In Response to Known Critiques That Chris Has of the Cosmological Argument, and a few comments in reply to his response to the first part of God II

This is my reply to a passage detailing alleged problems with the cosmological argument taken from Chris' reply to my second major contribution to the original existence of God discussion. Chris says,

A self-existent universe is no less believable than a self-existent God. This is not a strictly atheist take on it, the Buddhist and Hindu religions believe this. This is not to say I'm endorsing one religion over another. I'm just trying to show that, well, as a great astronomer once said:

"As far as I know. It is the only ancient religious tradition on the Earth which talks about the right time-scale. We want to get across the concept of the right time-scale, and to show that it is not unnatural. In the West, people have the sense that what is natural is for the universe to be a few thousand years old, and that billions is indwelling, and no one can understand it. The Hindu concept is very clear. Here is a great world culture which has always talked about billions of years."

"Finally, the many billion year time-scale of Hindu cosmology is not the entire history of the universe, but just the day and night of Brahma, and there is the idea of an infinite cycle of births and deaths and an infinite number of universes, each with its own gods."

-Carl Sagan

Footnote [2] of my cosmological argument argues against the possibility of transgressing the infinite. But I would also like to point out the difference between billions and infinity. No matter how large a quantity is, if it can be depicted with a number, it is finite. In my cosmological argument I do not suggest adopting a view of any definite age of our universe, or whether it is billions of years old or several thousand years old has no bearing on my argument. All that needs to be true as regards the age of the cosmos for my cosmological argument to work is that our universe not have an infinite physical history.

Sagan does mention that the Hindu billion year time-scale isn't descriptive of the entire age of our universe, so I suppose that in this passage you are arguing that because other humans have found it possible to believe in an infinite universe, then it we should not be so afraid to follow suite. Or maybe you are saying that it is not unnatural for humans to believe in an infinite universe. Perhaps you are right in this, and some humans have been able to postulate an infinite universe, but I would like to offer footnote [2] then, as evidence against this postulate for such humans to consider. In it I raise both logical and empirical arguments that the universe had a beginning. Perhaps the Hindus, along with Sagan, should reconsider the logical coherency of a universe whose physical past stretches out forever. I would also like to add a note that Hindu cosmology and soteriology is cyclical (which is precisely how they believe that it is eternal while avoiding the strict chronological infinite regress problem, although they do so at the expense of taking on the burden of a whole new set of problems), and logically depends on both reincarnation and the existence of immortal souls. Are you and Sagan prepared to grant these as well?

You also mention self-existence; so perhaps you maintaining that physical things can be self-existent. Is your view of this different from your view of infinity? My personal belief is that God is not infinite in the sense that the timeline of His existence stretches out in both directions without end. As my answer to objection one states, God is outside of time and is not susceptible to being objected to on the grounds of the impossibility of an infinite regression. In His case, self-existence is different than chronological infinity.

Perhaps then you are advocating universal self-existence just as I am advocating Divine self-existence. Alas, you do say, "A self-existent universe is no less believable than a self-existent God". My answer to objection four, and footnote [4] both address this issue, and explain why it is that God can be self-existent, while matter and energy cannot be. The simple reality is that objects that are extended in space are by necessity also extended in time. Their past cannot be infinite, as they would never approach the ontological "now". Nor can they have brought themselves into existence, for such a notion is a logical contradiction. How can matter that exists not only be the cause of its own existence, but the source of existence itself?

But an object Who is not extended in space and time, Who does not experience a series of moments, an ontological starting line, or a coming into being, may certainly be the very Fountainhead of existence itself. Such a Being may certainly be the everlasting source of even His own existence. The clever turning of the verb "to be" into the proper name "I AM" would be the way I would expect such a Being to introduce Himself.

The next objection reads,

Moving backwards in time the further back you go, the closer you get to the actual big bang, the more the laws of physics as we know them break down until they cease to apply.

The theist could easily turn this around. Why not say that the fact that the closer you get to the Big Bang, "the more the laws of physics as we know them break down until they cease to apply", should indicate that the physical laws were in the process of being created? Wouldn't the behavior of the universe in ways that deviate from physical laws be classified as a miracle? See also my answer to objection 6.

The next one is:

[The] laws of physics here and now may require causality, but in the Planck epoch or {10 to the -43rd}th of a second after the big bang and earlier it's not so clear. Also, newly emerging models of parallel worlds as well as other cycles of expansion and collapse of the oscillatory model of the universe may have physical laws are very different than they are in this universe.

This is thoroughly addressed in my answer to objection 6, and footnote [2].

Then Chris says,

Assuming for the moment that all that is had a first cause, nothing suggests that cause was a god.

This is a common objection to the cosmological argument, and I basically agree with it. The cosmological argument cannot tell us much about the creator of our universe. All we learn from it is that it is nonphysical, it created everything, and it is self-existent. According to the cosmological argument, there could be multiple nonphysical, self-existent objects, one or more of which (or whom) were involved with the causation of our universe. Calling the first cause "God" is quite a bit pretentious. Because I hope to develop my argument over the course of several months, I am simply using the conclusions of the cosmological argument as my starting place for defining "God". I have not claimed that the cosmological argument proves the Christian view of God.

Chris then says,

You state you're not making assumptions about the 'first cause' then you claim prima fascia evidence for a 'creator'. The word creator implies an intelligence entity. That's a rather large assumption.

In the version of my cosmological argument, I do cite a dictionary to ground my use of the term "creator". I don't mean to imply intelligence by this term, although I hope to go on to argue for the intelligence of the creator in later posts. If you feel that the act of creation itself implies intelligence or at least intentionality, then that is your own intuition, and perhaps you should reflect on it. I hope that the argument I developed no longer causes my evidence for a creator to fall into the category 'prima fascia', even if I end up being wrong.

Chris asks me,

"scientismists?"

"Scientismists" was meant to be two things. First, a mockery of George W., who consistently says things in the tradition of his classic "strategery", and I occasionally like to allow myself to be caught up in Bushisms. The second thing the term is supposed to be is a statement about some scientists, who believe that science is the only veridical enterprise. Such a view has been labeled "scientism", and the word "scientist" is already taken, so why not call them scientismists? I guess its not that funny, sorry. See also my reply to your comments about science quoted below.

Chris next comment in the course of our discourse is,

I've run into many explicitly non-Christians who talk about an afterlife but I never met anyone who claims to be an atheist that does.

I don't really mean to get into arguments over whether or not some atheists make claims about the afterlife. But I am enjoying the general ebb and flow of our conversation, and although this post will inevitably be long, I would like to make a comment.

I think you misinterpreted me. I didn't mean to say that a lot of atheists make claims about what the afterlife will be like. I meant to say that a lot of atheists make claims about the afterlife based on science (e.g. "there is no afterlife"). I guess what interests me is that modern science often qualifies itself as only responsible for handling physical data. If souls are nonphysical, how can one object to belief in their existence or that they persist after death, based solely on science? It seems their analysis lies outside the domain of physical science.

Although only semi-related, I thought I would drop in a quotation of an atheist on the topic. I find the first paragraph of the quotation interestingly in support of premise (4) of my cosmological argument.

And now as to life after death. Endless life after death would be a form of infinity, and for actual infinities there can be no good evidence. But is there good evidence for any life after death?

A great deal of the evidence offered for life after death depends on the doctrine that there is a god, and is valueless because that doctrine is false. However, some people have believed that there is no god and yet is an afterlife; and spiritualists and mediums offer us evidence of survival independent of the question whether there is a god. I have never attended a spiritualist performance, but I have read some of their reports. I think I can safely say that no afterlife of any difference in quality from this life has been reported, and no afterlife of any interest. The stuff they offer us is deadly dull. However, it might be true for all that. Homer believed that there is an afterlife and it is deadly dull.

I judge that it is false, and that all these reports of messages from the dead are false. (By which I do not mean that they are all frauds or lies. No doubt many of them are sincere. It is desirable to repeat from time to time that a falsehood is not the same as a lie. A falsehood can be sincerely uttered, and a lie can be true.) These reports have the pattern of inventions, the vagueness, the poverty, the similarity to each other, the comfortingness, and the insistence on circumstances that make criticism difficult, such as darkness and reverence.

My main reason for thinking there is no afterlife is that it seems immensely probable that everything we know as life depends on there being a living body. All that part of life which consists in the activity of a living body selfevidently depends on there being a living body, for example, eating, tasting, running, laughing, kissing. The life that does not selfevidently depend on there being a living body is the interior life of the mind, including reasoning, imagining, dreaming, and other activities and experiences. But it seems quite clear that we have overwhelming physiological evidence that this mental life, too, depends on the activity of a living body, and ceases when there is no longer a good brain with good blood flowing through it in the right quantity.

-Positive Atheism

I am not really trying to prove anything here, and I will have to consider his claims in another post about souls, but I found it interesting enough to pass on. It's also interesting that his argument against the afterlife only works on the assumption that there is no God, and that naturalism is true.

Ok, so you go on about souls,

Many people atheist and otherwise talk of the soul as an abstract aspect of the human psychology...

