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IS THERE EVIDENCE THAT THERE ARE NO GODS?

5/29/2020

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I was recently involved in an online discussion in which a reason I hadn't previously seen was offered for preferring negative to positive atheism. (By negative atheism, I mean the mere lack of belief in any gods, and by positive atheism, the belief that there are no gods. And the fact that one usually needs to explain this is one reason I prefer the traditional terminology.)

There are better and worse reasons for being only a negative atheist. But the one that was argued by my opponent in the discussion was pretty weak — and if it is accepted by others who call themselves atheists, they really should be aware of that.

Briefly, my opponent's argument was that one should only believe when there is evidence; that there is no evidence that there are no gods; and therefore that to positively disbelieve in such beings is completely unjustified.

I suspect some might accept this argument as a result of thinking of evidence exclusively as direct evidence. One can have direct evidence that there are horses by, for example, seeing some. But one cannot have direct evidence that there are no unicorns by seeing none. This, however, ignores indirect evidence. And there is plenty of that regarding unicorns.

One is justified in positively disbelieving in unicorns when one knows certain things about this supposed creature — for instance, that the earliest reports of it were based on long-horned animals depicted in profile (and as a result showing only one horn), as well as on descriptions of rhinos to ancient Greeks who had never seen them; that the spiral tusks of narwhals were sometimes found on beaches and thought to be unicorn horns; that no unicorn or unicorn skeleton has ever been found (which would be very unlikely, given that it is supposedly a large animal); and so on. All this points to the unicorn being a mythical creature — and as that is by far the most likely conclusion, it is reasonable to hold that unicorns aren't real.

Similar kinds of things can be said about gods. There is evidence that gods are human inventions, and even reasonable explanations for why human beings invented them. There are things we know about our existence (e.g., that we are evolved, physical entities) that make the existence of beings who are like us in many respects (e.g., having minds much like ours), yet exist in a supernatural realm or have supernatural powers, extremely unlikely at best. There is the fact that no god, and no act of a god, has ever been observed (there are of course supposed exceptions to this, but the best explanations for them do not require positing any deities) — yet for all of the gods that humans have believed in, this absence is as much of a problem as the absence of unicorns is for unicorn belief. Finally (though of course I wouldn't expect people in general to know this), there is the argument which I made in The Truth about God, that on the traditional meaning of “god”, a god must have libertarian free will — which rules out their existence if libertarian free will is impossible because there is no middle ground between the determined and the random.

Now, one does not have to accept any of these points as conclusive. And one might have other reasons for being a negative atheist. But to claim that positive atheists are mistaken because there is no evidence against the existence of gods is unreasonable.


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]

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A VISIT TO THE CREATION MUSEUM

4/22/2020

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[Since we are all stuck at home right now and cannot visit museums, here is a revised version of a post about my visit to Ken Ham's sad excuse for one. I hope this helps fill a void until you can actually go there and see all of its wonders for yourself.]​
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Ken Ham's “unnatural history” museum in Petersburg, Kentucky is, as you probably know, devoted to a literal interpretation of the Bible. It claims to present evidence that the earth is about 6000 years old, that dinosaurs coexisted with humans, that there was a worldwide flood around 2350 BCE, and so on.

It is a bizarre experience from the moment you walk in.

One of the first things you come across inside is an animatronic display of a child next to a couple of velociraptors. (Dinosaurs are a big part of the attraction here, starting with the stegosaurus on the parking lot gate: the owners know it's a way to attract kids to the place.)

The velociraptor display is problematic, however, and not just because it's on the scientific level of The Flintstones. You see, according to the information presented in the museum, all creatures were vegetarian prior to the Fall: this means that lions could sleep with lambs and, apparently, children could play with velociraptors. It was the eating of the forbidden fruit that introduced hardship into the world, thereby turning some animals into predators. But of course, there were no children until after the Fall. How, then, could a child have a velociraptor for a pet? (Moreover, the child in this display is clothed, which is something no one would be before the eating of the forbidden fruit. As everyone knows, Adam and Eve started out as nudists.)

Once you get past the velociraptor display, you enter the main exhibits. Here, visitors are first informed that different scientists can view exactly the same data yet come to radically different conclusions: some see fossils and think they are millions of years old, others understand them to have been around no more than a few thousand years; some see the Grand Canyon and think it formed gradually, others see it and conclude it was the result of an immense flood; it all depends on what interpretation you bring to the data. As one sign puts it, “dinosaur fossils don't come with tags.” This is a big part of the museum's message, designed to make ignorant visitors think that the biblical interpretation is at least as valid as the scientific one.

