The fallacy of today is Appeal to Consequences, courtesy of Michael Gerson.
What Atheists Can’t Answer
By Michael Gerson
Friday, July 13, 2007; Page A17
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Proving God’s existence in 750 words or fewer would daunt even Thomas Aquinas. And I suspect that a certain kind of skeptic would remain skeptical even after a squadron of angels landed on his front lawn. So I merely want to pose a question: If the atheists are right, what would be the effect on human morality?
And on he goes for the rest of the column.
Well, perhaps atheism has some bad consequences, and perhaps some good, but this is irrelevant to whether a god actually exists or not. There would be many good consequences of being able to make hot pieces of pizza come out of my ears, but that isn’t a good reason to believe that this is so. I could also list some bad consequences of theism, but again.
And actually, yes, I would be skeptical if a squadron of angels landed on my lawn. I could hallucinate angels, or UFOs, or I suppose a good many other things. I’ve been wrong before. However, if the landing could be examined and verified by many people, reproducibly, then that would be good evidence.
16 July 2007 at 6:57 am
The argument is merely an ad hominem attack directed at other members of the faith and others who are saturated in the idea of morality to the point where for them there can be no true existence outside morality, a platform with little logical standing in my opinion. Is it truly problematic for us to exist in a realm where morality doesn’t have any absolute existence? What if morality has no stake in “nature”?
16 July 2007 at 7:48 am
Hi, bryan
You know, I think I do understand why many people are uncomfortable with the idea that morality arises from our evolutionary heritage instead of from some absolute lawgiver. I think they must imagine that people will just run around and commit wild acts of mayhem.
But most people don’t. Well, some of us do. Heh heh.
19 July 2007 at 12:33 am
hi Daniel,
i posted (anonymously, i think) on your blog only once a while ago with some sort of a list of reasons why i am an atheist. i like your blog. keep up the interesting topics. i will try to write more on your blog.
anyway, i read that Gerson’s article. first of all, Gerson hasn’t come up with any new point in the debate of (a)theism and morality. all his points are extremely old hat. either he hasn’t read enough, or the article is written to influence vulnerable people.
since morality is a complex issue, atheists also need to be aware that natural explanation of morality doesn’t necessarily exclude the existence of God. people continue to believe in God after many natural explanations to phenomena we didn’t understand were provided in the past few hundred of years. scientific advances didn’t disprove God. so as an atheist, i can only point out to the theists that they can’t use morality to show God exists (or not).
i have no problem in accepting a system of human morality with no arbiter or a lawgiver. i may have many reasons to support this, but let me mention only two here:
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1. i see morality as a natural law. the same way i see the laws of physics are. most physicists don’t walk around thinking we must have a lawgiver for gravity, for example. i agree there are bigger and deeper issues regarding the origin of these laws, and the beginning and formation of the universe that allows these laws to appear. i only see that problem as our current incomplete scientific understandings. maybe one day we will solve some of these problems, maybe not. but i don’t need to conclude that God must exist every time i don’t fully understand a certain thing.
2. if God existed he has no choice himself when writing down the laws of our moral system. there could be more than one kind of moral that could work for life to be ‘successful’ on Earth. maybe we on Earth have locked on to one of those morals. so it seem to be working. there couldn’t be many of those moral systems that work, so God’s hands are bound.
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maybe actually our moral IS NOT working. the dust hasn’t settled yet. our politics, ethics, cultural practices, economies, etc (all different facets of our morality in actions) are still extremely volatile and continuosly changing. maybe our moral is bad and one day we will end up like savages and annihilate ourselves. how can one say that the sense of right or wrong that seems to be innate in all of us must be right and can only be bestowed by God? maybe we have a bad moral, will the theists then like to say that God gave us that too, or is it the devils? (the atheists can never win, can we?) an atheist should also be careful not to think that moral that evolved naturally has any absolute value.
i think just like the law of gravity is not morally right or wrong. human moral has no absolute moral value (because to me, absolute moral value is a misguided concept). it is just something that is part of human nature. i have no problem with that. the question we should ask is how did the moral we have originate, how did it evolve, and perhaps what can we do about it if we understand it and what will become of it. to me, it is meaningless and needless to ascribe any absolute values to it.
so i think we should forget about our innate sense of right and wrong has any absolute values. if God has existed, he can create another world where what you think are immoral are moral there, and vice versa. if the theists want to continue to use morality as a point to argue for his existence. i will use this point to argue first there is no real morality and then God must have very absurd roles.
Martin
19 July 2007 at 2:37 am
ok. that was a damn long comment above from me.
but here is a question for you and your readers. after i explained to a christian friend of mine that atheists have moral and believe in doing moral things too, he said, ‘yes, that’s all fine, but you have no reasons for your moral beliefs’. i don’t know exactly what he means by ‘reasons’, so interpret it in whatever way you like. but i will be interested to know how will you respond to a remark like this?
