quote of the week - Paul Copan on polytheism vs monotheism

"Consider polytheism (many gods) versus monotheism (one God). We can ask: Why involve extra entities when just one will suffice? All things being equal, if one God (monotheism) is adequate for the task of creating and sustaining the universe, why bring in multiple deities? There is no reason to multiply additional entities beyond necessity — a principle known as “Ockham’s razor.” Extra gods can be plausibly eliminated on the basis of explanatory simplicity. One God will do just fine."

- Paul Copan, Is Naturalism a Simpler Explanation Than Theism?

Paul Copan and Norman Bacrac debate: Is God a moral monster?

Paul Copan and Norman Bacrac debate on whether God is a moral monster or not.

Why Dawkins won't debate Craig

I read Richard Dawkins' article today on why he won't debate William Lane Craig and I still find his answer(s) unsatisfactory. Should he change his answer to meet my need for a satisfactory answer? Not at all. Why does he not debate Craig? He refuses to debate Craig because, "The Christian philosopher is an apologist for genocide." After insulting Craig and bringing up the supposed genocide of the Canaanites he then says, "Would you shake hands with a man who could write stuff like that? Would you share a platform with him? I wouldn't, and I won't. Even if I were not engaged to be in London on the day in question, I would be proud to leave that chair in Oxford eloquently empty." 

The article is much longer than that, but I only pasted Dawkins' answer for not debating Craig. So it seems he won't debate Craig because Craig doesn't shy away from giving an answer to the "genocide" account in the bible. I might be wrong, but wouldn't the debate be on the existence of God? How does arguing for or against the existence of God have anything at all to do with the account in Deuteronomy? I think Dawkins' answer is lousy. I know he has arguments against the existence of God so he should use them in a debate against Craig to show why his arguments dismantle Craig's arguments for the existence of God. His answer of Craig being an apologist for genocide is ridiculous. 

Come on Dawkins! You're better than that....aren't you?  

I think Paul Copan has a much better answer to the Canaanite problem in Deuteronomy. 

"We should carefully note the language of "driving out" and "thrusting out" the Canaanites (Exod. 23:28; Lev. 18:24; Num. 33:52: Deut. 6:19; 7:1; 9:4; 18:12; Josh. 10:28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 39; 11:11, 14) or "dispossessing" them of their land (Num. 21:32). "Driving out" is not at all the same as the "wiping out" or "destroying" passages found in these same contexts. Upon examination, the former references are three times as numerous as the latter.[52]  When a foreign army might pose a threat in the ANE, women and children would be the first to remove themselves from harm's way?not to mention the population at large: "When a city is in danger of falling," observes Goldingay, "people do not simply wait there to be killed; they get out. . . . Only people who do not get out, such as the city's defenders, get killed."[53]  Jeremiah 4:29 suggests this:

At the sound of the horseman and bowman every city flees; They go into the thickets and climb among the rocks; Every city is forsaken, and no man dwells in them.

Hess draws the following conclusions: "There is no indication in the text of any specific noncombatants who were put to death." Indeed, the "justified wars" of Joshua "were against combatants."[54]  We read in Joshua (and Judges) that, despite the "obliteration" language, there are plenty of Canaanite inhabitants who are not "driven out" but rather are living in the areas where Israel has settled. Joshua himself refers to "these [nations] which remain among you" (Josh. 23:12?13; cp. Josh. 15:63; 16:10; 17:13; Judg. 2:10?13). The process of driving them out would be a gradual one, as even Deuteronomy 7:22 anticipates and is reaffirmed in Judges 2:20?23.[55]  

Israel's occupation of Canaan involved not simply military activity, but also infiltration and internal struggle.[56]  In my previous article, I note that the text of Deuteronomy 7:2?5, Joshua, and Judges suggests that we have the language of (i) obliteration as well as (ii) acknowledgment of Canaanites as future neighbors. Goldingay comments that Israel knew how to read Torah: "It knew it was not to assume a literalistic understanding" of destroying the Canaanites. That is, Moses did not mean for this to be taken literally. Rather, as Goldingay notes, "Israel was to dispossess the Canaanites and destroy their forms of religion and have nothing to do with them." That is, Israel took this "totally destroy" command metaphorically or hyperbolically?which reflected the ANE language of bravado and exaggeration in warfare.[57] 

 

To summarize, we should distinguish between two central aspects of the Canaanite question. On the one hand, herem includes stereotypical language of "all" and "young and old" and "man and woman"?even if women and children are not present. So far as we can see, herem is carried out in particular military/combatant settings (with "cities" and "kings"); this specific combatant scenario could well apply in the Amalekite case (1 Sam. 15). In these limited settings, herem is thoroughly carried out (involving even livestock [for example, 1 Sam. 15:9, 14])?though it allows, and hopes for, exceptions (for example, Rahab). The sweeping language which appears to involve only combatants is truly all-inclusive here. On the other hand, evident in Deuteronomy?Judges is the clearly exaggerated ANE language of utter obliteration and total destruction. These hyperbolic references to "totally destroy[ing]" run on parallel tracks with regular mention of many remaining Canaanite inhabitants after the "total destruction" (for example, Judg. 1). Additionally, we should take seriously the many references of "driving out" the Canaanites, to clear away the land for habitation, which does not require killing. Civilians would flee when their military strongholds were destroyed and no longer capable of protecting them."