Eventually, the claims go beyond merely leveling the field, and science begins to be presented as inferior to biblical authority. For, given that the empirical evidence is open to more than one interpretation, to truly know the past we need the evidence of one who was there and who wrote it all down. And that someone was of course God. In one of the displays, a boy is shown saying (by means of a speech bubble) that he's never heard any of this stuff in school!

The message that one can either trust fallible human reason or God's infallible word is repeated throughout. (The fact that one has to use fallible human reason to conclude that the Bible is God's word is of course conveniently ignored.)

Ignoring God's word is said to be the cause of the modern world's problems, and this leads to the next section, the “Culture in Crisis” exhibit — a dark, subway-like tunnel in which all the evils of the modern, Darwin-believing world are represented: there is lots of graffiti, and talk of teen pregnancy, infidelity, and abortions.
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​Visitors then go through a history of the world that takes them from the creation of light through the garden of Eden, the Fall (dramatically described as “the worst day in the history of the universe”), Noah's ark (where you can actually see dinosaurs embarking, as well as a couple of their babies inside — see picture above), the repopulating of the world after the Flood, the Tower of Babel, and finally a film (which I didn't bother to see) about “the last Adam,” Jesus.

Many of the claims made throughout are supported by nothing more than the authority of scripture. For instance, to the question, “did dinosaurs evolve from birds?” the hilarious answer given is that “God made birds on day 5 and land animals on day 6. Dinosaurs are land animals, so they were created the day after birds.” This is obviously something that all those scientists who believe birds are descended from dinosaurs failed to consider!

Other times, though, they try to provide more elaborate explanations. Mostly, these hardly make sense. For instance, the reason they give for why marsupials “were the first mammals buried and preserved after the flood” (for they are found in lower strata) and that, unlike most other mammals, they made it all the way to Australia, is that marsupials, “which have pouches, can nurse their young while moving,” whereas placental mammals, “which nurse their young in the womb, spread out more slowly.”

Often, the claims are just outlandish. My favorite is their suggestion that the super-continent Pangaea broke apart to form today's continents as a result of the Flood. That's some powerful receding water.

The burning question I most wanted answered was why there are no longer any dinosaurs. After all, according to Ham and his people, these creatures were taken aboard the ark, so they didn't all perish in the Flood, as I assumed they would say. One possible answer they give is that people “killed them for food or sport.” (Well, if I remember correctly, Fred Flintstone did use to eat dino burgers.) Another display, however, claims that there might still be dinosaurs around today that no one has yet found.

It must be admitted that the Creation Museum is rather entertaining for nonbelievers. It feels sort of like a cross between the Bible and the old Raquel Welch movie One Million Years B.C. But even though it is funny, it's also sad, especially when one sees the children who are taken there to be misinformed, and who will no doubt become confused when they are taught real science in school. If only they didn't have all those dinosaurs.
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[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]
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IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD, AGAIN

3/26/2020

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"In around 2020, a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments."

Those are the words of psychic Sylvia Browne in her 2008 book End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies about the End of the World, which which rose to the number two position on Amazon's non-fiction chart after Kim Kardashian tweeted about this. For the naive, the accuracy of Browne's prediction seems impressive. But of course it really isn't.

To begin with, the fact that she stated something that turned out more-or-less right is easy to explain: That there will be a widespread virus, and that it will cause “pneumonia-like” symptoms (why not simply “pneumonia”?) are both fairly safe guesses as to what could happen in a given year – even though one is of course still likely to be wrong when making such a prediction. In this case, Browne just got lucky. But she also made far more incorrect than correct predictions. Kardashian's tweet includes the above picture of the relevant page in Browne's book, and there one can also read that another epidemic would take place in 2010, this one involving a flesh-eating disease transmitted by mites that came from exotic birds. You probably don't remember that epidemic, since it never happened.

Some of the other things Browne incorrectly predicted were that by 2010, a DNA database of every newborn on earth would have been created, that by 2014 microchips would be implanted in people's brains to “override” such conditions as schizophrenia, and that by 2020 no one would be blind or deaf, and many births would take place in “gravity-rigged birthing chambers” (whatever that means). The funniest one I've come across is her claim that fertility rates would drop as end times approached because “fewer and fewer spirits will choose to reincarnate and be around when life on Earth ceases to exist. The fewer the spirits wanting to come here, the fewer the fetuses they’ll need to occupy.”