The same way they talk of unicorns not existing. There's been no credible evidence of a soul as thought of in religious terms existing so there's no reason to act as if one does. There is no burden of "dis-proof" science bares. You want them to believe in a supernatural soul, give them some proof

In response to the first comment, I say you're right. In fact, to be a naturalist, one has to account for qualia physio-neurologically, which is a very shaky ground to find yourself on. The arguments of David Chalmers are pretty persuasive that such accounts (such as epiphenomonalism, other less successful wannabe dualisms, and naturalism) ultimately fail to make sense of a lot of facts (cf. especially his work on zombies, and Searle's Chinese Room Argument is good too - even though Searle refuses the label "substance dualist", well... he is one). But aside from these most excellent philosophers, take a look at what the neurologists and agnostics themselves are coming up with these days.

Penfield began his scientific career with the belief that a complete explanation of the brain mechanisms underlying our various mental functions would amount to an understanding of the mind itself. In 1975, a year before his death, he published a book significantly titled The Mystery of the Mind. In that book, after reflecting on what he had lent about brain mechanisms after decades of research, he declared that 'it comes as a surprise now to discover, during this final examination of the evidence, that the dualist hypothesis seems the more reasonable' (p. 85)... Penfield was drawn to the 'dualist hypothesis' because not once in countless surgeries did artificial stimulation of brain tissue ever 'cause a patient to believe or to decide' (p. 77). Furthermore, he knew of no cases in which the initial brain activity associated with an epileptic seizure induced a belief or decision.

-[Cooney, Brian (2000). The Place of Mind. United States: Matrix Productions Inc.]


In the past, atheists suggested that the mind is nothing more than a function of the brain, which is matter; thus the mind and the brain are the same, and matter is all that exists. However, that viewpoint is no longer intellectually credible, as a result of the scientific experiments of British neurologist, Sir John Eccles. Dr. Eccles won the Nobel Prize for distinguishing that the mind is more than merely physical. He showed that the supplementary motor area of the brain may be fired by mere intention to do something, without the motor cortex of the brain (which controls muscle movements) operating. In effect, the mind is to the brain what a librarian is to a library. The former is not reducible to the latter. Eccles explained his methodology in The Self and Its Brain, co-authored with the renowned philosopher of science, Sir Karl Popper (see Popper and Eccles, 1977). In a discussion centering on Dr. Eccles’ work, Norman Geisler discussed the concept of an eternal, all-knowing Mind.

{That book reference is: [Popper, Karl R. and John C. Eccles (1977), The Self and Its Brain. New York: Springer International.]}

From evidence such as that presented here, Robert Jastrow (an agnostic, by his own admission) was forced to conclude: “That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proved fact” (1982, p. 18). The evidence speaks clearly regarding the existence of a non-contingent, eternal, self-existent Mind that created this Universe and everything within it.

{That book reference is: [Jastrow, Robert (1982), “A Scientist Caught Between Two Faiths,” Interview with Bill Durbin, Christianity Today, August 6.]}

-The Case For the Existence of God

Chris, its not that there is no scientific or credible evidence of souls existing, and dualists, such as us Christians, bear the burden of proof. The simple fact is that I experience life as a soul, I feel, I think, I decide, etc. If you want to make the claim there is no soul, then you bear the responsibility of demonstrating such a claim. The default position seems to be dualist, as we all experience life from our own perspective, as if there was some sort of consciousness inside.

So the next thread is:

Though there are Christians who act with love and strive for excellence, I wouldn't say love and excellence are themselves typical Christian behavior, particularly when it comes to Christendom's lamentable influence on both non-believers and on scientific progress.

Although love and excellence have not always characterized the behaviors of Christians, they are Christ-like traits. Indeed, "Christian" insofar as it means "Christ-like" is a bit of a misnomer. Historically those claiming the name for themselves haven't always exhibited the corresponding traits. The behavior of Christians, along with what it means to be Christian, will have to be dealt with in a separate post someday.

But do you really lament Christianity's influence on scientific progress (also cf. "Men of Science/Men of Faith" HIS, May 1976, pp. 26-31)?

I will admit here that certain churches at certain times (like the Roman Catholic church in Galileo's time) have inhibited, rejected, refuted, or burned important scientific works. This is tragic and regrettable.

In Galileo's case, men who took both clear thinking and Biblical special revelation seriously were motivated to take a second look at what scripture actually teaches. The Bible itself in many places instructs us to observe the natural world in order to learn about God, and find illumination for scripture. We should be consistently going back to the Bible and rechecking our interpretation work according to sound hermeneutics so that we can be sure we are getting out of it what we are meant to. As to astronomy, once those Christians looked again at the meaning of the passages the Catholic church used to reject Galileo's findings, they found that, had they interpreted them correctly and according to solid interpretation principles, they would not have been led to reject Galileo's findings. Moreover, had the Catholic church listened to Jesus, they wouldn't have rejected Galileo merely on the bases of his scientific beliefs anyway - even if they disagreed. The problem was with Papal Authority being made equal to and/or greater than scripture, a problem scripture warns against, and one of the reasons for Great Schism and the Reformation.

Next comment:

The insular life many Christians lead (fundies especially), socializing primarily in church circles, home schooling and attending religious colleges, enjoying primarily religious entertainment media and such keeps them from being exposed in a meaningful way to differing ways of thinking and from hearing first hand about divergent opinion and worldview. When they learn about science and evolution it's with a "theized for your protection" Christian slant.

You are correct in your assessment and judgment about this, and it is unfortunate. Such Christians are not living Biblically, as the Bible teaches us to live in the world (while maintaining distinction from it in terms of moral living and correct beliefs about God). We are supposed to be dynamically engaged in pop culture, exposing ourselves to various viewpoints and making friends of all types. Pastors themselves should preach with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Sectarianism is not the way to go. But anyone who holds firm convictions about anything (even atheists) should avoid syncretism as well, as it degrades the human will, by saying that all choices are ultimately the same.

As to my own life, I admit heavy exposure to scientists who are Christian, but this was not the case for me in high school, and it I have been making concerted efforts to read from a variety of philosophical, theological, and scientific sources over the last year.

As to whether my secular/sacred balance of informational sources and social relationships is healthy, I can't help but say that you probably have no idea, and are not positioned to make a judgment (not that you are, I hope).

I emotionally feel the need to defend a place like Biola University from your accusation that its classes on science and evolution are "theized for your protection", but with all due respect, your comment just reflects ignorance of the facts.

As to other colleges, such as Calvary Chapel Bible College, I can't make any judgments, as I don't know very much about them. I do know that they are not accredited, and make no claim to being liberal arts oriented. Hence "Bible college".

Christianity is incoherent with logic or science. (ex. water into wine, regaining life after dying and three days of decomposition)

Turning water into wine and bodily resurrection aren't scientifically impossible. Perhaps improbable, but that doesn't make Christianity irreconcilable with science and logic. Sometimes "miracle" is defined as a breech in physical law, in which case Christianity does not demand that one believes in them. It is an epistemic possibility that both events actually occurred, and, should we have had the appropriate knowledge and instruments, we could have examined the details to discover how it is that they came about. Other times "miracle" is defined as "something remarkable", something awe-inspiring. In this case, one best believe that certain things are worthy of awe. There are things that only occur rarely. Indeed, such things as random genetic mutations defy common experience at face-value. However, when we begin examining the microbiological issues surrounding mutations, we start to unravel their causes. Could it be that in similar cases, unexpected or rare occurrences such as the transformation of water into wine, and the bodily resurrection from the dead of a person, could maintain both their rarity and their scientific plausibility? In fact, many who deny the teleological argument admit that although it was unlikely, the universe was actually caused by unintelligent, random processes. To believe in such an improbable event and then turn around and deny miracles is problematic.

Or is it possible that "miracles", defined as breeches in physical laws, are possible too? If it were so that a nonphysical, self-existent being created everything, maybe even physical laws as well, then it might not be that difficult to imagine. Just as the programmer of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 can temporarily "break" the laws that he has set up to govern gameplay, in order to accomplish something he wants to. If we are operating under the definition of "science" that excludes exceptions to physical laws, then miracles in this sense are not classified therein, even if they are possible in a broadly logical sense. But we have to qualify that science in this sense isn't the only means to knowledge. If we are operating under the definition of "science" that includes all means to knowledge, then Divine Revelation and historical records would count, in which case miracles of this type may be categorized as within the realm of science (more on this a little further down this post).

When you define science in the way that excludes exceptions to physical laws, by the way, you will run into problems when trying to scientifically learn about our universe before the Planck Epoch.

To make the brute claim that the future will always and necessarily resemble the past in such a way that miracles (as breeches in physical laws) are impossible, then you will violate an important principle of the Skeptic's:

For all inferences from experience suppose as their foundation that the future will resemble the past and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar qualities. If there is any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless and can give rise to no inference of conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future, since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things be allowed up to now ever so regular, that alone, without some new argument of inference, does not prove that for the future it will continue so. In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature and, consequently, all their effects and influence may change without any change in their sensible qualities. This happens sometimes and with regard to some objects. Why may it not happen always and with regard to all objects? What logic, what process of argument secures you against this supposition? My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purport of my question. As an agent, I am quite satisfied in the point, but as a philosopher who has some share of curiosity--I will not say skepticism--I want to learn the foundation of this inference. No reading, no inquiry has yet been able to remove my difficulty or give me satisfaction in a matter of such importance.

-David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Section IV, Part II).