Martin
19 July 2007 at 3:33 am
Because of my perverse nature, I’d probably try to turn it back on the believer, perhaps with an example of an action that the believer thinks is wrong, but that they can’t justify by scripture. Then use this to show that it’s actually the theist that has no justification for their moral system.
For example, most Christians would probably argue that genocide, slavery, and incest are wrong. And I’d probably agree. But the Bible presents each of these acts as though they’re just fine. Why, then, would a believer think these are wrong? Who’s the one with the arbitrary belief system now?
Whereas when I consider what’s moral, I generally think what’s going to help or harm people, and not what’s in the book.
Any other ideas?
20 July 2007 at 11:29 pm
I see morals and morality as inextricably linked to religion because morals are guided by a moral code – a set of rules set by whatever your religion. In Christianity these are God’s word – the 10 commandments and the stuff from the sermon on the mount. (the fact that the former is actually jewish doesn’t seem to trouble most christians for reasons I’ve never fully understood and frankly can’t be bothered with). Non-theistic religions such as Buddhism also have morals – the eightfold path etc.
I think that atheists are right not to have morals, but what I think we can argue is that we can behave ethically because I see a distinction between morals and ethics. To my mind ethics are based on reason and are more flexible and contingent (and therefore potentially more sensitive) than morals. Ethics require discussion and reasoning to consider action. They require human collaboration and communication.
I’ve found that trying to explain the difference between morals and ethics to a christian makes their head explode.
If you want to hear some superb anti-theistic satirical comment then go here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/nowshow.shtml
and listen to the latest episode (I think this will only work for a few days so act now!) halfway through Marcus Brigstocke does a brilliant rant which I really with I’d written.
20 July 2007 at 11:30 pm
I haven’t developed a lisp, that should read ‘wish’.
25 July 2007 at 12:48 am
snowqueen,
maybe you have a point. i have not read my ethics and morals seriously. we tend to mix up ‘moral’ and ‘ethics’. i think they overlap, but they are also different.
i am thinking of taking a couple of philosophy courses (ethics and epistemology) at our university this fall.
martin
i am in sort of a debate with a theistic believer in the book review of ‘Atheism—Julian Baggini’ on amazon.com. look for comments to review given by Stanley Tooley, who gave the book one-star. here is an excerpt of a paragraphy i wrote. but you may like to see the original posting to see why i use certain words. i am anonimus.
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Instead of God, let me suggest something simpler and more natural to you. it is called Wos. don’t you mind what causes it to exist and where does it exist. it is atemporal and questions like that are just patently logically absurd. in fact there are many Woses. out of some of these woses proto-universes appear. many different kinds of proto-universes appear because their outcomes are very very sensitve to the conditions the woses are in. in one of the proto-universes, time and space appear, then energy appears because there is also negative energy, then matter because there is also anti-matter… some of the universes die and become woses again. actually, this the cause of woses, dead universes that destroy the space and time and everything in them when they die. but the whole cycles of woses-universes are loops that exist outside space and time. they are just there, if you asked me what created them. it is the same as me asking you what created God. so i say our universe is its own God. do you believe me? no? probably neither do i. ironically, this is one of the cosmological model studied by some physicists (google Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok). and they have propose methods to test the theory. maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong. that’s not the point here. my questions for you is, there are many things we don’t understand and there are many questions that we do not have the answers for. but what makes you so certain you have the truth? i think your belief is certainly rational and justifiable. but do we have to believe in every thing that can be think of by men which are rational and justifiable?
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26 July 2007 at 7:43 pm
hi Daniel,
i am sorry i write comment not related to your original posting. i probably should make a blog of my own. right now, i am a bit lazy to do that, so i am using yours as a channel. i hope you don’t mind. did i mention i was also a christian for more than 10 years?
below is why i don’t need faith to be an atheist. it is a reply to christians who say otherwise.
cheers,
Martin
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you may be thinking atheism and theism are opposite, like -1 and 1 are opposite about 0. i don’t see it like you do. since even the Bible says you need faith to believe in God or Jesus, you cannot claim to need zero faith. but i see not believing in any supernatural being as requiring zero faith. this is because my mind has decided to completely reject the notion of God. if i say there is a tiny robot that lives in your intestine, will you say that you need some faith not to believe me? say you will, then i say there is also another one that lives in your brain, and then another one, then another one… do you still need faith to not believe me? i will say no. these propositions are so silly and ridiculous that your brain cannot process and decides to reject and disregard altogether. i see my atheistic belief the same way i see i believe there isn’t any tiny robot that lives in my body. i don’t need any faith in that. there are many things both of us do not believe in, and we don’t need faith for holding those positions. as soon as we start to believe in something that has no strong evidence of, we need faith. that is where you are in your theistic belief.
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29 July 2007 at 6:14 am
Martin – Believers I have talked to would likely say:
“If you say that you believe there’s a tiny robot in your intestine, I will respect that belief. You believe what you believe, I believe what I believe, and we’ll agree to disagree.
“And who told you that you need evidence to believe things? Probably Satan.”
The more to try to pin it down, the more they wiggle. It’s like trying to nail tofu to the wall.