Read the whole article by clicking here. 

Update: WK responds to Dawkins' article. 

"His entire column is easily dispatched using Dawkins’ own words against him, because he contradicts himself.

Dawkins has previously written this:

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
(“God’s Utility Function,” Scientific American, November, 1995, p. 85)

Meanwhile, in his column, Dawkins claimed that God’s command to destroy the Canaanites was an instance of evil:

Most churchmen these days wisely disown the horrific genocides ordered by the God of the Old Testament. Anyone who criticises the divine bloodlust is loudly accused of unfairly ignoring the historical context, and of naive literalism towards what was never more than metaphor or myth. You would search far to find a modern preacher willing to defend God’s commandment, in Deuteronomy 20: 13-15, to kill all the men in a conquered city and to seize the women, children and livestock as plunder.

So, in one statement, there’s no good or evil, and in the next statement, there’s evil. That’s a contradiction, and it undermines his entire column, Q.E.D. You can’t claim that there is no standard of good and evil in one breath, and then make judgments of good and evil in the next. It’s self-refuting. Dawkins didn’t even try to respond to any of Craig’s standard arguments for God’s existence in the editorial, he just went off on a tangent about a few Bible verses that, even if true, might only defeat Judaism and Christianity in particular, but not the existence of God in general. And the debate “Does God Exist?” is about the latter." 

Read the rest of his post here.

*****Update*****

Skeptic Daniel Came writes that Richard Dawkins' refusal to debate William Lane Craig is cynical and anti-intellecutalist.

Excerpt:

"In his latest undignified rant, Dawkins claims that it is because Craig is "an apologist for genocide" that he won't share a platform with him. Dawkins is referring to Craig's defence of God's commandment in Deuteronomy 20: 15-17 to wipe out the Canannites. Here is Craig's offending passage:

"[If] God's grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of [the Canannite] children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven's incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives."

I am disinclined to defend the God of the Old Testament's infanticide policy. But as a matter of logic, Craig is probably right: if an infinite good is made possible by a finite evil, then it might reasonably be said that that evil has been offset. However, I doubt whether Craig would be guided by logic himself in this regard and conduct infanticide. I doubt, that is, that he would wish it to be adopted as a general moral principle that we should massacre children because they will receive immediate salvation.

But whatever you make of Craig's view on this issue, it is irrelevant to the question of whether or not God exists. Hence it is quite obvious that Dawkins is opportunistically using these remarks as a smokescreen to hide the real reasons for his refusal to debate with Craig – which has a history that long predates Craig's comments on the Canaanites.

As a sceptic, I tend to agree with Dawkins's conclusion regarding the falsehood of theism, but the tactics deployed by him and the other New Atheists, it seems to me, are fundamentally ignoble and potentially harmful to public intellectual life. For there is something cynical, ominously patronising, and anti-intellectualist in their modus operandi, with its implicit assumption that hurling insults is an effective way to influence people's beliefs about religion. The presumption is that their largely non-academic readership doesn't care about, or is incapable of, thinking things through; that passion prevails over reason. On the contrary, people's attitudes towards religious belief can and should be shaped by reason, not bile and invective. By ignoring this, the New Atheists seek to replace one form of irrationality with another."

Slavery and the moral argument

This post has two aims. 1) to explain Israel's use of slavery and 2) to explain how anti-slavery laws are good evidence for objective morality. So, first things first, we'll look at slavery "back in the day" and antebellum slavery or slavery in the good ol' South. 

The objection

When some folks are discussing the Bible and its atrocities, slavery is usually brought up. The charge, "Well, what about slavery? If the moral code of the bible is SO GREAT, then why is slavery condoned?" I have to say, if slavery in Israel was anything like slavery in the South, with its slave trades and cruelties, then I would side with the objection against the bible. When we read about slavery in bible we cannot equate that form of slavery with the slavery implemented in the South. The two are not similar. Want to learn about Hebrew servanthood? Paul Copan will teach us. He writes in his article on slavery:

"We should compare Hebrew debt-servanthood (many translations render this “slavery”) more fairly to apprentice-like positions to pay off debts — much like the indentured servitude during America’s founding when people worked for approximately 7 years to pay off the debt for their passage to the New World. Then they became free.

In most cases, servanthood was more like a live-in employee, temporarily embedded within the employer’s household. Even today, teams trade sports players to another team that has an owner, and these players belong to a franchise. This language hardly suggests slavery, but rather a formal contractual agreement to be fulfilled — like in the Old Testament.

