Quote of the Week: Chad Meister on the Conclusion of an Atheistic Worldview

While it is good that Ruse and Wilson acknowledge this conclusion and don’t try to smuggle in an objective morality in their atheistic worldview, I wonder if they have contemplated the moral ramifications of their position. On their worldview, we are merely evolved brutes whose very existence is derived from the naturalistic laws of evolution, including random mutation and survival of the fittest in which the strong survive and the weak die off (and sometimes the strong kill off the weak in their struggle for survival). We are simply the byproducts of a “nature red in tooth and claw,” to quote the poet Tennyson. Is it any wonder that the atheistic regimes of Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and Pol Pot—devoid as they were of any significant Christian influence—were responsible for the mass murder of over 100 million people in their quest for dominance, more lives destroyed than in all of the religious wars in the history of the human race? These regimes were not discordant with an atheistic basis of morality; they were consistent with it.

Christopher Hitchens and his ilk are wrong: Christian morality, rooted as it is in a transcendent, personal, omni-benevolent God, has truly been good for the world. Heaven help us if an atheistic morality, rooted in evolutionary theory or otherwise, should ever become the guiding moral force on a global scale.

- Chad Meister, Atheists and the Quest for Objective Morality

Quote of the Week: Alvin Plantinga on Moral Freedom

Now God can create free creatures, but He can't cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren't significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.
Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1974

Quote of the Week: Aristotle on God

If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal.

Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book XII, 1072.b24

Quote of the Week: Thomas Nagel on Mind

Eventually, I believe, current attempts to understand the mind by analogy with man-made computers that can perform superbly some of the same external tasks as conscious beings will be recognized as a gigantic waste of time. 

- The View from Nowhere. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 16. ISBN: 0195056442

Quote of the Week: J.P. Moreland on the couch potato

"The couch potato is the role model for the empty self, and there can be no doubt that Americans are becoming increasingly passive in their approach to life. We let other people do our living and thinking for us: The pastor studies the Bible for us, the news media does our political thinking for us, and we let our favorite sports team exercise, struggle, and win for us. From watching television to listening to sermons, our primary agenda is to be amused and entertained. Holidays have become vacations. Historically, a holiday was a "holy day," an intrinsically valuable, special, active change of pace in which, through proactive play and recreation, you refreshed your soul. A vacation is a "vacating"-even the language is passive-in order to let someone else amuse you. The passive individual is a self in search of pleasure and consumer goods provided by others. Such an individual increasingly becomes a shriveled self with less and less ability to be proactive and take control of life."

- J.P. Moreland, The Lost Virtue of Happiness, 2006 

Quote of the Week: Socrates on Death and Unrighteousness

I would rather die having spoken in my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet in law ought any man use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death, if a man is willing to say or do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs deeper than death.

- Socrates, The Apology, 38e - 39a

Quote of the Week: Milton Friedman on Unfairness of Life

 What kind of a world would it be if everybody was an absolute identical duplicate of anybody else. You might as well destroy the whole world and just keep one specimen left for a museum. In the same way, it's unfair that Muhammad Ali should be a great fighter and should be able to earn millions. But would it not be even more unfair to the people who like to watch him if you said that in the pursuit of some abstract idea of equality we're not going to let Muhammad Ali get more for one nights fight than the lowest man on the totem pole can get for a days unskilled work on the docks. You can do that but the result of that would be to deny people the opportunity to watch Muhammad Ali. I doubt very much he would be willing to subject himself to the kind of fights he's gone through if he were to get the pay of an unskilled docker.

-Milton Friedman, from Created Equal, an episode of the PBS Free to Choose television series (1980, vol. 5 transcript).

Quote of the Week: Nietzsche on Christian Morality

When one gives up Christian belief one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality. For the latter is absolutely not self-evident: one must make this point clear again and again, in spite of English shallowpates. 

Friedrich Nietzsche, Expeditions of an Untimely Man §5.

Quote of the Week: Kelley Ross on the absurdity of life

While traditional Christian theologians, like St. Thomas Aquinas, saw the world as providing evidence of God's existence, and also thought that rational arguments a priori could establish the existence of God, Kierkegaard does not think that this is the case. But Kierkegaard's conclusion about this could just as easily be derived from Sartre's premises. After all, if the world is absurd, and everything we do is absurd anyway, why not do the most absurd thing imaginable? And what could be more absurd than to believe in God? So why not? The atheists don't have any reason to believe in anything else, or really even to disbelieve in that, so we may as well go for it!

- Kelley L. Ross, in the "Existentialism" article at The Proceedings of the Friesian School

Quote of the Week: C.S. Lewis on 'death doesn't matter'

It is hard to have patience with people who say 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter.

- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, 1961

Krauss is a goon

Yes he is. Krauss may be amazing in his field, his daily work, etc. but he can be and is a goon. I'm saying this because of what I've read of his actions during his recent debate with William Lane Craig. On Craig's facebook page he wrote:

Last night's "dialogue" with Krauss was like gladitorial combat! He even had a buzzer which he was pushing at various times during my speech to register his disapproval and try to disrupt my speaking!

Let me imitate the Miz for a bit and say the following to Krauss: really? Really? Really? If what Craig said is true that's what I'm left thinking about Krauss. Really Krauss? Really? Krauss has reduced seeking truth in debate to an episode of "America's got talent." Is this how man decides truth now? He decides something is true with a touch of a buzzer? That was easy. Finding truth is easy when truth is whatever lines up with your personal opinion. This reminds me of the thinking of a toddler; no offense to you toddlers out there. 

