Exactly!!! ;)

But now we’re back to square one: which is at Christopher’s last comments and which you think makes possible “circular reasoning trap.” To which I linked above to simply say that the challenge has been answered.

And that’s why I let Andy and his readers read it. To show that his challenge has been adequately answered – no matter how he tries to make it appear insurmountable. Maybe Christopher “forgot” or has yet to understand it.

As an aside – here’s another post titled “Weird Guy” – http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=4153 – I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Now, to be sure, morality is just one way to know that God does exists! Katecho pointed out how atheist stumble in logical consistency.

There’s also the fact that “there is something, instead of nothing.”

So, there are other avenues to explore and prove that God exist. As a Christian, my reason for being: is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, “who is God overall, blessed forever.”

Christians do not only know a way of life, but the very purpose of life. Not only do Christians know right and wrong but also why they ought to do right.

Atheists may grasp the right way but cannot stand for its rightness and why they must obey…

I’ll stop here for now. Sincere thanks and God bless…

The thing is, modern research has shown that things like compassion, social bonding, empathy, and many other things we would classify as moral value do, indeed, have evolutionary value, either in survival value, or in kin-survival.

I would argue that a reasoning, social species will evolve certain behaviors, based on the basic logical ramifications of interaction between thinking beings.

“Kill or be killed” doesn’t really work that well for a reasoning species, that expects to flourish based on the power of their mind, rather than on strength of limb and sharpness of claw. The risks of constant conflict are too high, and anti-survival as a general strategy.

correct behavior for humans, with their characteristics, is different from correct behavior for a great white shark, with very different characteristics.

asking if evolution can give sanction to murder isn’t relevant, because it didn’t and it couldn’t, unless we had evolved as very different creatures indeed.

now, to indulge in wild speculation: maybe someday we’ll meet an alien species out in the stars that is so different that their survival modes are totally contradictory to anything we think of as moral by human standards. Like the creatures in the “Alien” movie. If so, we’ll probably have to treat them as we would a psychopathic murderer or a rabid dog. Kill them as a threat to our survival, if it turns out they are total incompatible with us. But we wouldn’t call them “immoral”, any more than we would call a rabid dog immoral.

But now, I’ve ranged too far afield from the top at hand. Forgive my diversion.

so, if I may break this down:

1) you observe moral truths, accepting them as true
2) you then note that God backs up your moral observations confirming they are true
3) and then you know you’ve picked the right religious beliefs, because a religion that contradicts the moral truths would be false

sounds to me like you are saying you validate your moral code because it comes from God, and you know God is the correct choice due to the correctness of the moral judgements.

God proves the morality. And the morality proves God.

I honestly don’t see why one can’t stop at the moral truths be observed / deduced / intuited, and avoid the possible circular reasoning trap.

You say that other meta-ethical standards are insufficient, that one needs divine guidance to “know” that one made the right call in choosing a moral code. Yet, you acknowledge that if another religious person came forth and gave you different set of moral values, claiming those values came form God, you would know they are wrong, as they are giving wrong moral judugements. This requires you have standards for judging the correctness of a moral system other than simply an appeal to religion.

I appreciate the questions. I’ll work with what you have…

Of course, “to kill, steal, hate, and do other bad things” are absolutely wrong! Even you would admit that without my appealing to “religious laws”. Whatever you mean by them.

The situation is reversed to what you described. Very briefly, I “see” (as you also have implied) without a doubt that “to kill, steal, hate, and do other bad things” are morally wrong – but why? Who sez? And then I see the character of God that the Bible proclaims – and realize it flows from Him…

Any religion or denomination then that subscribes “to kill, steal, hate, and do other bad things” – then they have exactly violated the moral law. You seem to want to make morality all encompassing so I’m not sure why you said “no one can agree what’s right.” You and I, I hope, agree that “to kill, steal, hate” is not right. And that to “not kill, not steal, not hate” is right.

Thanks…

Eric J,

Thanks for your thoughts.

Actually, the post I linked to above answered the last comments by Christopher Hitchens as Andy listed them… Which for the sake of those arguments validates the questions I asked to clarify for Andy. No one’s judging anyone – just the arguments whether the reality we experience are consistent to what we claim are the explanation. Thanks again…

Cheers

alternatively, the laws of nature and logic result in negative consquences from evil acts, which every reasonable human, theist or non-theist, want to avoid.

Human evolution resulted in most of us having emotions and intuitions which help us identify good behavior (condusive to a fulfilling human life and society) and seperate it from evil behavior (destructive and anti-social).

Religion then codified many of these behaviors (some intuitive, some socially learned), and explained them through the lens of our pre-scientific understanding.

Atheism does not imply a-morality. It does imply that morality would have to be arrived at by some other method than mystical revelation from authority. Luckily for the atheist, creating moral systems that don’t require religious justification go back to at least Aristotle, and probably to Socrates.

I think this is a great example of “definition by non-essentials”. If, to you, the fundatmental characteristic of both Stalin and Hitchens is their atheism, and you really can’t see any difference in their “moral compass”, then I suggest you re-evaluate your method of judging people.

Basically, I would challenge your assumption that their “moral compass is the same”. That’s a premise which assumes your conclusion that only religous standards are correct standards to judge moral behavior.

There are many moral standards by which an atheist can condemn another. Some atheist would be ethical intutivists, others ethical naturalists. Individual atheists can have any number of ethical or philosophical veiwpoints.

Basically, you are advocating the point of view, that God is the only standard of the moral, which was criticized as far back as Plato in Euthyphro. (and there’s a pretty well-discussed philosophical dilema named after that dialouge).

Personally, I see no reason why “obedience to God’s will” is a better meta-ethical standard than several others that are available in various philosophies.

Regarding the second thing that struck you, I am not appealing to “religiously-defined laws”, whatever those are. Rather I appeal to the moral revelation of the Creator, and His image imprinted on mankind, since His expectations are what I will be judged by. He is the one who defines my reason for being. He is the one I desire to please and to enter personal fellowship with, because He first blessed me and showed favor toward me.

You express fear that the only thing keeping me in check are God’s expectations. You cast Christians as latent beasts, restrained only by a thin theistic leash that could snap at any moment, while rational and calm atheists look on. This seems like a cheap psychological shame tactic on your part, but if your fear is as you claim, it simply demonstrates that you agree with the point I have made. If you are afraid that Christians, without God, would revert to ravenous beasts then it says something about your view of nature itself, under atheism. After all, man really is just another animal in your paradigm. Your psychological shame-game wouldn’t mean much in that ensuing animal world.

If the Creator really didn’t exist, you would have every reason to fear the atheistic result. You should listen to your fear regarding the implications of atheism upon morality, and don’t kid yourself that atheists would somehow remain little angels. Stalin and Mao would beg to differ with you.

However, unlike you, Christians need not live in constant fear of atheists and what they may do in their atheism. God does exist, and He has made the world in such a way that evil has consequences which even self-professed atheists want to avoid. Also, even when atheists deny Him, they still have moral awareness as a result of bearing His image and being children of Adam and Eve. In other words, atheists are usually not very good at living out the implications of their own atheism.