The Rebuttal: Part Three

For this to make sense, please check out my post exchange with Dr. Luke Conway here and here. You might as well check my Rebuttal, Part One and Rebuttal, Part Two also.

I’ve covered the moral argument for God multiple times on this blog and consider it the worst argument in the long, sad history of apologetic arguments. The only way I can address this again and remain sane is if I break up Dr. Conway’s post and address it in segments. The bold bits are the words of The Apologetic Professor. Here it goes.

Theism provides a more coherent view of morality than atheism.

No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. It. Does. Not.

If you are an atheist, you believe in a universe that has absolutely no moral will.

This part is true. I believe the universe has no will, moral or otherwise.

The materialist must assume that I have a moral will for the same set of reasons that I have blue eyes or a love of the Indigo Girls, or that the sky appears blue or rocks are solid substances – they are the result of a long chain of purely physical events guided by physical laws or chance or what-have-you. I presume none of you believe that, at the Big Bang (or whatever), the atoms there assembled in the way they did so that someday they could produce the thought I should not kill my neighbor for fun inside my head. Such a thought exists because of chance physical processes.

This harkens back to Rebuttal, Part Two talking about instincts. It could be said that we have a moral instinct brought to us by the very same long chain of physical event that which Dr. Conway takes issue. Think of aspects of morality as adaptions that are selected for survival. The survival of the altruistic can be simplified to a generational game theory. Like the famous prisoner’s dilemma, two socially interacting creatures share a larger net gain by cooperating, even at the cost of personal loss by not defecting and claiming an individually larger gain for themselves. This defection could get the creature killed or made an outcast--taking it out of the gene pool either way. In addition, by leaving the increased gain on the table by continuously acting selfishly ends with the result of less resources than those held by cooperating creatures.

This is an example of how everything from instinctual sharing to general empathy could have evolved. I also find it difficult how one couldn’t see that cooperation is the best policy from the experience of just a single lifetime. This is, in part, what apologists argue when morality comes up.

Now, if the professor is saying that thought in general couldn’t have evolved through “a long chain of purely physical events,” that is a actually a better argument than saying moral thought specifically could not. Still, that is an entirely different debate. I’d like to know that he admits the moral argument is bunk before delving into cognitive sciences.

The atheist universe isn’t an immoral universe, as some have claimed. It’s an amoral universe. Morality isn’t bad in the atheist universe; morality doesn’t exist in the atheist universe. Morality has no meaning in that world.

Dr. Conway, I don’t think morality means what you think it means. Seriously, this is a fundamental conflict of definitions that is an insurmountable hurdle in every atheist/theist debate I’ve ever had. Morality as defined by God’s nature is invalid in my book and morality as defined by human culture is invalid in theirs.

Pretty much every atheist I know actually believes in morality (including all of the “new” atheists, e.g., Dawkins, Harris, etc.). And they don’t just believe in it in a “well, that’s nice” kind of way; they don’t believe that it’s wrong to kill people for fun is just a chance-y neuronal deal and they’d be fine if it had turned out the other way around. No; they really believe in it – like it matters that it turned out this way. In fact, they believe in it so much that they often use moral arguments against theism, as a reason to get rid of it.

Yeah, for two reasons. One, most of us have a high degree of empathy--a trait selected for survival (see above.) And two, because morality works. What’s the alternative? Killing fellow humans on sight? Most of us are intelligent beings who can see that would result in living in fear and constant danger. The Golden Rule is the best thing in the bible, yet pre-dates it. If you see moral acts as those that benefit others and immoral acts as those that harm others--pair that with reasoning to weigh the scales of a given situation fairly and our desire to be benefited and avoid harm, ta-da! Morality. I really don’t see why this is so hard. Yes, it allows for some things to be morally ambiguous, which it distasteful, but some things are morally ambiguous. That’s why we are constantly debating things like capital punishment and abortion. It’s objectively clear that at least some moral issues have no objectively clear answer. Saying that you believe you are right on a divided issue is fine, but saying that you are absolutely right because it was written in a book in another language from a less civilized culture over a thousand years ago is crazy. Doesn’t it sound crazy? I think it’s crazy.

My philosophy says that God built morality into the fabric of the universe.

Do rocks have morality then? Do tornadoes strive to be nice? Or is this only evident in intelligent, social beings who have a vested interest to act civil, all things being equal?

Theists attempt to show that morality without God is arbitrary. On the contrary, I can think of multiple reasons why any given moral choice is right or wrong. To apologists I ask, does God have reasons for what is right and what is wrong? Is there a reason His nature is how it is? If so, let’s say we can come to the same reasoning and cut out the middle god. If not, then it’s the theist's morality that is arbitrary. Even if the Christian God exists, we face the exact same pointless morals...except, y’know, my perceived source of morality doesn’t occasionally commit genocide.

The Rebuttal, Part Two

For this to make sense, please check out my post exchange with Dr. Luke Conway here and here. You might as well check my Rebuttal, Part One too.

"Religious Instincts."

Dr. Conway says that one of the few things atheists and theists agree on is that we have religious instincts. Judging from the original post’s comments, this certainly doesn’t seem the case, but I’d be willing to let the professor’s cited studies do the talking...if he only cited any. He merely mentioned that studies have been done. Dr. Conway should know that an audience of skeptics won’t take his word for it. As it is, there is nothing for me to address here. I have no studies, no interpretations of studies, nor specifics on what said studies were studying. Eventually, even the professor states he doesn’t care about this alleged research, nor will I.

It seems that an unjust jump must be made to say that the instincts and tendencies we may have are religious in nature--although it’s impossible to say not knowing exactly what specific instincts are in question. To fill out this post, I’ll guess.

Most of us have an innate barrier to sexual attraction toward those with which grow up, especially siblings. Looking at this tendency from the perspective of our culture, it appears like a moral instinct. Apologists claim moral instincts are evidence of God. Is this one of the religious instincts to which Dr. Conway refers? If so, I can explain this example without be pointing out the clear evolutionary benefit to incest aversion--seeing how it usually doesn’t bear offspring or increases the risk of birth defects. I’ll explore other seemingly moral instincts in my Rebuttal. Part Three dealing with morality.

I mentioned in my post to The Apologetic Professor that some people are naturally more trusting than others. We could call this a trusting instinct, which is highest in children. Parents know, kids will believe all kinds of crap. This is why I am opposed to religious indoctrination. It’s not fair to the kids. Their cognitive faculties aren’t completely online and will accept any answer to whatever basic inquires they may think up. Dr. Conway mentioned Santa, which largely works against his argument. Kids believe Santa not because they have a Christmas instinct, rather because they have a trusting instinct. A near defenseless youngster believing his or her world-wise parent is a survival trait that would be continuously selected from an evolutionary standpoint. Most people think Darwin set back apologetics only in regards to the Argument from Design, but evolutionary biology acts as a valid hurdle for many a theist assumption.

Finally, Dr. Conway states that he thinks probabilistically. As a poker player, I approve, although I wonder where faith comes in when one thinks God is only probable and not certain. I also question the probabilities the professor assigns to the variables. Just because two things are possible, doesn’t make them equally likely. This, again, will be a common thread as the rebuttal continues.