than what the hell right did our ancestors have in even coming to America in the first place? If you really get Biblical about it, WE, the white Europeans, are the original interlopers and subverters of God’ will (how “mass immigration” became a theist vs atheist issue at all needs to be explained to me).
As usual, all of Mr Roebucks ideas and arguments here fail because he does exactly the same thing he accuses atheists of, only worse: he not only interprets the social ideas of “atheists” through the distorted lens of his own ideology, he attributes our MOTIVES through his own lens as well.
Another strange thing about these essays, especially the “How to Argue..” one, is that he goes on and on about the structure of logic, and logical argument, but then demands that atheists are the ones who have to violate logic to prove their point (“You need some sort of evidence that X does not exist before you can dismiss it”).
What is the very first thing one learns in any class on logic? That it’s impossible to prove a negative. What’s the thing that Roebuck demands? That it’s upon the atheists to disprove the existence of God. I don’t think I even have to say “Flying Spaghetti Monster” to make my point.
But let’s go a little deeper, into what I like to call the “Machine Elves” problem. (Don’t know what Machine Elves are? Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_elf) The thing about the Elves is, (as explained here: http://www.dosenation.com/listing.php?id=1552) there is no way of knowing if they come from a “strictly subjective and personal state (inconsistent subjective) to a wholly autonomous universe (coexisting reality).” That is, I could line up half a dozen people that each swear that they have seen and interacted with the elves, and yet, because the precursor to experience is the intake of powerful hallucinogenic substances, that probably wouldn’t be enough to convince an innocent that they “actually” exist. Even most people who have seen the elves would say they have to remain somewhat agnostic to their “actual” existence, not only because of the drug, but because no 2 experiences are exactly the same, and in any case, their information can’t be brought back to our ‘normal’ reality. There is no way to know (as yet) if the elves are a product of a collective subconscious imagination, a suggestion induced hallucination, or a true vision of beings existing in another plane of existence. Given that I can produce witnesses, is it now up to the “non-elvists” to prove they don’t exist, as Mr Roebuck suggests? No. It’s not. It’s still up to the trippers to prove that the elves are there and that their existence means something other than giggly fun. Similarly, it’s still up to the theists to prove the existence and necessity of God. And from this study, just published (http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/11/creating_god_in_ones_own_image.php), it would seem that almost everybody thinks God believes whatever they themselves do. How special
Lastly, there was this:
“The requirement of moral consistency only applies to systems (unlike mathematics) that make moral demands on individuals and groups. This is basically the requirement that moral precepts not contradict each other. Naturalists, for example, generally assert that morality is made up by the group. But if morality is whatever the group says it is, then nobody has the right to say that the group is wrong, and so reformers such as those who fought against slavery are always wrong: If our ancestors said that slavery was acceptable, then it was acceptable. This sort of naturalism is thus morally contradictory, at least over time.”
If morality is whatever the group says it is (and I generally believe this to be true), it does not follow that the minority has no RIGHT to express its’ displeasure with the status quo and try and change morality (law), especially in a free society. As Roebuck notes, this is exactly why slavery is no longer legal – even though the Bible supports the institution. For a great deal of human history, abolitionists WERE wrong – the Bible said so – and this Biblical argument, as well as others claiming an inferiority of other races, was used to silence them. Eventually enough people saw the evil of this system due to humanistic concerns, and morals (and laws) were changed. Is Mr. Roebuck claiming this is a BAD thing? Would he really like to see a return to slavery since, for the first 3000 years of recorded human history, this was considered moral by pretty much anyone not a slave?
It’s quite easy to argue for enlightened morals once you have them. But to get them, one has to have become enlightened to humanistic ideals – which is something you can’t get from a book.