Through failed crops or other disasters, debt tended to come to families, not just individuals. One could voluntarily enter into a contractual agreement (“sell” himself) to work in the household of another: “one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells himself” (Leviticus 25:47). A wife or children could be “sold” to help sustain the family through economically unbearable times — unless kinfolk “redeemed” them (payed their debt). They would be debt-servants for 6 years.4 A family might need to mortgage their land until the year of Jubilee every 50 years.

Note: In the Old Testament, outsiders did not impose servanthood — as in the antebellum South.6 Masters could hire servants “from year to year” and were not to “rule over … [them] ruthlessly” (Leviticus 25:46,53). Rather than being excluded from Israelite society, servants were thoroughly embedded within Israelite homes.

The Old Testament prohibited unavoidable lifelong servanthood — unless someone loved his master and wanted to attach himself to him (Exodus 21:5). Masters were to grant their servants release every seventh year with all debts forgiven (Leviticus 25:35–43). A slave’s legal status was unique in the ancient Near East (ANE) — a dramatic improvement over ANE law codes: “Hebrew has no vocabulary of slavery, only of servanthood.”

An Israelite servant’s guaranteed eventual release within 7 years was a control or regulation to prevent the abuse and institutionalizing of such positions. The release-year reminded the Israelites that poverty-induced servanthood was not an ideal social arrangement. On the other hand, servanthood existed in Israel precisely because poverty existed: no poverty, no servants in Israel. And if servants lived in Israel, this was voluntary (typically poverty-induced) — not forced." 

That doesn't seem like antebellum slavery at all. If you read the bible's entire treatment of slavery, "masters" were commanded to treat their servants as persons and not property. Notice also, that servants were hired not forced to be servants. This is radically different from the treatment of slaves in the South. The comparison of Israel's slavery to antebellum slavery is a false one. Paul Copan goes on to write a section titled "Three Remarkable Provisions in Israel."

"1. Anti-Harm Laws: One marked improvement of Israel’s laws over other ANE law codes is the release of injured servants (Exodus 21:26,27). When an employer (“master”) accidentally gouged out the eye or knocked out the tooth of his male or female servant/employee, he/she was to go free. God did not allow physical abuse of servants. If an employer’s disciplining his servant resulted in immediate death, that employer (“master”) was to be put to death for murder (Exodus 21:20) — unlike other ANE codes.10 In fact, Babylon’s Hammurabi’s Code permitted the master to cut off his disobedient slave’s ear (¶282). Typically in ANE law codes, masters — not slaves — were merely financially compensated. The Mosaic Law, however, held masters to legal account for their treatment of their own servants — not simply another person’s servants. 

2. Anti-Kidnapping Laws: Another unique feature of the Mosaic Law is its condemnation of kidnapping a person to sell as a slave — an act punishable by death (Exodus 21:16; cp. Deuteronomy 24:7). Kidnapping, of course, is how slavery in the antebellum South could get off the ground. 

3. Anti-Return Laws: Unlike the antebellum South, Israel was to offer safe harbor to foreign runaway slaves (Deuteronomy 23:15,16) — a marked contrast to the Southern states’ Fugitive Slave Law. Hammurabi’s Code demanded the death penalty for those helping runaway slaves (¶16). In other less-severe cases — in the Lipit-Ishtar (¶12), Eshunna (¶49-50), and Hittite laws (¶24) — fines were exacted for sheltering fugitive slaves. Some claim that this is an improvement. Well, sort of. In these “improved” scenarios, the slave was still just property; the ANE extradition arrangements still required that the slave be returned his master. And not only this, the slave was going back to the harsh conditions that prompted him to run away in the first place.11 Even upgraded laws in first millennium BC Babylon included compensation to the owner (or perhaps something more severe) for harboring a runaway slave. Yet the returned slaves themselves were disfigured, including slitting ears and branding.12 This isn’t the kind of improvement to publicize too widely. 

Old Testament scholar Christopher Wright observes: “No other ancient near Eastern law has been found that holds a master to account for the treatment of his own slaves (as distinct from injury done to the slave of another master), and the otherwise universal law regarding runaway slaves was that they must be sent back, with severe penalties for those who failed to comply.”13

If the South had followed these three clear laws from Exodus and Deuteronomy, slavery would have been a nonissue. What’s more, Israel’s treatment of servants (“slaves”) was unparalleled in the ANE."

Human Rights

There's another part of the accuser's objection to slavery I want to examine. The accuser sees something wrong with slavery, e.g., it's cruel to human beings and that human beings shouldn't be treated as slaves. Well, if human beings shouldn't be treated that way, then that really says something about humans, doesn't it? Why should we not be treated as someone's slave? Because it's cruel and inhumane? What makes it cruel and inhumane? The fact that we have inalienable rights is what makes slavery cruel and inhumane. Where do those rights come from? Not from government. These rights can't be taken or given to us by government; it merely acknowledges the rights of human beings. 