The "scientific", "skeptical" materialistic atheists will claim that just because we haven't found physical causes for things like the existence of our universe, doesn't mean that they don't exist. Science is committed to finding them. This commitment is an argument from ignorance, and it is based on faith. There is no logical proof that could ever justify the claim "there are always and only physical causes according to physical laws". And because there is no justification for belief in such a proposition, it can only be accepted by faith. Science should be more open minded than this. I put quotes around "skeptical" as well, asserting that the discounting of nonphysical factors in the causation of things like the existence of our universe, turning water into wine, or bodily resurrection, is an unnecessary narrowing of the mind. Consider another quote from the same author, in Part I of Section V of the same work:

There is, however, one species of philosophy which seems little liable to this inconvenience, and that because it strikes in with no disorderly passion of the human mind, nor can mingle itself with any natural affection or propensity; and that is the Academic or skeptical philosophy. The academics always talk of doubt and suspense of judgment, of danger in hasty determinations, of confining to very narrow bounds the inquiries of the understanding, and of renouncing all speculations which do not lie within the limits of common life and practice.

The medievals thought that the heavenly bodies were incorruptible. To them, belief that the sun might not rise tomorrow would be silly. But now we know that stars are born, and stars explode. It is not so irrational to think that despite the experience of every human on record it just the sun just might not rise tomorrow. It just might explode instead. We know that this is scientifically possible, and even probable over the long term. Could it be that although we think we understand the human body and its death and the nature of liquids and their synthesis, but are not considering possible factors that have not yet been thoroughly understood? Is the miraculous any more impossible, or even different than, an apple's attraction to the earth, a baby being born, a star collapsing, or a lover's sacrifice?

When I ask skeptics about miracles, they usually say that they have never personally heard of any happening. But what about the case that Brianna cited? What about the case that I cited? I can collect more testimonies if you want. How many would you need to be convinced? How many doctors would need to be dumbfounded by the results of post-prayer tests for you to believe in miracles? How many historical records of miracles would you need to read about before you are convinced?

What's interesting is that the book of Isaiah records God Himself as actually using the reliability of physical laws as a basis for telling people to trust in Him.

Regarding the Catholic Church, could it be that because they defined miracles as breeches in physical laws, they ran into problems when science started showing that physical laws are reliable? Maybe they should have viewed miracles as merely awe-inspiring, rare occurrences. And shouldn't they be attributing everything to God in some sense, even the ordinary?

If you can show me specifically how it is that you can know that it is literally and terminally and by all reasonable accounts impossible for the dead to rise or for water to be turned into wine, then I will have to start taking objections to miracles more seriously.

I also highly recommend C. S. Lewis' and William Lane Craig's works on miracles, they explain a lot.

Next you say,

You keep trying to advance the idea that science is a religion. It isn't.

Ok, sorry. Let me elaborate. Science is not a religion, and I never meant to claim it as such. It is a method. In my opinion it is a good method for acquiring knowledge, but certainly not the only veridical one.

"Scientism", according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the

excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques.

The same also offers one definition of religion as

a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance

and faith as

complete trust or confidence in someone or something... a strongly held belief or theory

Under these definitions "scientism" falls into the category "religion", even though science is not a religion.

"Empiricism" (which often goes hand-in-hand with Scientism) is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as

the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience

This would discount logic as a means to acquire knowledge. This would constitute a religious belief under the above definitions. Moreover, this is what the scientific method post was in refutation of. To make the claim that sensory data is the only veridical type is in itself a philosophical claim, undermining Empiricism itself. What sensory data can one provide that justifies the claim that only sensory data is veridical? And the moment one gropes for philosophical data, he concedes the philosopher's point. I am not calling you an Empiricist or a "Scientismist", as you allow logic to be used in the quest for knowledge, but we seem to be missing each other here with these terms, so I am clarifying my use of them.

I would like to note that empirical evidence carries weight with me, but I reject Empiricism as defined here.

"Naturalism" is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as

a philosophical viewpoint according to which everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted

Quite often modern scientists hold to such a philosophy, but they should not pretend that the philosophy itself is the only paradigm science can operate within. There are plenty of respectable scientists and philosophers who are not naturalists.

Some define "science" in a more philologically correct way. Scienta is Latin for "to know", in which case all means of acquiring knowledge fall into the category "science". The medieval philosophers, scientists, and theologians considered theology to be "the queen of the sciences", because it is a means to acquire knowledge of the most important Object in existence.

I have time for one more today:

To reiterate what I've probably said before; there's a difference between the meaning of the word 'theory' in common usage and in scientific usage.

I understand the scientific use of the term "theory", and was crediting Evolution as being one. It was a compliment. This is of course not to concede Darwinian Evolution as my viewpoint, but I was indeed trying to demonstrate my understanding of the term, and show some respect for Evolution as a theory.

Anyway, I know there is still more to your reply that I haven't addressed, but I'll get there. I am dying to hear from you, though. How are you? Where are you at with all of this? Are you in a place where you're saying "these kids are so stupid, they misinterpret me, they don't know what they're talking about, and there is no use trying to argue with them." Or are you reconsidering certain details of your world view, or are you just taking a little hiatus?

All the best to everyone.

Nietzsche & Jesus

On page's 6-7 of his translation and edition with commentary on "On the Genealogy of Morals" and "Ecce Homo" (New York: 1989) Walter Kaufman says about Nietzsche's readers:

[They are] tempted to add that the kind of obscurantism he abominated involves irremediable ambiguities which lead to endless discussion, while his terms, whether German or foreign, are unequivocal. That is true up to a point--but not quite. Nietzsche had an almost pathological weakness for one particular kind of ambiguity: he loved words and phrases that mean one thing out of context and almost the opposite in the context he gives them. He loved language as poets do and relished these "revaluations." All of them involve a double meaning, one exoteric and one esoteric, one--to put it crudely--wrong, and the other right. The former is bound to lead astray hasty readers, browsers, and that rapidly growing curse of our time--the non-readers who do not realize that galloping consumption is a disease.

The body of knowledge keeps increasing at incredible speed, but the literature of nonknowledge grows even faster. Books multiply like mushrooms, or rather like toadstools--mildew would be still more precise--and even those who read books come perforce to depend more and more on knowledge about books, writers, and, if possible--for this is the intellectual, or rather the nonintellectual, equivalent of a bargain--movements. As long as one knows about existentialism, one can talk about a large number of authors without having actually read their books.

I want to take the time to consider arguments charitably, even perhaps daring to research some citations and recommendations made by their authors. I can't help but compare Nietzsche's passion for a distinct kind of obfuscation with Jesus' as recorded in Matthew 13:10-16:

And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" Jesus answered them, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND;
YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE;
FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL,
WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR,
AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES,
OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES,
HEAR WITH THEIR EARS,
AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN,
AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.

But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear."

German Theology

glory

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." -Revelation 21:1-4

I can't help but often times dwell on the hope of things to come. For the day when we shall see Christ face to face; when all Christians will be unified under his authority, and we will all be brothers and sisters, not as we are now, but as we should be; when all wrongs shall be forgiven, one to another, and we will love each other as we are. Not for the benefits or usefulness we gain from one another, but wholly and truly; when all tensions and bitternesses have completely passed out of memory, and everyone can live together in the perfect peace of God. I hunger and thirst for that day.

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

St. John of Damascus and John Searle of Berkeley on deliberation.

comment: I've been reading St. John of Damascus lately and I was struck by the similarity of thought between him and John Searle concerning deliberation and freewill. These two are probably ignorant of one another (I doubt Searle has read St. John of Damascus) and yet thier reasoning is alike. I felt compelled to share my findings with Raw (a)Theology.

John Searle
Prof. of Philosophy, UC Berkeley
From Rationality in Action, pg. 142

The connection between rationality and the gap of freedom is this: rationality applies only where there is a free choice, because rationality must be able to make a difference. If my actions are really completely caused by my beliefs and desires, so that I really can’t help myself, then I have no choice and rationality can make no difference at all to my behavior. If I am in the grip of causally sufficient conditions, there is no room for deliberation to operate and my actions falls outside the scope of rational assessment. Furthermore a demand for justification makes sense only in cases where alternative possibilities were open to the agent.



St. John of Damascus

Doctor and Saint of both the Eastern and Western Churches
From Chap. XXVII and XXV of An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

Concerning what is in our own power, that is, concerning Free-will. (XXV)

The first enquiry involved in the consideration of free-will, that is, of what is in our own power, is whether anything is in our power: for there are many who deny this. The second is, what are the things that are in our power, and over what things do we have authority? The third is, what is the reason for which God Who created us endued us with free-will? So then we shall take up the first question, and firstly we shall prove that of those things which even our opponents grant, some are within our power. And let us proceed thus.