One prediction that is safe to make is that whenever there is a pandemic, it will bring out the crazy in people. Browne's book isn't popular right now just because of this one prediction; it is popular because it is about the end times. She is being read because people think that they will find information there about the coming apocalypse. And as one might expect, quite a few other charlatans are referring to the current crisis as a sign that the end is near.
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Anyone listening to these charlatans should keep in mind that the track record for such predictions isn't exactly good.


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]


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CAN ONE ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN CHRISTIANITY?

3/4/2020

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In one of the essays in Loftus's anthology The Case Against Miracles, Robert Price raises an issue that is commonly ignored. Price's essay, “Jesus Christ: Docetic Demigod”, concerns the miracles of the Incarnation and of the Virgin Birth, and is well worth reading for the many additional points it makes (as is the rest of the anthology). Here, however, I'm just going to discuss that one issue, for it is something that puts the very idea of Christian belief in doubt.

Price asks whether it is possible to “believe what you cannot understand.”

Consider the doctrine of the Trinity. It does not mean that there are three gods, nor does it mean that there is one God who “reveals himself in different forms,” for those, he points out, are both considered heresies (Tritheism and Modalism respectively). Or consider what is claimed regarding the Incarnation — namely, that Jesus is 100% God and 100% human. It is impossible to make sense of such a thing. After all, it is a logical contradiction. But then what is it that the Christian is supposed to believe?

Some might reply that one can believe each side of these claims separately. There is no inherent difficulty in believing that Jesus is wholly human, nor is there one in believing that he's wholly God. Similarly, one can believe that there is only one God, and one can believe that what we call “God” consists of three distinct persons. Nor does it seem impossible to believe some of these things at one time and some at another (so that one moment I might believe Jesus is entirely human and another that he's entirely divine). But that doesn't solve the problem. For it remains the case that one cannot believe the two sides of the contradictions simultaneously. To do so, one would have to make sense of them — and that, of course, isn't possible.

So-called true believers are more likely to appeal to mystery at this point. The human mind just cannot understand these things, they might say, but that doesn't mean they aren't true. And yet this, once again, won't do. For hidden in that defense is the claim that something is true — namely, the thing that we cannot understand. But what is that something? If we cannot even make sense of it, what are we actually claiming is true?

What Christian doctrine asks one to believe are words that, taken as a whole, fail to be meaningful. The doctrine is therefore literally unbelievable.


[Originally published as a guest-post on the A Tippling Philosopher blog at Patheos.]

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METAETHICS FOR ATHEISTS

1/10/2020

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There's a lot of confusion out there about metaethics. Case in point: I recently ran a promotion of my book Atheism: Q & A, and as a result received a one-star review on Amazon, apparently for no other reason than that the reviewer does not understand what I mean when I claim that morality is subjective. The review makes it clear he sees me as a relativist, for he objects to my position by pointing out that (contrary to what I supposedly imply) slavery is always wrong.

Part of the reason for that misunderstanding may be because many atheists do in fact espouse the kind of relativist view that my critic finds objectionable. But the main problem is the over-simplification that is common in popular discussions and writings on this topic. Most people seem to think there are only two main positions one can take: absolutism/objectivism, which states that there are moral principles that are true for everyone at all times, and relativism/subjectivism, which roughly says that what's right for one person may not be right for another. What's worse, some atheists appear to associate the absolutist view with religion (in effect implying that if one adopts such a position, it is only because of one's religious beliefs), and as a result insist on relativism. And of course, the religious more often than not criticize atheism on the grounds that it is incompatible with objective values, and thus can only lead to relativism.

In addition to all this, the terminology involved isn't used in a consistent way even by philosophers. There are specific views which everyone basically agrees on the meaning of (e.g., non-cognitivism, emotivism, intuitionism), but some of the broader terms are definitely used in more than one way — and none more so than “subjectivism.” No wonder, then, that there is so much confusion.

Before explaining how subjectivism (according to most philosophers who call themselves subjectivists) is different from relativism, let me state some claims that a subjectivist can agree with (and that I in fact agree with):

“Every society that practiced slavery was wrong to do so.”

“The fact that most people in certain societies accepted slavery as permissible did not make it so, not even in those societies.”

“Anyone in a society in which slavery is practiced should oppose it.”

