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END TIMES PROPHECIES

5/30/2019

Most people realize there have been many failed prophecies regarding the Second Coming and Armageddon. A few are particularly well-known, such as Jesus’ own prediction that the end would come within the lifetime of some of his followers. Here are a few others from among the hundreds of failed attempts to predict that momentous event:

Irenaeus (2nd century), one of the important early Church fathers, said the end would come in the year 500.

Martin of Tours, a well-known 4th century bishop, claimed it would occur before the year 400, and, at the time he wrote, had no doubt that the Antichrist had already been born.

Many, of course, predicted the year 1000 would be it, including Pope Sylvester II, who was undoubtedly surprised that he lived until 1003.

Pope Innocent III (13th century) said it would happen in 1284, exactly 666 years after the founding of the Muslim faith.

Martin Luther said it would occur by 1600.

James Usher — the “earth was created in 4004 BC” guy — said it would be on October 23, 1997. (He had said that the creation was on the evening of October 22.)

Cotton Mather, famous for being one of the principal instigators of the Salem Witch trials, predicted the end would come in 1697, and then revised it twice when his predictions didn’t come through.

Jonathan Edwards, the influential 18th century clergyman, said (along with many others) that the millennium would begin in 2000. (Maybe he thought it had something to do with Y2K?)

For John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, it would begin in 1836.

William Miller, leader of a group known as the Millerites, claimed that the end times would start on March 21, 1844. After that didn’t pan out, he revised it to October 22. When that prediction also surprisingly failed, the Millerites called it the “Great Disappointment”.

One of Miller’s followers, Ellen White, co-founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, explained the great disappointment with her revelation that, actually, what happened was that on that date, Jesus began his work of “investigative judgment” — examining Christians one by one to see who does and who doesn’t merit salvation. Obviously, it’s a big task, as he’s been at it for nearly 175 years. (Though I’m sure he takes Sundays off.)

Wilbur Voliva, famous as the autocratic leader of the early 20th-century flat earth community of Zion, Illinois, after five previous failed predictions, said the Earth would disappear in September of 1935. He also predicted he would live to 120, which would have put his death in 1990. What he planned to do between the earth’s disappearance and the time of his death remains unclear.

Herbert Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God and an influential broadcaster, predicted the end for 1936, then revised it three times, all the way to 1975.

Pat Robertson, on an episode of the 700 Club, predicted the end would come in 1982. Later, he said it would occur on April 29, 2007. More amazingly, according to one of his assistants, he actually thought he might televise Jesus’ appearance in the skies.

Jerry Falwell was so certain he would be raptured that he didn't think there was any reason to get a burial plot. He died in May of 2007.

If a theory is supposed to be confirmed by its ability to make predictions, the “theory” that the end of the world may be deduced from Scripture has been a dismal failure. But that, of course, won’t discourage future prophets.

[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]

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ON THE NATURALISTIC FALLACY

5/15/2019

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In addition to denying the is/ought gap (see my previous post), those who attempt to argue for the existence of a scientific morality often deny the so-called naturalistic fallacy. This is the fallacy of defining moral concepts in non-moral terms, as Sam Harris does when he says that “good” just means “that which increases the overall well-being of conscious creatures.” Other examples of the fallacy include defining the good as happiness, or as what helps promote human flourishing, or (to use a supernaturalistic example) as what God commands. And the reason this is a fallacy is that, no matter what one picks as the definition of “good,” someone can ask whether that thing is actually good without thereby making any kind of mistake.

Harris, as might be expected, specifically denies this: “it makes no sense at all,” he says, “to ask whether maximizing well-being is ‘good’.” Yet at one point in The Moral Landscape, he himself ends up asking this very question! In endnote 50 to the second chapter (p. 210), Harris considers a challenge to his view which asks whether “it would be ethical for our species to be sacrificed for the unimaginably vast happiness of some superbeings.” That is, if by eating us, their gain in well-being was greater than our loss (so that the overall amount of well-being in the universe increased), then wouldn’t it follow that our becoming their dinner would be a good thing? Harris has no alternative but to admit that it would: “Provided that we take the time to really imagine the details (which is not easy), I think the answer is clearly ‘yes’.”

Now, whether you agree with Harris or not (I sure don’t), the larger point is that there is a real question here. And Harris in effect admits as much when he grapples with the issue. He says that we first must “really imagine the details” and then only “thinks” the answer is yes. But if “good” just meant “whatever increases the overall amount of well-being,” then there should be no hesitation about this. Given that the aliens devouring us increases well-being, it would immediately follow that it was good. What could be more obvious? (Compare: if I were to ask you whether a particular man who has never been married is actually a bachelor, you wouldn’t have to “really imagine the details” of his unmarried existence and then answer that, as a result, you think he is a bachelor.) The fact that this thought experiment presents a real challenge to Harris shows that he doesn't think of "good" as synonymous with "increases well-being."

The naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy because moral terms do not mean the same as anything non-moral. That’s just not how moral concepts function. When someone claims that something is good, they do not mean only that it increases well-being (or that it promotes human flourishing, or that it was commanded by God). I also think it’s important to point out that the approach taken by those like Harris and Carrier (as discussed on the previous post) is unnecessary. I suspect that the only reason it ever occurred to them to argue as they do is because of apologists who claim that atheism cannot justify morality. But in order to answer these apologists, one does not need to claim that morality is objective, much less that it can be made scientific.

Moreover, atheists in particular might think twice before arguing against the naturalistic fallacy, for it is closely related to one of the most important arguments used by nonbelievers, the Euthyphro problem. This is the problem raised regarding to the Divine Command Theory, which states that what God commands is by definition good. It seems perfectly reasonable to ask of a divine command theorist whether it would be good for God to, say, command torturing babies. But that’s just another instance of asking whether something that is defined by some as good is actually good.

[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]

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“OUGHT” AND “IS” REVISITED

5/3/2019

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It’s nearly as predictable as if it were a law of nature: Every few years, someone argues with me online that Hume’s Law (that one cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”) is wrong. And usually, the challenge comes from an atheist who is convinced that they must set this law aside in order to defend moral realism — and thus answer critics who say that atheism cannot justify morality.

There are two basic points such people should learn about this. First, that Hume’s Law is a simple matter of logic; in the sense Hume was talking about, an “ought” cannot be derived from an “is,” period. Second, that in itself this does not show there are no moral truths. It doesn’t even show that ethical naturalism (the view that there are “natural” — and thus in principle scientifically discoverable — moral truths) is false. Anyone who wishes to maintain that there are moral facts discoverable by science is therefore welcome to attempt to do so some other way, in spite of Hume’s Law.

All that this law does is point out that, if none of the premises in an argument contain the term “ought” (or some equivalent, or something that implies it), then the conclusion cannot meaningfully contain it either. And that’s just a straightforward consequence of the nature of deductive logic: You cannot derive a conclusion that isn’t in some way already contained in the premises. For example, it’s impossible to validly conclude that Socrates is mortal if none of the premises you start with mentions Socrates in any way. Similarly, if none of your premises mentions “oughts” in any way — if they are all “is” statements — then you cannot validly conclude an “ought.” It’s as simple as that. If you want to argue against Hume’s Law, at least understand that you are arguing against the nature of deductive logic itself.

So why do so many people think Hume was wrong? The main reason seems to be that they are unclear what his law is really about. Thus, for example, my recent online challenger argued that what we ought to do is obviously determined by our nature — and thus that oughts are derivable from what in fact is our nature. This is an old argument. Here’s Ayn Rand saying essentially the same thing in her 1963 essay “The Objectivist Ethics”:

“…the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgements is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality… So much for the issue of the relation between ‘is’ and ‘ought’.”

But this merely assumes that we ought to value our lives. And that is to already start with a hidden “ought” in the premises. Rand hasn’t derived morality from non-moral facts alone.

Richard Carrier, in “Moral Facts Naturally Exist (and Science Could Find Them)” — published in Loftus’s anthology The End of Christianity, though not endorsed by him — attempts a similar derivation of values from facts. His argument is that it is an objective fact that we desire certain things (e.g., that our cars run well) and also that there are objectively correct and incorrect ways of achieving such desires (e.g., in order for a car to function properly, its oil needs to be changed regularly). “And,” he tells us, “wherever both [of these things] are an empirically demonstrated fact, the imperative they entail is an empirically demonstrated fact.” Thus, that you should change your car’s oil when needed “is factually true independent of human opinion or belief.”

The rather obvious flaw here is that the “ought” in the conclusion only follows if it is the case that you also ought to desire your car to run well — or, once again, if there already is an “ought” in the premises. The mere fact that you do desire it doesn’t cut it. And it’s very easy to show why not. Suppose, for example, that Manson desires to murder a bunch of people, and that in order to do so, he needs to acquire some weapons. Then by the above logic, it is “factually true independent of human opinion or belief” that Manson should acquire weapons. Which means that when the authorities put him in jail (thus taking away his ability to go get guns and knives), they did something factually wrong!

I’m sure Manson would agree. But that certainly doesn't make it true.

(Hume’s Law is often conflated with the naturalistic fallacy, which therefore is also denied by Sam Harris, Richard Carrier, and others. Next time, I’ll point out a reason atheists in particular might want to defend this fallacy.)

[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]

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END TIMES PROPHECIES

ON THE NATURALISTIC FALLACY

“OUGHT” AND “IS” REVISITED

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