Of all the things that happen, the cause is said to be either God, or necessity, or fate, or nature, or chance, or accident. But God's function has to do with essence and providence: necessity deals with the movement of things that ever keep to the same course: fate with the necessary accomplishment of the things it brings to pass (for fate itself implies necessity): nature with birth, growth, destruction, plants and animals; chance with what is rare and unexpected. For chance is defined as the meeting and concurrence of two causes, originating in choice but bringing to pass something other than what is natural: for example, if a man finds a treasure while digging a ditch: for the man who hid the treasure did not do so that the other might find it, nor did the finder dig with the purpose of finding the treasure: but the former hid it that he might take it away when he wished, and the other's aim was to dig the ditch: whereas something happened quite different from what both had in view. Accident again deals with casual occurrences that take place among lifeless or irrational things, apart from nature and art. This then is their doctrine. Under which, then, of these categories are we to bring what happens through the agency of man, if indeed man is not the cause and beginning of action? for it would not be right to ascribe to God actions that are sometimes base and unjust: nor may we ascribe these to necessity, for they are not such as ever continue the same: nor to fate, for fate implies not possibility only but necessity: nor to nature, for nature's province is animals and plants: nor to chance, for the actions of men are not rare and unexpected: nor to accident, for that is used in reference to the casual occurrences that take place in the world of lifeless and irrational things. We are left then with this fact, that the man who acts and makes is himself the author of his own works, and is a creature endowed with free-will.

Further, if man is the author of no action, the faculty of deliberation is quite superfluous for to what purpose could deliberation be put if man is the master of none of his actions? for all deliberation is for the sake of action. But to prove that the fairest and most precious of man's endowments is quite superfluous would be the height of absurdity. If then man deliberates, he deliberates with a view to action. For all deliberation is with a view to and on account of action.

Concerning the reason of our endowment with Free-will. (XXVII)

We hold, therefore, that free-will comes on the scene at the same moment as reason, and that change and alteration are congenital to all that is produced. For all that is produced is also subject to change. For those things must be subject to change whose production has its origin in change. And change consists in being brought into being out of nothing, and in transforming a substratum of matter into something different. Inanimate things, then, and things without reason undergo the aforementioned bodily changes, while the changes of things endowed with reason depend on choice. For reason consists of a speculative and a practical part. The speculative part is the contemplation of the nature of things, and the practical consists in deliberation and defines the true reason for what is to be done. The speculative side is called mind or wisdom, and the practical side is called reason or prudence. Every one, then, who deliberates does so in the belief that the choice of what is to be done lies in his hands, that he may choose what seems best as the result of his deliberation, and having chosen may act upon it. And if this is so, free-will must necessarily be very closely related to reason. For either man is an irrational being, or, if he is rational, he is master of his acts and endowed with free-will. Hence also creatures without reason do not enjoy free-will: for nature leads them rather than they nature, and so they do not oppose the natural appetite, but as soon as their appetite longs after anything they rush headlong after it. But man, being rational, leads nature rather than nature him, and so when he desires aught he has the power to curb his appetite or to indulge it as he pleases. Hence also creatures devoid of reason are the subjects neither of praise nor blame, while man is the subject of both praise and blame.

Note also that the angels, being rational, are endowed with free-will, and, inasmuch as they are created, are liable to change. This in fact is made plain by the devil who, although made good by the Creator, became of his own free-will the inventor of evil, and by the powers who revolted with him, that is the demons, and by the other troops of angels who abode in goodness.

St. John of Damascus' proof that there is a God.

St. John of Damascus
Alive around 680. To be commemorated on December 4th.





Proof that there is a God.
(from Chap. III in An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.)

That there is a God, then, is no matter of doubt to those who receive the Holy Scriptures, the Old Testament, I mean, and the New; nor indeed to most of the Greeks. For, as we said [in Chapter 1], the knowledge of the existence of God is implanted in us by nature. But since the wickedness of the Evil One has prevailed so mightily against man's nature as even to drive some into denying the existence of God, that most foolish and woe-fullest pit of destruction (whose folly David, revealer of the Divine meaning, exposed when he said, "The fool said in his heart, There is no God" [Ps. 13(14):1]), so the disciples of the Lord and His Apostles, made wise by the Holy Spirit and working wonders in His power and grace, took them captive in the net of miracles and drew them up out of the depths of ignorance to the light of the knowledge of God. In like manner also their successors in grace and worth, both pastors and teachers, having received the enlightening grace of the Spirit, were wont, alike by the power of miracles and the word of grace, to enlighten those walking in darkness and to bring back the wanderers into the way. But as for us who are not recipients either of the gift of miracles or the gift of teaching (for indeed we have rendered ourselves unworthy of these by our passion for pleasure), come, let us in connection with this theme discuss a few of those things which have been delivered to us on this subject by the expounders of grace, calling on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

All things, that exist, are either created or uncreated.

If, then, things are created, it follows that they are also wholly mutable. For things, whose existence originated in change, must also be subject to change, whether it be that they perish or that they become other than they are by act of will. But if things are uncreated they must in all consistency be also wholly immutable.

For things which are opposed in the nature of their existence must also be opposed in the mode of their existence, that is to say, must have opposite properties: who, then, will refuse to grant that all existing things, not only such as come within the province of the senses, but even the very angels, are subject to change and transformation and movement of various kinds? For the things appertaining to the rational world, I mean angels and spirits and demons, are subject to changes of will, whether it is a progression or a retrogression in goodness, whether a struggle or a surrender; while the others suffer changes of generation and destruction, of increase and decrease, of quality and of movement in space.

Things then that are mutable are also wholly created. But things that are created must be the work of some maker, and the maker cannot have been created. For if he had been created, he also must surely have been created by some one, and so on till we arrive at something uncreated. The Creator, then, being uncreated, is also wholly immutable. And what could this be other than Deity?

And even the very continuity of the creation, and its preservation and government, teach us that there does exist a Deity, who supports and maintains and preserves and ever provides for this universe. For how could opposite natures, such as fire and water, air and earth, have combined with each other so as to form one complete world, and continue to abide in indissoluble union, were there not some omnipotent power which bound them together and always is preserving them from dissolution?

What is it that gave order to things of heaven and things of earth, and all those things that move in the air and in the water, or rather to what was in existence before these, viz., to heaven and earth and air and the elements of fire and water? What was it that mingled and distributed these? What was it that set these in motion and keeps them in their unceasing and unhindered course? Was it not the Artificer of these things, and He Who hath implanted in everything the law whereby the universe is carried on and directed?

Who then is the Artificer of these things? Is it not He Who created them and brought them into existence. For we shall not attribute such a power to the spontaneous [lit. "automatic"]. For, supposing their coming into existence was due to the spontaneous; what of the power that put all in order? And let us grant this, if you please. What of that which has preserved and kept them in harmony with the original laws of their existence ? Clearly it is something quite distinct from the spontaneous . And what could this be other than Deity?

contra the possibility of atheological morality

Twice has the question of whether morality can exist without God come up at Raw Theology. It has been been answered "no" by two people coming from two different perspectives. A key sentence from a treasured theist on board with Raw Theology, Derek, in his post contra Dostoevsky goes as follows,

“morality, therefore God” seems no more enlightening than “grapes, therefore God”

A resident atheist, my beloved cousin Chris, issued forth a similar claim, which can be found in his reply to my second major post on the existence of God. The claim is developed across several key sentences, and they are:

"Many of the nicest, most caring, most giving, most honest people I know are either atheist or claim a non-Abrahamic religion. Many societies, some quite advanced have existed peacefully for eons before and after monotheism."

"There are many secular explanations for and systems of morality."

"Their is a standard to the way the morality of any given society is formed, but not to specific morals themselves."

Well today I am going to beg to differ with my two friends and attempt to defend the proposition that morality cannot be coherently posited while denying the existence of God.

Let me first address Derek's statement. I hope to demonstrate that morality is so tied to God's existence that to believe in morality renders an atheist's view incoherent. And I hope to do this in a way that is distinct from my argument for God's existence from grapes. However, I am slightly disappointed that you failed to give my cosmological argument even one glance during the course of your post. For, certainly grapes are composed of matter and energy, a fact that lends itself to my argument such that I am justified in restating it thus:

1. [GRAPES] exist
2. The first law of thermodynamics states that [GRAPES] can be exchanged, but [GRAPES] can[NOT] be created [OR] destroyed
3. Therefore either
     a) [GRAPES] have always existed, or
     b) [GRAPES] had a beginning
4. It is impossible to transgress an infinite amount of time
5. Therefore (3a) is false
6. Therefore (3b) is true [entailed by (3), (4), and (5)]
7. Therefore either
     a) [GRAPES] caused themselves to come into being, or
     b) [GRAPES] were caused to come into being by something that was [NOT A GRAPE]
10. For an object to cause something, that object must exist
11. Before [GRAPES] existed, [GRAPES] did not exist
12. Therefore, [GRAPES] did not cause their own existence [entailed by (10) and (11)]
12. Therefore (7a) is false
13. Therefore (7b) is true [entailed by (7), (8), (9), (10), (11), and (12)]

Ok, this seems a little silly. The second law doesn't say that grapes can be exchanged but never created or destroyed. But the fact that matter and energy can be exchange but never created or destroyed does entail the inability of grapes to come into existence ex nihilo. So with a single dose of imagination - POW! You can run the argument again and come out with a conclusion: grapes came into existence by the power of something that was not a grape!