I don't think I can make it any clearer than that. Subjectivism should not be criticized on the grounds that every society that has practiced slavery was wrong to do so. And the reason is simple: the theory is not incompatible with the claim that it is always wrong to own another human being.

The difference between relativism and subjectivism

There are two types of moral relativism, the individual type and the group type. Often, people use “relativism” to mean only the latter, though that's also commonly called “cultural relativism.” But it's probably easier to understand the basic idea behind relativism if we start with the individual variety.

Basically, individual relativism is the view that when someone says, e.g., “x is wrong,” what they are saying is “I disapprove of x.” Thus, if I say slavery is wrong, but plantation-owner Sam says it is right, we can both be saying something true. For what I am doing, in effect, is reporting the fact that I disapprove of slavery, and what he is doing is reporting the fact that he approves of it. It follows that we are both correct!

Group relativism is exactly like this, except relative to societies instead of individuals. Thus, if I say human sacrifice is wrong, I am only saying that, in modern-day America (at least), human sacrifice is frowned upon, whereas if Zahatopolc the Inca says it's right, he is only saying that in his society it's allowed. Thus, once again, we can both be right.

One problem many have with this view is that it apparently makes it impossible to criticize other cultures. But in fact, many relativists endorse this consequence, defending it as the only really tolerant attitude. (Some, when they make this claim, even appear to treat toleration as a moral absolute.)

A subjectivist disagrees. According to subjectivism, moral statements don't state facts about the world (not even about what one or one's society believes). Rather, such statements express one's feelings about moral matters. So, if you say human sacrifice is wrong, you are not reporting what you or those in your group believe. You are expressing your disapproval. And there's no reason to claim that this disapproval doesn't apply to what others, including those in other cultures, believe or practice. That's why as a subjectivist, one can say slavery is wrong, period.

Note: There are many who confuse relativism with the idea that moral principles have exceptions. So if I state as a moral principle that (say) stealing is wrong, someone might object that in certain situations it is perfectly justified. For example, if the only way to save the life of someone who's been bitten by a venomous snake is by stealing some anti-venom, then you should do so. But that's not relativism. Non-relativists are perfectly willing to concede that moral principles have exceptions. Even killing an innocent person can be justified in some cases. All this means is that to correctly state a moral absolute, one would have to qualify the hell out of it. And because that's impractical, we state close approximations instead.

Subjectivism vs. objectivism

Moral objectivism is usually defined as the view that there are moral facts that do not depend on what anyone thinks, and which therefore are universal. It follows that for an objectivist, when someone makes a correct moral statement, they are not only expressing their view, they are also saying something true about reality. Objectivists therefore feel that something crucial is missing in the subjectivist view of things.

However, I can't see what's so important about there being independent moral facts that exist in addition to our moral commitments. When I say slavery is wrong, I'm expressing something I feel very strongly. I would not feel any different about it were I to find out that it is also a fact that slavery is wrong. It wouldn't make me oppose slavery even more.

Maybe objectivists also feel that on their view, it is possible to demonstrate what is really right and wrong (whereas on subjectivism that's obviously ruled out, since there isn't a “really” right or wrong, only how people feel about things). But as everyone should know, that's easier said than done. No one's come up with a theory of ethics that commands universal agreement, or anything close to it.

Lastly, objectivists of course assume that the particular moral views they themselves hold are the factually correct ones. But since people disagree over morality, it follows that if objectivism is true, most objectivists have a bunch of false moral beliefs. You may think slavery is wrong, but those who defend it based on what's in the Bible could be right. A subjectivist at least cannot have that problem. I disapprove of the Bible's acceptance of slavery, and that's that.

For all these reasons (and a few others), I don't see a problem with upholding subjectivism in ethics. It is not a view that in any way diminishes the importance of morality.


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]


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DOESN’T IT TAKE JUST AS MUCH FAITH TO BE AN ATHEIST?

12/4/2019

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[The following, posted in Debunking Christianity and in A Tippling Philosopher​, is an excerpt from my small book, Atheism: Q & A, the Kindle version of which is, for promotional purposes, free December 4 through December 8. The book consists of short entries that answer common criticisms of atheism. The paperback isn't free, but it is inexpensive — and might make a nice Winter Solstice gift for anyone who holds misconceptions about your views.]


The complaint that it takes just as much faith to be an atheist is a strange one. After all, it seems to imply that there’s something wrong with believing on faith — even though in every other context faith is regarded by believers as a virtue. Maybe all that is meant, however, is that everyone is in the same boat, ultimately basing their views on something other than reason and evidence, and that the atheist therefore has no right to single out the religious for criticism.