Our rights are transcendent rights given to us by God. Objective morality (morality that exists whether persons acknowledge it or not) flows from God's nature and is expressed to us in His commandments to us. Our rights come from God. Our rights cannot come from a physical quality in us. Physical qualities do not give us inalienable rights endowed to us. As Greg Koukl wrote in an article, "human beings are endowed by God with certain inalienable rights, and the endowment is not related to any physical thing in itself--any particular physical thing. We are endowed in a metaphysical way that is not related to our physical characteristics, but it is related to our humanness." 

If you're a materialist, you cannot argue that our rights are inalienable and can't be taken away because rights are not material. There is no morality because morality is not material. The best a materialist or naturalist can come up with for the apparent objectivity of morality is a morality based on survival of the fittest and we know that theory doesn't work; nor does the other option, relativism, work. 

I think the cruelty shown by antebellum slavery screams the truthfulness of the existence of objective moral values and duties. Given naturalism, slavery would not be cruel, it would not be evil because on naturalism human beings are not special, human beings do not have inalienable rights; we are just evolved primates and enslavement of some evolved primates for the selfish benefit of another evolved primate would not be wrong. In fact, on naturalism, slavery would be a good sign of survival of the fittest. It's possible I'm wrong, but I would think slavery would be just fine on a naturalistic worldview. What do you think?

Read the articles referenced

Does the Old Testament endorse slavery? by Paul Copan

Slavery, Abortion, and Inalienable Rights by Greg Koukl

More info:

Slavery in the Bible: 8 Quick Resources

Five bad arguments for theism

Last week, I wrote a post about five bad arguments against theism. Today, I'll cover five bad arguments for theism. The arguments I'm covering are mainly from the street theists. The theists most atheists encounter in their daily lives, you know, the ones that simply say, "Hey, religion helps me," or the famous, "Ya gotta' have faith," like the song by George Michael (or that's what I think of every time I hear someone say that). The problem with that kind of approach is not that folks shouldn't say those things to non-theists. The problem occurs when you use those statements as reasons for proof of God's existence. Not once did I take, "ya just gotta have faith" as a valid reason for believing in God when I wasn't a Christian. To me, it was a cop-out. 

So here are, in my opinion, the top five bad arguments for theism. 

1. Ya Gotta' Have Faith 

I'm never quite sure if the person that uses this reasoning for his belief truly believes you just got to have faith or if he simply doesn't have good reason for his holding theism. If the former, then he doesn't have a proper understanding of faith. If the latter, then the person probably doesn't care about reason and probably thinks it's wrong to have reasonable faith. Telling an unbeliever that you just need faith is foolish. Does the person expect the conversation to go like this: "Sir, how do you know God exists?" she asks the theist. "Well, you must have faith, that's how you know," he answers. "Oh, wow! I never thought of it like that before! Sir, count me in the theist camp!" she exclaims. 

That is not how it goes. In reality, she would dismiss him entirely and most likely theism all together. I did. Growing up, that's all I heard was that I just needed faith and then I would know God exists. Faith is not blind. Faith is not wishing. Faith is actually rational and reasonable. I know I use Greg Koukl's resources a lot, but hey, they're great resources! Check out the following resources to properly understand faith.

Faith and Facts article by Greg Koukl

Faith and Wishing article by Greg Koukl

What does the bible mean when it uses the word "faith"? by Wintery Knight

2. Theism Helps Me

This reasoning shoots you in the foot. When you talk to unbeliever about Christianity or theism in general, you don't want to use the phrase, "Well, it helps me," I know the phrase is meant to show the benefits of theism and not "shove" theism down the throat of your listener, but the reasoning has many faults. 

A) You slip into relativism. 

When you say, "It helps me," you're actually slipping into a "true for me, not for you" argument without realizing it. You're not arguing for God at all, you're actually proving the relativist's point of "if it helps you, great. It doesn't help me, so I don't need it." 

B) You make theism a crutch 

The "It helps me" reasoning makes theism a crutch instead of a truth finally acknowledged, which is great ammunition for those that say religion is the opiate of the masses. It's for the weak and the downtrodden and not for the strong they say and you're telling them, unknowingly, that they're correct in thinking that. Theism is not a crutch at all. My life would be much easier if wasn't a theist, however, I can't ignore the evidence for it. 

Using this reasoning will not get you anywhere with a clear thinking atheist or skeptic. Honestly, it won't get you anywhere with me either. If this is all you have for your belief in God, what will you do when it's not "helping" you anymore? When I'm at my darkest, at my lowest, knowing Jesus' resurrection actually happened is a great asset to my discipleship. It's not a crutch or blind faith; it's knowledge that is beneficial to my life. If all I had was blind faith and a crutch, then I wouldn't be a Christian. What would be the point?