Surely even the "trousered ape", as C. S. Lewis might say, would be swift to point out that although God is not a grape, the argument does not entail His existence. There might be some other non-grape being who created grapes. Indeed, we know that vines bring forth grapes. So to the grape, the tree is god. Without mention of the infinite regress problem, we can reconstruct the argument again in a more natural way to come out with a narrow enough conclusion, one that restricts the categories that the Prime Grape Mover falls within so that only God qualifies.

i. Grapes exist
ii. Grapes are composed of matter and energy
1. Therefore matter and energy exist [entailed by (i) and (ii)]
2. The first law of thermodynamics states that matter and energy can be exchanged, but neither can be created nor destroyed
3. Therefore either
     a) Matter and energy have always existed, or
     b) Matter and energy had a beginning
4. It is impossible to transgress an infinite amount of time
5. Therefore (3a) is false
6. Therefore (3b) is true [entailed by (3), (4), and (5)]
7. Therefore either
     a) Matter and energy caused themselves to come into being, or
     b) Matter and energy were caused to come into being by something that was neither matter nor energy
10. For an object to cause something, that object must exist
11. Before matter and energy existed, matter and energy did not exist
12. Therefore, matter and energy did not cause their own existence [entailed by (10) and (11)]
12. Therefore (7a) is false
13. Therefore (7b) is true [entailed by (7), (8), (9), (10), (11), and (12)]

And so it can be demonstrated that the argument "grapes, therefore God" is in fact enlightening. To compare the argument "morality, therefore God" to it is a complement, not an insult. That you gave my argument no credence, or even so much as a shout-out, only troubles me.

Or is this fact, that the existence of anything (e.g. grapes) intensely implies a Creator, so obvious that the fact that I had to be enlightened by such an argument to see it renders me a fool? If so, I am at peace. I am however, most definitely a theist. And I do find the grapological argument quite strong.

There remain some issues with regard to Derek's claim. Perhaps he would grant that (if theism is true) then the existence of morality would necessarily require the existence of God. But this fact would not stand in any distinction to the fact that (if theism is true) then the existence of (insert noun, e.g. grapes) would necessarily require the existence of God. To one who does not accept theism and does not accept any cosmological (or grapological) argument, the moral argument holds no more persuasive power, and is in fact not augmentative to the discussion. As I stated earlier, I do in fact intend to show that the moral argument is a distinct and helpful one.

The other potential issue with regard to Derek's claim is related to the fact that he may not be rejecting any physical or nonphysical cosmological argument. Perhaps he is saying that to perceive one thing as right and another is wrong does not require one to ever think about God. Maybe it is so that people are capable of apprehending a moral the way they apprehend a grape: they just see it. Although they see one with their souls and one with their eyes, neither requires them to affirm or deny God's existence. Any man can perceive that a grape is one way or another, and any man can perceive that morality is one way or another. So an atheist would be no more incoherent when he says "that grape is purple" than when he says "that rape is wrong". I hope to also defeat this, showing that affirming such a moral as "that rape is wrong" cannot be done without founding it on the affirmation of the existence of God.

Before I begin what I came here to do, let me entertain Chris' claims as well. His first sentence merely observes the fact that many atheists (or those outside of the basic judeo-christian-islamic worldview, henceforth "atheists") are moral people. I must first admit that the Bible teaches that no man is righteous, and further, no man can be righteous without God's supernatural grace. But this is ultimately irrelevant to the argument at large. The fact remains that there are many (even my fellow theists should admit; at least seemingly) moral atheists. But is that any sort of rebuttal? It would be, if it were true that humans could not behave in ways inconsistent with their worldview. However, I am a Christian and I sin. I am able to behave in a manner that I believe is morally wrong and damaging to my body and soul, and others around me. To be more narrow with my counterexamples, permit another more specific and emotionally charged. I saw Diane Sawyer interview a rapist who said that he believed rape was morally wrong, even at the time of the incident. So the mere fact that atheists can behave morally does not demonstrate that it is false that a theoretical system of morality is worthless, hollow, and incoherent without being rooted in belief in God. I will show you that the smartest and most coherent of atheists admit this fact.

Chris' second claim is only the observation that there are many atheistic systems of morality, and there are even explanations of the existence of morality from an atheistic perspective. Without sounding rude, I can only ask you to furnish such a system and such an explanation. When you do, I will show you where the fallacy lies. The mere existence of such systems and explanations does not entail their coherence.

Chris' third sentence is interesting. He says, that "[there] is a standard to the way the morality of any given society is formed, but not to specific morals themselves." To be perfectly honest, I am perplexed by this. I would think that a Darwinian would not think that there is a standard to the way moral systems are formed. It should be obvious that before humans had evolved, morality did not exist - at least, morality did not form in the same standard way that it does in human societies today! What was this argument intended to show? How do the lines of reasoning go? I just can't seem to grasp what it is I am supposed to be defending against here.

But the second part of this sentence I think I do understand, and I commend your honesty. You recognize that without God there can be no lasting standard of morality, meaning that if there is not a person who comes first and follows after and has the authority to impose and enforce His morals, then morals are not built-in to our reality. Rather, they are relative to each individual. This is a point that I fear Derek, in his post, fails to admit. I will show that morality cannot be called such if it is not transcendent.

Now that I have an idea of the specific reasons why God's existence is not believed to be necessary for the existence of morality, I can commence my own, feeble attempt to support my claim. Let me reiterate it so that you don't have to scroll to the top of the page to remember it.

Morality cannot be coherently posited while denying the existence of God.

STAGE 1: Morality Circumscribed
To be fair, I want to be operating under the most popular definition of "morality" that native English speakers use in everyday speech. Whether either morality or God exist is not the issue here. The issues is whether morality's existence can be coherently affirmed during the denial of God's existence. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "morality" as:

mo•ral•ity |məˌrølədi| |mɔˌrølədi|
noun ( pl. -ties)
principles concerning *the distinction between right and wrong* or good
and bad behavior.
• behavior as it is affected by the *observation of these principles* : the past few
years have seen a *sharp decline in morality*.
...
• the *extent to which an action is right or wrong* : behind all the arguments lies
the issue of the morality of the possession of nuclear weapons.
• behavior or qualities judged to be good : they *saw the morality of equal pay*.
...

ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French moralite or late Latin
moralitas, from Latin moralis (see moral).

The asterisks are mine.

So for instance, the example usage of "morality" given by the dictionary, "...behind all the arguments lies the issue of the morality of the possession of nuclear weapons", demonstrates that morality is typically used to reference a perceived standard present in reality. Arguing over whether something is moral only makes sense if morality transcends the humans involved in the debate. If morality were relative, or democratically determined, we could all vote on the issue without argument and the decision would be what it is, not objectively good or bad, but preferred, or arbitrarily deemed "good" by the most number of people. Or perhaps what one might call "relative morality" may still lend itself to debate, but the debate would not be for the purpose of discovering whether or not possession of nuclear weapons is moral. The debate would be about persuading each other to adopt the other's reasons for or against such possession. These reasons would not be rightly called "morals", but could include things like 'allowing possession of nuclear weapons increases our chances of dying before we want to'. The debate could even be about whether this claim is true. But the debate is not about trying to uncover the moral fact of the matter.

So let me highlight what I see to be just a few of the relevant essential attributes of morality according to Oxford's definition:

1. It's principles determine what is right and wrong
2. It's principles are observed
3. It's practice can decline among a group of people
4. It's principles are that by which actions are measured
5. It's presence in something can be seen

Let's elaborate on these key points a little. It is the principles of morality that determine right and wrong. This is to deny that it is human judgment that determines what is right and wrong. Or rather, it is to say that belief in the concept of "morality" (as popularly defined and used here) entails a denial that human judgment determines what is right and what is wrong. Rather, human judgment should aim to adjudicate based on what is right and what is wrong.

The statement that the principles of morality are observed is also very significant. For, if the principles of morality are observed, then they are not made. This is to say that belief in the concept of "morality" (as popularly defined and used here) entails a denial that morality is created by humans. One might object by saying that morality can be first culturally constructed and then subsequently observed. While there is no logical contradiction in such a sentence, it does render morality relative. This is where we should note again the position of Chris, who says that "[their] is a standard to the way the morality of any given society is formed, but not to specific morals themselves".

Chris, I hate to play semantics, but a morality that is relative is scarcely a morality at all. That is, it is not "morality" as popularly defined.

For morality that is relative is at odds with the essential attributes of morality as stated above, accordingly:

1. "Relative morality's" principles determine what is preferred and not preferred (rather than what is right or wrong)
2. It's principles are created (rather than observed)
3. It's constitution can metamorphose among a group of people (morality is not something that can be deviated from by a group, because as the group changes so does its morality; for the moral relativist it's not as if morality exists as some objective standard out there in the ether)
4. It's principles are that by which actions are described
5. It's presence in something cannot be

The last point is worthy of elaboration. If morality is relative, then it is not the type of thing that can be said to be in something. Another way to put this is that relative morality is not the proper ordering of objects. Rather, relative morality is an artificial standard generated by an individual. So to make any moral judgment (e.g. rape is wrong) you are not saying anything about the rape. You are in actuality saying something about how you perceive rape. So, to be accurate you should say "rape is not an action that conforms to my sense of right and wrong". Only, even this statement implies that right and wrong is something that you sense. Really, you should say "rape is not an action that conforms to my created system of right and wrong".

Needless to say, "relative morality" is an oxymoron. You are welcome to deny the existence of morality, but let's not fudge widely held definitions here.

STAGE 1.5: Relative Morality Explored
There are also obvious difficulties with such relativistic systems. For example, let's pretend that there lives a ruthless dictator who has convinced an entire nation that it is a superior race, and that it is good to kill "inferior" peoples like, let's say... Jews. Because there is no moral law inherent in reality, no transcendent standard, no objective morality (i.e. no morality), the behavior of such a hypothetical nation cannot be judged as "wrong". At the very least it is not blameworthy or evil.