But is this really true? Does atheism rest on no firmer foundation than religion?

It’s often said that one cannot disprove the existence of God, and that therefore anyone who claims there is no God is going beyond the available evidence. The atheist must as a result rely on faith; if he didn’t do so — if he were sincere about relying only on reason and evidence — he’d be an agnostic instead.

This is a really bad argument, however, and the reason is simple: lack of proof does not mean lack of evidence. I cannot prove that the abominable snowman does not exist, but it doesn’t follow that my disbelief in that creature is a matter of faith: I have good reasons for concluding that the whole thing is a myth, even if these reasons fall short of proof. In fact, to claim that faith is needed whenever there isn’t proof is to claim that just about all our beliefs are a matter of faith; strictly speaking, there’s very little one can prove.

Even if the existence of God can’t be disproven, one can have good reasons for believing God does not exist. For instance, an all-powerful and perfectly good God would almost certainly have created a world with far less suffering than what we find, so at least that kind of deity — the one most theists accept — is at best highly unlikely. One can even reasonably claim to know that no such deity exists: knowledge does not require certainty, for once again, there’s very little we can be certain about. If knowledge required complete certainty, most of our scientific, historical, and even everyday knowledge would go out the window.

One should also be careful about insisting that God can’t be disproven. At least on certain definitions of “God,” his existence can be conclusively ruled out (and in my book The Truth about God I argue that on the traditional meaning of the word “god,” all gods are in fact impossible).

One final comment: it’s interesting that the religious often say their faith can be defended by reason. Their beliefs may be based on faith, but that doesn’t mean they cannot be backed up with hard, logical evidence — or so many theists claim. And yet, when they criticize atheists as being just as dependent on faith, they are obviously implying that atheists have no good reason for their beliefs. Which is it, then? Does faith rule out reason or not? One can’t have it both ways.


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THE REAL REASON GOD IS A PERFECT BEING

11/6/2019

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The God most theists believe in isn't merely a powerful non-physical being who created the universe; he is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, perfectly good and perfectly free being. And apparently male. Theologians might claim that he is also immutable, timeless, perfectly simple, impassible (that is, not affected by anything), and several other things besides. But what reasons could anyone possibly have for believing in such a God?

The standard arguments for God's existence — even assuming that they worked — do not support the above claims. For example, design arguments at best conclude that some intelligent being is responsible for the characteristics found in the universe (or for some of these characteristics). They don't say that this being is all-powerful or all-good; they don't even show that this being created the universe out of nothing (she might only have rearranged previously existing matter), or that this being still exists. Nor do they show that monotheism is more likely than polytheism. Cosmological arguments fare even worse: at best, they show that there is some ultimate cause that is itself uncaused, or that necessarily exists. But by themselves, these arguments do not support the idea that this ultimate cause is an intelligent being, much less that it is a perfectly just and benevolent heavenly father, or one who has any of the other properties claimed by theists.

Then there is what one might call the argument from scripture: the Bible, it is said, shows that God is at least to a great extent as described above. However, the Bible at most only suggests this. It says, for instance, that “with God, all things are possible.” But that is rather vague, and can be interpreted in more than one way. True, if taken at face value, it says God can do anything; but it can also be read more poetically as a suggestion to put one's faith in the very powerful — though not necessarily all-powerful — creator being. And there are other passages in the Bible that if taken at face value are incompatible with God being omnipotent. (The Bible does at least state pretty clearly that God is male. But that's the most ridiculous of the divine properties that believers insist on.)

There are also, of course, the ontological arguments, and those do say that God is omnipotent, perfectly good, and more. But hardly anyone accepts ontological arguments. When they first encounter Anselm's “proof,” most theists suspect that some trick is involved, and rightly so.

It seems clear that the real reason theists accept most of these claims about God is because that is what they want to believe. In the entry on omniscience in The Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Religion, George Mavrodes mentions three reasons, besides the Anselmian “perfect-God” theology, why someone might claim God is all-knowing. First, there are biblical passages that “suggest a very wide scope for divine knowledge.” (This has exactly the same problem as the ones used to support belief in an omnipotent God. A “very wide scope” isn't necessarily an all-encompassing one. Plus, there are biblical passages that suggest God isn't all-knowing.) Then there is “the conviction that without an appeal to omniscience one could not maintain a full confidence in God's ability to achieve His purposes in the world.” Finally, there is the idea that God is a being fully worthy or worship, and only a perfect being qualifies as such.