Resources

Relativism mp3 by Paul Copan

True for you, not for me article by Paul Copan

3. You'll Go To Hell 

So since he won't believe you about the existence of God, then you sentence him to hell? That's classy. If the non-theist isn't going to believe in God, how do you expect him to believe in hell? If he doesn't hear you when you're telling him about God, he is not going to hear you when you tell him about hell. Further, even if you do manage to scare him enough into believing a hell exists, what happens when the fear wears off (it will)? Please don't use this argument. It will not stick. 

Also, the non-theist probably already has a low-view of God, hell will only strengthen that low-view. Using hell will not convert the thinking atheist. Hell won't even stick on the emotionally driven atheist. This is a bad argument. 

4. Prove God Doesn't Exist

This is another bad argument for theism. Why? The reason is because God isn't falsifiable. He can't be tested in a lab or studied under a microscope. This is scratching frantically at the bottom of the idea bucket to try and show the atheist how dumb she is when actually she isn't. The atheist knows she can't prove God doesn't exist and she isn't trying. She wants good reason for believing in God (there are good reasons, this isn't a good reason) and she wants to be taken seriously. Using this argument is not taking her seriously. Throw it away theist! Throw it away!

5. Pascal's Wager

I know some may disagree with me on this, but I have to list Pascal's Wager. If you're unfamiliar with the argument, it goes like this: a person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose. Pascal also stated that even though some are unable to believe, they should live as if they did believe, which may lead them to belief. At the time, his wager was groundbreaking, but it's not without problems. 

I've heard some atheists and skeptics say that if they lived their life as though God did exist, somehow manage to find that He doesn't, what about all of the wasted time put into belief in God? I know it's not a strong case against Pascal's wager, however I can't help myself from understanding the rebuttal. This is a problem, because if God doesn't exist, then you could have lived your life the way you wanted instead of the way God wanted. 

There are also other problems with the wager, e.g., argument from inconsistent revelations, assumption that one can choose belief, and others. It should be said, in Pascal's defense, he was not trying to prove God's existence by his wager philosophy. 

Those are the top five bad arguments for theism, in my opinion, and I hope that I've put a stone in your shoe with this post. There are good reasons for believing in God. You don't have to resort your belief to one of the five mentioned above. Faith is not blind, God is not a crutch, fear of hell does not produce a firm foundation, trying to get someone to falsify God will not cause them to hold theism as true, and Pascal's Wager only brings criticism. You may ask now, what are the good reasons? Click here to learn.

The courage of Nietzsche

I've wrote on Nietzsche's philosophy in the past and I think it's time to write about him again, especially after reading and listening to a recent question given to Richard Dawkins. His (Dawkins') response to the question was weak and sophomoric, which is very unsurprising given Dawkins' history in these events. Now, I don't want to bash Dawkins here because he is excellent in his field (Biology), so I will certainly give him credit for that, but I don't think he should be engaging in debates given his poor argumentation. Consider philosopher of science Michael Ruse's comments on Dawkins' book The God Delusion:

"It is not that the atheists are having a field day because of the brilliance and novelty of their thinking. Frankly - and I speak here as a nonbeliever myself, pretty atheistic about Christianity and skeptical about all theological claims - the material being churned out is second rate. And that is a euphemism for "downright awful." [. . .] It is simply that it (and the other works, some of which I have gone after elsewhere) is not very good. For a start, Dawkins is brazen in his ignorance of philosophy and theology (not to mention the history of science). [. . .] Dawkins misunderstands the place of the proofs, but this is nothing to his treatment of the proofs themselves. This is a man truly out of his depth." 

He later says that the God Delusion makes him embarrassed to be an atheist. Can you blame him? Dawkins is not alone in the new atheist method of argumentation. The method (wrapped in different ways) is simply to remove God and Christianity, but to keep the morality that comes from God. How can you do this? When following atheism and all of the flavors of it (naturalism, nihilism, etc.) to its logical conclusions, you don't get objective moral values. What do you get? Nietzsche realized that when you take God out of the picture, all you have is meaninglessness. That is the natural conclusion. What does Dawkins do with his naturalism? 

"Dawkins:….What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don’t feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do. None of us ever actually as a matter of fact says, “Oh well he couldn’t help doing it, he was determined by his molecules.” Maybe we should… I sometimes… Um… You probably remember many of you would have seen Fawlty Towers. The episode where Basil where his car won’t start and he gives it fair warning, counts up to three, and then gets out of the car and picks up a tree branch and thrashes it within an edge of his life. Maybe that’s what we all ought to… Maybe the way we laugh at Basil Fawlty, we ought to laugh in the same way at people who blame humans. I mean when we punish people for doing the most horrible murders, maybe the attitude we should take is “Oh they were just determined by their molecules.” It’s stupid to punish them. What we should do is say “This unit has a faulty motherboard which needs to be replaced.” I can’t bring myself to do that. I actually do respond in an emotional way and I blame people, I give people credit, or I might be more charitable and say this individual who has committed murders or child abuse of whatever it is was really abused in his own childhood. ….

Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views?

       Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. But it has nothing to do with my views on religion it is an entirely separate issue."

That's not courage. That is not being consistent with your argument. Maybe Dawkins doesn't really believe the evidence? Or maybe our moral values and duties are not products of naturalistic determinism? Either way, Dawkins, like many of the new atheists, is not following his arguments to their logical conclusions. 

Looking at Nietzsche, we see a man that was truly revolutionary for his time. To go against the moral establishment of his day took courage. Not only did he make a case against Judeo-Christian morals, but also against utilitarianism and kantianism; looking to bring a more naturalistic source to life itself. Nietzsche observed the master and slave moralities as being in opposition to each other and thus, creating tension on people. The slave morality called for people to suppress their inner urges for "selfish gains" and concentrate on helping others, even though such persons could be supermen if allowed to pursue their "will-to-power." Nietzsche felt that morality is good for the masses, but exceptional people should be left follow their "inner-law." 

The statement "God is dead" is made in several of Nietzsche's works leaving many to label him as an atheist, but the more important question to this statement is, "What now?" If God is dead, what happens now? Nietzsche believed that the death of God would lead to utter nihilism, i.e., universal meaning and objective truth would no longer exist; life would be meaninglessness. The result would be that each person would have his own perspective, but there wouldn't be any real truth, hence no morality. Even though Nietzsche knew the conclusion to the death of God, he did offer a solution to the nihilistic fate of man: Ubermensch. 

What is most important here though is that Nietzsche realized that if you kill God, then there is nothing more than nihilism. You no longer have moral values and duties. Rape, murder, slander, etc., would no longer be evil; such acts would just be unfashionable. Nietzsche didn't try and retain objective moral values in his philosophy. The Ubermensch didn't act as an objective value giver, because it is free from the "failings" of truth and essence. Nietzsche was attempting to create a new world, one of Supermen. A way to visualize this concept is to look at Hitler and the Nazi regime, while it's not a true concept of Nietzsche's philosophy (he was against antisemitism and German nationalism) you can see that Hitler read Nietzsche's work (though not too clearly). 

Do I follow Nietzsche's philosophy? No, I believe the Christian worldview is the best explanation for our questions. However, I do respect his honesty in following the evidence where it leads. His work is also interesting and did shed light on issues. People should enjoy their life here on earth because life is short. Some theologians during Nietzsche's time were encouraging self-mutilation, reminiscent of eastern religions, which is not at all what God wants us to do with our time on Earth. Yes, Christians look forward to life after death, but the Christian is not to hate this life and to view it as evil. Heaven and Earth are not in opposition like good and evil. So, I think Nietzsche made good observations in that some religions do encourage hatred of this life and that is wrong to place such a heavy burden on the backs of people like that. Therefore, there are two things important to this blog post that I want to make clear:

1. Be consistent in your thinking and honest with the conclusion(s). If you don't like the conclusion(s), then change your position. 

2. Love life. There are moral values and duties to follow, yes, however they are not so binding on us that we cannot enjoy life. 

Further reading:

Why Objective Morality Fails on Scientific Naturalism

Friedrich Nietzsche's Ubermensch 

Michael Ruse on Richard Dawkins

Paul Copan challenges Richard Dawkins on determinism and rationality 

Do Objective Moral Values and Duties Exist? 

Objections to the moral argument. Reasonable Faith question

Reasonable Faith's Question of the Week, #199, is Objections to the Moral Argument.

Question:

Hello Dr. Craig,

I attended your debate with Dr. Williamson at the University of Saskatchewan last night, and I was surprised to hear you use the example of child rape being universally viewed as wrong as evidence of objective morality coming from God. This is not to say that I disagree with you that child rape should be universally condemned - of course I do - but if you are to say that objective morality comes from God, and if, as a Christian, you believe that the Bible is the revealed word of God, as you seem to regarding the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, then how do you find child rape so abhorrent when there is nothing in the Bible condemning it? Indeed, Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT says that if a woman (regardless of age) is raped, the rapist must pay her father 50 silvers and marry the woman, which hardly seems a punishment to the rapist. This, of course, excludes engaged women, for whom the punishment for being raped is death if they don't cry for help (Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB). The only instance in which it is only the rapist who is punished is if the victim is engaged (possible but not likely if they are a child), and they cry for help (again, a child would very likely be intimidated into not calling for help, and therefore, by Biblical law, be killed). This is of course to say nothing regarding the sexual abuse of male children, for whom it seems that Leviticus 20:13 would dictate that a molested boy be put to death for the crime of being a rape victim. Therefore, your objection to child rape can not come from the Bible. Therefore, how can you argue that this sense of pedophilia's objective immorality, as well as the sense of the immorality of other acts that the Bible does not discuss, comes from God? If it is due to the personal experience of God achieved by opening your heart, as you argued in the debate, what of those of us who have not been fortunate enough to receive this personal relationship with God, but are still morally repulsed by pedophilia?