Who gives other people groups the authority to extend their culturally constructed "morality" over the Jew killers? The relativist might say that authority is also a cultural construction. In which case it can only be said that if enough of the outside world had the desire to stop such behavior, there is no real reason why they shouldn't. In fact, there really aren't any shouldn'ts. So if other cultures valued such dictums as "don't hurt Jews who haven't hurt you", then they are free to violently stop the Jew killers. But they cannot call such practice "evil" in any meaningful way.

Furthermore, this boils down "oughts" into "cans", and the result is the rule of the strongest. For, no one can call a terrorist "morally wrong" for flying a hypothetical plane into a building. In fact, no one can say that if terrorists gained enough power to take over the free world it would be "evil". To be accurate they would have to say that they do not like it, do not prefer it, or are simply choosing to react violently toward it.

There is also a troublesome meta-ethical problem here. This is really the problem I have been trying to demonstrate, but let me at it from another angle. Consider an atheist's "moral" system I recently came across online:

Google says "do no evil". What exactly does that mean?...

I've found a satisfactory answer to the question above that works for me personally. I'd say a "reasonable" position is one where you give more than you consume. Suppose some action (A) results in some subjective harm (B) through a series of complex interactions (like eating a hamburger which has resulted in the death of a cow). Now, as a result of you doing action A, some other series of events (C) happens which result in a more subjective good (D) (for example, that more cows than the number of burgers you've eaten end up being alive). Then I'd say your action (A) is reasonable and you've done "good".

Now you just have to average and integrate over your lifetime and then see whether the reasonableness standard above applies. I think humans generally are designed in a flawed manner who end up consuming a lot more than they give. So a lot of the elements of the design have to change in the future. Working on that aspect itself and making progress towards it is a way of giving back. People do give back consciously (like scientists trying to invent ways to curb pollution) and unconsciously (farmers who feed the scientists and janitors who clean their offices).

Regarding defining what "good" and "harm" in the first place is also a difficult problem. I primarily use the golden rule and its negation to figure this out, usually putting myself in the place of the subject being evaluated. For example, would I mind/accept being eaten to ensure the survival of another species? The application of this rule also prevents the overuse of "ends justifies the means" actions. So while I may be okay with eating a hamburger to satisfy my hunger through the tortured analysis above, I won't be okay with killing another human being to ensure my own survival.

Overall, I apply the analysis above to every action I undertake and while I also have other ethical standards, this is a guiding principle of the overall path my life has taken.

-Prof. (Rev.) (Dr.) Ram Samudrala, Ph.D., of University of Washington in Seattle

The bolded emphasis is mine, by the way. Now, while this may be called a "system of morality", it begs a very important question:

Why is it wrong to transgress the golden rule?

So, while it proposes a moral, it does not give grounds for it. The moral is selected because of criteria that is completely subjective and meaningless.

In fact, whatever your ethic, you will always have to answer the question of why. Consider the following dialogue with an atheist:

L: Do you think murder is wrong?
Atheist-man: That is a wrong-headed question, as murder is defined as "wrongful killing"
L: Ok, then do you think murder is possible?
Atheist-man: Of course! Criminals murder every day.
L: So it is possible to kill in such a way that it can be called "wrong"?
Atheist-man: Yes of course.
L: Under what circumstances?
Atheist-man: Well, an easy one to judge would be the case on the news last week where a man took his infant by the feet and slammed the baby's head onto the toilet bowl. That was clearly morally abhorant.
L: Why was it wrong?
Atheist-man: Because infants should not have their lives intentionally taken from them, especially without reason.
L: I disagree. I think it is perfectly acceptable to wantonly drive around and put babies on spikes, for example.
Atheist-man: You wouldn't have wanted someone to do that to you.
L: So. I allow myself to behave in ways I would not like other to behave.
Atheist-man: You shouldn't do that.
L: Why not?
Atheist-man: Because if everyone did that, violent anarchy would ensue.
L: Why is violent anarchy morally wrong?
Atheist-man: Because it could end the human race.
L: Why is it a moraly good thing to keep the human race alive?
Atheist-man: Because I personally do not want to die.
L: Honestly, I am good at killing infants secretly, and my actions will not ultimattely cause violent anarchy, really. And besides, you are an adult, I won't kill you. I have nothing binding me to the ethic that I should behave in ways that would still allow society to function if everyone adopted them. I just do what I want.
Atheist-man: Well, I still think it's wrong.
L: It is "wrong" for you, but not "wrong" for me.
Atheist-man: Well, I am going to vote in favor of legislation that aligns with my own personal "right" and "wrong". The law enforcement will stop you.
L: You are welcome to do that. But you cannot call my actions or beliefs "evil". Moreover, I happen to be stronger than you, as I have hired an army, and my revolution will put me in charge of America. MY legislation will be passed and enforced. Your own individual, arbitrarily selected "morals" will be meaningless. You have no grounds for morality.
Atheist-man: Then you answer yourself; why is it wrong to kill infants?
L: I believe that morality is objective, and it consists of the intentional proper ordering of things (i.e. it flows from God's very character). You and I both happen to perceive plainly that it is wrong to kill infants. But my worldview is more coherent, because I can make definite claims about morality. More specifically, I believe that every human is an image of God Himself, and bears intrinsic value and worth. It is objectively right to respect every human for this reason. I do not value humans based only on sentiment or function, for how would that be grounds for calling infant-kiling wrong? As long as it is done in a way that doesn't harm society as a whole, then who cares? Babies take up resources without putting back into the economy until later. But if I can't raise it properly, then it will probably not work anyway. It will end up homeless like me. Why can you impose your sentiment on me, if I don't have the means to support a baby, and I just want to kill my own baby?

Under these beliefs, who would take care of the homeless, the old, the prisoners on death row? It would be functionally better for society as a whole to stop their draining of our resources and kill them. And the Muslims? Why not kill them all to take care of any threat? Well, my view is that violence is destructive and that is wrong because God Himself is orderly. Even Muslims are made in His image, and therefore have intrinsic value and worth. I have beliefs that ground human rights and objective morality.

See, we both see certain things as "wrong", but my "wrong" actually means something. Shouldn't your very own comittment to calling certain actions incontrovertibly wrong tell you something?

Let it be known, that I am not accusing atheism as ineveitably leading to anything immoral. What I am saying however, is that no atheistic system of morality can be meaningful or theoretically grounded in anything. I know I haven't explained what God has to do with it yet, but bear with me. I am still exploring the difficulties with relative morality.

At Cal High, were I went to school, I had an English teacher named Scott Atkinson. He was a staunch atheist and said that we didn't need religion in order to have morality. Rather, morality could be summed in the statement "don't hurt anybody". While that is basically a good claim, he had no grounds for why it is wrong to hurt people. Aside from the difficulties presented in determining what it means to hurt somebody, and whether there is ever a justification for violently stopping one man from killing other men, it leaves open the meta-ethical question.

I remember another conversation I had with Chris in which he gave another argument for the relativity of morality that went something like

"if I was forced to take a stand on whether I believe morality to be objective, I would have to say 'no', because there has never been even one ethic that every culture has agreed on."

I don't remember my reply, but I thought I might mention that arguments like these don't entail their conclusions. I can give a counter-example. Imagine a time before satellites and other complex or helpful technologies with regard to cartography. Now, suppose we checked back through all the records of civilizations' understanding of the shape of Europe. It is not hard to imagine that it could be possible that every map might be different. But that perceptions of the geography varied would not imply that the very nature of the reality of the geigraphy was relative. The shape is what it is, whether or not it is mapped. This is not meant to constitute an argument for the existence of objective morality, but only to point to the difficulty in arguing for moral relativism, and really a charge to abandon the term "morality" if you want to call such a thing relative.

Like I promised, permit some citations of the cleverest and most coherent atheists ever to live.

Morality as a pose—that offends our taste nowadays. That's also progress, just as our fathers progressed when religion as a pose finally offended their taste, including hostility to and a Voltairean bitterness against religion (and everything that formerly went along with the sign language of free thinkers). It's the music in our conscience, the dance in our spirit, which makes the sound of all Puritan litanies, all moral sermons, and petty bourgeois respectability sound out of tune.

-Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil

It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous.

Life has no meaning the moment you loose the illusion of being eternal.

-Sartre, (well-known quotes)


Human freedom is always oriented towards some goal that is at least implicitly practical. "This absolute end, this imperative which is transcendent yet acquiesced in, which freedom itself adopts as its own, is what we call a value." Sartre says, "man has to be considered as the being through which the Good comes into the world"; yet he says that the Good is universal. Therefore, the morals of the world are universal, but the people in the world decide what is right and wrong. "Man us the source of all good and all evil and judges himself in the name of the good and evil he creates. Therefore a priori neither good nor evil."

-The Philosopher's Lighthouse on Sartre on Morality

It is really no secret that atheists like Nietzche and Sartre have called on all atheists to stop talking about things like morality and meaning, because they don't exist. Why do modern atheists continue to talk about these things? I believe that it is because there is a natural moral law built-in to us and inherent in reality, becaue God exists. These other guys have had to do significant work to get to a place in which they were comfortable denying meaning and morality. Well, I dunno if going crazy by the end of one's life can be considered comfortable...