These last two reasons, however, translate to “I believe God is all-knowing for otherwise I wouldn't have as strong as possible a reason for putting my faith in this being.” And if that's a good reason for believing God is all-knowing, or has any of his other commonly-claimed properties, then we might as well believe that carts can pull horses.


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]
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ON THE DIVINE COMMAND THEORY, PART 2

10/9/2019

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In Part 1, we saw that the Modified Divine Command Theory (MDCT) attempts to avoid the Euthyphro dilemma by postulating that God's nature is such that he would never command, say, torturing babies (and thus make torturing babies good). However, it was argued that this solution doesn't work, for in place of the original dilemma, we can now ask, is what God commands good only because he has that specific nature, or would his commands still be good if his nature were different?

If the former, then what makes his commands good is that they are compatible with the particular nature that he has, and not merely because they are his commands. But then God is not needed as a basis for morality, since in this case what makes something moral is just that it conforms to what any being with that nature would want (whether such a being exists or not). And that is inconsistent with the MDCT.

If the latter, however, then his commands would still be good even if his nature were entirely different. And that means that if he did command torturing babies, it would be good to do so — and thus we have not avoided the problem that plagued the traditional Divine Command Theory.

Unsurprisingly, the above criticism has itself come under attack by proponents of the MDCT. Their attempts to fix the theory, however, reveal a deeper problem — namely, that they have two incompatible views as to what is essentially moral. Like almost everyone else, they believe that what's essentially moral are acts that are kind, fair, etc. Yet they also believe — or want very much to believe — that what's essentially moral is whatever God wants.

Some of them openly attempt to have it both ways. William Alston, for instance, claims that “God is good by virtue of being loving, just, merciful and so on” (i.e., he wouldn't be good otherwise) — but then says that these very things are good only “because they are features of God” (i.e., they wouldn't be good if there wasn't a God).* But that makes no sense.

We can perhaps more easily see that it doesn't by means of an analogy that Alston himself makes (though he of course draws a different conclusion from it):

The standard for the meter unit used to be a platinum bar kept at a constant temperature in Paris — just as the standard of goodness for divine command theorists is God. But now, if we think of the meter as being defined as the length of that bar (whatever it is at any given moment), it follows that if the bar expanded slightly, the meter would also become slightly longer. This corresponds to the view that good is defined as the will of God, so that if his will were different, what is good would be different as well. If, on the other hand, we think of the bar as being a meter because it is of a particular length, then if the bar expands slightly, it is no longer exactly a meter long. This corresponds to the view that God's will is good because he is a caring being, and would not be good if he weren't. But it's one or the other; one can't have it both ways. To claim that the bar is a meter long because it has that particular length, and that a meter just means the length of that bar (whatever it is), makes no sense. And that is what Alston is doing when it comes to morality.

Some proponents of the MDCT have attempted to escape the dilemma by claiming that God's properties are necessary. God could not be anything but the caring being that he is — and this, it is said, means that one cannot meaningfully consider what would be the case if he were different.

But even supposing God's properties could not be anything other than what they in fact are, it still remains the case that we don't necessarily know what they are. Therefore, it does make sense to ask what it would mean on this theory if God commanded something like torturing babies. To put it another way, we must distinguish between metaphysical and epistemic possibilities. It may be metaphysically impossible for God to command such a horrible thing, but we don't know that it is, and so must consider it as a possibility.

At this point, the proponent of the MDCT may reply that the theory is supposed to explain the metaphysical basis for morality; it isn't necessarily supposed to guarantee that we know what the correct morality is. We may not know what is or isn't possible for God to command, but the fact remains that there are certain things that it would be impossible for him to ask of us — and if in fact he is necessarily a caring being, he could not command horrible things like torturing babies.

But now the question one should ask is why the theist feels so confident that God's nature is that of a caring being. It can't be simply because he has revealed this to us, for he could be a being with the opposite characteristics who has so far been lying! Obviously, the reason theists think he is kind, fair, etc., is because they regard such things as good. But that just means they regard them as good independently of God having that nature. And that's incompatible with the MDCT.

