franz kiekeben
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SOME THOUGHTS ON FAITH

4/28/2015

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Often, the religious claim that some belief of theirs is a matter of faith, and therefore isn't open to debate. The idea is that no arguments can be used against their position since the position is not based on arguments in the first place. This is a mistake, however. It is true that one cannot present any counter-arguments to a faith-based view, given that there aren't any arguments to counter; but it isn't true that one can't argue against the view itself. Faith-based beliefs are every bit as susceptible to criticism as other beliefs. And in fact the principal criticism in their case is very easy: since a faith-based belief has no justification, it can simply be dismissed. That is what Christopher Hitchens meant when he said that "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

Might there be some justification for faith itself, however? Well, to justify faith as a means of acquiring truth, one has two options: either provide some reason for believing in it – some evidence that it works, in other words – or claim that the efficacy of faith is itself a matter of faith. The latter is obviously circular and therefore unhelpful. But the former can't be right either, for as soon as one has a reason for accepting some method as efficacious, then one is no longer taking whatever it shows to be true on faith. One now has evidence for whatever it is, after all – namely, that the method used works!

Now, there are those who will insist that obviously we must take some things on faith, for we cannot have reasons for literally everything. How does one justify reasoning itself, for instance? If one uses logic to argue that logic is valid, then one is arguing in a circle; the only option, therefore, is to take it on faith. But the idea that one must have faith in logic is actually nonsense. The laws of logic are unavoidable in that they are presupposed in every belief and every statement. That's not an argument in defense of logic – it's an explanation why logic is necessarily true. And if being necessarily true isn't sufficient to justify something, then nothing is.

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WHY CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS SHOULD LOVE ABORTION

4/17/2015

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How anyone can read the older parts of the Bible and find it inspirational is beyond me. What could Christian philosopher Paul Copan possibly be referring to when he mentions “the warm moral ethos of the Old Testament”? Yahweh, as anyone with decent morals and a rational mind will agree, was an evil monster who commanded, among other things, that children and infants in conquered tribes – as well as the mothers holding them – be put to the sword by the ancient Israelites.

Such evil commands are among the most difficult things for the religious to justify. But of course that doesn't prevent them from trying. Copan, along with such apologists as William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, Thomas Howe, and probably many others, claim that this slaughter of children was in fact a good thing. Why? Well, according to Craig, since “God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation” – the idea being that otherwise they would be hell-bound. Geisler and Howe, in their Big Book of Bible Difficulties, even have the gall to describe the slaughter as “an act of God’s mercy” towards these helpless victims.

Now, atheists of course aren't going to agree – but that might be because we do not follow the dictates of an all-knowing and perfectly good being, and as a result have a screwed-up sense of right and wrong. If, however, one does believe that Yahweh is morally perfect, one must find some justification for the slaughter – and the only way such an action could be justified is if the children actually benefited from it. Anything less (such as Craig's alternative justification that God has the right to kill whomever he pleases) is – again for anyone who is decent and rational – wholly inadequate.

But even if one is convinced that the slaughter was good for the children, a problem remains. For if the fact that killing the conquered children at an early age was justified as a way of giving them a “get into heaven free” card, then why wouldn't the same thing go for many – in fact, most – children living today? After all, only some of us, according to Christian apologists, make it to heaven, so allowing anyone to reach an age at which they might believe in the wrong thing places their eternal soul at great risk.

Now, there are a few ways an apologist might attempt to differentiate the Biblical slaughter from other cases of infanticide. For one thing, God commanded the Biblical slaughter, but apparently isn't commanding anyone to go on a similar rampage today. But that doesn't really work, not if what justifies the Biblical slaughter is that it was a good thing for the children. Whether or not God commands it is in that case irrelevant.

Another thing one might say is that in the Ten Commandments, God specifically prohibits killing. However, the real meaning of that isn't “thou shall not kill,” but rather “thou shall not murder.” Killing can be justified, for instance, in self-defense, certain wars, and so on. And if what one is doing is a good thing, why wouldn't it be justified? That is what the apologists usually claim in the case of the Biblical slaughter: there is something that makes those killings good rather than bad; otherwise God would be commanding something wrong (and would be violating his own injunction against murder).

The best way for the apologist to avoid the horrific conclusion that infanticide ought to be practiced is for him to point out that there is a better alternative. It is preferable to send souls to heaven even earlier. An abortion, especially one in the first trimester, is certainly easier to accept than infanticide, and is in several respects better. (There is much less emotional attachment on the part of the parents, the fetus doesn't have any desires or beliefs yet, i
t is easier to convince the nonreligious to have one, it isn't against the law, and so on.) And yet, according to the view under discussion, it too sends a soul straight to heaven.

Those who approve of the Biblical slaughter of children should therefore regard abortion very positively. It has all the good benefits and much less in the way of bad ones. In fact, given that presumably it is a good thing to send as many souls to heaven as possible, Christian conservatives should be encouraging women to get pregnant for the sole purpose of aborting their fetuses – and doing this as often as they can! They should stop protesting abortion clinics and instead hand out fliers informing women of the religious benefits associated with the practice, and encouraging them to do the godly thing.

Or maybe they should just reconsider Old Testament morality instead...


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THE PERILS OF ETHICS

4/10/2015

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Steven Weinberg famously said, “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion.” And I would add, “or ethics.” That may sound strange: if anything, ethics is supposed to make people more moral, not less. But of course most people would say the same thing about religion – and yet, here we are.

The problem is that ethics is very complicated – it's really hard to formulate a complete moral system that is internally consistent but which doesn't lead to counterintuitive results. However, if the basic ideas underlying a particular theory seem obviously correct to some, then they might come to accept its conclusions no matter how counterintuitive. Thus, Kant was famously led to the view that it's wrong to lie even to an ax-wielding murderer who inquires you on the whereabouts of your children. And just the other day, some utilitarian fans of Sam Harris told me they saw nothing wrong with the idea of a surgeon killing one healthy patient in order to harvest his organs and save five others.

Sam Harris himself, like most utilitarians faced with this well-known objection to their theory, expressed his disapproval of such a killing by appealing to the standard utilitarian reply – namely, that such an organ-harvesting policy would have bad consequences in the long run, as it would make people avoid doctors. But the problem with this reply is that it doesn't address what is really wrong with the act. The wrongness of intentionally killing an innocent person to save five others has almost nothing to do with the consequences for society in general – it has to do with the wrongness of killing an innocent person! And so the standard utilitarian reply fails when we tweak the example just a little – for instance, by making it about a single instance in which a surgeon successfully makes the death of the innocent person look like an accident.

When faced with this new version of the problem, a utilitarian might very well bite the bullet and conclude that, contrary to one's initial intuitions, the act is not wrong at all. And that is exactly what those Sam Harris fans did.

But in addition, these people, having read The Moral Landscape, were convinced their view was backed up by science, and was therefore factually correct. And that made me wonder if the belief that one's preferred moral system – whether utilitarian, Kantian, biblical, or what have you – is true makes one all the more prone to accepting its counterintuitve conclusions. It seems very likely, and if so, then this is one area where a subjectivist approach to ethics appears preferable. If one doesn't believe a moral theory is factually correct, then one might be more open to changing one's mind about it.


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