So it can be seen then, that morality (if it exists) is objective, and it is incoherent and problematic to try to form a system of "oughts" while affirming otherwise.

Chris, as to your statement that there are many secular explanations of morality, I have a note. Nietzche wrote a book called "The Genealogy of Morals" in which he attempts to demonstrate how it is that this "fictitious notion" called "morality" evolved in us. This may be an explanation of morality as a concept, but I hope to show that there cannot be an atheistic explanation for the existance of morality itself. Hopefully I will show that if you agree that morality exists, then you should believe that God exists.

STAGE 2: That Morality Comes From Persons
In the above quotation of Sartre, we find "man has to be considered as the being through which the Good comes into the world". I spoke with Derek on the phone the other night, and he admitted that "without agents, there is no morality". I believe that this is similar to what Sartre means. For, without any persons there is nobody to care, no judge, no creator of morals, no rational souls, no reasons, no meaning. Even my understanding of Chris' position is that morality is relative to individual persons.


STAGE 3: Therefore God Exists
Derek also made the admission: that the fact that humans can perceive that one thing is right and another is wrong demonstrates that a transcendent morality exists. But really, the fact of the matter (as seen in stages 1 and 1.5) is that what we mean when we say "morality" is something profound and outside ourselves; someting permanent, something worth enforcing.

So it the argument becomes natural:

1. Morality can only come from a person
2. Objective, permanent morality (morality) exists
3. There must therefore be an everlasting Person - a moral lawgiver

So, while someone can perceive something as right or wrong, it is incoherent to admit this and deny that it points to God at the same time. What else could the the source of an eternal value?

Romans 3:21, "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it".

See also:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/meta-eth.html
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-arguments-god/

contra the Dostoevskian argument…

Throughout the Brothers Karamazov the dictum “there is no virtue if there is no immortality” or “if there is no immortality then all things are permitted” is repeated. In fact the dictum is indispensable to understanding the character development of Ivan Karamazov, which is a crucial subplot to the novel. The purpose of this post is to dissect various interpretations of the dictum and show that they’re all unsound.

Alas, this is pretty difficult move for me to make. Dostoevsky has been a major spiritual and philosophical mentor for me in the last seven years or so. His novels and short stories, specifically the Brothers K and Crime and Punishment, as well as The Dream of a Ridiculous Man have all been pivotal works that help me make sense of the Universe. So disagreeing with him on a central theme of his literary Summa Theologica is definitely no pain free enterprise. But I must side with Aristotle and Jesus here, that the Truth must be honored above my friends…

So what are we to make of the dictum “if there is no immortality then all things are permitted”? The most common reading of it comes with an implied premise that fleshes things out, which would go something like this:

(IP1) If all mankind were not immortal, then at some point in time, say the heat death of the universe, there would be no humanity, in which case how well or how horribly men lived their lives when they existed would not make a difference.

Well, what are we to make of (IP1)? I feel comfortable conceding that at such a point in the universe, when all the energy has depleted and life can no longer be sustained, there won’t be any humanity, and if that’s the case what humans did at one time won’t seem to matter any longer. But how does this fact, a fact about events after the existence of mankind, have any bearing on the facts of earlier time when different facts did obtain? Even if my soul isn’t immortal, and when I die I return to the dust from which I came, how does that change the fact that right now what I do and how I live my life does make a difference? Even if I’m not immortal not all things are permitted simply because certain things can be extremely detrimental to my life in the here and now. For instance, I wouldn’t permit myself to drive recklessly because I don’t want to kill myself or anyone else, simply because doing so will lower the quality of my own life or someone else’s or both, and I just so happen to want my life to be fulfilling, so I won’t drive recklessly. How does a fact about the future, a fact like “I will exist in the future” or “I will no longer exist at some point in the future”, add a variable to my reasoning about whether I should drive recklessly today? So (IP1) seems to be false, and patently so.

So what’s another way or reading “if there’s no immortality then all things are permitted”? One could posit a causal reading, where immortality itself bears (necessary) causal relations to the existence of morality, such that if there is no immortality then morality is impossible. But what in the world could such a premise look like? Immanuel Kant, the notorious atheologian actually came up with one. It went something like this:

(IP2) Immortality is necessary in this way: We are commanded by the moral law to be morally perfect. Since ‘ought’ implies ‘can,’ we must be able to reach moral perfection. But we cannot attain perfection in this life, for the task is an infinite one. So there must be an afterlife in which we continue to make a progress toward the ideal.*

There are two steps in the premise; step 1 is that moral perfection cannot be attained in this life, and step 2 is that the task is an infinite one. I think both steps are false. Step 1 says that moral perfection is impossible in this life, which I think is false.
**amendment**
L pointed out my equivocation on my last argument against step one, so I’ll try again. Step one is a supporting premise for the necessary causal connection between immortality and morality, and thus it needs to show not that immortality might be required for moral perfection for just some circumstances, but that it’s required in all possible worlds. But clearly, if God had so chosen, it could have been the case that certain men would be glorified (and hence become morally perfect) in this life and not the one to come, in which case immortality would not be necessary for moral perfection. If someone were to say that moral perfection is impossible in this life they would need to do more than just say that no man has, because merely insisting on that fact (if it is one) only provides grounds to say that it’s not the case that men reach moral perfection in this life, but rather that it’s necessarily impossible (in the sense that God couldn’t have made it possible) that men could attain moral perfection in this life, since that’s what (IP2) is trying to show.

The second step was to say that the task of attaining moral perfection is in an infinite one so an afterlife is needed to progress towards the ideal. This is certainly a vexed stipulation; if ‘ought’ does imply ‘can,’ then at some finite point moral perfection can or will be obtained, in which case the infinite time line just became a finite subset, in which case an infinite amount of time is not required. And if an infinite amount of time is not required, there is no reason to think that immortality is required for the attainment of moral perfection, in which case step two is also false.


Is there possibly a third reading of Dostoevsky’s dictum? Another causal reading might go something like this:

(IP3): God’s existence is necessary for the existence of morality, and if God exists then immortality is also true, therefore without immortality all things are permitted (there is no morality).

It could be argued that God’s existence is necessary for morality, but one would be hard pressed to distinguish morality’s connection to God’s existence from the existence of everything else in the universe, simply because if God does exist then His existence is necessary to all other things. In other words, one would have to show the salient differences between morality and say, the existence of grapes, for God’s existence would be necessary for grapes just as much as it would be for the existence of morality. I’ve yet to figure out what this nexus might like look like, and until I see it the argument “morality, therefore God” seems no more enlightening than “grapes, therefore God”.

Furthermore, if it was the case that God’s existence was necessary for the existence of morality, what in the world does that fact have to do with the supposed connection between immortality and morality, and how would the existence of morality have any more connection to immortality than it would to God’s omniscience of omnipresence, etc.? So even if there is a successful moral argument Dostoevsky’s dictum still fails the relevancy test.
____________­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­____________
Notes

* This summary of Kant’s argument can be found in Louis Pojman, Ethical Theory, pg. 602.

Colossians 2:16-23

16. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19. and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

20. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations-- 21. "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch" 22. (referring to things that all perish as they are used)--according to human precepts and teachings? 23. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

70 Arguments Against the Existence of God

1. The Dawkins Argument
a) You can't disprove God
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

2. The Schmawkins Argument
a) Thor (or Poseidon, or insert misc. Greek god) doesn't exist
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

3. The Dawkins Argument (part deuce)
a) You can't disprove Thor (or Poseidon, or insert misc. Greek god)
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

4. The Dawkins Argument (remix)
a) You can't disprove Thor (or Poseidon, or insert misc. Greek god)
b) You can't disprove God
c) Thor (or Poseidon, or insert misc. Greek god) doesn't exist
d) Therefore God doesn't exist either

5. Dawkins' Last Word
a) You're an atheist about every god but the one that actually exists
b) Therefore not even your God exists

6. The Problem of Evil
a) God is good
b) Evil exists
c) I cannot imagine a single reason why God would allow evil, even temporarily
d) Therefore God doesn't exist

7. The Argument from Divine Hiddenness
a) I can't see God
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

8. The Physicalist's Argument
a) The only things that exist are physical
b) God is not physical
c) Therefore God does not exist

9. The Empiricist's Argument
a) The only things that exist are those that can be seen, tasted, felt, smelt, or heard.
b) I have never seen, tasted, felt, smelt, or heard God
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

10. The Naturalists Argument
a) The only things that exist are natural
b) God is supernatural
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

11. Argument from the Plurality of Religions
a) There are multiple religions
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

12. The Scientismists Argument
a) Scientists are working very hard to figure out the cause of the universe
b) Therefore the cause of the universe is not God
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

13. The Argument from the Apparent Absence of Miracles
a) I have never seen a miracle
b) Therefore miracles don't exist
c) God doesn't exist either, by the way

14. The Moral Argument
a) People can try to be good on their own
b) Therefore people don't need God to be good
c) The only thing we would need God for is to help us be good
d) Therefore we don't need God
e) Therefore God doesn't exist

15. The Argument from Evolution
a) A large number of scientists believe that humans evolved from monkeys
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

16. Argument from the Bible
a) I don't understand (insert two arbitrary, out of context, passages from the Bible)
b) Therefore the Bible contains contradictions
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