The same thing applies if the proponent of the theory simply defines God as a caring being — so that if these weren't the creator's properties, the creator wouldn't be God. In that case, we could be certain that God wouldn't command horrible acts. But again, the question is, why define God this way unless it is because such properties are already regarded as good? The meter bar was selected as the standard in part because it was of the right length, the length of other measuring instruments that already existed to represent (albeit less precisely) meters. Similarly, God is thought of by divine command theorists to be the standard of goodness because he is thought to have a nature that is of the right type, a type that is independently regarded as good.

Proponents of the theory therefore should either admit that they accept independent moral principles, or else bite the bullet and say that morality depends on God's morally-arbitrary will, so that even torturing babies might turn out to be good. The MDCT does not solve the problems found in the traditional Divine Command Theory.


* William Alston, “What Euthyphro Should Have Said,” in William Lane Craig, ed., Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide, p. 292.


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]
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ON THE DIVINE COMMAND THEORY, PART 1

9/21/2019

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If you ask the average believer why killing an innocent person is wrong, chances are they will say something like, “because God commanded us not to murder.” This suggests that most Christians agree with the traditional Divine Command Theory (DCT). On this theory, what makes something right or wrong, good or bad, is God's will. Thus, killing an innocent person is morally wrong because God has a rule against murder, charity is right because he wants us to love our neighbor, and so on. I doubt whether the majority of Christians actually accept the DCT, however.

On a previous post, I argued that, if people actually learned morality from The Bible, then they would not find anything in it morally problematic. Similarly, if believers thought that what makes something right or wrong is nothing more than God's will, they should not find any of God's commands disturbing. On more than one occasion, the biblical God commanded the slaughter of women and children. If the DCT is correct, then that was obviously the right thing to do. Remember, all that it takes to make something good is God willing it. And yet, even when theists bite the bullet and say that there must have been a good reason for such a command, they show by their hesitation that they do not find it obvious at all. Similarly, consider the fact that God regarded slavery as permissible. Why don't most Christians today accept that? After all, the permissibility of owning other human beings follows straightforwardly from the DCT and the claim that the Bible is the word of God. But fortunately, most Christians apply an independent moral standard, and as a result reject the pro-slavery position (even if to do so they have to make up some excuse for God).

Most believers are also unaware of the so-called Euthyphro dilemma. In other words, they fail to distinguish between

“God wants us to do x because x is good,” and

“x is good because God wants us to do x.”

Thus, when they say that charity is good since God commanded us to be charitable, they may (at least upon reflection) actually mean the first of the above. But that is inconsistent with the DCT: If God wants us to do x because x is good, then the goodness of the act is independent of God's desiring it. The actual DCT is represented by the second option. That second option is, however, problematic, even if one ignores the bad things God commands in the Bible. For if all it takes for something to be good is God's will, then God can will that torturing children is good. And that is the main difficulty found in the DCT. If God were to will the opposite of what he supposedly has willed — if he decided that murder was good and charity bad — then killing innocent people would be right, and helping those in need would be a sin. And that's something most believers cannot accept.

It also follows from the DCT that if there is no God, nothing is right or wrong, which is rather implausible. Imagine two possible worlds that are exactly alike in every respect, except that in the first God exists, while in the second he doesn't. If in the first world, torturing children for fun is just about the worst thing one could do, how could it be that in the second world, the same act doesn't matter one way or the other? The suffering caused by the act is exactly the same in both worlds, so why should the existence or non-existence of God make any difference?

As implausible as this consequence of the DCT is, however, many believers welcome it, for it gives them an argument for theism (if there were no God, nothing would be right or wrong; but obviously some things are right and others wrong; therefore, God exists). Personally, I think this is too high a price to pay for having such an argument. To say that torturing children for fun is conceivably not immoral just so one can maintain that there is a God, is itself immoral. But whatever the proponent of the DCT thinks about this, the original dilemma remains. Either God has a moral reason for what he commands (in which case there is an independent moral standard and the DCT is false) or God's commands are morally arbitrary (in which case he could make anything right or wrong).


The Modified Divine Command Theory (MDCT) is designed to escape the horns of this dilemma by introducing a third option. According to the MDCT, God cannot will just anything to be good or bad because he wills in accordance with his nature. God is by nature loving, just, faithful, etc. He therefore would never command us to torture children or do anything else inconsistent with what such a being would want. According to proponents of the MDCT, this solves the problem, for now one no longer must choose either horn of the dilemma. (The problem that without God, nothing would be right or wrong remains, of course.)