Thank you,

Spencer
Canada


Dr. Craig responds:

I’m glad you came to the debate, Spencer (though the tone of your question leads me to think you were cheering for the other side!). It was a substantive and entertaining exchange, wasn’t it?

I’m afraid that you’ve seriously misunderstood me, Spencer. Here’s the moral argument for God that I defended:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. 2. Objective moral values and duties do exist. 3. Therefore, God exists.

The argument is logically valid; so if you want to deny the conclusion, you must reject one of the two premisses. So which one do you deny? Although you present your reservations as worries about (2), it’s evident that you agree that (2) is true, for you say not only that you are “morally repulsed” by child rape, but that you think “child rape should be universally condemned.” I agree. So if you deny that God exists, you must reject (1). But do you reject (1)? There’s nothing in your letter that suggests that you do.

So how am I to understand your worries? Perhaps as follows: you’re wondering what warrant there is for affirming (2). You seem to think that the justification I offer for (2) is biblical revelation, which you think is inadequate as a justification for (2). If this is not your concern, then I simply don’t understand your worry.

But it should be obvious that this worry is wholly unfounded. I never appealed to biblical revelation as a justification for affirming (2). On the contrary, Spencer, I affirm (2) for probably the same reasons you do! As I put it in my opening speech, “In moral experience we apprehend a realm of moral values and duties that impose themselves upon us. There’s no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than the objective reality of the physical world.” I like the way Louise Anthony put it in our debate of the foundations of morality: “Any argument for moral scepticism will based upon premises which are less obvious than the existence of objective moral values themselves.” Hence, moral scepticism can never be justified.

Spencer, you show that you have completely missed the thrust of my argument when you go on to ask, “how can you argue that this sense of pedophilia's objective immorality, as well as the sense of the immorality of other acts that the Bible does not discuss, comes from God?” It was no part of my argument that God is necessary to explain our moral sense of right and wrong, good and evil. Over and over again in the debate I carefully distinguished between moral ontology (questions about the reality of moral values) and moral epistemology (questions about how we come to know moral values), and I said that my argument is solely about the objective reality of moral values, not how we come to know them. I’ll appeal to all the same mechanisms that you appeal to in order to explain how you know that (2) is true. In point of fact, Spencer, I don’t think that we need to appeal to God at all to know that objective moral values and duties exist, so you’re just barking up the wrong tree insofar as I’m concerned.

As for the personal experience of God, you’re conflating the moral argument with my sixth point in the debate that we can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments through personally experiencing him. I do not believe, nor did I suggest, that a personal experience of God is the way one comes to know that (2) is true. Nor, for that matter, did I suggest, as you intimate, that the justification for (2) is universal consent.

So since I don’t appeal to the Bible as justification for (2), why is all this stuff about Old Testament ethics crowding into the discussion? You say that my argument regarding (the resurrection of) Jesus shows my belief in the Bible as the revealed Word of God. Again, Spencer, you’ve failed to understand that my argument regarding the historical credibility of Jesus of Nazareth treats the New Testament documents as we would any ordinary historical documents, not as revealed, much less inerrant. You’re wholly off track here. My argument neither presupposed nor sought to prove that the records of Jesus’ life were anything more than ordinary, fallible records of antiquity, which are reliable, at least, with respect to the three facts I mentioned.

At most, then, your argument from the inadequacies of Old Testament ethics would call into question the infallibility of the Old Testament, which is just irrelevant to the cogency of the case I presented for Christian theism.

But do your examples even do that? The immorality of rape is immediately given in the seventh of the Ten Commandments “You shall not commit adultery.” Any sexual intercourse outside the bounds of marriage is proscribed by the Bible. So rape is always regarded as immoral in the Bible. That puts a quite different perspective on things. What your complaint really is is that the penalties for rape in the passages you cite seem unduly lenient. You think that the criminal laws against rape needed to be even stronger than they were in ancient Israel. Well, maybe you’re right. What does that prove? There’s no claim that Israel’s laws were perfect or adequately expressed God’s moral will. Jesus himself regarded the Mosaic law on divorce as inadequate and failing to capture God’s ideal will for marriage (Matthew 5.31-2). Maybe the same was true for rape laws. Israel’s criminal statutes were not timeless truths for all societies but were intended for Israel at a certain specific time in its history. Moreover, these statutes are examples of case law: if such-and-such happens, then do so-and-so. These were idealizations which served as guides and might admit all sorts of exceptions and mitigating circumstances (like a child’s being afraid to cry for help).