17. The Skeptic's Argument
a) I have never seen God
b) Therefore I shouldn't believe in Him

18. Agnostic's Argument
a) It is possible that a necessary being exists
b) Therefore God exists in at least one possible world
c) If God exists at all, He exists in all possible worlds
d) Therefore He exists in this world, too
e) Oh crap, that means I'm not agnostic anymore
f) Therefore God doesn't exist in this world
g) Therefore God doesn't exist at all
h) Oh crap, now I'm an atheist...
i) I don't know whether the concept of God is coherent
j) Oh crap, that means I lack the capacity to conceive of God
k) I am fully capable of partially conceiving of God
l) But it is impossible for anyone to ever know whether or not there is a logical contradiction in the concept of God

19. The Burden Shifter
a) I have never heard a good argument for God's existence
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

20. The Ad Hominem
a) People from (insert religion) killed other people
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

21. The Hitlerum
a) Hitler was a Christian
b) Hitler killed Jews
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

22. The Return of the Ad Hominem
a) A person from (insert religion) gave a bad argument for God's existence
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

23. Argument from Authority
a) (Insert authority) says that God doesn't exist
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

24. Argument from Authority (part deuce)
a) (Insert authority) says that the arguments for God's existence are getting fewer every day
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

25. Argument from Ignorance
a) Science may not be able to explain (insert mysterious phenomenon highlighted by the theist)
b) We are committed to finding an explanation of it that does not include God
c) Therefore God is not needed to explain physical phenomenon
d) Therefore God doesn't exist

26. Argument from Ignorance (part deuce)
a) (Theist gives good argument for God's existence)
b) I can't understand (a)
c) Therefore it is not a good argument
d) Therefore God doesn't exist

27. Argument from Mathematics
a) (Atheist produces complex mathematical formula cut/pasted from a Quentin Smith article)
b) Therefore the universe came from nothing and was not caused
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

28. Argument from the Internet
a) (Atheist links to some website)
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

29. Argument from Poor Design
a) God designed things to be good
b) There is no possible way things could have gotten screwed up
c) Things are screwed up
d) Therefore God doesn't exist

30. Argument from the Justice System
a) (Insert court ruling) ruled that God is not (existent, personal, etc.)
b) Therefore God does not exist

31. Argument from Quantum Physics
a) Subatomic particles come into existence because of energy fluctuations
b) Therefore the universe came into existence from nothing without cause
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

32. Argument from Sin
a) Sinning feels good
b) God is the opposite of sin
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

33. Argument from Porn
a) I like to look at porn
b) If God exists then I should stop
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

34. Argument from Non-belief
a) A small percentage of people refuse to believe in God
b) I cannot imagine a reason why God would allow disbelief
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

35. Argument from the Difficulty to Understand Omnipotence
a) Can God create a rock too big for Him to lift?
b) (Theist explains why it is a wrongheaded question)
c) That's stupid. God doesn't exist.

36. Argument from Rude Atheology
a) I can't understand how God can be both omniscient and omnipotent
b) Therefore the concept of God is incoherent
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

37. Argument from Free Will
a) Man has free will, despite the fact that physicalism makes this an incoherent claim
b) Therefore God can't know the future, even if He is outside of time or whatever
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

38. The Transcendental Argument Against the Existence of God
a) (Insert incoherent babble)
b) Theist can't refute (a)
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

39. The Chicken or the Egg Argument
a) God created the universe
b) I cannot understand that God is outside of frickin time
c) Therefore something must have created God, and something must have created it, etc.
d) An infinite regress is impossible
e) Therefore God doesn't exist

40. The Universe is my God
a) The universe is outside of time, despite the fact that it is made up of physical parts that are necessarily time-bound and even though this makes no sense I am going to assert it and hope that you mistake incoherence for intelligence
b) Therefore nothing else can be outside of time, not even God
c) Therefore God is in time
d) Therefore God doesn't exist

41. The Argument from Stupidity
a) God is too big for me to understand
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

42. The "Cop-out" Accusation
a) Invoking God's existence to explain the creation of the universe makes sense
b) Therefore it is a cop-out
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

43. The Cop-out
a) Science does not agree on how the universe came into existence
b) But there MUST be an explanation besides God
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

44. The Intelligent Design Argument Against God's Existence
a) Cars and computers are intelligently designed
b) Humans are more complex than cars and computers
c) We know humans are NOT intelligently designed
d) We, possessing intelligence, cannot produce a human
e) Therefore intelligence is not a favorable trait for a creator
f) God is intelligent
g) Therefore God is not the creator of humans, because only a creator with favorable traits could perform such a feat
h) Therefore God does not exist

45. The Argument from Theological Noncognitivism
a) You can't prove God exists
b) I can't imagine a single reason why this would be so
c) Therefore God does not exist

46. The Argument from Atemporality
a) God is outside of time
b) We are inside of time
c) There is no way that God could be inside of time, too
d) Therefore God could not have created us
e) At least, there is no way for Him to interact with us
f) Therefore God does not exist

47. The Existential Argument Against the Existence of God
a) Existence comes before essence
b) My name is Sartre and I didn't read Aquinas' writings about God's essence being the same as His existence
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

48. The Argument from Aseity
a) God needs nothing
b) I cannot imagine why God would do anything voluntarily
c) Creation is something God did
e) Therefore God does not exist

49. The Argument from Democracy
a) The truth of a proposition is not necessitated by a vote of the people
b) Many people believe the proposition 'God exists'
c) God's existence is not necessitated by this
d) Therefore God does not exist

50. Argument from Pomp
a) I am smart enough to see that it is properly basic to disbelieve in God
b) You believe in God
c) Therefore all you theists are stupid
d) Therefore God exists - whoops, I mean God doesn't exist

51. Argument from Humility
a) I am not as smart as (insert any of the hundreds of mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers throughout history who believed in God), but my science book says that God doesn't exist
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

52. Argument from a Coloring Book
a) This chart (insert link to a graphic chart of illustrated dinosaurs) illustrates how everything evolved
b) Therefore God doesn't exist

53. Argument from Exclusion from the Atheistic Community at Large
a) A scientific theory becomes so only when it survives being published in a peer reviewed journal
b) The only peer reviewed journals that are acceptable are the ones atheists edit and review
c) Atheists would never publish an ID article in a scientific journal because ID is not a scientific theory
d) Therefore Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory
e) Therefore God does not exist

54. Argument from Acceptance
a) Denouncing God's existence makes my peers accept me
b) Therefore God does not exist

55. Argument from Suicide
a) Believing in God is professional suicide for the humanist
b) I want to be a scientist
c) Therefore God does not exist

56. Argument from Fear
a) It makes me uncomfortable to believe in a God who might judge me
b) Therefore God does not exist

57. Argument from Hate
a) God is love
b) I hate everyone because I am miserable without God
c) Therefore God does not exist

58. Argument from Post-Modernism
a) Truth is made, not discovered
b) I made up the proposition that God does not exist
c) Therefore God does not exist

59. Argument from Post-Modernism (II)
a) Truth is relative
b) I am not God (at least, I'm pretty sure I'm not)
c) I can't know anything outside myself
d) Therefore God does not exist

60. Argument from Tolerance
a) If truth is objective, then you and I can't both be right
b) If you are right then I am wrong
c) You are not being tolerant you bigot
d) Therefore God does not exist

61. Argument from Tolerance (round two)
a) If you make any definite claim about reality then you are not tolerant
b) You are making a definite claim about reality
c) Therefore you are not tolerant
d) Oh yeah, and God doesn't exist

62. Argument for Religious Pluralism
a) All religions are true
b) Your religion says that it is the only true one
c) Therefore your religion is false

63. Argument from Sadism
a) I cannot grasp how one man could pay for another man's sins
b) Jesus died for my sins at the will of His Father
c) Therefore God is a sadist
d) Therefore God doesn't exist

64. Argument from Nihilism
a) Steve died a theist
b) Steve no longer exists
c) Therefore there is no afterlife
d) Therefore God does not frickin exist

65. Argument from Post-Death Experience
a) Jon died and came back and the Dr. said that he had only actually fallen unconscious
b) Therefore there is no afterlife
c) Therefore God does not exist

66. Argument from Assertion
a) (Theist gives a good argument for God's existence)
b) God does not exist
c) (Theist asks for support for atheists truth claim)
d) You are making a claim too, so prove it
e) (Theist points to (a))
f) God does not exist
g) GOD DOES NOT EXIST
h) Therefore God does not exist

67. Argument from Ancient Literature
a) Literature predating the Bible contains themes present in the Bible
b) We should ignore the fact that these themes correspond to real permanent and profound concepts inherent in reality such as friendship, good and evil, and sacrifice.
c) We should also ignore the fact that if Christianity is true, then it would make sense that a personal Devil would want to counterfeit these concepts to lead astray the fools
d) Therefore it is obvious that the Bible was ripped off from earlier pagan literature
e) Therefore God doesn't exist

68. Argument from Age
a) The arguments for God's existence have been around forever and should be considered archaic and obsolete
b) Therefore they are false
c) Therefore God doesn't exist

69. Argument from Stubbornness
a) Theists and atheists have been debating for millennia
b) Atheists still exist because they refuse to see the truth
c) Therefore the issue has never been solved
d) Therefore God does not exist

70. Argument from Division
a) Christianity has lots of denominations
b) They can't all be right
c) Therefore none of them are right
d) Therefore God does not exist