If Krauss did in fact do what Craig has said then I'm very disappointed. I cannot take Krauss seriously when he speaks of his reasonableness, his love of facts, and such. How can I? Krauss hasn't shown, to me, that he is serious about truth, that he is serious about finding the answers to life's "permanent questions." It is hard for me to believe that Krauss lives a serious life. What is a serious life? Allan Bloom wrote that, "A serious life means being fully aware of the alternatives, thinking about them with all the intensity one brings to bear on life-and-death questions, in full recognition that every choice is a great risk with necessary consequences that are hard to bear."1 A serious inquiry of the truth will not lead to acting like a goon in a debate. Krauss is an embarrassment to atheism and should not be taken seriously in matters of ultimate truths. There are plenty of respectable atheists out there who are serious about finding answers to life's biggest questions and those men should be the ones representing atheism in public debates instead of goofballs like Krauss. Of course, charisma, jokes, and bad philosophy are the qualifications for a good representative for atheism today right? Those things are the values that people want in their "hero" to go against theists in public debate. What a shame. I'm not saying theism is absent of such public defenders (because they're out there...) but this arrogant, intolerant, close-minded, childish behavior is more visible on the "new atheism" or "new-new atheism" side of the debate in my opinion.

Never fear though. There are quite a few debates worth your time if you are serious about finding answers to such questions on life. There are too many to list here in this post. I will list some of them though.

William Lane Craig vs Dacey - Also notice in this post, WK lists two other great debates I recommend: Craig vs Millican and Craig vs Walter Sinnot-Armstrong. Since you can find those debates in this one link I won't list them here.

Dinesh D'Souza vs Michael Shermer Some might disagree with me on this, but Shermer is definitely a respectable guy in debate and so is D'Souza. I think this is a great debate. It's one that definitely opened my mind to checking out Christianity.

Source:
1. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

Quote of the week: Allan Bloom on truth

Socrates’ way of life is the consequence of his recognition that we can know what it is that we do not know about the most important things and that we are by nature obliged to seek that knowledge...I am now even more persuaded of the urgent need to study why Socrates was accused. The dislike of philosophy is perennial, and the seeds of the condemnation of Socrates are present at all times, not in the bosoms of pleasure-seekers, who don’t give a damn, but in those of high-minded and idealistic persons who do not want to submit their aspirations to examination

-Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs, “Western Civ,” (1990) pg 18 - 19 

Friday Mentionables: Walmart,

Wal-Mart cancels plans to build three stores after D.C. leftists raise minimum wage by 50% 
Inhospitable Earth -- Compared to what?

Alvin Plantinga 'The Ontological Argument'  
Ontological Arguments 

Quote of the Week: B.B. Warfield on following evidence

We must not, then, as Christians, assume an attitude of antagonism toward the truths of reason, or the truths of philosophy, or the truths of science, or the truths of history, or the truths of criticism. As children of the light, we must be careful to keep ourselves open to every ray of light. Let us, then, cultivate an attitude of courage as over against the investigations of the day. None should be more zealous in them than we. None should be more quick to discern truth in every field, more hospitable to receive it, more loyal to follow it, whither soever it leads. 

- B.B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings (Phillipsburg: PRR Publishing, 1970), p. 463

Quote of the Week: John Stuart Mill on Arguments and Certainty

Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being "pushed to an extreme"; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case. Strange that they should imagine that they are not assuming infallibility, when they acknowledge that there should be free discussion on all subjects which can possibly be doubtful, but think that some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to be questioned because it is so certain, that is, because they are certain that it is certain. To call any proposition certain, while there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other side.

-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859, pg 29 

Quote of the Week: J.P. Moreland on God and freedom

“If you were to force people to do something against their free choice, you would be dehumanizing them. The option of forcing everyone to go to heaven is immoral, because it's dehumanizing; it strips them of the dignity of making their own decision; it denies them their freedom of choice; and it treats them as a means to an end. When God allows people to say 'no' to him, he actually respects and dignifies them.”
― J.P. Moreland, Love your God with all your mind: the role of reason in the life of the soul

Friday Mentionables: Pastors vs the Bible, Theistic Explanations, Relativism

Pastors vs the Bible: should men be shamed into marrying?  Greg Koukl explains how to be a consistent moral relativist

How robust are theistic explanations?

Leaking

Friday Mentionables: Properly Basic Beliefs, Darwinian Morality, Open Theism, and Original Sin

Is sin an unintended consequence of creation? part1 and part 2 A View From The Right

Is belief in God properly basic? Alvin Plantinga
Foundationalist Theories of epistemic justification Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

What is open theism Greg Boyd ReKnew

A Darwinian Approach to Moral Philosophy Michael Ruse

Quote of the Week: Allan Bloom on Alternatives

A serious life means being fully aware of the alternatives, thinking about them with all the intensity one brings to bear on life-and-death questions, in full recognition that every choice is a great risk with necessary consequences that are hard to bear.

- Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

Friday Mentionables: Original Sin, Morality, and Religion

Great reading this week. I hope you enjoy the links and learn from them like I did. Good stuff.

Original Sin and Libertarian Free Will - Sententias blog

Leaping from Frogs to Morality - Greg Koukl
The Indispensability of Theological Meta-Ehtical Foundations of Morality - Bill Craig 
Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 

Explaining the Universal Phenomenon of Religion - R.C. Sproul