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.

Classifying Christopher Hitchens as “liberal” to his brother’s “conservative” may be a slight over-simplification.

While many of his views are quite leftist, he’s quite welcomed in some libertarian circles as a speaker. And his pro-military viewpoints certainly take him outside the “mainstream” liberal establishment.

He’s a hard one to classify at times. His criticisms of the Clintons made as many enemies on the American Left as his criticism of Mother Theresa made on the religous right.

At times he seems to be a “reformed socialist” turned iconclast. Anti-multi-culturist when fighting against European/American left-leaning political activism. And with an interventionist foreign policy streak favoring the underdog (consistently anti-Isreal, pro-palestenian people. Pro-Kurdish rebels long before most people knew who the Kurds of Iraq were.)

I agree and disagree alternatively with Hitchens on many subjects. But I do find refreshing that he doesn’t fit easily on the usual Left / Right dichotomy of most American politics. And few things provide as much intellectual amusement to me as watching him attack a target I dislike.

You appear to be misinformed regarding evolution. Natural selection is *not* alleged to be a directed process. There is no design or purpose or intent or goal or expectation driving it. Evolution is a blind process. Contrary to your claim, there is no direction, or destination, or route, or pathway along which evolutionary processes “force” anything.

Note that I haven’t said that alleged evolutionary processes are strictly random at the chemical level– evolutionists propose that its processes unfold according to fixed laws of matter. However, there is no destination or route imposed on the system. Where the system goes, what path it takes, and what the system looks like at any given point is arbitrary. The proposed mechanism is mutation, such as DNA copy errors, mistakes, mishaps. In other words, *accidents*.

So in this paradigm the number of eyes that a species has at any moment is an accident in a long chain of accidents. Likewise, the number of fingers that man has is an accident, as are the “moral” instincts that evolution deposited in us. There is nothing anywhere that says we ought to have the number of fingers that we have, let alone the instincts that we have.

My prior posts address the consequences of such a paradigm. I don’t usually encounter atheists who try to deny the obvious accidental nature of a godless universe.

As I read your response, a few things struck me:

The whole project of ascribing moral properties to accidents of nature is contrary to the logic and reason that you invoked a bit ago. Accidents make lousy fuel for reasoned conclusions.

- You keep mentioning evolutions and traits as being “accidents”. An evolved trait (whether we’re talking morals, or an eyeball) is not an accident. Natural selection forces a direction to evolution. I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing, so wanted to clarify.

- Are you truly saying that the only reason you don’t kill, steal, hate, and do other bad things is from religiously-defined laws? That’s the only thing keeping your id in check? To me, that’s pretty scary. It says something about your character. It also makes me wonder how you would act differently if you’d been raised in a different religion.

- You seem to be saying that morals are absolute, as defined by your religion. How then do you handle the differences between religions with conflicting sets of information? Or where a sin in one relgion is allowed in another? I don’t agree that any religion is a proponent of absolute morality - this is one reasons why we have so many religions, so many denominations - no one can agree what’s right.

Thanks for the reply. I’m in Australia, so half a world away.

Katecho made a very good reply. Although mine would just echo his, and put it simply.

Consider Stalin (Joseph) and Hitchens (Christopher).

Considering both are atheists, Stalin’s “moral compass” is the same as Hitchen’s. How can Hitchen condemn Stalin? On what basis?

Now if we consider both are Christians, Hitchens can “rightly” condemn Stalin on even one act of murder, knowing full well the explicit Biblical command - fixed and based on the character of God.

Thanks for the discussion. Looking forward to the video.

Cheers

Regarding evolved morals, imagine that one could describe, in step-by-step detail, an evolutionary origin for our compunctions about survival and empathy. Still, this would be nothing more than a catalog of an accident. Unless one wants to engage in a genetic fallacy, there is nowhere to go with such descriptions. It is not as if it was *supposed* to have happened that way. There was no intent at work in such a process.

If evolution had deposited in us the sense of “kill or be killed” (which some argue that it has), then would this somehow justify killing as moral? Male chimps will kill and partially consume offspring in their own clan. I presume materialistic atheists must argue that evolution deposited this “morality” in chimps by the same mechanisms that you are appealing to? Now what?

One can describe the smell of a fart in ever finer detail, but description is not prescription. “Are farts supposed to smell that way?” In atheism, they just do. And gravity pulls down instead of up. Do atheists really want to ground their sense of morality upon descriptions of accidents in nature like that? At the end of the debate, this is simply a concession that evolution “cause[s] us to behave” in a certain way– just like nature causes farts to smell a certain way. This evolutionary theory of morality never rises above a stalemate strategy, since even theists could, for rhetorical effect, use it with just as much authority to justify their inherited morality. Did not nature deposit theistic moral sensitivities in them as it has deposited atheistic sensitivities in others? Now who’s moral compass are we going to use? Why should we use any other compass than the one nature put in us?

The whole project of ascribing moral properties to accidents of nature is contrary to the logic and reason that you invoked a bit ago. Accidents make lousy fuel for reasoned conclusions.

I would argue that a non-theistic moral system can indeed have a direction, and that atheists are not “driving the bus”. A few questions, please to have you elaborate on your point:

What do you think of the theory of evolved morals? That is, evolution and our inherent desire for survival (or self, family, and community) cause us to behave in ways that continue our survival. This is morality created by evolution.

What about empathy? Do you think one must be theist to have empathy for others?

The appeal to “logic” is a detriment for the atheist. Atheists, including Christopher (Christ bearer) Hitchens, are not lacking in moral conviction, but applying logic to an atheistic paradigm leads one directly away from the sort of moral convictions they want to endorse. In the atheistic universe everything is accidental– a cosmic fart in the wind. Not random, yet without purpose, or teleology, or framework of meaning. There is no one driving the bus, and the road doesn’t go anywhere. Atheists are eager to propose themselves as bus drivers, but given their starting points, such an agenda is contrary to logic, not an application of it. Logic would entail that the atheist abandon their moral posturing and stop pretending there is some moral destination for which a moral compass might actually mean something.

“We will be posting the event to YouTube ASAP — hopefully today or Monday. You will be able to find it at: http://youtube.com/HauensteinCenter”

I’ll link to the video when it’s available.

[EDIT: The Hitchens vs. Hitchens video is available - scroll back up to higher in the article to view it.]

Thanks for the feedback. I wanted to address one of the points you linked to. Specifically, this one:

“The issue is not what believers and unbelievers can do. The issue is logical consistency. When believers do evil, are they being consistent with their premises? No, they are not. When unbelievers do good, are they being consistent with their premises? Yes, but only in the sense that they would be equally consistent doing evil, and equally good with some kind of creative mix of the two. The reason for this is that they cannot give an account for the difference between the two; when one questioner asked him whether he believed in truth, and how he accounted for it, for a few moments, before he got a case of the cutes again, Christopher was effectively pole-axed.”

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t what you’re talking about here the idea that an atheist has no sense of morality? I would argue that a non-believer can indeed have a moral compass. In addition, an atheist’s morality is based on logic, as opposed to a God’s morality which, while supposedly unquestioned and absolute, is not. (Particularly when you take into account contradicting moralities between religions.)

I do agree with you that the “what is truth” question caused Christopher to stumble a bit. That surprised me, but it’s always earlier to judge in writing than it is when you’re on a stage.

In response to your last points from Christopher’s final comments, can I point you to this:

http://dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=5293

Cheers!