In any case, Spencer, how much effort have you really made to understand these laws in the cultural context of the ancient Near East? None at all, I suspect; you probably got these passages from some free-thought publication or website and repeat them here with little attempt to understand them. By contrast, Paul Copan in his Is God a Moral Monster? (Baker: 2010) deals with these passages in their historical context, thereby shedding light on their meaning (pp. 118-119). Copan observes that there are three cases considered here:

1. Consensual sex between a man and a woman who is engaged to another man, which was a violation of marriage (Deuteronomy 22.23). Both parties were to be executed. 2. Rape of a woman who is engaged to another man (Deuteronomy 22.25). Only the rapist is executed; the woman is an innocent victim. 3. Seduction of a young woman who is not engaged to another man (Deuteronomy 22.28; cf. Exodus 22.16-17). The seducer is obliged to marry the young woman and provide for her, if she will have him; otherwise her father may refuse him and demand payment of the usual bridal gift (rather like a dowry) anyway.

In short, rape was a capital crime in ancient Israel. As for Leviticus 20.13, this verse prescribes the death penalty for consensual sexual intercourse between two men; that you interpret this passage to condemn a child who is assaulted by a pedophile only shows how tendentious your exegesis is.

If anything, then, the Bible is far stricter in its laws concerning sexual behavior than we are today. So even though appeal to the Bible is no part of my argument for (2), what the Bible teaches about the immorality of rape is right in line with my claim that objective moral values and duties exist.

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What is the basis of our values?

The focus of my study (other than studying TCP/IP in college) has been on morality. Is it objective? Do we need God for morality? Has morality come from evolution? Do objective moral values and duties prove the existence of God? This could be summed up in a question, "What is the basis of our values?" I found the question in William Lane Craig's book, "On Guard" and I thought that was a good question for this post, therefore, we'll look at Bill Craig's moral argument for God's existence. 
What is the basis of our values? Are they based on social convention? Personal preference? Evolution? God? I would argue that they are based on God. I believe there is good evidence for that, as I've covered the moral arguments for God from Kant, Sorley, Nietzsche; they all come to the conclusion that God is needed for the objectivity of morality. William Lane Craig covers the argument well, I obviously cannot cover it in this single post, but I'll summarize his argument and leave links for further reading. 
Bill Craig's argument is as follows:
1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. 
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists. 
A simple argument with a powerful conclusion. As Bill says in his book, "This simple little argument is easy to memorize and is logically ironclad."1 Generally, people believe the first two premises. Bill says that premise 1 seems correct to people because we live in a pluralistic age in which they're scared to death of imposing their beliefs on someone else. However, premise 2 seems correct to those same people because they believe it's objectively wrong to impose your values on someone else! Let's examine the premises more closely. 
Premise 1: If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Moral value refers to the worth of a person or action, whether it is good or bad. Moral duty refers to our obligation to act in a certain way, whether that action is right or wrong.2 Now, lets define objective. Objective means independent of human opinion. Bill gives the example, "...the laws of nature hold whether we acknowledge them or not, so they are objective."3 Subjective means dependent on human opinion, e.g., matters of which baseball team is better, or taste, whether pizza or good or not; subjective is person-relative. 
Now, on to defending premise one. I've learned in studying the moral arguments for God, traditionally moral values have been based on God because He is the highest Good. If He doesn't exist, what is the basis of moral values? Why think we have moral worth? Naturalism (the most popular form of atheism) holds that the only things that exist are the things that can be tested by scientific theories. Science is morally neutral, so you can't find morality there. What follows then? That moral values are illusory, they don't exist. 
On a naturalistic view, there cannot be objective moral values. Man has developed a "herd morality" in order to survive, just like animals, so there is objectivity to morals on this view. Consider what Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man,
"If...men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering." 4 
So, for the naturalist to think morality is objective, then he is committing speciesism, which is an unjustified bias to one's own species. 
I'll use Bill's own conclusion here:
"So if there is no God, any basis for regarding the herd morality evolved by Homo sapiens as objectively true seems to have been removed. Take God out of the picture, and all you're left with is an apelike creature on a speck of solar dust beset with delusions of moral grandeur." 5 
I'll cover more of this premise and the rest in later posts. So, what do you think? Do objective moral values and duties exist? Does Bill's argument convince you? 


Sources:
1. William Lane Craig, On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2010), pg. 129
2. ibid, pg. 131
3. ibid, pg. 131
4. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2nd edition (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1909), pg. 100
5. William Lane Craig, On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2010), pg. 144


Links: 
Moral facts or moral beliefs?
God and Morality Debate: William Lane Craig vs. Torbjörn Tännsjö MP3 Audio 
Dinesh D'Souza vs. Peter Singer Debate: Can There Be Morality Without God? MP3 Audio 
William Lane Craig's book On Guard 
Paul Copan, Why Science Can't Explain Morality