But does this solution work? Not if the third option is problematic as well. The point of both the DCT and the MDCT is to explain the source of moral value. But the MDCT just raises a new Euthyphro-style dilemma: Is what God commands good only because he is a caring God, or would his commands still be good if he were different?

Let's consider each alternative in turn. Suppose that the first is correct: God's commands are good because he has a caring nature, and would not be good if he were uncaring. Then what makes his commands good is not that they are God's commands, but rather that they are those that a caring being agrees with. And if so, then there is an independent moral standard at play here. It must be the case that caring is good and its opposite bad, and this has nothing to do with God. And that's incompatible with any DCT, modified or not, for it means morality does not depend on God after all.

Suppose that one picks the second option instead: It is because they are God's commands, rather than because they are those of a caring being, that they are good. This way, morality depends on God. However, if God were the opposite, then his commands would still be good. And that means the original problem hasn't been solved. Therefore, the modified theory is no better than the original theory.


On the next post, I'll consider attempts by apologists to escape this problem.


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]



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IS SCIENCE INCONSISTENT WITH NATURALISM?

8/27/2019

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In “The Explanatory Emptiness of Naturalism” (another essay in Gilson & Weitnauer's anthology True Reason, which I mentioned a couple of posts back), religious philosopher and “former atheist sociopath”* David Wood, argues that, in order for there to be science, naturalism must be false. There are various reasons why he claims this is the case. These include the usual suspects, such as that naturalism is inconsistent with our ability to reason and that it cannot account for the uniformity in nature which science requires. (I've previously covered these issues, or something closely related to them, and rather than repeating myself have placed links to them below.) 

Some of the other reasons he offers also involve common complaints against naturalism, but in ways that are odd in this context. For example, he argues that naturalism is incompatible with the existence of the universe, and from this concludes that under naturalism it would be impossible to practice science! (After all, there first has to be a world before anyone can be a scientist.) But notice how odd this argument is (in addition to being wrong). Arguing that naturalism is incompatible with science because it is inconsistent with the existence of everything is, at the very least, overkill. Why worry about naturalism's incompatibility with science if naturalism is inconsistent with so much more than that? 

The last reason Wood covers for why naturalism and science don't mix is what he calls the problem of value. Naturalism, he says, implies there are no objective values. This, of course, is specifically denied by ethical naturalists, which is something Wood fails to mention. (Like most apologists, he writes as if anyone who is a naturalist must not accept objective morality.) Nevertheless, an argument can be made that Wood is partially right here: No one has ever been able to give a good account of moral principles based on natural facts. However, nothing about the ability to do science follows from this. 

Wood tries to show that lack of objective values rules out science as it's currently practiced by pointing out that at least some science is pursued as an end in itself. That is, although science can be pursued as a means to other ends (e.g., to improve health or food production), much of it is done for its own sake. But that means it is done because scientific discovery is regarded as good in itself. And this, he tells us, cannot be, given naturalism. For on the naturalist view, nothing is objectively good, but only good according to someone or other. The crux of his argument is this: 

“If we seek scientific knowledge because we value knowledge as good in itself (not simply for its benefits), and naturalism holds that nothing is good in itself, then naturalism will always undermine science” (p. 119). 

Wood's essay and the others printed in this book are attempts to show that it is Christian thinkers, and not atheists, who have reason on their side. And yet they contain arguments like the above. The equivocation in Wood's statement is so obvious that it could be used as an example of a fallacy in logic class. 

There are two distinct meanings of “good in itself” in the above passage. On the one hand, “good in itself” means that which is intrinsically, as opposed to instrumentally, good. In other words, that which is pursued as an end in itself as opposed to as a means to some other end. It is in this sense that some scientific knowledge is pursued only for its own sake, whereas other science is pursued with a more practical goal in mind. On the other hand, “good in itself” is used to mean objectively good (as opposed to the subjective sense in which something is considered good by some but not necessarily by others). Wood then conflates the two meanings. 

If there are no objective values, then the value that some of us put in knowledge itself is a subjective preference. We desire to know things. (Lots of other people couldn't care less, so they don't value such knowledge. That's their right.) There is no inconsistency at all in pursuing such knowledge while maintaining that it is not objectively valuable. The knowledge is regarded by us as valuable. It doesn't follow that it must be a fact, something everyone should acknowledge, that such knowledge is good. 


* Conservapedia 


Links: 

On an issue related to naturalism and reason: Stealing from God: Reason, Part 1 

On naturalism and the uniformity of nature: Presuppositionalism and Induction ​


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]


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